And Took You Apart Into His Quietness--Lawrence of Arabia, Lawrence/Ali
Title: And Took You Apart Into His Quietness
Fandom: Lawrence of Arabia (1962 film)
Characters/Pairing: Lawrence/Ali
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Sort of technically RPS, though based on a fictional representation of historical figures, references to canonical torture and canonical implied rape, non-explicit male/male sex, and a fairly simplified overview of Middle Eastern politics during and after World War I. Whew. (This is the most warnings, to date, that I've ever put on a fic.)
Summary: Ali believes there was a time when he could have refused Lawrence, but he can no longer remember what that felt like. A distressingly large part of him no longer wants to.
And Took You Apart Into His Quietness
Ali had been briefly afraid to harm Lawrence further by moving him, but the urge to be gone from Deraa swiftly wins out, and he lifts the other man as gently as he may, half-carrying, half-dragging him through the dimness and filth of the alley. Unresponsive at first, Lawrence stirs after a moment, gets his feet under him and begins walking under his own power.
“Ali?” he mutters without lifting his head, sounding like a man half-asleep or drunk.
“Hush,” Ali answers back in a fierce whisper. He does not look at Lawrence-dares not, while he needs his wits about him. “We must get away, quickly.”
Lawrence makes some movement that might be a nod, or might simply be his head lolling to one side, and falls silent as Ali pushes them on towards the camels he left tethered on the town’s outskirts.
It will be almost a week before Ali hears Lawrence speak again.
They travel as far that night as Ali can push them, looking for two things; water and shelter. When they finally find both, it is near dawn, and Lawrence is all but fainting, insensible moments after Ali lays him down. Ali strips him to the waist and tends to his wounds. He has seen worse, but never on Lawrence, Lawrence who even with the scars of old battles marking him has seemed somehow untouchable until now.
Ali does the best he can with the supplies he has, and then sits beside Lawrence’s unconscious form and weeps, quiet and over quickly, though the desert is the only witness to this weakness. In a way, he is as furious with Lawrence as with the Turks, ashamed that any man, even this one, can make Ali of the Harith weep so.
He had meant to stay awake and keep watch, but he wakes to find the sun setting and Lawrence sitting up, still half-naked, arms wrapped around his drawn-up legs as he stares at the horizon. In that pose, he seems younger than he has to Ali in a long time, but not younger than when they first met, not younger than the brilliant, irreverent Englishman in his neat soldier’s uniform who irritated Ali so very much.
“Aurens?” Ali says, low, and Lawrence glances in his direction but does not respond. Ali moves to sit beside him, and drapes his own outer cloak over Lawrence’s shoulders rather than bother with the ruin of the other man’s tunic. Lawrence’s shoulders hunch slightly as Ali touches them, and Ali draws back at that, uncertain.
“We are still in dangerous territory,” he says after a moment. “We must get back to the others.” He waits, and when no response comes, glances at his companion. “Do you feel able to ride?”
No response, again, and indeed no sign that Lawrence has heard him. Ali waits until perhaps half a minute has passed, then touches the other man’s arm gingerly. “Aurens?”
As if he is some kind of machine that Ali’s touch has set in motion, Lawrence stands, only slightly unsteady, draws the cloak tighter around himself, and moves wordlessly towards their camels.
Lawrence looks exhausted, so much that Ali fears he might fall from the saddle, but it is Ali who calls the halt, Lawrence slowing and dismounting in that same disturbing silence.
He eats the food Ali puts into his hands, mechanically, with no signs of either relish or distaste. He submits calmly enough to Ali’s turning him and pulling back the cloak to check the wounds for signs of infection, and moves away, covering himself again, as soon as the inspection is done.
Ali tells him to sleep and Lawrence lies down, curling onto one side, but his eyes stay open. Ali watches, wanting to touch him, to offer some comfort, and not sure Lawrence will accept it. Finally he lies down beside the other man, waits, and, when Lawrence shows no reaction to that, lays a hand on his arm.
