Title: Man for all seasons, 1/1

Author: Kristina [[email protected]]

Rating: R

Pairing: Ian McKellen/Elijah Wood

Archive: BTF, Love For Sir Ian.

Feedback: Pretty much the reason I post.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The author is not affiliated with the mentioned individuals in any way. Any similarities to actual events in the individuals’ personal lives are purely coincidental.
Warnings: Angst. Multiple deaths. Mentions of 9/11. Ian’s RL-ex Sean Mathias as well as some family members appear in this fic. DON’T read if any if this squickens you!

Summary: Basically, Ian is Connor MacLeod. Metaphorically speaking.

Theft: The bit about jewelry is stolen from an Abel Fererra-film called Dangerous Game.

Author’s Note: This is the first fic I wrote on my own. It was born during a long discussion about Ian M, Elijah and mortality that I had with the lovely Joanne. We both got bitten by different bunnies. This is mine.
Alternate Reality: Yep, you guessed it. No Nick.

Also: Helen is Helen Mirren. The rehearsal-bit comes from Ian’s website.

And yes, there’s a reference to a Douglas Adams book. Not because I’m trying to be funny, but because the analogy fits.

To Joanne for the bunny, Jenny for the beta and Elaine for the encouragement.

[ ]= italics

"Come let me love you.

Let me give my life to you.

Let me drown in your laughter.

Let me die in your arms."

John Denver, "Annie’s Song"

This time I thought it’d be different. This time I thought I wouldn’t be left behind. I didn’t think I’d have to go through all this again. Not this time. Some will say that is why I chose him. Regardless of how wrong they may be about that being my primary motive, I would be lying if I said it didn’t play some part in why he made me so happy. I always felt safe in our relationship. I knew he’d never leave me. He was always so loyal, maybe it had something to do with the way he was brought up. If he made a promise he stuck to it. If he made a choice, he suffered the consequences. Above all else, he was honest. He never lied, he always said what he felt, even if it might offend someone, and he never made a promise he couldn’t keep. They all said he’d never commit to anyone, but if he did, oh boy, it meant forever.

And for the first time, I felt nature was on my side. Too much time had passed between our births for there to be any doubt that I would leave him, although I didn’t want to, and not the other way around. I tried to picture myself old and dying, ever aroused, mischievous until the very end. He was sitting by my side, bathed in sunlight, untouched by age or suffering. In my mind he would still be young, still beautiful, looking at me with tearfilled lusting eyes, ready to satisfy my every whim. I had found myself laughing out loud at my own melodrama when viewing the scene over and over in my mind. But bizarre as it was, it still gave me comfort, knowing he’d be there, holding my hand. He would never leave me. Nature was on my side.

But even as I was happy for myself, I still worried about him. It took a while before I addressed it. New Zealand had been a dreamland. A place where we didn’t have to worry about the problems our love might cause. In Middle-Earth there were no repercussions.

It wasn’t until the shoot was over that I forced myself to deal with it. Part of me worried that all Elijah had wanted was an on-set romance and that he wouldn’t want to stay with me once Real Life took over. I have never been so happy about being proved wrong before. "I don’t care" he had said, when I had forced myself to list all the problems we would have ahead of us. The Long Distance, the longing. The gossip and the risk of being found out. That he was still in the closet I had left so many years earlier. How our experiences had made us very different from each other. How we moved in different circles, and how those we loved would be affected. The fact that he would lose me. "You have to." I said. "You have to think about it. I don´t ever want to hear from you that you didn’t know what you were getting yourself into." He looked straight into my eyes then, his own suddenly seeming very old, burning with infinite wisdom. I sometimes had to remind myself that he was not an average nineteen year old. "I do care," he had said. "I care enough to say I choose whatever lies ahead. I do so because not choosing you would hurt me more than losing you ever could. I won’t suffer the pain of regret, Ian. For you or for anyone." A tear slid down his cheek and he gripped my arms painfully, clutching onto me as if his life depended on it. "You of all people should understand me. I [will not] be seventy-five years old and know I made the greatest mistake of my life. Not even for you. You cannot ask that of me. You cannot. "

I never did again.

