Young Riders fic: The Thorns of Ambrose
Rhi has helped me further with the betaing of my Young Riders slashfic, and it has now reached the point where we both find it postable. I know most of you have never seen this show, but for those who have - enjoy!
Title: The Thorns of Ambrose
Fandom: The Young Riders
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Jimmy/Ambrose (flashbacks), Kid/Lou
Summary: When Jimmy, Kid and Lou are on a mission together, Jimmy picks an alias that causes old memories to resurface.
There was a definite downside to travelling with newlyweds, Jimmy found out. It only took him an hour or two to get tired of their looks and smiles and the way they touched every time they got off the horse for a moment. After a day, he wished they'd find the posse already, and after the second day, he rather thought he'd prefer getting lynched.
On the morning of the third day, they found the marshal's body, and after that no one was smiling anymore.
"Why are they doing this?" Lou asked, long after they'd buried the poor man.
"He told them what to do," Jimmy said, trying to keep the rage out of his voice. "I guess they didn't like what they heard."
"I was wondering why Teaspoon sent three of us," Kid muttered.
"You think he knew?" Lou's voice went up - for once, you could hear that she was a girl.
"I think he guessed."
Jimmy thought of the dead marshal - a big strong man, bruised and blue-faced, hanging from a tree. "I just hope three will be enough."
By nightfall, they found a camp, with the horses they'd been following gathered around a fire. They dismounted and went closer on foot, keeping as quiet as possible so as to get a good view of the posse without being found.
"Well, what have we got here?"
Of course, that plan was shot all to hell. Jimmy turned at the sound of the voice, and raised his hands in the air as he found himself looking straight at the barrel of a gun. Kid and Lou were doing the same.
Ten men at least were surrounding them. Some of them looked strong, all were armed, but Jimmy still didn't think too much of them. He'd been around enough times to know posturing when he saw it, and he could tell by the way Lou and Kid relaxed that they knew it too.
The leader was the only real cause for concern. A snake in the grass, that one. He was way too amused with the situation - though maybe that could be worked to their advantage.
"I thought we were being followed," the leader said. "Who are you guys?"
What they needed to do was get the leader on his own. Once they brought him down, none of the others would be much trouble. But they couldn't do that while they had all those rifles pointed at them.
Maybe if they managed to convince the posse that they were harmless: a joke, not even worth the effort of hanging. They'd still most likely be beaten and set off into the prairie without horses, but hell, they'd been in worse situations than that and made it out.
"We're Rock Creek deputies," Jimmy said, doing his best to sound as sheepish as possible. "We were sent here to stop you. You're under no jurisdiction to perform these acts..."
A few of them started laughing. Good sign. A few wrong conclusions, and they'd be right where they needed to be.
"We caused a stir all the way to Rock Creek, huh? Pity they sent boys to do men's work." The leader stepped over to Lou and cupped her chin. "This one ain't even old enough to shave..." His voice died away and his expression changed. He jerked her face to the side, examining it in the light of the fire. "What the hell? It's a woman!"
"They got women deputies in Rock Creek now?" one of the others asked.
"I guess that's the legal office for you!"
The man was still holding Lou's face, and Jimmy realized with a sudden sense of mind-numbing fear that he'd have to rethink his plan. He was so used to thinking of Lou as one of the guys, he had counted on a beating, but that wasn't what was going to happen at all. They'd have to act fast if they were to stand a chance. If only those men would lower their guns for a single second...
"They sent a woman for us," the leader said in a soft voice. "I've taken down the best. I've called out the fastest guns and won..."
Jimmy tuned out as the name-dropping started. He'd heard this kind of rant before, far too many times. Now, everyone's guns were still held high, but the wielders were looking a hell of a lot more relaxed. If they got an opening, and a clear shot, they might stand a chance of making it out alive. He noticed that Kid's hands were balled into fists, and he shook his head slightly, pleading silently for him to take it easy, wait for the right time.
