Ficlet

[nakeno.livejournal.com]

Title: Reverie
Rating: PG
Pairing: Billy/Dom... only not.
Summary: He doesn't do things like celebrate birthdays anymore.
Disclaimer: This is about as real as my cat's love for bath time. ...I have scars.
Author's notes: I described this over the phone to a friend as "an angsty bit of cheese." I still stand by this opinion, but it's out of my head and out of the way now so all is the better. A quick ficlet that was inspired by Billy's birthday. What? Last month you say? ...Hmm.
Beta: No one this time around, unfortunately. Though, I have discovered that what I need more than a beta reader is a slave driver. -_-;
Feedback: A spoonful makes the medicine go down.
Warnings: And a dollop, a dollop, a dollop... of angst-y!



The ocean just doesn't stop. In and out, self-consuming wave after wave. Just keeps going. Like time. Timeless.

The timeless ocean.

Now that he gave it a thought, Dominic supposes that that phrase makes sense.

The ocean breeze teases at the palms occasionally and the glint of a waxing moon dances with silver shoes across the crests of the rolling sea water.

Dominic shifts on his feet and taps cigarette ash over the balcony rail to the sandy earth below.

"Sorry, I just can't. This premiere thing and all."

But he'd been to the post, sent off his package. Happy birthday, Bills.

"Of course. Everyone understands, Dom."

Only they don't, Sean, and Dominic has his mobile off because accusations made of acid and droll American vowels are the last thing he wants. Sometimes he swears he can smell the cloves through the receiver. Somehow picked up and melted down into code, transferred through satellite and bursting whole again out of the pinholes of his cell phone's ear piece.

Green eyes blink and roll with disinterest, small claws on slick metal and the occasional flick of a whip-like tail. Dominic stares back and puffs smoke and tries to remember a time when he wasn't so bitter inside.

He doesn't do things like celebrate birthdays anymore. Not even his best mate's.

There's twin cupcakes in clear cellophane with a cheery printing of a cartoon girl with rosy cheeks. They are positioned between the two sandals he's wearing so that he may now and again lean back from where he has draped himself over the railing and give them a look.

They're spiced apple cakes. The only sort the corner store had. They're rather stupid and silly, but along the lamp-lit streets a few blocks away he had swerved into the car-park, driven there by the blinding moment of panic that the thought of going home without a single reminder of Billy's birthday gave him.

He couldn't have come home with nothing.

He doesn't celebrate birthdays anymore (especially not his best mate's), but he couldn't have come home with nothing...

Between inhales of salt air and menthol and exhales of carbon dioxide and smoke, he thinks of Billy in well-worn jeans and a comfortable short-sleeved button-up. He thinks of Billy laughing and drinking and singing. He thinks of Billy getting along into another year of life just right fine without him.

Moonbeams skip glitter over the cresting water and Dom imagines Billy smiling and talking at large with his friends and family and allowing his bright olive-hued gaze to flit to the door every so often. Waiting for a guest that will not come.

Dominic thinks of his best mate talking and laughing right up until the last person is ushered, laugh-worn and alcohol-buzzed out the door. He thinks of his mate sitting alone in the dark, waiting for the doorway to become darkened by a grey-eyed man (boy) with unruly hair and a crooked smile. Waiting and waiting for someone who will not come.

"He said he couldn't make it, Billy."

"Yeah, I know, but I just thought..."

His mind's eye sees Billy waiting for him, rumpled and Scotch-scented in the darkness for him... and suddenly the Englishman feels all jagged corners and red angles inside. All wrong. Like his vital organs don't fit inside the shell of him properly.

Then Dominic thinks of Billy waiting for him, the lights low, sitting amongst the empty champagne glasses and spare traces of wrapping paper, sipping from a tumbler until a faintly backlit figure wanders down the hallway. All soft smiles and soothing touches wrapped in a purple sleeping gown.

Billy waiting for him until a mild-spoken Glaswegian dancer comes for him and beckons him to bed.

He thinks of her trying to comfort Billy's hurt heart with her honeyed words and lingering kisses.

Then he thinks of Billy letting her... and one of the little white-topped, brown-bottomed cakes goes tumbling end over end into the darkness. Somewhere between Billy's brilliant celebrating and Billy's wounded sulking Dom had leaned down to pick up the treats.

Dominic leans up against the railing once more, panting from his impromptu fit of fury (jealousyjealousyjealousy.)

His fingers are sticky and the tips of his ears are red and he regards the other cake for a moment or two to see if his irrational cake-flinging fit has passed.

There's the faint rustle of palm fronds and Dom realizes he has scared off the small lizard that had been quietly sharing his balcony.

Again he thinks of Billy. Of Ali. Of them.

"C'mere, birthday boy..."

And where one cupcake was sacrificed to anger (jealousy), the other is sacrificed to comfort and Dominic stuffs the little treat down in scarcely two breaths.

He stabs his cigarette to death on the railing and allows it to drop where it may. Just this once.

For a moment he wants to feel bad for tossing away the other cupcake. The one meant for Billy.

The moment passes as Dom sucks left over cream from his index finger and heads for the glass doors.

They were apple. Spiced apple.

...Billy has always hated cinnamon.

-end-