like a fallen star that shines no more Who: Bishop Coldiron and Willa Davidson Where: Bishop's trailer What: Things don't go as planned with Teagan. Bishop's left to face his past for a second time in one night. When: Backdated to August 13th - After this.
Head down, heading underground feeling wasted, cold to the bone,
Every couple has their first fight, it’s a badge of honor, a mark of something real. Bishop just hadn’t been planning on tonight being the night that he and Teagan had their first official knockdown, drag out match. What he planned, and what had happened were two very different things. For all his words, all his charm, he hadn’t had a chance in hell when it came to saving this night. He was 0-2 when it came to the headstrong women in his life, both having managed to best him in some way or another.
First Willa with her unexpected reappearance in his life. Now Teagan with her anger and hurt - which while warranted - was in fact the last damn thing he wanted to be dealing with.
He had been feeling his own anger coursing through his body, making him feel alien and unlike himself, the very reason he had parted ways with Teagan that night and instead turned to the bonfire and to ‘shine after parting ways with the Hellhounds Treasurer. Hours had passed, or at least what had felt like hours. Soon he knew he needed to either find himself some company for the night, or get the hell out of dodge before Cherry found him. In truth he was too drunk and too mixed up to be warding off her advances tonight. So, drunk and raw from the evening's events, Bishop made his way back to his trailer.
Despite the shine coursing through his veins, he couldn’t ignore his anger and cast harsh looks at any passerby that dared to so much as look at him, let alone greet him. It was a rare sight to see the Hellhounds Chaplain angry, oh, he had a temper, but it was buried deep and tightly held onto. Bishop’s rage was the kind that was chilly in just how calm he could be while raging - the kind of scary calm that could set a person on edge, voice low and even, all the while the fires would be burning in those blue eyes of his.
This. This was the sort of anger rushing through every fiber of his being. The laundry list of what was bothering him was long, yet, it was the two stubborn blondes who had in their own ways stolen his heart that sat at the very top of his list. Women. Bishop was remembering real quickly all the reasons he didn’t do relationships, he wasn’t the kind of guy that navigated them well. Missteps were part and parcel when it came to his attempts at anything resembling ‘Til’ Death Do Us Part’
And yet, like an idiot he had tried again. Jumped in with both feet and convinced himself that this time he wouldn’t fuck things up. This time he would do right by Teagan in a way he hadn’t been able to with Willa.
That was going real well for him so far.
With one final glare at a prospect who crossed his path directly in front of his trailer, Bishop stomped up the small set of stairs, shoved the door open and listened to it clatter against the wall as he stepped into the trailer. His heavy footfalls and the ruckus he was making were the only signs that something was in fact bothering him, that he wasn’t nearly as sober as he should have been, or as calm.
When the door banged open, so did Willa's eyes, her heart leaping into her throat as her hand instinctively reached for the pistol she'd left on the other pillow. Senses momentarily disoriented from waking up in an unfamiliar (and yet, strangely familiar) bed, Willa sat up in the dark, arm outstretched as she crawled toward the end of the loft to take aim at the intruder beneath her. Rodeo had assured her that Juniper and the cows were under round the clock guard, safely penned up in the hangar each with a bucket of water for the night, but no one had thought it necessary to guard the tiny house.
The dim light of a camping lantern gave just enough illumination to shadow the outline of Bode's distinctive hair, and he turned to look up at her just as Willa was lowering her gun. "You asshole," she breathed, pushing her hair back from her face. It was the same sort of mildly exasperated tone from years ago, when he would sneak up on her while she was cooking or stub his toe creeping into bed late, waking her up with a blue streak of curses. Her heart tugged in her chest at the fond normalcy of the moment, even in these strange circumstances.
There's a scowl still marring his features as he tips his head back to peer up at Willa. His blue eyes flash with something - familiarity, maybe - an echo of what use to be. "Hello to you too, darlin'," he grumbles, "Care to aim that pistol somewhere else?" Even now, when he's fit to be tied and about ready to explode, accent heavy with 'shine and posture slumped, it would take someone who knew him well to pick up on the frustration and anger bubbling just under the surface.
