update: By Faith and By Fire (part 2 of 4)

[jae_w]

By Faith and By Fire
Justin Timberlake in Deadwood. No law can make it respectable. [Chris/Justin]


ii. burn

There are a few things Chris has never learned how to say no to, and all of them have caused him grief. He looks at the kid standing out in the street and says, "Jesus, Jane, I got three dogs you brought me eating their heads off out back right now. Can't you peddle your strays somewhere else for a change?"

"Now don't give me none of your lip, Kirkpatrick," Jane says. "When you get this establishment up and running and start reeling in the riches, you're gonna need a good guard dog or three. And if you're ever going to get this fucking place up and running, you're gonna need some help. This ain't charity I'm asking. You can put him to work."

Chris puts his hands on Jane's shoulders and turns her around so they're both looking at the kid. He's still standing in the street, but now he's got his hip cocked in his expensive pants and he's studying the three walls Chris has managed to get up like he's trying to decide if it's worth the fucking trouble to laugh. "Exactly what work you think I got for the likes of him?"

"Justin," Jane says, and when the kid looks over Chris can see his marked-up face. Chris swears softly. "Yeah," Jane says to him just as softly, and waves the kid over.

"I can't give you much past room and board until I get the place going, and even then there won't be a lot of money in it," Chris says quickly, but the kid just nods.

"You'll be doing the whole town a favor, helping Kirkpatrick bring some much-needed culture to the fucking masses, building this palace of delusion and folly."

"I should change the name to that," Chris grumbles. Justin's laugh surprises him, loud and raucous and nothing like the lean line of his body or the elegant cut of his jacket.

Jane smiles, too, and says, "You'll fucking thank me," and even though the kid nods again Chris knows who she's really talking to. Before she leaves she pulls the kid aside and talks up at him for a moment, grasping his sleeve tightly. From where he's standing Chris can't tell if it's Jane's hand on him the kid doesn't like or the words she's pouring steadily into his ear. Then the two of them turn and look at Chris, and he returns their gaze uneasily. When Jane lets go of the kid's arm he smiles at Chris, so widely Chris can't help but smile back.

"Can you swing a hammer?" Chris says abruptly while they watch Jane stumble down the street.

"Sure," Justin says, and when Chris looks at him he shrugs. "Well, how hard can it be?"

"Christ Jesus," Chris says. He shoves his hands in his pockets. "You can't work in those clothes."

"Gonna have to," the kid says quietly.

Chris tosses him a couple of coins and the kid catches them, big hand snatching them out of the air, and then looks at them like he thinks Chris is trying to pass counterfeit. "Go on up to the hardware, buy yourself something fit to work in," Chris says. "I'd lend you something of mine but we can just spare ourselves the fucking comedy of watching you try to fit yourself in anything I own."

"I'm fine as I am," Justin says, chin in the air. When Chris crosses his arms and looks at him, the kid's face drops. "I don't -- I don't like owing people."

"You'll pay me back," Chris says. "I'll see to that," and when he smiles Justin looks at him for a moment and then smiles back, fast and sweet.

When Justin comes back Chris sets him to work, watching him the whole time. He'd seen the kid around the hotel a few times, so it's not like Chris was expecting much, but you never know. Boys like him did something before they became, well, boys like him, but unfortunately whatever Justin did before it wasn't carpenter work. Justin splits a floorboard, ruining it, and Chris swears as vividly as he knows how and then says, "Look, I just got finished fucking telling you --"

"Just show me again, all right?" Justin says. He turns the hammer in his hand, adjusting his grip on it methodically, like if he can just manage to hold the damn thing the right way all his problems will be solved. "You won't have to show me a third time."

"I better not," Chris says. "This shit costs money," but he picks up his hammer. This time Justin watches so intently that Chris drops a handful of nails across the floor. Justin doesn't laugh, just bends down and gathers all the nails, offering them to Chris. "Thanks," Chris mumbles, more as a reflex than anything else. When he picks the nails up his fingers brush against Justin's warm palm. "Thanks," Chris says again, louder, and this time Justin nods. After Chris has taken the last nail from him Justin clenches his fist thoughtfully, then lets his hand open out wide when he catches Chris' eyes on him.

