Disclaimer: I do not know these two actors nor their families; no profit is made nor offence intended.
Pairing: Elijah/Dominic
Rating: NC17
AN: It’s springtime and the boys are decorating (remodelling?). It’s a messy business, decorating - oh, and Leeds United is a football (soccer) club.
Feedback: Always appreciated - perhobfan@yahoo.co.uk
It is spring and birds are fluttering around in the garden, which is awakening and burgeoning with blossoms. It is spring and young men’s fancies turn to - decorating.
"Missed a bit,” Dom says and Elijah peers up at the ceiling, eyes narrowed to slits. He’s wearing his glasses because the paint fumes play havoc with his contacts, though he suspects the lenses of his specs are now spattered with a fine spray of ivory emulsion.
“Where? I don’t see it,” he says, turning on his aluminium stepladder to face Dom who is on his own stepladder, applying paint to his section of ceiling.
Dom winks.
He’s managed to stay completely paint-free, unlike Elijah, who is pretty well a living breathing Jackson Pollack. Elijah makes a screw you face and goes back to rolling emulsion on himself and the ceiling in a rough proportion of 75-25. He’s regretting starting this.
“We could have just got decorators in, Dom,” he says, wiping another splodge of paint from his forehead. He changes positions on the stepladder, careful of the tray poised on the top, which is full to the brim with thick, pungent ivory paint. “Tell me again why we had to do this ourselves?”
“Bonding, Elijah. Me mum and dad do the decorating at home and they make a great team. He does the ceilings, she does the skirting boards. He pastes the paper, she hangs the paper. He buggers off to the pub, she cleans the brushes…” Dom isn’t looking at Elijah now, he’s concentrating on the job in hand. Elijah likes how Dom sticks out his tongue when he’s focusing on stuff. He likes how Dom’s hair is sticking up artfully even though Dom has done nothing to it at all since getting out of bed an hour ago. He likes how Dom balances with feline grace on the ladder, how he reaches up with the roller and applies swathe after swathe of ivory paint to the ceiling –their– ceiling and never gets a drop on his chest, which, incidentally is very bare.
Elijah shivers and shifts on the ladder and knows he’s horny and furthermore knows that being horny whilst in possession of a stepladder is perhaps not the most sensible thing in the world and – and that’s when it happens, when his weight on the ladder has tipped its centre of gravity and the ladder is sliding over and he is going with it. He sees the world for a fraction of a second from this really cool, really surreal, angle that he hopes he remembers later, and he has that whole life-flashing-before-your-eyes thing… And then he hits the floor and the ladder hits him. He hears a “fuck!” from Dom and then he’s seeing stars.
He’s in the tub, soaking. He’s sore – from the bruise on his hip where he hit the floor, from the bruise on his thigh where the ladder hit him, from his wounded pride. And from the rubbing.
Dom had spent twenty minutes rubbing at Elijah’s skin to remove the paint. Luckily it was only emulsion but there was a lot of it. “I told you not to fill the tray so full, there was no need for it,” Dom had said as he rubbed. His tongue had protruded, only this time he was focused on Elijah’s skin, not the ceiling, and Elijah thought perhaps the pain was worth it, just to see that tongue all pink and moist as it flicked around Dom’s mouth. Elijah had let Dom clean him up, had sat on the edge of the bathtub and allowed Dom to swipe at him with a succession of cleaning rags until he felt he’d lost a layer or six of epidermis. He didn’t mind, not really.
Now he’s in the tub, pink and warm and relaxed. He’s got Dom’s tug boat to play with while Dom himself is in the other room, finishing the painting. Dom’s listening to a compilation of Beatles’ outtakes he was given by an Australian fan. He said at the time that it “would get up Elijah’s nose” and it has. So he’s playing it again – very loudly – just to emphasise the fact that he’s having to finish the decorating by himself, alone. Elijah understands this perfectly and it makes him smile. He doesn’t care. He’s going to lay in the tub and dunk his head underneath the scented surface and play with Dom’s bath toy in lieu of having something more solid and satisfying of Dom’s to play with, and when he gets out he will hobble a bit and show Dom all his bruises and then tell Dom he missed a bit and then he will probably run and hide before Dom can catch him and pin him to the floor. Or something.
Elijah turns on the hot tap with his big toe and watches the steam rising. He listens to Dom singing along to the music, likes how he’s a little out of key at certain points but he’s loving it; he’s with those guys in that studio and it’s thirty five years ago or whatever and Dom’s the Fifth Beatle (or is it the Sixth, Seventh or Eighth? – he loses count). Elijah likes pretty much everything about Dom. Except for the way he farts sometimes and shoves Elijah’s head under the covers and won’t let him up again until he pleads. But on reflection, Elijah decides, as he fills the tug boat with bubbly water, he even likes that, too. It must be love.
Reluctantly, Elijah pulls out the plug and stands up in the tub. He watches Dom’s tug boat bobbing on the receding water then he gets out of the bath and that’s when it hits him. Oh, the pain! He has a high pain threshold usually, but this is agony. His hip is throbbing. Fucking stepladder! With a grimace Elijah wraps a towel around his waist and wanders into the living room. Dom is clearing up, gathering up rollers and trays and brushes and still he has not a splish of paint on his person, not on his old jeans nor on his naked torso which does, however, have a sheen of sweat upon it. He turns to glance at Elijah. “Feeling okay?” he asks, and Elijah almost utters his “missed a bit” quip but can’t be bothered. These things are better when they are spontaneous, he concludes. He nods and perches on the edge of the couch, which is swathed in plastic sheeting. He looks up at the ceiling and smiles.
