Poker was a balance of strategy and luck, and Tony hated to lean too hard on luck.
In Tony’s opinion, card counting was not technically cheating. And being good at math was certainly no sin, either. It really wasn't fair to accuse him of unsavory business just because, even slobbering drunk, he had a knack for numbers.
The gang of filthy travelers passing through town, who just so happened to land at the same poker table as Tony this Christmas Eve night, didn’t seem to share his beliefs.
Tobacco smoke curled toward the ceiling of the saloon in hazy ribbons. On this Christmas eve, most of the residents of Timely had better places to be than flopping like a fish at the bottom of a bottle, or clutching a handful of battered old cards. All but Tony, the sad sack of shit, and some gnarly out-of-towners. Wasn’t hard to tell outlaws from businessmen, and not many of the latter passed through Timely in the middle of the night. These three men were no good alright, but Tony was no good himself.
Tony wasn’t one to discriminate, these days. Company was company, and the drink certainly lowered his moral standards (as well as his standard for good conversation.) On Christmas Eve night, Tony would take what he could get not to be alone with his own whiskey-sour thoughts.
They had been playing for hours, now. The last player folded out of the round, ceding victory to Tony, and he cackled gleefully. He was a few whiskies deep.
“Merry Christmas to me,” he said in a sing-song slur. He knocked back the last drop of his drink, setting the glass on the table a little too hard. Graceless. He laid his cards face down on the table, not eager to show his ‘winning’ hand. He’d won with a five and a three. He wasn’t about to advertise this fact to the pissed-off idiot who had been gambling everything he had on the prayer of a statistically improbable straight.
(He would have needed Tony’s five to do what he had been transparently trying to do.)
“Seems awfully convenient,” the man— bushy mustache, missing front tooth— grumbled. “Never seen someone have quite so much good luck right in a row.”
“Ain’t someone just the luckiest bastard in the West,” the mustached man’s friend— skinny with a facial scar— said suspiciously.
The third man was huge and mute, and he glared at Tony with one eye twitching. He put out his smoke on the floor of the saloon.
Tony wanted to say, Luck’s got nothing to do with it. At least, not so much, when he had his particular set of skills and a knack for doing calculation in his head. And hell, if he had a run of good luck at poker once in a while, that ought to balance out the shit luck he seemed to have in all other areas of his life.
“Fellas, c’mon now. No one likes a sore loser,” Tony said with a sorry -not-sorry grin, sweeping the pot into his pile. “Let’s go again, you want to play again? I could use another whiskey. It’s my deal, if I do recall.”
“Bet you’d like that. Fuckin’ cheater.”
Tony didn’t even look up from counting his coins.
“Oh, I didn’t need to cheat, don’t flatter yerself. The trick is simple math,” he chortled, not realizing the shit he had just stepped in. He placed the last gold piece on top of his stack, mighty pleased with himself.
Apparently, a little too pleased.
The mustached man leapt to his feet with a snarl and lunged at Tony, jostling the table and sending the coins scattering. Tony yelped and dodged, clumsily. His chair toppled over and he started to trip over it. A fist came flying toward his face and he flinched just in time— but he caught it in the throat, instead— oh this is worse, definitely worse, fuck my life.
“Card counting piece of shit, you chose the wrong men to fuck with,” the mustached man said.
“We’re going to teach you a lesson. You drunk piece of shit,” the scarred man said. Tony tried to back up, but bumped right into the huge form of the third man, huge and silent. He grabbed Tony hard. Tony, still stunned from the throat punch and gasping for breath, did not have time to dodge the next blow. His jaw cracked and his whole body spun, pivoting at the neck as his head was knocked sharply to one side. He dropped like a sack of bricks, and brought the whole table down with him.
The remaining coins skittered off in every direction, gleaming as they bounced. His whiskey glass shattered as it hit hard wood. The poker cards fluttered to the ground around him, like white and red feathers.
Reeling, Tony touched his lip; it was bleeding something awful. The three men circled closer, towering over him, their faces in shadow.
“Now, just hang on a minute,” Tony said. He propped himself up on his elbow, his other arm positioned defensively above his face. “Why don’t we work this out with our words—”
“I got one word for you,” the scarred man snorted.
“What’s that?”
“Fuck off.”
Tony bit his tongue.
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t you say it you drunk bastard—
“—That’s two words,” Tony said. Oops.
“That does it,” the man said, pushing his sleeves up. Tony noticed just how tall these guys were.
“Three words,” Tony squeaked. In for a penny, in for a pound.
That was about the point when he got dragged out the door and tossed out into the street. He landed in the mud with a wet splat.
He thought it was over. He groaned, but lay there, allowing himself a minute to recover. His head spun. Body throbbed. Usually, this was the point at which bar fights ended. (If this could fairly be called a fight.) Tossed out into the muck, now, that was never pleasant, but it meant game over.
