fic: found the beauty in the aftermath
Title: Found the Beauty in the Aftermath
Rating: hard R, maybe NC-17?
Summary: On holiday, taking pictures, taking chances, taking advantage, taking care.
Billy shuffles down the staircase looking only marginally less wrecked than he had on his way up them hours before, and he doesn’t even blink at the sight of Dominic lit by the glow of the laptop’s screen; it’s the kind of aura Billy’s used to seeing around him, and maybe one of the best of many overall. The next thing Billy notices is the quiet; for once there’s no tinny shriek forcing its way out of Dominic’s headphones, and Dominic’s even rigged the laptop’s keyboard somehow so that his usual thunderous tapping is almost silent, his brutal swipes and clicks on the trackpad only faint whispers. The lack of noise makes the slap of Billy’s feet on the wood floor sound ridiculously loud, as if either a toddler or a vaudevillian’s arrived on the scene, but Dominic doesn’t look up from whatever’s got his attention, and Billy comes to a stop behind him, leaning forward on the back of the couch out of need for stability, of course, and not at all curiosity, not at all to see what’s so fucking brilliant on Dominic’s screen that it’s more important than crawling back into bed with one’s best mate on one of the few opportunities available.
Dominic’s looking at pictures, specifically ones he’s taken with his precious digital over the last two days, and it looks like the tally’s running in the several hundreds already. Billy rolls tired eyes as Dominic scrolls twitching fingers, but after a few minutes, the quiet is too much, and the couch looks better than the back of Dominic’s head or his own sunburnt face on the screen, so Billy wanders around in front and shoves Dominic over slightly, making room for himself on the cushions before he collapses well into them and against Dominic. Dominic throws a put-upon sigh and brushes his lips against Billy’s matted hair but says nothing else, and Billy’s pathetically grateful for that; he needs only seconds to fall back asleep again, warmed nicely by that bastard of a light in his face and the friendlier bastard by his side.
***
For a man so capable of producing some of the most disgusting olfactory events Dominic’s ever had the pleasure to experience, Billy smells frankly delicious in his sleep. If he’s simply crashed and burned at the end of a longish day, that day clings to him in the scent of warm sand and waves, or cool breezes and the cigarettes he only ever lights up now in the company of other social smoker wolves like Dominic. Tonight, though, Billy just smells like sleep, dreamy and slow and soft and strangely powdery, like Billy’s been rolling in the stuff to calm the sunburn he’s never been able to avoid anywhere, much less here on holiday. Dominic loves it, and as soon as he knows Billy’s properly asleep again, he nestles closer, hums about as contentedly as he’ll allow himself before some internal alarm of fucking twee sounds and he’s forced to move away. There’s more to look at of the pictures he’d been sorting before Billy so sweetly interrupted him, and now with the subject of most of those photos so near, it seems only appropriate to get back to it.
The first of the next shows Billy mock charging with one of those play swords always for sale in rubbish tourist shops in holiday destinations. It’s no Pirates of the Caledonian pose Billy’s throwing, though; he looks right wearing and bearing the blade, his eyes flashing off the cheap metal with the particular kind of glee he’s able to tamp down until he’s faced with toys, but even then it’s contained to those eyes; the rest of his face is set hard and gorgeous to Dominic’s mind, and he looks right-he looks, well, strong.
That strength is mostly built from within, forged over time and through things Dominic can’t imagine and knows better than to have explained. There’s a grace to it, too, one that Dominic can’t attain even after years of yoga rounding off his vulpine edges. Dominic envies Billy that at the same time he can’t get enough of seeing it on display; on the rare occasions he’s seen Billy’s strength captured in a camera’s frame he’s had to take a few moment to collect first himself in a series of deep breaths and then Billy in an embrace rough enough to knock them both to the floor. Put a sword or other instrument of elegant danger, however toylike, in Billy’s hands and Dominic’s enthralled; have Billy step forward and actually use it, and Dominic’s lost to fantasy until reality does him one better. He’s felt the urgency and force of Billy’s grip on tens of places on his body and for hundreds of reasons, each one better than the last.