Sometimes I did remind him, however. Whenever he got carried away and made plans that lay twenty years ahead in time, I would tell him sternly "It [will] be wonderful Elijah. You will be happy. But I might not be there to see it." He’d smile wistfully and reply with a faint smirk "You will. Or I’ll take the lift upstairs and drag your angelic butt down myself." I’d smile and say "Yes, yes, a wizard’s honor", even though I wouldn’t believe it.

I never believed in a hereafter. But I didn’t have the heart to tell him.

Adjusting to Real Life was just as hard as I’d expected. My great-nephew had overheard his mother say "I give it a year." Or so he told me. Sean had smiled knowingly and said "Whatever you say, love". A New Line Executive had written a heartfelt letter explaining how the film would be harmed if one were to go public with one’s sexual relations with one another. Peter had called to apologize, utterly embarrassed, probably red to his ears with shame. The Hobbits had stared at Elijah like he had lost his mind, along with his dick. His mother had slapped me.

It wasn’t the physical pain that had hurt the most, even though the red imprint of her ring refused to go away for days, reminding me of my crime. It wasn’t shame of being a dirty old man that caused me tears, I knew beyond any doubt that my motive was as sincere as anyone else’s. It wasn’t even the sympathy for Elijah that hurt me the most, even though it did kill me to see him cry over his mother’s lack of approval, until she announced that she gave us her blessing and made him the happiest man on earth. No, what hurt me the most was that I knew what I was doing. I knew that I would harm him. And it shamed me right to the bone.

She also knew. A few days later she pulled me aside at the party she had thrown for us. "I know you don’t have children," she had said, "so just take my word for it when I tell you that all you try to do as long as you live is to spare them pain. All you ever want is the see them happy. And I look at you," Her voice was forceful, yet it broke, shaking slightly with unborn sobs and unshed tears. "And I [know] that you are going to cause him the greatest pain of his life." She gripped my arm, much like Elijah had done that night before I’d left New Zealand. "You’re the love of his life. And he’s going to lose you." She started to cry but composed herself within seconds. "I also know that you’ll give him the greatest joy of his life. And that’s why I’m doing this." She smiled through her tears. "You’re a wonderful man. You’re all I could ever wish for Elijah. But I would lie if I said I didn’t blame God for ever letting him meet you." I had nodded, unable to keep the tears from stinging my eyes as I started to tell her what Elijah had said about the pain of regret. She had nodded, waving her hand in the air as to stop me. "I know," she said, "and I love you for it." As she left, I swore never to let Elijah know any of this. The burden he’d have to carry one day would be heavy enough.

Elijah and I were too different to even consider living together. He was a patriot, and loved his family and the beaches of California. And I, well I was very British. After spending twenty plus years getting my house just right, I had no intention of ever moving again. Besides, if I had, well let’s just say California would be the farthest from my mind. Long Distance added a certain spice to our relationship. When we were apart, we could indulge ourselves in our separate lives: our careers, our friends and families. I enjoyed the time I had to myself, I noticed that came with age. I was developing callouses on my right hand, which Elijah of course noticed and teased me about every chance he got. I let him, because I knew he was the same way. When we were together every minute was precious. We hardly argued. Everything we did was in harmony, whether it was playing scrabble, taking strolls, making love or sneaking a feel in the very back of the movie-theatre. He enjoyed being with me as much as I did being with him. I could see it in his eyes when he fucked me, feel it in the way he clutched me to his chest like he feared I would slip away, hear it in the way he sobbed into my palm as I went down on him. In the way he seemed to treasure our time together, I kept wondering if there were more than the geographical distance between us. But I never asked. Never, until death itself knocked on our door with a banging louder than the destruction of the world.

