Somewhere Beyond the Sea
b d
36.082 words
9 parts
It Begins
FINE! Billy screams in his head. This word is vocalized, but it sounds more like a purely Pippin “AAAAAAAAAA~AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!” than anything else. Billy attacks the coverlets, as well. Some feathers float out and those just piss him off; he grabs and pokes and swats at them, but they flit out of his reach before his palm makes contact.
Poor Billy; he’s just realized that he’s attracted to Dom.
Fine, Billy thinks again, and if he had spoken that aloud, it would have traveled out of his mouth with a hefty amount of flame. Smoke is probably already coming out of his nostrils. It’s a good thing Ali's not here, because he’d have already unwittingly beaten her up inside the coverlet and then charred her remains with his dragon breath.
But Billy was never one to stay angry for long, and eventually his breathing slows down and his teeth unclench. He settles comfortably back under the covers, his brow still furrowed, his body sluggish with jetlag. And since Billy really can’t seem to fight it anymore, thoughts of Dom drift right into his head without even knocking.
Poor Billy; he just got back from LA and won’t see Dom for a month and a half.
Somewhere Beyond the Sea
image by viggarobean
Saturday
Billy bites back a grin so ridiculously wide that, if unleashed, could conceivably frighten to tears the ten-year-old girl sitting next to him. Which would cause the man sitting on her right in the aisle seat (who is probably her father) to punch Billy in the face.
Billy supposes the grin would do little or no harm to the sunny window on his left, so he looks out at the approaching eastern coastline of Florida and lets it loose. It feels as good as having a pee after holding it for fifteen hours. Well, no, Billy amends. It feels better.
Billy intends to kiss Dom for the first time today.
~
When Billy finally slides into the Miami airport, he’s got that fluttery-anxious feeling in his… well, in his everything. He readjusts the strap of his messenger bag because he’s got this silly notion that it looks more becoming on him from this angle than that one, and he hums happily to himself as he strides off to the baggage claim.
He thinks he must be the happiest person in this entire airport. After all, Billy has been doing some serious thinking and he’s pretty sure Dom has always liked him. Like that.
There aren’t enough clocks here; he keeps wanting to do a countdown from now until the moment he will see Dom (and Elijah, but mostly Dom). If he starts now from three minutes, at the exact moment he reaches zero, Dom (and Elijah) will appear. But he knows he’ll lose track, because nobody can count backwards for three minutes while retrieving their luggage. Especially not Billy, who is, as previously mentioned, the happiest person in the place. Probably the most excited, as well. He doesn’t see anyone else grinning like an idiot for no apparent reason.
On he walks, nodding politely to everyone who looks his way, feeling his palms become slightly moist. This is going to be good, Billy can tell. He already feels like he’s in high school again, the corridors choked with people as they are. And the butterflies in his stomach. Very high school. Very nice-feeling.
Once he reaches the carousel, he bounces lightly on the balls of his feet and the small girl who had been sitting next to him on the plane is suddenly next to him again. She’s holding her father’s hand, but he isn’t paying attention as she asks in a lisping American way, “What are you so happy about, mister?”
Billy readjusts his hands over his bag and smiles down at her. “Everything, of course.”
She sniffles-must have a cold-and becomes confused. “You talk funny. What did you say?”
“He said everything, honey.” Now her father is sizing Billy up, but he smiles and apparently decides this giddy wee Scottish man is harmless.
She glances from her father back to Billy. “Does that mean you’re in love?”
Billy laughs; isn’t it ironic that exactly three minutes have passed since he rejected the idea of counting down, and that this is exactly the instant that Dom jumps onto Billy’s back with a gruff, resounding, “Billeh!” Elijah runs around to Billy’s front and hugs him too, just before Billy would have toppled over under Dom’s weight.
The preliminary hugs and hellos end (and Billy off-handedly notes that the little girl has been tugged to a safer distance by her father), so once Dom is back on his feet, Billy turns around and jumps into another embrace and tries to make it symbolize everything that is going to happen.
~
Billy’s brain is trying to absorb too many details. There are the basics, the obvious: dark wood, open windows, lazy fans, warm air, beautiful people, the taste of the ocean in the air and the smell of the lime from the three waters their waiter has just set on the table. Elijah is wearing a tee-shirt and a goatee and isn’t sweating at all, but Billy’s skin is glistening and it feels sticky, slippery, strange. Elijah is smiling. Elijah’s hair looks very soft, like a kitten. Dom, though. Billy and Dom are sitting on the same side of the booth, although Dom and Elijah are across from each other and chattering away, just like always, just like it.
Dom is just so near and Billy thinks that he’s not been this close to another human being for quite a while. Dom’s right shoulder is touching Billy’s left, and when Billy watches Dom talk, there are little damp hairs right in front of his ear that stick together with wet, and Billy remembers yeah, Dom’s got that wide part right under his nostril that connects the tip of his nose to his filtrum. Yeah, this is what people look like from up close. They have pores and weird spaces of skin.
Billy has always found it alarming how much Dom’s hair can change from visit to visit. He has never seen this particular cut on him before, but he’s decided it’s very attractive, though not very Dom-like. Very British, though; it’s the way it’s longish on top and shortish on the bottom, parted in the middle and falling forward to cover his temples. Still dyed blonde and still looks as though Dom’s used something not quite gel; perhaps mousse, or perhaps… What does Margaret use? Volumizer? Billy would be able to smell it if he would get a little closer, but he decides to save that for later.
They’ve been talking about the plans, picking up Viggo and then Orlando later on, then having breakfast at that News Café with the “oatmeal” Billy likes before they all hop onto the ship. And once on the ship, they’ll be set, they’ll grab some girlfriends and go to karaoke nights and sunbathe on the deck together.
“So Billy,” Elijah says once the conversation comes around to it. “How are things with your girlfriend?” Billy is amused at the way it sounds like schoolyard teasing.
“Well,” Billy responds, and he’s been waiting for this. He looks between Dom and Elijah, back and forth, as he speaks. “I actually had to let her go about… four… weeks ago.” Smile. Nod. Yes.
Dom’s screwed his face up into disbelief-“Why didn’t you tell me?! What the hell did you do that for?”
Billy chuckles and it’s okay to forget that Elijah is there for a moment. Billy just grins at Dom, buzzing with excitement, leaning forward onto the table a bit, telling him, “I wanted to move on to bigger and better things, you know?”
“Like what?”
Dom is amused. Dom is beautiful. Should Billy kiss him now, or wait until later? Probably later. (But Dom is so close.) Billy wants to create anticipation. (But he is so close.) Flirting will do for now. “Oh, just, you know, anything that could potentially happen on a cruise ship carrying Dom Monaghan.”
“Anything,” says Elijah, “meaning the apocalypse?”
Billy laughs without looking across the table, just at Dom. Dom breaks their eye contact, though, and flicks Elijah off. “He’s prolly talking about shagging me, the sexy beast.”
Score one for Billy: Dom still likes him after all these years. It’s so obvious. Dom will most likely explode from happiness when Billy kisses him. Everything is going so well.
Billy says nothing. He quirks his eyebrows and takes a sip of water from the glass, not through the straw. And then he looks away, smirking, from the thoughtful arc of Dom’s own eyebrows that aren’t sure whether Billy’s being serious or not. Perfect.
Perfect.
Billy is definitely going to kiss Dom tonight.
~
It’s the sound of Dom’s voice that wakes Billy up, which seems completely appropriate. Dom is in the hallway of the hotel, just outside his door, jabbering on loudly enough to hear, but not to decipher words. Billy grins and presses his face into the pillow, draws the blanket tightly around himself as he curls into the tightest fetal position he can muster. He peeks at the clock and he’s only napped for half an hour, but that’s alright, his jetlag isn’t as bad as it is when he flies to LA. It’s five in the afternoon.
A girl giggles out in the hallway, then Dom says something in a deep and quiet voice. She doesn’t say anything back, and he’s silent too, but they’re still there, right outside the door.
It doesn’t mean anything, right? Dom’s like this all the time. Flirting all over the place. He still likes Billy. Of course, why would he stop now?
Billy rolls nimbly onto his feet and pads over to the door (limping awkwardly because his left leg has fallen asleep) to check out the peep-hole. There, in the centre, is Dom’s enormous ear, and to the right of it his face is attached to the girl’s face. It’s squished and moving and hard to tell, but.
This hurts far more than it should, because Billy’s knees want to give out and he has to sit down on the edge of his bed. Maybe indulging in his attraction to Dom was a bad idea, because Dom might not want Billy anymore, or Dom might kiss him once or twice and decide to just be friends, which doesn’t sound like it but really it’s the end of all things. And god, it really hurts, and there’s no way Dom would hurt Billy on purpose. Dom must not know Billy fancies him yet. Maybe it’s time to up the ante.
Billy holds fast to his plan: he will kiss Dom tonight.
~
There is a moment of quiet when Viggo gets up to answer his mobile; Orlando and Elijah are using the loos and, since Dom sits on the opposite side of the table, Billy gets up and slips into the chair next to him. He’s been feeling it all night, Billy has-the franticness, the anxiety, and all feelings that would generally accompany the act of preparing to kiss one’s best mate. But he’s a bit more off-kilter now than he was at lunch. Dom hasn’t said a word about the girl in the hallway and Billy, for some reason, can’t bring himself to ask.
Billy grins and winks at Dom all the same. “Hello.” Billy is good at being confident; he takes a pull of Dom’s beer, sets it rather forcefully onto the table and looks at Dom, his heart pounding like the engine of a twenty-five-year-old mufflerless car.
“Hey. Bill.” Yes, Billy has noticed Dom’s growing disconcertment, but lends it to Dom’s probable inability to believe that Billy has indeed become infatuated with him. Dom looks away and takes a small sip of his beer, then holds it close to his lips when he’s done.
