peacemakers: (019)

oh jesus this is long, i'm sorry

[personal profile] peacemakers 2016-10-06 10:01 am (UTC)(link)
[ Joshua Faraday is a Baptist in name only.

That is, he's a God-fearing man, to an extent. Knows quite a bit about sin, about vices, about how many of those Ten Commandments he's broken, time and time again. He knows there's a Heaven, that there's a Hell, and that he's most certainly destined for one of those – three guesses as to which. And that one day, when the right bullet finds him, he'll take that plunge.

Turns out, it's not one bullet but a half dozen that do him in. But at least he got to blow something up.

Death had been— terrifying. Painful. About the worst thing he had ever experienced, but— he wasn't alone. He had Emma holding his hand, shepherding him through to the other side, and that was a blessing. That was a miracle in itself, that a miserable bastard like him would warrant the attention of a kind woman like Emma Cullen.

The angel ushering warriors to their afterlife. Valkyries, he remembers. They were called Valkyries.

But remembering is— hard. He feels a flash of it, every now and again, like his mind focuses long enough that he can think, that he's actually Josh Faraday, and then he's gone. Like he's a droplet on a window pane, collecting bits of himself as he's pulled downward, splitting when he hits some imperfection. It's— it's hard. It's difficult.

Then sometimes, it's not. Sometimes, there's a flash, and he sees a sun-drenched street, sees men and women alike, carrying tools and wood. Bandaged men, the freshly wounded, hobbling around the porches of buildings and doing their best to pitch in, hammering planks to walls, painting over scorch marks with pristine white paint. Sees children laughing and playing and suffering the lectures of their school-ma'am. Sees a familiar flash of red hair. He wonders if she smiles, these days, if she—

And then he's gone.

It's probably three months later before he's aware again, that he's Faraday again, and he finds himself standing against the wall of a familiar saloon, the mood somber but so much lighter than he had ever seen it before. He spots a fresh bottle of gin sitting on a table and feels a peculiar sort of longing, like he hasn't had anything to drink in ages, though he feels no thirst. A woman with a pitcher passes directly in front of him, and he asks, "How much for a drink?"

She ignores him completely, and before he can complain, he scatters.

It happens faster and faster, after that; instead of three months, it's two months later, appearing in an empty field, where men and horses and a wagon stood. Then one month later, near a dead tree, where he remembers talking about nightmares and reaching a silly agreement about names, of all things. Then two weeks, sitting on one of the chairs on the saloon's porch – completely disregarded, though he speaks to the other patrons, louder and louder and louder, but he disappears just as he's about to start hollering. Then one, standing in front of the church and thinking, "What the hell is happening?" The preacher's steps crunch in the gravel behind him, and he turns, reaches out to grab hold of the man, except—

Faraday's hand passes through him, and the preacher continues forward, none the wiser.

And he's gone once again.

A few days later, and he finds himself up the path from Emma Cullen's house at around sundown, sitting in the dirt with his face buried in his hands, because— he doesn't know what this is. He doesn't know what he is. It feels like some terrible dream, and if he just waits, maybe he'll finally wake up from it. ]
peacemakers: (023)

[personal profile] peacemakers 2016-10-07 08:32 pm (UTC)(link)
[ There are a lot more graves in the churchyard than he remembers.

He supposes it follows, really, considering how many casualties were incurred that blood-drenched day. Seems like an awful lot more burial mounds than there should be, though – and it occurs to him that Bogue’s men must have been interred alongside the rest of the town’s lost. Their graves were marked by simple crosses, left mostly forgotten toward the back. Six months and some bits is enough time for nature to stake a claim, and weeds began to gather around their markers.

Still, it was decent of Rose Creek to have buried them along with their dead; when the dust settled, it must have been one hell of a shouting match to allow those men even that much of a courtesy. He wonders if one of those plots is Bogue, left to rot in the dirt, or if Rose Creek had left his body to a different fate.

