First Kiss

Dom kisses Elijah.

It's fun. It's just something he does.

He took notice of it maybe after the sixth or seventh kiss. Took notice of the fact that he kisses Elijah. It happens so quickly all the time, he isn't surprised that it took him this long to notice. The feeling burgeons, sprouts and blooms in him, starts in his shoulders he thinks, flows out through his arms which grab hold of the young American in some fashion, by shoulders or around his neck, or around his whole person so he's like a squeezed rag doll, then erupts, flash burns in Dom's head as it makes contact with Elijah. It sparks on his temple or forehead or nose or lips or some awkward combination of the springy shell of his ear and hair. Those must be loud, Dom thinks and smirks sleepily. And after the little pop of damp skin and low pressure, its over, and nobody comments or takes any notice of it, not Dom, not Elijah.

He notices this time, he thinks, because it's cold. Snowing like a billion tiny angels falling from the sky, and he's just buzzed enough to think that. Everywhere is white except for the black damp trunks of trees and Elijah's dark hair. Dom's nose is cold, otherwise he might not have even noticed how warm Elijah was when that urge struck again and he gave him a squeeze and pressed his face against Elijah's neck.

So very very warm. That was when he noticed. Because the warmth (and probably the alcohol too, though it wasn't all that much) suddenly runs down the front of Dom and his smell, clean and sweet, runs up into Dom's head and it strikes him as odd, for the first time, that he just brazenly kisses him like that. As if it had always been that way between them. But, he supposes, it has. That was the first thing he did when he met his Frodo.

Elijah is laughing like a loon, trying to hit Billy with flimsy dry snow clumps and handfuls. Bill is a much better shot though, unpackable snow or no, and keeps walloping the screeching Elijah without appearing to expend any effort at all. Elijah runs back to Dom, maybe he thinks he'll protect him from Billy, and, maybe he will, or maybe it's more fun to watch him turn red with laughter as Bill stuffs a handfull of snow into the neck of his jumper. But when he uses Dom as a shield, Dom becomes a little more motivated and grabs him around the middle in that wrung-out rag doll asana, meaning to teach him a thing or two about washing his face, and it happens again and he's not even sure now that he is the one making it happen.

Elijah laughs a little uneasy titter. "Will you cut it out?"

Dom lets him go and he goes after BIlly again who ducks a snowy comet flying from Elijah's fingers. So, yes, he is the one doing it. He just doesn't seem to have any control over it. Either way he didn't expect Elijah to start complaining now.

Dom wanders away towards those blackened tree trunks, a cluster of them lightly frosted with clinging snow all on one side. He wishes he had had a little more to drink so he wouldn't be drying out already. It would probably make it a little easier to accept the fact that he's a wanker and has been pushing himself, albeit more or less unknowingly, on an uninterested and now possibly disenchanted party. It would also probably make him feel less cold.

He leans there against the damp trees for some time, he's not sure how long, but the feeling starts to seep back into his fingers and toes, funny how just sitting still out in the cold can do that. All that warmth reminds him that he needs to pee. A few more security steps out into the trees and he cuts a hole in the thin layer of snow. Writes his name, sorta.

"Hey where'd you go?" Elijah says behind him.

Dom zips back up and turns to look at him. "Right here."

Elijah approaches and Dom decides, that, although he doesn't want to appear to be clamoring to get next to the boy, he also would prefer it if he didn't have cause to look at the marks he left in the snow. He meets him halfway and then lounges back against a tree. To his surprise, Elijah just comes closer, huddles in toward him and slips icy fingers under the hem of Dom's shirt to place them on his sides. Dom gasps and squirms a lot but lets them stay there as Elijah sighs with relief and curls in close to Dominic, seeking more heat. Dom's arms just know what to do and once again wrap around him without his express permission or instruction.

"Why did you run away?" Elijah says from under Dom's neck, muffled a little by his nose in dom's shirt.

Dom shrugs, then shivers, but not so much from the cold.

"Is it cuz I told you to stop?"

He shrugs again and feels intensely stupid and unclever.

"You were giving me a stiffy. I didn't want Bill accidentally like, grabbing it next time he tried to put snow down my pants."

Dom starts chuckling nervously, but then it cascades out of him in a great peal. Elijah laughs too and pick his head up to look at Dom who can only smirk back sheepishly.

"Where is BIll?" he asks.

"Went back."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Elijah says and smiles a little bigger.

Dom almost can't do it. He's been tied back to the tree trunk it seems, but it happens, like he knew it would, because this time Elijah comes forward and grabs hold of Dom. Warm soft lips, stretched a little tight because they're still smiling, but sweet as anything. Dom takes one lips between his own, tastes, then the other, then sees what there might be inside to explore. Mouths locked together with grazing tongues and warm sweet Elijah in his nose, Dom knows what it's all about now, finally. It just took a few practice shots, six or seven. And whoa, yes, that is a stiffy. Elijah peels his mouth away then and giggles, rubs against him a little more, just to make sure he feels it.

"You want to go back?" Elijah nods and presses the heel of his palm to his crotch once at which Dom has to laugh.

Out of the sheltering trees and back into the open white air they walk, far apart but hand in hand until Dom looks over at him shielding his face from the snow, covered in it, a billion little angels all clinging to this hot devil in disguise, and it happens again. No thought required. He just reels him in, squeezes him tight around his arms and torso and kisses him.

LOTRPS: VM/SB MO/OB/KU: Untitled

Untitled
Written for sectret slasha 2005, recipient dropped out however. :(
Viggo/Sean Bean, Miranda/Orlando/Karl;
rated: Adult;
request: "vm/sb, mo/ob/ku. consensual kink, romance, men acting like men. Either AU or not. Plot or PWP.".
A/N: I was so totally unprepared for this assignment it was silly. I'd never written any of these guys before except ob. And as usual I bit off more than I could chew and this got really complicated until I took it essentially back to the drawing board and lopped 60% of it off and tossed it in the bin. Now it's a reality-challenged pwp essentially. I tried.

Viggo got back to his hotel room, already buzzed and with a back-up drink in hand, to find Sean sitting on his couch, reading. Viggo paused in the doorway, and then put his glass down on the end table and sank down next to Sean as if he wasn't surprised at all to see him sitting there, and Sean removed his foot from the cushion in a mechanical motion so he could do so. Sean's eyes never left the book in the time it took Viggo's to slip closed, his head back, finger curled over the cold rim of the glass. Viggo could only hear it as the ice in his drink melted and readjusted, and as Sean finished his paragraph, put the book down, folded his reading glasses neatly and placed them on top, quietly. Like a librarian that Sean. A pornographic librarian. The tip of a smile tugged at one corner of Viggo's mouth.

"So how was your day?" Sean said mildly, and Viggo picked his head up, opened his eyes to reveal them already pointing at Sean.

Viggo gave him a slowly developed incredulous glare and Sean grinned. "Miranda hates me," he said simply and took a gulp of his drink.

"Well that works out. You hate her too."

"I don't hate her," Viggo said, dropping his voice from casual conversational to something more befitting a talk held in a dim room on a couch late at night.

"You don't?"

"No," he sighed, resigned. "It's not her fault."

"You know that is perhaps the most rational and sensible thing I've heard you say in the last week?"

"Sean, we haven't even spoken the past four days. How do you know I wasn't being rational and sensible while you were gone?”

Now it was Sean's turn to look incredulous. "So you like her now."

"No, I just don't hate her."

They shared the quiet for a moment then, nothing to say, broken only by Viggo's occasional sipping at his bourbon. "Four days," mumbled Sean. Viggo nodded absently. "When was the last time that happened?"

Viggo paused and then said, "Never."

"I thought not. There was that time when I was gone for a day and a half with the flu, but as soon as I stopped vomiting I was back."

"Mm. I remember. You looked like shit," he said with a grin. There was nothing like insulting Sean to improve his mood.

"Thank you. Are you trying to go for five?"

Viggo smirked. "You're delusional."

"No I'm just terribly sensitive," he said looking down and away, a barely visibly crease in his brow. If Viggo hadn't been so tired he would have laughed.

"Uh huh," and a half smile was all he could manage.

Sean took Viggo's sweating glass from him and set it down in the ring mark on the table. Viggo almost looked forlornly at it, but Sean took his hand and pulled him up off the couch. So he turned his head briefly and mourned the loss of both his drink and his comfy seat.

Sean started at the top of his shirt, undoing the buttons down the line quickly and quietly. Viggo had been so distracted and fatigued, it didn't occur to him to participate until Sean had Viggo down to his shorts and undershirt. Sean flashed him a half smile and rubbed his thumbs into Viggo's shoulders, squeezing from neck to back to chest. Viggo's head lost all its support just then and clunked down onto Sean's shoulder, emitting a low groan as if he was made of wood. Sean chuckled at him and took his hands off Viggo's shoulders far too quickly for Viggo's liking and he made another sound that was intended to be a protest but was too weak to be taken as anything more than a generic inarticulate noise.

Viggo woke himself up enough to lean on Sean's shoulder and get the rest of his clothes off while Sean did the same, and then they slipped into Viggo's bed. It was really too easy to do that. Just slip into bed and let their bodies melt together and snug like a two piece jigsaw. It had been easy from the beginning. And fast. Viggo smiled to himself at the thought of just how fast it had happened.

Viggo, this is Sean. Sean, Viggo.

Hiya Vig.

Hi Sean. Say Sean, is that a two-by-four in your pocket or are you just really thrilled to meet me?

Ok so it wasn't that fast, but it was fast enough. Things were much more relaxed now. They had apparently gotten over the wild kingdom initiative of gulping their prey whole so it couldn't be stolen from them. They weren't so frantic anymore. And they weren't at it every waking moment anymore either. Viggo was almost grateful for that. Almost. Maybe every other day or so now, and once in a night was ususally enough to satisfy too. But man, that first plunge into bed (and Viggo's tired, giddy mind was up to its usual childishness making him giggle inwardly at the word 'plunge' painted on the inside of his eyelids) that had been insane. He wasn't sure why it didn't kill him. They screwed like teenagers. In trailers, in the woods around the set, behind sets and large props. And then tried to keep it a secret. As if it wasn't obvious to everyone. PJ was a little oblivious to the inter-cast politics, but even he had mentioned the “chemistry” between them.

"What are you giggling about?" Sean asked him. Viggo lay there on his back, Sean leaning over him, warm hand brushing through soft chest hair. Apparently he had been tittering out loud as well.

