Cassidy

Cassidy bonked Jesse on the nose with the flat end of the small fire extinguisher, and he crumpled down into the dirt, holding his face.

"So, how's it goin'?" Cassidy asked, as he settled down in the shade on the church steps. He had a ratty hoodie on as extra protection.

Jesse sniffed, wincing in pain. "Well, I got a bloody nose."

"That's not what I meant."

It was then that Cassidy saw the remorse in Jesse's eyes. Honestly, that was all he needed.

"I didn't mean to," Jesse sighed. "I said the words, and he was gone."

And that was all Cassidy needed to hear.

Tulip's family dinner had gone slightly awry a few minutes ago. Jesse was giving Tulip the silent treatment and pissing her off while Cassidy was extolling the cinematic virtues of the Coen Brothers (except for The Big Lewbowski; The Big Lebowski is shite) to Emily. Then when Sheriff Root came in asking if anyone had seen Eugene, and everyone flat out lied to his face, the smoke alarm went off, as Tulip's vanilla hash browns caught fire in the oven.

So, that was a bust.

But at least Jesse was talking now. And at least he acknowledged what he'd done. Sending Eugene to Hell was an accident.

"Y'know, I went to Atlantic City once with the wife of a Russian gangster, right?" Cassidy said. "And honestly, she was lovely. But Atlantic City turns out to be not much more than a shank of shite, so, y'know. We all make mistakes, don't we? All right, come on." He took Jesse's arm and helped him to his feet. "What's next? How can I help you?"

Jesse wiped his nose and dusted off his pants. "Well, maybe take a look at the balcony railing," he said, eyeing the church steeple. "See how busy we've got, be even busier come Sunday--"

"I meant, what're you gonna do about Eugene?" Cassidy interrupted.

But Jesse just looked at him kind of blankly. "Well, what can I do? You tell me."

"You just sent an innocent kid to be forever poked by piping-hot pitchforks! I think acting like you give a damn might be a good start, mate."

"He's not that innocent."

"What?"

"You know about Eugene and Tracy Loach?" Jesse said, that self-righteous tone seeping back into his voice. "Tracy Loach was prom queen, rodeo queen queen of everything. Everyone loved her. Eugene loved her, too. One day, he gets the courage to confess his love, and she rejects him. Now, any normal kid would sulk, nurse his broken heart, let it go. Not Eugene. Eugene got a shotgun, put it to her head, and blew half her head off. Once that was done, he turned the gun on himself. So Eugene is not that innocent."

Cassidy was skeptical. Small towns have a bad habit of twisting the truth, and he couldn't believe that Eugene was capable of something like that.

"So, he deserves it," he scoffed. "Is that what you're sayin'?"

"I'm sayin' better men than Eugene Root have been cast down. Much better men."

Cassidy shook his head. "No, Jesse, this Genesis thing, it's really playin' with your head. An' those English boys, they're right. We've got to give this thing back--"

"I'm not givin' it back," Jesse insisted. "Not part of the plan."

"Oh, for-- There is no plan!" Cassidy yelled. "There's no plan! You've lost control of this thing! All right? Fer Christ's sake, you've sent an innocent kid to Hell!"

"How can you say there's no plan, Cassidy?" Jesse said, eerily calm about all of this, and Cassidy groaned with frustration. "Angels, Heaven, and Hell -- you've seen it. You've seen it's real. It's real, and it has a reason."

"Look, I'm not saying--"

"And it's God's plan." Jesse strode out of the shade and into the sunshine, as if delivering a sermon from on high. "If His reason, if His judgment, is to send one more sinner, one more lost soul into the fire, what can I do? Except stand aside and watch him burn."

Really. Really? Cassidy, fuming, stayed where he was. This was bullshit. He knew that Jesse was better than this.

"Tulip was right about you, y'know," he muttered.

Jesse pulled a face and snorted. "Tulip. What do you know about Tulip?"

"Never mind." Now was not the time. "What about me? I'm no innocent, either." Cassidy stepped closer, further toward the edge of the shadows. "I'm a lazy, lying, self-obsessed, drug-abusing, cheating fornicator with a filthy mouth and no ambition. An' I think your God, if he really does exist, is not more than a stocious muppet who smells his own farts!"

Closer and closer to the edge he came.

"An' that's not the worst of my sins, neither, Preacher. Not by a long shot."

He tossed the fire extinguisher toward Jesse, and it landed in the dirt.

"What's this for?" Jesse asked, bewildered, resting a boot on it.

"It's for me, Padre."

Cassidy shed his hoodie, and pulled his t-shirt off, exposing his bare skin.

"Or will you let me burn, too?"

Gritting his teeth, he stepped out of the shade -- and the moment the hot, Texas sunlight touched him, his skin blistered and boiled and burned, and screaming in agony, he fell in a flaming heap Jesse's feet.

When Cassidy strolled out of the strip club after last call, saying goodnight to some of the dancers who were leaving (they really were wholesome girls), he was surpised, to say the least, to see a plum-colored Chevrolet Chevelle parked outside. And there was Tulip, leaning against its hood.

"You found the hardware store," she drawled. Dryly.

Cassidy huffed a sheepish chuckle as he approached. "I, uh, took the scenic route."

"Got you a present." Tulip pulled a prescription bottle out of her jacket pocket and held it up for him to take.

Even more surprising! Cassidy plucked the bottle from her fingers and turned it to read the label under the glow of the strip club's sign. Amphetamines. The good kind, at a high dose.

"Oh, lassie, that's so sweet," he said with a grin, not even thinking to ask her where or how she got them. "Are we going steady now?" He was half-joking.

"Even better," she said, looking right up at him, the faintest of smirks on her ruby red lips. "We're in love."

Two minutes later, they were in the backseat of the Chevelle. It rocked on its axles and the windows had fogged up.

And Cassidy was so high that he never noticed, as he made love to her from behind, Tulip's doe-eyed thousand-yard-stare.

***

Tulip drove off into the night.

Cassidy stood by the side of the road and blissfully waved at her as the car's headlights faded into pinpoints in the darkness.

Time to go home. He took the van back to the church. It was very late, almost morning, really, but he thought that maybe Jesse would be up. It wasn't as if he kept regular hours either, usually brooding around somewhere. And besides, he still had to talk to him about the angels.

Cassidy wandered through the chapel and then the rectory. Everything was eerily still, dark, and quiet. Not a soul to be found.

Where was Jesse?

Okay, now he was concerned.

Maybe the angels got him.

He popped a couple more pills and grabbed a hooded jacket, pulling it on. The sun would be up in a couple of hours, and if he was going to be out looking for Jesse, he didn't want to be caught in dawn's early light.

He opened the door that led back out to the church, but instead stepped into Milliways.