and there's nothing I want more now than to say the perfect words Who: Bishop Coldiron and Teagan Morgan Where: Near Teagan's trailer What: His past has come a knocking and Bishop needs to own up to it. When: Backdated to August 13th - After this and this.
Feels like I'm treading water Trying to keep my head above the line I hear the sound of you get softer
Now, well, now Bishop was a man on a mission. His past had come a knocking at his door and sent his world spinning like a top. Before he knew what the hell he was spewing from his mouth, he had opened the door to his trailer and invited his past right in. Things weren’t even close to being smoothed over with Willa, hell, there was a chasm as wide as the grand canyon between the two of them. Still, his mouth had done the talking before his brain could piece together the repercussions. Not a habit he was prone to, but even the Hellhounds Chaplain had his thoughtless moments from time to time.
Putting out the welcome matt for his ex in his trailer was one of them.
Inviting one angry blonde into his space would surely only elicit anger from the other blonde he held near and dear in his heart.
Teagan would not in fact be pleased with this news. But, Bishop had every intention of handing his trailer over to Willa and taking up space in the Treasurer’s space. The camp be damned. If they wanted to raise their eyebrows and start whispering about the officers shacking up together, well, he was more than happy to let them. This was his solution, his way of smoothing over the ripples that would undoubtedly form with his ex living in the same space as the woman he now called his.
He was cutting a mean path through camp, straight from the gate towards the bonfire. When Pinky told him that Teagan wasn’t there, that she’d gone off in search of him, well, Bishop knew he had his work cut out for him. It looked like they were playing a game of hide and seek, though it wasn’t intentional.
Minutes from leaving the fire and he was about fed up with circling through the camp in search of a flash of blonde hair that he wanted to see. He was just about ready to throw in the towel and head to her trailer, fully intending to camp out on the stoop or lounge in one of the lawn chairs she had sitting out front, when he caught sight of her coming directly towards him.
Even from this far away Bishop could tell she was pissed. Had she heard already? Did she know that he’d gone and put his foot in his fucking mouth, that his past had come around and old feelings had done the talking. He hoped to hell she hadn’t heard anything. This needed to come from him.
Plastering on his best ‘I don’t give a damn’ smile, he closed what little distance was left between them. Blue eyes coming to rest on Teagan as he greeted her. “Hey, darlin’, haven’t seen you since Chapel,” it’s an obvious statement, one intended to buy him some time to figure out just what sort of mood she was in.
The glance she gives him is mournful, on the verge of tears. Anger was only some of it. Much of it was this complete and total loss of any semblance of control she had struggled to gain through these short, tumultuous months. She’s not sure what any of it means, Rodeo’s reaction, his speech, him and her in the trailer, this feeling that he doesn’t know her. He was looking at her as if she was a fucking stranger and it burned.
Everyone thinks she thrives on chaos but she never thought she did. She’d never seen herself as wrong or a villain and all of a sudden, now, she’s rethinking these things, the terrible things she’s done, that she’s lived through.
Staving the impulse to jump at Bishop and force him to hold her she gives a weak and defeated nod of her head. She’s exhausted and all she wants to do is curl up with him somewhere out of the way, somewhere that is all him, somewhere she can press into him and go to sleep.
“Moonshine…”she says softly, still holding the bottle she’d been nursing. Now she isn’t so sure she wants to get drunk. Usually that’s her go to escape but now she had Bishop and she doesn’t have to stay the night alone. “I was gonna go think on things. Ran into Rodeo and we had a talk. Somethin’s different. Somethin….”
A dark expression glides over his features when Bishop notices the way she’s nearly on the verge of tears. What sort of conversation could Teagan have had with Rodeo that would set her to looking like the most mournful thing he’d seen in a long time. For a moment his own troubles are shoved to the back, bumped out of the way in favor of focusing on her. it’s a deliberate move, a selfish one, wanting to hold onto this for a few moments longer before he has to reveal that his ex is residing within their walls now and planning to take up residence in his trailer.
“Darlin’,” Bishop takes one hesitant step towards her, unsure if he should wrap her up in his arms or not. If this something also includes the knowledge that Willa’s in the park, then he had a feeling his arms around her might not be a wanted addition to her evening. “Reckon we’re all doing some thinking tonight, but what’s got you feeling like something’s different,” there’s a pause before he adds. “Besides the obvious.” He was well aware that Teagan had slipped out of Chapel, but at the time he hadn’t felt like it was his place to following her.
