"Fair enough, let's go." Steve would pick up the second bag containing Kat's clothing and lead Bucky out into the night. The boardinghouse the sheriff was staying in was in a much more reputable part of town and not too far from the doctor's house as it would seem. Unfortunately, when they reached the residence, the grim-eyed man admitted them into the back room that consisted of his surgery.
While Dr. Kincaid was hardly a quack, he was limited by the available tools and Kat's injuries proved to be too much. The poor girl had barely breathed her last less than ten minutes before, he informed Steve.
The sheriff's jaw tensed hard enough for a muscle to jump, betraying his agitation. "Thank you, doctor. Did the father get here in time to say last rites?" He guessed the young girl was Irish by her red hair and pale coloring and having been raised a devout Catholic, he could not imagine sentencing anyone to purgatory by denying them last rites.
"He--" the doctor faltered. "I did not see a reason to bother him..." Of course he hadn't. Like a priest would waste his time with a fallen woman who sold herself for money every night? Steve really was a foolish optimist. She probably wouldn't even be allowed to be buried in the consecrated portion of the cemetery where her murderer was being laid to rest in just a few hours.
I did not see a reason to. Bucky had stopped listening to the other men when the doctor said Kat had died, but those words brought him back to the world. I did not see a reason to. As if a prostitute’s soul just wasn’t worth saving. Why even bother to try with someone like that, right? But Bucky knew the other side of her, knew who she was outside the bedroom. And he felt himself consumed with rage toward this doctor who probably didn’t know or care about that side.
“Goddamn you,” he said, pushing past Steve. "I hope you rot in hell, you sonofabitch!” He spit right in the doctor’s face, and then he was stalking off before he did something worse.
Considering Steve was burning with the same kind of rage, he couldn't fault Bucky his anger but he did still move to pull the enraged man back before he did something more than spit in the face of the stunned doctor.
"You should read your bible more, Kincaid. Or have you forgotten the parts about Jesus welcoming even 'fallen' women into his circle and teachings?" The blond man spat coldly. "Fetch the priest and I'll be back to settle the bill later." And since he didn't trust himself not to manhandle the doctor either, Steve set out after the enraged man.
"Bucky! Wait up, dammit." Steve had to redouble his pace to catch up with the male prostitute and caught the man by his arm. He'd called him 'Bucky', not Mr. Barnes but by the name he'd given him. It was the first breach of polite protocol thus far this evening. Though judging by his rough language, the sheriff seemed just as fit to be tied as the shorter man.
His fist curled into itself when Steve caught his arm, but he did stop. Hearing his name-his preferred name from the sheriff disconcerted him, and he was momentarily rendered speechless. Of course, the rage, the numbness, the loss he felt didn’t help any.
“She was a person, dammit. A real person, and he talked about her like she wasn’t worth anything.” A bitter laugh escaped him. “Bet he didn’t even try very hard to save her. Her blood’s on his hands as much as on Keaton’s.”
What he didn’t say was that he felt her blood was on his hands, as well. He felt he should have done something more, wished he could have gotten to her sooner. Maybe if he had, she could have been saved.
He let him rail against him because Steve knew it was what Bucky needed. Steve had seen it far too many times during the war, the anger and hate at the senselessness of death and the way you became world-weary and desensitized to it. The blond had never been that way, had sworn that he never would and instead, carried every death as a mark on his heart and he knew he'd be adding Kat O'Day's name to the list of people he prayed about each night before bed.
"I know she was and it's not right. It's wrong and it pisses me off just as much as it pisses you off but I swear to you, she'll get her last rites and get a proper burial." Steve didn't speculate about whether the doctor had done a half-assed job of trying to help the girl. Up until tonight, he'd never had thought to see that level of prejudice in the doctor whom he saw every Sunday at church.
"Come on, let's get you settled." Steve finally sighed quietly, the hand still resting on Bucky's arm tugging lightly as he steered the man in the correct direction of the boarding house.
Of course, once they got there, Steve would discover that God really had it out for him tonight when his land lady grumpily informed him the last room for let had been taken by a late-night arrival of a couple of prospectors who'd come into town to trade their gold for money before heading back out into the wilderness.
Too exhausted to argue, Steve would just lead Bucky up the stairs to the room he'd been staying in for the past six months. Without a wife or a family of his own, the sheriff had seen no point in setting up a homestead of his own. Not when the land lady provided him with breakfast and dinner down in the parlor included in with his rent.
/sneaks in one last tag before bediced_soldierJune 1 2012, 06:45:24 UTC
It wasn’t unusual for Bucky to stay up all or most of the night. It depended on how many customers he had and how much time he spent with each one. But it was rare that he had a night as exhausting as this.
