wearing
WARNING Possible foul language.

---

There was a word for people who regularly broke into someone’s apartment - in most cases it was “stalker”, or maybe “psycho” - in the case of the leggy dark haired woman using her wand to jimmy open Dominik’s back bathroom window it was actually “best friend”. There was a method to Dolly St. James’ madness. She wasn’t just creeping up on some former flame. This was sort of a tradition between them. She’d always been good at getting into places she oughtn’t and Dom’s apartment was no exception. The thing was, despite the seventeen locks on his front door? Every time she got in she used the same window and he’d never done anything to fix it. It was sort of like a game between them - he’d come home and roar about her invading his privacy and she’d point out she’d had dinner waiting for him and a stiff drink and before long they’d be stuffed and snuggling on the couch. Dominik always threatened to throw her out on her ass but he’d never actually gotten around to doing it. Like most things with the moody beater, Dolly knew it was a whole lot of pretense. His bark was far worse than his bite. Most people didn’t know that because the bark was so convincing, but having known him since she was in nappies… well he just didn’t scare her the way he scared and intrigued most people. She knew the part of him that had thrown her in mud puddles and then turned around and beat up other boys for daring to touch her.

He still had a bad habit of doing the latter actually - it would have been funny if it didn’t make her already complicated love life that much harder. Then again, since the beak up with Elliot and the day Dom started seeing Rocio it had been less of a “love life” and more a “rotating schedule of pretty people”. She didn’t allow herself to spend too much time with any one person. She kept things casual, first name basis but not “random drop by” intimate. She didn’t even bother to owl ahead and tell him she was coming home from the Island. It was a surprise - sort of. She felt rather guilty after sending her last letter. She blamed the mixture of vodka and rum in her system - she was a horrible drunk sometimes, mostly when she was alone. She’d really needed him to come be with her for her birthday and then his owl hadn’t even shown up until the evening of. She had waited all day, thinking maybe he would surprise her. Then she’d started drinking - with nothing in her stomach and that was just a disaster waiting to strike someone in the face. She’d been mean and she knew she’d hurt his feelings. She didn’t even really mean anything she’d said…

He was really the only person she did that with, that she could become so hateful and evil toward. It was one of the great mysteries of love. She cared so much about him and yet she found herself lashing out at him most of all when she was struggling or in pain. Dominik didn’t need any help to feel bad about or sorry for himself. She just saw him throw away so much of his talent, of the good things that still lived in him… it broke her heart and it made her vicious. Sighing as she slipped through the window and pulled her usual bag of tricks in behind her, she felt herself grimacing a little. It was an awfully sordid little flat. Dom didn’t take care of things, so her suggestion of getting a house elf fell on deaf ears. Stepping over a pile of dirty clothes she shook her head and tugged off the floppy hat she’d been hiding behind since getting back into London. As far as anyone knew she was still in Virgin Gorda. She wanted a little time to get over jetlag before letting everyone know she was home. Cranky Dom and cranky Dolly could still be best friends, cranky Dolly and the rest of the world? Not so much - and she couldn’t afford the bad press right now.  She was still on a short leash with Troll House Publishing.

Standing in the kitchen she placed her hands on her hips and chewed her bottom lip. He was in a spiral that was for sure. There were empty bottles littering just about every flat surface - accompanied by shredded drawings and cigarette butts. Pouring herself a drink she tried to find a place to at least…start cleaning. This was one of those things that fell under their strange relationship umbrella. All the hassle of being his girlfriend, none of the perks. Though, in reality, it was more like playing house for a night than a bother. Besides even if it was dingy and mope educing… it was still more familiar and safe than her own flat. Her apartment had a distinctly non-lived-in feeling. It was more like a hotel than a home. Topping off her drink she picked up one of the charcoal sketches and leaned against the counter, though it had been torn in half she could see it was a woman’s face. She looked up as the front door’s locks clicked open one by one, a bemused smile twitched on her lips as she moved toward it, drawing in hand, head cocked to the side as a bedraggled Dom came into view, “So, I suppose this is the reason you couldn’t get off your self loathing arse long enough to come cheer me up for my birthday.” her voice was light as she extended the drawing to him. Typical.   

