![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[...a sound like cymbals crashing...]
...Whew.
Big Sky Country (2/2)
Boondock Saints. Connor/Murphy. R. Warning: incest. Mad props to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anjali_organna for the betareading.
Post-movie. En route to California.
ETA: Read the drabbleremix by greenapple here.
part one: blood ties
part two: devil's red carpet
you try so hard
but you don't understand
just what you'll say
when you get home
bob dylan, ‘ballad of a thin man’
Il Duce is not his real name, but it’s a fitting name. The other man who bore it was a dictator who fucked with the people over whom he ruled, and fucked up the nation for which he was responsible.
A fitting name.
Connor rarely calls him Da. He calls him Il Duce in jest. Most times Connor doesn’t call him anything at all, preferring to barge into the conversation without a sign of whom he’s talking to. It’s ruder, but also more proper somehow.
“You talk to folks about California,” says his father as he drives, “and people think of Hollywood. Of course they do. There ain’t no other fuckin’ thing in California. California’s got Tom Cruise and Kim Basinger and the Baldwin brothers, and then it’s got a fuckin’ lot of this.”
He gestures out the window at the scenery or lack thereof.
“What does your friend think of California?” asks Connor.
“What?”
The AC gave out ages ago. Connor and Murphy have stripped off their shirts and are prone as corpses in the backseat--corpses probably have lower body temperatures, Connor thinks bitterly--wet hair plastered to their head, skin discolored with heat and perspiration. Connor thinks they’re cooking themselves by just sitting here. He’s irritated at the request for repetition, but still he says, “Your friend. The one we’re meeting there.”
“Oh, aye. What the fuck does it matter what he thinks.”
“I’m just curious.”
“Curiosity killed the cat, you’ve never heard? And my friend, he’s not much of a thinking type.”
“Are we meeting him in Los Angeles?” asks Murphy. “San Francisco, then?”
“San Francisco?” Il Duce parrots distractedly.
“San Francisco. Or… the other one. The other San, with the zoo.”
“Diego,” Connor mumbles.
“San Francisco’s nothing,” says Il Duce. “What’ve you got in the place? Bridges and chinks. You’ve got poofters strutting around the place in dresses and high heels. The fuck would you want in a place like that.”
Connor laughs, but his throat is dry, his motivation is stilted, and he sounds like he’s got something in his throat. “Aye,” he tries to say, and coughs again.
“Jesus, boy,” says Il Duce. “We’ll stop for water at the next station. You alright?”
“Just the sun,” says Connor, avoiding Murphy’s eyes. “Fuckin’ heat.”
***
Connor thinks--but isn’t sure--that he dreams about the killings.
They’re not called killings, of course. Moral cleansing, divinely ordained. He and Murphy and Il Duce are not vigilantes, but saints or something like it.
The shreds of dreamstuff he’s left with when he wakes are full of things like the taste of blood, the feel of gunmetal, and the question that his father has already twice asked. Connor doubts he will ask a third time.
When the order is to pull out his guns and let the bullets fly, Connor will do it because he is a mean, motherfucking servant of God who does not go back on his word. ‘Strangely comfortable with it,’ he said to Murphy once. He can say it again, he’s sure of it. He’s always sure, except for the times when he’s not.
Murphy told him once that he doesn’t believe in hypocrisy. There is no such thing as hypocrisy, just people who adjust for better or worse.
Connor thinks his brother is right, for the most part. He hadn’t been listening closely at the time, because all he had wanted to do was shove Murphy against the wall and kiss him. They were in Southie on their way home late at night and Connor couldn’t do any of this outside, but as soon as they reached home, Connor pushed Murphy on the mattress, took his shirt off, took Murphy’s shirt off, and fell upon his brother like a wave upon the sand. The kiss is like a breath of air and Connor moans in his throat, fade to black, fade to black.
They have fallen into a routine. Once they’ve crossed the line, they cannot stop, they cannot falter for fear that reality that will catch up and take them down in their moment of hesitation. This is fucking your brother. This is taking human life.
He’s strangely comfortable with it, but not always.
