Between the Sheets
Summ: AU. Dom is a bit of a goody-two shoes with a galloping case of rotten luck. He has a summer job to help pay for Uni, but he hates it. Orlando is the reason. Action! Adventure! Dermatitis!
Rating: Adult
Warnings: Orlando is a bit weird in this one. I'm not sure who this Orlando is or where he came from, just popped out of my head and splattered all over the keyboard, sorta. My apologies for my poor approximation ofBritspeak, and as for the German, it was pastede together using a German-English dictionary, and Google translator. Also, this didn't want to end. I had trouble cutting it off where I did, seem abrupt to me,
Prompted by msilverstar. Probably not what she had in mind, but I can't account for the behavior of my brain.
Summer jobs are the worst thing invented by man, and Dom has had the worst summer jobs of anyone he knows. In sixth form, when his mum first started making him do this to himself, he worked at an ice cream shoppe. Great job you'd think. That's what mum thought. She did have the best intentions. Surrounded by ice cream and cute high school girls, it should have been a great summer. As it turns out Dom has a very bad pistachio allergy that no one knew about. He'd never had them before. Dom had a bubbling rash all over him the entire summer and it wasn't until he had a week left before school started back up that they ran out of pistachio ice cream, the owner decided not to order any more, and the rash went away, cruelly revealing it's true source. The cute girls he worked with were sort of horrified by his blistered skin. He had to wear gloves and long sleeves to work and often had shiny ointment on his face. Had to scratch at it every five minutes, then wash his hands, get a new pair of gloves... Not that Dom cared what the girls thought. Mum didn't know about his "proclivities" at that point but he did. Unfortunately the little hottie with the soul patch and the earring was also horrified. That's what really cheesed Dom off. He never seems to be able to hang onto a guy for more than a quick roll in the hay.
At seventeen it was the year that he got a job as a lifeguard. First day on the job and he slipped on the wet tile around the pool and broke his leg.
When he was eighteen, he got a job in a waste treatment plant over the summer. This was nasty for reasons that should be obvious. Mum thought he'd meet nice intelligent girls working there. Have to have a degree to get any of the salaried jobs. He did meet a cute Scottish bloke who worked in receiving, managed to get off with him once, but it still didn't make up for the stench that followed him the rest of that summer.
This year though, despite the lack of rashes, ten week casts, the reek of chemicals and squalor, looks like it is going to be the worst yet. Dom has school work to do this summer, too. Mum even told him not to get a job, to concentrate on school, but the fact is he needs it this year, because he won't be able to afford his books in the fall if he doesn't. The worst part this year though is not the job itself. He's scrubbing boats at the marina. It's not as glamorous as a car wash or anything, but it's somewhat interesting, harrowing, and extremely physical. Nor is it a freaky coincidence that is going to make him miserable; he doesn't seem to be allergic to the boat soap or even the algae that coats everything or the gull droppings. No, this year it's the coworker from hell that is making him wish away his summer.
"Oi. Squash Face. Need the bucket over here." Dom sighs heavily and slogs his way over the small teetering craft to deposit the bucket of icy cold soapy water next to Orlando.
'Squash face' is Orlando's pet name for Dom. Thirty seconds after he introduced himself he was calling him that. It was,
"Hallo. Name's Orlando. Since this is your first summer here and this is my third, I'm your boss. You can call me Mr. Bloom, and I'll call you...Squash Face. How's that sound?"
Dom wouldn't mind if he was a nice bloke. But he isn't. He's mean, crude, violent; all the things that Dom usually likes in a bloke, but now that he's met the epitome, he's beginning to question his own taste - which might finally make his mother happy. Now that she does know about his "proclivities", she worries incessantly that he's going to end up dating one of those 'dirty' gay boys. Mum doesn't really understand gay culture so much, but that's ok. She's adjusting. It's just that this summer, it was the hardest disappointment as Charlie, their boss, walked him up to this tall gorgeous boy on Dom's first day at the sunny Harbour Side Marina (clever name for a marina on one side of the harbour), and Dom, for one glittering, foolish moment, thought his curse was lifted, that this job was going to be a pleasure to wake up for, and only a second later that dream was dashed by Orlando's insufferable mouth and smug laughter.
The other thing to consider about Orlando is that he is more than just an obnoxious pretty boy. Dom, while not known for his bravado or scrappiness, doesn't normally let people walk over him if they're just regular guys. Fact is, Orlando scares him a little. Orlando looks tall and lanky, and he is, but he's strong as an ox. Something about his youth, something about his face hides it. You look at him and you think he is going to be the sweetest, most lovable, even frail and fragile boy you ever met because he's beautiful to be sure, with his dark curls and sunny smile, and then he lifts a seventy kilogramme bagged sail up onto his shoulder so you can rub tung oil into the boom, and he spouts profanities at you until you're done as if those words were what gave him the ability to lift more than his own body weight in folded canvas. He's like some kind of lean and gorgeous olive-skinned Incredible Hulk. Charlie frequently exploits Orlando's prowess at the marina. Today he is unloading bags of cement from the back of his truck and loading them into the mixer over his head. The veins pop out in his face and arms. Dom just watches him with a dry mouth as he points the hose into the mixer. Next to Dom's ear, the cement mixer sounds like you would expect a cement mixer to sound, but much louder than you'd even be able to imagine. So if Orlando is telling the cement mixer to fucking fuck off and muttering that their boss needs a trowel up his arse, Dom can't hear him. It's getting warm out, and Orlando is soaked with sweat after about four of those big bags cut and emptied into the mix. Thankfully they're not responsible for pouring the new sidewalk outside the yacht club, just doing the lifting, otherwise Orlando would be just that much more cranky about it. More cranky would be bad, Dom thinks, because he does turn to Dom after the last bag is in the tumbling machine and say, "You're next Squash Face."
Dom considers it very possible for Orlando to lift him up by his groin with one hand and toss him into the mixer, pour him out and force him to lie there until he hardened. And lying there on the ground looking up at Orlando's crotch is one way to accomplish that, quick-set or no. At the same time, he shrinks with dread at the thought of what a belligerent, ignorant man of his strength could do to him if he wanted, if it suited him to try to beat the gay out of him. They work alone, they work late. On his lunch break Orlando frequently amuses himself by throwing a knife into a tree on the far side of the parking lot seventy or eighty times from various distances and angles. Sometimes with his eyes shut. So, Dom keeps his mouth shut too, doesn't try to appeal to Orlando's good side because he doesn't seem to have one, has never seen the opportunity to make a peaceful gesture towards this self-sustaining machine, and just stays out of his way.
