Holy crap, remember this?
Still feeling like junk, but I realized, looking through my fic folder, that I'd written an entire part to this story and NEVER POSTED IT. :| It's been almost a year. :| :|
(Banner still by primula_baggins! :D)
So here it is, the old co-write that me and aina_baggins had delved into... before she BAILED! ;) So yesh, the J/E/S triangle from hell, yesh yesh yesh...
Title: Undecided (Pt. 11)
Pairing(s): Lij/Josh, Lij/Sean A.
Rating: Light R, just to be safe
Disclaimer: Don't know ANYONE IN HERE!
Synopsis: We last left Lij coming home and finding Christine in his house...
Story Tag-Archive
He thought he’d only pack a few things, not wanting to sit in the house any longer than he had to. Sean found himself standing over a bulging suitcase, however, and rooting around for whatever else he could find. It had started out with a few shirts and some jeans, socks, whatever else. While in the bathroom to get his toothbrush, he came across one of Allie’s shirts, hanging on the towel rack. It was after she’d had a nice, messy session with some paint the day before, and Christine had hand-washed it clean and left it to dry.
He took it up along with his toothbrush, wanting something of his baby girl to take with him. It all snowballed after that--sets of pictures, one in a frame of the three of them--one of Allie’s children’s books, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ that he’d always read to her, his favorite coffee mug…
It had to stop somewhere, or the undercarriage of his car would scrape off on the pavement, with the weight of this thing in it. Sean zipped it closed, needing to put his knee to the middle of it to do so. He left the bedroom and went down the hall, past the living room and to the garage.
He didn’t know how he’d managed to start the car and leave the driveway, but he was now driving down the road, heading for the center of Los Angeles. He’d booked a room at the Hilton, not going crazy with any luxuries. It would just be a bed, a small kitchenette, and a nice, long time to think.
The weight of the world--or at least HIS world, was on his shoulders now. Even with the stress of possibly losing his family, he loved Elijah so much--maybe too much, but he didn’t care. At the same time, the stress of losing the boy was weighed against how much Sean loved his family, of course. There was no clear-cut answer, not yet.
He didn’t deserve one. Not until he’d actually done what he should have, from the very beginning--think. Think hard.
~*~
Elijah swallowed, trying his damndest to look away. He found that he couldn’t; being faced with Christine, at this point, had turned him into a deer-in-headlights. “I…” he croaked.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I needed a cigarette,” Christine said, motioning to the clove in her fingers. Elijah blinked down to the table, finding a just-opened pack sitting there. With a sigh, Christine brought the smoke to her lips. “And I don’t even smoke.”
Elijah’s head shook slightly. “It’s… okay…” he said. He bent down to pick up the bottle with shaking hands, then held it up. “I… have to put… away…”
“How did you get that?” Christine interrupted.
“I… know where to buy,” he replied.
Christine rolled her eyes. “Wonderful. Whatever, just pour me one. I take it on the rocks. Got orange juice to go with it?”
He nodded briskly; he’d give her drinks, cigarettes, cut his own hand off, if she asked. He went to the kitchen, wondering what in hell to say or do. “she’s acting calm… reasonable. Calm the fuck down,” he thought. It didn’t really help. He somehow managed to bring two glasses from the cabinet, set them on the counter and grab the juice from his fridge. He’d take his neat.
Once he finished making them, he shuffled back to the living room. Now, he found himself unable to even just glance at her. He went to her side and extended the glass, his eyes set on the rug. “Thanks,” she told him, taking up the offered drink.
He said nothing as he sauntered over to the couch. His legs were almost too stiff to let him sit, but his head was too dizzy to keep standing. With a grunt, he sat down, nervousness filling him at a rapid rate.
It stayed silent for a few moments, the only sounds being Christine’s sips and light smack of her lips. Elijah hadn’t bothered with his first sip yet, content to stare into the clear liquid he held.
“I guess if we’re going to talk, I should start,” Christine broke the silence. “I’m kind of sick of this, and it’s only been a day. But I want to get it over with.”
