Snakes
Title: Snakes
Author: valerienne
Beta: ripsgirl
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dom/Elijah
Disclaimer: Not real. False. So not true. Pity about that.
Notes: Written for the divergent_paths ficathon challenge. At least 5,000 words longer than I intended it to be, and even then Dom just didn't want to come home... :)
It’s late, and the sound of the screen door banging open seems as loud as a gunshot to Dom in the quiet of the night. He shivers a little, having heard more than one gunshot since he came to live in LA, even if he lives in the fancy bits, the posh bits. Classy, as Lij might say. Even if he lives in the heart of Hollywood - well, Beverly Hills anyway - he’s still heard gunshots. Can’t avoid it in this city.
He watches Hannah as she lets the door swing while she looks for her coat. He might be worried about that, this late at night, letting a nice girl like Hannah walk home alone. If this was Manchester he knows he wouldn’t even think about letting her go like this, despite the lack of guns on British streets. If this was Manchester though, it would be colder, it might even be raining, and he’d have called a taxi for Hannah. Or he’d walk her home under damp orange streetlights, and he’d watch the spangles of rain alight in her hair like cheap glass beads. He’d have bought her a kebab and they’d probably have shared a chilli flavoured kiss too, ‘cos he’d have chanced stuff like that back then. Sister of his good friend or not, he’d have tried it on. Then.
But this isn’t Manchester, and the swinging screen door lets in humidity, and a desert night, not sleeting rain, or the gloomy fog that seems to cling to the dark streets back home, at stupid o’clock in the morning, like it is now.
But this isn’t Manchester, and he can watch Hannah put on her coat - pointless given she has to stagger all of a hundred yards, round the pool, to the main house, and then up the stairs to Bedfordshire, like Dom remembers his Mum saying when he was small - so he can watch her put on her unnecessary coat, and know that she’ll be fine. And he’s not going to try for a drunken grope in the doorway, he’s not, he doesn’t have the slightest urge, and it’s nothing to do with Hannah being his mate’s sister, it’s never stopped him before, no, it has nothing to do with that at all.
Dom looks over and sees Elijah where he’s slumped sideways on the sofa, hand still in the popcorn, but his beer bottle neatly on the floor, not a drop spilt, and Dom finds himself smiling. They’ve taught him well, haven’t they? Over the years. He’s still a lightweight, Lij, but he doesn’t spill his beer, he doesn’t… Dom gets a ridiculously overwhelming urge all of a sudden to take him out for a curry in Rusholme, on the Curry Mile, to get him a vindaloo or a phal and watch him splutter and turn red, wiping tears from his eyes and getting chilli in his contacts, while Dom pisses himself laughing. Until Dom leans over and licks him, and kisses it all away, and it’s a chilli flavoured kiss of a different kind.
But Dom stops then. He’s thinking of Manchester again, and impossible Manchester is thousands of miles away, and he doesn’t want to be there anyway. He wants to be here, in LA. He does. And Lij wouldn’t be in Manchester in the first place, he’d be here, and Dom would never have met him, and things would be different. And how things might be different is something he’s not going to think about, because it’s stupid, all right? As stupid as Hannah putting on a coat to go out into a night that’s warm and almost humid, and her home is there across the patio, across the pool.
And then, he thinks, as long as she’s not so arseholed she doesn’t notice the pool - and maybe, Dom thinks, maybe he should walk her home after all.
Hannah giggles when he staggers to his feet from the pool lounger they’ve dragged in for the comfort, and the extra seating. He swings the coat she’s finally found around her shoulders and then bows to her, a gentleman to the end. The world sways and Dom notices while he’s down there that Hannah is wearing flowery plastic sandals, like she’s twelve years old, and Dom wonders, how come he’s only just noticed that?
She giggles again, when he offers her his arm, the famous Monaghan charm never failing, and bats at him ineffectually, the girly pink polish on her nails setting off his own dark blue sparkling stuff nicely. And that is when Dom realises he’s drunk. That’ll be it. These details that he’s noticing. These not so important details that he’s noticing. Like the way Lij’s hair is sticking up - not that it doesn’t always stick up, mind you - but the way it sticks up in just the sort of way that begs for someone to run his fingers through it, tufty and annoying as it is… And then he holds the door for Hannah, and they exit into the night that’s not Manchester, and Dom takes a deep breath of air and refuses to be dizzy.
“You’re sweet,” Hannah says, and Dom grins at her as they walk around the pool. He knows he is, he’s been called sweet or cute, or bloody funny, all of his life, and it’s nice that she says it in that accent of hers, except that he’s in LA and here it’s him that has the accent. Must remember that. And he wonders if he should change it again. He managed it when he moved from Germany, dead easily, not a problem, and being beaten up until he did change it gave him a head start, didn’t it? Oh yes.
But it’s different now. He’s a star, like the sparkling rows of them down on Hollywood Boulevard, a small star, not quite shooting, not quite hanging in its firmament, not quite bloody anything at all. Dom wonders if he should try and kiss Hannah after all. Wonders if she’d taste like Lij… Wonders what Lij would taste like.
They say goodbye by the back porch, and Hannah leans into him, all soft curves and sweet breath, and Dom pulls away, because she doesn’t feel like Lij, who’s lean and wiry, all strong muscle over thin bone. Hannah feels him do it, and cocks her head a little, her eyes huge and swimming in her face, and that is like Lij, so he stares into them mesmerised, until she leans a little more and says, “Tell him, Dom. Tell him. He ought to know.”
And Dom can feel his heart stop and restart, he swears he can. He stumbles backwards and Hannah lurches off balance until she catches herself on the doorframe, and then she blinks at him, like a solemn looking owl in pink nail varnish and plastic sandals.
“It would be all right,” she says, “And if I can see it then…”
She waits but he’s stuck, still stuck trying to process it all.
“No one would mind. We’d all be glad. We would.” Her face shifts then, into uncertainty, and desperation, “I would be glad. He needs someone, Dom. He does. Well.”
She sighs, like a little girl, and smiles a sunshine smile, breaking like the dawn. “’Night, Dom. See you in the morning.” And trips into the house.
Leaving the famous Monaghan charm gaping and cold in the warm night. Tell him? Tell him. How can he tell him? Elijah’s his mate, just his mate. How can he tell him? Things would change. Change forever. Dom’s not willing to risk forever, it lasts too long.
He stumbles back towards the pool house, feet clumsy, head spinning. The water glints in the starlight, not like the rain in Manchester, not cold and hard, like the grey streets, but sparkling with false promise, just like Hollywood. It’s a different world, Dom thinks. A different world.
The hose is uncurled by the side of the pool, not tidied away like it should be. It looks snake-like in the dark and Dom thinks it could be friendly, a friendly snake, eating its own tail. Like his life. Like their stupid impossible friendship, eating itself, eating them both up. ‘Tell him’ Hannah says, just like that. Like it’s that easy.
He steps over the snake, steps over the decision, and stumbles, as easily as that. The fall from the Garden of Eden was probably as simple, Dom thinks, as the marble of the pool-edge come up to meet him in pin-wheeling slow motion. I’m drunk, he thinks. I’m going to fall into the pool and drown. And. I will never have told Lij. The stars that explode in his head could be pain, could even be regret, but all he sees are the fading spots of light. The fading stars of Hollywood…
***
“Wake up, Dom! Wake up!”
He’s groggy, and his heart is beating fast, but he’s also warm and comfortable, and he doesn’t want to move. He waves a hand ineffectually as something prods him in the ribs again, and the sputtered giggle this produces wakes him up more effectively than any icy shower. Dom opens his eyes to a room bathed in grey light, the curtains (not blinds) are only half drawn, and he can see a corner of the red brickwork (not slatted white wood) of the house stained dark with rain. He blinks a little, focusing back on the scarred wooden chest of drawers beside the bed, and its scatter of debris. Somehow he can’t focus properly, but he can see an empty glass bottle (Newcastle Brown Ale?), a broken mirror, a bottle of nail varnish (green) and a pair of black-framed glasses. The duvet is yellow, with an abstract pattern of swirls. There is a round hole the size of a cigarette butt burnt into it, just in front of his nose.
He has no idea where he is.
Heart hammering, Dom clutches the duvet as he tries to focus, to remember. His heart is going to burst, he’s convinced of it, and then he realises, he must have hit his head on the pool-side, and now he’s dead. That must be it. He must be dead. And that’s sort of comforting. Better than the swooping uncertainty and disorientation anyway.
But.
Yellow duvets in heaven?
Yellow duvets in hell?
It makes no sense. Nothing is making any sense, and Dom lies still, like an animal in a trap, waiting, waiting…
Then he hears it, what he has been unconsciously listening for, another giggle, not feminine and coy, but cheeky and young and male. Familiar. So familiar. Dom closes his eyes and shivers, a deep thrumming quiver, that seems to shake him, and shatter him, as small neat hands steal over his side, to prod him again.
“Are you awake yet, then, sleepyhead? Hey! I know you are, you must be, you’re not snoring any more.”
Dom doesn’t move. Fingers run along his ribs, gently, and somehow he knows there are no nails to catch on delicate skin, and he shivers again. Then he feels the hard length of a young body creep closer, and a leg twines over his own. His eyes come popping open as he becomes aware of his nakedness all of a sudden, becomes aware of warm flesh against warm flesh…
He turns then, backs away, hands scrabbling against the unfamiliar yellow duvet, and the room spins as the voice, goes, “Woah, man, hey calm down!”
