But now that he is softly rubbing Elijah's hand in careful, deliberate strokes, he thinks he needs to reassess his judgment, because Elijah's skin is very much like porcelain tonight. It reminds him of the expensive porcelain cups and saucers his Mum kept in a glass living room-cabinet, only to be used on Sundays when his grandmother came to visit and his Dad somehow always managed to find some neglected task in the garden, like trimming the hedge or cleaning out the bike shed or scraping the weed from between the garden tiles.
Elijah's hands feel like porcelain because they are cold. And still. And smooth. Just like the cups in his Mum's kitchen that he wasn't allowed to touch but did anyway, because he liked to break her rules sometimes when she wasn't paying attention.
Dom opens his eyes and looks at the hand he's holding in his own. He smiles. He tilts his head a little and stares at the small fingers resting in the palm of his own warm hand; small, slightly stubby fingers with their obvious, almost endearing lack of nails. Dom thinks he'd like to kiss Elijah's fingers, but realises that might look a bit strange, and so he resists the urge.
When he dares to look up, he notices Fran sitting in the chair opposite the bed and he wonders if he has ever seen her look so pale and empty. She's clutching her mobile phone in her hand and is staring at a random point on the wall on the other side of the room. Dom swallows and looks around.
It takes him a few seconds to realise he is in the bedroom part of Barry's suite. The room is big and warm and brightly lit, and he can see quite a number of people milling about in the other room. People who, unlike Fran or himself, are making too much noise. People who are moving into and out of this large bedroom, giving him funny stares and asking him if he's all right. He knows he can't really tell them, but frankly, they're annoying; because why wouldn't he be all right when he has Elijah right here by his side?
He looks down again and resumes rubbing Elijah's ice-cold hand, concentrating on the damaged skin around angry red cuticles and the delicate blue vein on the inside of the boy's wrist. He wonders if he should look at Elijah's face; if his cheeks will be equally cold. He wonders if Elijah's lashes will be both sooty and frozen; if tonight his eyes will resemble the blue of arctic frost.
He wonders why he is still staring at Elijah's hand, looking both fragile and smooth, like brittle porcelain.
"Dom," comes a voice from behind him and he feels the press of a hand on his shoulder. He looks up into the green of Billy's eyes, and the Scot smiles at him reassuringly. "Come here," Billy says. �"ive these people some space, okay?"
Dom blinks, trying to process what it is that Billy is asking of him, but before he can reach a conclusion, before the words have actually really registered with him, he watches himself standing up, moving away from the bed, allowing for a complete stranger to take over the space he just inhabited. A complete stranger who is now picking up Elijah's hand and, when he sits down on the edge of the bed, is blocking Elijah from Dom's view.
"Come," Billy repeats, grabbing Dom's hand and pulling him out of the room.
"You too," he says suddenly, grabbing Sean by the shoulder before the American gets the chance to enter Barry's bedroom to see what's going on.
"We're not going to be in the way, right lads?" he asks rhetorically and steers both men to the other end of the living room. "Now I'll get us something to drink and you guys just sit down and take it easy."
"And whenever there is the slightest change in his condition, you call me, okay?" are Barry's last words when he pulls the door closed behind him, leaving Dom standing in the middle of Elijah's room, blinking when the harsh light from the corridor is cut from his view. He moves to lock the door, then turns and walks around the bed, pulling up one of the two large leather armchairs in the room and sits down.
Okay, Monaghan, he thinks, staring at the tiny hole in his jeans, and very deliberately places his hands on the armrests of the chair. You've been given some responsibility here. So you calm down first before you do anything stupid... He takes a couple of deep breaths and lifts his face to look at the boy on the bed.
There are two big blue eyes staring back at him.
Elijah lies tucked in under a feathery, colourful duvet and there's an extra blanket - thick, chequered and slightly worn - piled on top of it. His face is still very pale, but not as ashen as it was when he was brought into the hotel, the exact reason for Fran to collapse in Barry's room about an hour ago. His nose and ears still have that bluish touch to them, but when he opened his eyes some twenty minutes ago, there was life in them - that beautiful sparkle.
Dom smiles at him and pulls the chair closer to the bed, searching for the slight bump of Elijah's hand underneath the covers, and when he finds it, he closes his fingers over it and strokes the blanket with his thumb.
"Okay?" he asks softly and slips off the chair to sit on the edge of the bed. "Cold?"
Elijah nods, lets out a strangled little sound that has to pass for a giggle, and then coughs, pain clear on his face. When he calms down again he just looks up at Dom with watery eyes. "I should stop smoking," he whispers, not daring to speak louder for fear of more coughing.
"Yes, you should," Dom smiles. "Now you just close your eyes and sleep and I'll be right here if you need anything, okay?"
