Reunion - City

[quinientos]

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.

Comments

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight watched Billy get up, completely sure of his partner's mission and warmly amused by it. "Billy Rocks doesn't pass up chances to eat, which is wise all things considered. I'm entirely sure he's ordering food and if he's feeling kind, he'll have ordered enough for three of us."

Or Billy would order it for himself and Goodnight would peck at his food, and Vasquez would have to order his own or stare longingly if he got hungry.

"Also that is not wandering off - that is going to the bar with purpose."

When Billy came back, Goodnight smiled at him. "What'd you get?" he asked, curious as ever what moved Billy's tastes.

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy settled back into his spot, picking up the tequila finally and taking the shot smoothly. It burned all the way down, but it was better than the rye whiskey in Rose Creek that he had drunk when Goodnight had left.

"Food," he answered simply. It was half his normal reticence, and half that he'd ordered a variety and he wanted it to be a bit of a surprise when it came out, though he knew Goodnight was as likely to eat whatever was put in front of him as Billy was, even if he'd do it with less vigor.

[quinientos]

Even though he's eaten recently, at the very mention of food, Vasquez's stomach growls. He might be newly arrived, but he's still getting used to things like feeding himself, which hasn't come as the easiest habit for him. Finishing his second glass, he gets to work on his third, because he likes to get a nice, steady drink going to keep himself lulled and happy. "I hope enough for everyone," he says pointedly, because if not, he'll just have to order himself.

Or drink to fill the space, but that seems like a bad idea. "So what do you two do here? Apart from..." he gestures towards the two of them and their lips, making an already-weary expression (mainly because he's being an asshole, he can't lie).

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"You are lucky I don't walk around armed any more, Vasquez," he sighed, wearily, when the man gestured at the two of them like that. "I'm still figuring out where I might fit here. It is not as straightforward as I had hoped, and it took a few months to get settled in the first place."

The month without Billy had set him back in unexpected ways, and since then he'd been recalibrating and trying to figure out what he might be able to do here. Billy had good ideas... he needed to talk to Henry.

"I'll likely try to at least finish the degree I abandoned before the war."

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy gave Vasquez a sour look for the question, tempted to see how hard he could ride the line of making the other man uncomfortable before he made either himself or Goodnight feel equally or more uncomfortable. He put it aside, just let it seethe down in his chest.

Goodnight spoke. Billy let him. They did whatever they wanted. That was the marvelous thing about this place. Goodnight was Goodnight because he had been for ages; Billy was Billy because that's who he'd ever been in America. But nobody knew the weight of those pasts.

"I'm a police officer." It was blunt and forward, casual.

[quinientos]

"Not bonding, anymore?" he can't help but tease, but it's not said with the sharpness as it might have been a few weeks. When Billy says what he does, all of that drains out of him and he goes a shade paler than before. Police officer means that Billy walks a line that Sam had walked, but he has no promise out of Billy the way he had before.

Hand on the tequila, he stares at Goodnight, then Billy, his back up and ready to head for the door, seeking the quickest path of escape if it comes to that. "Are we going to have a problem?" is what he asks, one foot on the ground, ready to kick over a chair to give himself a head start, if need be.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Incredulity blossomed across Goodnight's face and he shook his head. He could see the way Vasquez's entire posture changed: sitting up, nearly out of his seat so that he could make a break for it. He leaned forward on the table and he spoke low and quick.

"Listen here, neither of us gives a shit who you were before Sam recruited your dusty ass for that suicide mission. You think that goddamn wanted poster followed you here? You think anyone here has even the slightest notion of who you are? What the hell is Billy gonna do, follow up on a hundred and forty year old warrant that has no context in this place?"

He stared Vasquez down. Poking and prodding was one thing, but Vasquez looked ready for a fight and he was impugning Billy's thus-far good name in Darrow, and Goodnight was not having it. They had done just fine distancing themselves from the lives they had been leading, skirting the line of legality for nearly a decade. He was not about to have a ghost from his ill-begotten past constantly dragging things back up.

"Sit the hell down, son. And have another drink."

