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monaboyd Oct. 24th, 2006 04:18 am)
semaphore27.livejournal.com posting in monaboyd Oct. 24th, 2006 04:18 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 44
This Is the Way the World Ends, Part 45
It’s warm in the bed, though the air in the room is cool. Dom cuddles in a bit, holding Billy tighter in his arms. Billy makes a small whuffling sound, but he’s nowhere near waking, and of that Dom’s glad. It’s good to feel Billy sleep so peacefully: he’d managed to sleep a little himself, before the visions woke him.
Dom presses his face into Billy’s shoulder: the muscle’s harder than it used to be, more muscular, just as Billy himself has grown tougher—not that he was ever weak. Dom wonders a little what he’d make of the things he himself is forced to see, if Billy, in his strength, could make sense of them more easily, without Dom’s own confusion.
Maybe that’s it, though, Dom tells himself, Take the easy ones first, let the others follow.
He lets himself look at Idaho, where the first dusting of snow has fallen. Toni and Sonja haven’t been caught by surprise: the henhouse is insulated now, quite snug, and the small barn too, for the sheep and the goats. Sonja has finished the smokehouse and the icehouse has begun to fill with the fruits of her hunting trips. Dom has to work a bit not to let that bother him—he’d rather have deer grazing off apples in the back garden, not hanging butchered from the beams. But it’s the world they live in now, isn’t it? They’re without groceries or supermarkets, and if he’s not going to build his proteins from pulses and grains, he’d best not be a hypocrite.
He can smile, at least, as he peeks into a pantry where jar after freshly-sealed jar of beans, peas and tomatoes stand gleaming on the shelves and bushels of apples, pears and potatoes overflow the bins. It’s like a hobbit harvest fair.
Dom had known all along they wouldn’t live in the Free Zone this winter. Now he wonders if they ever will.
Every day, after the chores, Toni and Sonja look for them. They work themselves to the point of exhaustion just to hold the worry away. Every night they say, “Tomorrow. Tomorrow, for sure. They'll be here.”
The end is very near, Dom sees. It’s time for the seven of them to leave Wellsprings. Late tomorrow night Sonja, ever vigilant, will hear the sound of their engines coming up the hill. She and Toni will load their guns, double-check the locks on all the windows and doors, and hope, and pray, waiting in the dark not knowing if those who’ve come are friends or killers.
When they hear Viggo’s voice outside the door, they’ll weep.
In a year, if the world doesn’t end, Vig and Toni will have a baby boy. Nothing could replace Henry in his heart, but Viggo will begin to feel like himself again, and the frostbitten places inside, that he’s hidden so well, will heal.
“Vig,” Dom murmurs, humbled. It’s not that he’d forget a friend’s suffering, but he’s let Viggo’s pain seem more distant than his own, and what does that make him but a selfish git?
He wants Viggo to have that future happiness, wants it desperately, and for that to happen, the world can’t end, and if the world’s not to end he has to do what’s required of him.
He has to overcome his fear. He has to tell Billy. He has to let the visions play out ‘til their end.
It’s morning now—early morning, yes, no later than three or four, but still morning—and in no more than five or six hours the men from the Free Zone will be in Utah and Flagg’s men will come for them. At ten. At a little past ten.
Worse still, Donald Merwin Elbert—the Trashcan Man Dom saw once and pitied--rolls on toward Vegas, slowly, agonizingly, bringing with him something that Dom can’t see. He only knows it’s something fearful, and when his thoughts turn toward it there’s a feeling of filth, a feeling of burning. A feeling of… nothing after.
Suddenly, not knowing that it would happen, he’s jerked away to that other place, the place like a stage set of the desert, with its sculpted rocks and its great, painted moon.
There’s a woman there, a tall, thin woman in a wash-faded dress. Her age might be anywhere from forty to sixty, and he’s never seen her this way, but he knows her at immediately.
“Mother Abagail?” he says.
She laughs, strongly and richly. “Ain’t no flies on you, English Boy.”
“I should certainly hope not.”
She laughs once more before her face turns solemn. “You know what you must do, English Boy?”
