Chapter Text
That slim old man comes up to him.
The slim old man -- he wasn't like Dutch. Far as he's seen, he's another leader, but so different from Dutch, from Colm, from anyone he'd ever seen wield power.
Dutch -- Dutch was boisterous, charismatic. Almost a showman. He'd felt it, the way he'd spoken before, condemning Kieran to that meager hut, barely warm. How he would arrive while Bill loomed over him, voice way too close to the tone Colm would take when he would discover his boys wrecking Kieran, pause them like he was going to stop them, and then just order the violence to continue.
This man -- Hosea -- was different. This man had power -- people listened to what he said, and his word was absolute, but he never used it just to show he had it. The women in camp were always flagging him down to talk about anything, even things Kieran thinks are pointless. The kind of things you talk to yourself about because no one else cared. Hosea listened.
The mother -- Abigail? -- could leave her son with him. The kid trusted him, would teeter-run over shouting "Uncle Hosea!" and jumping into the awaiting arms, while Hosea would groan and say, "Little prince, you're going to break this old man's bones!" and yet would always welcome the kid into his arms.
He was kind, and steadfast, and predictable.
Hosea comes over and unties him from the tree.
Something dumb and primal in him tells him to run, but the simple, open look that man gives him keeps him still.
"Well, I'm sorry I couldn't get to you earlier, son," he says quietly, a smile on his face, "But do you mind coming with me so our doctor can examine you?"
He doesn't reply, not immediately. Couldn't. Wouldn't. Even if he objects -- and maybe he does, maybe he should after all the things he got back in the O'Driscoll's that were "examinations," all the things they put in him as jokes and as degradation and as punishment.
"Please don't hurt me," he whimpers. He hates the sound of his voice. That grating sound. But there is no eloquence in the face of blind fear. It's all he can think to say.
"I won't do any such thing," Hosea says. He hovers a hand just above Kieran's freed forearm. "Can I touch you, gently?"
Kieran swallows. He's not sure he knows that word anymore.
When he doesn't respond, Hosea just straightens again after a moment, and takes a step back. "Alright," he says, smiling a little, "If you feel well enough, just follow me."
Hosea takes a step forwards.
His legs feel like a foal's, weak and trembling and sweaty. He's been standing nonstop since they got to this camp. It feels like the last time he wasn't standing was in the shed with Bill -
Bill. Where is he, in camp, now? Is he near?
Bill could have been an O'Driscoll in another life, the way he'd grabbed and forced and shoved Kieran around. Bill, whose torture took a weird edge, an edge he knew and was familiar with, cruel and somehow lustful.
Still, Kieran manages to step again towards Hosea.
And so it goes, slowly. The man walks forward, Kieran follows. When his legs nearly buckle under, the weakness in his legs searing brightly, the man holds his hands out, like he was going to catch Kieran if he fell. But still he doesn't touch.
They get to a tent. It's bigger than some of them -- about the size of a wagon. Inside is a cot, some chest-of-drawers, and a long table with medicine bottles on it.
A doctor's tent.
He hasn't seen a doctor in a long time.
"If you want, you could sit. Do you want a chair? I'd imagine you're pretty tired," Hosea says.
Funny how those words could just be mocking, if anyone else said it. Even if someone like Dutch said them. But the old man seems to mean it.
So- quietly, Kieran manages to say, "Yes, please, sir."
"Sure," he says, and takes a chair from the corner of the room, letting Kieran get in as well as he can with all the pain. It isn't so bad, but when he folds like this, it's a lot worse. Kieran's breath leaves him.
The man leans against the table, quietly looking at the bottles with idle interest. "Orville should be in soon. I let him know you were coming yesterday, so he's hopefully sober."
The tent is quiet. Despite the ache in his ribs, sitting is better. He's still and hungry and thirsty too, will have to relieve himself sometime soon, but sitting is worlds better than standing on his creaky legs.
The doctor comes in. On his head is a bright shock of carroty hair, streaked with silver-gray. On his lip is a bushy but tamed mustache. And on his neck is a clerical collar.
Oh no.
Nope, nope, nope nope. No. No way in hell. Not another priest. Not another one who would look at his injuries and dismiss him and say that he deserved them all -- "Young Kieran, if you'd simply have done what your mother asks she would not beat you. Pay respect to your mother and father for they are like the Lord unto you."
No. No no no.
Hosea looks at him, furrows his brows a little. Kieran does not move, even though his heart is pounding and his breathing had doubled. It's nearly audible now, and he's trying to stifle down the sounds - "Young Kieran, do not breathe like that in the confessional."
