The Long Surrender: 25C/30

[lalalive23]

Title: The Long Surrender
Author lalalive23
Pairing: Belldom
Rating: PG
Warning: Fluff and joy
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 is turned upside down and nothing is the same again.
Feedback: Taste like chocolate rain....sung to the tune of Purple Rain.
Disclaimer: I do not own Muse. I do not own anything. This never happened. I don't make money off of this. Holy god, if I did...dreams would be coming true.
Note I don't know, man. Sometimes this story sucks me right back in and it's like coming home. Though, I feel like I produce chapters of this only when I'm avoiding school work haha. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this post Big Bang moment. I certainly enjoyed writing it. Shout out to everyone who hangs on to this story and hasn't given up on it yet. Really, this story is entirely yours. LJ is being a dick right now and won't let me tag people? So thanks to D and Laurel for bit reading and cheering me on like the actual queens they are. 

Previous chapters omg there are so many

The words felt refreshing to say, like coming home after a long time away, and he smiled as they rolled gracefully off his tongue. The silence seemed to change, grow heavy with meaning and expectation, but the only sign that Matthew had heard him was the slight tensing of his muscles along Dominic's right side

"You don't need to say it back," he said softly, still gazing at the ceiling as though he were in a daze. "I just feel like…I had to say it, like I've wanted to say it for so long but only just realized how good it sounds."

He clipped his statement, brow furrowing as he tried to control his speech. The truth was that it didn't sound good to say it, it tasted delicious. He'd said the words before, to Julia and to girlfriends, to family members and a dog he briefly hid in his college dorm, but never had they contained a sugar sweet syntax that made his mouth water and itch to say it until he'd sucked it dry

"I told someone tonight that you were my boyfriend," he continued, turning his head to gaze at Matt. Matthew was gazing at him, eyes wide and full of wonder. But he couldn't hold the stare, he felt too raw and exposed, so he turned back towards the ceiling and hoped that Matt wouldn't think him a coward. "At the bar, when you were playing, he said you were amazing and I was so proud. I was so proud that you were fantastic and you were mine, so I told him. And I now I don't ever want to stop."

He found himself breathing hard, but now that he had opened the floodgate, he knew the words would keep coming, filling up the atmosphere until he had nothing left to give

"And maybe I've been saying it for weeks, every time I touched you. Maybe I've been saying for months, every time I looked at you. But only now, now is when I'm realizing that nothing feels better than being explicitly clear and maybe this is the only way I will ever be brave."

"I think you're brave," he heard Matt whisper next to him

He brought his eyes back to Matthew's face, turning his whole body as he searched his expression. Too wound up to control himself, he shook his head quickly.

"No, no I'm not," he said plainly. "I promised someone forever, and I failed entirely. And I - I don't even know if I can do that again!"

He sat up on his knees, the sheets tangling around his thighs. The sudden movement took Matthew by surprise, his body scrambling up against the headboard. Dominic's chest was shaking, rumbling with a sense of conviction he had never felt before.

"I know that love sometimes isn't the answer and sometimes it fades, and I know that by way of declarations of feeling and meaning that this is piss poor. But I do know that I can promise you right now. I can promise you, at this moment, I never loved anyone or anything more than I love you."

Frantically, he brought his eyes around the room, gesticulating in random directions. "I love this room and this bed, and I love the way you're looking at me right now. I love that I'm terrified and I love that you make me feel like I will come out of any horrible experience in one piece. I love that you make everything beautiful and that, even though I'm the worst kind of coward, you give me the chance to be better."

In the wake of his confession, he suddenly felt stripped of his barriers and, every moment that Matthew remained silent, he  counted all the infinite reasons why Matthew would reject him. As black eyelashes blinked blue irises away, he felt his heart beginning to plummet. His words had been too much, too soon and now, in his failed moment of courage, he had also become a fool.

"Oh god, I've fucked it all up haven't I?" he whispered quickly. He brought his eyes down to his hands in his lap and tried not to shatter like glass. "I'm sorry."

"Dom," Matt said, crawling towards him.

Too engulfed in his own head, he heard Matthew speaking but didn't want to hear the words he knew would tear him asunder.

"No, Matt, you don't have to say anything."

"Dom."

"It's ok, I rushed it. I'm an idiot. I just -"

"Dom!" Matt said loudly

The sound of Matthew's gentle voice reaching such a high decibel startled him, his body jolting in surprise. Before him, Matthew sat on his knees, matching his position. The light from the moon cast an eery glow along his skin and Dominic found himself transfixed.

"Do you remember when we first met?" Matthew asked softly, eyes boring into Dominic's face. "That afternoon, in the piaza?"

Slowly, the memory formed in the back of Dominic's mind. Visions of cobblestones and an aged guitar in the sun sparked a vague sense of familiarity. "Yes," he said slowly

"You asked me, that day, if I had friends," Matthew's voice began to shake and he nibbled his lip briefly before continuing. Dominic furrowed his brow and reached to palm his knee. Instead, Matt took hold of his fingers and twined them together.

"I cut you off and changed the subject," he continued. "I said I didn't people to get me where I needed to go. But the truth was…I didn't have anyone. There was no one until you burst into my life, all posh business cards and stupid aviators." They chuckled at the memory of their awkward first meeting, Matthew's version of the story changing the meaning completely

"At first I thought what I felt for you was me in need of a rebound," Matt whispered, turning serious. "And then, I thought I was just lonely. But I've loved you since before you even considered it. I loved you when you introduced me to Ian, I loved you when you somehow understood that the bookstore in Madrid was my church, so you whispered like you were in prayer. I loved you…even when I hated you."