On the morning of a chilly September Tuesday, the city where I was staying was stricken with a blow so hard it would leave tears in the seems of the souls of everyone present. At West 44^th Street we felt like rats caught in a cage inside a burning building. I thought of the dinner-guests at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, watching from a safe distance as the creation dissolved before their very eyes. We didn’t stop working, we didn’t dare to. During a break I watched the exploding towers on the big screens on Times Square. I held Helen as she shivered against me. We shared my cigarettes and spoke constantly with each other. "At least he got out of the city alright" she said as I opened my emergency pack of Chesterfields. My hands shook as they handed her the lighter. They shook all day.

It took us seven hours to establish telephone contact with each other. He had indeed made it out of the city, though he’d been stranded in an airport for hours hardly knowing what had happened, away from familiar faces. When the news broke, the first thing I thought of was not my own safety, but Elijah’s. I was grateful that he had left the city early that morning. Thank heavens I knew his flight number. It wasn’t from New York they said. I almost felt guilty for being relieved. Almost.

It was through Dominic that I finally heard from Elijah. He had managed to send Dom a message from an Internet booth at the airport, and that sweet, sweet boy had worked his way to the theatre just to give me the news. "I was planning on sight-seeing," he said silently, as he looked at his feet with glazed eyes. I said nothing as I pulled him to my chest and let him ruin my shirt.

In the chaos and confusion that surrounded us, my mind drifted to remember another loss, in another time, one which seemed so long ago I had trouble grasping that I had ever been that young. Sarah was the first person to ruin my shirts. She was also the first real friend I ever had. I even tried to convince myself that I liked her the way normal boys liked girls, but I knew in my heart that was not the case. I used to come over to her house and hold her just like I held Dominic that day. Her unusually bright green eyes would focus on a spot somewhere behind me as she mumbled incoherently about something I could never make out. So fragile and slender her body, yet strong and tall for a fifteen-year-old girl. I always wonder what she was saying, if had I heard it I would’ve been able to predict what was coming. "You were just a boy," my father would say, whenever I’d bring it up. "It’s not your fault," he had said tenderly as I sat on his lap the day Sarah’s mother had found her hanging from the ceiling in her room. He stood by it until the day he died.

After the twin towers, it felt necessary to talk to Elijah about his feelings. I tried to sound as casual as I could when we got together almost three weeks later. He more or less confirmed that I was right as he stood there, pale as the moon, unable to move, blue eyes wide in shock. "I.. I..just don’t want to, to lose you.. or miss out on anything… or think about it," he stuttered, toothpaste foam still in the corner of his mouth. "That is a good thing." I said reassuringly as I crossed the room to stand in front of him, touching him soothingly wherever I could reach. "I just don’t want you to be afraid, Elijah." I was worried for him. "Realistic yes, but not to live your life in fear. We have so much to look forward to. We’ll have many long years together." He looked up at me, in that moment, and said the only thing I wanted to hear "I’m happy, Ian."

I think he might have been right about that God of his, after all.

That night as I held him in the aftermath of our lovemaking I proposed that we’d be prepared, just in case either one of us might die. That would be helpful to the one left behind, and we wouldn’t have to think about it while we were both here. [Either one of us]. That’s the way I’d said it. Neutrally. As if it could go either way. It seemed as if my act left him calm and undisturbed, and I did everything to keep it up. So I said nothing as he shivered when I told him about my will. I just held him tighter.

About a year later the subject came up again. "You have a grave?" He stared at me in disbelief as I continued to rinse the vegetables. "Please tell me you’re joking." I shook my head unable to keep from giggling. "No, I’m telling you it’s true. It’s at the "Eternal Rest for the Distinguished Homosexuals" just up north. I have the papers somewhere. We actors drop off so often we have to sign up at least thirty years in advance." He tossed an onion at me. "You rascal." After dinner I showed him the papers that proved my ownership of a spot in my family’s plot. He gave me a sly look of disbelief, then simply shrugged and said "Then I’m getting one. Right next to you." From the mouth of Elijah even those words sounded of nothing but sweet romance. Lord, but I loved him.

