Book 2, Chapter 11: While We Wait
Title: While we wait
Authors: escribo
Characters: Dominic
Word count: 2179
Summary: Interlude
Index
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction; the recognizable people in the story belong to themselves and have never performed the actions portrayed here. I do not know the actors nor am I associated with them in any way. If you are underage, please do not read this story. I am not making any profit from these stories, nor do I mean any harm.
When Dominic comes back to his single room, he tosses his bookbag onto his unmade bed and is tempted to follow it there. Instead he kicks at the wooden leg of his bed with the battered toe of his trainer, measuring his time and deciding against a kip. He's got nothing left for the rest of the day, but tomorrow, Thursday, he has an exam in the morning, and more, there's a long translation due on Friday that he hasn't even started. Usually, he heeds Billy's advice and heads to the law library, but he'd only lasted ten minutes there today before the silence became too much. He needs something besides the scratching of pen on paper and the turning of pages to distract him from his thoughts-thoughts that have centered on Billy for probably longer than is good for either of them.
Still, he's not sure how he was meant to just come back to campus, come back to his life, and carry on after what had happened over the weekend. He'd woken four days ago in Billy's bed, his body aching but his mind alert and alive in a way he couldn't remember having felt before. Everything seems dull in comparison now, including modern Germanic philosophy, the book Dominic digs out of his bag and tosses onto his desk before he sags into his chair. It's been some months since Dominic's been this frustrated by school, impatient to leave and move on. Whether he does so with the degree he's almost earned seems to matter little.
Not that he so much wants to move on as move over-across town and into Billy's life more firmly, if Billy would have him, and Dominic's just beginning to think that he might. For a few minutes, Dominic loses himself to that particular and favored fantasy. He could get a job in a restaurant maybe, or a bookstore. They'd have more than just the weekends together, and there wouldn't be the constant threat of being discovered. Closing the fingers of his right hand tightly around his left wrist, his pen dropping onto his blank notepad, Dominic remembers again how Billy had looked and felt, and assures himself once more that Billy might find the fantasy appealing, too.
Opening his eyes, Dominic drops his hands onto the desktop and begins to bite at his lower lip. Whether Billy wants Dominic in his life more than he already is remains an open question in Dominic's mind, and the assurances aren't quite as effective as they had been Sunday night and Monday morning. He can't imagine Billy really wanting a sous chef or a clerk for a partner, any more than a student. In any role he can't imagine being introduced to Billy's family or friends, really fitting into his life.
Slamming the philosophy book shut, Dominic pushes it away from him, his pen clattering to the floor. He stands too quickly, eager to just be moving, and knocks his hip against the desk. He winces and rights the empty water bottle that falls, taking more care to tuck the chair back in. Studying isn't working; his concentration is shot. Billy had told him to come by on Saturday morning, and Dominic isn't brave enough yet to test what would happen if he came earlier. He contemplates a run and then decides against it, considers his yoga mat but doesn't think he could manage anything close to a clear mind right now.
Instead, Dominic pulls his t-shirt over his head and lets it fall to the floor then shucks his jeans, intent on a shower. Catching sight of himself in the battered mirror that hangs on on the door to his closet, Dominic stops to look at what he can of his back. He can tell that the marks are still there though fading, the bruises blossoming into browns and yellows. The crop marks are still visible but only if he really looks. The only things that remained tender to the touch were the burns, though they, too, are healing. Dominic's sorry to see them go, and he wonders again if Billy's developed the pictures he took.
A knock on the door disturbs Dominic's thoughts, and he's tempted for a moment to just stand very still and pretend he's not in the room. There's another knock, more insistent this time, and he supposes that whoever it is probably lives on his floor and saw him come in. He takes the towel he'd left drying on the back of his desk chair that morning and tucks it around his waist. When Dominic opens the door just enough to see who's there, he's surprised by who he finds. "Greg."
"Hi."
"I was just heading to the shower."
"May I join you?"
"Your English has improved." Dominic smiles, his shoulders relaxing with a guest who is more welcome than others, though perhaps less so than he would have been three months ago. He leans against the door frame and crosses his arms over his chest, not ready to let Greg inside the room but still happy to see him. "Your pickup line could use some work though."
