All Things Considered, Chapter 12
Nov. 19th, 2011 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morrobay1990Title: All Things Considered, Chapter 12
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
morrobay1990
Warning:
Word count: 2100
Disclaimer: They are AP's
♥ Jack
Previously, on All Things Considered...
His stomach was churning, his heart pounding. Travis was really cutting him loose, the thought almost made him panic.
He leaned up against Ennis, their faces close, and said simply, “I need you...I need you...”
Come to think of it, maybe Travis did need some time to think about it, because he better be good and goddamn sure this was what he wanted – once they started there was no going back.
Ennis crawled into bed exhausted.
It seemed like two weeks instead of two days since he'd left here to go to the cabin, then had run into Deborah and Travis at Slate River. It was only Sunday night, but so much had changed.
When he and Travis had left the cabin that morning they had driven directly to the ranch. Ennis had the horses tacked up in twenty minutes, then they were riding side by side, silent at first, but as they put distance between themselves and civilization again, Travis began to open up about his overwhelming feelings for Ennis, his attempt at a relationship with Deborah.
He knew he was taking a chance, telling Ennis things that he realized could make Ennis feel cornered, might cause him to withdraw, as he tended to do when Travis got too close, but he had no choice, he had to push this thing, and if it ended - well, he had to know.
He began with their first disastrous trip to the cabin, how Ennis's actions there had given him no other alternative but to back away. How he had gone out of his way to avoid contact with Ennis, and then later when Ennis kept backing away, he had taken Deborah out, knew she was interested, knew he was not. He had used her time, her conversation, her company to distract his mind from the hurt he'd suffered at Ennis's hand.
Then seeing Ennis yesterday, his reserve started to slip but he'd forced himself to go on, until he'd found himself staring into the mirror at Deborah's house, knowing at that moment it had all been a huge mistake, leaving her to go to the cabin, because he couldn't not go, his mind and body screaming for Ennis...and he'd ended up in Ennis's bed, where he had wanted to be all along.
They rode in silence again, Travis knowing he had probably said too much, had opened himself up for yet another ultimatum or denial by Ennis. If Ennis balked again, it would be for the last time. Travis would not try again.
As Ennis listened he tried to focus, tried to take in what he was hearing. He knew it was now Travis giving the ultimatum, recognized that if he couldn't decide what to do he would lose Travis this time. But what could he do - he wasn't ready, he still had things to work out and if Travis forced his hand he was prepared to let it end now, had always been prepared for that.
He asked for a reprieve, threw Travis a bone, said they'd talk about it next weekend when they weren't so tired, so rushed for time, could relax together, alone in the mountains.
Travis tried to dodge what he knew was an attempt to hold him off, tried but failed when Ennis had pulled the horses up, maneuvered Mariah until he was close enough, then leaned in to touch him, said, "Travis, I'm sorry, I just need a little more time. Please," hoping the plea itself would garner some sympathy, buy him some time.
Travis had given in and now Ennis had to make a fucking decision one way or the other. He guessed he had known for a while now what it was going to take to settle this whole damn thing.
He was going back to Brokeback, and he was going alone.
He was up at five the next morning, threw his gear in the back of the truck and took off.
He stopped at the ranch, loaded Mariah, a pack horse and tack, left a note for Joe, apologized, said he needed the week off.
Everything was familiar. The state road north, then west for a time and he started climbing, making his way up. The further away he got from the flat land and ranches, the better he felt.
Christ, how had he stayed away from here for so long? He thought of the little town with its dusty gray streets and shoebox houses and wilting gardens, and thanked God for the mountains that surrounded him...his cabin in the hills...the paradise that was Brokeback.
He put his foot down on the gas pedal, feeling an immediate urgency to get there, back to where it had all started, where his fantasies had taken him all these years, where now it would be real again.
Real? Who was he kidding?
