Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Never seen cuts like those, friend."

It's a hot day today—like it always is out here, in Middle of Nowhere, America. The only sound for miles is buzzing, heat, and the clink of gun on flask. That, and this man's groaning. He's cut to high hell: small, razor-style slices leaking blood through his clothing. From a hole in his shirt, Frank catches the eye of a bleeding, oozing line of red. It's thin as ever, but must be deep.

"H…help. Me." The man is crawling, hands rubbed raw. Horse must've ran out on him.

"You get robbed?" The guy has made a blood trail on the road, starting back a ways. Frank can't see the end of it. The blood gets thicker and the trail wider closer to where the guy is now. There's a satchel halfway between the man and where Frank's eye stops seeing.

"I…" The guy sputters, blood comes up. The trail extends in front of him. He cranes his neck to look backwards, between the tall rocks and down the road. "You're… going to hell?"

Huh. "And tell me why I'd do that?"

The guy doesn't have much time, that's blatant. Maybe it's a waste to ask him things, if he's going to the other side before the shadows draw long.

"It's the town back there." Cough. Sputter. Bigger trail. "H-hellauer?"

"Bad nickname, hell. Makes it sound evil." Frank shifts in his saddle, leaning back. Max shuffles, but doesn't whine. She's a strong horse, a good girl. "Why're you asking?"

Guy's face falls. "To know if- if I should, lie." Bigger trail.

"Lie?" Frank moves a hand to his belt.

"The devil won't… he's not… he's cruel." Guy's eyes search Frank's face.

"So the Bible says." His hand stays on his belt, loose. He rubs his palm against the engraved buckle he won in Prescott. It's got a buffalo skull and a cactus, with a nice bullet hole straight through the skull's center.

"He… I triedta… my woman." Guy whimpers, presses a hand to his side. "My woman ran off. She came up here… needed t-to get her back."

Frank nods.

"F-found her. Threw her on the horse… but, but she made a big fuss… yellin' and screamin' and allat." Guy smiles like Frank's understanding. Blood washes his teeth. "The devil… he said she was theirs… threw m-me out."

"The devil kept the woman from you?" Frank moves his hand lower on his hip. The guy nods. "Even though she didn't want to go?" The guy nods. Frank grips silver.

"She-she's my woman, s-see." Blood's bubbling up his throat. His words get slower… slower… "Devil… took her…"

"Sounds like she was saved, friend." Frank draws, shoots. The bullet shatters through his head and the trail ends in an explosion of red and white. There're skull bits on the ground in a halo, surrounding the burst balloon of the man's brain. Max shuffles to get some of it off her hoof. "And the devil don't save people."

Max stomps over the meat and the body lolls to the side. The vultures'll have him long before anyone else runs into him. They deserve better eatin', that's for sure, but it's not his place to play with dead bodies. He just makes 'em.

The world returns to air, wind, and gun on flask.

It's a bigger town than he was expecting.

There're houses that spill past the main road, finding themselves perched on small, tiny hills that split the earth open at their highest. Quaint little farms with two, three rows of half dead crops, horse stables with only one in 'em. A church with a graveyard off to the side.

The main road is like any other, though. Nothing special or jaw dropping about her. General store, gun store, hotel, saloon, other shit. Horse hitches and troughs by any place that men'll want to stop at. People wasting on the porches, looking at him from under the brims of their hats. A hush over the town like he's some kind of outlaw.

He is, but he's not here to hurt nobody that doesn't need it. None of them look like they do.

Max scuffs her hoof against the ground as she walks. Man on the side looks him up and down, head bobbing as he does. He's got his hand on his holster, trigger finger rubbing the grip up and down.

Frank scoffs in tune with Max's step. Cheap intimidation. Worthless, too—he's got no reason to be worried. He ain't the guy who cut a man up, beaten and bloody, and threw him outta town. And it's not like they know Frank's the guy who exploded his head.

On the corner, there's a gaggle of women looking at him. They're in neat dresses and stand all light-footed like he's going to come over to 'em. He tips his hat in respect, which earns a few things: a smile, a blush, a nasty look. One of them whispers to the other before turning away, wandering off the main road.

It's neat that this town's got more than one road. There's the main one he's riding, but it splinters out into sprawl. Maybe more than a hundred people live here. Odds are, some of 'em are normal, good, upright folk.

The saloon is at the end of the road. It's like every other, wooden and big and open. Music wanders from the open windows and slatted doors, casual and lazy. It's not quite good enough to be professional, which makes sense; the sun's only just slid out from overhead. He'd bet it's fifteen-o'clock, still three hours before it's time to really, honestly drink, still too early for the real musicians to show up.

A melody walks from the windows and doors and across the dirt. It rolls up his body, flowing with the weak, dusty wind. Piano and violin, misaligned and uncomfortable. The piano's the problem. It can't keep up with the violin.

Frank hitches Max on the hitch closest to the stairs. When he walks up, his spurs click, adding percussion. It stops just as he gets to the doors and pushes them open, their hinges creaking. It's the only sound in the now quiet building.

He looks around. Checks his sides. Nothin' past a bar and tables, open windows. They're the paneled kind that're s'posed to have glass, but don't. Probably got shot out, judging by the state of the bar. It's got a metal kickboard that's intact, but the wood bits above it? Holey as the cross on the wall.

The musicians look at him. One of 'em, the one on the piano, can't be more than eleven. She's got the buggy eyes of a young kid, wide and brown as her skin. Her hands are caught on the keys and she's looking at him all wary, leaning into the other guy. This one's a fiddler, judging by the way he holds the instrument. His eyes are focused straight ahead, blank. He's standing in the shadow of the stairwell and lit only from the window two yards away on his right. It shines on his pasty skin, orange hair, red shirt, and maybe oxhide chaps. His eyes are barely lit from the side, but they're pointing square into Frank's, ice blue and determined.

It's only a little unsettling, the way he's frozen like he's still playing, but his eyes are dead onto Frank's. Even more so when Frank moves towards the bar and instead of moving his eyes to follow, he cranes his neck, body stock-still.

Frank sits his ass on one of the barstools, regarding the bartender, who's watching the fiddler. She—the bartender—looks cautious. A chord rings out as she drags her eyes away from the music, looks at Frank with a grimace and judges him. Turns instead to the guy who just slid down the bar to be knee-to-knee with Frank.

He's got sort-of long hair. He's plump. Got a bowtie and vest, both undone in the heat, and looks like a real banker type. Kinda guy that Frank would save from gettin' robbed, even though the shiny watch he's wearing made it his own damn fault.

"New in town, huh, friend?" The guy, who's blond, so Blondie, says. He looks as he sounds. "Nice spurs. Very red."

Frank splattered blood on 'em when he shot the guy on the road.

"Mh." Frank gestures to the bartender, bringing a hand to his belt.

"Nah, nah, don't worry about it." Blondie smiles, thin and scared. He turns to the bartender, "He looks like a whiskey man, right? Give him a whiskey. Something good."

The bartender looks between them, nods, and grabs a glass.

Frank doesn't speak, just looks at Blondie.

"You're quiet." Blondie nods. "I know you guys. Big an' tough, right, right? Nice and masculine. Real veterans of the badlands. I won't make you talk."

A beat passes. The bartender looks between two bottles and seems to choose the worse one, putting the bottle she didn't want on the high shelf. It's amazing to think that this place has any form of quality distinction.

"Y'know, a month ago, we had a very interesting version of you walk in. He was shorter than you and wore all white. Ain't that odd? All white!" Blondie leans in when he talks to Frank, "He covered his face, sometimes. Sometimes he didn't. Sometimes he'd talk Spanish, until he'd switch and go for Hebrew. Then, he'd go English. Oddest feller I've ever met, and I've met plenty." Blondie inspects him. He must not get what he wants, because he keeps going: "He wasn't as bad as this other feller, though. That one didn't give me a chance to practice my Bible readin' Hebrew, no, he just came in babblin' to himself. Loud as could be, dramatic as all hell, wearing odd clothing. All leather, believe it or not. Said that people'd make kink jokes when they read him, which was odder, because he certainly was kooky, but he said it in a way that sounded like he meant it another way. I can't think of another way to say kink, so it was strange." Blondie looks again. Frank gives him nothing but a sideways glance. So he keeps going: "This other feller was great. He came in-between the leather man and the white one, and he wore spiders. His poncho was woven, careful, pretty, like spiderwebs. Isn't that something? He covered his face and his horse's, which was strange, because I've never seen full-face horse blinds before. Get this: he said he was looking for the other man—"

"I don't care for your strangers, sir." Frank turns his head to Blondie. Blondie's eyes widen a fraction. "I'm jus' wondering who left that vulture-feed on the road into your town. Grizzly work, that was. I'd call it torture, even."

Blondie blinks. "Was he dead?"

"He is, now." Frank shakes his head, turns his whole body to Blondie. He leans forward and lets his muscles shift with it, each locking together, making him slump. Even sitting he towers over this guy, who starts to lean back. "But not when I found 'im."

The bartender puts a whiskey on the bar, eyes dancing between the two. Her palm's up for payment, but Blondie's a little startled. He starts to reach for his pocket, sausage fingers reaching for where his pocket chain disappears, when someone stops him. A pale hand with thin, calloused fingers carefully place themselves on the pocket. A twin hand drops coins in the bartender's palm.

"Leave the man be, Foggy." It's more gravelly than he thought, the fiddler's voice. It's smooth and sing-songy, but there's a roughness at the bottom of his throat. "He's a traveller. Been t'rough enough, 'asn't he?"

His Irish infliction steals his H's and T's. It seems organic, but waning. Doesn't quite apply to every word. Not real Irish, but close to it, then. Like how Frank over pronounces his E's.

Blondie—Foggy—looks at the fiddler and at Frank, eyes flickering, and nods.

"I'll leave this one for you, then." Foggy stands up. The girl at the piano has a knapsack in her hand and watches from there, loitering. She follows Foggy as he walks to the door, steps steady, eyes only once moving back to Frank.

The fiddler sits down. His vest is blood red, as is his shirt, as is the puckered scar Frank sees peek out of where it's unbuttoned. Three buttons undone. Leather string around his neck. Shiny, deep brown chaps. The pants underneath them, the same color.

Frank notices then and only then that there's a hat resting on the barstool two down. It's worn and beaten and the folds are sharp, but the shape of it is just like Frank's own. There's something long and wrapped that's resting under it, maybe a yard in length, but who knows what it could be.

Manners make Frank take his hat off, dumping it on the stool next to him. His hair is far from the ginger shock of the other guy's.

"Foggy, he…" The fiddler reaches for the whiskey, slides the drink down the bar, toward Frank. "He's very enthusiastic."

"Seems a little more like a nervous babbler, to me." Frank watches the bartender wordlessly and paylessly pour a glass for the fiddler. "Benefits of bein' entertainment?" Frank gestures to it with his chin.

The fiddler smiles, lips curling honestly, without a hint of snake or vitriol. "He can be both, can't he? He's a sweet guy, really, just unsettled by tough men." He drinks, "And, no. I don't entertain."

The violin in his hand says different. Frank rolls his eyes over the man, threatening, glaring. He's yet to see it fail; either the fool gets scared, or offended that Frank thinks a glare's enough to scare 'em. Frank doesn't lose fights, so he's never had an issue with either outcome.

And, the man's a fiddler.

There's a second where the fiddler squints, looking confused, before he barks a laugh. It's light, fake, hollow. Even more unsettling because it pulls his lips back and flashes his canines, which're pointed.

The fiddler turns to Frank, his long, white finger tapping just below his eye. "While I'm sure your glare's lovely, stranger, it doesn't quite work on me."

His eye, a glassy ball of pale blue. Milky film laying over what might've been a brilliant blue, in a different lifetime. He's blind.

"Huh." He's seen stranger, so he doesn't dwell. Not like he's done much past play the fiddle and walk to the bar. "Feller's name was Foggy?"

"Franklin, actually." The fiddler gestures to the bartender, then to Frank. His hand is lazy, weight carried by the wrist. "Our mayor. Not much to do in a town like this, but it keeps him busy."

"Busy enough to hang around in bars?" The whiskey is smooth and strong. A burn to it that tells it's not quite quality, but close.

"He's allowed to drink when he wants. He keeps us with them federals." The bartender speaks. She's older and her voice reminds him of snubbing a cigarette with his heel. "We got state water. Real town bonds. Protection from the…" A look up and down him, "…undesirables."

"The state gives water?" Frank watches as the fiddler chuckles around his glass, a soft exhale of a thing.

"If you're good enough. If you're worth it." The fiddler puts the glass on the bar, letting it clink. "Mayor Nelson is persistent enough that we are."

"Well," Frank raises his glass like a salute, doesn't cringe when the fiddler and his blind eyes don't respond in kind. "I wouldn't want him at my door every day."

The bartender glares at him and doesn't pour another glass. The fiddler's got these red-bitten lips, pulling around his teeth all amused. His canines really are sharp, lookin' like a wolf's.

"He's a good man." The fiddler's smile does not wane, even as he turns away from Frank and looks at the wall all serious. Maybe, probably, he glares at the wall to avoid lookin' anywhere goofy, but it mutes the energy of whatever's brewing in those eyes. "Are you?"

Mirth drains from him like water from a bucket with a bullet hole. Spilling out of him in a rush. A heaviness settles. "And what if I'm not?"

That head turns to look at him, and shit, maybe Frank was wrong. The pearlescent blues land dead in line with his. "We don't take kindly to rude visitors. I'm sure you understand."

Frank nods. "But you take well to rude citizens, do you?"

An eyebrow raise.

"'Cause I was coming up here, right, and I ran across a feller. He was cut to pieces. Sliced. He said the devil had done it. The devil. But he was speakin' like the devil were a man in this very town. And I'm wondering, who is that, the devil? Let me tell you, he's no man I've ever met, and I'm mighty interested in the town that don't take rude visitors, but houses the damned devil."

Typically when you do that, people get edgy. They find a little bit of fear in themselves and flinch away from him, his accusation. But that's not what this fiddler—this fiddler, not anything that warrants cockiness—is doing. No, he's smiling wider than before, his red lips taut and cleared of creases. His eyes wrinklin' in the corners. His canines pointed.

"When a soul is damned, it has no chance of redemption. They wake to brimstone and eat what they've been fed, yes?" The fiddler looks to Frank like he could see a nod, if he were to send one. "Now, in Hellauer, judgement isn't final. We've got a devil, but not Satan. We believe in redemption, gettin' better.

"That's why we let Miss Mendez in, no questions asked. Gave her room, board… fed her 'till she could feed 'erself. She wanted to get out of the life she was livin' and become a better, freer woman. But that man, he wanted to bring her back down. Take away that redemption. That sound fair to you?"

"No. No, it doesn't." Frank watches the fiddler's smile get less sharp.

"See, the devil, I only hurt the ones that need hurtin'. The Devil don't come for innocent, or redemption-seekin', souls." The fiddler smiles, soft-like, faux-genuine, looking at Frank.

See, the devil, I, only hurt the ones that need hurtin'.

The devil, I.

Pearlescent, pale, milky, blind, blue eyes. Odd thing, that.

"You're the devil?" Frank keeps his voice from getting higher. There's a small spool of anxiety in his throat, that clambers up as he opens his mouth to talk. "How'd you manage that? With the…" he waves his hands in front of his eyes. Considers using that hand to slap himself, because the man's blind, but…

"There're different ways t' see." The fiddler, the devil, smiles. He grabs Frank's hand and forces it to the bar, a surprising bit of strength on him. "I don't think you're a bad man. But I do have to ask: what'd you do with him? That man on the road?"

Frank bristles. Tries to lift his arm, can't. The fiddler-devil holds it flat against the bar, and it's clear this ain't a friendly situation. It's a test, the devil is checking him, seein' if he's good enough to spend time in his hell. Or limbo, more like, because Frank went to Bible school once or twice and knows that you can't get redeemed in hell, whether this devil knows that or not.

He's run into things like this before. Gangs wander the west, claiming little bases, sometimes big enough they're towns. But that don't seem like what this is. This seems… stranger.

"Killed him." Frank swallows, against his better judgement and seemingly to the displeasure of the devil. The man frowns, but doesn't let up with his grip.

"I let God have His way once out of town borders." The devil's voice is a slight grumble, "So I won't get on you. But in this town? You ain't killin' anybody, alright?"

"What, this your personal hell?" Frank tries to move his wrist again, a miniscule movement that's cut when the devil's fingernails start to dent.

"Heaven." The devil looks him up n' down, voice quiet. He takes his hand off of Frank's. "My personal heaven. 'Nd she needs a devil. To keep 'er safe."

The town of Hellauer, protected by the devil, a personal heaven.

"Guess you aren't like the devil from the book, then." Frank rolls out his wrist, goes for his whiskey again.

"The texts inspire me, but no, that's not quite what I go for." The devil relaxes in his chair and smiles all apologetic, "But I can't tell how it looks, so I like to think it's all fire and brimstone."

Frank snorts. "'Bout hot enough to be."

The devil smiles wider, between his canine-shining-bright-violent one and the careful, quiet one he used to apologize for grabbin' at Frank. "The thing about my personal heaven, is we look for redemption. Even for sinners. Even when we need'ta help them find it."

The devil leans in until they're sharing air. Close enough that Frank can feel the warm exhale of his laugh, leanin' like a hooker needing rent. A hand raises and deliberately presses on Frank's—his wound.

Frank wanders. Not aimlessly. He wanders for fights. He picks 'em, he wins 'em, it's justice. But he don't win without work, and the bleedin'—previously closed—wound on his low stomach opposite his gut was part of winning. Part of that work. It had been closed, but now it's not, and he suppresses the "Fuck!" but doesn't keep the hiss.

"I can stitch this up for you, stranger." The Devil's still in his business. "It was open when you walked in. But with me pressing on it? It's bleeding, alright."

"I can tell." Frank grits.

"It opened when you shot that feller. Must've, with the kickback on your rifle. It's a Spencer? '63?"

The devil hadn't been outside to see his horse. Shouldn't know that. Frank's had eyes on him the whole time they've been in this bar.

"I can tell you're a veteran. I can tell you've got gunpowder stink and blood on your boots. I can tell that you find yourself in trouble more often than not. Stranger, I'd like to know what you're doing. I'd like to offer you help." And with that, the devil stands, pulls his hand away. Offers it. It's wet with blood, Frank's own, and he's grinnin' with canines again.

Frank takes the hand. It doesn't help him with getting on his feet, because it's wet as hell, and if he were to grip he'd slide. The devil grabs him anyway, their flesh sliding against each other, and Frank's upright.

The devil slides his hand up to Frank's elbow and drags him out of the saloon, moving out a side door Frank hadn't noticed. The devil tells him to not worry about his horse, and keeps tuggin' him down the road, creeping towards the church. It's obvious that that's where they're goin', because the road branches off toward it, climbing up the hill it sits on.

It's a typical frontier church, painted white and decorated with slatted wood, standing tall and simple on its mound of dirt. There's a graveyard out front, standard for these things, and what is probably the priest's house out back. Only odd thing isn't the church's, it's the house's. There's two front stoops—one facing the church, one facing out. There's what looks like a small stable in front of the house, too.

The devil lets go of his arm to push the doors open once they're standing out front. He walks in all casual and shouts: "Father Lantom!"

It seems rude to shout in a church, but ah, well. A bald old man steps out from the office, a bump-out just to the left, and his eyes don't widen as much as they should when they catch Frank's.

"Matthew, who have you brought me this time?" The Father's voice is weathered with age, but there's a fond note beneath his rumble. He doesn't seem the slightest annoyed that the devil—Matthew—has dragged an injured man to his chapel.

Matthew turns to Frank. "He's bleedin', Father, opposite his gut."

"Why?" The Father stands in the middle of the church, backlit by the window above the altar. It passes white light down the pews and catches Matthew's eyes, white on white. Even though there's light on the walls and other windows, the stream from the window is the brightest.

Matthew stays quiet and rigid, back like a washboard.

"…Do you know his name?" The Father doesn't sound the slightest bit surprised.

Matthew turns and walks off to a closet. Starts searching through it all earnest, like he hadn't been asked a question.

"It's rude to ignore a holy man, Matthew." Frank calls to his side. Matthew pulls a box out of the closet and casts his head in Frank's direction. "It's an older wound. Opened it when I shot a man out on the trail. And, it's Frank." He addresses the priest.

Matthew walks over to a pew and starts to unpack his box. The priest walks over until he's lit by the gas lamps and not the pure beam from the window, sticking a hand out to gesture at the pew.

The box is medical supplies. A spool of somethin', a rag, some hard alcohol. Enough to stab Frank back together and keep him from breaking again. Only issue is the fact the blind man is the one holding the needle, and the way there's a needle at all. He hadn't needed it before.

"Don't pretend you aren't going'ta go out there and shoot a man." His voice bounces around the church, "The stitches'll keep you together while you do it. When they feel tight you can cut 'em." He lifts his shirt, then, to a body littered with welts and cuts and puffy little scars. The thing he's trying to show is probably the bloody, tied-together wound under his ribs. Proof of service.

"That's gotten worse." The Father leans into Matthew's space. He pokes at the wound. It don't look good, but Frank usually just rides shit out, so. "I'll look at that one." Matthew drops his shirt and scowls a little at the attention, pushing the old man away with a mutter.

The Father laughs at whatever Matthew'd said that was too quiet for Frank to hear. He looks Frank up and down, seems content with whatever he finds, and wanders off. He stops right by the doors, priestly robes just about dusting the floor. There's a little blood on the doorknob.

"I've got to tend the graves. The needy might show up once it turns to six." He announces. There's a clock under the window above the altar. It's sixteen o'clock, so four, and some odd minutes.

