Pairing: Alexander/Elijah Wood
Rating: NC17 in parts
Disclaimer: Alexander the Great has been dead for a few millennia. Elijah Wood, however, is (thankfully!) very much alive and adored. No offence is intended, nor profit made.
AN: For Baranduin. Crossover. AU. Ludicrous concept. Mary Renault is fabulous. It's fun! BUT - my Alexander is NOT Colin Farrell.

"What do you mean, I can't go in?" Cleitus roared. The poor page who had just denied him entrance to Alexander's tent, visibly blanched, but stood his ground and said, "I'm sorry, sir, but it's by order of the King."

Cleitus glared at the boy, who was shivering in his boots but refusing to yield an inch; then he started to laugh, his broad shoulders heaving. He stopped abruptly, just as the page had begun to relax and join in with the joke. The older Macedonian leaned down and coldly spoke: "It is a sad day for Macedonia when you bar entry to the man who saved your King's very life." Then he turned on his heel and strode off in search of wine.

Bagoas shivered.

He had attended the King in his chamber, one eunuch among many. Once, whilst he was being dressed, Darius had turned his eyes on him and Bagoas had lowered his gaze. By rights, in the natural order of things, he should have hoped that his King would indicate a desire for him, however subtle. But the King expressed no such need, and Bagoas was relieved. He was dismissed, leaving with what he hoped was an expression of disappointed stoicism.

Outside, the breeze was fresh and Bagoas was glad of his lynx-skin cloak. He looked about him and imagined this place as it should be – the summer residence of the Great King, not his desperate hiding place.

For days he had been watching the people go about the business of court life. They ate, gossiped, rode and intrigued. It was as if life would go on. As if all this would endure.

He had never felt quite so alone, here in this sea of people. He closed his eyes and pulled his cloak about him, shutting out the clamour of denial that seemed like a great wave about to engulf him.

Opening his eyes, he saw that he was being observed. It was Nabarzanes, unreadable as ever. Bagoas bowed his head and hurried inside, lest he be needed.

They lay naked in Alexander's surprisingly narrow bed, entwined and spent. The King had insisted on sponging them both down, Elijah first, so now they lay fresh and fragrant; with the shade of their first coupling hanging over them like the first portent of rain.

Elijah had enjoyed athletic sex with a variety of partners since the age of sixteen, and learned a lot from most of them. In the last few years, he'd been teacher a few times, and he got a kick out of that; basically, however, he liked to be in big, experienced hands.

Alexander was no virgin, apparently, but, as he lay staring at the leather ceiling of their cosy womb, Elijah considered him to be woefully wet behind the ears. Whatever he'd been up to before, well, it wasn't anything to write home about from a sexual point of view. Of course, Elijah never discounted the power of love – that elusive, beautiful thing that had so far never found him – and its miraculous ability to transform the mundane into the sublime. But still…

He turned to face Alexander and found him staring. "That was – lovely", Elijah said, enthusiastically, nodding his head. "It was really good."

The King's cool blue eyes bored into his, appraising and brutally honest. "No, it was not," Alexander replied at last, turning away from Elijah's puppy dog desire to please.

"It was!" Elijah protested, trying to get the Macedonian to look at him. Alexander, however, stubbornly refused to be moved.

"It was – a little quick, yes, I'll grant you that," Elijah conceded, then added quickly, "but it was nice. You have a terrific body, great tone, man. You're on your way to being a really good kisser, too."

The King grunted at that and made as if to swing his legs out of the bed; Elijah caught hold of him and pulled him back, his eyes made as big, and brows raised as high, as Elijahly possible. "Please, Alexander, please…" he whispered. His reward were two strong hands cupping his face, as the King slid stiffly back beneath the cover.

"That's better," he said, kissing Alexander's forehead, down his nose, across his cheeks and finally softly on the lips. His hand, in the meantime, had a tour of its own in progress and had reached its ultimate destination. Elijah was careful to make his attentions to the King's mouth much more stimulating than his hand upon Alexander's manhood. He moaned a little in the kiss, turning so he was half-straddling his partner. For a few moments, they kissed, Alexander turning to face Elijah, his arms about him, his mouth fixed on Elijah's, losing himself in the warmth and the togetherness of the moment. Elijah's hand on Alexander's soft cock was gentle but firm, stroking and coaxing almost as if it were a secondary thing, of little importance when compared to the joining of lips and tongues.

Alexander pulled away briefly, to look into Elijah's eyes. "You are beautiful," he said, simply. Then he brushed Elijah's hair from his forehead as if better to see the shape of his face, the set of his brow… "This is wrong. I should be out there with the men; I am neglecting my duty. Yet when I look at you, into your eyes, feel you beneath me – it feels nothing but right, my Eli-jah."

