A/N: This was first posted on LJ back in 2006 – I've only just started using this site so thought I'd upload it here for posterity. 10 parts in total.

Go Fish - Part One.

Side by side in Jack's old battered pick up; Jack humming along to something country jingle-jangling from the radio and Ennis in silence, staring out of the passenger window, seeing nothing at all.

"Why so quiet, Ennis? Thought you was pleased t'be going fishing with your ol' buddy again," Jack extended an elbow to prod him in the ribs as he said this, teasing him, playful as a kitten all morning and damn near as cute.

Ennis's lips curled upwards, more of a nervous twitch than a smile, then looked at him worriedly, "You know I am, s'just…"

"Sure seemed pleased to see me yest'rday, an' in that li'l motel bed last night," Jack licked his lips, looked sideways at him and continued, "Damn near broke my nose, way you grabbed holda me at your place, not that I'm complainin' much, but I gotta tell you, that ain't all you nearly broke." For effect, Jack arched his back, took one hand off the wheel and held it to his neck, squeezing a little and sucking in the air through gritted teeth. "Thinking last night I musta I rode you harder'n any o' them damn bulls when I was rodeoin'."

"Jack, don't be saying things like that here," Ennis said seriously, never being one who liked talking about such things, but couldn't stifle a tight-lipped grin, born of satisfaction and sweet, still-fresh memory.

"Here? We in a truck alone in the middle a goddamn nowhere friend, ain't no-one gonna hear us talkin' queer."

Ennis pulled his hat down a little, shielding his eyes from the too-bright morning sunlight and the big old green world as much as Jack's sideways glances, that word he'd said, and attempted to finish what he'd started to say before. "I jus'…don't you feel a li'l guilty? I mean, I sure's hell weren't thinkin' on Alma last night," he paused, that grin playing on his lips again in spite of himself, "but here, and now, I don't know. It ain't right Jack. I don't know if I should be goin' home insteada headin' on out here with you." With this he slunk in his seat a little, pulling his hat further down over his eyes, this time with the sole intention of avoiding a sudden bolt of thunder right there on Jack's face, forget the sun and green old world outside the pick-up.

He knew Jack well, least he felt he did, even four years on without a word between. Few months spent on Brokeback, just the two of them; so alone, so together, meant they'd spent more time in each other's company than most couples probably do in a lifetime of marriage. Told Jack things he couldn't ever tell Alma and figured he'd probably done the same. Hell, didn't even need words to do the telling half the time. Reunited for less than twenty-four hours though they were, Ennis knew Jack well enough to know he wouldn't take kindly to what had just been said. Night before, in that motel room they shared, first time in an actual bed together, first time out of the elements, they'd made up for four years worth of lost time and in more ways than one. After wordlessly reacquainting themselves, tasting and touching and just about re-enacting everything they'd done four years previous, then some, laying sticky-wet, sated, smoking, Jack had posed questions that he wanted answers to, and Ennis wasn't sure if they were questions he knew how to answer, or even what the answer might be. Jack had always seemed to know just what he wanted, but not Ennis. He fell into things by chance – the job at Brokeback that summer, this thing with Jack, his marriage to Alma, becoming a Daddy. Not one event in his life had been planned or even thought of before it happened. Ennis was not a man of great initiative - any he may have had, not that he remembers ever having much, was beat the hell out of him as a boy by his daddy and his older brother and whoever they were associated with at the time. Jack coming back to him like this, he'd dreamed about it, sure, but never made no move to find out where he may've been to do the finding himself.

Ennis eyed Jack with caution from under his hat again and saw his smile had gone; jaw set square and lips tight as duck's ass. This wasn't what he wanted; not to go back on what he'd already said to Jack, not to go back to Alma and the girls and have regrets about leaving Jack again, not to be wringing himself out with Jack's name on his lips, locked away in the half-tiled bathroom with his kids asleep in the next room, thinking what-ifs and if-onlys for the rest of his miserable life, but what else was there? Like he'd already told Jack, all he had time for now was making a living and that was that. Even if two men could set up home together, his bed was already made, and he had no choice but to lie in it, and lie in it with Alma. Four years had been rough, rougher to start with but damn, wasn't time supposed to be a great healer? He'd sure tried to do some healing in that time but Jack was like a scab he couldn't stop picking at.

