Graveyard
by Carla Jane
Summary: A depressing little Tom Andrews after-death fic spiced with flashbacks.
Disclaimer: Dish Boggett is from 'Lonesome Dove', so he'd belong to Larry McMurtry. This version of Newt Call is from 'Lonesome Dove: The outlaw years' so he's the property of Rysher Entertainment. Tom Andrews should be mine. I've gathered him into my arms 'cause no one else seemed to want him.
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 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 (this one) - is set after poor Tom died.
Author's Notes: Just a note: Newt's last flashback was built around the final scene in the episode 'Lovers leap' of 'Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years' . The dialogue was stolen word for word and the physical movements are described as they happened in the show.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Newt Call found out third hand that an old friend from his cattle-driving days was in town. It was odd that the man would show up in Curtis Wells of all places. It was even odder still that he wouldn't look up Newt first thing. They'd gotten on rather well back on the trail.
When Newt finally caught up to Dish Boggett it was in the last place the young gunslinger expected. The former cowhand was near the back of the frost-covered graveyard. If all that weren't enough to throw Newt for a loop, well then the graveside that Dish was squatting beside did the job.
Tom Andrews hadn't lived a great long while in Curtis Wells but the school teacher had changed more than one life during his time in town.
~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~
Never in a thousand years would Newt have pictured himself this way before Tom Andrews had entered his life and turned it upside down. His cheek and chest pressed tight to the plaster, Tom's erratic breath steaming in his ear, a firm hand across his mouth keeping the sound of his excitement muffled, a thick column of flesh pumping in and out of his ass, and fingers that knew just how to torment him playing with his cock and balls.
Newt whimpered, clawing uselessly at the bare wall. Tom's teeth scraped the curve of his ear.
"Come on, Newt. Come on," Tom whispered encouragement. There was no reason for anyone to enter the schoolhouse this late at night but it wasn't secure. They couldn't afford to linger at their tryst. Tom bit and Newt's body tensed even further. "Oh God. You feel good. Hot and tight." The fingers over Newt's mouth bent, pushing inside the open mouth. "Suck them."
A violent shudder wracked Newt's body at the tone of command but he did as he was told, groaning eagerly as he worked the fingers with his tongue. He was trapped, completely surrounded and invaded by Tom and Newt adored it.
~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~
Scuffing his feet purposefully to warn Dish of his approach, Newt came to stand beside the crouching man. Dish, however, didn't acknowledge the arrival in the least. He was busy setting fancy-carved wooden game pieces on what looked like a checkers' board. The board was set about a foot away from the marker on Tom Andrew's plot.
"S'that you Dish?" Newt had to break the silence. The inquiry was nonsense of course, he'd recognized Dish at twenty paces. Still, it was something to say.
"Newt." The greeting was a quiet rumble. "I heard you were living here." Dish prodded one of the game pieces into a particular square. "I heard it from the same traveller who told me about Tom."
"You knew Mr Andrews?" Newt verbally stumbled over the proper name. Tom had taken the secret of their affair to the grave with him. There was no reason to let anyone know any different now.
His words, when they emerged, sounded like he was reading them out of a story book or quoting someone. "It was long ago and far away." Dish swallowed and his head tipped even further forward.
Newt still hadn't seen his old friend's face.
Starting up in the middle of a thought Newt didn't recognize, Dish spoke, "I finished up the chess set by spring, then learned to play from Rick DeLancie. He's our banker in Bent Creek. I kept practiced up. I was sure he'd wander back my way eventually and I wanted to surprise him." The former cowhand sighed. "But he never did. I suppose it were a wonder I happened t' hear about him getting killed."
"What'er you talking about, Dish?"
"Tom. Did you know him at all Newt? Was he happy here?"
Did Newt know Tom? What a sick jest. Did he know his lover? "Not really." The lie that wasn't really a lie made Newt's gut twist into knots. "Mr Andrews was only here a little while and" Vomit pushed at the back of Newt's throat. "He was going to marry a friend of mine. Mattie. Mattie Shaw."
~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~
Newt had know about the impending proposal before Mattie had. Burrowed deep in the hay above the livery, sticky with sweat, come and dust, Tom had broken the news.
"This is insane. We can't keep doing this, Newt." Tom's fingers were restless, running down his lover's pale arm. "I need more."
Newt chuckled quietly and flexed under the contact. "Already." Rolling so he was as close to his secret lover as possible. "I could go again."
A kiss was accepted and wallowed in before Tom refuted the assumption. "I don't mean more tussling maybe I do." Fingertips brushed Newt's face. "I could spend years like this. You're such a treat." Tom stole another kiss before sitting up. "But then we always have to get dressed, go out there, and pretend we barely know each other. It's just not enough and it's never going to change." Clothes were sifted through. "I had a fight with Mattie over hiding my affair with her."
