#NEVER GIVE BUTCHES A SECOND THOUGHT UNLESS IT’S TO COMPARE THEM TO MEN/USE THEM TO FUEL HIS MISANDRY PROPAGANDA LOL

[princessefemmelesbian]

My friend said that Harry Shitter would be a transandrophobia truther and I am literally SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP AT HOW ACCURATE THAT IS 😭 HE WOULD THO

[tabbyrp]

@brooklynislandgirl @tarnishedhalo​

{Tropes in the Wild West, part 2} {Cont from [x]

The Colton Brothers’ General Goods Store prided itself on quality. Buckets of nails able to pierce the hardest of wood. No finer tobacco this side of the state line. And their prices, well, the Colton Brothers considered them fair, considering a lack of competition within the town and the surrounding miles. Tabby held differing opinions while handing over a goodly sum of coins and receiving a meagre bag of pecans in return.

Above the saloon were lodgings for the women who worked there. Four apiece to each room, with simple wooden bunks wedged nose-to-tail against the walls. Three were still occupied when Tabby crept back in with expensive provisions in hand. Her bed lay pressed beneath the window, and when the nights were cool, she cursed the draft prone position. This, however, was morning and she used her access to ease one wooden shutter open before scattering a few pecans over the windowsill. Complaints often came from the other girls that she was encouraging rats to loiter. Tabby ignored them, convinced that something else entirely came to devour each last morsel before a new dawn broke.

“C’mon, Miss Tab. Dance with me.” Persistent as he was cheerful from the half-drunk bottle in his grip, Old Butch’s mottled red veins left spiderwebs over skin tanned by endless years beneath the sun. “They say them Indians have a dance that will make the rain fall.” He attempted a demonstration, the wild flailing reminiscent of desperate efforts to stamp out rogue sparks from a campfire.   

“Are we in India? I thought this was Texas.” After making her point with an arched brow, she softened, for Butch was a grizzled, yet harmless, widower stuck in his ways. “And the only result of you and me dancing would be stepping on toes for both of us.” It was a lie. In those younger years when she sold dances with lonely men for a dollar a spin, Tabby was all lightness and grace. She had stopped that route for coin though, now preferring to simply sell drinks and weave flowers like sunsets into her hair. 

Butch took the rejection in stride and melded into the group observing a raucous game of dice. The click-clack of boots announced another group of patrons arriving. Readying more bottles in preparation, Tabby ignored a flicker of chagrin which she could never entirely extinguish. It was foolish to wish for one particular man to come striding in, instead of an endless rotation of the local townsfolk. The sun was long set and Riley never visited after dark. 

A new day came. Then another, and another more. Gifted flowers wilted into loose petals, and the bag of pecans she continued to dole out over the windowsill was half spent. All anyone could talk of was the drought. Two grey clouds took shape in the sky, giving false hope before dissipating into familiar swathes of blue. Come evening, disappointment had turned folks waspish.  Two local cowboys chose to turn their emotions into a fist fight at the saloon, leaving blood on the floor and whiskey spilled everywhere else, including down Tabby’s skirt. 

Retiring to the rooms to change, Tabby was half-way dry when an unfamiliar item on her bedding caught her attention. A single envelope nestled upon her pillow, a firewheel bloom laying across atop it. She tucked the bloom behind one ear, smiling, before investigating further. Easing back the flap revealed a piece of paper folded once down the middle. Tabby pulled a lantern closer to  examine the words neatly inked upon the page. 

Meet me outside, behind the saloon, as soon as you can. AR.   

She was almost to the rear door before hesitation slowed Tabby’s eager step. It was the first time Riley had written her this way. The first surreptitious meeting he had requested. Hope warred with caution, curiosity weaving its way into the mix before Tabby made compromise with them all. Lantern in one hand and an iron poker stick appropriated from the fireplace in the other, she slid out to the rear of the building. Little existed there beyond dirt that rolled into patchy grassland, and one long rail for horses to be tied to when the street became overly crowded. 

The rail was where Tabby stopped, holding her light aloft to peer deeper into the shadows. “Riley?” A whisper carrying her fading confidence and growing certainty this was all some cruel prank. Her eyes had begun to adjust when a blinding pain exploded across the back of her head. The poker fell from limp hands, the lantern following soon after, with no witness other than a creature perched upon a windowsill, gnawing shards of nut between sharp, pointed teeth. 

