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John is well and truly drunk tonight.
Appetites grow with time and experience, and Arthur finds this applies somehow almost always to John Marston. But this particular night is something exemplary and special, since this is a victory drink-in, for one. And for two, though he is not quite sure about the actual date, John has sometime recently turned twenty years of age. Arthur laughs when he sees John’s telltale drunken gait, lurching and twisty-legged as a tomcat after taking a fall off a fence. Celebratory indeed. He is completely devoid of the forced kind of calm that sober John is usually dead-set upon proving is the realest version of himself. Arthur has always been in the habit of collecting embarrassing details about John to rib him with when he is acting a fool; one that he has always been a natural stumbler, that he had it worst when he was sixteen, feet bigger than expected and shoes smaller than required, but this, tonight, seems like something special indeed.
“Watch your step, cowboy !” Arthur teases when John stumbles into a busty saloon barmaid and nearly knocks her tray out of her hands. When the woman slaps him across the face for the discretion, he spins in a full circle on the spot like he’s lost while the woman stalks away. Arthur’s chuckle graduates to a rich peal of laughter that he feels must come from his intestines somewhere, because it is that warm. So warm , Arthur thinks with a hiccup again. (Well, he has had a finger or two of whiskey himself, he’s no priest, after all.) But John only brushes past Arthur in a testy huff and then roughly throws himself down into the chair next to Hosea to join his game of poker. This is the moment that Arthur realizes John has not heard him laughing at all. He is that drunk.
“...Just like a puppy .” Dutch’s voice is suddenly behind him, and Arthur jumps at the sound. He turns to regard his father, who amicably pushes a shot into his hand. This is a celebration, after all. They have made very good work of a recent homestead robbery, then torn camp up and escaped west before the sun had even risen the following day. And of course there is the business of John’s birthday, though like a strange dog collected off the side of the road, certain specific details with him have always been a little fuzzy.
“You’re frowning at him like you think he’s a man grown ? A bit unfair by all accounts, Arthur, don’t you think?”
Arthur accepts the whiskey and they regard John at the poker table. Hosea is giving him an indulgent, if not slightly beleaguered look as his son slams his fist down hard enough to make everyone’s chips spill over. Arthur says nothing at this, but briefly closes his eyes.
“ Do you recall, son, that long ago time when you first came to us? To me, and to our sweet Hosea?” Dutch’s question has that reassuring sound that makes his words feel like a real father’s hand. The kind that guides. Arthur nods. He remembers. He wishes he couldn’t remember anything before that time.
“Yes. And Annabelle.” he recalls.
“And Bessie.”
Again, Arthur nods. The memories are old. Tender. “... And Bessie .” he says quietly. It goes almost unheard in the general ruckus of the saloon. They are in a nowhere town, and there is not much to do here other than drink, so everyone who is anyone is already present. But even in a crowd of strangers, Arthur has never been fond of speaking out his real feelings too loudly.
“Tell me, if you remember, what did we teach you? Back then.” Dutch swirls his own glass, substantially larger. A fine bourbon spins in a slow vortex and casts a petey aroma into the air. He is deceptively casual, but Arthur knows that when it comes to Dutch, everything is a lesson.
“Why, shootin’. Ridin’. Campin’.” Arthur rumbles contemplatively. “Huntin’.”
Dutch’s wry grin is a sound. “What else?”
Arthur digs deeper. He is quiet a moment, then knocks his shot back in a single gulp. His exhale is a poison vapor he sighs out through his teeth. It singes his nose hairs. John has taken up an argument with a feller in a green bowler hat to his left. He watches this another moment and adds, “...Taught me to write. To read. To thieve.”
John laughs too loud at the fellow at his side, who looks repulsed by whatever filthy thing John has doubtlessly just said. Even stupid drunk, John has a way about him.
“...Taught me to draw.”
That precious revelation feels presently not in good company. It seems not half so important in the debauchery of this strange little town, so briefly, Arthur regrets saying it out loud at all. About his journal, he finds he is always a little sensitive.
But before any actual reply comes, Dutch’s grumble voices his disappointment. Arthur stiffens at the sound, and Dutch rolls his neck and waves his hand as if to dismiss all these tender things Arthur has just now recalled.
“ Come now, surely the ethos we share in common is more important than all the rest? It is a gift, surely, to read and comprehend a book's meaning, but what good is all of that without a credence to bend the mind to? A man needs a teacher like marble needs a sculptor . Your lessons have always been in the service of a direction , Arthur. Of a morality! Or don’t you remember all those years?”
