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“Now it don’t feel right? I coulda told you-”
The last words he says The last words he will ever say.
A loud bang, a sharp pain, and his body hits the ground. The blood pools around his head, mixing with the red of the Lemoyne clay.
He is dead.
And then, as if the world has turned completely on his head, he isn’t.
The gunshots are no longer ringing in his ears and he feels himself being hauled into a cart before he sees black again. “I think this one is still alive!”
Flashes of the back of a wagon, the whitewashed interior of a saloon, the smell of strong alcohol. They all come to him as if in a dream, intermingling themselves with his memories.
“Now, Sean, my boy, no politics is politics. You’ll see.”
“Wait, something about this doesn’t feel right…”
“Dutch is good at seeing things in people.”
“With a light, light heart, I rove along!”
“Dutch said we was gonna keep dealing with them until we find this gold.”
“Oh, come on then...”
BANG.
His eyes open in a flash. The room is white, blindingly so, and there is a loud ringing in his ears that is only drowned out by the screaming pain in his head.
He groans and tries to reach up to his head, to massage this pain away, only to find it wrapped tightly in bandages. They are covering the entire right side of his head, thick and scratchy.
His groan alerts someone, apparently, as he hears a nearby door open with a loud creak. He again groans in pain at the sound. He must be desperately hungover. What the hell happened last night?
“Wh...wher’mi?” he grumbles, finding himself barely able to form the words. “Wassgoinon?”
He can’t exactly make out the stranger’s face, but even if he could, he isn’t entirely sure he would recognise them. At least, the slightly nasal voice isn’t one he's heard before.
“Well, son, I’m glad to see you up,” he says, pulling out a stack of worn papers. “It’s been a few weeks, we thought we would lose you there for a minute.”
“Lose?” he croaks. Jesus, his throat is sore. It's like he hasn’t spoken in weeks.
“Yes, but that seems to be common with these cases. We saw it with Mr. Gage too, may he rest in peace,” the doctor explains. The sound of footsteps come closer, followed by several cold fingers tracing the edges of his bandage. It's lifted slightly, and Sean would have flinched if he could move. “But, your wound seems to be healing nicely. You are awfully lucky, young man.”
Lucky? Wound?
“Now, we have unfortunately not been able to identify you. Do you have any family in Rhodes who may be missing you?”
“F… Family?”
“Yes, son, a wife? Children? You were found with the bodies after the town drove those damn outlaws from town, so I’ve heard,” the doctor explains, moving to sit in a nearby chair. “Luckily, I was in San Denis at the time, and you were transported here for treatment.”
As the doctor spoke, Sean can feel his eyes beginning to droop closed.
“You don’t give a damn ‘bout nobody but yourself.”
Arthur? Was Arthur here?
“I’ve called in my partner, Dr. Harlow to assist in your treatment. Second time I’ve seen this kind of thing.”
“Oh, you act all high and mighty, but you’re no better than the rest of us.”
“Micah, Arthur! Police!”
“It really is a medical anomaly, pure luck that you survived at all, but we’ve done our best to make sure it stays that way.”
“Leave him, let’s go cowpoke!”
“Luckily, Dr. Harlow has a fantastic practice in New Hannover, we’ve brought…”
The room goes dark as he drifts once again into a restless sleep.
---
The next time he wakes, night has fallen, and darkness has enveloped the room.
He can move his head slightly now, although a sharp pain ran through his neck to his spine when he does. Slowly, gently, he turns his head to the side to survey the room.
A single oil lamp burns in the corner of the room, illuminating a table littered with papers, medicines, and various tools. Otherwise, the room is empty, and the only sounds to be heard is the chorus of locusts out of the open window. Where is he?
He tries his best to remember what happened, how he had arrived here. The doctor said something about a shootout? Bodies?
A few, blurry memories of Rhodes come to his mind - burning the tobacco fields, a job from the Greys - but nothing solid to help him remember.
All too soon, the little energy he has is spent, and he finds himself surrounded by darkness.
