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Twelve drummers drumming: This Is Your New Thing Now

Billy is once again up with the dawn, though this time it’s not of his choosing. The snow must have turned to rain at some point overnight, and it’s been drumming angrily on the roof and windows for hours now, first startling Billy from his sleep and then leaving him feeling childishly petulant. Rain means the paths up the hill behind the house will be more dangerous than the ones down the hill last night, and the walk he’s wanted most to take this week, the last walk he, Dominic and Elijah will take before leaving Penrith, is not likely to occur.

That may not be such a bad thing, though, Billy decides. He’s rattled after so many days and nights in a row with them, after so much time spent circling around the problems and questions that almost three years of friendship have yet to fix or answer. And his body feels wrecked in good and bad ways, covered in bruises that just haven’t surfaced. Billy knows he’ll need several weeks by himself in Glasgow to recover from all of this, and he smiles to think of the old adage of needing a holiday from a holiday turning into truth right before his eyes.

Elijah grunts in his sleep and rolls to his back, and Billy turns to look at him, casting his eyes up and down the pale expanse of skin from his neck to his stomach, to the fine dark hair below his navel that you wouldn’t notice unless you’d been rather intimately acquainted with Elijah’s body, which of course Billy is. Last night, after Dominic and Elijah had found a way to keep Billy both awake and calm, Billy had seen—well, noticed—more of Elijah than he’d ever bothered to before. He’d fucked Elijah’s outrageously talented mouth, guided Dominic to return the favour to Elijah, and then allowed Elijah to watch Dominic fuck him, for real this time, not as a hidden party hoping not to be caught. Later, after they’d found their collective breath, Billy had pushed Elijah gently to his back and settled Dominic above him, breathing only the faintest suggestions to Elijah as to how best to send Dominic spinning out of control, raising and lowering himself on Elijah’s cock as Elijah paced him and Billy watched lazily from the pillows, his hand drifting once again between his legs and just stroking there, waiting for Dominic to meet his eyes, which of course he had.

It will be a long while before Dominic surfaces from sleep, Billy thinks as he turns to watch him again. And even when he does, Dominic will be in no condition for a long walk. For a moment Billy weighs the option of waking Elijah, just for the company, but it seems churlish somehow, when Elijah’s sleeping so heavily. That he now feels he can extend close to the same courtesy to both Dominic and Elijah amuses Billy, and he smiles down on them before he runs his hand through Elijah’s hair, and his lips over Dominic’s forehead. It’s with sleepy regret that he leaves them, but he’s been in the middle of the bed for too long now.

He should go get the makings for breakfast, Billy knows, but stepping over the creek and padding through mud isn’t appealing. Instead he pulls on a pair of someone’s flannel pyjama bottoms and yawns his way to the kitchen, nothing more on his mind than coffee and a lot of it. While it brews, Billy hears the thump of something falling outside the kitchen door, and he stares at the door in tired, foggy curiosity before going to open it and peering down at the newspaper like it’s an alien being.

They’ve been cut off the from the world all week, but the world hasn’t stopped without them, and if the world can be counted on for something, it’s a heavy, lavishly printed Sunday newspaper. Billy brings it inside, taking a second to glare up at the rainy sky, and tosses it to the table for slow enjoyment once the coffee’s made. When he finally sits down and opens the rolled up weight, Billy’s surprised to find that there are actually several different papers inside, each one splashed with the same stories, just handled differently, from the staid headlines of the Times to the distorted, block white and yet still strangely lurid screams of the Sun. Billy puts the papers in order of preference, from Times to Observer to Mirror to Guardian to Mail to Sun, and then reconsiders, shifting the Mirror to the top of the pile. He peeks around the corner of the kitchen, just to be sure no one’s watching, and opens up the paper eagerly, looking for scandal and sport.

What he finds instead would ordinarily make Billy’s stomach churn a little, but now makes him smile and blush. “We’re off to Baggins a pheasant,” the headline reads, and Billy shakes his head at the crap pun and the accompanying picture. Elijah looks like a gentrified prat more ready for a horse than a gun, and Dominic looks … well, like Dominic, trying to hide truly incredible bed–hair under that hideous Old Skool hat and holding his rifle as if he can’t wait to drop it. Billy tries very hard not to stare at himself, between them as always (but as always closer to Dominic) and standing there looking like Andy Capp before he married Florrie, except with a friend’s dog at his feet instead of a pigeon cage.