Back in fantasy again for a moment, Dominic has to shake himself out of it to click forward several photos, until he lands on one of Billy laughing uproariously, those flashing eyes almost disappeared behind his cheeks as he reacts wildly to the sea creatures winding their way around his ankles in the shallow waves. There’s a terrified joy happening here, Dominic thinks, or maybe joyful terror; whichever, it’s clear Billy expected to shit himself or fall down in fear and is happily stunned to have done neither, and Dominic caught the shot just in time, a second before Billy recovered and pulled one of those faces-so common now Dominic almost finds it boring when he’s not laughing at it-meant to express Billy’s utter disapproval of the entire situation. Joy is generally easy to come by with Billy; the man refuses to be unhappy for more than a few minutes, lest sadness or disappointment or real fear bring to the surface more of itself and drown him faster than he can swim back to shore. Dominic envies Billy that, too, but has long since written off any chance at the same zen shite; it looks better on Billy anyway, and it transfers to everyone around him, including and probably (second, maybe third, now) most-often, Dominic. Catching Billy’s smile in a photograph is easier now than it used to be-and it was never all that hard-but Dominic still calls himself lucky every time he gets away with it.
He chances a look at Billy still dozing before he moves to what he knows is coming next: a short run of photographs taken the night they’d arrived here, both of them thrumming with electricity they hadn’t grounded safely until the wee hours of the following morning. Across a bar table Billy meets the eye of Dominic’s camera with a stare that makes Dominic shiver even now, and beside him Billy shifts in sympathy and sleep and pushes nose and cheek and chin against Dominic’s arm harder, sussing out that he’s still there. All in a pretty row the photographs grow more heated; Billy’s gaze softens over the course of the night’s shots (and all definitions of them) but doesn’t drop a single degree, and Dominic’s focus goes blurry but never wavers from its subject. It had taken a while before Billy had broken first, telling Dominic to put that fucking thing away so they could get back to the room they shouldn’t have left in the first place, but it had been worth it. Dominic’s worked for years to catch Billy’s guard down like this, and to have it now, to tick it off the list of ways in which he’s snared Billy so well, it’s intoxicating in its own way, and Dominic’s never been anything but the most addictive of personalities. He closes his eyes, not to sleep, fuck no, absolutely not, but to sear that look of Billy’s into his mind even better now. It works, to a point, but when Dominic opens his eyes again he finds it fading a little, to be promptly replaced by itself in the flesh; Billy’s shifted again next to him and now tilts his head and fires that stare again, daring Dominic to look away.
***
Of the probable thousands of photographs Dominic’s taken of him, Billy thinks that this last he’s just seen now on Dominic’s laptop has to be the most dangerous, the one that most clearly shows the hard, base need he still carries-will always carry-for Dominic even when he’s the happiest and best cared for man in every other respect. Yes, Billy knows what he can look like when he wants to, what he can show and tell from moment to moment on every kind of film, and yes, he had demanded that Dominic turn off the camera and get them on their merry way, but had he knows what Dominic was getting here, that demand would have come a lot sooner. This is different; this is more real, this is truth and not much beauty, and it is all Dominic clearly needs and wants to know. So who is Billy to take it away from him?
The urge is there, though, Billy’s not going to deny it; he’s always claimed the privilege of deletion from the record when he’s felt uncomfortable with something he and Dominic have done or shared with each other. Dominic’s been shockingly agreeable, too, just shrugging when Billy’s hand has shot out to erase this or that from recorders or cameras or lined paper or napkins. This won’t disappear so easily, though, Billy knows; it’s burnt in both their memories now, and he’s not sure he’d want it otherwise. Dominic looks like he’s holding his breath, every muscle tensed and ready to fight Billy on this for the first time, and Billy swallows, feeling suddenly wide awake before he smacks the laptop closed and listens to its base scrape across the table. Dominic inhales sharply, but Billy feels his own face moving into the filthiest of smiles, and Dominic relaxes too, just a little, just enough that Billy can safely make the move he should have two nights before.
Dominic’s as encouraging and accommodating as ever; he tips to his back and lets out a hard breath at Billy’s weight on him, but he doesn’t fight it any more than he knows Billy wants him to. That instinct both thrills and enrages Billy a little, if he’s being honest; it’s one thing to be caught for a moment in fevered present, another to be trapped by knowledge gained from the past and never forgotten, never allowed to be erased, deleted, or destroyed. Dominic’s hands fall on Billy’s body at the right moment and in the right place, and Billy’s hips push roughly against Dominic’s in the right pattern and to the right rhythm. Everything is as it should be, perhaps when it most should not.
