Nobody's Angel
Title: Nobody's Angel
Rating: R
Pairing: Jack/Ennis
Teaser: This is an AU/AU story.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the wonderful and talented Annie Proulx. I only baby-sit them for her when she's busy with other things. ALL OC's are of course, OC'S belonging to the author.
Author's Note:
-All past chapters can now be found via my LJ; HERE
Ennis opened his eyes slowly, almost peeling them apart, lid from lid, letting them give way to a series of flutters and Jack was the first thing he saw, feeling a warm, still pressure over one of his hands.
Jack slept just as he said he would, his body in the chair, his head on the bed and he had stayed like that all night long. One arm was folded underneath his head and his face was turned away from Ennis, his hair sticking up on one side like it always did when he slept.
Ennis didn’t move, he was afraid he’d break or unhook something if he did. He looked at the long IV tube that ran from his hand to the stand and he felt sick to his stomach. He wondered what it was for. It looked like it was supposed to hurt but it didn’t, but still, he didn’t like looking at it.
Ennis stared at Jack instead, his muddled memory trying its best to slide every coin in the slot where it belonged so he could win the prize of remembering everything that had happened. He’d never been very good at remembering things. K.E. used to have to leave notes taped to the bathroom mirror to remind him to go get the mail or take out the trash.
Jack was still sleeping when the nurse who had been keeping vigil right along side Jack entered the room.
“I knew you’d be awake,” She said smiling. Her smile was bright and her face surrendered to it.
Ennis blinked hard at the vision in white beside him.
“Who are you?”
The nurse smiled and began thumping his IV drip.
“Who am I? I’m your nurse, my name is Camille.” She pointed to her name tag and Ennis didn’t tell her he couldn’t see something that up close.
She nodded towards Jack then.
“Your friend here, he’s been sleeping just like that all night, ever since you got out of surgery. I didn’t have the heart to wake him up and tell him to leave. His neck is going to be killing him when he gets up though.”
“Surgery?” Ennis’s hand was awake now and was going numb beneath Jack’s head and grasp and he scooted up a little hoping the nurse hadn’t seen Jack holding his hand like that.
“Yes dear, surgery. You were shot. Don’t you remember?”
Ennis bit the inside of his jaw. Yea he remembered getting shot but not much after that. He remembered who did it too.
“H-how’s Marco?”
Camille looked up from writing something on her chart.
“Who’s Marco?”
Ennis just realized he was wearing what looked like a dress, a gown or something and he wanted to ask where his pants and jacket were.
“Marco, he’s the one that shot me.”
Camille frowned.
“You want to know about the guy who shot you?”
“He’s my friend,” Ennis defended.
“Your friend shot you?” Camille finished what she was writing and gave her full attention to Ennis.
“That doesn’t sound like the kind of friend I would want,” She mused.
“Yea well what’d you know?” Ennis grumbled. He wished she would just leave already.
Camille bit the tip of her pen.
“Oh, you’re going to be my favorite patient. I can already tell.”
Ennis rolled his downcast eyes.
“Where’s my clothes?”
“Don’t you want to know where you got shot?”
“After you tell me where my clothes are.”
Camille laughed and rubbed the back of Ennis’s head. He moved away from it.
“They warned me about you and your brothers, the mean puppy with the sharp claws at the end of the hallway.”
“Puppy?”
“But you can put your fangs away, I always liked the dangerous ones the best. It never gets boring.” She closed her chart up and headed for the door.
“Your clothes, what’s left of them are fine. They had to cut your shirt. The rest are locked up in the nurse’s station. They’ll bring you your breakfast in a few minutes.”
“Not hungry,” Ennis retorted.
“But it’s pancakes!” Camille said with a smile. That was her way of saying shut up and eat.
“Well what if I don’t like pancakes?” Ennis wasn’t ready to let her win just yet.
“Oh you’re not getting pancakes. Your stomach isn’t ready for that yet. We’ve got something else in store for you.” She gave him one last smile and was gone.
His stomach? Ennis moved his hand up under the sheet to lift his gown when he felt Jack jerk out of his sleep beside him.
“Ow!” Ennis said as Jack snatched his hand, raising his head from the bed.
“E-Ennis?” Jack’s eyes were thick with ill-gotten sleep.
“Ennis,” Jack ran his hands up Ennis’s arm, one in front of the other like he was climbing a ladder.
“Ennis, Ennis,” He repeated, he was touching his arm, his shoulder, his neck and now he was standing, sliding the chair backwards and away from him, touching Ennis’s face, one cheek in each hand.
Ennis watched him quietly, blinking slowly, letting him touch him.
“Ennis, you’re okay, a-are you okay?” Jack’s eyes poured into his and all Ennis could do was breathe, that’s all Jack wanted him to do. He felt like a lot of things were crowded around inside of him, like he’d had to talk to twenty different invisible faces at once but all he could do was stare at Jack, his own face making the others shoot away on the backs of clouds.
“It’s gonna be alright Ennis, everything is going to be alright, I’m not going anywhere.”
Jack picked up one of Ennis’s hands and held it against his face before putting it in-between his two hands and rubbing vigorously to warm him up. He slowed down when he felt the skin turn hot at the friction and realized Ennis was still looking at him, not saying a word.
“A-are you, do you need something Ennis? Do you want me to get the nurse?”
Ennis shook his head, turning the curls at his temples till they touched the tips of Jack’s fingers. He opened his mouth but like a man with no tongue or no vocal cords. He spoke with his eyes instead, like a disease had crippled and slurred his words.
Jack’s thumbs moved to rest on either side of Ennis’s mouth, tempted to peel back and open his lips so he could speak. They were cracked and peeling and Jack licked his own lips, wanting to wet Ennis’s.
“Lips hurt,” Ennis mumbled.
Jack nodded and leaned in, sticking the tip of his bright pink tongue out to coat the lining of Ennis’s mouth, moistening the dry skin once and then again.
“What else hurts?” Jack whispered against Ennis’s nose.
He opened his mouth, maybe to speak, maybe as an entrance for Jack’s medicine but the sound of the door breaking open blew their bodies apart and a tiny warm ball of flesh replaced Jack’s body as Elliott attempted to soar into Ennis’s arms.
“Whoa slow down there kid, can’t you see he’s tied down?” Ezzie’s voice was like a soft melody in the sterile room and Jack looked away, shrinking against the wall, shuffling to the side for the main attraction to pass through.
“Ennie! Ennie, you’re here!” Elliott was grasping at the sheets to get to Ennis and Ezzie lifted him up to sit on the bed beside him.
“Careful there,” Ezzie murmured watching the machines make their noise, his eyes following the wires that were connected from the stand to Ennis’s hand.
“He’s not made out of glass, he’s not gonna break.” K.E. was leaning in the doorway; arms folded but nothing about his body was protected. He stood there and watched the four sets of eager eyes stare at him like he was carrying a torch to the finish line and people had been expecting him for hours.
He walked over twisting his fingers in and out of one another at his sides, Ennis toying with the zipper on Elliott’s jacket.
“They treating you okay then?” His voice was low, mellow and measured like a man trying out a new language with a raw tongue.
“Good as they can I guess.”
Jack watched this dance with quiet wonder. He pictured the room empty, void of anyone but them and the machines and he wondered if they would talk or be content to listen to the beeping, talking for them, letting them know Ennis was still here, and that he wasn’t going anywhere.
K.E. busied himself with messing with Elliott’s hair.
“I took an extra shift tonight, figured I’d need it now that-” He stopped himself and looked at Ezzie across the bed.
“But if you need me to stay here, take turns watching you with Ezzie-”
Ennis was shaking his heavy head. “No, should be alright. You need to work. Hell I do too.”
He looked down at his body and no one said it but they knew why he needed to work. Hospital bills weren’t cheap and cheap was about all they could afford.
K.E.’s face sank; maybe wishing Ennis had said ‘yea come on, stay. Blow off work for a couple of days I want ya here.’ But K.E. knew he couldn’t do it anymore than Ennis could say it.
Necessity was no friend to luxury of even the simplest kind.
“Good news is, the nurse said you’d be out of here by Monday,” Ezzie broadened the room with his words.
“What day is it?” Ennis asked.
“Saturday,” Ezzie said.
Ennis nodded like he’d just been asked a deep and probing question.
“Where’s Marco?”
Snakes of discontent slithered their way over the white tiled floors and wrapped themselves around everyone’s ankles, rooting them to the spot so they couldn’t escape and around their throats, stifling the words they weren’t sure how to say without frustrated venom coming from their human fangs.
“We don’t know,” Ezzie said honestly. “Tammy says she hasn’t seen him, she went out with Jimmy Wayne looking for him…no luck.”
Ennis was still nodding like there was a slow song playing in his head that only he could hear.
“Do you need anything?” K.E. volunteered. He was untying and tying Elliott’s left shoe.
Jack wanted to say he had already asked that but their words weren’t different, only the answers they wanted to hear.
“I’m okay.”
“Ennie why are you wearing a dress?” Elliott asked drawing two fingers down the front of Ennis’s gown.
Ennis turned a deep fuchsia and moved Elliott’s hand away.
“They say I have to.”
“Come on Elliott, let’s go home, get you showered and changed.” Ezra picked Elliott up and held him tight in his arms. He was waving with both hands as they walked to the door, Ezzie telling Ennis they’d be back as soon as they were done.
“”Bye Ennie! We’ll be back!” He was still chanting and singing up and down the hallway in Ezra’s arms, the nurses turning their heads to smile at the cute little kid and pity him for the future life he would lead all in the same glance.
Ennis’s food came then, all liquid and he curled his lip in distaste.
“You don’t look happy Ennis,” Camille said walking in behind the orderly. She lifted up his head to flip his pillow over and fluff it up against his back.
“That’s a million dollar sentence with this one,” K.E. said with a good natured smile. Ennis looked at his brother. There was something different about him, something calmer, something eager to be near, to please and ruffle his fur and feathers over you until you curled up against him. Ennis’s mouth twisted at the taste of it, his taste buds not sure how to take this new sweet and sour concoction.
