"Ink" - gen, PG

[unautremonde]

Title: Ink
Rating: PG
Pairing: none as this is more gen than slash. Elijah piece.
Summary: From Queequeg to Boromir, Elijah has a hard time letting things go.
Disclaimer: the only thing I really know for sure is that I know nothing. Pure fiction from A to Z.
Author’s Note: For baranduin who asked for David/Elijah or Bean/Elijah, and who hoped this picture could be included somewhere in the story. I managed only one out of three but I hope you like it! Happy Valentine’s day!
Thanks to: everyone I whined to while writing this, rynalwyn, sparktastic and abundantlyqueer who offered encouragements and suggestions, and azrhiaz for both making the Slashy Valentine happen in the first place and taking the time to beta this.

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Ink

And this tattooing, had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island,
who, by those hieroglyphics marks, had written out on his body
a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise
on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg
in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold;[…]

Moby-Dick or The Whale - Herman Melville

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Elijah’s only been into a tattoo parlour once before, of course, and all the enthusiasm he put into dragging Sean here with Orlando might have been just false bravado. They’re here, now, though, and when the tattoo artist—John or Jed or something close—leads them to a room behind a heavy curtain, it’s exactly like Elijah remembers from his own experience. The other side of the earth and it’s still the same overwhelming warmth and… distinctly male smell of sweat and hormones. Masculinity.

Elijah doesn’t really know why it’s all such a manly man thing to be doing; he’s met enough girls with tattoos in even worse places than this to know it’s no exclusively male thing. Mia, for example, their barmaid from last night, the one at that lovely little hole-in-a-wall kind of place they went to for drinks and privacy. Mia had one of those angels with widespread wings tattooed to the bottom of her spine, dipping low under the waistband of her already low-riding jeans, and Elijah is pretty sure that getting that particular tattoo was ten times more painful than getting the one he got back in New Zealand, at least twenty times more painful than the one Sean is about to get done.

Sean lets himself be dragged and pushed around, lets Orlando take over and tell the tattoo artist what to do, how and where. Elijah perches himself on a chair by Sean’s seat and watches intently as the smile that’s been lighting Sean’s face ever since they dragged him out of the hotel grows even wider. Sean looks happy and Elijah is fascinated.

The walls are covered with various tattoo designs, pictures of people, limbs and pieces of inked skin, as well as with various leaflets and magazine cut-outs. The resulting collage reminds Elijah of Viggo’s work of art on their makeup trailer’s mirror at the end of filming. It stings a bit, just a little, as if Elijah could suddenly feel the light pricking of the tattoo artist’s needle on his memories. Sean doesn’t even flinch when the needle meets his skin.

Orlando doesn’t sit down but leans in close to Sean’s shoulder, eyes intent on skin and ink and little droplets of blood. Elijah doesn’t want to get any closer to the low buzzing of the needle which makes his hip throb in sympathy, but he feels drawn to Sean’s laughter as Orlando explains what happened when Ian and Elijah got their own tattoos done. Elijah laughs along and remembers, too.

He remembers the thrill, the excitement and eagerness that had spread even to Ian if not to John, Viggo’s curiosity, Dom’s bragging and finally the startling pain. The memory is so sharp that Elijah feels it in his bones and flinches, drawing his hand up to what long since stopped being a sore spot.

Elijah remembers further back when he was still a kid…or more of a kid than he was when he got to New Zealand. He’d wanted a tattoo, then, something to make him look like Queequeg—who was “way cooler” than Melville’s own Elijah—something to etch the meaning of the world on his skin, the kind of “book” one could carry around no matter what and no matter where. His mother had been amused at first, then irritated and finally relieved when her nine year old son had been pacified with a box of colourful transfers. Elijah had gone around for a couple of weeks with arms covered in fake tattoos, calling his mother “Captain” and insisting on never answering to anything else but “Queequeg.”

