Word Count: 5,470
Archive: DarkMagick.net, Apollymi’s Grimoire, and Archive of Our Own. Anyone else wanting it, please ask first. I’ll probably say yes, but ask first…[endsection]
Goodnight had been giving him strange looks most of the afternoon, and frankly… Well, Joshua wasn’t too sure he knew what to think about the matter. He had a sneaking suspicion that, even earlier today, he probably would have been pretty pissed off.
Right now? Right now he had no damn idea what to think… or feel… or much of anything.
He hadn’t really had much to contribute to the plotting out of their defenses. Hell, it was probably the quietest he had been since signing up for this suicide mission.
And all of this just drove home the point that had been circulating through his head for hours. Well, a few of the thoughts that had been circulating through his head. First and foremost was that Vas had apparently managed to kiss him stupid, and he was fine with that… for the most part.
Oh, he was good with the kissing. He was really good with the kissing. Nobody who kissed like that should ever be allowed to be shy about it. But then again, he was pretty damn sure he didn’t want Vas kissing anyone but him and he certainly wasn’t entertaining any notions of kissing anyone else himself, so that was all a bit of a moot point.
Nope, it was the kissing him stupid that gave him pause. Like Vas himself, he stayed alive by keeping his wits about him.
But that also brought him around to that second point that he couldn’t seem to shake: right now, he really fucking missed his big brother. Right now, he could really use some damn advice, and of course, right now he couldn’t talk to Goody, exactly when he needed to the most. Goodnight. Whatever.
Honestly, right now, he didn’t care about the name. He didn’t care about the fight eight years ago. He didn’t care about what happened in Carson City just under two years ago or about what the news of it had prompted him to do only earlier this year. He didn’t care about the fight they’d had in Volcano Springs or all the bad blood they’d built back up between then and now.
No, he didn’t give a good god damn about any of that. He just wanted his brother back.
It hadn’t been a stretch to say that he had fucked his fair share of men. While he was different from his brother in that he also found certain ladies attractive, he had known most of his life that he generally preferred the company of men. There was something indescribable but attractive about someone taller than him, a hard body, a cock in his mouth, someone who could hold him down and fuck him, someone he could fuck in turn.
But that had all it had ever been through the years: fucking. If he had ever fucked the same man twice, it had been completely by drunken accident.
Feelings, though? Feelings were a whole new thing. He wasn’t sure what to do with feelings.
He could probably muddle through this on his own—and mess everything up like he always did and likely ruin any chance he had ever had with Vasquez. For that matter, they’d probably all end up shot dead in a couple of days’ time.
Maybe when all of this was over, he could give another try at making peace with his brother after all. He still wanted it to be Goodnight making the effort and coming to him, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, after all.
And he strongly suspected that, were he not standing standing where he was, some of this probably wouldn’t be occurring to him. Even before it was a charred ruin, Emmanuel’s Church hadn’t been the kind of church he’d grown up in. It wasn’t the St. Martin of Tours Cathedral back in St. Martinville… or even a Catholic Church for that matter. He’d been to Mass exactly once since he and Goody had parted ways, and that hadn’t been an experience he wanted to repeat.
Now…
“At least we won’t have to go too far to pray for forgiveness,” he commented idly. Passing the time, really, was all that it was, for all that he was still looking the place over, checking to see if the building was even half as structurally sound as they needed it to be. Despite the very obvious damage, it looked like it might well be. If they shored it up with sandbags, it might well be a good place to launch the main defense of the town; everyone entering the town would like have to go right by the church.
Somehow, even the steeple seemed relatively intact. Goodnight was still up there, checking sight lines maybe, but Rocks had wandered off. He could see the man outside the far windows.
“There you go. But there’s no forgiveness for men like you, güero,” Vasquez shot back, and damn it, he couldn’t help the answering smile, even as Vas snickered.
“Don’t call me güero,” he returned and tried hard to sound annoyed. He got the feeling he was failing miserably. “What’s ‘güero’ mean anyway? Handsome? Debonair?”
