burn out {Dom}

[Erik Stewart]

Biology was something of a rendezvous point; they usually had at least one class each year together, and this one was it. Erik sat just a seat ahead of Dominique, diagonally, to the right. He scribbled or tapped his pencil or slept but he very rarely paid attention.

He sat now with his elbow supporting his chin. He’d tucked his dark hair behind his ears, where they just grazed the tops of his shoulders, and skimmed the back of his neck; a thin line of flesh peeked out between its soft trim and the collar of his shirt. Occasionally, his thin white fingers plucked a strand of hair and twirled it idly. He was starting to glance at Dominique, too. Once. Maybe twice. Just flickers of blue.

Then he tore a corner of paper out from his notebook.



wanna fuck? my room? whenever.

i have marlboro.



The whole thing was peppered with question marks. He didn’t want to sound desperate.

Their affair was a very private and very uninvolved one – if Erik had to put a name to it, it’d probably be what the kids called ‘fuck buddies’ these days. Oh, he supposed they got along; their conversations were cordial when they had them, at least, as much as both of them could manage, but at least on Erik’s part there was little pretense as to their ‘relationship’. He wanted intimacy and if he couldn’t find it one way, he’d find it another. He wanted ecstatic, full-throated bliss and he wanted to know the male body. He wanted Dominique, too, to come away satisfied. He was young and he was greedy, and he liked it rough and without emotion.

Erik knew that Dominique was much the same. The other boy’s brooding silence was both familiar and magnetic – as was his blonde hair (which Erik had quite a thing for) and the way his shoulders sloped into his neck. The attraction he found in him was powerful; there was no way around it.

That had not changed at all.

Erik got up off his seat. To everyone else, he was sharpening his pencil; the sound of it grinding filled the room. Once it’d churned its way to silence, he turned to return to his seat. With a practiced, subtle movement, Erik slid his hand over the edge of the Dom’s desk and left behind his scribbled note. His waist bumped slightly against the wood.

When he’d sat down again, he tossed Dom a look over his shoulder. There was a hint of a smile in his eyes; he hooked his hand into a claw to imitate a cat’s, flashed a mocking snarl at him, then smoothed out his expression, lifted his eyebrows, let his lips spread into a smile, raising his freckled cheeks, and turned away.

[Dominique Chevalier]

Dom was blinking lazily at the white board, occasionally writing down a note or two but mostly, not. He was bored. He was bitterly bored, and he needed something to think about. The vacum biology and mitosis was creating was letting him dwell on other things, and that was just really shit.

His fingers caught Erik's note deftly, making it disappear under his hand in case the teacher glanced their way. Flipping it up into his palm, the blonde's eyes ran over the sentences and smirked slightly at the generous dosage of question marks. Pocketing the note, he looked up to meet Erik's eyes and watched him... was he being meowed? Was that actually happening?

His eyebrows raised a little, because... what?

Still, it was a decent enough offer. Erik was good at some things, one of those things being realizing just how good Dom was. There was something pretty relaxing about someone spending that much time running their fingers through your hair in awe.

And he had a decent face. Dom liked his cheek bones, and his hands.

Turning the note over, the terrakenetic tapped his pencil against it once or twice, then stood up. He'd taken this class before anyway.

"I've got to go," he said enigmatically, before turning and heading for the door. If Erik followed, he followed.

[Erik Stewart]

Erik heard Dominique get up. He heard his deadpan voice. Erik wasn’t expecting him to jump on the offer so soon; he’d have waited ‘til after class at least...his blue eyes trailed the blond’s departure, aware of the sudden lapse among the classroom. It wasn’t until Dom had shut the door that things resumed. The teacher began his lecture anew; his chalk scratched on the board. Students turned their heads away from Dominique and bent over their desks again.

Erik tapped his pencil against the side of the desk. Only a scant people knew for sure his sexuality…though one might guess, looking at him. Erik looked, for lack of a better word, ‘queer’ – he was delicate and finely-boned, with long dark hair and a pale, feminine face. Sometimes he did his nails. Only the clear kinds, though; he wasn’t quite bold enough to try the solid colors.

Not so for Dominique. Erik didn’t think people would have guessed him anything other than straight just looking at him. And he certainly didn’t want people raising their eyebrows if he happened to follow right after Dominique’s sudden departure. He didn’t know if the other boy was out or not yet, after all.

