Dominik rolled off, onto his back, and gave a relieved, heavy sigh to the ceiling.  His movement made the bed bounce, then everything was very still....

Niobe had been coming over of her own accord about once a week since the New Year.  Consequence of crossing paths and indulging in their prurient hunger for each other.  Drawn together by some laughing god to watch the year end, Dom and Niobe had woken up in a tangled mess, seemingly back at the beginning.

Dom had more or less taken her friend, Maggie's, advice.  His stalker-like behavior had ceased, but the thoughts hadn't.  Neither had the indelicate sessions of heavy petting, though it certainly wasn't his fault if she came round.  Clearly, she still wanted it.  Dominik... he'd take whatever he could get.  It was enough to allow him to carry the old delusions, that she, too, was madly in love and just didn't know her own heart.  Her love showed alright, in a way which cast out all sort of verbal confirmation.  What was so good about words though?  To hell with words of affection, if that's the law Niobe laid down.  Nothing was as real or fantastic as one of their raw tumbles, anyway. 

But what it took to play this game, for Dominik, was a lot of repression.  He had to hold his tongue, still his hand from taking up the charcoal bits from the fire to draw with, and otherwise occupy time to prevent seeking her out every minute of everyday.  He had to be a bit numb to the thoughts swimming through his head, still the stoking fire in his heart.  But boy, was it there, itching to come out in some way other than spirited bonking.  Even now, as he lay counting his blessings all spent on his bed, staring at the ceiling in stupified bliss and exhaustion, Dominik wanted to just say Feck, I love you!  He wanted to roll back over and hold her.  But, he also wanted to keep the happy feelings in his body, which a knee to the groin might counteract.

The other words he thought to say, they were no good either.  Not good enough for her, and he toed the line.  She had him completely under her thumb, he knew.  And he didn't care.  Her thumb wasn't her heart, but it was still attached to her bewildering beauty.  So Dom just reached over to the night stand with a deep stretch to fetch his pouch of tobacco and rolling papers, and pulled a pillow up behind him.  The place where his words would have gone if he'd let them? -- it was filled instead with sighs and low, carnal groans.  Had to tell her somehow, hadn't he.  Body smooshing good, said caveman Dominik.  Me like girl.  Girl pretty.

As he rolled the smoke, though, Dominik looked over at her and held his gaze a moment too long, his eyes displaying all his secret fondness.  A smile loomed somewhere just below the surface before he went back to his activity, licking the paper and rolling it up nice and tight.  He lit it, inhaled and exhaled, and slunk back into the bed heavily with an attempt at keeping her round longer than it took her to catch her breath.

"It's gotten late though," he said, a bit humored as he squinted in an inhale, angling his head to see the fire that'd been roaring when she got in was just a pile of little flickering embers now.  "You can stay if you want.  Sounds a bit nasty out there, you'll catch a chill."  Against the window the rain and the wind played a tune.  Careful to not let his movements go soft, he tugged the blankets up from where they hung near the floor and tossed them over her legs, then fell back into his spot heavily and ashed the cigarette in a glass on the night stand.

---

*Thread title taken from the song Beauty by 31 Knots

Niobe, from her prone position next to Dominik, languidly extended an arm blindy, aiming of his head.  Her fingers grazed his ear and she groped for better, then her reach found his hair, his forhead.  She followed the bridge of his nose down in a clumsy but gentle grab for his cigarette.

"Don't," she whined.  "Makes you smell like my grandfather..."

She pushed herself up to sitting and pulled her shirt from the headboard where it had landed in their enthusiastic devestment.  It was chilly.  She used both hands to sweep her thick dreadlocks back and quickly into a loose knot high on her head, out of the way.  Now that her neck was free to the air, she smiled inadvertantly and let her body begin to cool.

Dominik had cooled off himself as the winter had worn on into a new year and somehow his drawing back made her resentment of his ... dedication morph into play again.  She liked it when he didn't love her, and both enjoyed and detested his unconditional admiration.  Especially when since that interview with Dolly. 

Screw Dolly.  Her and her superiority.  She thought Niobe wasn't good enough for Dominik? Well, we'll bloody well see who's good enough for who.  She'd renewed her parlays with Dominik with the fervor of a witch proving her abilities.

Now she was smugly satisfied that she'd done that and better than.  But Dolly's book was coming out tomorrow.

"We'll see," she shrugged, indifferent.  Staying would be a victory for him, but she wasn't entirely turned off by it.  Things were good between them.

Time to ruin that: "Do you shag Dolly St. James, Mr. W?"

