What It Means to Care

by Nienor

His hand fucking hurt, like he'd laid it in the road and let it be run over by a truck. The fingers didn't want to bend anymore, and the joints felt hot and swollen and quite possibly, the bright, cheery smile he'd adopted was permanently frozen onto his face.

He was going to be dreaming in fragments of photographs and names, too, wandering around with a pen looking for dark spots on everything, suitable for signing. Either that or staring down at two-dimensional glossy images of Sam Gamgee until he wasn't sure which was real, himself or the image in the photo.

He kept silent, grateful for con security, who flanked him quietly. Even after signing all day, he encountered a few fans who wanted an autograph, and he obliged one of them in the elevator, where he wouldn't be mobbed for more. Sam wouldn't refuse; how could he?

He'd never been as glad to get to his room and shut the door, leaving security and gofers and sixty-five thousand rabid fans firmly outside. Some of those people were scary, damn it.

He wasn't more than half-surprised to find Elijah waiting, lounging on the couch with a cigarette dangling between two fingers. Sean flapped at the air with exaggerated disgust, using his left hand, which still functioned acceptably and was equal to the task.

Elijah stubbed the cigarette out without apology and got up, stretching, to peer out the window. He was growing just a little, Sean noted. Not upward, but outward. Leaving behind some of that little-girl slimness and developing the sort of rangy awkward look that most men had years younger than Elijah, like his joints could carry just a little muscle. Not that he had any to speak of.

Maybe it showed more in Elijah's face, via the scruff of ragged beard he stubbornly persisted on growing even when he shaved his head, a contradiction that amused Sean even as it made him wince.

Some of the little boy lingered, though, in the button-down shirt and white tee he wore under it. Elijah had lost the "ugliest jeans" competition to Dom in Sean's opinion, though he was probably winning for "worst shoes." Elijah's battered old sneakers lay near the couch, piled in a tangle of socks, and his feet were bare.

Elijah cracked his shoulders and turned back to Sean, eyes sharp, as though seeing him for the first time. They didn't get together much anymore; Elijah had films and Sean had his family and the world was after all a very large and very busy place, without many corners in it where neither of them could go.

"How's your hand?" Still that kitten-purr, adolescent-high, Elijah's voice.

"Fine," he replied, automatic.

"Want to thumb-wrestle?" Elijah advanced, flexing his fingers in childish threat.

"No!"

"Thought so." Elijah walked past him, snagging the ice bucket, and opened the door, dispatching a gofer with a few words. "How many did you sign?"

"I don't know."

"Is there anyone at this convention who doesn't have your autograph?"

Sean thought. "Andy and Richard. And you."

"Dom came through the line?"

"He cut in at the head with a picture of one of the orcs and pretended he thought that's who I played. With no makeup."

Elijah laughed. "He's a wanker." There was something warm and lazy in his voice and Sean eyed the sway of Elijah's hips as he wandered back to the window and lit another cigarette. Sean wrinkled his nose and reached for the remote to turn on the TV.

When the knock came Elijah beat him to the door. "What's the password?" he yelled at the peephole, and produced confused fluttering outside. He didn't delay long, opening up to take the filled ice bucket. "Thanks." He shut the door again, taciturn, and carried the ice into the bathroom, filling the bucket with water at the tap.

He brought it out, along with a towel or two, and put it on the end table. "Sit," he commanded, and Sean smiled. Elijah didn't exert this sort of caretaker instinct often. Sean indulged him. He sat and put his feet up, lowering his aching hand into the ice-water.

"Fuck, that's cold," he said conversationally, but it felt good. Elijah took the remote and flipped to the Cartoon Network. There was some kind of anime feature playing, and anime always made Sean think of Elijah with his bird bones and his too-big eyes.

Elijah stepped away, fingers toying with his buttons, slowly unfastening the uppermost one. Sean focused on the screen, not watching him, but aware of his actions nonetheless. The ice didn't quench a thread of heat that started to simmer somewhere deep inside him as more buttons came undone. Elijah tossed the shirt casually, which didn't mean a hell of a lot; he might just have been too warm in the room and you didn't share a trailer on a movie without getting rid of any false illusions about body modesty.

