#ryack

“Am I dead or somethin’?” he wonders out loud and then lets out a hoarse curse as his head impacts with the hard ground, his eyes closing again as colors burst between his eyelids. “What the fuck did you do that for?”

The silence is what really tips him off that something ain’t right. Ryan isn’t really the type of man to let any kind of question go unanswered and he never let the opportunity to talk Jack’s ear off go unused. He opens his eyes again and Ryan is staring at him. 

His face is pale and drawn with a furrow in between his wide blue eyes. The expensive clothes that Ryan wears are now torn and dirty almost beyond recognition and there’s blood slowly trickling down from a cut above his eyebrow. Jack drags himself up to a sitting position even though it nearly makes him throw up. 

Ryan kneels down next to him, quick as a flash. “Here, you’re gonna need something to drink,” he says, bringing his cateen up to Jack’s lips with a shaking hand. 

Jack takes a sip to try to assuage him but then realizes just how thirsty he actually is. He takes over for Ryan and has to make a conscious effort to not drink every last bit of it. When he slowly brings down the significantly lighter canteen he finds Ryan staring at him intently. 

He doesn’t look surprised or scared anymore. Instead there’s a look that Jack has only seen once or twice before when the two of them had accidently been trying to outsmart a group of bandits who’ve been terrorizing nearby towns. It’s a look of calculation or something close to it. 

“What happened?” Jack asks, slowly looking around them. 

In front of them there’s a roaring campfire with smoke drifting off into the quickly dimming afternoon sky. There are several logs placed around the fire as if whoever is looking after it is getting ready to make it last for as long as possible. Ryan’s horse Flash is laying down with a red blanket layed over it. His eyes are closed but his ears flicker around. 

“What’s the last thing that you remember?” Ryan asks. 

Jack takes a deep breath, “I was on the way to try and find that horse thief that I told you about a few weeks back. I saw him draw a gun on me and I went to duck. Now I’m here.”

Ryan stares at him for a long moment before he starts cursing low under his breath, walking away from Jack shaking his head. Jack watches him go - he’s more than used to Ryan’s small outbursts. It’s more than worth it for the brilliance and the help that he’s brought to Jackston

He really does need to get up though. His legs are stiff and aching and his back is damn near killing him from laying on the hard dirt for a spell. He makes his way up and over to the campfire and collapses onto one of the logs

The heat of the campfire hits him like a furnace and his entire body quakes as the warmth spreads through him like a wildfire. Huh, he hadn’t even realized he’d been that cold. He glances back over towards Ryan. 

Ryan has stopped his pacing and his shoulders heave in a sigh before squaring up and heading towards him. If he’s about to tell Jack that he’s killed that man in some sort of weird atoning way then it’ll be the weirdest day that he’s ever had. 

Instead Ryan walks up to him and then drops down to his knees. His face is solemn and serious, his hat placed over his heart, and the joke that Jack had been about to make gets caught in his throat. 

“You didn’t duck.” 

Jack stares at him for a long moment before reaching up to try to clean out his left ear with his finger. “Excuse me?” 

Ryan clears his throat. “When that man shot you…it went straight through your head Jack. I’m so sorry.” 

If it was any other man Jack would’ve called them an asshole and moved on with a laugh. This is Ryan though who had snapped at one of Jack’s deputies when they had made poked at him for saying a small prayer over a dead bandit. Ryan who treated death as if it would strike him like a rattlesnake from the underbrush if he didn’t respect it. 

He wouldn’t joke about this but Jack can’t help but crack a half-smile, “Well, this sure as hell don’t feel much like the heaven I imagined.” 

Ryan doesn’t smile back - in fact he just looks miserable. The redness around his eyes haven’t faded yet which gives his whole face the awful impression that he’d just come back from a funeral. 

“It doesn’t feel like the one I’d imagined either,” Ryan says, his hand hesitantly settling on Jack’s knee. “I’m sorry but this is about the only one that you’ve got for now.” 

Ryan steadily meets his gaze and anger suddenly flares up in his gut. It was just like Ryan to suddenly come out of nowhere with this kind of upsetting joke. 

“Don’t you start joking about those kinds of things,” Jack says and Ryan stares steadily back at him. His lips don't’ curl up into a half-smirk like they usually do on his meaner jokes. “I’m serious. This isn’t funny.” 

Ryan stares at him for a second longer before he laughs his head bowing down to hide his grin. “I almost had you though didn’t I huh?” 

The relief that bubbles up in Jack’s stomach makes him slap Ryan’s shoulder. “That was so fucking mean! Don’t do that shit Ryan!” 

“I won’t do it again, I promise. It’s just how many opportunities like this does one have?” 

Jack rolls his eyes but nevertheless helps Ryan up when he holds out a hand. “I’ll forgive it if you give me a ride back to town but if you ever do that again my boot will be in your ass you hear me?” 

“I hear you,” Ryan laughs walking towards Flash to wake him up, the next sentence barely hits Jack’s ears but sends a shiver down his spine from the morose tone. “I hear you.” 

“Creepy bastard,” Jack mumbles to himself. 

The few hours it takes to get back to get to the town is far quieter than it usually is between the two of them. Ryan deep in thought and hopefully a bit of remorse as he walks next to Flash and Jack. 

Jack wants to say a couple of things more than once but he resolves to leave it between them. It was a harmless joke in poor taste which he’d seen and heard more than a few times. It would be unfair to hold this one against the man. 

When they make it Jack heads his way towards his jail to check up on things and Ryan disappears into the (what the fuck where inns called? Hotels yet?? check) like he usually does.