He’d never really thought about it again until the idea of a Fellowship tattoo had come up. He’d told Dom about his short-lived obsession with Melville’s harpooner and his lasting impression that tattoos needed to be more than simply decorative and trendy. The Elvish nine had hence appeared as the most suitable way to start this “book of life” Elijah had dreamed about in his childhood. Once the decision had been made, the design selected and John’s scale double enrolled—as not even Viggo had been able to convince John to join them—Elijah had felt more than prepared. He’d been excited at the thought of marking himself, of being forever linked to his friends and New Zealand.

Dom had dubbed their endeavour “PT’s class’ field trip” and it had been a day filled with beer and raucous laughter, with hormones and sweat and the hint of nostalgia underlying every smile. Ian had held Elijah’s hand, Billy, Dom and Orlando had teased them mercilessly, Viggo had taken more pictures—some of which had joined the makeup trailer’s “wall of fame” only days before the end—and Astin and Brett had watched the proceedings with amusement. When the last drop of ink had been smeared, their little group had fallen strangely quiet and Elijah had felt overwhelmed with unease and the feeling that something was missing. His hip had been sore, pain sharp not just where the tattoo had been inked but all the way down to the tip of his toes. Elijah had looked around, searched his friends’ faces and realized that the strong bond he’d been envisioning when agreeing to get a tattoo done wasn’t any easier to read than it had been before: they’d been friends and a Fellowship since the beginning and the dull throbbing in his hip didn’t make that any more obvious.

Elijah had felt a little disappointed, a lot sad and strangely empty as he’d taken in the scene and understood that a tattoo—no matter its symbolic importance—was just ink on skin-paper.

Now healed, his tattoo reminds him of a bruise, one more persistent than those he collected over the course of filming but a bruise nonetheless. An everlasting smear of memories etched on his skin, a perpetual reminder not just of friendship and great times and adventures, but also of beginnings and endings and the reluctance to let go.

Sean doesn’t look like he’s feeling any pain and Elijah wonders whether that’s because Sean left before them and had more time to move on than any of them has had so far. Elijah wants to be able to move on, too; he wants not to feel the needle’s sting every single time he looks into a mirror and traces black ink with the tip of a finger. Elijah long thought that tattoos made the skin feel different to the touch, rougher, grainier maybe…but he knows, now, that you can’t feel the ink with your eyes closed.

Sean is laughing again, listening to Orlando compare his Sheffield tattoo to the Elvish one and wondering about the possibility of engaging the Fellowship in a game of football. Neither of them looks melancholy and Elijah feels a bit hurt at the realization. It’s not that he’d wanted to see any of them cry or express regrets for a time that’s come and gone but he’s tired of feeling lonely and disappointed. He’s had the best times of his life with all of them and yet, he can’t seem to be satisfied with that knowledge: he wants to go back.

The buzzing of the needle stops and Elijah looks expectantly at Sean, hoping to feel something now that the Fellowship is complete again. Sean looks back and smiles at him, a surprisingly wistful smile that goes straight to Elijah’s heart. It’s not Dom’s goofy grin, not Astin’s and Billy’s amused smirks, not Viggo’s toothy smile… it’s almost like the hole in Elijah’s mind, the sadness at the realization that tokens are tokens but can’t replace the real thing. It only lasts a second before Sean is up and grabbing at Elijah, dragging him to stand next to Orlando for a picture but something shifts. Something clicks into place, the last piece of a puzzle and the picture is complete.

Elijah can’t quite laugh the way Sean laughs, can’t shout happily like Orlando but he can smile. He feels the warmth of Sean’s hand pressing close to his heart, the strength of Sean’s arm encircling him and he can tell, can almost see, can definitely feel the bonds loosening but not breaking. Sean leans closer and hugs him briefly and yes, Elijah can feel it, can feel the friendship and the everlasting link, the ink binding them together like a contract or a book. He smiles wider and whispers “nine” as the flash of the camera blinds him.

THE END