Western Lovers: Cowboys and Archaeologists (9/30)

[sassywitch.livejournal.com]

Title: Western Lovers: Cowboys and Archeaologists 9/30
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: 2950
Header Art: Courtesy of the incredibly talented loki_girl
Previous 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 on Monday, consider this a tiny little angst warning for this chapter and chapter 10.

~*~*~*~*~

While the night wind blew outside, Dom sat in the old ranch house, staring at a potshard in his palm, remembering the incident two weeks ago when Billy had dropped down into the darkness beside him and lifted him to the solid ground above. The tactile memories had haunted him… Billy's hand searching carefully over his body, his easy strength when he lifted Dom, his face pressed so intimately against Dom while he climbed back into sunshine, and the feeling of Billy's hot breath ghosting against his denim covered skin. And then there was the feelings that had coursed through his body at the thought of Billy's breath against his bare skin.

Shivering, remembering, Dom saw nothing of the shard in his palm. The memories resonated in his body as much as in his mind, sending sensations rippling through him, heat and cold, uneasiness and curiosity, a strange hunger to touch Billy in return, to know his textures as well as he knew his own.

I'm going crazy.

Once more, Dom tried to concentrate on the shard lying across his palm, but all he could think about was the instant when he had taken Billy's hand between his own and pulled himself to his feet. He thought he had felt Billy's fingers caressing him in the very act of releasing him, but the touch had stopped before he could be certain.

And since then, Billy had been the heart, soul and body of asexual politeness. At the site, he treated Dom with the casual camaraderie of an older brother. It was the same at the ranch. At night, they sorted shards together, spoke in broken phrases about missing angles, notched curves, discussed the weather or the ranch or the progress of the dig in slightly more complete sentences - and he never touched Dom, even when he was seated next to him at the dinner table, or passed a box of shards to him, or when he looked over Dom's shoulder to offer advice about a missing piece of a pot. Billy had every excuse to crowd Dom's personal space from time to time, but he didn't.

For the first few days, Billy's distance had reassured Dom. Then it had piqued his interest. By the fourteenth day, it outright annoyed him.

You'd think I didn't shower often enough.

"Did you say something?" Billy asked from across the table.

Appalled, Dom realized that he had muttered his thought aloud.

"Nothing," he said quickly.

A few moments later, Dom put his shard aside and stood up, feeling restless. As it often did, his glance strayed to the man who shared so many days and evenings and nights with him.

The nights were perfectly proper, of course. Some outlaw. The Double L's Ramrod is nothing, if not proper.

Broodingly, Dom watched Billy's fingers turning potshards over and over, handling the fragile pottery deftly, running his fingertips over the edges as though to learn the tiniest contours by touch alone. Dom did that same thing when he worked, a kind of tactile exploration that was as much part of his nature as his expressive eyes, and his fear of strong men.

But he no longer feared men. At least, not all men. Viggo still startled him from time to time with his sheer size and the silence of his movement, yet Dom had no doubt that Liv was perfectly safe with her chosen man, as was little Milo with his father, a father chosen by fate rather than by the baby. Not all children were that lucky in their parents. Dom hadn't been. Nor were all wives as fortunate in their husbands. Dom's mother certainly had not been safe or cherished by her man.

Restlessly, Dom ran his fingertips over the tabletop, feeling the grit that rubbed off the shards, no matter how carefully they were handled. He smoothed his fingers over the table's surface again and again, watching Billy's hands, fascinated by their combination of power and precision.

What would it feel like to be touched with such care?

The glittering sensation that shivered through Dom at his silent question made him feel almost weak. He wanted to be touched by Billy, but it was impossible. Billy was a strong man. He would want more than touching, gentleness, cherishing, holding.

He knew Billy. He wouldn't take what wasn't offered, would he? He's different from other men. But he can't be, all strong, hard men have always been the same.

With a small sound, Dom looked away from Billy, and didn't notice the sudden intensity in Billy's eyes as he watched Dom over the pot he was assembling from ancient shards.

"Mmrreeow?"

The polite query was followed by another, less polite one. Dom hurried to the window, grateful to have a distraction from his unexpected, unnerving attraction to Billy.

"Hello, you old reprobate," Dom said, opening the window and holding out his arms.

