Gunslinger School
More Dark Tower fic. This was a WIP I had all summer and I finally managed to get finished this week. As in all things, I blame jou for the creation of this fic and everything that came of it. LOVE YOU DEAR!
Title: Gunslinger School
Related Work: The Dark Tower (end of Book II/beginning of Book III)
Rating: NC-17.
Characters/Pairing: Roland Deschain, Eddie Dean, Susannah Dean; Roland/Eddie, Eddie/Susannah; references to Roland/Cuthbert.
Summary: Roland sets about teaching the Deans how to be gunslingers and discovers he's in need of some teaching himself.
Notes: 19 pages (ha!); 9,538 words.
Once, before his world had erupted in flames and chaos, Roland had known a man-a boy really, they'd both been boys, even though circumstances had made them old beyond their years-by the name of Cuthbert Allgood. His father had called Cuthbert "that barking dog"; Roland's nickname for him had been "Bert." Both Roland and his father had sometimes thought of Cuthbert as Roland's ka-mai, ka's fool, mainly for his inability to be serious in almost any situation.
Cuthbert was worlds and worlds away now, he and Alain both distant ghosts that followed Roland over the long years of his strange life as surely as the image of Susan at her window had followed him. But the wheel of ka kept turning, and now that one of its many spokes had brought Roland another ka-mai, Roland was not fool enough to think that the many similarities between Eddie Dean and Cuthbert Allgood were mere coincidence.
And there were many similarities. First and most obvious was Eddie's apparent need to crack a joke whenever an opportunity presented itself, and never mind if Roland had any idea what he was talking about. Eddie mocked constantly and without fail, and what made it mostly bearable was that very little of it was mean-spirited. But the cards had played out in more physical ways, too. Eddie's eyes, hazel normally, lightening to a sweet green in the right light or when he was not paying attention, were very like Cuthbert's. His unruly dark hair, as black a crow's wing, blacker still against his white skin-this was like Bert's as well, and before much more time passed Eddie's hair was apt to become as long or longer than Cuthbert's had been.
And like Cuthbert, Eddie was a born gunslinger. Unlike Cuthbert, he was Roland's to teach.
Only teaching wasn't really what was on Roland's mind at the moment, although it was ostensibly what he was doing. No, what Roland was thinking about was how Eddie Dean smelled.
Roland let out a breath, narrowing his eyes down the length of Eddie's arm, the hand at the end holding Roland's big sandalwood revolver steady as Eddie sighted one of the rocks Roland had set up for shooting practice. The gunslinger stood just behind his 'prentice, listening to the nervousness dancing off Eddie's skin like little jolts of static electricity, feeling all the weight of Eddie's mind and spirit being drawn to a point somewhere inside his head. Somehow Roland had gone from merely correcting Eddie's stance, hands on Eddie's hips, to being flush against his apprentice from behind, one long arm tracing the outside curve of Eddie's, the ruins of his right hand gently guiding Eddie's whole one. And strongest of all these sensations was the soft, slightly musky scent of Eddie's skin, so easy to smell here from right next to his neck. Like Bert's scent (how could he remember after all these years was a mystery, but remember it he did, and very well), but also very different, Eddie had his own unique smell, a little like earth and a little like sky and a little like the strange New York from which he came.
"Speak after me, gunslinger." Roland's voice was dry, his eyes and arm perfectly steady. Eddie shivered at the warmth on his neck and ear, all thoughts of jokes a million miles away, and cleared his throat.
"I do not aim with my hand. He who aims..."
"..who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father," Eddie repeated, and Roland noted with approval the way the wiry energy in Eddie's frame seemed to wind down, twisting inward on itself, tightening and flattening like a snake readying to strike. "I aim with my eye."
"Good," murmured Roland, his eyes narrowing to slits. "I do not shoot with my hand. He who shoots with his hand..."
"...has forgotten the face of his father." Now Eddie's voice was growing stronger, taking strength from the ancient catechism. The spot where Roland's hand touched the bare skin of Eddie's hip seemed to burn with preternatural heat, and Roland could feel an answering heat pooling in his own belly, tightening his guts and hardening his cock. "I shoot with my mind." Roland shut his eyes altogether now, Eddie's spine pressed firmly against the gunslinger's chest, and with a satisfaction that bore no trace of surprise whatsoever, Roland felt the steady rhythms of their heartbeats sync into one even pulse, drawn together by a power older and greater than both of them.
"I do not kill with my gun," Roland whispered, Eddie's voice starting a half-second after him instead of waiting for Roland to finish. Their voices merged as one for the final line of the catechism. "He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father." Eddie's hand was Roland's hand, Eddie's prickly vitality calling to him in a voice without words, the hypnotism falling over both of them as it had over thousands before them. "I kill with my heart."
Click! Click-click-click-click! The gun dry-fired in Eddie's hand, shot after shot, Eddie Dean's hand moving with white-hot precision before stilling, and the moment of truth stretched out endlessly before snapping elastically back to reality. Roland let out his breath, breaking from the trance with reluctance.
"It is very good, Eddie," he said quietly, stepping back from his 'prentice with a show of not-inconsiderable self-control. "You hit every one."
Eddie's entire body seemed to sag for one invisible moment, turning around to face Roland with an expression of disappointment he did not succeed in hiding as quickly as he tried to. "Uh, no I didn't," he said, popping an eyebrow into place as his familiar cock-tease of a smile appeared. " 'Cause we weren't using any bullets, Roland my man. Just in case you forgot."
Roland didn't say anything. He didn't have to. He simply stood there, watching his gunslinger-in-training, and after a second Eddie's smile faltered, spots of red appearing in his face and neck. "You did well, Eddie," Roland said finally, more sternly this time.
"Thanks, Roland." Eddie smiled again, chided and yet pleased with himself, and reached out the hand with Roland's gun, butt-first. Roland accepted it and slipped it easily into the holster slung low on his left hip.
"Time to head back, I think," Roland said, surveying the sky. Now that the lesson was over, he could see how far along the sun had moved past its zenith. He nodded at Eddie, glancing once more around the clearing to satisfy himself that nothing remained for them to deal with, and turned to go.
"Uh, Roland..." The unexpected awkwardness in Eddie's voice from behind him gave Roland pause, and he turned back, looking at his 'prentice questioningly.
"Yes, Eddie?" Eddie stood there, arms crossed over his chest, flushed in the face as though he'd just run a marathon, and gave no answer. It looked as though he were struggling with something, and with a rush of understanding and gratitude Roland realized that perhaps he was not the only one to feel the unspoken heat that had passed between him and Eddie during their lesson.
Roland waited, but in the end, nothing came. Eddie opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again, sighed, and merely said, "Never mind. Let's go, Suze is gonna think we fell in a hole and died." Roland nodded, and this time when he set off, Eddie followed him.
And that was the crux of it, Roland thought. His nature was not given to bitterness or petty laboring over what could not be; it merely looked at what was, acknowledged it, and worked from there. And the truth of their situation was that the third of their ka-tet awaited them at camp, their dark-skinned Lady of Shadows who, though she shared the name of Roland's long-lost love, was 100% in love with Eddie Dean, and he with her. Susannah Dean, formerly both Odetta Holmes and Detta Walker, was Eddie's wife. And Eddie might share more than a passing resemblance to a ghost from Roland's past, but that did not mean he was to inherit what had passed between Roland and Cuthbert. What's more, Susannah was every inch the gunslinger Eddie was shaping up to be, and without her Roland and Eddie would both have been lost, their quest for the Tower over before it began.
So Roland would teach. He had been the last gunslinger; now he was one of three, and it fell to him to instruct his two 'prentices in everything they needed to know, and that was that.
Mine to teach, Roland mused. Mine to teach, mine to love, and mine to damn.
* * * * * *
"I think old long tall and ugly has something on his mind," Eddie said.
Susannah looked up, casting a curious glance at her husband from where she sat in her wheelchair. "What are you on about, Eddie?"
Eddie shrugged, an uneasy up-down movement that did nothing to hide the tension riding his shoulders. He still hadn't figured out how to explain to Suze that he was pretty sure Roland wanted to fuck him. He had no desire to upset the sweet balance their ka-tet had found. Roland regained more of his strength every day, and maybe he wasn't running at full 100% yet, but even the 80% he was functioning at right now was pretty impressive by Eddie's standards. And Eddie and Susannah learned more about being gunslingers every day, not to mention more about their place in the so-called wheel of ka that was rolling steadily towards its ultimate conclusion. Most important of all, the three of them were content. Happy, even. They'd have to move on eventually, but the slow roll of summer days was very pleasant, and Eddie didn't want to rock the boat.
Suze was still staring at him, though, a shrewd expression on her beautiful face that Eddie wasn't entirely comfortable with. Susannah Dean she was now and God love her-Eddie certainly did-but Detta Walker was still in there somewhere. "Since when do you have nothing to say about Roland?" Susannah asked, exactly as though she already knew the answer. Eddie (who was no more capable of lying convincingly to his wife than he was of sprouting wings and flying them both home to New York) dropped his eyes to the piece of hide stretched between their four hands, carefully binding one corner down with a piece of rawhide.
"He try to put the moves on you?" Eddie managed to keep from jerking his head up from shock, but it was a near thing. Dammit, how did she do that? Suze might as well be a mind-reader. "He did, didn't he?"
"Yeah," Eddie admitted after a minute of internal debate. "Only... not really? More, he was acting like he wanted to, but wouldn't let himself." Eddie looked up in time to see Susannah nodding thoughtfully, a conspicuous lack of anger on her face. "You're not mad?"
"Mad? Hell naw." Susannah laughed at the way Eddie's mouth promptly fell open, exactly like a Nutcracker doll awaiting its prize of a walnut to crush between its capable jaws. "I mean, I guess I'm sorta jealous, baby, but he didn't actually do anything-right?-'cause that's not like him, 'cause we're married, right. Besides. What's he gon' do? Elope with you?"
"I'll have you know I'd look fucking excellent in a white dress," Eddie interjected solemnly, unable to repress his grin as Suze swatted him and laughed.
"You just better watch it, white boy. Anyway... my only question is how you felt about it."
Eddie felt himself tighten up again, his stomach flip-flopping dangerously like the Olympic figure-skating he'd seen once on TV, before Henry had declared it "gay" and moved on to something more interesting. That was the exact question he'd been hoping Suze would skip asking. But instead of waiting for his response, she just continued onward without even a pause, her voice a study in casual. " 'Cause I was just thinking, if you were both amenable, I'd have to say that man could use to have something on his mind that wasn't the Tower or his mission. Somethin' a little more human, to remind him what it's like. Make him forget all that bein' alone. Probably do him some good. If you were both amenable, anyway."
Susannah stopped, looking over at her husband's newly agape expression with a grin of her own. Eddie struck dumb twice in five minutes was a real achievement by anyone's standards. "Sugar, you just better shut that mouth 'fore you start catchin' flies," she said, and laughed as Eddie started to sputter.
"Did you just-Susannah you didn't really just say that you thought I should-"
"I didn't say you should do nothin'," Suze said firmly, cutting off the rest of Eddie's blathering. "Nothin' is as nothin' does. I was just saying that the man might've broke something along the way out there in the desert, and if someone wanted to help him fix it a little, well... couldn't hurt." Silence greeted this announcement, filled with the warm yellow sunlight filtering in through tree branches and the faint noises of bird song. Eddie found he didn't really know how to react to that, but apparently his reaction wasn't immediately needed. Something small and warm crept into his palm, and Eddie glanced down to see Susannah's brown fingers intertwining his own. He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back.
