All Things Considered, 28
Mar. 22nd, 2012 11:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morrobay1990Title: All Things Considered, Chapter 28
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
morrobay1990
Genre: Ennis, moving on?
Word count: 2000
Disclaimer: They are AP's
♥ Jack
Previously, on All Things Considered...
But it was the memory that he thought of the most, the one that could bring him to his knees, or make him feel like he was on top of the world: Jack coming back to him after four long years away... if he could just hold that one time...those perfect moments together...and not what came after.
Maybe Ennis would insist that they remain living separate...that would never work, not for Travis, it wasn't what he wanted. .. he knew he'd have to wait a long time before Ennis could deal with something that big.
He didn't know anything of Travis's past, really…He didn't even know if Ennis was his first...damn. If there had been...fuck. He really didn't know anything about his past.
Chapter 28
Monday evening
“We're getting there, another 50 miles, give or take.”
“Good, I'll be glad to get outta this car.” Ennis stretched his legs out as much as he could in the rental car, missing the roominess of the Hummer.
“So what's so special about Morro Bay?”
“It's just a little place, no big deal. But one time at work, I'd had a really shitty week, just wanted to get the hell out of town for the weekend and I asked around the office, you know, where people liked to go, and Morro Bay came up, so I gave it a try. It was off-season, like now, and it was perfect. No crowds, a couple good restaurants, great old book store that I always go to right after I check into the hotel. And the ocean...that's one thing I miss living in Wyoming. I started coming up here a couple times a year, or whenever the shit got to be too much...just to get away, y'know?”
“Yeah, think I'd go crazy if I didn't have the cabin.”
“It's great up there, too.” He looked at Ennis, “I really love that place. Wish we could get an ocean up there.”
“Might be easier to get a cabin by the ocean. Think that's my favorite part of the trip so far. Well,” he looked over and rubbed the back of his hand against Travis's face, “maybe second favorite.”
Travis still wasn't accustomed to the sexual hold that Ennis had over him. He'd never felt so attracted to anyone, not even his wife...sex had never been on his mind as much as it had since he'd been with Ennis, he felt like a teenage kid...sometimes it was all he could think of...this was one of those times.
“You might want to stop that, y'know, so I can keep the car on the road.” His breath was already coming faster, and he was getting hard, just from Ennis making the first move, just from Ennis touching his face, and knowing what was coming.
“Yeah, ok, but you better make it worth my while when we get to the hotel.” Ennis smiled and moved his hand a safe distance.
The miles slid by, and as they got closer to Morro Bay, occasionally they could see the ocean off in the distance when they crested a hill.
Ennis had been thinking.
“You know you keep sayin' that I gotta keep talkin' about Jack?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe we should let it go for a while.” He waited for Travis to object, but he just looked over at Ennis, waited for him to continue.
“I mean, I done a lot of talkin'...you know about him and...well, you pretty much know everything. Long as things are ok, why don't we just take it as it comes? Things start getting bad, we'll talk.”
Hearing Ennis put it like that, Travis unexpectedly felt a weight drop from his shoulders. He'd heard enough about Jack.
Ennis had gone through some remarkable changes. For one thing, one big important thing, he seemed more accessible, which sounded odd...but Travis had known moments when, lying beside him in the same bed, he knew Ennis was somewhere else, knew that his thoughts were of Jack...that “3 in the bed” thing that he hated.
Those times were torment for Travis, because he couldn't do a damn thing about it. It wasn't his nature to rant and rave or to sulk, and he definitely was not one to beg. He was greedy when it came to Ennis, wanted to claim his mind as well as his body; it looked as if he was finally gaining an advantage over Jack...and how weird did that sound? Advantage? Over a dead man? Only someone foolish enough to fall in love with Ennis would understand.
“Yeah, let's go with that.” He looked over, brought his hand up and rubbed the back of Ennis's neck, moved it to caress his head as Ennis's eyes closed and he leaned into Travis's touch.
“Good.” Ennis let out a long breath. “So...we're on vacation.”
Travis smiled, “Yeah.”
He brought his hand back to the steering wheel, “You'll like it here. And I'm pretty sure we can rent horses, I know there are stables in Los Osos...that's right down the road. And there's Pismo and SLO...we're not gonna have enough time to do everything.”
“This place got a push-button fireplace?”
