A True Gentleman
Title: A True Gentleman (14/?)
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: PG-NC17
Warnings: AU, angst, art geekery
Summary: Uni fic.
Dom woke to the dull rhythmic cadence of the kick-wheel from downstairs. He stretched, having a bit of a scratch beneath the covers and palming himself. His eyes flicked up at the print above his headboard, swimming in the familiar colors, two people in a bed, upside down from this vantage point. Billy’s descriptions of it from the other day came back to him, the way his voice completely departed from the clipped hesitancy when he spoke about something he clearly loved.
He could still remember the smell of Billy, clean and musky and sort of spicy from his aftershave, and the way the hair on his chest was not nearly as rough as he’d thought it might be, but rather soft and crisp against his tongue…
Letting go of his cock with an exhale, he brought his hands back up above his head and ignored the insistence of his morning erection to continue on with that nice tha-thump tempo being set downstairs. He rolled out of bed and tugged on some loose flannels, quietly making his way to the bathroom to pee and splash his face with cool water.
Tuesdays were a late morning for all of them with no class until afternoon, and at Elijah’s half-open door he paused, taking in the sight of him spread-eagled on his belly across his bed, one foot hanging off the mattress and cord of his earbuds just shy of strangling him. Lij regularly fell asleep with them on, running his iPod’s battery all the way down most every night.
Orlando, on the other hand, had already been up for hours, going for his usual sunrise run and then coming home to work on the wheel. Dom lingered at the top of the stairs, watching him keep the speed and his hands smooth and steady-one of the few times Orli’s energy was contained and focused was when he was working the clay. Studying the lighting of the scene between the square of his fingers, he decided it was too late in the morning to get the camera and give this shot another go. He’d taken it dozens of times, occasionally even sat at the top of the stairs with his sketchbook, trying to capture the exact mood in the moment. Blanchett once told him dozens of artists worked this way, making the same piece over and over again. His father called it the sort of obsessive perfectionism inherent in a good architect and told him he ought to focus on something useful.
Heading downstairs, he checked out the small collection of clay offerings on the board this morning as Orlando’s mud-slick hands sculpted another. He’d long exhausted his repertoire of Ghost innuendos after a couple of years of this life, and so made his way to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of orange juice. Downing half the glass, he perused the fridge and pulled out the egg carton with cheese, green onions and some sausages, setting up and cracking several eggs in a bowl to make omelets.
By the time they were sizzling in the pan, Orli’d stopped the wheel spinning, examining the little pots he’d made, setting some on the drying rack and discarding one or two in the bucket of clay and water. He came into the kitchen to wash up.
It had become something of a ritual, this, the pottery clay and the Tuesday morning fry-up between he and Orli, who sat at the island bar as Dom slid a plate of food across to him, standing on the opposite side to eat his own. This was when they talked about nothing, and everything.
“So,” Orli started, shoveling egg in his mouth and flicking chestnut eyes up at him, “Billy, eh?”
“What about him?” Dom tried for nonchalance.
“I just noticed you haven’t been taking him to work since…”
…since the day came over, was how that sentence finished, along with since he left in a big damn hurry and since the tension between them had hit unbearable to a point where they’d gone right back to avoiding each other entirely. Dom went for a detached shrug, “I guess he’s taking the subway.”
Orli chewed thoughtfully and swallowed. “You suck at hiding it, mate.”
Dom rolled his eyes, spearing a bit of sausage.
“You do.”
“Or Elijah told you.”
“He didn’t,” Orli shook his head, then amended, “Well, yeah okay, he did, but I had you pegged ages before he figured it out.”
Dom shook his head with a disbelieving laugh, “Whatever.”
“Hey,” Orli set down his fork and ruffled Dom’s hair across the countertop, “I know that look you get. I’ve seen you point it at dozens of boys since it was me. And it’s been pretty rare when it goes on this long. And when you don’t tell us all about it.”
Dom sighed, looking across the flat, out the big windows, anywhere but back at Orli.
“It's just weird. He’s not your type.”
“How do you know what my type is?” Dom retorted.
“From your history, mate? Your type is cute, twinky, hunky, pretty, and straight nine times out of ten.” Orlando ducked as Dom threw a piece of onion at him.
It was true though, all the guys Dom generally tended to go for in the last few years-including Orli himself, Elijah, Garrett, even Jessie Barnes to name a few-all fell into a certain category that Billy just wasn’t even close to.
“Plus he’s old, he’s like ten years older than us.”
“He is not!” Dom blurted, and Orli’s grin went wide.
“He’s balding!”
“I don’t care!” Dom exclaimed, laughing as he pushed his empty plate away and leaned on his elbows on the worktop. Orlando’s eyes blazed through him, asking for more. Dom shrugged, “He’s different, that’s all. He’s not about looks because he’s looking elsewhere, you know? Like he gets in class when it’s obvious the piece he’s talking about is a favorite of his. He knows exactly what he’s working toward, where he wants his life to go. Like he’s on this big, bold straight line to get there.”
“So the thing that does it for you is that he’s a geeky self-absorbed worm?” Orlando teased.