Riley awoke with a start. Half upright in his bed, it took a blink and shedding of slumber to identify what had woken him from troubled dreams. Scritch. Scratch. Scritch. Scratch. His first thought a bold rodent had chosen to skitter across the floorboard. Except his bedroom only stretched so far and unless the rat was engaged in an endless circuit, it should have finished its route already. Scritch. Scratch. Scritch. Scratch. The sound growing more frenzied with each passing second. Pushing blankets free, he rose and stepped first onto his good leg, the other needing longer to gain mobility. With a hop and a drag, he tracked the noise to the window. Yanking open the shutters, Riley looked out, then down, where nothing sat except a smattering of half-eaten pecans.

Her cheek. Something was touching her cheek. Dry. Rough. Tabby blinked, winced, resurrected from her torpor with painful alacrity. The ground hard beneath her back and she rolled blindly, certain a snake was slithering over face. No reptile emerged but she did land on something softer. A rug. Fur that she could grip with her fingertips. Furnishings meant she must be inside. Shapes came into focus. A bed. A wooden table with two chairs tucked beneath the edges. Uneven wooden walls lit by an iron stove, the fire within burning so hot that sweat broke out upon Tabby’s brow. 

Hands took her by the arms. Pulled by a strength that defied normally, Tabby became dragged upright. She kicked wildly. Yelled obscenities no lady should be familiar with. Then her captor took form and panic froze a scream in her throat. The husk that had once been Old Butch rasped and wheezed, sucking on the air. More corpse than man, desiccated skin clinging to gaunt bone, his swollen tongue licked over flaking lips and fetid breath expelled into a hiss of words. “Dance with me, Tabitha.” 

The house began to blur as Butch swung her round and around. “Dance with me.” Acrid scent filled the air as her sleeves dissolved first, then flesh turning an angry pink where the monster trapped her into this deadly waltz. Worse than the desert at high noon mid-summer, the air grew too dry, stealing the beading sweat from Tabby’s skin and the moisture from her mouth. 

“Let me go,” she croaked out. 

“You heard the lady.” An explosion of gunfire and Butch’s skull cracked open, dust bursting from the seams instead of blood. Bony fingers released their captive, and strong, warm, human hands took their place, Riley scooping her into his arms. “I’ve got you, Tabs.” His promise the last thing she heard, and yellow rings in his eyes the last sight she saw, before sinking into unconsciousness once more.   

“How is she?” Riley made his inquiry from the safety of the hallway. Beth’s ministrations had required stripping Tabby down to the chemise and her brother remained averse to seeing women disrobed without their permission granted in advance. Drawing the sheet higher over their resting guest, Beth thought to answer in her natural tongue, then chose the language which grated familial nerves the least. There had been enough torment for one night.  

“Come see for yourself.” Beth lingered while Riley stepped inside. If the sight of Miss Tabby bothered him, wan and sleeping, Riley hid it from his sister. Still, when he dragged a wooden chair next to the bed, sitting down as if preparing for a long watch, Beth rested a soothing hand upon his shoulder. Mending bodies was her domain, and perhaps she preferred that burden, compared to the questions that would inevitably want answers once Tabby was awake. 

Leaving Riley to his vigil, Beth was of mind to return to the soft nest of her bedding. Light was yet to creep around the edges of their sealed windows, and she could regain a few hours of lost slumber before dawn began to break. There was only one matter to attend to first. In the kitchen, she rummaged around through cupboards until a glass jar packed with peppermint sticks revealed itself. Beth liberated one, paused, and then a second. 

She could not bring herself to throw open a shutter, not when night still gripped the lands, so instead Beth slid the confectioned treats through a gap beneath the front door. They had barely disappeared from sight when came the quick-snap crunching sound of sharp teeth finding their quarry. Clearly her impropriety for using the porch was forgiven. A relief, considering how fickle those creatures could be. A bowl of cream left upon the windowsill used to be the tradition. Now it was pecans and peppermint sticks.

If only other forces could be so easily appeased. Poor Old Butch. Beth spared a thought of pity for the man, and more for the lives that the drought was yet to claim.