Chapter Text
The door to The Luna Saloon sticks when Sirius tries to pull it open, and if it weren't for the fact that the lights are on and that the windows, glowing a warm, inviting yellow in the dusk, clearly show a packed house, and that music is playing loudly enough to hear on the dusty wrap-around porch, Sirius might think this was a sign from the universe that he doesn't deserve the respite.
He glances back at his horse Susan drinking gluttonously from the watering trough that he's hitched her at and sighs. The poor girl looks half-dead, her normally shiny and neatly brushed black coat and long mane a dusty, matted tangle. She hasn't been able to carry him in weeks, and this was the first sign of life they'd stumbled upon in even longer, since the thin tributary winding through the canyon that they were following petered out to nothing but cracked dusty riverbed, taking any obvious sign of life or greenery with it. (That is, ignoring the occasional evidence of far-distant smoke from campfires trailing after them from the East. Sirius has been telling himself throughout the journey that it is only a coincidence, but each time he’d spotted the smoke he would redouble his speed moving West, just to be safe.)
Heaving the packs he'd unloaded from Susan's back higher up onto his shoulders, he tells his suicidal tendencies to give it a rest for once, and yanks the door handle with renewed force, until the wood grinds audibly against the doorframe, the hinges creak, and the door finally swings open.
It's loud enough that he expects it to cause a commotion (or at least turn some heads) inside, but it must be a common enough occurrence that very few of the patrons pay him any mind. He pauses in the door to take in the tightly packed, crowded wooden tables full of raucous gamblers and drinkers. A small stage to the left surrounded by enthusiastic drunks features a man with a bowler hat on a slightly out of tune piano accompanying a straw haired woman, eyes closed and a wide gap-toothed smile affixed to her red lips, sawing away at a fiddle. Most wonderfully, to the right is a set of stairs leading, blessedly, to what looks like accommodations on the second floor.
Surprisingly, the establishment is much nicer inside than Sirius expects compared to the dusty wooden exterior. The bar top and brass rails are polished to a dark gleaming mirror shine, the walls decorated with framed portraits, several mounted large game skulls, and beautiful, well-executed paintings (even the reclining nude woman painted behind the bar is tastefully done, in the style of the renaissance, albeit more bawdy), and the curtains decorating the stage and windows are a clean red velvet. Even the handful of saloon girls mingling among the guests are dressed in a much closer approximation to the high fashion of the East Coast than Sirius has seen across any of the other saloons he's visited in these last few months.
Sirius feels all the energy seep out of him at the prospect of having a bed to sleep in tonight. God, and he'd give anything for a proper bath right now, were it an option. Just the thought of it makes the exhaustion lay twice as heavy on his shoulders. It's been a long road since North Carolina.
He makes a beeline for the bar across the room, balances his things on a stool, and tries not to make it look too obvious that leaning his weight onto the shiny, dark wooden bar top is half the reason he isn't on the floor.
The only person behind the bar is a tall, tan-skinned man dressed in a tidy white shirt and collar, sleeve garters, and a waistcoat, although the effect is rather ruined by his collar being messily unbuttoned and his bow tie untied and hanging loosely around his neck. He spots Sirius immediately, and Sirius watches his eyes flick down to Sirius's clothes, a displeased, sour sort of look passing nearly imperceptibly over his face, before, instead of greeting his new patron, he turns away with the glass that he has been polishing and walks to the far end of the bar to lean across it and speak into the ear of a stunning black woman resting casually against the bar top and watching the crowd.
Dressed impeccably, she has a commanding presence, and Sirius can tell that the other saloon girls pay her a lot of respect by the way they nod and smile at her when they walk past. She glances Sirius's way — a quick once-over — before returning her attention to the musicians on the stage nearby, her face continuously impassive, although she speaks to the bartender as she does so.
Sirius frowns, straightens his spine to his full six-foot-something height, and looks down at himself. He smooths his hands over the wrinkles in his dust-yellowed shirt and adjusts the folds where it tucks into his trousers, then fusses with the collar of his jacket. On second thought, he also removes the wide-brimmed hat he'd bartered off a passing vaquero weeks back in exchange for the pocket watch his father gifted him the day he shipped off to his post when the war started, and tries to flatten his long sweaty hair into something presentable as well, smoothing the flyaway strands of it back down into the ponytail at the base of his neck.
