Title: Dom/Elijah Six-Pack of Shorts
Pairing: Well.
Rating/Warning: All over the map.
*
Now and Then
Supper at Debbie's is always lovely. After the meal, Dom and Elijah take their full bellies out for a walk in the backyard. The moon's alight, the grass is dewy, and Elijah's inner romantic stretches out on his inner sofa, reading his inner copy of Young Werther and eating inner chocolates.
"What're you thinking?" Elijah asks softly, resting his head on Dom's shoulder. As Dom is only a little taller, this involves Lij tipping his head almost horizontally, even if Dom shrugs to help him out.
"D'you really want to know?"
"Of course I want to know." Elijah squeezes his hand.
"I was thinking about how different we were, back when I was staying here in your mother's guest house with you. Wondering if I'd even recognize myself now if I'd seen me then, like."
Elijah nods sympathetically, snuggling close, ready to answer the question in turn. He's thinking, this is the spot where we first kissed. His inner romantic spreads the book on his chest and sighs blissfully.
"I dunno if I would. I mean, I dunno if I would've recognized me then, if I'd seen me as I am now. But if I had seen me then? I think I probably would've fancied me-now." Dom pauses, contemplating this, a question for the ages. "Yeah, I'm quite certain, back then I would've fancied me-now rotten.
"But!" he continues, heedless of Elijah taking his head decisively off Dom's shoulder and snuggling considerably less close, "Right now, would I fancy me like I was then? Cos I mean, I was in a bit of a state at the time... nah, I don't think that now I'd really fancy me-then. I mean, sure, my head would be turned by me. But then-me, he'd be liable to be a bit clingy. And then where would I be?"
"Sleeping on the couch tonight, that's where," Elijah answers, and stomps off.
*
Bacchasaurus
The phone rings, and despite Elijah's heartfelt muttered prayer, it's Dom.
"Just tried on my costume. My gear's all black and red. I look completely flash, if I do say so myself."
"You might as well, no one else will," Elijah answers automatically.
"Everyone else already has," Dom says blithely. "All the guys in my krewe are in rock bands, they all fix motorcycles and play guitar. Und du?"
"Shouldn't that be, et vous? We're in New Orleans."
"I'm in New Orleans. You," Dom says, "are in a dress."
"I think this phone call counts as fraternization," Elijah tells him, "which isn't supposed to happen between rival krewes before the parades."
"One of my new mates on the krewe told me all about it, big bruiser with two dozen tattoos, plays jazz trumpet--"
"I thought they were all rock guitarists?"
"--he said the Bacchus costume's a white dress."
"We have a float called the Bacchasaurus," Elijah offers in desperation. "Plus King Kong and Mama Kong and Baby Kong. I can't wait to tell Pete and show him the pictures."
"Of you in a dress?"
"It's a tunic! It looks fine. Maybe a little short, but it's fine."
"You do have nice legs," Dom concedes. "But give over, Lijah. You're hanging out with business people in your shiny white dress. I'm kitted out in black and red and surrounded by hard-drinking motorcycling rock stars. Who's cooler, eh?"
"That's okay," Elijah says. "I'm giving up coolness for Lent."
"It's not Lent yet, that's rather the point."
"Did you call me up just to razz me about my costume? Like, you're wasting precious drinking and carousing time just for this?"
"Did I mention my krewe's co-ed? I have to take the occasional break from all the revelry. Mate, the women of New Orleans..."
Elijah breaks. "It's not fair! Why aren't there any girls in my krewe?"
"Who's cooler?" Dom persists.
"God, you're so fucking annoying. You're cooler! You also fucking suck."
"That I do," Dom replies with audible satisfaction. "And I've learned a few new tricks as well, can't wait to show you. But that really would be fraternization. So it'll have to wait til after Mardi Gras."
*
Office
Dominic stayed an hour after the office had gone quiet, looking for just the right piece of clip art to illustrate his PowerPoint presentation. Something jaunty and memorable but not too challenging. Something to make the boss want Dom at his dinner parties, something to make him think, "I gotta play golf with this guy."
Dom added a dissolve effect from one slide to the next and thought idly, If that Wood bastard gets promoted instead of me, I'll fucking kill him.
The snotty little moron, he was still here as well. From his gray-carpeted cubicle, Dom could see the edge of Wood's desk, though the flimsy partition blocked any possible view of Wood himself as he sat there, no doubt, placid in his ergonomic chair, gazing stupidly at the CRT with his blank cow-eyed stare. The square of light from Wood's desk lamp fell across the thin grooved carpet like an angular shadow in reverse.
No way in hell was Dom leaving tonight before Wood. He'd just keep looking for ways to make his presentation pop. Sound effects, maybe. He added a whoosh to the page turn and looked for more clip art.