"Okay," comes a tiny whisper from Elijah's mouth, his lips turning soft pink again instead of the scary purple they were a while ago when Dom decided he'd better only watch Elijah's hands.
The two boys look at each other some more, and Dom's lips slowly form an impish little smile when Elijah's eyes remain open and focussed on him.
"You have to close your eyes in order to fall asleep, Lij," he grins softly and gracefully slides off the bed and onto the floor where he turns around on his knees and moves his face closer to Elijah's. "Come on - close them."
Elijah nods again, but his eyes won't close.
"What now?" Dom asks and he brings up a hand, waggling a finger mischievously in front of Elijah's face. "What is it?"
"How's Orli?" Elijah asks, his voice so small and tired that it scares Dom.
"He's okay, Lij," Dom smiles and brushes the pad of his finger over Elijah's chin, smiling when he feels the slight stubble that occasionally grows there. "In fact, " he adds, "I think he's better than you are. His only problem is that his ankle hurts, but knowing Orli that won't keep him away from the set when we start filming in two days."
"Two days?" Again the sound is so fragile that Dom wonders if he should have given Elijah this information.
"Don't worry," he answers and slides the back of his hand up and down across Elijah's cold cheek. "Pete said you can start whenever you're ready. Please, don't think about that now, okay? It's not important. You just sleep and get warm."
Elijah nods and wriggles a bit underneath the covers, closing his eyes.
Dom waits a few minutes before he gets up from his uncomfortable position on his knees, matching his breathing to that of Elijah's, really struggling with himself not to touch the cool pale skin of the boy's face again. When Elijah's eyes start to move behind his eyelids, Dom knows he's fallen asleep and he groans with the effort of getting up from the floor, wincing at the noise he's making in the eerily quiet room.
He walks over to the minibar, opens the small door and pulls out a bottle of juice and something to eat. He doesn't want to make calls to the hotel's undoubtedly splendid room service for fear of waking Elijah and so he settles in the large armchair with some chocolate and a glass of orange juice and occupies himself with reading a music magazine he found lying around on the coffee table and watching Elijah sleep.
He is surprised sleep is not catching up with him, as it's almost six o'clock in the morning and he has been up and worrying for way too long now. But he remembers the strange fear that seized him when he was sitting beside Elijah in Barry's room; the almost-terror that clutched his throat and forced him to look at Elijah's hand in his own and nothing else. That fear still causes his heart to race and beat loudly in his chest and sleep couldn't be further from his mind.
He forces himself to take a few steadying breaths and take stock of everything that happened. Maybe when he glues together both Elijah's and Orli's accounts of what happened to them once they left Arrowtown will give him something to hold on to and calm down. Dom lowers the magazine, puts it on the bedside table, and stares at the steady moving of Elijah's chest underneath the covers.
According to Elijah, the two of them had walked away from their car once they had reached the point from where no vehicles were allowed anymore and a famous viewpoint could only be reached on foot. When the rain had proved to be more than a simple shower and they'd felt forced to cut their walk short and return to the car, Orli had slipped off a rock and sprained his ankle and had been unable to walk back.
Elijah had helped Orli reach the relative protection of a rocky overhang after which he had tried to reach the car on his own. Darkness had more or less caught up with him, and then the rain had started falling in earnest and it had taken Elijah almost three hours to find the car, in which, to his astonishment, Orlando already sat waiting. The Brit told him Elijah's cell battery had died and his own phone appeared to have no connection.
When Barry asked Elijah to tell them what happened after that, the boy had more or less passed out from the cold in the back of the spacious SUV and Orlando had tried to fill in the blanks from there.
Apparently, Orli had become more and more worried as time went by, with no sign of Elijah returning to where he sat hiding from the wind and the rain lashing down, knowing that they weren't more than a forty minutes' walk away from where the car was parked. When he started to realise that something must have happened to Elijah, he decided to try and walk, or rather limp back to the car, in the hope of figuring out where the hell Elijah could be.
To his own astonishment, Orli reached the car before Elijah did. The falling rain had forced him to stay in the car instead of going on a search of his friend. He spent about an hour hoping and praying that Elijah would turn up, and he had constantly tried to get a call through to just about everyone registered in his mobile.
The minute Elijah finally reached the car, drenched and so ice-cold that Orli briefly wondered if he should even move the boy around, he had strapped him into the passenger seat and hurried out of there as fast as his painful ankle allowed him. About ten miles after he had left the parking space he encountered the police and Barry's car after which one thing very quickly followed another and they were both tucked away in the warmth of the SUV.
He ended up worrying over Elijah the entire fifty miles back to the hotel in Queenstown while the boy tried to tell Barry what had happened through his violent shaking and his clattering teeth. When Elijah ultimately passed out he grabbed him and held him close to his own relative warmth and wondered how anyone could be so cold.
