(no subject)
Title: positivity
Fandom: lotrips
Pairing: domlijah.
Rating: pg.
Summary: an adult contemporary mixtape, in which elijah's not gay, dom licks people, billy's a love pixie and ian leaves unexpected gifts. there's cuteness. so much pointless cuteness.
1: secret smile
nobody knows it, but you've got a secret smile
and you use it only for me
dom is so easy with himself that it kind of makes elijah sick. he's known since he was ten years old that You Do Not Think This, and if you have to think it, even sometimes, then at least you don't act it. at least you don't go around--licking people, for christ's sake.
billy is lying on the floor, moaning "ugly ugly ugly. ugly and old and scottish." the empty bottle of scotch lies a few inches from his limp fingers. dom crouches over him, straddles his chest and lowers his head so that his forehead touches billy's. "stop whining, mate. i'd fuck you."
"would you?" billy looks bizarrely cheerful.
"yeah, i'd fuck you in a second." dom licks two fingers and presses them against billy's crotch, his other hand crawling up billy's t-shirt. elijah nearly chokes on his illicit alcohol. "you're hot. and scottish."
billy laughs in little happy hiccups. "get off. get off me. poofter. fucking--moleste--tation. what?"
dom grins, a sliver of pink tongue easing out of his mouth. "shut up. i know you like it."
"hey. hey, sblom, would you fuck me?" asks orlando from the couch, and giggles drunkenly, one long leg sliding off the pillows to thump on the floor. "am i fuckable?" sean cackles sepulchrally and retreats to his lair under the coffee table.
"hell yes," says dom, comfortable and unselfconscious, "the fuckablest."
elijah is pretty damn sure "fuckablest" is not a word.
"are you offering?" dom's eyes slide sideways to meet elijah's and elijah gulps, looks down and sideways, and hides his face behind his can of foster's. "i'd fuck any of you, you're all bloody sexy," says dom placidly, and scoots backward to sit on the pool table.
2. somebody else
gave your body, honey i could tell
that you were saving yourself for somebody else
"noooo, dommmm," moans billy, still on the floor hours later, head lolling, neck pale and bristling and exposed. "don't leeeeave."
"i must!" says dom dramatically. he is standing at the basement stairs, draped against orlando's back, arms locked around orlando's neck, and orlando has his arms wrenched backward around dom's waist. he rests his head on orlando's shoulder, and elijah imagines the scrub of stubble against his neck.
"why must you," whines billy. elijah watches them both out of strangely unclear eyes, nurses his can of beer.
"because it's three in the morning and i have to actually do something tomorrow--today--" says dom, "unlike you useless lot."
"because i have a car," says orlando triumphantly, "and i'm almost not drunk anymore."
"this is stupid," slurs sean from under the coffee table, and snickers. "you're going to get in a car crash and die. what have i told you, kids," and he waves his finger groggily at the two of them, attempting the patented Astin Responsible Voice, "driving drunk ends lives, hahahaha."
"stay heeeeere, sblomie, my badger," wails billy, lifting his hips and twisting his torso in petulant coils.
"no," says dom, "i'm going home with my luv-ah," and he licks orlando's neck and orlando says, "mmm, thassit, bitch, lick me," and rubs his shoulders languorously against dom's chest.
sometimes elijah really hates orlando.
3. wicked game
what a wicked thing to do
to make me dream of you
elijah's asleep in a pile of orc helmets (pointy, yet weirdly soothing in a broken-massage-chair kind of way) when dom pounces on him, mushes his cheeks together, smacks his nose up close to elijah's and yells "TIG TAGGERTY HEFFALUMP!"
"SWEET JESUS FUCKING CHRIST," yelps elijah and they skid to the ground with a clattering thump. he stares up into wide, bizarrely innocent brown eyes, face split with a smile, glimpse of pink sugar-sweet tongue. christ.
"no, wrong," says dom severely, "you can't put jesus on a heffalump. penalty blow job for sacrilege! and anyway you have to toggle on a taggerty, (which you blatantly failed to do,) otherwise you're out for six rounds."
"i'm not giving you a penalty blow job," says elijah.
"you have to, doodle, it's the rules," says dom innocently. his hand has somehow crept around to the back of elijah's head, blunt fingers combing through the soft buzz at the nape of elijah's neck. his breath is warm on elijah's forehead.
"i'm," says elijah, and swallows a little bit too hard. "uhh, haha. is this."
"it's in the rules," says dom patiently.
"i can't breathe," says elijah truthfully.
dom moans and wriggles and slides and manages to get off elijah in the most uncomfortable way possible, nuzzling elijah's stomach as he does so, the enamel scrape of dom's teeth against the cloth of his shirt and the skin underneath. "whiny whiny whiny. no wonder you never win."
"i can't win!" says elijah, exasperated. "that's why i never win. you know that. i can't win."
"why not?" open, innocent face, little half-demon grin.
"cos it's in the rules. help me up." elijah yawns, stretches catlike, licks his lips. and then notices, with a sudden shivering jolt that goes right down to the pit of his belly, that dom is watching his mouth.
