Fic: Any Other World
Any Other World
Billy Boyd/Dominic Monaghan
PG-13
Notes: This one's a bit weird, sorry. But it's been floating in my head for a while now and I hope it makes some shred of sense to anyone reading!
The first year is the hardest.
*
Billy Boyd wakes up one morning and his entire life has changed.
His life: wife, kid, dog, work when he chooses, play when he wants. It's a good life. He's got a best mate, he's got a sister he sees at least once a week with a brood of her own, he's got a girl by his side that he couldn't be fonder of and a little boy that's his entire heart.
It's the life he wants for himself. It's the life his parents would have wanted for him, too, he knows.
They're talking about having a second kid; a little girl would be lovely, Billy thinks, though Ali says she'd be fine with a playmate for Jack. Billy says they'll be playmates either way, and in the back of his mind he images Jack as the protective older brother.
It's a good life.
He doesn't have that life anymore.
*
He tells himself that they're still there. It makes him feel better.
He tells himself that in that other world, there's an other him, too; that, that one hurts, but he knows what it's like to lose a father and he wouldn't want that for Jack. So there's some other him, but he hopes not the him from this world because he doesn't know if some other him who hadn't been there to hold Jack the day he took his first breath and who hasn't had Ali by his side during some of his worst times, forgiving him for all those dumb mistakes, he doesn't know if that him would love them enough.
They need to be loved.
*
The first year is all about adjusting.
He's been in an accident, so the confusion is - understandable.
Everyone understands. They humor him until he's been in this man's shoes enough to know in what direction they need to be walking. He reads through every file on the computer, every scrap of paper and records.
Some things are intuitive. They are, after all, almost the same person. His email password is the same, his cabinets still hold his favorite foods, the house is decorated much like his first one after coming back from New Zealand had been, before Ali put her touch on it.
*
"You've been off, mate," Dom says, piling onto the bed beside Billy.
Dom lives here, Billy thinks; or if not lives then comes and goes freely. Dom is a familiar thing in an unfamiliar world. Billly's grateful, even when the unavoidable misunderstandings make distances between them gap wide.
This Dom is more broken, Billy thinks at first. He's got shadows and circles under his eyes and sometimes when Billy wakes up Dom is just there. On the couch or on the bed, sometimes drunk or sometimes hungover, but very often present.
Then as more time passes, as that first year starts to round to an end, Billy begins to realize something. He begins to realize that this Dom in the presence of other people is actually just the same as the Dom that Billy knows from his own world, and he's not a daft guy, really.
What this means, what Billy understands with a gnawing kind of regret, is that his Dom hadn't felt comfortable enough in front of him to stop putting on a show. Billy goes home that night and has a drink in honor of his Dom, and he thinks that if he did just - just swap lives, swap places, maybe that Billy would know how to fix his Dom.
It's a silver lining, not a happy ending, but - if something good could come of it all, Billy would like it to be that.
*
His sister tells him one day that he ought to meet a nice girl and settle down.
Billy wants to say, But I've already done. The idea of another wife, another child - it hurts him deeply and thoroughly, and leaves him aching and exhausted.
He can't say that. She wouldn't understand.
So he just says, "Not sure I'm the settling down type."
"You know, I always did suspect," she says, and laughs in a peculiar way.
Billy hangs up the phone, unsure as to what she'd meant but not too concerned about it.
*
Billy works more.
He takes more roles, daring ones. He takes roles that take him all over the world.
He travels more. What's he got keeping him at home?
He gets the guys back together, makes the band. Most of them haven't talked in years. They're the same people, but together, they're different. He gives it another name, and he writes songs that are a little wilder and a little more unhinged. That's the kind of man this Billy feels like being.
Slowly, with each passing day, month, year, he becomes this person who is both himself and not.
His old life begins to feel like a dream that he wakes up from sad. On what would be (what is) Jack's eight birthday he has a cupcake with blue frosting and tries to imagine what his son must look like now.
He can't, really, and he gives it up as a lost cause. Maybe it's not so bad; he gets to hope for the best for Jack's future but keep the image of him forever that sweet little boy.
*
Dom gets into an accident.
At least, Billy thinks that's what's happened. He shows up with his arm in a brace and a bruise along his jaw, surly and snipping at everything Billy says. He sleeps for fourteen hours in Billy's bed and when he wakes up he's like a puppy with his tail tucked, slinking into the kitchen.
Billy spends a week at home. He fucks off of a job, makes them rearrange the shooting schedule, because Dom needs him. It's the kind of thing the other Billy would never do, but Dom - well. Dom needs him. Billy won't say no to that, not when he thinks of all the times he canceled plans or made excuses with the other Dom.
