For those who know me, this is probably way over-due.
A few blurbs, working on Doc's character and his less than
believable healthy relationship with Ringo.
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Doc can feel his lungs consuming themselves, a putrid, withering blaze in his chest.
Meanwhile, Johnny hisses like he’s turned feral. The mad-cap, his eyes white and fearless, his mouth a hard line across his sun-weathered face. He squints at Holliday – from the sun – and the two walk towards each other. It feels more like walking backwards though, watching himself from another’s body.
There’s blood in Doc’s mouth. It slides down his chin when he tries to cough and, unconcerned, he wipes it away with the back of his hand. Southern gentleman hands, piano fingers that whip a pistol faster than a dare from the devil.
“Lunger.” Johnny scoffs, spitting the word out.
Doc raises an eyebrow, his fingertips tapping the curve of his gun at his hip. His expression is calm, but the sweat on his pale face makes him seem ghostly. For a moment, a flicker of fear enters Johnny’s eyes. It’s small, reflected more in the inward draw of his eyebrows. Truth is, he isn’t much scared of dying, because he hasn’t been living for anything.
He gets the sick, twisted feeling in his gut that tells him Doc knows it too.
Johnny tastes a little sweet, a little sick. It’s what famine tastes like.
There’s whiskey and smoke on Doc’s breath, the underlining current of tang and copper. “My,” he drawls, “aren’t we reckless today.”
It’s like they’ve been sharing a sickbed for years.
Doc doesn’t use names much. He keeps slurring out clever replacements instead.
He undresses meticulously despite his drunken state; his hair is unkempt and it doesn’t suit him, but his fingers move and move, work the pearl buttons of his vest and then he shrugs out of his undershirt. Most of his clothes, by this hour, are turned wet from sweat – wrinkling from where the starch just gave up. He is a lean man, but the tuberculosis is wearing him down, turning him grey, the lines of his ribs becoming sharper. Most of his scars are inward though, battering him like the disease.
He keeps his guns nearby.