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Arthur's POV
Arthur denied he was worried when he and Javier didn’t find John in the snow. He did go out looking for him every day except for the day they rode out to meet the Odriscoll and the day of the train heist, but he didn’t miss a chance to grumble to everyone.
Everyone but Abigail. She still heard him, though, because when Arthur started to vent to Karen out by the barn, Abigail had come around the corner and slapped him across the face.
When Dutch had suggested they leave the mountains, she looked like she wanted to slap him too, but she stormed off instead.
It was only now, settled in at Horseshoe Overlook, that Arthur could admit to himself that he didn’t actually believe John had run off. Anger still burned in his chest over how Marston had abandoned them for a year, but Arthur knew John wouldn’t have left them like this. He wouldn’t leave them with Jenny and Davy dying and Sean and Mac missing.
There had been no trace of him on the mountain. Even Charles, who went out with Arthur to hunt once his hand was feeling a bit better, couldn’t find any signs that would indicate where John or his horse had gone. After the storm, everything was covered so thoroughly that there were no tracks to follow anymore
Arthur had been able to put it out of his mind while the gang was in crisis, but here in this lush valley, he couldn’t deny the truth that he had no idea what had happened to the man who was the closest thing to a brother.
Now he was left with worry that was getting harder to ignore, made worse by the fact that there were no leads that Arthur felt more and more guilty about.
Abigail was stubbornly ignoring him, which he honestly couldn’t blame her for. When he had overheard her crying in her tent late at night, when Jack had fallen asleep, he decided he needed to do something.
He started taking extended hunting trips to the foothills of the Grizzles, unsure of what he was looking for, but hoping he’d stumble across a sign of what had happened to John.
It was after one of these trips of combing the Grizzlies aimlessly with the flimsy excuse of hunting that Arthur turned back to Valentine to sell game and restock. He’d ride back to camp after and check on things since he’d been gone several days now
He had ridden through the night to get back to camp faster and arrived in Valentine while it was still pitch black outside. He settled beside one of the cookout fires in the campgrounds until daylight, when the butcher opened his stand.
After he’d sold the previous day's kills as morning fog rolled away from the streets. He moved quickly around town and finished his errands at the post office.
As he stepped back out through the station doors, he was greeted by the sun still rising over the trees to the east, mist rising into the air.
Micky called him over, which he allowed himself to be briefly distracted by, but as the man continued to ramble, Arthur’s eyes started wandering. As he was trying to decide how bluntly to end this conversation, his mind came to a sudden halt as he tried to process the sight of John Marston making his way along the auction fence.
Arthur didn’t move as he was so sure he was mistaken and he’d just be left a fool when it turned out to be a stranger, but as he kept staring, seeing past the shabby rags that were his clothes, he only grew more sure. He barely remembered to say a stuttered ‘I’m sorry’ as he ran off from Micky while the older man was still.
“John!” As Arthur ran closer, his panic grew as he saw John stumbling and pulling himself along. He was using the fence posts for support as he limped along, in obvious pain and looking over his shoulder back towards town.
"Marston?" Arthur called, when John still didn't notice him approaching.
“Hey John!” It took till Arthur was almost at his side for John to look in his direction with wild eyes.
"Huh?" Was all the other man managed to say.
Arthur stepped back a little in surprise at John’s panic. He was still trying to assess John’s mental state while still reeling from the fact that John was here at all.
Arthur slowed his approach with his hands raised, but raked his eyes over John’s bruised body, horridly pale skin and back up to his stringy, unwashed hair, which was impressively dirty even for Marston. It framed his gaunt and thin face, where his dark eyes stared back at him.
John looked like he was seeing double. Arthur couldn’t tell if he was confused by his presence or if he didn’t recognize him. Was he drunk? His death grip on the fence post seemed the only thing keeping him standing.
“Come on, Johnny, it's me. Let me give ya a hand,” he slowly reached out for John's arm to take some of the weight he was putting on the fence post.
John tried to speak once and had to cough to clear his throat.
"Arth? How are ya here-" John stumbled a little, shifting his weight, but one hand reached up to grasp Arthur's upper arm and clung to it. At least he knew what was in front of him.
"How am I here? Better question is how are you here, boy?" Arthur asked, feeling his limbs start to buzz with anticipation.
Arthur studied the new scars across John's face, taking up most of his left cheek. They were too evenly spaced to be anything but an animal wound, but around the puffy, barely healed scratches were other bruises too.
Just looking at John's exposed wrists and collar, his gaze followed the pattern of bruises and cuts across the exposed skin that disappeared under his worn clothes, which did little to hold off the morning chill. He could be walking off a drunken night in town, except for the raw rope burns on his wrists from days or even weeks of struggling judging by the colors developing around them.
The chilling thought settled in: John had been held prisoner.
Forcing his eyes away from John's wrists, he cast his gaze over the yards around them.
