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aeroport_artI woke up to a snoooOOOooooOOOoowww DAY today! And you know what that means, right? FREE TIME WOT HAS COME FROM THE HEAVENS. And you know what that means, right? FIC TIME. And you girls thought I was straying, silly geese. Southland might be a fun new playground, but sheriff!Brad and marshal!Nate are too stuck in my head to let go of. But speaking of Southland, I have a sneaky feeling the timbre of the show's snuck into this chapter. Especially at the end. Oh, shows. *hugs them both*
Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
The Injun takes them a few blocks away, turning down an empty, dead-end alleyway. Disappears into a falling-down building, its wooden façade sloppily painted with the words, Boarding House. Brad and Nate move closer, trying to maintain their stealth as they advance towards the front porch.
Heel. Toe. Nate thinks, softening his steps. Heel. Toe. The last thing they want to do is alert Cocheta in case she’s inside.
“Sir—“ Brad starts, when the deafening shot of a revolver roars. The ground beside them explodes into a small geyser of dirt.
“Shit,” Nate swears, snapping his head around to the origin of the shot. Fifty yards away, the silhouette of a man closes in from the entrance of the alley.
Fuck. They were followed.
Their assailant lifts his gun to aim—he’s near enough now his face sharpens into view, revealing another black-haired, broad-faced Indian—and squeezes off a round. Brad and Nate dive in opposite directions, leaving the bullet to pelt the dirt between them.
Nate scans the area, only to find they’ve been outmaneuvered like stupid, fucking amateurs. The alley’s a straight shot all the way back to the main drag; they’d be fish in a barrel if they tried to run. No awnings, nothing to scale. The fucking homes in Chinatown just go up, up, up, you’d have to be a damned monkey to get up to the roofs.
Nate hears Brad go for his gun just as he does. They snatch their weapons and fire together in one, loud burst. Neither of them are aiming to kill; both bullets find their way into the Injun’s right shoulder.
With a wail, their assailant drops his pistol and falls to his knees. His moans are covered only by the boisterous clamor of newly awakened animals yowling, mewling, and clucking over each other like a goddamned demonic menagerie.
In the corner of Nate’s eye, he sees the boardinghouse door swing open. The Injun they’d followed here, he pulls free from the darkness like a specter in his moon-white union suit.
In his hands is a shotgun. The Injun takes one look at his bleeding brethren and coldly zeroes in on Nate and Brad. Snaps the barrel of his rifle shut and raises it eye-level.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Brad mutters.
Nate chews his lips, echoing the sentiment in his head. A quick visual survey reveals a shit set of options, so he makes sure Brad’s watching him—he is—and minutely jerks his head towards the main drag.
Like wind-up toys, they break into a run. And though they’re prepared for the explosion, it don’t make the ear-shattering shot any less startling when it rips.
“Fuck,” Nate swears, boots slipping on gravel as he and Brad make like bats out of Hell. They must’ve gotten hit, right? But no, they’re still running, the maw of Sacramento Street opening up like a benevolent, yawning beast. Nate lets himself feel hope.
Brad is hot on his heels. They leap over the downed Injun—Nate hears Brad scoop up the discarded pistol—and round the corner of the street just as a second spray of buckshot rockets harmlessly into the space behind them.
They got cover now, the rough, brick wall of a building the best shield they could ask for. The familiar grittiness at his back never felt so good; Nate gives himself a moment to close his eyes and breathe the sweet scent of air into his thankfully whole lungs before he pushes himself off the wall, turning to Brad with focused eyes.
“You all right?” Nate asks, checking Brad over and seeing no obvious wounds. That’s good. That’s real good.
“Dandy, sir,” Brad grunts.
Nate freezes. He hears the pain in Brad’s voice, simmering beneath false words. “Don’t fucking lie to me,” Nate says, pulling Brad in by the shirt and roughly patting him down. Arms, fine. Torso, check. Hips…legs…
Brad hisses. Nate looks at him from where he’s crouched on the ground. Even in the dark, he can see Brad’s forehead wrinkle in discomfort.
Back of the thigh. Nate shoves at Brad’s hip until he reluctantly obliges, turning around to reveal a blistered spray about the size of an spread palm, just below the crease of his ass.
The denim’s plumb shredded at the back of Brad’s right leg. Too hard too see the real damage by the sallow moonlight, but enough to see there is damage. Nate prays it’s just skin deep. Brad was able to run just now, wasn’t he? That counts for something, right?
In the distance, powdery footsteps shuffle down the alley. The barefoot Injun, clad in only his underclothes, is on the move.
Nate hears unintelligible words get exchanged in the alley, the Injun probably tending to his wounded partner. Not unlike himself with Brad, Nate thinks sardonically.