On a gust of air, the tiger striped cat flowed into Dom's arms. Pounce's fur smelled cool, fresh, almost washed by the clean wind. Smiling and rubbing his face against the cat's sleek head, Dom settled back into his chair as Pounce's rumbling, vibrating approval rippled out, blending with the fitful sound of the wind.

"King of the Double L, aren't you?" Dom asked, smiling. "Think you can trade a few dead mice for some time in my lap, hmmm?"

Billy looked up again. Dom was kneading gently down the cat's big back, rubbing his cheek against Pounce's head while Pounce rubbed his head against Dom's in turn. The old mouser's purring was like continuous, distant hunger, but it was Dom's clear enjoyment of the cat's textures and responses that brought every one of Billy's masculine senses alert. He had kept his distance from Dom very carefully since the first day on the site; he would never forget the raw terror that he had seen in Dom's eyes the first time he had reached for Dom in the gloom of the ancient kiva.

No matter how carefully Dom tried to conceal it, Billy sensed that he was still afraid of him. Perhaps it was because the first time he had seen Billy, he was the victor in a brief, brutal fight. Perhaps it was the way he had handled the pothunters.

Perhaps it was his commando training. Perhaps it was simply himself, Billy Boyd, a man who never had worn well on people - and vice versa. An outlaw, not a lover or a husband.

Pounce purred loudly from Dom's lap, proclaiming his satisfaction with life, himself and the man who was stroking his sleek body.

"If I thought you'd give me a rubdown like that, I'd go out and catch mice, too."

Dom gave Billy a startled look.

"Don't know that I'd eat them though," Billy added blandly, measuring a shard against the bright lamplight. "A man has to draw the line somewhere."

Uncertainly, Dom laughed. The idea of Billy purring beneath his hands made odd sensations shiver through him. Surely Billy was joking, but if he weren't….

Shadows of old fear rose in Dom. When he spoke, his voice was tight, and the words came out in a torrent, for he was afraid of being interrupted before he got everything said that had to be said.

"You'd be better off eating Liv's wonderful chicken than trading dead mice for a pat from me. I'm not the sensual type. Sex is for other people. In the old jargon, I'm frigid, if frigid defines a person who can live very well without sex."

Billy looked up sharply, caught as much by the palpable resonances of fear in Dom's voice as he was by his words. He started to speak, but Dom was still talking, words spilling out like water from a river finally freed of its lid of winter ice.

"A man must have thought up the word frigid," Dom continued quickly. "A reasonable person would just say they aren't a masochist, that they feel no need of pain, self inflicted or otherwise. But no matter what label you put on it - and me - the result is the same. Thanks, but no thanks."

The words echoed in the quiet room. Their defensiveness made Dom cringe inside, but he wouldn't have taken back a single, blunt syllable. Billy had to know.

"I don't recall asking you for sex," Billy said.

For a long minute, Dom's hands kneaded through Pounce's fur, soothing the cat and himself at the same time, drawing forth a lifting and falling of rumbling purrs.

"No, you haven't," Dom said finally, sighing, feeling himself relax now that the worst of it was over. Billy knew. He could never accuse him now. "But I've learned the hard way that it's better to be honest, then to be quiet, and then be accused of being a tease."

"Don't worry Dom. You've got 'no trespassing' signs posted all over you. Any man who doesn't see them would have to be as blind as you are."

"What?"

Billy looked up from the shards he had assembled.

"You're stone blind to your own basic nature. You're not frigid, Dom. You have a rare sensuality. You drink storm winds and nuzzle Milo's tiny hands, and touch pieces of pottery with fingertips that are so sensitive you don't even have to look to tell what kind of edge there is. You rub that old tomcat until he's a vibrating, puddle of pleasure, and you enjoy it just as much as he does. That's all sensuality is - taking pleasure in your own senses. And sex, good, bone-melting, mind shattering sex, is the most pleasure your senses can stand."

Dom sat transfixed, caught within the emerald green clarity of Billy's eyes watching him, the smooth, whiskey certainty of his voice caressing Dom. Then Billy looked back to the shards, releasing Dom from the perception of his gaze.

"Did a new box come in from the site?" Billy asked in a calm voice, as though they had ever discussed anything more personal than potshards. "I've been waiting for one from 10-B. I think part of this red pot might have washed down to that spot on the grid. A long time ago of course."