Dominik Wiedman was just coming in from Quidditch practice, and he still had on his grey Falcons robes, shin guards and gloves.  With wand at work in one hand, new 'green' broom in the other, he finagled his locks with expert finesse and pushed the door in with his right shoulder.  But he stopped halfway -- spotting... Dolly... in his path, in his apartment.  For a moment he just looked at her.  He had a black eye and his robes were wet.  Then he took the torn drawing from her, half crumpling it as he stepped in the rest of the way and closed the door behind him.  One of the locks clicked automatically.

"What are you doing here?"  He glanced at the drawing in his hand as he walked across the room, tracking in mud and leaves, and threw it in the fireplace.  The hard black lines of her face were foreign, belonged to yesterday's mood.  Tonight there might've been more if he'd been left to himself.  He'd turn on the phonograph and draw by the fire with a bottle of Ogden's before stalking off into the night.  If he didn't live in such a shit neighborhood, if he didn't have a problem with celebrities who spent their free time breaking and entering.  Alright, it was just the one then.  But it looked as though his night was booked.  No stalking down Niobe and her two black cats for a late night in her private London flat.  If she'd let him in.  No finding out if she'd let him in.  No falling out of trees. 

Maybe it was for the best.  No, maybe Dolly wouldn't linger.  Maybe she just came by to make sure he hadn't forgotten he was a duffer and an imbecile.  Maybe she could let him get back to that, then.

Dominik stuck his Sequoia Leaf broom upside down in a pot of water by the window and gave the curtains a small tug to let in a bit of light.   

"'I don't even like you now that I think about it'," quoted Dominik in his best annoying girlie voice.  He collapsed backward onto the bed and began undoing his clonky boots and shin guards, setting them on the floor.  His hair was mussed up and he wasn't shaven.  He stunk of earthy sweat, mud and rain and -- if you got close enough, blood.  He glanced up and across the room at Dolly St. James with a dark, heavy brow to express his pointed annoyance.  "I'm not in a mood for a celebration in a Sunny happy-land and I get a four page letter lambasting me for being a 'moody little wank'?  Why are you even here?"

Dominik had gotten her long drunken rant whose main subject was how terrible a person he was at a very dark and dour time.  He hadn't bothered writing back and he didn't bother denying any of it; it was all, mostly, true, if not a little exaggerated.  But that wasn't the point.  He didn't need that.  He'd told her himself he was a bloody arsehole.  He'd asked her to be his sunshiney happy half and he'd take her out to dinner after.  But blimey -- she didn't expect him to take her out to dinner now, did she?  The fragile slip of a thing whose life he had managed to destroy by simply not going to the Virgin Islands?  What?  Women were infuriating.

"Listen," he said, standing and pulling off his robes so he was standing there in his knickers.  "I already know what a louse I am, and I won't be needing any lectures tonight, so you can let herself right back out that window Dolly."  He turned round to pull out some black robes from his stand-up wardrobe and started pulling them on with the same roughness that framed all of his actions, apparently waiting for her to leave.

Her heart hurt when she looked at him. Merlin she was a such beast sometimes - well technically they both were, but she hated when he looked at her like that - like she made him the most miserable bastard on the planet. She still loved him, which was unfortunate for them both. It meant that she had expectations for him and it meant that he disappointed her when he didn’t meet them. It was a vicious cycle, and then they would start all over again. His annoyance at seeing her was not uncommon but tonight was one of the few times it was probably well deserved. She wondered, vaguely, about the woman in the sketch. She was a new love interest, Dolly knew that - he only bothered to sketch women he couldn’t get out of his head. When she was young and insecure and just playing at being a heartbreaker she used to tease him that he never drew her - in reality it had actually been a hard blow to her self worth that she was never on his mind. Oh, to be young and stupidly, blindly in love with the one person who didn’t know you were amazing - only to have them realize it for the briefest flash and then leave you.