Still holding the bags he’d packed for himself and Kat (and, oh, God, Kat was dead), he followed the other man in silence. He hadn’t expected to be sharing quarters with the sheriff, and while he certainly wasn’t complaining, it was a little hard for him to be excited. The best he could manage was gratitude, even if he didn’t say anything out loud.
As soon as he was inside Steve’s room, he sprawled across the first piece of furniture he saw. The bags slid from his hand as he closed his eyes. But he wasn’t going to sleep. It may have been almost daybreak, but he got the feeling the night was far from over.
Steve was sorely tempted to just collapse into the bed and sleep for a good twelve hours but there was far too much to do now. The room Bucky found himself in was on the small side with just enough room for the bed and a chest of drawers. On top of the bureau was a toilette set, a small shaving mirror and shaving set. There wasn't much in the way of personality about the room and no keepsakes at all. Steve had shown up with his horse and everything he owned in the world packed into a couple of saddlebags.
"Make yourself comfortable, I've got to take care of a couple of errands." The blond man said tiredly and wandered over to the pitcher and basin sitting on top of the chest of drawers. Steve poured a couple fingers of water into the basin and dipped a washcloth in it to give himself a quick spit bath. The water was cool and helped shake off some of the bone-deep exhaustion that he knew wasn't going to go away unless he slept for a good five hours or drank a few cups of strongly brewed coffee.
Using the last of the water to dampen his hair, the blond man ran a comb through his hair to put it into some semblance of order so he at least didn't look like he'd rolled out of bed before going to see the priest about Kat's burial arrangements.
Under different circumstances, Bucky would be fascinated, perhaps even appreciative of watching Steve groom. His mind was elsewhere, however, and his eyes closed. The other man’s presence barely registered in his mind.
“Yeah. Got some stuff to do, too.” At that, he sat up and opened his eyes, a determined look coming into them. Picking up the bag he’d packed for Kat, he headed back outside.
The first hints of dawn were just starting to show when he made his way to the empty lot behind the boarding house. It was chilly, but that didn’t account for the shake in his hand, and it took him a couple of tries to light his cigarette before he finally switched to his metal hand, getting it on the first try. The smoke calmed him as he inhaled it, and he felt his hand start to steady.
His cigarette burned down to its last bit of orange as the first bit of orange appeared on the horizon. Taking one last drag on his cigarette, Bucky tossed it into the open bag, watching as it caught flame. He stood there like that, watching it burn until the landlady ran outside, frantic. She went on yelling at him about how it’d catch the wind and soon, the whole boarding house would be up in flames. He’d nodded and put out the flames, mainly to get her to shut up. Her continued presence after the flames were extinguished irked him in this highly personal moment. Not daring to speak aloud, he headed back inside, saying a small prayer for Kat in his mind.
Steve had been just about ready to leave when his irate landlady came to him in a tizzy about his 'guest' trying to light the whole boardinghouse on fire. Once he reached the back door, he recognized the bag the brunette was burning to be the one containing the dead prostitute's clothing. Steve explained oh so vaguely that the shorter man had lost a dear friend and this was just him expressing his grief.
Steve's landlady wasn't an unfeeling old harridan despite her running the boardinghouse with an iron fist and while she kept a watchful eye on Bucky as he put out the fire, she did offer him a cup of coffee and some breakfast when he finally went back inside.
"Steven said he will be back later. He wants you to rest while he is gone, ja?" Her German accident was unmistakable though she'd obviously been in America for years considering she seemed to speak English fluently.
And it would be hours before Steve returned to the boardinghouse. Rumors of the murder at the whorehouse had spread like wildfire and he'd had to spend an inordinate amount of time smoothing the townspeople's feathers while arranging a funeral for the poor girl. Some of Kat's friends from the whorehouse attended as well, the schism between the prostitutes and the gawkers who came to watch unmistakable. Steve knew Bucky probably would have wanted to come but had deemed it too dangerous. Sure enough, he saw one of Lukin's runners amongst the crowd of onlooker who was no doubt looking for any sign of Bucky.
The sheriff was unsurprised to find Kat had no family in which to forward her worldly possessions onto and by the time he'd returned to her room in the cathouse, the other whores had picked through most of her stuff already. That cold pragmatism was what did him in and with a heavy heart, the exhausted sheriff went back to the boardinghouse in too grim a mood to manage much more than a few civil words with his landlady. Truth be told, he was so blurred and exhausted, he'd completely forgotten that Bucky was in his room thanks to the continued lack of vacancies in the boardinghouse.
"It's taken care of," he explained hollowly when he caught sight of the prostitute. Jesus, what the hell was he supposed to do with this man?