---
Later, the sound of birds reaches his ears, pulling him from a dreamless sleep. Gentle hands work at his head, unraveling bloodstained bandages as he opens his eyes. Early morning sunlight streams through the window, illuminating the room.
“Oh!” comes the shocked voice of a woman, standing at the head of his bed. “It’s good to see you up,” she says quietly, comfortingly. “Let me finish changing your bandages and we will see if you can manage some breakfast.”
He doesn't say a word, and instead lets her continue her work in silence, until his head is free of the wrappings and she bustles quietly from the room. Slowly, he lifts his hand to the left side of his head, to feel the damage. His fingers brushed lightly across a large wound, only now healing over, the once smooth flesh of his forehead now cratered and scabbed.
“Fuck…” he grumbles, pulling his hand away as the door creaks open again.
The nurse from earlier, a pretty, young woman about his age, comes in with a steaming bowl and cup on a wooden tray. “All right, you must be starving,” she says, setting the tray on an old, rickety bedside table. “You can try to feed yourself, if you’d like. You seem like you’re functioning well enough this morning.” She pulls up a chair and sat next to him. “I’ll be here if you need help.”
He nods slightly, before taking the spoon from the soup bowl… and promptly spilling the entire thing in his lap. Luckily, a thick, itchy woollen blanket saves his bits from any physical damage, but his pride is admittedly slightly dented. “I…” he starts, throat still dry. He coughs lightly, ignoring the pain that shoots through his head, and starts again. “If you could help, please.”
She smiles softly at him, taking the spoon from his hand. “Of course,” she said, gently, spooning a bit of soup from the bowl and bringing it to his lips. She must see the hesitation in his eyes, because what she says next answers the question he doesn't have the energy to ask: “You don’t have to be embarrassed, you know. It’s not everyday someone gets shot in the head and survives to tell the tale.”
---
The next few weeks pass by in a blur of increasing wakefulness, until he finds himself up and walking around, smoking cigarettes on a small balcony. He is able to move again, he is able to speak again, and he has finally come somewhat to terms with what has happened.
Not that he can recall it.
The vague memories of meeting Arthur, Micah, and Bill in Rhodes have returned, but they are constantly in flux - intermingling with dreams and nightmares. In some, he is killed and buried in a grave near their camp. In others, the bullet misses him entirely and he rides off with his friends.
If it weren’t for the giant wound on the front and back of his skull, and the insistence of the doctors that he was found next to dead, he isn’t entirely sure that he would be able to recognise the truth.
Instead, he tries not to think of it anymore. The past is blurry enough as it is, he doesn’t need to give himself even more of a headache trying to remember this as well. Instead, he has taken to dulling the pain the best way he knows how - with plenty of liquor.
Despite the protests of his physicians, he somehow manages to convince that pretty nurse to bring him a bottle of whisky - the good stuff - one night. He downs it as fast as he knows how, and now, uninhibited by pain nor logic, he finds himself unbuttoning the nurse’s dress during the middle of the night. This is exactly the kind of healing he's been in need of.
Morning comes all too soon for his taste, and he is somehow completely alone in bed, fully-clothed, and wondering if the entire night had been a dream. A quarter-full bottle of whisky at his side and a different kind of splitting headache tell him that, at the very least, that part of last night was true.
The sun is once again shining through the windows, illuminating the whitewashed room that has become all too familiar during the last few weeks of his tenancy. God, the white is starting to burn his eyes. It was all too clean, too familiar and he needed to get out.
He had brought the topic up with his doctors a couple of times already. “I’m fit as a fiddle, see doc? No use keepin’ me hidden away inside, let me out to show the world your masterpiece!”
Naturally, his reasoning is shot down each time.
Of course, the doctors didn’t count on ol’ Sean MacGuire being so clever and slippery. He has cased more than his fair share of homes back in the day, the only difference with this is that he was breaking out, not in. The doctors come to visit every day between 9:00 and 10:00 in the morning, according to an old clock hanging above the door frame. This visit usually lasted no more than an hour of poking and prodding. At 11:30, the nurse comes to change his bandages. From then on, the schedule varied considerably.
