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monaboyd Oct. 20th, 2006 10:13 pm)
shui-hu-zhuan.livejournal.com posting in monaboyd Oct. 20th, 2006 10:13 pm)Title: An Imperfect Affair
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shui_hu_zhuan
Rating: M or NC-17
Disclaimer: This story is a fictitious figment of my imagination.
Note: Written for the Two Lines Fanfiction Challenge (blog/website) hosted byshanalle. Many many thanks to my beta, elouisa.
They're the faces of the stranger
Yet we love to try them on
- Billy Joel
The click of the lock on the front door was both unexpected and unsurprising.
It made sense in Billy's head, anyway.
As the door opened with the creak of a rusty hinge, he doubled a thick elastic band around the stack of cards and letters he'd been reading, tossed it onto the kitchen counter and reached to press the button on the electric kettle. He listened to the quiet movement around the front room as he waited - the rattle of coat hangers, the short-lived squeak of trainers on the polished wooden floor. And then the soft padding of socks followed by a sigh that answered any questions Billy might have had about the quality of his visitor's trip to Edinburgh.
He stopped listening so hard when the water in the kettle began to gurgle noisily.
Billy considered hiding his pile of mail before Dominic could get his hands on it. The last time he'd left fan letters around Dominic, some of them went missing (along with Billy's toothbrush, comb, nail clippers and a pair of boxers). Dominic never did come clean about what he did with it all, but Billy didn’t fancy thinking too deeply about what a star-struck young fan may have done with his toothbrush.
It had been eight months since he’d given Dominic a key to the flat, three weeks since he'd last seen him, and one week since they last talked on the phone. He remembered that Dominic had gone on a bit too much about his girlfriend. He'd said she was the girl of his dreams; she was great fun to be with. And he loved her, but not like that.
It was a far cry from what Billy usually said about his own girlfriend – that she was home.
But Billy endured it because he wanted to. Sometimes he thought Dominic may have just needed pity or comfort. Other times, he didn't know what the hell it was Dom wanted. But he listened and offered advice anyway. It was a small price to pay for what they were able to share with each other – a reasonably dependable and hassle-free affair.
It certainly wasn't a secret between them that they only did it for the sex. Once or twice in the past Billy considered finding someone else to satisfy his needs – someone who would take cash and not ask questions. The first time was the evening after he nearly asked Dominic if he could stay one day longer (or come back a day sooner). The second time was approximately five minutes after Billy woke in the middle of the night next to his sleeping best friend; the heat of earlier still radiating from his body.
Both times Billy had forgotten himself; he forgot who he was supposed to be.
Not his Billy, for fucks sake. Not his Bills.
But there was no one to blame other than himself. Billy had made the big decision. He’d decided he wanted to be fucked without any strings attached, without any romance, and he wasn't about to go back on that decision.
He still had some dignity left, after all. Billy's flat was supposed to be his hideaway from a world of trials and tribulation, after all. And it was up to him to keep those things from coming through or leaving through that locked door.
"Hiya."
Billy didn't know how long Dominic had been standing in the kitchen, and he didn't ask. "Hey Dom. Tea?" he offered, still facing the stove.
"Yeah, cheers." Dominic was oddly silent, nothing like his usual talkative self.
Billy pulled their two mugs down from the cupboard and quickly prepared the tea. Turning to hand Dom his mug, he became aware of how Dominic was staring at him. And by the looks of it, Dom had probably been staring at him that way since entering the room. Those quick glances at particular places below his neck were more than obvious, and Billy nearly stopped to strike a pose for him. Instead, he just raised an eyebrow and nodded to the mug he was still presenting with an outstretched arm.
Dominic took his tea and looked into his mug guiltily, his cheeks turning slightly pink.
"How is everyone getting on, then?" Billy asked as if changing the unspoken subject.
"They're all cool. Daddy Abrams is keeping us on our toes and out of trouble. Making sure we lot get our shut-eye and stuff. But he doesn't actually know I snuck off and will have less than two hours of sleep in me for script-reading two days from now so...” He switched the mug to his other hand. "What's that?" he suddenly asked with a gesture.
"What's what?" Billy hadn't taken his eyes off Dominic's fidgeting hands while he talked. "You know, I was going to ask why you're talking like a lass preparing to take her A-levels but..." Glancing in the direction of Dominic's interest, Billy felt the urge to snatch the letters from view. And yet he didn't bother to stop Dominic from stretching off the elastic band. "I brought them to read, in case you were late."
