Elijah had been watching him for, how long now? Weeks. Watching when he thought it wouldn’t be noticed. And yet, it nearly hadn’t registered with Ian. He was used to being studied now that he’d achieved grand-old-man status. Geezerhood. It would have been depressing if it hadn’t been rather enjoyable to be studied, imitated and of course widely quoted.

He took a thoughtful drag off of his cigarette. Besides, he rather liked being able to flirt madly with all these sweet young things and never quite be taken seriously. Flirting was one of the great pleasures of life. Good lord, he thought, Elijah hadn’t taken it all seriously? He exhaled a long, slow plume of smoke and wondered if perhaps he’d have to soft-pedal that sort of thing around the youngster. Ian sighed. The young ones were often so lacking in perspective about sex.

"You look pensive." It was Hugo, dressed as Elrond, but with a cigarette hanging off his lower lip. The sight was a bit surreal.

"Miss Mitzi! Sit down and take my mind off things."

Hugo kicked the heavy Elrond robes out of the way and sat awkwardly in the little chair. "I really need a throne," he observed. "This outfit must weigh twenty-five pounds. Maybe I should ask for it after the production is over. It’d make nice slipcovers." Hugo was quite good at talking twaddle, and he always made Ian laugh. "Drag wasn’t this hard."

"You still look pretty," Ian assured him, and Hugo gave a little toss of his head, flipping the intricate braids a bit. A bit of cigarette ash fell onto the velvet and Hugo swore vigorously.

"Fuck, fuck, Peter will kill me if I destroy this costume." He brushed the ash off and checked the material. "Fuck," he breathed again, though for good measure, Ian presumed, since the velvet was unmarred. "What’re you doing tonight, anything?" he asked, finally pulling the cigarette out of his mouth and flicking the ashes away.

"Are you extending an invitation?" Ian asked, putting just the tiniest bit of lewdness into the question.

Hugo laughed. "Just curious, really. Was I on the verge of getting lucky?" he asked. It had already become a standing joke between them.

"Well, dear boy, one never knows about such things," Ian began.

"But dinner and a good bottle of Beaujolais would probably clinch the deal?"

Ian took another drag on his cigarette. "At my age, that would be rather a lot."

"Oh, don’t sell yourself short, Ian," Hugo replied, fishing his glasses out of a pocket hidden in the costume. "You could do quite well on the open market. Especially amongst the worshippers." He unfolded a letter and began to read.

After a few minutes of companionable silence, Ian turned to find Elijah staring at them. Feeling a bit wicked, Ian waved at him, with the hand that held the cigarette; a nice Queen Mother sort of wave. All he needed was a big picture hat covered in cabbage roses. Elijah flushed, waved back, and busied himself with something.

"He watches you all the time," Hugo observed, as he folded his letter and tucked it and his glasses back in his pocket.

"One day," Ian said thoughtfully, "I shall moon that boy."

Hugo replied with a laugh that showed quite a lot of his strong, white teeth.

********************

Seeing a rare opportunity for devilment, Ian slid into the empty seat beside Elijah at the commissary. "How’s the food today?" he asked, making Elijah choke.

"Fine," Elijah gasped between coughs.

"It has been rather good so far, hasn’t it? Elijah, may I ask you a question?" he asked, clapping the boy on the back.

Elijah took a quick drink of water. "Sure."

"You’re always watching me. Is there a reason for it? Some sort of spiritual spinach caught in my teeth?"

"I, uh..." Elijah was getting that deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression so Ian took pity on him.

"I don’t mind. I was just wondering if there was something you wanted to talk about?"

The huge blue eyes calmed a bit. "Oh, no. It’s just that, well I admire your work so much and all."

"You’re doing homework?"

"That’s it," Elijah said, smiling. The sun came out when he smiled. What couldn’t this boy have if he put his mind to it? "I’m trying to learn."

"That’s very flattering," Ian admitted, dropping the façade for a moment. "You do know, don’t you, that if there’s anything I can ever do to help, you have only to ask?"

"Really?"

