Work Text:
Declaration of Intent
He isn’t sure exactly what possesses him to do this only that he knows he needs to. That they both need this. It’s in the way they’ve been dancing around specific topics and he knows that it can’t go on. It’s a few days of trying to put his words down on a page and trying to phrase all he needs to in order to get things out, in order for them both to get things out. He doesn’t like how many cigarillos he’s gone through or the bottles of whiskey it takes to actually finish this. His heart feels heavy no matter how much he needs this to be said to the other.
Slipping it under the trailer door, he can only hope that whatever happens next will be better than the fear coiling in his gut churning darkly. He presses his forehead lightly against the door though he knows the owner is out; it was why he’d chosen to do it this way. “Whatever you decide,” he says quietly, “Whatever you choose, Robert, I do love you dearly. Please, please don’t shut me out now.” Doc just isn’t sure how well he holds up against the ghosts of Robert’s past.
Heading back for Shorty’s, he can’t help shake the feeling that he might just be leaving the best parts of him there. But he’d said his piece, all his piece and it was up to whoever was watching over the two of them to help them both at this point.
*~*~*~*
Days like this, Bobo could do without and it had nothing to do with Revenants. Those issues were easy compared to the people he had to work with. Humans could be so stupid still. Rubbing his face, he heads for his trailer needing to just rest a bit and unwind. Of course the sight of a letter when he opens the door has him going still a moment before he’d crouch and pick it up. The heavy weight has him tensing a moment before sighing. “Of course,” he says to the empty trailer, “Of course I get this in addition to everything else. John Henry…” Something tightens in him because he has a feeling he knows what this is mostly because the man gave it to him without actually giving it to him. He sets it on his desk before forcing himself to go shower and unwind. It wasn’t like it was going to go anywhere.
Parts of him wishes it would actually do that so he doesn’t have to deal with what was going to happen when he got to it.
So he dawdles as long as his curiosity will be held back doing mundane things around the trailer before finally dropping into the chair by the small desk. He stares at the envelope a moment before sighing. “I suppose I should have known you were coming, right?” he asks before reaching and opening it, “Let’s get this over with then.”
My Robert,
It’s come to my attention that both of us are tiptoeing around things. And it’s not doing either of us any good. So I’m going to do this because honestly we both deserve some peace of mind. You know I would go to bat for you against a great many things, all the things were it in my power. So I’m asking you to help me out here and let me know what ghosts I need to help you exorcise.
Don’t roll your eyes at me because we both know there are some pretty awful skeletons haunting you. Me as well. We need them dealt with. We’re no good to each other while we don’t.
So stop running from me. Stop hiding from me. I’m not going to hurt you intentionally. I’m not going to pull away. And I am most assuredly not going to mock or belittle you for what your interests are.
And I know someone did all of the above because you get so standoffish whenever anything close to an interest is shown by you. It’s like you’re always waiting for disapproval. But I will never disapprove of you. Ever.
The fact that you will freely talk about your time in hell and what that was like but not your mortal life tells me that there is pain there the likes of which you do not want to recall and I am going to ask you to do so.
I want to know, I feel I need to know what it is you are holding back. What past indiscretions you faced no matter who from. I think by now I have the right to this. I have the right to be able to see the broken pieces that you think make you so unworthy, so unloveable so I can help you heal.
And I want that just like I want to love you, that won’t change, I promise. I’m not folding, I’m not surrendering. You just have to play your hand, darlin’. Let me see it. I don’t care how bad it ends up being. You and I can weather this storm, I know we can. Trust in me. That’s all I’m asking. Trust me to be able to carry the weight when you can’t.
Let me in, Robert. Let me see. Please.
Yours Affectionately,
John Henry Holliday
There is a quiet after he folds up the letter; the kind of quiet that warns of a coming storm. Blue eyes, more tumultuous gray close, a moment of tension falling hard, before reopening filled with an icy sort of chill as he reaches for his parchment and then his quill. “So be it, John Henry Holliday. So fucking be it.”