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fellowshippers2004-02-15 12:00 am
hanarobi.livejournal.com) wrote in fellowshippers2004-02-15 12:00 am
Wing Development: Flash
Title: Wing Development: Flash
Author: Hanarobi (hanarobi_muse@yahoo.com)
www.livejournal.com/users/hanarobi
Pairing: ew/dm
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Fiction. Don't know these people at all. No profit.
Author's notes: I honestly do not know what I would do without MSilverstar. She is the most wonderful beta I could have. I am truly grateful that she takes the time to do this for me because I know how much she has to deal with in RL.
Earlier installments of the Wing Development series may be found at my beautiful website, designed and hosted by the incomparable and generous Hope.
http://hanarobi.dombillijah.com/stories.php
Wing Development: Flash
The door had just started on its way to being opened when the smell hit Dom full force. He hadn’t had the best day up to now anyway and really didn’t need this. Elijah had promised always to smoke outside, but there it was, the smell of cigarette smoke, reeking and overwhelming, coming from inside the house, ‘their’ house.
“Fuckin’ hell, Lij!” he yelled as he pushed the door the rest of the way open, allowing it to slam against the inside wall. “You’re smoking, you fucking cunt!”
Elijah sat on the couch, cross-legged and sideways, facing the door. He just looked at Dom, then looked away, and didn’t say a word. He blew out a thick cloud of smoke.
“Oh. My. God.” Dom stared at the wreck in front of him. “What the bloody hell happened to your wings!”
Elijah stared hard at absolutely nothing, not making eye contact with Dom. Then he sucked in another great gulp of smoke, and blew out on the next breath, sending fumes to mingle with the ones already coating every air molecule within yards of the couch. He said just the one word. “Viggo.”
“Shit, man, what’d he do? Blow up his studio while you were in there?”
“Yeah, basically, Dom, that’s what he did. He blew up his studio. Yeah, right.”
“Oh, man, you look…This looks…Oh, fuck, mate, what happened?”
“Viggo. Cuntin’ Viggo Mortensen happened. I need to have him killed. Today, if possible. Know anybody? Money’s no object.” Elijah blew out another lungful of smoke.
“Shit, baby, from the looks of you, I’ll do it and do it for free.”
“Hey, thanks…, call me when it’s over.” Elijah picked up his keys from the coffee table. “Use my car. Might confuse the police long enough for you to get back to England.”
“Nah. Stupid extradition treaties. Gonna have to make it Mexico.”
“That’s cool. Mexico’s cool. Good surfing.”
“Yeah, come visit.”
“I’ll do that.” Another cloud of smoke. “Not right away, of course. I’ll have to wait until after the funeral. So I can piss on his grave.”
“Sure, no rush. But, shit, Lij, what the fuck happened?”
Dom finally managed to get over his shock at seeing the state of the wings and moved to sit down on the coffee table across from Elijah. He reached out very slowly and touched at some of the feathers on the wing closest to him. Paint was smeared everywhere, sticking feathers together. Riots of color, swirls of hues. As the paint had dried, feathers had been pulled in various directions, little bits of them sticking out at every angle. Pieces of old, yellowed text seemed to be glued on at random. One long feather even had string wrapped around it.
As he surveyed the ruined wings, he felt his mind reeling. Elijah barely allowed him to touch the wings most of the time. How the fuck did Viggo get Elijah to agree to this? He pulled back from his examination of the wings and looked Elijah in the face, asking wordlessly.
“You know how he gets when he’s really into the whole inspiration thing?”
Dom nodded.
“Well, I kinda went with it, this time. Got totally into it. It’s supposed to be a collage or some such shit, by the way.”
Dom just nodded again, then said, “You got art-fucked.”
Elijah nodded. “Yeah, that’s it, isn’t it? He art-fucked my wings.”
Elijah blew out another puff of smoke but Dom didn’t even notice. He started picking at one of the wings, pulling off little bits of paper. As one bit stuck, he pulled at the feather harder than he had intended. The entire wing twitched under his hands and he saw the other wing start to unfurl in protest. But, then, almost immediately, it gave up and drooped sadly down against Elijah’s back, defeated. Elijah just sighed and lit up another cigarette.
The clean-up lasted an hour before neither of them could take it anymore. Elijah was fighting back tears and Dom had a headache from the tedium of peeling paint off and separating the little paint-stuck feathers, one by one, of each individual feather.
“There’s no hope for it, mate. You’re going to have to wash this stuff off.”
“I’ll stink up the house, they’re too heavy when they’re wet, and it takes forever for them to dry. Plus our tub isn’t big enough.” Clearly, Elijah had already been down this line of thought.
“We can live with the stink, I’ll bring you whatever you need, and we’ll get a humongo heat lamp. But we need a Jacuzzi—a really big one.”
“Vegas,” they said in unison.
An hour and several phone calls later, they had reserved the suite with the largest Jacuzzi available in all of Las Vegas and were on the road. The wings were going to have a bath.
########
Besides Elijah’s immediate family and a few very discrete medical personnel, the only one who knew about the wings was Billy. It was difficult to figure out how to bring it up, so they just didn’t. And then, it just became habit. Don’t tell.
There was an awkward moment at the MTV awards. Elijah tripped just a little going up the stairs to get the award. Sean was right behind him and put a hand out to steady him, a hand that landed squarely on his back, squarely on the wings, held down flat and tight under spongy athletic wrap. Elijah got a quick, questioning look, but he and Sean were children of Hollywood and it never even occurred to either of them to break out of their performance zone in front of all those people and cameras.
But as soon as they were off stage, away from the noise and attention, Sean focused on Elijah.
“Are you hurt?” A demand for answers.
Elijah knew that Sean was flashing back to the times that Orlando had withdrawn from the rest of them, clutching the pain pills doled out very carefully by the set medics. They had all grown used to seeing Orlando ease himself into the back brace after a day of horseback riding and stunts.
“No, I’m not hurt.”
“That’s not a back brace, then? There’s something there, Elijah. I felt it. What are you not telling me?”
“Sean, I’m fine. Really. Just let it go, okay?”
“No way, kiddo. Not until I know what’s wrong.”
Well, there was no hope for it then. He didn’t want to do this to Sean. He knew that Sean loved him and wanted to take care of him. But there was no way he was telling Sean about the wings. The guy would go ballistic. Some people, you know? They just can’t handle finding out their friends have wings. So he lied. He told Sean the one thing that Sean would not ever ask about again.
“Um, Sean, it’s well... It’s a Dom thing. You know? Sex stuff?”
Captain America went white and then red. ‘Pity he doesn’t have blue eyes,’ thought Elijah, watching the play of colors across his dear friend’s face, ‘it would be so patriotic.’
“God, Lij, you take that stuff out in public? To an event like this? What the hell are you thinking? And what the hell is it, anyway?”
“Oh, …it’s just a kind of harness thing. You see, what you do is…” Right on cue, just like he knew it would happen, Sean cut him off.
“Don’t tell me, okay? And, god, Lij, leave that stuff at home next time. Shit.” An embarrassed, flustered Sean went off the glad hand with people he could understand and control.
Elijah just looked at the guy he loved so much and snorted to himself. Then he went out to smoke a cigarette. After that, he had to find Billy. When he had started to trip on the stairs, the wings instinctively tried to flap to steady him and had shifted under the athletic wrap. If he didn’t get Billy to help him get the wings sorted out soon, he thought he was going to go insane. But first the cigarette. And then, tomorrow, he was planning on spending the entire day without a stitch of clothing anywhere near him. The whole fuckin’ day.
So they didn’t tell anyone else about the wings. But then, one day…
It was mid-morning. They had slept in after way too much fun involving booze and wingsex the night before. It was a good morning. A lazy morning. Just the two of them. Wandering around their house naked, totally comfortable with each other. Elijah had pulled on sweat bottoms because they were, as usual, out of milk. (Not that there wasn’t milk in the refrigerator, just that they were scared of it. The expiration date was days ago and Elijah had sworn that it had growled at him earlier when he had tried to throw it out.)
So he had gone to his mother’s house, across the lawn, to get the milk. And Dom had greeted him at the door as soon as he got back, holding a cup of coffee and a bagel. But Dom was still naked and Elijah was hungry and Dom was feeding him the bagel and rubbing up against him and the milk carton was cold when it came into contact with Dom’s bare stomach and then the hot coffee burned Elijah’s arm when Dom flinched and then they just somehow found themselves on the floor with Dom licking the coffee off Elijah’s arm and Elijah trying to nibble at Dom’s neck.
They ended up, as they always did, having sex. It wasn’t mind-blowing sex, they didn’t sob in ecstasy when they climaxed, neither would ever describe it as the best sex of their lives, but what it was, was good. Very satisfying, happily-married-couple kind of sex. Elijah needed the taste of Dom’s skin the way he needed air and water. Dom needed to feel Elijah’s breath against his neck if his day was to make sense. Sex allowed for each to sustain the other. It soothed ragged edges, filled in gaps, and heightened the joy of simply being alive and together. They didn’t have sex because they were horny (though they were) but because they were in love. Each time of union strengthened the bond of unspoken understanding between them. It wasn’t exactly making love; it wasn’t exactly fucking. It was sex, pure and simple and absolutely necessary.
And when Elijah felt Dom enter him, as his knees burned from being shoved against the carpet, as he opened up his body to allow his lover entrance, as he felt the pleasure grow and take over, when he felt Dom’s groin pressed hard against his ass, trembling, that was when the sensations of love, and happiness, and the intense physical pleasure of his orgasm blended into one overwhelming thought: Dom. And so he groaned out his love and pleasure with the name that meant everything to him, shuddering his own release as Dom came inside him.
The point here is that because of all this and then with the raging insistent demand for breakfast that only two healthy guys in their twenties could understand, the door did not get properly closed, to say nothing of being locked. So later, after breakfast and showers, as they lazed around their own little world, smug and naked still, flesh and feathers at peace with the world, they fell asleep on the couch, wrapped up in nothing but the flesh of the other, Elijah on top, the wings covering both of them.
It was one of those late morning naps, where you fall into an incredibly heavy sleep and muscles are made of water, weighted down with golden dreams. The kind of sleep where you don’t hear anything. Not steps coming up the stairs to your house. Not the knock on the door. Not the sound of the door being pushed open, since after all, it had not been closed properly in the first place. But it was not such a deep sleep that you could not hear the sound of someone yelling at you, practically in your ear.
Dom reacted a fraction of a second quicker than Elijah, which was unfortunate since Dom’s jerk sent Elijah sliding off and onto the floor with a thump. The wings flapped frantically but ineffectively since the trip from couch to floor was too short a distance for them to do much good. So there they both were, naked, Dom sitting up on the couch, grabbing at a pillow to cover his crotch, while Elijah was on the floor, on hands and knees, trying to get up, the wings fully expanded and beating wildly. Completely, totally exposed, bare ass, wings, and all. As if the wings realized this, they quickly stretched themselves down as far as they could, shielding Elijah’s naked butt from the intruder’s view.
“Sweet mother of god.” That was all the intruder had to say for quite a while, even after two cups of coffee, even after the guys were properly dressed, even after Elijah had allowed him to run his fingers over the feathers.
