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Chapter Text

As a child, Rip dreamed of the Wild West.

Conjuring images of open planes and sandy dunes, burned orange in a pale sunlight over dirt lanes and faded wooden signs that sang of homecoming, the sound of chipping piano keys striking in the background of a bar; in the imagination of a wide eyed dreamer, it was a time of great heroes and great glory. Where he grew up there was nothing but metal and technology, a land without a heart or soul. It was artificial light, artificial air, artificial smells and dreams and people.

In his imagination, the Old West alternatively was a place elevated by hoof fall and the glint of a golden badge under a long coat, where everything he thought was missing in the world came to life anew: a place that fit his ideals of heroism as well as providing a template to enact justice.
When he finally got to go, his dreams fell asunder before his feet ever struck a dirt path.

The mission was his fourth solo one as a Time Master, but it was not the one he had hoped for. He was not there to save Calvert or even a life; his mission was to ensure one was taken. Everything in time had a price. To save a town, all it cost was for him to stand by and ensure the Stillwater Gang killed a man in 1857. All it cost was his integrity.

The mission had shattered the picture of the era in his mind even before he first trod an uneven path leading into the town, the air cracked by gunshots, a sodden smell of dirt lingering in the air. On a post bearing the name ‘Calvert’ on the outskirts of what must be the town itself, about a mile away from where he left his ship, a small cluster of buildings in an otherwise empty landscape, the only blip on a horizon of sand, he found a poster already half-blurred by the rain.

It read ‘WANTED’ in large letters above an image that could have been any man he came across, if not for a scar marking the side of his face. It warranted attention, so he pulled it free of the post and rolled it into his fist.

“Jonah Hex, ay?”

It was raining, the smell mingling with the droplets which hit against his face, drumming against the brim of his fabricated Stetson and dripping off the back, his light blue shirt turned navy by the time he reached the Saloon. Even that was not the place of merriment of his dreams – as he approached; a man was thrown out into a puddle slick with mud, the sounds of curses and drunken brawling following him out of the swinging doors.

Inside a Saloon marginally warmer than the pouring rain outside, he drank whiskey which was gasoline in a bottle in a dark corner of the bar, head down. It burned as it slid down his throat, eyes sliding across the varying patrons, comparing them against the wanted poster he lay on the bar beside him, fingers drumming absent-mindedly against the worn paper as his focus shifted around the room. Whispered conversations filled the corners, louder talk emerging the closer the person’s proximity to the bar, every few minutes the sound punctuated by a the slap of a fist meeting a jaw.

That, at least, met his expectations of such a place.

“Haven’t seen your face before -”

Startled momentarily by the drawling voice of the barmaid leaning against the counter in front of him, alluring stance betrayed by eyes too sharp, watching him with a shark-toothed smile, Rip forced himself to look up nonchalantly.

“That’s ‘cause I’m not from these parts, darlin’”

Accents had always been his strong point. Slipping on a new voice as created for this time as the clothes the ship provided, he fell into the lazy drawl with ease, head tilted to one side. Forcing his eyes to meet hers, he pushed an expression onto his face somewhere between a smirk and a grimace.

She was smiling flirtatiously back, “You goin’ anywhere in particular?”

“Wherever my feet take me,” he replied. It was like the game of Cowboys he had played as a child brought to life, so he found it easy to embody the old western bravado he had idealised. “But I figure, they might take a rest here for a while. It seems like an interesting town.”

“You got a place to stay?”

He blinked up at her, “You know a place?”

She gave him details of a room to rent nearby, chatting to him aimlessly for a few minutes until she was called away by a particularly rowdy bunch of card players. It gave him a lay of the land, as he slowly drank his way through a second glass, the chill dissipating as the shirt dried on his back, keeping her in the corner of his eye as she waited the table. They seemed to be giving her a hassle, leering at her as she passed before one man grabbed her arm; she let out a gasp of pain.

The man’s friends laughed as she pulled, trying to move away, the rest of the bar’s eyes drawn to the ruckus, the uncertain peace broken. He downed the rest of his drink before he reacted, giving himself a few seconds to consider the implications acting now may have, but it was useless – it was his childhood imaginings brought to life.

Rip got to his feet suddenly, drawing the attention at all eyes at the table as he shifted enough to show the brass of the gun at his hip.

“I think you oughta leave the lady alone.”

The Ringleader let go of the barmaid’s arm, who spared in a look of grateful worry before running to stand behind the bar, out of harm’s way. He was however placed right into harm’s crosshairs, even the other patrons looking unsettled at the much larger man stood, towering over Rip. His lip turned upward on one side.

“And who’re you, stranger?”

“Captain Hunter.”

“There ain’t no captains in this town, ain’t even a Sheriff no more,” The Ringleader of the posse shook his head, his men standing slowly behind him as he looked down at Rip. Lifting a meaty hand, he poked the smaller man in the collar bone, making Rip rock back on his heels with a barely concealed grimace of frustration, going on. “So I guess that makes you nobody. I suggest you learn that pretty fast.”

Rip didn’t even think; he just punched him.

His fist connected squarely with the taller man’s jaw despite one foot having to leave the ground to reach it, sending the Ringleader reeling backwards into the table from which he had stood; it cracked as he fell through it, sending a flurry of cards into the air as the thud resounded throughout the bar. It was met with a silence. Dead air filled the bar as the fallen leader’s body drew all attention – for about three seconds, before thirty heads turned slowly to him. The six men who had been playing cards with the fallen man all had fury written in their gazes.

“Boys,” said a new man, walking towards Rip to take control of the group of men as he cracked his knuckles. “Let’s show this here stranger why he should think twice before he messes with the Stillwater Gang.”

It was then that Rip’s stomach dropped with the realisation that he may have made a mistake.

The punch landing there only cemented that feeling, as did the next one, and the one after that. The remaining members of the gang swarmed him before he could even get a hit in, leaving him gasping for breath bent-double before the first blow to his face sent him to the wooden floorboards, the musk of wet wood slammed into his senses. Blood mixed with the smell after that, this time his own as the men lifted him to his feet only to knock him back down, the beating consisting of variations of the same basic movements, enough for him to grab a window of opportunity in a fuzzy world and dive at the closest man, sending them both to the floor.

Through the burning where he had been hit, Rip’s reflexes kicked in as he moved to his feet, ducking an oncoming punch and throwing his own as the second man rushed him. His knuckles cracked as they met the man’s nose, sending a sharp kick of pain through his already overloaded system; the sound of shouting became a single voice, all individual words extinguished by the din, his body ached as blood dripped from his nose and face, the smell of wood and blood mixing with the scent of alcohol and sweat which he believed had been a part of the Saloon for as long as it had been there. All of it hit him at once as he stood with raised fists, electricity crackling through his body with the overwhelming feeling that this was living.

It hurt like hell and honestly left a foul taste in his mouth, although that might be his own blood. But it was something he had never felt before, the rush of a fight without orders, helping someone just because they needed it and he wanted to.

The rush lasted long enough for him to land another dozen hits, blocking and dodging the other men by letting his feet move in motions that had been trained into him by years at the Academy. He wasn’t a rookie – he had trained for years, and worked with a partner for another six months before being given solo missions. He knew how to protect the timeline; he knew how to fight, the biology of where to land a blow and how to win.

If the world obeyed the laws of science and logic, it would have worked. It rarely did, however, and Rip’s rigid fighting style was soon taken advantage of by the gang. Six against one was never a fight he stood much of a chance in; he tried anyway. He lost. It shouldn’t have surprised him. It took another few minutes fighting for the tide to turn against him. After that he was left on the ground, coughing wetly through blood cracked lips.

It felt like the end until a shot rang out.

A dull thud followed, as the floorboard jolted with the weight of a man falling next to Rip. His head had been against the floor as it happened, the vibrations ratting through his semi-conscious skull enough to wake him slightly, the warmth of blood against his leg situating the victim a moment later. Peeling his eyes open, he looked up to see the other men frozen, all staring at a different man, standing in the shadows across the room, the smoke drifting up from his gun marking him out as the shooter – as his saviour.

He spoke, a deep drawl which seemed to originate from his centre and grow into a boom before it reached his lips. “I think you boys should get going now. Don’t you?”

The remaining men took off, taking the unconscious man Rip had knocked through the table but leaving the one who had been shot – he guessed fatally. As they left, curses slipping from their lips and crying vengeance, the rattling of the Saloon doors sounded their exit, leaving Rip to breathe a sigh of relief. The exhale was pained, his ribs aching with the breath that left his body. A groan followed at the revelation.

