Obscurity
Pairing: Ennis/Jack
Rating: PG-13 to NC-17 (Warning: violence !)
Summary: AU_AU. With this story I wanted to dive in the dark side of Brokeback Mountain. I wanted to experiment with fear, uncertainty and doubt. Ennis and Jack meet each other in the modern time.
Dedication: This story is dedicated to my German beta tanzmaeusi, who encouraged me to write this story. I also want to thank judy-blue-cat who helped me to understand the US-postal service and who also helped me to find the most suitable name for the city where this story takes place.
But tizi17 is the one you should thank the most if you like this story because she is the one who translates it. She is incredible and let me say she captures my writing perfectly as far as I can judge... ;-). She's amazing and it's a great joy to work with her. My special thank is dedicated to poppyhoney_67. She's our second native speaker besides Judy who is willing to help us catching the remaining errors. Thank you all !!
Feedback: Please !! It keeps all of us motivated... Even though I haven't replied to most of your comments lately please know that I had read them all !!!
I just couldn't find the time to respond because either I was working till midnight or I fell asleep in front of my computer. I don't know if I ever had a time before in my life that was more stressful and chaotic... So please accept my apologies !!
* * *
Prologue: http://mel0804.livejournal.com/37179.html
1 Steel City
It is the night that creates oneness where opposites fight, that builds bridges and unifies the insurmountable.
On the cusp of darkness differences blur, the face of the world mantles its true self, bestowing a dash of adventure to the decay and an imagination of healing to the sick.
In the black of the night shadows come to life. Destroying and destructive, willing to resort to violence and ruinous, the beasts are unleashed in the cover of the darkness, the weak teaching fear and the rich hatred. Unrecognised and unnoticed they cause a stir, play fate and change the course of lives.
It is the beginning of the morning that lifts the veil of the night bringing the unbridled to reason. Its tender life giving rays of the sun that touch the cusps of doom with velvet fingers to expose life in its hideous bareness.
The warm light of the sun draws the cleavage of humanity, builds walls where there had been bridges and begrudges the victor of the night the triumph of the day.
+ + +
The sticky summer heat of the early morning hours lay like hot metal over Steel City as Ennis del Mar wakened sweating from his nightmare.
No buffet of wind moved the yellowed curtains which were trying with a last dash of dignity to keep away the light of the beginning day from the sleeping, hiding with decade’s long constancy the view to the sulky grey of the surrounding chimneys.
Steel City’s Golden Age was a thing of the past. The glorious years of vertiginous economic miracle of the beginning of the 20th century were long gone.
Long forgotten the high society’s jamborees, forgotten the times where working men came in droves from all over the country and the rest of the world to the flourishing steel metropolis looking for their luck at the blast furnaces and hot rolling.
The world was at their feet, the power of the heavy industry running to the rearmost corners of the town. One was proud; one appertained to it, being a small cog in the wheel of a city that in a few years had turned to be the biggest steel producer in the States.
The impact with reality came hard and unexpected. And it stroke the working men and employees in the same measure as the supposedly unaware bosses of the big concerns who had been playing with billion dollar profits over many years, had speculated - and lost.
Within a few years after the steel crisis that city had been doomed. Who could afford it left the Rusty Belt seeking fortune in more friendly realms.
Steel City was a dying town. Decay and downfall stank from every corner of suburbia where violence and aggressions were order of the day and hopelessness the daily comrade. The discouraged ones, the ones without perspectives were those who endured hoping for a change to better - knowing well enough that that would not occur.
As Ennis del Mar crept out of his bed this morning scuffing to the community showers in the hallway, holding his breath to avoid the pungent stink of piss and puke, it was a day like any other.
The huge chimneys in the suburb Rust Town where he lived peaked out into the misty morning sky like dunning remains of a long gone era, puffing menacing clouds of soot in the air that settled on the houses and front lawns as fine grey glimmer, drowning all colours and covering life with a dusty layer.
The oppressing heat lay heavy over the people’s moods and as Ennis del Mar scurried back to his shabby apartment over the laundry after a quick shower and the pleasure of the last little hot water, his body was yet covered with a light layer of sweat again that would stick on him for the rest of the day.