“Stay here,” he says, standing up to reload the one bullet fired from his Outlaw. His pistol makes comforting, catching sounds in his hands.
“What are you thinking?” Brad asks, agitated. “We get the fuck out of here, sir. M’not sure if you've noticed, but one of those redskins got a shotgun.”
Nate snaps the cylinder of his gun into place. “We can’t let them talk.”
“The plan’s fucked anyway. If Cocheta’s inside that boardinghouse, she’d have to be deaf as a dead man, rotting underground, not hear the clusterfuck going on out here.”
“Yeah, but she hasn’t seen us yet. Only those Indians have. And if those Indians ain’t got breath to talk, well.” Nate scrapes his thumbnail across his eyebrow. “We can still salvage this.”
Intending that to be the final word, Nate aligns his back to the wall once more, pistol comfortable in his hand. Starts to lean into the alley when Brad swipes at Nate’s holster belt, pulling him back with a sharp, “No.” Then, quieter, “I’m asking you, sir.”
Nate’s saved the displeasure of denying Brad his request when the sound of hurried footfalls patter towards them. Nate looks past Brad’s troubled face, seeing two figures come towards them in the shadows.
He cocks his gun, setting the moving figures in his sights. At his shoulder, Brad turns and does the same. It’s just Stafford and Christeson, however. Nate’s never been more glad to see his men.
“Evening, gents,” he says, lowering his gun with a nod of his head.
“We heard the noise, couple blocks up,” Christeson says worriedly. “What’s going on?”
Stafford takes one look at Brad and whistles lowly. “Shit, dog. Unless you jus’ pissed yourself, you’re motherfucking bleeding.” True to form, Nate notices dark dribbles of liquid staining the dirt beneath Brad’s foot.
Nate has to squash the panic threatening to rise in his chest. First things first. “Deputy Stafford,” Nate says curtly. “Get him out of here.”
Stafford holds Brad by the arm, as if sensing the fight he’ll put up. “Come on, Sheriff. You ain’t any help if your leg’s hamburger steak.”
“I’m fine.“ Brad says angrily, shrugging off Stafford’s hand. He turns to Nate with pleading eyes. “Sir, I assure you the minor injury I’ve sustained in no way hampers my combat—“
“That’s an order, Special Deputy,” Nate snaps, glaring. Behind them, he can hear movement again. He doesn’t have time for this bullshit. He switches his eyes to Stafford, who’s perked towards the alleyway like a dog on a scent. “Clean him up, Deputy,” Nate instructs, snatching back Stafford’s attention. “I don’t care where. Just get him out of here.”
Nate turns to Christeson next, effectively dismissing the other two men. He glances at Christeson’s six-shooter, held loosely in the kid’s hand. “All loaded, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stay with me. We need to dispatch at least two targets inside that alley. One injured, no weapon—the other mobile with a double-barrel rifle.”
As if to confirm Nate’s quick report, the soft crack of a shotgun expelling two shells—tink tink, the empty cases bouncing on the packed ground—floats past their ears.
“Aim for the armed man first. Take him out, along with any potential back-up that may have arrived.”
Christeson nods seriously. “And the unarmed party?”
“Keep him alive. We’ll snatch him afterwards,” Nate answers. “Now, I’m gonna run. You shoot.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nate crouches, settling his weight on his toes for a good push off the ground. He hears the Injun reload, and that’s his cue to launch himself across the open entrance of the alley.
A shell explodes behind him, the heat of buckshot scrabbling at Nate’s whipping feet but thankfully missing flesh. Right on time, he whirls around to see Christeson fire from a kneeling position. It makes the Injun flinch, long barrel flying up to protect his face, but the shot lands innocuously in front of his bare toes.
Christeson aims—takes another shot. It’s another miss. The target’s a good sixty, seventy yards from where they are, Nate calculates, and Christeson’s never trained for this kind of distance before.
“Higher,” Nate shouts across the street. “A bullet arcs the further it goes—you gotta aim higher.”
He sees Christeson nod to himself, then roll his shoulders. A new attempt takes him closer, but his aim’s off-center now, plume of dirt spitting up next to the Injun. All Christeson’s done is anger their target, the Injun striding forward with an eye down the barrel of his shotgun, sights on Nate’s deputy.
No more playtime. Nate swings around the corner of the wooden building and drops to one knee. Grips his gun with two steady hands, lifts it to his eyes—
A gunshot storms its way into the Injun’s face, busting his skull open like a ripe melon. The half-loaded shotgun falls from his hands with a double bounce to the dirt, its owner slumping down and tipping backwards with a final, ignominious smack to the ground.
