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monaboyd Oct. 16th, 2006 01:16 am)
semaphore27.livejournal.com posting in monaboyd Oct. 16th, 2006 01:16 am)Author: Semaphore
Pairing: Billy/Dom
Rating: R, overall for violence, language and sexual situations.
Summary: The world of Lotrips mingles with Stephen King’s The Stand (and The Dark Tower). For those that have survived Captain Trips, life has become dangerous and strange.
Feedback: is much loved and appreciated.
Disclaimers: This is entirely fictional. No disrespect is intended. The Stand was written by Stephen King. The title comes from T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men."
Previous chapters:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43
This Is the Way the World Ends, Part 44
The days aren’t so terrible, Billy finds. The days have things to fill them: scavenging in neighboring towns for a second vehicle, or hunting out things that might prove handy in the years ahead, exploring everything from junk shops to music stores—it’s in the latter that Viggo finds a selection of washboards, in the former that Sean unearths a treadle sewing machine.
Everyone speaks that way now—of the years ahead, just as they speak of returning to Idaho, “as soon as Dom gets back.” Sometimes, though, Billy thinks he’s the only one who’s watching.
And sometimes he thinks he’s cursed himself, because he simply can’t believe. The memory of losing Dom still looms too fresh in his memory.
Viggo tells him it’s the head injury that makes him pessimistic, that they’ll wait here at Wellsprings as long as is necessary, that most likely time runs differently between that world and this world. When he goes on to quote some philosopher who wrote in Sanskrit, Billy feels like weeping. It’s nearly as bad as Sean’s kindness, which always seems to carry the taint of pity, or Elijah’s desperate, wet-eyed grieving—he, too, seems hard-pressed to think in terms of “other” and “real.”
Billy’s glad of Max and Orlando, who spend most of their days on the lobby floor, racing Matchbox cars.
He’s watching them now, Orlando having built a truly death-defying course out of sofa cushions, paperback novels and manila folders. He and Max seem able to communicate without many words, but Orli’s not like Elijah, he hasn’t taken refuge in childishness as an escape from his terrors. He merely seems to want to be an adult building up something that’s good and simple and pure, because he’s built other things of which he feels ashamed.
Billy wonders what he did in Las Vegas.
Like Billy, Orlando doesn’t want to sleep. He’s been drinking huge amounts of coffee and his hands shake constantly.
“I think that’ll flip—see!—into the air just there,” Orlando murmurs, and Max glances at Billy, smiling gently. The small red auto has indeed turned over in midair, but only because Max has made it, Billy realizes, to make Orlando happy.
This is the way we care for each other, Billy thinks. It’s not a bad thing. He knows the others try to care for him.
Just now, though, the sun is sinking redly into the west and soon Sean will be calling them all to supper. He isn’t hungry and he doesn’t feel like eating, any more than he’s felt like eating the two previous eating, and he hates the way the others worry.
At the moment he’d like them to stay away from him, and yet he loves them as much as he ever did.
Instead he rises, skirting Orli’s construction carefully. Outside the air’s hot and still, but he can feel the first hint of the coolness that will come in with the evening. At this time of day everything’s vermillion: the paths, the buildings, even his own skin, painted by the spectacular sunset.
For the past three days he’s been seeing Dom everywhere he looks. In the distances, in the heat haze, beside the pools, most of all beneath the Joshua tree on the slight northern rise.
Billy climbs there now and sits amongst its roots, close to the newer of the two graves.
It was Sean, Lij and Viggo who did the actual work of digging. Billy sat with Dom, and after a while Max joined him, holding Billy’s hand and weeping silently.
When it was time, Viggo carried the body gently. Billy thinks, then, that he forgot to breathe. He’s not certain he’s breathed since: there seems to be only a cold empty space where his heart and lungs had been.
They each cast their handfuls of earth, and spoke their memories, mostly about New Zealand, or surfing, or something terribly funny Dom had said or done. It’s hard for Billy to remember that now—that what he’d first loved in Dom was his willingness to play the fool, and how he could be so dead funny.
It feels so distant, that memory: laughing until tears squirted out of his eyes. Laughing until he couldn’t breathe, until his stomach ached and he and Dom would roll all over each other like puppies.
It’s that remembrance that makes him weep now, and again his stomach hurts, and again he can’t breathe: the thought that the world might turn round again—not to what it was, that can’t ever be—but things could be calm, joyous, full of hilarity.
