Chapter Text
001.
It would be right easy for Booker to make a quick buck if he wanted. The ladies down the lane, with their ruffles and lace and sweeping hats look him over twice when he passes. He is still young, all chiseled jaw, dark 5 o'clock shadow he's too drunk to shave, nice sturdy hips when he leans against the marketplace stands. The ladies look him over when his shirt has two undone buttons, and Booker sees some of the men take a peek too.
It'd be mighty easy.
But Booker remembers his mama shooing him from their little one bedroom when strange men with expensive shoes would come knocking. Booker remembers sleeping on the hard wooden floor and trying to drown out the sounds of his mama moaning behind thin doors. Booker remembers the way the coins would clink in her purse when she still smelled of sweat and semen.
Come here, sweetheart, she said to him after the strange rich men had left.
Booker did as he was told, laying next to his mother and letting her brush the hair from his eyes. You're a good boy, his mama said, like she wanted him to learn it from the words alone.
Booker remembers his mama and lets his pockets run empty.
002.
Elizabeth gently presses her fingers to the hallow of Booker's cheeks, murmuring, "No, Booker. No. It's alright."
His hand closes around her wrist and he screams until the river fills his lungs.
003.
He rubs two silver coins together and tries to trade it for a bottle of booze. No? How about a cup then? Fuck. A shot? He's got to have enough for a shot.
There isn't damn much else he could give.
004.
A man approaches him, offers Booker a deal. You use those mighty impressive skills and we'll pay enough that even your great-grandchildren will be wealthy. You shoot whoever, whenever we tell you and you can drink yourself near to death. You hear that boy? We're offering you your own little slice of the fucking promise land.
It is not a hard decision to make.
Booker shakes his hand and seals it with a cold shot of whiskey. And later, on his way home, Booker runs his finger across the little square piece of paper they had slipped in his pocket. The letters all end up wiggled and messy in his head after he stares too long. He tries tracing the shapes before he pukes in the street.
005.
Comstock hums lowly as the preacher sings praises. His new little wife is at his side, clean as a whistle and pure as God made her to be. She sings with the good pastor and tucks her fingers in the crook of Comstock's elbow. He would smile at the sight if he was not such an ambitious man.
Comstock is looking out the window where the clouds pass lazily overhead and picturing all the angels hidden away in the white and would they be angry if Comstock tried to join them? Tried to seek them out and brush a hand slowly across their wings as he prayed to the good lord above? Comstock is looking out the window and -
oh.
Hallelujah.
006.
Booker lays Elizabeth down slowly; fingers pressed to the wet of her cunt, mouth sloppily around a dark, peaked nipple. Booker thrusts himself against her pale white thigh and grunts when she tugs his hair.
"Fuck," he says once, sliding between her legs. Elizabeth tenses around him and claws his back until she breaks skin. Booker winces and watches when she wipes blood on the light sheets. Fuck, he doesn't say when he comes hot and sticky across her belly. Fuck, when Elizabeth tightens around his fingers after he is done and groans in the same low way Booker recognizes from when she is wounded.
It was not his intent, to hurt her, but it doesn't surprise him.
They do not know the connection they share in this world.
007.
It doesn't stop them in the next.
008.
Songbird impales Booker with his left claw, tearing through bone and flesh. Booker watches his intestines spill out of his body, his ribcage crack and splinter through skin as Songbird click, click, clicks next to his ear. Booker releases a muted scream and Songbird chirps.
009.
It is a big daddy this time, all drill bit and cracked ribs when Elizabeth paints herself with his blood.
010.
In this world, Booker forgets what his mama told him.
011.
There is a pretty girl who tugs on Booker's hand when he is two drinks into the night. She laughs his name in this wistful breathless voice that confuses Booker. Do I know you? he asks the pretty girl when she is pulling him into the alleyway behind the bar.
You did once, she says and then her hand is down his pants. She curls her fingers around his cock and works him slowly and - fuck.
He doesn't notice the gun in her other hand and his brains splatter on brick.
012.
"Elizabeth, please," Bookers says, pleads. The airship is theirs for the taking but Elizabeth's bones cry out for blood. "Please, let's leave this damn place."
