It's a Saturday night.

It's raining like a mother and Elijah Wood has just decided that they have to pull the car over to the side of the road and walk down a whopper of a hill to explore the valley below.

So: Saturday night. Raining like a mother. Walking down a hill.

Sean decides that Elijah is indeed absolutely, irrevocably insane. Sean asks Elijah if they made him take a mental health screening before hiring him. Sean worries when Elijah confirms that they did not.

But overall, he gives in. Because it's a light, misty, warm sort of rain. Because the hills smell like the purest earth he's ever walked on when they're soggy and wide in front of him. Because Elijah is one of the most beautiful things he's ever seen and the fact scares him enough to possibly make him fall down said hill, on a Saturday night, in the middle of a rainstorm.

"I carry you up the steps of Mount Doom," Sean huffs, lifting and plodding soggy sneaker-covered feet, "and I practically save Middle Earth. Do I have to follow you around the New Zealand countryside, too?"

"Yes," Elijah replies, trotting ahead.

And Sean stops complaining, because he doesn't really complain well—not seriously, anyway. He was trying to be funny. But it's a Saturday night and he's stumbling down a hill and hey—a guy's got to have his limits, doesn't he?

Looking: Elijah, a vision of denim and cotton—blue, brown, white, blue, brown, white—getting steadily damper. A cat—tiny and constructed like a boy, blue marbles for eyes, alabaster for skin.

"Do you have your cell-phone? Your keys?"

"Is this twenty-one questions?"

"Yep. Are we going to die out here?"

"Yes. Yes. No."

"I forgot the order of my questions," Sean answers, breathing a little heavily, and managing to sound cutely worried without approaching nagging.

Elijah laughs. Because Sean is one of the most beautiful people he's ever met, and the fact excites him enough to make him want to do something as insane as walk down a hill, on a Saturday night, in the middle of a rainstorm.

They wander a while after meeting the bottom of the hill. And silence comes down on the pair, thick like the depth and variation of blue in Elijah's eyes, Sean thinks, because well—you can't look across an expanse of New Zealand valley and not feel quiet drip through your veins.

There's a point where they stop for no reason at all. There's just enough light left for them to see the horizon clearly. Elijah tents his hands over his brow, blocking a glare, his wet shirt stretching over the width of his back, the soggy denim of his jeans lying low on his boyish hips.

Sean crazily fixates on Elijah's sneakers—scuffed white and black, laces half-undone and sloppy. His heart gives a painful squeeze. And then he thinks that it's funny, because that's only supposed to happen in stories. He remembers quite vividly the silly words on silly pages explaining that silly physical feeling. It surprises him. Hasn't he felt it before? Well, yes, probably, he rationalizes. But he can't recall exactly when.

His eye travels higher, smoothing the rough, wet denim, making the cotton shirt stretch tighter around the torso. Another squeeze. Those shoulders and that neck—well, let's not even start on the neck, he thinks, because that brings a squeeze in places other than his chest. Plastered back damp brown hair, all out of sorts with the smooth shape of Elijah's head, and—oh, we need to stop. Another squeeze.

Don't turn your head don't turn your head don't turn your head.

Because when Elijah does that, looking the way he does, when that gorgeous heart-shaped face turns its steel-blue stare and its pink velvet smile back at Sean, he feels the stupid urge to take a single step back. He's took much, Sean thinks, too much all at once.

It's not enough that he's beautiful—oh, no. He's loving. He's mature. He's not a kid, when he should be a kid, because it would be so easy to not love a kid, dear God, why isn't he more like the way he should be? And he's Frodo. He's Frodo when he should be—well, no. No one else could be Frodo.

Important part there, though, is that he isn't just Frodo—Sean is also just Sam. And that fictional relationship opens all sorts of doors for the nonfiction relationship that happens when the cameras turn off. Because Sean has to see into Elijah in a way that he never would have to if they weren't those fictional people every day.

And the seeing goes on like oven-baked velvet, all hot sizzling edges and soft stroking middles, and it makes Sean want to sit still and close his eyes and put his hands over them and pretend he's invisible, the way Ally does when she knows she's in trouble.

