Whiskey hitting the brain, The Knights hitting the streets of Rumrun with atavist lizard minds there and present and any sense gone. Crooning at the finely dressed whores as they come to the hotel bar first, ordering there while already drunk a round of five shots of absinthe. Downing the grim emerald spirits as they look out at the tuxedod and gowned hotel goers, all fancy and aristocratic and almost certainly of relation to The Crown. The taste vaguely a reminder of Florence Merce, clean fire so tantalizing.

Out into the mud, nearly hit by a passing carriage filled with what look to be play performers all dressed in insane costumes some depiction of aristocratic drama, ridiculous white gowns and suits and one man dressed in the suit of a jester and masks of tragedy and comedy leering upon them from the tinted windows. The Knights curse at the passing wagon and it curses back and they shake their heads and work their way up the main boulevard. Seeing there scenes of sin and sodomy in the windows, ether fiends huffing in a back alley and a whore who looks not even fifteen fellating a man and before Jesse's eyes can go wide his attention is distracted, there to a roadside sideshow of a miming clown in pale paint, face sad and bulbous nose dressed in blue paint and hands whirring in strange and abstract gestures like a gloved cyclone. In front of him cheering watching and clapping along to his antics while their parents stand there with pupils wide moons of cocaine use. Sunny tosses the clown one of their few remaining coins and they are around a bend and into an alley where they find the backdoor of an opium den, Sunny knocking there thrice.

“It's Artese.” He says.

“Artese?” Sunny raises a finger to his grin in a gesture of silence.

“You got money this time?”

“Enough.”

“That ain't an answer.”

“Yes I got goddamn money now open the door. I’m drunk and I want some whores and some heroin.” The jingling of the doorknob, Jesse there leaning against Morgan's shoulder holding a mournful hand to the bandaged half of his face. Already the string outs in the alley staring at him, gawking and mocking in vague and whispered words.

“And my company here too.” The jingling stops.

“Ye didn't say nothin bout company.”

“They got money too.”

“I don't believe ye.”

“Ye will soon.” A grumbling from behind the door and it props open, a wiry black skinned man with one sightless and scarred eye there beckoning them in.

“Hotface here gonna scare the ladies.” The Man says, peering at Jesse with his one good eye and holding a monocle there for a better look, observing him up and down like some museum exhibit.

“Tell em to look at the good half of his face then.” Morgan slurs, in his hands a pint of whiskey which he tips to the corner of his mouth and sips from. He hands it to Jesse as they walk into the opium den and Jesse takes a sip, the amber drink tasting almost like water now with his mind numb and his face number.

The place consists of one small main room in which sit perhaps a half dozen whores of varied skin tone and silk gowns of red and deepest of blue and green and other colors and cuts more shocking, all laid out upon the carpets and plush chairs and daybeds with sheets to match, across the whole scene laden needles and pipes which lay smoking, already just from the air Jesse feeling a faint high creeping spectrally into his system. The whores look upon him strangely but without judgment and he reclines by one, reaching for a pipe as Sunny barters with the proprietor. At the rear of the room a thick door behind which Jesse can hear faint and shadowy whispers, angry in tint. A whore of black skin reaches her hand up to Jesse’s bandages and touches him there, on her pretty face and tobacco stained teeth an amused smile.

“They got you good, didn't they.”

“Who?” The Whores giggle. The oldest among them perhaps twenty five and the youngest maybe sixteen, her eyes disturbingly girlish and her hair lush and red. She looks as if in perhaps some better life she would be the daughter of a land owner or plantationer of highest reputation, now relegated to this poppy stinking den of sin working only for scraps of coin, working only to survive until the next day.

“Well, I don't know.”

“Well you must know.” Jesse grins, finding it painful there on the burnt side of his face.

“I can't tell.”

“Why not?” The Young Whore chimes in.

“Crown business.” Jesse says as he leans back into one of the throw pillows and takes a long hit from the opium pipe that snakelike apparatus, finding the smoke burn there in his throat and lungs a taste like flowers for a long moment before he exhales and the high hits his brain, pulling him into a lovely sunshine embrace where he feels the world seem to melt around him.

“Lord.” He says.

“He ain’t never smoked before.” Morgan chimes in. Giles LeClerc at Jesse’s side leaning into him slightly, looking upon his fellow with strange eyes.

“Have any of you smoked before.”