It was only half-teasing. His Spanish was passable a lot of days. He could definitely get by on it. If nothing else, he could make himself understood and get the gist of what was being said to him in return. But there were a lot of words he didn’t know… or words in English that had several of varying meanings in Spanish… or words in Spanish that sounded way too similar but meant very different things, like ‘chivato’ and ‘chingado’, a difference that had nearly gotten him shot at least once.
“Yeah, something like that.” A grin and a wink accompanied the words. Okay, yeah, this was fun, he thought to himself, returning the wink. Fighting not to smile was one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
But then Sam Chisolm had to ruin it by pointedly clearing his throat, following that immediately up with an equally sharp “Gentlemen… Now is not the time for this.”
The scowl Vasquez shot the older man was impressively dark. He imagined he looked no more pleased than the Mexican did—and he was probably doing a worse job of hiding that fact.
Granted, he felt a bit like he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t have when Goodnight finally dropped the last few feet out of the steeple. The rope Rocks had strung up apparently hadn’t been quite long enough to ease all the way down, thus necessitating the drop, but it was that same undefinable look Goodnight had been giving him most of the afternoon that made him feel almost guilty.
No, now that he thought about it, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to wait until this was over to try to patch things up with Goodnight. There was no guarantee that they would live through it, after all; he was the one that kept thinking of the whole thing as a suicide run, as a point of fact.
He didn’t want to die without at least trying—really trying—to make peace with his brother. He didn’t want to chance Goodnight dying without knowing how sorry Joshua was for everything: the fight, the words he’d said, the punches he’d thrown both eight years ago and only a few days past, Carson City, all the letters he had sent over the years… everything.
That conversation couldn’t be tonight, though; there just wasn’t going to be enough time. Tomorrow morning, he and Vasquez were going to start putting out explosives, and he couldn’t put that off, not in good conscience. Maybe tomorrow afternoon, everything permitting.
He would find a way. He would make time if he had to. The trick would be getting Goodnight willing to stay in the same room as him long enough for him to say what he needed to.
And he’d have to be careful about it, because cornering Goodnight could end up leading to a confrontation with Rocks that he would really rather avoid. That he had managed not to get into one so far was enough of a surprise. No sense pushing his luck. He didn’t want to test his hungover quickdraw reflexes against Rocks’ knives. He had a pretty good feeling which would win… and it probably wouldn’t be him.
Put another way, if it came down to him and Rocks, he would be having Vas put money down on Rocks.
He tore his eyes away from his brother, giving the wooden floorboards a hard glare for a long moment or two rather than let his brother think it was directed at him, before he finally spoke again. “Compared to the rest of the place, this might be our best spot to try to hold the town. The main road in comes right past here, there are enough windows that we can board up and use as defense, and it’s not far from here to any other strategic place in town.”
Vas shrugged. “Good a place as any for a last stand.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Goodnight twitch, the movement just so slight that he couldn’t be sure if it had been real or Joshua’s imagination.
Rather than comment on that, though, and risk starting more shit than he wanted to deal with right now, he took a step closer to Vasquez, one that would take him close enough to brush his hand against the other man’s. “We’ll make it as defensible as possible first. No need to go calling it a last stand yet, Vas.” It was as close to comforting as he had come in years, maybe since before the War, but at least it seemed to have worked, if the small wry grin he received was anything to go by.
Goodnight, on the other hand, turned on his heel and stalked back out of the church without ever having said a word to him. And wasn’t that becoming about typical these days?
No, he would have to be careful in doing this, but he was going to be having a long conversation with his brother… and it would be before Bart Bogue come back to this town. It would happen if he had to steal Vasquez’s rope, tie Goodnight to a damn chair, and lock Rocks in a separate room.
Instead he settled for glaring at Chisolm until the man left him and Vas alone in the church. From here, he couldn’t tell if Chisolm was following Goodnight or not. As long, calloused fingers wrapped around his own, he was particularly certain he cared. He did have to make a token attempt at grousing with, “I’m really starting to hate that man.”
“I think, tomorrow, we can tie some of that dynamite to his horse’s tail.”
The words startled a laugh out of him, loud and amused, like he couldn’t remember being in forever. And yeah, Joshua liked that part about being with Vas too.