Not this time. Of course he wouldn’t be so lucky.
After a precious short moment of peace, the saloon doors opened again. They followed him outside.
Timely was a ghost town, on Christmas Eve. Those who had families were inside their homes with their loved ones. Those without families were resting up for the festivities tomorrow— Sheriff Rogers had spent damn near the entire month of December planning some kind of Christmas day dance.
Where was the good Sheriff now, he wondered.
Tony prayed that maybe his attackers were just checking to make sure Tony wasn’t planning on coming back inside for his money. Tony had no such plans. He just wanted to get to bed.
He pushed himself up out of the muck and stumbled a few steps in the direction of his smithy, where he lived in the second story. Drunk asshole. He zig-zagged like a scorpion, the mud making a sucking sound every time he wrenched his boot up from its grip. He could see his own front door, but with those guys watching him, he didn’t know if he should go home.
Wouldn’t be the first time he had royally fucked up while drunk, and had murderous outlaws follow him home to murder him. Wouldn’t be the last, either, realistically, if he survived the night.
He panted, short, labored breaths forming silver clouds in the freezing air. Desert winter nights weren’t balmy; the mud shimmered with ice crystals in the moonlight. Chest tight, he dared a glance over his shoulder.
The three outlaws had come down the steps of the saloon stoop into the street. Fuck. They were following him from afar. Slow and unhurried, like they were just waiting for Tony to tire himself out and then they would strike at their own leisure. Like they were just waiting for him to step into a poorly lit alley.
Tony’s heart started pounding. It was all fun and games— causing a ruckus and getting his ass kicked to distract himself from the desolate loneliness of another holiday alone— until Tony was suddenly in very real danger of dying ugly.
Shit. Fuck. Damn. He didn’t have a whole lot of options. There was no way he could stand his own against even one of these guys in his current condition: drunk, dizzy, disoriented. And he hadn’t touched a gun in a long time, so that was out, too. Even if he could get back to his home and find a pistol, he’d have to find bullets, too, and then there was the risk of the thing backfiring. He hadn’t cleaned any of his guns in years.
And there was nowhere to hide.
A lone tumble weed bounced across the horizon. He was alone. Where as Sheriff tights when you needed him?
Well, that was always one last option for the desperate. The Sheriff’s office and the jailhouse were just down the road, and maybe Tony could make it.
Tony looked over his shoulder one more time; a horrified chill ran down his spine. He couldn’t see their silhouettes anymore, but he knew that they surely hadn’t given up their vengeance. The knowledge of an unseen threat flipped a switch inside of him, starting his adrenaline pulsing. He was still intoxicated, but the world had taken on a sharper quality. The chilling clarity that came with danger. Tony broke into a run toward the jailhouse.
Fear played tricks on his nervous system. Shadows slid together, dancing inches peripheral vision. He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead; the light in the window of the jailhouse was his beacon. Any second Sheriff Rogers would burst outside and fire off a warning shot.
Tony tripped up the front steps and landed on the stoop, panting. His lungs burned with exertion; maybe Tony wasn’t in the best cardiovascular shape of his life. Didn’t take too much running to bang out a few metal works here and there, and drink himself into a stupor every day.
He tried to wrench the door handle open, but to his sinking horror, it was locked. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck, shit, motherfucking cocksucker son of a bitch, that goddamn sheriff has nothing to do but breathe down my neck about the liquor until the moment I actually need help—
Tony pounded on the door, chests till heaving. Maybe Rogers was asleep at his desk.
Bang, bang, bang.
“Sher’ff,” he called, half shouting, half suppressing his voice, throwing an anxious look over his shoulder. “Sheriff. Steve! Open up!”
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, he pounded on that door like he was trying to break his own hand.
A wolfish whistle rang out in the stillness and Tony’s heart leapt into his throat. Frantically, he scanned the blackness for his aggressors, but he couldn’t see jack shit beyond the boundary of the street. The faces of the buildings were mostly in shadow, as were all the spaces between them. He could hear the tell-tale jingle of a coin pouch, stuffed full. They must’ve gone back and picked up Tony’s (rightful) poker earnings, as well as their own cash. That would explain the hold up. After all, one couldn’t travel very far in these parts without a full wallet, or you’d be hard pressed to get by. A group like them would never leave their money behind.
“I’m fucked,” he announced to himself.
Someone chuckled in the shadows.
A silhouette emerged from the alley, just a few yards away. Another appeared on the other side of the street. If Tony broke into a dead run now, he might be able to go ten, fifteen seconds before his old ticker gave out on him. They’d easily overtake him, anyways. Two against one, and the third still leveraging the advantage of being unseen.
In a blind panic, Tony pounded on the door a few more times. He could taste his own heartbeat.