Viggo turned his eyes to Sean's shadowed face, and it was like he very suddenly remembered why they had come together in the first place. Those months came rushing back in a flood of sweat and a crying wind of hot breath and whispered oaths. "Nothing," he said and pulled Sean down on top of him to capture his mouth and legs with his own corrisponding parts. Four days is a long time.

~~~~~

Sean had wanted to devour him hours ago. The second their eyes met over PJ's table and Viggo had stood there trying to stifle his smile. And then later when Viggo had slumped in his chair at the reading looking like a man waiting for his firing squad, like a man who had to spend a good chunk of that day and many to follow with Miranda, all he had wanted was to fuck him into the wall, into oblivion. Wanted to erase that distress from his brow and replace it with need, agony. Need only he could fill, agony only he could quell. Now though, Viggo was supine and pliant beneath him, already relaxed and just, better. Sean wondered when it had gotten so easy to read him, to give him what he needed before Sean even knew what that was. They were coming to the end of this. They both knew it. There would be pick-ups and parties and maybe even more movies, but soon, his time would be over and he would be leaving, and Viggo would stay. But for now, he had to forget that. He had to make Viggo forget it too.

Kissing him, tasting his skin, down his warm neck to hard collarbone, over, to hairy chest and ruddy nipples. Viggo's hands found Sean's hair and back, and Sean could swear he could feel Viggo adjusting, shifting, the pressure in his mind releasing while the pressure in his body, in his senses escalated.

It wasn't often that Sean felt compelled to offer himself up to get fucked. He didn't mind it, he just prefferred to top. And Viggo knew that, and it worked out ok. When Viggo wanted that position, he would ask and Sean was almost always happy to oblige. But he had spent the last four days stuck in a tin can they called a carivan while the sky opened day after day and rained, drumming the metal, chilling everything to the core, ruining shoots before they started. And they said the stuff with him at Minas Tirith would likely get cut anyway. There was some motivation for you. To be freed, to be posessed once again, to have Viggo claim him after being cut off for an unprecedented amount of time since this whole thing started; it suddenly sounded really good. He was just about to whisper in his ear the suggestion that they roll over, imagined the dangerous little smile that would spread over Viggo's face at the words, and he braced himself up on his arms and looked straight down at him. Sean had never seen him looking so needful. Not even when Sean had whittled away at him for hours with his hands and mouth and cock, trying to crack him but not letting him break. It wasn't his expression so much, which was mostly placid, a tint of anxiety still at the corners of his eyes. It was more subtle than that. His lips were gently parted as if to silently bleat, jaw cocked, his eyes glassy and wide, entreating, and yet. Maybe it was the force with which he restrained it behind his face, tried to keep Sean from seeing how much he needed, maybe that was what made him look so hungry, so deprived. Viggo would let it loose when they fucked. Everybody lost it during sex, it was like burping at a Japanese restaurant. If you don't show some enthusiasm between the sheets, you're going to make your partner think he's no good. But outside of that, Viggo was a rock. Well, maybe a really hard clump of clay. Sean smirked down at him. Viggo just wasn't the type to openly need someone else in a way that wasn't transient, like sex. Neither was Sean really, but that was ok too. It could remain unspoken without being forgotten or ignored. Sean wanted possession, but Viggo needed it more right now. Four days was too long.

The momentary pause overwith, the tense, wordless exchange done, Viggo submitted with his posture and deep breathing as Sean covered him with his body, and reached up and covered them both with the sheet. Viggo wrapped his limbs around Sean and kissed his neck, sucking the warm skin into his mouth softly, getting as much of the taste of it as he could, then letting go and finding a new spot to suck. He seemed startled by the rough brush of Sean's thigh on his erection as Sean eased himself down a little to resume courting Viggo's chest, taking his own neck regrettably out of range of Viggo's mouth.

Sean kissed his way down Viggo's body under the warm tent of the sheet and sucked his cock into his mouth. Viggo moaned quite clearly as Sean sunk down completely on him and tried to spread his lips to take in everything he could, holding down hard against Viggo's groin and letting his eyes flutter shut at the salty musk and the tickle of hair against his nose. He bobbed back up and sucked, painting the underside with his flat tongue. Viggo's fingers found his hair again and his whole body writhed. Sometimes Sean just liked to get comfortable down there and suck Viggo slow and long, stroking himself with his free hand, the other gripping tight to the base of Viggo's cock. He could get into a rythm with it, and the weight of Viggo on his tongue and the burn in his jaw and cheeks would lull him, quiet him so that the need in his groin faded to the background. What was truly amazing was when Viggo would come, (it could take forever with the agonizing pace Sean would set for them, but it would happen eventually) the second Viggo's orgasm began to rock his body, Sean would start to come too. That always made for a spectacular evening, but that was not in order either. So Sean pulled himself away from Viggo's cock again, eliciting a breathy whimper from the man that made Sean smile.

Back up head to head above the sheets, Sean reached up and turned out the remaining bedside light and then ground his hips down against Viggo's, feeling him return the pressure from below. Then Sean reached up yet again, (four days and he'd forgotten how to do this efficiently) and produced the lube from the nightstand. A half moment later he was sliding into the pliant and very willing body beneath him, humming his pleasure into Viggo's neck, loving the thick pressure and tight heat, and then the slow drag and riptide of the retreat.

Way too long. And Viggo lost his composure quickly. Sean fucked him hard, and even in the darkness he could see the tight knot Viggo was in, how much he needed to have the burden of the character lifted from him so he could recouperate and bear it better, later. He needed to be taken apart, forced to drop that load and sleep the night without it. Sean was grateful he knew how to do that.

Sean stopped a moment and Viggo came back to his body and seemed to look at him, puzzled and fizzy in the dark. He smiled and slid open the drawer of the nightstand once more. Viggo's eyes got a little big as Sean tightened the cockring around him, and he let out a harsh little breath that made Sean just a little impatient with is own ring. This is defineitly a two cockring night, he thought to himself, nearly chuckling.

He pushed back into Viggo's body and his cock fucking throbbed, massively, painfully, but it would so be worth it, he knew. Viggo was gasping with each inhale and making inarticulate cries on every exhale within just a few minutes and Sean had to fight with him to keep his hands off his own cock, so desperate, so undone, and yet Sean knew he could push him so much further.

~~~~~

Orlando lay prone on his mattress, pretending to read a book. He checked to make sure he was holding it right side up at least, but he wasn't turning the pages. Every little movment of his body set him on fire, and he wondered if you could die from blue balls. A few misty drops of sweat developed on his nose. He seriously wanted to kill who ever thought this would be a good idea.

Karl slouched against the wall behind the other bed with his own book in his hands, ankles crossed. Something Orlando wished was silence gripped the room for another moment or so and then Karl sighed heavily and let his head smack the wall behind him lightly. "Are you sure they're in Viggo's room, not Sean's?"

"Positive," Orlando said, his lower jaw propped up on his fist and his whole head moving with each sylable.

"And is it always like this?"

"Mm. It's a bit louder tonight than usual. Its been four days after all." That sounded nonchalant. Not like he takes down statistics on it, sits there measuring the decibles in the room night after night. Did it sound like that?

Karl rolled his head back and forth a couple times on the wall. "Going to need bloody ear plugs just to get any sleep," he mumbled. Orlando prayed he would just go to bed and decided maybe he could ruse him into it by putting his own book away and feigning fatigue.

Sean and Viggo, two rooms away down the hall were fucking each other's brains out, so hard and so loud, Orlando had no idea which one of them was yelling the obscenities he was hearing, but it didn't really matter. He had had plenty of fantasies about both of them, getting fucked by them, singly or in tandem. It was embarrassing sometimes. He had to work with these people, and between his fantasy life and their moaning, he was amazed he could face them at all. But he had far more fantasies about Karl. Even in the short time that he had known him. Dangerous fantasies that were realistic enough as to be plausable.

Orlando tossed his book away and let his head and arm dangle over the matress. "Why is it those two are the only ones that ever get laid around here?" he said gloomily to the floor.

Karl looked over at Orlando, a movement registered only in the very outer reaches of Orlando's vision. Orlando looked up at him. Karl's big empahtic eyebrows went from low to high in an uneven motion, and then Karl turned out his reading light and turned over in his bed.

~*~

Miranda might have been dripping on him, Orlando. She couldn't be sure. Karl was blocking the view, sadly, but she couldn't really think of a way in which she could get her pie and watch it too, or however the hell that expression went, so she settled for straddling the pretty young Brit who was on all fours on the floor between the beds, with Karl behind him, and Karl's face between her legs. She wasn't sure if dripping on him would be good or bad, considering. She doubted it would change anything for any of them, but she wondered, privately, if Orlando would dissaprove. She really couldn't tell what was going on with him actually. He was so quiet for all of this.

It was ok. She was going to fully enjoy this whether he chose to or not. She did it for both of them, partly because Karl was an ass and didn't deserve Orlando's attention, and partly because, well, just because. Karl was pretty good, she couldn't complain. She balanced herself with her hands on his head as a tremor starting from her groin crawled up her body and made her left leg tremble just a little. She panted and rubbed her thumb across Karl's brow, a silent encouragement, and burried her fingers in his hair. So warm, and Orlando's flanks rubbed against the insides of her legs lightly with his slight movements beneath her. And she wondered why Karl hadn't come yet. Not that she was complaining, but it occurred to her that if she was fucking Orlando and eating her out at the same time, she might have come already, and the mere thought made her momentarily dizzy. Karl lapped at her and made an obscene sucking noise that seemed to ricochet around her skull. He tried to get his hands on her, but he was leaned so far forward he couldn't keep his balance like that. She was wary of it, wary of what he would do with those hands when they got there, but he was so good and she was so far gone, she walked forward a little and he reached up grabbed her bare hips tightly. That was ok. He slouched at the new angle to thrust his tongue into her, and he hummed his pleasure as he did so. It was maddening because all she wanted was for him to keep sucking her clit and licking at it with that wicked tongue, and yet, the penetration was wildly erotic. He moved one thumb over to her shaved lip, tugging at it just a little, and she batted him away testily. He rumbled and sucked hard on her and that was what sent her gyrating and half collapsing on top of Karl. She came with three or four whimpering moans, digging fingernails into Karl's skull, trying to keep him on the spot and tear him away from it at the same time, gasping for breath and keenly aware of the soft flesh shivvering between her knees.

She always laughed a little after she came. She doesn't know why. The other two didn't comment, but Karl gave her a little nervous look, like maybe he was reconsidering the possibility that she was crazy after all. Orlando's head was dropped down, hanging between his taught arms, quiet and breathing. Karl was simply paused behind him, looking like he forgot his line, and she backed off of Orlando and sat on the bed, shameless and open, her hair falling around her shoulders.

