Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Since this... thing between them started, on a surreal, star-soaked night on the lakeshore just outside of Blackwater, Charles has learned two things.

One: Arthur Morgan sleeps like the dead. Contrary to his light-sleeper habits when they’re out in the wilderness, in camp Arthur can and will sleep through just about anything – whether it be another late-night shouting match between John and Abigail, Sean’s drunken caterwauling, Miss Grimshaw’s strident bark, Dutch’s scratchy gramophone music, or any of the other usual camp ruckus. Charles, still adjusting from years of relative quiet and solitude, doesn’t know how he does it. It speaks, perhaps, of feelings of safety and security, letting his guard drop entirely when surrounded by his family. Which is endearing, in a way – though Charles would like to think that Arthur could (and should) be able to have other safe havens in his life, outside of a bunch of outlaws.

Two: He’s been with the gang so long that said bunch of outlaws seem to view Arthur – and all he owns – as communal property. Things like privacy and seclusion are luxuries, rarely afforded when you have over twenty people living on top of each other like this. But while a pretense of common courtesy is kept up in most cases – hovering at the edges of canvas unless invited in, loud clearing of throats to announce one’s presence, gazes politely averted when someone’s getting changed – Arthur seems to be as much a staple feature of the gang as the campfire or the butchery table. And that means people will happily barge into his lean-to – whether he’s got the side covers down or not – at all hours of the day and night.

Or in those grey hours between the two.

“Hey Arthur, you got a- oh!”

Lenny stares like a startled deer.

Charles stares back.

Arthur snores.

“...need something?” Charles finally asks lowly, peering over Arthur’s shoulder. Not shifting from his position – curled around Arthur’s back, arm slung over his middle.

“Um...” Lenny’s eyes dart between Charles and Arthur a few moments more, but he thankfully keeps his voice low when he finds it again. “I just, uh, was wondering if he had a hoof pick. Err, Maggie’s got a stone wedged, and I can’t find the camp one...”

“There’s one in Taima’s saddlebags. Left side.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks. Um. Bye then!”

Charles stares at the tent flap for a long moment after Lenny makes his hasty exit, then lets his head thump into the dip between Arthur’s shoulder blades with a low groan.

It had been an unspoken agreement between them as they’d finally made their way back to camp that night, lips and skin still tingling from the kisses and gentle touches neither of them had been afforded in a very long time; as they’d approached the glow of the campfires, got within sighting distance of whoever was on watch, they walked a little further apart. And Charles was sure someone would say something, once they noticed the way Arthur’s eyes soften whenever he catches Charles’, the pink dusting his cheeks, the bashful smiles he tries and fails to hide under the brim of his hat. But no one has – too caught up in their own lives, or too used to the image of Arthur that he projects to the world – gruff, tough, and hardened, reserving his gentleness only for horses and small children.

So they’ve kept... this, whatever it is, a secret – Charles slipping into Arthur’s tent after everyone’s asleep and leaving before they wake up again, or the two of them coordinating their trips out of camp. While Arthur is certain that most of the gang wouldn’t bat an eye at a relationship between two men, Charles is warier – the key word is most, and he’s far too used to other people’s prejudices as it is.

And they’d both agreed that, even if the whole gang was okay with their relationship, the teasing just wouldn’t be worth it. Though some mornings, when the sky is turning pale and Charles knows he has to leave now if he wants to avoid being seen, and Arthur is soft and sleep-warm in his arms... a part of him wonders if maybe it would be.

But now Lenny knows.

Oblivious to all of this, Arthur just keeps on snoring.

In hindsight, of all the people that could have walked in on them, he’s glad it was Lenny – he’s barely more than a boy, but he’s got more intelligence, integrity and kindness than most men three times his age, and knows more about bigotry than most of them too. He gives Charles a nervous smile next time they see each other, but says nothing. It’s not until Arthur mentions that “Lenny’s been actin’ real strange – keeps talkin’ about ‘finding the one’ and ‘true love’. Poor kid, he must’ve been even sweeter on Jenny than we thought!” that Charles’ shoulders ease from the tension he didn’t realise he’d been holding. He gives Lenny a genuine smile as they exchange watch duty, and Lenny grins back, seeming to understand. Their secret is safe with him – the kid’s no gossip.

He’s not sure the same can be said of Miss Mary-Beth Gaskill.

“Oh!”

Charles jerks awake just in time to see a pink skirt quickly disappear back out through the tent flaps, the pile of fresh laundry that’s been hurriedly deposited on Arthur’s clothes chest listing precariously to one side. Cursing softly, Charles detangles himself from Arthur and, after a peek through the canvas flaps to make sure the coast is clear, hurries out after her, trying to think of some explanation, or bargain, or plea, or even a threat if he has to, that will keep her from telling the other girls.

Because once she does, the knowledge will spread through the camp like wildfire. And because... Charles isn’t sure what he’s doing. Doesn’t think Arthur really knows either. Maybe, when it comes down to it, the both of them just want someone to hold in the night. But he still cares for Arthur, genuinely likes the man underneath that hardened exterior. The prospect of being run out of the gang is painful, but he’d survive. But the thought of Arthur being disowned by his family, this ragtag group he so dearly loves...

Charles can’t bear the thought of making Arthur suffer that for his sake.

But Mary-Beth’s already bent over her (unusually early) laundry work, and refuses to meet his eye for the next few days, keeping her head buried in her notebook. And Charles frets and worries and wonders if he should just leave, now, to try and spare Arthur – right up until Tilly brings him a bowl of stew when he’s out on watch, and complains to him about the latest story Mary-Beth’s been writing.

“Some high-falootin’ nonsense about forbidden lovers and all that,” she huffs, rolling her eyes. “She keeps insisting it’s awful romantic. But Lord, I looked over her latest chapter yesterday – could feel my teeth rotting just reading it!”

Charles laughs, and hopes the relief isn’t too obvious on his face.

As it turns out, there’s one exception to Arthur’s ability to sleep through anything. Charles barely registers the quiet whimper that wakes him up before Arthur’s pushing himself up on one arm.

“Jack? What’s wrong, kid?”

“I had a bad dream,” Jack sniffles, the sliver of lantern light making its way through the canvas flaps highlighting the tear tracks on his cheeks. “Can... can I stay with you?”

Arthur and Charles share a slightly bewildered look – but neither of them are going to deny a frightened and upset child. Much as he doesn’t relish the idea of returning to his lonely bedroll on the cold, hard ground now that the campfire’s burned down, Charles shifts, pushing himself up to leave-

“Might be a bit of a tight fit, but, ’course you can, c’mere.”

Charles looks at Arthur again, startled, just gets the tiniest of shrugs in response. But Jack doesn’t seem perturbed by the fact there’s already someone else in Arthur’s cot, and they manage – Charles on his side and curled around Arthur, who’s on his back with Jack lying on his chest.

“What was the bad dream about, hmm? Not the broccoli monsters again?”

“Uncle Arthur I’m too old to be scared of broccoli monsters!” Jack declares indignantly, fears momentarily forgotten. Charles hides his smile in Arthur’s shoulder. But it falters when Jack continues in a smaller voice, “the... the nasty men. Down by the river...”

Charles can see Arthur bite his lip in the gloom. He’d told Charles about his and Jack’s encounter with the Pinkerton agents as they’d fletched arrows over the scout fire – or rather, while Charles had fletched arrows and Arthur had paced about like a frustrated wildcat. It was hard to tell what the man was more unnerved by – the Pinkertons being so close to discovering their camp, or Dutch’s ambivalence about it.

“Yeah, they weren’t very nice were they?” Arthur says gently. “But you don’t need to worry about them, they’re long gone. And even if they weren’t – you got your mama, and me, and Charles here, and Uncle Dutch and Uncle Hosea, and all the rest of us – we’ll make sure those nasty men don’t bother you none.”

Jack turns his head at that, seemingly only just registering the other man in Arthur’s cot.

“Did you have a bad dream too, Mr. Charles?” he yawns, eyelids already drooping.

“Something like that,” Charles says softly as they settle.

When Abigail comes looking for her son just before dawn, she pauses only briefly, eyebrows raising slightly before she smiles, shooting Charles an apologetic look as she extracts Jack from Arthur’s arms. Arthur mumbles unhappily in his sleep, apparently missing having something to cuddle – because he promptly rolls over and latches onto Charles instead. Abigail huffs a quiet laugh, gives him a wink, and slips back outside.

Charles presses his own smile into Arthur’s hair and goes back to sleep.

“Ahem.”

Charles blinks awake and finds himself looking up into the cold eyes of Leopold Strauss. There’s a distinct curl to the man’s lip.

Charles glares right back, arms tightening protectively around Arthur.

“What do you want, Strauss?” he growls lowly.

“Good morning,” Strauss says curtly. “I need to speak to Herr Morgan.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, he’s sleeping. Keep your voice down.”

“Well then he should get up! There is work to do!”

“Then go do it yourself, and keep out of other people’s business.”

He hopes the unspoken threat is implicit enough, but Strauss just tsks.

“This,” he huffs, gesturing at the two of them, “is none of my business. This is,” he brandishes the large book in his hands. “Herr Morgan assured me he would collect our final outstanding debt yesterday, but he has not!”

Charles blinks at him in disbelief.

“The sun’s not even up!” he hisses.

“Every day he tarries, we risk losing our investment. That man, Downes, owes to other parties besides ourselves! If Herr Morgan doesn’t get to him first-”

“Then the other vultures will get all the best scraps?” Charles wonders darkly. Strauss’ function in the gang hadn’t been clear to him, at first – he just knew the man kept the gang’s accounts and helped with the odd forgery job. It was only once they’d left the foothills of the Northern Grizzlies and started staying near more populated areas that Strauss’ other line of business became apparent. Charles’ jaw clenches at the thought of this horrid little man preying on those who are beyond desperation.

And at the remembrance of how long it takes for the light to come back into Arthur’s eyes every time he’s sent to collect.

“We were up half the night robbing a train, send someone else.”

“But Dutch insists Herr Morgan is the best man for the-”

“Send. Someone. Else.”

It’s low, and menacing, and it does the trick. Strauss swallows.

“I... very well,” he mutters, before shuffling out of the lean-to, clutching that damned ledger to his chest. And not a moment too soon – Arthur stirs in his arms, eventually cracking his eyes open to squint at him.

“Y’say somethin’ jus’ now?” he asks through a yawn.

“I said I’ve got to go,” Charles lies smoothly – partly because he doesn’t want Arthur to worry. And partly because he suspects, if he knew the purpose of Strauss’ visit, that Arthur would drag himself out of his cot to go and do his bidding, returning with bruised knuckles and dull eyes. But they were up until the small hours of the morning on the train job, and he knows Arthur didn’t get much sleep the night before either, too busy running some stagecoach scam with Hosea.

“Go back to sleep,” he soothes, carding his fingers through Arthur’s sleep tousled hair until he relaxes.

“Y’could stay...” he murmurs.

Charles feels an odd... pull in his chest. It’s incredibly tempting – to just curl up under the covers again, Arthur in his arms, and to hell with the world beyond the tent flaps. But Strauss’ sneer sticks in his mind.

“You know I can’t,” he says quietly. Arthur makes a face, but nods.

“Hunting trip soon?” he mumbles.

“Sure. Maybe we could head into Cumberland Forest.”

“I was thinkin’ over Strawberry-way. Big Valley. Lotsa game over there – deer, elk...”

And it would take them away from camp for several days.

“Sounds good. I can’t be the only one getting sick of pronghorn.”

“Sounds good,” Arthur echoes, giving him a sleepy smile. Just because he can, Charles leans down and steals himself a kiss before reluctantly pulling his boots back on and creeping back to his own bedroll – Strauss is nowhere in sight, and the rest of the camp isn’t up yet. Careful not to disturb Javier, he climbs into the cold covers, holding back a sigh. Instead, he lets thoughts of another hunting trip – just the two of them, a campfire, and the stars – lull him to sleep.

A few days later, they ride out in the evening – not west towards Big Valley, but east, in search of a new campsite, after Dutch starts a shootout with half the population of Valentine. And despite the urgency and worry and barely-concealed anger over the situation, there’s a moment when they crest over the hills of the Heartlands and come to a stop to give the horses a small break after the climb; a moment where Arthur is silhouetted against the night sky, head tilted up and searching, as if he can find the answers to their problems in the stars, and Charles is close enough to see them reflected in his eyes.

And he feels that strange sensation in his chest again, spreading beneath his ribs – like the first few sips of a hot drink on a cold day. And part of him is worried, nervous of these feelings, of their intensity. He has learned, over and over again, that it’s best not to get too attached – to places, possessions, people...

The rest of him ignores it, and admires the beautiful sight in front of him.

Chapter Text

Clemens Point is much warmer than Horseshoe Overlook, so it’s harder for Arthur to justify pulling down the side covers of his lean-to. The only nights they get to spend together are when a rainstorm sweeps in off the lake. But even on those nights, the muggy heat of Lemoyne makes snuggling together underneath a blanket, or even just in their union suits, unbearably hot. Arthur brightly declares that they’ll just have to do without them then. Which is fine, even if it does lead to hands wandering over bare flesh (that inevitably go nowhere, because Arthur cannot keep quiet, to Charles’ equal amusement and chagrin).

The only good thing about the heat is that it makes everyone just a little less eager to get up, not when simply walking across camp means breaking out in a sweat. It allows them a few more blissful moments of peace on each of their stolen mornings.

Usually.

“Oi English, need some help with the SWEET JESUS!”

Charles glares as Arthur mumbles and shifts, threatening to wake.

“Is there a problem?” he asks, threateningly as he can while keeping his voice down. Up until this point, he’s generally found Sean to be loud and irritating, but mostly harmless. But if he so much as-

“Ugh, no, it’s just a tad early in the morning to be getting an eyeful, even by my standards,” Sean grunts, rubbing his hands over his eyes. “But, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like you fellas ain’t in fine form! In fact I’d say-”

“What do you want, Sean?” Charles cuts in, because he’s not sure where that sentence is going and he doesn’t want to know. Sean holds up his hands placatingly.

“Horses trampled the grazing area into a bloody swamp over the night - need to shift them before the poor buggers all get grease heel. But I ain’t going near that big bastard of his!”

Sean says all this with no apparent concern for the fact his conversational partner is still as bare as the day he was born, or that Dutch and Molly are only a few feet and a layer of tent cloth away.

“I’ll help you, just keep it down!” Charles pleads.

“Pffft, if you fancy losing a finger - or, hehe, something more important, in that get-up – then you be my guest!”

His smirk falters to a nervous grin at the look Charles gives him.

“All right, all right, I’ll, ah, meet you by the horses then eh?”

He escapes back outside, and Charles rolls his eyes with a sigh, before carefully climbing out of the cot to pull his clothes back on. He grabs a blanket to cover Arthur and, after a moment’s thought, rifles in his satchel to find some of the peppermints that the man seems to have an endless supply of. Sure enough, when he heads over to the edge of camp, Sean’s in the middle of leading Old Belle and one of the cart horses over to a higher patch of ground closer to the scout fire, while the rest of the herd shuffle about unhappily, up to their fetlocks in mud. Charles pats Taima as he unhitches her, trusting her to follow as he unhitches Silver Dollar and Old Boy.

“How come Baylock’s so clean?” he wonders as Sean passes him. The Foxtrotter’s already tethered at the other hitching posts, and he’s the only horse without mud spatters all the way up to his knees.

“Because Micah’s a gobshite,” Sean grumbles. “Musta come off watch and moved his own horse, didn’t bother with anyone else’s!”

Charles huffs. Sounds about right for the man. He’s at least been avoiding Charles since he threw him into the dirt (to the delight of most of the camp, judging by how many of them approached him later and told him it was the best damn thing they’ve seen in ages).

Finally, it’s just their last carthorse and Atlas remaining. Sean starts leading the carthorse away, but doesn’t even attempt to pretend he’s not hanging back to see what happens. Charles approaches Atlas slowly, murmuring to him; the big grey Ardennes is temperamental at the best of times. Arthur says he’s outright killed people, and Charles believes it.

“Hey boy,” he croons, the same way he’s heard Arthur talk to him. “Your man’s still asleep, so you’ve got me, all right? Let’s get you somewhere dry.” Atlas eyes him suspiciously, ears swivelling, so Charles pulls out a peppermint. The warhorse perks up considerably at that, and steadily crunches his way through Charles’ supply as he snags his bridle and leads him over to the others. Sean stares in amazement.