Lawrence flinches away at once, and Ali moves back, putting distance between their bodies even as his hand moves to Lawrence’s shoulder. He stays that way, the pressure of his hand light enough for Lawrence to shrug off easily, and at last Lawrence subsides, the tension leaving his body. Ali stays like that, near but not touching Lawrence anywhere save for the hand on his shoulder, and when he wakes, he cannot tell whether or not Lawrence has slept at all.
Lawrence rides when Ali says ride, stops when Ali says stop, lies down and sometimes even closes his eyes when Ali says sleep.
He never shows signs of hunger, but sometimes he eats food if Ali hands it to him, and sometimes he will not eat of his own volition but permits Ali to feed him, like a child. Ali is not sure what he will do if Lawrence starts refusing to accept food at all.
After the third day on which Lawrence does not wash or shave, Ali takes him by the hand--like a child, he thinks again-and does it himself, slow and deliberate in the way he touches Lawrence, asking permission every step of the way despite Lawrence’s unresponsiveness. He also curses Lawrence for a nuisance and a burden and a half-mad fool of an Englishman, but his hands are gentle and patient, and the cursing proves to the be the first thing since Deraa to bring a ghost of a smile to Lawrence’s face.
Ali sleeps beside Lawrence, but does not touch him beyond a hand on his arm or shoulder (and that as much to reassure himself as to comfort Lawrence), until the night he wakes to a snow flurry at the entrance to the cave they’ve sheltered in and Lawrence shivering beside him. Ali cannot tell, in the darkness, whether Lawrence is awake or asleep.
He lays a hand on Lawrence’s arm, waits, and then shifts a bit closer, putting his arm around the other man. Lawrence stiffens; Ali stops, waits until Lawrence gradually relaxes, and then moves closer, perhaps by half an inch.
They go on this way, Ali slow and inexorably patient, Lawrence giving neither encouragement, nor any protest beyond an occasional tightening of his shoulders, reflexive and over quickly. By dawn, Ali is pressed against Lawrence’s back, holding the other man closely, and Lawrence’s shivering has stopped.
Lawrence goes on not speaking, almost as if he’s forgotten how, as if the Turks have beaten language out of him. So Ali, for perhaps the first time in his life, talks merely to fill the silence, keeping Lawrence informed of how much longer they must travel, reciting passages of the Quran by memory, telling stories out of Bedouin legend or the memories of his own childhood.
Lawrence used to be hungry for such stories, used to listen eagerly and press him for more until Ali dragged him back to discussions of strategy or grew too tired to follow the thread of his own tale any longer. Now Ali talks only because Lawrence will not, and because with Lawrence silent, the quiet of the desert seems ominous for the first time in Ali’s life.
He’s nearing the end of one such story, sitting with his back to Lawrence, and looking out over the horizon, and as Ali’s voice trails off into reluctant silence, he suddenly starts and then freezes as a voice comes from over his shoulder.
“Do you know, Ali, I can’t help but wonder.” Lawrence’s voice is low and hoarse, but his tone is as conversational as if he were in a British parlor. “If I simply never spoke again, how long do you think it would be before you gave up and stopped talking yourself?”
It’s a moment before Ali can answer, and when he does, his voice is thick. “Until I had no more words.”
He’s almost afraid to turn around-afraid it will somehow be a trick of his mind, and not Lawrence speaking at all. But there’s a shifting noise, and movement from the corner of his eye, and then Lawrence is sitting beside him at the mouth of their cave, face unsmiling, eyes curiously flat in a way that makes Ali feel cold, but more awake than he has looked since Ali brought him out of Deraa.
“And then how if we crossed paths with Auda again? If he were to insult the Harith, and you were to be out of words-it really doesn’t bear thinking about.”
Ali stares at him, no one emotion rising above any other in his heart because his heart does not know where to even begin. “So you are ready to take up your part in a conversation again, to save me from exhausting my words?” he manages, finally.
