Title: Mix Tape
Author: Riley (Witt444)
Pairing: Dominic/Elijah/Billy
Rating: R
Email: Witt444@aol.com (still asking for feedback.  Are you tired of the
question?)
Disclaimer: And I'm still a liar.  Why do you even put up with me?

Summary: Because we've all wanted to have a soundtrack to our lives.

Track One
/I haven't been this scared
In a long time
And I'm so unprepared
So here's your Valentine/
     -Blink 182, "Going Away to College"

"Here," you say.  Elijah looks up at you, smiling tiredly.  A cigarette
burns against the brick red picnic table, a long column of ash sagging
dangerously close to dropping.  You offer the paper plate, which is going weak
from the dampness of waiting.  "Food.  For you.  All your favorites, right?" 

His eyes roam the pickings, slide over mounds of rice and the yellow surfboards
of fried plantains pooling in their own grease.  Big blank blue eyes rimmed in
red.  

"Yeah," he smiles.  He takes the plate and puts it on the table.  One of the
hills of rice wavers and collapses, sending white grains stampeding across the
tabletop.  "Thanks."

"Sure," you grin, and move to go.  He reaches out and plucks at your sleeve.

"Wait.  Sit down."

Your ass is on the bench before his words are even finished.  Then you scoot up
close to him because--  well because of a lot of reasons, but also because
it's cold out, and dark outside the mess tent, and because he is early-morning
warm and good to be near.  He picks up a plastic fork and pierces a plantain. 
He pokes it between his lips and sucks it down, and you listen to him chew,
watch his eyelids flutter once, happy.  The dull sparkle of grease on his lower
lip.

"Good?" you ask.  He nods and swallows.

"Mm.  Tastes great.  Warm."  He folds through the rice, unleashing long
coils of steam.  "But it's a weird kind of a breakfast, Dom."

Track Two
/You don't have to go home
But you can't stay here
I know who I want to take me home/
     -Semisonic, "Closing Time"

Lager sloshes over your wrist, burns you cold, wakes you.  Billy tilts his head
at you quizzically.  You were watching Elijah sandwich himself between bodies on
the crowded dance floor, his molecules making love to all the molecules around
him.  He lets go into the frenetic energy of clubbing with all the boundlessness
of a high school kid, throwing himself in and coming out without his edges.  You
bite the rim of your glass sharply and taste hardness.

Billy touches your elbow and points.  You follow his finger to where Elijah is
looking at you over his shoulder, his eyes bigger and sharper in the strobe
light glare.  His "rape me" eyes, you've called them.  How well they go
with him and the milky skin in the hollow above the collar of his T-shirt.  How
well he sweat-streaks his hair with his hand, and how well he swings arms and
legs that get more and more countless with each motion.

"He knows, you know," Billy says with a light little smile.  "It's no
secret."

"What?"

"He knows you want him.  He sure as hell wants you."

"It's just-"

"Just nothing.  Go on with you."  

Billy beams at you.  He's always doing that, beaming at you.  You used to
wonder if it was some sort of fatherly thing until it became a precursor to
wedgies, Dings and other random injuries.  You look at Elijah again.  He isn't
looking at you.  He's looking across the floor at a girl with very little top
on.  The motion of his hips changes as he stares.  Billy twists his eyebrows and
beams into his beer.  You wrap your hands around your glass.

"There's ten thousand good reasons why not," you tell the rapidly fading
bubbles in the rapidly staling beer.

"And there's why good reason why," it answers in Billy's voice.  "So
it's your call, eh?"

You drink the whole beer but it doesn't shut up.  It says, "He's looking
at you again."


Track Three
/Your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful/
     -Coldplay, "Yellow"

"Dom?  Dom, can I?-  Dom!"

There's a lot of banging on your trailer door, hollow tin rumbles that echo in
arcs along the walls.  You roll onto your side, peeling a sweat-sticky forearm
away from your eyes.  The door opens because it doesn't lock.  It lets in a
lot of light and Elijah.

"Are you okay?"

"Mm.  Tired.  I fell asleep." 

"On the floor?" he chuckles, plopping down beside you.  He's just come out
of makeup and looks fresh-scrubbed and invigorated.  He's barefoot and you
like the way the ragged fringes of his jeans lay against the pale tops of his
feet.  

"The gravity's better down here.  Give me this."  You curl your hands
around his toes, squeeze his small smooth feet.  He squeaks.

"What are you doing?"

"Just touching your feet.  Does it bother you?"

"No," he says, grinning down at you, his head cocked to the side.  "People
touch my feet all day.  You never do it, that's all."

"Well I'm doing it now, so never say never.  Just relax."

He lies down, pushing his feet toward you.  You like how everything he wears is
pseudo-faded and trendy, lived in long past his years with the synthetic wear of
machine-bodies.  He presses one of his heels into your sternum and pushes you
over on your back.  You roll heavily, your nerves still asleep.  He rests his
ankles in the notches between your ribs and you feel close and cozy.  You press
your forearms to his shins.

"So what are we doing tonight?" he asks the ceiling.  "Clubbing?"

"Is that an activity that requires mobility?"