Dom regards her for a long time. The light from the painted moon flashes off the lenses of her spectacles, but the air around them seems to darken. Away in the dark he hears wolves howling.
“Stand with them,” he says at last, reluctantly.
“Stand with them,” she echoes.
“Not in the flesh, though,” Dom says quickly. “I’ve only just found Billy. You can’t take me away.”
“Wouldn’t be I who willed it, if that was to be,” Mother Abagail tells him sternly. She’s trying to stare him down, but Dom won’t look away. “Not in the flesh,” she agrees, finally.
Dom thinks of the too-bright city in the desert, and of the three men now sleeping. Brave men, he supposes. Or knows, really.
“Long as I needn’t leave Billy,” Dom says quietly.
“Son,” Mother Abagail says gravely, kindly. "Blessings upon you, and all of you." She stretches out her hands to touch his face and Dom’s surprised to see the edges of her glowing brightly. For a moment she’s not a scrawny, work-hardened woman from Nebraska, she’s graceful, and lovely.
Dom finds his mouth—or perhaps the mouth of the long, long ago Catholic boy he had been—shaping the words, “The lord is with thee.”
Mother Abagail smiles, radiantly, and then the radiance is gone, Mother Abagail is gone, leaving nothing but the moon and the desert, fading away, until it’s gone too and he’s blind again, back in the warm bed in the cool room, lying behind Billy.
Billy stirs a bit, turning in his arms. Dom wriggles closer and kisses him, then wriggles a bit more to pull the arm beneath Billy free. His hand’s asleep and tingling. Outside of the covers, sitting up, it’s more than cool, it’s chilly.
Dom tries to tell himself that’s the reason he’s shaking.
Billy reacts to the movement. “Go back to sleep.”
“Can’t. I’m sorry.”
Billy shifts, then shifts some more, pushing the covers into tufts around him until he’s reminded Dom of some small creature burrowing. “Christ. I’m all sticky.”
Dom laughs. It’s a dry, ugly sound, like a stick breaking. “All in a good cause, Bill.”
Billy laughs. “You’re a dirty bastard. Never did care.”
Dom reaches out. His fingers come in contact with Billy’s hair and he finds himself smoothing it—it’s poking up all over everywhere. “I want to go home, Bill.” Can Billy hear the oddness in his laugh? Can he hear his desperation?
“Where, Dom?” Billy turns to face him; Dom can feel the warmth of his breath. “Scotland? Hawaii? Manchester?”
“Home to Sonja and Toni. It’s snowing.” Dom’s trying to force himself to be calm again. “Think I’ll learn to ski.”
“Absolutely. I’ll stand you at the top of a hill and push you.”
“Very funny.” Dom stretches out beside Billy again. He smells a bit manky, but it’s mostly just the scent of Billy, so that’s okay. It’s comforting, and he can use all the comfort he can get.
“Don’t tell me. I need to bathe.”
“Good honest manly sweat.” Dom goes to sniff him but, laughing, Billy pushes him away.
“Gerroff, numptie.” Billy buries his nose in Dom’s hair. “You smell a bit like lightning and a bit like snow. Where were you, Dommie, when you were gone from me?”
“Those don’t have smells,” Dom retorts, but he rolls over to his belly, propping himself on his elbows. It’s easy to speak of this, if it stops him from speaking of other things. “It was… nothing. It was between. It was full of bells and screaming. Full of voices that told one things.”
“What did they tell you, Dom?” Billy asks quietly.
“That I wouldn’t see you again.” He lays his hand on Billy’s arm, squeezing a little. He never wants to let go again. “But bollocks to them, right? Because I knew I’d be with you. And here I am.”
Billy’s hand strokes slowly down the length of Dom’s spine, over his bum, then Billy’s moving, parting his legs, kneeling between them. He kisses Dom’s shoulder, the back of his neck, his breath fluttering in Dom’s hair, then lies down on Dom’s back, the way Dom likes him to sometimes—not with all his weight, but with a good bit of it. It’s a delicious feeling, to be pinned there beneath Billy, Billy stroking him, Billy’s breath in his ear. In all other things, with all other people he’ll be stubborn and individual as hell, but he likes being cocooned by Billy. Billy is his security.