Lawrence smiles then, but it doesn’t touch his eyes, and the effect is terrible. “Well, I could hardly do less for the man I owe my life to.”
“You owe me nothing,” Ali tells him quietly.
They talk little after that, but Ali is reassured now that he has heard Lawrence speak again.
Lawrence still needs to be told to rest, and Ali, settled into a routine by now, stretches out at his back without giving it much thought, only to have Lawrence turn towards him, something he has not done until now.
Lawrence looks at him for a moment, face unreadable, and then lifts one hand to brush Ali’s cheek.
“Aurens?” Ali whispers, his throat dry.
Lawrence says nothing, but leans closer. The only expression in his face now is a kind of determination, a quieter cousin of the look Ali has seen so often in battle, and he closes his eyes rather than see such a look on Lawrence’s face at this moment.
The brush of lips is light and brief, and the most hesitant kiss Lawrence has ever given him (even the first time, there was no such hesitance; the first time, Lawrence simply waited until he was confident Ali would kiss him back). Ali wants to reach for him, but holds himself still, waiting, and curses himself for the way his heart sinks when he feels Lawrence draw back.
“I’m sorry, Ali.”
Ali opens his eyes. Lawrence is lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling of the cave.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Ali tells him.
Lawrence swallows hard, and then begins again, undeterred. “The Turks-“
“Don’t.” Ali’s response comes harsher than he means it to. He had suspected, but truly not wished to know, because he cannot undo it, and neither can he return to Deraa and kill them with his bare hands. “There is no need to speak of that.”
Lawrence closes his own eyes at that, and says, softer, “I thought that perhaps by now, I would be…I’m sorry.”
Ali raises himself up on one elbow and with his other hand touches Lawrence’s face, keeping gentle pressure there until Lawrence looks at him.
“Aurens. I have never asked for more than you would give me freely. I never shall.”
They hold each other’s eyes in silence briefly, and then Lawrence nods. Ali lies down again, and Lawrence rolls toward him, seeking his warmth. They sleep in each other’s arms that night, chaste as brothers, and if it is not all Ali wishes for, it is enough for now, and he is patient.
When they rejoin the remnants of the Arab Revolt, no one questions what befell El Aurens in Deraa. They know that he did not succeed, and they can all imagine what failure meant.
They treat him with deference, speaking to him gently and helping Ali see to his comfort, but there is more of compassionate pity in their actions than of the hero’s worship they once paid him. Ali almost hates them for that, wants to grab the nearest man by the front of his robes, shake him roughly, remind him that Lawrence went to Deraa for them, and that he went all but alone because none of them would go with him. But in truth, he cannot blame them, any of them; he knows he would have abandoned Lawrence long ago if his heart were still his own.
He wishes he were more surprised when Lawrence announces his intention to leave them; wishes he had not in some way been waiting for this. He argues anyway, up until the moment Lawrence leaves, the two of them saying their goodbyes alone outside the camp.
“If you truly will not stay, then at least do not go alone,” he finally offers, desperate. “I will go with you as far as Jerusalem.”
Lawrence smiles, but shakes his head. “No, Ali. They need you here.”
“They need you,” Ali argues, fiercely, bitterly. “Better that you had never come here, never made us believe in you, if you will simply abandon us now.”
Lawrence’s smile only widens. “Ah, but then I should never have met you, Ali.”
Ali stares at him for a moment, then throws up his hands. “I swear by the Prophet, if any other man had ever infuriated me half so often as you, I would have killed him thrice over by now.”
“I know,” Lawrence replies, almost fondly. “But will you kiss me goodbye?”
Ali briefly considers refusing out of spite.
Ali’s best memories of Lawrence are of the earlier times, of the Nefud and Aqaba and the start of their campaign, when Lawrence returned from Cairo with British strength at his back but Arab robes still on his body. The days when it seemed their impossible goal might truly be achievable, and the night when he and Ali first lay together, learning each other’s bodies with hands shaking but eager. Charging into battle side by side, and talking for long hours afterward talking of what they might try to make this or that plan work more smoothly, of the history and politics and legends of each other’s countries, of the things they would do in the free Arabia they would create together.
