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1879
On the rare occasions when he’s asked about his first meeting with his soulmate, Goodnight has a tendency to hem and haw and use any number of four or more syllable words to distract the asker from receiving a proper answer.
Billy, however, just tells it like it is.
“He ran away.” He says bluntly, barely bothering to look up from the plate of beans he has resting before him on the table. “Didn’t so much as ask me my name.”
Goodnight sputters, his own meal forgotten in his rush to defend himself. “That is not what happened, you little devil! And I didn’t have to ask your name, I had it on the goddamned warrant I’d come to serve you with.”
Billy snorts and glances across the table at Faraday and Vasquez, who are both watching them with matching looks of skepticism on their faces. “That is exactly what happened. He just up and bolted out the door of the bar we were in, jumped on his horse and was halfway out of town before I could even blink.”
Vasquez lets out one of his wild cackles at this, clearly amused by the image Billy has just painted for him. “Oh Dios mio,” he chuckles, “and I thought I had problems with this one here. At least he only wandered to the other edge of the campsite we were sharing.”
Beside him, Faraday makes an annoyed face, but it smooths out easily enough when Vasquez gives him a fond bump with his shoulder.
For his part, Billy shakes his head and reaches for the glass of water he has sitting next to his supper plate. He knocks back a quick few gulps and then returns his attention to their fellows. “Seeing as I got to personally witness both events, I can tell you that Faraday had nothing on this imbecile.” He nudges Goodnight lightly with his elbow, perhaps on the off chance that anyone at their table couldn’t tell who the words ‘this imbecile’ had been referring to.
“Oh come now,” Goodnight protests, indignant. He gestures expansively around the table with one hand, taking particular care to encompass Faraday’s person as he does so. “He had to blow himself up before he came to his senses where his bond was concerned!”
Vasquez’s face goes pinched at this, and Faraday shoots Goodnight a glare as he brings his arm up and rests it along the back of Vasquez’s chair, his thumb stroking absently over the back of the other man’s neck. “For the record,” he says pointedly, “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
Goodnight gives a sheepish shrug of his shoulders. “Yes, well, if we’re being technical, I didn’t mean to avoid Billy quite as thoroughly as I did upon our first meeting. These things just happen, I suppose.”
Billy gives him a look. “Again,” he says flatly, “you ran away. Nobody made you. I didn’t chase you off. You just ran out out the door and kept right on going.”
Goodnight can tell from the emotions moving through their bond that Billy’s not in the least bit bothered by what he’s saying. If he’d been offended at the time of the incident in question, Goodnight hadn’t stuck around long enough to find out, and Billy’s long since gotten over anything unpleasant he might have felt when it happened. Still, Goodnight’s not comfortable with the idea of letting the whole thing remain as it is.
Squaring his shoulders, he looks directly over at Faraday and Vasquez. “You two really want to know how it all went down?” He asks, hoping that he can somehow spin the whole thing in such a way that he won’t come out looking like a complete idiot by the time he’s finished.
Beside him, he feels Billy tense, and a small spark of confusion goes trickling along their bond. They’ve never told anyone the full details of how they’ve come to be what they are to each other, and even Goodnight’s not one hundred percent certain why he’s chosen tonight of all nights to get into it.
He guesses it’s because Faraday had actually had the nerve to ask. Where most people tended to leave well enough alone and not ask something so personal of another human being, Joshua Faraday continued to show he had all the social graces of a rampaging bull in a china shop, and had up and out of the blue questioned what kind of trouble they’d run into at the originating point of their soulbond. Not even Vasquez’s sharp, scolding elbow digging into his gut had been enough to see him hold back his curiosity.
Speaking of Faraday, the man in question gives him a thoughtful look and then shrugs. “I mean, I suppose you don’t have to say anythin’, but I reckon we’ll listen if you do. Right?”
This last word is directed at Vasquez, who nods and leans forward to rest his elbows on the table. “Si, of course.” He grins one of those sharp, wild grins of his. “After all, you know our story, got to see it happen even. It’s only fair we get to hear yours, no?”