And Teagan appreciates that, knew that he was secure enough and trusting enough to give her some space, to allow her to come to him when she was ready. Now she was ready and she’s so utterly and completely grateful that she had him and he loves her. She needs that so much right now.
“This something have to do with your conversation with Rodeo?” There was an uneasy feeling in his gut, an unexplainable feeling that something had gone down between the Treasurer and their King and the Chaplain had a suspicion it had to do with the rat currently sitting at their table.
“I think someone’s been chirping in Rodeo’s ear. He looked at me like he hardly knew me. There’s never been any awkwardness between us, especially when we’re havin’ a lone conversation, darlin. It felt off.“ and she can’t exactly explain what she means because she can’t pinpoint it either. She hadn’t been gung-ho about the changes because it meant taking a hard look at herself and the path she’d taken. What it comes down to is - she’s afraid.
When she takes a step toward him there is nothing hesitant about it. Nothing has been hesitant between her and him since that night. She’s already moved past this being some secret thing, especially tonight when she needs Bishop more than ever.
She takes a fistful of his shirt. “Let’s skip the bonfire.”
Eyebrows knit together and Bishop can’t hide the scowl that overtakes his expression. Someone chirping in Rodeo’s ear is concerning enough, but the fact that Teagan feels as if their King doesn’t even know her, that something felt off, that’s what had him real concerned. “Off how? Like you don’t think he trusts you anymore?” Those aren’t words he wants to utter, but they’re ones that need to be asked. Without having been present at the conversation, all he can do is try and piece together what might be happening with what Teagan could tell him. Here they were looking to change directions, looking to clean up their image in Austin - and now it seemed someone was trying to turn them against each other from inside.
“He’s working through something...I don’t know. He’s fighting so much now. Mentally he’s shaken. He’s confused- I can’t see it.” she tells him. It’s just...off.
"Heavy is the head that wears the crown," he mutters. Not a single bit of him envies Rodeo or what the man has to deal with. "Darlin', he may be confused for a moment, but he knows you, even if it's been muddled up for a time. Sooner or later that fog will lift and he'll see you clearly again."
Even with his own demons rattling away in his brain, thoughts of Willa and her presence here, he still spares no time in wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her in close once she moves into his space. Somewhere along the way they had both given up on keeping this a secret. They weren’t obvious about it, weren’t hanging all over each other around the fire, but they weren’t shying away from moments like this either.
“Gladly,” he murmured, blue eyes peering down into hers. “I’ve got something I need to talk to you about anyway, Spitfire…” There’s no joy in breaking this moment, but if he plans on crashing in Teagan’s trailer until Willa finds her own lodging, this is a conversation he needs to get out of the way first.
“Let’s get off to your place then. I want to get naked and wrap myself around you.” she’s still holding onto his shirt, keeping him in close. He’s so big and strong, he’s a rock she can cling to, hold onto. Teagan loves that strength. Fuck! Teagan loves him. She’s so in love with him she doesn’t know what to do.“We can talk on the way…”
There it is, his opening to add one more trouble onto an already troublesome night. "About my place, darlin'....." he pauses, taking a moment to find the right way to break the news to her. How does one go about telling the woman they love that they've offered their space up to an ex? "It's kind of occupied."
While words are usually his forte, bending them and twisting them to convey his message. Right now he knows that the kindest way he can handle this is simply by being upfront and honest. "Got a message, or several actually, from Nate while Chapel was happening. Turns out this world just keeps getting smaller and smaller," his gaze is penetrating, he's trying with every fiber of his being to read Teagan, gauge her reaction as he delivers the news. "My ex is in Austin. She found out I was out here and came marching right up to our gates. Now she's here, and, well, currently occupying my trailer." If he felt any hesitation in telling her this, it didn't show on his face.
They’d never gotten around to this talk, about his past, about who he may or may not have loved. It’s one of those things she holds close to her chest and she supposes she thought he did too. People died. Never in a million years would she have expected an ex-whatever to come trouncing along into their lives.
Maybe, if her world didn’t feel so small to begin with today and everything didn’t feel as if it was crumbling all around her, she would have been able to digest the news without wanting to throw up in her mouth. She has this terrible feeling. That this isn’t such a open and close case.
“So, get the bitch a tent.” she tells Bishop, as if it’s the simplest problem in the world to solve. Ex means past, not part of, not who Bishop Coldiron is with. He’s hers and she’s his. They’re together now.
Right?