Ali keeps these good memories close now that Lawrence is gone, sustaining himself on them, using them to hold off the memories of Gasim’s death, of Farraj’s, of the tale Lawrence told him of crossing Sinai and what befell Daud, of Deraa and what came after.
He wonders if Lawrence does the same, or if Lawrence chooses to remember the good and bad alike, or if he cannot help but remember both, or if he tries not to think of Arabia at all.
They spend one night together before the campaign for Damascus.
When the American newspaper reporter asks him if Lawrence seems changed, Ali will say he does not, because it is none of the American’s business. But the Lawrence who marshals all the tribes he can now is not the Lawrence of the early days. That Lawrence would never have offered Ali money.
But when Ali reminds him, angry and hurt, that the Harith do not fight for profit, he cannot stop himself from finishing, “And if we did, do you think that is what I want of you?” And when he says that, Lawrence touches his face, very gently, and asks, “What do you want, then, Ali?”
Ali believes there was a time when he could have refused Lawrence, but he can no longer remember what that felt like. A distressingly large part of him no longer wants to.
After that night, Lawrence does not approach him again, and Ali tells himself that this is a thing to be thankful for.
Damascus is killing Lawrence by inches, and they both know it.
This time, when he hears that Lawrence plans to leave, Ali offers no protest. Lawrence has done all he can for the Arabs, and better that Ali should lose him now and be left with his memories than see the man Lawrence would become if he stayed.
They part as friends, embracing one last time before Lawrence gets into the car that will take him away from Arabia for the last time. Any bitterness felt by either is laid aside so as to not sour their last moments together, for both of them know, without it ever being said, that it is unlikely they will ever meet again.
Ali stays in Damascus, learning how to fight with words and ideas rather than a sword or pistol, struggling to gain and hold every inch of ground he can for his people, and not a day goes by that he does not miss the simple, honest brutality of men killing each other for water in the desert. But missing a thing is not necessarily wishing to keep it, and Ali fights for a world in which Arabs will drink water they have never had to kill for. And perhaps he will lose, but he will not surrender or retreat. This fight is all that is left for him.
He learns of Lawrence’s death on the same day he learns that before he died, Lawrence wrote a book.
It is Prince Feisal who tells him both things, as it is Feisal who gives him a copy of the book when Ali at last brings himself to ask for it, and Feisal who says in that calm way of his, betraying no particular emotion, that Ali might find the dedication interesting.
Ali waits until he is alone to open the book, and reads the words on the first page.
I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To earn you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house,
that your eyes might be shining for me
When I came.
And above them, simply, “To S.A.”
Ali is less ashamed to weep this time, though again, he makes certain that the desert is the only witness.
Notes
This started out as a fairly simple, fairly short missing scene fic, dealing with Ali and Lawrence after Deraa. But once I started in on it, I kept wanting to take more and more looks at Ali during the end of the movie, and eventually just faced up to the fact that I was writing a fic that was basically trying to answer a question--how a man like Ali deals with loving a man like Lawrence, especially towards the end.
The poem and the dedication to "S.A." are factual, and found in Lawrence's memoir The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and the title of the fic is taken from the second stanza.
Obviously, for fic purposes, I'm going with it being intended for Ali, but in actuality, the character of Sherif Ali in the film is thought to be a fictionalized amalgamation of several Arab leaders Lawrence served with, and there are other, more likely candidates for the identity of "S.A.". My personal favorite is the theory that it's no one person, but that the initials stand for "Syria-Arabia" and the poem was written to the Arab people as a whole. There's lots more information about the dedication and theories concerning it here.
As far as the character of Ali and the dedication goes, here's what I find interesting: if he's an amalgam of several people, then at some point in the character's creation someone chose to give him the name he has in the film. And unless the filmakers didn't draw on Seven Pillars at all, I can't help but wonder if they were aware of the S.A. dedication when they named the character Sherif Ali.
