Fic: Chasing Ian chapter 6

[kribban]

6



He jams the small tube between his lips and blows without realizing what he is doing. “You are too drunk to drive,” the automated voice says in that annoyingly chipper tone. He twists the key in the ignition back and forth as if that will make the engine start, but nothing happens.

“STUPID FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!” He wants to punch his hand through the window and smash that fucking voice to bits but manages not to through sheer love for his car. He tentatively hits the dashboard with his fist, carefully, so as not to damage the upholstery.

“Why did you install this thing anyway?”

Ian has caught up with his finishing-stretch sprint and is leaning against the car door, not at all out of breath.

“I didn’t,” Elijah lets out through gritted teeth. “It’s a gift from mom.”

“Really? Scoot over. I’ll drive.”

“I thought you didn’t have a license anymore.”

“Unthinkable though it might be to you, Elijah, I got rid of my car. I did not get rid of my driving skills.”

Elijah crosses his legs in front of the passenger seat. He doesn’t want to be here, cooped up in a cramped space with Ian and forced to rely on him to get them home.

He notices with much displeasure that when Ian blows there is no annoying voice and that the car, his car, that he bought and paid for, starts without protest.

Ian turns to smirk at him before backing out of the driveway. “So there was nothing wrong with the cooling system was there?”

It’s already darkening outside and the sights of palm trees and street lamps whiz by before Elijah’s eyes. He doesn’t say a word.

“Elijah? Don’t you want to talk? Or bite my head off? Maybe even apologize?”

The last bit is said quietly and Ian keeps his attention on the road. “I guess not,” he mutters.

Elijah’s patience is definitely running out. They’re alone now, and he no longer has to worry about being overheard. He drums his thigh absent-mindedly, making damn sure to stare at the landscape and not at Ian.

“Why should I be the one who apologizes?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Ian says in a sing-song voice. “Probably because you’re the one who’s been acting like a jackass today.”

Elijah grunts. “At least I didn’t offer my services to the other guests, now did I?”

“And what a shame that was. You could’ve made a fortune.” Ian gives him a reprimanding look. “Really, Elijah, are you still stuck on that?”

Stifling a shout-and-kick attack he knows will only make him look childish, Elijah clenches his fists. “It’s kinda hard not to be stuck on a damn good story when you’re fucking the star.”

Ian sighs. “I… I don’t know why you’re so upset. Is it because you heard it from him first, is that it? It was twelve years ago! You and I had never met. And what’s so wrong with a bit of sex, anyway? It’s not like [you] were a blushing virgin when we met! Really Elijah, what is this?”

Elijah tears his eyes from the window as the car pulls up on the driveway. “You shouldn’t have been so fucking vague, that’s what this is.”

“Well, what did you want me to do? Did you really want details?”

Ian sounds and looks a combination of incensed and exhausted, like a desperate man at the end of his rope. Elijah knows the feeling. “What do you want anyway, Elijah?”

“I want to not talk about this.”

Ian looks him over pleadingly. “It’s in the past. [You’re] my present.”

Elijah opens the car door. “Puh-leaze, save the rhetoric.”

The grass is wet under his sneakers and he almost slips on the hose in the darkness. He starts walking the two hundred feet to the guest house, knowing Ian’s right behind him.

“Rhetoric? Well, what do you want me to say then?”

“Nothing, Ian. Just absolutely nothing.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No, why would I be? You just had some fun. That's all, right?”

“Yes, it was fun,” Ian interjects. “It’s strange how a bit of fun can be turned into such serious business.”

Elijah doesn’t even turn back to look at him. “Oh don't mind me, Ian, I'm simply not urbane enough to see the humour in it. You probably shouldn't have picked such an ill-educated, out-of-the-loop, cornbread altar boy for a fucktoy. Prudish, didn't you say I was?"

Ian has almost caught up with him now and their shoes make slushy noises in the wet grass. "I told you I didn't mean it like that." Elijah ignores him. They're almost at the front door now, just a few more steps...

"For Christ's sake, man, it was only a parlour game!"

Elijah stops, the front door only a few feet away. He turns around slowly, not repeating his grossly dramatic twirls from earlier tonight. “Why don't you do it again then, if it was such great fun? I bet it beats playing Scrabble with me.”

“Because I don’t want to! Elijah…” Ian reaches for him, palms up, like a peace offering. Elijah steps backwards.

“Why did you do it in the first place then? Huh? Why did you do [any] of it in the first place?”

