what they think of you {Dom}

[Erik Stewart]

Erik didn’t decide to call right after Oriel. He’d spent the rest of that night wallowing about in his bed and fuming to himself until he’d fallen asleep, phone in hand, only waking well into the afternoon hours with the sunlight beating on his head. Hadn’t done anything that day either. Tonight was simply a repeat of the last, the last of his stash stuffed down his throat: same old thing, only he’d a different contact staring up at him from his old, crappy phone, instead of Oriel. He didn’t know why he hadn’t deleted it already.

That wasn’t true. He knew perfectly well why he hadn’t.

He had no way of knowing whether or not Dom would answer but he tried anyway, waiting for the phone to finish ringing before he switched shoulders. The first thing Dom would hear would probably be the staticy sound of fabric rustling and a cough in the distance.

[Dominique Chevalier]

Dom was alone, so when he glanced at his phone the confusion was clear to see on his face. If there had been anyone to see it. Which there was not. It took him a little longer to react than was normal for the terrakenetic. He wasn't expecting a call from Erik. He hadn't really expected to see much of him again; Dom was not one to tolerate regrets. He owned his mistakes, when he was willing to say they were mistakes at all. But he had lost his temper, and lost control, and Erik had seen it.

So when he raised the phone to his ear, Dom's expression had settled into a stone mask.

"What do you want?" he asked flatly, his tone suggesting that he was not particularly open to having a discussion. The fact that he was calling suggested Erik wanted a dialogue; this would have been less of a problem if he know what it was he wanted to say. Erik was not predictable.

[Erik Stewart]

“I wanna talk t’you,” he said, right off the bat, once he realized Dom had picked up and was on the other line. ‘Talk to’ probably wasn’t the right phrase – ‘talk at’ was more like it. Dom might be able to infer it from his tone: drunken, but still lucid, and ready to roll right over whatever Dom had to say next. Thank him, Oriel had said. Erik didn’t feel like he had anything to be thankful about. Right now, he was the furthest he could get from thanking him.

“What d’you think you were doin’?” he said.

[Dominique Chevalier]

Dom's eyes rolled skyward. "I figured," he replied cooly. That was what people made phone calls for; that was the entire point of phone calls. But Erik had moved on, his voice a little clumsy and rough around the edges. The moment that was put together, Dom considered hanging up, as much for Erik's sake as his own. Drunken conversations were bad ideas, and words couldn't be taken back.

But, too late. His smooth face creased as Erik kept moving on. He suspected what this was about, but that didn't mean he had to play right into the reptile lover's hands. "You'll have to be more specific," he replied flatly. "I do a lot of things."

Inwardly he was wincing; he didn't know what he had thought he was doing, just that something needed to be done. Just that he was sick of seeing that stupid freckled face twisted in hurt because some fucktard had taken advantage. But that would suggest that he was invested and he wasn't sure how to even go about trying to justify that.

[Erik Stewart]

Erik used to give that answer all the time when he was small, and others like it. He recognized it for what it was. Not that that was hard; the statement was a thinly veiled attempt at deflection, or else a deliberate prod in his direction, which he didn’t appreciate at all. Erik remembered the way his pop had hollered when he’d said it. He unwittingly echoed him. “Don’t bullshit me!”

The rest rolled out of his mouth like an upheaval. “You should’ve just left it! What the fuck kinda business did you have in the first place, beatin’ ‘im like that? What sorta - ”

Erik felt his chest tighten. “Y’know, it doesn’t do me any good if you just take off like that. What am I s’posed to do? Drive that asshole to the hospital? Stand there while he bleeds out his eyeballs? What? I bet you were real satisfied with yourself, too, walkin’ off into the sunset. I didn’t ask for you t’fuck it up. Again.”

[Dominique Chevalier]

Dom's mouth thinned into a bloodless line as Erik started talking, and showed no intention of stopping either. So the blond boy grit his teeth and listened, formulating just how he was supposed to respond to the number of accusations that were being thrown at him. They were all, of course, ridiculous as he was able to rationalise in moments.

Why exactly they were causing Erik enough trouble to convince him to break their wall of silence, Dom couldn't even start to understand.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he finally snapped, his voice as chilled as marble. "I didn't realise I fucked up your date. I didn't do it for personal satisfaction, you ungrateful idiot." His breath hissed through his teeth. "And if stopping someone from trashing that stupid, pretty face of yours is fucking up, rest assured that it won't happen again!"

His own chest was starting to heave slightly, his fingers gripping the phone too tight.

[Erik Stewart]

“I could’ve handled it!” he said. He could have. He’d looked after himself ‘til now, he thought: not very well, but he’d done it.

Erik’s silence implied that he was listening, despite his former, heated interruption, and when he continued, it was with a more exhausted tone than before. “You didn’t do that for me. You did it for yourself,” he said. “Because it makes you feel better, ‘bout somethin’. I don’t know what. If you gave a shit you would’ve done somethin’ after the fact. And I know you don’t. That’s not your thing. You made that pretty clear, lots of times; I ain’t clueless, I get the hint.”

After he’d found him that one February morning, Erik had thought that had changed, a little. Then he’d fucked up. He didn’t know if it was a direct result of that, or because he’d been seeing things that weren’t there all along; either way, he’d told himself that he wouldn’t be misled again.

“I don’t know why you bothered in the first place. You should’ve left me there on that bench.”

[Dominique Chevalier]

Dom was about to reply, scathingly, but Erik wasn't done. The momentum he'd had before seemed to have drained away, leaving something tired and sad on the other end of the line. Jaw tight and eyes narrowed, Dom listened for the tell tail signs of fakery, for proof that this was something Erik was putting on in an attempt to get to him. It had happened before.

