Chapter Text
Micah awakes to intense, pounding pain in his head. The pain radiates from a spot on the back of his head, the skin there pulled disgustingly tight. He recognizes the unpleasant sensation as stitches in his skin (Micah has had stitches done many times, and always detested the way the sutures stretch his skin a bit too tight), but Micah has no memory of having stitches in the back of his head. But more importantly than that, Micah finds himself curled up on his side under a blanket on a soft surface that may be an actual bed, with his thumb in his mouth.
“Get your thumb outta your mouth, boy!”
Without thinking, a pure reflex taking over, Micah tugs his thumb out of his mouth with such force the action jars his aching head. But he doesn’t care, more focused on stopping himself indulging in such a humiliating, childish habit.
“You’re pathetic. Why’d I give my name to such a moronic little freak!?”
Micah clenches a fist around his spit-covered thumb, memories of his father’s furious voice swirling around his groggy brain. His father didn’t mind the thumb-sucking when he was very young, but when Micah still did it at ten years old, his father took to hitting him whenever he caught Micah doing it.
So why, after almost thirty years since he last sucked his thumb, did Micah awake with it in his mouth?
Did anyone see?
Where even is he?
Micah’s eyes snap open, immediately greeted by severe double vision. He grimaces, the headache getting worse, and squints hard. After several seconds of intense squinting, the two images merge back into one, but his head aches worse than ever. Bringing a trembling hand up to his head, Micah’s fingertips graze layered fabric pinning his hair to his head; it must be a bandage.
His confusion building, Micah grasps the edges of the bed, attempting to sit up. Micah moans, becoming horribly lightheaded as he wobbles on the spot, his vision distorting again. Somehow, he manages not to faint, panting for breath as he sits up with his feet over the edge, eyes screwed up to stop the nauseating double vision. Even with his eyes shut, the world seems to spin around him, and his stomach churns.
Once the dizziness calms down, Micah risks opening his eyes. He has to force his vision back into focus again, but once he can see only one of everything, Micah does his best to study his surroundings. He tries to move only his eyes, keeping his head as still as possible, noticing he sits on a bed inside a tent. He hears familiar voices in the distance, talking and arguing, so he must be in camp right now. But this certainly isn’t Micah’s tent (he hasn’t pitched that tent in weeks, and never in the Van der Linde gang camp), so where is he?
He catches sight of a few items on the bedside table, and his aching mind remembers seeing them before. Yes, whenever he would pick up some new revolver ammo at the wagon beside Arthur’s bed, Micah saw those same objects (a book, a flower in a jar and a framed photograph). So… this is Arthur’s tent?
But why the hell did Micah awake inside Arthur Morgan’s tent? Did they get drunk and fuck or something? Micah’s theory gets stronger when he glances down and realizes he wears a different outfit—a set of clothes he hasn’t taken off his saddle since they were back at Horseshoe Overlook—but Micah never gets so drunk to forget ever drinking in the first place. And as much as his head hurts, this doesn’t feel like a hangover.
Curiosity overrides his reluctance to move and risk fainting, so Micah climbs out of bed. Standing up takes far more effort than usual, and Micah’s legs wobble under him. He stumbles a little, horribly unsteady, and the tent warps around him. The headache intensifies, pounding in time to his racing heart.
His shaking hands struggle with the tent flap, but Micah finally gets it open. He pulls it up and looks outside, screwing his eyes up when he gets assaulted by the painfully bright morning sunlight. Micah’s hand flies to his head, attempting to do what he always does when the sun bothers him and tilt the brim of his hat, but his fingers grasp nothing but air. Where did his hat go?
Just like when he was a child, before he had the choice to buy a hat with a massive brim to keep the sun out of his eyes (and give him an excuse to avoid eye contact whenever possible), Micah has no choice but to slowly open his eyes and force himself to adjust to the brightness. Once his eyes no longer feel like they’re bleeding, he blinks and steps out of the tent.
