Fic. Imagine that.
Aug. 2nd, 2003 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaydeefalls
I have made fic. Whee.
Title: Crossing the Street
Pairing: Dom-centric, DM/EW
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "Dom half-expected Billy to make some cutesy analogy between traffic lights and crossing the street and life, maybe some profound piece of Hallmark wisdom."
Archive: TAKE IT. PLEASE... just tell me where
Feedback: tastes like chicken. Only better.
Disclaimer: Fact - Dominic Monaghan "just couldn't settle" in Manchester after filming wrapped, and went on a restless trip to various places around the world. Fact - Dom, Billy, and Orlando took a surfing vacation in Florida. Fiction - EVERYTHING ELSE.
Notes: Minor het content, so be forewarned if that bothers you. Huge thank you to Gabby Hope for the beta!
(Wellington, New Zealand)
It was a remarkably simple and relatively painless breakup. It happened on their last night in New Zealand, after the wrap party. The Wellington air was warm and humid, thick with the memory of a late spring day. No one else was on that particular street.
"Are we going to continue it, then?" Dom asked abruptly, kicking an empty beer can down the pavement.
Elijah blinked at him, face tinged with gold from the streetlamp. "Continue it?"
That little drain-gate-thing on the curb, that would be the goal. Dom began dribbling the can more carefully, keeping it rolling lightly just in front of his feet. It gave him something innocent to focus on. "You know. It. Us. Thing. Whatever."
"Oh." The can clinked softly over the concrete. "You mean, after we leave tomorrow. Are we. I don't know. Do you think we should?"
Dom shrugged, keeping his eye on the can. "Maybe we should. End it, I mean. We're going back to our old lives, you know? Different continents. And you're gonna want to continue your career, and I need to start mine, and it's going to be, well, hard. You know?"
"Yeah," Elijah said. "So you think we should end it?"
A lonely car pulled up near the curb, waiting for the traffic light to change. The beer can glowed silver in the headlights. Dom gave it a final kick, and it clattered off the sidewalk and into the drain. Goal. "Maybe, yeah." He couldn't tell whether the dryness in his throat was from relief or regret.
Elijah was staring at the can's final resting place. "Okay."
They walked on for a few more steps, then—
"Dom?"
Dom glanced over at him. Elijah's mouth opened and closed, like he couldn't decide what to say. Out of the corner of his eye, Dom noticed the walk light on the other curb flashing a warning. "Hey, come on, Lij, we'll miss the light!" He turned and broke into a jog, scampering across the street before the traffic light could turn green.
Elijah followed, rolling his eyes. "What's the big deal?" he complained. "So we'd have to wait for one lousy car to go. So what? It's not like we've got anywhere to be."
"Yeah, but we'd have to wait for that one car." Dom hated wasting time.
They didn't speak again for the rest of the walk back to the hotel, but their goodbyes the next morning were friendly enough. It wasn't until Dom was back home in chilly Manchester (he'd forgotten about the season differences, and he shivered all the way through the airport because he hadn't thought to carry a jacket on the flight, and home felt alien and cold and uncomfortable) that he thought to wonder what, exactly, Elijah had been about to say.
But it was a relatively painless breakup, which was what Dom had wanted. So he didn't wonder again.
* * * * *
(Glasgow, Scotland)
The first New Zealand person Dom saw after coming (or was it leaving?) home was Billy, because they had tried and failed to work on their script over the phone. Besides, Dom had never been to Glasgow, and he figured it was about time to get out of his empty little house.
Being with Billy again was almost like being back in New Zealand, but not really.
"You know what's funny?" Dom said, fiddling with his bottle of beer and trying to make the unfamiliar couch feel comfortable. "I miss Feet. For all I complained about getting up at four in the morning and smelly glue and such, that's what I miss the most. Sitting in Feet every morning before dawn and talking about really random shit and listening to bad music."
Billy propped his feet up on the coffee table, pondering his own beer. "Not all of it was bad. Every now and then we got Elijah to put on the Beatles."
Dom conceded the point. "Yeah, and I guess I like the same sort of trash that he likes, but any music is pretty awful when played at top volume at five in the fucking morning."
"Granted. But you miss it."
"But I miss it." Dom took a swig of beer. He shifted slightly—the couch was too damn soft, that was the problem. A bloke could just sink right down into it and get trapped there.
Billy tapped the rim of his bottle lightly with a fingernail. "How is Lijah lately?"
Too damn soft. Dom shrugged. "I don't know, I haven't really spoken to him since we left New Zealand."
"You 'haven't really spoken?' How does that work?" Billy glanced at him sharply. "You two—"
"We ended it," Dom said. "On the last night. I mean, he's all the way over there and I'm here and it just didn't make sense to—"
"You broke up?" Billy set his beer down on the coffee table carefully. "Weren't you talking about getting serious about it? I thought—"
"Yeah, well, Elijah didn't think he was ready for more than a fling-type-thing. Long distance, and all. Besides, he's young—"
"—like you're so much older—" Billy muttered.
"—and he's not ready to make any sort of real commitment, one way or the other."
Billy blinked. "So you're just giving up on him."
