It Shouldn’t Matter

They would never stop hunting him. It was inevitable, at the beginning of it all, that this would happen. But this much, so soon, had never crossed his mind. He'd seen it coming, but not as fast as a freight train.

Time to breathe was all he wanted; the constant questions, the curious glances, all because of the love he wore on his sleeve, or didn't, as the case may be. He didn't understand it.

Why should he have to keep it buried away?

if i give up on you i give up on me
if we fight what's true will we ever be
even god himself and the faith i knew
it shouldn't hold me back
shouldn't keep me from you

"I can't stand it!" He screeched, throwing a pillow down into his lap in anger. "I hate them being all fucking scurrilously opprobrious!"

Dom gingerly sat beside him on the over-stuffed sofa and slid his arm around him. "Even when you're having one of your rage black-outs you can still come up with huge-arse words that I barely know the meanings of."

Elijah scowled at the wall, "Containing obscenities, abuse, or slander.”

"That's it? Why can't you just say ‘I hate them being all abusive‘?" Dom paused. "Or even rude would be okay."

"I want to sound intelligent." A pout and a huffing out of breath.

Dom let out a throaty, lethargic sounding laugh. "Everybody knows you're more intelligent than fucking Einstein." He leaned his forehead against Elijah's temple. "No need showing off."

Elijah's lips quirked into a small smile, and then he turned in his seat to looked Dom directly in the eyes. "How do you not let this bother you?"

Shrugging his slender shoulders, Dom stood up and crossed towards the kitchen. "I ignore it. Like you used to."

"That was before," Elijah enthused, sluggishly pulling himself off the sofa to trot into the kitchen, where Dom was stirring some boiling pasta and adding a few random ingredients to some other concoction that was cooking beside it.

tease me by holding out your hand
then leave me or take me as i am
and live our lives, stigmatized

Dom turned towards him, resting his back against the high, and freshly polished, counter. "Before you came out of the closet?" He cocked his head to the side, a cheeky grin on his lips. "Oh, Elijah, you mustn't fool yourself. Everyone knew you were gay before you outted yourself."

Elijah's eyes narrowed and his lips pouted out, "Shut up."

"Don't speak so harshly to me," Dom replied lightly, turning around again, his back to Elijah's accusatory glare. "If you're going to go about telling random people that you're in love with me, you should have been prepared for their reactions."

"Fuck off," Elijah stated evenly, going towards the fridge; Dom didn't budge an inch since, to him, this offensive phrase was nothing but some odd term of endearment. "You can't possibly say you were prepared for what happened."

Elijah pulled two beers from the depths of the nearly-stocked refrigerator, opened both, and handed one to Dom, who had by then turned around to face him. "Lij, I've come out before. I knew what was going to happen. I'd seen it first hand. I told you exactly what people would say!"

He took a long pull from his beer and then went towards the other side of the room, where several packs of cigarettes and some lighters sat for reserve. He grabbed a pack, a green neon lighter, and made his way to the glass doors that opened onto a terrace.

Dom rolled his eyes from the stove, watching him, "Elijah, just get over it. Get on with your life. Our life."

Elijah gave him one last fleeting glance, a hurt look in his blue eyes, before he closed the door, shutting him out. Again.

i can feel the blood rushing through my veins
when i hear your voice driving me insane
hour after hour day after day
every lonely night that i sit and pray

Dom sighed, removed the pots and pans from the stove, turned everything off and then threw everything into a large pasta bowl. As he mixed it all meticulously, his eyes darted to the terrace where he saw the short man standing, a ring of smoke enveloping his body. Elijah, who had been quite a heavy smoker ever since Dom had met him, had become a bit of a chain smoker recently. And even though every dose of nicotine was supposed to calm him down, or at least do something, it only seemed to occupy his hands.

It had been the straw that broke the camel’s back, for lack of a better metaphor, when Elijah sat on a green cushy couch on some English talk show, smiling his smile and talking the talk; the question had hit him hard, right in the stomach, and unexpectedly. Elijah had been sure the rumors had been put to rest, but why should they have been? Neither Dom nor Elijah had ever confirmed or denied anything.

He had been so surprised that, a year after Return of the King had been released, almost down to the day, the old question had cropped up, he nearly fell off the seat and tumbled into oblivion.

Taken aback, his smile fading from his face, he hadn’t been sure of what to say.

“Elijah?” The host had said, waving a hand in front of his face. “Are you all right?”

Snapping back to reality, he’d regained his thoughts, and, sick and tired of always lying or not telling the whole truth, or having to hide the real him, he’d said, “I’m in love with Dominic Monaghan,” in a bland, faraway voice that hadn’t seemed to have come from his mouth.

A hush had fallen over the crowd; the host had looked mystified to say the least, and they had cut to a commercial break. Elijah had been left sitting there on his own, shaking, and sweating with the heart rate of a race horse.