"Thank you, Father." Matthew is humble.

Frank sits down on the pew. He can't tell if the creak is his fatass hitting the wood or the Father closing the door.

He cranes his head to look, but gets stabbed before he can complete the turn. Matthew smiles, canines, when Frank grunts. He's got Frank's shirt twisted up in his hand, Frank's bandana sticking out of his pocket, revealed. He can't see it though, so it doesn't quite matter. It's more annoying than anything.

"You'll be happier healthy, stranger." Another stab. "I'll pour whiskey on it afterwards. It helps to keep it clean."

"I've had field medics do a better job." Frank tenses his navel, Matthew pushes him down so it's loose. "An' they were dodgin' bullets, Matthew."

Matthew pauses with the needle halfway through Frank's flesh. He tugs on it so the skin lifts and a bit of blood gurgles out, "It's Matt if we're being friendly, Frank." He sends his eyes up, so they're pointing somewhere near Frank's eyes. "Is it Francis? Franklin?"

"Keep tryin', devil." Frank feels his flesh pull down and together. He concedes. "Matt."

"There are no other versions of Frank." Matt—hew—sticks the needle in again. The burn is bad each time. "You're lying. It's one of those two, Franklin."

"Maybe." Frank tenses again and this time Matt leaves the hand on his navel, pushing him down. It's the hand that had been holding his wound. It's tacky with dry blood and calloused fingers.

"Don't think so." Matt sticks the needle in quickly twice, and Frank feels the pull of the string as it rubs against the surrounding skin. "Francis?"

"Maybe." Frank keeps tensing and untensing, mostly because the rough of Matt's fingers is a feeling he prefers to the burn of whatever Matt's other hand is doing.

"Francis, then." Stitch. "Italian?"

"You like to talk, don't you?" The burn has advanced towards the end of the wound. He can tell where it ends because it stops being wet with blood.

"Hm. Maybe not Italian." He smirks, no canines. "Your people're the ones who talk."

"My s'pposed people." Matt ties off the thread, letting it snap against Frank's skin. "'Nd not to say your people are all too high n' mighty. Surprised I couldn't see your ribs when you lifted your shirt." Frank taps Matt's abdomen with his foot.

Matt tilts his head back and laughs, mouth wide, spilling out of him like he's at the theater. It doesn't feel performed in the slightest. A little piece of pride coils in Frank's chest, which he steps on like it were a snake in the weeds.

"Don't joke like that." Matt's voice has a dangerous tone, but only as an implication. He gathers himself, "Really, friend. My father was the one'ta starve, not me. I don't take well to his pain being taken lightly."

"'Was' means he ain't starving now. He's either dead, or you feed him well." Frank lets his foot drop on the ground, hitting the wood a little sturdy and hard. "You seem the kinda son to feed him well."

Matt looks at the floor, where his foot is. He nods, "He kept himself hungry so I wouldn't be. Died b'fore I got a chance to give it back." He grabs the whiskey and pours it onto a rag.

"Shit." Frank keeps the hiss in his throat when the rag is placed on. He can see Matt reach for bandages with his other hand. "'M sorry."

"'S alright." Matt takes the rag off and puts the bandages on. Wraps them once, twice around Frank's gut and presses to make sure they're going to stick. Places the bandages in the box afterwards. "It's a good sentiment. I like to think the same thing, sometimes."

His "thing" comes out as ting, because of the accent. It makes sense why it's halfway between developed and not, now. 'S a bit sad.

Frank isn't going to pick at the wound, though. Isn't going to take the sutures out of their holes. He just felt what it's like to get them in.

They spend a minute in quiet. The hands on his gut stay where they are, gentle and tacky, maybe rubbing every second or two. Matt clears his throat and pulls his hands away, settling one on Frank's knee and the other on his own.

Quiet.

The doors open in the back of the church. Light spreads over Matt's face and a warm, chalky breeze against Frank's back. He twists to look; it's the priest. He looks the same as before.

"The mayor apologizes for leaving abruptly…" The Father walks in.

"His name is Frank. Of the Francis kind." Matt stands, wiping his hand with the towel. The wet whiskey rubs the dry blood enough that both hand and towel become the same shade of pink.

"A last name?" Lantom reaches the pew they're on. "I try to respect my parishoners."

"Parishoners? Who said I was plannin' on staying?" Frank sits up. Goes for his shirt, which he'd taken off and thrown over the back of the pew. "It's Castle, 'f that matters."

"The mayor apologizes for leaving, Mr. Castle." Lantom nods. "He's a busy man."

"So I've heard." Moving hurts, a little. The stitches have a familiar push and pull to them, his skin sliding and rubbing. It's a bad feeling.

"Frank Castle." Matt leans back on the pew in front of them, giving room for Frank to leave. Canines. "Good conversationalist, you are. Come through Hellauer again and we'll be kind t'ya."

Somethin' in those blind, empty-ass eyes hold a warning. Hold a, "don't kill anybody here" warning, which is unnecessary. It's sensible, which Frank also is. A town of refugees and poor souls don't need to get shot, so if the devil's bein' honest, Hellauer's safe.

Walking out of the church gives him afternoon orange. Max had been moved by someone, sometime over to the church's tethers, where she stands over hay and water. Judging by her mouth—full, dropping straw—she's been doing well.

When he mounts her he's pointed towards the church, where Lantom lingers in the doorway. He's looking at Frank all soft and his hands are knotted up in a rosary, fingers twining between the beads. When Frank meets his eyes he crosses himself, two fingers to the up, down, left, right, then shot towards Frank like a finger gun. A blessing.

Frank rides off north, opposite the way he entered.

He doesn't dream of her every night. It's gotten to be a rare, a once-a-month occurence, if it all. It's changed, too. No longer does he wake up with Maria's head on his chest, or stand behind her while she makes breakfast. It's the quick, sharp memory of staring into her beauty mirror, reflecting the sky and ground, the harsh crack of a gunshot, and the reflection adding Maria's broken, bloody face.

The memory is short. It's harsh. It's the moment of death, only.

When he wakes up, he can't sleep again. Not for a while. In a practical sense it's terrible, because Utah gets cold at night and riding with clacking teeth is annoying.

Under the cover of night he'll let himself feel, just for a second. He lets the grief claw through him and takes a second to breathe heavy. Seven years ago, one of the best people he'd ever met died. She was beautiful, wonderful, better than them all. Kind to a fault. Aggressive where it mattered, when people needed it. She was so good.

But she's dead, and she's been dead, so there's no point in rehashing it. Frank gets Max ready and wipes under his eyes once, just once.

The sun rises within an hour of him leaving, so it's not so bad.

It isn't the strangest thing in the world to roll up on an abandoned wagon. You see it sitting there on the road, still as if it were frozen, and you know what to expect. You move up the side and see a couple dead, heads droopin' and bodies bleedin'. It ain't that strange.

It's what happened to his family, some time ago. Only difference is that their wagon had a blood trail where he'd crawled away on hands and knees, bleedin', screaming. Most of these poor creatures never get that far.

(It doesn't even unsettle him, looking at the bodies. It just makes him think of Maria, which he lets pass through him like a gust of wind. One second she's there, the next she's not.)

'S not the point. Max shuffles away from the blood pool on the ground, coagulated nearly black.

The bodies on this wagon are more ruined than robbery implies. They're shot to high hell, most of them kill shots. Two in the heart, one in the gut, a couple in the head making meat spill down their fronts. The horses have been cut loose, but you can see their silhouette where their flanks blocked the ground from gristle.

Like his family and unlike most of these tableaus, there's a blood trail. It careens off the road and drags through the plains, thin 'nd weak. Came from a single wound, either spat out or leaked from a gunshot. Or knife. Somethin' individual and deep.

Like a long, thin slice over the chest, like that feller outside Hellauer.

It's wishful thinking.

It's curious thinking.

He'd been asking around, see. In the random bars he finds himself in, people vary in knowledge. They sometimes supply him with stories of the biblical devil, sometimes give him the meager offering of Hellauer's name. Everytime, though, he hopes they might have a little more.

A week or month ago he rode into some town further up north and too far from outlaw country than he's comfortable. The saloon was like any other and the whiskey didn't burn him the expensive way, but whatever. He'd run into some woman, one who spoke pretty and English, dressed high-society but with a bandolier of expensive rifle ammo.

They'd gotten halfway through a conversation about the gang up where they were, somewhere between the mountains and where everything flattened out but stayed green, when he brought it up. Same line of questioning as always: have you seen any strange bodies? No, no, strange as in sliced. Further South. Near Hellauer, if you know it? Yeah, yeah, Utah territory.

So what, he's been doing some curious thinking. Lookin' to know about the devil and maybe about that woman, but more about the devil. He's a weird hole of kindness in the west, if his words are to be believed, and that's odd. It unsettles him that he trusts the devil.

Max stumbles over something, and Frank takes his head from the clouds. Looks down. She stumbled on a corpse. The bleeding trail has grown fresh. There's a splat of warm red over the exploded skull on the ground, a headshot with something hard. Gristle.

Max whinnys and he slides off her back. There's a low hill, like the ones that are out here in… hm. He's found himself back in Utah territory. Maybe not quite—it's still a little green on the ground—but the hill is orange. Utah orange.

There's a corpse on the Utah orange. Head exploded from a strong somethin' close range, body clean of wounds.

Blood trail on the ground, so it was a nonlethal injury. No injuries on the body means the blood was dripping from the mouth, until the mouth made it to this hill, and got shot. The hill also has a mouth, because it's a bit of a cave. There's a hole that recesses into the ground.

There is money, drugs, booze, or all three under this hill. Frank grabs a shotgun and his Spencer from Max's saddle. She recognizes the change in weight and walks close to the side of the hill, standing straight, staring forward. Ready to dart.

Frank grabs the bandana low on his neck and pulls it over his nose. Straightens his hat. Readies his gun. Turns the corner.

Catches two things at once: one, the room is groaning, and two, the room is near flooded with blood.

He lowers his gun.

There's ten, maybe twelve men, groaning on the ground. They're bleeding to the point it's fatal. The room smells like freshly minted pennies. The stink isn't uncomfortable, but damn is it unsettling.

Stepping across the floor sends one of his feet sliding, slipping over the wet blood. He catches himself on the wall, digging his nails into the rock. The slip sends a few heads groggily rolling his way, limp from blood loss. They look like ragdolls. None of them say anything.

He crouches near one of them; the one that's sitting more upright than flat. His hat is still on his head, and it's made of a light cowhide. The edges are stained with blood spray—however they got hurt was dramatic, big, spraying—but the band is alright. His head's fine.

"Hey." Frank squats, not crouches, in the blood. Careful to be steady on his feet. "You kill those people out there? That wagon?"

The man lolls his head in Frank's direction. A nice bruise, long and wide, like a rectangle, on one half of his face. His eyes drag up and down Frank's body. Catch on the skull on his bandana. Look up to the heavens.

"W-will you be like him?" His voice ain't as weak as it should be.

"Like whoever did this t'ya?" Frank looks around the room. The bodies are all looking towards him, surprisingly. Heads askew in their puddles of blood, their broken chairs. There's a couple more long bruises on them, some spots that have bruised then burst. Nothing that provides this much blood, though. "Depends." Frank's an honest man.

There's a laugh. "You're t-the Punisher, ain't'cha?" He looks square in Frank's eyes. "That's better. Get rid of me outright, partner. Don't leave me to-to-to dry. Dry out. Try."

A voice from the back, as clear as the first, "Kill us. We did the wagon. A family moving from a b-boom town… we thought they had gold…" He mumbles the last part. "K-kill us. Can't… the pain… I seen'a fellow die of infection. Bad… bad…"

In the war, Frank saw men die of infections. Puss filled, green, white, yellow. Disgusting. They'd leak and smell and rot away b'fore they could make it into the ground. You'd get stuck in the medical tent 'cuz some fucking Confederate grazed your arm, and you'd only want to kill more. You'd see what the traitors inflicted on your brothers.

Frank's not a thought man. He doesn't bother to think long'n hard the way people who have time to waste do. But he's heard theory and big concept shit, and maybe there's something to callin' these fellers traitors to humanity, for killing and maiming over a hundred in bonds. But why be so conceptual with it? They're killers and don't deserve to keep walking. And they won't. Not until their blood coagulates from wherever it's comin' from and they get off their sorry asses, and the time between then and now might give them all kinds of illness.

He grabs one of their guns, the mostly upright guy's one, and shoots as many heads as bullets. Four bullets is four dead, and two are left alive and awake. Winces all 'round as the gunshot rings through the tiny cave.

"You get the picture, do you?" Frank drops the gun. Two nods.

There's the question of the blood, though. He walks over to one of the dead and peels off the shirt, and—damn. Long cut over his collarbone. Thin. Shallow. Somewhere with a lot of blood, but not somewhere lethal.

Wishful thinking.

He stands. There's something in the guy's pocket. Something that was flush by his heart, something that's got words scribbled on with lead or charcoal or something. Kinda thing a blind man wouldn't think much of, if he'd notice it at all.

Curious thinking.

He unfolds it, and there's a map. Damn. The pigment of the charcoal smudges when he runs his fingers over it, just at the corners. You couldn't run your fingers over this to see, like how the few blind men he's seen do it. (Infirmary tents, again. You'd see em try to feel the ink of the letters their families sent. Couldn't do it, most'a the time. Dead before their letter sent back, most'a the time. Every once in a while, though, someone'd get it.)

Wishful, curious thinking.

When he makes his way back to Max, kicking the guy that's on the ground in the head, he changes direction.

He'd been heading from Wyoming to Texas—a lead, weak and moreso an excuse to wander—but it's on the way, Utah. He passed territory borders a while ago. He remembers some of the mountains he passed the first time he made it to Hellauer.

There's this funny thing Max does sometimes when they ride. She'll crane her neck around even when she's sprinting, like she's thinking. He's got no clue how smart horses are. Maybe they're like dogs, how some're smarter than Frank is and some're dumb as rocks, depending on the breed. God knows where Mustangs fall on the smart to stupid spectrum.

She keeps looking around while Frank tilts his head down, letting the brim of his hat block wind from his eyes. The world bleeds from plains to rock formations, green to orange. The sun falls from the middle of the sky to eye-level on the horizon.

Hellauer is pretty in the evening. Frank saw it briefly when he was leavin' those months ago, but that was from inside out. Outside in, the purple of dusk is dotted with window fireflies. The whole town seems a little softer. The stores along the main street have bright lights, and he can see people wander through the street.

It's a Saturday, so tomorrow's the day of rest. At the end of the street, the saloon's light is beaming.

Frank hitches Max on the same post as last time. Lets her eat an apple out of his hand as he listens to the fiddle sing out of the windows. He considers going inside to see Matt play it, but sometime between Max eating the left side of the apple and her gnawing on the core, the music changes to piano.

"Hey, friend." Frank doesn't jump at the Irish lilt from the doorway. It floats just under the piano and when Frank turns, he's met with a shadow, lit from behind. Where the light climbs around Matt, he's orange, pale, wearing red. Same as he was before.

"Friend." Frank pats Max, drops the apple. Looks at Matt and nods. "I nodded."

Matt smiles, must do, because the silhouette of his face changes. "I know. But keep doin' that, it's sweet."

"Thought you were blind?" Frank tucks his hands into the pockets of his leather duster. He's mildly surprised, but not unhappy, to be greeted with such hospitality.

"I am." Matt pushes one of the saloon doors back, leaning. "Can't a boy be blind and know when you nod?"

"Not usually, no." Frank walks up the steps, stands next to him. Lit from the side, Matt's got the little red in his cheeks that comes with drinking. His eyes are flickering toward the saloon, looking like he's searching the room. He sighs and steadies them on Frank, starting to grin.

"Well, it's not the first time I've been called unique." He gestures to enter the saloon, and Frank follows.

When he first came into Hellauer, people looked at him appraisingly. They tried to figure out if he was a threat or not. Walking in with Matt holdin' the door for him gets a gallery of eyes that all look at him with a baseline friendliness. Some are cautious, but none hostile.

"You must be the real golden boy." Frank finds his way to the bar, Matt still leading him. "Nobody here's lookin' at me like I'll kill 'em."

"Not your usual reception?" Matt gestures to the same bartender as last time. She moves to pour something amber and smooth into two glasses.

"Nah, not really." Frank talks a little loud to counteract the noise of the saloon; there's people all around them, warm yellow lights keeping them lit. Dancing, talking, drinking. That same girl from before is playin' the piano, surrounded by people. The sight's about as warm as the lights.

Matt drinks. "What brings you to Hellauer?"

Frank pulls the charcoal map out of his pocket. It smudged some, but not enough to be illegible. He puts it on the bar and passes it towards Matt. He knows the motherfucker probably can't read it, but hey. Maybe he can. He can tell when people nod.

Matt looks at the paper, a whole-head movement, and looks back at Frank. He's got the beginnings of a smile on his face, a full one in his voice, when he says, "You know I can't read that."

"Well, maybe you could." Frank grabs the thing and tucks it back into his pocket. "Who 'm I to know?"

Matt shrugs, "Well, enlighten me, friend. Tell me what's it you've brought."

"Nothin' much, really. It's a map. Some information on the back. Nah, see, I'm more interested in somethin' else." Frank leans in, conspiratorially. He's maybe seventy, eighty percent sure that the man who can't read would be the same man to leave this behind. "Where I got it."

"You think someone here can answer that f'you?" Matt's smile gets more canines. Maybe that's what he does when he's disingenuous.

"I think you can." Wishful thinking, not wistful. He did that guy, cut up the same way, on the road outside of Hellauer.

Matt leans forward, hand outstretched. When Frank leans away from him he laughs, puts his other hand on the crook of Frank's neck and shoulder. The free hand finds its way into Frank's pocket and to the map, which he pulls out and turns over in his fingers.

"It's paper from California. Old, too. 'S got charcoal writing on it, smudged by greasy hands. There's gunpowder mixed with the charcoal. Some dirt. Dust." Matt sniffs, like a dog, "Blood was around it. Not on it, but around it. A lot. Couple veins worth, probably. Of course, it also," Matt starts to hand the paper back, "smells like you."

Huh. "Smells like me?"

"Mhm." Matt drinks, something smug and self-satisfied breaching his expression. "Warm from your body, too. You've been carrying it for a while."

Creepy. Uncomfortable. Makes his heart beat a little faster. He breathes slow and shallow a couple times before settling. Matt smiles at the deep breath, because shit, he could probably tell. He's all smug as he drinks again, canines out, cheeks pinching up.

"Well, then. I'm assuming you ain't worried about the room of blood I got this in?" Frank drinks, the burn clearing awkwardness from his throat. He intentionally keeps himself turned towards Matt. He won't close off, won't be so damn obvious.

Matt slides his hand from Frank's neck to his shoulder. Pats it twice, turns away. "You're here, aren't you? You know s'well as I do what happened."

Frank grabs Matt's hand from its place in the air. Puts his thumb between the pointer and middle finger, palm grasping everything else. "I don't. Somethin' cut them up, Red. They did somethin', hopefully to deserve it, but," Frank shrugs. "I need'ta know what you're up to. I punish the people that need it. That scene might make you need it."

Matt's face falls, something resigned, something wistful, something understanding. He pries his hand out of Frank's grip but keeps their palms together, lining up their fingers. Frank's hand is shorter, but wider. Matt's is long and thin. He shifts their fingers to be intertwined, stands up, downs the rest of his whiskey.

"I don't talk about it here. These people are good—the violence, it's…" His voice gets softer as he goes. "I've got something to show you."

Frank copies him, downing the whiskey, walking to the back of the room to a cabinet and door he hadn't seen. Their hands are entwined as Matt grabs something—the same damn thing that was on the barstool, months ago—and steps out back. It's all flat dirt and barrels, some grass and a trough for horses. You can look out and see the church on the hill, the windows bright yellow boxes.

The saloon is on a foundation, shockingly, so the light pours from above their heads.

"You called me Red." Matt's facing the church, away from Frank.

"You're wearing it." Frank shrugs. He considers pulling his hand back, but doesn't. "You were last time, too."

"Foggy's the one who chooses my clothes." Matt pulls his hand back, "He dotes. I don' mind it because it doesn't absorb heat very well."

Frank files that away. His hand tingles where Matt held him, irritated and warm. It's a little clammy. He shuffles, "I wear black. 'Spose that's why I'm always hot."

Matt smiles, "I'd need someone else to be the judge of that." He starts to unwrap the thing he'd grabbed, strands of fabric falling away around a case. No, Frank's… seen this before. In the army. It's a sheath. It's a weird shaped one, too long, too thin to be army, but it's a sheath.

Matt looks around, fabric wrap in his hand and sheath in the other. He walks over to one of the barrels and grabs it, dragging a healthy distance from the wall.

"A woman ran into town a month ago." Matt stalks around the barrel, weighing the sheath, wrapping the fabric around his hands like a boxer. "'They captured me,' she'd said. She said, 'they kept me. They said they were going to sell me.'" Matt flexes his hand around the handle of the sword. "So I went to find out who. I'm assuming you found the wagon they wrecked outside of t' cave. There was a daughter to the family. Twelve."

Frank's breath comes short and tight. He focuses it again. Matt peeks over his shoulder apologetic and hard, angry too. He continues to circle.

"She's alright. Staying with the parents of the piano girl inside." He points to the saloon with the sword, "they're good people. The woman, the wife—she's been through something similar. Before. I was around when she got here. Saw what he'd done." Matt pauses on the far side of the barrel, looking at Frank.

Frank nods. "So you killed 'em."

Matt shakes his head. "I don't do that."