Billy grunts and pushes up heavily onto his hands and knees, staring Dominic down again while Dominic’s mind works in his eyes and the quirk of his mouth. When Dominic licks his lips and moves underneath Billy just slightly, Billy swallows and pushes off the cushion to shift back, fingers working inside the waist of Dominic’s already loosened tracksuit trousers to tug them down, off, away, whatever. Dominic’s hips rise as they’ve always done, easily and a bit wantonly, if Billy were forced to describe them, and then Dominic settles back down, muttering something about his bag and its contents before Billy falls on him again, cutting him off the quickest and most effective way possible. Billy’s not going to need anything Dominic’s got in any of his several bags of tricks, not tonight, not now, anyway. Now is for something different, something Dominic should have maybe expected before this moment but hasn’t ever asked for, perhaps because he’s never believed Billy had the interest or the guts. And maybe y’didn’t, Billy thinks before he shuts himself up, too, and curls his hand around Dominic’s cock while he meets Dominic’s eyes one more time.
It’s a few minutes before Billy’s really found the stuff to go through with this, though, and in the time it takes, Dominic moves from curious twitches in and under Billy’s hands to desperate little pants once he realizes what actually happening. Billy’s never sucked him off, ever, not in a decade of off-and-mostly-on nonsense fucking and fucking nonsense, and it’s not like there haven’t been other players in the game, so Dominic’s never had reason to feel bereft, like. But when the knowledge that Billy’s about to do just that hits him, Dominic can’t hide how much he wants it, and Billy relishes having kept that one card in his vest for so long; whoever said the waiting is the hardest part was an idiot, he thinks then; he might wait another decade to do this again if the end result’s anything like what he’s seeing now, what no fucking camera could ever frame.
Dominic’s arching before Billy’s got his mouth anywhere really near him, and Billy laughs quietly, the only real sounds he’s prepared to make from here on in, in case he talks himself out of this. Obviously things now call for a stronger grip on Dominic, something to keep him in check when he least wants to be but when Billy most needs it. Dominic mutters again, this time darkly but also eagerly, taking up the constant chatter that’s typically Billy’s when their positions are reversed. Billy feels Dominic’s hand slide down the back of his head to his neck, and for a moment Billy freezes, but there’s none of the steadying malice Billy usually employs in Dominic’s touch; instead there’s just that base need and more of that chatter, phrases devolving to just one or two words they keep to themselves and pretend to forget until they’re needed, the sort that that translate easily to in case of emergency, break each other in half.
And that they can do. Billy slides first his fingers then his tongue up Dominic’s shaft, pulling back when Dominic starts shaking far too soon. There’s a world of possibilities here, and while Billy knows he’s not up to taking advantage of all of them tonight, it does bring a certain something to the proceedings, letting Dominic wonder what he will do, how far he’ll take this, what Billy will let him have or take. Billy paces himself better at this than he has at nearly anything else he’s ever done with Dominic, mostly out of necessity and lack of recent practice but also to watch Dominic continue to squirm. Taking Dominic inside his mouth at first is more dicey than Billy would ever let on, but once he’s done so, the rest happens more easily, Dominic doesn’t force it, proving once and for all and to Billy’s distracted amusement that Dominic’s mind does somewhat remain with him even when he’s mostly out of it with pleasure, but he does react as beautifully as Billy expects, if not exactly when and how. The element of surprise is not one of Billy’s favourites, but he can work with it and does, backing off again when necessary and eventually humming with his own desire and interest when he knows Dominic’s close, when the chatter stops and the shivering starts again. The taste of Dominic’s skin changes, too; the faint spicy sweat of the day turns sharper than Billy’s ever known it, harder but irresistible just this once. Dominic’s hand moves from Billy’s shoulder and back into his hair, tugging in scattered warning, but it’s not like Billy needs it; sometimes all that knowledge of the past creates a certain freedom rather than more traps, and he knows what this feels like, knows how it is to feel swallowed whole even when one isn’t and certainly in this case can’t be. That he’s brought Dominic this far when he’d had no intention of doing so only an hour ago is a bit much for an already exhausted mind and now aching body to take, and Billy closes his eyes and bears down, grinding his own hips against the edge of the couch desperately while he tries to maintain control of something here, anything.