“I'm sure they do.”
Ennis relaxed back in his seat, “Well, put your foot down and get us there, boy.”
They checked into the Blue Sail Inn, right on the water and just as luxurious as the place in Mendocino. It had the requisite fireplace, a sitting area and panoramic views of Morro Rock in the bay and the Pacific beyond.
Travis arranged for the clerk to call around and see if it was possible to rent horses the next day, then they made their way to the room. Travis walked in first and dumped his suitcase on the bed, Ennis followed and kicked the door shut with his foot, dropped his suitcase where he stood, and had Travis in his arms before he could take a breath.
They stood together, the kiss deep and long, but instead of the quick rush of heat Travis expected, it wasn't hurried, instead slow and tender, and it strengthened in Travis's mind the intimate familiarity that he was coming to crave.
They made love then shared a shower. Both were starving and Morro Bay wasn't a 24/7 kind of place, so, just as the sun was slipping below the horizon, they made their way to the string of shops and restaurants near the water and got fresh seafood, sat outside in the chill as they ate and talked, ocean as background...decided it was too cold to walk the beach, Ennis said it would be better on horseback, anyway.
Back at the hotel, fireplace flickering inside, drinks at hand, they stretched out on deck chairs on the balcony, wrapped in down blankets against the cold air and the never-ending wind off the bay, watching the sailboats rocking on the water...rhythmic, hypnotizing.
Travis started, “We only have a couple more days, then it's back to reality.”
“Never thought I'd say it, but I'm not looking forward to goin' back to work after this. Didn't think I'd be one for the good life, but it ain't half bad.”
“You wouldn't know what to do with yourself if you didn't have fourteen hours worth of work a day. I can't see you sitting around watching TV in the afternoon. What would you do without all that?”
“You mean without getting to work and finding out 2 guys aren't gonna be there, so you're short-handed and behind schedule before 6 am? Or gettin a call in the middle of the night to come and work on a horse with colic? Maybe givin' up a Sunday to meet the farrier and stand around while 5 horses get shod? Yeah, have a tough time leavin' that behind me.”
He took a sip of his drink and sighed, thinking that he could give up that shit like that, no problem. “How 'bout you? You gonna start workin' again?”
“Haven't thought that far ahead. I've been having fun riding every day...got a training level show in a couple months, it's gonna take a lot of work to get ready for that. I might just do this for a while...why not? My IT job was just a paycheck, I don't miss it.”
They settled into a comfortable silence, both tired but content for the moment to sit in the cold and listen to the sounds of the bay at night.
After a while Ennis cleared his throat, “So...you said you...y'know...did this once. What happened?”
That took Travis by surprise, but he guessed they were both fair game in the question department.
“It was a long time ago, right after I moved to LA. I needed a roommate to share the rent...we had things in common, sports, running...got along with each other...it just happened.”
He hadn't thought about this in a while, not that there was much to think about...it had never developed into anything serious. “It only lasted a few weeks.”
“Why...what happened?”
“We just didn't...he got scared...I mean...we didn't...it was just something that happened, it didn't mean anything...he left after a couple weeks.”
“He got scared? Why? It was LA, right? Nothin' to be scared of there...about that, I mean.”
Ennis knew less than nothing about men together...didn't know, didn't want to know.
Well, maybe he was getting a little curious...
“Ennis, he got scared of his feelings, I guess...it was...”
“Well, what about Brian? How come you and him never...I mean...you said you never slept with him...didn't you...y'know...want to? I thought...” Ennis was starting to think of lots of questions and was getting intensely curious all of a sudden.
“You thought what?” Travis was beginning to wonder where this conversation was going.
“Well, I mean...Jack said...”
That got Travis's attention. His eyes snapped to Ennis and he said sharply, “What did Jack say?”
In a perverse way, pretty much anything Ennis had to say about Jack interested Travis.
But Ennis thought he might have made a mistake by mentioning Jack's name; he wasn't going to give away any details of the fight he and Jack had about Mexico...he couldn't think about Jack needing other men...didn't want to talk about the last time he'd seen Jack and how they'd left it...and the other things about that shitty last day together, things that Ennis tried not to think about too deeply.
“Nothing...just...nothing. It was something he said the last time I saw him and I don't wanna talk about that.”
“Well, you can't just leave it there. Ennis. What did he say?”