Dom blinks again, and the face comes into focus, hair tufty and annoying, eyes huge in a pale face, paler than it usually is, and Lij is holding his arm and saying it again, and not for the first time, Dom realises, “Dom, it’s ok, it’s ok, just don’t move, man, you’ll loosen the bandage. Dom…”
He stops. He waits. The world does not change any more than it already has. Yellow duvet. Tufty hair. Blue eyes. Worried eyes.
“Lij?” he falters, tasting the name.
The worried face relaxes and Elijah leans back on one hand and surveys him, the quilt pooling round his hips, flat planes of flesh almost translucent in the grey light.
“I thought you couldn’t see me. Fuck, don’t scare me like that, dude. For a second, I thought you didn’t recognise me, like they’d hit you so hard that you’d lost it all. Fuckers. And it’s not like I could carry you to Casualty.” (Casualty? Not the Emergency Room?)
“…What?”
“Don’t you remember? Assholes thought we were on their patch. Yeah. Like we’d risk that. Fuckers.”
He leans over, across Dom, and Dom nearly flinches from the warmth of it, from the slight brush across his chest, and Lij picks up his glasses and pushes them up his nose. They’re jam-jar thick, just like Dom remembers (what does he remember?) and Dom tastes fear then. It’s so familiar. It’s so strange.
“…I don’t know. Lij? What..?” But he can’t go on. What’s he supposed to say? That he hit his head? That he might have drowned in Lij’s folks’ own pool? That… His head hurts.
“Hey, it’s ok, they’re not going to come after us. We’ll just shift markets for a bit. Stick the word out to the regulars. We’ll be all right.”
“Yeah. Ok.”
Elijah seems to take that for reassurance and smiles, the gap between them dark against the whiteness of his teeth. He stretches and Dom catches his breath, and doesn’t look away, when Lij casually gets up and pads, naked and beautiful, and utterly unselfconsciously, to the door.
“I’ll go put water in the kettle, ok? Come down when you’re ready.”
And he’s gone and Dom is lying in a strange bed, in a strange room. In a strange life.
***
The kettle has boiled, and Elijah is bent over pouring hot water into two mugs when Dom makes his way downstairs. Dom’s dressed now, in t-shirt and jeans that are also unfamiliar, but not the style of them, not the feel of them. He twists his leather wristband around and around, and that is familiar. That feels the same. He clings to it like a child.
When he’d made himself get up, he’d looked in the cracked mirror that hung on one wall, and had touched the professional-looking white bandage that was wrapped round and about his head. There was a tender spot beneath, that made him hiss and snatch his fingers away when he tried to explore. It was, perhaps, the least odd thing about the whole situation. Head injuries explained a lot of things. But then he’d stared at the rest of his face and he’d been relieved that nothing else appeared to have changed. The same brown-blond hair, worn long over his forehead. The same crooked jaw and stupid ears. He’d grinned then, as sideways as ever, and thought that it couldn’t be heaven, now could it, if he still looked like him?
But then he’d wandered to the window and he’d looked out on to grey streets, brick buildings, scattered people, and the long slow slide of the canal. He’d recognised it, from a time long gone, and that was even more strange. He’d gone drinking round here, once upon a time. A long time ago. Before New Zealand.
Manchester. Knackered, familiar, tired old Manchester.
What the fuck?
Elijah has obviously found enough time to pull on some boxers, but nothing more. His skin is pebbled with goosebumps, and he picks up the coffee - black, Dom knows, as ever - and hugs it close. He picks up Dom’s tea and hands it to him, and Dom feels that except for the strange kitchen, the chipped formica where there should be pristine wood, it could have been any morning lately. Until Lij leans forward and kisses him, and Dom is too surprised to react; he tastes coffee, breathing in on a surprised little huff, and sweet smoke. He can tell that Lij’s lips are warm, and slightly chapped, but the pressure is gone before he can snatch after it, before he can press in and taste properly, and he is suddenly unreasonably bereft. A long imagined treasure gone before he can appreciate it properly.
He decides he must have hit his head much harder than he’d thought.
***
“So you don’t remember anything?”
They are sitting in the living room, and Lij is squinting at him through his glasses, his lower lip pulled down into a frown. Dom wants to lick it, heady with a sort of light-headed knowledge, that here and now, as never before, perhaps he can.
“Man, that’s really scary…”
He looks so worried, so uncertain, that instinctively Dom reaches out to reassure him, to tousle his hair, to touch his arm. It has another effect. Elijah shifts automatically, and slides in under Dom’s arm, until his head is solidly against Dom’s shoulder, and his bony shoulders are pressing in on Dom’s chest. It’s uncomfortable, it’s slightly awkward, but it feels… Right. And Dom can feel his heart thumping again, his head light with the pulse of blood pounding through it. He drops his chin until it rests on the top of Lij’s head, and he closes his eyes.
“Tell me about our life,” he whispers, and Lij laughs; Dom wonders if he thinks he’s joking.
“Jeez, Dom, you’re freaking me out. Where do you want me to start? It’s not like we just met yesterday or anything.”
“That’ll do, Lij. Just orientate me. When did we meet? Tell me.”
And Elijah does.
***
It started with Elijah’s dad, Dom thinks. That’s where it changed. Lij couldn’t cope with it, as far as he can tell. This Elijah seems to have cared more about his father than Dom remembers his one doing. And when his dad finally abandoned the family and left Elijah as breadwinner, then this Lij fell apart more, couldn’t stick it. Ran away in the end, but being Lij, when he ran away, he did it in style. All the way to London. Makes some sort of sense, Dom supposes, it’s not like he can be dragged back easily from all the way over here. But as he looks at Lij now, he remembers Hannah. Remembers the worry in her eyes, when she talked about her brother. Remembers her giggle, so close to Lij’s, her painted nails, the silly sandals. This Elijah is missing out on a whole lot, Dom thinks. A whole lot of love.
But that is the best part, or the worst part, Dom knows. He can’t quite decide about that. It’s too close to him. Too different. He can’t quite get his head around it, or know if the stars exploding under his heart are a good thing or a bad. A whole lot of love. He can’t really complain, can he? This Lij has a whole lot of love too, they both do. Love me do. The familiar lyrics revolve around in his head, with the perfect words for him, as ever. Led Zep and the Beatles. Remember, children, the Beatles are for life, not just for Christmas… Dom smiles, bittersweet with cynicism.
Things changed for him though, he thinks, with Hetty. Or rather, when he didn’t get Hetty. Elijah chatters on about other auditions Dom did get, about a crappy frozen peas ad, but Dom’s not listening. He doesn’t think about Hetty much now, not after everything else, but it was the start, wasn’t it? It began everything. Geoffrey Shawcross isn’t him, was never him, but Dom feels a pang to think that he’s never even existed, that Geoffrey has been consigned to a pixellated never-never land, where characters who have never been languish in the ether. He goes cold when he looks at the Lij in his arms and knows, as suddenly as that, that this isn’t real either. He looks at his own hands, where they’re clasped against Lij chest, square and strong. Freckled. And. His rings are different, Dom recognises with a sudden lurch, on the same fingers, still silver, but different patterns. He feels sick then, nauseous.
None of this is real.
***
“Hey, the doctor said that this might happen.”
Considering that Lij has just held his head while he threw up, Dom considers him to be entirely too cheerful. It makes him smile as he leans over the porcelain, maybe this Lij isn’t that much different to the real one. Cheerfully insane at inappropriate occasions. Always a thorough professional. Far too honest for his own good. At least, Dom imagines he is all these things. His head is floating lightly now, and there is a throbbing at his temple. He hopes that’s a good sign too.
Dom sits back on his heels and looks at him. Fucking looks at him properly. Lij is wearing a t-shirt now, thrown over his head at some indeterminate recent time, but he’s still in his boxers. His legs are a bit bony, knobbly knees bent into a crouch at his side, but Dom knows about that. Knows how Lij walks around for hours like this if he doesn’t have to get dressed for anything. He’s looking relieved, Dom thinks. But his eyes are still shadowed, and behind his glasses they look smaller, less like the Lij that Dom remembers.
He pushes himself to his feet and reaches for the toothpaste, then hesitates over the two toothbrushes stuck into the cracked plastic cup. Lij helps him by picking one out and handing it to him. Blue, ok, he’ll remember that. He quickly brushes his teeth, terribly conscious of Lij sitting on the edge of the bath, and then turns around to see him still sitting there, not speaking, just watching, and Dom knows that’s not right. That’s not Lij.
“What?” His voice comes out gravelly, and it’s not just the recent acquaintance with the porcelain god that makes him gruff.
“Just… I don’t know. Dom? What’s happening to us?”
It has a plaintive sound, and it stabs Dom in the guts. How would he like it if his… partner suddenly didn’t remember a thing about their life together? How would he like it if his Lij looked at him the way Dom must be looking at this Lij?
His fingers prickle, and his hands are suddenly clammy. He could help, couldn’t he? It would be the charitable thing to do. Wouldn’t it? He wonders who he is trying to fool. Slowly, so Lij can stop him if he likes, Dom reaches out and takes off his glasses. Lij blinks, and his eyes soften. Or is that just the removal of all that concealing glass?