And that was the morning Viggo found out about Elijah’s wings.
#######
The drive to Las Vegas didn’t take long, just long enough for Elijah to eat three Slim-Jims, half a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips, one Nutrageous bar (keeping two others for later), half a package of Keebler chocolate fudge elf cookies (saving all the ones named Elwood and lining them up on the dashboard), drink a 64 oz. Big Gulp of Dr. Pepper, and smoke three cigarettes. Dom had a beer (even though he was driving), an apple, and a handful of chips (or crisps, depending on who was holding the bag).
When Elijah ripped open the second of his three Slim-Jims, Dom winced.
“You do realize that your breath reeks for the whole day after you eat one of those, don’t you?”
“Really? Hmm.” Unconcerned he tore off a hunk of the mystery meat and happily chewed away on it.
“I am not going to kiss you if you eat the rest of that.”
“’s’okay, we can just trade blowjobs, then.” He crammed the rest of it in his mouth and Dom could see the shape of the tubular snack poking out Eliajh’s cheek from the inside.
“Wanker.”
“Not if we do the blowjob thing. Your call. I’m good either way.” He took a big slurp of his soda, cutting his eyes at Dom while sucking in his cheeks and sliding the straw in and out, over his wet lips.
“Fine. Just brush your teeth when we get there, okay?”
“Okey-dokey, Pokey.”
Dom returned his gaze to the road. This was uniquely U.S. behavior and he so did not get it. Road trips, of even short duration, seemed to call for massive amounts of junk food and childish regressions. Enough to make a man appreciate the British rail system. Something classy about traveling by train. You took a book with you, not the entire candy aisle of the local convenience store. Then again…he reached out and grabbed an Elwood off the dashboard and popped it into his mouth. Gone in one bite. He turned to see Elijah staring at him in horror.
“You just ate CookieElwood!”
“Ummm, good CookieElwood. Wants another we does.”
“Gollum does not get to eat Elwood! Bad Gollum!” Elijah scooped the remaining Elwood cookies up and bundled them safely into a bag, shooting dark suspicious looks at Dom.
“Merry wants to eats Frodo, too.”
“Oh, that’s different. That’ll be nice.” And Elijah settled down and blew cigarette smoke out his window, smiling. He loved road trips.
They managed to get to the suite without hassle. Elijah was wearing a hockey jersey, several sizes too big for him that hung almost to his knees, but its bulkiness camouflaged the wings beautifully.
Dom took a minute to wander around, admiring the over-the-top luxuriousness of Vegas’ finest suite. Elijah, who had been around this kind of thing much longer than Dom, didn’t give it a second glance as he headed straight to the bathroom and started the water running in the Jacuzzi.
“Where’s the stuff?” he asked, returning to the living room. Dom had found the fruit basket and was already halfway through an apple. He pointed with it to the duffle bags they had brought in with them and then tossed on the bed.
“That’s your second apple today,” Elijah snorted, sorting through one of the bags.
“Apples are good,” Dom responded with a reproachful tone. How dare someone who had just eaten three tubes of plastic meat comment on his apple consumption.
“Beer. Gotta have beer.”
“Beer’s good, too. Toss me one, mate.”
The mini-bar divested itself of beer and Elijah plopped on the floor, grabbing the hotel phone and the pillows off the couch on his way down. He held up a beer for Dom and pushed the button for room service. Dom only half-listened as Elijah chatted away about beer options, but one phrase caught his ear. “Yeah, Triumphator, that’s good. Send up a couple of six packs, okay?”
Elijah hung up the phone, cracked open his own beer, and took a deep gulp.
“Expensive stuff you just ordered.”
“No problem. Viggo’s getting the bill. Besides, I thought you liked it.”
“Oh, I do. Just hard to get here in the States. Way overpriced.”
“Again, Viggo’s problem. Not ours.”
“To Viggo.” And Dom held up his beer in salute.
“Yeah. To the bastard who fucked up my wings.” And Elijah drained the bottle.
Beers finished and room service having been relieved of the new beers by Dom, Elijah returned to the duffle bags, sorting through the supplies. Bubble bath, plastic bath poufs, nail polish remover, dishwashing liquid, and a bottle of bleach. And lube. Because they never went anywhere without lube.
Elijah placed the lube in the top drawer of the bedside table and carried the other things into the bathroom. Turning off the water, he poured the bubble bath into the Jacuzzi and turned on the jets. As fragrant bubbles came into being, he shed his jeans and boxers, being already barefoot and shirtless, and slipped down into the deep, warm water.
The wings started to protest as they felt the water seeping into the feathers, but Elijah just held them down and slid further in. The manic mood of the road trip was being to fade, as was the stunned disbelief of earlier when he had first seen what had happened to his wings. He let himself slide further down and in, stretching out the full length of the tub, floating on his back. It was the biggest fuckin’ Jacuzzi he had ever seen.
He allowed himself to just float on the surface, wiggling the wings a bit under him, allowing the water to seep through them. It felt so strange to be on his back while he had wings. He could feel the pulse of the jets sending steams of water to collide with the wings, could feel the feathers being swished around. He tried flapping them a bit, there under the water and found himself bouncing along the surface of the water level.
But very quickly, as the wings absorbed the water, the weight of the wings increased greatly. Suddenly, he found himself scrambling with arms and legs to keep from being pulled under.
“Dom!” he called in a panicky voice, grabbing the side of the Jacuzzi and trying to pull himself upright. The water-logged wings were useless now and pulled at him, dragging him under.
“DOM!”
Dom came running and grabbed Elijah around the waist and pulled him upright, settling him on one of the submerged seats at the side of the tub. Water was streaming from the wings in a torrent.
“Shit, just how much water did they take in?” Dom was already completely soaked, but he wasn’t about to turn loose of Elijah, wet and slippery as he may be.
“Gallons. Half the ocean. Don’t know.” Elijah was breathing hard and he took a shaky swallow, pushing his face away from where it had rested on Dom’s chest. “Fuck, that scared the shit out of me.”
“Here, sit up on the side while I get my clothes off. Then I’ll hold you up when you get back in.”
“Gonna drip water all over the floor,” Elijah warned.
“So we’ll have them bring some more towels. Then again,” he said, looking around the bathroom at the dozen or more towels adorning every surface, folding into elegant fans, “maybe not.”
“Get the stuff before you get in,” Elijah said, still shaken.
Dom placed the duffle of supplies at the foot of the tub and stepped inside. The water was warm and the bubbles still fragrant. Dom slid in and immediately rolled onto this back, stretching out in an unknowing mirror of Elijah’s earlier position. Elijah just glared, then shrugged philosophically. Or, rather, tried to shrug but found his movements limited by the water-logged weight of his wings.
“Ready for me?”
“Sure thing.” And Dom dunked his head all the way under, rolling over in the water, diving down and quickly resurfacing. “This is brilliant!”
“Some of us almost drowned a minute ago, remember?”
“Sorry, love.”
Shooting Dom a look of unmistakable trepidation, Elijah slid off the side and back down into the water, grabbing hold of Dom’s shoulders. He wrapped his legs around Dom’s waist and allowed Dom to back him up against the jets. Again he felt the sensation of the water pulsating through the feathers. It felt weird.
“Let’s come back and do this again when I don’t have wings, okay?”
“Yah, there is a definite wealth of possibilities here.” Dom captured Elijah’s mouth with his own, allowing the water to buffet them in the water.
But as the wings soaked up more water, Dom found Elijah getting harder to hold upright.
“Shit, man, you’re getting heavy.”
Panicked, Elijah broke loose and lunged for the railing along the side. “Let’s just get ‘em washed, okay?” He knelt on his knees on the steps, gripping the rail. Once again, water streamed from the wings as he pulled himself above the water level.
“Yeah, baby. I’m not sure this was such a great idea.”
“Nah, it’ll work. Just need to not fool around. Start soaping ‘em, okay?
Dom leaned over the edge and sorted through the supplies. “What do you want to start with? Dishwashing soap or shampoo?
“Dishwashing soap. It’ll probably work faster and I just want to get this over with.”
“Okay, here goes. This is acrylic paint, right?”
“So Viggo said, but who knows what he used once he got into it. Bastard.”
Dom managed not to say anything about Elijah also getting so caught up that he didn’t stop Viggo until the damage had been done.
He squirted a big glob of soap on one of the heaviest splatters of paint. Then he drizzled the liquid detergent over most of the other spots he saw on the wing he was working on. He was somewhat relieved to notice that little runnels of color were already making their way down the length of the feathers. He splashed some water on the trails of color, wanting to make sure that the tracks were not staining the white feathers and was further relieved to see that the water was keeping the paint from staining as it washed away.
Elijah had insisted on the bleach, saying he wanted his wings to be white again, but Dom worried how the bleach would react with the feathers. Elijah rarely did his own laundry and had probably never used bleach in his life. Dom suspected that all Elijah knew about bleach was that it made things white. Dom suspected that all Elijah knew about bleach he had learned from commercials.
Dom rubbed feathers between his palms, massaging away at paint clumps.
“Lean back, baby, I need to keep them in the water.”
Elijah muttered something, but Dom didn’t catch it. He held onto Elijah’s hips as Elijah arched back, lowering the wings into the tub, keeping a death grip on the railing.
“I’ve got you, it’s okay.” Dom was on his knees in the water, braced to receive the weight of the wings. Between the two of them, they could do this.
The water turned pink and blue and ultimately, grey. They drained the tub and refilled it before Dom called a break. For one thing, little bits of broken feathers were clogging the drain and he needed to dig them out, but he didn’t want to leave Elijah cold and shivering while he did it. For another, he was exhausted. They simply had not counted on how heavy the wings would be and his thighs were beginning to cramp from holding onto Elijah.
He went into the main room and grabbed the spread off the bed. He also grabbed two of the fancy German beers from the mini-bar. When he returned to the bathroom, Elijah was looking over his shoulder at the wings in the mirror. It wasn’t an overly encouraging sight. While the paint clumps and bits of glue were gone, the stains were not and, even wet, one could tell that the wings had been roughed up.
“Poor things. You guys don’t look so hot.”
Dom always found it a little disturbing when Elijah talked to the wings. He found it even more disturbing when Elijah seemed to think the wings talked back.
“Here, let’s get you as dry as possible.” Dom folded the spread several times and made a pallet on the floor with it. He then spread towels on top of it and motioned for Elijah to lie down. Towels were placed under the wings, absorbing the water as it dripped from the wings. Dom flipped on the massive overhead heat lamp and sat down beside Elijah, drying him off with a towel.
“Umm, feels good.”
“It ought to. I’m spoiling you rotten, here.”
“Nah, man. I deserve it. It’s been a bad day.”
Dom didn’t say anything but steadily worked at drying the feathers. He pressed each one of the long feathers between dry towels, one by one. He had only gotten through one wing when it became very clear that they were going to need more towels after all. Housekeeping would freak at the thought that they had only been in the room for little under two hours and had already gone through twelve towels. On the other hand, for fifteen hundred quid a night, Housekeeping could bloody well give them all the towels they wanted.
