Author's Note: I had this idea in my head for a while (what with the gorgeous pics of Billy and the pixie Ali everywhere), despite being still blocked as hell. More a character piece than anything resembling a plot.
Billy had always believed in true love. The conviction that he would find someone to love and hold for the rest of his life, who would love him back in good times and in bad had only grown stronger with the years. It was simply meant to be.
So Billy had not been surprised when he fell in love with Dom. He had expected the love of his life to be a woman, true, but it didn't really matter, not deep down, where it counted. Dom was so obviously the person Billy was meant to love that gender was not really an obstacle. Billy had shrugged, accepted it and proceeded to love Dom to the best of his abilities -- hard and deep, rock and stone, something to stand on, lean against, depend on. They didn't need to be together all the time, they were too much part of each other, their roots too entwined to ever be separated again.
The word 'soulmates' had been invented for Dom and Billy.
Therefore, Billy had been shocked when he fell in love with Ali. That part of his life was supposed to be over -- but there she was, the woman he had known in his dreams, the one person he could look into the eyes and see the future in. At first he fought it, tried to convince himself that it was only friendship that he felt, that it could in no way compare to the strength and unavoidability of his love for Dom. But the problem was that it could. He was meant to be with Ali, every day for the rest of his life.
Ali was Billy's other half.
Only, Billy still loved Dom. Nothing there had changed. He still had his roots in Dom, felt him deep inside himself even when he was on the other side of the planet, the way he had since they first met. Billy did not know what to do -- this was not how it was supposed to be, there was no way he could choose one over the other.
Losing one of them would tear Billy apart -- but who had ever heard of anyone having two One True Loves?
When Ali confronted him about Dom, Billy told her everything, despite his terror of losing her. How could she accept that Dom had come first and that Billy did not know how to banish him out of his heart without damaging it irreversibly? After all, not even Billy could accept this. So when Ali told him to spend Christmas break with Dom, Billy was certain that this was her way of telling him to get lost. She hugged him gently and said they'd talk again afterwards -- empty comfort. Billy cried when he packed his bag, but at the same time he could not wait to see Dom again.
It took Dom a week to get Billy to talk. Once he did, all his confusion and frustration flooded out, and he ended the night crying in Dom's arms. He missed Ali and the knowledge that he had to live without her hurt like nothing he had ever experienced. But Dom's embrace was comfort, and home away from home, and Billy had never been more certain of his love for him. He could not understand why Dom was not angry with him -- after all Billy had betrayed him. But Dom kept holding him and telling him that it was okay, that he knew that Billy did not love him any less, because that was the way they were build. It would have been perfect, the way it had been ever since they set eyes on each other in New Zealand. If only Billy could have stopped loving Ali.
But he could not. Did not want to, even, because he felt incomplete without her, just as he felt a part of himself missing when he tried to shut Dom out. Billy could not believe that he had found everything he had ever wanted, only in two persons instead of one. Billy had always believed in true love, but this was Fate's cruel joke, and it did not matter that Dom assured him that he understood and could live with Billy loving Ali as well. Because Ali was not there, because Ali could not live with Billy loving Dom as well.
And Billy could not live without Ali.
Billy had never felt more lost, when Dom woke him late one evening grinning widely and pulling him into the living room, muttering something about clueless Scotsmen who he loved anyway. Only then Billy saw Ali standing there, looking at him with eyes full of love and a voice full of venom because Billy had apparently not listened to a word she had said to him.
It was not until she kissed him with Dom's hand warm on his back that Billy realized that, maybe, this was meant to be.
