[fic] we're just a million little gods-- mormon pioneer au
title: we're just a million little gods
author:
liz_hollis
pairing: Joe/Nick
rating: adult
word count: 7420
warnings: incest, underage, angst
summary: "They sleep bundled together in the back of the covered wagon, rolling themselves up in their rough wool blankets like caterpillars, arms slung around each other." -- an AU with Nick and Joe as Mormon pioneers sent ahead of their family to Arizona
disclaimer: this definitely did not happen, thus the term "AU"
author's note: this started as a comment fic for the Harlequin Romance challenge, and turned into the longest, most involved story i've ever written. the title is from the Arcade Fire song "Wake Up". much, much love to
th_esaurus for the amazing beta!
It's just one week before they're meant to leave New Jersey for Arizona that Franklin, and then Paul Kevin, come down with the scarlet fever. The doctor who comes to their cramped, dirty row house is concerned that Franklin's fever may be becoming rheumatic and damaging his heart, and tells Mother that Franklin has to recover in bed for at least a month, and shouldn’t travel for another two weeks after that.
At prayer group that week, they all pray for two hours for Franklin and Paul Kevin's recovery. Father sweats and thunders, his eyes glowing with fervor as he reminds every man that the innocent often pay for grown men's sins. Nick stares at his father with wide eyes. Joe counts the cracks in the floorboards and imagines the words seeping into his brother’s soul like poison.
Father sits Joe and Nick down in the kitchen, hot and smoky from the coal fire, and tells them they two must go ahead to Arizona to claim the two acres of land and the cabin their uncle surveyed for them, or they could lose the land and all they've worked and prayed so hard for.
Joe sneaks a look over at Nick out of the corner of his eye as Father goes on about fulfilling God’s plan. Nick is focused and intent, his determination and sense of responsibility emanating from the very pores of his skin. His leg is jittering under the table, and Joe finds his knee with his hand and clasps it.
Mother cries and frets, patching their worn coats and packing thick blankets into the steamer trunks, feeding them heavy meals. Joe feels like a pig being fattened for the slaughter. The night before they're to leave, Joe wakes in the velvet dark of earliest morning to see Mother, perched on the edge of his and Nicholas’ bed, stroking her fingers again and again down the side of Nick's sleeping face, her eyes roving his features hungrily, and her lips forming noiseless prayers.
Father pulls Joe aside the next morning. He claps a hard hand on Joe's shoulder, his fingers digging into the muscle.
"Joseph. You're seventeen now, you're a man. It's time you lived up to your name, the name of our Blessed Prophet. You've never been much, but I have faith that you won't disappoint me now. Take care of Nicholas."
Joe nods, and turns away without a word. His father's small, burning eyes make him feel sick to his stomach.
They duck their heads into the sickroom to say goodbye to Frank and Paul Kevin. Paul Kevin, already much recovered, looks up from his book with a wide, guileless smile. He wishes them a safe journey and tells them he loves them with all his heart. Joe feels a swell of affection for his oldest brother. Franklin rouses himself enough to give them a wan wave, and Nick winks and smiles at him.
They pile their trunks, the bags of dried meat and corn and kegs of water, blankets, pans and the few items of furniture they are taking with them into the wagon. Father straps the rifle to the inner rim of the wagon side, and hands Joe a box of bullets with a weighted, significant gaze.
Nick clambers up first and Mother wraps her arms around Joe's neck in a strangle hold, whispering her love into his ear. Joe climbs into the driver's seat, takes the reins and steers the horses towards the wide dirt road that will lead them West. He doesn’t look back, but Nick is still turned around in his seat long after the house and their parents are out of sight.
***
The journey is long, mostly dull, and frightening when it's not dull. They ride all day, taking turns at the reins, the plodding steps of the horse’s hooves lulling them into a stupor. Nick, his skin so pale and porcelain, gets terribly burnt after the first two days under the hot sun and his mood is foul. Joe, always the darker of the two, mashes his wide-brimmed hat on top of Nick’s dark curls, and although Nick grumbles, he keeps it on. A little later, his hand comes to rest, warm and a little sweaty, on Joe’s shoulder, an unspoken ‘thank you’.
They stop the horses when it gets dark, driving a stake into the ground and tying the reins about it. Nick spends hours every night tending to the horses, checking their hooves for cracks and sores, brushing the dried sweat from their hides and murmuring soft words into their flickering ears. Joe builds fires and makes dark, bitter coffee in a tin saucepan to warm them.
They sleep bundled together in the back of the covered wagon, rolling themselves up in their rough wool blankets like caterpillars, arms slung around each other.
Joe sleeps badly, restless and alert for sounds of danger. The further west they get, the more frightening and dark the nights are. He often wakes with a start, dream images floating bright and stark in his mind; stalking wolves, mauling bears and Nick, cold and still and gone forever. Each time he wakes from these dreams, he finds Nick awake as well, his dark eyes quiet and close.
Nick never says a word, and Joe studies his face in the dark wagon, tries to commit his features to memory until he can drift to sleep again.
As they enter the Midwestern plains, Joe, never one for directions, loses his bearings often and they have to pull out Father’s compass and the oilskin map. The landscapes are an endless sameness, waving brown grasses in every direction, stretching out as far as the eye can see, and Joe feels like they could travel the same patch of land forever without knowing it.
They ford a river in Missouri and the water is high and floods the back half of the wagon. Joe and Nick are struggling through the waist-high waters behind the wagon, holding bundles of blankets and food above their heads. Joe has a death grip on Nick’s belt, so he feels it when Nick loses his footing, when the roiling, seething current threatens to take him. People die doing this, Joe thinks, the knowledge stark in his mind. A flash of pure, white-hot terror bursts through Joe’s body and his fingers spasm around the leather belt, but Nick plants his feet, stills and steadies himself. Joe croaks out a “Ready?” and Nick nods tightly. Joe tightens his grip on Nick’s belt until he can feel the pain of the edges cutting into his palm, and they make it to the opposite bank. The box of bullets for the rifle is gone in the rushing waters, and they lose a bag of grain to creeping mold.
Joe hefts the useless rifle in his hands, and looks at Nick, shaking his head.
One night, Joe wakes on a gasp to hear the horses, whinnying and screaming in terror, rearing and stamping their hooves. He moves to go look out through the canvas flaps, but Nick's hand clamps hard around his wrist. Joe looks at Nick, sees his face pale and stark, his eyes bright and nostrils flared with fear.
"Don't move," Nick whispers urgently. "Don't make a sound."
Joe lies still and listens with all his might. He can hear the rustling of leaves, the cracking of branches, the snuffling of something wild. His skin tingles and the hair on his arms stands up. They lie crushed together, as still and quiet as they can, trying not to breathe. Nick's eyes never leave Joe's, the grip of his hand on Joe's arm never loosens and what Joe sees in Nick's eyes is as terrifying as the sounds of the animal outside.
Eventually, the shuffles of the unknown animal fade away, and when Nick's fingers finally loosen their grip, Joe can breathe again. They lie there in the predawn light, shell-shocked and weak-limbed.
"I thought that was it," Joe murmurs. Nick nods his head wonderingly, his eyes still locked on Joe's, his lower lip caught between his teeth. He lifts a trembling hand to Joe's face, runs a fingertip tentatively along Joe's cheekbone. Joe shivers. Abruptly, Nick drops his eyes.
"I thought we were going to die, Joe. I really did. I thought it would kill us," Nick whispers, and his voice is barely there. Joe wraps his arms fiercely around his baby brother, throws a leg over him, trying to envelop his smaller body with Joe's. He thinks he would have leapt bodily in front of any animal that threatened his brother in an instant, without a thought.
"We're all right, Nicky. I won't ever let anything happen to you," Joe promises into the warm crook of Nick's neck, as much a pledge to himself as to Nick.
His lips drag against Nick's skin with the words, and he tastes the salty tang of sweat and three weeks travel on his lips. He can feel the thrum of Nick’s blood pulsing underneath the thin skin of his neck, vital and alive. Nick trembles once in his arms, and pulls away.
When they stumble from the wagon, squinting and shading their eyes against the sun, they find that the horses have pulled out their stakes and are gone.
Joe throws his hat, the saucepan, his right shoe, anything he can reach and shouts curses that make Nick's eyes bug out. Joe slumps to the ground by the remains of the fire, head in his hands, and fights back the tears of overwhelming frustration, defeat and fear that rise up in him. He won't, can't respond to anything Nick says as he crouches by him, until finally, Nick tells Joe to trust him and wait here. He runs off over the crest of a hill before Joe can stop him.
Joe passes a frantic hour pacing back and forth in front of the wagon, imagining all the various awful demises Nick could be meeting, before he sees Nick crest the hill once again, this time leading both their horses by their bridles behind him.
Joe takes off running towards them, his joy and relief bubbling up in near hysterical laughter. He catches Nick with a running tackle, the both of them hitting the ground hard and rolling a bit.
"Joe! Don't be foolish!" Nick admonishes, but he's laughing too. "You'll scare the horses right off again!" Joe rolls off of him, flops onto his back in the sparse, dusty grass, grabs Nick's hand and holds it to his chest.