"I don't want to hear about you and Mattie." Newt snapped out the words. He could hardly expect Tom to be exclusively his, not when Newt himself tumbled women whenever the chance arose, but he didn't want to listen to it during their brief time together. "Don't get dressed yet. Im still hungry for you. We've time for another go before dawn." Newt reached for his lover only to have Tom shy away.
"The thing is" Tom persisted. " I can do something about making it public with Mattie. This Lord, this is hotter than a summer bonfire, but" An elegant hand gestured absently. "it isn't enough anymore. I want to be able to hold hands and be allowed to talk together in front of other people. I want something I don't have to hide. I've had a belly-full of hiding things. I'm tired of it." Tom sighed. "I sorry, Newt. I going to ask Mattie to marry me."
It had hurt, more than Newt could believe possible, but he wouldn't show it. He couldn't. "Okay." If he'd had his gun in his hand at that moment Newt would have been tempted to point it, instead he'd just nodded, looked away, and forced civil words he didn't mean out of his mouth. "I understand." Newt sucked in a breath of heavily scented air.
~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~
Finally Dish's face lifted. His cheeks were streaked from crying. "A girl?" Dish's moustache quirked. "He told me he liked girls too, but I didn't much think on it. It's not like Tom ever bothered with the women-folk when he was livin' with me but then that was long time past."
Newt blinked, momentarily speechless. Dish couldn't be suggesting what Newt was imagining. Dish had been the one who'd instructed young Newt on what was a fair price for a whore's time way back when. The thought of clever, sensuous Tom being with rough-spoken, steady Dish Boggett was impossible to swallow.
"Tom was around about seventeen I think. It wasn't long after we all split up t' go our separate ways. Lorie, well, she made it clear she wanted me gone." Dish frowned. "I've a store in Bent Creek now. Hardware. I was just settin' up when I tripped across my Tom. He was so beautiful. I thought I'd found myself a fallen angel." The pause stretched. "I had."
Newt's mouth dropped open.
"It near 'bout killed me when they managed to chase my Tom off, the townsfolk, I mean. I almost left town myself but I was a'feared he'd come back and not know how t' find me so I decided to stay put. Four years I waited for him to come home. Four years of asking after him of every stranger who passed through town." Dish wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. "But then I just couldn't take the quiet any longer. I finally married me a widow with a couple a little 'uns."
"He was in prison." Newt blurted out the secret he had discovered after Tom's death. It just seemed like something Dish needed to know.
For the first time since they'd started speaking, Newt had Dish's full attention. Wide eyes seemed to demand more.
"Armed robbery. Someone was killed. Tom was in Clarkwell a time I'm told, maybe five years or such. You wouldn't know it to look at him. He was a right proper teacher. He was smart as a whip and the kids around here loved him."
"Five years?" Dish's expression crumbled. "Oh God. What if he tried to come home when he got out and saw me with Annabelle? Did he come straight here from prison? Did he have any friends here he might have talked to. God damn. I messed up. I really messed up." A hand shot out to catch at Newt's coat. "Who were his friends here? Where's this Mattie girl?"
"Mattie left town." Newt didn't even try to knock away the grip. "I only found out about Clarkwell from Amanda at the Dove and she said she got it from some drifter. It might not even be true."
"Wasn't there anyone else?" Dish pushed. "He must've talked to someone. He had to have friends."
"Tom wasn't here long." The excuse was mumbled out. "There wasn't anyone else." He had to stare down at the dirt. Newt's conscience was screaming inside his head but it wasn't like he could tell Dish anything about what went on inside his dead lover's head. He and Tom hadn't had that kind of a relationship. "Nobody."
"Maybe a man likely a fair-haired one. My Tom, he was weak as a kitten where pretty blondes were concerned. He told me once that" Dish trailed off the remembrance and forcibly levered up his old friend's chin in order to stare straight into eyes that suddenly wouldn't meet his. Dish's expression hardened to stone. "You lying little bastard."
The right cut to Newt's jaw dropped him to the dirt. The gunslinger didn't even try to evade the blow.
"You tell me the truth, Newt Call. I can see it on your face. You're marked by it, clear as day. What were Tom t' you?"
Newt touched his lip, feeling a split. "Nothin'. It weren't nothin' or Tom wouldn't have been marrying Mattie, now would he?"
~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~
Mattie had been a sight, kneeling beside Tom's body, wailing out her grief. It wasn't something Newt could do. He'd had to swallow everything down, shove it into the pit of his stomach until it was hard knot. While Mattie cried Newt had stalked off. He'd pushed through the surrounding crowd and kept going until Curtis Wells was far behind him. Out in the woods he could finally let loose but instead of screaming at the sky Newt collapsed. He dropped down to sit on his heels and hugged his knees tight to his chest.