He can hardly blame them for being standoffish — he looks a complete mess. There is an unfortunate dearth of soap on the trail, and the last time he was able to get his clothes properly laundered outside of a scrub in a river was weeks past, at the previous inn he had accidentally stumbled into on his journey. Today, though, he is a dust-covered, exhausted, unshowered wreck in need of a shave.
Once it appears that the bartender has no intention of returning to Sirius's side of the bar, with an aggrieved sigh, he heaves his bags and rifle back into his arms and stalks toward him, eyes dark as if daring the bartender to walk away from him a second time.
The man behind the counter stoically watches him do all of this, and maintains an unflappable direct eye contact that only serves to irritate Sirius further. He opens his mouth to speak, but before he can get a word out, the bartender nods once, sharply, and, in greeting, says "Officer," in a casually uninterested tone as he continues busying himself with cleaning.
This takes Sirius aback briefly, before he realizes that his army-issued single-shot Spencer repeating rifle is among the pile of things he's holding pressed precariously against his chest. And that is not to mention that you'd be correct to guess most men below a certain age in this country had been enlisted at one point or another, even this far west, the war having ended a mere four months past. Although, Sirius did suppose they were more likely to have deserters out this far than active duty or discharged soldiers, in this day and age.
He adjusts his grip on the things in his arms, heaving them higher up onto his hip, and huffs, "I'd like a room, please. And a warm bath, if possible. And to get my clothes laundered."
"Our rooms are full a month out," the man says, and Sirius realizes that he speaks with a gentle accent – Arabic, perhaps, although it’s clear by how mild it is that he has been in this country for the majority of his life. "I'm afraid we can't help you."
Sirius frowns and glances over at the stairs to the accommodations, as though he'd be able to somehow catch him in a lie.
"Is there anywhere else nearby?"
"I only concern myself with my own business," the bartender says. Sirius's eyebrow twitches in annoyance.
"Well, what about a stable for my horse then? She needs care, we've been on the road for weeks since our last proper rest."
The bartender seems to silently consider this for a moment, and just to be perfectly clear that he isn't looking for handouts, Sirius adds, "Even if only for the night. I have the money."
"Undoubtedly," the bartender says, his eyes flicking back down to Sirius's fine but dirty clothes once again. "Unfortunately—"
"Top 'er up with some o' that wobbly pop for me, will ya Lupin," the messy-haired bowler-hatted man that was previously playing the piano slams his beer glass onto the counter beside Sirius with a wide grin and a clatter, and Lupin — the bartender — seems all too pleased to stop talking to Sirius and pour him a refill.
"The keys are getting cold, Potter," Lupin grins back, his face finally belying the first hint of emotion other than distaste since Sirius laid eyes on him. When he smiles, Sirius realizes by the way that his olive toned skin moves that the left side of his face has thin shrapnel scars scattered across the stubble on his jaw and cheek.
"Oh, the ol' drunks can wait on the music for a minute while I get oiled up," Potter rolls his eyes. He takes the bowler hat off his head and runs his fingers through his hair, leaving it messily sticking up in all directions. As though just realizing that he wasn't alone at the bar, he turns his attention to Sirius as he drops the hat back onto his head, doing little to hide the untidiness now. "Oh, you have to try the beer, we're the first in a hundred miles to have anything close to it!"
"Actually, that sounds won—"
"He was just leaving," Lupin says as he places the glass full of bubbling amber beer back down in front of Potter, although his eyes are affixed to Sirius's. A dare.
"Oh, was I?" Sirius snaps, the anger bubbling up in his chest. He is just tired and annoyed enough to start a fight and damn the ass kissing or whatever it is this Lupin wants in exchange for treating him like a normal human being in need, and is about to do so when the front door to the saloon judders loudly open again and slams against the wall violently enough that this time it does command the attention of most people in the building. Sirius jumps at the sound and, just before turning to see who had stormed the place, notices that Lupin startles slightly as well.
