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fellowshippers2004-08-27 03:34 pm
elfellon111.livejournal.com) wrote in fellowshippers2004-08-27 03:34 pm
New here, offering Angst
Hey there, everybody,
I am terribly new and terribly shy at introducing myself, but I have been reading here for a while and really enjoy what is posted most of the time. When I started posting at another community I felt like I should offer that particular fic to this community as well, especially since I am working on fictions right now that will deal with a completely different pairing than what I am 'used to' and what I enjoy the most (I try to challenge myself in writing, hehe), and I would like to post those stories here once they're finished. Before I do, I'd like to introduce myself to all of you here, and there is really no better way to do that than through my stories, so here it is.
The first three chapters of this fic, Meet Confusion, have already been posted at DomLijah Lovers, but I am offering them here as well to those of you who are interested in a big Angsty mammoth fic. All three of them in one go.
Title: Meet Confusion
Author: elfellon111
Pairing: EW/DM
Rating: R (for the pottiest mouths in the Fandom) up to NC-17 (Angst-filled-smut, my favourite)
Summary: Elijah tries to figure out whether he likes knickers or boxers and a lot of shit ensues
Disclaimer: Everything you will read here is a lie! It's f.i.c.t.i.o.n. I don't make any money from it and only the ideas are mine.
Also, I should warn you that these first three (of many) chapters contain some pretty powerful Het. It is Franka who has a necessary cameo in this story. The focus, however, is most definitely with Dom and Lij (of course!! :). If you cannot stand Het, *please*, do not read.
Don't say I didn't warn you :)
But I'll stop blabbering now (before anyone makes me) and I hope some of you will enjoy this.
Elfie
CHAPTER 1
“Take them off”, Dom says and leans back against the headboard of his bed. Standing in a pool of rainwater, a shivering Elijah starts fumbling with his coat and scarf. It’s a surprisingly wet week in Los Angeles and yet, during his walk over to Dom’s place, he was still taken by surprise by heavy rainfall. He tugs at his shirt which is quite wet as well, since his coat soaked through completely. Dom has shifted into an even more comfortable position against the headboard of his large bed, his legs slightly apart, his eyes dark. “Your jeans are soaked,” he comments dryly as Elijah fingers the sticky-wet denim. Dom reaches out and places his hand over Elijah’s fumbling fingers, causing Lij to flinch a bit.
What the..?
Dom’s touched him before, in infinitely more sensuous ways than this, so why does he feel like he’s been hit by a bolt of fucking lightning? He closes his eyes for an instant and the answer brutally slams him in the face. There it is again. His totally unexpected encounter with Franka this morning. Her five hour lay-over, her expectant eyes as she popped the question standing in front of his open door, his unsurprising consent, her hands around a much-praised mug of coffee, his exhausted body against the counter – watching her watching him.
* * *
“Did I wake you up?” she asks and a sense of guilt washes over her face, knowing full well how hard Elijah has been working during the past few months, only to temporarily forget the misery she thrust him in the day she left him. Suddenly, she is almost ready to get up and leave him to his sleep. He nods, but touches her arm in that particular way, as if to say ‘but please stay…’ and that is exactly what she does. She sips more of her coffee, looking out of the window, admiring the view Elijah has from his 14th floor apartment. Elijah has slouched down onto the kitchen table and in the reflecting pane of glass she notices his eyes fluttering shut. “You look dead tired,” she says, placing the mug in the sink and heading over to him. “What’s wrong?” His feet dangle off the table as she stands between his knees, wrapping her arms around his compact body. He almost immediately gives in to her embrace, finding his usual space in her neck and closing his eyes again, breathing in her familiar scent. She strokes his neck absent-mindedly and rests her cheek on his dark hair.
Out of nowhere they kiss; open-mouthed, wet, warm, knowing. It lasts short of a lifetime and they part breathlessly. Elijah drags himself off the table and, with her hands in his, walks back to his bedroom. She doesn’t object as he takes off his clothes, climbs into the sumptuous bed and softly asks her to join him there. “We can just…” his voice trails off. “Whatever…” He tries again. “Sleep for a while… you know...” She understands, and takes her clothes off, familiarity kicking in, and climbs into the bed, next to Elijah. Naked. Both. She takes him into her arms, their old habit quickly remembered, and while making shushing sounds to calm him down, he falls asleep again.
* * *
“Earth to Elijah,” Dom quips, and raises his eyes to the boy in the sticky jeans, who is now leaning against the doorframe. Elijah snaps out of memory and hears Dom repeat his words. “Take them off.” “Huh – what?” Elijah desperately tries to focus on the present topic of discussion. “Oh – the jeans.” He is suddenly aware of his icy wet hair; drops of rainwater are running down his neck, which make him shiver visibly. Dom hops off his bed to fetch a towel from his en-suite bathroom, which he proceeds to wrap around Elijah’s small frame. “Take the fucking jeans off, Lij,” he breathes, as he pulls the boy in a tight embrace, rubbing his back, drying his hair. Dom’s spaceless hold triggers visions of this morning again, when he nestled into the crook of Franka’s arm, breathing shallow breaths, sensing her other hand tracking up and down the side of his naked body. He could always lose himself in her, pretending he wasn’t there anymore, disappearing off the face of the earth, only by merging with her soft, oh such soft forms, and let her body take over his own.
* * *
“You like?” she whispers in his hair and he only whimpers a bit in an attempt to confirm what Franka already knows. “Still want me?” Again that fucking whisper and an unmistakable twist hits his stomach, only to travel down to his crotch. ‘Oh yes,’ he thinks. ‘Ever since you fucking walked out on me.’ But he doesn’t say it, his pride still prevailing. She fondles the taut flesh of his stomach and her fingers crawl towards his nipples. “Once more, honey?” her whisper is barely audible. Elijah struggles. Fuck, he wants her. Why the hell is she playing these fucking mindgames with him? His entire body screams out for her, but he keeps his mouth shut. The way she dumped him, only three months ago, is a fresh wound in his soul, and it was placed alongside a few other wounds of the same kind. His hurt is big in that area.
Her hand trembles against his shoulder, and he is shocked to realise that she needs an answer from him. He opens his eyes and rolls onto his back, she slides away to give him space. “You know,” he starts and his voice is raspy and hoarse. “Quit the headfuck, you know exactly how I feel.” Frowning, she slowly removes her hand. He continues. “God, I want you. I have fucking ached for your touch for the past three months, I still do. Why do you think I beat my body up like I have, lately? To stop feeling anything. To stop wanting you…” He closes his eyes and sighs. He doesn’t want to look at her; missing her touch terribly but fighting the eternal battle with himself to withstand the roaring desire that is building up like an enormous bonfire in the pit of his stomach.