He gave up on drying the wings for the moment and set about drying Elijah’s flesh. He straddled Elijah’s ass and reached over to get a hold of one of his feet. With a dry corner of a towel, Dom wicked the moisture away between Elijah’s toes. He heard a sleepy giggle as he wedged the towel in between Elijah’s little toe and fourth toe. Evil thoughts of a sexual nature sprang up. He bent Elijah’s leg at a sharper angle and bent over to flick his tongue between Elijah’s big toe and second toe. His effort was reward by a violent twitch and squeak but he was braced for it and just rode out the half-hearted attempt to buck him off.
“Fucker.” But the protest was a sleepy one and Dom ignored it. He leaned back in and sucked the entire big toe into his mouth. His reward was a giggle and the feel of a squirming ass under his hips. He scooted down a bit, wiggling the cheeks of his own ass against Elijah’s.
“Kinky,” came a muffled, sleepy response from the other end of the body Dom was fondling with his ass.
“Like it?”
“hmmm”
Dom reached for the duffle and rooted through it, hunting for a particular item.
“Hey, Lij, where’s the lube?”
“Don’t want it. Wanna sleep.”
“Fine, but where’s the lube?”
“Yes, but why is all the rum gone?”
“Git. Stop quoting Orli’s movies. You know the rule.” Dom delivered a light slap on Elijah’s bare ass.
“Fucker, stop it. And it wasn’t Orli’s line so it’s okay.”
“Nope, no line from any of his movies.”
“Okay, now see, that’s a new rule. So you have to take back the slap.”
“Like this?” And Dom bend down and kissed the spot he has just slapped. He received the softest purr for his efforts and took that as encouragement. He stuck his tongue out and lapped at the spot, then pressed his mouth fully against the skin and suckled it.
“You’re giving me an ass hickey?” Elijah pulled himself up on his elbows and looked over his shoulder at the activity happening behind him. Since Dom was facing backwards and was bent over him, sucking on the plump flesh of his ass, he blinked a bit to find that his entire field of vision consisted of Dom’s ass. He admired the view for a moment and then contentedly put his head back down, wiggling a bit at the sensation of having his ass cheek sucked on.
He wasn’t a hundred percent sure he liked it but thought he needed more data before making a decision. When Dom’s tongue started moving more toward the center, Elijah smiled and allowed everything to shut down in his mind so he could concentrate on the glorious sensations Dom was eliciting down there. If Dom kept this up, Elijah thought he might have to reconsider his stance on being too sleepy for sex. Then again, he yawned hugely and cradled his head on his folded arms. Dom took the hint and planted two kisses, one per cheek, then stood up.
With a final toweling over Elijah’s wet hair, what little there was of it, Dom gathered up several of the sopping wet towels, and went to call Housekeeping. He waited for them to show up, handing back the armful of wet towels to the poor maid who just looked a little confused. Dom gave her a big tip and the woman left, richer but no wiser.
Dom replaced the wet towels under the wings with dry ones, Elijah mumbling something but not really waking up. Then Dom retired to the bed to channel surf and drink the excellent German beer, provided courtesy of one Viggo Mortensen. He idly wondered if Viggo even knew about the Vegas trip but fell asleep before he could decide if it mattered.
An hour later, Dom heard Elijah calling him for the bathroom. When he got there, he saw Elijah sitting up in the pile of towels and bedspread, examining his still wet wings.
“They’re stained.”
“It’ll wear off.”
“Get the nail polish remover.”
And so began round two of Operation Wing Recovery.
Two and half hours later, Elijah took a sleeping pill and some aspirin. Dom looked askance at the combination, but Elijah just glared at him from red-rimmed bleary eyes and chugged them down with some water. “It fuckin’ hurts, okay?”
The fumes in the bathroom were pretty bad. But the wings looked much better. A bit of a pastel rainbow effect still going on, but it added a nice Maxfield Parrish feel. Dom had managed to say that with a totally straight face. He wasn’t sure Elijah bought it or had just given up and was willing to accept that his current state was as good as it was going to get. Neither of them made any mention at all of the ragged state of the feathers, the little broken bits that stuck out still in all directions.
They had quickly gone through the one bottle of polish remover they had brought with them and the front desk had been very accommodating (and discreet) in getting them six more bottles. Plus about twenty more towels. At the rate Dom was tipping, he was going to have to leave their wet-feather-reeking sanctuary and sally forth to find an ATM machine. And he was taking Elijah’s cash card with him when he went.
Room service had brought them enough provisions to last a couple of days. More beer had been ordered and the mini-bar was well stocked. They had made it through one final bath, which was a good thing because the tub was a gummy mess by this point. But all the polish remover and shampoo and detergent had been thoroughly washed away and the wings were, more or less, pure once again.
They both had wrinkled skin, they both had headaches from the smell, they were both exhausted, and Elijah’s back muscles were beginning to spasm from trying to support the extra weight of the water retained by the feathers. He was stretched out once again on the bedspread from the bed--a new one, since the old one was soaked through and had been carted off by the willfully blind housekeeping staff. Elijah was safely hidden away in the bathroom so he didn’t have to deal with putting on a serene smile while handing over mountains of wet, smelly towels and bedspreads.
Dom grabbed half a turkey croissant sandwich from the trolley and took it and a soda in to the bathroom.
“Hey, Lij, want something to eat?”
He stopped in the doorway, just looking at his lover, sleeping soundly, snoring softly, wings slowly drying. He smiled at the image before him and returned to the bedroom, chewing on the sandwich he had intended for Elijah. A disgruntled, stained angel was still an angel and he would let his angel sleep.
########
The sound of clinking dishes and the television woke him up. Elijah was sitting on the floor, eating and watching the History Channel. As Dom sat up blinking and stretching, he watched the show with Elijah, slowly coming to the realization that the program was about Rasputin. At the sound of his yawns and stretches, Elijah said, “I could so totally play Rasputin.”
Given that Dom had fallen asleep wrapped up in the idea that Elijah was his angel, this was a bit abrupt. Then, again, Elijah was right. He could definitely play Rasputin. Might even make the guy’s magnetism finally understandable.
Dom wandered over and sat down behind Elijah, spooning him back against his chest, wiggling a bit to get around the wings. Dom ran his hand over them, checking the drying process. He wondered how long he had been asleep. Still damp but not soppy any more. They still smelled like wet feathers though so he buried his nose in Elijah’s neck, breathing in the scent of his lover. Elijah just twitched a little and continued to eat his sandwich, staring intently at the television.
Dom lifted his head enough to watch the program. As various photographs and drawing were flashed on the screen, Dom could sense Elijah manipulating his facial features into approximations of the televised images.
“Stop working.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t it be great? I could do a Russian accent and everything!”
“Thought Rasputin had black eyes. Really dark, ya know?”
“I can make mine go dark. And it would be a cool use of ‘em, like evil eyes. That’d be awesome.”
“No you can’t.”
“Can too.”
Dom just sighed and leaned over to snag some of the turkey out of Elijah’s forgotten sandwich.
“What? You don’t think I could do it?”
“No, baby, I’m sure you could.”
“You don’t sound convinced. Did you know that Christopher Lee played Rasputin? It would be great to do something he once did.”
“Just…I guess I thought you’d be thinking about theatre, that’s all.”
“I can’t do that. I do film.”
“You could do theatre. You should try it.”
“Nah, that’s your thing. Yours and Billy’s. I do film.”
“You could do both. Billy and I do.”
“Drop it, Dom.” An uncomfortable silence hung around the room. Elijah chewed at the sandwich and watched the program. Dom sat back from being spooned around him and rested on the palm of his hands.
When a commercial came on, Elijah said without looking at him, “You should go out. Lose some money. Take in a show. There’s no reason for you to stay in just because I have to.”
Dom thought about refusing, he had hoped they would fool around and try out the great big bed. But Elijah was in a weird mood. Dom knew he shouldn’t have pushed about stage acting. Elijah ran hot and cold about it. Sometimes he was enthusiastic and talked as if it were the main thing he wanted to do next and sometimes, like now, he dismissed it and got pissy if Dom pushed even the least bit. But the damage was done and Dom really didn’t feel like just sitting around and watching TV. Not while in Vegas. Didn’t make much sense. And Elijah wasn’t being very welcoming right now, anyway.
Dom stood up and stretched. “Yeah, I think I will. Gonna grab a quick shower and head out. I’ll only be gone an hour or so.”
“Whatever. Go enjoy yourself.” Elijah was back to watching the program, acting as if it held all of his attention. Acting. Dom knew better but he was in a bit of a weird mood himself. Probably just that they both had headaches from breathing too many polish remover fumes. Maybe a couple hours away from each other would do them both good.
He kissed Elijah on the top of his head when he left. All he got in return was a mumbled, “Bye” barely audible over the sound of the television.
#####
Much later than he had intended, he stumbled back to the room, entering quietly, warned by the darkness that Elijah was probably sleeping. He navigated the room without turning on the lights, bumping into a table and tripping over the phone, that was, for some reason, on the floor. Cringing against the clattering, he fumbled to the bed, making shushing noises and patting along its edges, trying to determine where Elijah was.
“Dom?” He heard Elijah’s voice calling to him from the bathroom and he turned to follow the sound of the door opening.
Dom could only stare, the alcohol buzz burning off as his breath caught in his chest and the blood rocketed from his brain to his cock. Elijah stood naked before him, the wings out to their full span. The muted light from the bathroom spilled out, illuminating Elijah from behind, surrounding him in an aura of otherworldliness. It was the most beautiful sight that Dom had ever seen.
He didn’t remember crossing the room, only aware of kneeling before his winged lover, arms wrapped around Elijah’s waist, head cradled against Elijah’s stomach.
“I love you,” he whispered, nuzzling and licking, then lowering his head to take Elijah’s cock fully into his mouth. And there in the semi-darkness, he worshipped his angel.
####
Dom had felt oddly shy when he woke up. Elijah slept beside him, as always, stretched out on his stomach, and covered by the wings. The image brought back the memories of the night before and the unexpected passion behind their lovemaking. But then, Elijah had stirred and greeted him with a big smile and a demand for breakfast and the mood was broken. If Elijah hadn’t noticed anything unusual about the night before, then maybe Dom had just imagined it. He decided not to mention it because if he had been alone in the intensity of his feelings last night, he really didn’t want to know it.
They stopped at the front desk to settle the bill and Dom was surprised to see Elijah pay for the room with his own credit card.
“Thought we were sticking Viggo with this one?”
“Nah. I thought of something better.”
Dom was a little relieved since he knew that Viggo was always surprisingly short of cash. Most of his money went into projects apparently. Elijah, on the other hand, was loaded and could more easily afford the bill they had racked up. Dom was curious if they had been charged an extra fee for all the towels but Elijah just folded the bill up and tucked it away in his billfold. If Elijah was okay with the charges, then it really didn’t matter, did it?
The drive back was mellow. Elijah only drank a soda and ate cherry licorice strings. The music blasted away and they didn’t talk about anything important. The drive seemed short and they returned home content. All in all, thought Dom, a good ending to the most recent wing crisis. And if Dom simply forgot that Elijah still wanted his revenge on Viggo, then that was just one of those things, wasn’t it?