“Doesn’t make him a worm. It’s passion. He’s got a plan in his head,” Dom argued, “Not like me. Mine’s just poking out in all directions. Little squiggly lines every which way.”
“Still doesn’t explain it,” Orli finished his own plate, folding his own arms on the counter and studying him with a smile, “Unless you’ve had this thing forever, and your little study dates and a long dry spell have irrevocably tweaked your judgement.”
“No,” Dom giggled half-heartedly, “Not forever. Not ‘til the study thing. It’s hard to spend that much time with a bloke and not learn things about him you didn’t know before, yeah? And anyway, he’s not bad looking. Especially when you get him out of those clothes.”
Orli’s face was nearly a burst of sunshine, “You got his kit off!?”
Dom grinned down at their empty plates, “Maybe.”
“Voluntarily?”
“Yeah,” Dom flinched guiltily. “I may have influenced him a little bit.”
“You made him pose for you, didn’t you,” Orlando swatted at his head. “You dog. It’s not gonna be my arse anymore.”
“No, I still like your arse, you’re not off the hook yet.”
“Seriously, what happened?” Orli pried.
“Ah… we were at his, and I kissed him again,” Dom scrubbed at his hair with a naughty grin, “And he sort of went a little berserk. In a really sexy way.”
Orli laughed incredulously, even as Dom looked at his friend more seriously, “I don’t know what’s going on with him, actually. I’ve no fucking idea what I’m doing anymore.”
Orli furrowed his brow in question, and Dom tried to elaborate, waving his hand vaguely, “One minute we’re having a friendly conversation and the next, he hates me. I kiss him, and I swear he’s into it, and then he avoids me for a week. And now this,” he shook his head. “I don’t have a clue what I’ve done wrong now.”
“Well, you drove him to work after his car bites the dust, and then shit escalates, and then you bring him over here, where me and Lij are arseholes because that’s what we do, and he’s avoiding you again?” Orli worked out with a shrug of his own. “I know what this is.”
Dom looked back up at him hopefully, and Orli grinned, “He’s all conflicted, mate. You’re confusing the fuck out of him.”
“That’s great. He’s confusing the fuck out of me,” Dom replied. “So what do I do?”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to get acquainted with his perky little arse,” Dom joked, then rubbed his stubbly jaw as he murmured the truth. “I want him to like me.”
“Then make him,” Orli responded. When Dom waited for more explanation on how one goes about that, he smiled broadly, “Romance him, you idiot.”
“I thought I had been,” Dom shook his head.
“Christ, you’re thick as shit sometimes,” Orli laughed, his eyes crinkling with his smile. “A bit of snogging and even a casual roll doesn’t mean you’re dating, especially when it’s the girl you’ve teased for having glasses and pigtails in secondary school. They want to know you’re not really the prick you were before.”
“Maybe I still am, though, just not to him,” Dom ventured.
Orli reached across and ruffled Dom’s messy hair, “So quit being a douche and dial the charm up to eleven, Romeo.”
Billy glanced about before he ducked into 1369 Coffeehouse, scanning heads in the dining room and finding Prof Mort’s shaggy mop among them. He smiled and waved, making his way through the line to grab a coffee before weaving through to the corner table.
“’S different,” he said as he pulled out the opposite chair and sat. Technically this wasn’t even an advising session, it was more a last check in and chat, so maybe it was appropriate.
Mort shrugged off the informal setting, looking in his element in a coffeehouse, even with the cowboy boots. “So you’ve turned everything in, then?”
“Yeah,” Billy poured through everything in his head again. “My other professors said they’d do what they can to get all the marks in on time. So… that’s that.”
“That’s that.”
“I’m mostly just doing your shite and studying for quals now,” Billy murmured in the quiet, “and fine-tuning.”
“Always,” Mort shook his head.
“What?”
“You know every time you switch a sentence around or change a verb tense and send it back to me, I have to reread that fucking thing. I could give your proposal myself, by heart.”
Billy grinned, glancing away. This was nice, actually, less like a meeting between a professor and student and more like mates in this setting.
“So, listen,” Viggo started, “Something came down the line that I wanted you to consider.” Billy eyed him, certain another massive delay was likely as he went on, “Informally, there’s nothing set in stone yet, but. Someone on the Commencement organization committee mentioned grad students getting up and saying a few things-”
“Fuck, Vig,” Billy laughed. It was always one more thing.
“Well, you know, like I said, you don’t have to,” Viggo said, tapping his thumb lightly against his coffee cup. “But there are only three people in the Art school’s grad program, and you’re the only one heading for a PhD. And the only one who will most likely have Cum Laud honors. Naturally you’re the department’s first choice for a speech.”
Billy raised his eyebrows, “So you want me to go be inspiring, tell all the twats in this class to work themselves to the bone and not have a life until they get the bloody degree that will at least give them half a chance of getting a foot in the door?”
“I’m saying you could tell them to follow their passions to their utmost, like you. You did a pretty fair job of it in class the other day. You even had Dom paying attention.”
Billy eyes darted back down to his coffee at that, feeling heat rise to his cheeks, stirring and stirring even though all the sugar must be dissolved. Dom had been paying him quite a lot of attention, in class and otherwise.
