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sassywitch.livejournal.com posting in monaboyd Apr. 8th, 2006 05:08 am)Title: Western Lovers: Cowboys and Archeaologists 4/30
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sassywitch
Pairing: BB/DM with a smattering of VM/LT and DW/OB
Rating: NC-17, to be on the safe side.
Summary: Billy is a man to be reckoned with. Can Dom heal his wounded soul and his own into the bargain. Could Billy make him forget the bitter lessons of the past?
Feedback: Feedback is my writers crack, which is not to be confused at all with plumbers crack.
Disclaimer: Not at all true in reality. These men whilst adorable and perfectly happy to slash themselves, their actual relationship is something that they only know. This story is adapted from a series of books that I adored when I was younger written by Elizabeth Lowell.
Word Count: 2531
Header Art: Courtesy of the incredibly talentedloki_girl
Previous Chapters: can be found Here
A/N: A huge thank you todylan_dufresne for the inspiration, the prodding and the beta. My grammar sucks so she had to suffer it so nobody else would. Next Chapter will be posted on Monday. 
"Stop it, you're making me feel like the Marquis de Sade."
Startled, Dom turned toward him. "What?"
"Don't worry, I'm not talking about the way you hug the door handle as though it were your last hope of safety, " Billy spoke, giving Dom a sideways glance.
A flush crawled up Dom's cheeks. He looked down and saw that he was all but sitting on the door handle in order to get as much distance between himself and Billy as possible.
"I-its nothing personal," he said, his voice strained.
"Like hell it isn't," Billy said calmly. "But that's not what made me feel like a sadist. It's the way you look at all those canyons that's getting to me. It's the way a starving man looks at food, or a thirsty man looks at water, or Viggo looks at Liv when they sit in the rocking chair while she nurses Milo. If it will make you feel any better, we can stop and get closer to whatever it is you love so much."
Billy's perceptivity startled Dom. It was unexpected in a man. But then, Billy had been unexpected from the first moment Dom had seen him. The longer he was around Billy the more unexpected he became.
"That's very kind of you, Mr. Boyd, but I'm afraid looking won't make me feel much better."
Clear green eyes glanced briefly at Dom, then resumed watching the rough road.
"What would make you feel better, Professor?"
"Being called something else, Ramrod," he shot back before he could think better of it.
The corner of Billy's mouth tugged up. "I'm not much on formality. Call me Billy."
Dom started to reciprocate, then stopped afraid that Billy would mistake politeness for an entirely different sort of offer.
Billy shot Dom another quick glance. "Go ahead, I won't take it as a come on."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Go ahead and ask me to call you Dominic. I'll assume you're being polite, not looking for a little action."
"Let me assure you, I'm not looking for a little action."
"I figured that from the first time I saw you. So uncramp your hand from the door handle and tell me why you're looking at the countryside like you're saying goodbye to your only friend."
"Are you always this direct?"
"Yes. Are you always this nervous around men, or is it me in particular?"
"Does it matter?"
"If I'm the one setting your teeth on edge, I'll get out of your hair as soon as possible," Billy said matter of factly. "If it's just men in general you don't like, it won't matter who's on site with you."
Dom was silent.
"Well, that tells me," Billy said shrugging. "As soon as David arrives, I'll turn Arwen Canyon over to him."
"It's. Not. You," Dom said, forcing out each word.
"Did anyone ever mention that you don't lie worth a damn? You've been terrified of me since I came over that corral fence and taught Serkis what his horse already knew - in a fight, smart goes farther than big."
Dom closed his eyes, seeing again the blows landing too quickly to be believed. "Fast, strong and lethal count, too. Serkis never had a chance, did he?"
"Only a fool, a horse, or a naive man would give a man like Serkis a chance."
"Are you calling me a fool?"
"Nope. I'm not calling you horse, either."
Dom made a strangled sound that was close to laughter, surprising himself.
A quick sideways glance told Billy that Dom's grip on the door handle had eased. It also told him that Dom's eyes were an even deeper, smokier blue than he had thought, and that the curve of his mouth was made to be traced by his tongue.
The shadow of another small canyon opening up off the road caught Dom's attention. The hint of laughter that had curved his mouth faded, leaving behind a yearning line.
"What is it that you see?" Billy asked softly, his brogue sweeping over Dom as gently as a whisper.
The words slid past Dom's reflexive defenses and touched the one thing he permitted himself to love, the Anasazi homeland with its mixture of mountains and mesas and canyons, sandstone and shale, its violent summer storms and massive silence that made him feel as though time itself flowed through the ancient canyons.