It was only after swallowing down the cold eggs and biscuit that, along with coffee, were breakfast, that Bucky realized he should have had some more foresight. Lord only knew when Steve would be back, and Bucky had nothing to do until then. If he’d been thinking, he would’ve brought some project along to work on. But he hadn’t been thinking. Dead tired, he had been focused on Kat and getting out of there.
Now, though, he didn’t think he could sleep if he tried. Not after that long night he’d had, or the coffee the landlady had served him. She may not’ve been so bad once he got used to her, but he still disliked her for disrupting his “ceremony” behind the boarding house.
Left with nothing better to do, he began rifling through his temporary host’s room. It was simple, unassuming. Much neater than Bucky’s room and probably a lot less interesting. But, as Bucky had come to find, even the most boring of people had secrets.
He lifted the mattress, felt under it, and found nothing. The top few drawers of the man’s bureau held only clothes. Wedged in a corner of the bottom one, however, was a small music box. Curious, he opened it. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata began to play as his eyes fell upon the small stash of jewelry inside. Now, that was odd. What was the sheriff doing with jewelry? Could he perhaps have had a wife who’d died, and perhaps kept that as a memento? It looked old, aged and worn. Not something a young bride was likely to have, unless she’d gotten it from her mama.
Or maybe Steve had gotten it from his mama.
With that revelation, Bucky closed the box, carefully placing it back in the drawer. He had ripped off his share of people. It was easy in his line of work, where the men were both nude and distracted. It helped with the guilt thing to know that they couldn’t be very virtuous men, to be coming to a whorehouse to have sex with a man in women’s clothing. If anything, it gave him a sense of satisfaction to steal from these nasty men.
But this case gave him pause-something that had never happened before where stealing was involved. But perhaps that was because he had never stolen from someone who was trying to help him-and he did sincerely believe that Steve wanted to help. The problem with the sheriff was that he was too damn good for his own good. He’d even stood up for Kat when the doctor had been a cad. If Steve weren’t so damn good, this situation wouldn’t be so hard. He could just take the jewelry and get the hell out of town. But Bucky’s own faulty moral compass prevented him from doing that.
By the time Steve returned, Bucky had managed to fall asleep. Uneasy with the cognitive dissonance he’d experienced, he’d figured the best thing he could do was to try to get some sleep. He’d kicked off his boots, laying atop the covers, as if he’d soil the man’s bed by crawling underneath them. It didn’t take him long after that to fall asleep.
He didn’t even notice he forgot to close that drawer.
Truth be told, Steve was so wiped out he didn’t even notice the drawer was askew at first. When Bucky hadn’t answered him, the sheriff surmised he’d fallen asleep and sank down into the single chair the room afforded him as a lookout through the single window. Exhaustion all but poured through him when he sat down in the chair with an audible creak of both the joints and his body.
Yawning mightily, the blond man studied the prostitute who was currently curled up on top of his bed moodily for a moment. Steve liked to think of himself as a pretty generous person but in that instant, he would have gladly kicked Bucky out of his bed so he could collapse in it and grab a couple hours of much needed sleep. Unfortunately, he just wasn’t that big of a bastard and Bucky had been through a lot in the past day. From what Steve had been able to gather, he and Kat had been real close so that had to be a blow to the man. Bucky hadn’t offered any details however and Steve wasn’t going to pry right now so he just dismissed it from his tired mind and leaned his head up against the wall.
His eyes felt gritty and felt as though they had five pound weights dragging his lashes down so Steve finally gave up the fight and his eyes slip close. He’d just rest them for a minute and when he had some more energy, he’d see about kicking Bucky out of his bed. Man, he loved that bed, it was lumpy as all hell but after the day he’d had he’d have slept on a pile of straw so long as it didn’t have any critters crawling around in it.
And that was Steve’s last conscious thought before he drifted off to sleep.
Bucky slept like a rock until his uneasiness began to resurface. Guilt crept up on him once again-guilt for both having looked through Steve’s things and for not having been able to do more to help Kat. His legs got restless, and he needed to move.
When he headed back downstairs, the sun had gone down, and all the patrons had gone to bed. How long had he been asleep? It hadn’t even been noon when he’d gone to bed. Rubbing his eyes, he headed for the commons area with the intent to brew some coffee. His being up at this hour wasn’t unusual in and of itself; he usually slept during the days and worked at nights. What made this situation unusual was the fact that he was not working. Oh, hell, being out of the whorehouse was going to mess with his sleep schedule, wasn’t it?
