"Hungry, are we?" he asks teasingly and picks up his napkin, unfolding it and placing it on his lap.
"Get used to it," Elijah mutters around his chopsticks, sampling the chicken this time. "I'm always hungry." He swallows. "And because we were talking so much just now, these considerate people here didn't dare to break us up and serve our food any sooner. I'm fucking famished."
Dom checks his watch and notices it's almost nine o'clock. He tries to remember his last meal and realises it was a tuna sandwich somewhere on set about eight hours ago.
"Dom," Elijah breathes, closing his eyes as he swallows a little bit of the coconut beef. "This is bloody fantastic. Go on," he gestures with the chopsticks. "Taste it."
Picking up his chopsticks, Dom grins loudly and lifts some of the stir-fried vegetables to his mouth, watching Elijah watching him.
"Why are you grinning?" the boy asks, shaking his head to stop himself from staring at Dom's mouth. "What did I say?"
"You said bloody," Dom smiles. "We Brits are rubbing off on you." He puts down his chopsticks when their waitress returns once more with heated plates and an unopened bottle of wine, still smiling her brilliant smile.
"Oh, don't you start," Elijah mutters, his eyes glittering with barely hidden amusement. "When I spoke to Hannah a couple of days ago, she mentioned the same thing. So what if my accent is all over the place?!"
"Would you like to sample the wine first," the girl cuts in as she pulls the cork from the bottle in one graceful movement, and continues to set the plates in front of them both. "Or shall I just pour two glasses?"
"Just pour, please," Elijah says, smiling up at her, already putting small helpings of the various dishes onto his plate. "God, this smells delicious, Dom, you've got to try this." He ladles food onto Dom's plate as well and gestures for the Brit to pick up his chopsticks once more, then cocks his head and awaits the verdict.
"You're right," Dom says after he's swallowed a small slice of marinated beef, grabbing his glass of wine to have a sip of that too. "This is fantastic."
"Hang on"" Elijah mutters around another mouthful of the coconut beef. He drops his chopsticks to his plate rather ungracefully, quickly wiping his mouth with his napkin, and picks up his glass as well, raising it slightly.
They look at each other for a few seconds and Dom remains quiet, more or less expecting Elijah to say something. However, the smile that had been dancing around Elijah's lips ever since he had started sampling the food slowly fades from the smooth, pale face and Dom notices Elijah's eyes go slightly unfocused.
"What is it, Lij?" Dom asks softly and he lowers his glass. "Do you want to drink to something?"
Elijah shakes his head, pulling himself back from wherever his mind wandered off to and he offers Dom a smile. It's the Hollywood smile, the fake one. It's the smile that Elijah plasters on when he wants to keep his distance from people around him. The one Dom hates to be on the receiving end of.
Just as Dom opens his mouth to ask why he is being shut out, Elijah's face morphs into something far more genuine, and Dom decides to let it go.
"No, it's nothing," Elijah says finally and quietly clinks his glass against Dom's. "Never mind. Let's just drink."
"You sure?" Dom wants to know, raising his eyebrows
"Very," Elijah says and takes a swig from his wine. "And now we eat, Monaghan."
Dom pulls the collar of his jacket up a little higher, thinking it is pretty cold after the sun had disappeared a good two hours ago. They had stayed at the restaurant until an hour before closing time, first having their dinner and two bottles of wine, and then asking for dessert and coffee. They had just sat around, talking about music and film and travelling the world, all the while watching people come and go, but not wanting to leave the place themselves.
Dom had known while having his third glass that he wouldn't be driving back, and when he had consequently suggested a taxi, Elijah had readily agreed. It had been one of the many things that Kama, their lovely Thai waitress, had arranged for them that evening and the sharp contrast of their warm ride home and the cold spring air seeping in through his jacket, had left Dom wondering why he had actually agreed to get out of the taxi and walk up this dark, sandy path in the middle of nowhere like Elijah suggested twenty minutes ago.
"Lij," he starts and pushes his rapidly freezing fists into the pockets of his jacket. "Lij, you know I'm always up for a good laugh, but I'm afraid I stopped thinking this is funny about a fucking mile ago."
Elijah merely winks and shifts the mysterious plastic bag from his right hand to his left. And that's something else Dom had been wondering about while he got out of the taxi twenty minutes ago, standing a little to the side as Elijah talked to the driver and paid for the ride. Of course he had been nosy, and he'd asked Elijah a couple of times to tell him where he got the bag from and what the fuck was in it, but Elijah never budged, saying that he would find out soon enough.
"Jesus, Lij," Dom bursts out after another five minutes of walking in silence. "Can you at least tell me where the fuck we're going? My hands are freezing off! And will you please talk to me instead of chain-smoking your way through that packet?"