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy let Goodnight speak for the both of them. This was one of those curious navigating prejudice moments that Billy still appreciated Goodnight for, to this day, perpetually. It was not the race; Billy understand Vasquez's leeriness, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

So he let Vasquez be touchy, let him be startled. He stared him down and let Goodnight speak truth, hoping it would sink through. And if not, Billy was not above snapping Vasquez's head into a table to knock some sense into his fool head. He just didn't want to.

Billy grabbed the bottle and poured them all another drink.

[quinientos]

The fight bleeds out of his posture, but the wariness remains in his shoulders. He's only been in this city for a few days and has no way of knowing what might be around the corner. Not only that, it seems far too easy for him to suddenly be a free man after so many years of being outside the law, looking over his shoulder these last few months for whatever bullet comes next.

He reaches for his glass, sipping his third glass of the tequila, wishing for some food to help soak it up as he looks between the both of them, settling back and not looking for ways out. "I get here days ago," he says, giving the both of them a look of disbelief. "And you want me to act as if I have been an innocent man my whole life?" He had heard Faraday talk about stories about Billy and Goodnight's first meeting, but he'd never heard the price of that warrant.

"Now I see ghosts, one of them is a police officer, a man has every right to be wary," he points out. "Not because of who he is," he says, with all due respect to Billy, "but because maybe, what if this is an awful place and it is not so history? Better to be careful when a noose is involved."

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight sat back slowly and plucked up his glass. "I expect you to act like you're with two men that didn't care about your reputation then, and don't care about it now. Two men who are hardly innocent themselves, and are doing just fine."

He sipped his tequila slowly, letting himself settle back down.

"They don't use nooses anymore, anyway. And I have yet to hear for anyone here being executed for something they did in a past life. Unless something different came up in all your books," he said, lolling his head to look at Billy.

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy only grunted a little, the sort of washed out, vague noise of things that he'd given after the gunshow against Arcade as they'd been in the saloon. The question, not a question at all, was entirely rhetorical.

But Billy did address one point that Vasquez made. It seemed vital to this whole thing. Maybe they wouldn't become friendly with each other and maybe they would; this was a small place, over all. Either way, the three of them knew each other, however much or little, and there was a point that needed making.

"You're not the only one an outlaw," he said. "Nobody's asking you to be anything you're not. But you haven't been an outlaw all your life, same as I was not one all of mine. This place? These people? They don't care what you've done to survive in the past. Neither do we."

The food arrived, a large plate of fries covered in cheese and bacon and sour cream set in the middle of the table, and a bowl of soup set in front of Billy. He tucked into it without another word.

[quinientos]

The food is strangely coloured and smells delicious, which is enough for him to lean forward and start pouring handfuls onto a napkin without asking, relenting only to give Goodnight a look that says if he wants him to stop, he will. It's a strange thing, thinking about his life before the robbing and the thieving, one he can hardly remember, but then, Alejandro Vasquez hadn't always been on the run.

Not that he remembers that, not that he even remembers using that name. "New start," he says, a little surprised by how scared that makes him. "I can do anything I want?"

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"Anything someone'll hire you for," Goodnight mused. "Billy's turned to the law, I'll... find myself something, eventually. The city, apparently, will provide you with a monthly stipend which is enough to live on if you're clever with it, even if you decide you don't want to work."

It was a benevolent set up, though the more he heard about it the more it sounded like possible hazard pay to him. Living here deserved some kind of compensation.

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy watched Vasquez, making sure he wasn't hoarding from the plate. It was meant to be shared. He would not begrudge that, but he would put an end to over-indulgence. He settled easily, let Goodnight do the talking. It was just the natural way to go about it, really, even after all this time and even now in Darrow.

"That much cash still seems unnatural," Billy commented vaguely, shaking his head. To get a deposit that large each month, regardless of profession, made him uneasy. It was more money than he'd seen in one place in his whole life, he thought.

[quinientos]

Vasquez gives Billy an amused look, mainly because turning to the law is something he would have never been asked to do before. Reaching for his drink, he grimaces slightly and takes back a shot when the pain in his arm makes him flinch, seeing as he still hasn't seen to it apart from bandaging it up and while the bleeding has slowed, it's not completely stopped.