On that topic, what was he going to do for money? Stealing from Steve was out of the question, though now that he thought about it, Steve hadn’t mentioned rent yet. Maybe he’d just had other things on his mind or maybe he really was just the ultimate Good Samaritan. Either way, Bucky wasn’t going to live on charity alone. He refused.
When the coffee was just about done, Bucky heard a creak on the stairs. A young woman with flaming red hair was tiptoeing down them. When he noticed her, she gave him a self-effacing smile.
“I’m sorry,” she said, walking into the main room to join him. “I’m usually better at being quiet.”
Bucky shot her a smile in return. “That’s alright, ma’am. I just hope I’m not the one who woke you.”
The young woman shook her head. “I’ve always had trouble sleeping. Ever since I was a little girl.” She pulled her shawl up around her shoulders and sat in the chair across from him.
Bucky grinned again, pouring not one but two cups of coffee. “In that case, why don’t you stay and have a drink with me? I could use the company.” He extended a full mug of the beverage to her. With a small thankful nod, she accepted, taking a sip. “By the way, I’m--” he halted only briefly before continuing with the good sense to give a false name. “Mike Rogers.” It wasn’t a horribly creative fake name, but it had been made up on the fly.
The woman nodded in greeting. “Hello, Mike. I’m Natasha.”
In an instant, that panic welled back up inside him. A Russian name. He’d known there was something off about her accent; she was damn good at hiding it, but it was there even if it was almost unnoticeable. His first thought was, they’ve found me. His metal arm itched to be used, but he balled that hand into a fist, refusing to give in to those urges. He didn’t want to cause any more of a scene than he’d already created.
“I’ll be right back,” he said with a tight smile, cautiously heading up the stairs.
Of course, Steve was still asleep. Bucky shook the man awake, putting his finger to his lips. “Steve,” he said in a stage whisper. “There’s a Russian downstairs.”
Steve had spent a large portion of his adult life with an ear cocked for danger, even when asleep so the fact that he didn’t so much as stir when Bucky slipped out of the room was an indication of just how exhausted the man was. That and the fact that he was sleeping in an insanely uncomfortable chair that even Methuselah would having trouble sleeping in didn’t help either.
Whatever the case, the blond man slept on oblivious to Bucky’s late night creeping around the house. He also missed the subtle scratching of Natasha at his door. The two of them had a mutually agreeable situation. He hadn’t pressed charges when he’d caught her pilfering information out of his jail and she fed him interesting leads into the Russian’s less than legitimate business practices like the ‘protection’ detail Lukin had tried to pull six months before with the new comers to the city. It was a boom town and such things were to be expected perhaps but that didn’t mean Steve was going to sit on his ass and do nothing when people were being exploited in his jurisdiction. Unfortunately, he hadn’t had enough evidence to implicate Lukin in the scam and that stuck in his craw something fierce.
So when he had caught the beautiful Russian Natasha trying to lift information out of his secured files in the jail house, well, they had started a mutually satisfying agreement. Lukin assumed Natasha was sleeping with him and exploiting him for information which she then fed back to Lukin and Natasha brought him the real deal. At least, for the most part. It was kind of hard to trust a woman who’d garnered the name of the Black Widow in her home country before she had immigrated to the united states, supposedly under duress from the Czar himself.
Natasha had little problem with the locks on Steve’s door and she’d slipped inside and left a a single ruby dangle earring on the top of his dresser to let her know she wanted to meet with him. Steve slept through all of that.
What he couldn’t sleep through however was the jostling motion of Bucky shaking him awake. His eyes snapped open on full alert and the blond man was already reaching for his gun when he realized who it was that was waking him up. Bucky’s gesture for silence however had him pausing. The ‘what the hell’ look he gave the other man was unmistakable.
“A Russian? Lukin’s?” Out of habit, he glanced over at the dresser and spotted one of Natasha’s earrings laying there and breathed a sigh of relief. “No, it’s oaky. Gorgeous redhead? She uh…probably came to see me actually.” Steve rubbed at his face and grimaced to find nearly two days’ worth of stubble dotting his jawline.
“Christ, I need a shave,” he muttered under his breath and pushed himself to his feet. “Can you keep her occupied for a few minutes? Not really in a condition to sit down with a lady right now.” And even if the whole lovers thing hadn’t been a sham, Steve still would have wanted to clean up because you didn’t go wandering around with a woman if you were unkempt, it showed a lack of respect or regard. As though you thought them unworthy of putting your best foot forward.
Well. That just plain stumped the prostitute. She was there to see Steve? What was Steve doing associating with Russians-especially gorgeous, redheaded female ones? Steve didn’t strike Bucky as the kind of man who would have a clandestine lover, but then, Bucky hardly knew the man at all. Perhaps his conceptions of Steve as a good and virtuous man were all wrong.
