Fic: Gaolach
Title: Gaolach
Author: Blackbird Song
Pairing: DM/BB; Billy/Ali implied
Rating: R (language)
Warnings: Angst; H/C; Language(s)
Disclaimer: A load of old codswallop. No money is made, no disrespect intended.
Requests: Monaboyd: We hear all the time about Dom speaking German. Let's have Billy speaking Gaelic. Bonus points if he's drunk while doing so. [Request by dreality]
Billy/Dominic: hurt/comfort (physical or otherwise) Many extra credit points for crying. [Request by sockers]
A/N: This fic satisfied two requests in one go, so I have taken that way out, here. If sockers is not happy with this, or if this is not allowed, I shall write a different story, but it will take a few days. Many thanks to thuri for the very speedy beta. Please note that I do not know the exact year of Billy's grandmother's death, only that it did not occur before late 2003. E.T.A.: My heartfelt thanks to msilverstar for telling me of the interview in which Billy said that his grandmother died before the first movie came out, so she never got a chance tot see it. That makes this story very much an AU.
Translations for the Gaelic can be found at the end of the story.
“Bills?”
“What?”
“Say something in Gaelic to me.”
“Pòg mo thòin.”
“Something that isn’t known by every Tom, Dick and Harry, and their dogs.”
Billy took a long pull on his beer before setting the glass down next to the five he’d already drained. “Don’t know any sodding Gàidhlig, do I?”
“Yes, you do. You curse in it in your sleep.”
“We don’t sleep together, you great tit!”
“Yeah, but I hear you in the guestroom at night when I listen at your door.”
“Thalla 's cagainn bruis,” said Billy.
“And what’s that mean, when it’s at home?”
“Get stuffed.”
“All right, all right, keep your hair on,” said Dom.
“No, that’s what it means.”
“Oh, well, that’s all ri-Oi!”
“You wanted me to say something to you in Gay-lick, as you put it.”
“Should’ve known you’d swear at me,” muttered Dom.
“Bloody right, you should! Besides, that’s the extent of my knowledge of Gàidhlig.
“Why do you call it Gallic?”
“Because that’s how it’s pronounced, you daft bastard!”
“Then what’s the ‘e’ doing there?”
Billy downed a good third of the seventh glass of beer and glared at Dom. “Because the English scholars misread its spelling and decided to simplify it,” he said in his best RP, “so that their arrogant sodding populace could pronounce it prop’ly.”
Dom pushed an eighth glass of beer subtly in his direction. “Yeah, we can be a bit stupid, can’t we?”
“Dìreach! Eg-bloody-zactly,” said Billy, glaring at his beer. “Bloody Sassenachs.”
“I thought your gran taught you some Gael- Gallic,” prompted Dom.
“She did, a bit,” admitted Billy, swallowing the last of the seventh beer. “Mostly songs, until she thought I was getting a bit too interested in music.”
“What sort of songs?”
“Cum do theanga ablaich gun fheum,” muttered Billy, unclear whether he was talking to Dom or himself. “Gàidhlig songs, of course.” He started on the eighth beer.
“Sing me one,” said Dom, quietly.
“I don’t sing on request,” said Billy, tense despite the alcohol.
“For me?”
“Thalla gu Taigh na Galla!”
“I take it you’re refusing...”
“I’m telling you to go to bloody hell!” Billy stumbled off the barstool and headed for the men’s room, leaving Dom to ponder the day so far.
His mate often needed privacy and time alone, but he’d barely shown his face over the past day and Dom was concerned that he’d had to track him down at the local in order to have any time with him. He waited for Billy to return. The fact that it was beer, rather than whisky, meant that Billy meant to be slowly drunk. It meant that he needed to curse and whine and get something off his chest, something he couldn’t say without benefit of alcohol. He took a pull on his cola and went outside for a smoke.
When he returned to the bar, Billy had not come back. Dom sighed and made his way to the bog. Opening the door, he was bumped aside by a man hurrying out, muttering something that included the words ‘fucking queer’ that set Dom’s teeth on edge. The loo was deserted, but for the distinctive noise coming from the stall on the end.
“Billy?”
The noise stopped.