"X-Box?  I'll move your thumbs for you."

"Your place or mine?"

"Yours for sure.  I can't have you fuckers eating me out of house and
home."  He digs into your chest with his toes.  You convulse and squeeze hard
until he squawks.  His body comes out of nowhere, wrenching and thunking you
awkwardly.  He squirms on top of you and kneels on your palms, hands slamming
down beside your ears.  The floor rumbles.  The position holds your shoulders
open and he leans his face up close to yours.  He's too light and easy to
really pin you, but the weight of your body and your willingness are both on his
side.

"Then it's settled," you huff.  His face is very close.  Kissing-close.

"Then it is," he replies challengingly.  There's a rebellious little note
in his eyes and voice.  Smugly on top.

"Then it is."  

You knee Elijah in the crotch gently.  When he yelps you flip him kung-fu style
halfway across the trailer.

Track Four
/I am a visitor here
I am not permanent/
     -The Postal Service, "D.C Sleeps Alone Tonight"

All the sweetness of the first kiss is lightly tempered with the let-down of the
knowing.  You're young and you love anticipation, where the dream of the first
kiss can take on endless variations until it is mythic and never-happened.  You
love all that wondering about what Elijah will taste like, when he'll open his
mouth, whether he'll invite you inside or will it be the slick heat of his
tongue coaxing yours into action...  And now it's here.  Now Elijah's lips
are on yours and his tongue is poking wet and thick between your lips.  Here,
and real, and had.

He presses into you relentlessly.  You try to size up your thoughts and figure
out the nerves in your belly.  This is the reward for a month of pursuit, your
rest after the hard work of making up impetuous excuses to go out to places
where you'll be forced to touch him.  But this is not a crowded club, a
dangerous drunken street crossings or an unpleasantly small car.  This is all
the space and willingness of your couch.  You're triumphant.  You're
surprised.  You didn't suppose it would be a simple matter of the two of you
alone, leaning closer and closer.  The simple matter of closing the last little
gap and just fucking kissing him on the lips.

"Shit, Dom," Elijah hisses.  His cheeks are flushed and pink, and he looks
soft and fuckable.  His hands play with the waistband of your jeans, cutting off
your breath as they twist and grind.  You wanted this and now you're getting
it. You're half-hard and getting harder with each of Elijah's errant tugs
and squeezes.  "I didn't… I mean I hoped you were serious, but… 
Shit."  

He grabs you by the back of the head and hauls you in for another kiss.  He
tastes like the cloves he was nervously smoking, and now he's starting to get
the delicious acrid taste-smell of aroused boy.  And he's all warm and
wriggling and pressing up against you, just fucking begging for it like you knew
he would.  All yours for the taking.  You growl into his mouth and crush him
closer, pressing him into your chest.  His fingers are inside your pants,
creeping along your belly toward your cock.  Warm and warmer and getting warmer.  

"Dom," he mutters happily, wrenching himself closer.  You want to just kiss
some more, take it slow, but passion is getting the better of you.  His
fingertips scrape artlessly along the rim of your cock and it jerks, headbutting
itself against the rough inseam of your jeans.  You groan harshly and he purrs,
wrapping his palm around you.  You tumble deeply into the couch cushions,
spreading your legs for him, clawing beneath his T-shirt.  You think you have a
reputation for being easy on the first date.  

Track Five
/Easily you come to me
Summoning the spirit we
Only have a minute to never grow old/
     -Rachel Sage, "The Spirit We"

"Tell me where we're going," Elijah play-whines, tugging at the back of
your shirt.  You dart between the sidewalk traffic and feel his fingers trail
off your ass.

"You'll have to wait til we get there," you reply. 

This is very like you.  You're hopeless with dates—anniversaries,
Valentine's, and even Christmas you can't remember if it's the 25th or
28th—but you've always managed to cover your tracks.  Now you charge
recklessly through people, slamming shoulders and hips, longing for the space
suggested in the huge open twilight of the Wellington sky above.  Elijah scuffs
along to follow you.  You cast feelers into the record shops, the cafes, the
bookstores, any place that might be a harbor for a date for Elijah's birthday. 
The record shop's too easy.  The café is too lame.  You could make the
bookstore interesting but he might not bite.  You flash him a smile.  You
can't let him know you forgot.

OK.  Ahead to the right is a toyshop, one of those classy and expensive
old-school ones, toys made out of wood and string.  You stop shortly in front of
it, earning the rage of four frustrated rush hour commuters.

"We're here," you announce as the flow brings Elijah to your side.

"The toy store?"

"Surprise.  It's got to be nicer than being out here.  C'mon."

Inside he moans at the smells: lacquer, pine, tissue paper.  The elderly
proprietor frowns at you and you wave.  Elijah pushes his fingertips into a tin
box of cast iron toy soldiers and they rattle heavily.  He picks up a handful
and sifts them down again.

"Did you have these as a kid?" you ask.

"No way.  I had modern shit, you know.  Plastic, sound effects."

"Toys that could never survive impact," you agree, taking his thumb to lead
him into the stacks.  He reaches out to gently stroke a kite colored to resemble
a sunny summer sky.  "We could buy that," you say quickly.  "Since it's
summer for your birthday."