“I’m so fucked. Steve fucking Rogers. Where the hell are you, on Christmas Eve?” Tony said under his breath. He didn’t have any weapon on him, (or a prayer of getting out of this in one piece), but did have a bottle opener in his pocket.
Wouldn’t do much staring down the barrel of a pistol, but Tony had think think fast. He came up with one good use for it.
As much as it pained him to turn his back to the open air, he whirled around to face the jailhouse door. He dragged the sharp tip of the bottle-opener against the chipped paint of wooden door.
Sheriff would see this and it would at least make solving Tony’s own murder a little easier, (and maybe make Rogers feel appropriately guilty for not being around to save Tony’s skin, but that was a secondary concern.) The outlaws encroached closer; Tony was out of time. Using hurried, slashing motions, Tony engraved his own epitaph.
T.S. MURDERED BY ASSHOLES CRSMS EVE 1872
“Looks like you’re shit out of luck,” one of the outlaws said, striding up the steps of the porch of the jailhouse. His fat wallet jingled with every step, the smug asshole.
“Guess even the law takes holidays off,” Tony slurred. Where the hell was the Sheriff?
He backed up against the door, but he was truly cornered. The third man— the huge, silent one— knocked the bottle opener out of Tony’s hand. He grabbed him by the collar and dragged him down the steps.
“Let’s take ‘im out back,” the man with a scar said. Tony gagged and stumbled, his feet trying to keep up with their pace to save himself hanging by his own collar and dragging in the mud.
“Easy, easy, there, Christ—” Tony said.
“Shuddup.”
They took him behind a barn and threw him onto the ground. There would be no witnesses. For posterity’s sake, Tony did struggle. He valiantly tried to make a break for it the minute he was released. It was mostly for the sake of the principle.
He tripped over his own feet and made it four whole strides before one of the bandits grabbed him none too gently by the arm.
“Where d’you think yer going, pig?”
“We ain’t done with you just yet.”
“Look at him squirm.”
“Well, Stark. I hope you learned yer lesson,” the mustached outlaw said, grinning a wicked grin. His teeth were stained tobacco-brown, and he wasn’t gentle as he wrenched Tony’s shoulder out of its socket. Tony yelped in pain before it was replaced by a shooting numbness.
“I learned my lesson alright—” Tony grunted. A boot behind the knees toppled him. He landed in the dirt on his chest, wind knocked out of him.
“Oh, yeah?” said the mustached bandit. He knelt in the dirt beside Tony, the leather of his boots squeaking and his ugly belt buckle twinkling in the moonlight. He leaned down until he and Tony were almost eye to eye. He smiled like a smug bastard.
“And what lesson is that?”
Tony grinned, all bloody teeth.
“Ne’er to play poker with a bunch of sore losers from outta town, I’d have to say,” Tony said, and then punctuated his sentence by hocking up a glob of spit, right into the bandit’s face.
Might as well go down swinging.
“Yargh— you little fucking piece of— he spit in my eye!” the outlaw exclaimed, stumbling back. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve in disgust.
“Hope you learned yer lesson,” Tony echoed, wheezing out a satisfied laugh.
“You’ll pay for that, swine.”
Tony knew there’d be a price, the moment he decided to talk back. It was worth it to get in a good last word. Hopefully they’d be too mad to drag it out any further, goaded into killing him quickly. They started kicking him, all three of them, and all Tony could do was lie there and take it.
Drunk as he was, and already beat to hell, he hardly felt it as they kicked him in the spine, the ribs, the kneecaps. A well-placed boot to the gut caused Tony to spasm and gag involuntarily. He rolled onto his side in time to prevent choking on his own upchuck, but just barely. The hot and sour stink of it clung to his mustache.
“Fucking disgusting.”
Then they kicked him some more.
“Bet you’re regettin’ that smart mouth of yers now, huh?”
A kick to the chest— ribs cracking— sharp pain that made it impossible to take a full breath.
“You—” Tony wheezed, “—think I’m smart? Well— hngh-- don’t that just— tickle me pink.”
“Still gotta get a word in, huh? Alright. I’d like to see you try talkin’ back without your teeth,” the bandit replied.
(Tony didn’t enjoy what happened next. He spit three teeth and a mouthful of blood out onto the mud.)
At some point, he must have lost consciousness. Blame it on his good luck.
* * *
When he came around again, he moaned. A rhythmic, bouncing motion was jostling every broken bone in his busted body. There was congealing blood dripping down the back of his throat, making it sticky and thick when he tried to swallow.
He opened his eyes and saw a field of stars above. He was on the back of a horse, his wrists bound excessively tight in front of his body. The frayed rope chafed and bit into his skin.
He was tied to a horse. The stink end. In front of him, one of the outlaws was in the saddle, and his leather wallet jingle-jangled softly with every hoof beat.