Fandom: Lawrence of Arabia (1962 film)
Characters/Pairing: Lawrence/Ali
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Sort of technically RPS, though based on a fictional representation of historical figures, references to canonical torture and canonical implied rape, non-explicit male/male sex, and a fairly simplified overview of Middle Eastern politics during and after World War I. Whew. (This is the most warnings, to date, that I've ever put on a fic.)
Summary: Ali believes there was a time when he could have refused Lawrence, but he can no longer remember what that felt like. A distressingly large part of him no longer wants to.
And Took You Apart Into His Quietness
Ali had been briefly afraid to harm Lawrence further by moving him, but the urge to be gone from Deraa swiftly wins out, and he lifts the other man as gently as he may, half-carrying, half-dragging him through the dimness and filth of the alley. Unresponsive at first, Lawrence stirs after a moment, gets his feet under him and begins walking under his own power.
“Ali?” he mutters without lifting his head, sounding like a man half-asleep or drunk.
“Hush,” Ali answers back in a fierce whisper. He does not look at Lawrence-dares not, while he needs his wits about him. “We must get away, quickly.”
Lawrence makes some movement that might be a nod, or might simply be his head lolling to one side, and falls silent as Ali pushes them on towards the camels he left tethered on the town’s outskirts.
It will be almost a week before Ali hears Lawrence speak again.
They travel as far that night as Ali can push them, looking for two things; water and shelter. When they finally find both, it is near dawn, and Lawrence is all but fainting, insensible moments after Ali lays him down. Ali strips him to the waist and tends to his wounds. He has seen worse, but never on Lawrence, Lawrence who even with the scars of old battles marking him has seemed somehow untouchable until now.
Ali does the best he can with the supplies he has, and then sits beside Lawrence’s unconscious form and weeps, quiet and over quickly, though the desert is the only witness to this weakness. In a way, he is as furious with Lawrence as with the Turks, ashamed that any man, even this one, can make Ali of the Harith weep so.
He had meant to stay awake and keep watch, but he wakes to find the sun setting and Lawrence sitting up, still half-naked, arms wrapped around his drawn-up legs as he stares at the horizon. In that pose, he seems younger than he has to Ali in a long time, but not younger than when they first met, not younger than the brilliant, irreverent Englishman in his neat soldier’s uniform who irritated Ali so very much.
“Aurens?” Ali says, low, and Lawrence glances in his direction but does not respond. Ali moves to sit beside him, and drapes his own outer cloak over Lawrence’s shoulders rather than bother with the ruin of the other man’s tunic. Lawrence’s shoulders hunch slightly as Ali touches them, and Ali draws back at that, uncertain.
“We are still in dangerous territory,” he says after a moment. “We must get back to the others.” He waits, and when no response comes, glances at his companion. “Do you feel able to ride?”
No response, again, and indeed no sign that Lawrence has heard him. Ali waits until perhaps half a minute has passed, then touches the other man’s arm gingerly. “Aurens?”
As if he is some kind of machine that Ali’s touch has set in motion, Lawrence stands, only slightly unsteady, draws the cloak tighter around himself, and moves wordlessly towards their camels.
Lawrence looks exhausted, so much that Ali fears he might fall from the saddle, but it is Ali who calls the halt, Lawrence slowing and dismounting in that same disturbing silence.
He eats the food Ali puts into his hands, mechanically, with no signs of either relish or distaste. He submits calmly enough to Ali’s turning him and pulling back the cloak to check the wounds for signs of infection, and moves away, covering himself again, as soon as the inspection is done.
Ali tells him to sleep and Lawrence lies down, curling onto one side, but his eyes stay open. Ali watches, wanting to touch him, to offer some comfort, and not sure Lawrence will accept it. Finally he lies down beside the other man, waits, and, when Lawrence shows no reaction to that, lays a hand on his arm.