Kicking the door closed again with his foot, Bishop followed that up with making quick work of kicking off his boots and shrugging out of his cut. "Unless you intend to use that thing on me, in which case you should have done that hours ago," his gaze is tipped back up at her now, barely able to make her out in the light of the solar powered lantern. Still, he can't ignore the way the lights dances off her blonde hair, nor can he ignore the way his heart leaps at the sight of her in his bed again. "So either shoot me or put the damn thing away."
She did as he asked (as she would have done anyhow), crawled back across the bed, careful of the two cats who had found their way inside a window and settled into the loft like they owned it - judging from the bits of hair decorating the blankets, they did. Willa's bare legs swung around the edge of the bed, reaching down to slide the pistol into one of the cleverly built cubbies within the stairs. Her feet rested on the uneven treads, silently watching him undress. Everything about his body had once been as familiar to her as her own, but time and circumstance had made her a little leaner, a little meaner, with scars he didn't know the stories of, hidden underneath the stretched out t-shirt she'd worn to bed. Surely, there would be unfamiliar marks on the other now, too.
Bode was upset about something, that much was obvious once the haze of sleep started to clear from around her head. Fuzzy drunk around the edges, too, but coherent and coordinated enough to find his way home, at least. "You pissed off at me, or pissed off at the world?" she inquired, wary of being the cause of one of his quiet, angry sulks.
He looked at her, eyes ranging up the stretch of her lopsided legs and then at her face, and Willa wondered what he'd come back for, rather than sleeping in another trailer for the night like he'd suggested by the gates. The little house was his, she was the actual intruder in this scene, but it wasn't hard to remember a time when another house had been theirs, equal parts his and hers, together.
While he would have liked to claim absolute certainty that Willa wouldn’t have shot him with her pistol, he can’t. It’s clear this isn’t the woman he knew six years ago, she’s still stubborn, no doubt about it, but she’s harder as well, worn from years of surviving just like the rest of them. Bishop makes a show of trying to hide the relief he feels when she comes to sit at the edge of the lofted bed, tucking the pistol into one of the cubbies in the stairs. Once the gun is safely stashed out of reach, blue eyes travel over bare skin and worn cotton, studying the outward changes he can see in the dimly lit space. If his gaze remained on her legs for a beat longer than they should have, he’d blame the ‘shine and not the way his pulse had quickened at the sight of her sitting at the edge of his bed. In another life it would have been his shirt she was wearing, that life feels like it was centuries ago now, and yet the sight still does something to him. Twists his heart up and sets him at war with himself.
Having love in his heart for two women was a hell of a thing to deal with. Even if this love he felt for Willa was an echo of what it used to be, it’s still there and it’s still mixing him up just the same.
“Pissed off at circumstances,” he answers bluntly, his words muffled as he tugs the faded red ‘Louisville’ shirt up over his head, discarding it on the floor alongside the flannel he had shrugged out of moments before. “You didn’t exactly come strolling back into my life at a convenient time, darlin’,” Bishop continues, moving towards the stairs of the loft, his gaze still fixed on her. He made no move to climb up them and join her, though. “And I still ain’t sure why after six years you suddenly had a pressing desire to see me.”
Fate seemed to be some kind of cruel bitch, swooping in and dropping his ex back into his life not even a month after he’d finally given his heart over to a new woman.
It was true that they'd thus far mastered the art of fully avoiding each other, making separate lives well before the outbreak hit. But it wasn't hard to reach for a reason why she'd never made an attempt to see him any other time, the last two years. "I didn't know you were here to see," she answered in earnest. "I didn't hear anything past the virus, and then tonight, with Nate..." The last Willa had heard of him had been from her mother -- Bode was arrested again, stuck in Harlan and facing yet another stretch in jail because his mother put him there. Her anger after the phone call had been nearly as acute as it had been during the summer of 2011. Bode would never hear a word against his mother, and there was nothing that she could have done to make him see the way Mags used her children for her own self-interest, rather than doing her best to make their lives easier than her own had been. Willa was always the bitch trying to tear him away from the family, and even after she'd moved on and started to make her own, it had been hard to hear that Bode was falling on the sword for his mother, yet again.