Ennis didn't know what to do. He didn't analyze things, he only knew what Jack had told him.
To tell another person that Jack needed sex with men other than him? Besides betraying Jack by giving away something so private...nobody's business...he was also worried that the same might be true of Travis...didn't know why it wasn't true of him...shit, he didn't know anything about this.
He got up and started to pace, trying to figure out what to say. “Look, it was private, what he said...I'm not gonna talk about it. I just said that, about Brian, because I wondered why you didn't want to...Jesus, Travis, you know what I'm talkin' about...”
It was starting to dawn on Travis, “Actually I don't have a clue...unless you're asking me why, if Brian was there, I didn't go to bed with him. Is that what you're asking? If I sleep with any man I see? Brian was breathing, so why not sleep with him? Is that what you're asking me?”
He didn't know how to handle this one...never thought he'd hear Ennis accuse him of having mindless sex with anyone and everyone who crossed his path. Surely he didn't think that? Surely after all the time they'd spent together, everything they knew about each other, he didn't think that?
Ennis wished to God he'd never brought it up. “No, I just thought you needed more...” Shit! “Didn't you need sex all the time?”
When Ennis blurted that out, Travis laughed, pissing Ennis off plenty.
Ennis wasn't accusing him of anything. Ennis was clueless.
Maybe Jack, trying to get Ennis to commit to something, had told him he needed more from Ennis than he was getting...shit, who didn't? And Ennis took it to mean that Jack was cheating on him...though how it could be called cheating when they lived 1500 miles from each other...Jesus, it was more than confusing...made what he and Ennis had seem like Ozzie and Harriet.
“It's freezing out here, I'm going in.” Travis stood and picked up his glass, leaned over as Ennis looked up, and kissed him, the kiss holding promises of a long night ahead. “Come on, we're done talking...let's go to bed.”
Author:
morrobay1990Genre: Ennis, moving on?
Word count: 2000
Disclaimer: They are AP's
♥ Jack
Previously, on All Things Considered...
But it was the memory that he thought of the most, the one that could bring him to his knees, or make him feel like he was on top of the world: Jack coming back to him after four long years away... if he could just hold that one time...those perfect moments together...and not what came after.
Maybe Ennis would insist that they remain living separate...that would never work, not for Travis, it wasn't what he wanted. .. he knew he'd have to wait a long time before Ennis could deal with something that big.
He didn't know anything of Travis's past, really…He didn't even know if Ennis was his first...damn. If there had been...fuck. He really didn't know anything about his past.
Chapter 28
Monday evening
“We're getting there, another 50 miles, give or take.”
“Good, I'll be glad to get outta this car.” Ennis stretched his legs out as much as he could in the rental car, missing the roominess of the Hummer.
“So what's so special about Morro Bay?”
“It's just a little place, no big deal. But one time at work, I'd had a really shitty week, just wanted to get the hell out of town for the weekend and I asked around the office, you know, where people liked to go, and Morro Bay came up, so I gave it a try. It was off-season, like now, and it was perfect. No crowds, a couple good restaurants, great old book store that I always go to right after I check into the hotel. And the ocean...that's one thing I miss living in Wyoming. I started coming up here a couple times a year, or whenever the shit got to be too much...just to get away, y'know?”
“Yeah, think I'd go crazy if I didn't have the cabin.”
“It's great up there, too.” He looked at Ennis, “I really love that place. Wish we could get an ocean up there.”
“Might be easier to get a cabin by the ocean. Think that's my favorite part of the trip so far. Well,” he looked over and rubbed the back of his hand against Travis's face, “maybe second favorite.”
Travis still wasn't accustomed to the sexual hold that Ennis had over him. He'd never felt so attracted to anyone, not even his wife...sex had never been on his mind as much as it had since he'd been with Ennis, he felt like a teenage kid...sometimes it was all he could think of...this was one of those times.
“You might want to stop that, y'know, so I can keep the car on the road.” His breath was already coming faster, and he was getting hard, just from Ennis making the first move, just from Ennis touching his face, and knowing what was coming.
“Yeah, ok, but you better make it worth my while when we get to the hotel.” Ennis smiled and moved his hand a safe distance.
The miles slid by, and as they got closer to Morro Bay, occasionally they could see the ocean off in the distance when they crested a hill.
Ennis had been thinking.