“Okay well the Doctor will be in later this afternoon to look you over, see if everything went alright.” Camille’s face was contagious and Jack found himself copying it while he studied it. He wanted to look that happy, he liked the way her smile looked on her and hoped his looked just like it.
“See you’re not so scary.” She winked at him and Ennis settled into his pillow that was more comfortable but she didn’t have to know that.
K.E. watched her go and he put his hand up over the top of the bed.
“Guess I’ll go down and grab the car while Jimmy’s here. He’s probably down there honking up a storm, waking the morgue up.”
“Don’t let him up here,” Ennis said quickly. That was all he needed, another person making fun of him in his gown. He wanted his jacket back so bad he could hardly stand it and he’d even put a little grease in his hair if he could, Jack would just have to look away.
“I won’t. You uh…you gonna be alright till Ezzie gets back?” He looked at Jack but Jack was looking at Ennis. He hadn’t stopped since he had woken up.
Ennis nodded and pulled his sheet up all the way to his waist.
“You need to work.”
K.E. sucked the sides of his mouth inside and nodded quickly.
“Yea I guess I do.”
“I guess I can go back to work Monday then?” Ennis’s jaw became strong.
K.E. opened his mouth, no wallowing inside of his mouth sounding both protective and bossy, yes sounding like he needed him to get well as soon as possible.
“We’ll see what the Doctor says,” He decided at last.
Jack finally looked up at K.E. then and gave his own nod.
“We’ll be fine K.E.” He licked his lips, last night’s tornado of truth circling above his head like a grey cyclone of missteps and misspoken words that had been showing their power all along. The command that the simple word ‘we’ had opposed to ‘him’ didn’t fall on deaf ears of this ring leader.
K.E. looked at him, the eyes of a guardian who wanted to know why their child was different and if you had done it. A Chief unhappy with an unbalanced tribe, his markings not like the rest, a gatherer, not a hunter.
“Sure. Sure you will be.”
K.E. turned his back on one heel and approached the door with steps that only wanted to have a purpose.
“Hey K.E.?”
He turned around a little too quickly.
“Yea?”
“Hey, don’t get…it ain’t Marco’s fault for what he done…and I don’t wanna see him locked up…” Ennis hung his head. “The state finds out about this and Elliott’s gone,” He said quietly.
The stone that began growing the day they had buried their parents and Sis sprouted another pebble in K.E.’s belly.
He smiled the smile of a man doing so for his captors just to infuriate them.
“You bet’ cha.”
“Alright. See you later then kid.”
The door closed and Jack noticed his knuckles white on the bar of Ennis’s bed. He didn’t know what he had been expecting but he had been wearing his armor just in case.
Three knocks and Camille poked her head in the door, her mane of soft black hair pilling in soon after.
“Just wanted to make sure you were still okay, that you weren’t alone. I saw your brothers leave, but I see one is still here.”
Ennis made a face. “Fine, don’t mind being alone. And he’s not my brother.”
Camille looked at Jack.
“Well I’m glad you’re not. And I didn’t think he was.”
Her eyes flickered over Jack kindly. She had seen him sleep that way beside Ennis all night.
“Get some rest if you can Ennis, it’ll do you good.”
“She sure does come in here a lot,” Ennis mumbled when they were alone again He pulled the sheet up even higher around his waist. Who had pink sheets?
“Well what would you do if you came to work and someone who looked like James Dean was behind the curtain?” Jack grinned.
“Probably pass out seeing as how he’s dead and all,” Ennis wasn’t in the mood for jokes and missed Jack’s compliment completely. He didn’t want to be here. He hated hospitals and everything in them; the food, the smell, the sounds, all of it. He just wanted to go home with his battered stomach and bruised hands and arms from the IV and sleep until he had to get up. He missed Ezzie’s eggs and Elliott’s humming at the kitchen table no matter how annoying he pretended it was.
“She’s just doing her job Ennis,” Jack tried to soothe him.
“Fluffing my pillow ain’t her job.”
Jack shrugged. “Maybe she has a crush on you.”
Ennis gave Jack a look that said he was done talking about this. He fidgeted in his gown; it was too big and felt like paper on his skin. He tugged on the sleeves and exhausted his breath with a sigh.
“Damn gown came undone,” He said under his breath. He tried his best to reach around to close it but the IV drip wires said otherwise.
“Hey don’t move like that, let me do it.” Jack stood and pushed Ennis up gently in the half-lifted bed.
Ennis’s back had pushed both sides of the gown almost completely off and Jack reached for the strings, dragging his hand along the skin slowly.
“So soft,” Jack whispered and he felt Ennis tense against his fingers.
“Jack.” Ennis didn’t turn his head, just looked straight ahead. It wasn’t a yes or a no to a question that hadn’t been asked.
Jack watched his shoulder blades move and roll, sitting up straight so his back gave way to an indention for his spine. Jack loved Ennis’s shoulders. They were broad but slender and stick out just far enough to look like he was hiding something in them all the time.
“You sore?” Jack asked running his hands up Ennis’s spine to the shoulders he loved. He rubbed them like he knew they wanted to be rubbed.
Ennis shrugged. “Just tired of being in this bed is all.” Jack knew in Ennis Land that meant keep rubbing.
So Jack did, slow and gentle and rough sometimes to get the kinks out. He slipped the gown out off Ennis’s shoulders until it fell past his chest and rolled down limply at his elbows.
“Don’t pull it down no further,” Ennis said wearily. “I haven’t looked at my scar yet.”
“I wasn’t Ennis, I wasn’t.” Jack massaged his arms and let his hands drape over his shoulders until his fingers brushed his chest and he touched him there too.
“Damn,” Ennis hung his head and then let it roll back, against Jack, not caring how cold he was with his grown pulled down like that or how ugly his scar might be. He was even kind of proud of it. K.E. used to say you weren’t a greaser until you had some kind of scar.
“Still look new to me,” Jack said circling his hands around Ennis’s waist from behind. It was a little thinner thanks to his liquid and hospital food diet which meant not eating at all.
“You ever gonna close my gown up?” Ennis said with one eye open now.
Jack laughed right up against Ennis’s jaw.
“Yea I guess so.”
Ennis sat up again and Jack pulled up the gown, closing it for him and patting the pillow to let him know he was done and he could lean back, trying to fluff it just as Camille had. Ennis let Jack make him feel good, he let him cross a hallway that only Jack could pass through and walk down, peeping into rooms where all outside visitors were expelled, Ennis’s castle with the walls made up of banished subjects.
“All better?”
“As I can be,” He said his back touching the now familiar mattress.
“Hey!” Jack’s eyes lit up around his pale face and plaid coat collar.
“Do you want some ice cream?”
Ennis started to say no but the thought of a big tub of gooey sugary ice cream over took all over sensations.
“Can I?”
Jack smiled. “You can if I say so.” Jack began digging his pockets for Ennis’s things and he paused removing them one at a time to lay them across Ennis’s belly, even the tobacco ashes of the broken cigarettes.
Ennis watched Jack make his little display of gum wrappers and dollars and his orange book that he hardly looked at anymore.
“I took all of this from you before the ambulance got there. I didn’t want anyone taking anything that belonged to you.”
Ennis’s eyes glazed over as he picked up the butt of one of his prized cigarettes and held it between his fingers like he was smoking it, wanting his fingers to smell that way again.
He slid the money over to Jack with the cigarette flavored hand.
“I could use some ice cream.”
That was all Jack needed to hear as he crushed the money in his pocket and buttoned up his coat with ready, nimble fingers.
“There’s a store about two blocks away,” He said half to himself, half to Ennis.
He looked toward the door and the only thing he didn’t do in haste was lean over the bed to brush his lips against Ennis’s.
“Need a toothbrush,” Ennis said through barely open lips and eyes.
Jack grinned and dashed out of the room, taking the carpeted floor like it was ice and he was on skates, sliding into the elevator, on a mission that made him feel important, happy to fill the well of Ennis’s request.
His arms and even his mouth were full as he pushed four on the elevator with his foot on the way back up. No he hadn’t wanted a bag and he hadn’t wanted to talk about football scores with the store clerk either. That took up time he didn’t have to get back to Ennis and slip the soft cream into Ennis’s mouth. He’d picked up the ice cream along with some comic books, candy bars, and a coke just in case he wanted a float.
He slowed his walk once he got close to the room and with a greedy little smile; he knocked on the door with his foot, pushing it open to bestow his gifts and his face fell at the sight of Ezzie sitting in Jack’s chair, Elliott playing happily beside Ennis in the bed, both holding some little green army soldiers.
“Oh. Hey Ezzie.” Jack’s voice was weak with disappointment but Ezzie seemed not to notice as he tossed a hand up in the air.
“Why don’t you go to the house and get some rest? You have to be tired.” There was something a little challenging in Ezzie’s eyes and Jack pretended not to notice as he unloaded his arms on the table beside Ennis.
“What’d you get there?” Ezzie peered over the bed to watch Jack. Ennis did too.
“Oh, uh just some things.” Jack shrugged like it was no big deal that he had scoured the aisle for the comics Ennis said he liked to look at for fifteen minutes or the candy bars he’d seen him staring at in the movies the first and only time they were there.
“Well what’d you get?”
“Oh I got some candy bars-”
“Candy! Can I have one Jack?” Elliott’s ears entered the conversation as they chose, searching for words he cared about.
Jack sighed and tossed one over to him, not used to the needy fingers and mouths of kids wanting half of everything he had all to himself.
“Thanks!” Elliott said tearing into the chocolate bar without even consulting his brother. Ezzie was too tired to argue, he’d just make Elliott swear not to tell K.E.
Jack turned around with at least one prize in his hand, the ice cream to hand to Ennis but as he did Ezzie pulled a cold tub of the same thing from a plastic bag beside the bed. The boys looked at one another across the bed and Elliott watched them both, tiny spots of chocolate at the corners of his mouth.
“Oh, you got ice cream,” Jack said looking down at Ezzie’s gift that Ennis hadn’t had to ask for.
“Yep. Strawberry, his favorite.” He removed the lid and picked up the spoon he had grabbed from home. A spoon, Jack hadn’t even thought of that. He’d been too anxious to get the comic books.
“Oh, I got chocolate.” He opened his own container and sat it down on the bed just like Ezzie. Elliott eyed both tubs with wide eyes.