He misses being needed, but it's more than that. Dom doesn't fulfill that void within him, he just makes Billy realize that maybe his other life had voids, too.
*
He gets old (older) and so does Dom, who gives up acting in movies and tv ("because of the lifestyle") he says, if you ask, but he hates it when you ask. He gets a steady gig narrating documentaries and his own nature show, moves all of his stuff across the pond and leaves Hollywood behind for good.
At holidays and celebrations, people come to see them - they're together, Billy and Dom, and the lines between friends and partners bleeds and shifts at times. They get lonely, and lonelier still, but less lonely together.
"Why d'you not bring someone home?" Billy asks, because Dom hasn't - ever, Billy thinks.
Dom gives him a strange kind of look. "Would you really want me to?"
No, Billy realizes, he wouldn't. Feeling slightly chastised, he shakes his head at a sharp clip. "No, I don't think I would."
Dom smiles at him. "Well, then, that's why I don't."
*
"Do you want to bring someone home?" Dom asks the next morning, over breakfast. He has bedhead and stubble and his stupidly wonky charming face has become something that makes Billy's chest pull tight with warmth and affection. "Is that why you asked?"
Billy shakes his head and smiles. "Naw, why the fuck would I even? Got you, don't I?"
Dom's face goes sunshine bright with the wideness of his smile. "Reckon so."
*
They're both men, and they both like sex, and as it turns out, sex together is pretty fantastic.
Billy breathes heavy in bed, sweaty dampening the hair on his chest and the sheets underneath him. He stretches and lets out a satisfied groan. "Well, that was all right, I suppose."
Dom looks fuck-drunk and blissed out with his cheeky little half-smile. "Passable, I'd say." Then he goes more serious. "Missed this, Bill. Missed you. I was starting to think you didn't find my ugly mug appealing anymore."
It hits Billy like a ton of bricks; why hadn't he, how hadn't he - Dom's been waiting, hasn't he? Waiting on Billy, because they'd been - something, in this world, something they weren't in the other. Dom's maybe been waiting years on him, thinking-
What Dom must have been thinking hurts Billy fiercely. He rolls over and drags him in for a tight hug, making Dom yelp and laugh. Then his arms slip around Billy's middle and clutch back just as tight. "I love you," Billy whispers, eyes stinging.
He means it. In this world, in every world, he means it.
Billy Boyd/Dominic Monaghan
PG-13
Notes: This one's a bit weird, sorry. But it's been floating in my head for a while now and I hope it makes some shred of sense to anyone reading!
The first year is the hardest.
*
Billy Boyd wakes up one morning and his entire life has changed.
His life: wife, kid, dog, work when he chooses, play when he wants. It's a good life. He's got a best mate, he's got a sister he sees at least once a week with a brood of her own, he's got a girl by his side that he couldn't be fonder of and a little boy that's his entire heart.
It's the life he wants for himself. It's the life his parents would have wanted for him, too, he knows.
They're talking about having a second kid; a little girl would be lovely, Billy thinks, though Ali says she'd be fine with a playmate for Jack. Billy says they'll be playmates either way, and in the back of his mind he images Jack as the protective older brother.
It's a good life.
He doesn't have that life anymore.
*
He tells himself that they're still there. It makes him feel better.
He tells himself that in that other world, there's an other him, too; that, that one hurts, but he knows what it's like to lose a father and he wouldn't want that for Jack. So there's some other him, but he hopes not the him from this world because he doesn't know if some other him who hadn't been there to hold Jack the day he took his first breath and who hasn't had Ali by his side during some of his worst times, forgiving him for all those dumb mistakes, he doesn't know if that him would love them enough.
They need to be loved.
*
The first year is all about adjusting.
He's been in an accident, so the confusion is - understandable.
Everyone understands. They humor him until he's been in this man's shoes enough to know in what direction they need to be walking. He reads through every file on the computer, every scrap of paper and records.
Some things are intuitive. They are, after all, almost the same person. His email password is the same, his cabinets still hold his favorite foods, the house is decorated much like his first one after coming back from New Zealand had been, before Ali put her touch on it.
*
"You've been off, mate," Dom says, piling onto the bed beside Billy.
Dom lives here, Billy thinks; or if not lives then comes and goes freely. Dom is a familiar thing in an unfamiliar world. Billly's grateful, even when the unavoidable misunderstandings make distances between them gap wide.
This Dom is more broken, Billy thinks at first. He's got shadows and circles under his eyes and sometimes when Billy wakes up Dom is just there. On the couch or on the bed, sometimes drunk or sometimes hungover, but very often present.