“Uh, yeah. I’ll keep her company for a minute.” His question as to what the hell was going on remained unasked as he headed back downstairs. His remark that Steve looked good with a little stubble also went unvoiced.
When he went downstairs, Natasha sat there expectantly, as if everything in the damn world should’ve made sense now that he’d spoken to Steve. He flashed the woman an apologetic smile, sitting back down in his own seat. Bucky was relieved to find that his coffee was still warm, and took a grateful sip.
Conversation was uneasy at first, but they did manage to make small talk between sips of coffee.
A few minutes later, a freshly shaven Steve would climb down the rickety staircase and followed the smell of fresh brewed coffee into the kitchen where he found Bucky and Natasha engaged in polite conversation.
“Natasha, you’re a vision as always.” Smiling warmly, Steve accepted the redhead’s hand when she offered it.
“Steve, you’re looking well. I hope you don’t mind that I came by at such a late hour?” Natasha asked sweetly, as though it wasn’t highly inappropriate for a woman to show up at a man’s boarding house in the middle of the night.
“Of course not, I was just about to take a walk, will you join me?”
“I would love to.” She set her coffee cup down and offered a smile to Bucky. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Bucky.” With Steve politely pulling out her chair, she climbed gracefully to her feet and looped her arm through the sheriff’s. The pair’s body language was lacking the stiff formality of causal acquaintances and bespoke of something more intimate. A deeper friendship or perhaps they were in fact lovers?
Whatever the case, Steve escorted the beautiful woman outside and would return almost twenty minutes later alone. The blond man looked just a little chagrined when he walked in and found Bucky still in the kitchen. Making his way over to the stove, the sheriff poured himself a cup of coffee and went to sit down at the table across from Bucky.
“So, we need to talk. Lukin has found out you’re not longer at the cathouse.” He started without any preamble.
Bucky nodded solemnly. He had been expecting Lukin to find out sooner rather than later, hence his initial wariness at having met the Russian woman. Steve’s interactions with her were curious. Perhaps they were lovers after all. But Bucky felt it wasn’t his place to ask questions, to pry into the sheriff’s private life. Which was ironic, considering he’d been rifling through the man’s stuff earlier.
“So, Natasha is your source. She keeps you up to date on the Russians.”
While Dr. Kincaid was hardly a quack, he was limited by the available tools and Kat's injuries proved to be too much. The poor girl had barely breathed her last less than ten minutes before, he informed Steve.
The sheriff's jaw tensed hard enough for a muscle to jump, betraying his agitation. "Thank you, doctor. Did the father get here in time to say last rites?" He guessed the young girl was Irish by her red hair and pale coloring and having been raised a devout Catholic, he could not imagine sentencing anyone to purgatory by denying them last rites.
"He--" the doctor faltered. "I did not see a reason to bother him..." Of course he hadn't. Like a priest would waste his time with a fallen woman who sold herself for money every night? Steve really was a foolish optimist. She probably wouldn't even be allowed to be buried in the consecrated portion of the cemetery where her murderer was being laid to rest in just a few hours.
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“Goddamn you,” he said, pushing past Steve. "I hope you rot in hell, you sonofabitch!” He spit right in the doctor’s face, and then he was stalking off before he did something worse.
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"You should read your bible more, Kincaid. Or have you forgotten the parts about Jesus welcoming even 'fallen' women into his circle and teachings?" The blond man spat coldly. "Fetch the priest and I'll be back to settle the bill later." And since he didn't trust himself not to manhandle the doctor either, Steve set out after the enraged man.
"Bucky! Wait up, dammit." Steve had to redouble his pace to catch up with the male prostitute and caught the man by his arm. He'd called him 'Bucky', not Mr. Barnes but by the name he'd given him. It was the first breach of polite protocol thus far this evening. Though judging by his rough language, the sheriff seemed just as fit to be tied as the shorter man.
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“She was a person, dammit. A real person, and he talked about her like she wasn’t worth anything.” A bitter laugh escaped him. “Bet he didn’t even try very hard to save her. Her blood’s on his hands as much as on Keaton’s.”
What he didn’t say was that he felt her blood was on his hands, as well. He felt he should have done something more, wished he could have gotten to her sooner. Maybe if he had, she could have been saved.
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"I know she was and it's not right. It's wrong and it pisses me off just as much as it pisses you off but I swear to you, she'll get her last rites and get a proper burial." Steve didn't speculate about whether the doctor had done a half-assed job of trying to help the girl. Up until tonight, he'd never had thought to see that level of prejudice in the doctor whom he saw every Sunday at church.