He had spent the rest of the drive wishing he'd never ever proposed to go on this trip to begin with and his misplaced but very intense feelings of guilt intensified the moment they turned onto the driveway of the hotel and the first thing he saw was Dominic Monaghan who came bounding out of the main entrance to tear at the door before the car had come to a complete standstill.
Dom shakes his head a little and straightens his back, coming back to the present. When he takes a look at Elijah he startles a little when he realises he's being watched, again.
"Hey," he says softly, moving the empty juice bottle from his lap to the floor. "You awake again?"
Elijah nods, his eyes dark and gloomy, and Dom stands up and crawls onto the bed next to him. He props himself up on one elbow and moves a little closer to the boy, hoping his proximity will chase the darkness in the big blue eyes away.
"What's wrong?" he whispers, breathing softly against the pale skin of Elijah's cheek. "Still cold?"
"Getting better," Elijah murmurs and turns his head to one side, so that his cool lips touch Dom's warm face. He shivers violently and Dom almost automatically wraps his arms around the body under the duvet.
"That okay?" Dom asks and rubs his hands up and down Elijah's back and arms through the covers. Elijah merely hums his response and snuggles closer into Dom's embrace.
They're quiet for a long time, and Dom finds himself listening to Elijah's breathing. He presses his nose against the top of Elijah's head and nuzzles the unruly dark hair, which smells of rain and trees and something he has come to identify as typically Elijah. It's a strange mixture of cloves and musk and something totally indefinable and it has the unmistakable quality of making Dom hard within seconds. This time, however, he's just been too worried and tired to let it get to him, but when Elijah mumbles something against the hollow of his neck, the combination of that vibration and the boy's scent in his nostrils causes blood to pool low in his stomach and he rolls his eyes at himself.
"What was that?" he asks and leans back a little to be able to hear Elijah's words.
"Nothing," the boy mutters, dropping his eyes. "Never mind."
"Elijah," Dom says, lifting his chin in one hand, giving him a clear, encouraging stare. "No secrets now. Tell me."
Their eyes lock and for a while nothing is being said. Dom runs the very tips of his nails ever so lightly over the slight stubble on Elijah's chin and the gentle rasp under his fingers makes him grow even harder. He stops and smiles.
"I was scared today, Dom," comes a very small voice and Elijah pulls his head back, pushing it against Dom's chest, leaving Dom's slender fingers hanging in mid-air.
"I'd be scared too," Dom offers and rests his cheek on Elijah's head again, closing his eyes, hugging him closer. It's quiet again.
"I cried."
Dom opens his eyes and stares at the slit between the pulled curtains, noticing there's actual sunlight outside.
"I'm fucking eighteen years old, Dom, and I just collapsed and I cried."
Dom wonders if he should tell Elijah he spent the entire night warding off images of Elijah being found dead in a roadside ditch; or having to identify him after they'd pulled him out of a mudslide. Or having to call Hannah and tell her how her brother had been in a fatal car accident and he�d been unable to keep him safe.
He wonders if now is the time to tell Elijah he has never been so scared for anybody in his entire life and that he can't go through it again without Elijah knowing Dom's true feelings. He squeezes harder and takes a deep breath - wondering, watching, wishing he had the courage.
"There are things you and I need to talk about, Dom," Elijah says suddenly, his voice still soft and breakable, but determined enough for Dom to know Elijah actually beat him to it.
"Yeah..." he whispers in answer and worms a hand between his chest and Elijah's face. "Look at me," he says, cupping a scruffy chin. Then suddenly, he is unable to stand it any longer and he's pressing his lips against Elijah's, lapping softly at the insides of the boy's cold lips, closing his eyes when he feels a muffled moan drop from between those lips - nothing but a puff of air against his tongue.
Elijah works an arm up and over the duvet and locks it around Dom's neck, in striking resemblance to his drunken antics two nights ago, leaving Dom to wonder how far gone Elijah had actually been that evening. He pushes his tongue past sharp little teeth and gasps as he finds himself surrounded by sudden heat, wanting to press his tongue against Elijah's but unable to do so because Elijah fiercely sucks him further inside, groaning and pushing his duvet-covered body tight against Dom, whose body responds at once - despite the many layers of fabric between them both.
"Jesus," he mutters, breathing into Elijah's mouth, his hands trying to find an opening somewhere between the mattress and covers to touch Elijah. "Come here." Before he knows it he's frantically tearing at the blanket, pushing it away, finding the edge of the duvet, anything to make contact with Elijah's skin.
It proves to be impossible, though, as Elijah is all tangled up in his sheets and is wearing too many clothes intended to keep him warm anyway, so in the end all Dom can do is push himself up on his elbows to get a better angle at Elijah's mouth, all wet and hot and insistent. He tries to insinuate a leg between Elijah's thighs, ignoring the thick covers, just wanting something to latch on to, something to rub against, something to ease the worst of his ache.