Two weeks later…
“Go shower. Hurry. We’re going to be late.”
“Late for what? Where’re we goin?”
“Viggo’s. Hurry, go!”
“Why’re we goin’ there?”
“Just shower, okay?”
So Dom showered, wondering what the fuck was up with Elijah. And on the drive over, he kept wondering, because Elijah would not quit fidgeting. CDs kept being shoved in and then yanked out, Elijah driving with only one hand and one eye on the freeway while he flipped through his collection, hunting but never finding.
“So,” Elijah chattered, “remember Vegas? With the wings and all that shit?”
“You mean the Vegas of two weeks ago? Yeah, mate, I remember it.”
“Fucker. But, remember how that night,…you know?”
What Dom remembered about that night was how Elijah had looked silhouetted against the light, how the wings had shone with unnatural aura, how beautiful his lover had been, how the lovemaking had brought him to tears of joy and love. He also remembered how Elijah had seemed so unaffected the next morning and he had thought he would cry again at the sense of isolation that seized him when he thought that he had been alone in experiencing one of the most exquisite moments of his life.
“Yeah, I guess. Why?,” was all he said.
“Well, it seemed kinda…you know?”
“Lij, what the fuck are you on about?”
“Well, it’s just that…it was…you know…kinda great and all and I decided that that was how Viggo could make it up for the wings, you know?”
Dom turned and just stared. Dumbfounded. Discombobulated. Horrified. “You’re gonna have sex with Viggo for fucking up the wings!?! Are you out of your fucking mind!” He knew he was yelling, screaming even, but …shit!
Elijah jerked at the screams coming at him and both Dom and he grabbed the steering wheel at the same time to keep the car from veering off the road. A passing car honked at them and the driver glared.
“Pull over, Lij. Now.”
Shaking, whether from being yelled at or from almost wrecking the car, Dom didn’t know and didn’t really care, Elijah carefully signaled, and with exaggerated care pulled the car onto the shoulder and turned off the ignition.
“Wow. Where did ‘that’ come from?” Elijah had turned to look at Dom and was glaring at him. Dom was flabbergasted. Elijah was mad at him? What the fuck did he think he would do—just pat him on the shoulder and tell him to go enjoy himself. Sure, mate, have a nice revenge fuck. Oh, and why am I here, again? Hell yeah, he’d yelled and he wasn’t about to be done yelling any time soon.
“I don’t wanna fuck Viggo, dude. That’s like…totally messed up!”
“Then what the bloody hell are you talking about?”
“I thought you liked it when the wings were all lit up. I thought we could do it again, you know, ‘cause it was so hot and all and Viggo could do the lighting and then since we’d be there and all, and it’s Viggo, and he’s cool, like, you know, and then, you know, if you wanted, what with the lights already being there and all, that, you know, right?”
Dom’s mouth hung open. On some level he was aware of that fact but he couldn’t muster the brain cells needed to get his mouth to snap shut because the brain right now was overloaded trying to figure out what all the babble coming from Elijah meant. Dom was good at languages. He knew how to read and write. He could understand long, difficult texts. He’d even read a bit of Hegel in the original German. But he’d be damned if he could find any meaning in what Elijah had just said.
“What?” Was the best he could come up with.
“Photos. Of the wings. And us. Doing it, you know…”
Oh. Oh, fuck. Oh my god! That was what Elijah was so nervous about? Dom finally managed to get his mouth shut.
“I’m not setting this up very well, am I? See, I just thought that since you seemed to like it so much, that Viggo could make it up to the wings by taking photos of us. But we don’t have to? Really. I’m so sorry, Dom. Please? I’m sorry. Dom?”
“Once again,” said Dom, holding his aching head, “from the top.”
Elijah took a deep and shaky breath. “I wanted to recreate that night in Vegas. You really liked the wings that night, right? ‘Cause the sex was really, you know, special somehow, and it seemed like the way the wings looked really turned you on and I wanted to see if Viggo could get them to look that way again and then…” And here, Elijah ran out of explanatory steam.
“You want Viggo to shoot us doing it,” Dom muttered into his hands.
“Well…yeah. I guess. Or not. Whatever. But, kinda…yeah.” And then, very quietly, “I thought you’d be into it.”
“Kinky, mate. Very kinky.”
“But we like kink, right?”
Dom looked over and saw a very red-faced, uncomfortable Elijah, mercilessly tearing at hangnails with his teeth.
“And Viggo agreed to this?”
“Well, yeah, he’s still feeling really guilty about art-fucking the wings. At this point, I could get him to do pretty much anything, so yeah, he agreed.”
“But this? Shit, Lij, we’d being doing it in front of Viggo!”
“But, not really, I mean, he’d be doing the artist thing, so it wouldn’t be just regular Viggo. It’d be different, sorta.”
“Well, it would be different, I’ll give you that.”
“Look, it was just an idea. Forget it. Let’s go home.”
“Hey, wait a minute. Give me time to adjust to this.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, really. I’m coming around. You just kinda hit me with this all at once.”
“We don’t have to. It’s okay.”
“Nah, if you want to, I’m game. I think.”
“But, Dom…you’re missing the whole point!”
“What?”
“It’s for you. I don’t want to do this. I thought you would, ‘cause of the wings and the sex and all that stuff.”
“Tell me about what you think happened that night, Lij. What about the wings and the sex and all that stuff?” Dom had a tight pain in his chest. He was pretty sure it wasn’t a heart attack because he was too young and in good health, but there had to be some reason why he couldn’t catch his breath. He’d been so sure that Elijah hadn’t experienced anything special that night. Maybe some high energy sex but that had seemed about it. Nothing like the revelation Dom had been through.
“Sblom, you cried.”
Oh.
“And I want to give that to you again. With the pictures to prove it.”
Oh. Oh, fucking hell Oh.
“Come on, man, start the car. Viggo’s waiting.” And Dom was able to breath again. Elijah reached over and gently kissed him, then started the car and pulled back into the traffic.
#######
Viggo had greeted them and shown them to the studio. Grey silk sheets on a plain bed in the center of the room, space around it on all sides. Lights and canopies and cameras. He had poured them wine and then left. They were awkward and self-conscious, as they undressed, neither looking at the other. But when Dom heard Elijah crawl onto the bed and turned to look at him kneeling among the silk, wings expanded to their full span, Dom fell. He tumbled into a space that contained nothing but Elijah. Elijah was in his arms, kissing him deeply, his tongue in Dom’s mouth, filling him. Nothing existed but the smells and tastes that were the most familiar in the world and always completely new and wondrous. A part of his brain was aware when Viggo came back into the room. He heard, but didn’t care, equipment being moved, shutters clicking. Even with his eyes closed, he could sense the changes in lighting. And then there was a flash.
He held Elijah’s face in both his hands, tilting his head to get his tongue as deeply into Elijah’s mouth as he could.
*flash*
He arched Elijah back, holding him about his waist, pulling his hips against his, lowering his head, sticking his tongue out to barely lick a nipple.
*flash*
He suckled on Elijah’s breast, bending him back, holding him securely. The wings fell artlessly down Elijah’s back and folded into the silk coverings.
*flash*
Elijah knelt on elbows and knees, face turned on the pillow, eyes heavy with lust.
*flash*
Dom was on his knees, behind Elijah, leaning forward, running his hands up and down Elijah’s back.
*flash*
The wings were raised, bordering Dom on both sides. He looked up and saw the camera.
*flash*
Elijah shifted, angling his ass higher, Dom bent down.
*flash*
He pushed the palm of his hands against the fleshy rounded cheeks, kneading them up and apart.
*flash*
Elijah’s ass was being held open, Dom’s tongue was sticking out its full length. He paused before allowing his tongue to come in contact with the hot flesh of Elijah’s opening.
*flash*
As Dom’s tongue entered him, as Dom’s hands pulled his ass open even further, Elijah gasped and gripped the pillow.
*flash*
The wings buffeted Dom as he sucked and tongued, opening up Elijah, preparing him.
*flash*
Dom straightened up, his thumb sliding in to keep the sense of fullness in Elijah once he removed his tongue.
*flash*
He poured the lube down the hollow of Elijah’s back and trickled it down the cleft. Elijah shivered at the coldness.
*flash*
Dom slathered the lube on his cock, stroking himself, coating the entire length.
*flash*
He moved closer, nudging Elijah’s hips wider apart by pressing his thighs against Elijah’s inner thighs. Elijah spread himself, one hand snaking under his belly, reaching for his cock.
*flash*
The wings beat against Dom, touching him everywhere, everywhere that Elijah could not reach. He felt their flutter on his arms, his thighs, even on his feet, bent behind him.
*flash*
He positioned his cock against Elijah’s entrance. The wings were beating in long, hard swoops. When the wings were at their highest upsweep, he thrust in hard.
*flash*
Elijah’s face was twisted in ecstasy. His hands fisting pillows and sheets, pulling, mewling, thrusting back into the pounding.
*flash*
Dom yelled as his release came upon him suddenly, his hands twitching and grabbing Elijah’s hips, struggling to keep their bodies sealed together.
*flash*
He collapsed forward, panting heavily onto Elijah’s neck. Frantic, he slid his hands around and under Elijah’s belly, pushing his hands out of the way, taking Elijah’s erection in his own hands, stroking his lover to completion.
*flash*
Elijah’s orgasm came hard, and the wings expanded themselves to their full length, towering over the both of them.
*flash*
Elijah’s arms gave out and he groaned as he fell against the sheets. Dom leaned back and rested on his heels for a moment before stretching out and lying down beside Elijah, shifting to get under him. Elijah curled up against Dom’s chest, arms tucked up between them. The wings stretched out the length of his body, covering them both.
*flash*
Dom smiled as he felt sleep over take him.
*flash*
/////////////////
He didn’t know how long he had slept. He stretched slightly, feeling good in that moment between dreams and life. Elijah still slept, tucked against his side. As he looked around the room, wondering where Viggo was and how long they had been there, he spied a manila folder propped up on a small table across the room. In large black letters, it said “DOM AND ELIJAH.” He stirred to get out of bed and Elijah mumbled in his sleep. Kissing the top of his head to settle his lover back down into dreams, Dom slid out of the bed and padded over to pick up the folder.
Inside were dozens of photographs and the complete set of negatives. He took the packet back to the bed and began to look through them. His embarrassed winces at the first couple of photos soon ceased as the power of the images took hold.
Dom ceased being aware of anything except the photo he held in his hands, the last photo in the group. He must have already fallen asleep when it was taken for he had no memory of it. Elijah was sitting cross-legged in middle of the bed and he held Dom cradled up against his body. The wings were hovering over both of them, hiding much of their naked bodies in shadows. The lighting behind the wings was perfect, an exact recreation of that moment of exquisite beauty from the hotel room in Las Vegas. All that was clearly illuminated in the photo was Elijah’s face as he looked down at Dom, sleeping in his arms. But what Dom could not stop staring at was the expression on Elijah’s face, gazing at him as if he were the most wonderful thing Elijah had ever seen. And there, in the photo, forever visible, were tears running down Elijah’s face.