He can't look. But he can't move, either. And deep down, he doesn't want to move. In the room down his mental hallway just past Reason lies his life with Elijah. And it's rather annoying, because Elijah's changed all the locks at Sean's silent request and he can't quite figure a way out.

"Can you believe that we're standing here?" Elijah says, head turned still, eyes glowing in a way that makes Sean's face grow hotter than it already is. He turns, sighs grandly, and flops his arms out to the sky, embracing the rain and the green of the valley.

It starts to rain harder and the light of the setting sun is almost gone now. Night creeps over the valley in its usual subtle way; background noises change. And Elijah's drunk on the rain as it pelts him—he'll never use an umbrella again, he swears to himself—and drunk on the way Sean looks at him. Sean looks at everyone in that focused, loving way, but there's something so desperate in it when he looks at Elijah, that Elijah thinks just maybe—

So he turns away from the sunset, eventually, breaking his connection with the passing of the day, and smiles at Sean. He can do this, he thinks, just stand there and stare at Sean, because Elijah's known for his staring, for his lack of concern that it might be rude. And it isn't, really. Not that Sean minds.

But there's something in the way that Sean shoves his hands deep in his pockets and stands there, hair all frizzy-messy from the damp and the trudging down the hill that makes Elijah want to close his eyes and inhale it. If he does it just right, he can close his eyes and let himself shiver from being with Sean, and the shiver goes on and over and on unnaturally—shivering on the heel of shivering around and about until he gets dizzy and has to open his eyes.

So he does that now, and stops only when Sean walks up to him, speaking over the miles of drizzle.

"You're soaked."

Elijah smiles.

"You're going to get a cold."

Elijah laughs.

"...and then Peter is going to withhold rations or something."

He giggles this time, getting a mental image of Peter locking him out of the kitchen/cafeteria trailer. But it's absolutely like Sean to weave concern and humor.

They start walking again, this time in the vague direction of the hill—back where they came. Elijah doesn't want to go home just yet, so he keeps them going slowly. He's learned to ignore the wet on his skin, but he keeps pushing the hair back out of his eyes as it falls in wet-clumped curls. His eyelashes are spiky and the rain makes pink blotches on his cheeks.

Sean watches him out of the corner of his eye, chest so full of frightened wanting that he feels like he's fifteen again. Hates the feeling—then loves the feeling—then back to the hating place, and he can't decide whether he wants to realize how dangerous the feeling is or flat-out ignore it until he's alone and can think again.

Can't think now, not while Elijah walks next to him. Every time they brush arms he shivers—one of those shivers that starts out involuntarily but keeps going because of the way the contact makes you want. Wanting more, hating himself, wanting more, worrying himself. It goes like that.

But it's such a happy feeling, isn't it? Yeah, he thinks. Dropping acid makes you happy, too. But he's so—and Sean looks over again, brimming, brimming, spilling and then reigning it in again.

Silly—bumped arms once accidentally and now it's a game, back and forth, seeing who can bump the hardest, because they're six and belong on the playground again, because it's easier to do that than be adults. But it's mature, too, because they're grown-up friends and can do that without it being serious.

And it hits them like an epiphany (are you listening?); Elijah needs Sean because Sean makes him feel grown-up and unique and important for all the reasons that no one thinks Elijah is grown-up and unique and important. He needs Sean because Sean is stable and supportive and handsome and likes to cuddle—because Sean is not star-struck and never was, because Sean has laugh lines around his eyes, and because Sean thinks wearing a hat backwards is the cool thing to do.

And Sean needs Elijah because Elijah makes him feel naturally like a teenager, like the childhood he never had, like the excitement of new things that have nothing to do with Hollywood, agents, photo shoots, or script readings—because Elijah likes him for all the reasons that no one else likes him for. Sean needs Elijah because Elijah's beauty causes him painful pleasure—can't breathe or have forgotten how—and because he has been forever altered.

They stop at the base of the hill, bumping arms long since evolved into arm grappling and hand pushing. The rain beats down on them and it doesn't matter anymore, because they're completely drenched. Slippery fingers pass back and forth on forearms and shoulders—brown on white, white on brown.