His shabby clear blue pick up that had seen better times as everything here in town, brought him this morning, too, coughing and stuttering to the post office which he entered without greeting.
The AC had capitulated in front of an increased demand of cooling air and had collapsed.
You could cut the air with a knife in that old red building. It stank of sweat, bad breath and paper dust of thousands of letters and parcels waiting to be delivered.
Ennis passed wordless by his colleagues not deigning to look at him, took his bag with the already sorted letters and packets and was going to leave the building again, as the foreman called him.
“Del Mar! In my office! “
Ennis stopped aghast and nearly had dropped his cigarette that was hanging loosely from one corner of his mouth. He wasn’t used to somebody speaking to him dragging him from his isolation. It didn’t suit him and he felt his colleagues’ glances on his neck like needle picks as he turned around hesitantly and walked with hanging shoulders and scuffling steps over to the smoke filled office of his boss, Joe Aguirre.
The fat man with flabby cheeks and piggy eyes was already waiting for him. His face was streaked with little red burst blood vessels and his sweated shirt tensed over his potbelly. Sweat drops like beads on his forehead as he watched Ennis dyspneically. Frowning and reluctantly he pointed him to take a seat.
Ennis stood.
Impassive, Aguirre looked on the desk before him without deigning to look at Ennis.
“Del Mar, a colleague from district 8 called in sick today for an undetermined time,” he said with a squeaky voice that wouldn’t match his plump appearance. “District 8 is near yours. You take over. I want a decent job. No loitering, no lost deliveries. Just you and the mail, got it?”
The instructions sounded non committal but Ennis knew the boss. One wrong turn and he would leave the imprint of his cowboy boots in the ass of the unreliable with zest and pleasure, hauling him without comments into social offside. No need to worry about supply of manpower - the desperate applicants were lining up.
Aguirre looked up bored as Ennis still stood in the door.
“What’s up? Waiting for better wheather? Get your ass out of here and off to work.”
The words left his rubbery mouth lazily, but the tiny eyes spread a cold that could compete with any AC.
Ennis mumbled something unintelligible, drew his head between his shoulders and went to the packing tables. Quietly he added the bags of district 8 to his and started on his way.
Desultorily it came to his mind that the cycle of monotonous routine had been unexpectedly interrupted that day.
+ + +
As Jack Twist woke up that day the sun was up high in the sky. Again his evening medicine cocktail had intervened with the whiskey bottle and had bestowed him yet a dreamless night, but also a morning that began more painful than normal mornings - if there was anything Jack Twist could call normal since that devastating winter night in January five years ago.
He opened his clotty eyes tediously. His breath came jerkily as the fading waves of pain penetrated his foggy senses and his world flooded brutally back to him. He lay still on the hard mattress on the ground listening to his irregular heartbeat and trying to resist his body’s agony.
He looked at the watch near him on the floor. It was far after noon. He frowned and rolled to his side his face distorted with pain.
Did he sleep so deep that he had overheard him? He usually arrived early midmorning. He knew that Jack was waiting for it…
Anxiety crept up in him and cursing under his breath he got himself in an upright position. Breathing heavily he caught air and comforted himself for the worse act of every single day - to get up. He angled trembling for the crutches that leaned handy against the wall, carried his weight with his ok leg and put off the burden from the one causing pain to his body as a useless member for five years, urging him into a disability to move, that drove him over the edge and nearly made him crazy.
When he finally stood his body was bathed in sweat and the sharp pain in his body nearly made him stagger. Gritting his teeth he fought his way from the bedroom through the dark hallway to the kitchen. Breathing heavily he stood, opened the faucet and put his heated head under the cold spurt.
He didn’t bother to dry afterwards. He long ago had stopped to burden his life with more manoeuvres than absolutely necessary, and he showed an indifference to himself and his surroundings that evoked a dull other-worldliness in him.
He lived in his cocoon of pain and sleep, drugs and apathy, and the days where he had looked forward to his future buoyant and confident had ended that night five years ago on a cold, deserted street in Lightning Flat, Wyoming as the baseball bat had smashed his right pelvis bone cracking and crunching.