“Alright partner,” the voice was closer now, still gritty, but without the threat which was heavy in his tone a minute before. Gentle hands took his arms, pulling him to his feet until his arm was slung around broad shoulders, although he was barely able to stay on his feet, slipping on the blood coating the floor as he stood. When a hand on his chest stopped him from falling, the other still half-holding him up, he got his first look at the stranger that had saved his life. “Easy.”

A long brown coat and the brim of a hat struck him first, like that of his childhood heroes. When the stranger looked up at him, the hat tilting up to reveal a face with dark hair and roguish eyes, his heart broke its thundering with adrenaline, falling silent for a moment. It took him another few to notice the scar on the other man’s face. That time, it definitely skipped a beat.

“I-” Rip tried to think of something to say but failed, mouth falling open. He was staring at the man from the wanted poster from the edge of town. The image didn’t do him credit – the man on paper looked nightmarish, however in person the dark eyes were soft, flicking over his injuries, lips drawn into a worried line. He didn’t look like a criminal, or a monster, or the villain in his childhood fantasies Rip had assumed he was: he looked like a man. “You . . .”

“Just saved your ass, you’re welcome,” he replied, lip turning into a smirk which could almost be described as relieved. Sparing a glance down at the body by their feet, a circular hole in the man’s chest pooling a circle of blood into the Saloon floor, he tightened his grip on Rip, beginning to walk them towards the door. “We need to leave before they get any ideas about coming back.”

Rip’s head was too full of cotton wool to do anything but nod dumbly. Stumbling a lot, they managed to leave the warmth of the Saloon to step back out into the rain, which had grown lighter during his time inside, like breath against his skin as they struggled down the street. At some point, Rip must have mumbled the address the barmaid gave him for a place to stay, as seemingly between blinks, he moved from the muddy streets to a staircase which moaned under each step to a dull room with a bare bed, not even a blanket on the wooden frame.

Too injured to care and on the edge of passing out, Rip fell gratefully onto the wooden palette, for most of the journey his feet had been dragging uselessly against the dirt, so the hands that had really been carrying him if he were honest steadied him until he lay flat. Dazed, Rip saw the ceiling fall in and out of focus, knowing that soon he would either be asleep or unconscious.

Before that, he wanted to say something; with a grunt of pain he raised himself onto one elbow enough to see the stranger at the end of the bed. He knew the man’s name from the poster, or at least suspected, so wanted to make sure.

“Who are you?”

The man, who had been looking around the room as if inspecting it, turned back to him. “I’m no one.”

“So am I, if the men at the bar are to be believed,” Rip slurred back, light headed. He tried a smile, but it hurt his face too much, turning into a wince which sparked amusement in the stranger’s dark eyes. Without his notice, his voice had slipped back into his usual English accent. “But my friends call me-”

“Captain Hunter, I heard ya back there.”

"Rip. I mean, my name - I'm Rip Hunter."

The man gruffly replied, head shaking slightly, “And I’m not your friend. I just didn’t want Stillwater Gang thinking they owned that watering hole.”

“Then thank you, whoever you are,” Rip surrendered, bowing his head. “For whatever reasons - you saved my life.”

“Just . . . don’t die in your sleep, alright?” The stranger was almost smiling, one hand falling to his hip as he looked away and then down, lip on the unscarred side of his face pulling up with amusement. Shaking his head, he started for the door, pausing there before looking back over his shoulder. “You can’t fight for shit, but you can take one hell of a beating, kid.”

Then quieter, something Rip vaguely, barely heard in a dream-like haze before sleep took him, he added.

“It’s Jonah - my name, it's Jonah Hex.”

*

Rip woke the next morning with a stabbing of pain, like a thousand needles were jabbing him where a stream of sunlight from a widow was hitting him directly in the face. With another groan, he rolled onto his side to block the light, woken further when his body became tangled from the movement, blinking down to see a long brown coat as a substitute for a blanket thrown over him. He didn’t even remember it being put there.
Something that could almost have been a smile lit up his face, until the movement cause him to hiss in pain, finally sitting to swing his legs over the side of the bed.
Seeing a mirror and a sink in the corner of the room, he dragged himself over to it, wincing when he saw the damage – his face was swollen, one eye a dull black while his lips stayed a bright scarlet, the bottom one split, crusted over with blood. It wasn’t pretty in the slightest.

Picking up a rag he supposed was there for a washcloth, he soaked it in the water, which spluttered and trickled from the tap, making an awful gurgling sound like being turned on was hurting it. Once it was soaked through, he held it to his face, the coolness relieving some of the burn his bruised muscles was supplying, slowly wiping the blood from his lips and chin. Once that was done, he let damp fingers smooth down his ruffled hair – still wearing the same clothes he had arrived in, he tucked his shirt back into his trousers, assessing himself in the mirror.

He still looked like steamed shit, but at least there was no blood left now.

Heaving a weary sigh, Rip considered his options. Returning to his time ship could heal his injuries and provide a fresh set of clothes, but being healed as if by magic after receiving such a public beat down would only arouse suspicion, and he had no intention of being burned for witchcraft because he couldn’t take some bruises. From the sunlight at his window, he guessed the desert-like heat he had been told about in stories was true, so opted to tell the lady who owned the house that he would be staying for a while, meaning he may not see his ship for some time.

It didn’t matter – he had money and a gun, there wasn’t much else essential to this era. Leaving his room with the key now in his pocket and the landlady paid off, he made his way back into the main street of town. It was further than he thought it possible for him to have made it in the state he was last night, so he hoped to bump into ‘Jonah Hex’ again. He owed the man something, even if that was just a drink and a thank you.

He had two months to wait until the Stillwater Gang to kill a man called Cillian Moore.

That meant he was in no rush to do much of anything but get a feel for the town in the light of day. Calvert was a big town that felt like a little one: everyone seemed to know one another, calling out to their neighbours from windows and lighting up the streets with chatter, the town a lot friendlier in the morning than it had been the night before.

It was noon by the time he had been to the tailor’s for a few new shirts and a lightweight jacket, even going as far to purchase a tan Stetson hat of his own, having lost his fabricated one the previous evening. Seeing himself in the clothes sent a tingle of excitement down his spine. The Stetson rested on his head as the sun rose and fell in the sky, returning to the room he had rented in the late evening, having seen neither Jonah or found a trace of Cillian, despite asking around for hours.

There was a communal room for the residents, with a liquor cabinet and a fire. That was where he found himself reading a worn paper as night fell, aching feet resting on the table and hat thrown beside them, the dim light of the oil lamp overheard barely enough to read by, eyes straining to make out the words in front of him. It wasn’t helped by the fact his left eye was still swollen shut. As he scanned the words for signs of either the gang or the man, he didn’t notice a second figure enter the room until a drink was held under his nose.

“What’s this?” Rip blinked from the glass to the man holding it out and froze. His face split into a painful grin. “It’s you!”

It was Jonah Hex, same hat and a new black coat, but unmistakeable. Rip knew two things about him with absolute certainty: he was a wanted man, and he had saved his life. Somehow, Rip trusted the fugitive without doubt, without hesitation.

“You gonna take it or not?” Jonah grunted, shaking the hand with the glass in it. Although he rolled his eyes as Rip took the drink, he sat opposite him on a stool, eyes flicking over his face, commenting. “You look slightly less like shit today than you did yesterday.”

“I have you to thank for that,” Rip replied, letting a soundless laugh escape him. He had to look up at Jonah, who seemed to never take his hat off, but it didn’t obscure his face from this angle – as the other man tilted the glass so that the liquid never touched the scar that crossed his lip, Rip tilted his head to one side. “I also think it was I who owed you a drink.”

“You don’t owe me nothin’.”

“That’s not true.”

“Still not your friend,” Jonah caught his eye, glaring. “Don’t go expecting me to save your life every time you go lookin’ for trouble. Which from the looks of ya, is more often than not.”

Rip pouted a little. “I don’t look like trouble.”

“You’re a stranger who turns up and starts a fight with the biggest guy in the bar right away, you don’t just look like trouble – you are it,” Jonah argued, guzzling down the rest of his drink and pouring another. Throughout his harsh words, however, there was a glimmer of amusement. “And how ‘bout you explain how you go from sounding like a regular fellar to being British as the empire all of a sudden?”

Rip tried not to smile and failed, shrugging innocently. “I said I was out of town.”

That almost earned him a laugh, Jonah’s face smoothing out in a way that turned weathered features carefree, eyes darting away as he shook his head without the same infliction, torn between amusement and disbelief.

He drained a second glass and stood, making to leave the room. “That you are, kid. That you are.”

