FIC: Western Lovers: Cowboys and Archaeologists (13/30)

[sassywitch.livejournal.com]

Title: Western Lovers: Cowboys and Archaeologists 13/30
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: 2869
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

~*~*~*~

Billy sat in the rocking chair, moving it with a gentle rhythm, looking down into Milo's grey eyes, and the baby stared back with absolute seriousness into Billy's green eyes.

"I know old man," Billy said, smiling. "I don't look like your momma. What's worse, I'm not built like her and you're getting too hungry to be pacified by a rocking chair and a soothing voice for much longer, but I'm afraid you'll have to lump it for a while. Viggo has been trying to show Liv that new colt all day, and this is the first chance they've had. You don't begrudge your parents a few minutes alone together, do you?" He leaned in to nuzzle his beard rough cheek against the soft skin of Milo's face.

Billy smiled to himself as he spoke, as he suspected the new colt wasn't all that was keeping Viggo and Liv away from the house. The men were scattered all over the ranch, Dom was working on sketches at the old house, Billy had promised to watch Milo, and the barn was empty of all but a few horses. Billy wouldn't have blamed Viggo for taking advantage of the opportunity to steal a few kisses or even the whole woman.

The thought of enjoying a similar opportunity to have Dom alone within the twilight silence of the barn had a rapid and very pronounced effect on Billy's body.

"Damn," he muttered softly. "It's not like I've been deprived in that department, except for the weekends."

When they were away from Arwen Canyon, Billy was careful not to show any difference in his treatment of Dom. Some people could have laughed off or ignored the cowhand's brand of humor with regard to 'riding double' or the like, but Billy didn't think Dom was one of them. When the hands discovered, as they quickly would, that it was nothing permanent, the humor would degenerate into sidelong looks and blunt male speculations. Dom's trust and uninhibited, unconscious sensuality deserved better than that. He was different from anybody the cowboys usually associated with summer flings.

The only time Billy allowed himself to be alone with Dom was in the old house, in the workroom, sorting shards after dinner, the curtains open and both people plainly in view to anyone who cared enough to glance in. Outwardly, as long as anyone was around, nothing had changed since Dom had become his lover.

As much as Billy was tempted by proximity, he didn't so much as kiss Dom when they were at the ranch house, because he didn't trust himself to stop with a kiss or two. On Friday, the drive back from Arwen Canyon had taken so long that dinner was over hours before Billy and Dom made it to the ranch house. Part of the trouble had been a rain slicked road, but the other part had been Dom; Billy hadn't been able to keep his hands off his young lover. What had started as a quick kiss had ended with both of them breathing too hard, too fast, their breath as steamy as their bodies had become.

All that had prevented Billy from taking Dom right there was the fact that his first unhappy experience with sex had been in the front seat of a vehicle. So he had put the truck back into gear and driven to the ranch with the weekend stretching like an eternity in front of him, and Dom's long fingers stroking his taut thigh. It had been a near thing. Billy had never been like that with anyone, riding the eroding edge of his own self control until he wanted to put his fist through a window in sheer frustration.

Two nights in the bunkhouse did nothing to make Billy feel better. No matter how hard Billy had tried not to, he kept seeing Dom holding out his arms, opening himself to Billy. The memory made heat and heaviness pool thickly between his thighs, a reaction that had become uncomfortably familiar since he had first seen Dom.

Becoming Dom's lover had meant only a temporary improvement in the condition, followed all too soon by an even more pronounced return of the problem. Knowing the passion that lay behind Dom's smile didn't help to cool Billy's response. He wanted to make love to Dom after an evening of conversation and laughter, and then again in the middle of the night. Then Billy wanted to kiss Dom slowly awake in the morning, bringing him from dreams to passion, watching the immense pleasure in his eyes when he woke up and found Billy's mouth on his bare skin. But Billy couldn't do that on the weekends, when they returned to the ranch.

Milo bunched up his little fists and cried.

Billy sighed. "I know how you feel nubbin. I know how you feel."

Shifting the baby, Billy stroked the tiny cheek with his fingertip, and Milo's hands flailed with excitement, until more by chance than anything else, he connected with Billy's left index finger, bringing it to his small mouth. Instantly, the baby began sucking on Billy's calloused fingertip.

"Uh, old man, I don't know how to break this to you, but…oh, the hell with it. You'll figure it out for yourself soon enough."

