(no subject)

[lastgunslinger]

Call it whatever you like.

A long bath, today. Black jeans. White shirt of soft lambswool, with white embroidery. Even his boots look well cared-for.

Call it intuition, for Roland Deschain has ever listened to the small voice inside.

He is sitting in his chair, smoking, and remembering his room in the Dreaming: a window of stained glass with a sky so blue it must be dream, an impossibly green-leafed

(world)

tree, and two trellises of twined roses.

He fingers the silver cross and silver medal around his neck, unconsciously.

Comments

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

Alain nods, silently, and returns the smile. Barely a twitch of the lips, but it stays in his eyes, soft and sad.

He squeezes Roland's shoulder, and then lets his hand drop.

He'll go down with him, of course. No question of it, and no thought otherwise. They all stand alone before the darkness, but it is a small mercy and grace to do it shoulder-to-shoulder.

[lastgunslinger]

He goes to the door, and makes to head out -- but pauses.

His hand, consciously now, goes to his throat, and the twin weights he carries there.

Down and across, his thumb traces; and around.

A smoke-cracked, dust-hoarse voice: The only things that matter are what a man can do an' a man can't do. I couldn't change that place, not get meself unbound any quicker. What I could do was take it as it was an' make a life there.

It is then that he feels the weight at his left hip, and though he knows what it is -- he is a gunslinger; how could he not? -- he looks down anyhow, and closes his eyes.

His hands go to the buckle, and Roland Deschain takes off his gunbelt, folds it, and lays it on the foot of the bed.

Then, without looking at Alain, he leaves Room 99.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

Alain is still, for a moment, looking at his friend's back. Straight and stiff -- unbowed, at whatever cost.

The gun on the bed, behind him, is an almost palpable presence. The gun of his father. Roland's hip looks narrow and bare without it.

Alain realizes, as he does periodically, how very much Roland looks like Steven Deschain, these days. Older, even, and more weathered, and without the handlebar mustache, but...

There is a knot of pain, in his chest, like a fist clenched to aching.

He breathes out, and follows (http://www.livejournal.com/community/milliways_bar/5094141.html), closing the door behind him.