Title: Dear Delilah
Fandom: Giant
Characters/Pairing: Jett Rink, Leslie Benedict
Rating: G
Summary: Somewhere in the back of Jett's mind there's the same rhythmic refrain. Thou shalt not covet thy fellowman's wife. But wanting Leslie Benedict, he figures, is the least of his sins. He's no David, but he's no Goliath either.
Dear Delilah
Jett Rink has dreams, a lot of them, whole double handfuls of daydreams that carry over occasionally into night. He dreams of bigger and better things, the world in perfection. The best thing he can think of is Leslie.
There's a big house in his head, a house with 25 rooms and a phalanx of servants, and a cut-glass decanter like his great-grandfather had. And he opens the door in the late afternoon, and a shadow falls on the tiled foyer floor.
It's so rich and strange, he can feel it, the house around him, waiting. It's nothing like the shack he's in now. The shack where he's living now, working, waiting himself for things to come true.
It's a little like the ranch house on the other side of the spreading acreage. But the resemblance ends sometime soon after the tiled floors, the sofa in the living room, and cool Leslie at the end of the long table, pouring tea.
Somewhere in the back of Jett's mind, his great-grandfather--- a preacher by trade, a drunk by design--- was thundering the same rhythmic refrain. Thou shalt not covet thy fellowman's wife. But wanting Leslie Benedict, he figures, is the least of his sins. He's no David, but he's no Goliath either.
He works in the sun from dawn till dusk, ambition his taskmaster, desire his slave driver. On this bare brown patch of ground he spends his strength and his sweat. He slaves to be rich, to have his oil well come in bigger, better than any around. Whether he deserves it or not doesn't matter. He's going to reach out and grasp for it with both hands, and if he ends up with nothing but bloody fingers, it won't be for lack of trying.
The first couple weeks he goes to bed exhausted and can barely dream at all. It's when he's outside, digging, working, running the machinery, plumbing the depths of the earth, getting covered in the fine white dust, that he dreams.
That big house keeps getting bigger, though the rooms never change. Sometimes they're eating dinner at the long table in the dining room. Sometimes they're on the veranda in the afternoon, lazy with the heat. Sometimes it's pitch black outside and you can't see anything but stars, and it's just Jett and Leslie in an unknown bedroom, finding each other by touch.
Sometimes it's none of these.
Because he can't decide, for the life of him, whether what he really wants is to join her up there--- with the elite, with the officials, in the Big House--- or drag her down here with him, in the shack, in the dirt, in the dark.
Once, he is sick and he dreams all day. The heat? Maybe because of the heat. Maybe because he doesn't feed himself well enough, because he needs a woman to come take care of him. But sick, anyhow, no matter the reason.
He dreams he's lying there forever, hair creeping past his collar and his beard unfurling, a growth of months, years, a lifetime. He's alone, the only person on earth, the only one left. He has a long time to think about this, this emptiness of himself and Texas, alone with each other.
Just when he's begun to believe that the door is actually a brick wall, it opens. She walks in, Leslie walks in, she brings in something like snow in the chill white of her skin, of the ice in her eyes. Jett starts to shiver just looking at her.
She stands and lets him lie where he has fallen, where he is rooted to the spot. Then she gives a sigh, as though he's done something to disappoint her, and moves toward him, rubbing her hands together slowly, as though preparing them for the task ahead.
"Sick," he mumbles. "Dreaming."
"More than likely, Jett Rink," she says, tartly, "but that's hardly an excuse."
Before he can blink, before he can take this in, she's down on her knees beside him, head tilted to one side, and the look on her face, if he can put a word to it at all, is kindness. She's been here before; he gave her the grand tour, and some tea. She's not paying the slightest attention to the surroundings. Only to him. Jett Rink, narrow face and bearded cheeks sunken and eyes half closed and sweat standing clear on his forehead.
She says, "Here," and the single syllable is the softest thing he's ever heard.
A cool handkerchief, pressed to his forehead, and his eyes are drifting close. Just a dream, all this, and he knows it. But it's worth being sick, it's worth it already, and if there's poison in his blood he hopes only that it will take a long time to die.
Leslie hums under her breath as she moves the damp cloth over his face, wiping the sweat away, cooling him. A kind of lullabye, the sort she'd sing to her children, to send them off to sleep and grant them dreams. She has bent close and he can open his eyes at any time, any time he wants, and see her there; just there; with him.
"Can you sit up?" she whispers.
He's feeling better already. She helps him to sit, back against the headboard. His head pounds from the effort, he sways, and her hand is on his shoulder to hold him still. His eyes drift closed again, and only open at the new sensation of something. What?
Leslie is holding a bowl, lathering his face to shave the days-old beard from his face. "Now, this'll help you feel better," she says, practically. "I know it will."
She's holding the razor; he reaches up and takes her hand, and fixes her with a searching gaze. More direct now that he's ill, because he knows she isn't real. There's no one to object if he stares at her a little too forcefully, a little too long.
"Why, Jett," she says, softly, "don't you trust me?"
And he does, of course; so he lets her go, sliding his hand down her wrist and her forearm to drop finally back onto the coverlet at his side.
"Hold still, then."
Leslie shaves his face cleanly, expertly, deft long strokes, careful ones over the point of his chin and around his mouth. She goes on humming, doesn't speak till she is nearly done. He has only the remnants of the lather left, and she takes the damp cloth to him again, smoothing it away. He lies still and watches her, eyes barely open.
She sits back, and smiles at him, and he says, "I wish you were real."
The smile turns sad.
"So do I," she says.
The dream has come to an end, though his sickness seems to be lingering. She's standing, turning away from him; and he misses the closeness. Misses what it felt like, even if if was only imaginary, to have her just there, over him.
She turns at the door, and the ice is melting.
"You're going to find it, Jett," she whispers. "I know you will. You'll strike gold out there in the dust, one of these days. Not too far from now."
This takes his breath more than anything. No one's ever promised him such a thing. No one's ever promised him anything. But her eyes, dreamed as they are, are honest, and she backs away slowly.
She's gone, and the door closes, and the room is empty.
Jett Rink recovers. He has no choice. He's not done yet.
He has no mirror in the house. It's when he rises the next day, bathes and dresses and heads for the door, still weak-footed and hollow, that he rubs an absent hand across his chin and realizes that he is clean shaven.
He's not thinking of Leslie or her promises when he strikes the oil. He's not thinking of anything, really; just work. Just repeating over and over, endlessly, the things he has done countless times already. Just reminding himself why he's doing it again.
Just moving, breathing, living. In the back of his mind, so constant that he's tuned it out, the noise of the machinery forms something almost like words. Not enough to answer to. But he turns in time to see stream of black burst from the hole in the ground; turns and stares and backs slowly away, mouth wide and eyes open.
Stands in the damp black rain, letting it fall on him, proof of his well coming in, bigger than anything he's ever seen. Spreads his arms and just stands in it, and starts to laugh.