When Next I Ask the Time

Recipient: dizzydame
Author: kiltsandlollies
Pairing: Dominic Monaghan/Billy Boyd
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: For the 2006 Slashababy fic exchange.


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I.

The first morning, they wake up late and not just tardy. It's the kind of late that leads to the shrill rings of cell phones and the oddly tender if also mildly threatening sound of Caro's voice down the line telling Billy that he has half an hour to make it to the set before there'll be trouble, and that Dom has only a few minutes more. As it is, Billy and Dom should be grateful that the Feet aren't necessary, today; if they were, things might be different and considerably uglier. At least as ugly as the look Dom gives Billy as Billy shakes him awake and then pivots out of Dom's reach before he can be dragged back into bed.

"Get up," Billy hisses, and before Dom can even plant his feet on the floor the shower's running. He sidles up next to Billy under the scalding water and waits for Billy to stop scrubbing at himself maniacally before he takes Billy's face in his hands and kisses him, hard and slow and deep, ignoring Billy's muffled protests until they cease and he pulls away.

"We're already late," Billy says, smacking at Dom's shoulder. "Some other time, yeah?"

II.

Dom doesn't take Billy's words as the brush-off one might call them. He knows what Billy means, and better, he knows what Billy feels when they catch each other looking at clocks and crewmembers' watches for the time, for when they can next be alone together and face what happened last night--or at least talk about it, and if the results are any good, act on it again and again.

It's burning them both up a little, Dom can tell. Billy's faltering on his lines, something he rarely does, and every time it happens, Dom bears the tension in Billy's shoulders as heavily as Billy does himself. At the end of their first real break--lunch, because they'd missed breakfast while wrapped tightly around each other in bed--Billy leans back in his chair opposite Dom at the table and pushes his plate away, shaking his head slowly.

"What were we fucking thinking."

Dom blinks. "Seemed like a good idea at the time?"

"It still might," Billy says quietly, and then looks up and nods as his name is shouted across the canteen. "Come get me? After?"

They stand in unison, plates clattering and breaths quickening a little as Dom nods.

III.

After they had faced it--after they'd made themselves something of an understanding about how this was going to work and how it was definitely not going to be something they'd share with their friends or the cast or the crew or the world--Dom had relaxed into the relationship immediately, touching Billy in public no more than he would even if he weren't sleeping with the guy and offering him no special quarter in argument or anything else. It hadn't happened so easily for Billy, though, and there's still more he's working through in the parts of his head and heart Dom doesn't have access to yet.

But Billy's trying, and Dom accepts that, the way he accepts everything else about Billy, wholeheartedly. Billy'll come around, he tells Elijah late one night after a few drinks, and when Elijah tilts his head and asks come around to what? Dom blinks again and spills a secret he can't hold anymore, spills it like a forgotten beer across the table and doesn't stop until Billy shows up beside them, his eyes reading everything between Dominic's and Elijah's.

An hour later Dom's pinned against the wall of Billy's bedroom, thinking it's about time.

IV.

It takes Billy a few minutes to get the anger out of his system, but not nearly as long as it would Dom if their positions were reversed. There's no point trying to explain to Billy why he felt he had to tell someone--that it wasn't about releasing a secret; that it was celebratory and not so much revelatory--and there's no time for it, anyway. Billy's shifted them to the mattress, but Dom's still pinned under his weight, wanting more and wondering what other secrets he's got left that he could use to provoke this kind of reaction again.

"Of all the fucking people to tell--" Billy grimaces as he yanks at Dom's jeans, and Dom doesn't bother holding back his laugh or his desire to kiss the sour little twist of Billy's mouth away. Dom's been the aggressor from the beginning, and to see Billy like this now and feel the air surrounding them change--it's like going from candlelight to electricity and back again, Dom thinks, and he loves every crackling second, marking it forever in his mind when out of habit he tries to turn Billy onto his back and Billy shakes his head no, not this time.

V.

The night before Billy leaves Dom and half their exhausted, happy family of crew to film his scenes in Gondor, Dom picks a fight preemptively, pushing and pushing until Billy's got no choice but to push back, and hard. They've barely recovered from it by the time shooting finishes for the day, and Billy disappears from the set before Dom can find him to apologize. It's unlike Billy to hold grudges, though, so when the evening drags on with neither word from nor sight of him, Dom alternates between renewed anger and real concern, pacing around his flat and ignores the calls that come in from everyone else.

Billy turns up just before midnight, backpack slung over his shoulder and his smile very warm. Dom follows him to the bedroom and then the bathroom, calling Billy every name in the book for the second time today, and Billy lets him, nodding with appreciation at the more creative expletives and only silencing Dom when they're both back in the shower, kissing again and pushing aside the one thought that hangs between them now, the one thing neither of them wants to accept wholeheartedly or at all--

That time is running out.

VI.

Three weeks later, Dom's tracking the hours until Billy lands and they begin their small, earned holiday. Dom expects that whenever he and Billy are not asleep, they'll be shagging or drinking or dreading the next stretch of time they'll spend apart.

Pete releases Dom early, and Dom sprints first to his trailer and then his flat, again waiting for the minutes to tick by. When Billy bursts in the door, it's only to wrestle Dom into his arms and then his car, still reeking sweetly of sunblock and surfboard wax. Dom's too deliriously, stupidly happy now to care that they only have--

"Four days," Billy sighs beside him. "I mean, we'll do it up right, but four days, Dom--"

"It'll be enough," Dom says. "Don't waste it thinking about how fast it'll go, yeah?"

"You sure you didn't want to..." Billy lets the car idle at a stoplight and taps the wheel distractedly. "Bring Elijah along? Or Orli? Been a while since you've seen them, too--"

Dom leans over and turns Billy's face in his hands and kisses him, hard and slow and deep, ignoring Billy's muffled protests until they cease and he pulls away. "Some other time."

 


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