A/N: It's been a hell of a bad week mental health and self-confidence wise, and I wasn't sure if I'd get this chapter done or not, but a jaunt on Thursday to a cow auction (which resulted in three new members of the herd at home) gave me the momentum I needed, so here it is!
Chapter named after the song 'Heartbeats' by José Gonzales.
Warning for some brief graphic medical imagery.
The street is a cacophony of shouting, laughing, tinkling piano music from the different saloons, and she is overwhelmed with the sudden desire for something, but can't place her finger on it. Something which is not here. Something which is possibly not anywhere.
The old loneliness aches deep within her soul, and she flexes her fingers, swallows it down, tries to focus on her task at hand. Visit each of the saloons (and there are maybe thirty of them of some description still operating, though Fort Griffin is past its prime), scope out their clientele. She has no idea who or what she is looking for, has not even spoken to Warren about what he knows about who shot Fahim. There has not been time yet, and she hates to pull him away when Henry is ill.
It is a terrible act of cruelty to pull him away when Henry is ill.
She is bordering on Edwin tonight, hair pinned up under her hat, a darker suit selected. It could do with being pressed after travelling cross-country in her saddlebags, but no harm done. The creases add to her appearance, and she will not argue with that. Her waistcoat is her one concession to colour – dark grey with a deep purple swirl pattern overlaid. It highlights the slimness of her figure, curves hidden away beneath binding. Edwin, but not quite Edwin. As if the allure of the inbetween will be enough to gain her answers.
She is too philosophical for all of this tonight, but she presses on. She owes it to Fahim, and to Henry, to press on.
After traipsing through five saloons, and not quite knowing what she's learned only that the town has an overabundance of saloons now that it's population is dwindling, she arrives at the Enola. It is a great deal more crowded now than it was when she fetched Warren from it earlier, a cowhand at the piano playing 'Red River Valley' rather poorly, a contrast to the drunk in the corner singing about Skibbereen in a hoarse voice, and all around are poker and faro games, men in suits and others still wearing the dust and grit of the range gathered around the tables, sweat-soaked and grizzly. She has a sudden wave of feeling overdressed. And she is certain that is a flash of Confederate-grey fabric, fourteen years out of date but still in use. These damn Texans never did know how to let go.
The chatter of voices with the music is almost enough to deafen her thoughts, and she sighs, buys a bottle of whiskey, and moves towards a table at the back, occupied by one blond cavalry officer, his blue uniform as out of place as she is. And if she settles in beside him, she will be unremarkable, and watch the room in peace.
His body aches as he drifts towards wakefulness, legs stiff and arms weighing leaden. With each breath he can feel the razorblades slice his chest, taste remembered blood metallic on the back of his tongue. Not a particular lobe this time, so far as he can tell, though the left lung feels slightly worse than the right, both sets of alveoli, bronchioles, bronchi screaming, trachea begging for rest. Once, in medical school, he dissected the trachea of a pauper who died from a lung haemorrhage. Ulcerated and raw, dark with the clotted blood that suffocated that soul, the image swims before him again, and he shivers, whines when the pain in his chest briefly worsens.
He had two good lungs back then, a whole life unfurling on and on, until the Fates saw fit to laugh at him.
He lost all bitterness the first time Warren's lips met his, but the memory of it lingers in his veins.
His eyes flicker open, the room swimming before him, fuzzy at the edges. Dimly he makes out Warren, sitting in the chair beside the bed. He is half-slumped in sleep, fingers twined loosely with Henry's own. He cannot muster the strength to squeeze them, so he settles for brushing his thumb over them, the smooth skin more welcome than anything else in the world. The light is low (or is it just that his eyes are fighting to stay open?), and soft, casting Warren's hair copper, faintly glowing, and Henry's heart stalls in his chest. He is too tired to move, too tired to try and wake him though how he craves to hear his voice, but he is certain that Warren has never looked so beautiful before. And tears water in his eyes, but he cannot look away, not when this vision is sitting beside him.