If he was honest with himself—and let’s face it, he hadn’t been that since this whole show of Chisolm’s kicked off—he would admit that his little brother’s silence was somewhat troubling.
It had started sometime after they got back from the mining camp in the early afternoon. Up until then, Joshua had almost been frightfully gleeful over the prospect of rigging explosives. He had all but dragged Vasquez off to begin plotting out where to begin before the group as a whole set out to see what should be set up where.
Then…
Then when it was time to set off, his contrary brother was silent and almost shy, which was a word never associated with Joshua Robicheaux in his entire life. And trying to see if Vasquez had any insight was a joke, given that he was also playing at bashful, shooting coy little glances at Joshua as the group planned on the move.
And for the life of him, Goodnight was only coming up with one poorly timed conclusion: these two idiots had chosen now, in the middle of planning a war where they might not make it out, to go and fall in love with one another.
Sure, they had to have been fucking since just outside Junction City; the sexual tension was so thick you could practically taste it. He and Billy had actually rolled their eyes on the first night in town upon realizing the boys had separate rooms; they weren’t fooling anyone. But Goody knew better than anyone how hard it was to go from fucking to love, even if he’d taken longer than his brother to get to that point.
Frankly, he and Billy had started fucking right after their first major fight about Joshua. And it had been a few months before Goodnight realized he’d fallen hard for the other man. The only saving grace there was that Billy was smarter than him and already come to that conclusion; it made things both easier and more terrifying. Even now, years into their relationship, he found himself looking to his lover to take the lead on certain things… although sometimes he didn’t exactly listen.
Such as, not staying in Carson City nearly two years ago once they’d been jumped was his own decision. Billy had wanted to stick around another week, had even been ready to either rent the room for longer or move to a camp site just outside the town where they could watch everyone’s comings and goings, but Goody had been adamant about leaving.
Now, he wondered if maybe things would be different now, had he just listened to the smarter of the pair of them.
But that was a thought for another time. Right now, he was checking the floor to the steeple to make sure that the damned thing wouldn’t collapse out from under him during the battle that was to come. It really was the best spot in town for a sniper’s nest: there were clear lines of sight from all sides, looking over the town itself, all possible means of entering or leaving, and the fields directly behind where Bogue’s men might just be coming in from. He should be able to provide cover for any and all potential problems, and even though he knew that he’d have nightmares just thinking about it, he also knew it was the perfect spot to make a final stand if it came down to that.
Goodnight did his best to not be too pessimistic, but he knew himself too well. He had no real plans of surviving this ordeal; he just wanted to make sure that his loved ones made it through. Somewhere along the way, that number had moved to include Vasquez solely because Joshua was so damned smitten. With a little bit of skill and luck, he should be able to make it so that his boys walked away.
From the church below, he could hear his brother and the outlaw flirting again, for the love of all things holy. It was actually sort of sweet, but the timing was shitty as hell. And then he heard Chisolm scolding the pair of them and all but rolled his eyes to the heavens. Seriously, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the damned Yank to just up and admit that he was finally cashing in that favor Goodnight owed him—and honestly, when a man said I owe you one to the person who’d just kept him from being beaten to death, the proper response was you don’t owe me anything or let me buy you a drink, not ten years of sitting on the damned thing!—before he snapped was trying as all hell.
Goodnight rubbed wearily at his eyes and looked out over the town again. There were a ton of excellent sight lines up here, and it was the perfect spot to give advanced warning when Bogue’s army arrived as well as keep an eye on the other shooters’ locations throughout the town. He still wasn’t sure about putting a man on the livery’s roof, but if anyone could keep their balance up there, it would be a valid spot as well.
He spotted Billy doing a walk along the road, checking for any additional sites to set up traps or surprises, and smiled slightly. There was so much to do, so little damned time to do it in, and he was not getting nearly enough sleep to deal with everything. Hopefully, he wasn’t keeping his Billy up as well.
