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He's been longing for Wyatt for a long time.
Longin' for him 'fore he ever knew what the word "longing" meant.
His body waking up when they slept back to back, his mouth runnin' dry when Wyatt leaned too close. Thinking about Earp's sharp eyes across a campfire with his hands on some whore.
He tells himself for a long while it's admiration. Hero-worship.
It doesn't mean anything, it's not what he's afraid it is. Fish said it himself- a man gets lonely, out here in these parts.
But Doc knows. Deep down, ugly and shameful.
He ain't right.
Jealousy was always the easiest answer when someone asked him why.
Why, how, what happened? You two were thick as thieves.
Jealous made sense.
Nobody ever picked apart jealous.
Jealous wasn't him- tearing himself up inside with disgust, hatred- how could he, why was he, what sin had crept into his heart to make him want Wyatt like a fire that wouldn't burn out.
It was easy to betray him in the end. Doc had been betraying him for years anyway. Lookin' sidelong at him bathing in the river, touchin him when he had no cause to, getting blind drunk just so he could lean on Earp for the short walk back to whatever hellhole inn in whatever hellhole town they were at that night.
Wynonna reminds Doc of Wyatt.
He'd never say it, not to her, and hell, he doesn't like to admit it even to himself.
But she does.
Angry, righteous, whip smart. Every Earp, the whole foresaken line of 'em, grin the exact same with a gun in their hands.
He still wakes up sometimes, jerking wild out of sleep, thinking he's back in the well. Cold and wet and burning with hatred.
More often though, he's waking up next to Wynonna thinking he's with Wyatt.
Once, and this is what haunts him, see, Wyatt addressed it.
Called him out on whatever it was he felt for Earp, which, he guesses, was plain enough to see.
They'd been riding for days, saddle sore and exhausted. Maybe Doc had just been too goddamn tired to hide it anymore.
Both of them setting up camp, and Wyatt bent down, half turning, saying over his shoulder, "Somebody catch you looking at another man like that, you're liable to get a bullet for your trouble."
Doc remembers his insides froze up.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he'd snapped, but it had come out strangled and wrong.
Wyatt had straightened up and stared him down.
"You know damn well what it's supposed to mean. I ain't like that."
The shame.
Christ, even now Doc recoils from it.
It must have shown on his face, because Earp softened.
Said, "I know you ain't like that either. It's been a long time since we've seen any woman worth lookin' twice at. A man has needs."
Heat had crept up Doc's neck and ears, into his cheeks.
"Yeah," he'd rasped, and that had been the end of it.
After that, he'd had whores. As many as he could get his hands on, and always so Wyatt could see.
See? It was just a mistake. I don't look at you like anything, you were wrong, whatever you saw was just a shadow, a trick of the light.
But times when they passed through Wyatt's hometown, they'd stay with Mrs. Earp.
The room they put him up in was right next to Mrs. Earp's bedroom, and he could hear them in their marriage bed through the wall. Wyatt groaning, wood creaking.
It'd get so bad he'd break, take himself in hand. Jerk in time to Wyatt's moans, imagine pulling those sounds out of Earp himself. Cum with a sob he muffle into his fist.
He'd ridden into purgatory a week after Wyatt took off for the place.
He'd thought- hell- he didn't know what he thought. Maybe that Wyatt would forgive him, that they could go back to the way they were.
Instead the local yokels had pointed him to the field were Wyatt was strung up.
Doc had cut him down and laid him real gentle like on the ground.
Shut his eyes. Smoothed his hair down and straightened his lapels.
He was weak. He'd always been weak. He hadn't been able to stop touching Wyatt's face, cupping his cheeks, stroking his forehead.
Finally given license to touch and Wyatt had gone cold a long time ago.
He'd kissed-Christ- he'd kissed him. Kissed his eyelids, kissed his lips.
His face had been wet.
The witch had come later, around sunset.
Doc begged her to end it, let him go with Wyatt in peace.
She'd said, "I'll send you where he's going."
He thought she'd meant the afterlife.
She'd meant the ground.
Time enough alone, and you remember every goddamn ugly word you ever said.
He thought about the last thing he'd said to Wyatt a lot down there, in the darkness.
I did this for us.
Somewhere he is still saying it, rasping it out in that inn, howling in front of Wyatt's grave, now in this strange century, alone and left behind.
I did this for us, I did this for us.
He should have died of tuberculosis.
In the story where he's good, the lie he tells Wynonna, Doc can't look at him. Can't roll over on that rancid bed, stinking of sick and stale sweat, to look at Wyatt's face one last time. Like maybe one look would kill him as surely as the blood in his lungs.
Even in his pretty fantasies, Wyatt says his farewell and leaves without a backward glance.
When Doc dreams, it's always of Wyatt's coattails, just out of reach. One day, Doc promises himself, he'll catch up.
When he tries real hard, he can just remember what Wyatt smelled like.
Yeah, Doc thinks, when Waverly asks, I know a little something about ghosts.
~