"Oh, Jesus," the priest says, "Hosea, what have they been doing to this kid?"
...?
That voice is different. It's very different. Rough, and gravelly.
Not the voice of a priest.
The priest-doctor takes off his outer coat, and rolls up his sleeves until they are over his elbows. Hosea asks, "Anything you need help with?"
"Uh, yes -- Just like you've done with -- uh, our mutual friend," the priest-doctor says.
He runs his fingers through his coppery-silvery hair and musses it before turning back and kneeling in front of the chair Kieran is in.
"Um, hello. What- What's your name, kid?"
His voice is kind of rough and raspy, with a strange stilted rhythm. He just kneels there, though, hands carefully in his lap, leaning into Kieran a little, close enough to be friendly but not close enough to make Kieran any antsier.
"Uh- Kieran. Kieran Duffy."
He nods, a little, then puts his hand on his chest. "Hello, Kieran. Um, my name is Orville. Swanson to a few. Reverend to others."
"...Catholic?" Kieran wagers. Hates the way his voice warbles over the syllables.
"Um, yes, formerly. Still," Orville screws up his brows, "Ah, these days I'm... uh. Let's not get into that."
Hosea, behind him, crosses his arms and laughs quietly.
"Don't- don't tease me, Hosea."
"I wasn't teasing you, you big lummox," Hosea says, totally light.
"Um, now, Kieran - We'd like to, uh, examine you, er, no, we'd like to look you over. Um, this might seem... a bit silly, seeing as you'll be tied up for a bit longer, at least until - well- Hosea?"
Hosea comes over, standing at Orville's shoulder, his slim fingers resting there. Kieran kind of likes the way Orville looks up at Hosea, like prayer, with a loose smile.
"What the Reverend is trying to say is that -- we're keeping you here. And so we'd rather not have you die of something preventable. So the Reverend here is going to look you over, make sure you aren't dying, okay?"
?
Kieran knits up his brows.
"Oh, um-" the Reverend stutters, "You could say no. I wouldn't but, uh-"
"Okay," Kieran says.
It's maybe the first time anyone's... cared. The first time someone gave him a real choice, didn't just expect him to go with the one they wanted. When Colm asked, there wasn't a choice. It was like Option A was being shoved in his face, and Option B was sitting in the middle of a bear trap.
The Reverend stands, offers his hands to Kieran.
He takes them, and likes the rough-hewn way they are, how gentle the Reverend's hold is despite it.
"Um, so- You'll lie down on this cot -- if it's comfortable. I can get you some pillows to prop you up- Hosea was telling me you've been wheezing so I think maybe the ride with Arthur might have fractured your ribs. Hosea?"
Hosea is already there with some pillows, big ones with fringe borders. Hosea sets them down at the head of the cot and spreads a clean blanket underneath.
"Oh, your legs, too, huh?" Orville says, when they walk over together, Kieran's hands in his, "No, I take that back - You look like everything's in pain."
He hadn't considered it. He hasn't considered it. The amount of pain he was in -- as long as he could move, it was okay. As long as he could breathe, it was okay. As long as no one noticed-
Orville and Hosea help him down onto the cot, and a burst of pain shatters along his side like a beer bottle smashed against his head. He gasps, loud, and the two men stop in their tracks.
"Can you keep going, son?" Hosea says, the three of them in a weird pose, Kieran clutching up, holding himself at an angle with his stomach muscles, the two men trying to support him down, their hands on his back.
"Yes," he chokes, and they help him lay down fully.
"Easy, easy... you're doing great, son," Hosea says. His voice is soft, ground down with age, but- reassuring.
He manages to lay down. The pillows are firm, and it's not too painful to lie back like this.
"Hosea-- if you could?"
"Sure," he says, and sits beside the cot on the far side, "Do you mind if I talk to you while Orville looks, Kieran?"
"Uh-" Kieran says. Again, a phrase that, if it weren't coming from this pleasant old man, would sound terrifying. His mind screams this is just a trick, to get you to talk, it's more torture- "Okay. Just- please don't hurt me."
The reverend bends, pulling over a short stool and sitting. "I'm a doctor, even if I run with a gang. I won't."
His hands -- broad with stocky fingers -- very gently press along Kieran's skin, on the arms. Hosea relaxes back -- he looks like he's sitting for a picnic, not keeping eye on a prisoner, on a broken up boy.
"Duffy was your family name, wasn't it?" He asks, watching Orville work, "Are you Irish?"