Billy will have none of that; he can’t let this beer get in the way. He grabs the glass and sets it on the table.
“So,” Dom quickly says, “Met this girl today.”
~
Another chance arises a little later on, but Billy refuses to take it. He and Dom are left alone on the roof of their South Beach hotel-how ironic that they’re on South Beach-when Orlando bids them goodnight and heads back inside sometime during the two o’clock hour.
The two of them are leaning (shoulders touching again through no act of Billy’s) on the short wall running around the perimeter of the roof, staring out at the deep dark ocean before them with the crescent moon sparkling faintly on the surface. They’d surfed right there this afternoon, Billy thinks, right where the moonlight is hitting the water.
The silence begins eating at Billy, not too badly, because Billy won’t let it. But it’s hard to speak into when all he can think about is what he did just a couple of hours before, and how awkward it was, and how he should have seen how uncomfortable he was making Dom. He can’t believe he had the tenacity to take Dom’s beer out of his hands and set it on the table. What was he thinking?
The longer the silence stretches, the harder it is to break. Billy wants to apologize and take it back, but that would make things far more uncomfortable than they already are.
“Sometimes,” Dom says, and instantly Billy realizes it’s only been about ten seconds since the door shut after Orlando, “I feel like I’m kind of fake, you know? Like all I am is an amalgamation of thousands of little things I’ve picked up from random people. I’ll say to myself, ‘Hey. Pippin wears a scarf and manages to make it look pretty cool, so if I wear a scarf, I can be pretty cool too.’ And it’s like everything… my entire personality came from somewhere else, and nothing is actually original, like, really mine, you know?”
Billy grabs onto this and it’s all he needs to swing himself back up into the realm of normal Billythought. “Maybe we should lock you in your room on the ship for the first half of the cruise. Then you’re bound to come up with something original.”
“Yeah, like vomit. That’s pretty original. I mean, you can’t get Dom vomit anywhere else. It comes from the heart.”
There is no need, Billy feels, to look at Dom now. His face would be too close and Dom would be able to tell that Billy… Well, he can probably tell already, but. And isn’t it ridiculous that they’re talking about vomit, and Billy wishes he could kiss Dom? “I hope it doesn’t come from the heart. I think something’s wrong with your tubes in there.” Billy pauses and frowns; he’s been on dozens of boats with Dom, hundreds, probably, and Dom has never gotten seasick before. “Why would you vomit if we locked you in your room? We’ve told you time and time again, Dom, that’s disgusting. Anorexia is the way to go.”
“I get seasick if I can’t see the water.”
“How are you going to sleep?”
“Three options.” Dom must be smiling on the inside, but not on the outside. “Number one: I’ll become a zombie and just, you know, not sleep at all. Number two: I’ll fall asleep on deck with my eyes open. Number three: I’ll stare at Elijah’s eyes as I fall asleep in my cabin, that’ll be like virtual reality of the ocean.”
Billy laughs as softly as he can, which isn’t too soft at all but he knows he can’t change the way he laughs. “What if Elijah conks out before you?”
“Sleeps with his eyes open.”
“Right, yeah, but what if he has a fluke and manages to close them? Feed him chocolate and coffee.”
“Tie him to the chair.”
“And, just in case, we can tape his eyelids up.”
Another kind of quiet comes along and wraps peacefully around them; they are tired and will head to their rooms very soon. Dom is rooming with Elijah and Orlando with Viggo; Billy gets the empty room because he’ll wake up first and nobody wants to listen to him humming in the bathroom at nine AM.
The smile remains on Billy’s face; when he doesn’t think about them, the smiles always just stick there like Post-It notes. “I think you probably look cooler in a scarf than Pippin.”
Dom looks at Billy, so now Billy will allow himself to look back. Dom is smiling too, and since it’s an I’m-about-to-hug-you smile, Billy removes his weight from the rail-wall as Dom wraps his arms around him. There are no words, and after a few tight seconds, Dom steals away to the door.
Billy wonders if he will ever kiss Dom.
[ Prologue | Saturday ]
Sunday
Usually, Billy wakes up with a smile on his face, as if he’d just been having a fantastic dream. He also generally feels pretty good about life, and he’s always relied on this resilience after tough nights. Billy’s not sure that this is a common thing; it’s called “sleeping it off,” but he gets the feeling that doesn’t entail the way he beams and hops (yes, hops) out of bed daily.
It also seems to be one of the reasons nobody wants to room with him (along with his sleep-whistling problem, of course). They’ve told him his “perky” attitude and “sunny” smile just hurt. Like when somebody rips the curtains open on you at seven AM, according to Dom. Well, Billy remembers, Dom had actually referred to them as the “fucking curtains.” And on the whole, people seem to consider morning Billy… well, ridiculous.
The memory of Dom’s hug on the roof is the very first thought of the day, followed by the hugs at the airport and the anticipation of kissing him. Then the… oh, Billy thinks. Snap.
But whatever discouragement he might have had is beaten down in the face of his morning smile, because after all, it’s a beautiful new day, if the sun peeking through the curtains is any indication. Perhaps things will go differently. As long as Billy keeps an eye on his own over-confidence.
Billy ponders kissing Dom; maybe that’s not the best way to approach things after all.
Not just yet, anyhow.
~
By lunchtime (which is really breakfast to all of them save Billy), Billy has formulated a plan. He will scrutinize everything Dom does and make sure Dom is still attracted to him (because last night with the beer and the almost-kiss might be a fluke), then Billy will initiate some sort of conversation on the matter. The content of the conversation is still vague at this point, but Billy will have plenty of time to fill that in. Their cruise will last for an entire week and they’ll all be each others’ only company. Sort of like New Zealand. The thought causes Billy to smile into his “oatmeal,” which none of his companions notice, of course. It is only half-eleven.
“Oh! You guys!” bursts Orlando, his longish hair flopping forward and stopping just short of landing in his eyes. He has made the transition from sluggish to awake, and it’s so clear that Billy swears he heard the switch flipping in Orlando’s brain. “I forgot to tell you this last night, isn’t that crazy? Well, it’s so wild, but I learned how to sew.”
“What?” Elijah squeals. “Dude, I learned how to sew in middle school.” He is expressing the utmost pity for dear Orlando.
“No, I mean with a sewing machine!”
Viggo snorts furtively; Dom nearly squirts coffee out of his nose, it seems, and then he tries hacking up a lung. Billy, who is sitting next to him, pats his back dutifully.
“Yeah,” Elijah says in the ‘duh’ voice, “middle school. I made a pincushion and this ratty old bag that I still have somewhere, actually.”
Dom regains respiratory control and places his elbows purposefully on the table. “If it was ratty and old when you made it, you should probably take lessons from Orli, Elijah.”
“I don’t know about that one, Dom,” Billy counters, “They might just sew each other into a big girl’s dress and not be able to escape.”
“The machine would keep running,” Dom follows. “The power would eventually go out, most likely blowing a fuse in the process.”
“Then: oops! Stuck in a dress in the dark, immobilized by their own handiwork.”
“The cordless doesn’t work and your cell phones are too far away. What will you do?”
Viggo chuckles at his tea and Billy can just see his gummy smile; Orlando and Elijah are indignant but grinning, no doubt on the verge of some witty retorts. Dom beats them to it, though, and grabs Billy’s wrist, holding it up like a piece of evidence at a trial. “Who can tell me what stitch this is?” he asks with the air of a teacher.
“Why are you wearing a long-sleeved shirt?” Viggo asks Billy.
Suddenly Billy is reminded of a day during filming that had no defining characteristics except for the way that Dom (Merry) had held his (Pippin’s) hand for quite a stretch, and Billy remembers with surprise that he had been attracted to Dom then. Then, immediately following this, there is the knowledge that Billy has always had an on-off attraction to Dom.
Billy throws a response he’s not really fully aware of at Viggo and chances a peek at Dom (who is explaining exactly what sort of stitch it is and what color thread they’ve used and what the buttons are made of). Now Billy isn’t normally one to believe in signs, but there is a tilt to Dom’s head and a cocky look on his face that reminds Billy intensely of Merry, especially with the hair scattering onto Dom’s forehead like that, and especially the way he’s flopping around Billy’s wrist with reckless abandon.
Dom is quite clearly flirting with Billy (now he’s asking Billy if he’s right about the stitch and thread and buttons, and Billy can tell he’d been bullshitting) because he won’t let go and is sitting particularly close and that hug last night was awfully tight.
But. But isn’t that how Dom always is?
Yes, Billy triumphantly thinks. That’s exactly the point.
~
Once the muster drill ends, Dom and Viggo slip out of Billy’s sight immediately; he hasn’t seen Orlando or Elijah for at least twenty minutes, either. There are just so many people all trying to go in the same direction, but for some reason they can’t figure out how to go in the same direction at the same time. Billy feels quite short in these situations. He wants to find Dom and tell him that the man next to Billy during the drill had the word “TREES” written on his forearm.
The crowd ebbs to the left, so Billy makes a beeline for the empty floorspace even though he’s sure the guys went in the opposite direction. But nevermind that; Billy is good at finding alternate routes and he’s good at waiting.
There is the flash of a camera, then: “So you dropped the girlfriend, I hear,” says Viggo, appearing as though he’d just stepped out of the wall. He’s hiding under a straw hat and brown sunglasses, his bright orange life preserver tucked between his arm and his ribs and his camera slung over his opposite shoulder.
Billy is still wearing his life preserver, despite its awkwardness; he figures it would be more awkward to carry. “Word travels, eh? Yeah.”
“Gonna be the ladies’ man of the cruise?” His voice is gravelly, just like always (except for when he gets excited), and his skin is leathery, just like always (except for the few times Billy’s seen him in the moonlight). And isn’t Viggo always interested in hearing about other people before telling them about himself? Just like always.
