Hi! It's me again! I can't stop thinking about your latest fanfiction, so I have another question!
Can you say something more about Hunter and Crosshair's relationship? Because if I understand correctly they both have a common past, but they don't get along well.
If this is a secret for now, please ignore this message 😅
Hunter – Home (TBB Western AU)
Summary: He promised himself to find him. He didn’t care how long, how far, how hard it would be, he'd find him. He'd bring him home.
Word Count: ≈1683 words
CW/ TW: Angsty™; western stuff, fighting, injuries, cut, blood, mention of betrayal, of alcohol, etc. Also death threats. The word “bullshit” is used once; aaand you may or may not hate me a bit after reading it xD
Notes: This is the one. This is how the story really begins. Let me tell you I am. SO Excited. A tad bit nervous too because I don’t want to disappoint y’all but ya know. :’D
Also the songs Through The Valley – Shawn James and Little one – Highly Suspect have been playing on loop while I was writing this, because they just fit. So perfectly. For both of them.
Hunter had made a halt in a small village after a two days ride under the hot sun, stuck between the walls of a narrow canyon that could awake a feeling of claustrophobia in the bravest souls out there. Though he didn’t cross path with any bandits, his horse almost hurt itself on the way to the valley, forcing him to stop his travel. He had been on a lead for weeks now, trying, almost desperately, to put an end to this hunt and go home, victorious. But time was passing by, his days were getting shorter, his nights lonelier.
“A room for the night.”
The old man at the counter of the deserted inn shrugged. He opened a notebook and skimmed through it for a few seconds before closing it again.
“We don’t have that here,” he groaned, putting the notebook under the counter on a shelf Hunter could not see from where he was standing. “Try Marauder Valley. Got plenty of rooms there.”
“And where is it?”
The bell of the small shop rang at the same time, and the old man pointed his chin to the person who just came in. A perfectly timed entrance.
“I’ll get your order, give me a second.” The old man’s voice sounded less aggressive as he acknowledged the new client and walked toward the store room, disappearing behind the open door.
Hunter stood silent, trying to hold back a low sigh as he turned his head just enough to look over his shoulder, his eyes glancing at the floor until he saw the boots of the man who approached the counter. He noticed the slow, controlled pace, as well as the gun against the waist of the man. A tall, thin man that forced him to look up as he greeted him. He had a scar around the right eye, short grey curls loosely falling on his forehead, and a wheat stem in his mouth.
Hunter’s chest contracted in a painful shock, freezing his body in a cold rush of adrenaline as he assimilated the information. Any element of surprise was spoiled now; but the hunt was over. He had found him.
Crosshair’s hand reached for the grip of his gun in a very natural – almost automatic – way, his breath so quiet Hunter almost felt like he was in the presence of a ghost. The tension in the shop became painfully obvious, and the old man returning to the counter with a wooden box was the only thing preventing any misdemeanour.
“Come back next week, I’ll have the rest by then,” he commented, and as Crosshair grabbed the box, added, “The man wants to go to Marauder Valley.”
Crosshair locked his eyes on Hunter as he turned around, his words coming out in a slow, spiteful hiss.
“He’ll find his way, don’t worry.”
The bell rang again, and by the time Hunter realised what had just happened, Crosshair was gone.
.
Hunter had decided to leave his horse for the night, in order for it to get some rest after days of walking. Marauder Valley was only a few kilometres away, and he couldn’t afford to wait until the next morning.
He had expected a busy little town, but when he arrived, there was nothing to see but closed houses and a few footsteps on the ground, brushed away by the wind. Something felt odd, as if he was being watched. He was expected.
The clicking of a cylinder completed the sensation of a cold muzzle pressing against the back of his head and confirmed his intuition.
“You had to come here.”
He assumed, since he was still standing, that he had a chance to talk. He needed to. Slowly, calculating his every move, Hunter turned around to face…him. His eyes met nothing but a veil behind the whiskey pupils of the man he had spent so much time looking for.
“Col, listen-“, he started, but was immediately interrupted by a low, bitter “Crosshair.” He frowned, and Col – Crosshair – insisted, his voice coated by a frightening coldness.
“That’s my name. Remember?”
He did. The same way he was now being remembered of the gun lightly pressing his forehead. In an instant, he became aware of his surroundings; the heavy heat of the sun burning through his hat, his sore throat, the pain beating of his heart under his skin, the weight of his gun at his belt.
“Don’t think about it,” Crosshair’s voice snapped, as if he could read his mind like an open book. “You’d be dead before you’d know it.”