Pursing her lips to one side she let him stalk in, she let him snipe at her - though she visibly winced when he quoted her letter. She felt like someone slapped her, but also rather like she deserved it. She was so hateful to him sometimes, and not that the vast majority of what she said had been untrue… it just didn’t need to be said. He heard routinely what an absolute disappointment he was, he had to deal with people creating stories about him out of thin air, her job… the only thing she’d ever wanted to really do in her life was to make him happy. She loved when he laughed, she lived for the moments when they were together and she could get him to crack a smile. He did it so rarely, his face always pinched, displeased, gruff. While she loved that gruffness she missed the boy he had been, the one who spun her around ballrooms and had carried her up marble staircases to languidly haunt her bed.

When he whipped off his robes she felt her stomach lurch, why did he have to be such a gorgeous mess? It made her body ache and she hated herself. Swallowing hard she inched closer to him, letting him rail against her. She took it all in stride and silence. When he turned his back to her, she waited just long enough to let the robes settle over his frame before slipping her slender arms around his middle, resting her head against his back. She inhaled deeply - still smelling that earthy man smell, feeling his pulse under her fingers. She stretched her back, placing a small kiss on the side of his neck, voice soft as she laid her cheek there, “I’m a wretched drunk when I’m alone Niki. I always have been, you know that”. Slipping around to face him, lithe body working it’s way under his arm to avoid letting him go, her big blue eyes doleful, full bottom lip caught between her teeth as she looked up at him, dark curls quivering.

“I came home as soon as I could, I haven’t slept in days I feel so dreadful,” reaching up to lightly touch the corner of his eye - before thinking better of it and letting her fingers brush through his hair, she gave a deep sigh, “I’m equally horrible at apologizing - writing to tell you I wanted to take it all back wouldn’t have been enough. I know even being here now isn’t enough…” she let her voice trail off as she stood on her tip toes and placed a fleetingly soft kiss against the dark bruise forming on his cheekbone, “I just couldn’t stand another minute of you silently hating me for being such a wretch… but if you want me to go, I’ll go,” she looked at him waiting for an answer - she was almost sorry she’d said the last part. She wasn’t sure he’d want her to stay this time, for all her bad behavior she’d really out done herself with the letter…and there was the new fixation in his life. It all made her chest feel painfully hollow.

Dominik, with his back turned, had been buttoning from the top when suddenly warm arms wrapped around his torso and -- all of his movement stopped completely in mid button.  He had only reached the second one.  His stance turned very cautious and completely still.  That felt -- too good.

He had lifted his arms a half inch further away from his body in the split second after she'd gone to embrace him; they were still poised before him in the air on his second button, and he didn't want to be sending signals by way of returning some rather sensual embraces.  They were sensual to Dominik, anyway.  One could not NOT have tingles when they had Dolly St. James on their person, she was built to break men.  Still she was a fragile slip of a thing and he was a monster.  In their fairytale, one move could break her.  He was not behaving frigidly but he was certainly careful and collected, with the ease and the grace of a well-balanced athlete. 

Her head was rested against him, and Dominik let his eyes drop to the arms around his middle.  He listened, didn't say or do anything, until she came around to face him.  As she came into his line of vision he watched her closely, his gaze intense but also guarded.  He had to be cautious because it took a certain amount of effort and self-control not to simply take hold of her and pull her into the bed.

It was one of two things or some strange combination of both:  Dolly and Dominik were what one might call familiar -- he took her embraces as much as a brother as he did a bachelor.  And sometimes it was hard to tell which role he was supposed to be playing.  There was the part of them that belonged to the realm of close friendship, and then there was the part of them that was pure temptation.  Dominik generally shied away from his feelings for Dolly, that is to say the nether ones that made him want to touch her; he still saw her as a nice thing that shouldn't be spoiled.  And he knew how he spoiled things.  There was only one time when he had said to hell with it and threw himself at her with poetic ferocity, the young supple friend he often hungered after.  It had been brilliant then.  But he wouldn't be as selfish again.

Dominik certainly didn't stop her from sharing her affections, but he didn't necessarily respond either.  He was trying to cool down in more ways than one, and it was a challenge to not have any sort of... response.  Wherever she touched him, it tingled.

