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"Look, Bella. It's your Uncle Elijah!" Sean looks at him inquiringly. "Would you like to hold her, Lij?"
"Sure." He leans back in the couch, cradling her securely against his body. She's so sweet - this freshly-bathed bundle of incipient femininity and he nuzzles her soft cheek, inhaling the fragrant baby scent.
Isabella stares at him consideringly, then she breaks into a gummy grin and he flinches as a chubby hand reaches up to pat him on an eyelid.
"Aly did that too, remember? The first time you met." Sean's eyes take on a far-away look, and Elijah braces himself against the onslaught of memory. He can feel the dam buckling under its force; he can feel his barriers erode before Sean's thoughtless battering of his defenses, and he holds his breath and waits for what he knows will come.
"She loved your eyes."
You loved my eyes too, Sean.
He lowers his gaze and tickles the baby's belly, making Isabella squirm and giggle. "You're a beauty, aren't you. Such a plump little partridge – another little Gamgee for your daddy Samwise." He glances sideways and quirks an eyebrow archly. "Is Chris trying to top Rosie, Sean?"
Fuckit - he knows he's babbling, but the spate of words is convenient to hide behind until he gets himself under control.
Sean laughs ruefully. "Heaven forbid. It would've been nice to have a boy, but no – Bella here's our last, aren't you, punkin?" The baby gurgles happily at the sound of her name. "Probably a good thing too, or I'd have been tempted to saddle him with the name of a certain hobbit we both know." Elijah feels warm knuckles caress his cheek and he leans into the touch in spite of himself. "My Frodo," Sean whispers huskily, and the dam begins to leak, a painful trickle of emotion.
"God - you would've blighted his life for sure," Elijah says, in as light a tone as he can manage. He looks around the elegantly appointed room, seeking to distract himself. It's usually as put-together as a page from House Beautiful, but for Uncle Elijah, there are toys strewn over the floor and what feels like a baby bottle wedged in the couch under his ass. He doesn't need impressing after all and he's absurdly grateful for the knowledge. Isabella is a warm weight against his shoulder and he shuts his eyes and holds her close. Christmas music plays on the expensive stereo and as he listens, the cd-changer shifts gears and a new song begins.
On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me, a partri-idge in a pear tree...
Elijah's eyelids flutter and his expression congeals as he makes the inevitable connection and Sean gasps - a curious strangled sound. "Ah Lij..." He gathers them close in his arms, Elijah and the baby both. "Please, Lij... don't. I'm sorry..."
*
After dinner, he takes the first opportunity he has to go outside for a smoke. He's tried to keep it down in deference to Chris, but he needs one badly and he can't wait. It's a beautifully cool night, and fairy lights twinkle in the manicured shrubbery. It's quiet too, one of the pleasures, Sean says, of living in an exclusive neighborhood. Sean, he thinks, and instinctively he moves away from the lights, into the shadows. Soon enough, the glass patio doors hiss open behind him, and Elijah can feel him, like the heightened pressure of air against his skin.
"Hey," Sean murmurs, his large hand settling gently on Elijah's nape with the ease of long habit. The habit of giving comfort and receiving it, during those exhausting, wonderful days spent among the bones of Middle- earth.
The dam breaks - and then comes the deluge.
... hot wet hard wild oh god Sean ohfucksogood ah Lij so tight I can't I can't nonononotyet please harder Sean Sean I love you Lij love you now fuckme hardhardhard ohgodI'm I'm...
He licks suddenly dry lips and shifts his feet, desperately willing the ache between his legs to subside. Think of Christine, he admonishes himself. Think of the girls. Yes, remember them, Elwood. He leans forward, stubs his cig out in the ashtray and waits. He's always waiting, it seems.
"Elijah." Sean's voice is low and and his breath warm on Elijah's skin and the tremor in it tells of a yearning and a heat that seems to dilate Elijah's veins, sending his blood rushing southward with renewed urgency, obedient to a force stronger than gravity. In that disjointed moment, something comes back to him: something Sir Ian had said about the tradition of the pantomime, and the centuries-old celebration of Yule. When for one night, love can wear its true face and roles may be reversed - or exchanged. It's a dangerous rationale and he surrenders to it helplessly. And they had never needed words to understand each other, and they don't need them now. After all.
I am the Lord of Misrule.
"Merry Christmas, Sean," he replies, and turns into his lover's kiss.