Her hand returns to his chest. His eyes fly open, almost accusingly. Yet her touch burns its print on his flesh and, involuntarily, he shivers. He knows then that it is a lost cause; he’ll hate himself in a few hours time, but he cannot find the willpower in his exhausted mind anymore to stop his body from reacting to her ministrations. His eyes flutter close again, and then he allows his body to react, enjoying the way her hand roams the side of his face, swiping her thumb against his lower lip, forcing it down a bit and nudging her indexfinger against his clenched teeth, which he eventually parts. She pries the index into his mouth, touches his tongue, knowingly unleashing Elijah’s raging desire. He sucks fiercely on her finger, taking her somewhat off-guard. She pulls her hand back and quickly covers his lips with her own, warm-wet-wonderful kisses, tongue and teeth and saliva-slick-suction.
* * *
“God, where ARE you today?” Dom asks, as he loosens his grip on Elijah, ruffling his messy hair with the thick towel to drain the last drops. He now senses something is terribly wrong with the pretty hobbit and worry creeps into his brain. He pulls him down beside him, places an arm around his hanging shoulders and forces Lij’s eyes to meet his own. The blue stare is on him now, and Dom cannot help but smile, being the sucker for Elijah’s eyes that he is. It’s quiet for a minute before Dom thinks of saying something again, when Elijah suddenly blurts out. “I fucked her this morning.” Dom, shocked, tries to find a facial expression to cover that shock up, realising he is failing miserably. Fortunately, Elijah is not looking at him at all, being completely immersed in his own disturbing train of thoughts. “Hard,” he continues and swallows his tears down. “I fucked her so hard that I don’t think she can sit straight in that business class flight seat of hers, and I enjoyed every split second of it.” Dom squeezes the sagging shoulders, his way of letting him know that he won’t judge him.
And he won’t. He won’t. At all.
CHAPTER 2
Because Dom understands how reason can be lost along the way, how desire can take over, how lust can get the better of a person. But, most of all, he knows Elijah. Elijah, who fights such urges with every fibre in his being because he so hates looking into the mirror at his own wide-eyed reflection, after having lost that fight. He hates losing it, simply because Elijah Wood needs to be able to look into the mirror every single fucking morning. Dom thinks he pretty much knows how Elijah thinks, how he feels, how he reasons and struggles with such emotions, and – sometimes – how he loses. Because he has lost the exact same fight to Dom. And now Elijah is trying to understand what Dom already knows. And this is where Confusion came in.
Hi there.
Meet Confusion.
This case with Franka, however, Dom’s not too sure about, and he knows that Elijah knows, and he aches for his best friend’s repeatedly broken heart, his mutilated pride, and his fear of facing the mirror tomorrow morning.
They sit in silence for a couple of minutes and Elijah grabs his wet jeans from the floor to wrench his cigarettes out of them. He lights one nervously. Dom notices the violent shaking of his hands, and not until he’s taken maybe three or four drags from the clove do they settle a bit.
His strained features finally smooth into something that somewhat resembles the Elijah Dom has come to love so much. And to Dom it doesn’t matter that Elijah is currently living together with Confusion, who prevents him from figuring out whether he is straight or gay, who repeatedly makes him try to forget the loaded issue for weeks, hell, even months at a stretch, who slowly but steadily lured him into smoking at least thirty cigarettes a day.
Still, Elijah is not stupid. He knows Confusion is messing with his head. Therefore, he told Dom that if he would ever decide on the matter, he would always make sure Dom is included in the deal somehow.
And for now, Dom has decided to settle for that, because Dom loves Elijah. Dom loves Elijah so much it hurts in his head, in his fingers, in his stomach, in his heart. Elijah is what makes him see the sun and touch the stars. Elijah makes him brave and vulnerable. Elijah makes him grow strong and remain a child forever.
Elijah makes. Him.
He cannot stand to see Elijah’s bright blue eyes to be so overcast with guarded and angry frustration. Seeing him all fucked-up like this, makes him want to forever shackle Elijah to his bed and make sure he never gets hurt by anyone ever again.
However, Dom understood a long time ago that Elijah needs to figure all this sexual shit out on his own, at his own pace. So he has resigned himself to the sideline for now, watching Elijah explore and venture and crash and hurt and scar. Comfort is Dom’s trump card; he will be there to glue the beautifully bruised Elijah back together every time his faceless lovers shatter him to pieces. Because Dom knows that Elijah is smart enough to ultimately reach the conclusion Dom reached ages ago, back in a New Zealand trailer.
Patience was never Dominic Monaghan’s middle name, but this prize is worth the effort, and so he finds himself picking up the jar of glue and he squeezes the shattered boy softly.
“And now you regret it?” he starts and locks onto Lij’s gaze. “Or is that a question that I am not even allowed to ask?” Elijah takes another drag of the clove and, exhaling, turns his head slightly to look at Dom.
“I am not even sure about that.” He inhales deeply once more. “I told you I liked it, I hated myself briefly for caving in under her touch, but I have never been so quick at forgetting that feeling of self-loathing. I just wanted to melt into her again, like I used to do.”
* * *
She is on all fours, grabbing a bedpost, bracing herself against the repeated forceful impacts. “Fuck, Lij, is that all you can do?” she hisses at him, deliberately fuelling his anger, making sure he drops any remaining inhibitions, blocking out his rational thinking, making sure he switches to auto-pilot so he will fuck her full-force.
The very moment he bucks into her again, she knows she made a mistake. His ‘full-force’ levels have apparently gone up a couple of notches since she left him three months ago, because he’s pushing her to the edge of straight pain.
It resembles an ominous night she had with him once , when he had told her about his indecisiveness over his sexual preferences. That evening when he had confessed to her that he and Dominic Monaghan had fucked each other senseless for an entire weekend when she was away filming. She had been upset, but also slightly aroused by the idea, and since she was notorious for dropping one guy to be with the next she could hardly point the accusing finger at Elijah, who, up until that weekend, had proved to be the prime example of monogamy. That night he had fucked her, but with so much more force, so painful, and his orgasms had been so overpowering, that the wonder crept in.
And tonight is worse. So Franka is afraid. Afraid of that raging devil behind her, and afraid of her own deceiving perceptions that are informing her brain that she is actually enjoying the onslaught. She closes her eyes, tries to inhale deeply, and all of a sudden, nothing.
Nothing?
Only Elijah’s heavy breathing behind her. “You like?” he copies her line from a few minutes ago. She tries to turn her head to look at him, but he grabs her hair and pushes her face hard against the headboard. She collapses against it.
