quinientos | Reunion

Entry tags:

billy,
goody

Reunion - City

There are some things here stranger than Vasquez can even begin to consider.

The cars, for one, are something to get used to. Not being on anyone's wanted list? That one's very good, though now that means he probably needs to keep himself on the straight and narrow, even though he doesn't love any of the ideas of staying in one place being a law-abiding citizen under anyone's thumb. Lucky for him, it seems like no one here is like the rangers and chingados from home. He can have a life, but that means being responsible and, well...

Even after Rose Creek, there are some fears he's not yet ready to face. What is strange, though, is that when he'd been looking through records to search for his warrant, he'd found a familiar name. He's picked up his things and gone to sit outside the Bramford Building, leaning against the nearest corner while he smokes. He's running low on his own cigarettes and hates the ones from the main store, but there are other sources of tobacco, he just needs to get to them. Still in his original clothes, he keeps his hat low to avoid letting people to see his face, but every once in a while, he peers up when he hears footsteps.

Goodnight Robicheaux and Billy Rocks, but it can't be, can it? They're dead and gone, not here. It has to be someone who's taken their names, their identities, maybe, but Vasquez intends to find out.

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"You gonna run tonight, cher?"

Goodnight slid his hand into his pocket to find his keys as they came up the sidewalk. He figured if Billy planned to run, he'd send the dog with him. If not, he'd take Mercy around the park for a long walk.

When he looked up he stopped dead, his arm moving to stop Billy, too. The figure sitting outside their building was far too familiar. Goodnight had not known Vasquez long, but the man left an impression. He looked over at Billy, eyebrows lifting.

"Didn't get to it this morning," Billy pointed out, and there was the softest note of teasing reproach in his voice, because he would have, if Goodnight had let him.

He was fairly certain he'd realized the other man was there before Goodnight did, but there had been a moment, a fleeting thing, where he'd thought perhaps he'd imagined it. Now, paused and watching from just behind Goodnight's shoulder, Billy was desperately aware of months past that separated the two of them from the man here, a bit laundered but still harried with the dust of Rose Creek.

He'd been fiddling with one of his cigarettes when he hears the doors push open again and voices, familiar voices. It can't have been more than a week since he last heard them, but the last time he saw them, they'd been shrouded in linens and were being prepared for the ground. Vasquez crosses himself, not sure whether he's looking at ghosts or demons, but he's not sure it's anything good.

"It really is you two," he says, in shock and disbelief, because such a thing can't be possible. He'd helped to move the bodies after they'd fallen, his arm screaming in pain, but he'd needed to. Billy, Goody, Jack, he'd needed to help. He'd needed to say prayers over Faraday's mottled, broken body, wondering why he got to survive when the bounty had been on his head, not the four others.

"Never been haunted before," is his mildly sarcastic quip, still overcome with wariness.

Goodnight lifts a brow at the sign of the cross Vasquez did.

"If you're bein' haunted then this is a version of the afterlife I have yet to have contemplated," he retorted. He knew damn well what had happened to him before he woke up here, and he preferred never to think about it too deeply. "And I have contemplated most of them. And you are not the man I would choose to spend my days haunting, though I appreciate that you think so highly of yourself. Don't you think, Billy?"

He lowered his hand and looked side-long at his companion. Billy had shown up a month after he had, had spent a week in the hospital for his troubles. Vasquez seemed in one piece enough. Was this just a strange beginning? With his luck, Faraday would show up.

Billy didn't have to really reply, in part because that was part of their presentation and had been for years. But he couldn't help but lift a brow slightly at Vasquez for the assumption. Haunted? Goodnight was right at least: either one off them had much better people to haunt than the Mexican outlaw.

But he redirected, instead, to the thought he knew Goodnight was having, the one that suddenly struck him as well. With the distance of time between their arrivals, and the knowledge that they'd been able to avoid each other in the aftermath of his arrival, Billy found himself asking, "How long have you been here?"