(If it were up to Faraday, Bogue would have been left to the elements, tossed somewhere for the wildlife to pick at. It’s only half of what he had coming for him, for taking away the lives of good men. But then again, very few people leave things up Faraday – or at least they never had when he still had breath – and for good reason.)

Faraday leans against the wrought iron fence wrapped around the graveyard, one foot kicked up on the lower rail. Some names he recognizes – men with whom he briefly spoke in that week leading up to his death (and theirs, too, he supposes) – and he watches as somber women and children tend to graves. Faraday offers something like a quick prayer for them. (Is it too peculiar for a ghost to pray for the dead?) He spies the name “Matthew Cullen” and wonders what sort of man he was to inspire a town to go to war.

It’s been a few weeks now, since he spoke with Emma beside his own grave, and he’s been present in some form for nearly every one of those days, drifting around her. (Haunting her, more accurately, but his use of the term earns him a glare every time.) His bouts of existence are getting longer, now, almost like he’s getting his strength back. Like he’s practicing, getting accustomed to a new skill. No one sees him, still, no one hears him, no matter how much of a ruckus he tries to make, save for Emma.

It’s not perfect, whatever this is. It’s not ideal. But few things ever are, and he makes do.

He learns a few things, during that time. Like how he can walk through walls and doors and people, or how he can be some place in the blink of an eye. Sometimes, he can let himself drift – invisible even to Emma’s eyes, but still aware, in a way, of his chosen surroundings and of time passing. He also learns that trying to go too far out of Rose Creek sends something buzzing through him, makes him feel a tug in his gut, and the discomfort only goes away when he wanders back toward the town. Tethered to something, though he can’t tell what.

Faraday pushes away from the fence, turns a little to look in the direction of the hill, where Goody, Billy, and Jack lie. (His own body, too, though he tries not to think too hard on it.) He offers them a brief nod – almost like a fond sort of greeting. After that, he disappears—

— and reappears in Emma Cullen’s kitchen. He grins. ]


Boo.
peacemakers: (021)

[personal profile] peacemakers 2016-10-17 10:18 am (UTC)(link)
[ After their fight, a few things became evident:

One. Faraday and Emma were... friends. Friendly? Probably friends, though Faraday had so few of those, he wasn't entirely sure. Close, at least, or close enough that having parted from one another's company for that short (long. interminably long.) week had soured the two of them to the idea of being apart again. Faraday, because he'd grown used to the way Emma would rib at him, would tease him in a way she never had while he was alive, and he found he was fond of it. Emma, for reasons that were purely her own, but he hopes it has something to do with enjoying his company, rather than enjoying the way he fills the silence of her home, like white noise.

Two. Faraday could— feel again. Physically, that is. Could touch and discern textures and temperature, when before it was simply a matter of pressure. He knew how much strength was too much or too little, but little more than that, before. Now, though, he could count the number of cards passing over his fingers, could pick apart when he had passed over two or one. He could feel the heat of fire (though it still didn't hurt him), the chill of the cold air. And Lord, he hadn't realized how much he missed it until he had recovered that sense.

Three. Faraday was something approaching solid again. He could still pass through things if he wanted, but it required a conscious effort. Before, he would need to think on grasping something, or else he would merely phase through. Now, he needs to think on phasing through, or else he would bump right into it. An odd change, and something he was still mastering – which made walking through town a little treacherous. These days, when he had occasion to follow Emma through Rose Creek, the two of them avoided crowded areas; he's bumped into someone at least once or twice, left them bewildered and cursing their clumsiness. Amusing as it is, he doesn't care to keep repeating the mistake, or else the town could fall into a paranoid frenzy.

And four. Apparently this change in Faraday had become a source of some curiosity and amusement for Emma, because not a day passed without her testing his solidity at least a handful of times. Sometimes in small ways, by brushing a hand across his arm or poking him in the side. Sometimes in large ways, by throwing something soft across the room at him or jabbing at his chest with whatever tool she happened to have on hand at the time. There was some novelty to it, the first few times – because rarely had Faraday seen Emma partake in something as whimsical as this – but as the experiments continued, Faraday found himself simply exasperated by it.

