establishment backstory: jrd/dom, "soonest mended" nc-17
Soonest Mended
John Rhys-Davies/Dominic Monaghan RPS, NC-17
Warnings for light bondage and psychological BDSM. Establishment D/E backstory, but stands alone.
Notes: I never really intended to write out anything of the JRD/Dom backstory for the Establishment, and when I started to write last night, I meant to work on my horror WIP for Halloween. So, this is a tangent of sorts. But JRD/Dom was part of Est!Dom's backstory from the beginning, and it's always been a significant part of the character. I know it's a weird pairing, but oddly enough I ended up liking them together.
*
Dominic bounds into John's house the moment John calls, "It's open," a sudden disruption of energy in John's restful evening.
"Hiya," Dom says cheerfully. "Free tonight?" He always asks that, determined to ignore John's reclusion, the same way he never seems to take note of the raw patches on John's cheeks and around his eyes.
"I suppose I can be," John replies, laying his book aside. Dom tilts his head, his feet scuffing in small restless motions on the carpet.
"We've been surfing this morning," says Dom. "Rough water, we all took a few spills. And I thought, you know. No one's going to think anything of it if I tip up with a mark or two..."
John makes him wait, watching until anticipation begins to turn into doubt before he stands and silently gestures toward the bedroom. It's always worth stalling the boy, needling him; the renewed enthusiasm on Dominic's face proves that making him suffer a bit only pleases him more in the end. Which is, after all, the whole idea.
Standing in the neat, solemn tidiness of John's bedroom, Dominic twists his fingers together and, as always, peers around, shamelessly curious, his eyes bright as a bird's in the very low light. John has only two small lamps in this room, one on the dresser and another by the bed, for reading at night; he only permits the dresser lamp to be lit during these encounters. Positioned low and darkly shaded, the lamp barely illuminates Dominic and certainly doesn't reach high enough to make John's face easily seen.
"Hands, Dominic," John reproves.
"Present and accounted for," Dom grins at him, holding them up, and then goes back to fiddling with his rings unrepentantly.
Shaking his head, John rises and goes to the dresser to select a pair of soft cuffs. "Off with your shirt then. Lace your fingers and give me your wrists."
Dom obeys, still grinning as John winds the cuffs around his wrists, his long well-modeled fingers folded in a reverent attitude that hardly matches his impish expression. "Am I meant to be praying?"
"If you like," John answers, fastening the cuffs together.
"For what?"
John folds Dom's clasped hands back against his naked chest, circling and tweaking his nipples, smiling a bit as Dom's breath reliably catches and speeds up. "I'm sure you'll think of something."
"Then I suppose I ought to genuflect," Dom says, and goes to his knees.
Dominic's fastened hands are no impediment as he deals with buttons, zippers, fabric and ultimately flesh. His head tilts up and his lips part, and he closes his eyes as if in respect of John's acute self-consciousness, though they've mercifully never spoken of it.
"Enough," John says in due time, and Dominic draws reluctantly back, his tongue running over his wet mouth, cocky grin long forgotten.
"Stand for me, and face away."
Rolling up easily to his feet, Dominic turns around and bends his elbows experimentally, then folds his arms against his chest as John reaches around him and loosens his trousers in turn, sliding them down his legs and holding him round the waist to steady him as Dominic steps out of his clothes.
He's already been marked, and the sight gives John pause; four straight lines across his backside and high on his thighs, faint and faded but still evident. Cane stripes, delivered with a heavy hand, and while John knows that Dominic takes pain readily, eagerly, with all the endurance and resilience of youth, still, these marks are beyond the bounds of anything John has done with him or would do with him just now.
"You've taken a beating," John observes, tracing a stripe with his fingers. A week ago, he speculates.
"Last weekend, yeah," Dominic confirms. "Still shows, does it? I s'pose it would at that. Smarted a bit more than I expected. But, you know. Worth a shot, eh? I'll try anything twice."
"Cate," John hazards a guess.
Dominic looks over his shoulder at John with a narrow frown, but the expression quickly smoothes away. "Yeah," he concedes.
"I hope she looked after you properly. I'm not sure what I think of her as a domme. From what I've gathered, she doesn't always seem to take the proper care afterwards."
"It's not like that, though," Dom offers. "Not that sort of domination stuff. Just, a bit of slap and tickle, with less of the tickle and rather more of the slap. I mean, I never really do the mental stuff, yeah? Wouldn't know how to take it seriously."
From a suite of possible reactions, John selects bemusement. "Is that so?"