He had a lazy sway in his hips. Ash flicked on the carpet from the end of his cigarette. His body moved loose and easy, looking confident and well-fucked.

"You've been with Dom already."

That earned Sean a rapid glance under the shield of eyelids.

"I hope you used---"

Silver flickered, and an empty wrapper fluttered onto the floor from Elijah's pocket. "Yes, dad," Elijah said patiently. "I used pro-TEC-shun."

"Good." Sean regretted his interference; now Elijah might be surly. But perhaps that was for the better. Perhaps Elijah wouldn't stay.

And perhaps not. There was a second wrapper in Elijah's fingers, glinting silver, and this one wasn't empty. Sean swallowed and shifted his hand in the ice. It was starting to hurt as much from the cold as from the signing. A few more minutes to numb it, then he would take it out till it warmed back up and put it in again later.

Elijah walked over to crush out his second cigarette and put the condom on the table next to the ice and the towels. He leaned over Sean to do it, taking his time, one thumb hooked into his waistband. "You've got to be everything for everybody. Bigger than life, all the time." Sean caught a whiff of sex under the scent of cloves.

He shrugged and misdirected. "Those people out there pay my salary. This person in here is my friend. Why shouldn't I give a damn?"

Elijah looked down into the ice bucket where Sean's hand rested, but his face was abstracted, and he did not engage Sean's argument. His finger and thumb flicked open the button at the top of his jeans, and he slid down the zipper.

Sean's mouth watered in spite of his conscious will. Usually Elijah bottomed, but if this wasn't one of those times....

Elijah was half-hard inside white briefs like his mother would have bought for him. His hips were slim. He kicked the jeans over the back of the couch, agile and easy, to join his shirt where it lay crumpled on the floor.

Sean sat very still as Elijah moved back in front of him. "I can't see the TV."

Elijah reached and plucked the remote out of his hand and hit the big black button. The set squawked one last time and clicked off. With his other hand, Elijah reached inside his briefs and stroked himself. Sean swallowed and licked his lips, but his reluctance was part of the game-- he wouldn't reach, he wouldn't ask, and Elijah wouldn't give him the chance to pretend to say no.

Elijah dropped the remote and hooked his thumbs into the elastic, pushing it down and stepping out of the briefs. His dick moved gracelessly. Sean caught himself and did not lick his lips this time. Elijah wasn't hung very well, but he didn't seem to care, possibly because he liked taking better than giving.

Sean forgot his hand as Elijah stepped across his legs and stood in front of him, dick bobbing at eye-level. Elijah was in a mood, then, probably influenced by Sean's own meddling. Sean let his mouth open very slightly, taking great care to make it look as though he had some scathing remark on his tongue, but merely hadn't... quite... decided to say it.

Elijah knew the rules. He leaned forward, plucking off Sean's hat and sending it sailing in the vague direction of the bed. His hand came to rest on the couch behind Sean's shoulders, and his dick swayed near Sean's lips. Just a bit closer, just a bit-- and it painted a clumsy streak of salt over Sean's lips and chin as it bobbed, and when it returned Sean was ready, and he opened his mouth to take it in.

Elijah sighed, his balls swaying near enough to brush Sean's chin as he thrust gently into Sean's mouth. He tasted hot and musky and sweet like cloves. Sean could reach up now, so he did, his left hand cradling Elijah's milk-white hip in its palm. Elijah tensed and flexed slowly in Sean's hand, pressing forward and retreating as he softly fucked Sean's mouth.

Sean hollowed his cheeks, sucking, and Elijah whimpered, the little boy breaking through again in a teasing glimpse, making Sean think of their first meeting, when Elijah had still been an unfamiliar lean presence in his arms, wide-eyed and a good deal more uncertain than now, but still irresistible.