Nate stares for a moment, then raises himself up to his feet. Clicks the safety of his pistol back on before dropping it into his holster. A survey of the vicinity guarantees no other targets vying for a fight; just the moaning Injun on his knees, reaching for his fallen comrade’s shotgun with ineffectual desperation. Nate almost feels sorry for him.
Still, he goes to Christeson first, murmuring a resolute good job to his shocked, young deputy, before they both enter the alleyway. Nate’s hand automatically reaches up to adjust a Stetson that isn’t there as he saunters down the narrow, dusty street. He doesn’t feel comfortable with his face out in the open like this, but hey—at least the sun’s still slumbering beneath the horizon, keeping them all in shadow. Better yet, the animals have quieted down, now. Just a lone, howling cat the last bastion of its kind.
Nate stops before the kneeling man, who’s gripping the shotgun in one hand but struggling to get his bloodied, waste of a right arm to function enough to reach the trigger.
It’s a sad sight. Nate drops down to eye-level, elbows on his knees. He plucks the firearm easily from its shivery hold. “Let’s get that wound looked at, shall we?” Nate says, gesturing at the wet, gleaming stain spreading out the Injun’s shoulder.
“Now you save lives?” the Injun snarls. “Murderer. I’d rather die here than go with you.”
Nate narrows his eyes. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, sir. I have questions, and you’re going to answer them. So you’re coming with me.”
Christeson’s voice cuts in. “Marshal,” he calls, somewhere behind him.
“What—“ Nate stills himself, suddenly alert. The ground’s vibrating. Nate turns around, looking over his shoulder.
Slow thunder rolls through the night, growing in volume the longer Nate listens. Not thunder, then—those are horses, carriages coming towards them.
Christeson looks at Nate with uncertain eyes.
Nate gives one last warning look at the sullen Injun on the ground—lingers over the supine, faceless corpse beside them—and gets to his feet, ready to face whatever comes next.
“What if it’s more Indians, come to help?” Christeson asks, eyes darting between Nate and the tell-tale sound of cantering and creaking wheels coming from outside the alley.
“Wouldn’t be,” Nate says, making his way to his deputy’s side. “Those horses are pulling a cart. Indians aren’t dumb enough run in packs large enough to warrant a cart when they should be blending in. Not while guys like us after them, at least.”
Confirming his logic, two horses nose into view, yoked to an open-bed wagon carrying six uniformed policemen.
All six of them have their rifles raised and pointed down the alley. When the horses brake to a stop, the muzzles light up.
Nate and Christeson drop like sacks of grain, faces against the dirt with their hands over their ears as bullets strike over them, zipping past with cold indifference as a toe-curling cry unleashes from the Injun’s throat behind them.
Nate’s eyes fly open, eyelashes blinking in dust. “No,” he says. “Stop.”
His deputy quirks a curious look at him when Nate scrambles to his knees, yelling Stop.
“Sir—”
“Hold your fire,” Nate barks, dashing in front of his prisoner, arms outstretched like wings. “Cease fire!” They just shoot around him though, so Nate gropes for his badge inside his vest and flashes it in the air, shouting, “I’m a U.S. Marshal. This is my prisoner, I need you all to back. The fuck. Off!”
The police stop shooting, one-by-one, until every rifle is finally lowered. A sense of inconsolable hope burbles up in Nate as he spins on his heel and falls to the Injun’s side.
Ears ringing, the only other thing Nate can hear is the underwater thump of his own heartbeat as he props the keeling man up by the shoulders, searching the Injun’s dark face for signs of life.
He might as well have been shaking the one whose face got taken apart by Christeson’s weapon. Both Injuns got twice as much blood out on the street as they do in their departed bodies. Only difference is, this one’s full of holes like a practice dummy at the gun club.
A short while passes—maybe a long while—and Christeson’s hand gently comes down on Nate’s shoulder.
“Sir,” he says tentatively. “The police are asking questions.”
Nate allows himself one long, deep inhalation to rid himself of every ass-fuckery this night has been, like the mistakes and blood and smell of gun smoke will diffuse out of him in steam. Just allows one breath, though. A Marshal’s work can’t end with every setback he trips over.
Nate stands up, automatically brushing dirt off his knees when he feels his hands come away sticky. He looks at his palms, which are smeared with blood.
Nate just shakes his head and moves on. He treads over to the horse-drawn wagon, explaining his situation to the police—some of it, at least—and accepts their ungenuine apologies without complaint. With Christeson watching on the way he is, Nate has no desire to pick a fight with the local law, making an ass of himself. He’s getting too tired to care, anyway. The adrenaline leaches from him like minerals out of stone.