"Well slap my ass and call me Shirley," Eddie said finally.
"I knew you was kinky, cracker, but that's a bit much," Susannah observed, and their mingled laughter cut off a few seconds later when Eddie's mouth found hers, the hide they were supposed to be curing temporarily forgotten. Roland heard the sounds of their love-making from where he was bathing himself in the stream, and cast his eyes downward with a very small smile. Looks like he wasn't needed back at camp just quite yet.
* * * * *
"Eddie Dean. Stop day-dreaming and pay attention, for your father's sake."
Eddie snapped his head guiltily around, half-expecting to be sent reeling into the soft grass by a blow upside the head, but none came. Despite the stories Roland told them about Cort punishing his young gunslinger 'prentices for their mistakes, Roland had never resorted to physical blows when Eddie and Susannah were smart-asses.
Right now Roland was giving him one hell of a glare, however. Eddie had thought Roland looked like an escapee from a Sergio Leone movie upon first glance, but time had relieved him of that mistaken impression; Roland was far more dangerous and capable than any Western movie hero could ever hope to imitate.
"Sorry, Roland," Eddie said automatically. Roland frowned, but when Eddie failed to give any explanation, he merely nodded and continued where he'd left off, mid-lecture about tracking game, something Eddie would normally find very interesting (to his surprise). This time, as before, Eddie did his best to pay attention, but he kept finding himself listening to the sound of Roland's voice instead of what he was actually saying-kept finding himself staring at the gunslinger's face, at his jaw, at the faded blue of his eyes. Now that he and Susannah had spoken (however indirectly) about Roland's behaviour, Eddie couldn't keep his mind off it. Was he imagining things? If so, what the hell was wrong with him? And it was all well and good for Susannah to so cavalierly suggest that Eddie make the plunge and engage in some gunslinger-on-gunslinger action, but Eddie had never so much as entertained the thought of kissing another man before, much less doing anything more serious. In fact-
"EDDIE!" This time Roland really did grab him, taking him by the shoulders and shaking him in frustration, and Eddie realized belatedly that Roland had been saying his name and getting no response.
"Stoppit, STOPPIT, JEEZ! I'm here, I'm here!" Eddie managed to bat Roland's hands away, feeling heat creep up his neck as he took a step back. Roland was staring at him with full-on suspicion now, and Eddie was normally good at keeping up a steady line of bullshit and bluff, but Roland had the uncanny ability to see right through him at the worst possible times. Like now.
"What ails you, Eddie?" Roland crossed his arms, staring at his wayward 'prentice. "Your mind isn't with me today. Even your jokes are absent. If there's something on your mind, I would hear it."
"There's nothing to talk about, Roland, I'm just out of it." It was only a half-lie, at least. There was something to talk about, but if Eddie couldn't even start this conversation with Susannah, there was no hope of doing so with Roland. And somehow he doubted Roland would be the one to go there first.
Roland's expression changed only a little, but that slight darkening was all Eddie needed to know he was in deep shit. "Eddie. A man's thoughts are his own, and I will not force you to share them with me, but if you cannot keep your mind on your lessons, we should call an early end today. Perhaps Susannah will be more willing to focus." The deep disapproval in Roland's voice stung worse than any name-calling, and as was so often the case when he was under pressure, Eddie's brain reacted by going in the completely opposite direction.
"Was Cuthbert your lover as well as your friend, Roland?"
Roland stared, his ire of moments ago temporarily forgotten. "What sort of question is this?" he asked, disbelief and fresh anger clouding his voice now. "Do you want to avoid your lesson so badly?" Bingo, Eddie thought, seizing the sudden tangent and running with it.
"Was he? Because you called me 'Cuthbert' a lot when you were out of it, pal." Eddie paused, not sure how much further he was willing to push in that direction, but Roland's sudden turn away from him showed him he didn't need to.
"All of that was a long time ago, I don't understand why you would bring up such a thing right now-"
"Bullshit," Eddie exclaimed, stepping forward after Roland before the gunslinger could stalk out of the clearing in a rare display of anger, grabbing his teacher by the shoulder. Roland whirled with such force that Eddie was sent sprawling, the side of his face blooming with sudden heat and pain where the back of Roland's open hand had hit him. Eddie landed flat on his back, coughing weakly, tree branches spinning at the edges of his vision.
"Eddie!" Two Rolands loomed over him suddenly out of the blue sky, whirling outrageously in Eddie's swimming vision, and Eddie shut his eyes with a groan as both Rolands knelt by him. When he opened his eyes again, only one Roland was there, still leaning anxiously over him. "Eddie, I cry your pardon. I did not intend to strike you."
"You got a mean right hook, Roland," came Eddie's groggy response. Then, before he could consider it further, he added, "I think that earned me an answer to my question, by the way."
Roland gave him a glare that might've wilted every last bit of greenery in the clearing had it been directed anywhere else, relented almost immediately, and finally sighed. "Yes," he said reluctantly. "He was. Sometimes."
Eddie nodded carefully, trying not to wince at the fresh spasms of pain it sent through his head. "Thought so," he said. "Don't let it get to you, Roland, lots of cowboys get a craving for-"
Eddie's next words were cut off and his world set spinning afresh by the sudden press of Roland's mouth against his, the gunslinger's diminished right hand cupping Eddie's cheek as the latent electricity between them crackled suddenly to life. Eddie hardly got the chance to register this before Roland jerked back just as suddenly, face flushed and dark with deep distress. "I cry your pardon, Eddie," Roland whispered, eyes wide.
"You are a goddamn asshole, Roland," Eddie snapped, and yanked Roland down again by the front of his shirt, their mouths crashing together as hard as Roland just clocked Eddie in the head. Eddie was still dizzy, but with it enough to snake an arm around Roland's neck in time to prevent him from trying to pull away again, and after a second or two in which they weren't kissing so much as knocking teeth, Roland relented, lips working against Eddie's, all thoughts of their lesson completely swept away. Roland fisted his hand in Eddie's dark shock of hair, pulling his head back slightly, and Eddie gasped as Roland ripped himself away from Eddie's mouth, his coarse, whiskery kisses moving down to Eddie's newly exposed neck, fastening to the sweet little spot down and slightly aside Eddie's earlobe, there to suck at sensitive skin while Eddie twitched and moaned under him.
"Eddie, I'm not sure this is a good idea," Roland whispered, and Eddie was shocked to hear how hoarse the gunslinger had gone, like he'd just eaten an entire pack of Marlboros. Roland's mouth drew down along Eddie's jaw, licking the sweat from his 'prentice's skin with a relish that gave the lie to what he'd just said.
"Shut the fuck up and keep going, or so help me God I will-I will-" Eddie never got to finish his threat, cut off with a gasp as Roland sank teeth into his sensitive neck, prompting another low, shocked moan from Eddie. Eddie, for his part, still wasn't sure going from Point A to Point B was his best idea, but the heat in his gut was moving him in the right direction, and he slid his free hand along Roland's arm, clutching at the muscles coiled underneath skin and the animal-hide sleeve. His head had stopped spinning and was starting to throb instead, but the ache was a distant second to the sudden electric awareness of Roland's body over his. Roland stopped for a second, his face pressed to Eddie's neck, and Eddie could feel the heat of his breath gusting over his prickling skin, and even as Eddie opened his mouth to say something, God only knew what, he realized suddenly that Roland was thinking of Susannah at this moment. And of Cuthbert.
If he'd paused to question how he knew this, Eddie probably would've been distracted from his intent altogether. But the same innate quality that made him a gunslinger made him speak up first, cutting that indecision off at the pass.
"No, no you don't," Eddie whispered, putting both his hands to Roland's face again, coaxing him up till the gunslinger was crouched over him again. "You gotta stay right here with me, okay? Here with me." Eddie kissed Roland firmly, and after a moment Roland responded, reluctantly at first and then more strongly.
Eddie didn't know how long they lay there like that, Roland first crouching over him and then laying on top of him, Roland's mouth pressed to his, one of Eddie's hands tangled in Roland's hair while Roland's hands dug their way in between Eddie's shirt and skin, fingers raking over his back. It felt like ages, but Eddie suspected his normally-keen time sense was temporarily out of whack. Soon he found himself laying side-by-side with Roland, rather than pinned underneath him, and Eddie could feel the hard bulge of Roland's penis rubbing against his thigh through their jeans. That wasn't a shock-hell, that'd been the idea-but Eddie was a little shocked to find he had an answering erection, that Roland's hands sliding greedily over his bare skin made him want to tear the gunslinger's shirt off and do more than lay in the dirt and make out. Christ Almighty, when did I turn into a faggot? Eddie thought, feeling dazed by his own arousal, and the ghost of his brother Henry rose up in the back of his head like a bad smell, jeering at him, calling him every name in the book, and at another time Eddie might've paused, might've stopped and been ashamed of what he was doing, but right now he just wanted Henry to shut the fuck up, already.
Even so, Eddie's hands fumbling with the fastening of Roland's jeans surprised Eddie almost as much as it did Roland, though the only sign Roland gave of his shock was a sharp intake of breath. "Eddie..."
"Shut up, Roland," Eddie hissed, finally managing the last button. And Roland might still have had something else to say, but the next second Eddie's hand slipped into Roland's jeans, wrapping around the thickness of Roland's prick, and the gunslinger twitched hard against Eddie, all words forgotten. Roland was hung, Eddie realized with a kind of drunken leap off his train of thought, the idea simultaneously hilarious, arousing, and terrifying. Got a gun in his jeans to match the ones he carries around on his hips! Eddie squeezed the length in his hand, fascinated by the low moan Roland made in reaction, the gunslinger's slim hips pressing forward against Eddie's palm, and that's when Eddie's nerve failed him. He'd thought to go further, maybe even pondered sucking Roland off, but Roland's swollen cock sliding against his palm was so real and obscene and hot that he couldn't handle much more.
Maybe Roland sensed this-Eddie was already well aware of how well the gunslinger could read him at times-because he brought his diminished hand up to Eddie's face, holding him still so that Roland could kiss him again. Roland's other hand followed Eddie's down to where their hips were tangled, covering Eddie's hand with his own. Eddie understood this for the encouragement it was, and he shut his eyes as their joined hands started to move, stroking Roland's length that twitched eagerly against Eddie's palm.
"Roland?-" Eddie was cut off yet again with a shhh from his teacher as Roland's hand moved yet again, now going to the zipper of Eddie's jeans, and Eddie sucked in a breath as Roland's clever fingers (fumbling only for a moment with the fastening) brought Eddie's erection out, stroking him once, bringing a startled moan from Eddie's mouth.
"Like this," Roland murmured, pressing closer to Eddie and rolling on top of him again so that their cocks bumped and rubbed against each other, each jostle sending a bolt of lust up Eddie's spine from his guts. Again one of those talented hands came down between them, pressing their erections against each other and then wrapping with Eddie's hand around both their swollen lengths. Roland moaned open-mouthed against Eddie's temple as he rocked his hips down against his apprentice, and Eddie gave an answering cry at the sweet friction of their joining.