Frank snorts. "They sure as hell weren't going to go on livin' after what you did to 'em. I saw it."

Matt points to a burlap bag on the ground. It's got APPLES written on it. "I didn't kill them. I cut them. If the blood don't coagulate…" he shrugs, "that's God's will, for them to die. If it does? God's will for them to live. I just deliver justice."

God can't save men from the brink of death. God doesn't save. God's real, Frank doesn't doubt it, but He's either left the world running without plannin' to interfere, or He's got a sick sense of humor. If the bible were right, God would've been in those med tents. God would've been over his family's wagon. He woulda been there. He would've had to, or else Frank's too much of a sinner to deserve it, and that line of thinking makes him ill.

"Justice that kills." Frank puts the bag of apples on the barrel. It slumps but stays upright.

"God kills. I do justice." Matt presses on the top of the sword, and the sheath starts to fall down. It shows a long, silver blade, maybe three feet. It's sharp. The light catches, the side facing Matt glimmering moonlight blue, the side facing Frank glowing saloon-light yellow.

Matt pulls the sword back, and in a swift motion cuts the bag in half. The top side slopes down, the cut clean enough to barely move it. He cuts again, and again, and the bag is in thirds, falling back. There's juice from the apples seeping over the barrel. Frank becomes aware of the flesh above his clavicle.

"That's a neat trick." He bites the surprise out of his voice. "In the gun west, I can imagine it's even better than neat."

Matt smiles, blade reflecting moonlight onto his face, "Better than neat, yeah." He sheathes the blade, kicks the barrel. The pieces of the bag and its contents stumble to the ground, and Matt shuffles the barrel to the wall it came from. He goes to pick up the pieces of apple, cradles them in burlap strips, "Your horse hungry, you think?"

They walk around the building to Max. She lifts her head when they approach and steps away from Matt, doing a cautious side-step that looks stupid with four legs. Matt smiles, though, and passes one of the burlap strips to Frank.

"You normally slice up bags of perfectly fine food to show off?" Max eats from Frank's hand, shuffling. Matt walks away from Frank and to the horse tied at the far end of the bar. It's smaller than Frank's, strong legs and a thin body. Made for racing. Pure white. Eyes faded and glossy. Mane braided normally, tail braided with a strand of bright red ribbon.

"These're starting to rot, Frank. Surprised you couldn't tell." Matt feeds the white horse (not a mustang—a Nokota? Something fast.) an apple, petting her head.

Frank looks down at the pieces of apple in his hand. Perfectly normal to him. He lifts a bit that Max hadn't gotten near, and—

"Don't." Matt drops his voice serious. "These came in with worms and have been sitting for a week. I trust horses can eat 'em, but…" He smiles.

Frank eyes the apples, "Shoulda led with the worms, Red. Shit."

Matt smiles, "We've met twice. Isn't a nickname jumping the gun, a tad?"

In the light of the bar, against the white horse and navy sky, Red feels pretty good. His entire body is red, from the orange hair that's technically redheaded, to the red outfit. He's gray against the blue sky but piercing red in the bar light.

"Most people I meet once, and never again." Frank shrugs, smiles, even as Max nips at his fingers and he remembers that Matt can't see it. "'Sides, Red. All of y' is. Even your horse."

Matt, swear to God, blushes. Eyes widening just a little, "I braided it with Dani. That's- I always wear what people give me, and she picked the same color. I can't… I didn't do it myself."

"It's cute, don't worry about it." Frank drops the burlap to the ground once there's no apple to hold. Matt does the same, tucks a bit of hair behind his ear. "Who's Dani?"

Matt pets his horse's mane, fiddles with one of the braids. "The piano girl. I'm friends with her parents."

"You saved the mother." Frank says.

"Mhm." Matt pats his horse, tucks his sword away and walks over. "Yeah, but she's tough. Fought me a coup'la times, won, even."

"Really?" Frank leans on the stair railing.

"She's a tough woman. In many ways." Matt walks to the other side of the railing, looks down at Frank. "Her husband came here after the war. He's tough, too. Very. Thick skin on him, hard to hurt. He's the big guy that wanders around town. Our sheriff."

Frank can't help the way his heart spikes at the mention of the war. He looks at Matt, who seems to notice the same thing, tilting his head with interest. "Which side?"

"The right one. Union."

"Hh." Frank nods. "Me too."

"So that's where you got your training. Knew you shot too well to have learned yourself." Matt laughs a little to himself.

"You've never seen me shoot." Frank leans up, so they're closer. "What about you?"

"Never fought in the war. Too young, too far west." Matt shrugs. He steps away from the railing and turns to walk into the bar, gesturing for Frank to follow.

"You look too young." Frank says, walking up the stairs. Matt's halfway through the doors. "I was askin' where you got your training. Swords ain't common."

Frank's words collide with the voices and piano of the saloon, and he's near certain that you should be able to make it out still, but Matt walks to the bar like he didn't hear them. Sits down right where they were initially and gestures the barkeep over.

"Josie. I got rid of those apples for you." He's leaning on his forearms over the bar, not sitting on the stools. The pose makes his shoulders ride up and his face disappear.

Josie pats him on the shoulder. "Thanks, devil. I'll cherish that. Maybe it'll make up for that bottle."

Frank gets to the bar, sits down at a stool. "Bottle?"

Josie rolls her eyes, walks away. Matt says, "I broke a few things in a fight a week back."

"Huh." Frank looks Matt over. He's got the muscle for it, bar fighting. "I can see you brawling."

Matt smiles. His eyes have the tiniest bit of dark in them, not bright, not casual like the rest of him. Frank notices because it wasn't there before.

There's a quiet moment where Frank watches Matt sit down and fiddle with his cuffs, clearing his throat before speaking. With the cough comes the high rise of his shoulders bowing down, and the edginess in his eyes being carefully tucked away.

"I won't kill. I do everything short of it." Matt doesn't give Frank a chance to respond, "Are you staying? Overnight?"

Maybe. "Maybe."

"The church offers a pew. 'S also got a little infirmary bed. That's where Lantom puts the people he likes." Matt rests the tip of his boot on the floor, the heel caught on the barstool's footrest. He's newly antsy.

"Well." It's been a long time since he and a mattress last saw each other. "Let's see how much the Father likes me."

Matt smiles and he's still weird, but his whole face seems relieved. It, and the free bed he's promised, is worth it. They walk their horses and themselves to the church, sky dark. Frank stumbles over some pebbles or shit and Matt laughs at him, doin' all sorts of fancy footwork around bumps in the road.

They walk around the back of the church when they get there, to the long house in the back. One side has a door with potted flowers and a lamp, the other has a horse pen and a bloodstain on the wood.

They tie Matt's horse, Mike, in the pen and Max next to her. Then, they walk around the house, and knock on the door. It takes far less time than Frank'd expected for Lantom to open the door, peer at them, and press a key into Matt's hand.

They go into the church through the backdoor and Matt sets him up in the infirmary, a long room with three beds. One is stripped of sheets—"My fault," Matt says, flashing a bandage on his wrist—but the others are made. Frank drops his pack (two shirts, one change of pants, another bandana with his logo on it) on the bed closest to the wall. The room is bottom-of-a-well dark.

"That map is clear't'you?" Matt loiters in the doorway, hands in pockets.

"Mostly. 'S even got coordinates on it." Frank leaves it in his coat pocket and he drapes the thing over the bottom railing of the bed.

"We should check it out. Together." Matt nods towards the jacket.

Matt looks good, posted up against the doorframe. He's lithe and solid, got muscles that don't add bulk to his form, but flow with it. The way he's started leaning shows the meat on his thigh, and Frank wonders if it's soft or solid.

"Y'know who I am, right?" Frank says, instead of any'o that.

"The ghost of the west. The killer. The avenger. The Punisher." Matt rolls his eyes. "D'you think I'm stupid?"

"I think you don't kill." Frank moves to stand up, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed. "And I do."

"I believe that it's not my place to kill a man or not." Matt walks into the room, stands over Frank. "I think it's God's will. And if God has willed you to kill 'cross the badlands, well. So He has."

There's full conviction in his voice, assured and confident and free of doubt. He means it. "Alright, then. Sure. We ride together."

Matt smiles, brings his hand out and grabs Frank's chin, tilting it up so they're looking at each other. Matt's eyes are cast at his forehead but it's alright. "I need you to know that I'd prefer you to not kill anybody while we go. Kneecaps are fair game but no heads."

Frank can feel his face get the slightest bit hotter. Matt's got callouses on the hand he's using to hold Frank. It must be the hand he holds his sword with. "I jus' asked if you knew who I was."

"And I just said I know who y' are." Matt's feelings turn on a dime. His brow is harsh and his voice a little angry, same way he got when he was talking about the women, but directed at Frank. He doesn't like being doubted. "You don't need to kill. It's not a part of you, is it?"

"No. 'Spose not." Frank feels the way Matt's thumb shifts on his chin. "I jus' don't see why I need to kneecap for you."

"You kneecap because I asked you to." Matt changes the angle, Frank's head being bent back a little stronger. "Okay?"

"If that's what it takes to get your backup." The change in angle was awkward enough Frank cherishes his head being dropped. He also cherishes Matt stalking back to the door, hanging on the doorframe again, this time facing away from Frank.

"You think we'll need it? Either of us?" Matt asks.

"This one looks like it's big." Frank thinks back to the map. He's got a military education, which is to say little, which is to say he understood the coordinates and drawing but not the smudged, not-quite-clear letters thrown in the corner. He made out "women" and "cave" but that's about it. Not that he should feel insecure—Matt missed the paper altogether.

"Well, then. I'll be glad to have you." Matt shoots a smile over his shoulder, warm in the light, before walking out of the church. His footsteps ring in the hollow chapel, and he disappears into the night a minute later. Through the window by Frank's bed he can see the silhouette of something long-legged walk to the house they hitched their horses to, and then he can't see much of anything.

Frank rolls over to sleep.

Next morning, Frank wakes up to someone sitting across from him. There's the telltale sound of a metal bedframe creaking and Frank forgets that he hadn't put his revolver under the pillow the night before, so when he sits up and grabs air, he looks like an idiot.

Not that the blind man sitting across from him can tell. (He can—he's proven to be blind in appearance only, but still. Matt doesn't comment on it.)

"Mornin', Frank." Matt's got shallow bags under his eyes and is slumped forward, exhausted. He's not in the whole red getup yet, either. Just a shirt and long pants. "Lantom does a morning service daily. It's an hour and a half. Figured I'd get you up before you're stuck here."

It hurts to get up, somehow more than it does to lean up off hard dirt and blanket. "Who shows up for daily hour-long services?"

Matt smiles. "I do, usually. Jus' finished setting everything up for him, too."

"Really?" Frank collects his coat from where it's draped and grabs his bag from the floor. "Is it just you?"

Matt laughs. Follows Frank out. "No, some people come. Most people without work do. Gives 'em somewhere to go, somethin' to spend time on." Matt waves to Lantom, who's standing by the altar and fussing with a Bible. "He teaches kids to read, too, so mothers come."

At that, Frank stops his shuffle across the church and turns to Lantom. The map. "Teaches readin' you said?"

"Yeah." Matt nods. "Would'a taught me if I could." He says it less with a joking inflection and more a tired, honest one.

"Father. Could you do me a favor?" Frank wanders over to the altar, watches the Father look at him. He also has bags under his eyes and an exhausted slope to his shoulders. There's a question there: why both Lantom and Matt, who do this every day, are visibly exhausted. But it's a rude question and one he doesn't want to ask, so damn him if he will.

"Depends, Mr. Castle." Lantom smiles. His voice is like Matt's. Too tired for a joke, comin' out honest instead.

Frank pulls the map out of his jacket. Flattens it against his chest and puts it on the podium in front of Lantom, pointing at the bubble of smudged text. "What's this say?"

Lantom takes a second, then reads: "'Move the women into the cave mouth on the South side. There is a wooden door made to look Indian. Unless they start rounding them up out here, we should be fine. Gas lamps all the way to where the tunnel surfaces. It's not big enough for a horse. The tunnel surfaces close enough to Wallace station that we can get them to New York easy.' Then there's coordinates—"

"—I know 'em. Can read those." Frank nods. The Father has a tight jaw and careful shoulders. He looks angry.

Matt's quiet from where he's standing.

"A tunnel sounds…" Lantom looks up. "…intense. You boys sure this is something you can do?"

"I don't know, Father, if I could do it alone." Matt sounds small. "But I've got him. And he's got me."

Something warm about that statement. Frank ignores it, says instead, "He'll be alright, don't worry. I'll bring him back for another mornin' service." He grabs the map and tucks it back into his pocket.

"What're you, my betrothed? C'mon." Matt whaps Frank on the back of the head, tugging him along by his collar, sayin' something like thanks to the Father and calling Frank cheesy. The Father looks soft, a little smile stretching across his face, more knowing and far fonder than he really ought to look.

Matt tugs him outside and points to his door. "We're getting dressed. I have non-worm infested apples for us to eat b'fore we leave."

Frank doesn't argue, just trundles along. The front door is bare and with bloodstain, and the horses are tied right next to it. Max shoves her snout into Frank's head when he walks by. Mike whinnys at Matt and he pats her, saying soft quiet down, quiet down's to her.

Matt's place, inside, is barren. It's a one-room house with one window facing the church graveyard, a gas lamp dangling in the center of the room. The lamp is off and the window covered, so the room is a void. Frank can see the odd outline of a kitchenette and a table, a bed in one corner and a trunk next to that. There's some dark patches that might be a rug, but God knows. He's definitely blind, living like this.

"Right. You can't see." Matt walks through the room and pulls the curtains covering the window. It lets white morning light cut through the room, adding color to the black. With the light he can see more of the "decoration."

Matt's decorations seem to be functional. He's got a Springfield rifle mounted above the bed, a pile of ashes and some stick lookin' things on the kitchenette counter, and a first-aid kit on the trunk. There are no pictures (obviously, dumbass) and nothing that speaks to a home. It's moreso a room that someone sleeps in. The only thing that looks nice is a cigar box on the floor, of all places.

"I can see. 'S you who can't." Frank walks into the room and drops his bag onto Matt's bed, grabs at the clothes he plans to wear.

Matt laughs from somewhere behind him and opens the trunk, letting the first-aid kit slide back and hit the wall. He's grabbing his clothes, too. Frank can tell because Matt pulls red, red, red out of the trunk.

They change, Frank facing the window, Matt behind him. He knows Matt's ready when he hears the clink of spurs on the floors, and turns around to see him throwing his hat on. Matt throws a thumbs up at Frank when he turns around, walks out the door.

"D'you- d'you want me to leave my bag here?" Frank calls after him, yelling out the open door.

He can hear Matt unhitch both of their horses, and sees him and Max poke their heads through the door, "Sure. We're goin'ta get hurt anyway, might as well have Lantom patch us up. Patch you up."

Frank leaves the bag on the bed.

"I spy with my little eye, somethin' blue." Frank cranes his neck upwards, squints at the sky. It's midday and they're maybe an hour out.

Matt rides horses in an awful way, slouching forward in the saddle, his front erring diagonal. He's got one lazy hand on the reins and his hat's riding up. He smiles, canines, eyes closed as he all but lays on Mike.

"You've gotta get better at this, Frank." Matt's voice is warm, "You keep looking at the thing you're describing."

"I'm playing I-spy with a blind man. I'd feel bad to not give him hints." Frank smiles, too. Sardonic. "And you aren't supposed to know what I'm lookin' at."

"I think you see the sky." Matt straightens, rolling his neck. "And too bad, Frank, because I do."

"Yeah. 'Nd fair enough." Frank looks at the sky. Blue and bright. "It might be noon by now. Or something."

"We left when?" Matt asks.

"Early." Frank scans the surroundings. It's just Utah, open, flat, orange-ish and bland. Not to say any other territories are particularly spectacular when you're on the flats. "Maybe seven?"

"Lantom has a clock. Should'a asked him." Matt doesn't say it like an accusation for not doing so, more says it like a passing thought. He sighs and leans forward again, petting Mike's neck. "Ugh. I spy… hear… a rattle."

"Shit, I gotta give you hints if you give me crap like that. Rattlesnake." Frank rolls his eyes.

"Mm-mm." Matt grins.

"You said a rattle."

"Mm-hmm." Matt sits up, straightening into actually proper posture. He points at a low hill, long fingers lazily rolling out of his hand. "I hear… the rattle of metal on metal."

He's a really annoying man. He's good at fighting probably, good at talking to, but damn. Fuckin' annoying.

"Guns?" Frank shifts in a way that makes Max stiffen, like she knows she's going to bolt soon. "Chains?"

"Minie balls on rifling. A lot of minie balls in ammo boxes." Matt grins, canines. They're right by the coordinates, only a little far, so the odds of these guys being their guys? High. "Race you there."

And Matt leans back forward and darts off, Mike kicking dirt up and making the air muddy. Matt and her make a white and red bullet, bolting to the hill. Frank follows, a muddy gray and black, cursing under his breath. Eating dust is worth it—almost—to hear Matt's wild, loose laugh.

He looks wicked, hair flowing past his face, hat near flying off, body crouched like he's riding to catch a train. Frank catches up to his side, matches pace. They sprint like that until Matt deems it unnecessary, pulling Mike's reins and letting her pull back on her hind legs, whinnying.

"Here!" Matt twists her as she lands, starting a slow trot toward one side of the hill. "Door's just over there. We can hitch 'em on the tree here."

Frank is far less showy as he slows Max down, turns her to follow the other two. There's a dried out, half-dead tree that's good enough to tie the horses to. They climb off and gear up.

Frank grabs: shotgun, rifle, revolver. He pulls his bandana over his nose and fixes his boot knife.

Matt grabs: sword, the Springfield from above his bed, and a knife he straps to his thigh. He fixes his hat and throws a red poncho on. Frank tries to keep his eyes off the strap of the thigh knife, answering the question from earlier today. It's nothing he needs to think about, as Matt tightens the strap and his thigh squeezes, showing Frank the exact moment it stops being soft and starts being muscle.

"What can you," Frank waves a hand by his ear, "hear?"

Matt tilts his head like a dog. Twitches. "The map is right. Hollow passage for a while, East facing. Gas lamps. Smells like blood."

Frank nods. The door they're in front of doesn't have a peephole, and it is Indian styled. A hide drape with beads embroidered on the front, a star pattern. Frank and Matt pull the hide over them and, the moment it drops, are swallowed by darkness.

Frank reaches for the lamps, but is stopped. Matt pulls his arm down and locks their elbows, "If someone comes in, we can't let them know we're here."

Frank grunts. They walk into the darkness.

It's a period of listening to nothing but footsteps, breath, and Matt's instructions: "Watch your step." "It's wet. Water, not blood." "It's wet. Blood, not water."

They go until Matt walks slow and quiet and pulls his sword out, keeping it horizontal over the ground. Frank instinctually pulls his rifle. A minute or so of more walking, and he sees light peeking out from the bottom of a metal door.

"It's another cave. Goes up with a tunnel like this one." Matt taps the wall for punctuation. "There's a cage. Five heartbeats inside 'o it. Eightee… twenty outside."

Frank manually keeps his breath steady and begins to load his weapons. They're far enough from the door that he doesn't worry about the clink of ammo in the barrel of the rifle, but close enough that he loads the shotgun nice and slow, so it doesn't crack quite as loud.

Matt's serious, and in the sliver of light on his face, Frank can make out a scowl. Frank adjusts so the gun faces the door, tries to see what kind of lock it has.

"Shoot knees." Matt walks forward and begins to paw at the door.

"They've got five women in there. Some'o'em young. You want me to shoot knees?" Frank hisses, it reverberates in the hollow space.

"They don't deserve it quick." Matt takes what looks like a needle out of his pocket and fiddles with the doorknob, "An' I got a feelin' of what God's judgement's gonna be."

Frank huffs. Looks back to the door. It's an excuse, he thinks as Matt works the lock. They all die—it's just that Matt doesn't have to look them in the eyes when he does it. Or hear their heartbeat. Whatever. It's a cheap excuse.

But it's good enough for now, because he's seen the way those men look when they bleed, and it's the good kind of ugly.

The lock opens, and Matt does not attack.

"What's in here?" Matt pushes the door open with his back, spinning to face Frank. "D'you think it's riches? Gotta be, if they've hidden it so well!"

Frank fights utilitarian. Count the people you're killing, count your ammo, fight until you win. They're outnumbered, two of them to… however many. A lot more. He tightens his grip on the rifle. Frank lets his hand drift to the trigger, staying just behind the door, watching.

"Why're you staying there? C'mon, lad, let's…" Matt turns around. The brim of his hat is low, Frank realizes, so they can't see his eyes. "Oh. Hello."

One of the men squints at Matt. He has a fat cigar dangling at the edge of his mouth, hand full of cards. He stands up, takes the cigar from his mouth, "Who're you?"

"A regular 'ol cowboy." Matt smiles, putting his hands up. "We do the cattle drive through here, sometimes. Saw a covered cave and followed it, thinkin' there'd be something at the end. Looks like we were right."

Frank shifts his weight, tucks the rifle behind his thigh so he can step into the room proper. He lingers in the corner and counts the men, now that he has the time to do so. There's twenty, like Matt said.

"Right. Sure." Cigar Man looks at them.

"Did we find ourselves some treasure?" Matt grins, canines. "I mean, y'must be, if you're so far out. Doin' somthing in the desert."

"What, you think you can join the gang?" A guy in the back scoffs, and Matt shrugs.

"Who's your friend?" Cigar Man gestures to Frank. Frank steps away from the door, but not to the center of the room with Matt. He's just far enough inside that he doesn't look like he's about to bolt, but not far enough that he can't.