Elijah stops dead in his tracks and turns around, carefully setting the bag on the ground. He plucks the nearly finished clove from his lips, flicks it down, and crushes it with his foot.
"Where are we going, Lijah?" Dom repeats, his voice softer this time, not wanting to be a whiner but still worried about what Elijah is plotting. "I'm getting cold and I don't really like this path. I don't know it and I wonder if it's safe."
"Dom", Elijah starts, stepping closer and pulling both of Dom's hands out of his pockets, covering them with his own warm fingers. Dom's head spins a little with the sensation of having Elijah's warm body so close to his own and he can barely resist the urge to pull it flat against him.
"Dommie..." Elijah says again, lifting his arm, rubbing both their hands against his own very warm cheek. "Trust me when I tell you this path is perfectly safe. And we're honestly nearly there. And I promise you it will be warm. And if you want me to talk, I'll talk. I'm out of smokes anyway."
Dom wonders how Elijah can be so warm, when all he's wearing is a long-sleeved t-shirt and that gauzy button-down. He also wonders if Elijah realises he shouldn't just step into Dom's personal space like that, because with quite a few drinks down, he would really like to taste Elijah's lips. Or lick that pale neck. Or slide his arms around the boy's waist and pull him so close that he can nuzzle the wisps of hair behind his ear.
The fact remains, though, that, above all, he is wondering where they are and what is going on and what that noise is that he keeps hearing.
"I'd just like to know where we're going, Lij," he asks once more, softly this time, already half-convinced Elijah would never do anything truly dangerous or plain stupid. He knows the boy is a professional and well aware of New Line's costly insurance regulations. He shakes his head the moment Elijah opens his mouth.
"Never mind," he mutters quickly. Slightly embarrassed with his own weird lack of courage, he lets go of Elijah's hands and gestures for him to pick up his bag again. "I guess I've got my surprises," he admits. "So I won't get in the way of yours. Let's move, I'm getting cold again."
The constant noise Dom had been hearing, which was getting louder and louder with each step he took, had turned out to be water. They had rounded a bend in the small sandy path and suddenly Dom was facing the ocean. Elijah had smiled triumphantly and motioned for Dom to follow him a little further along the coast line, until they had reached a stretch of fenced off beach, that, on closer inspection, turned out to be part of someone's back garden.
"Lij," Dom hisses as he turns around, peering at the soft yellow lights of a house in the distance. "Aren't we trespassing here? I mean, this garden is fucking deep, but even I can see that this strip of beach belongs to that house over there. What if they spot us and call the police or something?"
"Dommie," Elijah says, finally stopping in front of a large wicker beach chair that will easily accommodate them both with room to spare. "If you'll help me, I'll let you in on a little secret, okay?"
He pulls a bottle of wine from the bag and a corkscrew, and finally unfurls a small tablecloth from around two glasses.
"Here," he grins as he watches Dom's mouth drop open. "Make yourself useful and open this bottle. I'll get the snacks."
"S-snacks... What the fuck, Lij?" Dom splutters a little, but Elijah's mouth is clamped shut once more, revealing nothing but a sly smile as he continues to pry the lid off a plastic container. He takes some odd-looking cakes out of it and puts them on a paper plate. Dom stares at Elijah's hands and then at his own, and he realises he's clutching a bottle of the exact same wine he had been drinking at the restaurant all evening.
"You planned this right there at the restaurant," he gasps and Elijah can't help but giggle as he spreads the tablecloth on the wicker seat of the beach chair and places the plate on top of it.
"Let's just say Kama knows Casey Connor when she sees him," he grins some more and sits down next to the food, holding out the two glasses that Dom moves to fill, his face changing from utter surprise to plain amusement. He bends down, pushes the bottle into the sand so that it won't topple and sits down next to his friend, accepting a glass.
"And now for the piece de resistance," Elijah snickers in affected French and bends down to pull out a large drawer between his feet that is attached to the bottom of the chair. "As I don't want you to be cold, Dommie," he grins and graciously unfolds a chequered blanket.
"L-Lij," Dom stutters again, truly amazed. "How... Who... I mean-"
"Dom," Elijah says, still grinning. "Look behind you. Try to locate the entrance to the house, it's a little to the left. I know it's pretty dark, but doesn't it ring any bells?"
"Fuck me," Dom breathes after a few seconds when it finally dawns on him where Elijah has taken him. "Fuck me, you are clever."
Elijah giggles and pulls up his legs underneath the blanket, carefully clinking his glass against the one in Dom's hand, then turning his head to face the moonlit ocean.
"Yeah," he grins and starts to sip his wine. "Pete's house."