When he got to where he thought the turn-off should be, he slowed the truck, ready to pull in when he saw it. It was overgrown now, all these years later, but he knew he'd recognize the spot and as he came on it he turned, stopped the truck and sat back.
There was the trailhead they'd started from, Jack on that damn buckskin mare that he'd finally gotten to quiet down by the end of the summer.
He felt himself choking up, so he got out, unloaded Mariah, packed the tent and all the gear on the other horse, mounted and started up.
Ghosts were everywhere - he and Jack as they had been...laughing, talking, riding out to the sheep, sitting by the fire, in the tent, together in the tent that first night, then him surrendering to Jack, afraid at first, then loving it...
The invisible creatures followed him...he could sense them all around...they slipped under the bridge where he'd met the Basque on Fridays for supplies, trailed him up the hill and down the other side, where, in his mind's eye, he saw himself sliding from his saddle when his horse had reared up at the sight of the bear.
And now, when he pulled the horses up at the place he would use for camp, the spirits crowded in on him, sighing, murmuring, throwing memories at him like stones.
He took care of the horses, set up the tent on a large flat spot, and got a fire going. Then he grabbed food which he didn't want and a bottle of whiskey which he did, sat down, cracked open the bottle, drank deeply and rested back.
No doubt about it: his life was definitely more complicated with Travis in it.
He remembered how bad he thought it had been just six months ago, when he had only been fighting Jack’s ghost and his own great guilt.
Now the guilt had grown and multiplied because it included his feelings for another man.
He had made a serious effort to keep Travis a thing separate from his life, in a pigeonhole, where he could label it and he knew where it was. He knew Travis wasn’t going to accept their current state of affairs, even though it fit Ennis’s needs perfectly.
And Ennis himself was getting tired of the constant strain on his own mind, the never-ending battle within himself, needing to preserve Jack's memory and at the same time wanting to give more to Travis.
He dozed off and the dream was of him and Jack, rolling in the dirt in the firelight, loving with an abandon he hadn't felt since then, both of them wild and fearless, fearless as you can only be at nineteen, thinking you know all, not seeing past the moment.
The dream turned dark, their words echoing down the years...
Y'know, it could be like this...like this...like this...
How ya figure that? How? How?
What if you and me...what if...what if...
No way...no...no...
He opened his eyes - or was he still dreaming - saw Jack across the fire, resting back against a log, long legs stretched out, crossed at the booted ankle, hat pushed back, smoke curling around his face from the cigarette in his mouth...another ghost come to taunt him, the memories sharp as ever, flying around him as he tried to weave between them and not get cut.
Jesus, Jack, you knew I wanted to, didn't you...You knew that, right?
I tried to show you every time we were together all those years, you knew I never did that much for anybody else, right?
Shit, tell me you knew that before you died...if you didn't know, then I've been paying all these years for not tellin you somethin I thought a blind man could see...I was so sure it was clear a mile off how I felt about you...you knew I only ever thought of you that way, not Alma, never Alma, Christ...and nobody since you either...Travis...yeah...now there's somebody, but I can't forget about you long enough to do anything about it...
And I'll tell you this, it ain't worth losing what I got left of you to be with him.
I can't get close to him with you here...and I can't lose you...fuck...help me out here, Jack...tell me what to do...I can't forget you, best times of my life was with you...I can't forget you...
But of course Jack wasn't there. There was a decision to be made. Ennis had to make it alone.
Travis hated that he had given in to Ennis again. How could he be with someone who could treat him so badly, make him wait for a decision that would affect the rest of his life?
He woke up the next morning with a pain in his gut he knew was from missing Ennis.
It was the first time in his life that he physically ached with need, with missing someone, and he didn't know how to go on from there.
What was he supposed to do?
He knew Ennis wanted him, but that wasn't enough...and he knew there was something...someone else that he wanted more...and Travis couldn't compete with that, couldn't share Ennis with a ghost...no not even that, he didn't even have that choice.
