it is black and slowly spreading, it is evil, it is contempt, and soon, the loss of light will be at hand. you will lose your sight. you will be consumed by it. you will lose your way and wander endlessly, until your bones come to rest in these eternals sands. and even then, you will wander, broken down into billions upon billions upon billions of particles. you will wander until there is nothing left but atoms, and nothing left but the slow heated death of the universe. even then, you will wander, condemned to purgatory.
you will never know rest, gunslinger.
you will chase the sun forever.
the sun rises, and he is awake. he’s been lying awake for an hour now, pulling himself back into bed and into his pillows, trying to rest for the day ahead. he can’t help it. in fact, if he could have been out before the sun he would have, feeding the chickens and scraping stalls and polishing saddles for the long ride ahead. it’s his first trip outside of the ranch with Pa and his posse, there’s five hundred head, give or take, wandering the endless acreage and with the change in seasons, they are to move pasture. he’s finally been allowed to come along, now that he’s old enough to hold his own against a pistol and against his horse, against wind and rain and the blistering heat of the new mexican sun.
the moment the sun’s warm rays brush against his face, he is up and dressed. he throws his weight around his chores twice as hard as he should have otherwise, almost tiring himself out before the day’s begun, and as he scrapes the pack mule’s stall with reckless abandon, a rich voice laughs behind him.
“easy son, don’t wear yourself out before we get goin’“ his father says, Jesse turns to face him, his arms around the pitchfork. the manure drops, and the boy huffs.
“i just wanna make it perfect for us leavin’“
“you’ve got all morning, we’re not leavin’ until after ten. now get inside, your momma’s makin’ breakfast. clean up first though, you know how she is”
he drops his pitchfork, he bolts towards the house. his father’s laugh is dark and husky, the dog’s barks are distant. the world falls apart behind him behind the screen door slamming shut, and his eggs taste like ash.
do you dream?
not often, anymore. she’s giving me pills to help me sleep.
i haven’t in awhile.
ıs ıʇ qǝʇʇǝɹ ʇɥıs ʍɐʎ?
the horses’ feet hit the hard soil with a rhythm that strikes all the wrong beats at all the wrong times, syncing up only every so often when the trail evens out and the twisted knots of ancient walnut thin. there’s four of them here. their steeds make a perfect gradient from light to dark, the buckskin under his saddle and between his legs shudders with flies, twitching against their buzzing bites.
“how much further?”
“another hour or so. we’ll find them”
another hour ago was a hundred miles ago, so it seemed. there are foothills here, the grass is yellow with the summer sun, the ancient stone walls from migrant workers for the railroad mark their paths. this valley is empty. no birds. no wind. a terrible stillness best saved for mausoleums and genre pieces pervades, perverts the landscape. a waterline marks the ancient rock that surrounds them, ten miles away in every direction. it’s been that way for hours.
they ride on.
they ride on and he breaks off from the trail. he doesn’t know when. he doesn’t know why. he goes, because he feels that it needs to be made this way, he must disturb this awful landscape, and yet he only thinks of the five hundred head still roaming these foothills, not the white twigs snapping under his horse’s hooves, the windless day that grabs at his clothes and hair. the sun breathes down his neck, and he shudders.
past the next knoll is a cow.
excitement bubbles in his chest, he pinches fingers together up to his mouth and whistles, the signal for the others and his horse bolts underneath him -- no not like this ! you’ll scare him ! and eh pulls him in with all his might. the horse throws him. he lands chest first into the ground, wind rushing from his lungs and the cow remains still, observing this gasping human with cold eyes.
he will recover, the cow -- the calf has not moved. he thinks it’s a calf. it’s small, it’s belly is bloated and even in the summer sun, the winter coat hasn’t shed. it’s hips are sucked in. it’s mouth is open in a yawn.
he scrambles to his feet, touches his chest for a moment. and approaches.
it irises are peach pits, dark and flecked with red, stringy flesh but the eye itself, the black of the eye is blue with clouds. blinded. ugly. the cow’s mouth opens again, and it coughs, it’s belly sucking up towards its backbone.
jesse touches it’s side, and the black of it sucks inwards. it’s hot, it’s a heat, and the flesh sloughs off of the beast, then the muscle, and it dies. it dissolves in a way, the mass of it splintering out, writhing about as white, ugly worms that soak into the ground and into his arm and into the trees and the knoll behind him, in front of him, everything has turned black. five hundred head, bones across the dying landscape. worms, and they eat up his spine and eat up his arm and there is a voice, a cold and cruel voice. the voice of his father you will never know rest, gunslinger, you will never know rest ---------
his pulse thrums, gallops wildly in his chest and he can’t breathe, he can’t force air into his lungs because it feels heavy, and there is weight and he sobs. his back is hot, his neck is drenched in sweat, and his throat is raw, it is hoarse and he prays, he prays no one comes. they will, though.
they will always come, and he will always be gone before they get there, and find a still warm bed, and still smoking match, and the trail of smoke that climbs out the window and into the night that’s always welcomed him with cold, unfeeling arms. they will come, and he will never stay.
"You ever wonder how we'd have ended up if we were normal?"
“No such thing”
cryptic, unhelpful, like he always is. too many factors play into the people they are now, the ghosts and skeletons of what once might have been a hopeful future.
“d’ya mean if the Crisis had never happened?”
a slow exhale.
“I’d still be an unwanted bastard. mighta gotten a few more years out of the bitch but nothing’d be different. not for me. you’d be better off though, probably some.... award winning computer scientist. billions of dollars, a nice house. maybe a spouse, a nice car. no kids, they’re sticky and cry too much, and no pets. ‘cause of the hair....”
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He hates him, for all he withholds from the gunslinger’s grasp, he hates him. It is with a beautiful, perfect agony that he finds himself burning with a desire that only the archer seems to sate. And he aches for him. Jesse has never known an ache so divine that the one sitting, coiled in his gut how the same vision coils around the archer’s arm. Divine. Spiritual. A baptism in fire. His fingers dig so richly into the curve of his hip, he shuffles forward to meet him and still, he is denied, and it only stokes the fire with an iron.
The beast in his gut winds tighter with such rough hands, dragging him forward with Hanzo’s taunts, the way he coaxes him forward is nothing short of obscene -- Jesse follows dutifully with short breaths, this horrible, twitching desire that overtakes him.
“ --Yeah ” is what he can manage, his eyes devouring the sight revealed before him. He should be content with this, and yet he craves more. So he moves him. It’s little more than that, it’s a simple action to pull him from the wall and shuffle him towards their spartan bed in the corner, never quite giving up their close contact, never untangling himself from Hanzo’s grip.
He shoves him back, he climbs atop him, and his teeth find their purchase in the soft skin of his neck, his hips grinding relentlessly downward. He needs him. More than he’s needed any man before him, any after paling in comparison already, he needs Hanzo beneath him. He needs him like an addiction, he marks him with addict’s bruises with his teeth, with his suckling kisses, with bruised lips.
“ ---goddamn perfect --- ” is all he hisses, nails scraping up his sides, his kisses pausing for teeth on his chest, “ -- so fuckin’ gorgeous -- ”
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