hackthis_archive | LOTRips - D’Yer Wanna Be a Spaceman

lalejandra tigged me. This is my wrap-up.

Happy Belated Birthday to

lux__aeterna consider this my offering.

LOTRips
DM & BB & EW in...
D’Yer Wanna Be a Spaceman

The first fag after a night of drinking is exquisite, and Dom wants to ring Billy and tell him so. He wants to ring Bill and tell him how much he misses him. That he loves him and wants him back. Dom wants to tell Billy he needs him – because he does. Dom needs Billy -- but Billy, Billy is with Ali now, and it’s not Dom’s place to interfere. He’s already had his time; they didn’t want the same things. Billy didn’t quite need the same things that Dom did. Does.

It’s hard for Dom to have a tug when all he can think are maudlin thoughts.

So Dom slows down his strokes and takes himself back to a better time. He remembers what it was like when he was with Billy, and it was just them. Dom has all these memories swirling around in his head, and he jerks himself off leisurely, the way Billy did.

His thumb rubs over the head of his cock, and he pretends that Billy’s there with him. He imagines Billy’s short fingers are stroking him and urging him on to completion. Dom pretends that there was never any falling out. He pants Billy’s name into the void and calls out like Billy can hear him, even though he can’t. No. No, Billy doesn’t want to hear anything Dom has to say anymore, and Dom wonders would it even be worth it to apologise.

He’s not even sure what to apologise for anymore.

There are so many trees in the forest that Dom can’t figure out which one he’s suppose to deal with first, so Dom mouths at the bruises on his wrist and strokes his dick erratically. He imagines things are different that they are. If Billy were still speaking to him... If Billy had never pulled away from him on televised feed... If Billy weren’t going home early to Ali every night...

Dom pretends a lot of things even though his free hand searches for the bruises Elijah left on his hips the other night.

And maybe, if he pretends hard enough, he can erase reality.

*

The bathroom is Dom’s flat is tiny. The toilet is only metres from the sink, and the bath isn’t really that big. When he sits in it, his legs are cramped, and he thinks about the glorious full bath in Billy’s house and the way they used to sit in it and talk for hours on end.

Billy would wash his feet, and Dom would tell him fairy tales in German; they were happy then. They were so happy then – at least that’s how Dom remembers it now. He dusts over the stilted conversations when Billy saw the bruises on his ankles and the sharp glances when Dom made little noises whenever Billy touched them.

All Dom remembers, now, is that they fell apart *somehow*. He remembers that what they had just wasn’t enough, and American bathrooms are nothing like English ones. They’re nothing like the expansive facilities that Dom found in Wellington either. American bathrooms are small and functional, and they’re not made for Dom to sit in the bath to smoke and think and fumble fags until he winds up with burns on his hands and fag ends floating in soapy water. However, American bathrooms have got dirty, great big mirrors, and they’re perfect for Dom to study the purple-green-yellow bruises on his hips and his shoulders.

Every time he presses against one, he thinks of Billy and wonders why what they had wasn’t enough.

*

Dom is a careless smoker. He ashes on himself whilst watching Discovery channel programmes at four in the morning on American cable; and there are half-smoked packs of Parliaments littered all around his flat, because he forgets to take the with him when he goes out and then winds up buying more.

Sometimes Dom falls asleep on his bed whilst working on the script he’s doing with Bills, and when he wakes up in the morning, there are holes scorched in the bedclothes and he’s lucky to be alive. Every time this happens he swears it won’t happen again, but there’s always a next time.

That was the problem when he was with Elijah.

That was the problem when he was with Billy, too.

And Dom knows that Billy hates that he’s smoking now. He knows that Billy blames Elijah, and maybe in a small part it’s down to Lij, but no one ever forced Dom to pick up that first fag either. All the same, Dom has to wonder if he’d spent all those years in Manchester and never’d picked up a fag, how did he wind up in the land of fitness and wheatgrass shots and start in with the smoking and various other things?

He wonders if he could quit if he moved home. He wonders if anyone would even care.