“You know you keep sayin' that I gotta keep talkin' about Jack?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe we should let it go for a while.” He waited for Travis to object, but he just looked over at Ennis, waited for him to continue.
“I mean, I done a lot of talkin'...you know about him and...well, you pretty much know everything. Long as things are ok, why don't we just take it as it comes? Things start getting bad, we'll talk.”
Hearing Ennis put it like that, Travis unexpectedly felt a weight drop from his shoulders. He'd heard enough about Jack.
Ennis had gone through some remarkable changes. For one thing, one big important thing, he seemed more accessible, which sounded odd...but Travis had known moments when, lying beside him in the same bed, he knew Ennis was somewhere else, knew that his thoughts were of Jack...that “3 in the bed” thing that he hated.
Those times were torment for Travis, because he couldn't do a damn thing about it. It wasn't his nature to rant and rave or to sulk, and he definitely was not one to beg. He was greedy when it came to Ennis, wanted to claim his mind as well as his body; it looked as if he was finally gaining an advantage over Jack...and how weird did that sound? Advantage? Over a dead man? Only someone foolish enough to fall in love with Ennis would understand.
“Yeah, let's go with that.” He looked over, brought his hand up and rubbed the back of Ennis's neck, moved it to caress his head as Ennis's eyes closed and he leaned into Travis's touch.
“Good.” Ennis let out a long breath. “So...we're on vacation.”
Travis smiled, “Yeah.”
He brought his hand back to the steering wheel, “You'll like it here. And I'm pretty sure we can rent horses, I know there are stables in Los Osos...that's right down the road. And there's Pismo and SLO...we're not gonna have enough time to do everything.”
“This place got a push-button fireplace?”
“I'm sure they do.”
Ennis relaxed back in his seat, “Well, put your foot down and get us there, boy.”
They checked into the Blue Sail Inn, right on the water and just as luxurious as the place in Mendocino. It had the requisite fireplace, a sitting area and panoramic views of Morro Rock in the bay and the Pacific beyond.
Travis arranged for the clerk to call around and see if it was possible to rent horses the next day, then they made their way to the room. Travis walked in first and dumped his suitcase on the bed, Ennis followed and kicked the door shut with his foot, dropped his suitcase where he stood, and had Travis in his arms before he could take a breath.
They stood together, the kiss deep and long, but instead of the quick rush of heat Travis expected, it wasn't hurried, instead slow and tender, and it strengthened in Travis's mind the intimate familiarity that he was coming to crave.
They made love then shared a shower. Both were starving and Morro Bay wasn't a 24/7 kind of place, so, just as the sun was slipping below the horizon, they made their way to the string of shops and restaurants near the water and got fresh seafood, sat outside in the chill as they ate and talked, ocean as background...decided it was too cold to walk the beach, Ennis said it would be better on horseback, anyway.
Back at the hotel, fireplace flickering inside, drinks at hand, they stretched out on deck chairs on the balcony, wrapped in down blankets against the cold air and the never-ending wind off the bay, watching the sailboats rocking on the water...rhythmic, hypnotizing.
Travis started, “We only have a couple more days, then it's back to reality.”
“Never thought I'd say it, but I'm not looking forward to goin' back to work after this. Didn't think I'd be one for the good life, but it ain't half bad.”
“You wouldn't know what to do with yourself if you didn't have fourteen hours worth of work a day. I can't see you sitting around watching TV in the afternoon. What would you do without all that?”
“You mean without getting to work and finding out 2 guys aren't gonna be there, so you're short-handed and behind schedule before 6 am? Or gettin a call in the middle of the night to come and work on a horse with colic? Maybe givin' up a Sunday to meet the farrier and stand around while 5 horses get shod? Yeah, have a tough time leavin' that behind me.”
He took a sip of his drink and sighed, thinking that he could give up that shit like that, no problem. “How 'bout you? You gonna start workin' again?”
“Haven't thought that far ahead. I've been having fun riding every day...got a training level show in a couple months, it's gonna take a lot of work to get ready for that. I might just do this for a while...why not? My IT job was just a paycheck, I don't miss it.”
They settled into a comfortable silence, both tired but content for the moment to sit in the cold and listen to the sounds of the bay at night.
After a while Ennis cleared his throat, “So...you said you...y'know...did this once. What happened?”