How will he be able to laugh without Dom to show him what’s funny?
Billy hugs his arms round his legs and drops his head down to his knees. It’s full night now, and in the night he feels very small and very alone, nothing like the tough, hard-eyed Gunslinger he’s been. His head throbs dully, the pain spreading up the back of his skull and down his nape, all the way to his shoulderblades..
He sits that way so long, feeling the night, his emptiness, that pain, he’s scarcely aware when something touches the back of his neck softly. Billy shudders, shivers running down his arms and his spine, and raises a hand to brush whatever it is away.
The touch persists, stronger now: it’s on his shoulder, on his arm, lifting him and Billy’s afraid, so afraid—what if he doesn’t see what he hopes so desperately to see?
“Billy.” It’s Dom’s voice, undeniably. He sounds lost, afraid, weary, but at the same time… “It is you, isn’t it?” Dom continues. “Smells like you. Given up bathing?”
Billy opens his eyes and there’s Dom’s crooked grin, though there’s something in it of fear and uncertainty.
“Fucking tell me it’s you, Bill. I’ve come such a long way.”
Billy brushes the back of his hand over Dom’s stubbled cheek. He’s ghostly pale, battered-looking, and his silvery-blue eyes are pleading. “It’s me, daftie. Used to be you could tell instantly.”
Dom’s mouth does that funny thing it does when he’s trying not to weep. “I’ve been lost in the dark,” he says soberly. “I thought I’d never find you, Billy.”
“It’s all right.” Billy takes his hand and kisses the palm, then stretches up a bit to kiss him properly. There’s something in Dom’s mouth that tastes ghostly as well, and Billy has to take his face, hard, between both hands and kiss him deeper, with tongue and teeth and lips, before he can catch hold of the Dom who’s warm and living. Dom fingers are digging into his shoulders, holding him so tightly Billy can scarcely breathe but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care in the least, because he’s holding Dom in return, almost savagely, panting into him. “You’re home, you’re home, you’re home now. You’ve found your way.”
Billy leads Dom back to Wellsprings quietly, glad that the others are asleep. Dom’s said he doesn’t want to see them—later, yes, of course, but not tonight. Whatever’s happened, he doesn’t want it chewed over, discussed or pulled apart six ways from Sunday. They both know their friends too well.
Dom seems to float behind him down the corridors, to the room at the end that Billy’s been using. It’s dark inside, except for a silver spill of moonlight, and he lights a half dozen candles for his own comfort: he wants to see Dom’s face. The scent of them fills the room, cool and vaguely minty.
“Nice that,” Dom comments. “Like moonlight.”
“Hadn’t thought of that,” Billy says. He supposes it’s true. Now he’s alone with Dom his emotions are oddly confused: want, need, love, awkwardness, grief all stirred together in a way he can’t quite process. “I love your face in candlelight,” he says, hoarsely.
“Oh, Bills.” Groping a little, Dom finds his way to the edge of the bed, which is Japanese-style and low, dark wood and stark white bedding. Dom’s wearing, of all things, jeans and a heavy jumper that appears to have got wet somehow, then dried, so that it’s stretched out unevenly. Dom has pushed up the sleeves.
“Let’s get that off of you,” Billy says, plucking at the jumper’s shoulder.
Dom laughs. “I find myself dressed inappropriately.” His fists twist in Billy’s shirt then. “Billy. Bills. I want you to fuck me. I hardly feel stuck into this world. Fuck me and make me stay.” There’s something so fierce and so desperate in his voice it makes Billy’s grief flare again, but Dom’s falling back and carrying him along, so that he’s astride Dom’s hips, his face close to Dom’s face.
“Dom, it’s all right.” Billy cups his face again and kisses him tenderly. “You are here. You are here. And I will love you if you want. I always want you. But you don’t have to be afraid, céili. I won’t let you slip away.” He rolls over, lying beside Dom on the bed, helping him to struggle out of the oversized jumper and the long-sleeved t-shirt beneath. He sits, skinning out of his own clothes quickly, feeling Dom’s hand on his back, on his hip, caressing him as if he’s not quite real.
“This is how I got home,” Dom says softly, “Remembering.”