Billy watches the crowd and thinks that if they actually had to evacuate this ship, it would probably take an entire day. “We’ll see how it goes.”
“Got other plans?” Viggo’s tone is just nonchalant enough for Billy to suspect something, though it’s always hard to tell with Viggo. Especially when he’s wearing sunglasses.
“Sure. I plan on cleverly persuading Elijah and Orlando to sing karaoke every night until somebody throws a rotten tomato at them. Or maybe not a rotten tomato, perhaps a bottle of whiskey. Then I’ll run up and nab it right out of the air.”
The short silence afterwards (which isn’t really a silence because the entire rest of the ship is talking) is a normal phenomenon with Viggo, although Billy uses it to wonder if he’s ever as funny alone as he is with Dom. “With tricks like that,” says Viggo after a moment, “you’ll get at least four out of five girls’ numbers.” And what an odd thing for Viggo to say to Billy.
Billy wonders if Viggo’s changed or if Billy himself is different.
~
Viggo steps immediately into the room he’ll share with Orlando, but the other four are stuck in the hallway.
“We could switch off,” says Elijah. “Hey Billy, we’re talking about you.”
An expression of guilt slips off Dom’s face like oil. “Bill, you can sleep in our room.”
“Dom!” Elijah swats Dom’s arm.
Billy comes to stand in front of the three of them, all of who are leaning against the wall next to their cabins. Dom’s arms are crossed and if it weren’t for that slip a second ago, Billy would feel completely at ease.
“That was easy,” Orlando grins and turns towards his door.
Except now Billy feels quite uneasy. “So I get to introduce you two to the wide world of mornings?” he says to them. Orlando is already inside.
Elijah groans playfully. “Guess me and Dom can’t have sex every night after all.”
“It’s making love, you bitch!” Dom slaps Elijah lightly, grins crookedly at Billy and whips out his key card. “You can use my card, Bill,” since Billy doesn’t have his yet and it won’t be ready until tomorrow afternoon. His uneasiness floats away like stray candy floss.
“Or,” Elijah suggests, “You and I could use one and Billy can have the other.”
Then Billy recalls he’s never seen stray candy floss float away, and he’s never liked candy floss, and something is wrong with the way things are.
~
Situations like these aren’t supposed to give Billy time to think, because by all rights, Billy should be so happy to see these guys that he should just be. Laugh, joke, smile, tig, play and be merry, and even be Merry, too.
The ship is finally leaving the port, accelerating so slowly that nobody can feel the drag. Dom, Elijah, Viggo, Orlando and Billy are waving at people they don’t know down on the pier. Billy is between Viggo and Elijah, and Dom is on the other side of Elijah, and they are talking to each other but not to Billy. Billy thinks about joining their conversation, but he’s thinking too hard to do that. A sweat has broken out on his forehead and the insides of his elbows, the breeze is chilly and a vague sensation of dizziness lurks underneath every movement he makes. He sees a dead fly on the rail in front of him and brushes it off, watching it float on the air instead of fall, as if it has come back to life in a more graceful form than before.
Strangely unsettled, Billy swallows and turns to Elijah on his left, but looks past at Dom and waits for a pause to say, “So are you going to need any help getting to sleep tonight, Dom?” He tilts his head slightly toward Elijah.
But Elijah, who Billy had not even asked, bursts, “He’ll be so drunk by bedtime that you won’t need to help him, I’m sure.”
Dom cuffs Elijah on the head and looks at Billy. “No thank you, Billy, I’m sure I’ll have no troubles sleeping.”
But that’s not even funny. Dom has missed the joke.
“What, ah,” Billy says, “what about your seasickness?”
“He’s wearing one of those patch things,” Elijah offers, lifting Dom’s ear as though he were a dog to show Billy the skin-colored circle behind it.
Of course, Billy thinks, and that’s what the answer has been all along.
A few blinks later Billy turns away and looks down at the railing again. Another fly has died there.
~
This is the third time Billy has vomited in fifteen minutes, despite the fact that his stomach has been empty since midday. The guys left for dinner twenty minutes ago, and he insisted he’d join them fifteen minutes ago. Now Billy can only hope desperately that one of them will realize he’s developed a crippling illness and come rushing back to let him know where Dom’s put his seasickness patches, because Billy has looked and looked and looked but just can’t find them.
Billy did, however, stumble across Dom’s journal. Well, diary, Billy thinks, Dom always likes to call it his diary.
Billy’s always been a moral sort of guy. (He’s too afraid.) He doesn’t open the diary at all. But he remembers exactly where Dom has put it; inside the pillowcase on the underside of the top pillow on his bed. It’s not a spot where Billy had thought the patches would be, but Billy is a thorough searcher.
Once he’s brushed his teeth (again), Billy plods weakly to Dom’s bed and tentatively falls onto it after dragging the rubbish bin to the floor beside it. There are only two queen-sized beds in the room, and one sofa; of course Elijah and Dom had already laid their claims before Billy joined the party.
It must have only taken five seconds for the clock to get from 8.18 to 8.30, as if Billy isn’t disoriented enough. He’s laying on his left side on the very edge of the bed, the bin directly below his head, just incase. With an anemic grab he pulls his mobile off the nightstand and holds it, trembling, in front of his face. Dials Dom, but it’s tough to press the buttons hard enough.
No signal.
~
Billy figures it’s a bad sign that when he wakes next, he can’t read the clock at all. Then he vomits into the bin, which is surprising considering he hadn’t even felt it coming and could have easily vomited on the nightstand instead.
After he manages to sit up, he stills himself for a few moments to deal piecemeal with the spots before his eyes, and then the dizziness. The balcony curtains have been left open so that Billy can see by the moonlight a little: Elijah is sleeping in the other bed and Dom is on the sofa. A small blue-gray form is perched on the desktop across the room: a towel animal, Billy thinks fuzzily. Their room steward must have come in while he was asleep.
Billy tries looking at the clock again, and it takes some time before he can read the numbers: 4.16.
It’s more complicated to walk the bin to the loo than Billy feels it should be, and when he gets there he almost vomits again. He throws back a glass of water, all the while squinting against the hostile lights. Another teeth-brushing session, another glass of water, and he ambles to the sofa and drops his bum right down on the floor. “Dom?” he whispers, his voice sated with please.
Strange, but necessary, Billy knows-to wake Dom up, he’ll have to do what he always used to do in New Zealand. He pinches Dom’s ear. Tugs on it. And it still works like a charm. Billy tries to smile, but only about half of it makes it through the sickness and the darkness.
“Bill?”
“Where are your patches?”
“Mmnn? What?”
Billy feels too close to Dom, now, so he scoots away to a distance of about twenty centimeters and lowers his eyes. “Your seasickness patches. Where’ve you put them?”
“Trousers.”
So Billy crawls to the blue jeans on the floor and pulls a plastic case out of the pocket.
~
He is only just falling asleep again when Dom appears next to Billy on the bed. Dom feels Billy’s forehead and cheeks, and whispers, “How’re you feeling?”
A bubble of elation curls Billy’s toes and the corners of his mouth, because Dom will do silly things that don’t really make a difference, like hold his hand and stroke his thumb across the back of it. Just to make Billy feel better. “Feel like a surf. Up for it?”
None of Dom’s face is visible; just the silhouette of the head and the ears. Billy closes his eyes because it aches less. “Have you been throwing up, Bill?” Dom’s hand passes over Billy’s forehead again, but doesn’t go near Billy’s own hand.
“Yeah. You can’t smell it, can you?”
“No, no. That’s what you always smell like.”
Billy is certain Dom should be holding his hand, and since Dom doesn’t seem to realize this, Billy reaches out for it himself. He finds Dom’s fingers loose and warm. “Dom.”
But they’re slippery, too, and are gone, along with Dom, once he tells Billy, “Shh. You’ll feel all better by morning. Goodnight.”
[ Prologue | Saturday | Sunday ]
Monday
Finally, it gets to be a reasonable hour and when Billy wakes up he doesn’t know why it feels like he’s slept for days, and like he could sleep for days more. He smiles, as usual, and sits, eager to look at the sea from their private balcony. But something seems to be terribly wrong, because he vomits, again, into the rubbish bin.
“Fuck,” he mouths, and all the trappings of illness bear down on him. He reaches up to the patch behind his ear and yes, it’s still there, so what the hell is going on?
This morning, Billy neglects to hum because his throat burns something fierce. He freshens up and takes a shower so hot it leaves pink patches of skin all over him, but he falls asleep under the spray anyway, sitting on the floor of the tub and resting his head against the cool tiles. Since he vomits again after that, he figures he can remove the patch. It sticks to his fingers stubbornly until he twists it and folds it and adheres it to the inside of the bin.
He throws on some sweatpants and a tee-shirt, then walks into the main cabin. He has to pause a moment, leaning against the wall, before he can pad the rest of the way over to Dom’s (Billy’s) bed. There, in the light of the eight AM sun from the glass balcony door, Billy drops his head onto the pillow and remembers: Dom’s diary is still there, isn’t it.
Billy wonders if he will ever regret this.
It’s a handmade book with a leather cover, and Billy thinks he could have made one just like it. There are only five signatures and the paper looks recycled; they’ve even embedded extra leaves and thin stems into it. The pages don’t fall open to any particular spot, they just fan out like bristles, and Billy can see that Dom’s only filled the first quarter or so. Billy turns on his side, facing away from Dom and Elijah, and curls up around the diary.
“Alright,” says a random page near the beginning. “There was a second date with Ali. I am sad. Why am I sad? Probably because he is not here. If he were here, he would be so happy that she went out with him again and he would bounce off the walls and be ridiculously contagious with joy and I would be unable to produce sad emotions because he just rubs off on me that way. Is it weird? Am I repressing when I do that? How many people in the world are in this situation, and can I meet them please?
“That girl who lives across from me is cute. She also has a boyfriend, who is probably also cute.
