Dominik was knackered after playing two games in the last week - one against the Caerphilly Catapaults and another against the Appleby Arrows.  He'd been going at full speed and was about ready to conk out, but he had need for a certain Witch and felt justified in collapsing at her front stoop for a little bit of companionship.  Perhaps it was out of an old habit to come crawling round when he was most out of it, but even the fact that they hadn't spoken to each other in months wasn't enough to deter him from his path to her penthouse apartment.  It was the middle of the night, and Dominik Wiedman was drunk, beat-up and sleep-deprived, belting an old pub song:

"And it's home, dearie, home, it's home I want to be
     My topsails are hoisted and I am out to sea
     The oak and the ash and the bonnie birchen tree
     Are all a-growing green in the North country," he sang.

He staggered up the stairs and down the hallway, the drunken tune gone now as he started to feel sick.  He steadied himself on the door frame as he fit a silver key in the lock.  Tired eyes took a turn toward relief as the door slid silently open.  Home, dearie, home, indeed.

Dominik nearly tripped on the rug on his way in the door, and he made quickly for the bedroom where he could collapse good and proper on a bed.  He may have come looking for a friend or a fight, but he had the feeling now of being at his own abode and crashing very natural-like into his own bed after a drinking binge and a good pub fight.  He was hardly thinking of the fact that this was not his house, or that his arrival here was not expected.  By the looks and feel of it, he was the only one here - and that wasn't so unusual.  Dominik was already assuming that Dolores wasn't home.  He stumbled through the dark and into the bedroom, a path that was familiar enough to not necessitate lamp light. 

"Merlin...," he mumbled to himself as he went bumbling into her bedroom.  It was empty.  He was so dizzy he was tempted to just pass out on the floor, but he closed the remaining distance, managing to not regurgitate on himself in the process.  Moaning with a feeling of being ameliorated, he collapsed onto the large, unmade bed and immediately felt an immense sense of comfort penetrating through the various layers of his being.  His best friend had been so absent from his life, and here she was in the covers.  Not actually there, but, he could sense her presence in the soft scent of her comforter. 

Dominik fell asleep almost instantly.

Dolly, for all her galavanting around had found a deep seeded desire for home on this particular night. She'd gone out for obligatory drinks with her Agent, but she'd been home before ten. She was, while her house was being invaded by a drunk Quiddy star, soaking in her bathtub and reading fan mail. The Penthouse had been thoroughly soundproofed when she moved in, if there was one thing Dolly hated it was a hangover and hearing every little noise of whoever might be stirring around her apartment. It made her say viciously cruel things to people she loved and then have to apologize. She hated apologizing. So she circumvented the problem with the same spells they used in wizard recording booths. She had no way of knowing there was a big hairy drunk man in her bed as she slipped out of the tub and toweled off. She thought she'd be crawling between her sheets and drifting off to mildly tipsy dream land with visions of her adoring fans dancing in her head.

Though she was sleeping alone, Dolly had long ago adopted a habit of wearing pretty nighttime things for herself. People who assumed she did things in her life to please men were sorely mistake. She did things in her life to please herself, she liked the feel of silk and wasn't in the habit of denying herself enjoyable things. Running a comb through her damp hair she inspected her face in the gilded bathroom mirror before tossing her comb aside and dimming the light as she exited into her bedroom. For the first time in weeks her muscles felt completely relaxed, there was no danger of desperate late night attention seekers, Darian was off doing whatever it was he did, Flynn had yet to become a regular bedfellow, and it had been a good long while since she'd had to worry about a drunken Dominik darkening her doorstep - besides he'd had a game or some such rubbish this week. Just because they weren't speaking didn't mean she didn't keep track.

Falling lazily into her unmade bed she was at first confused and then alarmed at the lumpy form of what was unmistakably a large man in her bed. Giving a screech to rival a banshee she reached for her wand on the bedside table, as well as a sturdy ashtray which she unabashedly struck the lump with repeatedly as she yowled, "LUMOS"! Of course it was silly, because before her eyes could tell her who it was her nose already had, there was only one person who could carry the scent of cigarettes, booze, Pitch, and smoke without her finding it completely repugnant. "DOMINIK! YOU'RE IN MY BED! WHY ARE YOU IN MY BED? WHO TOLD YOU YOU COULD BE IN MY BED? YOU'RE DRUNK! WHY ARE YOU DRUNK AND IN MY BED, OH WAKE UP YOU WRETCHED BEAST BEFORE I BEAT YOU TO DEATH," sound proofing be damned, with her frantic pitch and volume her neighbors were probably sending up flares for the Ministry. "You rotten son of a bitch! We're fighting, you're not allowed you use your key and be in my bed when I'm half naked and relaxed from a bath"!

