Chapter Text
Javier was unusually proud of this lead.
“Saint Denis ain’t all oil tycoons and bankers.” he had told Dutch, arms crossed confidently in the golden dusk of camp. “Some of ‘em are recluses. Real eccentric types. This one-he’s a chemist. Studied in Europe, got family money, and apparently he don’t do nothin’ but drink, write, and collect gold watches.”
Dutch had chuckled, lighting a cigar. “A man after my own heart!”
Javier had handpicked the team: himself, Arthur, John, Charles, and, due to his refusal to stop eavesdropping and some vague threat involving a shovel, Micah.
“Five-man job,” Javier had insisted. “Big place. Lotta loot. Scholar’s out of town for a week.”
The boys were already saddle-deep riding deep into the edge of the woods near the Montana River, where the man’s property supposedly stood nestled against a rocky bluff.. “You sure about this guy?” Arthur grunted, adjusting his gloves as they reached the forest’s edge. “Fella sounds like one of them snake oil peddlers, only with more hair product.”
“I’m tellin’ you,” Javier insisted, with a cocky grin. “This man–Dr. Aldous Finch–he ain’t just some barfly. He’s loaded. Real eccentric fella. Had gold buttons on his damn shoes. Said he was a chemist, workin’ with the future or somethin’.”
“The future?” Micah drawled from his horse, snickering. “What, like... what happens after you steal all his gold?”
John, who’d mostly stayed quiet, just muttered, “Sounds like someone’s gonna get cursed.”
“Look, I spent hours butterin’ this guy up,” Javier continued, unbothered. “Told him I was a writer. Asked all kinds of questions about his little potions, his powders. Man just wanted someone to listen.”
“Did he tell you how to rob him too?” Charles asked, raising a brow.
“No,” Javier grinned, “but he did say he’d be outta town for the week. And he bragged about a vault in his cellar. Kept callin’ it his ‘legacy to mankind.’ I figured, legacy or not, it ain’t doin’ mankind much good sittin’ there locked up.”
Arthur snorted. “Well, Dutch says a rich man hoardin’ wealth is a crime all on its own. So I guess you’re just doin’ justice.”
“Exactly!” Javier said, smug.
As they rode up the narrow path to Finch’s estate, the trees thinned out just enough to reveal the house-and it didn’t disappoint. A sprawling Victorian beast of a place, all spires and ivy, with stained glass windows that shimmered even under the cloudy sky.
“Well I’ll be damned.” Arthur muttered. “Guess the weirdo is rich.”
“Told you.” Javier said, dismounting.
“Let’s just get in, get the loot, and get out,” John said, his eyes scanning the woods. “Don’t like this place. Feels like it’s watchin’ us.”
“Everything’s watchin’ us.” Micah muttered. “Trees, the birds, the goddamn dirt. Paranoid bastards, the lot of you.”
The house was locked, but barely. A good hearty kick from Arthur made the door come tumbling down.
The place was exactly what you’d expect from a mad chemist with too much money. Tall shelves lined the walls, packed with books, glass domes containing fossils or bones, strange plants in bell jars, and mechanical devices whirring quietly with no obvious purpose.
“Oh yeah.” Javier said, eyes glinting. “This place is prime.”
“This is too easy,” John muttered, stuffing a handful of bills into his satchel.
“Don’t jinx it,” Charles warned, lifting a box of cufflinks.
Arthur opened a nearby cabinet and whistled low. “Gold-plated cutlery. All of it.”
Micah had already yanked a candelabra off the mantle. “Dibs.”
“Don’t start divvyin’ up already.” Charles warned. “We clear the place first.”
“Right.” John said. “Let’s sweep it clean. No half-measures.”
Micah already had three gold watches hanging from his belt and was eyeing a jeweled compass when Javier’s voice echoed through the parlor.
“Hey! Come look at this!”
They followed him to the library. Javier stood by a crooked bookcase, one hand braced against the wall.
“This don’t sit right. Look how far back it goes,” he said, before giving it a push.
The shelf groaned, then pivoted, revealing a narrow staircase.
John groaned. “Oh come on. Can't we just rob a house without a secret passage for once?”
“Secret passage means secret riches.” Micah grinned.
Arthur glanced back at the glittering piles already stashed. “You wanna push our luck?”
They all stared at each other for a beat before, naturally, descending.