“Not hurting you, am I?” Billy says, and Dom waits a minute to hear the bit where he’s joking, only he isn’t joking. Billy rolls off again. He isn’t touching Dom suddenly.
“Fuck no, you twat. Where’d you go?” He’s midway between being a bit miffed, and worried. He wants to be absorbed by the physical and put off for as long as he can what’s coming.
“But Dommie…” Billy’s hand brushes his cheek, and his voice drops low. “Christ, look at you.”
“Billy, don’t.” He takes the hand, squeezing it tightly. “Don’t look at how I’ve changed, look at me. I’m just Dom. You’ve changed too, Bill, but that’s not what I see.”
Billy shudders, then presses against him, his head on Dom’s shoulder. At last he says, very muffled. “I don’t know what I’m about. They’re very close and I want to kill them.”
“What’s that, Bill?”
“Flagg’s men. I can feel them very close to here—not having come for us, or we wouldn’t be lingering But I’m like… Like an animal that’s got the scent of prey, Dommie. I want to take and destroy them.”
“Billy,” Dom murmurs. He’s not shocked. He’s known Billy’s changed and that whatever has caused the change has its reasons. It doesn’t surprise him, oddly, that Billy has it in him to be so precise, so deadly. Perhaps he’s known it all along. “The thing is we can’t, really.”
Billy waits for him to continue.
“There are three men from the Free Zone—the people in Colorado—walking down to meet them. They need to be taken.”
“We could save those men’s lives,” Billy says quietly.
“No,” Dom answers sadly. “We can’t. They’re dead men.” He can feel Billy watching him, but he doesn’t know how to explain. That it’s not even a sacrifice, though that’s part of it. This is the time when he has to tell, but he can’t get the words out of him.
“Sometimes things are terrible, Bill,” Dom murmurs weakly, “Because they have to be. That’s the best I can say.”
“Fate,” Billy says.
“Fate sucks,” Dom answers, imitating Elijah perfectly.
They embrace lingeringly, kiss lingeringly, with long slow touches, but without heat. The passion has been replaced by something that feels like grief, like saying goodbye, like that last night in Hawaii, when Billy had packed his bags for London and Dom his for LA.
“I’ll fetch water,” Billy says at last. “We can have a wash. Then do you fancy a walk down to the pools?”
“Nice change of subject.” Dom realizes he’s weeping, and wipes his eyes with his fingers. “Christ, but I love you, Bill.”
“The feeling’s mutual, I assure you,” Billy answers, which is what he always says when he wants Dom to laugh, and Dom would if he could. Instead he lets Billy go for the water.
When they’ve washed, and dried themselves, Billy asks, “What aren’t you telling me, Dommie? What does this mean for you?”
Dom slumps on the edge of the bed, fussing with his damp towel. If he could see, he’d be avoiding Billy’s eyes. As it is, he feels Billy’s gaze keenly, as if two green flames are burning holes into the back of his neck. “I’ve said I won’t leave you,” he murmurs, “And I won’t. But sometimes…”
“Sometimes.” Billy’s voice is flat and dull.
Dom glances up desperately. “Sometimes I step out a bit. And that’s what I have to do. I’ll be with you… and I won’t.”
“Is it dangerous, Dom?”
“No.” Dom shakes his head violently, hating the way his voice cracks over the word. “No. Billy… Those men, those Free Zone men … It’s just that, at the end, the end that’s coming, they must look at Flagg, and see him as he is, and still not be afraid.”
Dom doesn’t need sight to know Billy’s looking, to know Billy’s eyes are veiled and dangerous, the eyes of a Gunslinger. “Dom, what does that mean for you?” he repeats.
Dom raises his chin. He’s colder than ever now, and his stomach feels sick. “They must stand, and I’ll stand with them, and afterwards—if there is an afterwards—I’ll be left to tell the tale.”
“Then I suppose—“ There’s the sound of Billy’s wet towel hitting the sisal carpet on the floor. “You will need to do what you need to do.” Billy’s voice is calm and reasonable, and Dom doesn’t think he’s ever heard him so angry. Dom calls his name, but Billy’s already left the room, quietly and briskly.
