assassinwithahairpin | All of me, you take now, like criminals and shakedowns

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voice test

All of me, you take now, like criminals and shakedowns

It had been a hard past few days, far from anywhere. They were in Colorado now, some mining town that made it a little easier for Billy to blend in because of the number of Chinese workers for the mine and the railroad. They'd decided to stay for a few days, long enough for the horses to get a good rest, and to have a bed under them for longer than a moment.

Their room at the hotel was relatively large. There was a tub--they'd both used it--and a balcony. They'd smoked. Billy had gotten them marijuana and opium this time, to roll with his tobacco, carefully marking the cigarettes with which was which. Tonight, it had been opium, and Billy felt a lovely, warm haze in him; half the smoke, half the gin they'd been drinking since dinner.

He was laying on the bed, watching Goodnight, when it struck him. For all the world, he didn't know why it had taken him quite so long. But looking at Goodnight, out of his jacket and waistcoat and with his sleeves turned up to show strong forearms, Billy was suddenly keenly aware that he could spend the rest of his life with this man.

He smiled softly at the thought.

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Billy did follow along. He didn't always know which words were which when Goodnight said them, but English no longer looked just like a jumble of things he didn't understand. Like learning to speak it, learning to read it was a long process. But it made Goodnight smile, and it made Billy's life easier.

He was still looking at the page, slowly reading along from the point Goodnight had left off, when he tuned into the music as well.

"How can you tell?" he asked. "Maybe the piano's just better tuned than other places."

"No, that's a waltz," he said, smiling as he laid his head back to listen. "Don't often hear those out here." Goodnight felt a fleeting kind of homesickness, remembering social functions, dances, before the world went all to hell. He lolled his head toward Billy and then got out of bed. Goodnight held his hand out to him. "C'mere, dance with me."

Billy whined softly as Goodnight got out of bed, slumping over melodramatically. He considered Goodnight's hand from where he was half lain on the bed, flapped a hand vaguely. Admitting to the gaps in his knowledge always felt strange, like he was letting Goodnight down, or proving his younger age, or something.

But he got to his feet, looking pressed and nervous.

Goodnight caught Billy's flapping hand to pull him out of bed if he had to. Thankfully he came along quietly and Goodnight smiled, easy and bright, when Billy got to his feet. Billy Rocks knew and could do many things, but Goodnight did not for a second expect he knew how to waltz.

He pulled Billy close, arranging their hands until everything felt in the right place. "Watch my face, not our feet," he drawled, accent a bit heavier with as much as they'd had to drink. Smoking hadn't helped a bit either, but he felt good, relaxed. Even if they fell all over each other, he didn't care.

Billy let himself be arranged as Goodnight wished, which meant that they ended up facing each other dead on, their hands clasped, Billy's arm over top of Goodnight's with their hands on shoulder and ribs respectively. It was a stiff sort of pose. Billy couldn't help a little reel of laughter.

"This is ridiculous," he said. He looked down at Goodnight's feet, even though he'd just been told not to.

"Of course it is. It's entirely frivolous. Hey hey, up here." Goodnight lifted a hand to nudge Billy's chin up and smiled. "Just... let me lead."

He began the waltz carefully, quietly counting out the beats so Billy might be able to figure out the pattern. Maybe both of them were too out of their minds to be good at teaching or following right now, but what did it matter? Billy's smile, his laughter, were worth it.

Billy did his best to look up at Goodnight, but he kept glancing down every once in a while. When he did, he stumbled a little, and laughed, and then tried again. Goodnight's eyes were on him so intently, so adoringly in that moment, and Billy was so intent and in love in that moment.

Goodnight practically giggled a few times, pulling Billy tighter to him to avoid either of them crashing down. "You got it, you got it," he assured more than once. He caught Billy in a few kisses to make sure he wasn't looking down, and just to kiss him.

God, how happy this man made him. Goodnight wasn't sure what he had ever done to deserve having Billy in his life, but he was grateful for him.

"Mon cher," he cooed, drawing him close again to slow the dance from a waltz into a slow, lazy sway.

Those were words that Billy knew. Not their English equivalent, but the tenderness in them. They swayed, and Billy slipped his arm more around Goodnight's neck and tilted his head to rest it against his shoulder.

