mementos
Title: Some Call It a Mercy
Fandom: 3:10 to Yuma
Character, Pairings: Ben, Ben/Dan and Ben/male prostitute
Rating: not explicit
Disclaimer: not my characters
Note: written as an extra treat for sophiaiswisdom in the 2008 yuletide exchange
Some Call It a Mercy
So many times he has imagined what he wishes happened in the bridal suite, his mouth at Dan’s, his hands taking everything they want and they do want everything. Dan above him, Dan below him, he wants it so ferociously.
The night closes in around him and there is nothing painful about the loneliness, there is nothing painful anymore. There is only a hollow.
He walks down by the water, he walks along the bay, and hearing the waves crashing against the rocks makes him shiver. He likes that sound, and the moist air, and the full moon’s light dim yet visible behind the clouds, but he won’t stay here long, he doesn’t stay anywhere long.
He passes through the crowds of women but none hold his eye. Some are pretty, some are not, but none of them are beautiful and how then can he pick between them? Dispersed throughout, thistles among flowers, are the working boys and he cannot help but think of Charlie Prince and all that was and all that should have never been. One good deed is enough to ruin everything.
When he sees a young man who catches his attention, he may walk over, begin a conversation. It never lasts, the attraction always fades when they speak. They are nothing like.
Faith, he had it in his own way. Now he has none. What he did with a gang, what he’s done on his own, he used to know his plans would not fail, he used to know he could see it through. No longer.
A hand grabs his own as he walks by. He stops, looks, likes what he sees. The height, the build, they are close enough. He takes off his glove, runs a thumb over the cheekbone, the jaw. Yes. Even the brows, the lips, yes. It is torture that he can be a lucky man only when reduced to seeking consolation. “What’s your name?”
“Whatever you want it to be.” There’s defiance nestled in the voice. This one doesn’t break, no matter how many times he takes to his knees.
“Good answer.”
He does not call him by any name in the light. Close enough, but not the same, so what would be the point? But in the dark, he calls him Dan.
“Was it that good?” he says, as he counts all the bills Ben gave him.
“To the hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet.”
He raises curious eyes. “That’s from Proverbs.”
“Yes. 27:7.” Ben herds him out of the room and into the hallway. “Tomorrow night,” he orders, before shutting the door in his face.
How does hate turn to love in an instant? Is it the destructive urge replaced by the protective? They coexist in him. He was the man who rescued Charlie when he’d been beat within an inch of his life, and he was the man who killed him. He was no less himself when he tried to choke Dan to death than he was in the moment when he knew he would get on that train, when he knew he would do whatever Dan asked of him. He would give anything to go back and know everything then as he knows it now, see Dan as kindred, kin, from their first meeting, but he has nothing left to give.
Living when Dan’s dead is what he can’t stand. He’s gonna go the same way his daddy did, dying over nothing more than a drink. Why not? What else is there for him? Dan is dead, there’s nothing can be done to change it. Ever since, all he’s done is stagger from place to place. Ain’t another man in this world comes close to Dan Evans. There’s not. He knows it. Did he make his own hell? Is it or is it not a damned world? Is he or is he not a damned man because Dan Evans died at his feet?
Men are always wanting to start fights, test themselves, if they recognize him. He’s beating the hell out of tonight’s fool when he feels a blow from the side. He stumbles forward, hand at his waist, feels wet warmth against his fingers, feels it seeping through his shirt. Another blow comes down against the back of his skull, he hears glass breaking. It’s bad, but he tries to keep to his feet. He can’t. Maybe it’s time for him to go. He can’t be bothered to stay, after all he never thought he’d live this long. Never. It’s time to go, right? What the hell else is there for him? He hears the voice that is and is not Dan’s calling out his name. He feels hands that are and are not Dan’s clutching at him. He tries to shape the word sorry with his lips.