4: careful where you stand
i feel safe when i am with you
and i feel warm when you want me too
elijah does the cirith ungol shoot with a temperature of 102, and when it's over they give him a blanket and a mug of theraflu and peter says something vague about resting up and rushes with sean off to someplace up near greymouth, seeming to forget that it will be very difficult for elijah to rest up if he has feet an hour early tomorrow. which he does. eric-the-cameraman gives him a sympathetic look and two packets of cranberry tea, which tastes nicer than foul, foul theraflu even if it doesn't help as much.
elijah retreats, shivering, to orli's trailer, because the hobbits are in The Big One this week and he can't deal with sir ian yelling at him about dripping his germs all over the place. when he shows up at the door, half-naked and shivering and with fever-spots high on his cheeks, orlando takes one good look at him and then wrenches his mug away and half-carries him to the nearest bunk, heaps him with blankets and pillows, and shoos sean and viggo, who have been playing a weirdly intense game of chess with lots of yelling and burning stares, out into the cold. orlando is a cunt, but a good-hearted cunt who really knows what to do sometimes, thinks elijah before he falls asleep.
he dreams about being swallowed up by the ground, gasping for air and not breathing, and when he wakes up his skin burns and every time he moves it feels like being flayed alive. he whimpers, strains against the clinging sheets, but that just makes it worse--moving makes it worse--and he starts crying because he can, because there's no one else around, or no one he can hear, and it hurts, hurts, hurts. the crying exacerbates everything, because now he can't breathe along with the rest of it, and somewhere in the back of his mind he thinks, maybe i have cancer and i'm going to die, and he rolls over and stuffs his face in the pillow, his mouth filling with cloth, his head heavy and filled with liquid.
he wakes up again to strange orange light across orlando's bed and a horrible taste in his mouth. dom is sitting across from him, arms folded across his knees and chin in his hands, brow wrinkled adorably above his fingers.
"hngraagh," says elijah. he's pretty sure he didn't mean to say "hngraagh," what he meant was "hello," but his mouth is full of crap and his vocal cords feel unnaturally thick and slimy, so he'll take what he can get. "hngraagh" it is.
"hallo, ugly," says dom.
elijah snorts up phlegm. very glamorous, very alluring. dom hands him a tissue. wonderful dom. "sblob. whad are you doig here?"
"staring at you while you sleee-eep," says dom in a husky, fatal-attraction kind of voice. elijah blinks and dom smiles for the first time, softening creases on his forehead and around his eyes. "no. orli made me. sean was here earlier. we're supposed to keep you in hot tea and love until you stop virusing all over the place."
elijah coughs pathetically.
"tea!" says dom brightly, and gets up, slides over to the stove. elijah watches the way dom's weathered blue jeans hang rough and low on his hips and cling intriguingly, but only because that's all of dom that fits into his field of vision and it hurts to move. elijah blurs, maybe falls back asleep, and then dom's hand is gentle between his shoulderblades, lifting him upright, friction burn on the delicate skin there. elijah's hands feel useless and swollen, flopping under the bedspread.
"open," says dom briskly, pressing the warm rim of the mug against elijah's lips. "enjoy this while it lasts, i'm not going to be your personal tea-slave forever."
"mnrff," says elijah, and drinks, gratefully. soothing honey-warmth slides soft around the red ache that is his throat. they sit there in comfortable silence for a moment. dom, unlike anyone else who's ever taken care of elijah, has the good sense not to rub elijah's back and make everything worse. his hand just waits against the nape of elijah's neck, fingers curled protectively, supporting but not pushing. elijah licks his lips reflexively, tastes cranberries and honey, and he wonders, if he could muster up the energy to slant his eyes upward, whether dom would be watching the slick slip of his tongue.
"aren'd you subbosed do be doig thigs?" croaks elijah eventually.
"i am doing things," says dom cheerfully, readjusting his shoulders so elijah can slump against his chest, and elijah thinks, you could be, if you wanted.
5. positivity
and the birds sing for you
and your positivity
everyone likes dom best.
not just the cast, but everyone. pete, because he is dedicated without being Artistic about it, and he pays attention and follows directions well and if he must come up with his own ideas, he doesn't start obsessing about them in the middle of a shoot and waste ten minutes of film playing merry-as-stylized-brechtian-victim-of-capitalism.
and the crew, because he does perfect imitations of all the actors they don't like, because he is completely free of plastic hollywood superiority, because he holds his liquor well and tells the amazing joke about the guy and the donkey and the clown, because he knows when to be the calm one, all inward-turned and still, hand against some guy's chest in a bar, saying "come on, back off, mate," which ought to look ridiculous from a little tiny guy like dom but which is genuinely scary and keeps them out of more fights than elijah really wants to think about.
and the cast, the whole cast, because he is careful and funny and doesn't complain except when it's okay and everyone isn't wretched (not like elijah, who is unabashedly whiny pretty much all the time.) liv, in particular, loves him, because he is the only one, out of the whole fellowship, who really treats her exactly like she's one of them. but with boobs. so, like, one of them plus.
even bean, who is of course wonderful and sweet and good company, but remarkably more shy then anyone thought and has to go home a lot, who generally only talks much to viggo and orli--even bean loves dom. they have a pinching game that they won't explain to anyone else, but it doesn't seem to be very complicated. mostly it's just pinching. bean doesn't even mind when dom glomps onto his leg and yelps, "i'm horny, say 'strawberries' for meeee," just looks down and whispers in long, sensual slopes of sound, "strawwwrburries-uh," and then dom writhes and screams outrageously, like he's coming harder than anyone's ever come in the history of the world, and slides bonelessly down bean's calf, whimpering and trailing his teeth along bean's pants leg, and they both dissolve in helpless hysteria.
and elijah likes him best because he's dom, and that's just it.