They both work silently until after the sun's dropped from the sky. "That's enough for a day," Chris says finally, and Justin stands up straight and stretches, arms high over his head, his shirt rising up a little over his stomach. "You hungry?" Chris says, and Justin nods and follows him to the little lean-to Chris has been living out of.

When Chris hands him a plate Justin waits, leaning against the wall, until Chris has started eating himself. Someone's clearly taught him manners, but when he thinks Chris isn't looking the kid hunches over his plate like he's afraid someone's going to take it from him. "There's more if you want it," Chris says, but Justin shakes his head and takes both plates away to wash.

Chris is sitting on the edge of the bed taking off his boots when Justin returns. "You can grab a blanket," he says, and Justin drops smoothly to his knees and unbuttons Chris' pants.

Later Chris would like to tell himself that for at least a moment he thinks of pushing Justin away, but it's been a long time and Justin's fingers are warm and insistent but nowhere near as warm and insistent as his mouth. And hell, Chris tells himself as he leans back on his hands and looks down at the soft obedient curve of Justin's neck, it's not like this is the first time Justin's done this. It's sure as fuck not the first time Chris has had a whore, far from it, but what he'd been able to afford was never more than a fast fumble in the dark. There's something maddeningly foreign, luxurious, about the slow slide of Justin's lips over his cock, the easy glide of Justin's palms over Chris' thighs, the soft encouraging murmur Justin makes when Chris slips a hand into his hair. Justin is taking his time, like there's nowhere he'd rather be, nothing else he'd rather be doing, and the idea of that is as lush and shocking to Chris as Justin's mouth on him.

Chris comes with a raw shout like he hasn't since his first time. For a moment he hides his face, his breath hot and damp against his hand. When he takes his hand away Justin is still kneeling, watching Chris so intently that Chris rolls onto his side.

"Go to sleep," he says roughly, shoving a blanket onto the other side of the bed, and holds his breath until he feels the mattress give under Justin's weight. It's cool enough that the warmth of another body would be welcome, but even in sleep Justin holds himself on his side of the bed. Chris keeps his own distance as he watches Justin's back rise and fall.

The next day their work is mostly silent. By nature Chris is not a quiet man, but in the morning sun his head aches and his skin itches, like he's spent a night in hard drinking. The weight of Justin's eyes bears down on him as he stumbles clumsily through his tasks. Justin works quickly, if not skillfully, and eats quickly, cradling his plate to his chest. The only slow thing about him is his mouth as he crouches between Chris' legs, coaxing Chris into strange long sounds that burn down his throat and twist through his insides. Chris keeps his eyes closed throughout this time, closed tight until Justin crawls under his blanket, far from Chris across the narrow bed.

In the morning Chris leaves Justin with a list of chores and tells him he's going to the hardware store for supplies, relieved to escape from Justin's careful gaze. It's a long while before he arrives at the hardware store. He walks himself out among the rocks and dust beyond the town limits, looking for some cleaner air to clear his head. There's not much clean to be found within a day's walk of Deadwood, though, and the sun is hot and high when he returns to his own scrap of land.

Justin's sleeves are rolled up past his elbows as he scrubs the huge filthy curtains Chris dragged west with him. It's a big job, and tedious, and Chris hadn't meant to leave it all to the kid, but Justin is smiling as Chris walks up. Chris has seen him smile before, several times, but he hadn't realized how careful those smiles were, how calculated, until he sees this grin threatening to spill right off Justin's face.

Chris has seen Justin smile before, but he's never heard him sing.

More than once Chris has sworn he's seen Justin bite back words, small talk, some easy observation like men share when their hands are working and their minds are left to wander free. He suspects that the near silence of their days is as unlikely for Justin as it is for him, but he's left Justin in peace. He expects fair value for what he pays out but he lays no claim to a man's private thoughts. With all his suspicions, though, he never thought Justin was hiding something like this.

