milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

One ka-mai in the bar with coffee and a thoughtful look on his face. Have at.

[Summary: Cuthbert talks about Cort's visit to the bar with Roland, who seems a bit disappointed that Bert didn't get hit, with Lilly, who finds the idea of apprentice gunslingers having to prove their manhood by beating Cort up and taking his stick amusing, I can't imagine why, and with Susan, with whom he is angstily nostalgic about Gilead.]

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Cuthbert smiles faintly.

"As well as anyone did, I suppose. He...he wasn't a man to share much of himself with others. Not really."

"He didn't talk much, say true," she replies.

"Aye." Bert's smile widens a bit, and when he speaks again, the childish petulance in his voice is clearly a teasing one. "He always liked Roland and Alain better, as I'm sure you can imagine."

"Well, mayhap he just felt more comfortable with them, if he were always so quiet," she teases back. "Thee are -- not given to silence, 'Bert, say true."

He lifts his head enough to wrinkle his nose at her. "And it's a good thing, too."

She smiles innocently at him.

"Oh, some might think it so, say true."

He smiles back, but it's wistful still, and for all that he's not naturally given to silence, he doesn't seem very talkative now.

She sighs, and sits quietly for a little while, looking down at their linked hands, thinking.

(it's all been stirred up)

Softly, "I didn't mean to-- to trouble thee, 'Bert."

Bert shakes his head, squeezing her hand briefly.

"You haven't, Susan, never in life. I'd be thinking about it in any case."

She nods, tilting her head to look up at him.

"Then-- I'd not press thee, and I hope thee know it -- but if thee wish to speak of it, I'd listen."

Cuthbert stares ahead, a faraway look in his eyes.

"I...it's not that I don't want to speak of it, Susan, I just...wouldn't be sure what to speak of. There's so much..."

She's silent, simply listening -- for she'll not press, say true. Her fingers on his tighten, just for a moment, in wordless comfort.

He's silent for another moment or two, sifting through memories.

Then, all of a sudden, his face splits into a grin.

"We never told you about Sheemie, did we?"

"Thee promised him yellow silkflowers, once," she says softly, remembering.

"But-- nay, 'Bert, other than what Eddie told-- told us all-- "

She shrugs, a little.

Cuthbert is beaming now.

"Well, at first we weren't sure of what happened to him. After--" his grin fades a bit, suddenly, "After Mejis. We hoped he'd gotten away safely, but..."

He trails off. Then, after a moment, the grin returns. "And then guess who showed up in Gilead, come Year's End?"

(we weren't sure)

She understands, oh aye -- they couldn't have known, and they couldn't have returned to Hambry to find out. Not safely.

But as he continues, her startlement is evident-- as is her delight.

"Say true, 'Bert? Sheemie-- in Gilead?"

"Aye, say true." Cuthbert laughs at the memory. "He rode in on Capi, pink sombrero and all, telling everyone he met he was looking for Mister Arthur Heath and his friends Richard Stockworth and Will Dearborn."

She can just picture it, can see Sheemie clear in her mind's eye in a city she's never seen--

(I love you, good old Arthur Heath!)

--pleased and happy to be reunited with those he'd claimed as friends and risked himself for.

And she's laughing as well now, oh aye. "I can see him, 'Bert-- what did ye do?"

"We found work for him in the Barony stables--for all that he was never the brightest, he was a good worker, ye ken? And he got on well with horses--animals in general. I think they always understood him better than other people did."

The memories are clear in his mind--Sheemie brushing or feeding the horses, chattering happily to them, always doing whatever task he was set to cheerfully and without complaint.

"He were always good with them, say true," she says wistfully. "And he were particularly good with Caprichoso, I remember."

"And he could always be trusted to work well and hard-- and were always sweet..."

"Aye." Cuthbert looks wistful again, but now considerably more happily so. "It was easy to underestimate him, but if you looked beneath the surface...he was special, alright."

(Stanley says I a bugwit)

Always cheerful, smiling and happy and hardworking-- and cleverer than most people were willing to credit, say true. Well he had loved her, she knows, and he'd risked so much for them all-- and she had been fond of him in turn.

"Oh, thee says true, 'Bert--" Her eyes are clouded, a little, but she is smiling at the memories.

"--he were special indeed. And he were happy? In Gilead?"

Cuthbert's eyes are lowered now, but he's still smiling.

"I think he was. He seemed so, anyway."

For a time, at least. Until happiness ran dry for all of them.

"I'm glad." Soft, and very certain. "I'm so glad."

Cuthbert glances over at her and smiles, then raises their joined hands to his lips and presses a light kiss against her fingers.

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