“Col- Crosshair, please, listen.
He expected to be interrupted, but nothing happened. Crosshair was staring at him – in him – but his patience was running low, and his finger itched to pull the trigger.
“I found you.” the words gave more weight to what was happening. Hunter let out a long sigh, as if he could finally breathe, after years of struggling. “I found you. I’ve been looking for you since…Since you left.”
“How sweet of you.” Crosshair barely tilted his head, unable to give him even the slightest ironic smile.
“I didn’t want for it to happen. I didn’t want you to leave.”
“Sure about that?”
“You shouldn’t have disappeared the way you did. Everyone was so worried – our parents, me. You should have stayed with us…with me. We could have worked through it.” Crosshair let out a spiteful chuckle. “What?”
“‘Worked through it’.”
Hunter felt his blood run cold in his veins. There was something utterly terrifying in the calm intonation Crosshair used, in the way his head turned to the side as a smile finally appeared on his face, seemingly heartfelt, truly amused. It barely took Hunter a second to guess he was about to be killed.
Then, there was pain. So vivid, so strong, it made him stagger and instinctively bring his hand to his face. He soon realised how bad of an idea it was when he felt the cold, hard barrel hit his fingers. He somehow managed to avoid another punch as Crosshair’s voice raised with each word he was pronouncing.
“Work through it, uh? You came here,” Hunter managed to disarm him, “thinking that we,” Crosshair punched him on his bruised cheek, “could work through it?!”
Hunter grabbed his wrist just in time to stop another punch, but Crosshair had guessed, and immediately went to twist his arm and force Hunter on his knees. From then on, Hunter had lost the little control he had left. The pain in his arm was a convincing enough argument to obey the silent order Crosshair gave him – he fell face first against the dusty ground, blood spurting from his mouth and coating his cheek. He could hardly make the difference between the stings and the sensation of a burn on his face, yet could feel the dust and his hair sticking to the warm red liquid, as well as the sudden emptiness of his gun’s holster.
“You seem to forget…”
Hunter’s heart stopped as two gunshots resonated behind him.
Crosshair’s breath was heavy, his heart pounding so hard in his chest it could rip his skin apart. He pushed the cylinder out of the gun, emptied it of all the bullets, letting them fall on the ground as Hunter was slowly getting back on his knees, his face covered in dust and blood.
Crosshair tried to talk. He wanted to scream at Hunter, to spit all the things that had happened, all the times he had felt so lonely, so isolated; he wanted to punch him until his knuckles were covered in the same bloody dust, until he could leave a scar on his face. So he could see, he could feel-
The gun dropped in a thud, breaking his thread of thoughts. When he looked down at his hands, he noticed they were shaking. He quickly abandoned the idea of closing his fingers in a fist, deciding instead to stretch them as he turned around to walk away. He couldn’t kill him. He just couldn’t.
“Col!”
Hunter pushed on his legs to get up, trying not to trip on his feet as he did so. The metallic taste coating his tongue and the words burning in his throat made him want to puke.
“I’m not leaving! You-“he coughed, spitting some blood in the process- “You know that! I’ll bring you home!”
A burning wave ran through his body when Crosshair froze. He had just touched a very sore spot, and realised as Crosshair swiftly turned around to come back on his steps that it may not have been his brightest idea.
“You’re not going to do anything,” Crosshair’s voice was low, but Hunter could almost hear the rage boiling in his chest as he was talking, “there’s no home, no working through it, no we.”
Hunter flinched as Crosshair pushed his finger against his chest. The veil in his eyes was gone, and for a second Hunter could read all the pain and anger in the eyes staring at him. Then the pressure on his chest disappeared, and Crosshair turned around, walked away. His hands were still shaking, his heart painfully pulsing in his chest, and the familiar impression of slowly suffocating awoke in him a fear that he had spent so much time trying to bury.
You want to stay? Fine, stay. You’ll learn how it feels like to not belong.
Hunter felt a pain in his jaw, realised he had been clenching it for…He couldn’t tell how long. He took a deep breath, looked around him until he saw the saloon’s sign. It seemed to be the only open property around.
He tried not to stumble as he got inside, but allowed himself to let himself drop on one of the high chair close to the counter. A strong, short lady appeared on the other side. She stared at his swollen face for a few seconds, frowning.
“Welcome to Marauder Valley. What d’you want?”
“A whisky please,” He grabbed the glass, slowly swirled the warm brown liquid before he added, “and a room for the night.”
