NaNoWriMo - The Story So Far, Parts 21-24
21. Cruel
No cigarettes, only peeled Havanas for you.
Dom/Elijah, R, 500 words
Elijah has had an old cigar box for years. The box has a picture of Simon Bolivar on the top and is edged in some kind of strange ethnic design that has become so familiar to Elijah that he sometimes doodles it in the margins of stray script pages when he's bored. His mother gave the box to him, told him it had belonged to his grandfather, that it had been a gift to him from a Naval officer during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
When he was a teenager and he had to hide his smoking from his mother, Elijah used to store his cigarettes in there. He thought it was terribly clever of him, hiding cigarettes in a cigar box, as if that was the last place anyone would ever look for them. Of course, Hannah found them and immediately ratted him out to his mom, after which Elijah had to find sneakier places to hide his packs of Marlboros. Since then, the box has been the place where he stores old keepsakes and photographs.
He's got a movie stub from the time that he and Dom, dressed in a pair of ridiculous disguises, snuck into one of the last screenings of Return of the King in L.A. They both thought they were so clever, wandering nonchalantly into the movie and sitting in the back row, paying more attention to the reactions of the small audience than to the movie itself. Of course, just as Elijah hadn't been particularly covert with his cigarettes, neither were he and Dom terribly stealthy. They were mobbed by a group of fangirls after the movie ended and spent the next two hours signing autographs. That was the last time that Elijah tried to sneak into one of his own movies.
There are several pictures from New Zealand, most of which were taken by Viggo, but the one he's proudest of is one he took himself. It's a shot of Dom and Billy sitting on a bench, each with a beer in his hand, Billy leaning to whisper something in Dom's ear, Dom with the beginnings of a smile on the corners of his mouth. There's nothing else in the picture, and Elijah thinks that it says something important, although he can't quite put his finger on what. He'd ask Viggo, but he's afraid of the answer he'd get.
The latest addition to the box is the tab from a can of beer, the type of beer that Dom only drinks as a last resort, when there's absolutely nothing on tap and the only thing in a bottle is Corona. Dom had snapped the tab off of the can in once piece, the ring that held them together still whole, and he presented it to Elijah with a cheeky grin and said, "Now you have to fuck me." Elijah snickered and punched Dom on the shoulder. Later, as they were leaving the bar, he'd quietly slipped the tab into the pocket of his jeans.
*****
22. Don't Make Me Come to Vegas
If you come breezin' through," you said, "I'll know that it's you by the taste on my lips."
Billy/Dom, PG, 500 words
It's not particularly difficult to become a card shark. Dom would know.
He ended up in Vegas by sheer coincidence, but stayed because the money was easy, the alcohol was free, and there was certainly no shortage of beautiful faces. Of course, he didn't make any money the first two weeks he was there, but that's because he spent most of his time taking too much advantage of the alcohol and the beautiful faces. Once he settled down and actually started working, it was easy to make a living playing poker, blackjack, any number of games in the casino. And it was a nice living. He'd taken up residence in one of the Bellagio's high-roller suites, a place usually reserved for celebrities, foreign dignitaries, and millionaires. Dom was none of the above, not originally, not truthfully, but if things kept up the way they were going, he'd be in their ranks fairly soon. He'd already made enough money to buy himself a Jag, which was a little ridiculous, because no one drives in Vegas. Vegas, or the Strip, anyway, is like New York-- No one knows anyone who actually drives. But Dom bought the car because it was shiny and green and he rationalized it by promising himself that he'd take it out into the desert and open it up on the highway. He hasn't gotten around to doing that yet.
Mostly, he spends his time at the blackjack table. He's got a favorite dealer, a fellow expatriate named Boyd. Boyd deals the high-limit tables that Dom spends most of his time at. They've learned enough about each other in the past couple of months to build a relationship based on quick banter and Dom's tendency to slide $100 chips toward Boyd every few hands. Boyd smiles, makes good conversation, but never really pries into Dom's personal life, which is something that he appreciates more than the dealer probably knows. Dom's not a big fan of the nosy ones, the dealers who are always asking about your girlfriend or your wife or what you do for a living. It's not that he doesn't want to talk, mind, but not about that. After all, Dom's wife is the reason he's card-sharking in Vegas these days. It's a long story, and one he'd rather keep to himself, thanks.
Boyd understands that, and that's why Dom usually settles in at his table on most nights. And just as Boyd never asks Dom what he does with his life, Dom never asks Boyd. He considers it a favor in return for the dealer's reluctance to pry into his own personal life. He doesn't want to know if Boyd has kids, a wife, a dog. He doesn't really want to know where Boyd lives or what he does with his free time, if he golfs or plays the guitar. He's got enough stories of his own, enough to last him a lifetime. So Dom just lets Boyd do what he does best: Deal the cards.