Whatever the tale that brought him to Austin she wanted to know it, but this wasn't the time to ask for a bedtime story. "I know how to take care of myself now, Bode. I'll go if you tell me to go, and I'll make it alright on my own," Willa insisted, voice quiet but sure. "I'm not here to put you out." Yet people in the camp knew who she was by name, leaving her to suspect that her arrival might not be quite as unwelcome as Bode suggested, particularly if he was taking off his clothes.
Back before the world went to hell avoiding each other had almost been an artform for the two of them. Bishop would like to say he lost track of her after they broke up, but Harlan was a small town with a lot of gossips. So he had known exactly where Willa had been all those years, right up until the outbreak happened. It came as no surprise to him that Cal never breathed a world of his whereabouts to her, or vice versa. “Been here two years,” he answered in a clipped tone. “But that still doesn’t explain why you wanted to come see me. Four years of opportunities to see each other, and it takes the world ending for you to decide you want to see my face again?” Granted those four years had been filled with a lot of turmoil, at least on his part. First he had been nursing a broken heart - not that he would own up to that - and after that, he just hadn’t seen much of a reason to go searching her out. Last he had heard she had settled down with J and they were living in Texas. The news had stung at the time, her moving on, but over time Bishop had convinced himself this was for the better. That they were both better off this way. Then everything had happened with his mama’s business and pretty soon his attention had been drawn elsewhere, away from the twisted thoughts of what sort of life Willa had been setting up with with man she had replaced him with.
Even now jealousy flashed green at the idea that Willa had chosen someone else. She had been justified in doing so, Bishop’s lies having driven her directly into the arms of someone else. Still, he didn’t want to think of that tonight. Not when his anger was barely contained and he was nursing a different kind of bruised heart. “I ain’t telling you to leave, so don’t go hatching any plans to storm outta those gates tonight,” he answered, his words holding a tone of finality to them. “Because I ain’t planning on letting you leave.” Somewhere underneath the haze the moonshine had left him in, Bishop knew this was a bad idea. Knew that using Willa as a balm for his bruised heart was in fact a dangerous idea. Teagan was upset with him for simply having his ex in his trailer, so the line he was inching closer and closer to crossing was bound to do more harm than good.
And yet he still found himself moving away from the wall, feet settling on the lower steps as he placed his hands flat against the mattress on either side of Willa, boxing her in and removing any possibility of her leaving.
So either shoot me or put the damn thing away.
"You want me to get out of your bed?"
“What do you think, darlin’?”
She had held her tongue at his remark about needing the world to end before she wanted to see his face again. It was true, and it wasn't true. There had been times - she suspected there would always be times - when Bode was the one person she would want to share a particular moment with, tell a certain story to, hold in her arms. None of these times had outweighed her need to keep her distance, not to date.
Bode Coldiron was a charming man, the kind of man who could so often talk people into things they'd never set out wanting to do, and Willa's fondness for him had only grown the longer they had been together. When she had finally severed ties, it had been like everything you heard about an amputation. She had reached out for him in the morning countless times, nearly called him in the grocery store to see if he had anything in mind for dinner, absent-mindedly driven home to their house after a late night work emergency call, instead of to her parents'. If she didn't keep Bode out of her life, he would draw her back to him eventually, and as much as she had wanted him Willa couldn't live with everything else in the package. Even now after everything that had happened, once she was close enough for him to have again, he was making demands that she stay. Yes, it took the end of the world - the end of her hopes for a settled, simple, happy life - for her to want him again, and by then he had been gone.
With all the distance between them stripped away, it was down to her own ethics to battle. She had an assignment, and she knew the dangers and stupidity of crossing these boundaries in the name of work. But in this case, it wasn't a matter of getting too involved with a subject of an investigation. Willa was already involved, she was chosen because she was involved, she was able to do the job because of her involvement, or so she managed to convince herself. That an opportunity to fit herself into place beside him happened to align with a bone-deep itch she desperately wanted to scratch was coincidence, and she would be strong enough to not let one overtake the other, even if she allowed herself a little indulgence.