She makes it sound simple, like putting Willa up in a tent should be as easy as turning off a light or taking out the trash. It's not easy, though. Here there's feelings, regrets, and a whole messy past between them. Bishop knew this wouldn't sit well, knew Teagan would hate it. Despite that, he couldn't bring himself to putting her up in a tent. Women who found their way into those tents usually found their way into the beds of patches, and that, well, it wasn't a thought he cared to entertain.
He and Willa might be in the past. Their ship might have sailed years ago, leaving in its wake regrets and 'what ifs', still, that didn't mean he was going to happily sit by and bear witness to men he considered brothers cozying up to her.
"It ain't that easy, T," he says on a sigh, one hand coming up to shrub over his face. "You telling me if you had an ex come rolling through those gates you'd subject 'em to staying in a tent like a bitch?" Bishop is searching her face again, trying to read every minuscule shift in expression.
“Yep.” the answer is clipped because she’s looking at him right back, searching his expression just as he is searching hers and there’s something there, something he’s holding on to and it’s souring her stomach and making her angry before she jumps to a panic, “because you’d feel as shitty as I do right now, if I let someone I still had half a fucking heart for stay in my trailer. I would never do that to you.”
Just the fact that he would comes up all at once and bites her hard, makes her furious. She shoves him hard, she needs violence right now because breaking down and crying is not an option. It never is. She hasn’t cried for years and she’s not gonna start now because she let someone in, let someone get into her heart space and make her feel like maybe she could be all of something to someone.
“What’s with you boys tonight, playing me for some dimwitted bitch that was born yesterday.” She shoves him again, away from her. Teagan’s face is burning. She’s drunk and emotional and she wants to feel something that hurts more than her head and heart do.
"I ain't playing you for anything, and I'm being a hell of a lot more honest with you than I ever was with her," Bishop growls out, catching her by her upper arms and keeping her still. "Just listen for a damn minute, would you?"
Logically he can't fault Teagan for her reaction, or the hurt he sees in her blue eyes now. What would he think if she let some guy, a past love, haul up in her space? Bishop knows the answer. He'd be jealous, possessive even. There would be demanding she stay with him, or stay away from the other man. He would hate it with every fiber of being, it would twist his heart and tear him apart inside. Losing one love to someone else left a wound on his heart, so even the idea of the roles being reversed, of Teagan welcoming another man back into her life doesn't sit at all well with him. So can he blame her for doing the same? For hating even the idea of Willa being here? "Teagan," his voice is low. "It's not like that, I ain't looking to rekindle anything. That's not why I gave her my space..."
She shoves him off of her and he feels like he's in a losing battle, set up for failure before words ever left his mouth. “Go on. Go back to your fucking ex. Go shack up. Fuck her if you need to. I know how little you like being’alone and you’re not getting any from me tonight.”
Bishop knows he deserves the violence she's dishing out. Deserves every last ounce of anger, hurt and rage she's directing towards him right now. He can't help but wonder if on another night, one less emotionally charged, if she might have reacted differently.
"Until just now I wasn't planning on going back to my trailer," he grinds out, jaw set as a scowl twists his features. "I had every intention of making myself home in yours, but now that ain't happening is it, darlin'?." Bishop releases his hold on her and takes a step back.
“I don’t know. Is it happening, baby? You inchin’ ‘way from me like that. You were hopin’ for this reaction. You’re not fightin’ to be in my arms tonight.” She can see it on his face, something warring in him, something that has nothing and everything to do with her. She’s jealous. Fuck right she is. Fuck this bitch, taking a shit all over everything Teagan has finally let herself give into, after she finally opened her heart up to him. Now he has an inkling of a doubt? That’s too much doubt about her, about where she stands, for one night. She feels worthless, let down and small and she don’t like this feeling one bit.
Giving her space, that’s all he had been intending to do when he took a step away from her. “Like hell I was,” Bishop doesn’t raise his voice, but there’s heat in his words. “You want me to fight for you, I’ll fucking fight.” he adds. "It ain’t me who started this fight, darlin’. You chose to jump to fucking conclusions before letting me explain myself," his expression is still hard as he takes another step away from her. "I know I ain't a saint, but I never planned on staying with her." Now, obviously staying with Willa was his only option.
“Yeah, you’re trying so hard to make me your number one? Then why you makin’ the distance between us broader?” she wants to laugh as she watches him take steps away from her, back toward where his past his waiting, probably with her pants off. She wants to pull him close but she isn’t sure if she wants to kiss him or kill him. Probably the latter. “You want to come with me? Come with me then. Come on.” she’s backing away toward her trailer, where he says he wants to be, taunting him to come with a wiggle of her finger. “Come on Darlin’. Tell me I’m all you want .”