“I take it you’re staying here too,” Rip said to stop him, thinking back to the way Jonah had been looking around his room the night before. It had been as if he was inspecting it, and he was there now – it made sense. He got a brisk nod in response but nothing else. “Then I guess I’ll see you around,” Rip grinned through the pain, “Neighbour.”

“No you won’t!”

There was laughter in Jonah’s voice, though, and Rip sank into his seat with the warmth of accomplishment running through him.

*

Jonah ended up in the room opposite him, and Rip did everything in his power to make sure the other man knew it.

“Morning, Mr. Hex,” he waved cheerily the morning after their conversation, having left his door open to allow the breeze inside. The heat in this era really was stifling. It was worth it when he noticed the dark figure coming out of the room opposite, throwing in a cheery wave from where he sat on his bed. “Is that your room?”

Jonah stopped in his tracks with a scowl. “No.”

“Then what were you doing in there?”

“None of your damn business, that’s what,” Jonah huffed. He began to walk away, “Stop talking to me.”

Rip just grinned wider, yelling at his retreating back. “See you later!”

He pretended not to notice the curses and muttered threats that followed, the fugitive’s voice always gruff, but coming in shades of annoyance, something he was starting to pick up on. The way his real anger bristled against the Stillwater Gang members was not matched in his annoyance towards Rip, which the Time Master took as a good sign. He owed Hex a debt; he was going to repay it whether the other man liked it or not.

It was an ongoing process.

Rip maintained a forced friendship with the other man for a week, greeting him in the mornings and evenings whilst ignoring Hex’s grumblings about his chatter point blank. He poured Hex drinks, knocked on his door as he left in the morning to wake the other man up, even took to leaving a plate of food on the floor outside his room because he had never seen Hex actually eat anything without prompting.

It was on his first Friday in Calvert, after a week of making Hex accustomed to his presence, when he came home late to find Jonah on the doorstep of the Inn, arguing with the landlady. Although he was exhausted, sweat clinging to him like a second skin after another day wasted in the sun looking for answers, as he approached the raised voices in the dark doorway he paused, listening in.

“You can’t do this,” Jonah was saying, a desperation fuelling the edge of anger in his voice. “I paid the rent, the money’s good. You got no reason to kick me out!”

“I don’t want your sort around here anymore; you make the place look rough. I don’t want my resident’s thinking-”

Jonah scoffed, “Residents? Dorris, half the people in there are working for gangs or on the run, at least I’m just-”

“I don’t care what you are,” their landlady replied nastily. “I want you out.”

Rip finally strolled around the corner, making himself known with a tilt of his hat and the southern accent he was starting to grow quite used to, the soft sounds coming out of his lips a melody to his ears. “Sorry to interrupt-”

“Christ, not you again,” Jonah muttered under his breath.

“I know it’s not my place to say, but I sure do hope you’re not about to throw this poor fellar out into the street because of how he looks,” Rip said, putting on a disapproving face. Tutting under his breath, he leaned casually against the doorframe beside Jonah, his words spoken nicely but with a bite; the threat evident. “Because as another one of your residents – that makes me awful concerned about my own future here. I wonder how the other people here would feel if they found out you’d leave ‘em in the cold for no reason?”

The landlady, Dorris, blinked, eyes squinting at him. “Shooting your mouth like that will get you killed, boy.”

“I’ll take that chance,” Rip replied evenly, not breaking eye contact. “Give the man the keys to his room.”

She all but threw the keys at Jonah’s head, leaving with a string of curses and leaving a sour taste in their mouths. Dorris was not a kind woman, and would throw out a family into the streets as soon as someone who could pay more than they could showed up, so there was no love lost to coerce Jonah’s room out of her, however morally grey the action was. The room would only have been filled by another murderer or fugitive. Rip much preferred Jonah’s grit to any of the other resident’s bloody hands, any day of the week.

As soon as she was gone, said man rounded on him. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“She was in the wrong,” Rip shrugged. “There were no grounds to throw you out, it wasn’t fair.”

“It wasn’t fair?” Jonah echoed the words back incredulously. When Rip didn’t seem to understand why he was mocking him, Jonah scoffed, face twisting into a disbelieving smirk. “Well shit, if the world worked on what was fair and what wasn’t, people like us would be outta a business. You shouldn’t have done that, now-”

“Call us even if that makes you feel better,” Rip sighed dramatically, throwing his hands in the air. Jonah’s reluctance to accept his friendship – or anyone’s – was like an ongoing joke. He was going to see how this one played out. “You saved me, I saved you . . . from having to find someplace else. Which sounds less when I say it out loud - so maybe we’re half-even.”

Jonah pinched his nose like he was staving off a headache, “We can be even if it’ll make you leave me alone.”

“That doesn’t work for me, I’m afraid.”

“Make it work,” he snapped, shaking his keys in Rip’s direction as he began to head inside. “Stop getting involved in my business, asshole. I’m going to bed.”

“You’re welcome!”

As soon as Rip shouted, Jonah paused. For a moment, he wondered whether the other man was going to turn around and hit him, which wouldn’t be unprecedented. People punched Rip a lot; he wasn’t exactly sure why. But after the moment passed, Jonah walked away.

Rip felt himself smile. That was something.

One night a week later, his curiosity got the better of him and Rip went over to visit the other man. “Why are you wanted?”

“What?” Jonah asked, looking up to see Rip leaning against his door. He had been fixing his boot, which was suffering from a hole in the sole. They were a damn good pair of boots, so a line of frustration had appeared on his face when the persistent idiot had showed up, so it wasn’t really Rip’s fault that he was so prickly that night. He saw the wanted poster in Rip’s hand and scowled. “What’s it to you, asshole?”

“Nothing,” Rip answered, his voice a little smug. “You just don’t seem like a criminal.”

“I’m insulted.”

“You saved me and you didn’t have to, and I know the Stillwater Gang are bad news,” the Time Master amended, moving further into the room. Jonah had stopped pretending to fix his boot and looked up by this point to see him standing with laughing eyes and hands in pockets. “I think we’re on the same side.”

“I’m on my side, no one else’s.”

“So you are a criminal? What – you kill someone? Steal something?” Rip leaned forward conspiratorially, voice low and suggestive. “Come on, you can tell me. All us liars and outsiders together, right Mr. Hex?”

“I’m no goddamn thief, and I’m not a criminal!” Jonah barked. Throwing his boot down, he stood and grabbed the other man by the collar, eye to eye; Rip held his ground, and Jonah didn’t let the fact that he was impressed show. “What happened was nothin’ but bad business, I didn’t do anything wrong but try and make a livin’.”

A tiny, closed lip smile, victorious and gleeful, appeared on Rip’s face. “I knew it.”

“Screw you, Hunter.”

Jonah released his grip, pushing Rip back, but there was no aggression to the act. He walked a few steps away, turning his back in an exhausted move, one hand moving to rub his eyes. Triumph moving to concern, Rip felt the smile die on his face as he followed him.

“I didn’t mean to offend you, my friend.”

“I’m not your friend,” Jonah replied, turning as Rip came to a stop behind him. There was no real force behind his words.

“Not yet,” Rip replied earnestly, receiving an eye-roll in response. “What if for now, we were allies?”

“And how would that alliance work?” Jonah Hex replied, putting his hands on his hips. There was an ounce of respect instead of the usual disdain with which he looked at Rip, as if he were really considering it. “I’m a Bounty Hunter, and you? – I don’t even know what you are.” He snorted, foot tapping in a way revealing his itching to start pacing. “You talk strange, you act strange – it’s like you don’t belong, at all. So what are you exactly, Rip Hunter?”

“You’re a Bounty Hunter?” Rip deflected, clasping his hands in front of him and undercutting the tension by ploughing right through it. “Excellent. I could use your skills to find a Mr. Cillian Moore.”

“You didn’t answer- wait,” Jonah stopped mid sentence, squinting at him suspiciously. “Why do you need to find Cillian?”

“Do you know him?”

“You first,” Jonah replied, but crossed his arms determinedly this time. Shifting from foot to foot, he studied Rip with a new look now, a mixture of all his previous ones. He wasn’t going to back down.

Rip sighed. “I need to talk to him about his connection with the Stillwater Gang,” he said, and it was only half a lie. “Your turn.”

“There’s a bounty out on him. If I find him before the Stillwater Gang can kill him, I’m set for the next few years.”

Rip blinked in confusion, rubbing the back of his head. History had not mentioned this – Moore was supposed to die unopposed, a victim in a gang war. That was the way of the West. “Who put out the bounty?”

“Someone who wants Mr. Moore to live, for whatever reason; I didn’t ask,” Jonah answered. Eyes flicking over him quickly, his tongue flicked over his lips. “So if we both need to find Moore-”

“Two heads, as the saying goes, may be better than one,” Rip finished, taking a few steps closer. “What do you say, Partner?”