He thinks maybe it would be a good punishment for not getting the Gatling gun out, but he's already bearing a wound for that inability. If not for Faraday's suicide run at the gun, he thinks he would be in the ground, too, but lucky for him, he got to ride out of town and right into this one. He still doesn't really understand that, truthfully. He's still staring at the both of them like they might vanish, which is why he wanders up, just enough to press two fingers to Goodnight's shoulder, pushing and hitting solid mass.

How is this possible? "Days," he replies, days spent trying to see if the bounty on his head is still out there. "I was looking at lists, to see if my name was on any of them, and I saw a mention of a Goodnight Robicheaux. Are there others here?" he asks. "Sam, Red?" He doesn't ask after Horne or Faraday, because two dead men is one thing. Four dead men? That's not something he's ready to think about.

Especially not when the last in that list would haunt him viciously, chingado guero that he could be. Brave, idiot, selfless, but still a pain in the ass.

Goodnight lifted an eyebrow; he let his shoulder give, moving away from the push as Vasquez's fingers dug at his shoulder. "I'm as solid as solid gets, son."

Normally he might have stepped back, might have insisted on some distance but for the moment he stood his ground, stubbornly so. He kept the vaguely incredulous look on his face; how could someone not take him, Goodnight Robicheaux, at his word?

"No, just us so far, and now you. No sign of any of the others, and I've been here since December." Billy had arrived just a month after, much to Goodnight's consternation and relief.

Billy did not, specifically, approve of anyone coming at Goodnight like that, prodding and acting like they got to be in a space that they had not been invited into. He shifted a little, from behind Goodnight's shoulder to just beside him. It was a warning look, slightly narrowed eyes. Neither he nor Goodnight had had the issues with Vasquez that they'd had with Farraday, but that didn't mean either of them were going to be push overs about it.

"That's enough," he said, voice stern and pointed.

Vasquez lifts both hands in the air to show no gun, no weapon, stepping back so that Billy doesn't think he's threatening Goody. He has no quarrel with them, doesn't want to end up dead just because he thinks he's seeing ghosts. Speaking of, that's something he's not sure he understands. "I helped bury your bodies in shallow graves," he says, the wound in his arm echoing with the ghost of pain at how it had felt.

"Four of you," he says, quietly, roughly. "Now, you're here," he says. "I don't understand. I don't remember dying," he points out bluntly. "Unless someone got a bullet to the back of my head," he admits, tapping the space there, but even then, he thinks he would have heard them coming. "I need something to drink, and smoke," he says. "Can I buy you something? You two dying left more gold for the rest of us," is his dry, sarcastic remark, just a touch mean.

"I remember it." Goodnight sounded chipper but there was nothing kind or happy in the look on his face. "Billy here didn't die, did you Billy. He was in the hospital for a week on his arrival, though."

He hadn't known. Billy had been in Darrow for quite some time before Goodnight finally ran into him. He remembered the snow, and how it felt to be standing several yards away, staring at Billy, wondering why he didn't have a coat.

His eyebrows lifted. "If you're buying, I'm drinking. I am appalled to know my share went to the likes of you, I should have left my goddamn will and testament with Sam before that godforsaken venture. You in, cher?" Goodnight looked toward Billy, eyebrows lifted. Maybe it was better if he was supervised.

Billy grunted, softly, his ascent but he was fixated on it: shallow graves. It was like the others were begging to be haunted, with that sort of reaction.

He put himself between Goodnight and Vasquez, willing to let them snipe over and around him but preferring to act as buffer for the moment. They could go for a drink, for sure, but Billy was feeling protective, and that meant coming along and making sure the both of them behaved themselves.

"Shallow graves," he grumbled, shaking his head a little.

"Some of the bodies were difficult to move," Vasquez replies, his joking fading away into something serious, because he still remembers finding Faraday in almost pieces in that field. Absently, he finds himself performing the sign of the cross again. "Preacher was going to bury you properly, in Rose Creek," he adds apologetically, like that's something that deserves it. "Only Sam, Red, and I rode out of town," he says.