“Bugger me,” he says in an awed voice, “how come you ain’t missing body parts?!”

“He’s nowhere near as nasty as he pretends he is,” Charles says fondly, patting Atlas’ neck. Horses safely tethered and fingers still attached, he hopes that will be the end of it and Sean will leave him in peace.

He doesn’t, of course.

“So. You and the big man, eh?” Sean grins, waggling his eyebrows. “I thought he’s been less of a grouch lately! Looks like taming mean, grumpy bastards is a secret talent of yours, eh Charlie Boy?! ...all right, all right, I’m goin’...”

Sean retreats back towards the watch post at the look Charles gives him. Charles keeps his face stony, arms folded, while he quietly panics about the fact that everyone is going to know about him and Arthur by breakfast. But then Sean – whether by luck, or in a rare moment of self-awareness – pauses.

“But ya don’t gotta worry! Your secret’s safe with me!” he calls back, giving him a wink.

Charles trusts Sean about as far as he can throw the kid – probably less, actually. But, sure enough, life carries on as normal. Except,

“You noticed Sean actin’... odd lately?” Arthur asks as they lie tangled together in his bedroll, tent pitched on a remote stretch of Flat Iron Lake’s shoreline.

“Mm?” asks Charles, too close to sleep for words as Arthur runs his hands through his hair.

“Reckon he’s plannin’ one of his stupid ‘pranks’. I been checkin’ my boots before I put them on, checkin’ under my pillow at night, making sure he ain’t messed with my saddle... But nothin’.”

Charles rouses himself enough to crane his head up, unease starting to curl in his stomach.

“Why do you think he’s up to something?” he asks cautiously. He hasn’t told Arthur – about Sean, or Lenny, or any of them. Doesn’t want to add yet another worry to those shoulders.

“’Cause every time he looks at me, he gets the biggest damn grin on his face.”

Charles breathes out a laugh and resettles, laying his ear over Arthur’s heart.

“I don’t think you need to worry...” he mumbles, letting himself drift off as Arthur gives a thoughtful hum and carries on carding his fingers through his hair.

As the camp’s funds slowly grow, they’re managing to build up their supplies again. Arthur is tasked, among so many other things, with making sure their munitions are well-stocked, keeping them in the back of his wagon. It’s both a blessing and a curse – it gives Charles an excuse to head over to Arthur’s tent, on the pretence of dropping off or picking up arrows and bullets.

But it also means that so does everyone else.

Last night was especially muggy despite the rain, so they’d left the back flap of the lean-to partly open to try and get some breeze off the lake – the wagon is angled as such that no one would be able to see inside unless they were coming from the beach. And Charles makes sure he’s always the first up on these mornings.

Which is why, when he wakes up to hear clinking and rattling behind their heads, he pushes himself up on one arm with a frown, ready to shoo away a racoon or some other curious animal, and instead locks eyes with Pearson.

“Morning!” he says cheerfully from the other side of the crates, before going back to rummaging around with the ammunition boxes. “Hey, you know if we have any shotgun shells? I’m after the cases.”

Charles stares, and, belatedly, points, not trusting his voice.

“Aha! Much obliged.” Pearson grabs a box of the shells, then wanders off. Charles slowly lowers himself back down beside Arthur, blinking up at the canvas. Wonders, for a moment, if he was dreaming. But then he hears Pearson’s distant whistling from the beach. He takes a moment to mouth some choice words, before hauling himself up, pulling his clothes back on, and hurrying out after the man.

He finds him on the dock, already fishing.

“Grab a rod, Mr. Smith! They’re practically jumping into the bucket!”

“I’m... not much of a fisherman,” Charles replies slowly as he steps alongside him, wondering why the other man is just... blatantly ignoring events two minutes earlier.

“No? A shame – clear mornings like this, after a big rainstorm? An angler’s dream! The bugs are going crazy, and the fish go crazy for ‘em! But, the increased sediment load in the water means usual lures don’t cut it, you’ve got to use something flashy. Hence the shotgun shell cases,” Pearson explains, nodding to the opened box next to his fishing bucket.

“I see.”

Charles watches Pearson reel in a few fish, the man crowing at the size of the ‘beauties’. Perhaps it’s where Arthur got his habit of talking to fish from.

Speaking of which...

“Pearson- I, uh- about what-”

Pearson gives him a sidelong look, moustache quirking.

“Save your breath, kid. I was in the Navy.”

Charles must look confused, because he elaborates.

“Think about it – dozens, sometimes hundreds of men, all cooped up together and stuck out at sea? That,” he jabs a thumb over his shoulder towards Arthur’s wagon, “was nothin’.”

Charles isn’t quite sure what to do with that information.

The rain’s only just let up, and Charles hopes no one will notice his footprints in the damp grass as he steals out of Arthur’s lean-to (though he thinks its unlikely – besides Arthur and Hosea, and maybe John, there aren’t any other decent trackers in the gang). He heads straight for Taima, intent on bringing back a boar or turkey, as well as some yarrow for the bruising that still rings Arthur’s neck. He’s so busy trying to push away thoughts of what might have happened, if he’d been further away, or decided to investigate one more row of corn before catching up to Arthur, that he doesn’t even register the figure sitting at the dominos table before it’s too late.

He freezes.

Josiah Trelawney looks clean and put-together as always, as if he hadn’t been beaten black and blue only a few days ago, and is drinking coffee from an actual china cup and saucer he’s got from... somewhere. They stare at each other in surprise for a moment.

Then an awfully amused look creeps across Trelawney’s face. He silently raises his cup to Charles in salute, then takes another languid sip. Charles blinks once, then hurries off towards Taima, cheeks burning.

He thinks he hears Trelawney chuckle behind him.

He does tell Arthur about it later – still unsure of exactly where Trelawney’s loyalties lie. But Arthur just huffs, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yeah, he, uh, he’s definitely one of the people we don’t need to worry about.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. He’s the first one that figured out that I... y’know.”

“How do you mean?”

“Ugh, he sat me down when I was... fifteen? As if we were in a goddamn schoolhouse. Started explaining it all to me - how it works, between two men.” Arthur scowls, cheeks turning scarlet.

“Was that... bad?” Charles asks, confused.

“He had a little book with diagrams, Charles!” Arthur exclaims, aghast. “And tips! Was the most awkward conversation of my whole damn life!”

Purely because he wants to see if Arthur can turn any redder, Charles smirks.

“Well, suppose I ought to thank him then. Seems he taught you well.”

He gets to see, for a second, that Arthur can indeed blush even further, before he buries his face in his chest, making aggrieved grumbling noises. Charles just laughs, putting his arms around him in consolation.

It’s the third night since Arthur returned to camp covered in his own blood, delirious with sepsis and barely clinging on to life.

The third night that Charles has offered to watch over him so Hosea, suddenly so much greyer and older, and Miss Grimshaw, lips pursed so tight they’re nearly invisible, can get some rest.

The third night that he has spent his hours reapplying cold compresses, checking bandages, and gently but firmly holding Arthur down when he starts writhing too violently in pain – with the help of Hosea and Lenny and whoever else gets woken up by Arthur’s pitiful cries.

The third night he has spent the rest of the time cradling Arthur’s hand in both his own, pressing kisses and promises and pleas to his bruised and broken knuckles.

“Please be okay,” he whispers. “Please, don’t... don’t go.”

He’d told himself that theirs was a casual attachment, a way to combat the loneliness they both seemed to feel. Told himself that it would not last, things would naturally draw to a close and they would slip back to easy friendship and mutual respect, and he would be fine with that. Told himself that he knows better than to place too much of his heart in something so easily lost as people.

But, it’s as he’d told Arthur in the cornfields – he’s a fool. He’s found a sense of belonging, of family, with this gang – feelings he thought he would never be able to experience again. But with Arthur... he is feeling things he never expected to, never knew were possible, feelings that, frankly, scare him.

But not as much as the possibility of losing Arthur does.

“Charles...”

Charles looks up as Arthur groans, ashen lips peeled back in a grimace. He hasn’t been truly conscious since the night he returned, but he has bouts of restlessness, shifting and muttering incoherently, which soon devolve into whimpers of pain.

“Arthur?”

“Charles!” Arthur whines again.

“I’m here, I’m here. Arthur, can you hear me?”

“Charles...”

“Oh, Arthur...”

“Cold...”

Charles frowns, holds his hand to Arthur’s cheek, and is surprised to find that after days of burning with fever, his skin is cool. Further checks under the blankets prove that, while the area around the gunshot wounds in his shoulder and thigh are still unreasonably warm, the rest of him is cold. Charles hopes that that’s a good sign. He puts more blankets over Arthur, tucking him in snugly, but Arthur still shudders, tossing his head and complaining of the cold.

“Charles... Gotta find John...”

“What? He’s in his tent, I can get him for you-”

“Ain’t come back yet, Abby... can’t have ‘nother boy w’no pa... gotta find... there’s wolves...”

It takes Charles a moment to make sense of the mutterings; Arthur feels so cold he thinks they’re back in Colter.

“Gotta tack up... Where’s Bo?” he asks through chattering teeth.

Heart breaking, Charles slips off his belts and boots and carefully climbs over Arthur, tucking himself into the blankets on his right side and wrapping him in his arms, mindful of his wounds. Arthur mutters a little more but then sighs, turning his head to nuzzle at Charles’ shoulder, tension leaking out of him. He quiets, breaths turning slow and easy. Charles watches the rise and fall of his chest like a hawk-

-only to find himself waking to the soft honeyed gold light that dawn has in these parts, and Hosea’s equally soft gaze from where he’s sat at the bedside, carefully clasping Arthur’s hand and gently rubbing a salve into the broken skin.

“Good morning,” he murmurs with a tired smile.

Charles freezes, a unique sensation running up his spine that he couldn’t name if he tried, but it’s close to mortification. Arthur’s always said that, if they were to tell people outright, Hosea should be the first, that he’d probably be the most ‘okay with it’. But, while Arthur may have been the first of the ‘sons of Dutch’, Charles realised early on that Hosea is Arthur’s father in all the ways that matter.

Perhaps, supply the few cogs in his brain that haven’t locked up in horror, this is what it feels like for ranch hands caught in the hayloft with their employer’s daughters.

“...Um...” he says eloquently.

“What time did his fever break?” Hosea asks, picking up fresh bandages and starting to wrap Arthur’s hand.

“About... at around eleven...” Charles manages, very aware that he is still curled up with Arthur, and wondering how to extract himself with as little awkwardness as possible but without hurting him – he’s going to have to ask Hosea to move either way; “excuse me, could you shift over for a moment so I can stop fondling your son and get out of here to go throw myself in the lake?”

He tries not to grimace.

“Hosea- I... I’m sorry, I-”

“Sorry? What for? This is the first time he’s slept through the night! When I woke up and realised I hadn’t heard him yellin’, I thought... Well...” His gaze shifts back to Arthur, clouding over with worry again.

“I guess... sorry that you... found out like this?”

Hosea stares at him for a moment – then slaps a hand over his mouth to cover a laugh.

“Oh, my dear boy, I’ve known for months!”

“You... have...?”

Hosea’s gaze is impossibly fond as he studies Arthur’s sleeping face – and, curiously, it doesn’t change all that much when it shifts to Charles.

“Arthur here ain’t half the fool he pretends to be – but I’m afraid that when it comes to realising he’s in love, he’s a thrice-damned idiot. It’s rare but, when it does happen, I usually know before he does.”

Charles swallows. ‘Love’ is not a word they’ve used...

“Temperature’s normal,” Hosea remarks, holding the back of his hand to Arthur’s forehead, “and his wounds ain’t stinking anymore. I reckon our nights of having to hold him down to the cot are over. Though, we’ll probably have to start tying him down during the day...”

“What? Why?” Any awkwardness promptly forgotten, Charles turns to Arthur, searching for some new sign of malady. But Hosea just chuckles again.

“You think he’ll be a good patient, stay put in his cot and rest like we tell him to?”

“Not at all,” Charles admits with a tentative smile of his own. Hosea finishes wrapping the bandages, gives that same fond look to Arthur and Charles as he stands.

“You get some rest. I’ll tell the others he’s sleeping properly so they’re not to disturb him.”

Charles hesitates before nodding with another small smile, watching Hosea carefully shut the tent flaps behind him, before twisting again to study Arthur. He still looks pale, but the sickly pallor has gone – if it weren’t for the bandages and bruises Charles knows are there underneath the blankets, it could be a normal morning, and Charles could be stealing his usual last kiss before he has to creep back to his own bedroll.

But this time, he doesn’t have to leave. It’s a precious feeling – one he can’t help but want to feel again, when it’s not caused by such awful circumstances.

He carefully settles back down, wrapping his arms around Arthur again, listens to his soft breaths, and thinks about how they haven’t used the word ‘love’.

Yet.

Chapter Text

Jack has been returned, safe and sound, and the party is in full-swing – in both celebration, and as a way for everyone to blow off steam. Between Sean’s horrible death, Jack’s kidnapping and their subsequent attack on Braithwaite manor, the arrival of the Pinkertons, their flight to a new camp, and the desperate search through St Denis, it’s been a week from hell for everyone – the tension has been high, with chances to rest short and tempers shorter. And, time and again, the work of making it right fell to Arthur.

They’ve had no chance to take advantage of the fact Arthur now has a room with a solid door and most of four walls – he’s barely been in camp. The few times Charles has even caught sight of him were fleeting – each time looking more drawn, shoulders wound tighter and tighter. And the celebrating is nice and well-deserved, but Charles generally avoids groups of loud drunk people.

Blowing off steam, on the other hand, is something he’s very much in favour of.

He decides, as he pins Arthur against the stone wall, his sole purpose tonight is to turn the other man to putty in his hands. Things are going pretty well, if the noises tumbling from Arthur’s lips are anything to go by. Between the drunken partygoers, the cacophony of insects in the surrounding forest, and the rumbling thunder, he figures they don’t need to worry about anyone hearing them all the way over here on the other side of the old gateway. He mouths his way up the column of Arthur’s throat, pausing to suckle at the pulse point just below his jaw, and is rewarded with a stuttering inhale.

“Charles,” Arthur gasps, fingers fisting in the back of Charles’ vest.

“Hmmm?”

“Don’t ‘hm’ me you teas- ah-” Charles cuts off the grumbling by grinding their hips together. Arthur lets his head fall back against the stone with a low whine – which just gives Charles better access to his neck.

“Dammit Charles, it’s, oh, it’s too hot to wear a bandana around he-re,” Arthur manages to grit out, even as he raises one hand to bury his fingers in Charles’ hair.

“Huh. You’re right. Should probably stop that.” Charles pulls away, smirking at the alarmed look on Arthur’s face.

“Wha- now, hold up, I didn’t mean we couldn’t-”

“Reckon I’ll just have to kiss you somewhere else,” Charles says airily, sinking down onto his knees.

“Jesus, Charles...” it comes out as a moan, and even in the moonlight he can see Arthur’s face is flushed a pretty pink, his pupils blown wide. Charles just chuckles and gets to work on Arthur’s belt.

Unfortunately, between the drunken partygoers, the cacophony of insects in the surrounding forest, and the still-rumbling thunder, neither of them hear the footsteps until it’s too late.

“Oh...”

They both whip around to see Kieran wandering through the gate, with the distinct weaving steps of the severely inebriated.

“Heh, wow,” he laughs brightly, coming to a stop (the weaving doesn’t). “I must be drunker’n I thought!”

“...How so?” Charles asks flatly.

“Well, uh, heh, for a moment there it looked like y’two was-”

“You do seem pretty drunk Kieran,” Arthur says evenly, “maybe you should go sleep it off, hm?”

“Yeah, I know,” Kieran nods, face falling, “but I can’t go back there! They all hate me!” Charles resists the urge to drop his forehead against Arthur’s thigh in frustration, reluctantly pushing himself back to his feet instead. A drunken heart-to-heart with Kieran Duffy is not something he’d factored into his plans for the night.

“Why’d you think that?” Arthur asks, sounding genuinely perplexed.

“’Cause it’s my fault Jack got taken!” Keiran wails, swaying in place. “I should just leave...”

“Aw c’mon, that ain’t true. And no one hates you! Well, ‘cept maybe Sadie...”

“But I ain’t-”

“You’re one of us now! Folks might tease you but they don’t mean it. Mostly.”

“R-really?”

The kid sounds like he might actually start crying.

“Sure! ‘Sides, if you leave, the horses’ll miss ya.”