~finis~
Author: Hanarobi (hanarobi_muse@yahoo.com)
www.livejournal.com/users/hanarobi
Pairing: ew/dm
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Fiction. Don't know these people at all. No profit.
Author's notes: I honestly do not know what I would do without MSilverstar. She is the most wonderful beta I could have. I am truly grateful that she takes the time to do this for me because I know how much she has to deal with in RL.
Earlier installments of the Wing Development series may be found at my beautiful website, designed and hosted by the incomparable and generous Hope.
http://hanarobi.dombillijah.com/stories.php
Wing Development: Flash
The door had just started on its way to being opened when the smell hit Dom full force. He hadn’t had the best day up to now anyway and really didn’t need this. Elijah had promised always to smoke outside, but there it was, the smell of cigarette smoke, reeking and overwhelming, coming from inside the house, ‘their’ house.
“Fuckin’ hell, Lij!” he yelled as he pushed the door the rest of the way open, allowing it to slam against the inside wall. “You’re smoking, you fucking cunt!”
Elijah sat on the couch, cross-legged and sideways, facing the door. He just looked at Dom, then looked away, and didn’t say a word. He blew out a thick cloud of smoke.
“Oh. My. God.” Dom stared at the wreck in front of him. “What the bloody hell happened to your wings!”
Elijah stared hard at absolutely nothing, not making eye contact with Dom. Then he sucked in another great gulp of smoke, and blew out on the next breath, sending fumes to mingle with the ones already coating every air molecule within yards of the couch. He said just the one word. “Viggo.”
“Shit, man, what’d he do? Blow up his studio while you were in there?”
“Yeah, basically, Dom, that’s what he did. He blew up his studio. Yeah, right.”
“Oh, man, you look…This looks…Oh, fuck, mate, what happened?”
“Viggo. Cuntin’ Viggo Mortensen happened. I need to have him killed. Today, if possible. Know anybody? Money’s no object.” Elijah blew out another lungful of smoke.
“Shit, baby, from the looks of you, I’ll do it and do it for free.”
“Hey, thanks…, call me when it’s over.” Elijah picked up his keys from the coffee table. “Use my car. Might confuse the police long enough for you to get back to England.”
“Nah. Stupid extradition treaties. Gonna have to make it Mexico.”
“That’s cool. Mexico’s cool. Good surfing.”
“Yeah, come visit.”
“I’ll do that.” Another cloud of smoke. “Not right away, of course. I’ll have to wait until after the funeral. So I can piss on his grave.”
“Sure, no rush. But, shit, Lij, what the fuck happened?”
Dom finally managed to get over his shock at seeing the state of the wings and moved to sit down on the coffee table across from Elijah. He reached out very slowly and touched at some of the feathers on the wing closest to him. Paint was smeared everywhere, sticking feathers together. Riots of color, swirls of hues. As the paint had dried, feathers had been pulled in various directions, little bits of them sticking out at every angle. Pieces of old, yellowed text seemed to be glued on at random. One long feather even had string wrapped around it.
As he surveyed the ruined wings, he felt his mind reeling. Elijah barely allowed him to touch the wings most of the time. How the fuck did Viggo get Elijah to agree to this? He pulled back from his examination of the wings and looked Elijah in the face, asking wordlessly.
“You know how he gets when he’s really into the whole inspiration thing?”
Dom nodded.
“Well, I kinda went with it, this time. Got totally into it. It’s supposed to be a collage or some such shit, by the way.”
Dom just nodded again, then said, “You got art-fucked.”
Elijah nodded. “Yeah, that’s it, isn’t it? He art-fucked my wings.”
Elijah blew out another puff of smoke but Dom didn’t even notice. He started picking at one of the wings, pulling off little bits of paper. As one bit stuck, he pulled at the feather harder than he had intended. The entire wing twitched under his hands and he saw the other wing start to unfurl in protest. But, then, almost immediately, it gave up and drooped sadly down against Elijah’s back, defeated. Elijah just sighed and lit up another cigarette.
The clean-up lasted an hour before neither of them could take it anymore. Elijah was fighting back tears and Dom had a headache from the tedium of peeling paint off and separating the little paint-stuck feathers, one by one, of each individual feather.
“There’s no hope for it, mate. You’re going to have to wash this stuff off.”
“I’ll stink up the house, they’re too heavy when they’re wet, and it takes forever for them to dry. Plus our tub isn’t big enough.” Clearly, Elijah had already been down this line of thought.
“We can live with the stink, I’ll bring you whatever you need, and we’ll get a humongo heat lamp. But we need a Jacuzzi—a really big one.”
“Vegas,” they said in unison.
An hour and several phone calls later, they had reserved the suite with the largest Jacuzzi available in all of Las Vegas and were on the road. The wings were going to have a bath.
########
Besides Elijah’s immediate family and a few very discrete medical personnel, the only one who knew about the wings was Billy. It was difficult to figure out how to bring it up, so they just didn’t. And then, it just became habit. Don’t tell.
There was an awkward moment at the MTV awards. Elijah tripped just a little going up the stairs to get the award. Sean was right behind him and put a hand out to steady him, a hand that landed squarely on his back, squarely on the wings, held down flat and tight under spongy athletic wrap. Elijah got a quick, questioning look, but he and Sean were children of Hollywood and it never even occurred to either of them to break out of their performance zone in front of all those people and cameras.
But as soon as they were off stage, away from the noise and attention, Sean focused on Elijah.
“Are you hurt?” A demand for answers.
Elijah knew that Sean was flashing back to the times that Orlando had withdrawn from the rest of them, clutching the pain pills doled out very carefully by the set medics. They had all grown used to seeing Orlando ease himself into the back brace after a day of horseback riding and stunts.
“No, I’m not hurt.”
“That’s not a back brace, then? There’s something there, Elijah. I felt it. What are you not telling me?”
“Sean, I’m fine. Really. Just let it go, okay?”
“No way, kiddo. Not until I know what’s wrong.”
Well, there was no hope for it then. He didn’t want to do this to Sean. He knew that Sean loved him and wanted to take care of him. But there was no way he was telling Sean about the wings. The guy would go ballistic. Some people, you know? They just can’t handle finding out their friends have wings. So he lied. He told Sean the one thing that Sean would not ever ask about again.
“Um, Sean, it’s well... It’s a Dom thing. You know? Sex stuff?”
Captain America went white and then red. ‘Pity he doesn’t have blue eyes,’ thought Elijah, watching the play of colors across his dear friend’s face, ‘it would be so patriotic.’
“God, Lij, you take that stuff out in public? To an event like this? What the hell are you thinking? And what the hell is it, anyway?”
“Oh, …it’s just a kind of harness thing. You see, what you do is…” Right on cue, just like he knew it would happen, Sean cut him off.
“Don’t tell me, okay? And, god, Lij, leave that stuff at home next time. Shit.” An embarrassed, flustered Sean went off the glad hand with people he could understand and control.
Elijah just looked at the guy he loved so much and snorted to himself. Then he went out to smoke a cigarette. After that, he had to find Billy. When he had started to trip on the stairs, the wings instinctively tried to flap to steady him and had shifted under the athletic wrap. If he didn’t get Billy to help him get the wings sorted out soon, he thought he was going to go insane. But first the cigarette. And then, tomorrow, he was planning on spending the entire day without a stitch of clothing anywhere near him. The whole fuckin’ day.
So they didn’t tell anyone else about the wings. But then, one day…
It was mid-morning. They had slept in after way too much fun involving booze and wingsex the night before. It was a good morning. A lazy morning. Just the two of them. Wandering around their house naked, totally comfortable with each other. Elijah had pulled on sweat bottoms because they were, as usual, out of milk. (Not that there wasn’t milk in the refrigerator, just that they were scared of it. The expiration date was days ago and Elijah had sworn that it had growled at him earlier when he had tried to throw it out.)
So he had gone to his mother’s house, across the lawn, to get the milk. And Dom had greeted him at the door as soon as he got back, holding a cup of coffee and a bagel. But Dom was still naked and Elijah was hungry and Dom was feeding him the bagel and rubbing up against him and the milk carton was cold when it came into contact with Dom’s bare stomach and then the hot coffee burned Elijah’s arm when Dom flinched and then they just somehow found themselves on the floor with Dom licking the coffee off Elijah’s arm and Elijah trying to nibble at Dom’s neck.
They ended up, as they always did, having sex. It wasn’t mind-blowing sex, they didn’t sob in ecstasy when they climaxed, neither would ever describe it as the best sex of their lives, but what it was, was good. Very satisfying, happily-married-couple kind of sex. Elijah needed the taste of Dom’s skin the way he needed air and water. Dom needed to feel Elijah’s breath against his neck if his day was to make sense. Sex allowed for each to sustain the other. It soothed ragged edges, filled in gaps, and heightened the joy of simply being alive and together. They didn’t have sex because they were horny (though they were) but because they were in love. Each time of union strengthened the bond of unspoken understanding between them. It wasn’t exactly making love; it wasn’t exactly fucking. It was sex, pure and simple and absolutely necessary.
And when Elijah felt Dom enter him, as his knees burned from being shoved against the carpet, as he opened up his body to allow his lover entrance, as he felt the pleasure grow and take over, when he felt Dom’s groin pressed hard against his ass, trembling, that was when the sensations of love, and happiness, and the intense physical pleasure of his orgasm blended into one overwhelming thought: Dom. And so he groaned out his love and pleasure with the name that meant everything to him, shuddering his own release as Dom came inside him.
The point here is that because of all this and then with the raging insistent demand for breakfast that only two healthy guys in their twenties could understand, the door did not get properly closed, to say nothing of being locked. So later, after breakfast and showers, as they lazed around their own little world, smug and naked still, flesh and feathers at peace with the world, they fell asleep on the couch, wrapped up in nothing but the flesh of the other, Elijah on top, the wings covering both of them.
It was one of those late morning naps, where you fall into an incredibly heavy sleep and muscles are made of water, weighted down with golden dreams. The kind of sleep where you don’t hear anything. Not steps coming up the stairs to your house. Not the knock on the door. Not the sound of the door being pushed open, since after all, it had not been closed properly in the first place. But it was not such a deep sleep that you could not hear the sound of someone yelling at you, practically in your ear.
Dom reacted a fraction of a second quicker than Elijah, which was unfortunate since Dom’s jerk sent Elijah sliding off and onto the floor with a thump. The wings flapped frantically but ineffectively since the trip from couch to floor was too short a distance for them to do much good. So there they both were, naked, Dom sitting up on the couch, grabbing at a pillow to cover his crotch, while Elijah was on the floor, on hands and knees, trying to get up, the wings fully expanded and beating wildly. Completely, totally exposed, bare ass, wings, and all. As if the wings realized this, they quickly stretched themselves down as far as they could, shielding Elijah’s naked butt from the intruder’s view.
“Sweet mother of god.” That was all the intruder had to say for quite a while, even after two cups of coffee, even after the guys were properly dressed, even after Elijah had allowed him to run his fingers over the feathers.