His head pounds with pain, a throbbing in behind his eyes like a hammer tapping at the inside of his skull. He opens his eyes and the room is dark but it sways, spinning over and over out of control and bile burns up in his throat, so he swallows it, closes his eyes again, an aching stiffness lingering deep beneath his ribs. He shifts to try and ease it, to get some relief, but a sharp bolt of pain lances through him and he whimpers, tears prickling his eyes.
But there is no one to hear, no one to come to him. He risks opening one eye, and finds he is thoroughly alone, the last man left in the world. The very last, everyone else dead or fled.
His thoughts spin and he tries to catch them, bridle them, get some control back. Alone, yes, and he closes his eye again against the swimming dark. Alone but—but Erik was here, wasn't he? Here with him? Or was it a dream? And Henry was here, whispering to him, telling him about asking Warren to kiss him, about his man being safe. Who is his man? Erik, maybe (hopefully). But if Henry was here, where is he now?
They were both here, Henry and Erik both. He can feel it.
A shuffle, boots dragging on a rug, and the room swims before him again. Does he imagine it, or is it real? Golden eyes shining in the darkness, like two tiny pinpricks of candlelight. An involuntary gasp, and a brief stab of pain, a soft finger pressed lightly to his lips. "Do not speak, Fahim. There is no need for you to. I just had to see you again."
The tears well up and he is powerless to fight them, the relief numbing. Erik is here, and he would cry an ocean of tears in celebration of that.
She cannot be certain what time it is, only that it is late, and she has regained herself from the fractured state she was in earlier. It is well past midnight, most likely. The best part of the last hour was lost in a fumbled encounter with a lady of the night, who she paid handsomely from the five hundred dollars she won in a poker game, and she very much doubts if the lady in question had any issue with the affair. In fact, Etta suspects that she enjoyed it far more than any of her many liaisons with these damn Texans, and, two-to-one, ended up better paid for it too.
Heading back for the boardinghouse with a bottle of whiskey and four hundred dollars, give or take, Etta is tired to her bones, but it is a content sort of tiredness as opposed to an aching one. Or at least, as content a sort of tiredness as it can be, given the circumstances. She learned nothing at all of use from her night, and makes a mental note to interrogate Warren for all he knows in the morning.
God, but she couldn't keep from thinking of Henry and Fahim all night. If she had been able to clear her thoughts, she would have won at least another three hundred.
Maybe tomorrow night her luck will be better.
She can only hope.
Tonight, she'll settle for checking in on both of them. Odds are they'll be asleep, but she'll not be able to sleep herself until she sees them and knows for sure.
And after seeing them, she'll head up to the attic room. Warren vouched for her with Mrs Cummings so that she can stay there, and though she doubts that the good landlady was too impressed she'll take what she's given. Better the attic room than sleeping out somewhere on the dew-damp ground.
Or maybe she'll just sleep in the chair by Fahim's bed.
She hasn't decided yet.
A knock on the door jolts him awake, a whine slipping from his throat with the sudden pain in his chest. A soft flicker of light, and a hand smooths back his hair, lips brushing. "It's all right, darling. I'll get it. Go back to sleep." Warren's words are softly blurred, and Henry sighs, the flicker of light darkening away.
The hand disappears from his hair. Scraping of chair legs on the floor, clack of boots on hardwood, creaking of the door. A jumble of little noises, each of them grating on his ears.
Hushed voices, the words flowing around him though he makes no attempt to grasp them. Warren, "...sleeping…a little easier than…earlier..."
Sloshing of a bottle, woman's voice. "…case his cough gets bad..." Whiskey. Is it whiskey? Oh Lord, let it be whiskey. He can feel it burning in his throat already.
More words, tear heavy, impossible to make out, and a rustle of clothes. Then the woman's voice comes again. "...just take care of your man, all right? I'll check on Fahim…" He knows that voice. Why does he know it? He can feel it prickling somewhere in the back of his mind, the name that goes with it. Not Mrs Cummings, someone else. Someone—
There was something about Etta before, wasn't there? Is it Etta? Is she here? Why is she here? It's not—not adding up. Dim snatch of auburn hair, of hands on his shoulders. It is Etta. But why is it her?
Before he can try to fathom it, he hears the creak of the door closing, the boots tracking back across the floor, the soft distinctive thud of a bottle being set down, and with a tremendous effort he opens his eyes, finds the shape of Warren blurred, and reaches his aching stiff fingers for his hand.