“No.” Billy disagrees and turns to look at Goodnight. “You haven’t even told Sam this,” he points out; like he thinks there’s some argument here he needs to be winning. “You’re telling me you want to tell these two clowns instead?”
“I’d tell Sam if he was here,” Goodnight protests, ignoring Faraday’s indignant squawk and Vasquez’s amused snicker. “Hell, we can go find him if you like. Red Harvest and Horne too. We’ll make a night of it, a regular bedtime story for all the boys here.”
Billy makes a face that telegraphs the words ‘Dear God, no’ just as clearly as if he’d said them out loud.
Settling back in his seat, Goodnight surveys the bottom floor of the boarding house where they’re currently located. Aside from the tired looking girl behind the counter – and she’s far enough away to be well outside of earshot – the four of them are the only people here. Sam and Red Harvest had both chosen to retire upstairs early, and Horne hadn’t even bothered to come inside, choosing instead to set up camp out under the stars in the way he always did when the option presented itself.
“Alright now. Billy, with your permission,” and here Billy huffs out a sigh but nods his head in acquiescence, “I will relate unto these fine gentlemen the true story of how you and I come to be. Don’t worry about jumping in with your own anecdotes. I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”
“If you think I’m going to sit back and let you butcher the truth, you are out of your mind, Goodnight Robicheaux.” Billy takes another hearty swig of his drink and then thumps the cup down heavily on the table. “You can start first; I’ll come in when I need to.”
Vasquez and Faraday share a look – one that Goodnight easily translates as ‘Good lord, what have we gotten ourselves into?’ – but otherwise remain silent.
“So,” Goodnight says then, “it started like this.”
*****
1869
Goodnight’s just about to pull open the door to the saloon when a crashing sound rings out and said door narrowly misses slamming into his face as a man goes sailing through it. The man hits the porch, but only for a second, the force of his landing sending him skidding down the wooden steps until he comes to a stop resting face down on the dusty street, clearly out cold.
Surprised to say the least, Goodnight glances back and forth between the unconscious man before him and the still-swinging doors that he had so abruptly and forcefully exited. He waits a few moments to see if the newcomer is going to do anything else interesting, and shrugs when nothing happens.
“Alright then,” he says, squaring his shoulders and moving to make his way into the saloon as he’d originally intended. Human projectiles aside, he’d come here for a reason and he intended to be getting to it.
The sounds of a bar room brawl had been echoing out into the street even before he’d hit the saloon steps, and they only intensify when he pushes the doors open and steps inside. From the amount of noise and the number of bodies inside the room – both littering the floor and standing upright – Goodnight would have assumed he was dealing with two sides about evenly matched. This is why he feels his jaw drop without his permission as he realizes that, not only have the bulk of the bar’s patrons decided to take on one man alone, but they’re collectively losing on top of that.
“Sweet lord,” he lets himself mutter, the din of the bar such that nobody else hears him or pays him any mind. He stares as the small, dark-haired man in the centre of the fight expertly dodges a much larger and likely much drunker man, and then lands the fellow such a solid punch that Goodnight swears he can feel his own insides ache in sympathy. The man lets out a startled whoop as the breath is forced out of his body and doubles forward, the position such that he’s got no way to defend himself when his assailant uses this to his advantage and clubs him roughly over the back of the head with a furious elbow.
Absently, Goodnight reaches a hand inside his vest pocket as the fight continues on before him. Finding what he’s looking for, he steps nimbly over a couple of groaning bodies as he moves to settle himself down at a table near the wall, a little more out of the path of destruction than some of the others. A discordant crash sings out as he takes a seat – the result of a flailing body being tossed faced first into the bar’s broken down old piano – and Goodnight hums thoughtfully as he unfolds the yellowing piece of paper he’s just pulled free.
He’d folded the paper neatly into a series of eight squares so as to better protect it from the elements during his travelling, and now he sets about meticulously unwrapping it and spreading it out across the table in front of him. He studies it carefully for a few seconds, only looking up briefly when a piercing shriek distracts him and reveals yet another man taking a wild-armed tumble over the bar’s countertop, and nods decisively as he does so.
