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I never got it. Those stories, the ones with the happy endings, where they rode off into the sunset and the music swelled. Always happy endings, the hero would come to rescue the heroine, and hey presto all is well. Nice dream, I thought, but show me something real. Show me something that I know. Then I saw a happy ending. What else could it be? His face lights up every time he talks about her. Sometimes I know when he's thinking about her, his eyes get this shine. And it's good to see. It's wonderful, and when he's happy the whole world sings. He loves her. And it is good, and they deserve to be so happy. So in the day I disappear and an ex-druggie rocker who's doing his best comes out to play and I don't know which one of us is more lost. They never show it, do they? All of the happy ending? What if there was someone in the background, a friend, maybe, trying not to – "Call him," Evey says, at least once a day. Sheepishly, I tell her I already left a message. She rolls her eyes and distracts me. Sometimes, late at night, I don't believe in happy endings. Then he phones me, and I know them to be true. "Dom?" "Billy! How's Scotland?" "Rainy. Hawaii?" I look outside. "Rainy." Silence for a moment, and here it is, the comfort in the presence of his voice, and I'm home. Then I ask. "How's Ali?" "Oh, she's … she's great, Dom. Great." There's something in his voice I don't recognise, can't collate. It doesn't match, doesn't fall into place with the rest of his syllables. I say nothing, let him breathe. "Ehm. 'S it alright if I come out again? I know you're back to work and all, but –" "Yes, of course, any time you like," I say, trying not to jump all over him. "Billy, you know I love to have you here." "Thanks." I can't tell, but I'm pretty certain that was the sound of a wry smile. "Just want to get out of Scotland for a bit." I don't ask. I know better. I've noticed the absence of "we" in this "I", but Ali's probably working and Billy's probably lonely. He sounds lonely, and I don't think it's the long-distance connection making his words off kilter. "Hawaii's waiting for you," is all I say. "Thanks." His voice seems to have become even smaller, reduced somehow. I wish I could pull him to me and hug the breath out of him, but for now a tiny sound will have to do. An audible head on his shoulder, arms looped around him. Not long now, and I can hold him again. Not hold, I tell myself, hug. He sniffs on the other end of the phone, and No. Hold.
"DOM!" Billy saw him, head craning over and around the crowd in the airport, and something slid into place – or was that just him shifting his bag on his shoulder?
"BILLY!" Dom swung around, hearing his voice, and pelted towards him, trying not to knock into anyone. He paused for a fraction of a second when he got there, right in front of Billy, hopping from his left foot to his right. Billy dropped his bags and held out his arms, and Dom barrelled into them.
Billy's face near cracked in two with his grin. "Oh, I've missed you," he said, somewhere in the vicinity of Dom's shoulder. Dom chuckled, a rumble against Billy's chest.
"You've only been gone a few" lifetimes "weeks, Bill." Dom's jaw found the curve of Billy's ear and rubbed slightly. Neither knew when or how it had started, but that was the height of their signs of affection. Billy purred slightly in his throat, and pulled Dom closer, arms wrapped around him as if he were a helium balloon and Dom could stop him from flying away.
The crowd swirled around them, finding their exits and destinations, oblivious to the two men wrapped around each other. Three girls saw as they sat down, waiting for a friend's plane, and glanced at each other with smiles in their eyes.
Sound was dulled in Dom's world, everything muted but the presence of Billy, the feel of his arms around him, his back and ribs under Dom's hands and arms, and the softness of Billy's cheek on his neck.
A sensation began, maybe somewhere in his spinal cord, and Dom lifted his head to look at Billy. Saw his eyes were wet. "Come on," he murmured, "let's get you home."
Billy nodded, arms tightening as if he didn't want to let Dom go, but releasing and leaning down to pick up his bags. "Aye." He nodded. "Let's go."
Dom swung one of the bags out of Billy's hand and over his shoulder. His other arm he slung around Billy's back. "Car's waiting."
Billy was silent in the car, taking in the rain, the clouds. Dom hummed a little, something Billy found oddly soothing. He could think clearly and properly, for the first time in … well, he didn't feel like calculating, but a while. So he thought, biting his lip a little.
Dom parked, and carried Billy's bags inside despite his protests. "I can do it myself, Dom. Honestly! You'll be carrying me over the threshold next." Billy rolled his eyes, but then saw the gleam in Dom's. "Oh, no," he said, backing away. "Nonono. Dom, no!" He darted around the boot of the car, Dom darting the other way to meet him at the bonnet. Billy raced around the other side, but Dom was there and swung him up into his arms. Billy shrieked. "Notfairnotfair putmedownputmedown!"
Dom staggered to the door, laughing, and Billy began to laugh with him, stilling his flailing limbs. Dom carried him inside. "Welcome, my bride," Dom snorted, setting him on his feet in the hall.
Billy tackled him. They landed on the ground with two almighty "oof"s, and Billy began giving Dom the tickling of his life.
"Stopitstopit," Dom wheezed, trying to reach to tickle Billy, but the bastard was too quick for him. Laughing triumphantly, Billy clasped Dom's wrists in his hands and fell off him.
"Truce?" Both were breathless, half sitting up propped against the wall, clothes awry, hair flying, eyes shining. Dom grinned.
"Truce," he nodded. Billy let go of his wrists, and they sat, side by side, getting their breath back. After a few moments, Dom turned his head and looked at him. "Billy?"
"Hmm?"