"That canyon off to the right," Dom said, pointing to a place where a crease opened up at the base of a mesa. "Does it have a name?"
"Not that I know of."
"That's what I thought. There are hundreds of canyons like it on the Colorado Plateau. Thousands, and in each one, it would be unusual to walk more than a mile along the mesa top or the canyon bottom without finding some legacy of the Anasazi, such as broken pots or masonry or ruined stone walls."
Billy made a startled sound and glanced quickly at Dom.
"It's true," Dom said, turning to face Billy. "The Colorado plateau is one of the richest archaeological areas of the world. Some experts say that there are a hundred archaeological sites per square mile. Others say a hundred and twenty sites. Naturally, all of the sites aren't important enough to excavate, but the sheer number of them is amazing. For instance, in Montezuma County alone, there are probably one hundred thousand archaeological sites."
Billy whistled through his teeth. The boyish gesture both startled and intrigued Dom, for it was so much at odds with the fierce man who had fought Serkis and the quiet man who had treated a sick kitten with such care.
"How many Anasazi lived around here anyway?" Billy asked.
"Here? I don't know. But over in Montezuma Valley, there were about thirty thousand people. That's greater than the population today. It's the same for the rest of the plateau. At the height of the culture, the land supported more people than it does today with our technology."
"And up every nameless canyon, " Dom continued, his voice husky with emotion, "There's a chance of finding the one extraordinary ruin that will explain why the Anasazi culture thrived in this area for more than ten centuries and simply vanished without warning, as though the people picked up in the middle of a meal and left, taking nothing with them."
"That's what you're looking for? The answer to an old mystery?"
Dom nodded.
"Why?"
The question startled Dom. "What do you mean?"
"What is it you really want?" Billy asked. "Glory? Wealth? A tenured job at an eastern university? Classrooms full of students who think you're smarter than God?"
"Is it academia in general you dislike or me in particular?"
Billy heard the echo of his own previous question and smiled to himself. "I don't know you well enough to dislike you. I'm just curious."
"So am I," Dom said tightly. "That's why I want to know about the Anasazi. Their abrupt disappearance from the cliff houses at the height of their cultural success is as big a mystery as what really caused the extinction of dinosaurs."
Dom glanced covertly at Billy. Though he was watching the rough difficult road, Dom sensed that he was listening closely to his words. Despite his usual reticence on the subject of himself, there was something about Billy that made him want to keep talking, if only to give him a better opinion of him than he obviously had. Not that Dom could really blame him for being cool towards him, as he had done everything but crawl under the table to avoid him at dinner.
The contrasts and contradictions of the man called Billy Boyd both intrigued and irritated Dom. A man who could fight with such savage efficiency shouldn't care about sick kittens. A man who could handle the demands of the big truck and the rotten road with such effortless skill shouldn't be so interested in something as abstract and intangible as the vanished Anasazi, yet he had shown obvious interest every time the subject had come up.
But most of all, a man who was so abrasively masculine shouldn't be perceptive enough to notice Dom's silent yearning after unexplored canyons. Nor should Dom be noticing right now the clean line of his profile, the high forehead and thick, faintly curling pelt of golden, ginger hair, the luxuriant eyebrows and crystal, emerald clarity of his eyes, or the subdued sensuality of his mouth.
The direction of Dom's thoughts made him distinctly uneasy. He turned and looked out the window again, yet it was impossible for him to go back to the silences of the previous hours in the truck when he had tried to shut out the presence of everything except the land.
"As for the prestige or a tenured teaching position," Dom continued looking out the window, "I'm not a great candidate for any university, especially an eastern one. I love the Colorado plateau country too much to live anywhere else. I stand in front of classrooms full of students – worshipful or otherwise - because teaching is a means to an end. It gives me the money and time to explore the Anasazi culture in the very places where the ancient ones once lived, and then make what I've seen and learned come alive in drawings."
"You're an artist?"
Short, golden and brown hair rippled and shone in the sun as Dom shook his head in silent negative. "At best I'm an illustrator. I take the site photographers pictures, read the archaeological summaries of the site and study the artifacts that have been excavated. Then I combine everything with my own knowledge of the Anasazi and make a series of drawings of the site as it probably looked when it was inhabited."
"Sounds like more than illustration to me."
"I assure you, it's less than art. My mother is an artist, so I know the difference."
"Do your parents live in Colorado?"