Satisfied that he’s found his intended quarry, he picks up a half full bottle of alcohol from the table, its former owner apparently having abandoned it during the fight, and casts his eyes about for a glass. When one fails to present itself, he shrugs philosophically and takes a gulp right from the bottle, staring out at the melee still going on.
It’s winding down now, with only three men remaining on their feet. As he watches that number drops down to two when a man with a greying beard takes a punch to the jaw that sends him to the floor with a choked off gurgle. After that it takes only a matter of seconds for the man fighting all by his lonesome, his hands moving in a blur, to deal with his last for. Then he’s the final man standing, breathing heavily in the middle of the room, with a dozen men spilled out around him in varying states of consciousness.
Unable to help himself, Goodnight places his purloined bottle back on the tabletop and gives him a quick round of applause.
Startled, the man, the notorious Billy Rocks if the warrant resting in front of Goodnight is to be believed, twists around to look at him, a knife appearing in his hand seemingly out of nowhere.
Having no interest in so much as thinking about taking Rocks on after this little display, Goodnight raises his hands to show he’s unarmed, blurting out the first thing that comes to mind. “Now, you look like a man to befriend,” he says, not bothering to try and hide the awe in his voice. Never in his life has he seen a display like the one Rocks has just put on, and he thinks he’d be willing to pay good money to see it again. Provided acting as a witness would be his only involvement, that is.
For some reason, his words have the unexpected result of making Rocks jerk back like he’s been slapped, his eyebrows snapping up onto his forehead in obvious surprise. He stares at Goodnight for long enough that it starts to become somewhat uncomfortable, his eyes darting up and down Goodnight’s person until they land on the warrant in front of him and narrow perceptively. He cocks his head quizzically, peering at Goodnight like he’s trying to work something out.
“What kind of idiot have they sent after me?” He asks finally.
His voice is softer than one might expect from a man so dangerous, but it’s his words that make Goodnight freeze, feeling as if the very blood in his veins has turned into ice. He can’t possibly have heard that correctly. There was simply no way this undersized devil had just uttered the words Goodnight’s worn inked across his hip since the days when he was knee high to a grasshopper.
Goodnight’s throat goes tight, his good humour gone, and he finds himself at a loss for words for possibly the first time in living memory – a sheer sign of the impending apocalypse if ever there was one. Shoving back the chair he’d claimed as his own, he scrambles to his feet and makes for the exit without another word, pausing only briefly when some strange compulsion in his hindbrain causes him to reach back and grab his copy of the warrant as he goes.
No longer caring about keeping the damn thing in decent shape, he crumples it into a ball and stuffs it into the pocket of his trousers as best as he’s able. He hits the street at a dead run, almost breaking his fool neck when he trips over the yet-to-rouse body of the man who’d come flying through the door however many minutes ago, and makes for the direction of where he’d left his horse.
Dimly, he hears someone shouting behind him, demanding that he stop, that he wait, but Goodnight refuses to heed it, choosing instead to keep running for all he’s worth.
His horse is right where he’d left her, drinking idly from a nearby water trough, and it takes no time at all to get the reigns untied and climb into the saddle. The horse, bless her, is of a temperament that she takes this treatment in stride, the only sign that she finds something amiss the way she beats one front hoof sharply against the hard packed earth until Goodnight digs his heels into the animal’s flanks, spurring her into movement as soon as he’s able.
Although he’d been looking forward to spending the night in a real bed and eating actual home cooked food - he’d even considered the possibility of splurging and ordering a bath - now Goodnight can’t put distance between himself and this town quick enough. He rides down the main street at a gallop, paying no mind to the strange looks and noises of surprise he gets along the way, heading for the outskirts of town and the relative safety the open road might provide him.
If there’s one thing on this earth he’s sure of, it’s that he’s not burdening some poor, innocent bystander with either himself or the mounds of trouble he represents.
*****
1879
“Wait a minute,” Faraday says back in the present, rudely interrupting Goodnight mid-stream of consciousness. “You really did just turn tail and head for the hills when you met Rocks here for the first time? Good Christ, Robicheaux.”