"Nae salang," he murmured, feeling the fit of the words in his mouth. He did not often speak Korean around Goodnight, not in the ways that Goodnight spoke French. But to do it now felt a quiet reinforcement of this tenderness.

Goodnight had been trying to pick up little bits of Korean, but it was difficult when Billy spoke it so rarely. It felt like a treat to hear it. The sound of the words in Billy's voice made him smile and he turned his head, lips brushing Billy's brow.

"What's that?" he asked softly, wanting to know. He always wanted to know if it had something to do with Billy.

Billy just shook his head, though it was maybe more of a nuzzle. What the words meant didn't really matter. Billy was sure he could say just about anything, and in that tone, they would mean the same thing. It was the tone, the love in his voice, and not the words themselves, that meant the most just then.

He hummed, a bit tunelessly, sort of along wit the music playing from the piano downstairs. They swayed together gently, hands clasped, Goodnight's arm around Billy's waist, and Billy's arm around Goodnight's neck.

Goodnight's smile grew when Billy started humming. He hadn't thought this could get better. He had a bare memory of hearing it before, but he couldn't place it. "You should sing more, cher," he murmured, not wanting to break the moment. He wanted to stay here as long as he could.

Billy laughed, smiling brightly. "Oh, no. No. I don't know any songs in English, anyway. And I'm not singing Korean...oh. What's the--the word?"

Billy lifted his hand and flapped it a little, eyes distant as he tried to come up with the word. "That sailors sing. Shimmy or...Shiny..."

Goodnight chuckled. "A shanty," he answered. "I wouldn't know the difference, would I?" He smiled and twirled them a bit, moving quickly for just a moment before falling back into that sweet, slow sway.

"Shanty, yes," Billy said, agreeably, though it was entirely possible that Goodnight was just making up a word to tease him. He was about to say something, but then Goodnight pulled him into that spin, and Billy laughed.

When they came back to neutral, he pressed his nose into Goodnight's throat. Everything was tight and warm in his chest. He found himself whispering it again, around kissing, "Nae salang," over and over.

Goodnight felt like he might burst as sweet nothings and kisses brushed over his skin. He turned his head, reached up to cradle Billy's face so he could anchor him for a kiss. He needed to kiss him, needed this man any way he could have him. At some point they had stopped moving but it still felt like Goodnight's world was spinning and Billy was the still center of it all. "I love you," he murmured against his mouth.

There was no hesitation in the way Goodnight confessed that, no worried trepidation like when he had knelt at Billy's feet and confessed with his fingers on the button of his shirt. And, like that, there was no hesitation in Billy either. He slipped his hands so that he could cup Goodnight's cheeks and kiss him sweetly. "I love you, too."

Hearing Billy say it, the ease with which they shared it now, made him warm all over. His thumb brushed along Billy's jaw and he just looked at him, drinking him in. "I never want to be without you."

Billy let out a breathless bit of a laugh, brushing his thumbs over Goodnight's cheekbones, kissing him again, and again, sweet and chaste. "Oh, good," he murmured. Which was nonsensical, but he meant it. "I--yes. Yes, exactly."

"You're out of your mind, aren't you?" he teased. Goodnight kissed him with another smile, and before long he was moving them again but it was less a dance and more a slow trip back toward the bed. Seemed like an entirely safe place to be.

"Be quiet," Billy said with a laugh and an easy smile. They swayed back toward the bed, where they'd started, and Billy was more than happy to go. One of his hands slid down Goodnight's front slowly, feeling out the shape of him under his clothing.

"Oh now I need to be quiet because I'm right." Goodnight grinned and lightly bumped their foreheads together as Billy's hands wandered. "But you'll let me ramble on and on if I'm not saying anything."

"Yes," Billy said, nodding a little bit but not wanting to dislodge Goodnight's forehead from his, "because I don't listen to you when you ramble about nothing."

"You little shit," he laughed and shoved Billy onto the bed. Goodnight followed after him, climbing onto the bed to catch Billy in an almost apologetic kiss. "Not a word of it, huh?"

Billy laughed and tumbled back easily. When Goodnight came after him, he pulled his shirt out of his slacks, slowly starting to unbutton it. "Not a word of it," he said, but the smile said he was lying. Goodnight's voice was so often a balm, a consistency that Billy could rely on. He'd listen to him speak himself hoarse, and pick up the slack.

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