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Whiskey was wonderful. Some god must have taken some artistic license with it when they created it, it's golden, jeweled viscosity creating tiny waves of pure, molten ambrosia as it spilled about the emptiness of the glass and filled it to near overspill.
Whoops. Clumsy.
There was something about it's complex beauty, it's golden, viscous hue that called to what was left of the poet inside his broken soul, beckoned forth those few moments of hazy comfort and brilliant words as his eyes desperately looked forth, forever combing the shadows for his partner, his best friend, his lover...
Lost to him on this day so many's a year ago, his lover, Billy Rocks. Was it that many, really? Or was it a month ago? It never really mattered to Goodnight Robicheaux, who was sure that time had stopped that dreadful day in Rose Creek. He had never heard as sickening a sound as pained grunts bit through clenched teeth, when bullets hit his Billy's golden flesh. His own screams were nothing but soundless things that had been pushed out from between his lips as he stared up at the quickly diminishing belltower, realizing only when he'd hit the ground that he'd fallen from the church's peaked roof. He had laid on the ground, unable to move, watching the tower from the packed earth below, hoping to see anything. Be it a face looking down in concern, or another body following him down, he had no idea what to expect other than, in vain hope, signs of life. His voice had betrayed him then, unable to utter anything but nearly inaudible gasps of Billy's name. His raspy moans that became breathy screams of rage went unheard until the bullets died down, until there was, finally, only one rang out from within the church. Slow, measured footfalls from within stopped at the threshhold of the church, then rushed to his side. He opened his shuttered eyes, blind with the sting of tears, to look up into the worry-creased face of Sam Chisolm. Distantly, he could hear the old soldier's voice, a far-off echo that tried to reach him beyond the terror that he knew was dire reality; his cher was gone.
He felt the warmth of a calloused gun hand on his shoulder before he heard the scrape of a chair across thickly hewn, sawdust scattered floors. He didn't even bother looking up from his glass to see that Sam had joined him at the table. At this point, he wasn't sure that he wanted the other man's company. Had it not been his mission to bring them there in the first place? And the man had walked away completely unscathed, how infuriating was this? But he couldn't fault the man for the fate of the Owl, who Goodnight had known was going to extract a hefty toll for his participation in this bloodbath. The old sharpshooter had just not known the nature of payment, and had foolishly thought the Owl would come for his blood, instead of taking everything dear to him and leaving him nothing but a gutted shell of a man.
Goodnight looked up sullenly at the man that had taken the seat next to him, and Sam blessedly kept his mouth shut, merely had grabbed another glass and began to pour his own. Together, they passed a look towards the few in the saloon, from the random townsfolk cobbled together with bandages, to the one or two familiar faces. At the bar sat Vasquez, working his way through a bottle of tequila to match Goodnight's study of his second bottle of whiskey. They both knew that there had been something brewing between the gambler Faraday and the outlaw, but that had come to an abrupt and heartbreaking end before it could be explored further than a few nights with hurried hands and hotter mouths. Vasquez, like Goodnight, felt no hurry to leave the town with his one and only gone, and them seen forever safe within it's town limits. Sam, bless his soul, felt no desire to leave them in such a sorry state as competing for town drunk. Goodnight couldn't give two shits.
Goodnight passed a sorrowful grin through weary eyes in Sam's direction, then stood on wobbly legs that he had only recently regained proper use of. Slowly, he slid the remains of the bottle over to Sam then grabbed his cane and with barely stable steps, made his way over to the bar. He reached over the edge and snatched up another bottle, sliding it into the the pocket of his wrinkled suit before stumbling over to the stairs. Each step looked insurmountable, great impassible mountains that climbed into the darkness at the top. His eyes scanned the darkness for his Billy.
In his mind, he could almost hear him up in the shadows of the night, beckoning to him, teasing in his accent-heavy intoxication. "Get your ass up here, old man," he'd say, a narrow smile upon his rotgut-flavored lips.