“You want me?” again he borrows her words, breathing erratically down her neck. She feels his strength falter for a second and she quickly flops onto her back to look Elijah in the eyes. He is dangerous. Frightening.
“Is this how you fuck Dom?” it’s out there before she can stop the words. His breathing’s still ragged. “Why?” he asks, barely audible. “You care?”
She casts her eyes down and they’re silent for a long time.
“Gonna finish this, Lij?” she finally asks. “Turn over,” is all he says and she obliges. “’Lijah?” it comes out barely more than a whisper. “Please, be careful…”
And for a minute she thinks he has been listening to her plea, as he carefully eases into her once more, only to see that hope shatter on the polished hardwood floor, when he picks up his former pace and strength again in one-two-three short thrusts. She hates the fact that she cannot see his eyes, see his flushed face and get a kick out of that. Because she involuntarily likes what he is doing to her, and although he’s fuelled by all the wrong reasons, she knows that Elijah enjoys this too.
She remembers him being awfully good at their many oh-so-slow fucks, ending exhausting days of filming back in Canada. Always really good at foreplay. He had her weak spots figured out in no time and had proceeded to abuse this knowledge so expertly she had seriously started to wonder where all that experience came from in the diminutive twenty-one year old. But when foreplay was over and done with, he always meant business. Straight-to-the-fucking-point business. He possessed the weird capacity of literally fucking her into oblivion, when she temporarily forgot just who or where she was, floating on nothing but her own uncoiling body and the sound of Elijah coming.
Yet this morning, she thinks, he is rather obviously fucking himself into oblivion.
* * *
Dom stands up, offers Elijah his hand, and when he takes it, he leads them out of his bedroom, on to safer territory which is the livingroom. Lij falls down in the big soft couch and fumbles a second cigarette from the crumpled pack. He lights it with practised ease and rests his head back, closing his eyes, taking in drag after drag.
“You want to discuss this, or want me to drop it and make us some tea?” Dom offers. Lij opens his eyes, takes in the sight of Dom and exhales. “I don’t think I could possibly make sense out of this now,” he starts, coughs, croaks, giggles. “You really should quit,’’ says Dom, laughing a bit as he sees Elijah’s face change into all kinds of emotions. Then they’re both laughing loudly, and the thick cloud of tension in the room gradually lifts.
Dom heads for his guestroom, returns, throws a blanket at Elijah and goes off into the kitchen to put the kettle on. Returning with two steaming hot mugs, Lij, who is now sitting on the floor against the couch, has draped the blanket around his barely clothed, pale body and has started on his third cigarette, using a discarded saucer as an ashtray, in which previous evidence lies stubbed out. Dom glares at the makeshift ashtray first, then turns to Elijah.
“I know – I know,” he mumbles against the fag. “You hate it when I smoke in your house.” “Would it stop you?” Dom asks, briefly smiling, putting the mugs down. “Not today,” comes the muffled reply. Dom rolls his eyes and gives in. He doesn’t feel like pestering Lij more than the small man is already pestering himself, also well aware of the fact that either biting his nails to the quick or smoking like a chimney are probably the only two things keeping him together at this moment.
“Drink,” is all he says and points at the mug. But Elijah doesn’t until he has reached the end of the third cigarette which he uses to light the fourth one with.
They sit still for a while again, Elijah staring at the tip of his cigarette, quietly drinking his tea, Dom staring at Elijah.
“Are you hungry?” Dom asks softly. “I can fix you something…” Elijah looks at him. He frowns. “Please. Don’t…” he whispers. “Stop mothering - I couldn’t eat a bite now, and I really just want to sit here, or maybe I really should go, since I am not much company to you anyway, so I might as well go home again and brood there, and watch TV and pretend nothing happened and listen to some really ear-splitting loud music while having far too much beer and fall asleep plastered on my own fucking couch and wake up in the middle of the night throwing up in the bathroom since the whole bloody world knows I cannot hold my fucking liquor and stumble to bed and reach a new day and still pretend nothing happened and maybe then Confusion will have left and…”
But Dom has kneeled beside him now and has wrapped both of his arms around Elijah’s trembling body, kissing his face where tears are finally falling, straight into the folds of the blanket. He’s crying hard and his body is shaking so severely now that Dom has trouble holding onto him. He shifts so that he can pull Elijah closer to his chest and holds him there, all the while making soft comforting noises, stroking his hair out of his face, and landing small kisses on his cheeks and hair and lashes.
CHAPTER 3
She lies with her head in Elijah’s lap, his back resting against the headboard of the bed. She has her eyes closed. With one hand he is mindlessly playing with some frays on the pillowcase, while the other is clutching a cigarette.
She listens to his steady inhalations. He has come off his high, and she knows he feels guilty for having been so rough with her. She knows, because that is how Elijah is. And now he is his tender self again, probably lying there with his eyes closed as well, enjoying his smoke, and thinking of a way to apologise to her.
“Don’t,” she hears herself saying. Elijah shifts a bit, and when he is about to ask her what in the world she is talking about, she says: “Don’t make up excuses for how you treated me just now. I don’t like you to apologise for anything. It doesn’t become you.”
Elijah continues smoking his cigarette. “I hurt you though,” he says. She lifts her head so she can look at his face. His eyes are, indeed, closed and a trail of smoke lingers just above his dark, damp, stick-out-everywhere hair. He opens his eyes. “I wasn’t searching for excuses though,” he says. There’s an infinite chill in his voice.
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
She swallows but still crawls to sit upright and scoots as close to Lij as possible. She wraps her arms around his body and leans in close to his face.
She remembers the first time she met him (‘those fucking eyes’), the first time she seduced him (‘not true, bint, admit it, he seduced you’), the first time they fucked (‘hardly innocent despite the eyes, but yet he was so full of youth and life and laughter’).
“Still,” she ventures. “We were good together just now, right?”
He blindly stubs out his cigarette. There’s a full ashtray on the nightstand that’s otherwise littered with papers, magazines, CDs and hell, even a filmscript. He inwardly smirks as he notices his own sloppiness and then realises her hands are on him again. He doesn’t look at how she is drawing lazy circles on his chest with her fingers. Instead, he lights a new cigarette and then he feels the familiar headache coming on. Fuck.
He silently curses Confusion who is already lurking in the corner of his bedroom. Desperately trying to avoid the confrontation for a moment longer, he takes a deap breath, drops the cigarette in the ashtray and decides to wrap his arms around the older woman once more. He slides down the headboard until he is almost lying down with her, their heads close together. She looks at him expectantly, and he almost feels in control of the situation. When did those fucking tables turn?
“I don’t want to see you again, Franka,” he whispers against her hair.