"My mother lives in Manchester."
Normally, Billy would have let the matter of parents drop, especially since Dom's voice had planted warning flags around the subject, but his curiosity about Dominic Monaghan wasn't normal. He showed flashes of passion coupled with unusual reserve. And it was reserve rather than shyness. Billy had known more than a few shy cowboys. Not one of them would have been able to get up in front of a room full of people and say a single word, much less teach a whole course.
Dom wasn't shy of people. He was shy of men. Billy had almost immediately figured out that Dom didn't care much for the male half of the human race. What he hadn't figured out was why.
"What about your father?" Billy asked.
"What about him?"
Though Dom's voice was casual, Billy noted the subtle tightening of his body.
"Where does he live?" Billy asked.
"I don't know."
"Is he why you don't like men?"
"Frankly, it's none of your business."
"Of course it is. I'm a man."
"Mr. Boyd."
"Billy, " he interrupted.
"Whether I hate or love men is irrelevant to you or any other man I meet."
"I'll agree about the other men, but not me."
"Why?"
"I'm the man you're going to spend the next five days alone with."
"What?" Dom exclaimed, staring at Billy.
"One of the grad students broke his ankle climbing a canyon wall," Billy said. Without pausing in his explanations, he whipped the truck around a washout on one side of the road and then a landslide ten yards further down. "Another one got a job in Illinois, working on Indian mounds. The other three can come out only on the weekends, because they work during the week."
"So?"
"So I'm staying at the Arwen Canyon site with you."
"That's not necessary. I've been alone at remote digs before."
"Not on the Double L, you haven't. There will be an armed guard on the site at all times." Without altering his tone at all, Billy added , "Hang on this will get greasy."
The relaxed lines on Billy's body didn't change as he held the truck on a slippery segment of road where sandstone gave way to thin layers of shale that were so loosely bonded they washed away in even a gentle rain. During the summer season of cloudbursts, the parts of the road that crossed shale formations became impassable for hours or days. Nor was the sandstone itself any treat for driving. Wet sandstone was surprisingly slick.
"There are professional pothunters in the area," Billy continued. "They've worked over a lot of sites. If someone objects, they work them over, too. Viggo and I decided that no one goes to Arwen Canyon without an armed guard."
"Why wasn't I told this before I was hired?" Dom asked tightly.
"Because the sheriff didn't tell us until last night."
Dom said something beneath his breath.
Billy glanced sideways at him. "If you can't handle it, tell me now. We'll be back at the ranch in time for dinner."
Dom said nothing, still trying to cope with his seething feelings at the thought of being alone with Billy on a remote canyon for five days.
"If I thought it would do any good," Billy said, "I'd give you my word that I won't touch you. But you don't know me well enough to believe me, so there's not much point making any promises, is there."
Dom didn't answer.
Without warning, Billy brought the truck to a stop in the centre of a wide spot in the road. He set the brake and turned to face his unhappy passenger.
"What will it be?" he asked. "Arwen Canyon, or back to the ranch house?"
Almost wildly, Dom glanced around the countryside. He had been so excited when Liv had offered employment for the summer. The salary was minimal, but the opportunity to study newly discovered ruins was unparalleled.
And now it was vanishing like rain in the desert.
Dom looked at Billy. Part of him was frankly terrified at the prospect of being alone with him for days on end. Part of him was not - and in some ways, that was the most terrifying of all.
Shutting out everything, Dom closed his eyes. What am I going to do.
The image of Billy's powerful hands holding the kitten with such care entered Dom's mind.
Surely Liv wouldn't send me out here alone with a man she didn't trust. After that thought came another. My father was never that gentle with anything. Nor was Ethan.
The ingrained habit of years made Dom's mind veer away from the bleak night when he had learned once and forever to distrust men and his own judgement. Yet he had been luckier than many of the victims he had spoken to when he had volunteered at the crisis centre. Dom's scars were all on the inside.
Unbidden, came a thought that made Dom tremble with a tangle of emotions he refused to name, and a question he shouldn't ask, even in the silence of his own mind.
Would Billy be as gentle with him as he was with that kitten?
Chapter 5
Author:
sassywitch Pairing: BB/DM with a smattering of VM/LT and DW/OB
Rating: NC-17, to be on the safe side.
Summary: Billy is a man to be reckoned with. Can Dom heal his wounded soul and his own into the bargain. Could Billy make him forget the bitter lessons of the past?
Feedback: Feedback is my writers crack, which is not to be confused at all with plumbers crack.