Now she’s implying things that don’t have a lick of truth to them and all it’s doing is getting in under his skin, pushing his usually well contained temper closer and closer to the edge. “Came looking for you, didn’t I?” He’s not budging from the spot he’s standing in, her taunts, her beckoning him, all it sounds like to him is that she’s questioning his words or his feelings for her. “You know damn well you’re who I want,” Bishop snaps, raising his voice for the first time. “But if I have to say that, I ain’t sure you really believe it.” Hasn’t he told her numerous times she’s all he wants? If she believed that, wouldn’t she have known without a shadow of a doubt that he wouldn’t have ever had any plans to stay in the same space as Willa.
His words have an effect on her. She’s not an unreasonable person and him telling her that, putting it out like that, makes sense. He did come looking for her, the same time she was looking for him. Had left whoever tart who’d come to find him behind to get her. Teagan sees it, sees him fidgeting there, unsure, anger welling. It’s not a typical response from him and she has to take notice. It puts him in focus.
“I told Rodeo I love you. That we came together.” she tells him, “I need you tonight something terrible.” she’s not a person that isn’t sure of herself and she’d have been damn well sure that Bishop loved her before she threw caution to the wind, before she’d tell Rodeo that Bishop Coldiron was who she wanted.
It tears at him the way she says she needs him. There's a war going on inside of him, one that has nothing to do with the woman he loves or the one he use to call his, and everything to do with the fact his temper is still simmering right under the surface. Bishop is a logical man, level-headed and rarely prone to this feeling of anger fighting to take center stage. But her doubt in him still stung, the fact that instead of assuming he intended to crash with her, she'd leapt to assuming the worst in him.
She tells him she told Rodeo about them, and while he's glad it isn't in the closet anymore - it bothers him that she did it alone. Bishop has no right to be irritated, after all he had told Noa about them without even getting the okay from Teagan, and yet it still rubs him the wrong way. He knows it's his temper making him feel this way, that if he were clear headed he wouldn't care - but he's not, so he does.
"Decided to do it on your own after all?" He asks evenly, stepping back towards her. "Darlin'', much as I want nothing more than that, I ain't feeling like myself right now," it's his way of saying he might need to be on his own for a bit. Bishop wants to latch down on his temper, sort through his feelings and come back levelheaded. "Just, I ain't dealing well with the fact you didn't just assume I'd be crashing with you, that I was picking you..." He knows this isn't what she wants to hear, and it's not what he wants to be saying, but he needs time to cool off. "You're all I want, that hasn't changed. I just, I need some time."
“Picking me.” This doesn’t sound any better than him inviting some tart in and making her a part of his life all over. She wonders if Alex came back... “So you had to decide. You have that much love for her still?”
There’s so much here, so many words are fleeing, her head and heart are fighting. She wants to beg him but that ain't her style. She has a bad feeling about this. Of course, there’s so much swirling inside of her, being created, a future that neither of them can’t even comprehend but the chemicals are already doing havok.
“You just need some time with your ex you mean. Something tells me you didn’t end it with her. Go on then.” and she turns to go, she can’t look at him and has to deal with the breath she’s holding onto. It isn’t until she gets alone that she can breathe again.
His wording was wrong and he knew it the insistent they left his mouth. For a man who’s generally so careful with what he says, it irks him that his emotions have him twisting things up. “You know that ain’t what I meant,” Bishop sighs, one hand coming up to run over his beard - a frustrated gesture and one that gives away a lot more of how the Chaplain’s feeling than he generally lets on. “Look, I ain’t going to say there isn’t a part of me that still cares about her, that I will always care about her. But she’s my past, and you’re my future.”
He could lie, he could say that there wasn’t an ounce of love left inside of him for Willa. But lies are what doomed his past relationship, and he’s not about to start off lying to Teagan. Even if this hurts, hearing these words, he hopes that in the long run being up front with her will only benefit them, not doom them.
“No, I didn’t. But it’s ended and that ain’t why I need some time,” he can feel his temper flaring up again, knows that before long Teagan’s going to see a side of him few get to see. So, part of him is relieved when she turns to leave. A larger part of him wants to reach out for her, drag her back to his side, but he needs this time to himself to cool off and process what he’s feeling.
Watching her walk away from him is the worst possible feeling, it tears at his heart in such a way that he knows the only thing that’ll numb the pain is moonshine and some time to think.