"Absolutely. I admire you, too, Elijah. Perhaps we can learn from one another." Elijah flushed and stammered, and Ian decided that it might be best just to withdraw for now. "Remember, my door is always open."

He left the table feeling a bit bemused, and nearly ran into Sean B’s lunch.

"Steady. You don’t want to be wearing this soup," Sean cautioned.

"Sorry. You just bowl me over," Ian replied. "Tell me, when are you going to climb through my window at night to play Lady Chatterly and the gamekeeper with me?"

Sean grinned at him. "You’re beyond cheeky, Ian."

"Don’t you doubt it for a moment."

"Leave that man alone," Liv ordered Sean. "I’ve just about got him convinced that girls are nice to snog, and there you go getting him all overheated."

"He was born overheated," Sean told her, his smile a bit past cheeky, too. "Snog? You’ve been hanging with Brits too long, darling. Why not just call a fuck a fuck?" They went off together, bickering about language, and Ian ducked out for a smoke.

*********************

He’d been dreaming about rugby, of all things. Big, beefy orcs in a scrum, fighting over poor, tiny Frodo. They’d just drop-kicked the ringbearer, when a noise jarred him out of his sleep. He woke to see someone climbing in his window.

"What the hell?" he yelled.

"It’s just me, Ian." Even though it was whispered, Ian recognized Elijah’s voice. He switched on the light.

"What are you doing?" Ian demanded.

Elijah dropped to the floor. "I’m sorry," he said. "I thought... Lady Chatterly?"

Ian stared at him for a moment, then burst into peals of delighted laughter. "Are you supposed to be Mellors?" he hiccupped.

Elijah shut the window and came over to sit cross-legged on the bed. "I brought chocolate syrup," he volunteered.

"You are never what I expect, Elijah. What if I’d had a gun?"

Elijah’s eyes widened briefly, then crinkled in amusement. "Then you wouldn’t have been what I expected either," he replied. "You said I could come by and talk."

"I said my door was always open, not my window."

"I tried the door. You fibbed," he accused with a white smile that was almost more a noiseless snarl. Oh, those little animal teeth of his.

"What happened to the shy, retiring boy from the commissary?"

"He had a good, stiff drink with his mates, and then decided to come back and play Lady Chatterly and the gamekeeper with you. Really, I am a bit drunk, Ian, but I’ve been wanting a chance..." He sighed. "I’m a fucking groupie," he admitted, and now Ian could hear a bit of a slur in his words, a little bit of liquor-induced slipperiness. "I would like very much to have sex with you."

"Well, I would like very much to have sex with you, too, but you’re too young."

Elijah scowled. "I am not! I’m eighteen and I’m not a virgin. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"I’ve slept with girls. Women," he said, correcting himself. "A couple." He grinned. "It’s time to further my education."

Ian sighed, and punched his pillow into a back support. "Dear boy, you know you’re adorable, don’t you?"

"Well, yeah." Of course he did, he’d been told as much for most of his life. That much was almost certain. "What’s your point?"

"That you’re hard to resist, but I think it would be best if I did."

"Why? I thought..."

"Elijah, flirtation is an art form, but it isn’t necessarily serious. Surely you must realize..."

Elijah flushed and his eyes welled

No. Apparently not. "Oh, dear," Ian breathed.

"Hey, I’m sorry. I’ll go," Elijah mumbled. "You can keep the syrup." He got up and headed for the window.

"Elijah." How damnably sweet this boy was; he made Ian’s heart almost break with it. "C’mon." He lifted the bedclothes in clear invitation.

"Really?" Oh those saucer-size eyes.

"I’m not guaranteeing sex, but affection I can always give."

Elijah kicked off his shoes and dove under the covers, snuggling up beside Ian with a contented little sigh.

"Let’s gossip about everyone else," Ian suggested, and was quite frankly staggered to find out not only how much naughtiness was going on amongst cast and crew, but how much Elijah knew about it. He grabbed a handful of short, spiky hair and tipped Elijah’s head back. "How do you know all this, young man?" he asked sternly.