She sits up straight and looks at him. Lij stretches out his arm again and reaches for the ashtray to pick up his cigarette. He deliberately stubs the barely started fag out. See this, Confusion? Fuck you.
Franka picks up her clothes and disappears into the bathroom.
Lij is staring at one of the dark corners of his bedroom. Fuck. You.
The front door closes with a thud.
* * *
It’s a good fifteen minutes before Elijah is breathing evenly again. “Monsters gone?” Dom asks quietly, losening his grip on Elijah. He nods weakly, and Dom almost believes him. “Go take a shower or something,” he suggests, folding the blanket a bit tighter around Lij’s body. “You must be cold.” Elijah ponders the suggestion for a second, finishing the last cigarette in the pack he brought. He stubs it out in the makeshift ashtray, and leaves it next to the other ends. Dom recoils at the sight of the saucer, and when Elijah finally gets up to pad over to the bathroom, he grips the filthy thing and tips its contents in the trashcan outside on the deck. He makes his way over to the kitchen to put the saucer into the dishwasher.
He hears the faint sound of a cell phone and moves to where the noise is coming from, apparently his bedroom. He realises that he is hearing Elijah’s cell ringing in the back pocket of his wet jeans. Clumsily fumbling for the small phone, he’s too late to take the call, so he abandons the thing on the nightstand while in search of Lij’s other wet clothes on the floor.
He decides to take them into the bathroom so that they can dry there. He knocks on the bathroom door but receives no answer. He knocks again, but still nothing. As he doesn’t hear the water running either, he opens the door, slightly worried, and calls Elijah’s name.
Peeking around the door he sees Elijah standing in front of the mirror, completely frozen, locked onto his own sight. ‘Fuck,’ Dom thinks in a flash. ‘And it’s not even morning yet.’ Elijah has taken his last remaining piece of clothing off but has not bothered to turn on the water. “Lij,” Dom tries again, but Elijah doesn’t so much as even blink at hearing his name.
Dom walks in, turns on the water, and then carefully places his hands on Elijah’s shoulders from behind him and tries to pry him away from the frozen spot in front of the bathroom mirror. Elijah moves, but Dom doesn’t feel like he is moving a human being; he could be pushing a shopping cart for all he knows. He starts to worry all over again. What really happened to Lij today?
He opens the glass door and ushers Elijah into the shower cubicle. The water is set at a pretty hot level, but Elijah doesn’t wince. He closes his eyes as the hot water starts to pour over his hair onto his face and down to his chest. He tips his head down, stretching his arms out to grip the wall in front of him and slowly crawls out of the dark place that is his fucked up brain.
Arguing with himself that he needs to do something to get through to Elijah, Dom decides to take his clothes off as well and join Lij in the cubicle. He quietly opens the door, and when he gets no objection from Elijah he closes it behind him and takes that one tiny step that separates him from his friend. Lij doesn’t move, which means Dom does not get a lot of water, but it is not important. He slides his arms around Lijah’s waste and locks his hands over his stomach. Then he rests his head against the back of Elijah’s and they just stand there for an age.
* * *
He has never experienced anything like this before. A complete standstill of his thoughts. As if his brain had just frozen and the current thought had stilled with it, like a VCR on hold, or a crashed computer screen. And what an image, there in his brain. He is not too sure if his brain froze and the image with it, or if the image was so powerful that it froze the rest of his mind in the process.
* * *
A ring. From her. It wasn’t here before. On the kitchen table. He discovers it after waking up much later that day, with her gone – thank fuck. But this, this ring. This messes him up even more. The way his eyesight plays tricks on him when this ring seems to magnify each time he dares to glance at it is highly unsettling, as if his kitchen has ceased to exist and the whole of his world now revolves around this fucking stupid ring.
And, no note, no message, no nothing. Fuck. Just a sodding ring. He’s not good with rings. They freak him out. For more reasons than the obvious. And she fucking leaves him one.
* * *
Is he naked? He vaguely feels the cold enveloping his body and wants to hug himself for warmth, but there is still the image of that bloody ring and, like his frozen thoughts, his body, too, is not capable of movement at all. Hands on his back. Water, hot water. Feels nice. Hot water. Good. No need to hug for warmth now, right?
Right.
Ring?
Yep, still there.
* * *
He finds himself reaching out for the ring; a nice, intricate silver band, but he never picks it up. Is there really no note? His eyes flash around: kitchen counter, fridge, front door? Nothing. A message? Sure. She’d have left a message on the machine. He stumbles more than walks into the livingroom, only to find the little red light burn steadily and happily away on top of his answering machine.
No flickering; no message.
Panic rises. Has she fucking left him without answers but one hell of a big question? Again? The clenching feeling around his throat he felt months ago when he realised Franka was out of his life surges through him. The exact same feeling of fear, emptiness, rage and panic, all encompassing, like cold, dead fingers around his neck. Again.
Goddammit, when will people stop walking out on him, for fuck’s sake?!
With sudden unstoppable tears streaming down his face, he grabs his keys, jacket and cigarettes and flees the apartment.
***
He still has his head bent. Dom wonders at the paleness of Lij’s body. White like marble, Sir Ian used to say. It was a mocked expression, but privately Dom agrees with the knight. Elijah’s skin is like marble, it is smooth and white and flawless. He remembers the day when Elijah had complained to Pete about the absolute shitload of make-up they had to apply to his face and body while shooting the Mount Doom scenes. Make-up had then explained to them both that it was caused by the simple fact that Elijah had no facial flaws whatsoever, flaws that were normally used to hook an actor’s stage make up onto. They first had to create flaws on Elijah’s face for fuck’s sake, and only then could they proceed with the actual make-up for the given scene. Pete had looked baffled, Elijah still slightly annoyed at the pancake he was given each day, and Dom…well, Dom had turned it into a joke of course, since his face was far from flawless, but secretly admired Elijah’s features even more. And, as he had found out over the months in New Zealand, the rest of Elijah’s body looked and felt alarmingly much like his face. Flawless. Now he catches himself glancing at the naked form under his shower, glistening wet, thinking that after all these years the lustre still hasn’t worn off. But then again…
He might be biased.
There is still annoyingly little movement from the boy, and Dom argues with himself if he should try and snap Lij out of his apathy. So he slowly unlocks his hands and slides them down towards Lij’s stomach, traces small circles, and then moves on to his hips. Slender hips, skinny even, luring Dom towards Lij’s ass, not so slender, but beautifully tight. And although he does not seem to elicit any response from Lij so far, his own arousal is obvious, and he steps back a bit, not wishing to destroy the protective bubble that seems to enfold them both.
But when he moves backwards, loosening his grip on Lij’s body, he finally gets a reaction. Elijah’s head tips up and twists a bit, trying to make eye contact with Dom, speaking with a scratchy voice from too much crying and smoking.
