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Title: But Before Tomorrow
Author: kiltsandlollies
Pairing: dm/ew; implied dm/bb
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: so incredibly not true
Summary/Warning: angst and lot of it. Set at the TORn party.
Note: for bunniewabbit. Dominic/Elijah and Triofic is really, really hard, Bunnie. *pout* I don’t know how anyone can do it. But I tried. <3


This is a horrible idea, and yet probably the best one Dominic’s had all night—well, not counting the choice of “Supersonic,” which could, Elijah thinks, have sounded like a mighty, crashing fuck you to certain members of the audience had Dominic not handled it with such scarred, challenging grace.

Dominic didn’t come here to sing, but the opportunity to do so was hard to resist after so much waiting for Billy. They do that a lot, it seems—wait for Billy. Wait for him to choose a seat in their little reserved section of four on the Oscar floor, wait for him to return from shaking Peter Weir’s hand after the ceremony, wait for him to find her, wait for him to decide he’ll be traveling with her after all, thanks, and see you there. See you then. See you later.

It drives Dominic straight up walls that never exist when Billy isn’t around.

Not that Elijah really minds Billy’s presence. Certainly Dominic’s distracted and nervy when the three of them are together, but it’s mostly in a good way. And he’s been able to steer Dominic out of the more awkward moments and into better things, better times—

Like singing up there, howling and strutting and sounding if not necessarily looking very much the part of the lost Gallagher brother. Elijah bobs his head in time to the music, taking drags off his cigarettes and draws off his Heineken, damn glad to be here, especially before Billy arrives and turns everything upside down again.

Dominic wants Billy so much it hurts him. It’s obvious to everyone but Dominic and Billy themselves, but Elijah’s not going to be the one who brings it up. Not tonight. And not when Dominic’s idea—looking better by the minute, actually—should, in the end, make everyone happy—

If happy is really the word.

There’s a polite little roar backstage, and Elijah cranes his neck, looking to see if it’s Billy and Ali, but it’s something much better: Peter and Fran and everyone. Pleasant company, Elijah thinks, and goes back to smiling at Dominic, whose grin will only get wider as this night goes on. Elijah wishes that much for him, at least.

You can have it all, Elijah sings to himself in his head a full two minutes after Dominic’s already drawled out the lines. But how much do you want it?

::

Billy’s riding some kind of very odd, detached high. She’s smiling next to him in the car and stroking his knuckles with a practiced, easy touch. She’s also talking, and while Billy couldn’t tell you what she’s actually saying if you paid him to do so, he’s still able to nod and laugh and squeeze her hand in return.

The ride with them to the ceremony had been strangely quiet, with Astin on his cellphone and Elijah quite blatantly breaking the rules and lighting up before—to Billy’s surprise and, if he’s being honest, amusement—handing a cigarette to Dominic, who sucked it back like a pro. Billy had raised his eyebrows a fraction of an inch, but said nothing.

There’s not a great deal he could have said at that point.

He’d seen Dominic and Elijah enough recently to know when they were and were not together, although sometimes the difference was subtle. Their relationship makes something in Billy’s chest burn a little, but it’s a surface–level thing, Billy’s decided; nothing that equals love or commitment or real need. Nothing that equals jealousy.

But again, if he’s being honest, Billy knows he made things worse. After that ride, after the flashbulbs in his face and after three times being called “Dom,” he’d nearly had enough. And that one chuck to his chin—that one touch of Dominic’s yellowed fingertips—had been his limit.

Get off, he’d said, gruffly and with what he imagined was barely a frown. But only he had seen the flash of hurt in Dominic’s eyes before Dominic smiled and nodded toward the camera see what I did there?

If rattling Dominic’s confidence had been Billy’s only crime tonight, he might have travelled with them to the party. They might be laughing and drinking together and basking in the attention. Instead, Billy sits with her and tries not to seethe when he realizes the driver is lost, sits and seethes and remembers the last thing he said to Dominic’s face, just before they walked into the theatre.

“Give us a kiss,” Dominic had laughed, nudging against Billy. He had smelled like smoke and hair product and Billy had recoiled, unwillingly of course, but the damage was done. Shamed, Dominic had taken a last pull on his cigarette, and Billy had almost choked on his own words.