Ennis wouldn't share himself with Travis...he held back, he kept his feelings for Jack, as if he were real...gave only his body to Travis, and it wasn't enough. It wasn't love if you were in pain all the time, and Travis had pretty much been in pain since he'd fallen in love with Ennis.
The answer was simple and he guessed he'd known it all along: Ennis was not in love with him.
He'd known it, but kept fighting it, fighting to make Ennis love him, and it hadn't gotten him anywhere. Now it was time to quit.
And who was he kidding?
He couldn't quit.
Ennis woke the next morning sore as a bitch from sleeping on the ground, reminding him, if he needed reminding, that he wasn't nineteen any more.
And he remembered everything...the dream, the memories, all the spirits that had followed him up the mountain.
He made coffee over the last of the fire, then saddled Mariah and made his way up to the top of the mountain, where he'd ridden that day he'd found the dead sheep.
Jesus Christ...it came back in a rush...the memories assaulted him now, roughing him up until his mind was raw with the need, the fucking need, to be back there again...back as it was...him and Jack.
And the knowledge that he could never go back was too much...he resisted it – there must be a way - if he thought about it he could go there...
But he couldn't live in his mind...he couldn't live in the past for the rest of his life, could he? What kind of life was that?
Suddenly he realized that it was the kind of life that Jack would hate...Jack would turn his back on that kind of living...wouldn't even call it living...
Jack would rather die than live like that.
It was dark when Ennis pulled up in front of Travis's house. He sat there for a minute thinking of Jack, sure of what he was doing, just wanting to give credit where credit was due.
He would know, in the next few minutes, if he had let Travis slip away...he hoped he could make up for the way he'd treated him, was prepared to try like hell to make it up.
He knew it wouldn't be easy, it would be hard.
He heard Jack's voice clear, drifting back to him from so many years ago: Every fuckin' day's hard...You gonna waste your whole fuckin' life just 'cause it's hard? I fuckin' give up.
Don't give up on me, Jack, you never did before.
Author:
morrobay1990Warning:
Word count: 2100
Disclaimer: They are AP's
♥ Jack
Previously, on All Things Considered...
His stomach was churning, his heart pounding. Travis was really cutting him loose, the thought almost made him panic.
He leaned up against Ennis, their faces close, and said simply, “I need you...I need you...”
Come to think of it, maybe Travis did need some time to think about it, because he better be good and goddamn sure this was what he wanted – once they started there was no going back.
Ennis crawled into bed exhausted.
It seemed like two weeks instead of two days since he'd left here to go to the cabin, then had run into Deborah and Travis at Slate River. It was only Sunday night, but so much had changed.
When he and Travis had left the cabin that morning they had driven directly to the ranch. Ennis had the horses tacked up in twenty minutes, then they were riding side by side, silent at first, but as they put distance between themselves and civilization again, Travis began to open up about his overwhelming feelings for Ennis, his attempt at a relationship with Deborah.
He knew he was taking a chance, telling Ennis things that he realized could make Ennis feel cornered, might cause him to withdraw, as he tended to do when Travis got too close, but he had no choice, he had to push this thing, and if it ended - well, he had to know.
He began with their first disastrous trip to the cabin, how Ennis's actions there had given him no other alternative but to back away. How he had gone out of his way to avoid contact with Ennis, and then later when Ennis kept backing away, he had taken Deborah out, knew she was interested, knew he was not. He had used her time, her conversation, her company to distract his mind from the hurt he'd suffered at Ennis's hand.
Then seeing Ennis yesterday, his reserve started to slip but he'd forced himself to go on, until he'd found himself staring into the mirror at Deborah's house, knowing at that moment it had all been a huge mistake, leaving her to go to the cabin, because he couldn't not go, his mind and body screaming for Ennis...and he'd ended up in Ennis's bed, where he had wanted to be all along.
They rode in silence again, Travis knowing he had probably said too much, had opened himself up for yet another ultimatum or denial by Ennis. If Ennis balked again, it would be for the last time. Travis would not try again.