6: heart of mine
do you wanna know if everything glittering
could turn into the gold that i see in your hair
dom has great shoulders. and hips. and a stomach that swells out just barely from the lip of his towel and then curves up, plane-flat and smooth. but elijah's really thinking about shoulders now, watching dom shaving in the teensy little trailer bathroom (which no longer has a door, thanks to a very drunk orlando and viggo and an incident that orlando darkly refers to as "attempted fucking rape, wasn't it," and viggo does not refer to at all, except with a little tiny reminiscent smile.) brown, and sort of sloping up into the swoop of dom's neck, the hollow of his collarbone that elijah imagines tastes like salt. the way his hair curls right at the nape of his neck, soft, finger-tousled. and eyes: grey, but that's not really it; grey sounds like dullness or stones, and dom's eyes are bright, beautiful contrast against that tawny skin, and--
dom looks up in the mirror, catches elijah's eye, and his hand falters and slips. blood blossoms crimson on his cheekbone. "crap," says dom with great feeling, dropping his eyes and fumbling for tissue. "creeped me out, didn't you?"
"sorry," mutters elijah. "you were taking too long. i have to pee."
"go out and pee in the bushes, then, instead of hanging about sticking those eyes of yours into people like some kind of fucking psychopath," says dom, not unkindly, and flicks water at him.
elijah pokes his tongue out and says breathily, huskily, "but you know i can't keep my eyes off you, you sexy thang."
"well, i know, but do try," says dom languidly. he stretches, yawning, and elijah can't help noticing the taut lines of his shoulderblades, the long smooth slope of his back.
8. pot kettle black
i'm not gonna get caught--
calling a pot kettle black
things start to go downhill when elijah comes back from the shoot and ian is waiting in his trailer to talk to him about it.
"it's perfectly natural, you know," says ian, raising his eyebrows. "fun, even."
"i'm not gay," says elijah, rather desperately. "i like girls," which is not untrue.
ian shakes his head sorrowfully. "elijah, elijah, elijah. that little face you're making? gay." elijah nearly makes himself cross-eyed trying to completely rearrange his features. "that shirt? gay. the barbra streisand cds? gay, gay, gay gay gay."
"how did you find those?!" hisses elijah frantically. you'd think, goddamn it, that if you had 1500 cds, you'd be able to hide a damn barbra streisand greatest hits album. maybe ian has some kind of, like, detector.
ian ignores him. "most particularly, however--the way you look at our dear mr. monaghan--"
"i don't look at dom," spits elijah, clenching his fists. "and this shirt is not gay."
"it says 'prick' on it, with a cartoon hedgehog," says ian, "and i can see your nipples."
"that's not gay! it's postmodern! and stop looking at my nipples!"
"all right," says ian, quirking the corner of his mouth in a way that makes elijah sort of want to hit him. "i'm only saying."
"well, don't," growls elijah, "thank you," and wants to stalk out, but he feels kind of weird about it, because a) he just came in, so it would be pretty stupid to go back out again, and b) the only place to stalk to is outside, and it's cold, and he's wearing a t-shirt (a gay t-shirt!) so he shifts around uncomfortably and glowers at nothing.
eventually, ian says, "i see this isn't helping."
"no," says elijah with majestic restraint, "not really."
"well then," and ian rises with that careful british grace which he never seems to lose, not even when he's perched on a tiny little trailer-bed with Return of the Jedi sheets on it, "having played the mentor to the best of my ability, i'll be off. i'm catching a show with nick tonight." he smooths out his trousers with long, delicate hands. elijah catches himself wondering: if i were gay, like gay gay, not just dom-gay, maybe clothes would look better on me, too.
"catching a show, huh," mumbles elijah. "is that what you kids are calling it these days."
ian winks at him abominably and leaves the trailer door slightly open when he goes. when elijah gets up, shivering, to close it, he finds a little package on the step, wrapped in blue tissue with a curly pink ribbon. he opens it; it's a bottle of lube. cursing, he hurls it out into the distance and stomps back into the trailer.
five minutes later, he slinks sheepishly out to retrieve it and hides it in his underwear drawer.
8: a little help from my friends
oh i get by with a little help from my friends
yeah, i'm gonna try with a little help from my friends
when billy starts pushing him into dom, elijah knows the situation has gotten completely out of hand.
they're walking through the falling snow and singing christmas carols and talking too loud, the four hobbits in their usual clumpetty group, and with no warning whatsoever billy smacks out a hand and elijah gives a little yelp and topples over, slams into dom, and they end up on the damp ground in a tangle of limbs.
elijah's mouth is very close to dom's.
elijah blinks and snow falls off his eyelashes to spangle dom's face, and for a moment elijah can't move. on the bright side, dom doesn't seem particularly eager to go anywhere either, and for a very strange moment they both sort of stare at each other, and then dom says, very quietly, "er, doodle, you all right? get off my lungs."