And that was the morning Viggo found out about Elijah’s wings.
#######
The drive to Las Vegas didn’t take long, just long enough for Elijah to eat three Slim-Jims, half a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips, one Nutrageous bar (keeping two others for later), half a package of Keebler chocolate fudge elf cookies (saving all the ones named Elwood and lining them up on the dashboard), drink a 64 oz. Big Gulp of Dr. Pepper, and smoke three cigarettes. Dom had a beer (even though he was driving), an apple, and a handful of chips (or crisps, depending on who was holding the bag).
When Elijah ripped open the second of his three Slim-Jims, Dom winced.
“You do realize that your breath reeks for the whole day after you eat one of those, don’t you?”
“Really? Hmm.” Unconcerned he tore off a hunk of the mystery meat and happily chewed away on it.
“I am not going to kiss you if you eat the rest of that.”
“’s’okay, we can just trade blowjobs, then.” He crammed the rest of it in his mouth and Dom could see the shape of the tubular snack poking out Eliajh’s cheek from the inside.
“Wanker.”
“Not if we do the blowjob thing. Your call. I’m good either way.” He took a big slurp of his soda, cutting his eyes at Dom while sucking in his cheeks and sliding the straw in and out, over his wet lips.
“Fine. Just brush your teeth when we get there, okay?”
“Okey-dokey, Pokey.”
Dom returned his gaze to the road. This was uniquely U.S. behavior and he so did not get it. Road trips, of even short duration, seemed to call for massive amounts of junk food and childish regressions. Enough to make a man appreciate the British rail system. Something classy about traveling by train. You took a book with you, not the entire candy aisle of the local convenience store. Then again…he reached out and grabbed an Elwood off the dashboard and popped it into his mouth. Gone in one bite. He turned to see Elijah staring at him in horror.
“You just ate CookieElwood!”
“Ummm, good CookieElwood. Wants another we does.”
“Gollum does not get to eat Elwood! Bad Gollum!” Elijah scooped the remaining Elwood cookies up and bundled them safely into a bag, shooting dark suspicious looks at Dom.
“Merry wants to eats Frodo, too.”
“Oh, that’s different. That’ll be nice.” And Elijah settled down and blew cigarette smoke out his window, smiling. He loved road trips.
They managed to get to the suite without hassle. Elijah was wearing a hockey jersey, several sizes too big for him that hung almost to his knees, but its bulkiness camouflaged the wings beautifully.
Dom took a minute to wander around, admiring the over-the-top luxuriousness of Vegas’ finest suite. Elijah, who had been around this kind of thing much longer than Dom, didn’t give it a second glance as he headed straight to the bathroom and started the water running in the Jacuzzi.
“Where’s the stuff?” he asked, returning to the living room. Dom had found the fruit basket and was already halfway through an apple. He pointed with it to the duffle bags they had brought in with them and then tossed on the bed.
“That’s your second apple today,” Elijah snorted, sorting through one of the bags.
“Apples are good,” Dom responded with a reproachful tone. How dare someone who had just eaten three tubes of plastic meat comment on his apple consumption.
“Beer. Gotta have beer.”
“Beer’s good, too. Toss me one, mate.”
The mini-bar divested itself of beer and Elijah plopped on the floor, grabbing the hotel phone and the pillows off the couch on his way down. He held up a beer for Dom and pushed the button for room service. Dom only half-listened as Elijah chatted away about beer options, but one phrase caught his ear. “Yeah, Triumphator, that’s good. Send up a couple of six packs, okay?”
Elijah hung up the phone, cracked open his own beer, and took a deep gulp.
“Expensive stuff you just ordered.”
“No problem. Viggo’s getting the bill. Besides, I thought you liked it.”
“Oh, I do. Just hard to get here in the States. Way overpriced.”
“Again, Viggo’s problem. Not ours.”
“To Viggo.” And Dom held up his beer in salute.
“Yeah. To the bastard who fucked up my wings.” And Elijah drained the bottle.
Beers finished and room service having been relieved of the new beers by Dom, Elijah returned to the duffle bags, sorting through the supplies. Bubble bath, plastic bath poufs, nail polish remover, dishwashing liquid, and a bottle of bleach. And lube. Because they never went anywhere without lube.
Elijah placed the lube in the top drawer of the bedside table and carried the other things into the bathroom. Turning off the water, he poured the bubble bath into the Jacuzzi and turned on the jets. As fragrant bubbles came into being, he shed his jeans and boxers, being already barefoot and shirtless, and slipped down into the deep, warm water.
The wings started to protest as they felt the water seeping into the feathers, but Elijah just held them down and slid further in. The manic mood of the road trip was being to fade, as was the stunned disbelief of earlier when he had first seen what had happened to his wings. He let himself slide further down and in, stretching out the full length of the tub, floating on his back. It was the biggest fuckin’ Jacuzzi he had ever seen.
He allowed himself to just float on the surface, wiggling the wings a bit under him, allowing the water to seep through them. It felt so strange to be on his back while he had wings. He could feel the pulse of the jets sending steams of water to collide with the wings, could feel the feathers being swished around. He tried flapping them a bit, there under the water and found himself bouncing along the surface of the water level.
But very quickly, as the wings absorbed the water, the weight of the wings increased greatly. Suddenly, he found himself scrambling with arms and legs to keep from being pulled under.
“Dom!” he called in a panicky voice, grabbing the side of the Jacuzzi and trying to pull himself upright. The water-logged wings were useless now and pulled at him, dragging him under.
“DOM!”
Dom came running and grabbed Elijah around the waist and pulled him upright, settling him on one of the submerged seats at the side of the tub. Water was streaming from the wings in a torrent.
“Shit, just how much water did they take in?” Dom was already completely soaked, but he wasn’t about to turn loose of Elijah, wet and slippery as he may be.
“Gallons. Half the ocean. Don’t know.” Elijah was breathing hard and he took a shaky swallow, pushing his face away from where it had rested on Dom’s chest. “Fuck, that scared the shit out of me.”
“Here, sit up on the side while I get my clothes off. Then I’ll hold you up when you get back in.”
“Gonna drip water all over the floor,” Elijah warned.
“So we’ll have them bring some more towels. Then again,” he said, looking around the bathroom at the dozen or more towels adorning every surface, folding into elegant fans, “maybe not.”
“Get the stuff before you get in,” Elijah said, still shaken.
Dom placed the duffle of supplies at the foot of the tub and stepped inside. The water was warm and the bubbles still fragrant. Dom slid in and immediately rolled onto this back, stretching out in an unknowing mirror of Elijah’s earlier position. Elijah just glared, then shrugged philosophically. Or, rather, tried to shrug but found his movements limited by the water-logged weight of his wings.
“Ready for me?”
“Sure thing.” And Dom dunked his head all the way under, rolling over in the water, diving down and quickly resurfacing. “This is brilliant!”
“Some of us almost drowned a minute ago, remember?”
“Sorry, love.”
Shooting Dom a look of unmistakable trepidation, Elijah slid off the side and back down into the water, grabbing hold of Dom’s shoulders. He wrapped his legs around Dom’s waist and allowed Dom to back him up against the jets. Again he felt the sensation of the water pulsating through the feathers. It felt weird.
“Let’s come back and do this again when I don’t have wings, okay?”
“Yah, there is a definite wealth of possibilities here.” Dom captured Elijah’s mouth with his own, allowing the water to buffet them in the water.
But as the wings soaked up more water, Dom found Elijah getting harder to hold upright.
“Shit, man, you’re getting heavy.”
Panicked, Elijah broke loose and lunged for the railing along the side. “Let’s just get ‘em washed, okay?” He knelt on his knees on the steps, gripping the rail. Once again, water streamed from the wings as he pulled himself above the water level.
“Yeah, baby. I’m not sure this was such a great idea.”
“Nah, it’ll work. Just need to not fool around. Start soaping ‘em, okay?
Dom leaned over the edge and sorted through the supplies. “What do you want to start with? Dishwashing soap or shampoo?
“Dishwashing soap. It’ll probably work faster and I just want to get this over with.”
“Okay, here goes. This is acrylic paint, right?”
“So Viggo said, but who knows what he used once he got into it. Bastard.”
Dom managed not to say anything about Elijah also getting so caught up that he didn’t stop Viggo until the damage had been done.
He squirted a big glob of soap on one of the heaviest splatters of paint. Then he drizzled the liquid detergent over most of the other spots he saw on the wing he was working on. He was somewhat relieved to notice that little runnels of color were already making their way down the length of the feathers. He splashed some water on the trails of color, wanting to make sure that the tracks were not staining the white feathers and was further relieved to see that the water was keeping the paint from staining as it washed away.
Elijah had insisted on the bleach, saying he wanted his wings to be white again, but Dom worried how the bleach would react with the feathers. Elijah rarely did his own laundry and had probably never used bleach in his life. Dom suspected that all Elijah knew about bleach was that it made things white. Dom suspected that all Elijah knew about bleach he had learned from commercials.
Dom rubbed feathers between his palms, massaging away at paint clumps.
“Lean back, baby, I need to keep them in the water.”
Elijah muttered something, but Dom didn’t catch it. He held onto Elijah’s hips as Elijah arched back, lowering the wings into the tub, keeping a death grip on the railing.
“I’ve got you, it’s okay.” Dom was on his knees in the water, braced to receive the weight of the wings. Between the two of them, they could do this.
The water turned pink and blue and ultimately, grey. They drained the tub and refilled it before Dom called a break. For one thing, little bits of broken feathers were clogging the drain and he needed to dig them out, but he didn’t want to leave Elijah cold and shivering while he did it. For another, he was exhausted. They simply had not counted on how heavy the wings would be and his thighs were beginning to cramp from holding onto Elijah.
He went into the main room and grabbed the spread off the bed. He also grabbed two of the fancy German beers from the mini-bar. When he returned to the bathroom, Elijah was looking over his shoulder at the wings in the mirror. It wasn’t an overly encouraging sight. While the paint clumps and bits of glue were gone, the stains were not and, even wet, one could tell that the wings had been roughed up.
“Poor things. You guys don’t look so hot.”
Dom always found it a little disturbing when Elijah talked to the wings. He found it even more disturbing when Elijah seemed to think the wings talked back.
“Here, let’s get you as dry as possible.” Dom folded the spread several times and made a pallet on the floor with it. He then spread towels on top of it and motioned for Elijah to lie down. Towels were placed under the wings, absorbing the water as it dripped from the wings. Dom flipped on the massive overhead heat lamp and sat down beside Elijah, drying him off with a towel.
“Umm, feels good.”
“It ought to. I’m spoiling you rotten, here.”
“Nah, man. I deserve it. It’s been a bad day.”
Dom didn’t say anything but steadily worked at drying the feathers. He pressed each one of the long feathers between dry towels, one by one. He had only gotten through one wing when it became very clear that they were going to need more towels after all. Housekeeping would freak at the thought that they had only been in the room for little under two hours and had already gone through twelve towels. On the other hand, for fifteen hundred quid a night, Housekeeping could bloody well give them all the towels they wanted.
