Title: Shapes in Dust
Fandom/Source Material: Deadwood
Summary: It's hard to find happiness when you don't believe you deserve it. Jane/Joanie femslash, picking up where we left off after Season 3. Joanie POV.
Spoilers: Entire Series
Warnings: Strong language (appropriate to source material).
Author's Note:I have included a back-story summary for non viewers. I highly reccomend watching this series! It's AMAZING.

Shapes in Dust

'Warm,' Jane says softly, and I can feel her smiling in the word.

'You feelin better?' I ask.

''M feelin fuckin warmer,' she says. 'Why'nt you come under here, see how warm it is?'

'All right, Jane.' I sit up and slide back into the bed, pulling Wild Bill's fur over me. I'm too dressed up for this, really, my skirts are bunching up and ruffling something fierce; but Jane doesn't struggle as I let my arm curl around her shoulder. I'm chasing away memories of another girl, that I once held just like this, when she speaks again,

'Well? Don't you think it's fuckin warm?'

'Mr Hickok had a fine coat.'

'That he did, that he did, yes, you're fuckin right.'

'Jane?' I say, soft in her ear. 'I'm sorry, when you asked, that I din't come in and play with you and the little one. I'm a fool not to realise that's what you wanted.' I stroke her hair.

She shifts – like maybe she's not comfy, but the way she does we just get the nearer to each other, and I can feel the moment of her breathing against my chest.

She sounds sleepy now, under the warm like this. 'I can send you secret thoughts any time I want to anyhow. Doin it all the time.'

'And what do they say?'

Her fingers curl around mine. 'I ain't one for the givin away of secrets, no ma'am.'

She drops off like that, smiling and holding my hand like a comforter. I listen to her sleep.

And I've watched a lot of people sleep in my time. Some say that a man sleeping is like himself as a boy, untroubled – I don't believe that. Any man I'd consider worth a damn – and right now I'd place Charlie Utter the only one in that category – I'd guess he'd sleep watchful-like, on guard. I'd guess I wouldn't trust a man who slept untroubled.

I'd guess that murdering bastard Wolcott slept untroubled.

Cy don't, he sleeps with a frown on his face. Cy's in a bad way, I know. I left him in a bad way this morning and he'd only be getting worse all day. I hate myself for thinking of him now, watching Jane sleep, hate myself for always wondering where's Cy, what's Cy doing, when's Cy gonna suddenly appear, smiling like the devil with his eyes as bright as bad gold.

But I'm doing it less and less, feeling less and less of his hold on me. It's only bad today because of seeing him this morning. I used to be all crushed up under him like powder, like dust in the shape of a woman. But I been slowly wriggling my way out of it, out of his snare, day by day, and last night he saw it; just the bloody wires left behind.

'Joanie?'

'I'm here, Jane.'

'I's still awake. Don't go nowhere.'

'Sure, I'll stay. You just relax now.' I bring the fur up over her shoulder, watch her settle deeper into it, against me.

This is where I want to be.

* * *

I was wrong. I knows it when I step out of the door an hour later – to see how the voting's going, Jane still asleep – and there's that girl Janine, all tumbled black curly hair and fear and horror and telling me how Cy's done for poor Leon and nearly did for her and Hearst too. How he's now holed up in his office now, won't let nobody in, door locked.

She's shaking like she's being shook.

I guess the voting is still going on; the centre is filled up with people, none of them at ease. There's enough men holding onto guns to start a battle right here in the road. I lead Janine through the mass of them, past man after man with his gun doing the voting. The chinamen for their part seem to have all got together at one end of the street, while a lot of strangers on horseback are cantering about and causing a mess. It's a sort of chaos, and there's that sheriff making his way up the thoroughfare like he's been broken in two, snapped in the middle, straight as he's walking.

And there's Charlie Utter, holding his shotgun and standing about all tense and unhappy. He sees me coming up the street.

'Oh, Miss Stubbs, I should be careful being out and about this here day,' he says, trotting on over to me.

I stop walking. 'I can't account for it, but there's been some kind of trouble over at the Bella Union.'

Janine hangs back on our conversation, clutching her bloody hands in her skirts and ducking under the awning of the newspaper office.

Mr Utter don't like to contradict a woman without tipping his hat. 'I'd say there was some kind of trouble jus' about everwhere right now,' he says, then dropping his voice adds, 'Trouble at Tolliver's place wouldn't, I had hoped, be your concern of late, Miss Stubbs.'

