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tunastime · 4 months

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No Night that Doesn't End

Jimmy is the sheriff of Tumble Town. Everyone knows that. Some people like it--some don't. Whether or not they like it is a problem he's not really worried about. Right now, his town is empty. So is his farm, his wells, his home, and his heart. And that is a much bigger problem. Deep in the stuffing of his chest, Jimmy knows something he's pretending he's forgotten: Every desert town goes. It's just a matter of when.

so I wrote this back in july when I was really having jimmy feelings and now I'm back to having jimmy feelings. good grief!! it's fine!!

(3532 words) (read it on ao3!)

Through the window, a pale, yellow-white beam of light cuts through, illuminating the dust that filters through the edges, making the perfect tile on the sanded wood floor. Jimmy stares at the ceiling. He thinks he’s watching the barely-there oscillations of the ceiling fan above him, turning ever so slightly in the still air. But he’s not. Instead, his tired, achy eyes bore into the wooden slats of the roof above him, and his hand rests against his chest. He can feel the thudding of his pulse against the side of his wrist, against the pads of his fingers, as well as he can feel the sleep-warm fabric of his shirt. He sighs, taking in a breath that pushes at the limits of his chest, no matter how small those limits are. It almost doesn’t seem worth it. But he does it on instinct. He stretches, the spaces between his bones expanding and contracting as they pop and settle and he settles, too, back against the soft mattress.

Staring into the ceiling, Jimmy lifts a hand to wipe the sleep from the corner of his eyes. He blinks, and the grey-gold room comes into better focus. He can at least count the knots in the wood, now, if he so desires to go back to sleep. But his body settles with a nervous energy as he lies still, like a vibration from the soft curve of the arch of his foot to the hair at the line of his forehead. He scrubs his eyes with the heels of his hands, runs one hand through his hair. He shifts to sit up. As he does, the small grey shape beside him stretches awake, and so does the shape beside that. Two pairs of eyes blink back at him before both cats resettle themselves. Jimmy watches the tip of Norman’s tail flick against the quilt he’s laid out on.

Jimmy moves in one motion. His socked feet hit the cold wood floor. He sits there, hands pressed to the mattress, fingers curled over the edge. His knees sit apart. His shoulders are bent forward. The world waits for him to rise from bed, only for a second, as the light from the window catches dust and Jimmy digs his fingers into the sheets he’s rumpled. They’re soft and worn—he’s not sure if he’s noticed the texture before now, as he runs his thumb over the seam of the mattress, where feathers and cotton and sewn edges meet. After a moment, his hand jerks away, finds his chest instead. There’s still a pulse there, and still a breath as well.

The world is still very still, despite his lingering movement. He feels as if he’s puncturing a bubble as he stands, pulling back the sheets to fix them. His fingers run over stitching. The world stays that same quiet even as he pulls away from the beside and his feet shuffle against the wooden floors. He pads to the dresser, searching for something clean—white shirts, blue shirts, black shirts. Jeans. Any combination of colors. The top of the dresser comes away dusty on his hand as he braces against it. He leaves a streak of grey on the blue jeans he pulls on. His blue shirt stays partially unbuttoned and untucked, and the shirt is cool against his skin. Skin, he promises. He can feel it. He combs back through his hair with his fingers, and he can feel that too, each curly, soft fluff of hair. He keeps combing as he wanders the room. From behind him, he hears Norman and Flick wade and bound over the rumpled sheets. One of them collides with his ankle as he turns back to the bedside. Jimmy only hears the jingle of his collar as he leaps back onto the bed. Reaching out, Jimmy runs his hand down Norman’s back. Norman turns, bumping against his hand.

As he stands at the bed, Jimmy catches movement in the spotty, dusty mirror. He stands for a second, eyes focused on the edge of the dark wood. Through the grime, he can see the rise of his chest, where an unbuttoned shirt gives to a soft collarbone, the outline of his wrist and down his thumb. Other than the general shape of his body, no minute details stand out. For a fraction of a moment, he thinks he sees the glint of his eyes, much too bright in the sunlight that shifts to catch him. He takes in a sharp breath and drags his eyes from the dusty surface. It’ll keep collecting dust, that’s what it’ll do.