Since then he had lost himself and cloistered from the world. His contact with outside ran over the internet in his apartment and the man that had delivered the mail for four years, and whom he was awaiting this morning with growing nervousness.
A glance on his drug arsenal showed him that terrible hours would lie ahead of him if he didn’t get today what he needed so desperately - painkillers.
With trembling hands he filled a glass of water, squeezed a last oval pill out of the tray, choked it down, stumbled with unsteady legs to his shaggy sofa, settled moaning and did what he painfully had learned over the last years.
He waited.
+ + +
When the doorbell rang he startled from a restless doze that had thrown him into a world between dream and the reality he wanted to escape. That he couldn’t bear.
A world where the past asked to be heard and memories swept through his brain like a rivulet in spring. A world of days long gone. Lost and repressed - but never forgotten.
The buzzing sound of the bell was a welcomed interruption from the pull of bittersweet aftertaste. He stood up, groaning hobbled to the door on his crutches and pressed the buzzer. When he heard the cranking sound of the entrance door opening he called into the dark hallway.
“Hey, Teddy. You’re late today. Thought you ditched me.“
Instead of an answer Jack only heard scuffling steps and unintelligible mumbling. He drew his breath sharply and his neck hair rose.
“Teddy, is that you?” he asked and hated himself for the unmistakeable tremble in his voice.
Again no answer, and panic crawled up his neck as thousands of scuttling ants. It was difficult to breathe and he took a step back carefully, on the point of closing the door when a slender, tall man turned around the corner of the hallway stepping into the ray of light that shone from his apartment.
His uniform classified him as a post office employee, but it wasn’t Teddy standing in front of him, with lowered head mumbling “Mornin’,” handing him the mail he had been waiting for.
“Moning’s long gone,” Jack mumbled, still startled. „Where’s Teddy?“
„Don’t know no Teddy“, the blond man muttered brusquely and turned round to walk off.
“Teddy .. Ted Miller. The one that brings my mail every day,“ said Jack hastily. He was used to talking some with the person who brought him a piece of the world outside to his hideaway. It was a habit he couldn’t give up - didn’t want to give up. He had nothing else, and only the endless silence of himself was waiting for him after this.
“Ill. I’m his stand-in,” the man said, stopped and turned around. He glanced from under his baseball cap furtively mustering the curious man in front of him.
The man in front of him was slender, nearly thin, as tall as he was. He kept up laboriously, braced upon crutches. He was about his age. Early thirties. His face seemed tired. Dark shadows lay underneath his eyes that glanced on the ground insecure. He had a harmonious face, dark eyebrows and a fine curved mouth. Pale skin tensed over a body that seemed to have been well trained once. Once, when the right leg had been able to carry its weight, he thought absent minded, and a feeling crept in that could have been pity or sympathy if he had known how to name it.
“What’s … what’s wrong with him?” Jack asked who couldn’t bear the quiet any more and Ennis looked up.
Radiant blue eyes looked at him. Radiant blue as the sky over Steel City once might have been, about a hundred years ago when no chimneys clouded the sight stealing all colours.
“Who?” he asked with rough voice.
“Teddy. What’s … wrong with him?”
“Dunno. Not my concern anyway.”
“Uh. Ok. When… when will he be back?”
The blonde man in front of him sighed and Jack sensed unease. “No idea. Don’t know what’s wrong with him, so I can’t say when he’ll be back. Took over his tour.”
Thus he spoke, and turned again to leave.
“Hey, wait… what’s.. what’s your name?” asked Jack and saw the man before him startle briefly.
He turned around reluctantly and Jack looked into the deepest brown eyes he had ever seen in his life.
“Why d’ya wanna know”? the man mumbled and Jack swallowed.
“Well… you.. you know my name, so.. so it’s only fair if I know who brings my mail, don’t you think so?“
Jack saw the other’s mouth twitch.
“Ennis,” he muttered.
Jack frowned. “Your folks just stop at Ennis?”
“del Mar.”
Both man looked at each other.
“Nice to know you Ennis del Mar,” Jack said and stood in the door until the lean lanky figure had disappeared behind the corner and he heard the entrance door shut close.
The silence had him back.