"You," the leader said, pointing his gun to Jimmy. "What's your name?"
Do you prefer to be addressed as Mr. Hickok, Jimmy, James, or Wild Bill?
"Ambrose Merriweather," he said, bringing those memories up to the surface, the bumbling eagerness, the idealism. He could never mimic that, not really, but he tried his best.
A couple of guys snickered. He caught Kid's gaze - wide-eyed and reproachful.
"My sincerest apologies, Ambrose," the leader said dryly. "Is this your girl?" He slowly unbuttoned Lou's blouse.
Jimmy bit his lip. Kid took an involuntary step forward. The leader looked from one to the other, smiling slightly. "Oh, no, it's your girl, isn't it? But you want her too, right? Well, I'll be kind. I'll let you both watch."
His hand wandered further down Lou's chest, and he lowered his gun...
Jimmy barely had time to notice that the moment was now, before Lou ripped the gun from the leader's hand and pointed it at his forehead. "That's far enough."
"Oh, feisty," he said. "Only trouble is, missy, my guys have your guys at gunpoint. You pull that trigger, you'll all be dead within seconds."
Lou pondered that. "Except..."
She pulled the trigger.
The men all jumped at the sound, and a couple of them stood frozen and watched their leader hit the ground. Jimmy started with the other ones - the fast thinkers who only wavered for a second. The first he shot at point blank, the second had time to fire first, and he felt a burning sensation at the side of his neck. It distracted him enough that he only wounded the second guy, but since the guy stayed down it didn't bother him too much.
Kid had gotten a couple too, and Lou a total of three, meaning there were only three men left standing, and these quickly dropped their guns.
"...None of them are counting on me to actually fire," Lou said, finishing the sentence she had started before her first shot. She brushed a strand of hair from her eyes with the back of her hand which still held the gun.
"You killed him," one of the men said, staring down at his leader on the ground, whose blood was forming a dark pool around his head.
"And ain't it a bitch to be on the receiving end?" Jimmy asked, pulling off the horses' bridles to tie the guys up. He had some rope in his saddle bags, but the saddle bags were further down with his horse, and he didn't trust these guys not to try something stupid.
Lou gave him a grin. "You're bleeding like a stuck pig."
"Yeah, yeah," he said. "I'll tie it up when they're all tied down. How many are still alive?"
The question was aimed at Kid, who was checking the people on the ground. "Two... no, three wounded. Four dead."
"You're luckier than the people you went after," Jimmy told the guy he was currently dealing with.
"They were criminals."
"So are you," he pointed out. "You killed a marshal. Not getting my deep admiration for that."
With nearly half their number gone, the rest of the posse was meek and easily subdued. It didn't take long for the three deputies to tie them up, tend to their wounds, and get them mounted on horseback.
The dead ones were more of a problem. In this heat, the bodies would start to smell pretty soon, and it'd take a day at least to get to the nearest town.
"We're gonna have to bury them," Lou said morosely.
"You can't do that!" a member of the posse protested - a blond, scrawny man who wasn't injured but still looked a shade of pale green. "What about their families?"
Kid looked thoughtful, and Jimmy shook his head. "Don't even go there."
"I'm not." Kid gave a sudden grin, like he was amused at the thought. "We'll mark the spot. If their families are that concerned, they can do it again later. Though it might have been nice," he added with a glance in the direction of the man who had spoken, "if they'd shown that concern by locking you guys up in the first place. Would have saved us a lot of trouble."
"Hmm," Lou agreed. "Anyone else wishing we had a shovel?"
"I hate missions like these," Jimmy grumbled as they got off their horses. It wouldn't be much of a rest - sunrise was in a few hours and they still had to watch the prisoners - but everyone needed a break from riding.
"Listen," Kid said, sounding like he wasn't sure if he should even be talking or not, "why... I mean, why did you use that name?"