“Oh, oh no, I didn’t think of that...”

“So go on, head on back to the party. Why don’t you ask Mary-Beth if she’ll start teachin’ you how to read?”

Kieran brightens up considerably at that.

“That’s a great idea!” he beams. “I’ll go do that right now!”

They watch as he staggers off. Eventually Charles sighs.

“Other way, Kieran,” he calls.

“Wha- Oh! Right.” Chuckling to himself, Kieran turns back around, weaving up the driveway back towards the house this time, giving them a sloppy wave as he passes.

“G’night fellas!”

“’Night. Don’t fall in the swamp,” Arthur cautions as they return the wave. Kieran seems to think this is hysterical, and they wait until his giggling fades into the night. Satisfied that he’s far enough away, and dissatisfied over Arthur’s rediscovered ability to form complete sentences, Charles sets about correcting that, crowding him back against the wall-

Only for the faint but distinct muffled thump of a body hitting the ground to reach their ears. Arthur’s hands pause on his sides, breaking off a kiss.

“He ain’t facedown in a puddle, is he?”

Charles bites back a sigh. Arthur’s mother hen instincts are endearing, but incessant. He obligingly takes a sideways step and leans past the gateway to check, in time to see Kieran haphazardly roll onto his back, inane grin on his face as his horse plods over to sniff at him.

“He’s fine. Branwen’s looking after him.”

“Heh, good enough. Now, where were we?”

The next morning, Kieran passes him on his slow shuffle towards the cook fire, looking decidedly worse for wear. But he pauses suddenly, halfway through reaching for the coffee pot, and straightens. Charles sees his eyes flick back and forth between Arthur, sat over by the main campfire, and himself, with the vaguely puzzled expression of someone trying very hard to piece together events of the night before. Then Kieran seems to scoff at himself, shaking his head, and goes back to getting his coffee.

Charles hides his smile behind his own cup.

“Hey, Charlie Boy! You got a cigarette?”

Charles feels something in his heart twinge, looking up into the small gazebo as he returns from watch. It’s the middle of the night, and everyone else has long retreated to their beds. The wind rattles the trees, fireflies flit about in the distance, lights seeming unnaturally large and bright in the gloom of the swamp, and dark shapes move silently through the water. It’s the hour for ghosts – Swanson insists he saw one in the sunken graveyard on the edge of Shady Belle’s grounds.

Sean was the only one who called him ‘Charlie Boy’.

He nods, making his way over, stepping up into the little structure – rotting and faded from its previous grandeur, like everything else about this place. The sight before him is no more cheering.

“Miss Jones,” he greets quietly. She gives him a crooked smile.

“Welcome to my humble abode!” she declares grandly with a sweeping gesture, the half-empty bottle in her hand sloshing.

“I thought you were sleeping in the house?”

“Ugh, couldn’t stand another night of Tilly n’ Mary-Beth bein’ all kind and comforting – tellin’ me it’s ‘all gonna be okay’,” Karen sneers. “If it ain’t that, it’s listenin’ to Molly cry all damn night.”

Charles sits on the opposite bench, mirroring her position and propping his feet up beside her.

“She doesn’t seem very happy,” he agrees, fishing in his satchel for cigarettes – if only because she can’t talk, smoke and drink all at once.

“Pfft, she’s an idiot. Dutch always wants what he can’t have – and if he gets it, he wants somethin’ else. She knew that! She lost him the moment she had him.”

Charles tries to hide his surprise at the blunt and surprisingly astute observation. Arthur had spent a good deal of the afternoon grumbling to him about the fancy party Dutch and Hosea dragged him along to, full of sneering high society folk who wouldn’t deign to so much as spit on the likes of the gang if they knew who they really were, let along talk to them. He’d repeated, more happily, some of the humorous tales he’d heard Hosea weaving, and they’d snickered over Bill’s attempts at conversation with some bemused newspapermen. Arthur had also recounted, with a strange mixture of awe and unease, how at home Dutch seemed to be – how he lapped up the attention and finery. How he’d turned into a tongue-tied fool upon getting a chance to discuss his grand theories and vision of the world with the man who wrote the books that helped shape them, all his usual eloquence gone. How quickly he’d backed down in the face of Angelo Bronte’s displeasure; despite, Charles thought privately, the fact the shady tyrant of St Denis represents everything Dutch says he stands against.

He thinks now on virgin forests in the West, and homesteads, and peace.

Karen interrupts that train of thought by offering him a light. They sit and smoke in silence for a while, listening to the chorus of frogs and low roars of alligators.

“So,” she says without preamble, smirking around her cigarette. “You and Arthur, huh?”

Charles inhales too quickly through his cigarette and ends up coughing and spluttering. Karen cackles as she leans over to thump him on the back.

“How did you know?” he croaks. She grins, offering him the whiskey. He takes a swig – to quell the lingering tightness in his throat, but mainly to get the bottle away from her for a bit. He’s seen what alcohol does to people – even fiery, witty ones like Karen Jones.

“Oh, I’ve got my ways,” she declares. “Gotta admit though, I’m surprised at Arthur.”

“Why’s that?” Charles asks cautiously. He knows Karen’s been hurting ever since Sean was killed. But he’s really not in the mood to put up with the nastiness the drink can bring out in her. She just shrugs.

“Eh, guess it was kinda before your time. But back before it all went to shit, me n’ the girls, we’d be out in whichever saloon was closest near every night – getting information, picking up leads, the odd pocket or two... And one of the boys would always come with us, just to sit in the corner, y’know, in case there was any trouble. Arthur was one of ‘em. And I tell you – I known that man nearly five years, and in all that time, I seen him look at two gals, and one fella. That’s it. And lookin’ is all he ever did. He’s had folks practically throwing themselves in his lap, and he always ignores ‘em, or turns ‘em down, or runs away. In fact, heh, you hear about how me n’ Arthur first met?”

“No.”

“Well, Dutch hired me to fuck ‘im.” She snorts as he chokes on another sip of whiskey. “And lemme tell ya, I ain’t ever met a fella so determined to keep his clothes on!”

“Why are you telling me this?” Charles asks, a little desperately, relenting when she wiggles her fingers for the bottle.

“Because it means, hun,” she says, with a surprisingly soft expression, “if Arthur’s showin’ that he likes you, it means he really really likes you. That’s... that’s a rare and precious thing. So you... you look after that, okay?” She stares deep into the bottle with a wistful expression – then looks up at him sharply.

“And if you break his heart, I’ll break your dick in two.”

Charles swallows and nods. He absolutely believes her.

“HAH!”

Charles startles upright, looking up to see John standing in the doorway to Arthur’s room. The pre-dawn light is just enough to reveal the box of rifle cartridges in his hand, and the shit-eating grin plastered on his face.

“I goddamn knew it!” he crows. Before Charles can figure out what he’s supposed to say to that, Arthur shifts, rolling onto his side to face the wall

“Piss off, Marston,” he mumbles into the pillow. Still guffawing, John walks out and Charles can hear him clatter down the stairs.

“...Arthur?” Charles whispers, not quite sure what just happened.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Arthur huffs, and appears to go back to sleep. But then, echoing up the stairwell,

“Tilly! Hey, wake up!”

“Wha- Lord, John, what time is it?”

“You owe me twenty bucks!”

“What?!”

There’s a small commotion, followed by two sets of footsteps returning back up the stairs. Tilly bursts in, still in her nightwear, and gapes at them for a second. Charles stares back in alarm, but Arthur doesn’t seem perturbed.

“Dammit Arthur!” Tilly hisses. “You couldn’t have waited another couple of weeks?”

“Told ya,” John smirks from the doorway.

Arthur grunts and rolls over at that, glaring at them.

“Will you two shut up and get the hell outta my room?”

“Yeah yeah, don’t worry, we’re goin’ – we gotta go get Tilly’s purse so she can pay up,” John grins.

“Wait, wait,” Tilly frowns, ignoring him, “how long’s this been goin’ on for?”

“Since Blackwater,” Arthur replies flatly. For some reason, this makes both Tilly and John look dismayed.

“Wait, but-”

“Then that means-”

“Hosea was right,” they both say, looking disappointed.

“I’ll take cash or credit!” Hosea calls up through the floorboards.

Charles stares at them all, bewildered. But before he can ask just what is happening, Dutch’s voice comes through the walls.

“Some of us are trying to sleep,” he hollers, irate. “What are you three doing?!”

“Nothin’, Dutch!” Arthur, John, and Tilly chorus.

“Now get out,” Arthur adds. Tilly and John leave – still bickering – and Charles is left sitting on the edge of the bed, blinking in confusion.

“Arthur, what...?” he asks faintly.

Arthur reaches up to sling an arm around his waist, tugging him back down onto the mattress.

“Don’t worry about it,” he repeats, low enough that Dutch won’t hear as he runs his fingertips in soothing strokes up and down his back.

“Are you sure?”

Arthur sighs.

“You ain’t ever had younger siblings, have you?”

“...No?”

“Lucky you.”

It’s late enough in the evening that most of the gang are too many drinks in to wonder where they are, so they’re making the most of their new discovery – the little hut that sits next to the jetty at the back of the house. Arthur and Pearson had managed to get one of the doors open the previous day, only to reveal a single room mostly full of old furniture and rusting tools – nothing of any use for the gang. But, with a moose hide laid out and topped with a few blankets, it makes for a cosy enough spot.

So Arthur is above him, continuing his apparent quest to kiss every single square inch of Charles’ skin in one evening, and Charles is trying to keep his moans and sighs quiet enough that a passing night guard won’t hear them, eyes squeezed shut as his hands clench in the blankets at his sides, when Molly walks in on them.

“Oh!”

The three of them stare at each other with wide eyes, Molly’s mouth a perfect circle, for what’s probably seconds but feels like forever.

Then she promptly bursts into tears and flees.

“Shit,” Arthur growls, pushing himself upright and following her. Charles, feeling like he’s got whiplash, hurriedly rights his pants and puts his shirt back on before doing the same. When he reaches the stairs, he sees Molly not running towards the house, but past the graveyard towards the wooden bridge that marks a path through the little islets dotted across the swamp.

“Molly!” Arthur yells, running after her, “Molly wait! There’s ‘gators!”

She comes to a stop at that, but doesn’t turn around, hunching in on herself. Charles catches up to Arthur but they both keep a cautious distance from her. Thankfully whoever’s on watch seems to be patrolling near the front of the house – the only sounds are the insects, the lapping of the water, and Molly’s stifled sobs.

“Molly-” Arthur tries, only for her to round on them.

“It’s not FAIR!” she cries, face blotchy and tears streaming down her cheeks. “How come you two can... You get to- even though you’re both- and I can’t-!”

“Molly...” Arthur says again, sounding sad as he approaches her slowly. When he opens his arms, she falls into them.

“He won’t even look at me, Arthur!” she sobs into his chest. “I love him! I love him but he won’t...”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Arthur murmurs, rocking her gently while giving Charles a helpless look that Charles returns.

“I don’t- I don’t understand, I don’t know what I did wrong-”

“You ain’t done nothing,” Arthur tells her, sighing. “Did you... do you know, about Annabelle?”

“’Course I do,” Molly sniffles. “She was Dutch’s girl, until Colm killed her.”

“She was, I think, the love of his life. He definitely thought so. And Colm killed her in... in a real bad way.” Charles is keeping one eye on them and one eye on the water, making sure any ‘logs’ don’t start drifting their way, but he sees the grief pass over Arthur’s face. “And Dutch... I reckon Dutch has been trying to fill the hole she left ever since. You ain’t the first woman he’s tried to replace her with, and... and you ain’t gonna be the last.”

Dutch always wants what he can’t have, Charles recalls grimly as Molly cries harder. Arthur has that same helpless look for a while as he gazes out across the water, but then his expression turns thoughtful.

“Listen. I’m headin’ into the city tomorrow. You... you wanna come with me? You could go shopping,” he adds when she quiets a little, “or I could drop you off at a hotel and you can have a bath without having to worry about being bitten in the ass – well, not unless you pay ‘em for it.”

Molly manages a weak laugh at that.

“Or,” Arthur continues, “you could join me. I’m meeting up with... an old friend. I reckon you’d like her. You, uh, you got quite a bit in common.”

Molly pulls back a bit, looking skeptical.

“Not sure how much I could have in common with any friends of yours, Arthur,” she says doubtfully. Then seems to remember Charles is there too. “Sorry,” she says quickly, “I didn’t mean... it’s just...” She sighs, looking back towards the house. “This... life... and, hmph, most’ve the people in it...” Her lip starts trembling again. “I don’t think it’s for me,” she finally admits in a small voice.

“Don’t reckon it’s for any of us,” Arthur says quietly, making both Molly and Charles look at him in surprise. But he just smiles. “Come with me into town,” he urges, “to get away from this place for a bit, if nothin’ else.”

“That... that’d be nice,” Molly agrees with a weak smile. “Thank you. You’re a good man, Arthur. And, I’m sorry,” she adds before Arthur can protest, looking between him and Charles, “for interrupting your, err, evening. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

“Appreciate it,” Charles murmurs.

“C’mon, let’s get back inside the house ‘fore these mosquitos eat us alive,” Arthur suggests, so the three of them start walking back.

But when they’re nearly to the porch, Cain trotting over to greet them, Molly stops up short.

“Wait,” she says, expression turning anxious. “I’m not going to have to ride on Atlas, am I?”

Arthur laughs.

“Naw, we’ll take the appaloosa I got when we rescued Tilly. She’s a sweetheart, I promise.”

“Oh, thank God.”

The next day, Arthur and Molly go into the city to meet with Arthur’s once-upon-a-time fiancé. Arthur returns in the evening.

Molly does not.

It takes Dutch two days to even notice she’s gone.

“Jesus! You look like shit!”

“Nice to see you too,” Charles says dryly from where he leans against the doorway of Arthur’s room. Funnily enough, Lenny had said the same thing when he’d finally ridden back through the gates of Shady Belle. He never thought he’d ever be so pleased to return to the stifling heat of the south.

“I’m uh, sorry to bother you, but you got any medical supplies?” he asks, loud enough that Dutch will be able to hear if he’s listening from his room. “Swanson’s passed out again, and I didn’t want to start rummaging around in the medical wagon when people are sleeping...”

“You don’t gotta worry – Dutch and Micah are out ‘planning’ some nonsense, probably get us all killed,” Arthur says darkly. But then he seems to shake himself. “C’mere,” he says, softer.

Charles hopes his reluctance to leave the doorway doesn’t show – it’s about the only thing keeping him upright. Arthur ushers him over to the bed, and he doesn’t so much as sit as collapse onto it, feeling like his strings have been cut. Arthur sets about undressing him, removing his belts and boots with the utmost care.

“What happened?” he asks as he works at the buttons of Charles’ filthy shirt (and it’s a stroke of luck he put on a button up a few days ago – he doesn’t think he could lift his arms high enough to get it off otherwise).

“Rescued the boys,” Charles murmurs, letting his eyes drift closed, “but someone saw us on the way out, raised the alarm. Most of the kids could ride, but, not well. The youngest wasn’t any older than Jack.”

“Jesus...” Arthur swears softly.

“So, I ran a distraction while they got out of there. I got separated from Taima. Ended up hiding under a little overhang on the side of a mountain. And every time I tried to leave, another search party came past. It was... a long night.”

It hadn’t been comfortable to begin with – he barely fit into the space, just large enough to hide him from view on the otherwise bare slopes if he hunched into a ball. But he hadn’t dressed for the cold – the rescue mission really was supposed to be an in and out job – and as the night wore on, it had seeped into his bones, and the awkward position locked up his muscles. He spent the early hours of the morning gritting his teeth as everything throbbed with what felt like a whole-body cramp. When the lanterns of the search parties – and it was both baffling and infuriating, the number of ‘wardens’ they had out looking just for a few boys – finally faded away just before dawn, he’d had a hard time uncurling himself, and an even harder time scrabbling down the mountain with limbs that refused to bend. He’d been overjoyed to find Taima, happily munching on a patch of wild carrots – because she was unhurt, and because he doesn’t think he could have walked much further.

Not trusting his body to cooperate if he ran into trouble, he didn’t dare spend any more time up north, riding the whole way back, with only brief stops to allow Taima to rest. Kieran was kind enough not to say anything when he half-slid, half-fell off Taima after a concerted effort to get his leg up over the saddle, simply taking her bridle and promising he’d look after her for him.

