[section=Disclaimers & Notes]Disclaimers: All copyrights belong to their respective copyright holders, including but not limited to MGM, Columbia Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, and others. I make no profit on this piece of fan-produced work. The story itself belongs to Adora Addams and Katsuko. Please do not steal!
Word Count: 1,033
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]

“Are there laws against eating a war hero alive?” Faraday was asking. Emma wondered if he was meaning to keep this conversation between himself and Vasquez or if he was trying to get a rise out of every single person in this little camp, but either way, he was not being particularly quiet. Either way, she was thinking things about Goodnight Robicheaux that she had no real interest in thinking. He was far from her type, thank you very much. He was far too old for her tastes to begin with, but there was no way she was going to say something stupid like that. No, that seemed like a good way to get very dead very quickly… and she wasn’t even certain which one of the men in this group might be the one to do it.

And yes, she was well aware that she had a type. Teddy fit it perfectly. Matthew fit it—no, had fit it—perfectly as well. None of the men that she and her husband were recruiting fit it in the least. Just as well too: Matthew had been one of a kind, and she and Teddy were not looking to move on from his memory any time soon. After all, it had been less than a week since Bogue gunned him down in the street like a dog. She hadn’t even had any interest in comforting their husband since then: all that her mind had been consumed with was vengeance.

But Faraday’s words were painting a pretty impressive picture of things she hadn’t considered in the last week, and it was possible she was starting to reconsider some of those ‘vengeance only’ thoughts.

“I think there are laws for this, guero,” that lasso-using bastard Vasquez chuckled. She still wasn’t quite ready to forgive and forget on that one.

Faraday rolled his eyes so hard that it hurt her just watching it. “I don’t mean it in a creepy way, of course.” Well, that was definitely reassuring, because it had certainly sounded creepy. “I mean the fact that it is possible to drive him so far out of his mind that he forgets every bit of English he has ever learned.”

“You know this already, guerito?”

“Hell, yes, and it is a pretty, pretty thing.” He smirked, and Emma did not like the looks of this. “Billy says that’s when you know you’re doing it right. Or doing Goody right, I guess in this case.”

“Es verdad?” And no, Emma was not going to think about how Vasquez’s voice sounded just that much deeper right now in his native tongue.

Though clearly that was pretty heavily on Faraday’s mind, given how he slid just a little bit nearer to the outlaw and spoke just a bit closer to his ear, even if he certainly didn’t much—enough—to lower his volume. “Take a good look at them, babe. You just keep looking at them. Now, looking at Goody, you wouldn’t think he’s as flexible as he is, but oh, you’d be wrong. The positions you can put that man in and he can hold… It’s amazing. Like I said, make him lose his mind enough, and all he can speak is French…”

Oh God, this was more information than she ever wanted. This was more than she wanted to think about a man she had just met earlier today.

“And he can handle two at once just fine.”

Oh God, oh God… Her face felt like it was going to explode from the heat rising in it, and it didn’t even look like Faraday was show any signs of slowing down. If anything, he was creeping even closer to Vasquez, a possessive hand already starting to slip between his vest and shirt as Faraday pulled him closer to him.

“Now, Billy… Now there’s a whole other story. That man has wrung sounds out of me that I didn’t think it was possible for me to make.”

Vasquez’s breath seemed to catch in his throat for a second, a sound like Matthew used to make if she caught a nipple just right, and that hand Faraday had under Vasquez’s vest seemed a likely culprit. And damn it, she didn’t want to be thinking about this either!

Across the camp, her poor Teddy looked like he wanted to hide from whatever Goodnight and Billy were discussing themselves. Thankfully, they were being quiet enough that she couldn’t hear them.

“You’re picturing it right now, aren’t you, Vasquez? What Billy Rocks could do to you, what positions he could push you into, what sounds he could wring from you.” She might have been mistaken, but she thought that Faraday might have nibbled on the other’s ear. Either way, he was definitely speaking right into it, just loudly enough for her to still overhear. “Or are you thinking about what the three of us could do to Goody? What it would feel like to be inside that body?” Well, she was, and she didn’t even have the necessary equipment for it! “Or are you thinking about me, hmm, Vasquez? Because you have to know, it’s going to be all four of us, and I can—”

“Shouldn’t we be moving on pretty shortly?” Teddy said abruptly, popping fast to his feet. It earned him four death glares, two from right next to him and two from the pair next to her, and while it didn’t seem to bother him overmuch, she knew him better than that.

Emma, however, was both incredibly grateful from hearing anything more and a little disappointed not to hear what Faraday had in mind to do himself. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so damn keyed up with no sign of relief in sight. She was certainly now giving some thought to her second husband and what bedroom activities they could get up to on the trail with five other men around.

“I reckon we should,” Chisolm replied from over by the horses. He didn’t even flinch when the glares redirected from Teddy onto himself. “It’s gonna be another two days, and we still have one more stop to make before heading to Rose Creek.”

[section=Footer Notes]30 January 2017

Every now and again, when we’re having a shit day, Katsuko and I give thought to the AU of this story where the triad/soulmate elements still exist but the tale follows movie canon.

Then I get some cappuccino and calm the fuck down.

Plus, she and I love y’all too much to fuck with you that much.

~Adora [endsection]

[section=Disclaimers & Notes]Disclaimers: All copyrights belong to their respective copyright holders, including but not limited to MGM, Columbia Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, and others. I make no profit on this piece of fan-produced work. The story itself belongs to Adora Addams and Katsuko. Please do not steal!
Word Count: 1,588
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]

Joshua was never going to breathe a word to his brother about how terrified he had been arriving at the Robicheaux home: a long month short of six years old, short, scrawny, underfed, and half wild. The entire trip from Missouri to Louisiana had been Monsieur Robicheaux informing him in increasingly vile and rude ways about how Joshua wasn’t to expect anything of this new home; that his wife was taking the boy in because it was the Christian thing to do, not because she wanted him, even if she had been the one who had sent Monsieur Robicheaux to retrieve him; that he was going to be raised by a nanny he had already hired, a stern woman who wasn’t going to take any nonsense from him but was going to keep him in line; that if Le Bon Dieu was willing, this would be the last Monsieur Robicheaux would ever have to see of Joshua.

After a long talk like that, he had fully expected Monsieur Robicheaux’s wife to hate him on sight, and he got the feeling that she had expected to as well. Instead, she had taken one good long look at him the minute Monsieur Robicheaux physically dragged him in the home, one big hand wrapped completely around his arm and pulling hard (he had had that particular bruise for weeks), and declared him to be her ‘pauve ti bete’, and she had immediately set to babying him like he was one of her own. Even Ma hadn’t babied him the way Maman Arthémie Robicheaux did; Miss Ethel certainly never had been able to. Hell, he had thought for nearly a year that ‘mon pauve ti bete’ was just how you said Joshua in Louisiana French.

Maman Arthémie had set to feeding him almost from the moment he had walked—been dragged—in her front door. She had also despaired at his lack of winter clothes, never mind that Louisiana winters weren’t nearly as bad as the winters in Saint Louis and he hadn’t lost any extremities to the cold yet, and she had promptly wrapped him up in Goodnight’s old clothes that he had long since outgrown. He had felt like a blonde, silk-wearing, perfumed whirlwind had descended on him, leaving him uncertain which way was up and which way was down, and it had taken him until he had been recovering from the long day alone in his new (surprisingly large) bedroom before he realized that he had just been more or less adopted; he never even got to meet the nanny who was supposed to raise him, because Maman Arthémie had dismissed her by the next morning and ended up taking an approach to raising him that was just as personal as it had been for her own real, blood children.

Of course, that made him a damn usurper in the eyes of his newfound big brother and big sister. Colette had been the baby for years, and she and Goodnight had liked it that way. She had been nearly twelve and Goodnight almost thirteen when Joshua showed up and basically stole their Maman. For all that he had latched on to Goodnight after his second night and followed him around like a little shadow, it had taken a week for his brother to actually start speaking him and another week for it to be politely without Maman Arthémie threatening to wash his mouth out with some strong lye soap. It hadn’t exactly endeared him to Goodnight that most of Joshua’s vocabulary at the time at consisted of swear words that he got away with using because he ‘didn’t know better’ or a similar explanation.

Colette had come around to him first. That, or she had realized that he wasn’t going away any time soon and she might as well get used to him. Three weeks after he arrived in Louisiana, she had decided she liked him well enough to start assisting her maman in feeding him up. By another week after that, she had started favoring him a few smiles here and there. Within two months of him becoming a Robicheaux, Colette had been treating him like he had always been one.

It took Goodnight another month and a half, to which Joshua had despaired, because he had desperately wanted his new big brother to like him. It wasn’t as if Monsieur Robicheaux liked either of them all that much. The only one of his children that Monsieur Robicheaux cared for had been Colette, and even that was in a distant sort of way. Monsieur Robicheaux made no bones about why he hated Joshua, given his bastard status, but he had never really made heads or tails of why he had hated Goodnight. Maybe he had cottoned on that Goodnight preferred men to ladies, a fact Joshua had picked up on fairly early on himself, but maybe it was something else. Maybe the man had just hated children.

He was never going to tell his brother that few of the bruises he had worn throughout his early childhood had anything to do with playing, no matter how rambunctious he got to being. Monsieur Robicheaux had never forgiven Joshua for existing and for taking away the respect of his other children, never mind that Joshua had literally had no choice in either matter. He had been fond of reminding Joshua of this at any given moment, though especially if they were ever alone.

Joshua had learned early to take care to not be alone with Monsieur Robicheaux if he could avoid it, and he learned that only certain people counted as far as ‘not alone’ went: Goodnight, Colette, Maman Arthémie, Nana Jolie, and any houseguests that might show up. He had learned those sorts of lessons early, from the minute he could walk: never be alone with someone who wanted to hurt you. The Robicheaux household had just reinforced those lessons. Spending so much time with Goodnight as a child had been equal parts self-protection and fascination. It had hurt so much those three and a half months that Goodnight held that grudge on him, but at least Goodnight was never cruel, just dismissive. Maman Arthémie had taken Goodnight to task over his attitude a time or forty, but honestly, Joshua hadn’t cared too much, as long as Goodnight didn’t send him away, which thankfully he rarely did.

Of course, Goodnight was always the overdramatic one of the three of them, so he waited until Colette’s birthday in April to start giving Joshua the time of day. To this day, he was glad that Goodnight hadn’t waited until his own birthday in June to give him a chance. His little heart might not have lasted that long in anticipation. Of course, it had been in the middle of Colette’s party, with all her town friends gathered around the table while he and Goodnight had hung back trying to avoid as much of the loud giggles as possible, when Goodnight had busted out with that ridiculous nickname for him. Colette had taken to calling him JoJo almost immediately after accepting him into the family, but until that day, Goodnight had spoken to him only when absolutely necessary and never by name.

In the middle of that party, he had gotten a nudging elbow in the side, accompanied by a whispered “Hey”. He had been a little confused at first, to say nothing of trying to hide that he had been sore in that area already, thanks to Monsieur Robicheaux’s last drunken rage. He couldn’t think of who might have wanted his attention, but then he had glanced over at Goodnight, who had been sitting right next to him and grinning fit to be tied as he commented, “Think we should leave the ladies to their party, T-Jo?”

He had been around Louisiana folks long enough by then to know that the ‘T’ was a shortened form of petit. It made sense to him, logically speaking, because he was still really short, but it had still taken him a moment to process that Goodnight meant him. Once he finally realized it, he had damn near broken into a squeal that would have put Colette’s town friends to shame and had to bite it down hard. As it was, he had managed a grin of his own, a little gapped because he was starting to lose some of his baby teeth, and said just loud enough to be heard, “But I wanted a piece of cake.”

