hackthis_archive | LOTRips – The Third Man: III: Dominic

LOTRips
BB/DM/EW
The Third Man: I : Billy
The Third Man: II : Elijah
The Third Man: III : Dominic

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong

Dom is the consummate outsider because he doesn’t actually care about what people say about him; he just does what he likes. Whether it’s environmentalism or going to the opening of an envelope or pretending he’s a rock star when that’s actually Billy’s thing; Dom’s refusal to conform to how he should behave makes him happier than most people might think. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Dom wouldn’t like to be on the inside, wherever that happens to be, but he’s grown quite adept at making due with what he’s got. He can blag and grin and get a quid out of fifteen pence without batting an eyelash.

*

Dom’s never going to win any beauty pageants or be offered millions of pounds to model his stunningly scrawny physique. He’s short and gangly, and his jaw’s misaligned. His ears stick out a bit, and he refuses to moisturize or exfoliate or any of the stuff that his stylist begs him to do on a regular basis. He doesn’t have Elijah’s disconcerting eyes or Billy’s seductive voice, but he’s got personality and that counts for quite a bit in his book.

He’s got a slick tongue and a smart mouth, and he’s doing just fine on his own in Los Angeles. He’s finally got a proper job, and even though they’ve not shot the pilot yet, with J.J. on board there’s good chance of it getting picked up. Plus, he’s got one of the nicest bedsits around since he’s moved in with Mackenzie. He’s making due after having nothing at all –- it’s what he does. It’s how people left behind cope -– he’s learned something from American daytime programming after all.

More than that, though, he’s learned how to deal with being alone. No Elijah, no Billy, just him. Being on the outside is only a point of view, and if he spends a lot of time scrawling in his journals that’s not necessarily an indication that he’s lonely, it just means he’s got a lot to say.

Dom’s writing is a sign of how healthy is he is now –- things were far worse when he put his books aside and started looking to the fine folks at Fosters and Jack Daniels to clear his mind. Plus, it’s much easier to correct wrongs and slights on paper than it is in reality. It’s much easier to get out that perfect line or say you’re sorry when all you have to do to start over is rip out a sheet of paper or turn the page.

*

It was only after Elijah left him in California that Dom really began to understand what he’d done to Billy when he left him in the lurch. It’s not that he hasn’t thought and agonised and just felt like a shit in general about the way things ended, but there’s a particular pain that comes from being left after moving thousands of miles to be with someone that Dom’s not going to forget in a hurry. If he ever forgets it at all. And when the reports start filtering in about Billy and Elijah making a night of it in Manhattan, it’s all Dom can do not to completely lose his rag. He’s too old for wobblers, but knowing his exes are together, without him, just does a bad number on his head.

In a world of Men and Elves, the hobbits are supposed to be outsiders together.

*

Dom’s learned how to write on his stomach while standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, and after his shower he pats himself dry and pulls on pants and jeans. He thinks about what he wants to write while he cleans his teeth, and he sniffs at the marker as he takes the cap off.

He breathes shallowly as the tip of the pen slides through the sparse hairs on his stomach and black Sharpie slowly covers the pale expanse until the lines of the nursery rhyme cover his ribs and touch his navel. When he’s done he puts the cap back on the pen so it won’t stain the sink or fall on the floor and ruin the new bathmat Mackenzie just bought last week.

When he looks at his reflection in the mirror he sees lines and spots and bright eyes that are a bit dull. After he pulls on his shirt, he searches for the obscenely expensive hair gel Mac loves and pretends to do something artistic with his hair.

No one will see what Dom’s written on himself, but that’s not really the point. There are some things that other people aren’t meant to see.

*

There’s not a lot Dom wants to say about his relationship with Elijah. There’s even less that he wants to say about his relationship with Billy. There’s nothing really left to discuss considering all he’s done is have his mind fucked with over and over again –- even if he did bring it on himself in a sense. When Dom takes stock at the end of the day, the facts are the same: he’s been in love; he’s fucked it all up; he’s done some terrifically bloody-minded things, but he’s old enough now that he’s started learning from his mistakes. He won’t jump on the back of a lorry for the next pretty thing that bats their eyelashes his way. He will fuck his pretty co-star in the back of a car after their first read-through. However, if he’d known Ian was going to leave bruises, he would’ve waited until after the Oscars.