***
San Martinez is a handful of pebbles thrown against the southwestern desert. A gas station, a liquor store, a sheriff’s office, a one-horse town. A collection of squat indiscriminate buildings that serve squat indiscriminate purposes, blending into the desert like all it’s ever meant to be is a minor aberrance in the landscape.
The MacManus men go into a convenience store where Murphy affixes a winning smile and begins to charm the girl at the counter while Connor and Il Duce slip provisions into their coats.
“I’m surprised it’s not you up there,” Il Duce mutters nonchalantly to Connor. “You have the fairer face. Funny, being twins and looking nothing alike. You boys don’t even have the sense in your head to be proper twins.”
Connor knows it’s a joke, so he just makes a noncommittal grunt and drifts away. He’s not feeling up to charming anyone. It’s the sun. It’s the lack of sleep. It’s the ennui of open spaces. He feels like someone put him together the wrong way.
For appearances, Il Duce throws a small bag of lemon drops on the counter, grins and asks, “How much?”
Back outside, Murphy turns left at an intersection when Connor and Il Duce continue across the street. Connor doesn’t realize this until he’s halfway to the other side, and he pauses and looks behind him. Murphy is standing on the sidewalk, waiting.
“Come on,” says Murphy.
“What are you doing?” Il Duce demands, but Connor goes to his brother without a word. “Where the fuck are you two off to now?”
“We’re in the middle of the fucking desert, where do you think we can go?” says Murphy, grinning. “What business is it of yours, old man? Who do you think you are? Our father?”
To that, Il Duce raises his can of beer in salute and grins (or grimaces, Connor can’t quite tell). He continues on his way, and so do they.
With a beer each, one more in their coat pockets, and nothing much to do, their walk is leisurely and their conversation comfortably haphazard. When a San Martinez denizen comes close, Connor and Murphy shout an over-friendly greeting, emboldened by the drastic contrast between the town’s placidity and their own high spirits. When their beer cans are empty, they leave them balanced precariously on the edge of the curb and continue on their way, going through the loot in Connor’s pockets.
A candy bar.
Mint gum.
Some lemon drops.
A pack of cigarettes and a brand new lighter, though neither feel like smoking.
Et cetera, etc.
At the end of a T-intersection is a pink-painted building that, at six stories, is one of the tallest buildings in San Martinez. Fairview Apartments, the sign declares in curly golden letters. Without warning, Murphy runs to it.
“Murph!” Connor calls out, and Murphy keeps on running. He reaches the other side of the street and doesn’t stop.
Connor gives chase. Around the side of the building they go, rushing under its large and merciful shadow. Murphy goes straight for the fire exit and takes the steps two at a time, heading for the roof.
Connor grins despite himself. He knows this game. He recognizes this ritual. Connor grabs the railings and vaults four steps. Some things fall out of his pockets but he doesn’t care. The stairs creak under their weight, and every footstep brings forth a sound like cymbals crashing.
Sometimes, back in Boston, Connor and Murphy would go to the roof of their illegal tenement to drink beer, or laugh, or enjoy the silence. They would smoke cigarettes and blow the smoke in each other’s mouths, and whatever else would help to clear their minds. Whatever else would give them peace in the moment. It was easier to reach peace up there, elevated over the slums of South Boston--the slums they slowly felt themselves becoming a part of. Up there, they are closer to God, closer to being absolved from whatever chased them up there in the first place.
One of many similarities that Connor and Murphy share is a fascination with the infinite. That’s why they believe in God. That’s why they hold on to the bond between them. That’s why they find themselves on the roof of Fairview Apartments in San Martinez, surrounded on all sides by endless things.
There are no walls. Only sky.
“I feel like I can walk straight off the edge and land right on the sand,” says Murphy. “But then you look straight down… and, fuck…”
Murphy and Connor balance themselves on the edge, testing themselves against the fatal drop and testing each other. How far would you go? They both have a taste for recklessness, but it’s always Connor who, under the guise of annoyance and brotherly duty, grabs his brother by the shirt and pulls him back, well away from the siren call of the terminus.
Six stories above ground, it’s the old routine: Connor grabs him and yanks him in. Murphy backs into Connor. Connor doesn’t step back. They don’t bump into each other so much as they slide into place.