“You know good and well that Cooky’s saving you a piece or two in the kitchen,” Goodnight returned. “Let’s go get it.”

From that night until a couple of years later, when a eighteen year old Goodnight—who had, by then, ‘Goody’ to Joshua and no one else, for only a few days less time than he had been ‘T-Jo’—had left with their father for the war, they had been practically inseparable. He had come up with excuses to sneak over to Goody’s room at night, just in case Monsieur Robicheaux got too drunk one evening and wanted to whale on the bastard child. He might not have fit in well with Goody’s sophisticated friends when they were visiting, not in the least of which being because he was between five and ten years younger than most of them, but they had accepted him well enough. Or at least they had tolerated him, and that had been good enough in his book.

[section=Footer Notes]28 January 2017

I am so sorry. I meant to put this out yesterday, but work seriously got away from me. By the time I realized I hadn’t posted it, it was… well… today. I’m going to try to keep this on every other Friday after today. I thought setting the date to Katsuko’s payday would make it easier to remember. We’ll see.

~Adora[endsection]

[section=Disclaimers & Notes]Disclaimers: All copyrights belong to their respective copyright holders, including but not limited to MGM, Columbia Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, and others. I make no profit on this piece of fan-produced work. The story itself belongs to Adora Addams and Katsuko. Please do not steal!
Word Count: 3,492
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]

Billy Rocks was not a man one could accuse of being oblivious, and the tension between the Robicheaux brothers was damn near a physical presence.

From the moment that Goody had recognized Joshua the previous day, any semblance of normalcy and sanity had fled his lover. The man’s face had gone ghostly white, then he’d been out of his chair and grabbing the younger man almost before Billy had time to process the situation. Then they’d proceeded to argue — loudly — in French before throwing punches.

That lovely moment left Goody with a split lip and Joshua with both a split lip and a blackened eye.

Then Goody had been extremely uncommunicative, only making sounds of agreement or disagreement to let Billy know the man was even halfway paying attention the entire time they were packing to leave for Junction City. He had even asked if his lover wanted him to punch out Eddy and received an mm-hmm in response. And Goody liked Eddy.

So, in an attempt to show the younger brother some silent support, Billy had placed himself between Joshua and Teddy with Goody on the far side from his brother. That had been a disaster. The longer they’d ridden, the more Joshua had clung to his bottle of whiskey and hunched up like a scalded cat. They covered a hell of a lot of ground before Billy finally decided fuck it and called for them to stop just after sundown. Teddy had passed out almost immediately, Joshua had taken forever to fall asleep, and Goodnight was still physically but yet not mentally present.

By the time morning arrived, Billy was one hundred percent done with both of the Robicheaux brothers and simply took his usual spot next to Goody with Teddy to his right and Joshua on the outside. He was honestly wondering what kind of man Sam Chisolm was to inspire Goody to go along with this crazy-ass plan to save a town from Bart Bogue, and when he laid eyes on the man for the first time…

Well, he wasn’t impressed.

Chisolm greeted Goody kindly enough and had a polite nod for Billy, but then he’d spoken to Joshua in a totally different voice. From what he could gather from where he was tending to his and Goody’s horses, Chisolm had convinced the Mexican man to join their merry band of morons by saying that he was going to ignore the bounty. To Billy, that sounded like a silent but I can’t guarantee the other bounty hunter and/or the retired bounty hunter won’t want the money, and his assessment of Sam Chisolm’s character further nose dived.

He bit back a vicious grin, though, when Joshua loudly proclaimed that he’d match Chisolm’s deal but had to roll his eyes when the man switched over to what had to have been his mother’s name to make his introductions for Vasquez.

Idiots, the pair of them, he thought meanly before moving over to allow Goody to join him at the fire. He was hungry after all the riding, and he knew they’d be headed off again soon. Plus, he figured his lover might need to be closer to him for the moment; when Joshua had used the name Faraday rather than Robicheaux, the older man’s expression had abruptly closed off. Chances were pretty high that Goody was lost in his own head and self-recriminations again, and Billy honestly wasn’t in the mood for that at the moment.

Once all this was over, if they survived, Billy was going to lock the pair of them in a goddamn room without their guns and just let them fight it out. It was likely the only way they’d move beyond their original fight over him, and maybe it would let them both finally make peace with the fact that just because they were different didn’t mean they couldn’t still love one another.

Until then, however, Billy was going to do whatever it took to keep these two idiots alive long enough to get to that point.

---

Mother of God…

Whatever Vasquez had been expecting when Chisolm informed him that his associate would be returning soon enough with two other men, he hadn’t expected anything like what he had gotten. Instead of three men returning, it had been four, so clearly this Joshua had managed to find one more man for this bit of insanity than Chisolm had anticipated. That had been a good thing, part of him had thought; it meant a better chance of him surviving this and maybe even slipping away quickly and quietly when everything was done. After all, just because Chisolm had promised not to hunt his bounty any longer did not mean that Chisolm intended to keep that promise. Some lawmen thought that promises made to outlaws did not count the same, after all.

All the same, he had to be cautious, keeping his horse between himself and the newcomers, right hand hovering just over his gun. He shot just as well with either hand and generally favored left-handed, but there would be no easy shooting left handed around a horse, not when this one was so new to him that he hadn’t quite established how it reacted to a flurry of bullets, if matters came to that. He imagined Chisolm’s horse to be well used to gunfire, but then there was also the woman’s ride to consider.

A quick look at the four men immediately showed four people who could not be more opposite if they tried. It was hard to deny that the Oriental drew the eye first, sitting on that horse with approximately all the knives in the West attached to his waist, dressed up in a fancy suit of pin-striped clothes. The older man riding immediately next to him was just as finely dressed, if not more so, with the grey frock coat and suit. The other two weren’t nearly so finely dressed, and he was willing to bet the youngest one was wearing the only coat he owned. That one was little more than a baby, and he had to wonder all over again about a town that sent a woman and a boy out on their own to acquire hired guns.

With those three, he couldn’t be blamed for not paying too much attention to the fourth man. He tended to slide towards the background of notice, but now that he was looking, it was hard to stop. The man was definitely trying to keep too many people from paying too much attention to him: brown trousers, brown vest, brown gambler’s style hat, white shirt that was nearly dusty and sweaty enough to be brown as well. His face was scruffy enough to have not seen a razor in weeks, and he had a pinched look around the eyes. It was hard to make a guess as to his age: certainly younger than the fancy pair but older than the boy in the long trail coat, maybe younger than Vasquez himself but also maybe the same age. It would be a hard thing to pin down without directly inquiring.

What was actually the thing that stood out the most about him was that he was wearing at least three guns and a knife. There was also a rifle stuck in a holster on his saddle. What in the world did one man need with that many guns… and the knife at his side as well? There was well armed, and then there was this man. How well he could use any of them when he was actively draining a travel bottle of some kind of liquor was another question altogether.

And the older white man was riding a bit ahead of the rest of the group, loudly greeting Chisolm by name, all huge smiles and a glinting gold tooth as he dismounted his horse. That wasn’t of any concern. He had met people like that before: more flash than substance. It was Chisolm’s response to the greeting that had him on edge and rethinking that quick assessment: “Goodnight Robicheaux!”

Because Vasquez wasn’t an idiot. He had heard of the Robicheaux brothers, bounty hunters the pair of them, though the elder did seem to have quit the game several years ago. If Chisolm had dragged him out of retirement for this, then that meant something. What that might be, he did not know.

Then because Goodnight Robicheaux was moving over too near him in order to talk to Mrs. Emma, followed soon enough by the boy, he circled his horse to try to hear a little more of what the other man was saying to Chisolm, as the Oriental took the tack off the two older men’s horses and settled down by the fire. The remaining man had all but fallen from his horse and was now actively leaning against it to stay upright. It said some good things about the man that the horse was shifting every so often to help with this endeavor. This was a man, then, that this horse had picked just as much as he had no doubt chosen the horse. That spoke well of him.

They seemed to be arguing about Goodnight Robicheaux and the Oriental that had come with him, about how Chisolm hadn’t been expecting the second one to come with. The other man didn’t seem entirely too pleased with anyone’s presence but especially not the Oriental’s, and Vasquez wasn’t too sure what to read into that. Sullen hangover? Something happened on the way here? Didn’t like Orientals? Something older and uglier? There was no way to tell, another mystery.

And then the man was asking how Chisolm did and got a gesture towards Vasquez in return. The unnamed man turned towards him, clearly studying him closely and carefully, muttering something under his breath that Vasquez couldn’t quite make out, before his eyes went wide. “You brought the bounty along with?” Great, just great, someone else who recognized his face from that terrible likeness. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Chisolm, what the hell were you thinking?”

“That we might need something a little… outside the law on this, taking down a man like Bogue.” Made sense. He certainly hadn’t thought Chisolm brought him along for conversation.

“What the hell did you promise him? That he’d have two bounty hunters off his back for helping?”

Well, shit. Two bounty hunters could mean Chisolm and Goodnight Robicheaux or, more likely, Chisolm and the man who was staring at Chisolm in nothing less than undisguised shock, like he was wondering what had broken in the man’s brain. Frankly, Vasquez was wondering the same thing. A man with a price on his head and two bounty hunters… This would not end well.

“No, not at all, Mister Robicheaux… Joshua, if I may…”

Mother of God…

That settled it: he was going to die in this. Because while those stories about the Robicheaux brothers did frequently talk about how Goodnight had quit doing that job, they had lot more to say about the younger brother, Joshua Robicheaux, who had stayed on it and with a vengeance too: about what a mean bastard he was; about how few of his bounties were ever turned in alive; how he preferred to go after dangerous, high-paying bounties… or supposedly sometimes bounties that had teamed up together; about what kind of pain he liked to inflict on people who hurt women or children; about how the quickest way to end up dead around him was to have your hand on your gun…

Shit…

Well, if he put his hands behind his back, the two bounty hunters in front of him might think he was reaching for another piece. He wasn’t exactly going to stick his hands in the air in surrender and he wasn’t going to drop his gun belt, but he could cross his arms over his chest so that they would be nowhere near his weapons. Because he was going to do everything in his power to not get shot.

Chisolm was still speaking, though, as if he hadn’t noticed the effect his words had had, though admittedly Vasquez doubted that to be the case. “I only promised I would forget all about his bounty, seeing as I’m the one that managed to find him in the first place. I certainly would never want to speak out of turn on your behalf, after all.”

Fantastic. That sounded like he was suddenly right in the middle of some kind of feud between these two particular bounty hunters, like they were trying to one-up each other at his expense. This would not end well, at least not for him.

Or maybe that wasn’t true. There were a lot of complicated things going on here, not in the least of which being the multitude of expressions hidden on the other man’s face but flying through his eyes almost too fast to place as he stared at Chisolm’s back, as the other man walked over to the other newest additions to their group. If one wasn’t watching the man’s eyes, you would miss everything happening he was thinking because his face showed nothing. It might as well have been made of stone for all it revealed.

At least until he clearly made his decision about the matter. “I’ll call that bet, Chisolm,” he called over, grinning like a coyote when Chisolm whipped back around to face them, face clearly lit with unhidden confusion and shock. But when he spoke again, the words were quieter, clearly meant to be kept between the two of them. “We survive this shit, and I won’t go after that bounty either, my hand to God.” He balanced his liquor bottle under his arm and stuck out a hand in what was clearly meant to be a friendly gesture. “Joshua Faraday. Pleased to meet you.”