The janitors came and went, crinkling plastic bags and wafting the acrid smell of chemical pine. Dom's eyes began to sting. What's that little toad DOING over there at this hour? he snarled to himself, and finally roused enough to pace over and see.
No one was there; Wood had merely left on his lamp. Dom groaned as he spotted the floating red numerals of Wood's novelty Sharper Image clock. It was 11:23.
The next day he gave his presentation, bloated with clip art and whizzing with gimmicky sound effects that Dom had to talk loudly over, while the rest of the department exchanged smirks and eyerolls. And then Wood got up. His presentation was brief and informative, his bullet-point slides straightforward-- classy, elegant, even. There was light applause when he concluded and took his seat again.
Dom had a startlingly tactile fantasy of easing his hands around Wood's soft-skinned neck and strangling him til his face was as blue as his eyes.
*
Better Half
It’s not easy being as close as Dominic and Elijah. Their shared clothes are a bit snug on Dom, a little loose on Lij. Their bed is a jumble of poky elbows and knobby knees.
It aches when they’re apart, when they scratch one another’s phantom itches, when Dom answers a question Elijah was asked a continent away.
Together though, nothing matches it; every slightest sensation mirrored and multiplied when each touches theotherhimself.
Dom tilts the cup into his mouth, and Elijah spits a thin pure stream of coffee through the gap in his front teeth onto the fallow ground.
*
Photogenic.
Taking pictures isn't really worth the risk that they might get out, but Elijah set up his digital camera anyhow.
Dom pulls Lij into his lap as they look through them onscreen. Most of the shots are terrible, and Elijah's embarrassed even by the good ones, giggling madly and hiding his face against Dom's hair.
There are a lot of them and after a bit, it all seems like a blur of tawny and fair flesh tones, bent knees and wadded sheets. They both look fairly ridiculous in most of the photos; it turns out "shagged cross-eyed" is a pretty accurate expression.
Dom's been to loads of casting calls, heard plenty of secondhand dispassionate judgement of his looks, his snaggly smile and sticky-out ears. He's been told he gets by on charm. Fine by Dom; looks change, charm stays.
He supposes it makes for an arty juxtaposition, his scruffy getting-by-on-charm face and no-caveats-necessary body tangled up with Elijah, who has a hard time getting through a photoshoot without someone saying "porcelain" or "perfect". Elijah's features are symmetrical and even; his skin is teacup-smooth, milky and flushed with gathered color and light. Even in these ill-lit pictures he nearly glows with health and life.
Scrolling through the pictures, Dom pauses on a shot that shows Elijah's head thrown back, eyes veiled, mouth shaping an O-- suddenly "perfect" doesn't seem too strong a word for it, though he knows Elijah isn't flawless, isn't too sublime for a mere mortal to profane with a rough, unpolished touch, for uneven teeth sinking into the smooth column of his neck.
Lij lifts his head to see the photo Dom's stopped on, and stares. He breathes heat into Dom's sticky-out ear and murmurs, "Look at you," his hand hovering over the screen, fingerprints outlining Dom's shoulders, his face: teeth on his lip, the drawn brows and cheeky smile. "You look so fucking hot..." his prints reflect iridescence from the screen, down the slope of Dom's back to his waist and hip.
Elijah nips at the lobe of his ear and slides his hand down, flat against Dom's stomach down into his trousers. "We're definitely keeping that one," he says in his mingled Yank-kiwi-Brit accent, a unique sound that's become an instant turn-on for Dom, "that smile, god, and your arms, you look amazing."
And so really, fuck charm anyway.
*
(Photogenic sequelized by
anatsuno:
Not Just Photogenic.)
*
Two Lines
From the moment they met, Elijah was convinced-- or okay, maybe obsessed with the conviction, whatever-- that Dom must be pretty fucking well-hung; there was no way a guy with that round nose and skewed jaw and teeth could be so flirtatious, so provocative, so confident, so cocky... unless he was, well, so cocky.
For all Dom's flirting, it was surprisingly difficult to maneuver him into bed, but Elijah was fixated, and perserved until one humid, lager-perfumed night he rolled Dom back onto the sheets and stroked ambitiously, and Dom's foreskin started to roll back like gift-wrapping: well-hung, hell yeah, though maybe not quite as massive as Elijah fantasized-- but the perfect size, he discovered, to fit into the O of his mouth and down his throat, the perfect size to fill his ass while Dom's long fingers stroked Elijah's own reasonably impressive length; the perfect size for Elijah to cup his hand around afterward while they kissed and kissed and Elijah remembered that Dom's cock might be perfect for him-- like, seriously, perfect-- but really, round nose, skewed jaw and all, it was Dom he liked best.