“Well, yes. Alright, fine, I did.” Goodnight frowns, annoyed at having been cut off right when he was starting to get going. “But I’ve hardly begun and you don’t know the half of it yet.”
Faraday looks as if he’s about to comment further, but Vasquez thankfully cuts him off by digging the knuckles of his left hand into the man’s ribs. “Hush, mijo,” he says firmly. “Don’t be rude.”
Faraday gives him an unimpressed look, but lapses back into silence.
Billy pipes up then. “In Goody’s defence, he didn’t exactly make himself hard to find.”
“Yes, yes,” Goodnight flaps a hand before his partner can elaborate further. “I’m getting to that part, cher. Don’t worry, I promise I’ll have debased myself thoroughly enough by the time this story is over that you won’t feel the need to dredge up every little mishap I may have made along the way.”
Billy lets out a quiet, exasperated huff and sends a similar sentiment to him through their bond. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“Well I’ve already started and I’m not stopping now,” Goodnight says primly. “I’m telling the whole thing if it takes me all night.”
“The way you two are goin’ on, it’s liable to take all year,” Faraday grumbles, hissing when Vasquez pinches him in the side. “What? It ain’t like I’m wrong.”
Vasquez rolls his eyes. “You are also not helping matters. Be quiet and let the man speak, Joshua.”
Faraday makes a face similar to the one Sam wears whenever he’s praying for patience with the lot of them, and only keeps quiet when Vasquez raises a hand, his intention to jab him again plain.
Satisfied, Vasquez nods once and turns back to Goodnight and Billy. “My apologies, amigos. Please continue.”
Billy and Goodnight share a look, and Goodnight waits for Billy’s nod of agreement before he continues.
“In any event,” he says once he has it, “Billy here’s not wrong when he says I left him something of a trail to follow.”
“By which he means he headed out of town on a rarely travelled path and I could see his horse’s tracks plain as day,” Billy cuts in smoothly.
Goodnight sighs. Much like it had been on that fateful occasion ten years ago; it is going to be a long night.
*****
1869
Goodnight’s no more in control of himself by the time he’s finally forced to stop for the night than he was when he’d first begun his mad dash into the wilderness. As a child he’d dreamed of the day when he’d finally meet his soulmate, finally hear the right person speak his words aloud upon their first ever introduction, but the child who’d wanted all of that, who’d possibly even deserved all of that, is no more. He’s long gone, burned away by the fire and ash and blood of war, and the person who remains is no more deserving of a soulmate than the devil himself.
Dismounting as carefully as he can, Goodnight leads his horse over to a spot where she can graze freely and goes about setting up camp. With a little luck, the routine actions required for doing so will help settle his nerves. It’s worked in the past, though certainly not always, and he’s willing to try anything now.
As it happens, the mindless tasks of unsaddling his horse, building a fire and getting supper cooking do go a long way towards calming him down. He’s by no means perfectly at ease by the time he sits down to put something in his empty stomach, but he’s a far stretch better than he had been.
Using his saddle bags as a makeshift cushion, Goodnight sags back against them and takes a drink from the flask he keeps in his coat pocket. Then he takes a few more in quick succession.
“Should I be offended that I’ve apparently driven you to drink just by existing?”
Goodnight goes from a reclining position to having his back ramrod straight in the blink of an eye, and as well he also manages to spray both himself and a decent portion of the nearby ground with alcohol as he chokes on his drink in surprise. Coughing and sputtering, he swipes at his now-watering eyes and looks around for the source of the voice that had sent him reeling in the first place.
He finds him tucked up on a rocky outcrop no more than a few meters from where Goodnight is currently sitting, looking for all the world as if he’s been there for a dog’s age and hasn’t given so much as a thought towards moving.
“God as my witness,” Goodnight hisses, brushing his mouth of with the edge of his shirt sleeve. “You followed me!”
“Yes.” Rocks says simply, not sounding bothered at all.
Goodnight groans and fights the urge to go bash his head against the nearest conveniently placed boulder. As tempting as that option may be, he could likely do without adding a concussion to the list of things that have already gone poorly for him today.