The basement didn’t look like anything any of them had ever seen. The air was dry and still, with a faint burnt-sugar smell that clung to their clothes.
Jars of powders, bubbling tubes, strange glass contraptions with gears and copper wires ticking quietly. There were labeled beakers, diagrams of molecules, and what might’ve been a dead squirrel suspended in a blueish-green jelly.
“Okay,” John muttered. “I’m gonna say this house might not be totally normal.”
“Just looks like a science lab.” Charles said, scanning the shelves.
“Science lab…” Arthur repeated, unimpressed. “What kind of scientist just leaves gold watches out upstairs like candy and keeps a jelly squirrel in the basement?”
“Rich one.” Javier shrugged.
They poked around a little. There were books with titles none of them could pronounce, charts on the walls with numbers and symbols, and dozens of tightly sealed flasks filled with sparkling powders and bright liquids, lined up like trophies.
“Looks like the guy’s whole fortune went into making... whatever the hell this is.” John said.
“Maybe he’s makin’ dynamite.” Micah offered, eyes scanning the shelves.
Arthur squinted at a pink flask. “If that’s dynamite, it’s the fanciest I’ve seen.”
They didn’t find anything particularly lootable, and Arthur-still grumbling about cursed basements-was the first to say they oughta leave it be.
They all agreed. Except one.
They were halfway back to camp when Micah’s horse snorted and stumbled.
“Goddammit-hold up!”
Arthur pulled his reins. “What now?”
Micah dismounted, fiddling with his saddlebag. A glass clinked audibly. Then another. And another.
Arthur narrowed his eyes.
“Micah.”
“What?”
“Did you take some o’ that weird powder crap?”
Micah didn’t even pretend to lie. “Could be valuable! Hell, maybe it’s medicine. Maybe it’s opium! Y’all saw that house-guy was rich. You don’t get that rich without sellin’ something good.”
Arthur looked like he aged five years on the spot.
“You stole science powder.”
“It was just sittin’ there!”
John looked horrified. “You brought back mystery chemicals? What if it’s poison?!”
“I didn’t drink it!”
Charles leaned forward from his saddle. “Micah, those were sealed. That means they're volatile. Or experimental.”
“Or profitable!” Micah argued.
Javier was the last to speak, his voice grave. “Tell me you didn’t touch nothin’ else.”
Micah paused. “...Define ‘touch.’”
Arthur groaned. “Oh, for the love of-”
“We are not tellin’ Dutch.” John said quickly. “Last time he heard the word ‘scientist,’ he spent an hour talkin’ about the 'alchemy of revolution.'”
“And then he tried to make his own perfume outta campfire ash and moonshine.” Javier muttered.
They all shuddered.
Back at camp, they tried to pretend it was a normal day.
They stashed their gold. They split the loot. They said nothing about the science powders.
Javier whispered to Charles that they should burn Micah’s tent if anything started glowing.
And Dutch?
Dutch just looked out over the campfire, nodded slowly, and said:
“I always knew we’d rob a man of ideas one day. The future belongs to thinkers, boys.”
Nobody knew what that meant.
The flasks made it about two days before becoming everyone’s problem.
It started when Charles noticed the glow.
Micah had been careful-at least, as careful as Micah could be. He’d stashed the bottles under his cot, wrapped in a ragged blanket and half a raccoon pelt. But they didn’t stay hidden. Not when the pink ones started glowing faintly in the dark. Charles, walking past the tent to refill a water bucket, had paused, squinted, and muttered:
“…that’s not normal.”
From there, it unraveled fast. Charles told Arthur.
Arthur, very reluctantly, told John. John told Javier, but only after swearing him to secrecy (which was a mistake), and Javier told Lenny because he figured he’d want to know what sort of sci-fi nightmare they were all sleeping next to.
Lenny told Sean, because Sean wouldn’t stop badgering him. Sean told Karen. Karen told Tilly. Tilly told Mary-Beth. And Mary-Beth told no one, but she showed up anyway.
Miraculously, the news didn’t reach Hosea, Strauss, Grimshaw, Pearson, Swanson, or-God help them all-Dutch.
Not yet, anyway.
It was near midnight when the gathering began.
