bakerstreet | ( picture prompt meme )

[Open to gen or shipping. Let me know if you'd like a fix-it AU or not.]

The one thing that always stays the same, no matter where Billy was, is the night sky.

When he'd first come over the sea to America, it had been the only thing that brought him any sort of comfort. Knowing that, when he looked up, the same sky in Korea looked back at him in this uncertain place. No matter how bad the day had been or how close the calls had been, every night, without fail, the stars would be there.

He'd tried to explain it to Goodnight a few times, but it was hard to put into words. Even in his own language, let alone in English.

Maybe it didn't need to be explained at all.

Sitting on the porch of the saloon, Billy raised the glass of whiskey to his lips and took a long sip of it, eyes locked heavenward. It was overcast, at the moment. The clouds covering the sky he needed so badly, tonight. But he'd wait all evening, if he had to. Clouds couldn't last forever.

And, for the moment, he had nothing but time.

All things considered, none of them should have lived.

Faraday was a gambling man, had an intuition for odds and chances, knew when a wager was safe or wildly risky. Betting high on a four of a kind was a safe bet, for instance. Betting everything on a suicidal job for a town called Rose Creek, on the other hand, was monumentally stupid.

So it was a damn good thing Faraday always did have an affinity for stupid wagers.

It was a bet that nearly cost him his life, though; one that nearly cost everyone their lives, once the Gatling gun came into play. Another stupid gamble with his life took the Devil's breath out of play, and Faraday had thought triumphantly as he faded away, Well, at least I won.

He hadn't expected to come out alive. None of them did, really, though Faraday imagined they all must have hoped. And apparently their wishing worked, because they all came out the other side victorious, though not unscathed. Wounded and healing, the seven stayed behind, watched as Rose Creek pulled itself out of the ashes, started to recover.

Faraday's body had been broken by the blast, peppered with bullets from his final charge, but a month and some change later, he healed enough to hobble around with the help of a crutch. It was a miracle he lived, they told him over and over. God must have smiled on him, they said, must still be smiling for him to have recovered as much as he had in such a short amount of time. Faraday knew the truth of it, though: his dumb luck was what shined on him that day, and his bull-headed stubbornness continued to see him through his convalescence. His left leg was still broken, his right arm splinted and hanging in a sling from his neck, and his ribs still twinged if he breathed the wrong way, but that hadn't stopped him from being an absolute menace to his nurses. Hadn't stopped him from escaping the confines of his bed and room, either, which was how he ended up on the streets of Rose Creek, the clouds hanging high overhead, hobbling his way over to the saloon.

He slowed as he approached, spotting Billy on the porch. He frowned at him, coming closer.

"What are you doing down here?" asked the proverbial kettle of the pot. Faraday hadn't been the only one wounded, after all.

It probably said something about Billy's state of mind that Faraday was able to sneak up on him. Especially since 'sneaking up' entailed him walking over on a damned crutch and, even then, he wasn't walking at a very fast speed. Nor silently. But still, Billy hadn't noticed him at all until the question broke the silence and made him startle a bit. Some whiskey fell out of his glass and onto the floor. Luckily for him, it fell right next to the bottle he had, there. A gift from the bartender who's life he saved and seemed determined to save it through the destruction of Billy's liver.

At least all the damage was free.

Settling back down, Billy sipped his drink and turned his attention back to the sky. For a moment, it was almost as though he were planning to ignore the other man completely. But after a small, quiet exhale, he finally gave his reason.

"Goody has another infection."

He punctuated it by finishing his glass. Because he knew Faraday would be able to fill in the blanks. Out of all of the seven, Goodnight had experienced the most bumpy recovery of them all. Which was strange, since Faraday had been adjacent to a Goddamn explosion. But facts remained facts. And Goodnight remained in bed even a month after the battle with healing bones and wounds that either healed over or (most often) got infected to the point where his fever burned him alive. He'd had three, already. And now came the fourth on the tail of the last one. Billy had been all but dragged out of the room and told to wait for word. He couldn't blame them, of course. He was a friend, after all. Nothing more than a close friend. And he wasn't helping anyone by prolonging his own recovery by sitting vigil at his bedside, not sleeping or eating until the damned fever broke.

Billy pulled out the bottle and refilled his glass, keeping his eyes on the sky. The clouds weren't abating. Maybe that meant rain. Billy hoped it meant rain. Maybe if the air cooled a bit, it would help Goodnight.