“Bill, I know you’re in there.”
“Piss off!”
“You don’t sound very convincing, mate.”
“Dom, please, just go away.”
Dom opened the door to the stall. “You would’ve locked this, if you really didn’t want me to find you,” he said, gently.
Billy was sitting on the closed seat of the toilet, eyes red and wet, breath hitching. “Mo Chreach,” he swore, barely above a whisper. “Why did you have to come looking for me?”
“I was worried you might have fallen in,” said Dom, still standing at the entrance to the stall.
“Wanker! I meant tonight. Why did you have to come looking for me tonight? Couldn’t you see I wanted to be alone?” Billy looked up at him, face more stripped and raw than Dom had ever seen.
“I saw you wanted that, but I worried that you were in some sort of trouble. You haven’t spoken two words to me since you took that call on your mobile at breakfast. I couldn’t just let you stew all day and all night, as well.”
Billy made a vicious swipe at the toilet paper, tearing off a wad and mashing it against his eyes. “What if I need to do that? Didn’t you ever think of that?” He stood up and pushed past Dom to the sink, tossing the paper in the bin and ripping paper towels from the dispenser to wet under the tap.
Dom watched Billy cover his face with the dripping paper. “That’s why I let you stew all day,” he said, quietly.
Billy breathed a hitching sigh.
“Come on, Bills. Let’s get out of here.”
Billy nodded, towels scrunching as he clenched his face in an effort to pull himself together.
Dom knew better than to touch him, so he stayed as far from him as he could bear, which was about three feet.
Billy straightened up at last and turned, following Dom out the door. Dom signalled the bartender and paid the tab, leaving the large tip that had endeared him to every restaurant and watering hole in Kailua. He headed towards the parking lot, receiving the customary waves and ‘goodnights’ from the regulars on the way.
When they reached the Prius, Dom started to open his door when he felt a squeeze on his arm. “You’re not driving anywhere, Bill.”
“I know that, you daft git. I just wanted to say thanks.”
Dom sighed and turned and Billy was in his arms and he was kissing Billy’s hair and pulling back to hold Billy by the shoulders and smile into his eyes. “You’re welcome. Now let’s go home, yeah?”
“Good. I have ’ae pish...”
Dom shook his head as Billy got into the car. “Good thing home’s only three minutes away.”
Fifteen minutes later, Billy was seated on the sofa, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles on the coffee table. He was nursing a coffee, milkier than he’d normally take it, Dom noted as he sat next to him.
“Penny.”
“Gran died today.”
Dom’s jaw went slack.
“Well, yesterday, by now. Over there. I think.” Billy sighed and sipped his coffee. “Margaret rang me this morning. She passed in her sleep.”
Dom took the coffee from Billy’s shaking hand and set it down. “I’m so sorry, Bill,” he murmured as he took Billy in his arms.
Billy tensed, breath ragged.
“Hush, now. It’s just us. No-one’s looking.”
Billy tipped against Dom and let himself go, grasping handfuls of the orange t-shirt under his hands.
Dom held Billy close as he cried.
“I’d hoped and prayed she’d go this way. Peaceful, quiet... Don’t know why I’m so upset...”
“You weren’t expecting it.”
“She was over a hundred! You’d think I’d have been expecting it every day.”
“You never expect it,” said Dom, quietly, “even if you think you are.” He stared absently over Billy’s shoulder. “Remember when my Gran died?”
“Yeah.”
“She’d been ill for quite a while. And I knew when I left to start on Rings that she didn’t have long. I was all philosophical until Mum rang me with the news. Then I blubbed like a baby all over you.”
Billy pressed his face against Dom’s chest. “I remember,” he whispered through his tears.
“Well, then.”
Billy’s arms went around Dom, then, and they sat together until Billy had cried as much as he could bear.
Billy pulled away, pressing a hand to his eye, trying to regain control in the way that always made Dom’s heart ache. “She always wanted me to learn Gàidhlig. And I... I had enough trouble with English. I’m still rubbish with words.”
“If you were, we wouldn’t be friends,” said Dom. “And we certainly would never have been lovers.”
“You and your bloody tests,” laughed Billy, thickly, wiping his other eye.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” The question was quiet, desolate.