So, that was his window. Between the doctors and the nurse, he would pull on his fresh clothes, slip out the window, and be on his merry way.
From what he could tell, there is a saloon down the street - that will be his first stop while he wraps his mind around the situation. And had a drink.
The door to the room opens with an all too familiar creeeeeak, and he is greeted by the wrinkled faces of his doctors. “Well now, Mr. MacGuire, how are you doing this morning?” asks Dr. Harlow in his very distinct northeastern accent. “I see you’ve had some fun last night.” He purses his lips and looks pointedly at the bottle of whisky.
This isn’t the first time he's been at the receiving end of a disappointed stare, and it certainly won't be the last. Nevertheless, he finds himself getting fed up with these doctors and their damn holier-than-thou attitude. Defiantly, he looks Dr. Harlow directly in the eye and reaches for the whisky bottle before taking a long swig. “Nothing cures a headache like a little hair’o’the dog, right?” he snaps, enjoying the familiar burn of the liquor in his throat.
“Mr. MacGuire, I need to implore-” begins Dr. Williams.
“Shut up!” comes his voice, suddenly. He is seeing red. Pushing himself from the bed, he stands and storms toward the doctors, reaching for a phantom gun at his side out of habit. “Get off your damn high horses and let me go! I’m sick o’ being poked and prodded for science. Let. Me. Leave.” He has no idea where this is coming from, he had been impulsive before the shootout, but this is something entirely different. This is pure, unadulterated anger.
Who is this person?
The two doctors stand in front of him, completely shocked and unmoving. A tension has overcome the room, and he has no idea what to do with it. So, like his mentor before him, he ran.
His escape plan is fully abandoned as he snatches his clothes from the floor and dashes down the stairs and out the door. The doctors, apparently shocked at his sudden action, take a moment to process the situation before running after him.
But Sean MacGuire is clever. Sean MacGuire is slippery. Sean MacGuire wouldn’t be caught by a couple of old bags.
As quickly as his decrepit feet would carry him, he darted out of the building and up a small hill into a nearby copse of trees. This should keep them off his tail. He ran forward, upward, until his legs were ready to give out beneath him, and then he collapsed.
Laying on the ground, his head is pounding. He is unsure if it's from the sudden exercise, his injury, or his hangover- but it is stronger than he’s ever experienced before. The world spins before him, tossing him back and forth until he finally leans to his side, retches, and passes out.
---
He awakens later, smelling strongly of piss and vomit, to the sounds of voices in the woods and a crackling fire.
“Those damn fuckers ‘re gonna get it, ya hear?”
“They can’t come in ‘ere ‘n’ take our home right from under us!”
“We should set the feds on’ere asses.”
“Yeah, that’d teach’em!”
Shit. Shit shit shit shit. Those are definitely not the voices of friendly neighbors who will
willingly take him in to clean himself off. He needs to go, and he needs to go now.
But where?
He has no idea where he was, and he sure as hell is not going back to that clinic. He has no weapons, no money, no food. Luckily, his vomit has missed the pile of clean clothes he had grabbed on his way out, but other than that - nothing. He is completely on his own now.
But it isn’t the first time.
Shit, he had made it here from Ireland on his own. Found the gang on his own. Hell, he had survived the damn bounty hunters on his own. This should be easy enough.
The talking continues, the nearby group ranting and raving about someplace called “Beaver Hollow” as he pulls on his crumpled clothing as quietly as possible. His head is still spinning, and his throat is desperately dry, but he does his best to make his way in the opposite direction of the group.
But his legs are wobbly, essentially unused for nearly two months. He can barely see his hand in front of his face in the darkness. And, these men practically live in this wood. This is their turf, and he is not welcome in it.
He takes a few dizzy steps, and immediately the voices stop.
“Jeb, you hear that?” one of the men says after a moment.
Sean stands as still as humanly possible, hoping they will ignore it and continue their conversation.
“Yeah, I heard it,” a second voice responds. Damn it. “It sounds like we got ourselves some company, boys.” He hears the sound of the leaves crunching under the group’s feet as they stood, the cocking of their guns aimed in his direction. “Let’s catch us a snake.”