Dom tried to take another gulp of beer, but his bottle was empty. "Look, I'm not big on dead-end relationships, all right? And I'm not going to wait around for someone thousands of miles away to decide whether or not the whole true love crap works for him, and just wind up feeling like shit the first time one of us fucks around with someone else."
"It's up to you," Billy said, shrugging. "Just sounds pretty daft to me."
"You know I hate waiting." Dom would never be comfortable on this fucking couch, no matter how much he squirmed around. He got up and headed for the kitchen. Visions of a beer-filled fridge beckoned him. "Come on, let's get this bloody script started. You know it'll be—"
"—funnier than a penguin playing the banjo," Billy finished. He didn't stand. "I'm right behind you."
The fridge was indeed well stocked with beer. Dom helped himself.
* * * * *
(Los Angeles, USA)
Dom didn't stay in Glasgow for very long. In fact, he didn't stay much of anywhere for very long. He visited every distant friend and relative he could think of, and tried out all the major English-speaking cities he'd never really seen before. He even wound up crashing at Elijah's place for a few days. But nothing suited him like New Zealand had.
It was weird and familiar, being alone in a house with Elijah. They watched movies, mostly, and didn't talk too much. Elijah's couch was all right, though, surprisingly enough. Comfortable, with just the right balance between plush cushions and firm support.
"Viggo marathon," Elijah announced on one of the days, returning triumphantly from the video store with A Walk on the Moon, A Perfect Murder, and G.I. Jane.
Dom practically choked on a handful of crisps. "God save us."
"Could be worse," Elijah protested. "It could be time for a Stuart Townsend marathon."
Dom threw the next handful of crisps at him.
They watched the movies anyway, taking Bacardi shots every time Viggo did something Aragorn-like. As the evening progressed, their judgment deteriorated. "His hair looks greasy!" Elijah shouted at the screen. "Aragorn!"
"He has a commanding tone of voice!" Dom agreed enthusiastically. "Aragorn!"
They finished the bottle quickly, and then some. Dom almost forgot and kissed Elijah goodnight. Almost. Instead, he jerked away from the almost-kiss and reeled into a wall.
He left L.A. the next day.
* * * * *
(St. Augustine, USA)
Dom, Billy, and Orlando took off three weeks for a surfing vacation in Florida. If a vacation from sitting around the house and doing nothing (or, alternately, traveling the world with no set purpose or destination) counted as being a vacation, that is. Dom thought it counted.
And it was nice; the three Rings unknowns together on a beach. Elijah or even Sean might have been recognized, and then they'd all have been roped into the fame thing, which would've been such a bother. But no one would recognize Dominic Monaghan or Billy Boyd or Orlando Bloom. Not until December, anyway.
December felt a very long ways off.
They all went to a club one night. It was hot and crowded and loud, and Dom felt the music rather than heard it. It pulsed, pounded, made the soles of his feet vibrate with some unnamed rhythm. The air was thick with humidity and sand and sweat. He couldn't breathe. He tried to move his body in an approximation of everyone else's gyrations, but he just felt stiff and awkward, creaky and rusty and unsuited to the foreign environment. Uncomfortable. Which made no sense, really, because he'd always enjoyed clubs in New Zealand.
Billy vanished into the crowd early on and wasn't seen again until the next afternoon. Orlando almost left with two girls, but he saw Dom standing alone at the bar and generously passed one of the girls along. She was a darkly-tanned Hispanic with hair dyed a golden-red. He was pretty sure her name was Isabel, but it might have been Rosa or Maria.
It had been a long time since Dom last slept with a girl, and it took him a while to readjust. Her body was soft in different places, and hard in others, and she smelled too sweet, like wilting flowers. Her hair was long and tangled and kept getting in the way. Her mouth was too soft, too yielding. Dom generally preferred women to other blokes (with the occasional notable exception, of course), but although everything went the way it was supposed to, nothing clicked right.
He whispered meaningless nothings into her ear, and made all the proper moves and thrusts, and allowed his hands to rove restlessly across her smooth back, her shoulders, her breasts, her flat stomach. She breathed against his neck, pulled him closer than should have been physically possible, ran long fingers through his hair—
—and he couldn't help but remember another night, in another (far more comfortable) bed, and the sweat and heat and smooth white skin (so much paler than this girl's rich bronze tan), and the hot mouth pressing against his own, demanding, the feather-light whisper that dripped electricity with every "Dom...!"—
Isabel (Rosa? Maria?) quietly gasped something that probably wasn't his name, but she smiled at him anyway as she fell asleep. He didn't say anything, her name or otherwise. He rolled off her gently and resisted the urge to head straight for the shower. He was only going to be in Florida for another three days; with a little luck, their paths wouldn't cross again.
When Dom woke up, the morning light reflected off the ocean to glare at him through the window. There was a crick in his neck from the not-quite-soft-enough bed, and he was alone with the fading scent of wilting flowers.
* * * * *
(somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean)
Dom had flown in more airplanes over the past couple of months than he cared to admit. This particular plane was bound for Heathrow. He wondered where its next destination would be, after dropping him and a couple hundred other people off in London—Paris? Bern? Munich? Or maybe just back to New York?