Arthur winces in sympathy – he’s got scrapes all over his hands and forearms from his wayward descent back down the mountain slope, and some colourful bruises to match – and sets about fussing over him, gently cleaning and bandaging the worst scratches and dabbing ointment on the rest. Charles lets him, trying not to fall asleep.

“Reckon that’s all of ‘em,” Arthur finally says.

Charles reaches for his shirt and has to stifle a groan, wincing.

“You sure you ain’t broken something?”

“No, just, stiff...”

“Where does it hurt?”

He considers lying for a moment – not out of pride but out of some sense of... vulnerability. Like a wild animal tries to hide the fact that it’s injured, that it’s weak, that it’s easy prey. He’s well used to having to hide his hurts.

Then he gives himself a mental shake. It’s not like that now. And it’s Arthur.

“All over,” he admits with a sigh. “I was curled up like-”

He tries to mimic the position he was stuck in on the mountain, and has to bite down on a strangled noise. Arthur chews his lip a moment, but then scoots up onto the mattress behind him and... experimentally presses his fingertips along the breadth of Charles’ shoulders.

“That hurt?”

“...no,” Charles decides after a moment. Truth is it does hurt a little but... in a good way, like a relieving pressure. Arthur hums, and continues, pressing and releasing, pressing and releasing, gradually getting firmer and digging in with the pads of his fingers, easing the tightness. When Charles sighs, leaning back a little, he starts kneading his shoulders for several long, blissful minutes, muscles loosening under his hands. When Charles’ head is hanging low, shoulders slumped, he switches to sweeping his hands up either side of his spine in smooth, firm stokes, before rubbing circles up and down his back, first gently, using the meat of his palms, then more firmly with his fingers. Charles can’t stop the low noise in the back of his throat when Arthur digs and stirs into his lower back with his thumbs, teasing the tension out of the muscle.

“Where’d you learn this?” he has the wherewithal to ask, just.

“...Annabelle,” Arthur admits softly. “She was real good at it. I used to get these headaches when I was younger – ain’t had one in years, but, they’d knock me flat for at least a day usually. This was the only thing that helped.”

Charles is leaning forward, chin propped in his hands, elbows propped on his thighs. But when he starts swaying too much with Arthur’s ministrations, Arthur encourages him to lie down on his belly before resuming his task. He carefully gathers Charles’ hair and lays it to one side, then gets to work on his neck, starting gently again then getting firmer, tracing and smoothing along the contours of his shoulders and the top of his spine. Occasionally he runs his fingertips up the nape of Charles’ neck, brushing his scalp with just the slightest scrape of fingernails, which makes him shiver, tingling all over. But after what feels like forever and not long enough, Charles has practically melted into the mattress, the aching cold forgotten under the warmth of Arthur’s hands.

When the door opens, he honestly couldn’t sit up if he tried to.

Miss Grimshaw comes bustling in with a steaming bowl of water, clean cloths and bandages tucked under her arm.

“Lenny told me,” she declares by way of explanation, setting the things down on Arthur’s table. “Goodness, Mr. Smith, you are in quite a state.” She eyes him critically, hands on hips. “Your bruises have bruises!”

“Had worse,” Charles murmurs, too tired and blissed out to care that she’s found him lying half-naked on Arthur’s bed. Luckily, Arthur’s more coherent.

“He’s pulled somethin’, in his back,” he lies, almost smoothly. “He sleeps on the ground like that, he’s gonna be locked up tighter than a bank, and he sure as hell ain’t gonna be helping us rob one. So, I figure he can sleep in my bed, stop it from gettin’ any worse. I’ll just go sleep in my bedroll.”

If Charles wasn’t half-asleep, he might have realised Miss Grimshaw’s ‘mm-hm’ was more than a little disbelieving.

“Well, that won’t do,” she says brusquely, fussing about with the supplies. “Dutch and Hosea will need everyone fighting fit to pull off this bank robbery.”

Charles does notice the doubt in her tone.

“And you’d better both be up to getting measured for a suit tomorrow,” she continues, “the girls are going to go into town, buy the closest they can find then we’ll do our best to fit them to you.”

“I already got that stupid outfit Trelawney made me wear! Dunno why we’re botherin’ with gettin’ all dressed up anyway,” Arthur grumbles, “don’t think fancy suits are gonna hide the guns we’ll all be carryin’.”

“You’ll have to ask Mr. Bell,” Miss Grimshaw says primly, frowning at the state of their munitions. “For heaven’s sake, haven’t people heard of putting things back where they found them? This is a mess!”

“Micah? What’s he got to do with it? I thought this was Hosea’s job?” Even through the mattress, Charles can feel Arthur tensing.

“Hmph. Between you and me, I think he’s still sour about not being invited to that ridiculous party you boys went to. You know he’s asked for a white suit? With gold trimmings! Man’s going to look like an electric light bulb!”

“Well, next time he can go be the belle of the ball,” Arthur huffs.

“If this job goes well, there won’t be a next time,” Miss Grimshaw asserts – but again, there’s a thread of uncertainty in her voice. Then she waves her hands, giving up on her attempts to tidy their ammunition supplies. “I’d best go check Miss Jones hasn’t wandered into an alligator,” she tuts, “I trust you can play nurse for once, Arthur.”

“Sure.”

She nods, turning to leave, but pauses at the door.

“And don’t you boys go making a mess of those blankets, they’ve just been washed.”

“The bandages are just for scrapes Susan, he ain’t bleedin’.”

She gives him a look.

“It ain’t blood I’m worried about, Mr. Morgan.”

A beat.

“Miss Grimshaw!” Arthur whines, voice a couple of octaves higher and sounding utterly aghast – from the corner of his eye, Charles can see his cheeks turning crimson with impressive speed. Miss Grimshaw just rolls her eyes, amused.

“Good night, you two.”

“...Oh my god,” Arthur eventually groans into his palms once her footsteps have faded down the stairs. Charles feels like he’s just caught a glimpse of a much younger Arthur.

“Look on the bright side,” he mumbles helpfully, “she was the one I was most scared of.” It’s not quite true, but it gets a smile out of Arthur.

“...Yeah, I guess. She can be real damn picky about my love life – she hated Mary...”

Charles swallows. There’s that word again. ‘Love.’

“But at this rate, half the damn gang’s gonna find out about us...” Arthur says, worrying his lip. Charles swallows. You have no idea, he thinks. And he should probably tell Arthur that the number of people who don’t know about them are outnumbered by those who do, by far. But then Arthur shifts, grabbing one of the cloths and dipping it into the basin of hot water, carefully running it over Charles’ skin, and Charles can’t stop his eyelids from sliding shut. He stirs when Arthur eases him onto his back, gently patting his face clean followed by his neck and chest, even his fingers.

“C’mere,” Arthur eventually murmurs again, tugging Charles into his arms and stretching them both out on the bed. And Charles decides it’s a conversation that can wait for when he doesn’t feel like he could sleep for a week, warm and loose and content in Arthur’s arms.

“Miss anything while I was gone?” he murmurs, nuzzling into the collar of Arthur’s union suit.

“Uh, yeah, quite a bit.” Arthur’s got that same hesitancy in his voice that Miss Grimshaw had. Charles frowns, forcing himself to stay awake.

“Oh?”

“We, uh, went after Bronte.”

Oh.

“We thought...” Charles wonders who ‘we’ is, exactly. “We thought it’d be better to get him out of the way, before we rob the bank. So, we, uh, we attacked his mansion from the river. Kidnapped him. I thought we was gonna ransom him maybe, or...”

“Or?” Charles prompts when he trails off.

“Well. It don’t matter what I thought. Dutch drowned him n’ fed him to the ‘gators.”

A different kind of shiver runs down Charles’ spine.

He’d meant what he said, up in the mountains; Dutch is different. But the Dutch that Charles first met, the better part of a year ago now – the Dutch he admired, the Dutch whose principles he agreed with, the Dutch he found himself trusting... That Dutch was not the kind of man who torments loyal women like Molly. That Dutch was not the kind of man who conditionally offers only the tiniest scraps of love to the men he calls sons, and just as quickly scorns them to show his displeasure, like a man teasing a faithful dog with a scrap of meat. That Dutch was not the kind of man who shoots young women for the crime of being in the way during a robbery. That Dutch was not the kind of man who feeds other men to alligators.

Dutch is different, but increasingly he’s different to what Charles thought he was.

He wonders if Arthur is thinking the same thing.

But he’s exhausted, and Arthur is back to running his fingers through his hair, a soothing gesture for the both of them. So he shuts his eyes.

Wonders how Arthur is going to save the gang.

Wonders how he is going to save Arthur.

In the meantime, he wraps his arms more firmly around him and lets himself fall asleep to his heartbeat.

Chapter Text

They daren’t move the whole gang, or what’s left of it, again – not when the roads are still thick with patrols of lawmen and bounty hunters by day, and haunted by the scuttling figures of the Night Folk after dark. But both Abigail and Lenny had been adamant that they couldn’t and wouldn’t stand for Hosea to be buried in these godforsaken swamps after they tricked their way into the St Denis morgue to recover his body. So, after a service of sorts for everyone to say their final goodbyes, it fell to Charles to bury him – somewhere in the mountains, with a nice view. He’d promised he knew just the place, having come across it in his visits to the Wapiti reservation. It’s a pretty spot, with a view across Cumberland Forest. He’d like to think Hosea could enjoy sitting on the rock behind the grave marker, reading a book and admiring the scenery.

By the time he reaches the reservation. Chief Rains Fall takes one look at him and insists he head straight to the bedroll that’s set up permanently for him now. Charles agrees wearily, body and heart aching. He stays with them for a few days, helping with as much as he can. Before he leaves again, he asks for some assistance cutting his hair. Rains Fall nods in understanding, watching him with sad eyes.

The gang seems a little more settled by the time he returns, but no less despondent. Part of him wonders why he bothered returning at all. Sadie answers for him, later that evening.

“Glad to have you back,” she says, joining him as he stands watch. “Been meaning to head out, but, didn’t fancy leaving with only Lenny and Susan to defend the place.” It goes unsaid that Karen, the only other skilled shooter they have left, is unable to help much at the moment.

“Not more O’Driscoll hunting?” Charles asks, slightly exasperated. Sadie is a woman with a mission – but drawing attention from the O’Driscolls is really the last thing they need.

“No. Well, not unless the opportunity presents itself,” Sadie replies bluntly, chin held high. “But I was thinking of heading back to Shady Belle. Figure that letter we left should probably be destroyed, in case the wrong kind of people find it.”

And since all of its intended recipients are now at the bottom of the ocean, somewhere near Cuba, according to the newspaper Trelawney had brought them from town with a defeated expression.

Charles shuts his eyes, and his next exhale shudders out of him without his permission.

“Oh...”

He looks up to see Sadie watching him with the same expression Rains Fall had.

“I’m sorry,” she says, gentler now. “I know it... how it hurts. God, it hurts. And... at least I know my Jakey was buried proper.”

“I haven’t lost my spouse, Sadie.”

“Then why’d you cut your hair? Because I’m thinking it’s not for Hosea.”

He looks at her in alarm, but she just gives him a wry look.

“You two weren’t nearly as subtle as you thought you were, not to someone who knows what she’s looking at.”

“...Ah.”

She smiles sadly, squeezes his shoulder.

“After Jake... I felt like a ghost. Here, but, not here, not really. I didn’t know what to do with myself. But, now I do,” she says, resolute. “I didn’t know him long, but Arthur was a good friend, and a good man. And these,” she gestures back towards the camp, “are good people. Arthur’s people. So we gotta protect them, help them get out and live good lives. I reckon it’s what he would’ve wanted. For them – and for you, too.”

Charles shuts his eyes again, nodding mutely.

In the end, between keeping the camp safe and fed, and keeping track of the law’s whereabouts and plans, Sadie doesn’t get a chance to go back to Shady Belle. It turns out to be a good thing.

Charles never thought he would ever be glad to see Micah Bell. But when the man finds them, looking worse for wear – he’s pale except where he’s sunburnt, and keeps hacking with terrible coughs – but decidedly not dead, it gives back something Charles didn’t realise he’d lost.

Hope.

And when he hears Pearson and Abigail’s shouts, it’s all he can do not to run out of the building. When Arthur enters, he looks nowhere near as bad as Micah, but still awful – even more sunburnt, and utterly exhausted. But he’s smiling, and that smile broadens when they lock eyes. They have to make do with the briefest of hugs (even though, on reflection, most of the people in the room would have been expecting more anyway,) Arthur murmuring a quiet but heartfelt “good to see you” in his ear.

It’s not until late in the evening, when Arthur’s washed and dressed, had something to eat, had a somewhat alarming if sweet reunion with Atlas (the Ardennes nearly knocking Arthur right over in his determination to make sure his rider is okay), and has filled everyone in on his version of events since they escaped to the ship (including repeatedly scolding and thanking Charles and Lenny for their running off to cause a distraction), that he finally loses the crowd around him. Sadie declares that she’s stuck Arthur’s bedroll in the back, and Charles knows it’s no accident that she’s squeezed it in beside his own in the last tiny ‘room’ of the hut most of them are staying in (Micah has been delegated by Miss Grimshaw to the other large cabin – purportedly to allow him some peace and quiet to rest so he can recover from that nasty cough. But she keeps finding other excuses to keep Micah away from the rest of them, and Charles is suddenly grateful the woman is so neurotic about the camp’s health).

Arthur’s eyelids are drooping, but Charles encourages him to stay up just long enough so he can pat some salve onto the worst of the sunburn. He’s still nearly asleep sitting upright, head heavy in Charles’ palms, and goes easy when Charles coaxes him into lying down.

“Missed you,” Arthur breathes as they settle, head on Charles’ shoulder, breath steady and even on his collarbone.

“Love you,” Charles whispers back, realising he truly means it even as he says the words. But Arthur’s already asleep. Charles smiles, wrapping him more firmly in his arms. And things feel like they might turn out okay.

“Oh.”

He’s getting very tired of waking up to that word.

Swanson stands in the ‘doorway’, looking down at them with a faintly surprised expression. Charles glances down at Arthur, but he’s still dead to the world- no, not dead. Alive, alive and warm and here in his arms, even after last night’s Pinkerton attack, and hell if anyone’s going to take that away from him.

“You can keep any verse about Sodom to yourself, Reverend,” he growls. But Swanson just gives him a gentle smile.

“‘Let he who hath not sinned throw the first stone’,” he murmurs. “I have no right to judge you, Mr. Smith, even if I were so inclined to. And, frankly,” he casts a look back down hallway, almost as if he’s fearful of anyone hearing over Bill’s thunderous snoring, “given the way of things as of late... I think the world would be a better place with more love in it, no matter what form it takes.”

And Charles notices, for the first time, that the man’s eyes are the clearest they’ve ever been since he’s known him.

He offers a tentative smile of his own.

“...Thank you.”

Swanson smiles again, but then it falls.

“I was sent by Dutch. He asked me to fetch Mr. Morgan...”

Charles holds back a sigh, and nods. With that, Swanson leaves, so Charles turns back to Arthur, cupping his jaw with one hand to stroke a thumb over his cheek until he stirs.

“Mmf?”

“Hey,” Charles says softly when blue-green eyes slowly blink open and focus on him. Eyes he never thought he’d get to see again. “Time to get up.”

“Ugh, we can get some’ne else t’go huntin’ f’ronce,” Arthur mumbles, wriggling to bury his face into the side of Charles’ ribs. Charles smiles, but then it falls.

“Dutch is wanting to see you.”

Arthur’s eyes open at that, and a brief look of something like resignation passes over his face. But then he nods with a sigh, and pulls away.

Charles sets himself down in the middle of camp, where he can keep an eye on things, as well as see if not hear Arthur and Dutch speak. It’s not something he noticed last night, but watching now, Dutch’s movements are... odd. Jerky and erratic. Arthur looks increasingly distressed, shoulders wound up by his ears.

“Mr. Smith.”

He looks up to see Swanson again, bearing a cup of coffee. Charles raises his eyebrows slightly in surprise but reaches out to accept it. But Swanson leans forward, pressing the cup into his hands – bringing their heads closer together as he does so.

“Mr. Smith,” he confides lowly, barely above a whisper. “I used to think that man was a messiah. But, now...”

He steps back again, and Charles follows his gaze back over to where Arthur appears to be trying to make a point to Dutch, gesticulating angrily. Dutch abruptly stands from his chair, placing his hands on the rotting handrail of the jetty, shoulders hunched. Shutting out whatever Arthur’s trying to say to him.