He looks more like the Lij Dom knows now. If he can ignore the slightly sticky lino under his feet, and the strange dreamlike feeling that his headache only intensifies, then this could be home, couldn’t it? This could be LA. Except when has he started to think of LA as home? Since he woke up and found himself in some weird alternative version of Manchester? Since Lij is here with him in this strange mixed up shithole? When is he going to stop asking himself all these bloody stupid questions?
He knows he’s made a decision when he bends forward, deliberately slowly, and watches as Lij’s eyes gradually slide shut, and his nose tilts just perceptibly to one side. There are things about this place… There are things that make everything… Their lips bump a little, and Dom carefully leans in, exploring, tasting, like he’s been wanting to do ever since he woke up, if he’s going to be honest with himself. Lij’s hands lift to grasp and knead on his biceps and then, as suddenly as that, Dom is plundering his mouth, his tongue twirling, touching teeth and tongue, the taste of coffee bitter and yet so familiar, mixing with the mint of the toothpaste, and the faint scent of cigarettes swirling from Lij’s clothes. The fruit-chemical smell of shampoo curls into his nose as Dom runs an urgent hand up into Lij’s messy hair, and it’s all so perfect, and it’s what he’s thought about for so long that he hears himself moan, just a little, and the vibration echoes into Lij’s mouth as he pulls Dom closer still.
This isn’t LA. Dom can’t imagine this in LA. Yet now Dom can’t imagine LA without this either. So it’s just as well he’s in Manchester then. Isn’t it?
***
So they met in London, apparently. That’s where it started. Outside a theatre, and how appropriate is that for an ex-child star, and a failed fucking frozen peas actor? Both staring up at the poster of Sir Ian McKellen in Macbeth like the wannabes they are. Lij can’t work across the pond, not having the right paperwork, and Dom can’t find acting jobs at all, so he’s serving drinks in a crappy pub, and him not even Australian. They both love the theatre though, and they get chatting about what they’ve seen, and what films they like, and by the time they get on to music, Dom is back in his crappy pub, and Lij is across the bar from him, and they talk all night as Dom serves drinks around him. It was like the ebb and flow of the tide, Lij says, and they’d both felt that tug, like the surf was pulling at them both, and sucking them under. It was drowning, he says, but good drowning. Dom thinks he knows all about that.
Lij hasn’t said why they left London, but Dom thinks he can guess. It’s a big place, London, not as big as LA, but it can still swallow you up and spit you right back out again, if you’re not careful. And he knows Manchester, doesn’t he? It makes sense. And here, they have this flat by the canal, and he’s going to college, it seems, at least part-time, and that is almost weirder than all the rest. He hadn’t thought about uni and what he might have done, if he’d never done Hetty. Never missed it really, but here he is, a student after all. It’s interesting. It’s… different. And here, he has Lij.
***
Lij is laughing. He’s got clothes on now - they both do - and jackets, and Dom takes a breath of slightly damp air and grins back at him, manically. There’s nothing in the fridge and Dom is starving, so they’ve gone out for food. Shopping. And Dom looks round at the grimy streets and the Sainsbury’s Local on the corner, and the Victorian brick warehouses that are flats now, all of them, the canal long demoted to pleasure cruises and litter, and wonders how he can be so happy. He left all this, he went to New Zealand, and then he went to Hollywood, to get away from all this. From the mundanity of a little life, a little country, to a fucking great career. That’s what he wanted. He left girls behind to do it. He’s left lots of other lives behind, so why is he so happy now?
Lij’s hair is still standing up every which way, and Dom has decided that some things just never change. He reaches out and this time he does ruffle it, and Lij bats at his hand as he ducks away, so instead Dom slings an arm around his neck and feels the warmth of pale flesh seeping through the ratty denim. Lij grabs his hand and pretends to wrestle him and Dom laughs then, as he feels the pull and tighten of muscle, the flash of blue from behind those stupid glasses. He must take this Lij to get contacts - why on earth hasn’t he done so before? It’s comfortable, Dom realises, all at once. He’s comfortable, and Lij must sense it, because he’s relaxed, possibly for the first time since Dom has woken up and not remembered anything.
He’s comfortable enough - happy enough - to let his hand slide down to the waistband of Lij’s jeans, and to hook his fingers there, their tips brushing the soft skin of his hip, and Dom hears Lij’s breath catch, and there’s a tightening in his own skin, a pooling of heat, and the reality of it, the fucking reality of it, takes on a new twist. How could he have just left it all this time? How long has he known Lij? How long has he known he wanted… this? Too long. For once there’s an answer to one of these bloody stupid questions. Too fucking long.
And that’s when things change. Happiness. Might have known it would be too good to last. The three men come out of an alley, and they’re not dressed quite right, too much leather, too casual. Too purposeful. It sends little alarm bells ringing in Dom’s head. He doesn’t need Lij to stiffen at his side to know something’s wrong. He slips his hand out of Lij’s jeans and instead balls them into fists, watching the men watching Lij, watching him.
“You’re in our way,” the leader says, although the street is clear, empty, and wide enough to take a bloody parade. It’s not even going to be a good excuse, it seems, and suddenly Dom’s head is aching. Throbbing. He takes Lij’s arm - who’s frozen, so it looks like - and tries to move out of their way. No need to make it anything but obvious. But they’re all three around them both now, and they’re big blokes, not like him or Lij. Dom bares his teeth in a little smile, it’s been a while but he’s had his share of fights, he can do some damage if they push him, if they underestimate him because he’s not tall or built like a brick shit-house, like they are.
“Sorry,” he says, to make it really clear he doesn’t want this, “I hadn’t realised you needed the whole street.” And he leans forward a little, to get his centre of gravity balanced, make it harder for them to knock him over.
“Not just the street,” the leader offers again, “The whole fucking area - thought we’d made that clear, last time.”
“Don’t know what you mean, mate,” says Dom, “We’re just going to Sainsbury’s. Isn’t that right, Lij? Minding our own business.”
“And we’re just minding ours.” The leader grins then, and Dom sees more than purpose in his eyes, he sees enjoyment, he sees pleasure. And that’s when Dom thinks, oh shit, this is serious.
Then Lij, who’s been silent these few endless seconds, suddenly says, “We’ll pay. We’ll move our turf, and we’ll pay. Deal?”
Dom is off-balance now, because the leader’s eyes have shifted to Lij, and he’s looking calculating, like he’s actually thinking about it, but Dom doesn’t know what Lij is on about. Pay to stop these bastards beating them both up? Why should they? Except his head aches and he realises this sort of thing must happen a lot round here, if his bandage is anything to go by, although he doesn’t remember much of Manchester being quite this violent. Bad luck, maybe, or the area’s gone downhill, or…
He realises they’re being shuffled to the alley, and his heart speeds up a bit. This seems like a really bad idea to Dom, but he’s following Lij’s lead, he knows this place, he knows their life. Dom doesn’t. It’s rare that anything can make him feel this off-balance, and then he’s hearing the leader again, and Dom realises that Lij is negotiating.
“I want something now. On account, like.” The man is quiet now, leaning in. Dom swallows because Lij looks so small. So bloody vulnerable…
“I haven’t got it. Not money. Wasn’t expecting you, was I?” There is a sly laugh that runs round the group, and even Lij smiles. Only Dom is still and solemn, trying to understand.
“I’ve got my sample bag, dude. I’ve always got that. Worth something. Shows my good faith, doesn’t it?”
The leader holds Lij’s gaze, and he limpidly looks back, godamn butter wouldn’t melt in that mouth. Then the man grins, shark-like, with no humour, and says, “It’ll do. For now. But we’ll be back. We’re going to be partners, you and me. You’ve had it easy up ‘til now. But now you need looking after, both of you. Two pretty-boy pansies like you need protecting in this world.”
And Lij smiles, like he’s made the funniest joke in the world, but Dom is about to say something, because he’s boiling mad now, and scarlet with humiliation, and he will say something, is going to say something, until Lij pulls out a little zip-lock bag. Just an ordinary plastic baggy, except that it’s half full of golden brown powder.
Dom can’t grasp what he’s seeing, can’t really take it in. It’s got to be brown sugar in the bag, or it’s got to be tobacco. It’s every stupid cop show he’s ever watched as a kid, with grungy drug dealers in leather jackets on street corners, except… It’s Lij here, it’s Lij with his hands flicking the packet out with steady hands, tapping it so the powder pools in the bottom, so it can be fingered and measured by sharp calculating eyes.
And then he realises. Bits and fragments of conversation fall through the wavering holes in his memory. ‘Assholes thought we were on their patch’, ‘we’ll just shift markets for a bit’… How can he not have noticed, how can he not have put meaning to the words? But then he’s been out of it, hasn’t he? His world has changed. He’s not been paying attention. And in the floating gaps where happiness has been leaking in, he’s not noticed the rest of it. How is Lij making money, if he can’t work over here? How is Dom affording to go to university, if he isn’t up to his ears in debt, or working all the hours god sends? It’s painful, Dom discovers. Finding out that every paradise has its snakes. It’s painful and humiliating, and he wishes this wasn’t happening. This isn’t Lij. Not the real Lij. But that reiteration doesn’t calm him as much as it did earlier. It hurts more. He’d just started to think of all this as his. His Lij. His life. Dom closes his eyes, feeling his shoulders slump, and his right temple throbs. More fool him. This isn’t a friendly snake, is it? It will turn and bite them both, sooner or later. He thinks he can feel the fangs already.