"I'mma coming, ma cher, I'mma coming," he muttered, and he could suddenly feel Sam's eyes on him as he teetered at the bottom step, unaware that he'd spoken out loud. Shamefaced, cheeks burning an inferno across his face, he refused to look at Sam and hoped the drink would take the blame. How could he explain to his oldest and closest friend that the Owl had taken Billy's voice, Billy's face? What tragedy they would think of him then, more-so one than he'd originally rode into town as? That his devil had taken the guise of his only salvation?
By the time the realization had hit him like a gut punch, nauseating and audible, he'd reached the door at the end of the hall where he'd been sleeping. He'd refused the room that he'd shared with Billy prior to the battle, where they'd shared their last touches, their last kisses and words of endearment. It'd been the room where he'd left Billy to die, and he wanted no more of that memory. He figured that this was why Billy had become his new haunt; penance for running out on him that night.
The doorknob gave him no trouble, no more trouble than his trembling hand wrapped around it as he looked over his shoulder, peered into the darkness for those sharp, dark eyes, that twitch of a brow that betrayed a lightning wit. He was close, so close, as close as the Owl had ever come to him if not closer. His heart thundered in his chest, his ribs contracted and breathing became difficult. Wide-eyed, he stared into the abyss that each corner presented, ears ringing before the door creaked open and he flew inside only to slam the door behind him, back and hands splayed against the wood, the only barrier between the dimly lit room and the inky black of the hall. Slowly, he slid down the door until his ass hit the floor with a heavy thump, his eyes falling closed as he pulled the bottle from his pocket. Gasping in near panic, he pulled the cork free and tossed it across the room, gulping directly from the bottle's lips. A whimper rumbled through his chest as he fought down a sob in favor of one last swallow before forcing himself to put down the now half empty bottle, one last swallow becoming one, becoming three...
His mind was a swirl of madness, memories that had been tainted by nightmare and twisted by fear all circling the drain at the bottom of his brain, and he grabbed at the bottle one more time.
"Put it down, Goody," he heard the voice as clear as day, clearer than any other time the Owl came to speak to him. Another trick by that damned demon, he supposed, until the words drifted back in the silence of the room. "Put the bottle down, Goodnight."
Goodnight slammed the bottle down and threw his head back, heaving breaths audible, the thick sheen of sweat across
Goodnight's forehead and neck glistening in the dim light of the single lantern. "What?? What do you want, demon? You've already robbed me of every single thing, everything of value, all that I was worth and more, and now what're you here for? What have I left?" he sobbed into the night, his throat pained for the rasping of his watery voice.
Goody looked up, expecting to the see the familiar red eyes of that feathered devil now wearing his beloved's face and instead, could clearly see the concerned glow of brown velvet in the dim lamplight. He caught himself, almost reaching out a calloused hand to clasp it against Billy's warm, whiskery cheek, and he pulled his hand back as if he'd been burned. "What the fuck is this devilry?" he growled low in his chest, brows furrowing in agonizing betrayal. "How dare you? How DARE you take his face, build my hopes and prayers, play upon my heart so cruelly, you son of a bitch..." he spat.
The apparition reached forward and took the hand that Goodnight had been about to offer, a smile playing on the corner of his lips. He pressed the trembling hand to his warm, living cheek, not taking his eyes off of Goody as he turned to give it a kiss. "I'm here this time, old man."
Wide eyed, his jaw hung open in shock, he gingerly reached up with his other hand cupped the man's other cheek. Gasping, he fell foward on his knees, "Billy?" he breathed.
"It's me," the apparition answered.
"This is not... I'm not seeing things again, am I?" he whispered, his voice cautiously hopeful.
Billy replied, "Not this time." His eyes grew sad. "This ain't a social visit, Goodnight."
Goody fell forward into the other man's arms, and Billy was forced to catch him, to hold him awkwardly. When Goody could feel the warmth in the other's body, he sank into him with a smile and threw his arms around Billy. "Oh, mah Billy... ma cher... mon coeur..." He took a deep steadying breath and buried his head into Billy's coat, howling and sobbing as if he were finally feeling forgiveness for the first time. There on his knees in front of the only man who knew his sins, his salvation and reason to live, he found himself muttering broken French into Billy's dusty shoulder.