“It’s bad feng shui, did you know,” says Connor, sliding his hands over Murphy’s wrists, “if they put a building at the head of a T-intersection like this. It’s a red carpet that leads evil spirits straight here.”
“You think there are a lot of exorcisms in Fairview Apartments, then?”
“More like a fuckload of miserable people, maybe.”
“I’d be miserable living in this place.”
There’s someone on the street--man or woman, Connor can’t tell from this height--who spots them. He or she stops in their tracks, and stares up at them. Murphy chuckles. The brothers step back, back, back, away from view.
Murphy turns around in Connor’s arms and his hands are on Connor’s chest, pushing him back, back…
“The fuck are you doing?” asks Connor. “I’m going to fall over if you don’t stop.”
…back, back… “You won’t,” says Murphy, and his fingers shift purposefully over Connor’s shoulders, conveying touch and foreshadowing through the layers of fabric. Their eyes meet, identical shades of blue, and Connor sees a look on Murphy’s face like he’s had a few drinks and has just placed money on the wrong side of a bet.
Connor backs into the wall. He feels Murphy’s fingers caress his face. He feels Murphy’s kiss.
Connor has always been hypersensitive to Murphy’s kisses, because he wants them and is scared of them at the same time. When Murphy presses their mouths together, it happens in slow motion, and Connor can distinguish every moment, like individual frames in a reel of film. Their tongues touch and Connor feels his stomach lurch with thrill and nausea. Not the bile kind of nausea, but the kind that comes of kissing your brother and liking it.
There is a part of Connor that still asks him, even now when they’re joined at the mouth, even when he and Murphy have done this countless times before, there is always a part of him that demands to know. How can you? Why do this?
Because it's Murphy.
The most unreasonable answer, and the truest.
***
When Murphy takes a step back, Connor grabs his elbows, unwilling to relinquish the feeling of Murphy’s body against his own. Murphy drops to his knees and Connor thinks, Oh. Murphy quickly undoes Connor’s belt, unzips Connor’s trousers. Connor clutches fistfuls of Murphy’s hair, his head pushing back against the wall so hard that it hurts, and he thinks, Fuck.
The first thing he feels is the heat. Murphy’s mouth is warm. He sucks in air around Connor’s cock, and that’s when he feels the wetness. He doesn’t let go of Murphy’s hair, and if that hurts, Murphy ignores the pain. Connor’s hips move of their own accord, steady and slow. He comes fucking his brother’s mouth, groaning, shuddering, spent, heartbeat pounding in his ears.
Murphy wipes his mouth with the back of his hand as Connor does up his trousers. He slides to the floor until he’s level with Murphy. Connor half-heartedly attempts to smooth Murphy’s hair and Murphy swats his hand away. Undeterred, Connor grabs him by the collar and pulls him in for a kiss.
“I think we’re fucked,” says Connor.
Murphy settles himself beside Connor. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t think Da has anyone in California. I think Da’s lying. We’re alone, there’s no one--”
“You’re the fucking liar.”
Connor stares at him, at the sharpness of Murphy’s reaction. “I’m not a fucking liar.”
“Why are we going to California if there’s nothing there?”
“Because we might as well. Might as well, where else can we go? Everyone’s after us. Where can we go?”
“What do you suggest we do, then, if you’re right?”
“I don’t know.” Connor says, “Murphy.”
“What?”
“D’you ever think about it.”
“About what?”
The words sound misshapen in Connor’s mouth when he says, “The killing.”
“Our killing?” says Murphy.
“Aye.”
“The killing we do, for God?”
There’s an emphasis on the last word, so subtle and slight and easy to miss, but Connor misses nothing. “Aye.”
Murphy doesn’t reply, and Connor begins to think that Murphy means to let this drop. The look on Murphy’s face says he’s thinking about it, but it doesn’t say whether Connor will ever know what he’s thinking, no matter what they say about the bond between twins.
Murphy eventually says, “You think too much.”
Connor says, “Aye.”
***
The mountains have been looming in the distance for some time now. It’s one of the more petulant members of the landscape. Sometimes he can see the Rockies, a jagged ribbon of dark blue on the horizon. Other times the thermals would rise from the ground. Waves of heat would ripple the air and blur the mountains until it looked one with the sky.