Dominic’s more recent practice comes sharply into play now, his hands kinder even as the rest of his body takes him where he needs to go. Different words tumble from him as his fingers brush the mess from Billy’s cheeks and lips, both reddened and hot from shock and desire and everything else he’s got to recognize even if Billy can’t. C’mere, come here, c’mon, Dominic says between deep breaths, and tugs at Billy’s shoulders then, dragging him back up enough that Dominic can get one hand around Billy’s cock, bringing him off properly while Billy’s still in that loveliest shock he can remember having known. For one of few times in his life, Billy comes quietly on all levels, and it’s Dominic turn to laugh a little, touching his forehead to Billy’s while they both pant and hold on, sinking and surfacing at the same time. Some random perverse joke about cameras and money shots flits around Billy’s mind and to his lips, and Dominic shakes his head as if he knows, still laughing but telling Billy without a word not now.
Billy stays quiet, then, not exactly needing to have been convinced to do so, until the stickiness and silence get to him as much as the urge to be in a proper bed again does. He moves away from Dominic with the comfort of knowing there’s no recommended allowance of small talk to be made, no work still to be done but the more practical kind that’s almost always fallen to Billy, usually because Dominic’s too knackered to move more than inches at a time after they’ve gone at each other. Billy catches Dominic’s eye before he leaves for a towel and more important, a drink, and Dominic grins widely at him, pretending to focus an imaginary lens on what rapidly turns into another of Billy’s patented frowns. He’s dozing again by the time Billy returns, his breaths slowing completely by the time Billy’s finished cleaning them both up, but there’s no telling whether he’s actually fully asleep; even after years of this, Billy’s so rarely seen Dominic so in the dark-it comes with the territory of being the first one asleep as soon as the opportunity arises and sometimes when it doesn’t-and there’s too little experience to go by here. So when Billy moves again, this time to face down that laptop holding all the evidence Dominic will ever need to take Billy to trial for at least a few of his many crimes, he does so silently, clenching his fingers a little to keep from opening it and deleting those last photos, leaving Dominic with only the kinder, safer moments from this holiday.
He hasn’t got the strength for that, though, and what strength Billy does have he needs to conserve for the next several days and maybe most for the next several hours. Get up, Billy tells himself, says it once aloud before he quiets down again, frightened that he might have woken Dominic; get up and leave him and those fucking pictures alone. It’s not a scold if he can hear himself say it the way he would to someone else, and it’s no hardship to stand once he’s done so, to open the laptop again and leave the screen as it was, his own face looking back at him with possibly more understanding. Billy frowns at himself, weirdly relieved when the picture on the screen doesn’t mirror it, and then he turns away, pushing his hand fondly through Dominic’s hair before he goes back to bed, hoping-no, knowing-that when they both next wake everything will be-right, again. That certainty is what he’d rather Dominic see in whatever photograph he takes next of Billy or them both.
***
Dominic climbs the staircase feeling only marginally less wrecked than he had on his way down them hours before, and he doesn’t even blink at the sight of Billy burrowed mostly underneath more bedclothes than any warm-blooded creature should need; it’s the kind of hiding place Dominic’s used to seeing him dive under and into, and maybe one the safest of many overall. The next thing Dominic notices is the quiet; for once there’s no snuffling snore forcing its way from between Billy’s lips, and Billy’s even propped up pillows and the duvet somehow so that his usual loud and grand theft of the linens can’t quite be achieved, his reach for more warmth harder to accomplish. The lack of noise makes the pad of Dominic’s feet on the wood floor a bit louder than usual, as if he’s having to really decide every step, but Billy doesn’t stir from his sleep, and Dominic comes to a stop at the edge of the mattress, leaning down only enough to make sure Billy’s not actually dead from the exertion of before or from regret that he hadn’t gone through with doing whatever damage he’d planned to Dominic’s laptop for a minute there, not at all to gaze at him and wonder what’s so fucking lovely about Billy’s dreams that he can’t wake up and share them and the peace they bring.
Billy’s fingers are curled around the near top of his pillow, crushing the fabric, and it looks like the morning ahead will mean a long lie-in. Dominic takes deep breaths as Billy releases others, but after a few minutes, tiredness wins, and the bed looks better than the sweep of Billy’s eyelashes or the mummers’ cheek peachiness of his skin, so Dominic wanders around to his side of the bed and goes onto hands and knees, finding ample room for himself among the bedclothes before he collapses well into them and against Billy. Billy huffs irritably and drags Dominic even closer but does nothing else, and Dominic’s pleasantly surprised by that; he wants these seconds to last as long as possible before he falls asleep for real, charmed thoroughly into it by the mostly-willing subject and object of both his camera’s and his own affections by his side.