Other pictures had been taken while they had enjoyed the tea break and indulged the few photographers and journalists who’d bothered to chase them down, and Billy imagines he’ll see variations of them as he leafs through the other papers, but the Mirror’s added photographs of them in their Hobbit guises as well, so readers will understand why they should give a fuck about these three idiots. The caption certainly doesn’t elaborate much on what’s going on, beyond sharing with the world how Billy had bagged three pheasants, and Billy laughs some more to think of how many he’d missed. He folds the paper open to the page to show Dominic and Elijah later, and loses himself for the next two hours in the rest of the papers, staining his fingers with ink and loving every minute of the peace and quiet—the chance to slowly reacquaint himself with life outside of Penrith instead of being thrust back into it kicking and screaming.

Elijah comes out of the late morning ether first, holding his glasses in front of him as he tries to remember how to put them on and failing miserably. Billy gets up to make more coffee, and it’s bubbling happily when the table creaks and Elijah lets out a hoot of laughter.

“Took you a ridiculous amount of time to notice that, Elijah.”

“Baggins a pheasant. Shit. I love you people.”

“I am not ‘you people,’ you uneducated fuck. Dominic is ‘you people.’ Bean is ‘you people’—“

“I get it, I get it.” Elijah snaps the paper open, scanning the tiny article. “What is this shit? You’re not a beginner. You said you’ve been hunting since you were a teenager. Did you fucking lie to us?”

“No, I lied to them,” Billy shrugs. “I only got three birds, Elijah. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

Elijah stares at Billy for a moment, then breaks into laughter again. “You’re such an ass, Billy.”

“A very fine one, at that. Here,” Billy slides the coffee to Elijah and nods him toward the stack of papers Billy’s already finished. “Learn something.”

“New every day,” Elijah singsongs in reply. “We still going for that walk?”

It’s Billy’s turn to stare. “I thought—the weather’s crap, Elijah, have you looked outside?”

“Not really, but, you know, it’s almost always crap here, and I—“ he shrugs. “I don’t mind, I guess. You were excited about it. We gonna stay here all day just because of a little rain? This is England. If you people—“

“Elijah—“

“Stayed inside whenever it rained, you’d turn grey. And the population would skyrocket, I bet, like in Alaska and Norway every summer after people have been, like, stuck indoors all winter, just watching television and fucking—“

“Elijah.” Billy throws his hands in the air. “For Christ’s sake, just drink your coffee. I’ll think about it, alright?”

“Awesome.” Elijah disappears behind the Guardian, and Billy thinks he could manage that walk to the henhouse after all.

Another hour and a half passes, and they’ve eaten breakfast, cleared up the dishes and folded the newspaper back into a proper stack, and Dominic’s still asleep. Billy stands in the hallway and frowns, shifting his expression back into a smile when Elijah’s arms come around his waist and his chin sits on Billy’s shoulder.

“He’s out like a light, man. Maybe we should go without him. Just leave a note or something.”

“Are you mad?” Billy snorts, but again not unpleasantly. “We’d never hear the end of it. Like we’d taken his toys from him, like that flute he found yesterday.”

“Ah, yeah,” Elijah says, his voice a little shaky. “The, ah, flute. It’s—he thinks he dropped it. In the snow.”

Billy turns in Elijah’s arms, the colour drained from his face. “What—when? He had it just last night; that’s how I found you, because he was playing—what happened?”

Elijah swallows, bobs his head as if he’s trying to answer a particular vexing interview question. “Well, you, ah, when you went off on Dom, he must have dropped it, and then we had to get moving. He didn’t even notice until we got back here.”

“He didn’t tell me.” Billy stares openmouthed at Elijah. “Why—when did he tell you?”

“After you went to bed. After he, ah, put you to bed, I guess. I was just going to bring us something to drink, and he came into the kitchen and told me.”