“No,” he whispers, then, suddenly angry, suddenly furious. He’s given up a fucking great career for this, well, not given it up, not exactly, but it’s gone all the same, hasn’t it? And what’d he get? He got this. He got Lij. And he’s not going to have it fucked up by packets of brown powder, and something that feels like a needle under his heart - or should that be in his arm? - and blokes who should be on ‘Crimewatch’. He’s not going to put up with this…
“No,” he says a bit louder, and Lij shoots him a dagger glance from over his glasses, but Dom’s too pissed off to care. This isn’t right, this isn’t them. He shoves at the man who’s moved warningly to loom at his side, and the bloke staggers, obviously surprised that Dom’s reacted. It’s enough to allow Dom to reach the little tableau where the leader has opened the packet, was about to test the stuff. It’s not the fucking punch in the mouth that Dom wants to give him, in fact it’s more of a girly slap, but it does the job, and the grains scatter, blowing in the wind, sparkling like gold as they fall into the dust.
The leader turns then, licking at his lip where the lucky blow has split it, but Dom is barely aware of it. The two sidekicks are in his peripheral vision now, moving up fast, and Lij has backed a step, looking horrified, looking fucking pissed off, but all Dom can feel is the anger, the desperate feeling that this isn’t right, that this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. His head throbs again, and a drop of sweat is stinging the corner of his eye; it must be how he misjudges the first blow, which lands in his stomach like some stupid pile driver, fucking clichéd description, and Dom flexes his hands as he remembers his fights at school and in the clubs sometimes. Remembers how he nearly always managed to joke his way out of stuff like this, and how little he feels like joking now.
He tries to back off a little because they all outweigh him, and if he gets fucking trapped he’s pretty sure he’s dead meat. But they’ve all closed in, and he’s got nowhere to go. The biggest goon throws another punch and Dom blocks it this time, follows it up with a blow of his own. He can see Lij in his peripheral vision and he thinks at him, hoping he’ll somehow hear - run, godamn fucking run, Doodle… But Lij is stepping in, not away, and Dom is suddenly desperately scared. Lij isn’t a fighter, isn’t built for it, shit, fuck…
He doesn’t even see the punch that lays him out, doesn’t see it coming. It’s the leader that has taken him, Dom thinks in a daze, as pain sparks in little pretty patterns on the inside of his eyelids. He’s been hit in the same place as the bandage, of course he has, and everything slows down. So it’s true, that does actually happen then, who’d have thought… He’s falling, but so very slowly. There’s a roaring noise, but not like applause, no audience this time, it’s all inside his head, and there’s wavering black lines around his vision. He tries to speak, to explain to Lij, it would only take a second, and surely he’s got that much time, the way everything is fading at the speed of fucking treacle, but he can’t hear anything for the roaring in his head. The last thing he sees is Lij’s eyes widening in fear, and his mouth opening as he lunges forward, and Dom…
***
…Shouts, “No, Lij! It’s not worth it…!” And opens his eyes.
Lij is leaning over him, one hand on his chest, one fluttering at his neck, and his breath smells of beer, coppery and sweet. Dom is so grateful that he’s all right, and that somehow they’re not dead, they’ve not been killed, and he’s so grateful that he reaches up and tugs Lij down to him, fingers frantic in Lij’s hair, and kisses him, hard and desperately. Lij makes a startled sound that vibrates in Dom’s mouth, and Dom can feel his pulse beating frantically where he’s cupped his palm against Lij’s neck, skin soft and warm under his hand. Then ‘Lij is leaning into the kiss, leaning into Dom, and he slides down until there is a satisfying weight against Dom’s chest, and answering hands tugging at his arms, at his t-shirt, and smooth fingers running down his sides.
It’s Dom’s turn to groan then, as the thin sinuous body settles in, and heat begins to pool at his groin as Lij wriggles, and he’s wanted this for so long, how come he’s waited for this, even here, because they’re in a different world now, and Lij wants him in this world, he wants him, he doesn’t need to wait…
But they’re in the street, aren’t they? In the middle of Manchester. This is not the right place, although the tightening in his jeans indicates that it is rapidly getting to be the right time. So he sits up, and there’s a sudden lessening of pressure on his chest as Lij slides back onto his rump, with a protesting squeak. The world spins but Dom can’t see anything anyway, because it’s dark, and his heart is thumping so hard he can barely breathe, and it’s dark, and the breeze that feathers across his hot face is warm and faintly humid, not Manchester damp, and it’s fucking dark…
And Lij isn’t wearing his glasses.
Oh. Shit.
Petrified now, his skin turning clammy, his arousal disappearing rapidly into a feeling of nausea and wildly see-sawing fear, Dom looks around. The pool glints in the dim lights from the trees, and the water laps up against the pale marble with a faint slapping sound. The hose curls into an appropriate question mark at his feet, the hose he tripped over, and the screen door to the pool house is banging in the very faint breeze. It sounds to him like the banging of a drum, like a death knell tolling for his life. Both lives, it seems.
Lij is sitting with his hands clasped round his knees and his eyes are wide, even wider than usual; he looks like the rabbit right before the headlights ram right into it. Dom looks away and wonders how he can bloody well fix this. Can he blame it on the fall? He can just see how blaming it all on a damn dream of some mixed up other world where him and Elijah actually love one another will really make this Lij trust him again. He’ll just think Dom’s gone crazy, and with some truth in it, since Lij has just been jumped, out of the blue, by his best friend. Dom drops his head down to his own knees and shivers with cold, in the warm night air.
“Dom? It’s ok, man. You’re all right. You banged your head.”
Lij’s voice is low, like he’s taming some wild animal, like Dom remembers Viggo talking to a spooked horse, and he huddles, and doesn’t look up.
“Sorry,” he whispers to his knees. And. “Drunk,” he tries, miserably.
“Hey, I’m drunker than you, but I’m not trying to commit suicide by throwing myself headfirst into my own pool.”
Lij has a smile in his tone now, Dom can hear it, it makes him smile back into the denim of his jeans. Then he feels a tentative hand stroking the back of his head. It tickles. It feels good. It makes him feel worse.
“Not what I meant.” He tries again, determined to see this through, if he’s going to lose Lij as a mate, then the least he can do is apologise properly first.
“Sorry, I…” What? That, even now, he wants to push Lij to the ground and bury his mouth in Lij’s neck, that he wants to kiss every inch of taut pale skin, and always will. That he wants to feel Lij push back with wiry strength, and laugh as he tickles him, and then to judder into arching stillness when Lij grabs him in a tender spot, and strokes…
“Sorry, I… surprised you.” God, what a fucking cop-out. Someone just shoot him now, and put him out of his misery.
“Hey, Dom…” Lij is tugging on an ear now, and indignantly, Dom thinks, I don’t care how guilty or godamn confused I feel, they’re not bloody handle-bars, but turns his head anyway.
Lij is looking solemn, and his hair is messier and tuftier than ever. Dom has a horrible urge to reach out and slick it down, although he knows that never works. On a normal day he would have reached out, but he can’t, not now. Not after what he’s just done.
“You did surprise me,” Lij is saying, as Dom drifts on a haze of wanting, wanting Lij, wanting this to be yesterday, or the day before that. “But you were drunk, Dom. That’s all. Too drunk to know what you were doing. I understand.”
And in a haze of mortification Dom knows he can just agree. He can agree and they can go back to being normal, back to being Dom ‘n Lij, and Dom can keep getting up earlier than Lij, even if that just makes it earlier in the afternoon, and he can keep making that foul chicory coffee that Lij likes, while he brews tea for himself, he can keep picking up socks from under the coffee table, he can keep beating Lij into the ground at Grand Theft Auto…
But it wouldn’t be true. He’s not that drunk, he could never be that drunk. In fact, he’s been that drunk, and he’s fantasised about kissing Lij, which is how he knows he’d never be drunk enough to actually do it. Actually, it almost annoys him that Lij would think he’d lose control enough to be that drunk. It’s as good an excuse as he’s ever going to get, his own thought even, but somehow, even when it’s offered him on a plate, with fucking garnish no less, he can’t take it. He just can’t. Then somehow, almost without himself willing to, he remembers Hannah’s wistful smile, and he remembers the other Elijah, dream Elijah, in his bottle glasses, with his stupid yellow duvet, and his glorious smile, and he remembers…
He remembers Lij kissing him back.
Lij isn’t smiling now. He’s staring at Dom, he’s watching him carefully. He’s stopped stroking the nape of Dom’s neck but he’s left his hand there, warm against the skin.
“I’m not that drunk,” Dom says clearly, watching Lij, watching his eyes slowly blink, and re-focus. Watching his face slip into lines and planes of understanding. Watching him watch Dom’s mouth. Finding his throat is dry.
But it’s Lij who finally moves. Who finally tugs lightly at Dom’s neck, and draws them together. It’s a dream, Dom thinks, he’s in a dream, and he’s going to wake up soon. He’s already woken up once already tonight, what’s one more fantasy? So you better enjoy it then, hadn’t you, says a small voice deep inside his head. You better enjoy it, and this time, get it right.
So it’s Lij who finally moves, who brings them together, but it’s Dom who kisses Lij. And he kisses him like it’s the first time (which it is, sort of) and he kisses him as though it’s the last time (which he is terribly afraid it is). And he kisses him as though he means it (which he really, really does).
Just in case. Because this time, this time, it might not be a dream.