“Don’t go.”
TBC
I am terribly new and terribly shy at introducing myself, but I have been reading here for a while and really enjoy what is posted most of the time. When I started posting at another community I felt like I should offer that particular fic to this community as well, especially since I am working on fictions right now that will deal with a completely different pairing than what I am 'used to' and what I enjoy the most (I try to challenge myself in writing, hehe), and I would like to post those stories here once they're finished. Before I do, I'd like to introduce myself to all of you here, and there is really no better way to do that than through my stories, so here it is.
The first three chapters of this fic, Meet Confusion, have already been posted at DomLijah Lovers, but I am offering them here as well to those of you who are interested in a big Angsty mammoth fic. All three of them in one go.
Title: Meet Confusion
Author: elfellon111
Pairing: EW/DM
Rating: R (for the pottiest mouths in the Fandom) up to NC-17 (Angst-filled-smut, my favourite)
Summary: Elijah tries to figure out whether he likes knickers or boxers and a lot of shit ensues
Disclaimer: Everything you will read here is a lie! It's f.i.c.t.i.o.n. I don't make any money from it and only the ideas are mine.
Also, I should warn you that these first three (of many) chapters contain some pretty powerful Het. It is Franka who has a necessary cameo in this story. The focus, however, is most definitely with Dom and Lij (of course!! :). If you cannot stand Het, *please*, do not read.
Don't say I didn't warn you :)
But I'll stop blabbering now (before anyone makes me) and I hope some of you will enjoy this.
Elfie
CHAPTER 1
“Take them off”, Dom says and leans back against the headboard of his bed. Standing in a pool of rainwater, a shivering Elijah starts fumbling with his coat and scarf. It’s a surprisingly wet week in Los Angeles and yet, during his walk over to Dom’s place, he was still taken by surprise by heavy rainfall. He tugs at his shirt which is quite wet as well, since his coat soaked through completely. Dom has shifted into an even more comfortable position against the headboard of his large bed, his legs slightly apart, his eyes dark. “Your jeans are soaked,” he comments dryly as Elijah fingers the sticky-wet denim. Dom reaches out and places his hand over Elijah’s fumbling fingers, causing Lij to flinch a bit.
What the..?
Dom’s touched him before, in infinitely more sensuous ways than this, so why does he feel like he’s been hit by a bolt of fucking lightning? He closes his eyes for an instant and the answer brutally slams him in the face. There it is again. His totally unexpected encounter with Franka this morning. Her five hour lay-over, her expectant eyes as she popped the question standing in front of his open door, his unsurprising consent, her hands around a much-praised mug of coffee, his exhausted body against the counter – watching her watching him.
* * *
“Did I wake you up?” she asks and a sense of guilt washes over her face, knowing full well how hard Elijah has been working during the past few months, only to temporarily forget the misery she thrust him in the day she left him. Suddenly, she is almost ready to get up and leave him to his sleep. He nods, but touches her arm in that particular way, as if to say ‘but please stay…’ and that is exactly what she does. She sips more of her coffee, looking out of the window, admiring the view Elijah has from his 14th floor apartment. Elijah has slouched down onto the kitchen table and in the reflecting pane of glass she notices his eyes fluttering shut. “You look dead tired,” she says, placing the mug in the sink and heading over to him. “What’s wrong?” His feet dangle off the table as she stands between his knees, wrapping her arms around his compact body. He almost immediately gives in to her embrace, finding his usual space in her neck and closing his eyes again, breathing in her familiar scent. She strokes his neck absent-mindedly and rests her cheek on his dark hair.
Out of nowhere they kiss; open-mouthed, wet, warm, knowing. It lasts short of a lifetime and they part breathlessly. Elijah drags himself off the table and, with her hands in his, walks back to his bedroom. She doesn’t object as he takes off his clothes, climbs into the sumptuous bed and softly asks her to join him there. “We can just…” his voice trails off. “Whatever…” He tries again. “Sleep for a while… you know...” She understands, and takes her clothes off, familiarity kicking in, and climbs into the bed, next to Elijah. Naked. Both. She takes him into her arms, their old habit quickly remembered, and while making shushing sounds to calm him down, he falls asleep again.
* * *
“Earth to Elijah,” Dom quips, and raises his eyes to the boy in the sticky jeans, who is now leaning against the doorframe. Elijah snaps out of memory and hears Dom repeat his words. “Take them off.” “Huh – what?” Elijah desperately tries to focus on the present topic of discussion. “Oh – the jeans.” He is suddenly aware of his icy wet hair; drops of rainwater are running down his neck, which make him shiver visibly. Dom hops off his bed to fetch a towel from his en-suite bathroom, which he proceeds to wrap around Elijah’s small frame. “Take the fucking jeans off, Lij,” he breathes, as he pulls the boy in a tight embrace, rubbing his back, drying his hair. Dom’s spaceless hold triggers visions of this morning again, when he nestled into the crook of Franka’s arm, breathing shallow breaths, sensing her other hand tracking up and down the side of his naked body. He could always lose himself in her, pretending he wasn’t there anymore, disappearing off the face of the earth, only by merging with her soft, oh such soft forms, and let her body take over his own.
* * *
“You like?” she whispers in his hair and he only whimpers a bit in an attempt to confirm what Franka already knows. “Still want me?” Again that fucking whisper and an unmistakable twist hits his stomach, only to travel down to his crotch. ‘Oh yes,’ he thinks. ‘Ever since you fucking walked out on me.’ But he doesn’t say it, his pride still prevailing. She fondles the taut flesh of his stomach and her fingers crawl towards his nipples. “Once more, honey?” her whisper is barely audible. Elijah struggles. Fuck, he wants her. Why the hell is she playing these fucking mindgames with him? His entire body screams out for her, but he keeps his mouth shut. The way she dumped him, only three months ago, is a fresh wound in his soul, and it was placed alongside a few other wounds of the same kind. His hurt is big in that area.
Her hand trembles against his shoulder, and he is shocked to realise that she needs an answer from him. He opens his eyes and rolls onto his back, she slides away to give him space. “You know,” he starts and his voice is raspy and hoarse. “Quit the headfuck, you know exactly how I feel.” Frowning, she slowly removes her hand. He continues. “God, I want you. I have fucking ached for your touch for the past three months, I still do. Why do you think I beat my body up like I have, lately? To stop feeling anything. To stop wanting you…” He closes his eyes and sighs. He doesn’t want to look at her; missing her touch terribly but fighting the eternal battle with himself to withstand the roaring desire that is building up like an enormous bonfire in the pit of his stomach.