As is the case now.

The sun had long ago set, and the two of them sit side-by-side in front of the flickering fire. The warmth suffuses the room, fills it with a cozy sort of light, as Faraday shows her a basic card skill – a quick lesson in how to backpalm a card. He demonstrates again how he tucks the card between his fingers, how he flicks his middle and ring finger beneath to flip it over and back—

—when the edge of a blanket is abruptly thrown over his head.

Faraday falls silent for a moment, his hands dropping to his lap, letting the blanket simply hang there to cover his face.

Then, in a flat voice slightly muffled by the fabric, ]


Really.

Come on.
Edited 2016-10-17 10:22 (UTC)
peacemakers: (013)

rip theodore

[personal profile] peacemakers 2016-10-31 08:42 am (UTC)(link)
[ Faraday drifts over Rose Creek in the early hours of the morning, just before the sun crests over the horizon. The dirty, grey light of pre-dawn. The town is quiet and still. Changed, in so many ways, and a little more grown than what he recalls from those handful of days while he was still alive. New buildings, new shops. The Imperial Saloon's sign is much grander than it was before, needing replacement after the battle with Bogue and his men had left it riddled with bullet holes. The Elysium Hotel has a few new painted ladies, as he recalls. Some of the women had returned when the dust settled, others were newcomers to the town, and all of them were dozing away the night in the upper floor with some lingering customers.

He wanders and waits for the town to start waking, for folks to yawn and stretch and complain as they're forced to start their day. It's Sunday, which means church, which means following Emma on her weekly ritual – hovering a distance away as she kneels beside the grave of her late husband, watching folks pass by to give her some privacy. Helping her tidy up the markers on the hill.

The colder months makes it more difficult to gather flowers, but as the cold well and truly set in, Faraday took the task upon himself. He wasn't bothered by the weather, after all, and though he didn't see the sense in keeping up the tradition for his own grave (an idea he still had difficult wrapping his mind around), he agreed to it all the same for the others. He didn't have quite the eye that Emma did, but whatever he gathered always seemed to please her well; and sometimes, just keeping the graves free of weeds was enough to satisfy her. His gaze darts away from his own marker every time, and he instead focuses on Billy's, on Goody's, on Jack's. They're the ones in need of remembering, after all. He's still kicking up trouble, though he's not sure if he'll ever know why.

(Maybe he has unfinished business, though hell if even he knows what that is. Or maybe he was just as restless in death as he was in life, which kicked his spirit straight out of Heaven or Hell and back to Earth.)

He hopes they're all happy, wherever they ended up. It's the least they deserved.

The more time he spends at Emma's side, the more that curling bit of heat in his chest grows. And by now, it's admittedly something of a modest fire. Comfortable. Warm. Safe, as much as it is dangerous, for reasons he still doesn't quite understand. She smiles so much more, laughs and teases; even the exasperation she puts on when he steps a little too far over a boundary makes him grin all the same. The uncertainty of his state goes forgotten, most of the time, the wrongness of it, and now he just settles for being.

This is a second chance he never asked for, but he's glad for it, all the same.

It's a few hours past noon when the two of them settle back into Emma's home, and Faraday sits at the table with his cards as she fixes herself lunch, laying out a game of patience he had learned from a miner some years ago. A crunch of dirt just outside catches his attention, and he vanishes—

—to reappear at the front window, careful not to touch the curtains as he peeks out. His eyes narrow, jaw clenching, though he's hardly aware of it. ]


Your associate is makin' his way up the path.

[ A reference to the first day he met Emma and Teddy Q. He speaks brightly, even if he feels a bitter twist in his gut. ]

He's lookin' awful waxed up, and—

[ He lets out a quiet sound, forces himself to sound amused. ]

Oh, look at that. He's got flowers.