*

In Los Angeles there are three nail salons on every block; they’re the American version of pubs, and the woman at the salon down on Beverly and La Cienega greets Dom in German and prattles on in Korean. Every now and then, while she’s trimming his cuticles, she looks up for a response and Dom nods his head in agreement. Then he goes back to watching the telenovelas on the telly behind her head. He never has any idea what she’s saying to him and he’s pretty sure that ‘Guten tag’ and ‘Danke’ are the only words of German she knows. Well, that and ‘Scheisse’ since all Dom seems to do these days is curse in other languages so people won’t know what he’s talking about. He can say ‘shit’ in four languages, and he probably says them all when someone changes the channel on the telly and Billy pops up on Sharon’s sofa singing sodding Britney Spears.

*

Dom’s been moving around and starting over all his life. He knows that when you’re always starting over on the outside of life, conformity is something you have to choose to do; and nobody has ever made Dominic do anything that he didn’t want to do on some level –- even if it was a really dark, deeply hidden level. So, when Dom left Billy for Elijah, he did it because he thought Elijah could give him something Billy couldn’t.

Looking back on it, he can accept that he was wrong. He’s even told Billy so once or twice, or eighteen times, but that’s neither here nor there since Billy’s with Ali now. And even if Dom does have regrets about leaving Billy, it’s not as though he and Elijah haven’t had a wicked time of it. They’ve been all over the world and done quite a few insane things. There have been drugs and threesomes and illegal activities that would even make Orli proud, but at the end of the day, being with Elijah has taught Dom how to live, and he can’t be bitter about that.

If being with Elijah made Dom feel like less of an outsider, that’s not a bad thing –- it’s not necessarily a good thing either. It just is what it is. Dom can’t play at being anyone besides who he is. Neither can Elijah, and perhaps that’s what came between them the most. It was either that or the fact that Dom never stopping wanting Billy.

And yet, when Elijah asks Dom to come along to the premiere for Eternal Sunshine of Dom Can’t Remember the Rest, he can’t really bring himself to say no.

Elijah’s not a bad mate. A crap boyfriend, absolutely, but he’s young and thoughtless and irresponsible, and that’s kind of to be expected by a twenty-something boy. That doesn’t excuse the way Elijah’s acted or the way Dom’s acted, but when they’re together in front of the cameras, and Elijah’s whispering the dirty limericks that Sir Ian and Billy taught him in Dom’s ear, he can remember why he fell in love with Elijah in the first place.

His entire thought process goes arse over tit, though, when Elijah suggests that maybe he should give it another go with Bill.

*

Dom sleeps like a single person. He sleeps like someone who’s used to being alone, and sometimes, when the walls creak and the floorboards announce that Mac has a guest, Dom will lift his head from underneath the bedclothes and see things that aren’t really there. Of course he doesn’t talk about that with anyone, because that’s what his journal is for. Ghosts of best mates aren’t reality, and in his journal, Dom can create an entirely different life than the one he leads. He can live with Billy in Wellington or in a vast loft in Brooklyn with Elijah. He can do yoga with Viggo in Venice every morning and he can rescue Orlando from wherever he’s gone. But perhaps his best, most perverse accomplishment, is the way he manages to eradicate Ali from Billy’s life completely with the flicker of ink. For someone who he considers his best mate, it’s not the most charitable act ever. But Dom’s not perfect. He’s just as jealous and wistful as the bloke in the next bed over, and even if Elijah hadn’t started putting nonsense in his head –- well, he would still want Billy back.