The group bursts into maniacal laughter and charges toward him.
Without a second thought, Sean bursts forward, through the trees and down the hill as quickly as his weak legs can carry him. The sound of vile hoots and hollers, laughter, and the occasional gunshot follows him at all too close a range. He tries to push all the energy he can muster into his legs, but they are exhausted, unused to running for so long. Adrenaline and inertia are all that keep him going.
The men draw closer, taunting him, and he soon hears the all-too-familiar sound of a gunshot and a bullet whizz past his ear.
This is it. This was how he was actually going to die. Not in some dusty street in Rhodes, where at least his friends could have found his body. No, he would die here. In the middle of an overgrown forest on a mountain - the only people aware of it would be the damn hillbillies that kill him.
Leaves crunch under his feet as he keeps running. His lungs are aflame, burning from the strain. His head is throbbing, his heart is pounding. He can feel himself ready to collapse again, ready to meet his maker for good.
And then he sees it.
His godsend, his savior.
Lights.
Not many, but some. A small town is situated just ahead of him, down the rest of the hill and across some railroad tracks. God, if he can make it, if his body doesn’t completely give out before then, he will be safe.
He would be in the company of people - real people, not some backwoods hicks - and these fuckers wouldn’t dare chase him into town.
The thought was enough to give him a burst of energy, and despite the burning in his legs, the fire in his lungs, he pushed desperately forward. He reached the railroad tracks, next to a dilapidated old rail station, and stumbled forward. Through the darkness, he could see the silhouettes of a few people on the street ahead of him.
“H-help!” he croaks, feebly attempting to wave his hands in the air. “Help! Please!”
The laughter and hollering behind him turn into a cacophony of angry swearing as he makes it to the light of a small, flickering street lamp. The people on the street stared at him, strangely, no one comes to his aid. A few final, irritated gunshots ring out before the men chasing him turn to leave, and Sean collapses to his knees in the dim light.
He was still alive.
--
He isn’t sure how long he stays there, still as a corpse, staring across the street and into the nearby river. He probably would have stayed there forever, a statue frozen in time from his own fear and exhaustion. However, he soon feels himself being yanked up by his armpits, and then led, staggering, through the rundown town.
The sound of a piano playing the familiar notes of The Arkansas Traveller greets him as a pair of doors swing open, and he is unceremoniously dumped into a chair. “Can we get a couple whiskeys, please, Josie?” he vaguely hears through the ringing in his ears.
Sean looks around in a daze. The dimly lit saloon is visited by plenty of patrons, many of whom are already completely gone for the evening. It smells strongly of smoke and sweat, and the rhythmic sounds of the pianoforte rises above the din of chatter, ringing sharply in his ears. He should already be well in his cups, completely drowning out any thoughts that might threaten to plague his mind.
As if God himself has heard his thoughts, a full glass of amber lifeblood is set in front of him with a clank on the wooden table.
“Here you go, son,” comes the voice again. He turns his head slightly, and gets a good look at his savior. An older man, with long, gray hair, an unkempt beard, and dressed tattered clothing. “Drink up, now.”
Sean looks back to the whisky, picks up the glass, and swallows the liquid in one gulp. The familiar burn slides comfortingly down his throat, helping to bring him back to reality. “Thanks,” he says, not finding the energy for his usual witty retorts.
The man laughs and slaps him lightly on the back. “You’re welcome, son,” he says, his accent thick. “Now, let me introduce myself. Hamish Sinclair.”
An old, calloused hand is held in Sean’s direction, which he takes to shake. “Sean MacGuire.”
“Pleasure’s all mine, Mr. MacGuire,” Hamish responds, quickly flagging down the bartender for another round of drinks. “Now, have another drink and tell me how I found you half-dead in the middle of the street.”
Whisky is poured into his empty glass, which Sean again downs almost immediately. This Hamish seems like a good enough man, he had dragged him off the street after all, and as much as Sean loves to talk, telling the story of the past few weeks seems wrong. It's surreal almost, thinking about what has happened. He'd been shot in the head, somehow lived to tell the tale, recovered, ran away, nearly been killed again, and now… well, now he is sitting in a bar sharing drinks with a stranger.