The controlled throaty rumble of a powerful car engine distracted Billy, and he looked out through the window into the last light of evening. The paint job on the car was a dirt-streaked, sun faded black, but everything that affected the car's function was in top shape. The tires were new, the lights were bright and hard, and the engine purred like a well fed cougar.

Even before the driver got out and stretched, Billy knew that David Wenham had come back to the Double L.
Smiling with anticipation, Billy watched his younger brother climb the front steps with the lithe, coordinated motions of an athlete or a highly trained warrior. The knock on the door was distinct, staccato without being impatient. Billy's smile widened. There had been a time when his brother would have driven up in a cloud of dust and knocked on the door hard enough to rattle the hinges.

"Come on in, David."

The door opened and shut without noise, and David crossed the room the same way. Without noise. Taller, wide shouldered, his thick red blonde hair two inches long and his light beard clipped close to his face, David looked as hard as he was. Even as his pale, ice blue eyes took in the room with multiple doorways, his unnaturally acute hearing noted the near silent approach of someone coming toward the living room through the kitchen.

~*~*~*~*~

Knowing Billy was babysitting Milo, Dom had been all but tiptoeing across the kitchen as he headed for the living room. He didn't get that far. Two steps from the doorway, he froze at the sight of the lean, long-boned, broad shouldered stranger who moved like Billy when he was fighting.

Billy held Milo and watched David cross the floor toward the rocking chair. Grassy eyes measured the changes in David, the brackets of anger or pain around his flat, unsmiling mouth, the razor fine physical edge, his muscular weight always poised on the balls of his feet, because he had to be ready to throw himself into flight or fight at every instant. For Billy, looking at David was like going back in time, seeing himself years ago, youthful dreams and emotions burned out by the timeless cruelty of war.

Silently, David stood in front of the rocking chair, staring down at his brother and the baby.

"I will be damned. Yours?"

Billy shook his head. "Not a chance. I know what sort of relationship material I am. I'm definitely a short term man. Relationships should be a long term thing."

David grunted. "That asshole that you fell for didn't make much of a relationship, long or short."

The corner of Billy's mouth curled sardonically. "It wasn't his entire fault. I should've had my eyes open from the start."
"The way I remember it, he was an asshole from the word go, using you to suit himself and then pissing all over the relationship as soon as he knew you were his," David retorts.

"The curse of our family." Billy nodded. "Warriors not husbands."

Dom stood motionless, his throat clenched around a cry of protest and pain, realizing he had lost a game he hadn't even been aware of playing. He had understood the risks he had taking in trusting Billy and he had been lucky. Billy had given him extraordinary physical pleasure, and no pain at all, but Dom hadn't understood that he was risking his emotions and unborn dreams. Now Dom felt as he had in the instant the kiva ceiling had given way beneath his feet.

No wonder Billy has been so careful not to touch me when he knows other people are around. He doesn't want them to know we're lovers. They might assume something more, something that has to do with shared lives, shared promises, shared love. But he doesn't see us that way.

I didn't know I saw us that way until now, just now when a dream I didn't even know I had burst and I feel through to reality.

God I hope the landing is easier than the fall.

Dom clenched his teeth and forced himself to let out the breath he had instinctively held at the first instant of tearing pain. Silently, gradually, he took in air and let it out again, bringing strength back to his body. After a few aching breaths, his ears stopped ringing. The words from the other room began to have meaning again, David speaking in tones that were like Billy's, but without emotion.

"Heard anything from Craig?"

"He's tired of jungles," Billy said.

David grunted. "Anytime he wants to swap sea level tropics for Afghanistan's high passes, he can have at it."

"Thought the country calmed down after the Russians left." Billy gave David a measuring green eyed glance. "Thought that was why you decided to come home."

"The Afghani tribesmen have been killing each other for a thousand years. They'll be killing each other a thousand years from now. They're fighting men. They'd take on Satan for the pure Hell of it."

"So would you."

David's pale blue eyes locked with Billy's. "I did. I lost."
Billy held out his right hand. "I don't know of any man who ever won. Welcome back brother. You've been a long time coming home."

The deep affection in Billy's voice went through Dom, rattling him all over again, telling him that he was jealous of Billy's brother. The realization appalled him, and the pain.

All the old wives' tales are true; the landing is worse than the fall.

Dom looked around almost wildly. He had to leave, and leave quickly, before he was discovered. He couldn't face Billy with jealously and despair and pain shaking him.

"Never thought I'd say it," David said quietly, "But it's good to see your ugly face again. Now maybe you'll introduce me to the guy standing behind me."