“Well it doesn’t matter, he’ll have plenty to eat. And I brought more than one spoon just in case,” Ezzie said smiling down at Ennis waiting for him to pick up the spoon and dig in. His smile was a little too satisfied. Jack hadn’t planned ahead at all and he knew it.
Ennis picked up the spoon and pushed it into the soft pink mix and held it up to his lips.
“What? Why are you watching me?” He spoke with his lips on the edge of the ice cream and looked from Ezzie to Jack and both boys looked away quickly, one to the floor, the other to the wall.
Ennis put the mesh in his mouth and when Ezzie wasn’t looking he let it fall out, warm and melted back into the container and prodded Elliott with the other spoon against his shoulder to take the strawberry all for himself. He reached over to pick up the chocolate, his favorite and pulled the container up to his chin.
Ennis reached over to pick up his favorite comic with a confused expression and Ezzie watched him with a tight smile.
“Elliott must have wanted the strawberry,” He said logically.
Ennis nodded, not meeting his eyes. “Yea, he did.”
He flipped open the comic book and shoved a mouthful of chocolate ice cream in his mouth in time with Elliott.
Ezzie wanted one of Jack’s candy bars. But he didn’t ask.
______________________________________________________
Jack slept at the hospital again that night. He didn’t care how he smelled or how naturally greasy his own hair was becoming without soap and shampoo. Ice cream had been banned from the room at Camille’s request but Jack hadn’t and no one had fought him to sleep in Ennis’s room again that night.
He’d accepted the cot Camille offered him and watched Ennis until he went to sleep, maybe to make sure he did, maybe just because he wanted to watch him. Jack had learned to blink into sleep with the timing of the beeping machines, each blink a flutter of Ennis’s heart read on weird little lines on paper.
Ezzie had wanted to stay but a kid will always stop you from doing things for one person in the place of things you have to do for them and Ezra knew he couldn’t keep Elliott at the hospital over night. K.E. was working late, he said he might even pull a double if his boss would let him but he’d be by first thing in the morning. That is, unless Ennis wanted him to stop by, maybe even stay, but Ennis had said no, no they needed the money. Hospital bills didn’t pay themselves.
Ennis wasn’t in good spirits on his second day in the hospital, it felt more like his fortieth and it was written all over his face by the time lunch was brought in at eleven.
Ennis hated hospital food. He looked down at his tray in dismal dismay, lips stuck out, eyes focused on the grayish looking meat and dull mix of green and orange vegetables.
“Come on Ennis, you have to eat. The Doctor said you’ll get your strength back sooner,” Jack pleaded in the chair beside him.
Ennis just sat there, his hands on either side of the tray. He read his name on his hospital bracelet. He hadn’t had one on since the Dr. had gotten him and Ezzie mixed up and put the wrong bracelets on them when they were born. His Dad had called him Ezzie until he was two days old.
“Just a bite Ennis, come on.”
Ennis shook his head. He’d rather starve.
“Ennis if you don’t eat the Doctor is gonna put you back on that IV drip. You want that again? I know how much you hate needles.”
Ennis glared at Jack.
“Now open up. Just take one little bite.” Jack had a few vegetables in Ennis’s plastic spoon and he held it right up to his lips.
Ennis blew the vegetables off the spoon and turned his head.
“Ennis, you’re acting like a kid now. Stop being a baby and eat.” Jack was standing now, holding Ennis’s head and doing his best to shove the cold food in between his lips.
“Hey what’s up?” K.E. knocked with two knuckles on the door, a crooked baseball cap on his head, still in his work clothes from the day before. He stopped when he saw the scene in front of him and cleared his throat as if his knocking hadn’t interrupted whatever was going on already.
“Is this a bad time or something?” He looked big and awkward standing there in the doorway.
Jack sighed and threw the spoon down into the food.
“He won’t eat and the Doctor said he had to eat.”
K.E. walked the rest of the way into the room and took something out from the inside of his coat.
“I figured as much, can’t blame you kid. Here, I snuck this in here for you.”
K.E opened the brown paper bag and set out a burger with fries from the Sno Hut and a coke the size of Ennis’s head. He looked at it as if it wasn’t even there.
“He can’t have that; he can only eat what the hospital gives him. Camille jumped all over me and Ezzie yesterday for bringing him ice cream.”
Jack realized he had over-stepped his boundaries and he looked away, slowly sitting back down in his chair, hands in his lap.
“I guess eating is eating,” K.E. said looking at Ennis but talking to Jack. Ennis picked up a French fry and crushed in between his fingers until grease dripped down on top of his hospital food.
“How’s Marco?” His voice croaked.
K.E. ran a hand through his hair and put his baseball cap back on straight. He took a deep breath and looked at the top of Ennis’s head.
“Well the good news is, he came home last night. But he won’t leave his house, won’t even talk about going back to work. Tammy said he hasn’t said a word since he got home, just drinking a lot. She’s keeping an eye on him making sure he doesn’t run away.”
Ennis was staring at the wall in front of him and he pushed his tray of food away.
“Take this away, I don’t want it.”
“Ennis-” Jack started but Ennis tipped the tray over sending the hospital food and the food K.E. had brought to the floor.
“I said I don’t want it!” He yelled. His hands were fisted at his sides on the bed.
“Okay Ennis, you don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to.” K.E. was bending down to pick up the food and put it back on the tray.
Camille poked her head in the doorway then and K.E. and Jack looked down at the food instead of her. K.E. stepped over in an effort to block her from seeing how they had dirtied up her nice, clean floor.
“Is there a problem in here?”
Jack was shaking his head. “No, no ma’am everything is fine.”
She pursed her lips a little and didn’t look totally convinced but she left them alone for the time being.
K.E. bent down again to pick up the food and Jack walked around the bed to help him.
“Don’t clean that shit up, leave it there. They’ll clean it up. It’s their job.”
Jack gave Ennis a harsh look. The kind you’d give a stranger you saw being rude to a little kid or an old lady for no reason.
“He’s home Ennis, everything is alright,” K.E. said putting the empty coke cup back on the tray.
“Who said I was worried about Marco huh? Marco ain’t the one’s that gotta pay for me lying in this bed for two days.”
“Well I don’t want you worrying about me if it means you acting like this.” K.E. spurted out.
“Why? You do.”
Jack stopped, his fingers dripping with cola, his hand full of fries.
K.E. stood up, holding the empty hospital tray in his hands.
“You’re sounding more and more like Ezzie every day.”
“Well you should be happy then.”
K.E.’s eyes drowned in protest and he slammed the tray down right in front of Ennis, jarring him, making him blink to avoid the liquid of the meat still left there.
“Goddamn it Ennis what do you want from me? You want me to tell you t-that you’re not Ezzie and I sure as hell don’t want you to be? Well you ain’t and I don’t.”
Jack stood still blinking. The grease and soda mixing were mixing and drying on his fingers. He seemed to be an observer to this quiet battlefield more and more, like a man that could walk through a stain glass wall without a cut because somebody else had already broken in for him.
“I didn’t make you quit school, me and Mom begged you not to, but you’re just like her. You’re so damn stubborn you don’t have the time to listen to what anyone says if it doesn’t line up with what you think.”
“And you’re not that way I guess,” Ennis scoffed.
K.E. swallowed slowly, eager to control his temper.
“I didn’t say that.” He sighed and leaned down to pick up the empty soda cup and tossed it up on Ennis’s tray with a tired hand.
“I’m doing the best I can Ennis. That’s the one thing Dad taught me that I give a damn about.”
Ennis’s mind slammed on brakes at his brother’s words and he looked at him like he was a sightseer in his life, just dropping by to say hello, see your differences and maybe show you his own before going home to put your pretty pictures on his wall. This man, this face hadn’t been to see him in a long, long time.
Ennis stared at his brother and Jack stared at the tops of his shoes until he thought his neck would go numb.
Ezzie, the savior of all things unkempt waltzed in then with Elliott on his shoulders announcing that tomorrow Ennis would be free.
“Tomorrow!” Elliott echoed.
Jack walked over to deposit the things in his hands into the trash and he gave Ennis a look that said if the room was empty the space between them wouldn’t be.
“Jack Twist? I said is there a Jack Twist here anywhere?”
Jack froze at the sound of a voice he knew all too well, a voice that made his heart pump out hot, hard blood that only served to fill his icy veins.
“Jack Twist? We don’t have a Jack Twist admitted here sir.”
“Well I was told by a friend of mine they saw him here.”
“Who are you sir?”
“I’m his Father, what the devil does that matter?”
Jack’s heard Camille’s voice doing battle with his Father’s and he shrunk up against the wall, every set of eyes in the room on him accept Ennis’s who was looking only at the closed door, burning it down with his pupils.
“What in the world?” Ezzie said putting Elliott down on the floor.
“No! Don’t open the door!” Jack pleaded.
“Why? Do you want to?” Ezzie’s eyes challenged Jack’s a different way this time and it left Jack without a thing in the world to say.
“I-I…” His heart was thumping a rain dance inside the walls of his chest and he heard and felt Ennis swing his legs over the side of the bed, his toes touching down on the cool floor.
The pressure built around his neck and landed hard at his temples and he saw the door turn to red as he swung it open, a gush of air pushing Ezzie away to stand two steps behind him.
John Twist whirled around from the now vacant nurse’s station, taking his son in with wide, glaring eyes.
“God Almighty, you look a sight. I thought you had been shot or something equally inconvenient but now I see it is far worse than I have expected. You’ve let yourself go to total and utter waste.” He smiled a little then. “Though I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Get out,” Jack said, one hand on the door, the other on the door way. He was shaking with rage, protecting the room with outstretched limbs.
“I think I should stay away a while,” He looked past Jack. “Ah, I see you’ve made new friends or perhaps kept the old ones.” He stared with eyes made of daggers at Ezzie.
“I know you,” He cooed in a calm voice, matching Ezzie’s face with that of Ennis’s in the poisonous pictures his son had fought for so bravely. It had been amusing looking back.
“No you fucking don’t.” Ezzie said with lips and eyes of fire.
“Why are you here?” Jack seethed, the vein on his neck showing off its dark blue beauty.