It was little more than a reflex to answer the gesture, letting Faraday—if that was his name now, who was Vasquez to judge on something like that—shake his hand a couple of times hard. Maybe the new name was meant to be reassuring or to tweak at Chisolm or something else entirely. Either way, it was a kindness that didn’t have to be given but had been nonetheless.

But then, he had heard of Joshua Faraday before as well. Until now, he had always assumed the two reputations to belong to two separate men who happened to share a first name, but clearly he had been mistaken. Still, Joshua Faraday… a gambler with the Devil’s own luck, both good and bad; a man who hardly ever cheated at cards but almost always managed to walk away at the end of every day with more money in his pockets than he had had upon arrival; a drunkard who could imbibe half a saloon’s quantity of liquor in a night and still manage to ride out at the end of it all; a man who always seemed to be running from something.

Now he had to wonder if what Joshua Faraday was running from was in fact Joshua Robicheaux. A blind idiot could tell there was bad blood there, what with how Goodnight Robicheaux was hardly paying any mind to him, instead focussing on the beans being passed around as a quick trail lunch. Joshua—best to go with that, to avoid any potential confusion—seemed to be skipping on the meal, though whether it was because of the company or something else was something yet to be seen.

No, he had his own suspicions about that too, he noted, watching Joshua make some long, frequent pulls from that bottle and watched the older two men he had arrived with out of the corner of his eye; apparently, Joshua preferred a liquid lunch to actual food. That would be something to keep an eye on during all of this, as if they didn’t have enough to worry about as it was.

It was worth noting that for how much the man drank and didn’t eat—a bad combination, no matter how you looked at it—it seemed to have little effect on his reflexes. Leaning against the large tree they had set up the temporary camp in the shade off, Joshua’s eyes darted over to watch each person as they moved even slightly… at least until they locked tight, if in a side-eyeing sort of way, on Goodnight Robicheaux as he stood and made some excuses about a call of nature. It might have even been true, but it looked like Joshua didn’t believe it, not given how he watched Goodnight like a hawk as he stepped mostly out of sight.

There was a lot more going on here than what he had originally been told. It was going to be in his best interest to try to figure it all out, before it all blew up in his face.

In the meanwhile, every story about every version of Joshua said that his word was a bond: if he gave it, he would stick by it until the end or until someone double-crossed him. He had Joshua’s word that he wasn’t about to turn on him for the five-hundred dollar bounty on his head, and he felt pretty confident that it was going to be binding. It wasn’t like he was going to double-cross Joshua; it wasn’t the kind of man he was.

He could probably trust in that bond a lot more than he could trust an angry widow, a boy, a man carrying more knives than seemed strictly healthy, a so-called retired bounty hunter, and yet another bounty hunter, the one gathering this little motley crew. It would be best, at least for now, he thought, to stay close to the person who seemed least likely to put a bullet to him.

This was not going to end well.

---

 Goodnight tried to keep his focus on eating whatever the hell it was that was being passed around for lunch, probably beans or porridge or something, he couldn’t really taste it to be honest. His mind was still wrapping itself around his brother’s words to the outlaw Gabriel Vasquez only a few moments before:

Joshua Faraday.

It had been many long years since his little brother had used his mama’s name, having adopted the Robicheaux name when Maman adopted him in all the important ways. There had been one or two times, during their years as a bounty hunting team, that they’d both used assumed names to try and get closer to some of their more dangerous bounties, but never had he known Joshua to use the name he’d arrived in St. Martinville with.

And now?

Now it had just tripped lightly off of his tongue as if he introduced himself to everyone that way.

And maybe he did. The rumors about Joshua Robicheaux said he was a mean bastard, turning in a great deal more men dead than alive, going after only the most dangerous and high-paying targets, but still he’d had a small measure of hope.

Rumor also said Joshua Robicheaux was especially vicious with men who’d harmed women or children.

Goodnight had taken that to mean that maybe, just maybe, his brother hadn’t grown up to be the son of a whore who’d sired them both after all.

Still, it hurt like hell, hearing his baby brother, his T-Jo, all but denouncing his family name. It may have been just to put Vasquez at ease, but Goodnight doubted that.

Looked like he was right about reconciliation; Joshua didn’t want it, and no matter how much Goodnight might wish for it, then he would just learn to live without it.

He shook himself out of his troubled thoughts and pushed himself to his feet. “If y’all would excuse me,” he said, smooth Louisiana charm coming through as all but Billy and Joshua glanced his way, “we are shortly to be setting off on a very long journey, and nature calls.”

It was only a half-truth, yes, but a good enough reason to slip away for some privacy. Even Billy’s silent companionship was stifling at the moment, and he really just wanted to take a few minutes to write in his journal.

Goodnight slipped towards the other end of the copse they were still settled in at, and when he rounded the last tree, he sat abruptly. He leaned back against the trunk and squeezed his eyes shut, refusing to let them water any. It would only be a weakness he didn’t need at the moment, letting the man he’d called brother for most of his life see him mourn for any of what they no longer had, but it was difficult.

Finally positive that the moment had passed, Goodnight opened his eyes and slipped his journal out of his breast pocket. The fountain pen he generally used for writing was tucked safely inside, marking his previous place, and he opened the journal to a new page. Taking a quick glance back to the campfire — no one had followed him, although Billy was looking his way and Joshua was as well but with that dark expression on his face still — he removed the pen’s cap and began to write.

Mon cher frère T-Jo…

[section=Footer Notes]28 January 2017

Okay, and this is the other half of the previous chapter. It’s also one that’s cowritten: sections one and three here are by Katsuko, and section two is me.

Also, I want to take every last one of these boys and smack them with a newspaper until they get along. Or at the very least, pull their heads out of their asses and talk.

But what would be the fun in that?

~Adora[endsection]

[section=Disclaimers & Notes]Disclaimers: All copyrights belong to their respective copyright holders, including but not limited to MGM, Columbia Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, and others. I make no profit on this piece of fan-produced work. The story itself belongs to Adora Addams and Katsuko. Please do not steal!
Word Count: 1,521
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]

“What a merry band we are!” Goodnight declared as they rode towards the next supply station. “Chisolm an elite monster hunter, me a demon born from hell, Billy my dearest friend in the world…”

Billy shot him a sly grin, and Goodnight winked back. Somehow, old Sam Chisolm had missed the fact that the ‘man’ who’d arrived with him was not a mortal, and Faraday’s antics had kept him from discovering this truth. His exact phrasing had been this here’s Billy, he come with Goodnight in so decisive a way that it was clear the Fae intended to keep their resident angel as a secret weapon for as long as possible.

Goodnight continued with, “The strangest member of the Fae I have ever met in my entire life, whatever the hell this fine Mexican fellow may be, a female on a righteous mission, and her halfling companion. We are going to die in a blaze of glory, and it will be wonderful.”

“‘Whatever the hell’ I am, cabrón?” Vasquez asked, sounding amused. “I am older than anyone else here. Your god might come close, maybe not though.”

The demon chuckled, letting his eyes flicker to the black he generally shifted them to when he was doing it on purpose. “Might be you’re right, mon ami,” he offered. “My granddaddy has been around for quite a while, though.”

He noticed that Faraday turned to glance back at him with a sly grin, and he winked at the Fae. It was clear that he was trying to puzzle out just where to classify him on the scale of Antichrists I Have Known, and Goodnight had no doubt that he would be above Mordecai at any rate; much as he loved his siblings, Mordecai was an unrepentant asshole even to his brothers and sisters. Doubtful that he’d been much kinder to other monsters.

“Maybe your grandfather know my sisters and brothers, huh?” Vasquez offered with a far too toothy grin; how the humans kept missing how sharp those teeth were was a mystery for the ages, but perhaps it was similar to how the humans didn’t understand their mind-language when they spoke it aloud.

“What a charming thought,” he drawled dryly before glancing back at a far too amused Billy. “I sense we are bonding.”

In short order, the group arrived at the supply station and set about looking for the tracker Jack Horne. No one could give them a firm answer, and Billy frowned as he looked around.

“What’s wrong, my dear?” Goodnight asked aloud, a frown on his own lips. Faraday and Vasquez both turned his way curiously.

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Goody,” his angel replied. “I have followed Horne’s exploits many times, sent my Reapers for those whose scalps he took.”

“Shit,” Faraday muttered. “Hasn’t he killed, like, three hundred or so of the Crow?”

“That is a good many dead men, my friends,” Vasquez offered. “Many angry souls. That is why my kind eat every part of our enemy: body, mind, soul. Nothing left to become angry.”

Billy gave Vasquez a long look before continuing his thought, even as Chisolm approached a couple of young men who had just returned down the mountain. “Three hundred angry souls is a heavy burden on a man. That way leads to… something I don’t want to think about.”

“A wendigo,” Goodnight said abruptly, feeling his black blood freeze in his veins. “You think Horne is going to go wendigo when he dies, don’t you?”

“I’m hoping you’re wrong,” Faraday said firmly, although even he looked incredibly pale.

“Gentlemen,” Chisolm called over, and the four monsters looked to where their hunter comrade was waiting. “These young fellows claim to have information on Jack Horne.”

“Yeah!” one of the children called out. “We done killed him!”

“Madre de todos los dios,” Vasquez muttered, and Billy grunted in agreement.

“We are talking about Jack Horne?” Goodnight asked almost fearfully, moving to the porch and leaning on the post with one arm. “I mean, the Jack Horne, the legend Jack Horne?”

“Legend? Legend my ass,” the child holding the rifle said. “He may have killed three hundred Crow, but he ain’t never met the Pigeon Brothers before.”

“And you said that’s Jack Horne’s rifle?” Chisolm asked, sounding a bit disappointed and somehow not noticing that his collection of monsters was verging on panic.

The brother holding the rifle flipped it over to show off the JH engraved on the stock. “It was Jack Horne’s rifle,” the one not holding it stated. “There’s an army base offering a thousand dollars for” — and here he stammered as his brother shoved him — “proof of death. Rifle ought’a do.”

Faraday sat up straighter, eyes shifting in the light to something otherworldly. “You don’t have a body?” he asked, voice wavering only enough that his fellow monsters noticed. Goodnight himself felt that same cold fear fall over him, and he subconsciously sniffed at the air. If he even caught a whiff of wendigo, he was drawing his revolver and shooting first without ever asking questions.

The brother with the rifle snickered. “Ol’ Len here hit him over the head with a rock,” he said with something like pride in his tone. “Fell over the cliff when he did it.”

“So you got no body,” the demon stated, eyes shifting to white for half a second before flicking to black.

Len Pigeon turned to shoot a glare at the demon, either bravely or stupidly meeting his gaze. “Just what the hell are you trying—” he began, only to be interrupted by the hatchet that had found itself in his chest.

All eyes turned to see where it had come from, and four monsters all swore in their own tongue as they caught sight of Jack Horne stalking down the mountain. The aura of near-death was so strong that Goodnight nearly growled, and his right hand fell to the weapon on his left hip. From the corner of his eye, he noted that Faraday had a hand on the pistol in his gunslinger’s rig, Billy had one of his longer blessed blades drawn, and Vasquez was responding with both pistols and bared teeth; chances were good that if Horne came their way, the ancient monster was planning to devour the man.