Jimmy wanders his way downstairs, tucking in the tail end of his white-trimmed blue shirt. The air is still cool downstairs, even as Jimmy lights the stove and hears it click, and even as the kettle comes to a rolling boil. He listens to the water against the tin. His stomach pangs. He chews the inside of his bottom lip as he opens the cabinet, mouth twisting in a frown.

The morning goes like that. The silence is cut through by the sound of toast on the stove and jars of jam being opened. There’s a clunk when the pan gets dropped into the sink unceremoniously and the clink of dishes as the cats are fed and the teacup finds its way to the table. In a warm beam of light against the kitchen table, Jimmy eats breakfast, and Norman stands on the windowsill, and the warm thing curling in his chest hasn’t died yet. Tipping back the rest of his tea, Jimmy wanders into the living room. The cup sits on the oak desk jammed up against the wall—the impromptu office that stood before the jailhouse was built. If he were to dig through the cabinets, he’s sure the first land deeds would be sitting at the bottom, or that his official notice, the first time he was sworn in as sheriff, would be, too. Lately, he’s not even worn the badge. Every time he looks at it, the heavy pit in his stomach grows a little heavier, a little colder. Instead, Jimmy drags his hand over the smooth, dark surface, and picks the hat off the side of the chair.

The Bowl is still a cool red-grey as Jimmy steps out. The quietness settles as the sun starts to climb in the sky. With it, grey clouds sit on the horizon, just above the lip of the Bowl, like a taunt. Jimmy rounds the side of the house, searching for a spade and till. The side garden, just a handful of dead plants, now, had wormed its way up to the top of his to-do list. So now, spade in hand, bandana pulled over his nose, he sets his hat on his head and sinks to the red dirt.

On the edge of the mesa, thunder rolls. Jimmy stiffens. His spade is stuck pointing down into the dry earth, a small pile of crisp herbs beside his hip. When he stares up into the greying sky, he feels his neck ache in protest. His face feels warm with exertion, and his arms are red with dirt and sticky with sweat. He can feel the tan worsening on his neck and arms, even through the shirt. The thunder rumbles again. He turns to it, nerves sharp, suddenly more alert than he’s been in days, like a haze had suddenly, momentarily, lifted off of him. He scrambles up, darting to the side of his house. On the edge of the building, tucked under the siding, is a large, blue barrel, faded on one side where the sun had hit it over and over. He pushes the barrel through the dirt, shoving it under where the siding meets the rain gutter above. He darts back to the small shed situated opposite of the house. There, he drags out large, heavy buckets, tugging on the ropes until they give across the dry earth. He pulls them into place at the other corner of the house, and falls back in the dirt.

Rising quickly to a wobbly stand, Jimmy looks up into the grey, darkening sky, and sighs out a long breath. He dusts his freshly-raw hands on the sides of his jeans, trying to beat off the dust and dirt as he wanders to the porch. There, on the step, just below the awning, he sits, and kicks his boots out.

The sky opens up. When it does, Jimmy sticks his hand out, and the first big, wet raindrop falls into the palm of his hand.

He stares into the rain as it begins to fall.

It soaks the soil until the dry brown earth turns dark, until small pools start to form as the sky goes from grey to black. Jimmy stares into the falling rain.

The first time the sky opened up and poured its heart into the fishbowl, people celebrated. They dragged out big buckets to fill, looking for pots, pans, and bowls to supplement them. Children stood ankle deep in rich, dark mud, soaking wet. The cats stayed tucked under the bed, but Jimmy Solidarity, boots off, pants cuffed past his ankles, was also standing in it. He let the rain soak his white shirt through and didn’t even mind that his hair was plastered to his face. It was before a time where his skin felt sticky and cold when damp, before a time where it was too much to wash more than just his hair, or wipe down his face. He turned circles in that storm, letting the warm rain run down his arms and hands and fingers, let it darken his jeans, let the kids drag him about, stomping in the mud. Somewhere, under an awning, somewhere he found himself laughing, was a liquor bottle and food and his hat, safe from the rain, under the watchful eye of a deputy. Soon enough there was no one who wasn’t soaked. The cobbles only stayed damp until the sun peaked out from behind the clouds, but the rain barrels stayed full until the next time. The next time there was singing, dancing, more food and more bottles. More familiar faces, tucking themselves under awnings so as to not risk the rain. A smile on that face. A warm body he knew, to pass food to, and to laugh with.

