fellowshippers | (no subject)

Title: something broken
Author: Green Queen
Rating: M, for violence and character death and swearing
Fandom: LotRiPS
Pairing: Dom/Billy friendship, Dom/Orlando
Disclaimer: Not mine, blah blah biddy blah, I'm so stuffy gimme a scone.
Archive?: If you want it,
Note: "World at its Knees"

contrelamontre fic, written in the absolute maximum number of minutes allowed. I swore I would never write AU (war AU, for those who are squicked. I would be.) I swore I would never love Billy Boyd. I swore I would work at uni instead of writing fanfiction. I swore to the ground I would never, never write Monaboyd.
Kill me now.

Dom’s jaw ached when he hit the ground, his teeth crashing together jarringly. He saw stars for a moment, nothing but a psychedelic night sky, and he wanted to get lost in it forever. The feeling only lasted a moment, though, before the harsh line of his depressingly grey helmet swam into view against a sea of writhing green; the back of the much taller private in front of him. That’s all they were out here, he thought morbidly; soldiers, not men. Not people. Dom noticed the blood on the soldier’s shirt with vague disinterest. It could have been his, or that of the man in front or behind, or one of the screaming men they’d left behind on the last long-grassed hill.

He glanced to his left, to Billy; solid and reaffirming, the tiny Scot flashed him a grin, at once fearful and warm. Dom felt his lopsided mouth twists into a strained smile of its own, almost of its own volition. Billy reacher out to pat his shoulder, brotherly-like, and they nodded to each other briefly. Dom looked away first, his best mate’s face burned into his irises like a brand. Then they were running again, Dom’s feet moving him individual of his brain, which refused point-blank to accept any of what was happening. The beauty of everything was lost; the war had brought the world to its knees, destruction and blood on every inch of earth. He saw the smoke that rose off the ground, felt vibrations from the blasts as they hit the ground, running through it, up his legs. Bullets flew around him, but he moved on anyway; his body took over, muscle memory from training becoming his sole reaction, driving him forward.

When Billy fell beside him, Dom felt it rather than saw it. His friend’s strangled cry finally halted his insistent feet, and he dropped to his knees, momentum propelling his upper body forward even after he stopped running. He crawled to the prone body of his friend, shoulders as knees, elbows as feet, forcing him onward. When Billy finally came into sight in the crater his falling body and the blast that hit him had created in the tall, rippling grass, Dom felt as though he’d been punched in the gut. Billy’s arm was completely gone, lost somewhere behind the harsh green curtain, and there was blood just, everywhere. It flooded through Dom like the grenades’ vibrations, rising through his body and flooding his vision, and his brain drowned in it, swimming behind his blurry vision in numb disbelief. Dom was drowning in Billy’s blood, overwhelmed by the image of mortality before him.

Green broke through the red; not the dull green of the grass or the army duds, but the cool green of Billy’s eyes, screaming to him even as Billy controlled his voice. Dom dropped beside Billy, forced his vision to revert to normal, his brain to work, his body to respond. He ripped off his sleeve and pressed it to the open wound in Billy’s side; something in the back of his brain was trying to convince him that this would stop the blood, but there was so much that he really didn’t believe himself. With his free hand he grabbed the back of Billy’s head to hold it up off the dirt. He could feel it shaking slightly under the scrubbing-brush army hair. He smiled in a way that he assumed was reassuring, and Billy’s pained face contorted into a grin that even know managed to be self-effacing.
“Bit stupid of me to lose me own arm. Just goes to show you that what Captain Jackson says is true.”
”Watch out for mines?” Billy shook his head.
“I’d lose me head if it weren’t screwed on.” He paused, wrinkled his nose. “Though looking out for mines’ not bad advice.” Dom choked out a laugh. Billy grabbed the hand that was staunching the blood; pulling it from his side he laced their fingers together. He looked at their entwined hands contemplatively for a moment before his eyes met Dom’s again; Dom could see the fight that was going on behind them. They shut for a moment in pain, but before Dom could move they’d opened again, locked onto his, and suddenly he couldn’t breathe.
“Don’t want to be seeing you for a while, eh Dom?” Billy coughed.

It wasn’t anything like Dom had imagined it would be, having your best mate die in your arms. One minute he was still there with Dom, chatting and laughing and breathing harder and harder, and then he just wasn’t breathing. He was staring away, his eyes glassy and empty, and Dom stared at them, kept staring even as someone grabbed him and pulled him away. He felt air rush through him as soon as Billy left his sight, the loud silence rushing through him like wind when he got to the ditch, Orlando’s arm still wrapped firmly around his waist, dragging him even as Dom punched his arm.
“God fucking dammit, Bloom, get the fuck off me!”
”Dom, he’s dead, you idiot. You can’t do anything.”
”He’s not fucking gone! He’s still Billy!” Dom yelled, but his traitorous body let itself get pushed down into the cold, unforgiving mud and the image of Billy’s staring green eyes were replaced by huge blue ones. They were filled with concern and wisdom well beyond the medic’s young years, as though he was an infant who’d seen the world’s demise, and survived. He faintly heard the medic introduce himself before the deluge of tears started to pour from him; he could feel the medic’s nail-bitten fingers beneath his own, comforting and warm, could hear him call Orlando over.

Orlando knew the way this went, knew the loss and pain and helplessness of watching someone die in battle, and he tried, really tried to hold Dom together. He wasn’t sure he could do it, though; he’d taken Dom in his arms from the medic, and started stroking his back, but as soon as he touched Dom’s shaking head through the short, rough hair, a fresh torrent of tears seemed to come forth. He cried for minutes like hours, hours like days, and didn’t seem to want to stop, until finally his tears dried up and there was nothing but hoarse breath left in him. Orlando lifted his head to look into the red-rimmed eyes; Dom couldn’t hold it, couldn’t hold the gaze and looked away almost instantly. Didn’t let Orlando leave him for the rest of the night, though.

The war went on, as wars are wont to do, but Dom was broken. Orlando watched him every day, careful and sure; shielded him from one leader after another until finally Dom took a hit of shrapnel in the back and was sent home. Orlando looked him up the second the war ended, and went to visit him; unshaven, drunk and alone. He asked before he moved in, asked before he got him a job, asked before he kissed him, but really there was nothing there to stop Orlando doing what he wanted. He knew, gradually, that he was building Dom back; not a better Dom, not one who laughed, or slept through the night, or stayed sober for more than a week. But Dom nonetheless, and it was something.
It’s always something.

Green Queen