Book 4, Chapter 11: The Play's the Thing (2/3)
Title: The Play's the Thing (2/3)
Authors: kiltsandlollies and escribo
Characters: Billy/Dominic; Martin Lonsdale (omc)
Word count: 4960
Summary: Continues from here.
Index
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction; the recognizable people in the story belong to themselves and have never performed the actions portrayed here. I do not know the actors nor am I associated with them in any way. If you are underage, please do not read this story. I am not making any profit from these stories, nor do I mean any harm.
There is a moment of scenery shifting, of lulling music before the next act begins, and Billy leans in close to Dominic, grasping his wrist more firmly. "D'you feel it, Dom?" he says quietly. "You can almost feel the words before you hear them. It's easier to understand Shakespeare spoken than it is in print, isn't it." Billy's eyes meet Dominic's, now that they've adjusted to the low light, and then Billy smiles. "Be still. You won't be tested later, least not on this."
Measure for Measure is one of Billy's favourites of Shakespeare's plays, a battle of emotion, morals, and justice in all its many definitions. Billy sits now for the most part enthralled, pleased by the ease with which the actors playing the difficult roles of the Duke and Isabella command the audience's attention. It's near the end of the act, while Isabella hears out Lucio's tale of the Duke having left control to Angelo, that Billy notices himself shifting in his seat almost as much as Dominic. Lucio's description of Angelo as a man whose blood is very snow-broth who doth rebate and blunt his natural edge with profits of the mind, study and fast gives Billy a portrait that could have once stood in for a mirror, and Billy frowns slightly as the rest of the speech fades and his own thoughts demand his attention more.
Billy would like to believe that he's thawed out considerably since beginning to share his life with Dominic, but there are still and might always be times when he retreats into his profit of the mind, as means of escape from emotions he sometimes forgets he has. Nevertheless, he has no desire to return to the way things were before Dominic, before even Baskerville. He slides his hand back into Dominic's suddenly, just before the last words of the act, and determines that he will fight to stay in place, to not run, just as he demands of Dominic.
The fall of the curtain before intermission leads Billy to face Dominic, and he finds Dominic riveted, still at last and quiet for a moment until he blinks in the rising light and turns to meet Billy's stare. Satisfied that Dominic's in the here and now, Billy releases Dominic's hand and shifts in his seat, leaning back a little.
"Tell me what you're thinking, Dom," Billy asks him, and Dominic nods, licking his lips before he speaks.
"It's well acted, isn't it? I mean, I've only seen school productions, so this is …" he trails off, clearly feeling out of his depth, and Billy raises his eyebrows, waiting for more. "The bloke who plays Angelo is rather attractive, yeah?" Dominic says, and then blushes fiercely before he smiles and ducks his head.
"It is," Billy nods, then laughs. "Well acted, I mean. Here I thought your stillness had more to do with the play than with Angelo's pretty eyes."
Dominic smile widens, and he lowers his eyes more, his lashes fanning his cheeks. He reaches for Billy's hand and Billy lets him take it, their fingers twining loosely. "It's good. I'd forgotten most of it, yeah? And I started remembering the lectures I'd sat through. Use and abuse of power and all that. Where our morals take us. That's your field now, what you teach."
Billy takes a deep breath and then shrugs, just the smallest rise of his shoulder no one but Dominic would notice. "Maybe what I'm still learning. Think about your friend Angelo, Dom; he believes himself in the right, and when his morals crumble--nearly at the sight of Isabella--the power he's been granted in the Duke's absence goes both to his head and between his legs."
"The mortal failing of men," Dominic murmurs, and Billy nods again.
"Some of them, yes. Meanwhile the Duke hears himself described as a 'gentleman of all temperance' in one breath, and a louche bastard who dabbles in politics in between whores in the next." Billy pauses and frowns, seconds ticking away between himself and Dominic as he thinks. "No one really knows his heart or his morals, not even himself. I think he's gone into hiding to find them."
"Does he, do you think?" Dominic's still smiling, warm and charming as his fingers trace along Billy's. Billy watches the movement for some time before he nods.
"He'll find it, and discover the boundaries of his own power, I think, and test them against his heart." Billy lessens the space between their fingers slightly, applying the gentlest pressure, and then continues. "And what he's learned. I'm not making sense, am I."
"You are." Dominic looks up, finally, his expression more serious, as if he believes he's been caught not listening in class again. Billy narrows his eyes and then laughs, drawing his hand from out of Dominic's reach and pushing it through the back of his hair again.
"Right, well. I knew you were doing more than looking at pretty boys," Billy sighs. "So let's--"
"They are pretty enough, though." Dominic's smile returns, teasing around its edges, and Billy closes his eyes then for a moment before he rises and shakes out some of the tension in his neck and shoulders.
"I'll grant you that, but not a lot more. Could you stand to stretch your legs, Dom? We've got another ten minutes or so, and I could use some air."
Dominic follows Billy down the close aisle of seats, both murmuring their apologies as they avoid stepping on toes. The air feels cooler and less close outside, and both Billy and Dominic take deep breaths as if they'd hadn't even realized how warm the inside of the theatre had become, joining several others seeking a break or a smoke. Surrounded by the scent of tobacco, Billy can't resist reaching inside his jacket for the compromise cigarettes he's allowed himself tonight in exchange for overpriced drinks from the lobby bars, and as part of an attempt to show Dominic that he too is serious about conquering certain demons. He faces away from Dominic to light up quickly, and then watches Dominic counting stars above them before Billy closes his eyes again on his first long exhale.
It had been a rare treat for Billy to watch Dominic interact with another professor, at least away from the campus. And Dominic had seemed comfortable enough with Martin, smiling as they discussed what Billy sincerely hoped was Dominic's writing. Even having heard only a little of their conversation, Billy feels closer now to winning the little bet he's made with Dominic, and it's with no small pride that Billy looks at Dominic now, pacing slowly if still a bit restlessly around Billy and looking for words as if the night sky's taken them all from him.