"Um," Kieran says, "My- uh, my parents were, yes."
"Do you speak Irish?"
"Sometimes," he says.
"That's great," he smiles, "Good to keep those languages going. Orville here speaks some Scots."
"Only a little," the reverend says, his fingers trailing down to the divots along Kieran's collarbones, a frown creasing his face, "And only under influence of alcohol."
"You spoke Scots to us back when you were fixing up Dutch on that train," Hosea chimes.
Orville's hands come up to his neck, and Kieran shudders out a gasp. The image of Colm shatters along his eyelids, painful. Orville's hands come away -- and don't come back, instead gently touching his face. "It's a strange bastard of a language. Best fit to myself, I guess."
He presses against Kieran's cheekbone, his browbone, feels the uneven slope of his nose. The frown only gets deeper.
"What do you like, Kieran?" Hosea says.
"Uh, what do you mean, sir?"
"Oh, I mean things like -- well, I like playing chess, and I like to go fishing, and-"
"Oh, I like fishing. Um. Used to go fishing often. My- it was one of the ways I was useful to my family. That and- horses."
"Horses?"
"Yessir," Kieran mumbles. Most folks made fun of him for liking horses enough. The O'Driscolls... the O'Driscolls had nearly... They'd take it to mean "like" in the way they "liked" women. They had nearly- a foal-
"You like horses?" Hosea says, a broad grin creeping along his face. Hosea's slim hand comes to rest on Kieran's shoulder, so light. "Do you- like taking care of them?"
Oh.
"Yes, I do- I love cleaning them, feeding them- I know a lot about medicines for them-"
Hosea grins wildly. "Oh, I like him," he says to Orville, who is now smiling along with him, as he feels along Kieran's scalp.
Kieran feels a heat flush into his cheeks. And it's the first time it hasn't been accompanied by that low-burning, post-vomit feeling in his throat.
"We have a lot of horses. I'm sure you noticed," Hosea says.
"I did..."
"About all of us have our own horses. And they're usually one-person horses."
"Oh, I love one-person horses," Kieran says, smiling, "Colm's stallion is so fussy -- it's funny."
"Once you're hale enough, and if Dutch agrees with me, could you take care of them?"
Orville's hands are on his ribs now, where most of the pain is. But even when he presses down on the places that feels most painful, Kieran can't contain his excitement and yelps, "Yes, please!"
Orville's frown has returned, with a vengeance. Kieran notices even as he's excitedly talking to Hosea about Branwen, how he helped birth her almost right as Colm found him, left for dead by the side of the road. How her dam had been so so pregnant, she really shouldn't have even been walking with the caravan-
The deeper the furrow in Orville's brows get, the quieter and quieter Kieran gets, until he falls silent.
Orville looks up, furrow clearing. "You stopped talking," he says.
"Oh," Kieran warbles, looking anywhere but his intense eyes. "Um, sorry. I'm too talkative- I should shut up-"
"Are you alright? It hurts that much?" Orville says, lifting his hands off the curve of Kieran's ribs.
"Uh- it's okay, that was normal... no, you were getting annoyed-"
"That was normal?" Orville says, lowly.
He said something wrong. He said absolutely the wrong thing. This was going to get him more hurt, he knows it. He stifles back his breathing again, not ready for those broad, flat hands to hit him.
"Hey, hey," Hosea says, his slim fingers returning to Kieran's shoulder. "Keep breathing. We don't want you passing out."
"That was normal," Orville says, quieter, staring down at his ribcage. "Um, Kieran," he says, biting on his lower lip and grimacing, "Were you- how did- Hosea?"
Hosea and him share a look. It means nearly a whole book, in the way they exchange a glance.
"Had you gotten hurt, before we captured you?" Hosea says, now resting the flat of his palm on Kieran's shoulder.
"Um," he says.
He doesn't know how to say more.
He doesn't... know how to tell someone. Doesn't know how to express Colm's heavy boot slamming into his ribcage right before he left Kieran out in the snow. Doesn't know how to tell them -- I don't think there's been a day of my life where there wasn't something aching or broken, not since I was old enough to think, not since the day my momma spanked me so hard I bled-
"Yes," is what he says.
Orville bites his lips more. Still, his hands keep moving, and Hosea -- has a strange edge to his expression, one that is so obviously displeased that Kieran wants to stand up and do work [now], because if anything had ever kept people from exploding at him, it had been dutifully doing his work without complaint.