Tom telling him it was over the night before had been painful, but Newt couldn't help but think to himself that his secret-lover would relent. What they did together was too intense to be denied for long. The stability of being married to Mattie would loose it's attraction soon enough and Newt would have the hidden relationship back.
~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~
Not any longer. Tom's warm body was beyond his reach forever.
~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~
The fist that had been threatening to strike again fell to Dish's side. "Did he love this Mattie girl?"
"I don' know. I suppose he must have. She loved him I think. Tom's death hurt her bad."
All the air seemed to rush out of Dish, making him look tired beyond his years. "Did it hurt you?" The question was spoken in a soft whisper.
"I don't know." Newt pulled himself into a sitting position, careless of the coldness of the ground underneath him. "Yeah, it... I don't know. I lost my wife a couple years back. That hurt worse. 'Sides, it's not like anyone would Me and Tom, we didn't socialize, not where anyone could see. Tom was the ruddy school-teacher. Hell, Tom even hid Mattie from everyone for fear of his job. Not many folks knew about them being t'gether 'til Tom got shot and Mattie near 'bout blew the brains out of the guy that done it." Newt frowned. "The thing was I couldn't let on I was anything to Tom but someone living in the same town. The day he died. God. It felt like getting' strangled."
~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~
Some little solace had come from the most unlikely source imaginable. Newt hadn't been sure what he'd intended when he first went to the Dove looking for Mattie the afternoon Tom had been killed. She had no idea what had been going on between Newt and Tom. Mattie was the last person he should have turned to, and the only one possible.
Mattie was sitting alone at table in the hotel looking as bad as he felt. She must have known something was strange. She had to sense that much because the first words out of her mouth were, "You look like hell."
Circling around behind her chair, Newt stared down at Mattie. This woman, his friend She was the reason Tom was putting an end of things, not that it mattered now. Neither of them would have Tom ever again. "You don't look too good yourself." People expected that of her. As embarrassing as it was for her, Mattie was allowed to show her grief, expected to, now everyone knew about the couple. "I'm sorry about what happened." Newt flinched. That didn't even begin to voice how he felt but it was all he was permitted.
"Yeah."
Mattie's acknowledgement was barely audible but it was enough. Newt took it as invitation to sit down with her. He needed to share this with someone, somehow. "I wish I could say" He wished he could say a lot of things. His hat landed on the round, wooden table with a muffled thump. "you'll get over it but I never have." Let her make what she wanted of the words.
"You loved her very much." Mattie guessed that Newt was talking about his late wife.
Newt was, after a fashion, but just on the surface level. His emotions were a dark, black lake that even he couldn't see the bottom of. "It's just I know pain." Like the pain of loosing the same lover twice within a span of one day.
Mattie looked absolutely wrung out. "Y'know Call, it was the first time in a long time that I let someone in."
"Love's a terrible thing." Newt's throat closed up but he forced a sad smile of sharing. The obviously strained expression earned a bit of whispery laughter from Mattie that he had to respond to. When she caught at his hand Newt couldn't believe how much of a difference it made even though she didn't realize exactly what was going on inside him.
"Amanda!" Mattie's voice lifted, calling to the owner of the hotel over the surrounding buzz of voices. "Get Mr Call a glass. We're drinkin' tonight."
~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~
Cold was creeping up Newt's spine, freezing him to the frosty ground. When hands reached down to catch at him they felt like brands. Dish pulled the younger man upright.
"I'm sorry I hit ya. . I shouldn've done that." Dish's apology was mumbled. "It ain't jest you that I'm angry with."
Licking his lips was a mistake. The split stung and began bleeding heavier. "I ain't got a place." Newt looked back toward town. "But if you want to get a bottle we can take it up above the livery and talk it doesn't have to be about Tom."
"Yes it does." Dish's gaze drifted down to the chess game he'd set up then lifted once more. "Even after all these years he's setting in the back of my head, looking so beautiful like an angel from on high. Him and Lorie both. The difference bein' Lorie never did give me any more'n I could pay cold cash for, whereas Tom, I had him in my arms not for near long enough but for a while." Dish unsuccessfully tried to swallow the hitch in his voice. "I loved him, Newt. I ached beyond belief, needing him to come back. God. I'd leave Annabelle the store and walk off without a second thought if Tom was still alive and willing t' have me." A shaky breath puffed out. "Tell me everything you can recall. I want to know how you met Tom, what he'd growned up to be like, everythin'. Can you do that fer me, Newt?"
"I don't know I've never talked about him a'fore, not to anyone."
"Then it's about time ya did." One of Dish's arms lifted to wrap around Newt's shoulder, turning them both away from the grave. "It's 'bout time both of us had a chance to get it out. C'mon."
That's it. Milk and cookies time.
~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~
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