Elijah's legs part easily, but as soon as the boy lets out a needy, strangled moan, he breaks into a sudden, raspy cough again and Dom lets go and is up on his knees in a flash, face flushed and immediately angry with himself to let himself get carried away like this. To allow Elijah to get carried away like this. Because what the fuck are they doing, making out like this when not an hour before a doctor had announced Elijah was suffering a slight case of hypothermia and needed rest and more rest.
Dom crawls up and around Elijah, cradling his shoulders to help him sit up, pushing the covers away - giving him room to breathe. It takes Elijah a good minute to calm down and return his breathing to normal but when he shrugs Dom's arm away to lie down again, the sound coming from his lungs is still high-pitched and wheezy.
"Fuck," he mutters after another minute, eyes closed, concentrating on getting his laboured breath back under control. "Fuck."
"Sorry," Dom offers quietly. "That was stupid. I'm not much of a nurse, am I?"
Elijah doesn't answer, but a smile reaches the corners of his mouth.
"Do you want a drink of water or anything?" Dom asks again and starts getting off the bed.
"No,�"Elijah says, sounding ragged. "Stay here, Dom. Listen to me."
Dom sits down again on the edge of the bed and stares at his friend, realising that the determination of a few minutes ago has returned to Elijah full-force.
"This is exactly what I'm talking about, Dom," he starts quietly, his eyes wide open now. "This is what we need to talk about. This..." He stammers and stops, eyes moving from left to right and back, searching for words. "This attraction... this need."
"I know," Dom whispers and scoots closer to Elijah, thankful that the drapes are heavy and darkening, because suddenly he's struggling with the whole situation and he is sure there is a fierce blush on his face.
"It happens like this all the time," Elijah starts again. "There's this tension between you and me, this... well fuck, call it fever, or passion or whatever; and we let it grow and grow and then it erupts in these... these..." Elijah stops, at a loss for words again. He swallows and they look at each other once more, both aware of what Elijah is talking about, but neither of them able to find suitable words.
"We want it and we don't, right?" Dom suggests quietly. "Or maybe I want it and you don't. Seeing you don't do on-set relationships. But you can't stop giving into it, can you? And when it comes too close, when we're touching on something really basic, we both pull out."
Elijah lets out a breath.
"I pull out because I'm not sure if it's what you want, and I don't want to go back to that evening you ran out on me," Dom adds and starts fiddling with the corner of the blanket, casting a glance at Elijah every once in a while. "And you pull out because you think too much, you let your thoughts rule."
"Dom," comes an unsteady voice, suddenly more tired than Dom ever heard it before. "I pull out because I know that when I give in to this - to you - to whatever happens every time you and I get so close, I won't be able to get out again. This thing - you and I - this is so overwhelming, so big, I just know I'm going to be sucked right in and never be able to come up for air ever again.
"Giving in to that scares the fuck out of me, Dom. Not because it's you, it's never because of you. You are just a whole lot braver than I am. I wish I could just let go and dive in and drown with you, because something inside of me tells me it'd probably be the best thing that ever happened to me."
Elijah takes a deep breath and slips his fingers over Dom's hand.
"You know what?" he continues softly. "The thought of getting so much in return just for admitting that you're special to me, for throwing myself into the deep end with you and knowing that you'll be there to teach me how to swim, that thought is the scariest of them all. Because I can't do these things half-heartedly, Dom, I just can't. If I give in to this, to you; then you'd have everything of me, and I mean fucking everything."
"But isn't that the whole idea of people who care for each other, Lij?" Dom interrupts. "I know we're not at that stage yet, but people who love each other make sure the other stays afloat. They help you swim. I'd help you swim, Lijah, because you mean so much to me and I'd never let you drown."
Suddenly, the room is small and stuffy and the walls are closing in on the both of them, because isn't this what the past few months were all about? Isn't this why Dom suffered this ludicrous heartache, this ongoing need; never sure if he was going to get what he wanted? Isn't this why it's very hard to breathe all of a sudden, now that Elijah is looking so serious, his blue eyes dark and cast down, unable to look Dom squarely in the face? Isn't this why Dom suddenly feels like screaming, now that Elijah opens his mouth to speak and maybe shatter everything?
It's funny how your heart beats in your throat, almost as if it's trying to escape your body, almost as if it knows before you do yourself that maybe it won't be needed anymore.
"I'm scared," Elijah finally says, and looks up, meeting Dom's blue grey eyes. "I'm scared this is the big one, you know. That you are the big one. That you are the connection that blows away each and every foundation I worked so hard for in my life because I'll be faced with everything I never knew I missed but realise I always needed - and my life will finally start making sense."
Chapter Eighteen
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