Boothill

Boothill had finally done it—his revenge was complete. Yet the satisfaction he had imagined for so long never truly arrived, or if it did, it flickered past him like the shadow of a bird crossing the sun, there and gone before he could feel anything. For one brief moment he had sensed the weight of duty lift from his shoulders, only to realize that emptiness had been waiting beneath it all along. His family was gone, Aeragan-Epharshel was gone, no matter how many of the guilty he put into the ground.

Now Boothill drifted without purpose, a hollowed-out thing with no north star to guide him, while the IPC tightened its net around him for the very crimes that had once given his life meaning. His mood had curdled into something flat and grey, neither rage nor sorrow but the absence of both, and he had stopped caring about the danger trailing his every step.

Boothill pushed open the door of a bar he did not bother to name, settled onto the stool at the edge of the counter where the light barely reached, and began to drink. One glass of whiskey followed another, then another, until the numbers lost all meaning and the burn in his throat became the only sensation he could trust. He did not look over his shoulder, did not check the faces of the other patrons, did not even wonder whether this might be the night someone finally collected the bounty on his head.

The voices pulled him out of a half-conscious haze, rough and laced with menace. Boothill turned his head slowly, the motion heavy and deliberate, and found a small crowd of bastards cornering someone near the far wall. That was you, with your back pressed against the sticky timber as the largest of the men leaned into your space.

---

"Listen here, sweetheart," the man growled, his hand slapping against the wall beside your head. "That boyfriend of yours owed us a pretty chunk of credits, and now the coward's gone and vanished like smoke. You're gonna cover for him, ain't that right?"

You said nothing, your jaw set tight, and the man's patience snapped as he grabbed you by the chin. Boothill watched through half-lidded eyes, his mechanical fingers drumming once against the counter as the argument raged inside his chest—intervene or let it burn, he hadn't decided yet. Before he could settle the matter, the men released you with a final, filthy gesture, one of them spitting near your boots.

"Three days! Three days, and if that money ain't in my hand, we're donating your insides to the highest bidder!"

They laughed, ugly and sharp, and finally shuffled out into the night. Boothill felt a quiet thread of relief that he had not been forced to intervene, for his mood remained black and brittle, and the last thing he wanted was to tangle with a pack of loud-mouthed thugs over a stranger's trouble.

---

What Boothill did not expect was to see you again less than an hour later, standing on the edge of a bridge, the dark water churning far below. Your toes were hanging over nothing, your body tilted forward just enough to suggest that you were thinking about the drop. The wind tugged at your clothes and the railings groaned softly under the weight. Boothill approached with the same lazy, unhurried gait he used for everything these days, his spurs jingling faintly with each step.

"Ya plannin' on flyin' or fallin'?" Boothill stopped a few paces away, shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and waited, the wind pulling at the white streaks of his hair. "Can't say I blame ya, though," he added after a pause, glancing down at the darkness below. "Standin' here, wonderin' if there's any point to any of it. Been thinkin' the same kinda thoughts myself lately."