“Are you still meeting with him?” Viggo inquired, after his silence.
“Sometimes,” he sighed, “He’s, ehm… taken me to work a few times since my car gave out.”
Vig’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing. Surprisingly, Billy’s mouth continued on without consulting his brain. “I don’t understand him at all.”
“How so?”
Billy just shook his head, eyes unfocused on some point out the window. “He’s been nothing but a shit to me for years, Vig. Two years of taking it from him. Sometimes he still is, when people are watching. But when we’re alone…” His voice did something funny and he paused to clear his throat, then paused some more as memories of bright eyes and skin broke in again, “I don’t know. I’m too old for this shite.”
Viggo took all that in with no change in expression, rubbing at his goatee. “But you are still working together?”
“You keep asking me that.”
The professor lifted his shoulders again, “I encouraged you to work together, mainly because it’s helped Dom’s focus enormously. But if you don’t want to, then don’t.”
Billy met Viggo’s eyes, waiting for more that didn’t come. “That’s it? I’ve spent all this time with him and now you’re saying I didn’t have to?”
“I never forced you. You’re both adults.”
“I don’t know about that,” Billy retorted, but then questioned himself on who was being more childish. The last week he’d sacrificed precious study time in order to get to the subway for work, knowing very well that Dom was probably knocking on his door to drive him there for at least the first few evenings and ignored phone calls. He remembered with crystalline clarity the look of confusion and, yes, the hurt on Dom’s face when he’d stormed out of his bedroom. He also remembered, with some shame, just how much he’d wanted to see if Dom would say or do something to make him keep that bedroom door closed. But he hadn’t. He’d stepped back and let him go.
He glanced back at Viggo only to find his penetrating eyes gazing steadily back, like a man who sees all and is surprised at nothing. He tried to scrub the pink off his face and gulped half his coffee to cover it, hoping for a change the subject and an out on this, deciding Viggo the mate was more difficult to deal with than Mort the professor. He only stayed maddeningly silent.
“Are you quite proud of yourself, then, playing matchmaker, or…?” Billy’s mouth blurted, again sidestepping his shrieking brain.
The bastard didn’t even seem surprised. Viggo rested his elbows on the table and folded his hands together before his chin, speaking slowly, quietly, “I asked two of my students to help each other out. Whatever happened after that was not my doing.”
Billy pushed his coffee cup back and forth, back and forth on the surface of the table, waiting for the searing embarrassment to go away. He certainly felt like a child now, caught red-handed and ashamed, and more.
Viggo’s quiet and yet profound next sentence made Billy jump. “Why are you so upset?”
“I’m not,” he lied immediately, shaking his head at how very obviously he was upset, and afraid, and unwilling to process what any of that meant. “I don’t have time for this, Vig. I have quals, the proposal, I have to finish…”
“Billy,” Viggo’s hand dropped to Billy’s forearm, a steady presence stopping his hand on the cup, like he was gentling a horse. “There is nothing wrong with wanting something in your life other than your degree. Nothing.”
Billy took a deep, nervous breath, expelling it shakily, and Viggo sat back, looking out the window to give Billy time to collect himself.
“When I was only a little older than Dom, and still younger than you,” Viggo murmured, “I suddenly had a wife and this… amazing brand new baby in my arms. And I was completely terrified. Life doesn’t always go according to your master plan. You know that as well as anyone.”
Billy shook his head again, then followed it with a nod at his coffee cup. It didn’t. He had learned that early on when his parents had died, when he couldn’t get into the universities he’d wanted to attend, when Gran had died and he’d had to retake this entire last semester. Life was adamantly refusing to go along with his master plan. The fact that Dom was now woven into it just illustrated to Billy how much control he’d completely lost over his life.
“Dom’s a good kid,” Viggo eventually said. “He’s young, and he’s cocky and mouthy, I won’t deny that. Everyone’s an idiot when they’re his age. But his heart is good, and he has a lot of it. It’s rare when he settles his frenetic mind on one thing for a large amount of time.”
The idea that Dom had settled on him was ridiculous. And obvious, if Billy stopped ignoring it and really looked at it head-on. Billy shook his head and laughed a little. “So you think I should forget all the shite he’s given me and… and fuck the Harvard Doctorate and run off into the sunset with a… a… starving artist?”
“I won’t tell you to do anything,” Viggo replied, “Look, in a couple of weeks, your proposal will be over. Whether you realize it or not, you’re next deadline won’t even be solid for months. No one is expected to finish a dissertation in less than a year. If you want to, you can, but there’s no hurry.”
“I don’t want to be one of those sods who spends five years on it. I’ve been working for this for ages, Vig. I don’t want to turn forty and still be wondering where my career is.”
“If I know you, that will never happen. But there’s no harm in slowing down and taking a breath. Anyway,” Viggo finished his own coffee, “Think about the commencement speech? You’ll still have a few weeks after your proposal if you want to do it. It won’t interfere with anything if you do. And who knows, Dom might appreciate that you’re the one giving the words of wisdom at his graduation.”