"who's on your lungs?" asks elijah distantly, feeling his hands start to shake.
"uh," says dom, "you are, sunshine."
"oh, right," mumbles elijah, going very red, and rolls over into the snow. dom gets up, brushes himself off, slings an arm around sean's shoulder and skips on as if nothing has happened, singing "o christmas tree." sean adds a low harmony--not so much a harmony as a kind of constant laugh with intermittent musical notes--and they swing off, waving their arms in a way obviously meant to indicate holiday cheer.
"why in the hell did you do that?" elijah hisses at billy when sean and dom are safely out of earshot, jabbing a finger into billy's ribs.
"because i'm a love pixie," says billy pertly, "a little scottish nymph of romance."
billy has a way of saying completely psychotic things in a way that make them sound perfectly reasonable.
"you're a love pixie," repeats elijah.
"absolutely," says billy.
"and sblom and i are...in need of a love pixie."
"well, god, elijah," and billy rolls his eyes, "duh."
"this is lame," says elijah furiously. "no one is trying to set me up with dom." except me, he almost says, but manages not to.
billy fixes him with a look of fond disdain. "don't be stupid. just because you're gayer than a treefull of parakeets doesn't mean i don't want to get involved in your love life."
"'m not gay," mumbles elijah, halfheartedly.
"of course you're not," says billy equably. "here, you've got snow on your arse," and slaps his ass soundly.
9: i do
couldn't be so damn naive
to hope you could agree
"billy says you want to talk to me," says dom, skipping into elijah's trailer with quirked, curious eyebrows and an economy-sized bag of salt and vinegar crisps.
elijah looks up in surprise. "uh. does he? do i?"
"yes. whatcha reading?" asks dom, sidling over to the table.
"nothing," says elijah, yanking it away, but dom's quicker and has long monkey arms, and he tweaks it out of elijah's hands, flips it over and looks at the cover. then looks up, back at elijah, and lifts one eyebrow.
"'maurice?' eliiiijaaaah," and dom adopts a resonant anglican-priest accent, "turn thou from this breeder of iniquity! you know this turns out to be gay porn, right?" he slides into the other seat, hip-first, settles himself.
"it's a, thing," says elijah, going red.
"too right it is," agrees dom, shaking his head. "a gay porn thing."
"how do you know," counters elijah, "have you read it?"
"might have done." one shoulder lifted coquettishly, eyes lowered. "so. what did you want to talk to me about?"
actually, elijah doesn't really want to talk to him about anything, elijah kind of wants to pin him to the table and lick him a lot. "billy's insane, i don't have anything to talk to you about, give me my book back."
dom twists his mouth to the side, eyes elijah narrowly for a moment. elijah does his best to look innocent instead of depraved and lustful. eventually, dom says, "i think you're lying."
"i'm not lying," says elijah. "and if you don't give me my book back, i won't be held responsible for the consequences."
"are you threatening me?" dom wiggles the book tantalizingly in front of elijah's nose. "come on and get it, then."
elijah's fingers are itching. he shoves his hands under the table and sits on them. "come onnnn, sblomie, give it back."
"noo-oooo," drawls dom, "i think i want to read it." he flips through pages, and elijah knows with a sinking in his stomach what he'll find, because elijah's read that scene so many times that the book just falls open there, thumbed and smudged and covered in coffee: alec and maurice and the genteel fadeout, and dom will read it and he'll know--
elijah reaches up to grab the book away, dom's still moving, laughing, waving it just out of reach, and elijah lunges--
and one hand thumps onto dom's chest and the other one sort of stumbles into dom's, and they both freeze, and elijah looks wildly at dom, and then down at dom's fingers, and then back at dom, and dom's looking at him, and there's. this. oh.
silence.
"oh," says dom very quietly, the tips of his ears going very red. "oh."
"um. pretty much, yes," mumbles elijah. his hand is still pressed against dom's chest; he can feel the pull and give of the sinews under his fingers, the sparrow-tremble of dom's heart.
"that's..." whispers dom.
"...the thing," elijah agrees, unable to look away.
the corner of dom's mouth twists upward, like starting a smile and forgetting the way halfway there. "so, then, you..."
"if you want to," says elijah, swallowing, "yeah."
"yeah," repeats dom, blushing, his grin spreading uncontrollably wider. his eyes slip down and away, and elijah almost doesn't mind, because dom's eyelashes are nice, and the warmth of dom's chest is nice, and the smoky crackle of dom's voice is nice, and it's nice when dom's other hand, the one not tangled in elijah's fingers, creeps up to encircle elijah's wrist. "yeah, i think maybe i do."
END.
soundtrack:
1. semisonic - secret smile
2. willy porter - somebody else
3. chris isaak - wicked game (YOU LOVE IT)
4. coldplay - careful where you stand (<--SAME.)
5. suede - positivity
6. peter salett - heart of mine
7. wilco - pot kettle black
8. the beatles - a little help from my friends
9. better than ezra - i do
Fandom: lotrips
Pairing: domlijah.