Jingle, jingle, jingle.
They brought him out into the middle of the desert. When the the horse finally came to a stop, Tony was just barely holding back seasick vomit. Rough hands on his body. Jostling. He was dumped unceremoniously on the ground. Electric hot pain shot through his chest, emanating from what felt for sure like a broken rib. He grunted.
“Get him fixed up,” said the bandit whose eyes Tony had spit in. He was beginning to regret that a tiny bit. Tony had a feeling that by ‘fixed up’, they didn’t mean lovingly tending to his wounds.
They were at the train tracks at the outskirts of town, and nobody would hear him scream— if he even had the lung capacity for screaming. Something stabbed inside him with every shallow breath.
The big guy turned Tony onto his back and dragged him through the dirt by his shirt collar. Tony’s head lolled back; he didn’t try to struggle, anymore. He was too battered to put much fight into it, and whether or not he admitted it, he had learned a lesson or two when they were kicking the ever-loving shit out of him.
The stars above, swimming pinpricks of light, just watched. The other two outlaws watched, too, looking pleased with themselves.
“Act like a bitch, get treated like a bitch,” the scar-faced man said from the sidelines as Tony was laid across the tracks. He shut his eyes, willing the nausea to pass.
Another set of hands held his ankles as he was wrapped round and round in rope. He tried to beckon back the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness, but the pain was too intense to escape from. He felt his own sluggish pulse in every bruise, and the rails pressed into his back and shoulders in all the wrong places. Cold, black iron.
Appropriate.
“Don’ you find this just a little bit cliche?” Tony said, with a great struggle. The only response he received was a very pointed tightening of the ropes which bound his arms to his chest. Shooting pain bloomed in his ribcage. Message received.
Someone spit on his face.
“S’pose I earned that,” Tony breathed. It came out like a sort of sigh and a whine, instead of sounding like words.
“See you in hell, stupid motherfucker,” the mustached man said, and Tony couldn’t turn his neck to watch, but he heard the sound of the men mounting their horses.
At long last, Tony was left alone. His killers left him to die, and all that remained was the lingering scent of tobacco and the fading drum of horse hooves against the earth.
Tony gave an experimental tug at his bonds; it was useless. They really tied him down tight. The most hilarious thing of it was that Tony was more likely to die of exposure, or have his face eaten off by a coyote, before any train rolled over him. The train only came sporadically, anyways, this far out West, and tomorrow was Christmas day.
Talk about an anticlimactic death.
There was one small satisfaction. He’d be gone soon, but ever since he took up drinking the way he did, he had become wonderfully ambivalent about his own mortality.
If he was going out, he at least had the smug pleasure of having managed to pick he wallet off of every single one of those bandits while they were beating the tar out of him. Sticky fingers.
If he was going to get murdered for cheating those bastards out of their money, and he really hadn’t cheated in the first place, he figured fair was fair. Their coin purses were heavy in his boot, and he weakly jostled his leg.
Jingle, jingle.
“Heh,” he wheezed. The stars and the red earth laughed along with him. The eastern horizon glowed pale with the first vespers of Christmas dawn. The sun would rise in a few hours, he reckoned. He shut his eyes.
* * *
A white pain bloomed in Tony’s chest.
He groaned.
The pain stopped. His ears rang. Then, it hurt again.
Broken rib for sure. Shouldn’t be hurting. Felt like he was being shaken. Maybe a train was coming after all. Was it the rumble of the earth? God, wasn’t he dead yet? This seemed excessive.
Pain again. He was definitely being shaken.
“… C’mon, Stark… Hey…ou hear m…?” a voice swam in and out above him, along with the ringing in his ears.
“Fi’ more minutes,” Tony mumbled. He wasn’t sure he really spoke at all.
More shaking. Pain so bad Tony involuntarily spasmed, and coughed. He sounded like a punctured balloon.
The suddenness of the movement snapped him out of his half-awake state. The ringing began to fade and reality came into clearer focus. Tony’s eyes were still shut, but he could make out the sound of unamused, breathy laughter, somewhere just above him.
“Think you’ve been out here long enough. You’re goddamn ice cold, and you sound like shit,” Sheriff Rogers said. The jostling started again. The ropes pinched and bit at him, even through his clothes, and his broken rib severely objected.
“Sheriff?”
“One and only,” Steve grunted. Tony opened his eyes. “You with me?”
Steve’s face was upside over Tony’s head, and his dark brows were furrowed it the utmost concentration. The sunrise painted the Sheriff all roses and peach. His stupid long hair caught the light— golden— where it curled at the base of his neck and behind his ears.
“‘M with you. I think. My guardian angel,” Tony rasped. “Christ, would you give that a break? Stop moving me. Yer’ killing me,” Tony complained.
