TITLE: Flint - Remix
AUTHOR: algernonthemous (algernonthemous @ yahoo.ca)
ORIGINAL STORY: Flint by Eyebrow of Doom
PAIRING: Viggo/Billy
RATING: R
NOTES: Beta by Pinn2480

DISCLAIMER: The author makes no claims or inferences to reality or truthfulness. Moreover, this story is based upon the work of another author and recognises their creation.

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Viggo's already regretting it, the tee-shirt, the diner, the last twenty minutes – and the twenty before that, but there is no way to call it back. And if he wanted to be philosophical about it, he would say that nothing in life should be undone anyway. He would say that the darkness in a photo is painted there with light – and that the shadows are what makes the light worth looking at. He would say all that, and more, if Billy didn't look so undone.

And he does. He looks turned out and used. Wrung dry.

"My voice is wrong," Billy has said after he's made his way to the bed.

"It sounds very sexy to me." Viggo says, though in truth it does not. Everything about Billy has turned flat and paper thin. It makes Viggo think that he could just fold him up like a map and slip him into his back pocket.

Billy says nothing, and Viggo doesn't move to say anything more either. He's assessing the light coming through the window when he slides out of bed, his belly already missing the warmth of Billy leaning against it, and pads over to his cases at the foot of the bed. His fingers are quick and sure, even in this murky looking half light, and the camera feels heavy and right in his hands.

Viggo sinks to the floor, wedges himself between Billy's open thighs and raises the camera to his face. His heels are cold against the bare flesh of his ass and the pile from the carpet is pressing patterns onto the skin of his knees. He's got the aperture wide open to absorb every bit of light, and he knows that the photo will be blurred. A combination of camera shake and Billy's vapid breathing. Viggo's already anticipating a grainy version of Billy swimming up through the fixer to stare at him in the red light of his darkroom.

Viggo has taken hundreds of photos, and fought with each of them as they developed in front of him. See here.

Here is a picture of Elijah. He is kneeling on the ground in the snow and squinting up at Viggo who has him lined up though the lens. Viggo is talking to him. You can't see that in the picture, but he is and Elijah is having a hard time hearing him because the wind has picked up and Viggo is talking down into the bunch of his scarf around his neck. Viggo likes the quizzical look that's landed on Elijah's face.

Here is a picture of Dom on the bench, fingers curled around a bottle of wine. Dom's toes are cold and his ears are red – he is complaining about it between shots and shifting his weight around from foot to foot. When Viggo gives him the thumbs up, and drops his camera to his side, Dom monkey hops down off the bench and darts back to the studio with wide legged bounds through the snow and cursing.

And here now is a picture of Billy, Viggo thinks.

Billy is still sitting, looking hollowed out and tired, on the edge of the bed. Viggo thinks that if he rapped his knuckles on Billy's chest he'd hear a hollow thump, like a ripe melon. He doesn't knock Billy's chest. He does reach out and tip Billy's chin downwards, lets his thumb rub over the bottom of his lip and feels Billy's raged breath hitch.

His lips draw closed into a tight thin line. Everything about Billy looks thin and tight. Even the set of his shoulders seems narrower than usual. Viggo wonders how that can be. How can Billy just shrink away like that, like a whisper Viggo's not even sure he's heard? The great vanishing Billy.

"Shouldn't have come here then, is that it?" Viggo says as he snaps the first photo. Billy blinks, and then nods his head in the affirmative. "It's okay." Viggo says. He can feel his heart beating hard in the cage of his chest. Part of him wants to reach out and pet Billy, smooth down his feathers so he's not so ruffled up and agitated, till he's looking like he's not so ready to fly the coop. Part of him, the part that dragged Dom into his studio and made him jerk off for the camera, wants to let Billy flutter apart right there on film.

Billy would look gorgeous all loose and wild and breaking to pieces. Viggo can see that and he's not going to deny that it's making him hard again.

The click-click-click of the camera startles Billy, and Viggo watches as the mask, a thin invisible film, slides downwards over Billy's face. His expression hasn't changed, but it's there nonetheless. It makes Viggo want to set down the camera and scratch at it with his fingernail.

"I wrote the maid a haiku," he says instead, watching for a flicker of Billy. "Before. That's what was on the papers. Just notes and things. I saw you looking. That's all."

It's ridiculous, this urge he has to explain things to Billy. Viggo drops the camera and it feels cool against the middle of his chest where he's rested it. "Where did you go just then?"

"I haven't left," Billy says in that strange, raspy voice. "I haven't gone anywhere."

Viggo lets that stretch between them, like one of Billy's notes drawn out long and sweet. He rests his chin on the hard, knobby round of Billy's knee. He can smell the faint, musky scent of Billy. Viggo closes his eyes and tilts his face, rubbing his cheek against the soft hairs of Billy's leg.

Viggo thinks about their first time together, which was also the second to last, with Billy high and loose under him -- not at all like this Billy now -- laughing about fishnets and leather. He thinks about watching Billy's lips wrap around the joint that Viggo had offered, and Billy staggering backwards onto the couch.

"You're going to fuck me, aren't you?" Billy had giggled.

"Yes." Viggo had said. And then he had. Viggo also remembers that it was Dom's name on Billy's lips when he came.

"You were never really here." Viggo says softly, kissing the inside of Billy's knee. Now there's a bit of truth to cling to, and Viggo offers it like an olive branch. "Never really here in the first place, don't you see?"

He can feel the press of the camera against his chest, and the carpet scratching under his knees, and he can see the film peeling back off Billy's face as he gets up off the bed.

Billy fumbles in the dark and Viggo manages to find the light just as Billy steps back into his jeans. Viggo takes this picture too.

Here is a picture of Billy leaving - jeans loose on his hips, bare back looking lean, and face turned to the light.