Sean's dick made its presence known, shifting and aching inside his khaki shorts, which were mercifully loose. Mmmmmmm, yes, this was good, sucking Elijah's cock, but not good enough.

Sean lifted his dripping hand out of the icy water and swiftly ran it up along Elijah's spine.

Elijah yelped and jerked back fast, and Sean laughed up into his furious glare, half-wondering what Con Security would think.

"Fucker!" Elijah accused him, already calming.

"Not yet." Sean let heat touch his gaze. Not much, just a tease of it, not enough to shatter the rules by showing how much he wanted this.

Elijah snatched for one of the towels and wrapped it around Sean's hand to dry him. "Bastard," he grumbled. His cock hadn't wilted much, bobbing between his legs. "You think that's funny."

"Yes." Sean wondered what Elijah might have done if he'd slid his cold fingers between the cheeks of Elijah's ass and right up inside him. Screamed at the cold, probably, loud enough that security would have come in and caught them. That would not be good, even if the scream would. The scream and feeling Elijah clench and struggle to get away, then slowly adapt. Did Elijah like playing with ice at all? They'd never done this deliberately enough for Sean to plan ahead and find out.

Elijah had already forgotten Sean's joke, it seemed, and he reached to tug at the hem of Sean's blue t-shirt, so Sean raised his arms and let Elijah pull it off him. Sean grimaced, revealed. He was really going to have to do something about Sam's weight now that pick-up shots were over; he was tired of wearing loose t-shirts and baggy shorts and seeing how round his face was in the mirror every morning.

Elijah seemed to like it though. Of course he would; he'd never known Sean any other way. He reached down, dreamy-eyed, and his fingertips brushed through the ruff of Sean's chest hair. Elijah didn't have much of his own, and he seemed as fascinated with Sean's this time as he was every time, touching and petting it and tracing the way it made little whorls around his nipples.

Sean bit his lip and tried not to arch up into the butterfly touches, tried not to drag his nipple under Elijah's blunt, questing fingertips. His cock ached, wanting to be buried. He would wager Elijah was ready, clean and slick. For all that he mocked Sean sometimes, saying he must have been a boy scout, Elijah Wood knew the value of preparation.

He'd use his left hand, then, to slide questing fingers between Elijah's slim taut cheeks. Yes, he was slick and ready. Elijah's eyes caught flame at the touch, burning blue-white, hot enough that it made Sean wonder if he needed a welder's mask to look into them. He wondered if this was the same way Dom saw Elijah, or Orli did, when Elijah wanted one of them. Or Sean Bean, or Viggo-- they both had a way of looking at Elijah that told Sean secrets like his own were hidden behind their eyes.

Elijah's fingers skated down to open Sean's shorts and deftly pull his cock out through the opening in the fly of his boxers. Elijah was good at this, tucking the teeth of the zipper away from Sean's flesh. Sean fumbled on the table for the silver packet, his tired hand clumsy and numb, and managed to pinch it between two fingers and lift it to his mouth, where he tore it open with his teeth. It was always his job to remember and to put the condom on, which was one of the reasons he worried so for Elijah-- what if someone shirked that little detail one day? Would Elijah be careful enough to remind a lover? Would he be concerned enough to do it himself?

Sean couldn't know and couldn't tell how Elijah might be with someone else. All he could do was take care of Elijah when Elijah was with him.

His hand was clumsy-- and still cold; Elijah jerked away from an inadvertent brush against the inside of his thigh. Sean struggled for a moment with the uncooperative piece of latex and his straining erection and then looked at Elijah, sheepish.

Elijah laughed, a bubbly little sound of breathless amusement, and took over. Yes, he had some skill in putting a condom on another man's dick, skill that reassured Sean even as it made him a bit jealous and more than a little sad.

It was best not to wonder what sort of thought or pain lay behind Elijah's calm, casual demeanor as he performed this act, this act that Sean had never done only for lust, but always, he thought, for at least a little love.