*****
23. Doughnut Song
You told me last night you were a sun now, with your very own devoted satellite.
Billy/Dom/Elijah, PG, 500 words, sequel to China
Billy shows up in the middle of the night on a Tuesday and rings the doorbell. He probably would have woken someone up, if both Dom and Elijah hadn't already been awake. Elijah was awake because Dom was, and Dom was awake because he can't sleep at night anymore. Elijah always tells him that it's because he never does anything during the day but sleep, so of course he's not tired at night. But Dom thinks that there's a difference between napping, which is what he does during the day, and actually going to sleep, which he can't do at night. He pretty much has to wait for sleep to take him, which only really happens after dawn and before dusk.
Of course, the fact that Dom doesn't sleep doesn't keep him from staying in bed all of the time, which is why Elijah reflexively gets up to answer the door. He's pretty much gotten over trying to get Dom to do anything that Dom doesn't want to do. That's pretty much why he called Billy in the first place. Why Billy actually flew all the way to California just to drag Dom out of bed is something Elijah would rather not think about. He's just grateful Billy's there. He's almost grateful enough to push away any resentment he has and greet Billy warmly at the door.
Much to Elijah's surprise, Dom doesn't actually get out of bed as soon as Billy walks into the bedroom. In fact, Billy has to walk all the way over to the bed and actually sit on Dominic to get his attention.
"You smell like shite," Billy informs him, and Elijah nods in agreement in the background. "I mean, not that you ever smell like roses, but this is worse than usual."
"Fuck you very much," Dom answers. "Go home, Bill. Go on home to Ali."
Billy doesn't answer that. Instead, he motions for Elijah to grab Dom's feet while he takes his head, and together, they drag him, kicking and flailing, out of bed and into the kitchen. Together, they turn on the faucet, as cold as it will go, and they hold Dom's head under the water until he sputters and shouts. When they finally let him up, Dom looks like a wet poodle, hair in every direction, water dripping down the bridge of his nose and off the tip. Elijah and Billy take one look at each other and break into hysterical giggles.
Dom glares at both of them and narrows his eyes as menacingly as he can while water droplets start to puddle around his feet. "Screw you both," he says without force. "You want me to take a shower so badly, you could have just asked." He stomps away to the bathroom and soon Elijah can hear the shower running.
Elijah looks over at Billy, who is still standing by the sink looking vaguely troubled and more than slightly amused. "Thanks for coming, Bill," he says.
"Anytime," Billy answers.
*****
24. Father Lucifer
He reckons I'm a watercolor stain.
Viggo/Orlando, PG-13, 500 words
Viggo likes to paint with oils. He says that he enjoys the smell, the way it makes the colors seem more tangible. It's about using more than just your sense of sight, Viggo always claims. He can smell when a canvas needs more black, more red.
Everything in Viggo's house smells like paint or turpentine, including Viggo himself. There's always a smear of yellow or green across the back of his hand, blue under his fingernails, sometimes a smudge of brown on his cheek. His favorite jeans are covered in magenta fingerprints and orange lines. One time, he accidentally brushed up against a wet canvas, leaving as much of the art on his t-shirt as he did on the painting itself. He studied the painting and decided he liked it that way, how it was a little blurry in one corner, the colors starting to mix together. He said it looked more like real life, the hues starting to blend, but the original colors still visible.
Viggo's doesn't particularly want to paint Orlando. It's not that he'd pass up the opportunity to study the younger man, who is a perfect contrast between light and dark, sharp and soft. Rather, it's that Viggo is worried that he couldn't do him justice, not in oils, not on a plain white canvas. He doesn't think that he could capture the space between Orlando's hip and waist, where the flesh barely covers the joint. He doesn't know if he could paint the arch of his back, divided by the thin, white scar. Or the place where his shoulder meets his neck in a soft curve, and the way the hairs there are soft and fine. So when Orlando insists that Viggo paint him, Viggo is hesitant. But there's no one that Orlando cannot persuade, even Viggo, especially Viggo, and eventually he relents.
He paints Orlando in watercolors, because they're easier to blend, easier to smudge, and so is Orlando. He strips naked, and Viggo fills in the space between his hip and waist with a deep purple, shadowing the hollow where flesh meets bone. He colors the arch of his back red, traces the line of the scar with a thin stroke of his brush and uses his fingers-- It's about using more than just your sense of sight-- to feather it out and blend it with Orlando's ribs. Viggo paints his neck in greens and yellows, mingling the colors together with the palm of his hand until they bleed into each other. He paints orange around Orlando's belly button, a white streak on his sternum, and pink on his nipples. He fills in the small sun tattoo with blue, and Orlando smiles. Viggo uses his hands to smear the colors together, mixing them until parts of Orlando-- his calves, his biceps, the back of his neck-- are a deep shade of brown.
When Viggo is finished, Orlando is covered in watercolor from head to toe and the canvas is still an empty white.