Dom is quietly listening to the waves rolling on and off the beach, gazing into the distance, trying to distinguish the small lights of the buildings on the other side of the bay.
Next to him, Elijah is taking a phone call. Elijah's mobile phone had been ringing on several occasions during the evening, with a frequency that no longer fazed Dom, because not only does Elijah know a lot of people he needs to catch up with on a regular basis, he also gets frequent calls from agents and publicists - the only evidence, here at the end of the world, that back home Elijah is actually a movie star. And tonight, Elijah had ignored all of those calls, until a few minutes ago.
"It's Hannah," he had said, lifting his head from Dom's shoulder and pressing the connect button. All Elijah had done was mention his sister's name in greeting, and Dom knows by now that when Elijah is this silent while calling with his sister, it must be about something serious. It reminds him of the letter he had secretly glanced at earlier that evening, and he wonders if Hannah is talking to her brother about the same thing right now.
Dom sighs and thinks of how Elijah had been totally relaxed until the call. He had been sitting so close to Dom, had rested his head against his shoulder, and Dom had enjoyed it in a totally different way than the night before he fell ill, when the atmosphere had been loaded with sexual tension.
Dom admits he still wants to touch and kiss the boy, but somehow, tonight is different. Tonight it's about being together, about being relaxed and safe and not having to pretend to be someone you're not. Tonight it's about their growing friendship, about their common grounds, about making each other laugh and listen and letting go. Tonight Dom had broken off pieces of the sweet lotus cakes and had fed them to Elijah, who'd almost purred right there on Dom's shoulder.
Dom can tell from the words Elijah is using that he's trying to calm his sister down, and when he takes a quick sideways peek, he notices a frown of worry between Elijah's eyebrows. Worry and something else... Anger maybe, and sadness too. He twists his head back and resumes his staring at the incoming tide, wondering if Elijah is going to tell him about whatever is going on once he hangs up.
After a few more minutes, Elijah switches off his phone and slides it back into his back pocket. He bends over and retrieves his empty glass from its secure place in the sand, wordlessly asking Dom for a refill.
Dom grabs the bottle and pours the remainder of the wine into their glasses, pushing the bottle back into the sand and then tucking the blanket snugly around them both. He scoots a little closer to Elijah and realises he has no place left for his arm to go but around the boy's shoulders.
"Can I?" he asks on a whisper, not wanting to give Elijah the impression he is taking advantage of the situation. "I mean..." he adds. "I know you're a bit shaken, and I don't want to come off as-"
"It's okay," Elijah mumbles and snuggles closer into Dom's embrace. "I like to feel your arm right now. I really do."
"Good," Dom says softly and picks up his glass once more, gently squeezing Elijah's narrow shoulders.
"You know," Elijah suddenly says, and stops his friend from taking a sip by resting his hand on Dom's wrist. "We have to drink to something."
"You mean," Dom starts, a comforting smile ready on his face. "Drink to life or love or Peter Jackson's wonderfully big and well-equipped garden?"
Elijah shakes his head. "We should drink to something that matters to us," he says. "Something we really care about."
"But," Dom interjects. "Haven't we been drinking all evening? Why do you want to toast all of a sudden? I mean, what haven't we been raising our glasses to already?"
"Well," Elijah mutters, casting his eyes down, suddenly shy. "Maybe I should explain this because it's really important to me and I really miss Hannah a lot, you know, and you have to understand that I used to do this with her all the time, ever since we were little kids."
Suddenly, Dom realises that, although he has no clue at all where their conversation is going, this is actually going to be the first time Elijah brings the subject of his family up himself. He squeezes Elijah's shoulders again and lowers his glass.
"Tell me," he mutters, smiling at the boy. "Just take a deep breath, okay? No need to rush or be embarrassed. Just tell me whatever you think I should know."
"Well then," Elijah starts shyly, swirling the wine around in his glass, staring at the liquid as if hypnotised. "Ever since we were little, like seven or eight or something, Hannah and I used to camp out in my room with a bag of Cheetos and cans of Coke or Dr Pepper, hiding from whatever went on downstairs..."
Suddenly, Dom realises at once where Elijah's story is going and he swallows with difficulty as he sees the boy's eyes darken even more.
"Mostly, I would turn on my television, because we weren't able to talk loud enough to drown out the sounds from below. And then I would crack the cans and she would rip the bag and we would lie on our stomachs on my bed, our bare arms brushing each other, sometimes crawling underneath the comforter, giggling at the stupid cartoons on TV.
"Hannah and I never actually talked about this, but I know that we were both trying our hardest not to think of what to say to Mom whenever she would climb the stairs somewhere during the evening. Because every time she would knock on my door and then stand tear streaked in my room, sitting down on the bed and hugging us both so hard I thought she would crush me, I never ever knew what to say to her anyway.
