Grant pushed into the doorway and slammed the thing shut behind him with a heavy sigh. Asking around for Gavin had been a lot easier than asking around for the Kid but it was about the only part of Grant’s evening that had been anything less than hellacious. At least the deputy had gotten them a decent room - Then again, any place with two separate beds was considered nice in Grant’s book.

“Well, don’t you look like you had fun.” Gavin jeered, looking up from the portable, stand up mirror he was crouched in front of at the far side of the room. The man had shaving cream smeared sloppily across half of his face and patchy, untrimmed stubble littering his jaw where he hadn’t quite gotten yet, the foamy bubbles twisting with his sneering half smirk.

Grant stalked across the room and shoved the man out of the way, ignoring the sharp “Hey!” spat from the deputy under his hand as he peered into the mirror. Gleaming, scarlett lipstick smeared across his lip and over his jaw like a rival flag flying high over a conquered fort to let all who saw it know the land was lost to the enemy.

The sheriff merely groaned and ran a tired hand over his eyes, pulling back to let Gavin reclaim his mirror with a muttered insult and a splat of shaving cream flicked in his direction. “You wouldn’t believe.” The man muttered in response to the deputy’s jest, walking across the room to flop into the bed whose sheets had been all but smothered by Gavin’s entire beauty routine, pomade, shaving cream, and more combs than anyone could have use for spread out across the other mattress.

“Hey, I might have something that’ll cheer you up.” Gavin offered, face twisting oddly to get a good angle as he went back to dragging the edge of the razor along his jaw.

“Gavin, I don’t think there’s a single thing in the world you could say right now that would make me feel the least bit better.” Grant huffed dryly. He’d just been kissed by an outlaw in a fucking dress - And worse than that, he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about being kissed by an outlaw in a fucking dress.

And, well… They weren't awful thoughts.

Which was, in short, awful.

“What if I told you I might know where the Kid’s hiding out?” Gavin asked with a knowing edge to his voice, turning slightly to smirk at the sheriff through the mirror, his features distorted and stretched in the curved glass.

“Then you will have proved me wrong, good sir.” Grant conceded instantly, pulling himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, already feeling eternities more energetic than he had a moment ago. “Now quit screwing around with your face and spit it out. Ain’t nothing you can do to fix that ugly mug anyways.” The sheriff insisted impatiently, drumming his fingers against his leg in eager anticipation.

“Remember how I said I used to know this place when I was young.” Gavin began slowly, waving his straight edge through the air in a vague gesture so that the cold metal gleamed in the flickering lamplight. “Well I spent a few summers growing up here.” The man explained, turning his face to inspect a clean shaven cheek in the mirror before shifting about to move on to the other side.

“As very interesting as your life story may be, deputy, save it for the papers.” Grant snorted jovially, chuckling at the annoyed eye roll he received for his efforts.

“Well, it just so happens that your fugitive grew up here too, sheriff. Does that interest you more?” Gavin sniped sharply, huffing as he got to work on the other cheek.

“It certainly does.” Grant agreed easily, biting back the thousand and one questions that sprung to the tip of his tongue the moment the words left this companion’s mouth. He trusted Gavin, the man would tell him all he knew in time… though even Grant couldn’t help but wonder why this information hadn’t come up before.

“He was a weird kid, broke bastard with a whore of a mother, so me and a few other boys we used to,” Gavin began but then simply shrugged, offering nothing.

Grant offered an incredulous eyebrow and questioning silence, unsure of where exactly this conversation was heading and, somehow, not exactly sure he liked the route it had taken.

“Well, we used, you know,” Gavin went on, waving his straight edge vaguely through the air with little in way of an actual explanation. “We used to follow him sometimes.” The deputy admitted awkwardly, shoulders jerking in a stiff shrug. “Just being little brats, like we were.” The man tried to chuckle but Grant couldn’t find it in himself to return the conversational laugh as he was expected to.

The sheriff shifted a bit where he sat, unsettled in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on. As long as he’d known Gavin, he’d considered the deputy a decent man and this new bit of information just didn’t seem quite in line with the rest of the guy’s character. A discrepancy.

“Well, the point is, he used to go to this old abandoned house a little ways out of town.” Gavin moved on quickly. “He was smaller then ‘rest of us so he could fit through this crack under the porch. Hide out there until we got bored and left.” The guy reminisced, squinting at nothing as if trying to see the memory a little clearer. “Word is, the old shack ‘s still standin’.” Gavin explained, finally getting to the point of his uncomfortable story with a final shake of his straight edge that sent a small spray of shaving cream flying. “There’s a chance he’s gone to hide out there again.”