"He's a stoic arsehole." Matt's accent makes an 'r' show up in asshole, which makes Frank wish he was in a situation where he could mock that. "But a good man. Cows love 'im."

A beat. Frank tilts his head down so he can look around without meeting anybody's eyes. The long, dark side of the room makes the soft sound of metal against metal. There are, undoubtedly, cages back there. His trigger finger twitches.

"We're poor, though. As you can guess." Matt steps forward, his hand dropping. It falls behind the poncho and just where his knife is strapped to his thigh. "Y'guys taking new members?"

Cigar Man laughs. "We ain't an open operation, feller. Not out here, at least."

"Not out here?" Matt's hand slides onto his knife.

"Unless you can find some women to grab out there in th' desert, then no. We ain't open." Cigar Man takes it out of his mouth, blows smoke into the air.

"But if we were in a town, you'd take us?" Matt's fingers coil around the handle.

"We'd let you grab some women for us, sure. Give you a cut." Cigar Man steps back. "But I don't think the cattle drive comes through here."

Matt doesn't bother to answer, just grips his knife and lunges forward, stabbing the blade in the muscle between Cigar Man's clavicle and neck.

The room explodes.

The men in the back lunge for weapons and end up scrambling over each other, some of them falling. Frank grabs his pistol and shoots at two of the guys on the ground, four bullets spent on four knees.

Matt pulls the knife out and sticks it into Cigar Man's palm, this time. He uses the grip on the knife to pull Cigar Man in, only to kick him in the chest and send him flying back. The knife rips out of his hand longways. There's blood gushing from the flesh between his middle and ring finger. Matt uses the rifle strapped to his back as a blunt instrument to hit against the man's head—and he slumps, down.

That makes it two against seventeen.

Frank grabs his shotgun and shoots generally in the direction of all the men. The spray hits a couple, a man doubling down and clutching his arm, another's knee buckles. Matt uses his rifle to hit the crown of the crouched man's head.

Two to sixteen.

Frank loses two revolver bullets on another set of knees, stepping a little closer. He loses a shotgun shell on the floor, letting the spray and gravel ground explode upwards. Glass flies into the air as a bottle breaks in two. Matt unsheathes his sword, slides the long, thin blade across one man's chest. His shirt turns to red and he falls to the ground gasping a moment later.

Two against fourteen. This isn't so bad.

Matt uses the heel of his boot to push the man he just cut into the gravel. The guy screams, voice barely hidden under the sound of shots. The other side has finally gotten their weapons.

The shots send Frank moving backwards and down, while Matt just pushes himself behind them, using his sword to cleave through the arm in his way. A man drops the gun he found and gets a sword hilt to his head for the trouble.

Okay, two against an armed thirteen.

Matt picks his rifle off the ground and hits another couple men with it, none of them falling, but all stumbling. It gives Frank the chance to move in close and use his shotgun on three men's knees, their screams clawing out in unison.

Two to ten. This is going really, surprisingly fast.

Frank tries to reload the shotgun, but he's too close, and the moment he extends an arm to open the damned thing someone grabs it. He has no chance to look before it gets pulled, more than it should be, and there's a popping noise as sharp pain blossoms in his right shoulder. He stumbles forward to try and compensate, but gets a sharper pain. He looks down and is met with a shard of glass in his pec.

Matt, moving above him, is moving effective. Frank can hear another two bodies hit the ground, and the hand on his arm goes limp a second later. When Frank pulls away, Matt has a wicked smile and blood on his chin, swinging his blade in an arc, the sharp end peeling skin off a man's jaw.

That's… Frank checks, that's two to seven.

Frank carries his own weight by fumbling to grab his pistol with his left hand and using the butt to knock out someone on his left. He pulls the trigger and hits someone behind that someone, who stumbles forward and gets hit by Matt a second later.

Five.

Matt kicks someone's jaw and Frank takes a second to stare in awe at that, before shooting the guy's hip and sending him to the ground.

Four.

Frank shoots another hip and Matt uses the hilt of his sword to get the head.

Three.

A bullet scrapes a man's shoulder, a sword digs into the divot. He falls in pain and this time, Frank gets to kick him unconsious.

Two.

One man has started to run, but Frank shoots his knees out and his head clangs against the wall.

Frank turns around and sees Matt panting over a limp body.

Zero.

The room is quiet, then, spared from the shots and the shouts and the screaming. There's the sound of metal on metal coming from the dark end of the room, which is probably the women. It's hopefully the women.

There's a second where they catch their breath and Matt flicks his sword around, letting blood fly off the metal and onto the walls. Frank shoves his revolver into its holster and puts the shotgun away, not really registering the way it hurts to do that.

After a while, Matt laughs. He wipes blood from his lip, rubs at his jaw. He smiles, canines. "Didn't get me too bad. Having you's nice."

"Is it?" Frank's jaw stings. The back of his head whines and that's no good, but what might be worse is the lack of pain from his arm. It was beating with it, a pulse in-tune with his heartbeat, but now it's just pins and needles. A dead weight.

"I'd keep you if you'd let me." Matt rolls his shoulders, stands up straight. He starts toward the cage, not bothering with the keyring on the ground. "But I don't think my help did much for you." He throws an apologetic look to Frank.

Frank's arm is wet, he can tell that much. It's blood, probably, judging by the way he can feel it flow in two distinct rivers from his shoulder to his fingers. He grits his teeth and swallows hard, a hand moving to his shoulder.

"Don't." Matt stops working on the cage's lock. "Don't, Frank. You've got something stuck in it. Don' want you to get it deeper in."

Frank nods. He trusts Matt, fully and wholly, even when maybe he shouldn't. Only one of 'em can't feel their arm. He tries to walk over to the cage, but Matt holds up a hand and clicks the lock open. Stay.

Frank does.

The door opens and the women inside all look between Matt and Frank, weary, careful.

"We're very close to Wallace station. It'll take you to New York, Philadelphia, any of the places eastbound." Matt steps away and gives them space. "You could also come to Hellauer. It's in Utah territory, square in the middle. By the rock formations. I… can help you more, if you go there. But you don't gotta. And there's plenty'a money on these bodies and tables for all'o you, regardless of where you go."

The women are cautious. One of them climbs out of the cage and glances between Frank and Matt before walking over to one of the groaning, writhing men. She's not cautious as she rifles through his pockets and rubs sand into the open cuts, and the louder he gets the more the other women feel invited to explore.

Matt steps back as the last woman leaves the cage. He's wiping the blood off his sword, avoiding the sharp edge, bloodying the scrap of cloth he's holding. Frank realizes it's from one of the men's shirts. He realizes that Matt has a handful of cloth, almost the entire shirt, and is walking to wrap Frank's arm.

"This sounds worse than I thought." Matt runs careful, feather-light fingers over the arm. Stops at Frank's shoulder. Tilts his eyes up to approximately look Frank in the eye, cloudy blues landing on his brow. Questioning.

"'S my shoulder?" Frank can't feel it.

"I'm going to pull it into place." Matt smiles weakly. He reaches to Frank's pec, stops, looks concerned, then grabs Frank's wrist and braces himself on Frank's left pec. It's odd, because usually they brace on the pec next to the arm, but any and all thoughts get squashed the moment Matt pulls. His bone slots into place and burns, and Christ almighty. The fabric scrap is tied into a loop and fitted into a sling.

The pain of the shoulder relocation makes him think to yell, but the burn keeps him quiet. He opens his mouth and stays silent. It burns. It burns harder when he feels a piercing pain in his chest, and—huh. The numbness hasn't left his pec.

"You notice this?" Matt asks, soft. "This…"

"Bottle." Frank blinks through the feeling of Matt wiggling the piece of glass, "Broken off in me. Ugh. Didn't feel it after the. The," He waves his hand at his shoulder. He'd almost forgotten about it.

"I don't know…" Matt worries his lip between his teeth. "…external injuries I can do, but this is Lantom territory."

"It's in my chest." Frank grunts. "What about my heart?" He's seen anatomy sketches before. He knows that his heart is in his chest and that a piece of glass jostling around while he's on horseback might not be the brightest idea, just… staying alive-wise.

"You don't need'ta worry about that." Matt smiles, stops fiddling with the glass. "I can hear it. It's going strong." He's leaning into Frank's chest a little, one hand on his arm and the other on his injured pec. They share breath, Frank's mildly relieved and Matt's tender until he snorts a laugh, "and th' heart's on the other side, anyway."

"Oh, fuck off." Frank shoves Matt with his good arm and he breaks out into a laugh, not wild like earlier but breathless. Some of the women look at them, startled by the noise.

"It'd be a valid concern if you were'ta have a heart on the right side." Matt wipes at his mouth and the blood from his sleeve leaves a smear. "You're just this side of clever."

Frank rolls his eyes, turns to leave. He picks up his gun and struggles to throw the strap over his shoulder, and Matt takes it from him to sling it over his own. The shotgun is still in the hip holster, the revolvers are tucked away nicely. It's alright.

Matt turns around and tells the women to find Hellauer if they need, before falling in line with Frank. The darkness crawls over them again and there's a fleeting thought about looting the place himself—guns, ammo, the necessities—but something makes him think Matt wouldn't be keen on it. Something makes him think his still-bleeding chest wouldn't be keen on it.

Matt doesn't say anything when Frank leans up to flick on the gas lamp, all of them in the tunnel lighting up in quick succession.

"You're good with that sword." Frank says. Echoes, in the tunnel. It's starting to dawn on him that they must've walked an hour to get out here, maybe more, and they've got to go the whole way back. And ride even further than that. "I thought that you wouldn' be able to hold up against men with guns, but… shit. You really can."

Matt must smile at him, because his voice comes out directed at Frank's head, rather than straight. "Any man can stand back with a gun. Get in their face and you're really asking them to do somethin'. And most men haven't got a clue what to do with a katana in their faces. Most haven't seen one." Matt says the word katana with a pronunciation unlike any other.

"Katana?" The word rolls off Frank's tongue far more clunkily, lacking the sharp distinction Matt carries.

"Japanese. It cuts nice n' thin." Frank can see Matt, under the gas lamp light, run a finger on the curvature of the sheath. "I got it a while ago."

"From who? Take a trip out to California?" Frank asks.

Matt shakes his head, shrugs, "I got it a while ago."

They keep walking. It takes a long time, feeling longer than the walk there, for them to see the hide that covers the cave entrance. When they do, it feels good. Matt holds the hide above Frank's head and lets him protect his chest, and they wander back to the horses together.

Matt's got that blank face on, the one he had back at the bar when Frank asked where he'd learned to do what he does, and there's a picture starting to form. Sometime, some years ago, somebody taught that man to fight and gave him a sword to do it. Sometime, after those years ago, that man decided to not think of or acknowledge that person. Something within those two sometimes lingers on him like a ghost and makes him uneasy when it's brought up.

Frank climbs on Max's back, ignoring the hand Matt provides for support on his lower back. Matt climbs on Mike and smiles at him all bright, intentional relaxation flooding his form.

"We'll get to Hellauer before it gets dark, if we go fast." Matt grips the reins, nods to Frank. "It might disturb your shoulder, but that glass is so far in there it won't move."

Not reassuring, but hell. Better than knowing it'll wreck his muscle. Frank nods, "Okay. Race you." He darts off like Matt did earlier, and it's almost a perfect mimic—Matt even lets out that same wild laugh, surprised and pleased, and kicks off after him.

The ride is painful. He can only hold on with one hand so his balance is shot, and leaning to correct it has to be with his injured side, which burns. They race long enough that the horses pant and slow on their own, and once they're matched in pace, Matt tilts his head like a dog to check on Frank. He gives a reassuring thumbs-up, so it's probably alright.

Hellauer greets them in afternoon tones and long shadows, not quite dusk. People pay them mind only until they spot Mike in her pure white shine, immediately recognizing Matt and Frank by extension as non-threats.

They ride up to the church and Frank bites off the headache that's been building when he jumps off Max and crumples onto the ground, bending his knees too deeply for what should be a regular ass dismount. Matt moves slow and behind Frank, arms ready to catch him if he falls, like he's a child.

"I'm fine," Frank swats at Matt's hands as they enter through the back door of the church, "Headache 's all. I'm alright." He insists at Matt opening the door for him.

"Sure you are. Let's see what Lantom thinks o' that." Matt holds the door, expectant, and Frank stands outside of it, rude. "Franklin." He scolds.

"Odd to scold me with a name you ain't sure is my name." Frank grumbles. The church is mostly abandoned, some random few talking to Lantom and each other. They look at him and Matt and don't quite startle, but do something close to it. Surprise without shock nor urgency.

"Well, I'm trying to figure it out, so until you tell me, I will scold you with Francis." Matt closes the door, stepping into the church. His spurs click against the floor, and Frank's eyes tilt downward, and he notices that he's been trailing blood.

"Francis ain't what you scolded me with the first time." He watches Lantom make apologetic gestures at the churchgoers and shoo them from the church.

Matt waves an awkward goodbye and moves to stand next to Frank, arm moving to hold his shoulders. Frank leans into it, straightening his back and pressing into the arm.

"Yeah, I know." Matt speaks against his ear, "Whatever keeps you jokin'."

"It's not so serious, Matthew." Lantom has a good announcer voice, loud from the front of the church. "He's upright, is he not?"

"Sorry for the blood on your floors, Father." Frank's announcer voice is closer to a shout, and he feels guilty.

Matt and Frank are ushered into the infirmary room by Lantom, who tuts at the both of them. "The blood is alright. Let's get you fixed."

"You jus' said it wasn't so serious." Matt asks as they're pushed through the infirmary door.

"Of course it isn't. But he's still bleeding." Lantom pushes Frank onto the same bed he slept in the night before. "Tell me."

Matt lingers in the corner while Lantom undoes the splint and fetches supplies, gauze and strange metal things and whatnot. The entire time, Matt is saying what happened, from the ride there to the tunnel to the fight. It's nice to listen to, despite the story. His voice lilts and says the words in a pretty way is all, that prettiness soothing over the part where he says "Frank got stabbed with a beer bottle."

They reach the point where Lantom has Frank shirtless and laying flat. He's got tong-like things in one hand and the other bracing the still-bleeding wound. On his back, Frank can see the ceiling and the way the white wood forms neat slats. He can see a shock of orange hair at the bottom of his vision, standing sentry.

Lantom pokes around and watches the winces of pain. He turns toward the orange hair, "Matthew. Bring me water and something alcoholic — it'll sanitize — and bring his bags back. He's staying here tonight." He switches between addressing Matt and Frank.

"Will do." Matt nods and wanders off. His spurs clink halfway to the back door, when the sound of him tugging them off with an angry exhale echoes through the empty church.

Lantom rolls his eyes, tuts, "Such a child, sometimes."

"Taking his spurs off makes 'im a kid?" Frank grunts. It's an awkward position to speak in, flat on your back.

"He does that because of his ears. He hears so much, he… when he's like a child, all stressed and overturned, that's when he gets overwhelmed and does things like that." Lantom prods the glass with his tongs.

"He can hear a lot, can't he?" Matt finding Frank's heart. Matt looking at Frank. Matt navigating through the dark. Matt having ice blue eyes, cloudy as the sky in monsoon season.

"It makes up for what he can't see. If he hadn't lost his eyes, God knows where he'd be." Lantom gets quieter, "A blessing and a curse, maybe."

"Blessin'? What good does," Frank grunts as Lantom's tongs grab the glass and shift it, "bein' unable to see do 'im?"

"His ears, child. They hear more than most. More than any I've met." He grips the glass and pulls it out, challenging Frank to move, hand pressing down. Frank hisses but stays quiet. This feels important. "And… maybe, maybe it's not so much a blessing for him, but it is undoubtedly a blessing."

Frank breathes through his nose very intentionally. The woman who had been kidnapped. The women who they just saved. The town who looks at him with reverence and respect and a mess of everything in-between. Frank speaks, pained, "So he's Jesus? Suffering for the sake of every'ody else?"

The Father smiles and laughs, maybe harder than he should at blasphemy, "Perhaps not so extreme, to not such a dire degree, but… sure. He's… hell has taken him. And he has walked through it. And he keeps others from it." The Father pauses, the tinny clang of the glass hitting a metal plate filling the room. Lantom keeps his hand on the wound, "Took. Hell had took him, not taken. He's… he's free now." His voice trails quiet, quieter, gone.

"Hell?" Frank asks, because the pain is leaking to his brain and the burn is sharp. His mind is too busy clinging to the words, turning them over in his head and thinking of them like bullets, trying to find which gun they go to and which kind of rifling left marks.

"Did Matthew show you his sword?" Lantom has an unhappy turn to his mouth as the leaking wound dribbles onto his hand.

"The katana?" Frank tries not to be uncomfortable as Lantom pours some whiskey onto a cloth, dabs it around the gaping hole in Frank's chest. Didn't he just send Matt to get more?

"Hm." Lantom's hum is amused, "He told you the proper name." His words, though, are not. They gain a harsh edge as he speaks.

"He wouldn't tell me where he got it, though." The alcohol soaked cloth continues to sting the edges of his wound.

"What man wishes to talk of hell, let alone the parts of it he treasures?" Lantom tries to mix the amusement and the harshness and comes out filled with contempt and an anger that makes Frank somewhat weary of having him sew him together. "He… Matthew was not always with us, here. They are remains from the time before."

"From hell." Frank nods, ineffective and subtle as it is flat against the pillow. "Which is…? He's Irish, so I'm guessin' New York?"

"New York was…" Lantom considers, "limbo feels cruel to his father. New York was life."

"'S this death?" There's the clatter of a searching hand, Lantom must be looking for something on the plate.

"That feels cruel to the town." Lantom finds whatever he's looking for, leans back to fiddle with it. "I suppose this metaphor isn't very helpful."

"I s'pose I've got a military education." Frank grunts. He only sort of knows what metaphor means. "Say whatever you wanna say. I like to learn."

"Do you?" Lantom chuckles, and flashes the needle and thread in front of Frank, letting him know what it is he's doing. He waves away any responses from Frank and talks again, lining himself up to start stitching. "Matthew's hearing hurts him. At times. It's why he gets childish and angry and throws his spurs to the ground. His ears are overly attuned. There are times when he's in open space and hears the world around him for fuzzy miles. Or there are times when there's too much noise in too small a space and Matthew begins to panic. When this first happened, he was a child."

Lantom stitches. Takes a steadying breath.

"He relied on his father to bring him back from panic. From being able to hear everything in the world. Until his father died, and it was just him, a blind immigrant boy in New York City who couldn't be around too much noise without crumbling." Stitch. "You can imagine."

Frank raised his family in New York City. Maria would help with household tasks for petty cash and Frank worked on fixing tight, careful machines of all kinds. They lived somewhere nicer than awful and had two kids who were, generally speaking, alright. He'd walked through factories and poor parts of town and it was loud. Louder than he was comfortable, let alone comfortable for the guy who seems to hear everything always.

Frank does an awkward nod again, and Lantom nods back. Stitch.

"He suffered. He doesn't like to talk about it. I believe he lived in a church, living off scraps and the kindness of a Sister, but he was far from well. He would panic. I wasn't there, but I knew Matthew when he was young. I know how it looks." Stitch. "An old man found him. Heard him. Heard Matthew like how Matthew hears us." Stitch, sharp and fast and maybe a little angry.

"It was 1861, Matthew was 11. The war pushed the city into overdrive and nobody, not even the kind Sister, noticed him gone." Pause. Somber, weak pause, where Lantom avoids Frank's eyes. "Somehow he ended up in Hellauer in 1865. He kept the training, the sword. The malnourishment, the bruises, the pain… he left that. He doesn't look like that anymore. Doesn't flinch like that anymore." Stitch.

"What happened to the old man?" Frank doesn't have much to say past that. He knows this is the bare version of the story, the one ripped of emotion and a conclusion, threads hanging loose, questions dangling. He knows the truest version will not come from Lantom, but Matt, and even then—it might not.

Stitch, stitch, silence. Lantom opens his mouth to say something, when the door creaks open.

"Frank. Your bag, and whiskey. For the wounds." Matt moves to the side of the bed and puts the whiskey next to the other bottle, and even flat like he is, Frank can tell the first bottle is near full. Matt's interjection came too close to Lantom wanting to talk, and his hearing is too good to have not heard them. He knows they've been talking about him and wanted to specifically stop Lantom.

Lantom ties off the final stitch with Matt hovering close to his back, looming in Frank's vision. He can see why the guys in that room were scared, now. If all he knew of Matt was a dead quiet shadow, he'd be a little weary.

"Thank you, Matthew." Lantom's voice has a carefully applied steadiness to it. He twists to talk to Matt, "You can apply a bandage from here."

"Sure, Father." Matt steps back to give him space. Light from the window by the bed leaks through and makes Matt no longer a shadow. He looks guarded and tense but also something else. In the rise of his chest when he breathes, shallower than it should be, something weighs.

Lantom smiles at Frank and pats Matt on the shoulder, walking out of the room. Frank considers sitting up, but Matt immediately shoves a hand on his chest to keep him down.

"Your muscles coil when you lean up." Matt slides his hand down to Frank's core. "Right here."

Frank doesn't ask, doesn't question. Just looks at Matt, brow raised, and when he remembers that might not be the most helpful thing he hums. Matt produces a roll of bandages and taps Frank to roll on his side so he can wrap his chest.

"S'you can hear my muscles but not what we were talkin' about?" Frank asks as Matt ties off the bandage, after a while of silence. It's generally a good idea to not piss off the guy wrapping your chest.

"I don't see why it concerns you." Matt tightens the knot, enough that the bandage presses into the wound instead of laying on top of it.