"All I ever wanted to do was run downstairs and scream at my Dad, telling him I hated him because he was hurting my Mom, but she always held me so tight that by the time she let go of me and drank from the can Hannah would offer her, the need to yell at my father had passed, because I actually didn't know what to say to him either.
"And as we got older, this happened much more often, making us realise what was really going on downstairs. Eventually, we didn't even turn the TV on anymore. We just sat on my bed, listening, looking at each other. By then I could eat the Cheetos myself, because Hannah said they would ruin her figure, and occasionally I would feed her one and she would smile. She has the most beautiful smile, you know...
"And it's funny, because when we were younger still, and Zach was never around because he mostly took off to one of his friends when the going got tough at our place, Hannah was always crying when she came to my room, sobbing about Dad being mean again and she would be standing in the doorway, already crumpling the bag of Cheetos in her hand and I would try to take on the big brother role and comfort her the best I could.
"But as we got older, the roles kind of reversed, because somehow I often got involved, sticking up for Mom, telling Dad to leave her alone. And when all that didn't help, I tried to mediate and get them to talk to each other, because I hate it when people fight and I am always trying to find ways to end it. Of course that didn't work either, and it has taken me a long time to realise and understand that I was probably making it a lot worse for Mom, just because it was me, and not Zach or Hannah, who tried to open the peace talks.
"Anyway, as we got older, I was often the one who needed to be comforted and Hannah came up with this little game in which we had to mention something that meant very much to us, just to force us to be positive about things. And then Hannah added the fact that we had to toast to it, for decorum mostly, but I guess I'm kinda stuck with the idea now..."
"Does it work?" Dom asks quietly, trying to imagine what Elijah's childhood must have been like with his parents fighting so often, not going to school at all and, on top of all that, trying to find his bearings between Hollywood's filmmaking sharks.
"Actually, yes," Elijah smiles and looks up at Dom. "Yes, it does. And we would often end up laughing so hard that I'm sure Mom would think we'd gone crazy."
"What do they fight about?" Dom asks again, but he notices immediately that Elijah is not willing to discuss that yet. "Sorry," he adds quickly. "That's me being too nosy. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to."
"They don't fight anymore, Dom," Elijah mutters. "They divorced when I was fifteen. I'm sure I'll tell you about that some day, but not now. Now all I want to do is drink to something positive. Hannah was still in tears when I hung up and I'm feeling really bad that I am not with her in LA right now. She said she was going to drink to something nice, and more or less asked me to do the same."
"Are you going to?" Dom asks and looks at Elijah, who has curled up against his shoulder again. He nods, eyes wide and staring at the water, leaving Dom to wonder what is going through his mind right now.
"Do you want me to join?" Dom asks again, turning his glass around in his hand slowly. "I'm really good at the positive thinking-thing and I don't want you to feel so miserable. I want to be your friend."
Suddenly, Elijah sits up and drapes an arm around Dom's neck, pressing his body close and dropping a quick kiss onto Dom's cheek.
"You are my friend," he says, before hastily removing his arm again, a shy smile lingering around his lips. "So much more than any of the others here and I only realised it this evening. I can be really dense when it comes to things like this, Dom, dense and stubborn and really scared as well, but I know I made the right choice when I asked you out today."
"So," Dom says, smiling as he tries to keep up with all of Elijah's revelations. "What are you going to drink to?"
Elijah presses himself against Dom once more, and grabs his free hand. "To you and me being friends," he smiles. "To me being a lucky bastard for having found someone here who likes me enough to put up with my insecurities and my mixed signals. And to me being not so afraid anymore of showing you the real Elijah, that skinny little freak who likes boys far better than girls..."
Dom swallows, his eyes never leaving Elijah's, and he wraps both arms around the boy, carefully trying not to spill his wine. All that he's aware of now is the warmth pressed up against his chest and the tickle of Elijah's breath on his cheek.
"A-and you..." Elijah asks, numbing insecurity already seeping back into his wide eyes, clearly afraid of having been too candid. "What are you going to drink to?"
Dom turns his head slightly and stares into Elijah's large, glittering eyes, wondering how someone so beautiful and honest could possibly want to be so close to him and trust him enough to tell him these things about friendship and fights and fears. He takes a deep breath and counts his blessings.
"To this," he says and closes the distance between their mouths, pressing his lips against Elijah's, noticing to his relief how Elijah doesn't flinch or pull away but melts against Dom's body, parting his lips slightly, extending a timid invitation.
Behind them in the big house, the lights are turned off one by one, and suddenly the two kissing boys are surrounded by nothing but the sound of the ocean and the light of the moon.
Chapter Fifteen
Expanding Universe Index
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