“Come on,” she whispered to him, and threaded her fingers through the wetness between her legs. She coated a finger, twirling her wrist around, and ran it through the slit, enjoyed the delicious tickle, and then watched Karl as it dissapeared inside of her. As expected, his hips cocked forward to thrust into Orlando, and she felt like a delightfully nefarious puppeteer. Miranda smiled and slid her finger out again and rubbed a little, just lightly on the spot since it was still hypersensitive, and spread her legs a little more for Karl to see. Two fingers now, they slid in and she watched as Karl's brow knit just a little with want, slack-jaw, and his hips pushed forward. She fucked herself with her fingers slow and easy and watched Karl sink into Orlando and match her pace exactly, thrust for thrust.

~*~

Karl was way beyond disbelief. If you had asked him when he got the part what his plans were for the first couple of weeks on the set, they wouldn't have included a twisted, sick, and otherwise fucked up tryst with his castmates. He wouldn't have told you he intended to develop an unhealthy and gunshot-fast obsession with a lesbian. Nor would he have told you he would break every rule in his own book to attain her. That just wasn't what he was expecting. Nor was he expecting to find himself buggering another man in the ass just to get a taste of her (seemed kind of like going from Melbourne to Sydney via Glasgow when he thought about it) when she had explicitly told him there would never be more than that. And she wanted to watch. That was possibly the most astounding thing. She thought this was hot. It wasn't just another demonstration of exactly how easy it was for her to control him, oh no. She'd already proven that she could make him do just about anything, which was again, a surprise to him. He remembered licking her red boots yesterday in the minute and a half they were left alone. Pointed toes and warm leather. That smell. He did it gladly and his mind still balked at that fact. This was her goal all along. To watch the two of them, and she wasn't hiding it at all anymore.

He could have stopped. It was fucking kinky after all. He liked Orlando. They had been practically inseperable since they met. Karl counted him a friend, and you dont fuck your friends. That was one of those rules he was breaking. So it felt just a little odd using him like that. Not that Orlando had seemed very resistant to the idea. Hesitant perhaps, but who wouldn't be. It was fucking kinky.

Though he did wonder, if it didn't bother him, why he was so quiet. Orlando isn't quiet. It made Karl wonder exactly how meaningful this was to him. If maybe that was the whole thing. If that was why he had an Orlando-shaped appendage lately. If that was why Orlando hadn't been sleeping since Miranda got there and the two of them got railroaded into sharing a room.

That room was starting to feel foggy and very warm. He made her come with his mouth, and she was done but not finished, it appeared. And niether was he. Because as long as she wasn't finished, neither was he, neither was Orlando. She was there on the bed, five feet away from him, not touching him or holding a gun to his head or doing anything that should have had any influence over his own will, and yet he was doing what she wanted. Because she wanted it. Somehow her getting what she wanted was getting confused in his brain with him getting what he wanted. There had to be a crossed wire somewhere.

He watched her, not him. He was fucking him. He was fucking fucking Orlando and that was a little disturbing to consider, because as hot as the kid was, he hadn't even considered it before then. It wasn't disturbing enough though, to tear his eyes off of her salatious tongue at the corner of her mouth and the wet fingers. Her pink toes came up off the floor and touched Orlando's head in an artistic caress that Karl couldn't imagine his own toes being capable of. She smiled serenely at Orlando and seemed to let her eyes smooth up and down his back and the landscape of taught muscles and skin.

It was hard to think with your cock burried in so much heat and wet satin, but it was about then that Karl realized that this had very little to do with him and Miranda. This was about Orlando. Orlando was doing it for him. Why, he couldn't be sure, maybe Orlando was concealing a feeling for Karl a bit deeper than freindship. And Miranda was doing this for Orlando. Twisted as that might be.

Karl had his hands on Orlando's back and a film of sweat glued them there as he continued his slow rhythm. He looked up at Miranda again and that witch doctor look in her eyes told him he was right. Maybe this wasn't as fucked up as it seemed on the exterior. Maybe this did make sense. And myabe this obsession was jsut a little bit misplaced.

Karl leaned over Orlando a little more to take his left shoulder in hand and squeeze and slide his thumb over the hard lump of muscle. Nothing happened really, but Karl was trying hard to communicate his understanding thorugh his hands. He leaned over him some more so that his chest scooped around Orlando's long back, and he folded him up in his arms and pulled him up against him. He slid up into Orlando's body again and hummed a little against the back of his head. With his face over Orlando's shoulder he could see the young man's eyes closed, jaw slack, skin flushed. His body was tight in front of Karl and yet he seemed unstable, so Karl trapped him with an arm across his chest. His pace quickened a little because really, Orlando felt as good as he looked. And he didn't know exactly what he thought he was doing, but he put his lips to the side of Orlando's face and kissed him once. It made sense in his head at least. If you can't kiss your mate while you're fucking him in the ass when can you? But Orlando opened his eyes then and looked at Karl, and Karl looked back knowing he probably looked as pink faced and sweaty as Orlando did. There was a moment there that maybe he should have expected. If you're going to look someone in the eyes while their body is pressed against yours and impaled upon you, there is bound to be something more exchanged there than just fluids and a casual regard.

Orlando's eyes slid closed again as he twisted himself to kiss Karl. Karl found himself smiling just a little as they came together too, and suddenly this was all a little bit hotter, a little more than just a lustful release. Karl canted his hips up and Orlando made the first sound he'd made since before Miranda walked in the door that night, a little huff of air and voice yanked out of him. He started to go slack and Karl tightened his grip around his chest. Their tongues mingled within the heat of their sealed lips until Orlando broke it and let his head fall back onto Karl's shoulder and moaned as Karl slid thickly into him again. Karl smiled and nibbled Orlando's neck.

With his free hand, Karl stroked slowly down Orlando's chest and felt his abdomen quiver as he brushed over it. Orlando sucked in a breath when his hand circled around his cock and gave it a gentle squeeze and a pull. A few strokes and Orlando, with his knees spread over Karl's, began thrusting up and down, rocking between Karl's fist and his cock. Every time he sat down, Karl's cock sank into him and Karl made a painful-sounding grunt, and then he would thrust upward again into Karl's tight fist, releasing the pressure on Karl's cock and eliciting a whimper from Orlando's lips until he came back down again. Karl was getting close and he really didn't want to be, but by the way Orlando was tensing and clutching at him, he thought he was probably almost there too. What he really wanted to do was get him on the bed.

Orlando looked almost panic-stricken when Karl let go of him and slid out of his body. Karl guided him up off the hard floor and onto the other bed on his back and Orlando relaxed and smiled a little up at him. Here, he could go to town, and he did. He eased into a rhythm again and grinned when Orlando gasped a little every time he brushed that perfect little spot and every time he clenched down on him eliciting noises from Karl as well. Braced on his arms over him, Karl kissed Orlando again and started pumping furiously into him feeling the heat wash over his head and the air rush from his lungs. Orlando came with his hands on his own cock between them, tugging at it and crying out over and over, back curled and abdomen tight as he rocked. Karl could only watch him like that a moment before his own body let loose his empathy. He struck into him hard and fast, squeezing wide-eyed little noises from Orlando that rang in his ears and clashed with the sounds Miranda made from her box seat on the other bed as she came again. Everything tightened and the delicious pulsing in his cock counterpointed his pulse until everything began to drain away like thinned paint.

He collapsed next to Orlando on the little bed and just breathed for several moments. Off in some distant part of his mind he could hear Miranda gathering her clothes. Then she was leaning on the bed over them, half dressed. She smiled sweetly. “Good boys,” she whispered and bent over to kiss Orlando fully and the two of them looked so insanely beautiful together, Karl was momentarily jealous of both of them at the same time. Then she kissed Karl too and he could taste a little of everything on her, but a lot of Orlando, and suddenly he knew he didn't need to be jealous.

She bounced into her jeans and shut the door quietly behind her, leaving the two of them in the barely lit room before they even had a chance to think about peeling themselves off the bed.

Karl looked over at Orlando and felt the first stirrings of worry. This changed things. Surely this had to change things in some way. Orlando turned and looked at Karl and the high arch of his eyebrows mirrored Karl's, and they laughed at each other. Karl snickered and turned over to pull Orlando to him. Orlando's own mirth died down and he simply smiled as he curled his hands up against Karl's chest and kissed him.

Yes, this changed things.

~*~

“Are you sure they're in Orlando's room? Sounds like they're right next door.”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds like all three of them are in there.”

“Mm,” Sean grunted in acknowledgement, never taking his eyes off his book even as Viggo ran a tempting finger up and down his half-interested shaft. Viggo propped himself up in bed and listened.

“I thought the point of Karl and Orlando sharing a room was so that Miranda could have her own until we got back to Wellington.”

Sean placed a fingertip on his spot on the page and looked at Viggo over the rim of his glasses. “Well if those three want to shack up together, there's no reason Dom and Billy need to share a room too.”

“I'm pretty sure they want to.”

“Oh.”

“They've been apart a few days too.”

“Mm,” he said again and snugged an arm under Viggo, giving him a crooked smile.

LOTRPS: OB/EW: Grow Up In Time

Title: Grow Up in Time
Author: Wichetty G
Fandom/Pairing/Genre: lortrps, ob/ew, Slash
Prompt: Seven of Wands http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/telesilla/tarot/wa07.jpg
Rating: pg-13 for naughty words
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: not real made up fiction
Summary: There's chemistry on the set, there's misunderstandings and missteps, but it all works out.
Notes: Meanings: Upright: The ability to "hold one's own" against
adversaries, stiff competition in business, a fight won, a fight one
may have to face soon, victory, energy, courage
Reversed: The threat will pass by, don't let others take advantage,
caution against indecision, patience
A/N: This isn't terribly good, but it's what I came up with. I was going for layers of meaning that might come out with a second read, or a first read if you really want to digest it. Let me know if I come close to that mark at all - or fall no where near, of course.

“This is a long cut. Forty-five seconds. You're just walking along the ridge. At about twenty seconds, I'll cue you and you stop, look back at Pippin. He'll catch up to you and you start walking again. Don't worry about where everybody else is. Got it?” Elijah nods and scratches very carefully through the top of his wig shifting from foot to foot the way he does. Orlando looks away, inward.