"Come on, let's get you settled." Steve finally sighed quietly, the hand still resting on Bucky's arm tugging lightly as he steered the man in the correct direction of the boarding house.
Of course, once they got there, Steve would discover that God really had it out for him tonight when his land lady grumpily informed him the last room for let had been taken by a late-night arrival of a couple of prospectors who'd come into town to trade their gold for money before heading back out into the wilderness.
Too exhausted to argue, Steve would just lead Bucky up the stairs to the room he'd been staying in for the past six months. Without a wife or a family of his own, the sheriff had seen no point in setting up a homestead of his own. Not when the land lady provided him with breakfast and dinner down in the parlor included in with his rent.
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Still holding the bags he’d packed for himself and Kat (and, oh, God, Kat was dead), he followed the other man in silence. He hadn’t expected to be sharing quarters with the sheriff, and while he certainly wasn’t complaining, it was a little hard for him to be excited. The best he could manage was gratitude, even if he didn’t say anything out loud.
As soon as he was inside Steve’s room, he sprawled across the first piece of furniture he saw. The bags slid from his hand as he closed his eyes. But he wasn’t going to sleep. It may have been almost daybreak, but he got the feeling the night was far from over.
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"Make yourself comfortable, I've got to take care of a couple of errands." The blond man said tiredly and wandered over to the pitcher and basin sitting on top of the chest of drawers. Steve poured a couple fingers of water into the basin and dipped a washcloth in it to give himself a quick spit bath. The water was cool and helped shake off some of the bone-deep exhaustion that he knew wasn't going to go away unless he slept for a good five hours or drank a few cups of strongly brewed coffee.
Using the last of the water to dampen his hair, the blond man ran a comb through his hair to put it into some semblance of order so he at least didn't look like he'd rolled out of bed before going to see the priest about Kat's burial arrangements.
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“Yeah. Got some stuff to do, too.” At that, he sat up and opened his eyes, a determined look coming into them. Picking up the bag he’d packed for Kat, he headed back outside.
The first hints of dawn were just starting to show when he made his way to the empty lot behind the boarding house. It was chilly, but that didn’t account for the shake in his hand, and it took him a couple of tries to light his cigarette before he finally switched to his metal hand, getting it on the first try. The smoke calmed him as he inhaled it, and he felt his hand start to steady.
His cigarette burned down to its last bit of orange as the first bit of orange appeared on the horizon. Taking one last drag on his cigarette, Bucky tossed it into the open bag, watching as it caught flame. He stood there like that, watching it burn until the landlady ran outside, frantic. She went on yelling at him about how it’d catch the wind and soon, the whole boarding house would be up in flames. He’d nodded and put out the flames, mainly to get her to shut up. Her continued presence after the flames were extinguished irked him in this highly personal moment. Not daring to speak aloud, he headed back inside, saying a small prayer for Kat in his mind.
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Steve's landlady wasn't an unfeeling old harridan despite her running the boardinghouse with an iron fist and while she kept a watchful eye on Bucky as he put out the fire, she did offer him a cup of coffee and some breakfast when he finally went back inside.
"Steven said he will be back later. He wants you to rest while he is gone, ja?" Her German accident was unmistakable though she'd obviously been in America for years considering she seemed to speak English fluently.
And it would be hours before Steve returned to the boardinghouse. Rumors of the murder at the whorehouse had spread like wildfire and he'd had to spend an inordinate amount of time smoothing the townspeople's feathers while arranging a funeral for the poor girl. Some of Kat's friends from the whorehouse attended as well, the schism between the prostitutes and the gawkers who came to watch unmistakable. Steve knew Bucky probably would have wanted to come but had deemed it too dangerous. Sure enough, he saw one of Lukin's runners amongst the crowd of onlooker who was no doubt looking for any sign of Bucky.
The sheriff was unsurprised to find Kat had no family in which to forward her worldly possessions onto and by the time he'd returned to her room in the cathouse, the other whores had picked through most of her stuff already. That cold pragmatism was what did him in and with a heavy heart, the exhausted sheriff went back to the boardinghouse in too grim a mood to manage much more than a few civil words with his landlady. Truth be told, he was so blurred and exhausted, he'd completely forgotten that Bucky was in his room thanks to the continued lack of vacancies in the boardinghouse.
"It's taken care of," he explained hollowly when he caught sight of the prostitute. Jesus, what the hell was he supposed to do with this man?
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Now, though, he didn’t think he could sleep if he tried. Not after that long night he’d had, or the coffee the landlady had served him. She may not’ve been so bad once he got used to her, but he still disliked her for disrupting his “ceremony” behind the boarding house.
