The Long Surrender: 17/??
Jan. 24th, 2011 02:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lalalive23Title: The Long Surrender
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lalalive23
Pairing: Belldom
Rating: R
Warning: Swearing
Summary: AU. Matt moved to Spain immediately after his lover left him to continue his work on the Spanish guitar. When Dom takes a holiday with his new fiancee, his world gets turned upside down and nothing is ever the same again.
Feedback: Not gonna lie, I'm a feedback whore. I get the shakes without it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Muse. If I did, they sure as hell would not be let out of the naughty closet. I don't make money off this. If I did, I would be a rich lady and not distracting myself from writing an undergrad thesis that is somehow much bigger than I.
Note: Well. I'll not say anything about this, just let you read. I wanted to get this out because I won't have time for the rest of the week. I go back to school on Tuesday, so I have a busy week ahead of me. Maybe this weekend I can work on some fic. I'll try but I need to feel out my schedule before I know. :D Enjoy :D
Thanks todolce_piccante , millionstar , and sunshine_173 for briefly reviewing bits of this. Thanks to my commenters. I love you all <3
Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14A Chapter 14B Chapter 15 Chapter 16
It had been a week since Matthew had accosted Dominic, and while he wanted to be able to declare that he was pleased that the scintillating brunet hadn't taken advantage of his conflicting feelings, the truth was entirely the opposite. Freely announcing Matthew's name in the bathroom had been a revelation, an act of shedding the skin that was dripping with the stain of Julia's entrails. It had felt delicious, rolling off his tongue like Matthew was actually there; could hear him and react to it. After he had done it once, he was completely unsure he would be able to stop himself from doing it again in the throws of pleasure. Matthew's name became his prayer, Matthew's body the altar of his worship, Dominic a servant to a mortal god that he wanted to possess him completely. He was willing, he was a humble servant, and he was begging for it.
The days in the studio with Matthew had become torture, Dominic's body crying out for the brunet, his hips begging to be pressed, the head of his cock weeping in the memory of Matthew's hardness against his. As the days passed, Dominic played a less crucial role in the recording process, Matthew no longer needing his confidence boosted, and Ian had learned enough of the the man's style and goals for the album to manifest them into perfection. Knowing the level of his sudden unimportance, the blonde joined them simply because he could, because he loved the sound of Matthew's voice as it licked angelic hymns over the hairs of his neck, and because he couldn't stand to not be there. Separation from Matthew, however brief, had become unbearable. Nights had become restless, work days impossible, and the tension in his overall being only seemed to dissipate when Matthew was close at hand.
And while Dominic ached to have Matthew test the boundaries of his limits once more, Matthew had taken an entirely different tactic that only seemed to frustrate his yearning: ignoring him. Ian had become the center of Matthew's fixation, the recipient of his bright smiles and shy glances. Sitting on the plush couch in the studio, Dominic seemed to evaporate into bland brown of the room and watched hungrily as Matthew worked through every motion, every strum, every flick of his tongue in the language that set his groin to burning. And never once did Matthew return the stare - it didn't even seem like he was trying.
And the lack of effort made Dominic want him more.
The draw backs to his reduced role in the recording process consisted primarily of the fact that it gave him time to reflect on his failing relationship. No longer could he feasibly deny that his feelings for Julia had changed, because, even in the small ways Matthew was changing him, he knew that they were. Love, he knew, came in many different forms, and changed as quickly as it could come. He refused to say that his love for her had gone away, because that itself would have been a lie. He did love her, though not in the way that he had promised her he always would.
Late one night, in the throws of sleep deprivation, he stared at the ceiling and formulated an argument he thought was sound, but would never voice unless absolutely pressed. When he had asked Julia to marry him, he had meant the promise with every fiber of his soul. It had not been, nor was it ever intended to be, a lie. He had voiced the sentiment with the utmost certainty that the words were true, he believed them to be, and he spoke them with unbridled authority. She had believed him then, even if she couldn't bring herself to believe him now.
The tricky thing about love, and life itself, was that the unexpected hurdles and challenges one receives are in place to bring about change. The change itself being a form of growth. Julia had been, in that period of his life, very right for him, exactly what he needed, and exactly what he could imagine himself wanting until the day he died. But then, the inciting incident of his relationship with Matthew had been a catalyst for change and for growth. His desires changed, his being changed, his capacity to love and desire someone grew. Initially he had fought the shift, as any hesitant and responsible lover would, but life continues, and the nature of the heart continues, without allowing a moments pause for the rest of the mind and body to catch up.
But though he did not love her as he said he would for the rest of his life, he still cared for her, and could not bear to hurt her for his own personal gains. He cared for her even though the battlefield of his home had become a war zone in the span of a week, as though Julia were picking fights with him merely because she could, though it felt like there was something more to her anger.Behind her wrath filled eyes, he would always catch a glimmer of sadness, of defeat, as though she already knew his secret.