Eddie (who, after spending over two years as a heroin addict, was still not yet used to having full use of his faculties again) often found that he was incapable of focusing completely during sex. Even with Susannah, the love of his life, his brain kept shooting off in random directions. These were only little distractions-random neural misfirings caused by the swelling and engorgement of all the body's muscles during sexual intercourse, and not worth getting his panties in a knot about-but for Eddie's hyperactive brain they were still occasionally distracting. He had one of those stray thoughts now, shooting in and out of his head like a quickly-falling star. Eddie thought that the idea of he and Roland of Gilead, the universe's last gunslinger, laying on the ground in a clearing at the end of the world, humping in the dirt like a pair of horny teenagers might possibly be the most absurd thing in the history of goddamn existence. Apparently the key to Roland's salvation (and boy, let's talk about presumptuous! Eddie goddamn Dean thinking to lead Roland to salvation, there's a laugh) lay in the heavy thrust of Roland's cock against Eddie's, in the moist heat of Roland's mouth against Eddie's neck, in the sweaty glide of their hands on each others' bodies. But wasn't that what he and Suze had talked about, what Susannah had suggested? And if Roland needed this-this connection, this reminder of his essential humanity, then maybe his apprentices needed it, too...
Roland growled in Eddie's ear, and Eddie lifted his hips, gasping for breath as he felt his climax start to build, heat pooling in his gut, his cock a heavy, urgent ache between his thighs. "Roland-ahgahd Roland, g-gonna come-" Roland cut off Eddie's sputtering with another demanding kiss, driving the back of Eddie's skull against the grassy earth beneath as he pressed down against the younger man. Instead of pulling away (as for some reason Eddie had expected), Roland shoved his hand between them again, wrapping his good hand around Eddie's straining prick, swiping the callused pad of his thumb over the pearly pre-come beading at the slit. Eddie thrashed hard against Roland's hand, bucking thin hips against the gunslinger's steady grip, and then climax hit him, hard and fast, balls drawing up as his muscles spasmed, spilling hot sticky ropes of come over Roland's wrist. Eddie collapsed, borne gently to the ground, still encircled in Roland's arm as his strength abandoned him temporarily. Oh Christ, all over my pants, great, was what was going through Eddie's mind, but when he opened his eyes (when had he closed them?) he was startled by the care he saw in those blue bombardier eyes, and by the hand that was now stroking the hair back from Eddie's face, watching Eddie's reaction. Eddie realized with a jolt that Roland was waiting for him to say something. "Wow," he managed, and had to laugh at how dazed he sounded to his own ears. Roland smiled. It was something he did only rarely, and as always, it lit up his face, taking at least ten years off his age-though God only knew how old Roland actually was, 'cause Eddie sure didn't.
"Here I am, Eddie Dean, as you asked," Roland murmured, still smiling slightly as he reached over for some large fern leaves perhaps a foot from Eddie's head, using them to wipe his hands and wrist and the thigh of Eddie's jeans where some streaks had landed. "Now I think we should start heading back to your wife." The emphasis on the last word was gentle, but there, and it earned Roland something that wanted to be a nasty look but fell short.
"Gettin' a little ahead of yourself, Roland," Eddie said mildly, and reached down to stop Roland zipping himself back up. The gunslinger, Eddie noted with pleasure, was still sporting a hard-on, and the sound Roland made when Eddie grabbed him and squeezed was gratifying. Eddie looked up. Roland's face was impassive, unreadable as ever, but his eyes said that Eddie either better do something with the cock in his hand or shut the fuck up and let Roland put his pants back on. Eddie opted for "do something," acting before his reason and sense of embarrassment could catch up to him, shoving Roland back enough so that Eddie could crouch between his thighs, going down on elbows and knees as he wrapped his hand around the base of Roland's prick, bringing his mouth down to meet it.
"Eddie-" Shit, how the hell did Suze do this? She made it look so easy. Eddie cut off Roland's fuzzy, malformed protests by sticking his tongue out and licking up the bottom of Roland's cock from base to tip, exactly like he'd seen his wife do, letting his eyes half-lid as he listened to Roland suck in air like his lungs were trying to collapse. Well I'm doing something right, Eddie thought in satisfaction. He knew if he stopped what he was doing long enough to really think about it, he'd only succeed in freaking himself out, so his best course of action was full speed ahead, Cap'n.
Roland fell back heavily onto the palms of his hands, and Eddie crawled forward to follow him, bending his head over his dinh's lap and sucking Roland's cock-head into his mouth like a lollipop, the swollen tip pressing against the roof of his mouth. Eddie heard Roland groan, and a second later one of Roland's hand fisted in Eddie's hair, dragging fingers tightly through the thick black mop. "Gods," Roland whispered, and Eddie gagged a little as the gunslinger thrust up, sliding more of his cock between his 'prentice's spread lips. Eddie shut his eyes, the taste of Roland's sex filling his nose and mouth. Roland smelled of leather and denim and tasted a little like old spices and sweat. Eddie exhaled around Roland and tried to open his mouth a little more, then pressed down, lips stretching around the slick shaft of Roland's cock, trying to take as much as he could. I am going to kiss that wife of mine, Eddie thought idiotically, and I am never going to take another blowjob for granted. Roland groaned again, pressing the heel of his hand down on the back of Eddie's neck, gently encouraging him to go further, and Eddie obliged, swallowing around Roland's prick and starting to bob his head as he'd seen Suze do (though she made it seem a lot more effortless than he was managing).
Once he got going, Eddie came to realize vaguely that he didn't mind this so much. He kept his hand on Roland's hip, laying on the ground nestled between the gunslinger's slightly spread thighs, and Roland kept both hands on Eddie's head as his 'prentice sucked him. By now Roland was helping him, rocking his hips gently against Eddie's mouth and backing off whenever Eddie got carried away and choked, tearing up a little, and both men were more than a little surprised at the fact that Eddie didn't ever stop. In fact, Eddie was starting to get hard again when he heard Roland's breathing quicken, the fingers in his hair tightening in warning, and Eddie had a split second where all he could think was if I pull off it is going to hit me right in the face and opted to swallow down, instead. Roland came a second later, gasping his orgasm to the afternoon sky as he spilled down Eddie's throat, hips lifted entirely off the ground as Eddie choked and swallowed as much as he could, a few small drops dribbling down his chin.
"Eddie..." Roland seemed at a loss for words, and Eddie's grin flashed to life as he sat up, kneeling between Roland's legs.
"If you're gonna tell me I shouldn't've done that, don't, okay? Suze and I-Suze and I talked about it." Eddie realized how completely bizarre that sounded mere seconds after it flew out of his mouth, clued in largely by the baffled expression on Roland's face. "Look. I wanted to and I know you did too. So just... it's okay, all right. Christ, I never knew anyone so determined to be a lonely sonofabitch."
Roland's face colored, and he looked away, but not before Eddie saw how much he'd hurt Roland with that throw-away comment. He was only starting to realize how wrong his initial impression of Roland Deschain had been, and he didn't know quite what to do about it. Eddie leaned forward, put his hand on Roland's knee, not willing to let it slide. "Water if God wills it, Roland." Hearing the saying from Eddie's mouth seemed to catch the gunslinger's attention, and the intensity of blue eyes shifted back to Eddie, regarding him with some complicated emotion Eddie couldn't place. Eddie waited, hoping devoutly that Roland couldn't hear the tympani-drum impression his heart was attempting in his throat, and finally the gunslinger nodded, a mere tilting of the head, just a fraction of an inch... but Christ, it was enough.
"Will you permit us to return to camp now, Eddie Dean?" Roland's expression hadn't changed at all, but something about his voice made Eddie pause in the middle of getting up, trying to figure out if he was being mocked. "Or are you going to attempt something else if I get up?" Goddamn, Eddie thought in amazement. Roland of Gilead was making a joke. Stop the fucking presses.
"As I recall, you were the one who socked me in the jaw, Roland my man," Eddie pointed out, and was gratified to see a smile (that rarest of creatures) appear on Roland's weathered face in response. Eddie wanted to know what prize you got if you managed to make the world's oldest, loneliest cowboy smile twice in one hour; surely it had to be some kind of record. "C'mon, Suze is gonna carve me up for dinner if we aren't back soon." Roland rose to his feet, and this time Eddie made no argument as they headed for the path at the edge of the clearing.
* * * * * * *
Roland of Gilead was not a man given overmuch to contemplation or introspection. Susannah Dean had realized this perhaps 2 days after Roland came into her life, and in a weird way it was one of the things she'd come to admire and respect about the gunslinger (dinh was the word Roland had taught them for his role in their group, leader of their ka-tet, another word that was new to Susannah and yet fit a spot in her consciousness so cleanly and comfortably that it was if she'd always known it and was just waiting for the right word to come along and birth the knowing). Roland didn't sit around considering his place in the grand scheme of things, pondering the state of his soul or how it was that he was built so perfectly for his role in life, anymore than a hawk or falcon sat on its perch considering why, exactly, it had been made with sharp talons and beak, perfect for killing. In a lot of ways, Roland was more like the big guns that he carried, the irons with the sandalwood grips, than he was like either Eddie or Susannah Dean: built to perfection and made for one purpose only, and so well-suited to that role that nothing else really mattered. Susannah admired him for it, but it made her even more wary of him. Not that she'd trusted him much to start with (and a part of her, the Detta Walker part of her, never really would), but the more she came to know Roland, and the more comfortable and familiar the three of them grew with each other, the more deeply Susannah felt the truth that Roland was dangerous to her and her beloved. A man built for one deadly purpose and the fulfillment of one goal had no room in his heart for pity or compassion.
So when it was Susannah's turn to go out for one-on-one tutelage with Roland a few days after Suze and Eddie had had their conversation about Roland's behaviour (and what their possible plan of action should be), and Suze observed her teacher was less than focused, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the issue was. At first she said nothing; let Roland broach the subject if he wanted to. But after the third time Susannah caught Roland staring into the distance, eyes on something that wasn't there, she figured she'd better rip the bandage off and get it out in the open or the three of them were going to stall out like a car with a busted transmission.
"Roland." The gunslinger turned towards her, blue eyes questioning. "You got somethin' on your mind, sugar?" Susannah straightened a little in her wheelchair, cocking a smile into place to let old "long, tall and ugly" (Eddie's pet name had quickly taken its place in Suze's mind and heart) know that she wasn't out to get him.
"I am that obvious?" Susannah just nodded, and Roland's mouth moved, rising in a smile that wasn't really a smile so much as a tightening of the muscles around the mouth. "I cry your pardon, Susannah. My heart and mind have been troubled of late." No shit, Suze thought, and folded her hands demurely in her lap, the picture of perfect patience. Now here it comes.
But it didn't. Roland seemed to draw himself together, his hand going automatically to his left hip, where the holster of his big gun sat, a gesture she'd come to associate with Roland marshalling his thoughts. Then Roland continued the instruction he'd been giving her on tracking game, and Suze realized that if she wanted to have this conversation (and she was not entirely sure she did) she was going to have to force Roland's hand.
"Roland," she cut in again, sounding just a tiny bit impatient. Roland seemed to catch this, because this time he turned to her, expectant, his face betraying no other emotion... though Suze thought perhaps she caught a hint of anxiety back deep in those ancient eyes. "You gonna get this ball rolling, or do I have to do it myself?"
Roland took a breath, held it, let it slowly, like a tire losing air. "What would you have me say, Susannah Dean?" The gunslinger's voice was unexpectedly weary, though his face remained almost unchanged. "From what I understand, you and your husband have already palavered without me; what do you want my opinion for now?"
"Now don't you start that shit wit' me, Roland," Susannah snapped, her voice turning sharp as unexpected guilt stabbed her insides. Roland would never ask for help, she reminded herself. Not help of the sort that Eddie and Suze were so afraid he needed. "We only had a talk to discuss somethin' that was already there. You goan tell me that ain't so?"
