Oh You've Got

Author: Minervacat
Fandom: LOTR RPS
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: PG
Summary: and I've never met anyone like you before


Elijah has a deep and abiding secret love for New Order.

Billy knows this because Lij announced this fact to the entire makeup trailer one morning during Feet, just before putting one of their CDs in the stereo in the corner and forcing them all to listen to their "absolute under-appreciated greatness".

Astin said, "Well, it's not a secret now, dumbass," and Dom said, "New Order only had three really good songs, ever: 'Temptation', 'Bizarre Love Triangle', and 'Thieves Like Us'", and Orlando said, "Temptation's a crap song, mate" and then Dom tried to punch him and only succeeded in knocking his latex ear off, after which they were all banished from the makeup trailer, even Billy, even though he hadn't said anything at all, and everyone sort of forgot about Elijah's passion for late 80's British techno pop after that, because it was really fucking cold outside that morning.

Billy snuck back into the trailer between takes and stole The Greatest Hits of New Order out of the stereo, and the next morning when Elijah asked where it had gone, Billy looked as innocent as he possibly could, a skill he'd learned from Dominic, and the makeup girls all giggled behind their hands.

*

Billy tells himself that he's not trying to impress Dom. He doesn't need to impress him, after all. He's got Dom, he doesn't need to impress him like Dom was some giggling 17-year-old girl. Billy's the one Dom comes home with after late nights at the pub, and Dom's the one who turns off the alarm in his sleep and makes them both late for Feet, and Billy's the one whose pockets Dom tucks his hands into and whose ear Dom whispers silly song lyrics into. It's not a matter of impressing anyone.

Billy's just curious, that's all.

He begs off an invitation to the pub and kisses Dom good-bye and tells him, "Do try not to get Orlando arrested tonight." Dom grins like the monkey he is, and says, "No promises, mate."

Then Dom goes off to drink and Billy goes home, pours himself a glass of Scotch, and listens to the band for whom Elijah has a deep and abiding secret love.

Billy listens to the whole disc, not just the three songs Dom said were the only good ones. It isn't bad, but it's not really his thing, either. "Thieves Like Us" is too noisy for his taste, but the message is nice enough, if a bit depressing, he supposes. "Bizarre Love Triangle" is, well, bizarre. But catchy.

"Temptation" stops him dead in his metaphorical listening tracks.

*

Dom listens to songs and finds meaning in them, scribbles scraps of remembered lyrics in his journal, in his script, on his hands. Elijah does the same thing - they both have thousands of snippets of other people's words stashed away in the memory for any appropriate (or inappropriate) situation. Billy loves music, but he doesn't quite digest it in the same way they do.

He cannot get the opening lines from that song out of his head. They're crowding into spaces that he'd reserved for leaning his lines, for remembering his sister's phone number, for having something to say other than opening his mouth and shocking the entire cast with a maudlin burst of teenaged sentimentality.

So Billy keeps his mouth firmly shut and stares at Dom a lot in the days after he discovers Elijah's deep and abiding secret love for New Order.

"Are you okay, mate?" Dom says one morning in Feet, peering at Billy over the newspaper he swiped from Viggo on their way into the trailer.

Your eyes are really blue today, Billy thinks, but they do not say that sort of thing out loud. He loves Dom, to be certain, and he knows that Dom loves him, but this is not that kind of relationship - the kind with quiet sentimental words and public declarations and mix tapes with too much subtext.

"Fine," Billy says. "Just tired."

Dom grins at him and goes back to his paper, and his eyes are really blue that day, and Billy loses his balance all of a sudden and tips over onto the nice girl who's gluing his Feet to him. Elijah makes a joke about his clumsiness and Dom and Orlando laugh and Billy thinks, I've never met anyone like you before.

*

Filming's getting rough and exhausting, so they stay in one night instead of trekking down to the pub. Billy's in the kitchen cooking and Dom's fiddling with the stereo, getting ready to subject Billy to something noisy with unintelligible lyrics, when Billy remembers that Lij's New Order CD is still sitting where he left it earlier that week - in the stereo Dom's fiddling with at that very moment.

"You took it," Dom says. He's leaning on the doorframe, finger hooked through the middle of the disc. "Elijah's convinced that Orlando has it."

"Orlando thought they were crap," Billy says.

"What did you think?"

"Not my thing, really, but 'Temptation' isn't bad."

"I told you so," Dom says smugly. "Why'd you like it?"

Billy's brain doesn't quite catch up to his mouth, and he says, "You've got grey eyes, oh, you've got blue eyes ..." He trails off because Dom's suddenly in front of him, looking at him with an unfamiliar expression of absolute adoration.

"Oh, you've got green eyes," Dom says, and leans over and bites Billy's upper lip. "And I've never met anyone like you before."

He pushes past Billy and wanders over to the stove, CD still dangling from his hand. "What's for dinner, mate? I'm starved."

*

Elijah never does get his New Order CD back, but if he had any idea of the things Billy and Dom had turned it into a soundtrack for, he'd probably be okay with that.

feedback always welcome.

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