Jonah snorted, then pushed Rip out the door and slammed it in his face.

*

There were twelve cans lined up on a fence post. It had been four days of Jonah going out alone and claiming he needed to tie some loose ends before they got started on tracking down Moore together, but at least the other man had filled him in on all that he knew so far. It was half a partnership. When Jonah had announced they were going out that day, Rip had hoped that meant they were finally going to make some progress; he had hoped to finally become an equal in their alliance, to prove himself.

Standing in a field just outside of town at midday with nothing but cans, he was starting to doubt they would ever get around to the business at hand, feeling his nerve start to fail. Not that Jonah knew it, but time was running out. There was just over a month left until Moore’s scheduled demise.

Rip stared down the cans with trepidation, brow turning inward.

“What are they for?”

“Practice,” Jonah replied. Finishing lining up the cans, he stood next to the fence with hands on hips and studied them for a moment before nodding to himself, seeming pleased as he turned. Taking ten measured steps away from them, he motioned for Rip to stand beside him, placing a gun in his hand a second later. “If you’re going to be my partner, I have to be sure you have my back. That means shootin’ straight and fightin’ dirty.”

“I’m not an amateur, Jonah. I didn’t agree to work with you to be tested-”

“Then you should have no problem hitting those cans.”

There’s a smugness in his voice at winning the argument which makes something surge in Rip’s chest, pressing his lips together in an expression of defiance as he looked up towards the other man. Jonah was smiling dangerously. The challenge was set and lay at their feet as Rip hid his own small humour at the situation, instead cocking the gun in his hands as his eyebrows jumped up, facing the targets.

Slowly, Rip raised the gun. Squinting in the bright light to aim, he lined up the first can and fired –

The bullet was skewed by the force of the gun as it fired, the shockwave jolting his elbow as it jerked up as he pulled the trigger, bones jarred by the movement as the shot cracked the air. Lazer guns in the future were smooth. He barely had to touch the triggers to send out a sleek bolt of light, so wasn’t expecting the kick of the older gun. Smoke drifted from its end as he lowered it instantly, seeing the shot had missed and swearing loudly, changing hands with the weapon to shake out his hand, face torn by pain.

Jonah was laughing, the bastard.

“Let me try again,” Rip said.

Rubbing his knuckles where the gun had bit into them on the kickback, he barely paused to line up the shot again, chin determinedly in the air. Despite appearances, he was trained, for years in the Academy he had learned how to fight with weapons from all eras. He knew about long swords and muskets and semi-automatics. If given one, he could dismantle and load a gun from anywhere in time - he knew how their firing mechanisms works and how fast they fired a projectile and how much damage they were likely to inflict. He wasn’t useless.

“You don’t know how to use it,” Jonah said, but he didn’t sound smug this time. If he wasn’t so worked up from his perceived failure, Rip would have noticed the thoughtfulness in his partner’s voice. Instead, he was too busy with a head full of hot air.

“Don’t patronise me, I know how to fire a gun you-”

“I mean, you know how the gun works . . . how to load it . . . you could have written the book on firing stances and how to handle your weapon,” Jonah replied, ignoring Rip’s anger. It was almost a compliment. “But you don’t understand how it feels to fire it, you fight up here,” he tapped the side of his head, “Instead of with your gut. But sure, go ahead and finish that sentence.”

Jonah looked like a wildfire but was a still pool, calm unless rippled by the world around him. Head tilted as he looked over at Rip, eyebrows raised in a way that was challenging, but the remnant of his understanding remained. He was not angry, just aware of himself and apparently, the inside of Rip’s head. His perception was downright psychic.

Rip sighed, “I didn’t mean-”

“I know,” Jonah cut him off. When he moved to stand beside Rip, there was almost gentleness in the way he put a hand on his shoulder, leaning close as his voice dropped to a lower tone, still holding the air of wisdom from before. “You’re holdin’ the gun perfectly – but you’re too stiff. You’re grip is too tight. If you keep your hand where it is but let your arm relax, the kick won’t throw you back so hard. Try again.”

The breath against Rip’s ear was distracting him, the weight of the hand on his shoulder forcing his arm to do exactly what Jonah was saying, arm falling slightly as he lined up the shot. Between the beats of his heart and the extra heat of a body behind him in the heat, he managed to become hyper-sensitive to his own body, forgetting the can and the gun. They were just tools. He was the weapon.

More in control than the last time, Rip took the shot.

The can exploded.

*

Week two of their partnership went better, if accidentally setting fire to a barn where the Stillwater Gang were gathered while eavesdropping on them counted as being ‘better’. Really, it was no one’s fault. It was a very old, very unstable barn and who could have predicted that sitting on the rafters could cause a gas-lamp hanging beneath it to fall.

“Damn it,” Jonah complained later that night, a glass in his hand already as he half-collapsed onto his bed, coughing heavily. The night hadn’t left him in the best of mood, soot-singed and with a cut on his head from when they fell. "This never would have happened if I was alone."

“Yeah, if you were alone you’d be dead,” Rip replied. It was his turn to be calm, it seemed. Soaking a rag with cold water in the corner, he walked over to where Jonah had sat; he pressed it to his head, only to feel the other man wince away, leaving the cloth there with raised hands. “Hold that down to stop the bleeding.”

“I ain’t a baby,” growled Jonah, hand going to the cloth anyway. Sourly, he drained his glass, still coughing every few seconds from the smoke on his lungs. That seemed to set him off again, looking to where Rip stood in the doorway. “What are you still doing here? Get out.”

Rip took a moment to think before he rose to the bait. From what he could see from the scar on Jonah’s face, the man had back memories with fire - it made sense of the irrationality and outbursts of anger he had been showing on the walk back. Jonah was scared. Trauma was something Rip understood, so nodded slowly.

“I’m here because you were injured and I wanted to make sure you were okay. I’ll go – but I’m just across the hall if you need me.”

Jonah didn’t knock, but was waiting for him the next morning. His outburst was hidden behind a still face again, but that fact that he waited for Rip instead of trying to sneak out alone as usual said something. He stood straight at the Time Master’s approach, handing Rip a knife.

“To protect yourself.”

“I knew you cared.”

“I don’t.”

“This says otherwise,” Rip replied, grinning widely until his cheeks ached. He gave Jonah a reprieve as he gestured towards town with his head, walking off. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”

*

In his third week as Jonah’s partner in crime, Rip found himself staring down the barrel of a gun for the . . . oh, seventh time. It’s really not a safe profession, this bounty hunting business; he didn’t know why he was even surprised by it anymore. Life with Jonah is never dull – but also never safe.

His hands were constantly bruised and smelled of gunpower, face tanned from exposure and back aching from the long days. He didn’t think he had ever felt quite so alive.

“You don’t have to do this,” Rip said measuredly, the automatic response itching at his tongue the instant he recognised the small circle an inch away from his eyes as a gun barrel. It was second nature to him now. The thought didn’t scare him as much as it should have. “You don’t have to shoot me.”

“Yeah, I do!”

That was the usual reply, but Rip froze at the voice this time. It was not the rough twang of a man, but the higher pitched tone of a child: a youthful defiance, not a malicious one. In its shake there was a great amount of fear, the uncertainty hidden under a forced bravado for saying it and holding a gun at all.

Eyes refocusing on the figure in front of him instead of the gun, Rip saw him – a child no more than twelve with a black eye and a mop of dark hair, gun held in hands that trembled just enough for him to worry about the child pulling the trigger by accident as well as choosing to shoot him.

Rip kept his gaze as even as possible, hands raised to beside his head. “You don’t want to shoot me.”

“I will.”

“Son-”

“Don’t call me son,” the kid spat out. Now, there was venom – though not directed at him, not really. “I’m not – I’m not some stupid k-kid like they all think! I’m not worthless like he says . . . I’ll do it, I’ll shoot you dead!”

The words hurt Rip in a way that was the same as if real bullets had torn through him. He wasn’t a father, nor did he ever have one to look up to – or much of anyone, really. But from what he knew of families, no child should ever be made to feel worthless by their own. Blinking slowly, Rip changed his voice to a gentler tone, knowing force wasn’t the way to win this one.

“I believe you,” he said, hands hovering in midair although he moved them repeatedly down a fraction, trying to subconsciously suggest that the boy lowered the weapon. “But killing me won’t make you feel better, you have to realise that. It’s not – killing, it isn’t what you expect. There’s a cost.”