Billy's moving past the initial, delirious rush of finally acknowledging that he loves Dominic. What he's still learning is how to enjoy the comfort of it, the ease of having someone in his life on whom he can give attention he's stored up for years. It makes Billy's shoulders drop whenever he thinks of it, and his smile widen, even now as Billy nears the end of the cigarette and Dominic pivots to a stop in front of him, his expression serious and set almost firm.
"I think Angelo's judged too hard," Dominic says suddenly, and Billy raises his eyebrows. "I mean, I know he abuses his power, but faced with that kind of temptation ..."
"He's only a mortal man?"
"Yeah. Every man has his limit. Everyone needs boundaries." Dominic nods as if he's affirming it for himself, and then his voice rises a bit in what Billy recognizes as a small challenge. "The Duke shouldn't have left him in charge."
"So it's all on him, then," Billy says sharply, rocking gently back on the balls of his feet before he tilts his head at Dominic's defense of one of Shakespeare most unlikeable characters. "The Duke. He's responsible for this, you think? His decision was made in a measure half in trust in Angelo and half as a test, Dominic. Both he and Angelo believed that Angelo was ready for such a test. Obviously they were wrong, but the intention was good."
"Road to hell and all that."
"You would point that out." Billy surprises himself with the vicious sound of his retort, and begins to pace in his turn. "Perhaps Vincentio also believed that Angelo had learned by example, Dom; the man couldn't have served the Duke for so long without understanding the way he worked."
Dominic hums and smiles. "The young know the rules and the old--"
"You forget yourself, Dom--"
"Know the exceptions. They forgot that." Dominic's gone very still, certain in his argument, and Billy thinks he could likely admire that certainty from a greater distance, but this close it makes his skin prickle somewhat. He's still working out how best to respond when Dominic shrugs and continues. "There was too much faith put in Angelo."
"Much of which he'd put there himself."
Dominic shrugs again. "Doesn't matter. That much of it might as well not exist. Faith in yourself's different from faith others have in you."
"Conceded," Billy says hotly. "But one should be neither subordinate to nor dependent on the other. Unless you choose to run on a foundation of no faith or experience at all, and go where the mood--takes you, like some child." Billy's last drag of the cigarette is a short, hard one, the flame burning dark and murky, and he stubs the thing out irritably before he tosses the end away. "We're not walking the same road here, Dom; your definition of faith is not mine--"
Dominic's quiet scoff cuts Billy short. "Not this time, Billy. You know what I mean."
"Well." Billy flexes his fingers and then folds his arms over his chest, tilting his head again to peer at Dominic. "This Angelo's younger than any I've seen before, Dom; are you telling me that the young are faithless? Or that the faith we have in them is misplaced?"
"To some extent," Dominic says quietly, and then pushes his hands in his own pockets and stares up at the sky again. "Probably."
Billy stares at Dominic, working hard to not be floored by this discussion and to drag it back to the proper subject at hand. "Dominic, the Duke might have been inscrutable on a personal level, but his politics, his ethics ... they seem clear to me. That doesn't matter either, does it. I could be just as wrong as the two of them. I think--I think they both had much to learn. Have much to learn." Billy starts to pace again, wishing he could pull from his mind some citation that would end the argument cleanly, but nothing comes. "We all need limits, I'll concede that, too; if you recall, I've tried to tell you that before. And when faced with temptation there's no telling how any of us would react. I suppose it's just easier for me to understand the Duke as opposed to Angelo. I feel the burden he placed on himself, and I feel his reasons for--running away." Billy races one hand through his hair again and then looks over his shoulder at Dominic. "I should empathize more with Angelo, shouldn't I?"
Dominic's smile is gentler now; it's clear he too wants this finished more kindly than it started. "Why's that?"
"A man collapsing under his own weight in guilt," Billy says quietly. "And unable to stop himself from falling further. Come here, hmm?"
Dominic moves slowly to Billy's side, and Billy wraps his arms around Dominic loosely, turning him so they can both see the moon above, and smiling, trying to push this discussion to one side in his mind.
"Let's go back to Angelo's pretty eyes," Billy murmurs, and Dominic laughs, nodding.
"Better than mine?"
"Is that a question?"
"Would you want to watch us together?" Dominic sinks back against Billy slightly, turning his chin just enough so he can see a little of Billy's reaction. "Compare whose eyes are brighter or who'd try to catch your attention the most? Who would win?"
"Well, there's the thing," Billy says calmly, smiling now, too, though his voice has steadied to the tone he takes in class; authoritative and clear and a little sharp. "You hardly need try. I won't speak for your Angelo, but I'd sooner not watch you with anyone, Dominic, least of all him; something tells me you might be absorbed enough in each other that you'd forget my presence altogether."
"Not possible."
"What did we say about temptation?" Billy lowers his voice even more and moves his hands down Dominic's arms slowly, stopping to grasp Dominic's wrists. "It's not worth the risk, is it?"
Dominic doesn't respond other than to nudge against Billy's cheek, and Billy allows himself a few breaths to let the moment pass and call his words a simple response to Dominic's as opposed to a warning he hadn't been prepared to give. He's rattled, though, and his grip on Dominic tightens firmly before it loosens and he turns Dominic in his arms.
"We need to be careful," he says, stroking at Dominic's temples with calm fingers. "Your bright eyes and my pride'll get us both into trouble. I doubt they're holding the curtain for us, so come on."
But once they're seated again, Billy finds himself still restless, eager to get Dominic back outside, to be not necessarily home so much as somewhere he can express himself with more than silence but perhaps less than words. Billy taps his fingers distractedly during a scene change, and then sighs, determining to settle down but first leaning to murmur in Dominic's ear.
"I needed this. It's your game, isn't it, finding the words to say it, but I did, Dom--"
Dominic turns his chin again, this time for a kiss, hard and insistent, just before the lights rise on stage. When he pulls back, his smile's tigerish but kind, too, and Billy wonders if he might have needed that even more. The rest of the play finds Billy calming slowly, and by the end he's mostly shaken off the weight of what's happened before in his own story, too pleased by how well the actors have put across the ragged, untidy shifts of position and belief, of surrender and strength, in theirs.