There’s an echo in his voice of something so difficult and fearful it’s heartbreaking. Billy lies down to face him again, tracing the line of Dom’s jaw, then his throat, with his fingertips. He traces great blotches of purple bruising on Dom’s stomach and chest, that are just going green and yellow at their edges, traces the lines of Dom’s ribs. Someday, he tells himself, Dom will be himself again, fit and trim and muscled, with those bones not showing so painfully. The Dom of the old days spent his days surfing, playing basketball and footie, with a round or two of shopping to round out his day. His Dom loved board games and reading.
A picture pops into Billy’s mind of Dom in Hawaii, slouched shirtless in a deck chair with a silly white hat pulled halfway over his eyes, reading some book by Stephen Hawking. Dom telling him, all enthusiasm, “You’ve got to hear this bit, Bill!” Dom reading words that made no sense to him—but then he may have been distracted by Dom so tan and fit and beautiful.
“All the time, Dom,” Billy says, in a voice he scarcely recognizes as his own. “All the time I was calling you.”
Dom’s hand reaches out, hovering, hovering, as if the air’s telling him where he can find Billy. When it settles, it settles so gently it’s a whisper of a touch, the merest ghost of a caress across Billy’s cheek. “It was terrible between,” he says. “I was so excited, when I found the place where the skin of the world was thin. I thought all I had to do was go there, and push, and I’d step right through. I was thinking so very hard of you. Only I couldn’t, Bill. I don’t know if it was because…” Dom falls silent then, and if Billy didn’t know better, he’d swear those bright silver-blue eyes are looking at him. After a long while he says, “Did you love him, Bill?”
Billy’s not sure what to answer, and he’s ashamed of the fact that his eyes are burning, but Dom can always tell when he’s lying. “Yes,” he says at last. “I loved him.” He adds a moment later. “Not physically.”
He waits, breath catching in his throat, not certain what Dom will say.
Dom expression is so kind, and so loving, it makes his eyes burn and his breath catch even more, until he’s choking, and his eyes are streaming. Dom gathers him close then, holding him, rubbing his back strongly and tenderly. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Billy,” he murmurs. “I can’t imagine how terrible that must have been.”
Billy stammers out words, not the least bit sure of what he’s saying, burrowing his face into the space between Dom’s shoulder and his neck while Dom holds him tighter and tighter still. He’s reaching between them then, fumbling with the snap and zip of Dom trousers, tugging them over Dom’s hips as Dom wriggles, and then they’re down far enough for Dom to give a twist or two and kick them free.
They scoot further up the bed, bodies touching all down their length. Dom’s arms and legs are cool, but where his skin touches Billy’s he soon goes warm. They fit together perfectly.
Dom’s fingers comb through the hair on his chest, tugging gently. He gives a soft laugh before his mouth closes on Billy’s sucking on his upper lip, then slipping his tongue in past his teeth. His hands rove, restless, from Billy’s chest, over his sides, around to cup his bum. Billy slips a thigh between Dom’s legs and God, but it’s hot there, up in the space behind Dom’s balls, with the length of Dom’s hot cock pressing on his skin.
“Love you,” Dom’s breathing. “Love you, love you, Billy.” His hips grind against Billy’s groin and his kiss has deepened to something hungry, demanding. He rolls to his back, carrying Billy with him and Billy rises a little, holding his weight on his arms, the kiss never breaking—until Dom breaks it, his hand on Billy’s chest.
“Billy.” His voice is low, gravelly. “Please. Now. Come into me and I’ll forget everything.”
Billy kisses his mouth again, fiercely, then his throat and the hollow at the base of his throat where Dom’s pulse beats. Dom’s hand are in his hair, stroking, tugging, and his hips are rising, bucking, his cock rock-hard and fiery. Touching him, rubbing against Dom’s belly, Billy’s own cock feels close to exploding. He licks Dom’s left nipple, then bites it, quickly, raising a soft groan from Dom’s throat, and is on his way again, kissing just at the end of Dom’s sternum, on his stomach, then swirls his tongue in Dom’s navel, making him groan again. It’s only when he’s reached the crease where Dom’s thigh meets his body that Dom begins to struggle.
“No, no, not now. Not now. I want you in me.” Dom’s hand goes between them, closing round Billy’s length, his thumb spreading precum over the head until Billy’s the one who’s groaning, confused, not thinking clearly. His cock throbs inside the curve of Dom’s fingers, pleasantly, achingly. “You want that too. I know you do. Yes, Billy?”