But every desert town goes.

It's sewn into the soil, the deep red and orange earth nothing grows in. It's written in the dry wells with cracked bricks. It's on the wind, where the taste of rain is just a memory. Maybe the lights go out first, or the rivers dry, or the plants die, or the trades stop. It doesn't matter what kills it—every desert town becomes a ghost town eventually. It's just a matter of when.

Jimmy remembers the first time they asked him to come with them. The day was hot, baking the soil to near ash, heating every stone hot enough to cook on. The days were hot—always, relentlessly, from noon up until dinner, when the red-yellow sun slipped down the side of the bowl and the wind started up, bringing a cool breeze that tasted like rain but never gave it over. There was always the linger of dampness in the air as it settled. But on that day, the sun was up nearly 3/4ths of the way in the sky, and someone was packing a market wagon outside of the stall Jimmy himself had set up first. The sign was loose and faded now, and the barrels were empty of gunpowder, but he'd filled it—he'd filled it a week ago, hadn't he? No matter—someone was packing and it was packing to leave, not packing to go home and light a little stove fire and make a cup of tea.

Jimmy held a rust lipped, tin watering can with the dredges of dusty water. It was for the saguaro cactus on the porch, the thing dark green and heavy in its pot, stretching up its fleshy stalk toward the roof of the porch, a small, wilted desert flower on its top. He was staring at two hands tying a knot in frayed rope around the metal grommets. As he had watched, guilt sinking in his chest, his leatherworker had turned toward him, a tight expression to his face.

The leatherworker had spent too many hours teaching Jimmy how to punch grommets into leather, to work the fabric until it became soft and pliable, on how to keep his boots sealed and clean, how to make them shiny, how to buff them to keep the grit off. He’d followed his careful hands to fix frayed fringe and tie leads, to keep the cracks out of Arrow’s saddle. Hell—the leatherworker had taught him how to catch horses in the first place. Half of his success with Bullseye could be chalked up to that alone. Jimmy’s eyes pass over the tight expression wrought across his face, finding the fine lines under his eyes, hand raised to shield from the sun, red hot above the bowl. He watches him blink the sun from his eyes and frown, mouth curving down sharply as he shakes his head.

"Sheriff,” He says, in a voice Jimmy can only half remember. “'s a damn shame you won't come with. You’re a fine craftsman."

Jimmy swallows, but for a moment, he isn’t sure what exactly he might be swallowing down—disappointment, mostly, maybe grief, the taste of both lingering on the back of his tongue. He shrugs. The leatherman’s never told him he was good at the work he did. He guesses it was maybe implied—and now that he thinks about it, he can remember nods, or the look in his eye. Jimmy wishes the can were still in his hands so he would have something to do with them, besides let them hang awkwardly at his sides before they find his back pockets. There, he finds a loose string, twisting it between his thumb and forefinger. He says:

“You know me,” and tries to smile. “As long as people stay, I’ll stay, too. ‘Ve got a duty to uphold, ‘n all.”

The leatherworker shakes his head, the same smile reflected on his face.

“Better man than me, son,” he says. He stands with his arms folded now, still squinting, but keeps his eyes downcast, away from the glare of the fishbowl around him. He sighs, watching his boots in the dirt. Jimmy chews at the inside of his cheek. His fingers dig into the denim of his pockets.

“Sure you won’t be back?” He tries, shrugging his shoulders. Another sigh from the leatherworker.

“I don’t want to leave…” he says, letting out a tired, weak laugh. “Trust me. But we’re not sellin’ anything, anymore.” He looks up, meeting Jimmy’s eye, likely for the final time. Jimmy remembers that gaze, the first one that looked at him, rather than through him. One of many times that he felt more like himself than he ever had. Where he wasn’t just ropy hair and a soft body, despite how many of these people had become that way. He feels the words like stones in his stomach, but he lets them sit. He has no other choice. The leatherman nods, offers a smile, and extends his hand. Jimmy takes it.

“‘M sure I’ll be back around.”

