Pairing: Dominic Monaghan/Billy Boyd
The guys are camping out. The stars, also, are out...
Rating: PG15
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and is not intended to infer any knowledge whatsoever about any of the people involved. No offence is intended, nor profit made.
AN: Written for a Two Lines Challenge organised by Shanalle. Thank you, LSR for the beta. This story is dedicated to Kia.
Feedback: Yes please, always appreciated - perhobfan@yahoo.co.uk

Love's like a cigarette
you know you had my heart aglow
-k.d. lang, love's like a cigarette

This story is for all those bright stars up there, and one in particularly who is sorely missed.

Billy pondered this. He screwed his eyes shut and shook his head, wondering where this was going. He was supposed to be the sharp one, after all. "Yeah, well that’s right, Dom. Hubble is, indeed, a telescope. In space. A big mirror. The mirror was defective. Did you know that? They had to fix it, once it was up there. Sort of give it a pair of specs to correct its vision."

Dom shifted on the blanket, turned on his side, leaning on one elbow. "Yes, I did know that, actually. But anyway-"

"So what’s the trouble with Hubble again?" Billy shifted, too. He was still on his back, looking up at the stars, but now his thigh rubbed sociably against Dom’s.

Dom began again. "As I was saying, the trouble with Hubble is that it’s a telescope. It sees things far away, far away, like other galaxies and things."

"I don’t get what you mean, mate. Oh wait… I do. For fuck’s sake, Dom," Billy snorted, sitting up. "You just wanted to say the trouble with Hubble cos it sounded good, didn’t you? Admit it! There is no fecking trouble with Hubble, is there?"

Dom said nothing; he merely stretched out upon the blanket and looked at the vast array of stars. Beside him, Billy lit a cigarette, the first divine catch of the nicotine drifting on the night air and teasing Dom’s nostrils.

"You have a low opinion of me, Bill." But Dom was smiling. He raised his hand and looked at it, silhouetted against the moon; it was an alien thing, not part of him at all. It looked as if it could turn on him at any moment, grab him by the throat and squeeze… He turned it this way and that, admiring with detachment the long fingers, the veins and bones and nails, then let it fall with a soft thwump on the blanket. He sighed a beery sigh. He was feeling both philosophical and astronomical. Before they’d left, he’d been scouring the internet as was his wont. He found it enlightening.

"In the Whirlpool Galaxy, old stars live in the central bulge," he said, knowledgeably, then added, "A bit like Beverly Hills."

Billy grunted, raised an eyebrow and drawled, "You’ve got quite a central bulge yourself, Dom."

"How many stars are there, do you think?" Dom said, ignoring Billy’s tone for the time being. There was time for sex later. There was always time for that.

"Twenty two billion, three hundred million, four hundred thousand, two hundred and sixty nine. Give or take the odd cluster," Billy replied, blowing a smoke ring above Dom’s head; it hung there for a second like a nebula, then dissolved into nothingness.

"That’s a lot."

"Yep, it is. Have you ever wondered if there’s someone up there, looking down here and wondering how many stars there are?" Billy asked, taking a draw. He looked down at Dom and waited.

"It’d be down there to them, though, wouldn’t it?" Dom said after a moment. He sat up, hugging his knees. "They’d be looking up, not down. If they were up there, looking down, they’d be wondering how many worms there were, not how many stars there were, Bill." He shrugged, then shook his head, which was sore after the mental gymnastics.

"That’s assuming they had worms on their world, of course," Billy said, stubbing out his smoke, killing the glow.

"Worms. Or ants. Or… wormants… giant worms but with antennae, spitting formic acid all over the place." Dom’s eyes were bright. Billy thought he looked about twelve. An idea struck him. "Formicating. They’d be formicating…" he sniggered.

A breeze rifled through the trees and Billy was suddenly aware that he was cold and goosebumped. He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch – it was three minutes past midnight and it was late in the season.

"We drank all the beer?" Dom asked, surveying the debris.

Billy nodded sadly. Dom slumped a little on the blanket, then brightened; "We still got the hip flask, though," he said, reaching over Billy.

Billy stayed his hand. "We don’t need that, Dom. We have each other. You intoxicate me, my lover," he whispered. He leaned in and softly nibbled Dom’s lips in just the way that Dom liked so much. Dom moaned, melding himself to Billy’s mouth. Then he stiffened.

"You drank all the whisky, didn’t you?" he said, pulling away and looking into Billy’s eyes. Billy blinked and considered hurt denial, then settled for a smirk.

Dom smiled, knowingly. "It doesn’t matter," he said, pulling Billy into his arms. "Puts me at a bit of an advantage, you being pissed and me being not so… pissed," he said, lovingly.

"I am not pissed," Billy protested but he didn’t resist the warmth or the loving.

For a long few minutes, neither Billy nor Dom spoke. They thought about crawling into the tent and snuggling in the double sleeping bag. They considered the possibility that there might be bears in the woods. But mostly, they just lay together on the blanket and looked at the stars and wondered what was up there, amongst the glow and the glimmer and the great unknown. There was plenty of time for sex; there was always time for sex.

There would always be time for them.

Above, the stars did not disagree.

The End