Sometimes, as I lay in bed watching him sleep, I would think about what I’d been like when I was his age. [Completely different.] As I watched his slender form I would sometimes be reminded of another boy whose body I once loved.

Michael was the first man I ever bedded. Despite our attempts of achieving more, it was nothing but awkward. Two nervous, inexperienced boys trying to figure out where to touch in the best way, without being able to talk about it properly. The shame was always there. It took me many years to realize that I wasn’t a monster and by that time we had slipped out of touch. I didn’t see him again until 1985. I had heard from a friend that he was in town and sought him out. It shocked me when I saw him, standing in the doorway as he opened the door. "You can leave," he said noncommittally as he saw my expression, but I shook my head and pushed myself inside. We wound up talking all night, drinking the Evian I’d brought, him too sick to eat the chocolate. He asked me if I was clean, and I told him I was. We shook hands as we parted on good terms. I had managed to ask the one question that had been on my mind since he opened the door. "Are you bitter?" His response shook me, almost as much as the coldness of his hands. "No," he had said, "I got what I paid for." He died the next year. I took my boyfriend to the funeral.

Elijah never had to go through the things I did. He never knew shame. His generation was a proud one. They knew of their rights and their opportunities. Society can build no cage strong enough to contain such spirits as those of Elijah and his friends. Oh, how I envied them in silence, wishing things had been easier for me when I was a boy. Of course I was grateful the world was not what it once was, but I desired to be younger, to be given more time to explore it, see where it may lead. Elijah would live and breathe in the world that was to come, but I would not see it. I tried picturing Elijah at my age, but failed miserably. I’d never see him grow old. Maybe that’s the way he wanted it.

It was a rainy day when he made love to me on my poster bed by the window in my room. He was straddling me, his gaze locked on me as the clouds separated however slightly and a ray of light filtered through the glass and reflected in his eyes. He looked nothing less than one of those greek gods as he threw his head back when we came together. As he leaned forward to kiss me I felt something wet drop down on my face. I told him not to cry.

It was then that I saw the crimson under his nose and on the hand that I had wiped my face with. "It’s OK," he said as I forced him to lie down reaching for a tissue. "I just came so hard, that’s all." He dozed off, unable to remain conscious and I pressed his body against my own, noticing how frail and scrawny it had become. And I thought of Adrian’s.

Adrian’s was a prolonged suffering, punctuated by false hope and torturous remedies. He’d cling to me, the times he was aware of who I was, biting my lip, begging for reassurances. "Swear that you’ll never leave me," he had cried with desperation radiating from his very being. "Tell me you won’t." It was easy to tell him the truth. "No, I’ll never leave you," I had smiled and stated over and over again.

[You’ll leave me.]

It would be different with Elijah, they said. "It’s different nowadays. There is better medication and he won’t be in pain, and he can stay at home if he wants to." I tried to be reasonable as we listened to the reassurances.

But what comfort were they to the mother who would lose her own flesh and blood? What comfort were they to the man who had learned he’d lose his beloved, the one most dear to him? [Again.]

I thought he’d never leave me.

He lay on the bed in his room in Santa Monica, the IV-stand tucked up against the bed frame. The drugs were working their magic, making him feel as good as could be expected, and a little sleepy in the process. "You´re old," he stated as I sat at the foot of the bed massaging his feet. "Oh, am I?" I raised an eyebrow as he giggled slightly and inspected the back of his hand. It had hurt the first time they’d stuck the needle in him. My mother-in-law and I had both petted him until the tears stopped. It still hurt every time the nurse changed the IV-bag. I had figured out ways to distract him.

"Yes, old man. You are old and wise. But I’m not. And you can’t say ‘just you wait’ because I’m never gonna be." He looked away suddenly, staring up into the ceiling as if gazing for stars.

"All my life I’ve felt older. I’ve lived such a different life. I thought I’d done it all, but I realize now there are still things left. So many things left."