And there, sat in a chair right outside, is Arthur Morgan. He sips a cup of coffee (coffee never bothers Micah, but his guts keep churning, and right now the smell makes him want to throw up), his closed journal resting in his lap.
“M-Morgan?” Micah says, hating how pathetically weak and shaky his voice sounds.
Arthur’s head snaps up to look at him, jumping to his feet so fast he almost drops his coffee. “Hey, you’re awake,” Arthur says, his voice weirdly kind, almost like how he talks to Jack or that goddamn dog. “Feelin’ okay today?”
Micah finds himself torn between punching Arthur around the face for patronizing him, or smacking himself for how his chest twists pathetically at the sound of Arthur Morgan being kind to him for the first time since they met. He doesn’t do either, but he wants to stab himself, hating how he has always secretly wished for Arthur to respect him.
“What?” Micah finally says.
Arthur frowns, studying him before his eyes widen. “Oh, are you back with us, Micah?” he asks.
“Back with… what?” Micah splutters, wondering if Arthur is drunk. “Cowpoke, why’d I wake up in there?”
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” Arthur says, chuckling. He points at the chair he just sat on, adding, “C’mon, you better sit down. I’ve got lots to tell you.”
Micah frowns at him, now wondering if Arthur is on drugs instead. “Uh, I’d rather stand.”
“Sure, but you look like you’re ‘bout to faint. So sit before you fall, you stubborn prick.”
Micah takes a step forwards, planning to grab Arthur by his collar and tell him to fuck off. But to his humiliation, he stumbles, Clemens Point blurring around him, and nausea flips in his stomach. Unable to resist when Arthur grabs his arm (his arm prickles through his shirt; being touched without warning always feels like their hand burns his skin, but Micah has long gotten used to hiding a flinch of discomfort), Micah finds himself carefully pushed into the seat. He swallows back saliva, dark spots popping before his eyes.
When he finally opens his eyes, Arthur has found another chair and sits a couple of feet away, leaning forwards in his seat. Micah has never liked being looked at, and without his hat he can’t hide his face. He wants nothing more than to storm off and escape this embarrassment, but as he just found out, Micah can barely stand upright without fainting. So he has no choice but to sit there, awkwardly avoiding Arthur’s gaze and longing for the headache to cease.
“So… what the hell’s goin’ on, Cowpoke?” Micah says, noticing Jack staring at him from near the chuckwagon. To his utter confusion, when the kid meets Micah’s eyes (it hurts—it always hurts—but Micah long ago learned to fight the discomfort and maintain eye contact rather than breaking it and looking cowardly), Jack waves and smiles. Micah doesn’t smile back (that would be pathetic), but he can’t be bothered to scowl at the kid either.
“Well, uh…” Arthur clears his throat. “Better start from the beginnin’. What’s the last thing you remember before wakin’ up?”
Despite hating being told what to do, Micah thinks hard, trying to piece his memories together. Everything feels fuzzy, but he distinctly remembers… riding on a wagon with… oh yeah, it was Lenny.
“Dutch sent me and Lenny to steal weapons…” Micah says, remembering how he complained about being sent with Lenny, who complained just as much, but Dutch told them to quit moaning and do it already. “It went fine. We was ridin’ the stolen wagon back to camp, with me drivin’, and…” He grits his jaw, thinking so hard it feels like his skull will burst, but Micah can’t remember what happened next. “I was talkin’ to the kid, and… then I woke up.”
“So you don’t remember the accident? Interestin’…” Arthur says. He turns his head and waves in the direction of Lenny, who sits at the nearest table, reading a book. “Oi, Lenny!” he calls, putting on an exaggerated drunken slur and smiling to himself.
Lenny spins around in his seat, staring at Arthur. He squints in the sunlight, eyes widening when he notices Micah sat beside him. “Oh, he’s awake,” he says, his subdued tone still the happiest Micah has ever heard Lenny when talking about Micah.
“Mind tellin’ Micah about his injury?” Arthur asks, gesturing for Lenny to come closer.