The shades are drawn, the lamp is dim and the bedclothes are heavy atop his body. He pushes at the blankets, shifts to sit up and hisses at the soreness in his body.
“Careful,” someone says from the doorway. “You got to be careful with your stitches.”
He turns his head towards the voice but he is dizzy from his exertion and the room spins. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m your doctor,” the man says, moving forward.
Ben rests his throbbing head against the wall and as the apparition approaches, his vision clears. This can not be hell, then. “Look at you. Your mama must be proud.”
“She is.”
“How is she?”
“Well.”
“She still live in Bisbee?”
“No, she moved back East.”
“Did she?”
“After my brother died.”
“Sorry to hear it.” He remembers that little boy who asked so many questions, who bragged about his father’s marksmanship. He remembers everything.
“It was long and it was slow and there was nothing we could do. He suffered. A quick death, some call it a mercy.”
“It’s never quick. We’re all dying since the day we’re born.”
William lays his hand over Ben’s brow. “Fever’s broken. How do you feel?”
“Like I could use a drink.” William draws away. There’s a gold band on his left hand. “You’re married. She a beauty, like your mama?”
“You should have some fresh air,” William says, ignoring the question. He pulls apart the curtains and lifts up the window. There is a chair in the corner and he sits down for a moment at its edge. The sunlight falls across his face as he surveys the world below them.
Ben would like to look away. “You know who you remind me of, sitting there.” Bitterness fills him.
William takes his time in replying. “My father’s not dead to me, though I watched him die. After you boarded the train I sat by him, held his hand, spoke to him. Changes happen to a body. I’m sure you know that. When I felt the heat of his skin begin to fade, then I said goodbye. I said my goodbye and yet I feel him with me. Is he alive to you?”
“I wish he weren’t.”
“I don’t believe that.” William reaches into his pocket and brings out a metal case. He opens it, flips through the contents gently with his fingers before drawing out what Ben is uncomfortably sure is a photograph. He stands, walks over to the bedside and holds his hand in front of Ben’s face. Dan. Young Dan. So damn hopeful. “That was his wedding photo, taken just before he was married as a gift for my mother.”
Ben would think the boy was being deliberately cruel, but William does not watch to glory in his torture. He is turned towards the window again, giving Ben his solitude. Ben looks at it just long enough so that his eyes are dry again by the time he lifts them. “Put it away.”
William slides the case back into the breast pocket inside his coat, lifts up his bag onto the dresser and opens it. He takes out two vials and holds them up in his hand as he turns back towards Ben. “Give these to your friend. He knows what to do.” He places them down.
“My friend?”
“Who do you think’s been taking care of you? No one else gives a shit about you.”
“So why are you here?”
“Do you remember when we found you at the railroad camp? Do you know how many things I saw there that stay with me? I remember Doc Potter being shot. I remember how he told your captors it was immoral to torture you. I remember a boy my own age laboring there, a Chinese boy. There are people in this city who don’t treat immigrants morally, nor prostitutes. I fight that.”
“How?”
“By serving everyone who needs it, serving those no one else will. I don’t care where a person comes from or how they earn their living. If they are hurting, I will help them.”
“So you’re here because I’m no better than a used-up whore, is that it?”
“Try and get some more sleep. Everything’s coming along. I’ll be back in a couple of days to take those stitches out. And by the way,” William says, turning around at the door with a self-satisfied smirk on his face, “I wouldn’t insult a whore by comparing him to you.”
Two weeks later, in the early evening, he is sitting alone at a table in the corner of the hotel saloon when William appears and approaches him. “I paid your damn bill,” Ben says.
William ignores him, pulls up a chair. “I can’t stay long.”
“I ain’t asking you to.”
“I got to get home for dinner.”
“It’s good you found a wife. It ain’t easy for a man like you to stand alone.”
“What do you mean a man like me?”
“A man like your father.”
“You think there’s a man who can stand alone?”
Ben pours whiskey into William’s glass, pours more into his own. “You’re drinking with one.”
