Fanfiction: "Macrocuts"
Title: Macrocuts Raiting: PG-13 Pairing: belldom Genre: not angst, not fluff; just a sleepless night and phone calls
POV: Dominic
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'Dominic? God, what's wrong with you? It's so late already..."
2 AM. Plus 11 minutes and 13 seconds. No, 14 seconds already.
'Can I come in?'
'Yeah yeah sure, come in... Just keep the voice down a bit, ' a fast look towards the hall, 'My kids are already asleep. If you wake them up you'll be putting them to sleep yourself.'
We're in the kitchen and I'm trying to tell Chris that I really don't need to have tea; I'm here only for 5 minutes or so, that honestly...
Until a cup appears in my hands with the line "The greatest dad in the UK" emblazoned on its side I don't say a word. And then silently, I drink hot tea slowly, feeling like a total fool.
'So why are you awake, Dom?'
Chris is falling asleep. I can see it - he's standing, leaning against the kitchen table, barely holding back yawning. I almost feel ashamed - I came without ringing, in the middle of the night, knowing that he's here on his own with his kids and after 2 years of absence it must be pretty hard... They've become estranged from him and his wife is gone for a week.
And Chris remembers here what's like to be a father, not a long-distant but the real one.
'Can I make a quick phone call from your place?'
'Huh?' he doesn't seem to understand at first, 'What? A call?'
'Yes.'
'You can…Just a second. I'll just bring the phone,' Chris tries to make it look okay, that its perfectly all right - drive through half of the city at night just to ask a permission to use someone's phone...
'So you make that call, ' he says, coming back and placing the phone receiver down on the table, 'And I'm... gonna go to sleep. Shut the door afterwards, yeah? But not too harsh...'
'The kids. I know.'
'Okay... Good night then, I guess.'
'Thank you, Chris.'
'Not at all, really, ' he says, standing on the threshold, 'Anytime, yeah.'
He doesn't ask what had happened. Why I came here. Who I am going to call.
I only have two explanations and both of them are right.
First: he doesn't care. He's tired and wants to sleep, he'd like to help me, but knows that I'll tell fuck all. Chris has a totally different approach to life - the main thing for him is for everyone to be alive and well. For everyone to be together. Then any problem can be solved and anything can be decided.
Second: he knows who I'm going to call at 2 am. He knows who's got an automatic number identifier on his home phone. And who is not going to pick up if he sees that it's me who is calling. And he knows who has avoided talking to me for a week.
He picks up after the first tone. Of course... maybe he just woke up in the middle of the night, went to the toilet and was passing by the phone right this second. Of course he wasn't sitting near the phone during the whole night and waiting for the call. Of course not.
'Chris, what happened? Why are you calling so late?'
'Hello.'
The voice stops, but only for a second. Not longer.
'Howard? What the fuck?'
'Can I come over?'
'I'm not home.'
So just fucking hang up, then. Don't breathe into the receiver, waiting for me to start making excuses incoherently, nagging and whining because I am absolutely sober and I'm not going to get loaded again and trample down my own pride which I had lost about 10 years ago, just fucking understand already that I'm scared about you, goddamn wildly, animal-like scared and I don't want to come over to yours to knock against the plinth in the sniffles of penitence, I just need to make sure that it's you, that you're alive. Healthy. Safe.
I'm a paranoiac.
Paranoiac.
'So can I?'
'I'm not home.'
'And when are you coming back?'
'I'm afraid I cannot get hold of this type of information, please call back later. Preferably, after an eternity.'
And busy tones.
I didn't wait for anything else.
"You left me. And they took me away."
SMS like this are probably sent by people kidnapped and taken to Mars. Though, in that kind of situation you can at least understand what happened if you look at the changed number.
I don't know what happened.
It's been a while since I last understood us both; I'm not sure whom worse - him or myself.
It's just there was a moment when we started speaking different languages. Using the same words for diametrically opposite things. Confusing terms. Calling a spade anything but a spade.
Chris turned into a walking online translator.
"Please tell Howard that he..."
"Please say to Bellamy that I..."
I realise that I'm still listening to busy tones when a giggle is heard in a room next door. One of Chris' kids is laughing in his sleep.
I come to my senses…or to someone else's senses. I hang up. Put the receiver on the table.
Now I am all this - pieces and pieces, from one motion to another, without an ability to see the whole picture.
I cannot trace my way, cannot explain my own actions.
Me-me-me... and that's it. There's nothing else. I got lost in myself and I don't know how to find the way to some better, more attractive place.
He's not home and he doesn't know when he's coming back.
The keys clang in my pocket. Even if he doesn't know when he's coming back it still means I can drive to his place.
And wait.
And look how he's passing one room after another, looking for himself.
And following him.
And maybe we'll be lucky.
No, wait, that's wrong. Of course, we'll be lucky. And we'll definitely find him somewhere. In between the pages of a book, for instance.
Or in a flowerpot.
Or in a drawer with handkerchiefs.
Though he doesn't have a handkerchief drawer.
I'm still sitting in Chris' kitchen. It's been long since 3 in the morning and I still haven't moved an inch.
I'm afraid to go to his place. I'm scared to open the door with my key and realise he's not really there.
Half past three I finally get up from the table with the receiver in my hand.
And I press the right button just the second he starts calling.
'Dom, ' he says, 'Come and get me out of here. Please."
I hang up, wishing that the kids didn't have time to hear the call and wake up.
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Notes: If you are reading this I suppose you’ve already read the story, so first of all, thanks a lot ;) I haven’t written (or, rather, posted) anything in a while, I suppose a writer’s block can be blamed for it partly. And also I’ve just been busy with other things and other bands; I’m not ashamed to admit it. My love for Muse used to reach better heights, but I think the lack of new music may be responsible for that. I’m definitely waiting for the new album to go and win my heart as the previous ones did in the past.