In the relative murmuring silence that falls, three men stand in the doorway, haloed by the last vestiges of the setting sun's light. The man in the center, his hair neatly slicked back against his scalp and his clothes pristinely starched and ironed, darts his gaze around the room shrewdly like a snake looking for prey. His eyes land at length upon Lupin, and a disgusted, half-smiling little sneer settles itself into the corner of his lips as he leads his small party to the bar.
"Three whiskeys," the snake commands, and gestures with his fingers to the man at his left — a rotund, well-dressed, simpering sort of fellow with an expensive gold pocket watch chain trailing into his pocket and golden rings on his fingers — who immediately fumbles in his coat and produces the coins necessary, scattering them carelessly on the bar top.
Lupin stands there for a long moment, watching the men as though he expects this request to be a trick, but when the snake remains silent, Lupin relents and drops three highball glasses in front of them and quickly and skillfully pours one finger of whiskey each before swiping the scattered coins off the counter and into his other palm and depositing them somewhere out of view. As he does so, he shoots a dark look toward Potter, whose face has lost all hint of humor, and who is standing stiffly with his hands balled into fists on the shiny bar top.
Sirius notices that the woman at the end of the bar has stepped away to the stage and is standing at the foot of it, her arms folded tightly over her chest as she watches these happenings, and the fiddle player rests her hand on her shoulder.
By this point the majority of the patrons have gone back to their card games and conversations, although the noisy din from earlier is much more reserved now, and Sirius catches several people with their eyes glued to the backs of the heads of these new visitors, or glancing up at them occasionally as they speak to their companions.
"Did The Auroras finally shutter their doors?" Lupin asks the snake placidly as he crosses his arms over his chest and leans back against the cabinets behind him, as far away from the newcomers as he can physically place himself without it looking like he was running.
"I'm sure you'd like that, Lupin," the third man, a hulking figure with broad shoulders, closely cropped hair, and a short patchy beard says before downing his finger of whiskey in one burning gulp.
Sirius takes a step to the side to give this tense exchange some space, and glances over his shoulder to see if there's anyone else that works here that might be more amenable to helping him get a room. Or maybe he should go and find The Auroras, presuming those were also lodgings.
Lupin shrugs, the edges of his mouth pulling down in mock consideration. "Hm, wouldn't be bad for business, I'll admit."
"We are here on business," the man snaps back, and when his long duster jacket flows open with the annoyed flick of his arm as he tosses his glass back onto the table, Sirius spots a silver sheriff's badge pinned to his waistcoat.
"What business have you got with little old me?" Lupin asks, flippantly. Sirius catches the women by the stage roll their eyes, and the fiddle player steps off of the edge and whispers something into the black woman's ear before leading her around the stage and through a door into some room in the back of the establishment.
The fat man turns his attention to Potter, instead, and says, "We are here to speak to your boss."
"For the last time, Remus is an equal partner," Potter says through gritted teeth. "You can speak to him just as well as you can speak to me, Mayor Fudge."
The man whom Potter called the mayor ignores the sentiment and continues speaking to Potter alone, and as he does, Lupin leans forward and pushes the forgotten glass of beer closer to Potter across the bar top with his fingertips. Potter picks it up and takes a deep drink.
"We are here to inquire about a guest we think you may have had nearly a month ago," Mayor Fudge says, patting his pockets down until he finds what he needs and places a tintype onto the bar. He spins it to face Potter, then pushes it forward with his fingertips much in the same way that Lupin had done with the beer. Potter spares it a brief glance.
From where Sirius is standing, he can see that it is the bust portrait of a high class gentleman sitting in a leather armchair, dressed in all the finery of the day, a large neatly-styled handlebar mustache on his face.
"Mr. Sullivan Fawley," Fudge says, tapping the tintype twice with his pointer finger. Sirius squints. Why is that name so familiar?
"We've had plenty of men who look just like him come through here," Potter says, pushing the tintype back toward the mayor. "I couldn't say. In fact, he could be in here right now. You're welcome to mingle and see if you can spot him." Potter gestures with his beer glass to the drinkers and gamblers packing the saloon.
"Mr. Fawley will not be in this room," the snake finally speaks again, swirling the whiskey in his rocks glass languidly and watching it slosh as though assessing a fine vintage from Scotland itself rather than what is more likely closer to rubbing alcohol brewed in the basement of this establishment. "He has seemingly vanished off the face of this earth."