"Yeah," Dom shrugs, neck still craned round, peering blindly up at John. Whatever the faint light affords of John's expression puts a worry line between Dom's brows, and he corrects himself, "Yes."
John laughs, and reaches into the dresser for another set of cuffs, these larger and wider. "On the bed, my boy," he orders, and shakes his head as Dominic quickly minds him. "On your side, facing away."
"Always facing away. And you never kiss me," Dom says, almost but not quite a complaint. All the same, he stretches on his left side, facing the wall, his back a lovely arch even in this prone position.
"Ankles together," John instructs, and cuffs them as well, fastening them together with no slack at all between them, just like the wrist cuffs. He's often considered putting Dominic under more strict bondage, leashing all that youthful exuberance, giving him no other outlet for his energy but, eventually, sex. Cuffing him at the wrists and ankles is the least of it, but it seems a good time to make a start, if only to make a point.
He lays out the necessities in easy reach and joins Dominic on the bed, slipping one arm under his body, slim and compact compared to John's own height and size. Spreading oil liberally, he palms and rolls the suspended weight between Dominic's legs, grasps his erection at the root and works the slippery oil upward as Dominic pants and squirms against him, tugging mindlessly at the cuffs while John touches him.
"I'd be perfectly happy to do this all evening," John tells him.
Dominic only answers with a frustrated noise John's quite familiar with, the noise Dominic makes when he's almost desperate but not quite yet ready to beg.
"But then there's also this," John adds meditatively, sprinkling more oil and stroking his fingertips between Dominic's cheeks, smiling as Dominic gasps.
He's tight, almost clenched; John bites at his neck and shoulder, drawing groans from Dominic's throat but no ease from his body. "Relax," John urges. "Push out a bit and try to relax."
"I'm trying," Dom answers, his voice pitched low, breathy, robbed of sound.
John adds more oil, but Dominic's body doesn't yield and John is unwilling to push. "You've not done much of this," he says.
"I have," Dom protests.
"Have you."
"Well. A bit," he amends.
"What do you usually do, then?" John asks.
"Drink," Dom admits. "But it's all right, you can push harder, you know I don't mind if it hurts a bit at first."
"I mind," John tells him, his fingers skidding over the puckered surface only, not even trying to press inward now. "It's not good for you to force it."
Dom hesitates, tensing further. "Is that it? Or do you just want me to ask?"
"Calm down, my boy. Have I played those games with you before?" He shifts to grip Dom's shaft again, drawing the foreskin over the frenulum in small gentle motions. "Cate's taught you bad habits."
"I've not-- seen much of her-- God," Dom sucks air through his teeth.
"Then trust me."
"I do, John, just, please..."
"Not yet," John warns him. "Hold on."
"Then stop--"
"No."
Dominic writhes, a glorious pressure against John's own need, his bound hands sweeping restlessly across the coverlet. "Please sir" rushes out of him.
John hasn't the heart to drive him deeper than that. "Shhhh," he eases up on Dominic, grasping the base of his cock to quell any chance of orgasm for now. Dominic's hips roll, fruitlessly trying to thrust into his confining hand, a whine in his throat; in time he calms and catches his breath as John's lips caress the back of his neck.
"Would you," Dominic twists between the proverbial rock and a hard place, between John's unmoving hand and his body. John adjusts his erection to fit between Dominic's thighs, taking advantage of his tension and his struggles, and Dominic moans and squeezes him, rocking back against him.
Perhaps a bit deeper. "You'll come when I tell you, and not before," John says, controlled and even.
"You could--" Dominic rolls his hips again, deliberately this time. "John, I said, it's all right, I d--"
John fits his hand over Dominic's mouth, only intending to quiet him for the moment, but Dominic cries out behind his hand and his already tense body seizes hard, the force of his thighs almost agonizing, his folded hands tight enough to make his knuckles pale.
"Shhh," intuitively John spreads his fingers; Dominic sags against his chest, gulping air, still wrought up but evidently soothed. Following his instincts further, John takes him in hand and strokes him again, and Dominic all but thrashes in his arms at the renewed stimulation, sucking John's fingers into his mouth ardently.
"Not yet," John tells him, low and certain. "Not yet," and Dominic's breath sobs out violently. He pulls at his cuffed wrists to the tune of a steady song of smothered moans then goes abruptly still, his choked sounds growing desperate.
Speeding his strokes, John commands, "Come for me now," deeply satisfied to feel the timing work perfectly, spasms wracking Dominic precisely on cue, his teeth sinking into John's fingers.