“As if you don’t taste enough of Elijah already.”

::

Dominic’s poured out most of his frustration by the time Billy finally arrives. He doesn’t bother watching from the wings as Billy greets the partygoers—there’s no room there, or more specifically the room that’s meant for him is taken. He can hear the people screaming and applauding, and that’s enough. He doesn’t have to look. He doesn’t have to see.

But when the crowd goes a bit wilder, and when he hears the motherfucking guitar tuning up, Dominic pushes past Elijah and a dozen others to get to the side of the stage. He even pushes against her, finding a space that has always, always belonged to him: forever off to the side of Billy’s life, visible from the corner of his eye.

He’s fucking singing, so soon after Dominic had gathered his strength from doing the same thing, and Dominic is grateful for the strength of the glass in his hand, because his grip would otherwise have shattered it.

His brilliant idea for this evening is becoming clearer in his mind, fleshing out and turning ugly at its corners. But that’s alright, Dominic thinks, watching Billy roar into his last chorus. There’s hardly a better way to end this night. To end this, full stop. Billy strums his last chord, holds his last note, and the moment the breath leaves him, Dominic steps in front of her, knocking his shoulder against her applauding hands, and falls to his knees on the stage in the we’re-not-worthy gesture universally understood—if not entirely appropriate.

Billy’s smile turns to a smirk in an eyeblink, and hundreds of cameras capture the change just as Dominic sees it, too. It doesn’t change anything. They leave the stage as one, tumbling into the wings where Elijah waits to either hug them both or separate them before things get even worse.

She is forgotten, just for the moment, and that small victory makes Dominic’s smirk as lethal as Billy’s.

“That was fucking fantastic,” Elijah laughs, smacking Billy’s back and offering him a bottle. Billy takes it and nods, a little breathless after all that, and looking over Elijah’s shoulder at Dominic.

Dominic catches the look, and advances, pleased his script for tonight is being written for him. “Billy—“

“Need a piss.” Billy slides away, moving toward the corridor and the bathrooms, and not even Elijah’s warning hand on his back stops Dominic from following.

::

Elijah might have followed too, if it hadn’t been for her. The moment he moves to set his beer down, she’s there, right next to him, eyes surprisingly gentle considering what she’s apparently just seen.

“This shouldn’t take more than a minute,” he says, and as soon as the words leave his mouth Elijah feels like he would crawl across broken glass to get them back. She’s smiling, a slow spread of lips over teeth, and then laughing, clutching her bag a little tighter and waiting for her own breath to slow before she reaches for him.

Her hands are cool, and very soft. They cup Elijah’s face with a gentleness Elijah supposes that Billy must find comforting. Her gaze holds him significantly harder, and she shakes her head slightly before she speaks.

“I think they forget how much younger you are.”

Elijah’s smile disappears, replaced by a sudden, angry flush that races up from his throat and neck to his temples. “We’re good,” he says, very quietly, repeating it when her lips turn up a fraction on each side. “We’re good.”

“Mmm.” She sounds like Billy then, just on the sweeter side of patronizing. Elijah takes her hands and moves them from his face, but does not let go. Not yet.

“Do you think you love him, Elijah?” There’s no amusement in that, at least, and Elijah’s mouth works hard as he thinks. He’s not eager to respond, however quickly the answer came to his lips. She reads it, reads him so well that Elijah can’t imagine how Billy keeps his secrets. Her voice is soothing, almost enough that Elijah doesn’t quite register what she’s actually saying.

“I think you do. There’s a difference between loving someone hard and loving them well, Elijah. I’m not sure he’ll allow you to do either, but you can’t go much longer not knowing, can you?”

Her eyes flicker to the door, then, and Elijah takes a breath before finally releasing her hands.

“I should go. Just to make sure they’re not—“

“They’re not,” she says, returning his smile. “They both went in on their feet; they’ll come out the same way.” She sighs and leans forward, hands cupping Elijah’s face once more before she kisses him on the cheek. “Don’t get yourself hurt,” she says, and there is laughter in the sound of her whisper. “Don’t let them take you alive.”