"That's because it is." Elijah continued to stroke the hardening flesh, very casually, all the time returning Alexander's gaze. "I don't know how long we have. There is so much I could – should – tell you-"

His words were interrupted by a finger on his lips. Alexander shook his head, gently. "No, " he said, closing his eyes, "say nothing. You come from a different place and I think you know my destiny. If that is true, I would rather you were my lover than my Oracle. Be my lover, Eli-jah. The rest – will be as it must be."

Elijah's hand between Alexander's thighs became more insistent, his hips arching, his own cock greedy for some friction. He was fully atop Alexander now, leaning down. The King reached up and caressed the dark nipples so enticingly placed for his delight; he scraped a nail across the surface of smooth, young skin and enjoyed the responsive twitch of Elijah's hot flesh. He smiled, licking his lips.

"I have dreamed of one. I have dreamed of you," he whispered.

Elijah, intent on bringing their erections together as one, paused and returned the smile. "Not me. I am John the Baptist, crying in the wilderness. The one you are waiting for will be with you soon…" He frowned, as if the words had come unbidden, which in truth, they had.

"John the Who?" Alexander asked, quirking a brow.

"Nobody. Forget I said that. I don’t know why I said that. Was stupid," Elijah muttered, lying full stretch upon Alexander's body, taking Alexander's hands and pinning them above his head, moving on Alexander's chest and midriff and groin…

"You said it for a reason," Alexander rejoined, accommodating Elijah's position with ease. He spread his legs, bringing his ankles up and around Elijah's calves. "But it matters not, my love. Oh… yes, do that again…."

The experienced one snickered and moved to obey, rubbing their cocks together. They were similarly sized, though Alexander's was slightly thicker. He smelled so good; even his sweat smelled sweet… "You like that, yes? But you've had this before. I know you have. I want to give you something I don't think you've ever had."

Alexander, caught in the pleasure, almost missed that. He opened his eyes wide and stared up at the boy above him. A horse whickered close by. There were shouts outside, the gruff to-and-fro of camp life…He waited, his heart pounding. He longed to shake off the boy's hands and free his own, then force him onto his back and conquer him. He grimaced, rolling his eyes a little. Where had such an idea come from? He was never rough with his lovers. Well, with his one lover – Hephaestion - he had never wanted to be. How could you rough and tumble your friend, the boy who had been your only confidante through lonely and perilous years? How could you seize him and make him yield, when he had seen the worst in you as well as the best?

But the boy was speaking, staring down at him with eyes gone feral and dark with lust, "Take me."

The King swallowed and closed his eyes. "I do not know how," he whispered. Which was a lie. He knew. But the knowing of a thing is quite different to the doing of it.

"I will show you," Elijah replied, impishly, and he moved up and away from Alexander and off the narrow bed. He stood, naked and erect, looking about the tent for something suitable. He bent to open a drawer in the apothecary chest, and thus gave Alexander the perfect view of that which would soon be his. He admired the firm, slender curves of the ass, the shadow of the cleft, the clean lines of those pale, satiny thighs. His hand went automatically to his cock and he stroked it gently, all the time watching as his lover opened up this drawer and that, uncorking one bottle after another, until with a cry of triumph he turned to face the King, bearing a phial of something amber and thick and not too offensive to the nostrils.

Alexander sat up and followed the movements of the boy's hand as he tipped some of the oil into his pale palm then set the flask down beside the bed. He was reminded of a tiger he had seen in the bottom of a ravine, advancing upon its prey with heavy feline grace, eyes narrowed and irresistible. This was Elijah as he straddled him, tongue flicking along lush lips, and began to apply the oil, thankfully warmed by his own flesh, to Alexander's cock.

Hephaestion. Friend. Loved one. Frie- Heph- Friend. The slicked hand was firm and efficient as it stroked; Alexander, swallowing a moan, tried to concentrate on the best way to bridge a river that was – fast flowing and - deep - and which – was overlooked by – cliffs – cliffs – cliffs that could harbour enemy - bowmen. "I will not spill my seed in his hand a second time… I will have the prize!"

Elijah, content the King's erection was sufficiently oiled, sat back on his haunches and gave himself a quick tug to be going on with. Alexander reached for him, desperate to hold him, to rub against him, to be with him. But Elijah shook his head and moved aside, swinging his feet down onto the matting. "Get up; I need to lie on there," he explained. Stiffly, Alexander got to his feet, his cock hard and glistening. He watched as Elijah positioned himself on the bed, on all fours.

"It will hurt, Eli-jah," Alexander pointed out, eyeing his thick length and the boy's terribly small opening. He waited for the other to reassure him that he was wrong. But Elijah merely glanced back over his shoulder and smiled, encouragingly.

Alexander joined him on the bed, alarmed at the creaking and groaning of the cot that had been a constant companion on many campaigns and, till now, a discreet one.