The words hadn't even registered, "This ain't a social visit, Goodnight." Not until it had felt like he'd cried until his body had nothing left. Sure he had caught them, but over the practicality of analyzing the statement, he chose the hope that his beloved had returned to him, even if only in minutes. But now he'd calmed, even had crawled a little closer to sobriety, now looked up at what he knew was virtually impossible. This was his Billy, not the face the Owl had cruelly taken, but this, knelt before him on dirty boarding room floor was corporeal in all sense of the word.
Goodnight never dropped his hands, wanting to feel more of that delicious, living warmth in his fingers, but he looked up critically at Billy now. "Why are you here then?" he rasped, brows knitted in confusion.
Billy's fingers gently wrapped around Goodnight's wrists and held them there. "You don't remember, do you?" he asked softly, carefully, as if he were afraid Goodnight would bolt. "Listen to me. You have to trust me now..."
"I trust you," Goodnight blurted out, too eager, too forceful, pleading eyes searching the other man's for some sort of lie, some hope that he was really here. "You know I will, always and forever, equal shares, n'est pas?"
Billy pressed a kiss to the palm on his right cheek. "I know. You don't remember what you did, do you?"
A shiver broke through Goodnight then, and he looked off into the distance through Billy, never taking his eyes off the man, but still staring off into far distance, through Billy's chest, out into a world of discarded memory. His brows furrowed in deep concentration, struggling to dig up something to give Billy an answer, any answer.
Taking pity on the man, the apparition in front of him lifted his hand and kissed the bloodied wrist, lips coming away wet from the dark stained fabric of his shirtsleeves. Goodnight's eyes followed the motion, fascinated, followed the darkened lips stained with blood. Suddenly, Goodnight remembered.
He stared long and mournful at the thin, artful pin in his hand. He remembered the beautiful steel, the hand carved silver of the handle, it had been a gift to Billy from his own hand, his own heart. Billy might not have known then, or even, he might have, of the Cajun sharpshooter's affection for him, the assassin was sharp that way. Perhaps that's why he'd taken to wearing it in a place of honor, tied up in the beautiful silk of his hair.
But now that beautiful face had taken the place of that damned owl, and his nightmares would never be the same.
He longed for rest, for silence, for once, never hearing that sweet smokey tone of his name on Billy's lips. The gorgeous velveteen brown of Billy's eyes had taken on a malicious red hue, and it tore him apart with every glance. He was tired. So very tired, and sleep brought no peace with it, nothing but the whiskey.
He'd drank himself long past sick when he took up Billy's pin, now rolling the smooth, callous-worked silver in his fingertips, imagining Billy do the same before spinning it like a simple toy, magic in his hands. Billy's smile came back, unbidden, to his mind and a sob escaped his lips, spittle flying before he could press the back of a fist to his lips and bite into it, trying to will away the pain, redirect it to somewhere more manageable. He growled, closing his lips around the skin now in his teeth before he let loose a muffled scream of anger. Grabbing the nearest thing to him, he didn't even register he'd thrown the bottle until he was showered with the remnants of whiskey and glass, shattered against the far wall. He went to throw the thing in his other hand until he glanced down at it and realized he'd held Billy's pin.
He knew it had to have been sharpened with meticulous care, ever quick to cut through anything Billy came to with it. Curiously, he pressed the tip of the pin to his fingertip and winced at the pearl of blood it drew. The fascination seemed to draw away some of the pain in his heart, and he pressed the tip to another fingertip, wincing in pain at that one, hissing through his teeth as blood began to dribble down his fingers.