"How in the Sam Hill did you do that, Nicholas?" he asks, turning his head to look at his brother. Nick closes his eyes, tips his head back in the sun, and Joe marvels at the play of dark eyelashes upon his cheekbones, resists the urge to press his face to Nick's, to get closer to this boy, this wild amazing boy who could do seemingly impossible things.
"They were just frightened, Joe," Nick says. "I just, you know, called for them. They just needed to know it was safe now."
"Nick..." Joe murmurs, and Nick rolls his head to the side and cracks open one eye to look at him. Joe doesn't know what he meant to say, has forgotten all the words he ever knew. He just lifts Nick's hand to his mouth, and presses his lips against each of Nick's dirt-caked knuckles in turn, silent and struck dumb.
Nick's eyes glitter in the sunlight and his face is peaceful. One of the horses nudges his muzzle against Nick's head and huffs; Nick laughs, his smile splitting across his face, and jumps up to go get their feed, his hand gone from Joe's in a flash. Joe's hand lies palm up on the dirt, and he stares at it, cold and empty.
Nick's face looms suddenly above him, upside down and mischievous, haloed by the sun.
"I saw a stream with a little pool about half a mile back that way," he gestures with his thumb. "And you stink to high heaven. Let's have a wash." Joe thinks nothing has ever sounded more wonderful in his life.
***
They strip off and leap into the shallow pool, whooping like Indians and squawking at the frigid temperature of the water.
The water only comes up to their waists, but the feeling of it against their skin and the chance to scrub off the layers of grime and the remnants of the awful night leaves them feeling elated and alive. Nick splashes a huge wave of water at Joe, and Joe yells in indignation. He ducks under the surface to grabs Nick's ankle and pull him under.
They wrestle submerged under the water, skin slippery and limbs twisting around each other. Joe surfaces for a moment and gulps a breath of air before Nick's hands close around his thigh and he's yanked under again. He opens his eyes, and sees Nick's smooth boyish limbs swimming away from him. He grabs Nick's ankle, pulls him back until he can reach his waist, Nick squirming and slick, worming his way out of Joe's grip. Joe quickly wraps his arms all the way around Nick's waist, locking his hands together at the small of Nick's back.
Abruptly they're sandwiched together, chest to chest, hip to hip. All the air leaves Joe’s lungs in an instant. Nick's eyes open, startled, under the water, and suddenly Joe can feel it, Nick's cock hard and pressing against his hip. Joe feels a sharp brittle heat shoot from his stomach down to his groin, his eyes snap shut, and, unthinking, he crushes Nick closer to him. Nick's hands come up to Joe's chest, and he shoves Joe, hard.
They break apart and surface at opposite ends of the small pool, their heaving breaths loud and harsh in the quiet woods. Joe stares open-mouthed at Nick, who is refusing to meet his eyes, arms folded across his chest, hunched over himself, color high in his cheeks.
"Nick... I-I'm sorry?" Joe breathes, his voice nothing but a whisper.
"Don't," Nick mutters, turning his back to Joe. "Just don't, Joseph."
Joe’s chest aches with a tight, nameless fear that threatens to choke him, to overtake him. He knows he should get out of this pool, pull on his clothes, walk away right now and never speak of this again, but he doesn’t. He paddles slowly across the pool, unsure of himself, unsure of what he's thinking or what he's doing, but sure that it's probably sin; that every bit of it is sin.
He reaches for Nick, runs his hand down the sharp line of Nick's spine, feeling Nick tense and shiver beneath his fingers.
Suddenly, Joe just needs Nick to know how much he loves him, how much he needs him, can’t lose him, ever. He needs him to know how much Joe understands what Nick is feeling, because it is inside of Joe too. He drapes himself against Nick's back, leans his face against his neck, lets Nick feel him, aching and hard, pressing against the rise of Nick's ass.
"It's me, too, Nicky. Me too. Can you feel it? Do you see?” he whispers against the damp skin of Nick's neck. Nick shudders and gasps underneath Joe, twists around in his grip to face him. He looks conflicted and aroused. A blotchy red flush is climbing his chest and neck. Joe has never seen Nick look this way.
"Joe, I- this is wrong. It's sin, we'll burn for it," he whines, his brow creased and worried. Joe holds Nick's face in his hands, presses kisses along his cheeks, his jaw. Nick’s head falls back.
"No. No, Nicky. I love you so much. This is just- no, it's all right. I love you, please," Joe mumbles, mouthing under the soft fold of Nick's ear. Nick moans, and his hips twitch against Joe's. Joe pets along the lines of his collarbone, his shoulders, runs a thumb over Nick's nipple.
"I want this," Nick breathes, released like a long-held secret, and Joe kisses him, gives in to the tidal pull, leans in and presses his mouth to Nick’s. It feels like a prayer, like God, like coming home.
Nick whimpers against Joe’s lips, lifts a hand to his shoulder. His fingers flutter like bird wings over Joe’s skin, scared and unsure. Joe has never touched anyone like this before, never felt this heat, the overwhelming, bewildering push and pull of his body moving of it’s own volition.
Nick’s lips part on a breath, and Joe’s lower lip nudges into the space between, and then their mouths seem to fit together like puzzle pieces, edges interlocking. Joe has never felt anything so right as the soft, raw heat inside Nick’s mouth. The tip of Nick’s tongue touches Joe’s lip and a sizzle shock of lightning zips down Joe’s spine, snapping his hips forward and pushing a soft ‘unh’ out of his throat.
Nick pulls his head back, his forearms resting against the jut of Joe’s collarbones. He touches his fingers to the corner of Joe’s mouth, pulls his eyes up to meet Joe’s.
“Joseph… is this--” he begins, his voice breaking.
“Yes,” Joe interrupts, panic edging his vision, but he forces his body to still, his hands just resting against the skin under Nick’s ribs. Nick shakes his head, his expression far too old for his years.
“No, it’s not,” he says, even as he leans forward, pushes their bodies together, wraps his arms around Joe’s neck, fits his mouth to Joe’s once more. The head of Nick’s cock bumps, pushes against the cut of Joe’s hip. Joe loses his footing in the muddy silt at the bottom of the pool, and they fall back with a splash.
The water closes over their heads, but Joe doesn’t stop kissing Nick, their bodies twisting and spinning, suspended, lips slip-sliding together and apart. Underneath the surface, the water pressing on their ears creates a velvet silence so deep and close that it feels to Joe like another world; a world belonging just to Nick and Joe, like a blessed purgatorial bubble that can’t be breached.
When he is dizzy for lack of air, he breaks the surface, Nick following after him. Nick catches Joe’s mouth, barely giving him time to gasp a breath before they collide again. Joe edges his mouth open, chasing that yielding heat, slips his tongue past Nick’s lips, licks the pointed ridge of his teeth. He swallows the groan Nick lets out, feels it slide down to the pit of his stomach, feeding the simmering excitement there, notching it up until Joe can barely think.
They come to rest at the edge of the pool, Joe reclined against the muddy ridge, Nick splayed half on top of him. Nick is moving against him, his hips jerking fretful and almost frantic. Joe takes his face in his hands, runs his thumbs over his cheekbones, murmurs, “Shh, shh, it’s all right,” until Nick takes a deep, shaky breath and stills.
“Joe, tell me what to do. I don’t- I don’t know what to do,” Nick mumbles, shamefaced.
Joe doesn’t know any better than Nick does, but it feels natural to put his hands on Nick’s hips, pull him until their hips are aligned, their cocks sliding together in the dip of Joe’s pelvis. Joe’s head thunks back against the mossy ground at the throbbing feel of it, and he thrusts his hips up against Nick’s.
A surprised sound escapes Nick’s throat, and his face contorts, his mouth dropping open. He’s breathing in little pants, and when his tongue flicks out to wet his lower lip, Joe can’t help but grab a handful of Nick’s curls and pull him down kiss him again.
“It’s you and me. Just you and me,” he murmurs, again and again into the heat of Nick’s mouth, rocking against him.
They push and push against each other, reaching and straining for something they can’t even name, eyes open and shock-wide. And when that something comes, when Nick shudders and jerks against him and cries out and Joe starts to come-- it’s like he’s flying apart into a million tiny fragments, out into a new and dangerous world.
***
They walk back to the camp in silence, their arms hanging loose by their sides, shoulders bumping occasionally. Joe sits by the campfire for a long time that night, staring into the flames and chewing on his thumb, uneasy. When Nick comes back from tending to the horses, he asks Joe if he has eaten anything. When Joe shakes his head, too-long hair falling into his eyes, Nick brings over a strip of dried meat. Joe takes it, and Nick drops down next to Joe, arms wrapped around his legs, chin resting on his knees. He tips his head to the side and Joe can feel his eyes on him.
“I love you, Joseph,” Nick says, forming each word with care and purpose. That’s all he says. Joe can’t look away from the flames to meet Nick’s eyes, but he bites his lip and nods.
“I know,” Joe replies. Nick reaches a hand out and smears the hair back from Joe’s face.
“Always,” he murmurs. Joe sighs, a long heavy blow of breath, and leans to press a kiss against the solemn corner of Nick’s mouth. The fire spits sparks.
As Joe lies sleepless in the wagon that night he realizes with a sudden, jolting clarity of mind, that this, this thing between them could be how he loses Nick, in the end. The thought puts him in a cold sweat. Joe doesn’t care too much about sins against God, hasn’t for some time, but he doesn’t want to sin against his brother, and he thinks he might have lied to Nick, lied when he said that this was all right.