They'll spend a day at the beach perhaps. Just them. The other guys will be busy or won't want to go. Maybe it will be raining, it does that often enough, but Orlando will convince him to come out anyway. They can laugh and try to drown each other like usual. They'll surf, badly, then call it a day when Elijah's teeth are chattering and they're too tired to move anymore. Sand-burned, salty, cold, exhausted, dry-eyed. They'll go back to Orlando's place. Why. Maybe Elijah will just want to. Elijah's place is messy and he doesn't want Orlando to see it, or Orlando will just suggest it. He won't ask why. He'll just happen to have a movie that Elijah has been wanting to see. And he'll not have Flipper anywhere in sight. And they'll take a shower. God he wants to do that together, but that's probably pushing it. Maybe it'll happen on the couch. They'll be watching the movie, and Elijah will cuddle up to him like he does. -Orlando can't suppress the smile entirely. It's so easy for Elijah.- He won't ignore him this time, pretend he doesn't even notice like the sad pitiful git he is. He'll smile down at him, the movie playing on but neither of them paying attention anymore. He'll see it in his eyes. That look you see in the movies he wants to be in. Then he'll lean down and press their lips together. And the rest...well.

Not a good idea to take the fantasy to its natural conclusion while wearing tights.

“Ok Orlando, You have ten seconds to get from your first mark to your second. Plenty of time, so take it easy. Just make sure you're standing there by the time Merry looks at you. And don't second guess yourself on that interaction. You have it.” Penny urges him back onto his mark and he glances at Elijah who is standing off to the side with his coffee. He looks like a hobbit but he's concentrating like a surgeon.

People call him immature and childish. People call them both immature and childish. No way. Maybe him, but not Elijah. For one thing, he's been a working professional for as long as Orlando has had pubes. Maybe Dom knows them a little better than that. He's the same age about. Knows where they stand, has spent more time with both of them. Elijah can act like a little kid, has the energy of one, the open mind, and it brings those same things out in Orlando. But there is so much more to him.

Orlando is quickly coming to another realization. He can't hold it in much longer. He hasn't been this star struck since Superman. Hasn't wanted to be near someone, one person and not just in general, in a while. It's killing him slowly and deliciously. He doesn't think he's being obvious. No one here knows him well enough yet for his behavior to seem unusual But they're going to find out sooner or later. And he'd prefer to tell them, to have someone else in on the secret for the exciting parts rather than have them just find out and then avoid the subject.

“Marks!”

~*~

“I didn't tell you so you could fucking...chew my....arse about it.” Orlando growls it, his vision actually fading a little pink around the edges. He feels stupid as he usually does when he's angry. Stupid because he can't think straight enough to form words in poignant and cutting strings when his blood is pumping this fast, and when it would be most useful. Stupid for trusting. Stupid because they're probably right, but he has to defend himself anyway, doesn't he? Because he can't just admit that maybe he's wrong; not now. If he did he'd be stupid for bringing it up in the first place and not just stupid for being inarticulate and young.

“Orlando!” Billy says it as if Orlando was a child caught reaching for cookies he was just told to leave alone. “We're not trying to castigate you.” Castigate. How does he come up with a word like that right now, in the middle of an argument, and drunk besides? “We're just saying that this...could be a very bad idea.”

“Crazy, Orlando. He's American, he's a child star, you know about them, he says things like 'Dood you are such uh fartknockur.', and he's your castmate for chrissakes,” Dominic gruffs. Orlando has begun chewing on his fingernail and trying not to get lost in all the things being said before he gets a chance to rebut. He was excited just a moment ago. He's been excited and floating for weeks. Now he's crashed, betrayed it feels like, and he wants to go back in time just a few minutes and clap a hand over his own stupid mouth before Five-Minutes-Ago-Orlando gets a chance to blow his evening. The other two are still gaping and giving him those cross worried eyes over their pints. He doesn't even want his anymore. “I mean. Bills and me. We may want to shag like rabbits, but we don't. 'S unprofessional.” Dom smiles fondly at Bill who dismisses it with an eye roll and refocuses on Orlando.

“We have months left of this shoot. And then we're going to be together for premiers and appearances and-” And Bill swallows as the enormity of their futures spans out before him. Orlando has looked into it too and shivered with anticipation, fluttering stomach. Feels pretty much the same way when he looks at Lij. “And just everything. We're going to be together for a long time yet and if it went bad, you'd be stuck together and hating it. AND. Not to mention the negative impact of such a thing for both of you if it got out. No. Just, no,” Bill says and shakes his head as if he were the one making the decision.

But that's exactly why, Orlando thinks to himself. And he realizes as soon as he's thought it that those aren't very good reasons when put in Billy's words. The first part, ok. The fact that they are going to be spending the next several months together was a plus not a minus in his mind. If this was a short film, if they were going to be leaving and going their separate ways in a few weeks, Orlando might have been able to resist the temptation to bugger everything up, or, whatever. But the fact that they have time just means that they have a chance where so many others do not. A chance for something real. He blushes as if Dom and Bill could hear the truly immasculine and nancy way his heart is singing at the thought. And the second part, the fact that it's fucking dangerous, well. He's a junkie. He admits it freely. And it's not limited to taunting actual death. Apparently he likes to flirt with career suicide as well. Or so he thinks at the moment anyway. He also thinks every thrill was worth the broken bones he paid with. Only thing that bugs him about it is the little voice in the very back of his head, somewhere spineless and sort of squishy, that reminds him that Elijah doesn't do stupid, risky things like throw himself off of bridges, or houses. He's not the sort to gamble away his career for something that isn't likely to pan out.

Dom is staring at Bill in an odd way that Orlando can't quite chalk up to beer, but neither does it seem to fit. He might even be looking at him the way one watches something sad but expected happen. “Why...?” Dom trails off. It seems like he wanted to define that question a little more but couldn't quite manage it. In that way only, he and Bill differ. As Dom drinks he gets less articulate, whereas Bill can get downright dangerous with his vocabulary when he's pissed. But Dom's not totally gone. His snark and concern has been replaced by honest inquiry now, and Orlando is starting to calm. Another moment and he should be able to extract the essence of words from his feelings and thoughts and get them to his mouth again without sounding like a twat.

He takes a breath and stares into his murky beer. Parts of that question he has answers for, and he knows they do too. 'Why Elijah' is easy. They're all in love with him. Even John has a soft spot for him. Possibly the only soft spot that man has. He might be asking, 'Why now', but that's straightforward too if you give it half a thought. You don't let opportunities pass you by. They may not come around again. Maybe the question is 'Why you'. What makes him so special that he deserves this? Why does he think he has a right to make the attempt never mind hang on to something like Elijah. What does he have to offer?

And Orlando deflates because he doesn't have an answer. “Maybe you're right.” Stupid.

He keeps staring at his beer, but he can hear a little sad relief in Bill's voice. “Really Orlando, I know you like him. We all do. But he's too young, and you both have too much at stake.”

The music and noise in the bar don't match the disappointment that is creeping into Orlando and he wants to go home. “I wouldn't be any good for him,” he mumbles.

Elijah picks that moment to approach, descend, and immediately crash land into Orlando's lap. “Hey!” he says with enormous and bright eyes directed at Orlando; eyes that render him almost completely useless in seconds. He's sweaty and jungle-hot from dancing and drinking. “Beer,” he says and downs several gulps of Orlando's ignored drink. “Are you guys going to sit here all night?”

He's looking at Orlando, waiting for a response, anticipating, hoping. Orlando gives him a tight smile and then pats his leg a little, stiffening beneath him until Elijah slides off Orlando's thigh onto his own seat beside him, waning.

Bill and Dom are looking at each other. Orlando flares up again inside. Betrayal is gone in the dust. This is jealousy. Not light green and just budding, but a fully formed verdant envy, glossy and rooted under their eyes. He wants that. He wants to be able to communicate with some other person like that. To just exchange a look and know what the other is thinking. And he wants to enjoy the process of developing that sixth sense. He looks back to Elijah who's looking at all three of them in turn and all he sees is confusion.

“You guys want another round or something?” Elijah tries.

“I think you've probably had enough, Doodle.” Bill says softly, from somewhere else. Orlando watches as hard angles creep quietly into Elijah's face.

“Well. Then I guess I'm going home. You good to drive Lando?”

“Wait, Orlando,” Dom says, glancing from Bill to Elijah and back, but he doesn't finish the thought again.

Orlando had one pint, and Elijah drank most of it. Dom and Bill, though pretty lucid Orlando can tell, are not drivable at the moment. They still have Bill's car in the parking lot, so they can't all go in Elijah's car, and there is no way he's letting Elijah drive. Ten minutes ago. Ten-Minutes-Ago-Orlando would have jumped at the opportunity. This Orlando realizes that the next hour may be uncomfortable. “Yeah,” he says stiffly.

He has about ninety seconds to get himself under control, he figures. Walking out the door and to the car will take about ninety seconds. In that time he needs to stop feeling elated that he's going to be alone with Elijah for the next twenty minutes on the ride home, and he needs to start putting some distance between them. Right. Ninety seconds. Nice long shot.

~*~

“I know. I just worry about the effect it would have on Elijah. Orlando's older, more experienced than Lij.”

“Yeah, so? How is that a bad thing?”

“He's going to get Elijah caught up in something he's not prepared for and it'll end badly and we'll all suffer.”

“How do you know it wouldn't be the best thing in the world for him? How do you know he doesn't have any experience? Maybe this is exactly what he wants.”

“Orlando thinks he's in love. And I'm a fecking idiot. He doesn't know it, but he thinks he's being martyred now that we've gone and given him his opposition, and it just makes it all that much more attractive to him. He probably thinks Elijah will find it irresistible, too.”

“How do you know he isn't in love?” The pitch of Dom's voice is slowly rising. He can hear it in his head but is powerless to stop it. Rain is swooshing against the windowpane near their table.

“Because. It's Orlando.”

“Well there's a fine bit of logic right there.”

“He's a grown up child. I'm not saying it's his fault. Everybody is like that at his age.”

Dom clenches his jaw once. “Since you have it all figured out Bill, why don't you call up Orlando's mobile and tell him exactly what he thinks and feels. And while you're at it, maybe you can decode me and tell me who I'm not in love with.”

Bill pauses, taken aback apparently, blinks, slack lips apart like he knows now he's missed something, but maybe a little too drunk yet to analyze the situation. “Who are you in love with?” he asks softly, then, “And why are you so testy all of a sudden?” Forgetting again.

“Sometimes Bill, you can be a really thick headed prick. Come on. We're leaving.”

~*~

“What's wrong with you?”

I'm torturing myself. That's all. Orlando rolls his head on the back of Elijah's couch. “Headache.”

“Lightweight.”

“You should talk.”

