fireinthehole | (no subject)

(no subject)

It's been a while since Boyd has been outside. He doesn't like it. And while it'll take some work to get the crop back where it ought to be, it won't be as bad as it was when he found it. Probably.

And he won't be out in the forest, which is creepy.

But for now, he's over by the fire -- not sitting in a chair, standing by the window, looking out to the back, where he won't go. He's got a glass in his hand.

It's remarkably quiet.

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"Lazy as the day is long."

It's a familiar drawl, rich with a contempt that's just as familiar.

"Looks like you still haven't learned a damn thing."

Boyd looks sharply to his left.

But he speaks steadily, as though completely unsurprised. "Hello, Daddy."

He's got a gun on him. He's ready.

Bo's smile's as sharp as his knives used to be.

"Hello, Boyd."

"Last time I saw you -- "

Boyd's looking out through the glass again. He can see his father's reflection, and see through it to the lake beyond.

" -- a Miami gun thug put you down."

"And here I thought you'd gone and gotten all religious on me."

He snorts.

"I hear tell there's plenty of words in that particular book talking about what comes after. Shouldn't be that much of a surprise, boy."

"Well, Daddy, as you no doubt know -- "

Boyd's still looking out back, but his voice has tightened just a little bit, sardonic. "In First Corinthians Paul says that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, and I have not yet slipped this mortal coil. So this isn't heaven. And it's not hell, neither, and the Bible's much more specific about the nature of what awaits all sinners."

Of which Bo Crowder is certainly one, if anyone is.

"Once they get there," he points out.

"Can't say as I'm in any hurry." Bo looks around the room. "Might even decide I like it here enough to stay awhile."

He slants a look back at his other son.

"You wouldn't mind, would you?"

Boyd takes a thoughtful sip of whiskey.

"Mind isn't the word I'd use, no."

His father killed his men.

There's unfinished business between them. Business Boyd figured he'd never get to finish.

And if he can do it here -- in whatever way --

"Of course it isn't."

He doesn't sound one bit surprised.

"What would you call it?"

"Well, Daddy -- "

Another sip.

"I'd call it a chance to learn a little something about the art of exorcism."

He bares his teeth in the semblance of a smile.

"Just you try it, boy. Just you try."

"I intend to," Boyd says, easily enough. "You know you got it coming, Daddy."

"Look who's talking tough now."

Bo suits actions to words, looking him up and down with disdain.

"Most useless, stubborn child I ever sired, but family tells all the same. I'm in your blood, Boyd, all the way down to the bone. There's no getting away from that, no matter how hard you run."

"I never intended to try, Daddy." Another sip. "Although I must take umbrage with your assertion. I think that on the whole I done much better than Bowman in the useless and stubborn department."

"Well."

He appears to consider this.

"Stubborn, maybe. When it comes to useless, he did get himself shot by that worthless bitch he married, I suppose."

Now -- finally -- Boyd turns to face his father.

"You saying Bowman didn't deserve it?"

Both his eyebrows rise high.

"You defending her over your own brother's spilt blood?"

"Can't think of a compelling reason why I shouldn't, way he treated her."

The way Boyd treated her.

Bo spits on the floor at Boyd's feet.

Disgust twists his features.

"Come on now, Daddy."

Boyd's smiling, bright and sharp.

"If she didn't fight him back, you'd still be calling her a worthless bitch. One way or the other. So why shouldn't I defend her? Go on and tell me."

"More like I'd be calling her a woman who knew her place under the roof my son put over her head."

He studies Boyd like he's never seen him before; like he's trying to figure him out, somehow, and then he grins, wide and snake-mean.

"You looking to cut yourself a slice of her pie there, boy? She does make a sweet one, come to that."

Soft, still smiling:

"Daddy, that's the only thing you can understand, isn't it."

"Why don't you enlighten me."

He's still grinning.

"Go on. Preach me your sermon, Reverend. Not like you've got anyone else who'll listen to you now, is it?"

