monaboyd | Two if by Air

arr, going for it!

Title: Two if by Air
Pairing: billy/dom
Rating: humm pg
disclaimer: i don't own a goshdarned thing. sorry, boys; i tarnish thee.
Summary: oh goodbyes are such a bitch.
Author's note: first monaboyd! yarrr! etc. vaguely pondering a "One if by Land."

There is a curious webbing, Dominic muses, that stretches between himself and Billy. He likes to think of it as spider silk, luxuriously delicate but so dense and intricately-woven that it’s nearly opaque. It’s not quite all there, but somehow strong enough to hold their weight. Dominic is enchanted by this because it’s oxymoronic, and beautiful, and guarantees that Billy will always be nearby.

Dominic has to think about this tonight, and imagine the phenomenon in twenty dimensions, so he’ll remember it even as he watches Billy disappear down a half-lit terminal of buzzing fluorescent lights and well-trodden gray carpet.

At eleven-thirteen on a Thursday night they occupy a patch of floor by the airport’s vending machine because all of the chairs outside Billy’s boarding gate are occupied. They are eating bags of potato skins because they’re hungry and they’re laughing because it’s easy. Across from them is a large picture window that Dominic refuses to look up at because the overhead lighting paints their reflection, shoulder to shoulder, too clearly against the midnight just beyond.

Billy is the last and most certainly the hardest in a long line of Dom-crushing goodbyes. He’d spent an endless day in the Wellington airport, seeing everyone off and being wrapped in bittersweet embraces that would melt polar ice caps. Elijah had cried into the shoulder of Dom’s jacket, and then they’d both cried, and all Dom could think was, this isn’t going to be the hardest one.

“Hey; this one’s shaped a bit like yer nads, yeah, Dom?” Billy muses, holding up a small, deformed potato skin.

In about fifteen minutes, he will officially be alone. Billy will take his life and his energy and his radiance and bring it all back to Glasgow where it will fill up his house and spill out the front door whenever Billy goes to check the mail or get the paper in the morning. Dom will miss all that warmth hitting him in the face each morning he climbed into Billy’s car en route to the day’s first location.

Dom realizes the difficulty of imagining how his life is going to be in about twenty minutes. How he’s going to feel is beyond his comprehension. He’s going to have to get up, follow the blandness of the walls to his own terminal, and sleep away the three hours to his boarding call. He tries to remember they’ll be connected, even though Billy will be three thousand miles above the Earth and getting farther by the second. It all seems impossible.

Dom inhales, and after a moment realizes that he forgets to exhale. His body is suddenly stiff, tense, and worrying all over. His toes curl; his shoulder blade shifts slightly; a knot forms right at the base of his ribcage and settles in for a long night. It’s as though in a single moment he forgets all about laughing, and now all he can think about is losing sight of Billy’s back amidst all the late-night travelers.

Billy can feel the change in Dom. He drops the half-eaten bag of potato skins to his hip and leans more heavily against the warm shoulder supporting him. He drops his chin and turns his head upward so he might be able to catch the gray eyes fixated on the floor. In a moment Dom looks up, but his eyes focus on the window in front of them. Billy stares at him for a moment before following the gaze.

He sits back with a sigh, both of them half-leaning against the wall and half-leaning against each other and staring at their reflection next to an obnoxiously bright vending machine. Billy’s afraid of the thought Dom is thinking; that this is the last time they’ll see such a reflection for quite a while.

“Guess we tried to make it too easy,” Billy says, breaking silence.

“It could have been worse,” Dom says. He looks away from the reflection. “We could have made it too hard.”

Billy sucks in his lower lip; the vending machine crackles with energy and brightness and Billy wants to slam it with his fists until the sound dies away forever. He wants to touch Dom, but isn’t sure how to go about it. He thinks about resting a hand on his knee, on lacing their fingers together. It all seems too dramatic, and he and Dom are anything but dramatic. He settles to rest his chin on his forearm and rest his forearm on Dom’s shoulder.

“I think we did,” Billy says.

If Dom is surprised, he doesn’t say anything. His body remains still. Billy thinks Dom has known just as well as he has; he’s not sure if that is relieving or troubling. With a short, awkward moment of miscommunication pitted against what could have been almost two years of the most beautiful relationship ever fantasized of, Billy regrets that he would have to choose the latter.

