AN ANGEL BLEEDS ( DISCO ELYSIUM COWBOY AU)
Chapter 1: An angel bleeds
"Yer a piece a' shit, Harry."
It's a cold awakening to a cold day. Hard wood and a puddle of drool greet the face of Sheriff Harry Du Bois. Clouds loom over a sunken sky, casting darkness over the little room, casting darkness over the already grim face of the man that stands above Harry, tapping his foot. His face, in dire need of a shave, twisted into what could only be described as a mix of disappointment, disgust, and shame, a hint of acceptance peeking through. This wasn't the first time Harry had woken up this way. Head pounding, ears ringing, a disgruntled coworker hanging over his shoulder, waiting for the perfect time to reprimand him. Before he even attempts to lift from the table what had to be a giant boulder attached to his shoulders, a soft clink resonates somewhere next to it. Harry shifts his gaze away from the scowling man and down to the source of the sound, a small mug filled with brown liquid stinking of rabbit dung. He shifts his gaze back up to the man, whose expression has not moved an inchā¦ His eyes roll back in his head slightly as Harry looks at him, trying not to match eye contact with the barely lucid husk of a sheriff splayed out on the table.
"Fer the hangover. Drink it, sheriff. We have work to do."
His addition of sheriff comes accompanied with a complimentary sneer. It sounds heavy on his tongue, like the only reason he ever calls Harry that is to drive a point home. As if he's cursing whatever god let the imbecile in front of him become the sheriff instead of him, Jean Vicquemare, the one and only.
As Jean laments, Harry slides the mug across the table carefully, bringing it to his lips and letting the hot, foul-tasting liquid coat his insides, downing it in a matter of seconds as Jean watches.Ā
Finally, he manages to lift his head from the comforting uncomfortability of the table, locking eyes with Jean.
"I know you are, but what am I?"
Jean palms his face, rubbing his temples together before letting out the most exasperated, defeated "What?" Harry had ever heard.
"I know yer a piece a' shit, but what'm I?"
Jean doesn't grace Harry with a response. Instead, he just rubs his face harder, his foot tapping on the floor.
Harry looks back at the metal mug, shifting it across the table from one hand to the next until he works up the courage to look at Jean again.
"What kind a' work?"
A massacre. Not of people, but of sheep, ten, maybe twelve sheep lay strewn about the floor of a worn down barn. Three men stand above the scene. Jean, who had undoubtedly scoped the scene out hours before he had bothered to wake Harry up, seems almost bored with the whole ordeal, picking at some imaginary dirt underneath his pristine nails. Harry, whose eyes haven't stopped scanning from sheep to sheep since they arrived, and a bulbous, poorly groomed little man who introduced himself to the two of them as Evrart Claire, as if the three of them didn't live in a very small town where everyone knew each other. Where everyone knew Evrart fuckin' Claire.Ā
Evrart was always a strange man, as was his brother, Edgar, but he had never caused much trouble, and he seemed to be talking to Harry.
"Harryā¦"
A pause, Harry doesn't respond. Lost in the thick, matted wool of the downed sheep. Of the repetitive grays and browns and beiges of the hay-matted floor covered in loss. Not a loss of love but a loss of capital. A loss of business.
"Mr. Dew Boyse?"
Harry doesn't bother to correct the plump man in the ill-fitting suit despite pronouncing his name for Evrart several times upon introduction. It didn't matter anyway, nor did it matter that the little man with the heavy drawl and the wandering eyes seemed to know Harry's first name better than Harry knew it himself, despite only ever introducing himself as "Sheriff Du Bois. "He could be whoever, whenever. If he was "Mr. Dew Boyse" to this little nobody, so be it. It was better than Jean's less-than-fond nickname of
"Shitkid."
Jean's thin, spindly fingers obscure Harry's view of the sheep as he waves it in his face, repeating the endearing moniker.
Harry grunts, waving the hand out of his face.
"Calm yer tits, Jean.
Jean scoffs, his cheeks turning slightly red as his eyes shift to Evrart, the embarrassment of being demeaned by his peer seemingly no less than the first time Harry had ever done so and would probably never fade, no matter how many times he planned to do so in the future. Evrart seems thoroughly unbothered by the whole ordeal, a vapid look plastered across his unchanging face, his eyes fixed instead on Harry, who ignores the both of them and has started to saunter his way over to the nearest sheep, his bones creaking as he crouches down, careful to keep his bright green leather boots away from the mud and dung. His olive green duster skims the hay as it shifts around Harry's twisted form.