He gathered his empty cup and newspaper, standing up, “That’s encouragement, by the way, not an order. On the speech and on… anything else you’re thinking about. You just said you didn’t have a life outside of your degree, Billy. So take a little time out to have one.”
Viggo palmed Billy’s shoulder in his big hand for a moment, then left him to try to reassemble himself and consider what he really wanted.
Thursday found Dom back in Lamont, Billy’s whereabouts predictably in Study Room Eight with piles of books and his laptop surrounding him. He nodded minutely at Dom’s greeting as he sat in the opposite chair, but gave him nothing else.
Dom pulled out a textbook and flipped to a random page, not remotely interested in studying. For several minutes he pretended to read, his knee waving back and forth under the table as he waited for Billy to take a breath and break his sightline from the laptop screen it was nailed to.
“Proposal is soon, then?” he finally asked, making Billy start just slightly at being addressed.
“Ehm, yeah. Next Wednesday,” he muttered.
“Good. That’s good,” Dom replied quickly. He tried to think back to when they’d last spoke, considering Orli’s advice, and trying to pinpoint whatever it had been that had set Billy off. “Er. I’m sorry about Orli. Busting in like he did the other day.”
Billy finally pulled his eyes from the screen and looked across the table, though his face remained unreadable. “He’s a prick,” Dom added, for good measure. “Thought he was being funny, I guess.”
Billy merely looked across, his pretty mouth just slightly open. His tongue flicked across as if in preparation for words, but then he just looked back to his laptop.
Dom decided that was apology accepted, as odd was Billy was being. Orli’s voice came back to him, Romance him, you idiot. “Look, let’s go out, you and me.”
Billy let go a breath, still not looking up from his screen.
“Let’s have dinner, maybe see a movie or something,” Dom tried again.
“Right, and where will Orlando and Elijah be, then?” Billy suddenly fired back, “A few tables over, behind a potted plant with a camera? How much would they have to pay a waiter to spill soup in my lap, do you think?”
Dom physically sat back, as if the words had blown him against the chair, looking Billy over and shaking his head in disbelief.
“What?” Billy asked, eyes narrowing.
Dom shook his head again, at a complete loss. “I wasn’t joking.”
Billy eyed him with the same solid distrust as he ever had, certain there was a twist.
“I just…” Dom sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “You know, maybe we’ve had a few laughs at your expense. But not lately, I mean, I haven’t ragged on you, and I’ve told the pair of twats I live with to fuck off, which is about all the control I’ve got over them. You’ve sat here all semester and helped me get my shit together, even though you didn’t want to and you think I’m a right pain in the arse, and I want to take you out.”
Billy was still staring back at him, guarded as ever, but then something is his eyes flickered and he looked away, across the room at nothing in particular. Dom gave it one last try. He leaned back onto the table and tentatively lay the pads of his fingers over Billy‘s knuckles where they rested beside his laptop. “I don’t know how many ways I have to tell you that I like you before you trust me, Bills,” he said softly. “I quit taking the piss a long time ago.”
Billy’s eyes finally dropped to the table to their hands touching on its surface. After what felt like an eternity, he slowly turned his hand over, letting Dom slide their fingers together. His whisper was terribly quiet behind a heavy exhale. “So, you want to take me out.”
“I want to take you out,” Dom nodded, the corners of his mouth turning up as he clarified, “On a date.”
Billy gave a breathed laugh, his face softening as Dom’s fingertips drew lightly over his palm, “You’ve already had me in bed once, what’s the point of dating?”
Dom’s grin widened considerably, “Well, I was hoping to get you there again, may as well come clean.”
“Didn’t take much the first time,” Billy murmured back swiftly, his eyes gleaming behind his glasses, and his thumb closed over Dom’s knuckle, stroking lightly.
Dom exhaled through his nose and swallowed, resisting the idea of dragging Billy into some dusty, forgotten corner of the stacks, right here, right now. “I was, ehm. I was thinking, maybe I should earn it this time.”
Billy looked at their hands, then away across the room, expelling a breath of his own, “I have so much work to do,” he muttered. “My proposal…”
“Don’t do that,” Dom countered immediately, his fingers closing over Billy’s to squeeze, “Just for one night, Bills. The world won’t come crashing down if you have a little fun.”
Billy looked back for a long moment, his hand sliding away as he leaned back in his own chair, rounding his eyebrows, “What if I don’t put out on a first date?”
Heart absolutely swelling at Billy Boyd actually flirting with him, Dom bit his lip against his mad grin. He’d mainly been thinking an impromptu dinner tonight, but maybe this required a little more finessing. “Then I’d better get to planning a second and third, don’t you think? Saturday evening, Bills. Sixish. I’ll pick you up.” His pursed his lips, letting his eyes skate over Billy, “And wear a tie.” He stood, shoving his book back into his bag.
“Why a tie?” Billy asked.
He adjusted his bag’s strap across his chest and rounded the table, skirting a hand around Billy’s shoulder and leaning down to his ear to whisper, “Because ties drive me… a little crazy.” He lingered, breathing just close enough over Billy’s ear and neck to get that tiny gasp he wanted before he weaved through the tables of other students, pausing at the door to peek back and see if Billy was looking.