When he says this, he lifts his eyes and settles his gaze coldly on Lupin behind the bar. Lupin's face remains blank and unperturbed, although Sirius notices that his fingers tighten where his hands are resting folded across his chest again.
"I don't know how you treat your guests, but we are not in the business of babying ours," Potter says. "They're grown men. That is, if this Fawley even came through here. Are you sure he isn't holed up at one of your fine establishments, Riddle? Maybe you've simply lost track, with how many Auroras you have littered around town these days."
"Mm, no, he was here," Riddle says coolly, not rising to Potter's bait, although he keeps his eyes glued to Lupin in an unsettling glare. And although Sirius is still inordinately annoyed by the bartender's unwelcoming attitude, the look on Riddle's face evokes such a viscerally familiar and nauseating mirror of the expressions he'd seen on the faces of Confederate soldiers in the South, that Sirius's hackles are immediately raised. "And his wife hasn't seen him since he stepped foot into your saloon."
"Maybe this is her sign that he wants a divorce," Lupin suggests, droll in spite of the tightness in his jaw.
"You know what I think," Riddle says, placing his whiskey glass back onto the counter un-drunk. "I think that maybe it's becoming more than a mere coincidence that men like Mr. Fawley have now gone missing thrice in our town after accounts of them paying your hotel and saloon a visit have come to light." He leans onto his elbows over the bar, closing some of the distance between himself and Lupin, and pushes the glass across the bar top, leaving it sitting precariously at the very edge.
"I think that perhaps you have been far too accommodating to unsavory types, here, Potter." Riddle continues, and although he addresses Potter, still he keeps his eyes affixed to Lupin's face. "I think that we have been far too welcoming of—"
"Oh!" Sirius says suddenly, heaving his armful of belongings up and depositing them all onto the bar, where they settle in a loud clatter of buckles. He leans past Potter, who is still standing stiffly between Sirius and the three antagonistic men, and slides the tintype sitting on the counter toward himself. All eyes turn to him. "Sul Fawley?" He asks, making a show of taking a close look at the image on the tintype, bringing his face close to the counter to examine it.
He glances around the crowd of men now all staring at him in various states of confusion and annoyance, waiting for him to continue. Riddle's eyes are narrowed suspiciously, Potter looks absolutely flabbergasted, and Lupin frowns and has a fussy crease between his brows as he watches him speak.
"Well, I know Sul Fawley," Sirius announces, leaning back out of Potter's personal space and shrugging as he adjusts his rifle on the bar top so that it doesn't slide off of his pile of things where he left it. "Quite well, in fact. My father and his uncle are as close as kin, back in New York."
Lupin does not seem happy to learn this news, and his mouth falls open as though he is about to argue, but Sirius talks over him. "Haven't seen him since the war began, of course, but before that he was at the manor for dinner at least once a month. As a matter of fact, my wife's cousin is married to a Fawley. Angelica."
"Oh, dear!" Mayor Fudge says, leaning around the other men to gape at Sirius as though noticing him for the first time during this entire interaction. He looks down at Sirius's dirty clothes then back to his face. "Are you here to help find Mr. Fawley?"
"This is the first I'm learning he was missing," Sirius admits. He just catches the dark glare that has settled itself over Lupin's face before choosing to ignore it and turning to the three visitors instead. "To be perfectly honest, unfortunately, I think that Mr. Lupin here has got the right idea. Old Sul had quite the eye for the ladies, if you know what I mean, and has mentioned the pipe dream of running West for the gold and the women more than once over a cigar after dinner while avoiding his wife. It would make sense for him, honestly, considering he’s a large percentage of the pockets funding the trans-continental railroad they’re building out there."
"Oh, goodness!" Fudge sputters. He turns to Riddle and begins to ask, "What should—" but Riddle cuts him off in a sour tone.
"And who are you, pray tell."
"How rude of me. My name is Sirius Black," he says, adjusting the dusty collar of his coat rather than offer his hand to shake. "My father is Orion Black, of—"
"The New Amsterdam Times?!" Fudge exclaims, his eyebrows shooting up and wrinkling his forehead spectacularly.
"Yes, that's his little paper," Sirius says, losing some of his bravado now that the conversation has turned to his own family. In conjunction, whatever reserves of energy the adrenaline of butting his head in where it didn't belong provided flee his body. God, he needs a lie down.
