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Jim awoke on the couch. He looked up and saw Artie leaning over him, dark eyes sparkling with worry. He weighed the possibility that what he remembered from earlier that day was all just a bad dream. He’d never had much in the way of nightmares, but he was fairly sure that if his mind ever took it upon itself to produce one, it would be just like that.
His tongue felt thick and sluggish, and he licked dry lips to say… something, but he didn’t quite manage it. Artie spoke up instead: “Water, Jim?” he asked quietly.
Giving up on words for the time being, Jim nodded.
With a tiny smile, Artie produced a glass of water and held it to Jim’s lips. Though it probably wasn’t either, it tasted to Jim like the sweetest, coolest water he’d ever drank. He sipped and when he was finished Artie withdrew the glass. A droplet slipped out of the corner of Jim’s mouth and Artie caught it with a handkerchief. Was he looking at Jim’s mouth with more interest than he usually did? Jim thought he was. The early evidence suggested that it hadn’t been a dream.
Jim swallowed and- such as he could- sat up against the cushion behind his back. “What happened?” he managed.
“A lot of things happened,” Artie returned. He was smiling, but Jim saw an unusual intensity behind his eyes. Concern and a little anger, certainly- maybe something else as well. “Primarily, I got a telegraph to the town marshal, and someone passing the house heard me yelling.”
Definitely not a dream, then. “And so here I am.”
“And so here you are,” Artie agreed.
Earlier that day, Jim had found himself locked in a small room much like a bank vault in many particulars. The inventor- and thief- Jim was pursuing had stolen an antique manuscript from a visiting dignitary and designed the vault to preserve said artifact and several others he’d taken over the past few months. It was airtight, and according to the inventor would keep such objects in perfect condition for decades, if not centuries. It also seemed well appropriated for another duty: locked inside it, Jim had found that no explosives even made a dent- and what air had been locked inside with him was quickly being used up.
Jim lived every day prepared for such an eventuality. No one in his line of work who was truly committed to it didn’t think about what they would do if they ever fell into a trap they couldn’t get themselves back out of. But prepared as he was, Jim hadn’t thought it would be so cruel.
Well, no- that wasn’t true. The kind of man who designed or harnessed the kind of trap that James West couldn’t get back out of was by definition cruel.
What Jim hadn’t expected was for it to hurt so much.
The pain wasn’t physical, either; to die under torture- well, it wouldn’t exactly be pleasant, but in many ways Jim thought it would’ve been a mercy in comparison. Jim’s chest had been sore at first, but as he grew more and more lightheaded the pain faded and he just felt weak. And there he was, locked up in a vault with Artie halfway across the state dispatching the man responsible.
Jim had long ago made his peace with dying alone- but he wasn’t exactly alone either.
Besides the vault, the inventor had also created a device which could transmit a voice across great distances. One in his house, where Artie was, corresponded to another in the vault with Jim.
And Jim couldn’t have prepared himself for that. Not to hear it in Artie’s voice when he realized that he couldn’t get to Jim no matter how fast he rode.
“I- I wish I was there with you,” Artie had told Jim suddenly, his voice strange.
“I don’t,” Jim returned, easily.
He wasn’t afraid to die. He was leaning against one of the walls in the vault, thoughts coming in syrupy and slow, but one thing was very clear- that whatever happened to him was all right as long as Artie lived.
If one of them had to go on without the other, Jim preferred it be Artie. Artie had handled himself magnificently without Jim in the matter of Doctor Faustina when he’d thought Jim was dead. In the matter of the pistoleros, Jim couldn’t say the same. When Artie had put together enough of what had gone on during his… absence to demand an explanation regarding Jim’s choices over the course of those three days, all the expected answers had dried up in Jim’s mouth.
That he would’ve died if Artie hadn’t been there- hadn’t been alive- was obvious. That this was all right with Jim was only slightly less so. He’d never thought that he would take his own life if Artie died, but he’d always known that he would become careless. That he wouldn’t last.
“Only I-” Jim had found himself saying. His mind had grown more muddled still, and his voice was thin and reedy.
“What, James?”
“I wish you could kiss me before I...” Jim didn’t manage to finish, and seconds later everything went black.
Neither had Jim been prepared to wake up again afterwards, though he probably should’ve been. He and Artie had had so many close calls over the years that it stood to reason that one or both of them would eventually have final words that turned out not to be so final.
And now Jim lay on the couch and looked at Artie; Artie leaned over it and looked at Jim. He wasn’t sure there was any way he could’ve regretted his words more.
Oh, it wasn’t much of a secret that he wanted Artie, and Jim was at least ninety percent sure that his partner wanted him too. Artie’s preference might not be for men, but Jim thought Artie was interested enough to make an exception, and Jim was a very fine specimen of masculine attractiveness. He knew it the same way he knew how good a shot he was and how well he could speak Spanish. And he was sure he could make it good for Artie. He was equally sure that Artie prove to be as talented in those pursuits as he was in all the others he applied himself to.
But, as if by tacit agreement, they’d never spoken of it until Jim had just now. Unaccustomed to being the first to break any silence, Jim hadn’t the first idea what this could mean for them.
He sat and waited for Artie, who eventually said, “You should rest a bit longer, but you’ll be fine.”
Hoping this meant that Artie was no more inclined to talk about what had happened than he was, Jim nodded and tried to roll off the couch.
In one smooth motion, Artie was on top of him, straddling his hips, forcing Jim to meet his eyes by gripping his chin with one firm hand. “You’re not going to get away that easy, buddy.”