He was.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: PG-NC17
Warnings: AU, angst, art geekery
Summary: Uni fic.
Dom woke to the dull rhythmic cadence of the kick-wheel from downstairs. He stretched, having a bit of a scratch beneath the covers and palming himself. His eyes flicked up at the print above his headboard, swimming in the familiar colors, two people in a bed, upside down from this vantage point. Billy’s descriptions of it from the other day came back to him, the way his voice completely departed from the clipped hesitancy when he spoke about something he clearly loved.
He could still remember the smell of Billy, clean and musky and sort of spicy from his aftershave, and the way the hair on his chest was not nearly as rough as he’d thought it might be, but rather soft and crisp against his tongue…
Letting go of his cock with an exhale, he brought his hands back up above his head and ignored the insistence of his morning erection to continue on with that nice tha-thump tempo being set downstairs. He rolled out of bed and tugged on some loose flannels, quietly making his way to the bathroom to pee and splash his face with cool water.
Tuesdays were a late morning for all of them with no class until afternoon, and at Elijah’s half-open door he paused, taking in the sight of him spread-eagled on his belly across his bed, one foot hanging off the mattress and cord of his earbuds just shy of strangling him. Lij regularly fell asleep with them on, running his iPod’s battery all the way down most every night.
Orlando, on the other hand, had already been up for hours, going for his usual sunrise run and then coming home to work on the wheel. Dom lingered at the top of the stairs, watching him keep the speed and his hands smooth and steady-one of the few times Orli’s energy was contained and focused was when he was working the clay. Studying the lighting of the scene between the square of his fingers, he decided it was too late in the morning to get the camera and give this shot another go. He’d taken it dozens of times, occasionally even sat at the top of the stairs with his sketchbook, trying to capture the exact mood in the moment. Blanchett once told him dozens of artists worked this way, making the same piece over and over again. His father called it the sort of obsessive perfectionism inherent in a good architect and told him he ought to focus on something useful.
Heading downstairs, he checked out the small collection of clay offerings on the board this morning as Orlando’s mud-slick hands sculpted another. He’d long exhausted his repertoire of Ghost innuendos after a couple of years of this life, and so made his way to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of orange juice. Downing half the glass, he perused the fridge and pulled out the egg carton with cheese, green onions and some sausages, setting up and cracking several eggs in a bowl to make omelets.
By the time they were sizzling in the pan, Orli’d stopped the wheel spinning, examining the little pots he’d made, setting some on the drying rack and discarding one or two in the bucket of clay and water. He came into the kitchen to wash up.
It had become something of a ritual, this, the pottery clay and the Tuesday morning fry-up between he and Orli, who sat at the island bar as Dom slid a plate of food across to him, standing on the opposite side to eat his own. This was when they talked about nothing, and everything.
“So,” Orli started, shoveling egg in his mouth and flicking chestnut eyes up at him, “Billy, eh?”
“What about him?” Dom tried for nonchalance.
“I just noticed you haven’t been taking him to work since…”
…since the day came over, was how that sentence finished, along with since he left in a big damn hurry and since the tension between them had hit unbearable to a point where they’d gone right back to avoiding each other entirely. Dom went for a detached shrug, “I guess he’s taking the subway.”
Orli chewed thoughtfully and swallowed. “You suck at hiding it, mate.”
Dom rolled his eyes, spearing a bit of sausage.
“You do.”
“Or Elijah told you.”
“He didn’t,” Orli shook his head, then amended, “Well, yeah okay, he did, but I had you pegged ages before he figured it out.”
Dom shook his head with a disbelieving laugh, “Whatever.”
“Hey,” Orli set down his fork and ruffled Dom’s hair across the countertop, “I know that look you get. I’ve seen you point it at dozens of boys since it was me. And it’s been pretty rare when it goes on this long. And when you don’t tell us all about it.”
Dom sighed, looking across the flat, out the big windows, anywhere but back at Orli.
“It's just weird. He’s not your type.”
“How do you know what my type is?” Dom retorted.
“From your history, mate? Your type is cute, twinky, hunky, pretty, and straight nine times out of ten.” Orlando ducked as Dom threw a piece of onion at him.
It was true though, all the guys Dom generally tended to go for in the last few years-including Orli himself, Elijah, Garrett, even Jessie Barnes to name a few-all fell into a certain category that Billy just wasn’t even close to.
“Plus he’s old, he’s like ten years older than us.”
“He is not!” Dom blurted, and Orli’s grin went wide.
“He’s balding!”
“I don’t care!” Dom exclaimed, laughing as he pushed his empty plate away and leaned on his elbows on the worktop. Orlando’s eyes blazed through him, asking for more. Dom shrugged, “He’s different, that’s all. He’s not about looks because he’s looking elsewhere, you know? Like he gets in class when it’s obvious the piece he’s talking about is a favorite of his. He knows exactly what he’s working toward, where he wants his life to go. Like he’s on this big, bold straight line to get there.”
“So the thing that does it for you is that he’s a geeky self-absorbed worm?” Orlando teased.