Her hand returns to his chest. His eyes fly open, almost accusingly. Yet her touch burns its print on his flesh and, involuntarily, he shivers. He knows then that it is a lost cause; he’ll hate himself in a few hours time, but he cannot find the willpower in his exhausted mind anymore to stop his body from reacting to her ministrations. His eyes flutter close again, and then he allows his body to react, enjoying the way her hand roams the side of his face, swiping her thumb against his lower lip, forcing it down a bit and nudging her indexfinger against his clenched teeth, which he eventually parts. She pries the index into his mouth, touches his tongue, knowingly unleashing Elijah’s raging desire. He sucks fiercely on her finger, taking her somewhat off-guard. She pulls her hand back and quickly covers his lips with her own, warm-wet-wonderful kisses, tongue and teeth and saliva-slick-suction.
* * *
“God, where ARE you today?” Dom asks, as he loosens his grip on Elijah, ruffling his messy hair with the thick towel to drain the last drops. He now senses something is terribly wrong with the pretty hobbit and worry creeps into his brain. He pulls him down beside him, places an arm around his hanging shoulders and forces Lij’s eyes to meet his own. The blue stare is on him now, and Dom cannot help but smile, being the sucker for Elijah’s eyes that he is. It’s quiet for a minute before Dom thinks of saying something again, when Elijah suddenly blurts out. “I fucked her this morning.” Dom, shocked, tries to find a facial expression to cover that shock up, realising he is failing miserably. Fortunately, Elijah is not looking at him at all, being completely immersed in his own disturbing train of thoughts. “Hard,” he continues and swallows his tears down. “I fucked her so hard that I don’t think she can sit straight in that business class flight seat of hers, and I enjoyed every split second of it.” Dom squeezes the sagging shoulders, his way of letting him know that he won’t judge him.
And he won’t. He won’t. At all.
CHAPTER 2
Because Dom understands how reason can be lost along the way, how desire can take over, how lust can get the better of a person. But, most of all, he knows Elijah. Elijah, who fights such urges with every fibre in his being because he so hates looking into the mirror at his own wide-eyed reflection, after having lost that fight. He hates losing it, simply because Elijah Wood needs to be able to look into the mirror every single fucking morning. Dom thinks he pretty much knows how Elijah thinks, how he feels, how he reasons and struggles with such emotions, and – sometimes – how he loses. Because he has lost the exact same fight to Dom. And now Elijah is trying to understand what Dom already knows. And this is where Confusion came in.
Hi there.
Meet Confusion.
This case with Franka, however, Dom’s not too sure about, and he knows that Elijah knows, and he aches for his best friend’s repeatedly broken heart, his mutilated pride, and his fear of facing the mirror tomorrow morning.
They sit in silence for a couple of minutes and Elijah grabs his wet jeans from the floor to wrench his cigarettes out of them. He lights one nervously. Dom notices the violent shaking of his hands, and not until he’s taken maybe three or four drags from the clove do they settle a bit.
His strained features finally smooth into something that somewhat resembles the Elijah Dom has come to love so much. And to Dom it doesn’t matter that Elijah is currently living together with Confusion, who prevents him from figuring out whether he is straight or gay, who repeatedly makes him try to forget the loaded issue for weeks, hell, even months at a stretch, who slowly but steadily lured him into smoking at least thirty cigarettes a day.
Still, Elijah is not stupid. He knows Confusion is messing with his head. Therefore, he told Dom that if he would ever decide on the matter, he would always make sure Dom is included in the deal somehow.
And for now, Dom has decided to settle for that, because Dom loves Elijah. Dom loves Elijah so much it hurts in his head, in his fingers, in his stomach, in his heart. Elijah is what makes him see the sun and touch the stars. Elijah makes him brave and vulnerable. Elijah makes him grow strong and remain a child forever.
Elijah makes. Him.
He cannot stand to see Elijah’s bright blue eyes to be so overcast with guarded and angry frustration. Seeing him all fucked-up like this, makes him want to forever shackle Elijah to his bed and make sure he never gets hurt by anyone ever again.
However, Dom understood a long time ago that Elijah needs to figure all this sexual shit out on his own, at his own pace. So he has resigned himself to the sideline for now, watching Elijah explore and venture and crash and hurt and scar. Comfort is Dom’s trump card; he will be there to glue the beautifully bruised Elijah back together every time his faceless lovers shatter him to pieces. Because Dom knows that Elijah is smart enough to ultimately reach the conclusion Dom reached ages ago, back in a New Zealand trailer.
Patience was never Dominic Monaghan’s middle name, but this prize is worth the effort, and so he finds himself picking up the jar of glue and he squeezes the shattered boy softly.
“And now you regret it?” he starts and locks onto Lij’s gaze. “Or is that a question that I am not even allowed to ask?” Elijah takes another drag of the clove and, exhaling, turns his head slightly to look at Dom.
“I am not even sure about that.” He inhales deeply once more. “I told you I liked it, I hated myself briefly for caving in under her touch, but I have never been so quick at forgetting that feeling of self-loathing. I just wanted to melt into her again, like I used to do.”
* * *
She is on all fours, grabbing a bedpost, bracing herself against the repeated forceful impacts. “Fuck, Lij, is that all you can do?” she hisses at him, deliberately fuelling his anger, making sure he drops any remaining inhibitions, blocking out his rational thinking, making sure he switches to auto-pilot so he will fuck her full-force.
The very moment he bucks into her again, she knows she made a mistake. His ‘full-force’ levels have apparently gone up a couple of notches since she left him three months ago, because he’s pushing her to the edge of straight pain.
It resembles an ominous night she had with him once , when he had told her about his indecisiveness over his sexual preferences. That evening when he had confessed to her that he and Dominic Monaghan had fucked each other senseless for an entire weekend when she was away filming. She had been upset, but also slightly aroused by the idea, and since she was notorious for dropping one guy to be with the next she could hardly point the accusing finger at Elijah, who, up until that weekend, had proved to be the prime example of monogamy. That night he had fucked her, but with so much more force, so painful, and his orgasms had been so overpowering, that the wonder crept in.
And tonight is worse. So Franka is afraid. Afraid of that raging devil behind her, and afraid of her own deceiving perceptions that are informing her brain that she is actually enjoying the onslaught. She closes her eyes, tries to inhale deeply, and all of a sudden, nothing.
Nothing?
Only Elijah’s heavy breathing behind her. “You like?” he copies her line from a few minutes ago. She tries to turn her head to look at him, but he grabs her hair and pushes her face hard against the headboard. She collapses against it.
“You want me?” again he borrows her words, breathing erratically down her neck. She feels his strength falter for a second and she quickly flops onto her back to look Elijah in the eyes. He is dangerous. Frightening.
