#sorry ainsel that will was a bitch to you. in his defence he is freaking the fuck out

[doctors-star]

“Yeah, I can see how hiding behind a rock is a much better strategy.” for Cowboys??

Sometimes, Ainsel feels that they and Edelweiss are coming to some kind of understanding. That, perhaps, Edelweiss is the type of horse with whom it was possible to have some kind of normal relationship, and generally not the sort of creature to possess too-clever eyes and be prone to depositing Ainsel without memories somewhere they shouldn’t be.

These times are infrequent, and they do not ever last.

Rarely, though, has Ainsel taken quite so strongly against the concept of horses altogether, Edelweiss or otherwise. Normally, their lack of particular equine affinity is not an issue, given that they never need to travel that fast, but in consequence they never did learn how to sit or stand when Edelweiss’ legs are really pumping, apparently delighted at this taste of freedom and the wind in her mane; Ainsel is being galloped across the desert like a bag of jumbled bones with their head tucked in behind Edelweiss’ ear and their fingers wrapped white around the pommel, clinging on for dear life. The sand is kicking up on the wind and spitting against any exposed skin, so their eyes are more like slits and are streaming wildly and all they can really see of the desert and sky is a blur of orange and blue.

The jolting is going to shake their kneecaps right out of their legs. Their spine will be compressed by six inches by the time they get off. Ainsel hates horses, just now.

And then, without any input from Ainsel, Edelweiss is slowing to a gentle trot and then a lazy stop. Ainsel puts their head up a little to push the horse on further, because they have someone to urgently find and no delay can be had - but then they blink, and their sandblasted, watery vision coalesces into the very face of the man they had ridden out to find. When the ringing in their ears from being so thoroughly shaken dissipates too, they can hear Will murmuring to Edelweiss and petting her nose as he casts worried glances at her rider. Ainsel winces; what a clattering they must have made, to pull Will unprompted from his observations.

Ainsel unpeels their fingers from the pommel and attempts to straighten up. The pain is immediate and terrible, lancing up and down their shaken spine, and they list worryingly to one side; they slide into a pair of wiry arms, so they assume Will is rescuing them, but it’s hard to tell, what with the white-out of pain. They end up on the floor, Will being altogether too small to lift anyone over the age of eight, with Williams crouched near their head and looking worried. “Howdy,” Ainsel grits out politely. Will’s frown worsens.

“Alright, who’s done what now,” he says, eyes tracking the length of them as they stretch slowly and awkwardly to catalogue the points of greatest pain. For all that Will Williams is not a doctor, he certainly is getting better at doctoring. He’s less agitated every time: last time Finn had sliced his leg open on a splintered fence, Will had been more annoyed than worried; and these days, he even wraps aching joints and teaches folks how to clean cuts and sores and he went out to see Noel’s husband - God rest him - whenever she asked, even though he couldn’t do anything, until he let her down gently a few weeks before the end. Ainsel is abruptly reminded, with new urgency, of how much they appreciate having not-a-doctor Will Williams around to doctor them all.

“It’s good to have you around,” Ainsel wheezes, their brain-to-mouth filter shaken about a bit by relentless horse riding; Will looks slightly horrified.

“Oh lord,” he says, “are you dyin’?”

Ainsel shakes their head and sits up on their elbows. Will’s palm slides behind the ball of his shoulder to support the motion, warm and steady. “Naw - no-one’s in trouble, promise.”

“Uh huh,” Will says, sounding deeply unconvinced. “And this bat out of hell impression you’ve got going, what’s that in aid of?”

Ainsel makes a face, which Will picks up on immediately. It had been too much to hope that he wouldn’t, of course, and this is all the point anyhow: Ainsel is here to tell Will as early as possible something he may not want to hear, but will eventually find out regardless. He may as well hear it on his own terms.

They had been walking Noel to the hotel for an hour of coffee and polite conversation, for the duration of which they may both pretend that they only know similarly polite and calm individuals. It is...therapeutic. They sometimes bring Will, who can be relied upon for good behaviour, but he’d usually rather be out by the creek or in the prairie grass or in the shade of a cactus pretending he doesn’t know any humans at all; it is, therefore, a surprise to see him standing with his back to them in an expensive pine-green suit at the front desk. Ainsel notes all these details only in hindsight: the broader shoulders, the bowler hat, the set of his stance which is not quite right - like Will, only a good bit older, mirrored and two steps to the left. At the time, though, they had simply seen Will, and not thought a thing of it that Noel should raise the hand not tucked into Ainsel’s elbow and say “Mister Williams! Will you come sit with - oh, I do apologise; I thought you were an acquaintance of ours.”

The man smiles with disproportionate pleasure at being misidentified, leaning forward on his toes in his road-dusty brogues. There is a suitcase at his feet and he is holding his hat to his chest deferentially, but he is still standing in the hotel with a confidence and appearance of belonging that Will has never possessed - possibly ever, but certainly not in a genteel environment like this one. He wears a day’s stubble well, flecked with slightly premature grey, on a jaw which is squarer than Will’s, but just as fine-boned and angular; his voice, when he speaks, sounds like Will when he’s at his most anxious - all old-money, old-country, cold and tall and prickly like the pines in whose snow-capped shadows Will grew up.

