Disclaimer: I have no more knowledge of either of these two men than anyone else does. No profit is made and no offence intended
Pairing: Elijah Wood/Dominic Monaghan
Rating: NC17
Warnings: None
Setting: October 2003, middle of England
Feedback: Always appreciated - perhobfan@yahoo.co.uk
Bubbles are floating ceilingward and bursting into sputtering little clouds on contact with the light fitting. A spider has set up home inside the frosted glass shell - a home now under attack by oily, mango scented suds from Elijah's bath. He notices these things. He's attuned to his environment, at peace with himself, drifting.
And then the TV in the adjoining bedroom is suddenly on, blaringly on - shattering his peace and destroying his tranquillity. He hears jingles and trailers, a snatch of a pop video; the channels are being changed with infuriating speed, as if the keeper of the remote has the attention span of an under-achieving goldfish. He grits his teeth and slips gracefully beneath the fruity-infused surface, down down until he is swimming with sleek-skinned sharks where all sound is muffled and deadened and he is the only person alive, the sole representative of mankind here in water world-
He breaks the surface, gasping for breath, choking on sweet-scented froth. Damn it! He went too deep, stayed too long, came up too fast... this is how a person gets the bends, right?
"You having fun in there, Lij?"
He blinks, then tilts his head to one side to allow tepid water to drain from his ears. It's suddenly quiet, and Elijah realises the TV has been muted; he settles once more up to his chin in the bathwater. Framed in the doorway, casually leaning, Dom has the look of Renaissance Man on Marijuana. He yawns, casually scratches one bollock through the fabric of his shorts, and returns to gazing at hippo-Elijah, submerged up to the eyeballs in-
"You don't like mango, you moron," Dom drawls, smiling.
"It was free. On the side of the bath. In a sachet. A free sachet." Elijah has surfaced to make this defence of his bathing arrangements, before submerging once more. His knees are pale islands, denuded of forestation, rising damply from the swirling mango sea, as he slips further below the surface until he is breathing through only his nose. He fixes his eyes on Dom. And waits.
"Surprised you didn't try out the shower cap, too, that being the case," Dom says, softly. He extracts the cap from the plethora of hotel goodies lining the bath, and breaks the seal. He has had a lot of practice of breaking seals. He unfolds the cap and blows into it, warm air fanning to fill and expand mass-produced wafer-thin plastic and elastic… he leans over and fits it onto Elijah's wet hair, taking great pains to make sure it covers the stiff ridge that crests his head like the fin of a teenager's souped-up sports car. For good measure, he rams it down quite firmly; then he sits down casually on the toilet lid, crosses his legs and cups his chin in one hand. And waits.
For a little while, there is just the sound of the hot tap dripping, of steam rising and cavorting amongst the non-descript hotel tiles. Elijah never takes his eyes off Dom, never releases him for a second. He is sitting in a cramped bath in a shitty hotel room in the middle of England, a shower cap on his head, watching Dom Monaghan watching him. He blinks.
"Ah! I saw that, loser!" Dom crows. Jubilant Dom, who, carried away by his triumph, leans forward to make some aesthetically pleasing adjustment to the shower cap, and is thus within range of a stream of mango-scented tepid water that issues out of Elijah's mouth and catches him squarely in the eye.
Dom freezes in place, bathwater dribbling from one eye socket and down his cheek.
In the bedroom, Dom's phone begins to warble a tinny rendition of Yellow Submarine and Elijah raises one delicate brow in question - "Are you going to answer that?" Dom looks briefly through the door towards the sound, but he does not move. That is, he does not move until he answers Elijah's question - just a different question than the one Elijah thought he had telepathically framed.
Elijah begins to think that maybe antagonising your opponent when you are effectively cornered and naked and vulnerable may not be a good strategy. His eyes cut to the door, to the window, to the overflow, to the showerhead... no, he's trapped. Take it like a man, Elwood. You can do that.
Dom has this way of looming, of making himself appear taller than he really is; he does this now, rising from the toilet lid to lean over the bath.
"Are you wrinkling under there, Lij? Turning all pruney, eh?" he asks, his eyes iridescent with mischief and lust in equal measure. Elijah tries to sit up, hands grasping the grips on the bath in preparation for levering himself up and out and away.
Yellow Submarine again - harsh and disruptive, and Dom catches Elijah with a look of pure Beatles-disdain on his face, and that's enough to tip him over the edge...
"Oh no you don't," and his hand is breaking the surface tension of the water, eddies colliding with eddies as he parts Elijah's thighs, those pale islands separating as if some cataclysmic force were rending the earth's crust and spewing up a brave new landscape. Elijah sometimes wonders if home schooling is to blame for these weird, florid thoughts he has - thoughts he sometimes finds himself committing to paper. But he isn't wondering it now. For now Elijah is trying not to whimper as one of Dom's hands holds Elijah in place, carefully skirting the scars on Elijah's abdomen which had caused them both so much anxiety just weeks before; the other closes on Elijah's dick, as Dom's breath mingles with Elijah's breath, as water sloshes over the side of the bath and soaks Dom's knees.
"Steady, boy," Dom croons, stroking Elijah's hard-on with firm grace, long fingers clasping and cajoling, sliding along satin-smooth skin - up and down and off and up and down and off.
becomes the soundtrack to this film of theirs, each of them knowing the lyric backwards. Lips are mashing now, tongues in motion, and still Dom strokes, his own erection hard against the bath panel. He pulls back just enough to see Elijah's eyes rolling backwards, knows from the rise and fall of Elijah's chest, that the end is in sight. The end of the beginning, at any rate.
"Turn the fucking phone off - now!" hisses Elijah, churning in the water, bottom launching off the porcelain to meet as much of Dom's hand as he can. Dom shakes his head, his hand firm on Elijah's flesh, tormenting him, willing him to come...
"Let it ring," Dom pumps a few more times beneath the waves and then there it is - the shipwreck of Elijah Wood, limp and gone and out of it and the water has changed colour and consistency and mango now has competition in the scent stakes.
He pulls Elijah up to his chest, holds him briefly, smiles into the shower cap still firmly in place on Elijah's head.
For a moment there is just the beating of hearts and the glop-glop of sloshing water. It's moments like these, Elijah thinks-
And then the phone is ringing again and Elijah is wondering just who needs his Dom so urgently that they will keep on calling when it's obvious his Dom is otherwise engaged and shouldn't have to take calls from someone who should know better. Fucker. Unless it's Dom's mum, in which case, strike the fucker. Obviously.
Dom releases Elijah, stands and steps out of his sodden shorts, his erection hard and impudent and free. The bathroom floor is awash but there are towels safely on the heated rail and Dom reaches for the biggest, fluffiest one and holds it out for Elijah, who is trying to locate his glasses. Then he goes to answer his phone.
Elijah finds his glasses are well and truly steamed-up but pops them on anyway and then steps out of the bath. He catches himself in the mirror, a vague amorphous mass which might just be him. The water is draining away, taking with it mango and traces of Elijah.
The sopping towels are gathered up, squeezed out over the bath, and dumped in a corner. Elijah picks up his wristwatch and notes the time through the fog - 12:09 a.m. They have to be up in about seven hours. He's bone tired, albeit relaxed, and could really do with a good night's sleep. But there is unfinished business and subtle revenge waiting for him in the other room. He smiles, takes a wad of toilet tissue and wipes his glasses, padding softly to join Dom.
He leaves the shower cap on.
The End