Elijah pokes him in the head as if to see for himself where it hurts. Orlando shifts his eyes to him patiently, but then he's rubbing chewed off fingertips, round and soft into Orlando's head. Just two fingers moving in tiny circles in one spot and then moving to another. He prods around his temples like testing the freshness of a cantaloupe and Orlando's eyes slide closed. Then Elijah pokes his nose once with a nubby finger and Orlando can't help but half-smile, and his eyes crack open a sliver in time to see Elijah return it. The fingertips gain momentum and seriousness as they go back to the temples and rub in earnest. Orlando can't keep his eyes open, not in the face of this, and the quiet and the touch and the sincerity of the moment are making his pulse race. Furthermore, he wonders if Elijah can feel the speed increase in the vein under his fingers or if he's completely oblivious to the effect he has on Orlando. The idea that he might doesn't help keep his pulse down at all.

He jumps just a little when he feels Elijah's breath on his face but he has no where to go, so the jump is little more than a flinch out of an agog trance, and then his eyes open. He's right there, inches away, and no force in the Universe is strong enough to prevent it, certainly not Orlando's pitiful compliment of willpower. Orlando groans and leans in, catches Elijah's lips, tastes, feels, electrocuted and drugged, once, twice, then groans again and yanks himself away. He needs way more time to get this under control. Ninety seconds didn't do it.

He turns the other direction and mentally wrestles topsy-turvy inside his own head with the want vibrating through him. He's dizzy with it for a moment.

Elijah sighs heavily. “Not you, too.”

Orlando is destitute, but the oddity of that statement catches his attention. He scowls, looks to the audience, and then back to Elijah. “What?”

“Why does everyone think I'm a naïve little child?"

Orlando gapes a little.

“Do I like just give off this vibe like I'm an idiot or something? I don't think I'm stupid...Though I suppose if I was stupid enough I wouldn't know it.” He's looking bug-eyed at the carpet, exasperated.

“You're not stupid.”

“Then why does everyone treat me like I need to be protected from myself?”

Orlando gapes some more. He doesn't know what else to do. It reminds him of school. Of some science class he had. The teacher delighted in asking his class questions that had no answers. Or all the answers were wrong. He knows Elijah isn't a child. Has never felt that way. But he can't deny his own actions either. Once again he feels like a dunce.

“I'm sorry,” he says, for lack of something less lame to say. They sit there a while and Orlando kind of wishes he had gotten drunk at the bar. That would make this all so much easier. Well, harder later, easier now. “I don't think you're a child. If anyone is naïve, it's me. I should go," he says quickly with a shudder in his voice as he stands and leaves.

~*~

Billy and Dom, hobbited from head to toe, have been huddled off in a corner of a rain shelter all morning. Hours they've been there. Their conversation has had peaks and valleys as Orlando judged based on how wide their mouths opened as they spoke and how many hand gestures they got in, but it never stopped all morning. And then, just like the rain, at noon, it stopped. Completely and utterly. They faced opposite directions, sourly, while makeup was reapplied to their wet ears and glue fixed on their calves. They aren't speaking at all now as far as Orlando can tell from a hundred meters or so away, and he can't even imagine what sort of horror could cause a phenomenon such as that. He thought about going over and asking them just that question, break the monstrous fucking glacier that had sprung up between them, maybe a little, but he suspected the joke was just poor enough to glance off it and plop into a puddle. Dom has a mighty furrow between his brows, the kind Merry only wears when Pippin has been an idiot and Orlando finds himself frowning too. Bill just looks too old to be Pippin at the moment, and maybe a little hunched and disgusted.

Elijah, on the other hand, is scarce. Orlando is somewhat relieved to see little of him today, though. Just means he can put off dealing with last night. Of course he knows it won't last, but maybe it will last long enough that they can pretend it didn't happen. He looks around a bit, people are brushing water off of equipment and fixing scenery. Looks like they might just get a few takes in before dark. Then his eyes wander back over to Bill and Dom, and they do so just in time to see a spark of inquisitive hobbit reappear in Dom's face as he looks off to the other side of the set, more or less in Orlando's direction.

Then Elijah is standing right next to him, straight and tall, for a hobbit, script in hand with its rolled pages and yellow notes sticking out of it, including a little scrap of looseleaf with a drawing on it that Orlando had made for him some other rainy day, now stapled to the front cover. It's a loopy-haired stick figure with glasses and “Doodle the doodle” written below in exaggerated child's script.

“You don't look happy, Elf,” he says very softly, so that only Orlando can hear. Funny thing is, he is happy. Right now he is, with Lij there. Nervous as fuck, but happy. He just shrugs though. Elijah scoops up Frodo's cloak and takes a seat on a folding chair next to him, leans on his knees a moment.

He can't keep looking at him. Guys don't do that. They don't just sit there face to face and look at each other. They can sit at right angles or side by side and look away, and still be sitting together, but that's it, so that's what he does. Again he's just a millisecond behind the action because as he steers away as nonchalantly as his nerves will allow, he sees Dom and Bill, no, this is Merry and Pip all the way now, not looking at Orlando or Elijah, not looking at their scripts or Pete or anybody or anything of importance, looking all around, looking at the sky, inspecting their nails. Pip goes so far as to sigh loud enough for Orlando to hear from all the way across the set and then look at him and smile big and wave as if he's only just noticed Orlando's regard.

“I had a talk with Dom last night,” Elijah says.

What is going on? Whatever it is he doesn't think he can handle it, and he thinks about throwing Elijah over his shoulder and running away with him. The thought quirks a smile from the corner of his mouth. He turns to Elijah to find him looking at Bill and Dom too with a similar expression.

Penny is putting new marks on the ground a ways away. Pete is chatting. Ian is laughing with one of the make-up guys, and no one seems to be even slightly interested in what is going on with the elf and the hobbit sitting under the canvas glistening with sunlit raindrops.

Elijah chuckles and Orlando looks back to Dom and Bill who do it again, this time really hamming it up, whistling tunelessly and rolling their eyes around in their heads.

He chuckles once more then leans in toward Orlando. “Hey.”

Orlando turns to him and all he sees is “Doodle the doodle” in his left eye before both his eyes close instinctively and Elijah is kissing him quite soundly behind the very small wall of his script. His small hand doesn't pull, just guides at Orlando's jaw and it all fits so perfectly together. Just them. And Doodle.

It's over way too quickly and Orlando is looking around dazedly and blushing. Then he sees Dom and Bill from across the set again, bouncing and tittering and laughing, their fingers tangling with each others'. Elijah just laughs, squirms in his seat a little and says, “They're such children.”

LOTRPS: AU: BB/DM: Untitled Halloween Fic

Title: Untitled Silly Halloween fic
Author: Hermit
Pairing: BB/DM
Rating: R-ish (one bad word, a few suggestions)
Sum: A haunted house, silly costumes, cheese