Frank grunts, "If we're gon' watch each others backs, sure it does. I'm an open book. Everythin' I do is military. You know that."

"Military men don't know how to sharp shoot like you do." The bandage is tight and there's nothing left to really fuss with, so Matt is forced to take his hands off Frank and hang them by his sides instead. "Military men don't kill across the west. Somethin' I've been kind enough to ignore."

"I've a reputation. You know that. I know that you know that." Frank feels stupid, arguing while laying on his side, looking up.

"Well, you didn't tell me shite, so." Matt throws his hands out, not quite angry but surely not calm.

"I'm infamous." Frank pushes himself upright. With only one arm and off balance, it's a pain, but he's not picking fights laying down.

"So I know the barest minimum of who you are. Like you," Matt does an exaggerated swing of his arm, like a bow or a curtsy, "now know about me."

"'S that's fair, now?" Frank's sitting on his ass, now, looking into Matt's eyes. Like how they can't see, they don't seem to hold a ton of emotion; that's all in his brow, his mouth, the way the muscles around his eyes twitch with barely held anger. And that's something, Frank knows that Matt's got anger, got that devil.

"Yeah." Matt walks away, crossing his arms, moving to stand in the doorway. "That's fair."

Frank cares in some part because he feels left out, because his partner (in loose terms) is holding out on him. He cares mostly because the story of a child being kidnapped and walking away with a sword, the man who did it nowhere to be found, is eerie. Less for the man, more for Matt, more for sir 5th commandment. More for Frank's own curiosity and interest.

If Frank's being honest, he cares mostly because Frank's found himself mighty fond of Matt. Matt's a good man, good to talk to, fine to look at, with resources and time that Frank enjoys taking. If someone hurt him, in a way bad enough he refuses to speak of it, Frank wants to know.

Frank… Frank wants to help, maybe.

"You kill him?" He waves his hand. "You best've. Killed him. Sounds like he deserved it." Frank is a terrible liar; being blandly honest is far easier.

"I don't believe in murder, Francis." Matt uncurls his arms, lets his right travel up the doorframe and hang. "And I'll reopen that wound 'f you keep pressing."

Frank nods, "Alright." Whatever Matt went through, whatever hell he might've lived, is his to deal with. If Frank finds the fucker, he'll kill him, but it's not his place. Not really. He doesn't quite know Matt that well, to claim to do things in his name. Even if he wants to.

Frank can feel his heartbeat slow down, and knows Matt probably can, and so he knows that he knows that they're alright. Matt steps to leave, but. It feels wrong. To let him.

"You got it right." Frank looks up. Matt tilts his head, a soft incline, curious. His brow, what little Frank can see now that Matt's made his way out of the light, is still harsh. "It's, uh, Francis. Frank from Francis."

Matt smiles, his lips and not teeth catching the light. "I thought you were from New York?"

"Never said that." Frank shakes his head, presses his feet into the wood floor. Doesn't move.

"But ain't all Italians from New York?" Matt tenses his hand around the doorframe, veins on the back of his hand popping. Frank's heart speeds at that and Matt can tell, 'cause he raises a brow. That scar is gnarly.

"When'd I say I was Italian?" Frank smiles, warm and he might actually feel it, as Matt laughs and walks off. A few seconds later and the back door of the church clicks closed, leaving Frank alone.

"So you're tellin' me Israelites came here? That Jerusalem number two is gon' be right in the heartlands? And I can get a free book all about it?" Matt smiles, canines out, grinning. He's leaning into the poor man's personal space, nodding extensively.

"W-well, yes! See, that's the beauty of it; the Lord knows the promise of America!" The missionary, or whatever he is, is nice, plump, and rosy. He's got that pastor look that all of 'em have, with the wild white sideburns and made-up dress. But he's not a pastor, he's a… a…

"Whadd'o they call you folks again? Y'aint a priest." Frank leans forward on Max, not wanting to get off her back. Matt, though, got off Mike the moment the poor Mormon-whatever decided to try and sell him on the all-new, all-revolutionary bible. "Not a pastor either, though, are you?"

"Bishop, sir! I lead the congregation here and we always take new people!" The Bishop tries to shove his little book in Frank's direction, but Max's height and Matt standing square in front of him work to make a very obnoxious wall. He redirects the book to Matt, hesitates, sheepishly looks between the both of them. "You, er, can have your friend read it to you."

Matt's face does an impressive twitch-wrinkling-nose-widening-eyes motion and makes a noise like a laugh but also a scoff, until he turns to Frank with a wide smile that signals more of fuckin' with this guy.

And it has, actually, been fun, but also, they are technically doing something. This is supposed to be a job. Or. Maybe it was supposed to be a job, and they've turned it into wandering around Utah territory only sort of looking for anybody connected with that trafficking ring.

The night after learning about Matt, Frank woke up to music in the chapel. The morning service had started and Matt hadn't woken him, so Frank watched it while leaning on the infirmary doorframe. Matt standin' to the back of the raised altar platform with his violin and that piano girl—Dani, her name's Dani—playing when prompted. He had that exhausted twinge to him and when Frank opened the door he smiled all sheepish and sweet.

After the service people begin to move around, Lantom patting Matt on the shoulder and Matt tucking his violin away. Frank gets dressed, grabs his bag and everything with it, and Matt tells him that the operation they broke is probably too big to have been stopped. The tunnels, he says, are evidence enough that this's organized.

Frank left his bag on the infirmary bed.

Then, they rode out north and swept by a neighboring town or two, and they're now skirting the biggest town in the grand Utah territory: Salt Lake City. Matt seems at least vaguely familiar with it, saying that Franklin Nelson, Mayor, and him, town blowhard, have come up here for supplies and help and whatever the city can offer, a couple times.

"Thank you, sir, for the offer, but we're alright." Frank grabs Matt by his collar like he's a cat, drags him 'till he's right up against Mike's flank.

Matt climbs onto Mike and the Bishop does variations of "oh, alright" and "you should take the book anyway" until they're both actively riding away. The city actually has people, a solid number of them, busying about, which is odd and makes Frank uncomfortable. Matt finds that exceedingly funny, judging by the way he keeps stopping to talk to every damn one of 'em.

"We have a job to do, Matthew." Frank hisses.

"Bars make noise at night, Francis." Matt's sitting with good posture and casually talking upwards, to the sky. People on the side of the road pay them no mind. "If we want information, we'll get it later. Didn't take as long as I thought it would t'get here."

"It took from the sun just barely rising to the sun just barely settin'. We were in nowhere for hours." Frank raises his brow, but exaggerates the judgement in his tone anyway. He absently wonders if Matt can tell without the emphasis.

"Yeah, but we aren't now. I was hopin' we'd get here at night, so we could stop at a bar or two and get what we need." Matt tilts his head like an owl, shakes it when whatever he noticed turns out to be nothing.

"I'm surprised how many bars they've got down here. Thought the Mormons wouldn't tolerate it." Frank speaks quieter at that. Mormons are everywhere.

"Most'a the town's business is wagon trains out west. California, Oregon, all that." Matt nods and Frank hopes the mention of wagons out west doesn't depress him. "They pander. Whole religion is jus' pandering, to people and their sense o' American pride."

"Thought a good Christian would accept his brethren."

"Catholic." Matt cuts in. "Good Catholic. An' I typically don't care how people worship God, it's all a means of love for the same one, but the Mormons are nasty. Polygamists with a taste for teen girls."

"Polygamy?" Frank makes sure the people on the sides of the street aren't listening, as if they would have any reason to.

"'S why they got chased outta the East." Matt shrugs. "But, they made the biggest city in Utah, so. Pick something to do."

"'Pick something to do?'" He has no idea as to what anybody, let alone them, are to do in Salt Lake City. He's never been here before. There's dozens of streets of flat little buildings, like a frontier town that just kept growing. It's not like the cities in the East—tall, grand, monumental. It's quaint and Western and the lake lingers maybe thirty minutes away. "I dunno. You swim?"

"Do I swim?" Matt looks at Frank , grinning like all hell.

"City's got lake in the name." He shrugs. "'Nd what else do we have to do? As delightful as watching you argue with Mormons is—"

"Aww, thank you."

"—it ain't exciting. Let's keep it simple. Go to the lake." Frank raises his hand, gestures to where the buildings thin and where the lake probably is. It's summer and they're in Utah and it's hot, so this's a plan good as any.

"The lake?" Matt steers Mike in the direction of Frank's hand, so he's probably right.

"It's called Salt Lake City. Must be somethin' good out there, at the lake." Frank shrugs. The lake, mostly because they have five hours to burn 'till it's eight, and it was the first thing he could think of.

Matt looks at him over his shoulder and rolls his eyes, "Your genius impresses me."

"I was an army guy, not a smart one." Frank leans over to shove Matt's shoulder, who dramatically falls to his left.

"You don' need to tell me you ain't smart—" Matt dodges a push, "—I'm mighty observant!"

"Oh, are you, blind man?"

They end up riding out pretty far. Not so far that getting back to town'll be a hassle, but far enough that there aren't people surrounding them and it's just flat. Flat, short shrubbery on one side and the flat, shallow lake on the other. They don't really talk as they go, Frank focusing on watching the lake and the world around it, and Matt stickin' his nose up in the air like a dog.

It's interesting, the way the water is low, the way you can see the slope of the shore. The lakes Frank knows are all up North, trapped in huge mountains, snow runoff in deep, deep pits. He likes the look of them, they're impressive, but he likes the look of this too. A small part of his head wonders about Matt—if he likes things flat, if it's easier. If that's why he stuck around in Utah. If he'd ever want to see one of them northern mountains. Hear the northern mountains.

"We should camp out here tonight." Frank tugs on Max's reins, pulls her to slow. Looks out at the spot they've found.

"Huh?" Matt does a much more dramatic stop, rearing, letting Mike shout into the open air.

"D'you know this was out here?" Frank is not sappy enough to say that he finds it breathtaking.

Mike trots in front of Max, Matt turns to look at Frank. He's blocking the view, most notably the stunning, shining part of the view, but it's alright.

"The water over here. 'S pink." Frank hops off Max. Hands her reins to Matt. Walks to the shore. "You bring me out here 'cause you knew?"

The water is pink. It's very pretty, the pink, and it draws out into the lake. There's a spot where it blends with the blue and gets dreary, the colors mixing purple. But the pink bit is bright. Looks a bit like taking a bath with an open wound, the shade. Just enough pigment to be warm toned. The water is shallow enough that the pink is backed by white sand, so it's a true pink.

"How'm I supposed to know?" Matt gets off Mike, walking over. He looks out at the lake but his head is angled too high to be looking at the water. "I don't remember what pink is."

"It's like red but light. Light red." Frank sits down to tug off his boots. "It's good lookin'. It's like if all the stuff you wore got washed out." Matt nods. It's an unhelpful description no doubt, but Frank doesn't know how else to do it.

"How's it feel?" Matt stands there, looking down at Frank taking off his socks.

"Feel?" Frank balls up his socks. Stands up and wades into the pink water, looking at the way the pale skin on his feet tint pink. "Feels calm. Feels sweet. It's pretty."

Matt pats Mike's neck, tells both of the horses to stay. Pulls off his boots, socks. Follows Frank into the water. He steps far enough that his pant leg gets wet and he curses, walking back to pull them up. Frank laughs at him, of course, and does not get annoyed when he realizes his pant legs are wet, too.

Matt wades back in and through the clear water Frank can see him flex his toes, picking up bits of white sand. He'd probably like the lakes up north. Lotta sand up there, especially when you go east.

"Pink sounds cool." Matt nods. "It—the lake—isn't much. To me. It's just sorta… like, there's this layer, where it's smooth, and everything beneath that is just… crazy. So much sound, so fast, it's all…" He waves his hand by his ear, crazy.

"That how you do it?" Frank looks at him. Looks at the lake. He can't see what's under it once the shore falls off, it's just pink and then blue. Big, flat blue. "You hear?"

Matt turns to him, smiles something genuine. His eyes lift with it and the corners of his lips raise a little. "Yeah. I hear."

And hell, Frank smiles at him, too. "F'r me it's nice and flat. Just blue. After the pink runs out."

"Can you see the birds? There're no fish, but out there…" Matt points to the furthest point of land, far away. "Birds."

"Yeah, I can see 'em. Tiny dots, but bird-y tiny dots." Frank smiles as Matt walks over to stand next to him.

"If I really focus I can get the whole bird. Can sorta make out the heartbeat, but the outline's clear. I can really get the details on their feet." Matt laughs when Frank turns to look at him, judgemental and doubtful. "The water makes the picture clearer."

The sun is right in its early afternoon position, so not quite primed for sightseeing or that beautiful, stunning sky that comes in the evening, but it's still a pretty day. It's still fun wading around in pink water with Matt, testing how far they can walk before they need to swim, trying to goad each other into stripping and going all the way in. Neither of them do, and when they pull their boots back on, their bodies are dry.

Riding back to the city proper is quiet, but nice, and the sun has finally hit that nice evening level so the whole world is orange. When they were leaving, the pink water looked exceptionally pretty, and he told Matt as such. Matt told him that there were four birds across the water.

They go to the first bar they see and walking in feels like it did in Hellauer but he's less cautious. Walking into the bar in Hellauer, he felt like a villain. People would be mean to him and he'd be mean back, and if anybody got too close he'd pull up his bandana and flash that skull symbol that everybody knows. Walking into the bar here, he feels like a fiend, but not something truly terrible. He feels a little more human and real with Matt behind him, with the devil sidling up.

They get to the bar, people look at them, they keep to themselves and sit at a small table in the corner alone. Matt twitches his head every once in a while and listens but keeps shaking his head. They go through a dollar's worth of whiskey and swindle another dollar out of a guy by getting him to play darts with Matt.

By the time the sun is gone and the moon is up, they have nothing, so they move on to the next bar. Here, they can't grab a table, so they sit thighs pressed together at the bar, Frank making small talk with a cattle driver that's eyein' up his gun and Matt still doing his head twitch thing. They spend only fifty cents there and that's good, so when they slip out the door it feels a little better.

Third place is more eventful, Frank says as much as they stumble onto the street and away from the fistfight they might've started.

The fourth place lands them in a similar spot to the second, with Matt and him pressed side-by-side, the brim of their hats pressed top and bottom. Frank is trying to not talk to the woman that's pressing him into Matt when Matt flicks his head straight up.

"Frank." He says, a little louder than he should. "Frank, there's a guy talkin' about Wallace station."

Frank shuffles away from the woman which puts him solidly in Matt's personal space, mumbling, "Which one?"

They can't identify by color, but Matt's got a killer sense of space, so: "By the fireplace in the back. Between two windows. With one other man. One is wearing a hat and the other isn't. We take issue with the man without a hat."

"That guy said he recruits at bars. That what this guy is doin'?" Matt nods. Frank grunts, "Alright. You'll come outside?"

"Yeah. I'll be there." Matt shifts his weight, and off Frank goes.

There's only one fireplace and only one man Matt could be talking about. He's wearing expensive fur, the kind you buy and not hunt, and is talking to some kid that's visibly down on his luck.

"The operation is goin' well. See, you spend that initial cash to buy her, the woman…" The guy trails off as Frank gets closer. He raises his brow.

"You waste time with kids like 'im?" Frank wonders what exactly the plan is, for this guy. He's skinny and sad lookin' and nothing like the men he and Matt decimated the day before. "He looks a little skinny for white slavery. To be a white slaver, I mean."

The guy shifts. The boy's eyes widen. "T-that's what this was? I thought we were, just, just…."

There's very little way to misinterpret what the guy had been saying, earlier. It's either a sad performance or a this kid is very, very dumb.

"Go." Frank says and rests a hand on his gun. A couple people take notice of Frank, a murmur from the people closest, and he sneers. "Let's talk outside, friend."

"'Bout what?" Guy asks. When Frank lifts his brow, the guy grins back.

They walk through the bar. Frank doesn't move his hand from his gun. They turn sideways at the top of the street and Frank pulls the guy into an alley, not letting them walk. The night is even and cool, and Frank can't imagine there's too many bars close to them, so he's not too worried about people wandering around and seeing them.

Seeing Matt. Seeing Matt, because it took under a second for Matt to emerge from whatever shadow he'd found and throw the guy into a chokehold, kicking him in the lower back until he stops gasping.

It doesn't take long. In fact, it takes so little time, Frank almost doubts he's being honest. The guy looks worse than he is, with all that nice fur of his clumped up with blood, but it's all from a broken nose. He's blubbering and saying shit about California and the transcontinental railroad and cattle drivers and shit like that.

They're handed a collection of information that is about what they expect, words tumbling from his lips along with blood, "We- we just grab prostitutes! They, they're already, they know what the risks a-a-are!"

Matt grabs him by the scalp and pulls his neck back, just so the hit to the neck really stings. The guy falls on his side and coughs out blood and whimpers a little and Frank watches Matt walk to the mouth of the alley.

"So, you're telling me, it's a whole operation? Y' grab women from the south and bring 'em to your hell pits to ship them east?" Frank crouches down and holds the guy by his scalp, grabbing the same spot Matt did.

Matt disappears for just long enough the guy starts to look for him, eyes widening when he sees the blade catch on the light from the bar window.

Matt and Frank. They're good together. Good enough that Frank smiles, good enough that the smile makes the guy just about shit his pants.

"Y-yeah. Yeah, man, it's a good plan. We can cut you in! As-as much'a you want, man!" It's hard to tell in the dark of the alley, but he probably has blue eyes.

"Hell'll be the right place for you, stranger." Matt taps the blade on the guy's cheek, under the blues, and slices. A second later and a line of red appears, dripping. The guy screams, Frank wonders what that might feel like, and he doesn't flinch when Matt keeps going.

Frank does flinch when he sees someone appear at the end of the alley, a man, a young one with cattle driver gear and Shit, this guy recruited fast. Kid at the end of the alley has his fists drenched in blood and a Winchester he's clearly never shot.

Frank drops the guy and jumps after the kid, who turns to run. Matt straightens but doesn't move, twitches his head, looks pissed and kicks dirt into the guy on the ground's fresh wound.

Frank isn't the fastest, far from it, but he's fit and confident and this kid is neither. He catches him by his arm and shoves him into the wall, growling, "You hurt women? You hurt 'em? Huh, do you, kid?"

The kid is scrambling no, no, no, please, I don't, I'm sorry, I don't even—

The kid can't talk when the hard hilt of Matt's katana hits him in the crown of his head and he falls to the ground. Frank grabs for the kid as Matt steps away, doing that palms-up "calm down" hand signal.

"The kid got one. A woman." Matt whispers, gesturing with the katana. He walks forward, puts a hand on Frank's shoulder, slides it down until their hands are touching. He looks into Frank's eyes, best he can with foggy blues, and nods. Frank nods. Y'need to be calm when you're dealing with a lady.

They turn into the alley and immediately—bang. Gunshot, to the left of Matt's head. He doesn't dodge, doesn't need to, but he does flinch from the noise. He brings his hands up to his ears and doubles over. He stumbles when he tries to push Frank's now gun-wielding hand down, muttering something inaudible.

"I swear to God! I'll shoot you, I will, I'll do it!" A woman's voice shrieks down the alley. It's distinctly New England; dragging on the vowels with I's that don't sound like I's. A very odd voice to hear this far west, for sure.

"We want to help you, ma'am!" Matt presses Frank's arm and gun down, down, glaring best he can at Frank, because Frank keeps bouncing his arm and gun up, up. "The man that grabbed you is— hurt. We hurt him. You're safe." Matt speaks a little too loud, his words clipped and intentionally inflected.

The woman's shadow can be seen in movement, but not stillness. She's far enough back that she's veiled by darkness, and Frank realizes that him and Matt are in the same situation. There's a lamp dangling just a step in front of them, so Frank telegraphs his grabbing of matches from his pocket and lighting of the lamp. The gun stays in his hand but dangles, limp.

The light from the lamp blooms. Frank can feel the fire's warmth and is thankful that his hat keeps the direct glare of the light from his eyes. Matt's hand moved from Frank's wrist to open-palmed and up, peaceful.

"You're safe, ma'am. Promise." Matt smiles, soft and warm, but there's a crease beneath his eye that betrays tension.

Frank clicks the gun habitually, making the woman shaped shadow shift.

"How do I know you aren't going to hurt me?" Her voice is careful and tentative. Not quite as scared though, so. That's a win.

"'Cuz we beat on the guy that was gon' hurt you." Frank says. "We don't want to do anythin' to you, alright?"

The shadow hesitates. Steps into the light of the lamp Frank just lit. She tucks hair behind her ear and runs her eyes over the both of them, pausing at Frank's bandana. He hooks a thumb around the top and tenses the fabric, showing the skull. Her shoulders fall, not comfortable but far less scared.

"You're the Punisher. I've heard about you." She says.

"I'm the Punisher. He's the Devil." Frank jabs a thumb into Matt's chest. "Who're you?"

The woman glances between them. "Karen." She puts her hand out to be shaked.

Karen's a blonde with hair tucked into a showy and impressive bun atop her head, strands falling out and tumbling around her bruised, bleeding face. She's wearing a deep blue dress, cheap but with a reflective velvet sheen. Her face is tacitly beautiful, with eyes a shade lighter than the dress. You can get a feel for their color with how they're wide and cautious. Her lips are nicely pink, as is her blush, stark against the white of her skin. Also stark are the aforementioned bruises and dribbles of blood.

Frank grunts and doesn't take the hand. Matt smiles and shakes it. She looks him up and down and startles when she reaches his eyes. Frank grins at that.

"We're trying to cut down that trafficking ring." Matt says, pulling his hand back.

Karen scoffs. Mutters, "trying…" before shaking her head.