Roland raised both hands palms-out with another sigh, and sat down on the large boulder beside Susannah's perch on a log. "What would you have me say?" he asked again, and Suze suffered a moment of intense frustration at how very literal Roland could be at times. "He is your husband. You are my apprentices. I would never ask for anything that is sacred between a man and a woman, but he... he offered it. And he said that you and he spoke of it. I confess I do not understand why you felt the need to do this."
Of course. "Mostly 'cause we thought it'd do you some good, Roland." Suze watched with a measure of grim satisfaction at the way Roland's face changed, like tiny ripples of wind in a vast sea of grass. Roland was not what you'd call expressive, but Suze and Eddie were being given plenty of opportunity to learn to read him.
And right now, Roland was looking sort of pissed. "I am not interested in anyone's pity," he said shortly, and got to his feet again, turning away as if to end the conversation. Suze rolled her eyes and crossed her arms across her chest, wrist pressing against the big gun resting between her breasts.
"Get the fuck off your high horse, Roland! Don't you ever think for a second that me or my Eddie would sling you a fuck out of some misplaced sense of pity." Susannah's eyes shone like gemstones in her dark, beautiful face, and Roland turned, watching her warily. "But that don't mean we don't wanna help you. Dat's your problem, right there, thinkin' you don't need no help from anybody. What the hell you draw us both for if you don't want our help? An I don't just mean the damn Tower, neither."
Still Roland watched her, hands dropped loosely at his sides, face betraying no emotion. "You speak of the impossible, Susannah Dean," he said softly. "I am beyond that sort of help, from you or anyone. It was the price I accepted when I began my quest."
"Yeah, well, you just keep on thinkin' that and see where it gets you," Susannah said darkly. "Take me back to camp, Roland, I think I'm done for today." Saying so, she slipped deftly down from the log she was sitting on and proceeded towards her wheelchair at the far enough of the clearing, moving at her usual fast crawl, but before she could get more than a few feet, strong hands lifted her at her waist as Roland picked her up from behind and transferred her securely to his hip, carrying her like a mother would a child. Roland paused in front of Susannah's wheelchair, and Susannah felt herself flush at the considering look he gave her, as though sizing up whether or not she really meant what she'd just said and all its implications thereby.
"I will consider your words, Susannah Dean," Roland said, his face grave. And for just a brief moment, Susannah swore the blue eyes watching her were that of a much younger man-a man with a clear, unlined face and brilliant black hair, a man whose rare smile would light up an entire room-and she wondered, with a sort of dizzying dislocation, what sort of man Roland had been before his quest for the Tower had made him into what he was now. What sort of man he might have become, had ka chosen someone else. Susannah nodded, once, heat tightening her guts at the sudden awareness of Roland's proximity, and then Roland was setting her gently down into her chair and the tenebrous connection was broken. And as Roland wheeled her carefully back in the direction of their camp, Susannah wondered again exactly what sort of mess she and Eddie had dropped themselves into.
~ ~ ~
What the hell you draw us both for if you don't want help?
Susannah Dean's words echoed in Roland's head, repeating over and over like a broken music box, whispering insistently at his already-unraveling mind. The strange duality in the back of his head was only a tickle, one he did not even notice except in that space between wakefulness and sleep, but Roland was attuned enough to his inner state to know that this was both new and troubling. For now, though, his best choice was to ignore it.
Roland lay on his side, eyes closed, hat on the ground beside his head, seemingly fast asleep. Behind him, the sounds of Eddie and Susannah's kissing had progressed to love-making, and the noise drifted softly to his unnaturally sensitive ears. Such a thing would not have kept him awake, normally-it wasn't as if it was the first time he'd heard them-but his head was too full of everything he and Eddie had done, and of everything he and Susannah had said.
We thought it'd do you some good, Roland.
Would it, though? Maybe they were right. Maybe he was broken; maybe he needed their help even more than he thought. But (and Roland was quite sure on this account) behind any concern they might have for him was a more selfish impulse, one Roland could readily identify with: they were afraid of him. Afraid of who and what he was, of what he meant to do and of what he was already bringing out in both Eddie and Susannah. And they were right to fear him; one needed only to look at the trail of destruction Roland left constantly in his wake.
Death, Walter had said. Yet not for you.
No. For everyone who dared help him. For everyone who dared give him their love. Susan, Alain, Jamie de Curry, Cuthbert, poor Alice in doomed Tull, and then Jake (There was no Jake, whispered a part of his mind, and this Roland brushed away again like a man swatting a gnat). All gone, laid to waste under the wheel of ka.
Roland grunted, a sharp intake of breath from behind him followed by a low, gutteral cry shaking him from his unusual preoccupation. He listened to the sound of Eddie and Susannah settling into their bedroll, murmured conversation taking the place of the sounds of their love-making. Roland caught his own name in the shuffle of words and knew they were talking about him, and then, as if on cue, another voice rose up inside his weary head:
Water if God wills it, Roland. It was a strange thing indeed to hear Eddie's voice speaking the familiar catechism back to him, but the reflection eased Roland's mind. Besides. It did him no good to think overmuch on these things; it was better for him to simply be, to react. Roland heaved a sigh and rolled over, and within another three minutes, he was deeply asleep.
* * * * * * *
By the time Roland gave any sign that he'd come to a conclusion regarding what Eddie and Susannah had talked about, Eddie was beginning to think his dinh had decided it was all a terrible mistake and was choosing to put it behind them. And he never knew, later, what kept Roland from making exactly that decision: whether it was Roland's slowly-unraveling mind lowering his defenses, or Eddie and Susannah's constant pestering for Roland to tell them more about his life with his old friends, or whether it was Eddie's uncanny resemblance to Cuthbert. Maybe it was all of these. Maybe it was none of them. Eddie didn't know.
All he knew was that ten minutes ago he'd been standing by Roland's side at the edge of the shooting gallery where they practiced with the big guns, listening to the gunslinger's quiet instruction on tracking the deer that had come here earlier this morning. Now he was half-naked, pulled awkwardly across Roland's chest, Roland's good hand twisted in Eddie's hair hard enough to yank his head up and back, Roland's mouth fastened once more to the big pulse point in Eddie's throat. Eddie squeezed Roland's newly-bared erection even as Eddie tried to kick off his jeans, the last article in the trail their clothing made across the clearing, dusty heaps of brown and grey-blue strewn across the green grass, still dewy from the morning rain.
It was Eddie's fault, of course, if you wanted to look at it that way. But then, most things were. Don't ever underestimate your prey, Roland had said, not even a deer.
Eddie hadn't been able to resist the opportunity. Is that where you got that big scar across your stomach? From a deer?
No, Roland had said calmly. I got that from a woman who tried to gut me in the middle of making love. I'd killed her husband two days earlier when the party he was in ambushed our ka-tet, but I didn't know that.
And Eddie-being Eddie, the guy who never quite knew when to shut his trap-had responded before even knowing the words were going to come out of his mouth. Is that what I'd have to do to get you to kiss me again? Try to stab you in the gut? You're a real romantic, Roland.-
"Is this truly something you want?" Roland's voice broke Eddie's train of thought, and Eddie pulled back, stared at the blue eyes pinning him in place from mere inches away. Roland's expression was as quiet and serious as his voice, giving away very little of the heat Eddie could feel burning under his skin, like his fever on the beach had returned. Eddie didn't answer for a second, twisting awkwardly for a moment in order to put a hand to Roland's face, thinking to how Roland had spoke to him of Cuthbert: first with reluctance, then with more warmth, looking always into the fire or out into the woods, as if seeing people and places that were no longer there.
"Thought I'd already made that clear, Roland," Eddie said softly. His wife's face flashed in his mind, her presence as physically strong for a moment as if she were right beside Eddie instead of back at camp. Eddie must have done something pretty fucking amazing in a past life to deserve a woman like Susannah. But if Roland was having second thoughts this time around, he didn't show it. He just nodded and leaned forward again. But this time it was Eddie's hand on Roland's shoulder that stayed him. Roland looked at him, raising an eyebrow.
"Here's a better question," Eddie said, feeling the weight of those ancient blue eyes more than ever before. "Do you want this?"
It was only kind of stupid to ask, Eddie reasoned; he was pretty damn sure Roland had wanted to fuck him for awhile now, but even so, he'd seemed kind of reluctant during Eddie's first attempt at intimacy. Instead of blowing off the question, however, Roland's face creased-just a little. But it was enough. "Yes, Eddie Dean," Roland breathed, sliding his arm more securely around Eddie's waist, pressing Eddie's spine against Roland's chest even as Roland turned Eddie's face into his. "I do." Any response Eddie might've made was lost as Roland moved to cover Eddie's mouth with his own, Eddie's guts constricting with sudden heat as conversation temporarily ceased to matter.
A mile and a half away, Susannah Dean straightened in her wheelchair, snapping her head around to stare into the woods. She could've sworn she heard something just now. Or, not heard... Felt, maybe. Yes, that was a better word. After emerging from several years of unknowingly living with a second personality inside her head, Susannah wasn't about to dismiss that little niggle out of hand. Susannah rested her hands in her lap, listening hard for the sound of gunshots, but none came. Which meant fuck-all, of course, but somehow Susannah didn't think fighting was what had touched her mind just now.
Susannah sighed, bending down out of the wheelchair to pick up the gun Roland had left behind for her. She flipped open the barrel, listening to the quiet click it made at it swung out. Roland wanted her and Eddie to know not just how to fire the guns, but how to re-load and care for them as well. Susannah wasn't beyond grasping the irony of that particular situation; after all, Roland himself was far more dangerous a weapon than either of the guns he carried on his hips, a weapon that both Eddie and Suze had assumed the job of caring for. For Roland's sake and for their own.
"You just take good care of my Eddie, mister gunslinger," Susannah muttered, staring at the sunlight reflecting off the metal of the gun in her hand. "Like he's trying to take care of you."
* * * * *
"Hey, Roland," said Eddie, stretching himself out long on the ground next to the gunslinger. "You gonna tell us the story about Old Mother and Old Star tonight?"
Roland looked up, a flicker of uncertainty appearing and disappearing on his face in an instant, as though troubled by something unpleasant. Then his features smoothed. "Yes, I think that's a good story to know." He paused, looking from Eddie on his right to Susannah on his left. Somehow, over the course of the evening, they'd gone from sitting at their separate projects around the campsite to all gathered together at one side, situated around Roland. Roland might be more and more troubled in mind as of late, but he was not nearly far gone enough to think Eddie's and Susannah's choice of seats was incidental. But, he realized with some surprise, neither did he mind. Roland laid back against the tree trunk behind him, and Susannah and Eddie scooted in a little closer, their three faces lit with strange flickering shadows from the dwindling firelight.
"Old Mother and Old Star were lovers in the long-ago," Roland began, turning his face towards the sky, casting his mind back to his childhood and all the stories told to him then. People and places, names and stories, lovers and fighters and villains and heroes, all spokes in the great wheel of ka. All things were part of ka, and all things served the Beam. But even Roland, with his long years toiling towards the Tower, did not truly know what lay ahead of him. Not even after speaking with the Oracle in the ring, and with Walter in the golgotha of bones. He was beginning to think Eddie and Susannah were right; that in setting his eyes perpetually on the horizon, he'd lost sight of his own self.
"Roland?" prompted Susannah, sounding a tiny bit concerned. Roland realized abruptly that he'd trailed off, lost in his thoughts. That such a thing should happen to him at all was a sign of how much change Eddie and Susannah had already wrought in his life-and also possibly of the unraveling that had already started deep down inside his mind.
"Forgive me, Susannah. I was thinking about when I first heard this story."