Billy looked down. “I meant to,” he said, at last. “At first, I just couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. Then Ali rang.” He fell silent.
“Is she all right?”
“Oh, she’s quite all right. The morning sickness is a bit much, though.”
“Morning-Billy! You’re going to have a baby?”
“Looks like it. Well, Ali is.”
“You’re going to be a dad! Congratulations, mate!” Dom threw his arms around Billy and kissed him loudly on the cheek.
Billy returned the embrace, smiling but a bit hesitant.
“When’s the little bloke due?”
“It might be a girl, you know.”
“With you? Nonsense! God wouldn’t be that nice to you,” grinned Dom, pulling back. “When, Bill?”
“Late April.”
“Fuck! I’ll still be tied up in Lost.”
“We’ll hold the Christening till you can come.”
“You’re on! What else did she have to say?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
Dom’s eyes narrowed. “If that were all, you’d have told me at least that much, earlier.”
Billy stood, picking up his coffee. “I’m going ’ae heat this up,” he said, wall slamming down as his mouth curled up in a smile. “You want anything?”
Dom sighed and shook his head.
Billy made his way to the microwave, a troubled look escaping the corner of his eye.
Dom waited until Billy was out of sight before putting his face in his hands, squeezing his eyes shut and running his fingers through the hair of his crown. What next? he thought, scrunching his face against the heels of his hands.
“She told me that you and I should be lovers while I’m here,” said Billy from the kitchen.
Dom was just falling off the sofa when he hit his knee hard on the coffee table. “Fucking sodding bollocking HELL!”
“That’s not exactly how I thought you’d react.”
“That’s because you didn’t take into account the fact that your news would fucking kill my knees, you sodding bastard!”
Dom was still bent over his knees when Billy returned, carrying his coffee and a plastic bag filled with ice, which he pushed into Dom’s hands. “Sorry about that.”
Dom glared at him, but bit his tongue until the pain had eased, some. “Bills, the hormones have got to her, haven’t they? I mean, she was the reason we-” He lowered his eyes.
“The reason I broke it off,” supplied Billy, quietly.
“Yeah...”
“Yeah... It was. And it was what she wanted, too. But now, she says she’d rather I was happy. And she’s not sure she’s going to be feeling much like doing anything whilst she’s pregnant.” Billy took a slow sip of his coffee.
“So I’ve been cleared as the substitute shag,” murmured Dom.
Billy winced. “I told her you wouldn’t take too well to that.”
“You were right,” said Dom, rising from the couch and limping to the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of milk and bent over the counter, mercifully out of Billy’s sight. “It took me a long time to get over you, Bill,” he said, low enough not to be heard. He pulled himself up and returned to the lounge.
“Now you see why I avoided you all day,” said Billy, ruefully.
Dom sat down again on the couch, a fraction further away from Billy than he had been before. “Yes, I suppose I can. I probably would have done the same, in your shoes.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You’d have told me straight away, regardless of the risk.”
“Maybe... Yeah, probably.” He swallowed some milk. “Never really did mind out for that sort of thing.”
“One of the things I love about you,” said Billy into his coffee.
Dom nearly snorted the milk out of its glass. “One of the things you always wanted to kill me for, more like,” he scoffed.
“True enough. Especially when I was so busy trying to prove I didn’t want to sleep with a bloke.” Billy drank some more of his coffee and kept his eyes on a knot in the coffee table. “We don’t have to do anything, Dom. But you wanted to know.”
“I did, at that.” Dom finished his milk and took the glass back to the kitchen to rinse. He smiled at the lizard crawling across the windowsill and watched as it picked off a housefly. “Good on ya, mate,” he said, setting the glass in the dishwasher.
“It took me a long time to get over you, as well,” said Billy from just behind Dom’s shoulder.
Dom jumped, making the lizard run like lightning for the tear in the screen. “Christ! When did you start moving like a Hobbit? All silent and scaring people like that?” Then he registered what Billy had said. “I didn’t know that,” he murmured.
“I’ve been a right tit,” sighed Billy. “To you and Ali, both. I don’t deserve either of you, and I’ve got both of ye. You as a friend, her as a lover and the future mother of my child.”