William drains his glass, stares into the bottom of it. “Why do you call him Dan?”
“What?”
“The man you live with.” William raises his face. It’s all there, just as it was ten years ago, determination that may falter but will never fall.
Ben surrenders to it, as he did but once before. “I told your father something, something I never told another man.” Ben would never say it was share and share alike, he keeps Dan’s secret as his own.
“You trusted him?”
“He was a man worth trusting.”
“I know.” William reaches into his pocket, draws out a pair of gloves. He places them on the table near Ben’s glass. “These were his. I want you to take them.”
The leather is brown and stained. “Are these-?”
“Yes. They’re the ones he was wearing when he died. We put clean clothes on him before we buried him.”
“I don’t want them.”
“I don’t care what you want and I don’t care what you do with them, but I wanted to give them to you and that’s what I’ve done.” William’s gaze shifts to a point behind Ben. “Your friend’s watching us,” he says.
“He ain’t my friend.” Ben turns and glares at him until he walks away.
“No? Better is a neighbor that is near than a brother far off. Proverbs, 27:10.”
“You a doctor or a preacher?”
“You spend enough time with the ill and the dying, you best have the heart of both.” He stands up, puts on his hat. “Good bye, Ben.”
“Good bye.”
These are Dan’s gloves and he puts his hands inside them. This is the closest he can get on this earth to touching him, feeling his touch. He brings his fingertips to his lips. This is the taste of Dan’s spilled blood on his tongue. Dan lives inside him and nothing can take him away.
In the rented room, the young man is spread across the bed, naked, waiting. “What do you want tonight?” he asks as Ben moves towards him.
“Just your name.”
“Dan,” he says, no doubt thinking Ben tests his obedience.
Ben leans over him, looks down into his eyes. “No, you don’t have to say that anymore. What’s your true name?” He rests his fingertip on his lips so he can feel as well as hear the answer.
“Nathaniel.”
“Nathaniel,” Ben repeats, and kisses him.
Fandom: 3:10 to Yuma
Character, Pairings: Ben, Ben/Dan and Ben/male prostitute
Rating: not explicit
Disclaimer: not my characters
Note: written as an extra treat for sophiaiswisdom in the 2008 yuletide exchange
Some Call It a Mercy
So many times he has imagined what he wishes happened in the bridal suite, his mouth at Dan’s, his hands taking everything they want and they do want everything. Dan above him, Dan below him, he wants it so ferociously.
The night closes in around him and there is nothing painful about the loneliness, there is nothing painful anymore. There is only a hollow.
He walks down by the water, he walks along the bay, and hearing the waves crashing against the rocks makes him shiver. He likes that sound, and the moist air, and the full moon’s light dim yet visible behind the clouds, but he won’t stay here long, he doesn’t stay anywhere long.
He passes through the crowds of women but none hold his eye. Some are pretty, some are not, but none of them are beautiful and how then can he pick between them? Dispersed throughout, thistles among flowers, are the working boys and he cannot help but think of Charlie Prince and all that was and all that should have never been. One good deed is enough to ruin everything.
When he sees a young man who catches his attention, he may walk over, begin a conversation. It never lasts, the attraction always fades when they speak. They are nothing like.
Faith, he had it in his own way. Now he has none. What he did with a gang, what he’s done on his own, he used to know his plans would not fail, he used to know he could see it through. No longer.
A hand grabs his own as he walks by. He stops, looks, likes what he sees. The height, the build, they are close enough. He takes off his glove, runs a thumb over the cheekbone, the jaw. Yes. Even the brows, the lips, yes. It is torture that he can be a lucky man only when reduced to seeking consolation. “What’s your name?”
“Whatever you want it to be.” There’s defiance nestled in the voice. This one doesn’t break, no matter how many times he takes to his knees.
“Good answer.”
He does not call him by any name in the light. Close enough, but not the same, so what would be the point? But in the dark, he calls him Dan.