"Huh?" It was so out of the blue that it took a while for Jimmy to remember what he was talking about. That name. That ridiculous-sounding name.
Eager eyes behind spectacles watching his every move. A damned nuisance at first, and then, slowly, even before the fight... not so much.
"Misdirection, of course," he said. "Making them think we're weak."
"It just seems a bit disrespectful."
Jimmy's fist clenched, and his horse whinnied as he tugged at her bridle tying her up.
"Shh, girl," he said. "Disrespectful, huh? Would you have preferred it if I'd said 'Hickock'? To that guy?"
"Hickock?" one of the prisoners said in awe. "Wild Bill Hickock?"
None of them paid him any attention.
"That's not what I'm saying. But why 'Ambrose'? He's dead, and you're using his name to sound weak?"
Years later, and Jimmy found those damned eyes still hadn't left him. He saw them in the back of his head, full of life and emotion, and he saw them dimming in death. If he closed his eyes, he was pretty sure he'd feel lips against his own too, and so he kept them open, even though they were burning.
"What do you know?" he growled. "You didn't..."
"Didn't what?"
Jimmy bit his lip, forcing down the words he'd meant to say. "Hold him, when he died. I did. Remember?"
"I remember," Kid said quietly, his eyes not leaving Jimmy's. "I remember how he died. He wasn't weak."
"Kid..." Lou protested, but Jimmy didn't want or need her help.
"I never said he was!" he yelled. "All I said was..."
"I'm not like you think I am."
"You're everything I think you are." The words were mumbled into his ear, with a certainty that made him shiver. He reminded himself that it wasn't about him. The admiration, the... rest of it, that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with Wild Bill Hickok, who didn't even exist.
He pushed away. "What do you know? You think you can cut it out here? Go home. You have no idea."
"Maybe I don't." His eyes were hurt, but his voice much too steady. "Maybe I should go home. But I'm not wrong about you... Jimmy. You're the real thing."
"What real thing? There is no real thing! It's all in your overheated imagination!"
Jimmy snapped his mouth closed and turned on his heel, away from the accusations and confusion he saw in his friends' faces - or maybe that was all in his head. In either case, he couldn't take it anymore.
He didn't go very far - Teaspoon would rip him a new one if he left all the work to the other two just so he could brood in peace. He'd pull himself together, let the whole thing cool down, and then get back and explain to Kid in not so many words why Ambrose Merriweather was none of his god-damned business.
He sat down on a rock and pulled some straws of grass off the ground just to keep his hands occupied. Maybe Kid was right. Maybe he was disrespecting Bulldog's memory. But doing it felt good - he was using the memories of an overeager city boy, but those were the good memories. Painless.
He heard footsteps coming from behind and raised his shoulders in defense before turning. Lou. Jesus, couldn't she leave things well alone either?
"Do you mind?" he asked, more sarcastic than he ever thought he'd be to her.
She stopped in her tracks, frowning slightly. "Are you coming back at all?"
He sighed. "Yeah." But he made no move to rise.
After a while, she took another hesitating step forward and offered, "Kid didn't mean anything."
"I know that," he snapped. He didn't need her mediating to tell him that Kid had all the best intentions - he always did.
"It's just that he liked Bulldog. We all did."
"And I'm, what, the exception to that?"
"No, of course not. But... well, I know you found him a pain sometimes."
"Hewas a pain sometimes," Jimmy admitted. He shook his head. "The way I remember him... I don't remember a lot of people like that. Alice... Sometimes Emma... And you." He glanced up at her to see her reaction.
"Me?" she repeated, seeming more puzzled than anything else. "You don't have to remember me, I'm right here."
"Yeah," he said, "but even when you're not..." He stood up, letting his hand touch her cheek for a brief moment. "I see you."
She took a step back. "Jimmy..."
"Don't worry," he said. "I ain't doing nothing about it. I just wanted to explain."
"Explain what?"