So when his arms pinned her in place, Willa fell back on years of habit, reaching forward into the boundaries of very personal space, fingertips stroking down his bare neck, chest, and stomach. Her hand stayed outside of his jeans, but sought an obvious answer to his question all the same. "I think you missed me a little too?" she murmured.
She doesn't deny the fact that it took the world ending to bring them back together. There's something oddly comforting in the fact that even now, even with moonshine coursing through his veins and clouding up his mind, he could still read her. He wanted answers to why she was here, but he would settle for the simple one she had given at the gate.
'I wanted to see you.'
It wasn't a confession of wanting him again. Not even in the state he's in was he deluded enough to think a switch had been thrown and all of a sudden Willa could look past the things he engaged in and want him again. She had left him because of his lies, because he couldn't walk the straight and narrow - it just wasn't in his make up. Now, well, now he was in deeper than he'd ever been in Harlan. There was no entertaining the idea that Willa would turn a blind eye to that. Things between them, they weren't going to change. Yet, in this moment he couldn't ignore all those times he wished they could have changed. Those moments he would catch himself longing for her presence in his life again, for frank honesty and that stubborn streak that infuriated him just as much as it thrilled him.
And now here she is, in his bed, in his space. The familiarity of it all is staggering. It's exactly what he wanted for so many years. Too bad it came a couple years too late. "I think you know the answer to that question, darlin'," he breathes out, making no attempt to remove himself from Willa's space or the contact she has with him. A decent man would have. He would have gently rejected the advances she was making, pushed away the hand resting on his belt buckle, taken a pillow and crashed on the floor.
Bishop Coldiron wasn't always a decent man.
Maybe it was his raw emotions from his fight with Teagan, or the long thought buried feelings for Willa that were bubbling back up to the surface now that he was mere inches from her, or maybe it was just because he was too damn drunk to think clearly. Whatever the culprit, Bishop didn't hesitate in wrapping an arm around her slender waist, pulling her closer to the edge of the bed and to him. Leaning into her, he brings his free hand up, callused thumb swiping along her cheek just moments before eating up the last of the distance between them, claiming her lips with his own. The kiss is heated, all the years of wanting and missing her poured into this moment.
There are things he's not telling her. After everything they've been through, Willa can spot at least that much. This time there are things she's not telling him too. Rather than wonder or worry or pry, her arm wraps around his neck, dismissing thought in favor of impulsive desire. Six years and worlds apart have made this kiss different than any of the tens of thousands of kisses that came before, and for all the things she still knows about him, all the signals she can still pick up on, Willa can't quite shake the feeling that she's somehow kissing a stranger.
Something about the kiss jolts him back to reality. For years he had thought about what it might be like to have Willa back in his life, back in his arms. There’s a familiarity there, and a part of him enjoys that. But it doesn’t feel right anymore, she’s no longer the woman that owns his heart. It’s like being doused with cold water, the realization of what he was about to let himself do. Even with moonshine coursing through his body and fogging up his brain, he knows there’d be no coming back, no way to make it up to Teagan if he let himself sink into this moment, indulging that small part of him that would always hold a place in his heart for Willa.
“I can’t do this, darlin’,” He breathes out as his arm drops away from her waist. “For years I thought about nothing but having you back, but, our window passed a long time ago.” There’s regret in his tone as he steps off of the staircase, putting distance between them before he does something he might regret later.
He’s leaning against the wall of his trailer again, any and all haziness chased away from his mind. He’s thinking logically again, even if there’s parts of him that are still warring with his past and present.
“I’ve got someone else now, Willa,” Bishop admits, unsure what kind of reaction that’s going to get from her. “And you know me, I ain’t ever been the cheating type. I might be a lot of things, but that ain’t one of them.” He’s not a saint, far from it, actually. Even with how twisted up he is about having his ex back here in the flesh, not even the devil himself could break the desire he has to stay true to Teagan. He might have wavered for a moment, letting himself get caught up in past feelings and memories, but now he’s got his feet solidly planted in the here and now. “Had you come back two years ago, maybe things would have been different between us….”