Elizabeth shakes her head slowly and her newly cut hair brushes against the curve of her jaw. Booker wants to reach out and tuck it behind her ear, remind this dumb kid that she doesn't have to settle the debt, tell her that Booker will pay it for her. He wants to yank her over his shoulder and drag her from the sky and Columbia and the death they have delivered unkindly.
"Paris, Elizabeth," he says instead, hand curled around the gun tucked snugly in its holster. "We can go to Paris."
She looks down at her palms then, studying the red Booker knows she is imagining and her shoulders straighten with purpose. Booker folds his fingers across hers and pleads, "Elizabeth."
"Wipe away the debt," she murmurs and tears apart the sky.
013.
You're a good boy.
His mama was a dumb whore. Booker has never known good.
014.
He breathes in the river, exhales his sins. I'm sorry, he mouths time over until Elizabeth is nodding, fingers shaking when they trace the slope of his chin. Another Elizabeth has her hands around his ankles, keeping him chained to the riverbed, and a third has her palm at his chest where his heart is bleeding remorse.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's never enough.
"It's alright," Elizabeth says softly, leading her lamb to his slaughter.
Booker's laughter bursts to the surface as bubbles. He so enjoys the irony.
015.
Anna is sick and tiny by the time winter of '93 rolls around. Booker doesn't know what to do when she squirms in his arms, facing turning red then purple. He tries to call on a doctor but doesn't have enough money for the consultation and Booker can't very well bring his sick baby to the races.
What is he supposed to -
You're a good boy, he remembers, and well. It'd be mighty easy.
Booker leaves Anna with the widow across the hall before he puts on the best shirt he owns, leaving three buttons undone at the top. He combs his hair and drains what is left of the vodka bottle hidden away in his desk before he leaves.
Booker is still young and handsome and he knows people will pay good money for it. He doesn't let his hands shake.
It'll be easy, it'll be real easy he just has to close his eyes and count to ten and think of his sweet dead wife. Booker just has to remember his dying daughter and the empty end of a bottle to wash out his mouth. Book just has to remember because there are worst things.
This he knows absolutely.
For Anna, he thinks and lets Mrs. Fletcher's hands dance their way across his strong hips. For Anna, for Anna, for Anna, and no more dead girls in his house.
His pockets clink.
In this world Booker is as close to a good man as he is ever going to get.
016.
"What brings a pretty girl like you to the races, Ms. Comstock?"
"A debt. One that I intend to settle properly."
017.
Elizabeth is warm and soft, fingers stroking the hair at his temples. She whispers reassuring nothings that Booker would never believe if he wasn't here, pounding on death's door.
Open up, you fucker. Booker knows it has been a long time coming.
"I'm sorry," Elizabeth says lowly. The knife she used to slit his throat is still wet next to Booker's head. She isn't quite as practiced in the art of killing as he, missing Booker's carotid artery and forcing him to a long death of choking while he bleeds out. Booker is mighty glad.
Hot tears drip on his face and Elizabeth murmurs, "Oh, Booker. I'm so sorry. I don't want you to leave."
He would kiss her if he could, assure her that he would never leave unless she asked it. Just look through the windows, he tries to say through the blood hot in his throat. Just look and you'll find me.
"You know why?" Elizabeth asks and wipes at the tears on her cheeks. It leaves a long smear of Booker's blood on her skin and he chokes around a smile.
He knows. Smother the sonofabitch.
018.
"Heads?"
"Or tails?"
"What?"
"Tails?"
"Or heads?"
Booker flips the coin over his shoulder and shoves aside the scientists. "Neither."
They share a look as the unassuming coin rolls beneath a booth.
"Curious."
"Indeed."
019.
She is a real beauty, the girl who pushes him into a dark corner of the bar and whispers how she misses him dearly. Her hair is all curled unlike anything he has ever seen and her shirt has tears at the seams and near the buttons that Booker didn't take much mind to. She presses her lips to his cheek, something hot and sticky sliding at the place where their skin meets.
"I miss you," the pretty thing says and curls her hands around his throat.
Booker is not alive long enough to whisper that he does not understand.
020.
Booker wishes he was a better man. He swallows and shakes his head, leaves Mrs. Fletcher on that doorstep with her promises of silver.
Anna dies two weeks later.