wait a minute, i am just about to be brilliant

[cimorene]

wasn't i prolific today? with the TWO new parts of 'muertos de sed.'

what was mcee smoking when she thought of this pairing, anyway?

from seven:

elijah at fifteen was a joyless and calculating very small adult with a squeaky voice, although he passed as an overachieving hollywood child easily. dan has a voice trembling on the edge of deep. it's going to be deep. right now it's uneven and it doesn't hide a lot. dan doesn't have that polished self-control that fifteen-year-old elijah had.

from eight:

'been awhile.' he looks like he's playing a part in a movie leaning on the railing, although maybe not a very good movie. the lighting is poor, and his expression is unreadable. but he lounges like a pro, his feet braced apart, elbows back, hands clasped around the railing framing his hips.

'yeah,' elijah agrees cautiously. oh, the hell with it. 'too long. i'm sorry.' it's just... he can't finish the speech yet. italy? being fucked-up? did you really get my phone number as a present?


vii

elijah at fifteen was a joyless and calculating very small adult with a squeaky voice, although he passed as an overachieving hollywood child easily. dan has a voice trembling on the edge of deep. it's going to be deep. right now it's uneven and it doesn't hide a lot. dan doesn't have that polished self-control that fifteen-year-old elijah had. he's sensitive and nervous, an introvert who's not too skilled at disguising when he'd rather be somewhere else. and he's either not calculating at all, or calculating beyond elijah's understanding.

'hello?'

'hello,' he sort-of whispers.

'hi, dan,' says elijah. 'is there any reason you don't want to raise your voice above three decibels?'

'yes.' a muffled sound: he's putting his hand over the mouthpiece. then a sucking rustling sound. when he comes back, the background noise is gone. 'but it's a secret.'

'a secret.'

'everything that happens on the set,' says dan, getting awkwardly fifteen-years-old solemn and forgetting all about the joke, 'and people are always leaking things, and then you don't get asked anything you can say the answers to except "did you learn anything making this film?".'

'a secret,' says elijah. 'that's cool.'

pause for dan to blush. 'yeah.'

in april it's the same. 'hello?'

'hello.'

'dan. how's it going?'

a laugh, and 'do you always answer the phone like that?'

may: 'hello?'

'hello.'

'dan--' he didn't like this, always as if it were an utter surprise. fifteen-year-old elijah would never have called back in may. he didn't like it, but he was always smiling when he said it. 'what's up?'

'you haven't learned yet that nothing's ever up, have you?' said dan. 'if you want to hear about the fight emma had with the makeup artist--'

in the hottest part of july: 'hello.'

'it's dan. i know you're wondering why i called, but before you ask, i'll just admit i don't have a reason. i'm bored, and i wanted to hear your voice.'

elijah's mouth is dry. he swallows with some difficulty. 'oh,' he says. 'all right.'


viii

siento que no tengo fuerzas ya
para saltar y agarrar el sol
y por más que yo lo intente no me escucho ni mi propia voz

--shakira, te necesito

i'm sorry i'm not strong enough yet
to reach up and seize the sun
and no matter how i try, i don't listen to my own voice

--translation mine

in december they haven't spoken in three months. elijah's been partly filming, but mostly just sort of living, in italy. he flies into london in the middle of the day. they plunge down through a layer of clouds in the plane, and land on a clear but dim day, a sea of london gray like the inside of a swimming pool. it's too dark inside to justify sunglasses, and the holiday crush makes him nervous so he eats his lunch at the airport cafe with a hat crushed over his eyes before he goes to look for a cab.

'shit,' says orli with genuine regret. 'look, don't hurry and i'll get back by the time you get there. did you know the new harry potter movie's premiering tomorrow?'

'it is?' says elijah politely, and slurps seeds off a dill pickle spear. 'weird.' he didn't even have any suits in italy, so he goes to the premiere in a pair of orli's too-long pants and a dress shirt, which, when he gets there, are soaked through because orli is trying, but not yet succeeding, to become more mature and responsible, and insists they take a walk after dinner. there are black puddles all over the pavement when they get out of the cab. elijah wrings out the hem of his shirt where he's been splashed and brushes at droplets trying to soak through the shoulders.

'next,' says orli, 'you'll shake like a dog,' and drags him inside, where the party is in full swing. over an oriental carpet, inside a gilt frame, elijah catches a glimpse of black hair in a mirror, but it's not him. tom felton is talking to some suits; he keeps shrugging nervously inside his jacket. he catches alan rickman's eye and gets a raised eyebrow, possibly at the resemblance to dan--who's nowhere in sight. a producer is wandering in his direction, and elijah turns away before he can intercept an opinion on his latest work.

he should have gotten there earlier. the back steps, when he finds them again, seem smaller than he remembers and cold in the hushed drumming of rain, falling again in fat droplets, far apart. there's a puddle under the last step, a familiar chip in the railing's paint, and no one sitting there. the cement is dark gray with water at the edges of the overhang. he perches on the rail and lights a cigarette to keep from nibbling his fingernails.

five minutes pass. the rain slowly wets the back of elijah's shirt. ten cars rumble past, and then he stops counting. there's a bird overhead that might be a hawk, but he thinks fancifully that it's an owl, and flicks his ash over the railing. he's getting cold, clenching his teeth to keep from shivering.