Lenny gets up and wanders over, allowing him and Arthur to stop yelling at each other across camp (behavior which doesn’t do Micah’s headache any good). His voice at a normal volume, Lenny says, “So are you yourself again, Micah?”
“Shit, will everyone quit sayin’ that?!” Micah snaps, folding his arms.
As though Micah didn’t say anything, Arthur says, “Yeah, he is. But he don’t remember anythin’ after you two talkin’ on your ride back to camp.”
“I see…” Lenny says. “Well, uh, outta nowhere, a shot rang out and the ground beneath our wagon exploded; I think someone shot dynamite on the road. Naturally, we went flying. I landed on my ass and was okay, so I took out the Lemoyne Raiders who ambushed us. But I found you out cold at the roadside, bleeding from a wound on the back of your head.”
Micah resists the urge to poke the back of his head, simply focusing his gaze in Lenny’s general direction. “And… when’d that happen?”
“Just after midday, I think,” Lenny says.
“And the time now…?”
Arthur pulls out a pocket watch, pressing a button to study the clock face. “Half six in the mornin’.”
“So I was out for…” Micah hesitates, trying to work it out in his head. “Eighteen hours? Shit…”
“No, you were only out for ten minutes,” Lenny says. “I got you onto Baylock and rushed back to camp.”
“Until you went to bed last night, you were awake nearly all the time,” Arthur says. “You were talkin’ and even walked around.”
Micah stares at Arthur, dread starting to pool in the pit of his stomach. He spent hours conscious but remembers nothing of that time. Fuck, he hopes he didn’t do anything weird. Or embarrassing.
He doesn’t want to ask, but Micah must find out what he did yesterday. “What’d I… do, Morgan?”
Arthur and Lenny exchange a glance. The dread intensifies, his guts cramping.
“Well, let’s just say you weren’t yourself,” Arthur says with an awkward smile.
“No, you fuckin’ tell me what happened,” Micah snaps, his voice hoarse. For the first time, he realizes his throat is a little sore. He dreads to think why.
“Okay, look, Susan said she’s seen it happen before. People actin’ weird after a bang to the head, I mean. It doesn’t mean nothin’.”
Micah glares at him, detesting how Arthur’s attempts at softening the blow just make his nerves grow. “You think you’re reassurin’ me, but you really ain’t! Just tell me properly, Arthur.”
Arthur sighs. “Fine. So… pretty much the only thing you remembered was your own name. Where camp is, our names, even Baylock… none of that stuff came to you. You didn’t remember anythin’ we told you, either; I must’ve introduced myself as Arthur Morgan four or five times.”
Attempting to disguise his embarrassment, Micah snorts. “Is that it?”
“Nope,” Arthur says. Micah wants to scream; he feared that was the case. “You cried a lot—”
“Bullshit!” Micah says.
“No, you did. You also threw up twice. First time on Charles, second time on yourself. That’s why you’re in different clothes.”
Micah trembles, still wanting to punch him. How fucking dare Morgan suggest he acted so pathetically. One thing stands out, however. “Why’d Smith get close enough to be thrown up on?” he asks. After all, Charles hates Micah, and the only time he got within six feet of him, Charles threw Micah to the ground.
“He was lookin’ after you,” Arthur says.
Puzzled, Micah splutters out, “But… why?”
Why would Charles look after Micah? If Micah was truly in such a state, why wouldn’t Charles get revenge for all the shit Micah throws at him and just kill him?
“You needed someone to watch you at all times. We tried leavin’ you alone to sleep off the morphine—”
“What?” Micah says.
“When Susan stitched your head up, Swanson gave you somethin’ for the pain,” Arthur explains. “Anyway, you were supposed to be restin’, but you kept forgettin’ you’d been given bedrest and wanderin’ off. After I found you down by the lake, we put someone on ‘Micah Watch’. At the point you were sick on him, Charles was watchin’ you.”
“If I remember, he volunteered,” Lenny says. “Said he’d spend the time makin’ arrows or something.”
