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The world was on fire and no one could save me but you
It's strange what desire will make foolish people do
I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you
And I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you
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Drifting out of sleep was as sudden as falling into it had been. In his dream he was back in Contention, looking up at a clear sky, gaze fixed somewhere past his son’s terrified face, breathless with pain and entirely at peace. Then, his eyes were open again, and instead of bleeding to death on a dusty ground, he found himself in the hot darkness of a dusty hotel room somewhere wholly different. He felt the memory of the dream start to dissipate almost immediately, but the heavy peace of it lingered, and he allowed himself to simply enjoy the feeling for a while.
He had always been a light sleeper, a habit only reinforced by military service, and tended to wake up in response to most disturbances. Had he been woken like this back home on the ranch he would have been up already, ready to react to whatever wild animal, stranger, or broken roof tile was keeping him up this time. It wasn’t often he let his guard down, even in his sleep, and being able to just rest for once was pleasant. This was the upside of sharing a bed with someone who possessed equally keen senses, he thought sleepily. If there was trouble, he would not be the only one awake.
Almost as soon as he had finished the thought, Dan realized the space next to him was empty. He had gotten used to waking up in an empty bed these past few years, so the absence of a body next to his had not immediately registered. Now that it had, though, he felt a creeping sense of dread laced with shame crawl up his stomach.
Of course, the bed was empty.
Wade was an outlaw, of course he had left already.
To expect anything else would have been entirely foolish.
And he had been plenty foolish. Foolish to agree to see him again, foolish to let his guard down, foolish to fall into the man’s bed.
Foolish to think he would stay.
Dan let the shame settle on him, allowed himself one more moment of self-pity before he cursed silently and shifted to sit up.
“If you would do so kindly and stay still a while longer Dan, you risk ruining the picture.”
Startled by the sound, Dan complied on instinct and laid back down slowly. For a moment he could not make out where the sound had come from in the dark, but he knew who it was that had spoken.
Then he saw him.
Wade was not miles West with his belongings like he had suspected. Instead, he was here, in the room with him still. The man was dressed only in his undershirt, facing him at the foot of the bed, sitting on the rickety chair that belonged to the vanity. In his hands were a small leather-bound book and a pencil.
Now that Dan was looking, he could see that Wade must have pulled the curtains open to get more light in the room. The bed was illuminated by moonlight, which left the rest of the room – and Wade himself – in shadow. There was a soft sound of pen against paper as Wade scribbled something in the book. That must have been what woke him up.
“Wade,” Dan said, voice rough from sleep. He had meant to say something more but suddenly he found that he didn't know what. Wade shook his head with a sigh.
“Have I not told you to call me Ben enough times for you to listen?” There was amusement in his tone, and even in the dark Dan could see the smile playing on the man’s lips. Then Wade looked up at him.
Dan breathed in slow. He couldn’t fully see Wade’s expression through the shadow yet he still felt warm under the gaze, like tinder starting to smoke.
“What are you doing?” he asked the outlaw. This time Wade outright chuckled.
“Well, you see Dan, I was close to dozing off like you were doing just now, ‘til I caught a glimpse of something out the corner of my eye,” he said. Dan listened as Wade’s pencil scratched the paper in measured scrapes. It was strangely calming.
“Now, I value sleep as much as any man, but I have been known to be cursed with wicked curiosity. I am glad I opened my eyes then, for I found the sight in front of them so striking I could hardly move. You see, an errant moonbeam had made its way through the curtains and it had landed on you. Now, I’m not a man unaccustomed to pretty faces, but I still felt deeply moved by how the light was touching you just so. Did you know you frown a little even in your dreams, Dan Evans?”
Dan laid in silence as he listened to Wade’s words. The curtains against the window billowed gently in the cool night air.
“Can’t be good for your health if you ask me,” Wade continued “Not so bad for a view though. Whatever the case, I decided I needed to put that frown on paper. To do otherwise would be truly wasteful.” The sound of Wade’s pencil against the paper was loud in the quiet of the room.
“My deepest apologies for waking you though.” Wade chuckled again. “Looked like you needed the sleep. “
“You drawing a picture of me?” Dan said, sounding more clearly surprised than he had meant to, lingering sleep making it harder for him to pull back up the walls he had lowered last night. Wade sighed.