Ian runs his hand through his hair, messing it up more than straightening it. “I... Because I felt like it. I did. I felt like doing certain things and so I did. I’m still like that….well, in a lot of ways, you know that, and you should be grateful. Had I not ‘felt like’ expanding into films all those years ago, you and I would never have met! There's nothing more to it than that. You make it sound like I sat around as a boy concocting some elaborate scheme of how to grow up to be as debauched as possible."

"Scheme or no, you managed that pretty well," Elijah says coolly. “You’re, like, the reigning champion of vice.”

Ian sighs. "Is that what I am to you now? I thought I was your boyfriend."

Elijah feels something disgustingly like pity start to well up inside him. He can't stand it. “Let me tell you who you are, Ian, so there is no confusion. You’re someone who’s had more traffic than the Santa Monica Highway. You're the guy who dropped to your knees for just about anyone who crossed your path and you didn’t even charge for it. And according to your own words, you’ve also been a cross-dressing, weed-smoking, acid-tripping slut, and not to forget, you had a fucking gangbang in front of a live audience. And yes, you're my boyfriend. Currently.”

Ian presses his lips together tightly. “I see. Thank you for enlightening me.”

Elijah bows mockingly. “Oh, you’re most welcome, dear Sir. Cornbread boy does what he can to educate.”

“Is that so? Then let me tell you who you are.” Ian folds his arms across his chest. “You are a passionate, brilliant, exceedingly dignified man who has decided to strip yourself of all self-respect and regress into the immature little monster you’re famous for having outgrown years earlier than the rest of us. Tonight you have, for reasons far beyond my comprehension, been acting like a surly spoiled brat with no consideration for anyone but yourself, and with a hackneyed vocabulary to boot!”

“That’s –“ Ian cuts Elijah off before he can continue.

“And to appear sophisticated, you wrap your insolence in trite verbosities and double entendres so bad they make my stomach turn! Your lines are so clichéd they belong in a daytime soap opera! Or worse, a PG rated teen movie attempting to be scandalous. And then you try to shock me with your rude little expressions and graphic imagery. Sweetie, I [did] those things, do you honestly think that saying ‘fuck’ will make me tremble? For Christ’s sake, Elijah, you sound like a twelve year old who’s learned obscenities from a glossary to piss his parents off.” Ian pauses. “And do you know what the worst thing of all is? The worst thing of all is that I once believed this day might come.”

Elijah takes a step backwards. “What the fuck are you talking about? I didn’t do anything! This is all you! This is your fault!”

Ian’s jaw drops. “Oh God, it [is] happening! Yes, yes, it’s happening. I was warned about this, you know.” He takes a step forward, and Elijah instinctively backs up further.

”What are you talking about?”

“I was warned about this. Should know better than to fall for another twenty-year-old, they told me. But I said ‘Oh no, not my Elijah. He’s so spectacularly mature for his age.”

He takes another step closer and Elijah’s heel hits the first step of the porch. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“This,” Ian says calmly. “I’m talking about this.”

“Don’t you… don’t you dare! This is not – [You’ve] done wrong, not I.”

But Ian isn’t budging. “What exactly is it I’ve done wrong, Elijah? Trusting you to act like a mature adult?”

Elijah takes a fumbling step backwards, up on the porch. “H…How c – can you… How can you just… [stand] there and say that?” He scrabbles for his keys, not realizing they’re still in Ian’s hand. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re not fucking normal!”

Ian just looks at him. “We obviously have different concepts of morality, but that doesn’t mean you’ve the right to impose yours on me.”

“Morality? You’re fucking lacking one!” Elijah’s back slams against the hard wooden door. He feels positively outnumbered, which of course is ridiculous with only the two of them present.

Ian takes a step up onto the porch. “As I said, different concepts. Are you looking for these?” He holds out his hand containing the keys, and Elijah snatches them angrily. Ian simply shrugs. “You’re acting like an idiot.”

He lowers his voice. “It can still be all right, sweetie. If you were to drop your juvenile martyr act for one second and tell me what the fuck your problem is, we might just be able to work something out. The game’s lost anyway, you know, might as well be adult enough to admit it. Why are you acting this way?”

“I’m not a fucking martyr.”

“You’re trying to be.”

Elijah shakes his head as much as he can without banging the back of it into the door. “What are you playing at?”

“I’m playing at getting my boyfriend back,” Ian says quietly.

Elijah sneers. “Ha ha. Right. Like [I’m] the one who’s been fucking around.”

Ian flinches slightly but doesn’t retort. “I think we should take this inside.”