He found it harder and harder to talk. Part of him willed her to figure it out, while another yelled at him to just leave the whole thing well alone and back out while he still could. But he couldn't do that - couldn't walk away knowing that he'd come this close to telling her the truth and not done it. "That when you care about someone like that, it don't matter if they're not there anymore, or if they're with someone else, or even if they die. 'Cause the feeling don't ever go away, not really."
She stared at him.
"You understand, don't you?" he asked, anguished.
"Not really," she said with an uncertain smile. "Not unless you're trying to tell me that you and Ambrose were sweethearts."
It was said lightly, as a joke, but it clutched his heart.
"Jimmy?"
A hand on his chest, pushing back slightly. "Easy now, Jimmy."
"What, you can't take it?"
"I can take a lot. But you're gonna get a burn, you keep this up. You're not kissing a girl now. Or did you forget?"
Jimmy, feeling stupid, said nothing.
"Maybe you don't mind," Ambrose continued lightly. "Maybe you can go out there with your face all red, and when they ask you why, you'll simply tell them. No problem."
Jimmy pushed him hard back against the wall and kissed him - very gently.
Ambrose laughed. "I guess there are some things that scare the great Wild Bill Hickock after all."
"Don't call me that!"
"What is it you want, Jimmy?" Kisses followed the words - tiny, teasing kisses. "It's not that reputation. What is it that's so dear to you?"
A noise startled him and made him push away. Just one of the horses kicking, but that and the questions was enough to warn him off, and he hurried outside.
"Yeah," he said slowly, watching Lou's face. "Something like that."
"Oh," she said. Her next words came in a slow stutter, as if her brain was occupied elsewhere. "That's - big. I guess - I should - tell Kid that - you want - to be - alone - for a while."
"Tell him I'll be right back," he said.
She nodded jerkily and walked away. He didn't watch - he couldn't bear it.
Despite what he'd told Lou, it was quite a while before he returned. When he did, she gave him a wide but nervous smile before turning her attention to the prisoners. He didn't know what she'd told Kid, but his guess was "not much", because Kid looked more puzzled than anything else.
They rode back to town and got the prisoners safely tucked into jail before returning to the hotel. Some people didn't seem too happy about the fact that some of the people from the posse had been killed. It made Jimmy wonder what they had expected. Aiming for the thigh was all very well when you were one on one, but when you were outnumbered, people tended to die. You just had to hope it wasn't someone on your side.
Jimmy's room was small, but it was more than enough after several nights of sleeping on the ground. He kicked off his boots as soon as he came in there, and was washing the dirt off his face and arms when someone knocked on the door.
Putting his shirt back on, he went to open the door, finding the Kid at the other side of it.
"I'm sorry about what I said before," Kid said. "I really am."
Jimmy opened the door further to let Kid in. "I didn't mean any disrespect."
"I know you didn't." Kid said, closing the door behind him. "And I may be completely out of line here - feel free to punch me if I am - but Lou said something and I was thinking..."
He halted there, giving Jimmy a long, worried look.
"Thinking what?" Jimmy asked. He felt like he'd done when he was little and had an itchy scab, wanting to rip it off that very second and who gave a damn about bleeding?
"Bulldog admired you," Kid said slowly, his gaze firmly fixed on Jimmy's face, though there was something in his expression that if it had been just the slightest bit more developed might have been called fear. "A lot. I guess I always figured maybe he did more than that. And now I'm kind of wondering... if you let him."
"It wasn't just letting him," Jimmy muttered.
"What was it, then?"
Jimmy eyed him warily, but so far Kid made no move to frown or sneer or run very fast in the opposite direction. "This stays between us, yeah?"
Kid relaxed, clearly relieved not to be on the receiving end of any punches or yelling. "Do you have to ask?"
"Well, I wouldn't be asking if I didn't have to ask, now, would I?"
Kid smiled a little. "It stays between us."
"It wasn't a lot that happened, "Jimmy said. "Just enough for me to get it..."