Goodnight could still hear his brother and the other men talking in the church below, although he couldn’t hear exactly what they were discussing; he’d let his mind wander enough to be completely lost as to the conversation, but the tone was not a pleased one by any means. Rather than stay hiding up in the steeple and hope they would all forget he was up there, the man made his way down carefully; he kept a hand on the rope that Billy had strung up to make for an easier time climbing up and down, but took the stairs as far as he was able. When he ran out of solid wood, Goodnight swung himself onto the rope and slid down.
Given that the rope was a little bit shorter than was fully helpful, Goody let go of the rope and dropped the remaining few feet to the floor. He didn’t mean to land practically in front of his brother—mostly because he hadn’t realized the younger man was that close—but he made an effort not to flinch back either. And yep, Joshua still had that love-struck look on his face; it still left him puzzled to see it for how new a look on the younger man it was, and he probably had an odd expression of his own as he continued to muse on how bad this timing really was.
Then his brother dropped his gaze to the floorboard, glaring as if it was offending him in some way. That was another issue that would have to be addressed, because it was all but killing him to not talk to his brother the way he wanted to. Every bit of body language said clearly that Joshua both did and did not want to spend any time around him, but Goodnight was getting fed up with ignoring what he himself wanted.
He wanted to try to reconcile, and his little brother was just going to have to learn to live with that. It would have to be sometime soon, before Bogue arrived, but they would be having a talk. Today was already far too busy to slip in another fight with his only living relative, so it would need to be sometime in the next couple of days. Tomorrow itself was going to be busy, what with everyone working to get started given the little time allowed for the town to be ready, but they would have to stop to eat sometime. Maybe he could catch Joshua off-guard around breakfast time the day after… if he could drag the boy away from Vasquez for five goddamn minutes.
Billy could probably help with that, actually. Given that he was slowly but surely getting fed up with Goody’s own maudlin reactions to Joshua’s hot and cold manner, his lover would leap at the opportunity to get them talking to one another without punches getting thrown.
“Compared to the rest of this place,” his brother said after trying to set the floor ablaze with his glare, “this might be our best spot to try to hold the town. The main road in comes right past here, there are enough windows that we can board up and use as defense, and it’s not far from here to any other strategic place in town.”
It was a solid strategy, sound and well thought-out. Goodnight had honestly been thinking along similar lines himself, adding in that he could probably hit every target coming his way from the safety of the steeple. They would need to board it up some, of course, and get some sandbags up there as well as in the sanctuary itself. But still, a very strategic location, and one he would have gladly taken advantage of during the war had such a spot been available.
Then Vasquez spoke up to offer his opinion, and it was one the Cajun had been trying to avoid thinking of in connection with his baby brother: “Good a place as any for a last stand.”
He couldn’t quite control the twitch at that, but he hoped he’d disguised it enough for the others to avoid comment. It was possible that his brother had at least noticed although he didn’t say anything; instead, he moved a little closer to the outlaw, just close enough to “accidentally” brush against the other man’s hand with his own. It was a subtle show of comfort, one that was sharply familiar from their shared childhood. There were far too many times when his T-Jo had been the one in need to comfort, thanks to their bastard father, and there were more than a few times wherein Goodnight had needed that care which his younger brother had willingly given.
It was a bit much, however, to deal with in the moment. He turned on his heel and headed out the door, intending to track down Billy and see about dragging him away for a moment or two to just try and get his head back on straight. Behind him, he could hear Joshua’s voice as he reassured Vasquez:
“We’ll make it as defensible as possible first. No need to go calling it a last stand yet, Vas.”
He shook his head, a small smile crossing his lips. Trust his brother to try and comfort a man by saying they would do their best to not die. Granted, his Billy had done similar more than a few times in the past; more than once, he had offered to stay awake and ‘fight that damned owl’ just to get him to relax enough to go back to sleep after a nightmare.
“Goody?”
Oh, wonderful. Just what he didn’t need: Sam Chisolm following him and using his nickname without permission.
There were only two people who, at any given point in his life, he had let use that nickname. The first was, of course, Joshua. His little brother had given him the nickname only a few days after he’d called him T-Jo aloud for the first time, and up until their fight eight years ago, he had been the only person in the world to call him that.