Water if God wills it, Roland. Roland smiled. Eddie and Susannah saw it and glanced across Roland's lap at each other, sharing a small smile of their own. For right now, it was enough.
~Fin~
Title: Gunslinger School
Related Work: The Dark Tower (end of Book II/beginning of Book III)
Rating: NC-17.
Characters/Pairing: Roland Deschain, Eddie Dean, Susannah Dean; Roland/Eddie, Eddie/Susannah; references to Roland/Cuthbert.
Summary: Roland sets about teaching the Deans how to be gunslingers and discovers he's in need of some teaching himself.
Notes: 19 pages (ha!); 9,538 words.
Once, before his world had erupted in flames and chaos, Roland had known a man-a boy really, they'd both been boys, even though circumstances had made them old beyond their years-by the name of Cuthbert Allgood. His father had called Cuthbert "that barking dog"; Roland's nickname for him had been "Bert." Both Roland and his father had sometimes thought of Cuthbert as Roland's ka-mai, ka's fool, mainly for his inability to be serious in almost any situation.
Cuthbert was worlds and worlds away now, he and Alain both distant ghosts that followed Roland over the long years of his strange life as surely as the image of Susan at her window had followed him. But the wheel of ka kept turning, and now that one of its many spokes had brought Roland another ka-mai, Roland was not fool enough to think that the many similarities between Eddie Dean and Cuthbert Allgood were mere coincidence.
And there were many similarities. First and most obvious was Eddie's apparent need to crack a joke whenever an opportunity presented itself, and never mind if Roland had any idea what he was talking about. Eddie mocked constantly and without fail, and what made it mostly bearable was that very little of it was mean-spirited. But the cards had played out in more physical ways, too. Eddie's eyes, hazel normally, lightening to a sweet green in the right light or when he was not paying attention, were very like Cuthbert's. His unruly dark hair, as black a crow's wing, blacker still against his white skin-this was like Bert's as well, and before much more time passed Eddie's hair was apt to become as long or longer than Cuthbert's had been.
And like Cuthbert, Eddie was a born gunslinger. Unlike Cuthbert, he was Roland's to teach.
Only teaching wasn't really what was on Roland's mind at the moment, although it was ostensibly what he was doing. No, what Roland was thinking about was how Eddie Dean smelled.
Roland let out a breath, narrowing his eyes down the length of Eddie's arm, the hand at the end holding Roland's big sandalwood revolver steady as Eddie sighted one of the rocks Roland had set up for shooting practice. The gunslinger stood just behind his 'prentice, listening to the nervousness dancing off Eddie's skin like little jolts of static electricity, feeling all the weight of Eddie's mind and spirit being drawn to a point somewhere inside his head. Somehow Roland had gone from merely correcting Eddie's stance, hands on Eddie's hips, to being flush against his apprentice from behind, one long arm tracing the outside curve of Eddie's, the ruins of his right hand gently guiding Eddie's whole one. And strongest of all these sensations was the soft, slightly musky scent of Eddie's skin, so easy to smell here from right next to his neck. Like Bert's scent (how could he remember after all these years was a mystery, but remember it he did, and very well), but also very different, Eddie had his own unique smell, a little like earth and a little like sky and a little like the strange New York from which he came.
"Speak after me, gunslinger." Roland's voice was dry, his eyes and arm perfectly steady. Eddie shivered at the warmth on his neck and ear, all thoughts of jokes a million miles away, and cleared his throat.
"I do not aim with my hand. He who aims..."
"..who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father," Eddie repeated, and Roland noted with approval the way the wiry energy in Eddie's frame seemed to wind down, twisting inward on itself, tightening and flattening like a snake readying to strike. "I aim with my eye."
"Good," murmured Roland, his eyes narrowing to slits. "I do not shoot with my hand. He who shoots with his hand..."
"...has forgotten the face of his father." Now Eddie's voice was growing stronger, taking strength from the ancient catechism. The spot where Roland's hand touched the bare skin of Eddie's hip seemed to burn with preternatural heat, and Roland could feel an answering heat pooling in his own belly, tightening his guts and hardening his cock. "I shoot with my mind." Roland shut his eyes altogether now, Eddie's spine pressed firmly against the gunslinger's chest, and with a satisfaction that bore no trace of surprise whatsoever, Roland felt the steady rhythms of their heartbeats sync into one even pulse, drawn together by a power older and greater than both of them.
"I do not kill with my gun," Roland whispered, Eddie's voice starting a half-second after him instead of waiting for Roland to finish. Their voices merged as one for the final line of the catechism. "He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father." Eddie's hand was Roland's hand, Eddie's prickly vitality calling to him in a voice without words, the hypnotism falling over both of them as it had over thousands before them. "I kill with my heart."
Click! Click-click-click-click! The gun dry-fired in Eddie's hand, shot after shot, Eddie Dean's hand moving with white-hot precision before stilling, and the moment of truth stretched out endlessly before snapping elastically back to reality. Roland let out his breath, breaking from the trance with reluctance.
"It is very good, Eddie," he said quietly, stepping back from his 'prentice with a show of not-inconsiderable self-control. "You hit every one."
Eddie's entire body seemed to sag for one invisible moment, turning around to face Roland with an expression of disappointment he did not succeed in hiding as quickly as he tried to. "Uh, no I didn't," he said, popping an eyebrow into place as his familiar cock-tease of a smile appeared. " 'Cause we weren't using any bullets, Roland my man. Just in case you forgot."
Roland didn't say anything. He didn't have to. He simply stood there, watching his gunslinger-in-training, and after a second Eddie's smile faltered, spots of red appearing in his face and neck. "You did well, Eddie," Roland said finally, more sternly this time.
"Thanks, Roland." Eddie smiled again, chided and yet pleased with himself, and reached out the hand with Roland's gun, butt-first. Roland accepted it and slipped it easily into the holster slung low on his left hip.
"Time to head back, I think," Roland said, surveying the sky. Now that the lesson was over, he could see how far along the sun had moved past its zenith. He nodded at Eddie, glancing once more around the clearing to satisfy himself that nothing remained for them to deal with, and turned to go.
"Uh, Roland..." The unexpected awkwardness in Eddie's voice from behind him gave Roland pause, and he turned back, looking at his 'prentice questioningly.
"Yes, Eddie?" Eddie stood there, arms crossed over his chest, flushed in the face as though he'd just run a marathon, and gave no answer. It looked as though he were struggling with something, and with a rush of understanding and gratitude Roland realized that perhaps he was not the only one to feel the unspoken heat that had passed between him and Eddie during their lesson.
Roland waited, but in the end, nothing came. Eddie opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again, sighed, and merely said, "Never mind. Let's go, Suze is gonna think we fell in a hole and died." Roland nodded, and this time when he set off, Eddie followed him.
And that was the crux of it, Roland thought. His nature was not given to bitterness or petty laboring over what could not be; it merely looked at what was, acknowledged it, and worked from there. And the truth of their situation was that the third of their ka-tet awaited them at camp, their dark-skinned Lady of Shadows who, though she shared the name of Roland's long-lost love, was 100% in love with Eddie Dean, and he with her. Susannah Dean, formerly both Odetta Holmes and Detta Walker, was Eddie's wife. And Eddie might share more than a passing resemblance to a ghost from Roland's past, but that did not mean he was to inherit what had passed between Roland and Cuthbert. What's more, Susannah was every inch the gunslinger Eddie was shaping up to be, and without her Roland and Eddie would both have been lost, their quest for the Tower over before it began.
So Roland would teach. He had been the last gunslinger; now he was one of three, and it fell to him to instruct his two 'prentices in everything they needed to know, and that was that.
Mine to teach, Roland mused. Mine to teach, mine to love, and mine to damn.
* * * * * *
"I think old long tall and ugly has something on his mind," Eddie said.
Susannah looked up, casting a curious glance at her husband from where she sat in her wheelchair. "What are you on about, Eddie?"
Eddie shrugged, an uneasy up-down movement that did nothing to hide the tension riding his shoulders. He still hadn't figured out how to explain to Suze that he was pretty sure Roland wanted to fuck him. He had no desire to upset the sweet balance their ka-tet had found. Roland regained more of his strength every day, and maybe he wasn't running at full 100% yet, but even the 80% he was functioning at right now was pretty impressive by Eddie's standards. And Eddie and Susannah learned more about being gunslingers every day, not to mention more about their place in the so-called wheel of ka that was rolling steadily towards its ultimate conclusion. Most important of all, the three of them were content. Happy, even. They'd have to move on eventually, but the slow roll of summer days was very pleasant, and Eddie didn't want to rock the boat.
Suze was still staring at him, though, a shrewd expression on her beautiful face that Eddie wasn't entirely comfortable with. Susannah Dean she was now and God love her-Eddie certainly did-but Detta Walker was still in there somewhere. "Since when do you have nothing to say about Roland?" Susannah asked, exactly as though she already knew the answer. Eddie (who was no more capable of lying convincingly to his wife than he was of sprouting wings and flying them both home to New York) dropped his eyes to the piece of hide stretched between their four hands, carefully binding one corner down with a piece of rawhide.
"He try to put the moves on you?" Eddie managed to keep from jerking his head up from shock, but it was a near thing. Dammit, how did she do that? Suze might as well be a mind-reader. "He did, didn't he?"
"Yeah," Eddie admitted after a minute of internal debate. "Only... not really? More, he was acting like he wanted to, but wouldn't let himself." Eddie looked up in time to see Susannah nodding thoughtfully, a conspicuous lack of anger on her face. "You're not mad?"
"Mad? Hell naw." Susannah laughed at the way Eddie's mouth promptly fell open, exactly like a Nutcracker doll awaiting its prize of a walnut to crush between its capable jaws. "I mean, I guess I'm sorta jealous, baby, but he didn't actually do anything-right?-'cause that's not like him, 'cause we're married, right. Besides. What's he gon' do? Elope with you?"
"I'll have you know I'd look fucking excellent in a white dress," Eddie interjected solemnly, unable to repress his grin as Suze swatted him and laughed.
"You just better watch it, white boy. Anyway... my only question is how you felt about it."
Eddie felt himself tighten up again, his stomach flip-flopping dangerously like the Olympic figure-skating he'd seen once on TV, before Henry had declared it "gay" and moved on to something more interesting. That was the exact question he'd been hoping Suze would skip asking. But instead of waiting for his response, she just continued onward without even a pause, her voice a study in casual. " 'Cause I was just thinking, if you were both amenable, I'd have to say that man could use to have something on his mind that wasn't the Tower or his mission. Somethin' a little more human, to remind him what it's like. Make him forget all that bein' alone. Probably do him some good. If you were both amenable, anyway."
Susannah stopped, looking over at her husband's newly agape expression with a grin of her own. Eddie struck dumb twice in five minutes was a real achievement by anyone's standards. "Sugar, you just better shut that mouth 'fore you start catchin' flies," she said, and laughed as Eddie started to sputter.
"Did you just-Susannah you didn't really just say that you thought I should-"
"I didn't say you should do nothin'," Suze said firmly, cutting off the rest of Eddie's blathering. "Nothin' is as nothin' does. I was just saying that the man might've broke something along the way out there in the desert, and if someone wanted to help him fix it a little, well... couldn't hurt." Silence greeted this announcement, filled with the warm yellow sunlight filtering in through tree branches and the faint noises of bird song. Eddie found he didn't really know how to react to that, but apparently his reaction wasn't immediately needed. Something small and warm crept into his palm, and Eddie glanced down to see Susannah's brown fingers intertwining his own. He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back.
"Well slap my ass and call me Shirley," Eddie said finally.