They don't do stuff like that every day though. And he doesn't threaten him with a cartoon death every day. Most of the time they clean boats with mops and brushes, scrape barnacles off the dry-docked ones (not fun), and tidy the clubhouse. And most of the time Orlando just tries to make Dom look and feel like a moron. For instance, a week into the job Orlando told him they had to start cleaning the bottom of the slips when the owners had their boats out. He gave him a shovel, a pail, and a diving mask and told him to dig out the bottom of Mr.Giaconi's slip a couple inches the whole way round, and Orlando would dump the waste on the other side of the pier. Dom got his shoes off and lowered himself into the cold, dank, oil slicked water up to his chest before Orlando sputtered and couldn't not laugh at him any more. Dom worked the rest of the day in wet clothes with a bizarre green stripe across his chest where the water stopped. That was possibly one of the worst days of his life in recent memory. The itching, the cold, the chafing clothes, the weird looks from the boat owners. Orlando must have decided he'd had enough that day because he didn't do anything else to him of note. He just went back to his expository complaining about each of the boat owners as they worked instead. He informed Dom which of them had the fattest arses, which were so tight they couldn't be counted on to leave unattended beer or liquor in their boats at all, and which ones probably use their boats to dump bodies in the Channel.
"You working late?" Orlando asks him as he climbs back up to the top deck. Dom cringes and stops in his tracks.
"I have school work to do."
"There's four more after this one," Orlando says and continues his work on the life vest trunks without looking at Dom. Dom watches the muscles of his forearm work under his tanned skin. "And rimming your boyfriend doesn't count as school work. I don't care if he is your Biology professor," Orlando adds. Dom blushes hard and goes hot all over but doesn't look up from his work, just scowls at the deck and the brush and wants to fucking club him with it.
Dom stays until all the boats are done and he is exhausted physically, and has exhausted his capacity for resentment. His Biology professor is attractive for an older guy.
~*~
It's Thursday which means half the marina will be calling up Charlie and wanting their boats clean by Friday evening. That's all they do Thursday and Friday is get through as many as they can. Charlie has them skip the little things on those days, get away with as quick a job as they can and move on to the next. Orlando fucking hates that because these people tip - some of them - and he claims that the faster they get through them the lousier the tips. Dom has to imagine though that he makes up for it in quantity, but he hasn't been doing it long enough to be sure so he doesn't say anything. One thing he is sure of: Orlando doesn't wear underwear very often, possibly at all.
Dom has learned his way around the place by now, knows what needs to be done with each little skiff and sail for the most part. It's not exactly mentally taxing. He and Orlando, despite having absolutely nothing in common, apparently, have found a rhythm to their work. Dom avoids him and tries to stay at the end of the boat that Orlando isn't, and that actually works pretty well. He'd be lying if he claimed he had never intentionally aimed a bucket of cold water in Orlando's direction, but he'd be telling the truth if he said he never found the courage to do more than wet his feet with it, which he doesn't seem to notice, going around barefoot the whole time anyway. (Orlando laughs at Dom's boat shoes but Dom stolidly wears them anyway. The slivers from the wooden ladders on the slips would be far worse than Orlando's occasional mention of blue-footed boobies.)
Other than the odd passive-aggressive gesture on his part, or distant admiration of Orlando's fantastic body, Dom stays clear of him. Orlando usually cleans up the aft, checks the motor, since he seems to know how, does the cabins if he has the keys, and Dom does the decking, sail bags, awnings and railings. They clean up pretty nice, those little fibreglass schooners. They can get through a mess of them in a day with the bigger boats taking quite a lot of time (but they're usually worth it for the tips) and the monstrous ones - they're not generally allowed to board much less touch with their grubby, working-class paws.
They clean forty boats between Thursday morning and Friday night. At the end of it, Dom is sun-burnt (Orlando didn't take a break for lunch or sunscreen which meant Dom didn't get one either), and fucking fatigued down to his bones. Charlie gives them each their tips in cash Friday night after hours while Dom is sitting on the curb tying his regular kicks back on. They thank him quietly and Dom thinks even Orlando might be tired tonight. As soon as Charlie is in his car and heading down the road, Orlando grumbles, "Fucker took a cut." Then, "Oh well. Time to go get a fucking drink, eh Mate?" he says turning to Dom with bright eyes showing no signs of tiring at all. But the real shock was the words, not the look. Dom has his shoe laces half tied and his foot slips out of his grasp. Dom just stares at him a second before the automated speech generator in his head kicks in and whirs to life.
"Yeah. Yeah right, man." Dom takes his shoe laces in his hands again and is trying to tie them but can't remember how.
Orlando folds his money into his wallet then, replaces it in his back pocket, puts his hands in his front pockets. Dom looks at him, waiting for something but he's not sure what. That almost sounded like an invitation a moment ago. Dom's stomach turns at the thought of accepting it, and yet he can't help but
want to.
"Well!" Orlando's expression regains it's normal bristle. "See you Monday, Squash Face." He turns and heads off to his little old beater in the far corner of the lot.
~*~
Dom spends the weekend working on a paper, nose in seven books at once, trying to sound like he at least understands the material, even if he can't keep his mind focused on it. It's Sunday night when he collapses on his bed surrounded by photocopied notes and plunges a hand down his pants to hopefully quell the distraction. He doesn't have time for it though. Dom is a champion wanker, really. He spent some of his early teen summers doing little but that. He likes to take his time, take Mr. Palm in the shower, in bed, on the floor, anywhere and everywhere, he likes to experiment and play, but he just doesn't have the time anymore in this quasi-adulthood he's reached. He has hours more work to do on this paper and every minute he spends yanking it is minutes lost. Dom shuts his eyes tight and lets a fast slide show flicker behind his eyes, entertaining whatever sick thing that might come to mind just as long as it gets him off soon. Some time last week a couple in their thirty's went into their boat, closed the cabin door and didn't come out for a half hour. They walked by Dom and Orlando putting away the hose and brushes and having a break with some pop and crisps from the vending machine. As soon as they passed, Orlando turned to Dom and swallowed the neck of his soda bottle, rolling his eyes back into his head and making the bottle top poke into his cheek. Then he came upsniggering . Dom glanced around looking for Charlie or whomever might tell Charlie they saw Orlando doing that, and saw Dom, the accessory to vulgarity. Dom opens his eyes now, looking around the room as if someone might know he was thinking about his lips and tongue on that bottle. "No no no no," Dom moans. "Nuns, bestiality, anything but Orlando," he tells himself.
Monday comes all too quickly. Dom wakes suddenly with the memory of Orlando's sweat-shiny back behind his eyes and has to shake it away. Either he has no self respect left at all or he has some kind of sad pathetic sort of hero-worship complex because he cannot get him off his mind lately. In class Monday morning he chews on his lips wondering who Orlando was with all weekend, what he does with his time. He can picture him with some trashy girl he picked up somewhere, getting his brains fucked out. Dom's eyes slip closed as he replaces the made-up jiggling screaming whore with himself, riding him with Orlando's rough hands wrapped around his waist.