Even though his slumber was deep, like ten thousand leagues beneath the sea deep, Dominik was still roused awake by the strident sounds of Dolores St. James's caterwauling (though, admittedly, the repeated blows from an ashtray might have helped some with this revival).  Groggily, he lifted his eyes and tried to focus on her; he could vaguely make out that she was in her sexy clothes, but whatever he'd done in the night was making him see double now. 

That didn't mean that he wasn't trying to see her, if only to confirm that it was in fact Dolores there beside him in bed; he squinted through the dark shadows of the room and past the sharp light of her wand, not even lifting his head from the blankets as he laid there on his back in a general, daunted confusion.  His head felt like a thousand-pound melon, and he had no idea what she was saying. 

"Oy, blimey," he mumbled with a veiled voice.

Vaguely he wondered how he had gotten to be here in her bed.  It had been so long since he had seen or heard from her that he had absolutely no context for what might have occurred.  Then he hit on something which had a lot to do with how nearly naked she was.  Like a bolt from the blue, panic gripped him.  "We didn't....?  We didn't...?,"  It was clear where his mind was, even though he couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.  He couldn't find a word for sex that was very fitting right now.  Panic was evident as he gripped the ether for words and finally relented.  "Did we?!" he had to plead.

Dom's hands felt down his body hastily, and he found himself to be fully clothed.  In fact he hadn't even made it out of his boots yet.  His brows knit together in consternation and he lifted his head to look around himself for clues.  That was a mistake.  He put his head back down, grimacing as Dolly's room spun around him.  Salazar though, just because he was in such a hurry so as to not even knock off his boots didn't mean that he hadn't taken advantage of her in her nighties during whatever drunken rage they must have engaged in.  In that sense, it didn't always take two to tango, so to speak.

"Oh...," whined Dominik as he suffered obliviousness and a pounding head.  "What happened, what did I do?"

If Dolly had been a forgiving woman (it should be noted she was often not) she'd have stopped hitting him with the ashtray. At least now her blows landed on his chest and shoulders rather than directly against his skull. She was furious! How dare he just wander in drunk as a Giant, with his boots in her bed and his smelly man-ness permeating her sheets. "Did we what," her voice was absolutely incredulous before she let out a barking laugh and sent a series of stinging hexes at him, "You think after MONTHS of not hearing from you, seeing neither hide nor hair, you could show up - rank as Salazara's knickers mind you, and I'd just fall into bed with you? Your delusions of grandeur have far surpassed anything I thought you capable of. NO we did not have sex, nor do I fancy having a tussle in the hay with you at any point in the near or extended future"!

Of all the pompous things to assume, of all the ways and times for him to show up! With another flick of her wrist more stings were sent in his direction, annoyed that he seemed to be righting to sneak a peek at her in her nightie. Now she was going to have to change her locks and invest in heavy dreadful flannel to keep something like this from happening again. On top of the hexes she finally just chucked the ashtray at him in a huff, her voice less shrill but still steady in volume, "Believe it or not I don't actually, routinely, strike men I've shagged in the last twenty with an ashtray thick enough to crack their skull you smarmy imposing bastard". For once she almost wished she had been with another man, it'd have served Dominik right the way he'd tormented her for years and now just showing up out of the blue, ready to take up his place in her bed like months hadn't passed and she didn't have every right to hex his most prized and sensitive organs.

"You still haven't answered my bloody question - why the devil are you in my bed drunk this time of night? We're not even speaking to one another. Far as I can gather you've been off shagging Thursby since I left for Italy in June," her tone was scathing as she finally turned on the bedside lamp, arms crossed over her chest, blue eyes glowering down at him. There was no answer to that question that would not get him another series of hexes. There was no pleasing Dolly when she got like this. For all the years she'd known him she thought perhaps this once he was going to do the sensible thing and think about someone else before himself. Of course she was wrong and he seemed utterly incapable of doing anything more than looking at her with those wounded I-have-seen-too-much-of-the-world-save-me-Dolores eyes. Well feck him and the broom he rode in on if he thought that was going to work! Turning her back she shoved her arms through a nearby silken robe before looking back at him "Well"?!