"Well, thank you for telling us," he says gently. Hosea's hand smooths little circles on his shoulder, and breath returns to him, gradually.
"You like fishing, then," Hosea returns.
"Oh, sure. Always liked it," Kieran says, voice uneven, "Um... used to catch lot of bluegill. I was never good at getting the very big ones but I could catch a lot. My- My sister and I -- my sister Sinead-"
"Sinead Duffy?" Orville says, quietly, looking up from Kieran's leg.
"Um, yes, that was my sister's name, yeah-"
"Sinead Duffy," he says softly, sharing another look with Hosea. "Um. Yes. Your sister and you, fishing."
"Um," Kieran feels like maybe he's being left out of the loop. "Sinead and I -- we were... quiet, so our mother, she'd ask us to go fishing. The other kids -- they were bolder than us, stronger than us, so they could do the real work-"
Orville touches the rawness of his ankle, where there's a fresh wound -- cut himself accidentally one night on a piece of metal someone'd left around and it just festered in his boot but he could still walk- and his voice goes strangled.
"I'm going to lift your pant leg, kid, is that okay?"
"Uh," he says.
"I won't hurt you," he says, "Or at least, not- not intentionally."
Orville peels away the trouser leg from the wound and it [sears].
"Jesus," Orville spits. Hosea even raises on his knees to see the wound, his eyebrows flashing up. "Kid, when- when the hell did you get this?"
"A week ago-" his voice comes out garbled, raw, "Please, put it back, it hurts-"
Orville doesn't do that though, just stands to grab a bottle of something.
"Oh please, please don't, I'm- Don't hurt me!" he sobs, gripping at his shoulder, quaking, but Hosea is there, his slim hands pressing his shoulders back into the pillow, expression unflapped and waiting to see what Orville is doing.
"I'm so sorry, kid, this is going to hurt like a motherfucker- you want something to bite on?" He soaks a clean cloth in the liquid from the bottle.
"No!" He yelps, more generally than anything else.
"Orville," Hosea warns.
"Listen, we've got to now," he slings back, "I'm sorry, kid, on the count of three, okay?"
Hosea and Orville count together- and it makes nothing better when Orville sets the cloth onto the healing, bubbling wound.
Kieran shrieks.
And blacks out.
When he comes to, Hosea is there, patting his face gently, murmuring "I told you Orville, you could have gone easier-"
"I really couldn't have!" He replies, "Look at that and tell me I should have waited."
Hosea hisses, grimacing, "Ugh."
"Why'd you have to do that," Kieran weeps, "Why?"
Hosea strokes his cheeks, murmuring sweet words to him. Words that mean something. Words that weren't just brushing away the pain, but apologizing for it.
"Your wound is infected, kid," Orville says, swiping the cloth over once more, another vibrant sting of pain, but less intense, "If we'd waited or let it heal like that, you would have lost the leg."
Kieran falls silent, eyes drifting to the corner of the tent.
And he finds himself drifting, as always.
He drifts back to that place that has no shape or size. No color, no sound. It just exists. He goes there sometimes. He goes there oftentimes.
Sometimes he goes into a story.
Replays parables, stories, stories he watched, sad-eyed, from across the main streets while he waited with the horses for Colm to get back.
Sometimes he flits from one character to the next -- from the dashing prince to the swooning princess and back again.
Sometimes he just watches.
This time, he just drifts.
Drifts and feels -- something, vaguely, something at his ankle.
Decides it's not worth investigating.
Continues to drift.
Drift.
Like being in a cloud. Hazy and white.
Hosea's hand is on his cheek.
His hand?
And his voice, too. Hosea's soft, rough voice.
"Kieran?" he says, softly, "Kieran, are you there?"
He is.
Somehow.
It usually took a lot to bring him back. Something like extreme hunger. Or the threat of gelding tongs.
"There you are," Hosea says, smiling down gently.
He wonders how old Hosea is. How long his years have stretched -- Kieran is twenty-six (or so he thinks) and feels like it has been entirely too long. How old was Hosea?
There's something sad in the turn of his cheek, in the way his face creases.
And Kieran feels... pity.
Or, what he thinks is pity.
There were a lot of times, in that very, very long time he spent with Colm, as his camp boy, as his "wife" (that was the favorite title the other O'Driscolls used) -- there were times when... Colm was almost... fragile.
When Colm would lay his head on Kieran's thigh, and sigh deep. The times when Colm was something almost kind, when he would take Kieran's worn-raw knees and massage them until they felt better -- it's a similar feeling.