Left with nothing better to do, he began rifling through his temporary host’s room. It was simple, unassuming. Much neater than Bucky’s room and probably a lot less interesting. But, as Bucky had come to find, even the most boring of people had secrets.
He lifted the mattress, felt under it, and found nothing. The top few drawers of the man’s bureau held only clothes. Wedged in a corner of the bottom one, however, was a small music box. Curious, he opened it. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata began to play as his eyes fell upon the small stash of jewelry inside. Now, that was odd. What was the sheriff doing with jewelry? Could he perhaps have had a wife who’d died, and perhaps kept that as a memento? It looked old, aged and worn. Not something a young bride was likely to have, unless she’d gotten it from her mama.
Or maybe Steve had gotten it from his mama.
With that revelation, Bucky closed the box, carefully placing it back in the drawer. He had ripped off his share of people. It was easy in his line of work, where the men were both nude and distracted. It helped with the guilt thing to know that they couldn’t be very virtuous men, to be coming to a whorehouse to have sex with a man in women’s clothing. If anything, it gave him a sense of satisfaction to steal from these nasty men.
But this case gave him pause-something that had never happened before where stealing was involved. But perhaps that was because he had never stolen from someone who was trying to help him-and he did sincerely believe that Steve wanted to help. The problem with the sheriff was that he was too damn good for his own good. He’d even stood up for Kat when the doctor had been a cad. If Steve weren’t so damn good, this situation wouldn’t be so hard. He could just take the jewelry and get the hell out of town. But Bucky’s own faulty moral compass prevented him from doing that.
By the time Steve returned, Bucky had managed to fall asleep. Uneasy with the cognitive dissonance he’d experienced, he’d figured the best thing he could do was to try to get some sleep. He’d kicked off his boots, laying atop the covers, as if he’d soil the man’s bed by crawling underneath them. It didn’t take him long after that to fall asleep.
He didn’t even notice he forgot to close that drawer.
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Yawning mightily, the blond man studied the prostitute who was currently curled up on top of his bed moodily for a moment. Steve liked to think of himself as a pretty generous person but in that instant, he would have gladly kicked Bucky out of his bed so he could collapse in it and grab a couple hours of much needed sleep. Unfortunately, he just wasn’t that big of a bastard and Bucky had been through a lot in the past day. From what Steve had been able to gather, he and Kat had been real close so that had to be a blow to the man. Bucky hadn’t offered any details however and Steve wasn’t going to pry right now so he just dismissed it from his tired mind and leaned his head up against the wall.
His eyes felt gritty and felt as though they had five pound weights dragging his lashes down so Steve finally gave up the fight and his eyes slip close. He’d just rest them for a minute and when he had some more energy, he’d see about kicking Bucky out of his bed. Man, he loved that bed, it was lumpy as all hell but after the day he’d had he’d have slept on a pile of straw so long as it didn’t have any critters crawling around in it.
And that was Steve’s last conscious thought before he drifted off to sleep.
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When he headed back downstairs, the sun had gone down, and all the patrons had gone to bed. How long had he been asleep? It hadn’t even been noon when he’d gone to bed. Rubbing his eyes, he headed for the commons area with the intent to brew some coffee. His being up at this hour wasn’t unusual in and of itself; he usually slept during the days and worked at nights. What made this situation unusual was the fact that he was not working. Oh, hell, being out of the whorehouse was going to mess with his sleep schedule, wasn’t it?
On that topic, what was he going to do for money? Stealing from Steve was out of the question, though now that he thought about it, Steve hadn’t mentioned rent yet. Maybe he’d just had other things on his mind or maybe he really was just the ultimate Good Samaritan. Either way, Bucky wasn’t going to live on charity alone. He refused.
When the coffee was just about done, Bucky heard a creak on the stairs. A young woman with flaming red hair was tiptoeing down them. When he noticed her, she gave him a self-effacing smile.
“I’m sorry,” she said, walking into the main room to join him. “I’m usually better at being quiet.”
Bucky shot her a smile in return. “That’s alright, ma’am. I just hope I’m not the one who woke you.”
The young woman shook her head. “I’ve always had trouble sleeping. Ever since I was a little girl.” She pulled her shawl up around her shoulders and sat in the chair across from him.
Bucky grinned again, pouring not one but two cups of coffee. “In that case, why don’t you stay and have a drink with me? I could use the company.” He extended a full mug of the beverage to her. With a small thankful nod, she accepted, taking a sip. “By the way, I’m--” he halted only briefly before continuing with the good sense to give a false name. “Mike Rogers.” It wasn’t a horribly creative fake name, but it had been made up on the fly.