Oh God. He needs to get his head on straight. It'll never be
straight straight, but it's got to get straighter than this. Intellectually he knows that just spending the day at work with Orlando should (if he has any sense at all) cure him of any misconceptions he has regarding the likelihood of Orlando wanting Dom to go home with him and ride him. And yet he doubts that the further study of him is going to result in anything except more day dreams about that very thing. Intellectually, he knows this as he knows that he's not meant to be a marathon runner. Asthma, allergies, and legs that are nothing like the long stilts of Kenyan runners kind of clinch that, but that too doesn't keep him from running through that imaginary tape on the rare occasion he finds the time to go for a little jog. But this is different. Orlando, unlike dreams of fame and fortune and talent, is a poison. He's everything he should hate. What's worse though is Dom never saw this in himself. He never thought he was the type of self-hating fuck that would get attached to a dick head who treats him like shit. As much as his mother is out of touch with the world Dom is trying to find a place in, her fears are valid and live in him too. It brings him close to tears as he sits there in the auditorium, half hard and completely lost. He knows he likes bad boys a bit, but he thought there was a line there. The only relief from this train of thought comes from the knowledge that Orlando would likely never get the opportunity to abuse him in all the ways a boyfriend could. It will be over in another month and half, and he can make a clean break from this tempting, delicious, cunt.
The mind-numbing tedium of lecture ends quickly too, and Dom escapes it and the atmosphere of self defeat to head, of course, towards the Marina. Orlando is already there, hauling random equipment from an old shed that Charlie is going to tear down and rebuild soon. Dom watches him for a moment, fully aware of how perving on him from a distance not only makes the attraction stronger but dilutes the qualities of Orlando that make him so detestable. This has the effect of leaving Dom quite at the mercy of his needy cock, and no longer under the power of logic and the knowledge that Orlando is a bad man. At a distance it doesn't matter because he is godly with his shoulders browned and his arms have eggplants embedded in them, they must, those can't be his muscles. At a distance, the marina is a glittering grid of water and maritime nostalgia. It's only up close that it smells like fish.
Mondays are easier at the marina. That has to be a switch from any other job on the planet. Easier for Dom anyway. Charlie has Orlando busy all day, working him like a fucking horse. It does nothing for Dom's mental predicament. In a way he wishes he would come over and insult him or embarrass him again so he could back up what he's trying to teach himself. He's no good. Don't even wish it. On the other hand he has to wonder why he would want such a thing unless he was deluding himself. Maybe he really wants Orlando to be a creep towards him. Maybe that's part of what makes him so attractive. That thought just depresses him again, though, and Dom spends most of the day scowling at his reflection in the water instead of enjoying the view and the Orlando reprieve.
Charlie leaves early. It's tempting to do the same, and yet not too tempting with Orlando off in the distance doing ineffable things to a dodgy-looking skiff on the other side of the pond, the sun glaring off his sweaty skin, his face a blocky mask of concentration at this distance. Dom is finishing up MrGiaconi's boat, the little sloop with the immaculate deck and sails and rigging, (they clean it every damn week for him), and he is crouched on the slip by the ladder when Orlando's scuffing footsteps creep in behind him. He knows they're Orlando's even before he turns and looks. He's gotten to know the way he walks on the balls of his feet half the time like some kind of raptor.
Dom takes a breath and prepares to face him for the first time today and looks up at him with the sun partially blinding him.
Orlando has sunglasses on and as such is even more unreadable than normal.
"You wanna take her out for a spin?" he asks with no inflection and nothing on his face but the shiny black glasses staring back.
"...What?"
"
Thee boat," he enunciates in what Dom presumes must be his imitation of Dom's own voice, his accent, which he has made a point of sticking to so as to separate himself from the prick.
"You mean...out on the water?"
"Yeah."
There are a multitude of things running through Dom's mind at this particular moment, most of them centred on figuring out Orlando's motive for the question. He's not coming up with anything. The worst ideas seem outlandishly unlikely, and the best seem ridiculous to consider. Yet he's filled with swirly gushing pudding of shivering fear and anticipation of the next moments.
"You mean you want to take Mr. Giaconi's boat out without his permission?"
Orlando takes off his glasses and rolls his eyes. "He won't even know it was ever gone. We'll take it out, couple hours. We'll stay in the harbour. Fill up the gas tank for him when we get back all nice an neighbourly-like. It'll be fun."
Another long moment passes in which Dom's gut twists. "You know how to sail it?"
"Of
course. Sailing is in me blood."
Dom doesn't say anything.
"Look, I'd take you out on my boat but it's on the other side of the harbour, Giaconi's boat is bigger, nicer,
and the beer is already here." Orlando steps aside and gestures toward a case of something sitting on the cement. It is a worthy footnote but not principal at the moment. Also, he didn't know Orlando had his own boat. He has to wonder why he doesn't keep it here, but that thought is even farther from what is important now than the case of beer and where it came from. Dom's impulse is to say no, but he can't think of a way to do it. Can't think of a reason not to. He's not asking him to work late without asking him, just, insinuating that he should, he...can't be trying to get him fired since he's going to be sailing away with him.
"Come on," Orlando says and steps onto the clean deck with his dirty feet.
Orlando just sort of takes it from there. He has Dom untie one of the leads and help him push off out of the slip, but after that, Orlando just goes into action and genuinely seems to know what he's doing. He starts the motor and they take a slow ride out of the marina. It's surreal to see the back ends of all these boats he's been scrubbing with his calloused hands. Weird to see it from the point of view of the people who get to enjoy the marina, not work at it.. Some of these crafts have names. The Dubious, The Sea Rabbit, Serendipity. Once past the two markers at the head of the marina, Orlando cuts the engine and ducks down into the cabin. Dom peers over the edge curiously watching him as he opens an access panel and turns a crank. Something makes a gentle clunk sound and then Orlando is done with that bewildering task and moves up on deck to do more familiar things. He unzips the main sail and hoists it up, then unfurls the jib, and before Dom can even ask if there is something he can do, the sail is full, pulled tight with Orlando's ropes tied down near his seat at the back of the boat, near the rudder, and they are moving and putting the marina behind them quickly. The sun is starting to set over the calm sea, and Orlando turns the boat into the wind, let's the boom fly over Dom's head, making it list hard to one side as he follows the curving line of the canal. Dom hangs on tightly but tries to act natural. He doubts that being completely silent for the entire trip so far is natural, but Orlando hasn't said a word since either. Instead, he's looking out to the sea to his right and in front of the sloop with his eyes half-lidded and his usually rank mouth shut and placid. The sun is waning orange behind them, and the land is a twinkling stripe far in the distance when Orlando lets the sails loose, turns on the red and green lights at the top of the mast with a switch buy his knees, and drops the anchor. The boat wobbles gently in the water and Orlando goes down below. Dom follows to see what he can do. It feels like a mission, like they have to be here for some higher purpose or like they're still at work, but Dom is at a loss as to his role in that.
