To Outlaw Bear: Thank you once again for another super sweet review! And of course, you can send me anything you like! By the way, I went to your Instagram account, and I loooove your hair, holy shit, that's so awesome.

To Voldemort: Alright.. ALRIGHT!.. The poetry did it. I've never been serenated before, but I found I'm a big sucker for it. Anyway, here's to you, my dear!

To all my other wonderful reviewers: You guys are the backbone of this story, not kidding. I love all of you.

Chapter 22

Now he had her attention, and the storm seemed completely forgotten. She gazed at him curiously, although slightly worried. She remembered her shock at seeing the collection of white lines across the tanned skin of his back, forced into his flesh with great force. "I don't know.." she admitted carefully. "Do I?"

He shrugged, looking around the room. "It aint that interesting, ah can tell ye that. But this seems to be a better moment for tellin' stupid stories than sittin' in a tub with cold water." She still seemed unsure, and he chuckled bitterly. "Hell, if ye don't want te know.."

"I do." She said quickly. "I do want to know."

He studied her for a moment, folding his right leg over his left, and leaned back in his chair. "Alright." He waited, pondering on where he should start. "Ah was.. ah think ah little older than you." He started. "Er maybe just as old, ah don't remember. Anyways, Sheriff of some small dugout town, nasty guy, one of those gritty lawbenders that aint nuthin' better than me, they just get paid more te do it. He got his hands on me. Locked me up in his office. Now they aint allowed te kill ye, er keep ye there for a long period of time. A judge has te come down and give ye a trial. Ye know that right?"

She shook her head.

"Well, that's how it is. They can't make that decision. Ye need a county marshal, or a prosecutor or a judge for that. These folks had a judge." He shrugged. "But while ah was locked in that cell, waiting for that judge to come around, which took days, if not weeks, cause this guy made his rounds, ye know. He took care of more towns like that. While ah was there, ah had te be given two meals a day, and some jackshit deputy had te come in and clean out mah piss bucket." He chuckled menacingly. "Made a complete mess of it every time. Ye should have seen his face."

His laughing contagious, she smiled softly, bracing herself for the moment his now seemingly funny story would turn more serious.

"But eventually that Sheriff got fed up with me, and here comes the brutal part of that law that forbids them te execute me or whatever. They can give ye a corporal punishment instead, and send ye on yer way after." He explained. She blinked in slight horror, swallowing thickly. "So one mornin' he had his deputies lift me from mah bed, tie me to a pole in the middle of that town, got out his horse whip, and beat the absolute shit out of me." He spread his arms, finished with his story, and leaned back in his chair with a triumphant smile.

She stared at him in shock. "And then?" she asked, dreading the answer. He shrugged, shaking his head. "Then nuthin'" he said. "They let me go."

"Just like that?" She continued.

He shrugged again. "Yea, ah was pretty banged up. If they had kept me there, I would have been entitled te a doctor's services on their costs. So they let me go. Cut me loose." She said nothing, and gazed at him in absolute horror. "Ah told ye it wasn't an interesting story." He chuckled.

"It's a sad story." She corrected him gently.

"Yea well.. it was a long time ago. They don't hurt no more." He gave her a small smile. "Now it's yer turn."

She shook her head, and looked away. "I have no stories." She said. "Nothing like that."

"Oh come on. Ah know ye got sumthin'. Everyone's got stories. Don't need te be a story about ye goin' on some grand adventure." He made her laugh, he knew he did. "Join some Injun tribes, being named chief.." she burst out in laughter, and he followed her example. "Don't have te be nuthin' like that. How about ye tell me.. if ye've ever been kissed." He gave her a sly grin, her shocked expression having no effect on his amusement.

"Excuse me?" she asked, trying to look profoundly offended, but his grin only grew wider, making his scar look all the more gruesome. "You're drunk.." she concluded bitterly.

He nodded "Ahm gettin' there.." He took another deep drag from the bottle.

"I don't believe that is any of your business." She huffed.

"Neither are mah scars any of yers." He argued. "Ye started this show and tell by asking me about them, and ah kept mah promise that I'd tell ye all about them one day. Now ah want te know somethin' about ye."