“Billy,” Dom says again, plaintively. “Billy, don’t be that way.”
Not far away at all, the men from the Free Zone are waking. Dom fumbles his way around the room, pulling out bureau drawers and reaching under the bed until he’s found his own jeans and a reasonably clean shirt. It’s Billy’s and too small for him, but he pulls it on anyway, wanting the stretch of the fabric across his chest, wanting more the tight embrace of Billy’s arms around him, holding him so close it hurts.
But Billy’s angry, and Dom can’t say he blames him. When did he begin to do things that were asked of him, especially when it’s so ambiguously?
Behind his eyes he can see two cars parked nose-to-nose, blocking a motorway. They sway in his vision: he’s walking down to them, growing closer. On the sides of the cars of insignia of the Utah State Patrol, and behind them crouch armed men.
Here we are, Dom thinks, This is where it begins
“Billy,” he calls softly. “Billy, please come back to me.”
He knows he hasn’t spoken loudly enough for Billy to hear him, and even if he could, how could Billy forgive him? He’s suffered so much, waited so patiently, only for Dom to desert him again.
Dom lies down in the cooling hollow where Billy’s body had been and curls up there, bringing his knees up to his chest, hugging them.
There are eight armed men behind the roadblock, he sees. Eight of Flagg’s men. And the three from the Free Zone are Larry, Ralph and Glen. Dom’s very afraid, and cold inside, but it’s not his job to be afraid.
It’s his job to comfort them.
He gathers his consciousness into a small, bright place.
And casts off its moorings.
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 44
This Is the Way the World Ends, Part 45
It’s warm in the bed, though the air in the room is cool. Dom cuddles in a bit, holding Billy tighter in his arms. Billy makes a small whuffling sound, but he’s nowhere near waking, and of that Dom’s glad. It’s good to feel Billy sleep so peacefully: he’d managed to sleep a little himself, before the visions woke him.
Dom presses his face into Billy’s shoulder: the muscle’s harder than it used to be, more muscular, just as Billy himself has grown tougher—not that he was ever weak. Dom wonders a little what he’d make of the things he himself is forced to see, if Billy, in his strength, could make sense of them more easily, without Dom’s own confusion.
Maybe that’s it, though, Dom tells himself, Take the easy ones first, let the others follow.
He lets himself look at Idaho, where the first dusting of snow has fallen. Toni and Sonja haven’t been caught by surprise: the henhouse is insulated now, quite snug, and the small barn too, for the sheep and the goats. Sonja has finished the smokehouse and the icehouse has begun to fill with the fruits of her hunting trips. Dom has to work a bit not to let that bother him—he’d rather have deer grazing off apples in the back garden, not hanging butchered from the beams. But it’s the world they live in now, isn’t it? They’re without groceries or supermarkets, and if he’s not going to build his proteins from pulses and grains, he’d best not be a hypocrite.
He can smile, at least, as he peeks into a pantry where jar after freshly-sealed jar of beans, peas and tomatoes stand gleaming on the shelves and bushels of apples, pears and potatoes overflow the bins. It’s like a hobbit harvest fair.
Dom had known all along they wouldn’t live in the Free Zone this winter. Now he wonders if they ever will.
Every day, after the chores, Toni and Sonja look for them. They work themselves to the point of exhaustion just to hold the worry away. Every night they say, “Tomorrow. Tomorrow, for sure. They'll be here.”
The end is very near, Dom sees. It’s time for the seven of them to leave Wellsprings. Late tomorrow night Sonja, ever vigilant, will hear the sound of their engines coming up the hill. She and Toni will load their guns, double-check the locks on all the windows and doors, and hope, and pray, waiting in the dark not knowing if those who’ve come are friends or killers.
When they hear Viggo’s voice outside the door, they’ll weep.
In a year, if the world doesn’t end, Vig and Toni will have a baby boy. Nothing could replace Henry in his heart, but Viggo will begin to feel like himself again, and the frostbitten places inside, that he’s hidden so well, will heal.