Something dropped out of the bottom of Dom. “It’s because you’re adorable,” he managed, letting a smile creep across his face.
“So I’ve been told.” Billy slipped an arm around Dom’s back. “Look, Dom... even if you don’t want to do anything, I still love you. Nothing’ll change that.”
Dom trembled under Billy’s arm. “What happens when she decides she’s had enough of you fucking your best mate and we have to break it off again?”
“I told her that if I were to take her up on her suggestion, I couldn’t do that to you. Or to me. Then I offered to let her retract it.”
“What did she say?”
“After I heard-yes, actually heard-her eyes roll right into the back of her head, she told me that the only person in the world who hadn’t already figured this out was me, and that it was about bloody time I came to my senses. Then she told me that I should let her know whether or not you were coming with me to Gran’s funeral in three days.”
Dom turned towards Billy, head spinning. “Do you want me to go?” Was that all you could manage? Pillock!
“I’d love it if you would,” confessed Billy, voice low.
“Then I’ll go,” said Dom. “And I’ll refrain from kissing you too much.”
“You can kiss me all you want, mo solus,” said Billy, thickly. “Maybe not in public, but then, I don’t even let Ali do that.”
“I know you don’t, Bill,” said Dom, with equal difficulty, and then he found himself enveloped in Billy’s arms, lips pressed to lips, tongues touching and twining for the first time in four years. “Billy...”
And then, Billy was holding him, rocking him, murmuring words of comfort to him as he heard himself crying in the distance.
Translations:
Gaolach: Loving, beloved or fond
Pòg mo thòin: Kiss my arse
Gàidhlig: Scots Gaelic
Thalla 's cagainn bruis: Get lost! (Literally, ‘Away and chew a brush!’)
Dìreach: Exactly
Cum do theanga ablaich gun fheum: Shut up, you idiot!
Thalla gu Taigh na Galla: Go to Hell! (Literally, ‘Away to the house of the bitch!’)
Mo Chreach: Goddamn it! (Literally, ‘My ruin!’)
Mo solus: My light
Author: Blackbird Song
Pairing: DM/BB; Billy/Ali implied
Rating: R (language)
Warnings: Angst; H/C; Language(s)
Disclaimer: A load of old codswallop. No money is made, no disrespect intended.
Requests: Monaboyd: We hear all the time about Dom speaking German. Let's have Billy speaking Gaelic. Bonus points if he's drunk while doing so. [Request by dreality]
Billy/Dominic: hurt/comfort (physical or otherwise) Many extra credit points for crying. [Request by sockers]
A/N: This fic satisfied two requests in one go, so I have taken that way out, here. If sockers is not happy with this, or if this is not allowed, I shall write a different story, but it will take a few days. Many thanks to thuri for the very speedy beta. Please note that I do not know the exact year of Billy's grandmother's death, only that it did not occur before late 2003. E.T.A.: My heartfelt thanks to msilverstar for telling me of the interview in which Billy said that his grandmother died before the first movie came out, so she never got a chance tot see it. That makes this story very much an AU.
Translations for the Gaelic can be found at the end of the story.
“Bills?”
“What?”
“Say something in Gaelic to me.”
“Pòg mo thòin.”
“Something that isn’t known by every Tom, Dick and Harry, and their dogs.”
Billy took a long pull on his beer before setting the glass down next to the five he’d already drained. “Don’t know any sodding Gàidhlig, do I?”
“Yes, you do. You curse in it in your sleep.”
“We don’t sleep together, you great tit!”
“Yeah, but I hear you in the guestroom at night when I listen at your door.”
“Thalla 's cagainn bruis,” said Billy.
“And what’s that mean, when it’s at home?”
“Get stuffed.”
“All right, all right, keep your hair on,” said Dom.
“No, that’s what it means.”
“Oh, well, that’s all ri-Oi!”
“You wanted me to say something to you in Gay-lick, as you put it.”
“Should’ve known you’d swear at me,” muttered Dom.
“Bloody right, you should! Besides, that’s the extent of my knowledge of Gàidhlig.
“Why do you call it Gallic?”