Author: valerienne
Beta: ripsgirl
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dom/Elijah
Disclaimer: Not real. False. So not true. Pity about that.
Notes: Written for the divergent_paths ficathon challenge. At least 5,000 words longer than I intended it to be, and even then Dom just didn't want to come home... :)
It’s late, and the sound of the screen door banging open seems as loud as a gunshot to Dom in the quiet of the night. He shivers a little, having heard more than one gunshot since he came to live in LA, even if he lives in the fancy bits, the posh bits. Classy, as Lij might say. Even if he lives in the heart of Hollywood - well, Beverly Hills anyway - he’s still heard gunshots. Can’t avoid it in this city.
He watches Hannah as she lets the door swing while she looks for her coat. He might be worried about that, this late at night, letting a nice girl like Hannah walk home alone. If this was Manchester he knows he wouldn’t even think about letting her go like this, despite the lack of guns on British streets. If this was Manchester though, it would be colder, it might even be raining, and he’d have called a taxi for Hannah. Or he’d walk her home under damp orange streetlights, and he’d watch the spangles of rain alight in her hair like cheap glass beads. He’d have bought her a kebab and they’d probably have shared a chilli flavoured kiss too, ‘cos he’d have chanced stuff like that back then. Sister of his good friend or not, he’d have tried it on. Then.
But this isn’t Manchester, and the swinging screen door lets in humidity, and a desert night, not sleeting rain, or the gloomy fog that seems to cling to the dark streets back home, at stupid o’clock in the morning, like it is now.
But this isn’t Manchester, and he can watch Hannah put on her coat - pointless given she has to stagger all of a hundred yards, round the pool, to the main house, and then up the stairs to Bedfordshire, like Dom remembers his Mum saying when he was small - so he can watch her put on her unnecessary coat, and know that she’ll be fine. And he’s not going to try for a drunken grope in the doorway, he’s not, he doesn’t have the slightest urge, and it’s nothing to do with Hannah being his mate’s sister, it’s never stopped him before, no, it has nothing to do with that at all.
Dom looks over and sees Elijah where he’s slumped sideways on the sofa, hand still in the popcorn, but his beer bottle neatly on the floor, not a drop spilt, and Dom finds himself smiling. They’ve taught him well, haven’t they? Over the years. He’s still a lightweight, Lij, but he doesn’t spill his beer, he doesn’t… Dom gets a ridiculously overwhelming urge all of a sudden to take him out for a curry in Rusholme, on the Curry Mile, to get him a vindaloo or a phal and watch him splutter and turn red, wiping tears from his eyes and getting chilli in his contacts, while Dom pisses himself laughing. Until Dom leans over and licks him, and kisses it all away, and it’s a chilli flavoured kiss of a different kind.
But Dom stops then. He’s thinking of Manchester again, and impossible Manchester is thousands of miles away, and he doesn’t want to be there anyway. He wants to be here, in LA. He does. And Lij wouldn’t be in Manchester in the first place, he’d be here, and Dom would never have met him, and things would be different. And how things might be different is something he’s not going to think about, because it’s stupid, all right? As stupid as Hannah putting on a coat to go out into a night that’s warm and almost humid, and her home is there across the patio, across the pool.
And then, he thinks, as long as she’s not so arseholed she doesn’t notice the pool - and maybe, Dom thinks, maybe he should walk her home after all.
Hannah giggles when he staggers to his feet from the pool lounger they’ve dragged in for the comfort, and the extra seating. He swings the coat she’s finally found around her shoulders and then bows to her, a gentleman to the end. The world sways and Dom notices while he’s down there that Hannah is wearing flowery plastic sandals, like she’s twelve years old, and Dom wonders, how come he’s only just noticed that?
She giggles again, when he offers her his arm, the famous Monaghan charm never failing, and bats at him ineffectually, the girly pink polish on her nails setting off his own dark blue sparkling stuff nicely. And that is when Dom realises he’s drunk. That’ll be it. These details that he’s noticing. These not so important details that he’s noticing. Like the way Lij’s hair is sticking up - not that it doesn’t always stick up, mind you - but the way it sticks up in just the sort of way that begs for someone to run his fingers through it, tufty and annoying as it is… And then he holds the door for Hannah, and they exit into the night that’s not Manchester, and Dom takes a deep breath of air and refuses to be dizzy.
“You’re sweet,” Hannah says, and Dom grins at her as they walk around the pool. He knows he is, he’s been called sweet or cute, or bloody funny, all of his life, and it’s nice that she says it in that accent of hers, except that he’s in LA and here it’s him that has the accent. Must remember that. And he wonders if he should change it again. He managed it when he moved from Germany, dead easily, not a problem, and being beaten up until he did change it gave him a head start, didn’t it? Oh yes.
But it’s different now. He’s a star, like the sparkling rows of them down on Hollywood Boulevard, a small star, not quite shooting, not quite hanging in its firmament, not quite bloody anything at all. Dom wonders if he should try and kiss Hannah after all. Wonders if she’d taste like Lij… Wonders what Lij would taste like.
They say goodbye by the back porch, and Hannah leans into him, all soft curves and sweet breath, and Dom pulls away, because she doesn’t feel like Lij, who’s lean and wiry, all strong muscle over thin bone. Hannah feels him do it, and cocks her head a little, her eyes huge and swimming in her face, and that is like Lij, so he stares into them mesmerised, until she leans a little more and says, “Tell him, Dom. Tell him. He ought to know.”
And Dom can feel his heart stop and restart, he swears he can. He stumbles backwards and Hannah lurches off balance until she catches herself on the doorframe, and then she blinks at him, like a solemn looking owl in pink nail varnish and plastic sandals.
“It would be all right,” she says, “And if I can see it then…”
She waits but he’s stuck, still stuck trying to process it all.
“No one would mind. We’d all be glad. We would.” Her face shifts then, into uncertainty, and desperation, “I would be glad. He needs someone, Dom. He does. Well.”
She sighs, like a little girl, and smiles a sunshine smile, breaking like the dawn. “’Night, Dom. See you in the morning.” And trips into the house.
Leaving the famous Monaghan charm gaping and cold in the warm night. Tell him? Tell him. How can he tell him? Elijah’s his mate, just his mate. How can he tell him? Things would change. Change forever. Dom’s not willing to risk forever, it lasts too long.
He stumbles back towards the pool house, feet clumsy, head spinning. The water glints in the starlight, not like the rain in Manchester, not cold and hard, like the grey streets, but sparkling with false promise, just like Hollywood. It’s a different world, Dom thinks. A different world.
The hose is uncurled by the side of the pool, not tidied away like it should be. It looks snake-like in the dark and Dom thinks it could be friendly, a friendly snake, eating its own tail. Like his life. Like their stupid impossible friendship, eating itself, eating them both up. ‘Tell him’ Hannah says, just like that. Like it’s that easy.
He steps over the snake, steps over the decision, and stumbles, as easily as that. The fall from the Garden of Eden was probably as simple, Dom thinks, as the marble of the pool-edge come up to meet him in pin-wheeling slow motion. I’m drunk, he thinks. I’m going to fall into the pool and drown. And. I will never have told Lij. The stars that explode in his head could be pain, could even be regret, but all he sees are the fading spots of light. The fading stars of Hollywood…
***
“Wake up, Dom! Wake up!”
He’s groggy, and his heart is beating fast, but he’s also warm and comfortable, and he doesn’t want to move. He waves a hand ineffectually as something prods him in the ribs again, and the sputtered giggle this produces wakes him up more effectively than any icy shower. Dom opens his eyes to a room bathed in grey light, the curtains (not blinds) are only half drawn, and he can see a corner of the red brickwork (not slatted white wood) of the house stained dark with rain. He blinks a little, focusing back on the scarred wooden chest of drawers beside the bed, and its scatter of debris. Somehow he can’t focus properly, but he can see an empty glass bottle (Newcastle Brown Ale?), a broken mirror, a bottle of nail varnish (green) and a pair of black-framed glasses. The duvet is yellow, with an abstract pattern of swirls. There is a round hole the size of a cigarette butt burnt into it, just in front of his nose.
He has no idea where he is.
Heart hammering, Dom clutches the duvet as he tries to focus, to remember. His heart is going to burst, he’s convinced of it, and then he realises, he must have hit his head on the pool-side, and now he’s dead. That must be it. He must be dead. And that’s sort of comforting. Better than the swooping uncertainty and disorientation anyway.
But.
Yellow duvets in heaven?
Yellow duvets in hell?
It makes no sense. Nothing is making any sense, and Dom lies still, like an animal in a trap, waiting, waiting…
Then he hears it, what he has been unconsciously listening for, another giggle, not feminine and coy, but cheeky and young and male. Familiar. So familiar. Dom closes his eyes and shivers, a deep thrumming quiver, that seems to shake him, and shatter him, as small neat hands steal over his side, to prod him again.
“Are you awake yet, then, sleepyhead? Hey! I know you are, you must be, you’re not snoring any more.”
Dom doesn’t move. Fingers run along his ribs, gently, and somehow he knows there are no nails to catch on delicate skin, and he shivers again. Then he feels the hard length of a young body creep closer, and a leg twines over his own. His eyes come popping open as he becomes aware of his nakedness all of a sudden, becomes aware of warm flesh against warm flesh…
He turns then, backs away, hands scrabbling against the unfamiliar yellow duvet, and the room spins as the voice, goes, “Woah, man, hey calm down!”