As Ennis listened he tried to focus, tried to take in what he was hearing. He knew it was now Travis giving the ultimatum, recognized that if he couldn't decide what to do he would lose Travis this time. But what could he do - he wasn't ready, he still had things to work out and if Travis forced his hand he was prepared to let it end now, had always been prepared for that.
He asked for a reprieve, threw Travis a bone, said they'd talk about it next weekend when they weren't so tired, so rushed for time, could relax together, alone in the mountains.
Travis tried to dodge what he knew was an attempt to hold him off, tried but failed when Ennis had pulled the horses up, maneuvered Mariah until he was close enough, then leaned in to touch him, said, "Travis, I'm sorry, I just need a little more time. Please," hoping the plea itself would garner some sympathy, buy him some time.
Travis had given in and now Ennis had to make a fucking decision one way or the other. He guessed he had known for a while now what it was going to take to settle this whole damn thing.
He was going back to Brokeback, and he was going alone.
He was up at five the next morning, threw his gear in the back of the truck and took off.
He stopped at the ranch, loaded Mariah, a pack horse and tack, left a note for Joe, apologized, said he needed the week off.
Everything was familiar. The state road north, then west for a time and he started climbing, making his way up. The further away he got from the flat land and ranches, the better he felt.
Christ, how had he stayed away from here for so long? He thought of the little town with its dusty gray streets and shoebox houses and wilting gardens, and thanked God for the mountains that surrounded him...his cabin in the hills...the paradise that was Brokeback.
He put his foot down on the gas pedal, feeling an immediate urgency to get there, back to where it had all started, where his fantasies had taken him all these years, where now it would be real again.
Real? Who was he kidding?
When he got to where he thought the turn-off should be, he slowed the truck, ready to pull in when he saw it. It was overgrown now, all these years later, but he knew he'd recognize the spot and as he came on it he turned, stopped the truck and sat back.
There was the trailhead they'd started from, Jack on that damn buckskin mare that he'd finally gotten to quiet down by the end of the summer.
He felt himself choking up, so he got out, unloaded Mariah, packed the tent and all the gear on the other horse, mounted and started up.
Ghosts were everywhere - he and Jack as they had been...laughing, talking, riding out to the sheep, sitting by the fire, in the tent, together in the tent that first night, then him surrendering to Jack, afraid at first, then loving it...
The invisible creatures followed him...he could sense them all around...they slipped under the bridge where he'd met the Basque on Fridays for supplies, trailed him up the hill and down the other side, where, in his mind's eye, he saw himself sliding from his saddle when his horse had reared up at the sight of the bear.
And now, when he pulled the horses up at the place he would use for camp, the spirits crowded in on him, sighing, murmuring, throwing memories at him like stones.
He took care of the horses, set up the tent on a large flat spot, and got a fire going. Then he grabbed food which he didn't want and a bottle of whiskey which he did, sat down, cracked open the bottle, drank deeply and rested back.
No doubt about it: his life was definitely more complicated with Travis in it.
He remembered how bad he thought it had been just six months ago, when he had only been fighting Jack’s ghost and his own great guilt.
Now the guilt had grown and multiplied because it included his feelings for another man.
He had made a serious effort to keep Travis a thing separate from his life, in a pigeonhole, where he could label it and he knew where it was. He knew Travis wasn’t going to accept their current state of affairs, even though it fit Ennis’s needs perfectly.
And Ennis himself was getting tired of the constant strain on his own mind, the never-ending battle within himself, needing to preserve Jack's memory and at the same time wanting to give more to Travis.
He dozed off and the dream was of him and Jack, rolling in the dirt in the firelight, loving with an abandon he hadn't felt since then, both of them wild and fearless, fearless as you can only be at nineteen, thinking you know all, not seeing past the moment.
The dream turned dark, their words echoing down the years...
Y'know, it could be like this...like this...like this...
How ya figure that? How? How?