When Joe wakes up in the morning, it is because Nick has a hand around his shoulder and is shaking him, whispering his name, anxious and urgent. Joe jerks upright, and a shower of black spots breaks in front of his eyes. The air is hot and dry in the wagon, and Joe’s throat feels like a desert. The memory of the previous day comes flooding back in a rush, and Joe looks everywhere but at his brother, prying open his mouth to speak. The words get stuck in the cracked terrain of his vocal cords, swallowed by his uncertainty.
Before he can try again, Nick says, “Joe. Listen. There’s an Indian out there.”
Joe makes Nick stay behind him when he goes to peer out of the canvas flaps. The Indian is crouched by the remains of their campfire, holding the saucepan up, turning it over and over, peering at it like he’s inspecting the craftsmanship of the battered piece of tin.
Joe looks back over his shoulder at Nick, who is kneeling behind Joe, craning his neck to try and see past him. Nick flicks his eyes over to the abandoned rifle, then looks back at Joe, the question evident in his eyes. Joe gives a tight shake of his head, his stomach queasy and sweat collecting at his hairline.
“I’m going out there. Stay here, all right?” he says. Nick’s eyes go wide and his mouth moves soundlessly.
The Indian straightens up quickly when Joe jumps down from the wagon, and Joe holds his hands out in front of him, palms up, in what he hopes is a universal gesture of peace. The Indian is tall and lean, but Joe can read the power in his long limbs. He is wearing trousers made of what looks like a soft hide, and his chest is bare and smooth and brown, browner than the varnish Joe rubbed into the wood of Mother’s chairs. His hair is long, with two feathers wound into the strands. Joe can see the knife in it’s hide sheath, hanging around the man’s waist, but the Indian’s hands hang relaxed by his sides.
The Indian’s sharp eyes inspect Joe appraisingly, and when they flick over his shoulder, Joe doesn’t even need to turn around to know that Nick has climbed out of the wagon. Joe gives the Indian what he hopes is his friendliest, least threatening smile.
“I’m Joseph, and this is Nicholas,” Joe says, pointing first at himself and then over his shoulder at Nick. He can feel Nick vibrating with nervous energy, standing so close Joe can feel his humid breath against the back of his neck.
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Nick pipes up, and he sounds so earnest and his voice is so high and squeaky from nerves that Joe can’t help but snort and laugh. Nick looks scandalized, but Joe sees a smile break across the Indian’s face. He gestures at the saucepan, says something Joe can’t understand, in a language thick with strange, throaty vowels.
Joe shrugs his shoulders, at a loss, and says, “Want some coffee?”
He prods the remains of last night’s fire, coals lumped together to stop them from going out completely, blows on them until they glow red once again. He puts the pan on top of the coals and sets about making the coffee. The Indian sits cross-legged at the edge of the fire, watching intently. When Joe passes him a tin cup full of the hot, black liquid, the Indian looks dubious, sniffs and peers at it for a long moment. When he sees Joe and Nick drinking from their cups, he takes a tentative sip, but immediately pulls a face at the bitter taste and hurriedly passes the cup back to Nick.
“I suppose it’s an acquired taste,” Joe laughs.
The Indian smiles again, then leans over to tap Nick on the shoulder. He points to the horses and gestures for Nick to follow him. He takes Nick over to where the horses are tethered, speaking soft incomprehensible words the whole way. Joe watches from the edge of the fire as the Indian runs his hand down Blacksmith’s soot-colored hind leg, all the way down to the hoof, then takes Nick’s hand and has him run it down the same path several times. Nick’s head jerks up when he finds the spot the Indian is trying to show him, and Joe watches as astonishment dawns upon his face.
“Joe, come here!” he calls, and when Joe stops next to him, Nick draws him down to the ground with him, grabs his hand, his sweaty palm guiding Joe’s hand to the soft fuzz of the horse’s leg.
“Look, he’s got a sore coming in here by his hoof. It hasn’t opened up yet, but you can feel it there, under the skin,” Nick explains. “Do you feel that hot, boggy spot? I can’t believe I didn’t see him favoring the other leg.”
Nick is animated, caught up in the thrill of discovery and the task of figuring out a solution; a gratifying escape from the mindless monotony of riding, riding, riding through that endless landscape. Joe looks up at his brother, moving focused and purposeful around the horse, checking for any other injuries and talking, practically chattering at Joe the whole time. And it’s as though nothing even happened, like nothing ever changed between them, and a giant iron weight lifts from Joe’s chest. He hadn’t even realized until now that each breath was a worried struggle.
With a start, Joe remembers the Indian. He looks over, and the Indian is staring at them, his gaze solemn and considering. Joe feels self-conscious, uncomfortable with the clarity of the Indian’s eyes as they move back and forth between Joe and Nick.
The Indian moves to leave, and Joe feels his stomach drop, the acidic coffee and something else combining to make his stomach heave and roil. What did the Indian see there, in the air between them? But the Indian turns back, gestures with his arms to encompass Nick and Joe and the horses; holds his hands out to the ground, asking them to wait, wait just a little. Nick looks at Joe, and the apprehension is back in his gaze.
They have a quick, heated argument. Nick is afraid the Indian is coming back with others, coming to take the horses maybe. Joe argues that if the Indian had wanted to take anything, or even to kill them, he could have easily done it already; the Indian was a grown man and had a weapon. They were just two unarmed boys, and Joe is sure the Indian knew that as soon as Joe came down from the wagon empty-handed.
Nick shakes his head and starts, “But Father said you can never trust--”
“Jesus, Nick, do you just blindly believe everything Father tells you?!” Joe explodes. “Do you think Father has ever even seen an Indian in his whole damned life?”
Nick looks taken aback, stunned, hurt. Joe goes back to poking at the fire, watching the sun climb in the sky with a growing unease.
But before an hour has passed, the Indian returns, alone and carrying a small cloth bag filled with a strange mix of plant leaves and herbs. He shows a dumbfounded Nick how to mix some of the stuff with a little water, grind it with a rock. Nick tears a long strip of cloth from one of his shirts, and the Indian helps him to smooth the poultice over the sore on Blacksmith’s leg and gently wrap it. Joe suddenly thinks of Paul Kevin and Franklin, back in New Jersey, back in his father’s dark, closed-off little house.
Afterwards, the Indian leaves. They want to give him something, thank him somehow, but the Indian won’t accept anything but a cup of water from them. Impulsively, Joe reaches out and takes the Indian’s hand for a brief moment. There are calluses in strange places on the man’s palm, and Joe wonders what kind of work creates calluses like those.
Nick is quiet as they ride, but Joe can feel him looking at him, can feel the weight of Nick’s thoughts turning, turning.
***
Once they reach Texas, the weather becomes unbearably hot and dry, the world a flat expanse, hazy and sun baked. The horizon is a constant shimmering mirage.
Joe can barely sleep at all anymore, the heat under the canvas cover of the wagon stifling. They sprawl out shirtless on top of the wool blankets, limbs like starfish, and Joe counts the drops of sweat as they roll down his sides instead of counting sheep.
So, the night it happens again, Joe is already awake when Nick reaches for him. Joe has been using the heat as an excuse to stay away from Nick, complaining that it’s hard enough to sleep already without Nick’s body, like a compact furnace, making it worse. Nick has accepted it, stayed away too, until now. Joe’s lying on his side in the far corner of the wagon, facing away from Nick when he feels Nick’s breath prickle on the back of his neck.
“What, Nicholas?” he mumbles, not turning around. Nick’s fingers stutter against his neck, pull lightly through the sweaty, curling strands of hair at the base of Joe’s skull.
“Joe, I-I just wanted--” Nick pauses, seems to gather his courage. “Do you think about it?”
Joe sighs, clenches his hands into fists until he can feel his nails cutting half-moon imprints into his palms. Nick leans his forehead against Joe’s wet neck, rubs his nose in the hollow between Joe’s shoulder blades. The thick air seems to stick in Joe’s lungs as he tries to draw a breath.
“Yes. Sometimes,” he manages. He can feel Nick’s breathing quickening, feels his own heart rate rise to match it, their skin sticking together with each inhale.
“It’s… Joe, it’s all I think about,” Nick confesses, and slides forward until his body is flush against the back of Joe, every part of them touching from shoulders to ankles.
He winds his arm around Joe’s torso, worming his hand under Joe’s arm so he can touch his chest. Joe realizes with a start that Nick is naked.
“Y-you’re naked,” he squeaks dumbly. Nick’s fingers skid through the sweat on Joe’s stomach, and Joe grits his teeth to keep the involuntary sound he makes from escaping.
“It was too hot,” Nick says, and licks the back of Joe’s neck. “Joe. Joe, are you--?” he questions, his voice suddenly young again. His fingers dip lower on Joe’s abdomen, scratch at the button of his underwear. Joe shudders, and it makes Nick grind once against his ass, hard and insistent.
“Yeah,” Joe croaks, and then Nick’s hand is there, trembling fingers pressing against Joe’s cock, mapping the shape of him.
Joe groans, and the sound is sharp against the quiet night. Nick is fumbling now with the button of Joe’s pants, one-handed and clumsy, muttering “Come on, come on, take off your clothes, Joseph,” urgent and strained into Joe’s ear.