She shook her head, looking away. "No" she spoke shyly after a few seconds of silence. "We lived too far away from town to find me a suitor, or anything of the sort." She shrugged. He said nothing, just gazed at her with a patience than let her know he was waiting for her to continue. Feeling cornered, she sighed impatiently, his completely calm attitude aggravating her even more. "If you want to share stories about intimacies, I suggest you do the talking yourself." She sneered. "After all, I couldn't possibly compete with your extensive experience in that area."

He raised one eyebrow at her biting words, and stuck the toe of his right boot underneath the iron frame of the bed, shoving it toward him slowly, the rusty metal legs of the bed made sharp sounds on the dusty wooden floor. "Don't ye start again." He warned. When the bed was close enough, he could push hard enough to lift up the side, leaving the bed to dangle on its two right legs, causing the girl to grip onto the matrass and blankets to not fall off. She yelped as he threatened to let the bed fall over completely. "Cause ah'll flip ye over and ye can sleep on the damn floor." With one last dangerous push to the right, to enforce his threat, he removed his foot and let the whole bed fall back on all fours with a loud clang, dust particles danced around the room as the shocked girl tried to regain her bearings.

Huffing and puffing as if he had just caused her the greatest offense in the history of offending women, she leaned over the edge of the bed to retrieve a few pillows that had fallen to the floor during his antics. She brushed off the dust and sand before placing them on the bed again, and shot him angry glares, which were answered with slightly amused grins and chuckles.

"I wonder what Rosa will think if you destroy her bed." She mumbled, straightening the blankets in an agitated manner.

"Ah've seen that bed take worse.." He shot back crudely. She stared at him in disgust, her mouth agape, shocked at his comment. "Hey, ye made that one quite easy for me." He chuckled. She said nothing in return, and looked away, feeling all the more uncomfortable with him in the room. He could sense her turning away from him more and more, and sighed. "Ah don't know what te say, Sharky." He mumbled gruffly. "Ye want te set yer mind on what goes on in this place, ye go ahead and do it. It aint gonna change a single thing." She didn't answer, and gazed at the wall in front of her instead. "ye can make all the innuendos ye want, try te insult me while yer at it, but it aint gonna change anythin'"

"I'm not trying to insult you." She argued, her voice soft.

"Yea ye are." He chided gently. "Yer tryin' te get a rise out of me, but it aint gonna work. Ah want ye te get some hair on yer teeth, so men like Jed and Evans can't get te ye that easily anymore. Ye need me to practise on, ye go right ahead."

She listened to the wind howling outside. Autumn storms that lasted for more than four days, brought forth great change, or so her Grandfather had taught her. Sadly enough, she didn't really know for how long it had been storming outside. She had lost count more than once in the past few days. This place had the tendency to make you forget about the world outside its walls.

"Want te see a more interesting scar?"

His voice brought her back to the dim lit bedroom she was currently residing in, away from her mind, and the memories of home that seemed to fade more and more. She looked at him, slightly baffled at his question, and the sudden change of subject. But he just grinned, baring his silver plated tooth, and wiggled his eyebrows teasingly. Before she could properly formulate her answer, he got out of his chair stiffly and gently sat down on the side of the bed, closing most of the previous distance between them. Unsure about their close proximity, she scooted over to give him more room, and watched him pull his suspenders down.

"This one ahm more proud of." He mumbled, unbuttoning his still damp shirt from the bottom up, baring his stomach. "Give me yer hand." He told her, extending his. She just stared at him wide eyed, he chuckled. "It aint gonna bite ye, Sharky." Without waiting for her, he reached out to grab her wrist, finding she offered little resistance in her current state of bewilderment.

She watched her hand disappear under his shirt as he guided her fingers to the underside of his ribcage. As she jumped at the contact, he did the same. "Yer hands are cold.." He complained, chuckling nervously. "Ye feel it?"

She blinked, staring at him, his expression vacant, his eyes dull from the alcohol. "Feel what?"

"If ye don't feel it, ye aint pushing hard enough." He scolded impatiently. "Or maybe we're proddin' in the wrong side." He continued, more to himself than to her. He let go of her hand for a moment, to examine himself, poking around his ribcage with a violent determination that made her squint. "Come on.." he grumbled. "Where are ye."