His mind in turmoil, Dom grabbed the question, grateful to have something neutral to talk about. "Yes, it's over there. I'll get it."

If Billy noticed the rapid fire style of Dom's speech, he didn't comment.

Releasing a reluctant Pounce, Dom went to the corner of the room where recently cleaned, permanently numbered shards were stored in hope of future assembly. The carton collected from 10-B on the site grid was on top of the pile. Dom brought the box to the long table where Billy worked by the light of a powerful gooseneck lamp.

"Thanks," he said absently. "I don't suppose that there's a piece lying around on top with two obtuse angles and a ragged bit out of the third side?"

"Gray? Corrugated? Black on white?"

"Red."

"Really?" Dom asked excitedly, his emotional confusion forgotten in his passion for his work. Redware was the most unusual of all the Anasazi pottery. It also came from the last period when they inhabited the northern reaches of their homeland. "Do you think we have enough shards to make a whole pot?"

Billy made a rumble that sounded suspiciously like Pounce at his most satisfied. He leaned over, pulled a large carton from beneath the table and folded back the flaps. With gentle care, he lifted pieces of an ancient bowl onto the table. The background color of the pot was brick red, designs in white and black covered the surface, and careful geometrics that spoke of a painstaking artist working patiently over the pot.

A feeling of awe expanded through Dom as he saw the pot lying half mended on the table. Billy had been as patient and painstaking as the original potter; the fine lines where he had glued the shards together were almost invisible.

"You never did tell me why this type of pot is so rare," Billy said, turning aside to the carton of unmatched shards.

"Polychrome pots are usually found south of here," Dom said absently. His hands closed delicately around the base and curving side of the red pot. "Either the potter was an immigrant or the pot was a piece of trade goods. But this pot, plus the surface and regular shape of the sandstone masonry in Arwen Canyon, make it certain that the site is from the Pueblo III period of the Anasazi. Or nearly certain. Since we don't have a time machine, we'll never be one hundred percent positive that we have the true story."

"We know the most important thing."

Dom looked up from the fragment of the past held between his hands.

"They were people like us," Billy said simply with a shrug. "They built, laughed, wept, fought, raised children and died. Most of all, they knew fear."

"Actually," Dom said frowning over the box of shards, "The most recent theory states that the Anasazi moved into their cliff houses for reasons other than fear."

Billy's left eyebrow arched skeptically. "They just liked the view halfway up the cliff, huh?"

"Um, no one said anything about that. The theory just states that we were premature in attributing a fortress mentality to the Anasazi. They could just have been preserving the top of the mesa for crops and didn't build on the canyon bottom because of floods. That left the cliffs themselves for housing."

"What did the professorial types say about the signal towers on top of Mesa Verde? They were used to pass the news of births, right?"

Dom gave Billy a perplexed, sideways look but he appeared to be engrossed in the red potshards Dom was finding and carefully placing in front of him. Already, Billy had found two to glue together, and was positioning a third.

"The towers could have been used to welcome visitors," Dom said neutrally, "Or to show the way up onto the mesas for people who were from other areas."

"People from other areas tend to be strangers, and strangers tend to be unfriendly."

"Perhaps the Anasazi believed that strangers were simply friends they hadn't yet met."

"That would certainly explain how the Anasazi died out so fast," Billy said sardonically.

"In some academic circles, your point of view would be considered philosophically and politically retrograde," Dom said without heat. One of the most pleasurable thing about his time with Billy was the discovery of his agile, wide ranging mind. He had come to look forward to the hours spent sorting shards and talking about the Anasazi almost as much as he had enjoyed working on the site itself. "Here's the shard that goes in the middle."

"Thanks," Billy said "Hang on to it until the glue dries on these two. Whatever made the professors give up on good old common sense to explain the Anasazi cliff dwelling?"

"Such as?"

"Birds don't fly because they like the view up there. Birds fly because cats can't."

Dom smiled. "Don't tell Pounce."

"I don't have to. He figured that one out all by himself, which is more than I can say for whoever dreamt up that new age fertilizer about cliff houses being invented for any reason other than self defense. In a word, fear."