“Because that’s how it’s pronounced, you daft bastard!”
“Then what’s the ‘e’ doing there?”
Billy downed a good third of the seventh glass of beer and glared at Dom. “Because the English scholars misread its spelling and decided to simplify it,” he said in his best RP, “so that their arrogant sodding populace could pronounce it prop’ly.”
Dom pushed an eighth glass of beer subtly in his direction. “Yeah, we can be a bit stupid, can’t we?”
“Dìreach! Eg-bloody-zactly,” said Billy, glaring at his beer. “Bloody Sassenachs.”
“I thought your gran taught you some Gael- Gallic,” prompted Dom.
“She did, a bit,” admitted Billy, swallowing the last of the seventh beer. “Mostly songs, until she thought I was getting a bit too interested in music.”
“What sort of songs?”
“Cum do theanga ablaich gun fheum,” muttered Billy, unclear whether he was talking to Dom or himself. “Gàidhlig songs, of course.” He started on the eighth beer.
“Sing me one,” said Dom, quietly.
“I don’t sing on request,” said Billy, tense despite the alcohol.
“For me?”
“Thalla gu Taigh na Galla!”
“I take it you’re refusing...”
“I’m telling you to go to bloody hell!” Billy stumbled off the barstool and headed for the men’s room, leaving Dom to ponder the day so far.
His mate often needed privacy and time alone, but he’d barely shown his face over the past day and Dom was concerned that he’d had to track him down at the local in order to have any time with him. He waited for Billy to return. The fact that it was beer, rather than whisky, meant that Billy meant to be slowly drunk. It meant that he needed to curse and whine and get something off his chest, something he couldn’t say without benefit of alcohol. He took a pull on his cola and went outside for a smoke.
When he returned to the bar, Billy had not come back. Dom sighed and made his way to the bog. Opening the door, he was bumped aside by a man hurrying out, muttering something that included the words ‘fucking queer’ that set Dom’s teeth on edge. The loo was deserted, but for the distinctive noise coming from the stall on the end.
“Billy?”
The noise stopped.
“Bill, I know you’re in there.”
“Piss off!”
“You don’t sound very convincing, mate.”
“Dom, please, just go away.”
Dom opened the door to the stall. “You would’ve locked this, if you really didn’t want me to find you,” he said, gently.
Billy was sitting on the closed seat of the toilet, eyes red and wet, breath hitching. “Mo Chreach,” he swore, barely above a whisper. “Why did you have to come looking for me?”
“I was worried you might have fallen in,” said Dom, still standing at the entrance to the stall.
“Wanker! I meant tonight. Why did you have to come looking for me tonight? Couldn’t you see I wanted to be alone?” Billy looked up at him, face more stripped and raw than Dom had ever seen.
“I saw you wanted that, but I worried that you were in some sort of trouble. You haven’t spoken two words to me since you took that call on your mobile at breakfast. I couldn’t just let you stew all day and all night, as well.”
Billy made a vicious swipe at the toilet paper, tearing off a wad and mashing it against his eyes. “What if I need to do that? Didn’t you ever think of that?” He stood up and pushed past Dom to the sink, tossing the paper in the bin and ripping paper towels from the dispenser to wet under the tap.
Dom watched Billy cover his face with the dripping paper. “That’s why I let you stew all day,” he said, quietly.
Billy breathed a hitching sigh.
“Come on, Bills. Let’s get out of here.”
Billy nodded, towels scrunching as he clenched his face in an effort to pull himself together.
Dom knew better than to touch him, so he stayed as far from him as he could bear, which was about three feet.
Billy straightened up at last and turned, following Dom out the door. Dom signalled the bartender and paid the tab, leaving the large tip that had endeared him to every restaurant and watering hole in Kailua. He headed towards the parking lot, receiving the customary waves and ‘goodnights’ from the regulars on the way.
When they reached the Prius, Dom started to open his door when he felt a squeeze on his arm. “You’re not driving anywhere, Bill.”
“I know that, you daft git. I just wanted to say thanks.”
Dom sighed and turned and Billy was in his arms and he was kissing Billy’s hair and pulling back to hold Billy by the shoulders and smile into his eyes. “You’re welcome. Now let’s go home, yeah?”
