Disclaimer: I do not own Brokeback Mountain or any of it's characters, they are used for entertainment purposes only. I also do not own the song 'Long Forgotten' by Oceansize, just borrowing it!

I dreamed a dream

Chapter 3

Ennis was coming.

Jack couldn't believe it, had to pinch himself to make sure it wasn't just another dream, another moment of weakness when the wanting got so bad he almost hallucinated.

It was finally Friday night, he was driving back home after work… and Ennis was coming. The weekend, he'd said. It was the weekend at last.

He was too jittery, too much like a high school boy with a crush. 'Well,' he thought to himself 'When it comes to Ennis, I ain't never been much better than that… all butterflies in my stomach, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed'.

He turned on the radio on his brand new truck, changing station to station until the sound of a slow, mournful cello brought him to a stop. It sounded like he had felt for so long… it sounded like a beautiful heartache.

These are the secrets you will share
These are the words you cannot bear
This is the sight you'll never see
Now that you have forgotten me
The voice that tempted you away
The deepest hole in which I stay
I miss you most my darkest hour
I'm wondering where the hell you are

The lyrics seemed to reflect him at his worst, when the distance, the years, the throbbing, constant ache in his heart got to be too much… and the yoke of memories drove him to his knees, the weight deep, bittersweet and familiar. It was those nights when he drank himself to oblivion, when the longing was so terrible that no Mexico and no half-baked dream of Ennis could do.

It was those nights when he cried himself to sleep and begged for an absolution… begged for the end of such anguish. And somewhere in his drunken, tortuous stupor he knew that he loved Ennis so much, he didn't want an end after all.

What did it mean? Than Ennis had called him, now, after so long? That in that hesitant voice he'd said what Jack had wanted to hear for so long? "Can I come… an' see you?"

He thought back to that last meeting, that fight, the final breaking of a dam that had been building up for years now, building up with silence, heartache, broken hopes, shattered dreams.

Truth be told, after that day… he felt he had to quit Ennis, had to learn how to quit him. That final burst had put them both in the edge of something… he felt something had to change. Was it his absolution, come at last, after all this time? Was it the end?

Or maybe another beginning? 'Ah, quit it, Jack fuckin' Twist… you spent your whole damn life in a dream… a dream… and it ain't gonna happen. What do you need to make you know that?'

But, damn that man, he loved him. Loved him more than he loved himself, his dignity, his sanity… loved him so much that he had taken all the pain of being with Ennis, just to get the joy. Took in being a secret, a sin, something wrong… even while they both knew it was the only thing that had ever been right in their life.


Too late to tell you, you were wrong
Another word to dwell upon
You could have waited for me
Like I was waiting just for you

Yes, he had waited alright. Waited all his life, pretended that the motions of survival he went through every day resembled life. Wake up, jerk off, have coffee… attempt yet again to talk to Lureen about a tutor for Bobby… go to work, put up with L.D., put on a fake bright smile and sell tractors to fat, complacent businessmen. Then drive back and drown his sorrow in whisky, in beer… in Randall.


And did you ever stop to think
About how low that you could sink
And down the low, our deepest sigh
Within yourself you cannot hide

How low had he sunk? Pretending Randall could ever be, mean anything remotely close to what Ennis was? He had a feeling Randall was using him, for the exact same reasons Jack was using him.

It was so hard… so hard. So hard to pretend he wasn't human, didn't have longings. Ennis tried so arduously to deny he was 'queer', he would never admit those longings and desires could extend to another man besides Jack. Jack, however, was weak enough, or man enough, depending how you looked at it, to admit in the privacy of his thoughts that he was, after all, queer. 'What would my daddy think o' that, now?' he wondered bitterly.


Do photographs and faces lie?
Why did I never wonder why?
Why I was waiting for you?

Why, indeed? Why had he waited? For almost twenty years, through more hurt and disappointment than he ever believed he could bear.

'Who are you kiddin', Jack Twist?' he whispered 'You waited… 'cause of love.'

The last poignant notes of the song came then, and Jack was parked outside of his house. He noticed a dark figure huddled in the front porch… a figure more familiar to Jack than anything in this world.

"Ennis?" he said.

Author's note: I was listening to this song, and felt that there had to be a chapter of Jack thinking, to put him into the same sort of expectancy Ennis is in now… hope it worked! And if you haven't heard it, download 'Long Forgotten' by Oceansize, it really is a beautifully sad song. Thank you so much to all the people who have commented on this, you make my day!