The brother holding the rifle stumbled backwards, trying to fire off a shot and failing in spectacular fashion. Horne stalked up to him and ripped his weapon away before bashing the young fool in the face with the stock. He then lifted one leg and, with a grunt verging on a roar that chilled all present, stomped down on the poor unfortunate’s head. The monsters could hear the skull crunching beneath his foot, and Billy’s wings flared briefly in the shadows as they waited for the man to fall on the corpse and begin to feed.

“Pigeon Brothers weren’t famous for very long,” Goodnight found himself saying, only to flinch as the potential threat moved to face them.

Except Jack Horne merely stared a moment, blinking absently at the assembled men and monsters before speaking in a raspy voice.

“These two unholy creatures bashed me over the head with a rock and stole my property.”

“He’s close to shifting,” Faraday remarked mentally to his fellow monsters. “Not there yet, but too close for my taste.”

“I can eat him, if you like,” Vasquez offered.

“Now I have a right,” Horne continued as he walked closer and retrieved his hatchet and horse, “by the law and by the Lord to take back what is mine. Are we in agreement?”

Billy responded by twitching his blade briefly; Faraday gave a slight nod while Vasquez backed away with both hands raised in a placating manner. Goodnight was the only one to give a verbal, “Yeah,” in reply.

Chisolm spoke up again, “Mister Horne, my name is Sam Chisolm. We met up in Cheyenne about six years back. I was hoping you would be interested in a proposition.”

Horne looked almost through Chisolm, as if he didn’t even see him. Faraday cleared his throat.

“Government doesn’t pay a bounty on redskins no more.” When Horne looked his way, Goodnight moved a half-step closer to the Fae and let out a low hiss at the threat. Faraday continued, “You must be out of work.”

“Well,” Horne said slowly, “that’s a whole ‘nother story.”

“We are out to help some good people face a monstrous foe,” Chisolm said. “I was hoping you… might be interested.”

Horne gave him a long look before heaving a weary sigh and moving to go back up the mountain. In a stunning display of self-preservation, young Teddy Q all but jumped out of the man’s way as he ambled on by.

“I believe,” Faraday said slowly, “that bear was wearing people’s clothes.”

The irreverent remark broke the tension, and the assembled monsters chuckled a bit before moving to their mounts once again. Now that they would be leaving the future wendigo behind, all were breathing a little easier.

Hopefully, Chisolm had no more nasty surprises in store for his supposed allies.

[section=Footer Notes]25 January 2017

Hahahaha! Yeah. Ol’ Jack Horne isn’t exactly what anyone was expecting coming in here, is he?

And we haven’t even scratched the surface where some of these horses are concerned.

Running count on monsters:
Emma Cullen – one quarter Changeling (on her father’s side)
Bartholomew Bogue – warlock uppity witch
McCann – hedge witch
Denali – skin-walker
Teddy Q – half earth elemental half dryad (on his mother’s side)
Chisolm – human monster hunter
Faraday – Trickster Fae A little of this, a little of that Fae
Goodnight Robicheaux – demon an Antichrist
Billy Rocks – angel of death
Vasquez – Ancient God (Old Mexico/Aztec/Mayan)
Jack Horne – mostly harmless future wendigo (currently human)[endsection]

[section=Disclaimers & Notes]Disclaimers: All copyrights belong to their respective copyright holders, including but not limited to MGM, Columbia Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, and others. I make no profit on this piece of fan-produced work. The story itself belongs to Adora Addams and Katsuko. Please do not steal!
Word Count: 1,094
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]

God damn, but Teddy was so damn confused right now.

Okay, Goodnight Robicheaux and Billy Rocks… They made a kind of sense. They were together—and that was fine, because they just hadn’t found a third yet. These things could take them. Lord knew it had taken years for him to find his own other parts in Matthew and Emma, only to have their Matthew cruelly ripped away from them both a few years later.

But then he started watching how the pair acted around other people, and he thought, Well, maybe Faraday… And it had seemed pretty damned likely, given how quickly they had sent him away, first for whiskey then with any other excuse they could think of, some more flimsy than others. There had been some heated looks exchanged between the three of them that had made him feel like he was better off somewhere far enough away that sound didn’t travel.

But then Faraday started making moon eyes at that Mexican, Vasquez, the second they met back up with the other part of their group. Those two had retreated to the other side of the camp where Miss Emma was set up and were talking away in hushed tones, thick as thieves already for the fact that they had just met ten minutes ago. And now Teddy was starting to wonder if he was watching two couples form up and tried not to feel too scandalized. This was the frontier, after all. Sometimes anything went out here.

On the other hand, though, both Vasquez and Faraday were still eyeballing Goodnight and Billy like they wanted to eat them alive, though hopefully not in a disturbing way. No, it looked more like the expression he could remember seeing on Emma’s face when she was looking at him and Matthew in their marriage bed, because he couldn’t deny that Matthew had been a particularly gorgeous man. He wasn’t so sure that he would put Goodnight Robicheaux in that same category… but he also wasn’t going to say a damn word, because he didn’t really fancy finding out what the other men’s reaction to that might be. He didn’t want to end up surviving this, whatever this turned out to be, only to end up stabbed to death by Billy Rocks. Or shot to pieces by men like Vasquez or Faraday either.

No, he was going to be careful as to his phrasing, but he was going to have to ask just what the hell was going on here. If they all survived this. Maybe it would sort itself all out before it came down to all that… But that wasn’t looking too likely.

Of course, there wasn’t exactly a lot of doubt as to Goodnight’s and Billy’s thoughts on the matter, not if the muttered conversation he was overhearing was anything to go by. “Which did you want to do first, Goody?” Billy was currently saying. “Ride the vaquero or climb the mountain again?”

“Yes.”

Teddy was certain his brain had just broken. But they were still talking.

“Goody. That wasn’t a yes or no question.”

“Of course not, mon cher. It was an either, or, or both question,” Goodnight decided to explain. “‘Yes’ is both.”

“Clearly you aren’t considering… logistics.”

A quick laugh. “Billy, I ain’t done nothing but consider the… logistics since we left Volcano Springs. I’m reworking them now, adding in a fourth, and if I keep considering them, then I’m gonna need a change of pants.”

And God damn it, there was no escaping this at the moment either. Poor Emma didn’t look to be fairing much better over there, and Chisolm was apparently deaf over where he was checking over all the horses.

“I didn’t need to know that,” Billy said evenly.

“You wanna know.”

“Yes, damn it. I do. Share.”

Please don’t share, was all Teddy could think. Please, dear God, don’t share.

“To be honest with you, cher, I’m thinking quite a lot on what the three of us got up to back in Volcano Springs.”

Oh dear Lord. Teddy didn’t want to know. He did not want to know, but somehow he hadn’t opened his mouth to break into the conversation just yet.

“Which part, Goody?” And now Mister Rocks had slipped impossibly closer to Mister Robicheaux, one hand sliding around the other’s waist and pulling him into his side. Their heads ducked closer together, but he was still close enough to hear their quiet words.

“Mmm, mostly ‘bout how good it felt, taking both a’ you at once,” Mister Robicheaux seemed to be purring, and that was not something Teddy wanted to know about the man. He also didn’t want to know about his sex life, but here he was anyway. “Considering how to add one more, but for the life of me, I can’t quite work it out mentally.”

Mister Rocks made a considering sound, and Teddy wasn’t sure where his hand had vanished to. “Maybe,” he mused, turning his head and speaking against Mister Robicheaux’s ear, “Josh and Vasquez have you first, and I keep your mouth occupied for a little while. Love it when you talk around my cock, especially when—”

“Shouldn’t we be moving on pretty shortly?” Teddy said abruptly. Which earned him four death glares, two from right next to him and two from the other side of the camp. Emma, however, looked incredibly grateful for the interruption to whatever was happening in regards to Faraday and Vasquez.

“I reckon we should,” Chisolm replied, and apparently he wasn’t deaf, just stubborn as all hell. He didn’t even flinch when the glares redirected from Teddy onto himself. “It’s gonna be another two days, and we still have one more stop to make before heading to Rose Creek.”

That, apparently, didn’t make Goodnight happy. “Where the hell else do we need to go?”

“I was thinking to get Jack Horne involved in this.”

Teddy didn’t know who the hell this Jack Horne was, mostly because his entire world had been Emma and Matthew, but apparently the name meant something to Goodnight. Possibly Faraday as well, given the slow blink the man gave Chisolm, but that could have been disbelief at having to take even longer to get to Rose Creek. And Teddy really didn’t want to recall how annoying it had been, waiting to get back to what would be home and complete the process of bonding with his triad, but he also didn’t want to think any on those… logistics Goodnight had been talking about. He really, really didn’t.

[section=Footer Notes]23 January 2017

No translations this time. I’m not even sure I have anything to say for myself in general today. I’m definitely not proud of writing this bit of innuendo. No, of course not. Why would anyone think that?

~Adora [endsection]

[section=Disclaimers & Notes]Disclaimers: All copyrights belong to their respective copyright holders, including but not limited to MGM, Columbia Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, and others. I make no profit on this piece of fan-produced work. The story itself belongs to Adora Addams and Katsuko. Please do not steal!
Word Count: 2,702
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]

If nothing else, the ride to Junction City gave Goodnight plenty of time to think on the past. It also gave him ample opportunity to question his memories and wonder if there was something he had missed over the years prior to their split, but he’d long grown used to self-loathing introspection.

No matter how much he loved and trusted Billy, there were some secrets he chose to keep. Most of them were his own, of course, but there were a few of Joshua’s that he doubted the younger knew he was still keeping locked up tight.

Secrets like Goodnight recognized full well that the bruises his baby brother sported oftentimes as a child weren’t from playing too rough, because he had worn more than a few of the same himself.

Secrets like Goodnight would feel his blood freeze in his veins any time he’d turn around as a teenager and his little shadow wasn’t behind him, especially when he knew goddamn well that Monsieur Robicheaux was at home.

Secrets like Goodnight didn’t kill the old bastard sooner only because he was worried that Maman would fall under suspicion, since it would have been unheard of for the slaves or indentured servants or children to do such a thing.

Secrets like Goodnight had argued with Monsieur Robicheaux the day the man decided they were joining the army, and that he’d been very careful with his left side when signing his life away under the bastard’s watchful eye.

Secrets like, when Monsieur Robicheaux contracted dysentery on the campaign march, Goodnight hadn’t hesitated to mix a little oleander into the bastard’s canteen to make sure death came for him that much faster.

Secrets like Goodnight continued to have nightmares wherein he deserted and rushed back to St. Martinville only to find out upon arriving that Joshua had died from the yellow fever as well rather than bounce back the way he had in reality.

Secrets like Goodnight also had nightmares wherein he called out to his brother over the battlefield only to be answered by a ringing silence.

Secrets like Goodnight had honestly, truthfully hoped that reconciliation was possible when he’d received that letter from Joshua two years back, only to wait in Carson City for six weeks before having to kill three men — Billy’d taken down four of his own — and make tracks without setting eyes on his brother.

He still didn’t rightly know if it had been genuine or if it had been an ambush, but the letter had been Joshua’s handwriting. And given their reunion, it looked a lot less like the former was anywhere on his brother’s mind.

But that was okay. It was fine. Goodnight would follow through on Chisolm’s mission, and then he and Billy would slide back into the world again.

Maybe this time he would be able to leave all of the past behind.

---

There were days that Joshua thanked God he wasn’t skilled in medicine… or else he might give into the urge to take a knife to the blood vessel behind his right eye that alway wanted to throb with every hangover. Hair of the dog did a lot to dim the sensation, and he was most assuredly liberally applying it.