The woman nodded in greeting. “Hello, Mike. I’m Natasha.”
In an instant, that panic welled back up inside him. A Russian name. He’d known there was something off about her accent; she was damn good at hiding it, but it was there even if it was almost unnoticeable. His first thought was, they’ve found me. His metal arm itched to be used, but he balled that hand into a fist, refusing to give in to those urges. He didn’t want to cause any more of a scene than he’d already created.
“I’ll be right back,” he said with a tight smile, cautiously heading up the stairs.
Of course, Steve was still asleep. Bucky shook the man awake, putting his finger to his lips. “Steve,” he said in a stage whisper. “There’s a Russian downstairs.”
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Whatever the case, the blond man slept on oblivious to Bucky’s late night creeping around the house. He also missed the subtle scratching of Natasha at his door. The two of them had a mutually agreeable situation. He hadn’t pressed charges when he’d caught her pilfering information out of his jail and she fed him interesting leads into the Russian’s less than legitimate business practices like the ‘protection’ detail Lukin had tried to pull six months before with the new comers to the city. It was a boom town and such things were to be expected perhaps but that didn’t mean Steve was going to sit on his ass and do nothing when people were being exploited in his jurisdiction. Unfortunately, he hadn’t had enough evidence to implicate Lukin in the scam and that stuck in his craw something fierce.
So when he had caught the beautiful Russian Natasha trying to lift information out of his secured files in the jail house, well, they had started a mutually satisfying agreement. Lukin assumed Natasha was sleeping with him and exploiting him for information which she then fed back to Lukin and Natasha brought him the real deal. At least, for the most part. It was kind of hard to trust a woman who’d garnered the name of the Black Widow in her home country before she had immigrated to the united states, supposedly under duress from the Czar himself.
Natasha had little problem with the locks on Steve’s door and she’d slipped inside and left a a single ruby dangle earring on the top of his dresser to let her know she wanted to meet with him. Steve slept through all of that.
What he couldn’t sleep through however was the jostling motion of Bucky shaking him awake. His eyes snapped open on full alert and the blond man was already reaching for his gun when he realized who it was that was waking him up. Bucky’s gesture for silence however had him pausing. The ‘what the hell’ look he gave the other man was unmistakable.
“A Russian? Lukin’s?” Out of habit, he glanced over at the dresser and spotted one of Natasha’s earrings laying there and breathed a sigh of relief. “No, it’s oaky. Gorgeous redhead? She uh…probably came to see me actually.” Steve rubbed at his face and grimaced to find nearly two days’ worth of stubble dotting his jawline.
“Christ, I need a shave,” he muttered under his breath and pushed himself to his feet. “Can you keep her occupied for a few minutes? Not really in a condition to sit down with a lady right now.” And even if the whole lovers thing hadn’t been a sham, Steve still would have wanted to clean up because you didn’t go wandering around with a woman if you were unkempt, it showed a lack of respect or regard. As though you thought them unworthy of putting your best foot forward.
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“Uh, yeah. I’ll keep her company for a minute.” His question as to what the hell was going on remained unasked as he headed back downstairs. His remark that Steve looked good with a little stubble also went unvoiced.
When he went downstairs, Natasha sat there expectantly, as if everything in the damn world should’ve made sense now that he’d spoken to Steve. He flashed the woman an apologetic smile, sitting back down in his own seat. Bucky was relieved to find that his coffee was still warm, and took a grateful sip.
Conversation was uneasy at first, but they did manage to make small talk between sips of coffee.
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“Natasha, you’re a vision as always.” Smiling warmly, Steve accepted the redhead’s hand when she offered it.
“Steve, you’re looking well. I hope you don’t mind that I came by at such a late hour?” Natasha asked sweetly, as though it wasn’t highly inappropriate for a woman to show up at a man’s boarding house in the middle of the night.
“Of course not, I was just about to take a walk, will you join me?”
“I would love to.” She set her coffee cup down and offered a smile to Bucky. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Bucky.” With Steve politely pulling out her chair, she climbed gracefully to her feet and looped her arm through the sheriff’s. The pair’s body language was lacking the stiff formality of causal acquaintances and bespoke of something more intimate. A deeper friendship or perhaps they were in fact lovers?
Whatever the case, Steve escorted the beautiful woman outside and would return almost twenty minutes later alone. The blond man looked just a little chagrined when he walked in and found Bucky still in the kitchen. Making his way over to the stove, the sheriff poured himself a cup of coffee and went to sit down at the table across from Bucky.
“So, we need to talk. Lukin has found out you’re not longer at the cathouse.” He started without any preamble.
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“So, Natasha is your source. She keeps you up to date on the Russians.”
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