monaboyd | Fic: "Sunburn"

Title: Sunburn
Author:

uraneia
Rating: Call it PG-13
Thanks again to

katze_boston for the edit.
Summary: Love, or something like it, is a progression of minor casualties.

Sunburn.

Love, or something like it, is a progression of minor casualties. Dom wears Billy like a paper cut on his heart. No one sees it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't bleed, doesn't hurt him. Impossible to bandage and he's not even sure he wants it to heal; a secret badge of honour.

He promises himself he'll tell Billy when they're done filming in New Zealand. Then he pushes it back; when they're done pickups. When Billy visits him in Hawaii. When they've finished their movie. Every time he puts it off is another paper cut and now it's thousands and they're growing, spreading like a cancer, killing him one agonizing little slice at a time.

But still Dom doesn't tell. Most of the time he doesn't even know what he'd say. It hurts to be with you is true but cruel. Everything is wrong when you're not here is too melodramatic. I love you? Well, Dom's not sure about that. He's only been in love once before and it didn't feel anything like this.

So he doesn't say anything. After a while, he even stops feeling the pain.

*

Loving Dom is a little like having a sunburn inside of his skin. It's blistering and raw but Billy can ignore it as long as he's alone, as long as he's still. As soon as something brushes him the wrong way it's agony, relentless and chafing at skin that won't shed.

He's not really sure when this infection started. He can't put his finger on the second, the minute, the day. He just knows that one week Dom was his best mate and the next he was in love, helpless and burning.

After a while Billy learns to put it aside. It becomes something he doesn't think about because it's automatic. After a while he simply believes that he has always wanted Dom. It never changes, never peels or fades, though sometimes it spikes painfully and wrenches in his gut or his cock or his heart.

But he doesn't say anything, and he doesn't act on it. Eventually they've been apart for so long he forgets the sunburn was ever there.

*

Finally the two of them get fed up with distance and meet in Hawaii, and Billy remembers. Remembers the slide and burn of Dom's laugh in his ears and the casual touches that leave seeping blisters under his skin. Remembers because it's impossible not to. Dom is always crooked and off-kilter, his smile and his gait and his sense of humour, and it's funny because that doesn't match at all with the effortless ease with which they realign themselves; together their friendship is graceful.

Dom insists on surfing and swimming and guitar serenades and Billy is only too happy to oblige him; Dom is at home in the water, like some kind of cheeky fish, and Billy makes up silly songs because the ones he wants to sing still won't come out. Dom has sworn off the drink but he makes an exception for Billy, and they share stories and memories and beer out on the lanai with only the stars as witnesses.

Dom is always crooked and off-kilter so really it is surprising when he leans forward, as graceful as anything, cups Billy's face in his hands and kisses him.

“What was that for?” Billy asks when he can speak again.

And Dom answers, “For reminding me.”

Billy thinks maybe that kiss wasn't so surprising, after all.