His second glass was half swallowed before he turned and looked at Faraday once more.

"You can share this."

A generous offer.

"I shouldn't drink all of it. Just in case..." In case something happened, tonight. He doesn't say it, but it's loudly stated in the silence, all the same.

At the mention of Goodnight's new infection, Faraday sucked in a breath, wincing, and muttered a quiet, "Shit."

Faraday's own recovery hadn't been nearly so difficult – a comparatively smooth line, he supposed. He'd stayed unconscious for almost a week after the fight before he finally clawed his way back to the world of the living, and his first few moments had been an agony-filled haze before they got some laudanum into him. Since then, though, his mulish nature had pulled him through, kept pulling him through, and while he was nowhere near fully recovered, he was still doing surprisingly well, considering he had nearly blown himself to bits.

Goodnight, though. Seemed recovery hadn't come nearly so easy for the Cajun, and the bad luck refused to let up. Faraday wasn't given much opportunity to visit with the others, though when he slipped out of his room, he sometimes risked it. (In his mind, he likened it to visiting his fellow prisoners.) A lot of the time, Goodnight simply wasn't well enough for Faraday to pop in, so he whiled away his time with an ornery Jack Horne, playing cards until a nurse shooed him away.

Faraday frowned a little before he limped forward, closing the distance between him and Billy. Climbing the steps to the porch was slightly awkward, but he managed it all the same. He used his crutch to drag a chair closer, all but falling into it. He stretched out his injured leg, spent a brief moment massaging the tense muscles of his thigh where a bullet had torn through, letting out a sharp exhale.

"He'll be fine," Faraday said at length. Not that he was any authority on medicine, but Billy seemed like he could use the reassurance. "He's a stubborn ol' cuss. I'm sure it'll pass. Has every time so far, hasn't it?"

His hands dropped from his leg, and he reached out a hand for the glass. Too lazy to go inside to grab another tumbler, but polite enough not to take a pull directly from the bottle. Apparently the man had some manners.

"I'm guessin' they kicked you out?" Because why else would Billy be down here? For as much of a fool as Faraday seemed to be, he wasn't blind. Gambler that he was, he knew how to read people, knew how to read certain tells that signaled a bluff or a valuable hand. There was an unmistakable closeness between Billy and Goodnight – something Faraday had picked up on that first day in Volcano Springs – but it was something guarded, something private, something likely to earn a man a knife to the throat if he pried into it the wrong way.

Billy refilled the glass and handed it over. That alone was enough to remind him of the way he and Goodnight would pass their flask back and forth. Their cigarettes. Everything they had, really. How long had it been since they'd stopped having personal belongings? Everything just fell into the pot of 'ours', free for someone to take or leave however it suited them.

The fact that all of those items might belong to just him now was daunting. Overwhelming, even. Especially since he didn't want them in the slightest. What would he do with Goody's rifle? His hat? What would he do with the boots he'd mistakenly pulled on that one morning in Arizona when they'd been desperate to run away from the men they'd swindled the night before. But even in their frenzy, they'd been almost bent over laughing as Billy hopped around with a boot too small and no way of getting it off.

He doesn't want those boots. They don't fit and then belong with Goody.

He exhales and closes his eyes, reaching into his jacket for one of the cigarettes he saves for his friend's episodes. They had an agreement to never use the opium for recreational use, but this didn't feel recreational. It felt medicinal, down to the soles of his feet.

"Yeah," he finally answered, opening his eyes but not looking at anything. "I called the doctor a fraud. A few other things in Korean, too. Sam dragged me out and told me to come back in a few hours when they knew more." The cigarette is lit and he takes a nice, long drag off of it. Lets the drug do its work.

"If he makes it through the night, he'll probably make it." The way he says 'probably' isn't overly optimistic. He'd been told this exact line three times, now. And Goody had barely gotten through the last one. How was he supposed to deal with another on its heels?

And how could they keep him away, like this? His place was at Goody's side. But short of drawing his knives and demanding a place there, there was nothing much he could do. Billy looked over at Faraday and stretched his hand out for the glass again.

"If he dies while I'm out here..."

He doesn't finish the sentence, but the threat is clear. The warning, as well. Because Faraday had no hand in this and Billy knows that, now. He just doesn't quite know if he'd remember, should the worst happen.