If there was one redeeming quality to Dominik Wiedman, however, it was that he didn't cheat -- not even on the woman who was not yet aware of the fact that she was... his girlfriend.  But she was! -- thought Dominik.  She would be.  Once Dominik figured out what exactly it was that she wanted him to do with his head.  Or something easier that might impress her.  Until then it was best to prove his undivided interest by not tempting fate. 

That wasn't all that held him back from openly touching Dolores, however.  There was still the fact that this poor kid had terrible taste in men, and Dominik knew he was one of them.  Less than what she should have been going for with absolutely nothing to offer her.  She'd just said it all herself in the letter, not two weeks ago.  What had changed?  Nothing.  So why did she bother?

In a lot of ways it would have been easier if his sister's play-friend had never developed an attachment to Dominik all those years ago; he adored Dolly, but he always upset her.  If she wasn't so attached she could have climbed out the window and saved herself a load of trouble.  Instead, she wanted to stay, wanted to go through the circuit again.  With the way that she was, with her charms and her sad eyes, Dominik couldn't say no.  And truthfully, he didn't know what he would do without Dolly's helplessly hopeful perspective keeping him in check.

There was no reason that Dominik could see that she should want to offer an apology to him, though.  So Dominik squinted at her after a moment, held her chin in one hand and kissed her on the cheek.  Then he took a step backward, blinked and bowed his head, continuing to button his robe over bare chest with black tattoos winding up his arms.

"Stay if you want," he offered finally.  "I don't know; it's fine.  Just forget it."  Dominik ran his hands through his hair and went into the kitchen.  His movement wasn't as rushed now as he uncorked one of his sister's creations from the counter and imbibed a few gulps.  He had to regrow teeth today and his mouth still ached and tasted like blood.  He hated it when that happened.  Admittedly the pain was something to wallow in, better than being numb, but Dominik had enough of it in all kinds of places that he could afford to dumb some of it down and still feel used up.

He moved his jaw back and forth a few times, pulled some things out of a small drawer, and emerged from the kitchen watching Dolly as he came back with cigarettes.  He stuck one in his mouth as he walked up to her, then put the other directly in the center of her lips for her like she was his dress-up doll.  It made him smirk a little bit.  He reached past her for his wand on the dresser-top, lit hers first, then his, and went to collapse on the couch like a pile of rocks. 

"Next time just don't say I didn't tell you," he said.  He always said that.  She always went on thinking he was a good man, too.  He couldn't break her heart enough to save her the trouble of trying.  Or was it that he couldn't go far enough to say leave when he wanted her to stay, for himself, selfishly?  Whatever it was the circle was complete, the ground prepared for another round.  And the cautionary tale shoved into the corner with yesterday's tabloids.

Dom stayed quiet as he took in the first few drags of his cigarette as though replenishing his life force.  It quickly clouded the room in smoke.

"How did everything... work out," he asked stupidly, looking over beneath dark brow in a squint.

There was a wall between them, in the face of their history it was small - but it was there. He tried to keep part of himself from her. It hadn’t always been that way, and sometimes when the whiskey was flowing if only for a night she could make it fall away again. The problem was… well she didn’t know what the problem actually was. There were times when she didn’t know if it was that he wanted her too much or not at all. He was a masochist by nature and as he tortured himself he tortured her - staying just out of her reach, so close to satisfaction but never surrendering completely. She couldn’t remember when it had changed, when silly school girl infatuation had fragmented into…more. She drowned in it, the longing… the misery - it was all very I burn, I pine, I perish. She hated it and yet she wouldn’t know who she was without it. So much of Dominik defined who she had been and molded her into who she would be.

They were the keepers of history. She knew him in a way no one else could because for the briefest moment she had been in the inner sanctum no one else had ever reached. She had read his poetry, seen his art, watched him “evolve”. She knew the part of him that was wounded but gentle. She knew the man behind the curtain. That was who she loved. And he… well he knew what she was capable of. He knew Dolores, sans makeup standing on a balcony in Paris, hair drawn atop her head in nothing but a night shirt and glasses. Away from the tabloid scandal and the fame, without the boyfriends or the burlesque routine - the woman she could be without a drop of alcohol in her system.

