Chapter Text
The sky is orange. A blanket observation, made through the lens of a hat tipped down, of a hand hovering over the horizon, searching in a manner that could be described as desperate to an eye that had never landed upon Hosea Matthews. It was never that he appeared to be a particularly anxious man — gunsmoke and campfires, pinched expressions sharper than a knife, bark and bite and bitters — it was simply that when Arthur was related, Hosea was always a degree of anxious.
Dutch returns to his side, a steaming cup of coffee in his hands. It smells burnt, but Hosea says nothing as Dutch takes a drink and then hands it over. He simply takes the mug, fingers burning with the warmth radiating outwards. It tastes burnt too. Dutch cocks his hip, his head, to the side, and Hosea glances over as he smells the scent of the cigarette in the man’s hand, between his fingers.
“He’ll be fine,” says he, in that thick drawl of his. And though Dutch tries to hide it, Hosea can sense the exasperation in his words, scowling mutely against the scalding rim of the coffee cup in his hands like he can push his anger into that, rather than Dutch, or the sky, or anyone else in camp. It’s not like getting angry will fix a single thing now. What’s done is done, and what has yet to be completed will someday come to pass. “Always is.”
“Till he’s not, Dutch,” he snaps before he can stop himself, silencing a curse with another sip. Dutch says nothing at first, considering the words. They’re true, yet neither likes to consider it. Their firstborn son, born not to them but given. Baptized into their family with a stolen pocket watch and a sorry attempt to ride Dutch’s horse. Arthur is theirs, in a way that even John is not, as much as John is their son as well. Arthur is their first. Arthur was. Lately, it seems that he has been pulling away from even Hosea, to who he has always been closer. Not necessarily favored, but in some fundamental way been closer to, clicking with the man like a gear into place. He likes to play at favoring Dutch. But so does everyone else who has been saved and subsequently won over by the man.
Hosea will be the first to admit that Dutch Van Der Linde is a manipulator. Not even particularly well hidden is that fact. It seems that the only people who have refused to take notice are the very men he calls his sons. Arthur especially— the first of their gang, if you were to exclude Hosea and Dutch themselves. He looks up to Hosea and Dutch to be his moon and sun, and where Hosea is who he confides with in his darkest moments, Dutch will always shine far brighter.
But right now he refuses to take that manipulation and let it steamroll over his concern. He loves Dutch, in the way that means he would throw a broken glass bottle at the man sometimes, given the chance, has done, but he loves Arthur too. Loves him in the way that rather than throwing the bottle, he’d likely be stepping in front of it and letting it strike him first.
“Till he’s not,” Hosea repeats, voice mild as he croaks it out into his cup, hiding the grief in his eyes. There’s no use. Dutch is looking at him like a man in front of an elk with a bullet wound, struggling to breathe past the lead in its lungs. And yet there’s no judgment, ridicule, or pity in his expression. Dutch respects Hosea far too much to look at him with any of those things at any time, and that’s why Hosea respects him as well. “Arthur is—”
And when it takes Hosea a moment to gather his words, an awkward noise pushed out of his throat as it tries to exhale, Dutch chuckles. “Yeah. Arthur sure is, you— worrier.”
“Well, Dutch,” Hosea furthers because he doesn’t know how not to: “When Arthur is Arthur for his entire life, one starts to worry.” This garners another light chuckle, a soft sigh as Dutch exhales a puff of smoke. Hosea’s own eyes flutter shut, head tipping back ever so slightly to inhale the smell on impulse. It has him coughing into his arms, one of Dutch’s hands landing supportively and fleetingly on his shoulderblade. It leaves after only a moment of respite. He takes another drink. “This would taste less burnt with some whiskey.”
“You’ve got whiskey, old man.” A sympathetic little cough, though much smaller than Hosea’s painful, dry hacking on windy nights in this dingy land. Dutch rubs aimlessly at his chin and shifts to his other knee, before checking his pocket watch, nodding when he sees it’s still firmly ticking towards 5 am. “All I do around here is do the workin’ for everyone else, and then make your coffee.”
“Them’s the rules.”
“Them’s the rules,” Dutch repeats with a nod. If it had been a month ago, Hosea might’ve thought he was joking. Now, though… He’s not sure where the line between Dutch’s facetious nature and his ego intertwine.
But before he can ponder the subject further there’s noise at the edge of camp. Hosea glances back on impulse, the sounds still developing, his gut reaction to roll his eyes at some awful song, or to laugh fondly as Lenny rides in with supplies, or even, perhaps, to greet Arthur. Instead, he is greeting an unfamiliar horse, impassive black eyes on the horizon as one of its ears flicks a fly Hosea cannot see at this distance. One of its legs shifts, scuffing against the dry earth below it, and he is reminded that Rhodes does not rain.
