Huh. Cliché. How appropriate. Because this is what your life's been reduced to. A cliché. Awkward hugs and air kisses and promises to do lunch, yeah, man, sounds great, I'll call you, okay, gotta go, bye. So you stand around and you laugh and you drink and you make jokes and drink some more because, hey, that's what you're expected to do, right? You know your role. You just wish everyone else didn't know theirs so fucking well. You watch as everyone around you has a great time, laughing, smiling, talking and catching up and the like, and fuck, the sounds of your friends enjoying themselves shouldn't be so shrill, shouldn't cut your nerves like glass, shouldn't fucking hurt, man. You should be happy. Finally, it's over. Y'know, o-ver. Time to move on, do bigger and better things, time to go out and take on those new roles, time for the world to see you as something more than the cheeky fucking Hobbit who goes to the opening of envelopes and is great fodder for the 30-second soundbyte on the late night telly. You keep telling yourself this in hopes you'll finally believe it. Oh, how very L.A. you've become to be so self-aware, and aren't we just the perfect picture of mental health. Alright, alright, this is getting you nowhere, and you know it. It's not like you to be bitter. You're the carefree sort, the easygoing bloke that sidles up to the others with too-tight hugs and outrageous kisses. You're the ice-breaker, the party-mixer. You leave the brooding to Bean and Viggo, leave the introspective navel-gazing to the older gents, the ones with regrets and a past and failures. You have no failures. Your entire career, hell, your entire life is ahead of you. Except for this chapter. This rather long, involved chapter that's really more like a mini-series, full of twists and turns and high drama and surprise guests and of course, the sex. Can't get the ratings without sex, of course. You look out, hiding behind the guise of searching for a waiter, man, just need another drinky to wet the old whistle, and sure enough. There he is. The sex. The reason your mini-series has high drama. If you're honest with yourself, though, you know all of the drama was on your part. He's too old for drama, too refined for histrionics. You were a beautiful diversion for him, a way to while away the endless hours between takes, a sweet boy who hung on his every word like it was gospel and listened to all of his stories about theatre and the old days with the reverence of an Apostle listening to Christ. And maybe, yeah, alright, okay, he was like a religion for you. But, c'mon, he was legend by the time you were born and you've grown up in awe of him and his talent. The fact that he was interested in you, cheeky, nobody Dominic fucking Monaghan, was just beyond anything, beyond your wildest dreams, your deepest fantasies. You conveniently forgot that all dreams end, that, sooner or later, you wake up with cotton mouth and sore limbs and wrinkled sheets and brain fuzz, wondering why the hell your heart's racing and you're sweating and aching for something that you know never happened. Except, yeah, in this case, it did. But, it's over now, truly over, has actually been over since filming ended and you all went your separate ways, like so much scattered fairy dust. It's been over, but, if you're honest with yourself, you maybe kinda-sorta hoped that, well. Yeah. You hoped. But, it's over now. No reason for all of you to get together again, to have this moment, to relive the joy and pain and excitement, no more movies, no more premieres, no more press junkets with those 30-second soundbytes and, most of all, no more mooning over what you know you'll never have again. You're all about the future, baby, all about living life and moving on to the next big adventure. And, if you keep telling yourself this, keep repeating it in your head, in your heart, you just mightmaybe one day believe it.
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