[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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[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."

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy kept smiling, now against Goody's mouth. He let his touch linger, and then, triumphantly, pulled away from Goody's touch. It was a struggle to do. He wanted nothing more than to have Goodnight's hands on his skin, to taste his mouth. But, at some point, they had to move this to the bed.

The bed was narrow, but not the most narrow space they'd shared before. Billy shed his pants and remained in his shorts and socked feet, sprawling across the bed invitingly.

His skin was a map of scars, but no more than Goodnight's was. He admired how he looked, disheveled and desirable, and crooked a finger at him to coax him over and join him.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"If we had thought this out more I would have taken my boots off first," Goodnight laughed as he leaned on the edge of the bed to get one, then other off so he could get his pants off. As he worked he looked at the picture Billy made, draped over the bed. Their bodies both spoke of histories of violence, much of it before they had ever met each other.

He climbed onto the bed and leaned over Billy. Goody shifted his weight to one hand, used the other to stroke back Billy's dark hair; he had noticed in the passing years the way his hair began to take on more gray. Billy's hadn't yet, at least not that he'd seen.

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy remained sprawled, watching Goodnight take off his boots, his trousers. When he leaned over, Billy twined an arm up and across his shoulders. He let himself be admired and touched, another one of those quite, contemplative moments that they shared. This, he had found, was as important--more important--then anything else they did. This, to him, proved he was different than anyone else they might take to bed, alone or together. That Goodnight would be so enamored of him, after all these years and all the things they'd done.

He turned his head and kissed the inside of Goody's wrist, sighed gently. His fingers tripped over Goody's ribcage, down to his hips. He dragged him in close, arched to meet him. It had been days, but it felt like months. Billy was never not hungry for Goodnight.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight sank down as Billy pulled at his hips. "Still in a hurry," he gasped. They hadn't really had the chance to be intimate since Faraday picked them up - they hadn't had any time alone or proper doors since then. But now they had both, and their compatriots were entirely drunk downstairs. Maybe Chisolm wasn't, but Goodnight didn't worry about him. He wasn't inclined to gossip, whatever he knew.

"You know I think we might still have too many clothes on, mon cher," he said as he slipped his hand beneath Billy's shorts. He stroked him slowly, watching his face as he did.

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy said nothing, because there was nothing that needed to be said. Yes, he was hurried. He was wanting, badly, and this was what he needed to quiet that longing. Goody had been all he needed to quiet himself for years now.

He kissed Goody, and then broke off when he arched a bit, face quietly rapturous in the moment of that touch. Everything was just a little too dry, a little too slow. It dragged the moment out, and Billy found himself stifling a groan.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"You make a good point." Billy hadn't said a word, but he didn't need to. He leaned for a kiss and drew away, leaning over the bed to find where he'd dropped his saddle bags. It had taken them some time to find an oil that worked just right for both of them, but at least it wasn't hard to come by. He spilled some over his hand and closed it again, leaving it nearby. Goodnight leaned over Billy again, kissed him this time as his fingers wrapped around his cock, stroking easily this time.

[assassinwithahairpin]

In the moment of Goodnight turning away to fish in his pack, Billy pushed his shorts down to his thighs. That way, when Goodnight turned back and touched him again, it was unencumbered. Billy arched and kissed him deeply as he was touched, sighing hungrily.

"Hell, Goody," he murmured. He was working steadily toward desperately hard already.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"It's been a long ride, hasn't it?" He loved to watch Billy open up: the sounds he made, even his cursing was a delight. Maybe because he so often seemed composed. "How do you want it tonight, cher?" He seemed wound up; Goodnight was happy to offer him the choice.

He changed the rhythm and motion of his hand as he awaited the answer.

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy huffed out a breath as Goody twisted his wrist to a slightly different angle. He closed his eyes for a moment, contemplating the question, the implicit offers in those words. They were not the sort that assumed positions with each other. Once they'd fallen in as fully as they were going to, they'd both taken turns being the one with their face quieted in the pillows.

With another soft, huffing breath, Billy slid a hand across Goodnight's thigh, across his hip, and back to his ass. He grabbed him, just a little roughly.

"Want you," he said. He reached between them and moved Goody's hand off his cock, then manhandled him a little higher on his hips so he could grind up against his ass. "Like this."

[goodnight_robicheaux]

The sudden manhandling startled a noise out of him, almost a laugh as he ended up straddling Billy's hips. "Easy, darli, you've got me." He settled, rocking back to meet the eager grind. He leaned to get their lubricant, passing it to Billy. "Make yourself useful then."

Goody smiled down at him as he gave another lazy grind of his hips. This was one of his favorite views.

[assassinwithahairpin]

"You're wearing too many clothes," Billy said with an endeared smile. If they kept their shorts on, it would not be the first time. There had been too many times to count, and so many of them involved not wanting to pause in their passions so they could be fully stripped.

Still, he slicked his fingers. He carefully maneuvered so he could reach down the back of Goody's shorts and trace his slick digits down the cleft of his ass, to tease and press and smear the slick on him.