“I’ll pay it,” the kid said, but he lacked conviction. In his eyes were tears, edges white with fright. “I have to, if I don’t . . . you’re snooping around! They’ll kill me if I let you go.”

“Nobody knows I’m here. Just you and me, that’s all – I’ll walk away,” half twisting towards the door to show this, Rip shrugged, “Nobody has to know.”

The kid seemed hesitant, looking from Rip to the door of the building he had been investigating. It was a known location for the Stillwater Gang to store supplies and trade information, although he had found nothing before running into this pint-sized problem. The gun dropped an inch.

“What are you doing here?”

“Looking for information, that’s all.”

“You shouldn’t be here. These people, the Stillwater Gang – they’ll kill you,” the kid said, voice wavering. “I-I’ve seen ‘em do it . . . my dad do it. If they catch you messin’ in their business you’ll be a dead man.”

Rip winced again. He changed tactics, “What’s your name?”

“W-what?”

“Your name.”

The kid shrugged again, the gun on his shoulder starting to droop, too heavy for the young boy to be holding that high for that long. “I’m no one.”

“Me too, they always told me,” Rip’s lip quirked up. “Doesn’t make it true. You get to decide who you want to be in this world – what you’re going to do. I chose this.”

“Makin’ trouble?”

“Some would call it that,” he admitted, imagining Jonah’s smirking face. “I’m just trying to make sure they can’t hurt anyone again. I could make sure your father doesn’t hurt anyone again. What’s your name?”

“Billy,” the kid finally replied, eyes skirting from Rip to the dirty floor with anxiety before returning to his face renewed with a bright anger. The gun lifted again. “Are you gonna kill my dad? Are you from a rival gang?”

“No,” Rip shook his head softly. “I’m a traveller – I could have been a criminal, like the bad men your dad works for, but I chose differently. I wanted to protect people so I became . . . a Sheriff,” he knew it was a lie, but only by halves. He was a Time Master – a sheriff of a much larger town. A thought nudged at his mind saying he was there to make sure the Gang killed Moore, so this was all a deceit of an innocent mind, yet he was beginning to doubt his orders. It didn’t feel right anymore. Pushing it aside, he looked at the child before him again, slowly raising his left hand. “You get to choose, too. Give me the gun. Don’t let them make you into something you’re not, Billy.”

A moment later, the cold weight of a gun came to rest in his palm. Rip smiled.

“Thank you,” he said, moving the gun down to his side and using his other hand to touch Billy’s head, patting a handful of wild hand in a kind gesture. The child stiffened at the touch before he realised it didn’t hurt; Rip wanted to tear his father apart. Hand moving to Billy’s shoulder, Rip looked the child in the eyes. “Now I want you to go home, this is no place for you to be. But if you ever need me, I’m at the inn in town, just past the saddler’s. Come and find me.”

There was a hesitation in the way Billy nodded before he ran off, leaving an odd sensation in Rip’s stomach, like he had just time-jumped a millennia. A sickening jolt, a deadness in his gut: he was worried, and he doubted suddenly that he would ever see the child again. Rip did not like that feeling.

“Why didn’t you just grab the gun?”

“Jesus Christ, Jonah!” Rip jumped three foot in the air when Jonah spoke from the shadows. Recovering quickly, he walked forwards until he could make out Jonah’s form, leaning casually against the wall, smug smirk on his face. “How long have you been there? I thought you were looking upstairs.”

“I checked,” Jonah replied with a shrug. “Nothin’ there. I got bored.”

Rip’s eyes widened incredulously, voice getting higher and more hysterical with each word, “And when you saw me being held at gunpoint?”

“You seemed alright. So?”

“So what?”

“So why didn’t you just grab the gun?” Jonah deadpanned, but there was something akin to curiosity in his next words, eyes flicking over Rip in a different way than usual. “You didn’t have to do that, I know you coulda disarmed him. Why bother?”

“Because he was just a child, and he was scared,” Rip replied earnestly. “What would you have done?”

Jonah didn’t reply, just grunted and walked past Rip towards the door. It stayed on his mind all day, though.

*

Although Jonah was already halfway down the road when Rip exited the inn where they were staying, Rip caught up to him quickly, jogging the short space between them as he hurriedly shoved his hat on. The morning sun was already beating down on his back, but the town was peaceful as he fell into step with the other man, looking twice at everyone they passed.

“So partner, what are we doing today?” Rip asked, looking over to Jonah determinedly. “Do you have any leads we can follow on Moore?”

The other man was not impressed, not even looking over at Rip as he kept walking. “I have leads to follow, yeah. You have a very busy day of staying out of my damn way.”

Rip ignored him, “So what are our leads?”

“My leads. Mine,” Jonah grumbled, but pulled a worn piece of paper out of his pocket anyway. Whispers followed them around town as they walked together, Rip’s eyes never leaving his companion. “I got a name. Might know where Moore is, might not. But its outta town.”

“Meaning?”

“We’ll have to get some transportation.”

“We,” Rip echoed excitedly, bumping their elbows together. As Jonah glared over at him for that, the Time Master’s eyes were practically dancing with mischief, eyebrows quirking in a way that dared him to contradict him. Jonah raised a threatening finger, but stayed silent. “I knew you’d come around to my way of thinking. Wait-” he stopped dead, surprised when Jonah paused too. “What do you mean by transportation?”

*

They stood in front of two horses, Rip trying to hide the urge to stand behind Jonah in the presence of the animals. It wasn’t that he was afraid, not really – he had never seen a real horse before. By his time, the only animals left were ones useful to eat; domestic pets had vanished hundreds of years before he was born, animals for transportation made redundant years before that – they kept only what was sustainable and useful to survival. Horses were not on that list.

Faced with them now, he was almost speechless.

“They’re so big.”

“You ain’t never seen a horse before?” Jonah asked, breaking his intense concentration on the animal.

Wide eyes blinking, Rip glanced over nervously and shrugged, trying to think of a way out of this – it had been a month since he had been reminded of how he didn’t fit in here, deciding it was better for his cover not to return to his ship unless it was absolutely necessary. He had been starting to forget; now it came crashing down on him all over again, the weight of the future.

“I . . . I came from a really small town,” he lied, tugging at his collar as he spoke and returning his gaze to the animal, not able to lie straight to the other man’s face. It sounded lame even as it left his mouth, a rise of red in his cheeks as he forced himself to move on. He pointed to the problem, “I don’t know how to ride one of these things.”

“I’ll teach ya,” Jonah replied, and Rip looked over with genuine gratitude before he saw the dark smirk on the fugitive’s face. “Lesson one: don’t fall off.”

“Yes, thank you, that’s really helpful,” Rip snarked as the other man walked away, jumping easily onto his own horse. At the words, he turned in the saddle and tipped his hat to Rip, who deadpanned, “I hate you.”

“Then why do you keep following me around?”

The smile which bloomed from a look of teasing at his own to stretch across his face, again starkly reminded Rip just how much younger Jonah looked when he smiled. Without the grim weight of the world on his brow, Jonah was a time traveller of his own making when he smiled, the tooth-showing expression brightening him back to being a boy with a gun and the entire Wild West to play with.

Rip didn’t know for sure that Jonah was like him at all, that doing this felt as natural as breathing – but from the acts of heroism he had witnessed, he suspected it.

He liked it when Jonah smiled.

The horse was coming towards him, so any notice he was paying to the other man’s smile was dashed by a pair of yellow teeth in his face, and the yelp which tore free of him. Ducking under the animal’s head, and scurrying backwards a few steps, holding out his hands and talking gently to the animal as it turned on him.

“Whoa. Whoooooah,” Rip murmured, arms held wide. The horse was looking at him now, and it was either going to charge him or well, just stand there. “Easy, fella. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m your friend, see?”

Standing at the horse’s head now, having stepped slowly forward as he spoke softly, and finally reaching out a hand to touch a velvety nose. It whickered softly at the touch, the horse blowing heavily out of its nose happily at the touch; Rip felt his own face twist at the affection. Seeing a horse for the first time had been one thing – this one seemed to actually like him.

Rip was still smiling stupidly at the horse when Jonah spoke up.

“We haven’t got all day! Are you gonna get on the dumb thing or not?”

“He-” Rip started then frowned, checking that fact before pointing a finger at Jonah. “She is not a ‘dumb thing’, thank you very much. She’s beautiful.”

“You don’t know how to get on her, do you?”

Looking from his horse to his ally, Rip tried not to look guilty. He failed. “She’s really big.”

“God damn it,” Jonah said, dismounting. The sun was shining behind him like something out of a fairytale as he got of his horse, a golden orb behind the curve of a hat and the hint of a bristly smile. As he walked over, his coat flapped against his legs, coming to a stop next to Rip, still trying to control his face. “I’ve never seen a grown man not know how to ride before. Are you even for real?”

