This is my sundown

[jack_f_twist]

It was black for a long time.

And it's still dark, and the air should be warm, smelling like canvas and sweat and horse and old leather, but instead he's cold, and huddles down, curling into himself to get warm again. Instead of wiry grass against his skin, there's only a firm softness, and he stretches one arm out to pull Lureen

(Ennis)

closer, but there's nothing there and all he grabs hold of is a sheet--not even a blanket or a pillow.

And he has one fuck-all of a headache.

It isn't until he rolls onto his back and blinks, trying to adjust his eyes in the darkness, that he realizes that the stifling air smells sweet, and warm. Like peaches. And

"Shit!" He sits up, abruptly, and immediately regrets it. Waves of nausea washe through him, his head pounding like he'd drank at least an entire bottle of bad whiskey the night before--

But.

But he hadn't been drinking. He'd been--hell, he'd been on the road, and the goddam truck had taken one final sharp rock to the paper-thin tires, and he'd stopped to fix it, and everything kinda got blurry from there. He remembers shapes, black against the bright afternoon sun, and something swinging at him--

clang
               (and it burns burns burns)

He touches the bridge of his nose gingerly, and for a long moment his breathing stops.
               (that ring of fire)





















Fuck.

Comments

[true_desire]

"Sure you do. How often you get to hear about a couple guys livin' together, let alone sharing a place with a grown daughter?" Desire takes a moment to start another cigarette off the smoldering end of his own, chain-lighting it and passing it over to Jack.

"But there's something you need to know, Jack. Regulus and Meg... Well, they're both dead. Murdered well before what folks would call their time."

[jack_f_twist]

And where the whiskey flows in streams?

But Jack just takes the lighted cigarette silently, pinching out his old one, and takes a deep pull at it.

It tastes bizarrely like peaches.

"Shame," is all he says, but he's listening now, intent. It's in the way he hunches his shoulders, in how his eyes focus on just one spot ahead of him without really seeing it.

[true_desire]

"Point is, Regulus was nineteen, ended up in Milliways. He's made a new life for himself there, and not all of it because he met me."

Desire pinches his own cigarette out, playing with his lighter rather than starting a new cigarette. Shh-click, the heart snapping open and shut.

"Meg's been nearly able to pick up nearly where she left off. Her boyfriend waited for her, you see."

Shh-click.

"Now. Was there something you wanted?"

[jack_f_twist]

Still looking away, Jack purses his lips, and then takes a pull of smoke.

And one more.

His free hand comes up to rub at his nose, scrub over his jaw, still gingerly.

I don't want to say goodbye

"Yeah," he says, finally. "Reckon there is."

When he looks up, it's into hazel eyes and a shy sort of smile and for a second he almost sinks under the weight of his own anger and hurt, and then he nods, curtly.

"Reckon maybe there's a few things I oughta see to--one more place I wanta get to, 'fore I head anywhere else. 'f your sister don't mind."

It's a funny thing, Desire. Sometimes it makes you make all kinda crazy decisions, sometimes makes you go where you know you'd better not, sometimes makes you think things you know you shouldn't.

And sometimes it's fucking hard to quit.

[true_desire]

"Imagine you can ask her that yourself. If you want."

Desire's weight shifts on the bed, and then he's standing: If there's still something painfully familiar in the golden(hazel)eyes and the face around them, there's probably little familiar in the gesture as Desire reaches back for him, hand out to help him out of bed.
(can't quit you)
"Time's wasting, Jack. C'mon."
You've got your whole afterlife ahead of you.