Maybe he could spend the rest of his life on this plane, eating bland food out of little plastic containers and getting drunk off cheap airline wine.
"Hey, mate." Orlando nudged him from the next seat. "You're real chatty today, aren't you?"
Dom shrugged and stared out the window. Everything outside was grey. Typical.
"Come on, talk," Orlando persisted. "I get nervous when you shut up for more than ten minutes, and it's been at least three hours now. I'm sick of flirting with the stewardesses, I've already seen the in-flight movie, and my headphones are broken. Talk to me."
Somewhere, there might have been a flash of grey ocean through the grey clouds. How thrilling. "What d'you want me to say?"
Orlando blinked at him. "I don't know. Something. Anything. What do we usually talk about?"
"Stupid shit. I don't remember." Dom pushed his seat back a notch, trying to make it a little more comfortable.
A baby in first class started crying. Brilliant.
"You're hopeless, Dom." Orlando reached up and poked his seat light. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. For variety, he started jabbing at Dom's, too. On on. Off off. On. On off on off off on.
Dom swatted his hand away. "You're like a fucking five-year-old!"
Orlando grinned. "Yeah, I try." He sat quietly for a moment. Unfortunately, not a very long moment. "Hey, I'm moving to L.A. soon, did I tell you?"
Just like everyone else, seemed like. All the world to choose from, why did everyone in movies feel the dire need to establish themselves in a smoggy, ugly little corner of California? "So you'll be with Lij and Sean, then."
"Something like that, yeah." He poked Dom in the arm. "You should move there, too. Keep all the hobbits in one place."
"What about Billy?"
Orlando snorted. "Already tried. The bloke loves Scotland too much. But judging from the frequent flyer miles you've racked up recently"—accompanied by a raised eyebrow and pointed look—"you don't seem to love any place. So why not L.A.?"
Dom just shook his head. He fiddled with his seatbelt, then unfastened it altogether. Maybe now he'd be more comfortable.
"You could un-break up with Elijah," Orlando continued tentatively. "At least, I thought that was part of the reason you split. The whole long-distance thing. So if you lived in L.A., it wouldn't be a problem."
"That was only part of the reason," Dom muttered. "It—oh, never mind. I just got sick of waiting."
The baby in first class finally stopped wailing. Dom rubbed his temples lightly and pointedly closed his eyes.
Orlando ignored the hint. "Waiting for what?" When he didn't get a response, he rolled his eyes. "Well, it doesn't sound much different from what you're doing now, and at least the old waiting involved getting laid."
"That's not—I don't—fuck off!" Dom spluttered. "Besides, I am not waiting for anything now. I'm just...restless."
"Same difference," Orlando said mildly. "You're just keeping yourself occupied while you wait for something to happen, right?"
Dom decided he didn't want to live on this plane after all. Not if it meant Orlando would always be right next to him. Besides, no one could live in an airplane seat. They'd never be comfortable.
* * * * *
(Manchester, England)
The difference between home (England) and home (New Zealand) was that if Dom were currently at home (New Zealand), he'd be enjoying the last few weeks of summer, rather than freezing his arse off here at home (England).
Well, maybe that wasn't the only difference.
The similarity between home (England) and home (New Zealand) was that Billy kept hanging around Dom's house and making a general nuisance of himself. But Dom didn't mind all that much, because it made home feel more like home. Or something like that. And anyway, Dom had invited Billy to stay for a few days, so he couldn't exactly kick him out.
Pubs. Another similarity between the two homes was that you could almost unfailingly find Dom and Billy in one.
Or just leaving one, as the case may be, and since Dom was slightly more sober (read: could walk in something resembling a straight line), he was the designated driver for the evening. "We should prob'ly designate a driver before we're both thoroughly pissed," Billy said helpfully, after they were both thoroughly pissed.
"My house," Dom replied in a not-quite-slurred manner. "My car. My driving."
And that worked well enough for a while, as the streetlamps oozed by and the bumps in the road made Dom's feet tingle (or was that the alcohol?) and the cranky heater in the car gradually grunted its way into full operational mode. Dom kept one hand sort of on the steering wheel as he attempted to unzip his jacket with the other, yanking at the clunky brass zipper and trying not to get his shirt or glove or whatever else caught in the process, and the car approached a moderately busy intersection—
—and the traffic light switched from green to orange, and Dom instinctively stepped down on the gas, hard.
The car catapulted itself across the intersection too fast, too suddenly, and Dom's glove did get caught in the zipper, and he tried to pull free and leaned on the wheel and they were (oh fuck!) swerving off the road and—
"Fucking cunt!" Billy yelled as Dom hit the brakes, hard. They just sat there, staring at the tree that was maybe a meter ahead of them, and sort of remembered to breathe. "Fucking cunt," Billy repeated quietly.
Dom carefully, methodically freed his glove from his jacket zipper, put both hands firmly on the wheel, and eased a foot on the gas pedal. The car heaved itself out of the shallow ditch and back onto the road.