*

When Dom first moved to L.A. and tried to play the Hollywood game, all he wound up with was frustration and anger and a lot of missing nights in the bathroom at the Roxy. It’s taken him a little while to realise that there are few things the industry loves more than a nonconformist. James Dean. Brando. Viggo. They’re all celebrated for their refusal to do what everyone else wants, and its only once Dom goes back to being himself that his life really begins to turn around. After all, being on the outside is really only a state on mind, and maybe it’s that rest of the world that’s missing out.

*

If Elijah thinks Dom still has a shot, after all the water that’s passed under the bridge, then maybe there’s no reason for Dom to need a drink every time Ali answers Billy’s mobile. There’s certainly no reason for Dom to sweat when Billy claps him on the back when he comes by the hotel to pick him up. And if Dom really wants Billy back as badly as he thinks he does, then he will not mention that he’s taking Billy to Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow World Premiere LIVE LA/NYC as his date. Except that Dom has always been about not playing by the rules or doing what people want, so maybe he should just go with what he knows best. Billy loved him because he refused to be like anyone else, and Dom knows that living in L.A. sometimes makes him lose sight of that.

*

Dom meant to take things easy. He meant to give Billy time to get adjusted to the idea that perhaps Dom might want him back if Billy were so inclined and things with Ali didn’t work out further down the line. Dom figured after all the shite he’d put Billy through, the least he could do was offer to wait –- if Billy wanted him to. Except things didn’t quite work out that way, and on the way to the gaming premiere, Dom accosted Billy in the car. There was groping and keening and confusion and stubble burn, and Dom’s seen the photographs.

Billy looks like he got shagged through the leather upholstery.

*

The front door crashes against the wall with a hollow boom, and Dom knows it’s left a mark on the wall, but he’ll apologise to Mac when he returns from Hawaii. His bags are already in the Town Car, and he’s got to get moving or he’ll miss his flight and he’ll never be able to explain that one to J.J. properly. Except there’s one more thing he has to do before he leaves, and he really has to do it now.

Dom’s used to life as outsider: no job, no prospects, nothing to hold him down and always wandering in a haze of feeling abandoned and unloved. Dom also knows what it’s like to be on the inside of the club. To have every possibility of success, to have someone to love and a roof over his head and things to call his own. Dom would much rather be under the tarp than out in the rain, and his biro is a flash of plastic and red ink as he leaves one last note for Mac on the kitchen table. Yes, he could just ring Mac and leave a message, but he wants to cover all his bases. Stupid American sayings and all.

He’ll only be in Hawaii for a few days shooting the pilot, but he wants Mac to know how to reach him in case anyone rings or in case his mobile doesn’t work on the island. Or in case Elijah needs him, or his mum calls, or in case Billy decides to actually open the envelope Dom left at his hotel last night.

They had quite the time of it at Dublin’s on St. Paddy’s day. Dom will never drink anything out of a vial again no matter how much cleavage the waitress is flashing at him, and every time he thinks Billy’s voice can’t get any more amazing, it does. In the wee hours of the party, when Dom’s confidence faltered and he realised he’s got no right to hope that Billy will give him another go, he looked at the stage and realised that Billy was actually singing for him.

A little encouragement can go a long way, and even though Dom knows he’s sticking the cart before the horse, somewhere between the party and now, he went ahead and bought a ticket for Billy to join him in Hawaii if he wants.

There’s every chance that Billy won’t come, but there’s a ghost’s chance that he just might, and that’s enough for Dom.

-end-

Notes: I didn’t know how this was going to end until 4:18 on Tuesday afternoon when

circe_tigana linked to these photos. My inner hobbits insisted it was meant to be, who am I to say no?

+ Quote from Mahatma Gandhi

+ The nursery rhyme Dom writes on his stomach is from section one:

Yesterday, upon the stair, I saw a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today; oh, how I wish he'd go away

+ As always thanks to

serialkarma and

lalejandra for beta duty and brilliance. This never would have happened without your encouragement, so really, you only have yourselves to blame for the workload. ;) Also? Stop the Ear Hate!

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Jeff Buckley ‘The Boy with the Thorn in His Side’ (live)