PART I – THE ROAD BEHIND

Pairing: Jack/Ennis
Genre: Canon based AU; inspired by the short story by "The Roads of Destiny"
Word count: 1,047
Disclaimer: The characters do not belong to me, the plot may be similar to others'. It's something I just had to write down. No rent is sought from it, I'm just sharing with the likeminded crowd.

Feedback: I´d appreciate it, thank you!

Huge thanks to my betas lv2walk and EsmeAmelia.

The room was stark, blanched, devoid of any trace of the warmth that its owner had about him. Once. Ennis vaguely registered a fleeting thought at the back of his mind – how it's possible, how he could possibly come from here, one so full of li… The thought faded away right there with very little effort on his side. He had become very good with it lately, with not letting any thought that could cause pain into his mind. The kind a pain you couldn't stand. The kind a pain that made you wanna stop livin'. So what he got now was numbness. Total, all-encompassing, never-ending. Almost blissful. And Ennis was thankful for that. Even if he had to nurture it with a steady flow of cheap whiskey, on which he spent most of his measly pay left after the child support. 'Cause numbness was the only thing that had kept him going since… since the postcard. He couldn't afford to let it go.

That day after the phone call with his wife in Texas, Ennis had staggered out from the phone booth and froze, taking in the street, the trees, a couple of people walking by, the blazing white sun against colorless sky. Things around him that looked sort of familiar but not entirely the same. Like it had all been a slow motion movie and he the only spectator. Staring down at the postcard with the red stamp "Deceased" across his own scribbling he had wondered dimly why there was no pain, just emptiness. But that's alright he'd figured, emptiness was better than pain. 'Cause he'd already knew then that he wouldn't be able to stand the pain, not that pain. The one he had spent almost twenty years of his wretched life trying to avoid.

Then it had been two weeks before he had finally managed to get a day off to drive to Lightning Flats. All that time he went through motion, operating on some kind of autopilot, barely recognizing extra actions required of him. Like daily replenishment of whiskey, talking to Stoutmire 'bout the day off, figurin' out the route to his destination. Like lulling the almost palpable emptiness into a general numbness and taking a fuckin' good care that it stayed that way. He'd think of what he was gonna say and do at the Lightning Flats when he got there he had reckoned.

So now, staggering aimlessly around the scantily furnished room - his room -, looking without seeing, touching things without feeling, Ennis found himself struggling to put up a rational thought of what he'd wanted do here. Had expected to find here. The notion that his old man downstairs was waiting for Ennis to get done and over with the visit and get the hell out of his house did not help to get a grip of a focus. He needed more time. He never had enough time. Never enough time…Had he?

Ennis opened the closet. A couple of old jeans neatly folded over wire hangers, a pair of old boots he thought he recognized. Then at the left end of the closet, in a narrow hiding place next to the wall, he found an old denim shirt. His shirt from the Brokeback days, stained with Ennis' blood on the right sleeve. He wasn't even surprised that he recognized it right away. He just knew. Somehow Ennis was not surprised either when he saw another shirt inside it. Ennis' shirt, cradled and held close by his, like it never wanted to let go. He had never wanted to let go.

Ennis stared at the shirts for what seemed like an eternity, the little protective mechanism in his head that had been coping so well so far trying desperately to block out their meaning. And failing miserably. Because no matter how hard he'd tried and succeeded in his denial of what he was to him - a long standing fishing buddy? The best friend? -, the uncomfortable truth was now staring Ennis down in the eyes. Ennis had meant more than that to him. Considerably more. Like maybe mor'n anythin'? He slammed down the treacherous little thought nagging at the back of his mind. Not now.

He was barely conscious of his progress down the stairs with the shirts rolled up tight, of handing them briefly to his Ma to place them in a paper bag, of saying goodbyes and leaving. His autopilot mercifully kicked in again: the side door opened, the engine started, the car backed out, driving. Outta here. Fast.

Ennis didn't fully register where he was going until he was at his improbable destination, stopped and cut off the engine. He got out of the car, left hand still clutching the paper bag that he'd never let go since taking it from his Ma, took a couple of dozen of faltering steps up the shallow swell of a hill and stopped dead, hardly breathing.

The Twist family's plot was at the far end of the tiny country graveyard, fenced off with sheep wire: a lone mound adorned with a bunch of unnaturally bright plastic flowers, a simple wooden cross like an exclamation mark, devastatingly small and inconsequential against vast and barren Wyoming plains beyond.

"Jaaack…" Ennis finally let the name go free from his chest with the breath he had probably been holding since he had found out that Jack was gone.

It was then that an oddly plain realization hit him with an undeniable clarity that it was all over. It was the end of Jack. And of the stoic Ennis that he had known all these years too. 'Cause, even if Ennis had never admitted to himself before, not evenonce, he knew then that it was Jackwho'd been the reason he could stand it all, all 'em years.

And then came the pain, the one he'd feared all 'em years, knocking Ennis down on his knees in front of the cross. In front of Jack. The first wave left him faintly surprised that his heart was not in the pungent vomit puddle he was staring down at. The next took the little resolve left in him to try to stand it. And Ennis knew that he couldn't anymore, not without his Jack...

Music: Nothing Compares To You, Sinead O'Connor