"We're insane," Elijah chortles, stopping suddenly.

"We? There is a we in that statement of insanity? Wanna try that again?"

Elijah raises a perfect eyebrow and indignant facial expression combination that makes Sean laugh. And Elijah thinks that he could go on hearing that chesty noise forever. Sean's eyes go green-hazel instead of hazel-green when he laughs.

"We. Yes. Because you just followed me down a hill and into a valley during a rainstorm. I think that removes you cleanly from the 'sane' category, Sam me dear."

Right. The boy's got a point.

"Least my hair doesn't do that thing."

"What thing?" Elijah asks, raising a hand to his completely messed up hair.

"All spiky and in eighteen different directions. Hippie."

"I am not a hippie. I'm...in character."

Sean snorts with a laugh and drapes an arm around Elijah's back.

"You're not the first actor to say that. And I don't think you'll be the last."

"My hair does not do that thing."

"Regressing, Elijah. Regressing."

"The point isn't resolved!"

Sean stops them, puts on the "Come on, Lijah," face, ten types of practical, and smiles.

"Let's go home?"

"I think the rain's letting up..."

"We're going home."

Tightens his arm around Elijah, just now realizing that Elijah's forearm is hooked around the slippery-damp back of Sean's neck, and that it shouldn't feel as good as it does to be alone and careless.

"But it is. The stars are fuckin' amazing."

"From the car, then. Besides, you're going to want a cigarette any minute."

"...foiled again."

"Exactly," Sean says, grinning and guiding them back up the hill.

At the top of the hill, they de-couple, Elijah circling to the passenger side and falling with a wet drippy plop onto the leather seat. Sean closes the door on his side, laying back into the driver's seat while Elijah goes for his cigarettes and lighter. The scent of cigarette smoke will never again be wholly unappealing to Sean, because it is forever connected with the sensation of Elijah being close.

"Think we'd do this if we were in LA?"

"Maybe," Elijah says, exhaling smoke in the general direction of the cracked window.

"I dunno."

"Well, I mean, it's possible. If we were bored."

"And found a valley."

"There are valleys," Elijah says, chuckling.

"Yeah. Not like this, though," Sean replies, voice a little sad, gaze trained on the ever-darkening horizon.

Elijah grinds his cigarette out on the console ashtray, swipes his hands on the front of his jeans, and then fishes for a mint from a little pack in his pocket. Swirling the green drop around his mouth, he watches Sean.

"Makes you think, though," Elijah begins casually, switching the mint to his right cheek, "that there aren't going to be an infinite number of moments like this. You know. Sitting in a car in New Zealand at sunset. Stupid shit like that. You can't have that every day for the rest of your life, you know?"

"Yeah," Sean agrees, smiling thoughtfully. "True."

"Not gonna, you know, see the same people every day," he says, swallowing what is left of the mint, and staring down at the black mat under his feet.

Sean reaches over and lightly pats the back of Elijah's hand—and then leaves his hand there.

"Hey. Not getting depressed on me, are you?"

Elijah smiles. "Nah. Just thinking out loud."

Sean nods and intentionally forgets to take his hand away. If they could just sit like this for a while, maybe it would fill up his quota for Elijah closeness. Maybe it would make it go away. Life would be so empty if it went away, he thinks. And the thought fills him up with a clawing kind of desperation that happens in moments of lucid panic—moments that people probably have eight times a day.

"I'm going to miss this. You guys. God, the crew, too," Elijah explains, smiling at the last bit. He turns his head towards the window, watching his glassy reflection and feeling the weight of the words as he goes on. "I'm going to miss you. This. But...yeah. You, mostly."

He hates how that sounds. It's so damned stupid that meaningful words aren't somehow programmed to come out deep and sonorous with background music and shit like that. Saying dramatic things always sounds stupid to him, because there's nothing particularly dramatic about the phrases themselves. And if you try to sound huge and important, well—then you sound like you're acting.