There was not a trace of self-pity in his voice, or of anger at the injustice of the world, just honest, accepting sadness. It was suddenly too much for me. I felt my heart constrict, like I couldn’t take another second, but then he turned back to look at me, grinning from ear to ear.

"But I’ll [never] be old and stuffy!"

I put down his feet and managed to smile back at him. "No love, you’re not."

I lifted my hand above my head and looked at it. It had always been naked, always been… clean. The red and the white of the elegant stones sparkled a little, then settled to rest within their discreet settings. I tasted the word in my mouth. Husband. It sounded odd saying it. Like an exotic fruit one sees in the delicacy store. At the same time it felt perfectly in order. The way things should be.

[Husband.]

The design was his idea. "I gave you my seed and my blood. So it feels only right to give you a ruby and a diamond." It would probably have sounded gruesome to most people, but I felt it was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever done for me.

It may sound strange to those unacquainted with situations such as these, but the last few months we had together were also the best. I never left his side, staying with him in his apartment at his mother’s house. She installed an intercom between the two buildings. We slept in shifts. It killed her, a little bit at a time, to watch her son breathe, knowing soon he would no more. "At least this way, he is spared the pain of losing you." She had tried to smile but failed. "That is a comfort, isn’t it?"

Elijah kept his wits until the end. Even when his speech had left him, and he had trouble staying awake, his old self peered out from behind his eyelids. He was alive and vibrant until the very day he was no more. He remained Elijah.

The entire Fellowship had gathered in January to celebrate his birthday, his very last. Twenty-four. It seems so unfair that some people should receive so much time, and others so little. He was happy that day, his old usual self, if you disregard of the coughing, the fatigue and disability to hold down the beer they poured him. "It’s just one, Mom, and it’s my birthday. Besides, what harm can it do now?" His sly smile had won him the victory. He hadn’t noticed the way she’d left the room to cry.

It was a tearful goodbye. We’d all grown too close in New Zealand to put on a charade. We all cried and told our fondest memories of a distant land, long, long ago. The shoot of the films had never felt as distant as it did in that precise moment. And we all knew.

It's not supposed to go like this.

As they all passed by his gift wrapping-cluttered bed to hug him, Elijah made a comment about being on lit de parade, which brutal as it was, cracked everyone up. "I’m not quite dead yet," he giggled "but I like the idea of a state funeral. I think I deserve it, don’t you?" A tear-soaked Peter kissed him full on the lips and said "Goodbye, my son." To this day, I love him for it.

I remember the last time we made love, before the drugs took away his potency and his sickness took over. He was lying on his back, tucked under countless blankets. I would not risk crushing him, and he could not strain himself in any way, so we just lay there, touching each other until we climaxed. His eyes looked peaceful afterwards as if lit with magical light. "I have seen the wonders of the world," he said, with a voice filled with quiet resolve. "I have seen it the corners of my soul, hidden from me until now." He stared for a moment into the distance and looked for a second very much like Sarah. Then Elijah returned to me, winked at me and gave me the sweetest of smiles. "I have nothing to fear anymore." He touched my cheek. "But you are afraid."

For the first time in my life, the gift of speech deserted me. I did not know what to say, and had I known, I would not have been able to say it. "You think I’m deserting you." His eyes pierced through mine as I felt myself starting to sob.

"But don’t you see? I don’t have to leave you." He placed the tips of his fingers on the left side of my chest . "You can keep me safe in here." He leaned forward and kissed the skin over my heart. "Will you?"

In the way that I touched him, in the way my fingers memorized every line and curve, touching them for almost the last time, lay my promise. ‘I will keep you, always.’

It’s strange to remember touching him, knowing I never can again, knowing his body is forever lost to me. It will never again lie before me filled with breath. In the end it became too frail to contain him. No cage can be built strong enough to hold such a spirit.

I held him in my arms when he died, in every way save one, an old man. His family surrounded us, as did Dominic who had stayed in the main building ever since I’d moved in with Elijah. Hobbits are loyal. I did not notice any of them.

