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Lennie's body fell to the ground, a puddle of sticky blood pooled around his head. His strong body was completely motionless beside the riverbank.
George had held back his tears to save Lennie's last moment from anguish, but now that Lennie couldn't see, the strength holding down the water cracked and tragic, chunky tears came rushing down his cheeks.
The smaller man dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around Lennie. What would he do without Lennie? What about his dream? Where could he go next?
There was no living off the fat of the land if Lennie wasn't going to be involved. It was always going to just be them...
George shifted a bit closer to the body. He heard the dogs in the background, the yells of men and stomps of horses. He couldn't believe he was holding the body of a man he'd just shot, but Lennie was still warm, and George could just nearly close his eyes and imagine that Lennie's body was going up and down with breath...
...and they were in a bed, buried under thick, quilted blankets, in a dim room, with soft pillows under their heads, and the warm sun gently waking them through a slightly opened window, where maybe a cat laid, and outside, there was a rabbit hutch...
In reality, Lennie was dead. He was gone, and laying in his killer's trembling arms as tears soaked into his shirt.
He didn't know what else to do. What could he have done? Let Curley shoot his gut instead? Let him suffer? It was better to just do it himself, and if Lennie ever saw him again... well, he wouldn't even remember to be angry, would he?
George slowly pulled away. The group had gotten significantly closer. He looked at the gun on the ground and wiped his tears away as he grabbed it. What if he could see Lennie again?
George opened his eyes. He slowly pulled his hand up to rub his buzzy head. He was laying on a bed in the bunk house back at the ranch. He felt dreary and confused-- very, very confused, but in no pain at all. He scrambled together any coherent thoughts in his head, and ended up remembering-- shooting Lennie, shooting himself afterward...
But god damn it, did it not work?
"Lennie," George rasped, feeling like he had been completely removed from his body and had to relearn how to do everything. He managed to stick his shaky hands into the blanket and push himself up.
He looked around the room, not expecting to see Lennie on the bed beside him, dead, bleeding into the pillow under his head. George shifted a bit and dizzily reached over, but he couldn't reach far enough.
"Len... Lennie... hey, crazy bastard, look at me," He whispered. He grasped for him again, but realized he needed to move if he wanted to strech far enough to reach Lennie.
In a desperate attempt to feel him, and maybe think and hope and thank the dear lord if it was all just a dream, George leant over the side of the bed. His hand drew closer to Lennie's still body, but no matter how much he leaned, he just couldn't get far enough to even graze his shoulder with the tip of a finger.
"Lennie," He said, a bit more sternly, trying to get the man to move, when he fell off the bed. In instinct, he covered his eyes, expecting to hit a hard wood floor.
But he didn't hit a floor. In fact, his stomach quickly flipped as he realized he'd been falling for to long. He opened his eyes and looked up. He was falling down a giant hole.
Lennie was peering through the top of the hole. "Can I still tend tha rabbits, George?" He called down to George as he fell into the abyss, screaming.
Now his body was unimaginably and wholly prepared to splat against a hard ground, breaking George's entire body. He closed his eyes tight and cried, until he did hit a surface-- but not the surface he was expecting.
His body fell right into another bed. George rubbed his tearstained cheeks. A blanket was over him, and he hadn't tucked himself in.
George laid back, stunned.
Slowly, the man pushed himself to sit up. He blocked the sun from his eyes and grumbled, throwing a quilt onto the floor and getting out of bed.
He looked down at himself in surprise. He'd been wearing his flannel and coat with jeans-- but now he was in a large tank top with boxer shorts.
George looked around the room he had fallen into. It was rustic, wooden, and very... comfortable.
In fact, the feeling of being comfortable in this room washed over George and made him feel like he hadn't ever experienced anything bad. He took in a deep breath, taking in the crisp air.
It must've been his dying dream. That's what George decided. He'd shot himself in the forehead, there was no way he'd survived. He was dying now, and his brain was giving him this absolute peace he'd longed for.
But there was important something missing. George ran outside, grabbing a hat. "Lennie?" He called. "Lennie?!"
His loud and panicked voice echoed in the expanse of their land. It was giant. A cute little house, nestled beside a river, with trees, and a garden, and the animals... rabbits.
George ran around to the side of the house, screaming Lennie's name from the broken, tragic, mourning depth of his heart.
He got around to the back, where he stopped, and saw him. Lennie was sitting beside a rabbit hutch, with rabbits in his lap.
George softened. He wiped his tears away and approached the man.
"God damn, you son of a bitch," Said George, his voice shaky.
Lennie turned to him. "George!" He greeted, so excited and smiley nobody would've guessed Lennie had just been murdered by the same man.
George ran to Lennie, who put the rabbits away before George dove into his arms and started crying.
Lennie rubbed his back. "Why're you cryin', George?" He asked quietly, rubbing George's back with his big hands.
"Where are we?"
"Whadd'ya mean? We're... we're here. We're home. Livin' off the fatta tha land..."
George wiped his tears away and looked up at Lennie.
Lennie was dead-- and George was dead. He didn't know how this could be. Perhaps, before George shot himself, his brain experienced this entire life with Lennie that he'd dreamed of so fondly and so often, and maybe he was dead already, but the dream was still going for him.
They could be ghosts on Earth. Or maybe God loved them. Maybe God forgave them and gave them Heaven-- their Heaven, their own little place, and each other.
"George?" Lennie asked.
George wiped his tears away, then hugged Lennie tighter. "D'ya know how much I love ya, Lennie?" He whispered into the man's shirt.
"Um..." Lennie stammered quietly, absently moving his hands around George's shirt, clutching it in spaces.
George moved up to press his nose against Lennie's neck. His warm neck... His warm arms around his entire body, his warm breath, the sound of his breathing, and even a heartbeat...
Lennie shifted and moved his hands to grab softly at George's tank top. It was too big for George, so he was just absently pulling at the excess fabric. "How much?"
"A lot." George whispered, hugging him tightly. "A lot..."
Lennie smiled and hugged him. George leant into it. He couldn't believe they were here.
They were home.
Together.