But instead of an answer, he got a kiss. A warm, dry, tentative kiss. "I trust you," Elijah said softly, and Ian was lost. He kept reminding himself that Elijah was a superb actor, but it didn’t matter now, he was on the verge of capitulating. Only one thing held him back, and, as if he’d read Ian’s mind, Elijah said, "You really need to see my driver’s license?"

"You wouldn’t lie to me about anything that important, would you?"

Elijah shook his head, then reached across Ian to turn out the light. "I won’t bite," he promised before he kissed Ian again.

Undressing him was like unwrapping a perfect little present. There was something velvety about him, and steely, too, like a fist in a beautiful glove. For a moment, and for all his advantage of age and experience, Ian felt wildly outclassed. Young people these days were so bold, so unafraid of who they were.

They kissed for a long time. Elijah didn’t seem ready to move past that stage too quickly either because he loved kissing, or out of some sense that he wasn’t quite ready to commit to sex. Well, Ian was old enough to be patient with him. It was nice, kissing Elijah, and he could have been happy just to do that until they both dropped off to sleep, but Elijah upped the ante by moving downwards with his wonderful kisses, his wonderful, enthusiastic tongue, and those little sharp teeth.

Of course he lied about the biting, which was all right, until the moment when Ian had to remind him that some parts of the body were better off without tooth contact. Elijah blushed again, then laughed, and Ian, a sucker for laughter in the horizontal, thought about how nice it would be to hear that laugh every night.

Don’t go there, he warned himself.

"I’ll do better," Elijah promised, and by God he did, with mouth and hands, learning the feel of a cock in both, learning the things that made it stand up and take notice, and the things that made it quiver, and the man attached to it moan. The boy learned fast. He didn’t suck cock like a pro, but he put his heart into it. "Ian?"

"Hmmm?"

"I’d really like you to fuck me." He was using that damn Frodo voice. Saruman could have learned a thing or two from Elijah.

Ian tugged at his hair. "Come up here."

"Did I say something wrong?"

Ian put his arms around Elijah and pulled him close. "No, you said everything right, and I love you for it. But I want to explain to you why I’m not going to do that."

"No?" Frodo voice. Frodo eyes.

"Don’t play Frodo with me," Ian warned. "It’s not fair." His reward was an amused expression. "Now, listen to me. I don’t have any reason to assume you were lying when you told me you’d never slept with a man before. And this is lovely, I’m liking it a lot. But I’d rather we went slowly and carefully here."

"What d’you mean?" Elijah was making figure eights on Ian’s belly with his index finger and it tickled. Ian’s cock was telling him to forget the bullshit and fuck this kid, so he grabbed Elijah’s hand and held it still.

"I mean that what you’re asking is incredibly intimate, and you want to do it for the first time with someone who means something to you."

Elijah elbowed himself up. "I..."

"You know what I mean," Ian said, before Elijah could protest or perjure himself.

Elijah looked away. Ian could see him thinking about it; every thought visible on that beautiful face. So transparent. And yet, he was more clueless than ever about what made Elijah tick. So oblique.

"Another time?"

"Will there be another time?" he countered, and there was a moment where he knew, beyond any doubt at all, that they both felt the answer as a twinge inside their hearts. No. Never again. Tonight was about something that was neither love nor lust; it was a different desire entirely, and once satisfied, it would be over. It wasn’t the science project he’d feared it would be, but it sure wasn’t love.

He rolled Elijah onto his back and threw a leg across him. "You are amazing. You could own the world with those eyes, Elijah," he said as he cradled Elijah’s cheek with his hand. "Just be sure you always know that it is what you truly want." Then they kissed again, and Ian felt strong, young arms wrap around him.

And later, when they had finally gotten around to playing Lady Chatterly and the hobbit (requiring a good bit of giggling and liberal use of the chocolate syrup) he washed a sleepy Elijah, kissed him awake enough to leave through the door, and sent him off to his own room, a happier, wiser young man, badly in need of sleep he wasn’t going to get.

The bed was a mess.

Young people were so tiring.

He dropped off quickly, wrapped in the bed spread, and dreamed of the mirror of Galadriel as a big pool of chocolate syrup, with Frodo floating in a doughnut, singing Norwegian Wood.

-End-