His cowardice was the only thing holding him back from talking to her, his perpetual fear of loss and, again, change. He was nearly thirty and he was terrified. It was one thing to announce to your girlfriend that the relationship had gone sour. Difficult, but it had certainly happened before. Telling your fiancee that you had feelings for another person was, again, an extremely difficult task, one that no doubt brought about weeks of regret, constant self doubt, and the knowledge that you were the reason one of the most important people in your life had been erased. And while Dominic was sure that either of these situations would have caused him nausea, none could compare to the dread he felt when he thought of the prospect of telling Julia that he was leaving her - for a man.
And while it was exactly what he wanted, he was still unsure he could follow through with it. Leaving Julia to explore the realms of homosexuality was an unbearably intimidating task, one that he never thought he would come face to face with in his entire life. Though calling it homosexuality was, itself, a falsehood. In one of his more wistful of moods, he had once developed the term 'Matthosexuality,' because he wasn't gay, and if his desire for Matthew didn't have a label he knew he would never come to terms with it. He hated that it needed such a thing, but again, he needed comfort in a time of turbulent change.
But as Dominic watched the man move, sway and get lost in his music, he was sure that Matthew was his necessary course. Matthew was the solar wind guiding his body's compass, body surrendering first to the change, heart following soon after, and mind accepting the change as choice - willingly - because it was a simple fact that Matthew had won before he had even started trying.
He left the studio that evening burning with the memory of the glance Matthew had given as they left, turning to smile hotly at him as his bottom lip quivered to form a pout. The desire swirling in his brain forced the image into a puckered kiss, leaving his lips tingling once more at the hazy memory that was now weeks old. He looked away quickly, eyes falling to the sidewalk from the fear of his lack of control. One look, one breath of Matthew's natural scent sent him into a frenzy of want, causing him to feel as though any action he made from that point forward he could not be held responsible for.
He turned away then, wishing they didn't leave in opposite directions, but knowing well that to not return home that evening would fill him with more guilt than one kiss ever could. Begrudgingly, his loafered feet carried him on the path to his flat, wondering what sort of argument would occur as soon as he stepped through the door. Or maybe it would be no argument at all. Recently, Julia had taken to not speaking to him, ignoring him in a manner similar to Matthew, though her entire demeanor prickled with ice as opposed to Matthew's warm sexual energy. She would say nothing to him, back turned to him in bed and eyes avoiding him during the day. And while he should have felt disturbed by it, he merely felt the weakness in him rejoice, as if to say 'no speaking is better than telling the truth.'
As he pushed the door to his apartment building open, he calmly realized that his relationship with Julia was over, the weaker side of him falling into a dark corner that he had created especially for it. Why shouldn't he be honest with her? Feelings removed, the only thing left was for him to vocalize the sentiment. He doubted she would be surprised, she would merely demand an explanation. Perhaps, in honesty, that was exactly why he didn't want want to even try, because to admit that he had cheated lied was to paint the term 'Matthosexuality' a negative connotation, and he refused to ever see it as anything but beautiful.
He pushed open the door to his flat, eyes closed and inhaling a sharp, preparatory breath. He put his head space into one of defense, a state of mind he was sadly becoming used to.
"Jules, I'm home," he called, trying to be optimistic for the first time in a week.
No response. Silence was to be her tactic, it seemed.
Walking calmly through the flat, he began to undo his dress shirt, hoping momentarily she wasn't home at all. Kicking the bedroom door open with his foot, he stopped dead as he saw Julia sitting on the bed, hands on either side of her body, face blank, staring at him as though she were a statue.
"Julia?" he asked, fingers paused at the buttons, eyes wide in confusion.
"I didn't want to believe it," she said flatly.
His brow furrowed in confusion. "What?"
"At first I thought it was impossible, but then every single thing started fitting together, and now...I don't even know what to think. It's like...it's like some strange dream that I'm waiting to wake up from because it couldn't possibly be true." Her eyes looked away from him as she let out a cruel laugh, looking to the ceiling as she continued. "But it is, and all of the ways I've tried to make it make sense...it just doesn't work. So, I'd like to hear it from your mouth. Right now." In a flash she was looking at him again, cold, hard, and fiercely angry.
Dominic fond himself stunned in a paralysis. "What?" he repeated dumbly.
"Cut the crap, Howard!" she snapped. "You know exactly what I'm talking about! You think I'm fucking deaf?"
His eyes bugged, and it was enough to give him away.
"I've spent the past week fighting with you and ignoring you, trying to draw the truth about your change out of you, trying to make sense of everything. Because I don't understand how my fiancee could be moaning a man's name in our shower. That just boggles my mind." Her hand, which had been whizzing about before her as she gesticulated to him, the shower, to nothing in particular, came to slap onto the mattress as she finished.