Greg shrugs and takes a step closer, his hands slipping into the front pockets of his jeans. "I haven't seen you around for a while."
"I've been seeing someone. Kind of."
"Someone I know?" Dominic shakes his head, his smile twisting into something that doesn't really invite more questions on the subject, and Greg shrugs his shoulder again, letting it go. "May I come in?"
"I'm just in my towel," Dominic says and Greg's eyes move down Dominic's body, stopping where the towel begins and lingering there.
"I've seen you in less."
"Let me get dressed first."
"This someone must be serious then."
"Yeah. Kind of." Dominic moves away from the door and back into his room, knowing Greg will follow and letting him. He stops, though, when he hears Greg's sharp intake of breath just a few seconds before Greg puts his fingertips to the mark on Dominic's right shoulder blade.
"Lots of kind of's," Greg says, his voice very quiet.
"It's hard to explain." Dominic steps away from Greg's discomfort and bends to pick up the clothes he had just discarded.
"I don't understand this, allowing him to hurt you."
"Not just allowing, Greg. I asked him to do it." Dominic doesn't want to explain and doesn't think he should have to. Billy had warned him of this, he knows and remembers, and Dominic can still feel Greg's eyes on his body, waiting, it seems, for something more than what Dominic's already said. He turns to face Greg, his chin lifted defensively, but he falters at the look in Greg's eyes.
"I still don't understand it. Your desire for it." Greg curls his hand into the shirt that Dominic holds crumpled against his chest and uses it to move Dominic so that he can see Dominic's back again. This time he spreads his hands flat against the middle of Dominic's back and moves one hand slowly down, hooking his fingers into the edge of Dominic's towel and tugging until it falls to the floor. "Did he tie you up, like in those pictures?"
Dominic stares down at the three small star tattoos spread across his right foot. He knows he should stop this, but some part of him wants someone other than Billy and himself to be witness to what had happened over the weekend. It makes it feel more real in some way. "You saw the exhibit?"
"It was sexy. Intense but beautiful." Greg kisses Dominic's shoulder, his neck, and Dominic lets him, closing his eyes at the touch.
"I can't, Greg." But Dominic knows he doesn't sound like he means it, and Greg slides his hand over Dominic's stomach, pulling him closer. Dominic closes his hand over Greg's, wanting to be touched but unnerved by it, too, finding that he really wants it to be Billy's hands on him.
"I've missed you."
"I know I did before, when I was with Josh, but I can't now."
"So, he's different."
"Very." Dominic bends to gather his jeans and takes his time to put them on while Greg watches. As he straightens, Greg sits down on the edge of Dominic's unmade bed and doesn't speak until Dominic sits down next to him.
"Are you happy with him?"
"Something close to it." The question makes Dominic nervous. He's happy when he's with Billy, definitely, but he couldn't honestly call the way he feels now happy, and from Greg's expression he can tell Greg doesn't believe it, either.
"Well." Greg shrugs again, and then reaches gently to curve a hand behind Dominic's neck, just squeezing there at first and watching Dominic's eyes flutter and then meet the floor. Dominic doesn't pull away when Greg brings him closer, doesn't resist when Greg kisses him, most of his early nervousness around Dominic having vanished some time ago. Greg knows how Dominic likes to be kissed, knows how to encourage more in return, and it'd be a lie if Dominic said he didn't enjoy it even now, but he can't pretend anymore that there's anyone else he wants touching him. When Greg's hands travel to Dominic's waist and move gently inside his jeans, Dominic sits back and takes a deep breath.
"Look, I can't. I mean it." Dominic forces himself to make it sound stronger, harsher. It's difficult brushing Greg off, much more than it would be to push away some git in a club. Dominic stands before Greg can reach for him again, and when he turns back to the bed, Greg's nodding and staring at his own hands.
"I'm sorry." Greg's fingers flex nervously and then calm as he folds his hands together. "I hope-I want you to be more than something close to happy, Dom."
"I will be." Dominic's surprised by his own certainty, surprised that he believes it, if only for a moment. "It's good, Greg. You don't-have to understand, like. You just have to believe me. I don't-"
"It's okay." Greg looks up finally, and Dominic relaxes, his shoulders dropping. Before he can speak, Greg continues. "I was actually just coming to see if you wanted to get some dinner."