Dutch and Hosea had left at sundown, saddling up and riding off toward Rhodes on one of their “let’s get eyes on the next fortune” trips, Hosea mumbling something about keeping Dutch out of the saloons. Pearson was asleep in his chair, snoring. Grimshaw’s tent was zipped up like a fortress. Jack was curled up beside Abigail, who had long since perfected the art of ignoring John’s noise.
Which meant the other side of camp was free for... whatever this was.
Micah had laid out the bottles on one of the old wooden tables, the surface cleared of its usual tools and gun oil. A threadbare lantern sat at one end, casting just enough light to make the colors shimmer. There were about a dozen flasks in total-some tall and thin, some squat and corked, all sealed tight and absolutely suspicious.
The pink ones filled with slimy liquid that pulsed faintly in the dark. The blue ones filled with odd looking powders, some had tiny flakes floating inside like glitter.
And around the table stood the fools.
Arthur leaned with his arms crossed and the same look he wore when watching Micah clean his gun too fast. Charles stood at his side, one eyebrow raised and one hand on his belt like he might need to fight the flasks.
John stood opposite Arthur, trying to look casual but very much not. Lenny and Javier stood a little behind them, whispering theories. Sean was already halfway through a flask-related bet with Karen, and Tilly was taking notes purely for blackmail purposes. Mary-Beth, perched on a nearby crate, had her chin in her hands and a grin that spelled disaster.
And then, of course, Micah himself, arms spread wide like a madman presenting a magic show.
“Well,” he said, grinning, “here it is, folks. Science.”
“I hate this already.” Arthur muttered.
“You’d hate it less if you’d grabbed some with me!” Micah shot back. “Probably worth a fortune in Saint Denis, but nooo, y’all just wanted the normal gold and jewels.”
“You mean the stuff that isn’t glowing?” John said, gesturing at a particularly ominous bottle.
“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it,” Micah said, lifting the flask to the light like a connoisseur. “This here might be the drink of the gods. Could be some European super-brew. Make you see the future. Make your spit worth a dollar a drop.”
“Or your lungs,” Lenny said dryly, “turn to soup.”
Sean elbowed him. “Ah, don’t be a spoil-sport. Come on! When’s the last time we had a bit of fun around here?”
“You say that like this won’t end with someone breathin’ fire or growin’ a second jaw…” Charles muttered.
“ That’d be cool.” Sean argued. “You know, as long as it wasn’t me.”
Karen reached for a bottle.
Arthur swatted her hand. “What are you, five?”
She rolled her eyes. “I was just looking .”
Javier leaned forward, brow furrowed. “There’s labels on a few of ‘em, but it ain’t English.”
“Latin?” Mary-Beth offered.
“Or French.” Tilly added. “Half the labels in Saint Denis are in French.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Arthur said. “We can’t read any of ‘em, and even if we could, it’d probably say somethin’ useful like do not drink. ”
“I mean, maybe one of ‘em’s just moonshine.” John said, trying for optimism.
“Yeah!” Lenny said. “Moonshine that sparkles and whistles when you look at it wrong. Real comforting.”
“Here’s what I propose.” Micah said, clapping his hands. “We each take one, keep it sealed, study it. We write down how we feel after a day with it nearby.”
Everyone stared at him.
“You want us to… bond with the mystery flasks?” Arthur deadpanned.
“Science!” Micah said again, like it was an excuse.
“You know, I’m usually all for doing things we’re not supposed to,” Sean said, “but even I think this might end in tears.”
Karen grinned. “ That’s why it’s fun.”
“I feel like I should be the voice of reason,” Charles said. “But I kinda want to see what happens.”
“I got paper.” Mary-Beth said, producing a notebook from nowhere.
“You were plannin’ this.” Arthur accused.
“Oh, absolutely.” she replied.
Micah swept his arm dramatically over the table. “All right, y’all. Rules are simple. One: no noise, or Grimshaw finds out. Two: nobody tells Dutch, or I find out. And three: I ain’t responsible if you explode, melt, levitate, or grow wings. You sip, you assume the risk.”
Arthur shook his head. “This is the dumbest thing we’ve done all week.”
“That’s not true,” John said. “You saw what happened when Kieran tried to cook fish with the lantern.”
Arthur sighed. “Yeah, okay. Second dumbest.”
They all looked back at the bottles. Silent. Curious. A little horrified.
“So,” Sean said, rubbing his hands together. “Who’s first?”