“Not at all; perhaps you can help me. You see, I am indeed a Mister Williams - Thomas Williams, ma’am, at your service - and I am seeking a relative of mine who may just be this acquaintance of yours.” Noel makes the appropriate interested noises, but Ainsel goes abruptly cold as though they had broken and tumbled through the surface of a frozen lake, instantaneous and gasping for air. They have this sense of déja vu when looking at Thomas Williams, more than the ordinary familiarity of seeing Will in him - and then they remember. They have seen Will’s big brother before, in the card that had shown them Will’s youth; they barely need to glance at their palm to know that the cards have found their way into their free hand once more, and that the top card is the card that might be the Tower, and might be the Queen of Spades.

“Has something happened?” Ainsel says, interrupting the polite and non-committal conversation Noel is maintaining with the stranger about the quality of the road into Danser Town and the inconvenience of not having a railway out here yet, at every opportunity steering him away from asking her any question about Will’s presence or existence that she might actually have to answer.

Thomas Williams blinks, wrongfooted, but rallies quickly. “I’m afraid my mother has recently died,” he says, and Noel murmurs condolences; Ainsel just watches him. “She and my - cousin were never as close as one might like, but…” Williams casts about, looking away with a shadow over his brow, and Ainsel realises his grief is real and painful - though whether it is for the lost parent, or the lost opportunity to reconcile, they cannot say.

Ainsel nods and tucks the cards back into their pocket, turning solicitously to Noel. “I’m afraid I gotta go; will you be alright-?”

Noel pats their elbow and releases them, message received. Of course Noel will be alright; Ainsel has no idea if she knows what they know about Will’s relation to this stranger, but she sure has gathered that Ainsel is not eagerly bringing one party to the other. “You go, then. I’m sure this fine gentleman will keep me in good company,” she says, fluttering her eyelashes and turning her charm upon Mister Williams like a beam. He blinks in the face of it, and finds himself abandoning his luggage to offer her his arm and lead her to a table almost without noticing.

He certainly had been stunned enough to ignore Ainsel turning on a dime and taking off through the doors at a dead run.

Which leaves them here: lying on the dusty earth in the shadow of a rocky desert outcrop with Will Williams crouched by their head, and wishing that they had sent Tommy or Finn or Johnny out instead - how those bastards make galloping look easy, Ainsel may never know.

Ainsel takes a deep breath, fixes their gaze on Will, and says it firm and simple. “Your brother is here in Danser, and he’s the absolute fuckin’ spit of you, so I don’t reckon you can get away with him not knowing you’re here.”

Will, in an action which is either a credit to his propensity for forethought or reminiscent of a small furry prey animal, does not move for a good five seconds. Then he drops Ainsel’s shoulder and stands abruptly, marching six paces away and staring at the dirt. Ainsel watches in silence as Will chews the inside of his cheek intently. They can’t think what to say that might help: he seems nice is true, but seems is a big word that hides a multitude of sins; he said you were his cousin doesn’t quite accurately convey, the way Ainsel wants it to, that Thomas Williams doesn’t seem to know who he’s looking for at all (sister, brother, neither, both) but is keen to find that person nevertheless; I’m a little concerned that if we leave them alone too long, Noel will have married him for your inheritance by the time we get back doesn’t seem remotely useful, for all that it is honest.

“Did he say why?” Will says eventually, after a good minute of silence in which Ainsel regains their breath and manages to sit up properly and look around Will’s little camp. He usually comes back to town overnight, unless he’s seeking something nocturnal, but he always takes a bedroll and cookpot just in case he gets distracted and forgets to come home; he’s got it all, still packed, in a pile near his horse, and has only brought out a leather-bound notebook, a pencil and some charcoals which he has left on a flat rock pointing southwest where some animals, presumably, are being interesting. In rampant defiance of the gun safety and maintenance talks Finn has repeatedly given him, Will has left his rifle broken over a rock far out of reach with cartridges spilling out over the floor, where any young man with spurs on or sturdy horse in iron shoes might step on or near them and give everyone a terrible shock. Will can be so childlike about animals, sometimes - so focussed upon them and nothing else - that Ainsel reckons he needs protecting. So he shuffles over and puts the cartridges in a box, and carefully mulls over how to answer the question.

“He did,” Ainsel says eventually, voice taut and unwilling. Will sniffs, face twitching with it, but says nothing and doesn’t look his way. They sigh, and turn the box awkwardly between their fingers. “It’s your ma,” they settle on. “I’m afraid she’s, uh, passed. Recently.”