It hurt that he didn’t fold her in his arms and tell her all was forgiven. Watching him move away from her, arms empty the pain in her chest grew. She didn’t have any right to demand anything from him. His aloofness was more than deserved. She had struck every cord she knew would wound him - she’d don’t it on purpose. She’d never worked so hard to hurt people she hated - and yet saying those things, meaning those things when she wrote them, it came so naturally. Unlike his sister and Liviana she had not yet mastered the art of waiting out Dominik. There were times, yes, when she could pause long enough to let him have the space he seemed to need… but those moments were few and far between. For the most part she held on tightly, scared to let him go for fear he’d never come back.

He needed a tether, someone to remind him that there was more than practice and suffering, more than the past and still hope for the future. She was selfish and couldn’t stand the idea of someone else giving him that. The part of her that was still sixteen and longed for his approval would have twisted herself in knots to be the one who could always make him smile, the one he wanted to come home to every night. It both was and wasn’t who she really was. There were moments in her life that she felt every version of herself she’d ever been rollicking around inside her skin - at war with one another and of varying opinions as to the effectiveness of the rest. This was never more true than when he touched her, brushing his lips against her cheek She was thirteen and infatuated, sixteen and giddy, twenty and wounded - all jumbled up together. The strangest thing it was not all together unpleasant.

She inhaled deeply as he sparked the cigarette between her lips - not bothering to argue with him that it was obviously not fine and she’d never forget it. The smoke settled in her lungs, burning before she finally exhaled. They were settling in for the night, the tone set itself as it always did, somewhere between comfort and suffocating. She watched him move, the back of her throat dry, dissatisfied. There had been a part of her that had wanted him to just pull her into bed, to get lost in his sheets for the night, to be the salve for his wounds, even just for the night. She wanted to make him feel…something, anything remotely resembling “alive”. She wanted to give him something that no one else had ever been able to - a sense of peace, of belonging to something, someone in ways greater than can be understood by the minds of mere mortal men. It was poetic - and selfish. Obviously he was getting that feeling from someone else now.

She considered his offer followed by his question as she moved toward her bag parked on the counter. Inside was an excessively large bottle of Bourbon. She’d picked it up the last time she was in the states, it burned like hellfire but that was the reason she loved it, “Rhys left Odette, Lilith is newly married, and Devlin has found a new lady love,” she paused as she dropped two ice cubes each into squat glasses, pouring the amber liquid over them. Looking over her shoulder she gave him a brief smile before taking a large gulp and moving toward the couch, “It’s bloody tragic - but then I suppose we know better than anyone most love stories are,” she stood in front of him, glass extended, a peace offering of sorts. They would get drunk and languish in the smoke filled room for the night. All in all, there were worst ways to spend an evening.

Sliding into his lap, her legs draped over his, back pressed against the arm of the couch she inhaled deeply again. She could feel the tension in her shoulders slowly working loose as she kicked off her boots. She needed to be close to him - no matter how smothering being right on top of him seemed. She didn’t use any of her tricks, the subtle or not so subtle ploys of seduction she’d picked up over the years. Whether it as because she didn’t think they’d work or she was sure they would and it would cheapen everything she could never decide. Lightly touching his hair she sighed, it was still damp against her fingers, her smile vague as she pressed her forehead to his jaw, “I had ever intention of having dinner ready when you got home. Apparently my book isn’t the only instance where my timing is completely off. I think I’m still working in Island hours. Forgive me for being a wretched pseudo-housewife?” she pulled back to look at him, her bottom lip protruding playfully.

Dominik leaned into the corner of the couch on his elbow, posturing his hand so that his index finger and thumb framed the right side of his face.  He watched Dolly navigate his kitchen from across the room, fixing them drinks without the need to ask his fancy for them.  This was the next step in their reiterating equation:  helping him forget for a while just how much he hated the miserable world, himself and his tormented mind.  And this time, maybe, numbing that new tooth of his.