The following day had been a media frenzy; pictures of the pair of them were plastered in every magazine, images of their smiling faces were the top news stories on every entertainment news shows and also some of the regular news updates throughout the day. Dom had been at his house, in LA, and had gotten a frantic call from Elijah in which he said something like “The shit has hit the fan” and hung up.

Dom had previously just ‘come out’ to his family and friends, but had never mentioned Elijah’s name. Though he knew Elijah’s feelings for him, he also knew how hesitant Elijah was to bring that into his career. He wasn’t ashamed at all, it was just that he’d rather have had people pay more attention to his work, than his personal life. He had been rather surprised when he’d picked up US Weekly and seen his image gracing the cover.

Since then, three months before Elijah sat chain smoking on the cold terrace, things had changed; their world had turned upside down, and neither knew what to do about it.

tease me by holding out your hand
then leave me or take me as i am
and live our lives, stigmatized

“I know it’s cliché, but this is not the end of the world,” Dom shouted towards the door as he set the heaping bowl of his pasta concoction onto the table.

“I know it’s not,” Elijah said, opening the door and returning inside. “But don’t you get tired of being in a fucking fishbowl?”

Dom shrugged as he pulled silverware from their drawers, “I’m used to it by now, and you should be, too, since you’ve been at this longer than I have.” He set the forks, spoons and knives onto the table with some bowls and then looked at Elijah. “You used to take this all in stride. I don’t understand why it’s suddenly too much for you.”

“I don’t think it’s fair that, just because we’re gay, we can’t be treated like every other Hollywood couple.”

“We are treated like every other Hollywood couple,” Dom laughed a little and took a seat. He began spooning heaps of pasta into his bowl. “We’re not the first to come out by any means, and we’re not the first couple either.”

“No, it just feels like we are.” Elijah dropped heavily into his seat and watched as Dom began spooning pasta into his mouth.

“Only to you,” he replied with his mouth full.

Elijah’s lips cracked into a smile, and he soon began to load his own bowl with food. “I’m sorry I’m such a fucking bastard. Really.”

“You’re not, though. You’re just messed up.” Dom laid his hand on Elijah’s briefly, and then tossed a piece of pepper into his mouth. “It just takes time. It’ll get better. I promise.”

we live our lives on different sides
but we keep together you and i
just live our lives, stigmatized

“Don’t turn on the news,” Dom groaned, flopping onto one side of the sofa. “It’ll only upset you.”

Elijah shook his head, “I’m going back to work tomorrow. I wanna know what’s going on in the world.”

Dom rolled his eyes, yawned, and watched as Elijah flipped the television set on; he took a seat beside him and watched, his eyes wide, as the news came on.

“Perhaps the most surprising of stories today is the fact that a riot broke out outside the theater of Elijah Wood’s new movie. The riot apparently started when a girl claimed Elijah, who has just come out of the closet about a week ago, only came out to get publicity for his newest film. Another fan disagreed, a fight started, and soon the entire line of people waiting for tickets were in a brawl. Cindy Coulson has more from the scene. Cindy?”

Elijah turned his head slowly towards Dom. “Did you just hear that? Or am I manifesting it from my own personal fears?”

Clearing his throat, Dom grabbed the remote, flicked off the TV, and sighed, “No, unfortunately I think we’re both in reality right now. Sad, really, because I so liked being out of it.”

“Yes, me too,” Elijah nodded. “It was much more fun.”

“Ignorance is bliss,” Dom grinned.

we'll live our lives
we'll take the punches every day
we'll live our lives
i know we're gonna find our way

The following day found Elijah out on the terrace in only his boxers, looking out over the city, a puff of smoke coming out of his open mouth. A crumpled box of cigarettes, empty, lay at the ground by his feet; another box was clutched in his hand.

Since it was only 6am when Dom found him, he was a bit stricken, as Elijah is never up this early unless he’s got to get to work early, which was not the case this fine morning. Dom padded up behind him, very quietly, and didn’t speak for a few moments.

"It shouldn't matter if we're together."

"No, it shouldn‘t,” Elijah agreed, blowing a ring of smoke from his mouth, “But it does."

"That's bullshit, Elijah," Dom muttered angrily. "You shouldn't bloody care!"

"BUT I DO!" He lowered his voice, and shook his head sadly, turning around to face Dom, "I don't know why. I just do."

“This isn’t like you,” Dom stated, his voice hollow and sad.

“What is like me?” Elijah countered, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Do we even know anymore?”

Dom took a few steps forward, closing the distance between them; he put his hands on either shoulder and looked deeply into Elijah’s eyes. “I know you, Lij. Don’t be like this. I can’t stand you hurting this way.”

Elijah shrugged, removing Dom’s hands; he looked past Dom, into the apartment, “I’ll get over it.”