Maybe he'll need another bottle of something to clean it, he'll get it out on the way out. "That much money?" he asks, reaching for one of the linen napkins that he doesn't think they'll miss as he starts to work on turning it into a bandage. "Why is it given?"

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"Who knows?" Goodnight shrugged and ate one of the fries off the place. "Compensation for having to live in this place and deal with it's nonsense, maybe. Or maybe this place just knows not all of us are suited or ready to engage with a modern world.'

He looked over at Vasquez, intent for a moment.

"You still injured?"

[assassinwithahairpin]

"You should get it looked at."

Billy had scars from his arrival in Darrow, from his time in the hospital being mended and healing. But the fact of the matter was he had healed. That clearly wouldn't have been the case back in Rose Creek, and he'd known it the whole time he'd been in Darrow.

He poured himself a little more tequila, drank it, ate some of the fries and then pushed his bowl of soup toward Goodnight so he could have a taste as well. "The doctors are good here. They don't ask a lot of questions."

[quinientos]

"Only been about two days since I got shot," he replies, because as much as he wants to distance himself from thoughts of Rose Creek, it's impossible to ignore the fact that it had been so recent. He's not sure he's even slept that much, but the wound still pulses and makes him ache, even though the bleeding has shifted to sluggish slow.

It's a name on a file, though, which is the problem. He's not entirely sure he's ready to subject himself to that. Shrugging his good shoulder, he thinks he can manage. "Enough alcohol, I can treat it myself, wrap it again," he says.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"That's how you get gangrene, son. And getting it in your torso is a death sentence even these doctors might not be able to save you from. Go to the hospital."

He remembered what gangrene smelled like, and he remembered the screams from men losing limbs because of it. Vasquez had no cause to suffer that fate beyond stubbornness, and Goodnight could not abide that nonsense.

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy managed not to snort, at least at that, but it was a narrow thing and he did shake his head a little bit. He didn't think Vasquez was necessarily at risk of gangrene, but he understood it being the thing that Goodnight would jump to. Billy did worry about more general infections though.

"The city already knows you're here," Billy pointed out. "Making sure you're well from someone that knows what he's looking at won't change whether or not you're known, on some level."

[quinientos]

One of these times, Vasquez is going to tell Goodnight that he's not that much younger, but he bites that back now, seeing as he's going on about gangrene enough to make the corners of his lips to curl up in amusement. It's not exactly what he's worried about, if he's honest. "True," he admits, to Billy's logical point, it's just that he doesn't feel right handing himself over like that.

"Is there a doctor nearby?" he asks, not sure he wants a whole hospital to look at what's a fairly simple gunshot, even if it had been the Gatling that had torn through skin and muscle.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"You put up flyers lookin' for one and let me know how that goes. Hospital'll treat you and get you out faster'n trying to track down a doctor to stitch you up in the living room."

Goodnight sat back with his drink, arm draped lazily across the bench behind Billy's shoulders. Vasquez could do as he damn well pleased with his injury, Goodnight had little hand-holding left in him these days. Vasquez was a grown man, by all accounts, and could do what he would. Even if it was ill-advised.

"Hell if you pretend to pass out in front of the emergency room doors, I bet they won't even ask you any questions."

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy snorted at that. They certainly hadn't asked him any questions, before or after he was unconscious. They had just, strangely, known. He had woken up to a bevy of strange doctors and nurses, in a place he didn't know, who knew his name--the one his mother had given him. That was the more unnerving part of the whole thing, to him.

But he didn't release that knowledge.

"Either way," Billy said with a shrug. "Ain't us. Your choice."

[quinientos]

His choice. His choice, now that he actually has choices in front of him. After Rose Creek, he'd expected to go back to another shack in the wilderness, maybe with Sam sending other bounty hunters away. He's not used to choices.

Strangely, he thinks that maybe he should trust them, because they know what they're talking about. "Finish your drinks," he says. "Once I pay, I'll go to a hospital," he agrees, because he might as well try. "If you hear about me getting arrested, maybe come help," he deadpans, because he doesn't intend to stir trouble, but, well, sometimes it finds him.