Work Text:
Flop’s never been so happy to be on a train in his life.
He’d left with Ziggy the same day he’d come into town. The deputy seemed calm, but the way his hands trembled and the fact that he refused to go ten minutes without a cigarette betrayed the sense of urgency behind his leaving. They’d quickly spoken to another deputy (Flop doesn’t remember her name, but he remembers being surprised by how sweet she seemed), who had shaken Flop’s hand and told her his father had better send her a letter goddamn soon or else. Then Deputy Buggs had packed his belongings and they’d set out back east. Six days of riding, give or take, to Valentine. Flop loves animals, he does, but he’s been riding for the past two weeks nearly nonstop. He’s starting to hate his horse.
So being on the train again, even with the cheapest ticket he could buy and squeezed up against the veritable mountain of a man in the seat next to him, is a relief.
Flop can’t help but note that Ziggy hasn’t talked much, throughout their time on the road. No, that’s not right , Flop thinks to himself, we’ve talked lots. It’s just…
Flop turns to look at the man next to him, who’s tugged his hat down over his eyes and crossed his arms in a facsimile of relaxation. They’ve technically talked plenty since Flop stumbled into town and pressed that letter into his hands, but in the kind of way where they’d both said a lot and not meant anything. Or really, Flop had talked a lot, and Ziggy had listened.
“I just– nobody’s told me what’s goin’ on,” he’d said to the deputy when they first set out. Ziggy’s horse (her name’s Beyoncé, he’d told him) is tall like he is, and Flop feels dwarfed every time he talks to him as they ride alongside each other. “But everyone seems awful concerned about it. I think I got a right to know, don’t you?”
Ziggy had nodded, and told him about Fae–but Flop still doesn’t feel like he was talking to Deputy Buggs. Whenever he broached the topic, the deputy’s eyes would go glassy again and he’d talk in a flat voice, like he’s reciting a script to Flop rather than speaking to him. Flop feels bad about asking, given that, but he has to know.
He learns, then, that Fae Adaire is the reason Sergeant Ziggy Buggs of Saint Denis had become Deputy Ziggy Buggs of Strawberry. He learns that Fae (or, as he is told, the Butterfly Killer) killed ten, leaving their mangled bodies for the deputy to find adorned with snippets of poetry. He learns that even locked up, she’d haunted Ziggy–and even in a prison halfway across the country, she clearly remained with him. Flop doesn’t generally know when to shut up, but even he can tell he shouldn’t push the subject too often.
He really wants to, though.
Flop looks at his seatmate, who is trying his hardest to make their arrangement comfortable. Flop gets the sense that Deputy Buggs doesn’t like crowds too much—he’d seemed frustrated and tense surrounded by people getting into their car on the train, and Flop can tell that he’s still somewhat bothered by it now.
“Damnit,” Ziggy swears, and he’s now sat up in his seat, staring at the little town they’ve just left, fading into the distance behind them. “I forgot to say hello.”
“What?”
“Old friends,” Ziggy says, waving a hand. “Some folk I used to work with. Oh well. Suppose I’ll see them on the way back.”
“Oh.” Ziggy feels like a mystery to Flop, with how little he divulges about himself without being asked. Flop wants to know more, he realizes. Wishes he could call him a friend. “You… you know a lot of people.”
“You implyin’ somethin’?” Ziggy asks, turning to Flop with one raised eyebrow.
“No! No, no,” Flop backtracks. The deputy laughs, lighthearted.
“S’okay. I’ve worked with a lot of people. Been all over. Lots of people out here don’t like to settle.”
“Like you?”
“Like me,” Ziggy agrees, looking back out the window. Valentine is no longer visible, hidden behind the tall hills of the Heartlands. “Strawberry’s good, though. Nice fit. I want to stay. Didn’t like the cities out east very much.”
“You’re not from there?” Flop asks. This is the first time since they’ve met Ziggy’s talked about himself willfully, without being asked.
“Oh, no. I grew up down south, out in New Austin.”