“Trying to cut you loose. Aren’t you supposed to be bright?” Steve retorted.
“Never claimed that,” Tony replied. He sure didn’t feel bright right now, hungover, ice cold, and busted six ways to Sunday on Christmas morning, tied to the railroad tracks.
“Is it hurting you bad? I’m hardly moving you,” Steve said, voice tinged with concern.
“Just a little,” Tony lied.
“I’m not having much luck. I don’t want to cut you by mistake. Say, can you hold yourself up an inch so I can get at them ropes underneath?”
“Prob’y not,” Tony said. Steve sighed.
“Least there’s no train,” Steve said. “Else I’d be in a bigger hurry to rescue you.” He started in again with the blade, sawing back and forth, hacking through layers of rope frightfully close to Tony’s own flesh.
Tony scoffed. “Whoever said I needed rescue? Had it all planned out. Was gonna have myself home in time for Christmas breakfast, before you showed up.”
“You don’t strike me as the breakfast type,” Steve said.
Talking hurt bad, and he burst into a fit of coughing to punctuate his point. Sheriff raised an eyebrow and shook his head. The rope finally severed, and the unbearable pressure on Tony’s chest vanished. He gasped like a fish. Steve frowned, and ceased motion until it passed. He rubbed slow, small circles into his shoulder to soothe the coughing fit.
“Had it all planned out, huh?” Steve said, voice softer.
Tony nodded, and coughed some more. When he was finished, he just lay there panting.
“Sure is a beautiful morning,” Steve said, sheathing his knife in his belt and straightening his hat. His sheriff’s star glinted as gold as his hair. “Was gettin’ yerself upright part of your plan, or can I offer you a hand?”
“Shuddup,” Tony groaned. “I got a broken rib. Cut me some slack.”
“Considering I thought you were already dead, I’m likely to give you plenty of slack,” Steve said. “Imagine the look on my face when I got back to the jailhouse and saw yer little message on my door.”
“You found me. So it worked,” Tony pointed out.
“I thought I was searchin’ for a body, Stark. I’m just glad I got out here in time.”
Tony said nothing.
“Let’s get you up. I’m going to help you. You ought to get home and rest, and I’m needed in town, last minute preparations for the Christmas party,” Steve said. He extended a leather gloved hand for Tony.
Tony took it and pulled, as if all he needed was a little help and he would be back on his feet in no time. A quick, blinding pain exploded from his rib and he winced.
“Guess not,” he said. Steve looked apologetic.
“Well. Alright, then. I’ll carry you,” Steve said, as if it was no trouble as all.
“I’m not a damsel in distress, Sheriff,” Tony objected.
“Yer words, not mine,” Steve said, lacing an arm behind Tony’s neck and under his knees, and he grunted, “But if the shoe fits… ”
“Ouch, easy— fuckin’ hell, that smarts,” Tony hissed as Steve heaved him up into his arms, bridal style. Steve’s knees shook— Tony could feel Steve’s muscles tremor with the effort, yet the sheriff made not a single complaint.
“Watch your mouth,” Steve said. He cradled Tony’s head in his hands like he was something precious— even crusted with dried mud and the stench of sweat and vomit and liquor. “It’s Jesus’ fuckin’ birthday.”
The sun had risen fully, by now. It was truly Christmas day.
“Merry fuckin’ Christmas,” Tony muttered.
Steve helped Tony onto the back of his horse, and then mounted. They rode back to town, two to a saddle, Tony’s arms wrapped around Steve’s waist, early rays of sunlight warming their backs.
* * *
Sheriff Rogers put a lot of time into planning Timely’s Christmas celebration. New to town and new to the job, he didn’t seem to care that Timely wasn’t that kind of town. No, he had been hell bent on giving his town a good Christmas, and Tony couldn’t understand it.
Tony thought, well, I’ll believe it when I see it, and now, hobbling into the saloon, held together by bandages, leaning on a crutch for balance, he thought, By God, call me a believer.
The saloon had been transformed. After Steve had delivered Tony safely to the doctor’s doorstep and lingered long enough to be sure Tony would live, he left in a hurry. Tony had found it odd at the time— what could be so urgent? But in the course of just a few hours, his hard work had really paid off.
It was Christmas night. Poinsettia flowers, bleeding red, and wreaths, handwoven from desert plants, hung from the moulding and the bar. Every window had a white candle burning in it, and Deputy Barnes was playing a holiday melody on the out-of-tune piano in the corner. The whores were wearing red and green. Hundreds of feet of paper streamers— hand painted with red and white peppermint stripes— hung in billowing loops from the ceiling. They rustled and fluttered on the breeze every time the door opened or closed.
Not to mention the place was full of happy people.