“Vig,” Dom murmurs, humbled. It’s not that he’d forget a friend’s suffering, but he’s let Viggo’s pain seem more distant than his own, and what does that make him but a selfish git?
He wants Viggo to have that future happiness, wants it desperately, and for that to happen, the world can’t end, and if the world’s not to end he has to do what’s required of him.
He has to overcome his fear. He has to tell Billy. He has to let the visions play out ‘til their end.
It’s morning now—early morning, yes, no later than three or four, but still morning—and in no more than five or six hours the men from the Free Zone will be in Utah and Flagg’s men will come for them. At ten. At a little past ten.
Worse still, Donald Merwin Elbert—the Trashcan Man Dom saw once and pitied--rolls on toward Vegas, slowly, agonizingly, bringing with him something that Dom can’t see. He only knows it’s something fearful, and when his thoughts turn toward it there’s a feeling of filth, a feeling of burning. A feeling of… nothing after.
Suddenly, not knowing that it would happen, he’s jerked away to that other place, the place like a stage set of the desert, with its sculpted rocks and its great, painted moon.
There’s a woman there, a tall, thin woman in a wash-faded dress. Her age might be anywhere from forty to sixty, and he’s never seen her this way, but he knows her at immediately.
“Mother Abagail?” he says.
She laughs, strongly and richly. “Ain’t no flies on you, English Boy.”
“I should certainly hope not.”
She laughs once more before her face turns solemn. “You know what you must do, English Boy?”
Dom regards her for a long time. The light from the painted moon flashes off the lenses of her spectacles, but the air around them seems to darken. Away in the dark he hears wolves howling.
“Stand with them,” he says at last, reluctantly.
“Stand with them,” she echoes.
“Not in the flesh, though,” Dom says quickly. “I’ve only just found Billy. You can’t take me away.”
“Wouldn’t be I who willed it, if that was to be,” Mother Abagail tells him sternly. She’s trying to stare him down, but Dom won’t look away. “Not in the flesh,” she agrees, finally.
Dom thinks of the too-bright city in the desert, and of the three men now sleeping. Brave men, he supposes. Or knows, really.
“Long as I needn’t leave Billy,” Dom says quietly.
“Son,” Mother Abagail says gravely, kindly. "Blessings upon you, and all of you." She stretches out her hands to touch his face and Dom’s surprised to see the edges of her glowing brightly. For a moment she’s not a scrawny, work-hardened woman from Nebraska, she’s graceful, and lovely.
Dom finds his mouth—or perhaps the mouth of the long, long ago Catholic boy he had been—shaping the words, “The lord is with thee.”
Mother Abagail smiles, radiantly, and then the radiance is gone, Mother Abagail is gone, leaving nothing but the moon and the desert, fading away, until it’s gone too and he’s blind again, back in the warm bed in the cool room, lying behind Billy.
Billy stirs a bit, turning in his arms. Dom wriggles closer and kisses him, then wriggles a bit more to pull the arm beneath Billy free. His hand’s asleep and tingling. Outside of the covers, sitting up, it’s more than cool, it’s chilly.
Dom tries to tell himself that’s the reason he’s shaking.
Billy reacts to the movement. “Go back to sleep.”
“Can’t. I’m sorry.”
Billy shifts, then shifts some more, pushing the covers into tufts around him until he’s reminded Dom of some small creature burrowing. “Christ. I’m all sticky.”
Dom laughs. It’s a dry, ugly sound, like a stick breaking. “All in a good cause, Bill.”
Billy laughs. “You’re a dirty bastard. Never did care.”
Dom reaches out. His fingers come in contact with Billy’s hair and he finds himself smoothing it—it’s poking up all over everywhere. “I want to go home, Bill.” Can Billy hear the oddness in his laugh? Can he hear his desperation?
“Where, Dom?” Billy turns to face him; Dom can feel the warmth of his breath. “Scotland? Hawaii? Manchester?”
“Home to Sonja and Toni. It’s snowing.” Dom’s trying to force himself to be calm again. “Think I’ll learn to ski.”
“Absolutely. I’ll stand you at the top of a hill and push you.”
