Hello Monaboydians
Jun. 24th, 2010 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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monaboyd_monthAnother year has gone by. To some of us, an anniversary of sorts, yes? So I come bearing fic. Last year, I went back to the olden days. This year, I'm a bit more firmly in the present.
I actually wrote this first fic on the date in question, but at that point, it had a different ending that I didn't particularly like, so consequently, I never posted it anywhere, I just tucked it away like I do with so many others. But this month I pulled it out, dusted it off, and shined up that ending to something a bit more satisfying.
Title: Ten Years On
Rating: PG
Warning: You know me. Angst.
Sunday, October 11 2009, Los Angeles, California
“It’s been great!” The line broke up a bit with the sound of wind or interference, “I just took a run along the river here. You should see Boston right now, Dom. The colors up here! I’ll send you photos.”
“Yeah? How long are you there for?”
“Just tomorrow. It’s the last show tonight. Little dive, I’ll send you photos of that too,” Billy’s took several deep breaths, “Sorry, just climbed up a hill. Yeah, the boys have got to be back at work, and Ali’s telling me Jack’s picked up some kind of bug, so I’ll be heading back home too.”
Dom carefully dislodged his new baby panther chameleon from his t-shirt and set it on the piece of driftwood he’d brought outside to the close-trimmed grass. The gardeners were still taking it too short for his liking, and his Spanish was still too terrible to explain to them that it used up too much water at the length most Californians kept it. Liberating a cricket from the jar at his hip, he held it nearby and let it wriggle a bit until the chameleon’s swiveling left eye caught sight of it.
“Oh, and the concert was brilliant. Seeing the film with live music, it’s like… like… I can’t even explain, and it’s been so long since I bothered to watch it at all.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Billy said, a grin in his voice, “Lij even got misty at some bits.”
“Did you tear him apart?”
“Of course I did. There are only so many opportunities now, you know, he’s onto me nine times out of ten nowadays. Smartarse little shit.”
“Yeah.” The chameleon’s sticky tongue flew out, latched on the cricket and yanked it back into its mouth, crunching happily. Dom pulled his knees up to his chest in the balmy air, a tight feeling binding his chest.
“I can’t believe it’s been ten years. Ten years to the day, Dom.”
Dom closed his eyes. The mental telepathy still worked over thousands of miles after all. He breathed a humourless laugh, “We use to say we’d all get together. We’d all go back together, no matter what. We promised.”
“Aye, we did,” Billy said, softly.
The lizard was steadily climbing up the stick toward the hydrangea whose flowers were withering, his eyes turning this way and that. Dom tried to figure out where in the world everyone actually was. Lij and Ian would still be in New York, probably, Billy in Boston touring with his band, Orlando was jet-setting all over the place, and Viggo was in Spain doing promo, surprisingly enough. He had no idea what Sean was up to, he hadn’t had an email from him in ages, though he’d had couple from Allie, who was becoming a teenager every terrifying sense of the word. He’d hardly kept in touch with Liv or anyone else, not in the last couple of years at least. His heart gave a painful squeeze of guilt at it.
He heard Billy sigh down the line, “Ah, Dom.”
Dom chewed his lip, blinking a few times as he pulled the driftwood away from the bush as the lizard tried to reach for it. It was the tone of Billy’s voice, the perfect understanding of it and more that got him. It was a balm to the sting. Billy at least had always been a constant, and that was a promise unbroken.
He changed the subject. “My show got picked up. Back-nine.”
“Oh shite, I suppose I’ll have to watch it now,” Billy fired back immediately, and Dom grinned, until: “I’ve got to go, Dom, a car’s supposed to come collect us in an hour and I stink like a wildebeest.”
“Right,” Dom said, plucking a withered blossom from the bush and rolling it between his fingers, “Send me those photos, I guess.”
“Will do. Love you, mate.”
“Love you too, Bills,” Dom murmured.
A good ten seconds passed before Billy’s voice fluttered back over, “Ring off, gobshite.”
“You ring off.”
“You.”
“You.”
“You’re a cuntbastard. I miss you already.” And Billy hung up.
Dom opened his mouth and closed it again, looking at the phone’s end call screen before it cycled to the front. He sighed, pocketing the phone and coaxing the chameleon back into his hands, carrying it and the twisted stump back through the sunroom door. He put him back in his habitat and shook a couple more crickets in, and misted the foliage until it was saturated. He did the same for the snakes and spiders, watching them go about their simplistic, in-the-moment lives. That was part of the appeal, after all, these creatures didn’t spend any time dwelling on the past.
Even in the midst of his own hard-earned success, of living his dreams and enjoying all it brought him, his house was quiet, and the many friends he could call over to take away the loneliness were not the friends he wanted filling in the empty space around him.
In his pocket, his mobile vibrated a text alert.
Whatever date doesn't matter.
It's Before we met. And After.
Every day. Ever on. My Dom.
I actually wrote this first fic on the date in question, but at that point, it had a different ending that I didn't particularly like, so consequently, I never posted it anywhere, I just tucked it away like I do with so many others. But this month I pulled it out, dusted it off, and shined up that ending to something a bit more satisfying.