"AH!  Holy... what!"

Dominik's hands lifted off the covers, vaguely hovering over his body while offering him no protection whatsoever from Dolly's wrath.  She wasn't exactly the kind of person he could stand up to, physically.  She was beating him to death with something hard and cumbersome, rekindling the pain of his previously existing contusions and abrasions!  It was about then that he realized that he really hadn't been a pleasure bomb in the night.  He'd done something much worse and worlds more idiotic, like crawling into her bed drunk without her knowledge after several months of zero communication.  It wasn't quite all his fault, but it totally was.

He didn't have an opportunity to try to explain himself before he was suddenly hiccuping frantically, the victim of a point-blank curse.  And then three.  Hiccuping, seizing, itching and burning, Dominik gaped at the pretty little evil Witch who was currently tormenting his poor, defenseless soul and thought, Merlin's pants!  It was oddly hot until he realized that his nether parts were shriveling.

"What hic! do with my hic! bleedin' tadge!" he cried.   

Suddenly sick, Dominik rolled over and started vomiting over the edge of her bed, only to have the vomit retract back into his mouth rather than stick to her floors.  Whoops....  It would have been  the worst night of his bloody life, other than the fact that this was Dolores and he hadn't seen her since late in June.  Could have been worse, in that regard.  This was maybe a bit... cathartic?  Then the ashtray smacked him in the ribs and Dominik groaned in pain.  "Dolores!" he pleaded, completely at her mercy as the world spun relentlessly round him and his body revolted against her curses. 

"I don't know!" he answered feebly.  It was true that he had no idea how he had gotten here.  "I guess I -" he had another vomiting hiccup attack before ending with, "I missed you!" 

Shagging Thursby since June?  He'd only been back with her since mid-September.  That was a whole three months' difference, but he doubted that would much matter right now....  It seemed, though, that his hexes had come to an end, at least for now.  She lit the room and crossed her arms over her chest angrily.  Dominik drew himself up to a sitting position, quite awake after that insanity.

"I missed you?" he repeated sorrily. 

"Oh don't you Dolores me, you mewling swag bellied lout!  I gave you tadge exactly what it deserved a decade ago," there was some twisted satisfaction to be had in watching him wither and writhe in pain on her bed, especially since she managed to side step any splatter from the perpetual vomit reversal curse. Her only unfair advantage - besides his being drunk and dead asleep in her bed, was that it was point blank. It wouldn't have mattered much anyway, just because she'd chosen not to use her wand working skills in a career didn't mean that she hadn't kept her aim and creativity on a shelf either. She had been an excellent duelist back in the day, sneak attack wasn't usually her style but he was in her bed!

And then his answer was completely unsatisfactory (of course he could have been there to tell her he wanted to impregnate her with his spawn or he had a vault full of Goblin's gold for her and she'd still have wanted to break his jaw), "You missed me? That is your brilliant excuse for being drunk, in my house, in my bed after almost six months of not speaking to me? Do you have brain damage Wiedman? Have you take one too many fecking bludgers to the face lately - because that is the only explanation for you thinking this was a remotely good idea". She looked both furious and bewildered, her heart pounding in her ears. Missing her wasn't enough of anything anymore as far as she was concerned.

"You don't get to miss me Dominik. You made your choice ages ago as far as I'm concerned. You want to be a bloody miserable wanker for the rest of your life that's your business. You want to shag that no talent hack from the Prophet and write love lorn poetry about how she'll never understand how deep your feelings for her go, you want to stay Peter Pan for the rest of your spur-galled life, have at it because I am tired of picking up the pieces. I am tired of three AM bed calls. I am tired of waiting for you to be the person i some how mistakenly thought you were capable of being. I told you to look me up when you got your shite together mate, it's three in the morning and you're so drunk you don't know how you got here. THAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF HAVING YOUR SHITE TOGETHER"!