"Summer in January," he sighs happily, gazing at you.  A gaze so open
you're unnerved for a minute.  You grab a box for a plywood glider and shake
it a little.  

"This could be fun."

"I used to have Voltron," he says.

"What?"

"Voltron.  Do you remember that?  It was sort of like Power Rangers, toys that
fastened together."

"I didn't have that.  I had sport toys.  Footballs and croquet."

"You had croquet?"

"After I moved to England.  I think my parents bought it as a joke.  Did you
ever get those chocolate eggs with the wee plastic toy inside?"

"We had Cracker Jack.  Our lives were so different," he says as if amazed.

"Indeed," you agree with a sage nod, and shake the glider again.  "I bet
we could attach rockets to this and take out a major city.  Pick something,
Elijah."

"I want…"  He bites his bottom lip and trails his fingers over the rows of
flying toys.  He spins around and his fingertips brush across your chest. 
"…you."

"Yeah but you can't throw me off of high things and make voice-overs."

"Wanna bet?" he giggles. 

You put the glider back and go into the next row.  It's full of dolls and
stuffed animals.  There's something reassuring about their stuffedness, their
empty smiles and their shiny eyes.  Like how it might feel good to tumble into a
big pile of them.  You pick up a floppy dun-colored dog.

"I always wanted one of those," Elijah says.

"Really?"

"Yeah.  Those were, like, those stuffed dogs everyone had.  I was always
totally captivated by how their limbs moved.  They looked so… comfortable."  

You hand the dog to him, smiling at the subtle way his face lights up under the
skin.  He rubs his cheek against it, then holds it out to consider its range of
motion.  It hangs down from his palms.  You imagine him small and longing for
one, never sure why he couldn't ask, just knowing that this was somehow a toy
for other people.  He shakes one of its broad paws.  Some little thing inside
your chest twinges with it.

"Do you want that?" you ask.  He looks up as if startled, starting to blush
beneath his eyes. 

"Uumm…"

"Say yes."

"Yes."

"OK," you announce heroically, puffing out your chest and heading for the
counter.  "Sold to Mr. Wood to repair years of childhood trauma.  Your inner
child thanks you for playing."

Elijah doesn't hand the dog to the man behind the counter, who seems to know
its price anyway.  He eyes you both suspiciously, lingering on the way Elijah
has the dog pressed to the chest of his too-trendy T-shirt.  You're both
crashers to his toy-world, smelling of city and desire and grown-up things.  The
sort of people who ruin toys, or buy them as jokes.  You wonder about him as he
rings your purchase, sliding your credit card awkwardly through the reader.  You
glance back at Elijah.  You want to explain to the man that Elijah really
/wants/ this toy, wants it like he wanted it as a kid, wants to play with it and
hold it, everything in perfect alignment with his own vision.  You don't think
you can voice this.  Something about the size of you both makes you sad.

Back into the crowd Elijah slips his hand into yours.  His palm is warm and
slightly sweaty from clutching the dog so tightly.  He holds it in the crook of
his arm so that its legs bounce between you.

"Thanks, Dom," he whispers, laying a kiss to the shell of your ear.  You
bend your head to kiss the side of his mouth.

"Happy birthday, baby."

"It's the best," he answers.  And at a crosswalk six blocks later, "Even
though you forgot."


Track Six
/I have watched your unlove written like tabloids
I had to stumble on while buying my food/
     -Bitch and Animal, "Traffic"

"Surprise!"

You look up from your key.  Elijah is in your kitchen, rumpled and grinning.  He
has a wooden spoon in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

"Smells fantastic," you say.  "What is it?"

"Supper.  Nothing, really.  Just wanted to cook for you."

"Can I see?"

"No you can't see.  You can't see til it's ready."

You fling your jacket onto the couch and join it, sprawling to your aching
limits.  You watch him weaving through your space, smoke swirling around the
spikes of his short funny mohawk, stirring and tasting things.  He's glowing
slightly with what you suppose is his sheer joy of doing stuff for you.  You
smile.  You know when you look back at this it will be a Happy Time, and then
you chide yourself for thinking that.  You take a deep breath and center
yourself and try to just /enjoy/ it, enjoy being with him.  

Which you do.  It's easy and light with him, fun when it's fun and serious
when it's serious.  You like the same things.  You have the same friends.  His
body is nice in the bed, feels nice to curl against in sleep, one of your arms
taking him at the waist to tuck him against you.  Nice to have him grinning at
you now, a smear of something red in the corner of his mouth.  The tip of his
tongue curls in to wipe it away.

"So you get to taste it and I don't?" you chide.  "No fucking fair,
mate."  

"It's my bonus prize for making it."  His eyes glow at you.  His cigarette
is about to fall all apart, and the spoon drips on the floor with a
self-satisfied plop, and he's glowing at you.  Everything slows down as his
glowing interferes with the speed of light.

"What?" you ask.

"Nothing," he glows in reply.  "I just love you.  Nothing."

He turns quickly to the stove.  You've taken a sharp inhalation and don't
realize you're holding it until it stampedes out and sounds like a sigh.  He
looks at you over his shoulder, eyes scared, wet.  You sit up.  You're shaking
but because you're tired, not because you're scared.  He stirs the pot
intently.