"You want a can?"
Dom stands with his hands in his pockets and tries not to fidget. "Sure, thanks." Alcohol will help. Whatever this is, whatever is coming, alcohol will help it, surely.
"I'm fucking knackered. Wish I brought food."
"There's fish," Dom suggests with a light-weight voice he never finds with Orlando, but Orlando doesn't seem to notice. A few sips of cheap lager on an empty stomach and he already feels better, braver, and he scowls at that and worries.
Orlando sits on a plaid cushion on the port side and his long legs stretch out across the boat to rest on seat on the starboard side. Dom tries to make himself look comfortable by sitting on the narrow fibreglass ledge of the cabin doorway.
"Why do you always have that look on your face?" Orlando says with what sounds like dejection and puts his head back, stands his sweating beer on his forehead. "Like you hate life and everything in it. Like your life is so bad going to school and working a tit job. Every time I see you you look like that. Like you just want the world to explode and be done with it."
"The observer always changes the observed," Dom blurts then tries to down his beer as fast as possible to erase that remark from his memory.
"Why don't you keep your boat at the marina. This marina I mean?" Dom asks as filler.
"It's overpriced and the staff are a bunch of fucking cunts."
Orlando doesn't say much after that, just swallows two cans more over long silent minutes of fading daylight and then heads back onto the deck to get another one. Dom fidgets and curses himself for not just going home. He wants to ask Orlando when they're planning on going back but can't yet. He's also faintly concerned about Orlando sailing drunk. Dom can't be trusted to sharpen a pencil drunk, he couldn't sail. Couldn't sail sober either. Dom is hungry too. They must have something stashed away here. A bag of stale crisps, a melted candy bar, a tin of bait would do. Hard to see though with the sun almost gone in the cave-like cabin. Not even room for both of them in there though it looks like it is intended to sleep at least four. Dom pokes around the cabin while Orlando is outside, hoping to stumble upon a tin of biscuits. Orlando comes back in the cabin to take his seat again and hands Dom another beer.
"Hey," Dom says and cocks his head in the darkness.
"Hm?"
"Turn the light on will you?"
"Nah. It's on battery power. You don't waste that on lights. Need it for the radio and such."
"I just want to see something. Just for a second."
"What?"
"I thought I saw something."
"Where?"
"Over there, toward the back, er front. What is that?"
Orlando is silent a few moments and watches.
"What....what's moving back there." Dom's heart picks up the pace a little. He doesn't understand at all what he is seeing. There is definite movement unless his eyes are playing tricks. "Is that...is that a reflection off the water I'm seeing? Coming through the windows?"
Orlando makes a disgusted noise and Dom expects he's said something completely foolish. He also expects Orlando will enlighten him to that fact in his next breath. "Um. Come on, let's go up top and look at the stars," Orlando says instead.
"The stars? Can you see stars out here?" Dom is still watching the writhing blackness in the cabin, but follows him out.
"Yeah sure, a few."
They go up top and sit on the hard deck. It's less comfortable than the cabin seats but the night is cooling off and the breeze is heavenly. Dom looks up. There are a few. A few more than normal.
"Cockroaches."
"What?"
"That was cockroaches you were seeing."
Dom takes a pause. "Uuuhg!" He's glad he didn't find anything to eat.
"Yeah. Fucking wanker Giaconi doesn't take the boat out at night. Probably doesn't know he has 'em."
Dom feels a little sick to his stomach. "Will they come up here?"
"Nah."
Dom peers down into the cabin from above and sees by the last glow of dusk a cockroach of truly stupendous size nonchalantly mosey over one of the seats.
Dom leans back on his elbows on the hard deck and looks up at the sky again. No moon, just a few stars and some streaks of clouds that look oddly light against the black beyond. Orlando does the same, and for a long time they sit there on their own sides of the deck, the boom is a low barrier between their lower bodies. They could turn their heads and see each other easily but they don't. The twinkling drama above is more than enough in these minutes for Dom. He wonders why they're here. Thinks that maybe this was it right here. Orlando maybe just has a little human in him somewhere and he just wanted a mate to come with him so he didn't feel completely alone under the endless night sky.
"Hey, Dom."
"Hm."
"You bent?"
Cold washes over him. They're alone on a boat in the middle of the God damn ocean. There is no one out here but them. Why Dom wanted to go at all he doesn't know now. "What kind of a question is that?" he squeaks.
"A fair one I think." comes the defencive answer. "I didn't think you were at first, but we've got two months to go. I'd like to know who I'm working with. And now I think you are."
Dom is sweating and starting to tremble. "I..."
Orlando sighs heavily. "I'm
askin' cuz I am. And I thought you and me could have a little fun this summer. If you haven't already got a guy. And if it's a yes, I don't want to waste a lot of time on getting to know yous and feeling each other out to find out if we're straight or gay or fucking martian. It's bollocks if you ask me. I say just come out with it."
Dom gapes a second and then laughs out loud.
"What?"
Dom is doubled over laughing, can't answer him at all.
"
What?!"
Dom gasps, sighs, swallows, and finally speaks. "Yeah. I'm bent Orlando," he chuckles.
Orlando is quiet a moment, just eyeing him suspiciously and Dom gets nervous again. In the distance, a loud speedboat skips across the water. "Good. So what do you say?" Orlando is leaning over him grinning, getting very close, and Dom can't help but titter some more. Orlando scowls. "What
is it?"
"I thought you were going to toss me off the boat or something."
Orlando only gets a chuckle out of it though, and Dom looks at him and sees his brow crinkle up in what looks like astonishment. "Really? You thought...? Do I really come off as that much of an arse hole?"
"...Yes!" Dom says emphatically.
"Really?"
"You called me Squash Face from the moment I met you. You tease me, you play tricks on me."
"I was kidding! I was trying to get you to laugh or smile or something! I tried making fun of other people, but when that didn't work and there weren't anybody else around, I tried you. You don't seem to have a sense of humour, Dom. No offence, I still like you, mate, I still think you're cute, but you got to lighten up."
"...Cute?"
"Yeah. Jesus. I think you're cute. I was
kidding calling you Squash Face. You know,
kidding, joking? I like you because I thought you had a loaf in your head, Dom, but maybe I was wrong," he says with a small devilish smile and cocks his head. Orlando licks his lips and bumps his nose against Dom's jaw, takes a tiny nip from it. Dom smirks. "Oi, you got that one. You finally learning to tell when I'm kidding and when I'm not?" Dom's smirk becomes wry. Orlando plants a couple feathery kisses on Dom's neck. "Dom," Orlando whispers seductively near his ear, "I want to suck your cock." Dom's cock cheers and Dom himself swallows hard. "Am I joking?"
Dom bites a lip. "No."