“Very funny.” Dom stretches out beside Billy again. He smells a bit manky, but it’s mostly just the scent of Billy, so that’s okay. It’s comforting, and he can use all the comfort he can get.
“Don’t tell me. I need to bathe.”
“Good honest manly sweat.” Dom goes to sniff him but, laughing, Billy pushes him away.
“Gerroff, numptie.” Billy buries his nose in Dom’s hair. “You smell a bit like lightning and a bit like snow. Where were you, Dommie, when you were gone from me?”
“Those don’t have smells,” Dom retorts, but he rolls over to his belly, propping himself on his elbows. It’s easy to speak of this, if it stops him from speaking of other things. “It was… nothing. It was between. It was full of bells and screaming. Full of voices that told one things.”
“What did they tell you, Dom?” Billy asks quietly.
“That I wouldn’t see you again.” He lays his hand on Billy’s arm, squeezing a little. He never wants to let go again. “But bollocks to them, right? Because I knew I’d be with you. And here I am.”
Billy’s hand strokes slowly down the length of Dom’s spine, over his bum, then Billy’s moving, parting his legs, kneeling between them. He kisses Dom’s shoulder, the back of his neck, his breath fluttering in Dom’s hair, then lies down on Dom’s back, the way Dom likes him to sometimes—not with all his weight, but with a good bit of it. It’s a delicious feeling, to be pinned there beneath Billy, Billy stroking him, Billy’s breath in his ear. In all other things, with all other people he’ll be stubborn and individual as hell, but he likes being cocooned by Billy. Billy is his security.
“Not hurting you, am I?” Billy says, and Dom waits a minute to hear the bit where he’s joking, only he isn’t joking. Billy rolls off again. He isn’t touching Dom suddenly.
“Fuck no, you twat. Where’d you go?” He’s midway between being a bit miffed, and worried. He wants to be absorbed by the physical and put off for as long as he can what’s coming.
“But Dommie…” Billy’s hand brushes his cheek, and his voice drops low. “Christ, look at you.”
“Billy, don’t.” He takes the hand, squeezing it tightly. “Don’t look at how I’ve changed, look at me. I’m just Dom. You’ve changed too, Bill, but that’s not what I see.”
Billy shudders, then presses against him, his head on Dom’s shoulder. At last he says, very muffled. “I don’t know what I’m about. They’re very close and I want to kill them.”
“What’s that, Bill?”
“Flagg’s men. I can feel them very close to here—not having come for us, or we wouldn’t be lingering But I’m like… Like an animal that’s got the scent of prey, Dommie. I want to take and destroy them.”
“Billy,” Dom murmurs. He’s not shocked. He’s known Billy’s changed and that whatever has caused the change has its reasons. It doesn’t surprise him, oddly, that Billy has it in him to be so precise, so deadly. Perhaps he’s known it all along. “The thing is we can’t, really.”
Billy waits for him to continue.
“There are three men from the Free Zone—the people in Colorado—walking down to meet them. They need to be taken.”
“We could save those men’s lives,” Billy says quietly.
“No,” Dom answers sadly. “We can’t. They’re dead men.” He can feel Billy watching him, but he doesn’t know how to explain. That it’s not even a sacrifice, though that’s part of it. This is the time when he has to tell, but he can’t get the words out of him.
“Sometimes things are terrible, Bill,” Dom murmurs weakly, “Because they have to be. That’s the best I can say.”
“Fate,” Billy says.
“Fate sucks,” Dom answers, imitating Elijah perfectly.
They embrace lingeringly, kiss lingeringly, with long slow touches, but without heat. The passion has been replaced by something that feels like grief, like saying goodbye, like that last night in Hawaii, when Billy had packed his bags for London and Dom his for LA.
“I’ll fetch water,” Billy says at last. “We can have a wash. Then do you fancy a walk down to the pools?”
“Nice change of subject.” Dom realizes he’s weeping, and wipes his eyes with his fingers. “Christ, but I love you, Bill.”
“The feeling’s mutual, I assure you,” Billy answers, which is what he always says when he wants Dom to laugh, and Dom would if he could. Instead he lets Billy go for the water.