Then as more time passes, as that first year starts to round to an end, Billy begins to realize something. He begins to realize that this Dom in the presence of other people is actually just the same as the Dom that Billy knows from his own world, and he's not a daft guy, really.
What this means, what Billy understands with a gnawing kind of regret, is that his Dom hadn't felt comfortable enough in front of him to stop putting on a show. Billy goes home that night and has a drink in honor of his Dom, and he thinks that if he did just - just swap lives, swap places, maybe that Billy would know how to fix his Dom.
It's a silver lining, not a happy ending, but - if something good could come of it all, Billy would like it to be that.
*
His sister tells him one day that he ought to meet a nice girl and settle down.
Billy wants to say, But I've already done. The idea of another wife, another child - it hurts him deeply and thoroughly, and leaves him aching and exhausted.
He can't say that. She wouldn't understand.
So he just says, "Not sure I'm the settling down type."
"You know, I always did suspect," she says, and laughs in a peculiar way.
Billy hangs up the phone, unsure as to what she'd meant but not too concerned about it.
*
Billy works more.
He takes more roles, daring ones. He takes roles that take him all over the world.
He travels more. What's he got keeping him at home?
He gets the guys back together, makes the band. Most of them haven't talked in years. They're the same people, but together, they're different. He gives it another name, and he writes songs that are a little wilder and a little more unhinged. That's the kind of man this Billy feels like being.
Slowly, with each passing day, month, year, he becomes this person who is both himself and not.
His old life begins to feel like a dream that he wakes up from sad. On what would be (what is) Jack's eight birthday he has a cupcake with blue frosting and tries to imagine what his son must look like now.
He can't, really, and he gives it up as a lost cause. Maybe it's not so bad; he gets to hope for the best for Jack's future but keep the image of him forever that sweet little boy.
*
Dom gets into an accident.
At least, Billy thinks that's what's happened. He shows up with his arm in a brace and a bruise along his jaw, surly and snipping at everything Billy says. He sleeps for fourteen hours in Billy's bed and when he wakes up he's like a puppy with his tail tucked, slinking into the kitchen.
Billy spends a week at home. He fucks off of a job, makes them rearrange the shooting schedule, because Dom needs him. It's the kind of thing the other Billy would never do, but Dom - well. Dom needs him. Billy won't say no to that, not when he thinks of all the times he canceled plans or made excuses with the other Dom.
He misses being needed, but it's more than that. Dom doesn't fulfill that void within him, he just makes Billy realize that maybe his other life had voids, too.
*
He gets old (older) and so does Dom, who gives up acting in movies and tv ("because of the lifestyle") he says, if you ask, but he hates it when you ask. He gets a steady gig narrating documentaries and his own nature show, moves all of his stuff across the pond and leaves Hollywood behind for good.
At holidays and celebrations, people come to see them - they're together, Billy and Dom, and the lines between friends and partners bleeds and shifts at times. They get lonely, and lonelier still, but less lonely together.
"Why d'you not bring someone home?" Billy asks, because Dom hasn't - ever, Billy thinks.
Dom gives him a strange kind of look. "Would you really want me to?"
No, Billy realizes, he wouldn't. Feeling slightly chastised, he shakes his head at a sharp clip. "No, I don't think I would."
Dom smiles at him. "Well, then, that's why I don't."
*
"Do you want to bring someone home?" Dom asks the next morning, over breakfast. He has bedhead and stubble and his stupidly wonky charming face has become something that makes Billy's chest pull tight with warmth and affection. "Is that why you asked?"
Billy shakes his head and smiles. "Naw, why the fuck would I even? Got you, don't I?"
Dom's face goes sunshine bright with the wideness of his smile. "Reckon so."
*
They're both men, and they both like sex, and as it turns out, sex together is pretty fantastic.
Billy breathes heavy in bed, sweaty dampening the hair on his chest and the sheets underneath him. He stretches and lets out a satisfied groan. "Well, that was all right, I suppose."
Dom looks fuck-drunk and blissed out with his cheeky little half-smile. "Passable, I'd say." Then he goes more serious. "Missed this, Bill. Missed you. I was starting to think you didn't find my ugly mug appealing anymore."
It hits Billy like a ton of bricks; why hadn't he, how hadn't he - Dom's been waiting, hasn't he? Waiting on Billy, because they'd been - something, in this world, something they weren't in the other. Dom's maybe been waiting years on him, thinking-
What Dom must have been thinking hurts Billy fiercely. He rolls over and drags him in for a tight hug, making Dom yelp and laugh. Then his arms slip around Billy's middle and clutch back just as tight. "I love you," Billy whispers, eyes stinging.
He means it. In this world, in every world, he means it.