Rating: pg.
Summary: an adult contemporary mixtape, in which elijah's not gay, dom licks people, billy's a love pixie and ian leaves unexpected gifts. there's cuteness. so much pointless cuteness.
1: secret smile
nobody knows it, but you've got a secret smile
and you use it only for me
dom is so easy with himself that it kind of makes elijah sick. he's known since he was ten years old that You Do Not Think This, and if you have to think it, even sometimes, then at least you don't act it. at least you don't go around--licking people, for christ's sake.
billy is lying on the floor, moaning "ugly ugly ugly. ugly and old and scottish." the empty bottle of scotch lies a few inches from his limp fingers. dom crouches over him, straddles his chest and lowers his head so that his forehead touches billy's. "stop whining, mate. i'd fuck you."
"would you?" billy looks bizarrely cheerful.
"yeah, i'd fuck you in a second." dom licks two fingers and presses them against billy's crotch, his other hand crawling up billy's t-shirt. elijah nearly chokes on his illicit alcohol. "you're hot. and scottish."
billy laughs in little happy hiccups. "get off. get off me. poofter. fucking--moleste--tation. what?"
dom grins, a sliver of pink tongue easing out of his mouth. "shut up. i know you like it."
"hey. hey, sblom, would you fuck me?" asks orlando from the couch, and giggles drunkenly, one long leg sliding off the pillows to thump on the floor. "am i fuckable?" sean cackles sepulchrally and retreats to his lair under the coffee table.
"hell yes," says dom, comfortable and unselfconscious, "the fuckablest."
elijah is pretty damn sure "fuckablest" is not a word.
"are you offering?" dom's eyes slide sideways to meet elijah's and elijah gulps, looks down and sideways, and hides his face behind his can of foster's. "i'd fuck any of you, you're all bloody sexy," says dom placidly, and scoots backward to sit on the pool table.
2. somebody else
gave your body, honey i could tell
that you were saving yourself for somebody else
"noooo, dommmm," moans billy, still on the floor hours later, head lolling, neck pale and bristling and exposed. "don't leeeeave."
"i must!" says dom dramatically. he is standing at the basement stairs, draped against orlando's back, arms locked around orlando's neck, and orlando has his arms wrenched backward around dom's waist. he rests his head on orlando's shoulder, and elijah imagines the scrub of stubble against his neck.
"why must you," whines billy. elijah watches them both out of strangely unclear eyes, nurses his can of beer.
"because it's three in the morning and i have to actually do something tomorrow--today--" says dom, "unlike you useless lot."
"because i have a car," says orlando triumphantly, "and i'm almost not drunk anymore."
"this is stupid," slurs sean from under the coffee table, and snickers. "you're going to get in a car crash and die. what have i told you, kids," and he waves his finger groggily at the two of them, attempting the patented Astin Responsible Voice, "driving drunk ends lives, hahahaha."
"stay heeeeere, sblomie, my badger," wails billy, lifting his hips and twisting his torso in petulant coils.
"no," says dom, "i'm going home with my luv-ah," and he licks orlando's neck and orlando says, "mmm, thassit, bitch, lick me," and rubs his shoulders languorously against dom's chest.
sometimes elijah really hates orlando.
3. wicked game
what a wicked thing to do
to make me dream of you
elijah's asleep in a pile of orc helmets (pointy, yet weirdly soothing in a broken-massage-chair kind of way) when dom pounces on him, mushes his cheeks together, smacks his nose up close to elijah's and yells "TIG TAGGERTY HEFFALUMP!"
"SWEET JESUS FUCKING CHRIST," yelps elijah and they skid to the ground with a clattering thump. he stares up into wide, bizarrely innocent brown eyes, face split with a smile, glimpse of pink sugar-sweet tongue. christ.
"no, wrong," says dom severely, "you can't put jesus on a heffalump. penalty blow job for sacrilege! and anyway you have to toggle on a taggerty, (which you blatantly failed to do,) otherwise you're out for six rounds."
"i'm not giving you a penalty blow job," says elijah.
"you have to, doodle, it's the rules," says dom innocently. his hand has somehow crept around to the back of elijah's head, blunt fingers combing through the soft buzz at the nape of elijah's neck. his breath is warm on elijah's forehead.
"i'm," says elijah, and swallows a little bit too hard. "uhh, haha. is this."
"it's in the rules," says dom patiently.
"i can't breathe," says elijah truthfully.
dom moans and wriggles and slides and manages to get off elijah in the most uncomfortable way possible, nuzzling elijah's stomach as he does so, the enamel scrape of dom's teeth against the cloth of his shirt and the skin underneath. "whiny whiny whiny. no wonder you never win."
"i can't win!" says elijah, exasperated. "that's why i never win. you know that. i can't win."
"why not?" open, innocent face, little half-demon grin.
"cos it's in the rules. help me up." elijah yawns, stretches catlike, licks his lips. and then notices, with a sudden shivering jolt that goes right down to the pit of his belly, that dom is watching his mouth.