When they’ve washed, and dried themselves, Billy asks, “What aren’t you telling me, Dommie? What does this mean for you?”
Dom slumps on the edge of the bed, fussing with his damp towel. If he could see, he’d be avoiding Billy’s eyes. As it is, he feels Billy’s gaze keenly, as if two green flames are burning holes into the back of his neck. “I’ve said I won’t leave you,” he murmurs, “And I won’t. But sometimes…”
“Sometimes.” Billy’s voice is flat and dull.
Dom glances up desperately. “Sometimes I step out a bit. And that’s what I have to do. I’ll be with you… and I won’t.”
“Is it dangerous, Dom?”
“No.” Dom shakes his head violently, hating the way his voice cracks over the word. “No. Billy… Those men, those Free Zone men … It’s just that, at the end, the end that’s coming, they must look at Flagg, and see him as he is, and still not be afraid.”
Dom doesn’t need sight to know Billy’s looking, to know Billy’s eyes are veiled and dangerous, the eyes of a Gunslinger. “Dom, what does that mean for you?” he repeats.
Dom raises his chin. He’s colder than ever now, and his stomach feels sick. “They must stand, and I’ll stand with them, and afterwards—if there is an afterwards—I’ll be left to tell the tale.”
“Then I suppose—“ There’s the sound of Billy’s wet towel hitting the sisal carpet on the floor. “You will need to do what you need to do.” Billy’s voice is calm and reasonable, and Dom doesn’t think he’s ever heard him so angry. Dom calls his name, but Billy’s already left the room, quietly and briskly.
“Billy,” Dom says again, plaintively. “Billy, don’t be that way.”
Not far away at all, the men from the Free Zone are waking. Dom fumbles his way around the room, pulling out bureau drawers and reaching under the bed until he’s found his own jeans and a reasonably clean shirt. It’s Billy’s and too small for him, but he pulls it on anyway, wanting the stretch of the fabric across his chest, wanting more the tight embrace of Billy’s arms around him, holding him so close it hurts.
But Billy’s angry, and Dom can’t say he blames him. When did he begin to do things that were asked of him, especially when it’s so ambiguously?
Behind his eyes he can see two cars parked nose-to-nose, blocking a motorway. They sway in his vision: he’s walking down to them, growing closer. On the sides of the cars of insignia of the Utah State Patrol, and behind them crouch armed men.
Here we are, Dom thinks, This is where it begins
“Billy,” he calls softly. “Billy, please come back to me.”
He knows he hasn’t spoken loudly enough for Billy to hear him, and even if he could, how could Billy forgive him? He’s suffered so much, waited so patiently, only for Dom to desert him again.
Dom lies down in the cooling hollow where Billy’s body had been and curls up there, bringing his knees up to his chest, hugging them.
There are eight armed men behind the roadblock, he sees. Eight of Flagg’s men. And the three from the Free Zone are Larry, Ralph and Glen. Dom’s very afraid, and cold inside, but it’s not his job to be afraid.
It’s his job to comfort them.
He gathers his consciousness into a small, bright place.
And casts off its moorings.
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I have read The Stand but its the Dark Tower series I haven't and somehow I don't know if I ever will...maybe you can explain somethings to me afterwards, after you have finished?
You write Dom and Billy with so much life, so vividly. I can see them so clearly when you write them. Such a gift you have.
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So of course I felt free to borrow them when I wanted to. *g*
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I really adore your Halloween pic! The look on that poor kitten - *L*!
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Thank you! I loved that picture too--the little girl looks so sweet and innocent, but you just no the kitten isn't going to like what happens next.*g*
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*L*!
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Of course my explanation may be more confusing the original problem, but that's the way set it up, based on the way Stephen King talks about alternate universes in the Dark Tower series.
Honestly, the Dark Tower is a bit of a slog at times. Some very interesting concepts, but basically it could have used vast amounts of editing and the ending isn't much of an ending. I can't honestly say it's worth your effort working your way through the whole thing unless you're truly motivated.
On the other hand, I'd be glad to explain anything you like. :-)
Thank you kindly, my dear.
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