"I just love you," he tells it.

"Lij." 

He doesn't turn.  You don't get up.  He's surrounded by smell and steam
and whatever his private thoughts are, and you can't imagine but then maybe
you can.  Those deer-headlight thoughts that rush across the wasteland of
admitting your feelings once everything else in your head has suddenly,
terrifyingly emptied out.  

"It smells nice," you say softly.

"I'm about to burn it.  Dom, maybe we should just go get Chinese."

You duck the spear of a French loaf as it sails through the air for your head.


Track Seven
/No time to search the world around
‘Cuz you know where I'll be found
When I come around/
     -Greenday, "When I Come Around"

"Don't worry so much," Billy says.  He sends the balls spinning around the
table and sinks three, all stripes.  

"You really are magic with a pool cue, Bills."

"Anyway it's not serious."

"I'm not in love with him.  In what way is that unserious?"

The balls clatter uselessly against each other.  "It happens all the time. 
People change."

"Spoiled so soon.  You think it's me?"

"It's not spoiled," Billy says, giving you the stick.  "You're just in
different places.  I think that's OK."

You crouch level with the table.  Over the little humps of balls you see
Billy's fingers rubbing the lacquered wood compulsively.  You line up a shot
and stab at it, watch the ball twirl helplessly into the pocket nearest
Billy's nervous hands.  The clatter of balls and felt is soothing somehow,
complementary to the way thoughts are ramming around in your brain.  You
straighten.

"Nice."

"Too nice.  I don't want to break his heart, Bill.  He's so sweet, and
it's not like I don't like him, just…"

"You don't love him.  It's different.  And it's not enough." 

You wander around the table chewing on your lower lip.  You go to stand on
Billy's side, shoulder to shoulder to survey the possibilities.  You lean
across him and he's warm against your side and hip.  He curls an arm between
your thighs.

"Don't goose me, man."

"I won't."

"I mean it, like.  You're lining up for an A-plus goose there."

"Am not!  A fellah can't just hold his mate's inner thigh for no
reason?"  You hear the high riding laughter he struggles to keep out of his
voice.  If you looked now his eyes would be bright and his face would be simple. 
His hand gets tighter on your thigh.

"Trying to cop a feel then?"

You pin the cue ball in the space between word and thought, but you're not
fast enough.  The moment the stick shoots between your fingers gravity reverses
around your pants, there's an arm around your chest and you're in the air,
swiping uselessly at Billy and threatening the lighting fixtures.  Roaring
rhythmically, he swings you away from the table and hurls you down on the
nearest sofa.  

"Unfair!" you bellow.  "Interference!  Do-overs!"

"Quit your whinging.  Anyway you scratched, so it's my turn.  Give me
that."  

He takes the cue and prances to the table.  You scramble after him, tugging at
your hair and clothes.  He's all concentration but you break it easily by
landing on his back.  He grunts as his chin connects with the table.

"Bugger, Dom!"

"What?  I tripped.  Did I hurt you?"

"Fucking well broke my jaw, I think."

"Want me to kiss it better?"

"Kiss it worse you mean."

You ride him as he shoots.  You like the way the shifting of his shoulders
tosses you around.  Despite your arms winched about his neck he sinks another
two balls with effortless aplomb.  You smile and then you feel guilty for having
fun.  You wonder where Elijah is, what he's doing.  You wonder if he's
thinking about you, and if it makes him sad.  You didn't want to tell anyone,
really; you didn't want to drag your personal stuff all over the place.  But
Billy is different.  Billy is the person you tell these things to.

"It'll work itself out," Billy interrupts, strolling around the table. 
You dig the heels of your sneakers into his belly.  They're green Pumas with
yellow stripes and they perfectly match the green of his T-shirt.  You wonder if
it happened on purpose.  "He'll get hurt but he'll get over it.  The most
important thing is to be honest."

"Stupid honesty."

"Why do you think you don't love him?"

"I don't know.  He's so quiet all the time.  And he's not fun like
you're fun."

Billy twists his neck to violent angles in order to meet your eyes.  You start
to blush a little before you realize it.

"Reason enough.  I'm going for the eight ball.  Hold on."

Track Eight
/Annie waits for the last time
Just the same as the last time
Annie says, "You see
This is why I'd rather be alone"/
     -Ben Folds, "Annie Waits"

You welsh out of participating in sex again.  It's almost too easy these days. 
You play it off to exhaustion, though technically Elijah is more tired than you. 
He bitches and moans through the entire evening routine, but the moment both
your heads hit the pillow his arm is sliding across the mattress.  You groan
inside but you stay still; you pretend you're asleep or very thoughtful. 
Elijah spreads his palm so he can get fingertips on both your nipples.  He rolls
them until they harden.  You don't want to have sex with him.  The trouble is
that your body can always be convinced. 

"Dom…" Elijah purrs softly, mostly to himself.  You think.  It has the
warm, satisfied sound of your name inside his head, the you he has, not the you
you are.