She shook her head and chewed on the inside of her cheek, blue eyes turned toward the ceiling, "You can be Peter Pan for as long as you like, but this Wendy? This Wendy moved out the nursery ages ago and doesn't want to be looking after Lost Boys anymore," there had been a time in her life when his missing her would have been enough. She was just so tired of taking care of him at the cost of herself. She deserved a life. She deserved a night to soak in the tub and read fanmail and go to sleep without thinking of him or anyone else. She didn't want to do this dance anymore, she didn't want to be his safe place to fall because it wasn't reciprocated. He had never been there when she really needed him, never seen her as she was. It was too much trouble trying to exist as all things to all people. She was done.

Dominik was really starting to regret his decision to come here last night; whenever he had made that decision and whatever had propelled it forward into actuality he couldn't recall.  It was clearly too late to take it back, and after months of introspective work he was apparently right back where he'd started, at least according to her accusations.  The two of them were sort of right back where they were six months ago, in any case, and he was way too drunk to think straight. 

At least proper blood-flow had returned to the various parts of his body...!

His puppy guilt, though, was slowly turning toward puppy pain.  He looked at her, astonished and bewildered by the cruelty of her response.  He could take the jinxes, but these ongoing verbal lacerations were taking it a bit far for him.

"Stop," he said simply in response to her vexation.  He felt a thousand instances of no reverberate through his body, and he knew that explaining them all was useless.  There was too much cacophony in his head to try to make sense of it verbally.  Besides, he knew from experience that it didn't really matter what he had to say.  He also knew that he couldn't stay here and continue to take this from her for very much longer, but maybe that was the point.  Maybe she was trying to get him to leave. 

It didn't matter that she hadn't reached out to talk to him either in the last four months, or that this was a strange Dominik-like compliment to still be migrating toward her in the night when his defenses were down.  Weren't they still friends, at least?

"Listen to me," he said, his speech slurred.  "I know I'm a bad man, and I'm drunk and I'm in your bed.  But for Merlin's sake, it's me, Dolores!  Dominik bloody Skye Wiedman!  Why do I have a key to your bloody apartment if I'm not allowed to use it, tell me now."  He rubbed his face roughly with both hands, feeling disparaged and distressed. As long as he surrendered himself to the occasional bacchanal, this sort of random behaviour was largely inevitable. 

"I can't be expected to always have control over my actions," he complained.  "And I have made plenty of improvements in my life," he added indignantly, since she had made about a thousand assumptions and asked not a single question, which he did find rather rude.   

"Now should I leave into the night like a lonely wounded animal, or should I take off my bloody boots?" he asked.

Dolly opened her mouth and then closed it. She hated when he had even the remotest point. Why hadn't she asked for her key back? Was it really that it had seemed to cruel to do at the time? It was all so muddled for her, they stopped talking before they stopped having to see one another - it was a pitfall of being Liviana's godmother. She was polite but she avoided him as much as possible since she'd told him to sort out his life. At first she thought the idea of losing her for good would propel him into action. She thought maybe if she acted like she meant it he might come to his senses... then a day turned into a week and a week into a month and now here they were. She was angry as she'd ever been and he was refusing to take any responsibility for his part in the whole mess.

"Dominik, you're a fully grown man. You are accountable for you actions, ALL THE BLOODY TIME," she gave an exasperated sigh as she dropped onto the silken blue fainting couch kitty-corner from her bed. She hated that when he showed up she began questioning things she told herself, things she knew. That whole speech, the bit about Peter Pan, and growing up it was true. It was all true, she was tired of taking care of him but she never closed the window so completely that he couldn't get back in. She had told herself, at the time, that it would be like kicking a wounded puppy if she asked for her key back. She'd given it to him the same day she moved in, her place had always been open to being his place... but it seemed like there were rules he ignored about the arrangement.

Looking at him he seemed so pathetic, so washed up, "Improvements? Do you even understand the words that are coming out of your mouth right now? An improvement is not drunk stumbling into the bed of a woman who's heart you ground into the dust with your bloody boot heel". She rubbed her temple, and sighed shaking her head. Why was telling him to leave so hard? Did she want to dig at him until he was as torn up and broken as she felt under all the makeup and diamonds? Or was it the foolish hope that some day, some how it might sink in everything that had been laid out before him since they were children. Standing she strode to her vast closet, pulling out two lush towels and chucking them at his head, "If you stay you're taking a damn rise in the tub first. Try not to drown, I don't want to owl your sister to help me dispose of your body," she said all this as she began pulling fresh linens out, scowl twitching on her pink hued lips.

Dominik stared, blinking; thinking thank Merlin's jewels he didn't have to go blundering into the night!  There was a single pity-bone left in the Witch's body, and he was glad for that.  After all, apparating at a time like this was flat-out dangerous; and even if it wasn't, no miserably drunk person wanted to get up and cross town if they could stay warm and cosy right where they were.  He slid to the edge of the bed to start slipping off his cumbersome boots as he watched her cross the room with his half-lidded eyes.  He was, suddenly, viably content.  It was only natural in such a state to  pretend not to hear what she had said about being fully grown up and responsible for his actions 'all the bloody time' .... Yes, it was best to avoid that comment in this fuzzy, lovely instant....

He slowly unlaced his boots and let them clobber to the floor in a cathartic clamor.  Groaning to release his pain, discomfort, anxiety, and exhaustion, Dominik unbuttoned his army greatcoat and shrugged it off, finding relief as the relatively cool air of the apartment met his damp skin through the thin fabric of his long-sleeve shirt.  Catching a whiff of himself, he could see why Dolly was in a hurry to get him into the bath.

That whole bit about Peter Pan was what he hadn't understood.  He had a vague notion of what the story was, but he hadn't had as much exposure to it as she had.  Clearly there was some metaphorical underpinning to this tale that pulled her in to the telling of it.  Dominik had to overlook that, too, if he was going to have a decent night.  There was something about being very drunk that made overlooking things marginally desirable, in fact.  Especially something as confusing as hearts grounded into a pulp; had he really done that?

"I improved so many million things," he said somewhat feebly, pulling on his overshirt as it clung to him like a second skin.    "Ey," said Dominik then as it came loose over his head.  "Do you still have that spare toothbrush here for me?  Cause my mouth tastes like fucking vomit, now."  He made a face.

The towels sat at his side, and as she went for the linens and mentioned his sister, there was a stretch of silent moments in which a whole universe of time subsided.  Then Dominik stood up, wobbled, and took off the remainder of his clothes - an undershirt, his dress pants and some long-johns and socks, till he stood stark naked and unconcerned on her bedroom floor, getting ready to head for the bath. 

"I dunno why we haven't spoken all this time," he said, leisurely.  "Where've you been and why do you act like you hate me all the time now?" 

Dominik was much less than bashful, standing very nakedly in the center of her room as he vaguely started toward the bathroom door.  "Dolls," he said, weakly.  "Stay awake with me, don't make me bathe in solitude; Merlin's nads, I mean come on and run the bath."

He was drunk still, needless to say.  But he pulled the faucet on and spread some scented liquid bubble bath without her aid and sat down beside the tub with his bare skin against the cool floor, wiping his hair from his forehead idly as he grew pensive on the cool tiles.   

If it had been another time, another place, six months ago even watching him battle with his stupid shirt and getting it stuck around his head would have brought forth gleeful amusement. She'd have helped him and laughed, making jokes about what a mess he was and how lost he would be without her. Tonight she wanted to hold onto her anger so she simply turned away and scoffed at the idea that he had made any improvements to his life. From where she was standing he was the same drunken lout he'd been for the last decade. "Oh yes, quite a few million," the dark haired author couldn't help but mutter.She needed that anger, that hard pit in her heart, to keep her afloat. She wasn't kicking him out but she wasn't going to fall back into being Back burner Dolly again. Was. Not.

She sighed when he asked after a toothbrush, sheets tucked under her arm, "Hutch by the sink, with your razor". More signs she hadn't closed the window for him to get back in, his things still took up space in her life. Perhaps, she silently mused to herself, that was why she spent so much time away from here. Here had been their safe haven, here is where he came when he wanted to belong to her. She didn't bring many men around to this place actually, Darian maybe but others? Not even when she'd been her free and loosest had she made a habit of bringing them here. It was easier to duck out before dawn if they were in a hotel or the gentleman's apartment. Standing before her closet she sighed, his things were everywhere!

There were mismatched pieces of suits, jackets, dress shirts all in a corner of her wardrobe, at least two pairs of his boots lined up neatly next to her rows and rows of heels, all things lost or forgotten by the large naked man standing in the middle of her bedroom. Turning to look at him she shook her head - there was absolutely nothing erotic about this moment at all, at best it was pathetic. "We're not talking about that tonight because you're drunk and I'm angry and it's a conversation I want you to remember," she sounded a bit like a mother trying to put her child to bed as she used her wand to strip the blankets, pillows, and sheets. When he made no indication he was going to move she pointed her wand at him, "March, my aim's even better at a distance in the light".

Finally he lumbered toward the bathroom, and she fell back on the now naked bed, fingers knotted in her hair. Merlin, what had her life come to? She was THE Dolly Fucking St. James, she'd charmed most of a nation into rabid fandom over her books. She could point at any man in a room and odds were in her favor of landing him. How the devil had she come to a place that she was still cleaning up the messes that Dominik made? If this is what life was always going to be like with him then Niobe could have him. He wasn't much of a man in this sorry state, with his pitiful eyes and pleading, still refusing to acknowledged he was wrong - even in admitting that he was a 'very bad man' it was all just an excuse to do as he well pleased and damn the repercussions.

She propped herself up on her elbows and peered into the bathroom as he called to her, "Come the fuck on! You're not three Dom, you don't need a sitter while you wash," of course as soon as she'd said it she realized that even drunk he probably needed a sitter to remind him to clean behind his ears. With a few more flicks of her wrist the bed was pieced back together, covers turned down, sheets fresh and starchy crisp - just the way she liked them. It looked so inviting she was tempted to leave him to his own devices in the tub, but the idea of having to remodel because of water damage or some other kind of damage just made her head pound too much. Twisting her hair into a knot she slipped into the bathroom and leaned over the tub to test the water.

"Besides," she finally acknowledged him, "you know where I've been. Liv wrote you all summer. We went to the Villa, and then Paris. I spent a bit of time in the countryside trying to convince Elliott to  help me with the last book, since then I've been where I've always been," she looked over her shoulder at him, a few stray curls framing her face, "this doesn't mean all is forgiven, you know. I told you to find me when you'd sorted out what you wanted. You're just too pitiful to chuck out the door at the moment". Turning off the water as the bubbles reached the lip of the tub, she gave a tilt of her head and offered him a washcloth, "In you go". She waited for him to get up and slip in, trying to ignore the ways he still played upon the strings of her heart like an expert cellist.

Dominik leaned forward, letting his head hang between his knees in a state of exhausted confusion.  He still had a bad taste in his mouth and he'd also settled into the floor and had no intention of leaving any time soon.  The toothbrush was a faraway haven and he'd never make it across the green valley's slopes.  The sun was just setting, sending an orange burst of colour across the rolling, verdant hills, interspersed with soft meadows filled with wild flowers, and Dominik was fading further into sleep....  There was mention of a red dragon looming dangerously on the horizon... he may have to travel there in her defense.  Fire curled from its mouth; veins lined its sleek wings to mimic a bat's; and as he grew larger he could see it was wearing glasses with thick, black rims around the square lenses.  What the feck....

"In you go," he heard with a start.  Awakening, Dominik looked over at Dolores with a softening expression.  "Oh, Dolly, you ran the bath."  He looked sleepy, his limbs drooping like leaves on the stem of a drowned flower. 

"Thanks, love."  He looked over his shoulder at it with his fingers curled around the lip of the tub for what felt like a full minute.  Then he made his best effort to get up and get in.  He pushed himself off from the floor like an unbalanced foal, and stumbled back a step as he stood up.  He carefully stepped over the side of the tub with first one foot and then the other.  The water was warm on his hairy legs and he felt the bubbles in a smooth, foamy layer as he stepped into the bath.  He grabbed the edges of the tub, lowering himself down as he slowly adjusted to the temperature.  He fell the last few inches with a dull, underwater thud.

"Oooph," he said in relief as he relaxed in the porcelain tub.  "Merlin's britches," he said, "thank you for this, Dolores.  I've been the universe's punching bag for the last little bit of for fecking ever and I've needed this bath so bloody bleeding bad, augh!"  He relaxed in the bubbles like a martyred soldier who deserved a break.  "You told me to come back when I've figured my head out and I still don't know what that means.  But I'm here Dolly, here for the count, Dolly, and you, you, you you, you."  He pointed in all five directions like a hallucinating madman.  Then his eyes grew sleepy and he started to curl up comfortably amid the bubbles, feeling like he rested in a flute of champagne. 

"I love you too, mum," said Dominik.

It was all a bad horribly ironic and tedious dream - that had to be it. She would wake up having passed out in the living room from too much to drink and this would all be a cringe worthy figment of her imagination because there was no way in Salazar's name she was actually playing nurse maid to a thirty-year old man-child who had no direction in life and was perfectly happy about it. She went so far as to pinch the soft pale flesh of her forearm to try and wake herself. Alas she was not dreaming, this was really happening, and she was half tempted to let him drown. It wasn't that she was cold hearted, not entirely. It was more that the weight between them had become too much to bear on her own. He wasn't carrying his half of this pseudo commitment... but even as she thought it, she found herself kneeling by the tub and letting the water trickle over his back from a sponge.

"Have you then? You poor kicked around Tom Cat," her tone was not exactly amused but not particularly biting. It was the sort of tired tone mothers used when a child was talking utter nonsense and they just wanted to go to bed. "You seem to be living the good life from the outside looking in mate; new contract, no commitments, shagging reporters after confessing your undying love to another woman," alright there was a little bite to that quip. She didn't know for sure he'd been messing about with Niobe - but she could hazard a guess. He was an oafish man with needs and she certainly hadn't been meeting them. He was also notoriously drawn to things that would make him more unhappy than happy so the reporter was as good a bet as any. In reality she couldn't even really care about it, his being with someone else didn't bother her... it was the way it felt like he cheapened everything she had ever given him.

Her life's work thus far had been a series of five novels dedicated to her love for him, to the torment she put herself through and all the ways she would never be enough; for whatever reason. As he babbled on about having come back for her she poured colder water over the top of his head - in the vain hopes of either drowning or shutting him up. She had a pithy comeback but it would be wasted on him. "I meant, when you were ready to deal with your feelings instead of run with them, when you were ready to make choices instead of just letting life happen to you and playing victim you should come find me. Obviously our owls got crossed," she poured more water over his head and sighed. "Don't pretend you've chosen me Dom. You just didn't want to be drunk and alone tonight.

She stood slowly and reached for one of the fluffy towels when he really went and did it. Mum?! "Come the fuck on, man"! her cry was indignant as she threw the towel in his face. "You, me, and your drunk floundering arse ought to get one damn thing straight - though I have played the role for a good many years I am not nor have I ever been your mum! I am a bloody sex symbol for Merlin's sake! Do you see these," she placed her hands over her breasts, "I have brought men to their knees in begging to be with me - I have sculpted every damned inch of my body to be some nymph fantasy for the male populous, I have written love scenes that I know made you salivate and all I bloody well get, taking you out of the night and not just leaving you there to rot where you belong is, "blah blah blah, I  choose you, only I'm still shagging other people, blah fecking blah MUM"?! Her black curls shook with indignation as she slapped him upside the back of the head, "Try not to drown. I'm going to bed. Useless Bastard".

The warm water spilling from the fragrant, soapy sponge over his back was positively delightful.  Dominik almost purred.  His skin had felt sticky with sweat and Pitch dirt and now he could feel it all washing away, leaving his skin soft and clean.  Dolly was right in a way, that he was somehow living the high life; but he was also suffering, because he always suffered.  He was cursed to suffer because he'd always manage to say or do the wrong thing at the wrong time.  Like saying 'mum' in this situation, for instance.  A three letter word that Dolly took as an insult to her breasts.

Dom blinked, his eyes bleary, feeling slightly more alert after having the cooler water poured over his head repeatedly.  He looked at her breasts as instructed, his brow lifting as she momentarily peeled back the loose satiny robe she wore over her pretty night lingerie.  "I...," he quieted, his eyes lifting to her face as he watched her reel and the room slightly spin above him.  Yes, he did agree, she had marvelous breasts; and, what she said about having the perfectly shaped body and writing the most mouth-watering passages were right.  Absolutely right.

However, he also couldn't deny that he was bonking someone else, even though he wasn't sure how she knew this or, if she didn't know and was merely supposing.  He wouldn't have been surprised, though, if she'd heard from one of her contacts around town that he'd been spotted with Thursby.  Since they had gotten back together a month ago, they'd been less careful about being seen together in their more blatantly romantic incarnations.  Niobe seemed allright with it as long as Dom was playing up his rebel rebel personality and not taking anything too seriously.  To an outside eye it probably looked like he was up to his old tricks again.  Dolly knew everybody and word traveled fast, so she probably knew everything.