No cigarettes, only peeled Havanas for you.
Dom/Elijah, R, 500 words
Elijah has had an old cigar box for years. The box has a picture of Simon Bolivar on the top and is edged in some kind of strange ethnic design that has become so familiar to Elijah that he sometimes doodles it in the margins of stray script pages when he's bored. His mother gave the box to him, told him it had belonged to his grandfather, that it had been a gift to him from a Naval officer during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
When he was a teenager and he had to hide his smoking from his mother, Elijah used to store his cigarettes in there. He thought it was terribly clever of him, hiding cigarettes in a cigar box, as if that was the last place anyone would ever look for them. Of course, Hannah found them and immediately ratted him out to his mom, after which Elijah had to find sneakier places to hide his packs of Marlboros. Since then, the box has been the place where he stores old keepsakes and photographs.
He's got a movie stub from the time that he and Dom, dressed in a pair of ridiculous disguises, snuck into one of the last screenings of Return of the King in L.A. They both thought they were so clever, wandering nonchalantly into the movie and sitting in the back row, paying more attention to the reactions of the small audience than to the movie itself. Of course, just as Elijah hadn't been particularly covert with his cigarettes, neither were he and Dom terribly stealthy. They were mobbed by a group of fangirls after the movie ended and spent the next two hours signing autographs. That was the last time that Elijah tried to sneak into one of his own movies.
There are several pictures from New Zealand, most of which were taken by Viggo, but the one he's proudest of is one he took himself. It's a shot of Dom and Billy sitting on a bench, each with a beer in his hand, Billy leaning to whisper something in Dom's ear, Dom with the beginnings of a smile on the corners of his mouth. There's nothing else in the picture, and Elijah thinks that it says something important, although he can't quite put his finger on what. He'd ask Viggo, but he's afraid of the answer he'd get.
The latest addition to the box is the tab from a can of beer, the type of beer that Dom only drinks as a last resort, when there's absolutely nothing on tap and the only thing in a bottle is Corona. Dom had snapped the tab off of the can in once piece, the ring that held them together still whole, and he presented it to Elijah with a cheeky grin and said, "Now you have to fuck me." Elijah snickered and punched Dom on the shoulder. Later, as they were leaving the bar, he'd quietly slipped the tab into the pocket of his jeans.
*****
22. Don't Make Me Come to Vegas
If you come breezin' through," you said, "I'll know that it's you by the taste on my lips."
Billy/Dom, PG, 500 words
It's not particularly difficult to become a card shark. Dom would know.
He ended up in Vegas by sheer coincidence, but stayed because the money was easy, the alcohol was free, and there was certainly no shortage of beautiful faces. Of course, he didn't make any money the first two weeks he was there, but that's because he spent most of his time taking too much advantage of the alcohol and the beautiful faces. Once he settled down and actually started working, it was easy to make a living playing poker, blackjack, any number of games in the casino. And it was a nice living. He'd taken up residence in one of the Bellagio's high-roller suites, a place usually reserved for celebrities, foreign dignitaries, and millionaires. Dom was none of the above, not originally, not truthfully, but if things kept up the way they were going, he'd be in their ranks fairly soon. He'd already made enough money to buy himself a Jag, which was a little ridiculous, because no one drives in Vegas. Vegas, or the Strip, anyway, is like New York-- No one knows anyone who actually drives. But Dom bought the car because it was shiny and green and he rationalized it by promising himself that he'd take it out into the desert and open it up on the highway. He hasn't gotten around to doing that yet.
Mostly, he spends his time at the blackjack table. He's got a favorite dealer, a fellow expatriate named Boyd. Boyd deals the high-limit tables that Dom spends most of his time at. They've learned enough about each other in the past couple of months to build a relationship based on quick banter and Dom's tendency to slide $100 chips toward Boyd every few hands. Boyd smiles, makes good conversation, but never really pries into Dom's personal life, which is something that he appreciates more than the dealer probably knows. Dom's not a big fan of the nosy ones, the dealers who are always asking about your girlfriend or your wife or what you do for a living. It's not that he doesn't want to talk, mind, but not about that. After all, Dom's wife is the reason he's card-sharking in Vegas these days. It's a long story, and one he'd rather keep to himself, thanks.
Boyd understands that, and that's why Dom usually settles in at his table on most nights. And just as Boyd never asks Dom what he does with his life, Dom never asks Boyd. He considers it a favor in return for the dealer's reluctance to pry into his own personal life. He doesn't want to know if Boyd has kids, a wife, a dog. He doesn't really want to know where Boyd lives or what he does with his free time, if he golfs or plays the guitar. He's got enough stories of his own, enough to last him a lifetime. So Dom just lets Boyd do what he does best: Deal the cards.
*****
23. Doughnut Song
You told me last night you were a sun now, with your very own devoted satellite.
