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[jettabug.livejournal.com]

Title: Of Love & Life (2/?)
Author: jettabug
Pairing: Monaboyd
Rating: PG
Feedback: It's my drug of choice!
Author's Notes: Yay! Part two!
Summary: Ali has the flu.



Of Love & Life: Part Two
by Jenna

“The trouble with love is…” Dom tapped his thigh as he sung along with the TV, spewing Kelly Clarkson from his surround sound speakers.

His gaze narrowed as the video clip faded out and the TRL hosts returned, but he couldn’t bring himself to concentrate. He was waiting patiently for Billy’s phone call.

The one he’d promise to make as soon as he landed in Scotland. Which, by Dom’s calculations, was 20 minutes ago, and still no phone call.

Dom watched his cell phone that sat next to him on the couch, willing it to ring. It didn’t. Instead, it just sat there like the inanimate object it was, silent, mocking Dom with its inability to receive Billy’s call.

“I hate you,” Dom mumbled to the phone, before getting up and walking into the bedroom, where he began to make his bed.

He was so anxious about Billy’s call he was making the bed, for the first time in seven years.

Dom folded the sheets down, the way Billy used to, and smooth the pillow cases out and sat them at the head of the bed. He pulled the comforter down, so it hung over the end of the bed.

Dom smiled and ran a hand over the material. He loved the comforter. He bought it his first week in New Zealand. He’d gone shopping with Bill and Elijah, and when he saw it, in the window of Bed, Bath and Beyond (or New Zealand’s version of the store) he knew he had to have it.

It was huge, Dom could wrap it around himself three times (or one and a half if Billy was in his arms) and he would snuggle deep into the fabric on cold nights, and bunch it up against the metal bed frame at the bottom of his bed during summer.

It was pale blue and felt silken to the touch. It was simple, the way Dom liked things. But it was more than that, in so many ways. It was everything. It was New Zealand, it was his friendship with Billy, it was his first major shopping purchase without calling his mum to ask her if he really needed it, it was his independence.

A lot of people, Orlando, in particular, scoffed at the idea of a bedspread being much more than just a bedspread. He was always so indignant that it was there for one purpose: to keep the owner warm.

While Dom agreed, it didn’t mean the importance of the comforter diminished in anyway.

But as Dom sat down on the end of the bed, running his palm over the silky duvet, he smiled at all the memories he’d had beneath it.

Watching every single James Bond movie Sean Connery had ever starred in, in the space of one night. Spending nights coughing his lungs up when he had the flu, and indulging in ice cream when he felt well enough to eat. Making love to Billy, many times, and holding him close as they spoke in hushed tones. Writing in his journal about his experiences, his feelings.

Everything important was somehow tied to that comforter.

Dom shook his head and stood up. Maybe Orlando was right, maybe it was just a comforter. But maybe it was more.

Dom was snapped out of his reverie by the ringing of his cell phone. He raced out of the bedroom and into the living room, where he ran straight into the corner of the couch, striking him, hard, on the hip as he dived for the phone.

He grabbed it and swore. “Motherfuck!”

“Excuse me?”

Dom looked down at the phone, he’d somehow answered it. “Hello?” he said tentatively into the phone, resting it on his shoulder as he rubbed his hip. He just prayed it wasn’t his mother.

“What the hell is going on there?” Billy demanded over the noise in the background. “Sounds like you’re having fun without me.”

Dom rolled his eyes and moved into the kitchen, grabbing a packet of frozen peas from the fridge. “Not unless you call breaking my hip running into the couch, fun.”

Billy laughed. “Oh Dommie. I’m gone a day and you’re attacking the furniture.”

Dom loosened his pants in preparation for the peas. “Hey! I think the couch attacked me, thank you very much!”

“Sure, Dom.” He paused. “Anyway, I’m in Glasgow, and you wanted me to call…”

Dom put the cold peas to his hip, where a bright red/purple bruise was forming. He winced at the contact, and bit the inside of his mouth.

“Dom?”

“Yeah. Sorry, Bills. I got peas on my hip.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Dom laughed. “Frozen peas, on the bruise on my hip.”

Billy exhaled. “Jesus Dom, get a lad excited with talk about your hips.”

Dom smiled to himself and eased himself up onto a stool at his kitchen bench. “I miss you,” he said softly into the receiver. “I think last night was the loneliest I’ve ever felt.”

“You and me both,” Billy agreed over the din of the Glasgow airport. “I couldn’t sleep a wink on the plane…was too busy thinking about you…about Ali, about telling her about us.”

Dom nodded and shifted slightly on the chair. “Have you come to some sort of decision?”

Billy snorted. “I wish. I wish it were that easy, Dom. But I thought about it on the whole flight, and there’s no way I can put into words that won’t break her heart.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologising for, Dommie?”