They're both staring out their respective windows, hands hot and damp and laying flat one on top of the other. The rain patters softly on the car and the windshield—a cocoon of sound wrapped lazily and privately around them.

"I know, Lijah," Sean replies quietly.

"So much time, you know? We're stuck together. Mountains, helicopters, indoor sets, blue screens..." Elijah chuckles. "There's a whole bunch of shit the other guys don't even know about. Stuff that...just happened when they were filming their own scenes."

"That's true." Sean laughs.

Outside the car, the rain comes to an awfully strange slowing down—and mere minutes go by before it's finished. Silence swoops in to cover the place of background noise, and Elijah's hand is still under Sean's.

With jaw against the side of his window and face turned completely towards the New Zealand horizon, Sean tightens his fingers over the curve of Elijah's hand. His jaw tenses of his own will, inwardly praying that Elijah doesn't care that he's done it. He can feel the chewed off curve of a nail that the make-up people haven't gotten to filing off yet. And those fingers—those slender, pink, boyish fingers—are still damp with rain.

And he closes his eyes when the grip comes back a bit, Elijah turning his hand in Sean's, their palms touching. The sensitive feeling crawls up Sean's wrist and he can't help but keep his eyes shut as Elijah's fingertips softly touch along the inside of his fingers; not playfully, not jokingly, not seriously—but absently, as if Elijah has no control whatsoever over his fingers.

So they sit that way for five minutes or so, playing with each other's hand, fingertips and digits and palms becoming acquainted as if for the first time. They don't look at each other.

Elijah closes his eyes eventually, too, simply because he's tempted to stare at where they're connected, and his pulse starts to do funny acrobatic tricks in his wrists and behind his ears.

Then there's this accidental second where they lift their hands at the same time, and when they move to touch again, their fingers slip one between the other and close together, laced easily. And it turns over and over in Sean's mind that their hands fit so well, that Elijah's hands are so small, that they could belong to no one else.

Elijah's heart thump-skips heavily and he draws a thumb across the back of Sean's hand. He realizes he hasn't been breathing normally since they started this; that he's been sort of holding his breath and then pausing to breath in and out really carefully; that his chest is kind of achy from it; that he should be apologizing for acting strangely.

How does a moment like this end, Sean wonders vaguely in the seconds that follow (falling like drums in the deep—and with an almost maniacally focus he thinks of the Khazad-dûm scene).

Elijah thinks that his heart is going to explode. A layer-cake of nerves, desires, and warnings bakes gradually until he can't sit still. He never was one for sitting still too long. So, taking a deep breath, he sits up and makes a throaty noise, voluntary strength flooding his grip.

"Sorry," he says in an undertone.

"Nothing to apologize for." A reply in an undertone—slightly more rushed.

They still don't move, though the mutual grip they share is tense now.

"Think we should, ah..." Sean sits up a little higher—manly embarrassment.

"Yeah, I—"

And with a bit of fumbling and awkward movement, Elijah pulls away and gets out of the car, the door gaping almost obscenely open on their privacy. He moves towards the back of the car, running both hands over his damp hair and taking a few gulps of air. Sean emerges at a more relaxed rate and remembers to close his door. The noise sends a shudder through Elijah, whose nerves are dancing an opposite rhythm to his thoughts; the dual effect makes him anxious.

"What's wrong?" Sean asks softly, but underneath that he's paternal as always.

"One of those sad moments. It's nothing. Happens all the time. Sometimes it's just—I mean, usually when I'm alone. Just. Sad. Future-thoughts. Those dumb sappy thoughts that people write angsty poetry about. Nothing new."

"It's okay to say you're going to miss me," Sean said, smiling. "Or, like you said, New Zealand 'us.' California is another world compared to this."

We're talking about two different things, aren't we, Sean? Elijah thinks.

Plead don't please don't please don't be honest I won't know what to say if you're honest.

Temporary control threatens to break because Sean knows perfectly well he's doing the safe-topic thing and that he's not addressing the implied issue. Much harder to do that when Elijah's gigantic eyes are pressing yours back into your skull and you feel like doing something stupid like grabbing him and begging him to not forget New Zealand once you leave.