"Logical, but it doesn't explain why there was no increase in burials about the time the Anasazi abandoned the mesa tops and took up living in the cliffs."

"Burials?"

"Self-defense indicates war," Dom explained. "War indicates wounding and death. Death-"

"Leads to burials," Billy interrupted.

"Right. Even around the time the Anasazi disappeared altogether, there was no increase in burials. Therefore, the theory that hostile tribes forced the Anasazi into cliff houses has a big flaw. No extra deaths, no war. Simple."

"More like simpleminded. Those theorists need to pull their heads out of their asses and have a reality check."

"What do you mean?"

"Only winners bury their dead."

The flatness in Billy's voice made a chill move over Dom's skin. "You sound very certain," he said softly.

"I've been there. That's as certain as it gets."

"There?"

"On the losing side. It hasn't changed all that much over the centuries. I doubt that it ever will. Pain, fear, death, and not enough people left to mourn or bury the dead. But there are always enough vultures."

Billy's narrowed eyes were like splinters of clear, green glass. Dom could not bear to look at them and think of what atrocities they had seen.

Billy turned and searched through the box of potshards, and when he looked up again, his expression was once more relaxed.

"In any case," Billy continued, "Anybody who's read a little biology could tell your fancy theorists that building Stone Age apartment houses halfway up sheer cliffs took an immense amount of time and energy, which meant that the need driving the society also had to be immense. Survival is the most likely explanation, and the only animal that threatens man's survival is man himself." Billy smiled grimly. "That hasn't changed either."

"Fear." Dom understood Billy's logic more keenly than he wanted to admit even to himself.

"Don't knock it. No animal would survive without it, including man." Billy held a shard up to the light, shrugged and tried it anyway. It fit. "Maybe the Anasazi were no longer actively involved in war. Maybe they just feared it to the point that they retreated to a hole in the cliffs and pulled the hole in after them." Billy looked up. "You can understand that kind of fear, can't you? It's what drew you to the Anasazi in the first place. Like you, they built a shell around themselves to wall out the world. And then, they began to shrink and die inside that shell."

Dom concentrated on two shards that had no chance of fitting, unwilling to look up into green eyes that saw too much.

Billy waited a few moments, sighed and continued. "When you retreat to a stone cliff that's accessible only by one or two eyelash trails that a nine-year-old with a sharp stick could defend, it's probably because you don't have much more than nine-year-olds left to defend the village."

"But there's no hard evidence of repeated encounters with a warlike tribe," Dom said coolly.

"Isn't there? What does Anasazi mean?" Billy spoke so softly Dom had to strain to hear.

"It's a Navajo word, meaning Ancient Ones, or Those Who came Before."

Billy smiled thinly. "It also means Enemy Ancestor." Billy picked up an oddly shaped shard and stared at it without really seeing it. "I suspect that at the end of a long, hard period, during which they'd had to cope with war or drought or disease, or all three, a kind of madness overtook the northern Anasazi."

The quality of Billy's voice, his brogue rich and thick, rippling with something unspoken, caught Dom's attention.

"What do you mean?" Dom forgot his own self preservation. He forgot not to look into Billy's all-seeing, all-knowing eyes. His desire to see the light burning in the emerald orbs as Billy explained his theories outweighed even Dom's own desire to avoid the clarity of the pain that Billy's insights could bring.

"I think a dark kind of shaman cult overtook them, using up everything the society has and demanding even more. Maybe the fears the shaman cult played on had some basis in reality, or maybe they lived only in the Anasazi's own nightmares." Billy shook his head. "Either way, fear ruled the society. The people retreated to the most impossible places they could reach, and walled themselves in with rooms and held ceremonies in buried kivas. When they ran out of space in the alcoves, they built bigger and bigger kivas along the base of the cliff."

Billy's voice shifted, becoming subtly different, more resonant yet softer as he told of his own Anasazi theories.

"Their rituals became more and more elaborate," Billy continued quietly. "More demanding of people's mental and physical resources. Darker. It's possible for a culture to exist like that, but not for long. It goes against the deepest grain of survival to huddle in a stone crypt."

"Is that what you think happened? The Anasazi died in the city crypts they built for themselves?"

"Some did. Some escaped."