4: careful where you stand
i feel safe when i am with you
and i feel warm when you want me too
elijah does the cirith ungol shoot with a temperature of 102, and when it's over they give him a blanket and a mug of theraflu and peter says something vague about resting up and rushes with sean off to someplace up near greymouth, seeming to forget that it will be very difficult for elijah to rest up if he has feet an hour early tomorrow. which he does. eric-the-cameraman gives him a sympathetic look and two packets of cranberry tea, which tastes nicer than foul, foul theraflu even if it doesn't help as much.
elijah retreats, shivering, to orli's trailer, because the hobbits are in The Big One this week and he can't deal with sir ian yelling at him about dripping his germs all over the place. when he shows up at the door, half-naked and shivering and with fever-spots high on his cheeks, orlando takes one good look at him and then wrenches his mug away and half-carries him to the nearest bunk, heaps him with blankets and pillows, and shoos sean and viggo, who have been playing a weirdly intense game of chess with lots of yelling and burning stares, out into the cold. orlando is a cunt, but a good-hearted cunt who really knows what to do sometimes, thinks elijah before he falls asleep.
he dreams about being swallowed up by the ground, gasping for air and not breathing, and when he wakes up his skin burns and every time he moves it feels like being flayed alive. he whimpers, strains against the clinging sheets, but that just makes it worse--moving makes it worse--and he starts crying because he can, because there's no one else around, or no one he can hear, and it hurts, hurts, hurts. the crying exacerbates everything, because now he can't breathe along with the rest of it, and somewhere in the back of his mind he thinks, maybe i have cancer and i'm going to die, and he rolls over and stuffs his face in the pillow, his mouth filling with cloth, his head heavy and filled with liquid.
he wakes up again to strange orange light across orlando's bed and a horrible taste in his mouth. dom is sitting across from him, arms folded across his knees and chin in his hands, brow wrinkled adorably above his fingers.
"hngraagh," says elijah. he's pretty sure he didn't mean to say "hngraagh," what he meant was "hello," but his mouth is full of crap and his vocal cords feel unnaturally thick and slimy, so he'll take what he can get. "hngraagh" it is.
"hallo, ugly," says dom.
elijah snorts up phlegm. very glamorous, very alluring. dom hands him a tissue. wonderful dom. "sblob. whad are you doig here?"
"staring at you while you sleee-eep," says dom in a husky, fatal-attraction kind of voice. elijah blinks and dom smiles for the first time, softening creases on his forehead and around his eyes. "no. orli made me. sean was here earlier. we're supposed to keep you in hot tea and love until you stop virusing all over the place."
elijah coughs pathetically.
"tea!" says dom brightly, and gets up, slides over to the stove. elijah watches the way dom's weathered blue jeans hang rough and low on his hips and cling intriguingly, but only because that's all of dom that fits into his field of vision and it hurts to move. elijah blurs, maybe falls back asleep, and then dom's hand is gentle between his shoulderblades, lifting him upright, friction burn on the delicate skin there. elijah's hands feel useless and swollen, flopping under the bedspread.
"open," says dom briskly, pressing the warm rim of the mug against elijah's lips. "enjoy this while it lasts, i'm not going to be your personal tea-slave forever."
"mnrff," says elijah, and drinks, gratefully. soothing honey-warmth slides soft around the red ache that is his throat. they sit there in comfortable silence for a moment. dom, unlike anyone else who's ever taken care of elijah, has the good sense not to rub elijah's back and make everything worse. his hand just waits against the nape of elijah's neck, fingers curled protectively, supporting but not pushing. elijah licks his lips reflexively, tastes cranberries and honey, and he wonders, if he could muster up the energy to slant his eyes upward, whether dom would be watching the slick slip of his tongue.
"aren'd you subbosed do be doig thigs?" croaks elijah eventually.
"i am doing things," says dom cheerfully, readjusting his shoulders so elijah can slump against his chest, and elijah thinks, you could be, if you wanted.
5. positivity
and the birds sing for you
and your positivity
everyone likes dom best.
not just the cast, but everyone. pete, because he is dedicated without being Artistic about it, and he pays attention and follows directions well and if he must come up with his own ideas, he doesn't start obsessing about them in the middle of a shoot and waste ten minutes of film playing merry-as-stylized-brechtian-victim-of-capitalism.
and the crew, because he does perfect imitations of all the actors they don't like, because he is completely free of plastic hollywood superiority, because he holds his liquor well and tells the amazing joke about the guy and the donkey and the clown, because he knows when to be the calm one, all inward-turned and still, hand against some guy's chest in a bar, saying "come on, back off, mate," which ought to look ridiculous from a little tiny guy like dom but which is genuinely scary and keeps them out of more fights than elijah really wants to think about.
and the cast, the whole cast, because he is careful and funny and doesn't complain except when it's okay and everyone isn't wretched (not like elijah, who is unabashedly whiny pretty much all the time.) liv, in particular, loves him, because he is the only one, out of the whole fellowship, who really treats her exactly like she's one of them. but with boobs. so, like, one of them plus.
even bean, who is of course wonderful and sweet and good company, but remarkably more shy then anyone thought and has to go home a lot, who generally only talks much to viggo and orli--even bean loves dom. they have a pinching game that they won't explain to anyone else, but it doesn't seem to be very complicated. mostly it's just pinching. bean doesn't even mind when dom glomps onto his leg and yelps, "i'm horny, say 'strawberries' for meeee," just looks down and whispers in long, sensual slopes of sound, "strawwwrburries-uh," and then dom writhes and screams outrageously, like he's coming harder than anyone's ever come in the history of the world, and slides bonelessly down bean's calf, whimpering and trailing his teeth along bean's pants leg, and they both dissolve in helpless hysteria.
and elijah likes him best because he's dom, and that's just it.
