Not my characters, and I make no money from them.

Unbeta'd. I didn't include Fort Worth for any reason other than it's where the Mountain West conference has it's bowl game closest to Christmas, but that was a happy coincidence considering fandom connotations. I also didn't look up which bowl Wyoming went to in 1995. I took liberties.

Chapter 5
They cleaned the dorm room together and in silence. Jack was whistling softly to himself, but Ennis couldn't understand why. Nothing pleasant was happening here.

"So, uh, when your folks comin' a pick you up."

Jack froze in the middle of 409-ing the particle-board desks. "I, uh." Jack didn't do anything for a minute, but then he turned around looking pretty damn embarrassed.

"What?"

"I signed up for winterterm. Told my folks I couldn't come home for Christmas on account of..." He reached behind him, fingerin' a pocket. "Well, I was... I was hoping I could stay with you through winterterm?"

"Christ, Jack, when was you gonna tell me?"

He shrugged. "I know you're gonna say no. So I waited until your choice was ta put me out on the street."

"Nooo way. Can't work. I only got a one bedroom!"

"Jesus, Ennis, I only got one room total an you been livin' with me!"

"It ain't the same!"

"Oh, and why not?"

"This is a dorm."

"Ennis! Probably half the guys in your building, probably more, are students bunking together to save money."

"But they got more bedrooms."

"You bet. They've got, what, two bedrooms, an' eight people, or something ridiculous? No fleets of scholarships hankerin' after us normal folk." Jack added the last almost beneath his breath.

"Jack, I dunno."

"Look, I don't care," Jack went back to scrubbing then, and Ennis could see some papers of some sort sticking out of the pocket he had fingered. "I'd rather live on the street in Wyoming in the winter than go back to my old man anyways."

"Christ. Fuck."

"I'll be fine. Gotta be some way them homeless people do it, right?"

"Shit."

"And for a full weekend, I'm gonna be away, got a hotel an' everything, so that's alright."

Ennis was sufficiently distracted. "What are you talking about?"

"Just this." Jack stopped scrubbing, turned back around, and handed those back-pocket papers over to Ennis. "Merry Christmas," he mumbled, before starting in on the windows.

It took Ennis a moment to realize what he was looking at. Two tickets. "Wyoming versus Southern Methodist," they said. "Fort Worth," they said. "What's this."

Jack didn't turn from the window. "Bowl game tickets."

"What the fuck."

"We're playing Southern Methodist in Fort Worth fucking Texas, December 23rd an eight pm."

"I can read the ticket."

"Then why'd you ask?"

"Well, for starters, how in hell we gonna get there?"

Jack stopped now to face Ennis. It was almost a fight. Ennis wasn't sure who he wanted to fight, Jack for bein' some sort of fool, maybe even a romantic kind, or himself, for wantin' to go on this thing with Jack so badly, for feelin' so good inside 'bout gettin' such a present. Never been out a Wyoming, and here was a ticket to a game in Texas.

"Student bus. Already got us spots. Leaves the union tomorrow at seven am sharp."

"Well, well what about rooms?"

"Got one at the Econo-lodge where everyone from the student bus is stayin."

"I know you don't have the money for a damn hotel room."

"It's the Econo-lodge, not the Hilton. Besides, we're sharin' a room."

"You and me?"

"Yeah, an', an' a couple other guys?"

"What?"

"Jesus, we're all just students. Need a save money."

"But what if I... what if you, what if you--"

"Well I certainly ain't interested in nothin' related to no other guys, behind their back or in front of their face, so whatever you implying, I'm not even gonna answer that."

Ennis locked eyes with Jack for a moment, both men daring the other to back down, but Jack, as usual, had thought of everything. "Alright." Ennis said. "You gonna be back in time for your semester?"

Jack smiled more than big enough to make the entire trip maybe worthwhile. "You're damn right I will."

"What you takin'?"

"Film."

"Film? I thought you said you weren't gay."

Jack laughed. See, lookit, Ennis could make jokes. "I figure three credits for sitting in a room watching movies is worth it. And I need a fine arts credit."

"Yup," Ennis nodded. "Took band myself, first semester here."

"That so?" Jack hadn't known Ennis even played an instrument, an' was pleasantly surprised. There were more depths to plumb still, forever with any luck, in the warm, dark abyss that was Ennis del Mar. "What do you play?"

"Trombone."

"Hmm." The picture of Ennis's large hands wringin' deep sounds from a slide trombone, shiny in the lights of a concert hall, havin' ta work with other people, even, in a way that wasn't his style... it was a sexy image. "You don't strike me as a band type."

Ennis shook his head. "Too much time."

"Not like physics."

Ennis smiled at that. Physics took more fuckin' time out of either of their days than they deserved to lose.

For a moment Jack thought they might kiss, but instead the mutual stare of affection was broken by Ennis, who scooped up his bag. "Well, you better pack up and get going."

"Yeah, why's that?"

"Our place ain't no kind a short walk from here. And we got a lot ta do before Fort Worth, an' a early morning. Trust you ta not tell me I'm gonna be somewhere 'til I'm almost there."

Our place. It hadn't been missed by Jack. "Yeah," was all he said, but he felt like he was flying through the sky so high he didn't ever need to take an astronomy class again. Because Ennis was going to show him every star. Just needed some help now and again.