“...Ah.” Arthur grunts, suddenly surly. He is all at once more than a little embarrassed to have missed such an obvious answer. Dutch lets the moment drag on just exactly long enough to punish Arthur with his silence, and then he swills back his own whiskey and puts an arm around Arthur’s shoulder. It is in a fashion so fatherly that it eases Arthur’s mortification just a little bit.
“Now you’re a man grown, my friend. Those childhood lessons? They are long over and done with. You don’t need a couple of old men like us pointing your compass in any direction anymore, do you? You don’t need us. You don’t need me, or even old Hosea with all his stuffy books. Remember, like you once did, when you were just a boy? Still innocent of so many things. Why, you could leave us whenever you felt like it, if it still weren't for sweet John! Though you know I like to think we need each other these days just as much.”
“Come on, Dutch,” Arthur mumbles, sounding even more out of sorts than he had the moment before. His stomach feels full of knots. If it weren't for John. Arthur squints at his drunk little brother as he argues like a petulant child with the bowler hat man, and he wonders if that wasn’t Dutch’s point the entire time. The parallel, even to a mind as poorly trained as Arthur’s, seems incontrovertible. “You know goddamn well enough I ain’t gonna leave nobody behind. My life is here. Has been. Always will be.”
It lingers like a burn when Dutch lets his silence continue, as malicious as any purposeful act of punishment is. He takes his arm back, face blank. But then he’s nodding again, and a hand goes up to smooth the bristles of his mustache down over his frown. “Yes. Yes, of course, son, I know you aren’t leaving us.”
And with that, he gives Arthur’s spine two hearty slaps and he heads off in the direction of the bar. Bill and Karen have taken up a drinking tournament with a local Concertina musician there, and Arthur stands alone in the lurch, feeling suddenly and overwhelmingly despondent. What thing had he just missed? What had he done wrong, just now? The question is too large for his small brain, and it slicks his insides black with worry.
“Take that back, you cocksuckin’ pig fornicatin’, piece a no good trash with shit for brains ! I seen dogs with bigger balls’n you got on you , friend, you think this is funny ? Huh?!? You callin’ me a liar ?!”
John’s chair screeches away from the table and Arthur impulsively jerks forward at the same moment Hosea leaps out of his own chair, and they are both between John and the bowler hat man before the brawl can pick up any steam. John’s knees and elbows strike out at Arthur as he tries to wrangle his brother in, but somehow between the two of them Hosea gets the townie subdued and Arthur hauls John by the scruff of the neck back and away from the table.
“ Get him the hell outta here! ” The previously tenable deputy sheriff bellows from the other side of the poker game, and Arthur locks eyes with Hosea, who nods at him too.
“Go on, my boy, lets not kick up a ruckus when there’s no need for one! Morning will look a lot worse for John, but a whole hell of a lot better for the rest of us ! Take him back.”
Like always, Arthur does just exactly as he’s told.
━━✶━━
The road outside is muddy, and John is wriggling and difficult to hold onto. “ Would you stop already? ” Arthur shouts, and John makes his third attempt to go boneless and drop out through the bottom of Arthur’s grasp. When it doesn’t work and John finds himself wrestled again beneath Arthur’s arms, he cuts loose an indignant howl and tries to kick out one of Arthur’s knees.
“Oh, you’ve had it this time , boy-” Arthur fumes as he lurches back from John’s muddy boot, then swings a hard fist around and socks him square in the gut. John makes a surprised sound like a bag of flour hitting a wagon and goes limp again, though this time Arthur is sure it is absolutely not on purpose. Finally, Arthur gets John’s arm over his shoulder, and their muddy slog back towards the hotel grows substantially gentler from there on out.
“Arthur, you... real… you... sonova…” John gasps, “You never let me have any... fun...” Bitter as a child. He’s lost his hat somewhere, and his greasy hair has fallen in his face. “So... old! Sour bastard.”
“Well you usually go off and have fun enough for the both of us, so I don’t quite see the point. Hellfire, kid, I’m tired just lookin’ at you!”
“Huh!” John laughs, but something about his eyes gets flinty. “For the both of us?” He parrots. “ He don’t see the point !”
They’re making slow progress down the road, and directly ahead of them on their left, a flight of ladies of the evening stand loitering on the wooden walkway up to the hotel entrance. John waves a boneless hand at them as they pass, and he declares from the road again, much louder this time, “Hear that , ladies? He don’t see the point with the both of us!”