Dominic relaxes bonelessly in his arms, still sucking his fingers. John urges him onto his stomach, hands clasped and outstretched above his head, his beautifully shaped backside and the dip of his waist...
The sight of his own engorged member poised between his round cheeks as though to enter, that alone is enough to bring him to the edge as John spends the last traces of oil on his hand on himself. His other hand still wraps loosely across Dom's mouth; Dominic goes on licking John's fingertips, tongue curling around the sensitive pads.
If he were properly trained up, the things that boy could do to a pair of boots, John thinks, and the idea pushes him over the peak of a powerful climax.
Eventually John fetches the cloth from the bedside table and cleans them both, his touch careful as he tends to Dominic; when he turns the boy onto his back again, he's oddly unsurprised to see the tidal mark of tears just under Dominic's eyes. He unwinds the cuffs and massages Dom's wrists and ankles, watches his lids close and open, close and flutter and stay closed, and after only a moment's hesitation, kisses him.
"I've grown entirely too fond of you, my boy," he says when he's certain Dominic is asleep, and nods when Dom doesn't stir.
*
"Of course Sean and Elijah have been doing all that studio work, but they're on location in another week or so. Seems we'll all be going our separate ways for filming soon," Dominic observes, dragging his socks up onto his feet.
"We will at that."
"Have you looked ahead at the schedule? I keep meaning to sit with it and a map, but I'm always too busy, or tired, or I forget."
"I've looked ahead, but only with an eye for how much travel I'll be doing, and how many days under that dreadful mask."
"I'm sorry it's been so horrible," Dominic says. "If it's any consolation, I've had three people on the crew compliment me on the excellent prosthetic job they've done on my nose."
"Not much consolation, but no small amusement," John allows. "Dominic."
He lifts his head and tries to meet John's eyes, and for once, John puts on the second lamp and lets him.
"You're young and you'll do just as you like regardless of what I have to say about it," John tells him. "But mind you don't get in over your head. A few cane stripes is the least of it. You ought not to submit to someone until they earn your trust."
"Of course I wouldn't," Dominic smiles. "I keep telling you I couldn't anyway, not and keep a straight face."
"You don't think so, my boy?" John asks deliberately, and combs his fingers through Dominic's short hair.
Dominic bows his head and stretches into the touch, as always, and shrugs, "Nah."
Everything, John reflects, is over one's head when one insists on burying it in the sand.
"We didn't take advantage of that surfing trip," Dominic says, standing. "You've not really marked me at all. Not that I'm complaining, of course. But we're going next week as well, shall I come over after, again?"
With an effort, John replies, "I don't think so."
"I have a short day the Thursday after that--"
John shakes his head. "I don't believe all this is doing you any favors, Dominic. There are things you need to learn from people your own age, not from jaded players like myself or the redoubtable Ms. Blanchett."
Frowning fiercely, Dominic picks up his trainers. "I won't see her again. She's not asked me to anyway, and I wouldn't, I won't. If that's what this is--"
"It isn't about her. It's my own experiences and my own opinion, Dominic. I don't believe you're honestly ready to go where you're headed, and where I'd be all too willing to lead you despite my better judgement."
Dom sets his jaw. "You won't even let me try."
"It's because you'd try that I don't feel I can let you."
"So-- what, then. People my own age? You think I should be learning things from people who don't know what they're doing any more than I do?" Dom asks.
John privately thinks Dominic would be hard pressed to find any such person on set, or indeed on the island, most likely, but it certainly won't help to air that view. "I think there are things you can learn from people your own age that you need to know before you move on," he says finally.
"It's not as though I'm not seeing other people as well, younger, whatever. You know that I am," Dominic says, "I'm seeing all sorts."
"Then I'm only freeing a little more of your time for those other pursuits," John reasons, "and surely you'll soon be too busy to miss this."
Dom's shoulders drop from his combative posture. He puts on his shoes and stuffs his hands in his pockets. "Fine. If that's what you want."
"It's not what I want. It's what I think is best."
He doesn't quite roll his eyes, but Dominic's expression is eloquent of disdain, a look that fades quickly into uncertainty. "Can I still come round to talk?"
"Of course," John says. "I hope you will," though he rather doubts it.
Dom runs his tongue across his lower lip, eyes low, and seems to give up. "Cheers then," he says.
"Goodbye," John cuts himself off, and sees him out.