-----
The police give Nate and Christeson a ride home on their open-bed wagon. They’ll take care of the entire, unfortunate incident, they assure the Marshals. Fine, Nate says to them as they part in the street. Thank you, officers. Good night.
Back at the Embarcadero, Nate finds Brad alone in their room. He’s sitting on top of his bedcovers, shirtless but with drawers on. Knees propped up in twin peaks as they hold up his forearms. Fingers laced together, dangling in the air. Eyes watching Nate.
Nate tiredly observes all this, seeing the bandage wrapped around Brad’s right leg. It stretches white from his knee on up to the scrunched hem of Brad’s shorts. No blood seeping through. That’s good.
Brad’s gaze suddenly narrows, and Nate watches warily as Brad stiffly gets to his feet.
“What are you—“
“You’re bleeding,” Brad says angrily, like it’s something Nate’s done wrong.
He’s confused. He wasn’t hit, was he? Looks down at himself. Oh yeah, his knees, from the puddle. His hands.
Brad suddenly pulls at Nate’s wrists, bringing them up to the steady stream of lamplight coming in through the windows.
“Not mine,“ Nate explains, but Brad just rubs his thumbs over Nate’s palms, up the soft centers of his wrists, into the cuffs of his grubby shirtsleeves. “Injun’s,” Nate clarifies weakly.
Brad ignores him, relinquishing Nate’s hands before lowering himself to his knees, Brad’s fingers lightly trailing down Nate’s body.
Nate backs up into the door, the only protest he can muster. Too tired to give voice to his concerns, it’s like Brad’s deliberate hands have dragged him down somewhere warm and unthinking, feeling.
Brad hovers over Nate’s belt buckle, hands poised to undo them but he seems to think better of it. He ducks his head down instead, gingerly tugging at the knees of Nate’s denims, where blood’s congealed into the weave. It leaves dark smudges on Brad’s fingertips, which he rubs together. Nate can’t tell what Brad’s thinking—not from the top of his head, at least.
“I told you,” he says instead. “Wasn’t hit. It was the police.”
“The police?” Brad asks sharply, ice-blue eyes flicking up. “What do you mean?”
Jesus. It’s four, five o’clock in the morning. The murky sky’s already beginning to thin out, diluted by the imminent sunrise. Nate’s tired. He wants to sleep.
“Want to sleep,” Nate echoes, getting himself upright and shoving past Brad who’s still kneeling on the floor. Nate lets himself into the bathroom and closes the door behind him. In the luxury of privacy, Nate slowly takes his clothes off, piece by piece.
When he’s just in his shorts and skin, Nate looks down at himself. His hands are red. His knees are red. He looks in the mirrored plate on the wall and thinks maybe his eyes are red, too. So he rinses his hands and towels his knees off, because those at least he can remedy. The towel turns a sickly pink, so it goes into the hamper on top of his jeans with the suspenders still attached.
He lets himself back into the main room. Brad’s returned to his bed against the window. He’s still on top of the covers, probably due to his bandages, but at least he’s lying down now, on his stomach. His face is buried in the pillow, facing away from Nate’s empty bed.
Nate sighs. His eyes drift towards the light outside, where the sun’s begun to rise.
Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
The Injun takes them a few blocks away, turning down an empty, dead-end alleyway. Disappears into a falling-down building, its wooden façade sloppily painted with the words, Boarding House. Brad and Nate move closer, trying to maintain their stealth as they advance towards the front porch.
Heel. Toe. Nate thinks, softening his steps. Heel. Toe. The last thing they want to do is alert Cocheta in case she’s inside.
“Sir—“ Brad starts, when the deafening shot of a revolver roars. The ground beside them explodes into a small geyser of dirt.
“Shit,” Nate swears, snapping his head around to the origin of the shot. Fifty yards away, the silhouette of a man closes in from the entrance of the alley.
Fuck. They were followed.
Their assailant lifts his gun to aim—he’s near enough now his face sharpens into view, revealing another black-haired, broad-faced Indian—and squeezes off a round. Brad and Nate dive in opposite directions, leaving the bullet to pelt the dirt between them.
Nate scans the area, only to find they’ve been outmaneuvered like stupid, fucking amateurs. The alley’s a straight shot all the way back to the main drag; they’d be fish in a barrel if they tried to run. No awnings, nothing to scale. The fucking homes in Chinatown just go up, up, up, you’d have to be a damned monkey to get up to the roofs.
Nate hears Brad go for his gun just as he does. They snatch their weapons and fire together in one, loud burst. Neither of them are aiming to kill; both bullets find their way into the Injun’s right shoulder.
With a wail, their assailant drops his pistol and falls to his knees. His moans are covered only by the boisterous clamor of newly awakened animals yowling, mewling, and clucking over each other like a goddamned demonic menagerie.