“Good. I have ’ae pish...”
Dom shook his head as Billy got into the car. “Good thing home’s only three minutes away.”
Fifteen minutes later, Billy was seated on the sofa, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles on the coffee table. He was nursing a coffee, milkier than he’d normally take it, Dom noted as he sat next to him.
“Penny.”
“Gran died today.”
Dom’s jaw went slack.
“Well, yesterday, by now. Over there. I think.” Billy sighed and sipped his coffee. “Margaret rang me this morning. She passed in her sleep.”
Dom took the coffee from Billy’s shaking hand and set it down. “I’m so sorry, Bill,” he murmured as he took Billy in his arms.
Billy tensed, breath ragged.
“Hush, now. It’s just us. No-one’s looking.”
Billy tipped against Dom and let himself go, grasping handfuls of the orange t-shirt under his hands.
Dom held Billy close as he cried.
“I’d hoped and prayed she’d go this way. Peaceful, quiet... Don’t know why I’m so upset...”
“You weren’t expecting it.”
“She was over a hundred! You’d think I’d have been expecting it every day.”
“You never expect it,” said Dom, quietly, “even if you think you are.” He stared absently over Billy’s shoulder. “Remember when my Gran died?”
“Yeah.”
“She’d been ill for quite a while. And I knew when I left to start on Rings that she didn’t have long. I was all philosophical until Mum rang me with the news. Then I blubbed like a baby all over you.”
Billy pressed his face against Dom’s chest. “I remember,” he whispered through his tears.
“Well, then.”
Billy’s arms went around Dom, then, and they sat together until Billy had cried as much as he could bear.
Billy pulled away, pressing a hand to his eye, trying to regain control in the way that always made Dom’s heart ache. “She always wanted me to learn Gàidhlig. And I... I had enough trouble with English. I’m still rubbish with words.”
“If you were, we wouldn’t be friends,” said Dom. “And we certainly would never have been lovers.”
“You and your bloody tests,” laughed Billy, thickly, wiping his other eye.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” The question was quiet, desolate.
Billy looked down. “I meant to,” he said, at last. “At first, I just couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. Then Ali rang.” He fell silent.
“Is she all right?”
“Oh, she’s quite all right. The morning sickness is a bit much, though.”
“Morning-Billy! You’re going to have a baby?”
“Looks like it. Well, Ali is.”
“You’re going to be a dad! Congratulations, mate!” Dom threw his arms around Billy and kissed him loudly on the cheek.
Billy returned the embrace, smiling but a bit hesitant.
“When’s the little bloke due?”
“It might be a girl, you know.”
“With you? Nonsense! God wouldn’t be that nice to you,” grinned Dom, pulling back. “When, Bill?”
“Late April.”
“Fuck! I’ll still be tied up in Lost.”
“We’ll hold the Christening till you can come.”
“You’re on! What else did she have to say?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
Dom’s eyes narrowed. “If that were all, you’d have told me at least that much, earlier.”
Billy stood, picking up his coffee. “I’m going ’ae heat this up,” he said, wall slamming down as his mouth curled up in a smile. “You want anything?”
Dom sighed and shook his head.
Billy made his way to the microwave, a troubled look escaping the corner of his eye.
Dom waited until Billy was out of sight before putting his face in his hands, squeezing his eyes shut and running his fingers through the hair of his crown. What next? he thought, scrunching his face against the heels of his hands.
“She told me that you and I should be lovers while I’m here,” said Billy from the kitchen.
Dom was just falling off the sofa when he hit his knee hard on the coffee table. “Fucking sodding bollocking HELL!”
“That’s not exactly how I thought you’d react.”
“That’s because you didn’t take into account the fact that your news would fucking kill my knees, you sodding bastard!”
Dom was still bent over his knees when Billy returned, carrying his coffee and a plastic bag filled with ice, which he pushed into Dom’s hands. “Sorry about that.”
Dom glared at him, but bit his tongue until the pain had eased, some. “Bills, the hormones have got to her, haven’t they? I mean, she was the reason we-” He lowered his eyes.