“Fuck, thats it. I’m telling Elijah at the next available opportunity that I am practically in love with him. Billy. Haha, no, NOT in love with Elijah. Heres what I will say (youve got to plan stuff like this, as its a big deal):
“I am practically in love with Billy. I have been so for years. He does not feel the same about me, as you may have noticed. (pause for comments and/or effect) Its not like I do everything I do BECAUSE I like him. Its not like I hug him BECAUSE I like him, and its not like I’m going to do a movie with him BECAUSE I like him. Its because he is my best friend (or is Elijah the best friend? To be decided) and I can actually repress my feelings for him a lot of the time, which may not be the healthiest thing to do, but what other option do I have? Also, I always have it in the back of my mind that we will get together someday in the very distant future. (Elijah will agree.) Whenever I imagine my future, Billys always there. Its kind of an unconscious thing, I dont even try. He is just there, and I couldn’t picture it any other way because really, GOD, do you know how fucking hard it would be to find somebody else like him who I am telepathic with and who is so fucking funny and…
“Yeah, so generally, this is what I will say to Elijah. Tomorrow.
“I wonder if I will be in love with him for the rest of my life.”
Billy, smiling, puts the diary away carefully. He is well aware that this entry is from ages ago, when he first started dating Ali, but the ending seems hopeful enough. He rolls onto his back and strains around the feverish ache in his eye sockets to see that Elijah and Dom are both still cluelessly dozing, and Billy closes his eyes, letting the pitch of the ship rock him sweetly back to sleep.
Billy dreams about kissing Dom.
~
The next few times Billy drifts out of sleep, he doesn’t quite reach full consciousness. It isn’t until around sunset that he wakes up, opens his eyes and wonders where everyone has gone. When he sits up, he’s careful, and he smiles for two reasons: one, he doesn’t vomit, and two, he remembers Dom’s diary.
A little later, after brushing his teeth and inspecting the room service options, he decides to explore the ship a trifle and hopefully wind up in a food-filled area. His movements are still very lethargic and his skin is hypersensitive, but he pulls on a sweater and ignores this and all the other things that have gone wrong inside him.
Before Billy leaves the cabin, he checks under the pillow and finds that Dom’s diary is gone.
~
Billy can’t remember having such an intense urge to cry and a subsequently conflicting pride that won’t let him do so. He’s sitting on some stairs in the middle of the ship, clutching the rail-post next to him with whitened knuckles. He isn’t sure if he’s going to vomit, but he can’t stand up, he doesn’t have his mobile (not that it would work anyway), he doesn’t have his key card (even though it should be ready by now) and he is perfectly lost.
He can’t stand up. He tries so hard, but his knees are so weak and he has no sense of balance and all he would succeed in doing is taking a tumble down the last eight or so stairs. The stairs are carpeted because everything seems to be carpeted; Billy has long since memorized the garish pattern and the feel of the fuzz under him, and he honestly can’t say how long he’s been sitting here because he’s been fending off sleep the entire time.
Repeatedly, he has tried asking passers-by for help, but he quickly discovered his voice is buried under layers of virus. He figures somebody will realize he needs help eventually. His eyes are watering. (His chin is crumpling.) He is alone.
Billy can’t stand up.
Billy can’t. Fucking. Stand. Up.
“Billy!” shouts Orlando.
And Billy could cry with relief. It’s all four of them at once, coming up the stairs, bringing their merriment with them. Billy laughs, though he thinks it might be hard to recognize it as such for its silence.
Orlando sits next to him and Viggo looms; Elijah stands in front and Dom hangs back, halfway behind the railing. “Are you feeling better?” Orlando asks, and from his facial expression alone, Billy knows that Orlando has been paying him visits during his slumber.
Billy shrugs and smiles, because what else can he do?
“Why did you leave the cabin?” Elijah asks. “You look like shit, Billy.”
It’s too bad Billy can’t talk, because he’s forced to flip Elijah the bird (yet Billy smiles, regardless).
Viggo’s turn: “We got some girls’ numbers for you, since you couldn’t yourself. Not phone numbers, I mean cabin numbers.”
Billy nods with gratitude, but it hurts quite a bit so he stills himself abruptly and holds his forehead.
And then there is Dom, wedging himself in good and close, exploding with life and gestures. “Bill, I think I’m in love.”
Billy wishes Dom were talking about him.
~
Orlando and Elijah take Billy back to the cabin with care and explicit tales about Dom, who has opted to romp around the ship some more with Viggo. Apparently Dom has met “the girl of his dreams.”
Since they haven’t finished telling Billy all there is to know about her, Elijah and Orlando prop Billy up on some pillows and sit on the bed with him, one on either side, throwing a wadded up washcloth to each other over Billy’s knees. Billy is happier than he’d like to admit that they’re staying to chat. Something inside him is slippery and stretched, but it’s easy to ignore, especially with company. It’s why he doesn’t say something like ‘go off and have your fun without me, you rascals.’ That, and he can’t speak.
“So Katie,” Elijah starts, “Is actually-”
“Her name is Kathy,” Orlando frowns.
“No, it’s Katie.”
“Oh, but like, every American girl is named Katie. How boring for Dom.”
Billy agrees silently: Dom will be sick of her by midnight.
Elijah’s pride in America-though he’s always tried to downplay it-surfaces. “I like the name Katie! I dated a Katie. My sister’s friend is named Katie. You could be a Katie, if you were a girl.”
To which Orlando responds: “You could be a Nancy if you were a man.”
Elijah unfolds the washcloth and throws it in a rather complicated-looking way so that it covers Orlando’s face. “Anyway, Billy, Katie’s a riot. She’s from Miami and Dom met her at our hotel. She’s a comedian, and she’s doing a show in a few nights in one of the lounges. Which one is it?”
“The big one,” Orlando says, and he has slid on a pair of sunglasses over the washcloth and mashed part of it inside his mouth. Billy’s heart swells with love for this tragically senseless yet stubbornly British man, and were he not worried about spreading his disease, he would certainly hug Orlando. As it is, all Billy can do is laugh quietly in appreciation.
“The big one. Right.” Elijah’s eyebrows twist up into that position they seem to fall into for at least half of his waking hours every day, and he looks at Billy, points to Orlando and whispers behind his hand, “He hasn’t even started drinking yet.”
Promptly Orlando strips the washcloth off, flinging his shades into the air to land on Billy’s feet. The washcloth is then directed at Elijah’s face with some force, and Orlando turns to Billy to say, “Dom seems really serious about Kathy. It’s sort of freaky.”
“Yeah,” Elijah counters, “but Dom’s been weird about dating lately.”
Billy perks his ears (as if they needed perking).
“How so?”
With a shrug, Elijah resumes the game of catch and consequently keeps his eyes on the washcloth as he speaks. “I don’t know. Can’t put my finger on it, you know? I mean, there’s the…”
Orlando nods.
“But there’s something else that I don’t think he’s going to tell me about.”
Billy wishes he could scream. All he can do is grab a pillow and toss it at Elijah.
Who shrugs innocently, and actually tells Billy, “Sworn to secrecy. Sorry.”
Billy then looks to Orlando, who avoids eye contact by inspecting the washcloth.
Billy wonders why Dom isn’t sitting here with them, and when did any of them ever keep secrets from each other like girls, and when had Elijah and Dom become the best of friends?
~
Hours later, while Billy listens to Dom jabber away, he finds that he feels a horrible guilt for having read the diary passage. It was a stupid thing to do, of course, and Billy feels that it’s hard to act as though he hadn’t looked, and really, truth be told, he feels like Dom just knows that Billy has done it. The icing on the cake, though, is the way Billy feels so insecure that he had to go and snoop, because when is Billy ever insecure? He feels like a girl just thinking it. He also feels like a complete bastard.
He also is still attracted to Dom.
Billy knows this because of the way Dom’s eyes feel when they look at him, and the way Billy’s skin feels when Dom touches it, and the way that all the contents of Billy’s ribcage have shriveled up and died like bugs under the magnifying glass in the face of “Katie” the wonder girl, who Dom has so thoughtfully brought to meet Billy at eleven at night when Billy would much rather be sleeping than being trampled to a bloody pulp from the inside out.
Billy wonders if ‘attracted’ is really the right word in regards to Dom.
His self-pity is aided by the fact that as far as he can tell, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Katie, and Dom has every reason to fall desperately in love with her.
Billy wonders if this is what Dom felt like when he started dating Ali. Billy thinks he’s about ready to jump ship.
“So I was visiting my parents a few months ago-” Dom starts.
“Are they still together?” asks Katie.
“Yeah, yeah, and if I were a good boy I could tell you how long they’ve been married. Prolly like, one-hundred and twenty-three years.”
Katie laughs (Katie doesn’t giggle), and Billy is not in the least bit interested in watching Dom and Katie have a conversation in front of him while ignoring him entirely. It continues anyway, and Katie says, “Are you ever gonna get married?”
“Katie, don’t you think it’s a little early in our relationship for such talk?”
She grins her sparkling American pop-star grin (which, by the by, makes Billy want to vomit) and then Dom’s own smile slips away in place of a more serious look, and he tucks his long un-Dom-like hair behind his ear, and says, “Are you ever getting married?”
This also makes Billy want to vomit.
“Why don’t you just propose, already, Dommie?” She sticks her tongue out cutely and winks at Dom. Billy wants to think she’s too skinny, but she has a small roll of fat in her stomach when she sits cross-legged like that. He wants to think she’s wearing too much make-up, but he can’t tell how much make-up she’s wearing in the first place. He wants to consider her outfit ugly, but he can’t because it’s very becoming on her and honestly, it’s as though Dom were her fashion consultant.
But then: Billy wonders if Dom is only pretending to be interested in her just to get a rise out of Billy. Because Elijah knew something strange was going on.