"Only those two weren't injured," he adds, seeing as he'd just been lucky in the end, really, that the Gat hadn't done worse to him. Maybe it should have been him, then someone might have been $500 richer.

Speaking of money, he shakes his head and snorts with amusement. "Even if you'd left a will and given it all to Sam, I would've just stolen all of Faraday's," he points out. "I deserved that money after all the poking and annoying."

"Oh I sincerely doubt Sam was unscathed. Why do you think the man wears all black? Harder to see stains. Can't tell the difference between sweat and blood." Goodnight had known Sam Chisolm for a long time and the man was many things, but bullet-proof was not one of them.

He decided not to comment when he noticed Billy casually inserting himself, physically, between himself and Vasquez, but he did look thoroughly amused.

"You deserved a medal," Goodnight drawled as he looked side-long at Vasquez. "For enduring the most school boy attempts at flirting I have ever seen in my life." He tipped his hat at Vasquez like a salute.

"Let's hit the Abbey, cher," he said to Billy, since of the three of them he seemed to be the only one paying attention to where they might be going. "There's enough quiet corners in there for reminiscing." And Goodnight liked the drink selection.

Edited 2017-08-18 04:10 (UTC)

Billy didn't think that Goodnight had missed the way he'd put himself between their quibbling, and he pointedly ignored that look that Goodnight was giving him, because it wasn't worth deigning with attention. They were both calmer, for the space between them. And, if Goodnight got too ridiculous, at least he and Vasquez could side on the front of colored folk against him.

"Should be a good time," he said, nodding speculatively. "Quiet, even if not in a corner."

He steered them that direction, paying attention to the direction.

Vasquez snorts at the idea of Sam hiding his wounds under the black. Absently, he scratches at the still-aching wound on his arm, not having seen anyone to treat it besides having it wrapped briefly, but he's grateful for the distraction given Goodnight's comment. Lucky for Vasquez, he doesn't flush given his colouring, but he still is happy for his hat to keep his gaze downwards. He doesn't remember things said or done when he'd been piss-drunk, but he'd been hoping no one had heard him, day of the battle, shouting guerito the man's way.

Annoying son of a bitch, it's just a shame Vasquez got along with that so well. Still, doesn't matter, not now that he's six feet in the ground, a hero. "Drinks," he agrees, though he raises a brow. "You drink in church in the future?" Whistling, he lifts his hat to grin and shake his head. "Maybe some things are improved."

Goodnight knew better than to assume that everyone had his education, but he did roll his eyes at the notion of drinking in a church. Did they not give bars fanciful names in further south?

He cleared his throat and recited, hands tucked into his pockets: "And in after years, when these wild ecstasies shall be matured into a sober pleasure, when thy mind shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, thy memory be as a dwelling-place for all sweet sounds and harmonies. Oh! then, if solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts of tender joy wilt thou remember me, and these my exhortations!"

He lolled his head to look at Vasquez. "Tintern Abbey the title of a poem, mon bon homme. And a place that exists somewhere in England, near which the poem was written. A fine thing to name a cozy drinking establishment after."

The poetry, much like any number of Goodnight's ridiculous little sayings, draws an affectionate smile out of Billy. He ducks his head for a moment. He didn't particularly think that Vasquez would get the reference; Billy only did because Goodnight had read Wordsworth to him a number of times across the frontier, from a little book worn old with love and travel.

"I hope you appreciate English puns," he said as an aside to Vasquez, looking up now that he'd composed that smile back into neutrality. "The city is rife with them."

The whole of the strange poem, Vasquez has started to stare at Billy, wondering if Goodnight has lost his mind and gone around the bend. He's well-read enough, but in Spanish, not in flowery English that he barely understands and wouldn't even want to, if he's honest. "I don't," he says bluntly to Billy's comment, already feeling worn by this place because honestly, it's nothing like what he's used to.

Then again, it's not like that's something to deal with. "If I have to trade in bad English attempts at being funny for my freedom, I can learn to tolerate," he admits. "They say we cannot leave. Is that true?" he asks.

Then, after a beat, he gives Goodnight a pleading look. "No poems about it, please. It's wasted on me."