She sat still when he pulled away from her, quietly absorbing what he said. This was what it felt like, then; officially losing your place in the heart of someone you thought might have been there to hold you while you died, old and wrinkly and still in love. She sat long enough for Bode to find his shirt and pull it back over his head, to sit on the bench and reach for his boots. "Two years ago I was the one who was married," she said finally, shifting her weight onto her feet and climbing down the stairs. Willa moved around him quickly in the cramped space, pulling her jeans from where she'd left them folded atop her pack and skirted back to the tiny bathroom, though she didn't shut the door while she pulled them on.
Her desire to get the fuck out was desperate, to keep him from seeing her vulnerable, to keep from seeing pity on his face.
Willa skirts into the bathroom and Bishop’s left processing what she’s said. No doubt she married J, that’s what his gut is telling him. He’s ignoring the way his heart stings at the idea that she married the man that came after him. Tucked away in this very trailer is a relic from another life, a life when he thought Willa would be the woman standing beside him. That life is long gone, replaced with the one he has now. Still, he’s held onto the ring, why? Maybe as a reminder of the mistakes he made, mistakes he isn’t looking to repeat with Teagan.
“Harlan gossip never circulated anything about you getting hitched,” he calls to her, pulling on his second boot and standing up from the small bench. “And where’s your husband now?”
He hopes his words don’t sound nearly as accusatory or bitter as he feels they might have. Yet, he doesn’t dwell on that thought long, instead moving across the small space of the trailer to stand near the door while he waits for Willa to answer him.
"Left me," Willa said, refusing to turn around even though she could feel him looking at her. "Ages ago, probably dead by now. So I got what I deserved." Her hand scrubbed roughly across both of her eyes, and then she sucked up a breath and moved back out of the bathroom, straight to her own, smaller set of boots.
Bishop’s watching Willa’s back as she speaks. A part of him wants to offer some kind of sympathy for her loss, but the words are likely to come out sounding hollow. “How do you figure you got what you deserved?” He asks instead, watching her move around the small space and go for her boots. “Don’t bother putting those on, the trailer’s still yours for the night. I’ll bunk with one of the patches.” His tone leaves no room for argument, though he’s half expecting one from Willa anyway, she always was stubborn as all hell.
She doesn't argue but she doesn't listen either, sitting down on the couch to pull on socks first. "I left you, because I was stupid and I was scared, and now I get to know how it feels," Willa spat, eyes trained on the floor until Bode's hand beat her to the boots standing beside her pack, and she has to meet his eyes.
It's so much worse than their last fight, even if no one is shouting this time. This time she doesn't have righteous indignation and excuses to keep her head up, to push through the ugliness and get out the door. This time he's the one who gets to have the high ground, making sure he's the one who leaves her behind. She can't hide the fact that she's crying, that she's hurt and she's angry about it, all at the same time.
With her boots still in his hands, Bishop meets her gaze. The sight of her crying is like a knife to the heart, but he can't change it or fix it. "Darlin', we both made a lotta mistakes back then," he begins, leaning down to set her boots near the door and out of her reach. "But I wouldn't wish the feeling of being left on anyone. If your man left you he's an idiot, because women like you don't deserve being left."
Bishop hadn't been the one to leave her, that was no secret. If things had been different, if she would have stayed, he had a feeling his life would look a hell of a lot different right now. Living on 'what ifs' wasn't his way, though. His life was what it was, this was his path and he was walking it with someone else. "Now, it's nearly the middle of the night so I ain't having you wandering around camp looking for a place to stay, so you're staying here and that's final." His tone left no room for argument. His jaw was set and if it came down to it he'd lock Willa in the trailer if he had to. "Especially not in this state. You'd have patches all over you wanting to play the big damn hero, but it would only last for a night."
Willa wanted to protest, to insist that she had her own bedroll, didn't need anyone else's, and after what had just happened who was he to stop her, even if she did want to share it with someone else for one night? The contrarian in her sparked to life the moment she'd been told what to do, like a child who wasn't aware of what was in their best interests, even if Willa knew somewhere else inside of her that the residents of this camp were Bode's domain, not hers. The indignance was strange, so hot on the heels of what had felt like an absolution, not from a chaplain but from a lover, each of them doing their best to wash away the guilt in the other for all of the sins that had broken them apart so long ago. She smothered the urge to tell him he didn't deserve to be left by her either. They had each played a part in their own destruction, and now they each had to live with the consequences of their decisions.