After about five minutes, Billy broke the silence. "Were you trying to get us killed?"
Dom didn't take his eyes off the road. "I don't think so."
"Why," Billy said, too calmly, "do you always have to race the fucking traffic light?"
He'd made the excuse so many times, it sounded ridiculous even to him. "I hate waiting."
They didn't speak another word to each other for the rest of the ride home. Dom half-expected Billy to make some cutesy analogy between traffic lights and crossing the street and life, maybe some profound piece of Hallmark wisdom. But if Billy was thinking it, he never said it aloud, so Dom was forced to come up with it on his own.
For the first time in almost two months, Dom wondered what, exactly, Elijah had been about to say on that last night in Wellington.
* * * * *
(New York, USA)
Dom thought that the least comfortable chairs on Earth were located in Laguardia Airport, New York City. He was currently standing next to a row of them. Standing, because whenever he tried sitting in one for more than two minutes, his arse started aching and his lower back tried to commit suicide.
His cell phone beeped annoyingly at him. One of these days, he would remember to change the ring tones to something he actually liked. Or at least something he didn't hate with a passion.
"Hello?"
"Dom, where the fuck are you?"
Lovely to speak to you, too, Elijah. "Laguardia Airport. New York."
There was a long pause. "Um, why? I tried calling you at home but there was no answer, then I tried your cell and there was no answer, then I tried Billy and he said you were on your way here, and now I'm really fucking confused."
"I just turned my cell back on," Dom explained. "I'm waiting for my connecting flight to Long Beach."
Dom imagined that Elijah's eyebrows had just shot up to his hairline. "You are coming here. Why? When were you planning on telling me?"
"Maybe I was planning to stay with Sean or Orlando," Dom said. "Why were you trying to get a hold of me, anyway?"
"I—" Elijah swallowed hard. At least, that's what it sounded like. "I don't know. I rented another Viggo movie last night. And, y'know, I tried playing the Aragorn drinking game, but..."
Dom smiled in spite of himself. "But it's just not the same drinking alone, huh? I know. I did the same thing three days ago."
Neither of them could really think of anything much to say after that, but they kept talking until the batteries in Dom's cell died.
* * * * *
(Long Beach, USA)
The late afternoon air in California was warm and thick, but not unpleasant. It sort of reminded Dom of Wellington after a sticky summer day's work, when he's just got out of costume and the world is starting to cool down and be a livable place again.
Elijah was waiting for him outside the main exit of the airport. He was leaning against a chain link fence, arms folded in front of him. There was a lit cigarette dangling loosely between his fingers. When he saw Dom, he took one last drag, then dropped it and scuffed it out on the pavement. He didn't step forward.
"Hey," Dom said.
"Hey." Elijah pushed lightly away from the fence, but maintained a careful distance between himself and Dom. "Only one bag?"
Dom shrugged. "Wasn't sure how long I'd be staying. I could always go back for more. If you'd like."
Elijah mimicked the forced nonchalance of Dom's shrug. "Maybe. If you'd like." He turned and started walking down the sidewalk. "Come on, my car's parked in a lot two blocks away."
Dom had to jog to catch up. He wanted to put a hand on Elijah's shoulder, or grab his arm, or shove him against the chain link fence and shag him senseless (and where did that thought come from, after all this time?), but he just said—
"Look, Elijah, I'm sorry."
There was no noticeable change in Elijah's pace. "Sorry for what?"
"For ending things when I did. I didn't—"
Now Elijah stopped. "Look, that was, what, two months ago? We've spoken since then. We've even gotten along since then. As far as I can tell, we've stayed friends since then. So why bring it up now?"
The late afternoon light was slanted low, tinged with deep orange. Half of Elijah's face was cast into shadow. Dom breathed. "Because now I think maybe I was wrong."
"I thought I wasn't ready to be 'serious' about it." Elijah's voice was harsh with sarcasm.
"You weren't. Maybe you still aren't. But I think—oh, I don't know. Maybe it's still worth a try."
Elijah just stared at him.
"That's why I came back out here, anyway," Dom finished. "That, and your couch is the only place I've felt comfortable in two months."
He turned and walked away, in what he hoped was the direction of the parking lot. He wasn't sure whether or not Elijah was following him, and he didn't look back to see. As he approached the crosswalk, a hand-symbol on the walk light began blinking red in the universal sign for you've got exactly five seconds to get across the street, motherfucker, so you'd better make a run for it. He almost broke into a jog.
"No. Dom, wait!"
After a long second of hesitation, Dom turned around.
The light changed. Hundreds of cars revved up and hurtled past the crosswalk, families going home after a long day at the beach and businessmen heading off to corporate dinners to make Important Deals and teenagers going clubbing and—
—one lonely airport security guard got stuck behind a slow-moving maintenance worker and had to stop at the crosswalk when the light turned red again. He tapped his knuckles against the steering wheel in a loose approximation of the drums in the song on his radio, glancing at his wristwatch every ten seconds or so and muttering assorted curses. He happened to glance out the window, where two young men were kissing, half-illuminated by his car's headlights.
