I could do without you.

I really could, you know. Wouldn't be all that difficult. There would be the matter of moving all of my shit out of your apartment, untangling our two lives that by now have grown together into a knotted vine, twisted and looped and impossible to straighten out without breaking or cutting a few things. I'd have to figure out what CDs were mine, even though most of them were yours anyway that you had gotten for me on your musical shopping sprees, coming home in your thick-rimmed glasses and raving about this band you'd seen in the corner of someone's basement last Tuesday night. Figuring out whose clothes were whose wouldn't be that difficult either. Neither of us are that tall, but when it comes down to it, I could probably fit my hands around your waist if I needed to. And all your wear anyway is that damn brown corduroy jacket. I wonder what would happen if you even lost that fucking thing; it's like a safety blanket.

It seems we sort of fit together like two jigsaw puzzle pieces, with jagged edges in some places and rounded curves in other. When you put them together, you get a glimpse of something more, perhaps a nose or the side of a balloon. Taken apart, you might have an idea of what one piece is trying to be, but until it has been hooked up together, snapped into place, you can't know for certain.

We compliment each other, like that phrase they taught me in my literature classes - didn't it have something to do with foil? Must've been an abbreviation for something - or was that maths? But anyway, we do match, like the dark orange and the deep blue on Viggo's latest canvas, the two colors mixing in some areas, but the rest painted in broad, skittish strokes with bumpy textures and thin, running paint. He'd shown it to us -- only us. You had blushed, going on and on about how "wicked" it was while I caught Viggo's eyes and they laughed in shining shades of blue.

I could do without you.

There'd be a lot less bullshit if I just got up and packed, too. We wouldn't have to worry about the wrong press seeing us together at the wrong club, we wouldn't have to spend half our off-nights indoors watching bad movies and dialing people up, only trusting our dirty little secret -Elijah Wood living and sleeping with 'Rings' Co-Star! Page 45 for all the juicy details! - with a select few. I could head out for a night on the town and just get lost in the world of booze and loud music without anyone caring. The press only ever cared about you, anyway. I'm still a nobody in this town.

I could move back home, to Manchester, maybe even find some apartment near Bills in Glasgow. I haven't seen my family or my old mates in a long time, and it's been much too long since I was last screaming my head off at a Man U game. Never mind that I could hop a plane and be at one tomorrow, that's not the point.

The point is that I know this can't last forever. We've both got our careers to think about, and Lord knows your agent already has you reading a half-dozen scripts in preparation for when all the Trilogy stuff is finished in a few years. I've told mine to bugger off for a while, so I've been doing a lot of nothing, just playing video games and reading and partying and fucking you. You know, the usual.

I could do without you. There would never be an argument over you buying shit American tea at the store, I could never get annoyed with the way you don't fold your socks properly and blast terrible music when you're in the bath at half seven. Life of a child actor, you'd say, simply impossible for you to sleep in, even though you were often back in bed, in between the warm sheets smelling of skin and sex and us, as soon as you had eaten your cereal and watched your cartoons, Spongebob Squarepants and Invader Zim. Sometimes you make it too easy for us to make fun of you, Lighe.

I could do without all the emotional baggage of our relationship, too. I could do without all the times you've run out of our apartment and I went outside after my head had cooled to find you sitting on your doorstep, chain-smoking and trembling. And you could do without me. You could do without the nights when I don't hear my cell phone ring over the roaring pub and come home late to find you waiting up for me, wondering where I've been. You could do without having to constantly watch over your shoulder whenever we're out together, barely touching me. Even though the rest of the world thinks all of Hollywood is queer and no one here cares, being Out to the wrong people can make the calls stop coming.

Really, we could do without each other. Sure, I'd miss you, but that's only normal. I'm sure I'd feel a little guilty when all my socks were folded the right way and there was only Twinning's in the cupboard. And I'm sure you'd miss my countless wristbands and bracelets that accumulate on the nightstand and my cinnamon-flavored toothpaste. At least, I think you would. I hope you would.

But I could do without. Really, I could.

But first, I'd have to find a way of disentangling myself from your slumbering body. You're lying mostly on your stomach, but your right leg is strewn across my lower half and your right arm is slung across my chest. You're sleeping half on the bed, and half on me, just like every night. Not to mention that I've put my fingers into your mussed hair, knotted and tangled. I tilt my chin up to my chest and watch you, your open mouth and twitching fingers. Without thinking I start to rub your head, and it's not long before you inhale sharply, rubbing your cheek into my chest and then letting your breath out slowly, wetting your lips with your tongue and swallowing.

"Hey you," I whisper.

"Mmmph. Time?"

"Dunno."

"Mm. Sleep more."

I nod, rubbing a brown mass of hair full of old pomade between my fingers.

"Lighe?"

"Mm?"

"We could live without each other, right?"

"Mm," another nuzzle, this time into my arm. "Sleep, Dom."

"Alright."

"Ok."

"Lighe?"

You sigh dramatically.

"I love you."

"I love you too, Dom. Now sleep? Please?" you ask, looking up at me with half-lidded eyes.

"Alright," I smile, "alright. Sleep."

I close my eyes and settle my shoulders back into the mattress, getting comfy.

"Dom?"

I crack one eye open. "Whatever happened to sleeping?"

"We couldn't live without each other."

"Oh. You think?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. Ok. Sweet dreams, Elijah."

You pull your head up and plant a soft kiss on my open lips.

"Sweet dreams, Dom."

Somehow, I think you might just be right.



(c) Kate Finneran 2004



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