Unlike the previous night, when the bar had been a ghost town, it seemed like just about everyone from town was present tonight, and in good spirits. The chatter and music, and the warmth of too many bodies packed into a small space, led to an irrefutable sense of— and Tony hated to admit it— cheer.
“Pardon me. Tryna get through, here. Christ, can’t you see I’m crippled? Git out of my way,” Tony mumbled, pushing his way toward his usual seat at the bar. He struggled to get through the crowd with his crutch, too many feet and elbows. Cursing, he started to lose his balance—
—But a hand reached out swiftly and caught him at the shoulder. Tony swayed, regaining his balance.
“Need a hand, Stark?” Sheriff Rogers said. “I think you’ve had enough injuries for one day.”
“You wish,” Tony said, but he didn’t object as Steve walked with him to his seat, helping to part the crowds and keep Tony balanced. Tony wouldn’t admit it outright, but Steve was the only reason he had dragged his sorry ass out of bed this evening and hobbled down the street. He felt secretly pleased to run into him and catch his attention right away. There was something gratifying in getting what one came for.
“Thank you kindly for the escort.”
“Just doing my job. Surprised to see you on your feet so soon, to be honest. I would expect you to be resting. Does the doctor know you’re out of bed?” Steve said. Tony leaned his crutch against the bar and grimaced as he carefully slid into his seat, keeping himself as straight-backed as possible.
“Yeah, well. The good doctor said it was nothin’ serious. Just a few fractures and some bruising. And I figured if I was gonna live to see another day, y’know. Might as well come see what all the fuss is about.” Tony was downplaying it a little; Dr. Banner had given him explicit instructions to limit his movement and rest until his ribs got better, and he was going to be watching Tony for any sign of internal bleeding in the abdominal area. The missing teeth were a problem that had no easy answer. Tony was just grateful they didn’t show when he spoke or smiled.
Really, something just really made him want to be here tonight. A feeling with no name. It had been a long time since Tony had wanted to be near people, in the heart of things, rather than self-medicating into numbness at the fringes.
Steve’s expression went from unreadable to something nameless, and warm.
“Well. I’m sure not the medical expert. As long as you’re okay. I’m glad you came. Means a lot to me. God knows everyone told me this party was a stupid idea, so it’s nice that you came,” Steve said. Tony stared at him for a minute, and then smiled crookedly.
“Don’t flatter yerself. I’m just here for the drink,” he said, but he didn’t try to sound like he meant it. Obviously, Steve’s party was a hit. Just for the one night, Timely didn’t feel like a dead end. It felt like a home.
Tony tapped the bar and held up a finger to the bartender. The bartender started to pull out Tony’s tab, but Steve raised a hand to stop him.
“I’ll pay,” he said to the barkeep. Then, to Tony, stern, “Just this once, Stark, it’s on me. And don’t get used to it.”
“Well I’ll be damned. Make mine a whiskey.”
Steve said, “Make it one for each of us.”
“A double?” Tony said.
“Don’t push yer luck.”
“Seems I’ve been doing a little too much of that, lately,” Tony admitted.
“Seems so,” Steve said. He thanked the barkeep quietly and paid the man for their drinks— something Tony found bizarrely endearing. Of course Steve would have to pay upfront; the Sheriff didn’t have a tab. He didn’t drink often enough.
“Cheers,” Tony said, raising his glass. Steve raised his and nodded.
“To a swift recovery.”
“I’ll take it.”
They both drank. Steve sipped, and Tony gulped. The warmth slid down his throat and spread to his chest. He knocked the rest of the drink back in a hurry to take the sharp edge off the pain. Whiskey sure did the trick better than any herbal concoction Doctor Banner ever offered to him. The alcohol dulled the edges, and Tony started to feel a lot better suited to existing in no time.
The music lulled, and then started again. Barnes was playing a new song, something slower and almost sad. Tony peered across the room and saw the handsome young deputy making lovers’ eyes at his bride, who was leaning on the piano and swaying to the music.
The lilted melody and the slightly off-key piano keys sounded inexplicably like the spirit of Timely, whatever that meant, but it was a song that Tony had heard somewhere else. It brought Tony back to a previous life that he had all but erased from memory with the years of drink.
His vision slid. For a moment, he wasn’t in a dusty, sweat-stinking western saloon; he was dressed to the nines in an expensive suit with a woman he used to love hanging off his arm, in a Boston ballroom that smelled like perfume and seawater, red velvet drapes at least twelve feet long, and the music was played by a symphony orchestra, and Tony always carried a firearm bearing his name to show off—
He was pulled back to the present by Steve’s hand coming to rest on Tony’s arm.
“You with me?” Steve said.
“Mm.”
“Are you okay?”
Tony’s throat felt tight. “Just fine.”
Steve was quiet for a moment, obviously choosing his words carefully. He swirled his glass in his hand, wearing those leather gloves he never seemed to take off.