::

Dominic’s there at the sink, leaning against the marble with his arms crossed over his chest, facing a not at all surprised Billy.

“Had to get up there and sing for her, didn’t you?”

Billy’s eyebrows rise, as they had back in the limo. “Like to wash my hands, Dom. I understand that might be a foreign concept to you.”

“What, you washing your hands of something? Par for the fucking course. Have at it.”

The water rushes from the faucet, filling the pause in which Billy’s meant to answer that petty charge. The silence expands, strangling Dominic until he’s forced to try again, his voice much lower this time, full of sadness he’s carried for months.

“Why d’you hate me so much now?”

Billy’s hands freeze above the sink, and Dominic reaches to turn off the water, reaches for the soft grey towel, reaches for Billy’s left hand. He strokes it absently with the cloth and continues to speak in that low, mournful purr.

“Isn’t this where you tell me I’m smoking too much and drinking too much and doing everything wrong again, Billy? Because we had this discussion last year, and things are different now. You don’t know that, though, do you, because you never asked. Because you washed your hands of me. Of us.”

“Enough.” Billy’s voice is rough, and Dominic flinches from it as much as from the feeling of Billy yanking his hand away. “Things are different now, Dom, and you don’t want to face it any more than I do. The world is at your fucking feet for the first time in your life, and you’re mugging for cameras and being an idiot—”

“This is who I am, Billy, you of all people—”

“And so you have to offer proof of it?” The resignation in Billy’s voice is heavy, dragging them both down to a place neither ever intended to go. “Is it any wonder you’ve not worked, Dom? You need to learn to play more than the fool.”

There’s a blur to Dominic’s vision, then, a red curtain of hurt and anger that makes everything turn on him, until it clears and there’s only Billy on the floor, swiping his hand across his bloodied lip and looking up at Dominic, still not at all surprised.

Dominic had waited all night to touch Billy, but he’d hoped for something kinder than this.

::

The first thing that crosses Elijah’s mind is that she was wrong, and that he should have been in here minutes ago, before Dom landed a punch hard enough to knock Billy to the ground, maybe even before Billy provoked the hit—

As if his presence wasn’t provocation enough.

“Hey. Hey, hey,” he says quickly, stepping in front of Dominic and grabbing his shoulders just as Dominic advances on Billy again. “Breathe, Dom. The hell happened here? What’d you do?”

“Get up,” Dominic hisses, struggling in Elijah’s grip and watching Billy inch toward the wall. “Get up and tell me what me what a complete fuck I am now, Billy. Get up.”

“Dom.” Elijah’s whisper is a little breathless. Dominic is taller and broader by more than a little, and while Elijah’s stronger than one might think, he won’t be able to hold Dominic back if things get any worse. “Dom, shut up a minute.”

“Let him finish,” Billy grits out, pushing himself up from the floor. “Not a person alive could make him quiet.”

“Not a person alive could make you talk,” Dominic bites back, and Elijah has to spin around now behind Dominic, one arm trapping him around his waist. “Unless it’s to throw shit at me.”

“Okay, enough,” Elijah hisses. “Both of you shut the fuck up. Got a hundred people back there. Do you want them to hear this? You want to read about it tomorrow?”

“He won’t be awake tomorrow,” Billy smiles fiercely, all teeth and reddened lips. “He’ll sleep this off like he does everything else.”

Dominic sags then in Elijah’s arms, and Elijah wants to turn and face Billy, to tell him to leave and take her, too, and both of them can go straight to some Scottish hell, but he’s occupied with keeping Dominic on his feet—

As if he alone can make her little prophecy come true.

Dominic and Billy will walk out of this bathroom, Elijah thinks, but not together, and not as friends. Dominic has waited so long for Billy—has existed with this void beside him since he arrived in Los Angeles, a void Elijah hasn’t been able to fill. Not that he hasn’t tried, but—

“Take him somewhere,” Billy mutters, with that same revulsion he’s carried all night. Elijah shakes his head slowly before he speaks, lower than before.

“Go home, Billy. Go sing yourself to sleep.”