What's yet behind that's meet you all should know. Billy mouths the play's last line along with the actor playing the Duke, and as the music swells and the cast moves into the wings, Billy's nodding in approval as if the play's survival depended on his review. While they applaud, Billy turns to Dominic and leans in again, raising his voice just enough to be heard over the noise. "Not bad, eh? Everyone gets theirs in the end, the good and the bad. Except there's no real bad here, Dom, unless you want to count Lucio, and even he think he's got it right, the little bastard." The actors spill back out on to the stage, and as Angelo takes his bow, Billy smirks at Dominic. "There's your friend. Excellent work he did."
After the last of the bows, Billy steers Dominic back into the lobby, working their way out to the air and to lean and watch the river move beneath them. The pedestrian bridge rises to their left, the punters flooding it to make late evening trains at the station across the river, and Billy stretches, watching the bustle of the night surrounding them. Dominic's somewhat quiet, and Billy inches close to him, letting his hand rest on Dominic's back to stroke there.
"So what did you think of the end there, Dom? They call ‘Measure' a problem play. It doesn't really fit with his others, yeah?"
"Not quite a comedy or a tragedy."
"And no history I know of," Billy laughs. "Except maybe one we all share. Every character's a bit flawed, and sometimes the happiest endings can seem uncomfortable. As if you know no one's going t'live live happily ever after."
Dominic shrugs once more, but affably this time, no real challenge in it. "I'd like to think they could."
"You're an optimistic young man," Billy sighs. "The thing is, Isabella spends most of the play horrified by the thought of someone running off with her virtue, yeah? And after admiring that very trait in her, what's the first thing the Duke does when he gets the chance? 'I have a motion which much imports your good,' lass. Come and marry me. We can talk virtue till the sun rises, in between bouts of virtuous shagging." Billy releases a huff of amusement and disgust rolled into one. "The Duke would have made an excellent professor at some of the schools I know."
"Taking advantage of students who are more than willing to bend over."
Billy's eyes flash in Dominic's direction, but they are on the same path now, one down which Billy had started them, and so Billy doesn't press it farther, instead choosing to follow Dominic's gaze across the water. "They say best men are molded out of faults," he murmurs, recalling another line from the play. "I hope so. What are you thinking, Dom?"
"That I have a lot of faults and too little virtue," Dominic answers, the honesty plain in his expression. Dominic circles the fingers of his left hand around his right wrist, and Billy sees the struggle clear on his face. "I need this, but I need to know that it won't change what we have now. Or if it does, that it changes for the best."
Billy waits Dominic out again, but nothing comes, and Billy takes another deep breath, feeling another shift in this evening, one he can see coming but for which he's not entirely prepared. "What do you need, Dominic?"
Dominic straightens his arms, turning his hands over to look at the cuffs. "For you to mark me."
"As punishment for something you don't remember or can't even tell me you've done?" Billy shakes his head, just once but firmly. "No, Dominic; it doesn't work that way."
"No. It's not that." Dominic's hand clenches around his opposite wrist again, this time harder, and Billy's eyes can't help but be drawn to it, to the ratcheting tension there. "Not exactly."
"Then what is it?"
Dominic finds his courage and looks Billy in the eyes, the word soft on his lips. "Redemption."
"I can't offer you that."
"You're the only one who can," Dominic says, his voice heated again. "What did you tell me? Work a bit harder? I did, Billy, and it's not--enough, like. I need this. I need more than--than what I've done."
So it's all on me, then, Billy thinks, the resentment and anger behind it frightening until he gets it back under control and tries to see this from Dominic's perspective and the greater fear that might be there. "Tell me," he says, inhaling sharply when Dominic doesn't answer quickly enough. "Dominic."
"I was faithless, Billy." Dominic closes his eyes and then opens them again, turning to lean against the railing, his focus entirely on Billy now. "I shouldn't have given up. I think--part of me didn't, but too much of me did, and I just--gave. I knew you wouldn't, so--"
"I don't tend to, no," Billy says quietly. "Whatever you're choosing to remember now, I was persuasive enough I think to make you believe we wouldn't come back to this, Dominic. You were under no obligation to me--"
Dominic shakes his head wildly, then regains control of himself, his voice steady. "That doesn't make it right. I should have set my own boundaries. My own limits. I wasn't just failing you, okay? As your student or someone you took home on the weekend. I failed myself, and I can't anymore." Dominic takes a deep breath and wraps his fingers around the railing on either side of him, bracing himself it seems to Billy's eyes. "I'm so close, Billy, but I need this. I need to--set the lines again. I'm not submitting here. I'm taking what I think you're willing to give me."
Billy doesn't blink. "And what do I get in return?"
"More than what you already have?" It flies from Dominic's lips, and then he flushes scarlet but doesn't look away. Another surge of pride rushes through Billy, but he raises an eyebrow and one corner of his lips again, meeting Dominic's heated little challenge.
"You can do better than that."
"My conscience cleared," Dominic says quickly but more quietly, fervent on another level as he lowers his eyes. "My faith restored."
"Faith in what, Dominic?"
"Myself."
There are more questions he should ask, Billy knows. He should confirm for himself and from Dominic that this request is made out of need more than want, now that the line between the two is one they walk carefully. Still, the questions fade when Billy catches Dominic's chin gently and lifts it so Billy can see his eyes. They meet Billy's for only a moment and then lower again, the tacit give there more persuasive than any argument either of them could offer.
However tempting the urge is now to rush them home and restrain Dominic and deliver what Dominic needs, Billy wants time for that urge to build inside himself, to the point where he can't deny either of them. To move too quickly toward a release or that damned redemption Dominic thinks Billy can give him is pointless, and would satisfy nothing in the end. Instead Billy takes another moment to think tonight through while his hand moves along the curve of Dominic's cheek. Dominic reaches for Billy's hand, turns his palm and presses slow kisses against Billy's skin, each a little plea of its own, and Billy indulges in the touch for long seconds before he nods and then lowers Dominic's hand, turning Dominic's wrist up and circling it hard with his own fingers.