+ + +
tbc
Rating: PG-13 to NC-17 (Warning: violence !)
Summary: AU_AU. With this story I wanted to dive in the dark side of Brokeback Mountain. I wanted to experiment with fear, uncertainty and doubt. Ennis and Jack meet each other in the modern time.
Dedication: This story is dedicated to my German beta tanzmaeusi, who encouraged me to write this story. I also want to thank judy-blue-cat who helped me to understand the US-postal service and who also helped me to find the most suitable name for the city where this story takes place.
But tizi17 is the one you should thank the most if you like this story because she is the one who translates it. She is incredible and let me say she captures my writing perfectly as far as I can judge... ;-). She's amazing and it's a great joy to work with her. My special thank is dedicated to poppyhoney_67. She's our second native speaker besides Judy who is willing to help us catching the remaining errors. Thank you all !!
Feedback: Please !! It keeps all of us motivated... Even though I haven't replied to most of your comments lately please know that I had read them all !!!
I just couldn't find the time to respond because either I was working till midnight or I fell asleep in front of my computer. I don't know if I ever had a time before in my life that was more stressful and chaotic... So please accept my apologies !!
* * *
Prologue: http://mel0804.livejournal.com/37179.html
1 Steel City
It is the night that creates oneness where opposites fight, that builds bridges and unifies the insurmountable.
On the cusp of darkness differences blur, the face of the world mantles its true self, bestowing a dash of adventure to the decay and an imagination of healing to the sick.
In the black of the night shadows come to life. Destroying and destructive, willing to resort to violence and ruinous, the beasts are unleashed in the cover of the darkness, the weak teaching fear and the rich hatred. Unrecognised and unnoticed they cause a stir, play fate and change the course of lives.
It is the beginning of the morning that lifts the veil of the night bringing the unbridled to reason. Its tender life giving rays of the sun that touch the cusps of doom with velvet fingers to expose life in its hideous bareness.
The warm light of the sun draws the cleavage of humanity, builds walls where there had been bridges and begrudges the victor of the night the triumph of the day.
+ + +
The sticky summer heat of the early morning hours lay like hot metal over Steel City as Ennis del Mar wakened sweating from his nightmare.
No buffet of wind moved the yellowed curtains which were trying with a last dash of dignity to keep away the light of the beginning day from the sleeping, hiding with decade’s long constancy the view to the sulky grey of the surrounding chimneys.
Steel City’s Golden Age was a thing of the past. The glorious years of vertiginous economic miracle of the beginning of the 20th century were long gone.
Long forgotten the high society’s jamborees, forgotten the times where working men came in droves from all over the country and the rest of the world to the flourishing steel metropolis looking for their luck at the blast furnaces and hot rolling.
The world was at their feet, the power of the heavy industry running to the rearmost corners of the town. One was proud; one appertained to it, being a small cog in the wheel of a city that in a few years had turned to be the biggest steel producer in the States.
The impact with reality came hard and unexpected. And it stroke the working men and employees in the same measure as the supposedly unaware bosses of the big concerns who had been playing with billion dollar profits over many years, had speculated - and lost.
Within a few years after the steel crisis that city had been doomed. Who could afford it left the Rusty Belt seeking fortune in more friendly realms.
Steel City was a dying town. Decay and downfall stank from every corner of suburbia where violence and aggressions were order of the day and hopelessness the daily comrade. The discouraged ones, the ones without perspectives were those who endured hoping for a change to better - knowing well enough that that would not occur.
As Ennis del Mar crept out of his bed this morning scuffing to the community showers in the hallway, holding his breath to avoid the pungent stink of piss and puke, it was a day like any other.
The huge chimneys in the suburb Rust Town where he lived peaked out into the misty morning sky like dunning remains of a long gone era, puffing menacing clouds of soot in the air that settled on the houses and front lawns as fine grey glimmer, drowning all colours and covering life with a dusty layer.
The oppressing heat lay heavy over the people’s moods and as Ennis del Mar scurried back to his shabby apartment over the laundry after a quick shower and the pleasure of the last little hot water, his body was yet covered with a light layer of sweat again that would stick on him for the rest of the day.
