This Land is Your Land: Chapter Thirty-Three
This Land is Your Land - Chapter Thirty-Three
Authors: lolitaray (Ennis) and planetgal471(Jack)
Rating: NC17 on/off through the fic
Disclaimer: Brokeback Mountain is the creation of Annie Proulx, and no profit is being made off of the sharing of this work. We do this for enjoyment only.
Summary: Ennis is a high-school drop-out giving it a final go. Jack is an enigmatic history teacher. This is a modern-day AU!AU. In this story, POVs are intermingled. Hopefully this is not too confusing to the readers.
Warnings: The story within contains adult themes, including but not limited to: explicit m/m sex, teacher/student relationships involving the high school level, cursing, and descriptions of violence, including sexual violence. This has been written for fun, but we understand that not everyone may enjoy it.
Authors' Notes: Feedback is so appreciated.



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"Good to have you home, Ennis. You going to tell me 'bout it? Bet that truck went like nothing on Earth, bet ya--"

Ennis paused at the door's entrance, staring dully at his brother. He watched K.E.'s eyes crinkle in confusion, then sudden understanding. Ennis let his bag of clothes drop on the floor, and without saying a word, walked to the bathroom.

Underneath the light stream of hot water, he shut his eyes, both hands pressed against the tiles, deliberately making his mind a blank, soaring white past any dangerous thoughts, on what he'd lost. The water was running to cold when he finally stepped out, dragging on loose flannel pants and a thin T-shirt. The night was warm, for mid-April and reminded Ennis that a year had almost come full circle. He felt bad listening to the silence out in the living room. K.E. had obviously turned off the television and was waiting to see what the hell was going on.

But Ennis couldn't bring himself to talk on it. For one, he was utterly bone-weary, exhausted. And for the other, he was desperate to wipe the image of Jack's pained, set face out of his head. If he didn't talk, the situation might be changed in the morning. Fool would come 'round, realize that he still wanted Ennis. Ennis allowed himself to hope slightly, crawling into his narrow bed.

* * * *

"Jack! Don't do it! Please Jack-- please don't--"

"Ennis, goddamn it, wake the fuck up--shit!"

Ennis awoke in a panic, struggling hard as he found himself unable to move. Coming back to his senses, he realized K.E. was leaning heavily across him, panting.

"Let go!" Ennis managed to pull away, heart beating frantically.

"Sorry, you tried to punch me, shouting out like you were being murdered, Christ, Ennis!" K.E. sat on the bed, large hands still half trying to press Ennis against the bed. Ennis twisted fiercely, pressing his face against the pillow, only then noticing the drenched wet cotton.

"Just a nightmare," he managed to mumble, stifling back a sob. But it wasn't.

"Ennis...c'mon, 's all right," K.E.'s hand stroked a shoulder awkwardly, his brother obviously at a loss.

"'S not all right. Nothing's all right."

"Fuck. What happened?"

"Jack, stubborn son of a bitch--ahh, fuck." Ennis felt the desperate monster that had been clawing in his chest escape. Gripping the sheets, he cursed his weakness as the tears finally escaped, pounding a fist into the pillow. K.E.'s hand covered his shoulder, then back, stroking him like a horse. Oddly soothed, Ennis finally felt his sobs subside.

"I'm sorry, little brother. You ok now?" Ennis managed to nod and K.E. eventually got off the bed, leaving the room.

"You still look like shit." An hour later, K.E. looked up as Ennis came out from the kitchen with some black coffee. "Need to take the day off?"

Sitting next to K.E., Ennis stared down at the black liquid for a long moment. "No. I'm fine." Some part of him was actually looking forward to History. He'd see Jack, then, and maybe the last day would be like some kind of a dream. Jack would come to his senses.

Ennis stood, moving by rote as he collected his gear. "See you after school," he muttered. K.E. merely nodded in silence.

* * * *

"Then this one." Jack passed the signed form across the desk to Aguirre.

The corpulent man made a grunting noise, nodded, and set it into a pile. "You left me in a heap a shit, Twist. Shoulda known to expect as much from you."

Jack shook his head. "Is that it?"

"Yeah, and good riddance."

"When will I get my last paycheck?" Jack asked.