"I want to shove my cock in your arse, if you're game for that as well. Am I joking?"
Dom goes a little hot and cold in various places and feels more than a little dizzy despite being perfectly flat on his back. He shakes his head.
"And when I'm done with you... I want to fuck your mum, too. Right in her arse."
Dom's laugh bursts out of his mouth and rocks his body, and Orlando's beautiful smile above him turns him fully to horny, damp goo.
"Hey listen. I'm sorry if I was a bit of a prat. Got to defend yourself somehow, you know? I didn't think you'd take it all personal."
Waves are slapping lasciviously against the side of the boat and making Dom thrum inside. He wants to believe him. Really really does. It still all seems too good to be true. Seems impossible that the hottest man he's met in a very long time is not only gay, but is interested in him, and every snide remark from him in the past was meant in jest? He must be dreaming. Dom doesn't get to pinch himself though, because the boat is suddenly rocking hard side to side beneath them in the wake of the long-gone speedboat and Dom is rocking too, rolling, rather, and before Orlando can scream his name in its entirety and uselessly snatch at his clothes, Dom is shaken off the boat like a flea off a dog, snagging a safety line with one foot, which, ironically, only serves to plunge him into the water face first.
The shocking cold, the panic, the knowledge that the boat is right there and tethered only once, he flails with shaking limbs conservatively in the blackness and gasps as soon as he feels air.
"Dom!"
Dom breathes a second and then stops voluntarily. The boat is only a few meters away, but he is paralysed with fear. He is surrounded by blackness in so many directions, his limbs go numb so quickly and stop working, only they aren't numb enough. Slime and teeth and stinging polyps touch him all over in the cool, empty water.
"Dom! Fucking. Dom answer me! Are you ok?"
That's the last he hears as he curls in on himself and slips down into the water. Disturbance in the water near him grips him and he balls up. He feels he is being electrocuted. All over his body his muscles spasm. His lungs ache for air but they can fucking wait.
"Dom!" Orlando yells next to his ear. Something has grabbed him and he clenches his jaw tightly. "Dom!" he hears again, heavy breathing. "
Dom!"
Orlando slaps him in the face and Dom is shocked out of his panic. Orlando struggles with his weight while treading water for them both.
"The
fuck! Dom what's the matter with you? You hit your head or something?"
Dom looks at him and the boat behind him and is finally breathing again. He shakes his head, and finds he has a purpose suddenly. To get back on that fucking boat. He is ready to live. Dom escapes Orlando's bewildered grasp and makes for the boat with every ounce of swimming skill he doesn't have.
"No! Stay away from the boat it'll fucking cut you to shreds. Giaconi hasn't had it scraped in years." A large hand grabs him by the collar and pulls him back. Dom is breathing heavily though he's only been treading water for a minute or two. "Come on. Other side." Orlando leads them in a wide arch around the back of the antsy boat. It looks mammoth from the surface of the water, dangerous as hell as it comes swinging across the waves toward them. And it has a name.
Moon River. Orlando approaches the side of the boat, the lowest point near the back and tries to grab the railing. He has it a couple of times but lets it go again and again and finally with a yelled "Fuck!" Orlando backs off from it while Dom numbly treads water and tries not to loll off into the black again. "I'm barefoot. Fucking barnacles. Give me your shoes."
"What?"
"Your shoes, take them off, careful, don't let them sink."
"Your... your feet are bigger than mine."
"I don't care we have to get back on this boat, Dom. It's a long fucking way to shore."
Dom treads water in an amusing circle with one hand and one foot and gets one shoe off, then the other and hands them to Orlando. Orlando gives one back to him to hold, holds the one shoe in both hands, takes a deep breath and falls backwards into the water to get his foot in the air for some leverage. His arms work at smooshing his big foot into it and the nylon slips and squeaks. He comes back up , does the other one the same way only his fingers slip and the shoe pops off his foot and splashes into the water. They both make a grab for it and Orlando tries again, sinking completely under the water this time, leaving Dom's stomach churning before he comes up and heads for the boat again. Dom's cheap shoes squeak and slip on the fibreglass. Orlando is running up the side of the boat for a second before growling at the air and hauling himself, panting, out of the water. A moment later he has the ladder in the water and Dom is shakily climbing up.
Dom is still breathing like that marathon runner he always wanted to be and is shaking all over.
Orlando catches his own breath a moment, a short one, while he pulls Dom's tight shoes off, and eyes Dom standing there. "It wasn't that cold, was it? You're shivering." Orlando scowls and peels Dom's shirt off over his head and yanks his shorts down without so much as a 'May I?'. He brings a blanket from below up to the deck and hands it to Dom who takes it with a grimace and holds it by a corner, expecting the bugs to come out of it's folds and crevices and consume him. Orlando takes it back, seeing Dom's inaction and probably his look of disgust, shakes it out and wraps it around him roughly. Then Dom is over Orlando's shoulder with little more than a grunt, and he plants him on the upper deck, mortified, ridiculous in his little underwear and feeling like Jane just rescued by Tarzan,except far less masculine than Jane. Orlando sits up against the main mast, dripping from his hair and clothes, with the sail half tucked in and carelessly ruffling in the gentle wind.
"Fucking lunatic. They aren't supposed to go that fast in the canal. Course we aren't supposed to be parked here either." Dom has one hand wound around the corner of the blanket, and another tangled in a stray line, wrapped round and round his whitened fist. His eyes and nose burn with salt. He continues to tremble a little. "Did you hit your head or something? Why did you just sink? Obviously you can swim."
He might as well tell him. What's he going to do, throw him overboard? "I'm afraid of the water. The ocean."
There is a silent pause. "Well no wonder you fucking hate me. I made you get in it your first day."
"Fourth day."
"Whatever."
"Like really afraid? Like an honest to God phobia?"
"Yeah."
"And you got a job at a marina?"
"I was planning on staying above the water. Where the boats are. I
like boats."
Orlando chuffs a little laugh. "C'mere."
Dom stands up warily and closes the two steps that were between them, reaching for the main sail for balance and security. Orlando takes his other hand and pulls him forcibly down toward him, turns him awkwardly, and sits him between his knees. Orlando's big arms are around him, bizarrely, strangely, so God damn unexpectedly. "You're all right, Squash Face. I promise I won't throw you off the boat again," he says rubbing Dom's arms. He hunkers down behind Dom and rests his chin on Dom's bare shoulder, the blanket falling down between them, and they sit there in silence for a long time. Dom's spine prickles when he hears another boat go by in the distance, but it's very far away, and they never notice a wake. Orlando kisses his shoulder a few times and runs his nose up the back of Dom's neck, breathes into his hair in a way that makes Dom's eyes drowsy.
"Who are you and what did you do to Orlando?" Dom mutters in pleasure.