"Oh, god, yeah," Dominic laughs, relief in his smile and his eyes. "I'm sorry, Greg. I didn't mean to-" Dominic throws a hand and then scrapes it back through his hair. "Like, make you think we were-"
"We're just friends."
Dominic bites his lip again and then swallows. "Yeah. I want that."
"And I want chips. Everybody's happy." It's something they've both heard another friend say in other circumstances, and the words and Greg's smile make Dominic break out in louder laughter before he reaches for his t-shirt again.
Several hours, a dinner he couldn't really afford, and some pints later, Dominic finds himself back where he was earlier-sitting in his room and wondering how he's going to deal with having to wait until Saturday to feel settled again. He and Greg had spent ages in the chip shop and then at several games of pool, Dominic playing not half as well as he usually does. Little distractions ate at him all night, and by the time they'd returned to the residence hall, Dominic found himself on edge with a bit of a headache and his skin prickling with the desire to be calmed again. For what he hopes is the last time tonight he thinks about making the trek to Billy's house and arriving uninvited, sliding inside the back door to the garden and crawling into Billy's bed. Falling to his back on his own mattress and turning to the little clock on his table, Dominic tries to imagine what Billy's doing at this hour-marking papers, reading, smoking on his little porch, drinking something heady, or maybe he's not home at all; maybe he's distracted, too, driving around looking for something to hold his attention for more than a few minutes. Dominic closes his eyes and pushes away the thought of Billy sharing that time with anyone else, and forces himself to settle back at his desk before the temptation to find Billy becomes too great.
At the desk Dominic cracks open his books and papers, shoves his headphones on and loses himself in theories and problems that seem easy now in comparison to everything else going on in his head and heart. Every few minutes he shifts in the chair and his body reminds him of what he'd earned the previous weekend, and Dominic thinks that after the kind of self-discipline he'd exercised tonight, in this room and outside, he'll have earned even more come Saturday. When he finishes his notes long after the rest of the hall's gone silent and dark, Dominic's head is swimming with information he believes he'll retain in the morning. Satisfied for the moment with everything he's done-satisfied he's done everything he could tonight, on several levels-Dominic falls back into his bed and thinks happily of little but sleep.
Authors: escribo
Characters: Dominic
Word count: 2179
Summary: Interlude
Index
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction; the recognizable people in the story belong to themselves and have never performed the actions portrayed here. I do not know the actors nor am I associated with them in any way. If you are underage, please do not read this story. I am not making any profit from these stories, nor do I mean any harm.
When Dominic comes back to his single room, he tosses his bookbag onto his unmade bed and is tempted to follow it there. Instead he kicks at the wooden leg of his bed with the battered toe of his trainer, measuring his time and deciding against a kip. He's got nothing left for the rest of the day, but tomorrow, Thursday, he has an exam in the morning, and more, there's a long translation due on Friday that he hasn't even started. Usually, he heeds Billy's advice and heads to the law library, but he'd only lasted ten minutes there today before the silence became too much. He needs something besides the scratching of pen on paper and the turning of pages to distract him from his thoughts-thoughts that have centered on Billy for probably longer than is good for either of them.
Still, he's not sure how he was meant to just come back to campus, come back to his life, and carry on after what had happened over the weekend. He'd woken four days ago in Billy's bed, his body aching but his mind alert and alive in a way he couldn't remember having felt before. Everything seems dull in comparison now, including modern Germanic philosophy, the book Dominic digs out of his bag and tosses onto his desk before he sags into his chair. It's been some months since Dominic's been this frustrated by school, impatient to leave and move on. Whether he does so with the degree he's almost earned seems to matter little.
Not that he so much wants to move on as move over-across town and into Billy's life more firmly, if Billy would have him, and Dominic's just beginning to think that he might. For a few minutes, Dominic loses himself to that particular and favored fantasy. He could get a job in a restaurant maybe, or a bookstore. They'd have more than just the weekends together, and there wouldn't be the constant threat of being discovered. Closing the fingers of his right hand tightly around his left wrist, his pen dropping onto his blank notepad, Dominic remembers again how Billy had looked and felt, and assures himself once more that Billy might find the fantasy appealing, too.