“And… if I’m to believe your bullshit, I… vomited on him?” Micah says, still in denial that he spent yesterday dazed, sobbing and vomiting everywhere. He touches his neck, understanding why his throat aches. “And… the second time?”
“Oh, that’ll take some more explainin’,” Arthur says.
Micah points at his injured head, struggling to raise his eyebrows with the bandage around his forehead. “I’ve got all day, Morgan.”
Arthur sighs. “Okay, so… you were playin’ with Jack when—”
“S’cuse me?” Micah says, that whole sentence so baffling he doesn’t even raise his voice. “I was playin’ with the kid, who don’t like me any more than I like him? You ain’t doing much to convince me this ain’t a lie, Cowpoke.”
“I keep tellin’ you it ain’t a lie, Micah, you’re just in denial. One time you wandered, you started talkin’ with Jack, and… You know what, it’ll be easier if I just… JACKIE-BOY, you busy?!” He suddenly yells, getting the boy’s attention.
Jack scrabbles to his feet, hurrying over, and Micah groans. The last thing he needs right now is that goddamn brat talking to him. But, again, he can’t exactly run away.
“Yeah, Uncle Arthur?” Jack says. He glances at Micah, still far too friendly.
“Micah’s feelin’ better, but he don’t remember anythin’ from yesterday,” Arthur says, his tone as gentle as always when talking to Marston’s kid. “Mind tellin’ him about when you played?”
“Um, sure, okay.” He turns to face Micah, so short Jack needs to look up at his face despite Micah being sat down. “Okay, so… I was drawing in the dirt. You came over and I was scared you’d fall over, so I said ‘wanna play with me?’ and you said ‘okay’ and sat down.”
“And why the fu— hell would I do that?” Micah says, resisting the urge to swear at Jack (the last time he did, Abigail smacked him; as funny as it was, Micah’s head can’t deal with that today).
“I dunno,” Jack says, taking a step closer to Arthur as Micah glares at him. “Think you said you were bored. I gave you a stick and you drew in the dirt with me.”
“What’d you draw?” Lenny asks, and Micah wonders if he spoke up to reassure Jack.
“Me? I tried to draw Cain. Micah drew this—” Jack points with one finger, miming a figure-of-eight pattern in the air. “—over and over.”
Micah clenches his jaw. His whole life, he has found weird satisfaction in repeating things, something that manifested in childhood as spinning on the spot, humming to himself or, yes, tracing the same patterns in the air or dirt again and again. He obviously snapped out of such moronic behaviors upon growing up—but for entirely unrelated reasons, adult Micah finds satisfaction in cleaning his weapons and twirling, holstering and generally showing off with his revolvers for sometimes hours at a time.
“Okay, gettin’ back on track…” Micah drawls, just longing for this conversation to be over already. “How is me drawin’ in the dirt with the kid related to throwin’ up down myself?”
“Um… Pa saw us playing and got real mad at you,” Jack says, clasping his hands together.
“Understandable, given the whole ‘I’ll give you a dollar’ business you pulled,” Arthur says, shooting Micah a glare. “Hey, Lenny, could you go do somethin’ with Jack? He’s probably told Micah all he needs.”
“Oh, um, okay,” Lenny says, offering the kid his hand. As Arthur thanks Jack, the brat takes Lenny’s hand and Lenny leads him across camp, asking Jack if he wants to play a game.
“Sooo,” Micah says once he and Arthur are alone again (well, as alone as they can be in camp). “Marston thought I was bullyin’ the kid and…”
“He pushed you. You fell over, banged your head and cried out in pain. Which is when I heard the commotion and rushed over to find you curled in a ball at John’s feet, sobbin’ as—”
“Why d’you keep sayin’ that, Morgan?” Micah snaps. “Just tryin’ to piss me off? ‘Cause it’s workin’.”