Charles realises he recognises the gesture – Dutch had done the same thing when Hosea had been near-shouting at him that something wasn’t right, that they should go out and look for Arthur when he failed to return after the parley with Colm O’Driscoll.

Charles glances back at Swanson, giving him a small nod. He, too, had been taken in by Dutch Van der Linde’s self-fashioned image of Saviour.

But now, Dutch is different.

“These are good people,” Swanson murmurs below his breath. “Well... most of them could be, given the chance. And Arthur Morgan is a good man. He knows the right path, whether he admits it or not. But, I fear-”

He cuts himself off as Arthur steps away from Dutch and heads towards them. Swanson leaves – but not without shooting one last pleading look at Charles. Charles returns to sharpening his hunting knife, trying not to frown.

“Charles,” Arthur greets as he approaches, looking troubled. “Will you ride with me?”

These are good people, who deserve to get out and live good lives. And Arthur Morgan is a good man, whether he sees it or not. A man who goes out of his way to help strangers, just because he can. A man who draws flowers and talks to his horse and drops everything to pat dogs. A man who seems happiest with his horse underneath him and the open wilderness before him, or with a campfire, his journal, and the stars. A man who would do anything for his family.

A man who steals and threatens and kills in the name of protecting that family. A man covered in scars. A man who is loyal to a fault.

A man Charles loves, more than he can believe.

“Always.”

Chapter Text

Charles thinks he could bathe for a whole week, and it still wouldn’t remove the sensation of taking down what was left of the Murfree Brood’s victims from the racks and hooks and other horrific apparatus strewn about the hideout. He’d dragged the bodies of the Brood into the deepest, darkest corner of the caves he could find, but they’d dug a grave for the poor people lost before he and Arthur got there, dealing with their remains as respectfully as they could. Swanson had said a prayer for them all, asking his god to let their souls rest in peace and to purge the evil from Beaver Hollow.

An ironic request, Charles had thought privately, as he watched Micah and Dutch whisper and scheme together in the mouth of the cave.

Bathing won’t remove the awful sensations from his skin, but as he holds Arthur, the two of them having sought out a quiet moment tucked away beneath a tree further upstream from camp, he finds it helps.

“I tell you about the crazy fisherman fella I met?” Arthur asks suddenly.

“The one who sells photographs of fish?”

“Naw, he sells photographs of himself with the fish. I think. I dunno, I barely understood what he was sayin’.”

“You mentioned him,” Charles smiles, shifting to rest his cheek against the top of Arthur’s head. “Why?”

“Was just thinkin’ – one of those ‘legendary’ fish he asked me to catch hangs around Sisika, supposedly – a big old bullhead catfish. I shoulda brought my rod.”

“Catching a legendary fish and breaking someone out of a maximum security prison might’ve been too much for one day.”

“Hmm, maybe. Would be just my luck to go to all that effort then the fish winds up gettin’ damaged in the shootout. That or it might’ve jumped up and ate Marston on the way back.”

Despite the attempt at a joke, he knows Arthur is shaken – not only by the experience of breaking John from prison (which he still can’t believe worked), but by Dutch’s reaction when they’d returned to camp. If Charles wasn’t sure of how deeply Dutch’s madness ran before, he is now – the ugly fury on the man’s face as he’d screamed at his ‘sons’ settled something cold and resolute in his heart.

He needs to get Arthur out – and by extension, he needs to get the Marstons and Tilly and Sadie and Lenny and all the rest of them out too. All those who could go on to live good lives, if given the chance. He just doesn’t know how. While he and Arthur could survive almost indefinitely in the wilderness with nothing but their horses, the clothes on their backs and the weapons in their holsters, the same can’t be said for the others. And with Dutch keeping the gang’s money hidden away, they’re almost powerless to strike out by themselves.

As Arthur’s breaths deepen and slow – he had left camp to meet with Sadie well before dawn, perhaps knowing even then how Dutch would react if he got wind of their rescue mission – Charles wraps his arms around him a little tighter, and gazes at the river. And he tries to think of a way he can help these people – who’ve become the closest thing he’s had to family in a long time – get out of this mess.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep. But he feels drained after spending so many weeks on edge, and the soothing rush of the river combined with Arthur’s warmth and weight on top of him send him into a doze before he knows it, only to be woken by the crunch of boots on river gravel. Even as he opens his eyes, he lifts his shotgun from where it lays beside them, fully prepared to blast another one of the Murfree Brood. But it’s not some filthy cannibal staring down at the two of them, slack-jawed.

It’s worse.

Bill gapes at them for a moment more, before his face twists into something like hurt disgust. He opens his mouth as if to say something, then shuts it, glowering at Charles before stomping back down the shoreline towards camp.

Bill has not, it seems, gone straight to Dutch to report what he saw, and Charles isn’t sure if he should be grateful or worried. But while he has always treated Charles with some level of contempt, now he’s outright hostile.

“So, what are the pair of you scheming about now, huh?” he demands, stalking up to him and John where they’re talking quietly by the cook wagon. “You goddamn traitors.”

Charles resists the urge to roll his eyes, and John scoffs, turning to walk away, but Bill rounds on him.

“You! You were nothing but a street rat when he found you. He believed in you, when no other son of a bitch would! And him...” he starts as Charles takes a step closer, watching warily. “You ain’t been nothin’ but a bad apple from the start,” he spits, jabbing a finger at Charles’ chest. “You ain’t even been with us a full year and you think you know better! You think you can just do whatever you like and get away with it!”

Charles keeps his face impassive, but he can’t stop his grip tightening where his hand rests on his tomahawk. Across the clearing, Arthur notices, because of course he does, and starts striding towards them.

“I’ll listen to your words of wisdom, soon as I’m shown there’s some evidence of a brain inside your head,” John says lowly, threat clear in his own voice. Bill finally seems to realise he’s outnumbered, because he sniffs and backs away.

“...Okay,” he mutters, turning to leave. But he pauses, turning back. “You know,” he sneers, looking at Charles. “you’ll get what’s coming to you. And you,” he adds when he turns only to come face to face with Arthur, “you’re the worst of the lot. First you doubtin’ Dutch, and now...”

He casts a glance between him and Charles, lip curling.

“I thought better of you, Morgan,” he spits, before walking away.

“...What the hell was that about?!” Arthur asks bewilderedly as they watch him go.

“Just Bill being too dumb to see the woods for the trees,” John replies sourly.

“He’s loyal, I’ll give him that,” Charles murmurs.

“Loyal and stupid,” Arthur scoffs.

Loyal, stupid, and jealous, Charles thinks to himself, realising that that’s what was on Bill’s face when he came across them curled up together by the river. Not, perhaps, of his relationship with Arthur, but of his relationship with another man. He thinks on the camp rumours of a dishonourable discharge on grounds of ‘deviancy’ – something Bill has always vehemently denied – as he watches the man’s retreating back.

Loyal, stupid, jealous, and therefore dangerous.

“What’s your problem, brother?”

Charles bites back a sigh, brings the mallet down against the wagon wheel he’s trying to realign instead.

“No problem,” he mutters.

“No, you’ve got a problem,” Javier insists, “look at how you’re acting!”

“I don’t have a problem,” Charles repeats evenly. “Do you have a problem?”

“I don’t know yet,” Javier declares with a kind of false cheerfulness. “But use your brain, friend. Use your brain.”

Charles stops his hammering for a moment, holding in another sigh. Wants to ask Javier, a so-called revolutionary who says he fought against powerful despots, how he could possibly be so naïve. Wants to ask him when he’d started believing loyalty and unquestioning belief were the same thing. Wants to ask if he’d noticed that Arthur was there too, when he was rescued in Guarma – because while he knows Javier held a deep respect for Dutch before, now he near worships the man, crediting him with saving his life in that tropical hellhole. Wants to ask if he is really so weak-willed as to confuse strength with blind trust, just because Dutch decrees it so.

“I’ll use my brain, and you use yours,” he replies eventually.

“Oh, you wanna die?” Javier challenges.

“Not particularly,” Charles replies bluntly, finally straightening up. And he’s not proud of using his height and breadth to intimidate people, especially a fellow gang member, but he’s tired of the infighting and interrogating and paranoia Dutch has infected the rest of the camp with. And it works – or perhaps it’s just the mallet in his hand that Javier notices – because he backs off, if only a little.

“...you’re making a dumb choice, man,” he mutters.

“I made no choices.”

“Well, we all know that’s not true, don’t we? I know you made your choice many months ago, my friend,” Javier sneers. Charles’ surprise must slip through the blank expression he’s trying to uphold, because Javier gives him a grin that’s somehow both triumphant and cruel. “You think I didn’t notice, all those nights you weren’t in your own bedroll? And I mean, hey, I guess it’s not the worst thing you’ve done. You act all high and mighty, but your hands are as bloody as the rest of us.”

Charles grits his teeth, goes back to hammering the wagon wheel. But Javier doesn’t take the hint.

“What about loyalty, huh?” he demands. “Dutch is doing everything he can to get us out of this, and you’re undermining him every chance you get! Sneaking off to Arthur’s tent behind his back to go be a-”

Sensibly, he doesn’t finish that sentence when Charles turns to glare at him. But he doesn’t bother to keep the scorn off his face.

“Use your brain,” he repeats, “because we have a goal here, we have a purpose, we gotta be united. And you’re letting your head get tangled up in-”

“Didn’t you have to abandon your revolution and your country because you went and fell in love with some military man’s wife?” Charles snaps, deciding he’s had enough. Javier looks taken aback for a split second, before giving him a dark look. He mutters something in Spanish that sounds suspiciously like a slur, and walks away – but not before he spits at Charles’ boots.

Charles watches him go, then leans back against the wagon, letting his head thunk back against the wood for a brief moment. Anger quickly gives way to an odd sense of grief – he’d thought, hoped, that Javier might see reason before it was too late. But he seems determined to follow Dutch into whatever madness takes his fancy next. Not to mention...

He’d wondered if he and Arthur should just tell Dutch about their relationship, since he’s one of the very few who still don’t know. But he’d feared – and he suspects Arthur does too, even if he won’t admit it – that Dutch would take the news poorly. Undermining, Javier had called it. If that, as well as Dutch’s pointed comments to John about Abigail and Jack are anything to go by...

Dutch can’t seem to stand loyalty to anyone besides himself. Not anymore.

Grimly, he gets back to fixing the wagon wheel. He wants to make sure they’re all sturdy and running as smoothly as possible, for when – not if – they have to leave in a hurry.

After Bill discovered them down by the river, they’d agreed to keep away from each other in or even near camp, not daring so much as a brush of hands. But then Arthur had returned from Annesburg with a face like thunder, thrown Strauss out of camp, then stormed into his tent, shutting the side flaps. The girls, John, even Uncle had tried to get him to come out and talk about what the hell had just happened, but he’d stayed resolutely silent, and no one had dared step inside. So, late in the night, Charles had heated a can of beans in the embers of the cookfire and took the bowl into Arthur’s tent, only to find him sitting motionless on his cot, staring at his hat in his hands.

And, after some coaxing, he’d quietly confessed to having gone out debt collecting for Strauss – because he sure as hell wasn’t going to let the likes of Micah or those two stooges he’d brought into camp go after whatever sorry unfortunates Strauss had managed to ensnare this time. Talked about searching for another man named Arthur, only to learn he’d worked himself into the grave. Talked, haltingly, about seeking out the man’s family, to find he’d left a widow, and a little boy. Talked about how she’d called him a good man when he’d given her all the money he had on him, and how it had made him feel so sick with shame he’d barely managed to ride back into the forest before he lost his last meal.

And then, in the dark hush of the night, he’d talked softly, brokenly, about another woman with a little boy who’d also lived alone outside of town. The little boy had his mother’s cheeky smile and his father’s eyes, and had loved animals and exploring. The woman had a wicked sense of humour, endless patience, and was the bravest woman Arthur has ever known. She, Eliza, been twenty-four, and the boy, Isaac, not even four and a half, when they’d been killed for ten dollars.

And, Arthur had whispered, as he’d looked at Mrs. Londonderry and her boy, he’d realised that in the ten years since he’d ridden up to Eliza’s cottage only to find two graves, he’d become no better than the monsters who killed her and their son.

And Charles couldn’t bring himself to leave him.

So when he’s woken by a sudden draft of cold wind, he hopes that it’s one of the gang who already know about them – the odds are in their favour, after all.

But of course, it’s not.

As Micah’s face quickly passes from surprise to disgust, Charles notices there’s blood on his lips. And he expects insults and slurs and shouted accusations.

But then Micah grins, and the horrible smirk, almost glee, is infinitely worse.

“Ooh, it all makes sense now...” he murmurs, backing away and letting the tent flap fall shut again.

By the time he’s shaken Arthur awake and they’ve both got their boots and holsters on, Micah is already sitting over by Dutch. He grins again, showing bloody teeth, stark against his pale face. But before they can get any idea of whether he’s already told Dutch, Eagle Flies rides into camp flanked by seemingly every warrior left in the Wapiti tribe, shouting about oil and attacking the factory, followed shortly by his father, who tries and fails to talk them out of riding to their deaths.

“You helped this fella, Arthur?” Dutch asks accusingly, as if Chief Rains Fall is not there, pleading them to help prevent the massacre of his people.

“What of it?” Arthur replies, defiant. A small part of Charles wants to cheer.

“What else you been doing behind Dutch’s back?” Micah leers from beside Dutch.

Luckily, the conversation is broken off. Unluckily, it’s because they’re soon riding in a suicide mission against Cornwall Kerosene & Tar, the air thick with the smell of burning oil-fire and flesh.

“Oh!”

Charles wakes to see the surprised look on Rains Fall’s face quickly morph into concern.

“Oh dear...”

“Chief Rains Fall,” he says, hurriedly sitting up, Arthur grumbling in his sleep as he slides unceremoniously off Charles’ chest to the floor. As far as Charles is aware, the Christian missionaries, with all their rules about love and sin, haven’t infiltrated the Wapiti tribe. But, he curses himself, it was still stupid of them to assume. “I- I’m sorry, we- we mean no disrespect, I-”

“Hm? Oh, no – I just realise I owe Wahinhe an apology. I chastised her for not providing another bedroll – but, I see it doesn’t matter.”

“Told you!” comes Eagle Flies’ weak but amused call from outside the tepee, followed immediately by a woman scolding and telling him to lie back down. His wound is a nasty one, the shot having clipped through his side just below his rib and taking a decent chunk of flesh with it. But, luckily, it doesn’t seem to have hit the bone or anything else important, and Eagle Flies was stubbornly cavalier about it, insisting his wounded men were tended to first until Charles and Arthur practically wrestled him into his father’s tepee to be seen to. Charles hates to think how much worse it could have been if he hadn’t been right behind the boy when he’d run into main factory building (if he’d been planning on entering the building anyway to check on Arthur, well, that’s just a fortunate coincidence). Eagle Flies had shot the men trying to kill Arthur, and Charles had shot the man gunning for Eagle Flies, sending his bullet wide.

It could have been worse. But, as the events of the previous day flood back, Charles thinks it couldn’t have been worse by much.

There’s a twinkle of amusement in Rains Fall’s eyes, but it quickly fades.

“I am sorry to disturb you, but the riders I sent out are returning with those that fell. We will be leaving soon. But first, I wish to speak with Mr. Morgan.”

At Charles’ nod, he leaves, no doubt to continue organising the pack up of an entire settlement. He and Arthur had tried to help, but Rains Fall had insisted that they, like the others who had fought, get what rest they could before sun-up; so the two of them had gratefully crawled into Charles’ bedroll, still set up in one of the tepees, to sleep for a couple of hours. Now, Charles prods Arthur awake then hurries out to help in whatever way he can, taking down tepees and assisting those too injured to ride by themselves into wagons. And it’s a special kind of tragedy, he thinks sorrowfully, looking around him, that the Wapiti’s home has been dismantled in just a few hours.

“Charles.”

He turns to see Eagle Flies has propped himself up on his elbows in a wagon.

“Lie back down,” Charles scolds him. Eagle Flies rolls his eyes and complies, but catches his sleeve.

“Charles. In the factory, there was a man trying to stab Mr. Morgan-”

“I know. You saved him – I can’t ever thank you enough for-”

“Pssh, the two of you have saved my life, more than once; it is right that I repay you, and I intend to. But, Charles, Mr. Van der Linde was there too. I think... I think Mr. Morgan was blinded by the steam, but Mr. Van der Linde was there, he could have helped. But he didn’t. He walked away, I saw!”