"What is this, San Fran-fucking-cisco?" he muttered under his breath, and turned up the volume on the radio. The traffic light (finally!) turned green, and he sped off.
*
Title: Crossing the Street
Pairing: Dom-centric, DM/EW
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "Dom half-expected Billy to make some cutesy analogy between traffic lights and crossing the street and life, maybe some profound piece of Hallmark wisdom."
Archive: TAKE IT. PLEASE... just tell me where
Feedback: tastes like chicken. Only better.
Disclaimer: Fact - Dominic Monaghan "just couldn't settle" in Manchester after filming wrapped, and went on a restless trip to various places around the world. Fact - Dom, Billy, and Orlando took a surfing vacation in Florida. Fiction - EVERYTHING ELSE.
Notes: Minor het content, so be forewarned if that bothers you. Huge thank you to Gabby Hope for the beta!
(Wellington, New Zealand)
It was a remarkably simple and relatively painless breakup. It happened on their last night in New Zealand, after the wrap party. The Wellington air was warm and humid, thick with the memory of a late spring day. No one else was on that particular street.
"Are we going to continue it, then?" Dom asked abruptly, kicking an empty beer can down the pavement.
Elijah blinked at him, face tinged with gold from the streetlamp. "Continue it?"
That little drain-gate-thing on the curb, that would be the goal. Dom began dribbling the can more carefully, keeping it rolling lightly just in front of his feet. It gave him something innocent to focus on. "You know. It. Us. Thing. Whatever."
"Oh." The can clinked softly over the concrete. "You mean, after we leave tomorrow. Are we. I don't know. Do you think we should?"
Dom shrugged, keeping his eye on the can. "Maybe we should. End it, I mean. We're going back to our old lives, you know? Different continents. And you're gonna want to continue your career, and I need to start mine, and it's going to be, well, hard. You know?"
"Yeah," Elijah said. "So you think we should end it?"
A lonely car pulled up near the curb, waiting for the traffic light to change. The beer can glowed silver in the headlights. Dom gave it a final kick, and it clattered off the sidewalk and into the drain. Goal. "Maybe, yeah." He couldn't tell whether the dryness in his throat was from relief or regret.
Elijah was staring at the can's final resting place. "Okay."
They walked on for a few more steps, then—
"Dom?"
Dom glanced over at him. Elijah's mouth opened and closed, like he couldn't decide what to say. Out of the corner of his eye, Dom noticed the walk light on the other curb flashing a warning. "Hey, come on, Lij, we'll miss the light!" He turned and broke into a jog, scampering across the street before the traffic light could turn green.
Elijah followed, rolling his eyes. "What's the big deal?" he complained. "So we'd have to wait for one lousy car to go. So what? It's not like we've got anywhere to be."
"Yeah, but we'd have to wait for that one car." Dom hated wasting time.
They didn't speak again for the rest of the walk back to the hotel, but their goodbyes the next morning were friendly enough. It wasn't until Dom was back home in chilly Manchester (he'd forgotten about the season differences, and he shivered all the way through the airport because he hadn't thought to carry a jacket on the flight, and home felt alien and cold and uncomfortable) that he thought to wonder what, exactly, Elijah had been about to say.
But it was a relatively painless breakup, which was what Dom had wanted. So he didn't wonder again.
(Glasgow, Scotland)
The first New Zealand person Dom saw after coming (or was it leaving?) home was Billy, because they had tried and failed to work on their script over the phone. Besides, Dom had never been to Glasgow, and he figured it was about time to get out of his empty little house.
Being with Billy again was almost like being back in New Zealand, but not really.
"You know what's funny?" Dom said, fiddling with his bottle of beer and trying to make the unfamiliar couch feel comfortable. "I miss Feet. For all I complained about getting up at four in the morning and smelly glue and such, that's what I miss the most. Sitting in Feet every morning before dawn and talking about really random shit and listening to bad music."
Billy propped his feet up on the coffee table, pondering his own beer. "Not all of it was bad. Every now and then we got Elijah to put on the Beatles."
Dom conceded the point. "Yeah, and I guess I like the same sort of trash that he likes, but any music is pretty awful when played at top volume at five in the fucking morning."
"Granted. But you miss it."
"But I miss it." Dom took a swig of beer. He shifted slightly—the couch was too damn soft, that was the problem. A bloke could just sink right down into it and get trapped there.
Billy tapped the rim of his bottle lightly with a fingernail. "How is Lijah lately?"
Too damn soft. Dom shrugged. "I don't know, I haven't really spoken to him since we left New Zealand."
"You 'haven't really spoken?' How does that work?" Billy glanced at him sharply. "You two—"
"We ended it," Dom said. "On the last night. I mean, he's all the way over there and I'm here and it just didn't make sense to—"
"You broke up?" Billy set his beer down on the coffee table carefully. "Weren't you talking about getting serious about it? I thought—"
"Yeah, well, Elijah didn't think he was ready for more than a fling-type-thing. Long distance, and all. Besides, he's young—"
"—like you're so much older—" Billy muttered.
"—and he's not ready to make any sort of real commitment, one way or the other."
Billy blinked. "So you're just giving up on him."
