Stood Up (1/1)
Title: Stood Up (1/1)
Rating: PG-15?
Description: teen!muse. Matt Bellamy has been stood up for his first date...but why does that lead to him climb through his best friend's bedroom window (and on a school night!)?
Pairing: belldom
Feedback: It's up to you!
Note: Thank you to the kind people who expressed their enthusiasm over this little thing. I hope it does not disappoint.
“Dom. Dom. Dommy! Wake up, mate! Someone’s nicked your CD collection!”
Dominic Howard woke with a start. He sat upright in bed, his tangled blond hair whipping across his sleepy grey eyes, and immediately smacked his forehead into something warm and hard. As his hand shot up to cup his throbbing forehead, he heard the voice from before cry out: “Fuck! Ow!”
Dom pushed his hair away from his face and found that when he sat up in bed, he had smacked right into the awkward, bulbous nose of his best mate, Matthew Bellamy, with his forehead.
“W-what?” asked Dom, pushing at Matt with the other hand. Confused, he looked around his bedroom, unsure how Matt had gotten into his room in the middle of the night--until he found his bedroom window pushed halfway open. “You climbed through my window? At three in the fucking morning? On a Wednesday?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Matt confessed, his whiskey soaked breath hitting Dom in the face. The smaller boy was wedged between Dom’s hip and the wall, his body so narrow he fit easily into the small space.
Dom winced at the smell of alcohol that belched from his best friend’s mouth and flopped down onto his bed, stretching his arms over his head and grabbing the headboard with both hands. “You couldn’t sleep?” he asked. “Why, because you were too busy drinking a fucking liquor cabinet?”
There was a tiny giggle and then Matt was awkwardly atop of him, his lithe body now straddling Dom’s bare knees. It didn’t really bother him, the physical closeness he and Matt were currently sharing. They had always enjoyed a strange physical relationship full of hugs and play fights and dramatic kisses on the cheek. It had earned them a good bit of teasing from friends and bullies alike, but their friendship was special, they knew it, and saw no reason to change their behavior.
“Let me get this straight,” Dom said, staring up at his forearms instead of at the boy sitting almost on his lap, “you’re pissed up, sitting on my knees, at half three in the morning on a school night. You’d better have a good explanation for this, you fucking tosser, or I’m going to beat the hell out of you.”
Matt didn’t answer. Instead, the pale boy’s spindly fingers fanned out on Dom’s belly. When the fingers began to tremble unsteadily, as if struggling with the responsibility of holding in a groundswell of emotions, Dom reached for Matt. He wound one hand around a bony shoulder and gently pulled his friend toward him. Matt pressed his face against Dom’s shoulder, and Dom’s fingers naturally found their way into his best mate’s dark hair.
“Matty, what is it?” Dom asked. He pulled on Matt’s shoulder until Matt lay down next to him, settling again into the tiny gap between Dom’s body and the wall, where he had rested before. “I thought you were going out with the girl from our maths class tonight. Aren’t you in the wrong bed?”
Matt exhaled, his breath shaky and hot on Dom’s shoulder. “I thought I was going out tonight, too. She never showed up.”
“What?” Dom asked, surprised. He turned his head on the pillow to peer at Matt, staring through the silver moonlight at the sharp features of his friend’s face.
“I got stood up,” Matt admitted after a long pause. His voice cracked, then, and Dom knew Matt was trying nobly not to cry.
Dom moved his fingers softly through the dark curtain of Matt’s shoulder-length hair. When he pulled his fingers through, he returned to the scalp to rub idle circles and swirls upon the skin in a way he hoped Matt found comforting. “That fucking cunt. ‘m sorry, Matt. You might be an obnoxious, bossy little fuck, but you don’t deserve to be stood up.”
Matt hummed thickly, as though he was choking on the wetness in his throat, and pressed his head against Dom’s palm.
“Is there something wrong with me, Dom? I know I’m not cute like you--” Matt began, his voice thready and vulnerable.
“--I’m not cute!” Dom interjected with a derisive snort.
“--and I know I’m a pain in the arse, but am I that awful?” Matt finished, having ignored Dom’s interruption in the middle of his statement.
Dom gave Matt’s foot a playful kick, hoping a bit of fun would bring Matt out of his funk, but when Matt didn’t laugh, he frowned. This wasn’t like Matt--Matt was often a bundle of hormones, they all were, but Matt usually didn’t lie at Dom’s side, fighting off the tears that gathered in his eyes.
Slowly, with special care not to jostle Matt, Dom turned onto his side and rested a hand on Matt’s chest, right atop his heart. He felt the pace of Matt’s heart speed up, and Dom refused to let himself wonder for even an instant what it meant. He pushed his growing questions, and the growing hum in his belly, aside.
“No. You’re not awful, Matt. I promise you.” You’re skinny and your feet smell like rubbish, but you’re not awful. She’s a stupid bint and she doesn’t deserve you. Alright?”
Dom leaned in, his hair now brushing the top of Matt’s right arm. He looked first at Matt’s collarbone and then up to meet the brunet’s shining blue eyes. His thumb itched, practically burned, to brush away the tear that sluiced boldly along Matt’s cheekbone. He wanted to bring Matt some comfort, but he hesitated and instead pressed his thumb into the pillow next to Matt’s head.