Dominic set his tea on the counter and began to raise the crinkled flap of the first letter, a light pink envelope addressed in dark pink ink. "Was I late?"
"No,” Billy answered, distracted for a moment. “But you don't let me read yours," he then objected.
"You never ask."
"And there's my point."
"Point taken," Dominic said with resignation before he pulled the letter from the envelope and unfolded it. "Dear Billy. I hope you get this letter! I'm a big fan of yours!!" Dominic gleefully read, emphasizing the enthusiastic excited use of exclamations marks in the letter. "When is your next movie coming out? Are you going to get your band back together and put out a CD soon?" The smile on his face grew with each line he read.
"Dom." Billy quietly growled. He would normally have preferred that they make their way to the bedroom before, well, anything else.
"She's definitely under the age of twenty-five, don't you think? Otherwise, she would have written 'record' and not 'CD'."
"Dom... what?"
"I can't wait to see new stuff from you!" Dominic continued in his best impression of a teenager. "Blah, blah, blah, Pippin. Blah, blah, blah, give Dom a snog for me. Blah, blah, I love you, but not like a boyfriend, because that would be weird! I just think if I met you that you would understand me like other people don't. That's still weird, though, isn't it? Love, Derrick. Hull, Humberside, UK."
Billy didn't recall reading that one, and he regretted having let Dominic read it. He actually felt embarrassed for the lad that someone other than himself had read it.
"Why am I not surprised?" Dominic spoke, breaking the silence.
"That it was written by a bloke?"
"No." Dominic re-folded the letter, tucked it back into the pastel envelope, and grinned mischievously. "That he's from Hull."
The mis-understood seriousness of the moment passed over without incident, and Billy chuckled.
"He's probably not even gay."
Billy started to nod in agreement, then reconsidered. "Just a little bit, maybe?"
"Slightly gay."
"One-third."
"Kind of like you," Dominic was still grinning, but not as wickedly.
Billy nearly spit out his last mouthful of tea. "I'm not more than one-eighteenth!"
"Oh, right." Dominic crossed his arms, rolled his eyes, and pouted his lips. "So I'm all the gay in this relationship, then?"
Billy laughed at the expression on Dominic's face, more than at the statement. "No, it's not all you," he answered, but then, after a beat he quietly asked ”What relationship exactly are you on about?”
"We're actually like most close mates, I figure."
"Pretty normal, yeah." The comment was somewhat reassuring to Billy, although he knew it was pure bollocks.
"Close mates who just like some occasional man-on-man action."
Taken by surprise, Billy laughed so hard he had to give up on finishing his tea. He hadn't laughed that hard since he last saw Dominic. Then, suddenly losing the humor of the moment, Billy felt uncomfortable, ashamed.
And just as always, Dominic read him like a book when he chanced to let his guard down like that.
When a still smiling Dominic gently took his hand and squeezed, Billy did his best to raise those shields again.
But I cannae do it, Cap'n...
~*~*~*~*~*~*
When the shields didn't suffice (having been pummeled with the likes of lasers beams and photon torpedoes – Dominic's long invasive fingers and exploratory tongue), Billy had to eventually settle on the simplicity of a mask. He knew Scotty would never understand, but he figured he could explain it away by comparing it to Enterprise’s cloaking device.
That is, if he were actually on the Enterprise and not flat on his back underneath an energetic Dominic who was kissing him quite thoroughly.
"Dom," Billy managed to groan around both Dominic's tongue and his own. "Come on… come on…"
Dominic arched up out of their kiss, his hands pressed into the mattress on either side of Billy's waist. "Is that just your impatience to be shagged or the beginnings of a particularly dirty request you can't quite seem to spit out?"
Arching his own back, but for an entirely different reason, Billy bent his knees, flexibly bringing his heels into contact with Dominic's hands. "Haven't decided yet. Need help with the decision, I think."
Dominic always gave the impression he enjoyed the foreplay more than the penetration, but Billy learned how to push those buttons which would send Dominic into overdrive. Especially when the foreplay tended to grow a little too affectionate for Billy's comfort.