Charles grits his teeth, breathing carefully through his nose. Arthur had mentioned it, on the ride back to the reservation, but Charles hasn’t had a chance to ask him about it.

If John is right, about Dutch having had a chance to save him during the bank robbery but running away instead...

Then he’s been willing to sacrifice both his sons for money.

“I don’t understand – I thought Mr. Morgan said Dutch Van der Linde was like a father to him?” Eagle Flies looks his age – a boy, just a boy, forced to grow up too fast – as he looks up at Charles, earnest and confused.

Not all fathers are as good as yours, Charles wants to tell him. But he doesn’t think it’s his place to address the rift between the Chief and his son, despite the love they clearly hold for each other. But before he can come up with a better answer, there’s a shout, and Paytah and a few others come galloping in from the southern entrance to the reservation.

“Charles! Mr. Morgan!” Paytah calls, riding up to them as Arthur and Rains Fall quickly stride over. “I have bad news,” Paytah pants as he dismounts, “after we had collected our fallen, I stayed behind with a few others to scout the roads. I came across a group, to the southeast.”

“The Army?” Rains Fall asks urgently.

“No – not the Army, I think, but Government men. But, Mr. Morgan, they were talking about Beaver Hollow,” Paytah says, turning to him and Charles. “And – I couldn’t get close enough to hear everything they were saying, but they mentioned preparing prisoner’s wagons. And one of them said ‘Mr. Bell’s information has always been reliable’. Isn’t there a Mr. Bell in your gang?”

Charles clenches his jaw so hard it’s a wonder his teeth don’t crack. Beside him, Arthur looks downright murderous.

“Micah,” he snarls. “That goddamn snake-”

“If they are taking wagons, you could reach Beaver Hollow before them,” Rains Fall interrupts – a man well used to thinking of practicality over vengeance. “There are women and children in your gang. Go – you can reach them before it’s too late.”

Charles gets two steps towards Taima before he hesitates, looking around at the dismantled settlement, at the injured, at the women and children around them. Arthur only gets one step further before he hesitates, looking back at Charles. They meet each other’s gaze, and for a moment Charles thinks he may have to make a terrible decision.

But Rains Fall decides for him.

“Go, both of you,” he urges. “We will manage the rest of our preparations by ourselves. Go, defend your own family!”

Charles shares another glance with Arthur, and nods.

“And remember what I said, Mr. Morgan!” Rains Fall calls after them as they run for their horses.

And then they’re thundering through the mountains, side by side, hoping they’re not too late.

No one is on watch when they turn down the trail that leads to Beaver Hollow. But Charles can’t see any fresh tracks, from men, horses or wagons...

And when they get into the camp, it’s quiet, no sign of Pinkertons or a fight. Sadie is the first to spot them as she steps out from behind Bob, rifle slung over her shoulder and an alarmed expression on her face when she catches sight of them. But before she can say anything, Arthur tosses his head at the Marstons’ tent. Mouth setting in a grim line, Sadie nods and heads that way instead.

“Micah!” Arthur bellows, swinging himself down off Atlas, drawing his revolvers. “Where are you, you goddamn rat?!”

“What you talking about, cowpoke?”

Micah saunters out of Dutch’s tent and is quickly flanked by Cleet and Joe. Dismounting from Taima and drawing his shotgun, Charles glances around the camp. Javier and Bill are sitting at the dominoes table but rise, hands hovering over their own weapons. Sadie has skirted around to John’s tent and throws one last look at them before ducking inside. Lenny, Tilly, Karen and Miss Grimshaw step out from the tents behind Arthur’s wagon, and Kieran and Mary-Beth emerge from near the cook wagon, no doubt to see what the shouting is about. But there’s no sign of Uncle or Pearson. He can only hope they’ve followed Swanson’s example and left.

Dutch himself emerges from his tent.

“So, you’ve returned,” he says coldly.

“’Course I did,” Arthur scoffs. “We just been at the Wapiti Reservation, returning Eagle Flies to his father – looks like he’ll live, by the way, though I guess you don’t care all that much.”

Careful, Arthur, Charles wants to urge, unnerved by the oddly blank expression on Dutch’s face.

“And turns out it’s a good thing we did,” Arthur continues, loud enough for everyone to hear, “’cause it means we were there when some of the scouts came back, who’d come across some Pinkertons, got to overhear their plans. They know we’re here; they’re on their way.”

Alarm starts to ripple through the gang. But Micah laughs, stepping forwards.

“And how did they find out, I wonder?” he says loudly. “Hey Marston, you should’ve told us you were expecting friends to call, we could’ve laid out the good china!”

“Shut the hell up, Micah,” John snarls from where he’s emerged from his tent, his own pistol in hand. But there’s no sign of Abigail and Jack – Charles hopes that means Sadie has snuck them out the back and down towards the river.

“Oh, we know how they found out,” Arthur growls, “scouts overheard that too. Apparently, the Pinkertons have been getting ‘reliable information’ from a Mr. Bell. You rat!” he snarls. “You talked!”

“That is a god damn lie!” Micah sneers, hands hovering over his pistols.

“How long has it been?” Arthur demands. “Since they found us at Clemens Point? Since Blackwater? You tell ‘em about the bank robbery? You the one who got Hosea killed?!”

Whatever reply Micah is about to give is cut off by a chuckle from Dutch that makes the hairs on the back of Charles’ neck stand on end.

“Well son, I’ve got to hand it to you,” he says, teeth bared in something closer to a snarl than a smile. “Never thought you would be one to come up with such a good distraction. Unless you had help.” At this, his gaze crosses to Charles.

“What?” Arthur asks, taken aback.

“Don’t play coy, Arthur, you ain’t ever been good at it. But still, I do applaud you, both of you! That is a mighty fine story to distract from your own treachery.”

Dutch is grandstanding like some circus ringleader, but his expression is nothing but hateful.

“What are you-”

“Of course, you’re right, Arthur!” Dutch interrupts him. “Things have been going wrong, for a long time, since Blackwater, despite Micah and I planning it out perfectly. The law knew we was coming, and they keep finding out we’re coming, they keep finding out where we are. And you’ve always blamed Micah, I know you have. But who else did we pick up, not all that long before Blackwater?”

Charles takes half a step back in sheer surprise when his gaze slides back to him.

“...You can’t be serious,” Arthur says, dumbfounded.

“Oh, but I am, son. It all makes sense. You,” Dutch snarls, turning back to Charles. “You let us take you in, clothe you and feed you, ingratiate yourself with my gang, my family. Some more than others.” His gaze flickers to Arthur, then back to Charles, and all Charles can see is madness. Madness and desperation.

Much as he wants to tell the man he’s deluded, he’s fairly sure that if he says anything he’s going to get a bullet in him.

“What are you talking about, Dutch?!” John exclaims.

“Do you want to tell them Arthur, or shall I?” Dutch says mockingly. “Perhaps your family, these people you swore to love and protect, would like to know you’ve got different priorities now. Perhaps you should come clean, now that Micah has discovered your treachery. Perhaps you should all know,” he practically shouts, “that Mr. Smith, and our Mr. Morgan here, have been carrying on together behind our backs!”

There’s a long pause.

Insects buzz.

One of the horses snorts.

A gust of wind rustles through the trees.

“Well... yeah?” Karen eventually drawls.

“What about it?” Lenny adds.

Dutch’s own expression falters as he looks around at the gang, and their total lack of astonishment.

“...You all knew?!”

“...You all knew?!”

Dutch and Arthur both say it at the same time, then turn back to each other. In any other situation, the matching stunned looks on their faces would be comical.

And then something in Dutch seems to snap.

Suddenly, Charles has Dutch’s pistol pointing at him, the other hovering between Arthur and Micah. Arthur’s pointing his revolvers at Dutch and Micah, Micah at Arthur and John, John at Micah and Dutch, and there’s a clattering as the rest of the gang follows suit, guns pointing everywhere.

“WHO AMONGST YOU IS WITH ME,” Dutch roars, voice cracking, “AND WHO IS BETRAYING ME?!”

“Dutch, listen,” Arthur says carefully. “The Pinkertons are coming, now. They named Micah.”

“Oh sure, and you heard that from your new Indian friends?” Micah jeers. “The ones you been spending more time with than your family? I ain’t ever heard a more desperate lie.”

“He’s right, Arthur,” Dutch says, eyes wide and twitchy like a spooked horse. “You been abandoning us, over and over, despite everything I’ve done for you-”

“I’m still here, ain’t I?! Dutch, he’s a rat-”

“Micah has been trying his damnedest to help me save this gang, despite the fact he is clearly ill! And all you have done is doubt me! You- you been poisoned against me, you and John both! By that harlot, and this traitor!” Charles can’t help but flinch as Dutch gestures with the pistol aimed at him, the second swinging away from Micah to point at Arthur. Micah grins – face pale, eyes sunken and oddly bright, blood on his teeth and flecked in his moustache; he looks nothing short of rabid.

“Charles ain’t a traitor! And us being together ain’t ‘abandoning’ nobody-”

“You went behind his back!” Micah sneers through coughs.

“Twenty years,” Arthur insists. “You really gonna throw away twenty years for the lies of this snake?”

“Shut your mouth, cowpoke. This gang means everything to me. I would never-”

“How come you found us first?”

The simple question cuts through the shouting, and they all glance at Lenny in confusion as he slowly walks forward, gun drawn but pointed at the ground.

“...What?” Dutch asks, shaking his head a little.

“It’s something I’ve been wondering for a while,” Lenny says, keeping his voice level. “When you boys got back from Guarma, Arthur was the only one who went to Shady Belle, right? That’s where we left the letter, so Arthur had the most direct lead to us. But Micah found us first.”

“Quiet, kid, the adults are talking,” Micah growls. But Lenny – brave, clever Lenny – continues, voice calm, looking Dutch in the eye.

“At Clemens Point, the agents offered the rest of us our freedom in exchange for you, Dutch. It’s you they’re after. And then they attacked us in Lakay, minutes after you arrived. Now sure, it could be one hell of a coincidence that they found us just after you did, or maybe they followed Bill. But while we were staying in Lakay, it felt like we was being watched, we all noticed it. At the time, we put it down to the Night Folk. But maybe-”

“Shut it, boy!” Micah hisses.

“Maybe,” Lenny continues over him, holding Dutch’s gaze, “it weren’t the Night Folk. Maybe it was the Pinkertons – watching us, in case you returned, and they readied their attack as soon as you did. I reckon they knew where we were the whole time. So I reckon, they knew just where to drop off their inside man as soon as he got back from Guarma-”

Charles sees Micah’s eyes widen, brings up his own gun as Micah starts to turn his pistols on Lenny, and fires.

Half a second later, multiple shots ring out.

Micah stumbles backwards, a vaguely surprised look on his face. Cleet and Joe both drop before they can return fire, a mess where their heads used to be.

Glancing around, Charles sees both Arthur and John have one gun aimed at where Joe and Cleet had stood, the other aimed at Micah. Bill’s gun is jumping from target to target in his confusion, and Javier is pointing his gun at the sky, wide-eyed. Dutch still has his pistols aimed at Arthur and himself, but they’re lowered slightly, shock on his own face.

Micah looks down at the multiple new holes in his torso, seems to shrug, coughs, turns – and falls to the ground.

Then there’s a click.

“Put those guns down now, before I blast your head off.”

Charles feels as surprised as everyone else looks when they all turn to see none other than Susan Grimshaw, aiming her still-smoking gun squarely at Dutch.

“What the HELL is wrong with you?!” she snaps. “How dare you?! How DARE you raise a gun at our boy?! How dare you call our boys traitors?! We RAISED Arthur and John - you and me and Hosea, and Bessie! What would they think if they saw you now?!”

“I- I-”

“And Mr. Smith here has done nothing but be helpful ever since he joined us, despite the hell you’ve dragged us through! You should be ashamed of yourself, Dutch Van der Linde – I never thought I’d see you stoop so low! Now you put those guns down, or I will shoot you myself!”

Dutch wavers – so do Bill and Javier.

“Everyone pick your sides now,” Arthur warns, gun aimed back at Dutch. “Because this is over. Now Chief Rains Fall – ‘cause he is apparently far too kind and generous for his own good – has offered to let us travel with the Wapiti tribe over the mountains. Well – some of us,” he adds, glaring at Dutch. “So for chrissakes, no more talkin’ – everyone pack what you need and come with us or get gone, before the damn Pinkertons turn up!”

But no one moves as Dutch slowly blinks, before turning back to Arthur, looking lost.

“That’s it?” he asks hollowly. “After all I- all we- despite, despite the plan, despite everything – you would break up our family?”

Arthur looks more miserable than Charles has ever seen him, but his gun is steady.

“You already did,” he says softly.

“Oh.”

Arthur leans back on his hands, gazing up at the stars as he considers Charles’ words. This early in the fall, there’s no snow in the Eastern Grizzlies, but tonight’s camp is high up enough that their breath plumes before them, even though they’re huddled close to one of the periphery campfires.

“So... everyone knew about us?”

“Well... I’m not sure how much Kieran remembers of that night he came across us at Shady Belle,” Charles replies, looking over to the main bonfire where Kieran is still sat talking animatedly with some of the tribe as they discuss horse-training techniques. Once they’re through the mountains, he and Mary-Beth are planning to catch a train east to a town in Kentucky, where the St Denis stable manager had said he’d put in a good word for Kieran to a friend who’s looking to hire good hands. He knows they’re hoping to convince Karen to go with them. Charles hopes she does too – these past few days, as she’s been pulled into the care duties for the wounded, seem to have halted her self-destructive spiral. Now she’s sat with some of the little girls, playing a game with beads and laughing.

“But... yes. Pretty much,” Charles admits sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I should’ve told you, I just... didn’t want you to worry.”

“Hey now, nothin’ you gotta apologise for,” Arthur murmurs, nudging his shoulder. “I shoulda told Dutch from the start, then, maybe none of... that would’ve happened-”

“Don’t,” Charles tells him firmly, squeezing his hand. “Don’t blame yourself for his actions.”

“I know, I know... Tilly n’ Lenny keep sayin’ the same thing. John too, even. Just...” He sighs again, staring into the flames. “I keep tryin’ to figure out when it all went wrong. I thought it was Blackwater, but, even before then, we was all set to buy that land in Montana then Dutch said something about the deal was off – and we believed him, ‘cause why wouldn’t we, but what if-”

“Stop blaming yourself,” Charles repeats, quieting him with a gentle press of his lips against Arthur’s. Arthur makes a soft noise in the back of his throat – then quickly pulls away, casting a nervous glance around them.

“Hold up- uh, we ain’t exactly somewhere private...”

In all his roaming, Charles has been fortunate enough to see many beautiful things. But none, he thinks, are as lovely as the sight of Arthur Morgan, a shy blush dusting his cheeks, framed by a star-soaked sky.

“I told you – everyone knows,” he reminds him gently.

“...Wait, the Wapiti too?”

“Well, probably not all of them. But Rains Fall knows. Eagle Flies and Paytah to. They, heh, apparently had a bet going.”

“And they’re... okay, with that? With two men bein’-”

“They have no reason not to be.”

“Oh.”

A blink.

“Oh!”

Charles quickly revises his earlier opinion – there is no lovelier sight than Arthur Morgan with a genuinely happy grin on his face, eyes bright as the stars surrounding them.

“Well why the hell didn’t you say so earlier?! C’mere.”

After a few moments, someone over by the bonfire must notice, because there’s a few cheers and wolf whistles. Charles just smiles against Arthur’s lips, content to kiss him beneath the stars, quite sure that the feeling spreading through his chest will be enough to keep them warm through the night.

Chapter Text

“To the left, then up- to the left!”

“I am putting it to the left!”

“Other left, dumbass!”

“That’s your left, my right!”

“Will you hurry up before I drop this damn thing on your head?! Or maybe I should anyway, might knock some sense into that thick skull of yours...”

“Ugh, I wish we’d left you in Canada.”

“Pfft, without me and Charles you’d still be trying to build this damn house into the next century, now push!”

“I am pushing, you pull!”

Rolling his eyes as he gulps down the rest of his water, Charles follows the sound of squabbling to the other side of the half-built ranch house and helps John heave the last of the roof timbers up to Arthur, before they both climb up and join him in hammering them into place.

“Jesus... remind me why we thought building a house in the middle of summer was a good idea?” John gripes once they complete another row, wiping the sweat dripping from his forehead. “Maybe we shoulda built it over by the trees after all...”