“Yes,” Billy whispers, and pulls away, looking down on Dom’s body spread before him. Despite all he’s been through, it’s still lovely, only lovely in a different way. He slips off the bed nearly tripping on his own feet.
“Billy? Where?” Dom calls after.
Billy’s laughing. “Thank God for those convenient little baskets of toiletries.” There’s one on the bureau, small and wicker, with soaps and shampoos laid out on a white flannel. Tucked amongst them all is a tube of lotion. “All natural, with shea butter, Dommie.”
Dom laughs too, such a lovely and natural sound Billy’s eyes start to prickle again—and Dom seems to sense it. “Bill, it’s all right,” he says. “We’re together, aren’t we? We’re together and you’re just about to shag me, then we’ll curl up like two peas in a pod and sleep the night away.”
“Do peas curl up?” Billy asks, all innocence.
“I happen to know they do. And they sleep too. Come to me?” Dom stretches out his hand and Billy takes it, opening up the palm to apply a dollop of lotion, then guiding the hand to its destination.
Dom strokes him gently and surely, his touch so familiar, so loved, so arousing, Billy can scarcely breathe. He has to stop Dom’s hand a moment and hold himself, concentrating on boring things, while Dom laughs softly and lies on his back, knees up and legs spread wide, so trusting, so appealing, so ready. Billy kneels on the foot of the bed and bends down to kiss Dom’s shoulder, Dom’s voice tickling his ear as he murmurs, “Now, Billy?”
“That’s it, that’s it,” Dom murmurs, his face full of concentration, as Billy pushes slowly in. “God, to have you in me, Billy!”
His hips grind and he clutches at Billy’s bum, pulling him closer still, reaching upward for Billy’s mouth as Billy’s moving, moving, kissing Dom now with wild abandon, Dom’s passage tight and hot around him, the muscles shivering, Billy’s meant to go slow, to make it tender and loving—and it is—but there’s also a wildness in it, a passion and a fury, their bodies heating, slick with sweat, skin slapping on skin, Dom keening softly under his breath as Billy’s cock slides over his prostate again and again. Their breathing, in that quiet room, is harsh, and Billy nearly cries out as Dom’s short nails rake his skin, but he buries his face in Dom’s shoulder instead, pushed over the edge by the unbearable combination of his pleasure and pain. He thrusts deep, and deep again, and comes, groaning.
He collapses onto Dom, wrapping him up tight in arms and legs, his softening cock still inside him. He’s crying now, unabashedly, choking out, “Don’t you ever, ever, ever leave me. Don’t you ever leave me again. Dom, I can’t breathe without you.”
Dom snakes a hand out from the tight embrace to stroke his hair; they separate a little. “Ssh, Billy, ssh, céile, love, Billy. It’s all right. It’s all right. I’m not leaving. I’m just the same, Bills. I’m not leaving.”
After a long time, Dom says, “I had to say goodbye, knowing I’d never see you—him-- again. And I know that’s nothing, but I was afraid I’d never get back, and then I’d have nothing…” His arms wrap round Billy’s waist, holding him close and tenderly, until some of Billy’s panic eases, until he’s lying quietly again. “Christ, but I love you, Billy. I wish I could see you. Desperately.”
They part just a little then, so that Billy can see Dom’s face, and kiss him, then look at him again.
“Billy,” Dom says. “I though you should know. We’ve come to the end now. I just don’t know if it’s the end of the bad times, or the end of everything.”
“Oh,” Billy says. He can’t really process what Dom’s telling him.
“Either way, we’ve done what we meant to do, yeah? We have Orlando? We’re together? The Fellowship, that is.”
Billy nods, forgetting that Dom can’t see.
“It’s time to go back to Idaho.” Dom sounds weary.
“And then?”
“We wait.” He finds Billy’s hand, twines their fingers tightly. “Whatever happens, whatever there is after, Bill, I’ll be with you, and you’ll be with me.”
Pairing: Billy/Dom
Rating: R, overall for violence, language and sexual situations.
Summary: The world of Lotrips mingles with Stephen King’s The Stand (and The Dark Tower). For those that have survived Captain Trips, life has become dangerous and strange.
Feedback: is much loved and appreciated.
Disclaimers: This is entirely fictional. No disrespect is intended. The Stand was written by Stephen King. The title comes from T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men."