Billy liked to think back to the first time they slept together. That first unplanned fuck in Mexico, when the incoherent enthusiasm just wasn’t there. Just the pain of having something larger than his arsehole shoved inside him. He didn't feel loved, or wanted, or pleasured.
But every time since the first time, something changed. It was like being gifted with some kind of weird solace prize for fucking someone who was becoming less and less of a stranger to his body.
There was something deeply wrong with it, Billy knew. The thrill was still there, but something else was missing. Or was it that something went missing that was never there to begin with?
When Dominic came inside him this time, there was no need to fake the pleasure, to stretch and moan and claw at the sheets as if he too were coming, because he really was. And after a few more thrusts, each deeper and slower and lethargic than the last, Dominic fell bonelessly, sweating against Billy and kissed him more thoroughly than their first kiss.
"You're so fucking sexy," Dominic mouthed against Billy's jaw.
"So are you," Billy replied, confident that his 'cloak' could last a while longer, while they cuddled in silence.
"Missed you."
Billy couldn't reply this time. He was too disgusted with himself to do so. Disgusted by how easily he could contradict himself, rejecting the truth of his own emotions, and acting as if that rejection could make it all go the fuck away.
It wasn't going to be enough after this. Sex wasn't going to be enough. Or perhaps it was all just an illusion from the beginning.
Billy didn't notice the singed edges of his paper-thin façade, not until he felt the slow burn begin to travel across his already warm face. He only had a moment to spare before Dominic would notice, before he would be completely exposed, if the smoke spiraling into the ceiling fan weren’t obvious enough.
"Billy?" Dominic twisted away and propped himself up on an elbow, apparently in no real hurry to cover Billy's head with a sheet and snuff out the flames. "Bills? What’s wrong?"
"I was just wondering...?" Billy began, finally realizing that something had to be wrong with him. Really wrong. He didn't understand why he couldn't just live like everyone else, with their hush-hush secrets, their double standards, their deceits, disruptions, and easy fulfillment.
Billy shook his head with a soft motion, then kissed Dominic in an attempt to both placate and hide from him. It was long enough for Dominic to forget what he asked and for Billy to make up a lie, or at least forget the answer.
Author:
shui_hu_zhuanRating: M or NC-17
Disclaimer: This story is a fictitious figment of my imagination.
Note: Written for the Two Lines Fanfiction Challenge (blog/website) hosted by
shanalle. Many many thanks to my beta, elouisa.They're the faces of the stranger
Yet we love to try them on
- Billy Joel
The click of the lock on the front door was both unexpected and unsurprising.
It made sense in Billy's head, anyway.
As the door opened with the creak of a rusty hinge, he doubled a thick elastic band around the stack of cards and letters he'd been reading, tossed it onto the kitchen counter and reached to press the button on the electric kettle. He listened to the quiet movement around the front room as he waited - the rattle of coat hangers, the short-lived squeak of trainers on the polished wooden floor. And then the soft padding of socks followed by a sigh that answered any questions Billy might have had about the quality of his visitor's trip to Edinburgh.
He stopped listening so hard when the water in the kettle began to gurgle noisily.
Billy considered hiding his pile of mail before Dominic could get his hands on it. The last time he'd left fan letters around Dominic, some of them went missing (along with Billy's toothbrush, comb, nail clippers and a pair of boxers). Dominic never did come clean about what he did with it all, but Billy didn’t fancy thinking too deeply about what a star-struck young fan may have done with his toothbrush.
It had been eight months since he’d given Dominic a key to the flat, three weeks since he'd last seen him, and one week since they last talked on the phone. He remembered that Dominic had gone on a bit too much about his girlfriend. He'd said she was the girl of his dreams; she was great fun to be with. And he loved her, but not like that.
It was a far cry from what Billy usually said about his own girlfriend – that she was home.
But Billy endured it because he wanted to. Sometimes he thought Dominic may have just needed pity or comfort. Other times, he didn't know what the hell it was Dom wanted. But he listened and offered advice anyway. It was a small price to pay for what they were able to share with each other – a reasonably dependable and hassle-free affair.
It certainly wasn't a secret between them that they only did it for the sex. Once or twice in the past Billy considered finding someone else to satisfy his needs – someone who would take cash and not ask questions. The first time was the evening after he nearly asked Dominic if he could stay one day longer (or come back a day sooner). The second time was approximately five minutes after Billy woke in the middle of the night next to his sleeping best friend; the heat of earlier still radiating from his body.