Jack was barely awake for the cold-ass morning walk across campus with his silent theoretician. He was huddled inside a coat, his backpack overstuffed and hanging from both shoulders for once by virtue of its excessive weight. It hadn't been easy to pack, Texas being a good bit warmer than Wyoming about now, but the real annoyance was that big thick winter coat would just be something big to carry around in a few hours. Ennis had drawn the line at a thick coat and was wearing layers of flannel and sweatshirt. Jack thought maybe Ennis had been pretty smart about that, but the truth was, a much as he wished it weren't so, Jack didn't have too much clothes to his name. He had to make due with what he had, and that didn't include any flannels.

They loaded on the coach bus with about thirty five other sleepy college students, three quarters guys. Thanks to Ennis's early-ass self, they managed to get seats right next to each other, bein' some a the first people on the bus.

Ennis sat down by the window, a physics book clamped in one hand. Thermal Physics Jack read on the title.

"I want the window."

Ennis gave him that 'what are you on now?' look.

"I said I want the window."

"What the fuck."

"Come on."

Jack stood, made Ennis leave his seat, and they switched places. Jack nestled his head against the window and drifted to sleep, while Ennis was settling in to read.

Jack woke up some time later. Ennis was sound asleep and slumped onto his shoulder of all things. He thought he ought to be decent an' move Ennis's head. Knew that if Ennis woke up and found he did that in public, he'd flip. But Jack couldn't help himself. He pretended to be asleep for another hour, until Ennis woke up with a start. Jack slitting an eye open in time ta see that man blush burning red, and then didn't even pretend to wake up, just sat up straight and laughed. It earned him glare, but he knew it would, an' maybe that's why he did it.

Jack pulled his walkman out of the backpack that was crammed between his legs now, and settled back to listen to his favorite bands on tape.

"What you got there, huh?" Ennis was poking at the little collection of tapes in Jack's lap. Jack'd been lazily looking out the window, enjoying the scenery flatting out before his eyes. He liked to keep a look out for moraines. Geology was always interesting to him, too, to think this Earth had been around for a long time and would continue to be around after his silly problems faded from the Earth.

"Huh?" Jack took off his headphones, stopping the tape on the bright yellow Walkman.

"What you got here?"

"Oh, this just, just my favorite bands. You heard all these already. These are the same ones I played 'round the dorm. You know, Nirvana and stuff."

"Oh."

Jack watched Ennis for a second-- then figured it out. Ennis was lonely, bored, looking for conversation. His physics book was closed. For once, he wanted a person to talk to and not physics. Not any person, me.

Jack lowered his voice. "Hey I got an idea. We got a long trip and all this time ta kill. Maybe we get to know more about each other."

"Huh?"

"You know, personal stuff."

"But there's people around." Ennis voice was hushed.

Jack shrugged. "Most of them asleep, can't hear us anyway. We're whispering. They got headphones." To demonstrate, Jack leaned forward to wards the boy in the seat in front of them, who was not asleep, but listening to music. "Hey, bud. Buddy. Hey."

Nothing.

"See?" Jack shrugged. "Here, I'll go first. What do you want to know?"

Ennis seemed to think just conversation was something mischievous from the look on his face. "Why didn't you tell me 'bout your winter course? Really?"

"I knew you didn't want me in your apartment. But I can't go back to the old man."

"Why not?"

"Hey, ain't it my turn?" Jack's humor was forced now.

"Alright."

"How come you so afraid a this thing?"

Ennis shook his head. He wasn't going to answer. Shit.

"Alright, I'll go again. You know how I told you no way to please my old man? Well, not even livin' and breathin' good enough for him. He likes to beat the shit out a me for no reason. Last time I seen him he came at me with a goddamn baseball bat, swear to God. Not goin' back there ever if I can help it. Least he never hurt my ma, or else I'd a killed him." Jack's voice was soft with deep truths shared. Nothing he'd ever told anyone before. It took him a moment to get up the courage to look at Ennis again.

Ennis's eyes had grown soft. He was watching Jack's hands. Ennis gave a furtive glance around, and seeing whatever he was looking for, or not seeing it, he tapped Jack's knee and said so low Jack almost didn't hear it, not even a whisper, but just comin' out like breathin', "Sumbitch kill 'im with my own two hands he touch you 'gain darlin"

Jack didn't need, and wasn't asking for, protection, but hearing an endearment on the sweet scent of Ennis's breath, smelling like the coffee they'd shared that morning at Ennis's-- their-- apartment, well, Jack got hard as magnetohydrodynamics at that, and wished to God he could kiss Ennis into oblivion right in the seat. His eyes even flicked back to the bathroom stall at the back of the coach before he understood that there was no way they'd both be in there without being noticed-- and heard, for sure-- and that the next time he and Ennis were likely to be alone together was after they got back from Texas. Bullshit on that. Ennis must've caught the drift of his gaze, because he was smilin' a shy smile and sporting his own piece of graduate-level physics under partial cover of Kittel and Kroemer.

And it was their apartment now. They'd talked it out last night. Jack was going to stay, pay the utilities and some groceries 'cause he couldn't afford rent (and because he cranked up the thermostat a lot higher than Ennis kept it). He'd tell his mama he found a real ideal housing situation. He was there for good an' permanent. He didn't know how he'd managed to convince Ennis it would be alright, and he guessed he wasn't done with the convincing, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that he was only a freshman in college. That was years of living with Ennis. Years and years. And Jack didn't see any end in sight, the long road to Texas and back again to Wyoming, and wherever else it might lead, but Ennis was next to him on the road, so it was alright.