Rating: hard R, maybe NC-17?
Summary: On holiday, taking pictures, taking chances, taking advantage, taking care.
Billy shuffles down the staircase looking only marginally less wrecked than he had on his way up them hours before, and he doesn’t even blink at the sight of Dominic lit by the glow of the laptop’s screen; it’s the kind of aura Billy’s used to seeing around him, and maybe one of the best of many overall. The next thing Billy notices is the quiet; for once there’s no tinny shriek forcing its way out of Dominic’s headphones, and Dominic’s even rigged the laptop’s keyboard somehow so that his usual thunderous tapping is almost silent, his brutal swipes and clicks on the trackpad only faint whispers. The lack of noise makes the slap of Billy’s feet on the wood floor sound ridiculously loud, as if either a toddler or a vaudevillian’s arrived on the scene, but Dominic doesn’t look up from whatever’s got his attention, and Billy comes to a stop behind him, leaning forward on the back of the couch out of need for stability, of course, and not at all curiosity, not at all to see what’s so fucking brilliant on Dominic’s screen that it’s more important than crawling back into bed with one’s best mate on one of the few opportunities available.
Dominic’s looking at pictures, specifically ones he’s taken with his precious digital over the last two days, and it looks like the tally’s running in the several hundreds already. Billy rolls tired eyes as Dominic scrolls twitching fingers, but after a few minutes, the quiet is too much, and the couch looks better than the back of Dominic’s head or his own sunburnt face on the screen, so Billy wanders around in front and shoves Dominic over slightly, making room for himself on the cushions before he collapses well into them and against Dominic. Dominic throws a put-upon sigh and brushes his lips against Billy’s matted hair but says nothing else, and Billy’s pathetically grateful for that; he needs only seconds to fall back asleep again, warmed nicely by that bastard of a light in his face and the friendlier bastard by his side.
***
For a man so capable of producing some of the most disgusting olfactory events Dominic’s ever had the pleasure to experience, Billy smells frankly delicious in his sleep. If he’s simply crashed and burned at the end of a longish day, that day clings to him in the scent of warm sand and waves, or cool breezes and the cigarettes he only ever lights up now in the company of other social smoker wolves like Dominic. Tonight, though, Billy just smells like sleep, dreamy and slow and soft and strangely powdery, like Billy’s been rolling in the stuff to calm the sunburn he’s never been able to avoid anywhere, much less here on holiday. Dominic loves it, and as soon as he knows Billy’s properly asleep again, he nestles closer, hums about as contentedly as he’ll allow himself before some internal alarm of fucking twee sounds and he’s forced to move away. There’s more to look at of the pictures he’d been sorting before Billy so sweetly interrupted him, and now with the subject of most of those photos so near, it seems only appropriate to get back to it.
The first of the next shows Billy mock charging with one of those play swords always for sale in rubbish tourist shops in holiday destinations. It’s no Pirates of the Caledonian pose Billy’s throwing, though; he looks right wearing and bearing the blade, his eyes flashing off the cheap metal with the particular kind of glee he’s able to tamp down until he’s faced with toys, but even then it’s contained to those eyes; the rest of his face is set hard and gorgeous to Dominic’s mind, and he looks right-he looks, well, strong.
That strength is mostly built from within, forged over time and through things Dominic can’t imagine and knows better than to have explained. There’s a grace to it, too, one that Dominic can’t attain even after years of yoga rounding off his vulpine edges. Dominic envies Billy that at the same time he can’t get enough of seeing it on display; on the rare occasions he’s seen Billy’s strength captured in a camera’s frame he’s had to take a few moment to collect first himself in a series of deep breaths and then Billy in an embrace rough enough to knock them both to the floor. Put a sword or other instrument of elegant danger, however toylike, in Billy’s hands and Dominic’s enthralled; have Billy step forward and actually use it, and Dominic’s lost to fantasy until reality does him one better. He’s felt the urgency and force of Billy’s grip on tens of places on his body and for hundreds of reasons, each one better than the last.
