Nothing Compares To You
Nothing Compares To You
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Title: style='font-size:7.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Nothing Compares to You
Author(s): Ineke
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: R
Summary: Billy Boyd suffers, but maybe he likes it that
way. A few snapshots into his life with Dominic after ROTK.
Disclaimer: The following is purely fictional matter. Actual
timeframes, conversations and events are fabricated for my own convenience. I
don’t know Dominic Monaghan or Billy Boyd, nor are they my property, and
I’m not assuming anything about their private and sexual lives. Same goes
for the entire cast of The Lord of The Rings. I’m simply borrowing their
bodies. The lyrics for ‘Nothing Compares To You’ are property of
…was it Prince, or Sinead O’Connor? Too many covers, argh. Anyway,
lyrics are adapted to my needs. Cheers.
____________________________________________________
If you were gone I could do whatever I want
Could see whomever I choose
I could eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant
nothnothing
I said nothing could take away these blues
`Cause nothing compares
N o t h i n g
compares to y o u
“I’ve
grown out of this,” Billy says softly.
It
is unheard. The lights are dimmed, the laughter is loud, and the PlayStation is
on maximum volume. The Stone Roses play softly in the background. “Fuuuck!”
Elijah cries out, jamming the joystick violently with his thumb.
“I’m so coming 12th now.” Dominic laughs, and takes a sip of
his beer. His eyes are constantly fixed to the $15,000 plasma screen. The
plasma screen, Billy thinks bitterly, that I bought for his arse. And now he
won’t even look at me.
“Sblom,”
he says again, voice raised.
“Mmm?”
“I
said I’ve grown out of this.”
Dom’s
eyes stay constantly fixed on Top Gear Overdrive. “Out of what,
Bills?”
Billy
stares for a long time. He doesn’t know.
-----
Breakfast
is on the table when Billy wakes up. It’s a quarter of watermelon,
Dom’s feeble attempt at feeding his friends on a summer day too
blistering hot to move. Or maybe it’s left overs. Or maybe… it
wasn’t intended for Billy at all.
Billy
takes it in his hand and analyses it. He always analyses things lately -
himself, the watermR… and Dom.
“Thanks
for breakfast,” he calls out.
Nobody
answers. He stares around the room waiting for a response. There is none. The
clock reads 10.45 am, and fuck, they have a book signing at 11.
“Thanks
for waking me up,” he says again, to the empty room.
---------
Billy
remembers.
“I’ll
count how long it takes,” Dom had as as he handed Billy a pair of goggles.
Billy
thought that game was stupid. It definitely style='font-size:7.0pt'>was stupid, and it always had been. But Elijah grinned at him
with that gappy child star smile and shoved the goggles onto his own forehead.
Everyone had goggles by then.
Dom sat
impatiently on the edge of the boat.
“C’mon,
Billy. Just do it.”
Elijah had been
already underwater, and likewise with Sean.
He
remembers that deep New Zealand blue was reflecting off Elijah’s doe-like
eyes. It had made Billy feel sick.
Orlando had been
counting loudly. He was up to about 45.
Billy
had wondered how long it would be before someone died. He remembers thinking it
would be him.
Elijah
had emerged from the blue, panting.
laughing. “That’s pathetic.”
Dom
had stared at Billy. Billy remembers. He knew Dom was thinking Orlando’s
words... But not about Elijah’s breathing.
“Jesus
Christ, you’re a void,” style='font-size:7.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Dom had said suddenly, and it
wasn’t an insult. It was a simple observation. Billy knows this, because
he can remember.
Billy
now suddenly wonders if a void can cry.
---------
There’s ag
sg
silence when Billy sits down at the desk in Borders. He places himself very
carefully between Viggo and Elijah. Dom says nothing, and Billy says nothing.
The crowd says nothing. The silence is always worse than the fighting, Elijah
had once said. Billy had thought nothing could be worse than Dom’s
dismissal, his petty backstabbing. Billy now realises that the ring-bearer was
right.
A fan
approaches.<
“Who shall
I make it out to?” Dom asks, thumbing a well-worn page of The Hobbit.
Billy watches him from the other side of the desk. There is a delicacy with
which Dom handles his stardom. He’s polite, he’s quirky, and he
gives this projection of total relaxation. Even his pen strokes are famous.
Billy
feels angry. He takes a poster of himself from a young girl, and starts
scrawling. Conventions are always a Zen experience for Billy, and he knows that
fame will never quite hit him in the way that it has hit Dom. He resents this a
little. He focuses, tries to concentrate
on the writing, but loses himself in the flowing pen strokes of the B, the I,
the L’s, and the Y.
And
now, he can remember.
Okay,
so, let’s go around the circlestyle='font-size:7.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>, Elijah had said. Billy remembers.
How
do we all feel about this project?
A shy blonde had
been the first to open his mouth. He had a crooked gappy grin, upturned ears
and a button nose. Everyone had always noticed Dominic’s nose.
Billy just
remembers the smalinklinkling eyes. Billy and Dom’s friendship had
started as soon as those eyes had sparkled. It had always been from the very
beginning.
Billy
remembers.
I’m I’m Billy ------- Billy Alone. And He'>He Dom “Nothing,” Another Billy “Once,” Billy He Thinking
Dom, he
had said. Billy can still hear the accent ringing in his ears. He can remember
the exact tone. It had been deep, soft and rasping, yet held something so alive
that it could have been the cry of a newborn child.
Dom, he
had said, and that had been all. That was Dominic in a nutshell. The ice was
then broken, and Dom had in that moment melted Billy through flesh and soul.
can still remember. “Dom,” he says softly, and presses the cap back
down onto his pen.
stretches out face down on the sofa and enjoys the silence. The PlayStation is
off, Elijah’s crooning CDs have gone home with him, and he’s all
alone.
now… Billy’s scared what he’ll remember.
jumps at a sudden contact on his neck. But there is breathing, there is warmth
and softness, and instantly Billy can feel Dom’s stubble, the tip of his
tongue, his soft mouth. Dominic nuzzles down to the side of Billy’s
cheek, and suddenly Billy isn’t sure whether he’s happy or
depressed. So he turns his head to the side and makes what he hopes is a
relatively normal face, which instead comes out as blank, dead and…void.
pulls back, and falls back onto his haunches. “Jesus, sweetie,
what’s wrong?” he asks, genuinely interested. He sits at
Billy’s feet, takes one in his hand, and rubs it methodically. B
ca
can’t remember the last time Dom was interested.
he says softly. There’s an adequate silence where nothing is said,
the
then Billy decides to fill it. “I mean…yeah. Just a shitty day. I
want to go to sleep and forget that Tolkien ever existed. I’d like one
day where I wasn’t just a hobbit, or just half of Billy AND Dom.”
silence as Dom keeps rubbing, a little more pressure now.
sits up. “I’m sorry, Dom. I didn’t mean that to come out like
that. But you know, we’re everywhere together. Everyone thinks
we’re fucking…”
Dom says, standing and Billy can almost hear regret. He says nothing, and Dom
exits slowly.
doesn’t want to remember. He knows he’ll remember that they were -
that Dom had fucked him. Not that Dom didn’t do that everyday of
Billy’s life. When Dom lefm alm alone, when he ignored him, called him
worthless, swore at him, hit him hard enough to bleed.
wonders if fan girls were jealous of the fact that he is fucked by Dominic
Monaghan 24/7.
about it, he wouldn’t have it any other way.style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>