Disclaimer: Not at all true in reality. These men whilst adorable and perfectly happy to slash themselves, their actual relationship is something that they only know. This story is adapted from a series of books that I adored when I was younger written by Elizabeth Lowell.
Word Count: 2531
Header Art: Courtesy of the incredibly talented
loki_girlPrevious Chapters: can be found Here
A/N: A huge thank you to
dylan_dufresne for the inspiration, the prodding and the beta. My grammar sucks so she had to suffer it so nobody else would. Next Chapter will be posted on Monday. "Stop it, you're making me feel like the Marquis de Sade."
Startled, Dom turned toward him. "What?"
"Don't worry, I'm not talking about the way you hug the door handle as though it were your last hope of safety, " Billy spoke, giving Dom a sideways glance.
A flush crawled up Dom's cheeks. He looked down and saw that he was all but sitting on the door handle in order to get as much distance between himself and Billy as possible.
"I-its nothing personal," he said, his voice strained.
"Like hell it isn't," Billy said calmly. "But that's not what made me feel like a sadist. It's the way you look at all those canyons that's getting to me. It's the way a starving man looks at food, or a thirsty man looks at water, or Viggo looks at Liv when they sit in the rocking chair while she nurses Milo. If it will make you feel any better, we can stop and get closer to whatever it is you love so much."
Billy's perceptivity startled Dom. It was unexpected in a man. But then, Billy had been unexpected from the first moment Dom had seen him. The longer he was around Billy the more unexpected he became.
"That's very kind of you, Mr. Boyd, but I'm afraid looking won't make me feel much better."
Clear green eyes glanced briefly at Dom, then resumed watching the rough road.
"What would make you feel better, Professor?"
"Being called something else, Ramrod," he shot back before he could think better of it.
The corner of Billy's mouth tugged up. "I'm not much on formality. Call me Billy."
Dom started to reciprocate, then stopped afraid that Billy would mistake politeness for an entirely different sort of offer.
Billy shot Dom another quick glance. "Go ahead, I won't take it as a come on."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Go ahead and ask me to call you Dominic. I'll assume you're being polite, not looking for a little action."
"Let me assure you, I'm not looking for a little action."
"I figured that from the first time I saw you. So uncramp your hand from the door handle and tell me why you're looking at the countryside like you're saying goodbye to your only friend."
"Are you always this direct?"
"Yes. Are you always this nervous around men, or is it me in particular?"
"Does it matter?"
"If I'm the one setting your teeth on edge, I'll get out of your hair as soon as possible," Billy said matter of factly. "If it's just men in general you don't like, it won't matter who's on site with you."
Dom was silent.
"Well, that tells me," Billy said shrugging. "As soon as David arrives, I'll turn Arwen Canyon over to him."
"It's. Not. You," Dom said, forcing out each word.
"Did anyone ever mention that you don't lie worth a damn? You've been terrified of me since I came over that corral fence and taught Serkis what his horse already knew - in a fight, smart goes farther than big."
Dom closed his eyes, seeing again the blows landing too quickly to be believed. "Fast, strong and lethal count, too. Serkis never had a chance, did he?"
"Only a fool, a horse, or a naive man would give a man like Serkis a chance."
"Are you calling me a fool?"
"Nope. I'm not calling you horse, either."
Dom made a strangled sound that was close to laughter, surprising himself.
A quick sideways glance told Billy that Dom's grip on the door handle had eased. It also told him that Dom's eyes were an even deeper, smokier blue than he had thought, and that the curve of his mouth was made to be traced by his tongue.
The shadow of another small canyon opening up off the road caught Dom's attention. The hint of laughter that had curved his mouth faded, leaving behind a yearning line.
"What is it that you see?" Billy asked softly, his brogue sweeping over Dom as gently as a whisper.
The words slid past Dom's reflexive defenses and touched the one thing he permitted himself to love, the Anasazi homeland with its mixture of mountains and mesas and canyons, sandstone and shale, its violent summer storms and massive silence that made him feel as though time itself flowed through the ancient canyons.
"That canyon off to the right," Dom said, pointing to a place where a crease opened up at the base of a mesa. "Does it have a name?"
"Not that I know of."
"That's what I thought. There are hundreds of canyons like it on the Colorado Plateau. Thousands, and in each one, it would be unusual to walk more than a mile along the mesa top or the canyon bottom without finding some legacy of the Anasazi, such as broken pots or masonry or ruined stone walls."