What a morbid concept, death, but it had finally crossed his mind, the thought of his demise at his own hands. Long ago had the self absorbed and high handed ideals of Catholicism passed him by, the thought of Hell on a eternal plane and an eternity roasting if he should take his own life. No, he'd seen Hell, waded through it quite literally when he'd had to trudge through puddles of blood to flee the enemy. He was far beyond that antiquated dogma. Hell was here and now, when the face of his personal demon wore the face of his beloved and tormented him with it night and day. Death would be a vacation compared to his current level of existence. Shaking, he teasingly drew the pin across his wrist and examined the rise of red, irritated skin where he'd drawn it across the first layer. It hurt no more than his fingertips, less than, if he were being honest. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. Curiosity struck again and he drew it across his wrist again, this time, deeper. This time, a thin red line appeared, blood beading just at the surface. When once again, nothing happened, no hellfire or damnation or Sam breaking down the door or Billy to lift the pin from his hands, he figured that this was the path he was meant to take. Nothing intervened, nothing woke him from the stupor he sat in, no one stopped him from drawing the sharp edge deeper until blood eagerly spilled from the gash he'd cut in his flesh.
Nothing happened.
Angrily, he growled, "Fuck it."
Nothing was gonna happen if he did this, he would just wake up in the next morning with a hangover and a few more wounds to cover up. More things to explain away to Sam. There would be no consequences from these actions, so why not just complete the set here and now? Why leave a job only half finished, Goodnight wondered as he drew the pin across his other wrist. Satisfied that he hadn't left something unfinished, Goody fished for the bottle that he'd brought with him, only to growl in anger when he remembered that he'd thrown it. Thankfully, he had his lucky flask...
The flask that was now riddled with holes and buried with Billy.
Nothing to do but sit back and let the blackness of a drunken stupor take him. Things were slowing down now, growing sluggish, colder, and he shivered. He looked at the bed for a moment, the languished over the amount of effort it would take to get there. No, he was here and now, in a spot his ass had made warm for him, and he would be damned if he moved. Of course, his body would hate him in the morning, but with the amount of whiskey he'd drank, wouldn't it anyways?
"What..." Goodnight shook his head. "I don't understand," he breathed as he looked down at his wrists, the puddle beneath each hand, his fingers soaked with blood. "I did this..." he ventured.
"Yes," the apparition before him said simply.
Goodnight was quiet as he took in the new information. He lifted a blood caked hand to Billy's cheek, then drew away gingerly. He didn't want to get the other man's face stained more than it already was.
So this was it. He'd finally gone and finished the job the US Army couldn't. That Bogue's army couldn't. Cowardly and quiet, he'd curled up in his room and gone silent into that good night. He let his head thump against the door behind him with a rueful chuckle. "Well, if this is it, do I get a last smoke?"
The corner of the apparition's lip quirked in an attempt at a smile and stood up. "I'll even go get them for you," he replied, stalking across the room to grab the nearly empty cigarette case. He removed one and, finding the matched, proceeded to stick it in his lips and light it. Goodnight loved the poetic value, the music in the simple movements it took Billy to light a cigarette, and this being, this not-Owl, flowed identically to Billy. Goodnight could love him again.
Crouching down before Goody now, the apparition offered the smoke to the Cajun, who took it in freezing, trembling fingers. They were clumsy as they tried to hold the smoke, and taking pity on him, the apparition took the smoke and stuck it in between Goody's lips.
"Cutting on your wrists fucks with your hand function," Billy said matter-of-factly, as if it were something all men should know, and Goody nodded, as if it were something he'd always known.
Goodnight took a drag and held the smoke in his lungs, savoring the acrid flavor of tobacco and opium married together in one potent medicine. Pinching the end of the cigarette between his lips, he sighed as smoke poured from his mouth. "Thought I'd smoked the last one nights ago," he said quietly. "One last tender mercy for the damned?"
Billy shrugged. "Something like that." He took the pin from the floor where Goodnight had dropped it, wiped it on his pant leg, then went about the business of twining it into his hair. Goodnight watched with fascination, as he always had. Just as much as he loved running his fingers through those waves of black silk, he admired the music in Billy's movements when he put his hair up.
"Actually, I'm here to give you a choice. You got that honor when you summoned me."
Through narrowed eyes, Goodnight looked up at him. "What do you mean by me summoning you, Billy? For goodness sake, don't you think I'd have been summoning you this whole time if I knew that I could?" he choked out, his voice breaking with his tears. And he let them flow. He didn't wipe at them as they coursed down his cheeks to disappear into his unkempt facial hair. They cut through the dirt and blood on his skin and left clean trails of white skin in their wake.