Now you see it, now you don’t.
“Well, fuck me,” says Murphy, sitting up. “Elevated land.”
“Won’t be long now, boys,” says Il Duce.
“Where is our man?” Murphy asks. His tone is light. “Give us an answer, Da. Where are we going?”
“Have I not answered that question before?”
“No.”
Il Duce says, “Our man’s in Los Angeles.”
“Where in Los Angeles?”
“Have you been to Los Angeles, Murphy?”
“No.”
“So shut the fuck up and let me drive, boy.”
“What’s his name?”
“Did you not hear me?” Il Duce yells.
Connor smokes his cigarette and blows the smoke out the window. “What are we going to do when we get to Los Angeles?” he asks.
“What do you think?” says Murphy. “It’s more of the same.”
“Smitty Rodriguez,” Il Duce mutters. “His name’s fucking Smitty Rodriguez, are you happy?”
Connor and Murphy exchange glances, then Connor looks away.
“Jolly good,” Connor says glibly. “Jolly good because, just imagine if there was no Smitty Rodriguez in Los Angeles at all.”
“I don’t like your fucking tone,” says Il Duce.
“We’re out on our arses in some new fucking city and nothing’s changed--”
“Boy!” Il Duce yells.
“--except the police maybe takes a little longer to catch us, and we spend…”
“You shut the fuck up or I’ll leave you in the middle of the fucking desert.”
“How long does it take for the police to forget about a murderer, you think?” Connor demands. “Murph?”
“Don’t know,” Murphy replies.
“Shut the fuck up! I can’t drive with you fucking yelling in my fucking ear!”
“I’m shutting the fuck up, Jesus fucking Christ!” Connor yells. “I’m shutting fucking… fucking…” In a harsh and jagged tone, he hisses, “Just imagine if we didn’t have your Smitty Rodriguez, we’d be really fucked.”
“If there’s no Rodriguez, we’ll be in God’s hands. That should be good enough for you. Is that good enough for you, boy?” asks Il Duce.
Do you have the constitution and depth of faith to go as far as is needed? asks the things between the lines.
The fuck you is on the tip of Connor’s tongue and he bites down hard.
***
Face down on the bed, Connor clutches fistful of blanket as Murphy pounds into him from behind. Or, he would be, if there was a bed, blankets, and everything else. Murphy fucks Connor in Connor’s head, and Connor is leaning against the back car, miles away from anywhere at some ungodly hour of night with his cock in his hand.
His father is sitting in the driver’s seat, smoking one more cigarette. Murphy stands a distance away from Connor, watching him.
Murphy holds Connor’s hips, clutching hard enough to bruise.
Murphy is a smudge of a silhouette against the Arizona night.
In his head, Murphy comes with a moan at the same time Connor does. While his breathing is still ragged, while he’s still lost in the post-orgasm haze, the real Murphy walks over, kicking some sand over the semen, and kisses him, a firm and simple press of lips.
One Mississippi two Mississippi break.
“He can see,” Connor says breathlessly, too late. Murphy just climbs into the car.
“What do you say we open up the boot,” Il Duce says idly, when Connor climbs in, “and one of you can sleep in there? It’s more room.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” is all Connor says, and that is that.
In the minute before Connor falls asleep, the dream creeps back. The images are scant but vivid: the feel of a gun barrel on your temple, the sight of a murderer on his knees, the BANG! of bullets, the NO! of witnesses, the anger that stains the world red like blood and not like wine, just like the way the sun stains the desert yellow.
Jaundice and not gold.
Disease and not prosperity.
Connor isn’t trying to do anything but go back to sleep and there it is like an ex-lover with empty eyes and a swollen belly standing on his doorstep. I’m back. Deal with me.
This is fucking your brother. This is taking lives. This is about blood, precisely.
[end.]
1. ‘Mean motherfucking servant of God’ is from the movie From Dusk Till Dawn.
2. ‘San Martinez is a handful of pebbles…’ is inspired line by a line in Vagabond Sal’s X2 fic, ‘The Inexplicable Quality of Life In The Age of Dairy Queens’.