"Is someone looking for ya?" Arthur asked, looking for signs of someone pursuing them, feeling very exposed out in the open.
John was already nodding before Arthur had finished asking and urging them forward despite his shakiness. Whether he was trying to pull Arthur with him or use him to push away, Arthur couldn't say because John's attempts were so weak,
"O'Driscoll's. In the saloon. Doctor, let me slip out." John gasped, stumbling and gripping at Arthur's coat with all his strength.
This was enough information for Arthur to snap into motion, pulling John's arm over his shoulder, and he started to half-support John's hurried walk, directing them back towards the cookout site outside of town.
"I left my horse over here." He said absently as he scanned the area for any O'Driscolls, but didn't see any at the moment. Foot traffic was beginning, but he couldn't see many people on the main street from his glimpses in the distance.
"Gimme a gun...please..." John gasped, out of breath from their pace, which Arthur felt bad about, but didn't slow down as they rounded the other side of the Hangman's stage.
"Don't start shooting anything yet," Arthur mumbled, but he passed him one of his pistols.
"I'm not seeing any O'Driscolls. Maybe they’ve already started drinking." He gave a soft whistle, knowing Bloodstone would hear the call as his owner without attracting much attention from the livestock town.
John was nodding while gasping, not able to do much more than breathe and cling to Arthur’s side.
"It’s alright. You did well. I got you." Arthur said it almost as a reminder to himself of John, but the man kept nodding. Just as Bloodstone trotted up to them, Arthur spotted a long dark duster and a flash of green come around the corner from the main street.
Using the big Shire to block them for a moment, Arthur balanced John on the horse's side as he mounted up and quickly turned to grasp John’s arms.
"Hold on tight; we're gonna be moving fast," Arthur said, leaning precariously over Bloodstone's side, but he supported John for a moment as he caught his breath, hands trembling at Arthur’s arms, but still closing his fingers around him as tightly.
He gave a sharp nod. Not an okay, but nonetheless, they needed to move.
Arthur heaved John into the saddle in front of him as smoothly as he could. He had noticed how light John was as they walked, but lifting the taller man all the way up onto his giant of a horse should have been harder. He wasn’t able to dwell on it as a shout behind him was his only warning to urge Bloodstone into a quick trot before the first badly aimed bullet wizzed into the mud of the road. Even in their retreat, he couldn’t help but notice how bony John was and how much he flopped around in the saddle without any core strength to hold him in place.
As bullets followed them, Arthur focused more on steering and holding John up, but somehow John did manage to twist and shoot at one rider who had been able to mount up after them. Arthur had one arm looped around John to keep from falling off the saddle, but the cover fire did keep the pursuers at a distance so Arthur could gallop up to the patch of trees with better cover.
Once bullets stopped whizzing past them, John collapsed back onto Arthur's chest, seeming to focus his energy on holding onto the pistol and the horse.
Arthur didn't slow as they tore through the open plains again, but he did start to rein in his panic. The O'Driscolls would probably try to follow, but as long as they kept moving south, they could circle back towards camp. Without slowing down yet, he eased Bloodstone into a more controlled pace, now paying attention to how much John was grimacing in pain at every bump.
"You still with me?" Arthur needed to hear him say it to believe it.
"Mostly," John gasped out.
"Shit, boy,” Arthur gasped. “Of all the ways we thought you'd come back this time, this was not in the betting pool."
He drew them to a walking pace only when they were getting close to Rhodes. In the light of a fully risen sun, he studied John’s wounds more carefully as he debated taking him into town to find a doctor.
He had been distracted by the ugly rope burns around his wrists, but now he noticed the rope burn around John's neck. It wasn’t as ugly, but it was what made Arthur burn with a renewed rage that he had to keep at a simmer.
“So you said they brought you to the Doctor in Valentine. He actually fix you up?” He asked after giving John a chance to breathe without being bounced and jolted. Arthur eyed his dirty and bloody clothes covering a thin body covered in bruises, and who knows what else.
But John nodded before lifting his head.
“Yeah, they took me there once for the wolf marks, and this was the second time. Doc wasn’t so bad. They was threatening him. His son.” John’s words were starting to slur a little. He was trying to sit up on his own now that they weren’t galloping, but he was slipping back against Arthur's chest.
“Easy, I gotcha,” Arthur murmured, steadying John with one hand. John let out a shuddering breath, but he did finally start to relax.
“I wanna go home.” He murmured, voice shot and pitiful just like it had sounded when Dutch shot him down from the gallows when he was 12.
“Then that’s where we’re going.” Arthur huffed and turned them towards camp while picking up their pace.
“Jack? Abigail?” John gasped when he had the breath to speak again.
Despite all that had happened, Arthur still found himself on the verge of saying a mean comment about what he would care, but it caught in his throat as he looked down at John’s frantic eyes. Arthur had been trying to tell John he’d regret ignoring a family that was right in front of him, but he wasn’t ready to see his brother face that.