He feels Orlando smile against his skin. "Am I different than you thought?" Dom doesn't answer. "It's not me. It's...out here. It's different. There's nothing else, just me. I don't need anything when I'm out here except what I've got. It's relaxing."
"Relaxing, yeah," Dom says but the sardonicism is only half real.
"I'm glad you're here Dom."
Dom blinks and shakes his head, baffled. "Why? You don't know anything about me? Why do you suddenly care? Are you just...playing with me right now?" As he says it the fear of it runs through him like a poison ink.
Orlando sticks a finger in his ear and it squelches. "Suddenly? I know plenty about you, mate. You show up for work. You don't leave me hanging when I need you. You're studying veterinary medicine. You like salt and vinegar crisps which is revolting but I don't hold it against you. Why is it so hard to believe? I told you, I'm sorry if I came off badly, I just protect myself until I get to know people a little. You're the one that started the job hating it and hating me. Why do you think that nobody could like you? Why do you persist in thinking that as soon as something goes good it has to go bad again?"
"It always does," Dom says quietly.
"Well
fuck. I know that, but it doesn't do any good thinking about it all the time. What goes up must come down and all that shit. You and me, we might have a really nice couple rolls between the sheets, and then it's bound to go tits up after that but who cares?
Let's fucking enjoy the good part instead of spending the whole time thinking about the bad parts coming up, yeah? Maybe we'll get lucky and die before the next bad part."
"You mean like I almost did just now?" Dom asks turning to face him a little more.
"...Yeah, except more impressively than falling off a boat in three and half meters of water."
"Three and a half?"
"Mostly. There's a sand bar a little over that way. You can stand up on it and freeze your bollocks off in the wind."
"Fuck's sake," Dom says and slumps in Orlando's arms, helpless to not laugh at himself with his head on his knees.
"And you're already naked. So what the fuck?"
"Are you still going to respect me in the morning?"
Orlando smiles. "What's to respect? A guy who looks like his face got squashed in a refrigerator door when he was an infant?" Dom smiles a little too. "It's all crooked....Though it didn't affect your eyes."
"Oh spare me. The world will implode on itself if you start waxing poetic about my looks."
But Orlando's smile is mostly gone. His hand comes up to Dom's wet face, and brushes his hair back a bit. He leans in finally, finally, and takes Dom's lips softly between his own. Three hours ago Dom never would have thought Orlando would be capable of a kiss like this. Not for him, not for anyone maybe. He took him as he seemed, a contemptible fucker, and was too afraid of him to even try to get a little deeper. Dom tastes his salty mouth and warm inviting tongue and finds himself getting lightheaded. He reaches out and grabs hold of Orlando's arms because he doesn't want to take another swim and Orlando returns the grasp, then tightens it, pulls him in to press against him as he delves deep into Dominic's mouth. Dom lets out a pathetic little moan because he can feel Orlando's cock through his wet shorts.
Orlando pulls away from him long enough to yank his shirt off (a seam rips a little somewhere in the struggle) and toss it wetly to the lower deck. He takes the coarse blanket away from Dom, haphazardly lays it on the deck and kisses Dom again. His chest is so smooth and gorgeous. Dom almost wishes he would stop kissing him so he could look at it. Orlando's hands rub up Dom's flanks. Their skin sticks and stutters with the brine and heat. Orlando pulls at Dom's straining underwear and Dom lifts himself up to help. Orlando tosses them as well - into the bloody ocean.
"Hey!" Dom squeaks but Orlando just snickers and continues kissing him. Dom doesn't have it in him to remain affronted and weakens further as Orlando's kisses move away from his mouth and down his chin, neck, chest, stomach. Orlando's rough hands on his cock are startling, but he's gentle enough with them. Dom feels his face slacken and his brow pinch as he watches Orlando's brief strokes to his cock and then his mouth come down onto it, and the corresponding signal of warmth and slick wetness. Dom groans and his head clunks back to the deck.
That mouth. Lascivious, crude and filthy, and so good applied in the right place. His rosy lips and tongue surround Dom's cock,and squeeze and lick and flutter over his yearning skin. Dom cranes his head up to look every thirty seconds or so but can't keep it there. Whenever he tries it seems Orlando pushes him back down to the deck with a wicked suck deep in his throat or a hard rub from his tongue around the head. Dom keeps lifting his long hair and tucking it behind his ear so he can see his face, but it isn't quite long enough to stay there yet. Dom writhes under his hands and mouth and he keeps going. His inexhaustible energy is displayed once again. His neck must be getting tired by now but he keeps going, dipping down on Dom fast and hard for so long. He doesn't stand a chance against him really. Dom doesn't want to come now. It's too soon. This has the potential, if he examines the weight of the night and the smell of the breeze, to be important, to be changing. He wants to let it happen slowly so he can appreciate it.
Dom is fidgeting and trying to distract himself from the finish line. He wants to outrun Orlando this once at least. Wants to defy his will. Dom growls, "Oh God. Ihr Mund ist das schmutzigste, was ich jemals gefühlt." He pants and with need rising in his voice tells him, "Mein Schwanz wird explodieren. Es wird explodieren, und ich werde nicht haftbar gemacht werden für die Folgen!"
Orlando sucks him hard and long and drags his lips up Dom's shaft and then off. He wipes his mouth and moves his hair away again to look at Dom who is panting in the pause. "Well. That's
one thing I didn't know about you."
Orlando runs a hand down Dom's heaving chest and then up his thigh. Then he reaches behind him and takes his wallet out of his back pocket. He makes a face as he opens it, seawater dripping out of the folds. Orlando pulls out a condom, tossing his wallet below. He waggles it at Dom with a lifted eyebrow and Dom nods still taking breaths through an open, disbelieving mouth and watching Orlando with dilated pupils.
Orlando gets out of his own shorts (no underwear) and Dom watches him roll the condom over his cock. "No lube. You ok?"
Dom nods. He doesn't care as long as he gets it finally.
Orlando kisses him another minute, running a hand through his hair. "Don't be surprised if this burns a little."
Dom smirks. "I'm not a virgin Orlando. I know what it feels like-" Orlando nudges against his entrance once and then slides home. Dom gasps. "Holy mother of fucking-!" It burns alright. He was just swimming in the fucking
ocean; of course it burns from the fucking
salt. Dom laughs though. It burns and Orlando warned him, he did. Orlando is chuckling with him.
"You ok?" Dom nods again, biting a lip and biting back more expletives.