"Julia, listen -" she cut him off.
"I don't want fucking excuses from you. I want that goddamn truth!" She slammed her fist into the bed, causing a dull thud to attempt to make an echo through the room. "For once in your fucking life, speak to me with some conviction, like you have some kind of feeling behind anything that you've done! Because I don't want to sit here and look at you like you're some weak minded person who shies away from their own actions. I want you to talk to me like a fucking man! Or is that too hard for you?" She spat the words at him like fire, and the burned him to the core.
Leaning against the door, he hardly removed his eyes from her hard frame. In a rage like this, she was a fearsome thing to behold, eyes swirling with darkness and passion, because, he knew, her wrath was always passionate, feeling the strength of it to her very soul. At another point in his life, he would have thought her stunning, but in that moment, she was a creature of pure myth: a woman scorned.
Running a hand over his face, he braced himself for the words he was about to allow into the atmosphere. He knew he could never fully prepare for her response, but it comforted him to at least try.
"I kissed him," he said slowly, plainly.
"What?" she said quietly, almost barely there.
He opened his eyes and removed his hand to find her, stranding, face flushed and shocked. "You said...but I thought you assumed!"
"I didn't fucking know what to assume!" she bellowed. "I thought you were just fantasizing, were thinking that this relationship was meaningless, SOMETHING other than that!"
He cringed at her inflection and felt ashamed. Ashamed because he didn't feel guilt for what he had done until she said it in a negative tone. "Don't say it like it's something dirty," he whispered, looking away from her.
"Oh and what? It isn't? You kissing someone else while we're engaged isn't something for me to loathe? Tell me then, why did you do it? Was I not enough for you?"
He swiped his hand over his face as he prepared an answer. Julia's angry voice cut through him before he could even think.
"Look at me Dominic! I want you to look at me while you tell me why I'm not good enough for you!"
It was unlike anything he had ever heard before. The words had all the colourings and shapes of an insecure statement from a desperate housewife, but coming from her mouth it was simply to drive home the fact that she was, in every way, better than he was. To prove him that he didn't deserve her.
"There isn't any reason," he admitted softly. "I can't explain it."
"Try," she shot at him. "Try because I want to know why you would cheat on me. I want to have something to explain to my mother when I show up at her door in California, homeless."
Bitter tears sprung from the corner of his eyes, lip quivering as he began to realize just how much the ten seconds of bliss he had experienced with Matthew had been a catalyst of devastation for Julia's life.
"I can't, Julia," he said weakly. "I just want him. I want him so much, all the time. I think about him constantly and it...it hurts to be away from him. I could never resist him."
"You weak bastard. 'You couldn't resist him?' Why are you trying to make it sound like he seduced you?"
Taken aback by her statement, his mouth opened and closed for a few moments before he shook his head and spoke. "What? I'm confused."
"The hell, Dominic, do you really think I'm that stupid? You weren't the only one who met Matthew! I was there in Spain with you! Sorry, but I don't see him as being someone to go from his ex-boyfriend to seducing a guy who is engaged."
As right as she was, he felt the urge to defend himself. "What? And I'm the cheating type?"
"Apparently you are! You were the one who decided to spend all the time with him, you were the one who started the fight with him, you kissed him. Those are your words, Dominic, not his." Her finger pointed harshly at him and he backed away from it partly into the hallway.
"He's not even here!" Dominic shouted, arms flying up at his sides as he gesticulated to the otherwise empty flat.
"No!" Julia shouted back, "he is! Because you bring him home every night, in your head." Her fingers tapped roughly to her temple. "He's been here since we came back from Spain. You comforting him, you fighting with him, moaning his name in the shower, nearly moaning his name last week when I was blowing you! He's every where in this house and, I'm sorry. but this bed only has room for two."
Reflecting briefly on her harsh statement, Dominic realized that she had been absolutely correct. Every day he had spent with Matthew had pushed Julia's presence out of his flat and his heart with each passing second.
He would not admit she was right so soon, the defensive child in him wanting to push her until he found a way he could possibly win, not matter how futile his efforts would prove to be. "So you're not even mad at him? It's all my fault, only me? How do you know he hasn't tried anything on me?" It was true, because he had.
She threw her arms up and shook her head, pursing her lips before gripping her hips and speaking. "Does it matter? You instigated and probably got his hopes up so he responded like a normal person. It's wrong of him, but I can't see him as anything but a victim of your own cold feet."
"What? How so?" It was his turn to put his hands on his hips.
"Because he has been nursing a broken heart, Dominic. You helped him get recording time, you brought him back here even though he didn't want to be back in London, you kissed him, you fought with him. Anything he's done after is just a prey's natural response to a predator."
Her continual mention of the argument forced the truth out of his chest, realizing that she hardly knew the truth of what had happened. And, briefly, he thought maybe he could twist it into his favor, though he hardly wanted to. "He knew I wasn't gay! I told him that after I kissed him! I backed away, told him I wasn't gay and left. You're acting like I slept with him!"
