| Title
Author: Minervacat
this is the story of the boys who loved you
Time still isn't money, Billy will never believe that, but regardless their time is in short order now, since they're thousands of miles apart. Not always, of course, and occasionally Billy thanks God and whoever ran the correct wires for the invention of things like email (though Dominic's typing leaves something to be desired) and mobile phones (though the propriety of Dom's phone messages leave something to be desired, as well), because even when the comfort of touch falls by the wayside of shooting schedules, at least they aren't strangers to each other's day-to-day lives. They can write when Dom's in Hawaii and Billy's in Glasgow; they can set that connection humming over phone wires and international time zones, no questions asked, no problems unsolvable. But when they are together, it is not worth wasting any time on words: they have wasted enough time on words in other months, in other years, at other junctions. They have told a hundred thousands stories, to each other and about each other, and none of them are worth retelling here - Billy is reminded that Dom does not believe in talking about beginnings or about endings. There's no point to middles without those things, as well, and so when they are together, they don't squander another precious seconds talking when they could be touching. The first time Billy fit his hand into the curve of Dom's hip, palm flat along the skin and bone and muscles underneath, he had brief and fleeting thought: here we will not need words. He dismissed the whole idea as stupid the moment he thought it; everyone needs words, even if it is just to say please pass the salt, but now, now when he only gets to fit his hand into the curve of Dom's hip one week out of eight - now he understands that sometimes it is better not so say anything at all. Now he curves his hand into that spot on Dom's hip, and he pulls Dom close, Billy's thigh wedged between Dom's. He pins Dom up against walls, licks stripes up the side of Dom's neck, pops the button on Dom's jeans so he can slide his hand inside. Dom's cock, heavy hot hard in his hand. They don't need words, here. Dom pants gasps licks a path along Billy's neck, and Billy breathes Dom's name against his lips. The air is noisy, a language that is understood by everyone; even those people who blink, uncomprehending in the face of Billy's accent, understand the language that they speak together. Hands and tongues and skin and thighs and cocks, it's a universal language. It isn't words, not any kind of spoken language at all, it's just animal; and after everything and hours of filming and phone calls - after months of never being out of reach, after months of never being able to reach, when they have these moments where they can reach out. Well, Billy doesn't really see the point in wasting them with words. and some were sweet and some were cold and snuffed you
They didn't fight, Billy would have never said they fought, but he had stumbled, missed a step; they'd marched out of line with each other for a while. But they hadn't fought, which didn't explain why Billy had spent a couple of weeks laying about his flat and listening to Dom's voice on his answerphone, increasingly desperate, except that Billy's completely unable to pick up the receiver and actually talk to him. So finally after three weeks, four days, and approximately six hours (it is midnight in Los Angeles, Billy thinks, and it was just after six pm on the red carpet three weeks ago) - Dom rings while Billy is standing in the kitchen far too early making himself a cup of tea. He isn't quite awake yet, picks up the phone without thinking that who it might be - - and then Dom is stunningly eloquent in his apologies and Billy is very sleepy. Besides which they didn't fight, so there really isn't anything to say except that it's okay. When he's finally convinced Dom that it's okay, Dom settles down and talks animatedly about this audition he's got, for this great TV show by the bloke that does Alias, and about the work he's trying to do on the script, and the words don't really mean anything to Billy. He is tired, and he has not drunk his tea or eaten the toast that is going cold under its marmalade on the counter, but the sound of Dom's voice in his ears is just exactly what he needs to hear. Dom does not ask him a single question except for "I didn't wake you, did I?", but it isn't the quality of the conversation that Billy really thinks counts here; it is a quantity sort of thing, a quiet morning tea sort of thing. It is just enough to hear Dom's laugh, genuine and unrecorded, pour through the phone lines across an enormous ocean. It is enough as long as Dom's voice is not recorded, not simply pouring through the cheap speakers in a recording. When he finally hangs up the phone, the kettle is whistling at a deafening level, and he is leaning into the counter, the phone cutting lines in his palm; leaning into the counter as though it was any substitute for the warmth of Dom's body against his. It's really better than nothing at all. and some, they crumbled you straight to your knees,
It isn't easy, it's never easy; the films are finished but there's one more press cycle, watching the last film in dozens of cities on dozens of days. Crammed together, they're sniping at each other, every word spoken slicing through the mood, whether the word was cast cruelly, with intent, or not. He doesn't like it when his words sound angry, and he has no point of reference for saying angry things to Dom, but even in the glory of everything that happens that night - not any time that the cameras pan across the four of them - every time he turns to say something to Dom, the words he says are not the words he means. Elijah wedges himself between them, and that doesn't help anything at all. Dom stands to close to Elijah for Billy's comfort; Billy says more sharply cruel things to Elijah than his common sense usually allows. The whole thing makes Billy sick to his stomach, and he cannot stop a single thing he says. Words are cruel, spiteful things. Billy knows this, he's heard it all before from all sorts of people who've crossed his path, and he's thrown more than a few nasty remarks in his life. He has always prided himself on being careful with the feelings of those he loves, and he thinks that if he can tell Dominic things so clearly with his hands, he should be able to say them with words more clearly. But apparently his hands are more eloquent than his voice, and there is nothing he can say without words standing on the red carpet. Except, of course, to pull away from Dom's touch - it is the most eloquent thing that Billy has said in weeks, except that it wasn't what he meant to say at all. some, they crawled their way into your heart,
Dom says that if they talk about the beginning, they have to talk about the way it will all end, because every beginning has a middle, an end, so they don't talk about it at all, and no one else does either. Instead they're coworkers on set, and mates at the pub, and after everyone else has left, Dom pins Billy against the wall in the alley behind the pub and kisses him until Billy's drunk with not just beer, but also the feel of Dom's lips and his hips and his hair under Billy's hands. When he is in the middle of it, Dom on his knees in front of him, Billy cannot think of anything but the warm, wet feel of Dom's tongue along the hard edge of his cock. No beginnings, no hypothetical future endings - the only thing that exists is the twist of their bodies together, the feel of Dom underneath his hands, his legs, his torso. Once, drunk, Bean suggests that it's nothing more than shagging if they won't talk about it; the chill of that idea runs cold up Billy's spine. He doesn't turn away from Dom's warm hands that night, but he wonders. this is the story of the boys who loved you Love at first sight is a big load of bollocks. Dom tells Billy this between their 6th and 7th pints, three weeks into filming, and then he accidentally drops his fag end in Orlando's poncy rum and coke, and then he tips endearingly into Billy's lap and falls asleep. His breath is warm on Billy's thigh, and Billy twists a hand in Dom's hair, gently, before he turns back to Orlando and Viggo and Karl, arguing about something unimportant. There are some things that will never be easy, but Dominic, Billy thinks to himself, will not be one of those. Author's notes: For E., who knows how to ask for the right stories. Sections, in order, are 500, 400, 300, 200, 100 words. Title, epigraph and section breaks from the Decemberists, "Red Right Ankle". ♥ |
|
|
|
|