Matt suddenly exhaled and pushed his limbs out, narrowly missing Dom’s eye. Wincing, Dom drew back, but bony fingers wound around his wrist and kept him from pulling too far away.
“Dom...” Matt whispered, his voice thin and reedy with emotion. “Dom...then why didn’t she show up tonight?”
Dom couldn’t give an answer, so he shook his head. A lock of dark hair fell across the side of Matt’s face and Dom gently pushed it aside and tucked it behind Matt’s ear. He let his fingers rest behind Matt’s ear and Matt held tighter to his wrist, the grip so tight it threatened to snuff out his circulation.
“I broke the lock on Nan’s liquor cupboard and drank a few of the bottles in the back, the ones I didn’t think she’d notice had gone missing,” Matt began out of the blue, “I thought getting pissed would make me feel better. It didn’t.”
“I bet not.” Dom gave a soft snort of disapproval. Matt had obviously cleared out a bit of the liquor cupboard, but not enough to be so pissed that he was vomiting a rainbow of liquor all over the bedroom floor, as was the norm.
“Dom, Dom, listen!” Matt squawked, waving around the one hand not locked around Dom’s wrist. “Dom, I’m here because you make me feel better. You make me laugh. You don’t take the piss when I’m down. You always know...what to say. What to do. You, Dom, you’re--”
Matt paused, and Dom found himself holding his breath as Matt’s electric blue eyes darted back and forth as though he was searching for something in Dom’s face. His tongue darted out between his lips, the simple action making Dom’s stomach tumble. Before Dom’s brain could fully process what was happening before his eyes, Matt had leaned forward and pressed their mouths together.
Dom held perfectly still, not blinking or breathing, until Matt drew back. When their lips no longer touched, words of confusion tumbled forth from Dom’s mouth: “Did you just kiss me?”
“Yes,” Matt replied without hesitation.
Dom nodded, trying to square it with himself that his best friend had, indeed, just kissed him. Matt Bellamy had just kissed him. They had never, ever crossed that invisible barrier before, and now that they had, Dom was floundering. "Right then. Why did you just kiss me?”
“I wanted to,” said Matt. He dropped Dom’s wrist and pressed a long, pale finger to Dom’s bottom lip. “You’ve got lips like a girl...but kissing you wasn’t like kissing a girl.”
“What was it like?” Dom croaked, his lips dancing against Matt’s finger.
Matt giggled. “You were there, weren’t you?” He shrugged and then smiled brilliantly at Dom, his awkward front tooth peeking out from behind his top lip. “It was like kissing you. I don’t know. But I liked it.”
Dom blushed, the heat turning his cheeks as red as apples. He was happy that Matt liked kissing him, even if he couldn’t yet understand why that knowledge made him so happy. In a voice so low and soft it was almost a mumble, he said, “I liked it, too.”
“Want to do it again?” Matt asked as he stretched out next to Dom in the bed. “Just to make sure we both liked it?”
Dom nodded and leaned down so that their skinny bodies were flush. He leaned down and looked at Matt for a moment; he didn’t know when he’d ever seen Matt’s eyes burning so brightly, or when the smaller student’s lips had ever been so pink and swollen. He lowered a hand and cupped Matt’s cheek, just as he would for a bird, before bringing their lips together again. Their mouths met a few times, hesitantly, as if they were both learning the shape and taste of the other’s mouth.
“What are we doing?” Dom asked, looking down at Matt once again. “What does it mean?”
Matt covered Dom’s hand upon his cheek with his own hand and squeezed. “Does it matter what we’re doing, or what it means, as long as we like it?”
“No,” agreed Dom. He stole a peek at Matt’s swollen lips and felt desire, a new kind of need he’d never felt before, envelop his body. “Maybe one more kiss and then we sleep? We’ve got class in a few hours. I know you’ve got a geography exam, Matt.”
Dom gifted Matt with another kiss, this one wet and hungry. Matt came alive, mewing and scratching Dom’s chest, asking for more of the sticky contact, but Dom refused. Anything hotter and silkier would remove Dom’s lasts strands of self-control and lead them both down a path of unknown destination.
“Matt,” Dom whispered, pushing Matt away even as the brunet gently scratched his chest. “Sleep now.”
Matt made a soft noise and Dom easily imagined the look of annoyance on Matt’s face. With a soft laugh, Dom wriggled beneath the sheets and casually pulled Matt into his arms, just like had done on so many nights before--nights that never ended in a kiss, but perhaps should have.
“This doesn’t change anything, Dom,” Matt said, breaking the silence that had settled over them.
Dom nodded. “No, nothing changes, Matty. You needed...comfort. And I gave you that. And we’re still best mates and we always will be.”
“Even if we snog?” asked Matt, sounding more than somewhat hopeful.
Dom laughed. “Even if we snog--and even if we don’t--you’ll always be my best friend.” Matt didn’t respond, and Dom knew to wait patiently for a moment, and then his chatterbox best mate would speak again.
“I’m glad she stood me up,” Matt said through a yawn.
Dom leaned over, and in the darkness, found Matt’s lips one more time. “I am too, Matty. I am, too.”