“You guys aren't scary.” The little girl in full witch's uniform had been watching them stoicly as they improvised for at least two minutes before speaking to them. Her little pumpkin candy pail swung gently in her grasp as other children and parents pushed past her through the darkened maze, laughing and shrieking at the mummies, monsters, ghosts, and other kampy exhibits.
Billy stopped in mid-howl. “What are you talking about? We're terrifying. Aren't we Dom?”
Dom stopped molesting the manequin damsel he had in his arms and looked at their accuser, and then at Billy. “I'm scary. I'm bloody...bloody and vampiric and pale and chilling and horrifying. You...you're a little creepy, perhaps. You have more back hair than usual, but frankly you look like Eddie Munster,” he said with regretful matter-of-factness.
“I'm a warewolf.”
“And...Eddie Munster was a warewolf too. But he wasn't scary.”
“I don't look like Eddie Munster. He was like eight years old. I look like a bloodthirsty, horrible, adult warewolf!” he protested. Dom twitched the corner of his mouth where the fake blood was tickling him and then knitted it into his mouth to try to scratch at the spot delicately with his plastic fangs, and then grimaced when he tasted it.
“It's ok Bills. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Michael J. Fox wasn't a scary warewolf either. Some people just aren't made to be warewolves, you know. Maybe you-”
“Not made to be warewolves?! Dom...” Billy looked almost bristled, his half-entertainment exhibited by his hands on his hips, and his dramatically furrowed brow was starting to loosen the line of his widow's peaked, giant Chewbaca-esque wig.
“I'm just saying that maybe you should have gone for the mummy costume or something this year, perhaps something a little less avant guard. Like...Oh! You would have made a great Chucky!”
Billy rolled his eyes. “Avant guard. I can't do it, but you can? Is that it?”
Dom paused. “I make a pretty intimidating vampire,” he shrugged.
“Oh sure. A vampire that squeals like a wee girl when he has to go get a tetanus shot. Real intimidatin' Dom.”
“I got one of those. It didn't hurt,” said the little witch with green painted face and a wart that was starting to slip down her cheek. They had almost forgotten she was there.
“Well aren't you special?” Dom leaned over her pointed hat. “You know you're not very scary either. About as scary as Eddie Munster.”
“Neither are you!” she said defiant and smug, clearly without any intention of backing up her argument.
“Why don't you go put your hand in the little box over there where it says 'eyeballs', yeah?” he retorted, backing up a little.
“That's stupid. Its just olives.”
Billy's expression changed and he stepped closer and kneeled down to be eye level with the girl. He squinted at her. “You're really not afraid of anything are you?”
“No.” she said.
“So why aren't a real vampire and a real warewolf scary to you, then?”
“You're not real. And you're too short.”
Dom's laughter burst loudly from behind Bill, and Bill glowered amusedly to the side. “I think she was addressing us both, Dom.”
“I'm taller than you are Bill. And I'm a perfect height for a vampire.” He continued to chuckle. His plastic teeth slipped out of place and he quickly snapped his jaw shut.
Billy sneered and then addressed the girl again, this time in a low, serious voice. “Maybe we're a little more diminutive than the vampires and warewolves in the movies, but we are real.”
“Nu-uh,” she said, but she was smiling a little like maybe a sparkle of doubt in that conviction was taking hold at Billy's soft words. Dom came up to Billy's side and squatted in front of her as well.
“What makes you think we're not real?” he asked her.
She just shrugged.
Dom paused and then sniffed the air dramatically. “What did you have for supper?” he asked suspiciously, and Billy just looked to him for a cue, or some idea as to where this was going.
“Spaghetti,” she said, and Dom's face slackened and his eyes widened in an overdone shock take that nearly made Billy sputter.
“With...garlic?” he asked breathily, on the verge of tears, it sounded.
The girl smiled and nodded furiously.
Dom screamed and scrambled away, followed immediately by Billy, and they both yelled “A witch! A witch!” in an arhythmic string. They crawled off behind a scary cardboard tree with a paper skeleton hanging from it and made the whole piece shivver with them.
“She's a witch!” Billy continued to call. “Burn-!” and Dom clapped a hand over his mouth with a scowl and a shake of his head.
“She'll turn me into a newt!” he covered, and continued to emit wails of fear and dread. Billy nodded and grinned at him.
The girl just giggled high and bubbly from the aisle.
~*~
By midnight the last of the people had left the haunted house, or as it was known during the day, the YMCA, and Billy and Dom had wiped most of their makeup off and started walking the four blocks home under the light of streetlamps and a cloud-covered moon. They walked quietly, sated from hours of laughing and performing, two of their favorite things, and enjoying the night air on their cheeks.
“What do you want to do when we get home?” Billy asked.
“Actually I was thinking maybe we didn't have to go home right away.” Dom smiled a little and slowed down until the pair were stopped in front of a dark house with some huge sheltering trees in the yard hanging their branches over the sidewalk. Dom reeled Billy into the circle of his arms gently, still wearing his thin costume cape. He rumbled low in his throat as he put his tongue and teeth to Billy's exposed neck and nibbled and sucked gently, eliciting a happy sigh-moan from Bill. Bill's head lolled back a little, but then he perked up a bit, realizing where he was, and pulled gently away from Dom.
“Ack, can't this wait till we get home, Dom?” Dom's lips and eyes smiled in tandem and the moon briefly came out from behind the fast-moving clouds long enough to glint off of Dom's subtlely pointy canines. He ran his tongue over one of them and Billy swallowed.
“But I'm hungry now.” he whined, still grinning menacingly. Billy could feel himself melting under Dom's gaze as Dom reapproached him, pulling him into his embrace in slow motion, pretty much resigned to let him have what he wanted (he was never very good at resisting Dom and his impulses). That is, right up until Bill had a sudden burning need to fill and started scratching furiously at the nape of his neck. Dom pulled away and let him at it.
“Arg. Stupid full moon. I'm going to have to shave again tonight,” he said and started rubbing his back up and down against the bark of the big tree on the edge of the sidewalk like a little Scottish bear. Dom could see Billy's eyes in the darkness like they glowed of their own light until they slid closed with relief after he finally managed to scratch all the itches under his clothes.
Dom moaned sympathetically with a little pout on his face. “If you want I'll put some of that aloe stuff on you again tonight.”
“That would be wonderful,” Billy sighed and took Dom's hand. They continued walking. “And I don't have anywhere to be this week, so feel free to go for any spot you wish," he said with a small sly smile.
“Any spot?”
“Well, nothing vital...And just don't drain me like you did last month.”
Dom sighed. “I know, I know. I told you, it was an accident.”
“How do you suck all my blood out of me by accident?”
“Well...you just taste so good...” Dom licked his lips.
“Other parts of me taste good too you know, but you won't get to have any of them anymore either if you kill me.”
“I can't kill you and you know it.”
“No, but I can't get it up if I have no blood either. Don't tell me you wont miss that, Monaghan.”
Dom made a petulant whine. “Why can't I have my Billy and eat him too?” He leaned over and mock-bit his neck again.
Bill sighed. “I don't know. Why do I have to spend five hundred a month on shaving supplies and getting the hair removed from the furniture?”
“I don't know why you wont let me just put plastic down. It'd be easier.”
“I'm not covering the furniture in plastic Dominic.”
“Nor do I know why you tell people the hair comes from my aunt who 'visits once a month.' You're the one who gets PMS every full moon, and you know the kind of looks people give us when you say that. I think the carpet cleaning guy is really starting to get suspicious. Why can't we just get a dog and say it sheds?”
“You'd suck it dry!” Billy squeaked and reflexively bit at an itch on his own shoulder.
“I would not! You'd kill it out of territoriality in one of your sleepwalking fits.”
“Oh that's bollocks. I don't sleepwalk.”
“Billy. I found you naked, except for the hair, on the kitchen floor on your hands and knees trying to dig a hole in the linoleum with your claws so you could bury the newspaper you had in your mouth. Which was ruined by the way. I never did get to read the Peanuts strip from that day.”
“You are such a whiner.”
“Wanker.”
“Blood sucker.”
“Mut.”
“Cannibal.”
“Wolf in sheep's clothing.”
“Sheep fucker.” Billy grinned.
Their chorus of cackles echoed into the night.

LOTRPS: DM/EW: Vintage

Title: Vintage
Author: Wichetty G
Date: 8/14/05
Pairing: Dom/Lij
Rating:nc-17
Summary: AU. Two boys and a car.
A/N: Euphemisms are for the spinally challenged. This started with a dream. A dream about Dom and Orli (but I couldn't figure out how to work orli into this so this part is dom/lij) screwing on a black vinyl backseat of a car in a garage and Dom frantically looking around for lube, and considering, for a moment, cracking open a bottle of 10-w30. That would have been nasty and I told him to stop it and provided him with an alternative. (Lucid dreaming rocks) The last thing I saw before I woke up was the word “Vintage.” And so it began. After posting the first few pages of this story, the responses I got put ideas in my head, and within a few days, I had the skeleton of a small NOVEL and I continue to work on it. So if you've read this before it may be a bit different than you remember as I've tweaked it a lot, and it is longer. I attached a bit from the next scene after the car sex which may leave you hanging. So read that bit if you want. I'm actually pretty proud of the writing there, but there's no resolution since it's unfinished. If you want to avoid that pitfall, stop reading at the "~*~".
Disclaimer: None. I disclaim nothing. I will however claim that I have a sick imagination and that some supernatural fucking force made me write this. I dont know what it is but I hope it never leaves.
Thank you's for inspiration in no particular order: lisabellex ,kissing_athelas ,sumbitch ,abundantlyqueer ,crimsonhue , tabaqui , Mel...



Dom was the one always covered in black grease and yet somehow Lij was the one everyone called 'dirty'. 'Trashy' sounded more accurate to Dom, at least as a day-to-day adjective to descibe the young man. It was more than just his appearance. More than just ripped jeans that exposed too much skin, thin, holy teeshirts that you couldn't read anymore, messy uncut hair, and sneakers with bald soles and grey, abraded leather. Lij wore it like a purple heart. He was trashy in the best ways. Ways that remind Dom of cheap candy that turns your mouth colors, olive green thread-bare carpeting, walked on and vacuumed to death, beat-up old Camaros, sweat and glitter. He was a wriggling, giggling, shameless kind of trashy. It always made Dom smile because he understood it even if nobody else did, even if that was the only thing about Lij he understood. The need to be proud of something.

He was working on an old Firebird. Sixty-nine. Not an old Camaro, but possibly even trashier because of the condition. Reminded him of Lij, anyway. Despite the endless possibilities for attractive colors, this one was orange. A little rust but not too bad, considering. Tacky black racing stripe. Dull paint. Not that a glossy coat would have made up for the horrible color. The thing that made it worth keeping was the rag top (which was down now just for shits) and the near cherry interior. All black vinyl and hot as fuck it being late June and a million degrees in the shop. It needed absolutely everything. The guy who owned it had been doing the work himself but shouldn't have. Dom'd had the hood open for hours now, and earlier on the lift, he'd looked, gaped, shook his head, and set it back down on the floor. He almost considered handing this one off to his Uncle (loves the old ones) and just going back in the house to the olive and brown living room, sitting in front of the tv with a beer until it got cooler. It was Lij who made him stay.

He showed up out of the blue as he sometimes does, on foot, kicking up dust in the droughty lot; Dom's patient waiting room. Always with those god-damn lollipops. He'd forget his own addiction to dum-dums until Lij would show up with a pocket-full of the things and one in his mouth. He sometimes wondered if it didn't all stem directly from the sugar. Mm, probably not.

Lij got up on the back end of the car and it creaked and dipped dangerously under his weight. His eyes got big(ger) for a second and his lollipop stick flicked to the left quickly as he braced his hands on the hot metal, and then he chuckled a little when he decided the car wasn't going to collapse underneath him.

“This car's fucked,” Dom said by way of explanation.

Lij grinned salaciously and Dom could see the mushy pink middle of his lollipop stick between his teeth. Dom helplessly smiled back and shook his head, returning to the dark cave under the hood.

He leaned over the car, scraping corrosion off the battery contacts in hopes that he might someday be able to loosen them enough to disconnect the thing, all the while listening to Lij's candy clack against his teeth, and the radio in the office, not tuned into anything, just making soft dead air noises.

Dom tried to concentrate on what he was doing, but the sound of his sweat rolling in jerky prickles over his temple was deafening, and the crackle of the radio felt like static zipping up his arms from the old DieHard. He heard it as Lij's old lollipop stick hit the plastic garbage bag just behind him, and then the crinkle of waxed paper as Lij opened another one, stuck it in his mouth, warmed it up, and hummed over a gentle sigh. That was about the point at which Dom knew he wasn't going to get any more work done.

The car creaked loudly again and lurched upward as Lij slid off the back, and Dom flinched, raising a hand to the hood above his head just in case. Then there was a wet pop near his cheek, and Lij was next to him, hip against the fender. He could smell it. Root beer. And what other flavor was a more appropriate match for Lij? Dom opened his mouth like it was the the most natural thing in the world, eyes to Lij's, took the candy, and his mouth did that sharp clenching thing that your mouth does on the first taste of something super sweet. His cheeks ached for a moment. His salivary glands couldn't seem to catch up, and he stood up straight, bumping his head on the hood just a little, and pulled on the stick, finding it damn near lodged in his cheek. It popped out finally, and he licked all around his dry, sticky-sweet mouth before returning it to a more comfortably wet palate. His hands were filthy, he noticed. His fingers were blackened all over, the grease throwing his fingerprints and knuckles into sharp relief. They left a gray mark on the lollipop stick. Nothing new really. He was used to it. He only noticed because it might pose a problem in a moment.

Lij just looked at Dom as he sucked on his dum-dum, and that clenchy mouth thing came back. Lij's eyes were oil-fire blue and made Dom's chest and groin throb once in unison. He took a moment and studied his face. Never really got tired of looking at him; if he could drag his gaze away from those eyes long enough to appreciate the rest of him, that is. His slim body remained boyish and soft, only the breadth of his shoulders, strong calves and a slight roundness to his belly betrayed his adulthood. Dom could stand there and drink him in all day if the eyes didn't always call him back. How can something so glacially blue burn so hot? Burn right through him. He didn't have to say a word, and often didn't. Lij's greek lips twitched once and Dom wanted to rub the pad of his thumb over them, whisper into them, tell his lips to tell his eyes that they don't have to burn a circle of fire around him to protect him from Dom. Not necessary.

A cicada buzzed loud in a tree outside, signaling in case anyone had forgotten, that yes, the heat was oppressive and brutal this day, and something was going to have to give.