John smiled at his son again.
“I heard you were ill. I came to see you.”
“Because you couldn’t look bad in front of one of your colleagues or because you wanted to make sure I was dead for yourself?”
John’s face twisted up into a lovely little smirk.
“I’ll tell your Mother that you’re just fine since you don’t see fit to check in on her yourself.”
Jack closed his eyes, refusing his Father’s guilt with an iron clad will.
“Why don’t you get the fuck out of here?” K.E. said stepping to the doorway. Jack let one arm fall away limply to allow him to step closer.
“Ah, a big friend of yours I see. I assume the two of you play nice together as boys too.”
Jack felt a hard force slam into his body from behind and he saw Ezzie’s shoes and sleeveless arms as they soared past him to get at his Father, K.E. presenting his wing span and bringing Ezzie back against him under the arms.
“You fucking bastard, I’ll fucking kill you!” Ezzie struggled in his brother’s tight grasp, reaching in vain for his blade in his back pocket, his feet making screeching noises on the floor below.
John gave a light chuckle, crossing his hands in front of him.
“Silly boys. Is this what you’ve reduced yourself to Jack? You’re no better trash than they are.”
Jack took a step closer to his Father and let his eyes move back and forth over his Dad’s still gaze.
“You don’t scare me anymore you old son of a bitch. And if that’s what you came here to do, you’re too late.” He had tasted his Father’s fear and he was an addict for more.
Ezzie had stilled in K.E.’s pulsing arms, eager to fight himself but the wisdom of not doing so hovering over head. That was exactly what the old bastard wanted.
Jack didn’t turn around but he felt Ennis, in his gown, stripped of all his external strengths standing there barefoot and full of stitches ready to pounce, re-injure himself for Jack’s wounds.
“Ennis!” Camille’s voice came out like a hushed shrill. “Get back in bed!” Everyone turned to look at the angry nurse as Elliott squeezed between his Jack’s legs to kick John directly in the shin.
“Leave Jack alone! My brother’s sick!”
John bent down to grab his bruised skin as Jack lifted Elliott away and moved him from in-between he and his Father.
“You little fucking brat,” John spat out.
Ezzie tried again to break free from K.E.’s arms and almost succeeded.
“You lay a hand on my brother and I’ll get you to hell sooner than you were expected.”
Camille rounded the nurse’s station on soft white heels.
“Sir, you need to leave right now.”
“I’ll do as I damn well please; I’m the most highly educated person in this goddamn city!” John was still bent over rubbing his sore limb.
“Alright and I’m Mickey Mouse but that doesn’t change the fact that I’ll ask you again Sir to leave before I have you removed.”
Ezzie’s chest beat wildly with anger, his breath loud in the quiet hallway and John stood up, coasting his eyes over the valiant force before him.
“I pity you.” He looked at Jack then. “All of you.”
He walked off with spotless shoes on spotless floors, clack, clack, clack until his dark figure was gone.
Camille walked over to Ennis and turned him around by the shoulders.
“Back to bed with you.”
Ennis let her turn his body half way round but he gave Jack a look over his shoulder, eyes half open, that said he was sorry. The same look was given to K.E. but he didn’t see it.
.
Jack stood there, still trembling, his ears ringing at Camille’s outcries of her ruined floor, watching a brave faced Elliott cling to Ezra’s shaking leg.
“We got ‘em Jack,” He said from dark pink lips.
K.E. looked down at both his brothers and then at Jack, each holding the other like a warrior’s uneven totem pole.
“I knew we should have cleaned up that damned floor,” He muttered.
_________________________________________________________
K.E. had told Jack he could sleep in Ennis’s bed if he wanted, said there was no point in sleeping on the couch when there was an empty bed in the house.
Jack gathered up his pillow and blanket from the couch and carried them into Ennis and Ezra’s room, depositing them on top of the thin sheet Ennis always slept with. He loved being cold when he slept; he was hot natured and hated sweating while he was trying to sleep.
Ezzie had a pillow propped up against the wall, one leg pushed up close to his body and a book in his lap. He had a study light on that K.E. had mounted above his bed. They’d stolen it and the nails it took to put it in but it had been worth it not to hear Ennis barking about the big light on over head and how it kept him awake.
Jack took his time in organizing the bed sheets and blanket, even tucking them in around the corners between the floor and the mattress. He figured he should look busy and in a few seconds he’d grab his own book and pretend to be reading too.
Ezzie watched Jack out of the corner of his eye as he nipped and tucked and evened out the bed covers until they were smooth as a polished rock.
“You know you’re as bad as Ennis when it comes to tucking stuff in. Only he does it with his shirt, not his sheets.”
Jack looked up embarrassed at Ezzie’s sluggish comment. How could he be so stupid? Making his bed, not even his bed, Ennis’s bed, like that in front of a greaser?
“Oh I uh, just wanted to make sure I didn’t lose my covers during the night. I’m a rough sleeper…I just…wanted to make sure everything was…where it should be.”
Ezzie watched Jack fumble with his explanation and gave him a polite nod that told him he didn’t believe a word he was saying.
“Did you have to keep your bed like that at home?”
Jack froze from patting down the covers one last time and looked up at Ezzie whose eyes were marching into his, already knowing the answer.
“Well actually, yeah. Yeah, I did.” Jack looked down at the perfectly made pallet in despair and very near anger as he tore the cover and sheet away from its holding places on every side in one swift move. He crumbled them up at the foot of the bed and felt a sense of victory was through out his insides.
Ezzie seemed not to notice and returned to his reading, licking his finger to turn the page.
Jack spread his body, stomach down across the naked mattress and criss-crossed his ankles and his fingers, tucking his hands under his chin. He stirred his bare feet in the tangled covers just to mess them up a little bit more and moved his thumbs across his eyebrows as if he was trying to wipe them off his face, pushing his newborn thoughts to the front of his mind.
“Hey thanks for sticking up to my old man today. You didn’t have to do that.”
Ezzie shrugged. “I know.”
Jack sighed. Well he had said what he had to say. He just thought and hoped that maybe Ezzie would say a little something in return.
“I didn’t need you to,” Jack said with casual pride. “I already pulled a blade on him you know.”
“Huh.” Ezzie turned another page.
Jack bit his bottom lip. He wasn’t responding the way he was supposed to. This was worst than talking to Ennis. He had at least hoped for a ‘Good for you’ or ‘The bastard deserved it’ from Ezzie but instead he got nothing.
“So what are you reading?” Jack tried in a last ditch effort for conversation. He jogged back to familiar ground, common ground with Ezzie; books.
“Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales.” Ezzie closed the book and reached up to turn his over head light off blanketing the room in cobalt darkness. Jack could hear him pulling his own covers up around him with a deep breath that was his final goodnight.
Jack rolled over on his back and reached down to grad his blanket, pulling it up around his chin. He lay there listening to Ezra breathe, so still so he could hear the parting of his lips when he opened them to speak.
“How did you know chocolate was his favorite?” Ezzie whispered, flying just into the radar of Jack’s ears.
“Cause it was what he spilled on me at the Sno Hut the first time we met.” Jack said it like he’d been waiting to say it his whole life.
Ezzie leaned up on one elbow. “That was you? You’re the Soc that had him acting like that?”
Jack almost laughed. “Yea, that’s me, the Soc that had him acting like that.” He didn’t ask how he had acted. Jack had watched Ennis’s one man show many times by now. He always had a front row seat.
Ezzie settled back down into his covers and blinked at Jack in the dark.
“I don’t understand it. You’re…boys.” Ezzie had a hushed amateur’s voice, gladly removing his title of wisdom and quick wit.
“Yea, we are,” Jack said to the ceiling.
“Doesn’t that? I mean…is it…is it normal?”
Jack smiled, his teeth pearly white in the moonlight.
“What’s normal anyway?”
Ezzie buried himself deeper into his blanket so that only his eyes and forehead stuck out.
“But how do you…I mean…” Ezzie’s muffled voice paused. “How do you…do it?”
Jack’s eyes searched the dimness in front of him for an answer that cradled, not massacred Ezzie’s curiosity.
“How do you know we do?” Jack stuck his foot out for the first turn of their verbal tango.
Ezzie sighed, his I-see-through-people robe placed proudly back on his shoulders.
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you, who do you think you’re fooling? I’m not stupid. He looks at you like…like…everyone else around needs to go away or something. Like they don’t belong where you are. He’s never looked at anyone like that. It’s crazy.”
Jack let Ezzie’s words, his confession sink in. His heart fluttered a little at what Ezzie saw, what Jack couldn’t see because Ennis wouldn’t let him. It wasn’t on a billboard but it existed out there somewhere in real time, that look and Jack knew what it meant whether he saw it or not.
“Hey, the only time I’ve ever looked at someone like that was at a girl I knew was about do me right.”
Jack put a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing at the way Ezzie said that.
“I don’t know,” Ezzie exhaled, his tone was serious again.
“Our hair color isn’t the only thing that makes us different ya know. I’m…not like Ennis.”
“I know,” Jack said softly.
Ezzie flipped over to face the wall and gave Jack the best he could give.
“Don’t fuck with my brother,” He warned.
“I won’t.”
“And don’t let him fuck with you either. I know how that bastard can be sometimes.”
Jack nodded silently, sealing a promise with Ezra that Ennis never had to know they made.
Jack turned away too and sniffed in deeply the scent of Ennis’s pillow that he made sure was on top. His stomach tightened at how familiar, how fresh the smell was. Ezzie’s words played concerts in his head and he mouthed the words ‘Don’t fuck with my brother’ over and over until it became fuck and brother and then fuck and Ennis with no space at all in between.
Jack’s hands found himself beneath the drawstring of Ennis’s pajama bottoms and he shut his eyes tight, mouthing those two words over and over, rutting his head, his nose into the pillow full of Ennis at the same speed his hand was going, picturing Ennis on top of him just like his beautiful boys layered, leg to leg, arm to arm in his long forgotten magazine.
He came half in his hand, half on Ennis’s pants and he brought it up to his stomach on his cupped palm, tracing it over his stomach where he knew Ennis had been shot, coating his skin healing and mending what he couldn’t touch, letting the clear thread dry there.