"You want me to turn right on 'round, Ennis? That what you want?" Jack's hand gripped the sneering wheel white-knuckle tight and he fixed unblinking eyes on Ennis. He didn't rightly know – seemed it'd taken all this time to get over Brokeback, to get it into his head that it really was just a one-shot thing; it was the situation, the place, the isolation. Anything but the fact of the matter, which was that he'd spent the summer feeling all kinds of wrong things with another man, physical and then some, fell in some kind of love with him that summer and it'd never yet gone away, in spite of all the trying.

Times when he'd thought on Brokeback, on Jack and him and what they'd done and it wrenched at his insides like butcher'd set on him with a dull knife. Times like that, he'd needed to feel any pain but this kinda pain and so he'd gone out, looking for trouble, never hard to find, and at least when he was bruised up and bloody the ache was on the outside for a change.

"What about your wife and kid, huh, Jack?" Ennis pleaded understanding, aimlessly shifting his hat again, not sure what kinda weather he was facing now, sitting up a little in his seat, shifting under Jack's gaze.

"Hell, Ennis, what about 'em? What about me? I been missin' you all this time and here I am, thinkin' that last night'd meant that somethin's changed. We both tried that life now, friend, and seems it ain't right for neither one of us if we get to doin' what we did last night soon as look at each other."

"Maybes it was jus' somethin' for ol' times sake. I said Jack, it ain't gonna be that way, and this…headin' out together like this, talkin' on it being a regular thing like fool kids, that was whiskey talk." Ennis had started speaking louder and faster than he hardly ever did, his breath growing shallow and his throat croaking, voice breaking just a little. "This thing ain't doin' no-one no favours Jack, I told you…"

"What you done told me, Ennis," Jack interrupted, swerving the pick-up to avoid something on the road Ennis couldn't see, eyes back on the road for a split second, "is that you a damn stupid, cowardly son of a fuckin' bitch."

Ennis's voice softened again, "That ain't fair, Jack."

"Don't talk to me about fair, friend. Seems to me you haven't seen a whole lotta fair to be set no example."

They sat in heavy silence, but for the woman whining a lament on the radio, barely audible over the roar of the pick-up on the road and the sound of blood pounding hard in hearts and heads. Just the two of them, four years on and staring die straight ahead, Ennis's jaw working as he went over muddles of thought in his mind, guilt and regret and lust and anger all rolled into a tight little ball as he tried to untangle and straighten out some reasonable train of thought; Jack surprised, but not really, and disappointed and feeling foolish and rejected. Neither knew what else to say, but Jack was rarely stuck for words and found some soon enough.

"You want let out here or you gonna ask me to take you back to Riverton before startin' my fourteen hour drive back to Childress?" As he said this, not once casting a glance Ennis's way, Jack pulled in to the side of the quiet road and slowed to a stop. Ennis looked at him, head low, eyes just visible under the rim of his hat. "Ennis, you better say somethin' 'fore I knock you outta this truck."

Eyes meeting, Ennis couldn't get out now, hell, he couldn't hitch his way back now and Alma was already expecting him to be gone for a few days. "Jack," he started, eyes darting away too quickly, never could stand too much eye contact with Jack, unless they were doin' it. "I'm sure I don't know what the fuck I'm thinkin' on right now, this all ain't something I been 'spectin' a happen, y'know…but I know tryin' a be a man don' make me no coward." Ennis paused then, swallowed hard, Jack still eyeing him, let out a sigh and reached towards him, laid a hand soft on his forearm.

"I know, Ennis, I know. You already called Alma, though, and ain't no one in the world find any harm in two ol' buddies goin' fishin' for a coupla days. All I'm askin' now Ennis," he sighed again, pulled his hand back to himself, ran it roughly through his hair and down over his face. "Coupla days, see what happens. 'Sides, after four fuckin' years we got more catchin' up to do than the kind we did last night."

Silence for a moment, Jack just about ready to lose any patience he may have had and kick him right out of that passenger seat. Then, hand on his hat, legs shifting awkwardly, Ennis cleared his throat.

"Sure 'nough," he conceded with a nod of his head and a split seconds eye contact with Jack. "Let's go fish, like we said we would."