"What are we looking for exactly?" she asked carefully, watching him poke and prod around his torso, and getting more annoyed with it by the minute. It would have been a comical sight had it not been about an old wound he was trying to show her. He didn't answer, and continued his ardent search. "Please stop, I don't want you to hurt yourself." She pleaded gently.

He stopped moving when his fingers found what they had been looking for. "Got ya." He mumbled, and looked up at her. "Right here." He told her. Afraid to hurt him, she hesitated, but her curiosity got the best of her eventually, and she placed her hand over his own, allowing him to once again guide her fingers under his last row of ribs, this time on the other side. She swallowed thickly at the sensation of his moving body underneath her fingertips, pushed into his skin with a force she would have never used herself. But now she finally felt what he had been wanting to show her all along. This particular rib felt different from the others she had palpated before. There was a bump in the middle of it, as if something had lodged itself into this thin piece of bone. She looked up at him in confusion, not understanding what she was touching. "What is this?" she asked in horror.

"A bullet." He stated, allowing her calmly to roam her fingers over the strange, irregular shape. "Got it in the war." He jumped when she put too much pressure on a particularly sensitive spot, and chuckled apologetically. "Take it easy on me, Sharky. That's a mean one ye got there."

"I'm sorry." She said, but didn't withdraw her hand, her find too interesting. "So is it..still in there?"

He nodded. "Yea, right in the middle of that rib. They couldn't remove it without shattering my entire damn ribcage, so they decided to just let it sit there. Told me it could go two ways. It would start festering, and I'd die. Or it would just sit there and do nuthin' Ah guess it decided on the latter, cause I aint never had no trouble with it." He explained. "Is a little sensitive, that's all."

If someone would have told her two months ago her hand would be underneath Butch Cavendish' shirt someday, she would have probably thrown them out of their house and called them crazy. But here she was, with her hand under his damp shirt, trailing two fingers back and forth over the strange bump in the middle of the usually smooth strip of bone. The strangest thing about the whole situation was that he calmly let her. He had removed his own hand from hers, and was now just holding up his shirt to give her unobstructed access.

She felt strangely fascinated by the rise and fall of his thin chest, his breathing as collected as it could be while she touched him. And never having touched a man like this, or in any other way for that matter, before, she felt giddy and nervous, her heart beating in her throat. But his complete tranquillity calmed her wrecked nerves little by little, letting her know he was fine with whatever she was doing. The only time he moved, was to reach over to her nightstand to grab the bottle of tequila he had put there, and take a deep swig.

"Do you have more scars like these?" she asked eventually, after having relearned how to use her voice. The first state of shock behind her.

"Don't got any more bullets lodged inside mah bones if that's whut ye mean." He chuckled, causing his chest to vibrate under her fingers, her touch momentarily leaving in her still hesitant approach. "But sure ah got more scars." He continued more calmly, getting profoundly weary under her gentle palpations. "They're all over me."

"I want to see them." She spoke, sure of herself, without making eye contact. Too fascinated by what her fingertips were exploring around his ribcage. He said nothing, and reached behind him to grab a few pillows, placing them against the iron framed headboard before slowly leaning back in a more comfortable position, one arm splayed over her side of the bed. She had to move with him to still to be able to touch him, and scooted closer as he lay down. He let out a deep sigh, resting his eyes for a moment.

"Ah want a million dollars cash and a big ol' mansion in Dodge city, but we can't have all we want." He replied softly. "Why don't ye amuse yerself with that one, and let me get some shut eye instead."

"I'm not amusing myself.." she protested weakly, withdrawing her hand. "I have just never seen anyone with scars like that." She pulled his shirt down, covering his mauled ribcage. "I didn't mean to annoy you.."

He shifted slightly, trying to get rid of his boots by scraping his shin against the iron sides of the bed. He seemed to have done it before as she could hear the heavy leather and spurs hit the wooden floorboards seconds later. "Ye aint annoying me." He mumbled. "But ye need te rest up if ye don't want te fall off yer horse tomorrow."

"Are we leaving?" she asked. He nodded slowly, his eyes closed, already half way gone. "Where are we going?" He didn't answer, and she realized he had fallen asleep.