“Nuh uh, that’s where the horses are going,” Arthur says firmly as he fans himself with his hat.

“How come the horses get a nicer spot than we do?”

“’Cause they’re what’s gonna be keepin’ this place afloat!”

They’d been fortunate in finding the property – it’s got good grazing, cool, clear water easily accessed with pumps as well as a river nearby, and a small town within half a day’s ride away, making it perfect for livestock and the horses Arthur wants to try rearing. Best of all, the western fence line is the last man-made structure for miles and miles, rolling prairie eventually giving way to thick forest at the foot of the mountains.

Having been on the move his whole life, building a house that he is going to live in, permanently, still feels surreal to Charles, but he’s glad it’s in such a good spot.

“Thirsty work, huh boys?!”

They’d been less fortunate in stepping out of the town hotel the day the ‘Milton brothers’ signed their ownership deeds, only to run straight into Uncle.

“Oh sure – I bet lying around in the shade really takes it out of you,” John snarks.

“Hey, I’m doing my bit! These don’t fill themselves!” Uncle complains as he climbs high enough to pass them their re-filled canteens. “Hoo, it sure is hot as the hinges of Hell up here though. How can you stand to be wearing that, Charles?!” he asks, gesturing at his shirt. “You ain’t gonna fry like these two!”

“Keeps the insects off,” Charles answers easily. John and Arthur had learned their lesson on an especially hot day a few weeks back that had turned them both a brilliant shade of cooked lobster-pink from the waist up, and left them cowering miserably in the shade for the next three days. Charles, unaffected, could only wince in sympathy and keep bringing them damp rags to lay over their burnt skin, and told John he was keeping his shirt on in commiseration.

In truth, he’s been keeping it on, despite the fact it’s usually drenched and sticking to him well before noon each day, because he’s noticed that the number of times Arthur hammers his own thumb increases exponentially whenever he does opt to work shirtless.

But they don’t need to know that.

“Still can’t believe it. Soon we’re gonna be sleeping in our own house. On our own land.”

Charles stirs, cracking his eyes open against the dawn light to see John and Arthur already up, sat on the log they’ve dragged over to the fire pit and watching as the rising sun beams through the exposed skeleton of the roof.

“Yeah. And all it took was three years of hard work n’ keeping our noses clean. Something to be said for doing things the proper way, huh?”

Their backs are to him so he can’t see Arthur’s expression, but there’s a clear note of melancholy in his voice. They hear it a lot less these days, but it’s still enough for Charles to frown, and start to push himself up. But John – who, Charles has realised over the years, is just as adept at reading Arthur’s moods – perks up suddenly.

“Speaking of doing things proper-” he starts, reaching over to grab his vest and fishing in the breast pocket to pull out a scrap of paper, “-what do you think?”

Arthur reaches out to take it, and his demeanour instantly perks up too.

“Shit John, really?!” he exclaims, and Charles can hear the grin in his voice this time.

“Uh huh. Been thinking about it for a long time. I mean, I know we’re practically married anyway, but, I figure, oughta make it official, right? Could even have the ceremony here, once we’re finished.”

“Little Johnny Marston, finally being made an honest man – in his own house, on his own land,” Arthur murmurs, and the sheer pride in his voice is enough to make something in Charles’ own heart squeeze; he quickly settles back onto his bedroll and feigns sleep, not wanting to interrupt the rare tender moment between the two. He does peek through half-closed eyelids though as John ducks his head, forgetting he doesn’t have his long hair anymore to hide his bashful expression.

“Our land,” he corrects, rubbing the back of his neck. “’Sides, don’t celebrate just yet – Abigail might not even say yes...”

“’Course she’ll say yes, idiot,” Arthur ribs fondly. But then he takes another look at the piece of paper, presumably a brochure or page from a shop catalogue, and lets out a low whistle.

“Shit, they ain’t cheap though.”

“Yeah,” John sighs, “I wanted to get her a nice one, but reckon she’d skin me alive if she found out I’d spent that much while we still got this bank loan. I don’t know whether to wait-”

“Hold up,” Arthurs stops him, digging through his satchel, “pretty sure I still got – here!”

He holds up something small that sparkles in the morning sun.

“Wha- Where’d you get that?!”

“Don’t gimme that look, I didn’t steal it. Bought it myself, a long... long time ago.”

Charles sees John hesitantly take what must be a ring from Arthur’s palm.

“Is this... Mary’s?” John asks tentatively.

“Well, it used to be. She sent it back, told me to give it to someone who can make use of it, since neither of us need it no more. So I’d say it’s Abigail’s now, if you reckon she’d like it.”

“Well- yeah, I mean, she’d love it! It’s real nice... But, you’re sure you want me to have it...?”

‘’Course. I ain’t got no use for it anymore – ain’t like it’d fit Charles.”

John’s head snaps up from examining the ring.

“...Arthur,” he exclaims when no further explanation seems forthcoming.

“Whut?”

“You sayin’ you wanna have a double wedding?” John laughs disbelievingly. Charles still can’t see his face, but Arthur hunches his shoulders, looking away.

“Glad you think it’s so funny,” he mumbles. Charles winces at the hurt in his voice; so does John.

“I- wait, no, I didn’t mean it like- I was just... surprised, is all,” he says haltingly. “But... you would?”

“Would what?” Arthur huffs.

“Ask Charles to marry you? If you could?”

“’Course I would,” Arthur says simply. And Charles isn’t surprised; his answer would be exactly the same. But he still has to hide his face in his bedroll before Arthur turns to look at him, as he knows he will, to hide his smile.

“Oh,” John says softly. “Well... in that case, I know it ain’t technically legal and all, but, for what it’s worth-”

Whatever reassurance John might be about to provide is promptly cut off as Uncle flails awake with a snort.

“Married? Nossir, ain’t never seen this lady in my- Eh?”

“You’re dreaming, you old letch,” John calls. As Uncle grumbles about ‘folk having no respect for their elders these days’, Charles feigns waking too, rolling over and blinking his eyes open. But Arthur’s still watching him with such blatant fondness that he can’t help but return the look.

“Watcha got there?” Uncle asks John as he shuffles over to the coffee pot. Sure enough, John holds up a ring – gold, with a red stone set between two clear ones. Uncle clasps his hands to his chest, letting out a squeal.

“Oh Johnny, I thought you’d never ask!” he cries in a falsetto.

“Shuddup...” John mumbles, but he’s unable to hide his own grin as Uncle laughs and pats him on the back.

“Well it’s about goddamn time!” he crows. “Come on, this calls for a toast! Where’s that whiskey...”

“Sun’s barely up!” Arthur protests.

“So? Listen here you boys, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you gotta celebrate the good things in life whenever you can!” Uncle declares. Then, with a sly grin, “and you know something else I’ve learned?”

“Do we want to?” Charles mutters as he pours himself a coffee.

“Weddings,” Uncle continues, waggling his eyebrows at Arthur and Charles, “are a great place to meet lovely ladyfolk!” He ignores their groans and protests, warming up to the subject. “It’s true! Think about it – all these eligible young women, watching a couple in love, fantasising about their own weddings...”

“Ugh, you dirty old man,” Arthur complains, shaking his head as he gets to his feet.

“Hey, I’m just trying to help you boys!” Uncle insists. “I mean, John’s the youngest outta you, it ain’t a good look if he’s getting married and you two are still single! Folks’ll start wondering if there’s something the matter with you!”

“Heaven forbid,” Arthur says dryly. “You can help us by figuring out which’ve these planks are for the porch, c’mon.” He herds a grumbling Uncle towards the lumber pile, but tosses a look back at Charles, rolling his eyes and grinning. Charles returns the grin, shaking his head.

“How come you two don’t just tell him?” John asks once they’re out of earshot.

“...We’re a little worried about him blurting something in the saloon,” Charles murmurs, gazing into his coffee.

That, and frankly they’re both morbidly curious about just how much they can get away with before the old man finally catches on. Like when, prior to his nasty sunburn, Arthur had been working shirtless, flushed and coated in a sheen of sweat, which had put Charles to mind of other times he’s seen Arthur in such a state – and, judging by the number of times Arthur hammered his thumb that day, he was having similar thoughts. As soon as John and Uncle had headed out to plan (or argue over) where the barn for the livestock should go, Arthur had crowded him into the shade of one of the half-built walls, slowly mouthing and licking his way down Charles’ torso while Charles scrabbled for a grip on the wall lest his knees give out. Arthur had finally reached for the buttons on his pants – only to spring away, Uncle rounding the corner a second later, cheerily declaring that they had ‘the right idea of resting in the shade for a bit, far too hot to carry on working like this’, and promptly sat himself down against the wall beside them. He’d tilted his head back and set his hat over his eyes – obscuring the disbelieving looks on Charles and Arthur’s faces.

“Aw, I don’t reckon you gotta worry about that,” John scoffs, “everyone in town already knows not to take anything that comes outta his mouth seriously.”

“Heh, true.”

John bashes the last ridge tile onto the apex of the roof with a whoop, and wants to ride back to town immediately – to fetch Abigail and Jack from the hotel they’ve been staying in, and to propose. They manage to convince him he should get a shave and scrub up properly in the hotel baths first (“If you propose stinkin’ like that, she will say no!”), but Arthur sends Uncle with him just in case. Charles and Arthur are left to pack up the tools and sweep away all the sawdust, before heading down to the river to wash up themselves (with Uncle and John finally gone, it takes longer than it otherwise might’ve done, and they end up having to wash up twice, but neither of them mind). They amble back to the house at sunset, and if either notices the other getting slightly emotional at the sight of the finished house, windows and lantern above the porch glowing invitingly, they don’t say anything.

But, after they’ve had dinner and seen to the horses, Arthur remembers the bottle of good whiskey he’s been hiding from Uncle, so they head out onto the porch to drink it and watch the stars.

And maybe it’s the feeling of being home glowing in his heart, or the whiskey glowing warm in his belly, or just the way Arthur looks in the glow of starlight, but Charles can’t resist giving him a sidelong glance.

“So – you’d marry me if you could, hmm?” he asks, amused and fond. Arthur turns to him, wide-eyed, before doing the thing where he blushes and stammers and ducks his head because he’s forgotten he’s not wearing his hat, and it’s no less endearing now, four years later, than it was the first time outside of Blackwater, what feels like a lifetime ago.

“...If you’d have me,” Arthur finally manages shyly.

Charles smiles, setting the whiskey aside to cup Arthur’s face in his hands.

“’Course I would,” he echoes softly, before pulling him into a kiss, an overwhelming sensation of contented happiness spreading through him to the point where he wouldn’t be surprised if he starts glowing himself.

When they finally break for air, Arthur sighs, resting their foreheads together as he threads his fingers through Charles’ hair.

“I’ve told you I love you, right?” he mumbles.

“Many times,” Charles chuckles. Arthur hums, pulling him close again – then pauses.

“...Y’know, we do have our own bedroom now,” he says coyly.

“Hmm. True. We should probably test it out – make sure there are no drafts. Or creaky floorboards.”

Chuckling, Arthur leads the way to their ‘room’ – a small, separate wing that shares a wall with the kitchen in the main house, but has its own doors and a woodstove at one end – the planning sheets declared it as an ideal space for extra storage, or as a bunk room for ranch hands. They’ve still only got their bedrolls for furniture, but they make do, tumbling onto said bedrolls, and Arthur’s gazing up at him, warm and wanting-

“Hey Arthur, Charles! Look what we got!”

Charles shuts his eyes and sighs through his nose as Arthur groans.

“Maybe we should’ve stayed in Canada. ‘Least the folks in the tribe seemed to understand the concept of privacy...” he grumbles as they break apart. But then there’s another shout from outside.

“Wow! Is that our house?!”

When they step around to the front of the house, Jack is still standing in front of the porch, gaping at the building.

“Jack, what’re you doin’ here? Thought you was coming up tomorrow with your ma and pa?” Arthur calls as they approach.

“The powers that be decided me n’ Jack could make it back tonight – they wanted an evening out together. John’s got something important he needs to talk to Abby about,” Uncle grins as he clambers down from the wagon.

“I see,” Arthur chuckles. “So, you like it, Jack?” he asks, tousling the boy’s hair.

“It’s really ours? The whole thing?”

“Sure is! You wanna see which room’s gonna be yours?”

“Yeah!”

Charles smiles as he watches Arthur get dragged into the house by an excitable eight-year-old, before turning back to the wagon.

“What’s all this?” he asks, gesturing to whatever’s piled up under the tarp.

“Well, you know how Abigail’s made friends with the hotel owner’s wife? Turns out they got a bunch’ve old furniture – things that got damaged or stained so they can’t use ‘em in the guest rooms no more, but they still do the job. And she said we could have whatever we needed! John’ll bring up the rest tomorrow, but I got beds for all of us – hey, if you n’ Arthur shift these now, we can sleep in ‘em tonight!”

“Or, you could help me.”

“Oh, I can’t do any heavy lifting, sets off my lumbago,” Uncle dismisses. “But tonight, you get to sleep in your very own bed, Charles! You can thank me later.”

“Well... it’s still bigger than your old cot,” Charles muses as they wriggle onto one of the two single beds Uncle brought for him and Arthur. “And, they’re wood, so we could probably fix them together to make a double.”

“We shoulda just told him,” Arthur grumbles, “blind old bat...”

“Mm. Although, if he’s off trying to find us ‘eligible ladies’ to marry, he’s leaving us alone.”

“...I like your thinking,” Arthur murmurs, pulling him close.

Abigail and John arrive with another pile of furniture, mile-wide grins on their faces, and a ring on Abigail’s finger. The materials for the barn and stable arrive soon after, and they work hard on getting them up as quickly as they can – partly because John wants to get some animals in so they can start producing wool and milk to sell; partly because Arthur wants to move the rest of his horses out of the town stables so he can keep a closer eye on Freyr, the Arabian he’d found running wild in the Eastern Grizzlies, now getting round with her first foal; but mostly because Abigail says she doesn’t want to get married in a building site. But in the evenings, Charles busies himself with fixing and restoring the old furniture (including cannibalising his and Arthur’s beds to turn it into a larger one).

“Lord, Charles, there anything you don’t know how to do?” Abigail asks, admiring the dining table that no longer wobbles. “How’d you make everything look so new again?!”

“There’s not much sandpaper and a few coats of varnish can’t fix,” Charles shrugs. “But like I said, I spent a few summers working in building gangs when I was younger. The carpenters taught me a thing or two.”

“Well, we’re real grateful – don’t know where we’d be without you,” Abigail says warmly.

“Probably still homeless and tearing ‘round the continent, getting shot at,” Uncle chortles, making himself comfy in what’s quickly become ‘his’ chair. “Seriously though,” he adds, ignoring Abigail’s glare, “this is good stuff! You could set up a side business, show off your handiwork in town.”

“Suppose it could be a good way to earn some extra cash...”

“Ugh, always so serious,” Uncle scoffs. “The point ain’t the money – point is to show you’re a man who’s good with his hands! Ladies love that sort of thing!”

Charles just shakes his head as Abigail scolds Uncle and kicks him out to make sure the chickens are shut in for the night.

“Sorry about him,” she sighs once the door’s shut. “Though, speaking of fellas who’re good with their hands, where’s yours? I need him and his pretty handwriting to help me with the wedding invitations.”

“Gone into town – said he wanted to talk with the stable owner about how to take care of Freyr after the move,” Charles replies with a frown. “He should be back by now though...”

“Heh, swear that man’s more excited about a foal than I am about my wedding,” Abigail says fondly. “Don’t worry, he’ll turn up – probably just got side-tracked drawing birds or helping old ladies get their cats outta trees.”

“Pfft, probably.”

By late summer, they’ve got the barn and stable up, the animals in, and the jubilant replies from the members of the gang they’ve managed to keep in touch with, confirming they’ll make the trip for John and Abigail’s wedding from the various corners of the country they’ve scattered to. In the meantime, life quickly falls into a routine of ranch chores, along with the occasional trips into town, and riding out with Arthur – sometimes to hunt, oftentimes just to explore the area. And it still feels surreal, that this simple, peaceful life is theirs.

But, the fifth time they pick up the mail and there’s a letter addressed to Arthur, which he promptly squirrels away, mumbling some vague non-answer if they ask what it is, furtively writing the replies when he thinks no one’s around, Charles feels a twinge of concern. He’s not the only one.