Rating: R
Pairing: Jack/Ennis
Teaser: This is an AU/AU story.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the wonderful and talented Annie Proulx. I only baby-sit them for her when she's busy with other things. ALL OC's are of course, OC'S belonging to the author.
Author's Note:
-All past chapters can now be found via my LJ; HERE
Ennis opened his eyes slowly, almost peeling them apart, lid from lid, letting them give way to a series of flutters and Jack was the first thing he saw, feeling a warm, still pressure over one of his hands.
Jack slept just as he said he would, his body in the chair, his head on the bed and he had stayed like that all night long. One arm was folded underneath his head and his face was turned away from Ennis, his hair sticking up on one side like it always did when he slept.
Ennis didn’t move, he was afraid he’d break or unhook something if he did. He looked at the long IV tube that ran from his hand to the stand and he felt sick to his stomach. He wondered what it was for. It looked like it was supposed to hurt but it didn’t, but still, he didn’t like looking at it.
Ennis stared at Jack instead, his muddled memory trying its best to slide every coin in the slot where it belonged so he could win the prize of remembering everything that had happened. He’d never been very good at remembering things. K.E. used to have to leave notes taped to the bathroom mirror to remind him to go get the mail or take out the trash.
Jack was still sleeping when the nurse who had been keeping vigil right along side Jack entered the room.
“I knew you’d be awake,” She said smiling. Her smile was bright and her face surrendered to it.
Ennis blinked hard at the vision in white beside him.
“Who are you?”
The nurse smiled and began thumping his IV drip.
“Who am I? I’m your nurse, my name is Camille.” She pointed to her name tag and Ennis didn’t tell her he couldn’t see something that up close.
She nodded towards Jack then.
“Your friend here, he’s been sleeping just like that all night, ever since you got out of surgery. I didn’t have the heart to wake him up and tell him to leave. His neck is going to be killing him when he gets up though.”
“Surgery?” Ennis’s hand was awake now and was going numb beneath Jack’s head and grasp and he scooted up a little hoping the nurse hadn’t seen Jack holding his hand like that.
“Yes dear, surgery. You were shot. Don’t you remember?”
Ennis bit the inside of his jaw. Yea he remembered getting shot but not much after that. He remembered who did it too.
“H-how’s Marco?”
Camille looked up from writing something on her chart.
“Who’s Marco?”
Ennis just realized he was wearing what looked like a dress, a gown or something and he wanted to ask where his pants and jacket were.
“Marco, he’s the one that shot me.”
Camille frowned.
“You want to know about the guy who shot you?”
“He’s my friend,” Ennis defended.
“Your friend shot you?” Camille finished what she was writing and gave her full attention to Ennis.
“That doesn’t sound like the kind of friend I would want,” She mused.
“Yea well what’d you know?” Ennis grumbled. He wished she would just leave already.
Camille bit the tip of her pen.
“Oh, you’re going to be my favorite patient. I can already tell.”
Ennis rolled his downcast eyes.
“Where’s my clothes?”
“Don’t you want to know where you got shot?”
“After you tell me where my clothes are.”
Camille laughed and rubbed the back of Ennis’s head. He moved away from it.
“They warned me about you and your brothers, the mean puppy with the sharp claws at the end of the hallway.”
“Puppy?”
“But you can put your fangs away, I always liked the dangerous ones the best. It never gets boring.” She closed her chart up and headed for the door.
“Your clothes, what’s left of them are fine. They had to cut your shirt. The rest are locked up in the nurse’s station. They’ll bring you your breakfast in a few minutes.”
“Not hungry,” Ennis retorted.
“But it’s pancakes!” Camille said with a smile. That was her way of saying shut up and eat.
“Well what if I don’t like pancakes?” Ennis wasn’t ready to let her win just yet.
“Oh you’re not getting pancakes. Your stomach isn’t ready for that yet. We’ve got something else in store for you.” She gave him one last smile and was gone.
His stomach? Ennis moved his hand up under the sheet to lift his gown when he felt Jack jerk out of his sleep beside him.
“Ow!” Ennis said as Jack snatched his hand, raising his head from the bed.
“E-Ennis?” Jack’s eyes were thick with ill-gotten sleep.
“Ennis,” Jack ran his hands up Ennis’s arm, one in front of the other like he was climbing a ladder.
“Ennis, Ennis,” He repeated, he was touching his arm, his shoulder, his neck and now he was standing, sliding the chair backwards and away from him, touching Ennis’s face, one cheek in each hand.
Ennis watched him quietly, blinking slowly, letting him touch him.
“Ennis, you’re okay, a-are you okay?” Jack’s eyes poured into his and all Ennis could do was breathe, that’s all Jack wanted him to do. He felt like a lot of things were crowded around inside of him, like he’d had to talk to twenty different invisible faces at once but all he could do was stare at Jack, his own face making the others shoot away on the backs of clouds.
“It’s gonna be alright Ennis, everything is going to be alright, I’m not going anywhere.”
Jack picked up one of Ennis’s hands and held it against his face before putting it in-between his two hands and rubbing vigorously to warm him up. He slowed down when he felt the skin turn hot at the friction and realized Ennis was still looking at him, not saying a word.
“A-are you, do you need something Ennis? Do you want me to get the nurse?”
Ennis shook his head, turning the curls at his temples till they touched the tips of Jack’s fingers. He opened his mouth but like a man with no tongue or no vocal cords. He spoke with his eyes instead, like a disease had crippled and slurred his words.
Jack’s thumbs moved to rest on either side of Ennis’s mouth, tempted to peel back and open his lips so he could speak. They were cracked and peeling and Jack licked his own lips, wanting to wet Ennis’s.
“Lips hurt,” Ennis mumbled.
Jack nodded and leaned in, sticking the tip of his bright pink tongue out to coat the lining of Ennis’s mouth, moistening the dry skin once and then again.
“What else hurts?” Jack whispered against Ennis’s nose.
He opened his mouth, maybe to speak, maybe as an entrance for Jack’s medicine but the sound of the door breaking open blew their bodies apart and a tiny warm ball of flesh replaced Jack’s body as Elliott attempted to soar into Ennis’s arms.
“Whoa slow down there kid, can’t you see he’s tied down?” Ezzie’s voice was like a soft melody in the sterile room and Jack looked away, shrinking against the wall, shuffling to the side for the main attraction to pass through.
“Ennie! Ennie, you’re here!” Elliott was grasping at the sheets to get to Ennis and Ezzie lifted him up to sit on the bed beside him.
“Careful there,” Ezzie murmured watching the machines make their noise, his eyes following the wires that were connected from the stand to Ennis’s hand.
“He’s not made out of glass, he’s not gonna break.” K.E. was leaning in the doorway; arms folded but nothing about his body was protected. He stood there and watched the four sets of eager eyes stare at him like he was carrying a torch to the finish line and people had been expecting him for hours.
He walked over twisting his fingers in and out of one another at his sides, Ennis toying with the zipper on Elliott’s jacket.
“They treating you okay then?” His voice was low, mellow and measured like a man trying out a new language with a raw tongue.
“Good as they can I guess.”
Jack watched this dance with quiet wonder. He pictured the room empty, void of anyone but them and the machines and he wondered if they would talk or be content to listen to the beeping, talking for them, letting them know Ennis was still here, and that he wasn’t going anywhere.
K.E. busied himself with messing with Elliott’s hair.
“I took an extra shift tonight, figured I’d need it now that-” He stopped himself and looked at Ezzie across the bed.
“But if you need me to stay here, take turns watching you with Ezzie-”
Ennis was shaking his heavy head. “No, should be alright. You need to work. Hell I do too.”
He looked down at his body and no one said it but they knew why he needed to work. Hospital bills weren’t cheap and cheap was about all they could afford.
K.E.’s face sank; maybe wishing Ennis had said ‘yea come on, stay. Blow off work for a couple of days I want ya here.’ But K.E. knew he couldn’t do it anymore than Ennis could say it.
Necessity was no friend to luxury of even the simplest kind.
“Good news is, the nurse said you’d be out of here by Monday,” Ezzie broadened the room with his words.
“What day is it?” Ennis asked.
“Saturday,” Ezzie said.
Ennis nodded like he’d just been asked a deep and probing question.
“Where’s Marco?”
Snakes of discontent slithered their way over the white tiled floors and wrapped themselves around everyone’s ankles, rooting them to the spot so they couldn’t escape and around their throats, stifling the words they weren’t sure how to say without frustrated venom coming from their human fangs.
“We don’t know,” Ezzie said honestly. “Tammy says she hasn’t seen him, she went out with Jimmy Wayne looking for him…no luck.”
Ennis was still nodding like there was a slow song playing in his head that only he could hear.
“Do you need anything?” K.E. volunteered. He was untying and tying Elliott’s left shoe.
Jack wanted to say he had already asked that but their words weren’t different, only the answers they wanted to hear.
“I’m okay.”
“Ennie why are you wearing a dress?” Elliott asked drawing two fingers down the front of Ennis’s gown.
Ennis turned a deep fuchsia and moved Elliott’s hand away.
“They say I have to.”
“Come on Elliott, let’s go home, get you showered and changed.” Ezra picked Elliott up and held him tight in his arms. He was waving with both hands as they walked to the door, Ezzie telling Ennis they’d be back as soon as they were done.
“”Bye Ennie! We’ll be back!” He was still chanting and singing up and down the hallway in Ezra’s arms, the nurses turning their heads to smile at the cute little kid and pity him for the future life he would lead all in the same glance.
Ennis’s food came then, all liquid and he curled his lip in distaste.
“You don’t look happy Ennis,” Camille said walking in behind the orderly. She lifted up his head to flip his pillow over and fluff it up against his back.
“That’s a million dollar sentence with this one,” K.E. said with a good natured smile. Ennis looked at his brother. There was something different about him, something calmer, something eager to be near, to please and ruffle his fur and feathers over you until you curled up against him. Ennis’s mouth twisted at the taste of it, his taste buds not sure how to take this new sweet and sour concoction.
“Okay well the Doctor will be in later this afternoon to look you over, see if everything went alright.” Camille’s face was contagious and Jack found himself copying it while he studied it. He wanted to look that happy, he liked the way her smile looked on her and hoped his looked just like it.