“For the last time, Micah, I ain’t lyin’ to you,” Arthur says, sighing. “Susan said weird stuff like that sometimes happens. It’s totally outta your control, though. I’m not sayin’ you’d normally cry your eyes out, just that your brain got its emotions all scrambled after you hit your head. Quit bein’ so defensive, for Christ’s sake.”
Micah scoffs, folding his arms across his chest. “Well how am I supposed to react, exactly, to learnin’ I spent yesterday actin’ like a goddamn freak in front of everyone?”
Arthur chuckles weakly. “Okay, fair point.”
“So… after Marston pushed me down…?”
“Yeah, you threw up all over yourself. John helped you wash up and change your—”
Micah flinches like someone slapped him, the jolt making camp spin again, but he doesn’t care. “Wait wait wait, you’re tellin’ me he took my fuckin’ clothes off?!”
“Well, more like he helped you take your own clothes off,” Arthur says. “But, yeah, Marston felt bad for makin’ you sick, so he volunteered to ‘supervise’ you down by the lake. From how red his face was when you came back, though, I don’t think he enjoyed it.”
“Oh, you’ve got no idea how awkward it was,” John says, walking towards them through the gap between Dutch and Arthur’s tents from the direction of the lake.
Micah manages not to flinch, by this point expecting that everyone and his wife will join in this fucking conversation, but Arthur jumps out of his skin.
“Jesus Christ, Marston!” Arthur gasps. John laughs and even Micah smirks.
“Sorry, sorry, I just felt my ears burnin’,” John says. “Why’re you tellin’ him everythin’ like he wasn’t there?”
“Because I don’t remember it, dumbass,” Micah hisses.
John smiles, unfazed by Micah’s tone. “Really?”
“Yep, nothin’ since the accident until he woke up,” Arthur says. “John, you tell Micah how little fun you had by the lake with him.”
“Well, I kept my back to you as much as I could, just listenin’ in case you fell over. You needed help puttin’ your pants on, but I averted my eyes. Look, I saw your dick, but I didn’t wanna stare at it!” John says, somehow more embarrassed than Micah.
Arthur laughs, slapping John on the back. “Smooth as always, Marston.”
“Shut it, Arthur,” John snaps, his face bright red. “And if you wore a union suit, Bell, I wouldn’t have seen so much, so…”
“Oh yeah, it’s my fault for not wearin’ one of those disgustin’ things, not yours for makin’ me throw up to begin with. Got it,” Micah says, again trying and failing to raise his eyebrows. He wishes he didn’t just admit to hating union suits so much, hoping they don’t question why he never wears them; Micah doesn’t want to explain that every union suit he’s ever owned was disgustingly scratchy and rubbed against his body hair in a way that made his skin hurt.
“Fuck you,” John says. “At least I helped you. Had to fasten the buttons on your vest too. And then hold your arm whilst you wobbled and stumbled back to camp.”
“Yes, yes, you’re a true hero,” Micah mutters. “So, any other ways I made a fool of myself yesterday, or…”
“You didn’t make a fool of yourself, Micah,” Arthur says, his expression weirdly gentle. “But, no, I think that’s about it. You went to bed not long after and slept straight through the night.”
“Oh yeah… still never explained why I was in your tent, have you?” Micah says, still genuinely curious as to why he awoke in Arthur Morgan’s bed.
“Well, you needed somewhere to sleep, and you’d taken Dutch’s tent all day, so we thought he deserved his bed back.” Arthur glances at John, waving as John walks off to continue his chores. “And I’ve got a comfy bed, so… I gave it to you.”
Micah frowns (also difficult with the bandage across his forehead), increasingly curious why everyone went to such lengths to look after a broken mess like he was yesterday. “And where did you sleep?”
“The floor.” He chuckles. “We had almost the same conversation last night.”
“And… I didn’t do anythin’ weird in my sleep, did I?” Micah asks, bitterly aware of his tendency to have humiliating nightmares whenever he sleeps.
“Nope, you were rather peaceful. Curled up and sucked your thumb all…”
Micah freezes, tuning out whatever else Arthur says. Nausea churns his stomach, his heart beating so fast he feels it pounding in his neck.
