Facing the Bullets

Epilogue

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Nearly Three Years After

Arizona

Two days after the shootout at the Oh Shit Corral, they were still picking up shattered glass and scattered ammo from the east side of town. Worth had managed to weasel his way out of most of the cleanup duty roster, it being a largely diurnal task and him being—

Well. Lately more or the nocturnal persuasion.

But this evening the choice had been between pitching in for reconstruction efforts and joining the party wagon as it took a delegation into White Town, and nobody was buying any bullshit about his poor old back acting up. Lousy goddamn immortality, making a man responsible to the community.

Worth paused and ran his tongue over the tapered eye-teeth jutting out over his lip. He'd already sliced himself open enough times that counting them had just gotten embarrassing. There was a near permanent smear of brackish blood forever hanging around his mouth these last couple of days. It had an odd flavor, a sharp warning on the tongue like stomach acid. Not exactly an appetizer.

Oh look, a perfectly good shotgun shell. No fucking way he was turning that one in.

Someone with short nails tapped him on the shoulder as he was bent down over the dirt. Scowling, he pocketed the shell with a shove.

"Oi, whatcha—"

Miriam stood behind him, the fading sunburn on one cheek covered up by a massive wad of gauze. Worth made a fist around the ammunition in his pocket. She looked at him. He looked at her. The shotgun shell cracked open in his hand.

"…Hi," she said.

"…Evenin'," he replied, surreptitiously wiggling his powdery fingers.

"So, uh," she started. She paused, scratched vaguely at the arch of her nose, and tried again. "I heard you got, uh. That Conrad. Huh. …Nice fangs."

Worth just stared at her.

"I'm glad," she persevered, "you didn't die. For whatever that's worth. I know you guys are leaving in a couple days, and I just wouldn't want to leave all this bad blood—shit, sorry, um. Basically I want us to make peace, if you're up for it. See, now I get why you were being so difficult, and I want to put a couple things to rest."

Worth lifted one blond eyebrow. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," Miriam said. "A couple days ago, Conrad explained to me that you were hitting on me. At first I really had no idea what was going on with you but—"

Worth squinted. "Junior, hold on a—"

"No, look it's okay, Conrad is my friend and I think I should clear the waters for his sake," she insisted, powering right on through.

"Great, sure, I agree. Lemme explain—"

"Hold on," she said, "you can talk next. Doctor, it's not that you aren't attractive, I mean, in an older… Cowboy ish sort of way, I guess, but you're really not my type and you're probably too old for me anyways."

"Oi."

"And in top of that," she went on, "I'm not interested in a long distance relationship, god knows if you'd even come back through here again. And then there's Conrad—"

"Jesus."

"—Conrad is my friend, and considering how… At odds the two of you are, I couldn't possibly take sides like that—"

Doc Worth reached out and shoved a hand over the crazy broad's mouth, which apparently surprised her enough that she actually stopped talking for a second. She glared down at it, nose wrinkling. What, his hands were clean. Mostly.

"Kid," he said, "I think ya got the wrong idea. 'N fact, I reckon y'got every damn wrong idea ever wriggled its way outta god's ineffable asshole. I ain't never been in'erested in bangin' ya."

"Mmhhp?"

"Christ naw. Got enough on my plate without jugglin' polamory on top'a it. Lesson I picked up in Utah, don't go chasin' after yer second wife till ya got the first one settled down."

Miriam peeled his hand off her face with two uneasy fingers. "You've got a wife?"

"Yeah, she's a big gal pal'a yers. Ain't want ter spoil the surprise, but yer likely t'get maid of honor when we do the service. Sorry ya can't be our flower girl, but I reckon if we give anybody else the job it'll break poor Hanna's big sparkly heart."

Miriam ran her nails through her hair, apparently forgetting that it was pulled back into a ponytail and consequently knocking long tufts free of the elastic. "Are you seriously fucking with me after I came out here trying to offer an olive branch?"

Worth considered her for what felt like an awfully long moment. Unbidden, the memory of Hanna surfaced in the lowest tidal pools of his brain—their first night here, less than a week before, blue eyes wide and worried and focused on Conrad seething in the driver's seat. He worries, the dead guy had said.

And he'd been right to worry, hadn't he.

Worth sighed, more of a thick irritated huff than anything, stale air whooshing out of his lungs. He was a goddamn saint, he was. Ought to get a medal for how motherfucking reasonable and neighborly he was being here.

"Connie didn't happen to mention to ya how the two of us're some kinda item, did'e?"

Miriam blinked at him, her mouth opening slightly like she wasn't sure if she had words to say or not. "Item?"

"Yanno," Worth said, making random motions with his hands, "engaged ta be fuckin'."

"…Are you honestly still messing with me?"

"Uuggh," Worth groaned, grabbing at fistfuls of dirty hair over his temples. "'M not lyin', ya suspicious goddamn cow. We got a thing, me 'n him. Whatever kinda stupid fuckin' arrangement don't get ya laid but gets ya well ter damn screamed at constant, we got that kinda thing."

"Sounds like a marriage," Miriam remarked, still skeptical.

"Heh. Swore up 'n down I wasn't never gonna get hitched, an' now look at me."

Miriam's hand tapped her side, fingers rolling across denim like a tiny wave. "So… you're his boyfriend?"

Worth pursed his lips. "D'I look like somebody's prom date ter you?"

"So you're not his boyfriend?"

"Shit, lady," he said, shrugging irritably, "how would I know? We never talked about it."