“Didn’t you think my leaving might be indicative of a less than significant desire to be near you?” He asks. In actuality he’d have loved to have stuck around, but that was the selfish part of him speaking – no person on earth deserved to be tied down with Goodnight and all of the issues with which he came part and parcel as a package deal – he’d run off for Rocks’ benefit, not his own.
Rocks, however, didn’t need to know that. Let him think what he had to of Goodnight if it kept him out of the line of fire.
Unaware of the turmoil going on inside Goodnight’s head, Rocks shrugs. “The thought had crossed my mind.”
“And yet you followed me anyway,” Goodnight grouses. He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised. Any man who could not only survive the kind of fight Rocks had been in earlier in the afternoon, but come out on top as well was liable to possess the kind of tenacity Goodnight could only dream of. “Why?”
Rocks shrugs from atop his perch. “It seemed like the thing to do.”
“I see, well, sorry to disappoint you, my friend. I’m afraid my best advice for you is to head back the way you came, or I suppose you can move out in any direction you choose. I’m not picky.” He waves a hand around the clearing to illustrate his point.
Cocking his head to the side, Rocks studies Goodnight for a few moments, and then jumps nimbly down from the outcrop.
Seeing this, Goodnight scoots back a few feet, pointing a finger at him insistently. “Now, you just stay back, y’hear? I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, but I’m not having any of it.”
Rocks pauses mid-step and frowns darkly. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he snaps, offense at Goodnight’s antics obvious in his tone. “I only followed you because I figured I at least deserved to know who you are.”
Goodnight lets out a brittle laugh at that. He doubts Rocks will be so keen on knowing who he is once he has an answer. “The name’s Robicheaux,” he says a little meaner than intended. “Goodnight Robicheaux. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Rocks freezes again. As expected, it looks like Goodnight’s reputation has once again preceded him.
“I’ve heard of you,” Rocks says quietly. “You were a big name in the Confederate army.” He laughs a little hollowly, shifting back on his heels. “I guess I know now why you wouldn’t want to be tied to someone like me.”
It takes Goodnight a few seconds to parse out the meaning of that sentence, and while in hindsight it’d likely be the perfect route to use to get Rocks to take a hike, he’s opening his mouth in protest before he can even think to stop himself.
“No, that ain’t it,” he snaps defensively, not missing the way Rocks’ eyebrows go flying towards his hairline. “I can see why you’d think so, truly I can, but I honestly couldn’t care less if you were white, black, yellow or emerald green. I learned a long time ago to judge a man based on what’s on the inside as opposed to on the outside.”
“So what’s the problem then?” Rocks asks. “If it’s not me then I assume it’s you.”
“Ah hell,” Goodnight mutters. If he’d only been a little quicker on the draw he might have been able to fake his way through this. Instead, he’s gone and created an even bigger mess than the one he’d been facing before. “Let’s just say I am not the sort of man you would want to be tied to, let alone the sort of man whose head you’d want to see inside of.”
Rocks makes a humming noise as he shifts from foot to foot. “And you don’t think I should have a say in determining that?” He asks with a frown. “Because, I have to tell you, I’ve had plenty of people try and make my decisions for me in my life, I’m not overly fond of the idea, especially for something as … important, shall we say, as this.”
Goodnight flinches. He knows a little bit of Rocks’ backstory, albeit only what was told to him when he picked up the warrant, but the man has killed at least two particularly cruel overseers in his day, to say nothing of what he might have done earlier in his life. “It’s not that I’m arbitrarily trying to decide anything for you,” he says finally, “it’s just that I have a habit of ruining most everything I touch and I’m not overly keen on adding you to that list.”
Rocks gives him a long look before turning abruptly on one heel and marching over to the fire. He kicks at the ground a couple of times for reasons Goodnight can’t hope to fathom and then takes a seat in a manner that’s less him sitting down and more him launching himself at gravity like it’s done something to offend him. Once he’s settled, he turns back to Goodnight. “You said I looked like a man to befriend.”
“What?” Confused by the abrupt topic change, Goodnight stares at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Earlier today.” Rocks replies. “That’s what you said to me, that I looked like a man to befriend. You can try denying it if you like,” he adds, and rucks up part of his shirt as he does so. Goodnight can’t help but stare at the strip of skin that’s revealed and the words that cut across it in almost the exact same spot as those on his own body, “But I’ve got the proof right here.”