Julia stood, eyes widening before him as she processed what he said. "You told him....ARE YOU A FUCKING PSYCHO? Really, you're not gay? You kiss a man, you moan his name in bed with your girlfriend, and you moan his name in the shower. That doesn't make you gay? Please, Dominic, explain to me what makes someone gay. If desiring another man sexually doesn't count, than what does? I'd really like to know."
He cowered from her then, knowing that his private term for his sexuality was inappropriate, wrong and nonsensical. He hated her, in that moment, as she ripped apart all the positivity he had laced into his relationship with Matthew. It was time he defended it.
"Fine. Think of me as gay. But I'm not. I don't know what I am. I just know that I want Matthew. I can't think or sleep without him near me. I don't look at any other blokes, and I haven't been interested in any other women. I haven't wanted to fuck anyone since I've met him. If that makes me gay, then fine, I'm gay. And I'm fucking proud of it. Because he is someone to be proud of."
He gasped for breath as he finished his words, proud of them and then instantly regretting them.
Julia, in all the years he had known her, had never looked so positively vicious in the instant after he had finished speaking. She had pounced on him, chest pressed against his, eyes glowing with rage. She panted before him, lips parted and brow furrowed. Her arms rested on either side of him.
She had completely trapped him under her cruel stare, making it impossible for him to look anywhere else.
"That personal insult you have just delivered," she hissed, "has proven to me that you are the last person on the face of this planet I would ever want to marry. So you can take this ring on my finger and ask Matthew to shove it up your ass while he takes you. Consider it a gift of my blessing to the both of you."
Dominic cringed, felt his insides twist at the way she spoke of his possible sexual relationship with the brunet, finding it impossible to view it as anything but beautiful. "Don't insult him like that."
"Ha!" she barked. "If you think for a second that I am insulting him, you are sorely mistaken. Because if you are leaving me for him than you better fucking love him. You better love him the way you just couldn't bring yourself to love me. I want you to love him, and I want you to mean it. Because I want him to know that every single day, he runs the risk of living through what I am. If your affections seem to blow with a summer breeze than he needs to know it, and he needs to be brave. So you better fucking love him. Love him and mean it."
With that, she pulled away from him, tugging the ring off her finger and dropping it to the floor unceremoniously. Stalking away, she left Dominic in the bedroom to catch his breath, to reflect on what had just happened. and to attempt to gain some composure. As he heard the door slam behind her, he only then came to realize that the bedroom was partly empty, Julia having removed her things sometime during the day. It was as though she was planning this, knowing already what his answers would be, knowing, as usual, him better than he knew himself.
As his breathing slowed, he felt the cold, stab of guilt through his chest. Their relationship had ended in the worst of ways, no strands ever showing the signs of being able to be retied, the fracture simply too harsh. Pieces of himself had left with her, and as he sat back on the bed, he felt himself miss her.
The tears he had been holding in slipped down his cheeks as he wept, the bitterness in his chest making his gasps painful and forced. He'd been cruel, unreasonable, and she had been just as she had described Matthew: a victim of his own cold feet. He couldn't love her the way that she had deserved, the way he promised her he did and would. If anything, it hurt more that he couldn't live up to his word.
He would never know if his waning affections had been a cause of his subconscious fear of matrimony. Reviewing every moment in his mind from the second he met Matthew, it seemed as though everything had been natural. no action of his signaling his desire to escape marriage. He had never intended to escape Julia, he simply wanted to find himself lost in the arms of Matthew.
Matthew.
Before he realized what was happening, Dominic found himself moving. His mind was blank, his feet and legs carrying him as he exited his building and walked on the street. Thought was unnecessary, certainly only serving to dissuade him from what he was doing so his natural plan of action was to shut his mind entirely off. On the street, there were no cabs, no sign of Julia, and he felt himself become weightless.
A corner of his heart throbbed at the loss, someone taking up a large portion of your life leaving so abruptly certainly causing a shock to the body's affections, but in that moment he was ruled by something stronger and more potent. He had no name for it, and refused to label it in fear of having to explain it to someone like he had to explain his sexuality to Julia.
Finding himself at Matthew's door, he knocked, once more feeling the lift of an external force, body functioning on auto pilot than actual concentrated effort.
It was only when Matthew answered the door, confused and in a tight white tee of his pajamas, that Dominic actually began to focus on the present moment.
"It's over," he said breathily.
Matthew merely blinked at him, not understanding.
"Me and Julia. It's over."
Author:
lalalive23 Pairing: Belldom
Rating: R
Warning: Swearing
Summary: AU. Matt moved to Spain immediately after his lover left him to continue his work on the Spanish guitar. When Dom takes a holiday with his new fiancee, his world gets turned upside down and nothing is ever the same again.