'Janine – this girl here what works at the Bella Union – she says Cy's lost his mind and stabbed Leon to death, had no qualms either about holding a gun to her head or aiming one at Hearst.'

'Leon?' Charlie's eyes go wide as windows. 'What'd he go kill Leon for?'

'I gotta get over there,' I say, starting walking again. Charlie ups and steps in my way.

'No offence meant to you, Miss Stubbs, but I reckon that's a bad fuckin idea. He's killed already today, chances are he'll take a knife to anyone.'

Janine says suddenly. 'Oh please, Miss Stubbs, I cain't go in there alone. He'll kill me, he sent me to get Con and I went and fetched you instead.'

'It's gonna be all right, Janine,' I say.

Charlie looks about him suddenly. 'Uh, where's old Jane at?' he asks.

'Knocked herself out on the liquor. Fell asleep under that fur you give us.'

'Please, ma'am,' says Janine.

But I'm thinking about Jane now, about Jane waking up sudden in that bed all alone and wondering where I got to, finding out I went to see Cy again, went to save him and at the risk of my neck too… Going back in the snare. After I said I didn't want to hurt her.

Like Charlie can read my thoughts he says, 'I just don't think Jane'd be happy you going on in there like this.' He turns his gun over in his hands, worried. 'If you're set on it, I'd accompany you. But I'd say I'm fuckin unwillin. And for what it's worth she'd say the same.'

Charlie, my conscience. Jane, the reason I gotta keep on.

'Cy said-' begins Janine, but I've made up my mind.

'Cy can screw himself. Didn't he hold a gun to you just now? You gonna worry on the opinions a man like that?'

She looks almost as surprised as I feel. I guess she's lucky and never had to deal with a snake like Wolcott. I reach and grab at her elbow; she seems like to run away.

I say to Charlie, 'Mr Utter, you got any freight goin out today?'

He nods, understanding, relieved. 'Before nightfall, I'd say I can get her as far out as Yankton. And no one'd suspect of her waitin at my offices, meantime.'

'Yankton?' cries Janine, tense in my hand like a rabbit on the hop. 'Where'm I gonna go? Got nobody to go to.'

I take ahold of her other elbow, lean in close. 'Janine, you gotta calm yourself down if you want to weather this. Take it from one who knows Cy Tolliver, he ain't nobody to stick with. As bad a way as he's in now, he'll just crush you like an egg under it. You can't step foot in that bar again, you hear me?'

She nods, fear all over her pretty face. I smile as kindly as I can.

'Now Charlie here he's a good man, he don't got no cause to help you but I know he will anyways because he's all right like that. You trust him and get away. I knows you ain't stupid like he says you are.'

I turn to Charlie. 'Mr Utter, if you'll allow her the loan of a few dollars, I can see them back to you by tomorrow.'

He reaches out and gently takes Janine's arm. 'Sure as anythin, Miss Stubbs,' he says, serious and sweet all at the same time. Charlie Utter: a good man through and through. Not a great deal of that sort about. 'You, you come along a me, Miss…?'

'Janine.'

'Janine, hup, there we go. Did I ever tell you about my old friend Wild Bill Hickok?…'

I watch them walk away, off towards Charlie's place. What I may feel at this point, I don't know. I spare a thought for Leon, for poor Janine seeing a man die, for Cy holed up in his misery and craziness, and the smallest, smallest prayer for Flora, that he crushed just as he would like to do me.

And then I let it all go, puff, on the wind.

'Mr Utter?' I call out before he gets out of earshot. 'How's the votin lookin?'

He shakes his head. 'Not good, Miss Stubbs. Not good.'

* * *

'And I guess you'll say now you just stepped out to take the air.'

I sit on the end of the bed. Jane is sitting up, and while I'm glad that bottle ain't in her hands her mood since sleeping ain't improved. 'I wanted to see how the votin was going. No need to take a tone.'

She shakes her head, cross-armed at me, but I suppose she can't find fault in it. 'Well? How's it fixed?'

'I saw Mr Utter, he said it's lookin pretty bad, for him and the sheriff, and for Mr Star. And I heard – from a whore that works there – how there's been some trouble at the Bella Union, with Cy –' Which she don't want to hear. But I say quickly, 'And I din't go over there, Jane. I sent her on with Charlie Utter to get away from Cy and I came right back to you.'

She slumps down with her back to me and says 'Any-fuckin-ways.'