It was an unfortunate pattern that continued long into the rainless season. As the air grew hot and dusty, and rain showers grew less and less frequent, it became heavily apparent that the town couldn’t survive. He’d gone and lost a deputy, he’d lost his friends, he’d lost a gunpowder farm to the chaos of the rest of the world. Even boxed in with an artificial sky, there was nothing he could do to keep the town from trickling out. It wasn’t a steady thing. People seemed to know right when they needed to leave. And it was always the same look, the same tug at him to come with them. It was empty, wasn’t it? The water well. The gunpowder farms. The stocks. Himself. If it was so empty, wouldn’t he come with to fill it somewhere else? Would he rather watch it crumble?

It’s noon.

The mesa air, even into the canyon where the jailhouse sits, is dry and heavy and still. It isn't quiet, though. It brings sounds of movement. Jimmy catalogs the sounds, tracing the inside of his mouth with his tongue, feeling the ridges of the back of his teeth. He worries his quill pen between his fingers. The metal nib digs into the side of his finger, making an impression where it sits as he writes, and he feels that out too, alongside his teeth, alongside the heat seeping in through the wooden slats. At least inside, the heat doesn't get to him as fast. The fan above him makes lazy oscillations in the slight breeze through the windows. He can feel a line of sweat down the back of his neck. As he signs his letter, there comes a high whistle. He stands from the desk with a start, even in his daze of work, and pulls his hat on his head as he steps out of the door and onto the orange dirt.

A woman stands by a cart, a few steps away, soothing a horse. He can tell there are other people in the wagon the horse pulls, but he can’t see them. A second woman at the front of the cart doesn’t face him, but he can tell by the look on her face that she’s holding something in. He knows the woman by the cart. He can’t remember her face. But he knows her. He does. He swallows. He knows the look on her face. He takes off his hat, and sets it on the banister. His hair sticks up. She smiles, but it doesn’t quite meet her glassy eyes.

"Oh, Sheriff,” she says, sighing. Her voice is sad. “Won't you come with?"

He shakes his head. His heart has already leapt into his throat, as much as he tries to swallow it back down. Talking forces it back up over and over, and he can’t stop the words from pouring out of him. He never really could. He never learned how to hold his tongue.

"You know I can't do that..." he tries. The woman’s tone takes on an edge of desperation that has him blinking, swallowing down something that isn’t just his heart anymore.

"Please,” she says, spreading her hands. She steps a bit closer. She’s within arms distance, now, or, at least this is how he remembers her. “This place has nothin' for you."

He shakes his head, again. It’s the only thing he can seem to make himself do.

"I can't—” he manages. He drops his head, staring at his boots. “I can't."

The woman touches his arm. Her hand is warm against his sleeve, but he doesn’t feel it like he should.

"Please."

"I'm sorry,” he says. There, the woman pulls away. She touches his cheek, just briefly, studies his face as he looks her over. She smiles, profound and sad and a bit far away, and Jimmy thinks the look of her face up close will ever be etched into his memory. He sniffles. Her thumb drags over his cheek.

"You're a good man, Sheriff,” she says, trying to keep her voice light. “You keep that cactus alive, you hear me?"

Jimmy nods, sighing wetly as she lets him go. He laughs, the same damp sound from his chest, watching her turn away from him, watching her pet the nose of her horse as he nods again, forcing a wobbly smile onto his face.

“I will,” he says. “I promise!”

She laughs. It’s the clearest sound Jimmy’s ever heard. It’s clear, even in the fog of memory.

Jimmy watches the cart as the road turns from cobble to dirt, as the dust settles and the strong, temperate horse gains speed, as someone watches back, before the image is too blurry to see right. He turns back to the jailhouse. Something curls and dies in his chest, and for the life of him, he hopes it isn’t something important.

Cicadas start to sing again in the crisp, dead trees.

Jimmy blinks.

In the rain, on the porch, shielded from the thunder and the downpour, he sits. The memories are simply memories, nothing more. He watches a raindrop hit his boot, and pulls his legs in. His knees tuck up to his chest. He loops his arms around them, holding to each elbow, and sets his chin on one knee. The rain falls, loud, blocking out the sound of anything else. The town is still as empty as it was when he first sat. He is still a man of cloth and rope and stuffing begging to be flesh and blood again. And he’s still the sheriff of an empty town he refused to abandon.

Jimmy stares into the falling rain. He hopes something in it will fix everything. But he knows that’s not the case.

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