Listening to the string of romantic connections or disconnections between the characters of her imagination, Dominik kept a mostly vacant expression.  But, inside was a different matter.  She was lonely.  Why had Rhys left?  Was the wedding there in detail?  Were the vows outrageous?  What about the dirty parts?  How was Devlin painted?  Who was the girl?  Was it....

He'd just have to wait until Dazmond graciously gave him a copy of the early release, black hard cover book in secret.  Volume five.  A copy for my friend.  That was how he always played it.  He had all four early releases in a locked drawer under his bed.  Tragic.  He liked the sound of that.

He watched her for another extended moment as she held the drink out ritualistically.  After a moment a half-formed smile very briefly flashed across his visage and he broke his rigid form to accept the offering. 

"Cheers," he said, and a few mild preparations were made for her inevitable climb onto his lap -- this time a sort of contact that was devoid of the seduction that usually graced her movements.  It was conciliatory in nature, and common to them, a comfortable call-back to the days when she frequented his lap in the company of friends.  School days.  An easy, grounded pairing of bodies.  Dolly had always done the same as Dazmond, using her closest friends as furniture.  Dominik had never minded.  He had three couches and still she sat on his lap.  It was like having a puppy. 

"No big.  I ate Bradley on the pitch.  Broke my teeth on his bloody ankle bone," he joked.  Actually it was a bludger.  He'd gone on pitch with a headache and when he tried to pull up for the shot he came up a second short.  Flew right into the damn thing.  But Dominik sort of waved it off, taking a whiff of his liquor.  It was a golden amber colour with a dull, spicy scent; when he sipped it, he found it was smoky with fruity undertones and a long-lasting after taste.  It had a rough finish that was cut a little by the ice, but Dominik's sips were, as always, giant.

"As far as I'm concerned, this is dinner," he said.  "You'll want to accio that bottle, actually."  Dominik flicked his cigarette in the standing ashtray behind Dolly, took a deep breath and coughed.  Tasting blood again, he took another sip and swished it around in his mouth before swallowing in a big gulp.  "Welcome home," he said a little dryly.  "You just get in?"

Her newest book, the last she’d worked on with Elliot was by far the most raw and honest. She became sloppy with the veil that she often used to sperate her real life experiences from the fictional ones. In book five she recounted the painful details of Elliot leaving her as well as Dominik’s decent into a maddening obsession with Rocio Adair. She wrote about it because it was like a poison in her soul. It had been more of a surprise to her however, that writing about how happy she and Elliot had seemed was more painful than writing about even the very night he left her, using his exact words I have loved you since the moment I met you, but I can’t love you like that anymore. I can’t love all of you while you’re loving all of someone else. I thought, for a long time, I’d rather play second fiddle then not be in the band at all…but it’s killing both of us. This isn’t any kind of life at all Stella. Her heart had genuinely broken when he used his pet name for her. To the world at large she was Dolly St.James, to Dominik she was little Dolores. Only Elliot had ever called her Stella, a soft nicknamed murmured between sheets or late at night over new revisions and too much wine. She hadn’t loved him in the right way…but she had loved him.

Now here she was, back in Dominik’s lap, watching the rise and fall of his chest, the bruises and scratches on his visible body…and she knew that a part of her knew…despite the infrequency in recent years she still knew every inch of skin - while Elliot’s face was beginning to fade from memory unless she reminded herself. She knew Elli had been right. She knew it would have been unfair for them to stay together… but with him she felt like perhaps there was some chance for a life - a normal life, something more than being salve with the wounds became too much for Dominik to bear. Something more than a pseudo-housewife who broke in through the bathroom window, something better than throwing herself into a bottle of Bourbon or illicit potion when suddenly the person she loved with all of herself thought he was in love with someone knew. For all of him she loved…the moments he left her lonely often mad her run as far as possible from Dominik. She would go into hiding, she took lovers and ate far too many carbs…