“Doesn’t make him a worm. It’s passion. He’s got a plan in his head,” Dom argued, “Not like me. Mine’s just poking out in all directions. Little squiggly lines every which way.”
“Still doesn’t explain it,” Orli finished his own plate, folding his own arms on the counter and studying him with a smile, “Unless you’ve had this thing forever, and your little study dates and a long dry spell have irrevocably tweaked your judgement.”
“No,” Dom giggled half-heartedly, “Not forever. Not ‘til the study thing. It’s hard to spend that much time with a bloke and not learn things about him you didn’t know before, yeah? And anyway, he’s not bad looking. Especially when you get him out of those clothes.”
Orli’s face was nearly a burst of sunshine, “You got his kit off!?”
Dom grinned down at their empty plates, “Maybe.”
“Voluntarily?”
“Yeah,” Dom flinched guiltily. “I may have influenced him a little bit.”
“You made him pose for you, didn’t you,” Orlando swatted at his head. “You dog. It’s not gonna be my arse anymore.”
“No, I still like your arse, you’re not off the hook yet.”
“Seriously, what happened?” Orli pried.
“Ah… we were at his, and I kissed him again,” Dom scrubbed at his hair with a naughty grin, “And he sort of went a little berserk. In a really sexy way.”
Orli laughed incredulously, even as Dom looked at his friend more seriously, “I don’t know what’s going on with him, actually. I’ve no fucking idea what I’m doing anymore.”
Orli furrowed his brow in question, and Dom tried to elaborate, waving his hand vaguely, “One minute we’re having a friendly conversation and the next, he hates me. I kiss him, and I swear he’s into it, and then he avoids me for a week. And now this,” he shook his head. “I don’t have a clue what I’ve done wrong now.”
“Well, you drove him to work after his car bites the dust, and then shit escalates, and then you bring him over here, where me and Lij are arseholes because that’s what we do, and he’s avoiding you again?” Orli worked out with a shrug of his own. “I know what this is.”
Dom looked back up at him hopefully, and Orli grinned, “He’s all conflicted, mate. You’re confusing the fuck out of him.”
“That’s great. He’s confusing the fuck out of me,” Dom replied. “So what do I do?”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to get acquainted with his perky little arse,” Dom joked, then rubbed his stubbly jaw as he murmured the truth. “I want him to like me.”
“Then make him,” Orli responded. When Dom waited for more explanation on how one goes about that, he smiled broadly, “Romance him, you idiot.”
“I thought I had been,” Dom shook his head.
“Christ, you’re thick as shit sometimes,” Orli laughed, his eyes crinkling with his smile. “A bit of snogging and even a casual roll doesn’t mean you’re dating, especially when it’s the girl you’ve teased for having glasses and pigtails in secondary school. They want to know you’re not really the prick you were before.”
“Maybe I still am, though, just not to him,” Dom ventured.
Orli reached across and ruffled Dom’s messy hair, “So quit being a douche and dial the charm up to eleven, Romeo.”
Billy glanced about before he ducked into 1369 Coffeehouse, scanning heads in the dining room and finding Prof Mort’s shaggy mop among them. He smiled and waved, making his way through the line to grab a coffee before weaving through to the corner table.
“’S different,” he said as he pulled out the opposite chair and sat. Technically this wasn’t even an advising session, it was more a last check in and chat, so maybe it was appropriate.
Mort shrugged off the informal setting, looking in his element in a coffeehouse, even with the cowboy boots. “So you’ve turned everything in, then?”
“Yeah,” Billy poured through everything in his head again. “My other professors said they’d do what they can to get all the marks in on time. So… that’s that.”
“That’s that.”
“I’m mostly just doing your shite and studying for quals now,” Billy murmured in the quiet, “and fine-tuning.”
“Always,” Mort shook his head.
“What?”
“You know every time you switch a sentence around or change a verb tense and send it back to me, I have to reread that fucking thing. I could give your proposal myself, by heart.”
Billy grinned, glancing away. This was nice, actually, less like a meeting between a professor and student and more like mates in this setting.
“So, listen,” Viggo started, “Something came down the line that I wanted you to consider.” Billy eyed him, certain another massive delay was likely as he went on, “Informally, there’s nothing set in stone yet, but. Someone on the Commencement organization committee mentioned grad students getting up and saying a few things-”
“Fuck, Vig,” Billy laughed. It was always one more thing.
“Well, you know, like I said, you don’t have to,” Viggo said, tapping his thumb lightly against his coffee cup. “But there are only three people in the Art school’s grad program, and you’re the only one heading for a PhD. And the only one who will most likely have Cum Laud honors. Naturally you’re the department’s first choice for a speech.”
Billy raised his eyebrows, “So you want me to go be inspiring, tell all the twats in this class to work themselves to the bone and not have a life until they get the bloody degree that will at least give them half a chance of getting a foot in the door?”
“I’m saying you could tell them to follow their passions to their utmost, like you. You did a pretty fair job of it in class the other day. You even had Dom paying attention.”
Billy eyes darted back down to his coffee at that, feeling heat rise to his cheeks, stirring and stirring even though all the sugar must be dissolved. Dom had been paying him quite a lot of attention, in class and otherwise.