“Why? You afraid the neighbours will hear, Ian?”

Ian looks at him forlornly. “No, but I’m afraid you are.”


***

Elijah is home. He ought to be happy and relieved. He should have automatically felt more relaxed with the sheer act of stepping through that door. God knows he’s travelled enough in his life time to have learned to appreciate being at home, but tonight there’ll be none of that.

He is pacing the room restlessly while trying to come up with further insulting things to say. Ian is sitting cross-legged on the cot with an unlit cigarette retrieved from some secret reservoir jammed between his thumb and forefinger.

“Well? Aren’t you going to say anything else?” Ian twirls the cigarette almost manically but with no apparent intention of lighting it.

“Are you gonna light that thing or what? I thought you had an oral fixation to satisfy. Or are you trying out for fucking drum major?”

Ian looks at him thoughtfully. “Seriously now, aren’t you going to say anything else?”

Elijah gathers all his resentment and spits out the first accusation that comes to mind. ”You’re a liar.”

It seems to be the most heartfelt thing to say at the moment though he honestly doesn’t know whether it’s true or not. He stops pacing for a moment and shakes his finger at Ian. “You are a liar,” he pronounces carefully, telling himself that’s a flash of triumph he just felt. “You are a liar, dishonest and a hypocrite!”

He knows immediately that he has hit the mark. Ian’s eyes seem to flare up for a moment and the veil which is barely containing his anger breaks.

”Where do you get off saying that? How dare you? I have [never] lied to you. I told you from the start about all my relationships, about all the things that matter, all the heartbreaks and crushes and commitments I’ve made. That’s the sort of things that count. As for the rest of it, the things [you’re] so preoccupied with, I never tried to hide any of it from you. I’ve answered every bloody question you’ve ever asked!”

A horrible combination, really: the more incensed Elijah feels, the more his eloquence slips away.

“Well you…you…you should have told me from the start!”

“What should I have said exactly?” Ian exclaims incredulously. “Should I have said: ‘Hello my name is Ian, I like riverside walks and group sex. Here’s a copy of my resume’?”

Elijah sighs, feeling suddenly years older with the weight of it all. “Why did you even tell me this?”

Ian blinks. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Elijah doesn’t answer, and Ian rivets him with his eyes. “WHAT did you say, Elijah?”

Elijah glares back at him. “I said, why the [fuck] did you tell me?”

Ian’s upper lip twitches, but other than that he doesn’t seem to react. “You really are peculiar, you know that? One minute you’re accusing me of keeping secrets from you, and the next you’re yelling at me for having told you too much!”

He starts to run his hand through his hair but stops half way through as though he’s caught himself about to pick up a bad habit. “I’m rather anxious to know, Elijah, how exactly [should] I have dealt with this? Should I have refused to answer your questions or presented you with a list?”

Elijah grimaces. “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”

Ian’s right hand stops fiddling with the cigarette. His mouth gapes open for just a moment.

“Why did you start this then, hmm? Why did you ask if you didn’t want to know the answer?”

“Because I didn’t think it’d be this one!” And so easily, Elijah has admitted to his naivety. He feels a hysterical giggle coming on. “Yeah Ian, I know it might be difficult to believe, and it certainly is in hindsight, but the truth is I was stupid enough to think you were better than that. I never could have imagined you’d done something like that. Not for a second.”

Ian sighs. “But why? You thought I’d been prim and proper all my life? I honestly don’t understand what you find so wrong about my past. It’s not as though it changes who I am.”

Elijah cringes at the tone of complete sincerity in which this is said, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Like hell it doesn’t!”

”But why?” Ian has started twirling the cigarette again, annoyingly oblivious to the obvious answer.

“Of course it does! You’re a completely different person than I’d thought!” Elijah’s throat would be aching by now if it weren’t for his years of training. “God! I shouldn’t even have to explain this to you!”

“But why is it so wrong?”

“It just is!”

“But why? Because it says so in your Bible?” And suddenly there’s a cold and nasty edge to Ian’s voice, sharpened by years of resentment.

Elijah shakes his head. “Don’t pull that crap again. I’m [not] a prude.”

Ian snorts. “Was that the question?”

“You know I don’t care about that shit.”

Despite having gradually detached himself from the stricter teachings of Catholicism over the last couple of years, he still feels a stab of guilt for insulting the lifestyle he was raised in.

He purses his mouth. “Just puts you in a different light, that’s all.”