Dom blinks again, and the face comes into focus, hair tufty and annoying, eyes huge in a pale face, paler than it usually is, and Lij is holding his arm and saying it again, and not for the first time, Dom realises, “Dom, it’s ok, it’s ok, just don’t move, man, you’ll loosen the bandage. Dom…”
He stops. He waits. The world does not change any more than it already has. Yellow duvet. Tufty hair. Blue eyes. Worried eyes.
“Lij?” he falters, tasting the name.
The worried face relaxes and Elijah leans back on one hand and surveys him, the quilt pooling round his hips, flat planes of flesh almost translucent in the grey light.
“I thought you couldn’t see me. Fuck, don’t scare me like that, dude. For a second, I thought you didn’t recognise me, like they’d hit you so hard that you’d lost it all. Fuckers. And it’s not like I could carry you to Casualty.” (Casualty? Not the Emergency Room?)
“…What?”
“Don’t you remember? Assholes thought we were on their patch. Yeah. Like we’d risk that. Fuckers.”
He leans over, across Dom, and Dom nearly flinches from the warmth of it, from the slight brush across his chest, and Lij picks up his glasses and pushes them up his nose. They’re jam-jar thick, just like Dom remembers (what does he remember?) and Dom tastes fear then. It’s so familiar. It’s so strange.
“…I don’t know. Lij? What..?” But he can’t go on. What’s he supposed to say? That he hit his head? That he might have drowned in Lij’s folks’ own pool? That… His head hurts.
“Hey, it’s ok, they’re not going to come after us. We’ll just shift markets for a bit. Stick the word out to the regulars. We’ll be all right.”
“Yeah. Ok.”
Elijah seems to take that for reassurance and smiles, the gap between them dark against the whiteness of his teeth. He stretches and Dom catches his breath, and doesn’t look away, when Lij casually gets up and pads, naked and beautiful, and utterly unselfconsciously, to the door.
“I’ll go put water in the kettle, ok? Come down when you’re ready.”
And he’s gone and Dom is lying in a strange bed, in a strange room. In a strange life.
***
The kettle has boiled, and Elijah is bent over pouring hot water into two mugs when Dom makes his way downstairs. Dom’s dressed now, in t-shirt and jeans that are also unfamiliar, but not the style of them, not the feel of them. He twists his leather wristband around and around, and that is familiar. That feels the same. He clings to it like a child.
When he’d made himself get up, he’d looked in the cracked mirror that hung on one wall, and had touched the professional-looking white bandage that was wrapped round and about his head. There was a tender spot beneath, that made him hiss and snatch his fingers away when he tried to explore. It was, perhaps, the least odd thing about the whole situation. Head injuries explained a lot of things. But then he’d stared at the rest of his face and he’d been relieved that nothing else appeared to have changed. The same brown-blond hair, worn long over his forehead. The same crooked jaw and stupid ears. He’d grinned then, as sideways as ever, and thought that it couldn’t be heaven, now could it, if he still looked like him?
But then he’d wandered to the window and he’d looked out on to grey streets, brick buildings, scattered people, and the long slow slide of the canal. He’d recognised it, from a time long gone, and that was even more strange. He’d gone drinking round here, once upon a time. A long time ago. Before New Zealand.
Manchester. Knackered, familiar, tired old Manchester.
What the fuck?
Elijah has obviously found enough time to pull on some boxers, but nothing more. His skin is pebbled with goosebumps, and he picks up the coffee - black, Dom knows, as ever - and hugs it close. He picks up Dom’s tea and hands it to him, and Dom feels that except for the strange kitchen, the chipped formica where there should be pristine wood, it could have been any morning lately. Until Lij leans forward and kisses him, and Dom is too surprised to react; he tastes coffee, breathing in on a surprised little huff, and sweet smoke. He can tell that Lij’s lips are warm, and slightly chapped, but the pressure is gone before he can snatch after it, before he can press in and taste properly, and he is suddenly unreasonably bereft. A long imagined treasure gone before he can appreciate it properly.
He decides he must have hit his head much harder than he’d thought.
***
“So you don’t remember anything?”
They are sitting in the living room, and Lij is squinting at him through his glasses, his lower lip pulled down into a frown. Dom wants to lick it, heady with a sort of light-headed knowledge, that here and now, as never before, perhaps he can.
“Man, that’s really scary…”
He looks so worried, so uncertain, that instinctively Dom reaches out to reassure him, to tousle his hair, to touch his arm. It has another effect. Elijah shifts automatically, and slides in under Dom’s arm, until his head is solidly against Dom’s shoulder, and his bony shoulders are pressing in on Dom’s chest. It’s uncomfortable, it’s slightly awkward, but it feels… Right. And Dom can feel his heart thumping again, his head light with the pulse of blood pounding through it. He drops his chin until it rests on the top of Lij’s head, and he closes his eyes.
“Tell me about our life,” he whispers, and Lij laughs; Dom wonders if he thinks he’s joking.
“Jeez, Dom, you’re freaking me out. Where do you want me to start? It’s not like we just met yesterday or anything.”
“That’ll do, Lij. Just orientate me. When did we meet? Tell me.”
And Elijah does.
***
It started with Elijah’s dad, Dom thinks. That’s where it changed. Lij couldn’t cope with it, as far as he can tell. This Elijah seems to have cared more about his father than Dom remembers his one doing. And when his dad finally abandoned the family and left Elijah as breadwinner, then this Lij fell apart more, couldn’t stick it. Ran away in the end, but being Lij, when he ran away, he did it in style. All the way to London. Makes some sort of sense, Dom supposes, it’s not like he can be dragged back easily from all the way over here. But as he looks at Lij now, he remembers Hannah. Remembers the worry in her eyes, when she talked about her brother. Remembers her giggle, so close to Lij’s, her painted nails, the silly sandals. This Elijah is missing out on a whole lot, Dom thinks. A whole lot of love.
But that is the best part, or the worst part, Dom knows. He can’t quite decide about that. It’s too close to him. Too different. He can’t quite get his head around it, or know if the stars exploding under his heart are a good thing or a bad. A whole lot of love. He can’t really complain, can he? This Lij has a whole lot of love too, they both do. Love me do. The familiar lyrics revolve around in his head, with the perfect words for him, as ever. Led Zep and the Beatles. Remember, children, the Beatles are for life, not just for Christmas… Dom smiles, bittersweet with cynicism.
Things changed for him though, he thinks, with Hetty. Or rather, when he didn’t get Hetty. Elijah chatters on about other auditions Dom did get, about a crappy frozen peas ad, but Dom’s not listening. He doesn’t think about Hetty much now, not after everything else, but it was the start, wasn’t it? It began everything. Geoffrey Shawcross isn’t him, was never him, but Dom feels a pang to think that he’s never even existed, that Geoffrey has been consigned to a pixellated never-never land, where characters who have never been languish in the ether. He goes cold when he looks at the Lij in his arms and knows, as suddenly as that, that this isn’t real either. He looks at his own hands, where they’re clasped against Lij chest, square and strong. Freckled. And. His rings are different, Dom recognises with a sudden lurch, on the same fingers, still silver, but different patterns. He feels sick then, nauseous.
None of this is real.
***
“Hey, the doctor said that this might happen.”
Considering that Lij has just held his head while he threw up, Dom considers him to be entirely too cheerful. It makes him smile as he leans over the porcelain, maybe this Lij isn’t that much different to the real one. Cheerfully insane at inappropriate occasions. Always a thorough professional. Far too honest for his own good. At least, Dom imagines he is all these things. His head is floating lightly now, and there is a throbbing at his temple. He hopes that’s a good sign too.
Dom sits back on his heels and looks at him. Fucking looks at him properly. Lij is wearing a t-shirt now, thrown over his head at some indeterminate recent time, but he’s still in his boxers. His legs are a bit bony, knobbly knees bent into a crouch at his side, but Dom knows about that. Knows how Lij walks around for hours like this if he doesn’t have to get dressed for anything. He’s looking relieved, Dom thinks. But his eyes are still shadowed, and behind his glasses they look smaller, less like the Lij that Dom remembers.
He pushes himself to his feet and reaches for the toothpaste, then hesitates over the two toothbrushes stuck into the cracked plastic cup. Lij helps him by picking one out and handing it to him. Blue, ok, he’ll remember that. He quickly brushes his teeth, terribly conscious of Lij sitting on the edge of the bath, and then turns around to see him still sitting there, not speaking, just watching, and Dom knows that’s not right. That’s not Lij.
“What?” His voice comes out gravelly, and it’s not just the recent acquaintance with the porcelain god that makes him gruff.
“Just… I don’t know. Dom? What’s happening to us?”
It has a plaintive sound, and it stabs Dom in the guts. How would he like it if his… partner suddenly didn’t remember a thing about their life together? How would he like it if his Lij looked at him the way Dom must be looking at this Lij?
His fingers prickle, and his hands are suddenly clammy. He could help, couldn’t he? It would be the charitable thing to do. Wouldn’t it? He wonders who he is trying to fool. Slowly, so Lij can stop him if he likes, Dom reaches out and takes off his glasses. Lij blinks, and his eyes soften. Or is that just the removal of all that concealing glass?