“Yes, Dan Evans, I’m drawing a picture of you.” Amusement lingered in his voice. Dan glanced down at Wade just as he raised his head to look at him and their eyes met. Dan felt his breath catch but Wade just lowered his gaze back to the paper, a slight smile pulling at his lips.
Dan recognized the way Wade looked at him now. It was the gaze of an artist trying to capture a likeness, free of the weight of judgement, free of expectation, filled with keen yet slightly distant interest. Then, at once, he realized he had seen that same look before, sans smile, at the Bridal suite back in Contention.
“You drew me on that bible.” The words were leaving his mouth before he had finished the thought and were in the air before he could stop them. He heard Wade draw a breath and Dan silently cursed himself for speaking so plain and open. Whether it was because he had just dreamt of Contention or some other quiet subconscious part of him only approachable in the dark of the night, Dan felt utterly struck by the revelation. It made him feel uncertain, wrong-footed somehow, and the thought of Wade knowing how affected he was by it made him feel nervous. Wade seemed to sense it too.
“That I did,” Wade said, for the first time completely without amusement. He said it like it was just the simple truth.
“Why?” The question was just as instinctual as the statement had been. Dan breathed in the silence that followed.
“Ah. Well,” Wade said slowly, “To answer that would be to answer why one draws at all.” An amused smile returned to his lips, but there was something different behind it this time. “You see Dan, I am not a man that comes across many beautiful things that stay untouched by the roughness of this world, or the roughness of crooks like me.
“Because of that, I have made it my habit to preserve that beauty when I can, as I am just as often the one to tarnish it.” As he spoke, Wade kept his eyes on the paper but his pencil’s movement gradually slowed down. “So, it has come to be that this here sketchbook is filled with all that I deem worth my attention.” Finally, the pencil stopped moving entirely.
“And so, I reckoned then back in Contention, as I did tonight, that I was witness to something beautiful only few would ever get to see.” Wade looked up to meet Dan’s eyes. “And that it was my God-given duty to preserve any part of it, so more of it would stay in this world even as its moment passes by.”
His eyes no longer held the thoughtful neutrality of the artist. They were serious, open in a way Dan realized he had never seen before. As little as the words made sense to Dan, he could only believe that Ben meant all of them.
“Now, would you be so kind as to not move so I can do so easier?”
Dan could not find it within himself to argue. He laid back carefully and looked up at the ceiling the dark. Ben hummed in approval and the scraping of paper returned.
He could not tell how much time passed after that as Ben drew, it was almost like time stopped entirely. Dan felt unmoored in it, as though he was in a stolen moment of time. Figures, he thought to himself, that this is what happens when you court a thief.
And still, eventually, it too ended. Dan felt time returning to the room as Ben carefully put down the pencil. He gazed at the drawing appraisingly for a while before closing the book and laying it on the vanity softly. Then there were only the soft sounds of footsteps and the dip of the mattress as Ben returned to the bed and laid down next to him.
He did not turn his head as Ben returned. He wanted to, but at the same time something about seeing the other man so close all of a sudden made him tense, made him want to run, to throw the covers over himself and hide. Here in the night, Ben’s confessional hanging above them, he felt cracked open somehow.
It was similar to how he had felt bleeding out in Contention, he mused, yet somehow more terrifying.
In the end, Ben made the decision for him, as he was wont to do. He ran his roughened hand softly up Dan’s arm and then cupped his chin, turning it gently so as to make Dan look at him. Despite last night, despite the fact that he had let Ben do much more intimate and dangerous things to him only a couple of hours ago, the touch sent a shiver through him. Perhaps it was fear.
Nevertheless, Dan let his head be turned and looked at Ben. Ben, who was the most dangerous man he knew. Ben who would be gone in the morning. Ben who had to be gone in the morning or Dan did not know what he would do.
Ben just gazed at him softly. His eyes trailed over his features like a mapmaker over a landscape, like an artist gazes at his model, softly and without judgement. In the moonlight, Ben looked like any man.
Dan’s chest felt tight with an emotion he was not able to name.
Then, Ben leaned in and pressed a soft, close-mouthed kiss on his lips before, laying back on his own pillow seemingly content. His lips were as rough as they had been last night, but the gentleness of the kiss burned Dan more than any before it had. He did not know what to do about it.
He still did not know what to do about it when he did not wake up to an empty bed the next morning.
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No, I don't wanna fall in love
With you