The rest of the night passes quietly and without incident, and so does every night in New Zealand after that.
***
John Rhys-Davies/Dominic Monaghan RPS, NC-17
Warnings for light bondage and psychological BDSM. Establishment D/E backstory, but stands alone.
Notes: I never really intended to write out anything of the JRD/Dom backstory for the Establishment, and when I started to write last night, I meant to work on my horror WIP for Halloween. So, this is a tangent of sorts. But JRD/Dom was part of Est!Dom's backstory from the beginning, and it's always been a significant part of the character. I know it's a weird pairing, but oddly enough I ended up liking them together.
*
Dominic bounds into John's house the moment John calls, "It's open," a sudden disruption of energy in John's restful evening.
"Hiya," Dom says cheerfully. "Free tonight?" He always asks that, determined to ignore John's reclusion, the same way he never seems to take note of the raw patches on John's cheeks and around his eyes.
"I suppose I can be," John replies, laying his book aside. Dom tilts his head, his feet scuffing in small restless motions on the carpet.
"We've been surfing this morning," says Dom. "Rough water, we all took a few spills. And I thought, you know. No one's going to think anything of it if I tip up with a mark or two..."
John makes him wait, watching until anticipation begins to turn into doubt before he stands and silently gestures toward the bedroom. It's always worth stalling the boy, needling him; the renewed enthusiasm on Dominic's face proves that making him suffer a bit only pleases him more in the end. Which is, after all, the whole idea.
Standing in the neat, solemn tidiness of John's bedroom, Dominic twists his fingers together and, as always, peers around, shamelessly curious, his eyes bright as a bird's in the very low light. John has only two small lamps in this room, one on the dresser and another by the bed, for reading at night; he only permits the dresser lamp to be lit during these encounters. Positioned low and darkly shaded, the lamp barely illuminates Dominic and certainly doesn't reach high enough to make John's face easily seen.
"Hands, Dominic," John reproves.
"Present and accounted for," Dom grins at him, holding them up, and then goes back to fiddling with his rings unrepentantly.
Shaking his head, John rises and goes to the dresser to select a pair of soft cuffs. "Off with your shirt then. Lace your fingers and give me your wrists."
Dom obeys, still grinning as John winds the cuffs around his wrists, his long well-modeled fingers folded in a reverent attitude that hardly matches his impish expression. "Am I meant to be praying?"
"If you like," John answers, fastening the cuffs together.
"For what?"
John folds Dom's clasped hands back against his naked chest, circling and tweaking his nipples, smiling a bit as Dom's breath reliably catches and speeds up. "I'm sure you'll think of something."
"Then I suppose I ought to genuflect," Dom says, and goes to his knees.
Dominic's fastened hands are no impediment as he deals with buttons, zippers, fabric and ultimately flesh. His head tilts up and his lips part, and he closes his eyes as if in respect of John's acute self-consciousness, though they've mercifully never spoken of it.
"Enough," John says in due time, and Dominic draws reluctantly back, his tongue running over his wet mouth, cocky grin long forgotten.
"Stand for me, and face away."
Rolling up easily to his feet, Dominic turns around and bends his elbows experimentally, then folds his arms against his chest as John reaches around him and loosens his trousers in turn, sliding them down his legs and holding him round the waist to steady him as Dominic steps out of his clothes.
He's already been marked, and the sight gives John pause; four straight lines across his backside and high on his thighs, faint and faded but still evident. Cane stripes, delivered with a heavy hand, and while John knows that Dominic takes pain readily, eagerly, with all the endurance and resilience of youth, still, these marks are beyond the bounds of anything John has done with him or would do with him just now.
"You've taken a beating," John observes, tracing a stripe with his fingers. A week ago, he speculates.
"Last weekend, yeah," Dominic confirms. "Still shows, does it? I s'pose it would at that. Smarted a bit more than I expected. But, you know. Worth a shot, eh? I'll try anything twice."
"Cate," John hazards a guess.
Dominic looks over his shoulder at John with a narrow frown, but the expression quickly smoothes away. "Yeah," he concedes.
"I hope she looked after you properly. I'm not sure what I think of her as a domme. From what I've gathered, she doesn't always seem to take the proper care afterwards."
"It's not like that, though," Dom offers. "Not that sort of domination stuff. Just, a bit of slap and tickle, with less of the tickle and rather more of the slap. I mean, I never really do the mental stuff, yeah? Wouldn't know how to take it seriously."
From a suite of possible reactions, John selects bemusement. "Is that so?"