He gave up on drying the wings for the moment and set about drying Elijah’s flesh. He straddled Elijah’s ass and reached over to get a hold of one of his feet. With a dry corner of a towel, Dom wicked the moisture away between Elijah’s toes. He heard a sleepy giggle as he wedged the towel in between Elijah’s little toe and fourth toe. Evil thoughts of a sexual nature sprang up. He bent Elijah’s leg at a sharper angle and bent over to flick his tongue between Elijah’s big toe and second toe. His effort was reward by a violent twitch and squeak but he was braced for it and just rode out the half-hearted attempt to buck him off.
“Fucker.” But the protest was a sleepy one and Dom ignored it. He leaned back in and sucked the entire big toe into his mouth. His reward was a giggle and the feel of a squirming ass under his hips. He scooted down a bit, wiggling the cheeks of his own ass against Elijah’s.
“Kinky,” came a muffled, sleepy response from the other end of the body Dom was fondling with his ass.
“Like it?”
“hmmm”
Dom reached for the duffle and rooted through it, hunting for a particular item.
“Hey, Lij, where’s the lube?”
“Don’t want it. Wanna sleep.”
“Fine, but where’s the lube?”
“Yes, but why is all the rum gone?”
“Git. Stop quoting Orli’s movies. You know the rule.” Dom delivered a light slap on Elijah’s bare ass.
“Fucker, stop it. And it wasn’t Orli’s line so it’s okay.”
“Nope, no line from any of his movies.”
“Okay, now see, that’s a new rule. So you have to take back the slap.”
“Like this?” And Dom bend down and kissed the spot he has just slapped. He received the softest purr for his efforts and took that as encouragement. He stuck his tongue out and lapped at the spot, then pressed his mouth fully against the skin and suckled it.
“You’re giving me an ass hickey?” Elijah pulled himself up on his elbows and looked over his shoulder at the activity happening behind him. Since Dom was facing backwards and was bent over him, sucking on the plump flesh of his ass, he blinked a bit to find that his entire field of vision consisted of Dom’s ass. He admired the view for a moment and then contentedly put his head back down, wiggling a bit at the sensation of having his ass cheek sucked on.
He wasn’t a hundred percent sure he liked it but thought he needed more data before making a decision. When Dom’s tongue started moving more toward the center, Elijah smiled and allowed everything to shut down in his mind so he could concentrate on the glorious sensations Dom was eliciting down there. If Dom kept this up, Elijah thought he might have to reconsider his stance on being too sleepy for sex. Then again, he yawned hugely and cradled his head on his folded arms. Dom took the hint and planted two kisses, one per cheek, then stood up.
With a final toweling over Elijah’s wet hair, what little there was of it, Dom gathered up several of the sopping wet towels, and went to call Housekeeping. He waited for them to show up, handing back the armful of wet towels to the poor maid who just looked a little confused. Dom gave her a big tip and the woman left, richer but no wiser.
Dom replaced the wet towels under the wings with dry ones, Elijah mumbling something but not really waking up. Then Dom retired to the bed to channel surf and drink the excellent German beer, provided courtesy of one Viggo Mortensen. He idly wondered if Viggo even knew about the Vegas trip but fell asleep before he could decide if it mattered.
An hour later, Dom heard Elijah calling him for the bathroom. When he got there, he saw Elijah sitting up in the pile of towels and bedspread, examining his still wet wings.
“They’re stained.”
“It’ll wear off.”
“Get the nail polish remover.”
And so began round two of Operation Wing Recovery.
Two and half hours later, Elijah took a sleeping pill and some aspirin. Dom looked askance at the combination, but Elijah just glared at him from red-rimmed bleary eyes and chugged them down with some water. “It fuckin’ hurts, okay?”
The fumes in the bathroom were pretty bad. But the wings looked much better. A bit of a pastel rainbow effect still going on, but it added a nice Maxfield Parrish feel. Dom had managed to say that with a totally straight face. He wasn’t sure Elijah bought it or had just given up and was willing to accept that his current state was as good as it was going to get. Neither of them made any mention at all of the ragged state of the feathers, the little broken bits that stuck out still in all directions.
They had quickly gone through the one bottle of polish remover they had brought with them and the front desk had been very accommodating (and discreet) in getting them six more bottles. Plus about twenty more towels. At the rate Dom was tipping, he was going to have to leave their wet-feather-reeking sanctuary and sally forth to find an ATM machine. And he was taking Elijah’s cash card with him when he went.
Room service had brought them enough provisions to last a couple of days. More beer had been ordered and the mini-bar was well stocked. They had made it through one final bath, which was a good thing because the tub was a gummy mess by this point. But all the polish remover and shampoo and detergent had been thoroughly washed away and the wings were, more or less, pure once again.
They both had wrinkled skin, they both had headaches from the smell, they were both exhausted, and Elijah’s back muscles were beginning to spasm from trying to support the extra weight of the water retained by the feathers. He was stretched out once again on the bedspread from the bed--a new one, since the old one was soaked through and had been carted off by the willfully blind housekeeping staff. Elijah was safely hidden away in the bathroom so he didn’t have to deal with putting on a serene smile while handing over mountains of wet, smelly towels and bedspreads.
Dom grabbed half a turkey croissant sandwich from the trolley and took it and a soda in to the bathroom.
“Hey, Lij, want something to eat?”
He stopped in the doorway, just looking at his lover, sleeping soundly, snoring softly, wings slowly drying. He smiled at the image before him and returned to the bedroom, chewing on the sandwich he had intended for Elijah. A disgruntled, stained angel was still an angel and he would let his angel sleep.
########
The sound of clinking dishes and the television woke him up. Elijah was sitting on the floor, eating and watching the History Channel. As Dom sat up blinking and stretching, he watched the show with Elijah, slowly coming to the realization that the program was about Rasputin. At the sound of his yawns and stretches, Elijah said, “I could so totally play Rasputin.”
Given that Dom had fallen asleep wrapped up in the idea that Elijah was his angel, this was a bit abrupt. Then, again, Elijah was right. He could definitely play Rasputin. Might even make the guy’s magnetism finally understandable.
Dom wandered over and sat down behind Elijah, spooning him back against his chest, wiggling a bit to get around the wings. Dom ran his hand over them, checking the drying process. He wondered how long he had been asleep. Still damp but not soppy any more. They still smelled like wet feathers though so he buried his nose in Elijah’s neck, breathing in the scent of his lover. Elijah just twitched a little and continued to eat his sandwich, staring intently at the television.
Dom lifted his head enough to watch the program. As various photographs and drawing were flashed on the screen, Dom could sense Elijah manipulating his facial features into approximations of the televised images.
“Stop working.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t it be great? I could do a Russian accent and everything!”
“Thought Rasputin had black eyes. Really dark, ya know?”
“I can make mine go dark. And it would be a cool use of ‘em, like evil eyes. That’d be awesome.”
“No you can’t.”
“Can too.”
Dom just sighed and leaned over to snag some of the turkey out of Elijah’s forgotten sandwich.
“What? You don’t think I could do it?”
“No, baby, I’m sure you could.”
“You don’t sound convinced. Did you know that Christopher Lee played Rasputin? It would be great to do something he once did.”
“Just…I guess I thought you’d be thinking about theatre, that’s all.”
“I can’t do that. I do film.”
“You could do theatre. You should try it.”
“Nah, that’s your thing. Yours and Billy’s. I do film.”
“You could do both. Billy and I do.”
“Drop it, Dom.” An uncomfortable silence hung around the room. Elijah chewed at the sandwich and watched the program. Dom sat back from being spooned around him and rested on the palm of his hands.
When a commercial came on, Elijah said without looking at him, “You should go out. Lose some money. Take in a show. There’s no reason for you to stay in just because I have to.”
Dom thought about refusing, he had hoped they would fool around and try out the great big bed. But Elijah was in a weird mood. Dom knew he shouldn’t have pushed about stage acting. Elijah ran hot and cold about it. Sometimes he was enthusiastic and talked as if it were the main thing he wanted to do next and sometimes, like now, he dismissed it and got pissy if Dom pushed even the least bit. But the damage was done and Dom really didn’t feel like just sitting around and watching TV. Not while in Vegas. Didn’t make much sense. And Elijah wasn’t being very welcoming right now, anyway.
Dom stood up and stretched. “Yeah, I think I will. Gonna grab a quick shower and head out. I’ll only be gone an hour or so.”
“Whatever. Go enjoy yourself.” Elijah was back to watching the program, acting as if it held all of his attention. Acting. Dom knew better but he was in a bit of a weird mood himself. Probably just that they both had headaches from breathing too many polish remover fumes. Maybe a couple hours away from each other would do them both good.
He kissed Elijah on the top of his head when he left. All he got in return was a mumbled, “Bye” barely audible over the sound of the television.
#####
Much later than he had intended, he stumbled back to the room, entering quietly, warned by the darkness that Elijah was probably sleeping. He navigated the room without turning on the lights, bumping into a table and tripping over the phone, that was, for some reason, on the floor. Cringing against the clattering, he fumbled to the bed, making shushing noises and patting along its edges, trying to determine where Elijah was.
“Dom?” He heard Elijah’s voice calling to him from the bathroom and he turned to follow the sound of the door opening.
Dom could only stare, the alcohol buzz burning off as his breath caught in his chest and the blood rocketed from his brain to his cock. Elijah stood naked before him, the wings out to their full span. The muted light from the bathroom spilled out, illuminating Elijah from behind, surrounding him in an aura of otherworldliness. It was the most beautiful sight that Dom had ever seen.
He didn’t remember crossing the room, only aware of kneeling before his winged lover, arms wrapped around Elijah’s waist, head cradled against Elijah’s stomach.
“I love you,” he whispered, nuzzling and licking, then lowering his head to take Elijah’s cock fully into his mouth. And there in the semi-darkness, he worshipped his angel.
####
Dom had felt oddly shy when he woke up. Elijah slept beside him, as always, stretched out on his stomach, and covered by the wings. The image brought back the memories of the night before and the unexpected passion behind their lovemaking. But then, Elijah had stirred and greeted him with a big smile and a demand for breakfast and the mood was broken. If Elijah hadn’t noticed anything unusual about the night before, then maybe Dom had just imagined it. He decided not to mention it because if he had been alone in the intensity of his feelings last night, he really didn’t want to know it.
They stopped at the front desk to settle the bill and Dom was surprised to see Elijah pay for the room with his own credit card.
“Thought we were sticking Viggo with this one?”
“Nah. I thought of something better.”
Dom was a little relieved since he knew that Viggo was always surprisingly short of cash. Most of his money went into projects apparently. Elijah, on the other hand, was loaded and could more easily afford the bill they had racked up. Dom was curious if they had been charged an extra fee for all the towels but Elijah just folded the bill up and tucked it away in his billfold. If Elijah was okay with the charges, then it really didn’t matter, did it?
The drive back was mellow. Elijah only drank a soda and ate cherry licorice strings. The music blasted away and they didn’t talk about anything important. The drive seemed short and they returned home content. All in all, thought Dom, a good ending to the most recent wing crisis. And if Dom simply forgot that Elijah still wanted his revenge on Viggo, then that was just one of those things, wasn’t it?
