Dear Daniel
by Carla Jane
Author's Notes: Twas requested: "And if you would like, following on from our topic (romance and first times,) I thought that it would be nice to issue a mini challenge. I asked about love letters to or from your NLC, but it seems to me that it would be nice to see some... Write a loveletter to or from your favourite. They'll help me heal!" Anything for you, o' Goddess.
Pairing: A 'Lonesome Dove' love letter, that I hope will make Sue smile. Dishwater (Daniel) Boggett was a cowboy in 'Lonesome Dove, the miniseries'. Tom Andrews is from 'Lonesome Dove The Outlaw years'.
Series: It appears I'm building a universe for my poor neglected Tom. It's got these stories in it so far. Haven - will be published in the NickZone Zine, this is the one that deals with Tom and Dish's time together back when Tom was seventeen. Dear Daniel (this one) is a love letter from Tom. Way Station - is about Tom and Newt's first meeting. Water - is bathhouse fun with Tom and Newt. Graveyard - is set after poor Tom died.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was a square foot of the rock wall, right at Tom's bunk, that was now smoother than the other surfaces that walled him in. That was the spot that Tom's fingers would glide across after the light failed and there was nothing to do but lie on his thin palette and ache.
That square foot of wall had absorbed two year's worth of Tom's finger-writing and it would swallow many more years so long as this cell remained Tom's home. Lacking paper, pencils, or even charcoal. the writing vanished even as Tom's finger formed the letters, but that was for the best, perhaps. If the time ever came that someone who could read entered Tom's cell, then he'd rather that the two year's worth of babblings wasn't on display. It would be bad enough having to explain why entire passages of Shakespeare or the rules of chess were engraved on the wall. Having someone read Tom's description of the messed-up robbery that had landed him in here, his memories of his dead mother, or the letters to former lovers would all be intolerable.
It was one of the last that occupied Tom's tracing finger tonight. It should by rights be addressed to Justin, who'd gone to the gallows two years ago, but despite the content, Tom's thoughts were turned another way this evening.
"Dear Daniel,"
Tom had only called his lover by that name once. It had been in the last sentence he'd ever spoken aloud to the man he knew as 'Dish'. Still, the wall that was Tom's confessional was given honesty whenever possible and Daniel was the Christian name of Tom's dearest love.
"I killed Brian today. I don't know if you recall Brian, but you should. He was reason you found me. Brian was the leader of that gang I was running away from the first time we met."
Tom had described to Dish in previous, long vanished, letters about returning to the company of that very gang after leaving Dish, and the botched robbery they had coaxed Tom into helping commit.
"Remember, I told you that the robbery was all Brian's idea. not that we weren't complete idiots for going along with it."
Tom sighed. In the silence of the cell it was all too easy to hear the echo of Justin's panicked gunshot and the thud of the body falling. Justin had hung for the murder, but the rest of the gang had ended up in Clarkwell prison for their part in the fiasco.
"Remember that day you first showed me how to use a knife. You kept tapping every part of my body and telling me how much damage could be inflicted at each spot. I know we ended up tussling, ended up naked and sweaty. Lord, even if everything else was messed up. we were good together in the sheets, weren't we, love?"
A grim smile tugged at the corner of Tom's mouth.
"Still, I guess I retained what you'd taught me after all. The shank I stuck Brian with went in smooth as silk. It shut down his ability to scream, just like you said it would, and killed him quicker than the guards could find his body. The other prisoners suspect I did it, but no one knows for certain and even if they did they wouldn't go to the guards, so I should be safe from a heavier sentence."
If Brian hadn't earned his fate by his instigation of the robbery, he'd earned it properly enough once the gang was inside Clarkwell. Outside the prison, Brian had been a bully. Inside it, he'd become a complete terror. Rape, murder and more than a few maimings had occurred thanks to Brian's instigation.
"I'm sorry, Daniel. I know you didn't intend for me to use what you taught me except in self-defence, but I can't keep holding everyone off. By killing Brian I've told the rest of them not to mess with me. I've told them I'm dangerous and they should leave me alone."
Tom considered attempting more justifications, but his wrist was already tired from today's work and there other things he needed to tell Dish.
"I miss you, Daniel."
His finger formed those words without any input from his mind. Tom usually started every imaginary letter to Dish with that phrase.
"I miss you so much it scares me. That's why I've decided."
Even knowing Dish would never read the words, Tom had trouble making his finger shape them.
"I know what I said before, when I started writing these letters. but I won't be coming back after all. I know you'd accept me with open arms even after everything I've done. I know you'd leave that damned town and come away with me. The thing is, I love you. Hell, you're the only person I've ever loved the right way. The way love is supposed to be. I didn't even love my Mama, not properly, not until after she was gone and I realized what I'd lost. Doesn't that suggest a sad pattern, Daniel. I only realize how important something is when it's taken away from me."
Tom's skin was starting to tingle with pain from contact with the cold stone. He really should pull the hand back under the blanket and huddle down before he got frostbite but if this was going to be his last letter to Dish then some things had to come out.
"You're a good man, too good to settle for the likes of me, at least the kind of creature I've become over the last two years. I refuse to ruin you like I've destroyed everything else. If I'm still alive when the time comes for my release I'm going to find someplace where no one knows me and I'm going to try and make up for all the horrible things I've had to do in here, and all the things I suspect I'll still have to do in order to survive this. I'll build something, or fix something. or do something that will make things around me better. I don't know exactly what yet but I've got three more years to work out the details."
Pausing, Tom rubbed his right hand with his left, massaging to ease the ache.
"Just this once I wish I had paper and proper ink. I don't like to think you're waiting on me to come back, especially now I know it's never going to happen. I tell myself sometimes that you've likely married and forgotten me, but I suspect that it isn't true. I wish I'd told you before that last night just how much you meant to me. I wish I'd taken up your offer to leave Bent Creek and find somewhere we could live together. but it's too late now."
He had to finish this. Morning would be upon him before he knew it and he needed to sleep. Muddled inmates became dead inmates too easily.
"I'm sorry."
That wasn't nearly enough.
"I love you. I'll always love you, Daniel."
And that was too much. Tom brushed the flat of his palm over the stone as if to erase the last line that he'd traced.
"I wish for your sake that we'd never met, my love, but for my own selfish heart. I'm glad we had what time we did. Goodbye, Daniel."
That's it. Milk and cookies time.
~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~
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