“Will you?”

Elijah’s eyes moved back to Dom’s, “I’ve got to, haven’t I?”

Dom moved away towards the terrace’s high stone wall; he leaned against it and said conversationally, “You know, this shouldn’t effect us this way. It should have just washed over us like everything else does. It’s not that important on the scale of things…it’s not effecting your job in any way. People will still go see your movies, you know. This doesn’t change how they feel about you. It doesn’t change anything at all.”

“It changes everything,” Elijah let out a cynical little laugh. “They’re brawling over this. Fucking publicity stunt my ass.”

“Elijah, they don’t know you.” Dom turned around, his eyes solemn and calculating.

“It doesn’t matter.” Elijah waved his hand, stubbed out his cigarette, and sighed. “I’ve got to get ready for work.”

“Do you want to break this off and become straight again, is that it? You want to throw everything away because a few people don’t bloody understand? That’s a fucking cop-out and you know it.”

Elijah shook his head, running a hand through his messy hair as he stepped towards the terrace door, “I don’t know what I want right now. I need some time to figure it out.”

“Elijah,” Dom said his name like it was a foul curse. “This is fucking stupid! You‘ve lost your bloody mind!”

But the door had already shut behind him.

i believe in you
even if no one understands
i believe in you and i really don't give a damn
if we're stigmatized

It was a week later when Elijah got the call from Billy; he had been instructed to turn up to a lunch, whether or not he wanted to, and if he didn’t, tough, Billy would beat the crap out of him. “I’m tough enough to wear a kilt. I CAN kick your arse.”

Elijah had no choice but to turn up; however, when he got to the meeting place, he saw Dom sitting alone at a table with Billy nowhere to be seen.

“A set up, I predict,” Elijah said, sliding into the booth opposite Dom. Elijah took a moment to survey the man across from him. Dom looked weary, haggard and like he hadn’t slept in the week it’d been since they’d set eyes on one another. “You look like shit.”

“Gee, thanks, Lij.” Dom leaned his elbows against the tabletop, running a hand through his messy brown locks. “We need to talk.”

“I know.”

“Have you got nothing to say to me, then? Do I have to do all the talking?” Elijah’s silence was all the response he needed. “Well, best get the murky bit out of the way, then. I’m not letting you quit on me, Elijah Wood. I don’t care how proud, how stubborn or how hot you are, but you are not just pushing me aside. I won’t be pushed aside. I don’t just let good things go without a fight. I thought you knew that about me.”

Elijah blinked, but didn’t respond vocally.

“Fine,“ he sighed. “I love you, and it’s stupid to let this slip away.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re more articulate than that at four o’clock in the morning, for God’s sake. Shout some huge words at me or SOMETHING. Don’t you care?”

“I care, sure,” Elijah replied lightly. “I care about you, I care about my job, my work. I care about my family. I care about us.“ He paused, gathering his thoughts. “I’ve done a lot of thinking lately.”

“Really,” Dom deadpanned, “And what’s come out of that, I wonder?”

“Realization that I’ve been a fucking bastard to you. And I’m sorry.”

“You’d better be, you prat. I don’t want to waste time on someone who doesn’t give a damn about me.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Maybe I do. But I just don’t understand you lately.”

“I don’t understand me lately, either. Honestly, I know I’m stupid a lot of the time, but so is everybody else. I freaked out, I threw a relationship away that meant everything to me. I let them get the better of me. And that was wrong. I shouldn’t have just walked out on you like that.”

“You’re damn straight,” Dom muttered, half angry. “You’re going to be paying for that for quite a while.”

“I figure I’ll be buying you quite a lot of Cds,” Elijah nodded, a grin on his lips. “I do love you.”

“I know that.”

“Well, forgive me then so we can eat. I’m starved.” He reached for a menu, but Dom caught his wrist.

“Does this mean you won’t sulk about stupid paper articles and news stories on Entertainment Tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Does it mean that you’re going to be 100% in this relationship instead of the measly 5% you’d been giving before?”

“Indeed it does.”

“Don’t shut me out anymore,” Dom said, letting his wrist go. Elijah could tell that all joking was aside, and this was a serious matter, and had to be taken without levity.
“I promise I won’t.”

“Alright. Now that’s settled, we can get some coffee. I’m so knackered. I haven’t slept in 72 hours.”

“I’m really sorry.”

Dom waved his hand, “No matter. It’s over.”

Elijah smiled, “I’ll try not to use too many big words anymore.”

“That’d be nice, to actually understand you from time to time,” Dom reached over, squeezed his hand briefly and then cast his eyes on his menu. “I’m fucking starved, mate.”

A light laugh. “Me too.”

we live our lives on different sides
but we keep together you and i
we live our lives on different sides
we're gonna live our lives
gotta live our lives
we're gonna live our lives
we're gonna live our lives
stigmatized

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