The rest of the night it’s like there’s a burr in Jack’s boot though. His mind racing as he gets more and more time to slowly go through the scene that had happened earlier instead of the knee jerk reaction. Ryan had been in traveling shows before - Jack knows - hell he’d met him while Ryan was in the traveling circus throwing knives. He’d seen the tattered copies of plays that Ryan kept in his luggage.

Ryan could put on a show but him crying? That had seemed so real. 

Finally when his watch tells him that he’d been thinking about this for more than three hours he makes his way towards Ryan’s room. The sun has fully set and the saloon is full of people and the noise makes him peek his head in. It’s the average sort of chaos that occurs when a bunch of men get drunk together. Nothing that required him to step in and put off talking to Ryan. 

The disappointment and anxiety in his gut at not having to stop makes him cringe at himself. He wasn’t really the type to get nervous bout talking to people but he had no idea how to talk about this topic. 

He gives Maria a friendly wave as he walks through her lobby and she gives him a smile before she moves into the backroom. Jack slowly climbs the stairs to the second floor and makes his way towards Ryan’s room. 

The deep breath that he takes does nothing to settle his nerves but he knocks anyway. 

There’s the quiet sound of muffled cursing and a long bang before the door opens. Ryan stares at him for a long second. “Is there something you need Sheriff?” 

“I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes?” 

Ryan grimances looking back towards his room. “I - Can this wait or does this need to happen right now?” 

“You got a lady in here?” Jack asks faux seriously and Ryan laughs. 

“Nah, nothing like that. I’m just packing and it’s a mess. I’m sure that I could make a place for us to sit down.” He gestures for Jack to go ahead and come inside before darting back into the room. 

Jack follows him automatically and then suddenly what Ryan had said hits him over the head. “Wait, did you say that you’re packing?” 

He glances around the room and there’s a few piles of folded laundry on the bed and on the chairs next to the stand alone table. The sorting system is beyond Jack. 

Ryan hums, moving things from the chairs. “I got a telegraph from a friend. He said that he needed me to head back to San Francisco as soon as I can.” 

Jack’s gut clenches. “Do you - Do you think that you’ll come back?” 

There’s a long moment where Ryan puts down one of his beloved plays and looks at him. The low light of the candle isn’t enough so that Jack can make out his expression but the quiet moment of silence tells him more than enough. 

He strides across the room and kisses Ryan. The same way that he’s kissed him more than thirty times in the few months that Ryan has been here. The panic is slowly settling in his stomach. 

Ryan responds as easily as he ever does. The guilt that threatens to choke Jack not even seeming to touch him. Then just as quickly as the kiss had come Ryan gently pulls away. His forehead finding Jack’s and resting there. 

“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone but I’ll come back so none of that,” Ryan says, gently mocking him. “I’ll be sure to write letters though so don’t change your address.” 

Jack laughs a little. He’ll never leave (insert town here) and they both know it. 

For a second though he thinks about it. Going with Ryan to see this friend of his with him. To go more than a week away without worry gnawing away at his gut. 

Ryan pulls away. “What was it that you were going to talk to me about?” 

“Oh,” Jack says, moving back in for another kiss, “Nothing important.” 

*

That morning he sees Ryan off on the 8am carriage towards San Francisco and then he gets himself back to work. He gets a letter two weeks later that’s four pages long and makes him smile wider than he has in a long while. 

A week after that he finds himself in a shootout.  

He aims at the man who had just killed one of the finest locksmiths that resided in the South and fires. The loud bang of the gun goes off and - 

*

Jack doesn’t actually remember much about it after it happens. 

He does know this though. Screams bounce around in coffins, his nails become bloodied and bruised only to be magically fine the next time he wakes up. 

Dying from asphyxiation is it’s own kind of hell that he never wants to repeat but dying from a mouthful of dirt is even worse.

He doesn’t know how long he stays stuck in that limbo. His body is six feet below and too weak to make any progress up until something hard hits him square in the stomach. Then dirt slowly starts to disappear off of him and then hands start traveling up his body. 

He has just enough sense of mind to think about how fucked up it would be if these were grave robbers who happened to stumble onto his animated corpse when suddenly he’s faced with the overwhelming light of a lantern.

“He’s alive! See I told you!” 

It doesn’t matter that it sounds like it’s through several layers of cotton. Jack would recognize that voice anywhere. His eyes catch on Ryan’s baby blues ones and suddenly his eyes are burning in emotion. If he had the energy he’d be crying. 

“Jack? Jack, you go ahead and rest now. We’ll get you out of here.”

Despite the ever creeping weakness Jack manages to nod his head. A hand smooths back his hair.

He closes his eyes and lets the soft embrace of nothingness take him away. 

*

The next few weeks go by as if he’s in a daze. They make their way to San Francisco and Jack idly wonders at the huge amount of people coming and going from place to place. A fight breaks out in front of them on the way towards Geoff’s house. His hand reaches for his badge and closes around empty space. 

He ignores Ryan’s concerned look and puts his hand back in his lap. Blood and teeth splatter onto the ground before they turn the corner.   

Ryan tiptoes around him like he’s worried that Jack will break if he approaches him directly. Geoff - that friend that Ryan was talking about apparently - is much more direct but Jack can’t quite comprend what he’s trying to say. 

Then, one day he blinks himself back into existence. He’s in Geoff’s sitting room a book that he can’t remember opening laying down on his lap. Geoff and Ryan are quietly playing chess by the window. 

“I’m ready to hear what you have to say,” he says, and Ryan’s head whips around towards him.