Billy blinks and stays silent for a moment, waiting for his breathing to return to normal, and then he meets Elijah’s eyes. “Get some boots on, Elijah.”

“Billy, he’s not angry. And we’re never gonna find it. Shit happens, man.”

“Not to him,” Billy snaps, already moving down the hall. “Not like this.” And not because of me.

::

It takes more than a few minutes for Billy to reorient himself to the trail leading back down to the pub. Elijah had scribbled a note for Dominic—after promising Billy that he wouldn’t mention the real reason for their errand—and then joined Billy on the path, trying to keep up. Billy scans the stones and moss at his feet like a bloodhound now, grateful for the rain washing the snow away into grey slush that hides little.

Billy’s under no illusion that finding a piece of wood, however pretty, on the ground will be easy. But between himself and Elijah, it will be found, and brought back to Dominic with the most fervent apologies Billy’s ever given anyone. An hour into the search, Elijah sits on the more comfortable edge of a large, jagged rock and sighs, finding his cigarettes and staring up at the gunmental sky. Billy doesn’t acknowledge the sound or the smoke, absorbed by the way the path shifts in odd places. Shortcuts, he thinks, and remembers more of the walk home from the pub, more of the hours in bed. He shakes his head to clear it and walks a little further, concentrating fiercely on the smoother, worn stones below him.

When he sees it, when he finally catches sight of the flute on the ground next to the path, Billy’s blood freezes. It looks as if it’s in two pieces, split high near the top of the finger holes. But as Billy gets closer he finds that it’s only broken visually; that a thick ribbon of melting snow has fooled his eyes. Billy takes up the flute carefully, aware of its apparent age and the possibility for breakage even now. It’s cold and little more chipped than before, but the point is that he’s found it. That Dominic will get to keep the one souvenir he wanted from this holiday.

Billy runs back up the path to Elijah, who’s shouting “No way, no fucking way” over and over again and leaping into Billy’s arms the moment after Billy tucks the flute safely into the rucksack he’s brought with them. Billy’s exultant enough without this, but he laughs at Elijah’s joy and nods until his face hurts from smiling so long in the cold. Elijah leads them back to the house, stopping ever ten minutes or so to just shake his head in wonder and laugh some more. Billy joins him, and tries not to think about how awful he would have felt if he’d learned about the flute after they’d left Penrith.

By the time they reach the house, Billy and Elijah are exhausted again; not even the rush of finding the flute can compensate for the chill, for the rain, and for what had prompted the search in the first place. Billy pushes the kitchen door open and raises his eyebrows at the noise coming from the front room: Dominic slapping his hands repeatedly on the coffee table, drumming with his eyes closed in time to the music that blares by turns bass–heavy and tinny from his enormous headphones. Elijah smiles and points to the mess everywhere of half–eaten toast and bacon, the abandoned yoga mat near the couch and the papers, scattered across the furniture and floor. Billy smiles back and ruffles Elijah’s hair, murmuring ten minutes and nodding toward the bedroom. Elijah nods and pushes at Billy’s shoulder—a new affectionate gesture, and just in time, too—before he leaves Dominic and Billy alone.

Billy cross the front room and presses his foot against the coffee table, making room for himself. The headphone cord stretches and pulls, and Dominic’s eyes fly open before he grins up at Billy. Billy reaches to turn the stereo off then to take the headphones, still smiling as he sinks down to straddle Dominic and kiss him slowly, as if he’s found something of his own that was lost and left behind last night.

“You should have told me,” Billy whispers as he pulls away, and Dominic frowns, confused as usual. “The flute, Dom.”

Dominic flushes crimson, but it’s not all in embarrassment. “It’s gone. Not thinking about it.”

“Of course not.” Billy sighs. “Close your eyes, Dom.”

Billy’s still floored by how easily Dominic just does what’s asked of him, obeys whatever commands are thrown his way, when the words come from Billy. Billy’s certain he’s not going to test the limits of that trust so often anymore, because he’s seen what lies past them, and it’s not what he or Dominic wants. What Billy wants for the moment is to see Dominic’s eyes open again in surprise, and to that end he slips the flute into Dominic’s hand and waits for him to understand.

