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Title: Sober Bones
Author: Missiedith (minniemilky [at] hotmail.com)
Original story: Blythely's Intergalactic.
Rating: pg
Pairing: elijah (/dominic, dominic/billy)
Notes: Strong 2001 Space Odyssey references. Sorry, but yes, geek? Definitely.
Beta: ktnb and Sarah.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Even more so than usual.

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'Completely fucking ratarsed' - he's sure he's heard the phrase flush with some flavour of British accent, but he isn't certain which.

Elijah has no idea how he got this way. How he ended up quite this incoherent and quite this buzzingly lost. Quite this stinky. He sniffs. He balls up his nose and thinks he might look like Gollum. Wonders if it was stinker or slinker that crawled into this bed, and if Dominic hates each equally.

There're a lot of things Elijah doesn't have much idea about, because, well, yes, pissed out of mind and body and gut. If he moves at all he'll hurl. Knows it in his bones, because surely if there's any part of him that could remain sober until the last it would be calcium rich, deep inside him, and stuck with marrow. The only things reliable, and all they disdainfully tell him is that the rest is fucked, and, if he moves, he'll hurl.

The drunkest part must be that wiggly bit. The gut bit. All the tequila and vodka and bacardi and other unquestioned nameless things, all hissing into his blood. Then screaming through his blood, and then jumping up and down on that other wiggly bit, that brain bit, all pink and squishy and getting jumped up and down on. He wonders if drunken donut blood shouts at the stars.

Oooo. Ooo. Oooo.

His blood tucks its drunken monkey arms up under its armpits as it hollers at the sky. It waves sober nightstick bones proudly at Blue Danube spaceships. His mind dances, stumbling and weaving, to themes and gravity it won't ever remember.

Voices from the bathroom break through to his wiggling consciousness. Elijah can't hear what they say and hopes it's nothing ominous. The words aren't quite there, and maybe lip-reading would help. He waits for the ceiling to enunciate better.

Awful thing, to wake up with part of your oesophagus a certain distance away from where it should be. Elijah can't quite work out if it's just under a metre above him, tumbling and spitting somewhere over his ribcage, or below him, looming darkly just around the floorboards. He could have barely opened his eyes before rolling over, letting his stomach loose, and ignominiously collapsing back asleep. It would have been so much simpler, he thinks, but Dominic's not there beside him, so he has to stay awake.

Awful thing, to wake up drunk, without the ability to forget the moment for the benefit of both the present and the future. The lack of guilt-free release of misery is punishing, and the sheer physical awareness cruel in the extreme. Elijah doesn't think he'll ever work out how to cope with waking up sober enough to listen to his bones recriminating and thudding at his dancing mind. He hopes he doesn't ever figure that one out, but runs terrified when he looks inside and hears something that says he might.

Awful thing, to wake up alone, when you were expecting to find Dominic asleep beside you, however woefully platonically. He's so painfully absent, and momentarily it takes his mind away from the upset and the ratarsed.

Oooo. Ooo. Oooo.

A black obelisk rises.

Within him the poison gushes, and he wonders who installed the automatic stomach pump that always so efficiently kicks in on his behalf. The night comes up and out and around, choking out of his throat, and that's so unfair because he's positive he stayed still like his bones told him to. Slaughtered, mate, utterly shit-faced. He still can't place the accent, but he can't even recognise the voices in the bathroom anymore, so he figures there are worse things in the world as he gives up on trying to lip-synch the ceiling.

He lies in the wet sheets and thinks, no, not good at all. He should stick to chain-smoking for carbonising sorrows, and how could cancer-sticks ever be worse than this.

He's bitingly aware of Billy's bedroom door thudding shut, the sound from the bathroom is lost from his head, and all he can hear is the syncopated beat of his bones overlaid with the Blue Danube. Then nothing much happens, and he's waiting for Dominic to come back to bed.


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