Billy made a startled sound and glanced quickly at Dom.
"It's true," Dom said, turning to face Billy. "The Colorado plateau is one of the richest archaeological areas of the world. Some experts say that there are a hundred archaeological sites per square mile. Others say a hundred and twenty sites. Naturally, all of the sites aren't important enough to excavate, but the sheer number of them is amazing. For instance, in Montezuma County alone, there are probably one hundred thousand archaeological sites."
Billy whistled through his teeth. The boyish gesture both startled and intrigued Dom, for it was so much at odds with the fierce man who had fought Serkis and the quiet man who had treated a sick kitten with such care.
"How many Anasazi lived around here anyway?" Billy asked.
"Here? I don't know. But over in Montezuma Valley, there were about thirty thousand people. That's greater than the population today. It's the same for the rest of the plateau. At the height of the culture, the land supported more people than it does today with our technology."
"And up every nameless canyon, " Dom continued, his voice husky with emotion, "There's a chance of finding the one extraordinary ruin that will explain why the Anasazi culture thrived in this area for more than ten centuries and simply vanished without warning, as though the people picked up in the middle of a meal and left, taking nothing with them."
"That's what you're looking for? The answer to an old mystery?"
Dom nodded.
"Why?"
The question startled Dom. "What do you mean?"
"What is it you really want?" Billy asked. "Glory? Wealth? A tenured job at an eastern university? Classrooms full of students who think you're smarter than God?"
"Is it academia in general you dislike or me in particular?"
Billy heard the echo of his own previous question and smiled to himself. "I don't know you well enough to dislike you. I'm just curious."
"So am I," Dom said tightly. "That's why I want to know about the Anasazi. Their abrupt disappearance from the cliff houses at the height of their cultural success is as big a mystery as what really caused the extinction of dinosaurs."
Dom glanced covertly at Billy. Though he was watching the rough difficult road, Dom sensed that he was listening closely to his words. Despite his usual reticence on the subject of himself, there was something about Billy that made him want to keep talking, if only to give him a better opinion of him than he obviously had. Not that Dom could really blame him for being cool towards him, as he had done everything but crawl under the table to avoid him at dinner.
The contrasts and contradictions of the man called Billy Boyd both intrigued and irritated Dom. A man who could fight with such savage efficiency shouldn't care about sick kittens. A man who could handle the demands of the big truck and the rotten road with such effortless skill shouldn't be so interested in something as abstract and intangible as the vanished Anasazi, yet he had shown obvious interest every time the subject had come up.
But most of all, a man who was so abrasively masculine shouldn't be perceptive enough to notice Dom's silent yearning after unexplored canyons. Nor should Dom be noticing right now the clean line of his profile, the high forehead and thick, faintly curling pelt of golden, ginger hair, the luxuriant eyebrows and crystal, emerald clarity of his eyes, or the subdued sensuality of his mouth.
The direction of Dom's thoughts made him distinctly uneasy. He turned and looked out the window again, yet it was impossible for him to go back to the silences of the previous hours in the truck when he had tried to shut out the presence of everything except the land.
"As for the prestige or a tenured teaching position," Dom continued looking out the window, "I'm not a great candidate for any university, especially an eastern one. I love the Colorado plateau country too much to live anywhere else. I stand in front of classrooms full of students – worshipful or otherwise - because teaching is a means to an end. It gives me the money and time to explore the Anasazi culture in the very places where the ancient ones once lived, and then make what I've seen and learned come alive in drawings."
"You're an artist?"
Short, golden and brown hair rippled and shone in the sun as Dom shook his head in silent negative. "At best I'm an illustrator. I take the site photographers pictures, read the archaeological summaries of the site and study the artifacts that have been excavated. Then I combine everything with my own knowledge of the Anasazi and make a series of drawings of the site as it probably looked when it was inhabited."
"Sounds like more than illustration to me."
"I assure you, it's less than art. My mother is an artist, so I know the difference."
"Do your parents live in Colorado?"
"My mother lives in Manchester."
Normally, Billy would have let the matter of parents drop, especially since Dom's voice had planted warning flags around the subject, but his curiosity about Dominic Monaghan wasn't normal. He showed flashes of passion coupled with unusual reserve. And it was reserve rather than shyness. Billy had known more than a few shy cowboys. Not one of them would have been able to get up in front of a room full of people and say a single word, much less teach a whole course.
Dom wasn't shy of people. He was shy of men. Billy had almost immediately figured out that Dom didn't care much for the male half of the human race. What he hadn't figured out was why.
