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5.
The time Ennis called Jack at 3 in the morning, drunk out of his mind, saying Jack should move up to Wyoming, get a place.
Jack’s heart had beat out of his chest, first from joy, then from the realization hitting him like a fist that there was no way Ennis meant it. Ennis’s terse phone call the next day sent Jack into a reckless month of trolling the bars close to home. Their next time in the mountains, Ennis was alternately uncharacteristically gentle and angry as fuck. Didn’t take a genius to figure out he was mainly mad at himself.
4.
The time Jack, drunk on whiskey and Ennis after they’d bathed in the frigid, clear river, ventured to lick a path back and down from Ennis’s balls. Ennis had gasped and for one quick second, pushed into Jack’s tongue, grunting deep. He froze then, slurred out, “What ‘r you doin’?”
Jack just mumbled some nonsense, responding instead to Ennis’s body, telling him truths Ennis would never be able to say. He kept on licking, and sure enough, Ennis bucked hard, muscles clenching, then opened for his tongue with a sigh.
3.
The time Jack -- Ennis's fingers buried inside him, Ennis's mouth milking him -- soaked in sweat and frantic to come, grunted out, "mas, mas, hombre," and then froze, stomach lurching in sick free-fall. Ennis faltered and pulled his mouth off Jack, slid his fingers out. His eyes were sex-glazed and dark, overlain with confusion, "Wha--?" Desperate, Jack scooted around quick to envelop Ennis in his mouth, blurting, "Damn Mexicans all over the fuckin' place in Texas now," and Ennis just lay there for a few seconds, then grabbed Jack's head and fucked his mouth hard, which Jack took as a mercy.
2.
The time Ennis, panting face down into the sleeping bag, slick with sweat and pulling Jack even harder into him with one hand on Jack’s hip, grunted, “darlin’,” then sobbed out, coming like a freight train, “darlin’, darlin’, lo – “, then stifled the rest of the word into the down.
1.
The time Jack, coming off a long, hard slog of months and years, had whispered into Ennis's ear, Ennis sound asleep, "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you," voice cracking on the last one. Jack buried his face in Ennis's shoulder, desperately telling himself not to feel, not to feel. He froze in place when he felt a hand card hesitantly through his hair, then pull him tighter in. Jack froze even stiffer, then gave in all at once, Ennis pulling him in, pulling him in, silent, while Jack shook dry-eyed in his arms.
One More Thing
1.
The time both of them, high on some marijane Jack brought, later in their years together, had tumbled sweet and hot on the high-mountain grass like they used to when they were younger, and Ennis said suddenly, "Look at it, it's like one of them fairy tales." Jack looked, and the alpine meadow was glittering in the August heat, studded with splotches of color, the sky a blue so deep it was almost purple.
Jack turned back to Ennis, whose eyes right then were the deepest brown of some enchanted world, and said with a smile, "If this is a fairy tale, which one of us is the prince?"
Ennis laughed, and ruffled Jack's hair with one hand while he got back to stripping his cock with the other, and said, "Me o' course."
Jack'd chortled and kissed a line from Ennis's sweat-slicked bicep to his ear. Ennis was panting and his hand had faltered by the time Jack reached his ear to whisper, "No way. I am."
Ennis flipped them in a surprise move, and the world shimmered in and out for a few seconds; the pot was strong this time. Jack laughed and Ennis grinned down at him, then ducked his head to lick Jack's crinkling nipple. Jack bucked his dick up into Ennis, but Ennis mumbled into his chest, "Wish this was a fairy tale."
Jack smiled and reached down to cup Ennis's still-muscled ass. "So we could do this all the time?"
"No," Ennis said, lowering himself all the way down on Jack and kissing him soft but deep.
"Then, what?" Jack asked.
"You know. Happily ever after, like in them books," Ennis whispered into Jack's mouth, all in a rush like if he said it fast it wouldn't count.
The pot dulled the anger that Jack carried around these days, and he felt nothing but a sweet, suffusing tenderness. He let himself cup Ennis's blush-hot face, hands infinitely gentle. Then he smiled a smile up at Ennis that he imagined could melt the Arctic, if the answering smile on Ennis's face was any indication, and said from his heart, "I know you do."