The other was, unsurprisingly, Billy. That had not come about nearly as easily; in fact, the first time his lover had called him that was a little over seven years ago, months after their fight over whether he should try contacting Joshua and when they likewise started fucking. It was right around the time he’d realized that he was falling in love with the man, and the shortened version of his name had slipped from Billy while they were ‘discussing’ the outcome of a quick draw competition wherein the Korean had nearly been shot.
Goodnight and Billy both had frozen the second the nickname was out, although Billy was quick to apologize. Goody himself had blinked a few times, debating on whether he was pissed off that someone other than his brother had shortened his name in that way—after all, Maman and Monsieur Robicheaux had always called him by his given name, while Colette had called him G’night—or pleased that someone he was beginning to care about deeply was comfortable enough to even unconsciously shorten his name to something more affectionate.
He had decided on being pleased and had pulled his lover into bed to show him just how okay he was with the new change in their life together.
Shaking off the more pleasant memories, Goodnight turned to give Chisolm an expectant look. The other man frowned at him, but his face was still closed off and difficult to read.
Rather than react to the bland look Goodnight was giving him, Chisolm simply asked, “You okay? Given how things are between the pair of you, after all.”
Goodnight nodded, hoping that the Yank would get to the point soon.
“All right.” The other man paused a moment before adding, “If you need some time or anything, a mediator—”
Nope, that was all the conversation he felt like having with Chisolm at the moment.
“It’ll be fine, Sam,” Goodnight cut him off. “We’re both grown men; we can deal with our issues. Now, if you’ll excuse me?” He tipped his hat and turned to set off down the street again, spotting Billy coming out of the alley by the general store. Goodnight started walking quickly, catching up to his lover in short order and huffing out a sigh.
Billy gave him a look out of the corner of his eye. “Too much friendliness?” he asked wryly, causing Goody to chuckle. His cher really, really did not care for Sam Chisolm. The only way he could be more apparent about it was if he took to stabbing a knife into the table at the start of every meal.
“You could say that,” he replied. “Done scouting out where to dig?” At Billy’s nod, he smiled warmly. “Good. I was thinking that a bath and some good bourbon would be nice right about now. Care to join me in one or both of those?”
The Korean grinned back at him. “I’ll see about turning up some hot water if you get us a bottle and some glasses.”
“Deal.” They sealed the bargain with a quick kiss—right in the middle of the street. He honestly didn’t care what these people thought of it: they were just paying them to save their sorry hides and would likely not lynch the people who were all that stood between them and the death of their town. Then Goodnight started towards the boarding house.
A break would be very nice right now, and they could get back to planning afterward.
Sam Chisolm wouldn’t call himself a bad man, although he would say he was one with a questionable moral code.
Right now, however, he was giving real thought to strangling a pair of idiot brothers who were feuding over God only knows what.
The whole time they’d been together, the Robicheaux boys had been vexing him. It had started back in Amador City when he’d crossed paths with young Joshua for the first time in a couple months, just as mean as any other time they’d met since whatever fight had split the once-inseparable brothers up. Still, when Miss Emma and Teddy Q had approached him, brought him the chance at Bogue, the first man he thought of to join them was Joshua.
And while he’d been leery of doing so, Sam had opted to send the younger brother to fetch the elder. He wanted Vasquez’s insight on things, a more criminal mind to catch things his own need to attempt upholding the law would cause him to miss, and he didn’t entirely trust Joshua to not scare the man further into the mountains.
He had regretted that decision when the damned boys rode into their base camp outside Junction City both looking like they’d been in a fight, while Teddy and Goodnight’s… friend were unscathed.
And on the topic of said friend, Billy Rocks was obvious in his dislike of Sam. True, he didn’t always make the best impression on folks, but the hostility he sensed from the Oriental man was unprecedented. As soon as he figured out exactly what he’d done in a past life to draw this man’s ire, he was planning to apologize profusely.
When he’d told Joshua his deal with Vasquez, that he wasn’t planning to collect on the bounty, he’d meant it as a peace offering: if Joshua intended to get the bounty, he wouldn’t stand in the way. So of course the little shit has been contrary and offered the outlaw the exact same deal. Never had Sam known the younger Robicheaux to give up a potential pay day, but he’d done just that.