Both times Billy had forgotten himself; he forgot who he was supposed to be.
Not his Billy, for fucks sake. Not his Bills.
But there was no one to blame other than himself. Billy had made the big decision. He’d decided he wanted to be fucked without any strings attached, without any romance, and he wasn't about to go back on that decision.
He still had some dignity left, after all. Billy's flat was supposed to be his hideaway from a world of trials and tribulation, after all. And it was up to him to keep those things from coming through or leaving through that locked door.
"Hiya."
Billy didn't know how long Dominic had been standing in the kitchen, and he didn't ask. "Hey Dom. Tea?" he offered, still facing the stove.
"Yeah, cheers." Dominic was oddly silent, nothing like his usual talkative self.
Billy pulled their two mugs down from the cupboard and quickly prepared the tea. Turning to hand Dom his mug, he became aware of how Dominic was staring at him. And by the looks of it, Dom had probably been staring at him that way since entering the room. Those quick glances at particular places below his neck were more than obvious, and Billy nearly stopped to strike a pose for him. Instead, he just raised an eyebrow and nodded to the mug he was still presenting with an outstretched arm.
Dominic took his tea and looked into his mug guiltily, his cheeks turning slightly pink.
"How is everyone getting on, then?" Billy asked as if changing the unspoken subject.
"They're all cool. Daddy Abrams is keeping us on our toes and out of trouble. Making sure we lot get our shut-eye and stuff. But he doesn't actually know I snuck off and will have less than two hours of sleep in me for script-reading two days from now so...” He switched the mug to his other hand. "What's that?" he suddenly asked with a gesture.
"What's what?" Billy hadn't taken his eyes off Dominic's fidgeting hands while he talked. "You know, I was going to ask why you're talking like a lass preparing to take her A-levels but..." Glancing in the direction of Dominic's interest, Billy felt the urge to snatch the letters from view. And yet he didn't bother to stop Dominic from stretching off the elastic band. "I brought them to read, in case you were late."
Dominic set his tea on the counter and began to raise the crinkled flap of the first letter, a light pink envelope addressed in dark pink ink. "Was I late?"
"No,” Billy answered, distracted for a moment. “But you don't let me read yours," he then objected.
"You never ask."
"And there's my point."
"Point taken," Dominic said with resignation before he pulled the letter from the envelope and unfolded it. "Dear Billy. I hope you get this letter! I'm a big fan of yours!!" Dominic gleefully read, emphasizing the enthusiastic excited use of exclamations marks in the letter. "When is your next movie coming out? Are you going to get your band back together and put out a CD soon?" The smile on his face grew with each line he read.
"Dom." Billy quietly growled. He would normally have preferred that they make their way to the bedroom before, well, anything else.
"She's definitely under the age of twenty-five, don't you think? Otherwise, she would have written 'record' and not 'CD'."
"Dom... what?"
"I can't wait to see new stuff from you!" Dominic continued in his best impression of a teenager. "Blah, blah, blah, Pippin. Blah, blah, blah, give Dom a snog for me. Blah, blah, I love you, but not like a boyfriend, because that would be weird! I just think if I met you that you would understand me like other people don't. That's still weird, though, isn't it? Love, Derrick. Hull, Humberside, UK."
Billy didn't recall reading that one, and he regretted having let Dominic read it. He actually felt embarrassed for the lad that someone other than himself had read it.
"Why am I not surprised?" Dominic spoke, breaking the silence.
"That it was written by a bloke?"
"No." Dominic re-folded the letter, tucked it back into the pastel envelope, and grinned mischievously. "That he's from Hull."
The mis-understood seriousness of the moment passed over without incident, and Billy chuckled.
"He's probably not even gay."
Billy started to nod in agreement, then reconsidered. "Just a little bit, maybe?"
"Slightly gay."
"One-third."
"Kind of like you," Dominic was still grinning, but not as wickedly.
Billy nearly spit out his last mouthful of tea. "I'm not more than one-eighteenth!"
"Oh, right." Dominic crossed his arms, rolled his eyes, and pouted his lips. "So I'm all the gay in this relationship, then?"
Billy laughed at the expression on Dominic's face, more than at the statement. "No, it's not all you," he answered, but then, after a beat he quietly asked ”What relationship exactly are you on about?”