3. The lyrics are properly labeled, right? Okay.
Big Sky Country (2/2)
Boondock Saints. Connor/Murphy. R. Warning: incest. Mad props to
anjali_organna for the betareading.Post-movie. En route to California.
ETA: Read the drabbleremix by greenapple here.
part two: devil's red carpet
you try so hard
but you don't understand
just what you'll say
when you get home
bob dylan, ‘ballad of a thin man’
Il Duce is not his real name, but it’s a fitting name. The other man who bore it was a dictator who fucked with the people over whom he ruled, and fucked up the nation for which he was responsible.
A fitting name.
Connor rarely calls him Da. He calls him Il Duce in jest. Most times Connor doesn’t call him anything at all, preferring to barge into the conversation without a sign of whom he’s talking to. It’s ruder, but also more proper somehow.
“You talk to folks about California,” says his father as he drives, “and people think of Hollywood. Of course they do. There ain’t no other fuckin’ thing in California. California’s got Tom Cruise and Kim Basinger and the Baldwin brothers, and then it’s got a fuckin’ lot of this.”
He gestures out the window at the scenery or lack thereof.
“What does your friend think of California?” asks Connor.
“What?”
The AC gave out ages ago. Connor and Murphy have stripped off their shirts and are prone as corpses in the backseat--corpses probably have lower body temperatures, Connor thinks bitterly--wet hair plastered to their head, skin discolored with heat and perspiration. Connor thinks they’re cooking themselves by just sitting here. He’s irritated at the request for repetition, but still he says, “Your friend. The one we’re meeting there.”
“Oh, aye. What the fuck does it matter what he thinks.”
“I’m just curious.”
“Curiosity killed the cat, you’ve never heard? And my friend, he’s not much of a thinking type.”
“Are we meeting him in Los Angeles?” asks Murphy. “San Francisco, then?”
“San Francisco?” Il Duce parrots distractedly.
“San Francisco. Or… the other one. The other San, with the zoo.”
“Diego,” Connor mumbles.
“San Francisco’s nothing,” says Il Duce. “What’ve you got in the place? Bridges and chinks. You’ve got poofters strutting around the place in dresses and high heels. The fuck would you want in a place like that.”
Connor laughs, but his throat is dry, his motivation is stilted, and he sounds like he’s got something in his throat. “Aye,” he tries to say, and coughs again.
“Jesus, boy,” says Il Duce. “We’ll stop for water at the next station. You alright?”
“Just the sun,” says Connor, avoiding Murphy’s eyes. “Fuckin’ heat.”
***
Connor thinks--but isn’t sure--that he dreams about the killings.
They’re not called killings, of course. Moral cleansing, divinely ordained. He and Murphy and Il Duce are not vigilantes, but saints or something like it.
The shreds of dreamstuff he’s left with when he wakes are full of things like the taste of blood, the feel of gunmetal, and the question that his father has already twice asked. Connor doubts he will ask a third time.
When the order is to pull out his guns and let the bullets fly, Connor will do it because he is a mean, motherfucking servant of God who does not go back on his word. ‘Strangely comfortable with it,’ he said to Murphy once. He can say it again, he’s sure of it. He’s always sure, except for the times when he’s not.
Murphy told him once that he doesn’t believe in hypocrisy. There is no such thing as hypocrisy, just people who adjust for better or worse.
Connor thinks his brother is right, for the most part. He hadn’t been listening closely at the time, because all he had wanted to do was shove Murphy against the wall and kiss him. They were in Southie on their way home late at night and Connor couldn’t do any of this outside, but as soon as they reached home, Connor pushed Murphy on the mattress, took his shirt off, took Murphy’s shirt off, and fell upon his brother like a wave upon the sand. The kiss is like a breath of air and Connor moans in his throat, fade to black, fade to black.
They have fallen into a routine. Once they’ve crossed the line, they cannot stop, they cannot falter for fear that reality that will catch up and take them down in their moment of hesitation. This is fucking your brother. This is taking human life.
He’s strangely comfortable with it, but not always.