Opening his eyes, Dominic drops his hands onto the desktop and begins to bite at his lower lip. Whether Billy wants Dominic in his life more than he already is remains an open question in Dominic's mind, and the assurances aren't quite as effective as they had been Sunday night and Monday morning. He can't imagine Billy really wanting a sous chef or a clerk for a partner, any more than a student. In any role he can't imagine being introduced to Billy's family or friends, really fitting into his life.
Slamming the philosophy book shut, Dominic pushes it away from him, his pen clattering to the floor. He stands too quickly, eager to just be moving, and knocks his hip against the desk. He winces and rights the empty water bottle that falls, taking more care to tuck the chair back in. Studying isn't working; his concentration is shot. Billy had told him to come by on Saturday morning, and Dominic isn't brave enough yet to test what would happen if he came earlier. He contemplates a run and then decides against it, considers his yoga mat but doesn't think he could manage anything close to a clear mind right now.
Instead, Dominic pulls his t-shirt over his head and lets it fall to the floor then shucks his jeans, intent on a shower. Catching sight of himself in the battered mirror that hangs on on the door to his closet, Dominic stops to look at what he can of his back. He can tell that the marks are still there though fading, the bruises blossoming into browns and yellows. The crop marks are still visible but only if he really looks. The only things that remained tender to the touch were the burns, though they, too, are healing. Dominic's sorry to see them go, and he wonders again if Billy's developed the pictures he took.
A knock on the door disturbs Dominic's thoughts, and he's tempted for a moment to just stand very still and pretend he's not in the room. There's another knock, more insistent this time, and he supposes that whoever it is probably lives on his floor and saw him come in. He takes the towel he'd left drying on the back of his desk chair that morning and tucks it around his waist. When Dominic opens the door just enough to see who's there, he's surprised by who he finds. "Greg."
"Hi."
"I was just heading to the shower."
"May I join you?"
"Your English has improved." Dominic smiles, his shoulders relaxing with a guest who is more welcome than others, though perhaps less so than he would have been three months ago. He leans against the door frame and crosses his arms over his chest, not ready to let Greg inside the room but still happy to see him. "Your pickup line could use some work though."
Greg shrugs and takes a step closer, his hands slipping into the front pockets of his jeans. "I haven't seen you around for a while."
"I've been seeing someone. Kind of."
"Someone I know?" Dominic shakes his head, his smile twisting into something that doesn't really invite more questions on the subject, and Greg shrugs his shoulder again, letting it go. "May I come in?"
"I'm just in my towel," Dominic says and Greg's eyes move down Dominic's body, stopping where the towel begins and lingering there.
"I've seen you in less."
"Let me get dressed first."
"This someone must be serious then."
"Yeah. Kind of." Dominic moves away from the door and back into his room, knowing Greg will follow and letting him. He stops, though, when he hears Greg's sharp intake of breath just a few seconds before Greg puts his fingertips to the mark on Dominic's right shoulder blade.
"Lots of kind of's," Greg says, his voice very quiet.
"It's hard to explain." Dominic steps away from Greg's discomfort and bends to pick up the clothes he had just discarded.
"I don't understand this, allowing him to hurt you."
"Not just allowing, Greg. I asked him to do it." Dominic doesn't want to explain and doesn't think he should have to. Billy had warned him of this, he knows and remembers, and Dominic can still feel Greg's eyes on his body, waiting, it seems, for something more than what Dominic's already said. He turns to face Greg, his chin lifted defensively, but he falters at the look in Greg's eyes.
"I still don't understand it. Your desire for it." Greg curls his hand into the shirt that Dominic holds crumpled against his chest and uses it to move Dominic so that he can see Dominic's back again. This time he spreads his hands flat against the middle of Dominic's back and moves one hand slowly down, hooking his fingers into the edge of Dominic's towel and tugging until it falls to the floor. "Did he tie you up, like in those pictures?"
Dominic stares down at the three small star tattoos spread across his right foot. He knows he should stop this, but some part of him wants someone other than Billy and himself to be witness to what had happened over the weekend. It makes it feel more real in some way. "You saw the exhibit?"
"It was sexy. Intense but beautiful." Greg kisses Dominic's shoulder, his neck, and Dominic lets him, closing his eyes at the touch.