“Is this how you fuck Dom?” it’s out there before she can stop the words. His breathing’s still ragged. “Why?” he asks, barely audible. “You care?”
She casts her eyes down and they’re silent for a long time.
“Gonna finish this, Lij?” she finally asks. “Turn over,” is all he says and she obliges. “’Lijah?” it comes out barely more than a whisper. “Please, be careful…”
And for a minute she thinks he has been listening to her plea, as he carefully eases into her once more, only to see that hope shatter on the polished hardwood floor, when he picks up his former pace and strength again in one-two-three short thrusts. She hates the fact that she cannot see his eyes, see his flushed face and get a kick out of that. Because she involuntarily likes what he is doing to her, and although he’s fuelled by all the wrong reasons, she knows that Elijah enjoys this too.
She remembers him being awfully good at their many oh-so-slow fucks, ending exhausting days of filming back in Canada. Always really good at foreplay. He had her weak spots figured out in no time and had proceeded to abuse this knowledge so expertly she had seriously started to wonder where all that experience came from in the diminutive twenty-one year old. But when foreplay was over and done with, he always meant business. Straight-to-the-fucking-point business. He possessed the weird capacity of literally fucking her into oblivion, when she temporarily forgot just who or where she was, floating on nothing but her own uncoiling body and the sound of Elijah coming.
Yet this morning, she thinks, he is rather obviously fucking himself into oblivion.
* * *
Dom stands up, offers Elijah his hand, and when he takes it, he leads them out of his bedroom, on to safer territory which is the livingroom. Lij falls down in the big soft couch and fumbles a second cigarette from the crumpled pack. He lights it with practised ease and rests his head back, closing his eyes, taking in drag after drag.
“You want to discuss this, or want me to drop it and make us some tea?” Dom offers. Lij opens his eyes, takes in the sight of Dom and exhales. “I don’t think I could possibly make sense out of this now,” he starts, coughs, croaks, giggles. “You really should quit,’’ says Dom, laughing a bit as he sees Elijah’s face change into all kinds of emotions. Then they’re both laughing loudly, and the thick cloud of tension in the room gradually lifts.
Dom heads for his guestroom, returns, throws a blanket at Elijah and goes off into the kitchen to put the kettle on. Returning with two steaming hot mugs, Lij, who is now sitting on the floor against the couch, has draped the blanket around his barely clothed, pale body and has started on his third cigarette, using a discarded saucer as an ashtray, in which previous evidence lies stubbed out. Dom glares at the makeshift ashtray first, then turns to Elijah.
“I know – I know,” he mumbles against the fag. “You hate it when I smoke in your house.” “Would it stop you?” Dom asks, briefly smiling, putting the mugs down. “Not today,” comes the muffled reply. Dom rolls his eyes and gives in. He doesn’t feel like pestering Lij more than the small man is already pestering himself, also well aware of the fact that either biting his nails to the quick or smoking like a chimney are probably the only two things keeping him together at this moment.
“Drink,” is all he says and points at the mug. But Elijah doesn’t until he has reached the end of the third cigarette which he uses to light the fourth one with.
They sit still for a while again, Elijah staring at the tip of his cigarette, quietly drinking his tea, Dom staring at Elijah.
“Are you hungry?” Dom asks softly. “I can fix you something…” Elijah looks at him. He frowns. “Please. Don’t…” he whispers. “Stop mothering - I couldn’t eat a bite now, and I really just want to sit here, or maybe I really should go, since I am not much company to you anyway, so I might as well go home again and brood there, and watch TV and pretend nothing happened and listen to some really ear-splitting loud music while having far too much beer and fall asleep plastered on my own fucking couch and wake up in the middle of the night throwing up in the bathroom since the whole bloody world knows I cannot hold my fucking liquor and stumble to bed and reach a new day and still pretend nothing happened and maybe then Confusion will have left and…”
But Dom has kneeled beside him now and has wrapped both of his arms around Elijah’s trembling body, kissing his face where tears are finally falling, straight into the folds of the blanket. He’s crying hard and his body is shaking so severely now that Dom has trouble holding onto him. He shifts so that he can pull Elijah closer to his chest and holds him there, all the while making soft comforting noises, stroking his hair out of his face, and landing small kisses on his cheeks and hair and lashes.
CHAPTER 3
She lies with her head in Elijah’s lap, his back resting against the headboard of the bed. She has her eyes closed. With one hand he is mindlessly playing with some frays on the pillowcase, while the other is clutching a cigarette.
She listens to his steady inhalations. He has come off his high, and she knows he feels guilty for having been so rough with her. She knows, because that is how Elijah is. And now he is his tender self again, probably lying there with his eyes closed as well, enjoying his smoke, and thinking of a way to apologise to her.
“Don’t,” she hears herself saying. Elijah shifts a bit, and when he is about to ask her what in the world she is talking about, she says: “Don’t make up excuses for how you treated me just now. I don’t like you to apologise for anything. It doesn’t become you.”
Elijah continues smoking his cigarette. “I hurt you though,” he says. She lifts her head so she can look at his face. His eyes are, indeed, closed and a trail of smoke lingers just above his dark, damp, stick-out-everywhere hair. He opens his eyes. “I wasn’t searching for excuses though,” he says. There’s an infinite chill in his voice.
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
She swallows but still crawls to sit upright and scoots as close to Lij as possible. She wraps her arms around his body and leans in close to his face.
She remembers the first time she met him (‘those fucking eyes’), the first time she seduced him (‘not true, bint, admit it, he seduced you’), the first time they fucked (‘hardly innocent despite the eyes, but yet he was so full of youth and life and laughter’).
“Still,” she ventures. “We were good together just now, right?”
He blindly stubs out his cigarette. There’s a full ashtray on the nightstand that’s otherwise littered with papers, magazines, CDs and hell, even a filmscript. He inwardly smirks as he notices his own sloppiness and then realises her hands are on him again. He doesn’t look at how she is drawing lazy circles on his chest with her fingers. Instead, he lights a new cigarette and then he feels the familiar headache coming on. Fuck.
He silently curses Confusion who is already lurking in the corner of his bedroom. Desperately trying to avoid the confrontation for a moment longer, he takes a deap breath, drops the cigarette in the ashtray and decides to wrap his arms around the older woman once more. He slides down the headboard until he is almost lying down with her, their heads close together. She looks at him expectantly, and he almost feels in control of the situation. When did those fucking tables turn?
“I don’t want to see you again, Franka,” he whispers against her hair.
She sits up straight and looks at him. Lij stretches out his arm again and reaches for the ashtray to pick up his cigarette. He deliberately stubs the barely started fag out. See this, Confusion? Fuck you.