Lawrence flinches away at once, and Ali moves back, putting distance between their bodies even as his hand moves to Lawrence’s shoulder. He stays that way, the pressure of his hand light enough for Lawrence to shrug off easily, and at last Lawrence subsides, the tension leaving his body. Ali stays like that, near but not touching Lawrence anywhere save for the hand on his shoulder, and when he wakes, he cannot tell whether or not Lawrence has slept at all.
Lawrence rides when Ali says ride, stops when Ali says stop, lies down and sometimes even closes his eyes when Ali says sleep.
He never shows signs of hunger, but sometimes he eats food if Ali hands it to him, and sometimes he will not eat of his own volition but permits Ali to feed him, like a child. Ali is not sure what he will do if Lawrence starts refusing to accept food at all.
After the third day on which Lawrence does not wash or shave, Ali takes him by the hand--like a child, he thinks again-and does it himself, slow and deliberate in the way he touches Lawrence, asking permission every step of the way despite Lawrence’s unresponsiveness. He also curses Lawrence for a nuisance and a burden and a half-mad fool of an Englishman, but his hands are gentle and patient, and the cursing proves to the be the first thing since Deraa to bring a ghost of a smile to Lawrence’s face.
Ali sleeps beside Lawrence, but does not touch him beyond a hand on his arm or shoulder (and that as much to reassure himself as to comfort Lawrence), until the night he wakes to a snow flurry at the entrance to the cave they’ve sheltered in and Lawrence shivering beside him. Ali cannot tell, in the darkness, whether Lawrence is awake or asleep.
He lays a hand on Lawrence’s arm, waits, and then shifts a bit closer, putting his arm around the other man. Lawrence stiffens; Ali stops, waits until Lawrence gradually relaxes, and then moves closer, perhaps by half an inch.
They go on this way, Ali slow and inexorably patient, Lawrence giving neither encouragement, nor any protest beyond an occasional tightening of his shoulders, reflexive and over quickly. By dawn, Ali is pressed against Lawrence’s back, holding the other man closely, and Lawrence’s shivering has stopped.
Lawrence goes on not speaking, almost as if he’s forgotten how, as if the Turks have beaten language out of him. So Ali, for perhaps the first time in his life, talks merely to fill the silence, keeping Lawrence informed of how much longer they must travel, reciting passages of the Quran by memory, telling stories out of Bedouin legend or the memories of his own childhood.
Lawrence used to be hungry for such stories, used to listen eagerly and press him for more until Ali dragged him back to discussions of strategy or grew too tired to follow the thread of his own tale any longer. Now Ali talks only because Lawrence will not, and because with Lawrence silent, the quiet of the desert seems ominous for the first time in Ali’s life.
He’s nearing the end of one such story, sitting with his back to Lawrence, and looking out over the horizon, and as Ali’s voice trails off into reluctant silence, he suddenly starts and then freezes as a voice comes from over his shoulder.
“Do you know, Ali, I can’t help but wonder.” Lawrence’s voice is low and hoarse, but his tone is as conversational as if he were in a British parlor. “If I simply never spoke again, how long do you think it would be before you gave up and stopped talking yourself?”
It’s a moment before Ali can answer, and when he does, his voice is thick. “Until I had no more words.”
He’s almost afraid to turn around-afraid it will somehow be a trick of his mind, and not Lawrence speaking at all. But there’s a shifting noise, and movement from the corner of his eye, and then Lawrence is sitting beside him at the mouth of their cave, face unsmiling, eyes curiously flat in a way that makes Ali feel cold, but more awake than he has looked since Ali brought him out of Deraa.
“And then how if we crossed paths with Auda again? If he were to insult the Harith, and you were to be out of words-it really doesn’t bear thinking about.”
Ali stares at him, no one emotion rising above any other in his heart because his heart does not know where to even begin. “So you are ready to take up your part in a conversation again, to save me from exhausting my words?” he manages, finally.
Lawrence smiles then, but it doesn’t touch his eyes, and the effect is terrible. “Well, I could hardly do less for the man I owe my life to.”