The song is one Chris has heard before, an old ballad his mother used to sing to him, and he's surprised by that, surprised it's not something bawdier or more fashionable. Justin's voice is trained, Chris would swear, thin and sweet and if Justin were in a real city on a real stage Chris might not think it was anything that special. But Justin isn't in a real city, he's kneeling in the dirt in Deadwood squinting against the sun, and Chris finds himself standing as still as he can and breathing soft so Justin won't stop singing before he reaches the end. Suddenly Justin looks up at him, still singing, and Chris catches his breath because even in a real city on a real stage he's never been hit so hard. He's lifted high, high by Justin's eyes and Justin's voice, and he closes his own eyes because he doesn't know what will happen when Justin stops singing, when he's left alone and aloft in the silence. He knows it's a long way to fall.

Then Justin's song dies on his lips and Chris opens his eyes. "I'm almost done," Justin mumbles, looking down at the washtub.

"It's all right," Chris says, but Justin keeps scrubbing. "That song," he says, and Justin's shoulders stiffen although his hands don't stop moving. "I remember my mother singing that song. Did yours sing it to you?"

"I sang it to her," Justin says, and there's a trace of the smile Chris caught him with earlier. "To her, and -- other people," and the smile dies as quickly as his song. "I'm almost done," he says again, and Chris leaves him in peace.

That night when Justin reaches for Chris' belt Chris pushes him away. "No," he says, and Justin steadies himself with one hand on the floor and studies Chris for a moment. Then he stands up smoothly right where he is, just a breath away from Chris. His long fingers move slowly, easily down his shirt, the buttons spilling open beneath them and his shirt falling loose over his chest. There are purple shadows along his ribs, rising and receding with every breath, and Chris searches them for a shape. They've almost healed, though, and he can't tell what formed them, a fist or a boot or something else. Then Justin's hand drops to his own belt, teasing it open, and Chris looks back up at his face.

"No," he says again, and Justin freezes. "You don't -- that was a day's work, today," Chris says. "You don't owe me anything," and he rolls over to his side of the bed before Justin can answer. He pulls his blanket high but doesn't close his eyes until he feels Justin curl up on the other side of the mattress.

The next day is mostly silent, too, and the next, though they fall into a rhythm with their work. After a third day of it Chris thinks, fuck it, and just starts telling whatever story comes into his head. He's not a quiet man by nature, nor a patient one, and hell, if the kid doesn't like it he can find himself a new job. But Justin doesn't seem bothered by it. He even laughs once or twice, that raw harsh laugh Chris can't get used to. It catches him sharp where he's tender, and each time he half shrinks from it and half wracks his brain to think of some new tale that'll coax that laugh free.

One night as they're settling in to sleep Justin says, "Chris," and before he can think Chris rolls over toward him. Justin is facing him, too, though in the dark Chris can't see much more than the shine of his eyes. "Chris," Justin says again, "what are we building?"

Chris laughs. "What, you waited all this time? What if it's something you don't want to be building?" Justin makes a small sound, not a laugh but the polite substitute of someone who knows a joke's been made but not what it is. Chris doesn't want to think too hard on what Justin's been doing lately that he hasn't wanted to, so he answers quickly.

"Kirkpatrick's Palladium," he says, and he never can quite say it without smiling. There's a pause, and Chris says, "it'll be a music hall, a little song, a little dance --"

"I know," Justin says, and then, in an elaborately polite tone, "but what ... why ..."

"Why Deadwood?" Chris says, and feels the bed tremble as Justin nods. "This newest jewel of the West, a city awash in gold and citizens starving for a cultural life?"

"Deadwood?" Justin says, almost choking on it.

"That's what the fucking papers out east said, at least," Chris says. "And when I got here and it was, well, Deadwood, I don't know. I'd sunk all my money into it, not that that amounted to much, and I just figured -- what the hell. I'll give it a shot."

"Why not try it back East? It might be easier --"

Chris laughs, harsher this time. "I don't know about easier. Seems to me it's already so settled out there, there's no way a man can build up something new. Not without a lot more money than I'll ever see. Back East there's no room for a man to be anything but what he's always been, and I wanted -- I want to make something new, to be ... "

"Someone new," Justin says softly. The moon's risen or else Chris' eyes have gotten used to the dark because he can see just a little better, the hard pale curve of Justin's jaw and his eyes, half closed and the lashes sweeping down.