Faraday took a long pull from the glass, let the whiskey burn a line down his throat. He watched Billy as he struggled through whatever feelings he had to unravel, whatever barriers he had erected. Faraday had no idea what he must have been feeling, admittedly; friendly and talkative a bastard as he was, Faraday didn't have much in the way of actual friends. Sure, plenty of acquaintances and quite a lot of men who knew him by name and reputation, but never anyone for whom he'd willingly lay down his life, no one who would do the same for him.

... Until recently, anyway. And Faraday still had trouble figuring out where, exactly, he stood with all of these men. The month and handful of weeks had done little to help him, in that regard.

Even so, his friendship (such as it was) with the others was nowhere near the type of relationship Billy and Goodnight shared, whatever form that took. And seeing Billy so shaken, when normally he was so calm, so damned unflappable – well, that must have meant this was serious, indeed. As Billy reached over for the glass, stared him down and made his threats, Faraday returned the look with a flat one of his own.

"What?" There's a bit of a challenge in Faraday's voice – stupid, probably, but what else was new? "You plannin' on a rampage or something? 'Cause we've already lived through one of those, thanks very much. Don't think there's a one of us who would appreciate another."

He slapped the glass into Billy's outstretched hand, some of the whiskey splashing over the rim.

"Give the old man some credit, why don't you? He's got the disposition of a mule. He'll dig his heels in. His pride won't let him get taken down by a fever."

"I'm not planning anything." And that was the truth. He was barely thinking at all. Just...existing. Waiting. All he had stretching before him was time. And that time was either going to have Goodnight in it or it wasn't. And he had no idea what he would do if it didn't. He'd never expected or planned for such a thing.

'Where I go, Billy goes'.

He sips on the drink, then holds it in his hand for a moment as a cloud passes and finally gives him a view of the stars. He sighs in relief, allowing the brief little window to relax him before the next cover comes and fills it in, like it was never there at all. He raises the glass again and swallows a large gulp, handing it back to Faraday the moment he's done with it.

"I'm allowed to worry," he countered Faraday's optimism with. But there was no point in it. Goodnight was either going to make it or he wasn't. And he wasn't going to know which it was for another few hours.

He sighs again, looking away from the sky and over toward his companion.

"You have your cards?" He knows a whole two games and one of them he's pretty sure Goodnight made up, but the other is blackjack. And everyone knows that game. "I could use something to do other than drink."

Faraday noticed the way the brief flash of starlight seemed to give Billy comfort, though he had no idea why. Maybe some spiritual thing, he assumed. Maybe just an affinity for starlight. In either case, it seemed to calm him some, however briefly, and that was something, wasn't it?

He took back the glass, examining its amber contents for a brief second before stretching out and scooping up the bottle from the porch.

"Worry all you like," Faraday said, refilling the glass; his voice stayed light – not quite irreverent, but neither was it weighed down with his concern (though he certainly felt it). "I'm just sayin', it won't do you much good."

With the glass full again, Faraday took a drink, sighing as the burning sensation passed. Once he handed the glass back to Billy, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. A new deck – a gift from Teddy Q, of all people – since his old deck was scattered and torn and burned in the explosion.

"What do you feel like?" He mixed the cards in a lazy overhand shuffle. "Poker? Cassino? Twenty-one?"

He has no idea what cassino is, but he's almost sure 'Twenty-one' is blackjack. Although, Goody had been meaning to teach him poker for awhile, now. He liked the game and had always been eager to play when they had some time in a town where most of the men didn't just lose their savings in their betting ring. If he made it through the night, Billy would need to figure out some way of keeping him entertained while also not getting him out of the bed. This, it seemed, was then effective on two levels.

"Poker," he decides. "But you're going to have to teach me."

He grabs the glass and takes a long drink from it. The light that comes through the saloon is enough to allow them to see their cards but also just dark enough to allow them a semblance of privacy, here in the corner. He rests the glass on the floor, next to the bottle, and scraps his chair closer to Faraday, wincing a bit in the process as he pulled on healing wounds to do so.

"Goody told me the basics. You want the faces, same suit. After that, it's more confusing."

He shifts a bit, eyes drifting over to the inn where they were all staying. The lights in the rooms were all still on. His gaze doesn't stay there long.

"I learn fast," he warns out of kindness. "You'll lose your money quick."

Sharp as his gaze was, Faraday noticed the way Billy winced as he drew closer, and his eyes narrowed a little. Keep an eye on that one, he thought. Faraday didn't know the man very well, but he had the feeling Billy probably downplayed a lot of his pain. A hunch, though, that's all it was. Gambler's intuition.