He looks more like the Lij Dom knows now. If he can ignore the slightly sticky lino under his feet, and the strange dreamlike feeling that his headache only intensifies, then this could be home, couldn’t it? This could be LA. Except when has he started to think of LA as home? Since he woke up and found himself in some weird alternative version of Manchester? Since Lij is here with him in this strange mixed up shithole? When is he going to stop asking himself all these bloody stupid questions?
He knows he’s made a decision when he bends forward, deliberately slowly, and watches as Lij’s eyes gradually slide shut, and his nose tilts just perceptibly to one side. There are things about this place… There are things that make everything… Their lips bump a little, and Dom carefully leans in, exploring, tasting, like he’s been wanting to do ever since he woke up, if he’s going to be honest with himself. Lij’s hands lift to grasp and knead on his biceps and then, as suddenly as that, Dom is plundering his mouth, his tongue twirling, touching teeth and tongue, the taste of coffee bitter and yet so familiar, mixing with the mint of the toothpaste, and the faint scent of cigarettes swirling from Lij’s clothes. The fruit-chemical smell of shampoo curls into his nose as Dom runs an urgent hand up into Lij’s messy hair, and it’s all so perfect, and it’s what he’s thought about for so long that he hears himself moan, just a little, and the vibration echoes into Lij’s mouth as he pulls Dom closer still.
This isn’t LA. Dom can’t imagine this in LA. Yet now Dom can’t imagine LA without this either. So it’s just as well he’s in Manchester then. Isn’t it?
***
So they met in London, apparently. That’s where it started. Outside a theatre, and how appropriate is that for an ex-child star, and a failed fucking frozen peas actor? Both staring up at the poster of Sir Ian McKellen in Macbeth like the wannabes they are. Lij can’t work across the pond, not having the right paperwork, and Dom can’t find acting jobs at all, so he’s serving drinks in a crappy pub, and him not even Australian. They both love the theatre though, and they get chatting about what they’ve seen, and what films they like, and by the time they get on to music, Dom is back in his crappy pub, and Lij is across the bar from him, and they talk all night as Dom serves drinks around him. It was like the ebb and flow of the tide, Lij says, and they’d both felt that tug, like the surf was pulling at them both, and sucking them under. It was drowning, he says, but good drowning. Dom thinks he knows all about that.
Lij hasn’t said why they left London, but Dom thinks he can guess. It’s a big place, London, not as big as LA, but it can still swallow you up and spit you right back out again, if you’re not careful. And he knows Manchester, doesn’t he? It makes sense. And here, they have this flat by the canal, and he’s going to college, it seems, at least part-time, and that is almost weirder than all the rest. He hadn’t thought about uni and what he might have done, if he’d never done Hetty. Never missed it really, but here he is, a student after all. It’s interesting. It’s… different. And here, he has Lij.
***
Lij is laughing. He’s got clothes on now - they both do - and jackets, and Dom takes a breath of slightly damp air and grins back at him, manically. There’s nothing in the fridge and Dom is starving, so they’ve gone out for food. Shopping. And Dom looks round at the grimy streets and the Sainsbury’s Local on the corner, and the Victorian brick warehouses that are flats now, all of them, the canal long demoted to pleasure cruises and litter, and wonders how he can be so happy. He left all this, he went to New Zealand, and then he went to Hollywood, to get away from all this. From the mundanity of a little life, a little country, to a fucking great career. That’s what he wanted. He left girls behind to do it. He’s left lots of other lives behind, so why is he so happy now?
Lij’s hair is still standing up every which way, and Dom has decided that some things just never change. He reaches out and this time he does ruffle it, and Lij bats at his hand as he ducks away, so instead Dom slings an arm around his neck and feels the warmth of pale flesh seeping through the ratty denim. Lij grabs his hand and pretends to wrestle him and Dom laughs then, as he feels the pull and tighten of muscle, the flash of blue from behind those stupid glasses. He must take this Lij to get contacts - why on earth hasn’t he done so before? It’s comfortable, Dom realises, all at once. He’s comfortable, and Lij must sense it, because he’s relaxed, possibly for the first time since Dom has woken up and not remembered anything.
He’s comfortable enough - happy enough - to let his hand slide down to the waistband of Lij’s jeans, and to hook his fingers there, their tips brushing the soft skin of his hip, and Dom hears Lij’s breath catch, and there’s a tightening in his own skin, a pooling of heat, and the reality of it, the fucking reality of it, takes on a new twist. How could he have just left it all this time? How long has he known Lij? How long has he known he wanted… this? Too long. For once there’s an answer to one of these bloody stupid questions. Too fucking long.
And that’s when things change. Happiness. Might have known it would be too good to last. The three men come out of an alley, and they’re not dressed quite right, too much leather, too casual. Too purposeful. It sends little alarm bells ringing in Dom’s head. He doesn’t need Lij to stiffen at his side to know something’s wrong. He slips his hand out of Lij’s jeans and instead balls them into fists, watching the men watching Lij, watching him.
“You’re in our way,” the leader says, although the street is clear, empty, and wide enough to take a bloody parade. It’s not even going to be a good excuse, it seems, and suddenly Dom’s head is aching. Throbbing. He takes Lij’s arm - who’s frozen, so it looks like - and tries to move out of their way. No need to make it anything but obvious. But they’re all three around them both now, and they’re big blokes, not like him or Lij. Dom bares his teeth in a little smile, it’s been a while but he’s had his share of fights, he can do some damage if they push him, if they underestimate him because he’s not tall or built like a brick shit-house, like they are.
“Sorry,” he says, to make it really clear he doesn’t want this, “I hadn’t realised you needed the whole street.” And he leans forward a little, to get his centre of gravity balanced, make it harder for them to knock him over.
“Not just the street,” the leader offers again, “The whole fucking area - thought we’d made that clear, last time.”
“Don’t know what you mean, mate,” says Dom, “We’re just going to Sainsbury’s. Isn’t that right, Lij? Minding our own business.”
“And we’re just minding ours.” The leader grins then, and Dom sees more than purpose in his eyes, he sees enjoyment, he sees pleasure. And that’s when Dom thinks, oh shit, this is serious.
Then Lij, who’s been silent these few endless seconds, suddenly says, “We’ll pay. We’ll move our turf, and we’ll pay. Deal?”
Dom is off-balance now, because the leader’s eyes have shifted to Lij, and he’s looking calculating, like he’s actually thinking about it, but Dom doesn’t know what Lij is on about. Pay to stop these bastards beating them both up? Why should they? Except his head aches and he realises this sort of thing must happen a lot round here, if his bandage is anything to go by, although he doesn’t remember much of Manchester being quite this violent. Bad luck, maybe, or the area’s gone downhill, or…
He realises they’re being shuffled to the alley, and his heart speeds up a bit. This seems like a really bad idea to Dom, but he’s following Lij’s lead, he knows this place, he knows their life. Dom doesn’t. It’s rare that anything can make him feel this off-balance, and then he’s hearing the leader again, and Dom realises that Lij is negotiating.
“I want something now. On account, like.” The man is quiet now, leaning in. Dom swallows because Lij looks so small. So bloody vulnerable…
“I haven’t got it. Not money. Wasn’t expecting you, was I?” There is a sly laugh that runs round the group, and even Lij smiles. Only Dom is still and solemn, trying to understand.
“I’ve got my sample bag, dude. I’ve always got that. Worth something. Shows my good faith, doesn’t it?”
The leader holds Lij’s gaze, and he limpidly looks back, godamn butter wouldn’t melt in that mouth. Then the man grins, shark-like, with no humour, and says, “It’ll do. For now. But we’ll be back. We’re going to be partners, you and me. You’ve had it easy up ‘til now. But now you need looking after, both of you. Two pretty-boy pansies like you need protecting in this world.”
And Lij smiles, like he’s made the funniest joke in the world, but Dom is about to say something, because he’s boiling mad now, and scarlet with humiliation, and he will say something, is going to say something, until Lij pulls out a little zip-lock bag. Just an ordinary plastic baggy, except that it’s half full of golden brown powder.
Dom can’t grasp what he’s seeing, can’t really take it in. It’s got to be brown sugar in the bag, or it’s got to be tobacco. It’s every stupid cop show he’s ever watched as a kid, with grungy drug dealers in leather jackets on street corners, except… It’s Lij here, it’s Lij with his hands flicking the packet out with steady hands, tapping it so the powder pools in the bottom, so it can be fingered and measured by sharp calculating eyes.
And then he realises. Bits and fragments of conversation fall through the wavering holes in his memory. ‘Assholes thought we were on their patch’, ‘we’ll just shift markets for a bit’… How can he not have noticed, how can he not have put meaning to the words? But then he’s been out of it, hasn’t he? His world has changed. He’s not been paying attention. And in the floating gaps where happiness has been leaking in, he’s not noticed the rest of it. How is Lij making money, if he can’t work over here? How is Dom affording to go to university, if he isn’t up to his ears in debt, or working all the hours god sends? It’s painful, Dom discovers. Finding out that every paradise has its snakes. It’s painful and humiliating, and he wishes this wasn’t happening. This isn’t Lij. Not the real Lij. But that reiteration doesn’t calm him as much as it did earlier. It hurts more. He’d just started to think of all this as his. His Lij. His life. Dom closes his eyes, feeling his shoulders slump, and his right temple throbs. More fool him. This isn’t a friendly snake, is it? It will turn and bite them both, sooner or later. He thinks he can feel the fangs already.