“You owe me nothing,” Ali tells him quietly.
They talk little after that, but Ali is reassured now that he has heard Lawrence speak again.
Lawrence still needs to be told to rest, and Ali, settled into a routine by now, stretches out at his back without giving it much thought, only to have Lawrence turn towards him, something he has not done until now.
Lawrence looks at him for a moment, face unreadable, and then lifts one hand to brush Ali’s cheek.
“Aurens?” Ali whispers, his throat dry.
Lawrence says nothing, but leans closer. The only expression in his face now is a kind of determination, a quieter cousin of the look Ali has seen so often in battle, and he closes his eyes rather than see such a look on Lawrence’s face at this moment.
The brush of lips is light and brief, and the most hesitant kiss Lawrence has ever given him (even the first time, there was no such hesitance; the first time, Lawrence simply waited until he was confident Ali would kiss him back). Ali wants to reach for him, but holds himself still, waiting, and curses himself for the way his heart sinks when he feels Lawrence draw back.
“I’m sorry, Ali.”
Ali opens his eyes. Lawrence is lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling of the cave.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Ali tells him.
Lawrence swallows hard, and then begins again, undeterred. “The Turks-“
“Don’t.” Ali’s response comes harsher than he means it to. He had suspected, but truly not wished to know, because he cannot undo it, and neither can he return to Deraa and kill them with his bare hands. “There is no need to speak of that.”
Lawrence closes his own eyes at that, and says, softer, “I thought that perhaps by now, I would be…I’m sorry.”
Ali raises himself up on one elbow and with his other hand touches Lawrence’s face, keeping gentle pressure there until Lawrence looks at him.
“Aurens. I have never asked for more than you would give me freely. I never shall.”
They hold each other’s eyes in silence briefly, and then Lawrence nods. Ali lies down again, and Lawrence rolls toward him, seeking his warmth. They sleep in each other’s arms that night, chaste as brothers, and if it is not all Ali wishes for, it is enough for now, and he is patient.
When they rejoin the remnants of the Arab Revolt, no one questions what befell El Aurens in Deraa. They know that he did not succeed, and they can all imagine what failure meant.
They treat him with deference, speaking to him gently and helping Ali see to his comfort, but there is more of compassionate pity in their actions than of the hero’s worship they once paid him. Ali almost hates them for that, wants to grab the nearest man by the front of his robes, shake him roughly, remind him that Lawrence went to Deraa for them, and that he went all but alone because none of them would go with him. But in truth, he cannot blame them, any of them; he knows he would have abandoned Lawrence long ago if his heart were still his own.
He wishes he were more surprised when Lawrence announces his intention to leave them; wishes he had not in some way been waiting for this. He argues anyway, up until the moment Lawrence leaves, the two of them saying their goodbyes alone outside the camp.
“If you truly will not stay, then at least do not go alone,” he finally offers, desperate. “I will go with you as far as Jerusalem.”
Lawrence smiles, but shakes his head. “No, Ali. They need you here.”
“They need you,” Ali argues, fiercely, bitterly. “Better that you had never come here, never made us believe in you, if you will simply abandon us now.”
Lawrence’s smile only widens. “Ah, but then I should never have met you, Ali.”
Ali stares at him for a moment, then throws up his hands. “I swear by the Prophet, if any other man had ever infuriated me half so often as you, I would have killed him thrice over by now.”
“I know,” Lawrence replies, almost fondly. “But will you kiss me goodbye?”
Ali briefly considers refusing out of spite.
Ali’s best memories of Lawrence are of the earlier times, of the Nefud and Aqaba and the start of their campaign, when Lawrence returned from Cairo with British strength at his back but Arab robes still on his body. The days when it seemed their impossible goal might truly be achievable, and the night when he and Ali first lay together, learning each other’s bodies with hands shaking but eager. Charging into battle side by side, and talking for long hours afterward talking of what they might try to make this or that plan work more smoothly, of the history and politics and legends of each other’s countries, of the things they would do in the free Arabia they would create together.