There's no call for Dominic to present himself now; he's already surrendered what he can at this point, and Billy can wait for the rest. Low-level adrenaline runs through Billy's veins now that the decision's been made, and it's quickened more by the night air around them, by the light from the moon and the lantern-like lamps above them shining on the water and the clasps of Dominic's cuffs.
"We start now," Billy murmurs as his fingers work open the buckle around Dominic's upturned left wrist. Dominic's pulse is fluttering, almost jumpy, and Billy takes his time, stroking Dominic's skin gently before he tightens the clasps hard, breathing confido and nodding when Dominic's fingers flex and then relax. Billy repeats the pattern again on Dominic's right wrist, scratching lightly and then harder just under the cuff before he releases Dominic's hands.
"Go get the car," Billy says, his voice very calm, though as he digs in his pockets for the keys, his hand wraps just as gratefully again around the wrapped package of cigarettes and matches. He places the keys in Dominic's palm, folding Dominic's fingers closed over them, and then Billy leans away from the wind and Dominic to light another cigarette, inhaling from it deeply before he turns back to Dominic with a more searching stare, trying to make it clear to Dominic that they both require these next few moments to think, to breathe, before they continue. When he can stare no longer, Billy brushes his fingers again down Dominic's cheekbone and nods, encouragement and demand in one. "I'll find you out in front."
The moment Dominic's out of his sight, Billy's shoulders drop as if they've been carrying a great weight, and he turns back to the railing, leaning over slightly to watch the dark river beneath him, letting it steady him as he's always felt water can do. The cigarette is burning down in his fingers, and Billy's entranced and calmed too by its light and small heat, so much so that he doesn't notice the presence beside him until the man's speaking.
"Bill--"
"Oh, fuck me," Billy breathes, blinking back into the present and laughing when he realizes it's Professor Lonsdale again, and not some less-desired face and voice from the recent past. "Martin. Warn a man, yeah?"
"I'll get to that," Lonsdale smiles, and then shakes his head gently when Billy's jaw clenches visibly. "Not just now. Still in love with that great flaming bore of a play?"
Billy laughs, offering Lonsdale a cigarette and nodding when the man declines. "Still off them, then. That's fantastic; another bet I would've lost, yeah? The play was brilliant, John; I've seen it done enough that you'd think I could find fault in it somewhere, but I don't. It's the words that fix anything that could wrong. I could close my eyes and just listen if I had to. It's just--the words are enough. How was the Berlioz?"
"I'm not sure words could have helped," Lonsdale sighs. "I don't know whether my brow's too low or too high, but this ground in the middle where Berlioz lives doesn't do a damn thing for me. Can't even say I was able to get a kip in."
"You're a philistine git, Martin, and I love y'for it, I do."
"I prefer provincial, but thank you." Lonsdale takes a deep breath and then smiles tightly, his expression making Billy's shoulders rise a little again. "You're being careful. That's not a question, Bill. You are being careful. Because you understand what you're risking."
Billy swallows and nods, returning his gaze to the water and bringing the cigarette back up to his lips before he responds. "I do. And you understand that I mean this with the greatest respect when I ask you not to fuck this up for me, Martin."
"And I would never do so." Lonsdale leans now, too, heaving a little sigh and folding his hands together, his thumbs rubbing slowly against each other--a gesture Billy remembers him making time and time again as he tried to form the right arguments in any discussion. "This is a very real thing, Bill. My guess is that he'll write about it someday."
"Your guess. Y'spoke to him for what, two minutes?"
"You're a better teacher than that," Lonsdale says kindly. "You've recognized that look and that drive faster than I ever have, and you're doing both of you a disservice if you pretend you can't see it. He'll be a writer with or without you--"
"Your mouth to your god's ear--"
"I hope with. I hope you're still there to read it is what I'm saying, Bill." Lonsdale sighs again and blinks up at the moon. "Enough, then. And your own work?"
"It's coming," Billy says, but his voice is thick, the professor inside leaving him as the night gets darker. "I've had to go back to Haldane. I can't find readers at Baskerville, Martin; they don't understand. It's that fucking campus--"
"Is it worse than any other?" Lonsdale says, amused, and then his expression turns more sympathetic again. "The truth, Bill; it gets harder the longer it's been since you've told it."
"I'm not ready," Billy says after a long silence, leaning harder against the railing. "It's not ready. I haven't worked on it properly in--Christ, I don't know, six weeks, seven? I've been--things needed to be done, and they were more important at the time, and sometimes I think I've just--" Billy pauses and flicks ash, little sparks dancing around his fingers as he exhales. "Lost the plot."
"You did the right thing, you know," Lonsdale murmurs. "Leaving St. Andrews. It will stop haunting you at some point, and you'll stop looking for approval from Edgecliffe Hall and just--get on with it. If it's not at Baskerville, so be it, but you're running out of country now, Bill; you'll be writing from Dover the next time I hear from you, but in your head you'll still be in Scotland unless you let it go." Lonsdale pauses and then nods as if he's come to another conclusion, this one better. "If the words are enough, Bill, then you've got to finish writing them, haven't you? And let everything else go."
Billy tilts his head slightly, the argument on his lips disappearing, and then he sags again with a chuffing, exhausted laugh, tossing the cigarette to the ground and stubbing it out hard with the toe of his shoe. "When did you get clever, Martin?"
"When I left St. Andrews," Lonsdale grins, and extends his hand again to Billy. "Be well, Professor. Not that I expect you to believe me or to understand at all what I mean, but love seems to suit you, Bill. Ask your young friend if you're wondering how that works."
Billy shakes Lonsdale's hand firmly and returns the smile. "Goodnight, Martin. And thank you. Take good care."
He's not left alone for long. Billy recognizes the purr of his car's engine even underneath the roar of others, and when he moves toward the car, he does so slowly, his hands deep in his pockets until he's just at the passenger door. He's grateful to not be driving, even more grateful that he can sit inside and reach now, while the car's idling quietly, to drag his fingers through Dominic's hair and pull him closer for a kiss that begins as a demand and ends as a kind of promise. Billy's lips are still very near Dominic's, the two of them sharing breath, when he looks up with careful, encouraging determination in his eyes. "Drive, hmm?"