"He's a man of the Lord. Sells himself short." Frank steps forward. "We've killed somm'a the bastards and cut down their hideout. Tryin' is closer to succeedin'."

"There's a town down South named Hellauer. It's safe." Matt keeps that reassuring, soft smile going. "We're going back there come tomorrow morning. You can come with us."

Karen is quiet. Looks at them. "I charge."

Frank looks at her. Drags his eyes up and down, "I'm assuming not much."

Matt looks at Frank, scandalized, and claps a hand over Frank's mouth.

Karen, though, laughs. For a second her shoulders droop and tension rushes from her like a river, before she settles back into a guarded, unsure posture. But there's a light in her eyes that wasn't there before when she says, "I've got maybe five dollars to my name. I'm wearing all I have."

"We can get you more." Matt rushes to say, dropping his hand from Frank's mouth. He doesn't see the way Frank raises a brow at that, smiling, suggestive. "Hellauer, the town, gives everybody what they need. We don't want to… hire you." He amends. Frank nods next to him.

"There's a town that just gives stuff away?" Karen raises a brow, and it looks painful. The blood from wherever in her hairline changes course at the movement, diverting down her temple. "Right. Sure there is."

"Man of the Lord." Frank shrugs. "He's not lying."

"The Lord, huh? You sure it's not just a compound with his dozen Mormon wives? His teenage whores?" Karen smirks as Matt bristles. He sets his jaw and drops his open, inviting hands.

"It's a town. A real one." Matt says. His voice has settled back into its normal infliction. "I don't believe that the Israelites came to America. I believe in the Catholic persuasion, and reject their bastardization as any man with self-respect should. Ma'am."

"And you believe that so ardently, you came to Salt Lake City." Karen says. On a westerner it'd be said in a drawl, but with her accent it's much more posh. Frank doesn't feel one way or another about it.

"I so believe in protecting people from trafficking that I came to Salt Lake City, yes." Matt says it like a challenge, so maybe he feels some way about her accent. There's a stand off where everybody just looks at each other, until Matt adds, "I know how to help with wounds like yours. We've got whiskey, stitches, and bandages on our horses. You don't have to come with us, but at least let me…" He waves a hand at her face.

Karen's caution, those walls in her eyes, fall. Not entirely, of course, but a little bit. Enough that she steps forward and swallows, telling Matt to, "Lead the way."

Matt smiles something accomplished, turning on his heel and leaving the way they came. Frank tries, really tries not to linger and follow her from behind, but old habits die hard. The effect—Karen sandwiched between them, Matt in front and Frank in back—makes her hackles rise again. Frank's debating whether or not to muscle past her to show that they aren't trying to trap her when they come across the two men from earlier. She recognizes them, of course, and slides those huge blue eyes between the bodies, Matt, and Frank. Whatever she thinks about it is lost on him, though, 'cause she turns around and he can't see her anymore.

They get to the horses and Matt lingers at Mike's flank, hand resting on the saddle, head tilted. Do you want help now, or will you come with us? it reads. Karen walks up, stands between Max and Mike, contemplates. She heaves herself onto Mike. Matt smiles again, this one the warmest of the evening, and Frank ignores the little flip his chest does at it.

They must look a sight, Frank thinks. They must look a real goddamn sight, two heavily armed men and a prostitute beat to hell. The prostitute, bouncing on the back of a carefully groomed horse with ribbons in its hair, nearly falling off at every turn because she refuses to put her arms around Matt. Frank, nearly running into shit because he can't stop looking at them. Matt, literally riding blind.

The idea amuses him the entire silent ride back to the pink spot of beach he and Matt were at earlier that day. They get there and Frank works on igniting the small collection of firewood they'd piled up next to a rock, while Matt takes out all his first-aid stuff to prove that yeah, they're gonna help her.

Karen takes a seat by the soon-to-be-a-fire kindling and tucks her dresses beneath her feet. Frank remembers that Maria had something close to three, maybe four layers. Some skirts, some padding, and petticoats. He remembers the petticoats, how he liked to get under them. Karen's petticoats are black, stark against her dress. She readjusts her position and Frank catches glimpse of her legs, torn stockings and bloody cuts.

He clenches his fist. It's so unabashedly, undeniably evil to beat on a woman. Beat on her 'til she considers their dumbasses a better bet than the city. He looks away from her and back at the sticks in his hands, rubbing until smoke floats up.

Matt carries his little tin box of medical shit over and sits next to Karen, opening it towards her so she can see what he has. He puts the box down and grabs bandages, "You don't need stitches. Some cleaning, some bandages… you'll be alright."

"Good thing we're right by the lake." She swallows, awkward, "We don't have to waste your water to clean them up."

"We're using whiskey." Matt punctuates by grabbing a bottle, the cheap one that sells for a quarter. "The Great Salt Lake lives up to its name."

Karen snorts, "Isn't it just a lake?"

"It's salty!" Matt smiles. "Seriously—dip your hand in. Drink some."

Karen smiles, considers, and gets up to do a slight jog to the water. The bottom of her skirts sweep the water as she bends down, gets a palmful of water, brings it to her mouth and immediately coughs. Matt grins, teeth showing but not canines like he's angry. Frank watches that, winces when the fire catches and he wasn't paying attention.

"Oh. Oh, God, that tastes like jerky." Karen sputters, "Christ."

"Hey, don't take the Lord's name in vain around the Catholic boy." Frank gestures to Matt.

Matt bristles, "I'm not that much of a stickler."

Frank waves the burn feeling off of his hand, reaches over to pat Matt's head. "Y'are, but it's alright. I still like you."

Karen sits down where she was and waves her hands in front of the fire to dry them. Her grin is real and lingers, even as she watches Frank and Matt. She tilts her head, interested. "How long have you been traveling together?"

Frank pulls his hand back and settles in on his side of the fire, grunts and shrugs. He watches Matt pour whiskey on a cloth and raise it to Karen's face.

"Maybe a month." Matt dabs at Karen's wounds once she nods. "Two."

"That's a long time, Red." Frank doesn't know why he uses the nickname, why he feels the need to, but it comes out. Even as he argues they haven't known each other for long, he calls him a nickname. "We've known each other for a while, but travelin'? A week, maybe."

"We're close." Matt decides. The tacky black blood on Karen's forehead starts to dissolve, turning red, flowing down and towards her eye.

"You two seem close." Karen flinches her eye closed, "It's sweet."

Frank grunts. "When a man protects your back, y'get close."

Karen looks at Frank, then at Matt, and wrinkles her brows in confusion. Matt makes a little tut noise, annoyed at her moving, and she mutters a soft sorry. Then, she apologizes louder, "Sorry, but… in a fight? Or more… spiritually?"

"Fight." Frank thinks about making food. They have two cans of beans and a thing of jerky.

Karen looks back at Matt. At his eyes. In the dark, he could plausibly have blue eyes. Lit by the fire, Matt's hat doing nothing to block the light from his face, they're foggy and pale. He's blind as shit, in the light.

"He's good at what he does." Frank shrugs. Matt's lips twitch a smile but don't make a full one, biting back that pride.

"He's good at patching people up." Karen smiles, soft and polite, like she's saying it not because she believes it but because she wants to keep the conversation going.

"Hardly." Matt's sorting through the box, finding clean bandages. "Back in Hellauer, the Father's good at patching people up. He's dug more bullets outta me than I can remember." He says it fondly.

"Bullets?" Karen flinches when the bandage is pressed against her forehead, "Who would shoot a…"

"A what?" Frank asks, and it's an odd thing, that instinct. Nothing within him is particularly aware as to why he needs to defend Matt, because he found (finds) it odd, too. A blind man that can do everything except for reading.

Matt snorts a laugh, says something under his breath, maybe. He pokes at Karen's brow, over the bandage, seeing if it's secure, saying, "I thought you were actin' like we hardly knew each other. Now you're acting like it's obvious that I can do what I do."

Frank takes a second to lean back and cross his arms, "You're capable. People shouldn't think you're not."

"I am." Matt looks at Frank best he can, across the fire. His face is lit warm and glowy, foggy blues turning gray in the orange. "Thank you."

Frank almost relaxes into the ground, but catches Karen looking at them again. He keeps himself solid, "Yeah, yeah. Don't let it get to your head."

And like that, Matt turns back to Karen, and Karen turns back to wincing and being quiet. The night goes on.

Until it doesn't.

They have two sets of camping gear, and only two. Karen, being a lady and being injured, is given one by default. Matt, being blind, should get the other. He fights Frank and they end up staring at each other angrily while Karen watches, uncomfortable. When Matt remembers her, he takes the bed, if only for her sake.

So it's Matt on one side of the fire, Karen on the other, Frank at the top, trying to keep his body as far from Karen as possible. It means he's awkward and sleeping in his heaviest coat to try and keep warm, but it's not working. He keeps falling half asleep before waking himself up, fully aware again.

Frank isn't trying to be loud about it, isn't trying to do much of anything about it, but he must be doing too much because when he wakes up from the world's lightest doze, Matt is standing above him.

Instinct cuts in and he grabs the gun under his pillow and tries to ram its butt into Matt's calf, but he skips back. Matt's face, less in his field of vision now, smiles and says, "How violent."

"I can't sleep." Frank pushes himself onto his forearms and feels ground falling off his back. Matt just shrugs and stands up straight. Sticks a hand out as an offer to maybe help Frank up, maybe to be polite. Frank stands up without it and Matt gives him a look from the top of his head to his feet, which is impressive, for a blind man. "You know I'm not lying."

"Did I say you were? C'mon." Matt gestures over his shoulder and walks away from the fire, further down the shore. Frank follows and stops when he does, a ways away, behind a rock. Matt smiles at him, maybe, but it's so fucking dark that he could really be doing anything. He says, "I don't want to wake her up."

Frank leans against the rock, "What do you think of her?"

"She's gone through a lot." Matt copies Frank, body resting against the rock, a little heavy. "She seems honest. Gave us her real name."

Frank scoffs, "The bar for honest is real low, if it's telling us her name."

"She has no real reason to trust us." Matt shrugs, "All we've done is beat up some men she doesn't like. She's a working woman, Francis, she has every reason to suspect us of wanting to kill her."

"But she fell asleep on my bedroll all the same." Frank grunts. He shifts against the rock, leaning over to see if Karen's still asleep. She is, and she looks perfectly fine, curled up next to the fire.

"That gun of hers—it's still in her skirts. If we wake her up right now, we'll probably get shot." Matt's saying this with an audible smile.

And, while it doesn't make Frank smile, it definitely makes him respect her. He says, "She's smart. For that. Not for comin' with us."

Matt makes an affronted noise, "We're trustworthy! Infamous, even. Depending on who you ask." He takes a second and then adds, "She recognized you."

"She recognized the name. The Punisher." It's a stupid name, very, criminally stupid, but it's one of his. "Most people recognize it. It's got a stigma."

Matt crosses his arms, Frank can see the edges of him in the moonlight, and says, "It does. It's practically a ghost story. You're practically a ghost story."

"Please. I'm real, aren't I?" Frank scoffs.

Matt brings a hand up, floats it in the air right by Frank's cheek. He lowers it to Frank's shoulder, clears his throat, "Yeah. You're real."

"The infamy helps. With having her trust us." Frank nods, "But it doesn't help us trust her."

Matt takes his hand back, "What's she gonna do, Frank? Steal a can of beans? Try and fail to take one of our horses?"

"Maybe." He shrugs. "Women can do a lot, Red. Actin' like they can't is just rude."

"You think I'm a stranger to being underestimated? To having people treat like I'm soft and stupid?" Matt's keeping a light friendliness to his voice, but there's a harsher edge. "She, Karen, just did what you're saying I'm doing to her." He breathes, "And it's not what I'm doing. I'm being trusting."

"And I'm sayin' that's naive. What if she's got more going on? Injuries, connections…" Frank shakes his head, "I'm not saying we should shoot her. I'm just saying maybe it's good that one of us was awake."

"Two of us. Both of us." Matt shakes his head, hair black in the night. Still, the moon illuminates just enough that Frank sees his gestures. "I can't sleep when I'm listening to you toss and turn. You make bugs scurry every time you flip."

Eugh. "I wasn't sleepin' on bugs."

"No, you were just laying on them." Matt must smile. It sounds like something he'd say before he shows his canines.

Frank laughs as he was invited to do and sits with his back on the rock. He looks at the stars, the bright, gleaming ones, and sighs. "So you just want to trust her?"

Matt sits next to Frank, bumps his knee with his own. His voice is soft, "A while after I first moved to Hellauer, there was this guy. A railroad tycoon. His parents were involved with the canal building up North. He was very loud, peppy… I didn't trust him. But Luke, the husband of that woman that'd been trafficked, he was trusting. That tycoon bought us steady water. As payment for friendship."

Matt smiles, head lolling to the side. His eyes catch the moonlight and glisten, "I don't trust easy. I trust you just enough to sleep while you're around. But I want to be trusting. So I will be."

"You have a lot of faith in people." Frank looks at him sideways. Matt just smiles. "I… I worked a gun shop. Back in New York. Maria worked textiles, but selling 'em, not factory stuff. We made money." Matt doesn't know who Maria is. Matt seems to loosely know the ghost story that is the Punisher, but that's all. "I married her in 1860 because she was pregnant. I left for the war in '61. Gave her another kid in '65, when I came back. They all died in 1870."

"I'm sorry." Matt is so earnest, so quiet, it almost makes Frank laugh. At the time it had been — it hadn't felt like it would ever go away, ever stop. But there's seven years between then and now, and it feels like rubbing a scab. Like peeling away the bits of drying blood and letting a little leak out, turn your skin red. It's not the same gaping wound, relentless and growing, that it used to be.

"A friend of mine, from the war, knew about our jobs. He knew that they were front-facin', that we made commission. He guessed he could make some money off our corpses. He waited until we packed all our shit into a wagon to move out West and killed three of us." The memory of the bodies. The satisfaction of knowing that that man is just as bullet-ridden, that Frank left his corpse out to be eaten by vultures in Arizona sun. "Maria hated city life. She was so close to livin' how she wanted."

A frontier house and a little farm. Space for the kids to run around. A real, proper house of their own. It'd be manual labor, but it'd be good labor, honest. It'd be so damn picturesque.

Matt breathes out, slow and heavy. His brows are furrowed like he's going to cry.

"I knew him for nine years. Trusted him to hold my children. To know my wife." The sky is starry, the lake makes a very faint sound as it sloshes against itself. Matt stays quiet. He puts a hand on Frank's knee. "Y'got anything to say to that? Anything at all?"

Matt considers, says, "Not everybody's a rat bastard." His voice is riddled with grief, like he's going to mourn Frank's family without having ever known them. Frank believes that Matt would genuinely do that.

"Sure." Frank scoffs. "But enough are."

"There has to be someone good from the war. You fought for the Union." Matt chews his lip. "People are awful because the world asks them to be. They aren't naturally. There are more good men than bad."

"Please." Frank scoffs again. "There might've been good men I knew, but God knows if there's more of them than there are bad men. 'Cause I've known hundreds of those."

"Known, or killed?" Matt asks. Frank knocks their knees.

"I knew this guy, Curtis." Frank remembers. Still knows him, really, Frank sends letters when he knows he'll be in one place for a while. "He wandered into the troop down in South Carolina. He knew how to fix people up and we paid 'im to do it. There was this night, you know, when we were just sitting around. Shootin' the shit.

"We looked up, and… fire. Fire across the entire skyline. Fire'n ash." Frank remembers that Matt has no concept of what flame looks like, probably, so, "The whole South was orange. Or, uh. It was… warm. We were too far away to feel it, but it looked warm. Light was creepin' up from the bottom, making everything bright. Like a beacon. I remember thinkin', shit, we're gonna win. Thinkin' 'bout how glad I was that Curtis was next to me instead of wherever he might'a been before. We just sat there for hours. I fell asleep with my head on his shoulder. So, yeah, I trusted him. I do know how to trust, I just don't."

"You need to trust," Matt starts, "if you want to have something like that again."

"'M not sure I need to run to falling asleep on a man's shoulder." Frank laughs under his breath when Matt knocks into him.

"What about his chest?" Matt huffs as he pushes himself to a stand. "We only have one bedroll and I will get you to sleep, one way or another."

"And how're we gonna fit that?" Frank stands up, too. There's a weight on his chest, uncomfortable with sharing so much.

Matt walks them back to their camp and points at his bedroll. It's small and can really only fit one of them, even the blanket itself is thin and fit for one person. They stand in front of it, Frank and Matt, like they're assessing a build site. Karen is still sleeping, curled up and comfortable on Frank's shit.

"We can both almost fit on the roll if we lay on our sides." Matt says.

"You're blind. You don't know how big it is." Frank says, like Matt isn't right.

"You can lay flat and I can be on my side. I'll be on the ground but it's alright." Matt leans down to tug the bedroll a little closer to the fire.

"It's your bedroll." Frank crosses his arms. He gets why Matt is doing this—they need to sleep, they have one bedroll—so he won't fight too hard, but he hates the idea of Matt giving up sleep for Frank. Especially when one of them has proven to be good with the woman and one of them has only stumbled into her good graces.

"It's the only bedroll." Matt grabs Frank by the collar of his undershirt and shoves him down, so Frank is sitting on the blanket. "We'll share. It'll be fine."

"You're gonna be cold," Frank points out, "the blanket's small."

Matt rolls his eyes, shrugs. Frank pulls his jacket off, thick and warm and lined with fur. He holds it up and watches Matt pull it on, suddenly looking off-balance. He's lithe and gymnastic, most of his bulky muscles being on his shoulders, so with the giant jacket covering them, his legs look small. The jacket is also definitely too big, so it adds to the effect.

"Happy?" Matt sits down.

"C'mere. If the plan was to use me as a pillow, do it." Frank spreads his arms wide, wrapping one around Matt's back. Matt lays back and curls into Frank's side, his arms tucked close to his front and not holding Frank at all.

Frank has cuddled like this—cuddled because that's what this is, even if it is in efficiency's name—before, with his wife. There's a moment where he thinks about what this means, about how he probably shouldn't be doing it, but that moment ends once Matt drops his head onto Frank's chest. There's the weight and warmth of a body, and it keeps him warmer than the blanket does.

Frank rejects the idea that he has not gotten over their deaths. He has made it over, he no longer dreams of them, he no longer thinks of a world better where he holds them each time his eyes flash closed. But he was a father; it's a cruel fuckin' idea that he's going to simply forget. That there won't be a softness in him, waiting to crest, waiting to care.

He thinks of a small child with gravel stuck in a skinned knee. He thinks of Karen, with her black eye and bruised face. He thinks of Matt asking him to give her a shot, and he thinks that it's not that far out of the realm of possiblity.

Matt shuffles against him and leans in, clinging closer to Frank. The top of Matt's head presses into Frank's chin, and Frank brings an arm up to hold his shoulders.

Waking up to food. Waking up to a head on his chest. Waking up to relative warmth.

He doesn't think his family is alive for a second. That lapse in judgement is something from four, five years ago, from before the wound started scabbing over. But he does think something is fatally wrong.

Then, he opens his eyes and is met with bright red hair, and it comes back to him. He remembers talking, being vulnerable, laying down like a deer waiting to be shot. He remembers Matt telling him that, essentially, being a deer isn't that bad of a thing. The equivalent of Frank, a deer, laying down for Matt to shoot his neck, and Matt opting to pet it instead.

Late-night Matt's hesitance to fold into Frank is gone, and he's got his arm across Frank's body, holding onto his waist. Matt has his head pressed into Frank's chest and their legs are criss-crossed together. Frank's arm hasn't left its hold on Matt.

He sees the sky, blue and empty, and hears the sound of someone poking at the fire. When he looks to his right, he can see the empty area between the lake and the sort-of established road that they came from. On his left, the lake, the fire, Karen.

Karen's in her full skirts and corset and is stroking the fire with a long stick, pulling back every time it starts to smoke. She's holding the jerky packet and has rationed it into three sections—two big, one small. It's like an imitation of making breakfast.

She looks up and catches his eye, and smiles. It's cautious but maybe a little warm, more trusting than it had been before. She whispers, "I don't know if he's still asleep, but I've been trying to keep the fire up. It's still early. You can sleep more."

"'M alright." Frank can feel the morning rumble his chest, make his voice come out gravelly. He feels a heavy rise and fall against his side, almost like Matt was sighing. "We have a full day of riding. Never too early to get ahead."

Karen nods and tucks some hair behind her ear, shuffling away from the fire. She regards Frank and Matt with her stick, "You guys seem… close. Closer than some siblings I've met."

"Well," Frank starts, using a hand to hold Matt's head as he slides out from under him, "we certainly aren't siblings. Again, we've only known each other for about two months."

"I'm saying siblings because most men I've met don't appreciate being called a couple." Karen smiles all apologetic, like she's saying something outrageous.

"We're two men." Frank stands up to stretch. "It's not crazy to say because it's not happening."

"What, two men can't happen?" Karen laughs. "You must really be from the west…"

"I'm from New York." He bristles, because that sense of pride is something he's entitled to.

"So you know, then. That you're being bullshit." She smiles.

"Rude mouth on you, 'specially for a lady." Frank reaches out for the jerky bag, and notably, she doesn't flinch as he gets closer to her.

"I'm a woman." She passes him one of the large handfuls of jerky. "Not a lady."

From the bedroll, Matt sticks a hand straight up. He opens and closes it, "'M hungry, too."

Frank drops the jerky in his hand, "Don't eat laying down. You'll choke."

"Mm-mm." He disagrees, but sits up anyway, groaning a little as his shoulder pops. His eyes are still closed and the jacket still looks huge on him. He starts to gnaw at the jerky and Frank redirects his attention to his own food.