“See you’re not so scary.” She winked at him and Ennis settled into his pillow that was more comfortable but she didn’t have to know that.
K.E. watched her go and he put his hand up over the top of the bed.
“Guess I’ll go down and grab the car while Jimmy’s here. He’s probably down there honking up a storm, waking the morgue up.”
“Don’t let him up here,” Ennis said quickly. That was all he needed, another person making fun of him in his gown. He wanted his jacket back so bad he could hardly stand it and he’d even put a little grease in his hair if he could, Jack would just have to look away.
“I won’t. You uh…you gonna be alright till Ezzie gets back?” He looked at Jack but Jack was looking at Ennis. He hadn’t stopped since he had woken up.
Ennis nodded and pulled his sheet up all the way to his waist.
“You need to work.”
K.E. sucked the sides of his mouth inside and nodded quickly.
“Yea I guess I do.”
“I guess I can go back to work Monday then?” Ennis’s jaw became strong.
K.E. opened his mouth, no wallowing inside of his mouth sounding both protective and bossy, yes sounding like he needed him to get well as soon as possible.
“We’ll see what the Doctor says,” He decided at last.
Jack finally looked up at K.E. then and gave his own nod.
“We’ll be fine K.E.” He licked his lips, last night’s tornado of truth circling above his head like a grey cyclone of missteps and misspoken words that had been showing their power all along. The command that the simple word ‘we’ had opposed to ‘him’ didn’t fall on deaf ears of this ring leader.
K.E. looked at him, the eyes of a guardian who wanted to know why their child was different and if you had done it. A Chief unhappy with an unbalanced tribe, his markings not like the rest, a gatherer, not a hunter.
“Sure. Sure you will be.”
K.E. turned his back on one heel and approached the door with steps that only wanted to have a purpose.
“Hey K.E.?”
He turned around a little too quickly.
“Yea?”
“Hey, don’t get…it ain’t Marco’s fault for what he done…and I don’t wanna see him locked up…” Ennis hung his head. “The state finds out about this and Elliott’s gone,” He said quietly.
The stone that began growing the day they had buried their parents and Sis sprouted another pebble in K.E.’s belly.
He smiled the smile of a man doing so for his captors just to infuriate them.
“You bet’ cha.”
“Alright. See you later then kid.”
The door closed and Jack noticed his knuckles white on the bar of Ennis’s bed. He didn’t know what he had been expecting but he had been wearing his armor just in case.
Three knocks and Camille poked her head in the door, her mane of soft black hair pilling in soon after.
“Just wanted to make sure you were still okay, that you weren’t alone. I saw your brothers leave, but I see one is still here.”
Ennis made a face. “Fine, don’t mind being alone. And he’s not my brother.”
Camille looked at Jack.
“Well I’m glad you’re not. And I didn’t think he was.”
Her eyes flickered over Jack kindly. She had seen him sleep that way beside Ennis all night.
“Get some rest if you can Ennis, it’ll do you good.”
“She sure does come in here a lot,” Ennis mumbled when they were alone again He pulled the sheet up even higher around his waist. Who had pink sheets?
“Well what would you do if you came to work and someone who looked like James Dean was behind the curtain?” Jack grinned.
“Probably pass out seeing as how he’s dead and all,” Ennis wasn’t in the mood for jokes and missed Jack’s compliment completely. He didn’t want to be here. He hated hospitals and everything in them; the food, the smell, the sounds, all of it. He just wanted to go home with his battered stomach and bruised hands and arms from the IV and sleep until he had to get up. He missed Ezzie’s eggs and Elliott’s humming at the kitchen table no matter how annoying he pretended it was.
“She’s just doing her job Ennis,” Jack tried to soothe him.
“Fluffing my pillow ain’t her job.”
Jack shrugged. “Maybe she has a crush on you.”
Ennis gave Jack a look that said he was done talking about this. He fidgeted in his gown; it was too big and felt like paper on his skin. He tugged on the sleeves and exhausted his breath with a sigh.
“Damn gown came undone,” He said under his breath. He tried his best to reach around to close it but the IV drip wires said otherwise.
“Hey don’t move like that, let me do it.” Jack stood and pushed Ennis up gently in the half-lifted bed.
Ennis’s back had pushed both sides of the gown almost completely off and Jack reached for the strings, dragging his hand along the skin slowly.
“So soft,” Jack whispered and he felt Ennis tense against his fingers.
“Jack.” Ennis didn’t turn his head, just looked straight ahead. It wasn’t a yes or a no to a question that hadn’t been asked.
Jack watched his shoulder blades move and roll, sitting up straight so his back gave way to an indention for his spine. Jack loved Ennis’s shoulders. They were broad but slender and stick out just far enough to look like he was hiding something in them all the time.
“You sore?” Jack asked running his hands up Ennis’s spine to the shoulders he loved. He rubbed them like he knew they wanted to be rubbed.
Ennis shrugged. “Just tired of being in this bed is all.” Jack knew in Ennis Land that meant keep rubbing.
So Jack did, slow and gentle and rough sometimes to get the kinks out. He slipped the gown out off Ennis’s shoulders until it fell past his chest and rolled down limply at his elbows.
“Don’t pull it down no further,” Ennis said wearily. “I haven’t looked at my scar yet.”
“I wasn’t Ennis, I wasn’t.” Jack massaged his arms and let his hands drape over his shoulders until his fingers brushed his chest and he touched him there too.
“Damn,” Ennis hung his head and then let it roll back, against Jack, not caring how cold he was with his grown pulled down like that or how ugly his scar might be. He was even kind of proud of it. K.E. used to say you weren’t a greaser until you had some kind of scar.
“Still look new to me,” Jack said circling his hands around Ennis’s waist from behind. It was a little thinner thanks to his liquid and hospital food diet which meant not eating at all.
“You ever gonna close my gown up?” Ennis said with one eye open now.
Jack laughed right up against Ennis’s jaw.
“Yea I guess so.”
Ennis sat up again and Jack pulled up the gown, closing it for him and patting the pillow to let him know he was done and he could lean back, trying to fluff it just as Camille had. Ennis let Jack make him feel good, he let him cross a hallway that only Jack could pass through and walk down, peeping into rooms where all outside visitors were expelled, Ennis’s castle with the walls made up of banished subjects.
“All better?”
“As I can be,” He said his back touching the now familiar mattress.
“Hey!” Jack’s eyes lit up around his pale face and plaid coat collar.
“Do you want some ice cream?”
Ennis started to say no but the thought of a big tub of gooey sugary ice cream over took all over sensations.
“Can I?”
Jack smiled. “You can if I say so.” Jack began digging his pockets for Ennis’s things and he paused removing them one at a time to lay them across Ennis’s belly, even the tobacco ashes of the broken cigarettes.
Ennis watched Jack make his little display of gum wrappers and dollars and his orange book that he hardly looked at anymore.
“I took all of this from you before the ambulance got there. I didn’t want anyone taking anything that belonged to you.”
Ennis’s eyes glazed over as he picked up the butt of one of his prized cigarettes and held it between his fingers like he was smoking it, wanting his fingers to smell that way again.
He slid the money over to Jack with the cigarette flavored hand.
“I could use some ice cream.”
That was all Jack needed to hear as he crushed the money in his pocket and buttoned up his coat with ready, nimble fingers.
“There’s a store about two blocks away,” He said half to himself, half to Ennis.
He looked toward the door and the only thing he didn’t do in haste was lean over the bed to brush his lips against Ennis’s.
“Need a toothbrush,” Ennis said through barely open lips and eyes.
Jack grinned and dashed out of the room, taking the carpeted floor like it was ice and he was on skates, sliding into the elevator, on a mission that made him feel important, happy to fill the well of Ennis’s request.
His arms and even his mouth were full as he pushed four on the elevator with his foot on the way back up. No he hadn’t wanted a bag and he hadn’t wanted to talk about football scores with the store clerk either. That took up time he didn’t have to get back to Ennis and slip the soft cream into Ennis’s mouth. He’d picked up the ice cream along with some comic books, candy bars, and a coke just in case he wanted a float.
He slowed his walk once he got close to the room and with a greedy little smile; he knocked on the door with his foot, pushing it open to bestow his gifts and his face fell at the sight of Ezzie sitting in Jack’s chair, Elliott playing happily beside Ennis in the bed, both holding some little green army soldiers.
“Oh. Hey Ezzie.” Jack’s voice was weak with disappointment but Ezzie seemed not to notice as he tossed a hand up in the air.
“Why don’t you go to the house and get some rest? You have to be tired.” There was something a little challenging in Ezzie’s eyes and Jack pretended not to notice as he unloaded his arms on the table beside Ennis.
“What’d you get there?” Ezzie peered over the bed to watch Jack. Ennis did too.
“Oh, uh just some things.” Jack shrugged like it was no big deal that he had scoured the aisle for the comics Ennis said he liked to look at for fifteen minutes or the candy bars he’d seen him staring at in the movies the first and only time they were there.
“Well what’d you get?”
“Oh I got some candy bars-”
“Candy! Can I have one Jack?” Elliott’s ears entered the conversation as they chose, searching for words he cared about.
Jack sighed and tossed one over to him, not used to the needy fingers and mouths of kids wanting half of everything he had all to himself.
“Thanks!” Elliott said tearing into the chocolate bar without even consulting his brother. Ezzie was too tired to argue, he’d just make Elliott swear not to tell K.E.
Jack turned around with at least one prize in his hand, the ice cream to hand to Ennis but as he did Ezzie pulled a cold tub of the same thing from a plastic bag beside the bed. The boys looked at one another across the bed and Elliott watched them both, tiny spots of chocolate at the corners of his mouth.
“Oh, you got ice cream,” Jack said looking down at Ezzie’s gift that Ennis hadn’t had to ask for.
“Yep. Strawberry, his favorite.” He removed the lid and picked up the spoon he had grabbed from home. A spoon, Jack hadn’t even thought of that. He’d been too anxious to get the comic books.
“Oh, I got chocolate.” He opened his own container and sat it down on the bed just like Ezzie. Elliott eyed both tubs with wide eyes.