You rumble a little despite yourself.  Your back arches so slightly of its own
accord, thrusting your chest into his hand.  And then he's next to you,
breathing heavily across your collarbone.  And then his hands are everywhere. 
Your hands remain pinned behind your head as if your skull has trapped them. 
And he's on your mouth and your cock, and you make acquiescent noises but you
don't ever move. 

You wonder if he notices that you never get off your back.  He seems not to mind
but he gives off clues.  Little things like rubbing his face against your lips
fishing for kisses, or trying to flip you on top of him subtly.  You never go. 
Sometimes you distract him by pretending to get angry and biting, tearing into
this throat until groans break from him and you leave ugly, unconcealable red
welts.  Sometimes this does the trick, or he pretends it does.   He continues
trying to get you both off at the same time.  You tolerate it and struggle to
keep your brain from drifting muzzily into dreams.  You no longer make any show
of participating, and you no longer really feel guilty.

Elijah climbs atop you, straddling your crotch.  He begins humping, and you
press back roughly.  He moans, high and bleating.  You bounce him up and down
but it exhausts your calves and you don't want to.  He's moaning and sighing
and gasping.  He leans forward because he wants to press his forehead against
yours, but his forehead gets round and clammy and you hate how it feels.  You
present him with forearms to hold him back, supporting his chest with your
crossed arms.  He grabs your biceps and keeps whining.  

"Fuck me," he sighs.  "Ooh, fuck me."

The longing and innocence with which he says it nearly breaks your heart.  You
bite your bottom lip.  Your brain wheels ahead with excuses why you can't, but
the reason is too clear.  You encourage his dry-fucking, which is getting quite
wet now, and you're wide awake but you wish you weren't.  You wish you were
soundly asleep.  You wish you were someone else.  One of his screaming fangirls,
someone who worshipped him.  No: just someone who loved him enough.  His smell
is claustrophobic in your nostrils, his touch too close to your skin.  You want
to shove him away but you don't.  You close your eyes.

Track Nine
/My fuse is burning out
And all that powder's gone to waste/
     -Elvis Costello, "Indoor Fireworks"

Elijah likes to fight because he thinks it represents confidence in the other
person's presence.  You like to mouth "break up with me" silently when his
back is turned.  But since his tactic is more fulfilling, usually you end up
fighting.

Your daily lives are littered with landmines and anything can set them off. 
This time it's five AM in Feet, and you've put on a CD he doesn't like. 
He tells you in no uncertain terms that you're a complete idiot to have put
that CD in and you'll take it out immediately if you know what's good for
you.  You reply that it's just a fucking CD, and he replies that at five AM
/nothing/ is just a CD.  He throws some insults in there for balance.  You
refuse to be insulted.  Sean and Billy meet each other's eyes in the mirror.

So you and Elijah, separated by two boxes and four Feet people, scream at each
other at the top of your lungs for the next forty-five minutes.  When the Feet
people tell you you can sit down you both flop gratefully into your chairs,
exhausted and silent.  The CD, on mute, gives up little electronic buzzes as it
whirs around the slot.

"I don't know why I bother," Elijah mutters loudly to his mirror.

"I don't know why you bother either," you retort to his reflection.

He looks at you from behind Billy's hair.  His eyes are pure terror, water
with hurt.  You feel that familiar tearing in your chest as your heart rips for
him and all the sadness of his putting up with you.  The area under his eyes is
black.  For a moment you want to take him in your arms and be sorry, kiss his
forehead, promise to love him.  But then you only sort of love him when you're
on the verge of hurting him, and that's self-protection rather than love,
really.  That is Not Enough.  He loves you and you don't love him.  So then
why the fuck is it so hard to let him go?

You reach across and turn up the volume on the CD.  Sean exhales sharply.  You
watch with relief as Elijah's eyes steadily freeze over into hate.

Track Ten
/I may
Take a holiday in Spain
Leave my wings behind me
Drive this little girl insane
Fly away to someone new/
     -Counting Crows, "Holiday in Spain"

Billy whoops, swings his board onto his shoulder and charges.  You and Elijah
hang back and watch him scramble into the sunrise, meeting the waves
chest-first.  The sand is cold on your bare feet but you're snug inside your
wetsuit.  Elijah grins at you and his face is formed from the tight lines of
morning.

"This was a good idea," he says.  "It's a really good idea to take some
time off.  I'm so sick of acting."

"You are?"

"Yeah.  Just having to switch so rapidly from myself into someone else, you
know?  Back and forth, and whose life is it, and what am I carrying around in my
head…  It gets really exhausting."  He scratches the back of his head. 
"I'm glad we're here."

"Me too."

He flips his sandals into the tall grasses with an efficient flick of his feet. 
"You coming?"

"In a minute."

"OK.  See you out there."

He gallops into the ocean.  He tries to vault the whiteheads but trips and goes
pitching.  Billy's head bobs with laughter from where he's splayed on his
belly on his board, further out.  Elijah slings himself over his board and swims
for it, the strong confidence of his strokes easily carrying him past the rough
patches.  You watch the pale flash of his hands against his black wetsuit and
the sparkling darkness of the sea.  Elijah reaches Billy and paddles into an
about-face, scrabbling about until he mounts his board.  He and Billy offer you
matching waves.  You wave them back to go ahead, flinging your heel into your
hand in a pretend stretch.  Their arms fall to their sides.  

