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With Joe out hunting and Cleet asleep in the chair near Micah’s cot, Micah eases himself out of bed. Wobbling, his legs weak from spending the majority of the last two weeks in bed, Micah stumbles on bare feet, but he manages to keep his balance. A hand goes up to his face, touching the bandages wrapped around his head, and part of Micah wants to rip the stupid bandages off to stop half his vision being black. But he knows that, even without the bandages, he won’t be able to see. Because he’s goddamn blind in one eye.
Micah wanders across the shitty cabin he’s shared with Cleet and Joe for two fucking weeks (he doesn’t remember arriving here, but Joe said that he and Cleet found Micah passed out after his knife fight with Black Lung, and ended up dragging his unconscious body to this cabin), desperate to get outside. He has never liked being cooped up indoors (give Micah a tent in the woods over a room above a saloon any day), but Micah hasn’t had much choice this past fortnight, either physically incapable of leaving the bed, or being shoved back into bed by those two bastards whenever he tries to leave.
“C’mon, it’s for your own good, Micah,” Cleet said to him a few days earlier, when Micah tried and failed to get outside and breathe the fresh air.
Dizzy and exhausted from standing up, Micah couldn’t resist when Joe pushed him back onto the cot. But Micah still swung a fist at his friend afterwards, longing to cause Joe pain for treating him like a cripple—but his fist swung wide, missing Joe’s face by several inches. Humiliated, Micah threw a whiskey bottle to the ground, cackling with laughter when it shattered, spraying alcohol all over the floor.
He knows he’s been a dreadful patient, but Micah doesn’t give a shit. He never asked for them to save his life when they found him collapsed from blood loss. He never asked them to look after him during the week he spent drifting in and out of consciousness, feeding and bathing him and nursing Micah through a terrible fever when the wound got infected. And he never asked them to treat him like a goddamn child and keep him trapped inside this fucking cabin. Yes, he knows that he needs to recover, and even Micah agrees that he’s not up to going on a robbery right now (not now he can barely shoot a gun, or walk straight without crashing into a table), but it won’t kill him to go and sit outside. He knows he’s damaged now, crippled and useless, but Micah Bell III would rather die than stay cooped up in this shack any longer.
Despite barely being able to use his guns, Micah picks up his gunbelt and fastens it, touching the grips of his revolvers. He discovered the loss of his aim a few days ago during his last trip outside, when both Cleet and Joe were out hunting; they thought Micah was asleep so left him, but he was faking it, letting them leave before creeping outside. Micah tested his aim, trying to shoot a tree, but his shot missed by several feet. He fired shot after shot, each bullet not going where he wanted it to, and Micah eventually stomped back inside and drank himself to sleep. So, yeah, Micah doesn’t need his guns on him, but he takes them regardless; wearing twin revolvers on his hips makes him look a bit less like a useless, half-blind crippled freak.
Everything aches, including the barely-healed knife wounds littering his body (Black Lung got in some good hits even before he slashed Micah’s eye, leaving his skin covered in ugly cuts), and his wounded face screams in agony behind his bandages. When he misjudges the distance between him and the doorway (spatial awareness is a thing of the past, leaving Micah pathetically clumsy), Micah’s elbow smacks into the doorframe, making that hurt too—and he grits his jaw to hold back a wince. Thankfully, Cleet doesn’t awake, so Micah continues outside.
He finds his and Cleet’s horses hitched outside the cabin, stumbling over to Baylock. Desperately out of breath from such a short journey, Micah pants as he leans against Baylock, patting his horse with a shaky hand. He hasn’t seen Baylock since the last time he escaped the cabin, and Micah missed his horse more than he would like to admit.
“Wish I could ride ya, boy,” he says, combing his fingers through Baylock’s mane. He misses riding Baylock so much, but Micah doubts his ability to even climb into the saddle, let alone keeping himself from falling off once up there. Plus, the lack of vision on one side has left him very disoriented, and Micah secretly fears not seeing an obstacle or enemy until it’s too late.
“Micah, where are you?!” Cleet shouts from inside the cabin, and Micah flinches.
Spinning on the spot, a sudden wave of dizziness making Micah stumble backwards into Baylock, he watches Cleet rush out of the cabin. When he spots Micah, his eyes widen, and Cleet puts his hands on his hips, reminding Micah of a fussing mother.
“Right here, you moron,” Micah says, smirking. He must look strange, wearing his gunbelt but no shoes, leaning against Baylock like he lacks the strength and balance to stand upright for long periods of time (because it’s true).
“Stop tryin’ to be funny,” Cleet says. “Y’know what I meant. Why ain’t you in bed?”
“I wanted to get up. Ain’t my fault you was asleep. You should’ve kept your eyes on your prisoner.”
“You ain’t a prisoner—”
“Feels like it,” Micah mutters. “Still shouldn’t’ve fallen asleep like that.”
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep! It’s tirin’ work, lookin’ after you.”
“What d’you fuckin’ want? A medal?” Micah snaps. Joe hasn’t said anything like this, but the comments from Cleet have been endless, snapping back whenever Micah yells at him that we’re tryin’ our best to look after you, Micah.
“No, but maybe it’d be nice to have one freakin’ conversation where you don’t bite my head off,” Cleet says. “We’ve been workin’ our asses off to look after you, and you’re an ungrateful bastard. So, get back inside and rest, Micah.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that,” Micah snarls, stepping towards Cleet. He reaches out to shove Cleet, but his hand doesn’t make contact with Cleet’s shoulder, instead stopping about a foot in front of Cleet. Micah grits his jaw, his lack of depth perception once again making him want to scream. And when Cleet makes an awkward noise, something close to a nervous smile on his face, Micah lunges forwards and grabs him successfully this time, getting a handful of Cleet’s collar. “What’s so fuckin’ funny? You laughin’ at the stupid fuckin’ blind asshole?”
Cleet’s face falls, holding up both hands, palms out. “N-No, nothin’ like that.”
Micah chuckles, forever amused by Cleet’s cowardice (the little bitch always backs down when someone yells at him). Smirking so broadly that the gash across his face pulses in pain, Micah releases Cleet. “Good boy,” he says like he speaks to a dog, shoving Cleet aside as he walks back into the cabin. He knocks his elbow into the doorframe again, unable to see it on his blind side, and Micah splutters in shock and humiliation. “Fuck!”
Goddamn it, he hates this. He hates how weak and useless he feels. He hates how much his eye hurts. He hates how, even without the bandages across his eye, he can’t see a thing on that side.
He hates that he’s half blind now.
And it’s all Black Lung’s fault.