'How's Wild Bill's coat?' I ask, putting a hand out and touching her gently on the shoulder. She don't flinch.

'It's okay I guess.'

'Am I still invited underneath?'

'Sure if that's what you fuckin want.'

I swivel my legs off the side of the bed to take my boots off. Jane rolls over beneath the fur, and I can feel her eyes on my back.

'You still miss him, Jane?' I ask as I slide off one of my boots, releasing my sore foot. I think I almost want to keep that question safe inside of me, I want to know the answer, I don't want to know it, it's just another damn confusion in the riddle that is Jane. That is anybody, I guess.

'Sure, I miss him.' Does she sound defensive? 'Miss him… miss him every fuckin day.'

I turn around, watching for her face, and she's smiling just the way she did when I brought in the coat. I made her smile like that. Or maybe Wild Bill did.

'You know he said to me,' carries on Jane, one hand clutching at the fur, the other fluttering about her face. 'He says, Jane, you ain't never want to be what you… don't want to be.'

I got my boots off now. I stand up and quickly unbutton my dress, standing there in just my petticoats and corset, and then I lie back down and pull my feet onto the bed, tuck them under the sheets, but don't lie down just yet. And you know, she's still smiling at me.

'That fur still warm?' I ask.

'Snuggle right fuckin up. Warm as bein crushed under a cocksuckin grizzly.'

I lay myself down. I got the practice of a thousand different beds – and a thousand different bedfellows, and some of them like now, with my heart picking up, reminding me that I'm still alive. That sometimes I'm still real, not broken up by sin and hate.

'That's right,' said Jane, and her voice is soft, the voice she uses when she's seeing to the sick. 'You, you lay yoursel' down there like that.'

I don't ever know what she wants from me. She's flighty as all hell and broken up as bad as I am, badder perhaps. I think sometimes it would be nice to slip into nowhere in the bottle that way she does, or maybe it would be nice if it ever worked. I never seen Jane happier on the booze than sober and that's a fact.

'Do you dream, Jane? When you were asleep just now, did you dream?'

She lets me tuck the hair back out of her eyes and shrugs. 'I guess it's the liquor. Ain't hardly remembered a dream this past year.'

'I believe I dream too heavy,' I say. 'It's like I'm drowning, when I dream. Cain't never remember how to wake up.'

She moves as though to jab me in the belly. 'Sure a swift one of those'd do the trick fuckin easy.'

'Except for when I'm dreaming bout you,' I add. Her face gets still for a moment, then she looks away.

'Ain't gunna enquire as to what manner, what kind of dreams as might not be fit for the telling to polite company.'

'Ain't nothin like that, Jane,' I say, taking her hand where it hovers above my belly, twining my fingers in hers. 'I guess in dreams we'd be like this, like we are now. You, my friend, what I want to help and who I knows looks out for me as well.'

Kind of a stupid thing to say, the way her eyes worry at me now. I know she can't stand to be told about the good in her. I know I never could.

'Know what, 'm thinkin it's gettin too hot under this here coat,' she says, leaning up like as to leave.

I grab ahold her shirt at her collar and hold on and say, 'I don't want nothin from you, Jane, and I won't say nice things about you if you don't like it. But I weren't lyin when I said I wanted to be there for you.'

'I ain't fuckin right fer you,' she says, choking over her words, staring down at me.

I don't know what's right but you, I think. I can't say that because I think it'd just about break me.

I take her hand in mine and drop my eyes from hers and say, 'Let me just say this. I know I've seen the best and the worst of you, and such as it is I've liked it. Times you weren't in my life, I…' I let myself look up at her – and I never knew no one with so naked a face as Jane.

And then she does what I don't expect and kisses me, soft on the lips, all afraid and hesitant until I move to meet her, bringing my hands to snake around her back. A sudden kiss, a deep one, a real one.

The angles are wrong – I twist and roll over so that I lie atop of her, and I feel the warmth of her under me. Her hair is coming loose now, tangling over the pillow, and as our lips part I hear her murmur my name. Her fingers clutch at my arms. She's never kissed me like this before, a step beyond hesitancy and fear and shame – a step into that drowning, falling, drunken feeling of losing yourself in another. In me.

I know where I want to go next, I feel it in every inch of me – to have more of her, to feel her, to move her. I want her hands on me, I want her warmth, I want and want and I want her to want these things as well.