Joe fumbles his long underwear down, Nick helping him shove the pants down past his knees. Nick’s hand clamps on Joe’s hip, and he hitches forward, pushing himself into the space between Joe’s legs where the tops of his thighs meet the curve of his ass. Nick’s cock slides easily in the sweaty slickness there, and Joe’s hand slaps against the wood siding at the sharp stab of pleasure that ripples through his body when the head of Nick’s cock presses against the thin skin behind Joe’s balls.
“No, no, God, oh, oh, this is wrong, Nick,” Joe moans, even as he tilts his hips back to meet the thrust of Nick’s hips, the sound of their skin slapping together loud and obscene.
“I know, I know,” Nick grunts, ragged, moving faster, “I don’t care, I can’t stop, Joe.”
Nick thrusts again and again, mouthing broken syllables into the skin of Joe’s shoulder, his arm wrapped tight around Joe’s chest, his fingers pressing against the pulse in Joe’s throat. Joe braces himself against the floor, gets a hand down over his cock, just pressing the heel of his palm against himself. He clenches his thighs around Nick’s cock with each thrust, and Nick bites at his ear. He pulls back to thrust hard, and the tip of his cock drags against Joe’s entrance. Joe’s eyes fly open, his hand spasms against his dick, and as Nick shoves forward again, Joe comes with a shattered shout, pulsing into his hand. Nick grips his shoulder, pulls Joe down and back, and shoves once, twice, three more times before his body locks up and Joe feels the flooding heat of Nick’s come against his legs.
Nick moves back after a minute, lets Joe flop on to his back, his limbs like lead. He rubs at Joe’s lips, thumbs at a scrape on his hip from the rough wood planks that Joe didn’t even notice getting. Nick bites his lip, looks up at Joe apologetically.
“I’m sorry. I hurt you?” Nick says, the upswing of his voice turning it into a question, and God, Joe thinks, he’s just a boy. He supposes they both are. He doesn’t understand what it is they are doing, but there is a sick certainty in his belly that says it won’t, can’t, end well.
“No,” Joe answers, “No, you didn’t hurt me.”
***
Arizona is red, red everywhere; red dirt, red sun, red rock spires rising out of nothing, stretching towards the sky. Nick is excited, revived by the prospect of finally reaching their destination. They turn the horses north in search of the river Father called Salt River, the river that will lead them home.
Nearly two months on the road, and Joe almost doesn’t remember the person he was back in New Jersey. When he looks at Nick, his skin tanned and his hair an untamed eddy of tangled curls, it’s hard to picture the brother he prayed next to in the whitewashed room of their Father’s church. The memories feel somehow intangible. It is both frightening and satisfying.
They stop for a night under a rocky outcropping, a vast overhang of multi-hued stone climbing out of the desert to a plateaued point, like a great arm pointing west. They eat corn meal gruel under the shelter of the overhang, and the firelight casts flickering shadows on the rock. Nick drums a jumpy little rhythm against the stones circling their fire with his spoon.
“Joe,” Nick breaks the silence, staring moodily into the flames. “You’re going to leave us, aren’t you?”
Joe looks up, startled. “What? What do you mean?”
Nick rolls a pebble in his fingers, hurls it into the distance. “I don’t know. I just-you hate Father, I know you do. You hate our life. Back home, I used to think that one morning I’d wake up, and you’d just be… gone.”
Joe feels his heart contract, a weighted ache in his chest. He opens his mouth, closes it. There is a long silence. “Were you happy, Nick?” he finally asks.
Nick shakes his head slowly, his eyes shadowed. “I never really thought about it, you know? It’s all I knew.” Nick’s eyes focus then, sad and piercing, locked on Joe’s. “But not without you, Joe. I-I’ll never be happy without you.”
Joe wants to look away, but he’s frozen in place. “Yes, you will,” he says, automatically, but he doesn’t know if he believes it. He wants to.
Nick looks tired, dark circles under his eyes. “Just. Don’t go without me, all right Joe? You just-can’t leave me behind.” Nick’s eyes plead with Joe, and he nods, his throat tight, because there isn’t any other option. Joe flicks his eyes up towards the rocky ceiling and tries out a smile.
“Let’s climb it.” Nick’s answering grin breaks across his face like a dawn.
They scramble and claw their way up, the rock of the cliff surprisingly smooth and slippery. Their hands and pant legs turn red from the dirt. When they’ve almost reached the top, Joe in the lead, Nick grabs his ankle and yanks him back. Joe falls flat with a shocked ‘ooof’ and Nick dashes ahead to the peak of the ridge, crowing with laughter.
“You dirty little sneak!” Joe yells, laughing too, and cuffs Nick around the ear.
Up on the ridge, toes to the edge, Joe sees for the first time how beautiful the desert they’re traveling actually is. The fat moon spreads silver across the slashing angles and swooping curves of the apocalyptic landscape, and Joe throws his head back, arms out, spine bowed back and howls. Nick’s shining face is turned up to him, the uneven strip of his man-child teeth gleaming with his open-mouthed grin. His adolescent howl, higher and cracking, joins Joe’s until their breath runs out, and they pant, listening to the echoing responses of far off wolves or coyotes.
They kiss for a long time that night, sprawled out on the still sun-warm rocks, bodies overlapping and hands on the ground above Joe’s head, learning the feel, the taste of the crevices and corners of each other’s mouths, the way their tongues curve around one another, the slick feel of the enamel of their teeth. Joe is overwhelmed by the need he feels for Nick, the love, by the strength and immediacy of the fear he feels when he thinks of being without him.
They reach Salt River in two days time. Joe is dying for another swim, but the riverbed is mostly dry, an insubstantial trickling stream running through it’s rocky center all that’s left after the dry summer. They splash their arms and faces anyway.
It’s just another three days ride along the river until they see the tall, pointed stake driven into the soil, a plank nailed across the top of it with the name ‘JONAS’ etched and burned into it. Half a mile past the signpost, they can see two tall posts Joe supposes are meant to be a sort of entranceway. Nick’s head swivels back and forth on his neck as they steer the horses down the narrow dirt path. Joe keeps his face carefully impassive.
And then, they’ve arrived. It’s almost anticlimactic, pulling up to the small cabin, bleached out wood and three windows covered with canvas. There’s a little lean-to shed for a stable, and Joe is surprised to see some scrubby grass and even a tree with thin, low-hanging branches and tough, prickly leaves shading the side of the cabin.
Living in a house again, even just a rough little two room cabin, is like how Joe thinks a sailor must feel walking on land again after a long time at sea. Joe’s body misses the days spent in constant rocking motion in a wagon seat. It’s like waking up from a dream. They take the wagon the ten miles to the nearest town to get supplies, and the crush of humanity is overpowering, leaving Nick withdrawn and mute, Joe terse and monosyllabic in his interactions.
They settle into a rhythm. It’s a mile’s walk to the communal water pump they share with two other farms. Nick goes each morning with two big pails. Joe buys three chickens and some wire and builds an enclosure and a small hutch. They start clearing brush from the planting acre behind the cabin, the earth so crumbly and dry Joe can’t see how anything could grow in it. They start to build a bed frame for Mother’s sawdust-filled mattress, and once the base is constructed they fold the blankets on it and fall asleep naked and entangled every night.
It’s so easy to forget that this home is not just for them, that it won’t be just Nick and Joe here forever. It’s easy to feel happy.
They use one of the water pails for bathing under the crape tree in the evenings. They take turns pouring the water over each other’s heads, and Nick likes to run his fingers through Joe’s hair as he pours, following the water as it sluices the dust off Joe’s brown limbs. He’ll look at Joe with dark eyes and a shy smile as he does this, until Joe has to grab his hand and pull him inside the house.
Joe has stopped trying to say no, stopped trying to keep himself from touching Nick. He knows this decision is the wrong one, but it was his decision, and his alone, perhaps the first real choice he’s ever made in his life, and he figures maybe that will be some consolation in Hell.
***
Joe is in the big room of the cabin, sanding the legs of the bed frame, and Nick is outside cutting planks to make a fence for the perimeter. There are coyotes everywhere, hungry and quick. Nick found one pacing back and forth outside the makeshift stable the other night, and started building the fence the very next morning.
Joe can hear Nick humming something, the sound drifting in through the open window. It’s a tune Joe doesn’t recognize, one he thinks maybe Nick made up himself. It’s pretty, and Joe thinks maybe he’ll ask Nick about it that night, ask him if there are words, if he’ll let Joe hear them.
Abruptly, Nick’s humming cuts off and the silence that follows brings Joe to his feet. Before Joe even makes it out the door, a cold iron weight has settled in the pit of his stomach. It slows his steps, makes his feet drag.
Nick is standing at the end of the dirt road, the axe hanging loose and forgotten at his side. There are silent tears running down Nick’s expressionless face, dripping off his nose and chin to spatter in the dust. Joe follows his gaze to the horizon, to see the cloud of dust and the wagon that approaches, carrying their brothers, their mother, their father, and the life they knew as their own only three months ago. Joe is surprised to find hot, choking tears welling up in his own eyes. He can see the dark, solid figure of his father tramping closer with every second.