Billy/Dom/Elijah, PG, 500 words, sequel to China
Billy shows up in the middle of the night on a Tuesday and rings the doorbell. He probably would have woken someone up, if both Dom and Elijah hadn't already been awake. Elijah was awake because Dom was, and Dom was awake because he can't sleep at night anymore. Elijah always tells him that it's because he never does anything during the day but sleep, so of course he's not tired at night. But Dom thinks that there's a difference between napping, which is what he does during the day, and actually going to sleep, which he can't do at night. He pretty much has to wait for sleep to take him, which only really happens after dawn and before dusk.
Of course, the fact that Dom doesn't sleep doesn't keep him from staying in bed all of the time, which is why Elijah reflexively gets up to answer the door. He's pretty much gotten over trying to get Dom to do anything that Dom doesn't want to do. That's pretty much why he called Billy in the first place. Why Billy actually flew all the way to California just to drag Dom out of bed is something Elijah would rather not think about. He's just grateful Billy's there. He's almost grateful enough to push away any resentment he has and greet Billy warmly at the door.
Much to Elijah's surprise, Dom doesn't actually get out of bed as soon as Billy walks into the bedroom. In fact, Billy has to walk all the way over to the bed and actually sit on Dominic to get his attention.
"You smell like shite," Billy informs him, and Elijah nods in agreement in the background. "I mean, not that you ever smell like roses, but this is worse than usual."
"Fuck you very much," Dom answers. "Go home, Bill. Go on home to Ali."
Billy doesn't answer that. Instead, he motions for Elijah to grab Dom's feet while he takes his head, and together, they drag him, kicking and flailing, out of bed and into the kitchen. Together, they turn on the faucet, as cold as it will go, and they hold Dom's head under the water until he sputters and shouts. When they finally let him up, Dom looks like a wet poodle, hair in every direction, water dripping down the bridge of his nose and off the tip. Elijah and Billy take one look at each other and break into hysterical giggles.
Dom glares at both of them and narrows his eyes as menacingly as he can while water droplets start to puddle around his feet. "Screw you both," he says without force. "You want me to take a shower so badly, you could have just asked." He stomps away to the bathroom and soon Elijah can hear the shower running.
Elijah looks over at Billy, who is still standing by the sink looking vaguely troubled and more than slightly amused. "Thanks for coming, Bill," he says.
"Anytime," Billy answers.
*****
24. Father Lucifer
He reckons I'm a watercolor stain.
Viggo/Orlando, PG-13, 500 words
Viggo likes to paint with oils. He says that he enjoys the smell, the way it makes the colors seem more tangible. It's about using more than just your sense of sight, Viggo always claims. He can smell when a canvas needs more black, more red.
Everything in Viggo's house smells like paint or turpentine, including Viggo himself. There's always a smear of yellow or green across the back of his hand, blue under his fingernails, sometimes a smudge of brown on his cheek. His favorite jeans are covered in magenta fingerprints and orange lines. One time, he accidentally brushed up against a wet canvas, leaving as much of the art on his t-shirt as he did on the painting itself. He studied the painting and decided he liked it that way, how it was a little blurry in one corner, the colors starting to mix together. He said it looked more like real life, the hues starting to blend, but the original colors still visible.
Viggo's doesn't particularly want to paint Orlando. It's not that he'd pass up the opportunity to study the younger man, who is a perfect contrast between light and dark, sharp and soft. Rather, it's that Viggo is worried that he couldn't do him justice, not in oils, not on a plain white canvas. He doesn't think that he could capture the space between Orlando's hip and waist, where the flesh barely covers the joint. He doesn't know if he could paint the arch of his back, divided by the thin, white scar. Or the place where his shoulder meets his neck in a soft curve, and the way the hairs there are soft and fine. So when Orlando insists that Viggo paint him, Viggo is hesitant. But there's no one that Orlando cannot persuade, even Viggo, especially Viggo, and eventually he relents.
He paints Orlando in watercolors, because they're easier to blend, easier to smudge, and so is Orlando. He strips naked, and Viggo fills in the space between his hip and waist with a deep purple, shadowing the hollow where flesh meets bone. He colors the arch of his back red, traces the line of the scar with a thin stroke of his brush and uses his fingers-- It's about using more than just your sense of sight-- to feather it out and blend it with Orlando's ribs. Viggo paints his neck in greens and yellows, mingling the colors together with the palm of his hand until they bleed into each other. He paints orange around Orlando's belly button, a white streak on his sternum, and pink on his nipples. He fills in the small sun tattoo with blue, and Orlando smiles. Viggo uses his hands to smear the colors together, mixing them until parts of Orlando-- his calves, his biceps, the back of his neck-- are a deep shade of brown.
When Viggo is finished, Orlando is covered in watercolor from head to toe and the canvas is still an empty white.