Today was easier than yesterday. For starters, Rocks was no longer riding between him and little Teddy Q… and little Teddy Q between Rocks and Goodnight. He might have been able to handle them trying to separate the two of them—the better to avoid more fistfights, after all—but there was no cause for Rocks to separate him from Teddy as well as Goodnight. Yeah, he might have given some thought to sewing the boy’s mouth shut, but it wasn’t like he had followed through on the thought.

At least that hadn’t carried over to today’s ride. Goodnight and he were still on opposite sides of the group, but Rocks was next to Goodnight and Teddy was next to him. And he was applying additional cheap whiskey to a cheap whiskey hangover. So far, so good: it was helping. And they had to almost be on top of Junction City by now, seeing as how they’d been riding since dawn and had covered some good ground before full dark last night as well.

They made it over another hill, and he could see three horses first of all: Chisolm’s big black chestnut, Miss Emma’s palomino, and a pale one that was new to Joshua, either white or light grey or some combination of the two. It was probably only thanks to his hangover that he heard the quiet whistle that was obviously a signal to the other people in the camp, because it set that blood vessel behind his right eye to throbbing again.

The closer they got, the easier it was to tell that the figure under the tree was Sam Chisolm, while the one bustling up from the little creek the campsite was next to was Miss Emma. The third person, the one half behind that flea bitten grey horse—now that he was close enough to see the color—he couldn’t see well enough to identify. He got the impression of a lean man, with at least two guns, a white shirt, a dark vest, sinfully well-fitted black trousers, and a dose of paranoia that was perhaps heavier than normal, given the hand hovering just above a hip-holstered pistol and wariness written large throughout his body. Who in the hell had Chisolm found to help them in this fool’s quest, and what the hell had he told him about what was going on?

But none of that really mattered too much when Goodnight was breaking away from the group to greet Chisolm in what had to be the loudest voice he could possibly manage: “Sam Chisolm! Aren’t you a sight to see with the storm on our backs?” Chisolm returned the greeting by name as Goodnight dismounted and moved over to him, the pair of them louder than seemed wise.

Rocks was glaring at Goodnight, even as he slid off his horse and started fussing with his tack… Never mind that, he was fussing with both of their tacks. Even little Teddy Q was sliding off his horse and sidling over towards Miss Emma, followed quickly enough by Goodnight. And that was his cue to all but fall off of Jack, the horse sidestepping just a little to help keep him upright.

“I see you manage to convince Goodnight to come after all,” Chisolm commented dryly, only a little less friendly with him than he had been with Goodnight… though certainly a good deal less effusive. “Though I must say I wasn’t expecting the other addition.”

He shrugged. “Goodnight weren’t leaving without him. Besides, Rocks seems to be a fair hand with those pigstickers.” The compliment was begrudgingly given, but he certainly wasn’t going to lie about anything here if he could help it. “How did you do?”

Chisolm gestured a bit in the direction of the final person in their camp. “See for yourself.”

He turned for a better look at the other person, now taking full note of everything about him: at least as tall as Joshua himself was, wearing a black leather vest over the white shirt he had noted earlier, silver buttons on the vest, silver spurs, those two flashy guns he’d noticed before as well, a deep red sash tied around his waist, dragging the eye down to those trousers that had gotten his attention so quickly and thoroughly before… all of which added up to precisely one thing.

“Oh good, we got ourselves a Mexican,” he muttered under his breath, before his brain caught up to his libido and noted one more small but ever so crucial detail: the man had a darkly handsome face… that bore entirely too many similarities to one he had only recently been checking out on a wanted poster. “You brought the bounty along with? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Chisolm, what the hell were you thinking?”

“That we might need something a little… outside the law on this, taking down a man like Bogue.”

“What the hell did you promise him? That he’d have two bounty hunters off his back for helping?”

“No, not at all, Mister Robicheaux… Joshua, if I may…” Chisolm said magnanimously, conveniently ignoring how the outlaw seemed to lose a few shades of color from his face, as well as how his hands were suddenly approximately a mile away from his guns as they crossed over his chest. Clearly, someone had heard the rumors about how exactly Joshua’s bounties kept ending up dead then and what had precipitated those turns of events. “I only promised I would forget all about his bounty, seeing as I’m the one that managed to find him in the first place. I certainly would never want to speak out of turn on your behalf, after all.”

God, he wasn’t nearly drunk enough for any of this shit. Chisolm turned from him, taking a few steps over towards where Goodnight and Billy were setting up a small camp. Gabriel Vasquez… Jesus Christ… Well, Chisolm could have picked a lot of worse criminals to recruit for this little endeavor. All Vasquez had done was kill a Ranger, and frankly, every single Ranger that Joshua had ever met had needed a little bit of killing. Five hundred dollars worth of guns would have been nice, if impractical for transportation purposes, but a deft extra gun hand would go a long way as well.

And besides, he might end up needing someone to talk to on this little suicide run that wasn’t Miss Emma and little Teddy. He would be damned if he went groveling back to Goodnight for attention anytime soon if he ended up needing it, after all.

If Sam Chisolm were a more conniving man, Joshua might suspect that he had set this all up somehow. Bring a bounty in on this and promise not to turn him in, only to ‘forget’ to mention the second bounty hunter in the group, who might or might not turn him in instead, maybe even spotting Chisolm part of the money as a finder’s fee of sorts. Hell, part of him was half sure that this had been part of Chisolm’s endgame, bringing a wanted man along, but then, he freely admitted to being a bit more paranoid than the average person should be. It had kept him alive on his own for years. On a more annoying note, he was nearly one hundred percent certain that Chisolm had sent him after Goodnight for the sole purpose of seeing what would happen, and that pissed him off at the older man all over again.

“I’ll call that bet, Chisolm,” he called over at Chisolm’s back, watching and smiling with some measure of vindictive glee as the older man stiffened and then whipped around to stare at him in unadulterated shock. He addressed the rest of what he had to say at Vasquez, though he did make sure he kept the other three men in his line of sight, even as he pitched his voice to just him and Vasquez: “We survive this shit, and I won’t go after that bounty either, my hand to God.” He tucked the bottle of liquor under his arm and stuck a hand out as friendly as a man could be, while visibly carrying three guns… and hiding another on his person… and had a Winchester rifle stuck in a holster on their saddle right behind them… and a knife on them. “Joshua Faraday. Pleased to meet you.”

---

When Goodnight finally decided to turn his attention back to the world around him, he was almost surprised to find Billy riding next to him. He may have been sleepwalking that morning, but the previous day when they’d set out, his lover had placed himself between Joshua and young Teddy, keeping him as far from his brother as possible. He had assumed that Billy would do the same once they were on the trail today, but it looked like he was mistaken.

Young Teddy wasn’t saying anything, thank God. Or if he was, then Goodnight was doing a grand job of ignoring him. And Joshua appeared to be drinking still, just the same as the last time and every other time he’d been paying attention during this damned trip. Thankfully they were nearly to Junction City, and if he knew Chisolm, then it would be outside the town rather than in the middle of the main thoroughfare.

And wouldn’t you know it, when they crested the hill, Goodnight spotted three horses grazing near a copse of trees, with three people-shaped figures settled around the largest of the trees. He let an affable, Goodnight Robicheaux, Hero and Legend, smile slide over his features, and he could feel Billy glaring at him. The other man hated the facade, but it had suited him well over the years; he could be the bastard when people actually managed to cross him

“Sam Chisolm!” he called once they were close enough to be heard, and ignored Joshua completely. Chances were good the boy was too drunk to really have anything polite to say. “Aren’t you a sight to see with the storm on our backs?”

“Well, now, the rain ain’t over yet,” Chisolm replied. “And I reckon the storm will be on us sooner rather than later.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Goodnight mused, climbing off his mare and moving to greet the other man with a friendly hug; he knew well that they really weren’t much more than somewhat amicable strangers, but none of the men with him knew that, and the Cajun was never going to let his brother know the truth of the matter. He stepped back and nodded towards Billy. “This here’s my companion, Billy Rocks. He could be of some help on this endeavor, I hope.”

Billy gave a nod to Chisolm, moving to remove some of the tack from their horses to let them rest for a few moments before they were to set out again. Young Teddy slipped from his own mount and bustled to the woman, and Goodnight rolled his eyes.

Not out in the big wide world alone, after all. Firmly attached to a mother-figure’s apron strings instead, he thought meanly.

Instead of saying so, he nodded towards the woman and asked Chisolm, “Who’s this?”

“Our employer, Missus Emma Cullen.”

Well, well, well… It wasn’t often that he saw a woman out on the trail like this, and if the situation was one that Chisolm had called upon him for, it was likely that a vendetta of some manner was in effect. He thought it possible that he might get along with this woman famously.

“Enchante, ma cher,” Goodnight greeted, still all Louisiana charm. Obviously uncertain as to what to expect, the young widow accepted his handshake. “Your hands are cold, Emma. You nervous?”

If she was a cautious woman, this Miss Emma would have denied the accusation; if she was a fool, she would have boasted that she was afraid of nothing. Instead, Miss Emma proved to have nerves of steel by making no reply at all.

Goodnight’s smile slipped from affable charm to something more real, with a bit more world-weariness to it. “Don’t be,” he advised. “We will help you seek that which you are due, or my name’s not Goodnight.”

When she offered a small smile of her own in reply, something fragile and broken but still hardened in spite of or perhaps because of her pain, he nodded slightly and moved to where Billy was settling in by the fire to steal a bit of food. Goodnight’s gaze fell onto the other party in the small camp and wondered absently why the man looked vaguely familiar.

It was only when his brother started hassling Chisolm about a bounty that he realized the stranger was a fugitive. And he wondered to himself what manner of army his old “friend” was building around him.

A Grey who just wants to kill his past, a Korean who puts up with far too much of my bullshit, a Blue with his own vendetta, my drunken and mean as hell brother, a Mexican outlaw, a young woman likely seeking revenge, and the little boy trailing in her shadow. We are a party of dead men unless Chisolm actually has a goddamn plan here.

[section=Footer Notes]21 January 2017

So this chapter actually had to be divided in half. The first and third section here are by Katsuko, while the middle one is me. This is going to be happening a lot more frequently as we progress through the remaining story.

~Adora[endsection]

[section=Disclaimers & Notes]Disclaimers: All copyrights belong to their respective copyright holders, including but not limited to MGM, Columbia Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, and others. I make no profit on this piece of fan-produced work. The story itself belongs to Adora Addams and Katsuko. Please do not steal!
Word Count: 1,942
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]

Faraday had never been so glad to see a small camp as he was right now. It wasn’t that he was sick of all this already, but he had had the last day and a half narrated by a demon, and it was getting past annoying. It wasn’t the first time he had ridden with demons, and every last one he had ever met had been enormously fond of the sound of their own voice… but Goodnight Robicheaux might have just about taken the cake. Faraday was starting to develop a twitch in his right eye that no amount of alcohol was soothing, as well as a theory as to the demon.

The demons he had known in the past were all Antichrists, natural born children of Lucifer, and of the three of them he had known, Faraday had been friends with exactly one, predictably the one most likely to currently be dead, given the injuries he’d sustained in a fight against a wendigo, and capable to standing only one of the others, the one he knew for a fact was dead. But even a sample size that small did leave some room for educated guesses, if he was willing to assume that all demons were like Antichrists. That much, he didn’t actually know for certain, but for now, he would just work with the information he had.

As far as demons went, he was about ninety-three percent certain that Goodnight was young. How young he wasn’t so sure on. He didn’t know how demons reckoned age. It was all a bit beyond him. To him, even the oldest of demons was fairly young: a couple thousand years old or so at most. Hell, he remembered when demons were still new creatures and were called ‘shadow elementals,’ before the rest of the monster population found out the proper names for them.