You crouch comfortably into your solitude and the sand.  You watch them floating
there with their heads turned over their shoulders.  Elijah picks a wave,
suddenly falling flat as the sea swells to meet him.  He starts swimming and for
a moment it looks like nothing will happen, but then the back of his board tilts
subtly into the air.  You watch him waver carefully to his feet, and the whole
tenuous situation is flipped on its head.  He meets the board and the ocean in
complete control, cutting back and forth across the wave's face, body hunched
down in concentration.  He's brilliant to watch, though his surfing itself
does not entirely rival brilliance.  He's brilliant because he enjoys it,
because his focus goes to it, because he /does/ it.  Sometimes he's the same
when he acts.  Sometimes when you're in scenes with him he meets your eyes
with a face that is pure Frodo, unable to separate himself from the job. 
Moments like that and like this you could almost love him, moments when he is
other than he is with you.  

The wave ends easily and he slides into the wet sand, his board shucking and
slowing until he trips off it.  He takes a few rambunctious, staggering steps
before the leash catches his ankle and he trips, landing in a soggy heap.  Out
on the ocean Billy claps.

"Nice dismount," you say.

"Thanks," he answers, getting up.  He stands close to you, the water chill
rising off the warmth of his wetsuit.  "Kiss me?"

You bite your bottom lip.  He stares at your mouth and then at your eyes.

"You don't want to?" he asks.

"I don't /not/ want to.  It's just."

"I know," he sighs.  His eyes shift nervously out to sea.  "Is it…  Is
it sex in general or just sex with me?"

"Lij."

"Because if it's me then it's…"

"Then it's what?"

He looks at the ocean again.  You watch Billy balancing on the very top of a
wave, his hair lit by what is now complete daylight in a bright blue sky. 
Elijah's smell is strongly saltwater, a little bit sickening and a little bit
arousing.  You look at him from the corner of your eye, at his sticky hair
against his face and the salt crusting on his skin.  He looks back to you.  He
could be crying or he could just be wet.

"Let's not," you interrupt him.  "Please?  We're here on holiday.  I
don't know why everything has to be so serious all the time."

"It's OK if you're not in love with me," Elijah says.  "I don't
mind.  I love you, so…"  He shrugs, his wetsuit shortening the motion.  You
wonder how he knew and then you feel daft for wondering.  You hear the harsh
grate of Billy sliding into shore.

"It's not OK with me," you say.  "It's not enough."

"You're the one who says it's not enough."

"Yeah.  I am."

You tug your board out of the sand and step away.  Rage boils inside your belly,
and you're aware of its shaking energy and the sensitive heat it plays across
your skin.  You walk over to Billy who sparkles when he's wet.

"Nice one."

"You weren't even watching," he smiles.  He looks over his shoulder. 
"Did you do something to Elijah?"

"Nothing any different than usual.  Maybe you should talk to him, Bills.  I
just don't want to do this now."

"You can't keep stringing the kid along.  Make a clean break."

"How?  We work together, we see each other every day…  It's easier to stay
together than pick apart the aftermath."

"Stay together til we wrap, then.  It's only a few more months."

"That's so pathetic."

"Ask him, I don't know.  Didn't you just say you didn't want to do
this?"

"Yeah."

"So how come we're doing it?"  He grins.  "Get yourself out there, mate. 
We're gonna ride some fucking waves and drink some fucking beer and chill some
fucking out."  

He shoves you in the chest.  The wetsuit buffers the sensation but you get the
impact, staggering a little. You shove him back.  He shoves you with both hands
and you fall, the sand rough on your bare heels.  You grab him around the knees
and he lets you take him down so he can jam his elbows into your ribs.  Your
breath leaves you in a strangled laugh.  Your face hits the sand and you see
Elijah where you left him, staring out to sea with his periphery fixed on you.

"Er, let's tone it down," you hear yourself muttering, pushing Billy back. 
"Can't have too much fun when Elijah's in a piss."

You both stumble to your feet, making enough finishing noise that Elijah finally
looks and then comes over.  Billy makes a joke and slaps you in the back of the
head for good measure.  Elijah's eyes test you both out and eventually he
breaks into a smile of his own, then a laugh.  Trust Billy to defuse the bomb. 
He keeps going, slicing through wires of tension, rerouting green envies and red
suspicions until you're there as a trio, on holiday, and you take your boards
all together and you head out to have fun.

You cannot express to Billy what a relief it is to just have some fucking /fun/
in Elijah's presence.  For it just to be easy again, touches and looks devoid
of deep meaning.  You all ride hard and take your poundings.  Your body feels
like your own, outside of Elijah's jurisdiction, your own personal frame
again.  You stand and lie flat, alone and together, and you go in and out of the
rented house for drinks and pisses and you flop in heaps or singles in the sand,
warming, drying.  You catch a few of the sort of waves that remind you why you
love surfing, the sort that are broad and caring, floating you up and cradling
you for what feels like miles.  You take a few tumbles that hurl you to the sea
floor, grating and panic and the stomach-turning jerk of the leash that flips
you over and drags you helpless and spluttering after your unmanned board.  You
ride until your muscles ache and the blaring sun is too loud, and you all agree
to take what turns into a permanent break.