Elijah shrugged slightly and gnawed at his lip. “Okay,” he murmured.
“I guess…” she went to say; a pause followed, until she hissed a breath in, then out. “What the hell… were you two thinking?”
The inevitable question--one he’d asked himself, over and over again. “I guess… I guess it was more a thing… where we couldn’t think. If we did…” he said, making his own pause before continuing. “We probably wouldn’t have done anything at all.”
Christine looked away, pursing her lips tight. “I suppose ‘thinking’ comes with age--though my husband has made a special case of himself,” she said. “What was it about a married man, Elijah? Can you answer me that? You could’ve had anyone--younger, available co-stars, or some random townie. Why him?”
Pressing his fingers to his eyes, Elijah shuddered out a breath. “We were always together. Non-stop, practically glued together. We’d talk, hang out, and I didn’t… plan anything. I didn’t know it was going to happen until after it did. Then it just felt right, like… I really liked him…even when it was wrong, I…” Elijah explained. How he was managing to utter more than five words, he didn’t know. Perhaps he felt a duty to explain things as best he could, to a woman he’d wronged horribly… and maybe forcing eye contact would make a better case for himself, as well. He lifted his head up and looked to her, hating the red face and her misty eyes. “I woke up every single morning--thinking of how wrong it all was, when he was with you, and I was with Josh…”
“Yea, he’d told me about that, too,” she interjected. “He said he’d dropped by, a complete mess, last night.”
Elijah nodded. “Yea… he did. And it felt horrible… it really did. I know, I do know, that maybe I don’t have the right to feel ‘hurt’, since I’m the one that did this--”
“You weren’t alone in this. Don’t think I’m blaming you for everything, because I’m ready to toss everything Sean owns on the fucking lawn.”
God… Christine wasn’t one to swear… “I just--we just, I… I’d think ‘this is wrong, we can’t do this’, but then I’d see him again, at filming, or whatever,” he stammered. “All that would go out the window, and all I’d want was for him to hold me and… take care of me. I left the foster family I’d had to stay with not long after my eighteenth birthday, thinking ‘wow, I can be on my own now!’… but I ended up being absolutely terrified.”
“I can understand that,” Christine said.
“And he’d just… he’d just… make me feel safe…” Elijah stammered. Teras threatened him yet again, now matter how much he’d grown tired of them; he now brought his hand up to his mouth and shook his head. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry, I’m such a shit for sitting here, crying and… I’m sorry.”
“You kinda are, actually. Won’t lie,” she said, leaning forward to snuff her cigarette out in the ashtray. “It’s taking a lot for me to not jump up and scream at you. I don’t know how I’m doing this, to be honest.”
“Go ahead.”
“Go ahead and what?”
“Scream at me. I don’t care. I deserve it,” Elijah shuddered out. He was surprised to see an almost-smile on her face emerge.
“That would make you feel better, wouldn’t it? Well, I’m not about purging my anger in one shot. I’d much rather let it trickle out, because y’now what, Lij? You’re gonna feel this one,” she explained. “I don’t hate you, I don’t want you dead, or whatever else you think I might want. I hate what you and Sean did, and that’s much different than lumping you as a whole into that.”
He wanted this over with--he wanted Christine to yell, to call him a fucking asshole for luring her husband into his bed, even if he’d never done such a thing. It was a selfish wish, really. She was right. “You have to hate me. It’s not just Sean cheating on you… it’s Sean cheating on you with a guy.”
Christine rolled her eyes. “You think that’s a ‘new thing’?” she asked. Elijah’s eyes snapped back up to look at her, astonishment filling him quickly. She smirked again and sat back. “He’s never cheated on me… but I’ve known his--‘tendencies’, if you will. You’re not the first boy he’s liked.”
“Oh…” Elijah muttered. He’d never asked… but Sean had never told, either. He felt hurt by this, for whatever reason. “Thought I was ‘special’ like that, didn’t I?” he thought.