Authors: kiltsandlollies and escribo
Characters: Billy/Dominic; Martin Lonsdale (omc)
Word count: 4960
Summary: Continues from here.
Index
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction; the recognizable people in the story belong to themselves and have never performed the actions portrayed here. I do not know the actors nor am I associated with them in any way. If you are underage, please do not read this story. I am not making any profit from these stories, nor do I mean any harm.
There is a moment of scenery shifting, of lulling music before the next act begins, and Billy leans in close to Dominic, grasping his wrist more firmly. "D'you feel it, Dom?" he says quietly. "You can almost feel the words before you hear them. It's easier to understand Shakespeare spoken than it is in print, isn't it." Billy's eyes meet Dominic's, now that they've adjusted to the low light, and then Billy smiles. "Be still. You won't be tested later, least not on this."
Measure for Measure is one of Billy's favourites of Shakespeare's plays, a battle of emotion, morals, and justice in all its many definitions. Billy sits now for the most part enthralled, pleased by the ease with which the actors playing the difficult roles of the Duke and Isabella command the audience's attention. It's near the end of the act, while Isabella hears out Lucio's tale of the Duke having left control to Angelo, that Billy notices himself shifting in his seat almost as much as Dominic. Lucio's description of Angelo as a man whose blood is very snow-broth who doth rebate and blunt his natural edge with profits of the mind, study and fast gives Billy a portrait that could have once stood in for a mirror, and Billy frowns slightly as the rest of the speech fades and his own thoughts demand his attention more.
Billy would like to believe that he's thawed out considerably since beginning to share his life with Dominic, but there are still and might always be times when he retreats into his profit of the mind, as means of escape from emotions he sometimes forgets he has. Nevertheless, he has no desire to return to the way things were before Dominic, before even Baskerville. He slides his hand back into Dominic's suddenly, just before the last words of the act, and determines that he will fight to stay in place, to not run, just as he demands of Dominic.
The fall of the curtain before intermission leads Billy to face Dominic, and he finds Dominic riveted, still at last and quiet for a moment until he blinks in the rising light and turns to meet Billy's stare. Satisfied that Dominic's in the here and now, Billy releases Dominic's hand and shifts in his seat, leaning back a little.
"Tell me what you're thinking, Dom," Billy asks him, and Dominic nods, licking his lips before he speaks.
"It's well acted, isn't it? I mean, I've only seen school productions, so this is …" he trails off, clearly feeling out of his depth, and Billy raises his eyebrows, waiting for more. "The bloke who plays Angelo is rather attractive, yeah?" Dominic says, and then blushes fiercely before he smiles and ducks his head.
"It is," Billy nods, then laughs. "Well acted, I mean. Here I thought your stillness had more to do with the play than with Angelo's pretty eyes."
Dominic smile widens, and he lowers his eyes more, his lashes fanning his cheeks. He reaches for Billy's hand and Billy lets him take it, their fingers twining loosely. "It's good. I'd forgotten most of it, yeah? And I started remembering the lectures I'd sat through. Use and abuse of power and all that. Where our morals take us. That's your field now, what you teach."
Billy takes a deep breath and then shrugs, just the smallest rise of his shoulder no one but Dominic would notice. "Maybe what I'm still learning. Think about your friend Angelo, Dom; he believes himself in the right, and when his morals crumble--nearly at the sight of Isabella--the power he's been granted in the Duke's absence goes both to his head and between his legs."
"The mortal failing of men," Dominic murmurs, and Billy nods again.
"Some of them, yes. Meanwhile the Duke hears himself described as a 'gentleman of all temperance' in one breath, and a louche bastard who dabbles in politics in between whores in the next." Billy pauses and frowns, seconds ticking away between himself and Dominic as he thinks. "No one really knows his heart or his morals, not even himself. I think he's gone into hiding to find them."
"Does he, do you think?" Dominic's still smiling, warm and charming as his fingers trace along Billy's. Billy watches the movement for some time before he nods.
"He'll find it, and discover the boundaries of his own power, I think, and test them against his heart." Billy lessens the space between their fingers slightly, applying the gentlest pressure, and then continues. "And what he's learned. I'm not making sense, am I."
"You are." Dominic looks up, finally, his expression more serious, as if he believes he's been caught not listening in class again. Billy narrows his eyes and then laughs, drawing his hand from out of Dominic's reach and pushing it through the back of his hair again.
"Right, well. I knew you were doing more than looking at pretty boys," Billy sighs. "So let's--"
"They are pretty enough, though." Dominic's smile returns, teasing around its edges, and Billy closes his eyes then for a moment before he rises and shakes out some of the tension in his neck and shoulders.
"I'll grant you that, but not a lot more. Could you stand to stretch your legs, Dom? We've got another ten minutes or so, and I could use some air."
Dominic follows Billy down the close aisle of seats, both murmuring their apologies as they avoid stepping on toes. The air feels cooler and less close outside, and both Billy and Dominic take deep breaths as if they'd hadn't even realized how warm the inside of the theatre had become, joining several others seeking a break or a smoke. Surrounded by the scent of tobacco, Billy can't resist reaching inside his jacket for the compromise cigarettes he's allowed himself tonight in exchange for overpriced drinks from the lobby bars, and as part of an attempt to show Dominic that he too is serious about conquering certain demons. He faces away from Dominic to light up quickly, and then watches Dominic counting stars above them before Billy closes his eyes again on his first long exhale.
It had been a rare treat for Billy to watch Dominic interact with another professor, at least away from the campus. And Dominic had seemed comfortable enough with Martin, smiling as they discussed what Billy sincerely hoped was Dominic's writing. Even having heard only a little of their conversation, Billy feels closer now to winning the little bet he's made with Dominic, and it's with no small pride that Billy looks at Dominic now, pacing slowly if still a bit restlessly around Billy and looking for words as if the night sky's taken them all from him.