Title: Ten Years On
Rating: PG
Warning: You know me. Angst.
Sunday, October 11 2009, Los Angeles, California
“It’s been great!” The line broke up a bit with the sound of wind or interference, “I just took a run along the river here. You should see Boston right now, Dom. The colors up here! I’ll send you photos.”
“Yeah? How long are you there for?”
“Just tomorrow. It’s the last show tonight. Little dive, I’ll send you photos of that too,” Billy’s took several deep breaths, “Sorry, just climbed up a hill. Yeah, the boys have got to be back at work, and Ali’s telling me Jack’s picked up some kind of bug, so I’ll be heading back home too.”
Dom carefully dislodged his new baby panther chameleon from his t-shirt and set it on the piece of driftwood he’d brought outside to the close-trimmed grass. The gardeners were still taking it too short for his liking, and his Spanish was still too terrible to explain to them that it used up too much water at the length most Californians kept it. Liberating a cricket from the jar at his hip, he held it nearby and let it wriggle a bit until the chameleon’s swiveling left eye caught sight of it.
“Oh, and the concert was brilliant. Seeing the film with live music, it’s like… like… I can’t even explain, and it’s been so long since I bothered to watch it at all.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Billy said, a grin in his voice, “Lij even got misty at some bits.”
“Did you tear him apart?”
“Of course I did. There are only so many opportunities now, you know, he’s onto me nine times out of ten nowadays. Smartarse little shit.”
“Yeah.” The chameleon’s sticky tongue flew out, latched on the cricket and yanked it back into its mouth, crunching happily. Dom pulled his knees up to his chest in the balmy air, a tight feeling binding his chest.
“I can’t believe it’s been ten years. Ten years to the day, Dom.”
Dom closed his eyes. The mental telepathy still worked over thousands of miles after all. He breathed a humourless laugh, “We use to say we’d all get together. We’d all go back together, no matter what. We promised.”
“Aye, we did,” Billy said, softly.
The lizard was steadily climbing up the stick toward the hydrangea whose flowers were withering, his eyes turning this way and that. Dom tried to figure out where in the world everyone actually was. Lij and Ian would still be in New York, probably, Billy in Boston touring with his band, Orlando was jet-setting all over the place, and Viggo was in Spain doing promo, surprisingly enough. He had no idea what Sean was up to, he hadn’t had an email from him in ages, though he’d had couple from Allie, who was becoming a teenager every terrifying sense of the word. He’d hardly kept in touch with Liv or anyone else, not in the last couple of years at least. His heart gave a painful squeeze of guilt at it.
He heard Billy sigh down the line, “Ah, Dom.”
Dom chewed his lip, blinking a few times as he pulled the driftwood away from the bush as the lizard tried to reach for it. It was the tone of Billy’s voice, the perfect understanding of it and more that got him. It was a balm to the sting. Billy at least had always been a constant, and that was a promise unbroken.
He changed the subject. “My show got picked up. Back-nine.”
“Oh shite, I suppose I’ll have to watch it now,” Billy fired back immediately, and Dom grinned, until: “I’ve got to go, Dom, a car’s supposed to come collect us in an hour and I stink like a wildebeest.”
“Right,” Dom said, plucking a withered blossom from the bush and rolling it between his fingers, “Send me those photos, I guess.”
“Will do. Love you, mate.”
“Love you too, Bills,” Dom murmured.
A good ten seconds passed before Billy’s voice fluttered back over, “Ring off, gobshite.”
“You ring off.”
“You.”
“You.”
“You’re a cuntbastard. I miss you already.” And Billy hung up.
Dom opened his mouth and closed it again, looking at the phone’s end call screen before it cycled to the front. He sighed, pocketing the phone and coaxing the chameleon back into his hands, carrying it and the twisted stump back through the sunroom door. He put him back in his habitat and shook a couple more crickets in, and misted the foliage until it was saturated. He did the same for the snakes and spiders, watching them go about their simplistic, in-the-moment lives. That was part of the appeal, after all, these creatures didn’t spend any time dwelling on the past.
Even in the midst of his own hard-earned success, of living his dreams and enjoying all it brought him, his house was quiet, and the many friends he could call over to take away the loneliness were not the friends he wanted filling in the empty space around him.
In his pocket, his mobile vibrated a text alert.
Whatever date doesn't matter.
It's Before we met. And After.
Every day. Ever on. My Dom.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 04:41 pm (UTC)Oh you. You managed to make me "AWW" like a twelve year-old girl with just one sentence, for many reasons.
Lonely Dom fics always get me—in a good way—and this one's no exception, boo.
Even in the midst of his own hard-earned success, of living his dreams and enjoying all it brought him, his house was quiet, and the many friends he could call over to take away the loneliness were not the friends he wanted filling in the empty space around him.
This especially got me, mostly because I was saying something almost identical to a good friend over the phone last night.
♥
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Date: 2010-06-24 11:40 pm (UTC)Words that could not be spoken out loud, but sent and able to be saved always.
I love this, Missy. I really do.
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