"Come to bed." His voice is barely a croak. "No point…sitting there all night." Warren always gets peevish when he sleeps in chairs. It upsets his back.
(And how he aches for him, to feel the warmth of him, to hear his heart beating beneath his ear. It is a bone deep craving for contact. He was only half a man until he met Warren, and Warren is the only one who can make him whole, to ease the grating within. He has not drawn a full breath in years, and never will again, but with Warren beside him, holding him, he does not miss breathing.)
"I don't want to hurt you." Warren's voice is softly hoarse, and he recognises the roughness of past crying, knows what he means. I don't want the shifting of the bed to hurt your chest, I don't want you to start coughing, I don't want your lungs to start bleeding because of me.
His eyes slip closed against his will. None of that matters. I just want you, to feel your arms around me. Too many words and he hasn't the breath for them, not for a one of them. "You won't." I'd bear a thousand years of pain if you would just hold me.
He is already drifting when the bed dips, and a kiss is pressed to his forehead. Arms wrap around him, draw him close, and the sighing of Warren's breath is the focus of his world.
He's too tired to speak, too tired to even try to think of something to say, but he does not need to, not with Erik here, sitting beside him, their fingers entwined on top of his chest, Erik's head resting on the pillow next to his, lips pressed to his cheek.
He is not certain that he is not dreaming. But if he is dreaming he never wants to wake up.
If he could bear to move he would try to press himself closer to Erik, but the very thought is enough to make the pain prickle sharper, make him become suddenly aware of it.
He whimpers, and Erik shushes him, squeezing his fingers tighter.
"Do you want laudanum?" The question comes low in his ear.
Laudanum would give him relief, would banish the pain. But if he takes laudanum it will pull him under again, will pull him away from Erik. And he would rather suffer the pain than to lose even a minute. "No." It is too much effort to pull together anything else to say, to explain himself. But what need have they for explanations now when they have this?
The silence is soft and sweet. And for a long time the only sound in the darkness is their breathing. He could listen to Erik's breathing forever, gentle in his ear. But then, slowly, comes:
"The moment you are up to traveling, we'll ride for Mexico. Just the two of us, together." Erik's words are soft, soft as a stream rippling over a stone ledge, glistening golden under the sun, almost soothing enough to be a lullaby, but he is not singing. "Or Indian Territory. On for Kansas, the Dakota country. Somewhere away from here. Wherever you want to go. Just you, and I. And no one will harm you ever again, no one will dare consider it. And we'll lie out beneath the stars, the whole world before us, and just lie together, like this, holding on. And I'll sing for you. Everyone has always said I have a lovely voice. And I'll show you magic tricks, and we'll explore together, free from everyone…"
He drifts on the sea of promises, a spell wrapping around him. Him and Erik, free and together, alone. Riding along the river or across the range, curled in each other's arms beneath a stand of trees. The images flicker before him, an endless trickle, half memory half fantasy, and Erik keeps murmuring, voice softer, lower, and Fahim sighs, feels himself slowly slip beneath the waves.
The snick of the door shatters the moment, light searing behind his closed eyes and he squeezes them tighter, Erik silent, vanished, hand suddenly cold without his on top. Click, as if of a pistol being cocked, and sweat beads cold on his forehead, heart racing.
"You touch that gun I'll burn you down."
The words are cold and hard, voice not deep enough to be Erik's. Who is it? What—what's happening?
The world is blurry when he forces his eyes open, Erik a silhouette beside him, hand hovering at his hip, at the shining pearl handle of his pistol. He blinks hard, wills his vision to sharpen. Dimly by the door he makes out a slim figure, red hair stark against a black suit.
Red hair?
Thud as the door closes, and the voice comes again, the one that goes with that hair, that suit, the jangle of two pistols in those hands, covering Erik so he can't move.
"Who the hell are you?"
A/N: I'll try not to leave you all hanging too long, but I have been abruptly recalled by my WWI fascination, so writing this may be a bit of an effort this week. But I'll do my best to have a chapter for Saturday!
And please do leave a review. It gives me a wonderful boost when you do.