Ali keeps these good memories close now that Lawrence is gone, sustaining himself on them, using them to hold off the memories of Gasim’s death, of Farraj’s, of the tale Lawrence told him of crossing Sinai and what befell Daud, of Deraa and what came after.
He wonders if Lawrence does the same, or if Lawrence chooses to remember the good and bad alike, or if he cannot help but remember both, or if he tries not to think of Arabia at all.
They spend one night together before the campaign for Damascus.
When the American newspaper reporter asks him if Lawrence seems changed, Ali will say he does not, because it is none of the American’s business. But the Lawrence who marshals all the tribes he can now is not the Lawrence of the early days. That Lawrence would never have offered Ali money.
But when Ali reminds him, angry and hurt, that the Harith do not fight for profit, he cannot stop himself from finishing, “And if we did, do you think that is what I want of you?” And when he says that, Lawrence touches his face, very gently, and asks, “What do you want, then, Ali?”
Ali believes there was a time when he could have refused Lawrence, but he can no longer remember what that felt like. A distressingly large part of him no longer wants to.
After that night, Lawrence does not approach him again, and Ali tells himself that this is a thing to be thankful for.
Damascus is killing Lawrence by inches, and they both know it.
This time, when he hears that Lawrence plans to leave, Ali offers no protest. Lawrence has done all he can for the Arabs, and better that Ali should lose him now and be left with his memories than see the man Lawrence would become if he stayed.
They part as friends, embracing one last time before Lawrence gets into the car that will take him away from Arabia for the last time. Any bitterness felt by either is laid aside so as to not sour their last moments together, for both of them know, without it ever being said, that it is unlikely they will ever meet again.
Ali stays in Damascus, learning how to fight with words and ideas rather than a sword or pistol, struggling to gain and hold every inch of ground he can for his people, and not a day goes by that he does not miss the simple, honest brutality of men killing each other for water in the desert. But missing a thing is not necessarily wishing to keep it, and Ali fights for a world in which Arabs will drink water they have never had to kill for. And perhaps he will lose, but he will not surrender or retreat. This fight is all that is left for him.
He learns of Lawrence’s death on the same day he learns that before he died, Lawrence wrote a book.
It is Prince Feisal who tells him both things, as it is Feisal who gives him a copy of the book when Ali at last brings himself to ask for it, and Feisal who says in that calm way of his, betraying no particular emotion, that Ali might find the dedication interesting.
Ali waits until he is alone to open the book, and reads the words on the first page.
I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To earn you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house,
that your eyes might be shining for me
When I came.
And above them, simply, “To S.A.”
Ali is less ashamed to weep this time, though again, he makes certain that the desert is the only witness.
Notes
This started out as a fairly simple, fairly short missing scene fic, dealing with Ali and Lawrence after Deraa. But once I started in on it, I kept wanting to take more and more looks at Ali during the end of the movie, and eventually just faced up to the fact that I was writing a fic that was basically trying to answer a question--how a man like Ali deals with loving a man like Lawrence, especially towards the end.
The poem and the dedication to "S.A." are factual, and found in Lawrence's memoir The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and the title of the fic is taken from the second stanza.
Obviously, for fic purposes, I'm going with it being intended for Ali, but in actuality, the character of Sherif Ali in the film is thought to be a fictionalized amalgamation of several Arab leaders Lawrence served with, and there are other, more likely candidates for the identity of "S.A.". My personal favorite is the theory that it's no one person, but that the initials stand for "Syria-Arabia" and the poem was written to the Arab people as a whole. There's lots more information about the dedication and theories concerning it here.
As far as the character of Ali and the dedication goes, here's what I find interesting: if he's an amalgam of several people, then at some point in the character's creation someone chose to give him the name he has in the film. And unless the filmakers didn't draw on Seven Pillars at all, I can't help but wonder if they were aware of the S.A. dedication when they named the character Sherif Ali.