It's a strange feeling that's always plagued him -- every time someone was nice to him, his soul ached for them.
He feels it for Hosea in that moment, the man who brushes fingers along his cheekbone.
Orville finishes his assessment.
The wound is bandaged, now. It feels a lot better. Less slimy. Everything aches, but it's manageable.
"Um," Orville says, "You're -- How much... How much pain are you in right now? On a- scale of one to ten, ten being the worst?"
Well, right now?
Almost everything hurts. He can think, though, and nothing is sharp. And if you threw him onto a rock, or had a grizzly be eating him, that would be worse --
"Three?"
Orville's mouth screws up. "You're sure?"
"Um," he says, that itchy feeling dancing under his lungs, "Yes. Three."
Orville furrows his brow one more time, biting his lip.
"Uh, Hosea -- can we discuss?" Orville says.
Hosea stands, patting Kieran's shoulder gently, as he does.
The two men go outside and talk, hushed and sharp.
He's always had good hearing but they still speak low enough he can't make it all out -- "Are we really going to-" "Yes, unfortunately-" "I'm still grieving too, and I wouldn't-" "I know, but this is Dutch we're talking about-" "The kid is-" "I know he is-" "That's not a three-" "I know it isn't."
The two of them return after a moment of tense silence. Hosea smiles when he sees Kieran, but it hangs on him strangely.
Orville looks like he's seen a ghost. He drifts over to the table with the bottles and hands Hosea a bottle of some tincture without looking his way.
"Well, we're going to give you this medication," Hosea says, sitting on the stool Orville had previously taken.
"A... medication?" he mumbles.
Medications were... rarely good. He remembers a lot of dazes and hallucinations -- times when his skin felt so hot it would burn off and Colm just wouldn't stop- thrusting- no matter how much Kieran cried -
"Yes," Hosea says, gently, "It's willow bark. It should help your pain."
Hosea pours out a measure into a small teacup -- something blue-and-white, one of those Asian patterns -- and hands it to Kieran.
"You don't have to take it," Hosea says, standing from the stool, his gentle hand on Kieran's shoulder, "It can be quite bitter."
Kieran eyes the red tea. He could not drink it.
That's new.
He could not drink it.
Just set it down and not drink it. And he thinks -- Hosea probably wouldn't... do anything. Hosea would just take the tea and pour it back into the bottle.
Kieran does drink it, though.
It is bitter, but Orville's made it up with honey and cinnamon -- hardly the worst thing he's ever ingested. Hot, it might even be pleasant to drink.
"Now," Hosea says, leaning once more on the desk, beside where Orville is jotting notes down in a journal, brow furrowed, "This is where I can't give you a choice."
Kieran watches Orville puzzle over the journal. It seems he wrote notes to himself in the past and can't quite make out what he wrote. It's sort of cute.
Hosea steps beside Kieran once more, pressing gentle fingertips to his jaw -- forcing a sting of that pity -- and guiding his attention back to Hosea.
"I have to tie you back up there. And I can't guarantee your health or safety or well-being..." Hosea says, eyes soft, "And I'm sorry that I can't."
He watches the way Hosea's face creases -- this expression, unspeakable, uncomplicated, and honest.
Kieran was used to reading kindness as cruelty -- used to reading the slightest tint or tone or shade of displeasure -- used to people pretending at regret or remorse --
He drinks the rest of the tea slowly.
"Uh," he finally manages to say, handing up the cup again, "Thank you. For the tea."
Hosea smiles, softly. Takes the cup. Hands him a couple kind of funny crackers he takes from his pockets.
"It's not much, but it'll feed you for now. Food will likely be scarce."
Kieran wolfs them down quick, with the help of a cup of water Orville offers, and then, once eaten, he stands once more from the cot.
"Thank you," Kieran says, quietly.
Hosea just nods, and leads him out again, long, elegant fingers wrapped around his wrist.
Hosea ties him up to that tree again -- but a different knot this time. It lets him hang out a little further, stand a little straighter.
"I know it seems counter to what should be," Hosea says, "And in truth, I don't think you're an O'Driscoll. But Dutch is... Dutch, and the folks around here are... following his lead."
Kieran swallows deeply.
"Not a lot of folk in this gang can forgive what's been done. And no one's gonna believe an old man like me if I tell them you're just a sweet young man."
Heat forces its way up into Kieran's cheeks. "Thank you," he murmurs, "But that ain't true -- they all trust you. They all love you. I've noticed."
The older man smiles. "A sweet young man," he repeats, before nodding his head and stepping away, waving silently.