"I knew you was kinky, cracker, but that's a bit much," Susannah observed, and their mingled laughter cut off a few seconds later when Eddie's mouth found hers, the hide they were supposed to be curing temporarily forgotten. Roland heard the sounds of their love-making from where he was bathing himself in the stream, and cast his eyes downward with a very small smile. Looks like he wasn't needed back at camp just quite yet.
* * * * *
"Eddie Dean. Stop day-dreaming and pay attention, for your father's sake."
Eddie snapped his head guiltily around, half-expecting to be sent reeling into the soft grass by a blow upside the head, but none came. Despite the stories Roland told them about Cort punishing his young gunslinger 'prentices for their mistakes, Roland had never resorted to physical blows when Eddie and Susannah were smart-asses.
Right now Roland was giving him one hell of a glare, however. Eddie had thought Roland looked like an escapee from a Sergio Leone movie upon first glance, but time had relieved him of that mistaken impression; Roland was far more dangerous and capable than any Western movie hero could ever hope to imitate.
"Sorry, Roland," Eddie said automatically. Roland frowned, but when Eddie failed to give any explanation, he merely nodded and continued where he'd left off, mid-lecture about tracking game, something Eddie would normally find very interesting (to his surprise). This time, as before, Eddie did his best to pay attention, but he kept finding himself listening to the sound of Roland's voice instead of what he was actually saying-kept finding himself staring at the gunslinger's face, at his jaw, at the faded blue of his eyes. Now that he and Susannah had spoken (however indirectly) about Roland's behaviour, Eddie couldn't keep his mind off it. Was he imagining things? If so, what the hell was wrong with him? And it was all well and good for Susannah to so cavalierly suggest that Eddie make the plunge and engage in some gunslinger-on-gunslinger action, but Eddie had never so much as entertained the thought of kissing another man before, much less doing anything more serious. In fact-
"EDDIE!" This time Roland really did grab him, taking him by the shoulders and shaking him in frustration, and Eddie realized belatedly that Roland had been saying his name and getting no response.
"Stoppit, STOPPIT, JEEZ! I'm here, I'm here!" Eddie managed to bat Roland's hands away, feeling heat creep up his neck as he took a step back. Roland was staring at him with full-on suspicion now, and Eddie was normally good at keeping up a steady line of bullshit and bluff, but Roland had the uncanny ability to see right through him at the worst possible times. Like now.
"What ails you, Eddie?" Roland crossed his arms, staring at his wayward 'prentice. "Your mind isn't with me today. Even your jokes are absent. If there's something on your mind, I would hear it."
"There's nothing to talk about, Roland, I'm just out of it." It was only a half-lie, at least. There was something to talk about, but if Eddie couldn't even start this conversation with Susannah, there was no hope of doing so with Roland. And somehow he doubted Roland would be the one to go there first.
Roland's expression changed only a little, but that slight darkening was all Eddie needed to know he was in deep shit. "Eddie. A man's thoughts are his own, and I will not force you to share them with me, but if you cannot keep your mind on your lessons, we should call an early end today. Perhaps Susannah will be more willing to focus." The deep disapproval in Roland's voice stung worse than any name-calling, and as was so often the case when he was under pressure, Eddie's brain reacted by going in the completely opposite direction.
"Was Cuthbert your lover as well as your friend, Roland?"
Roland stared, his ire of moments ago temporarily forgotten. "What sort of question is this?" he asked, disbelief and fresh anger clouding his voice now. "Do you want to avoid your lesson so badly?" Bingo, Eddie thought, seizing the sudden tangent and running with it.
"Was he? Because you called me 'Cuthbert' a lot when you were out of it, pal." Eddie paused, not sure how much further he was willing to push in that direction, but Roland's sudden turn away from him showed him he didn't need to.
"All of that was a long time ago, I don't understand why you would bring up such a thing right now-"
"Bullshit," Eddie exclaimed, stepping forward after Roland before the gunslinger could stalk out of the clearing in a rare display of anger, grabbing his teacher by the shoulder. Roland whirled with such force that Eddie was sent sprawling, the side of his face blooming with sudden heat and pain where the back of Roland's open hand had hit him. Eddie landed flat on his back, coughing weakly, tree branches spinning at the edges of his vision.
"Eddie!" Two Rolands loomed over him suddenly out of the blue sky, whirling outrageously in Eddie's swimming vision, and Eddie shut his eyes with a groan as both Rolands knelt by him. When he opened his eyes again, only one Roland was there, still leaning anxiously over him. "Eddie, I cry your pardon. I did not intend to strike you."
"You got a mean right hook, Roland," came Eddie's groggy response. Then, before he could consider it further, he added, "I think that earned me an answer to my question, by the way."
Roland gave him a glare that might've wilted every last bit of greenery in the clearing had it been directed anywhere else, relented almost immediately, and finally sighed. "Yes," he said reluctantly. "He was. Sometimes."
Eddie nodded carefully, trying not to wince at the fresh spasms of pain it sent through his head. "Thought so," he said. "Don't let it get to you, Roland, lots of cowboys get a craving for-"
Eddie's next words were cut off and his world set spinning afresh by the sudden press of Roland's mouth against his, the gunslinger's diminished right hand cupping Eddie's cheek as the latent electricity between them crackled suddenly to life. Eddie hardly got the chance to register this before Roland jerked back just as suddenly, face flushed and dark with deep distress. "I cry your pardon, Eddie," Roland whispered, eyes wide.
"You are a goddamn asshole, Roland," Eddie snapped, and yanked Roland down again by the front of his shirt, their mouths crashing together as hard as Roland just clocked Eddie in the head. Eddie was still dizzy, but with it enough to snake an arm around Roland's neck in time to prevent him from trying to pull away again, and after a second or two in which they weren't kissing so much as knocking teeth, Roland relented, lips working against Eddie's, all thoughts of their lesson completely swept away. Roland fisted his hand in Eddie's dark shock of hair, pulling his head back slightly, and Eddie gasped as Roland ripped himself away from Eddie's mouth, his coarse, whiskery kisses moving down to Eddie's newly exposed neck, fastening to the sweet little spot down and slightly aside Eddie's earlobe, there to suck at sensitive skin while Eddie twitched and moaned under him.
"Eddie, I'm not sure this is a good idea," Roland whispered, and Eddie was shocked to hear how hoarse the gunslinger had gone, like he'd just eaten an entire pack of Marlboros. Roland's mouth drew down along Eddie's jaw, licking the sweat from his 'prentice's skin with a relish that gave the lie to what he'd just said.
"Shut the fuck up and keep going, or so help me God I will-I will-" Eddie never got to finish his threat, cut off with a gasp as Roland sank teeth into his sensitive neck, prompting another low, shocked moan from Eddie. Eddie, for his part, still wasn't sure going from Point A to Point B was his best idea, but the heat in his gut was moving him in the right direction, and he slid his free hand along Roland's arm, clutching at the muscles coiled underneath skin and the animal-hide sleeve. His head had stopped spinning and was starting to throb instead, but the ache was a distant second to the sudden electric awareness of Roland's body over his. Roland stopped for a second, his face pressed to Eddie's neck, and Eddie could feel the heat of his breath gusting over his prickling skin, and even as Eddie opened his mouth to say something, God only knew what, he realized suddenly that Roland was thinking of Susannah at this moment. And of Cuthbert.
If he'd paused to question how he knew this, Eddie probably would've been distracted from his intent altogether. But the same innate quality that made him a gunslinger made him speak up first, cutting that indecision off at the pass.
"No, no you don't," Eddie whispered, putting both his hands to Roland's face again, coaxing him up till the gunslinger was crouched over him again. "You gotta stay right here with me, okay? Here with me." Eddie kissed Roland firmly, and after a moment Roland responded, reluctantly at first and then more strongly.
Eddie didn't know how long they lay there like that, Roland first crouching over him and then laying on top of him, Roland's mouth pressed to his, one of Eddie's hands tangled in Roland's hair while Roland's hands dug their way in between Eddie's shirt and skin, fingers raking over his back. It felt like ages, but Eddie suspected his normally-keen time sense was temporarily out of whack. Soon he found himself laying side-by-side with Roland, rather than pinned underneath him, and Eddie could feel the hard bulge of Roland's penis rubbing against his thigh through their jeans. That wasn't a shock-hell, that'd been the idea-but Eddie was a little shocked to find he had an answering erection, that Roland's hands sliding greedily over his bare skin made him want to tear the gunslinger's shirt off and do more than lay in the dirt and make out. Christ Almighty, when did I turn into a faggot? Eddie thought, feeling dazed by his own arousal, and the ghost of his brother Henry rose up in the back of his head like a bad smell, jeering at him, calling him every name in the book, and at another time Eddie might've paused, might've stopped and been ashamed of what he was doing, but right now he just wanted Henry to shut the fuck up, already.
Even so, Eddie's hands fumbling with the fastening of Roland's jeans surprised Eddie almost as much as it did Roland, though the only sign Roland gave of his shock was a sharp intake of breath. "Eddie..."
"Shut up, Roland," Eddie hissed, finally managing the last button. And Roland might still have had something else to say, but the next second Eddie's hand slipped into Roland's jeans, wrapping around the thickness of Roland's prick, and the gunslinger twitched hard against Eddie, all words forgotten. Roland was hung, Eddie realized with a kind of drunken leap off his train of thought, the idea simultaneously hilarious, arousing, and terrifying. Got a gun in his jeans to match the ones he carries around on his hips! Eddie squeezed the length in his hand, fascinated by the low moan Roland made in reaction, the gunslinger's slim hips pressing forward against Eddie's palm, and that's when Eddie's nerve failed him. He'd thought to go further, maybe even pondered sucking Roland off, but Roland's swollen cock sliding against his palm was so real and obscene and hot that he couldn't handle much more.
Maybe Roland sensed this-Eddie was already well aware of how well the gunslinger could read him at times-because he brought his diminished hand up to Eddie's face, holding him still so that Roland could kiss him again. Roland's other hand followed Eddie's down to where their hips were tangled, covering Eddie's hand with his own. Eddie understood this for the encouragement it was, and he shut his eyes as their joined hands started to move, stroking Roland's length that twitched eagerly against Eddie's palm.
"Roland?-" Eddie was cut off yet again with a shhh from his teacher as Roland's hand moved yet again, now going to the zipper of Eddie's jeans, and Eddie sucked in a breath as Roland's clever fingers (fumbling only for a moment with the fastening) brought Eddie's erection out, stroking him once, bringing a startled moan from Eddie's mouth.
"Like this," Roland murmured, pressing closer to Eddie and rolling on top of him again so that their cocks bumped and rubbed against each other, each jostle sending a bolt of lust up Eddie's spine from his guts. Again one of those talented hands came down between them, pressing their erections against each other and then wrapping with Eddie's hand around both their swollen lengths. Roland moaned open-mouthed against Eddie's temple as he rocked his hips down against his apprentice, and Eddie gave an answering cry at the sweet friction of their joining.
Eddie (who, after spending over two years as a heroin addict, was still not yet used to having full use of his faculties again) often found that he was incapable of focusing completely during sex. Even with Susannah, the love of his life, his brain kept shooting off in random directions. These were only little distractions-random neural misfirings caused by the swelling and engorgement of all the body's muscles during sexual intercourse, and not worth getting his panties in a knot about-but for Eddie's hyperactive brain they were still occasionally distracting. He had one of those stray thoughts now, shooting in and out of his head like a quickly-falling star. Eddie thought that the idea of he and Roland of Gilead, the universe's last gunslinger, laying on the ground in a clearing at the end of the world, humping in the dirt like a pair of horny teenagers might possibly be the most absurd thing in the history of goddamn existence. Apparently the key to Roland's salvation (and boy, let's talk about presumptuous! Eddie goddamn Dean thinking to lead Roland to salvation, there's a laugh) lay in the heavy thrust of Roland's cock against Eddie's, in the moist heat of Roland's mouth against Eddie's neck, in the sweaty glide of their hands on each others' bodies. But wasn't that what he and Suze had talked about, what Susannah had suggested? And if Roland needed this-this connection, this reminder of his essential humanity, then maybe his apprentices needed it, too...