"What about your father?" Billy asked.
"What about him?"
Though Dom's voice was casual, Billy noted the subtle tightening of his body.
"Where does he live?" Billy asked.
"I don't know."
"Is he why you don't like men?"
"Frankly, it's none of your business."
"Of course it is. I'm a man."
"Mr. Boyd."
"Billy, " he interrupted.
"Whether I hate or love men is irrelevant to you or any other man I meet."
"I'll agree about the other men, but not me."
"Why?"
"I'm the man you're going to spend the next five days alone with."
"What?" Dom exclaimed, staring at Billy.
"One of the grad students broke his ankle climbing a canyon wall," Billy said. Without pausing in his explanations, he whipped the truck around a washout on one side of the road and then a landslide ten yards further down. "Another one got a job in Illinois, working on Indian mounds. The other three can come out only on the weekends, because they work during the week."
"So?"
"So I'm staying at the Arwen Canyon site with you."
"That's not necessary. I've been alone at remote digs before."
"Not on the Double L, you haven't. There will be an armed guard on the site at all times." Without altering his tone at all, Billy added , "Hang on this will get greasy."
The relaxed lines on Billy's body didn't change as he held the truck on a slippery segment of road where sandstone gave way to thin layers of shale that were so loosely bonded they washed away in even a gentle rain. During the summer season of cloudbursts, the parts of the road that crossed shale formations became impassable for hours or days. Nor was the sandstone itself any treat for driving. Wet sandstone was surprisingly slick.
"There are professional pothunters in the area," Billy continued. "They've worked over a lot of sites. If someone objects, they work them over, too. Viggo and I decided that no one goes to Arwen Canyon without an armed guard."
"Why wasn't I told this before I was hired?" Dom asked tightly.
"Because the sheriff didn't tell us until last night."
Dom said something beneath his breath.
Billy glanced sideways at him. "If you can't handle it, tell me now. We'll be back at the ranch in time for dinner."
Dom said nothing, still trying to cope with his seething feelings at the thought of being alone with Billy on a remote canyon for five days.
"If I thought it would do any good," Billy said, "I'd give you my word that I won't touch you. But you don't know me well enough to believe me, so there's not much point making any promises, is there."
Dom didn't answer.
Without warning, Billy brought the truck to a stop in the centre of a wide spot in the road. He set the brake and turned to face his unhappy passenger.
"What will it be?" he asked. "Arwen Canyon, or back to the ranch house?"
Almost wildly, Dom glanced around the countryside. He had been so excited when Liv had offered employment for the summer. The salary was minimal, but the opportunity to study newly discovered ruins was unparalleled.
And now it was vanishing like rain in the desert.
Dom looked at Billy. Part of him was frankly terrified at the prospect of being alone with him for days on end. Part of him was not - and in some ways, that was the most terrifying of all.
Shutting out everything, Dom closed his eyes. What am I going to do.
The image of Billy's powerful hands holding the kitten with such care entered Dom's mind.
Surely Liv wouldn't send me out here alone with a man she didn't trust. After that thought came another. My father was never that gentle with anything. Nor was Ethan.
The ingrained habit of years made Dom's mind veer away from the bleak night when he had learned once and forever to distrust men and his own judgement. Yet he had been luckier than many of the victims he had spoken to when he had volunteered at the crisis centre. Dom's scars were all on the inside.
Unbidden, came a thought that made Dom tremble with a tangle of emotions he refused to name, and a question he shouldn't ask, even in the silence of his own mind.
Would Billy be as gentle with him as he was with that kitten?
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I like your story, even though I haven't commented until now :)
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Glad you're enjoying it hon.
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With the new chapter from today I have a guess as to why Billy isn't much happier...
Can't wait to find out what it really is. :)
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so now we have to ask just what the hell his dad did, and who the hell ethan is. i like the way you have billy being so perceptive to dom and his fears, and the way he isn't just telling him to "get over it" or to "knock it off". he's trying to be respectful of dom's feelings and it shows.
great stuff.
kerry =)
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Billy's very good at reading frightened animals/people, he's espeically good at Dom
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I've already started plotting the "Granite Man" and "Warrior", I'm just a little bit sorry now that I didn't start at "Fire and Rain".
Just for a bit of a teaser for you Nevada=Daisy, Eden=Orli, Cash=Sean, Carla=Craig, Still think the casting works?
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Thank you for your lovely compliments. I'm glad you're enjoying it.