*

When Dom goes out with the cast from Lost all they can talk about is Lord of the Rings and how amazing it must’ve been to work on something so great. Every time someone asks Dom what he loved the most about the experience, he wants to say Billy.

*

Dom knows what the Snowball Effect is; he knew about the Butterfly Effect long before it became that shite film. Dom’s seen dominos and car pileups and Plebeius icarioides flapping their wings on greenery at the petrol station. He knows that everything affects everything else. And yet, this sort of chain reaction has always been something that’s happened to everyone else. Like Orli. Or Viggo. Or everyone who didn’t have to camp on their mate’s sofa for months on end because they couldn’t get a fucking job.

Dom never thought his chain reaction would be a phone call in the wee hours from Elijah announcing that it was over. Dom never even had to ask what ‘it’ was. They never talked about ‘it’ ; ‘it’ just happened. All those dark corners and beautifully jarring bruises. All those deceptively fragile bones that were so much stronger than they looked. Dom never thought Elijah would say he couldn’t do it anymore because he was afraid he was really going to hurt Dom one day.

As though they hadn’t already caused enough pain.

Dom never really thought about the end –- he just knew it was going to happen, because that’s what the end always did. It happened. The end just never happened at seven in the morning Eastern Standard Time after Dom had staggered home from the Spider Club. And strangely enough, Dom could see things changing as Elijah ended the call.

Dom could feel the air currents as the butterfly flapped its wings somewhere in Tokyo, and it affected him and Billy and Elijah and Ali and all the fag ends in the kitchen sink and all the unnumbered script pages on his bed.

Epilogue

“It’s me. I know, but don’t say anything yet -- just listen.”

“Dom’s it’s –- are you just getting in?”

“Yeah, yes, I know -– just listen though, all right?”

“What is it -– what’s wrong?”

“What’s not wrong? I messed it all up. I know I did. I’m -– I’m sorry.”

“What? Have you been -- Don’t ring me when you're like this, Dom.”

“I’m not pissed –- I just. Bills, I’m sorry, and I know you’re with Ali and you’re happy, but I wanted to tell you this because it’s important, and you’re important, and I never told you. I never tell you. But you are, and I’m sorry if I didn’t tell you that before. So.”

“Dom. Dom –- you can’t just ring me up and say this. What do you expect me to say?”

“I –- Nothing. I don’t expect you to say anything. I just wanted to tell you that.”

“Dom –-“

“When I was little I wanted to be an astronaut, you know, go to Mars, find new life. Star Wars and all that bit. I’d get to be famous, too. It was always about being famous. Being loved. Save the planet. Be a movie star. Except it didn’t happen quite like that, and then with the movie -- everyone was famous but me, and I thought, I thought it was something wrong with me. Something I’d done.”

“Dom –-“

“It doesn’t really explain the thing with the… I know you didn’t understand. But it was just this thing. I didn’t -– I felt wrong. Not ‘all right’. You know how people talk about destroying beautiful things? This was like that.”

“You –- you are though. Dom, you’re -– you’re amazing. Why, what made you think that you needed that?”

“Because –- because I knew I wasn’t quite worthy of you.”

“Oh, Dom...”

“So. Right. I just wanted to tell you that. And that I love you. And I hope you’re happy with Ali and all that rubbish.”

“Come home.”

“What?”

“Come home.”

“Bill –- Bills, I’ve got this show, now, I’ll be all right.”

“No, you won’t. It doesn’t matter. Come home. *Now*.”

“There’s no point. For what?”

“For me. Come home for me.”

-end-

Notes: The title is an old Oasis B-Side from Shakermaker, which I decided to utilize after I was informed that Dom was running around singing ‘Supersonic.’ Ah, that was such a good anthem back in the day. Oasis were actually quite good, in the beginning, too you know. I know it’s hard to believe now.

lalejandra and I have been playing tag all week: I: What's Read and White and Nearly Over, II: How Pretty You Are, III: More Times Than the Milkman, IV: Flares -- Thank you, sweetie, for a) keeping me occupied and b) being so impossibly brilliant and inspiring. You SO rock.

Again, Happy Belated Birthday,

lux__aeterna