If he didn’t know better, he'd say it was just the ramblings of a madman.
“I…” he begins, staring down into his empty glass. “I got separated from my friends.”
For the first time in his life, Sean shows restraint. There's no use telling this man everything - he won't believe the tale anyway. And god, if he does, he will surely be shipped off to the madhouse as soon as he says a word.
Hamish leans back in his chair and takes a sip from his glass. With his free hand he fiddles with his right pant leg. “Ah,” he begins. “I see.” He contemplates for a moment, looking at the cobwebs on the ceiling. “Separated from your friends.”
Sean nods, unsure where this is going.
“You know, same thing happened to me when I was your age. Left for dead by my friends, in the middle of a battlefield,” he explains with a sideways glance at Sean’s forehead. “Course, I only lost a leg, in the end.” He clears his throat and leans forward.
Sean glances down as Hamish lifts his pant leg, showing the bottom of a wooden limb.
“And… did you find them again?” Sean asks, hesitantly. In all honesty, he thought of finding the gang again, but has absolutely no idea where to begin searching. For all he knows, they finally made it to Tahiti while he was laying around trying not to die.
“I did,” Hamish nods, a solemn look washing over his face. “Well, some of them. A few of ‘em died in the meantime. Few of ‘em ran away. Weren’t pretty, the end of the war.” He reaches up with his hand and orders another whisky. “‘Course, it was really just by chance I found any of ‘em at all. ‘N by then, well, most had assumed me dead anyway. Moved on with their lives.”
Sean tears his eyes away from Hamish’s face, looking again into his glass.
Arthur, John, Karen, they wouldn’t move on so quickly, would they? They wouldn’t pack up and forget about him entirely. Right?
“They… there’s no way,” Sean finds himself saying, anger and sadness bubbling up in him once again. “They wouldn’t just forget me.” Again, he finds himself working up into a dizzying rage. He sees red, tears threatening to spill again from his dried eyes. “They wouldn’t!” He finds himself pounding on the table with a clenched fist.
In the back of his mind, he's confused. These emotions, this anger, this had never been who he was before. But now it seems like anger, frustration, is all he feels.
Who is he?
“Now, son, that’s not…”
Sean doesn't let him finish his sentence, and instead stands and storms out of the building. A few nearby horses are spooked by the sudden slamming of the saloon doors, but he pays them no mind. Without a second thought, and as if his body is controlled by someone entirely different, he unhitches a horse, mounts up, and rides from the town at a gallop.
His friends won't forget him. They wouldn’t abandon him. They wouldn’t leave him.
And if they do?
He will kill them.
He rides for as long as the horse allows. Through forests, climbing trails on mountain sides, across rivers. Away from that damn, dirty town. Away from his fury.
He would have continued for hours; riding like the devil himself was upon him, wallowing in a horrific mixture of anger, loathing and pity. But, the stolen horse soon began to protest.
It starts with an agitated huff, a slight kick of its hind legs, until the damn beast is completely mad - bucking and screaming to get the stranger off its back. Somehow, Sean manages to hold on for dear life, his sullen mood suddenly forced away by the frantic movements.
But he is exhausted too, mentally and physically, and cannot hold on for long.
With a well timed kick of its hind legs, the horse manages to throw him. He feels the all-too-familiar feeling of his head slamming onto the hard ground, and yet again, his world goes black.
--
He awakens later, head throbbing more than usual, to the sound of frantic shouts and gunfire in the distance. Horses cry through the night, adding to the cacophony of chaos as he tries desperately to gather his wits.
He sits up slowly, grasping at the back of his head to the spot of the once gaping wound. As he pulls his hand away, his heart drops at the sight of his hand covered in sticky, red blood.
Shit.
He doesn’t know much about medicine, but he is damn sure this is not a good sign.
He needs to find help. Now.