He reaches his thick, calloused, tobacco-stained hand out towards a pale-looking sheep, its skin mottled, blood curdled. Its wool is dry and scratchy, thick as if it hadn't been shaved in a while. Its eyes are stuck in a state of permanent fear, wide and crazed, begging for someone to save it, although no one would come.Ā
Harry traces his hands up the length of the sheep's body, towards its hind legs, then up its body towards the head again, now using both hands, squeezing and pushing against the rigid body of a lamb in rigor mortis until suddenly, he stops. A wet spot on the side of the sheep that faces the hay right at the sheep's neck, right where its carotid artery would be, should be.
Carefully, slowly, Harry uses all his might to flip the sheep over. He holds it up in his arms as if cradling a newborn, as if cradling something that should be protected at all costs.
In the hay, beneath where the sheep once fell, is a puddle of blood, or what once was a puddle of blood, almost dry, viscous, and dark, soaked up by the hay on the floor.
Harry looks up at Evrart, whose expression has not changed. He maintains eye contact with the strange man as he digs his hands into the wool of the bled-dry sheep, searching for the cause. Searching for any kind of explanation until finallyā¦
He finds it. A hole. He breaks his eye contact with Evrart, instead favoring the sheep as he pulls back layers of thick wool matted with blood and grime. The puncture wound is barely noticeable, even to those with the keenest eye. It's not just one hole but two. Two minuscule pinpricks sunk deep into the flesh of the unsuspecting sheep.
Harry does not say anything. Not yet. Instead, he simply stands up and walks towards the next sheep and the next, repeating the same ritual he did for the first sheep until they'd all been thoroughly flipped and fiddled with.
Only then does he finally look back up at Evrart and Jean, a strange, lopsided grin stretching across his bloated, alcohol-reddened face.
"These sheep must'a had a fun night."
Evrart's face finally shifts, only slightly, cocking his head in slight confusion.
"Sorry?"
Jean purses his lips, making his sour little face even sourer. Harry's mutilated attempt at a smile grows wider.
"They've been sucked dry."
A frown finally threatens Evrarts jolly face as he tries to come to terms with the reality of the situation.Ā
"Oh dear."
Cogs seem to threaten to turn in his head as his face quickly snaps back up to his former state, his smile returning to his face, marred only by the confusion that remains in his eyes.
"Oh dear, oh dear, tha's not good. Not good atoll."
........
To say that the day had been a strange one would be a stretch. In his 18 years of being the sheriff of the little town of Jamrock, Harry had dealt with much stranger than a pile of bled-out sheep and a strange little man. But it didn't mean that it had exactly been a normal day; in fact, it had been one of the more unusual of Harry's drunken stints as the prime law enforcer. He'd definitely had enough of strange little men for the time being, that was for sure. It was time for a drink. That was also for sure. Except, as he entered the little saloon he had entered so many times before, that old reliable saloon, that saloon that had been there for him like no one else, that never changed, that never abandoned him, Something was different.
A sharp pain like nothing Harry had ever felt before began to spread through his chest, fire, no, bullets, a thousand bullets, raining down on him all at once. His heart was pounding at a million miles per hour, two million, three million, the pain spreading now to his lungs, to his liver; he couldn't breathe. He shouldn't breathe.
Everything around him shakes like hell had opened up, just for lil olā harry du bois. Sucking him ever closer to the fiery pits. Clawing at his hands, his arms, his chest, his chest, his chest. And then, suddenly, a hand on his chest, soft, gentle, kind, steadying the world around him as it leads him to a table. Two glimmering eyes, sloped and heavily lidded, greet him as the gentle hand leads him to a chair; they're dark, almost black, spots of honey brown glimmer whenever the sun feels like catching them. There is a sound of wood scraping against wood, and then, Solid wood greets Harry's backā¦ and ass. To Harry's dismay, the hand starts to slowly leave his chest. Harry doesn't want to see it go. Not yet. A soft chuckle rings out somewhere above him, and then, as the world steadies, a man, a man attached to the gentle hands and kind eyes, sits down across from him. His features seem to contradict those things that brought Harry back to earth: all sharp angles, high cheekbones, and slicked-back hair. A barely detectable smile stretches across his lips as he leans towards Harry, his eyes flitting back and forth, examining him.
"Are you all right, officer?"
The man's voice is quiet and soothing with a slight rasp to it, a smoker if Harry had to guess. He greets the strange man's eyes with as much authority as he can muster.
"Who are you?"
The man smiles once again.
For the first time in a long time, Harry is not sure where his night is about to go.