The minutes tick away and Dom is positive he can hear his own watch, resting down at his denim-clad lap, pounding in his ears as a steady reminder. Billy is making him sad, because these are things Dom has no interest in speaking of now that their time together has dwindled to less than ten minutes. Our timing is brilliant, Dom laments. He thinks this moment is far too serious. He thinks he might feel his heart breaking.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Dom says, though not entirely sure what the words mean. His voice comes out like the sound of cracking stained glass.

Billy breathes and Dom can feel it against his jaw.

“I don’t … I should’ve ... maybe if we … I didn’t …”

“Me too,” Billy says.

The boarding number is called. Dom knows without looking at his watch that it’s four minutes early. The area around them, stale and quiet just prior, now rises as one and gathers stray bags; the air is filled with tired, lingering rustles of plastic wheels and sturdy fabric.

Dom is afraid that if he moves to get up, the tears at the backs of his eyes will tighten too much and irrevocably spill over. His feels his body waiting on that motion in particular, so he may get the chance to grieve over the one moment in all of his life he forgot to live for. It’s going to be messy, and there is a silent vow between Dom and Billy to never leave things messy.

Both are aware that the line to the terminal, just behind them and out of view, dwindles dangerously as they sit. Both pairs of eyes have found their way back to the reflection in the window and they stare together, unmoving. Billy’s stomach slides a little; even two minutes ago, he felt so sure that this end would never come.

The last call calls, and Billy finds it in him to locate his feet and shoulder his bag. Dom stands with him and they breathe so hard and so close that their bellies nearly touch when they exhale. There is the passing of a single second, and this goodbye suddenly cracks open to a now-or-never scenario. The electricity, the fear, and the anticipation all sting, buzzing about and rivaling the wretched hum of the vending machine.

Together they wonder what the harm would be, or they wonder cynically what good it would do. They wonder if they could live after “just one kiss.” It’s a churning of blind, needy, selfish emotion and undeniable feelings of shame and guilt for having ever pushed the thought out of their minds before now. There is indecision, and the mutual search for what’s “right.”

Billy makes the first move and Dom is so relieved he could collapse. He allows the tremors to pass through his body when Billy cups the back of his head with two warm palms and fans his hungry lips over Dom’s. Their mouths shift with the initial shock of magnetism and quickly warm to one another, trying with fervor to etch damp curves and silken tongues into the psyche. Dom’s arms slide under Billy’s open coat and around his waist, allowing their hips to press together. Fingers find belt loops and tug. Billy leans forward, into the V of Dom’s legs.

When they slow down, when they squelch the heat to place moist kisses on each other’s lips, it seems easier to smile. Their foreheads knock together and they almost laugh, eyes crinkling up and dimples showing themselves brightly.

Billy backs away slightly, afraid that if he doesn’t do it now, he might never. A twinge of regret passes through Dom’s smile and Billy tries, for the both of them, to ignore it.

“Best be running off now, then,” he says weakly.

“Right, Bill. Safe trip, and all that.”

“You too. And be sure and let me know how L.A. works out?”

There is the possibility that a cricket chirps.

“Don’t know if I’ll be staying long, actually,” Dom says after a long pause. He tries hard to keep the smile minimal.

Billy’s eyes widen only slightly and he stops backing away for a moment. A sparkle of green dances all the way back to Dom and then they both hesitate.

“Looking into other living arrangements, are you?” Billy says tentatively.

“Might be. If it works out and all.”

They both grin stupidly, and Billy takes a step back toward Dom, but a final, final boarding call sounds. Billy’s face jumps and grimaces comically, directing a frantic look toward the closing gate. His feet shuffle quickly with indecisive movement.

“Go, you old fool!” Dominic laughs. “I’ll call you when I get to Elijah’s!”

“Right! We’ll talk! About … this!” Billy smiles wide and is darting sideways toward the terminal, calling back to Dom.

“Night, Bill!” Dom grins, listening to Billy’s Hey! Whoa! Hey, wait! I’m coming! as an attendant is pulling the velvet rope stand back in front of the gate. They wave at each other one last time before Billy disappears entirely. Dom can feel that web of energy stretching out between them. The whole thing hadn’t gone as badly as he’d thought.

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Date: 2003-11-25 06:16 am (UTC)

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