Suddenly it’s like all hostility in Ian dissipates and his eyes wash over with pity. “I’m still the same person,” he says quietly in a voice that is thicker than usual.

Elijah finds it difficult to breathe as his chest constricts with full force. “You’re not. You’re not at all what you pretended to be.”

“What did I pretend to be, Elijah?

So much pain in the gaze he’s hardly meeting, in the voice that cuts through his daze. So much easier to breathe if he focuses on his anger.

“Uhm, not a freak?”

The pity is gone from Ian’s voice as he answers tersely. “I’m not a freak, Elijah.”

“Yeah, right. I guess everything is relative.”

Ian opens and closes his mouth. Elijah can’t quite figure out what goes on behind that knitted brow. He’s not sure he wants to.

“You had me quite fooled, you know that Ian? You made me feel safe and special and all sorts of pathetic things I can’t even admit to without being fucking embarrassed. You fucking strung me along.”

“I didn –“

“You did! You lured me in. And then… after it’s been [years], you tell me these horrible things…”

“That you asked me about!”

“…about these terrible things you did before I came along!”

Ian wrinkles his nose. “Yes, and as I’ve said before, you were an immaculate virgin when I met you. Right? Or maybe that’s where your problem lies, Elijah. Maybe you wish you had been considerably less immaculate?”

And suddenly his eyes soften again, and his voice lowers, as if these schizophrenic temper-changes come as naturally for him as opening his eyes in the morning.

“I’ve told you time and time again, love, that doesn’t matter to me. I wouldn’t have cared if you [had] been a virgin, I still would have loved you.”

Elijah twitches. “What the fuck’s that got to do with anything?”

In response Ian tilts his head in a way Elijah can’t help but feel is paternal. “It means that to me, that wouldn’t have changed how I feel about you, or the kind of man I consider you to be. I’m still your boyfriend,” he adds thoughtfully, his eyes still soft on Elijah’s. “I’m still the same man.”

The very second Elijah replies Ian stiffens, but the words have already left his mouth and it’s too late to have a change of heart.

“You’re not. All these men… all this bullshit you’ve done…I don’t want to touch you because you’re fucking tarnished. I can’t even look at you! You practically reek of them.”

He feels suddenly sick to his stomach. There’s something awfully nauseating about admitting the truth.

Ian presses his lips together. “You’ve some issues, naturally. We should consider getting you professional counseling. Now if you’ll just excuse me…”

Elijah takes one step forward and it’s like something inside him shatters and breaks, leaving everything pouring out, and there is no turning back for him.

”Don’t you fucking leave, Ian. This isn’t over yet! You sick fuck! You’re a whore! A fucking whore!”

The following happens so quickly that he hardly realizes it. He feels the room expand and stretch from the tension, and then Ian slaps him hard on the cheek, rearing back with a look of pure loathing in his eyes.

”How DARE YOU? How DARE you say that to me? What gives you the right? HUH? Who the fuck do you think you are? Just where do you get off, judging me?”

It seems as though the darkness in Ian’s eyes is spilling out into the room, making it blacken with wrath and anger. “How dare you call me such a thing? You have some nerve!”

There is nothing for Elijah to say, so he says nothing. He watches with growing detachment how Ian paces to and fro, muttering agitatedly under his breath.

“…have tried to patient with you, I have tried to be understanding. I have tried to… Damn you!”

He’s not meeting Elijah’s gaze but the despair in his voice carries through well enough. “I thought… I thought I could trust you. I thought [finally]… But you… you’re a... Damn you! Damn you, Elijah!”

He turns to pull his luggage from under the bed, and Elijah can see that he is blinking furiously.

Suddenly, an urge to touch comes over him; an urge to possess and re-claim. He steps forward and it seems to take forever, but then he feels the soft fabric of Ian’s shirt beneath his fingers, and even though he can hardly register it with his heart thumping so loud in his ears, the moment exists.

Ian flinches and pulls away with a look of disgust Elijah has never seen. “Don’t touch me! You’ve exhausted that privilege.”

It seems to Elijah as though he’s standing there for an eternity, watching Ian shove the belongings he unpacked yesterday back into his suitcase.

He walks to the front door but turns around with his hand on the handle. He can see Ian stiffen his back and straighten, waiting for his next move.

Elijah presses the handle down, but something stops him from leaving. It’s as if he’s forgotten something important, something needing to be said. He doesn’t know what it is, so he blurts something out, wincing at how faint and hollow it sounds.

“See now what you’ve done, Ian.”

He slams the door shut before he can hear Ian’s response, if indeed there is one.