Safely sheathed, he let his hands fall to his sides again, for the next move was Elijah's. And move he did, settling his knees on the couch at either side of Sean's hips, not even pausing to drag Sean's clothes off him, just poising himself over the tip of Sean's cock and sinking down.

Sean felt sweat break out on his upper lip. Elijah's hands rested on his shoulders, thumbs tracing a ticklish path along his collarbones. Elijah sank all the way into his lap easily, more easily than Sean remembered. He'd been with someone, it seemed, who was bigger than Sean. That wouldn't just be Dom, who had been Elijah's lover all along. Perhaps it wasn't even someone Elijah had been with today. Just someone who'd opened him up with regular use, and left him ready.

Sean forgot the pain and the chill in his hand and clutched Elijah close, protective. Elijah squirmed away from his cold hand, then grimaced and seemed to accept it, letting Sean touch him awkwardly.

Sean did, cradling him close; now that they were joined, pretense could be abandoned.

His hand skated over Elijah's flesh like it wasn't real, or like it had come from a body that didn't belong to Sean. That made him think of a character he'd seen once in a movie, maybe it was "Clash of the Titans," who had a hand that was clumsy and thick and awkward like this. and bore it as a visible reminder of the failure and ugliness deep inside him. His hand felt like that today. The way it touched Elijah was almost like it wasn't a member of Sean's own better self. Like it was reluctant somehow to touch Elijah. Like the pain and awkwardness of touching was a portent-- perhaps a reminder of Christine and the girls, a gall that had to be borne, marring this experience with Elijah just as this experience marred what he had with his family.

Elijah bit his lip between his teeth and moved. Up and down, slithering exquisite friction over Sean's cock. Sean nuzzled in and bit lightly at his throat, careful not to leave a mark. He wanted Elijah on his belly, on his back. Sean's feet were still propped on the coffee table next to the ash tray, and the posture was uncomfortable, plus it didn't let him do much-- Elijah was fucking himself at his own leisure, and while it was good, Sean wanted more. He wanted to make Elijah squeal; he wanted to grab Elijah's hips and ream him and make him forget Dom and that other mysterious lover. He wanted to own Elijah for at least a moment, wanted to drive him beyond silence and games and lay him bare.

He wanted to look into Elijah's eyes and make him see.

Sean struggled to move under Elijah, and finally got his feet off the coffee table, sliding his arms around Elijah's waist to keep him from falling. The shock of the shift moved him hard inside Elijah, and made Elijah gasp as the angle changed. Sean struggled again, using brute force to try to stand, but he was sunk in yielding cushions and Elijah was a limp, unhelpful weight in his lap.

"Damn it," Sean hissed. "The bed, Elijah, not here."

Elijah dismounted gracefully and swung his leg over Sean. Sean rose to follow him, eyes on Elijah's bottom. This time that lazy, disconnected swing in Elijah's hips was his, that loose new-fucked gait was something he'd made.

Sean growled low in his throat and caught Elijah before he could flop down, pushing him to the bed on his belly and burying his mouth at the sensitive spot where Elijah's neck became his shoulder. Elijah's legs parted to accept his weight, and Sean slid his hips around till he found his way inside again.

Better this way, Elijah caught under him, his breath lifting Sean's chest, not without an effort. Sean could fuck Elijah like this for a long time without either of them coming.

He did, plunging into Elijah over and over, each snap of his hips measured, feeling the cold conditioned air from the vent wash over his bare, sweating back. He'd left his shorts and shoes behind him on the floor between the couch and the bed and he was as bare as Elijah now-- Elijah, who was often unclothed but infrequently naked, his eyes always so very slightly elsewhere, shrouding him away as though he wore a monk's robe.

Elijah stretched under him, moaning, hands opening wide and then closing back into fists as he writhed around Sean's cock. It was good, but not enough. He wanted to see Elijah's eyes, so he pulled out and rolled to the side, turning Elijah over easily. There was no resistance in Elijah; he flopped boneless like a rag doll, with a little painted smile on his lips.