Billy leaned sideways, looking around his brother's body toward the front door.

"Kitchen door," David said, stepping aside.

Dom heard the words, but took another step backwards anyway, wondering bitterly how David had known he was there. He hadn't made a sound. In fact, he had barely breathed after hearing Billy's matter of fact summation of his lack of enduring appeal.

And everyone else's appeal to him.

"Dom? Is that you? Come on in, Honey. I want you to meet my brother, David. David, this is Dominic Monaghan, a good friend of mine."

David turned around and Dom knew he couldn't flee. The pale blue eyes that met his were as passionless as David's voice. Dom had an unnerving sense of looking into the eyes of a wolf or a cougar.

"How did you know I was here?" Dom asked almost angrily.

"Your scent."

David's neutral tone did nothing to calm Dom. The man's unsmiling, measuring aloofness overwhelmed all other impressions Dom had of him, even the obvious one of his dark, hard, male appeal.
David looked from Dom to the baby sucking industriously on Billy's finger. "Yours?"

"No," Dom said in a strained voice. "That's Milo Mortensen."

"Viggo's baby?" David asked, looking at Billy.
Billy nodded.

"You mean that long-legged little girl you told me about finally ran him to ground?'

"She sure did, and then she let him go. He decided he didn't want to go anywhere without her."
David shrugged. "To each his own. For us that means single harness, not double."

Billy looked at Dom's tight, pale face and extended his free hand to him, then looked at his brother, who was a younger, harder reflection of himself. Billy looked down for a long moment at the baby in his lap, then he met again the unsmiling eyes of a warrior who had fought too long.

"Hope you haven't lost your taste for sleeping out," Billy said. "Astin is getting damned tired of weekends in Arwen Canyon."

"I don't sleep much, so it doesn't matter where I lie down."

Billy's eyes narrowed as he remembered the years he had spent relearning how to sleep like a civilized man instead of a wild animal, coming alert with every unusual noise, waking up in a single rush with a knife in one hand and a man's throat in the other.

"It'll pass," Billy said quickly.
David said nothing.

Milo began to fret, no longer pacified by Billy's unyielding fingertip.
David watched the baby for a moment, then said, "Company coming from the barn. Man and a woman."

Billy shook his head at the acuity of David's senses. "I'm glad I don't have to live like that anymore, every sense peeled to maximum alertness."

"Beats dying."

The very faint sound of a woman's laughter floated into the living room. Milo's fretfulness increased in volume.

"Honey," Billy said to Dom without looking away from the baby. "Go tell Liv to get a move on it. Milo is getting set to cloud up and rain all over me."

There was no answer, and when Billy glanced up from Milo's rapidly reddening face, he discovered that Dom was gone.

"How long was he standing there?" Billy said, his voice as hard as David's.

"Long enough to know you're not interested in setting up house with him."

Billy closed his eyes and hissed a single savage word. It would be a long drive to Arwen Canyon tomorrow, and all the way, Dom would be tight and angry, thinking of a thousand reasons why he shouldn't melt and run like hot, wild honey at Billy's touch.

Milo began to cry in earnest, gulping in air and letting it out in jerky squalls.

"That's a strong baby you have there," David said. He bent down. A long, scarred finger traced Milo's hairline with surprising delicacy. "It's good to hear a baby cry and know its distress is only temporary, that food and love are on the way."

"Less volume would be nice."

David shook his head and said in a low voice, "The ones who are too weak to cry are the hardest to take."

Billy looked up quickly, but his brother's eyes were hooded, unreadable. Then the front door opened, and Liv rushed in.

"I'm sorry, I thought Milo would be all right for a few more minutes." She saw David, noted the similarity to Billy in stance, and smiled. "David Wenham, right?" she asked, reaching past the bearded man for her hollering baby. "I'm Liv, welcome to the Double L. We've never met, but I've heard a lot about you." As she hurried from the room with Milo in her arms, she called over her shoulder, "Viggo look who finally got here. Now Astin can go back to chasing cows."

Soon after Liv disappeared into the next room, the sound of the baby's crying ended abruptly, telling the men that Milo had found something more satisfactory to suckle than a man's calloused fingertip.
Viggo shut the door and walked across the living room. For a few seconds there was silence while David and Viggo measured each other. Then Viggo nodded, and held out his hand.

"Welcome back David. Double L is your home for as long as you want it."

After a moment, David took the hand that was offered. "Thanks, Mortensen. You won't regret it."