Orlando starts to move a little, slowly, and it gets a whole lot better very quickly. Dom moans pathetically, and at least this time, Orlando is with him. He hears him make the same noise in his ear. Dom chuckles again and Orlando nibbles his earlobe, apparently because it was there and available. His cock is so thick inside of him. He hasn't had sex in a while - a long while - so he feels huge and fantastic and new. Orlando starts to sweat on top of him, on top of the seawater still sticky in his hair. Orlando fucks him and whispers epithets in his ear, the fruits of that mouth again, but so lovingly applied here they feel wonderful to Dom. Orlando moves him a few times. He has him turn over on his front and Orlando straddles his thighs. He has him stand up and lean on the boom. Dom shouts and moans with every deep thrust in that position they learn, and at some point, they go back to the deck because it is easiest, and Orlando snatches the blanket out from under Dom and shoves it under his hips so he can pump at him without holding him up so much. Orlando just keeps going. Like the God DamnedEnergizer Bunny with a huge cock and a nice set of balls that slap against Dom's arse. He wonders faintly how long a condom is supposed to stand up to this kind of friction, but he suspects that his arse is going to wear out first. Orlando is panting heavily and he looks like he's in pain, probably is with his hard knees rolling on the hard deck, and Dom can't moan any louder nor gasp any faster.
"Fick mich Orlando, meine geheimnisvolle ox. Ihr Schwanz
fühlt sich an wie Magie. Fuck me, fuck me hard, Geliebte." Orlando moans and actually looks close now so Dom continues. "Oh schöne Mutter im Himmel werden Sie töten mich mit Freude. Ich werde sterben Einstich-gleich hier auf Sie. Sie sind hing wie Pferd, Orlando! Sie sind gut bestückt mein Freund."
Dom pulls Orlando down to him again, down face to face. He kisses him haphazardly, gasping for breath and making high little needy sounds. Dom takes his head in his hands and whispers every last filthy thing he can think of into his ear. He tells him how good he feels, how much he has wanted him, how beautiful his cock is. He admits to him that Orlando is everything he wants in a lover, and that he wants this to go on for more than 'a couple nice rolls between the sheets.' Orlando presumably can't understand a word of it, and Dom hasn't spoken German in quite a while so he's probably a little rusty, but it didn't seem to matter to either of them. Finally, long after Dom's arse has gone numb, Orlando starts to gasp like he means it. He sinks his teeth into Dom's neck and convulses, slams his cock into Dom as hard as that tough body can, and the sound of his pleasure and Orlando's now clumsy hand on Dom's cock bring Dom to climax as well. He holds Orlando's sweaty body to him as he spills over both of them.
They lay there a long time just breathing. Sweat and seawater trickle off Orlando onto Dom and down his flanks and hips to pool beneath him and make him stick to the fibreglass uncomfortably. Orlando is a limp, wet pile of skin and bones atop him, and he feels so good there.
Eventually though, he does move. He slithers off of him and then rolls to his back. They lay there for a few more moments just breathing again, and then Orlando sits up. He looks blearily around him, then staggers to stands, and dives off the boat. Dom sits up in mild panic, but Orlando climbs back up the ladder a second later and stands naked like a dripping wet God on the deck.
"Water's nice," he says with a small smile and flicks Dom's wet underwear at him. Dom looks at Orlando and the underwear with confusion. "Gets the goo off."
"Where did these come from?"
"They were stuck to the ladder. We could leave them there if you want. Give Giaconi a mystery to solve."
Dom smirks. He's not about to jump in the water again, though he is covered in sweat and come. He climbs down to the lower deck on wobbly limbs and sits on the edge. With Orlando quite safe up above, he reaches down for a scoop of seawater at a time to wash himself. It's still a bit too black to set foot in for his taste, and even being this close makes him a bit nervous. When he is finished, he climbs back up and finds Orlando sprawled on the deck half on the blanket, half off. Dom sits on a corner of the blanket and stares drowsily at the water.
"I'm fucking knackers."
"Knackers?" Dom asks with a laugh.
Orlando grins with his eyes softly lidded. "Apparently. I don't think I can sail us home right now. You have anybody waiting for you to get home?"
"No not really. My flat mates won't miss me."
"Oh yeah?" Orlando says with half an eye cracked and the devil in his smile, like he's not really awake, but he's awake enough if the fishing looks good. "So then nobody will miss you if I toss you off the boat again?"
"Orlando."
"I'm only joking,"
"I know you are. I was going to say that right now I bet I could toss
you off the boat and pull up the ladder."
"You might be right. I just need a couple hours sleep," he says through a big yawn, "Then I'll bring us in."
"Giaconi won't be waiting for us?"
"On a Tuesday? No way." Orlando yawns again and feebly tries to stretch the blanket out for them.
Dom feels odd lying down next to him and stands there for a bit feeling naked and weird. Orlando takes his hand though, and none too gently pulls him down to the deck onto the blanket, wraps his arms around him and pulls the blanket over Dom as well bundling him in. Orlando smiles sleepily at him and kisses him over and over. Dom has to smile too. He's almost unconscious and yet he's still going, has to get one last thing in before the darkness. Dom is also just barely clinging to his mind and somewhere between kiss seventy six and seventy nine he drifts off.
~*~
The sky is mild and green in the east when Dom wakes. Orlando is shivering slightly. He had wrapped Dom up in the blanket and left himself sleeping on a thin strip of it. Dom isn't exceedingly warm in the damp blanket either, but it's better than the nothing Orlando has. Dom worms his way out of Orlando's grasp and stands. He covers Orlando up with the blanket then and tucks him in. His feet poke out the bottom but he shoddily be a little warmer now. He's still shivering but that should subside. Dom is cold now and shivers his way down to the lower deck, feeling a bit exposed now that the sun is coming up again. He investigates the clothes situation. He finds his clothes have dried quite a bit during the night just exposed to the wind. They are stiff with salt and still damp, but wearable. They're cold as he puts them on, certain places being less dry than others depending on how the flung articles landed on the deck.
When he shivers his way through the wind back up to Orlando's lovely form, he finds Orlando's eyes are cracked open a little and he has stopped shivering. He reaches a hand up toward him the way he did last night like a baby wanting to be picked up and Dom goes to him with some sort of instinct driving him. "Come here," he whines a little, hoarsely. Dom takes his hand and Orlando pulls him down to the deck again as if he were made of putty. Orlando opens the blanket and tucks him down under his chin. Dom feels drowsy again instantly, and thinks that he could really get used to this if given the opportunity.
"What time is it?"
"I dunno. I leave my watch and my wallet in my car at work."
"Ah. I would have too if I had known I'd be jumping in the ocean to rescue the man I'd later fuck into the deck."
It's been many hours now that he's spent getting to know this other Orlando, it shouldn't still be surprising, but it is. He supposes it makes sense though, in a way. Everybody needs affection. Everybody needs someone to touch and hold on to. He doesn't know where Orlando lives, who he lives with but if he had to guess he'd say alone. He probably fills that gap between sex and love with whatever he can get out of the people he brings home. Gay men so often being what they are, sex-mad and emotionally distant or fragile out of fear, Dom has dated a few, if Orlando needs this kind of contact and closeness, he's come to the right place. Still it's a shock, and as Orlando kisses him and crushes him against his own body, Dom smiles, grins helplessly.