“No, ma’am.” Duncan says simply, sparking a chorus of laughs. Sunny and The Proprietor have seemed to get into some sort of agreement and Sunny lays down there between two full chested whores of brown and scarlet hair and he takes up one of the fresh syringes from its holder and brings it to his varicose vein. He injects it, leaning back with a huge grin on his face. Jesse leans in to Giles.

“Say, Giles, we got the money for this?” He says. The Black Skinned Whore leaning in to him and trying to hear his whispering and he shoos her off with a playful hand.

“No.” Giles says as he takes a long hit.

“We got any money?”

“A little.”

“From where?”

“Well. Most of it we spent on getting morphine to fix ye up. And.”

“And what?”

“Well, we hit the supply a little ourselves.”

“Jesus. That doesn't answer my question.”

“We stole it. Most off of the dead rebels.”

“And the rest?”

“Well, we just sort of. I don't know. Found it.”

“Found it?”

“Well, took if off of a dead man. Think he expired naturally.”

“Oh, God. We’re all doomed, aren't we?”

“Probably.” Giles grins.

Several long hours drained away smoking that devil flower, smoke rising in the air and the world taking on a warmness never before experienced. Embracing each other and the whores in a dissolution of the senses, no sexuality expressed but nonetheless pleasant beyond belief. Jesse looks up with a shit eyed grin on his face and sees The Proprietor there watching skeptically, and Jesse grins wider. The Proprietor only shakes his head, moves to the back room. Jesse feels The Young Whore press against him and he turns around and kisses her atop the head idly before closing his eyes and falling completely into his pillow, feeling as if he is a part of it himself.

Shaken from their daze by two broad shouldered men one black and one white standing there like a massive caricature of crow and dove, across their faces mean expressions and in their hands wicked looking knives. Jesse raises a hand in defense still grinning and is thrown out into the mud, the junkies there hooting as The Knights are piled there all in a heap while cursing back at them.

“Fuck did they do that fore?” Jesse says.

“Well. I didn’t really pay.” Sunny says with a sheepish grin. Jesse smiles at him and stands with some difficulty.

“Let’s get some more drink in us. That’ll help us sober up.” Jesse slurs, The Knights laughing and walking down the streets in a shuffling congo line like a string of skeletons walking into their graves. There on the wires blackbirds watching them, seeming to be rendered nocturnal by the endless light of this wretched city. Jesse raises a finger to a three story luxurious looking casino-saloon there at the end of the boulevard, and Sunny slaps him on the back of the head.

“We can't afford that.” He drags a long finger to their right where flush against the shop fronts is a dingy looking and stinking building with a sign of red paint reading “Sawyers Drinkin Hole”. Jesse hangs his head.

“God save us.” he says. They walk towards Sawyers Godforsaken Drinking Hole there and stumble through the mud to the watchful eyes of a string of small and bag laden donkeys, through the batwing doors and into the dim lanternlight.

There a scene of derelict humanity within the sagging and mysteriously soggy walls, at the far end a bar with a single lantern where a balding barkeep with red-silver hair sits behind the counter where rows of drinking cups lay scattered and uncleaned like disordered dominos metallic and translucent, swarming about them flies. At the bar a single elderly black with cataracted eyes turns to them as they come in, staring slightly to their right, and in the shadowed corner of the cantina where his features are indistinguishable a long legged man sits smoking a cigarette with a cup of gin before him, lime and salt riding its rim. The Balding Barkeep gives them one look and grimaces as they walk to the bar and stumble into the seats there, mischief glinting in their eyes.

“You got coin?” He asks. Sunny fumbles around in his pocket and after a long moment punctuated by the jingling of change and detritus produces two small pieces of hammered silver. Looking upon their faces they seem to be some bootleg sort of currency, but their carat fine.

“Hm.” The Barkeep says, inspecting the pieces. A long silence as the knights shuffle there on their seats in the most good mannered way possible with the opium high still buzzing.

“Here ye go.” The Barkeep reaches from behind the counter, rummages there among the bottles, and pulls up a half pint of whiskey of dubious quality, slapping it there onto the counter with a clicking sound.

“Come on now.” Sunny says.

“That's generous right there. Best be grateful.”

“At least a pint now.”

“Can't do.” Sunny shakes his head and spits, grabbing the bottle and holding eyes with the barkeep while he takes a long swig, some of the drink falling down his chin.

“Young boys here causin trouble?” The Blind Black says, looking about to the sound of the argument.