“For all this being so hard on you…”

“Don’t be,” Billy insisted. “I want to be with you. I have to deal with the consequences of that decision.”

Dom nodded and moved the frozen peas, flinching slightly. “When are you coming home?”

Billy laughed lightly. “Very funny. This might take a while, you know. I don’t want to walk in the front door and say ‘hi honey, I’m gay with my best friend.’.”

“If I weren’t so tortured about this whole thing, I’d laugh at that.”

“I know you would,” Billy said softly. “No doubt this whole thing sucks, Dom.”

“Got that right,” Dom said sadly. “I just wish I could close my eyes and it’d be over. That Ali would know about us, and you’d be back here, with me, in my bed.”

Billy laughed. “You have a one-track mind, Mr Monaghan.”

“When it comes to you, I do,” Dom admitted.

“She’s here, Dom.”

Dom frowned. “What? Ali’s there?”

“Well, not right here where I am. I can see her, waiting for me at baggage claim. She hasn’t seen me yet.”

“Turn around, get on a flight back to LA.”

“I owe it to her to be honest, Dommie.”

Dom sighed. “I know you do. It’s just…sometimes I wish you weren’t so upstanding. So…moral.”

Billy chuckled. “You and me both.” A pause. “She’s seen me, I have to go.”

“Ok,” Dom said sadly. “I love you and I miss you.”

“I love you Dommie. I do, with all my heart. Miss you too.”

The phone cut out and Dom hung up, setting his phone down on the bench top.

Not only did his hip hurt, but now, so did his heart.

**

“Ali.”

“Oh Bill!” Ali moved forward and wrapped her arms around Billy’s neck. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Billy hugged her back. “Missed you too, Al.” He was struck by guilt. She wouldn’t have missed him at all if she’d known he’d been sleeping with his best friend.

“How was LA? Dom? How’s he doing? Living the LA lifestyle?” She grabbed one of Billy’s bags and they began walking towards the front doors.

“Yeah, Dom’s good,” Billy answered vaguely. “He likes it in LA.”

“Is he seeing anyone?”

Billy nearly dropped his suitcase. Did she know somehow? “Uh…kinda.”

“Ooh!” Ali said, slipping her hand into Billy’s. “That Dom…he’s probably got the ladies…and gents…lined up around the block!”

Billy laughed nervously along with Ali as they located her car in the early morning hours.

“It feels so good to have you back home, Billy. You have no idea,” Ali confessed once they were in the car, the heater on at full blast.

“Feels good to be home, Al.”

She smiled and leant over to kiss him. “Got lots to tell you.”

“Oh? Much been happening?” Billy asked absently, looking out the frost crusted windows as they manoeuvred through traffic.

“A bit. My grandmother is getting her new hip.”

“That’s nice.”

“What’s the matter, Bills?” Ali asked, concerned.

Bill looked over at Ali, who looked back at him, brows knitted in alarm. She loved him, so completely, with all she had, that it physically hurt Billy that he’d be breaking her heart.

“Just tired, I guess,” Billy answered, smiling with reassurance.

Ali seemed to take that at face value, because, to her, it probably did look like Billy was tired.

“I went and saw my parents the other day, they’re so miserable because their furnace is broken. I told them when you got back, you’d go over to take a look.” Ali chattered away as she drove. “And I’ve been a bit sick, the flu, I think. I really should go get some antihistamine for my runny nose. It’s oh so attractive.” She passed a slow Volvo.

Billy tried to pay attention. He willed himself to. But he just couldn’t. He couldn’t listen to Ali, talking about the big dinner she was planning with their family and friends for the weekend, to celebrate the fact Billy was home. He tried to focus on her long speech about how their next-door neighbour was burgled while he was in LA, and she was so scared she stayed with her brother for three nights.

But Billy wasn’t there. Not really. Not in his head or his heart. He was with Dom, in LA, snuggled under the covers sharing in post-coital bliss, talking about magical things, like if they had a superpower, what would they have. Or if they could pick five people, dead or alive to have dinner with, who would they choose.

Dom chose the same five people every time. Since the first time they played (with Elijah and Sean in Feet one morning) up unto last week when they had played again, his answers never shifted.

Sir David Attenbrough, Elvis Presley, his mum, David Beckham and Billy Boyd.

Billy smiled at the memory of the first time he’d heard Dom’s list. His heart had swelled with pride and superiority to be just included with such a famous list of people Dom would want at his dinner table.

Billy missed that. Missed sharing things with Dom that were special. He hated the fact he was so far away from Dom, from all that he possessed.

Dom was someone unpredictable. Someone who would table dance, just for the hell of it. Or would completely cover themselves in mud for art. Which Dom had readily volunteered to do more than once. He was always in the middle of the action. He loved it, loved just being there.