Slowly, head spinning, he balances himself on a nearby tree and pulls himself to his feet. He has no idea where he is, he has no idea where the next town may be, but the gunshots continue to ring in the distance. It may mean his death, his actual death, this time, but at least he knew there would be people. And, presumably soon, the law.
He was never smart, but he knew how to stay alive… mostly. And yet, this may have been the stupidest, deadliest thing he had ever done.
He ran dizzily towards the sound of gunfire.
The sounds are coming from closer than he had anticipated - either that or he has somehow blacked out for the majority of the distance. They continue to ring in his ears as he closes in on a lit clearing in the thick trees.
He stumbles into the clearing, vision clouded by smoke. Immediately, he recognises the ruins of an abandoned campsite. Tents are ablaze, crates of goods are scattered across the clearing and the gunshots echo even louder in his ears. He takes a minute to steady himself, feeling overwhelmed by the adrenaline suddenly flowing through his body, keeping him upright, before slowly stepping into the flaming camp.
Almost immediately, he regrets it. His foot comes into contact with something soft and heavy and flashes of his past echo through his mind. His father’s corpse, piles of bodies after a shootout in Blackwater, being left for dead in Rhodes.
He knew the feeling of a dead body well, but was not expecting it to house such a familiar face. He looked down as he gathered his balance once again and stared into the glassy eyes of Susan Grimshaw.
Shit.
Shit. Damn it. Fuck!
She has been shot through the torso, left lying in front of a burning wagon. She had been nothing but horrible to him during his time with the gang - constantly calling him lazy, good-for-nothing, a layabout. Constantly nagging him to pull his weight, do any sort of work.
She had been right, of course, but that hadn’t made Sean like her any the more.
But then, he had never wished her dead. Not like this.
He manages to tear his eyes from the corpse of the woman and look around the ruins of the camp. Even through the flames, he can make out Dutch’s tent - always ostentatious compared to the others. Arthur’s wagon stands across from it, aflame like the rest of the tents scattered around the clearing.
He knows this camp. He had desperately clawed his way up from hell to find this camp.
But it seemed that hell had found them first.
Gunshots continued to ring out in the distance, and he realises this isn’t over. He has found Mrs. Grimshaw, but no other bodies seem to be in the area.
If he can find them, if he can help them, then maybe the rest of the gang could still come out of this alive.
And, goddamn it, he will do everything he could to make that happen.
He follows the sounds of gunshots and shouts as quickly as his beaten body allows him, through caves and a forest, until he reaches the foot of a small mountain. A horse, which he quickly recognises as Arthur’s, lies dead in the grass in front of him. This only spurs him further on.
His legs are aflame, his head is pounding, as he climbs the steep cliffside. The gunshots have all but subsided now, but he can hear the sound of voices - a heated argument only a short distance away.
“I got you now, black lung!”
“Right, you’re right.”
“I’m a survivor, black lung! A survivor! That’s all there is - livin’ and dyin’!”
He has heard those voices. He knows those voices. His friends. His family.
He charges ahead, stumbling over rocks on his way up, as he hears the sound of bodies hitting the cold, stone ground.
He needs to hurry.
He hears gasps and the sound of fists on skin from just above him.
“You know, black lung,” Micah’s voice, just above his head, just out of his sight. “I’ve been waitin’ for this.” The sound of another punch reaches his ears “You’re a goddamn traitor.”
Sean stops in his tracks, shocked. A traitor? Who the hell would dare-
“I got what I wanted…” Sean’s head almost bursts at the sound of Arthur Morgan’s familiar voice, arguing with Micah in between the sound of punches.
Arthur?
Arthur damn Morgan?
Arthur Morgan had betrayed the gang?
There was no way. It was completely, utterly impossible.
“Still got a little fight in ya, have you, boy?” Micah growls, and Sean hears sounds of the other man gasping for air above his head. “After we’re done, I’m gonna kill Marston, too.”
More punches, and the sound of metal hitting rock and skidding towards the edge.
“Milton told me...” Arthur spits, groaning as another punch lands. Sean again hears a body hit the ground.