“Well it doesn’t matter, he’ll have plenty to eat. And I brought more than one spoon just in case,” Ezzie said smiling down at Ennis waiting for him to pick up the spoon and dig in. His smile was a little too satisfied. Jack hadn’t planned ahead at all and he knew it.
Ennis picked up the spoon and pushed it into the soft pink mix and held it up to his lips.
“What? Why are you watching me?” He spoke with his lips on the edge of the ice cream and looked from Ezzie to Jack and both boys looked away quickly, one to the floor, the other to the wall.
Ennis put the mesh in his mouth and when Ezzie wasn’t looking he let it fall out, warm and melted back into the container and prodded Elliott with the other spoon against his shoulder to take the strawberry all for himself. He reached over to pick up the chocolate, his favorite and pulled the container up to his chin.
Ennis reached over to pick up his favorite comic with a confused expression and Ezzie watched him with a tight smile.
“Elliott must have wanted the strawberry,” He said logically.
Ennis nodded, not meeting his eyes. “Yea, he did.”
He flipped open the comic book and shoved a mouthful of chocolate ice cream in his mouth in time with Elliott.
Ezzie wanted one of Jack’s candy bars. But he didn’t ask.
______________________________________________________
Jack slept at the hospital again that night. He didn’t care how he smelled or how naturally greasy his own hair was becoming without soap and shampoo. Ice cream had been banned from the room at Camille’s request but Jack hadn’t and no one had fought him to sleep in Ennis’s room again that night.
He’d accepted the cot Camille offered him and watched Ennis until he went to sleep, maybe to make sure he did, maybe just because he wanted to watch him. Jack had learned to blink into sleep with the timing of the beeping machines, each blink a flutter of Ennis’s heart read on weird little lines on paper.
Ezzie had wanted to stay but a kid will always stop you from doing things for one person in the place of things you have to do for them and Ezra knew he couldn’t keep Elliott at the hospital over night. K.E. was working late, he said he might even pull a double if his boss would let him but he’d be by first thing in the morning. That is, unless Ennis wanted him to stop by, maybe even stay, but Ennis had said no, no they needed the money. Hospital bills didn’t pay themselves.
Ennis wasn’t in good spirits on his second day in the hospital, it felt more like his fortieth and it was written all over his face by the time lunch was brought in at eleven.
Ennis hated hospital food. He looked down at his tray in dismal dismay, lips stuck out, eyes focused on the grayish looking meat and dull mix of green and orange vegetables.
“Come on Ennis, you have to eat. The Doctor said you’ll get your strength back sooner,” Jack pleaded in the chair beside him.
Ennis just sat there, his hands on either side of the tray. He read his name on his hospital bracelet. He hadn’t had one on since the Dr. had gotten him and Ezzie mixed up and put the wrong bracelets on them when they were born. His Dad had called him Ezzie until he was two days old.
“Just a bite Ennis, come on.”
Ennis shook his head. He’d rather starve.
“Ennis if you don’t eat the Doctor is gonna put you back on that IV drip. You want that again? I know how much you hate needles.”
Ennis glared at Jack.
“Now open up. Just take one little bite.” Jack had a few vegetables in Ennis’s plastic spoon and he held it right up to his lips.
Ennis blew the vegetables off the spoon and turned his head.
“Ennis, you’re acting like a kid now. Stop being a baby and eat.” Jack was standing now, holding Ennis’s head and doing his best to shove the cold food in between his lips.
“Hey what’s up?” K.E. knocked with two knuckles on the door, a crooked baseball cap on his head, still in his work clothes from the day before. He stopped when he saw the scene in front of him and cleared his throat as if his knocking hadn’t interrupted whatever was going on already.
“Is this a bad time or something?” He looked big and awkward standing there in the doorway.
Jack sighed and threw the spoon down into the food.
“He won’t eat and the Doctor said he had to eat.”
K.E. walked the rest of the way into the room and took something out from the inside of his coat.
“I figured as much, can’t blame you kid. Here, I snuck this in here for you.”
K.E opened the brown paper bag and set out a burger with fries from the Sno Hut and a coke the size of Ennis’s head. He looked at it as if it wasn’t even there.
“He can’t have that; he can only eat what the hospital gives him. Camille jumped all over me and Ezzie yesterday for bringing him ice cream.”
Jack realized he had over-stepped his boundaries and he looked away, slowly sitting back down in his chair, hands in his lap.
“I guess eating is eating,” K.E. said looking at Ennis but talking to Jack. Ennis picked up a French fry and crushed in between his fingers until grease dripped down on top of his hospital food.
“How’s Marco?” His voice croaked.
K.E. ran a hand through his hair and put his baseball cap back on straight. He took a deep breath and looked at the top of Ennis’s head.
“Well the good news is, he came home last night. But he won’t leave his house, won’t even talk about going back to work. Tammy said he hasn’t said a word since he got home, just drinking a lot. She’s keeping an eye on him making sure he doesn’t run away.”
Ennis was staring at the wall in front of him and he pushed his tray of food away.
“Take this away, I don’t want it.”
“Ennis-” Jack started but Ennis tipped the tray over sending the hospital food and the food K.E. had brought to the floor.
“I said I don’t want it!” He yelled. His hands were fisted at his sides on the bed.
“Okay Ennis, you don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to.” K.E. was bending down to pick up the food and put it back on the tray.
Camille poked her head in the doorway then and K.E. and Jack looked down at the food instead of her. K.E. stepped over in an effort to block her from seeing how they had dirtied up her nice, clean floor.
“Is there a problem in here?”
Jack was shaking his head. “No, no ma’am everything is fine.”
She pursed her lips a little and didn’t look totally convinced but she left them alone for the time being.
K.E. bent down again to pick up the food and Jack walked around the bed to help him.
“Don’t clean that shit up, leave it there. They’ll clean it up. It’s their job.”
Jack gave Ennis a harsh look. The kind you’d give a stranger you saw being rude to a little kid or an old lady for no reason.
“He’s home Ennis, everything is alright,” K.E. said putting the empty coke cup back on the tray.
“Who said I was worried about Marco huh? Marco ain’t the one’s that gotta pay for me lying in this bed for two days.”
“Well I don’t want you worrying about me if it means you acting like this.” K.E. spurted out.
“Why? You do.”
Jack stopped, his fingers dripping with cola, his hand full of fries.
K.E. stood up, holding the empty hospital tray in his hands.
“You’re sounding more and more like Ezzie every day.”
“Well you should be happy then.”
K.E.’s eyes drowned in protest and he slammed the tray down right in front of Ennis, jarring him, making him blink to avoid the liquid of the meat still left there.
“Goddamn it Ennis what do you want from me? You want me to tell you t-that you’re not Ezzie and I sure as hell don’t want you to be? Well you ain’t and I don’t.”
Jack stood still blinking. The grease and soda mixing were mixing and drying on his fingers. He seemed to be an observer to this quiet battlefield more and more, like a man that could walk through a stain glass wall without a cut because somebody else had already broken in for him.
“I didn’t make you quit school, me and Mom begged you not to, but you’re just like her. You’re so damn stubborn you don’t have the time to listen to what anyone says if it doesn’t line up with what you think.”
“And you’re not that way I guess,” Ennis scoffed.
K.E. swallowed slowly, eager to control his temper.
“I didn’t say that.” He sighed and leaned down to pick up the empty soda cup and tossed it up on Ennis’s tray with a tired hand.
“I’m doing the best I can Ennis. That’s the one thing Dad taught me that I give a damn about.”
Ennis’s mind slammed on brakes at his brother’s words and he looked at him like he was a sightseer in his life, just dropping by to say hello, see your differences and maybe show you his own before going home to put your pretty pictures on his wall. This man, this face hadn’t been to see him in a long, long time.
Ennis stared at his brother and Jack stared at the tops of his shoes until he thought his neck would go numb.
Ezzie, the savior of all things unkempt waltzed in then with Elliott on his shoulders announcing that tomorrow Ennis would be free.
“Tomorrow!” Elliott echoed.
Jack walked over to deposit the things in his hands into the trash and he gave Ennis a look that said if the room was empty the space between them wouldn’t be.
“Jack Twist? I said is there a Jack Twist here anywhere?”
Jack froze at the sound of a voice he knew all too well, a voice that made his heart pump out hot, hard blood that only served to fill his icy veins.
“Jack Twist? We don’t have a Jack Twist admitted here sir.”
“Well I was told by a friend of mine they saw him here.”
“Who are you sir?”
“I’m his Father, what the devil does that matter?”
Jack’s heard Camille’s voice doing battle with his Father’s and he shrunk up against the wall, every set of eyes in the room on him accept Ennis’s who was looking only at the closed door, burning it down with his pupils.
“What in the world?” Ezzie said putting Elliott down on the floor.
“No! Don’t open the door!” Jack pleaded.
“Why? Do you want to?” Ezzie’s eyes challenged Jack’s a different way this time and it left Jack without a thing in the world to say.
“I-I…” His heart was thumping a rain dance inside the walls of his chest and he heard and felt Ennis swing his legs over the side of the bed, his toes touching down on the cool floor.
The pressure built around his neck and landed hard at his temples and he saw the door turn to red as he swung it open, a gush of air pushing Ezzie away to stand two steps behind him.
John Twist whirled around from the now vacant nurse’s station, taking his son in with wide, glaring eyes.
“God Almighty, you look a sight. I thought you had been shot or something equally inconvenient but now I see it is far worse than I have expected. You’ve let yourself go to total and utter waste.” He smiled a little then. “Though I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Get out,” Jack said, one hand on the door, the other on the door way. He was shaking with rage, protecting the room with outstretched limbs.
“I think I should stay away a while,” He looked past Jack. “Ah, I see you’ve made new friends or perhaps kept the old ones.” He stared with eyes made of daggers at Ezzie.
“I know you,” He cooed in a calm voice, matching Ezzie’s face with that of Ennis’s in the poisonous pictures his son had fought for so bravely. It had been amusing looking back.
“No you fucking don’t.” Ezzie said with lips and eyes of fire.
“Why are you here?” Jack seethed, the vein on his neck showing off its dark blue beauty.