“Oh.” Flop pauses, wrings his hands together. He feels nervous, somehow, like he has something to prove. He wants Ziggy to like him, he realizes. “I’ve never lived anywhere but the city.”
“That’s fine, if you like it.”
“I dunno if I do, though,” Flop admits.
“Then try somewhere else.” Ziggy leans back, looks towards Flop again. “Why, something keeping you where you are? Family? A girl? A boy?”
“No! No, I’m not married,” Flop says firmly, shaking his head, and something seems to spark in his chest at Ziggy asking if he’s got someone. “I mean… I’m not sure, I just—I don’t know if I want to leave my dads. They need someone.”
“What, they aren’t grown men?” Ziggy scoffs, and now it’s Flop’s turn to feel imposed upon for once, because he’s not sure how he’s supposed to talk about Cody. How he’s supposed to casually mention his dead brother, how he’s supposed to explain that Matt and Richard cling to him because he’s all they have left.
So he doesn’t.
“I guess,” Flop mumbles, looking down at his hands. The whole thing was… complicated, to say the least. “I just think they worry about me a whole lot. I think that’s why they made me fetch you, not anyone else. Wanted me out of harm’s way.”
“Mm.” Ziggy hums in affirmation. “I don’t blame them.” Something passes over his face at being reminded of Fae, but only momentarily. “Maybe you just gotta go anyway. You seemed plenty fine out here by yourself. Maybe…” he pauses, as if thinking to himself.
“Maybe?”
“I dunno.” Ziggy shrugs, and Flop gets the feeling that he does know, but isn’t saying it. “Just thinking. What is it you do again?”
“Oh, uh…” Flop mumbles, somewhat embarrassed. “I just do odd jobs here and there. For lots of people.”
“You’re not part of the police department?” Ziggy seems genuinely surprised.
“No. I mean, I want to be. But it’s difficult to join. And I think my dads don’t want me there,” he admits. “They’re nervous about me bein’ safe.”
“I see.” Ziggy looks Flop over, almost like he’s evaluating him, and Flop suddenly feels self-conscious, overcome with the need to impress him. “You’d probably be good at it, you know. You’re observant.”
“Observant,” Flop repeats, chest warming at the compliment. “I don’t know. I mean, maybe.”
“Sure you are.” Ziggy reaches out to pat him on the shoulder, and whatever he’d felt earlier only grows in intensity at the touch. Flop opens his mouth to reply, but the deputy beats him to it. “Matt and Richard are just dramatic.”
“Oh, god, I’m aware,” Flop laughs.
They talk all the way to Rhodes, and the conversation never gets quite as serious as before, but that’s just fine with Flop. He comes to enjoy Ziggy’s company, really enjoy it, and not just as a consequence of circumstance. Flop realizes something: he wants to be important to him. He wants he and Ziggy to be more than people brought together through happenstance, who go on to part ways. He wants to know him.
—
Flop buys their train tickets the next morning, having stopped for the night. Ziggy’s off at the small Sheriff’s office in town, speaking to someone he knows. Flop grabs a newspaper, just because he can–the front page is still plastered with news of the breakout at Sisika Penitentiary, and listing off names of all the criminals at large. Flop doesn’t recognize most of them. The only one that sticks out is Fae, which is always accompanied by the footnote that she was held awaiting trial, and not yet convicted. Flop pores over the article attentively; there’s still nothing definitive regarding what exactly had happened.
“Hey,” comes Ziggy’s voice, breaking Flop out of his focus. Flop turns to see him, and his stomach flips involuntarily at the sight of Ziggy with his hat tucked under his arm, face clear in the morning sun. He seems in a good mood. “Train’s coming?”
“Yeah,” Flop replies, mouth suddenly dry. He’s not blind , he’s recognized that Ziggy was handsome since they’d first met, but was it always so… obvious? “Not long now.”
“Good. Sorry to leave you alone. I haven’t seen Dante in ages.” Ziggy reaches for the paper in Flop’s hands, and Flop lets him take it without a second thought. “Ran into my ex-fiancée, too, if you can believe it. That was horribly awkward.”