She didn't have the courage to wake him and ask him why he had decided to move on so suddenly, and tried to get herself comfortable in the narrow space he had left for her, careful not to touch his arm with her head. This bed wasn't meant to occupy two people, but it had probably done it lots of times before. She bit her lip as she tried to shift her legs without bumping into his, and failed when she felt her foot get stuck in a still damp fold of his pants. Her eyes switched to his face, scared that he would wake up and get angry. But he gave no reaction. She let out a sigh of relief. If that nudge didn't wake him, he wouldn't wake up to her covering him with the blankets either. She laid down carefully, draping the covers over them both. She hadn't expected to ever share a bed with a man, and although the circumstances under which she was doing it right now were different than what her mother had talked to her about when she came of age, she was strangely happy with whom she was sharing it. Once again in the middle of the lion's mouth, stuck between four rows of teeth, she felt the same feeling of safety wash over her tired being.

In the dim light of the low burning candle she watched his chest rise and fall in a slow, even tempo. His breathing silent, as she knew. One would guess a man of his age, living the life he lives, would have a heavier form of breathing. But in deep sleep, he made no sound. It wasn't wise to snore while camping outside in a place where you shouldn't be, hunted by men trained to find you. He wasn't a heavy sleeper, and she somehow doubted he didn't notice her moving around, bumping into him, but whether he realized it or not, he remained perfectly still.

It wasn't easy to fall asleep. Somehow her body felt like it had to remain awake now her only source of safety had dozed off. When sleep finally decided to take her, her rest was short lived. She didn't know how long she had been asleep, but when she woke, it was at a strong gust of wind entering the small bedroom through the window, it blew out the candle, knocking it off the nightstand with a loud bang, leaving the room pitch dark in the blink of an eye.

"There goes the candle.." Butch mumbled tiredly, having been awakened by the noise. The wind howled, growing in strength, she could hear shutters hit the wall as they were moved by the strong air currents, and still dry dust sandpapering the wooden boardwalks. "Aint no rest for the wicked, huh?" He sighed. She gave no reply, her body stiffening in fear as the howling intensified, now resembling much the cries of wolves.

Curious about her silence, he turned his head to look at her, but he couldn't make out her features in the dark, only the silhouette of her fast and rapid breathing. He sighed, not really knowing what else to say to calm her. He reached up to rub his tired eyes, again forgetting his injury, and hissed in pain, cursing under his breath. "Ah can't believe ah keep forgettin' mah nose is in damn shatters." He grumbled, annoyed with himself. "Ah swear, if ah had te sneeze right now, they could repaint this whole room. Damn thing is clogged with blood, ahm tellin' ye." She remained silent, and he started to wonder if he was talking to himself all this time. "Are ye sleepin?" He asked.

"No." She spoke softly in the dark. "I'm listening to you."

"ah yea..?" He grumbled, shifting slightly. "Ye do too much of that."

When another strong gust of wind barged into the little room, it blew the nearly empty bottle of tequila off the nightstand, sending it shattering to the floor. The noise was enough to make her jump into the gangleader's arms instinctively, clinging on to him for dear life as he chuckled gruffly.

"And there goes my tequila.." He remarked dryly.

Fed up with the weather, she didn't move from her current spot, finally feeling the amount of safety she would need to brave herself through the rest of this stormy night. She waited till he would move away, scold her, turn his back to her. But he remained perfectly still. He didn't push her away, and although it puzzled her, and made her afraid to move in fear of changing his mind, it didn't keep her from huddling closer to his warm body. With her cheek pressed against his still damp shirt, she rose and fell with his calm breathing. His steady heartbeat like a beacon in the dark that seemed endless. Then finally, she detected movement. He shifted, bringing the arm that had been laying across the pillows, around her shoulder, bringing her closer.

"Alright, little miss shark.." He sighed gently. "You win."

In the far distance, too far to frighten her, she could hear the rumbling of the thunder clouds, chased across the desert by the strong wind. Feeling empowered by the gangleader's permission, she moved her arm across his chest, holding on to him like a child, her weight against him. He gave no reaction, but he was wide awake, she knew he was.

"Try te get some sleep.." He mumbled. She nodded, feeling weary from the interruptions. He was still staring at the wooden ceiling when he felt her body relax against his own.

R&R!