His shabby clear blue pick up that had seen better times as everything here in town, brought him this morning, too, coughing and stuttering to the post office which he entered without greeting.
The AC had capitulated in front of an increased demand of cooling air and had collapsed.
You could cut the air with a knife in that old red building. It stank of sweat, bad breath and paper dust of thousands of letters and parcels waiting to be delivered.
Ennis passed wordless by his colleagues not deigning to look at him, took his bag with the already sorted letters and packets and was going to leave the building again, as the foreman called him.
“Del Mar! In my office! “
Ennis stopped aghast and nearly had dropped his cigarette that was hanging loosely from one corner of his mouth. He wasn’t used to somebody speaking to him dragging him from his isolation. It didn’t suit him and he felt his colleagues’ glances on his neck like needle picks as he turned around hesitantly and walked with hanging shoulders and scuffling steps over to the smoke filled office of his boss, Joe Aguirre.
The fat man with flabby cheeks and piggy eyes was already waiting for him. His face was streaked with little red burst blood vessels and his sweated shirt tensed over his potbelly. Sweat drops like beads on his forehead as he watched Ennis dyspneically. Frowning and reluctantly he pointed him to take a seat.
Ennis stood.
Impassive, Aguirre looked on the desk before him without deigning to look at Ennis.
“Del Mar, a colleague from district 8 called in sick today for an undetermined time,” he said with a squeaky voice that wouldn’t match his plump appearance. “District 8 is near yours. You take over. I want a decent job. No loitering, no lost deliveries. Just you and the mail, got it?”
The instructions sounded non committal but Ennis knew the boss. One wrong turn and he would leave the imprint of his cowboy boots in the ass of the unreliable with zest and pleasure, hauling him without comments into social offside. No need to worry about supply of manpower - the desperate applicants were lining up.
Aguirre looked up bored as Ennis still stood in the door.
“What’s up? Waiting for better wheather? Get your ass out of here and off to work.”
The words left his rubbery mouth lazily, but the tiny eyes spread a cold that could compete with any AC.
Ennis mumbled something unintelligible, drew his head between his shoulders and went to the packing tables. Quietly he added the bags of district 8 to his and started on his way.
Desultorily it came to his mind that the cycle of monotonous routine had been unexpectedly interrupted that day.
+ + +
As Jack Twist woke up that day the sun was up high in the sky. Again his evening medicine cocktail had intervened with the whiskey bottle and had bestowed him yet a dreamless night, but also a morning that began more painful than normal mornings - if there was anything Jack Twist could call normal since that devastating winter night in January five years ago.
He opened his clotty eyes tediously. His breath came jerkily as the fading waves of pain penetrated his foggy senses and his world flooded brutally back to him. He lay still on the hard mattress on the ground listening to his irregular heartbeat and trying to resist his body’s agony.
He looked at the watch near him on the floor. It was far after noon. He frowned and rolled to his side his face distorted with pain.
Did he sleep so deep that he had overheard him? He usually arrived early midmorning. He knew that Jack was waiting for it…
Anxiety crept up in him and cursing under his breath he got himself in an upright position. Breathing heavily he caught air and comforted himself for the worse act of every single day - to get up. He angled trembling for the crutches that leaned handy against the wall, carried his weight with his ok leg and put off the burden from the one causing pain to his body as a useless member for five years, urging him into a disability to move, that drove him over the edge and nearly made him crazy.
When he finally stood his body was bathed in sweat and the sharp pain in his body nearly made him stagger. Gritting his teeth he fought his way from the bedroom through the dark hallway to the kitchen. Breathing heavily he stood, opened the faucet and put his heated head under the cold spurt.
He didn’t bother to dry afterwards. He long ago had stopped to burden his life with more manoeuvres than absolutely necessary, and he showed an indifference to himself and his surroundings that evoked a dull other-worldliness in him.
He lived in his cocoon of pain and sleep, drugs and apathy, and the days where he had looked forward to his future buoyant and confident had ended that night five years ago on a cold, deserted street in Lightning Flat, Wyoming as the baseball bat had smashed his right pelvis bone cracking and crunching.