"She's -- I don't know her name -- she's here?" Willa asked after her moment of contemplation. "You'll stay with her?" Why hadn't he been with her in the first place? Why had Bode come back to Willa in his own bed, if he had a woman who wanted him in hers?
Part of him had expected Willa to fight back, to make a grab for her boots and book it out the door before he could stop her. Maybe that would have been easier than explaining his relationship with Teagan to her, or where he'd be staying for the night. It was strange, or surreal, talking about his current love with his past love. Both women held portions of his heart, there was no denying that, the real question was how were they going to inhabit the same places? Or how he was going to get use to having Willa here, witnessing the life he was living now, the place in the world he had carved out for himself. He wasn't the same man she had left, and somehow her opinion of him still mattered.
"She's here," Bishop confirms, "Teagan's a patched member, our treasurer, actually. She and I, well, we've been dancing around each other for awhile now because of that," he pauses, unsure of how much he should say about what he's got going with Teagan. It feels heartless to go into details while Willa's suffering her own loss of a husband, and with their history it just doesn't feel right giving up more information than that. A frown tugs down the corners of his mouth and he scrubs a hand over his face. "Nah, she and I had words about you being here," he sighed, "I'll stay with one of the patches until you find yourself a place to stay, one that ain't a tent."
Just as she was about to remark on an outlaw gang having a treasurer, Bode continued and the novelty was dropped. "Bode," Willa breathed, the word a warning and plea both. "I can sleep in a tent." Her heart lifted at the way he spoke about having her stay, but the last thing she needed was to become a target for the ire of an officer, to be branded as a homewrecker. "I can sleep with - stay with someone else," she corrected. "I didn't mean to do this to you."
He was pissed off at circumstances, at her inconvenient timing. No wonder.
It would be easy to tack this on on Willa, blame her for the mess that’s been stirred up since she arrived at the gates. But it’s not on her, not entirely. Bishop made the choice to insist she stay, he made the decision not to go with Teagan when she urged him to. This, it’s all his doing. Willa might have been the catalyst, but he’s the one to blame. “You didn’t do this to me,” he sighs, one hand scrubbing over the scruff at his chin. “I did this to me. This, it ain’t your fault and I won’t have you finding another place to sleep, you’re staying here, least until you find a place of your own.” Bishop feels like he’s repeating himself, and maybe he is. Still, he’s not going to have Willa wandering around the Dog Park at night trying to find a place to stay.
“I know this camp and I know the people I can crash with, so I’m going to be the one who leaves tonight,” His tone is even and calm, but it leaves no room for arguments. “And if you’ve got a problem with that you’re going to have to physically stop me.”
Now Willa could sense Bode's particular brand of tempered aggravation starting to trickle her way, and there was a strange sort of comfort to it, and to the familiar way he still tried to wash the lingering stupor of moonshine from in front of his face with an imaginary washcloth. She couldn't help but laugh a little, wiping at her own cheeks. "Good luck to me," she chided with a wry smirk. "You're really huge now, you know that?" If he was already fighting with Teagan over her arrival, the best thing Willa could do was give him peace and let him sort it out on his own. Resigned, she leaned back against the wall, watching him in the pale light of the camping lantern. "Hey," she said, waiting until his eyes met hers to continue. "I missed you, Ducky."
Something about her laugh seemed to lighten the mood in the trailer, releasing some of the uncomfortable tension that had formed between them. Bishop glances down at himself with a faint smirk changing his expression from irritated to amused. "Not any taller than I used to be, but I suppose I have bulked up since you saw me last," he answers, looking back across the trailer at her. That was just one of the many things that had changed since they parted ways, but at least tonight it seemed they'd be going their separate ways without animosity boiling under the surface. His hand is on the handle of the door, ready to leave, but she calls his attention back to her and he turns, meeting her gaze. She tells him that she missed him, and that smirk of his turns into a smile when her old nickname for him slips past her lips. "Missed you too, Goldilocks." Bishop offers her one last smile before pulling the door open and stepping out into the warm Austin night.