Billy reached up and smoothed away the tears and smeared the filth when he thumbed at a droplet. His face was so mournful, Goodnight had never seen it so forlorn. "I know, yeobo."
And didn't that word just yank at everything within Goody?
Yeobo.
Husband.
"Then why now?" he grit out through clenched teeth. "Do you think I didn't want to die? I'm already dead without you, don't you realize?"
Billy grasped Goodnight's hand and brought it to his lips, closing his eyes as he pressed a kiss to the bloodied skin, and Goodnight thought he could see a tear glistening on those dark lashes. "I didn't want you to. Attach yourself to me like that, I mean."
"There was nothing else I wanted to live for!" Goody snapped as his body sat forward. It was a movement that ached, so he slumped back against the door, exhausted. "All the good, all the beauty and worth and... and it was all you. You... You were all that I lived for, and now, you're gone, what's left for me but this Hell or the next? I'm damned, I know, and which Hell I'm sent to doesn't matter. I've lived through the worst of it if I live without you," he gasped out, letting his eyes slide shut. It was getting hard to focus now.
The apparition nodded and took Goodnight's other hand in his, clasping them together against his lips. The skin was cold, white from loss of blood and trembling. Billy regarded the ashen face, the struggling breaths, the slack jaw as the man seemed to struggle to get enough oxygen. Finally, after a moment of silence, he sighed. "Come with me, then."
Sluggishly, Goodnight opened his eyes and focused on Billy. "Come again?"
"Come with me," Billy repeated. "That's why I'm here. To give you a choice."
The brilliant blue of Goodnight's eyes were becoming glossy, but the fear could be read in them regardless. "I'm afraid, Billy... I've spent my life dodging death, first, because... Because it's what the Army asked of me. Second..." he closed his eyes, seeming to struggle with a breath, before opening them to focus on Billy. "The second, because I knew Hell was waiting... I knew... But... I was living in Hell this whole time without you."
"No time for poetry, Goody. Come with me."
Goodnight looked at the hand before him before he let the cigarette fall from his lips, and slowly, slid his trembling hand in to the knife-calloused one offered to him. "Always..."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Sam's steps were uneven as they staggered to his room. While he'd lost some of his men, the majority had lived and the town had survived, with Bogue now comfortably rotting in his grave. It had been a month and the scent of gunpowder still lingered in air. While he'd had to bury Billy, Horne, and what remained of Faraday, he'd emerged victorious on the other side of the war once more, alive and standing. He allowed himself a small smile for victory, but not so much. There were still people to mourn.
However, he'd earned the right to a night or two lost in the embrace of lovely, warm whiskey.
Before he reached his door, he stopped to consider Goodnight's. The man hadn't been sleeping with his door locked. In fact, few times, he'd managed to close the door at all. This hadn't stopped Sam from checking in on him nightly, making sure the man had made it to bed, or had at least taken off his boots. The man had refused to carry a gun, had barely come down from his room in much more than his trousers and shirtsleeves, so Sam wasn't took worried about his state of dress.
The man had received an unearthly shock. Sam had known, from the first glance, that Billy had been dear to Goody, the Cajun prone to fits of codependency. However, he hadn't understood the depths of it until he found Goodnight crumpled on the ground outside the church, clutching not a wound, but his heart, as he breathily cried out Billy's name. After what Sam had lost, he'd figured it out pretty quickly that the man had lost his beloved. He was shocked to realize that he'd seen it every day they'd been together, each glance, the brush of fingers when whiskey or cigarettes were exchanged, how close they sat to one another. He'd seen the hidden touches, heard the low, sweet way they'd talked together. He'd lost his wife in Lincoln, Kansas, he knew what love looked like.
Sam's heart ached for Goodnight and his lost love. He'd been a mess when Melissa had been murdered, drank himself into anger until vengeance took his heart. But there was no revenge for Goodnight, there would be no closure. The man would forever be unable to appreciate the good they'd done here, just as Sam felt a hollow victory in Bogue's final demise.