The three of them eat, Karen awake, Frank getting there, Matt awake in the sense that he's upright. The water is pink as it was yesterday, just barely rocking up on the shore. The sun's in the position of about seven, eight o'clock, so there are the long gray shadows of morning creeping over them.

"I'm from Vermont." Karen says. "Small town. But I moved to New York before comin' out west. I'm a modern woman."

"Some boys do the cattle drive through Hellauer. They're out there for weeks without company that isn't other ranchers." Matt shrugs. "We're modern men, Ms… Karen. But, we aren't men like that."

"Ms. Page." Karen rips a bit of jerky off, twirls it in her fingers. "But I've been a whore since I left New York, so I'm not sure it's warranted."

"I wouldn't blame someone for sellin' miracle pills if there were idiots that were willin' to buy them." Frank gives Karen something of a nod and a shrug at the same time. Together it means that he doesn't care whatsoever.

"You're a Ms. if you'd like to be." Matt says, corny, "but if you'd rather not be, Karen it is."

"Ms. Karen Page, Father." Karen smiles, warm, maybe a little uncomfortable. Her dresses are wrinkled from where she'd been sitting for the whole day, and her injuries are still purple-red, but she's alright. Lantom is looking at her with complete acceptance, only curiosity riding his brow.

Matt and Frank leave her in Lantom's hands, letting him drag her back to the infirmary. They've got ointments or something, according to Matt. She was already going to be alright, but now, she's going to be great, Matt says.

They get back at noon and have the rest of the day 'til dusk to set Karen up. Matt drags Frank across the entirety of Hellauer, calling in favors and helping hands and orders for dresses. They end up with keys to a room above the post office, a bag of bread and fruit, a job lined up for Karen to work at the post office, and two orders for new blue overskirts.

There's something about watching Matt do what he loves that's bittersweet. It feels strange to watch someone have such aggressive, unwavering faith in people. He bites back every instinct that tells him that Matt's wrong. Has to remind himself that this might work for people. Of course, Karen's an easy person to convince himself with, because she doesn't seem to have committed any crime more extreme than self-defense.

It's almost fun, to go around and get things for her. Sort of like baby shopping, that sense of creating new life, of building from the ground up. That sentiment combined with the knowledge that Matt has probably done this for worse criminals before makes him feel queasy, but he can swallow that down.

Matt looks very nice and perfectly in his nature as he orders things around and plies people with promises and favors and sweet talking. Frank'd thought that everybody here bent to Matt's will, but the degree with which people blindly do that seems to decrease the further they get from the church. It leaves them in a few places where people are less willing to, say, rent a room for cheap, but Matt makes it work by leaning over the counter and talking fancy. In the dress shop, Matt leaned forward and lined up perfectly in the window, the steep angle of the afternoon sun bathing him in light.

See, the thing that Frank's getting beat over the head with, is that Matt is a very good man. He can fight like a demon, but he won't kill. He can talk people into doing shit, like trusting Frank or buying dresses for no reason, but wouldn't ever talk someone into doing something to their detriment. He went through whatever hell Lantom had implied, but doesn't hold grudges.

Matt is a good man. Far better than Frank is—not even in a self-deprecating way. Just in the way of honest truth. It makes Frank and all his broody, murderous interior pissed the fuck off. Because he's seen the cuts, the scars, the damage on Matt's body. He heard Lantom's voice shake when he explained that Matt had been trafficked as a child. He heard Matt's resignation when he told Frank to drop it. He knows that there's a chance, a chance in Matt's bleeding heart, that whoever hurt him so sorely is still alive.

"Your heart gets slower when you think hard." Matt comments, out of the blue, as they walk down the street to the church. Dusk is just barely setting in and there's a gray wash on the world. "You're very easy to read."

"Easy to read, or easy to read to the guy that can hear heartbeats?" Frank kicks up dirt, looking at the sky. The stretch of street they're walking on is quaint and reminiscent of every other frontier town, but more solid.

"I can't see your face, so I can't judge for the first one." Matt waves at someone standing across the street, who waves back frantic and fast. "But definitely easy, for the second one."

For some reason, Frank wraps an arm around Matt's shoulders and tugs him into his chest, pressing his mouth into red hair as he speaks, "Good thing you're the only man I've ever met that can hear like that."

Matt laughs, high and loud and into the sky, and settles into Frank's chest. Walking like this, pressed together, is awkward, but Matt makes himself comfortable in the crook of Frank's arm. "Yeah. I like being your only one."

A month on the road, Frank finds Wallace station and catches another trafficker trying to board a train. He kills the man, lets the poor woman go, and wanders into their hideout. Another week or two and Frank had tortured, maimed, and killed his way through this leg of the operation, but he doesn't get any info about traffickers from the sixties.

Frank drops by Hellauer to tell Matt that the trafficking operation is smaller, and while he's there he spends some time with Karen. She's settling in well, she says, and the work isn't too bad. Apparently, she's taken well to the reading lessons over at the church. Unlike Matt, Karen likes to hear exactly how the bastards scream, so she listens to all the gory stories he's got.

Matt is happy to see him and makes him come to the bar for dinner, some chili-looking thing that they share. He sleeps in the infirmary and Lantom is, also, glad to see him. The next morning, he sees Matt messin' with Mayor Nelson—Matt calls him "Mayor Foggy", which is sweet if ireverent—and gets to meet the man properly.

Another month on the road, and Frank catches wind of a gang that takes children. Nothing about them teaching kids to fight, nothing about them doing anything other than what you'd expect. Frank kills them but leaves one alive, just to question him more. The guy was born in 1860 and can't tell him anything about what happened when he was one, so he gets shot too.

Frank comes back to Hellauer because it was close, and it was close because impulse had pointed him in its direction. He gets to Hellauer in the morning, having ridden through the night, and walks into morning mass. He sits right next to Matt and Matt scoots so they're sitting shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee.

Matt introduces Frank to the parents of the piano girl, and they're a sweet family. Jessica, Luke, and Dani. Jessica introduces Frank to Danny, the girl's namesake and the rich guy that donated enough to make Matt consider trusting people.

Frank and Matt get lunch and bring it up to Karen, who has taken to writing so well she's started journaling. Frank read the parts he can aloud to Matt, who adds his memories to the parts that he's mentioned.

Frank does not tell Matt about what he's been up to, and Matt does not ask, saying the whole thing is too gross for him. Karen does ask, though, and smiles when he says it's traffickers he's killing, still.

Matt invites Frank to breakfast with the Jessica-Luke-Dani-Danny crew and Frank feeds Mike a carrot after Matt's gone to bed. Frank sleeps in the infirmary and has a pretty nice breakfast.

Frank asks Karen to transcribe a letter for him, and sends a letter that basically just says "I'm alive and well. I hope you are too." to Curtis.

It's intentional, the next time he goes to Hellauer. He doesn't have special news or anything, just more blood on his hands. There's a possible thread to follow, one that looks promising and it drags him through southern Utah, so he stops by.

It's a more pressing (read: he shot a guy with info and is following the somewhat literal trail of blood) lead, so he only plans to stop for a night.

Matt picks up on his broken ribs the moment Max steps onto the church's property. He forces Frank to sleep in his bed, because it's softer, and because Frank's a gentleman, he lets Matt sleep in it with him.

Frank starts sleeping Matt's bed whenever he's in Hellauer. It starts becoming odd to not fall asleep with a body next to him.

Matt stops looking so tired in the mornings.

Frank hears Lantom through the shared wall, sometimes, late at night. He prays for hours. Frank asks about it and Matt simply says, "he's a priest."

Frank buys Lantom a coffee pot and a bag of grounds, and Lantom laughs, says that "Matthew chose such a polite one."

Turns out chasing trails of blood works. Turns out, Frank has a handful of information about some guys from years ago that dealt in children, and a bit of punching and shooting earns him a location. He has no clue if it's the same men, but they're close enough. The hideout is big and a ways up north. He's going to kill them regardless, but there's a bubble in his blood that sings finality.

But tonight, he's going to have the not-bad not-good chili the bar serves and watch Matt hustle the mayor in darts.

The bar is warm with yellow-orange light and the fire is just far enough from Frank that the cold of outside is biting at his heel. There's people throughout the bar and the low tone of conversation that there always is. Frank has been here enough that he's comfortable to tune it all out and focus on the conversation at hand.

"So, he's offered to let me write." Karen says, with a wide smile on her face. She's very expressive, much more so when she's not broken and bleeding. She's healed over the months. It's nice. "Not a lot, but enough. The journaling has been helping, and I've been reading Emerson, so I think I'm getting better."

"Emerson? The hell's that?" Frank asks. Matt just threw a dart straight to the bullseye, and the mayor is just standing there, distraught.

"Ralph Waldo. He's a writer." Karen smiles behind her glass, following Frank's gaze with her own. "Matt knows a little about him. I've read some to him."

"Well," Frank leans over to her, "you'll have to lend me a copy."

"Because you want to know? Or because you want to talk about it with him?" She tips the glass in Matt's direction.

"Both?" Frank shrugs. "I like to spend time with 'im. Don't always have a lot to say."

Karen rolls her eyes, "You would if you'd talk about what's going on with you. You keep coming around all…" She waves her hand—Frank has a bruise on his face. "…but you have no stories to go with it."

"He knows who I am. He doesn't need an account of my day." Frank swirls his whiskey, shrugs. He turns back around to look at Matt, who is patting the mayor on the back. He's smiling and it nudges his lower eyelids up. His teeth are showing through his smile and Frank keeps his eyes on it, watching.

Karen laughs, drinks, rests her elbow on the bar and her head in her hand. She smiles, lazy but scrutinizing, "You must tell him something, in between kissing him and following him around like a lost puppy."

"Kissing him?" Frank does an uncomfortable laugh that might come out a bit like a scoff. He peels his eyes off Matt and lands them on Karen.

"You two sleep in the same bed, Frank." Karen grins. "I started trusting you two that night at Salt Lake because you were so obviously a couple. You weren't gonna hurt me."

"We aren't a couple." Frank shakes his head, smiling.

"But you aren't mad about being called one?" Karen snorts a laugh, and it's obvious she's a little drunk.

"Shit, have you seen him?" Frank leans in, points his thumb at Matt. "I'm honored."

When he looks back, Matt is smiling. That smile, bathing in warm light, attached to foggy blue eyes that're trying their best to look at Frank. It solidifies the one thing beating in his heart, that anger. Anybody related to Matt's pain, anybody close to his suffering, is going to die.

"What're you doin'?" Matt says, voice thick and tired. He's laying on his side and catches Frank's shoulder with the tips of his fingers.

"Getting up." Frank whispers, so low he would almost doubt he said anything. Over time he's gotten more and more accustomed to Matt being able to hear just about anything, and during dark hours, Matt likes it quiet. "Lead should be followed up on early. Wanna get there before they're totally awake."

"Be safe." Matt drags those fingers to the hair on the back of Frank's head and runs them through the short strands, caressing. After a few seconds of petting, he takes his hand back and turns over to sleep.

Frank is fairly sure Matt doesn't fall back asleep until Frank is well and truly gone, so he hurries away, riding into the gray morning. His back is to the sunrise, so the shadows get drawn and black at Max's feet.

Gas lamp hanging from the ceiling. Card table. Poker, four men playing. Three men in the back. Twelve in total, counting the one laying on the floor, bottle in hand. Crates lining the back wall. Blood on them. Liquor bottles inside, judging by the broken panel on one. Two men playing poker doused in blood. One man standing in the back covered in it. Four men cleaning guns on the floor, swapping parts with each other. One man plays five finger fillet against the wall.

Gun to hip, shoot a full revolver round. Six shots.

One, bottle in the hand of the man on the floor. Two, man in back, head exploded like the corpse outside. Little less, further range and lesser caliber. Three, man playing poker, hand gone. Four, man playing poker next to man playing poker, throat gone. Five, man playing poker next to man playing poker next to man playing poker, chest explodes. Six, bullet flies into the crate of alcohol and the crash wakes up everyone who wasn't awake to the gunfire.

Frank's a good shot. They should be terrified of that, if not the—

"The fuckin' Punisher?" Disbelief from one of the guys in the back, hands immediately going to a shotgun mounted on the wall.

Frank kicks the table over, poker flies everywhere, two cards get shot close to his head. He can't use the table as cover; that requires him to get too far in the cave. He runs to the side of the cave mouth and waits.

Shots towards the edge of the cave mouth, high enough caliber to send chips of rock flying. One of them spits backwards and cuts his cheek, minor blood spray. Takes a second to reorient, the same amount of time it takes one of the men to rush out of the cave.

No time to reload. Spencer, one shot, no throat. Head and body fall separately, the flesh the only thing holding pieces together as the bone disintegrates.

Shouts from inside the cave: Fuck, damn, shit, Punisher! Thought he spent his time down south, doesn't he?

Frank peeks out from behind the rock. The part they shot off is the perfect size for him to aim through—came off in a triangular chunk, furthest indent on his side, he can see one guy's face—there's three dead. Man playing poker is now without a hand, he tries to shoot a shotgun with his other, the recoil sends him flying back, a shot from the Spencer gets his body limp. Four dead.

Get the shotgun ready, lean out from cover, shoot at the first moving thing. Hit it, the man, and Frank earns a bullet in the forearm in change. It slices through flesh and jacket and stings, but it's now five dead, seven alive. He's survived worse.

The pain of the bullet is hot but it's followed by cool, cool air, which means it was clean. Frank fumbles with the shotgun and keeps it where it was, shooting. Some shouts, maybe from the bullet spray hitting some of the men. Another blast from the shotgun and the odds are even better. Swap to the rifle and shoot again—seven dead, five alive.

But swapping to the rifle is hard, because it takes a while to load and his left arm has a hole in it. They know it, too, because he can hear people moving closer, closer.

The shotgun is a better bet, which is good, because Frank can't with the rifle. He drops it and pulls the shotgun back out, leans over the cave wall and shoots. He blasts two guys near point blank, and their bodies stumble back onto two others.

That leaves one man standing, who charges. He manages to punch Frank on the jaw and send his face straight into the cave wall. The rock is porous and when the man grabs Frank's hair and shoves his face, it stings. Even more than that, the rock is solid, and being thrown into it makes an ugly clack! noise.

There's the sound of shuffling, men crawling out from under the dead bodies that landed on top of them. Frank's face is forced up and punched again, this time on his eye. Again, his eye, again, his jaw.

Someone grabs Frank's shoulder and pulls him away from the other man, throwing him to the ground. Frank coughs, his head swims. It hurts, hits to the skull. The shotgun has fallen a bit away from him, but it's on his left. His arm tries to respond, tendons stretching around the hole.

One of the guys kicks him in the ribs, and then another one of them does, and all of a sudden there's multiple people kicking him as he's laying there on the floor.

Frank had lied to Matt a little. About his family's death.

They didn't just get fucked over. No, it was bad. It wasn't like the carriages you see on the road, where you think, shit, it woulda hurt but it woulda been quick. Where everybody's got a bullet neat and packaged in the meat of their forehead.

Little Lisa died in his arms. She was sitting up front with him, because he was teaching her how to make the horses go. A bullet got her right on her temple, it ripped through her so fast he had no time to process. One second he was looking at his little girl and the next he was looking at pink-red brain. A bit of skull.

Maria jumped at the sound and immediately stuck her head out of the back, seeing the people descending, and not panicking. No, she was too good to do that, she was too strong. Frank's mind flicks to Matt and he doesn't fight it.

Maria ran out of the wagon with a shotgun she didn't know how to shoot and didn't make a single shot before her knees were red holes. Frankie ran to hold his mother and got decimated by what must've been three, four bullets. He falls, Maria screams, and Frank finally remembers how to move.

The whole thing is confusing, a blur of color and movement and he doesn't remember much from looking down and seeing Lisa's head to laying on the ground, blood pooling from somewhere on his head. Maria is sitting there crying, and that fucker he used to know is standing there, talking to her. Frank can't see her, see either of them, and he's panicking. Trying to move but his limbs are responding all wrong, his head not thinking right.

There's a loud, cracking bang, and the one thing Frank can see is horrifying. Maria's beauty mirror, a small circular thing, is laying open on the ground in front of him. In its reflection Frank sees her face, split down the side, hit the ground. Her eyes wide in terror and mouth slightly gaped. Blood. Meat. Skull. Brain.

A circular image of Matt bleeding out. His eyes wide in terror and mouth slightly gaped. Blood. Meat. Skull. Brain.

He can't- Frank's head can't conjure up the picture of a child Matt going through hell, being dragged from state to state, some old evil man doing whatever he dreamed of with him. Frank's mind can only give him Matt in Maria's place, dying, dying, dead.

Frank breathes in harshly and stretches, feeling his body reject. He's stretching the wound as he reaches, bullet hole damned, for that shotgun. One pull of the trigger and the kicking stops.

Frank tries to sit up, but he gets hit at the back of his head by the butt of a gun. Frank reaches behind himself and grabs the man, slinging his head back and into his nose. There's a crack, followed by gasping, followed by Frank letting out a final shot.

Fourteen dead. One alive.

The blood on the ground washes with the blood falling from Frank's body, the orange Utah ground flooding with red blood. An ugly, ugly mixture.

Frank's footsteps are muddy as he walks to Max, a fleeting, feminine thought glad her coat's black and won't stain. Red blood on Utah orange.

It hurts to climb on Max's back. He parked her… near. He thinks. His steps are unsteady and there is quite a bit of blood spilling onto the ground.

Max, the good girl she is, starts running without needing to be told. He doesn't even snap her reins and she's off, sprinting. The sun is square in front of them, hanging on the sky. He'd left early morning, found this place… after that. He, he's leaving now, and the sun is not noon. It's later.

Frank winces because he's trying to think, and thinking? Thinking is not kind to him, not right now. His mind warbles and mutters, but his heart is much more sure. There's a sense of completion and satisfaction, because Matt's… safe. That's what it was all for.

Frank falls forward onto Max's neck, and he thinks again of Matt, and he laughs a little. Max runs faster. When Frank leans away, he can see the slick spot where his blood stuck to her. It doesn't look good.

He's going to have to wash her mane.

He can do that once he's back in Hellauer.

Matt's going to be glad that everything's okay.

Frank blinks. His eyes stay closed for a little longer.

Damn, blinking hurts.

Does it normally?

He blinks again. They just stay closed. There's a nice, long, wide red trail on the Utah orange. Max is a black stain at the end of the trail, moving fast, moving sure. The sun is setting right now, and they're moving towards it. Hellauer's in the west, and Matt is in the west, and it's going to be alright.

Frank blinks it away and thinks, almost, that he's dead. The world is white and the shadows soft, his body feels warm and indiscriminately achey. There is no noise, no sound beyond the soft buzz in his ears and the whinny of a horse somewhere a little ways away. When he opens his mouth to breathe, there's a thin whine, and he realizes it's the sound of his breath leaving his lungs.

Heaven, if the Bible is to be believed, and he's been reading it a lot lately, would not take him. His murdering, brutal self, so much blood on his hands he's forgotten the color of his skin. The bodies behind him form a comprehensive trail, one easily followed, mapping each of his steps.

Whatever he feels about that slips away as a rush comes. It washes out the pain of his entire body and the stuffiness of his lungs and makes him think that maybe, he actually has made it to Heaven. He killed those men. The ones that hurt Matt. Matthew. Haha.

Maybe helping Matt brought him up. Maybe it saved him. Matt is safe, and because Matt is so good, Frank is now, too. Or something like that.

The rush rolls over his shoulders and makes him furrow his brows, blink a little. Consider crying. If that's the case, then God must know how good Matt is. Frank might be dead, but Matt'll be safe, because God knows how good he is. Matt's safe.

The feeling settles deep in his chest and rolls around like it's knotting itself into a tumbleweed, so fervent, so fast. It crawls up and over him and into him and oh, God, he's dead, oh, God, Matt is safe. He's protected someone. Nobody else is going to die. Matt's safe.

He blinks, and blinks, and fends off tears because he doesn't want to cry in front of the angels, but as he blinks the world becomes less beautiful. He begins to see the grain of the ceiling, the way it's slatted wood… it's painted white, it's painted, it's…

He's in Hellauer. This is Lantom's church, the infirmary.

Oh, God, he's alive. He really hadn't expected that.

His chest tumbleweed does as they do and rolls away in the wind of his sharp, disbeliving breath. Frank breathes, starts to pant, deliberate heavy breaths just to feel his lungs move. Each breath hurts, he can feel his lungs in a painful way, but they're working. Shit, God, he's alive.

Two thoughts at the same time, overlapping: does this mean Matt isn't safe? and How?

Of course Matt is safe, Frank thinks, mind answering that question first. It's either because he can, actually, answer that one, or because Matt's wellbeing has been in the forefront of his mind for months.

How, however, is a much more difficult question. Thinking back works like a mosaic, pieces of memory picking up but loosely and unsure, fitting together like a mosaic made of mismatched pieces. Some memories are too small for his picture, things like bullets in his hand, the sensation of smearing blood on Max's mane. Some are far too big, sweeping, general images of the Utah landscape at night, or a man charging at him with a knife. His picture of the past is ugly and confused and only really tells him that he should be dead.

Did he get shot? It feels like he got shot. It burns like he did.

Frank sits up, pushing his arms against the bed, relishing the pain in his arms. He's still kicking.

Now upright, Frank can assess. Bandages across his torso, left forearm, and it feels like his hip and leg. The ones he can see are white, which means he's not actively bleeding. Time has passed. His lungs hurt when he breathes, broken rib or ribs. It doesn't hurt too bad, so not too many ribs, if multiple are broken. His throat is dry and lips chapped. He is a little hungry.