“The reason I broke it off,” supplied Billy, quietly.
“Yeah...”
“Yeah... It was. And it was what she wanted, too. But now, she says she’d rather I was happy. And she’s not sure she’s going to be feeling much like doing anything whilst she’s pregnant.” Billy took a slow sip of his coffee.
“So I’ve been cleared as the substitute shag,” murmured Dom.
Billy winced. “I told her you wouldn’t take too well to that.”
“You were right,” said Dom, rising from the couch and limping to the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of milk and bent over the counter, mercifully out of Billy’s sight. “It took me a long time to get over you, Bill,” he said, low enough not to be heard. He pulled himself up and returned to the lounge.
“Now you see why I avoided you all day,” said Billy, ruefully.
Dom sat down again on the couch, a fraction further away from Billy than he had been before. “Yes, I suppose I can. I probably would have done the same, in your shoes.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You’d have told me straight away, regardless of the risk.”
“Maybe... Yeah, probably.” He swallowed some milk. “Never really did mind out for that sort of thing.”
“One of the things I love about you,” said Billy into his coffee.
Dom nearly snorted the milk out of its glass. “One of the things you always wanted to kill me for, more like,” he scoffed.
“True enough. Especially when I was so busy trying to prove I didn’t want to sleep with a bloke.” Billy drank some more of his coffee and kept his eyes on a knot in the coffee table. “We don’t have to do anything, Dom. But you wanted to know.”
“I did, at that.” Dom finished his milk and took the glass back to the kitchen to rinse. He smiled at the lizard crawling across the windowsill and watched as it picked off a housefly. “Good on ya, mate,” he said, setting the glass in the dishwasher.
“It took me a long time to get over you, as well,” said Billy from just behind Dom’s shoulder.
Dom jumped, making the lizard run like lightning for the tear in the screen. “Christ! When did you start moving like a Hobbit? All silent and scaring people like that?” Then he registered what Billy had said. “I didn’t know that,” he murmured.
“I’ve been a right tit,” sighed Billy. “To you and Ali, both. I don’t deserve either of you, and I’ve got both of ye. You as a friend, her as a lover and the future mother of my child.”
Something dropped out of the bottom of Dom. “It’s because you’re adorable,” he managed, letting a smile creep across his face.
“So I’ve been told.” Billy slipped an arm around Dom’s back. “Look, Dom... even if you don’t want to do anything, I still love you. Nothing’ll change that.”
Dom trembled under Billy’s arm. “What happens when she decides she’s had enough of you fucking your best mate and we have to break it off again?”
“I told her that if I were to take her up on her suggestion, I couldn’t do that to you. Or to me. Then I offered to let her retract it.”
“What did she say?”
“After I heard-yes, actually heard-her eyes roll right into the back of her head, she told me that the only person in the world who hadn’t already figured this out was me, and that it was about bloody time I came to my senses. Then she told me that I should let her know whether or not you were coming with me to Gran’s funeral in three days.”
Dom turned towards Billy, head spinning. “Do you want me to go?” Was that all you could manage? Pillock!
“I’d love it if you would,” confessed Billy, voice low.
“Then I’ll go,” said Dom. “And I’ll refrain from kissing you too much.”
“You can kiss me all you want, mo solus,” said Billy, thickly. “Maybe not in public, but then, I don’t even let Ali do that.”
“I know you don’t, Bill,” said Dom, with equal difficulty, and then he found himself enveloped in Billy’s arms, lips pressed to lips, tongues touching and twining for the first time in four years. “Billy...”
And then, Billy was holding him, rocking him, murmuring words of comfort to him as he heard himself crying in the distance.
Translations:
Gaolach: Loving, beloved or fond
Pòg mo thòin: Kiss my arse
Gàidhlig: Scots Gaelic
Thalla 's cagainn bruis: Get lost! (Literally, ‘Away and chew a brush!’)
Dìreach: Exactly
Cum do theanga ablaich gun fheum: Shut up, you idiot!
Thalla gu Taigh na Galla: Go to Hell! (Literally, ‘Away to the house of the bitch!’)
Mo Chreach: Goddamn it! (Literally, ‘My ruin!’)
Mo solus: My light