"Pearls before swine," Goodnight sighed. "No, we can't leave. I have ventured to try once, for science, and after that I was quite content to never try again."

He didn't know if Billy had tried: his own experience had been so disconcerting that he didn't really want to know about anyone else's attempts.

"But by all means, run at the wall as much as you'd like. I would rather drink."

He gestured at the front of Tintern Abbey when they arrived and nudged the door open, happily heading in first. Hopefully it was quiet: he wanted to find them a booth.

Billy laughed--honestly, a little startled--both at that look that Vasquez gave him with that contemptuous denial, and at the begging off of Goodnight's poetry. He wondered, vaguely, if Vasquez was just naturally more contrary with White folk. Billy couldn't say he blamed him. Goodnight was about the only White folk he could stand for long periods of time.

He clapped Vasquez briefly on the shoulder and followed Goodnight into the pub. It was not over busy, which wasn't surprising, given the hour. He caught Goodnight's elbow gently and gave him a private, adoring smile.

He lets himself be steered inside because, honestly, he has no want to go back to a place that will shoot him dead just because he defended himself by a white piece of shit Ranger who thought he could push around Vasquez and people like him. His lips pressed flat, he follows and glances around them at the crowd.

Vasquez manages to look back in time to see the look Billy is giving Goodnight, which isn't new, if he's honest. He's observant enough to have seen how the two of them always looked to one another, but he's deciding how stupid he is and whether it stands to comment. "On me," he reiterates, glancing to the barman and smiling broadly as he approaches to negotiates a good bottle of tequila out of him.

If they're drinking on his coins, best to drink something he'll enjoy. He returns to the table with three glasses in his long fingers, the bottle hugged in his arm. "Everything Rose Creek had turned out to be very generous," he deadpans. "Turns out, too, that gold is still gold. People were happy to give me money for it."

That look melted everything inside him. Goodnight leaned close and he kissed Billy, kissed the adoring smile on his face, because he could do that here. Billy smiling in public - smiling like that was a rare enough treat that he was going to reward it accordingly. "Mon cher," he murmured.

Then he looked at Vasquez. "Damn right on you dime."

He slid into an empty booth not far from the bar.

"Chisolm did say everything," he said dryly. "Everything is always generous, whatever it looks like."

He picked up his glass as soon as there was tequila in it.

The kiss was soft, sweet, and short. The publicity still startled Billy from time to time, thrilled him. He stood up to his full height--no taller than Goodnight at all--and gave Vasquez a short look. Almost asking him to protest the display. There was no point antagonizing, really, but he would not tolerate any sideways glances.

They slid into the booth, and Billy looked at the menu casually. A place like this, it wasn't just drinks, and if Vasquez was paying, then Billy was going to take advantage for more than just drinks.

"Especially when half the crew dies," Billy said, quiet and wry.

Vasquez is in the middle of taking off his hat, raising both his brows when he sees the kiss. It's not surprising, he has eyes and probably more tolerance for that sort of thing given that sometimes, on the road, an itch is an itch and you find whoever to scratch it for you, regardless of what body they have.

Them doing this in public, in a bar? Vasquez leans back in his chair to glance around, a look on his face that says if anyone decides to ruin their impromptu reunion, there's a gun in their face for it. "So that's happening here now?" he points out, pouring generously and handing one to each of them. He can't help but snort a little at Billy's posturing, even if the man could kill him dead within a blink if he wanted.

"It would be hypocritical for me to care," he says, the long English word taking a long time to come out, dancing with every syllable as he shrugs. "Besides, sometimes, you two? Not subtle," he informs them.

"It was happening before,," Goodnight drawled in answer. "Though I'm sure Billy here would be happy to indulge you in a brawl if you want to take issue."

Goodnight had spent enough of his life hiding, of worrying who might see what, of worrying what might happen to Billy if they were every caught being improper. Because he knew it was Billy that would suffer the harder consequences, whatever happened.

He lolled his head to look at Billy. "Were we not subtle?"

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