Dom's jaw hurt and he was covered in sweat, his hair sticking to his forehead. He popped out the candy again and gave it back to Lij. Lij took it with his teeth and his hands seemed to take that as an invitation and struck forward and found the zipper on Dom's blue, grease-stained, sweat-soaked, dirt-infused, yet washed-yesterday coveralls. Easy zip, they came down off his arms, below his hips and bunched there in nothing but a couple of seconds time. As Lij worked on his jeans with more than a hint of agitation, Dom mindlessly leaned in to get a taste of root beer on Lij's lips, his eyes unfocusing and drooping. An overabundance of sticky, sweet saliva, and Lij had to pause, yank the pop from his mouth and lob it toward a dusty corner of the shop so he could swallow and then continue to devour Dom's mouth with vehemence and struggle with the jeans on his hips. Dom stood there, leaning helplessly, arms out and away like a sunning bird, unable to touch anything with his blackened hands. He wasn't sure why he cared. Lij didn't care how dirty he got. Not now.

Lij got his jeans down around his ankles. Dom pulled the legs inside out in the process of trying to yank his sneakers out of them while Lij worked his own clothes like it was a race. He threw his red shirt over the hot metal of the car door while Dom picked his own shirt off with as few fingers and as little dirt transfer as possible. Dom's head reemerged and he saw the shirt and saw Lij with his bare ass against it, his cock pointing to the high sun, waiting for the command to turn around, and decided that wasn't what he wanted. He really didn't want to see the General Lee orange the whole time. It would just add a dimension of hillbilly to this ritual that he was not prepared to confront. Sex in a restored '69 Firebird was one thing, but staring at the rust bubbling the bottom of the door would just remind him of how not-restored the thing actually was. It felt like crossing a line. Maybe the Mason-Dixon, or maybe just something a little more abstract, imaginary, figmental, and subjectively 'in Dom's head.' He motioned for Lij to step away and he wrenched the car door open. It complained just as much as the springs in back. Lij dropped his shirt on the hot vinyl and crawled on hands and knees over the middle console and over to the passenger seat, hands settling on the passenger door. The seats were already pushed all the way back.

For a kid that walked everywhere all summer long and had a penchant for skinny-dipping, he was shockingly pale against the black. Pale and clean. He always was. It evinced how trashy he really was not. No dirty fingernails like Dom. No rough skin. No nicotene-stained teeth or untended scars. Even the bottoms of his feet would be rosy, not dark, if Dom could have seen them through his shoes and bunched jeans.

Seeing perfect, gorgeous, child-eyed, angelic, little Lij like this, hard and dripping, barely able to sit still long enough for Dom to get in the car with him; it was corruption at its best. Like watching, not even hearing, but seeing the most lewd obscenities fall from pink pristine lips; directed at him, instructions, demands. Up until very recently, Dom didn't even know he had a taste for such things. He wondered if Lij drew it out of him, like cannon-fire brings sunken things to the surface of the river water, or if Lij put it into him, stung him with it like a hornet. Or might it be more permanent? A pigment injected beneath the skin? It was hard to think of Lij in a permanent sense, he never planned farther ahead than five minutes. But the feeling, it felt like twisted metal sometimes. Irreparable.

Dom was about to climb in the driver's seat when he realized he was just going to have to get back out again. Lij wouldn't have even known he was gone if it weren't for the scrape of his shoes on the concrete floor. He was in the office in two strides with the bottle of baby oil he had hidden in the crack between the desk and the wall, and back in two more. He had put the bottle there after the last time Lij had accosted him while he was working. Even the bottle was grungy but that didn't matter, and he didn't worry about his hands on the inside of the car too much either, there wasn't anything there that wasn't already black, but thrumming and achingly hard and not thinking clearly, he still had a problem when he climbed in the driver's seat and looked at Lij's bare ass. Lij looked back at him, wondering what the hold up was. He rolled his eyes at Dom and took the bottle from him, smearing a little on himself and then grabbing Dom's cock with a handful of slick heat. Dom lurched at the contact but came back to himself with a double-take when Lij shut the cap on the bottle and tossed it into the back seat. He was going to have to remember to retrieve that.

Dom leaned forward, and once again this no hands thing was “fucking pants,” as his friend Bill would say. Once again, Lij was doing his job for him and held him tight as he backed his pink pucker onto Dom. Dom groaned and snatched at the steering wheel. Lij wasn't waiting or taking it easy or any of that today. He leaned forward a little and then backed into Dom again hard with a grunt. Dom gasped and the steering wheel turned in his fist. He could hear the grit of the tires pivoting on the cement floor until the wheel locked. Lij started panting as soon as he found a rhythm pounding against Dom and he started whispering those gorgeous vulgarities in between breaths.

Dom couldn't get a grip on this. His knees were up against the middle console, but his hands were nearly behind him, one on the wheel, one on the driver's headrest, and with Lij throwing himself onto him like a fucking slut, the sudden overload of sensation, the zinging going from his toes up into his sinuses and back, the unbelieveable tight heat around his cock, plus the physical weirdness of the position had him scrambling to stay upright. He grabbed at the other headrest and that was better, but now he was twisted and leaning over Lij, and Lij was making frustrated little sounds and trying to wiggle to get what he wanted from Dom's cock. What he needed to do, what they both need him to do, was take him by the hips.

His skin was just so white. Lij stopped his manic rocking for a spell and wrestled with his jeans in the seat until they lay crumpled on the floor. Dom caught his breath, the air he was sucking in was still somehow hotter than him though, and he wished for a fan or an ice pack or just something to wipe the tickling sweat off his back at this point. He wiped his face with his upper arm and looked down at his cock. Fucking purple. Lij put one foot on the floor then, dug the other knee into the crook of the seat, and Dom looked at his hands in the foreground on the backdrop of Lij's white back.

“Dom,” Lij murmured his need, just barely above a whisper. It sounded like the first drops of rain falling from an aching, dark sky, a straining dam about to burst in a silent canyon.

Dom placed his fingertips on Lij's shoulder blades and slid in easy. A slow experimental in and out made Lij moan all long and creaky like the car's rusty joints. A slight smile crept up on Dom's face and as he slid home again and all that wet silken flesh inside the boy squeezed around his cock head, making Dom's thoughts melt. He dragged his black fingers down Lij's back leaving ten long dirty streaks that moved and squirmed with the skin, and that was exactly it. Dom picked up the pace, sinking into the heat and the slippery fun with his hands wrapped around Lij's hips, leaving smudges all over that he couldn't take his eyes off of except when Lij did that thing that made him throw his head back and near convulse it was so good. He was pounding hard into him and Lij was whimpering every time he burried his cock in him to the hilt, but Dom still wanted more. He wanted to make Lij come and drown out the squeaking car and the buzzing radio an the damn cicadas. For a second he was going to reach down and grab Lij's cock but that was just not a good idea, he knew, even with no blood-flow to his brain. Lij would probably never bend over a car for him again if he had to use pumice soap on his dick to get it clean. Besides, Lij would do it himself if he wanted. He settled for another approach.

Dom moved his filthy hands up a bit, palms on Lij's buttocks, thumbs near the crack, ever so gently spreading as Dom fucked him. The slight change allowed just a fraction more depth and he shivvered despite the heat. Then he straightened his arms and pushed down, forcing Lij to put both knees back on the seat and lifting himself up and putting half his weight on Elijah's long bones. Lij groaned beneath Dom with the extra weight but seemed to immediately approve when it changed the angle enough to ram into that sweet little spot up in front. Lij was gasping and yelling alternately through clenched teeth and a wide open mouth before he started shaking and bucking as he shot come down his own leg. Dom was right behind him, riding the wake of the spasming little hole, sucking in so much air his head spun even as the stars lit and exploded behind his blacked-out eyes. They all fell from the sky and trickled down Dom's spine until dark and limitless eternity stretched out before him and then was blown away in a hot dusty breeze.

Blissful pause.

Unpatterned breathing.

Cicada Hum.

Fucking Cicadas.

“Fuck,” Lij grumbled for about the forty-seventh time. Dom pulled out of him, catching his breath again, shouldering the sweat on his eyes, and admiring his dirty work. Lij's ass had two black hand prints, the thumbs pointing right at his abused little hole, his hips had an enigmatic smear of grime all over them with many little satellite smudges, and then there were the ten streaks, outlined in sweat. His back looked like an unsubtley erotic Rorschach print. Dom smiled sleepy-eyed. Racing stripes, he thought to himself and stifled a giggle. It really wasn't all that funny, but sex sometimes made him giddy.

When Lij had sufficiently regained his composure he turned around and dispatched Dom's mouth and tongue again in appreciation, nipping with flat teeth and slicking his hands across sweat-soaked skin. Dom didn't hesitate to do the same, spreading just a little more dirt on Lij's bare skinny chest and ribs, too.

Lij withdrew languidly and sank into the sun-hot seat. The rays were pouring through the windows right on them and alighting dust in the air in the darker, shadowy corners of the shop. Lij winced at a hot spot on his back.

“You wanna go for a swim?” Lij asked.

“You should take a bath.”

He looked down at himself and wrigglegiggled. “We could do both.”

One final gusty breath to recapture some oxygen. “K.”


~*~


Lij jumped out of the car with the kind of energy no man of Earth has immediately after sex, and suddenly Dom thought maybe he had hit upon the truth of the mystery finally. Lij was simply not of this world.

Dom dragged his sluggish legs out of the car, fixed himself up with equally leaden arms, and then hoisted himself to a more or less standing stature. And he was going to go swimming? If it wasn't so blasted hot he'd go to sleep. Standing. Right there. His eyes threatened for a moment but then he leaned forward and his feet shuffleslid underneath him and began the process of walking. His brain reluctantly maintained conciousness. His sense of balance lodged a formal complaint.

In the house, the indoor darkness was a relief from the stark sunshine, though the heat still prevailed and the air was stagnant and heavy with the smell of teakwood and corn husks. He didn't linger long. He scrubbed his hands clean, grabbed two towels from the bathroom and a fresh bar of soap. Luckily they had some Ivory in the pantry. Digging sand out of a bar of soap is a pain in the ass. He knew that, bizarrely, from experience. A bizarre experience, that for once had nothing to do with Lij. It was before he met him, so maybe he should look at it as life preparing him for the inevitability of him meeting Lij. The two events felt similarly surreal.

Lij was waiting outside, dressed and despondant looking. He couldn't blame him. If he were banned from setting foot in someone's home, someone he knew, he'd probably dislike being reminded of it, too. He handed a towel to Lij and they set off down the driveway with a companionable distance between their shoulders and the sun on their backs.