Frank braces himself, tries to swing his legs off the side of the bed. It's more of a stiff drag against the sheets, legs not moving comfortably, and he notices that there's a sock on one of his feet that has a stick in it. He's got a brace on his left foot.

Frank tries to feel the shape of the brace, scowling, when the door opens.

"…him, no worries, Fathe—" A soft, caring woman's voice. Karen's. Frank looks up at her, and she's wide-eyed and gaping at him. "When did… what are…"

"Dunno when I woke up." Frank tries to push himself off the bed more, only for Karen to rush over, place the tray she was holding on the nightstand, and place Frank's leg back on the bed. He grunts.

"Why are you trying to get up? Can you not feel?" Karen's awe has shifted to be signifigantly more angry. Her hair is in a bun and sticking out loosely, her dress simple and not one of the ones Frank and Matt bought her.

"Th't new?" Frank's voice sounds awful, raw and unused. "'S good… the black."

"What— my dress?" Karen looks down, almost comedic, "Yes, Frank, it's new. I… Jesus, are you alright? What do you remember?"

Frank tries not to give away that it's messy. Mosaic.

"I'm fine." He says. The shuddering, hollow breath that follows that betrays the lie. Frank realizes that blinking feels gummy, and that his face feels fat. The pain in his body slips from a welcome confirmation that he's alive and into the actually painful territory.

Karen's look is incredulous. She licks her lips and brushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear, eyes flicking around, panicked. Her eyes land on Frank's, "We weren't sure if you were alive. We were— it was a normal night at the bar, and Matt just ran away. Literally, ran."

Frank blinks. Wow, yeah, his left eye is swollen. It's a slow, thick movement.

"You looked…" Karen rakes her eyes up and down Frank's body. She sighs, "You look a lot better right now. And that's saying a lot."

She grabs a mirror that's sitting on the nightstand, a big-ish one like those on vanities, and steps back to capture Frank's body.

Shit.

He's alive, alright. Purple, too.

His torso is wrapped fully in bandages, while his upper arms are littered with stitched wounds. His left forearm is wrapped in bandages, right covered in a bruise on the inside. His jaw is a ruddy purple, while his nose is cocooned in bandages and his left eye is a black one. His right brow has a cut through it and his forehead has a huge scrape on it.

"…How long 's it been?" Frank is glad Matt can't see this.

"Five days." Karen puts the mirror down. Her voice tightens, "You got here Sunday. It's Friday."

Frank blinks at her. Breathes in and out, heavy, bites back a wince at the pain because a wince would irritate his eye. "I'll be alright."

Karen blinks. Scoffs. Can't decide between starting to pace or sitting down on the adjacent bed, so she just hovers. "That's all you have to say?"

"I'll be alright. I've lived through worse." Frank shrugs. "You helped me. 'S good of you. I appreciate that."

Karen's look tells him that he got it wrong. She shakes her head, "Frank, what happened?"

Frank closes his eyes. Matt might be angry. Might be glad. The whole point was that he never had to know. Matt would be protected and he wouldn't have to worry about himself.

"Frank." Karen leans in. "Lantom and Matt spent a full night putting you back together. I stuck around to replace the candle in the lamp. You need to- what happened? Who got to you?"

"Nobody, Karen." Frank sighs, settles back into the bed. Karen moves the pillow up behind him so he falls back on it, body leaning upright. "It's alright now."

Karen watches him, mouth tight and pressed together. She looks around, debating if she should press or not. There's a film of caution on her eyes, careful, watchful.

"Frank, you can't avoid- Jesus!" Karen hisses, sharp. She screws her face into a wince, tight and unhappy, like she's been cut off. She looks Frank square-on, blue eyes meeting his brown, and it looks like she feels bad for him.

The interruption was the hard thud of the door slamming into the wall, doorknob rattling as it's pushed into the plaster. Matt, out of place in the soft, white light, looks mad. Angry. Pissed.

Brows drawn, mouth frowning, eyes sharp and focused even as they look at nothing. His entire body is taut with energy, one fist still on the door where he threw it open. "Karen," Matt says, not quite as a greeting.

"Matt." She looks at him and Frank, sighs. "He just woke up. Only a little bit before I came in."

"Thank you for helping him, Karen." Matt steps forward, the door groaning up and away from the wall. As it does, it reveals a doorknob-shaped scuff.

"He's my friend too," Karen puts an arm in Matt's elbow, turning away from Frank, "Matt."

Matt looks at Frank, best he can, and for the smallest of seconds his face isn't angry. There's a flash of despair or hurt. It goes as fast as the flash in the barrel of a gun, and he opens his mouth to say something.

Frank feels confused, laying here in this bed, Matt pissed or sad and Karen looking like that.

"It's different." She says, soft, but loud enough that she knows Frank is going to hear it. "I know." Even softer.

And she walks out of the room. Her dress, shiny like she likes them, catches less and less of the light, until she wanders into the main chapel and isn't reflecting anything at all.

Matt stands there, in the center of the room, breathing.

"'S good to see you." Frank smiles, even when it irritates his bruises. "F'r a second there, didn't think I'd get to see you again."

Matt steps into the space between Frank's bed and the next over, and slaps him hard enough blood sprays on the nightstand mirror. "What is wrong with you?"

"Huh?"

"What is wrong with you?" Matt looms over Frank, leaning into his space. "Do you- do you think I'm weak? Do you have a death wish? Are you just fucking stupid?"

Frank looks up, blinking the blood from his now-open brow cut out of his eye, speaks, "I-"

"'I'm sorry Matt, I didn't know what I was doing. I thought there would be less of them.' has got to be what you're about to say." Matt leans down, "It'd better be."

It's not, actually. He was about to say, and he does say, "'S alright now."

Wrong thing, apparently, as Matt slaps him again. More blood dribbles from the cut on Frank's brow, and this time Matt doesn't even say anything. Just stands above him. "I had somethin' to take care of."

"What? What could you possibly have needed to take care of that would've left you like-" Matt sputters, "like this!"

"I took down a gang. Nobody's comin' after me." Or you.

Matt tilts his head, moving his ear to be closer to Frank, "Was there something special about them?"

"They were nasty fuckers, sure. More'f 'em than I thought." Frank grumbles. "More than I was prepared for."

"Well, yes." Matt shakes his head. "Yeah. I can see that." He's breathing heavily, enough that you can see the rise and fall of his chest.

"I should'a had it." Frank says, and it sounds bitter, even to him. He should've had it. Technically he did, because nobody but him walked out of that room. His reflection, shining on the mirror in his peripheral, disagrees with the technicality.

"Why didn't you bring me?" He's moved away, not quite pacing but not staying still in the space between the beds and the door.

"They needed to die. You don't like death." Frank shrugs.

"Nobody needs to die." Matt grumbles, and then runs a hand over his face, exasperated and annoyed. "Besides th' point. You should've brought me."

"Yeah, well." Frank lifts his left arm. "I can feel that."

"Why didn't you?" Matt sets his jaw. "I get it, you wanted to kill them, but we've fought traffickers together before. You were fine with how I do things then. Enthusiastic, even, judging by how open you were to tagging along!"

"And these guys deserved to die, Matt, I don't know what more there has to be. They needed to die." Frank watches Matt stand there and huff. He rolls his eyes at Frank's words and his hair is a red beacon against the white walls.

Matt stops moving and faces Frank, "I hate them, you know. Traffickers."

"I know."

"Jessica is a close friend of mine. She went through it. I damn them all to hell." Matt steps closer, but still far.

"I know."

"Do you…" Matt looks around like he's looking for something, "…is it that you think I'm weak?"

"Naw, Matt, I jus'," Frank swallows, "I…"

"Then fucking why!" Matt steps closer again, loud, between the beds and close enough for Frank to grab. "Goddamnit, Frank, why? It's not because I'm too weak, it's not because I don't hate them enough, what is it? What was the point?"

"The point-" Frank pushes himself further up the bed, straining, "-was to protect you, Matt."

And he doesn't mean to say it, because if the point is to protect Matt and keep him away from it entirely, telling him about it is the equvilant to shooting himself in the foot. But Matt is upset and there's a crease in his brows, his chest is moving with each breath he takes, and he keeps blinking like he's perplexed or trying to chase tears away.

"Protect me?" Matt scoffs.

Protect you. Matt doesn't need to worry. He shouldn't have to. Maria, she… Matt doesn't need to go through hell. Matt needs to stay safe and healthy and well. Nothing needs to come for him, hurt him.

Matt protects people. Matt took Karen in, fed her, clothed her, let her grow into something beautiful. He watches over a town with the diligence and care of- of something Frank can't describe. Of an angel. Of God. Of something true and enchanting and so, so far above Frank's ugly, violent retribution. Frank can kill and Matt can protect, and Matt should be protected while he's protecting.

Even now, the light from the window casts itself on Matt. Even while Matt is standing there in front of Frank with a crease in his brows and a dangerous tilt to his head and his teeth grinding, Matt is in the light. Frank's busted eye or the dust in the air makes the light scatter and it almost surrounds him like an aura.

"Did you get better at reading while you were gone?" Matt's voice is flat, void of heaven and emotion. Flat like an incline, not like plains; they are sliding.

"Huh?" Frank tries to blink away the aura and winces at the opened cut on his forehead. Right—Matt's the devil of Hellauer and slapped him a while ago. The light around Matt does not go away, just diffuses more.

"Did you stop in some town and pick up a cheap little novel? One of those pocket ones, you know." Matt leans in, "Did you pick up The Scarlett Letter? Consider yourself a fucking Hester Prynne?"

Frank feels his own brow furrow and his own chest start to breathe visibly. There's a slow but sure seeping of fondness, a feeling he didn't think he'd feel while someone is in his face, talking like he's the dumbest man alive.

"He's a hero." Matt spits like a curse, "I'm asking if you read some shit and decided to become a hero. A savior."

Frank moves one hand to Matt's, pulls it straight to his heart. Lets Matt feel it beat, even though he can probably hear it anyway, "I wanted to protect you."

Matt's face does something wild, eyes wide and then small, brows up and down and furrowed and not. He swallows and Frank can see his Adam's apple bob, Frank's eyes searching all of Matt, for a reason he isn't sure of himself.

"Why didn't you bring me?" Matt, soft, for the first time since he entered the room. "What does that mean?"

Matt isn't supposed to know. It ruins the point.

Frank might also be stupid.

He reaches a hand up, careful, between the two of them. One hand keeps Matt's hand on his heart, and the other slides against his cheek, the tips of Frank's fingers drifting into his hair. It stays there for a second before he grips, so, so lightly, and pulls Matt down.

Down, soft, until they're breathing the same air and then they're pressing their lips together. Frank lets some of the tension in his body release and squeezes the hand against his chest, and Matt…

Gets tenser.

Matt takes the hand that's free, balls it into a fist, and punches Frank so hard he hears his teeth clatter.

"I can fight." Matt steps back, back straight, eyes wide, tensed fist shaking and one hand brushing against his lips. "I can handle myself. I don't need to be protected. I don't need someone to kill for me, especially when whatever they're killing is some fucking gang I don't even know about." A laugh, on the disbelieving edge, "I can do it myself. I don't need you, Frank. I'm not your fucking wife."

Matt gets into Frank's face for the last part, hissing it so that Frank can feel the air from between his teeth.

The coil of fondness is angry and hot and wraps around him fully. "God forbid I do something for you." Frank feels his teeth clack as he tries to not talk about that, about the wife. About her.

"What? What did you do for me?" Matt throws his arms out, "Please tell me what you've done, how it was so special I couldn't know! I can't, actually, still can't know! I can keep traffickers out of my town on my own. What have you done that is so special I don't get to know, Francis. What is it?"

"I found the men who hurt you when you were a kid." Frank watches Matt, who freezes and blinks. "The men who took you from New York all the way out here. They hurt you. I don't deal in half-measures when it comes to people who hurt the people I… I…" Frank trails off.

Matt says nothing.

Frank starts again, "Maria spent her life runnin' from a shitty job. A shitty city. A shitty fuckin' life. Then she died, ugly and bland in the dirt somewhere between Kansas and Nevada. She was haunted by shit she hated, a life she didn't want, an existence she didn't like. I can't let you be followed by men that might want to get you. By the same shit, just physical instead of ideas in your head. I don't want you to die but damn, all people do, and you are not going to die burdened." Frank swallows the anger, "But maybe I shouldn't've."

Matt stands, breathes, before moving to the bed across from Frank's. He sits down, aims his head toward Frank. His eyes land dead-on.

"Do you know how scary it was?" He starts, soft, quiet, so much so that it feels like someone threw water on the conversation. Like someone wrapped the conversation in a blanket and handed a candle to it, and now they're whispering under a tight canopy and lit by one flame sitting between the two of them.

"Do you know how scary it was, to be at the bar with Foggy and Karen, and start t' taste blood?" Matt's brows furrow, like he's living it again. "To start to listen, and hear something slump off a horse, like a dead body? To think: Frank should be coming back. That might be Frank. I got up, I looked like a fool, I ran out the door and panicked and smelled you and I was so scared. Everybody came out to see what happened. They stood around you and gasped and Karen put her hand over her mouth, but I didn't know what was wrong."

Matt blinks a few times, "I could smell that you were bloody, I could hear that you were broken and that your heart was slower than it should be, but… that's all. I had no idea. Do you know how scary that was? How terrifying?" Matt breathes, "I don't need protection. Not if it hurts you. I don't need it."

Frank's mind cannot let go of the image of them, dead. He cannot think of the sensations of their death without a picture.

"I want to protect you." Frank swallows down anger and there's none left, just the smoke it left behind. "You might not need it, Matt, but I want to." Needs to.

Matt reaches out, hovers a hand in the space between them. Only when Frank lifts his own does Matt intertwine their fingers, "I sleep better when you're here, Frank." He smiles, soft and sweet and sad, "I sleep better with you in the bed next to me."

"I sleep better when I know you're safe." Frank has bumpy, bloody knuckles. There's a bandage on his hand. Matt's are bruised and scarred, but unbroken.

"I'm not haunted by anything, Frank." Matt squeezes, looks around like he's checking, "Have you… have you heard Lantom pray at night? Through the walls?"

Frank nods, then grunts a yes.

"He's worried about his soul." Matt smiles, feebly, swallows, "The man that took me got away with it in the insanity of the war. If we stayed near state lines nobody'd notice, we could just… go. I got hurt, though. He broke my hand, and it bruised, and Lantom saw. I used to…" Matt laughs, "I used to force him, the man, to take me to church when we were near one. He hated it, but I didn't, and I would be quiet when we went, so he let me. But Lantom saw."

Frank does not interrupt, but he does look at Matt's hand. It moves perfectly smooth and there is no sign that that man did something permanent. It does not soothe Frank's heart.

"Lantom asked some questions too many and I panicked, I ran… the man noticed that I was strange, and he rushed to get us gone but… Lantom saw." Matt shrugs. "Lantom shot him the second he got one foot on that train platform."

"Good." Frank nods, squeezes Matt's hand. "He should've done more than just shot the bastard."

"No he shouldn't. It killed him." Matt's voice is so pained, so hurt. "Lantom hasn't gone a day since where he hasn't prayed for his soul, begged the Lord to be kind. He is terrified. All because he protected me. I can handle myself now. I won't do that to anybody else."

There's a million things he can say: that he has killed before, will kill again, makes a habit of it. That he would love to kill for Matt, would do it until he's dead. But none of that is the right thing to say.

"I won't apologize." Frank says, instead. He hopes it's right.

"I will apologize," Matt smiles, quiet, "for punching you."

"Not for slapping me?"

Matt leans in, and it's just like when Frank pulled him in, except this time Matt's cupping Frank's cheek and when their lips meet, they stay there for a while.

Utah gets really snowy in the winter. New York did, too, but it was so dense with people that you'd never wake up to what looks like a white void. Out the window, it's just a blank expanse, shining, pale. The sun catches on snow crystals and it glimmers.

Frank moves to the small kitchenette, lights the hearth. The flame rises in a burst, licking out of the metal box, before settling in. The wood is special, some kind from up north that Matt likes 'cause of the smell. It doesn't smell like anything to Frank, but he's happy to be warm.

On a trip to Salt Lake City a year ago, Frank brought a rug home. Now the floor isn't cold as shit in the mornings, and the walk between the bed to the chairs (which Frank also bought cushions for) isn't awful.

Matt stepped up to do some home decor, too, and they ended up with a thick, huge, wool blanket for the bed. It's this horrible shade of navy that they must've been trying to sell for multiple years, because it's all sun bleached, but it's soft. Same goes for their red pillows. Ugly, but soft. Sometimes Frank wonders if Matt likes him for the same reason.

Frank starts setting up the coffee pot. This, too, is new. Both of them used to use portable, small pots that made one cup only. Once Frank started leaving his things at Matt's, once Frank started waking up here more mornings than not, once Matt's became theirs, it felt stupid to put two tiny pots next to each other.

From the bed, "Use th' nice coffee. Not the bad stuff." Matt's voice is muffled because he refuses to stick his head out of the blankets.

"'S there a special occasion?" Frank grabs the nice coffee, the stuff Danny brings whenever he stops in town. He brings even better teas, but those go to Jessica and Luke.

"Cold." Matt mumbles from the covers, "'Nd we've got nothing to do today."

Frank hums, "That's true."

"We should drink coffee and do nothing until we absolutely have to." Matt sits up, just a little. His eyes poke out from under the blanket and they're smiling.

"Thought we didn't have anything to do today." Frank prepares two mugs. The smooth one is for Frank, the fancy one with engraved leaves is for Matt.

"We don't." Matt pulls himself up the bed until his collar bone shows, and maybe part of the reason he hides under the covers is because he only wears a long, loose shirt to bed in the heart of February.

"So you want to lay in bed all day?" Frank pours the coffee. "I thought I was supposed to be the old one."

"We can both be." Matt smiles and sticks his hand out for his mug, which Frank passes to him. He slides against the wall to let Frank climb back under the covers and lean against the pillows with him. "We can be young in a few weeks, when Spring finally comes 'round."

"Sure." Frank laughs a little, presses a kiss into Matt's hair. Matt leans into Frank's chest, ducks his head and waits for Frank to drape an arm over his shoulders.

They end up laying in bed until noon, which is pretty good. Frank got to futz with Matt's hair and make tiny, tiny braids in it, and Matt got to doze.

They crawl out of bed and shuffle into the church when Matt smells food—warm, good food. They find Karen and Lantom sitting in the front of the chapel, talking over a large pot.

"There they are." Karen smiles, warm, and she looks great in her winter dress. It's blue, like everything she owns, but also has black fur along the edges.

Matt yawns from where he's standing on Frank's arm, wearing his sleep shirt, wool-lined pants, and Frank's coat. The coat swallows him whole and the sleeves cover his fingers, but he takes it every time. Frank's second coat is what he's currently wearing.

"Karen. Good t'see you." Frank shuts the door to the church, "That from the saloon?"

Karen smiles, "You couldn't catch me cooking, but Josie's happy to do it."

"She's a saint." Matt walks to the long, thin table that sits beside the altar and pulls it to the front-center of the room. He takes the pot and puts it on the table, disappears into a side room to grab bowls.

"Francis, could you ring the bell?" Lantom asks, sitting beside Karen.

"When are you gon' call him Frank?" Matt calls from the other room as Frank walks to the bell's cord. "He's been livin' here for the better part of four years."

"Five!" Karen amends, "He showed up just after me, and I've been here for five."

"It's respectful to call him by his full name." Lantom tuts.

Frank tugs on the cord and feels the bell's weight shift as it starts to ring. When he turns back, Matt is laying out utensils and bowls on the table. Karen's there next to him, fussing with the pot, and Lantom is walking towards him.

"Do you want me to call you Frank?" He asks.

"Whatever you think is best, Father." Frank smiles, pats him on the shoulder.

"I'd rather do whatever you prefer, but if you're fine with Francis, as am I." Lantom props open the front doors of the church.

"You're so good to me, Father." Frank watches as people slowly spill into the street, winter clothes harsh against the white.

"You've been good to my boy." Lantom turns, levels Frank with an earnest stare. There's warmth and maybe gratitude in his eyes, the edges soft. "It's the least I can do."

They end up running out of soup pretty quickly, so Frank and Matt do an emergency run to the saloon to beg Josie for more. She gives them another full pot in exchange for five dollars and a promise to stop hustling people in darts. They're heroes when they get back to the church, though, so it's alright.

Matt and him pass out food until Foggy Nelson, the mayor, and Luke Cage, the town sherriff, decide to do it. There's something funny about watching the two most powerful men in town pass out soup.

Matt pulls out his fiddle and passes the piano to Dani, who is now a full-fledged teen and an arguable prodigy. Frank gets to work lighting candles through the chapel. Karen grabs him just as he finishes and forces him to dance, Frank only stepping on her toes twice.

It's a good thing, Frank thinks, what they've got. He's sitting on a pew, sort of watching Jessica dance with Lantom, mostly watching Matt play. He's got such a focused look on his face, entirely fixated on the music, and it's… it's just nice, seeing him so focused, so serene.

Frank considers walking over and kissing him, melting whatever focus is there and making Matt laugh, but people are dancing and Matt's playing the melody.

"You were staring at me." Matt says, later, once everybody's gone home and they're in bed. "Do I make a face when I play?"

"Nah. You jus' look pretty." Frank turns on his side, catches Matt's face with his hand. "Ya always do, but you really do when you focus."

"I like how your heart sounds when you stare at me." Matt puts his hand on top of Frank's. "It's so steady."

They kiss, and yeah. It's a really, really good thing they've got.