Joe reaches out his hand, blindly, and finds Nick’s hand already stretching out to meet his in the space between their bodies. He squeezes Nick’s hand once, tight and strong, and then Joe lets go. They stand, shoulder to shoulder together, and wait.
author:
liz_hollis
pairing: Joe/Nick
rating: adult
word count: 7420
warnings: incest, underage, angst
summary: "They sleep bundled together in the back of the covered wagon, rolling themselves up in their rough wool blankets like caterpillars, arms slung around each other." -- an AU with Nick and Joe as Mormon pioneers sent ahead of their family to Arizona
disclaimer: this definitely did not happen, thus the term "AU"
author's note: this started as a comment fic for the Harlequin Romance challenge, and turned into the longest, most involved story i've ever written. the title is from the Arcade Fire song "Wake Up". much, much love to
th_esaurus for the amazing beta!
It's just one week before they're meant to leave New Jersey for Arizona that Franklin, and then Paul Kevin, come down with the scarlet fever. The doctor who comes to their cramped, dirty row house is concerned that Franklin's fever may be becoming rheumatic and damaging his heart, and tells Mother that Franklin has to recover in bed for at least a month, and shouldn’t travel for another two weeks after that.
At prayer group that week, they all pray for two hours for Franklin and Paul Kevin's recovery. Father sweats and thunders, his eyes glowing with fervor as he reminds every man that the innocent often pay for grown men's sins. Nick stares at his father with wide eyes. Joe counts the cracks in the floorboards and imagines the words seeping into his brother’s soul like poison.
Father sits Joe and Nick down in the kitchen, hot and smoky from the coal fire, and tells them they two must go ahead to Arizona to claim the two acres of land and the cabin their uncle surveyed for them, or they could lose the land and all they've worked and prayed so hard for.
Joe sneaks a look over at Nick out of the corner of his eye as Father goes on about fulfilling God’s plan. Nick is focused and intent, his determination and sense of responsibility emanating from the very pores of his skin. His leg is jittering under the table, and Joe finds his knee with his hand and clasps it.
Mother cries and frets, patching their worn coats and packing thick blankets into the steamer trunks, feeding them heavy meals. Joe feels like a pig being fattened for the slaughter. The night before they're to leave, Joe wakes in the velvet dark of earliest morning to see Mother, perched on the edge of his and Nicholas’ bed, stroking her fingers again and again down the side of Nick's sleeping face, her eyes roving his features hungrily, and her lips forming noiseless prayers.
Father pulls Joe aside the next morning. He claps a hard hand on Joe's shoulder, his fingers digging into the muscle.
"Joseph. You're seventeen now, you're a man. It's time you lived up to your name, the name of our Blessed Prophet. You've never been much, but I have faith that you won't disappoint me now. Take care of Nicholas."
Joe nods, and turns away without a word. His father's small, burning eyes make him feel sick to his stomach.
They duck their heads into the sickroom to say goodbye to Frank and Paul Kevin. Paul Kevin, already much recovered, looks up from his book with a wide, guileless smile. He wishes them a safe journey and tells them he loves them with all his heart. Joe feels a swell of affection for his oldest brother. Franklin rouses himself enough to give them a wan wave, and Nick winks and smiles at him.
They pile their trunks, the bags of dried meat and corn and kegs of water, blankets, pans and the few items of furniture they are taking with them into the wagon. Father straps the rifle to the inner rim of the wagon side, and hands Joe a box of bullets with a weighted, significant gaze.
Nick clambers up first and Mother wraps her arms around Joe's neck in a strangle hold, whispering her love into his ear. Joe climbs into the driver's seat, takes the reins and steers the horses towards the wide dirt road that will lead them West. He doesn’t look back, but Nick is still turned around in his seat long after the house and their parents are out of sight.
***
The journey is long, mostly dull, and frightening when it's not dull. They ride all day, taking turns at the reins, the plodding steps of the horse’s hooves lulling them into a stupor. Nick, his skin so pale and porcelain, gets terribly burnt after the first two days under the hot sun and his mood is foul. Joe, always the darker of the two, mashes his wide-brimmed hat on top of Nick’s dark curls, and although Nick grumbles, he keeps it on. A little later, his hand comes to rest, warm and a little sweaty, on Joe’s shoulder, an unspoken ‘thank you’.
They stop the horses when it gets dark, driving a stake into the ground and tying the reins about it. Nick spends hours every night tending to the horses, checking their hooves for cracks and sores, brushing the dried sweat from their hides and murmuring soft words into their flickering ears. Joe builds fires and makes dark, bitter coffee in a tin saucepan to warm them.
They sleep bundled together in the back of the covered wagon, rolling themselves up in their rough wool blankets like caterpillars, arms slung around each other.
Joe sleeps badly, restless and alert for sounds of danger. The further west they get, the more frightening and dark the nights are. He often wakes with a start, dream images floating bright and stark in his mind; stalking wolves, mauling bears and Nick, cold and still and gone forever. Each time he wakes from these dreams, he finds Nick awake as well, his dark eyes quiet and close.
Nick never says a word, and Joe studies his face in the dark wagon, tries to commit his features to memory until he can drift to sleep again.
As they enter the Midwestern plains, Joe, never one for directions, loses his bearings often and they have to pull out Father’s compass and the oilskin map. The landscapes are an endless sameness, waving brown grasses in every direction, stretching out as far as the eye can see, and Joe feels like they could travel the same patch of land forever without knowing it.
They ford a river in Missouri and the water is high and floods the back half of the wagon. Joe and Nick are struggling through the waist-high waters behind the wagon, holding bundles of blankets and food above their heads. Joe has a death grip on Nick’s belt, so he feels it when Nick loses his footing, when the roiling, seething current threatens to take him. People die doing this, Joe thinks, the knowledge stark in his mind. A flash of pure, white-hot terror bursts through Joe’s body and his fingers spasm around the leather belt, but Nick plants his feet, stills and steadies himself. Joe croaks out a “Ready?” and Nick nods tightly. Joe tightens his grip on Nick’s belt until he can feel the pain of the edges cutting into his palm, and they make it to the opposite bank. The box of bullets for the rifle is gone in the rushing waters, and they lose a bag of grain to creeping mold.
Joe hefts the useless rifle in his hands, and looks at Nick, shaking his head.
One night, Joe wakes on a gasp to hear the horses, whinnying and screaming in terror, rearing and stamping their hooves. He moves to go look out through the canvas flaps, but Nick's hand clamps hard around his wrist. Joe looks at Nick, sees his face pale and stark, his eyes bright and nostrils flared with fear.
"Don't move," Nick whispers urgently. "Don't make a sound."
Joe lies still and listens with all his might. He can hear the rustling of leaves, the cracking of branches, the snuffling of something wild. His skin tingles and the hair on his arms stands up. They lie crushed together, as still and quiet as they can, trying not to breathe. Nick's eyes never leave Joe's, the grip of his hand on Joe's arm never loosens and what Joe sees in Nick's eyes is as terrifying as the sounds of the animal outside.
Eventually, the shuffles of the unknown animal fade away, and when Nick's fingers finally loosen their grip, Joe can breathe again. They lie there in the predawn light, shell-shocked and weak-limbed.
"I thought that was it," Joe murmurs. Nick nods his head wonderingly, his eyes still locked on Joe's, his lower lip caught between his teeth. He lifts a trembling hand to Joe's face, runs a fingertip tentatively along Joe's cheekbone. Joe shivers. Abruptly, Nick drops his eyes.
"I thought we were going to die, Joe. I really did. I thought it would kill us," Nick whispers, and his voice is barely there. Joe wraps his arms fiercely around his baby brother, throws a leg over him, trying to envelop his smaller body with Joe's. He thinks he would have leapt bodily in front of any animal that threatened his brother in an instant, without a thought.
"We're all right, Nicky. I won't ever let anything happen to you," Joe promises into the warm crook of Nick's neck, as much a pledge to himself as to Nick.
His lips drag against Nick's skin with the words, and he tastes the salty tang of sweat and three weeks travel on his lips. He can feel the thrum of Nick’s blood pulsing underneath the thin skin of his neck, vital and alive. Nick trembles once in his arms, and pulls away.
When they stumble from the wagon, squinting and shading their eyes against the sun, they find that the horses have pulled out their stakes and are gone.
Joe throws his hat, the saucepan, his right shoe, anything he can reach and shouts curses that make Nick's eyes bug out. Joe slumps to the ground by the remains of the fire, head in his hands, and fights back the tears of overwhelming frustration, defeat and fear that rise up in him. He won't, can't respond to anything Nick says as he crouches by him, until finally, Nick tells Joe to trust him and wait here. He runs off over the crest of a hill before Joe can stop him.
Joe passes a frantic hour pacing back and forth in front of the wagon, imagining all the various awful demises Nick could be meeting, before he sees Nick crest the hill once again, this time leading both their horses by their bridles behind him.
Joe takes off running towards them, his joy and relief bubbling up in near hysterical laughter. He catches Nick with a running tackle, the both of them hitting the ground hard and rolling a bit.
"Joe! Don't be foolish!" Nick admonishes, but he's laughing too. "You'll scare the horses right off again!" Joe rolls off of him, flops onto his back in the sparse, dusty grass, grabs Nick's hand and holds it to his chest.
"How in the Sam Hill did you do that, Nicholas?" he asks, turning his head to look at his brother. Nick closes his eyes, tips his head back in the sun, and Joe marvels at the play of dark eyelashes upon his cheekbones, resists the urge to press his face to Nick's, to get closer to this boy, this wild amazing boy who could do seemingly impossible things.