Goodnight remains transfixed by the words for a few moments longer and then shakes his head. “Alright,” he says roughly, “so I said that to you. So what?”
“So we can start there.” When all this does is make Goodnight continue to look confused, he rolls his eyes.
“Look,” he says, and damnit if he doesn’t sound like he’s talking to a particularly dim child. “You’re obviously concerned about the part of a soulbond that would let me into your head and get a feel for your emotions, but we haven’t done anything to trigger that yet since it takes skin to skin contact to set it off. That’s easy as anything to avoid.”
“I, well, yes, I suppose it is,” Goodnight admits, “but is that what you want?”
Rocks snorts. “Not in the slightest, but I’m not so much of a bastard that I’m about to force even part of a soulbond on somebody who doesn’t want it.”
“Thank you,” Goodnight tells him, meaning it more than he can say. Several seconds pass in silence, broken only when he clears his throat. “Err, am I to assume that you have a suggestion for how we should proceed then?”
Shrugging, Rocks hooks his arms behind his head and leans back a little. “I figure we could travel together for a while, get to know each other, that kind of thing. If anything comes of it after that, well, that’ll be nice, and if nothing comes of it, well, at least it won’t be because we didn’t try.”
Goodnight turns this idea over in his head, considering it from multiple angles. He doesn’t like the idea of travelling with anyone very much, not with what he’s likely to accidentally reveal about himself during the nights, but, on the other hand, if anyone deserves some leeway from him it’s this man. When you get down to it, it’s not like Rocks is asking for anything unreasonable.
“Alright,” he says finally, “we can try it, but only with some ground rules.”
Rocks eyes him warily. “Such as?”
“Such as, if either of us decides to leave, the other lets him go without complaint. Likewise, if either of us says he needs space, the other gives it to him without putting up a fuss. Lastly,” and here Goodnight takes a steadying breath to make sure his voice doesn’t waver, “neither of us touches the other without permission. The words have been said, but I’m not taking the second step towards a soulbond without being absolutely certain it’s something I want to get into.”
“That’s fair.” Rocks says. He gazes at Goodnight shrewdly. “I’ve got no interest in pushing you outside of your comfort zone.”
“I appreciate that.” Goodnight says, and he means it more than he can say.
They descend back into silence and Goodnight finds himself glancing around for a way to break it. His eyes land on where he’d dropped his flask upon Rocks’ arrival and he leans forward to snatch it up off the ground. “You fancy a drink?” He asks, proffering it up.
Rocks eyes him levelly, then he nods and holds his hand out. “I’m not usually one for booze, but tonight is the kind of night that deserves an exception. Toss it here.”
Giving the man a half smile, Goodnight does so.
*****
1879
Goodnight trails off and waits to see if the others will have anything to say.
He isn’t disappointed.
“If you’d’ve been even half that accomodatin’ when we first met,” Faraday starts slowly, shifting to look at Vasquez, “we’d’ve been screwed.”
“Si,” Vasquez agrees. “Doomed from the start.” He flashes Faraday a grin and then focuses his attention on Goodnight and Billy. “That can’t be the end, though. There must be more.”
Goodnight catches Billy’s eye and is surprised to get a simple nod in response. Having expected more of a protest, he’s a little thrown and needs a moment to collect his wits about him. “Alright,” he says finally, “obviously certain events took place which convinced us we wanted an active soulbond as opposed to merely a potential one. Things got a bit complicated, though.”
Faraday widens his eyes theatrically. “Complicated? You two? You don’t sa – ow, Vas!” Rubbing his shoulder pointedly, he pouts at his partner, who responds with a smile that suggests butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
“I told you to stop being rude.” Vasquez says primly.
“You always tell me to do that,” Faraday whines.
“Maybe think about why.” Vasquez suggests, and returns his attention to Goodnight. “Please, continue.”
Chuckling softly, Goodnight picks up his glass and takes a small sip from it. “Well, I suppose I can tell you some more. After the first night, what happened was this …”