But he decided to follow. He didn’t bother announcing anything; he just packed up and left.

When Erik found Dom outside the class, he approached him, soft and slow and with a tentative smile. “Hey,” he said. Then his eyes scanned Dom – up and down his body. Erik shouldered his backpack. “…That a yes?”

[Dominique Chevalier]

It would have surprised Dom to know that not many people would have known he wasn't straight; enough guys who went to the school had first hand proof of just how... flexible his sexuality was. He didn't flirt or charm like his brother, but Dom's revolving door policy wasn't exactly a well kept secret.

He turned on his heel when he heard the door open behind him, not registering surprise, nor really feeling it. The corner of his mouth pulled up and he shrugged. Yeah, he felt like this was something he wanted. His head had been feeling messy lately, and nothing helped clear his mind like a decent lay.

"Sure," he said, head tilting slight to one side as he took a step forward. "Why not? If we're going to skip biology class..." his voice trailed off, and he glanced down and smiled again, rubbing a hand over his mouth. "This could count as biology homework, surely. And it'll be less boring."

[Erik Stewart]

Erik’s smile grew a little wider. He nodded. His eyelashes dipped down against his cheeks, not in a flustered way, but in a deliberate coquettish gesture. “Let’s go then,” he said, his shoulder brushing past Dom’s.

Erik might not have known how to maintain a single platonic relationship, but he was sexually aggressive and sexually gifted, and he wasn’t fuckin’ shy about it neither. He was smooth and wicked and, perhaps most of all, confident. Too many times had he woken up, tangled up in yellow motel sheets with a stranger he’d tricked into thinking he was eighteen, mouth full of smoke; he’d found a way to replace steady nurturing care with ecstatic and full-throated bliss, without realizing that there was something to be said about love that covered you up instead of stripped you down.

He especially liked his sessions with Dominique because it wasn’t about how many cigarettes or bottles of alcohol he could get from him. It was fun. It was fun, and he was attractive…Erik’s mind sometimes wandered and found itself fixated on his smooth skin and his rolling muscle and his blonde hair (Erik preferred blond men). And he was glad that Dominique indulged him. But then, why wouldn’t he? Most gay men weren’t all that picky – most men weren’t, in general, and that was a solid fact.

Erik looked behind him, to make sure Dominique was following. They’d go to his room: his roommates ought to have been gone by now, so no one would be there to complain. “I don’t like to think of it as homework. That ain’t fun. ‘Sides,” he said, with another coy smile, “I don’t do homework nearly as good as I do you.”

He was thinking about riding his hips this time.

[Dominique Chevalier]

"Mmm," Dom hummed, non-committal as ever as he followed behind Erik and took in the view. He knew the way to Erik's room. Better then going to his; he'd only just changed the sheets again. "You said you had cigarettes, yes?" One hand rose to smooth his hair behind his ear, then he reached out and did the same to Erik.

Just 'cause.

"Share," Dom said pointedly, once they had made it outside and he lent back against the wall. "Maybe I'll give you extra credit." His smile was devious as he held out a hand, head tilted back. "Do I want to know how you got these, ma caille?"

[Erik Stewart]

Erik smiled. His freckled cheeks flushed, though he made to dodge Dom’s hand, so that only the tips of his fingers brushed his hair.

He stopped when Dominique did, to lean against the wall. He stood in front of him, linking both his hands behind his back. Erik didn’t know what ‘ma caille’ meant, or anything vaguely French-sounding the other boy said, but he took it for granted that they meant something nice. “I already offered didn’t I?” he said.

As frank about sex as Erik was, even he knew there was something problematic about leeching stuff from older guys around town, so he wasn’t keen on outright admitting it. “I certainly don’t mind you askin’ if y’don’t mind me not tellin’,” he responded. “Don’t worry ‘bout it, it’s nothin’ special.” Erik shrugged.

Their manners of speech were strange together. As far as he knew, Dominique came from across the sea – or at least he knew the language. Erik’s hometown, from the deep south, gifted him with his rural accent. Back there, he never would’ve thought he’d come into contact with someone like Dom.

“Just don’t take ‘em all. And I hope y’like Marlboro ‘cause that’s all I got.”