You peel your wetsuits off on the deck, keeping your eyes averted and your
bodies bent.  Elijah beats you both to the first shower.  You and Billy pad to
your individual bedrooms for shorts, and you have to rout through Elijah's
stuff that's packed in your bag until you can come up with a pair, mottled
green and white, hopelessly lame.  In the kitchen Billy is wearing a yellow
T-shirt that rides up and down over the rim of his green shorts.

"Modesty?" you ask, shoving past him into the fridge. 

"Sunburn."

"You were in a wetsuit."

"Avoiding it.  I get crispy on a moment's notice.  Look- I burned the backs
of my fucking hands."

He offers his hands for your inspection.  Sure enough they are red and
thin-skinned.  You touch them.  He winces.

"Wanker."

"They're hot."

"Sunburn, I told you.  And the back of my neck too."

"You need some aloe.  Right?  That plant you crack open?"

"They've planted one on the window."  He gestures to a spiky plant in a
sandy pot poking out from behind the faucet.  You go over to it and break off
one of its points.  Colorless ooze spreads across your fingers.  "These rental
people are lovely; they think of everything.  Give me that."

You give him the tip.  He squeezes it studiously and spreads it across his
hands, massages it into the back of his neck.  His bones crack when he tilts his
head.  When he lifts his arms his T-shirt raises and his belly is lightly hairy
in the thin strip above his shorts.

"Beer?" you ask.

"My hands are full."

"That's OK."

You pick up the plump bottle of Heineken and tilt it to his lips.  He smiles at
you coyly and opens his mouth to accept it.  You monitor the careful attention
of his throat as he swallows.  When you take the bottle away there's a sheen
of condensation of his lips.  You reach for it with a finger, consciously but
also not, just invading Billy's space like you do with him.  His lips are
freezing on your fingertip.  His eyes spark when your finger slips errantly
inside his mouth, just touching the hot hard tips of his bottom teeth and the
smooth glide of the inside of his mouth.  His arms drop to his side.

"Better," you tell him.  You're still poking him in the mouth.  "But now
you're all greasy."

The shower turns off.  You both step back simultaneously, as if caught.  When
you mirror the fear in each other's eyes you break into laughter, and you're
laughing when Elijah arrives in the kitchen in a towel.

"Billy you're all shiny," he says, kicking you in the calves as he opens
the fridge.  You wonder if he suspects something, but there is nothing to
suspect.  You watch him bend forward, his towel slipping low on his ass.  You
want to slap him because it would be funny, flirtatious, but it's the idea
you're interested in and not his body specifically.  Your stomach curdles and
you shove the thoughts aside.  "So what are we doing now?"

"Always have to entertain the kids," Billy cracks, but it takes a minute for
his voice to get going and you wonder if you've upset him.  He's rubbing the
aloe around and around the back of his hands until it looks dry and
uncomfortable.  "Can I have the shower?"

"Sure," you say, and he darts by you out the door.  His body strikes yours
and you stumble.  Elijah catches you.

"What happened to him?" he asks.

"Diarrhea.  Hungry?"

"Naw.  Sea sick.  Do I smell like seaweed?"

"Huh?"

"You smell like seaweed."  Elijah's nose jams into your chest.  You touch
his hair, clumpy despite washing.  His palms hit your bare sides and pave the
way for the long slide of his forearms against your skin.  His mouth approaches
yours.

"Lij, I-"  You step back.  He does too, even though you've stepped away
from him.

"Dom…  You're giving up a good thing."

"Statements like that are absurd.  If Hitler said that to you you'd still
give him his ring back."

"Is that how you see me?"

"Elijah."  You squeeze your eyelids.  There's something remarkable about
break-up poetics, the simple art of lines untempered and heart-felt.

"So we're breaking up then?"

"Um… fuck, I don't know.  Yes."  You reach for your beer.  It seems to
have gone missing.  Maybe Billy took it.  "Like a radio station.  You're
driving out of range."

"You're the one driving, Dom."

Break-up poetry; break-up face.  The eyes like water, the mouth and hands
mobile.  The sudden pathetic gravity of his body drawing all emotion toward it
where he's come to rest in the kitchen, a towel low on his hips, a beer
weeping in his hand.

"OK," you exhale.  You start to rub your palms compulsively up and down your
thighs until the heat starts burning through your shorts.  "OK.  Listen-"

"No," Elijah replies.  He walks out of the kitchen. 

You stand there for a couple minutes inhaling deeply, smelling aloe and beer and
soap and outside.  You hear the sand-shuck of Elijah putting on sandals and
clunking across the deck.  His lighter hisses and then you smell smoke.

The shower goes off so abruptly you wonder if Billy's been listening.  When he
arrives in the kitchen you know he has because of the concern dripping off his
face.  

"Elijah's naked out there," he says.

"How do you know?"

"There's a window in the shower.  His towel fell off.  You OK?"

"Yeah.  Of course."