6: heart of mine
do you wanna know if everything glittering
could turn into the gold that i see in your hair
dom has great shoulders. and hips. and a stomach that swells out just barely from the lip of his towel and then curves up, plane-flat and smooth. but elijah's really thinking about shoulders now, watching dom shaving in the teensy little trailer bathroom (which no longer has a door, thanks to a very drunk orlando and viggo and an incident that orlando darkly refers to as "attempted fucking rape, wasn't it," and viggo does not refer to at all, except with a little tiny reminiscent smile.) brown, and sort of sloping up into the swoop of dom's neck, the hollow of his collarbone that elijah imagines tastes like salt. the way his hair curls right at the nape of his neck, soft, finger-tousled. and eyes: grey, but that's not really it; grey sounds like dullness or stones, and dom's eyes are bright, beautiful contrast against that tawny skin, and--
dom looks up in the mirror, catches elijah's eye, and his hand falters and slips. blood blossoms crimson on his cheekbone. "crap," says dom with great feeling, dropping his eyes and fumbling for tissue. "creeped me out, didn't you?"
"sorry," mutters elijah. "you were taking too long. i have to pee."
"go out and pee in the bushes, then, instead of hanging about sticking those eyes of yours into people like some kind of fucking psychopath," says dom, not unkindly, and flicks water at him.
elijah pokes his tongue out and says breathily, huskily, "but you know i can't keep my eyes off you, you sexy thang."
"well, i know, but do try," says dom languidly. he stretches, yawning, and elijah can't help noticing the taut lines of his shoulderblades, the long smooth slope of his back.
8. pot kettle black
i'm not gonna get caught--
calling a pot kettle black
things start to go downhill when elijah comes back from the shoot and ian is waiting in his trailer to talk to him about it.
"it's perfectly natural, you know," says ian, raising his eyebrows. "fun, even."
"i'm not gay," says elijah, rather desperately. "i like girls," which is not untrue.
ian shakes his head sorrowfully. "elijah, elijah, elijah. that little face you're making? gay." elijah nearly makes himself cross-eyed trying to completely rearrange his features. "that shirt? gay. the barbra streisand cds? gay, gay, gay gay gay."
"how did you find those?!" hisses elijah frantically. you'd think, goddamn it, that if you had 1500 cds, you'd be able to hide a damn barbra streisand greatest hits album. maybe ian has some kind of, like, detector.
ian ignores him. "most particularly, however--the way you look at our dear mr. monaghan--"
"i don't look at dom," spits elijah, clenching his fists. "and this shirt is not gay."
"it says 'prick' on it, with a cartoon hedgehog," says ian, "and i can see your nipples."
"that's not gay! it's postmodern! and stop looking at my nipples!"
"all right," says ian, quirking the corner of his mouth in a way that makes elijah sort of want to hit him. "i'm only saying."
"well, don't," growls elijah, "thank you," and wants to stalk out, but he feels kind of weird about it, because a) he just came in, so it would be pretty stupid to go back out again, and b) the only place to stalk to is outside, and it's cold, and he's wearing a t-shirt (a gay t-shirt!) so he shifts around uncomfortably and glowers at nothing.
eventually, ian says, "i see this isn't helping."
"no," says elijah with majestic restraint, "not really."
"well then," and ian rises with that careful british grace which he never seems to lose, not even when he's perched on a tiny little trailer-bed with Return of the Jedi sheets on it, "having played the mentor to the best of my ability, i'll be off. i'm catching a show with nick tonight." he smooths out his trousers with long, delicate hands. elijah catches himself wondering: if i were gay, like gay gay, not just dom-gay, maybe clothes would look better on me, too.
"catching a show, huh," mumbles elijah. "is that what you kids are calling it these days."
ian winks at him abominably and leaves the trailer door slightly open when he goes. when elijah gets up, shivering, to close it, he finds a little package on the step, wrapped in blue tissue with a curly pink ribbon. he opens it; it's a bottle of lube. cursing, he hurls it out into the distance and stomps back into the trailer.
five minutes later, he slinks sheepishly out to retrieve it and hides it in his underwear drawer.
8: a little help from my friends
oh i get by with a little help from my friends
yeah, i'm gonna try with a little help from my friends
when billy starts pushing him into dom, elijah knows the situation has gotten completely out of hand.
they're walking through the falling snow and singing christmas carols and talking too loud, the four hobbits in their usual clumpetty group, and with no warning whatsoever billy smacks out a hand and elijah gives a little yelp and topples over, slams into dom, and they end up on the damp ground in a tangle of limbs.
elijah's mouth is very close to dom's.
elijah blinks and snow falls off his eyelashes to spangle dom's face, and for a moment elijah can't move. on the bright side, dom doesn't seem particularly eager to go anywhere either, and for a very strange moment they both sort of stare at each other, and then dom says, very quietly, "er, doodle, you all right? get off my lungs."