“You never did say what the hell happened to you out there. What you got yourself tangled up in. And when I scraped yer ass off the rails, it didn’t seem like a good time to ask, seeing how you were still half drunk and stupid,” Steve said.
“I was more than half stupid, that’s for sure,” Tony said. “It started with a poker game.”
“A lot of murders start that way,” Steve said.
Tony ordered another drink to Steve’s disapproval, pounded it, and then the story unfolded.
It did not occur to him until he started talking that it had been a long time since he’d talked to anyone like this. Tony was a loner; the highest level of social interaction he had accustomed himself to was between himself and his trusty bartender, with some occasional back-and-forth with Timely’s local quack doctor, or the most stubborn sheriff in the west.
He started by asking Steve if he thought counting cards was really, technically cheating. (Wasn’t hard to predict Steve’s answer. A difference of moral perspectives.)
They talked for hours.
Tony nursed his drinks slower than he might’ve, had he been all by his lonesome. He found himself tracing his finger around the rim of the glass, forgetting to chase himself into a stupor. Talking to Steve captured his full attention, and for once, Tony was okay with being present. Turns out, the Sheriff was capable of being less than uptight once in a while. Call it a Christmas miracle.
Steve never ordered a second whiskey, and his cheeks took on a rosy sheen after just the first. He was smiling a lot, too— but appropriately concerned and judgmental at certain points during Tony’s tale.
Around them, the party slowly transformed from a full-blown hoopla to something sedate, and serene. A lot of patrons trickled out over time, to sleep off their holiday meals and the booze, or to be with their families. The candles burned lower and eventually. Eventually, the fox-haired Mrs. Barnes dragged her husband away from the piano by the collar of his shirt and they disappeared together.
Tony and Steve were the last ones there.
At some point, they seemed to realize this. Steve looked around the wreckage, assessing the aftermath of his hard work. Streamers littered the floor, empty glasses on every table, peanut shells and cigar stumps and orange peels. Tony wondered how much Steve had to pay and plan in advance to get a crate of oranges for the night. Tony suddenly felt an ache that had nothing to do with his injuries.
He hopes Steve at least got to eat an orange.
Steve leaned on the counter beside Tony and removed his hat with a contented expression on his face.
“Gee. Done already. Sure flew by,” Steve said. “I hope everyone had a good time. Seems I got so wrapped up I forgot to make my rounds. Didn’t even say goodnight to Deputy Barnes.”
Tony snorted, “I don’t think he remembered you existed, when he ran off with the missus.”
“Ah,” Steve said, red-cheeked.
“It was a good night. The folks had fun. I never seen anything like it,” Tony admitted, fiddling with his empty whiskey glass. “Usually, the holidays come and go without too much fanfare, ‘round here. I guess I didn’t believe anyone really gave a damn.”
“Now, that’s just too bad,” Steve said.
“Well, that’s all changed now, I guess. Now that you’re in town.”
Steve looked over at Tony in the dim light with something unreadable twinkling in his eyes.
“That was frighteningly close to a compliment, Stark,” he said. Tony waved him off.
“Ah, God. Don’t go gettin’ used to it. Consider it yer Christmas present.”
Steve sighed and bit his lip. “I tell you, what I really would like for Christmas would be a chance to get at the bastards who did this to you—” he said, “—Even if you did have it comin’ to you.”
Tony tilted his head, a slow smile spreading across his face.
“They’ll be back, Sheriff. Don’t you worry about that,” Tony said, sounding cryptic and pleased with himself. Steve didn’t look too sure. He put his hat back on, tipped forward, and looked out the window at the quiet night outside.
“Don’t see why they would. Seems like they got what they wanted, and they’ll be miles away by now. No tellin’ where they ran off too.”
“Well,” Tony said, grinning, “They might not get too far. I think they’ll have to turn back when they realize they left something behind.”
Slowly, Steve turned back to look at Tony. A puzzled glint in his eye.
“What’re you on about?”
“Sheriff, if you wouldn’t mind, would you reach into my left boot?” Tony said, raising his leg a pitiful few inches. “I’d do it myself but on account of the broken rib… ”
Steve paused, brows furrowed. His curiosity won him out, and he leaned down, head nearly touching Tony’s knee, sticking a tentative hand into Tony’s boot. It tickled.
“Usually I make a fella buy me dinner first,” Tony joked.
Tony watched Steve’s eyes go wide as he found what Tony had in there. In Steve’s hand were the wallets taken off all of the bandits who had beaten up Tony— heavy with money.
“Now, I know you don’t think of me as the most honest man. And god knows I’ve got a filthy conscience. But in my book, I really did win those poker games fair and square,” Tony explained, tongue in cheek, “So arrest me if I’m wrong, but you can hardly call this stealing. These wallets practically fell into my hands.”