There is a man lying on the ground. Hosea can tell only because he’s wearing a union suit that he knows to belong to a man he knows. The rest of his body is concealed behind a crowd of the women of the camp, their voices mixing together and creating a jumbled, overwhelming mix of sound that makes it impossible for Hosea to decipher. Not past the soft ringing in his ears, like crumbling sand.
And there is a groan, which makes it past all other noises, and he is running.
Running so fast he can hear the click— click— of his left knee as it slips just barely in and out of place. So quickly that he spills the coffee, and eventually, abandons it entirely, his hand on top of his hat as the air rushing past him attempts to disembowel him of it. With so much impossible purpose to his movements that Dutch Van Der Linde, a man who is fast in wit and tongue and body — a quite abled body at that, where Hosea has not been abled singe he was a boy — is behind him.
“Arthur,” Hosea wheezes, his throat twisted and dry till the flesh sticks together and the word chokes. Blood, so much blood, blistered flesh still oozing, the awful acrid scent of rot and burning, not unlike the cigar Dutch had nursed only moments ago, scuffed out on the ground as he’d ran. His left eye is swollen, his right wide, pupils shot open. There’s a gash on his chin, on his lip, splitting them open, so far down that he can see the white of bone on his jaw and the cigarette-coffee-gin-yellow of Arthur’s teeth behind his split open mouth. But the worst — oh, and it’s only the worst he can see, how much more could possibly be hiding? — is Arthur’s shoulder, and he lets out a noise best described as the last sound a corpse could be able to make as it dies when Hosea’s hand finds the wound on impulse.
‘Du- tch.” That’s Arthur’s broken reply, a gurgle on his lips, and Hosea watches as blood bubbles up and encircled his cupid bow in red, mingling with the crimson edging down his more prominently broken nose. “Tol’ you… Told you s’was’a… a trap—”
It’s then that Hosea’s heart restarts and he remembers why they’d embarked on such a trip in the first place. What both he and Arthur had attempted to communicate, warning Dutch and Micah both about the possible, very much so more than plausible results of such catastrophic recklessness. A parlay with Colm O’Driscoll. A man who they have seen kill, steal, rape — things that make even Hosea’s world-weary stomach churn with sickness.
But his anger has a time and a place, and that time and place are neither now nor in the next few minutes. Mind racing a mile a minute, he realizes, sitting there on his aching knees, Arthur Morgan gasping weakly and bleeding out into the unforgiving orange silt beneath them — the camp is looking at him. Not at Dutch, who stands only a foot away, demanding Arthur be quiet and save his breath. Not Grimshaw, with her hair undone in the evening sky and her pinched face slack with surprise and something that is not far from horror. But him. Hosea.
“Hosea.” Someone says his name. He hasn’t a clue who it is, but he looks towards them anyways, vision unfocused, hand pressing forcefully against the nasty and badly cauterized wound on Arthur’s shoulder. “What do we do?”
What indeed, do they do? What have they done, he wonders, as he notices just how prominent Arthur’s ribs are against his union suit, how every breath has a rattle that doesn’t sound like it comes from exertion. How his cheeks are flushed, his eyes darting around wildly. This has been a slow descent, he thinks, and one that Arthur has had the time to plan, to learn how to hide. Dutch and Micah’s foolhardiness are simply the final notch in the wall, a prisoner counting down their days till the gallows.
“His legs, Mr. Smith,” he says suddenly, not needing to cough to garner attention now. To his credit, Charles immediately comes to Arthur’s side, ignoring the man as he groans out something about not needing their aid. “And Mr. Summers—”
Lenny immediately hops into action, replacing Hosea at Arthur’s side, the young man’s brow twisted and expression queasy. It’s a reminder just how young some of these fine men and women are, how little life they have lived. Hosea rises with Lenny, with Charles, his knees screaming in protest, so loud that several people wince at the petulant crack. No one reacts to the way he stumbles and plants a hand on Dutch’s shoulder, though. Not even Dutch, as Hosea goes rushing after Charles and Lenny.
“Miss. Grimshaw. Miss. Jones. And— Reverend, yes, you ought to come as well, quickly—”
“What’s he need Swanson for?” Barks out Micah of all men to be at camp so late. Micah, who leaves at every chance he gets, who bares his teeth and has them lined with barbed wire and lead. Hosea swallows heavily, shaking his head against the urge to turn around the knock out enough of those teeth to use as bullets.