Elijah panted a little. "Kiss me, on my neck, my back," he said, letting his head fall forward. Alexander lay over him, merely nudging him with the tip of his cock; he laid his mouth on Elijah's neck and worked his way down, breathing warm moist air upon the stimulated flesh that was even smoother and silkier than he had imagined. He held Elijah steady with one hand upon his hip, whilst the other braced himself on the bed. His lips traced their way down the boy's spine. "Here is Pella," he murmured, "and here is Granikos… this knobble is Gordium, wherein I had some business with a knot… and here (he sucked hard on that place where the flat plane met the swell of the buttocks), here is Babylon, where I will-"

"Less talk, man, more action," Elijah interrupted, thrusting his bottom back against Alexander's twitching cock. The King sighed, distracted from his erotic cartography, and obliged…

Beneath him, Elijah screwed shut his eyes and reached beneath the bed to the iron frame. He felt himself being opened and then there was the breach, which was hot and full and painful and marvellous. Alexander had such beautiful hands…

Behind him, above him, on top of him, inside him, the King filled him in ways far beyond the most immediate. Elijah clutched the frame and held on while Alexander rode him as if he were a beloved warhorse.

"My Lord," came a tentative, young voice from outside the tent. The mad creaking of the camp bed ceased; Elijah sensed Alexander waiting, heard his sharp intake of breath. Then the King took up the pace again, burying himself deeply, gripping Elijah's hip as if he might otherwise float away.

"My Lord," came the voice once more, and this time Alexander stopped, fully-sheathed, turned his head and thundered, "Unless the camp is afire and Darius riding through it -bollock-naked - GO AWAY!"

There was a mumbling outside and then silence. Elijah felt Alexander kiss his neck and then begin again. He moaned, one hand now loose upon the bed frame, his mouth open and slack. His other hand worked upon his own cock, stroking in time to Alexander's rhythm. His legs were in danger of cramping and the fire in his bottom was fast becoming a conflagration - it was beautiful. Again and again, the Macedonian found that place, that wondrous place…

"Turn over, Eli-jah", panted the King, withdrawing. The bed groaned beneath their shifting weight, as Alexander made room for Elijah to turn onto his back. He laid his hand to Elijah's cheek, concerned at the imprint left by the rough-spun sheet on such tender skin. Yet there was little that was delicate in the sight before him.

Elijah lay, legs spread, one hand upon his slender cock, the other raised, beseeching… He lifted himself in invitation, and the King eagerly remounted. The rhythmic creaking began over; Alexander watched Elijah's face, the sweet slatternly expression, a bead of sweat clinging to a sweeping brow, the gap in his teeth quite irresistible. He leaned down and kissed that full, red mouth, using his tongue as he was using his heavy cock, to penetrate and possess. Without breaking the kiss, Alexander got Elijah's legs up higher still, high enough that his ankles might rest upon the King's shoulders, Elijah's arms about Alexander's waist and back. And still Alexander could not go as deeply as he wished; nor could Elijah be filled as completely as he seemed to need. They thrashed about, their cries becoming more desperate and more incoherent, their fingers digging in deeper and holding on tighter, the bed becoming a third lover, adding its own frenzied demands as at times it lifted from the very floor, screeching…

"Oh – love –" Alexander shuddered, his hips carrying on their accustomed thrusting motion long after his last drop had been spent. Elijah, too, cried out as he came, though his words were unintelligible and lost as the King kissed him again and again, tasting the tang of salt as his tongue lapped at Elijah's cheeks.

"What is this? He weeps," Alexander thought, in wonder. "Why cry you?" he asked aloud, as Elijah turned to spoon against his side.

"Just, you know, the emotion."

Alexander pulled the cover about them; it was well into the afternoon and in the distance he could hear the clank of cooking pots, smell the fires and hear the yelps of hungry children. He felt a pang of regret, of guilt – had he really wasted half a day in here, on this strange boy with his strange clothes and chopped up hair? One look into those knowing blue eyes was enough to make him smile and snuggle down closer.

"Tomorrow, Hephaestion will be back in camp. He will like you, I know it," he said, running a finger along the length of Elijah's arm.

"I won't be here."

Alexander's finger stilled. He looked again at the boy and saw the sadness now.

Elijah sat up, so now he was looking down upon the King. He ran his hand through the thick golden mane of Alexander's hair, and sighed. "I feel it in here" – he touched his chest – "that come the dawn, I will be back in Ottawa County. It's how these things happen in tales such as these."

Alexander took Elijah's hand in his and kissed each fingertip. "It is a cruel thing, to be given so much and then have it snatched away. Surely the gods cannot be so unfeeling as to toy with us thus," he pointed out. He pulled Elijah back down so that the boy's head rested on his chest. "We will sleep a little. Then eat, for I am starved near to death!"

Despite his confident tone, as the King closed his eyes, he tightened his hold on his strange new lover.