No, it was more like ninety-seven percent a certainty that, whatever kind of demon Goodnight was, he was a young one, though whether that meant a couple of decades or a couple of centuries, Faraday couldn’t be say with complete certainty. The story of Goodnight Robicheaux the Confederate sharpshooter was less than twenty years old, so he was no younger than twenty. And Faraday didn’t think he was older than the Antichrists—Mordecai, Belial, and Ezekiel, though the latter had much preferred the nickname of Ezra—that he’d known. He wasn’t sure he could pin down just what it was that made him certain that Goodnight was younger, but that was indeed the impression he got.

Honestly, he didn’t know that much about demons, and he knew even less about angels. They were just too new and too insular, keeping mostly to themselves and between the two groups. Some days it annoyed the piss out of him, almost as much as all the prattling on he’d been hearing for a couple of days now, between Volcano Springs and here.

If pressed, he wasn’t sure he would be able to recall all the topics that had been so thoroughly covered. He remembered a long conversation in English—in order to let Teddy join in—about what it was that Sam Chisolm wanted, which he and Teddy had indeed answered as best they could. Then there had been another discussion, just as long or even longer, about just what Teddy was. That one had been in the Old Tongue, spoken purely monster to monster and, in this particular case, mind to mind, meaning poor Teddy had no idea he was being left out of a discussion. Granted, it was all about him, so maybe it was for the best. Faraday had done his best to ignore that line of talk. He knew what Teddy was, after all, and he saw no reason to share that particular bit of information. Should little Teddy Q decide he wanted that information shared, then that was on him. There was power in names, and sometimes there was just as much power, just as much value, in knowing little facts and bits of trivia.

For instance, he knew that there was a new monster at the bottom of this hill at that camp. What was down there, he couldn’t say for certain, only that he could say for a fact that it wasn’t a Fae of any sort. That was the extent of his certainty.

He had, after all, met a lot of different kinds of Fae and Fae-like creatures over his long years wandering the world. None of the ones he’d met had had teeth quite like that, though. Because those were some truly impressive teeth, and damn it, he wanted a chance to get up close and personal with the… being attached to them. Because, yeah, he had no idea at all what kind of monster that was, other than not Fae. It probably wasn’t a demon, an angel, or any kind of elemental.

Honestly, if he had to hazard a guess, he would think he was looking at one of the Old Gods, the kind that didn’t usually walk the world and certainly never outside the area they used to be worshipped. Maybe this was the kind of Old God he had always been warned lived in Old Mexico and was the reason he’d avoided the southern section of the continent.

All in all, that could mean there was another monster on this little trip who was of a similar age to him. It damn sure wasn’t going to be the baby demon or the angel, after all, no matter what physical appearances might dictate.

Speaking of the baby demon, Goodnight was riding slightly ahead of the group to cheerfully greet Sam Chisolm. Faraday tuned the loud conversation out as much as he could. It was so much better to put his attention to something more productive, like the paltry remains of his gifted bottle of whiskey.

Goodnight made a half-assed attempt at introducing Billy Rocks, and Faraday would note that he didn’t say the first word about what the other man was. Oh, now this should be fun. He was all for trying to pull one over on the monster hunter. This could be fun!

So he made a production of getting off his horse, acting a whole lot more drunk than he actually was; if he was really as drunk as he was acting, he probably would have killed the baby demon between four and seven miles ago. Chisolm sidled up to him, and though it was a hardship, he held back the smirk from forming on his face. “That’s Billy,” he delivered, slurring his words but keeping his tone deadpan, on the question Chisolm hadn’t asked yet. “He come with Goodnight.”

And I ain’t tell you a damn thing about him, monster hunter, no more than I’d tell the baby demon and the angel what Teddy Q is. You can just forget about that.

“He’s pretty handy with them pigstickers,” Faraday offered instead.

There was a tap at the back of his mind, the Old Tongue equivalent of clearing the throat or knocking on a door for attention. In the last day and a half, he had gotten very familiar with how the baby demon and to a lesser extent the angel sounded in the Old Tongue—the Angel had a sort of lilting tone, while the demon managed to carry the damn drawl over, because of course he did—and this sound like neither of them.

No, this voice was deep and rich, and part of his mind wanted to compare it to a strong, quality drink… or a good chocolate. At the very least, he wanted to curl up in it. And there was only one possible monster here it could belong to. And wasn’t that an interesting thing?

“Oh good,” he answered aloud and maybe louder than he should have, given their… mixed company, “we got a Mexican… something.”

The other monster chuckled, low and dark, like chills up the spine. Yeah, this was going to be fun, being thrown in with monsters like these.

“‘A Mexican something’, cabrón? I am older than this country.” The words slithered through his mind, and Faraday didn’t even bother to hide his shiver. There was power, old and hungry and a little cruel, in that voice, like he hadn’t heard in years. No doubt about it: this was one of the Old Gods or something not very far from one. Interesting. Very interesting.

“No doubting that, my friend. There is certainly no doubting that. But then, even the baby demon there is older than this country.” He offered a wink to go with the words, and the Old God chuckled both aloud and in Faraday’s mind, the sound curling lazily around him. “You are what I think you are? You’re older than a lot of countries on any map.”

“What you are thinking I am?” There was an almost tinniness to the voice now, meaning the conversation was being shared now, that it was no longer just between the two of them. And the man might just have been bragging, given the sheer pride in what he was saying. “I am ancient, and I have been worshipped as a god. The Aztecs, they called me Mictlantecuhtli.”

It took all of a split second for Goodnight to slip into the conversation, of course, once the option was opened up to him, even as he stalked back over rejoin the two of them, his angel on his heels. “I won’t even ask how to spell that one. What are you doing in this part of the world, mon ami? I thought your kind usually stayed where your followers are.”

“Not so many followers these days, cabrón. Spaniards kill too many of them.” And Faraday found himself nodding, just slightly. The same had happened with the Romans, years and years and years ago. “I kill a Ranger who harasses one of my worshippers, and I get a bounty on my head.”

Faraday scoffed aloud. “Ain’t met a Ranger I like yet.” It was offered up almost like a peace treaty, and the Old God smiled, so obviously it was accepted. Good. That was good.

Goodnight glanced around between the four of them. “So we do have quite the motley crew here then, don’t we? An angel of death,” he nodded at Billy, who touched his finger to the brim of his hat in acknowledgement, “an Antichrist my own self,” which seemed to surprise exactly no one, “an Old God, and you, Faraday. Just what is that you are anyway? You don’t act like any Fae I’ve ever met.”

He snickered, careful to keep it solely between the four of them. “And yet you act like every Antichrist I’ve known, Goodnight.”

And now that? That was funny. He had been trying to compare Goodnight to the other demons he had known, all of which were Antichrists—literal children of the Christian devil, Lucifer—and here Goodnight was one of the same. In turn, that meant that all four demons he had passed time with now were all Antichrists. He wasn’t too sure where he was going to put Goodnight in that list of how well he liked them, not just yet.

“This is true, güero,” Vasquez continued Goodnight’s trail of words when Faraday didn’t give an answer. “You do not act like any Fae I have known. What are you then?”

“Me?” he asked, all wide-eyed innocence, the look spoiled immediately by the amused smirk on his lips. “I’m just… a little of this and a little of that. That’s all.”

[section=Footer Notes]18 January 2017

Running count on monsters:
Emma Cullen – one quarter Changeling (on her father’s side)
Bartholomew Bogue – warlock uppity witch
McCann – hedge witch
Denali – skin-walker
Teddy Q – half earth elemental half dryad (on his mother’s side)
Chisolm – human monster hunter
Faraday – Trickster Fae a little of this, a little of that
Goodnight Robicheaux – demon an Antichrist
Billy Rocks – angel of death
Vasquez – Ancient God (Old Mexico/Aztec/Mayan)[endsection]

[section=Disclaimers & Notes]Disclaimers: All copyrights belong to their respective copyright holders, including but not limited to MGM, Columbia Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, and others. I make no profit on this piece of fan-produced work. The story itself belongs to Adora Addams and Katsuko. Please do not steal!
Word Count: 744
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]

Greeting Sam Chisolm as the old friend he was, Goodnight didn’t expect to find himself slightly… distracted by the other man who was apparently part of their little band. Especially not with his cher Billy and his coeur Joshua clambering off their horses just behind him.

But there he was, a tall rangy-looking Mexican who had likely been sleeping rough for far too long, and with no one to watch his back if the way his hand was hovering over his revolver was any real indication of the matter. The man was handsome in that rugged way that some men could pull off nicely, and a manner that Goodnight had never really been all that interested in… prior to this exact instant.

The Mexican wasn’t making eye contact with anyone, he noted even as he asked if his friend remembered Billy—which he did, judging by his warm smile and the handshake he offered—and Joshua distracted himself with removing the tack from their three horses despite how he should have been staggering about given the amount he’d been drinking on the trail. Rather, the new addition to the group was alert and distrustful, although he seemed to hesitate briefly when his gaze slid over either Billy or Joshua or Goodnight himself.

Never heard of a quad match before, he mused to himself, noting that his partners looked just as confounded as he felt; hell, Joshua was counting on his fingers as if that would change four to three if he worked at it long enough.

And yet, as the stranger’s eyes flitted around at them again and made contact at last with his own, Goodnight felt the same jolt of knowing he’d felt with both Billy and Joshua, and he glanced over his shoulder to give his partners a short nod.

Apparently they were to be four. And his mind was already calculating the logistics and how much fun that was going to be for him.

Goodnight eased his ways through introductions with the widow Emma Cullen, who was apparently also matched with Teddy given the way he gravitated to her, and his presence was thus explained: two young widows who wanted righteous vengeance for their loss, and Goodnight couldn’t blame them. He’d long known that if something happened to Billy, he would burn the world down to avenge him, and even though he’d only just met them—literally for one of them—he knew he would do likewise if harm befell Joshua and the man who Sam had finally informed him was Gabriel Vasquez.

He was definitely going to have to do something about that five hundred dollar bounty. Most likely mention it in short order to his parents and wait for them to buy it out… if he didn’t do it first.

Joshua slipped up on one side of him, Billy on the other, and the younger of the three casually draped an arm over his shoulders. “So,” he asked in a quiet voice, “how the hell are we gonna play this? He’s so… twitchy.”

“Wanted men usually are,” Billy replied dryly, obviously remembering how long he’d spent looking over his shoulder in fear of a bounty hunter showing up for him.

“While my instinct is to just all of us go talk to him,” Goodnight said honestly, “it would be far wiser, I believe, to handle him with care and caution. And Billy and I as a unit are likely too intimidating, especially given my history.”

“That’s true,” Joshua noted. “Suppose I should go say hi, break the ice a little, huh?”

“That was just what I was thinking,” the eldest of their unusual triad replied with a smile that, apparently, Joshua just had to kiss before pulling away to cross the way to where Vasquez was watching them all from the corner of his eye.

“He’s going to be a good addition,” Billy said, slipping behind him with ease and wrapping both arms around his waist. Goodnight hummed an agreement and leaned back into his oldest partner. “The next two days, though, Goody…”

Goodnight huffed an annoyed sigh. Two days’ ride to Rose Creek barring any lengthy delays, and a newly formed triad bond singing for attention. If he somehow didn’t talk the widows Cullen and Sam into going to collect a shit ton of firewood so he could become… better acquainted with his newest mate, then he was like to explode by the time they arrived.