In the corner of Nate’s eye, he sees the boardinghouse door swing open. The Injun they’d followed here, he pulls free from the darkness like a specter in his moon-white union suit.
In his hands is a shotgun. The Injun takes one look at his bleeding brethren and coldly zeroes in on Nate and Brad. Snaps the barrel of his rifle shut and raises it eye-level.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Brad mutters.
Nate chews his lips, echoing the sentiment in his head. A quick visual survey reveals a shit set of options, so he makes sure Brad’s watching him—he is—and minutely jerks his head towards the main drag.
Like wind-up toys, they break into a run. And though they’re prepared for the explosion, it don’t make the ear-shattering shot any less startling when it rips.
“Fuck,” Nate swears, boots slipping on gravel as he and Brad make like bats out of Hell. They must’ve gotten hit, right? But no, they’re still running, the maw of Sacramento Street opening up like a benevolent, yawning beast. Nate lets himself feel hope.
Brad is hot on his heels. They leap over the downed Injun—Nate hears Brad scoop up the discarded pistol—and round the corner of the street just as a second spray of buckshot rockets harmlessly into the space behind them.
They got cover now, the rough, brick wall of a building the best shield they could ask for. The familiar grittiness at his back never felt so good; Nate gives himself a moment to close his eyes and breathe the sweet scent of air into his thankfully whole lungs before he pushes himself off the wall, turning to Brad with focused eyes.
“You all right?” Nate asks, checking Brad over and seeing no obvious wounds. That’s good. That’s real good.
“Dandy, sir,” Brad grunts.
Nate freezes. He hears the pain in Brad’s voice, simmering beneath false words. “Don’t fucking lie to me,” Nate says, pulling Brad in by the shirt and roughly patting him down. Arms, fine. Torso, check. Hips…legs…
Brad hisses. Nate looks at him from where he’s crouched on the ground. Even in the dark, he can see Brad’s forehead wrinkle in discomfort.
Back of the thigh. Nate shoves at Brad’s hip until he reluctantly obliges, turning around to reveal a blistered spray about the size of an spread palm, just below the crease of his ass.
The denim’s plumb shredded at the back of Brad’s right leg. Too hard too see the real damage by the sallow moonlight, but enough to see there is damage. Nate prays it’s just skin deep. Brad was able to run just now, wasn’t he? That counts for something, right?
In the distance, powdery footsteps shuffle down the alley. The barefoot Injun, clad in only his underclothes, is on the move.
Nate hears unintelligible words get exchanged in the alley, the Injun probably tending to his wounded partner. Not unlike himself with Brad, Nate thinks sardonically.
“Stay here,” he says, standing up to reload the one bullet fired from his Outlaw. His pistol makes comforting, catching sounds in his hands.
“What are you thinking?” Brad asks, agitated. “We get the fuck out of here, sir. M’not sure if you've noticed, but one of those redskins got a shotgun.”
Nate snaps the cylinder of his gun into place. “We can’t let them talk.”
“The plan’s fucked anyway. If Cocheta’s inside that boardinghouse, she’d have to be deaf as a dead man, rotting underground, not hear the clusterfuck going on out here.”
“Yeah, but she hasn’t seen us yet. Only those Indians have. And if those Indians ain’t got breath to talk, well.” Nate scrapes his thumbnail across his eyebrow. “We can still salvage this.”
Intending that to be the final word, Nate aligns his back to the wall once more, pistol comfortable in his hand. Starts to lean into the alley when Brad swipes at Nate’s holster belt, pulling him back with a sharp, “No.” Then, quieter, “I’m asking you, sir.”
Nate’s saved the displeasure of denying Brad his request when the sound of hurried footfalls patter towards them. Nate looks past Brad’s troubled face, seeing two figures come towards them in the shadows.
He cocks his gun, setting the moving figures in his sights. At his shoulder, Brad turns and does the same. It’s just Stafford and Christeson, however. Nate’s never been more glad to see his men.
“Evening, gents,” he says, lowering his gun with a nod of his head.
“We heard the noise, couple blocks up,” Christeson says worriedly. “What’s going on?”
Stafford takes one look at Brad and whistles lowly. “Shit, dog. Unless you jus’ pissed yourself, you’re motherfucking bleeding.” True to form, Nate notices dark dribbles of liquid staining the dirt beneath Brad’s foot.
Nate has to squash the panic threatening to rise in his chest. First things first. “Deputy Stafford,” Nate says curtly. “Get him out of here.”
Stafford holds Brad by the arm, as if sensing the fight he’ll put up. “Come on, Sheriff. You ain’t any help if your leg’s hamburger steak.”
