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The moon is their only witness.
The stars look down on their figures sitting in a field of grass, passing a bottle of whiskey between their fingers. The grass itself sways in the slight breeze that tickles their skin. It’s a beautiful night—even their horses are lying together yards away, neighing quietly amongst themselves.
When one drinks as consistently and regularly as Doc Holiday, it is difficult to tell when they are truly drunk. But Wyatt knew Doc, and knew the signs of when the man across from him was feeling the alcohol more than usual. He watches as the man brings his flask up to his lips to take a long sip.
His other hand is in Wyatt’s own, their fingers tangled together. The moon is the only witness to this, along with its army of stars.
There were benefits of drinking alone with Doc in an isolated place that felt like the very edge of existence. Primarily, the ability to be able to touch each other in ways that would quickly raise questions anywhere else. It made their tongues loosen along with their muscles. The drinking helped; Wyatt can’t imagine sharing company with Doc and not having alcohol in the equation.
He can’t judge the man. He was dying, and when all else fails, alcohol begs for a chance to soothe.
Doc’s skin looks even more pale beneath the light of the moon, but he still exudes controlled power. Clad in a white shirt and trousers, Wyatt can see the scars on the man’s arms from years of delivering and receiving pain.
They had been talking about nothing and everything for a while. Doc always managed to bring up philosophical debates with no end, but streams of consciousness flowing towards a metaphorical sea. Their voices were low and soaked in whiskey.
“Y’know, Doc, if I could make a deal with the Devil, you know what I’d ask for?” Wyatt feels above himself, his body buzzing with the sweet liquor. He feels like he can say whatever he wants in this place beyond time and society and the world. He watches his horse lean closer to Doc’s horse, rubbing their heads together. Maybe they feel the same thing he does.
“What would a lawman like you ask for?” Doc giggled, taking a drag from the cigar between his fingers. “World peace? For every criminal to drop dead at your feet?”
Wyatt scoffs in disbelief. Doesn’t Doc know that if he asked for every criminal to die, they would both be twisted in death as well? They were no angels.
“No, you idiot.” He reaches over to place his hand on the other man’s cheek, forcing their eyes to meet. He leans in and slots his lips with Doc’s, letting out a soft groan when Doc twists them for Wyatt’s back to lay back on the grass. They continue until Doc needs to breathe ragged breaths that he feels against his cheek. “I would make a deal for more time.”
“Time?”
“Time for us. For you. Time to figure out life and all its mysteries together.”
He watches Doc’s eyes harden and his lips thin into a line. His heart sinks. Ah, hell, Wyatt. What’d you do wrong this time?
The man hefts himself off of Wyatt to straddle his waist, and Wyatt can feel his heartbeat quicken at the weight above him. But he feels confusion mix with the stupid, drunk love in his mind. If Doc wants to be intimate, why does he look so upset?
“My Wyatt…what if I don’t want more time?”
Wyatt feels his heart sink farther towards the center of the earth and his breath catches in his throat.
“What…what’s that mean?”
He watches, frozen in drunk horror as Doc reaches over to where he had previously put down his gun belt. He watches him take out the pistol from the holster, and feels Doc put it in his palm. The metal is heavy and reflects the moonlight like a threat.
He remembers to breathe only by miracle when the man curls Wyatt’s finger around the handle.
Hell.
Doc lifts Wyatt’s hand up until the barrel of the gun is pointed between his own glazed-over eyes. A single tear slips out of Doc’s left eye as he closes his eyelids, lips trembling as he lets out a pitiful sigh.
Wyatt can’t feel the breeze anymore, or see anything besides the man above him, who he is involuntarily pointing a gun at.
How does one focus on anything else in these terrible moments, when the person they love is breaking their heart into a million pieces between their bloodied fingers?
“Wyatt, I…I feel the consumption in every b-bone in my body. I feel it every time I breathe, e-eating away at my very soul.”
Doc is speaking softly, his eyes still closed. His hands are wrapped around Wyatt’s own around the gun, and Wyatt’s panicked breaths come out quicker when he sees that Doc’s finger is on the trigger. His drunken state makes his limbs tremble, and his index is no exception. Christ.