He kept the thought to himself, continuing his easy sort of shuffle, made awkward with trying to keep his right arm as immobile as possible, while his left hand did all the real shuffling. Faraday was unsure which had broken his right arm, the blast or the subsequent landing, but in either case, it hurt like the dickens, and he tried to avoid moving it as much as possible to encourage its healing. Billy's warning was met with a laugh, half-snorted. He glanced up, offered a wry, challenging sort of grin.

"We'll see about that, friend."

Because as good as Billy ever got – and Faraday had little doubt that the man would get good at this, eagle-eyed and clever as the man was – Faraday always had a few tricks up his sleeve, was always clever with the cards. There was a reason, after all, why he made at least half his living at card tables.

After that, he explained the ranks of the hands – generally the easiest thing to cover, and the first thing he had personally learned as he was starting out. Then, Faraday explained the order of play, how betting worked, how a normal round played out.

It was a crash course, admittedly, and Faraday shrugged his good shoulder, saying, "Easiest to learn as you go. We can do a few experimental rounds, see how you like it."

Faraday leaned forward, intent on dealing, but his right arm protested the movement, and he bit down on his lower lip to keep from hissing. Once the pain passed, he let out a long breath, staring critically at the cards in his left hand, before hesitantly holding them out to Billy.

"I'd normally be happy to deal, but..." He trailed off, nodding jerkily to his sling.

Billy took the cards and held them respectfully in his own. He knew Faraday liked these things more than he probably liked a lot of people. So, with care, he dealt out the right amount of cards and then set the deck on the ledge of the windowsill nearest to them. His glass was picked up, another swig taken before being handed over to Faraday. It was only then that he looked at his cards.

And realized that he had pretty much nothing. But this was where the true game of poker came in, he recalled. He'd watched Goody so many times as he held a handful of nothing and still managed to win someone's prize horse. Billy was sure he'd never be that good, but he was skilled at keeping his face neutral. And that would have to take the place of all Goody's words.

He turned in two cards and drew two more. A pair of Queens was all he had. But that was fine. This was just trying it out, after all.

"How's Vasquez?" Billy asks, trying not to think about the fact that, across the way, there seems to be a lot of movement in Goody's room. It could just be them changing some of the dressings, after all. He wouldn't know because he was banished.

"I've been busy," he continues shortly. "Haven't kept up. He's all mended, yes?" And if that sounds bitter, it might just be. Not that Billy wanted the man hurt, of course. But. Well. He'd trade a great many things for his friend to pull through, tonight. And he can't help but begrudge the people who already have.

Himself included.

Faraday observed closely as Billy dealt – in part because, being an occasional cheat himself, he had learned to watch the dealer for any signs of foul play, but also because strangely, selfishly, he did like this new deck of cards. Sentimental of him, maybe, but they had been a gift – and those were terribly rare for a man like Faraday. (He rarely deserved gifts, after all; rarely did anything to deserve them in the first place.) Billy's care with the cards made something pinch in Faraday's chest briefly. Gratitude, maybe. Possibly embarrassment for appreciating it as much as he did. Hard to pick it out from the messy tangle of emotions that had been coiling in him since the fighting ended.

His own hand ended up being equally unimpressive: a five, a six, an eight, a nine, and a King of Hearts. A gutshot draw, and he huffed out a near silent laugh. He took the suicide king as a sign, tried his chances on drawing a seven; lucky son of a bitch that Faraday usually was, it apparently failed him this time, and the draw produced a three. The round went to Billy, and Faraday took the loss without a fuss.

Faraday glanced up at the mention of Vasquez and felt a quick pang of something that might have been guilt. The two of them had been rooming together at the boarding house turned makeshift hospital. Practical reasons, mostly, given the state of Faraday and Vasquez's relative health. And during Faraday's convalescence, he had slipped away from Vasquez's watchful gaze more than a few times – in much the same way as he was doing now.

Whoops.

Vasquez had escaped the fight relatively unscathed, suffering a wound to his arm that was quickly stitched up once the dust settled. It healed cleanly – weeks ago, in fact, which made Faraday wonder why the man didn't simply take his share of the gold and get out while the getting's good.

"He's fine."

And the bitterness didn't escape Faraday's notice, though he offered only the slightest narrowing of his eyes in response. Billy was upset, embittered by the uncertainty of Goodnight's current state, which Faraday understood to an extent – but that was a dangerous tone he was taking.