Laggardly Dom got ahold of Niobe's hand as she plucked the cigarette from his lips, and he took it back from her, obediently snubbing it out in the glass dish on the bedside table with a sideways stretch.  His arm flopped back over his forehead and he watched as she drew herself up to don clothes and pull back her hair.  Dominik squinted fondly at her, then propped himself up, grabbed his wand and summoned his long johns.  It was bloody cold in the place; it was a wonder he hadn't noticed till then.  He drew the blanket up so he could pull the knickers on under the covers deftly, finishing just in time to be slapped upside the head by her curt, out-of-the-blue question.

"Whooa...."  Dom's face got all screwed up, and he looked over at Niobe like she'd just grown a foot out of her head.  How did Dolly come into any of this?  Why would she think he was shagging Dolly?  And... did she actually care who he was shagging?

"No one's shagging anyone," said Dominik definitively.  "I mean, it's just you.  I'm not -- I wouldn't.  I mean what in the bloody hell gave you that thought?  Blimey, might as well ask if you're shagging Theobald Mainwaring."  Because differences in attractiveness aside, it seemed just as likely a connection at the moment, as far as shagging went.  Dolly St. James?  Really, what was Niobe thinking?  Dolly was one of his best mates, but she hated his guts most oft, and anyway was much too young and pure and good for a tramp like him.  She was his little sister's childhood playmate for Salazar's sake.  The reasoning was just all wrong.  Not that he hadn't.  He had once.  But that was an isolated case of apathetic disintegration that occurred long ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Dom might've guessed what it was about, had he known anything about the interview.  But he really only read the Prophet when Daz shoved it in his face, and she hadn't done over this.  True he'd been keeping track of Niobe's stories before, but he'd forfeited that with his new co-conspirator-approved tactic of extreme spaciness.  He'd stopped stalking Niobe so he could experience Niobe, and now he was missing it all.

"Cause I really didn't take you for a Witch Weekly fan," said Dominik sardonically.  "Nor one to think true all she's heard, Niobe.  I've not the faintest feck what Dolly's got to do with it.  We're just friends."  Again he squinted at her, but this time was a questioning squint.  A probing, dark, glaring quint, like she was unrightfully putting his values to the question.  And like he really deserved an explanation for this atrocity of a topic.

Dom got defensive and he got defensive quick, and just as quickly, Niobe switched onto the same state.  He was pissed that she even asked - what nerve had she struck then?  They weren't exclusive, or did he think so?  Niobe wasn't currently getting warmth from anyone else, but she wasn't monotonous by design.  It wasn't as if she was accusing him of cheating or anything. 

"Oh don't be such a baby!" she protested at him just as hotly.  "I asked because I think Dolly's found out about you and me somehow, and has got some sort of evil eye out for me because of it."

She whipped off the warm sheets and put her bare feet down onto Dom's cold wooden floor.  She thrust her hand down into her purse and whipped a copy of Witch Weekly, pages fluttering chaotically, at Dominik on the bed.  She did read it from time to time, and had when she'd found out that Dominik was in there as a part of some top 10 bachelor list.  She'd voted for Finn Grosvenor as inidcated by the red x in the tickbox by his name.  Whatever she meant by this gesture, she wasn't exactly sure.  Maybe it was just meant to be contrary, to show that she did, in fact, lower herself to read WW from time to time. 

"I don't need shit from Dolly, not about you.  I'm getting enough heat from Maggie."

She sat back down on the bed and laid down half way, draping sideways into Dom's side of his bed.  She looked over at him, a look of deliberate non-chalance on her face.  "Calm down, Dominik."

For a moment he held onto a certain degree of intensity, his gaze held hard on Niobe's clear face as his rage started coming into stasis.  Her nonchalance and the subject itself were equally irritating; he wanted her to care and hated the thought that she didn't trust him, that she might be insinuating that they were supposed to be seeing other people, even.  But the way she moved back to him with a firm but gentle command held weight and had a certain power over him.  Her very words commanded him into a strange hypnosis; he could almost instantly feel an adjustment happening in his attitude, his body beginning to mirror her casual repose.  A few moments of staring into her visage was all it took for him to realize how tensely he was holding his body, how ridiculous and slightly ashamed he felt, and he let go gently.

"Yeah," he said cloudily.  "Sorry."  He looked down.  In the absence of his defensive tactics, Dominik was just left confused. 

For now it seemed their relationship was precarious.  To Dominik, Niobe was a very fine Witch.  But she was the beautiful outsider to his world of pureblood politics, and he was the only male heir of his father's name.  Dolly knew that better than anyone, and could -- with the wink of an eye -- dig up a lot of familial problems for Dominik, just with the information of their involvement.  Dom did fantasize of having Niobe in a well-lit kitchen making pumpkin pastries, all very ho-hum, in a beautiful future with children and gardens.  But he knew he couldn't get her in there over night.  For one thing, he'd have to convince a lot of people that Niobe was of a strong, Witchy build and could be adopted into a 'renewed' pure-blood lineage, and he'd first have to convince Niobe to love him and want him always....  (Not an easy task.  Her love was a slippery slope.)