“Nineteen years old. I don’t get it,” she said, staring Elijah down, hard. “You’re just a boy. God, I don’t get him.”
He watched as she bent forward and took up another cigarette. For someone who didn’t smoke, she was doing a job of it now. When she tossed the pack back, he took it up and lit his own smoke.
Before he could reply, she let out a shaky breath. “I’m so angry. I’m so damned angry. I don’t even know how to explain it…” she said. “More at him than at you. He KNEW better, damn it… he had me and his daughter to worry about, and all he wanted was a nineteen-year-old fucking boy,”
“I wanna make this better,” Elijah blurted. “I don’t want you or Allie hurt… does… does she know?”
“No, Elijah. Of course not. I’m not the type of parent to let my kid know about these sorts of things,” she said in an annoyed voice.
“Sorry.”
“She knows we’re fighting, and that I’m angry at her father for ‘something he did wrong’. She thinks he tried fixing the sink again and it broke, for God’s sake,” she told him. “I’m not about to tell her that he took a young boy to bed with him.”
Elijah shut his eyes tight--it sounded so fucking wrong, worse than how ‘wrong’ it was before all of this. “What can I do? I KNOW I can’t do much, and I’ve done enough, but… ask me. Ask me what you want me to do, anything, and I‘ll do it.”
She regarded him carefully, her face stern and cold. “You’re going to leave him alone. And I’m not ‘asking’, I’m telling. I’m leaving him alone as well, for however long. He’s agreed to stay in a hotel to clear his head, and he won’t be calling you, or me--not until he’s had enough time to put things in order,” she said. “I don’t want to see him. We talked for only about ten minutes before he left here to go pack some things. I’m so… pissed at him, I can barely stand to be around him. You understand that, right?”
“Yea,” Elijah irked out, nodding a little. “I don’t know how you’re sitting here, with me. I don’t.”
“I don’t either,” she said, now standing up. She grabbed up her purse and looked down on him. “I’d love to say such ugly, angry things to you. I’d love that right now. But it wouldn’t help anyone… so I won’t. Just know that you’re a black mark in my mind, and I don’t know if that’ll ever change. I won’t trust you ever again. If Sean chose you, instead of his family, I don’t want to be around you, and I don’t want our daughter to be around you. Maybe that’ll change someday… but I have to leave now, before I say things, or get sick.”
She turned quickly and headed to the door. Elijah’s body trembled as she left, shutting the door behind her. He wished she’d have slammed it, marking a final, angry move. But it closed softly, letting him sit in absolute silence.
He wanted to call Dom, the only one who was neutral at this point. Yet he figured that it wouldn’t be long before he wore the man out--he’d done enough as it was. How he’d managed to do what he did, all this time, was admirable. He knew Hannah would be willing to come by as well, but he didn’t feel like troubling his younger sister with his problems. He’d have to go this alone, at least for one night.
It hurt, so badly. He sat still and quiet, staring at the floor. His brain felt like it was throbbing, but not with pain--just deep, hard thinking. ‘This has truly been the worst of it. Move. On,’he thought as he curled his legs up, sighed and closed his eyes.
~*~
Sean stared at his cell phone, wanting nothing more to turn it on and press Elijah’s ‘speed dial’ setting. It was terrifying to think that he’d left Elijah’s house with Christine inside of it. He knew she wouldn’t take up something sharp and do Elijah in, but… he was just a boy.
“He’s just a boy,” Sean mumbled to himself. The idea of it made his stomach churn with guilt. How he could’ve done this, HOW he could’ve done something as foolish as taking the eager-to-please young actor into his arms as he had… oh but God, good God… it’d been so good. Perhaps a deluded sort of good, but even with the weight of his conscience, he started recalling sweet memories…
Even when their co-stars hadn’t warmed up to Sean very much, the day he’d sliced his foot open, they’d all dropped in to make sure he was okay. But Elijah had stayed overnight, getting things for the man--food, drinks, even more bandages that he’d wrapped around his foot in soothing, gentle motions. How sweet he’d been, lying by Sean’s foot and petting it gently as they watched TV. The times when they’d sneak off during breaks in filming and kissed behind the bushes… the days that Elijah couldn’t help the breakdowns, stress overcoming him and making Sean hold him tight for hours on end…
Bitter thoughts entered his mind, now--inevitable, sour thoughts, mostly involving the doubts in how Josh had really treated the boy. He wanted to blame him for things, to put a good dose of fault in how things turned out. ‘If you’d been good to him, he might’ve stayed with you. He might’ve been whole enough to not bother with me…’ he thought.