“Ain’t none of your problem Lee.” The Barkeep says. The blind man tsks, fumbles about in the front pocket of his coat and pulls there a small pouch of black velvet, lays it on the counter.

“This’ll get ye sober quick. I can smell that midnight oil on yer breath.” He says. The Barkeep shakes his head and retreats from the bar and out and up a set of rickety looking stairs with worn lion engraved banister.

“How much coin?” Sunny asks.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“First line is free.”

“Line?” The Blind Man laughs.

“Come over for me and empty this bag out. I'll file out the lines. My hands can still feel just fine.” Sunny does as told, emptying the bag onto the counter. There a small pile of powder of perfect white, sweet and slightly florally scented, glittering crystalline in the lantern light. The Man watching them from the corner booth takes a drink of his whiskey, a drag from his cigarette.

“What the hell is it?” Sunny asks.

“Blow. Cocaine.” The Blind Man says, shaking his head disbelievingly.

“Say, where you boys come from?” The Blind Man asks as he feels at the pile of powder and scoots out a line there with a cigarette paper he produces from his shirt pocket.

“Dullwater.”

“Soldiers?”

“Knights. How’d you guess?”

“I can smell blood on ye, that's why. Blood and gunpowder.”

“Well. That's fair enough.”

“You killed many?”

“Not too many. A few.”

“Fair enough. Yer still young. Snuff down this line here youngblood, shouldn't be too harsh.” The Blind Man points at a line thick and wormlike there on the table, and Sunny grabs his cigarette paper, brings it down to the line, and hesitates. After a second he snorts it all in one great and clumsy motion, leaning back with his hand to his nose.

“Goddamn!” Sunny exclaims, blinking teary eyed. The Blind Man laughs, a sharp and cigarette rattled sound. Sunny shakes his head and grins.

“Shit. That works good. Goddamn.”

“Told ye it would. Get some of yer fellas down here. Got plenty for everyone.”

“Sure you don't want pay?”

“Nah, consider it an old favor. I was a knight too a long time ago.” Duncan sets about setting up another line, snorting it down with a similar reaction to Sunny, and the other knights follow.

“Really?” Sunny seeming jittery now, almost bouncing in his seat. He reaches over the counter and lifts a bottle of cool gin with sneaky hands and pours out a shot for each of them.

“Yessir. Fought in the wars off against the Southern folk. None of these rebels though.”

“Got ambushed by them just bout a month ago, nearly killed one of my friends here. Spent the last few weeks tracking them through the prairie.”

“They're sly they are.”

“Damn wicked. Killed one of our traveling companions with a bullet laced with. Get this. Rat poison.” The Blind Man shakes his head disbelievingly.

“Lord. Seems they are. Swarming this here town like flies.” From upstairs a mingling of voices, one masculine and one feminine, the feminine vaguely familiar to Jesse even in his haze. The sound of the muffled words gives him pause but only for a moment then he too snorts a line, feeling the gravelly fire up in his left nostril and wincing at the pain.

“Christ.” Jesse says. He opens his eyes and makes a face of surprised approval.

“That really does work. Lord.” He says. The Blind Man grins wide.

“Say, mister, I don't mean to be trite. But how’d you lose yer sight there?” Sunny says. The Blind Man cackles.

“In those wars against the Southern folk. Cannon shrapnel. Scars have healed but my eyes, never.”

“Sorry to hear that.” Sunny says. Just then coming down the stairs a face which Jesse disbelieves for a moment as a phantom, blinks sharply and rubs at his eyes. The Face looks at him the same way and halts there.

Standing there with bandages across the right side of her face and neck to cover her fresh burns, dressed in sapphire blue dress and gaudy makeup of color to match, still beautiful as ever despite all, is Florence Merce. She meets Jesse’s eyes and he smiles but she does not and turns to move back up the stairs but is stopped there by The Balding Barkeep who turns her back around.

“Don't be rude to the company now.” The Barkeep says.

“You don't understand.” Florence says. With a rough hand The Barkeep forces her back to the bar and she walks there, averting Jesse’s gaze and sitting at the side of The Blind Man.

“Howdy Florence.” Giles says. Florence does not respond, only looks to The Barkeep as he moves back behind the bar.

“Can I get me a drink.” She asks. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes nervous.

“Sure thing if it makes it go easier. Gin’ll do?”

