home

Title: Reverberation
Author: kiltsandlollies
Pairing: BB/DM
Rating: PG–13, omg.
Notes: Something slightly smuttily schmoopy, because I love my slightly smutty schmoopy Molleh.


It’s the sounds that get to Billy.

Not the sounds of voices, really, or even the music Dominic cannot be convinced to turn off as they move around each other in the little kitchen, opening wine bottles and chopping vegetables. It’s more the little noises of contentment that come from Dominic: hums, whistles and purrs as he reaches around Billy to take up a knife or ladle, the shhhh of denim against denim as he leans and squats to find the wok hidden deep in the cabinets below Billy’s sink.

Dominic’s taken over Billy’s entire flat with sounds like these, and Billy, while still carrying the occasional grudge against the perpetual soundtrack, is slowly coming to love each and every noise that accompanies his best friend, his lover and partner in crimes great and small.

Certainly Billy’s grown to adore the Manics, the Beatles (well, alright, he already liked the Beatles, but it was good fun to snark about their pre–Rubber Soul output, just to make Dominic’s eyes go that slight shade darker) and whatever rubbish Elijah ships to Dominic twice a month in large, beat–up boxes. And he’s almost to the point where he can smile at the noise from the Playstation, can revel in Dominic’s hoots and grunts and even his occasional American–accented “die, mothafucka, die” directed at something small and dayglo pink on the screen. Those, of course, are the sounds of youth—something Billy feels like he let go of quite a while ago, but something he recognizes as still burning bright and hot inside Dominic.

And Billy absolutely cannot complain about the music Dominic chooses just before they retire for the night (or very early morning, on those rare occasions when Dominic’s little noises consist mostly of pleas to be entertained, preferably in some club, and Billy cannot find it in himself to say no). That music, set to loop for hours, until long after they’ve both fallen asleep, is the sound of waves and rain and crashing thunder, the sound Billy remembers from one particular night in New Zealand when he taught Dominic a lesson in conquering fear. Underneath the sounds of nature at her most unfriendly is the decidedly kinder noise of violas, cellos and violins, music Billy adores and Dominic once wrote off as something better suited for older, harder men than Billy.

Dominic’s come to love that music now, too—possibly even more than Billy does.

So, it’s more than comforting for Billy to hear that loop of music, that nightly soundtrack of homemade mix–CD stormy symphonic love Dominic created for him. Often he hears it as Dominic pulls him up from an already half–deep sleep on the couch, more rarely as they move down the hall crashing into walls and picture frames on their way to a long, fierce bout of lovemaking. But almost every night he hears it in some form or another, even if only for seconds before the other sounds of the night eclipse it.

Those sounds have their own charm, too, and Billy’s learned to accept them as another part of Dominic. The rush of the duvet being pulled off their enormous, unbreakable bed by Dominic’s enormous, impatient hand, the near crackle of the sheets Dominic tucks in like a Stepford Wife (Dominic’s sole concession to tidiness, Billy will have you know), the whoomph of soft, welcoming pillows yielding to the weight of Dominic’s altogether too–messy head—

The sigh that floats in the air seconds after it’s left Dominic’s throat.

Then there are the other sounds, stronger, louder sounds that carry through the flat—that of Dominic’s laughter as they chase each other around that bed, that of Dominic’s cries for more and faster and please once Billy’s caught him. Billy often falls silent in these moments just to better hear Dominic’s sighs, and Dominic never disappoints him.

Those are perhaps Billy’s favourite sounds of all.

All these sounds and more make up a great part of Dominic in Billy’s mind. Billy can’t remember the last time he really heard—really listened to—anything other than Dominic, and he can’t find the energy to care even so. Because beyond any other sounds that swirl around him in the course of his day—meetings, auditions, giggling girls and stuttering boys—these are the sounds that mean home. These are the sounds he carries with him when he’s not home, and that greet him the moment he returns.

These are the sounds of Dominic—and it’s the sounds that get to Billy.


home