hackthis_archive | LOTRips -- If I Was Your Girlfriend

edigo has adorably dorky photos of Dom.

thete1 is writing Teen Titans smut. None of this is relevant to this story, but I just felt like pointing it out.

LOTRips
DM/EW/BB/Other (all variations thereof)
If I was your one and only friend
Would you run to me if somebody hurt you?
Even if that somebody was me?

Best Friends

Billy rings Dom religiously every Sunday at half-eleven in the morning to say nothing at all. It’s not as though they don’t talk otherwise during the week, but it’s not the same as this. In New Zealand they had a standing appointment for fry-ups at Dom’s every Sunday morning at half-eleven, and even though they’re not on the same continent anymore, the routine isn’t something they’ve been able to drop. It’s not about the food inasmuch as it’s about making an effort just to keep in touch.

So Billy rings Dom, and Dom stumbles out of bed to scrabble about for his mobile and to make the bloody Britney Spears stop. It was funny the first fifty times ‘Oops! I Did it Again’ came blaring out of Dom’s back pocket, but it’s not amusing anymore, and if Elijah doesn’t change it back soon, someone will be sleeping on the sofa in their own house.

Dom trips over one of Elijah’s dirty blue Chucks and curses as he stubs his toe on the edge of the wardrobe. He can’t figure out where the sodding phone’s got to and the tinny bells are driving him to distraction.

“Anytime you want to answer the phone, Dom.” Elijah’s gravelly voice projects from the general direction of the bed as he throws his forearm across his eyes, missing the glare that Dom directs his way.

“What do you think I’m doing over here?” Dom snarks, turning Elijah’s jeans inside out as the ringing gets louder. “Digging for fucking China?”

Elijah makes a non-committal noise as he pulls the duvet over his head.

“Fucking tosser,” Dom says, liberating his mobile and pressing the TALK button.

“Same to you.” Billy’s voice is full of amusement and good-humour, and Dom tosses another dirty look at the back of Elijah’s head before staggering down the hall to the kitchen.

Girlfriends

What struck Dom the first time he met Ali, wasn’t the way her hair feathered around her head like a wee bird or how intelligent the tiny lines by her eyes made her look when she smiled. These were things that Billy pointed out later on when he was well past keen and heading straight into slightly obsessed. These were things that Billy doted on that made it obvious that Ali wasn’t going anywhere and Dom would quite possibly be staying at their house in the future instead of staying at Billy’s house.

But what Dom remembers the most about the first time he met Ali was the way that her smile seemed slightly forced. Dom remembers the uncertain, guarded look that flittered across her face when Billy introduced them, all the while hovering about waiting for Dom’s initial reaction. And Dom may not have an OBE from the Queen for his acting, or sleep in the forest like the King, but he reckons he knows when somebody’s not quite sure what to make of him. He knows when he’s being considered and analysed like a Christmas present, and he knows he didn’t like it.

Dom doesn’t say it, and he loves Billy enough not to bring it up in passing conversation, but he’s not terribly sure that Ali’s right for Billy. But then again, he doubts he’d ever think anybody was right for his Bills.

And it doesn’t really matter if Dom likes Ali or not -- what’s important is that Billy does.

Boyfriends

It’s been Dom’s experience that people never want to talk about relationships when everything is great, and it’s only long after everything’s gone to shit that they realise that perhaps there might’ve been a fault in the communication lines. So when Elijah announces he’s leaving for New York, Dom’s not sure whether he should be surprised or not.

On one hand, they’ve been living out of each other’s pockets for more than two years. They know each other’s smells and tastes and likes and dislikes and the little things that get under their fingernails and poke them in the sensitive places.

There is no one who knows Dom better than Elijah -- except for Billy. On the other hand, they’ve been driving each other mental for almost as long as they’ve been together, and there’s been more than one time when they’ve wondered, aloud, what the fuck they’re doing pretending that they’re stable and right and not horribly fucked up with the best of them.

But there’s the sex and the comfort and the laughter and the video games and all the experiences they’ve shared that don’t really need to be talked about.

The memories they share are what are important; the status of their relationship isn’t really relevant.

So instead of throwing an enormous wobbler, Dom offers to help Elijah pack.

Just Friends

Dom’s working, for a change, when the idle gossip starts snowballing in: Elijah and Billy at strip clubs in the city, Billy and Ali at the BAFTAs, Elijah and Scarlett bloody Johannsen at the Bowie show.

Dom was at the fecking show himself: he has no idea how people imagine the things they do.

He refuses to give the reports the time they so obviously wish to deserve, and instead he focuses on the chipped mug of unmade tea in front of him and the water that’s boiling on the hob. The limescale is thick around the mouth of the kettle, and Dom thinks about the cleaning he needs to do later this afternoon.

The flat’s a tip, and it’s been three whole days since he’s worked on their script. He needs to ring Bill and figure out what they’re going to do about the enormous plot hole in the sixth scene: it’s all well and good to have hookers with hearts of gold, but since when is there redemption for pimps and rent boys? And in a comedy no less.

Shaking his head, Dom tosses the papers in the rubbish bin and thinks about his plans for the upcoming year. He’s not going to be a hobbit forever. There’s no big premiere to look forward to at the end of the year. He has to have something else to focus on in his life.

It’s not retreating. It’s regrouping.

More Than Friends

Dom’s in London when the phone call comes that he never really wanted to receive. It’s all well and good for him to have reservations about Ali, but it’s something else entirely to have Billy telling him that it’s not working out.

Dom has always heard the wee nit-picks about their relationship, but he reckons things have to be pretty fucking awful for Billy to ring him up in the middle of the night, slurring his words.

From what Dom can make out the press won’t leave Billy and Ali alone, and apparently even struggling actresses have their limits. Ali won’t cook Billy breakfast every morning, and she won’t sit about and watch old Celtic matches on video. She has particular things she likes that Billy doesn’t quite understand, and apparently she thinks that Billy and Dom are wasting their time with the script they’re devoting their lives to.

Dom doesn’t bother to point out that every relationship has its sore points. The one and only time he vocally disapproved of Ali, Billy didn’t talk to him for three weeks. And it takes Dom thirty-eight minutes to coax the words out of Billy that he’s been waiting on since the phone rang. By the time Billy asks Dom to come to Glasgow he’s already packed and ready to go.

Dom cradles the phone by his ear as he waits for the lift to the lobby, and he sings “Vindaloo” off-key to make Billy laugh, because that’s the only thing he can think of.

He’s in a black cab to Gatwick, with Billy mumbling in his ear about relationships being crap, when what Billy’s really saying hits him.

It’s not that Billy doesn’t love Ali; it’s just that Ali’s not Dom.

-end-

Notes: Inspired by, who else, the man himself, The-Artist-Formerly-Known-As-But-Now-Known-Again-as-Prince. Lyrics can be found here: If I Was Your Girlfriend.

Improv: bell, water, iron, chip, port, retreat, feather

Betad by the brilliant team of

lalejandra and

serialkarma