But if he had a war coming on to keep Niobe tethered to his heart forever, this was the dawn of it.  Dolly, for whatever reason, was in slumps about this.  If it was as Daz had always insisted to him, that he was her ever after, and that she wanted to mix blood and grow old together, he'd come up against some sort of wall.  He still hadn't really peered under the rock of his thoughts on that matter.  He was filled with a quiet resistance, without a whole lot of 'why' to it.  Why not?  He loved Dolores.  She was perfect.  Too good for him, and too perfect an opportunity for normalcy and graceful supremacy to ruin.  He didn't know necessarily that he had already broken some of that, just by existing. 

"She's got a, uh thing against me just now, but, y'know we're life-long mates her and I.  It always blows over.  She's sore I think because she wants... she might want something from me that I can't give.  That I don't think I even have to give.  Hell, I don't even know what it is.  What'd she say to you?"  Even as he admonished himself, a certain level of pride came up behind his phrases.  It was a special claim, that he was wanted by Dolores, beautiful even, but also somewhat painful and memory-laden.  Memories of the person he no longer was, to be honest.  It was all mixed up with emotional confusion for him, like looking into a storm.   

The row was over, and again it was just the two of them lazing.  Niobe kept her half-lidded gaze on Dominik as he visibly to'ed and fro'ed from his heart to his head.  This need he had, to be needed... probably his major ruling folly.  Of all his follies, this one was he worst of the lot.  Was that why he'd done all that stupid Death Eatery shimsham when he was a teenager? To please someone...?  What a puppy.  She put a hand gently the side of his head, his dark fluffy sideburns a pleasure to touch, and smiled at him.  What a poor little puppy.  Seemed a crime to abandon him. 

But they kept talking about Dolly, and Niobe creased her brow.  She hadn't told anyone yet just what Dolly had said to her, but it was a festering zit on her brain.  She almost shrugged and said "Nothing, of course.  You know her, she speaks in circles."  But Dolly did not speak in circles.  She was horrible that way.

Brow still knitty, she responded with a cadence that lacked much weight.

"She said," she said, "that the only reason I bother with you is for the attention.  That you're famous, and I never will be, and it just tears me open inside."

She smiled after, again, bravely.  Her smile said, silly nonsense, isn't it?

Dominik looked directly at Niobe as she reached out to caress his face.  Was she feeling anything beyond his hair in that moment?  He mirrored her still, carefully, giving off a coy smile and holding it curiously as he knitted his own brow right back at her.  He had to let her words stew a moment, since they bore a striking familiarity.  It was just as Laney thought, wasn't it -- that Niobe was only interested in being herself IN the papers, and that Dominik was merely a fast-track for her career?  That seemed to be the standing hypothesis among his female friends, then. 

"And... that's untrue, is it?"  He goaded her, taking the stance of a playful challenger but having deeper motivations at hand.  He thought that she might be forced to admit to herself that she had feelings of devotion for him, that what they had went deeper than other people might be led to suppose.  It was a hopeful thought, and he let his hand graze her arm gently, but then in a moment of panic glomped on in a fit of defensive chatter, "That'd be a big reversal, wouldn't it, though.  You've got your good name and Prophet career ahead of you.  What have I got?  Anything, and your name, it'd be toast.  Burnt toast.  I'm not a spot to stardom, I'm a segway to the river Styx.  It's me though, innit?  Something about me that turns you round?  Cause I could be...," Dominik peetered out, and murmured, "turned round."  What an idiot he was, he thought to himself.  He still needed to learn when to shut up.

But no... why should he shut up.  If he wanted to know something he ought to have just outright asked.  He felt it was thin ice with Niobe.  Thin ice all around and with any wrong step she might just remove herself from his presence.  He wanted her present, desperately.  And so it became a sort of dance in his mind, ego and alter-ego, emotion and intense sensory perception, entranced.  His sense of aggression came up to balance his woe, and suddenly he felt justified and inspired to take the reigns of command momentarily.  It came in the guise of self-assuredness and indifference:

"Hey look though," he said, feigning a certain sense of aplomb, "It's good.  Whatever we got, it's what we got.  What I really want to know is... how do you really feel about it?"

Oh, god.  The sentiment washed all over her brain, it was a miracle it didn't make it to her face.   The long-suffered Niobe was buried in the pathos of this silly discussion.  This was the talk, oh god.  What was she doing.  Rather than her face give anything up that would set off Dominik, that might show him she was so disinterested in this kind of sappy discussion of you and me, of us, she rolled over in a giant movement and the momentum carried her to her feet. 