But without fail she would find herself back in this lap, watching the rise and fall of his chest, breathing his familiar smell, loving him so much it changed her, and trying to pretend nothing was different at all. Raising her wand she summoned the bottle and set it on the floor next to them, her head rested in the crook of his neck, dark curls rubbing against his jaw. She made a soft humming noise of sympathy when he spoke, lips brushing the sot just behind his ear again, smile in her voice as she spoke, “Ah, my darling little cannibal, teammates and booze are not a proper meal. Even if it is someone as beastly as bloddy Bradley,” propping herself up to get a good look at him, her nose wrinkled, “Where else would I go? The museum I call a flat? Of course I’ve only just got in, and as much as I missed your lovely presence I must say London leaves much to be desired compared to the Islands. I had a lovely cabana girl you would have appreciated, and spent countless hours writing in a barely there bikini…which you also would have appreciated,” tapping the tip of his nose, her bottom lip protruded a little bit, “Did you miss me at all? Even though I’m a complete wretch”.

"Course I did Dolly, stop with this 'wretch' codswallop," said Dominik lightly, resting his glass on her leg and leaning his head back on the old leather couch.  He was dog tired and beat up.  There was nothing very new about that, but it had been a long, frustrating week.  "How could I not miss you?"  His tone took a laid-back, even lazy, turn and he took another draw from his cigarette, thoughtfully.  "London does... leave much to be desired.  That's why I like it I think.  I can't do the silver platter much."  He paused and ruminated over that, a pang of guilt and annoyance surfacing for having made her so miserable on her birthday.  He hadn't exactly done anything, though, he supposed that was the problem.  He thought a moment, then on the tail-end of an exhale expressed his reasoning.  "What's left to life if there's no struggle for it."

It wasn't a question.  The struggle was for life itself, an unattainable one he was starting to think.  But if he just told himself it was some sort of Truth, he could keep on with the doing of it.  Any sort of easy situation or island paradise would be naught but a farce and a distraction from the Truth.  Which is why he lived in an underdog part of London in a sordid flat, when he had enough money to do or go anywhere he wanted.  Most of it cycled into booze and family.  Dominik would have me not mention the vast quantities of parchment.

"Nah," he said lowly.  "We can go for a bite in a few if you want.  I'm not opposed." 

In fact, he was completely resigned with limbs half limp, a dumb lump on his antique furniture with the famous and glamorous Dolly St. James draped across him.  A strange, exclusive moment worthy of front page news.  He felt a little like he was on the psychoanalyst's couch and there was all sorts of transference going on all over the place.  Yeah cause the 'doctor'?  She was in his lap.  It was... strange... but not unfamiliar.  Dominik just blinked his heavy eyes, feeling like he might actually just fall asleep.

But what he'd miss then, was anyone's guess and, he did care enough to not want to miss a beat.  What that meant, he wasn't sure but, the refuge of dumbed down easy dreams was just laborious enough for him to push off in favor of some long-lost bonding.  Except he didn't know what to say that'd be either meaningful or prophetic so he just said, "Bradley's a beast" and then -- "not as beastly as my headache early on in game."  It was something, he was trying, and it proved a lot more meaningful than most of his conversations at a time like this -- which was to say there were none at a time like this, except for a time like now.

Yes, she was at the back of his mind, Niobe.  Or rather the front of, or was it the center of?  But to him it was much more than decor.  Not everyone thought that Niobe was beautiful, or even pretty, but to Dominik she stood for things no posterchild could be capable of -- she was a seed in his mind, connected by well-situated root to a place in his life that was pivotal in this moment -- that, he couldn't help.  Life was unspectacular.  His romantic leanings made it livable.  There was his Rocio, the perfect to-be-bride of childhood, before the world had changed for him, and darkened.  The resparking of that never-before-touched flame this last Summer had given him hope for a normal life -- and then died.  The rebound was his obsessive longing after Niobe Thursby, his prideful writer with a thirst for knowing things.  She had been what he held onto, the idea of her, as he acclimated to this new sort of life as a man famous 'for doing none other than what he was told'.*

And then there was Dolores, who in the beginning was a family heirloom, one among many of the frequent guests to the Wiedman cottage in youth, since he was all but four years old, born the same year as his sister and hence encouraged by proud pureblood parents to form bonds where they could.  From Dazmond's playmate she'd gradually been transferred over to Dominik's circle at some point, and she'd never left it.  Most had.  Dominik didn't have many of the friends he made in school.  Some of them were dead.  Some of them were in prison.  And the ones who were left simply didn't like who he turned into after school.