Two weeks later…
“Go shower. Hurry. We’re going to be late.”
“Late for what? Where’re we goin?”
“Viggo’s. Hurry, go!”
“Why’re we goin’ there?”
“Just shower, okay?”
So Dom showered, wondering what the fuck was up with Elijah. And on the drive over, he kept wondering, because Elijah would not quit fidgeting. CDs kept being shoved in and then yanked out, Elijah driving with only one hand and one eye on the freeway while he flipped through his collection, hunting but never finding.
“So,” Elijah chattered, “remember Vegas? With the wings and all that shit?”
“You mean the Vegas of two weeks ago? Yeah, mate, I remember it.”
“Fucker. But, remember how that night,…you know?”
What Dom remembered about that night was how Elijah had looked silhouetted against the light, how the wings had shone with unnatural aura, how beautiful his lover had been, how the lovemaking had brought him to tears of joy and love. He also remembered how Elijah had seemed so unaffected the next morning and he had thought he would cry again at the sense of isolation that seized him when he thought that he had been alone in experiencing one of the most exquisite moments of his life.
“Yeah, I guess. Why?,” was all he said.
“Well, it seemed kinda…you know?”
“Lij, what the fuck are you on about?”
“Well, it’s just that…it was…you know…kinda great and all and I decided that that was how Viggo could make it up for the wings, you know?”
Dom turned and just stared. Dumbfounded. Discombobulated. Horrified. “You’re gonna have sex with Viggo for fucking up the wings!?! Are you out of your fucking mind!” He knew he was yelling, screaming even, but …shit!
Elijah jerked at the screams coming at him and both Dom and he grabbed the steering wheel at the same time to keep the car from veering off the road. A passing car honked at them and the driver glared.
“Pull over, Lij. Now.”
Shaking, whether from being yelled at or from almost wrecking the car, Dom didn’t know and didn’t really care, Elijah carefully signaled, and with exaggerated care pulled the car onto the shoulder and turned off the ignition.
“Wow. Where did ‘that’ come from?” Elijah had turned to look at Dom and was glaring at him. Dom was flabbergasted. Elijah was mad at him? What the fuck did he think he would do—just pat him on the shoulder and tell him to go enjoy himself. Sure, mate, have a nice revenge fuck. Oh, and why am I here, again? Hell yeah, he’d yelled and he wasn’t about to be done yelling any time soon.
“I don’t wanna fuck Viggo, dude. That’s like…totally messed up!”
“Then what the bloody hell are you talking about?”
“I thought you liked it when the wings were all lit up. I thought we could do it again, you know, ‘cause it was so hot and all and Viggo could do the lighting and then since we’d be there and all, and it’s Viggo, and he’s cool, like, you know, and then, you know, if you wanted, what with the lights already being there and all, that, you know, right?”
Dom’s mouth hung open. On some level he was aware of that fact but he couldn’t muster the brain cells needed to get his mouth to snap shut because the brain right now was overloaded trying to figure out what all the babble coming from Elijah meant. Dom was good at languages. He knew how to read and write. He could understand long, difficult texts. He’d even read a bit of Hegel in the original German. But he’d be damned if he could find any meaning in what Elijah had just said.
“What?” Was the best he could come up with.
“Photos. Of the wings. And us. Doing it, you know…”
Oh. Oh, fuck. Oh my god! That was what Elijah was so nervous about? Dom finally managed to get his mouth shut.
“I’m not setting this up very well, am I? See, I just thought that since you seemed to like it so much, that Viggo could make it up to the wings by taking photos of us. But we don’t have to? Really. I’m so sorry, Dom. Please? I’m sorry. Dom?”
“Once again,” said Dom, holding his aching head, “from the top.”
Elijah took a deep and shaky breath. “I wanted to recreate that night in Vegas. You really liked the wings that night, right? ‘Cause the sex was really, you know, special somehow, and it seemed like the way the wings looked really turned you on and I wanted to see if Viggo could get them to look that way again and then…” And here, Elijah ran out of explanatory steam.
“You want Viggo to shoot us doing it,” Dom muttered into his hands.
“Well…yeah. I guess. Or not. Whatever. But, kinda…yeah.” And then, very quietly, “I thought you’d be into it.”
“Kinky, mate. Very kinky.”
“But we like kink, right?”
Dom looked over and saw a very red-faced, uncomfortable Elijah, mercilessly tearing at hangnails with his teeth.
“And Viggo agreed to this?”
“Well, yeah, he’s still feeling really guilty about art-fucking the wings. At this point, I could get him to do pretty much anything, so yeah, he agreed.”
“But this? Shit, Lij, we’d being doing it in front of Viggo!”
“But, not really, I mean, he’d be doing the artist thing, so it wouldn’t be just regular Viggo. It’d be different, sorta.”
“Well, it would be different, I’ll give you that.”
“Look, it was just an idea. Forget it. Let’s go home.”
“Hey, wait a minute. Give me time to adjust to this.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, really. I’m coming around. You just kinda hit me with this all at once.”
“We don’t have to. It’s okay.”
“Nah, if you want to, I’m game. I think.”
“But, Dom…you’re missing the whole point!”
“What?”
“It’s for you. I don’t want to do this. I thought you would, ‘cause of the wings and the sex and all that stuff.”
“Tell me about what you think happened that night, Lij. What about the wings and the sex and all that stuff?” Dom had a tight pain in his chest. He was pretty sure it wasn’t a heart attack because he was too young and in good health, but there had to be some reason why he couldn’t catch his breath. He’d been so sure that Elijah hadn’t experienced anything special that night. Maybe some high energy sex but that had seemed about it. Nothing like the revelation Dom had been through.
“Sblom, you cried.”
Oh.
“And I want to give that to you again. With the pictures to prove it.”
Oh. Oh, fucking hell Oh.
“Come on, man, start the car. Viggo’s waiting.” And Dom was able to breath again. Elijah reached over and gently kissed him, then started the car and pulled back into the traffic.
#######
Viggo had greeted them and shown them to the studio. Grey silk sheets on a plain bed in the center of the room, space around it on all sides. Lights and canopies and cameras. He had poured them wine and then left. They were awkward and self-conscious, as they undressed, neither looking at the other. But when Dom heard Elijah crawl onto the bed and turned to look at him kneeling among the silk, wings expanded to their full span, Dom fell. He tumbled into a space that contained nothing but Elijah. Elijah was in his arms, kissing him deeply, his tongue in Dom’s mouth, filling him. Nothing existed but the smells and tastes that were the most familiar in the world and always completely new and wondrous. A part of his brain was aware when Viggo came back into the room. He heard, but didn’t care, equipment being moved, shutters clicking. Even with his eyes closed, he could sense the changes in lighting. And then there was a flash.
He held Elijah’s face in both his hands, tilting his head to get his tongue as deeply into Elijah’s mouth as he could.
*flash*
He arched Elijah back, holding him about his waist, pulling his hips against his, lowering his head, sticking his tongue out to barely lick a nipple.
*flash*
He suckled on Elijah’s breast, bending him back, holding him securely. The wings fell artlessly down Elijah’s back and folded into the silk coverings.
*flash*
Elijah knelt on elbows and knees, face turned on the pillow, eyes heavy with lust.
*flash*
Dom was on his knees, behind Elijah, leaning forward, running his hands up and down Elijah’s back.
*flash*
The wings were raised, bordering Dom on both sides. He looked up and saw the camera.
*flash*
Elijah shifted, angling his ass higher, Dom bent down.
*flash*
He pushed the palm of his hands against the fleshy rounded cheeks, kneading them up and apart.
*flash*
Elijah’s ass was being held open, Dom’s tongue was sticking out its full length. He paused before allowing his tongue to come in contact with the hot flesh of Elijah’s opening.
*flash*
As Dom’s tongue entered him, as Dom’s hands pulled his ass open even further, Elijah gasped and gripped the pillow.
*flash*
The wings buffeted Dom as he sucked and tongued, opening up Elijah, preparing him.
*flash*
Dom straightened up, his thumb sliding in to keep the sense of fullness in Elijah once he removed his tongue.
*flash*
He poured the lube down the hollow of Elijah’s back and trickled it down the cleft. Elijah shivered at the coldness.
*flash*
Dom slathered the lube on his cock, stroking himself, coating the entire length.
*flash*
He moved closer, nudging Elijah’s hips wider apart by pressing his thighs against Elijah’s inner thighs. Elijah spread himself, one hand snaking under his belly, reaching for his cock.
*flash*
The wings beat against Dom, touching him everywhere, everywhere that Elijah could not reach. He felt their flutter on his arms, his thighs, even on his feet, bent behind him.
*flash*
He positioned his cock against Elijah’s entrance. The wings were beating in long, hard swoops. When the wings were at their highest upsweep, he thrust in hard.
*flash*
Elijah’s face was twisted in ecstasy. His hands fisting pillows and sheets, pulling, mewling, thrusting back into the pounding.
*flash*
Dom yelled as his release came upon him suddenly, his hands twitching and grabbing Elijah’s hips, struggling to keep their bodies sealed together.
*flash*
He collapsed forward, panting heavily onto Elijah’s neck. Frantic, he slid his hands around and under Elijah’s belly, pushing his hands out of the way, taking Elijah’s erection in his own hands, stroking his lover to completion.
*flash*
Elijah’s orgasm came hard, and the wings expanded themselves to their full length, towering over the both of them.
*flash*
Elijah’s arms gave out and he groaned as he fell against the sheets. Dom leaned back and rested on his heels for a moment before stretching out and lying down beside Elijah, shifting to get under him. Elijah curled up against Dom’s chest, arms tucked up between them. The wings stretched out the length of his body, covering them both.
*flash*
Dom smiled as he felt sleep over take him.
*flash*
/////////////////
He didn’t know how long he had slept. He stretched slightly, feeling good in that moment between dreams and life. Elijah still slept, tucked against his side. As he looked around the room, wondering where Viggo was and how long they had been there, he spied a manila folder propped up on a small table across the room. In large black letters, it said “DOM AND ELIJAH.” He stirred to get out of bed and Elijah mumbled in his sleep. Kissing the top of his head to settle his lover back down into dreams, Dom slid out of the bed and padded over to pick up the folder.
Inside were dozens of photographs and the complete set of negatives. He took the packet back to the bed and began to look through them. His embarrassed winces at the first couple of photos soon ceased as the power of the images took hold.
Dom ceased being aware of anything except the photo he held in his hands, the last photo in the group. He must have already fallen asleep when it was taken for he had no memory of it. Elijah was sitting cross-legged in middle of the bed and he held Dom cradled up against his body. The wings were hovering over both of them, hiding much of their naked bodies in shadows. The lighting behind the wings was perfect, an exact recreation of that moment of exquisite beauty from the hotel room in Las Vegas. All that was clearly illuminated in the photo was Elijah’s face as he looked down at Dom, sleeping in his arms. But what Dom could not stop staring at was the expression on Elijah’s face, gazing at him as if he were the most wonderful thing Elijah had ever seen. And there, in the photo, forever visible, were tears running down Elijah’s face.
~finis~