The half-whispered question didn’t even seem to be aimed at a clueless Rip, who stood beside Jonah as the other man pulled the reins over the horse’s head, rubbing absent-minded circles on the animal’s neck as he stood. It was one of the small acts of kindness that kept adding up around the mystery that was Jonah Hex, and Rip noticed.

“Okay,” Jonah said, making Rip jump a little. “Come stand over here. I’ll teach you to mount, if only for the sake of this poor horse.”

Rip complied. Mounting went as well as expected; he had the height, but was not very good at balance, ending up on his back in the dirt twice before he came to rest on the horse’s back. Jonah handed him the reins, retreating to the fence of the small paddock they had bought the horses from on the edge of town, the farmer relieved to be rid of them. Jumping on top of the fence and hooking his legs under a lower bar, Jonah leaned back as Rip sat awkwardly on the animal.

“Relax!” he called over, content to sit and instruct for now. “Get your heels down, try walking ‘er in a circle to get the hang of it.”

“Like this?” Rip tugged the reins to the left a little, but the horse remained stock still in the middle of the square field. Frowning, he tried again to no avail, leaning down to whisper. “Please. Go. Please just move.”

But the horse was determined to ignore him. Rip felt a deep blush in his neck, heat rising to his face unmistakably, at the uproar of laughter from Jonah’s seat on the fence a minute later. A little hopelessly, he looked over to find the fugitive leaning back dangerously as he laughed out loud, the sound carrying over to him – Rip had never heard him laugh before.

Jonah snorted. Jonah huffed in a way that could be a laugh. But this? The sound was hitting him in waves, deep, growly laughter rising from lungs which sounded ruined, thick and uncaringly loud. It was a sound as grizzled as the man, but just its existence lightened him; it proved he could laugh, and could feel something other than vague annoyance and anger. It changed everything.

“If you’re quite done,” Rip scowled, only half-joking. It was good to know that somewhere under the layers of leather, hatred and sarcasm, that Jonah had a soul. “A little help would be appreciated. How do I get her to move?”

Jonah replied, voice still breathy with laughter, and if Rip had been paying closer attention, he would have noticed him swipe a hand under his eye to remove a tear. Jonah hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. “Tap your heels.”

Safe to say, they had to spend another four days in that field until Rip could ride adequately enough to make the journey. Somehow, between the teasing and laughter, neither of them minded.

*

Underneath him, the horse’s walk left Rip bobbing from side to side, back aching from days getting used to riding and dust kicked up from under the animal’s hooves in his eyes. Although his hat spared him from the worst of it, the sun beat down on his back, the track ahead of him long on the journey to find Cillian Moore. Sweat clung to his sides and back, lips parched as he tried to save water for the way home, constantly being wet by a tongue darting between parted lips, swallowing dryness in the desert breeze.

Despite all of this, the grin lighting up his face was unmistakable.

“I don’t know what you’re smiling ‘bout,” Jonah grumbled from beside him, long coat flapping against the horses’ side. He wasn’t a fan of long days in the desert, and was being very vocal about it, looking over disgustedly at the dumb grin on his companion’s face. “Got a long way to go yet, boy.”

“And we’ve already come a long way,” Rip countered, determined that his mood wouldn’t be ruined. Through the hazy sunlight, he blinked over at his friend, forcing his cracked lips to smile wider. “Up is the only way to go.”

“The opposite is true,” Jonah replied. They were approaching a ridge, the horizon shimmering and shaking ahead; as they reached it, Rip understood his words – a vast valley opened out at their feet, as if a chunk of the land had been pummelled into nothing by the fist of a vengeful god. It was desolate, a shadow formed in the pit from its high, craggy walls, sparsely covered in weed like greenery.

Rip wouldn’t be surprised if a tumbleweed was to blow past them right then, it would certainly fit in with the scenery.

“We’re going down there?”

“Uh-huh.”

Although it was a dauntingly steep path ahead, cut from the rock with loose stones which were already shifting worryingly under the horses’ hooves, Rip kept a still face. As the animal shifted below him, it sent a stone toppling down the path a way, falling over its edge and falling for a long time before an echo hit from the bottom of the valley. It wasn’t exactly courage inspiring.

Swallowing heavily, throat suddenly twice as dry and palms doubly wet, Rip looked forcibly ahead. He had to do this. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he remembered something about a mission and the man, but it was vague, fuzzy, like a photograph out of focus. He knew he needed to do something, but for the last few days all that had mattered much was staying in the saddle for more than five seconds at a time, and the sound of Jonah’s laughter.

Missions . . . they were a long way away, kept at bay by the heat and sand. In the little paradise of Calvert, he was safe from them. Now, he still knew finding Moore was important, but it was because Jonah needed the other man and they were going to save him.

He forgot the rest.

Squaring his shoulders like the old western heroes facing their enemies at dawn, he forced his gaze to the path ahead. Heartbeat steadying, brown eyes becoming focused on the point ahead he needed to get to, Rip clicked his tongue firmly and urged his horse forwards, pushing down the fear knawing at the edges of his insides and holding fast to the task at hand.

As he pulled ahead on the path, he missed the way Jonah’s eyes never left him, expression mingled with an impressed glance he couldn’t hide. Rip went: Jonah followed.

After a few miles downwards in a tense silence, for Rip as he focused on something else and for Jonah as he remained solely focused on watching the other man with curiosity, the older cowboy broke it. Around them, the desert illusion was fractured, the shadow they had ridden into made less by their talk, like finding an oasis in an uninterrupted wasteland.

“Why are you doing this?”

“What?” Rip blinked, looking over. He had been so focused on not looking at the drop, his face was lit up with an un-composed confusion as he swung around in the saddle with the movement, almost sending himself off the path. With a yelp, he settled again, this time calmer as he glanced at Jonah, one weathered eye always on a point in the horizon. “What do you mean, my friend?”

Jonah didn’t even bother to argue the last point anymore.

“It’s not an easy life, this one,” he said, not disguising the interest in his words. “I know why I do it – s’the only thing I was ever any good at, fighting and movin’ around. What are you fightin’ for, Rip Hunter?”

Rip thought about how to answer that for a few minutes. It left him distracted as the slope got less and less, the sun still striking them down to dust. Eventually, he decided to answer as honestly as he could, shrugging earnestly before meeting the other man’s eye.

“I grew up hearing stories about heroes. I . . . wanted to do something with my life, I guess. To be one of the men history remembered, not one it forgot,” he said, flush creeping up his cheeks. Fiddling with the reins between his fingers, he shrugged again. “I wanted to live. To see . . . wonders.”

“You call this wonderful?” Jonah asked roughly, gesturing at the desolate landscape around them.

“Yes, I do,” Rip replied. Taking in the broken rocks worn down by sand, the occasional yellow flower bursting out amongst them, desperate to see the sun and fighting its way through sand and stone to flourish, a small smile grew on his face. “It might not be much, but it’s enough. There are people who are happy, others who aren’t; some who fight and die and bleed, Mr. Hex. But they’re alive.”

Jonah was squinting over, “You’re a strange fellar, you know that?”

“You’ve said,” Rip smirked, “Several times.”

“Well, you are.” Jonah hid a smile at the laugh that prompted, but something still nudged at his mind saying that what Rip had said wasn’t the whole story. “So you could have a hero complex anywhere. Why here?”

“It’s where my job took me.”

“And what’s your job?”

“Helping people, wherever they need it,” Rip replied, ignoring Jonah’s loud snort at the sentiment. He rolled his eyes, needing to explain. “Where I come from, there’s nothing like this. People are alive, but no one really lives, they just survive. I want to live for something. Here,” he half pointed around them, “In this scorching, truly awful smudge of a town, at least I’m needed.”

Jonah was laughing at that, but pushed on. “Don’t you have a woman for that? To live for?”

“I used to,” Rip said, laughing without humour, the sound choking up from his stomach and erupting from his throat. He wasn’t looking at Jonah at all now. “Miranda. We were . . . together. And then we got separated by my work. She isn’t – couldn’t – come with me. I loved her,” Rip’s voice cracked on the word ‘love’, but he disguised it as a cough. “It wouldn’t have been fair to ask her to wait for me, back home. I didn’t know when or even if I would ever return . . . I told her to live, instead. To move on.”

Although quiet for a few minutes, Jonah couldn’t help the questions that kept tumbling out. “And did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Move on.”