“Are you still meeting with him?” Viggo inquired, after his silence.
“Sometimes,” he sighed, “He’s, ehm… taken me to work a few times since my car gave out.”
Vig’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing. Surprisingly, Billy’s mouth continued on without consulting his brain. “I don’t understand him at all.”
“How so?”
Billy just shook his head, eyes unfocused on some point out the window. “He’s been nothing but a shit to me for years, Vig. Two years of taking it from him. Sometimes he still is, when people are watching. But when we’re alone…” His voice did something funny and he paused to clear his throat, then paused some more as memories of bright eyes and skin broke in again, “I don’t know. I’m too old for this shite.”
Viggo took all that in with no change in expression, rubbing at his goatee. “But you are still working together?”
“You keep asking me that.”
The professor lifted his shoulders again, “I encouraged you to work together, mainly because it’s helped Dom’s focus enormously. But if you don’t want to, then don’t.”
Billy met Viggo’s eyes, waiting for more that didn’t come. “That’s it? I’ve spent all this time with him and now you’re saying I didn’t have to?”
“I never forced you. You’re both adults.”
“I don’t know about that,” Billy retorted, but then questioned himself on who was being more childish. The last week he’d sacrificed precious study time in order to get to the subway for work, knowing very well that Dom was probably knocking on his door to drive him there for at least the first few evenings and ignored phone calls. He remembered with crystalline clarity the look of confusion and, yes, the hurt on Dom’s face when he’d stormed out of his bedroom. He also remembered, with some shame, just how much he’d wanted to see if Dom would say or do something to make him keep that bedroom door closed. But he hadn’t. He’d stepped back and let him go.
He glanced back at Viggo only to find his penetrating eyes gazing steadily back, like a man who sees all and is surprised at nothing. He tried to scrub the pink off his face and gulped half his coffee to cover it, hoping for a change the subject and an out on this, deciding Viggo the mate was more difficult to deal with than Mort the professor. He only stayed maddeningly silent.
“Are you quite proud of yourself, then, playing matchmaker, or…?” Billy’s mouth blurted, again sidestepping his shrieking brain.
The bastard didn’t even seem surprised. Viggo rested his elbows on the table and folded his hands together before his chin, speaking slowly, quietly, “I asked two of my students to help each other out. Whatever happened after that was not my doing.”
Billy pushed his coffee cup back and forth, back and forth on the surface of the table, waiting for the searing embarrassment to go away. He certainly felt like a child now, caught red-handed and ashamed, and more.
Viggo’s quiet and yet profound next sentence made Billy jump. “Why are you so upset?”
“I’m not,” he lied immediately, shaking his head at how very obviously he was upset, and afraid, and unwilling to process what any of that meant. “I don’t have time for this, Vig. I have quals, the proposal, I have to finish…”
“Billy,” Viggo’s hand dropped to Billy’s forearm, a steady presence stopping his hand on the cup, like he was gentling a horse. “There is nothing wrong with wanting something in your life other than your degree. Nothing.”
Billy took a deep, nervous breath, expelling it shakily, and Viggo sat back, looking out the window to give Billy time to collect himself.
“When I was only a little older than Dom, and still younger than you,” Viggo murmured, “I suddenly had a wife and this… amazing brand new baby in my arms. And I was completely terrified. Life doesn’t always go according to your master plan. You know that as well as anyone.”
Billy shook his head again, then followed it with a nod at his coffee cup. It didn’t. He had learned that early on when his parents had died, when he couldn’t get into the universities he’d wanted to attend, when Gran had died and he’d had to retake this entire last semester. Life was adamantly refusing to go along with his master plan. The fact that Dom was now woven into it just illustrated to Billy how much control he’d completely lost over his life.
“Dom’s a good kid,” Viggo eventually said. “He’s young, and he’s cocky and mouthy, I won’t deny that. Everyone’s an idiot when they’re his age. But his heart is good, and he has a lot of it. It’s rare when he settles his frenetic mind on one thing for a large amount of time.”
The idea that Dom had settled on him was ridiculous. And obvious, if Billy stopped ignoring it and really looked at it head-on. Billy shook his head and laughed a little. “So you think I should forget all the shite he’s given me and… and fuck the Harvard Doctorate and run off into the sunset with a… a… starving artist?”
“I won’t tell you to do anything,” Viggo replied, “Look, in a couple of weeks, your proposal will be over. Whether you realize it or not, you’re next deadline won’t even be solid for months. No one is expected to finish a dissertation in less than a year. If you want to, you can, but there’s no hurry.”
“I don’t want to be one of those sods who spends five years on it. I’ve been working for this for ages, Vig. I don’t want to turn forty and still be wondering where my career is.”
“If I know you, that will never happen. But there’s no harm in slowing down and taking a breath. Anyway,” Viggo finished his own coffee, “Think about the commencement speech? You’ll still have a few weeks after your proposal if you want to do it. It won’t interfere with anything if you do. And who knows, Dom might appreciate that you’re the one giving the words of wisdom at his graduation.”