Dolly stayed.

Dominik drank another swig of spirits and looked around his flat.  My, was it entertaining.  But Dolly stayed; she was loyal and he knew that only too well.

---

* Reference to 31 Knots lyric.

She was loyal, painfully so actually, and to her own detriment. That was what Elliot had left her - knowing the woman you want to mother your children is in love with someone is must have been unbearable but when she went so far as to outright choose Dominik over him… there was no going back. It was the big night for him, a chance to be made into a partner at Troll House. They had been planning this evening for weeks, what she would wear what they would serve. He needed her to be there with him not only for her charming after dinner conversation skills but because she was a large part of the reason that he was afforded the opportunity. Her books had put them on the map in his world as much as it had thrust her in the public eye. They were equal partners in this, they always had been. He had never been like a babysitter for her, never talked down to her or tried to censor her stories. He had believed in her, after the first book he encouraged her to look deeper, try new things. Not all of them went over well with the company - but he fought hard for her.

And what had she done? When he needed her the absolute most? She had fallen asleep in Dominik’s arms because his need for her was just a little bit more raw. She hadn’t had sex with him, she wasn’t a cheater - no matter what people wanted to believe. What she had done was far worse, sex could have been explained away, blamed on alcohol. No, she deserted Elliot one of the few times he asked her for anything in return for all of his love. Dom had had a bad game, the worst actually - which was saying quite a lot as Dom was regularly ejected from the pitch. She’d been there, she went home with him. She kept telling herself, as the hours dwindled there was still so much time before she had to leave, and then it was well if she skipped x y and z she could get there in time, then it was be fashionably late… and then she had written Elliot an owl explaining she just couldn’t leave Dom before she crawled into bed beside him, placed a kiss against either of his eyelids and cradled his head against her chest. She gave him all the comfort she could - the one who turned her away. In the morning, when she arrived home Elliot was waiting for her, calm and collected, all of his clothes packed.

She couldn’t even bring herself to try and blame anyone else. Could she blame Dominik? It might have been easy to try, but it was her choice. She was the one who had never been able to tell him now. Even laying against him now she knew that he was not thinking of her. No, he was thinking of the mystery woman - and in the back of her mind she knew that she had done this to Elliot. She had broken his heart this way every time she let Dominik suck her in, every shared glance and small smile, every time he hugged her just a little too long. Every childhood story she loved to tell, she knew now that it felt like a million little knives cutting away at your soul. Pin prick after pin prick bleeding the better part of you dry. She hated herself for doing that to someone else, hated that she had been as selfish as Dominik - that she spoiled relationships because she couldn’t let go. She felt weak, weighed down by so much self loathing. She was not built for introspection, not with the life she’d lead up to this point.

Yet watching him there, his head lulled back, tired eyes drooping as his body sagged she found herself, for the millionth time, wanting to soak up the pain that left him so desolate, to bring a little light to his eyes again. Kissing his chin she stroked his hair, voice a soft coo, “If I can’t get you to go out dancing with me on a night you haven’t been beat all to hell and I am wearing a scandalously snug low cut dress, I highly doubt I’m getting you off this sofa to eat tonight in just my sweatshirt,” she smiled against his chin, trailing her lips along his jaw, “I like when you pretend though,” she kissed his temple, still stroking his hair, her glass of bourbon forgotten on the floor. She smelled like Vanilla and smoke, her skin smooth as she cuddled close to his tired body, trying to will some of her endless energy into his bones. Mostly what happened was she felt herself weighed down. It made her heart heavy - but the answer to that was simple enough. She would go out later, the next day even, and soak up the low lights of Signature. She would be fawned over and for a little while Dominik wouldn’t matter so much.