"What is it youwant, Bulldog? A ten-cent hero of your very own?"
He was grinning as he asked, but they both knew the question was serious, and Ambrose didn't smile back, just ran his fingertips down Jimmy's spine.
"We both know you're not that man."
"Now he notices!"
"I noticed from the first day. You're better than that man."
"Get what?"
"He saw something in me," Jimmy said slowly. "I don't know what. I don't know that he knew what, but seeing that... He was a good man, Kid. I only figured that out because he thought I was one too, and maybe I didn't figure it out properly until..."
"Until he died," Kid filled in, his voice low.
Jimmy closed his eyes, seeing a face full of trust and confidence, a face saying that it was all worth it.
"I wish to God he hadn't. He could have been great, if he lived. I wish I'd seen that sooner... or that I'd never seen it at all."
He opened his eyes. Kid's face was easier to take than Ambrose. "He would have lived, if he hadn't come to us. To me. Do you ever think of that?"
"You could say the same about a lot of people," Kid said. He shook his head. "It's a shame he died, yeah, but... I guess it's 'cause I didn't love him like you did."
"Did I love him?" Jimmy asked, his throat tightening. "Is that what I did?"
Kid sighed deeply. "How should I know?"
Jimmy sat down on the bed, frowning slightly. "You're not surprised." It wasn't a question.
Kid shoved his hands into his pockets. "Remember back when my brother came to Sweetwater?"
Jimmy's frown deepened. He didn't see what that had to do with anything. Kid rarely spoke about his brother - hardly surprising, considering how that' all ended. "Yeah."
"And we all got drunk."
"Yeah, what of it?"
"On the way back, you fell off your horse..."
"I did not!"
Kid snickered. "You really did, swear to God! I had to pick you up and put you back on."
Jimmy grinned and shook his head. Well, it wasn't worth getting rankled by one embarrassing moment ages ago that he didn't even remember.
"It wasn't easy. You were heavy as hell and kept slipping, so my hands ended up in some awkward places and you said, 'Hold me like that and I'll be tempted to kiss you.'"
They both turned serious instantly.
"Oh," Jimmy said, not sure what else there was to say.
"I thought you were kidding, but you weren't. You got real scared when you realized what you'd said. Started rambling about how I was going to hate you; no matter how many times I tried to calm you down. And then you talked about Lou, said you wished she'd been a man because then I'd hate her too and you could have her."
Jimmy groaned. "I was that drunk?"
"Yeah. Jimmy, I know you hate taking advice from me, but take this one: don't ever get that drunk again."
He didn't have to specify the reason. Jimmy knew full well what kind of danger he'd been in that night. If it had been someone else hearing him say those things... "I won't. Thanks."
"You're welcome. I know we've had our differences, but I want you to know that I never told anyone what you said, and I never hated you." The shadow of a smile flickered on his lips. "Been close to it a couple of times, but not for this. This is none of my business."
"Never figured you'd be so mellow about it," Jimmy said, feeling shaky, like he'd been straining too hard for too long and finally been made to let go. "More than Lou."
Kid smiled. "I've had two years to think about these things, Jimmy. Lou only found out today. Give her some credit. She'll come around."
"And you're just fine and dandy," Jimmy said, refusing to believe it.
"Let me put it this way," Kid said with a wide grin. "Anything that keeps you from being all broody over my wife..."
Jimmy tossed one of his boots at him, but slow enough that Kid could catch it instead of being hit by it.
"He was a good man," Kid said, suddenly serious. "And you're not half as bad as you think you are." He put the boot down and nodded towards the door. "Got to go see to Lou. She said something about a bath."
"You could use one."
Kid snorted at that, and left. When he was gone, Jimmy fell back on the bed, closing his eyes once again. He tried to remember that smiling, bespectacled face, stubble tickling his skin when they kissed, that rambling voice saying things that were way too innocent...
But all he got this time was a dead body being wrapped in cloth.