"No," Chris says, and Justin's eyes open wide to him. "There's no such fucking thing. A man's who he is, for good or ill and mostly for fucking ill, and there's no changing it. Not deep down, not for real."

Justin doesn't blink but Chris feels the bed shift, just a little, as he catches his breath. It's a cruel fucking thing, Chris thinks, to say to a kid like this, no matter that it's true. He can't bring himself to take it all the way back, though. "Maybe you're too young to understand --"

"No," Justin says, and this time it's Chris who catches his breath. Before Chris can say anything else Justin rolls over and pulls the blanket up high. Chris can tell Justin isn't sleeping but he leaves him alone. He sits up a long time in the dark, watching Justin lie awake and leaving him alone.

The next day Justin is even quieter than before, if that's fucking possible, and it's not an hour in before Chris drops his hammer and says, "Look."

"What?" Justin snaps, and Chris falls back a step when Justin spins to look at him.

"Nothing," Chris says, and Justin bites his lip before he turns back to his work.

An hour later and Chris tries again, gentler this time, walking up with his hands offered open in front of him, like he would to a dog he wasn't sure wouldn't bite. "It looks good," he says, and Justin nods shortly. It isn't an easy thing for Chris to speak on, and Justin sure as hell isn't making it any easier, but Chris keeps trying. He owes Justin, he tells himself, and even as he thinks it he knows it's not true. He'll say it because he wants to.

"It's good work," Chris says, and Justin looks over at him slowly, like it takes an effort to look but it'd take more not to.

"Yeah," he says.

"All a body can do in this fucking world is do good work, my mother used to say," Chris says, "and I'd like to tell you she left out the fucking but that'd make me a liar." Justin smiles and Chris says, "It's all a man can do in this fucking world, build something bright where there was nothing before."

Silence stretches out between them again, but it feels different to Chris this time. Finally Justin says, softly, "Make something new."

"Yeah," Chris says.

"And that'll be enough?" Justin says. When Chris looks at him he says, quickly, "For you, I mean -- that's enough?"

"It's everything," Chris says, the words surprising him as much as Justin. Justin's smile lights him up so that Chris has to turn his eyes away. "Yeah, well, I don't know. Maybe I'll fuck it up, but at least I'll be fucking up something new, not the same old thing I spent my life fucking up back home."

"No," Justin says. "You won't fuck it up. It's -- I think it's gonna be good."

"Yeah," Chris says. "Yeah, me too."

Chris isn't rushing to tell Jane, but she was right. Justin's a quick learner, and with the two of them working the building goes a lot faster than he'd been counting on. Though maybe it's not so much the building going faster as the time, Chris thinks when he finally gets around to counting up the days Justin's been working for him. He swears angrily at himself and goes out to the yard to find Justin.

"Here," he says, thrusting a folded scrap of paper at the kid. "And if I were you I'd fucking count it."

Justin doesn't open the paper, just stands there holding it in one hand and a piece of wood in the other. "What is it?"

"It's your fucking pay, is what it is. Going back to when you started, and it's a fair wage, ask anybody around, no less than what you'd get anywhere else and sure as fuck no more."

Justin stares at him stupidly, then pushes the paper into his pocket without looking at what's inside. "All right," he says finally. "I guess ... I guess I'll be pushing off then."

"Serve me fucking right if you did," Chris says, and then, "What?"

For the first time Chris hears the same anger he's feeling in Justin's voice. He'd thought he'd like it better than he does. "Are you not fucking paying me off?" Justin says.

"No -- no!"

"Then why ..."

"I meant to do it each week," Chris says, "but the time fucking got away from me, and I swear to you, every fucking cocksucker I ever worked for could always find the first excuse not to pay what he owed, but I never thought I'd be one of them. Though maybe if you'd fucking opened your mouth --"

"I thought when you were done," Justin says, and then stops. "I don't know what I thought."