~
On to Tuesday
36.082 words
9 parts
It Begins
FINE! Billy screams in his head. This word is vocalized, but it sounds more like a purely Pippin “AAAAAAAAAA~AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!” than anything else. Billy attacks the coverlets, as well. Some feathers float out and those just piss him off; he grabs and pokes and swats at them, but they flit out of his reach before his palm makes contact.
Poor Billy; he’s just realized that he’s attracted to Dom.
Fine, Billy thinks again, and if he had spoken that aloud, it would have traveled out of his mouth with a hefty amount of flame. Smoke is probably already coming out of his nostrils. It’s a good thing Ali's not here, because he’d have already unwittingly beaten her up inside the coverlet and then charred her remains with his dragon breath.
But Billy was never one to stay angry for long, and eventually his breathing slows down and his teeth unclench. He settles comfortably back under the covers, his brow still furrowed, his body sluggish with jetlag. And since Billy really can’t seem to fight it anymore, thoughts of Dom drift right into his head without even knocking.
Poor Billy; he just got back from LA and won’t see Dom for a month and a half.
Somewhere Beyond the Sea
image by viggarobean
Saturday
Billy bites back a grin so ridiculously wide that, if unleashed, could conceivably frighten to tears the ten-year-old girl sitting next to him. Which would cause the man sitting on her right in the aisle seat (who is probably her father) to punch Billy in the face.
Billy supposes the grin would do little or no harm to the sunny window on his left, so he looks out at the approaching eastern coastline of Florida and lets it loose. It feels as good as having a pee after holding it for fifteen hours. Well, no, Billy amends. It feels better.
Billy intends to kiss Dom for the first time today.
~
When Billy finally slides into the Miami airport, he’s got that fluttery-anxious feeling in his… well, in his everything. He readjusts the strap of his messenger bag because he’s got this silly notion that it looks more becoming on him from this angle than that one, and he hums happily to himself as he strides off to the baggage claim.
He thinks he must be the happiest person in this entire airport. After all, Billy has been doing some serious thinking and he’s pretty sure Dom has always liked him. Like that.
There aren’t enough clocks here; he keeps wanting to do a countdown from now until the moment he will see Dom (and Elijah, but mostly Dom). If he starts now from three minutes, at the exact moment he reaches zero, Dom (and Elijah) will appear. But he knows he’ll lose track, because nobody can count backwards for three minutes while retrieving their luggage. Especially not Billy, who is, as previously mentioned, the happiest person in the place. Probably the most excited, as well. He doesn’t see anyone else grinning like an idiot for no apparent reason.
On he walks, nodding politely to everyone who looks his way, feeling his palms become slightly moist. This is going to be good, Billy can tell. He already feels like he’s in high school again, the corridors choked with people as they are. And the butterflies in his stomach. Very high school. Very nice-feeling.
Once he reaches the carousel, he bounces lightly on the balls of his feet and the small girl who had been sitting next to him on the plane is suddenly next to him again. She’s holding her father’s hand, but he isn’t paying attention as she asks in a lisping American way, “What are you so happy about, mister?”
Billy readjusts his hands over his bag and smiles down at her. “Everything, of course.”
She sniffles-must have a cold-and becomes confused. “You talk funny. What did you say?”
“He said everything, honey.” Now her father is sizing Billy up, but he smiles and apparently decides this giddy wee Scottish man is harmless.
She glances from her father back to Billy. “Does that mean you’re in love?”
Billy laughs; isn’t it ironic that exactly three minutes have passed since he rejected the idea of counting down, and that this is exactly the instant that Dom jumps onto Billy’s back with a gruff, resounding, “Billeh!” Elijah runs around to Billy’s front and hugs him too, just before Billy would have toppled over under Dom’s weight.
The preliminary hugs and hellos end (and Billy off-handedly notes that the little girl has been tugged to a safer distance by her father), so once Dom is back on his feet, Billy turns around and jumps into another embrace and tries to make it symbolize everything that is going to happen.
~
Billy’s brain is trying to absorb too many details. There are the basics, the obvious: dark wood, open windows, lazy fans, warm air, beautiful people, the taste of the ocean in the air and the smell of the lime from the three waters their waiter has just set on the table. Elijah is wearing a tee-shirt and a goatee and isn’t sweating at all, but Billy’s skin is glistening and it feels sticky, slippery, strange. Elijah is smiling. Elijah’s hair looks very soft, like a kitten. Dom, though. Billy and Dom are sitting on the same side of the booth, although Dom and Elijah are across from each other and chattering away, just like always, just like it.
Dom is just so near and Billy thinks that he’s not been this close to another human being for quite a while. Dom’s right shoulder is touching Billy’s left, and when Billy watches Dom talk, there are little damp hairs right in front of his ear that stick together with wet, and Billy remembers yeah, Dom’s got that wide part right under his nostril that connects the tip of his nose to his filtrum. Yeah, this is what people look like from up close. They have pores and weird spaces of skin.
Billy has always found it alarming how much Dom’s hair can change from visit to visit. He has never seen this particular cut on him before, but he’s decided it’s very attractive, though not very Dom-like. Very British, though; it’s the way it’s longish on top and shortish on the bottom, parted in the middle and falling forward to cover his temples. Still dyed blonde and still looks as though Dom’s used something not quite gel; perhaps mousse, or perhaps… What does Margaret use? Volumizer? Billy would be able to smell it if he would get a little closer, but he decides to save that for later.
They’ve been talking about the plans, picking up Viggo and then Orlando later on, then having breakfast at that News Café with the “oatmeal” Billy likes before they all hop onto the ship. And once on the ship, they’ll be set, they’ll grab some girlfriends and go to karaoke nights and sunbathe on the deck together.
“So Billy,” Elijah says once the conversation comes around to it. “How are things with your girlfriend?” Billy is amused at the way it sounds like schoolyard teasing.
“Well,” Billy responds, and he’s been waiting for this. He looks between Dom and Elijah, back and forth, as he speaks. “I actually had to let her go about… four… weeks ago.” Smile. Nod. Yes.
Dom’s screwed his face up into disbelief-“Why didn’t you tell me?! What the hell did you do that for?”
Billy chuckles and it’s okay to forget that Elijah is there for a moment. Billy just grins at Dom, buzzing with excitement, leaning forward onto the table a bit, telling him, “I wanted to move on to bigger and better things, you know?”
“Like what?”
Dom is amused. Dom is beautiful. Should Billy kiss him now, or wait until later? Probably later. (But Dom is so close.) Billy wants to create anticipation. (But he is so close.) Flirting will do for now. “Oh, just, you know, anything that could potentially happen on a cruise ship carrying Dom Monaghan.”
“Anything,” says Elijah, “meaning the apocalypse?”
Billy laughs without looking across the table, just at Dom. Dom breaks their eye contact, though, and flicks Elijah off. “He’s prolly talking about shagging me, the sexy beast.”
Score one for Billy: Dom still likes him after all these years. It’s so obvious. Dom will most likely explode from happiness when Billy kisses him. Everything is going so well.
Billy says nothing. He quirks his eyebrows and takes a sip of water from the glass, not through the straw. And then he looks away, smirking, from the thoughtful arc of Dom’s own eyebrows that aren’t sure whether Billy’s being serious or not. Perfect.
Perfect.
Billy is definitely going to kiss Dom tonight.
~
It’s the sound of Dom’s voice that wakes Billy up, which seems completely appropriate. Dom is in the hallway of the hotel, just outside his door, jabbering on loudly enough to hear, but not to decipher words. Billy grins and presses his face into the pillow, draws the blanket tightly around himself as he curls into the tightest fetal position he can muster. He peeks at the clock and he’s only napped for half an hour, but that’s alright, his jetlag isn’t as bad as it is when he flies to LA. It’s five in the afternoon.
A girl giggles out in the hallway, then Dom says something in a deep and quiet voice. She doesn’t say anything back, and he’s silent too, but they’re still there, right outside the door.
It doesn’t mean anything, right? Dom’s like this all the time. Flirting all over the place. He still likes Billy. Of course, why would he stop now?
Billy rolls nimbly onto his feet and pads over to the door (limping awkwardly because his left leg has fallen asleep) to check out the peep-hole. There, in the centre, is Dom’s enormous ear, and to the right of it his face is attached to the girl’s face. It’s squished and moving and hard to tell, but.
This hurts far more than it should, because Billy’s knees want to give out and he has to sit down on the edge of his bed. Maybe indulging in his attraction to Dom was a bad idea, because Dom might not want Billy anymore, or Dom might kiss him once or twice and decide to just be friends, which doesn’t sound like it but really it’s the end of all things. And god, it really hurts, and there’s no way Dom would hurt Billy on purpose. Dom must not know Billy fancies him yet. Maybe it’s time to up the ante.
Billy holds fast to his plan: he will kiss Dom tonight.
~
There is a moment of quiet when Viggo gets up to answer his mobile; Orlando and Elijah are using the loos and, since Dom sits on the opposite side of the table, Billy gets up and slips into the chair next to him. He’s been feeling it all night, Billy has-the franticness, the anxiety, and all feelings that would generally accompany the act of preparing to kiss one’s best mate. But he’s a bit more off-kilter now than he was at lunch. Dom hasn’t said a word about the girl in the hallway and Billy, for some reason, can’t bring himself to ask.
Billy grins and winks at Dom all the same. “Hello.” Billy is good at being confident; he takes a pull of Dom’s beer, sets it rather forcefully onto the table and looks at Dom, his heart pounding like the engine of a twenty-five-year-old mufflerless car.
“Hey. Bill.” Yes, Billy has noticed Dom’s growing disconcertment, but lends it to Dom’s probable inability to believe that Billy has indeed become infatuated with him. Dom looks away and takes a small sip of his beer, then holds it close to his lips when he’s done.