Feedback: Not gonna lie, I'm a feedback whore. I get the shakes without it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Muse. If I did, they sure as hell would not be let out of the naughty closet. I don't make money off this. If I did, I would be a rich lady and not distracting myself from writing an undergrad thesis that is somehow much bigger than I.
Note: Well. I'll not say anything about this, just let you read. I wanted to get this out because I won't have time for the rest of the week. I go back to school on Tuesday, so I have a busy week ahead of me. Maybe this weekend I can work on some fic. I'll try but I need to feel out my schedule before I know. :D Enjoy :D
Thanks to
dolce_piccante , millionstar , and sunshine_173 for briefly reviewing bits of this. Thanks to my commenters. I love you all <3Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14A Chapter 14B Chapter 15 Chapter 16
It had been a week since Matthew had accosted Dominic, and while he wanted to be able to declare that he was pleased that the scintillating brunet hadn't taken advantage of his conflicting feelings, the truth was entirely the opposite. Freely announcing Matthew's name in the bathroom had been a revelation, an act of shedding the skin that was dripping with the stain of Julia's entrails. It had felt delicious, rolling off his tongue like Matthew was actually there; could hear him and react to it. After he had done it once, he was completely unsure he would be able to stop himself from doing it again in the throws of pleasure. Matthew's name became his prayer, Matthew's body the altar of his worship, Dominic a servant to a mortal god that he wanted to possess him completely. He was willing, he was a humble servant, and he was begging for it.
The days in the studio with Matthew had become torture, Dominic's body crying out for the brunet, his hips begging to be pressed, the head of his cock weeping in the memory of Matthew's hardness against his. As the days passed, Dominic played a less crucial role in the recording process, Matthew no longer needing his confidence boosted, and Ian had learned enough of the the man's style and goals for the album to manifest them into perfection. Knowing the level of his sudden unimportance, the blonde joined them simply because he could, because he loved the sound of Matthew's voice as it licked angelic hymns over the hairs of his neck, and because he couldn't stand to not be there. Separation from Matthew, however brief, had become unbearable. Nights had become restless, work days impossible, and the tension in his overall being only seemed to dissipate when Matthew was close at hand.
And while Dominic ached to have Matthew test the boundaries of his limits once more, Matthew had taken an entirely different tactic that only seemed to frustrate his yearning: ignoring him. Ian had become the center of Matthew's fixation, the recipient of his bright smiles and shy glances. Sitting on the plush couch in the studio, Dominic seemed to evaporate into bland brown of the room and watched hungrily as Matthew worked through every motion, every strum, every flick of his tongue in the language that set his groin to burning. And never once did Matthew return the stare - it didn't even seem like he was trying.
And the lack of effort made Dominic want him more.
The draw backs to his reduced role in the recording process consisted primarily of the fact that it gave him time to reflect on his failing relationship. No longer could he feasibly deny that his feelings for Julia had changed, because, even in the small ways Matthew was changing him, he knew that they were. Love, he knew, came in many different forms, and changed as quickly as it could come. He refused to say that his love for her had gone away, because that itself would have been a lie. He did love her, though not in the way that he had promised her he always would.
Late one night, in the throws of sleep deprivation, he stared at the ceiling and formulated an argument he thought was sound, but would never voice unless absolutely pressed. When he had asked Julia to marry him, he had meant the promise with every fiber of his soul. It had not been, nor was it ever intended to be, a lie. He had voiced the sentiment with the utmost certainty that the words were true, he believed them to be, and he spoke them with unbridled authority. She had believed him then, even if she couldn't bring herself to believe him now.
The tricky thing about love, and life itself, was that the unexpected hurdles and challenges one receives are in place to bring about change. The change itself being a form of growth. Julia had been, in that period of his life, very right for him, exactly what he needed, and exactly what he could imagine himself wanting until the day he died. But then, the inciting incident of his relationship with Matthew had been a catalyst for change and for growth. His desires changed, his being changed, his capacity to love and desire someone grew. Initially he had fought the shift, as any hesitant and responsible lover would, but life continues, and the nature of the heart continues, without allowing a moments pause for the rest of the mind and body to catch up.
But though he did not love her as he said he would for the rest of his life, he still cared for her, and could not bear to hurt her for his own personal gains. He cared for her even though the battlefield of his home had become a war zone in the span of a week, as though Julia were picking fights with him merely because she could, though it felt like there was something more to her anger.Behind her wrath filled eyes, he would always catch a glimmer of sadness, of defeat, as though she already knew his secret.