"Ahhh." She nodded to herself, like everything was suddenly a big rosy window of clarity. "I can't believe he didn't mention this."

"Yeah, I ain't too pleased about it either."

"Word to the wise, you might want to decide if you're his boyfriend or not. Uh. Pretty fast. You probably know that Conrad's got some issues with stability."

"Er."

"And why do you talk to him so rudely if you're interested in him?"

"I don'—"

"And why are you even interested in him?"

"Er?"

"Why is he even interested in you?"

"Oi!"

Miriam held up her hands. "Whatever, I'll just ask Conrad. I'm not sure you're even capable of carrying on a coherent conversation."

Worth scowled. "I thought ya were offerin' me some kinna olive branch here, not a bloody roast."

"Let's be honest here, I've had an easier time prying information out of a locked safe with a crowbar."

"I'm a goddamn open book, Junior."

"Yeah? Alright then, why don't you lay it out for me Mr. Great American Novel. Why do you love Conrad?"

"I object ter the phrasin'."

"Wow, that is so opaque."

"Christ," Worth swore. "I don't fuckin' know, I gotta have a thesis or summat? Ya want that in MLA or Chicago format, professor? Shit, why I gotta have a reason?"

Miriam gave him a sardonic look, eyebrows raised. "No," she said, like he was being difficult for the sake of being difficult and she wasn't amused. "Just be genuine for a second."

"Yer a right terror," Worth grumbled, and dropped down into the dust on his ass. He didn't say anything for a long time, but the junior interrogationist just kept standing there, with her arms crossed, waiting.

Now would be a great time to try out the bat thing, if only Worth had bothered to practice any in the last day or so. Being knocked out for twelve hours made it hard to find time to experiment, when the other twelve hours were spent patching up a battalion of armed civilians who don't know better than to plug up a wound with a wad of clothing. The amount of useless tourniquets he'd seen after the battle was enough to make a lesser man take a long walk off a short dock.

He looked up. Miriam was still waiting.

"He tell you how we left town when the plague was first kickin' up?"

"No," she answered, impatiently.

"I came an' got 'im," Worth explained, hands hung over knees. "Lost somebody in the first big shake 'n couldn't stand ter lose more. Hanna had hisself a babysitter, but who was gonna watch Connie? Thought ter myself, this dipshit'll sit down in the middle of the road an' wait ter starve if nobody gets 'im by the leash. So I got him. I'm thinkin' I'll just drag him off somewhere safe an' hand him over to Hanna, wash my hands like I always done, set up shop somewhere folks can pass through like they always done."

"…And?" Miriam prompted, after a moment.

Worth frowned. "Well I ain't settled down yet have I?"

"I'm not sure I follow."

"Jeeeeesus. I gotta spell it out fer ya?"

"That's kind of what the point of the conversation is supposed to be, yeah."

Worth sighed again. "Awright. So, we leave town like this—"

"Doctor could you at least try to—"

"Hold on, 'm goin' somewhere with this. So, how we leave town is like this: me 'n Conrad, we find this Cadillac with the keys in the glovebox, and we steal it. Connie's this big squishy bag'a neurosis and watercolors, ain't hardly broke a law in his life, but we jack that Cadillac and we go right on out of town. Stop at a gas station. Some Neanderthal breaks out like he's gonna cap us both fer trackin' plague all over his nice clean carpet. I take a bad hit, I go down. Think ter myself, shit, so much fer savin' anybody. An' then… then that poncy faggot broke a bottle over the guy' head."

Miriam peered down at him, baffled expression mostly visible by lamplight and moonlight. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"What it ain't gotta do with anythin'?"

"Are you seriously trying to tell me you love Conrad because he broke a bottle over somebody's head one time?"

"Fuckin' hell Junior, yer missing the point."

"Well here's a bright new concept for you: how about you just tell me what the point is?"

Worth's hands made strained, aborted attempts to strangle something. "I don't damn well know!"

Neither of them said anything for a while. Worth discovered why Conrad took such deep, unnecessary breaths whenever he got wildly pissed off—fresh oxygen pulsed in and out of his chest, and his mutated nervous system remembered briefly what it was like to be alive and well supplied.

They'd given Conrad such a hard time after he first turned. None of them had understood what that kind of transition felt like, not then. Now that Worth was feeling the same disorienting gamut of transitions—instincts muddled and recoding, sensory input fucked to hell and back—he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd set himself up for this one. Just the lack of a damn heartbeat...

Conrad told him the first week was the worst.

Finally, Worth looked up again. "Feelin's ain't my forte," he said at last, shrugging lopsidedly. "Got other things ter be dealin' with."

"Big adventures?" Miriam asked, only half skeptical. Maybe even a little jealous.

Worth snorted. "Hell, I'd take a chargin' troll over a therapy session any day, I would."

"Okay, well," Miriam started, shoving her hands into her pockets, "I appreciate the effort, then. I guess I'll just go tell Conrad you fell in love with him because brained some guy in a gas station."

The doctor squinted up at her. "Wha- Ya wouldn'."

"Hey, you think I'm keeping this stuff to myself? Dream on."

"Ya goddamn dirt sniffin' cow!"

But Miriam was already half way down the street before he could stumble up to his feet, swearing and grabbing at handfuls of loose dirt. She was lost around a corner before he could even try to dig into any of that vampire speed—god knew if he could even do that, this early on.

Stumped, he resorted to kicking a long-dead streetlight until he couldn't feel his foot anymore, and grit his teeth to the sound of laughter bounding out across the desert.

(He reckoned, though, that at the end of it, they'd turn out all right.)