"Well, it's yours, you earned it, do whatever the fuck you want with it. I'm only fucking sorry that I didn't think of it before. You should have what's yours," Chris says. "You should always have something yours."

"Yeah," Justin says. "Oh, hold on," and he pulls his money out of his pocket. "I owe you for the clothes, from the first day."

Chris waits until he can keep his voice steady. "I think we're even on that score," he says. Hell, he probably owes Justin money on that score, but he keeps that bitter thought to himself.

"All right," Justin says, but he doesn't meet Chris' eyes. As he tries to shove his money back into his pants he drops it in the dirt.

"I know I said it was yours to do with as you will, but I didn't think you were going to throw it away." Justin laughs and Chris says, "You got a job here as long as I got one, Justin," and again he has to turn away from Justin's smile. "Now let's get back to fucking work."

Finally there's nothing left but to hoist the sign. Justin paints it himself, tracing intricate curlicues around the letters while Chris leans over his shoulder and says, "Just spell it right, for fuck's sake," until Justin laughs and pushes him away. They hammer it into place together and then stand in the street admiring it. When Chris has stood out there long enough to feel like a damn fool but not half as long as he'd like, he pulls Justin by the sleeve to the lean-to. From underneath the bed he grabs a bottle of whiskey he'd been saving for the occasion. "Birthday present," he says, and Justin looks blankly at him and says,

"It's not my birthday."

Chris laughs and points back at the fine building they'd made. "It's its birthday. But since we did all the work, I think we deserve the fucking celebration."

According to Justin he's no stranger to strong liquor, but two drinks in and his smile grows a little sloppy and he leans into Chris' shoulder. Two more and his tongue loosens enough to start matching Chris' stories with his own, and in fifteen minutes Justin's told Chris more about himself than Chris has heard since Justin first walked up the street. Nothing too shocking and nothing too recent, just funny little stories about his momma's farm in Tennessee, but Chris feeds him liquor just to keep him talking, his breath warm and sweet in Chris' ear. For once Chris is happy to stay quiet.

When they've almost finished the bottle Justin falls into a deep sleep, so suddenly Chris has to hold him up or he'd drop to the floor. With a fair amount of huffing and grunting Chris gets the kid into the bed with his shoes off, and pulls the blanket up to his chin. Justin doesn't move, not even when Chris falls heavily onto the bed himself.

As a rule Chris sleeps like the dead and wakes even slower, and after the night's drinking it takes Chris a few moments to recognize the smell of smoke. With a yell he runs out to see the roof of Kirkpatrick's Palladium swallowed by flames. He keeps yelling his head off as he races for water, but it's the still deep hour before dawn, the one hour out of twenty-four when the town sinks exhausted into emptiness. Only Justin joins him as they fight frantically against the fire, and only Justin is with him when it finally subsides, leaving a blackened husk behind.

"I don't understand," Justin says. There's a black smudge over his forehead that makes Chris think of his childhood. One day a year even the meanest bullies, the worst thugs weren't afraid to let everyone know they went to church, walked around with ashes on their heads to show everyone where they belonged.

"It was a good fire," Chris says bitterly. "Controlled. Just big enough to fuck me over, but not big enough to spread to anything that really mattered."

"You think somebody set it?"

"It wasn't spontaneous fucking combustion," Chris says. "I heard a few things, but I didn't think ... Like this'd ever be any serious fucking threat to gambling and whoring, like they've ever gone out of fucking style." Chris kicks at the ground and watches the gray smoking ash coat his boot. "Fuck," he says. "I didn't think."

"Well, should I -- do you want me to get the sheriff?" Justin says. He's almost bouncing on his feet, he's so eager to go, but he stays standing where he is with his eyes worried on Chris.

"No," Chris says. "Fuck it, why bother?"

"But what are we going to do?"

"Nothing," Chris says, and walks away.

In his room Chris sits on the edge of the bed and pokes gingerly at his hand. He must have burned it without even realizing in the greater pain of losing every fucking thing he's ever had. Justin pulls his hand away and stands over him, holding Chris' wrist loosely. "Don't," Justin says. "You'll hurt it more."