Arthur’s tent might have been able to offer the man a little comfort, but Hosea’s is close, larger, and privacy is a luxury he is afforded. The man is tugged onto his cot, a guttural noise falling from his lips, head tossed backward, the split in his chin slipping nastily apart and revealing more bone. Hosea is there in less than an instant, his shaking hands cupping his boy’s head, holding it up, keeping him from writhing, jerking about and injuring himself further. For an extended moment there’s no recognition in the blown-out blue eyes that catch his own. But Arthur blinks inquisitively as Charles heaves his leg onto the cot, a hand shooting out to grasp at his stomach, twitching.
“They— they’re coming,” he murmurs, and it’s clear to Hosea that his words would be shouted if they could be. Could have hurled themselves from cracked and bloodied lips like the scabs forming there are cliffsides, suicidal martyrs for a cause that they have been deluded to believe. Arthur’s eyes roll loosely in his skull, choking on his lungs as Hosea starts to tug his union suit away, nimble hands shaking as they pull it from his shoulders, trying to lift his arm. Arthur growls, a noise that is both a warning and a frightened thing, a sound better suited for a coyote with its leg ensconced in a beartrap.
But Arthur now is no coyote when Charles approaches him with a knife— he is a deer, antlers strong and sturdy and ready to pierce the man like a shrike, but eyes wide and glassy with fear and fever. Hosea shrinks back as Charles takes the fabric of Arthur’s underclothes in hand and roughly starts to cut. His chest is bruised, and there are small holes burnt into the surface of the fabric, the strong scent of gunpowder upon his skin. Burnt. Heavy. Thick. Acrid. Hosea leans over and runs a hand over his face as he realizes how this smell has occurred.
“You’re safe, Arthur,” Lenny tells the man breathlessly, eyes bright and naive as he approaches the man. But deer or coyote, Arthur still has antlers, still has teeth, and his eyes flash a single warning when Lenny moves to speak to him— and then—
He lunges, chest bare, legs clothed, fabric hanging off of him. He’s thin. Hosea wonders— when did Arthur get so thin? Not in the day and a half with Colm, that’s for sure, why is Arthur so thin? So much so that his back stretches around his ribs and spine, old belt marks thickened and dark, as if someone has taken his skin and sewn it together in one spot, cinching it. Hosea is lightheaded. Lenny falls, shouting in surprise when Arthur’s arms clumsily land on his chest. His hands wrap around his neck, and—
And Charles’ arms in turn wrap around his chest and haul him backward. When did Charles get bigger than Arthur? Where did that bullet wound scar come from, just above Arthur’s protruding hip? It’s new. Healed, new, and Arthur slams his head back into Charles’ chest, scrambling like an animal set on fire even as his legs buckle beneath him and he collapses, face and shoulder pinned to the bed, and he looks like he can’t breathe, one of Charles’ hands firmly pressed to his back, Arthur’s face pressed into the cot, his skinny ribs heaving up and down, chest closing, closing, closing, never opening.
“Enough!”
Hosea shouts without restraint. Hosea is restraint, is love and hate and desire and need and anger and grief wrapped into quiet words and polite conversation. He is who he is in a way that means he does not need to scream about it, needs not shout to get it across and to show it to anyone who he demands listens. But Arthur isn’t breathing, eyes half-lidded, chest horribly small, the creak of his bones as Charles presses upon them.
But then Charles lurches away as if someone just put a cigarette out on his back. They did— on Arthur, Hosea thinks, eyes fluttering shut as he sees awful, bubbling skin in the shape of cigars on Arthur’s bared shoulders. Arthur’s chest expands so quickly it must be painful, eyes snapping open as he chokes on a violent cough. Then: Another. Another. Hacking desperately into a shaking arm which appears to take physical effort as he drags it to his face, eyes shut and brow pinched with pain.
“Swanson,” Hosea manages to whisper out. Arthur coughs, lungs screaming for air as he lies there on the side of the cot, head lying upon it as if he is praying, knees bent beneath him. His feet are bare, covered in cuts. How long did he run? Is this the first time he was able to escape?
But the Reverend is silent, and does not move, face white in the sight of a true case of human misery, Arthur’s broken body sliding off the bed as he continues to wheeze, coughing fit passing, fevered tears in his eyes.