His cowardice was the only thing holding him back from talking to her, his perpetual fear of loss and, again, change. He was nearly thirty and he was terrified. It was one thing to announce to your girlfriend that the relationship had gone sour. Difficult, but it had certainly happened before. Telling your fiancee that you had feelings for another person was, again, an extremely difficult task, one that no doubt brought about weeks of regret, constant self doubt, and the knowledge that you were the reason one of the most important people in your life had been erased. And while Dominic was sure that either of these situations would have caused him nausea, none could compare to the dread he felt when he thought of the prospect of telling Julia that he was leaving her - for a man.
And while it was exactly what he wanted, he was still unsure he could follow through with it. Leaving Julia to explore the realms of homosexuality was an unbearably intimidating task, one that he never thought he would come face to face with in his entire life. Though calling it homosexuality was, itself, a falsehood. In one of his more wistful of moods, he had once developed the term 'Matthosexuality,' because he wasn't gay, and if his desire for Matthew didn't have a label he knew he would never come to terms with it. He hated that it needed such a thing, but again, he needed comfort in a time of turbulent change.
But as Dominic watched the man move, sway and get lost in his music, he was sure that Matthew was his necessary course. Matthew was the solar wind guiding his body's compass, body surrendering first to the change, heart following soon after, and mind accepting the change as choice - willingly - because it was a simple fact that Matthew had won before he had even started trying.
He left the studio that evening burning with the memory of the glance Matthew had given as they left, turning to smile hotly at him as his bottom lip quivered to form a pout. The desire swirling in his brain forced the image into a puckered kiss, leaving his lips tingling once more at the hazy memory that was now weeks old. He looked away quickly, eyes falling to the sidewalk from the fear of his lack of control. One look, one breath of Matthew's natural scent sent him into a frenzy of want, causing him to feel as though any action he made from that point forward he could not be held responsible for.
He turned away then, wishing they didn't leave in opposite directions, but knowing well that to not return home that evening would fill him with more guilt than one kiss ever could. Begrudgingly, his loafered feet carried him on the path to his flat, wondering what sort of argument would occur as soon as he stepped through the door. Or maybe it would be no argument at all. Recently, Julia had taken to not speaking to him, ignoring him in a manner similar to Matthew, though her entire demeanor prickled with ice as opposed to Matthew's warm sexual energy. She would say nothing to him, back turned to him in bed and eyes avoiding him during the day. And while he should have felt disturbed by it, he merely felt the weakness in him rejoice, as if to say 'no speaking is better than telling the truth.'
As he pushed the door to his apartment building open, he calmly realized that his relationship with Julia was over, the weaker side of him falling into a dark corner that he had created especially for it. Why shouldn't he be honest with her? Feelings removed, the only thing left was for him to vocalize the sentiment. He doubted she would be surprised, she would merely demand an explanation. Perhaps, in honesty, that was exactly why he didn't want want to even try, because to admit that he had cheated lied was to paint the term 'Matthosexuality' a negative connotation, and he refused to ever see it as anything but beautiful.
He pushed open the door to his flat, eyes closed and inhaling a sharp, preparatory breath. He put his head space into one of defense, a state of mind he was sadly becoming used to.
"Jules, I'm home," he called, trying to be optimistic for the first time in a week.
No response. Silence was to be her tactic, it seemed.
Walking calmly through the flat, he began to undo his dress shirt, hoping momentarily she wasn't home at all. Kicking the bedroom door open with his foot, he stopped dead as he saw Julia sitting on the bed, hands on either side of her body, face blank, staring at him as though she were a statue.
"Julia?" he asked, fingers paused at the buttons, eyes wide in confusion.
"I didn't want to believe it," she said flatly.
His brow furrowed in confusion. "What?"
"At first I thought it was impossible, but then every single thing started fitting together, and now...I don't even know what to think. It's like...it's like some strange dream that I'm waiting to wake up from because it couldn't possibly be true." Her eyes looked away from him as she let out a cruel laugh, looking to the ceiling as she continued. "But it is, and all of the ways I've tried to make it make sense...it just doesn't work. So, I'd like to hear it from your mouth. Right now." In a flash she was looking at him again, cold, hard, and fiercely angry.
Dominic fond himself stunned in a paralysis. "What?" he repeated dumbly.
"Cut the crap, Howard!" she snapped. "You know exactly what I'm talking about! You think I'm fucking deaf?"
His eyes bugged, and it was enough to give him away.
"I've spent the past week fighting with you and ignoring you, trying to draw the truth about your change out of you, trying to make sense of everything. Because I don't understand how my fiancee could be moaning a man's name in our shower. That just boggles my mind." Her hand, which had been whizzing about before her as she gesticulated to him, the shower, to nothing in particular, came to slap onto the mattress as she finished.
"Julia, listen -" she cut him off.
"I don't want fucking excuses from you. I want that goddamn truth!" She slammed her fist into the bed, causing a dull thud to attempt to make an echo through the room. "For once in your fucking life, speak to me with some conviction, like you have some kind of feeling behind anything that you've done! Because I don't want to sit here and look at you like you're some weak minded person who shies away from their own actions. I want you to talk to me like a fucking man! Or is that too hard for you?" She spat the words at him like fire, and the burned him to the core.