“I wish I could live a life with you. By your side. But I cannot. The devil will not allow it.”
Tears run down the side of Wyatt’s face, dripping down into the soil. He hears his own breaths in his ears, quick and unstable, as if a house were being built brick by brick upon his chest. The gun feels hot in his hand, an inferno in his palm.
“Doc…don’t do this. I don’t want to hurt you.” His lips feels dry and he licks them in a desperate attempt to calm his thoughts. “I will never hurt you, no matter how badly you beg.”
“Don’t you understand, Wyatt?” He is really drunk, Wyatt can tell from the way his words form on his tongue—less intentional, and more like the syllables were falling from his lips with Doc too intoxicated to stop them. “I am a curse to you. Even…even if the devil granted us more time, it would only provide more time for me to corrupt you. So please…if you have any mercy for me or dignity for yourself…let me pull the trigg—”
At this, Wyatt regained control of his limbs and jerked the pistol back, throwing Doc off balance before tossing the gun a few yards away. Wyatt didn’t hesitate to lean forward and wrap his arms around Doc’s waist, holding him close to his chest that felt as though it were about to burst. He presses a harsh kiss into Doc’s soft hair.
“Doc, you’re going to listen to me very clearly, alright?” He felt Doc nod into his neck. “If you are a curse, I succumb to it. If you are holding me back, I don’t mind living to whenever or wherever you tether me. Tombstone or hell itself, I don’t mind.”
”Why?” And here is where Wyatt can especially tell when Doc is not in his sober mind. Doubt laces his words in a way that never does when he’s not intoxicated. And behind his voice lingers something that he would never think to attribute to the man against him: insecurity.
“Because I am hopelessly in love with you, you fool.” He huffs out a laugh before letting Doc lie beside him, their nose touching under the moonlight. “And I’m not dumb enough to waste the time I have left with you, got it?”
He watches Doc shut his eyes and take a deep breath. He can practically hear his lungs struggling to keep from heaving.
"Ubi amor, ibi dolor." Doc whispers into the night, cracking his eyes open to look at Wyatt.
Wyatt smirks, “Doc, you know what you speakin’ another language does to me.” He feels giddy again, and it’s like whiplash. But then again, that’s how it always feels like with Doc. One minute he’s racing to the heavens only to be kissed back towards hell. “What’s that mean?”
“It means,” when the man leans in, Wyatt instinctively closes his eyelids only to feel Doc’s cold lips upon them, “’with love,’” he kisses the other eyelid at this, “’there’s pain.’”
Wyatt can’t help but whisper: “I think it’s hotter to stop asking for translations and pretend it’s just you talking absolute filth to me, Doc Holliday.”
Doc takes the hint and presses Wyatt back into the Earth, kissing him senseless for a while under the night sky. This place feels like the edge of their universe, and Wyatt basks every minute within it. He knows that Doc won’t stop asking him to leave him to die, or even drunkenly begging him to bring about the end himself. Wyatt is, unfortunately, used to this kind of discussion. It always ends the same.
But the grass scratches his skin just as Doc’s hands drag down his body, and he can’t think of anything else. Questions concerning death and a higher power melt away under Doc’s fingers against him.
Wyatt glances over at the horses and smiles fondly at how they have fallen asleep close together, heads sitting softly on the ground side by side.
“I am sorry, Wyatt.” Doc’s voice brings him back. “I should not have forced your hand that way. It was a moment of weakness.”
Wyatt smiles up at Doc, trying to relieve his thoughts with his own. His fingers trace around Doc’s face, beneath his eyes before running through his hair.
“You can be weak with me, Doc. I’m strong enough to put you back together.”
Their fingers intertwine above Wyatt’s head, his wrists pinned as Doc kisses him lightly.
“And you can be weak with me as well, my Wyatt,” Doc smiles down at him, his eyes rivaling the stars for how mesmerizing they could be, “And I’ll do my best to pick you up.”
The moon is their only witness. It cannot grant them more time, but it can grant safety and tranquility under its presence.