Dom launched himself at Billy and tickled him mercilessly. "Dom, no!" Billy wheezed, trying weakly to fight him off, and the tickling became a kind of clinging hug as Dom's hands gradually stilled.
"Sorry," he smiled from Billy's waist. "Couldn't help it."
Billy's answer was to hug him tightly. Dom squeezed him around the middle.
"'M glad you're here," was muffled into Billy's t-shirt.
"So'm I," spoken into Dom's hair. Dom looked up at him, saw now his eyes were definitely wet, and those weren't the earlier tears of laughter.
Dom shifted, closer, up so he was level with Billy, and held out his arms. Billy crawled and fell into them, fitting just so. Dom nuzzled his ear with his jaw. You don't have to tell me, went unspoken. But if you want to, I'll listen.
Billy was silent for a while. When he spoke, his voice was thick until he cleared his throat. "I've missed you."
"You said that before," Dom reminded him, gently. "What's wrong, Billy?" With a few fingers, he began stroking Billy's hair, behind his ear at the back. Billy shifted closer, sighing and closing his eyes.
"That feels good," he whispered. Dom smiled, and kept stroking. Both were silent for a while, and Dom listened to Billy's heart beat.
"Where does it all go wrong, Dom?" Billy squeezed his eyes shut tighter. "Do you wake up one morning and know everything is wrong? Is it like an avalanche, one stone falls, then another and another until suddenly half the mountain's sliding down on top of you?"
Dom said nothing, but kissed Billy's forehead softly.
Billy shifted and settled, closer, arms and chest tighter around Dom, as if he was holding onto a buoy trying not to drown. "When does love change, Dom? When does it go from wanting to spend your life with someone, share that in ways only for them, to wanting only to share your life with them in friendship? When does it turn the other way around? When do you go from thinking you want to always know someone, know their friendship, to knowing all you want is to be with them, share and see and feel and be things with them you couldn't with anyone else?" Billy blinked up at him, a few tears making tracks on his cheeks.
Dom held him, quietly. "I don't know," he whispered, heart racing. "I don't have any answers, Bills."
You are the answers, and your heart is giving me the rest, Billy thought, the drumbeat racing in his ear, the glow in Dom's eyes all he needed to make one thing, one thing at least, make sense and be so clear as to be undeniable.
"Dom, I haven't – I hadn't – I wasn't – " He sighed. "Three weeks ago, I broke up with Ali. We'd … just … we didn't want to be anything but friends any more." He smiled fondly. "She had a date, the other day, with a friend of ours. Bless her, I hope this one turns out better."
Dom stared at him, forgetting to blink until his eyes watered. "You – why didn't you tell me?" He sounded a little hurt, and Billy frowned. Pang goes my heart.
"I don't know. Or, I didn't, at first, but – it was right as you were getting back to work, then I just … I didn't ..." He trailed off. "I wanted to tell you in person. I wanted to … I missed you."
"I know." Dom was looking at him. "Tell me the rest." His heart had picked up its pace. Billy smiled against it, and shifted up until his eyes were level with Dom's.
"I love you," he whispered, looking into Dom's eyes, pouring what he meant in those three words into him, via optic nerves. Dom's mouth fell open, his arms and legs jerked, and he sat up suddenly straighter.
"I – you – Bill –" Dom stuttered, breaking into the biggest, widest, hugest grin Billy had seen him in. He let out a whoop, and tackled Billy, knocking the wind out of him with his hug.
Billy laughed. "Get on and kiss me, yer silly shite."
Dom's laugh was a burst of sound, a burst of heart. He took Billy's face in his hands, gazing into his eyes for a moment. "I love you, Bills," he told him, smiling, and leaned forward.
The kiss was softer than Billy had imagined, and sent tingles out to his every pore and muscle and particle of skin until he hummed like a tuning fork. He opened his mouth, just a little, and found the tip of Dom's tongue with his. They held them there, just like that, for a while, kissing soft and gentle and like no other kiss Billy had ever had.
When they broke away in the end, Billy glowed up at Dom, who glowed and sparkled right back. Particles in the air around his head seemed lit up, Dom his own independent light source.
"Come on," he said at last. "Let's get you settled in." He stopped. "You are staying, aren't you?"
Billy nodded and kissed his nose. "For as long as you'll have me."
"How's always sound?"
"Very good." They got up, automatically finding each other's hands, and picked Billy's things up off the floor. Billy looked around. Yep. He was home.
That's when I got happy endings at last. When I got one of my own. Yeah, so it's not all beds of roses and moonlight serenading (although he has done that, and so have I, even when he begged me to stop the serenading, laughing so hard he could barely stand), yeah, sometimes we fight and don't talk and snipe at each other, and sometimes we don't agree on where we want to be, New Zealand Scotland America England. But no matter what happens, wherever we are is home. When we're in Scotland, we go visit Ali and Michael and the kids. When we're in New Zealand, we live right next door to Lij and his missus. And when we're in America, we're with Viggo or Sean or other friends or a place of our own. It's when we're apart is the hard bit – once, he went away to filming angry with me, and he'd be gone for six months. We made up within a week and I flew out to visit him. Happy endings don't show everything. They don't show the arguments over the washing up or the weeks when the most exciting topic of conversation is the new timetable for the bin collectors. Don't tell anyone, but I love those times. When it's just me and Bills and the silence in us and neither of us has to be anything or anyone but ourselves and in love with each other. Turns out always, lumps bumps peace and love and all of it, is a pretty good deal.