"How the hell do I know? Check with Greta."

Jack nodded again and stood to leave Aguirre's office.

"One more thing, Twist. Were you fucking that boy? The dropout?" Aguirre's eyes were menacing, icy with blame.

"No sir."

"I can't prove it, but I know you are, aren't ya? Between you and me-- I'm not your boss any more, you can be honest."

"In that case," Jack started carefully "If I was, I sure as hell wouldn't tell a fat bastard like you."

Jack slammed the door behind him for the very last time.

* * * *

Laura Matthews peered across the group of students. It was her first job out of college, and she didn't know shit about history. "I'm so sorry. It turned out your teacher had to leave this job, so he won't be back. I'm subbing for the rest of the year. I actually majored in English, but I'll do my very best to keep ahead of you in the book and talk to the other history teachers. Uh, where were you? Like, the Civil War or something?" She shuffled through the left-behind notes, seeing words she didn't know, and sighed in frustration. "Can you guys just tell me what you were learning about?"

Asking the question was a mistake. It invited a chorus of opinions from the audience. Laura chewed on her pencil and giggled nervously as the students fought over what they'd learned. Nothing made any sense. They didn't even know whether they'd finished the Civil War! She groaned and tried to shout over their million chatting voices that they were going to zoom straight to the unit on industrialization and labor, but no one seemed to be listening to her. She threw her pencil down in frustration. "No wonder your old teacher quit," she sighed.

* * * *

Ennis stared in shock at the blond young teacher up the front where Jack usually stood. A dull pain wracked his insides.

"Oh that really blows. Ennis?"

Ennis started as Chuck dug an elbow into his ribs. "Huh?"

"I wonder where Mr. Twist went. This teacher knows nothing."

"Yeah." Ennis bent his head over his books. He picked up a pen to try and write, but his hand was shaking too much. A couple of deep breaths helped. Ennis made an effort to focus, hardly hearing the rest of the lesson. Questions burned into his head, and he was helpless not to think on the answers.

So it went for the next six weeks. Looking back, Ennis found it hard to really remember any of it. Like looking through a void. His suit for the wedding was hired, the wedding cake baked by Alma's old Auntie Betty. The visits to Alma continued as normal. Sometimes Ennis thought Alma must know what was going on, but she never said a word. A continuation of their separate ways, words spoken on the outside that never gave a damn hint of what was stored away in his heart. His secret thing. His Jack.

* * * *

A middle-age admin assistant with flat blonde hair, named Joy, and her silent husband, salesman Todd, moved in on a Thursday. Joy was expecting. Jack turned his keys over to them, and stayed one night at a motel so he would have a fresh start in the morning. He'd included most of his furniture in the deal, just needing to get away from there as quickly as possible. Like a man wounded in a war, he was still in shock, closed-in, unsteady. He needed his best friend and she was happy to take him in, so without much notice, he drove out across the dry ground towards the Great Salt Lake and Lureen, with all his personal belongings crammed into his small car.

Jack parked illegally on the city street in front of Lureen's building and found his way up to her floor. Lureen threw her arms around him like they'd never been parted, and Jack buried himself in her familiar scent. For a moment he thought it would be easiest if he just did marry her. So what if there wouldn't be much sex? She was always the one who was there for him, and both of them were fuck-ups when it came to life. He sighed into her neck.

"It's ok, sweetie. He doesn't deserve you."

Unexpected, and after holding it together all this while, Jack felt his lower lip turn down. He pulled her close and tried his damnedest not to cry into her shoulder like a little boy, even as she ran a finger through his hair and murmured to him like his momma never had. "Oh, sweetie."

He sniffled hard and pulled away. "'M alright."

"Don't lie."

Jack laughed. "Help me get my crap in."

They moved him in that very night. Lureen didn't have a spare bedroom, so Jack took up temporary residence on the couch, stowing his stuff in the dining area of her urban apartment. He couldn't live like this long, so he set about job searching the next day, not even a full week since he'd left his last job.

So began endless hours huddled over computer screens, which only yielded headaches and sighs for a good month. Jack sent out a few applications here and there, jobs he would have killed to have in the past, but he put no effort into it. He didn't feel like it mattered, and, anyway, he wasn't sure he could see himself teaching any more. Standing in front of a room of students-- he'd ruined that career for himself. Ennis would haunt him in every classroom he ever paced. He wished he could find a job more outdoors than that, with the blue sky overhead...

