[voice test]

[assassinwithahairpin]

Even at night, Rose Creek was a city of desert heats this time of year. Billy had shucked his jacket in the room of the boarding house and excused himself from Faraday and Vasquez's increasing revelries in favor of a cigarette. Though the heat still lingered in the clapboards and railings, the night had a breeze that carried mining smells in from the east.

Billy leaned his elbows on the railing of the balcony, cigarette pinched between his fingers, and considered. This was not his sort of a play, if he were perfectly honest. He was here because he was Robichaeux's man, because he needed him; and Robichaeux was here because of--a debt? A promise? An inescapable and inexplicable need to right his past? And what about the others? Money, connection, promises. He and Red Harvest seemed the odd outliers which Billy could not explain.

A door opened to his left, but he didn't react to it. He knew who it was. He brought the cigarette to his lips and looked up at the moon, wan on the horizon, providing no real light to the evening.

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[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight had long had a fascination with Billy's hands. Watching him in that fist fight in Texas had been a sight, one he could not forget. One that had led them to this very moment. He made sure the passing touch lingered a moment more than it needed to.

"Oh I could think of a few things. I know my table manners and other important points of etiquette that are vastly lacking in this half of the country. You never know when you'll need to know what to do with a napkin. Not that anyone downstairs would know silk from sackcloth."

[assassinwithahairpin]

"You probably even know all the table settings for a fancy dinner," Billy said, and was only doing his best to hold in some laughter. He smothered it with another drag on the cigarette. It wasn't that he didn't want to laugh around Goodnight--on the contrary. But this was a strange place, and a strange time. He'd prefer his small, knowing smile over something more boisterous. It suited the both of them better, anyway.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"I also know who to invite, where to sit them, and which topics make for polite conversation. And how to ask a lady to dance without causing undue scandal. Important with debutantes." He pointed, as if this were information Billy would need to recall later. Goodnight could hear the laugh waiting on the edges of Billy's voice. He'd been quieter as their company grew, and in a man that was already quiet, the silence had been noted.

Perhaps he would have to content himself with a smile. Goodnight reached, lightly touching the upturned corner of Billy's mouth in an I see you sort of gesture. His hand dropped again, crossing the other where his weight leaned on the rail.

[assassinwithahairpin]

All that and more. Billy knew. He had seen the ways that Goodnight Robicheaux could navigate nearly any social interaction, that he could slide from crass soldier to silent enforcer to debonair southern gentleman and still, always, remain himself.

The touch was fleeting, but so was the way that Billy turned his head toward it. So much of what they had existed in the places between moments, and their moments seemed, to Billy, often spread too thin. To have even a brush of a touch lit him warm behind the rib cage.

He shifted his weight a little closer to where Goodnight leaned on the rail. Held out the cigarette in offering again.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"Everyone is going to be dead drunk tonight," he said as he took the cigarette, tone that of casual conversation. It could be about anything at all. Goodnight's weight leaned into Billy's, held the cigarette by his lips but didn't take a drag yet.

"If they even make it up the stairs at all. They may lie where they fall tonight."

He'd paid attention: Vasquez, Faraday, and Horne were as good as on the floor. Red Harvest hadn't been drinking but he was the silent type, and Goodnight wasn't even sure of how much English the boy knew or spoke, or if he was even inclined to spend the night under roof.

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy hummed, ducking his chin down for a moment. He was much too old--and used to Goodnight, at any rate--to let himself be flustered by the man. And he didn't feel particularly flustered. More amused that they still danced this dance, their words as vague and shadowy as their touches so often were.

Goody's weight as warm and familiar, pressure from shoulder to hip. It would not be difficult at all to tuck in next to him. Billy looked at the way that Goodnight held the cigarette so near his mouth, without taking a drag, and he memorized the pattern of smoke passing before his eyes.

"Bad for their backs," he said, just as casually. Vasquez and Faraday would be out shortly, they'd been headed that way when Billy had stepped out. Horne seemed the type that might be able to fight a hoard of moose while he was dead drunk; Billy was more concerned with Chisolm.

"I'm just glad to not be in a tent."

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"And what is so bad about tents? Or sleeping under the stars?"