“Peachy.” Grant offered after a moment, still less than settled. He was probably overthinking it. Gavin was young then, all boys do dumb things when there young. “We’ll head out there in the morning.” The man decided, pushing away any lingering discomfort and pulling his legs up off the floor to lie flat on his back.

Grant pressed his toe into the heel of his riding boot the help kick it off and stared up at the ceiling as Gavin’s shuffling footsteps pattered around in the back of his mind and the sound of the man creaking open the small door of the oil lamp came after. Darkness swamped the room as the deputy blew the thing out and the sheriff watched the shadows swim above him as the unmistakable sounds of Gavin pushing his on the go beauty salon off the bed met his ears, a sharp metallic clattering of about a dozen different containers of pomade hitting the floor.

When he finally closed his eyes, all he saw was scarlet lips.

The walk out to the abandoned house were long and tedious - And most importantly, before coffee. Gavin seemed particularly antsy that morning and had pushed Grant to place the exploration before everything else. Breakfast. Coffee. A goddamn bath. Everything Grant had been deprived of since this hellish trip had begun.

The shack they’d spent two hours - Yes, you heard him right, two fucking hours - trekking out to was a miserable, decrypt thing sagging at every edge and weary with the weight of the world. Shambling, graying boards creaked dangerously as Grant stepped onto what was left of the porch and the windows had only a few jagged shards of fractured glass left to sit pathetically against thick boards barring the open holes.

All in all, the thing look like it had died years ago and only a husk of a house remained in its place.

Gavin gave a low, drawn out whistle as he gazed upon the hodgepodge pile of boards Grant wasn’t giving enough to call a building anymore. “And I thought this sorry son’ bitch looked bad twenty years ago.” The man scoffed disdainfully, sneering disgustedly at the mess as he placed his hands against his hips and leaned back.

“Well, I guess I’ll check out the inside. You go around back.” Grant directed shortly, eager to get this over with and get back to the cup of coffee he’d just started when Gavin demanded they walk two fucking hours to see a few dry rotted boards barely nailed together.

The deputy gave a curt nod and Grant pushed a hand against what might have once been a door but was now nothing more than a half of a broken piece of wood falling sideways off a pair of rusty hinges. The rotting wood crumbled at his touch; and when he pressed against it, the door refused to move more than a bending inch. A glance down revealed the bottom to have sunken into the degrading porch so that it only drove farther into the sickly wood when Grant gave it another experimental shove.

With a tired sigh, Grant stepped back from the door and readied himself. The sheriff drew up a leg and planted a single, solid kick in the center of the rotting wood that sent half of the thing splintering but hey, it moved the other half and the door was now open so Grant was gonna count it as a win.

The inside of the house was no better than the outside, dusty furniture sunk into the rotting floor and the walls bent in on themselves with age. Grant coughed as the dank sent of must and mold flooded his mouth and smothered his throat, clogging his nose and eyes alike as he blinked through the sting of unsettled dust to peer around the ruined building.

A stuffed bear with with half its limbs missing lay near where a hole opened up from under the floor, a thick layer of dust settled into its fur to coat dull tawny a smothered ash. Yet the face appeared to have been brushed clean, a single button eye gleaming with crystal clarity and the muzzle smudged free of grime. Maybe Gavin had been right.

Maybe Gavin had been the one to rip the arms off the poor toy to begin with - But Grant was trying his best not the think about that.

No one seemed to be in the house now, that was for sure. Thick silence, as heavy and suffocating as the dust smothering the air hung in the house. Nothing seemed to have been touched for years.

Absently, Grant noticed a picture frame laying face down atop one of the dust coated tables and flipped it over out of sheer bored curiosity. However, as the sheriff took in the face poorly depicted in the photo he paused, familiarity undeniable in the man’s harsh features.

“Hey, Gavin!” Grant called experimentally, still eyeing the photo in his hands. “I think I found a picture of your dad - Guess he had their vote!” The sheriff shouted in the direction of the open door. Gavin’s father had been the mayor of their own little piece of frontier for more than one term so his face was easy to recognize, especially since the guy had one, distinct tooth knocked out front and center of his nearly perfect teeth, but damn… How political did you have be to to keep a picture of the mayor in your own home?

However, no response came. A light uneasiness shivered its way down Grant’s spine as he placed the picture back where he’d found it and crept towards the door, a whisper of a feeling that breathed its way through his body at a slow creep until he could feel it in every fingertip.

A shot rang out from around back.