"They were just frightened, Joe," Nick says. "I just, you know, called for them. They just needed to know it was safe now."
"Nick..." Joe murmurs, and Nick rolls his head to the side and cracks open one eye to look at him. Joe doesn't know what he meant to say, has forgotten all the words he ever knew. He just lifts Nick's hand to his mouth, and presses his lips against each of Nick's dirt-caked knuckles in turn, silent and struck dumb.
Nick's eyes glitter in the sunlight and his face is peaceful. One of the horses nudges his muzzle against Nick's head and huffs; Nick laughs, his smile splitting across his face, and jumps up to go get their feed, his hand gone from Joe's in a flash. Joe's hand lies palm up on the dirt, and he stares at it, cold and empty.
Nick's face looms suddenly above him, upside down and mischievous, haloed by the sun.
"I saw a stream with a little pool about half a mile back that way," he gestures with his thumb. "And you stink to high heaven. Let's have a wash." Joe thinks nothing has ever sounded more wonderful in his life.
***
They strip off and leap into the shallow pool, whooping like Indians and squawking at the frigid temperature of the water.
The water only comes up to their waists, but the feeling of it against their skin and the chance to scrub off the layers of grime and the remnants of the awful night leaves them feeling elated and alive. Nick splashes a huge wave of water at Joe, and Joe yells in indignation. He ducks under the surface to grabs Nick's ankle and pull him under.
They wrestle submerged under the water, skin slippery and limbs twisting around each other. Joe surfaces for a moment and gulps a breath of air before Nick's hands close around his thigh and he's yanked under again. He opens his eyes, and sees Nick's smooth boyish limbs swimming away from him. He grabs Nick's ankle, pulls him back until he can reach his waist, Nick squirming and slick, worming his way out of Joe's grip. Joe quickly wraps his arms all the way around Nick's waist, locking his hands together at the small of Nick's back.
Abruptly they're sandwiched together, chest to chest, hip to hip. All the air leaves Joe’s lungs in an instant. Nick's eyes open, startled, under the water, and suddenly Joe can feel it, Nick's cock hard and pressing against his hip. Joe feels a sharp brittle heat shoot from his stomach down to his groin, his eyes snap shut, and, unthinking, he crushes Nick closer to him. Nick's hands come up to Joe's chest, and he shoves Joe, hard.
They break apart and surface at opposite ends of the small pool, their heaving breaths loud and harsh in the quiet woods. Joe stares open-mouthed at Nick, who is refusing to meet his eyes, arms folded across his chest, hunched over himself, color high in his cheeks.
"Nick... I-I'm sorry?" Joe breathes, his voice nothing but a whisper.
"Don't," Nick mutters, turning his back to Joe. "Just don't, Joseph."
Joe’s chest aches with a tight, nameless fear that threatens to choke him, to overtake him. He knows he should get out of this pool, pull on his clothes, walk away right now and never speak of this again, but he doesn’t. He paddles slowly across the pool, unsure of himself, unsure of what he's thinking or what he's doing, but sure that it's probably sin; that every bit of it is sin.
He reaches for Nick, runs his hand down the sharp line of Nick's spine, feeling Nick tense and shiver beneath his fingers.
Suddenly, Joe just needs Nick to know how much he loves him, how much he needs him, can’t lose him, ever. He needs him to know how much Joe understands what Nick is feeling, because it is inside of Joe too. He drapes himself against Nick's back, leans his face against his neck, lets Nick feel him, aching and hard, pressing against the rise of Nick's ass.
"It's me, too, Nicky. Me too. Can you feel it? Do you see?” he whispers against the damp skin of Nick's neck. Nick shudders and gasps underneath Joe, twists around in his grip to face him. He looks conflicted and aroused. A blotchy red flush is climbing his chest and neck. Joe has never seen Nick look this way.
"Joe, I- this is wrong. It's sin, we'll burn for it," he whines, his brow creased and worried. Joe holds Nick's face in his hands, presses kisses along his cheeks, his jaw. Nick’s head falls back.
"No. No, Nicky. I love you so much. This is just- no, it's all right. I love you, please," Joe mumbles, mouthing under the soft fold of Nick's ear. Nick moans, and his hips twitch against Joe's. Joe pets along the lines of his collarbone, his shoulders, runs a thumb over Nick's nipple.
"I want this," Nick breathes, released like a long-held secret, and Joe kisses him, gives in to the tidal pull, leans in and presses his mouth to Nick’s. It feels like a prayer, like God, like coming home.
Nick whimpers against Joe’s lips, lifts a hand to his shoulder. His fingers flutter like bird wings over Joe’s skin, scared and unsure. Joe has never touched anyone like this before, never felt this heat, the overwhelming, bewildering push and pull of his body moving of it’s own volition.
Nick’s lips part on a breath, and Joe’s lower lip nudges into the space between, and then their mouths seem to fit together like puzzle pieces, edges interlocking. Joe has never felt anything so right as the soft, raw heat inside Nick’s mouth. The tip of Nick’s tongue touches Joe’s lip and a sizzle shock of lightning zips down Joe’s spine, snapping his hips forward and pushing a soft ‘unh’ out of his throat.
Nick pulls his head back, his forearms resting against the jut of Joe’s collarbones. He touches his fingers to the corner of Joe’s mouth, pulls his eyes up to meet Joe’s.
“Joseph… is this--” he begins, his voice breaking.
“Yes,” Joe interrupts, panic edging his vision, but he forces his body to still, his hands just resting against the skin under Nick’s ribs. Nick shakes his head, his expression far too old for his years.
“No, it’s not,” he says, even as he leans forward, pushes their bodies together, wraps his arms around Joe’s neck, fits his mouth to Joe’s once more. The head of Nick’s cock bumps, pushes against the cut of Joe’s hip. Joe loses his footing in the muddy silt at the bottom of the pool, and they fall back with a splash.
The water closes over their heads, but Joe doesn’t stop kissing Nick, their bodies twisting and spinning, suspended, lips slip-sliding together and apart. Underneath the surface, the water pressing on their ears creates a velvet silence so deep and close that it feels to Joe like another world; a world belonging just to Nick and Joe, like a blessed purgatorial bubble that can’t be breached.
When he is dizzy for lack of air, he breaks the surface, Nick following after him. Nick catches Joe’s mouth, barely giving him time to gasp a breath before they collide again. Joe edges his mouth open, chasing that yielding heat, slips his tongue past Nick’s lips, licks the pointed ridge of his teeth. He swallows the groan Nick lets out, feels it slide down to the pit of his stomach, feeding the simmering excitement there, notching it up until Joe can barely think.
They come to rest at the edge of the pool, Joe reclined against the muddy ridge, Nick splayed half on top of him. Nick is moving against him, his hips jerking fretful and almost frantic. Joe takes his face in his hands, runs his thumbs over his cheekbones, murmurs, “Shh, shh, it’s all right,” until Nick takes a deep, shaky breath and stills.
“Joe, tell me what to do. I don’t- I don’t know what to do,” Nick mumbles, shamefaced.
Joe doesn’t know any better than Nick does, but it feels natural to put his hands on Nick’s hips, pull him until their hips are aligned, their cocks sliding together in the dip of Joe’s pelvis. Joe’s head thunks back against the mossy ground at the throbbing feel of it, and he thrusts his hips up against Nick’s.
A surprised sound escapes Nick’s throat, and his face contorts, his mouth dropping open. He’s breathing in little pants, and when his tongue flicks out to wet his lower lip, Joe can’t help but grab a handful of Nick’s curls and pull him down kiss him again.
“It’s you and me. Just you and me,” he murmurs, again and again into the heat of Nick’s mouth, rocking against him.
They push and push against each other, reaching and straining for something they can’t even name, eyes open and shock-wide. And when that something comes, when Nick shudders and jerks against him and cries out and Joe starts to come-- it’s like he’s flying apart into a million tiny fragments, out into a new and dangerous world.
***
They walk back to the camp in silence, their arms hanging loose by their sides, shoulders bumping occasionally. Joe sits by the campfire for a long time that night, staring into the flames and chewing on his thumb, uneasy. When Nick comes back from tending to the horses, he asks Joe if he has eaten anything. When Joe shakes his head, too-long hair falling into his eyes, Nick brings over a strip of dried meat. Joe takes it, and Nick drops down next to Joe, arms wrapped around his legs, chin resting on his knees. He tips his head to the side and Joe can feel his eyes on him.
“I love you, Joseph,” Nick says, forming each word with care and purpose. That’s all he says. Joe can’t look away from the flames to meet Nick’s eyes, but he bites his lip and nods.
“I know,” Joe replies. Nick reaches a hand out and smears the hair back from Joe’s face.
“Always,” he murmurs. Joe sighs, a long heavy blow of breath, and leans to press a kiss against the solemn corner of Nick’s mouth. The fire spits sparks.
As Joe lies sleepless in the wagon that night he realizes with a sudden, jolting clarity of mind, that this, this thing between them could be how he loses Nick, in the end. The thought puts him in a cold sweat. Joe doesn’t care too much about sins against God, hasn’t for some time, but he doesn’t want to sin against his brother, and he thinks he might have lied to Nick, lied when he said that this was all right.