But to balance out his need for excitement, he sometimes chose to shy away from the limelight, choosing instead to spend the night at home, listening to Coldplay and doing yoga. For as much as Dom was extroverted, he was just as introverted.

Maybe that’s what Billy had been attracted to in the first place. Dom’s character. His ability to keep everyone around him clutching their sides in laughter, or listening thoughtfully to whatever he had to say. He was goofy and serious. Two words Billy thought could never go together.

But that was Dom. A contradiction. Because there was no way anyone could be as perfect as him if they were just one of those aspects.

Billy suddenly realised Ali had stopped talking, and then he noticed she wasn’t in the car.

“You coming?” she shouted at him from outside his window, where she had his bags already pulled from the trunk and began hauling them up their front door.

Billy shook his heads to clear the thoughts of Dom and climbed out of the car, shivering as the miserable Glasgow winter surrounded him.

He followed Ali into the house, not caring that she’d rearranged the living room (again) or that she’d bought a hideous new rug for the hall.

“I have an idea,” Ali said suddenly as she dumped his bags at the foot of the stairs.

“Yeah?”

“How about you go upstairs, crawl into bed and sleep away some of your jet lag. I’ll go to the doctor’s office and pick up some cold and flu tablets, and then we can have a nice, romantic dinner tonight, ok?”

“Sure,” Billy agreed half-heartedly.

Ali gave him a smile as she pocketed her car keys. “You poor baby, you look a wreck. Go sleep, yeah? I’ll bring us back something yummy to eat.”

Billy nodded and gave her a slight hug as she collected her things. “Take your time, love.”

“Ok,” Ali agreed. “I might stop in and see mum and dad, see when they want you to take a look at their furnace.”

“Sure.”

She gave him a kiss and left, enclosing Billy in silence.

He walked around the first floor of his house, realising that he didn’t feel at home as he did when he was at Dom’s. He didn’t feel like he’d ever lived there. Couldn’t remember a single happy moment that had occurred inside those walls.

Billy sighed and began climbing the stairs to the bedroom, leaving his bags at the foot of the stairs, too tired and too unaffected to care about unpacking.

He didn’t bother getting changed or even taking off his shoes, just fell straight forward onto the bed, his head cushioned by a pillow that smelled of Ali’s sickeningly sweet perfume, and felt his body fall into a deep sleep.

**

“Sleep.”

Dom rolled over and tried to get into a comfortable position.

However, his body still refused to cooperate, and he stayed awake. The moonlight drifted in his window, shining across the wall, distracting Dom from a sleep he most definitely needed.

“Let me go to sleep!” he groaned, squashing a pillow over his face to somehow drown out the moonlight.

It worked, he could no longer see the light playing across his wall, but instead, he couldn’t breathe.

Dom hurled the pillow across the room and flipped onto his stomach, in hopes of finding some solace in that position.

He hugged his pillow (the one that smelt like Billy) to his chest and buried his face in it, praying that if he concentrated hard enough, it’d be like old times, and Billy would be curled up next to him, breathing deeply, sleeping soundly.

But it was no use. Dom could pretend all he wanted that Billy was still there, but the bed, being completely devoid of Billy’s warmth, just reminded him that he wasn’t.

His phone rang.

“Hello?” he asked tiredly into the receiver.

“Did I wake you?”

Dom smiled. “I couldn’t sleep. Was thinking about you.”

Billy sighed. “It’s nearly 3am here.”

“What are you doing awake?” Dom asked, shifting in the bed so he lay on his right side, back to the window.

“Uh…can’t sleep.”

Dom frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“What makes you think something’s wrong?”

“I know you, Billy Boyd. Something is definitely wrong. Did you tell Ali?”

“No,” Billy responded. “She told me something, though.”

“Oh? Did she break it off with you?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

Billy sighed, and Dom could here him shifting in the background. “She’s got the flu.”

Dom frowned. “You called me at 3 in the morning to tell me your girlfriend has the flu.”

“No, Dominic. Just listen.”

“Ok.”

Billy took in a deep breath. “When we got home, she went to the doctor to get some medicine or whatever. But the doctor was worried because she’d been feeling sick for a few weeks. Usually the flu will disappear on it’s own. So anyway, he did some blood work in the surgery, did you know they could do that now?”

“Billy…get to the point,” Dom interrupted, sitting up in his bed.

“Anyway, it turned out to be nothing. She’d just been exposed to the cold too long. She’d been spending time at her parent’s place, and their furnace is broken, so it’s really cold over there…”

“Billy!” Dom called. “Get on with it.”

“Right,” Billy said. “So…turns out Ali’s pregnant.”

Cross posted to: jettabug, monaboyd & fellow_shippers