A/N: No copyright infringement is intended. None of these characters or the actors who portrayed them belong to me (snap).
While I loved Val Kilmer's portrayal of Doc Holliday in the film, it was lacking a..um… lot in historical accuracy. Additionally, I thought it very unsettling to see the portrayal of "Big Nose" Kate in the film. But then again, I think that Tombstone is based on the biography of Wyatt Earp and he was rumored to have not been very well inclined towards Kate. Kate was born in Hungary to a wealthy couple, Dr. and Mrs. Michael Haroney. Between the ages of twelve and fourteen, she lived in Mexico while her father was the official physician for Emperor Maximillian. Soon before the revolution overthrew the Emperor, Haroney moved his family to Iowa, and he and his wife died within the year. At seventeen, Kate began her foray into Wild West fame after running away from her foster parents. Kate was hardly an average prostitute, she was a calculating, humorous woman who was known to be fluent in at least four languages, and most likely possessed at least passable knowledge of one or two others. She attended a covenant school in her youth and was most likely Catholic. It is believed that Doc may have, under her influence, converted to Catholicism at the end of his life, even if only to appease her. She remained with him until the end of his life, though they often fought.
Doc Holliday, was also an incongruous figure on the frontier. He was trained in dentistry, though he had been diagnosed with tuberculosis soon after opening his practice and it is doubtful that he possessed much experience. Born about a year after Kate, his legal name was John Henry Holliday. There is only one picture confirmed to be Doc Holliday in existence, his dental school graduation picture. He had blonde hair and blue eyes, though he may have blackened his hair later in life. His reputation as a killer most likely was a combination of self-promotion and an ability to perform parlor tricks using guns.
The John and Kate I am using are more historical. Kate will be well-educated, and Doc will have light hair and be less of a killer than the film portrays him to be.
Enjoy.
This thing that we have- it is not love. The doctor can tell the symptoms of our disease more easily than he can even prod at the sounds in Doc's chest. The old geezer glanced at me, in that fashion that carries all the blame of the up righteous medical society. And behind that blame- the scorn of the sanctified common people, and the calm judgment of the southern aristocracy. I felt tempted to curse him foully- but I could not pick a language to use. Perhaps I should have used all five, and the bits of others I know, just to see his head spin. But with John in there, I thought better of it. Best to wait for the doddering old fool to finish his probing.
I heard him say some figures in a low tone- numbers that were at best approximations and at worst randomly come to his tongue. I tried to recall what the doctor in Fort Griffin had told us. I'd liked that man despite his occasional ineptitude. He was young and overly respectful, one of the few happily married men in that dusty town. I guess that explained why he was ignorant enough to tip his hat like I was a respectable lady. His words had been so soft and light that they seemed to never stick in my mind like they ought. Thirty percent gone, I thought. And five years at the upper end. Young Doctor Holts was sensible and generous with his estimation. Best of all, he had been intelligent enough not to lecture John as he lay on his sick bed, especially not as his guns lay arms-reach away from him.
When John finally orders him out, it is in a half-lidded purr that approximates the gravest of threats. Two years or Two day, I don't think it matters much anymore. There red about his eyes is also of a metaphysical sort of fever. He will either find some way to quench it or it will be his urge to crusade that will quench him.
His voice rarely rasps, rarely holds anything but sly wit. 'Our arrangement' he calls it. Perhaps it is time to discuss 'our arrangement'. For the life of me, I can not tell what he means to tell me now. These morbid predictions, these warnings against lust are nothing new. He's had years to talk about 'our arrangement', and every time we fought and enumerated the ways we were wrong for each other (even then!) we never really talked about what we were doing.
I want to tell him that this thing we have is not love. But it is the only word I have for it.
Our affliction is not uncommon. It festers in the heart of every man who believes that a soft body in their bed and a fresh face to lust after can somehow slake their wild desire to find a comfortable place in their harsh and narrow world. And every man believes that somehow a woman can help kill that demon in them, the demon that will drive them to adventure and to explore and to acts of supreme stupidity. He fools himself into believing he needs me.
But we are not so common as all that, because though I need his support and his money, in my bones I could not do without him. And I cannot change a thing about him, or about us. Because I need him exactly like he is. Cursing at a doctor, using his classical education for name-calling in cheap saloons, shrouding his malice and meaning in wit and warm accent. I need him because in so many ways he reminds me of a time when I thought I needed no one but myself, but assumed I would never be alone.
His eyes smolder blue and I don't know if he's looking through me or simply at me as he thinks. In some way, I know he's always wished we might have been more loving, upright, better people, a different sort of people. His honor would have called on him to claim me if a need arose. But we never had a future between us and I'm just as shifty a heart as he.
He's had years to discuss our arrangement, and if he wants me to stay or wants me gone, I won't do it. I need him just like this: shifting beneath my head, grinning through half-lidded eyes, like the devil himself.
"I am a good woman," I murmur, "I have always been good woman to you." In a way, it's a lie. Neither one of us believe a Jesus who saves, but we sure a hell believe in the devil and that we'll get our due one day. I remove his pants, and he pulls on the smoke I handed to him. He understands me, knows what I'm really saying. Because we've always been doing this dance, and I'll do it with him as long as he's able. Two days or two years, I'll be there to the last gasp.
He sighs, "I know you're a good woman," his voice calm and reassuring. And then, under the force of my ministrations, he groans, "But then again, you might be the antichrist."
There's a certain pleasure I take now in arousing his passions. I know his body better than mine, know that he likes to hold onto my hand as I take him in my mouth. He stared up at the ceiling, smoke curling up to the ceiling lazily, but his pulse matches mine.
"Good God Kate," he purrs, the fair hair of his mustache catching the light, "But you are a well-educated woman."
He sit up, brings my mouth to his as he tugs persistently at my lacings. There's a demon in his eyes, a demon that stays within him and between us even now, but I knew it was there when I first came to let him need me. And the death that he pursues and the death that eats him from inside rebel against the life I feel in his arms, rebel against the life starting and protesting to be within my womb.
And I will never let him know, because we are fixed in our cycle of deceit and hate and boundless need… and perhaps at times the fleeting edge of love. I am a good woman. But we believe in sinners not saints.