Back in fantasy again for a moment, Dominic has to shake himself out of it to click forward several photos, until he lands on one of Billy laughing uproariously, those flashing eyes almost disappeared behind his cheeks as he reacts wildly to the sea creatures winding their way around his ankles in the shallow waves. There’s a terrified joy happening here, Dominic thinks, or maybe joyful terror; whichever, it’s clear Billy expected to shit himself or fall down in fear and is happily stunned to have done neither, and Dominic caught the shot just in time, a second before Billy recovered and pulled one of those faces-so common now Dominic almost finds it boring when he’s not laughing at it-meant to express Billy’s utter disapproval of the entire situation. Joy is generally easy to come by with Billy; the man refuses to be unhappy for more than a few minutes, lest sadness or disappointment or real fear bring to the surface more of itself and drown him faster than he can swim back to shore. Dominic envies Billy that, too, but has long since written off any chance at the same zen shite; it looks better on Billy anyway, and it transfers to everyone around him, including and probably (second, maybe third, now) most-often, Dominic. Catching Billy’s smile in a photograph is easier now than it used to be-and it was never all that hard-but Dominic still calls himself lucky every time he gets away with it.
He chances a look at Billy still dozing before he moves to what he knows is coming next: a short run of photographs taken the night they’d arrived here, both of them thrumming with electricity they hadn’t grounded safely until the wee hours of the following morning. Across a bar table Billy meets the eye of Dominic’s camera with a stare that makes Dominic shiver even now, and beside him Billy shifts in sympathy and sleep and pushes nose and cheek and chin against Dominic’s arm harder, sussing out that he’s still there. All in a pretty row the photographs grow more heated; Billy’s gaze softens over the course of the night’s shots (and all definitions of them) but doesn’t drop a single degree, and Dominic’s focus goes blurry but never wavers from its subject. It had taken a while before Billy had broken first, telling Dominic to put that fucking thing away so they could get back to the room they shouldn’t have left in the first place, but it had been worth it. Dominic’s worked for years to catch Billy’s guard down like this, and to have it now, to tick it off the list of ways in which he’s snared Billy so well, it’s intoxicating in its own way, and Dominic’s never been anything but the most addictive of personalities. He closes his eyes, not to sleep, fuck no, absolutely not, but to sear that look of Billy’s into his mind even better now. It works, to a point, but when Dominic opens his eyes again he finds it fading a little, to be promptly replaced by itself in the flesh; Billy’s shifted again next to him and now tilts his head and fires that stare again, daring Dominic to look away.
***
Of the probable thousands of photographs Dominic’s taken of him, Billy thinks that this last he’s just seen now on Dominic’s laptop has to be the most dangerous, the one that most clearly shows the hard, base need he still carries-will always carry-for Dominic even when he’s the happiest and best cared for man in every other respect. Yes, Billy knows what he can look like when he wants to, what he can show and tell from moment to moment on every kind of film, and yes, he had demanded that Dominic turn off the camera and get them on their merry way, but had he knows what Dominic was getting here, that demand would have come a lot sooner. This is different; this is more real, this is truth and not much beauty, and it is all Dominic clearly needs and wants to know. So who is Billy to take it away from him?
The urge is there, though, Billy’s not going to deny it; he’s always claimed the privilege of deletion from the record when he’s felt uncomfortable with something he and Dominic have done or shared with each other. Dominic’s been shockingly agreeable, too, just shrugging when Billy’s hand has shot out to erase this or that from recorders or cameras or lined paper or napkins. This won’t disappear so easily, though, Billy knows; it’s burnt in both their memories now, and he’s not sure he’d want it otherwise. Dominic looks like he’s holding his breath, every muscle tensed and ready to fight Billy on this for the first time, and Billy swallows, feeling suddenly wide awake before he smacks the laptop closed and listens to its base scrape across the table. Dominic inhales sharply, but Billy feels his own face moving into the filthiest of smiles, and Dominic relaxes too, just a little, just enough that Billy can safely make the move he should have two nights before.
Dominic’s as encouraging and accommodating as ever; he tips to his back and lets out a hard breath at Billy’s weight on him, but he doesn’t fight it any more than he knows Billy wants him to. That instinct both thrills and enrages Billy a little, if he’s being honest; it’s one thing to be caught for a moment in fevered present, another to be trapped by knowledge gained from the past and never forgotten, never allowed to be erased, deleted, or destroyed. Dominic’s hands fall on Billy’s body at the right moment and in the right place, and Billy’s hips push roughly against Dominic’s in the right pattern and to the right rhythm. Everything is as it should be, perhaps when it most should not.