"We're actually like most close mates, I figure."
"Pretty normal, yeah." The comment was somewhat reassuring to Billy, although he knew it was pure bollocks.
"Close mates who just like some occasional man-on-man action."
Taken by surprise, Billy laughed so hard he had to give up on finishing his tea. He hadn't laughed that hard since he last saw Dominic. Then, suddenly losing the humor of the moment, Billy felt uncomfortable, ashamed.
And just as always, Dominic read him like a book when he chanced to let his guard down like that.
When a still smiling Dominic gently took his hand and squeezed, Billy did his best to raise those shields again.
But I cannae do it, Cap'n...
~*~*~*~*~*~*
When the shields didn't suffice (having been pummeled with the likes of lasers beams and photon torpedoes – Dominic's long invasive fingers and exploratory tongue), Billy had to eventually settle on the simplicity of a mask. He knew Scotty would never understand, but he figured he could explain it away by comparing it to Enterprise’s cloaking device.
That is, if he were actually on the Enterprise and not flat on his back underneath an energetic Dominic who was kissing him quite thoroughly.
"Dom," Billy managed to groan around both Dominic's tongue and his own. "Come on… come on…"
Dominic arched up out of their kiss, his hands pressed into the mattress on either side of Billy's waist. "Is that just your impatience to be shagged or the beginnings of a particularly dirty request you can't quite seem to spit out?"
Arching his own back, but for an entirely different reason, Billy bent his knees, flexibly bringing his heels into contact with Dominic's hands. "Haven't decided yet. Need help with the decision, I think."
Dominic always gave the impression he enjoyed the foreplay more than the penetration, but Billy learned how to push those buttons which would send Dominic into overdrive. Especially when the foreplay tended to grow a little too affectionate for Billy's comfort.
Billy liked to think back to the first time they slept together. That first unplanned fuck in Mexico, when the incoherent enthusiasm just wasn’t there. Just the pain of having something larger than his arsehole shoved inside him. He didn't feel loved, or wanted, or pleasured.
But every time since the first time, something changed. It was like being gifted with some kind of weird solace prize for fucking someone who was becoming less and less of a stranger to his body.
There was something deeply wrong with it, Billy knew. The thrill was still there, but something else was missing. Or was it that something went missing that was never there to begin with?
When Dominic came inside him this time, there was no need to fake the pleasure, to stretch and moan and claw at the sheets as if he too were coming, because he really was. And after a few more thrusts, each deeper and slower and lethargic than the last, Dominic fell bonelessly, sweating against Billy and kissed him more thoroughly than their first kiss.
"You're so fucking sexy," Dominic mouthed against Billy's jaw.
"So are you," Billy replied, confident that his 'cloak' could last a while longer, while they cuddled in silence.
"Missed you."
Billy couldn't reply this time. He was too disgusted with himself to do so. Disgusted by how easily he could contradict himself, rejecting the truth of his own emotions, and acting as if that rejection could make it all go the fuck away.
It wasn't going to be enough after this. Sex wasn't going to be enough. Or perhaps it was all just an illusion from the beginning.
Billy didn't notice the singed edges of his paper-thin façade, not until he felt the slow burn begin to travel across his already warm face. He only had a moment to spare before Dominic would notice, before he would be completely exposed, if the smoke spiraling into the ceiling fan weren’t obvious enough.
"Billy?" Dominic twisted away and propped himself up on an elbow, apparently in no real hurry to cover Billy's head with a sheet and snuff out the flames. "Bills? What’s wrong?"
"I was just wondering...?" Billy began, finally realizing that something had to be wrong with him. Really wrong. He didn't understand why he couldn't just live like everyone else, with their hush-hush secrets, their double standards, their deceits, disruptions, and easy fulfillment.
Billy shook his head with a soft motion, then kissed Dominic in an attempt to both placate and hide from him. It was long enough for Dominic to forget what he asked and for Billy to make up a lie, or at least forget the answer.
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I think my soul just died. This was beautiful and so sad and just..ngghhh...I loved it. I'm a sucker for sad endings as well. Oh, thanks for sharing this, it was brilliant.
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From:
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I hope you will consider a second chapter for your story, so that Billy can finish his question to Dom. Pretty please? He really needs to...