Billy's moving past the initial, delirious rush of finally acknowledging that he loves Dominic. What he's still learning is how to enjoy the comfort of it, the ease of having someone in his life on whom he can give attention he's stored up for years. It makes Billy's shoulders drop whenever he thinks of it, and his smile widen, even now as Billy nears the end of the cigarette and Dominic pivots to a stop in front of him, his expression serious and set almost firm.
"I think Angelo's judged too hard," Dominic says suddenly, and Billy raises his eyebrows. "I mean, I know he abuses his power, but faced with that kind of temptation ..."
"He's only a mortal man?"
"Yeah. Every man has his limit. Everyone needs boundaries." Dominic nods as if he's affirming it for himself, and then his voice rises a bit in what Billy recognizes as a small challenge. "The Duke shouldn't have left him in charge."
"So it's all on him, then," Billy says sharply, rocking gently back on the balls of his feet before he tilts his head at Dominic's defense of one of Shakespeare most unlikeable characters. "The Duke. He's responsible for this, you think? His decision was made in a measure half in trust in Angelo and half as a test, Dominic. Both he and Angelo believed that Angelo was ready for such a test. Obviously they were wrong, but the intention was good."
"Road to hell and all that."
"You would point that out." Billy surprises himself with the vicious sound of his retort, and begins to pace in his turn. "Perhaps Vincentio also believed that Angelo had learned by example, Dom; the man couldn't have served the Duke for so long without understanding the way he worked."
Dominic hums and smiles. "The young know the rules and the old--"
"You forget yourself, Dom--"
"Know the exceptions. They forgot that." Dominic's gone very still, certain in his argument, and Billy thinks he could likely admire that certainty from a greater distance, but this close it makes his skin prickle somewhat. He's still working out how best to respond when Dominic shrugs and continues. "There was too much faith put in Angelo."
"Much of which he'd put there himself."
Dominic shrugs again. "Doesn't matter. That much of it might as well not exist. Faith in yourself's different from faith others have in you."
"Conceded," Billy says hotly. "But one should be neither subordinate to nor dependent on the other. Unless you choose to run on a foundation of no faith or experience at all, and go where the mood--takes you, like some child." Billy's last drag of the cigarette is a short, hard one, the flame burning dark and murky, and he stubs the thing out irritably before he tosses the end away. "We're not walking the same road here, Dom; your definition of faith is not mine--"
Dominic's quiet scoff cuts Billy short. "Not this time, Billy. You know what I mean."
"Well." Billy flexes his fingers and then folds his arms over his chest, tilting his head again to peer at Dominic. "This Angelo's younger than any I've seen before, Dom; are you telling me that the young are faithless? Or that the faith we have in them is misplaced?"
"To some extent," Dominic says quietly, and then pushes his hands in his own pockets and stares up at the sky again. "Probably."
Billy stares at Dominic, working hard to not be floored by this discussion and to drag it back to the proper subject at hand. "Dominic, the Duke might have been inscrutable on a personal level, but his politics, his ethics ... they seem clear to me. That doesn't matter either, does it. I could be just as wrong as the two of them. I think--I think they both had much to learn. Have much to learn." Billy starts to pace again, wishing he could pull from his mind some citation that would end the argument cleanly, but nothing comes. "We all need limits, I'll concede that, too; if you recall, I've tried to tell you that before. And when faced with temptation there's no telling how any of us would react. I suppose it's just easier for me to understand the Duke as opposed to Angelo. I feel the burden he placed on himself, and I feel his reasons for--running away." Billy races one hand through his hair again and then looks over his shoulder at Dominic. "I should empathize more with Angelo, shouldn't I?"
Dominic's smile is gentler now; it's clear he too wants this finished more kindly than it started. "Why's that?"
"A man collapsing under his own weight in guilt," Billy says quietly. "And unable to stop himself from falling further. Come here, hmm?"
Dominic moves slowly to Billy's side, and Billy wraps his arms around Dominic loosely, turning him so they can both see the moon above, and smiling, trying to push this discussion to one side in his mind.
"Let's go back to Angelo's pretty eyes," Billy murmurs, and Dominic laughs, nodding.
"Better than mine?"
"Is that a question?"
"Would you want to watch us together?" Dominic sinks back against Billy slightly, turning his chin just enough so he can see a little of Billy's reaction. "Compare whose eyes are brighter or who'd try to catch your attention the most? Who would win?"
"Well, there's the thing," Billy says calmly, smiling now, too, though his voice has steadied to the tone he takes in class; authoritative and clear and a little sharp. "You hardly need try. I won't speak for your Angelo, but I'd sooner not watch you with anyone, Dominic, least of all him; something tells me you might be absorbed enough in each other that you'd forget my presence altogether."
"Not possible."
"What did we say about temptation?" Billy lowers his voice even more and moves his hands down Dominic's arms slowly, stopping to grasp Dominic's wrists. "It's not worth the risk, is it?"
Dominic doesn't respond other than to nudge against Billy's cheek, and Billy allows himself a few breaths to let the moment pass and call his words a simple response to Dominic's as opposed to a warning he hadn't been prepared to give. He's rattled, though, and his grip on Dominic tightens firmly before it loosens and he turns Dominic in his arms.
"We need to be careful," he says, stroking at Dominic's temples with calm fingers. "Your bright eyes and my pride'll get us both into trouble. I doubt they're holding the curtain for us, so come on."
But once they're seated again, Billy finds himself still restless, eager to get Dominic back outside, to be not necessarily home so much as somewhere he can express himself with more than silence but perhaps less than words. Billy taps his fingers distractedly during a scene change, and then sighs, determining to settle down but first leaning to murmur in Dominic's ear.
"I needed this. It's your game, isn't it, finding the words to say it, but I did, Dom--"
Dominic turns his chin again, this time for a kiss, hard and insistent, just before the lights rise on stage. When he pulls back, his smile's tigerish but kind, too, and Billy wonders if he might have needed that even more. The rest of the play finds Billy calming slowly, and by the end he's mostly shaken off the weight of what's happened before in his own story, too pleased by how well the actors have put across the ragged, untidy shifts of position and belief, of surrender and strength, in theirs.