“Was it that good?” he says, as he counts all the bills Ben gave him.
“To the hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet.”
He raises curious eyes. “That’s from Proverbs.”
“Yes. 27:7.” Ben herds him out of the room and into the hallway. “Tomorrow night,” he orders, before shutting the door in his face.
How does hate turn to love in an instant? Is it the destructive urge replaced by the protective? They coexist in him. He was the man who rescued Charlie when he’d been beat within an inch of his life, and he was the man who killed him. He was no less himself when he tried to choke Dan to death than he was in the moment when he knew he would get on that train, when he knew he would do whatever Dan asked of him. He would give anything to go back and know everything then as he knows it now, see Dan as kindred, kin, from their first meeting, but he has nothing left to give.
Living when Dan’s dead is what he can’t stand. He’s gonna go the same way his daddy did, dying over nothing more than a drink. Why not? What else is there for him? Dan is dead, there’s nothing can be done to change it. Ever since, all he’s done is stagger from place to place. Ain’t another man in this world comes close to Dan Evans. There’s not. He knows it. Did he make his own hell? Is it or is it not a damned world? Is he or is he not a damned man because Dan Evans died at his feet?
Men are always wanting to start fights, test themselves, if they recognize him. He’s beating the hell out of tonight’s fool when he feels a blow from the side. He stumbles forward, hand at his waist, feels wet warmth against his fingers, feels it seeping through his shirt. Another blow comes down against the back of his skull, he hears glass breaking. It’s bad, but he tries to keep to his feet. He can’t. Maybe it’s time for him to go. He can’t be bothered to stay, after all he never thought he’d live this long. Never. It’s time to go, right? What the hell else is there for him? He hears the voice that is and is not Dan’s calling out his name. He feels hands that are and are not Dan’s clutching at him. He tries to shape the word sorry with his lips.
The shades are drawn, the lamp is dim and the bedclothes are heavy atop his body. He pushes at the blankets, shifts to sit up and hisses at the soreness in his body.
“Careful,” someone says from the doorway. “You got to be careful with your stitches.”
He turns his head towards the voice but he is dizzy from his exertion and the room spins. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m your doctor,” the man says, moving forward.
Ben rests his throbbing head against the wall and as the apparition approaches, his vision clears. This can not be hell, then. “Look at you. Your mama must be proud.”
“She is.”
“How is she?”
“Well.”
“She still live in Bisbee?”
“No, she moved back East.”
“Did she?”
“After my brother died.”
“Sorry to hear it.” He remembers that little boy who asked so many questions, who bragged about his father’s marksmanship. He remembers everything.
“It was long and it was slow and there was nothing we could do. He suffered. A quick death, some call it a mercy.”
“It’s never quick. We’re all dying since the day we’re born.”
William lays his hand over Ben’s brow. “Fever’s broken. How do you feel?”
“Like I could use a drink.” William draws away. There’s a gold band on his left hand. “You’re married. She a beauty, like your mama?”
“You should have some fresh air,” William says, ignoring the question. He pulls apart the curtains and lifts up the window. There is a chair in the corner and he sits down for a moment at its edge. The sunlight falls across his face as he surveys the world below them.
Ben would like to look away. “You know who you remind me of, sitting there.” Bitterness fills him.
William takes his time in replying. “My father’s not dead to me, though I watched him die. After you boarded the train I sat by him, held his hand, spoke to him. Changes happen to a body. I’m sure you know that. When I felt the heat of his skin begin to fade, then I said goodbye. I said my goodbye and yet I feel him with me. Is he alive to you?”
“I wish he weren’t.”
“I don’t believe that.” William reaches into his pocket and brings out a metal case. He opens it, flips through the contents gently with his fingers before drawing out what Ben is uncomfortably sure is a photograph. He stands, walks over to the bedside and holds his hand in front of Ben’s face. Dan. Young Dan. So damn hopeful. “That was his wedding photo, taken just before he was married as a gift for my mother.”