“Reverend Swanson!” He barks, and Hosea steps forward to slam a hand into the man’s shoulder, shaking his urgently. This catches his attention, eyes darting from Arthur’s contorted spine to Hosea’s eyes, wide and red but far too aware. He is drowning, but there is nothing to drown upon, unless you consider his rage, his fear, the love that he dashes under his boots and tries to choke — because he cannot afford to love Arthur right now. Not if it kills him.
The Reverend is rushing with shaking hands to unload the small case in his pocket, black leather worn with far too much use. Hosea’s mouth shuts into a firm line, and he dips his head in shame as he watches the man find the needle within, press it into one of those unlabeled bottles of his. His hands shaking, Swanson flicks it, then sets it down on the cot, roughly taking one of Arthur’s arms in his.
Arthur does not protest, save for a grunt and a flinch, sweat-soaked hair dragging against the fabric of the cot. The fight has gone out of him as Swanson takes a long strip of latex from his kit and wraps it around the man’s upper arm, so tight it makes his fingers twitch and his skin starts to redden.
“N’- no—” Arthur wheezes, attempting to bat the man’s hand away, but his fingers are barely moving where they lie against his thigh. Tears bead in his eyes, overwhelmed and sick, and Hosea’s stomach turns arduously as he attempts to keep from vomiting. He doesn’t recall a time he saw Arthur appear so vulnerable, let alone in front of so many people.
The call that he makes is perhaps one that he will regret later. Hosea squeezes his eyes shut against a wave of shame, something that makes him feel sick and stupid. “Lenny.” The man’s head tips up from where he’s now standing, a hand massaging his throat. They all know Arthur could snap someone’s neck with ease. But now, there are hardly bruises. “Charles. I need you two to leave.”
They leave.
Charles looks as if he wants to argue. Lenny does not. Both of them seem privately conflicted, watching a man that they know to be so strong come crashing down in a matter of seconds, bones sticking out at every angle in a way that is clearly not new. Before the tent flap closes, Hosea looks up, and Charles is there, standing, motionless. The moonlight — he hadn’t realized the moon had finally risen, all traces of beautiful orange gone — brackets his form. He does not say what he wants to. A shadow of regret passes over his face as he mulls over the idea. But in the end, Charles simply says:
“He’ll be alright.”
And Hosea hates him for it.
Because nothing about this is alright. Not as Swanson slips that needle into Arthur’s arm, his veins protruding awkwardly with the tourniquet improving their size. Any other Arthur would’ve pushed the needle away, slapped Swanson till he fell right into an early grave. This Arthur says nothing.
But they’re alone, now, and both Hosea and his son can afford to be vulnerable when the only other man in the room is one who is consistently so intoxicated he regularly forgets his own name. His knees burn, a sharp feeling that goes up and into his thigh, his pelvis. Hosea sits, folding his legs beneath him even as his calves shake and his thighs tremble with exertion. Hesitantly, he reaches out, all the weight of all the air in the entire world buffeting his hands as he stretches his arms forward.
If Arthur recognizes his face, he says nothing, eyes glazed and lips barely parted, giving him an image like one of the beheaded saints in some of the more frivolously decorated churches he has visited over the years. He begs God for forgiveness — or simply for death — with red scleras ringed in so much red they might as well be brown.
But when Hosea’s hands wrap firmly around his jaw, tugging him away from the bed, he gasps. It’s a sharp noise, something so utterly un-Arthur it has his chest burning, and he has to will himself to continue. It feels like blasphemy, to take his son into his arms, to rip away the dignity and shadow that Arthur wraps around himself, the sin he takes so much comfort partaking in. The needle is removed from his arm, the tourniquet undone, but his arms still drag limply behind him, fingers twitching.
He may not recognize Hosea. But he does not fight back, as his father cradles his head in shaking hands, feels thick blond hair — soured into an almost brown by dirt and blood, caked on in waves — ruffled beneath arthritic fingers. The awful smell of blood, of rot, a bit like mold and sour milk. It pervades the air and forces Hosea to breathe in deeply through his opened mouth, closing only for a single second to press a kiss to Arthur’s forehead, so barely there it could perhaps have been an accident.
Arthur’s fragile body hurts to carry. Thin, boney, sharp, broken. Mauled. But Hosea presses the man’s uninjured shoulder into his chest, and he holds him, letting his arms wrap around Arthur’s back, nearly lying over his lap, his thighs burning as he begins to regret his decision to fold them. But he cannot bring himself to regret this, not truly. Not as Arthur sinks, and he is so small that he feels almost like a child in his arms again. Hosea tucks his chin over Arthur’s head, wraps his arms around him, holds him like the gold Dutch values over them both — and allows his son to be lulled back into unconsciousness.