“Point of what?” One of the painted women queries. She takes a long look at John, then slides her skirt up one leg. “You need a point , baby? I’ll make one for you. Two dollars!”
John stops up short, then dumbly starts fumbling for his pockets. But his hands are drunker than his mouth, apparently, and so in no time at all Arthur has him by the scruff again and is shoving him back on course towards the hotel. “ Oh no , I don’t think so, not tonight . You got an appointment , boy.”
The prostitute looks Arthur up and down as the other women murmur in amusement. “An appointment? This time of night? With who ? A big ox like you? You wanna break that little boy in half?” She’s incredulous, but somehow still entertained. “ Alright , I’ll cut you boys a deal. I’ll take you both at once, for three.”
It takes a long moment for the woman’s implication to sink in, but when it does, Arthur looks down to find that John has stopped thrashing. As a point of fact, he has actually gone very, very still. So still that Arthur lets him go on the spot. He sways dangerously on his own two feet, his greasy hair having fallen like twin black curtains on either side of his face. He doesn’t say anything.
Arthur coughs, growing distinctly uncomfortable. “Thank you kindly for the… erruh... well, I suppose for the generous offer, ma’am, but this feller right here is due in his own bed.” Upon further silent consideration, he shoots the women a cursory warning. “ Alone .” he tacks on. But it sounds more forced than threatening, even to his own ears.
The woman sighs, “You drive a hard bargain, mister. Two for both. He’s a biter, ain’t he? Seems the type.”
“ Thank you again, goodnight .” Reaching for his hat and John at once, Arthur hastily tips the brim and grips John by the shoulder to drag him along.
But John has suctioned himself in the mud right to the spot. He won’t move, even when Arthur pulls on him. A third fruitless effort produces in Arthur a grunt of frustration, so he circles front to see what could possibly be the matter. With John, if it isn’t one thing, it is always something else. John has always required a firm hand, because everything about him has always has been a goddamn rigmarole. “What’d I say? Let’s go .”
Arthur is used to frustration. He is used to indignation. All the brotherly things that come afterward are there too when John is concerned, of course; exasperation, approval, disappointment, exhaustion. They normally take primary precedence. But this is something different altogether. Seems the night is meant for oddities.
John’s face, between the curtain of his hair, is a violent red. He’s swaying where he stands, and he looks betrayed in the glow of the gas lamps in a way that Arthur has absolutely no grasp of understanding. Except only that it feels somehow as if it is his fault.
“... Enough , kid,” Arthur starts, all at once unsure of himself, like he had been with Dutch earlier. His hand loosens on John’s arm. “let me put you to bed.”
But like most things with John, his emotions quickly turn to anger. When Marston finally rolls his bloodshot eyes up to meet his, Arthur is sure this is the moment something bad has begun to totter on a metaphorical precipice. He is very familiar with this look of John’s; it signals the beginning of the kind of ruthless fights they had not too long ago at all, back when John’s whiskers were still growing in. Back when he was barely grown. John has always been too mad about too many things, but even another birthday can’t wipe from Arthur’s mind the solid fact that a man isn’t made overnight. Something has royally pissed off John Marston, and Arthur is sure he is right about to hear all about it.
But when John finally opens his mouth, it is an explosive gush of vomit that shoots out of him instead of accusations. Arthur falls back with a hitch of dismay, and behind them, the women on the porch begin to laugh.
John doubles over on himself and throws up in the street for ten whole minutes. At first, he shoves away Arthur’s hands, but when he is finally done retching, he eventually gives up the ghost. He slumps forward, and Arthur catches him up in his arms before he can fall down into the mud, which has mixed impressively with his own sick and splattered across their boots. What a goddamn mess.
“You know? I think it’s six for two now, darlin.” The prostitute interjects as Arthur hefts John up to carry him against his chest. “No offence meant, sirs.”
“None taken.” Arthur grunts. John is not half so heavy as he supposed. It has been years, after all, since John has required such a carrying. Like a child. Nothing to say for the thirty pounds of liquid he has just evacuated. Now, he just sweats quietly in Arthur’s arms, pekid and pliant. “He’s usually a handful. I’m used to it.”
The women laugh again, and the noise is wise and comfortable. Arthur thinks if the situation was different, he might have dallied to make their acquaintance for a minute or two more, but not tonight. “You mean an armful !” One of them supplies, and the porch dissolves again into giggles.
“Ladies.” Arthur offers one last time, now with finality in his voice, and then he carries John inside.