“Sure thing.” The Barkeep pours out a drink for Florence and she downs it all in one gulp before turning to The Knights, in her blue eyes something fierce. The look in there the look a runt dog gets when backed into a corner by mutts twice its size, the look of groveling desperation. The desperation to do anything to survive, including, it seems here, sex for money.

“I didn't think I'd ever see you five again.” She says. A silence among the knights, a needle drop quiet across the cantina. In the far corner The Shadow Man is smiling, rapping gold ringed fingers there across his table and taking another drink of gin.

“I could say the same about you.” Jesse says. The Blind Man coughs into one hand and gets up, reaching for his cane and moving towards the door.

“Have a g’night Florence.” He says. Florence doesn't respond to him, her eyes locked onto the knights.

“Well. You happy to see us?” Jesse says. Florence pours herself another shot and drinks.

“Wouldn't say that much.”

“You going to kill us?”

“Don't know if I could if I wanted to.”

“Well.” A long silence falls like a burn cloth.

“Yer siblings?” Jesse asks. Sunny stands up and motions his fellow knights, grabbing the baggie of cocaine there forgotten on the table by The Blind Man.

“We’ll leave ye to it Jesse.” He says with a pat on Jesse’s back, unusually sober in face. The Knights walk out and The Barkeep retreats back into the rear courtyard for a smoke break and only three are left in this dingy cantina, the buzzing of moths and scurrying sounds of rats in the walls suddenly evident.

“They’re alive. None as bad off as me. When the fire came down I tried to get them out. But.”

“Couldn't.”

“No. Jesse, you saved us. But.”

“But if it wasn't for me and my friends yer dad would still be alive.”

“Well. Yeah.”

“Is he buried?”

“In the cemetery here. In this Godforsaken town.”

“God rest his soul.” Florence laughs bitterly.

“I suppose. I wish God would rest my soul.”

“Don't say that.”

“It's how I feel. Look at me here, Jesse. Working as a fucking whore in this cantina.”

“But you're alive.”

“I am. But does that matter so much?”

“Doesn't it? You can go off to the country Florence, find a place to settle down. Find a good life. Even if it hurts you still have a chance and what else is there?”

“And what of you, Jesse? Off on your dispatch?”

“That's my job.”

“Yer duty. For a crown which doesn't care for you, which asks you to rectify their own mistakes.”

“Someone has to do it.”

“Kill?”

“Well. I suppose.” Florence runs a hand through her hair, visible in her eye there a tear dripping down and blurring her makeup.

“And after that?”

“Well. I don't know.”

“Settle down, get a wife?” Jesse looks deep into Florence's eyes, those eyes not quite like anything he has ever seen before in his short life.

“It could be you.” He says softly. Florence's face goes solemn, and she leans over the counter, suddenly sobbing.

“I want you Jesse. I want to be with you.” Jesse puts an arm around Florence's shoulders, leans in there, smelling her hair freshly rung with some noisome shampoo, smelling still faintly of ash and burnt skin but nonetheless sending butterflies ringing about in his stomach.

“But I can't do that.”

“Why not, Jesse? You could defect, desert, whatever the hell. Yer on the wrong side of history anyways, Jesse. The world is moving on.”

“I don't plan to move on with it.”

“Why not, Jesse? Just why not? We could have a life together. Oh, God, Jesse, I'm so lonely.” Jesse leans over her there and kisses her atop her head, down to her neck feeling the bandages of her burns on the other side of her face under his thumb.

“I'm just so lonely. So lonely and so doomed.” She says.

“Don't say that now.”

“It's true Jesse. I don't know if I can live like this.”

“You’ll have to. For your brothers, for your sisters, for yer father. If nothing else.” Jesse looks around the dingy cantina, this stinking hole of humanity, then looks back to see Florence staring at him there. She grabs his face and kisses him squarely there on the lips, the taste of her exactly as remembered.

“I'll find you someday, Florence. I swear to God I'll find you.” Florence shakes her head, tears running strong now. Down Jesse’s cheeks their crystalline mirrors falling, reflecting each others images in them like a hall of mirrors, down and down forever smaller and smaller.

“I don't believe you Jesse, and I won't wait. But I love you.”

“I love you too, Florence. And you underestimate me.” Florence smiles then, thinly but a smile nonetheless stretching across the good and bad sides of her face equally.

“Maybe I'll see you again someday, then.”