“You don’t... you don’t think he’s managed to get in contact with Dutch, do you?” John murmurs, when he, Charles and Abigail sit at the dining table one evening, Jack in bed and Arthur having gone on another solo trip to town. “Or, he ain’t working on... ‘jobs’, like we used to?”

“He wouldn’t! He made it damn clear he don’t ever want to hear from Dutch again. And he ain’t stupid, he knows we’re done with that life – he wouldn’t risk everything we’ve got here,” Abigail insists, but she’s chewing her lip.

“I know, but... You remember what it was like. That bastard got himself into your head. And Arthur had it more than anyone – twenty years is a lot longer than three,” John replies, frowning. “He said anything to you, Charles?”

“No. And, I don’t know... Maybe we’re being paranoid – nothing wrong with having private letters, after all.”

The other two nod slowly, but don’t look convinced, and Charles wonders if they’re having similar worries to him. Worries that Arthur’s had the need to always be working, that idea that idleness is equivalent to abandoning your family, etched too deeply into his soul. Worries that maybe Arthur thinks he has to find other ‘jobs’ to supplement their income from the ranch. Worries that Dutch Van der Linde’s promises and demands for more, more, more, will never stop echoing.

“What’re you lot gossiping about like fishwives?” Uncle asks, strolling in from the kitchen, fresh beer in hand.

“You got any idea what Arthur went into town for?” John asks him.

“Nope – I even asked when he left, he was being all secretive! And he’s been getting those letters too, right? You know what I reckon?” he asks, leaning in conspiratorially. “I reckon he’s got a secret lady friend!”

“I... doubt that,” Charles says flatly.

“Doubt what?”

They look up as Arthur himself walks in the door.

“Well, here he is! Have a nice time in town, Mr. Morgan?” Uncle asks suggestively. Arthur pauses, giving him a confused look.

“I... sure? Why?”

“Any new friends you wanna introduce us to?”

“...no?”

“Ugh, ignore him. Take a seat, I left your dinner keeping warm in the oven,” Abigail says as she rises, swatting Uncle on her way into the kitchen.

“You sure?” Uncle continues, like a dog with a bone. “No little lady we might be seeing-”

“Chrissakes Uncle,” Arthur sighs as he sits beside Charles, “would you drop it?”

“Well, I’m just trying to look out for you! I mean, look atcha – you’ve hit forty, going grey and everything!”

“Don’t remind me,” Arthur grumbles, thanking Abigail when she brings him a plate.

“You, Arthur Morgan,” Uncle declares, waving a finger at him, “better hurry up and get hitched! ‘Cause you’re quickly turning from eligible bachelor to sad, lonely old fart.”

“And what does that make you?!”

“I am a distinguished gentleman!” Uncle sniffs. “And I’d been married twice by your age!”

“Only thing that’s ‘distinguished’ is the print of your ass on that couch since you barely get off it,” John snarks. As he and Uncle bicker, Charles finds Arthur’s hand under the table, giving it a squeeze.

“Personally, I quite like the grey,” he murmurs under his breath.

“You just trying to butter me up, Mr. Smith?” Arthur whispers back with a smirk.

He wasn’t, but it’s an idea he can get behind.

Later, as their sweat cools and they lie basking in the afterglow, Charles reaches up lazily to stroke through Arthur’s hair, admiring the silver that’s starting to streak through it as well as his beard.

“I really do like it,” he murmurs. “It suits you.”

“Darlin’, I appreciate your optimism, but Uncle’s right – I am gettin’ old. Ain’t no way I’m up for another round just-”

Snickering, Charles shushes him with a kiss, but then leans back to gaze at him fondly.

“You’re not old. And I mean it,” he says, “it’s a good look on you. And it shows how lucky we are.”

“Lucky?”

“Not many people who’ve lived lives like we have get to go grey.”

“True,” Arthur murmurs, pulling him into another kiss.

They settle for the night, and Charles is nearly asleep before he remembers to ask.

“Everything okay in town? You were gone all day.”

“Yeah, sorry. Just had to pick something up, but got talking with Mr. Redding at the stables. He’s getting more Foxtrotters in next year, and I reckon-”

Charles smiles, and lets Arthur’s enthusiastic rambling about horses lull him to sleep.

Two days before the wedding, Arthur and Charles are dispatched at dawn to bring back enough venison to feed all the wedding guests.

“Just like old times, huh?” Arthur calls as they canter across the plains towards a small creek that’s always a good spot for hunting.

“Feels like it. But at least this time the meat we’re bringing back isn’t going to get ruined by whatever it was Pearson used to do to it,” Charles calls back.

“Hah, damn right! Though, I ain’t too sure about Sadie’s spit-roasting skills neither – she told me she don’t like cooking!”

“She lived up in the Grizzlies for a long time, she must have learned. And she sounded like she knows what she’s doing – she was preparing a stuffing and everything.”

“I guess. Though, I’m kinda worried that the only things she’s been skewerin’ lately are less likely to be venison and more likely to be her bounty marks that don’t need to be brought back ali-”

“Arthur!” Charles calls urgently, hauling on the reins. Arthur’s head snaps back to face ahead, and then he does the same, catching sight of the big shapes scattered across the area below them.

“Quick, get the horses back below the line of sight, we don’t want to spook them,” Charles urges, guiding Taima back down the slope. Arthur follows, and they leave the horses in the shade of a tree before creeping back up to the brow of the hill. Charles half-wonders if they’d been seeing things, maybe just rocks that wishful thinking had turned into-

But sure enough, when they peer over, the small herd of bison are still there. Checking the direction of the wind, Charles gestures, and they sneak along a bit until they reach an outcrop that allows them to get close and look down across the plain.

“I ain’t seen any in ages... not since the Heartlands,” Arthur murmurs, sounding awed. Charles can only nod, his throat feeling tight, as they perch behind some rocks and watch the bison mill about below. But something in his heart lifts when there’s a bleating call, and a couple of calves scurry out from behind some adults, chasing each other around, bright orange fur stark against the lush green of the grass.

“Bit late in the year for them ain’t it?” Arthur asks quietly.

“It’s not unusual for some calves to be born in late summer, if there’s plenty of food available,” Charles whispers back. Arthur nods and settles more comfortably, clearly happy to sit and watch for a while, and Charles gratefully does the same.

“I was readin’ in the paper,” Arthur says lowly, “they’ve set up a conservation herd of these fellas over in Yellowstone. And there’s talk of stricter laws against poachers – some society is lobbying Congress ‘bout it. So maybe we’ll be seeing these ones around more.”

“I hope so...”

They stay and watch the bison as the sun slowly climbs into the sky. Neither make any moves towards their guns. But Charles does eventually become aware that Arthur is watching him as much as he’s watching the bison.

“What is it?” he asks when he catches Arthur staring at him again with an impossibly soft look in his eyes.

“...nothin’.”

Arthur’s never been good at lying. Charles tells him so.

“I... just... naw, never mind. Don’t wanna distract you,” Arthur mumbles, motioning at the bison.

“They’re not going anywhere.” It’s true – the bison seem to be happy to continue grazing in the area. And the blush creeping across Arthur’s cheeks has got him curious.

“Well, I... It’s just... It’s silly, but... you- or, I- uh...”

“Arthur?”

Arthur looks at him for a long moment, before glancing away back at the bison. Then he takes a deep breath.

“Y’know how you was asking me about those letters?” he asks, slowly reaching into his satchel so as not to disturb the animals.

“What about them?” Charles asks, tendril of worry starting to curl in his gut.

“So, turns out you can get just about anythin’ by mail order these days, n’, well...”

The worry is replaced with confusion when Arthur finally pulls out not letters, but a small cloth bag.

“Like I said, it’s real silly, but, you already know I’m a fool, n’ I just thought...”

“What is it?” Charles asks gently, before Arthur can get himself too tongue-tied. Arthur looks at him again, as if steeling himself, then slowly reaches out to catch Charles’ hand in his own, and tips the contents of the bag into it.

Charles’ eyes widen as two rings – plain golden bands, too big for a woman’s finger – land in his palm.

“I know, it’s stupid,” Arthur says hurriedly as Charles stares, “and, you don’t have to wear it, hell, you don’t even have to keep it, we can send ‘em back if you want, but, I just thought, maybe-” He falls silent as Charles reaches out with his other hand to take Arthur’s left one, and carefully slides one of the bands onto his ring finger.

“Perfect fit,” Charles murmurs.

“They... they send you little bits of paper to check the size,” Arthur croaks. “But, I didn’t know how to get yours without makin’ it obvious...”

Charles tests the second ring on his own finger, and sure enough, it doesn’t quite go – his hands are bigger than Arthur’s, after all. Arthur bites his lip, but before he can start calling himself an idiot or other nasty names, Charles holds up a hand to stop him, instead reaching up and fiddling with the knots in his necklace, the one with beads from his mother. He threads the ring onto it, settling it between two beads in the centre, before wordlessly handing it to Arthur, turning and gathering his hair out of the way. Arthur’s hands are shaking slightly as he loops the necklace back around his neck and re-ties it. Charles turns back, smiling as he runs a finger across the ring hanging over his heart.

“Perfect fit,” he repeats softly.

“You mean you’ll... you really want to wear it?” You really want to be married to me?

“Always,” Charles tells him firmly, smiling, and suddenly Arthur is holding him and kissing him with something close to reverence, and that same glowing feeling of happiness from before becomes a blaze.

They only break apart when there’s an especially loud grunt from below them, and look back down, fearing they’ve disturbed the herd. But it’s just one of the big males, facing off with one of the calves. The calf lowers its little head and paws at the ground, bleating in challenge, then charges. The male obligingly stands still as the calf collides with and bounces right off his own massive head, then gives another snort and ambles off. Charles and Arthur muffle their laughter as the calf staggers upright and scurries back to its mother.

“Come on,” Charles whispers, “we should find those deer. If we show back up empty-handed, Abigail will never forgive us.”

“Heh, yeah – might tell Sadie to spit-roast us instead. And she’d probably do it!”

They creep back over the hill and down to the horses, Charles admiring his ring on the way – but then he pauses.

“Come to think of it – maybe you shouldn’t wear your ring when we get back, at least until the wedding’s over. Don’t think Abigail and John would forgive us if people spend their wedding asking you about your ring.”

Arthur makes a face, but nods.

“Ah, you’re probably right. But, won’t people wonder about yours too...?”

“Oh, I’m never taking it off,” Charles grins, tucking his necklace underneath his shirt. Arthur smiles, that soft look in his eyes again.

“Me neither, after the wedding,” he promises, pulling him in for another kiss. “And, afterwards, wanna come back out and check on this lot again? See if that little one gets any better at pickin’ his fights?”

“Let’s. Now come on – we’ve got a wedding to prepare for.”

John and Abigail are married on a balmy day in late summer, at their own house, on their own land, in front of both the ex-gang members and the friends they’ve made in town. Tilly and Arthur cling to each other, tearing up and beaming with pride throughout the whole ceremony, and even Sadie wipes her eyes a few times. For a few days, the house is full to the rafters with chatter and laughter, and it’s slightly overwhelming, but wonderful.

Once the last of the guests are gone – Tilly and Lenny back off to St Denis, where Lenny’s finishing up his legal degree and planning to apprentice with a lawyer Tilly knows, a coloured man himself, and Sadie escorting them before she heads off to terrorise more bandits and brigands across the country – Charles slips Arthur’s ring back onto his finger. Abigail notices first, beaming at them. John grins and shakes Charles’ hand, declaring they must be brothers in-law now (“well, maybe not in the law, ‘cause, me and Arthur ain’t actually related, and you two ain’t, well, you know, but, in the way that really matters, then, I guess-” “Christ, Marston, sometimes you talk as smooth as a porcupine pickin’ a fight with a cactus.”). Jack wants to know why his uncles only got ‘boring’ rings instead of ones with pretty sparkly bits like his mother’s – Arthur tells him it’s so he doesn’t ruin his work gloves.

Uncle doesn’t notice, of course.

They try to take on as much of the ranch work as they can for a week to give John and Abigail some time off together. The pair of them appreciate it, but eventually bully Charles and Arthur into taking a break themselves for once. So, they’re having a lie-in, dozing in each other’s arms as shafts of sunlight beam through the open windows and coat everything in soft gold, when they hear the back door of the main house open.

“Hooee, what a day! Reckon I might head into town, see if-”

“Ooh no, you’re gonna help me muck out the stables,” John tells Uncle firmly, voices carrying through the windows.

“Bah, can’t Arthur and Charles do that? They enjoy it! Where they at, anyway?”

“Having a well-deserved rest – they been working like devils around here the past few days, so keep your voice down,” Abigail says sharply.

“Well then, they should head into town! You know, I was talking to Mrs. Becker at the wedding, from the general store? Now, she said she’s got two younger sisters, they’re coming up to visit-”

“Ugh, enough. Leave ‘em be,” John growls.

“What, you don’t want Arthur and Charles to experience the joys of wedded bliss like you?”

“It ever occur to you that they don’t want you meddling because they already got a special someone?” Abigail asks, sounding exasperated. Charles shifts, casting a look at Arthur, but he just shrugs.

“He’ll figure it out eventually,” he murmurs. “If you want that to be later, I can head out now-”

Smiling, Charles shakes his head and resettles himself on Arthur’s chest.

“Why wouldn’t they?” Jack is asking, in reply to whatever Uncle was scoffing about.

“Because Arthur’s a misery guts who needs all the help he can get, and Charles couldn’t chat up a lady if he tried – he’d use up his weekly word quota before he could even ask for her name!” Uncle declares. Charles gives an annoyed huff, to which Arthur just chuckles, wrapping his arms tighter around him.

“Think we need to get your eyes tested, old man,” John sighs.

“What for? My eyes work fine! In fact, I see the problem – no fella wants to admit he still has to share a room with a friend! Maybe the next project should be building another cabin or two... I mean, they’re being real polite about it, but Arthur said they was sharing a room at that ranch you lot ended up at for three years, too! They must be sick to death of each other by now!”

All is quiet for a long moment.

“...Wow, Uncle,” Jack, who has recently learned sarcasm, drawls.

“What’re you all giving me that look for? I reckon it’s a great idea! Let’s hear what they think-”

“No, wait-!”

Abigail and John’s alarmed shouts are too late. Uncle opens the door, and does a double take at the sight of them, curled up in each other’s arms, Arthur stroking through Charles’ hair.

“...need something?” Charles asks.

Uncle stares for a long moment, then blinks.

“...Oh.”

Another blink.

“...Oooooh.”

His expression shifts through an interesting range of emotions – but then he starts to flush a deep red.

“How long’s this been going on for?” he asks, in a tone that makes Arthur tighten his grip on Charles minutely.

“Since Blackwater,” he replies, low and defiant.

“Since Blackwa- SINCE EIGHTEEN NINETY GODDAMN NINE?!”

John steps forward, looking like he’s ready to slug him.

“Uncle, I swear, if you so much as-”

“ARE YOU TELLING ME,” Uncle cries, brandishing a finger at them, “THAT I WASTED ALL THAT WHISKEY MONEY I SPENT CHATTING UP LADIES ON YOUR BEHALF?!”

The man appears to be going through the grieving process at record speed.

“Oh for the love of- Come on, get out of there you ridiculous old fool,” Abigail scolds, dragging a devastated Uncle back outside. John snorts, before tossing them an apologetic look.

“Sorry to disturb you, fellas,” he calls as he shuts the door behind him.

Arthur and Charles look at each other, stone-faced, for one moment – then break down into giggles.

“I... almost feel bad...” Arthur manages, hiding his face in the crook of Charles’ neck to muffle his laughter.

“Almost,” Charles agrees over Uncle’s continued lamenting from the porch (“They had single malt, John! Single malt that’s older’n you are, all the way from Scotland! And I passed it over for wine! Godawful French fruit juice, ‘cause that’s what the ladies like!”)

Eventually their snickering subsides, and Arthur mouths against Charles’ neck, trailing up to his lips. They trade kisses and gentle touches for a long while, slow and soft, until Charles is in danger of falling asleep again. But eventually Arthur breaks away, resting their heads together.

“So, what you wanna do with your day off? Spend it here?”

“Tempting,” Charles replies, blinking his eyes open. “But we probably should help with the stables.”

“Probably,” Arthur sighs, reluctantly sitting up. He catches hold of Charles’ hand, pressing a kiss to his knuckles before pulling him up too. “But, afterwards... come ride with me?”

“Always,” Charles murmurs, pulling him in for another kiss just because he can.