Elijah winds his arms together, cupping either elbow, and a breeze suddenly kicks up from behind the hills. It ruffles his hair and brings a thin layer of gooseflesh up on his arms. They've forgotten how cold it can get at night. Walking closer, Sean reaches out and cups Elijah's elbow in his palm, lightly tugging.

"It's cold. C'mon. I'll go home with you. Make some coffee. Talk about it."

"Your coffee sucks," Elijah says matter-of-factly, snuffling to clear his nose.

"And you drink it every time anyway," Sean replies, grinning.

Mistake that follows: Elijah takes a step forward and Sean doesn't take one in any direction. And in the space between two heartbeats, the rising humor and possible resolution of a sad moment collapses, and the melancholy grips Elijah's thoughts just long enough to cripple his resolve against it. So he collides with Sean's chest, and half a second later, has his free arm around Sean's neck. Dropping Elijah's elbow, Sean instinctively puts an arm around his back and brings them closer together.

"Hey," Sean says slowly. "Hey, it's okay. It's—" And he stops, because his voices cracks tellingly on that last part.

"Fuck," Elijah says, throat thick, on the verge of crying or laughing, and that seems to sum up every little damned thing beautifully in both men's opinion.

Sean buries his face lightly in Elijah's damp shirt collar, inhaling slowly the smell of hours-old cologne, clove cigarettes, and peppermint. Elijah wraps his now-free right arm around Sean's neck, and they stay that way.

Defeated, or so he felt, or so it felt, maybe—whatever, God, just...he's...oh, God...please just—Sean lets his hands move up Elijah's back in the process of bringing him tighter.

And in the course of physically reacting to Elijah, his brain registers that Elijah's crying. Well—it's not crying, really. Tears are coming from his eyes, but that's all. It's the kind of crying that happens when you've been trying very hard to avoid it for a while—the tears just sort of come out and there it is.

Sean tilts his head down, trying to see Elijah.

"Elijah." Arms come tighter around his neck. "Lijah, c'mon."

Brilliant idea, Astin, Sean thinks to himself as Elijah lifts his head, those magnetic eyes brimming with tears inches from his. It hurts like a stab right through and around his heart—no. It's like wrapping a barbed-wire-covered fist around his heart. It pricks and pinches all around like that. And he swears to God that it's the Frodo look, the look that Frodo gets when he's lost hope, when he thinks it's the end of his quest and that he's failed—but instead of a Hobbit, there's a boy behind those eyes.

Swallowing thickly, Elijah snuffles again, a brutality in his eyes that he feels is for himself. And it is, he realizes, in the seconds that tick by, when he can't stop looking at the brownish eyes staring back at him, at that round, handsome face, at those soft lines and creases that add up to staring at Sean. And it's all over him like a flush, like something sticky that only spreads farther when you try and rub it off. He shouldn't be doing this to Sean. He shouldn't be so close. They shouldn't be so together, such a unit, so... They shouldn't—

Common sense doesn't apply to us.

"Can we stop now?"

Sean shakes his head, eyebrows drawing together quizzically.

"Please," Elijah says quietly; but it's a composed, gentle tone, not desperate or begging, and that's what makes it dangerous.

"I don't..."

His hands are already at the back of Sean's neck, so all it takes is a simple rotation of his palms and there—his fingers are around Sean's neck and then up around his jaw. And Sean's head must explode, because—oh, God, oh, no, I...oh God oh God oh God. He closes his eyes and takes a breath, feeling a shaking rattle along his body with such stealth that it worries him.

"You do," Elijah insists; whispering now, though they're the only people for miles.

"Elijah..."

"Sean."

"Shit," Sean breathes, eighty different kinds of worry and self-annoyance and love in his voice. He realizes there are tears at the corners of his eyes and that his chest is rising and falling unevenly with his nervous heart. "What do you..."

"I can't keep making it go away," Elijah exhales miserably, more a thought than an intentional statement. The sentiment is so raw and honest and fucking mutual, Sean thinks, that it's ridiculous—and that it makes his whole body hurt. I'm fucking up, he thinks. I'm fucking up and I've never felt so goddamn alive in my entire life.