But he came back to how Josh had reacted to Elijah’s accusations the night before, and what he’d said that very morning; how maybe Sean had taken advantage of the situation…
“He’s young and stupid, Sean. Young and stupid, just as he should be. The last thing he needed was to fall in bed with a married man.”
It hadn’t been Sean’s job, nor his right to step in, even if Elijah had wanted someone to ‘tend’ to him. Sometimes Sean knew how he tried too hard in wanting to please everyone, all the time. “Just wanted him to feel good… to feel safe,” he murmured. He hadn’t been cruel, but he had--in the end, however, he’d just wanted to love the boy. Even if it’d all ended up being platonic, it would’ve been an intense, loving friendship; no one worked as close as they all had without gaining heavy attachments to one another.
Sean bit his lip and looked at his cell again. This time, he did turn it on, then dialed. He hoped he had the number right, wishing that he’d saved it in his cell’s memory…
“’Ello?”
Sean sighed in relief. “Dom? It’s Sean.”
“Oh… hey, what’s up?”
“Not mu--well, everything,” Sean interrupted himself. He took a deep breath and continued. “I wanted to thank you. Just thank you, for everything you did for us the last few days. I don’t think that… that we would’ve made it without you.”
“It’s okay, mate,” Dom replied.
“No, it’s not. Look… I know we’ve had our differences. I know that you think--that I’m an annoying prude.”
Dom chuckled lightly. “Uh huh…”
Sean smiled and rolled his eyes. “Yea, well, you’re crude, rude and lewd.”
“Uh huh,” Dom said again, snickering harder.
“Well… that means crap to me right now. Okay? I just wanted to let you know… I have a newfound, huge respect for you, man,” Sean told him. “But I can only imagine what you think about me, and you have every right to think it.”
There was a small pause now; the static of the phone mixed with a deep breath on Dom’s end. “You know what I think of you, Sean?”
“What?”
“I think you’re an imperfect human being, who wants to be one-hundred percent proof perfect,” Dom said. “You’d always be in the mix of things, trying so hard to prove yourself… and you don’t have to do that.”
“I know…”
“If I were you… and I’m not, so you can tell me to bugger off, if you like… but if I were, I’d try and work things out with Christine. She knows you’re not perfect, and knows what we all went through.”
Sean’s insides twisted up. “Dom… I really care for him. Maybe it was impulsive and even wrong in some ways, but… I love him.”
“Yea, I know. It’s hard not to. I love the git myself,” Dom said. “But as much as you love him, would it work? Could you really face Christine after choosing him… what about your daughter?”
“I dunno… but how can I just walk?”
“That’s the hard part in this. Listen…” Dom said, taking a deep sigh before going on. “It’s not my place to tell you what to do. I’d understand if you stayed with him. But give it time.”
“Yea, don’t have a choice in that--as you well know.”
“Yea.”
“Just--wanted to thank you, Dom. For everything. I wanna stay in touch, okay? Without all the drama you’ve put up with from us,” Sean said.
“No problem, Irish. Make the best of things, in whatever way. ‘Right?”
“Right, mate. I’ll save your number… maybe we can all get together when things blow over,” Sean said with a smile.
“Sounds good. I’ll talk to you later,” Dom said.
“Bye,” Sean replied. He brought the phone from his ear and turned it off. Feeling a bit lighter, he went to the bed, laid down, and fell asleep in his clothes.
~*~