Fic: Misdirection, Monaboyd
Fic: Misdirection
Author: Nakanna Lee
Pairing: Monaboyd
Rating: PG-13 for language
Summary: Takes place 2006. Dom and Billy reconnect and Dom has something new he wants to show off.
A/N: purridotgave the one-word promt that this fic shares as its title. <3 This was very fun to write, hon, thanks for the creative spark!
“You’re looking splendidly pixel-y today, Dom.”
There was a pause with delayed reactions as the message was sent, shot up from Glasgow and fired halfway across the world to where it landed in sunny Honolulu.
Or at least, it would have been sunny had it not been raining. The video on Billy’s laptop showed Dom sitting cross-legged on a navy blue foldout chair. Above him, a white tarp undulated and blurry sheets of water fell behind and darkened the sand.
Dom poked the camera, grinning. His finger momentarily took up the entire screen.
“Same to you, mate. Hey, I get to trouble you for longer today since this rain’s started up. Can you hear it? There’s been some mad thunder as well. Swells should be perfect later, if the storm stays out at sea long enough.”
Billy propped his bare feet up on another kitchen chair beside him. He considered Ali and the baby sleeping upstairs and then tentatively put the volume louder so Dom’s voice filled the room. Besides the eleven-hour time difference, the only trouble with video chatting was the hesitation-he missed talking with Dom in person, when their sentences could overlap and mesh with one another’s. This was much choppier.
The advantage was getting to speak, in ways, face-to-face. Phones couldn’t do that.
“You look good, Dom,” Billy said. He did. The beard suited him. At the moment he wore another supposedly fashionable t-shirt with an alligator of some sort on it; written across was some inane phrase that Billy couldn’t make out.
“And you look tired. How’s the baby, keeping you up?”
“Sleeping for the time being,” Billy replied, then smiled because Dom was beaming at him. It still amazed him that-after everything-Dom had never once expressed jealousy. Billy wasn’t quite sure he deserved that fondness, but he was more than grateful for it.
“Hey, I have to show you something,” Dom broke in suddenly. He grinned widely, the kind of smile that encompassed his whole face and drew out all the laughter lines. He was young for having so many. “Ready? I’m going to blow your mind right now.”
A bit of a giggle broke from Billy’s mouth. He leaned in to the screen. “Are you now?”
From his pocket, Dom unearthed a small, red-and-blue swirled object. He held it between his thumb and forefinger, then let it roll down his fingers and around in his palm.
“A bouncy ball?” Billy asked.
“Out of one of those twenty-five cent machine, yeah.”
“That’s you, lad, Mr. Save M’Money.”
Dom tossed the ball from one hand to the other.
“I learned a magic trick,” he said happily. “You sit around, you know, hours on end here-it’s not like New Zealand, not like we’re running around pranking people in our spare time. Usually I’m hanging out knackered in a trailer or napping on the beach, right? So somebody started doing magic tricks the other day and I figured I’d master the art myself.”
“D’you have a name?”
“What?”
“D’you have a performance name? You need one, that’s a given, Dom.”
“Meriadoc the Magnificent.”
“Copyrighted, I believe.”
“All right, I appoint you as my manager, and as my manager, it’s your responsibility to work that out for me. Yeah?”
“I want fifteen percent minimum.”
“How’s ten percent and tea breaks? Don’t get tea breaks in Hawaii, it’s real sad actually.”
“Bugger. And don’t change the subject. I want ten percent, tea breaks, and access to all your shirts.”
“You don’t wear my shirts.”
“Exactly. I seem to recall you won’t let me. But it is too entertaining to see you get pissed when a couple go missing.”
“You strike a hard deal, my fair friend. But all right, agreed. Ten, tea, and shirts.” Dom settled back in the chair, sitting high. He picked the bouncy ball back up between his fingers and held it in front of his chest. “Now, watch and be amazed.”
Billy smiled. “Is it going to disappear?”
“Wait for it!” Dom interrupted. “The audience should be fashioning awe and wonder in silence.”
“Sorry, let me try again.” He made a face. “This good?”
“You look like you’re about to shit yourself.”
Billy burst out laughing, which sent Dom off too. After a moment he gathered himself, shaking out his shoulders, and made a great show of putting the ball back in his palm.