I kissed his lips, his soft, full lips and prayed that he could feel it. The nurse had said he wasn’t in any kind of pain, that his body had given up the struggle. All we had to do was to wait as the faint, shuddering breaths came further apart. It was only a matter of minutes she said, and then it’d be all over. He’d spoken softly to us a few nights earlier, as his strength returned one last time, before abandoning him completely.

"I want to tell you something," he’d said, too tired to open his eyes to look at me or his mother. "There’s something I want you both to know." He seemed to lean into the caresses we gave to him. "I am… content," he whispered before sinking down into the sheets. "I know," his mother said as I bent down to whisper "thank you" in his ear.

Thank you.

Now as both speech and strength had abandoned him, he could do nothing but let his body get the rest it craved. If he was slipping in and out of consciousness, we couldn’t tell. He lay motionless between the sheets, surrounded by those he loved the most. They had told us he could still hear whether he was conscious or not, so we spoke to him constantly, saying the only thing we could say. "We love you," they told him. "I love you," I said.

We all heard the wheezing in his breath and saw the way his eyelids fluttered. For a moment I thought they would open, but I knew they would not. I clutched him harder and stroked his hair as death claimed him and lifted him from my arms.

We held him for a long time.

As I look back at it now, I can say without a doubt that he changed me for the better. I used to be afraid, wanting guarantees, burned by my experiences. I’ve learned not to trust the ways of the world to remain predictable, because they won’t. Nature doesn’t play fair. There are no guarantees. People ask me sometimes; wouldn’t I be better off if I’d never met him? I don’t answer them, not because my answer’s yes, but because the question itself is unable to be answered. We can only see the things that happen, not the ones that never do. I don’t know what my life would have been had I never met Elijah.

What I do tell them is that I’ve no regrets. An opportunity presented itself, and I chose to seize it. That’s really what life is, a string of opportunities and the choices we make.

I will tell you this: if love chooses to present itself as an opportunity, grab a bloody hold of it and don’t let go. We never know where life will take us, or what people we will meet. But we know who we are, and we know what we have, the freedom to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Elijah and I said yes to each other. What was gained was worth the pain we suffered, no, scratch that, that [I] suffered. He didn’t suffer. When he left us, that day in February, I realized there had to be forces at work in this world. Such a miracle that he was, he could not have come to me by chance. The opportunities in the world are not presented to us by random accident, there is some thought to it. He won me over. The bastard.

I don’t know what to call these forces. I do know that I’ll meet him again. I almost say ‘soon’ but I correct myself. I don’t know the future any more than anyone else does. I will face whatever opportunities are presented to me, and I will try to live my life without fear, as Elijah taught me.

Thank God I met him.

I once again lift my hand to look at my ring. The thin golden band still seems right on my finger. I look at the stones he chose for me and I picture the blue ones on his band resting with him in the ground. I chose them for our eyes, I’ve never claimed to be very original. He smiled all the same, the ring caught between his fingers. "They’re [your] eyes," he laughed. "I’ll keep them with me, always."

I look at my stones, picturing his face. People have asked about them, but I’ll never tell. They would never understand what they signify. He gave me his life [and] his death. For that I am eternally grateful. He isn’t here for me to thank him so I pour my thanks into my work, into my days, and into the nights when I meet him in my dreams. The dreams are coming more seldom now. I know it isn’t a bad thing, I know life here should be my prime objective.

But one day.

I twirl my wedding band again. For a while yet, I’ll let it rest on my finger, marking to the world that I am indeed married. But eventually I will retire it to a chain to hang around my neck. Back to being a solitary man, then. I will never completely take it off. I owe him that much.

I know I’ll be alright, I have my long-suffering friends, the fellowship and my family. I guess Elijah also knew, somehow. And I hope he knew I’ll never forget him. He is my first husband, after all. I snigger and bend down to place a pebble on the headstone that marks the grave in which his body lies. Where the rest of him is one can only guess, but I know I’ll meet him there. "I’ll be with you some day, Elijah."

Some day.

The End.