"Is /he/ OK?"

"I don't know.  Probably not."

"Do you care?"

"Of course I care, Billy.  Shit."  You grab the back of your hair and pull. 
You feel pent-up and aggressive, want to /do/ something to someone but what and
who.  You go into the fridge for another beer.  When you close the door Billy is
still there, making puddles on the tile.  "Get back in your shower."

"I was done anyway."

He turns around and for some reason you reach out and rip his towel off.  He's
knotted it loosely in the small of his back and it only takes the lightest
stroke of your fingers to make the whole thing float gently around his ankles. 
His shoulders set in shock as you're presented with the familiar sight of his
ass and the backs of his thighs.  But then your hand shoots out again and ghosts
along the careful indentation at the base of his spine.  His skin is hot, damp.

"Dom?" he says without turning around.

"Don't mind me, I'm just being passive-aggressive."

He turns around.  Slowly, you daresay.  And makes no reach for his towel.  So
that you're faced with him face-to-face, and you see that his cock is hard and
upright against his belly.  You start to laugh and point but when you see the
little frown on his face you don't.

"Uhm, this isn't a come-on, is it?" you attempt to chuckle.

And then the door slams against the wall.  You smell smoke strongly before
Elijah has his hands all over you, battering your shoulders and head.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he yells.  "/What the fuck do you think
you're doing?/"

You raise your arms but he's already moved on to Billy, who had the brains to
head for the other room when Elijah entered.  Elijah captures him halfway to the
couch and tackles him, sending them both to the floor.  Elijah is startled and
just sits on Billy's back, hands clasped loosely around Billy's neck.

"Elijah cut it out!" you yell, not sure why you sound so shrill and
panicked.  You grab him by something—the hair, the nape, whatever—and peel
him off Billy so hard he almost does a backflip and lands in a painful pile of
his own.  Billy scrambles to his feet and protects himself with the other side
of the couch.

"I fucking knew it!" Elijah is screaming.  "I fucking knew you two were
hot for each other!  How long, Dom, huh?  You've been doing this since before
we started dating, or- or what?"

"Nothing happened," Billy says, but his eyes are stormy and his face is
flushed and something very well /could/ have happened by the looks of him.  His
cock is deflating, but not quickly enough.  "Really, nothing happened."

"But you wish it did, don't you?"

Silence.  You realize he's asking you.  You look at him and he's dark and
serious.  And you realize that, really, you have nothing else to say.

Track Eleven
/Don't blink, everyone's watching
They'll think you're up to something/
     -Dashboard Confessional, "Morning Calls"

When he touches you you think you'll puke.  The intimate slide of his palm
against the back of your jacket, and how his body notches into yours, and the
spikes of his hair jamming you gel-hard in the forehead.  You press your cheek
against his and you both wear matching grins.  

"Great to see you."

"Aye, been ages."

The flashbulb pops. 

The camera vanishes.

You both leap apart like twin magnets.

He disappears and you wade back across the carpet to Billy.  Los Angeles is
steadily filling with warm, thick-aired dusk, and you think this is a night to
be at a beach and not a premiere.  A night for clear air and waves, not the wool
press of dress-bodies and the lights and the roar.  You wave randomly.  You
dodge pockets of people in your search.

You find Billy all tangled up with Orlando.  Orlando looks like a clown in his
bright pink suit, and Billy looks like a turd in his fucking kilt.  You're
laughing when you reach him.

"You know a pair of fish-nets would really-"

"So shut up, then," Billy retorts violently, but he's smiling.  Seems like
he always smiles when he looks at you.  To be honest you can't quite work up
to it, and he feels like a stranger when you're with him like this.  But you
accept his hand on your shoulder and the eventual soft brush of his lips across
one of your eyebrows.

"I'll go," Orlando giggles, but truth is he's being dragged away anyway. 
You curl up into Billy, press your face into the shoulder pad of his jacket and
close your eyes.

"Can we go now?" you whimper.

"Not having a good time?"

"It's just too fucking awkward.  I can't stand the way he's looking at
me."

"He's not looking at you now," Billy observes.

"Yeah but he's doing it on purpose."

You look up into his eyes and you feel lame for looking miserable, and you know
Billy knows you're a big boy and can deal.  You wonder if relationships will
always leave you feeling like an irresponsible shite.  In the eventual
aftermath, when you and Billy were trekking through the sand while Elijah
fiercely sorted his things from yours, you told Billy that you were cursed.  You
said that sooner or later you drop everyone who has ever handed themselves to
you, that your fingers open forgetfully and everything shatters.  Billy touched
your shoulder and it hurt.  You realized you were sunburned.    

Billy said, "You haven't dropped me yet.  I'll think we'll be all
right."

"We" was not the Billy and Dom who were mates.  "We" was some new, scary
pairing that you knew you would never be ready for.  But you let him draw you
in, and now you can't remember the way out.  And maybe this is not so bad, but
why does it leave you feeling scarred?

Across the carpet Elijah touches the stretched-out fingertips of his fans, a
hesitant smile playing tag with his lips.  Billy's palm burns into yours as
you clasp hands.  You carefully hide your joined fists in your pocket.