John smiled at his son again.
“I heard you were ill. I came to see you.”
“Because you couldn’t look bad in front of one of your colleagues or because you wanted to make sure I was dead for yourself?”
John’s face twisted up into a lovely little smirk.
“I’ll tell your Mother that you’re just fine since you don’t see fit to check in on her yourself.”
Jack closed his eyes, refusing his Father’s guilt with an iron clad will.
“Why don’t you get the fuck out of here?” K.E. said stepping to the doorway. Jack let one arm fall away limply to allow him to step closer.
“Ah, a big friend of yours I see. I assume the two of you play nice together as boys too.”
Jack felt a hard force slam into his body from behind and he saw Ezzie’s shoes and sleeveless arms as they soared past him to get at his Father, K.E. presenting his wing span and bringing Ezzie back against him under the arms.
“You fucking bastard, I’ll fucking kill you!” Ezzie struggled in his brother’s tight grasp, reaching in vain for his blade in his back pocket, his feet making screeching noises on the floor below.
John gave a light chuckle, crossing his hands in front of him.
“Silly boys. Is this what you’ve reduced yourself to Jack? You’re no better trash than they are.”
Jack took a step closer to his Father and let his eyes move back and forth over his Dad’s still gaze.
“You don’t scare me anymore you old son of a bitch. And if that’s what you came here to do, you’re too late.” He had tasted his Father’s fear and he was an addict for more.
Ezzie had stilled in K.E.’s pulsing arms, eager to fight himself but the wisdom of not doing so hovering over head. That was exactly what the old bastard wanted.
Jack didn’t turn around but he felt Ennis, in his gown, stripped of all his external strengths standing there barefoot and full of stitches ready to pounce, re-injure himself for Jack’s wounds.
“Ennis!” Camille’s voice came out like a hushed shrill. “Get back in bed!” Everyone turned to look at the angry nurse as Elliott squeezed between his Jack’s legs to kick John directly in the shin.
“Leave Jack alone! My brother’s sick!”
John bent down to grab his bruised skin as Jack lifted Elliott away and moved him from in-between he and his Father.
“You little fucking brat,” John spat out.
Ezzie tried again to break free from K.E.’s arms and almost succeeded.
“You lay a hand on my brother and I’ll get you to hell sooner than you were expected.”
Camille rounded the nurse’s station on soft white heels.
“Sir, you need to leave right now.”
“I’ll do as I damn well please; I’m the most highly educated person in this goddamn city!” John was still bent over rubbing his sore limb.
“Alright and I’m Mickey Mouse but that doesn’t change the fact that I’ll ask you again Sir to leave before I have you removed.”
Ezzie’s chest beat wildly with anger, his breath loud in the quiet hallway and John stood up, coasting his eyes over the valiant force before him.
“I pity you.” He looked at Jack then. “All of you.”
He walked off with spotless shoes on spotless floors, clack, clack, clack until his dark figure was gone.
Camille walked over to Ennis and turned him around by the shoulders.
“Back to bed with you.”
Ennis let her turn his body half way round but he gave Jack a look over his shoulder, eyes half open, that said he was sorry. The same look was given to K.E. but he didn’t see it.
.
Jack stood there, still trembling, his ears ringing at Camille’s outcries of her ruined floor, watching a brave faced Elliott cling to Ezra’s shaking leg.
“We got ‘em Jack,” He said from dark pink lips.
K.E. looked down at both his brothers and then at Jack, each holding the other like a warrior’s uneven totem pole.
“I knew we should have cleaned up that damned floor,” He muttered.
_________________________________________________________
K.E. had told Jack he could sleep in Ennis’s bed if he wanted, said there was no point in sleeping on the couch when there was an empty bed in the house.
Jack gathered up his pillow and blanket from the couch and carried them into Ennis and Ezra’s room, depositing them on top of the thin sheet Ennis always slept with. He loved being cold when he slept; he was hot natured and hated sweating while he was trying to sleep.
Ezzie had a pillow propped up against the wall, one leg pushed up close to his body and a book in his lap. He had a study light on that K.E. had mounted above his bed. They’d stolen it and the nails it took to put it in but it had been worth it not to hear Ennis barking about the big light on over head and how it kept him awake.
Jack took his time in organizing the bed sheets and blanket, even tucking them in around the corners between the floor and the mattress. He figured he should look busy and in a few seconds he’d grab his own book and pretend to be reading too.
Ezzie watched Jack out of the corner of his eye as he nipped and tucked and evened out the bed covers until they were smooth as a polished rock.
“You know you’re as bad as Ennis when it comes to tucking stuff in. Only he does it with his shirt, not his sheets.”
Jack looked up embarrassed at Ezzie’s sluggish comment. How could he be so stupid? Making his bed, not even his bed, Ennis’s bed, like that in front of a greaser?
“Oh I uh, just wanted to make sure I didn’t lose my covers during the night. I’m a rough sleeper…I just…wanted to make sure everything was…where it should be.”
Ezzie watched Jack fumble with his explanation and gave him a polite nod that told him he didn’t believe a word he was saying.
“Did you have to keep your bed like that at home?”
Jack froze from patting down the covers one last time and looked up at Ezzie whose eyes were marching into his, already knowing the answer.
“Well actually, yeah. Yeah, I did.” Jack looked down at the perfectly made pallet in despair and very near anger as he tore the cover and sheet away from its holding places on every side in one swift move. He crumbled them up at the foot of the bed and felt a sense of victory was through out his insides.
Ezzie seemed not to notice and returned to his reading, licking his finger to turn the page.
Jack spread his body, stomach down across the naked mattress and criss-crossed his ankles and his fingers, tucking his hands under his chin. He stirred his bare feet in the tangled covers just to mess them up a little bit more and moved his thumbs across his eyebrows as if he was trying to wipe them off his face, pushing his newborn thoughts to the front of his mind.
“Hey thanks for sticking up to my old man today. You didn’t have to do that.”
Ezzie shrugged. “I know.”
Jack sighed. Well he had said what he had to say. He just thought and hoped that maybe Ezzie would say a little something in return.
“I didn’t need you to,” Jack said with casual pride. “I already pulled a blade on him you know.”
“Huh.” Ezzie turned another page.
Jack bit his bottom lip. He wasn’t responding the way he was supposed to. This was worst than talking to Ennis. He had at least hoped for a ‘Good for you’ or ‘The bastard deserved it’ from Ezzie but instead he got nothing.
“So what are you reading?” Jack tried in a last ditch effort for conversation. He jogged back to familiar ground, common ground with Ezzie; books.
“Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales.” Ezzie closed the book and reached up to turn his over head light off blanketing the room in cobalt darkness. Jack could hear him pulling his own covers up around him with a deep breath that was his final goodnight.
Jack rolled over on his back and reached down to grad his blanket, pulling it up around his chin. He lay there listening to Ezra breathe, so still so he could hear the parting of his lips when he opened them to speak.
“How did you know chocolate was his favorite?” Ezzie whispered, flying just into the radar of Jack’s ears.
“Cause it was what he spilled on me at the Sno Hut the first time we met.” Jack said it like he’d been waiting to say it his whole life.
Ezzie leaned up on one elbow. “That was you? You’re the Soc that had him acting like that?”
Jack almost laughed. “Yea, that’s me, the Soc that had him acting like that.” He didn’t ask how he had acted. Jack had watched Ennis’s one man show many times by now. He always had a front row seat.
Ezzie settled back down into his covers and blinked at Jack in the dark.
“I don’t understand it. You’re…boys.” Ezzie had a hushed amateur’s voice, gladly removing his title of wisdom and quick wit.
“Yea, we are,” Jack said to the ceiling.
“Doesn’t that? I mean…is it…is it normal?”
Jack smiled, his teeth pearly white in the moonlight.
“What’s normal anyway?”
Ezzie buried himself deeper into his blanket so that only his eyes and forehead stuck out.
“But how do you…I mean…” Ezzie’s muffled voice paused. “How do you…do it?”
Jack’s eyes searched the dimness in front of him for an answer that cradled, not massacred Ezzie’s curiosity.
“How do you know we do?” Jack stuck his foot out for the first turn of their verbal tango.
Ezzie sighed, his I-see-through-people robe placed proudly back on his shoulders.
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you, who do you think you’re fooling? I’m not stupid. He looks at you like…like…everyone else around needs to go away or something. Like they don’t belong where you are. He’s never looked at anyone like that. It’s crazy.”
Jack let Ezzie’s words, his confession sink in. His heart fluttered a little at what Ezzie saw, what Jack couldn’t see because Ennis wouldn’t let him. It wasn’t on a billboard but it existed out there somewhere in real time, that look and Jack knew what it meant whether he saw it or not.
“Hey, the only time I’ve ever looked at someone like that was at a girl I knew was about do me right.”
Jack put a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing at the way Ezzie said that.
“I don’t know,” Ezzie exhaled, his tone was serious again.
“Our hair color isn’t the only thing that makes us different ya know. I’m…not like Ennis.”
“I know,” Jack said softly.
Ezzie flipped over to face the wall and gave Jack the best he could give.
“Don’t fuck with my brother,” He warned.
“I won’t.”
“And don’t let him fuck with you either. I know how that bastard can be sometimes.”
Jack nodded silently, sealing a promise with Ezra that Ennis never had to know they made.
Jack turned away too and sniffed in deeply the scent of Ennis’s pillow that he made sure was on top. His stomach tightened at how familiar, how fresh the smell was. Ezzie’s words played concerts in his head and he mouthed the words ‘Don’t fuck with my brother’ over and over until it became fuck and brother and then fuck and Ennis with no space at all in between.
Jack’s hands found himself beneath the drawstring of Ennis’s pajama bottoms and he shut his eyes tight, mouthing those two words over and over, rutting his head, his nose into the pillow full of Ennis at the same speed his hand was going, picturing Ennis on top of him just like his beautiful boys layered, leg to leg, arm to arm in his long forgotten magazine.
He came half in his hand, half on Ennis’s pants and he brought it up to his stomach on his cupped palm, tracing it over his stomach where he knew Ennis had been shot, coating his skin healing and mending what he couldn’t touch, letting the clear thread dry there.