Both men are silent for just a moment, breathing heavily. “Told you what, black lung?” Micah taunts. Again, the familiar crunch of boots on rock reaches Sean. “Told you that I set the whole thing up? In Rhodes? In San Denis?” Micah laughs, an acidic, poisonous laugh that injects itself into Sean’s veins. “That I got your friends killed? Hosea and Lenny? Just weeding out the weak ones, is all.”
Hosea.
Lenny.
They were dead?
Sean isn’t sure what overcomes him, but he sees red. His vision is once again clouded, but this time it wasn’t from smoke or the pounding in his head. This time, it was from pure, unadulterated anger. In a swift motion, he bounds up the last few feet of the trail and finds himself at the top of the mountain. Arthur is on the ground in front of him, with Micah looming menacingly over him, ready to finish what he had started.
And near his feet, he spots it. Sean’s saving grace, his revenge. A gun.
He picks it up, the familiar weight of a weapon in his hand giving him just the little drive that he needed. Slowly, steadily, he steps forward and aims.
“You know as well as I do that the gang can’t survive with leeches, black lung,” he continues, “So I took care-”
BANG.
The look of shock on Micah’s face at seeing Sean rise from the dead is quickly wiped away as he falls to the ground in an unmoving heap.
And there is silence.
No villain’s monologue to echo through the night. No gunfire ringing in his ears.
Just, silence.
Until a cough from behind him draws his attention.
“S-Sean?” comes the sputtering voice of Arthur Morgan. It is weaker than Sean had ever heard, exhausted and morose. “Sean? Is that you?”
He turns to face the man, ready to throw a sarcastic quip in his direction, until he actually sees him. Sean had thought that he looked bad, but somehow Arthur Morgan looked a thousand times worse.
The once bulky cowboy is collapsed on the ground before him, barely skin and bones. His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with black from a lack of sleep, and as he wiped his mouth Sean could see the spots of crimson on his frail hand.
“Arthur?” Sean staggers toward his friend, his energy beginning to fail him now that the worst of this unexpected fight seemed to be over. His knees hit the ground next to the prostrate body of his friend, who looks at him weakly. Tears well up in his eyes. “Yeah, it’s me, English,” he confirms, looking sadly over his friend once again. “Takes a lot more than that to get rid’o ol’ Dead-Eye MacGuire, you know?”
Arthur laughs slightly, which quickly turns into a fit of bloodied coughs. “‘M…” he starts, pausing to take a breath. “‘M glad you… glad yer alright.”
Both men’s breaths are shaky, freezing into thin sheets of crystals in the early morning air as they catch their breaths. “Me too, English,” Sean murmurs after a moment.
He momentarily diverts his gaze from his friend to the path he climbed to get to the top of this mountain. “You… you think you can…” he starts, but trails off before finishing the sentence. Even he wasn’t stupid enough to think that the two of them could climb back down. Not like this.
Arthur once again lets out a pained laugh and uses what little energy he can muster to shake his head. He doesn’t speak.
“Me too, English,” Sean says after a moment’s contemplation. With bloodied hands, he reaches to brace himself as he lays on the ground beside his dying friend. He vaguely thinks he hears footsteps behind him, but pays it no mind. On his back, he watches the sky as it slowly begins to change with the rising sun.
This was it. This was where he would finally say goodbye.
And it was worth it.
--
His eyes open in a flash. The room is white, blindingly so, and there is a loud ringing in his ears that is only drowned out by the screaming pain in his head.
He groans and tries to reach up to his head, to massage this pain away, only to find it again wrapped tightly in bandages. The sound of loud snores from nearby reaches his ears, grating on his already sensitive senses.
Slowly, carefully, he turns his head to look in the direction of the sound. There, covered in bandages and lying on the bed next to his, was Arthur Morgan, sound asleep and sawing enough logs to build a cabin.
Sean feels a smile come to his lips as he glances around the room, just in time to spot the door creek open to reveal a small, brown-haired boy. Blue eyes light up when the boy sees that he’s awake, before he turns and calls down a hallway.
“Ma! Pa! Uncle Sean’s awake!”