::

Dominic doesn’t hear Billy leave; he doesn’t hear anything but his own breathing, loud and fast.

There has to be a limit to how much one person can take, Dominic thinks. There has to be a wall you hit at some point. Perhaps it’s the same wall he feels like he just broke through, the same wall Billy used to pull himself up off the ground. Or maybe—just maybe—it’s the wall Dominic’s leaning against now, facing Elijah and trying to focus on everything but Elijah’s words. Elijah’s mouth.

Dominic knows intimately every inch of Elijah’s mouth, and it’s not been a purely scientific experience for him, either. He’s loved every moment spent pressed against Elijah’s lips—which led to more moments spent pressed against Elijah’s body.

Just because those lips aren’t Billy’s doesn’t mean he shouldn’t enjoy them, after all. Just because the eyes boring into him now aren’t green doesn’t make them less beautiful. Love the one you’re with, Dominic sings absently to himself before he silences the already muted sound of Elijah’s voice the way he best knows how.

Dominic knows the feeling of resignation, of bland acceptance, and he would recognize it in a heartbeat if Elijah showed the right signs. But Elijah doesn’t, and Dominic bares his teeth to grin before using them to bite. And Elijah flinches (a good flinch, Dominic reassures himself) before his hands fly up into Dominic’s hair.

Everyone gets to hit the wall tonight, Dominic thinks, even Elijah. It’s a simple thing to turn them both and push—gently, of course—until Elijah’s flush against the tile and Dominic’s fingers are moving, moving everywhere.

Elijah’s babbling, probably something about how cold Dominic’s hands are inside the heat of Elijah’s boxers, and Dominic laughs—a soft gust of smoke and alcohol and spearmint—knowing how often he’s heard that complaint before. Elijah’s only half–hard—likely made nervous by the setting, Dominic decides—but Dominic can fix that, and does, circling Elijah’s cock with his fingers and squeezing gently, turning his wrist expertly, waiting, listening.

When he looks up, Dominic feels this whole night begin again, with none of the hurt of before. He sees it in the high colour on Elijah’s formerly pale cheeks, hears it in Elijah’s rapid little breaths.

It’s not his original idea for the evening, but it makes hell of a lot of sense now.

::

Don’t get yourself hurt, she had said. Elijah can hear her even now, that pretty, amused accent echoing in his mind as Dominic works him harder with every movement. Elijah lets his eyes close, because it’s hard sometimes to watch someone watching you, especially when you know it’s not you they want or even see.

After all this time, Elijah wonders why he’s still not used to it.

Dominic is not ever going to belong to Elijah, that’s obvious. He’s not ever going to hold his breath when Elijah enters a room, and wait for reason to exhale. But they are friends, maybe better now than Dominic and Billy ever were (and better now than they certainly are), and Elijah can do this. He can do it because Dom needs it.

He can do it because Billy can’t.

Elijah’s lost himself a little bit now to Dominic’s hands, and to the kisses that are coming slower and harder. It takes a special kind of concentration to pay attention to the words Dominic’s mumbling in his ear.

“How d’you want—"

“Fuck, Dom, whatever—just—on your knees, want you to—"

“Okay.” Dominic breathes, stubble scraping down Elijah’s cheek, his jaw, his throat. “Okay, yeah.”

Elijah feels Dominic descend, knows that the blond feathernest of Dominic’s hair is flattened now, matted with sweat. Elijah’s hand rakes through that hair, and he can’t hold back a smile when he hears Dominic’s answering sigh. Dom’s hands are already back around Elijah’s cock, stroking and twisting until Elijah’s hips move forward, too eager now for any more of this preliminary bullshit.

“Dom, c’mon, c’mon—"

And then there is Dominic’s mouth, and it’s so hot, so fucking perfect, that Elijah’s words break off into nothingness. He pushes, harder than he means to, but Dominic can take it; he’s done it before, for Elijah and for Billy and for fuck knows who else. There’s no point in either of them holding back.

And in that ridiculous, blurred flash of insight one gets at times like these, Elijah suddenly knows that this is the last time it’s going to be this good. That thought makes him draw a deep breath for the first time in five minutes, makes him clench his hands hard in Dominic’s hair, makes him finally, finally look up—

To see Billy, standing against the opposite wall with murder in his eyes.