“Just an ordinary rubber ball, right? No tricks, no illusions. Right before your eyes, I will make it-vanish.” He gestured flamboyantly with his free left hand, wiggling his ring-covered fingers, and Billy chuckled again and rested his hands on his knees for something to touch. Usually right about now he’d be touching Dom.
“What’re you doing?”
Dom sighed as if in trial. “It’s all about misdirection,” he said. “The more involved you are in the little side things I’m doing, the less attention you’re paying to the bouncy ball.”
“All right...”
“That’s the primary reason,” Dom insisted, as he switched the ball to his left hand now, “why a magician’s always got a hot assistant. You put a pretty girl alongside you to distract the audience-just enough so that they don’t catch the slide of hand.”
“I believe that’s sleight of hand, Dom, and I hate to inform you, but you don’t seem to have any pretty girls on hand.” That was a lie but he ignored it, perking up bright-eyed instead. “I could call Liv for you.”
“Or we could just find you a kilt and stick you up here.”
“Ah, yes, but then I’m no longer part of the audience, am I? And you specifically requested that I sit here and endure-ah, enjoy-your talented magic skills.”
“Guess I’ll just have to be bloody amazing then.”
Billy grinned contentedly at a bit more of Dom’s accent coming through. Up until now, he’d sounded flat, as if too much time in America had taken sandpaper and shaved down all the lilt to his voice. The opposite had been true for Billy: he’d been drifting back further into his home speech, especially now that he’d settled down in Lesmahagow and all the little details of the language were around to be picked up again.
Dom tossed the ball back into his right hand and started tossing it upwards into the air. “Watch closely.”
“But not too closely,” Billy added.
Dom grinned. He tossed it another time, this time higher so it rose beyond the video screen momentarily before coming down; then he asked, “So, been watching Lost?”
“Starting to sound less like misdirection and more like self-promotion, you are.” He earned another smile from Dom, which he mentally pocketed for the rest of the night. “Course I’ve been. Seems my favorite junkie has had a rather up-and-down time with his girlfriend and, what’s his name, Turnip-head.”
“S’not entirely my girlfriend. Though we might get some tongue action later on.”
“Never,” Billy said. “Charlie and Claire are the cutesy innocent touchstones for the Island. Maybe a kiss. Maybe. But it will be a light one.” Billy cut off saying anymore before he started to sound jealous.
Dom paused from tossing the ball. “Very perceptive of you, mate,” he said slowly with a grin, then resumed throwing.
“And I like this Desmond character,” Billy added, despite himself. “I say Charlie should start taking it up with him. Charlie needs a good Scot to hang about... Say, Dom, are you ever going to do anything magical with that bouncy ball?”
“Yep.” He tossed it upwards with each word. “Right. About. Now-”
Suddenly he was waiting for it to come down, and it never did. Billy bit back a laugh and tried to look impressed as Dom “frantically” searched the sky.
“Bloody hell! Where did it go? D’you see that, mate? Just disappeared!”
“You never threw it. It’s still in your hand, Dom.” At the pouting look he received, Billy saved it, clapping histrionically: “I mean, aye, fantastic! You leave me completely puzzled, Meriadoc the Magnificent. Encore, I say, encore!”
“Fine,” Dom said, voice rising lightly as if snobbish and unconcerned. The corners of his lips twitched. “You know, just fuck you. No respect for all the hard work I put in...”
Billy laughed and Dom grinned back, letting the bouncy ball fall from his hands and wind up in the sand somewhere below the screen.
“I was even going to reach behind your ear and make it reappear,” Dom added.
“Reach behind my ear?” Billy said, amused.
“Well, yeah. I just would have put my hand around the camera like this.” He laughed.
“Save it for another show then. And I promise not to give you the piss next time. But only if you’re better.”
“I think this trick was my one off. You’ve wounded my spirit.”
“Aye, have I? Oh sorry, Dommie, you know I didn’t mean it.”
“That’s what you always say.”
They looked at each other for a moment, smiling, and the time difference seemed to extend the length of their gaze. Billy’s smile faded for an instant.
“When do I get to see you?” he asked.
By then the Hawaiian rain had lessened to a slow drip. Dom stayed on for a few more minutes before being called back on-set for a jungle-tracking scene. Billy kept the computer on for a moment and sat in silence in the kitchen. Then he gathered himself, shutting it down and returning upstairs in his new direction.
end