“I’m fine.“ Brad says angrily, shrugging off Stafford’s hand. He turns to Nate with pleading eyes. “Sir, I assure you the minor injury I’ve sustained in no way hampers my combat—“
“That’s an order, Special Deputy,” Nate snaps, glaring. Behind them, he can hear movement again. He doesn’t have time for this bullshit. He switches his eyes to Stafford, who’s perked towards the alleyway like a dog on a scent. “Clean him up, Deputy,” Nate instructs, snatching back Stafford’s attention. “I don’t care where. Just get him out of here.”
Nate turns to Christeson next, effectively dismissing the other two men. He glances at Christeson’s six-shooter, held loosely in the kid’s hand. “All loaded, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stay with me. We need to dispatch at least two targets inside that alley. One injured, no weapon—the other mobile with a double-barrel rifle.”
As if to confirm Nate’s quick report, the soft crack of a shotgun expelling two shells—tink tink, the empty cases bouncing on the packed ground—floats past their ears.
“Aim for the armed man first. Take him out, along with any potential back-up that may have arrived.”
Christeson nods seriously. “And the unarmed party?”
“Keep him alive. We’ll snatch him afterwards,” Nate answers. “Now, I’m gonna run. You shoot.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nate crouches, settling his weight on his toes for a good push off the ground. He hears the Injun reload, and that’s his cue to launch himself across the open entrance of the alley.
A shell explodes behind him, the heat of buckshot scrabbling at Nate’s whipping feet but thankfully missing flesh. Right on time, he whirls around to see Christeson fire from a kneeling position. It makes the Injun flinch, long barrel flying up to protect his face, but the shot lands innocuously in front of his bare toes.
Christeson aims—takes another shot. It’s another miss. The target’s a good sixty, seventy yards from where they are, Nate calculates, and Christeson’s never trained for this kind of distance before.
“Higher,” Nate shouts across the street. “A bullet arcs the further it goes—you gotta aim higher.”
He sees Christeson nod to himself, then roll his shoulders. A new attempt takes him closer, but his aim’s off-center now, plume of dirt spitting up next to the Injun. All Christeson’s done is anger their target, the Injun striding forward with an eye down the barrel of his shotgun, sights on Nate’s deputy.
No more playtime. Nate swings around the corner of the wooden building and drops to one knee. Grips his gun with two steady hands, lifts it to his eyes—
A gunshot storms its way into the Injun’s face, busting his skull open like a ripe melon. The half-loaded shotgun falls from his hands with a double bounce to the dirt, its owner slumping down and tipping backwards with a final, ignominious smack to the ground.
Nate stares for a moment, then raises himself up to his feet. Clicks the safety of his pistol back on before dropping it into his holster. A survey of the vicinity guarantees no other targets vying for a fight; just the moaning Injun on his knees, reaching for his fallen comrade’s shotgun with ineffectual desperation. Nate almost feels sorry for him.
Still, he goes to Christeson first, murmuring a resolute good job to his shocked, young deputy, before they both enter the alleyway. Nate’s hand automatically reaches up to adjust a Stetson that isn’t there as he saunters down the narrow, dusty street. He doesn’t feel comfortable with his face out in the open like this, but hey—at least the sun’s still slumbering beneath the horizon, keeping them all in shadow. Better yet, the animals have quieted down, now. Just a lone, howling cat the last bastion of its kind.
Nate stops before the kneeling man, who’s gripping the shotgun in one hand but struggling to get his bloodied, waste of a right arm to function enough to reach the trigger.
It’s a sad sight. Nate drops down to eye-level, elbows on his knees. He plucks the firearm easily from its shivery hold. “Let’s get that wound looked at, shall we?” Nate says, gesturing at the wet, gleaming stain spreading out the Injun’s shoulder.
“Now you save lives?” the Injun snarls. “Murderer. I’d rather die here than go with you.”
Nate narrows his eyes. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, sir. I have questions, and you’re going to answer them. So you’re coming with me.”
Christeson’s voice cuts in. “Marshal,” he calls, somewhere behind him.
“What—“ Nate stills himself, suddenly alert. The ground’s vibrating. Nate turns around, looking over his shoulder.
Slow thunder rolls through the night, growing in volume the longer Nate listens. Not thunder, then—those are horses, carriages coming towards them.
Christeson looks at Nate with uncertain eyes.
Nate gives one last warning look at the sullen Injun on the ground—lingers over the supine, faceless corpse beside them—and gets to his feet, ready to face whatever comes next.
“What if it’s more Indians, come to help?” Christeson asks, eyes darting between Nate and the tell-tale sound of cantering and creaking wheels coming from outside the alley.