Dom tried to take another gulp of beer, but his bottle was empty. "Look, I'm not big on dead-end relationships, all right? And I'm not going to wait around for someone thousands of miles away to decide whether or not the whole true love crap works for him, and just wind up feeling like shit the first time one of us fucks around with someone else."
"It's up to you," Billy said, shrugging. "Just sounds pretty daft to me."
"You know I hate waiting." Dom would never be comfortable on this fucking couch, no matter how much he squirmed around. He got up and headed for the kitchen. Visions of a beer-filled fridge beckoned him. "Come on, let's get this bloody script started. You know it'll be—"
"—funnier than a penguin playing the banjo," Billy finished. He didn't stand. "I'm right behind you."
The fridge was indeed well stocked with beer. Dom helped himself.
(Los Angeles, USA)
Dom didn't stay in Glasgow for very long. In fact, he didn't stay much of anywhere for very long. He visited every distant friend and relative he could think of, and tried out all the major English-speaking cities he'd never really seen before. He even wound up crashing at Elijah's place for a few days. But nothing suited him like New Zealand had.
It was weird and familiar, being alone in a house with Elijah. They watched movies, mostly, and didn't talk too much. Elijah's couch was all right, though, surprisingly enough. Comfortable, with just the right balance between plush cushions and firm support.
"Viggo marathon," Elijah announced on one of the days, returning triumphantly from the video store with A Walk on the Moon, A Perfect Murder, and G.I. Jane.
Dom practically choked on a handful of crisps. "God save us."
"Could be worse," Elijah protested. "It could be time for a Stuart Townsend marathon."
Dom threw the next handful of crisps at him.
They watched the movies anyway, taking Bacardi shots every time Viggo did something Aragorn-like. As the evening progressed, their judgment deteriorated. "His hair looks greasy!" Elijah shouted at the screen. "Aragorn!"
"He has a commanding tone of voice!" Dom agreed enthusiastically. "Aragorn!"
They finished the bottle quickly, and then some. Dom almost forgot and kissed Elijah goodnight. Almost. Instead, he jerked away from the almost-kiss and reeled into a wall.
He left L.A. the next day.
(St. Augustine, USA)
Dom, Billy, and Orlando took off three weeks for a surfing vacation in Florida. If a vacation from sitting around the house and doing nothing (or, alternately, traveling the world with no set purpose or destination) counted as being a vacation, that is. Dom thought it counted.
And it was nice; the three Rings unknowns together on a beach. Elijah or even Sean might have been recognized, and then they'd all have been roped into the fame thing, which would've been such a bother. But no one would recognize Dominic Monaghan or Billy Boyd or Orlando Bloom. Not until December, anyway.
December felt a very long ways off.
They all went to a club one night. It was hot and crowded and loud, and Dom felt the music rather than heard it. It pulsed, pounded, made the soles of his feet vibrate with some unnamed rhythm. The air was thick with humidity and sand and sweat. He couldn't breathe. He tried to move his body in an approximation of everyone else's gyrations, but he just felt stiff and awkward, creaky and rusty and unsuited to the foreign environment. Uncomfortable. Which made no sense, really, because he'd always enjoyed clubs in New Zealand.
Billy vanished into the crowd early on and wasn't seen again until the next afternoon. Orlando almost left with two girls, but he saw Dom standing alone at the bar and generously passed one of the girls along. She was a darkly-tanned Hispanic with hair dyed a golden-red. He was pretty sure her name was Isabel, but it might have been Rosa or Maria.
It had been a long time since Dom last slept with a girl, and it took him a while to readjust. Her body was soft in different places, and hard in others, and she smelled too sweet, like wilting flowers. Her hair was long and tangled and kept getting in the way. Her mouth was too soft, too yielding. Dom generally preferred women to other blokes (with the occasional notable exception, of course), but although everything went the way it was supposed to, nothing clicked right.
He whispered meaningless nothings into her ear, and made all the proper moves and thrusts, and allowed his hands to rove restlessly across her smooth back, her shoulders, her breasts, her flat stomach. She breathed against his neck, pulled him closer than should have been physically possible, ran long fingers through his hair—
—and he couldn't help but remember another night, in another (far more comfortable) bed, and the sweat and heat and smooth white skin (so much paler than this girl's rich bronze tan), and the hot mouth pressing against his own, demanding, the feather-light whisper that dripped electricity with every "Dom...!"—
Isabel (Rosa? Maria?) quietly gasped something that probably wasn't his name, but she smiled at him anyway as she fell asleep. He didn't say anything, her name or otherwise. He rolled off her gently and resisted the urge to head straight for the shower. He was only going to be in Florida for another three days; with a little luck, their paths wouldn't cross again.
When Dom woke up, the morning light reflected off the ocean to glare at him through the window. There was a crick in his neck from the not-quite-soft-enough bed, and he was alone with the fading scent of wilting flowers.
(somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean)
Dom had flown in more airplanes over the past couple of months than he cared to admit. This particular plane was bound for Heathrow. He wondered where its next destination would be, after dropping him and a couple hundred other people off in London—Paris? Bern? Munich? Or maybe just back to New York?