"I know."

"What?"

"I know."

"How can you fucking know, Sean, you—"

"I know! Don't tell me—"

"Look, wait. I didn't mean it to sound like I was—"

"No. No, I understand. It's... I understand what you meant."

"I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing, please."

"Look what I've done to you, for Chrissake, this is—"

"Stop. Just... This isn't the night for apologies."

"What is it the night for, then? I can't—"

Sean leans forward and very simply touches his mouth to Elijah's mouth. He could've done it with a fingertip or with a pulling away—but that won't do at all. And, oh, God, the stillness—all stillness, all the way through, from skin to heart and heart to skin as it rebounds and bounces and settles—with the way it feels and the sudden hush over the entire damned planet and all they are doing is standing still with lips touching.

First sound that registers: Elijah's inhale when they break the contact. It fills his throat and Sean's ears because he's been holding his breath the whole time. And then his eyes pop open and they're dark now, and Sean gets all caught up with that again, and his thoughts don't exist because everything his is has spilled out of his head and onto the pavement and is slowing pooling around their feet.

They're both shaking. A few more tears fall from his eyes with a complete lack of cooperation on Elijah's part. Leftovers, Sean thinks insanely, as his eyes fall to that mouth. And then he leans forward and does it again, only he remembers to move this time—and then it's kissing, when you think about it, and Sean and Elijah do think of it, in those moments of throbbing silent insanity when there's nothing but breath and air and nighttime buffering you from the world.

We're going to fall.

Elijah tastes like peppermint and cloves and his mouth is like the outside of a ripe nectarine. Sean tastes like salt and coffee. And it's a messy, wonderful kiss—the desperate kind, the kind that drips and drops down your center and makes you want to cry and laugh with relief all at once—finally, oh, my God, oh, I thought I would...and it's just not...don't stop, God, do not stop, if you...oh God...

And between them, cheeks steadily streaked with tears brush, and it seems disgustingly poetic, the blending of their tears—when it gets to the point where Sean can't tell if he's crying or if Elijah is. That's the climax, when all the barriers cease to exist, when you forget who and why and when.

And again: pulling apart—shared inhalations of breath. No crying now, because the shock of the moment has put a screeching halt to any other possible emotion. Realizing how they are: Sean, hands around Elijah's shoulder blades, gripping him desperately, Elijah, fingers pushed up through Sean's hair, holding the back of his neck, thumbs lined up with his hairline just near either ear.

They stare at each other, but that's too much. Elijah closes his eyes and leans his forehead against Sean's, their noses brushing, lips touching—but all absently and for the sake of closeness this time.

"Your cue," Elijah whispers.

Beat of confused silence.

"To say the line," Elijah explains.

"The line?"

"Think about it, Mister Junior Producer."

Sean breaks into a grin.

"What? 'I love you'?"

Elijah smiles. "Nah. Try that again."

"I love you."

"Take three."

"You sound like Peter."

"No, Peter would be: 'Take nine!'"

Sean laughs, leaning his cheek further into Elijah's. Because he likes this—sickeningly likes this. Glad it's this way, because it's not overpowering. Because he can deal with professing his feelings when he still can feel the friendship between them at the same time.

They aren't exclusive. They can exist together.

He's forgotten the thread of conversation, though, when he tightens his hold on Elijah and lowers his voice.

"I love you..."

He feels Elijah's grin before he can see it.

"Glad you came up with that line."

"I did not. You said—"

"Yes, you did. I just asked in general."

"...foiled again."

Elijah laughs, opening his eyes and standing straight. And for the first time since kissing, they can stand tall and look each other directly in the eye.

"It's a good thing that I love you, too, or just think of how embarrassing this would be..."

Sean chuckles, mind going a million thoughts a second, but outwardly he's entirely calm.

"Can we go home?"

Shifting apart, Elijah slides his hand down Sean's arm, twining their fingers lightly. He smiles that smile that does things to Sean's stomach, and then takes a step towards the car.

"Yeah. I think I'm ready now."