He gathered his empty cup and newspaper, standing up, “That’s encouragement, by the way, not an order. On the speech and on… anything else you’re thinking about. You just said you didn’t have a life outside of your degree, Billy. So take a little time out to have one.”
Viggo palmed Billy’s shoulder in his big hand for a moment, then left him to try to reassemble himself and consider what he really wanted.
Thursday found Dom back in Lamont, Billy’s whereabouts predictably in Study Room Eight with piles of books and his laptop surrounding him. He nodded minutely at Dom’s greeting as he sat in the opposite chair, but gave him nothing else.
Dom pulled out a textbook and flipped to a random page, not remotely interested in studying. For several minutes he pretended to read, his knee waving back and forth under the table as he waited for Billy to take a breath and break his sightline from the laptop screen it was nailed to.
“Proposal is soon, then?” he finally asked, making Billy start just slightly at being addressed.
“Ehm, yeah. Next Wednesday,” he muttered.
“Good. That’s good,” Dom replied quickly. He tried to think back to when they’d last spoke, considering Orli’s advice, and trying to pinpoint whatever it had been that had set Billy off. “Er. I’m sorry about Orli. Busting in like he did the other day.”
Billy finally pulled his eyes from the screen and looked across the table, though his face remained unreadable. “He’s a prick,” Dom added, for good measure. “Thought he was being funny, I guess.”
Billy merely looked across, his pretty mouth just slightly open. His tongue flicked across as if in preparation for words, but then he just looked back to his laptop.
Dom decided that was apology accepted, as odd was Billy was being. Orli’s voice came back to him, Romance him, you idiot. “Look, let’s go out, you and me.”
Billy let go a breath, still not looking up from his screen.
“Let’s have dinner, maybe see a movie or something,” Dom tried again.
“Right, and where will Orlando and Elijah be, then?” Billy suddenly fired back, “A few tables over, behind a potted plant with a camera? How much would they have to pay a waiter to spill soup in my lap, do you think?”
Dom physically sat back, as if the words had blown him against the chair, looking Billy over and shaking his head in disbelief.
“What?” Billy asked, eyes narrowing.
Dom shook his head again, at a complete loss. “I wasn’t joking.”
Billy eyed him with the same solid distrust as he ever had, certain there was a twist.
“I just…” Dom sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “You know, maybe we’ve had a few laughs at your expense. But not lately, I mean, I haven’t ragged on you, and I’ve told the pair of twats I live with to fuck off, which is about all the control I’ve got over them. You’ve sat here all semester and helped me get my shit together, even though you didn’t want to and you think I’m a right pain in the arse, and I want to take you out.”
Billy was still staring back at him, guarded as ever, but then something is his eyes flickered and he looked away, across the room at nothing in particular. Dom gave it one last try. He leaned back onto the table and tentatively lay the pads of his fingers over Billy‘s knuckles where they rested beside his laptop. “I don’t know how many ways I have to tell you that I like you before you trust me, Bills,” he said softly. “I quit taking the piss a long time ago.”
Billy’s eyes finally dropped to the table to their hands touching on its surface. After what felt like an eternity, he slowly turned his hand over, letting Dom slide their fingers together. His whisper was terribly quiet behind a heavy exhale. “So, you want to take me out.”
“I want to take you out,” Dom nodded, the corners of his mouth turning up as he clarified, “On a date.”
Billy gave a breathed laugh, his face softening as Dom’s fingertips drew lightly over his palm, “You’ve already had me in bed once, what’s the point of dating?”
Dom’s grin widened considerably, “Well, I was hoping to get you there again, may as well come clean.”
“Didn’t take much the first time,” Billy murmured back swiftly, his eyes gleaming behind his glasses, and his thumb closed over Dom’s knuckle, stroking lightly.
Dom exhaled through his nose and swallowed, resisting the idea of dragging Billy into some dusty, forgotten corner of the stacks, right here, right now. “I was, ehm. I was thinking, maybe I should earn it this time.”
Billy looked at their hands, then away across the room, expelling a breath of his own, “I have so much work to do,” he muttered. “My proposal…”
“Don’t do that,” Dom countered immediately, his fingers closing over Billy’s to squeeze, “Just for one night, Bills. The world won’t come crashing down if you have a little fun.”
Billy looked back for a long moment, his hand sliding away as he leaned back in his own chair, rounding his eyebrows, “What if I don’t put out on a first date?”
Heart absolutely swelling at Billy Boyd actually flirting with him, Dom bit his lip against his mad grin. He’d mainly been thinking an impromptu dinner tonight, but maybe this required a little more finessing. “Then I’d better get to planning a second and third, don’t you think? Saturday evening, Bills. Sixish. I’ll pick you up.” His pursed his lips, letting his eyes skate over Billy, “And wear a tie.” He stood, shoving his book back into his bag.
“Why a tie?” Billy asked.
He adjusted his bag’s strap across his chest and rounded the table, skirting a hand around Billy’s shoulder and leaning down to his ear to whisper, “Because ties drive me… a little crazy.” He lingered, breathing just close enough over Billy’s ear and neck to get that tiny gasp he wanted before he weaved through the tables of other students, pausing at the door to peek back and see if Billy was looking.
He was.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN