Fading
Title: Fading, a one-shot
Rating: PG-13 probably
Disclaimer: These characters belong to Annie Proulx, I´m just borrowing them.
Genre: Canon
Warning: dead!Jack story, but I hope someone will read it anyway.
Author´s Note: This is the first story I´ve written and english is my second language, and it´s un-betad, so.. Now I bet people are lining up to read.. If this reminds you of a story already written it´s unintentional.
Feedback: Yes please, want to learn.
Fading
Ennis sits in a chair in his room. He´s looking out the window at the snow and christmas lights on the porch. He´s been living with Junior and Kurt for the last twelve years. When he moved in Jack had been dead for almost ten.
“Daddy, are you alright?” He jumps like a frightened horse at the sound of his eldest daughters voice.
“Yes darlin, just rememberin” She looks at him and smiles knowingly. It´s no secret what´s occuping his mind for most part of his days.
When he got so sick in a pneumonia that he couldn´t work anymore, Junior finally put her foot down and decided he was moving in with her, Kurt and their kids. As Ennis and Junior where packing the few things in his trailer he wanted to bring with him, she came upon the box of postcards he´d been hiding in his closet along with the shirts and the postcard of Brokeback.
Embarrased he had tried to shrug away her questions, but the way he hung on to the shirts and softly stroked them told her something she´d already suspected. Gently she made him sit down, and proved that he wasn´t the only one in the family who knew how to treat a spooked animal. In bits and pieces he told her everything about him and Jack, and her sooting “it´s alright” made him think of a time when everything was.
After that she often made him tell her stories about them, he figured it was her way of showing her acceptance, but also letting him talk about the man he´d only after he died allowed himself to admit he had loved. And still loved. But lately he found that the memories of Jack was fading like washed out colours, no longer strong and vivid images.
He finds that holding the shirts makes the memories clearer, and he gently rubs his fingers over the collars, his mind lost again in thoughts of Jack.
Junior watches him drift away down a memorylane that´s full of longing and sadness.
Ennis sits in a chair looking out the window. Outside the spring is in full blom, the grass is fresh and green, but inside Ennis is hurting. He´s thinking of the fight they had on their last meeting, must be only a few weeks ago by the looks of the nature outside. He rubs his fingers together and feels the fabric between them. Jack must have given him the shirts after their fight, but the memory escapes him, probably because he was so worked up, he didn´t even remember driving home.
He aches as he remembers the harsh words they both spoke, wonders if Jack is really going to go through with his threath to quit him. Ennis shudders, because the idea of never holding Jack again is so painful he can´t hardly stand it.
He´ll send a postcard when the time comes and wait for Jacks reply, he´s always come before, surely he will this time as well. Ennis sighs as he thinks of the long months that lies before him, months without Jack. But at least at the end of them he will get to hold him, he just has to wait a while longer.
Ennis sits in a chair, looking out at the sunny summersday . He´s trying to work out why he´s holding his and Jacks shirts they were wearing the last day on Brokeback when he punched Jack, trying to get out all the frustration he felt because it had to end to soon.
Jack came by the other day, he drove all the way from Texas just ‘cause Ennis dropped him a line about his divorce. He had the girls so how was he supposed to talk to Jack, he was terrified that one of the girls would tell anyone about Jack.
Jack had looked heartbroken when Ennis turned him down, and his own stomach had reacted the same way as after Brokeback when Jack drove away. He told his girls he´d had something bad to eat and drove them home.
He would make it up to Jack next month, make it real good, maybe be able to stay a few days extra, not that there was ever enough time. But at least they would be together. That had to be enough. If you can´t fix it, you´ve got to stand it.
Ennis sits in a chair, looking at the colorful leaves on the trees outside. He feels as if he has suddenly come alive again after years of sleepwalking through the world. The sight of Jack climbing out of his truck had restarted his heart like he´d been struck by lightning, and then Jack was in his arms, and the world was as it should be again.
That night they had stayed at a shabby motel, and he blushed thinking about the things he´d done, and what Jack had done. And the memories made him hard. Damn. It was obvious now that he needed to be with Jack, that the force that had brought them together up on that mountain four years ago was still as strong, if not stronger, fueled with four years of longing.
But they had to be careful, a couple of times a year was all he could manage no matter how Jack had tried to talk him into some fool idea of them living together. That´s what got a man killed, and he didn´t want that to happen to Jack, he couldn´t possibly live on if it did.
Ennis sits in a chair, looking at the pourin rain that darkens the sky. He´s wondering if he should cancel his date with Alma, it seems to be a bitch of a whether. He thinks about how happy she seemed when he asked her to marry him, blushing and all tearyeyed. She told him that she loved him, but he turned his eyes away, uncomfortable to voice emotions that he wasn´t sure he knew the meaning of.
He sure likes her enough, but that sort of love she spoke of wasn´t something he experienced or ever thought he would, better to settle and not reach for something that you couldn´t have. If you had nothing, you needed nothing.
Suddenly a middleaged woman he´d never seen before walks up to him and hands him some shirts, old and covered with stains, one tucked into the other. The fabric looks as if it´s about to break because it´s so wornout.
He looks up at her frowning and then hands her the shirts back and says “Can´t wear some dirty ol’ shirt on a date with Alma.”
The woman takes the shirts softly and cradles them to her chest. As she turns around he can se that she´s crying.
Ennis sits in a chair. He´s looking out the window, outside it´s snowing softly. He rubs his fingers together. He looks down at his hands. They are empty, like always, holding nothing.
Looking at his empty hands he suddenly starts to cry, but he doesn´t know why.