━━✶━━
Arthur scrapes dried vomit off of his cowhide vest and hangs it from the chair in the room John has rented. John is dozing in the bed, sweat-softened sheets pooling around his dirty face and making him look much younger again than his twenty years. Arthur thinks it’s funny how different John looks when he is being quiet. Ever so much more different than when he is kicking up a ruckus. They are both distinctly John , but only one does not produce the corresponding headache.
When Arthur graduates to washing his face in the basin in the corner, John finally rouses a little. “Arthur?” He mumbles, and Arthur turns without response to give him a look.
“...I been a fool, haven’t I?” John quietly groans.
“Yes.” no need to mince words.
John sighs, then his face screws up with shame and he briefly digs himself into the mattress to hide from the ugly truth of things. “ Did Dutch see? ”
Again, “Oh yes.” Arthur takes the basin cloth in hand and dries himself. He supposes, he is, at least, a little amused.
“ Shit in a handbag .” comes the defeated expletive from inside the pile of sweaty sheets, and Arthur finally lets his grin tickle the side of his mouth.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” He rumbles affectionately. “you didn’t shoot nobody. You didn’t break nothin. And as far as your reputation goes, you only have your honor to defend against a few workin’ gals out front of this place. And , I suppose, the rest of the local folk too, but we’ll be shot of this town soon enough.”
This is met with silence, and Arthur supposes humiliation is as good a remedy for vainglory as he has ever seen. It is only when he walks close to the bed that he sees that John is trembling.
Arthur stops. “John?” But again the question hangs unanswered in the quiet room. Finally, he sticks out a hand to touch the side of John’s face. He is freezing.
“ Tarnation ,” Immediately Arthur grumbles, and he sits on the bed and turns John over, only to see his face is as flushed as it had been in the street earlier. But this time, he’s slicked in an icy sweat. “ Useless stupid idiot, ” comes the next logical accusation, “You been sick this whole goddamn time? I always told you, don’t tempt fate , it ain’t that complicated. How long you been ill?”
“ You think you know everything .” John somehow still finds the energy to complain, even when Arthur pulls him to sit upright. His clothes are damp with sweat. “Truth is, you don’t know half as much as you think you do!”
“Alright, alright , just, take this off.”
John’s duster coat peels away from him easy, but his vest comes away a little harder, and his shirt is soaked and clammy to the touch. Underneath it all, he’s trembling like a foam-slick, winded horse.
“ Swear to God , John...” it’s more an admonition, and John finally finds it in him to chuckle back. It is the first time John has laughed sincerely in days. Arthur grins a little too, a piece of hair fallen errant across his forehead from the effort of hauling John up so many stairs, and they’re quiet as Arthur works on him.
“Your hands are warm.” John says after a silence. He’s easy in Arthur’s grip now, in a way neither of them are quite used to.
“I don’t doubt it.” Arthur agrees. Anything is warm compared to a glacier. “It sure as hell ain’t summertime no more, you stupid kid.”
It is only when Arthur has begun peeling John’s unpleasantly damp shirt off his bare shoulders that John finally interjects, “ Stay here tonight.”
Arthur’s hands stop where they are, mid-action, and John’s blurry eyes focus with too much intensity down at the floor.
Do you recall, son, that long ago time when you first came to us?
It’s strange to think at this moment about how the noose rope had split in twain, all those years ago. The crack of Dutch's pistol in his ear, ringing, ringing. Responsibility is much more fickle than Arthur has previously thought. He holds it in his mind like he holds John’s shirt in his hands. It swings this way and that way inside his head, though everything about the outside of him stays just exactly the same. Until John pushes his hands off and sits back. His eyes are still criss-crossing the wooden floor.
“Or send me up one of those women. From downstairs. I’m just cold , Arthur, it don’t mean nothin.”
Tell me, if you remember, what did we teach you?
“ No . Not them.” the abruptness of this response is frightening, and Arthur sits back too. He puts his hands in his lap, at a loss for what else to say. Why not one of them? “Don’t know which is more likely, you gettin’ your pockets picked clean, or you gettin’ even sicker from the exertion! Or both , It’s late, John, don’t be a fool.”
“Ain’t like that. Just stay.” Again, John pushes. Subdued. But still stubborn. Almost sullen . John to the letter. It’s such a familiar look on him. Arthur all at once becomes aware of himself; how he viscerally despises the notion of a strange woman wrapped around John when he is in such a way. Just a short time ago he’d liked them well enough... what of that?
A man needs a teacher like marble needs a sculptor. Your lessons have always been in the service of a direction. Of a morality. Or don’t you remember all those years?