Leaning against the door, he hardly removed his eyes from her hard frame. In a rage like this, she was a fearsome thing to behold, eyes swirling with darkness and passion, because, he knew, her wrath was always passionate, feeling the strength of it to her very soul. At another point in his life, he would have thought her stunning, but in that moment, she was a creature of pure myth: a woman scorned.
Running a hand over his face, he braced himself for the words he was about to allow into the atmosphere. He knew he could never fully prepare for her response, but it comforted him to at least try.
"I kissed him," he said slowly, plainly.
"What?" she said quietly, almost barely there.
He opened his eyes and removed his hand to find her, stranding, face flushed and shocked. "You said...but I thought you assumed!"
"I didn't fucking know what to assume!" she bellowed. "I thought you were just fantasizing, were thinking that this relationship was meaningless, SOMETHING other than that!"
He cringed at her inflection and felt ashamed. Ashamed because he didn't feel guilt for what he had done until she said it in a negative tone. "Don't say it like it's something dirty," he whispered, looking away from her.
"Oh and what? It isn't? You kissing someone else while we're engaged isn't something for me to loathe? Tell me then, why did you do it? Was I not enough for you?"
He swiped his hand over his face as he prepared an answer. Julia's angry voice cut through him before he could even think.
"Look at me Dominic! I want you to look at me while you tell me why I'm not good enough for you!"
It was unlike anything he had ever heard before. The words had all the colourings and shapes of an insecure statement from a desperate housewife, but coming from her mouth it was simply to drive home the fact that she was, in every way, better than he was. To prove him that he didn't deserve her.
"There isn't any reason," he admitted softly. "I can't explain it."
"Try," she shot at him. "Try because I want to know why you would cheat on me. I want to have something to explain to my mother when I show up at her door in California, homeless."
Bitter tears sprung from the corner of his eyes, lip quivering as he began to realize just how much the ten seconds of bliss he had experienced with Matthew had been a catalyst of devastation for Julia's life.
"I can't, Julia," he said weakly. "I just want him. I want him so much, all the time. I think about him constantly and it...it hurts to be away from him. I could never resist him."
"You weak bastard. 'You couldn't resist him?' Why are you trying to make it sound like he seduced you?"
Taken aback by her statement, his mouth opened and closed for a few moments before he shook his head and spoke. "What? I'm confused."
"The hell, Dominic, do you really think I'm that stupid? You weren't the only one who met Matthew! I was there in Spain with you! Sorry, but I don't see him as being someone to go from his ex-boyfriend to seducing a guy who is engaged."
As right as she was, he felt the urge to defend himself. "What? And I'm the cheating type?"
"Apparently you are! You were the one who decided to spend all the time with him, you were the one who started the fight with him, you kissed him. Those are your words, Dominic, not his." Her finger pointed harshly at him and he backed away from it partly into the hallway.
"He's not even here!" Dominic shouted, arms flying up at his sides as he gesticulated to the otherwise empty flat.
"No!" Julia shouted back, "he is! Because you bring him home every night, in your head." Her fingers tapped roughly to her temple. "He's been here since we came back from Spain. You comforting him, you fighting with him, moaning his name in the shower, nearly moaning his name last week when I was blowing you! He's every where in this house and, I'm sorry. but this bed only has room for two."
Reflecting briefly on her harsh statement, Dominic realized that she had been absolutely correct. Every day he had spent with Matthew had pushed Julia's presence out of his flat and his heart with each passing second.
He would not admit she was right so soon, the defensive child in him wanting to push her until he found a way he could possibly win, not matter how futile his efforts would prove to be. "So you're not even mad at him? It's all my fault, only me? How do you know he hasn't tried anything on me?" It was true, because he had.
She threw her arms up and shook her head, pursing her lips before gripping her hips and speaking. "Does it matter? You instigated and probably got his hopes up so he responded like a normal person. It's wrong of him, but I can't see him as anything but a victim of your own cold feet."
"What? How so?" It was his turn to put his hands on his hips.
"Because he has been nursing a broken heart, Dominic. You helped him get recording time, you brought him back here even though he didn't want to be back in London, you kissed him, you fought with him. Anything he's done after is just a prey's natural response to a predator."
Her continual mention of the argument forced the truth out of his chest, realizing that she hardly knew the truth of what had happened. And, briefly, he thought maybe he could twist it into his favor, though he hardly wanted to. "He knew I wasn't gay! I told him that after I kissed him! I backed away, told him I wasn't gay and left. You're acting like I slept with him!"
Julia stood, eyes widening before him as she processed what he said. "You told him....ARE YOU A FUCKING PSYCHO? Really, you're not gay? You kiss a man, you moan his name in bed with your girlfriend, and you moan his name in the shower. That doesn't make you gay? Please, Dominic, explain to me what makes someone gay. If desiring another man sexually doesn't count, than what does? I'd really like to know."