That took Travis by surprise, but he guessed they were both fair game in the question department.
“It was a long time ago, right after I moved to LA. I needed a roommate to share the rent...we had things in common, sports, running...got along with each other...it just happened.”
He hadn't thought about this in a while, not that there was much to think about...it had never developed into anything serious. “It only lasted a few weeks.”
“Why...what happened?”
“We just didn't...he got scared...I mean...we didn't...it was just something that happened, it didn't mean anything...he left after a couple weeks.”
“He got scared? Why? It was LA, right? Nothin' to be scared of there...about that, I mean.”
Ennis knew less than nothing about men together...didn't know, didn't want to know.
Well, maybe he was getting a little curious...
“Ennis, he got scared of his feelings, I guess...it was...”
“Well, what about Brian? How come you and him never...I mean...you said you never slept with him...didn't you...y'know...want to? I thought...” Ennis was starting to think of lots of questions and was getting intensely curious all of a sudden.
“You thought what?” Travis was beginning to wonder where this conversation was going.
“Well, I mean...Jack said...”
That got Travis's attention. His eyes snapped to Ennis and he said sharply, “What did Jack say?”
In a perverse way, pretty much anything Ennis had to say about Jack interested Travis.
But Ennis thought he might have made a mistake by mentioning Jack's name; he wasn't going to give away any details of the fight he and Jack had about Mexico...he couldn't think about Jack needing other men...didn't want to talk about the last time he'd seen Jack and how they'd left it...and the other things about that shitty last day together, things that Ennis tried not to think about too deeply.
“Nothing...just...nothing. It was something he said the last time I saw him and I don't wanna talk about that.”
“Well, you can't just leave it there. Ennis. What did he say?”
Ennis didn't know what to do. He didn't analyze things, he only knew what Jack had told him.
To tell another person that Jack needed sex with men other than him? Besides betraying Jack by giving away something so private...nobody's business...he was also worried that the same might be true of Travis...didn't know why it wasn't true of him...shit, he didn't know anything about this.
He got up and started to pace, trying to figure out what to say. “Look, it was private, what he said...I'm not gonna talk about it. I just said that, about Brian, because I wondered why you didn't want to...Jesus, Travis, you know what I'm talkin' about...”
It was starting to dawn on Travis, “Actually I don't have a clue...unless you're asking me why, if Brian was there, I didn't go to bed with him. Is that what you're asking? If I sleep with any man I see? Brian was breathing, so why not sleep with him? Is that what you're asking me?”
He didn't know how to handle this one...never thought he'd hear Ennis accuse him of having mindless sex with anyone and everyone who crossed his path. Surely he didn't think that? Surely after all the time they'd spent together, everything they knew about each other, he didn't think that?
Ennis wished to God he'd never brought it up. “No, I just thought you needed more...” Shit! “Didn't you need sex all the time?”
When Ennis blurted that out, Travis laughed, pissing Ennis off plenty.
Ennis wasn't accusing him of anything. Ennis was clueless.
Maybe Jack, trying to get Ennis to commit to something, had told him he needed more from Ennis than he was getting...shit, who didn't? And Ennis took it to mean that Jack was cheating on him...though how it could be called cheating when they lived 1500 miles from each other...Jesus, it was more than confusing...made what he and Ennis had seem like Ozzie and Harriet.
“It's freezing out here, I'm going in.” Travis stood and picked up his glass, leaned over as Ennis looked up, and kissed him, the kiss holding promises of a long night ahead. “Come on, we're done talking...let's go to bed.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-03-24 12:52 am (UTC)But yes, Ennis is getting to a point where he can remember Jack and know he loved him, but still realize that he doesn't have to be set in stone where he was when Jack died.
Gotta tell you, your last sentence was especially nice to read today...I've been thinking about using Annie Proulx's characters, and how it's not fair to her, and how would I like it if someone used Travis (yeah, right!)...and that maybe I should just quit posting...so it's especially encouraging to see that you like the story...maybe I'm just tired..
thanks so much...
no subject
Date: 2012-03-24 11:55 am (UTC)for me, the cluelessness part that Ennis experiences is very much like my own life. while I don't quite believe in that there are many who would accept my cluelessness and see beneath it, I do find it comforting that people see beneath it in films and fiction.
it's wonderful that my comment was encouraging. :)