“Oh,” Rip sighed quietly. “It’s . . . complicated? I know how that sounds! It’s just, moving around the way I do - time is strange. It feels like forever ago, but it’s been . . .” Rip trailed off, thinking hard. Jonah could tell by the look on his face –when he thought hard, his eyebrows scrunched in at the middle and his eyes wandered from spot to spot, as if he expected an answer to suddenly appear. “A year, I think. About that.”

“That’s not so long,” Jonah chuckled dryly. “I’ve been wanderin’ about this state alone longer than that. A year is nothing, kid.”

“It doesn’t feel like nothing,” he replied quietly, turning his head towards the distant sun. “It feels like a lifetime. It’s not . . . I love Miranda, and I do miss her, but I know I did the right thing. It doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s just . . .”

“Lonely,” Jonah supplied, and this time it was him who wasn’t looking over at Rip’s sharply turned gaze. “Big desert, big world, one man job. The word you’re lookin’ for is lonely.”

Half hidden by the shadow of his hat and never that expressive anyway, apart from the rare – and hard earned – smiles, Jonah said a lot without having to really say it as Rip looked over. It wasn’t so much anything in particular; if a person didn’t know Jonah, they wouldn’t have guessed anything was wrong – but his jaw clenched almost invisibly, a muscle in his unscarred cheek twitching. Then there were his eyes. Usually glaring at Rip, now they fixed themselves ahead, not looking in a way that made it obvious he was uncomfortable.

Rip felt his own turn downwards as he hummed in reply, turning back to the road ahead.

He knew Jonah didn’t like being stared at, used to strangers doing so because of the scar on his face, so he tried his best not to – sometimes, though, he couldn’t help himself. Rip started watching the other man, learning his mannerisms and the way what looked like stillness could say so much, positively drinking the other man in. An oasis in a desert. A walking contradiction of a man. A hero in a land screaming to be saved.

Jonah Hex fascinated him, stirring feelings in his gut that hadn’t made themselves known in a long time. It was like all this time with the Time Master was just . . . prologue. Like he was just now waking up.

Tearing his eyes to the horizon, constantly feeling the corners gravitate back towards the man beside him, Rip mentally shook himself; he had a mission. He was not here for Jonah Hex. He had to stop looking, stop wasting time trying to impress the other man, stop noticing every damn thing about him. Time wasn’t on his side, not that it ever was. Rip knew he had a finite amount of time in this era, an inarguable fact, a full stop in the sentence he was living.

It was ending even as it happened. Despite the facts slamming into his brain, the heat distracted him, and Jonah started talking again, and his gut tugged him back towards him, and it all got distant again.

Rip looked back.

*

They got to Cillian Moore’s house, if it could be called that, when the sun was half-buried in the ridge of the valley, turning everything a burnt orange. A shack might be a more accurate description, Rip thought – it was a wooden building, weathered by sandstorms and rain, the wood turned grey and creaking in the breeze. He expected a particularly strong gust of wind might just blow it down.

“Better hope the big bad wolf doesn’t come knocking,” Rip joked as he dismounted outside, looking at the building with a sense of apprehension, although he couldn’t quite place why he felt it.

“What?”

At Jonah’s judgemental and confused expression, he waved a hand in dismissal. “Nothing. Doesn’t matter.”

Although he caught half a mutter about him being strange again, the rest of Jonah’s mumbling was cut off by a loud gunshot, the dirt at their feet sent aflutter as the bullet hit, leaving the both of them scurrying for cover. Hitting the ground behind a sandbank a few feet back, Rip felt Jonah’s body press against his own, slightly leaning into him as he pulled his gun, rolling onto his stomach to take aim. Rip stayed on his back, but tilted his head until he could see a figure standing in the shack’s door, shotgun waving about angrily.

“Jesus, I never saw him coming,” Jonah hissed, resting his gun on the sand to aim. He glanced over with concern. “You hit?”

“No, I’m fine,” Rip replied, adding sarcastically. “I take it that’s Moore. I wonder why anyone would want such a positively charming man dead.”

That earned him a smirk, Jonah’s lip tugging up despite the situation. His dark eyes smiled with what could have been adrenaline, but Rip counted as mischief. Here, he was in his element. “Let’s ask him.”

Before he can even open his mouth, Jonah has let off a shot towards the shack, using the distraction to dash across the space, quick as a whip when he wanted to be. Leaping over the porch, coat flying behind him like a cape, Jonah had yanked the shotgun out of Moore’s hands before the other man even realised what was happen, tossing it back out towards the spooked horses - it landed with a dull thud not far from Rip, who was still lying on the ground. Trying to control his face and not smile, he ran over to where Jonah was now standing in front of Moore, face like thunder, forcing himself to remain aloof.

“Thanks for clueing me in, partner.”

Jonah rolled his eyes subtle, keeping his focus on Moore. “Got the job done, didn’t I?”

Huffing, not able to argue with that, Rip stood beside him, looking the third man up and down. “This Moore?”

“What’s it to you?” the man finally broke his indignant silence, leering in Rip’s direction. He had to be almost sixty, with grey hair that petered out at the top, clothes dirty and old. The fight he had put up with the shotgun still burned brightly without it, sharp blue eyes daring them to make the first move as he stood in the doorway still, facing two stronger strangers on his porch. Rip had to respect that.

“Yup,” Jonah nodded, “That’s him.”

“And who the heck are you?”

“I’m Hex,” Jonah replied coolly, putting his gun away. Shoving his hands into his long coat pockets, he shrugged at the old man casually, although Rip noticed the edge of a smile in his tone as he continued. “He’s Hunter. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, bullets aside.”

Moore blew air out of his mouth, aging ten years in ten seconds as the fight in his eyes died. He crossed his arms. “I suppose you’re here to kill me, then.”

Rip and Jonah shared a quick look, the former asking, “Why would we be here to kill you, sir?”

“The Stillwater Gang has wanted me dead for over a decade, boy. ‘Bout time they finally got around to finishing the job,” Moore replied, turning and walking back into the house. If he thought they were there to kill him, it wasn’t a fact that seemed to bother him at all – he sat in an armchair in the corner, looking at them both steadily. “Sit, the two of you. Or do you want to deny a man his last drink?”

As he pulled out a glass and bottle of whiskey, Jonah sent Rip a look that told him to play along, leaning against a cabinet as Rip took a stool that was lying on its side, turning it right-side up and sitting a few feet away. Perching easily with his height, he turned his attention back to Mr. Moore, who was looking at them with humour, not fear.

“What? Did you boys draw the short straw and get the boring job of killing me?” When they didn’t answer, Moore laughed bitterly, taking a drink. He gestured around his shack, “What? It’s not enough to destroy my life, run me out of the Sheriff’s office – out of town – you have to kill me too?” He snorted miserably, “Not that its much of a life, out here on my own. You’ll be doing me a favour.”

Rip blinked interestedly, “You were the Sheriff?”

“Years ago, before Stillwater showed up . . . they didn’t even care enough to fill you in, huh?”

“Somethin’ like that,” Jonah said before Rip could talk, watching Moore as calmly as the old man was watching them. “I take it you stood up to them, tried to stand your ground?”

“Something like that,” Moore echoed, tilting his head and emptying his glass. The level of disdain he was showing them was growing with each sip of the amber liquid, enough to act sarcastically towards Jonah now. “They didn’t take to it very kindly when I told ‘em they can’t just go around killing whoever they like. Some people are funny like that - but you’d know. You’re one of ‘em.”

“We’re not with the Stillwater Gang,” Jonah finally revealed, looking straight at Moore. There was no hesitation, no lie in his voice, and the old man sat up instantly. “I’m a bounty hunter, I was sent to find you.”

“By who?”

“Some fellar,” he replied vaguely, shrugging. “Paid me half upfront to find you, I didn’t ask many questions.”

“Shit,” Moore cursed, jumping to his feet and moving hurriedly to the window. He glanced out, turning back to them angrily as Rip got to his feet. “You goddamn fool of a boy! I’ve been hidin’ out here so long without them finding me; you’ve led them right here! Are you so stupid you can’t tell a con when it hits ya in the face?”

“I’m no fool,” Jonah shouted back, crossing the room until Rip grabbed him arm. He turned, leaning towards him, face dark. “Let go, Hunter.”

“Think, my friend,” Rip replied, trying not to let his eyes flick across Jonah’s face when the other man stood this close, the brims of their hats brushing together. “Please.”

With an angry flash in his eyes, Jonah’s jaw clenched and unclenched, but after a few seconds under Rip’s pleading gaze, he sucked in a breath between gritted teeth. In a moment, Jonah had stepped away, diffused for now. He faced Moore, still annoyed, but less of a grenade with the pin pulled than he had been half a minute ago.