Ben would think the boy was being deliberately cruel, but William does not watch to glory in his torture. He is turned towards the window again, giving Ben his solitude. Ben looks at it just long enough so that his eyes are dry again by the time he lifts them. “Put it away.”
William slides the case back into the breast pocket inside his coat, lifts up his bag onto the dresser and opens it. He takes out two vials and holds them up in his hand as he turns back towards Ben. “Give these to your friend. He knows what to do.” He places them down.
“My friend?”
“Who do you think’s been taking care of you? No one else gives a shit about you.”
“So why are you here?”
“Do you remember when we found you at the railroad camp? Do you know how many things I saw there that stay with me? I remember Doc Potter being shot. I remember how he told your captors it was immoral to torture you. I remember a boy my own age laboring there, a Chinese boy. There are people in this city who don’t treat immigrants morally, nor prostitutes. I fight that.”
“How?”
“By serving everyone who needs it, serving those no one else will. I don’t care where a person comes from or how they earn their living. If they are hurting, I will help them.”
“So you’re here because I’m no better than a used-up whore, is that it?”
“Try and get some more sleep. Everything’s coming along. I’ll be back in a couple of days to take those stitches out. And by the way,” William says, turning around at the door with a self-satisfied smirk on his face, “I wouldn’t insult a whore by comparing him to you.”
Two weeks later, in the early evening, he is sitting alone at a table in the corner of the hotel saloon when William appears and approaches him. “I paid your damn bill,” Ben says.
William ignores him, pulls up a chair. “I can’t stay long.”
“I ain’t asking you to.”
“I got to get home for dinner.”
“It’s good you found a wife. It ain’t easy for a man like you to stand alone.”
“What do you mean a man like me?”
“A man like your father.”
“You think there’s a man who can stand alone?”
Ben pours whiskey into William’s glass, pours more into his own. “You’re drinking with one.”
William drains his glass, stares into the bottom of it. “Why do you call him Dan?”
“What?”
“The man you live with.” William raises his face. It’s all there, just as it was ten years ago, determination that may falter but will never fall.
Ben surrenders to it, as he did but once before. “I told your father something, something I never told another man.” Ben would never say it was share and share alike, he keeps Dan’s secret as his own.
“You trusted him?”
“He was a man worth trusting.”
“I know.” William reaches into his pocket, draws out a pair of gloves. He places them on the table near Ben’s glass. “These were his. I want you to take them.”
The leather is brown and stained. “Are these-?”
“Yes. They’re the ones he was wearing when he died. We put clean clothes on him before we buried him.”
“I don’t want them.”
“I don’t care what you want and I don’t care what you do with them, but I wanted to give them to you and that’s what I’ve done.” William’s gaze shifts to a point behind Ben. “Your friend’s watching us,” he says.
“He ain’t my friend.” Ben turns and glares at him until he walks away.
“No? Better is a neighbor that is near than a brother far off. Proverbs, 27:10.”
“You a doctor or a preacher?”
“You spend enough time with the ill and the dying, you best have the heart of both.” He stands up, puts on his hat. “Good bye, Ben.”
“Good bye.”
These are Dan’s gloves and he puts his hands inside them. This is the closest he can get on this earth to touching him, feeling his touch. He brings his fingertips to his lips. This is the taste of Dan’s spilled blood on his tongue. Dan lives inside him and nothing can take him away.
In the rented room, the young man is spread across the bed, naked, waiting. “What do you want tonight?” he asks as Ben moves towards him.
“Just your name.”
“Dan,” he says, no doubt thinking Ben tests his obedience.
Ben leans over him, looks down into his eyes. “No, you don’t have to say that anymore. What’s your true name?” He rests his fingertip on his lips so he can feel as well as hear the answer.
“Nathaniel.”
“Nathaniel,” Ben repeats, and kisses him.