“Jesus Christ—Billy—Elijah said you were just going to get another bird, for tonight …”

“Not quite,” Billy laughs. “I thought this was a better idea.”

“Lying little fucks, both of you.” Dominic bursts into laughter and takes Billy’s face in his hands. “Thank you. Fuck, Billy. Thank you.”

Billy nods, his face hurting again from smiling. “You wanted to keep it. I couldn’t—“

“I know.” Dominic kisses him and just holds Billy there, until Elijah’s head peers around the corner and he coughs politely.

“Seeing how it’s, you know, the last night here and Dominic and I are tied on two video games, I’m thinking we should stay in tonight and sort it out. And Billy can cook, provided he doesn’t fuck it up.”

Billy rolls his eyes. “Then you’ll be enjoying some takeaway, won’t you?”

Elijah’s left openmouthed this time. “You said no one delivers up here.”

“I think we’ve established that I’m a liar, Elijah—“

“Oh my god. Fuck you.” Elijah’s laughter is wild, cackling. “Just fuck you. Hard.”

“Not anytime very soon, I don’t think,” Billy smiles. “I’ll call for it now, early so they have time t’get lost. You—“ he points to Elijah. “Keep this one occupied so I can have a bath—“

“Alone?” Dominic murmurs, his hand drifting to Billy’s stomach under his many layers of clothing.

“By myself. You won’t even miss me, honestly. You’ll be too busy getting your arse kicked.”

“Why are you still here?” Dominic snarls. “My arse kicked. Fuck that. Elijah, get in here.”

::

Billy thinks that he’ll take care of the takeaway boxes in the morning, before it’s time to go. Dominic and Elijah have a plane to catch, but Billy’s having a car brought around for himself. He’ll drive the agent back into town and then set off home for a few weeks to read the Peter Weir script again and, he’s decided, sign on for the role. The beaches of Mexico sound especially tempting now that the weather has turned for the worse here.

He’s feeling good tonight, redeemed after everything he’s done wrong and disbelieved and damaged all week long. And so he sits, flipping through Elijah’s paperbacks while Dominic and Elijah dry their eyeballs to dust staring at the video screen. In another hour or so, he’ll play the parent, turning on the Playstation and herding them to bed, where, Billy supposes, all three of them will collapse into a drowsy, drooling pile as they had on their first night, or there will be something akin to the ugliest, most ramshackle orgy the world has ever known.

In truth, neither of those things occurs. They move as one under the pile of bedclothes, and shift around until Dominic is in the middle, welcoming Elijah and Billy both. Don’t talk, Billy thinks, his heart beating loud in his chest. Don’t ruin it with words. Their silence is warmer than any of the blankets that cover them, and none of them really wants to break it. Billy looks over at Elijah, who is looking up at Dominic, who is looking down at Billy, and he knows—feels it hot and thick in his blood—that it truly will never, ever be better than this.

Tomorrow, Billy will shove them, sleep-rusty and pouting exaggeratedly, into a waiting taxi. There will be slow, deep kisses goodbye and meaningful, mock–tough punches to stomachs and shoulders beforehand, and a last phone call from the airport afterward. Billy will crawl back up to the attic and sit in the windowsill, enjoying a gift from Elijah’s forgotten pack of cloves, and wait for his own car to arrive.

Tonight, they’re still here. Still in bed, still together, still friends and much else besides. Billy closes his eyes at the feathery touch of fingers on his arm, and doesn’t question to whom they belong. They might be able to make something out of this holiday—a new start, a different sort of connection, a new thing and a very good thing. Certainly Billy’s had good friends before, but Dominic and Elijah are different—they are something better, other, more—and will be, for as long as Billy manages—he laughs quietly, shaking his head at Dominic and Elijah’s curious reactions—not to fuck it up. It would be easy to slip into the gushy sentimentality Billy so hates now, and he fights it with everything he has.

“Remember this,” he says after a deep breath. “Just remember it, right?”

Billy doesn’t see Dominic nod or Elijah hide his face in Dominic’s shoulder. He doesn’t have to.

It’s going to be alright.


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