[section=Footer Notes]16 January 2017

Translation Notes:
(All translations are taken from Google Translate or Adora’s shaky remnants of French)
French:
Maman – Mamma
cher – darling
coeur – heart[endsection]

[section=Disclaimers & Notes]Disclaimers: All copyrights belong to their respective copyright holders, including but not limited to MGM, Columbia Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, and others. I make no profit on this piece of fan-produced work. The story itself belongs to Adora Addams and Katsuko. Please do not steal!
Word Count: 3,303
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 wasn’t overly concerned with the spectacle set to begin in the paddock. He remained relaxed as he was, back against a post and legs stretched out along the rails, raising his flask in a small salute to the poor bastard about to die and took a long pull. He really should cut back on the drinking, but there were constant issues clamoring in his brain, and sometimes a drink helped to keep him from getting too lost in them.

The issue that was always and forever at the forefront of his mind was Joshua.

They had not parted ways on the best of terms, to put things mildly. They had strongly disagreed on what should be done with one Billy Rocks, and he had slung a few angry slurs that he could never take back. Joshua had likewise slung some slurs and words in anger, and he knew for goddamn sure that there had been punches thrown, and in the aftermath he was left with his horse, his bounty, and the back of his baby brother headed out of town at top speed on that goddamn wild horse of his.

He’d been angry as hellfire for all of two months, but then the regrets had set it. Sure, his initial assessment of Billy had been correct, and the man was a mighty good friend in those early days, but he was no Joshua. It was about another month before he really started to feel remorse, but by then it was far too late for reconciliation.

That had led to a pretty serious fight, with Billy saying he should at least try and get in contact with his brother and Goodnight cursing him for fifty varieties of a fool for the suggestion. It had ended with punches thrown once again, Billy refusing to speak to him for three straight days, and Goodnight crawling into a bottle of quality bourbon in an attempt to drown out the fact that maybe he should make an attempt to communicate.

When his friend finally spoke to him again, an apology on his lips, Goodnight offered his own apologies and voiced his concerns.

“Then don’t send any letters,” Billy had said. “At least get everything out.”

That was the day he ceased heading his journal entries with the date and location and began addressing them to T-Jo… the old name he’d called his baby sibling once upon a time, when the family that mattered—Maman and Colette but never Monsieur Robicheaux—had still been alive and after when it was just the two of them versus the world. The name he’d used right up until that damned fight and he’d called his only living relative a drunk green Paddy.

He could admit to himself, in the years between then and now, that he’d definitely deserved to be called out as a molly trying to get a leg over. It hadn’t exactly been true at the time, but over the years, his relationship with Billy had shifted from somewhat distant friends to those sharing pleasurable benefits to something more like husbands, and he occasionally thought about trying to get word to his brother and see if they could start again as a family.

Then he would come to his senses, drink half a bottle of whatever he could find, be it fine bourbon or rotgut whiskey, and write a long journal entry to his baby brother with all the things he could never bring himself to say aloud.

Rumor had it, over the years, that Joshua Robicheaux had become rattlesnake mean. There was only one man left alive to reveal that Goodnight Robicheaux could be a right pit viper himself if you dared to mention the younger brother in any ill manner to the elder’s face, and that was his partner. Billy was the only living soul who could probably attest to how many unmarked graves littered the deserts of the western territories, but he was a wise enough man to keep Goodnight’s secrets.

Goodnight let his attention drift back to the paddock as ol’ Eddy set out the rules of the competition and pulled his gun to signal the start. His blue eyes roamed the crowd, noting the turnout and calculating the winnings since inevitably someone would make a wise decision and bet on his Billy to win instead of on the challenger. He wasn’t so sure about the nervy looking kid hovering at the gate but figured he’d probably been sent out by his daddy or someone to make a name of himself.

Granted, he’d heard tell that there were men who acted like real fathers, but given that his only experience was life with Monsieur Robicheaux, he wasn’t entirely certain there was truth to the rumors.

As per usual, Billy won the draw effortlessly, and the other man began to make his way over to join Goodnight. In a moment, he would hop down and go about collecting their money, and maybe today Eddy wouldn’t have to bury another body out back of the livery.

Then Arcade, the dumb shit, had to open his mouth.

“Let’s do it for real,” the man spat. “Come on, you sap-sucking runt of a man. Double or nothing.”

Billy stopped still, turning a questioning look to Goodnight. The Korean man may have been a deft hand with both a gun and a knife, but he tried to keep killing to a minimum unless someone deserved it. To him, that meant someone who was bound to harm an innocent human being or, on at least one occasion, an animal.

To Goodnight, however, that meant anyone who might be a threat to their continued, somewhat happy existence. He turned a hard eye to Arcade before glancing at Billy and nodding ever so slightly.

Looked like there was gonna be another grave dug today after all.

---

“Mr. Robicheaux?”

Goodnight let his eyes drift over to the nervy kid he’d noticed earlier, quickly taking in his measure and ultimately dismissing him. The boy wasn’t far into manhood, that much was clear to him, and put him vaguely in mind of Joshua back before things fell to pieces. Still, Goodnight had done his time as a mentor and had no intent of taking a stray under his wing.

Not when it was too much still to think he and his Billy wouldn’t have to take off again in a few months’ time, that maybe they were just having a run of incredible good luck that no other bounty hunters had come looking to collect on that hundred dollars for the past eight months.

He stepped past the kid, collecting his winnings from the last couple of men who were standing on the other side of the gate. The kid’s next words, though, drew his full focus:

“Sam Chisolm sent us.”

Goodnight hadn’t thought much on ol’ Sam Chisolm over the years, not really since he’d left the bounty hunting business and gone into a form of gambling instead. The last real communication they’d had was shortly before the fight and had involved a bottle of that damn Busthead he and Joshua preferred and some drunken reminiscing with his old acquaintance. That was how he knew about what happened to Chisolm’s mother and sisters, how he knew that the man himself had been lynched and lived to tell the tale, should he so choose.

Also, from every indicator present, this boy was alone. Yet he’d clearly said us, and damn it all if Goodnight didn’t let his curiosity get the better of him on occasion.

“Really now, son?” he drawled, all Louisiana charm in his tone. “What say you and I and my associate,” he nodded towards Billy, who had approached on cat paws and returned his pin to his hair, “head inside and discuss this over a drink?”

Goodnight led the boy—Teddy Q, he’d said was his name—into the saloon, making his way to the barber’s chair. Part of it was a genuine desire to get cleaned up, but the larger part was to keep a keen eye on the people around them. He may bank on his own, good ol’ boy reputation, but when you kept company with a wanted man, you tended to keep your guard up at all times, regardless of how it appeared to others.

A quick glance showed nothing too suspicious, although there were a few newcomers present. The closest one of them had seated himself at a table just a few feet away, his back to them, half a bottle of shit whiskey and a tumbler in front of him. The man didn’t appear to be watching the room, but Goodnight knew well that the mirror over the bar allowed for one to see everything behind you even if you were just pretending to keep your eyes to the front.

Choosing to keep a bit of a close eye on the people he didn’t recognize scattered about the room, he settled in and let out an affable chuckle.

“Sam Chisolm. ‘Duly-sworn warrant officer from Wichita, Kansas, and seven other states’? Do we have the same man?” At young Teddy’s affirmative response, Goodnight offered another smooth smile, but it shifted away a bit when the boy spoke up.

“Should we talk someplace more private?”

Hell, no, Goodnight thought a bit viciously. I don’t know you and I don’t rightly trust whomever else you came with since I ain’t set eyes on them yet. Aloud he said, “No, I like it right here. Billy, you like it here?” He gave a sidelong glance at his partner, grinning a bit more honestly when the other grunted in agreement and held out an opium cigarette.

Goodnight accepted it but made a point to brush one finger against Billy’s—a signal they’d arranged some time back to covertly keep watch if the other was preoccupied. He had the feeling young Teddy here was going to require more of the Goodnight Robicheaux War Hero persona than any more honest aspect, and he trusted Billy to watch the room for him.

Billy gave a slight nod at his side, disguising the movement as turning his attention to his lunch. Even so, Goodnight knew his other half had eyes locked on any suspicious movement in the room, and he trusted that would keep them on the level, as it were.

Young Teddy frowned and spoke again: “How did y’all meet?”

Goodnight let out a genuine laugh, amused that the kid was actually asking even if he sounded put out at a southern gentleman and what he likely thought of as an Oriental keeping company. It would be honestly funny if’n it hadn’t meant Joshua left in a flurry of insults, fists, and unspoken promises to never again cross paths.

Rather than say anything along those lines, he decided to break down the barest of necessities of the tale: “How did we meet, Billy? I was serving a warrant on him for the Northern Pacific Railroad.” He shrugged and offered an aside of, “Is what it is. I found Billy down in an old redneck saloon in Texas, and these good ol’ boys, they didn’t wanna serve Billy’s kind, right.

“So this, uh, petite son of a bitch took on the whole room bare-knuckled. I watched in awe. And I said to myself, ‘Goodnight, this is not a man to arrest, this is a man to befriend.’”

“You make your living off his alley fights?” Teddy asked again. Bless his heart.

Billy turned half an eye to the boy, one part of his attention still obviously focused on the room around them as much as on his meal. “Equal shares,” he answered. “Between fights, Goody helps me navigate the white man’s prejudices.”

And for no discernible reason, the man with his back to them seemed to pause for a moment before taking another drink. Curious, and Goodnight tapped a finger on the side of his chair: Watch this one.

Billy didn’t give a visible response that a casual observer would notice, but his gaze turned towards the man at the table near them.

“Mm-hmm,” he replied to the boy’s question. “I keep him employed, and he keeps me… on the level.”

“Well,” young Teddy said again, and Goodnight was honestly beginning to hope whomever the kid was traveling with would show up and take over the conversation, “Mr. Chisolm sent us to come fetch you, but he didn’t say anything about your friend over there.”

Once again, the use of us rather than me, but he decided to briefly ignore that. “Wherever I go, Billy goes,” he said firmly.

He kept a stern gaze focused on the boy, and as expected, he folded under the pressure with a meek, “Yes, sir.”

Goodnight waited for a moment to see if there were going to be any further arguments, then offered a slight smile. “We understand each other then. Now Billy and I—”

And the man with his back to him shoved the now-empty bottle and glass away and stood up, the chair scraping against the floor at the action. He half-turned to face the boy, and goddammit, Goodnight knew that fucking profile. He straightened up abruptly, noting that Billy was as always a half-second faster to move.

“We’re leaving in an hour,” Joshua, goddamn Joshua, snapped out. “Meet us by the corral then.”

The younger man stalked towards the door, and Goodnight was out of the chair and across the room quicker than he realized he could move in that moment. Adrenaline and something akin to pure rage was fueling him, and he reached out with one hand to grab hold of his brother’s arm. Joshua looked over his shoulder, green eyes going wide in shock for a second or two before he yanked the limb free.

Goodnight wondered what Joshua had seen for a moment. Much as he hated to admit it to himself, he knew that he favored Monsieur Robicheaux when it came to looks. His only real saving grace was seeing Maman’s eyes rather than the old bastard’s hazel. If he could pull off a full beard, he’d prefer to grow out his goatee that made him wince sometimes when he glanced in a mirror, but that had not worked well for him in the past, and he felt like he was far too world-weary to go about clean-shaven these days.

There were times, quite honestly, than he’d envied Joshua inheriting much of his coloring and features from his own mama. If he’d managed to inherit Maman’s much fairer looks beyond the eyes, he might be able to ignore those features that came from their shared and much hated father.