Billy grunts and pushes up heavily onto his hands and knees, staring Dominic down again while Dominic’s mind works in his eyes and the quirk of his mouth. When Dominic licks his lips and moves underneath Billy just slightly, Billy swallows and pushes off the cushion to shift back, fingers working inside the waist of Dominic’s already loosened tracksuit trousers to tug them down, off, away, whatever. Dominic’s hips rise as they’ve always done, easily and a bit wantonly, if Billy were forced to describe them, and then Dominic settles back down, muttering something about his bag and its contents before Billy falls on him again, cutting him off the quickest and most effective way possible. Billy’s not going to need anything Dominic’s got in any of his several bags of tricks, not tonight, not now, anyway. Now is for something different, something Dominic should have maybe expected before this moment but hasn’t ever asked for, perhaps because he’s never believed Billy had the interest or the guts. And maybe y’didn’t, Billy thinks before he shuts himself up, too, and curls his hand around Dominic’s cock while he meets Dominic’s eyes one more time.
It’s a few minutes before Billy’s really found the stuff to go through with this, though, and in the time it takes, Dominic moves from curious twitches in and under Billy’s hands to desperate little pants once he realizes what actually happening. Billy’s never sucked him off, ever, not in a decade of off-and-mostly-on nonsense fucking and fucking nonsense, and it’s not like there haven’t been other players in the game, so Dominic’s never had reason to feel bereft, like. But when the knowledge that Billy’s about to do just that hits him, Dominic can’t hide how much he wants it, and Billy relishes having kept that one card in his vest for so long; whoever said the waiting is the hardest part was an idiot, he thinks then; he might wait another decade to do this again if the end result’s anything like what he’s seeing now, what no fucking camera could ever frame.
Dominic’s arching before Billy’s got his mouth anywhere really near him, and Billy laughs quietly, the only real sounds he’s prepared to make from here on in, in case he talks himself out of this. Obviously things now call for a stronger grip on Dominic, something to keep him in check when he least wants to be but when Billy most needs it. Dominic mutters again, this time darkly but also eagerly, taking up the constant chatter that’s typically Billy’s when their positions are reversed. Billy feels Dominic’s hand slide down the back of his head to his neck, and for a moment Billy freezes, but there’s none of the steadying malice Billy usually employs in Dominic’s touch; instead there’s just that base need and more of that chatter, phrases devolving to just one or two words they keep to themselves and pretend to forget until they’re needed, the sort that that translate easily to in case of emergency, break each other in half.
And that they can do. Billy slides first his fingers then his tongue up Dominic’s shaft, pulling back when Dominic starts shaking far too soon. There’s a world of possibilities here, and while Billy knows he’s not up to taking advantage of all of them tonight, it does bring a certain something to the proceedings, letting Dominic wonder what he will do, how far he’ll take this, what Billy will let him have or take. Billy paces himself better at this than he has at nearly anything else he’s ever done with Dominic, mostly out of necessity and lack of recent practice but also to watch Dominic continue to squirm. Taking Dominic inside his mouth at first is more dicey than Billy would ever let on, but once he’s done so, the rest happens more easily, Dominic doesn’t force it, proving once and for all and to Billy’s distracted amusement that Dominic’s mind does somewhat remain with him even when he’s mostly out of it with pleasure, but he does react as beautifully as Billy expects, if not exactly when and how. The element of surprise is not one of Billy’s favourites, but he can work with it and does, backing off again when necessary and eventually humming with his own desire and interest when he knows Dominic’s close, when the chatter stops and the shivering starts again. The taste of Dominic’s skin changes, too; the faint spicy sweat of the day turns sharper than Billy’s ever known it, harder but irresistible just this once. Dominic’s hand moves from Billy’s shoulder and back into his hair, tugging in scattered warning, but it’s not like Billy needs it; sometimes all that knowledge of the past creates a certain freedom rather than more traps, and he knows what this feels like, knows how it is to feel swallowed whole even when one isn’t and certainly in this case can’t be. That he’s brought Dominic this far when he’d had no intention of doing so only an hour ago is a bit much for an already exhausted mind and now aching body to take, and Billy closes his eyes and bears down, grinding his own hips against the edge of the couch desperately while he tries to maintain control of something here, anything.