"What about you?" Faraday looked up at the other man, gaze sharp and watchful. "You been takin' care of yourself?"

Billy glanced up at the question, but didn't provide much by way of a response. The next hand was dealt and Billy had a four, five, and a six. Not the same suit, but he liked those odds a bit more than chancing on another pair. He traded in cards and got nothing for his troubles. He tapped the hand on the side of his chair and looked back towards the sky.

It was going to rain. Had to, clouds like this. He wondered if it would even wait till morning for the heavens to open and the remaining blood on the ground to finally be washed away.

He wondered who would be around to see it.

"I'm alive," he explains belatedly. And it's not an answer to Faraday's question while at the same time being the perfect answer. He's alive. Which is all that's necessary, right now. No need to do anything more or less when others didn't have the same assurances.

He picks up his drink and swallows a generous amount before fishing around for a cigarette. And that's a pretty good answer, too.

"You don't have to look at me, like that," Billy exhales with a slow stream of smoke. His eyes close, the act of smoking forcing him to breathe slowly. "I'm not going to hurt anyone. Even if I wanted to." He looks over at Faraday. "We don't have to talk, if it bothers you."

The offer of silence made Faraday screw up his nose in distaste. Sure, Billy was being slightly... intense, but Faraday figured that was about normal for the man. Or at least, that was about what Faraday had come to expect, especially considering after their official introduction back in Volcano Springs, an off-hand joke had Faraday thinking Billy would legitimately toss that hairpin of his straight into Faraday's throat.

Faraday had quickly backed off at the time, just as Billy had, and Faraday hoped the same would happen again, if either of them crossed a line.

"Never said I was bothered," he replied lightly, as Faraday tended to do. Easier to offer a quick joke than a kind word. "Never said I was worried, neither. But now I'm startin' to wonder' if I ought to confiscate those knives of yours."

There was a thread of truth to the words, but the wry tilt of his smile, the quirk of his eyebrow, did will to mask it.

A quick examination of his hand showed him a pair of sixes, and his luck didn't change after the redraw. Nothing to write home about, but enough to win him the showdown, at least. As Billy dealt out the next hand, Faraday glanced up at the sky, trying to suss out what, exactly, the other man was examining.

"You lookin' for somethin' up there?"

The next hand has a pair of sevens and a pair of twos. He trades in the spare and picks up another two, making him have the first good hand of the night. He can't help but smile a bit, feeling like he might finally be getting the hang of this, now. And maybe the increased luck was a good sign of things to come, going forward.

His head tilts, looking over at Goody's room. The activity is over but there are people still standing around, the silhouettes visible from where he's sitting. No movement, he decides, is just as troublesome as a lot of movement. All in all, nothing about any of it looks good, actually. Nothing except Sam coming to get him and to tell him the fever broke.

At Faraday's question, his attention snaps back, eyes blinking as he refocuses.

"Stars," he says plainly. But, because it's not that bad of a story, he shrugs a shoulder and leans back in the chair. "Same constellations as back home. I like seeing them. Reminds me we're all still on the same world." He glances at the sky and sees a small window in the clouds. It lets the moon through, a few stars twinkling beside it.

"It's comforting. Or it would be." He frowns as the clouds roll back. "Rain is coming in. Ruins the view."

He shows his hand but watches Faraday instead of what he turns over.

"What do you do? Drink?"

Faraday's own hand is another flop, and normally his control was such that it wouldn't show on his face. Now, though, without any money on the line, he openly frowns down at it in distaste exchanges everything but the two high cards for new ones – which result in little more.

"These cards are shit," he announces without shame during the showdown, tossing them away in a sort of good-natured exasperation. "Pretty sure Teddy Q put a hex on 'em."

He follows Billy's gaze to Goody's room, and while Billy takes the lack of activity as a possibly bad sign, Faraday assumes it has to be good. Folks running around like chickens without heads was always worse than the calm that seems to have taken over Goodnight's room. Had to be, Faraday figured.

Billy's story about the constellations is far more sentimental that he expected to hear, and Faraday blinks at the man – not because the story surprises him, but because he's surprised Billy shared it with him in the first place. It's a different sort of story than what he usually shared with Faraday – hell, than what anyone usually shared with Faraday – and the gambler has to wonder if Billy is sharing it freely, or if he's sharing it because Faraday is acting as Goodnight's stand-in for the night.