“No,” he whispers, then, suddenly angry, suddenly furious. He’s given up a fucking great career for this, well, not given it up, not exactly, but it’s gone all the same, hasn’t it? And what’d he get? He got this. He got Lij. And he’s not going to have it fucked up by packets of brown powder, and something that feels like a needle under his heart - or should that be in his arm? - and blokes who should be on ‘Crimewatch’. He’s not going to put up with this…
“No,” he says a bit louder, and Lij shoots him a dagger glance from over his glasses, but Dom’s too pissed off to care. This isn’t right, this isn’t them. He shoves at the man who’s moved warningly to loom at his side, and the bloke staggers, obviously surprised that Dom’s reacted. It’s enough to allow Dom to reach the little tableau where the leader has opened the packet, was about to test the stuff. It’s not the fucking punch in the mouth that Dom wants to give him, in fact it’s more of a girly slap, but it does the job, and the grains scatter, blowing in the wind, sparkling like gold as they fall into the dust.
The leader turns then, licking at his lip where the lucky blow has split it, but Dom is barely aware of it. The two sidekicks are in his peripheral vision now, moving up fast, and Lij has backed a step, looking horrified, looking fucking pissed off, but all Dom can feel is the anger, the desperate feeling that this isn’t right, that this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. His head throbs again, and a drop of sweat is stinging the corner of his eye; it must be how he misjudges the first blow, which lands in his stomach like some stupid pile driver, fucking clichéd description, and Dom flexes his hands as he remembers his fights at school and in the clubs sometimes. Remembers how he nearly always managed to joke his way out of stuff like this, and how little he feels like joking now.
He tries to back off a little because they all outweigh him, and if he gets fucking trapped he’s pretty sure he’s dead meat. But they’ve all closed in, and he’s got nowhere to go. The biggest goon throws another punch and Dom blocks it this time, follows it up with a blow of his own. He can see Lij in his peripheral vision and he thinks at him, hoping he’ll somehow hear - run, godamn fucking run, Doodle… But Lij is stepping in, not away, and Dom is suddenly desperately scared. Lij isn’t a fighter, isn’t built for it, shit, fuck…
He doesn’t even see the punch that lays him out, doesn’t see it coming. It’s the leader that has taken him, Dom thinks in a daze, as pain sparks in little pretty patterns on the inside of his eyelids. He’s been hit in the same place as the bandage, of course he has, and everything slows down. So it’s true, that does actually happen then, who’d have thought… He’s falling, but so very slowly. There’s a roaring noise, but not like applause, no audience this time, it’s all inside his head, and there’s wavering black lines around his vision. He tries to speak, to explain to Lij, it would only take a second, and surely he’s got that much time, the way everything is fading at the speed of fucking treacle, but he can’t hear anything for the roaring in his head. The last thing he sees is Lij’s eyes widening in fear, and his mouth opening as he lunges forward, and Dom…
***
…Shouts, “No, Lij! It’s not worth it…!” And opens his eyes.
Lij is leaning over him, one hand on his chest, one fluttering at his neck, and his breath smells of beer, coppery and sweet. Dom is so grateful that he’s all right, and that somehow they’re not dead, they’ve not been killed, and he’s so grateful that he reaches up and tugs Lij down to him, fingers frantic in Lij’s hair, and kisses him, hard and desperately. Lij makes a startled sound that vibrates in Dom’s mouth, and Dom can feel his pulse beating frantically where he’s cupped his palm against Lij’s neck, skin soft and warm under his hand. Then ‘Lij is leaning into the kiss, leaning into Dom, and he slides down until there is a satisfying weight against Dom’s chest, and answering hands tugging at his arms, at his t-shirt, and smooth fingers running down his sides.
It’s Dom’s turn to groan then, as the thin sinuous body settles in, and heat begins to pool at his groin as Lij wriggles, and he’s wanted this for so long, how come he’s waited for this, even here, because they’re in a different world now, and Lij wants him in this world, he wants him, he doesn’t need to wait…
But they’re in the street, aren’t they? In the middle of Manchester. This is not the right place, although the tightening in his jeans indicates that it is rapidly getting to be the right time. So he sits up, and there’s a sudden lessening of pressure on his chest as Lij slides back onto his rump, with a protesting squeak. The world spins but Dom can’t see anything anyway, because it’s dark, and his heart is thumping so hard he can barely breathe, and it’s dark, and the breeze that feathers across his hot face is warm and faintly humid, not Manchester damp, and it’s fucking dark…
And Lij isn’t wearing his glasses.
Oh. Shit.
Petrified now, his skin turning clammy, his arousal disappearing rapidly into a feeling of nausea and wildly see-sawing fear, Dom looks around. The pool glints in the dim lights from the trees, and the water laps up against the pale marble with a faint slapping sound. The hose curls into an appropriate question mark at his feet, the hose he tripped over, and the screen door to the pool house is banging in the very faint breeze. It sounds to him like the banging of a drum, like a death knell tolling for his life. Both lives, it seems.
Lij is sitting with his hands clasped round his knees and his eyes are wide, even wider than usual; he looks like the rabbit right before the headlights ram right into it. Dom looks away and wonders how he can bloody well fix this. Can he blame it on the fall? He can just see how blaming it all on a damn dream of some mixed up other world where him and Elijah actually love one another will really make this Lij trust him again. He’ll just think Dom’s gone crazy, and with some truth in it, since Lij has just been jumped, out of the blue, by his best friend. Dom drops his head down to his own knees and shivers with cold, in the warm night air.
“Dom? It’s ok, man. You’re all right. You banged your head.”
Lij’s voice is low, like he’s taming some wild animal, like Dom remembers Viggo talking to a spooked horse, and he huddles, and doesn’t look up.
“Sorry,” he whispers to his knees. And. “Drunk,” he tries, miserably.
“Hey, I’m drunker than you, but I’m not trying to commit suicide by throwing myself headfirst into my own pool.”
Lij has a smile in his tone now, Dom can hear it, it makes him smile back into the denim of his jeans. Then he feels a tentative hand stroking the back of his head. It tickles. It feels good. It makes him feel worse.
“Not what I meant.” He tries again, determined to see this through, if he’s going to lose Lij as a mate, then the least he can do is apologise properly first.
“Sorry, I…” What? That, even now, he wants to push Lij to the ground and bury his mouth in Lij’s neck, that he wants to kiss every inch of taut pale skin, and always will. That he wants to feel Lij push back with wiry strength, and laugh as he tickles him, and then to judder into arching stillness when Lij grabs him in a tender spot, and strokes…
“Sorry, I… surprised you.” God, what a fucking cop-out. Someone just shoot him now, and put him out of his misery.
“Hey, Dom…” Lij is tugging on an ear now, and indignantly, Dom thinks, I don’t care how guilty or godamn confused I feel, they’re not bloody handle-bars, but turns his head anyway.
Lij is looking solemn, and his hair is messier and tuftier than ever. Dom has a horrible urge to reach out and slick it down, although he knows that never works. On a normal day he would have reached out, but he can’t, not now. Not after what he’s just done.
“You did surprise me,” Lij is saying, as Dom drifts on a haze of wanting, wanting Lij, wanting this to be yesterday, or the day before that. “But you were drunk, Dom. That’s all. Too drunk to know what you were doing. I understand.”
And in a haze of mortification Dom knows he can just agree. He can agree and they can go back to being normal, back to being Dom ‘n Lij, and Dom can keep getting up earlier than Lij, even if that just makes it earlier in the afternoon, and he can keep making that foul chicory coffee that Lij likes, while he brews tea for himself, he can keep picking up socks from under the coffee table, he can keep beating Lij into the ground at Grand Theft Auto…
But it wouldn’t be true. He’s not that drunk, he could never be that drunk. In fact, he’s been that drunk, and he’s fantasised about kissing Lij, which is how he knows he’d never be drunk enough to actually do it. Actually, it almost annoys him that Lij would think he’d lose control enough to be that drunk. It’s as good an excuse as he’s ever going to get, his own thought even, but somehow, even when it’s offered him on a plate, with fucking garnish no less, he can’t take it. He just can’t. Then somehow, almost without himself willing to, he remembers Hannah’s wistful smile, and he remembers the other Elijah, dream Elijah, in his bottle glasses, with his stupid yellow duvet, and his glorious smile, and he remembers…
He remembers Lij kissing him back.
Lij isn’t smiling now. He’s staring at Dom, he’s watching him carefully. He’s stopped stroking the nape of Dom’s neck but he’s left his hand there, warm against the skin.
“I’m not that drunk,” Dom says clearly, watching Lij, watching his eyes slowly blink, and re-focus. Watching his face slip into lines and planes of understanding. Watching him watch Dom’s mouth. Finding his throat is dry.
But it’s Lij who finally moves. Who finally tugs lightly at Dom’s neck, and draws them together. It’s a dream, Dom thinks, he’s in a dream, and he’s going to wake up soon. He’s already woken up once already tonight, what’s one more fantasy? So you better enjoy it then, hadn’t you, says a small voice deep inside his head. You better enjoy it, and this time, get it right.
So it’s Lij who finally moves, who brings them together, but it’s Dom who kisses Lij. And he kisses him like it’s the first time (which it is, sort of) and he kisses him as though it’s the last time (which he is terribly afraid it is). And he kisses him as though he means it (which he really, really does).
Just in case. Because this time, this time, it might not be a dream.