Will doesn’t move an inch. He tells them, sometimes, when he’s drunk on two whiskeys and tired of Danser Town’s shit, about his home country in the northeast; the great lakes in their vast and cosmic stillness, the endless plains of undisturbed snow, the deep dark woods of solemn, unmoving pines stretching out past the point of vanishing. He used to sit out for hours in the summer watching herons stand proudly on the banks of the lakes, being plagued by mosquitos but never minding it, for if he waited long enough a herd of deer might drink by his side, or a great, ageless moose, or perhaps even a bear seeking fish before his winter sleep. Will would sit, ever so still, and wait for the world to unfurl its shy beauty before him like a gift. Ainsel wonders if it’s something they all know to do in the north: if the mountains and lakes and forests impose a certain quiet stillness upon all its inhabitants like austere, frowning schoolmarms, or if this is something Will learned on his own on those occasions he could escape the family home in town.

In the winter, Will says, the trees shiver and pop. Water gets in them, see, and then it freezes, and the sap too; when it expands, it breaks down the pines’ firm, fibrous defenses and the trees start to explode.

“I’m sorry,” Ainsel offers.

Will nods, short and sharp, like he’s decided something. And then, without looking at Ainsel at all, he goes back to his notebook and squints at the horizon.

“...you ain’t gonna come back an’ see him?” Ainsel says cautiously.

“Thank you for telling me,” Will says, sounding more cool and moneyed than he ever has - the difference takes Ainsel aback a moment, for all that it is rather familiar. Will had sounded like that fresh off the train into town, and it hadn’t really occurred to them before how much his accent had mellowed into something more gentle, casual, and local to Danser. The switch back is a little like being struck. “You may go, now.”

Ainsel is not quick to anger. They have long accepted the vagaries of the universe, and others within it; their follies and irritations are something to which Ainsel is quite resigned. A thing has to be pretty damn offensive to rile them into anger.

So there is no small amount of alarm on Will’s face when Ainsel hauls themself off the floor, marches across the small clearing between the great desert rocks, fists their hand in Will’s shirtfront and presses him against the rock with a snarl. “Listen here, you sonuvabitch,” Ainsel says sternly, “I rode across the desert so fast all my damn bones are broke so’s you could know your brother was here on your own terms, and not ‘cause some helpful bastard in town’s brought him straight to ya. I ain’t askin’ for nothing from you, Will Williams, but I reckon I deserve some of your goddamn respect.” Will looks rather contrite. Ainsel thinks of the card vision, and the gentle man within who so cared for the child, and how eager Thomas Williams had been at the hotel to find someone who looked like him, and presses their advantage. “What’s more, I reckon you oughtta come speak to your brother, who’s grievin’ and who came out all this way lookin’ for you-”

Will’s dark eyes flash abruptly flinty, and Ainsel knows that they have misstepped. It’s still not enough warning: Will makes a fist and punches the soft inside of Ainsel’s elbow with his sharp knuckles, breaking the hold Ainsel has on his shirt, and while Ainsel is gasping with the shock of it he plants his hands flat on Ainsel’s chest and shoves hard enough to move them a good few paces. “You have no idea who he came out looking for,” Will hisses, pointing accusingly and stalking forward into Ainsel’s space, “but it sure as hell wasn’t me. He may be my brother, but I’m not his.”

“I reckon you are!” Ainsel blurts out, too busy thinking about how Thomas Williams had leaned forward on his toes to get nearer those people that might know Will to mind themself.

“The devil do you know about it all?” Will cries, throwing his hands in the air, and Ainsel recoils, wounded. “I don’t see how you can tell me what to do, as though you’ve no secrets you don’t want to address. You don’t - you don’t know me. None of you do. You-” this with a look of disdainful, injured pride and a dismissive gesture in their direction “-don’t even know yourself. So get out.”

Ainsel, for a moment, cannot breathe for the terrible hurt of it all. They have to shift one foot behind them a little to avoid stumbling backwards and folding like a broken chair to the floor. Will turns away to fuss with his drawing materials, and Ainsel works their jaw until sound comes out. “So that’s it, huh. You’re skipping town because you’re too fuckin’ yellow to see your own brother.”

Will shakes his head without turning around. “No,” he says, cool and measured, “I am going to stay here until he leaves and then return once he’s moved on, because he won’t search Danser twice and because I am-” he tilts his head thoughtfully, like a mockingbird “-too fucking yellow to see my own brother.”

“Yeah,” Ainsel mutters, turning back to Edelweiss and hauling their battered frame back into the saddle. “I can see how hiding behind a rock is a much better strategy.”

Will turns, glare spitting with fury, but Ainsel is already pulling Edelweiss around and nudging her into a steady trot back towards Danser. Edelweiss, having enjoyed her taste of speed and freedom, wants to run wild and joyous across the desert dust, to loop around the town into the prairie where the ranches are and cascade over the hill past the fenced-in stock animals and whinny her mocking laugh at them all, for she is free, free, wild and free - but Ainsel does not. They keep her reined tight until she snorts and huffs and tosses her great head and shows her tombstone teeth, but they allow her nothing. Ainsel is tired of runners, anyway.