Goodnight finally took a drag, slow, and offered the cigarette back as he let out a slow exhale. It seemed unnecessary to do these steps around each other, after so long. But being here - and in the company of others that knew them, to an extent - brought back old habits, it seemed. Goodnight did find some charm in the dance, a sort of on-going flirtation; but there was comfort in... comfort. Familiarity.

[assassinwithahairpin]

"Bugs," Billy said, casual and noncommittal. Then, with a bit more of a smile around his eyes, he said, "Drafty. The nights are colder, without a real bed."

Billy took the cigarette back and tried to remember the last time there had been a bed in their sights. The last scenario that had seen them under a roof with four walls around them. It had been a while, months maybe. They'd been fat on winning one of Billy's fights and flush with decent liquor. No one had batted an eye at Goodnight Robicheaux and his East Asian fighting man.

Billy liked it that way. He looked at the ember on the cigarette and sighed softly.

"Where's your flask? I want a drink."

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight chuckled. "Oh I don't know. Some nights I feel pretty warm if the company is right." Billy made a good point, though. Goody preferred a bed when he could get one, but sometimes funds just didn't allow, or in their travels they had to stop for the night before they were even near any semblance of civilization.

"I notice you haven't been much for social drinking since Faraday found us." He removed his flask from the inner pocket of his coat and passed it to Billy.

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy didn't have to respond. There were only very few nights where either of them had gone cold, no matter the configurations or company they sight, and Billy had no thought that it should be any different than it had been over the past years.

He took the flask, fingers lapped over Goodnight's for a moment, and as he thumbed the screw of the cap, he offered the cigarette back over.

"He drinks enough for both of us," Billy said, though not unkindly exactly. In reality, Billy simply knew what he was like when he drank with Goodnight, and none of these other men had earned that sort of trust.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"Oh I think he does a share more than that." Goodnight drank, but he tended to be more... quiet about it. He accepted the cigarette as Billy opened the flask; at the moment it had the last of some very fine tequila he picked up in Texas. He would have to refill it soon, and he doubted Rose Creek had anything comparable. Beggars could not be choosers, so he would make due.

"Just wanted to be sure nothing is out of sorts." Billy had his reasons, and Goodnight did not feel the need to investigate that too deeply. He drank enough for the both of them more than he cared to admit.

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy drank from the flask, leaning back and in a way that pressed his shoulder blade into Goodnight's arm. When he brought the flask down, he remained there, their bodies touching just like that, casual and familiar. The years had been kind to their familiarity, and Billy was eternally appreciative of that.

"Not any more than this whole situation is," Billy assured. He watched the smoke again. They were getting toward the end of the cigarette. He contemplated a second one but, really, he was contemplating other things: more of this night cap, a roof over their heads, the impending doom weighing on their whole party, Goodnight's mouth, a bed to sleep in.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goody considered the dying cigarette as Billy leaned and both confessed and dismissed his concern. He offered Billy the last drag, intent on trading for his flask. He wanted a taste, and it was an excuse to touch a thing that had been against Billy's lips.

When his hand was liberated, and before he took the flask, Goodnight caught Billy's chin, holding him still for a fleeting kiss.

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy held the cigarette in exchange for the flask, and let it smolder, giving off heat, as Goody's lips touched his. It was such a fleeting gesture, as nebulous and informative as the sharing of cigarette and flask were. Billy was no longer the upstart boy, barely a young man, he'd been when he'd started running with Goodnight Robicheaux. In those years since, they had learned a language of hidden glances. But it was these moments, fleeting and quiet and promised, that lived in Billy's chest for ages.

He sighed, just a little. How was it that Goodnight made him feel like some lovestruck boy when he did things like this? He touched Goody's wrist with his free hand and, when he removed himself from the kiss, he gestured to the flask.

"You're going to drop it if you act stupid."

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"Then you'll just have to go get it for me, gallant and daring." Goodnight smiled and eased back, allowing a shred of space between them. Enough that he could take a drink from the flask. Billy made him feel like a young man again, before the whole world turned to fire and ash. When things were idyllic, or at least seemed that way; when they might go on that way forever.

"You going to come inside with me? Or stand here and admire the moon til that burns your fingers?" He nodded toward the cigarette, the ember dangerously close.