Roland growled in Eddie's ear, and Eddie lifted his hips, gasping for breath as he felt his climax start to build, heat pooling in his gut, his cock a heavy, urgent ache between his thighs. "Roland-ahgahd Roland, g-gonna come-" Roland cut off Eddie's sputtering with another demanding kiss, driving the back of Eddie's skull against the grassy earth beneath as he pressed down against the younger man. Instead of pulling away (as for some reason Eddie had expected), Roland shoved his hand between them again, wrapping his good hand around Eddie's straining prick, swiping the callused pad of his thumb over the pearly pre-come beading at the slit. Eddie thrashed hard against Roland's hand, bucking thin hips against the gunslinger's steady grip, and then climax hit him, hard and fast, balls drawing up as his muscles spasmed, spilling hot sticky ropes of come over Roland's wrist. Eddie collapsed, borne gently to the ground, still encircled in Roland's arm as his strength abandoned him temporarily. Oh Christ, all over my pants, great, was what was going through Eddie's mind, but when he opened his eyes (when had he closed them?) he was startled by the care he saw in those blue bombardier eyes, and by the hand that was now stroking the hair back from Eddie's face, watching Eddie's reaction. Eddie realized with a jolt that Roland was waiting for him to say something. "Wow," he managed, and had to laugh at how dazed he sounded to his own ears. Roland smiled. It was something he did only rarely, and as always, it lit up his face, taking at least ten years off his age-though God only knew how old Roland actually was, 'cause Eddie sure didn't.
"Here I am, Eddie Dean, as you asked," Roland murmured, still smiling slightly as he reached over for some large fern leaves perhaps a foot from Eddie's head, using them to wipe his hands and wrist and the thigh of Eddie's jeans where some streaks had landed. "Now I think we should start heading back to your wife." The emphasis on the last word was gentle, but there, and it earned Roland something that wanted to be a nasty look but fell short.
"Gettin' a little ahead of yourself, Roland," Eddie said mildly, and reached down to stop Roland zipping himself back up. The gunslinger, Eddie noted with pleasure, was still sporting a hard-on, and the sound Roland made when Eddie grabbed him and squeezed was gratifying. Eddie looked up. Roland's face was impassive, unreadable as ever, but his eyes said that Eddie either better do something with the cock in his hand or shut the fuck up and let Roland put his pants back on. Eddie opted for "do something," acting before his reason and sense of embarrassment could catch up to him, shoving Roland back enough so that Eddie could crouch between his thighs, going down on elbows and knees as he wrapped his hand around the base of Roland's prick, bringing his mouth down to meet it.
"Eddie-" Shit, how the hell did Suze do this? She made it look so easy. Eddie cut off Roland's fuzzy, malformed protests by sticking his tongue out and licking up the bottom of Roland's cock from base to tip, exactly like he'd seen his wife do, letting his eyes half-lid as he listened to Roland suck in air like his lungs were trying to collapse. Well I'm doing something right, Eddie thought in satisfaction. He knew if he stopped what he was doing long enough to really think about it, he'd only succeed in freaking himself out, so his best course of action was full speed ahead, Cap'n.
Roland fell back heavily onto the palms of his hands, and Eddie crawled forward to follow him, bending his head over his dinh's lap and sucking Roland's cock-head into his mouth like a lollipop, the swollen tip pressing against the roof of his mouth. Eddie heard Roland groan, and a second later one of Roland's hand fisted in Eddie's hair, dragging fingers tightly through the thick black mop. "Gods," Roland whispered, and Eddie gagged a little as the gunslinger thrust up, sliding more of his cock between his 'prentice's spread lips. Eddie shut his eyes, the taste of Roland's sex filling his nose and mouth. Roland smelled of leather and denim and tasted a little like old spices and sweat. Eddie exhaled around Roland and tried to open his mouth a little more, then pressed down, lips stretching around the slick shaft of Roland's cock, trying to take as much as he could. I am going to kiss that wife of mine, Eddie thought idiotically, and I am never going to take another blowjob for granted. Roland groaned again, pressing the heel of his hand down on the back of Eddie's neck, gently encouraging him to go further, and Eddie obliged, swallowing around Roland's prick and starting to bob his head as he'd seen Suze do (though she made it seem a lot more effortless than he was managing).
Once he got going, Eddie came to realize vaguely that he didn't mind this so much. He kept his hand on Roland's hip, laying on the ground nestled between the gunslinger's slightly spread thighs, and Roland kept both hands on Eddie's head as his 'prentice sucked him. By now Roland was helping him, rocking his hips gently against Eddie's mouth and backing off whenever Eddie got carried away and choked, tearing up a little, and both men were more than a little surprised at the fact that Eddie didn't ever stop. In fact, Eddie was starting to get hard again when he heard Roland's breathing quicken, the fingers in his hair tightening in warning, and Eddie had a split second where all he could think was if I pull off it is going to hit me right in the face and opted to swallow down, instead. Roland came a second later, gasping his orgasm to the afternoon sky as he spilled down Eddie's throat, hips lifted entirely off the ground as Eddie choked and swallowed as much as he could, a few small drops dribbling down his chin.
"Eddie..." Roland seemed at a loss for words, and Eddie's grin flashed to life as he sat up, kneeling between Roland's legs.
"If you're gonna tell me I shouldn't've done that, don't, okay? Suze and I-Suze and I talked about it." Eddie realized how completely bizarre that sounded mere seconds after it flew out of his mouth, clued in largely by the baffled expression on Roland's face. "Look. I wanted to and I know you did too. So just... it's okay, all right. Christ, I never knew anyone so determined to be a lonely sonofabitch."
Roland's face colored, and he looked away, but not before Eddie saw how much he'd hurt Roland with that throw-away comment. He was only starting to realize how wrong his initial impression of Roland Deschain had been, and he didn't know quite what to do about it. Eddie leaned forward, put his hand on Roland's knee, not willing to let it slide. "Water if God wills it, Roland." Hearing the saying from Eddie's mouth seemed to catch the gunslinger's attention, and the intensity of blue eyes shifted back to Eddie, regarding him with some complicated emotion Eddie couldn't place. Eddie waited, hoping devoutly that Roland couldn't hear the tympani-drum impression his heart was attempting in his throat, and finally the gunslinger nodded, a mere tilting of the head, just a fraction of an inch... but Christ, it was enough.
"Will you permit us to return to camp now, Eddie Dean?" Roland's expression hadn't changed at all, but something about his voice made Eddie pause in the middle of getting up, trying to figure out if he was being mocked. "Or are you going to attempt something else if I get up?" Goddamn, Eddie thought in amazement. Roland of Gilead was making a joke. Stop the fucking presses.
"As I recall, you were the one who socked me in the jaw, Roland my man," Eddie pointed out, and was gratified to see a smile (that rarest of creatures) appear on Roland's weathered face in response. Eddie wanted to know what prize you got if you managed to make the world's oldest, loneliest cowboy smile twice in one hour; surely it had to be some kind of record. "C'mon, Suze is gonna carve me up for dinner if we aren't back soon." Roland rose to his feet, and this time Eddie made no argument as they headed for the path at the edge of the clearing.
* * * * * * *
Roland of Gilead was not a man given overmuch to contemplation or introspection. Susannah Dean had realized this perhaps 2 days after Roland came into her life, and in a weird way it was one of the things she'd come to admire and respect about the gunslinger (dinh was the word Roland had taught them for his role in their group, leader of their ka-tet, another word that was new to Susannah and yet fit a spot in her consciousness so cleanly and comfortably that it was if she'd always known it and was just waiting for the right word to come along and birth the knowing). Roland didn't sit around considering his place in the grand scheme of things, pondering the state of his soul or how it was that he was built so perfectly for his role in life, anymore than a hawk or falcon sat on its perch considering why, exactly, it had been made with sharp talons and beak, perfect for killing. In a lot of ways, Roland was more like the big guns that he carried, the irons with the sandalwood grips, than he was like either Eddie or Susannah Dean: built to perfection and made for one purpose only, and so well-suited to that role that nothing else really mattered. Susannah admired him for it, but it made her even more wary of him. Not that she'd trusted him much to start with (and a part of her, the Detta Walker part of her, never really would), but the more she came to know Roland, and the more comfortable and familiar the three of them grew with each other, the more deeply Susannah felt the truth that Roland was dangerous to her and her beloved. A man built for one deadly purpose and the fulfillment of one goal had no room in his heart for pity or compassion.
So when it was Susannah's turn to go out for one-on-one tutelage with Roland a few days after Suze and Eddie had had their conversation about Roland's behaviour (and what their possible plan of action should be), and Suze observed her teacher was less than focused, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the issue was. At first she said nothing; let Roland broach the subject if he wanted to. But after the third time Susannah caught Roland staring into the distance, eyes on something that wasn't there, she figured she'd better rip the bandage off and get it out in the open or the three of them were going to stall out like a car with a busted transmission.
"Roland." The gunslinger turned towards her, blue eyes questioning. "You got somethin' on your mind, sugar?" Susannah straightened a little in her wheelchair, cocking a smile into place to let old "long, tall and ugly" (Eddie's pet name had quickly taken its place in Suze's mind and heart) know that she wasn't out to get him.
"I am that obvious?" Susannah just nodded, and Roland's mouth moved, rising in a smile that wasn't really a smile so much as a tightening of the muscles around the mouth. "I cry your pardon, Susannah. My heart and mind have been troubled of late." No shit, Suze thought, and folded her hands demurely in her lap, the picture of perfect patience. Now here it comes.
But it didn't. Roland seemed to draw himself together, his hand going automatically to his left hip, where the holster of his big gun sat, a gesture she'd come to associate with Roland marshalling his thoughts. Then Roland continued the instruction he'd been giving her on tracking game, and Suze realized that if she wanted to have this conversation (and she was not entirely sure she did) she was going to have to force Roland's hand.
"Roland," she cut in again, sounding just a tiny bit impatient. Roland seemed to catch this, because this time he turned to her, expectant, his face betraying no other emotion... though Suze thought perhaps she caught a hint of anxiety back deep in those ancient eyes. "You gonna get this ball rolling, or do I have to do it myself?"
Roland took a breath, held it, let it slowly, like a tire losing air. "What would you have me say, Susannah Dean?" The gunslinger's voice was unexpectedly weary, though his face remained almost unchanged. "From what I understand, you and your husband have already palavered without me; what do you want my opinion for now?"
"Now don't you start that shit wit' me, Roland," Susannah snapped, her voice turning sharp as unexpected guilt stabbed her insides. Roland would never ask for help, she reminded herself. Not help of the sort that Eddie and Suze were so afraid he needed. "We only had a talk to discuss somethin' that was already there. You goan tell me that ain't so?"
Roland raised both hands palms-out with another sigh, and sat down on the large boulder beside Susannah's perch on a log. "What would you have me say?" he asked again, and Suze suffered a moment of intense frustration at how very literal Roland could be at times. "He is your husband. You are my apprentices. I would never ask for anything that is sacred between a man and a woman, but he... he offered it. And he said that you and he spoke of it. I confess I do not understand why you felt the need to do this."