Then he was back in the present… and a bit more angry than he was a moment before. “Thought you were done working with others,” he said, tone bordering somewhere between a hiss and a growl. “Yet here you are playing babysitter to… well.” He didn’t even try to come up with a word for young Teddy, just gestured behind him to where the kid was likely staring at them with his jaw on the floor.

“Your buddy Sam Chisolm bought my damn horse out from under me,” Joshua bit out, not looking any happier to see Goodnight himself. “This is me, being the honest citizen that I am, paying off a debt.”

Goodnight actually snorted. “I’m surprised you didn’t just back-shoot him and take that damned wild animal back,” he snapped in French. “I’ve heard how honest you are now. Word gets around.”

Joshua’s eyes narrowed, and he looked fit to spit nails. “At least I’m earning a living on my own merit and not someone else’s skills,” he snarled out then paused. A slow, sly smirk crossed his lips, and Goodnight felt himself start to tense for a real fight. “Ain’t that right, Monsieur Robicheaux?”

He didn’t realize that he’d thrown the punch until his hand started to sting, and he glared through a fog to see that he’d managed to nail Joshua in his left eye. Good, he thought viciously, glaring as the younger turned a surprised look his way. Behind him, he could hear Billy talking to young Teddy, and if the boy was smart, then he’d let them work through this shit.

“The way I hear it,” he said coolly, “I may have the old bastard’s looks, but the temper and attitude are the bread and butter of the younger brother. Sound about right, T-Jo?”

For about half a second, Goodnight was positive that his little brother was going to pull one of those shiny revolvers out and shoot him down. Part of him hated the thought that they’d split apart so much, but the rest wouldn’t be a bit surprised. After all, he’d only gotten mean once they’d parted company, and on most days, it was only Billy who was able to keep him from going off the rails.

Then that thought disappeared as Joshua’s fist caught the corner of his mouth, and he could feel the lip split. The taste of blood in his mouth was almost enough to shock him back to his senses… almost. The visceral anger still remained, however, like a living entity all its own, and he waited to see what else this stranger wearing his brother’s face beneath nine yards of scruff had to say.

“You don’t get to call me that anymore,” Joshua said, a smug grin on his face. “You gave up that right years ago, remember?”

“I almost feel sorry for you,” Goodnight said, his blood like ice in his veins. Yes, he had been in the wrong, but he’d come to regret it. Apparently, his younger brother wasn’t of a like mind. “But fine. We can finish this conversation later.” Switching easily back to English, he continued, “Thirty minutes, then we should be set to ride. Get as far as we can before nightfall.”

Billy stepped up behind him at that moment, hovering in a manner than Goodnight knew was concerned but keeping his hands to himself. “Get cleaned up, Goody,” he said softly, pitching his voice so that only those within a few feet could hear him. “You shouldn’t leave looking like this.”

“Yeah,” Joshua chimed in, and it took every ounce of willpower he had not to react, “go on and get ready, Goodnight.”

Okay, that actually stung. He could just barely remember a time when his brother hadn’t called him by the nickname he’d made up as a boy, but that was years gone now. And it seemed like they weren’t missed by the younger man at all.

Joshua continued, “Your buddy Chisolm wants us in Junction City in a day and a half.”

Goodnight bit back a sigh. “Fine.” He turned to head for the boarding house before pausing to add in quieter French, “Was a time you wouldn’t call me by that name, Joshua.”

His brother’s body language shifted to something more defensive, crossed arms and narrowed eyes, squaring up to stand his ground. Chances were good he wasn’t about to get hit again, but Goodnight wasn’t going to take it for granted either. After all, he knew from experience how quick Joshua was and currently had a split lip as further evidence.

And then Joshua was speaking instead, and it was worse than a physical blow: “And I figure it don’t much matter, since it seems everyone gets to call you ‘Goody’ now.” As Goodnight felt his hands clench into fists again, the other man he had once called brother continued, “I certainly don’t remember you being quite so… free with that sort of stuff back then.”

He wasn’t gonna deny it this time. It felt damned good to punch that smug grin off his little shit of a brother’s face. He didn’t bother sticking around to see his reaction, blood pounding in his ears as he turned on his heel and stalked off to his and Billy’s shared rooms to gather his belongings.

Too bad he didn’t have time to write a quick journal entry. He needed to vent, but obviously the flesh and blood version of his brother wasn’t going to listen and he wasn’t inclined to calm down and talk rationally at the moment either.

[section=Footer Notes]14 January 2017

Hello and good early morning from Katsuko!

I will admit, I am incredibly nervous about posting this. As mentioned way back in Chapter One, this story is Adora’s baby, and I worry that I’m gonna drop the ball on my part of the deal. But, I’m a grown-ass adult, so I’m gonna take a deep breath and toss this out into the world. Please be gentle?

We received a comment on Chapter Two from Slycats saying, “This is going to hurt so much, isn’t it?”

I would very much hate to disappoint our readers xoxo

~Katsuko[endsection]

[section=Disclaimers & Notes]Disclaimers: All copyrights belong to their respective copyright holders, including but not limited to MGM, Columbia Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, and others. I make no profit on this piece of fan-produced work. The story itself belongs to Adora Addams and Katsuko. Please do not steal!
Word Count: 1,425
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]

So far as he was concerned, no one knew the real version of Joshua. There were days he was Joshua Faraday, and there were days when he was Joshua Robicheaux. Sometimes there were even days when he was both, though thankfully never at the same time; that would be probably the most confusing thing that could possibly happen to him.

Still, there were secrets that he had from everyone. Secrets he kept from his remaining family, not that he had much of an opportunity to speak to his brother these days, but he never put any of his secrets in the letters he had written over the years. He didn’t exactly have much in the way of friends, not anymore, but even if he did, he would have imagined that he would keep some these secrets from them as well. He managed to avoid having actual employers, so that was another group of people he didn’t have to worry about knowing things he would much rather keep private.

Although, listed out like this, it made him sound like the most miserable son of a bitch in the Western Territories… or at least the loneliest. He wasn’t, not as far as he was concerned. He had his work, and he enjoyed it, both the gambling and the bounty hunting.

Granted, since he’d been on his own these last several years, he had had to develop a rattlesnake mean reputation as a bounty hunter, but that was no real problem. He had had a great example of a mean bastard to live up growing up, after all.

If anyone ever asked, he would say that he hadn’t had a daddy. Yeah, there was the man who got his mother in the family way and then promptly took off back to his other family and home in Louisiana, Monsieur Robicheaux, but that man was not a daddy, not by any stretch of anyone’s imagination. Even his actual legitimate son would agree with that assessment. He would, however, say that he had more than his fair share of mamas: Ma, the woman who had birthed him and given up everything for him to have something like a good life; Miss Ethel, who had tried to take care of him after Ma died and then tried her best to save his life; Maman Arthémie Robicheaux, who had taken in another woman’s child by her husband and somehow managed to love him; and even Colette Robicheaux, for all that his half-sister had only been a handful of years older than him.

But a daddy? Not a one to be seen, just a mean bastard that he and his siblings called Monsieur Robicheaux, rather than any friendly or familial term. He had celebrated when he had gotten his brother’s letter that the old bastard had died of dysentery midway through a campaign march. He couldn’t think of a better fate for the man than that, shitting himself to death.

He used everything he had ever known about Monsieur Robicheaux to make Joshua Robicheaux into a bounty hunter to be feared, despite his relatively young age. When it had been him and his brother hunting together, he hadn’t needed a separate reputation of his own; his older brother’s had been spoken loudly throughout the South and slowly moving westwardly through the years, and they had been able to use it to open a lot of doors that might not have been available otherwise; but the minute he was on his own, people stopped taking him seriously, so he got mean.

Well, meaner. Mean in almost every way he could recall the old bastard being in his childhood, with some notable exceptions: he was never going to raise a hand to a lady or child… and only to a man if he actually deserved it. In fact, he would kill any bounty that hurt a lady, no matter her chosen profession, and if they hurt or, worse, killed a child… Well, he had overheard a couple of old-timers putting it best: it would be best for the bounty to slit their throats and hope to hide in hell when Joshua Robicheaux was the one after them, because if they had been hurting kids, he took extra pleasure in their deaths.

He still got to be Joshua Faraday, the name his Ma had given him, in the meantime, when he wasn’t turning in a warrant, when he wasn’t actively tracking someone. When he and his brother had first started this, he had used ‘Faraday’ on the sly to keep from besmirching the Robicheaux name with his gambling. Now it felt like the gambling was his only real chance to be himself these days.

He had secrets that he would never tell his small remaining family. He was never going to tell his brother that he had forgiven the words that had been said about him within a few months of them parting ways—but that he still heard them in his sleep sometimes. He was never going to tell his brother that the man had long since been proven right about the bounty that had separated them. He was never going to tell his brother that the only reason he had not tracked his brother down and said something in person was because he didn’t want to give someone else the chance to abandon him first… or in Goodnight’s case, again. He was never going to tell his brother that he wanted him to come to Joshua because maybe—just maybe—then his brother wouldn’t take off on him. And he was certainly never going to breathe a single damn word to his brother about his life before he had lived with the small Robicheaux clan, about the lengths his Ma had been willing to go to in order to keep him fed and clothed, if not particularly well educated via books.

Miss Ethel had been the proprietor of the establishment where his Ma had worked after he was born, after all. She had been a foul-mouthed woman who did everything she could to keep her girls safe, and when Aileen Faraday had shown up on her doorstep with an infant and in need of work, with few skills other than needlepoint, she had barely blinked an eye. Instead, she had simply added Aileen to her roster and never said the first word to anyone about where Joshua was growing up. When he was four and Aileen died, Miss Ethel had tried to keep him on for nearly a year, finding little odd jobs for him to do around the place for a good year or so. But eventually there had been two very good reasons why she had written to Monsieur Robicheaux and asked him to retrieve his child: money was always a lean thing, even for someone in this particular profession, making it damn difficult thing also feed someone who couldn’t help themselves. The other reason had been kin to the first: Miss Ethel also wasn’t about to add him to the roster, not at five years old, no matter how many twisted men asked her about it, because Miss Ethel was a classy lady, damn it, and she had been his first surrogate mother.

After he and his brother had parted ways eight years ago, the first place he had drifted was Missouri and, more specifically, Miss Ethel’s. He only knew a single one of the ladies working there at that point, Miss Ethel’s own daughter, Miss Jane, but Miss Ethel had still been there. After some introductions and disbeliefs, she had even shown him where his Ma was buried, and he had given her every single penny he could spare for all the help she had given him over the years. It had been then that she had told him why she had shipped him off to Louisiana, with the firm belief that she had probably saved his life doing that. Maybe she even had. Of course, Miss Ethel had died less than a year later, leaving him with only his brother to name as family… and only barely that. He still sent money back to the establishment when he could spare it, about every couple of months, because Miss Ethel’s daughter was running the place now and, being of a similar age, they had played together before he’d been shipped off to Louisiana. He still considered Miss Jane one of his few friends in this world, such as he actually had friends.

But childhood playmates did not a family make.

[section=Footer Notes]13 January 2017

I’m sorry.

Okay, no, I need a longer note than this. This was always going to be a painful thing to post. Wicked Ones is darker than just about anything else I’ve ever written. A lot of this is because I guess I started working out some of my own history and issues out through Joshua…

But a lot of it came down to a premise I had during NaNoWriMo: “Shut up and let Mean Faraday talk.”

~Adora[endsection]