On a whim, Jack changed his search terms...

* * * *

He was moving to Colorado only two weeks later, to the Denver bedroom community of Parker, into a stone-trimmed apartment complex called Trailside. Lureen couldn't drive out there with him 'cause she had to work, but he hadn't driven with her to Salt Lake, so it was fine. And besides, she'd found a man. He was happy for her, or tried to be, but he wasn't good at sneaking much past her. She wasn't jealous of him, but he of her, for not being alone any more. Misery, he knew, so adored company, and Jack was the worst kind of lonely.

The apartment was a pretty damned small one bedroom, but it was affordable and he'd be making ok money. He didn't want the hassle of dealing with roommates, anyway. The complex, though, was swank, with a swimming pool and hot tub. He visited the exercise room his first week there, long enough to know he sure as hell was not the only gay man living in this place. A tall, frosty-blue-eyed man with a shy smile was glancing his way from the free weights, but Jack couldn't take it and had to leave. He didn't know if now was just too soon, or if everyone was always going to be too not-Ennis, but the thought of either was heartbreaking.

Ennis followed him everywhere, went with him always even in their current, disjointed state. In traffic, Jack turned up the radio and imagined that Ennis would hate this song. He passed a truck the same make, model, and color as Ennis's and paused to take in the license plate before moving on his way. Once, in the grocery store, he found himself staring unseeing at shelves of look-alike peanut butter. He didn't even know if Ennis preferred smooth or chunky. But it didn't matter 'cause he wasn't ever going to be buying peanut butter for Ennis. Still, he picked up a jar and tossed it into his cart, allowing himself to pretend for a moment that it was Ennis, and not no one, he was bringing it home to.

The worst part, though, was not being able to tell Ennis about his new job. He talked to Lureen about it on the phone, but that wasn't the same. Lureen was around less and less these days as Jeff began to fill up her free time.

He was the co-coordinator for volunteers for the northwest part of Colorado's Natural Parks. What that meant was, he assisted the coordinator with running all the volunteer programs in one quarter of the state. He'd thought they must have been desperate to hire out of state and someone who knew shit about wildlife, but Barbara Moon, the main coordinator, had shared with Jack that everyone at the DNR knew about wildlife or ecology or forestry-- having a history person on board, especially someone who knew so much about the West, was a real asset. They added more history programs to their scheduling, and lord knew Jack had experience with public speaking and diverse crowds, not to mention managing teenagers-- which a large number of their summer volunteers-- college students-- were going to be. Plus, he got to go to a good number of the programs, be outside plenty, put more miles on his old junker than she could handle, and bring his boots back dirty to his nice apartment every evening. He was going to have to buy a truck or something, but he couldn't afford it just yet, so he was putting it off. Working was good for Jack. It kept his mind off things, made a blur out of the passage of days, and he was making friends with all his co-workers.

One night, Jack squinted up at the calendar with weary eyes, trying to figure how long before the end of school and their fresh-out-of-high-school volunteers came on for the summer. It was, what, one week 'til graduation would have been in Riverton, so locally...

Jack stopped his thoughts, staring at the calendar. He'd been so strong, he knew. He hadn't cried except almost, that once, in Lureen's arms, but even then he had held back. He'd locked all of that up and been just fine because he was a grown man, and there wasn't any other choice.

But the with sudden realization that Ennis's graduation and-- god!-- marriage-- were imminent, Jack's face contorted and red-hot tears spring to his eyes. He wished that he could shout and scream, scream all those angry words at Ennis that he'd held so deep inside that last time they'd parted. Jack had so much angry. He howled and punched at his kitchen island, not feeling any pain. He scraped the tears away from his eyes and glanced around the kitchen as if seeing it for the first time. This was his place, the place where he lived, a place Ennis had never seen, had never known, didn't have the address of and never would. Never, never, so many nevers.

Jack called in sick for the first time the following day, holding back waves of vomit just long enough to do so. It wasn't only a hangover, or just a broken heart, but some sickening combination that kept him under the covers and inside a bottle all day long.