"Yeah," Dom shrugs, neck still craned round, peering blindly up at John. Whatever the faint light affords of John's expression puts a worry line between Dom's brows, and he corrects himself, "Yes."
John laughs, and reaches into the dresser for another set of cuffs, these larger and wider. "On the bed, my boy," he orders, and shakes his head as Dominic quickly minds him. "On your side, facing away."
"Always facing away. And you never kiss me," Dom says, almost but not quite a complaint. All the same, he stretches on his left side, facing the wall, his back a lovely arch even in this prone position.
"Ankles together," John instructs, and cuffs them as well, fastening them together with no slack at all between them, just like the wrist cuffs. He's often considered putting Dominic under more strict bondage, leashing all that youthful exuberance, giving him no other outlet for his energy but, eventually, sex. Cuffing him at the wrists and ankles is the least of it, but it seems a good time to make a start, if only to make a point.
He lays out the necessities in easy reach and joins Dominic on the bed, slipping one arm under his body, slim and compact compared to John's own height and size. Spreading oil liberally, he palms and rolls the suspended weight between Dominic's legs, grasps his erection at the root and works the slippery oil upward as Dominic pants and squirms against him, tugging mindlessly at the cuffs while John touches him.
"I'd be perfectly happy to do this all evening," John tells him.
Dominic only answers with a frustrated noise John's quite familiar with, the noise Dominic makes when he's almost desperate but not quite yet ready to beg.
"But then there's also this," John adds meditatively, sprinkling more oil and stroking his fingertips between Dominic's cheeks, smiling as Dominic gasps.
He's tight, almost clenched; John bites at his neck and shoulder, drawing groans from Dominic's throat but no ease from his body. "Relax," John urges. "Push out a bit and try to relax."
"I'm trying," Dom answers, his voice pitched low, breathy, robbed of sound.
John adds more oil, but Dominic's body doesn't yield and John is unwilling to push. "You've not done much of this," he says.
"I have," Dom protests.
"Have you."
"Well. A bit," he amends.
"What do you usually do, then?" John asks.
"Drink," Dom admits. "But it's all right, you can push harder, you know I don't mind if it hurts a bit at first."
"I mind," John tells him, his fingers skidding over the puckered surface only, not even trying to press inward now. "It's not good for you to force it."
Dom hesitates, tensing further. "Is that it? Or do you just want me to ask?"
"Calm down, my boy. Have I played those games with you before?" He shifts to grip Dom's shaft again, drawing the foreskin over the frenulum in small gentle motions. "Cate's taught you bad habits."
"I've not-- seen much of her-- God," Dom sucks air through his teeth.
"Then trust me."
"I do, John, just, please..."
"Not yet," John warns him. "Hold on."
"Then stop--"
"No."
Dominic writhes, a glorious pressure against John's own need, his bound hands sweeping restlessly across the coverlet. "Please sir" rushes out of him.
John hasn't the heart to drive him deeper than that. "Shhhh," he eases up on Dominic, grasping the base of his cock to quell any chance of orgasm for now. Dominic's hips roll, fruitlessly trying to thrust into his confining hand, a whine in his throat; in time he calms and catches his breath as John's lips caress the back of his neck.
"Would you," Dominic twists between the proverbial rock and a hard place, between John's unmoving hand and his body. John adjusts his erection to fit between Dominic's thighs, taking advantage of his tension and his struggles, and Dominic moans and squeezes him, rocking back against him.
Perhaps a bit deeper. "You'll come when I tell you, and not before," John says, controlled and even.
"You could--" Dominic rolls his hips again, deliberately this time. "John, I said, it's all right, I d--"
John fits his hand over Dominic's mouth, only intending to quiet him for the moment, but Dominic cries out behind his hand and his already tense body seizes hard, the force of his thighs almost agonizing, his folded hands tight enough to make his knuckles pale.
"Shhh," intuitively John spreads his fingers; Dominic sags against his chest, gulping air, still wrought up but evidently soothed. Following his instincts further, John takes him in hand and strokes him again, and Dominic all but thrashes in his arms at the renewed stimulation, sucking John's fingers into his mouth ardently.
"Not yet," John tells him, low and certain. "Not yet," and Dominic's breath sobs out violently. He pulls at his cuffed wrists to the tune of a steady song of smothered moans then goes abruptly still, his choked sounds growing desperate.
Speeding his strokes, John commands, "Come for me now," deeply satisfied to feel the timing work perfectly, spasms wracking Dominic precisely on cue, his teeth sinking into John's fingers.