Viggo turned back to Billy, measured the expression on his face and asked rather warily, "Something wrong, Ramrod?"

"Not one damn thing." Billy stood and crossed the room in long strides. "C'mon, David. I'll show you where you'll be sleeping."

The front door closed behind Billy, and Viggo looked questioningly at David.

"Lover trouble," David answered succinctly.

"What?"

"Five foot seven, honey-blonde hair, gray-blue eyes, fine body he keeps hidden under oversized clothes?"

"Dominic?"

David nodded.

"Did you say Billy's lover?"

David shrugged. "He will be until he tries to put a permanent brand on Billy. Then he'll be looking for another stud to ride. Our family doesn't brand worth a damn."

Chapter 14

Comments

[crsty1961.livejournal.com]

Oh no poor Dom just when he found some peace of mind! :(
Quick like a bunny post another, PLEASE. **pleaseplease*

[sassywitch.livejournal.com]

He had found peace of mind, but that doesn't mean he's lost it completely.

Maybe it's Billy's peace of mind we should be worried about?

[-vanillashake.livejournal.com]

Awww...*hugs dom*
Poor Dom, and also poor Billy, whatever happend to HIM, to be like that... .___.
I was just a little...shocked by this chapter. But it's great, too ...of course.

[sassywitch.livejournal.com]

Billy may not have been physically hurt but emotionally he's scarred worse than his Dommie.

It is a shocking chapter, but they will get better.

[daydreambeleevr.livejournal.com]

When they were away from Arwen Canyon, Billy was careful not to show any difference in his treatment of Dom

hmmm... i wonder if Dom is savvy enough to understand that Billy is trying to protect his reputation? and God bless Billy for thinking When the hands discovered, as they quickly would, that it was nothing permanent, ... hee hee hee. "Nothing permanent"... that's what you think, Billy! :grin:

oh! David is here finally! (his last line was classic) :grin:

this is one of those stories that as soon as all the chapters are in, i'm gonna have to print it up, because i'm going to want to read it over and over.

Kerry =)

[sassywitch.livejournal.com]

I don't think at the moment he is savvy enough to understand, especially with his past.

I'm rather in love with this david, he's possibly even more damaged than either Billy or Dom, but he loves his brother and would do anything for him.

*blush* Don't think I've ever had anyone print my fics before.

[surreality-fan.livejournal.com]

welcome ramrod river tours, da nile adventures.

*sigh*

you don't think about just a fling THAT much.

[sassywitch.livejournal.com]

This Billy's a bit of a thinker, he might?

[darkfaery1.livejournal.com]

Poor Honey. I hope he doesn't crawl back into himself to far. The addition of David as a vision of Billy's younger self makes me want to know his backstory more than ever now. Just fabulous.

[sassywitch.livejournal.com]

You never know what his reaction is going to be.

Billy will fess up his past as soon as he can talk about it.

Glad you like it hon.

[sourgreenapples.livejournal.com]

Ok, I have to keep myself from all this conjecture! This is driving me just a bit crazy.

Cant wait for the next part.

[sassywitch.livejournal.com]

*soothes*

Didnt' mean to drive you crazy.

Next part will be up late tonight my time.

[divinemadam.livejournal.com]

I always hated this chapter. It's so gut wrenching. I have been in a similar situation as Dom, overhearing what would never be, but I wasn't as emotionally scarred as Dom (I think.) Needless to say, this struck home for me, even though it was a long time ago and I wasn't in love with the guy. Hurts like a bitch to hear open rejection like that. I do like the tenderness shown between Billy and the baby. It's so sweet. I'm such a sucker for a man with a baby! I can't wait for more!

[sassywitch.livejournal.com]

It's probably my least favourite chapter too, and like you I've been there done that, so it hurts and I grew from as Dom will.

Me too I'm a complete sucker for man with Baby.

[katze-boston.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Billy and Dom, both so damaged....

[sassywitch.livejournal.com]

They are aren't they? But they're healing themselves

[loozy.livejournal.com]

I want to know what made Billy this way... I am so intrigued by this, because it's just such a vital part... I mean, I bet that in the end they get together for good, that Dom manages to change Billy, but what made him that way?
What happened?

Will we ever get to know?

[sassywitch.livejournal.com]

Billy had a sad introduction to the world of lovers, not as violent as Dom's but painful just the same.

When he's able to he'll tell Dom.

[light-the-sky76.livejournal.com]

I just thought you might like to know that I've been catching up on all the chapters of this and was so engrossed I almost burnt my dinner :P