Dominic hung his head, the memory of their first kiss weighing him down with guilt and shame. It should have been a happy experience, beautiful and sacred, and it was his fault they needed to spend months erasing the deluge

"Look at me," Matt said.

Raising his head once more, he smiled at Matthew's calm expression. Somehow, the core of him seemed to be soothed with just one glance.

"I have spent months loving you against my will," Matt laughed, "so if this is your version of fucking it up, well." He hesitated then, turning his head to gaze out the window and Dominic admired the way the light chose to illuminate only a few strands of black hair, offering him a soft, unearthly glimmer. "Then," he turned back to Dominic, eyes wet. "I give you permission to do permanent damage."

He let the words soak through his skin, straight into his chest, warming him at his core. It was easy to falter, to take the words they had just exchanged and forget them. He wanted something more permanent, more tactile than echoes off ceilings and voices trapped in the paint on the walls.

"What do we do now?" he whispered, feeling like a little boy.

"I don't know," Matt laughed.

It was an ecstatic sort of uncertainty, the kind the bubbled underneath the skin and even the most minute gestures the tiniest bit more foreign and special. He didn't feel invincible, he didn't feel like he could do anything he wanted at that very moment - all the books and movies had lied. Instead, he felt utterly, and wonderfully, human. Every insecurity he carried with him, all his flaws and all his misgivings, were laid at his feet and they were being accepted, without hesitation, by the man in front of him

Overcome, and too vulnerable to speak, he carefully ran his fingers along Matthew's jaw before bringing his hands to cup his face. The force with which he brought Matt's lips to his own surprised him, but he smiled into the kiss and let his skin burn the memory onto his nerves until the flesh of his mouth was swollen and red. They fell back together, a mess of limbs and sheets wound carelessly together, and they made no attempt to correct the chaos as their tongues fought for dominance in the crevices of each other's mouths

"I can't," Matt breathed, pulling away only to have Dom attach his teeth to the tendon in his neck. "I can't go again. I'm too tired." A soft moan escaped his lips and Dominic found himself vibrating with glee.

"It's ok," he replied, pulling himself off Matthew's body. Collapsing on his back, he pulled Matthew to him, closing his eyes as their bodies settled together. "It's nice just holding you. Sometimes it feels like…" He drifted off, reveling in the sensation of skin against skin

Simply holding Matthew against his skin felt like a molecular collision, one that could not and would be stopped regardless of time or place. His body had memorized the delicate way the sharp curve of Matthew's hipbone would press into his muscles, the way his right foot would flex, back and forth, attempting to warm itself against the duvet. The small nuances and the fragments of Matthew's essence were in the process of being absorbed into his chemistry, filling holes along the strands of his DNA that he didn't know were there.

From the depths of his mind, a thought brought itself to the tip of his tongue and he was unable to stop it from breaking the peaceful silence

"What was it like being on stage tonight?" His fingers stroked Matthew's shoulder as he posed the question. "Because…for me it recalled the first time I saw you. You looked at me the same way you looked at me the first night in Madrid. It felt different this time, maybe cause I know you, but it was still the same…intensity."

It took Matthew a few moments to speak, and Dominic could almost hear his mind formulating the words to answer

"I did see you the first night, but…I wasn't just looking at you. You and Julia were right in my line of sight and  you guys were so happy, it just reminded me of all the ways music broke what I had with someone I loved. But tonight…" There was a change in his tone, a shift in weight and meaning that made Dominic meet his eyes. "Tonight was about the way you rebuilt London. You built a city out of the faith you had in me and that meant so much more than anything Evan had ever given me."

There was nothing Dominic could say to him, no words in his vocabulary that matched the eloquence with which Matt had spoken. And so, instead, he dipped his head and planted a gentle kiss on the mouth that was waiting for his

It became an evening of secrets shared, memories relived and patterns drawn on favourite patches of skin. On accident they witnessed the sunrise, watching the way the sky painted the clouds of London red and purple. Dominic wished he could say the colours felt brighter, more real and full of promise than ever before. But he couldn't. Once upon a time, he had felt that fleeting sensation as he laid in bed with Julia, stroking her hair with spontaneous caresses and giggles released into the privacy of pillowcases. To feel the same again would be a betrayal of everything he had come to learn of both love and the delicacy with which it needed to be handled

Perhaps it mattered more, then, that this sunrise felt more real than any that had come before it. Lights in the sky reflected vocal patterns, cadences of their tones splashed effortlessly into the rays. The sensation of being mortal and recognizing the beauty in the act of living was more important to him than the concept of love turning someone into a modern Hercules

And it was then that he realized there was merit in being a coward, that, in all his failings and the numerous ways he had caused Matthew pain over the several months they had known one another, he had been offered the opportunity to change. It was an act of bravery to love, an act of reckless abandonment at best to brazenly announce it in the delirium of a post-orgasmic haze, and it was because he had an endless list of things to try, and to learn, with Matthew that he felt secure in the unwavering foundation of their future

When the sun was creeping its way slowly across the Earth, changing the light from orange to white, the sounds of Matthew's soft snores reach his ears and he finally allowed himself to relax

Now.

Now, he could begin again