"I can't, Greg." But Dominic knows he doesn't sound like he means it, and Greg slides his hand over Dominic's stomach, pulling him closer. Dominic closes his hand over Greg's, wanting to be touched but unnerved by it, too, finding that he really wants it to be Billy's hands on him.
"I've missed you."
"I know I did before, when I was with Josh, but I can't now."
"So, he's different."
"Very." Dominic bends to gather his jeans and takes his time to put them on while Greg watches. As he straightens, Greg sits down on the edge of Dominic's unmade bed and doesn't speak until Dominic sits down next to him.
"Are you happy with him?"
"Something close to it." The question makes Dominic nervous. He's happy when he's with Billy, definitely, but he couldn't honestly call the way he feels now happy, and from Greg's expression he can tell Greg doesn't believe it, either.
"Well." Greg shrugs again, and then reaches gently to curve a hand behind Dominic's neck, just squeezing there at first and watching Dominic's eyes flutter and then meet the floor. Dominic doesn't pull away when Greg brings him closer, doesn't resist when Greg kisses him, most of his early nervousness around Dominic having vanished some time ago. Greg knows how Dominic likes to be kissed, knows how to encourage more in return, and it'd be a lie if Dominic said he didn't enjoy it even now, but he can't pretend anymore that there's anyone else he wants touching him. When Greg's hands travel to Dominic's waist and move gently inside his jeans, Dominic sits back and takes a deep breath.
"Look, I can't. I mean it." Dominic forces himself to make it sound stronger, harsher. It's difficult brushing Greg off, much more than it would be to push away some git in a club. Dominic stands before Greg can reach for him again, and when he turns back to the bed, Greg's nodding and staring at his own hands.
"I'm sorry." Greg's fingers flex nervously and then calm as he folds his hands together. "I hope-I want you to be more than something close to happy, Dom."
"I will be." Dominic's surprised by his own certainty, surprised that he believes it, if only for a moment. "It's good, Greg. You don't-have to understand, like. You just have to believe me. I don't-"
"It's okay." Greg looks up finally, and Dominic relaxes, his shoulders dropping. Before he can speak, Greg continues. "I was actually just coming to see if you wanted to get some dinner."
"Oh, god, yeah," Dominic laughs, relief in his smile and his eyes. "I'm sorry, Greg. I didn't mean to-" Dominic throws a hand and then scrapes it back through his hair. "Like, make you think we were-"
"We're just friends."
Dominic bites his lip again and then swallows. "Yeah. I want that."
"And I want chips. Everybody's happy." It's something they've both heard another friend say in other circumstances, and the words and Greg's smile make Dominic break out in louder laughter before he reaches for his t-shirt again.
Several hours, a dinner he couldn't really afford, and some pints later, Dominic finds himself back where he was earlier-sitting in his room and wondering how he's going to deal with having to wait until Saturday to feel settled again. He and Greg had spent ages in the chip shop and then at several games of pool, Dominic playing not half as well as he usually does. Little distractions ate at him all night, and by the time they'd returned to the residence hall, Dominic found himself on edge with a bit of a headache and his skin prickling with the desire to be calmed again. For what he hopes is the last time tonight he thinks about making the trek to Billy's house and arriving uninvited, sliding inside the back door to the garden and crawling into Billy's bed. Falling to his back on his own mattress and turning to the little clock on his table, Dominic tries to imagine what Billy's doing at this hour-marking papers, reading, smoking on his little porch, drinking something heady, or maybe he's not home at all; maybe he's distracted, too, driving around looking for something to hold his attention for more than a few minutes. Dominic closes his eyes and pushes away the thought of Billy sharing that time with anyone else, and forces himself to settle back at his desk before the temptation to find Billy becomes too great.
At the desk Dominic cracks open his books and papers, shoves his headphones on and loses himself in theories and problems that seem easy now in comparison to everything else going on in his head and heart. Every few minutes he shifts in the chair and his body reminds him of what he'd earned the previous weekend, and Dominic thinks that after the kind of self-discipline he'd exercised tonight, in this room and outside, he'll have earned even more come Saturday. When he finishes his notes long after the rest of the hall's gone silent and dark, Dominic's head is swimming with information he believes he'll retain in the morning. Satisfied for the moment with everything he's done-satisfied he's done everything he could tonight, on several levels-Dominic falls back into his bed and thinks happily of little but sleep.