Maybe he could spend the rest of his life on this plane, eating bland food out of little plastic containers and getting drunk off cheap airline wine.
"Hey, mate." Orlando nudged him from the next seat. "You're real chatty today, aren't you?"
Dom shrugged and stared out the window. Everything outside was grey. Typical.
"Come on, talk," Orlando persisted. "I get nervous when you shut up for more than ten minutes, and it's been at least three hours now. I'm sick of flirting with the stewardesses, I've already seen the in-flight movie, and my headphones are broken. Talk to me."
Somewhere, there might have been a flash of grey ocean through the grey clouds. How thrilling. "What d'you want me to say?"
Orlando blinked at him. "I don't know. Something. Anything. What do we usually talk about?"
"Stupid shit. I don't remember." Dom pushed his seat back a notch, trying to make it a little more comfortable.
A baby in first class started crying. Brilliant.
"You're hopeless, Dom." Orlando reached up and poked his seat light. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. For variety, he started jabbing at Dom's, too. On on. Off off. On. On off on off off on.
Dom swatted his hand away. "You're like a fucking five-year-old!"
Orlando grinned. "Yeah, I try." He sat quietly for a moment. Unfortunately, not a very long moment. "Hey, I'm moving to L.A. soon, did I tell you?"
Just like everyone else, seemed like. All the world to choose from, why did everyone in movies feel the dire need to establish themselves in a smoggy, ugly little corner of California? "So you'll be with Lij and Sean, then."
"Something like that, yeah." He poked Dom in the arm. "You should move there, too. Keep all the hobbits in one place."
"What about Billy?"
Orlando snorted. "Already tried. The bloke loves Scotland too much. But judging from the frequent flyer miles you've racked up recently"—accompanied by a raised eyebrow and pointed look—"you don't seem to love any place. So why not L.A.?"
Dom just shook his head. He fiddled with his seatbelt, then unfastened it altogether. Maybe now he'd be more comfortable.
"You could un-break up with Elijah," Orlando continued tentatively. "At least, I thought that was part of the reason you split. The whole long-distance thing. So if you lived in L.A., it wouldn't be a problem."
"That was only part of the reason," Dom muttered. "It—oh, never mind. I just got sick of waiting."
The baby in first class finally stopped wailing. Dom rubbed his temples lightly and pointedly closed his eyes.
Orlando ignored the hint. "Waiting for what?" When he didn't get a response, he rolled his eyes. "Well, it doesn't sound much different from what you're doing now, and at least the old waiting involved getting laid."
"That's not—I don't—fuck off!" Dom spluttered. "Besides, I am not waiting for anything now. I'm just...restless."
"Same difference," Orlando said mildly. "You're just keeping yourself occupied while you wait for something to happen, right?"
Dom decided he didn't want to live on this plane after all. Not if it meant Orlando would always be right next to him. Besides, no one could live in an airplane seat. They'd never be comfortable.
(Manchester, England)
The difference between home (England) and home (New Zealand) was that if Dom were currently at home (New Zealand), he'd be enjoying the last few weeks of summer, rather than freezing his arse off here at home (England).
Well, maybe that wasn't the only difference.
The similarity between home (England) and home (New Zealand) was that Billy kept hanging around Dom's house and making a general nuisance of himself. But Dom didn't mind all that much, because it made home feel more like home. Or something like that. And anyway, Dom had invited Billy to stay for a few days, so he couldn't exactly kick him out.
Pubs. Another similarity between the two homes was that you could almost unfailingly find Dom and Billy in one.
Or just leaving one, as the case may be, and since Dom was slightly more sober (read: could walk in something resembling a straight line), he was the designated driver for the evening. "We should prob'ly designate a driver before we're both thoroughly pissed," Billy said helpfully, after they were both thoroughly pissed.
"My house," Dom replied in a not-quite-slurred manner. "My car. My driving."
And that worked well enough for a while, as the streetlamps oozed by and the bumps in the road made Dom's feet tingle (or was that the alcohol?) and the cranky heater in the car gradually grunted its way into full operational mode. Dom kept one hand sort of on the steering wheel as he attempted to unzip his jacket with the other, yanking at the clunky brass zipper and trying not to get his shirt or glove or whatever else caught in the process, and the car approached a moderately busy intersection—
—and the traffic light switched from green to orange, and Dom instinctively stepped down on the gas, hard.
The car catapulted itself across the intersection too fast, too suddenly, and Dom's glove did get caught in the zipper, and he tried to pull free and leaned on the wheel and they were (oh fuck!) swerving off the road and—
"Fucking cunt!" Billy yelled as Dom hit the brakes, hard. They just sat there, staring at the tree that was maybe a meter ahead of them, and sort of remembered to breathe. "Fucking cunt," Billy repeated quietly.
Dom carefully, methodically freed his glove from his jacket zipper, put both hands firmly on the wheel, and eased a foot on the gas pedal. The car heaved itself out of the shallow ditch and back onto the road.
After about five minutes, Billy broke the silence. "Were you trying to get us killed?"