“Maybe so.” Jesse leans in and kisses her there on the forehead savoring the scent of her hair and the feel of her skin one last time before he turns and walks towards the door, sparing not a glance back as he fixes his black hat there over his hair. He looks to the cigarette burning there in The Shadow Mans hands and The Shadow Man smiles at him. He sees then that smile is perfectly white, those eyes emerald green. He blinks and then the man is gone altogether. Jesse pauses there at the threshold a moment and only shakes his head before he walks out again into the evening.

Walking from saloon to saloon, not a cent in their pockets existing off of dregs and slippery hands. Jesse sees on one counter a drink of questionable consistency, shrugs, and downs it before taking down also its two brother cups next to it. A wild haze of alcohol, cocaine, and opium all mingling to create some sort of stimulated vortex there, jittering and swaying like some mad raccoons who got somehow into a container of moonshine. Howling like dogs under the hecate moon there, staring upon them dioramas of unusual eyes from every balcony, every window, every porch.

To the town's church, standing there five apart and drunkenly shooting at the church bell there. Lead sloughing off of the bronze in red hot slag, ricocheting off in no particular direction and sending rings through the streets of the town chiming the beat of some nonsense witches hour only these knights are privy to. Pigeons on the wire watching and Sunny turns around, disintegrates two of them in bursts of feather and blood with two well placed bullets, their red feet still grasping at the wire as if they have forgotten that their owners have died. Yelling obscenities at passersby for no reason at all, Jesse soon becoming the drunkest of them.

Jesse walking first through the pillars of that great saloon-hotel at the end of the boulevard and walking there through the marble dancing floor, the whole thing so obscenely luxurious as to distract his eyes. Glittering gowns and tuxedos of the wealthy, gleaming silver and gold wares, rugs and trophies of far off creatures alligators, elephants, even the head of a giraffe peering there ridiculous and of serpentine neck, cocktails sumptuous and absurd in their decor a bottle of wine there containing at its green bottom even a pickled serpent. Jesse plucks from one of the patrons hands a cocktail brimmed with slices of lemon, orange, and lime each and downs it, spits it out shocked by the fine flavor. All around scenes of ridiculous opulence, fixtures of marble and statues of ancient make depicting sodomy and absurdity, peering wooden masks from some far off land contained in glass, flashing all around jewelry of gold of pristine carat and glittering gemstones, opals and diamonds black and white and rubies, amethysts shining noblest of purples, sapphires and blood rubies there refracting off light in tinted rainbows like the work of some storybook magician. Escorts and consorts dressed in feathers of parrots, pinkest of flamingos, pearlescent peacocks, white veneered teeth and the most charming of smiles as they feign affection for wealthy barons and landowners, reaching their hands down to purses and pockets. A grand sweeping staircase and there a fine bar of walnut wherein wealthy men sit and chatter in feign accents and feign enthusiasm of vain business.

It is there Jesse shoves through, pushing his way through two men and almost sending them off their stools. The Tuxedod Barman there jumping back in shock at this burnt and grinning scarecrows visage there like some long forgotten corpse, putting his hand on the cross which dangles golden on his chest.

“Who allowed you in here?” He says indignantly, color rising to his well bred cheeks.

“Myself. Now gimme a drink.” Jesse says, at his sides now coming his fellows all with similar exuberant expressions like a wicked band of jesters all stinking of drug and drink.

“I'll do no such thing.” Jesse pulls out one pistol and clicks the hammer down, then brings out a moment later the other and clicks the hammer down there. The bar immediately vacated, murmurings and gasps amongst the dance floor as some have the sense to flee while others only stare in finely mannered shock.

“I said gimme a drink.”

“I said I'll do no such thing.” Jesse jumps over the bar with a mad look in his eyes, still grinning, and brings one of the pistols down on the man's head. He stumbles and reaches there for an elephant gun almost comical in size at the back of the bar. Jesse puts his guns there on the counter and grabs a bottle of whiskey, brings it around calmly just as the man is whipping the gun back and smashes it on his neck. The mans eyes roll to white and he falls forward, his head hitting the counter with a sickening crunch and his spectacles falling there broken and glimmering under his weight. The elephant gun goes off and blows off a chunk of marble bannister with a deafening bang and a spraying of white powder, its enormous slug ricocheting off and coming to rest in a wall two buildings neighborly, punching through both a liquor and general store.

“Ah, shit.” Jesse says, stepping away. There from where the man lays a pool of blood spreading.