Of course. "Mostly 'cause we thought it'd do you some good, Roland." Suze watched with a measure of grim satisfaction at the way Roland's face changed, like tiny ripples of wind in a vast sea of grass. Roland was not what you'd call expressive, but Suze and Eddie were being given plenty of opportunity to learn to read him.
And right now, Roland was looking sort of pissed. "I am not interested in anyone's pity," he said shortly, and got to his feet again, turning away as if to end the conversation. Suze rolled her eyes and crossed her arms across her chest, wrist pressing against the big gun resting between her breasts.
"Get the fuck off your high horse, Roland! Don't you ever think for a second that me or my Eddie would sling you a fuck out of some misplaced sense of pity." Susannah's eyes shone like gemstones in her dark, beautiful face, and Roland turned, watching her warily. "But that don't mean we don't wanna help you. Dat's your problem, right there, thinkin' you don't need no help from anybody. What the hell you draw us both for if you don't want our help? An I don't just mean the damn Tower, neither."
Still Roland watched her, hands dropped loosely at his sides, face betraying no emotion. "You speak of the impossible, Susannah Dean," he said softly. "I am beyond that sort of help, from you or anyone. It was the price I accepted when I began my quest."
"Yeah, well, you just keep on thinkin' that and see where it gets you," Susannah said darkly. "Take me back to camp, Roland, I think I'm done for today." Saying so, she slipped deftly down from the log she was sitting on and proceeded towards her wheelchair at the far enough of the clearing, moving at her usual fast crawl, but before she could get more than a few feet, strong hands lifted her at her waist as Roland picked her up from behind and transferred her securely to his hip, carrying her like a mother would a child. Roland paused in front of Susannah's wheelchair, and Susannah felt herself flush at the considering look he gave her, as though sizing up whether or not she really meant what she'd just said and all its implications thereby.
"I will consider your words, Susannah Dean," Roland said, his face grave. And for just a brief moment, Susannah swore the blue eyes watching her were that of a much younger man-a man with a clear, unlined face and brilliant black hair, a man whose rare smile would light up an entire room-and she wondered, with a sort of dizzying dislocation, what sort of man Roland had been before his quest for the Tower had made him into what he was now. What sort of man he might have become, had ka chosen someone else. Susannah nodded, once, heat tightening her guts at the sudden awareness of Roland's proximity, and then Roland was setting her gently down into her chair and the tenebrous connection was broken. And as Roland wheeled her carefully back in the direction of their camp, Susannah wondered again exactly what sort of mess she and Eddie had dropped themselves into.
~ ~ ~
What the hell you draw us both for if you don't want help?
Susannah Dean's words echoed in Roland's head, repeating over and over like a broken music box, whispering insistently at his already-unraveling mind. The strange duality in the back of his head was only a tickle, one he did not even notice except in that space between wakefulness and sleep, but Roland was attuned enough to his inner state to know that this was both new and troubling. For now, though, his best choice was to ignore it.
Roland lay on his side, eyes closed, hat on the ground beside his head, seemingly fast asleep. Behind him, the sounds of Eddie and Susannah's kissing had progressed to love-making, and the noise drifted softly to his unnaturally sensitive ears. Such a thing would not have kept him awake, normally-it wasn't as if it was the first time he'd heard them-but his head was too full of everything he and Eddie had done, and of everything he and Susannah had said.
We thought it'd do you some good, Roland.
Would it, though? Maybe they were right. Maybe he was broken; maybe he needed their help even more than he thought. But (and Roland was quite sure on this account) behind any concern they might have for him was a more selfish impulse, one Roland could readily identify with: they were afraid of him. Afraid of who and what he was, of what he meant to do and of what he was already bringing out in both Eddie and Susannah. And they were right to fear him; one needed only to look at the trail of destruction Roland left constantly in his wake.
Death, Walter had said. Yet not for you.
No. For everyone who dared help him. For everyone who dared give him their love. Susan, Alain, Jamie de Curry, Cuthbert, poor Alice in doomed Tull, and then Jake (There was no Jake, whispered a part of his mind, and this Roland brushed away again like a man swatting a gnat). All gone, laid to waste under the wheel of ka.
Roland grunted, a sharp intake of breath from behind him followed by a low, gutteral cry shaking him from his unusual preoccupation. He listened to the sound of Eddie and Susannah settling into their bedroll, murmured conversation taking the place of the sounds of their love-making. Roland caught his own name in the shuffle of words and knew they were talking about him, and then, as if on cue, another voice rose up inside his weary head:
Water if God wills it, Roland. It was a strange thing indeed to hear Eddie's voice speaking the familiar catechism back to him, but the reflection eased Roland's mind. Besides. It did him no good to think overmuch on these things; it was better for him to simply be, to react. Roland heaved a sigh and rolled over, and within another three minutes, he was deeply asleep.
* * * * * * *
By the time Roland gave any sign that he'd come to a conclusion regarding what Eddie and Susannah had talked about, Eddie was beginning to think his dinh had decided it was all a terrible mistake and was choosing to put it behind them. And he never knew, later, what kept Roland from making exactly that decision: whether it was Roland's slowly-unraveling mind lowering his defenses, or Eddie and Susannah's constant pestering for Roland to tell them more about his life with his old friends, or whether it was Eddie's uncanny resemblance to Cuthbert. Maybe it was all of these. Maybe it was none of them. Eddie didn't know.
All he knew was that ten minutes ago he'd been standing by Roland's side at the edge of the shooting gallery where they practiced with the big guns, listening to the gunslinger's quiet instruction on tracking the deer that had come here earlier this morning. Now he was half-naked, pulled awkwardly across Roland's chest, Roland's good hand twisted in Eddie's hair hard enough to yank his head up and back, Roland's mouth fastened once more to the big pulse point in Eddie's throat. Eddie squeezed Roland's newly-bared erection even as Eddie tried to kick off his jeans, the last article in the trail their clothing made across the clearing, dusty heaps of brown and grey-blue strewn across the green grass, still dewy from the morning rain.
It was Eddie's fault, of course, if you wanted to look at it that way. But then, most things were. Don't ever underestimate your prey, Roland had said, not even a deer.
Eddie hadn't been able to resist the opportunity. Is that where you got that big scar across your stomach? From a deer?
No, Roland had said calmly. I got that from a woman who tried to gut me in the middle of making love. I'd killed her husband two days earlier when the party he was in ambushed our ka-tet, but I didn't know that.
And Eddie-being Eddie, the guy who never quite knew when to shut his trap-had responded before even knowing the words were going to come out of his mouth. Is that what I'd have to do to get you to kiss me again? Try to stab you in the gut? You're a real romantic, Roland.-
"Is this truly something you want?" Roland's voice broke Eddie's train of thought, and Eddie pulled back, stared at the blue eyes pinning him in place from mere inches away. Roland's expression was as quiet and serious as his voice, giving away very little of the heat Eddie could feel burning under his skin, like his fever on the beach had returned. Eddie didn't answer for a second, twisting awkwardly for a moment in order to put a hand to Roland's face, thinking to how Roland had spoke to him of Cuthbert: first with reluctance, then with more warmth, looking always into the fire or out into the woods, as if seeing people and places that were no longer there.
"Thought I'd already made that clear, Roland," Eddie said softly. His wife's face flashed in his mind, her presence as physically strong for a moment as if she were right beside Eddie instead of back at camp. Eddie must have done something pretty fucking amazing in a past life to deserve a woman like Susannah. But if Roland was having second thoughts this time around, he didn't show it. He just nodded and leaned forward again. But this time it was Eddie's hand on Roland's shoulder that stayed him. Roland looked at him, raising an eyebrow.
"Here's a better question," Eddie said, feeling the weight of those ancient blue eyes more than ever before. "Do you want this?"
It was only kind of stupid to ask, Eddie reasoned; he was pretty damn sure Roland had wanted to fuck him for awhile now, but even so, he'd seemed kind of reluctant during Eddie's first attempt at intimacy. Instead of blowing off the question, however, Roland's face creased-just a little. But it was enough. "Yes, Eddie Dean," Roland breathed, sliding his arm more securely around Eddie's waist, pressing Eddie's spine against Roland's chest even as Roland turned Eddie's face into his. "I do." Any response Eddie might've made was lost as Roland moved to cover Eddie's mouth with his own, Eddie's guts constricting with sudden heat as conversation temporarily ceased to matter.
A mile and a half away, Susannah Dean straightened in her wheelchair, snapping her head around to stare into the woods. She could've sworn she heard something just now. Or, not heard... Felt, maybe. Yes, that was a better word. After emerging from several years of unknowingly living with a second personality inside her head, Susannah wasn't about to dismiss that little niggle out of hand. Susannah rested her hands in her lap, listening hard for the sound of gunshots, but none came. Which meant fuck-all, of course, but somehow Susannah didn't think fighting was what had touched her mind just now.
Susannah sighed, bending down out of the wheelchair to pick up the gun Roland had left behind for her. She flipped open the barrel, listening to the quiet click it made at it swung out. Roland wanted her and Eddie to know not just how to fire the guns, but how to re-load and care for them as well. Susannah wasn't beyond grasping the irony of that particular situation; after all, Roland himself was far more dangerous a weapon than either of the guns he carried on his hips, a weapon that both Eddie and Suze had assumed the job of caring for. For Roland's sake and for their own.
"You just take good care of my Eddie, mister gunslinger," Susannah muttered, staring at the sunlight reflecting off the metal of the gun in her hand. "Like he's trying to take care of you."
* * * * *
"Hey, Roland," said Eddie, stretching himself out long on the ground next to the gunslinger. "You gonna tell us the story about Old Mother and Old Star tonight?"
Roland looked up, a flicker of uncertainty appearing and disappearing on his face in an instant, as though troubled by something unpleasant. Then his features smoothed. "Yes, I think that's a good story to know." He paused, looking from Eddie on his right to Susannah on his left. Somehow, over the course of the evening, they'd gone from sitting at their separate projects around the campsite to all gathered together at one side, situated around Roland. Roland might be more and more troubled in mind as of late, but he was not nearly far gone enough to think Eddie's and Susannah's choice of seats was incidental. But, he realized with some surprise, neither did he mind. Roland laid back against the tree trunk behind him, and Susannah and Eddie scooted in a little closer, their three faces lit with strange flickering shadows from the dwindling firelight.
"Old Mother and Old Star were lovers in the long-ago," Roland began, turning his face towards the sky, casting his mind back to his childhood and all the stories told to him then. People and places, names and stories, lovers and fighters and villains and heroes, all spokes in the great wheel of ka. All things were part of ka, and all things served the Beam. But even Roland, with his long years toiling towards the Tower, did not truly know what lay ahead of him. Not even after speaking with the Oracle in the ring, and with Walter in the golgotha of bones. He was beginning to think Eddie and Susannah were right; that in setting his eyes perpetually on the horizon, he'd lost sight of his own self.
"Roland?" prompted Susannah, sounding a tiny bit concerned. Roland realized abruptly that he'd trailed off, lost in his thoughts. That such a thing should happen to him at all was a sign of how much change Eddie and Susannah had already wrought in his life-and also possibly of the unraveling that had already started deep down inside his mind.
"Forgive me, Susannah. I was thinking about when I first heard this story."
Water if God wills it, Roland. Roland smiled. Eddie and Susannah saw it and glanced across Roland's lap at each other, sharing a small smile of their own. For right now, it was enough.
~Fin~