“Looking good,” he says, and he gnaws at a finger. Dom looks as if he might be going to say something but instead he goes to clean the brushes and rollers, leaving Elijah in his damp towel. Elijah wants to shout to Dom to just throw the damned things in the trash, that if they ever do more painting he will buy new ones, but he knows that will sound wasteful to Dom and Dom hates waste. Plus, maybe this is all part of the routine which Dom likens to home – you do the work then you clean the tools and put them away. A place for everything and everything in its place. It’s kind of nice. Though Elijah would prefer Dom to leave that and come fuck him into the plastic covered couch, rub his sweaty, shiny chest against Elijah’s damp body, shove his concentrating tongue inside Elijah’s receptive mouth, lift Elijah’s bruised hips and fill Elijah’s aching body with a whole lot of Dom…
Elijah feels Dom’s hands sliding against his warm, damp skin, coaxing tired muscles to life with those long, supple fingers. He feels a pang of guilt – Dom’s the one who did all the work, who cleaned up, who’s probably really really tired. But he doesn’t stop those busy hands as they head downwards. Far from it. It’s spring and new life isn’t just the conserve of those buds and blooms out in the garden. New life can be detected beneath fluffy towels also, new life which firms beneath assertive hands. Elijah leans into the touch, resting against Dom’s strong chest, looking up into eyes he knows so well.
“You know what, Lij?” Dom asks, very softly, huskily.
“What?” Elijah replies, nestling even further into the hardness of Dom’s body.
“When I was scrubbing you earlier, I missed a bit…” Dom lays a finger on Elijah’s shoulder and presses in very lightly. “See?”
Elijah cranes to look and stares hard at the non-existent stain. “Oh yeah, you did. You should do something about that,” he says, casually.
Dom does the thing that he doesn’t do very often, hasn’t done for ages, but it’s the thing that drives Elijah crazy though it’s silly and stupid and not good for Dom’s spine. But oh… He lifts Elijah up, hefts him right up, and carries him in his arms back to the bathroom. Elijah can feel his heart yammering in his chest. Of course, by the time they reach the bathroom, Dom is huffing a bit and Elijah is sliding down from his arms, the towel catching and coming away to leave him exposed. He waits and lets Dom get his breath back for a moment, then leans in and kisses a ripe nipple.
“I have bruises,” Elijah breathes around the nub and feels Dom’s shiver. “They came up really good in the bath, they’re very- purple.”
Dom lays Elijah down on the bathroom floor and examines the individual injury sites, each contrasting starkly with Elijah's pale golden skin; he does so with infinite care, first with gently probing fingers and then with his tongue. He pulls away, slurping on the final contact with Elijah's bruise. As he sheds his jeans, he never breaks eye contact and there is promise and threat in those eyes. Well, what passes for threat in the Monaghan imagination. Elijah shivers in anticipation.
He winds his arms around Dom's neck and pulls him down so Dom is laying fully on top of him and Elijah is wrapping his legs around Dom's waist. In this relaxed, warm, moist state, it's a very small matter to prepare Elijah for Dom's delectation and delight.
“I love this time of year,” Dom says, conversationally, as they grind, “summer’s just round the corner.” He’s getting a flushed, distant look on his face now that Elijah loves.
“Yeah,” Elijah says, and means to say more but then his words become silly mewls of contentment. As Dom pumps, Elijah strokes himself and his eyes begin to roll a little, to lose focus. But just as he’s threatening to lose it altogether, he notices it. The bathroom ceiling really is looking very dingy. He should point this out to Dom – later.
“Is this part of it, Dom – the decorating routine?” Elijah stutters, panting on a particularly on-target killer stroke. Dom pauses, just enough to smile down at Elijah, then he begins again. “I’d rather not dwell on that, Elijah… You know…me mum and dad… some things are best left undwelled on… like meat in sausages and Leeds United… and… stuff…”
Elijah understands. He strokes himself a little faster, his other hand rubbing frantic little circles in Dom’s back. He’ll wash that back later, he decides. And Dom’s hair. Then they’ll go eat someplace. There’s a place just opened that does really good tortillas, mouth-watering, incredible…
“Fuck, fuck…” Dom and Elijah gasp in unison, as they begin their descent, flaps down and the runway is clear and looking good and both sets of wheels make contact simultaneously, which is always so gooooood… Touchdown
It’s a week later. There’s a party in full swing at Monawood Mansion. It’s not really called that. Well, it is when they’re very drunk.
Elijah is playing DJ and Dom is keeping everyone in alcohol and nibbles. It’s been a good night. He’s especially pleased because so far seven people have commented on the décor and how much better it looks and who did they get in to do it? Dom’s been able to proudly put them right – he’d done it all himself. With help from his gorgeous boyfriend, obviously.
“Good party,” he hears and turns and there is Orlando, looking devastatingly good in a chocolate coloured silk shirt and black striped bandido pants. Orlando sips his wine and munches on a celery stick. Dom smiles over at Elijah, who’s lost in the music and wouldn’t notice if King Kong was rampaging over the hors o’douvres.
“Thanks,” Dom says and he gives Orlando a quick hug.
“Like what we’ve done with the place?” he asks. Orlando looks around and nods, thoughtfully.
“I like it a lot,” he says. He sips more wine. Then he cranes his neck to peer up at the ceiling. “But you missed a bit.”
The End