“I see that thumb in your mouth again, boy, I’ll squash it till your bones break.”
“Stop suckin’ your thumb like a freakin’ baby.”
“You’re a Bell. Quit sittin’ there with your thumb in your stupid mouth, you freak!”
Oh, fuck, that’s why he woke with his thumb in his mouth. Because he fell asleep like that. In front of Arthur.
Before he can remember how dizzy he gets when moving, Micah jumps to his feet. “Shut the fuck up, Morgan! There’s no way I did that! I ain’t a freak, you lyin’…” Micah wobbles, the ground swaying beneath him as two Arthurs flicker before his blurry eyes, and as Arthur steps forwards to grab Micah, he finally snaps.
Sick of the patronizing sympathy (“Sympathy is for the weak.”) and sick of his body failing him, too dizzy and flustered to remember that Dutch really doesn’t like murders in camp, Micah lunges for his guns, genuinely trying to shoot Arthur to stop him talking about Micah’s pathetic behavior. But his hands don’t locate his revolvers or even his gunbelt (he needs his guns, he hates being separated from them, he doesn’t feel whole without them and now someone’s stolen them, and this is like Strawberry all over again), and Micah’s voice screeches infuriatingly as he yells, “Who took my fuckin’ guns!?”
Everything warps and swirls, so many voices echoing in his ears, he staggers and stumbles, his legs boneless beneath him, hands grab his arms, burning his skin, his head pounds, he retches but somehow holds back vomit, and the whole time Micah rambles and shouts for everyone to leave him alone. Someone pushes him into his chair, a hand on his back encouraging him to lean forwards until his head is almost between his knees. Their hand burns his skin but he can’t shove them away; right now, Micah doesn’t even know what way is up. He’s so dizzy. He wants to be sick. He wants to shoot everyone here to stop them telling the world how pathetic he is, but Micah doubts he can shoot straight with his head so messed up.
“Will you all stop crowding him?!” From somewhere far away, his voice distorted like Micah is underwater, Micah hears Hosea speak. “Get back, c’mon. This ain’t a show.”
The cacophony of voices starts to fade, the rest of the gang obviously obeying Hosea and stepping back. Micah opens his eyes, but all he sees is the grass beneath him, the nauseating double vision giving him two pairs of feet. His head screams with pain, his skull feeling as though someone slowly hammers a nail into the throbbing wound.
He heaves for shuddering breaths, desperately fighting the urge to faint, and his own voice sounds so distant as he says, “Why didn’t he leave me… by the road? Why’d you look, look after me? Why didn’t y-you kill me when you had the chance? You all hate me… anyway, so why didn’t you take me out when… when I was so weak and vul-vulnerable? Don’t you idiots know… sympathy is for the weak? So why—?”
“For better or worse, you’re part of this gang, Micah,” Arthur says, cutting off Micah’s slurred rant. “And that’s what we do. We look after each other. We help each other out. And it don’t matter how we feel about you; if you’re one of us, we’ll always have your back. And I don’t care what your father said, it ain’t weak to show sympathy.”
Micah flinches, his head pounding even harder. So Arthur heard him when Micah went off by the campfire, ranting about his father and his teachings, teachings that are burned into Micah’s brain whether he wants to remember them or not.
He doesn’t know how to respond. Arthur’s words sound so pathetically naïve to him (being around others limits survival chances in Micah’s experience, because others make mistakes or die or betray you or run off to California with their wives and leave you all alone), but Micah remembers how weird his chest felt when Arthur was so nice to him, or how Arthur insisted Micah didn’t make a fool of himself, or how Hosea stepped in to give Micah some privacy.
Maybe, just maybe, Micah should try opening up to the gang more. It will probably bite him in the ass, but… if the result of his head injury has taught him anything, perhaps it isn’t bad to rely on others. Especially when those people amazingly don’t mock him for acting like such a moron, and support him through his most vulnerable moments.
And against his better judgment, part of him… wants to have that support again.