The follow up question makes Faraday snort, and he slouches a little in his chair, the wood creaking as it settles.

"For comfort, you mean?" He smiles, lifting his good shoulder in a shrug. "Most of the time, yeah. I drink. Or I find a nice lady to while away the time."

Neither of those things are particularly comforting, mind, but they do at least distract him well enough.

Faraday falls silent for a brief second before he nods over to Goodnight's window.

"Looks like it's calmed down some."

He looks over toward the window and, yes. It's still quiet. But he has no idea if that's a good sign or not. And acutely he resents everyone who'd kicked him out, before, and left him to guess about what shadows in a window could possibly signify. "Yeah," he agrees, tossing the cards away as he collects them all up and decides to give up on poker for a bit. He deals out two cards to Faraday instead, wanting something with addition involved so he could at least use a bit more of his mind. "21. Maybe your luck changes."

He gets a three and an four which would have been great for poker but sucks here. He pulls another card and gets a two, which is just adds to the straight he doesn't need anymore.

He takes a sip from his glass and refills it before giving it back to Faraday. They're emptying the bottle steadily, now. Which is good. It makes Billy feel a bit less edgy, even if it does absolutely nothing for the darkness of his thoughts. Leaning back, he taps his cards on the edge of his chair, face pensive.

"You know he lied, don't you? When we first spoke." He draws a card and God is laughing at him as he pulls an ace.

"We didn't meet the way Goody said we did. New story, each time someone asks. Lie every single time," he says, apropos of absolutely nothing. Really, he has no idea why he said it at all except maybe out of some need to fill the silence that Goody had always done for him. It's strange to not have him by his side. To not hear him flapping his lips and laughing and covering up for all of the silence Billy normally wrapped himself up in.

The change in games is a bit of a relief, considering his unlucky hands in their few rounds of poker. If that had been a real match, it would've been completely unacceptable, and if Faraday's hands were in top condition, he likely would've resorted to palming cards. Slipping away face cards for insurance.

Friendly game or no, he still had a reputation to maintain.

They continue on with 21, and while, he's familiar with the rules and likes it well enough, he never quite mastered it. He liked taking stupid risks too much, after all, which led to him busting more often than not.

Like he does now, trying his luck with a ten and a six and getting another eight for his efforts.

He takes the loss on the chin, though, which is made all the easier when Billy breaks the quiet to speak about Goodnight. He remembers that day in Volcano Springs – sort of. There was quite a lot of drinking involved, admittedly, but Faraday remembers Goodnight's story about a bounty and Billy taking on a room full of men.

"Well, the man wove a good story, I can give 'im that."

A look of open curiosity crosses Faraday's face, and he watches Billy for a second or two, before he decides to take his chances again.

"So how'd you really meet, then?"

Billy glances up. With the next hand, he busts spectacularly, taking a risk on a card and pulling a king. He pushes them away and draws the next hand, but his attention isn't on it.

It's not really his story to tell. But if anyone would understand, strangely enough it would be Faraday. Faraday or Sam, really. The men had seen what happened to Goodnight when he held a gun. How he could shut down and give in to the howling voices of the ghosts in his mind. The hooting of the owl. He looks back over to Goody's room and all is still calm. He chooses to see that as a positive thing, this time. He needs to.

If he were dead, they would have all left, at least.

"We met in a bar," he starts, staring at his hand which is already a 17, but he doesn't really care. "He was a drunk. Told stories from the war for drinks. Every once in awhile found someone with a warrant more drunk than him that he could bring in. Mostly didn't bother." Billy draws a card, busts, and puts the hand away. Picks up the glass instead.

"I was there. Someone recognized me from my warrant." Because that part was true. Still was, he reckoned. It had been awhile since he worried about it. "Became a shoot out. Their friends against me. Whole bar just...shooting. I ducked behind the bar to get cover and...Goody was there."

He doesn't think he needs to say more. He is sure that the details are in the silence. The paleness of the man's face. The way he was whispering and hissing to himself as the gunshots ran out. Broken bottles making him twitch hard enough to come out of his skin. Eyes, sightless, seeing only demons nipping at his heels as he held a useless, unloaded gun.

"I cleaned up the bar. Killed the men and..." He's not sure why he did what he did next. Even to this day. If Faraday asks, he's going to have no answers for it; in the moment, it was just what he had to do. "I took him back to the room I had rented to see if he was okay. Didn't start travelling together, then. But that's how we met."