***
San Martinez is a handful of pebbles thrown against the southwestern desert. A gas station, a liquor store, a sheriff’s office, a one-horse town. A collection of squat indiscriminate buildings that serve squat indiscriminate purposes, blending into the desert like all it’s ever meant to be is a minor aberrance in the landscape.
The MacManus men go into a convenience store where Murphy affixes a winning smile and begins to charm the girl at the counter while Connor and Il Duce slip provisions into their coats.
“I’m surprised it’s not you up there,” Il Duce mutters nonchalantly to Connor. “You have the fairer face. Funny, being twins and looking nothing alike. You boys don’t even have the sense in your head to be proper twins.”
Connor knows it’s a joke, so he just makes a noncommittal grunt and drifts away. He’s not feeling up to charming anyone. It’s the sun. It’s the lack of sleep. It’s the ennui of open spaces. He feels like someone put him together the wrong way.
For appearances, Il Duce throws a small bag of lemon drops on the counter, grins and asks, “How much?”
Back outside, Murphy turns left at an intersection when Connor and Il Duce continue across the street. Connor doesn’t realize this until he’s halfway to the other side, and he pauses and looks behind him. Murphy is standing on the sidewalk, waiting.
“Come on,” says Murphy.
“What are you doing?” Il Duce demands, but Connor goes to his brother without a word. “Where the fuck are you two off to now?”
“We’re in the middle of the fucking desert, where do you think we can go?” says Murphy, grinning. “What business is it of yours, old man? Who do you think you are? Our father?”
To that, Il Duce raises his can of beer in salute and grins (or grimaces, Connor can’t quite tell). He continues on his way, and so do they.
With a beer each, one more in their coat pockets, and nothing much to do, their walk is leisurely and their conversation comfortably haphazard. When a San Martinez denizen comes close, Connor and Murphy shout an over-friendly greeting, emboldened by the drastic contrast between the town’s placidity and their own high spirits. When their beer cans are empty, they leave them balanced precariously on the edge of the curb and continue on their way, going through the loot in Connor’s pockets.
A candy bar.
Mint gum.
Some lemon drops.
A pack of cigarettes and a brand new lighter, though neither feel like smoking.
Et cetera, etc.
At the end of a T-intersection is a pink-painted building that, at six stories, is one of the tallest buildings in San Martinez. Fairview Apartments, the sign declares in curly golden letters. Without warning, Murphy runs to it.
“Murph!” Connor calls out, and Murphy keeps on running. He reaches the other side of the street and doesn’t stop.
Connor gives chase. Around the side of the building they go, rushing under its large and merciful shadow. Murphy goes straight for the fire exit and takes the steps two at a time, heading for the roof.
Connor grins despite himself. He knows this game. He recognizes this ritual. Connor grabs the railings and vaults four steps. Some things fall out of his pockets but he doesn’t care. The stairs creak under their weight, and every footstep brings forth a sound like cymbals crashing.
Sometimes, back in Boston, Connor and Murphy would go to the roof of their illegal tenement to drink beer, or laugh, or enjoy the silence. They would smoke cigarettes and blow the smoke in each other’s mouths, and whatever else would help to clear their minds. Whatever else would give them peace in the moment. It was easier to reach peace up there, elevated over the slums of South Boston--the slums they slowly felt themselves becoming a part of. Up there, they are closer to God, closer to being absolved from whatever chased them up there in the first place.
One of many similarities that Connor and Murphy share is a fascination with the infinite. That’s why they believe in God. That’s why they hold on to the bond between them. That’s why they find themselves on the roof of Fairview Apartments in San Martinez, surrounded on all sides by endless things.
There are no walls. Only sky.
“I feel like I can walk straight off the edge and land right on the sand,” says Murphy. “But then you look straight down… and, fuck…”
Murphy and Connor balance themselves on the edge, testing themselves against the fatal drop and testing each other. How far would you go? They both have a taste for recklessness, but it’s always Connor who, under the guise of annoyance and brotherly duty, grabs his brother by the shirt and pulls him back, well away from the siren call of the terminus.
Six stories above ground, it’s the old routine: Connor grabs him and yanks him in. Murphy backs into Connor. Connor doesn’t step back. They don’t bump into each other so much as they slide into place.