Billy will have none of that; he can’t let this beer get in the way. He grabs the glass and sets it on the table.
“So,” Dom quickly says, “Met this girl today.”
~
Another chance arises a little later on, but Billy refuses to take it. He and Dom are left alone on the roof of their South Beach hotel-how ironic that they’re on South Beach-when Orlando bids them goodnight and heads back inside sometime during the two o’clock hour.
The two of them are leaning (shoulders touching again through no act of Billy’s) on the short wall running around the perimeter of the roof, staring out at the deep dark ocean before them with the crescent moon sparkling faintly on the surface. They’d surfed right there this afternoon, Billy thinks, right where the moonlight is hitting the water.
The silence begins eating at Billy, not too badly, because Billy won’t let it. But it’s hard to speak into when all he can think about is what he did just a couple of hours before, and how awkward it was, and how he should have seen how uncomfortable he was making Dom. He can’t believe he had the tenacity to take Dom’s beer out of his hands and set it on the table. What was he thinking?
The longer the silence stretches, the harder it is to break. Billy wants to apologize and take it back, but that would make things far more uncomfortable than they already are.
“Sometimes,” Dom says, and instantly Billy realizes it’s only been about ten seconds since the door shut after Orlando, “I feel like I’m kind of fake, you know? Like all I am is an amalgamation of thousands of little things I’ve picked up from random people. I’ll say to myself, ‘Hey. Pippin wears a scarf and manages to make it look pretty cool, so if I wear a scarf, I can be pretty cool too.’ And it’s like everything… my entire personality came from somewhere else, and nothing is actually original, like, really mine, you know?”
Billy grabs onto this and it’s all he needs to swing himself back up into the realm of normal Billythought. “Maybe we should lock you in your room on the ship for the first half of the cruise. Then you’re bound to come up with something original.”
“Yeah, like vomit. That’s pretty original. I mean, you can’t get Dom vomit anywhere else. It comes from the heart.”
There is no need, Billy feels, to look at Dom now. His face would be too close and Dom would be able to tell that Billy… Well, he can probably tell already, but. And isn’t it ridiculous that they’re talking about vomit, and Billy wishes he could kiss Dom? “I hope it doesn’t come from the heart. I think something’s wrong with your tubes in there.” Billy pauses and frowns; he’s been on dozens of boats with Dom, hundreds, probably, and Dom has never gotten seasick before. “Why would you vomit if we locked you in your room? We’ve told you time and time again, Dom, that’s disgusting. Anorexia is the way to go.”
“I get seasick if I can’t see the water.”
“How are you going to sleep?”
“Three options.” Dom must be smiling on the inside, but not on the outside. “Number one: I’ll become a zombie and just, you know, not sleep at all. Number two: I’ll fall asleep on deck with my eyes open. Number three: I’ll stare at Elijah’s eyes as I fall asleep in my cabin, that’ll be like virtual reality of the ocean.”
Billy laughs as softly as he can, which isn’t too soft at all but he knows he can’t change the way he laughs. “What if Elijah conks out before you?”
“Sleeps with his eyes open.”
“Right, yeah, but what if he has a fluke and manages to close them? Feed him chocolate and coffee.”
“Tie him to the chair.”
“And, just in case, we can tape his eyelids up.”
Another kind of quiet comes along and wraps peacefully around them; they are tired and will head to their rooms very soon. Dom is rooming with Elijah and Orlando with Viggo; Billy gets the empty room because he’ll wake up first and nobody wants to listen to him humming in the bathroom at nine AM.
The smile remains on Billy’s face; when he doesn’t think about them, the smiles always just stick there like Post-It notes. “I think you probably look cooler in a scarf than Pippin.”
Dom looks at Billy, so now Billy will allow himself to look back. Dom is smiling too, and since it’s an I’m-about-to-hug-you smile, Billy removes his weight from the rail-wall as Dom wraps his arms around him. There are no words, and after a few tight seconds, Dom steals away to the door.
Billy wonders if he will ever kiss Dom.
[ Prologue | Saturday ]
Sunday
Usually, Billy wakes up with a smile on his face, as if he’d just been having a fantastic dream. He also generally feels pretty good about life, and he’s always relied on this resilience after tough nights. Billy’s not sure that this is a common thing; it’s called “sleeping it off,” but he gets the feeling that doesn’t entail the way he beams and hops (yes, hops) out of bed daily.
It also seems to be one of the reasons nobody wants to room with him (along with his sleep-whistling problem, of course). They’ve told him his “perky” attitude and “sunny” smile just hurt. Like when somebody rips the curtains open on you at seven AM, according to Dom. Well, Billy remembers, Dom had actually referred to them as the “fucking curtains.” And on the whole, people seem to consider morning Billy… well, ridiculous.
The memory of Dom’s hug on the roof is the very first thought of the day, followed by the hugs at the airport and the anticipation of kissing him. Then the… oh, Billy thinks. Snap.
But whatever discouragement he might have had is beaten down in the face of his morning smile, because after all, it’s a beautiful new day, if the sun peeking through the curtains is any indication. Perhaps things will go differently. As long as Billy keeps an eye on his own over-confidence.
Billy ponders kissing Dom; maybe that’s not the best way to approach things after all.
Not just yet, anyhow.
~
By lunchtime (which is really breakfast to all of them save Billy), Billy has formulated a plan. He will scrutinize everything Dom does and make sure Dom is still attracted to him (because last night with the beer and the almost-kiss might be a fluke), then Billy will initiate some sort of conversation on the matter. The content of the conversation is still vague at this point, but Billy will have plenty of time to fill that in. Their cruise will last for an entire week and they’ll all be each others’ only company. Sort of like New Zealand. The thought causes Billy to smile into his “oatmeal,” which none of his companions notice, of course. It is only half-eleven.
“Oh! You guys!” bursts Orlando, his longish hair flopping forward and stopping just short of landing in his eyes. He has made the transition from sluggish to awake, and it’s so clear that Billy swears he heard the switch flipping in Orlando’s brain. “I forgot to tell you this last night, isn’t that crazy? Well, it’s so wild, but I learned how to sew.”
“What?” Elijah squeals. “Dude, I learned how to sew in middle school.” He is expressing the utmost pity for dear Orlando.
“No, I mean with a sewing machine!”
Viggo snorts furtively; Dom nearly squirts coffee out of his nose, it seems, and then he tries hacking up a lung. Billy, who is sitting next to him, pats his back dutifully.
“Yeah,” Elijah says in the ‘duh’ voice, “middle school. I made a pincushion and this ratty old bag that I still have somewhere, actually.”
Dom regains respiratory control and places his elbows purposefully on the table. “If it was ratty and old when you made it, you should probably take lessons from Orli, Elijah.”
“I don’t know about that one, Dom,” Billy counters, “They might just sew each other into a big girl’s dress and not be able to escape.”
“The machine would keep running,” Dom follows. “The power would eventually go out, most likely blowing a fuse in the process.”
“Then: oops! Stuck in a dress in the dark, immobilized by their own handiwork.”
“The cordless doesn’t work and your cell phones are too far away. What will you do?”
Viggo chuckles at his tea and Billy can just see his gummy smile; Orlando and Elijah are indignant but grinning, no doubt on the verge of some witty retorts. Dom beats them to it, though, and grabs Billy’s wrist, holding it up like a piece of evidence at a trial. “Who can tell me what stitch this is?” he asks with the air of a teacher.
“Why are you wearing a long-sleeved shirt?” Viggo asks Billy.
Suddenly Billy is reminded of a day during filming that had no defining characteristics except for the way that Dom (Merry) had held his (Pippin’s) hand for quite a stretch, and Billy remembers with surprise that he had been attracted to Dom then. Then, immediately following this, there is the knowledge that Billy has always had an on-off attraction to Dom.
Billy throws a response he’s not really fully aware of at Viggo and chances a peek at Dom (who is explaining exactly what sort of stitch it is and what color thread they’ve used and what the buttons are made of). Now Billy isn’t normally one to believe in signs, but there is a tilt to Dom’s head and a cocky look on his face that reminds Billy intensely of Merry, especially with the hair scattering onto Dom’s forehead like that, and especially the way he’s flopping around Billy’s wrist with reckless abandon.
Dom is quite clearly flirting with Billy (now he’s asking Billy if he’s right about the stitch and thread and buttons, and Billy can tell he’d been bullshitting) because he won’t let go and is sitting particularly close and that hug last night was awfully tight.
But. But isn’t that how Dom always is?
Yes, Billy triumphantly thinks. That’s exactly the point.
~
Once the muster drill ends, Dom and Viggo slip out of Billy’s sight immediately; he hasn’t seen Orlando or Elijah for at least twenty minutes, either. There are just so many people all trying to go in the same direction, but for some reason they can’t figure out how to go in the same direction at the same time. Billy feels quite short in these situations. He wants to find Dom and tell him that the man next to Billy during the drill had the word “TREES” written on his forearm.
The crowd ebbs to the left, so Billy makes a beeline for the empty floorspace even though he’s sure the guys went in the opposite direction. But nevermind that; Billy is good at finding alternate routes and he’s good at waiting.
There is the flash of a camera, then: “So you dropped the girlfriend, I hear,” says Viggo, appearing as though he’d just stepped out of the wall. He’s hiding under a straw hat and brown sunglasses, his bright orange life preserver tucked between his arm and his ribs and his camera slung over his opposite shoulder.
Billy is still wearing his life preserver, despite its awkwardness; he figures it would be more awkward to carry. “Word travels, eh? Yeah.”
“Gonna be the ladies’ man of the cruise?” His voice is gravelly, just like always (except for when he gets excited), and his skin is leathery, just like always (except for the few times Billy’s seen him in the moonlight). And isn’t Viggo always interested in hearing about other people before telling them about himself? Just like always.