Previous chapters:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43
This Is the Way the World Ends, Part 44
The days aren’t so terrible, Billy finds. The days have things to fill them: scavenging in neighboring towns for a second vehicle, or hunting out things that might prove handy in the years ahead, exploring everything from junk shops to music stores—it’s in the latter that Viggo finds a selection of washboards, in the former that Sean unearths a treadle sewing machine.
Everyone speaks that way now—of the years ahead, just as they speak of returning to Idaho, “as soon as Dom gets back.” Sometimes, though, Billy thinks he’s the only one who’s watching.
And sometimes he thinks he’s cursed himself, because he simply can’t believe. The memory of losing Dom still looms too fresh in his memory.
Viggo tells him it’s the head injury that makes him pessimistic, that they’ll wait here at Wellsprings as long as is necessary, that most likely time runs differently between that world and this world. When he goes on to quote some philosopher who wrote in Sanskrit, Billy feels like weeping. It’s nearly as bad as Sean’s kindness, which always seems to carry the taint of pity, or Elijah’s desperate, wet-eyed grieving—he, too, seems hard-pressed to think in terms of “other” and “real.”
Billy’s glad of Max and Orlando, who spend most of their days on the lobby floor, racing Matchbox cars.
He’s watching them now, Orlando having built a truly death-defying course out of sofa cushions, paperback novels and manila folders. He and Max seem able to communicate without many words, but Orli’s not like Elijah, he hasn’t taken refuge in childishness as an escape from his terrors. He merely seems to want to be an adult building up something that’s good and simple and pure, because he’s built other things of which he feels ashamed.
Billy wonders what he did in Las Vegas.
Like Billy, Orlando doesn’t want to sleep. He’s been drinking huge amounts of coffee and his hands shake constantly.
“I think that’ll flip—see!—into the air just there,” Orlando murmurs, and Max glances at Billy, smiling gently. The small red auto has indeed turned over in midair, but only because Max has made it, Billy realizes, to make Orlando happy.
This is the way we care for each other, Billy thinks. It’s not a bad thing. He knows the others try to care for him.
Just now, though, the sun is sinking redly into the west and soon Sean will be calling them all to supper. He isn’t hungry and he doesn’t feel like eating, any more than he’s felt like eating the two previous eating, and he hates the way the others worry.
At the moment he’d like them to stay away from him, and yet he loves them as much as he ever did.
Instead he rises, skirting Orli’s construction carefully. Outside the air’s hot and still, but he can feel the first hint of the coolness that will come in with the evening. At this time of day everything’s vermillion: the paths, the buildings, even his own skin, painted by the spectacular sunset.
For the past three days he’s been seeing Dom everywhere he looks. In the distances, in the heat haze, beside the pools, most of all beneath the Joshua tree on the slight northern rise.
Billy climbs there now and sits amongst its roots, close to the newer of the two graves.
It was Sean, Lij and Viggo who did the actual work of digging. Billy sat with Dom, and after a while Max joined him, holding Billy’s hand and weeping silently.
When it was time, Viggo carried the body gently. Billy thinks, then, that he forgot to breathe. He’s not certain he’s breathed since: there seems to be only a cold empty space where his heart and lungs had been.
They each cast their handfuls of earth, and spoke their memories, mostly about New Zealand, or surfing, or something terribly funny Dom had said or done. It’s hard for Billy to remember that now—that what he’d first loved in Dom was his willingness to play the fool, and how he could be so dead funny.
It feels so distant, that memory: laughing until tears squirted out of his eyes. Laughing until he couldn’t breathe, until his stomach ached and he and Dom would roll all over each other like puppies.
It’s that remembrance that makes him weep now, and again his stomach hurts, and again he can’t breathe: the thought that the world might turn round again—not to what it was, that can’t ever be—but things could be calm, joyous, full of hilarity.
How will he be able to laugh without Dom to show him what’s funny?
Billy hugs his arms round his legs and drops his head down to his knees. It’s full night now, and in the night he feels very small and very alone, nothing like the tough, hard-eyed Gunslinger he’s been. His head throbs dully, the pain spreading up the back of his skull and down his nape, all the way to his shoulderblades..
He sits that way so long, feeling the night, his emptiness, that pain, he’s scarcely aware when something touches the back of his neck softly. Billy shudders, shivers running down his arms and his spine, and raises a hand to brush whatever it is away.