What if you and me...what if...what if...
No way...no...no...
He opened his eyes - or was he still dreaming - saw Jack across the fire, resting back against a log, long legs stretched out, crossed at the booted ankle, hat pushed back, smoke curling around his face from the cigarette in his mouth...another ghost come to taunt him, the memories sharp as ever, flying around him as he tried to weave between them and not get cut.
Jesus, Jack, you knew I wanted to, didn't you...You knew that, right?
I tried to show you every time we were together all those years, you knew I never did that much for anybody else, right?
Shit, tell me you knew that before you died...if you didn't know, then I've been paying all these years for not tellin you somethin I thought a blind man could see...I was so sure it was clear a mile off how I felt about you...you knew I only ever thought of you that way, not Alma, never Alma, Christ...and nobody since you either...Travis...yeah...now there's somebody, but I can't forget about you long enough to do anything about it...
And I'll tell you this, it ain't worth losing what I got left of you to be with him.
I can't get close to him with you here...and I can't lose you...fuck...help me out here, Jack...tell me what to do...I can't forget you, best times of my life was with you...I can't forget you...
But of course Jack wasn't there. There was a decision to be made. Ennis had to make it alone.
Travis hated that he had given in to Ennis again. How could he be with someone who could treat him so badly, make him wait for a decision that would affect the rest of his life?
He woke up the next morning with a pain in his gut he knew was from missing Ennis.
It was the first time in his life that he physically ached with need, with missing someone, and he didn't know how to go on from there.
What was he supposed to do?
He knew Ennis wanted him, but that wasn't enough...and he knew there was something...someone else that he wanted more...and Travis couldn't compete with that, couldn't share Ennis with a ghost...no not even that, he didn't even have that choice.
Ennis wouldn't share himself with Travis...he held back, he kept his feelings for Jack, as if he were real...gave only his body to Travis, and it wasn't enough. It wasn't love if you were in pain all the time, and Travis had pretty much been in pain since he'd fallen in love with Ennis.
The answer was simple and he guessed he'd known it all along: Ennis was not in love with him.
He'd known it, but kept fighting it, fighting to make Ennis love him, and it hadn't gotten him anywhere. Now it was time to quit.
And who was he kidding?
He couldn't quit.
Ennis woke the next morning sore as a bitch from sleeping on the ground, reminding him, if he needed reminding, that he wasn't nineteen any more.
And he remembered everything...the dream, the memories, all the spirits that had followed him up the mountain.
He made coffee over the last of the fire, then saddled Mariah and made his way up to the top of the mountain, where he'd ridden that day he'd found the dead sheep.
Jesus Christ...it came back in a rush...the memories assaulted him now, roughing him up until his mind was raw with the need, the fucking need, to be back there again...back as it was...him and Jack.
And the knowledge that he could never go back was too much...he resisted it – there must be a way - if he thought about it he could go there...
But he couldn't live in his mind...he couldn't live in the past for the rest of his life, could he? What kind of life was that?
Suddenly he realized that it was the kind of life that Jack would hate...Jack would turn his back on that kind of living...wouldn't even call it living...
Jack would rather die than live like that.
It was dark when Ennis pulled up in front of Travis's house. He sat there for a minute thinking of Jack, sure of what he was doing, just wanting to give credit where credit was due.
He would know, in the next few minutes, if he had let Travis slip away...he hoped he could make up for the way he'd treated him, was prepared to try like hell to make it up.
He knew it wouldn't be easy, it would be hard.
He heard Jack's voice clear, drifting back to him from so many years ago: Every fuckin' day's hard...You gonna waste your whole fuckin' life just 'cause it's hard? I fuckin' give up.
Don't give up on me, Jack, you never did before.
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no subject
Date: 2011-11-20 06:25 am (UTC)God, this chapter was hard to read.
I could see Ennis getting back on Brokeback and reliving all the good times and the painful thoughts afterwards
thank you
Paula