Billy watches the crowd and thinks that if they actually had to evacuate this ship, it would probably take an entire day. “We’ll see how it goes.”
“Got other plans?” Viggo’s tone is just nonchalant enough for Billy to suspect something, though it’s always hard to tell with Viggo. Especially when he’s wearing sunglasses.
“Sure. I plan on cleverly persuading Elijah and Orlando to sing karaoke every night until somebody throws a rotten tomato at them. Or maybe not a rotten tomato, perhaps a bottle of whiskey. Then I’ll run up and nab it right out of the air.”
The short silence afterwards (which isn’t really a silence because the entire rest of the ship is talking) is a normal phenomenon with Viggo, although Billy uses it to wonder if he’s ever as funny alone as he is with Dom. “With tricks like that,” says Viggo after a moment, “you’ll get at least four out of five girls’ numbers.” And what an odd thing for Viggo to say to Billy.
Billy wonders if Viggo’s changed or if Billy himself is different.
~
Viggo steps immediately into the room he’ll share with Orlando, but the other four are stuck in the hallway.
“We could switch off,” says Elijah. “Hey Billy, we’re talking about you.”
An expression of guilt slips off Dom’s face like oil. “Bill, you can sleep in our room.”
“Dom!” Elijah swats Dom’s arm.
Billy comes to stand in front of the three of them, all of who are leaning against the wall next to their cabins. Dom’s arms are crossed and if it weren’t for that slip a second ago, Billy would feel completely at ease.
“That was easy,” Orlando grins and turns towards his door.
Except now Billy feels quite uneasy. “So I get to introduce you two to the wide world of mornings?” he says to them. Orlando is already inside.
Elijah groans playfully. “Guess me and Dom can’t have sex every night after all.”
“It’s making love, you bitch!” Dom slaps Elijah lightly, grins crookedly at Billy and whips out his key card. “You can use my card, Bill,” since Billy doesn’t have his yet and it won’t be ready until tomorrow afternoon. His uneasiness floats away like stray candy floss.
“Or,” Elijah suggests, “You and I could use one and Billy can have the other.”
Then Billy recalls he’s never seen stray candy floss float away, and he’s never liked candy floss, and something is wrong with the way things are.
~
Situations like these aren’t supposed to give Billy time to think, because by all rights, Billy should be so happy to see these guys that he should just be. Laugh, joke, smile, tig, play and be merry, and even be Merry, too.
The ship is finally leaving the port, accelerating so slowly that nobody can feel the drag. Dom, Elijah, Viggo, Orlando and Billy are waving at people they don’t know down on the pier. Billy is between Viggo and Elijah, and Dom is on the other side of Elijah, and they are talking to each other but not to Billy. Billy thinks about joining their conversation, but he’s thinking too hard to do that. A sweat has broken out on his forehead and the insides of his elbows, the breeze is chilly and a vague sensation of dizziness lurks underneath every movement he makes. He sees a dead fly on the rail in front of him and brushes it off, watching it float on the air instead of fall, as if it has come back to life in a more graceful form than before.
Strangely unsettled, Billy swallows and turns to Elijah on his left, but looks past at Dom and waits for a pause to say, “So are you going to need any help getting to sleep tonight, Dom?” He tilts his head slightly toward Elijah.
But Elijah, who Billy had not even asked, bursts, “He’ll be so drunk by bedtime that you won’t need to help him, I’m sure.”
Dom cuffs Elijah on the head and looks at Billy. “No thank you, Billy, I’m sure I’ll have no troubles sleeping.”
But that’s not even funny. Dom has missed the joke.
“What, ah,” Billy says, “what about your seasickness?”
“He’s wearing one of those patch things,” Elijah offers, lifting Dom’s ear as though he were a dog to show Billy the skin-colored circle behind it.
Of course, Billy thinks, and that’s what the answer has been all along.
A few blinks later Billy turns away and looks down at the railing again. Another fly has died there.
~
This is the third time Billy has vomited in fifteen minutes, despite the fact that his stomach has been empty since midday. The guys left for dinner twenty minutes ago, and he insisted he’d join them fifteen minutes ago. Now Billy can only hope desperately that one of them will realize he’s developed a crippling illness and come rushing back to let him know where Dom’s put his seasickness patches, because Billy has looked and looked and looked but just can’t find them.
Billy did, however, stumble across Dom’s journal. Well, diary, Billy thinks, Dom always likes to call it his diary.
Billy’s always been a moral sort of guy. (He’s too afraid.) He doesn’t open the diary at all. But he remembers exactly where Dom has put it; inside the pillowcase on the underside of the top pillow on his bed. It’s not a spot where Billy had thought the patches would be, but Billy is a thorough searcher.
Once he’s brushed his teeth (again), Billy plods weakly to Dom’s bed and tentatively falls onto it after dragging the rubbish bin to the floor beside it. There are only two queen-sized beds in the room, and one sofa; of course Elijah and Dom had already laid their claims before Billy joined the party.
It must have only taken five seconds for the clock to get from 8.18 to 8.30, as if Billy isn’t disoriented enough. He’s laying on his left side on the very edge of the bed, the bin directly below his head, just incase. With an anemic grab he pulls his mobile off the nightstand and holds it, trembling, in front of his face. Dials Dom, but it’s tough to press the buttons hard enough.
No signal.
~
Billy figures it’s a bad sign that when he wakes next, he can’t read the clock at all. Then he vomits into the bin, which is surprising considering he hadn’t even felt it coming and could have easily vomited on the nightstand instead.
After he manages to sit up, he stills himself for a few moments to deal piecemeal with the spots before his eyes, and then the dizziness. The balcony curtains have been left open so that Billy can see by the moonlight a little: Elijah is sleeping in the other bed and Dom is on the sofa. A small blue-gray form is perched on the desktop across the room: a towel animal, Billy thinks fuzzily. Their room steward must have come in while he was asleep.
Billy tries looking at the clock again, and it takes some time before he can read the numbers: 4.16.
It’s more complicated to walk the bin to the loo than Billy feels it should be, and when he gets there he almost vomits again. He throws back a glass of water, all the while squinting against the hostile lights. Another teeth-brushing session, another glass of water, and he ambles to the sofa and drops his bum right down on the floor. “Dom?” he whispers, his voice sated with please.
Strange, but necessary, Billy knows-to wake Dom up, he’ll have to do what he always used to do in New Zealand. He pinches Dom’s ear. Tugs on it. And it still works like a charm. Billy tries to smile, but only about half of it makes it through the sickness and the darkness.
“Bill?”
“Where are your patches?”
“Mmnn? What?”
Billy feels too close to Dom, now, so he scoots away to a distance of about twenty centimeters and lowers his eyes. “Your seasickness patches. Where’ve you put them?”
“Trousers.”
So Billy crawls to the blue jeans on the floor and pulls a plastic case out of the pocket.
~
He is only just falling asleep again when Dom appears next to Billy on the bed. Dom feels Billy’s forehead and cheeks, and whispers, “How’re you feeling?”
A bubble of elation curls Billy’s toes and the corners of his mouth, because Dom will do silly things that don’t really make a difference, like hold his hand and stroke his thumb across the back of it. Just to make Billy feel better. “Feel like a surf. Up for it?”
None of Dom’s face is visible; just the silhouette of the head and the ears. Billy closes his eyes because it aches less. “Have you been throwing up, Bill?” Dom’s hand passes over Billy’s forehead again, but doesn’t go near Billy’s own hand.
“Yeah. You can’t smell it, can you?”
“No, no. That’s what you always smell like.”
Billy is certain Dom should be holding his hand, and since Dom doesn’t seem to realize this, Billy reaches out for it himself. He finds Dom’s fingers loose and warm. “Dom.”
But they’re slippery, too, and are gone, along with Dom, once he tells Billy, “Shh. You’ll feel all better by morning. Goodnight.”
[ Prologue | Saturday | Sunday ]
Monday
Finally, it gets to be a reasonable hour and when Billy wakes up he doesn’t know why it feels like he’s slept for days, and like he could sleep for days more. He smiles, as usual, and sits, eager to look at the sea from their private balcony. But something seems to be terribly wrong, because he vomits, again, into the rubbish bin.
“Fuck,” he mouths, and all the trappings of illness bear down on him. He reaches up to the patch behind his ear and yes, it’s still there, so what the hell is going on?
This morning, Billy neglects to hum because his throat burns something fierce. He freshens up and takes a shower so hot it leaves pink patches of skin all over him, but he falls asleep under the spray anyway, sitting on the floor of the tub and resting his head against the cool tiles. Since he vomits again after that, he figures he can remove the patch. It sticks to his fingers stubbornly until he twists it and folds it and adheres it to the inside of the bin.
He throws on some sweatpants and a tee-shirt, then walks into the main cabin. He has to pause a moment, leaning against the wall, before he can pad the rest of the way over to Dom’s (Billy’s) bed. There, in the light of the eight AM sun from the glass balcony door, Billy drops his head onto the pillow and remembers: Dom’s diary is still there, isn’t it.
Billy wonders if he will ever regret this.
It’s a handmade book with a leather cover, and Billy thinks he could have made one just like it. There are only five signatures and the paper looks recycled; they’ve even embedded extra leaves and thin stems into it. The pages don’t fall open to any particular spot, they just fan out like bristles, and Billy can see that Dom’s only filled the first quarter or so. Billy turns on his side, facing away from Dom and Elijah, and curls up around the diary.
“Alright,” says a random page near the beginning. “There was a second date with Ali. I am sad. Why am I sad? Probably because he is not here. If he were here, he would be so happy that she went out with him again and he would bounce off the walls and be ridiculously contagious with joy and I would be unable to produce sad emotions because he just rubs off on me that way. Is it weird? Am I repressing when I do that? How many people in the world are in this situation, and can I meet them please?
“That girl who lives across from me is cute. She also has a boyfriend, who is probably also cute.