Billy drains the glass and refills it but doesn't offer it to Faraday.

"He's ashamed. So he makes stories up. Each time, different story. But I'm always some sort of hero in them. I guess that's how he pays me back."

Faraday keeps his silence while Billy speaks, watching the other man in the dim light from the saloon. This is more than he's ever heard the other man speak in their brief time knowing one another, and far more than he ever expected to hear in one sitting.

He fills in the blanks when Billy mentions Goodnight behind the bar in his story. He remembers that first day in Rose Creek vividly, shooting down men as they ran at Goodnight, who trembled and sweated as he backed away. Faraday had only seen that sort of look firsthand a few times, but he recognized it as soon as he saw it. A man in the throes of terror, enthralled by ghosts. He remembers standing over Goodnight's shoulder, watching him stare down the barrel of his rifle at a wounded, retreating man, urging him to shoot; he remembers that bitter pit of disappointment and resentment as Goodnight failed to take him out.

Weak, he remembers thinking. Pitiful. Cowardly.

Faraday glances up to the window, the stillness there. Goodnight had proven him wrong, in the end; seemed unfair that he was still paying the price for finding his courage, but then, when was anything in life ever fair?

"So how'd you decide to work together?" He collects up the cards, now that their game seems mostly forgotten. Just as well, he supposes, since neither of them were particularly concentrating on it. The paper rasps against his hands as he mixes them in that lazy overhand shuffle again. "If it weren't then, I mean."

Billy's eyes are looking down at the wooden floorboards, distant as he recalls the past. "We kept running in the same areas. Same towns. We didn't talk much. I think Goody was still embarrassed and I had enough without bothering with another white man."

Little had he known how much this specific one would come to mean to him. If he could go back in time and tell himself...it would be worth it just to see the look on his own face.

"One town, someone challenged him to a shoot-out. And Goody accepted. As he always does." Billy could remember the look on his pale face as he shouldered the gun and exhaled for nearly a minute before finally taking the shot. "He won, of course. And the boy who'd been sure he was better got mad. Wanted to do it for real." Familiar story. Happened more times than he could count. But that one. That had been the first.

"I knew Goody couldn't pull the trigger against a person. So I stepped in. Said he was my master and would go in his place." Even now, saying the word brings a scowl to his face, but he'd done it. He never really knew why, but he'd done it all the same. "They let me, I won, and from that point on, we just rode together. I took his challenges, he made sure I could get a drink at the bar. Worked well."

He looks up toward the window.

"It's a good arrangement."

Faraday's eyebrows inch upward at the story. He doesn't think he'd ever be able to swallow his pride enough to tell a lie like that, to act as though someone else was his master. The look that crosses Billy's face tells Faraday that it was a difficult lie for the other man, too, but one that he admits to telling, all the same.

"Mighty kind of you."

A mild sort of observation, though Faraday knows there's far more beneath the surface.

"You two gonna go back to that, after all this?"

Because it's easier to ask in absolutes. Faraday has little doubt that Goodnight will recover, even if Billy seems to have his misgivings. Old bastard was obstinate, Faraday will give him that, and maybe it's that lingering awe of the Angel of Death, but close to recovery as Goodnight is, Faraday thinks he'll see it through. He'll come out weak and hurting, sure, but he'll get there, all the same.

"I don't think so," he says honestly. And it's a light thing, almost like he's still considering it. But the hardness around his eyes as he pulls out a cigarette and lights it says his mind is made up. The package is held out toward Faraday as he inhales deeply and lets it go.

"If he makes it, he's going to need awhile to heal. I don't have an interest in pushing him on a horse and dragging him around the desert." But even after that, he has his reservations. They'd been exposed to a lot of gunfire, here. Nearly lost each other and their friends to boot. Goody had been injured enough to brush Death's own teeth; Billy is pretty sure that the next time a gun goes off near his friend, it's not going to go well. And he's not going to invite that back into their lives when they don't even need the money.

"What about you? What are you doing, after this?"

(no subject)

peacemakers - 2016-10-26 06:56 (UTC) - Expand

( picture prompt meme )

Billy Rocks | Magnificent Seven | M/M

if you don't mind a faraday?

Not in the slightest! Up to you if Fix-it AU or not. I'll leave it vague.

fix-it au!

YAY FIX IT

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Feel free to handwave an explanation. I actually know poker.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)