What's yet behind that's meet you all should know. Billy mouths the play's last line along with the actor playing the Duke, and as the music swells and the cast moves into the wings, Billy's nodding in approval as if the play's survival depended on his review. While they applaud, Billy turns to Dominic and leans in again, raising his voice just enough to be heard over the noise. "Not bad, eh? Everyone gets theirs in the end, the good and the bad. Except there's no real bad here, Dom, unless you want to count Lucio, and even he think he's got it right, the little bastard." The actors spill back out on to the stage, and as Angelo takes his bow, Billy smirks at Dominic. "There's your friend. Excellent work he did."
After the last of the bows, Billy steers Dominic back into the lobby, working their way out to the air and to lean and watch the river move beneath them. The pedestrian bridge rises to their left, the punters flooding it to make late evening trains at the station across the river, and Billy stretches, watching the bustle of the night surrounding them. Dominic's somewhat quiet, and Billy inches close to him, letting his hand rest on Dominic's back to stroke there.
"So what did you think of the end there, Dom? They call ‘Measure' a problem play. It doesn't really fit with his others, yeah?"
"Not quite a comedy or a tragedy."
"And no history I know of," Billy laughs. "Except maybe one we all share. Every character's a bit flawed, and sometimes the happiest endings can seem uncomfortable. As if you know no one's going t'live live happily ever after."
Dominic shrugs once more, but affably this time, no real challenge in it. "I'd like to think they could."
"You're an optimistic young man," Billy sighs. "The thing is, Isabella spends most of the play horrified by the thought of someone running off with her virtue, yeah? And after admiring that very trait in her, what's the first thing the Duke does when he gets the chance? 'I have a motion which much imports your good,' lass. Come and marry me. We can talk virtue till the sun rises, in between bouts of virtuous shagging." Billy releases a huff of amusement and disgust rolled into one. "The Duke would have made an excellent professor at some of the schools I know."
"Taking advantage of students who are more than willing to bend over."
Billy's eyes flash in Dominic's direction, but they are on the same path now, one down which Billy had started them, and so Billy doesn't press it farther, instead choosing to follow Dominic's gaze across the water. "They say best men are molded out of faults," he murmurs, recalling another line from the play. "I hope so. What are you thinking, Dom?"
"That I have a lot of faults and too little virtue," Dominic answers, the honesty plain in his expression. Dominic circles the fingers of his left hand around his right wrist, and Billy sees the struggle clear on his face. "I need this, but I need to know that it won't change what we have now. Or if it does, that it changes for the best."
Billy waits Dominic out again, but nothing comes, and Billy takes another deep breath, feeling another shift in this evening, one he can see coming but for which he's not entirely prepared. "What do you need, Dominic?"
Dominic straightens his arms, turning his hands over to look at the cuffs. "For you to mark me."
"As punishment for something you don't remember or can't even tell me you've done?" Billy shakes his head, just once but firmly. "No, Dominic; it doesn't work that way."
"No. It's not that." Dominic's hand clenches around his opposite wrist again, this time harder, and Billy's eyes can't help but be drawn to it, to the ratcheting tension there. "Not exactly."
"Then what is it?"
Dominic finds his courage and looks Billy in the eyes, the word soft on his lips. "Redemption."
"I can't offer you that."
"You're the only one who can," Dominic says, his voice heated again. "What did you tell me? Work a bit harder? I did, Billy, and it's not--enough, like. I need this. I need more than--than what I've done."
So it's all on me, then, Billy thinks, the resentment and anger behind it frightening until he gets it back under control and tries to see this from Dominic's perspective and the greater fear that might be there. "Tell me," he says, inhaling sharply when Dominic doesn't answer quickly enough. "Dominic."
"I was faithless, Billy." Dominic closes his eyes and then opens them again, turning to lean against the railing, his focus entirely on Billy now. "I shouldn't have given up. I think--part of me didn't, but too much of me did, and I just--gave. I knew you wouldn't, so--"
"I don't tend to, no," Billy says quietly. "Whatever you're choosing to remember now, I was persuasive enough I think to make you believe we wouldn't come back to this, Dominic. You were under no obligation to me--"
Dominic shakes his head wildly, then regains control of himself, his voice steady. "That doesn't make it right. I should have set my own boundaries. My own limits. I wasn't just failing you, okay? As your student or someone you took home on the weekend. I failed myself, and I can't anymore." Dominic takes a deep breath and wraps his fingers around the railing on either side of him, bracing himself it seems to Billy's eyes. "I'm so close, Billy, but I need this. I need to--set the lines again. I'm not submitting here. I'm taking what I think you're willing to give me."
Billy doesn't blink. "And what do I get in return?"
"More than what you already have?" It flies from Dominic's lips, and then he flushes scarlet but doesn't look away. Another surge of pride rushes through Billy, but he raises an eyebrow and one corner of his lips again, meeting Dominic's heated little challenge.
"You can do better than that."
"My conscience cleared," Dominic says quickly but more quietly, fervent on another level as he lowers his eyes. "My faith restored."
"Faith in what, Dominic?"
"Myself."
There are more questions he should ask, Billy knows. He should confirm for himself and from Dominic that this request is made out of need more than want, now that the line between the two is one they walk carefully. Still, the questions fade when Billy catches Dominic's chin gently and lifts it so Billy can see his eyes. They meet Billy's for only a moment and then lower again, the tacit give there more persuasive than any argument either of them could offer.
However tempting the urge is now to rush them home and restrain Dominic and deliver what Dominic needs, Billy wants time for that urge to build inside himself, to the point where he can't deny either of them. To move too quickly toward a release or that damned redemption Dominic thinks Billy can give him is pointless, and would satisfy nothing in the end. Instead Billy takes another moment to think tonight through while his hand moves along the curve of Dominic's cheek. Dominic reaches for Billy's hand, turns his palm and presses slow kisses against Billy's skin, each a little plea of its own, and Billy indulges in the touch for long seconds before he nods and then lowers Dominic's hand, turning Dominic's wrist up and circling it hard with his own fingers.