The odd timbre of Billy's voice made the hair on Dom's scalp stir in primal response, the same stirring he had felt with Billy once before, when he had stood on a desolate mesa top and felt centuries like cards being shuffled, revealing glimpses of a time when reality had been very different, and so had he and Billy.

"How did they escape?" Dom asked, his voice strange, even to his own ears.

For a long time there was only silence, punctuated by the sounds of the wind sweeping over the ancient land. Just when Dom had decided that Billy wasn't going to say any more, he began speaking again.

"Another shaman came down from the north, an outlaw shaman with a vision that swept through the Anasazi, a vision that spoke of light as well as darkness, life as well as death." Billy looked up suddenly, catching and holding Dom with eyes as green as the storm tossed ocean. "The Anasazi who believed the outlaw shaman, climbed down out of their beautiful, dangerous, futile cliff cities, and never went back again."
Chapter 10

Comments

[mystery-ink.livejournal.com]

Wow. Now you've REALLY go me curious as to how similar to the books this is! Using the Anasazi as a metaphor for what's going on with Dom is brilliant (of course, since Billy's brilliant - *G*). And I love the imagery with the cat, and Billy's words about sensuality. Beautiful!

[sassywitch.livejournal.com]

Billy is brilliant isn't he?

Glad you're enjoying it hon.

[divinemadam.livejournal.com]

You know what? If all of my English teachers would have had me read books like this to find the analogies and deeper meaning, I would have liked the classes much more. Maybe I would have actually read the books too. The layers in the stories is why I have always liked Elizabeth Lowell, that and the small shot of the mystical. I am so glad that you decided on this story. I had forgotten how much I loved this one for those exact reasons.

By the way, I should have said at the end of the last chapter that any time that Billy would like to have his face in my lower abdominal region, he can feel free to do so. I'm with Dom on the shivering feeling that would give. Yum!

[crsty1961.livejournal.com]

Whoa so cool! That was the best description of life yet. Thanks!!

[-vanillashake.livejournal.com]

Do I need to say that it was awesome (again!)?
No, don't think so, but.. wow.
*issoinlovewiththestory* Awww and I love Pounce :)

[daydreambeleevr.livejournal.com]

For the first few days, Billy's distance had reassured Dom. Then it had piqued his interest. By the fourteenth day, it outright annoyed him.

:fist pump:

Yes! it's got to be this way for them. Dom's gonna have to make the first move. but i do love the way Billy doesn't miss the looks Dom's been giving him. :grin:



"A reasonable person would just say they aren't a masochist, that they feel no need of pain, self inflicted or otherwise.

my heart aches that this has been the only lesson that dom has in sex is that of pain and humiliation. he hasn't been taught any of the joys of love making. yet. we'll leave that up to Billy, shall we? :smile:


"You can understand that kind of fear, can't you?

I love how Billy has so accurately compared Dom to the Anasazi people. very clever

wonderful, once again!

kerry =)

[sassywitch.livejournal.com]

I do so adore your feedback.

Sometimes I think Billy is just as skittish as Dom but in a completely different way. He's just hadnling it all different.

The very next chapter will explain to you just how Dom was initiated and let me tell you it wasn't pretty at all, but you already knew that didn't you?

Billy's very perceptive....but you knew that didn't you.

[daydreambeleevr.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think Billy is just as skittish as Dom but in a completely different way.

you're right. i got that feeling with this next part of the piece...

"I've been there. That's as certain as it gets."

"There?"

"On the losing side.

billy has seen some evil things, most likely done them too. maybe he's learned of a different type of pain then the one that dom learned, letting someone get too close. there's more then one way to lose your soul.

and yeah, i know it's gonna get rough, but i'll keep some chocolate eggs handy, and i should make it through just fine. :grin: (also, some extra chapters of MMoU wouldn't hurt) :cheeky grin:

kerry =)

[sassywitch.livejournal.com]

Having read your LJ entry today I wondered if you might like a treat?

Check your email and let me know what you think?

[daydreambeleevr.livejournal.com]

:claps hands:

woah. just, woah.

that was special, and so are you!

*hugs*

k =)

[loozy.livejournal.com]

Oh wow... This chapter was really intense...

[starlingthefool.livejournal.com]

There are so many small details in this story that I love. It gives such a clear image of the characters and the place. This is like, the 3D Imax version of fanfic.