Blood is Thicker than Water... Love is Thicker than Time

Chapter 10: March, 1968

A/N: Enjoy!

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"Jack? I ever tell you 'bout my weddin' night with Alma?" Ennis asked into the dark of their tent. Jack, almost asleep, groaned before answering. It would be the middle of the night when Ennis brought up this topic, one Jack had hoped never to have to hear about. And it would be their last night together, too. Somehow, being alone in the dark tent on top of a mountain in the middle of the night loosened Ennis' tongue and started him talking, especially if they'd just had sex, which they had.

"No," Jack answered, not bothering to hide his annoyance at the topic.

"It was horrible," Ennis continued as if he hadn't heard the emotion in Jack's voice. He pulled Jack close against him and nuzzled Jack's neck. "Nothin' like what you an' me had, that's for damned sure. No real way ta compare them, you know?"

Jack sighed, wishing it was warm enough that they could be naked together. As it was, they were each wearing their clothes and coats, pulled on as soon as they were finished fucking. He shivered slightly. "Your nose is cold," he protested. He wondered if he could distract Ennis away from this topic, though when Ennis got talking like this in the middle of the night, it wasn't always an easy task to distract him when Jack was too tired to have sex again.

"I was so scared that night. I didn't have no idea what I was s'pposed ta do!" Ennis kissed the spot he'd just nuzzled, his lips warm against Jack's skin. Jack yawned.

"Wasn't that the point of how we got started? To practice so you'd know what to do?"

"Well, yeah, I guess, but you don't understand. I'd been with you all summer. Spent the next three months wringin' it out thinkin' a you. Every morning, woke up thinkin' a you. Had no idea what ta do with a girl."

Jack snorted. "It's basically the same," he muttered, not sure how he'd allowed himself to be drawn into the conversation. "Stick your dick in her, like you stuck it in me," he muttered.

"Well, I didn't know that then, did I?" Ennis unfastened Jack's coat and slipped his hands inside, caressing his chest through the material of his shirt. "And it's not the same, anyway. Wasn't just stickin' it in you, not after the second night. You know that." He paused, thinking, then continued. "I was, what, 19 years old, just spent over two months fuckin' you? Knew every damned way ta make you hard, ta make you come. Didn't even know if girls could come!"

"Boy, you was an ignorant sonuvabitch, wasn't you?"

"Damn right. 'Least I had an idea what ta do with some parts a her. Figured nipples was nipples, skin was skin, right? It was just — when I got between her legs that I got lost again. Knew I had ta do her, but…"

"She don't got no dick," Jack suggested. "And I know how you like touchin' an' suckin' mine." Jack grinned in the dark, thinking of how Ennis had blown him quite enthusiastically not an hour before.

"Shut up, asshole," Ennis muttered affectionately. "My mouth never went down there, I tell you that. Wasn't gonna even try."

Jack laughed, feeling lighter knowing that Ennis hadn't gone down on his wife and saved that sort of thing for him. He'd only ever let Ennis fuck him, so it was good to know there were things they each saved for the other. And Jack would bet good money that he was the only one who'd ever fucked Ennis, not that they'd done it more than the one time at the Siesta Motel back in '67. "It's not all it's cracked up to be, going down on a woman," Jack admitted.

"You done it with your wife?"

"A time or two. Thought she might like it, but she said it was just annoyin', so we didn't do it any more after the second time."

"Huh. You an' her actually talk about sex?"

"No, just that one time. Oh, and the first time I met her, we was makin' out in her daddy's car and she asked if we was goin' too fast. I said no, and next thing I knew, she was topless and pullin' off my belt!"

"Wow! Alma'd never do that."

"She don't do it no more," Jack said. "Not since she found out she was pregnant with Bobby." Ennis grunted. "Stopped doin' a lot a things when she found out she was pregnant," Jack muttered darkly.

They lay in silence for a time, Ennis' hands undoing buttons, reaching for bare skin. He slipped a hand down the front of Jack's jeans and found Jack's cock. He started stroking him. Jack could feel Ennis' erection pressing up against him. He sighed in pleasure, let Ennis take off his coat and shirt, scrambled out of his jeans until he was as naked as could be. Ennis stayed dressed, though he lowered his jeans so his cock could feel the air and be ready when it was time. Jack shifted, rubbing his bare ass up and down along Ennis' erection, moaning at the heat Ennis exuded. Ennis held Jack's ass crack apart and slicked up his cock, using the column he created to increase their pleasure. Every so often he pressed the head of his cock against Jack's hole before rubbing some more.

"God, Ennis," Jack moaned. "We just fucked, and already you got me wantin' more!"

"I know, Rodeo. You're all bothered over here, ain't you?" Ennis licked along Jack's neck. "I like it when you're all bothered like this."

"You can bother me like this any time you want, Cowboy!" Jack exclaimed, sucking in a breath as Ennis pinched one of his nipples.

"This one time — when me an' Alma were doin' it — I did this thing —"

Jack felt his erection melt away like the early snow that melted and flowed down the mountain as water their last day on Brokeback.

"Hey, bud, what's wrong?" Ennis asked.

Anger flooded Jack's system and he surged away from Ennis. He pulled on his jeans and left the tent before his temper could hurt them both with words he knew he would regret.

"Jack?" Ennis asked, popping his head out of the tent.

"Fuck you!" Jack shouted, kicking the fire back to life. He grabbed a pair of logs and settled them on top of the coals.

"What's got into you?" Ennis demanded, pulling up his own jeans and clambering out of the tent.