The doorknob to Goodnight's door turned, but the door refused to open more than an inch with effort. Worried, Sam's eyes flew to the bottom of the door, eager to see some light through the threshold, but there was nothing but the dim glow of the lamp, just a sliver. Something sat in front of the door. Sam's breathing became labored, quick as he pushed harder at the door, only to be rewarded with the sound of cloth brushing against the wood on the opposite side, and a quiet thump.
Perhaps Goodnight had passed out on the other side of the door, poor old man. Sam pushed at the door harder. "Goodnight," he called softly. "C'mon. Time to wake up, Goody."
The mass on the other side of the door didn't move. A sound, wet and sticky, met his foot when his boot slid across the floor. His eyes fell to the floor once more, and he began to panic at the tiny dark puddle that seemed to originate from the other side of the door. "Goodnight. Come on, brother, move away from the door." His words went unanswered, growing a little more urgent, and he heaved his shoulder at the solid wood. Sluggishly, it opened, and he was rewarded with the sight of an ashen Goodnight, slumped into a puddle of his own blood.
"No," Sam breathed, the air knocked out of him by the vision of his best and oldest friend crumpled on the floor. "No!" he barked loudly and he flew into the room, kneeling before the cooling face of the Cajun sharpshooter. He slid his hand below the other man's face, his eyes watery and brow furrowed as he offered the only comfort he could give. The man's eyes fluttered before he took one deep breath and smiled.
"Billy... I'm comin'..."
The air escaped the dying man as his breath pushed out of him in one long, raspy sigh. Sam's hand lay upon Goody's chest, feeling the sluggish heartbeat still below his palm. His head fell to his chest in sorrow. Sam was always a rational, practical person, and though he felt the same heartbreak he'd felt in the war with fallen brother after brother. An old soldier at rest finally, and in the arms of the one he loved.
Sam heaved a heavy sigh and slid his arms beneath the Cajun's shoulders and with great effort, lifted the man and carried him to the bed. The least he could do is give the man some dignity as he arranged the man's arms in the bed and crossed his hands over his chest. He heard the tinny sound of metal on metal and he looked to Goodnight's neck only to see a thin, gold necklace, weighed down to the thin pillow by a handsome gold ring.
He swallowed thickly as he realized that the man hadn't lost his lover. He'd lost his partner.
"I'm sorry," Sam whispered to Goodnight, as if the apology would make much of a difference now. He'd asked it of Goodnight to come to this town, to take the chance that he'd survive the onslaught of another army, given that the ridiculous, chivalrous, and loyal friend would never turn down his requests. With a simple question, he'd begged the old man to come to his side and face certain death. Guilt filled his heart.
"I'm so sorry," sighed, running his hand over his face and bare head, gathering tears that threatened at the corners of his eyes. And with another heartbroken sigh, he left the room to inform the rest of the surviving crew that Goodnight had walked off into the sunset with Billy.
A distant spirit watched soulfully as his best friend left the room. He couldn't bring himself to look at the body in the bed, the cold, empty shell that had once been a broken man.
"Goodnight," Billy whispered over his shoulder and he turned to see his beloved, his cher, standing behind him with a hand outstretched. "Time to go."
Goody began to tremble, picking at his nails as fear clutched his heart, terror filled his eyes. Trepidation squeezed at his heart. And Billy could see it, his lips twisting up in a rare, secret smile that had only been reserved for Goodnight, and even then had only been on occasion. It was meant as a comfort that Goody was happy to accept and his hands fell to his lapels, nervous to find something to do as he shifted from foot to foot.
"You're not going to Hell, Goody. No such thing."
Goodnight shook his head. "I've seen Hell, been through Hell, suffered it every day," he answered quietly, his head bowed. "Scared of the unknown, mon amour."
"Do you trust me?"
"Implicitly," Goody answered, head flying up to stare at the apparition, brows crawling into his hairline as he took a step towards Billy, his face painted with apology. "You're my raison d'etre!"
"Then come with me," Billy murmured, and Goodnight slid his hand into the assassin's, feeling a peace and calm wash over him as he, truly for the first time, felt complete.
Together, they walked into forever.