"who's on your lungs?" asks elijah distantly, feeling his hands start to shake.
"uh," says dom, "you are, sunshine."
"oh, right," mumbles elijah, going very red, and rolls over into the snow. dom gets up, brushes himself off, slings an arm around sean's shoulder and skips on as if nothing has happened, singing "o christmas tree." sean adds a low harmony--not so much a harmony as a kind of constant laugh with intermittent musical notes--and they swing off, waving their arms in a way obviously meant to indicate holiday cheer.
"why in the hell did you do that?" elijah hisses at billy when sean and dom are safely out of earshot, jabbing a finger into billy's ribs.
"because i'm a love pixie," says billy pertly, "a little scottish nymph of romance."
billy has a way of saying completely psychotic things in a way that make them sound perfectly reasonable.
"you're a love pixie," repeats elijah.
"absolutely," says billy.
"and sblom and i are...in need of a love pixie."
"well, god, elijah," and billy rolls his eyes, "duh."
"this is lame," says elijah furiously. "no one is trying to set me up with dom." except me, he almost says, but manages not to.
billy fixes him with a look of fond disdain. "don't be stupid. just because you're gayer than a treefull of parakeets doesn't mean i don't want to get involved in your love life."
"'m not gay," mumbles elijah, halfheartedly.
"of course you're not," says billy equably. "here, you've got snow on your arse," and slaps his ass soundly.
9: i do
couldn't be so damn naive
to hope you could agree
"billy says you want to talk to me," says dom, skipping into elijah's trailer with quirked, curious eyebrows and an economy-sized bag of salt and vinegar crisps.
elijah looks up in surprise. "uh. does he? do i?"
"yes. whatcha reading?" asks dom, sidling over to the table.
"nothing," says elijah, yanking it away, but dom's quicker and has long monkey arms, and he tweaks it out of elijah's hands, flips it over and looks at the cover. then looks up, back at elijah, and lifts one eyebrow.
"'maurice?' eliiiijaaaah," and dom adopts a resonant anglican-priest accent, "turn thou from this breeder of iniquity! you know this turns out to be gay porn, right?" he slides into the other seat, hip-first, settles himself.
"it's a, thing," says elijah, going red.
"too right it is," agrees dom, shaking his head. "a gay porn thing."
"how do you know," counters elijah, "have you read it?"
"might have done." one shoulder lifted coquettishly, eyes lowered. "so. what did you want to talk to me about?"
actually, elijah doesn't really want to talk to him about anything, elijah kind of wants to pin him to the table and lick him a lot. "billy's insane, i don't have anything to talk to you about, give me my book back."
dom twists his mouth to the side, eyes elijah narrowly for a moment. elijah does his best to look innocent instead of depraved and lustful. eventually, dom says, "i think you're lying."
"i'm not lying," says elijah. "and if you don't give me my book back, i won't be held responsible for the consequences."
"are you threatening me?" dom wiggles the book tantalizingly in front of elijah's nose. "come on and get it, then."
elijah's fingers are itching. he shoves his hands under the table and sits on them. "come onnnn, sblomie, give it back."
"noo-oooo," drawls dom, "i think i want to read it." he flips through pages, and elijah knows with a sinking in his stomach what he'll find, because elijah's read that scene so many times that the book just falls open there, thumbed and smudged and covered in coffee: alec and maurice and the genteel fadeout, and dom will read it and he'll know--
elijah reaches up to grab the book away, dom's still moving, laughing, waving it just out of reach, and elijah lunges--
and one hand thumps onto dom's chest and the other one sort of stumbles into dom's, and they both freeze, and elijah looks wildly at dom, and then down at dom's fingers, and then back at dom, and dom's looking at him, and there's. this. oh.
silence.
"oh," says dom very quietly, the tips of his ears going very red. "oh."
"um. pretty much, yes," mumbles elijah. his hand is still pressed against dom's chest; he can feel the pull and give of the sinews under his fingers, the sparrow-tremble of dom's heart.
"that's..." whispers dom.
"...the thing," elijah agrees, unable to look away.
the corner of dom's mouth twists upward, like starting a smile and forgetting the way halfway there. "so, then, you..."
"if you want to," says elijah, swallowing, "yeah."
"yeah," repeats dom, blushing, his grin spreading uncontrollably wider. his eyes slip down and away, and elijah almost doesn't mind, because dom's eyelashes are nice, and the warmth of dom's chest is nice, and the smoky crackle of dom's voice is nice, and it's nice when dom's other hand, the one not tangled in elijah's fingers, creeps up to encircle elijah's wrist. "yeah, i think maybe i do."
END.
soundtrack:
1. semisonic - secret smile
2. willy porter - somebody else
3. chris isaak - wicked game (YOU LOVE IT)
4. coldplay - careful where you stand (<--SAME.)
5. suede - positivity
6. peter salett - heart of mine
7. wilco - pot kettle black
8. the beatles - a little help from my friends
9. better than ezra - i do