“Wouldn’t be,” Nate says, making his way to his deputy’s side. “Those horses are pulling a cart. Indians aren’t dumb enough run in packs large enough to warrant a cart when they should be blending in. Not while guys like us after them, at least.”
Confirming his logic, two horses nose into view, yoked to an open-bed wagon carrying six uniformed policemen.
All six of them have their rifles raised and pointed down the alley. When the horses brake to a stop, the muzzles light up.
Nate and Christeson drop like sacks of grain, faces against the dirt with their hands over their ears as bullets strike over them, zipping past with cold indifference as a toe-curling cry unleashes from the Injun’s throat behind them.
Nate’s eyes fly open, eyelashes blinking in dust. “No,” he says. “Stop.”
His deputy quirks a curious look at him when Nate scrambles to his knees, yelling Stop.
“Sir—”
“Hold your fire,” Nate barks, dashing in front of his prisoner, arms outstretched like wings. “Cease fire!” They just shoot around him though, so Nate gropes for his badge inside his vest and flashes it in the air, shouting, “I’m a U.S. Marshal. This is my prisoner, I need you all to back. The fuck. Off!”
The police stop shooting, one-by-one, until every rifle is finally lowered. A sense of inconsolable hope burbles up in Nate as he spins on his heel and falls to the Injun’s side.
Ears ringing, the only other thing Nate can hear is the underwater thump of his own heartbeat as he props the keeling man up by the shoulders, searching the Injun’s dark face for signs of life.
He might as well have been shaking the one whose face got taken apart by Christeson’s weapon. Both Injuns got twice as much blood out on the street as they do in their departed bodies. Only difference is, this one’s full of holes like a practice dummy at the gun club.
A short while passes—maybe a long while—and Christeson’s hand gently comes down on Nate’s shoulder.
“Sir,” he says tentatively. “The police are asking questions.”
Nate allows himself one long, deep inhalation to rid himself of every ass-fuckery this night has been, like the mistakes and blood and smell of gun smoke will diffuse out of him in steam. Just allows one breath, though. A Marshal’s work can’t end with every setback he trips over.
Nate stands up, automatically brushing dirt off his knees when he feels his hands come away sticky. He looks at his palms, which are smeared with blood.
Nate just shakes his head and moves on. He treads over to the horse-drawn wagon, explaining his situation to the police—some of it, at least—and accepts their ungenuine apologies without complaint. With Christeson watching on the way he is, Nate has no desire to pick a fight with the local law, making an ass of himself. He’s getting too tired to care, anyway. The adrenaline leaches from him like minerals out of stone.
-----
The police give Nate and Christeson a ride home on their open-bed wagon. They’ll take care of the entire, unfortunate incident, they assure the Marshals. Fine, Nate says to them as they part in the street. Thank you, officers. Good night.
Back at the Embarcadero, Nate finds Brad alone in their room. He’s sitting on top of his bedcovers, shirtless but with drawers on. Knees propped up in twin peaks as they hold up his forearms. Fingers laced together, dangling in the air. Eyes watching Nate.
Nate tiredly observes all this, seeing the bandage wrapped around Brad’s right leg. It stretches white from his knee on up to the scrunched hem of Brad’s shorts. No blood seeping through. That’s good.
Brad’s gaze suddenly narrows, and Nate watches warily as Brad stiffly gets to his feet.
“What are you—“
“You’re bleeding,” Brad says angrily, like it’s something Nate’s done wrong.
He’s confused. He wasn’t hit, was he? Looks down at himself. Oh yeah, his knees, from the puddle. His hands.
Brad suddenly pulls at Nate’s wrists, bringing them up to the steady stream of lamplight coming in through the windows.
“Not mine,“ Nate explains, but Brad just rubs his thumbs over Nate’s palms, up the soft centers of his wrists, into the cuffs of his grubby shirtsleeves. “Injun’s,” Nate clarifies weakly.
Brad ignores him, relinquishing Nate’s hands before lowering himself to his knees, Brad’s fingers lightly trailing down Nate’s body.
Nate backs up into the door, the only protest he can muster. Too tired to give voice to his concerns, it’s like Brad’s deliberate hands have dragged him down somewhere warm and unthinking, feeling.
Brad hovers over Nate’s belt buckle, hands poised to undo them but he seems to think better of it. He ducks his head down instead, gingerly tugging at the knees of Nate’s denims, where blood’s congealed into the weave. It leaves dark smudges on Brad’s fingertips, which he rubs together. Nate can’t tell what Brad’s thinking—not from the top of his head, at least.
“I told you,” he says instead. “Wasn’t hit. It was the police.”
“The police?” Brad asks sharply, ice-blue eyes flicking up. “What do you mean?”