'hi,' comes from behind him with no warning. he almost falls off the railing. when he looks around dan's out of the shadow, squinting up at him; he must have been standing back against the building, or have walked around from the side.

'uh.' elijah is blank and dumb. 'hi.' he doesn't know to step back from the rail until dan gestures, and then he puts his hands on it and jumps up and over it with a neat swing of his hips and legs. now he's definitely taller.

but he still has the same tentative smile, as though he's afraid of something, while his eyes argue with his mouth and whisper, i know what you're thinking. i know what you're going to do. elijah drops the cigarette and grinds it out with his toe.

'been awhile.' he looks like he's playing a part in a movie leaning on the railing, although maybe not a very good movie. the lighting is poor, and his expression is unreadable. but he lounges like a pro, his feet braced apart, elbows back, hands clasped around the railing framing his hips.

'yeah,' elijah agrees cautiously. oh, the hell with it. 'too long. i'm sorry.' it's just... he can't finish the speech yet. italy? being fucked-up? did you really get my phone number as a present?

dan's hands clench around the rail.

they watch the cars drive by and catch up with shoots, parents, and dan's changeable taste in music with the kinds of pauses you find in a bar when there's a football game on the television. dan is tired of smashing pumpkins, cautiously interested in triphop, doubtful about disco, and irritated with what he calls the harry potter 'package.'

'at least frodo is kind of a badass,' elijah says. 'i mean, if you have to be typecast as someone. i've got my own action figure and everything. more than one. and in germany, these freaky marionettes.'

dan laughs, 'i bet i have more toys than you do.'

elijah mutters, 'yeah, and i have every one.'

dan's head comes up and he squints a little, 'sorry?'

'dom's life's mission,' says elijah uneasily, and squashes the impulse to edge further away. 'there must be forty of the buggers. they don't look like you at all.'

'what?' daniel laughs. he puts his hand on elijah's knee to turn him so they're facing more fully and elijah tenses a little, but he allows it--he's not fifteen, anyway, he's sixteen and he knows dan's mother, and they're friends.

elijah makes a decision. 'it started as a birthday present. that day you called and dom answered the phone?'

dan's grin is the slow kind, that starts outside his eyes and in the corner of his mouth. 'yeah?'

'i was cleaning the refridgerator and the phone rang. when i got back, dom turned this brown paper bag upside down and all this harry potter stuff just came raining down--' the rain's picked up, just a foot from elijah's other knee, soaking his pants through.

dan's laughing, and elijah's giggling.

'--the books, a book on tape, all these action figures, harry and hermione and the magic... cauldron...? there's this little rubber owl...' dan shrieks.

'that thing is sick. they bought the cauldron--but that's a toy from chamber of secrets!'

elijah forgets what he's going to say for an instant, watching the animated face and the changeable smiles flitting across the delicate features. daniel is just getting old enough that laughter doesn't make him look twelve, like it did to elijah until just a few years ago. in a moment the silence registers, though, and he cocks his head a little. one eyebrow rises. his mind's wandering all over the place. elijah blinks, and shakes his head.

into the silence comes more of the rain, until the mouth of the alley's not entirely visible and the water's condensing and dripping on daniel's glasses.

'you'll be missed,' elijah says.

dan looks down. his hand is still on elijah's knee. then he looks up and shrugs, 'but i'm so wet.' elijah doesn't blink, just stares back at him for a while--it's something he doesn't like to do, looking too long, even if he's not meeting anyone's eyes--it makes him nervous. he needs to jump around. but from the beginning he's stared at dan, an oddly quiet exercise even when they're talking.

he's so solemn, wrinkling his nose to keep his glasses up, the same height as elijah sitting because his tallness is all those long legs bent grasshopper-like in front of them, with their calves pressing together. there's even a single drop of water on one of his cheeks, and it even has a little bit of light reflected in it. outside the warm damp circle under the overhang the rain drives at an angle and dimples the surface of a puddle with a single highlight, the reflection of a streetlamp, not too far different.

he sighs, and daniel unconsciously sighs too. elijah bites his lip, takes a breath and kisses him.

Comments

[camillafarfalla.livejournal.com]

Damn you! You've sucked me back in! Bc of course it's lovely... I like older!growing-up!Dan and all Elijah's thoughts and Dom's presents (hee!) and and and. Oh yeah, and the kissing. whee! moremoremoremoremoremore!!!

Re:

[cimness.livejournal.com]

heh.

i'm not sure i'm writing dan consistently, but i consider this fic more of a block-breaker than an actual, well, project. so i suppose that's okay.

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

hmph. this pairing kicks my ass. every time i decide it's just wrong and i want no more of it, along comes something i can't resist. like this. which is really just lovely.

Re:

[cimness.livejournal.com]

i agree, though, about the pairing in general. not that fiction in itself can be wrong, but as a movement i'm highly uncomfortable with the danlijah thing. most of what goes on in the community squicked the hell out of me, and i got so disgusted last fall i decided not to finish this and quit the community. but whatever. you can't be sick by association, and i felt like finishing it.