(no subject)

[e_delmar]

There's somethin' about the air, or the noise, or something, and Ennis can't sleep. Or maybe it's all that coughing that's keeping him up. Damn shoulder's been acting up, shouldn't've pushed so hard on the damn stables. Jack may be young and nimble, but Ennis' as old as he ever was. Older, maybe, given his time spent here. Fucking Milliways. The bed creaks as he turns and picks up a cigarette from the bedside table and lights it.

Comments

[e_delmar]

Ennis . . .


Ennis coughs, and he moves again and grabs himself. And he's sayin' something about Junior and a fishing trip, but that tired must be gettin' to him more'n he realizes, because he repeats himself three times --

"That damn truck, 'n Junior out back, tryin' to push"

-- with a wheezy laugh under it all, and when he yawns, it's easy to turn into Jack again, arms and legs tangled.

[jack_f_twist]

Easy for him, and it gives Jack a chance to move, just to shift as he would in his sleep, closer to Ennis' warmth. And maybe he's relieved that the talking seems to be done, and maybe not--hard to say when he can't even admit having heard.

[e_delmar]

Ennis yawns again, and in the morning, he'll have to go. In the morning, the world'll be crowding in on him, and that dark that's there even when it ain't night will be back.

But the darkness is pushed back now, for a little while anyway, and it don't seem so bad when he breathes in Jack, and it don't seem so bad as he rests his head in the crook of Jack's shoulder, and it don't seem so bad as his breathing evens out and he falls asleep.

[jack_f_twist]

He sleeps, and Jack's eyes open into the dark of the room, and he rolls over carefully, wrapping an arm around Ennis' shoulders and the other over his stomach, slips a leg between Ennis' and lies there watching the empty air for a long time.

And when he presses a kiss to Ennis' hair and yawns, and his eyes slip closed again, he sleeps deep and content, and instead of dreaming of Brokeback, dreams of nothing at all.