“How the hell—?” Steve was perplexed. He opened one purse and spilled a few gold coins onto the counter, as if he was expecting this to be a joke. Wallets full of rocks.
“Nimble fingers, and a penchant for pushing my luck,” Tony said.
Steve stared at the money, and then stared at Tony. The three outlaws certainly would come back; it was a lot of money, and you couldn’t get far in the west without coin.
“You son of a bitch,” Steve laughed. He started laughing real hard, cheeks flushed with liquor and laughter and warmth. “You lucky son of a bitch. How the hell you didn’t git yerself killed must be an act of God. I ain’t never seen nothing like it.”
Tony wanted to say, Luck’s got nothing to do with it.
Instead, he laughed, too. It was contagious.
“I didn’t feel none too lucky when I came a-knocking for the Sheriff and he just happened to be out for once,” Tony wheezed.
“I was hanging mistletoe,” Steve said, and remembering what Tony had carved into the front door, “‘Murdered by assholes’ Christ.”
They both laughed until there were tears rolling down their cheeks and the barkeep had to chase them out for being disorderly. Stepping outside, the nighttime air was a cool kiss on Tony’s flushed brow.
Tony leaned on his crutch, but the stairs tripped him up anyways.
He started to lose his balance and his body reacted, reaching out jerkily to grab onto something. The nearest something turned out to be Steve’s arm. Steve took it in stride.
He placed his other hand on the small of Tony’s back, just hardly touching. Hovering, ready to catch him again as needed.
“Easy, there. Take it slow,” Steve said.
They hadn’t even made it off the stoop of the saloon yet. Tony’s workshop suddenly felt a hundred miles away, and he was sure feeling what his body had been through today. He would be taking it slowly indeed. The whiskey blunted the pain but it also blunted his fine motor skills, and he wasn’t sure he could take another fall.
“Thanks. Sorry,” Tony said.
“It’s not a problem, Tony,” Steve said. “Why don’t you take yer time. Do you need help?”
Tony. Not ‘Stark.’
Tony’s chest tightened.
“I’ll be okay,” Tony said, but he didn’t release his grip on Steve. Steve’s hand came to rest on the small of Tony’s back. Something shifted in the air, an electric charge between them that Tony hadn’t felt in so long he couldn’t remember its name.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” Steve murmured. Tony dared to look up into Steve’s eyes, and saw his pupils wide and dark in the low light of the street. And he saw something else, too. His eyes shifted focus and right above Steve’s head was—
“Mistletoe,” Tony breathed.
“Hm?” Steve twisted his neck and looked where Tony was looking. Then, his ears turned red. “Oh. Yes. Mistletoe. Well. Not really. Hard to come by, out here. But it looks like mistletoe, ‘specially after I tied a ribbon round it, so I thought—”
“Kiss me,” Tony said.
Steve shut up. For a moment, abject terror flashed in his blue eyes, and Tony didn’t even dare to breathe. The corner of Steve’s mouth quirked up into a confused smile. He ducked his neck and pulled Tony in with that hand on his back, and he kissed him.
Steve’s mouth was warm and soft and yielding. He kissed like a gentleman, for sure, no tongue, but hands roaming up Tony’s sides like there was gold to find. Tony thought he could live forever in this moment. They both tasted of whiskey and the sweet flavor of midnight air—
—then Steve was holding Tony just a little too tight and Tony hissed against Steve’s lips. Immediately, Steve let go and stumbled backward like he’d touched hot iron. Panic flashed across his features.
“No, no. ’S’okay, you’re okay,” Tony reassured, folding an arm over his aching chest, “It’s just my rib. Damaged goods. Don’t mind me.”
Steve’s horrified expression faded when he realized Tony wasn’t having regrets about the kiss. Relief and concern replaced the fear.
“Shoot. I’m sorry. Guess I forgot,” Steve said.
“I have that effect on people,” Tony said with a pained grin, leaning heavily on his crutch. A rush of warmth flooded through him as he watched Steve stare at him, touch his own lips like he still couldn’t believe what had happened, and then stare in disbelief at his fingertips.
He was fucking precious. Steve might be the only beacon of light in a dark, dark place. There was something about him— the obnoxious, constant idealism, the stubbornness, the unabashed commitment to making things better, (a lost cause in Tony’s opinion.)
Tony cleared his throat.
“On second though,” Tony said slowly, “Why don’t you walk me home, after all, Sheriff? And maybe… see me safely up to bed.”
He watched Steve process what Tony was really suggesting, and his thicks eyebrows shot up. He swallowed. And he smiled, flushed.
“Well. Safety is my highest priority… Alright then,” Steve said, offering out his arm again. Tony looped his arm through Steve’s elbow.
“Merry Christmas, Steve.”
And a happy New Year.