"If you don't know, then maybe you'd better ask Alma," Jack replied, turning her name into a curse, his voice filled with venom. He fumbled around for some kindling, lit it, got the fire bright and high.

"There's no way in hell I'm askin' her anything about this! Now tell me what's wrong," Ennis demanded.

Jack stalked over to Ennis and poked him hard in the chest with a finger. "I'll tell you this once, Ennis Del Mar, and you better fuckin' learn, 'cause I ain't gonna say it again. I do not want to hear about you and Alma! I don't want to know what you do in bed with her, I don't want to hear about you havin' sex with her, and I don't want to know what your god-damned weddin' night with her was like! You hear me?"

"But… don't friends talk 'bout this kinda thing? Ain't we friends?"

"Friends, maybe, but we're a damned sight more'n just friends!"

"Are you jealous?" Ennis demanded, incredulously.

"Fuck you!" Jack repeated, turning back to the fire and crossing his arms over his bare chest.

"Are you jealous of Alma? You got nothin' ta be jealous of!" Jack bit his cheek to keep from responding, glaring at the fire as if it were the cause of his anger and pain. Ennis walked over, put a hand on Jack's shoulder, but Jack shrugged it off. "Jack, darlin', fuckin' Alma ain't nothin' like bein' with you. It's just fuckin' with her. It's more'n that with you. I thought you knew that."

"Just fuckin'," Jack said softly. "So, what's it with me, huh, if it's not just fuckin'?"

"I don't know! Don't think there's a word for it, really," Ennis replied. He sounded embarrassed. Jack grunted in reply but didn't say anything. "Come on, talk ta me. What're you thinkin'? You're always the one with all them fancy words. What do you think it is?"

"I'm askin' you. Find the words. Tell me, what is it with me?" Jack responded. "I always find the words, and I'm usually fine with that, but for once, you need to find 'em."

"I ain't got 'em!"

"Then I ain't got 'em either."

"Jack…" Ennis pleaded. "Come on, give me somethin' ta work with, here."

Jack snorted derisively. "I give you all I got, Ennis. I give an' give an' give. It's your turn."

"Selfish bastard," Ennis muttered, lighting a cigarette. They stood in silence, Ennis smoking, Jack wishing he had a cigarette but too proud to ask Ennis for one. It was his own fault he'd smoked all the ones he'd brought up there anyway. Ennis knew he was out, because he'd been complaining about it over dinner. He'd hoped he'd be all right without one until they got on the road in the morning and he could buy more, and told Ennis not to give him any, but fighting with Ennis always made him want one. Besides, he could buy more later when Ennis might not have the money right now, he reasoned. Ennis flicked the butt into the fire. "It's been over a year since I fucked her," Ennis finally offered in a voice devoid of emotions.

"What?" Jack demanded, startled.

"Yeah. Christmas before last, she asked me ta wear rubbers on account of her not wantin' another baby. I told her I wasn't doin' it with no rubber, so we ain't done it since."

"Damn, that's harsh! At least Lureen had the decency to go on the Pill when she didn't want to worry 'bout that kind a thing."

"You still do it with her?"

"Once a month, or maybe every other," Jack admitted.

"Well, all I got is you, so keep that in mind, you hear?" Ennis pulled out his pack of cigarettes, realized that the box was empty, and tossed it in the fire. He pulled a second from his other pocket. "Damn, on my last pack already." He lit two, handed one over to Jack without Jack having to ask. They both inhaled, blew the blue smoke from their mouths. Things seemed to settle down between them. The air was more clear and Jack was thrilled to know that Ennis was only sleeping with him. Maybe he'd stop sleeping with Lureen, also? Just to be true to Ennis, since Ennis was being true to him.

"Leave her," Jack blurted. "Come away with me. I'll leave Lureen. We can get our own spread, just us."

The fire crackling was the only sound in the night for a long minute. Jack felt his spirits dropping as the silence lengthened.

"Damn it, Twist! Why you have ta go an' say shit like that?" Ennis shouted. "It's the same answer, same as always. I can't leave her an' the girls. Fuckin' A, but I hate you sometimes! Why you have ta make me say no ta you again? Why you have ta do this ta us? Don't you know how much it hurts me ta have ta say no all the time?"

"Ennis —"

"No! Don't say no more, Jack. I ain't talkin' ta you now." Ennis ground out his cigarette and stomped off into the tent, cursing and swearing to himself and at Jack the entire time.

Jack stood before the fire, feeling the cold of the mountain air seeping into his bones, despite the warmth of the fire. He shivered and tried to keep from crying. He hated crying when Ennis was around, though he almost always did it when he was on his way back to Texas or over to Lightning Flat after one of their fishing trips. Fuck his daddy for saying that men didn't cry. Jack didn't care, couldn't stop himself half the time even if he did.

Twenty minutes after he disappeared, a silent Ennis left the tent and put Jack's parka over his shoulders before retreating once more into the tent. Jack sighed again and zipped up the parka, shoving his hands in the pockets to keep warm. There was something in the pocket.

A puzzled frown on his face, Jack pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Ennis' cigarettes. His last pack of the week.

A peace offering, Jack thought, pulling one out and lighting it. He knows I don't got no more, and even though he don't have more'n this either, he wants me to have 'em so I'll feel better, being out here all alone, after he rejected me again. He doesn't want to reject me, but feels he's gotta. Just trying to make things OK between us again. Shit, but he can be real good to me sometimes.

After smoking a few cigarettes, Jack felt calm enough to return to the tent where he cuddled up with Ennis again, secure in Ennis' arms, at least for the rest of the night.