::

She’d gone before Billy had even left the men’s room, as Billy thought she would. She’s never had time for this insanity, but even so she’s handled it better than Billy has. Not for nothing had she tucked a separate room key in the inside pocket of his jacket, and not for nothing had she warned him not to fuck this up.

That warning is what brought him back here, after a few minutes’ polite conversation with an alleged journalist. Billy wondered even as he spoke how much of their conversation would be analyzed into the ground, and how much he would regret spilling his drink when said journalist asked about the screenplay, you know, the one you and Dom are working on.

Regret doesn’t begin to cover how he feels now.

Billy’s always appreciated (and sometimes admired) Dominic’s hyperfocus, his ability to narrow his vision to nothing but his chosen task, even when the world around him seemed to spin wildly out of control. That focus hadn’t been much in evidence lately, or so Billy thought, considering how unsettled Dominic had seemed, how desperate for attention and affection he had become. He almost expected Dominic to slide next to him and try (even after the last, disastrous time he and Billy woke up together, a full year ago) for more, for better, for anything. And he had been prepared, perhaps more than he needed to be. He had been unkind from the moment they saw each other this afternoon—and he had been cruel from then on.

Dominic has every right to hate him now, every right to hurt him, and to do so with whatever instrument he can find. And his relationship with Elijah—which was supposed to have been a surface–level thing, Billy reminds himself—has turned into a formidable weapon.

Billy watches Elijah’s hands slip into Dominic’s hair and tangle, pull and slide. He watches Dominic’s body tense as he holds himself high on his knees. And he feels that earlier burn in his chest moving now all over his own body, making it hard for him to breathe.

He could leave—again—and be done with this. No more ceremonies, no more parties, no more reunions in Hawaii or Thailand or fucking Penrith. He could learn how to live without these two vestiges of another life. He could do it.

But not right now.

::

Elijah’s too far gone to stop Dominic, even if it means they have to do this under the weight of Billy’s stare.

He moves faster, gripping Dominic’s hair so tightly that Dominic hisses, his eyes glassy with the rush of stinging tears. But Dominic recovers, taking Elijah in completely and listening for Elijah’s choked–off scream before he presses one finger inside him, swiftly, as unconcerned with preliminaries as Elijah had been moments before.

When Elijah’s eyes fly open again, he sees that Billy’s are closed. Billy’s face is flushed with what could be need or anger, but he’s not watching anymore. Doesn’t want to, doesn’t need to, or just can’t.

Elijah does not. Fucking. Care.

Dominic’s finger curls inside him, and Elijah bucks up hard, coming wildly now and begging Dominic to stop, because he’s going to fall to his knees and Elijah thinks he’ll be damned if he does so in front of Billy. He shudders, gasps, and pushes at Dominic’s shoulders, knocking Dominic to his back, beore he's reaching blindly for his trousers.

There has to be a limit to how much one person can take, Elijah thinks. There has to be a wall you hit at some point. Perhaps it’s the same wall he feels like he just broke through, the same wall he’s leaning against now, trying to focus on everything but Dominic’s mouth, red and wet and open in shock.

Elijah lets the silence settle around them again, lets Dominic struggle back to his knees, lets Billy inhale, making Dominic spin around as if he’s heard a gunshot behind him.

“So here we are,” Billy says, and Dominic leaps to his feet. Billy holds him at bay, arms out as if he’s expecting to be hit again. “Goodnight, Dom. Goodbye.”

“Billy, stop—"

Elijah doesn’t hear them leave; he doesn’t hear anything but his own breathing, loud and fast.

Don’t get yourself hurt, she had said, and Elijah hears it again as he slides down the wall to the floor. He reaches into his pocket for his cloves, eyeing the sprinkler valve above him before he decides to risk it. He’s not going anywhere. Dominic will be back, because Billy won’t have him, and the rest of the world can’t handle him, either.

“This shouldn’t take more than a minute,” Elijah says to the air, and lights up what will be his last cigarette tonight.


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