"Of course it's not true," she said, with performed, aghast tones.   Her Belfast lilt made it sound so innocent.  "It's like you said - I've got my own thing going on, and you've got yours.  I rather like keeping them guessing, don't you?"

She pulled on trousers. 

"We are who we are.  It is.  Bloody good and who the hell cares what other people think it is."  Careful, Niobe, you'll begin to believe it.  Detachment remember?  He's a heart-breaker, home-wrecker, he's no good.  No loving him aloud.  No liking him.

She pulled a green tunic over her head, with gold trim in an ornate Himalayan pattern, and turned to her wardrobe to root around for some fuzzy, knitted gauntlets.  "How I feel is that I don't like being meddled with or defined," she said, giving him a look over her shoulder.  "I like you. That's all anyone needs to know."

Her words pooled over him with amniotic warmth, the poor bastard.  It seemed for a moment as if he couldn't decide between being anxious over her going vertical, being visibly touched by her admission, or feigning disinterest to humor her.  He'd instinctively sat up as she went about collecting her things, and was quiet and receptive to what Niobe had been saying.  She really seemed to be advocating for them, voicing feelings; this caught Dominik off-guard in the most pleasant sort of way, so that when she'd finished he was no longer as concerned with the fact that she seemed to be leaving, and much more calm than he'd felt in months.  Stupidly, perhaps, he took it in as some sort of a promise.

Dominik bounced off of the bed in his long johns and went to pulling on his own additional garment as he crossed the room:  a long, black velvet pull-over robe with a broad hood.  It was as if they were covering their vulnerabilities or warding off omens by reversing the careless disrobing that had earlier possessed them. 

"It is bloody good," he agreed heartily.  He got his head through and straightened the hood, then moved up to her and gave a half grin as he pushed her back gently into the wall.  "Which is exactly why --" as he teased her face with noncommittal kisses -- "you shouldn't leave. Niobe."  He kissed her forehead and pulled away, turning into the kitchen without his usual sense of codependent attachment.  Truth was, he felt so completely validated by her for once, that -- and this was amazing -- he didn't feel even an ounce of anxiety about to rule over his body.  He just felt... refreshed.

From the kitchen he cast his bait, pouring a drink and calling over his shoulder:  "You want a glass of something?"

Niobe tolerated Dominik's little kisses with patience, but her interest was done for the night - she stood still and allowed him, but didn't reciprocate.  Not cold, but not warm.  Clothes were on and she wanted her own bed.    But her patience wore thin as he very merrily continued on with the evening, pouring drinks and being chipper.  She padded down the spiral staircase after him, tracking him as her descent slowly rotated her. 

She didn't follow him to the  kitchen, but instead went to the chair were her bag, cloak and boots had been left behind.  She sat down in it and pulled on her boots, and did up the buckles.  "Dominik, we've been through this.  When we're done, I go.  I'll not be a caged bird."

She looked up from her manipulations to check on his face.  "Nothing for me.  We'll see each other soon," she said, trying to be kind.  She didn't want another fight.  "Let's part ways with a smile, yes? Don't want to ruin our bloody good time."

A bit oblivious in the kitchen, Dominik poured himself a whiskey and then turned round to see where she'd gone.  She was sitting on the armchair by the dying fire, buckling her boots.  He gaped a little as he watched her, calm but disbelieving as he stood in the doorway holding his drink.  This was a horrible contradiction.  He'd been hopeful she'd stay, all that talk about who cares and I like you, but now she was saying she only ever wanted to bang and then leave.  Where was the space for growth?  Were they ever going to have a proper date? 

Dominik might've gotten angry, but her words stilled him from that.  Instead he just had the look of one who'd eaten something not fresh.  He was tired of this.  He just wanted to have a chat!  Some quality time.  This was agonizing, and her words left little room for hope that anything was going to change.  He wanted to do something desperate, but they seemed on such good terms and she was saying let's part with smiles and all this.  Dominik was terrified of messing it up.  What to do?

"Right," said Dominik ambiguously, and he went to set his glass down on the counter before coming back out into the main room of  his flat.  He looked at her earnestly, calmly.  She didn't like him, she just liked to bonk him.  While that was flattering, it was also maddening.  Dominik just wanted to be romanced.  Was romance dead? 

"One of these days you're going to realize what you're missing," he said with some degree of confidence.  His words were deceptively light-hearted.  "Till then I'll just... be here.  Waiting round to shag you silly."  He shrugged, as if all of this was no big deal.  As if he wasn't going to do something crazy the second she left.  Cool, collected, easy-going Dominik, actively repressing his anguish, said:  "Works for me."  Whatever his Witch wanted, she was gonna get it.  As long as the lid on his temper held.