“John. I told you before.” Arthur’s voice comes low now, almost nervous. “That sort of thing... It’s not…”
“Oh, shut your mouth already, Arthur, it ain’t even about that, I swear .” John’s frustration is like a cut on Arthur’s face, and he flinches away from it. Shoving abruptly backward, John makes the slow crawl back up the bed, sheds the rest of his damp shirt, flings it on the floor, and collapses again into a ball, seeming exhausted. There is a defeated silence, and then he pulls one of the sheets over his naked shoulders until all that can be seen of him anymore is a pair of legs, and a wild mop of black hair. His voice is muffled by layers of bedding. “You ain’t in a church , Arthur, nobody’s watchin’ you. Jesus christ, you’d think I asked you to fuck a married woman! I’m just cold .” another defeated pause passes, “Do what you want.”
You could leave us whenever you felt like it. If it weren't for John.
For a while, Arthur sits on the bed and looks at John’s shoulders beneath the sheets as they quietly rise and fall. A quiet John is… so very … his frown digs deeper lines into his face. He knows John is still drunk, and that the likelihood of any recollection of this conversation is very low at very worst. But he is sick, and unpredictable too, thus liable to make all kinds of messes, and so worry lives like a stitch between Arthur’s eyebrows. Finally, he lets out a haggard sigh. He rubs a hand over his tired face, and he reluctantly nods. “ Alright . I’ll stay.”
This place is different from the safety of camp. Somebody must stay to care for John, and that responsibility had already landed squarely on Arthur’s shoulders a lifetime ago. Dutch saw to that. Though John doesn’t say anything, it is perhaps his silence that is, for once, louder than its absence.
As Arthur strips out of his suspenders, and sets his muddy boots with care down by the door, he thinks of old, familiar things. Of Hosea crouching with him in the sunlight down by a babbling brook, a tome of poetry spread open between them. He thinks of Dutch’s hand readjusting his grip on his Lancaster, adjusting the butt of the gun so it sits more snugly in the cradle of his shoulder to catch the kick. And he thinks of the weight of a baby, long since gone into the ground. He assumes John was such a baby once. Small and screaming, face all red. Not much with John has apparently changed since those days.
Arthur blows out the lamp and shoves John over in the bed to make room, then stretches out and stares at the ceiling. He is aware of the smell of John, who he can still feel shivering against his side, his oil and sweat exuding a sweet aroma that often heralds sickness. At first, he doesn’t do anything.
Until, “ Arthur .” It is a subdued, but sharp sound. John’s trembling is hard enough to feel it in the mattress. He says the name one more time like a jab, insistent and demanding, and again Arthur sighs like an old man and rolls over, until he gathers the ball of sheets to his body and John is in his arms. Turns out, he is not so different at all from the feel of a woman, except of course for the smell.
Once upon a time, John had been small. Living things often are. Small things get fed and get bigger. They grow up. Or sometimes, if you are very unlucky, they don’t.
After a while, Arthur murmurs in the dark, “Ain’t babied you like this since you broke your arm when you was fourteen. You was already too big for it back then too, to be honest. Cain’t say what to do with you now.”
It takes a moment for their body temperatures to match, and Arthur feels John’s voice against his chest when he quietly replies, “I don’t think about it like that.”
The divide between wanting to ask why, and not wanting to know the answer, makes Arthur’s tongue heavy in his mouth. So he doesn’t say anything. He knows he is protecting John. But he also knows, like the question he won’t ask, that it is not all he is doing. Always, there is the memory of two crosses. Two bodies buried in the yard, and the fateful day, not too long afterward, that Dutch shot another boy down from a rope.
As he holds John close, closer than he needs, if he is being completely honest, and tighter than he is required to by many times, Arthur knows that this is not the same as the lessons of his own childhood. Darkness is all he has ever needed to prove it true. He had never been held in such a fashion, and certainly would not have tolerated it as John does now. Even in this moment, he feels John beginning to ease down, his shaking soothed and his breathing coming easier. Several times over, this is different.
Tentatively, John whispers, “About tonight.”
But to that extent, there is nothing else yet left to offer. “Go to sleep, John.”
John settles in his arms, safe and sound, and that is the end of it.
When the noise of John’s snores take up a soft rhythm that Arthur can feel under his chin, he settles on something. Dutch does not need to convince Arthur of anything. Dutch already knows, he thinks bitterly. He knew it the day he split the rope. He knows, and Arthur knows. Everyone already knows .
Arthur is never going anywhere.