"I turned my back on my blood," Boyd says. "And I turned my back on God. And you know what you all got in common, Daddy?

"You turned your back on me first."

"And you just rolled over and took it," Bo spits back at him.

"Tucked your tail between your legs like a goddamn cur and crawled off to lick your wounds."

"Which is it you're looking for? You see someone stand up for themselves, they're worthless. You see someone lie there and take it, you kick them harder. You have Johnny kick them harder, you don't even stoop to doing it yourself. So tell me this, Daddy -- "

Boyd takes a step in; it doesn't matter that his father's taller. "If I can't get it right, why should I bow to you?"

He doesn't budge.

"Because you can't get it right. That's the whole point."

"And you never will."

Boyd smiles.

"You can't make it worse for me, Daddy." Soft. "I hope you like it, knowing I go down in the earth four times a week. I go down there because of what you did. Because I couldn't protect them from you. Your last great move in the protection game. You know if the Miami gun thugs hadn't gotten you, I would've."

And I will.

"You tell yourself that, boy. You tell yourself that, while you're down there in the dirt, digging your grave with your own two hands instead of making your way in the real world up above. Hold it close like a candle in the dark, and know it'll last just as long and be just as worthless in the end."

He doesn't even bother to sneer, but just looks at his son with disappointment, weary disdain, and no sign of surprise.

"Almost as worthless as you turned out to be."

"A holy man can cast out demons, Daddy, and while my God may have forsaken me, and vice versa -- "

The glass goes on the sill. "Misters Smith and Wesson have not. And if that don't work, Daddy, there's enough in the way of powers and principalities here that you're going to be worse than worthless.

"You're irrelevant."

Quick as a copperhead's strike, Bo backhands Boyd across the mouth.

For all that his touch is cold as the earth he's buried in and feels not at all of any mortal flesh, there's force behind it all the same.

Boyd feels it. The strike is so fast he can't tell whether or not it feels at all strange.

And slowly, he straightens, touching the corner of his mouth to see if his hand comes away bloody. It doesn't.

"Do that again, Daddy," Boyd says, smiling as he eases back a step, as he twists to circle so Bo's between him and the window, "and I swear to God I will put you down myself, before any gun thug comes between us. Word or lead, I will cast you out."

He spreads his hands.

"You had your chance once already."

He's smiling too now, his expression a twisted mirror of his son's, bright with the thrill of anticipation and the rush that comes before blood gets spilled.

"Didn't take it, now did you? It's like Arlo's boy said. You don't want to do that. Not deep down where it counts."

Boyd's been easing the gun out from the small of his back, under his jacket.

And now he pulls it on Bo, pointing it straight between his father's eyes.

Very softly, he says, "We're going to try this first, Daddy. And if it don't work, I think I still got it in me to cast out demons."

"Except I'm not a demon, boy. I'm your father."

Bo hasn't even bothered to look at the gun. He's watching Boyd, looking him right in the eye.

"You think you've got it in you to pull that trigger on me?"

Boyd lowers the gun.

Only to chest level.

"I think I might."

He pulls the trigger.

He staggers back against the window as blood begins to bloom, staining his shirt with its deadly flowering.

Bo stares down at himself and touches his hand to his chest. His fingers come away crimson, and he looks back up at his son... and smiles, wide and wild and warm with a pride Boyd's not seen from him in years.

"Looks like there's a little of me in you after all, son."

And to Boyd's horror, he feels himself responding to that pride on his father's face -- but it's nothing he can't shut down, hard.

"We knew that, Daddy." He doesn't lower the gun. "You go on to hell, now."

"Guess I'll go on to somewhere, anyway. I've seen what I came for. That'll do me just fine."

One second he's standing there, blood on his hands and his body both, smiling at his son.

In the next, the bullet hits the floor with a metallic tink.

Expressionless, Boyd bends and picks up the bullet.

The bullet goes in his pocket. The gun goes in its place at the small of his back.

He drains his glass and leaves it there on the sill, and walks out the front door.

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