They settle in and doze a while, not really sleeping because it gets too warm and yet the breeze is numbing the exposed parts, and the deck is just
hard. "We should get going, Orlando mutters and hauls himself to his feet. Backlit by the sunrise, Orlando looks lovely and soft. He hauls up the anchor and sets them on their way without even getting dressed. He turns the boat in a direction Dom wouldn't have guessed was correct, they must have spun several times in the night and he has lost all sense of direction. How Orlando knows he isn't sure either.
He does climb into his shorts as they near the marina, buttons them with one hand and drops the sails with the other. They slow to a crawl as he lines them up in the narrow channel and turns on the motor pulling them into the slip. They tie off the boat, pick up their beer cans, the ones that didn't roll off the deck during the little incident, put the place back the way it was, and Orlando steals some petrol from the shed to fill upGiaconi's tank. Dom is dragging, some three hours sleep already bogging down his body and mind, although there is a freshness to everything too that is nice; that burning-eyed feeling that comes from an early start in the morning and the tender fatigue of of a night spent in very good company.
It's as Dom is helping Orlando put the unfinished beer in the trunk of his car that his hands start sweating. He doesn't know what happens now. The suspicion gnaws in his gut that things are going to go back to the way they were ten hours ago because Orlando hasn't said a word since they headed back in never mind touched him. Dom isn't expecting too much, not yet. He doesn't need reassurance every other second, but it's nerve wracking to think that either Orlando will continue to be a prick or that Dom in his paranoia will interpret his natural cantankerousness as hate again.
Orlando closes his trunk and leans on the bumper of his car looking beat. "You have class this morning?"
That's a normal question. "No. Just Monday and Wednesday."
"Oh right. I knew that."
A car pulls into the lot and the crunch of the tires on the sandy pavement alarm Dom for some reason, as if they can see by his body language that he is trying to get close to him, as if they could hear what he is thinking.
"Charlie." Orlando says.
"Huh?"
Charlie gets out of his car with his lunch and a fishing rod and tackle box. Not going to be doing too much work today it looks. He approaches them at a pace that would be leisurely for a seventy year old blind man. "Good. You're both here early. Time to take down that shed. There's pry bars in the tool box. Get to it. And don't use the sledge hammer. I want to reuse some of that timber and I don't' want people complaining about the noise. Just dismantle it.. Dominic. You're lighter I think so you should probably do the roof. Don't leave a mess. Haul all the wood to the other side of the marina so we can start putting the new shed up." Charlie walks off toward the office to prepare for a hard day's fishing. Orlando turns and looks at Dom mournfully.
"Fuuuuck," he groans.
The shed comes apart in five hours of sweating and hauling. They end up running the hose from the nearest slip all the way to the shed because, one, they're parched from drinking, sex, sweating, and swallowing sea water, and two, to flush away about a thousand spiders and other nasty things living in the roof. They spend the time working in silence and Dom is getting tired of his stomach clenching and tired of thinking about it, tired of wondering if he's going to ignore him tomorrow. Getting angry that it is exactly the way it was before. He doesn't want a fuck buddy that he can't talk to. He doesn't want to sleep with someone who is too good to be his friend, too. He bites his lip trying not to feel cheated or accept that what happened out on the boat should stay on the boat.
There is just one and a half walls left plus the cinder block foundation, Dom is spraying the wood down to wash away the crud when Orlando speaks up for the first time in all those long hours.
"Oi. Squash face. Need the hose over here."
Dom bristles and turns to Orlando a few metres away, looking through the exposed studs of the wall. He doesn't move or speak.
Finally Orlando turns to him as well to see what is taking so long. That's when Dom pulls the trigger on the hose. It smacks him in the chest and Dom re-aims and sprays Orlando's shocked face and open mouth with icy cold high-pressure water. Orlando puts up his hands and turns away yelling garbled curses. Dom lets go and watches. Orlando looks much more like a drowned rat than a merman or mythical God when he's been affronted and assaulted rather than diving dashingly into the water to a fair lad's rescue. Orlando breathes, and drips, rubs his eyes clear and stares at Dom.
"You are so dead," he says with as much malevolence as a pretty face like his can muster with a grin splitting it in two.
"Oh shit," Dom spits, drops the hose, and runs.
Orlando catches him without even trying, grabbing the band of his shorts and tumbling him to the ground. Dom is laughing and scrambling away but Orlando slogs his way back to standing with his wet feet squeaking on the grass and drags him back toward the framework of the shed, and the hose. Orlando puts him in a headlock while Dom squeals and struggles.
Orlando puts the hose on him on the crown of his head point blank, soaking Dom and himself in the process. "You like that? Are you still thirsty Dom? All that seawater you must be."
Dom manages to wiggle free and knocks the hose from Orlando's hand and scrambles away. Orlando grabs him by the belt loops. Dom flips over to defend himself, but Orlando, wet and now muddy and full of grass clippings climbs up his body and kisses him solidly. Dom melts a little with temporary, guarded relief.
"Are you trying to get my attention?" Orlando asks after separating their faces a few centimetres.
Dom hates it when people who aren't nerds outsmart him. "No," he chuckles.
Orlando kisses him again briefly and maybe slightly grinds his hips against him but that could have been unintentional. "I am so fucking tired I could sleep right here," he sighs and lets his body become dead weight on top of Dom. Dom coughs and slaps at him weakly "Fucker. You're heavy. Get off!" Orlando just smiles like a sloth.
"What did we sleep like three hours?" Orlando lifts off of him a little and just sits on Dom's thighs. Orlando looks with puffy eyes up into his skull. "And we left about nine, came back about five. Hour there hour back. Hour drinking and trying to drown you. Means we were fucking for about two hours." he says with a coy little tilt to his head. Dom tries not to blush but thinks he probably is a little.
"Nah," he says.
"Yeah I think so."
"Um. Someone is going to see us."
"So?"
"So we'll get fired."
"They can't fire us for being poofs."
"I think they can fire us for being poofs while were supposed to be working."
"Bah. Semantics," Orlando says and dismounts.
They finish up the shed, then drag themselves into the shade for a rest. Dom sits and thinks, wonders if this is how it's going to be, silence interspersed by wild and flagrant flirtation for the rest of the summer. His balls will fall off if so.
They have boats they could be scrubbing right now, and any other day that is what they would do, to save them some work at the end of the week, but they're both drained, and they sit there for long odd minutes. They could go home but neither of them makes a move to do so. They could go back to work but neither of them has the initiative. They could go sailing perhaps, but who knows ifGiacnoi will come for his boat this afternoon. Finally Orlando speaks and it's the best thing Dom has heard all day, despite his fatigue, despite the extremely hard and long fucking he got last night. It just doesn't matter.
Orlando turns to him, crushes his empty cup of water and says, "You want to go see my boat?"