“I think you killed him.” Sunny says, then hoots.

“Goddamn Jesse. You really did kill him.” Morgan says, looking to his brother's eyes, alien there in their murder.

“Jesse.” Morgan says. Jesse wipes at his mouth, wide eyed, then grins.

“He had it coming.” Jesse slurs. He raises both pistols to the ceiling and fires, his fellows soon following after all save Morgan, blowing enormous holes all through the saloons topside and sending its patrons running and ducking for cover.

Out and then dancing, dancing, dancing there under the hanging chandelier of pale crystal and moonlike silver, ricketing and jiving and janking with absurd motions like some tinman made recently to walk, the whole while his guns smoking. His fellows there and Giles LeClerc in his arms, swooned down in some ridiculous flourish while he meets Jesse’s eyes. Out then onto the street grinning at the passersby, Sunny Miller vanished off to God knows where and Giles LeClerc too, only Morgan and Duncan his companions now, all stumbling and swaying as they walk out through the mud.

“Where the fuck are we, Jesse?” Duncan says, breath stinking of some strange and rich cocktail.

“Main street.”

“No, I mean, what town?” Jesse meets eyes with him and breaks out giggling, cackling like some mad hyena as they walk towards the graveyard. Stumbling through back alleys, along the waterfront boardwalks where electric lights still blare bright this late into the night (morning?). Religious men shaking their heads at them, a black preacher thumbing his brown leather bound bible silently. To the graveyard then as it sits on a tiny cherry tree laden peninsula, the whispering last petals of white and pink drifting down semi rotten and ancient, littering the headstones and mausoleums and wooden markers there.

Stumbling among the rows, scaring off a pair of kids who sit smoking a cigarette on a tombstone, finding that tombstone there to read none other than “Monty Merce.” Jesse turns to look for Duncan and Morgan and find them missing, only shrugs as he collapses there with his back to the headstone of that freshly dug grave brown prairie dirt churned up and fresh under his legs. He looks along the rectangular lines of the grave, imagines there a casket being lowered as The Merce children mourn and weep. He takes another drink, leans back against the headstone, and moans.

He closes his eyes and hears there crunching along the gravel a pair of footprints. He opens his eyes and through the blur of opium and liquor the world spinning there like a gyroscope Giles LeClerc. Giles comes to him grinning and with his shirt unbuttoned low, sitting down there at his side and giggling wildly.

“Whats so fucking funny?” Jesse asks with a grin. Giles laughs harder, his breath reeking of absinthe and mingling with the smell of graveyard corpses.

“What's so funny?” Jesse asks, nudging Giles. Giles puts an arm around Jesse's shoulders and leans into his chest there and Jesse is taken aback.

“Nothin. Nothing at all.”

“Well, something must be funny.”

“Somethings gotta be, I know.”

“What does that mean?”

“It don't mean nothing.” Another fit of laughter, tears from it rolling down Giles’ eyes.

“It's just. I've been thinking.” Giles says, his face now very close to Jesses.

“Thinking bout what.”

“Thinking about you. You and I.”

“Well. You always are a very good friend.”

“Not like that. I mean.” Giles’ face suddenly growing grave.

“Like what then?” Tears dropping from Giles’ eyes now not of laughter but of fear.

“Like this, I guess.” Giles says, and leans in kissing Jesse there on the lips and putting his hands in his hair. Jesse kisses back and the two lock arms around each other a long moment passing where they run their hands down each others backs and lock lips, a faint sort of whimpering from Giles.

“Giles.” Jesse says, leaning back finally, locking gray eyes to pretty pale blue ones.

“If they find out they’ll hang me Jesse. They’ll hang me.”

“They’ll hang me too.”

“But you have Florence. You have all the girls in the world. Jesse.” Giles leans in again and tries to kiss Jesse but Jesse pulls back, heart racing and wicked fear dropping through his throat, his eyes darting about the graveyard.

“Jesse I don't. God made me different Jesse.” Giles laughs again, bitterly, pushing into Jesse.

“Or maybe it was The Devil. I'm going to hell I know that much for certain.” He says.

“We all are.” Jesse says. The two lock eyes for a long moment, kiss again, and then fall into a chorus of laughter ringing across the graveyard like a pair of crooning wild dogs. There Giles rolls to the side and falls promptly asleep, Jesse rolling the other way and following soon after.