He cowered from her then, knowing that his private term for his sexuality was inappropriate, wrong and nonsensical. He hated her, in that moment, as she ripped apart all the positivity he had laced into his relationship with Matthew. It was time he defended it.
"Fine. Think of me as gay. But I'm not. I don't know what I am. I just know that I want Matthew. I can't think or sleep without him near me. I don't look at any other blokes, and I haven't been interested in any other women. I haven't wanted to fuck anyone since I've met him. If that makes me gay, then fine, I'm gay. And I'm fucking proud of it. Because he is someone to be proud of."
He gasped for breath as he finished his words, proud of them and then instantly regretting them.
Julia, in all the years he had known her, had never looked so positively vicious in the instant after he had finished speaking. She had pounced on him, chest pressed against his, eyes glowing with rage. She panted before him, lips parted and brow furrowed. Her arms rested on either side of him.
She had completely trapped him under her cruel stare, making it impossible for him to look anywhere else.
"That personal insult you have just delivered," she hissed, "has proven to me that you are the last person on the face of this planet I would ever want to marry. So you can take this ring on my finger and ask Matthew to shove it up your ass while he takes you. Consider it a gift of my blessing to the both of you."
Dominic cringed, felt his insides twist at the way she spoke of his possible sexual relationship with the brunet, finding it impossible to view it as anything but beautiful. "Don't insult him like that."
"Ha!" she barked. "If you think for a second that I am insulting him, you are sorely mistaken. Because if you are leaving me for him than you better fucking love him. You better love him the way you just couldn't bring yourself to love me. I want you to love him, and I want you to mean it. Because I want him to know that every single day, he runs the risk of living through what I am. If your affections seem to blow with a summer breeze than he needs to know it, and he needs to be brave. So you better fucking love him. Love him and mean it."
With that, she pulled away from him, tugging the ring off her finger and dropping it to the floor unceremoniously. Stalking away, she left Dominic in the bedroom to catch his breath, to reflect on what had just happened. and to attempt to gain some composure. As he heard the door slam behind her, he only then came to realize that the bedroom was partly empty, Julia having removed her things sometime during the day. It was as though she was planning this, knowing already what his answers would be, knowing, as usual, him better than he knew himself.
As his breathing slowed, he felt the cold, stab of guilt through his chest. Their relationship had ended in the worst of ways, no strands ever showing the signs of being able to be retied, the fracture simply too harsh. Pieces of himself had left with her, and as he sat back on the bed, he felt himself miss her.
The tears he had been holding in slipped down his cheeks as he wept, the bitterness in his chest making his gasps painful and forced. He'd been cruel, unreasonable, and she had been just as she had described Matthew: a victim of his own cold feet. He couldn't love her the way that she had deserved, the way he promised her he did and would. If anything, it hurt more that he couldn't live up to his word.
He would never know if his waning affections had been a cause of his subconscious fear of matrimony. Reviewing every moment in his mind from the second he met Matthew, it seemed as though everything had been natural. no action of his signaling his desire to escape marriage. He had never intended to escape Julia, he simply wanted to find himself lost in the arms of Matthew.
Matthew.
Before he realized what was happening, Dominic found himself moving. His mind was blank, his feet and legs carrying him as he exited his building and walked on the street. Thought was unnecessary, certainly only serving to dissuade him from what he was doing so his natural plan of action was to shut his mind entirely off. On the street, there were no cabs, no sign of Julia, and he felt himself become weightless.
A corner of his heart throbbed at the loss, someone taking up a large portion of your life leaving so abruptly certainly causing a shock to the body's affections, but in that moment he was ruled by something stronger and more potent. He had no name for it, and refused to label it in fear of having to explain it to someone like he had to explain his sexuality to Julia.
Finding himself at Matthew's door, he knocked, once more feeling the lift of an external force, body functioning on auto pilot than actual concentrated effort.
It was only when Matthew answered the door, confused and in a tight white tee of his pajamas, that Dominic actually began to focus on the present moment.
"It's over," he said breathily.
Matthew merely blinked at him, not understanding.
"Me and Julia. It's over."
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Date: 2011-01-29 07:12 am (UTC)The Vlodemort bit LOL I never thought of that but I guess it kind of was. I had no idea. I love Harry Potter too much o.o Voldy controls my mind!
Dom is flawed, but so is Matt. I try to make it so that my characters can grow, and grow together because that's what love is to me. I think a real, true love is one that forces you to change and mature. Not change yourself to be what they want, but you change because love is affecting you and you don't even know it - and you can't stop it.
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE YOU. I love that you just read and you get where my head is and how I try to make it so all perspectives can be seen. I FUCKING LOVE YOU. <3333