Dominic relaxes bonelessly in his arms, still sucking his fingers. John urges him onto his stomach, hands clasped and outstretched above his head, his beautifully shaped backside and the dip of his waist...
The sight of his own engorged member poised between his round cheeks as though to enter, that alone is enough to bring him to the edge as John spends the last traces of oil on his hand on himself. His other hand still wraps loosely across Dom's mouth; Dominic goes on licking John's fingertips, tongue curling around the sensitive pads.
If he were properly trained up, the things that boy could do to a pair of boots, John thinks, and the idea pushes him over the peak of a powerful climax.
Eventually John fetches the cloth from the bedside table and cleans them both, his touch careful as he tends to Dominic; when he turns the boy onto his back again, he's oddly unsurprised to see the tidal mark of tears just under Dominic's eyes. He unwinds the cuffs and massages Dom's wrists and ankles, watches his lids close and open, close and flutter and stay closed, and after only a moment's hesitation, kisses him.
"I've grown entirely too fond of you, my boy," he says when he's certain Dominic is asleep, and nods when Dom doesn't stir.
*
"Of course Sean and Elijah have been doing all that studio work, but they're on location in another week or so. Seems we'll all be going our separate ways for filming soon," Dominic observes, dragging his socks up onto his feet.
"We will at that."
"Have you looked ahead at the schedule? I keep meaning to sit with it and a map, but I'm always too busy, or tired, or I forget."
"I've looked ahead, but only with an eye for how much travel I'll be doing, and how many days under that dreadful mask."
"I'm sorry it's been so horrible," Dominic says. "If it's any consolation, I've had three people on the crew compliment me on the excellent prosthetic job they've done on my nose."
"Not much consolation, but no small amusement," John allows. "Dominic."
He lifts his head and tries to meet John's eyes, and for once, John puts on the second lamp and lets him.
"You're young and you'll do just as you like regardless of what I have to say about it," John tells him. "But mind you don't get in over your head. A few cane stripes is the least of it. You ought not to submit to someone until they earn your trust."
"Of course I wouldn't," Dominic smiles. "I keep telling you I couldn't anyway, not and keep a straight face."
"You don't think so, my boy?" John asks deliberately, and combs his fingers through Dominic's short hair.
Dominic bows his head and stretches into the touch, as always, and shrugs, "Nah."
Everything, John reflects, is over one's head when one insists on burying it in the sand.
"We didn't take advantage of that surfing trip," Dominic says, standing. "You've not really marked me at all. Not that I'm complaining, of course. But we're going next week as well, shall I come over after, again?"
With an effort, John replies, "I don't think so."
"I have a short day the Thursday after that--"
John shakes his head. "I don't believe all this is doing you any favors, Dominic. There are things you need to learn from people your own age, not from jaded players like myself or the redoubtable Ms. Blanchett."
Frowning fiercely, Dominic picks up his trainers. "I won't see her again. She's not asked me to anyway, and I wouldn't, I won't. If that's what this is--"
"It isn't about her. It's my own experiences and my own opinion, Dominic. I don't believe you're honestly ready to go where you're headed, and where I'd be all too willing to lead you despite my better judgement."
Dom sets his jaw. "You won't even let me try."
"It's because you'd try that I don't feel I can let you."
"So-- what, then. People my own age? You think I should be learning things from people who don't know what they're doing any more than I do?" Dom asks.
John privately thinks Dominic would be hard pressed to find any such person on set, or indeed on the island, most likely, but it certainly won't help to air that view. "I think there are things you can learn from people your own age that you need to know before you move on," he says finally.
"It's not as though I'm not seeing other people as well, younger, whatever. You know that I am," Dominic says, "I'm seeing all sorts."
"Then I'm only freeing a little more of your time for those other pursuits," John reasons, "and surely you'll soon be too busy to miss this."
Dom's shoulders drop from his combative posture. He puts on his shoes and stuffs his hands in his pockets. "Fine. If that's what you want."
"It's not what I want. It's what I think is best."
He doesn't quite roll his eyes, but Dominic's expression is eloquent of disdain, a look that fades quickly into uncertainty. "Can I still come round to talk?"
"Of course," John says. "I hope you will," though he rather doubts it.
Dom runs his tongue across his lower lip, eyes low, and seems to give up. "Cheers then," he says.
"Goodbye," John cuts himself off, and sees him out.
The rest of the night passes quietly and without incident, and so does every night in New Zealand after that.
***