'Jane,' I begin, but don't know what to say after, don't know what to ask – not as though I don't what I might say in a situation such as this, rather I don't know what to say to Jane particularly. That won't scare her away.

Her eyes don't exactly meet mine as I draw back from her, my hands pausing on the buttons of her shirt.

'Don't take shame in me,' I say, letting my forehead rest on hers. 'I done a great many things to be ashamed of and I don't believe this is one of them.'

Jane bites her lip, which is bruised a little from my own teeth. I kiss her on the corner of her mouth and slip open her buttons and she don't protest as I work my way down. She rises to follow my mouth as I loose her arms from her sleeves, but don't make a move to help me disrobe her, except to find her hands upon mine as I push her underwear down, down over her hips. She's tense as catgut.

She makes like she's about to speak, I don't know what but it don't sound like no, so I hush her and kiss her and push my hand between her legs to find her willing and wanting me just as I hoped. She makes a noise halfway between fear and moaning, and I drop my mouth to her neck, feeling her shudder beneath my lips.

I delve further, letting my fingers dip and flutter, finding the right points to push, the right spots to light her up from the inside. She moves to my rhythm, hands tight on my waist now, neck craning back; I kiss her in the hollow of her throat before hitching her pants down, to make more room, to open her up beneath me. She's unwinding like a spool of yarn; dissolving in my arms like putty, making helpless noises of longing and need.

My Jane, all bravado and dirt and bruises and softness. She smells like sweat and horses and old liquor, leather and prairie and blood. I feel her shake and shift and squeeze about me, I kiss her on the swell of her breasts and on her belly and on her mouth again, twisting my slick fingers to make her buck and cry louder as she swears between her teeth.

I let her drop like that, let her ride it out in so many waves. It's getting to evening now, making long shadows of her eyelashes and nose. Jane – so much more of a woman than she feels she has any right to be, so unladylike in my arms, coming to a stillness now. I kiss her lips, feeling her rise to meet me, bewilderment on her face.

'You're just about a fine fuckin girl, Miss Joanie Stubbs,' she says weakly.

I settle myself beside her, enjoying the rustle of my skirts over her bare skin. She shivers after a while, the evenin chill getting to her – I pull Old Bill's coat up, its darkness covering over us like night, like a blessing; if I may be permitted that kind of strange fancy.

I don't deserve anything like this kind of happiness, perhaps, but that don't mean I won't take it when it comes my way. Just for this moment, perhaps. Just for Jane.

Just for this moment perhaps.

~End~

Backstory for Non-Viewers:

Our main character here is Joanie Stubbs, a retired prostitute and one-time madam, who has lived all of her adult life under the thumb of saloon owner Cy Tolliver, who now runs a joint called the Bella Union. He once forced her to kill one of her lovers when the girl turned out to be a thief. After this, she finally escaped from him and started her own high-class brothel, only to have her plans scuppered by a murder called Wolcott; he killed three of the whores and tried to kill her too.

At this point, Joanie's good friend Charlie Utter recommended she become acquainted with his old friend Jane Canary (better known in legend as Calamity Jane). Jane has been an severe alcoholic since the death of her best friend Wild Bill Hickok and is a difficult person to be friends with, but she and Joanie form a bond due to the losses they have both felt and each's desire to protect and help the other. Jane, however, generally freaks out at any sexual moments in their relationship, though she allows and even asks Joanie to kiss her on more than one occasion.

In the final episode of the series, an election is held to decide, among other things, the sheriff and mayor of Deadwood. It causes a lot of fuss. Joanie informs Cy Tolliver that she means him no harm but has finally find happiness without him. His reaction to this and other humiliations put upon him by Mr Hearst – a scheming gold-digger who owns half the town – is to stab his servant Leon, then aim a gun at Hearst and his favourite whore's head. Meanwhile, Jane drunkenly and jealously accuses Joanie of seeing Cy for other reasons. Joanie assures Jane that she only wants to be there for her. Charlie Utter gives Jane and Joanie, as a gift, Wild Bill's old fur coat. Jane's last word of the show, tucked up under the coat with Joanie, is 'Warm'.

Pretty much all of their relationship from first kiss onwards is related in these two youtube videos:

.com/watch?v=oLre7O5cZIw (With Cy Tolliver at the end)

.com/watch?v=b-jK5xEY5sU (With Charlie Utter at the beginning, and my fic continues from the last scene.)

I have so far been unable to find any other fic for this pairing – any recs would be very much appreciated!