The touch persists, stronger now: it’s on his shoulder, on his arm, lifting him and Billy’s afraid, so afraid—what if he doesn’t see what he hopes so desperately to see?
“Billy.” It’s Dom’s voice, undeniably. He sounds lost, afraid, weary, but at the same time… “It is you, isn’t it?” Dom continues. “Smells like you. Given up bathing?”
Billy opens his eyes and there’s Dom’s crooked grin, though there’s something in it of fear and uncertainty.
“Fucking tell me it’s you, Bill. I’ve come such a long way.”
Billy brushes the back of his hand over Dom’s stubbled cheek. He’s ghostly pale, battered-looking, and his silvery-blue eyes are pleading. “It’s me, daftie. Used to be you could tell instantly.”
Dom’s mouth does that funny thing it does when he’s trying not to weep. “I’ve been lost in the dark,” he says soberly. “I thought I’d never find you, Billy.”
“It’s all right.” Billy takes his hand and kisses the palm, then stretches up a bit to kiss him properly. There’s something in Dom’s mouth that tastes ghostly as well, and Billy has to take his face, hard, between both hands and kiss him deeper, with tongue and teeth and lips, before he can catch hold of the Dom who’s warm and living. Dom fingers are digging into his shoulders, holding him so tightly Billy can scarcely breathe but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care in the least, because he’s holding Dom in return, almost savagely, panting into him. “You’re home, you’re home, you’re home now. You’ve found your way.”
Billy leads Dom back to Wellsprings quietly, glad that the others are asleep. Dom’s said he doesn’t want to see them—later, yes, of course, but not tonight. Whatever’s happened, he doesn’t want it chewed over, discussed or pulled apart six ways from Sunday. They both know their friends too well.
Dom seems to float behind him down the corridors, to the room at the end that Billy’s been using. It’s dark inside, except for a silver spill of moonlight, and he lights a half dozen candles for his own comfort: he wants to see Dom’s face. The scent of them fills the room, cool and vaguely minty.
“Nice that,” Dom comments. “Like moonlight.”
“Hadn’t thought of that,” Billy says. He supposes it’s true. Now he’s alone with Dom his emotions are oddly confused: want, need, love, awkwardness, grief all stirred together in a way he can’t quite process. “I love your face in candlelight,” he says, hoarsely.
“Oh, Bills.” Groping a little, Dom finds his way to the edge of the bed, which is Japanese-style and low, dark wood and stark white bedding. Dom’s wearing, of all things, jeans and a heavy jumper that appears to have got wet somehow, then dried, so that it’s stretched out unevenly. Dom has pushed up the sleeves.
“Let’s get that off of you,” Billy says, plucking at the jumper’s shoulder.
Dom laughs. “I find myself dressed inappropriately.” His fists twist in Billy’s shirt then. “Billy. Bills. I want you to fuck me. I hardly feel stuck into this world. Fuck me and make me stay.” There’s something so fierce and so desperate in his voice it makes Billy’s grief flare again, but Dom’s falling back and carrying him along, so that he’s astride Dom’s hips, his face close to Dom’s face.
“Dom, it’s all right.” Billy cups his face again and kisses him tenderly. “You are here. You are here. And I will love you if you want. I always want you. But you don’t have to be afraid, céili. I won’t let you slip away.” He rolls over, lying beside Dom on the bed, helping him to struggle out of the oversized jumper and the long-sleeved t-shirt beneath. He sits, skinning out of his own clothes quickly, feeling Dom’s hand on his back, on his hip, caressing him as if he’s not quite real.
“This is how I got home,” Dom says softly, “Remembering.”
There’s an echo in his voice of something so difficult and fearful it’s heartbreaking. Billy lies down to face him again, tracing the line of Dom’s jaw, then his throat, with his fingertips. He traces great blotches of purple bruising on Dom’s stomach and chest, that are just going green and yellow at their edges, traces the lines of Dom’s ribs. Someday, he tells himself, Dom will be himself again, fit and trim and muscled, with those bones not showing so painfully. The Dom of the old days spent his days surfing, playing basketball and footie, with a round or two of shopping to round out his day. His Dom loved board games and reading.
A picture pops into Billy’s mind of Dom in Hawaii, slouched shirtless in a deck chair with a silly white hat pulled halfway over his eyes, reading some book by Stephen Hawking. Dom telling him, all enthusiasm, “You’ve got to hear this bit, Bill!” Dom reading words that made no sense to him—but then he may have been distracted by Dom so tan and fit and beautiful.