Since then he had lost himself and cloistered from the world. His contact with outside ran over the internet in his apartment and the man that had delivered the mail for four years, and whom he was awaiting this morning with growing nervousness.
A glance on his drug arsenal showed him that terrible hours would lie ahead of him if he didn’t get today what he needed so desperately - painkillers.
With trembling hands he filled a glass of water, squeezed a last oval pill out of the tray, choked it down, stumbled with unsteady legs to his shaggy sofa, settled moaning and did what he painfully had learned over the last years.
He waited.
+ + +
When the doorbell rang he startled from a restless doze that had thrown him into a world between dream and the reality he wanted to escape. That he couldn’t bear.
A world where the past asked to be heard and memories swept through his brain like a rivulet in spring. A world of days long gone. Lost and repressed - but never forgotten.
The buzzing sound of the bell was a welcomed interruption from the pull of bittersweet aftertaste. He stood up, groaning hobbled to the door on his crutches and pressed the buzzer. When he heard the cranking sound of the entrance door opening he called into the dark hallway.
“Hey, Teddy. You’re late today. Thought you ditched me.“
Instead of an answer Jack only heard scuffling steps and unintelligible mumbling. He drew his breath sharply and his neck hair rose.
“Teddy, is that you?” he asked and hated himself for the unmistakeable tremble in his voice.
Again no answer, and panic crawled up his neck as thousands of scuttling ants. It was difficult to breathe and he took a step back carefully, on the point of closing the door when a slender, tall man turned around the corner of the hallway stepping into the ray of light that shone from his apartment.
His uniform classified him as a post office employee, but it wasn’t Teddy standing in front of him, with lowered head mumbling “Mornin’,” handing him the mail he had been waiting for.
“Moning’s long gone,” Jack mumbled, still startled. „Where’s Teddy?“
„Don’t know no Teddy“, the blond man muttered brusquely and turned round to walk off.
“Teddy .. Ted Miller. The one that brings my mail every day,“ said Jack hastily. He was used to talking some with the person who brought him a piece of the world outside to his hideaway. It was a habit he couldn’t give up - didn’t want to give up. He had nothing else, and only the endless silence of himself was waiting for him after this.
“Ill. I’m his stand-in,” the man said, stopped and turned around. He glanced from under his baseball cap furtively mustering the curious man in front of him.
The man in front of him was slender, nearly thin, as tall as he was. He kept up laboriously, braced upon crutches. He was about his age. Early thirties. His face seemed tired. Dark shadows lay underneath his eyes that glanced on the ground insecure. He had a harmonious face, dark eyebrows and a fine curved mouth. Pale skin tensed over a body that seemed to have been well trained once. Once, when the right leg had been able to carry its weight, he thought absent minded, and a feeling crept in that could have been pity or sympathy if he had known how to name it.
“What’s … what’s wrong with him?” Jack asked who couldn’t bear the quiet any more and Ennis looked up.
Radiant blue eyes looked at him. Radiant blue as the sky over Steel City once might have been, about a hundred years ago when no chimneys clouded the sight stealing all colours.
“Who?” he asked with rough voice.
“Teddy. What’s … wrong with him?”
“Dunno. Not my concern anyway.”
“Uh. Ok. When… when will he be back?”
The blonde man in front of him sighed and Jack sensed unease. “No idea. Don’t know what’s wrong with him, so I can’t say when he’ll be back. Took over his tour.”
Thus he spoke, and turned again to leave.
“Hey, wait… what’s.. what’s your name?” asked Jack and saw the man before him startle briefly.
He turned around reluctantly and Jack looked into the deepest brown eyes he had ever seen in his life.
“Why d’ya wanna know”? the man mumbled and Jack swallowed.
“Well… you.. you know my name, so.. so it’s only fair if I know who brings my mail, don’t you think so?“
Jack saw the other’s mouth twitch.
“Ennis,” he muttered.
Jack frowned. “Your folks just stop at Ennis?”
“del Mar.”
Both man looked at each other.
“Nice to know you Ennis del Mar,” Jack said and stood in the door until the lean lanky figure had disappeared behind the corner and he heard the entrance door shut close.
The silence had him back.
+ + +
tbc