Ex-fiancée?
“Oh, wow.” Ziggy whistles, impressed, as he scans the paper. “Max is out, too? That’s real bad. Maybe worse than what we’re dealing with.”
“Huh?” Flop shakes himself out of his momentary stupor. “Who?”
“Maximilian Thoroughbred.”
Flop vaguely recalls the name. “Oh.” He pauses, processing that again. “You call him Max? Like he’s a friend or something?”
“Oh, well, he was real nice to everyone, when he wasn’t threatening to blow up the police station or robbing the bank blind,” Ziggy replies casually, flipping through the paper. “Gosh, it’s been a long time.” Ziggy pauses. “I almost miss him, in a way. You know?
“No.” Flop looks utterly bewildered, and feels it too, so much so that he forgets the mention of a fiancée. “No, I do not.”
“S’alright. Don’t worry about it.” Ziggy looks up from the paper back at Flop, wearing an easy smile that reminds him of the one he’d had when they’d first met. It had taken a couple of days to return to his face, but Flop’s glad it’s back. He’s glad that Ziggy doesn’t seem so trapped in his mind anymore.
This train is more full than the first, and the ride is shorter. Flop ends up squeezed between Ziggy and the window this time, an arrangement that he should hate but doesn’t completely mind. Ziggy’s actually the first to bring up the Butterfly Killer this time, and Flop is grateful that he doesn’t have to suffer the guilt of doing so.
“And she pulled out their fingernails?” Flop makes a face. They’ve passed into the swamp now—it shouldn’t be long before the train pulls into the city station. “That’s disgusting.”
“Well, yes. I believe that’s the point,” Ziggy replies. “Or something along those lines.”
“Eugh.” Flop looks at his own hands and shivers. “Do you think she knew what she was doing? That it was wrong?”
Ziggy’s mouth twists in thought, and Flop worries for a moment that he’s said something to push Ziggy over the edge again, to that place where he’s talking with Flop but not really there. But then he speaks again and it’s clear that it’s really him. “It’s hard to say. Whatever was happening to her, here…” he gestures vaguely towards his head, “it was bad. I think she knew it was wrong, otherwise she wouldn’t have tried to hide. But I also think she felt she had no choice.”
“I see.” Flop hesitates. “M’sorry for always asking about this. I just wanna know.”
Ziggy blinks, as though surprised. “What? You don’t have to apologize.”
“But—”
“Flop,” Ziggy cuts him off firmly. “I have to face it anyway, don’t I? It’s better that I get used to it now, so I’m not freezing up when we finally catch her again. ‘Sides, you better learn all you can. You’re gonna help me.”
“But isn’t that—wait, what?” Flop does a double take. “Help you?”
“You’re good at talking to people. You want to help the law. Sure, why not?” Ziggy grins, and that warmth in Flop’s chest earlier is back tenfold, and oh, no . “Prove somethin’ to yourself. I think you’ll be good at investigative work.”
“I-I mean…” Flop stammers, unsure how to say yes in a manner that doesn’t make him look like a complete moron. “If you’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Then…”
“Then what? Unless you don’t want to,” Ziggy says, sounding the tiniest bit hurt. Flop’s just met him only days ago, but even the idea of disappointing Ziggy weighs heavy on him.
“No, no, of course I’ll help.” He’s still uncertain, truth be told, but he has a feeling that if he sticks with the deputy, he’ll be fine.
“Great.” Ziggy smiles again, and Flop feels like a goddamned idiot with how absolutely taken he is by it. He looks out the window, just so Ziggy can’t see whatever expression he’s wearing right now. They’re crossing the river; within minutes, they’ll be in Saint Denis. Flop doesn’t know how the hell he’s going to talk to Matt and Richard about this. “You’ll do fine. Hell, you’ll keep me sane.”
Flop laughs nervously, because sure, what’s another responsibility on top of finding a serial killer?
They get off the train in Saint Denis, and though it feels familiar, Flop thinks it might not feel like home anymore.
But that might be okay.