“All the time, Dom,” Billy says, in a voice he scarcely recognizes as his own. “All the time I was calling you.”
Dom’s hand reaches out, hovering, hovering, as if the air’s telling him where he can find Billy. When it settles, it settles so gently it’s a whisper of a touch, the merest ghost of a caress across Billy’s cheek. “It was terrible between,” he says. “I was so excited, when I found the place where the skin of the world was thin. I thought all I had to do was go there, and push, and I’d step right through. I was thinking so very hard of you. Only I couldn’t, Bill. I don’t know if it was because…” Dom falls silent then, and if Billy didn’t know better, he’d swear those bright silver-blue eyes are looking at him. After a long while he says, “Did you love him, Bill?”
Billy’s not sure what to answer, and he’s ashamed of the fact that his eyes are burning, but Dom can always tell when he’s lying. “Yes,” he says at last. “I loved him.” He adds a moment later. “Not physically.”
He waits, breath catching in his throat, not certain what Dom will say.
Dom expression is so kind, and so loving, it makes his eyes burn and his breath catch even more, until he’s choking, and his eyes are streaming. Dom gathers him close then, holding him, rubbing his back strongly and tenderly. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Billy,” he murmurs. “I can’t imagine how terrible that must have been.”
Billy stammers out words, not the least bit sure of what he’s saying, burrowing his face into the space between Dom’s shoulder and his neck while Dom holds him tighter and tighter still. He’s reaching between them then, fumbling with the snap and zip of Dom trousers, tugging them over Dom’s hips as Dom wriggles, and then they’re down far enough for Dom to give a twist or two and kick them free.
They scoot further up the bed, bodies touching all down their length. Dom’s arms and legs are cool, but where his skin touches Billy’s he soon goes warm. They fit together perfectly.
Dom’s fingers comb through the hair on his chest, tugging gently. He gives a soft laugh before his mouth closes on Billy’s sucking on his upper lip, then slipping his tongue in past his teeth. His hands rove, restless, from Billy’s chest, over his sides, around to cup his bum. Billy slips a thigh between Dom’s legs and God, but it’s hot there, up in the space behind Dom’s balls, with the length of Dom’s hot cock pressing on his skin.
“Love you,” Dom’s breathing. “Love you, love you, Billy.” His hips grind against Billy’s groin and his kiss has deepened to something hungry, demanding. He rolls to his back, carrying Billy with him and Billy rises a little, holding his weight on his arms, the kiss never breaking—until Dom breaks it, his hand on Billy’s chest.
“Billy.” His voice is low, gravelly. “Please. Now. Come into me and I’ll forget everything.”
Billy kisses his mouth again, fiercely, then his throat and the hollow at the base of his throat where Dom’s pulse beats. Dom’s hand are in his hair, stroking, tugging, and his hips are rising, bucking, his cock rock-hard and fiery. Touching him, rubbing against Dom’s belly, Billy’s own cock feels close to exploding. He licks Dom’s left nipple, then bites it, quickly, raising a soft groan from Dom’s throat, and is on his way again, kissing just at the end of Dom’s sternum, on his stomach, then swirls his tongue in Dom’s navel, making him groan again. It’s only when he’s reached the crease where Dom’s thigh meets his body that Dom begins to struggle.
“No, no, not now. Not now. I want you in me.” Dom’s hand goes between them, closing round Billy’s length, his thumb spreading precum over the head until Billy’s the one who’s groaning, confused, not thinking clearly. His cock throbs inside the curve of Dom’s fingers, pleasantly, achingly. “You want that too. I know you do. Yes, Billy?”
“Yes,” Billy whispers, and pulls away, looking down on Dom’s body spread before him. Despite all he’s been through, it’s still lovely, only lovely in a different way. He slips off the bed nearly tripping on his own feet.
“Billy? Where?” Dom calls after.
Billy’s laughing. “Thank God for those convenient little baskets of toiletries.” There’s one on the bureau, small and wicker, with soaps and shampoos laid out on a white flannel. Tucked amongst them all is a tube of lotion. “All natural, with shea butter, Dommie.”
Dom laughs too, such a lovely and natural sound Billy’s eyes start to prickle again—and Dom seems to sense it. “Bill, it’s all right,” he says. “We’re together, aren’t we? We’re together and you’re just about to shag me, then we’ll curl up like two peas in a pod and sleep the night away.”
