4. I WASN'T SURE IF YOU'D ANSWER

I Wasn't Sure If You'd Answer

DECEMBER 23rd, 1979 – outskirts of Riverton, Wyoming

The night was old, but the darkness still had a long way to go, and the winter months found comfort in the longest of nights. Ennis had made peace with them, a particular pleasure in their unforgiving temperament. The howling winds, not at all halted by his humble home, and a space heater he was able to pick up at a secondhand store that warmed it were welcomed guests alongside permanent tenants such as a decade's old radio and a valued set of gold-rimmed whisky glasses he'd been given as gifts for an anniversary that was never supposed to be celebrated.

He'd been fully dressed and suffering through heavy sleet only 30 minutes ago. His regular garb over long johns had encased him in an overwhelming heat he no longer found comforting and needed to get out of as soon as his body began to settle from the cold and into the gentler chill of the inside of the trailer. From there, it was the usual cigarette, to small dinner, to shower, to teeth brushing, to bed routine he had burned into every surface surrounding him—nothing much changing apart from the season.

Tonight was heavy on his shoulders. His energy was drained, and he was tempted to halt mid-way through his ritual and give in to the weight of the idea of falling asleep.

But he pushed through, making it feel that much better when he finally got to lay down.

The crick and crack of his knees and back sound off as he slides under each layer of bedding. A fresh coolness against his naked torso welcomes him as he relaxes. He feels his bones float in the loosened muscles keeping him together and his guts settle just the same as he sinks deeper into the mattress and under blankets as aged as he was.

An unintentionally long day had locked him in its grip, taking on the opportunity to pull a double shift to earn some extra money to recoup what he spent on the Christmas gifts he'd given to the girls. It seemed like a good idea at the time; his pockets felt the reward, his body was the toll. It wasn't anything he wasn't familiar with, though. "Del Mar the Reliable," as he had been nicknamed among his peers, was nothing but ready to keep things on track and above normal operations so long as he was left alone when he said he needed to be left alone. Money was thin, but he lived in a small enough manner that what he was able to make treated him just fine.

As always, even though his thin frame made him unwillingly prone to the cold, crisp white cotton boxers and a matching pair of thick calve socks made up his pajamas. Dark golden hair slicked back from a drying dampness, and the space heater on a timed cycle at its highest setting teased him. He was snug underneath the OD green wool blankets. His skin was warm enough to recognize as his own, and for a moment after he had finished scratching a patch of skin on one of his shoulders, he wrapped both of his arms around himself, resting his hands on either bicep... gliding them in slow up and down motions.

It reminded him of Jack.

They'd been limited in their correspondence the past couple of months. The holidays were always a rough patch for the duo. More so now than ever before. Having to balance the charade he'd been forced to put on in the eyes of his in-laws and wanting to be treated as commonly as possible when in Ennis's presence, Jack had a long-lived frustration with the relationships he had become so dependent on. Ennis was never unaware of Jack's discomforts. Never able to speak a word when it came time to hear Jack vent his heart into the air. So, the thought of Jack had a weight like nothing else on his mind. All-day, every day... the knowledge of him. Sparkle in his eyes and a vivid gleam in his teeth made their presence known in the moments Ennis would find his mind drifting off in any silence he found himself in. Sometimes instead, a gruesome crimson staining the whites of his eyes as the aftermath of tears brought on by a wave of anger just as unforgiving as the cold they'd be surrounded by and a frown, not at all moved from its cemented position. But Ennis fought to dedicate a blank stare towards nowhere in the hopes of finding its way back to Brokeback. Bringing them together, under more rugged bedding and with only seconds between their curled lips keeping them separated.