[lotrips] four ficlets
"Elijah," Cate says, "Not that I mind you being here--mmm, good--but--"
She shifts on the couch, pulls up her knees to give him a little more room.
"--don't you have boys to fuck?"
Miranda snickers and knocks the bottle against the wine glass she's filling. "Oops," she says, tired and sated, and "I wondered that, too." She sets the bottle down and watches for a minute; Elijah's dark head moving slightly between Cate's thighs, Cate's hands grasping at Elijah's shirt sleeves, Elijah's hips (naked, Cate told him to keep his jeans around his ankles, and Miranda's knees are pleasantly scraped from how he fucked her, kneeling behind her on the carpet), Cate's quickening breath, her mouth open.
Miranda wriggles in next to Cate and takes her hand, guides it to her cunt and wraps Cate's fingers around her.
"Queerest of the queer, huh, Lijah," Miranda teases, thrusting her crotch against Cate's erraticly moving hand, and he reacts, giving Miranda the finger and giving Cate enough to go taut and gasping with her orgasm.
Elijah's obviously smart enough not to talk with his mouth full.
*
"Isn't this the seventh year you've asked?" Billy's smile is grudging, placating.
Elijah flashes his own grin, four thousand watts. "Yup. Happy birthday to me?"
Billy, upside down head hanging off the bed, rolls his eyes, but says nothing. Elijah senses a small capitulation and insinuates himself up from the floor and around around Billy's waist, idle stroking of freckled skin, looking for a shudder. Billy is too determined to give him one, it seems, so Elijah tries a different tack.
"Haven't you fucked girls in the ass?"
Billy's tummy leaps up with a surprised snort, muscles tightening under Elijah's hands when Billy laughs. Elijah doesn't wait for a response, he knows the answwer. "So what's the difference?"
Billy pushes himself up onto his elbows and fixes Elijah with such a glare that for a second Elijah thinks he's pushed too far.
"You lack tits. The fact that you have a dick. Also the fact that you are you, Elijah, and have swapped spit with most of the other gay men I know."
Elijah considers these facts, and considers Billy's bare chest, which is blotchy pink now, and considers Billy's dick, which may just be straining his jeans.
"I asked you first, remember. Seven years? Doesn't that count?"
When Elijah leans down, Billy lets Elijah kiss him.
*
It moved too fast across the sky for the children to fly their kites--
Dom skates his feet (in socks, shoes off to enter the meeting house) in circles on the floor, glances at Orli, rapt to the kaumatua's baritone storytelling.
--the cave where Te Ra lived, and Maui challenged the sun--
The elder points his ornate walking stick at the carving, and Dom see Orli's hand twitch protectively to his midriff, slipping under his t-shirt.
--tied down with flax ropes, and bruised the sun with his grandfather's magic jawbone--
Orli's lips curve up in a grin when Dom nudges him.
*
The room is full of boxes.
The Valium is beginning to wear off a little, and he can feel what might be panic creeping in at the edges. The sight of the boxes of food -- everything tinned he could carry, bottles of water and juice, dried goods -- reassures him. At least he won't starve.
Dominic (that's his name, he found it in the wallet on the table) sits down heavily on what he presumes is his sofa, in what he presumes is his apartment. He still stinks -- reeks to high heaven, now he's lugged all of these provisions upstairs from the corner store. He pulls off his shirt, a stretchy long-sleeved T, and examines the logo. A courier company.
Fits with the bike and the walkie-talkie.
He had woken up in the hallway some four hours ago in a daze, feeling hungover and disoriented, and stumbled to the bathroom to swallow pills before he knew what he was doing. It had probably been the best thing he could have done.
The anxiety of not knowing who he was turned out to be nothing compared to the silence on the streets. He still can't believe it -- there is no-one, no-one, in the block around him -- and it jolts him physically, repeatedly.
He is shivering. He goes to have a shower.
**
In the shower, the water runs hot and fierce and normal. Dominic, he says to himself, Dominic Monaghan, and he has a Brooklyn accent.
**
Dominic pulls the blinds closed in the bedroom before he unwinds the towel from his waist, so the silence outside doesn't intrude. In the mirror he is lean and unevenly tanned, striped high on his thighs and biceps. Dragonflies wrap around his ankle in an elaborate tattoo, so finely detailed he has to rub it to see if it's real. He has two other tattoos, an appendix scar, a gold cross around his neck, and a yellowing bruise on his forearm. His jaw is crooked when he looks blankly at his reflection, but that matches the ID photo in his wallet. His bleached hair doesn't match.
Hi, he says to himself, and he can hear the waver. What's goin' on?
**
He seems to know where things are in this apartment. He knows he has seen those movies where it's like if only they'd taken a pocket-knife. Or a torch. Water. Toolkit. Snacks. There's an inhaler, the blue kind, on the coffee table, and maybe that's his -- maybe not, there are two toothbrushes in the bathroom -- but he puts it in the side-pocket on the panniers.
The walkie-talkie crackles with a resolute hiss when he clicks through channels. Possibly useful, though. Dominic wonders if he has a gun anywhere. Maybe he'll try below the counter at the store.
He goes for a piss before locking up, and it burns slightly, the way it does after holding it in for too long. First-aid kit, he thinks, and he swallows another Valium in anticipation of the eerie streets.
**
Outside, the traffic has stopped, and there is no reply when he shouts until he is hoarse. Dominic hoists his bike onto the sidewalk and heads uptown on Seventh.