“We’re not trying to get you killed, and I’m not working with the Stillwater Gang.”

“Oh yeah,” Moore growled, “Then explain this.”

He pulled the net curtain covering his window aside, revealing a line of riders coming towards them on horseback, at this distance just smudges on the wasteland. There had to be five or six men. Without knowing if they were armed or how heavily, with only the pathetic shack in the entire valley so nowhere to hide, it left them all at a distinct disadvantage.

“Shit,” Jonah cursed, storming over to the window to look out. A second later, he screamed in frustration, punching the wall – which his hand flew through, the wood crumbling under pressure. That just set him off cursing again.

“Yeah, shit,” Moore complained, “You’ve killed us all.”

“We’re not dead yet,” Rip said, the calmest of the group. Staying still as Jonah had moved, he had begun to look around the shack as they panicked, wasting their energy on anger. He however spent the time cataloguing everything that could be potentially useful, turning to Moore. “How many weapons do you have?”

“My shotgun. Which you threw outside.”

At the older man’s sarcasm, Rip rolled his eyes, quickly moving towards the door. “Yes, do keep being difficult, Mr. Moore. It’s really helping.”

As he reached out for the door handle to leave, a hand on his arm halted him this time. He looked up to see Jonah, mouth pinched together tightly. “Where are you going?”

“We need the shotgun.”

“Yeah, we also need you alive, asshole,” he replied. At this point, ‘asshole’ was becoming a term of endearment, but right then it made Rip more determined, not softer. Jonah was close again, hissing, “Going out there is suicide! You’ll be an easy target, there’s no cover out there.”

“Then cover me,” Rip replied, hearing Jonah’s frustrated groan as he shrugged off the grip, out of the door in a second. On the porch, the riders were looking even closer, horses and faces distinguishing themselves from silhouettes against the yellow. They were close enough to hear – at the same time, he heard the click of Jonah’s gun at the door, watching his back; Rip felt a mad, impulsive feeling rise up as he ran towards the fallen shotgun. He had guessed the other man would have his back, and tried not to feel smug about being right.

The metal pressed into his palm a second later as he grabbed the shotgun, sand sliding through his fingertips as he stood again – the shot that flew past as he did only just missing his head.

Looking up, he saw Jonah framed in the doorway now, taking aim at something behind him. A glance behind showed him the riders were almost on them now, able to see the sand scattered from the horses hooves, the glint of metal guns in the air. Trusting Jonah not to miss, Rip began to run back towards the shack, the bullets whizzing past his head going above his notice – safe on the porch, he tossed the gun to Moore, the three of them turning to make their stand right there.

It was like something out of his dreams, except in reality, it wasn’t the sun-soaked tale of heroism Rip had imagined. In fact, he was just aching and scared down to his bones. Despite that, his back was straight as he stood between the two men, feeling the heat of Jonah beside him as the riders came within shooting distance.

Rip knew this was it – the moment he had to make a choice. It slammed into him in a tidal wave, memories and the tangled wires of the past few weeks pulling suddenly taunt with realisation: his mission was to let this happen. He had come to this time period to ensure Mr. Moore’s death; he knew that the old man was supposed to die, that the Stillwater Gang was supposed to do it, and that his job was to stand by and let it happen.

Rip had sand underneath his fingernails, biting into his skin. The wind had chapped his skin raw, the pain of learning to ride a horse leaving his legs blue with bruises, ribs aching – he had fought and bled to get to this moment. He had lived in Calvert long enough to see that it needed a Sheriff to protect the town against the Stillwater Gang, and that Moore didn’t deserve to die for trying to do it. It couldn’t change the timeline enough to matter if an old man died in the heat or lived out his life in safe exile. Yet that was his mission – to make sure he died.

After everything, seeing the way the Gang ruled the city unjustly and hearing the old man’s tale – who had done no wrong but to stand up against them – it was wrong. In what world was letting Moore die here the right thing to do? How could the Time Masters want this to happen?

The only answer: it wasn’t.

“Hell of a place for it,” Jonah commented from next to him. It broke Rip from his racing thoughts, pulling his gaze.

“For what?”

“To die,” he replied. There was half a smile on his face when he looked over, clicking the safety on his gun before holding his arm out. “Glad you’re here though, Rip. Not that – I mean – I’m glad I ain’t dying alone.”

At the mix of his words, he had become flustered, backtracking and stumbling his way through the sentence. Rip watched with that feeling in his gut again, the kick; that was all it took to cement his decision. The tangled lines, instead of being pulled taunt, were suddenly cut – he was free.

And he was not letting this happen.

“We are not dying here,” Rip replied. Infectiously grinning, he pulled a second gun from his boot – a blaster from his era, lighting up blue in a way that make Jonah’s eyes widen in shock. “I’ll explain later, this time I promise,” he said, motioning to Jonah to cover him again. Running back into the house, he grabbed a second bottle of whiskey and anything else which looked flammable, returning to the porch under a hail of bullets. Jonah caught this and grinned back, but Rip just handed him the future blaster in answer. “What? You’re a better shot.”

“That I am,” Jonah agreed, “But with this?”

He shook the gun as if it were foreign to him, which was fair. Rip just grinned wider. “Are you telling me you can’t figure it out, Mr. Hex? A gun is a gun, after all.”

“Asshole.”

“Just pull the trigger – and try not to miss.”

Hearing half of a laugh in reply, Rip stood with a bottle in hand before throwing it as far as he could, towards the oncoming riders. It landed in front of them, hit by a beam from the blaster a second later – erupting into flames. It exploded, taking out two men on horses. Although Moore made a noise of surprise at the blaster, it was Jonah’s exhilarated sigh at the power of the weapon which made his chest soar, heart hammering so hard he wondered if it would burst free of its ribcage.

Whooping in victory, he threw a second bottle, and a third, and a fourth. Jonah hit them all first time, and soon there were only four men still conscious, all now on foot running towards then, their bullets seeming futile against the blaster beams. Rip had even forgotten to be scared – until he was hit in the chest.

He went down, hard. The next few moments were a blur, as a jolt of pain wracked his ribs, leaving him gasping on the floor, hands desperately moving to the wound – and coming up empty. There was no blood, no warmth – finally, he sat up, the bullet falling from the folds of his coat to the floor. Incidentally, it was the brown coat Jonah had lent him the first time they had met, the button blown to bits by the bullet: it had saved his life.

Slowly, he got to his feet, at first confused by the lack of noise. His ears had hummed with the shot, but even as he stood, staggering towards the door in a haze, the sound of shooting had fallen silent. The floorboards creaked loudly as he stepped back onto the porch; on his left, Moore was on the floor, panting from the effort of the fight but alive.

It was what lay ahead that worried him.

Jonah was fighting the last standing guy, although it wasn’t a fair fight – he had the man by his collar, repeatedly punching the gang member in the face, knuckles dripping blood onto the sand. All the while, he was screaming. The sound was hallow and raw, from the back of his throat, cracking through the valley louder than any gun shot.

“Jonah,” Rip breathed, setting off at a run towards him. “Jonah! You’re going to kill him - Jonah!”

He caught the man’s fist midair, dragging him away a few paces as the man he had been beating fell to the floor, but Rip barely noticed any of this, focusing on his friend. Jonah was breathing heavily, staring widely at Rip, eyes flying across every inch of him in seconds, mouth opening to form words that never passed his lips in disbelief.

“I-”

Rip probably should have expected the punch, really. Jonah’s fist connected with his jaw after the moment of shock, striking the flesh with a loud slap and sending him back a pace, hand flying to his face.

“Ow!” he cursed, “Fuck, Jonah, what was that for?”

“I thought you were dead! I saw you get hit . . . I saw you go down,” Jonah said, voice falling louder and quiet again, almost soft as he thought back. His eyes were still fixed on Rip as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. “I thought you were . . .”

He had stepped closer; seeing the punch had come from a place of caring, Rip held up the dented and cracked button that had saved his life, lip twitching up. “Your coat saved my life. Some would call it a miracle.”

“Ain’t it just that,” Jonah breathed. The look on his face was a mixture of relief and something Rip didn’t have time to place before the bounty hunter moved, stepping towards him determinedly and grabbing him by the collar, pitching Rip towards him and –

Oh.

Jonah was kissing him, and everything fell into place. Gentle and pulling at the same time, as if he were desperate to get closer, to pull them together until they were one, Jonah kept a fistful of Rip’s coat as the Time Master’s eyes fell shut, hand that had been raised warily falling to the other man’s shoulder. Jonah’s lips were soft, and tasted like relief, and his own curled upwards as it was happening, wanting to smile even then.

For just a second, just for them, the world stood still.