When Joe wakes up in the morning, it is because Nick has a hand around his shoulder and is shaking him, whispering his name, anxious and urgent. Joe jerks upright, and a shower of black spots breaks in front of his eyes. The air is hot and dry in the wagon, and Joe’s throat feels like a desert. The memory of the previous day comes flooding back in a rush, and Joe looks everywhere but at his brother, prying open his mouth to speak. The words get stuck in the cracked terrain of his vocal cords, swallowed by his uncertainty.
Before he can try again, Nick says, “Joe. Listen. There’s an Indian out there.”
Joe makes Nick stay behind him when he goes to peer out of the canvas flaps. The Indian is crouched by the remains of their campfire, holding the saucepan up, turning it over and over, peering at it like he’s inspecting the craftsmanship of the battered piece of tin.
Joe looks back over his shoulder at Nick, who is kneeling behind Joe, craning his neck to try and see past him. Nick flicks his eyes over to the abandoned rifle, then looks back at Joe, the question evident in his eyes. Joe gives a tight shake of his head, his stomach queasy and sweat collecting at his hairline.
“I’m going out there. Stay here, all right?” he says. Nick’s eyes go wide and his mouth moves soundlessly.
The Indian straightens up quickly when Joe jumps down from the wagon, and Joe holds his hands out in front of him, palms up, in what he hopes is a universal gesture of peace. The Indian is tall and lean, but Joe can read the power in his long limbs. He is wearing trousers made of what looks like a soft hide, and his chest is bare and smooth and brown, browner than the varnish Joe rubbed into the wood of Mother’s chairs. His hair is long, with two feathers wound into the strands. Joe can see the knife in it’s hide sheath, hanging around the man’s waist, but the Indian’s hands hang relaxed by his sides.
The Indian’s sharp eyes inspect Joe appraisingly, and when they flick over his shoulder, Joe doesn’t even need to turn around to know that Nick has climbed out of the wagon. Joe gives the Indian what he hopes is his friendliest, least threatening smile.
“I’m Joseph, and this is Nicholas,” Joe says, pointing first at himself and then over his shoulder at Nick. He can feel Nick vibrating with nervous energy, standing so close Joe can feel his humid breath against the back of his neck.
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Nick pipes up, and he sounds so earnest and his voice is so high and squeaky from nerves that Joe can’t help but snort and laugh. Nick looks scandalized, but Joe sees a smile break across the Indian’s face. He gestures at the saucepan, says something Joe can’t understand, in a language thick with strange, throaty vowels.
Joe shrugs his shoulders, at a loss, and says, “Want some coffee?”
He prods the remains of last night’s fire, coals lumped together to stop them from going out completely, blows on them until they glow red once again. He puts the pan on top of the coals and sets about making the coffee. The Indian sits cross-legged at the edge of the fire, watching intently. When Joe passes him a tin cup full of the hot, black liquid, the Indian looks dubious, sniffs and peers at it for a long moment. When he sees Joe and Nick drinking from their cups, he takes a tentative sip, but immediately pulls a face at the bitter taste and hurriedly passes the cup back to Nick.
“I suppose it’s an acquired taste,” Joe laughs.
The Indian smiles again, then leans over to tap Nick on the shoulder. He points to the horses and gestures for Nick to follow him. He takes Nick over to where the horses are tethered, speaking soft incomprehensible words the whole way. Joe watches from the edge of the fire as the Indian runs his hand down Blacksmith’s soot-colored hind leg, all the way down to the hoof, then takes Nick’s hand and has him run it down the same path several times. Nick’s head jerks up when he finds the spot the Indian is trying to show him, and Joe watches as astonishment dawns upon his face.
“Joe, come here!” he calls, and when Joe stops next to him, Nick draws him down to the ground with him, grabs his hand, his sweaty palm guiding Joe’s hand to the soft fuzz of the horse’s leg.
“Look, he’s got a sore coming in here by his hoof. It hasn’t opened up yet, but you can feel it there, under the skin,” Nick explains. “Do you feel that hot, boggy spot? I can’t believe I didn’t see him favoring the other leg.”
Nick is animated, caught up in the thrill of discovery and the task of figuring out a solution; a gratifying escape from the mindless monotony of riding, riding, riding through that endless landscape. Joe looks up at his brother, moving focused and purposeful around the horse, checking for any other injuries and talking, practically chattering at Joe the whole time. And it’s as though nothing even happened, like nothing ever changed between them, and a giant iron weight lifts from Joe’s chest. He hadn’t even realized until now that each breath was a worried struggle.
With a start, Joe remembers the Indian. He looks over, and the Indian is staring at them, his gaze solemn and considering. Joe feels self-conscious, uncomfortable with the clarity of the Indian’s eyes as they move back and forth between Joe and Nick.
The Indian moves to leave, and Joe feels his stomach drop, the acidic coffee and something else combining to make his stomach heave and roil. What did the Indian see there, in the air between them? But the Indian turns back, gestures with his arms to encompass Nick and Joe and the horses; holds his hands out to the ground, asking them to wait, wait just a little. Nick looks at Joe, and the apprehension is back in his gaze.
They have a quick, heated argument. Nick is afraid the Indian is coming back with others, coming to take the horses maybe. Joe argues that if the Indian had wanted to take anything, or even to kill them, he could have easily done it already; the Indian was a grown man and had a weapon. They were just two unarmed boys, and Joe is sure the Indian knew that as soon as Joe came down from the wagon empty-handed.
Nick shakes his head and starts, “But Father said you can never trust--”
“Jesus, Nick, do you just blindly believe everything Father tells you?!” Joe explodes. “Do you think Father has ever even seen an Indian in his whole damned life?”
Nick looks taken aback, stunned, hurt. Joe goes back to poking at the fire, watching the sun climb in the sky with a growing unease.
But before an hour has passed, the Indian returns, alone and carrying a small cloth bag filled with a strange mix of plant leaves and herbs. He shows a dumbfounded Nick how to mix some of the stuff with a little water, grind it with a rock. Nick tears a long strip of cloth from one of his shirts, and the Indian helps him to smooth the poultice over the sore on Blacksmith’s leg and gently wrap it. Joe suddenly thinks of Paul Kevin and Franklin, back in New Jersey, back in his father’s dark, closed-off little house.
Afterwards, the Indian leaves. They want to give him something, thank him somehow, but the Indian won’t accept anything but a cup of water from them. Impulsively, Joe reaches out and takes the Indian’s hand for a brief moment. There are calluses in strange places on the man’s palm, and Joe wonders what kind of work creates calluses like those.
Nick is quiet as they ride, but Joe can feel him looking at him, can feel the weight of Nick’s thoughts turning, turning.
***
Once they reach Texas, the weather becomes unbearably hot and dry, the world a flat expanse, hazy and sun baked. The horizon is a constant shimmering mirage.
Joe can barely sleep at all anymore, the heat under the canvas cover of the wagon stifling. They sprawl out shirtless on top of the wool blankets, limbs like starfish, and Joe counts the drops of sweat as they roll down his sides instead of counting sheep.
So, the night it happens again, Joe is already awake when Nick reaches for him. Joe has been using the heat as an excuse to stay away from Nick, complaining that it’s hard enough to sleep already without Nick’s body, like a compact furnace, making it worse. Nick has accepted it, stayed away too, until now. Joe’s lying on his side in the far corner of the wagon, facing away from Nick when he feels Nick’s breath prickle on the back of his neck.
“What, Nicholas?” he mumbles, not turning around. Nick’s fingers stutter against his neck, pull lightly through the sweaty, curling strands of hair at the base of Joe’s skull.
“Joe, I-I just wanted--” Nick pauses, seems to gather his courage. “Do you think about it?”
Joe sighs, clenches his hands into fists until he can feel his nails cutting half-moon imprints into his palms. Nick leans his forehead against Joe’s wet neck, rubs his nose in the hollow between Joe’s shoulder blades. The thick air seems to stick in Joe’s lungs as he tries to draw a breath.
“Yes. Sometimes,” he manages. He can feel Nick’s breathing quickening, feels his own heart rate rise to match it, their skin sticking together with each inhale.
“It’s… Joe, it’s all I think about,” Nick confesses, and slides forward until his body is flush against the back of Joe, every part of them touching from shoulders to ankles.
He winds his arm around Joe’s torso, worming his hand under Joe’s arm so he can touch his chest. Joe realizes with a start that Nick is naked.
“Y-you’re naked,” he squeaks dumbly. Nick’s fingers skid through the sweat on Joe’s stomach, and Joe grits his teeth to keep the involuntary sound he makes from escaping.
“It was too hot,” Nick says, and licks the back of Joe’s neck. “Joe. Joe, are you--?” he questions, his voice suddenly young again. His fingers dip lower on Joe’s abdomen, scratch at the button of his underwear. Joe shudders, and it makes Nick grind once against his ass, hard and insistent.
“Yeah,” Joe croaks, and then Nick’s hand is there, trembling fingers pressing against Joe’s cock, mapping the shape of him.
Joe groans, and the sound is sharp against the quiet night. Nick is fumbling now with the button of Joe’s pants, one-handed and clumsy, muttering “Come on, come on, take off your clothes, Joseph,” urgent and strained into Joe’s ear.