Franka picks up her clothes and disappears into the bathroom.
Lij is staring at one of the dark corners of his bedroom. Fuck. You.
The front door closes with a thud.
* * *
It’s a good fifteen minutes before Elijah is breathing evenly again. “Monsters gone?” Dom asks quietly, losening his grip on Elijah. He nods weakly, and Dom almost believes him. “Go take a shower or something,” he suggests, folding the blanket a bit tighter around Lij’s body. “You must be cold.” Elijah ponders the suggestion for a second, finishing the last cigarette in the pack he brought. He stubs it out in the makeshift ashtray, and leaves it next to the other ends. Dom recoils at the sight of the saucer, and when Elijah finally gets up to pad over to the bathroom, he grips the filthy thing and tips its contents in the trashcan outside on the deck. He makes his way over to the kitchen to put the saucer into the dishwasher.
He hears the faint sound of a cell phone and moves to where the noise is coming from, apparently his bedroom. He realises that he is hearing Elijah’s cell ringing in the back pocket of his wet jeans. Clumsily fumbling for the small phone, he’s too late to take the call, so he abandons the thing on the nightstand while in search of Lij’s other wet clothes on the floor.
He decides to take them into the bathroom so that they can dry there. He knocks on the bathroom door but receives no answer. He knocks again, but still nothing. As he doesn’t hear the water running either, he opens the door, slightly worried, and calls Elijah’s name.
Peeking around the door he sees Elijah standing in front of the mirror, completely frozen, locked onto his own sight. ‘Fuck,’ Dom thinks in a flash. ‘And it’s not even morning yet.’ Elijah has taken his last remaining piece of clothing off but has not bothered to turn on the water. “Lij,” Dom tries again, but Elijah doesn’t so much as even blink at hearing his name.
Dom walks in, turns on the water, and then carefully places his hands on Elijah’s shoulders from behind him and tries to pry him away from the frozen spot in front of the bathroom mirror. Elijah moves, but Dom doesn’t feel like he is moving a human being; he could be pushing a shopping cart for all he knows. He starts to worry all over again. What really happened to Lij today?
He opens the glass door and ushers Elijah into the shower cubicle. The water is set at a pretty hot level, but Elijah doesn’t wince. He closes his eyes as the hot water starts to pour over his hair onto his face and down to his chest. He tips his head down, stretching his arms out to grip the wall in front of him and slowly crawls out of the dark place that is his fucked up brain.
Arguing with himself that he needs to do something to get through to Elijah, Dom decides to take his clothes off as well and join Lij in the cubicle. He quietly opens the door, and when he gets no objection from Elijah he closes it behind him and takes that one tiny step that separates him from his friend. Lij doesn’t move, which means Dom does not get a lot of water, but it is not important. He slides his arms around Lijah’s waste and locks his hands over his stomach. Then he rests his head against the back of Elijah’s and they just stand there for an age.
* * *
He has never experienced anything like this before. A complete standstill of his thoughts. As if his brain had just frozen and the current thought had stilled with it, like a VCR on hold, or a crashed computer screen. And what an image, there in his brain. He is not too sure if his brain froze and the image with it, or if the image was so powerful that it froze the rest of his mind in the process.
* * *
A ring. From her. It wasn’t here before. On the kitchen table. He discovers it after waking up much later that day, with her gone – thank fuck. But this, this ring. This messes him up even more. The way his eyesight plays tricks on him when this ring seems to magnify each time he dares to glance at it is highly unsettling, as if his kitchen has ceased to exist and the whole of his world now revolves around this fucking stupid ring.
And, no note, no message, no nothing. Fuck. Just a sodding ring. He’s not good with rings. They freak him out. For more reasons than the obvious. And she fucking leaves him one.
* * *
Is he naked? He vaguely feels the cold enveloping his body and wants to hug himself for warmth, but there is still the image of that bloody ring and, like his frozen thoughts, his body, too, is not capable of movement at all. Hands on his back. Water, hot water. Feels nice. Hot water. Good. No need to hug for warmth now, right?
Right.
Ring?
Yep, still there.
* * *
He finds himself reaching out for the ring; a nice, intricate silver band, but he never picks it up. Is there really no note? His eyes flash around: kitchen counter, fridge, front door? Nothing. A message? Sure. She’d have left a message on the machine. He stumbles more than walks into the livingroom, only to find the little red light burn steadily and happily away on top of his answering machine.
No flickering; no message.
Panic rises. Has she fucking left him without answers but one hell of a big question? Again? The clenching feeling around his throat he felt months ago when he realised Franka was out of his life surges through him. The exact same feeling of fear, emptiness, rage and panic, all encompassing, like cold, dead fingers around his neck. Again.
Goddammit, when will people stop walking out on him, for fuck’s sake?!
With sudden unstoppable tears streaming down his face, he grabs his keys, jacket and cigarettes and flees the apartment.
***
He still has his head bent. Dom wonders at the paleness of Lij’s body. White like marble, Sir Ian used to say. It was a mocked expression, but privately Dom agrees with the knight. Elijah’s skin is like marble, it is smooth and white and flawless. He remembers the day when Elijah had complained to Pete about the absolute shitload of make-up they had to apply to his face and body while shooting the Mount Doom scenes. Make-up had then explained to them both that it was caused by the simple fact that Elijah had no facial flaws whatsoever, flaws that were normally used to hook an actor’s stage make up onto. They first had to create flaws on Elijah’s face for fuck’s sake, and only then could they proceed with the actual make-up for the given scene. Pete had looked baffled, Elijah still slightly annoyed at the pancake he was given each day, and Dom…well, Dom had turned it into a joke of course, since his face was far from flawless, but secretly admired Elijah’s features even more. And, as he had found out over the months in New Zealand, the rest of Elijah’s body looked and felt alarmingly much like his face. Flawless. Now he catches himself glancing at the naked form under his shower, glistening wet, thinking that after all these years the lustre still hasn’t worn off. But then again…
He might be biased.
There is still annoyingly little movement from the boy, and Dom argues with himself if he should try and snap Lij out of his apathy. So he slowly unlocks his hands and slides them down towards Lij’s stomach, traces small circles, and then moves on to his hips. Slender hips, skinny even, luring Dom towards Lij’s ass, not so slender, but beautifully tight. And although he does not seem to elicit any response from Lij so far, his own arousal is obvious, and he steps back a bit, not wishing to destroy the protective bubble that seems to enfold them both.
But when he moves backwards, loosening his grip on Lij’s body, he finally gets a reaction. Elijah’s head tips up and twists a bit, trying to make eye contact with Dom, speaking with a scratchy voice from too much crying and smoking.
“Don’t go.”
TBC