“It’s bad feng shui, did you know,” says Connor, sliding his hands over Murphy’s wrists, “if they put a building at the head of a T-intersection like this. It’s a red carpet that leads evil spirits straight here.”
“You think there are a lot of exorcisms in Fairview Apartments, then?”
“More like a fuckload of miserable people, maybe.”
“I’d be miserable living in this place.”
There’s someone on the street--man or woman, Connor can’t tell from this height--who spots them. He or she stops in their tracks, and stares up at them. Murphy chuckles. The brothers step back, back, back, away from view.
Murphy turns around in Connor’s arms and his hands are on Connor’s chest, pushing him back, back…
“The fuck are you doing?” asks Connor. “I’m going to fall over if you don’t stop.”
…back, back… “You won’t,” says Murphy, and his fingers shift purposefully over Connor’s shoulders, conveying touch and foreshadowing through the layers of fabric. Their eyes meet, identical shades of blue, and Connor sees a look on Murphy’s face like he’s had a few drinks and has just placed money on the wrong side of a bet.
Connor backs into the wall. He feels Murphy’s fingers caress his face. He feels Murphy’s kiss.
Connor has always been hypersensitive to Murphy’s kisses, because he wants them and is scared of them at the same time. When Murphy presses their mouths together, it happens in slow motion, and Connor can distinguish every moment, like individual frames in a reel of film. Their tongues touch and Connor feels his stomach lurch with thrill and nausea. Not the bile kind of nausea, but the kind that comes of kissing your brother and liking it.
There is a part of Connor that still asks him, even now when they’re joined at the mouth, even when he and Murphy have done this countless times before, there is always a part of him that demands to know. How can you? Why do this?
Because it's Murphy.
The most unreasonable answer, and the truest.
***
When Murphy takes a step back, Connor grabs his elbows, unwilling to relinquish the feeling of Murphy’s body against his own. Murphy drops to his knees and Connor thinks, Oh. Murphy quickly undoes Connor’s belt, unzips Connor’s trousers. Connor clutches fistfuls of Murphy’s hair, his head pushing back against the wall so hard that it hurts, and he thinks, Fuck.
The first thing he feels is the heat. Murphy’s mouth is warm. He sucks in air around Connor’s cock, and that’s when he feels the wetness. He doesn’t let go of Murphy’s hair, and if that hurts, Murphy ignores the pain. Connor’s hips move of their own accord, steady and slow. He comes fucking his brother’s mouth, groaning, shuddering, spent, heartbeat pounding in his ears.
Murphy wipes his mouth with the back of his hand as Connor does up his trousers. He slides to the floor until he’s level with Murphy. Connor half-heartedly attempts to smooth Murphy’s hair and Murphy swats his hand away. Undeterred, Connor grabs him by the collar and pulls him in for a kiss.
“I think we’re fucked,” says Connor.
Murphy settles himself beside Connor. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t think Da has anyone in California. I think Da’s lying. We’re alone, there’s no one--”
“You’re the fucking liar.”
Connor stares at him, at the sharpness of Murphy’s reaction. “I’m not a fucking liar.”
“Why are we going to California if there’s nothing there?”
“Because we might as well. Might as well, where else can we go? Everyone’s after us. Where can we go?”
“What do you suggest we do, then, if you’re right?”
“I don’t know.” Connor says, “Murphy.”
“What?”
“D’you ever think about it.”
“About what?”
The words sound misshapen in Connor’s mouth when he says, “The killing.”
“Our killing?” says Murphy.
“Aye.”
“The killing we do, for God?”
There’s an emphasis on the last word, so subtle and slight and easy to miss, but Connor misses nothing. “Aye.”
Murphy doesn’t reply, and Connor begins to think that Murphy means to let this drop. The look on Murphy’s face says he’s thinking about it, but it doesn’t say whether Connor will ever know what he’s thinking, no matter what they say about the bond between twins.
Murphy eventually says, “You think too much.”
Connor says, “Aye.”
***
The mountains have been looming in the distance for some time now. It’s one of the more petulant members of the landscape. Sometimes he can see the Rockies, a jagged ribbon of dark blue on the horizon. Other times the thermals would rise from the ground. Waves of heat would ripple the air and blur the mountains until it looked one with the sky.
