Archive of Our Own ^beta

With a growl, Ben pulled backwards. “I ain’t doing this no more, Dan”, he said, ignoring the shots around them, ignoring the way Dan threw him a surprised and maybe almost hurt look only for a split second before turning around and almost blindly shooting the next person to enter the building, before grabbing for Ben once more.

“I’ll get you on that train, Wade”, he insisted, turning to pull him along as if expecting him to just follow behind without resistance despite his declaration of the opposite.

Sudden anger rolled through Ben like a growling thunder and with a quick movement, he threw Dan to the floorboards, where he stayed, staring up at him with big eyes

“Stubborn bastard!”, Ben hissed at him. “The boy is gone, hero, ain’t nobody to impress anymore!”

With two strides, he was over the one-legged farmer and punched him square in the face. Dan did not even raise his arms to protect himself, either because he didn’t react in time or because he didn’t want to.

“Hero?”, he rasped out.

“Yes, hero!”, Ben growled and raised his fist again. All his anger and frustration of the last few days was boiling in him like a red hot iron, blinding him to everything but the one-legged man splayed on the floorboards in front of him, no shot, no scream, no movement from outside registered to him. What was wrong with this man, really?! Was he so reckless with his life? Did he truly think that he would be able to manage all of this on his own? Had he lost his mind and become to big for his boots?

And yet, the look Dan threw him was anything but crazy. It was filled with memory, pain and disbelief, none of the things Ben expected to see there. He was supposed to be offended, big-headed, again look at Ben like he was dirt on his heel or something, he was a hero of war, one on the right side of history, a celebrated soldier who came home to his wife and kids, goddamnit!

So why was he looking at him like the words hurt?

Only now did Ben realize that he hadn’t punched him again.

“I ain’t no hero, Wade”, Dan whispered and there was something desperate in his eyes, like the words came forth without his ___, like he was confessing something, something he had never told anyone before and it was lifting a weight off his shoulders and it was terrible how heavy it had been – and even more terrible that he was telling Ben Wade of all people.

Ben stared at Dan, his fist forgotten in the air. “What?”

“I ain’t no hero”, Dan repeated weakly and only now lowered his eyes, the air suddenly tight and the intimacy of the locked gaze too much. Instead he stared down at his hands that were still holding his old army rifle. “Only combat I ever seen was when we were retreatin’, down the valley behind a stronghold. Was one of my comrades who shot me.” A short desperate depreciative little chuckle. “He hadn’t even aimed, it was just bad luck. Hit me right in the shin and they had to amputate, because the thing had developed gangrene a day before we got to the military hospital in a stronghold further north. They should’ve let me lay there in the mud where I fell, it would’ve been so much less trouble for everyone.”

Ben didn’t speak a word, he did not know what to say. He lived most of his life with men desperate to stay alive, to murder and maim, not ones who thought that they should no longer exist, thought they cheated death and were living on borrowed time, and he did not know how to answer.

Instead, he lowered his fist and clung to the only thing he knew how to handle. “If it ain’t to stroke your ego, then why are you doing it? I told you I could pay you double, instead you make Butterfield promise the same amount of money to your wife and the safe return of your son. You are doing it for the little heroic death.”

Dan smiled at that, a smile with such tiredness and exhaustion etched into the corners that it made something in Ben’s chest tighten. “Alright, Wade, you got me, I ain’t doing it for no one but myself. I’m doing it because I wanna see you on that train, I wanna know that I did something nobody else could, not even true men who walk on two legs and know nothing of their luck.”

 “You’re not even denying it, you wanna get yourself killed.”

“Yes” The openness of Dan’s eyes was almost scary, but Ben could not look away.

A suddenly heavy silence settled between them. What was there to say or do? What words could one speak to a man so desperate for everything to end?

Only Charlie’s voice sounding from outside broke the moment and pulled Ben out of his trance. “Okay”, he mumbled and got back to his feet, holding out a hand to Dan. “I’ll get you that kind of death. Happy?”

The way Dan smiled, so earnestly, made something in Ben’s chest tighten. “We’ll be faster across the roofs.”