“Artie-”
“So, was that a, ‘Gee, I wish my probably-suggestible partner was here to kiss me so I could go out having really tried everything,’ or an, ‘I wish my partner was here to kiss me because I always want him to kiss me and this is my last chance?’”
The way Artie’s voice dropped at the end made Jim shudder. “I think you know.”
“Unless I’ve been crazy all this time- which is not, admittedly, totally unlikely- yes, James, I do know. I just wonder how many times we have to nearly get ourselves killed before one of us says it out loud.”
“I always want you to kiss me,” Jim breathed, and Artie’s expression softened into something almost unbearably sweet. He leaned down, and Jim turned his head at the last second, Artie’s mouth hitting his temple, the brush of faintly chapped but tantalizingly soft lips was white hot against his skin. Jim wanted to squirm, wanted to press against his partner. He kept stubbornly still, but for a moment the effort of not turning his head to meet his partner’s mouth felt almost exactly like being trapped in that vault again, unable to breathe.
Jim mustered his strength and sat up. This time, Artie let him go, his expression sorrowful but not really surprised. Jim swung his legs over the side of the couch and Artie half fell, half scooted away until he was seated next to Jim just as he had been a million other times, close enough for Jim to feel his warmth but not quite touching.
“I don’t want you to kiss me,” Jim said. He didn’t look at Artie again, but he could feel his partner’s raised eyebrow. He could hear it in the silence. “Unless…” Jim slowly let his arm fall to his side, where it encountered Artie’s. Elbow rubbed against elbow, knuckle brushed over knuckle. This alone made him a little short of breath, but Jim forged on. “Not unless it means that we’re going to be together. Just the two of us, for all the time that we have left.”
He did glance at Artie then, and he saw that a second eyebrow had joined the first. Both of them had used to kissing in a variety of ways beyond the simple pleasure of being mouth to mouth with another person- as a distraction, as a persuasion tactic, as collateral. Jim knew it would be wonderful to just kiss Artie. He ached for it, but there was nothing simple about it, and he wasn’t going to settle. Not in this. Not ever.
For a while, Artie just looked searchingly at Jim, as if figuring out if he was joking.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Jim,” Artie said at last. Jim could see a million reasons flying through his partner’s eyes, from exclusivity not really being in the cards for either of them- didn’t Jim know it?- to how dangerous a secret that kind of involvement would be for them to keep. Jim had been through them all himself, after all. What Artie eventually said, though, was a much deeper truth. Jim could see it had been eating away at his friend for a long time. “Doesn’t it hurt us enough that we’re friends, sometimes?”
Jim sighed, and- at least half unconsciously- let his index finger trail over Artie’s. “All right,” he said simply.
Artie shivered at Jim’s touch, but focused on his words. “That’s it? Just… ‘All right?’”
“I think you’re wrong. I always have.” As long as he’d suspected that Artie wanted him too, he’d speculated as to Artie’s reasons for not having seduced him already. And he knew just what Artie meant; he’d thought about it too. But he also thought he and Artie couldn’t hurt each other much more than they already did.
And when he’d believed he was dying, every reason in the world for staying apart had seemed ridiculous compared with the single horrible truth that he might die without ever having kissed the man he was in love with.
“But I’m not going to try to convince you. I don’t have the words.”
“Didn’t expect you to use words,” Artie returned, hooking his finger around Jim’s. He sounded sad and amused and angry all at the same time.
Jim knew what Artie was offering and he wanted to take him up on it. It would be so easy to kiss him into acquiescence, kiss him until he was willing to do whatever Jim asked. Jim had done it before, to many women and not a few men- and it was clear that Artie wasn’t opposed to the idea. But what Jim really wanted- the kind of kiss that could brand Artie his and he Artie’s, the kind of kiss that meant a lifetime’s more kisses- would not be of such price if it was easy to get. Most couples didn’t get it until after they said ‘I do’ and sometimes not even then. Jim couldn’t say ‘I do’- people might call him ‘not the marrying kind’, but he was he was he was, his match just happened to be of the kind he couldn’t marry- all he could do was kiss Artie and pray that the other man knew what it meant. Jim would rather have nothing than give it away for less.
Eventually, Artie interpreted Jim’s silence as an answer; Jim could feel it in the way Artie’s finger fell lax against his. But he didn’t know if Artie’s interpretation was the correct one. Eventually, Artie said, “You wanted me to kiss you before.”
“Before I was dying. Now I’m not.”
Artie’s finger came back to life and ran over Jim’s once more before he stood, the loss of his warmth beside Jim acutely painful.
Jim wanted to stand up and catch Artie in his arms. Jim wanted to take back his foolish ultimatum. But that was weakness, and he knew that if he ignored the impulse it would eventually pass.
Taking an unsteady step forward and then pausing, Artie had his back to Jim when he said, “Someday. Someday I’m going to kiss you.”
A lightning bolt of relief seared through Jim’s chest. Artie did understand. Though unspoken, ‘Just the two of us, for all the time that we have left’ hung in the air. Closing his eyes, Jim just breathed.
In an entirely different voice, Artie said, “Shall we play cards?”
It would’ve been a lie if he said it didn’t leave him hollow to think of going back to acting as though there was nothing more than friendship between them, so Jim didn’t reply with anything but, “Yeah.”
‘Someday’ would have to be enough. Jim just hoped that it wouldn’t be the day one of them thought he fell into a trap that he couldn’t get out of- and he was right.
But he was prepared for it, all the same.