Wow...18 reviews in a few short days and on only one chapter! You guys are awesome.
I can´t promise regular updates, especially because mid-January I go back to college, but I can promise that I won´t quit writing until this fic is done. You can tell already by the size of these chapters that this isn´t going to be an epic novella, but I´m hoping to extend it out to something reasonable that puts them in a plausible, good situation.
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Ennis laid the phone to rest with fingers that trembled violently. He leaned his forehead against the cold metal box, hurting so hard and deep it made him lightheaded. Dead. Dead, dead. He felt deaf, he felt numb, and he made it all the way home before vomiting. It was much worse than when he´d first parted ways with Jack, when the cramping in his belly had forced him to stop on the side of the road and pant as his guts tried to turn themselves inside-out with longing and despair. Dead.
He didn´t notice anything as he feet took him to a familiar place. The bartender took one look at the set of his shoulders, the frown sitting on him like a thundercloud and poured him a double shot of whisky. Everything after that was drowned in golden fire.
He stepped out onto the damp street, looking at the headlights wobbling past. Unsteady, he tottered in front of a pair, vague drunken thoughts of joining Jack flickering like intoxicated shadows as he turned to face oncomin´ oblivion. When the truck screeched to halt, horn lowing like an angry bull, he was so mad he reached right through the driver´s window and punched him in the face. A second time prevented from bein´ with Jack. He got licked real bad in that fight, but the pain in his face made the screaming wail of his heart quiet down some.
The next day, hungover and lookin´ like hell, he lied to his boss that it was his brother who´d been killed, and the man gave him a week off though he could ill-afford to spare him. Ennis said thanks gruffly and took off for Lightning Flats, to visit Jack´s parents and find out about scattering his ashes on Brokeback.
He drank the coffee, refused the cake, and accepted the old man´s ultimatum that Jack would not be put to rest on Brokeback. The comfort offered by Jack´s momma was scant but welcome in that grey place. He could see why Jack wanted so bad to get away.
It was like an icicle in his heart when he found those shirts in Jack´s closet, his own carefully tucked inside. As he held their nested shirts to his nose, searching for a hint of Jack´s musk, he felt somethin´ in him crack, messy as a rodeo rider´s limbs. This wasn´t how love was supposed to be. There was no roses and candy and gently kisses under moonlight. What he´d had with Jack was hard and fast fire, burned out too quick and leavin´ him scorched. This love was not for savorin´.
As he drove away, the shuddering engine humming tunelessly beneath him, his hand crept inside the brown paper bag and stroked the worn denim of Jack´s collar.
He slept with their shirts in his arms that night, waking up with both his pillow and his sheets damp. He set them aside that morning and headed in his truck for Brokeback. He couldn´t bring himself to climb it and had no horse. Seeing those meadows and campsites again would ´ave destroyed ´im. He just sat on the hood of his car, elbows on his knees, squinting from beneath his hat at the mountain´s profile until it grew dark.
As the brilliant reds and oranges silhouetting the mountain began to fade, Ennis looked down at his callused hands and sighed, feelin´ a bit more at peace with his sorrow. ¨Jack, ´m sorry.¨ he murmured, and took one last squint at the mountains before drivin´ away.
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So? How´m I doin´?
Many thanks to Spideria, Pip3, hugglesbunny, emergencynf, danleri, Phasma Lux, cheshire(cat2, birds of morrigan, Inkstained Scarlet, Terilicious, cbslytherinf.g., mysterious-muse, Sendai, awesomepossum, and amber2403 for their loving encouragement. You guys are the reason people write fanfiction. (Well, also to deal with my own devastation at the ending of Brokeback.)