“How much time we got?”

Dom chewed his cheek. “I should get back for supper. So, a while.” He didn't bother to ask Lij what sort of commitments he might have, Lij never had any such things. And Lij never asked him if he should be working on someone's car instead of spending the whole day screwing around in the water. Dom was equally appreciative of the infrequency of probative questions from Lij.

They reached the spot on the road about two miles from Dom's uncle's house where the brush lays down quite a bit between the thick wood, and bike treds and footprints in between tufts of tough dry grass and rocks mark the trailhead. Dom could hear in his head the crunch of gravel under a sliding rubber tire from dozens of memories of riding down there as a kid from his uncle's house with some of the neighborhood kids his age. He wondered where Lij was when Dom was ten and Evil Knieveling his way down the rather steep and definitely tretcherous path from the road to the river. He didn't even know how old Lij was really, so he could only guess that he would have still been a child at that point. He wondered if he ever met him or saw him on his visits.

He wondered about Bill too. Knowing Bill he was no where near this little dust bowl twelve years ago. That guy had been all over – which, now that he was thinking about it, begged the question, what the hell was Bill doing here now? He'd have to remember to ask him, though he doubted he'd get a straight answer.

The green canopy and the evaporative aura of the forest were a small reprieve from the heat. Dom and Lij took familiar plodding steps down the hill, not even looking at the ground and the endless assortment of natural boobytraps that particular trail held; ditches, unbalanced rock piles, exposed roots, and patches where the slope of the ground was only level enough to just keep the sand and gravel from sliding down the hill on its own. These spots they usually rode like tiny dusty ski slopes, eroding them with their sliding shoes every trip down and making it that much more difficult to ride the next time. They rounded a bend and the water came into view.

The rope swing, as the locale was generally called, consisted of a sandy beach-like spot on the bank of a small, slow moving, brown river. The “beach” itself was only maybe ten feet wide, brush and trees cutting it off on both ends. From the water's edge, it was a solid ten more feet nearly straight up to get to the trail. In the space between there was a tangle of thick tree roots anchored in sandy soil, exposed by decades or possibly centuries of climbing children (and a fair share of adults). At the top of the bank was the tree. A monolithic specimen of an oak that leaned out over the water stretching its limbs as if to hold hands with the trees on the other bank. On one of these limbs hung the rope, hence the name of the place. One could only guess how many generations of rope swingers it had seen, how many kids had run screaming off the highest point they could find on that ledge, tethered to the sky for a brief instant before letting go with an exultant splash. Dom wondered who was the first. Who would be the last. And would the humans end the relationship, or would the tree?

It was just them today. Usually there would be a couple of local kids already at the spot swinging and swimming during summer vacation, but today it was blessedly quiet and private. Dom liked kids, sort of even liked meeting the new crop of them there and showing them things like rope swing etiquette and the proper way to do a rope swing cannon ball, but he had been wondering how he was going to explain Lij's bathing in the river to them. He knew they would ask, and he knew they would ask him instead of Lij. Though that wasn't necessarily a bad thing either. If they did ask Lij, he was bound to tell them something that would get them both arrested or possibly just excommunicated from the church they didn't go to.

The locals generally all told their kids about Lij, and if they didn't, they heard it from other kids. Don't talk to Elijah. Just ignore him. In the case of the kids, the young ones, Dom was somewhat inclined to appreciate those warnings.

Lij didn't take his usual running vault off the bank today. He got naked and took the soap into the water. Dom was about to remind him that just because there was no one there now, it didn't mean that there couldn't be a gaggle of kids showing up at any minute. But then he figured that he could throw Lij his shorts if it was necessary, and just started methodically getting his own sweat soaked outer layers off and hung them on a treebranch.

He stepped out onto a loop of woody root, the pebbles and splinters not even an annoyance on his toughened feet, and reeeached for the nylon-cum-sisal amalgamation of knotted rope which some unknown person had unkindly not returned to its holding spot around a little board nailed to the tree. The first jump always made him a little nervous. From week to week or even day to day it seemed he could forget how brave he got by the end of the day's swimming and swinging so that the next time it felt a bit like the first time. If only all things kept their freshness thus, he thought. The rope swing always made him wax all poetic and nostalgic, though it happened less and less as the place became a familiar, even daily haunt.

Dom ran his hand once over the bark of the tree and the now incomprehensible collection of initials and obscenities scratched into it before taking a breath and falling off the edge with his fists white around a stringy knot. He was always surprised at how short the ride was. By the time your mind had gotten to the point that you could apreciate the flying bottomless feeling and the feathery wind, you reached the zenith, and had to let go or risk smashing back into the bank. Which he had done once or twice. He hit the water, and gorgeous, beautiful, absolutely splendidly cool relief surrounded him and made him contemplate just never coming up for air ever again it was so nice. A one hundred eighty degree turn in temperature it seemed. Amazing what an about-face can do to a body. Very well turn him around.

He did come up afterall, but only because he hadn't let out the balloon of air in his lungs. Lij was idly scrubbing at his chest with the soap, the foam making a bluish, cloudy fan on the surface of the water in front of him.

“Ivory,” he smiled at Dom and gave him an appreicative gesture with the soap. Now why didn't it surprise him that he would also be familiar with the trials and tribulations of outdoor bathing?

Lij turned away from him again in a reflexive manner, as if turning into the spray of an imaginary shower head, and Dom could see his back. He had the sudden urge to just go up to him and help him get the black streaks off his back. Not that he didn't like them. He felt himself flinch, as if to actually do it, take the soap from him and run slick hands down his sides, tenderly care for that alabaster skin, and he pushed that right down. That seemed out of bounds somehow. Lij managed just fine on his own, though he asked Dom once if he had gotten it all, craning his neck, and Dom, barely looking at him, said yes, even though there was still a tiny smudge here and there.

Dom lounged in the water, letting it tap the heat from him for several minutes before falling into a lazy stroke out to the sandbar.

The sandbar was just that. A pile of sand in the middle of the river, positioned conveniently just off the doorstep of the ropeswing, though it moved around a little from year to year. Dom imagined it may have been artificially seeded by ancient rope-swingers through the infectious habit of children to throw rocks into bodies of water as far as they could manage. The sandbar was about halfway out, about as far as you'd expect a ten year old to be able to throw a rock. But maybe it had always been there. Who knew. Now it was simply a marker. It was a place to be in the middle of the river without having to tread water. It also served as the finish line for rope swing dicathelons and triathelons. The former involved running from the beach into the water and swimming to the sandbar, while in the latter you start with a bike ride from home, then run down the trail (try not to die) to the beach and swim to the sandbar. Loser gets a noogie.

Dom watched a small fish scoot away from him in the water, near the surface since you can't see more than two feet in the murk, and then crouched and watched as Lij reboxed the soap and threw it up on the beach where it bounced off a springy root and plopped back into the water. He smiled at Lij's muttered curse and then admired the view as he trudged up the beach, wet slippery naked, and fished the box out of the water, this time tossing it further inland. Lij turned and his skin glowed in the spotty sunlight coming through the trees. He must have figured that since he was out of the water he might as well take a swing because as soon as he turned to head back to the water, he pivoted and started climbing up the root ladder.

Dom could never figure out how Lij could muster the courage to go flying off that thing completely naked. Every time he did it, Dom would cringe and reflexively squeeze his legs together, ready himself to rescue the kid should he become suddenly immobilized by the slapping pain of a nut-flop. Never happened though.

While Lij climbed, Dom swam back toward shore and grabbed the algae-green tail end of the rope that dangled in the water. With Lij up on the ledge, Dom whipped the rope with practiced skill and it arched sharply in the air, the big knot landing squarely in Lij's hand. With all the pomp and circumstance of doing the dishes, Lij took a lopsided vault off the edge so that he and the rope spun through the air in a dip that seemed much slower to watch than it did to live. He let go at the pinnacle and even continued to spin a little on the trip down to the water.

Dom climbed while Lij swam in. Lij threw him the rope when he got to the top and he jumped from further in the bank, grabbing the rope up high and pulling his feet up to clear the land. That kind of jump lasted a little longer, but you couldn't get as much distance usually. They had talked about digging a trench in the bank there so that you could make use of the full arc of the rope but it would have likely compromised the tree. By the time he reached the highest point he had turned in the air and was facing the shore again, and Lij was already out of the water and scrambling up the beach.

Lij wanted to volley. Dom dropped and the second he hit the water he was swimming in to shore. This was really hard to do with two people. Almost impossible to keep up for more than a couple of jumps, but the two of them still held the record they were sure, and they kept private tabs on it, hoping to beat their previous best. Lij swung over his head and Dom made a dash for the roots, catching the rope from Lij's backswing before he had even reached the top. That saved them a moment. He got to the top, took a breath and swung. He let his heels drop and skimmed across the water until he plunged in and under, giving the rope an extra push away from him as he let go. He wasn't sure if that effort actually accomplished anything, but he liked to try to improve their speed if he could.

They managed only about seven jumps before Dom slipped under the water and couldn't be motivated to push anymore. He sluggishly swam to where he could sit on the bottom and have his head and shoulders out of the water and did just that. Lij took his last jump, and panting, swam up to him.

“You broke it,” he huffed.

“Too tired.”

“Sugar.”

Dom smiled and looked into his shadow on the water. His own blue eyes glittered back at him in a spot of sunlight. Thought about leaning over and licking Lij. Telling him if he was a vampire he could suck hummingbird food from his viens. Badly wanted to say that and bite his neck, make him squirm a little. But he didn't. Maybe someday he could do that. Some day that wasn't today. He leaned back and put his face to the sun and groaned. “I should get back to that firebird.”

“That what?”

“The firebird. You know the car we fucked in like two hours ago?”

“Oh. I didn't know that was called a firebird.”

Dom huffed a little laugh and slipped under the water to cool his head off again. Under the water everything was a dull vaccuum of light and sound. He liked to stay under as long as he could. He liked the effortless emptiness of it. He came back up with a puff and a little spray when his chest started to try to make him open his airway. He wiped his face and stood. “You staying here?” He knew the answer.

Lij just nodded and crawled forward on his hands to let his pink toes float behind him. He barely kept his nose out of the water at that depth. Dom looked at the way his toes seemed to move and live on their own, heedless of Lij. At least he didnt' think Lij deliberately made his toes flinch and wiggle like that. He could feel his own toes doing much the same thing in the sand. He wanted to tickle the bottom of that calloused foot on the soft part in the arch. Lick right there, and squeeze his delicate middle toes between his lips and have Lij look back at him, eyes wide and bright with laughter. That too, was not on the list.