"The Territories are a long way from New York," Riddle says, not bothering to formally introduce himself or any of his companions.
"Yes, well," Sirius clears his throat slightly, not particularly thrilled about the prospect of going into his own business with these men. He drags his hand over his stubbled chin then scratches at his jaw. "I needed a change of scenery, myself."
"More importantly," Potter interrupts, all business. "It sounds like this Mr. Fouley has got nothing to do with us, to me, doesn't it Remus?"
"Fawley," Fudge corrects, holding his index finger in the air.
Potter glances at Lupin for his input, and Lupin nods once, sharply.
"It seems to me like maybe he was just passing through on his way to greener pastures, isn't that right?" Potter turns his attention back to Riddle and the sheriff. "A man like that wouldn't want to be found, would he."
Sirius drops his eyes to his cuticles and picks at them.
"Looks like you've come to the wrong place, fellas," Lupin sighs, as though this pains him greatly. "Maybe you'll have better luck in California, or the North-West Territories."
"Yes, very far North-West," Potter adds.
Riddle watches Lupin silently for a long, uncomfortable moment. The Sheriff scowls silently behind him, his arms folded tensely over his chest, and Fudge shifts on his feet, his gaze flitting expectantly between the two other men in his party for signs of what to do next. Sirius is impressed that Lupin doesn't squirm under the heavy gaze.
"We will be back," Riddle says darkly after some time.
"I sure hope so, you need to be able to get a proper drink somewhere," Potter says, suddenly overtly cheery again.
Riddle scowls at him and spins on his heel to stride out the door, followed closely by the Sheriff in a billow of his long duster jacket and, after a bit of hesitation, Mayor Fudge as well.
The tension seems to leave the saloon the moment they pass through the door, and Sirius spots several guests whose shoulders visibly relax to have seen them go. When Sirius turns back to the bar to begin collecting his belongings back into his arms, he catches Lupin shake off a shudder, like someone had just touched his back with cold hands, as he turns to the back wall of the bar.
“I really do know Fawley,” Sirius says, if only to break the awkward silence that has fallen. “What a coincidence. But I suppose my father knows anyone who’s anyone above a certain wage bracket. If I’m honest, Fawley is one of the worst people I’ve ever met. I’m surprised his wife is complaining, I have my doubts that even she would truly miss him if he were really gone.”
Potter snorts, amused, then turns to Lupin and mutters, "They've been sniffing around far too often." He speaks under his breath, but doesn’t bother trying to hide his sentiments from Sirius.
"I know," Lupin grumbles in response, but Sirius is surprised to find him catching his gaze instead. He wordlessly places a tall glass of cool beer onto the bar top, watching Sirius from under his brow. His lips twitch in some approximation of a humorless smile before he pushes the beer toward Sirius then turns away again, and mutters something to Potter before disappearing through the same door that the women left through earlier.
Bemused, Sirius lets his things drop back down onto the bar, and picks up the beer, careful not to slosh the suds over the edges of the glass. For a brief moment, he watches minuscule bubbles float from the bottom and settle in the head of foam floating at the top, then he takes a drink.
He practically groans at how good it tastes, after a full day with hardly a sip of water, and after weeks of having seen nothing but the wild nature of the Territories and his horse to keep him company. He drinks deeply and gluttonously until he runs out of breath and, with a satisfied sigh, sinks down into the closest bar stool. When he pulls the glass away, it is three-fourths empty, so he finishes the job and gulps down the last couple of inches before placing the glass back onto the bar.
He sighs and rests his head on a hand propped up on his elbow, closes his eyes, and takes a moment to appreciate how good it feels to have his feet off the ground; although he tries not to get too comfortable, because he knows that in a moment he will need to stand up again and find a place to rest for the night, and if he lets himself he might fall asleep right in this bar stool.
"Boy, you've really been out there for a long while, haven't you."
Sirius peeks an eye open to see Potter watching him with amusement in his bespectacled eyes, matching Sirius's pose and resting his head on his propped-up hand as well. Sirius closes his eyes again and smiles slightly, against his own better judgement.
"Yeah, a long while."
"Are you sure you don’t want a room?"