There's no call for Dominic to present himself now; he's already surrendered what he can at this point, and Billy can wait for the rest. Low-level adrenaline runs through Billy's veins now that the decision's been made, and it's quickened more by the night air around them, by the light from the moon and the lantern-like lamps above them shining on the water and the clasps of Dominic's cuffs.
"We start now," Billy murmurs as his fingers work open the buckle around Dominic's upturned left wrist. Dominic's pulse is fluttering, almost jumpy, and Billy takes his time, stroking Dominic's skin gently before he tightens the clasps hard, breathing confido and nodding when Dominic's fingers flex and then relax. Billy repeats the pattern again on Dominic's right wrist, scratching lightly and then harder just under the cuff before he releases Dominic's hands.
"Go get the car," Billy says, his voice very calm, though as he digs in his pockets for the keys, his hand wraps just as gratefully again around the wrapped package of cigarettes and matches. He places the keys in Dominic's palm, folding Dominic's fingers closed over them, and then Billy leans away from the wind and Dominic to light another cigarette, inhaling from it deeply before he turns back to Dominic with a more searching stare, trying to make it clear to Dominic that they both require these next few moments to think, to breathe, before they continue. When he can stare no longer, Billy brushes his fingers again down Dominic's cheekbone and nods, encouragement and demand in one. "I'll find you out in front."
The moment Dominic's out of his sight, Billy's shoulders drop as if they've been carrying a great weight, and he turns back to the railing, leaning over slightly to watch the dark river beneath him, letting it steady him as he's always felt water can do. The cigarette is burning down in his fingers, and Billy's entranced and calmed too by its light and small heat, so much so that he doesn't notice the presence beside him until the man's speaking.
"Bill--"
"Oh, fuck me," Billy breathes, blinking back into the present and laughing when he realizes it's Professor Lonsdale again, and not some less-desired face and voice from the recent past. "Martin. Warn a man, yeah?"
"I'll get to that," Lonsdale smiles, and then shakes his head gently when Billy's jaw clenches visibly. "Not just now. Still in love with that great flaming bore of a play?"
Billy laughs, offering Lonsdale a cigarette and nodding when the man declines. "Still off them, then. That's fantastic; another bet I would've lost, yeah? The play was brilliant, John; I've seen it done enough that you'd think I could find fault in it somewhere, but I don't. It's the words that fix anything that could wrong. I could close my eyes and just listen if I had to. It's just--the words are enough. How was the Berlioz?"
"I'm not sure words could have helped," Lonsdale sighs. "I don't know whether my brow's too low or too high, but this ground in the middle where Berlioz lives doesn't do a damn thing for me. Can't even say I was able to get a kip in."
"You're a philistine git, Martin, and I love y'for it, I do."
"I prefer provincial, but thank you." Lonsdale takes a deep breath and then smiles tightly, his expression making Billy's shoulders rise a little again. "You're being careful. That's not a question, Bill. You are being careful. Because you understand what you're risking."
Billy swallows and nods, returning his gaze to the water and bringing the cigarette back up to his lips before he responds. "I do. And you understand that I mean this with the greatest respect when I ask you not to fuck this up for me, Martin."
"And I would never do so." Lonsdale leans now, too, heaving a little sigh and folding his hands together, his thumbs rubbing slowly against each other--a gesture Billy remembers him making time and time again as he tried to form the right arguments in any discussion. "This is a very real thing, Bill. My guess is that he'll write about it someday."
"Your guess. Y'spoke to him for what, two minutes?"
"You're a better teacher than that," Lonsdale says kindly. "You've recognized that look and that drive faster than I ever have, and you're doing both of you a disservice if you pretend you can't see it. He'll be a writer with or without you--"
"Your mouth to your god's ear--"
"I hope with. I hope you're still there to read it is what I'm saying, Bill." Lonsdale sighs again and blinks up at the moon. "Enough, then. And your own work?"
"It's coming," Billy says, but his voice is thick, the professor inside leaving him as the night gets darker. "I've had to go back to Haldane. I can't find readers at Baskerville, Martin; they don't understand. It's that fucking campus--"
"Is it worse than any other?" Lonsdale says, amused, and then his expression turns more sympathetic again. "The truth, Bill; it gets harder the longer it's been since you've told it."
"I'm not ready," Billy says after a long silence, leaning harder against the railing. "It's not ready. I haven't worked on it properly in--Christ, I don't know, six weeks, seven? I've been--things needed to be done, and they were more important at the time, and sometimes I think I've just--" Billy pauses and flicks ash, little sparks dancing around his fingers as he exhales. "Lost the plot."
"You did the right thing, you know," Lonsdale murmurs. "Leaving St. Andrews. It will stop haunting you at some point, and you'll stop looking for approval from Edgecliffe Hall and just--get on with it. If it's not at Baskerville, so be it, but you're running out of country now, Bill; you'll be writing from Dover the next time I hear from you, but in your head you'll still be in Scotland unless you let it go." Lonsdale pauses and then nods as if he's come to another conclusion, this one better. "If the words are enough, Bill, then you've got to finish writing them, haven't you? And let everything else go."
Billy tilts his head slightly, the argument on his lips disappearing, and then he sags again with a chuffing, exhausted laugh, tossing the cigarette to the ground and stubbing it out hard with the toe of his shoe. "When did you get clever, Martin?"
"When I left St. Andrews," Lonsdale grins, and extends his hand again to Billy. "Be well, Professor. Not that I expect you to believe me or to understand at all what I mean, but love seems to suit you, Bill. Ask your young friend if you're wondering how that works."
Billy shakes Lonsdale's hand firmly and returns the smile. "Goodnight, Martin. And thank you. Take good care."
He's not left alone for long. Billy recognizes the purr of his car's engine even underneath the roar of others, and when he moves toward the car, he does so slowly, his hands deep in his pockets until he's just at the passenger door. He's grateful to not be driving, even more grateful that he can sit inside and reach now, while the car's idling quietly, to drag his fingers through Dominic's hair and pull him closer for a kiss that begins as a demand and ends as a kind of promise. Billy's lips are still very near Dominic's, the two of them sharing breath, when he looks up with careful, encouraging determination in his eyes. "Drive, hmm?"