[Dominique Chevalier]

Humming in curiosity, Dom's eyebrows rose even as he shrugged. "No problem," he said honestly. Everyone should be allowed their secrets, after all. He waited for the packet to emerge, and when it didn't, straightened and moved to stand toe to toe with Erik.

His hands were behind his back, and so Dom started his search there by checking his back pockets. "In Paris," he said conversationally as he searched for the carton in the other boy's pockets, "there are these cigarettes called Pink Elephants. They're bright pink, surprisingly." The prize found, he flicked open the cartoon and selected two, tucking one behind his ear for later and finding a lighter in his own pocket.

"Fuck me," he muttered as his thumb slipped on the flint. Second time was the charm, but his habitual scowl had deepened. Mentioning Paris had soured his mood; a stupid self-error. Paris had been where he and his brother had gone to blow off steam, something that had been needed after finding out they were going to be repeating.

Not ideal. Or was it? Nothing cleared his head quite like sex, and Erik didn't ever try to

"I hope your sheets are clean," he spoke around the cigarette, smoke issuing from between his lips as he spoke, then took it between too fingers and offered it, still smoking, to Erik. "Come on, pretty. I've already had my hands in your pants and we're not even in your dorm yet. If we don't move faster, someone may have to complain about public indecency."

[Erik Stewart]

He and Dominique had been closer before, but he still liked it when the other boy stood so near. Erik didn’t move; he only smiled faintly as he searched his pockets. “That so?” he asked, just as conversationally.

Paris might as well have been the moon to him. Erik had never left the country – he didn’t even know what it entailed. Having grown up for the first decade of his life in the backwater, with nothing but the incessant hum of insects and the sway of branches as he slept, Vermont was really enough of an adjustment for him. Still, he noted Dom’s sudden agitation. Erik tilted his head, observing him; he wondered if it was Paris that had bad memories assigned to it, or if it was the mythical ‘pink elephants’.

“I cleaned ‘em just two nights ago…and you’re the only one extra who sleeps in ‘em, so you don’t need t’worry ‘bout that.” Erik slipped the cigarette from Dom’s fingers. He held it to his lips and took in a long drag of smoke, then released it in a stream. Then he laughed. “Hell, it’s too late for that. I’ll try and be real quiet this time. And I think Tomer’s startin’ to catch on.”

No good roommate liked to hear that his other half was going at it in the same room. Thankfully, he’d no proof – he hadn’t walked in on them, god forbid, and Erik was always careful to take Dom back while he wasn’t there…but things got around.

Erik shrugged, then led him off.

His room wasn’t immaculate, but it wasn’t filthy, either. It was a touch dark because he left the blinds closed most of the day. The covers on his bed were seafoam green, and sometimes he left his sleeping wear over it when he was too lazy to put it away - or even on the floor, on those days he particularly didn’t give a shit. Perhaps most disconcerting to guests, though, was Dead John; that was DJ for short, his almost-two-feet black rat snake. He’d a tank to himself in the corner of the room, but Erik gave him free reign of the room, and one could find him slithering about on the floor…as he was now.

Erik leaned down to offer his arm to the snake, and DJ slowly climbed up it. He’d put him in his tank for now; Erik didn’t get much guests, but he knew that most of them weren’t keen on sharing the place with a free-roaming snake.

[Dominique Chevalier]

Dom just smirked and shook his head. Fuck Erik's roommate; while Dom wasn't much of a screamer, or a moaner, it was always nice to hear someone appreciating his work. But if Erik was going to try and stay quiet... well, challenges could be fun.

Snakes were animals that Dom could take or leave, but he generally didn't like them around his person. It was human nature, he thought. Those things weren't supposed to be cuddled and petted, they were supposed to bite things and sometimes poison them. Staying back while Erik dealt with his pet, as soon as he'd stepped away from the tank Dom made his way over behind him and put his hands on Erik's hips. Turning him towards the bed, Dom gave Erik a little push and followed closely behind.

----

Afterwards, Dom gave himself a few minutes to catch his breath and pushed himself up off the bed. Pulling on his clothes again, he turned and fished the extra cigarette he'd pinched out of his pocket. It was only a little bent. "As always, a pleasure," he said honestly. "I'll see you around."

And that was that.