Sean caught Elijah's legs and lifted his knees, settling back onto Elijah and folding him up so that his kneecaps very nearly touched his chest. Sean let his weight come down, pressing Elijah's breath out of his lungs in a smoke-scented sigh. Elijah purred, smile widening, and Sean ravaged his lips, drinking the smile that was, for this moment, given to him.

In again, harder this time though not so deep. Elijah squirmed, pleased with the angle, and whimpered into Sean's mouth. Yes.

Sean caught Elijah's face between his hands and pulled his own face back to watch as he thrust his hips forward, hard. Elijah gasped again, eyes glazed, but this time they caught on Sean's and held there.

Again and again he thrust, holding Elijah fixed under him. Elijah looked strangely bewildered and terribly young; something distant slipped out of his eyes and left him defenseless and present. Sean thrust again, insisting, not letting Elijah turn his face away, though he could have closed his eyes at any time, really, and shut Sean out.

"Elijah." Sean whispered, ragged, thinking of the ice bucket and wondering what it might mean for Elijah to have thought of it first and come to see to it for him.

"Sean," Elijah faltered at the crest of Sean's next fierce stroke. "oh--"

With me. Exultant, Sean crushed Elijah's mouth again, showing him with this moment all the things that his patience and his tending and his attention could not seem to make Elijah realize at any other time. "Elijah, Lijah, ahhhh--" Sean moaned against Elijah's hot wet lips and into his clove-sweet mouth as he felt himself tense with helpless fire, spilling volcanic ecstasy.

Elijah was all his world, inside him and around him as everything spun, wet stickiness of Elijah's come pulsing against his belly as he reached Elijah, made him see, made him...

...collapse, world spinning, satiation like a blanket over them, weighed with stone.

Elijah squirmed to be free all too soon, so Sean rolled himself off, onto the slick, cheap motel coverlet, still gasping so hard for air that he saw speckles before his eyes.

The mattress was shifting; Elijah was already getting up, padding across the room with a pure unconcern for his nudity. Sean blinked and raised himself on one elbow. Leaving already? He nearly always left quickly when it was finished. Sean understood that something inside Elijah both needed and hated the way Sean could open him up and touch him inside in a way not just any stranger with a dick could manage. Perhaps he hated it in just the same way that Sean himself hated how Elijah could make him forget Christine and the girls to do this thing, every time, without fail-- and then walk away and leave Sean with nothing but the knowledge of what they'd done.

Bitterness rose in his chest, but Elijah passed the puddle of his clothes and stopped at the table, where the ice bucket still sat, condensation gathering on its sides as the ice melted.

Sean watched as Elijah spread one of the towels and dipped his hands into the water, coming out with dripping fingers filled with cubes of ice, and mounded it on the towel, then folded it all carefully into a square packet.

Sean lay back, heart thumping, and waited, afraid to hope. Quiet footfalls drew near and Elijah reached for his hand, cradling it against the damp cool of the makeshift ice-pack and settling both hand and pack onto the other towel, which he'd folded into an absorbent pillow.

Through the slits of his nearly-closed lids and the concealing cloud of his lashes, Sean watched Elijah glance toward the door, considering... deciding. He lay down next to Sean and curled himself up, sighing, sliding one thigh over Sean's knee, for once content with the moment and the refuge of the quiet, impersonal room.

Sean let his arm curl cautiously around Elijah, left hand settling on his shoulder. It might be that Elijah felt sorry for Sean and was worried about his hand, or it might be that he was only too tired to face the halls and the crowd, or it might be that he had simply fucked everyone he intended to fuck today, and Sean was merely the last.

Or perhaps it could be that he was, finally, learning what it meant when Sean asked him about condoms or wanted to know when he'd eaten his last meal or made sure Con Security watched out for the lady just down the autograph line, the one with a strange look on her face and Frodo's picture on her shirt and the suspicious thing she kept reaching to touch under her jacket.

Whatever it meant, Elijah was still here, and that was enough.

-finis-

Email comments to cara_chapel@hotmail.com