Jesus. It’s four, five o’clock in the morning. The murky sky’s already beginning to thin out, diluted by the imminent sunrise. Nate’s tired. He wants to sleep.
“Want to sleep,” Nate echoes, getting himself upright and shoving past Brad who’s still kneeling on the floor. Nate lets himself into the bathroom and closes the door behind him. In the luxury of privacy, Nate slowly takes his clothes off, piece by piece.
When he’s just in his shorts and skin, Nate looks down at himself. His hands are red. His knees are red. He looks in the mirrored plate on the wall and thinks maybe his eyes are red, too. So he rinses his hands and towels his knees off, because those at least he can remedy. The towel turns a sickly pink, so it goes into the hamper on top of his jeans with the suspenders still attached.
He lets himself back into the main room. Brad’s returned to his bed against the window. He’s still on top of the covers, probably due to his bandages, but at least he’s lying down now, on his stomach. His face is buried in the pillow, facing away from Nate’s empty bed.
Nate sighs. His eyes drift towards the light outside, where the sun’s begun to rise.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 08:12 am (UTC)Nate has to squash the panic threatening to rise in his chest. First things first. “Deputy Stafford,” Nate says curtly. “Get him out of here.”
Man, he is so GONE. Impressive at keeping it together, but still fucking gone on Brad.
Nate backs up into the door, the only protest he can muster. Too tired to give voice to his concerns, it’s like Brad’s deliberate hands have dragged him down somewhere warm and unthinking, feeling.
Omg, so gorgeous. Love this description here.
His hands are red. His knees are red. He looks in the mirrored plate on the wall and thinks maybe his eyes are red, too. So he rinses his hands and towels his knees off, because those at least he can remedy.
Again, perfect, with the red eyes and Nate taking care of what he can.
I also really liked the nods to canon in this. You WIN!
no subject
Date: 2011-01-29 04:23 am (UTC)Man, he is so GONE.
Ohhh, yeah. Nate is head over heels over head over heels.
I also really liked the nods to canon in this.
I'm glad! I'm always wary of making too-obvious references, since after awhile they could seem like a cheap gimmick. For example, "whisky tango" is in dire danger of being overused, and I was hesitant to have Brad say "I'm asking you, sir." Especially since it's SUCH a tense, poignant moment in the show, while here it's kind of a throwaway line. *shrugs* it's all about balance, right?
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Date: 2011-01-29 07:55 am (UTC)I was hesitant to have Brad say "I'm asking you, sir." Especially since it's SUCH a tense, poignant moment in the show, while here it's kind of a throwaway line.
...really? I didn't read that as a throwaway line here. And in response, Nate actually paused, which I thought was kind of huge. The use of that line really worked for me, actually. Uhh, but perhaps I am interpreting not as you intended.
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Date: 2011-01-30 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-29 04:27 am (UTC)“You’re bleeding,” Brad says angrily, like it’s something Nate’s done wrong.
It is so Brad because here, he's not mad at Nate at all. He's pissed at himself for not being able to save his one twoo love! Nate's just being dense and didn't pick up on it.
Hmm. I think I have way too much fun with these boys and their poor, tortured psyches ._. Oh well. FUN FOR US
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Date: 2011-01-29 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-30 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 11:23 pm (UTC)"His face is buried in the pillow, facing away from Nate’s empty bed."
This made me very sad, but story wise this is perfect - I don't think Nate would have the energy for anything other then crashing down and sleeping like a stone!
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Date: 2011-02-01 01:45 am (UTC)I had a lot of fun getting back to basics this chapter. Man oh man, was I missing the gunfights XD on the one hand they're difficult to write (hence the long pause since the last chapter), but on the other hand it can be really rewarding.
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Date: 2011-01-29 11:04 pm (UTC)I love it when you mix action with character moments - you're so awesome at it. And argh, the tension between Brad and Nate - fabulous.
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Date: 2011-01-30 05:21 pm (UTC)I hope you had a good birthday yesterday! Dinner, friends? Or some cozy hibernation?
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Date: 2011-01-30 07:56 pm (UTC)I'm getting old - I went for hibernation!
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Date: 2011-01-30 08:16 pm (UTC)Glad you like the moola, haha.
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Date: 2011-01-30 08:18 pm (UTC)I keep shaking the bag, trying to get the money to fall out...
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Date: 2011-01-30 08:21 pm (UTC)Keep shaking that bag! It'll happen!!
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Date: 2011-01-30 10:15 pm (UTC)British winters aren't all fog and rain like they're often portrayed, but we do have some very grey spells, and then I do think wistfully of sunshine.
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Date: 2011-02-01 03:48 am (UTC)Oh honey. *pets him*
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Date: 2011-02-07 04:16 am (UTC)