“Fuck, thats it. I’m telling Elijah at the next available opportunity that I am practically in love with him. Billy. Haha, no, NOT in love with Elijah. Heres what I will say (youve got to plan stuff like this, as its a big deal):
“I am practically in love with Billy. I have been so for years. He does not feel the same about me, as you may have noticed. (pause for comments and/or effect) Its not like I do everything I do BECAUSE I like him. Its not like I hug him BECAUSE I like him, and its not like I’m going to do a movie with him BECAUSE I like him. Its because he is my best friend (or is Elijah the best friend? To be decided) and I can actually repress my feelings for him a lot of the time, which may not be the healthiest thing to do, but what other option do I have? Also, I always have it in the back of my mind that we will get together someday in the very distant future. (Elijah will agree.) Whenever I imagine my future, Billys always there. Its kind of an unconscious thing, I dont even try. He is just there, and I couldn’t picture it any other way because really, GOD, do you know how fucking hard it would be to find somebody else like him who I am telepathic with and who is so fucking funny and…
“Yeah, so generally, this is what I will say to Elijah. Tomorrow.
“I wonder if I will be in love with him for the rest of my life.”
Billy, smiling, puts the diary away carefully. He is well aware that this entry is from ages ago, when he first started dating Ali, but the ending seems hopeful enough. He rolls onto his back and strains around the feverish ache in his eye sockets to see that Elijah and Dom are both still cluelessly dozing, and Billy closes his eyes, letting the pitch of the ship rock him sweetly back to sleep.
Billy dreams about kissing Dom.
~
The next few times Billy drifts out of sleep, he doesn’t quite reach full consciousness. It isn’t until around sunset that he wakes up, opens his eyes and wonders where everyone has gone. When he sits up, he’s careful, and he smiles for two reasons: one, he doesn’t vomit, and two, he remembers Dom’s diary.
A little later, after brushing his teeth and inspecting the room service options, he decides to explore the ship a trifle and hopefully wind up in a food-filled area. His movements are still very lethargic and his skin is hypersensitive, but he pulls on a sweater and ignores this and all the other things that have gone wrong inside him.
Before Billy leaves the cabin, he checks under the pillow and finds that Dom’s diary is gone.
~
Billy can’t remember having such an intense urge to cry and a subsequently conflicting pride that won’t let him do so. He’s sitting on some stairs in the middle of the ship, clutching the rail-post next to him with whitened knuckles. He isn’t sure if he’s going to vomit, but he can’t stand up, he doesn’t have his mobile (not that it would work anyway), he doesn’t have his key card (even though it should be ready by now) and he is perfectly lost.
He can’t stand up. He tries so hard, but his knees are so weak and he has no sense of balance and all he would succeed in doing is taking a tumble down the last eight or so stairs. The stairs are carpeted because everything seems to be carpeted; Billy has long since memorized the garish pattern and the feel of the fuzz under him, and he honestly can’t say how long he’s been sitting here because he’s been fending off sleep the entire time.
Repeatedly, he has tried asking passers-by for help, but he quickly discovered his voice is buried under layers of virus. He figures somebody will realize he needs help eventually. His eyes are watering. (His chin is crumpling.) He is alone.
Billy can’t stand up.
Billy can’t. Fucking. Stand. Up.
“Billy!” shouts Orlando.
And Billy could cry with relief. It’s all four of them at once, coming up the stairs, bringing their merriment with them. Billy laughs, though he thinks it might be hard to recognize it as such for its silence.
Orlando sits next to him and Viggo looms; Elijah stands in front and Dom hangs back, halfway behind the railing. “Are you feeling better?” Orlando asks, and from his facial expression alone, Billy knows that Orlando has been paying him visits during his slumber.
Billy shrugs and smiles, because what else can he do?
“Why did you leave the cabin?” Elijah asks. “You look like shit, Billy.”
It’s too bad Billy can’t talk, because he’s forced to flip Elijah the bird (yet Billy smiles, regardless).
Viggo’s turn: “We got some girls’ numbers for you, since you couldn’t yourself. Not phone numbers, I mean cabin numbers.”
Billy nods with gratitude, but it hurts quite a bit so he stills himself abruptly and holds his forehead.
And then there is Dom, wedging himself in good and close, exploding with life and gestures. “Bill, I think I’m in love.”
Billy wishes Dom were talking about him.
~
Orlando and Elijah take Billy back to the cabin with care and explicit tales about Dom, who has opted to romp around the ship some more with Viggo. Apparently Dom has met “the girl of his dreams.”
Since they haven’t finished telling Billy all there is to know about her, Elijah and Orlando prop Billy up on some pillows and sit on the bed with him, one on either side, throwing a wadded up washcloth to each other over Billy’s knees. Billy is happier than he’d like to admit that they’re staying to chat. Something inside him is slippery and stretched, but it’s easy to ignore, especially with company. It’s why he doesn’t say something like ‘go off and have your fun without me, you rascals.’ That, and he can’t speak.
“So Katie,” Elijah starts, “Is actually-”
“Her name is Kathy,” Orlando frowns.
“No, it’s Katie.”
“Oh, but like, every American girl is named Katie. How boring for Dom.”
Billy agrees silently: Dom will be sick of her by midnight.
Elijah’s pride in America-though he’s always tried to downplay it-surfaces. “I like the name Katie! I dated a Katie. My sister’s friend is named Katie. You could be a Katie, if you were a girl.”
To which Orlando responds: “You could be a Nancy if you were a man.”
Elijah unfolds the washcloth and throws it in a rather complicated-looking way so that it covers Orlando’s face. “Anyway, Billy, Katie’s a riot. She’s from Miami and Dom met her at our hotel. She’s a comedian, and she’s doing a show in a few nights in one of the lounges. Which one is it?”
“The big one,” Orlando says, and he has slid on a pair of sunglasses over the washcloth and mashed part of it inside his mouth. Billy’s heart swells with love for this tragically senseless yet stubbornly British man, and were he not worried about spreading his disease, he would certainly hug Orlando. As it is, all Billy can do is laugh quietly in appreciation.
“The big one. Right.” Elijah’s eyebrows twist up into that position they seem to fall into for at least half of his waking hours every day, and he looks at Billy, points to Orlando and whispers behind his hand, “He hasn’t even started drinking yet.”
Promptly Orlando strips the washcloth off, flinging his shades into the air to land on Billy’s feet. The washcloth is then directed at Elijah’s face with some force, and Orlando turns to Billy to say, “Dom seems really serious about Kathy. It’s sort of freaky.”
“Yeah,” Elijah counters, “but Dom’s been weird about dating lately.”
Billy perks his ears (as if they needed perking).
“How so?”
With a shrug, Elijah resumes the game of catch and consequently keeps his eyes on the washcloth as he speaks. “I don’t know. Can’t put my finger on it, you know? I mean, there’s the…”
Orlando nods.
“But there’s something else that I don’t think he’s going to tell me about.”
Billy wishes he could scream. All he can do is grab a pillow and toss it at Elijah.
Who shrugs innocently, and actually tells Billy, “Sworn to secrecy. Sorry.”
Billy then looks to Orlando, who avoids eye contact by inspecting the washcloth.
Billy wonders why Dom isn’t sitting here with them, and when did any of them ever keep secrets from each other like girls, and when had Elijah and Dom become the best of friends?
~
Hours later, while Billy listens to Dom jabber away, he finds that he feels a horrible guilt for having read the diary passage. It was a stupid thing to do, of course, and Billy feels that it’s hard to act as though he hadn’t looked, and really, truth be told, he feels like Dom just knows that Billy has done it. The icing on the cake, though, is the way Billy feels so insecure that he had to go and snoop, because when is Billy ever insecure? He feels like a girl just thinking it. He also feels like a complete bastard.
He also is still attracted to Dom.
Billy knows this because of the way Dom’s eyes feel when they look at him, and the way Billy’s skin feels when Dom touches it, and the way that all the contents of Billy’s ribcage have shriveled up and died like bugs under the magnifying glass in the face of “Katie” the wonder girl, who Dom has so thoughtfully brought to meet Billy at eleven at night when Billy would much rather be sleeping than being trampled to a bloody pulp from the inside out.
Billy wonders if ‘attracted’ is really the right word in regards to Dom.
His self-pity is aided by the fact that as far as he can tell, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Katie, and Dom has every reason to fall desperately in love with her.
Billy wonders if this is what Dom felt like when he started dating Ali. Billy thinks he’s about ready to jump ship.
“So I was visiting my parents a few months ago-” Dom starts.
“Are they still together?” asks Katie.
“Yeah, yeah, and if I were a good boy I could tell you how long they’ve been married. Prolly like, one-hundred and twenty-three years.”
Katie laughs (Katie doesn’t giggle), and Billy is not in the least bit interested in watching Dom and Katie have a conversation in front of him while ignoring him entirely. It continues anyway, and Katie says, “Are you ever gonna get married?”
“Katie, don’t you think it’s a little early in our relationship for such talk?”
She grins her sparkling American pop-star grin (which, by the by, makes Billy want to vomit) and then Dom’s own smile slips away in place of a more serious look, and he tucks his long un-Dom-like hair behind his ear, and says, “Are you ever getting married?”
This also makes Billy want to vomit.
“Why don’t you just propose, already, Dommie?” She sticks her tongue out cutely and winks at Dom. Billy wants to think she’s too skinny, but she has a small roll of fat in her stomach when she sits cross-legged like that. He wants to think she’s wearing too much make-up, but he can’t tell how much make-up she’s wearing in the first place. He wants to consider her outfit ugly, but he can’t because it’s very becoming on her and honestly, it’s as though Dom were her fashion consultant.
But then: Billy wonders if Dom is only pretending to be interested in her just to get a rise out of Billy. Because Elijah knew something strange was going on.
~
On to Tuesday