Dominic’s more recent practice comes sharply into play now, his hands kinder even as the rest of his body takes him where he needs to go. Different words tumble from him as his fingers brush the mess from Billy’s cheeks and lips, both reddened and hot from shock and desire and everything else he’s got to recognize even if Billy can’t. C’mere, come here, c’mon, Dominic says between deep breaths, and tugs at Billy’s shoulders then, dragging him back up enough that Dominic can get one hand around Billy’s cock, bringing him off properly while Billy’s still in that loveliest shock he can remember having known. For one of few times in his life, Billy comes quietly on all levels, and it’s Dominic turn to laugh a little, touching his forehead to Billy’s while they both pant and hold on, sinking and surfacing at the same time. Some random perverse joke about cameras and money shots flits around Billy’s mind and to his lips, and Dominic shakes his head as if he knows, still laughing but telling Billy without a word not now.
Billy stays quiet, then, not exactly needing to have been convinced to do so, until the stickiness and silence get to him as much as the urge to be in a proper bed again does. He moves away from Dominic with the comfort of knowing there’s no recommended allowance of small talk to be made, no work still to be done but the more practical kind that’s almost always fallen to Billy, usually because Dominic’s too knackered to move more than inches at a time after they’ve gone at each other. Billy catches Dominic’s eye before he leaves for a towel and more important, a drink, and Dominic grins widely at him, pretending to focus an imaginary lens on what rapidly turns into another of Billy’s patented frowns. He’s dozing again by the time Billy returns, his breaths slowing completely by the time Billy’s finished cleaning them both up, but there’s no telling whether he’s actually fully asleep; even after years of this, Billy’s so rarely seen Dominic so in the dark-it comes with the territory of being the first one asleep as soon as the opportunity arises and sometimes when it doesn’t-and there’s too little experience to go by here. So when Billy moves again, this time to face down that laptop holding all the evidence Dominic will ever need to take Billy to trial for at least a few of his many crimes, he does so silently, clenching his fingers a little to keep from opening it and deleting those last photos, leaving Dominic with only the kinder, safer moments from this holiday.
He hasn’t got the strength for that, though, and what strength Billy does have he needs to conserve for the next several days and maybe most for the next several hours. Get up, Billy tells himself, says it once aloud before he quiets down again, frightened that he might have woken Dominic; get up and leave him and those fucking pictures alone. It’s not a scold if he can hear himself say it the way he would to someone else, and it’s no hardship to stand once he’s done so, to open the laptop again and leave the screen as it was, his own face looking back at him with possibly more understanding. Billy frowns at himself, weirdly relieved when the picture on the screen doesn’t mirror it, and then he turns away, pushing his hand fondly through Dominic’s hair before he goes back to bed, hoping-no, knowing-that when they both next wake everything will be-right, again. That certainty is what he’d rather Dominic see in whatever photograph he takes next of Billy or them both.
***
Dominic climbs the staircase feeling only marginally less wrecked than he had on his way down them hours before, and he doesn’t even blink at the sight of Billy burrowed mostly underneath more bedclothes than any warm-blooded creature should need; it’s the kind of hiding place Dominic’s used to seeing him dive under and into, and maybe one the safest of many overall. The next thing Dominic notices is the quiet; for once there’s no snuffling snore forcing its way from between Billy’s lips, and Billy’s even propped up pillows and the duvet somehow so that his usual loud and grand theft of the linens can’t quite be achieved, his reach for more warmth harder to accomplish. The lack of noise makes the pad of Dominic’s feet on the wood floor a bit louder than usual, as if he’s having to really decide every step, but Billy doesn’t stir from his sleep, and Dominic comes to a stop at the edge of the mattress, leaning down only enough to make sure Billy’s not actually dead from the exertion of before or from regret that he hadn’t gone through with doing whatever damage he’d planned to Dominic’s laptop for a minute there, not at all to gaze at him and wonder what’s so fucking lovely about Billy’s dreams that he can’t wake up and share them and the peace they bring.
Billy’s fingers are curled around the near top of his pillow, crushing the fabric, and it looks like the morning ahead will mean a long lie-in. Dominic takes deep breaths as Billy releases others, but after a few minutes, tiredness wins, and the bed looks better than the sweep of Billy’s eyelashes or the mummers’ cheek peachiness of his skin, so Dominic wanders around to his side of the bed and goes onto hands and knees, finding ample room for himself among the bedclothes before he collapses well into them and against Billy. Billy huffs irritably and drags Dominic even closer but does nothing else, and Dominic’s pleasantly surprised by that; he wants these seconds to last as long as possible before he falls asleep for real, charmed thoroughly into it by the mostly-willing subject and object of both his camera’s and his own affections by his side.