Now you see it, now you don’t.
“Well, fuck me,” says Murphy, sitting up. “Elevated land.”
“Won’t be long now, boys,” says Il Duce.
“Where is our man?” Murphy asks. His tone is light. “Give us an answer, Da. Where are we going?”
“Have I not answered that question before?”
“No.”
Il Duce says, “Our man’s in Los Angeles.”
“Where in Los Angeles?”
“Have you been to Los Angeles, Murphy?”
“No.”
“So shut the fuck up and let me drive, boy.”
“What’s his name?”
“Did you not hear me?” Il Duce yells.
Connor smokes his cigarette and blows the smoke out the window. “What are we going to do when we get to Los Angeles?” he asks.
“What do you think?” says Murphy. “It’s more of the same.”
“Smitty Rodriguez,” Il Duce mutters. “His name’s fucking Smitty Rodriguez, are you happy?”
Connor and Murphy exchange glances, then Connor looks away.
“Jolly good,” Connor says glibly. “Jolly good because, just imagine if there was no Smitty Rodriguez in Los Angeles at all.”
“I don’t like your fucking tone,” says Il Duce.
“We’re out on our arses in some new fucking city and nothing’s changed--”
“Boy!” Il Duce yells.
“--except the police maybe takes a little longer to catch us, and we spend…”
“You shut the fuck up or I’ll leave you in the middle of the fucking desert.”
“How long does it take for the police to forget about a murderer, you think?” Connor demands. “Murph?”
“Don’t know,” Murphy replies.
“Shut the fuck up! I can’t drive with you fucking yelling in my fucking ear!”
“I’m shutting the fuck up, Jesus fucking Christ!” Connor yells. “I’m shutting fucking… fucking…” In a harsh and jagged tone, he hisses, “Just imagine if we didn’t have your Smitty Rodriguez, we’d be really fucked.”
“If there’s no Rodriguez, we’ll be in God’s hands. That should be good enough for you. Is that good enough for you, boy?” asks Il Duce.
Do you have the constitution and depth of faith to go as far as is needed? asks the things between the lines.
The fuck you is on the tip of Connor’s tongue and he bites down hard.
***
Face down on the bed, Connor clutches fistful of blanket as Murphy pounds into him from behind. Or, he would be, if there was a bed, blankets, and everything else. Murphy fucks Connor in Connor’s head, and Connor is leaning against the back car, miles away from anywhere at some ungodly hour of night with his cock in his hand.
His father is sitting in the driver’s seat, smoking one more cigarette. Murphy stands a distance away from Connor, watching him.
Murphy holds Connor’s hips, clutching hard enough to bruise.
Murphy is a smudge of a silhouette against the Arizona night.
In his head, Murphy comes with a moan at the same time Connor does. While his breathing is still ragged, while he’s still lost in the post-orgasm haze, the real Murphy walks over, kicking some sand over the semen, and kisses him, a firm and simple press of lips.
One Mississippi two Mississippi break.
“He can see,” Connor says breathlessly, too late. Murphy just climbs into the car.
“What do you say we open up the boot,” Il Duce says idly, when Connor climbs in, “and one of you can sleep in there? It’s more room.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” is all Connor says, and that is that.
In the minute before Connor falls asleep, the dream creeps back. The images are scant but vivid: the feel of a gun barrel on your temple, the sight of a murderer on his knees, the BANG! of bullets, the NO! of witnesses, the anger that stains the world red like blood and not like wine, just like the way the sun stains the desert yellow.
Jaundice and not gold.
Disease and not prosperity.
Connor isn’t trying to do anything but go back to sleep and there it is like an ex-lover with empty eyes and a swollen belly standing on his doorstep. I’m back. Deal with me.
This is fucking your brother. This is taking lives. This is about blood, precisely.
[end.]
1. ‘Mean motherfucking servant of God’ is from the movie From Dusk Till Dawn.
2. ‘San Martinez is a handful of pebbles…’ is inspired line by a line in Vagabond Sal’s X2 fic, ‘The Inexplicable Quality of Life In The Age of Dairy Queens’.
3. The lyrics are properly labeled, right? Okay.