He didn't object when Erik mentioned he didn't care; Dom didn't. He didn't. Not a bit. He'd stepped in because it was wrong, and left because the danger was over, not because it had been obvious how unhappy Erik was to see him, not that at all.

But the fact was he had bothered to step in. And he'd bothered because....

"What?" He said, realising that the topic had undergone a slight change. Suspicions flaring, Dom rubbed a hand over his face and made a sound of pure frustration. "What's that got to do with it?"

[Erik Stewart]

He didn’t feel like he had to explain what ‘it had to do with it’. Everything had to do with everything. It made sense to him. “You were the first one to text. That’s all.” He hated how he’d seen him like that; it filled him with humiliation, and dull rage, to think of it again. An angry, frustrated knot. It darkened his eyes.

“I want t’hear you say it didn’t matter.” Closure; that was what he wanted. He wanted it to be over. The memory of his hands on his skin and his lips close to his would have died a slow death, he would have let it, if he hadn’t intervened that night. Now it brought new questions – ones he didn’t want to entertain, because it would only become the same old thing.

Erik didn’t think he’d be asking a lot; it shouldn’t be hard for him. “Then I’ll hang up,” he promised.

[Dominique Chevalier]

His jaw working, Dom swallowed quietly. His mind worked quickly; possible scenarios, possible outcomes, possible vulnerabilities and weaknesses that he could be revealing, that could be misused. He was alone, and so he let himself curl his knees up to his chest. There was no one to suspect why he needed to draw inwards and protect his centre.

Three words. Four, if he expanded the contraction. Four words and Erik would hang up and leave him alone again. It hadn't mattered, none of it. He had just been a pretty face and a funny accent and a willing warm body. Nothing Dom hadn't tried before. Nothing special. Just blue eyes and freckled skin and a smile that went crooked when it had to work around a cigarette. Nothing... nothing...

His tongue felt like a cold stone in his mouth; totally immovable. The silence had gone on for too long; it was palpable and real and heavy.

"It-" he started, and then his jaw flexed so hard the click may very well have been audible over the phone. Try again. "It-"

Fuck. Fuck.

"I don't want to do this," he said finally. His voice sounded small to him. Like he was speaking into cotton wool. "You can call me an asshole for beating up some guy, I don't care. I'm not going to say something just because you want me to."

[Erik Stewart]

He waited; he was prepared for it. It’d be like cutting a cord. He could deal with it. He could deal with all that and more. It would take time but eventually…

Erik was honestly surprised when it didn’t come. At least, not immediately. He swallowed – he couldn’t say he was relieved, not by a long shot, and it did nothing to soothe the anxiety curled up in the hollow of his ribcage. He even thought he felt frustrated. Why couldn’t he say it? What was so hard about that?

“You can’t say it to my face?” he demanded. “I didn’t think you were such a god damn pussy.”

[Dominique Chevalier]

Taking a sharp breath in through his nose, Dom managed to unclench his fingers slowly and reach into his pocket for a cigarette. Sticking it between his lips, he flicked his lighter and took a deep, burning breath.

"Are you finished?" he asked finally. "Because if so, I'm going to hang up." He flicked the cigarette and watched the ash scatter. When he drew breath, it felt like his lungs wouldn't fully expand and he wanted to demand an explanation for that, and the pressure at his temples. He wanted to know the reason why he'd even picked up his phone once he'd seen the caller I.D.

Did Erik really wish he had left him on the bench that day? Dom could feel something in his mind shudder away from the idea of anyone ever seeing him in a vulnerable position like that, let alone someone he was messing around with and who's opinion actually meant something. And he sure as fuck wouldn't want someone like himself to be the first thing he had to deal with either. "Why does it matter so much to you?" he finally demanded, his voice a little coarser than the usual smooth utterances. "What exactly are you trying to gain from this? Because unless you're way more masochistic than I had you down for, you can't be enjoying it."

The I'm not was implied.

[Erik Stewart]

Now he was frustrated. His teeth grit. “You mean you can ignore my texts an’ calls an’ you can pretend I don’t exist but you can’t tell me one fuckin’ thing don’t matter? What’s wrong with you?” He could tell someone that. He could’ve told them it right as he looked into their eyes. He was sure of it.

“Why’s it - ” Erik was half tempted not to dignify that with a response. “Listen, asshole. Obviously it matters to one of us if I’m gonna call you over it. An’ you know why.” That night, when they fought; Erik remembered admitting to him – well, certain things. “That’s not the fuckin’ point!”

[Dominique Chevalier]

There. Dom's fingers loosened slightly at Erik's final outburst, a minor relaxation of a worry he'd deny having until his last breath. It served as a reminder; this was in the very least a level playing field. He wasn't at a disadvantage. Erik thought he... In truth, when they had been fighting Dom had been humming with anger and frustrating and hurt. He'd thought...

Well, he had been suspect on the legitimacy of Erik's desperate confessions.

"You're in love with me," he said finally. The words hadn't been uttered but he was willing to risk the mistake by now. "That's the point, isn't it?"

Expecting a flood of insults, he raised his voice a little. "And you want me to tell you to go fuck yourself so you can cry to your snake and move on."

The thought was... loathsome. "You're not the first, you know," he added flatly. "To do that. I'd have told you not to."

[Erik Stewart]

“No,” he said, voice swelling. “No, no.”

That wasn’t what he wanted at all. Hearing it was physically repulsive to him – literally. He could feel his throat clench and his stomach constrict, wracking him with a squeezing pain. Erik struggled to keep it down. He was going to…

He didn’t feel so well.

“I bet you would’ve,” he continued, after a breath. “But that’s not…you’re the one that…you beat ‘im up, not me.”