Joe fumbles his long underwear down, Nick helping him shove the pants down past his knees. Nick’s hand clamps on Joe’s hip, and he hitches forward, pushing himself into the space between Joe’s legs where the tops of his thighs meet the curve of his ass. Nick’s cock slides easily in the sweaty slickness there, and Joe’s hand slaps against the wood siding at the sharp stab of pleasure that ripples through his body when the head of Nick’s cock presses against the thin skin behind Joe’s balls.
“No, no, God, oh, oh, this is wrong, Nick,” Joe moans, even as he tilts his hips back to meet the thrust of Nick’s hips, the sound of their skin slapping together loud and obscene.
“I know, I know,” Nick grunts, ragged, moving faster, “I don’t care, I can’t stop, Joe.”
Nick thrusts again and again, mouthing broken syllables into the skin of Joe’s shoulder, his arm wrapped tight around Joe’s chest, his fingers pressing against the pulse in Joe’s throat. Joe braces himself against the floor, gets a hand down over his cock, just pressing the heel of his palm against himself. He clenches his thighs around Nick’s cock with each thrust, and Nick bites at his ear. He pulls back to thrust hard, and the tip of his cock drags against Joe’s entrance. Joe’s eyes fly open, his hand spasms against his dick, and as Nick shoves forward again, Joe comes with a shattered shout, pulsing into his hand. Nick grips his shoulder, pulls Joe down and back, and shoves once, twice, three more times before his body locks up and Joe feels the flooding heat of Nick’s come against his legs.
Nick moves back after a minute, lets Joe flop on to his back, his limbs like lead. He rubs at Joe’s lips, thumbs at a scrape on his hip from the rough wood planks that Joe didn’t even notice getting. Nick bites his lip, looks up at Joe apologetically.
“I’m sorry. I hurt you?” Nick says, the upswing of his voice turning it into a question, and God, Joe thinks, he’s just a boy. He supposes they both are. He doesn’t understand what it is they are doing, but there is a sick certainty in his belly that says it won’t, can’t, end well.
“No,” Joe answers, “No, you didn’t hurt me.”
***
Arizona is red, red everywhere; red dirt, red sun, red rock spires rising out of nothing, stretching towards the sky. Nick is excited, revived by the prospect of finally reaching their destination. They turn the horses north in search of the river Father called Salt River, the river that will lead them home.
Nearly two months on the road, and Joe almost doesn’t remember the person he was back in New Jersey. When he looks at Nick, his skin tanned and his hair an untamed eddy of tangled curls, it’s hard to picture the brother he prayed next to in the whitewashed room of their Father’s church. The memories feel somehow intangible. It is both frightening and satisfying.
They stop for a night under a rocky outcropping, a vast overhang of multi-hued stone climbing out of the desert to a plateaued point, like a great arm pointing west. They eat corn meal gruel under the shelter of the overhang, and the firelight casts flickering shadows on the rock. Nick drums a jumpy little rhythm against the stones circling their fire with his spoon.
“Joe,” Nick breaks the silence, staring moodily into the flames. “You’re going to leave us, aren’t you?”
Joe looks up, startled. “What? What do you mean?”
Nick rolls a pebble in his fingers, hurls it into the distance. “I don’t know. I just-you hate Father, I know you do. You hate our life. Back home, I used to think that one morning I’d wake up, and you’d just be… gone.”
Joe feels his heart contract, a weighted ache in his chest. He opens his mouth, closes it. There is a long silence. “Were you happy, Nick?” he finally asks.
Nick shakes his head slowly, his eyes shadowed. “I never really thought about it, you know? It’s all I knew.” Nick’s eyes focus then, sad and piercing, locked on Joe’s. “But not without you, Joe. I-I’ll never be happy without you.”
Joe wants to look away, but he’s frozen in place. “Yes, you will,” he says, automatically, but he doesn’t know if he believes it. He wants to.
Nick looks tired, dark circles under his eyes. “Just. Don’t go without me, all right Joe? You just-can’t leave me behind.” Nick’s eyes plead with Joe, and he nods, his throat tight, because there isn’t any other option. Joe flicks his eyes up towards the rocky ceiling and tries out a smile.
“Let’s climb it.” Nick’s answering grin breaks across his face like a dawn.
They scramble and claw their way up, the rock of the cliff surprisingly smooth and slippery. Their hands and pant legs turn red from the dirt. When they’ve almost reached the top, Joe in the lead, Nick grabs his ankle and yanks him back. Joe falls flat with a shocked ‘ooof’ and Nick dashes ahead to the peak of the ridge, crowing with laughter.
“You dirty little sneak!” Joe yells, laughing too, and cuffs Nick around the ear.
Up on the ridge, toes to the edge, Joe sees for the first time how beautiful the desert they’re traveling actually is. The fat moon spreads silver across the slashing angles and swooping curves of the apocalyptic landscape, and Joe throws his head back, arms out, spine bowed back and howls. Nick’s shining face is turned up to him, the uneven strip of his man-child teeth gleaming with his open-mouthed grin. His adolescent howl, higher and cracking, joins Joe’s until their breath runs out, and they pant, listening to the echoing responses of far off wolves or coyotes.
They kiss for a long time that night, sprawled out on the still sun-warm rocks, bodies overlapping and hands on the ground above Joe’s head, learning the feel, the taste of the crevices and corners of each other’s mouths, the way their tongues curve around one another, the slick feel of the enamel of their teeth. Joe is overwhelmed by the need he feels for Nick, the love, by the strength and immediacy of the fear he feels when he thinks of being without him.
They reach Salt River in two days time. Joe is dying for another swim, but the riverbed is mostly dry, an insubstantial trickling stream running through it’s rocky center all that’s left after the dry summer. They splash their arms and faces anyway.
It’s just another three days ride along the river until they see the tall, pointed stake driven into the soil, a plank nailed across the top of it with the name ‘JONAS’ etched and burned into it. Half a mile past the signpost, they can see two tall posts Joe supposes are meant to be a sort of entranceway. Nick’s head swivels back and forth on his neck as they steer the horses down the narrow dirt path. Joe keeps his face carefully impassive.
And then, they’ve arrived. It’s almost anticlimactic, pulling up to the small cabin, bleached out wood and three windows covered with canvas. There’s a little lean-to shed for a stable, and Joe is surprised to see some scrubby grass and even a tree with thin, low-hanging branches and tough, prickly leaves shading the side of the cabin.
Living in a house again, even just a rough little two room cabin, is like how Joe thinks a sailor must feel walking on land again after a long time at sea. Joe’s body misses the days spent in constant rocking motion in a wagon seat. It’s like waking up from a dream. They take the wagon the ten miles to the nearest town to get supplies, and the crush of humanity is overpowering, leaving Nick withdrawn and mute, Joe terse and monosyllabic in his interactions.
They settle into a rhythm. It’s a mile’s walk to the communal water pump they share with two other farms. Nick goes each morning with two big pails. Joe buys three chickens and some wire and builds an enclosure and a small hutch. They start clearing brush from the planting acre behind the cabin, the earth so crumbly and dry Joe can’t see how anything could grow in it. They start to build a bed frame for Mother’s sawdust-filled mattress, and once the base is constructed they fold the blankets on it and fall asleep naked and entangled every night.
It’s so easy to forget that this home is not just for them, that it won’t be just Nick and Joe here forever. It’s easy to feel happy.
They use one of the water pails for bathing under the crape tree in the evenings. They take turns pouring the water over each other’s heads, and Nick likes to run his fingers through Joe’s hair as he pours, following the water as it sluices the dust off Joe’s brown limbs. He’ll look at Joe with dark eyes and a shy smile as he does this, until Joe has to grab his hand and pull him inside the house.
Joe has stopped trying to say no, stopped trying to keep himself from touching Nick. He knows this decision is the wrong one, but it was his decision, and his alone, perhaps the first real choice he’s ever made in his life, and he figures maybe that will be some consolation in Hell.
***
Joe is in the big room of the cabin, sanding the legs of the bed frame, and Nick is outside cutting planks to make a fence for the perimeter. There are coyotes everywhere, hungry and quick. Nick found one pacing back and forth outside the makeshift stable the other night, and started building the fence the very next morning.
Joe can hear Nick humming something, the sound drifting in through the open window. It’s a tune Joe doesn’t recognize, one he thinks maybe Nick made up himself. It’s pretty, and Joe thinks maybe he’ll ask Nick about it that night, ask him if there are words, if he’ll let Joe hear them.
Abruptly, Nick’s humming cuts off and the silence that follows brings Joe to his feet. Before Joe even makes it out the door, a cold iron weight has settled in the pit of his stomach. It slows his steps, makes his feet drag.
Nick is standing at the end of the dirt road, the axe hanging loose and forgotten at his side. There are silent tears running down Nick’s expressionless face, dripping off his nose and chin to spatter in the dust. Joe follows his gaze to the horizon, to see the cloud of dust and the wagon that approaches, carrying their brothers, their mother, their father, and the life they knew as their own only three months ago. Joe is surprised to find hot, choking tears welling up in his own eyes. He can see the dark, solid figure of his father tramping closer with every second.
Joe reaches out his hand, blindly, and finds Nick’s hand already stretching out to meet his in the space between their bodies. He squeezes Nick’s hand once, tight and strong, and then Joe lets go. They stand, shoulder to shoulder together, and wait.