It was safest to assume Dolly knew everything.

In a moment, though, Dom was thrown into a world of confusion.  Why was she upset that he was with someone else?  Was she going on about how he had chosen her and was he supposed to have... what was he supposed to have... now she was going to bed and leaving him alone in the tub and oh, Merlin, he would drown to death!

"No wait come back," cried Dominik. 

He sat up and the water sloshed against the side of the tub, carrying a pink sparkly rubber ducky into  the bubbles with him.  Dominik caught it with his feet and slid back into the water again to rest on his back.  He pulled the rubber ducky up to sit on his stomach and made it splash around in the water making duck noises and calling, "Come back, Dolores," in a cute, stupid voice.

Of all the things to call her! Mum?! It wasn't that she didn't adore his mother - she did, far more than she loved her own... but she wasn't his mother. She wasn't anyone's mother. She wasn't meant to be a mother. She was a symbol for sexual liberation, the poster girl for the notion one did not have to conform to societal norms to be happy and prosperous. It was a well sculpted lie she had spent years pouring herself into and that bastard reduced her to the lowest common function of womanhood in an instant. Well, that wasn't exactly true, being a mother was important. Just because her's was no good at it, but it was the idea attached to being called Mum. It brought back all the times she'd selflessly taken care of him, taken him in, loved him despite the worst parts of himself. She could have been a brood sow for all he bloody well cared and thought of her. She wanted to cry and hated herself for it. She was strong. She was independent, and he wasn't worth the salt in her tears.

Shrugging off her robe she tossed it onto a nearby chair before sweeping her hair up atop her head in a pert ponytail. She could hear him sloshing and calling for her to come back but didn't bother to answer before slipping between the fresh sheets of her bed. They smelled of lilacs and a crisp fresh breeze. A part of her was tempted to go grab a bottle of rum from the other room but found it took too much energy to even think of moving from her astonishingly comfortable bed. So she blew out the bedside lamp, and settled into her pillows. Though moments before it had all felt so heavy, once she was curled under her blankets, a fall breeze wafting through the slightly open window she felt her muscles relax. It was like sleeping on a cloud really, a loving cloud that contoured to the shape of her hips and back and never dreamed of calling her Mum... because it was a bed and it's only job was to support her while she rested. Men needed to be more like beds and less like themselves.

It was then she heard the quacking, one blue eye opened as she turned her head toward the open bathroom door. She thought about reaching for her wand and seeing if she could make the glittering pink duck explode (or maybe take out one of Dom's eyes). Instead she buried her face in her pillow and gave a good long scream (though it was thoroughly muffled). Strangely, that made her feel better - but not enough better to get up and see what it was Dominik wanted. Obstinately she burrowed further under her covers, with just the tip of her nose peeking out; though she had rolled on her side to face the bathroom door. There was a sleeping draught in her bedside table. She could take it and sleep the sleep of the dead if she wanted. It was a tempting idea, but then if he really did die and she didn't do anything to save him Falcon's fans would lynch her, "Ugh! Can't you drown more quietly? I'm asleep," maybe he was drunk enough to buy that. She could only hope.

Dominik splashed a little while further with the pink sparkly rubber ducky, enjoying himself and calling sweetly and dumbly to Dolly for assistance in the tub.  His voice grew more high-pitched with his requests drawing forth into silence.  When she told him she was asleep and that he should drown more quietly, he thoroughly believed her, and quieted down.  His splashing grew noticeably quieter and more calculated, his movements slow and drawn out as he begun to play out his frustrations with the duck.

Moving the ducky up and down in the water like a poorly trained ventriloquist, while he spoke in a taut voice impersonating Dolores, Dominik said, "I'm sleeping, Dominik!  I'm so sleepy cause I'm sleeping, and your face is sooooooooo stupid.  Stupid faced Dominik, leave me alone why don't you?  No, come back, why are you spending so much time away from me?  Augh!  Drown me cause I hate this; no, don't, drown yourself.  Life would be so sweet without you all up in my business.  Go away.  Figure yourself out." 

He changed his voice, appealing to the duck.  "But I don't want to go away," he whined.  "I want to stay with you in this washy... water existence.  Myeaaheaa."

A moment of silence.  Then....

"Dolores?"

Was she still awake?