Justin tears a shirt into strips and soaks them neatly in a bowl of water, then kneels in front of Chris. He cleans the burn carefully, his bottom lip straining against his teeth. He ties a bandage around Chris' hand and then pats it gently. "There," he says, and Chris closes his eyes. "That's better," he says, and Chris opens his eyes. Justin kisses him.

Justin tastes of ash like the night outside, and deep beneath that something sweeter, and even deeper something sharp. There's something else even deeper, Chris knows, something that's neither sweet nor sharp nor dark like ashes, something that's nothing but Justin, and Chris wants nothing more than to find out how deep he goes. He pushes Justin away and licks his own lips. His throat is raw with the smoke he's swallowed. "No," he says, and Justin kisses him again.

This time Chris is ready for him and he pushes Justin away, harder this time, and Justin falls back on one hand. Something sparks in his eyes. "Don't tell me what to do," he says, and stands up, easily, looming over Chris.

"What?" Chris says, all that's left of his voice a rasp in his throat. "You think you've got to fucking comfort me?"

"No," Justin says, and pulls off his shirt. "I don't owe you anything." When he pushes Chris back onto the bed, Chris lets him.

Chris' hands slide through greasy smudges of ash along Justin's stomach, his face, and the smell of smoke surrounds him with Justin's arms. Even with Justin's mouth moving like fire over his skin, Chris can't help thinking of all he's lost. Then he tells himself, "tomorrow," says it out loud, his voice leaking from his throat like blood from a scrape on Justin's hand. Tomorrow he'll add it up, everything that's lost, the cost of starting over that's always just a little more than he can afford. But that's for tomorrow. For this one night, he'll think of nothing but what he's found.

Justin rolls them over, his fingers digging into Chris' back. He grinds up against Chris, hard and fast, head thrown back against the bed, and if not for his wounded throat Chris thinks he'd laugh. It's something he'd almost forgotten about being so young, the desperate greed to feel now, to feel everything, the fear that if you let go of what you want for even a second you'll lose it forever. You lose it anyway, Chris thinks, and before he can tell himself, tomorrow, Justin lifts his head and bites Chris' lip until Chris tastes blood, bright over dusty ash.

"Easy," Chris says, his bandaged hand skimming up over Justin's back. He spits in his hand and Justin says,

"No."

Chris lets his free hand drift over Justin's mouth, smiling as Justin strains against him, and then Justin bites down, teeth cutting right through the cotton, right into Chris' burn, and the pain hits Chris' brain like it's boiling and slams him into Justin.

Justin yells, not like he's hurt but like he's won something, and the sound shoves Chris into him again and again, as fast and hard as he can, driven by a desperate greed. He hadn't forgotten it after all, hadn't lost it as he'd gotten older, just tamped it down so far he'd hardly felt it smoldering deep inside him. Now it's set alight and blazing all through him, and it only burns brighter when Justin yells his name.

When Chris rolls off him Justin reaches out but pulls his hand back at the last minute. He rubs it over his face and says, "Tomorrow we can get started --" and Chris puts his own hand over Justin's mouth, his palm throbbing where Justin bit him earlier. Justin doesn't bite him again and he doesn't keep talking, either. He leaves his mouth open a little so Chris can feel his breath, damp and gentle against his hand.

"Tomorrow," Chris says, and Justin closes his eyes. He falls asleep with Chris' hand across his mouth.

The next morning Chris wakes up alone in his bed with no respite of drowsiness, of confusion or forgetfulness. The night before is with him instantly, sinking into his skin like the smoke that's soaked into everything in the room. He sits up slowly, heavily, bracing himself to go out and count up everything he thought he had.

On the floor in front of him is a note in Justin's curling, careful hand. Went to the hardware for supplies so we can get started again. Chris folds it up carefully and slides it into his pocket when he's pulled on his pants. He walks outside and looks up at the mountains, his back to the wreck of his building. For once the air is crisp and clear, not yet sullied by all the sounds and smells of a Deadwood day. He stands with his hands in his pockets, his burned hand closed tight over Justin's note. He hears Justin return before he sees him, the breeze lifting the song Justin's singing under his breath.