Dom didn't take his eyes off the road. "I don't think so."
"Why," Billy said, too calmly, "do you always have to race the fucking traffic light?"
He'd made the excuse so many times, it sounded ridiculous even to him. "I hate waiting."
They didn't speak another word to each other for the rest of the ride home. Dom half-expected Billy to make some cutesy analogy between traffic lights and crossing the street and life, maybe some profound piece of Hallmark wisdom. But if Billy was thinking it, he never said it aloud, so Dom was forced to come up with it on his own.
For the first time in almost two months, Dom wondered what, exactly, Elijah had been about to say on that last night in Wellington.
(New York, USA)
Dom thought that the least comfortable chairs on Earth were located in Laguardia Airport, New York City. He was currently standing next to a row of them. Standing, because whenever he tried sitting in one for more than two minutes, his arse started aching and his lower back tried to commit suicide.
His cell phone beeped annoyingly at him. One of these days, he would remember to change the ring tones to something he actually liked. Or at least something he didn't hate with a passion.
"Hello?"
"Dom, where the fuck are you?"
Lovely to speak to you, too, Elijah. "Laguardia Airport. New York."
There was a long pause. "Um, why? I tried calling you at home but there was no answer, then I tried your cell and there was no answer, then I tried Billy and he said you were on your way here, and now I'm really fucking confused."
"I just turned my cell back on," Dom explained. "I'm waiting for my connecting flight to Long Beach."
Dom imagined that Elijah's eyebrows had just shot up to his hairline. "You are coming here. Why? When were you planning on telling me?"
"Maybe I was planning to stay with Sean or Orlando," Dom said. "Why were you trying to get a hold of me, anyway?"
"I—" Elijah swallowed hard. At least, that's what it sounded like. "I don't know. I rented another Viggo movie last night. And, y'know, I tried playing the Aragorn drinking game, but..."
Dom smiled in spite of himself. "But it's just not the same drinking alone, huh? I know. I did the same thing three days ago."
Neither of them could really think of anything much to say after that, but they kept talking until the batteries in Dom's cell died.
(Long Beach, USA)
The late afternoon air in California was warm and thick, but not unpleasant. It sort of reminded Dom of Wellington after a sticky summer day's work, when he's just got out of costume and the world is starting to cool down and be a livable place again.
Elijah was waiting for him outside the main exit of the airport. He was leaning against a chain link fence, arms folded in front of him. There was a lit cigarette dangling loosely between his fingers. When he saw Dom, he took one last drag, then dropped it and scuffed it out on the pavement. He didn't step forward.
"Hey," Dom said.
"Hey." Elijah pushed lightly away from the fence, but maintained a careful distance between himself and Dom. "Only one bag?"
Dom shrugged. "Wasn't sure how long I'd be staying. I could always go back for more. If you'd like."
Elijah mimicked the forced nonchalance of Dom's shrug. "Maybe. If you'd like." He turned and started walking down the sidewalk. "Come on, my car's parked in a lot two blocks away."
Dom had to jog to catch up. He wanted to put a hand on Elijah's shoulder, or grab his arm, or shove him against the chain link fence and shag him senseless (and where did that thought come from, after all this time?), but he just said—
"Look, Elijah, I'm sorry."
There was no noticeable change in Elijah's pace. "Sorry for what?"
"For ending things when I did. I didn't—"
Now Elijah stopped. "Look, that was, what, two months ago? We've spoken since then. We've even gotten along since then. As far as I can tell, we've stayed friends since then. So why bring it up now?"
The late afternoon light was slanted low, tinged with deep orange. Half of Elijah's face was cast into shadow. Dom breathed. "Because now I think maybe I was wrong."
"I thought I wasn't ready to be 'serious' about it." Elijah's voice was harsh with sarcasm.
"You weren't. Maybe you still aren't. But I think—oh, I don't know. Maybe it's still worth a try."
Elijah just stared at him.
"That's why I came back out here, anyway," Dom finished. "That, and your couch is the only place I've felt comfortable in two months."
He turned and walked away, in what he hoped was the direction of the parking lot. He wasn't sure whether or not Elijah was following him, and he didn't look back to see. As he approached the crosswalk, a hand-symbol on the walk light began blinking red in the universal sign for you've got exactly five seconds to get across the street, motherfucker, so you'd better make a run for it. He almost broke into a jog.
"No. Dom, wait!"
After a long second of hesitation, Dom turned around.
The light changed. Hundreds of cars revved up and hurtled past the crosswalk, families going home after a long day at the beach and businessmen heading off to corporate dinners to make Important Deals and teenagers going clubbing and—
—one lonely airport security guard got stuck behind a slow-moving maintenance worker and had to stop at the crosswalk when the light turned red again. He tapped his knuckles against the steering wheel in a loose approximation of the drums in the song on his radio, glancing at his wristwatch every ten seconds or so and muttering assorted curses. He happened to glance out the window, where two young men were kissing, half-illuminated by his car's headlights.
"What is this, San Fran-fucking-cisco?" he muttered under his breath, and turned up the volume on the radio. The traffic light (finally!) turned green, and he sped off.
*