But for whatever goddamn reason, that had served to set Goodnight into a silent sulk, ending with the elder brother stalking off and taking a ten minute break to do whatever before returning with a pleasant mask on and a stark refusal to say anything of substance.
Then, after they’d rounded up the last of their group in Old Jack Horne and Red Harvest, they’d arrived in Rose Creek, and those two idiots just. Kept. Frustrating him at every turn. First was the opening skirmish, wherein Joshua goaded Goodnight until he took a shot at the retreating Blackstone, then they had a quickly hissed argument about that.
Every meal was an adventure in a bad way, with Sam just waiting for the impending explosion. Any time the brothers somehow forgot that they were pissed at one another, they seemed to be just the same as they’d been back when he first met them almost ten years ago. They’d both make cracks about something, share a moment of amusement… and then snap right back to being surly or sulky.
That was about the only thing he and Billy Rocks seemed to agree on; he had more than once seen the man shooting annoyed looks at both of the boys and probably wishing to lock them in a goddamn room until they worked their shit out.
So it was an act of desperation that lead to Sam slipping into the room Goodnight was sharing with the other man—and he wasn’t one to judge how a man lived his life; it had been the reason he’d even met Goodnight, keeping a group of former Blues from beating the man to death for the crime of looking at one of them a moment too long, and he had never breathed a work of it to anyone—and rifling through their saddle bags, hoping to find something that could be used to make the brothers reconcile. He’d come up with an unopened letter addressed to his friend and a journal filled with entries written in French.
Honestly, he must’ve gone slightly mad, given that he actually took the items and tucked them away in his own saddle bags before heading to join the rest of the group for breakfast before the first day of attempting to get the townsfolk into fighting form.
And those damned boys got into it. Again. Right in front of most of the men in Rose Creek.
Thankfully things seemed somewhat back on an even keel when it came time to raid the mining camp. Granted, Goodnight had shot down the Blackstones with a vengeance that was nothing short of unnerving, but it had been good to have the enemy dealt with in such short order. And a quick late afternoon walk of the town had kept the brothers from sniping at one another… although once again in the church they’d slipped back to that not communicating with one another bullshit. Hell, Joshua had taken a moment to glare at the ground and Goodnight stalked out not five minutes later.
God damn those brats. If he ever met whoever screwed the two of them up so badly, he was gonna put a bullet in ’em; sadly, he felt that he was too late for that, if the person behind that had been a parent.
Which brought them to yet another awkward dinner. Two nights in town, and Sam was ready to strangle the pair of them. Joshua and Vasquez were seated next to each other as was the new normal, making cow eyes at one another and falling in love at the worse possible time; Goodnight was seated practically across from them giving them a look that spoke of confusion and support even though they still weren’t talking to one another. Jack had apparently given up on the lot of them, focusing on his meal and talking politely with the widowed Leni, while Red was determinedly not touching a thing on his plate.
Frankly, Sam was at the end of his rope. Come morning, when the lovebirds were out setting explosives, he was going to raid the younger Robicheaux boy’s room and see if there was anything there to use as a catalyst to make these idiots talk. If he made himself into the bad guy in the process… well, so be it. It would hardly be the first time he put his self-preservation instincts aside for his friends.
[section=Footer Notes]11 March 2017And here’s a nice long chapter for you guys. It’s been a bit of ride so far, and we’re only about halfway through what’s written of the story. Hope you guys enjoy.
Part 1 is me, while parts 2 and 3 are Katsuko. We’ve got three different POVs in this, one of which is new for the story.
Well, we did promise some reveals in this chapter. We’ve got the Chisolm reveal we’ve been promising in reviews for a while now. It’s still actually the same Sam Chisolm. Just we’re seeing everything through the perspectives of some rather… unreliable narrators. He’s the same Sam Chisolm; it’s just that these boys don’t deal well with Sam’s particular brand of forcing the issue.
But someone’s gotta, am I right?
Hope you guys enjoy!
~Adora[endsection]