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy considered. The heat was finally, blessedly, starting to break, but it was the sort of cool summer night that meant the coming days would be blazing. He lifted the cigarette to his lips, dragged, and then tossed it away. It would burn out before it hit the street below.

Daringly, he turned toward Goodnight and asked, "And if I had? Would you have kissed them better?"

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight deftly took Billy's hand and lifted it, curling Bill's fingers over his own. He kissed the tips, watching his face over their hands. "Of course I would. And I would scold you the whole time for doing something so careless." He lifted his head, a smile tugging at his mouth.

[assassinwithahairpin]

This Goodnight--the gallant one, the gentleman, the dandy--was the one that Billy loved the most. Sometimes, he imagined what it would have been like if they had met before the war. Not often, but he liked to imagine the scandal they would have been. Goodnight, the son of some high-falutin somebody; Billy, the son of immigrants. He liked to imagine Goodnight having to sneak him places. But he liked this even more: getting to see the gentleman without the trappings of a society that scorned him.

He turned his fingers and caressed Goody's mouth. "Let's go inside." There was promise in his voice, soft and self assured.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Memories of a place long destroyed haunted him; not all ghosts were bad. Maybe the war had, in some ways, been the crucible that allowed him to have such affection for Billy, untarnished by notions of propriety or ugly ideas of purity. It had burned away the remnants, left something that could properly be reforged.

Though he worried, often, that he had lost something in the burning. Something unable to be recovered from the ashes; a thing he could not name, but grasped for in dreams.

He turned his head, brushing a kiss to Billy's fingers as they passed his mouth. Goodnight pushed away from the rail, his hand trailing down Billy's arm until he could catch his fingers, tugging him toward the balcony door. Their room was small but cozy, considering they were in godforsaken nowhere.

[assassinwithahairpin]

In the room they had here in the boarding house, Billy stripped off his jacket and his waistcoat, slinging both over the back of the single chair in the room. Then, casually, he approached Goodnight and eased him out of his jacket and waistcoat.

Now, in the privacy of their room, Billy kissed Goodnight like he meant it. He breathed him in--the wreath of smoke on both of them, the soft sharpness of gunpowder, a tiny amount of tangy blood.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight shrugged out his coat, tossed it and his waistcoat toward the chair once Billy had them off. He sighed beneath the kiss, hands firm as they ran down Billy's back, hauling him closer. They'd had a few moments after the fire fight, and he knew he didn't need to worry about Billy. But he did. He had, from the moment he lost sight of him to the moment he came back into view, Goodnight had worried.

His hands moved, finding the buttons on Billy's shirt. It was easy to work them open, to smooth his hands over bared skin.

[assassinwithahairpin]

The insistence of Goodnight's touch, Billy knew, was an issue of assurance. Billy didn't mind it at all. He rather enjoyed when Goodnight was a little too intense, when he lost himself in this rather than the shadowy confines of his mind.

Billy, for his part, worked at Goodnight's belt and the fly of his trousers. If they could push back the darkness a little longer, Billy would do just about anything. It was not a difficult prospect at all.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"Such a rush," he breathed, a laugh on the edge of his voice. Goodnight pulled Billy into another kiss, cradling the back of his head while his other hand continued working, less efficiently, to rid him of his shirt. With a soft sound of frustration he pulled back enough to shove the cloth from Billy's shoulders, then dropped his hands to work his belt and trousers open. "So glad we finally got you something properly tailored."

[assassinwithahairpin]

"Maybe I'm looking for a rush." He wasn't. They both knew. Goodnight pushed the shirt off Billy's torso, and it sagged at his waist for a moment, until Goodnight got his trousers open.

Billy got Goodnight's open as well. He slipped his hand in, against his shorts, and he rubbed, coaxing. He pressed his lips to the line of Goodnight's jaw, kissed his way up to his ear.

"Some days," he whispered with a smile, "I'm not sure if you're after me, or the clothes."

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Anything he meant to say died on his tongue as Billy's hand pressed against him. Goodnight rocked into the touch, momentarily silenced. Then he laughed, a light huff, and turned his head to kiss Billy's neck.

"You've always known me to be a man of refined taste," he teased as he gently gripped Billy's jaw, directed him into another kiss. "To the point of distraction."