“Do peas curl up?” Billy asks, all innocence.
“I happen to know they do. And they sleep too. Come to me?” Dom stretches out his hand and Billy takes it, opening up the palm to apply a dollop of lotion, then guiding the hand to its destination.
Dom strokes him gently and surely, his touch so familiar, so loved, so arousing, Billy can scarcely breathe. He has to stop Dom’s hand a moment and hold himself, concentrating on boring things, while Dom laughs softly and lies on his back, knees up and legs spread wide, so trusting, so appealing, so ready. Billy kneels on the foot of the bed and bends down to kiss Dom’s shoulder, Dom’s voice tickling his ear as he murmurs, “Now, Billy?”
“That’s it, that’s it,” Dom murmurs, his face full of concentration, as Billy pushes slowly in. “God, to have you in me, Billy!”
His hips grind and he clutches at Billy’s bum, pulling him closer still, reaching upward for Billy’s mouth as Billy’s moving, moving, kissing Dom now with wild abandon, Dom’s passage tight and hot around him, the muscles shivering, Billy’s meant to go slow, to make it tender and loving—and it is—but there’s also a wildness in it, a passion and a fury, their bodies heating, slick with sweat, skin slapping on skin, Dom keening softly under his breath as Billy’s cock slides over his prostate again and again. Their breathing, in that quiet room, is harsh, and Billy nearly cries out as Dom’s short nails rake his skin, but he buries his face in Dom’s shoulder instead, pushed over the edge by the unbearable combination of his pleasure and pain. He thrusts deep, and deep again, and comes, groaning.
He collapses onto Dom, wrapping him up tight in arms and legs, his softening cock still inside him. He’s crying now, unabashedly, choking out, “Don’t you ever, ever, ever leave me. Don’t you ever leave me again. Dom, I can’t breathe without you.”
Dom snakes a hand out from the tight embrace to stroke his hair; they separate a little. “Ssh, Billy, ssh, céile, love, Billy. It’s all right. It’s all right. I’m not leaving. I’m just the same, Bills. I’m not leaving.”
After a long time, Dom says, “I had to say goodbye, knowing I’d never see you—him-- again. And I know that’s nothing, but I was afraid I’d never get back, and then I’d have nothing…” His arms wrap round Billy’s waist, holding him close and tenderly, until some of Billy’s panic eases, until he’s lying quietly again. “Christ, but I love you, Billy. I wish I could see you. Desperately.”
They part just a little then, so that Billy can see Dom’s face, and kiss him, then look at him again.
“Billy,” Dom says. “I though you should know. We’ve come to the end now. I just don’t know if it’s the end of the bad times, or the end of everything.”
“Oh,” Billy says. He can’t really process what Dom’s telling him.
“Either way, we’ve done what we meant to do, yeah? We have Orlando? We’re together? The Fellowship, that is.”
Billy nods, forgetting that Dom can’t see.
“It’s time to go back to Idaho.” Dom sounds weary.
“And then?”
“We wait.” He finds Billy’s hand, twines their fingers tightly. “Whatever happens, whatever there is after, Bill, I’ll be with you, and you’ll be with me.”
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~voontah
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Okay, now you gobsmacked me but good. Wow.
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I went and read THE WHOLE THING!!!! *L*! Luckily, I was home sick, but still... wow. Damn, but this is good.
And to think I read this chapter all by itself. I couldn't figure out how Dom dying could bring Dom back again, and had terrible visions of Dom clawing his way out of the ground... and... why was he blind? And what's this about the "other" one? Makes a lot more sense now.
But, now, dammit... I have to wait and read the rest of the chapters as they come! *groan* Looks like I came in at a good time, at least, when the two of them are together.
Thank you so much for this beautiful story.
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Sorry, but I have to laugh a little. Reading this chapter alone would be completely, completely confusing. Not that I'm glad you were sick, but I'm glad you had time to go back and read from the beginning. It does make a lot more sense this way.*g*
You did come in at a perfect time. I'm updating regularly and almost at the end of the story, so you shouldn't have too long to wait.
You're very welcome. Thank you for reading!
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Funny; I was just thinking about this chapter, and Billy coming undone after they'd made love, begging Dom never to leave him again. Beautiful, just beautiful.
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