“They’ve been fine back at camp. Worried about you. Abigail had us searching as soon as the snow cleared up in the Grizzlies. Kept going out too. Couldn’t find anything, but she got us out three days in a row till-“ Arthur cut himself off as he thought up the bitter screaming match between Dutch and Abigail when he’d said they couldn’t keep sending parties out.
Arthur had almost worried Dutch would toss the mother out into the snow the way she was talking about how much Dutch’s promises were worth until Hosea had intervened.
“What happened, John?”
John was quiet long enough that Arthur was wondering if he’d passed out already.
“It started with getting stuck in the snow. Wolves got me off my horse. Was about to make a break for the cliffs when O'Drisccolls came up on me. Not before wolves could give me this, though." John grunted, gesturing to his face. "They took me back to whatever mining place they were holed up in. Wanted to patch me up before questioning me, but then you lot came through.”
“You was there?” Arthur asked, swallowing down a lump.
“Left before ya got there. Dumb luck, I suppose. Heard about that train robbery you pulled, too. You really pissed Colm off with that one.” John tried to laugh, but he couldn’t help but flinch at the memory. Arthur’s heart was in his stomach.
"You been with the O'Driscolls all this time then?" Arthur asked, letting raw emotion finally slip into his voice.
John's silence was his answer. Arthur didn’t have it in him to push him and hear more of how he’d failed John.
John POV
John had been dozing by the time Arthur rode them into camp, and was roused as Arthur began pulling him down from his horse. He gasped and held back whimpers as Arthur settled him in his arms, not bothering to ask if the man could walk. Arthur called out for Tilly, who seemed the closest, to get hot water and bandages for John in his arms.
“You’re about to cause a mighty big commotion, Marston,” Arthur grumbled as he started crossing camp to his own tent since they hadn’t set up John’s at Horseshoe.
John groaned and hid his face in Arthur’s shoulder, though he wasn’t sure if it was in response to Arthur’s comment or just trying to hide from the sunlight.
“Tell em to go away,” He managed to croak out. John expects Arthur to dig in, as he should like the attention, but apparently he wasn’t feeling so mean spirited with his brother limp in his arms.
“Aw, don’t say that ‘for Abigail sees you,” Arthur said quietly, already seeing heads turning to them and gasping.
“Dutch! Hosea!” Someone called out. A bucket was already at his bedside, and Tilly was rushing into Arthur’s tent with rags, her eyes wide.
Arthur carefully placed John down onto his cot.
“Arthur? What-John!” Hoseas started from around the side of the tent before he came from behind Arthur and spotted John.
John’s head tilted to meet Hosea with a hint of a smile on his lips even as his eyelids drooped.
“Better late than never, right?" He rasped.
Hosea stared at his son with wide eyes, wrinkles on his forehead scrunched from how his eyebrows were.
“You’re-my boy-how“
“O'Driscoll's,” Arthur explained quietly, starting to look for wounds that had been ignored. He tried to avoid Hosea’s gaze that snapped to his.
“I found him in Valentine running from the doctor they pay.”
“They patched him up?” Hosea asked, confused.
“Wanted me pretty for Colm's next visit.” John’s voice croaked. Hosea looked back and lifted a hand hesitantly to John’s matted dark hair.
“My boy…”
John’s heart twisted at Hosea's hopeless look, but John hid from it by leaning into his touch, accepting the comfort.
“The doc in Valentine-“ he broke off in a cough, and Hosea started to shhh him, but he waved him off, needing to be heard.
“His family… O'Driscolls was threatening his son. I told him to get em out, but wanna check on em,”
“Easy now, Johnny, we’ll check on em. Let us help ya now. Relax.” Hosea’s assurances calmed his panic and allowed him to be eased back onto a pillow.
His eyes drifted closed, and he accepted the directions given to him when needed. Hosea's hands probing for wounds and Miss. Grimshaw's directions made him flinch, but he kept reminding himself O'Driscoll wouldn’t do anything so gently.
John zoned out until he felt the touch of the wet cloth against his abused throat. His breath caught, and he grabbed Hosea’s wrist with a speed that surprised both of them.
All he could do was hang off Hosea and gasp for breath with wide eyes. Hosea made no move to fight John, simply clasped his shoulder with his other hand.
“Sorry, should have said something before startin',” Hosea mumbled. He rubbed circles into John’s shoulder that allowed John to distract himself enough to loosen and then drop his grip on Hosea. He flopped back, all fight gone from his frame.
“How about I skip there for now,” Hosea murmured. John didn’t have the strength to reply.
He didn’t pass out right away, but as his eyes slid closed, he accepted that he’d lost the ability to open them again. He was home and so he eased himself to sleep by listening to the sounds of home.