Archive of Our Own ^beta

The world is moving too quickly around him. Time has no matter. Time has all the matter. Time matters the most in forms of wary looks from his people, his family. It’s running out like a cracked pot full of important water. And he has no control over it, losing it through his fingers: forced open by the new world. It’s making him sick, people’s blind indulges. The greed is making the industrialized cities reek with something so pungent it sticks to their clothes, the wind wafting it further and further out to the towns not yet drenched in it.

It took him too long to understand it’s too late to stop it. Too long to see that the change has already been made, no matter how loud his men were shouting about it – the men who aren’t blind and driven by rage like some. He just didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want to believe he had not only lost himself along the way, but his best favored men. Hosea. John.

Arthur.

He clenches his fist to his thigh, the sun is burning hot on his already dry skin. The desert smells petrichor from the rain that just sailed above them, cooling their heated bodies slightly. But the sky is now as blue as ever, sun raging on.

The sound of their horses hooves slowly walking across the ocean of sand is meditative, a distraction on their way to the shit-stain place on the map called Oak Creek Rest. A place that can barely be called a town from the size of it, but it at least offers drinks, food, and hopefully a place to rest their restless bones. His aches from the excursion in the previous place they had to pack up and run from, but a leader cannot show weakness to the eyes of the men that already doubts and thinks he’s losing it.

Perhaps they’re right, he thinks and wets his cracked lips the best he can. But admitting his defeat now would only get him a bullet through his head. So he pushes on for as long as his mind will allow him.

They arrive just before sundown, the air getting noticeably cooler; soothing their skin. Charles and Bill is off their horses first, hitching them. Arthur is circling around, looking antsy. Dutch can barely keep his eyes off of him when he dismounts The Count, stroking a big hand over his sweaty mane, checks that the bridle hasn’t scratched into the skin; the steed leans his head heavily against Dutch’s shoulder.

The rest dismounts and is on their way inside the saloon, but Arthur’s eyes are weary. Hesitation almost makes him turn his horse around and leave them.

“You need food and rest as much as the rest of us. Come inside, Arthur.”

It takes Dutch a moment to see what Arthur reminds him of: a wild animal about to be forced into a small cage. But he follows, alas unwillingly: mouth drawn in a tight line.

Inside is flooded with orange and empty tables, and the smell of cigarette smoke and ale is a stark contrast from the beginnings of crispy desert air. The bartender comes out from the back and asks something that Hosea is the one answering to, and soon there are plates of food coming out, full cups of beer and whiskey. It doesn’t take Dutch long to feel the familiar warmth filling him from the inside and out his fingers, the tremors stopping. It’s not a happy bunch eating their meals and drinking their beers, but they’re alive and that’s what matters. For now.

Arthur slips out as soon as soon as his bowl is empty, cigarette ready between his fingers. He’s not shy about smoking indoors, but he has a tenseness to his shoulders that fill out the small saloon, crowding the area. Dutch watches him leave in the corner of his eye, lips already on the brim of the whiskey glass. When he doesn’t come back inside, is when Dutch decides to join him. Three whiskeys and two beers down, his head is swimming with a dullness that he welcomes.

He’s sitting on the porch floor, lit cigarette in hand and his eyes wistfully gazing out on the dirt path, his hat put next to him. “What are we doing, Dutch?” comes the quiet question out of Arthur’s mouth without the man even looking up to greet him, just knowing. He wears the same sort of doubt he’s been wearing for longer than Dutch likes, dangerously close to passing over to something sinister.

Dutch, for once, has no response. Nothing to deliver, to give. He just sits down next to Arthur, leaning over to take the cigarette out of his hand and puts it to his mouth. The silence is deafening. He inhales deeply before letting it swirl out, dulling the colors of the deep blue sky. “When did you start doubting me?” he asks, and he hopes it doesn’t come out hostile, even if it was sudden and not thought through: blockages of strong liquor in the way of his mind and lips.

He can see Arthur’s owlish blinks at him, his mouth opening and closing several times before tightening in the same, maddening line from earlier.

“I’m sorry”, Dutch continues, voice dropping to a whisper, doesn’t feel like his own. He returns the cigarette to the other man, Arthur takes it hesitantly.

“What- what are you sorry for?” Arthur talks like someone is forcing him to; a strain in the back of his throat, rough and bitter.

He doesn’t believe him. Doesn’t trust him.

And it hurts like a gunshot, the ones that that doesn’t go right through but sticks and bleeds on the inside – shells of it moving closer and closer to his heart.

He has lost it all.

“For everything”, he says tiredly, catching his face in his hands, rubbing blunt fingernails against the sunburnt skin. “For everything, Arthur. I- fuck. Fuck Tahiti. Fuck it all. You can do whatever you want, there is no plan. I don’t- I can’t-“ he goes to stand up, ease out the tremors in his body, but an aggressive hand holds him down: calloused fingers stabbing through his coat, cigarette butt tossed to the side. He’s being pulled closer to Arthur’s face, can feel the other man’s harsh breaths on him: warm and alive despite it all. Not for his sake. Not anymore.

“You don’t get to give up”, Arthur snarls, venom lacing every word. “You have dragged us through hell and we have followed. You don’t fucking get to give up!”

“I don’t have a plan! There is no plan. I don’t know what to fucking do, Arthur!”

“Then you stop!” Arthur growls, fists grabbing hold of Dutch’s collar. “Just stop, Dutch. No more noise.”

Dutch can see every motion and emotion in Arthur’s face. The sun hasn’t ruined his skin too badly. He’s tanned, but the age lines are white.

“We are losing you.” Kinder, now. Gentle. Same fingers that probably created fingertip-shaped bruises on his arm just minutes ago are thoughtlessly stroking the sensitive skin just below Dutch’s ears.

“I’m losing you”, Dutch corrects. “Already have.”

Arthur sighs and drops his eyes. He leans his forehead against his. “You ain’t lost me. I will follow you to the end, Dutch. But I fear it will be sooner rather than later if this continues.”

This.

Dutch doesn’t know what this is anymore. He doesn’t know when he lost his mind, doesn’t know where to begin looking for it. He just knows he’s full of an uncontrollable rage.

But he’s also tired. So tired.

He swallows thickly against the heaviness in his throat; the familiarity he’s ignored for so long. But maybe, just maybe, is this what will save him. Fingers treading the short distance between them, going for the rough material of Arthur’s pants, dipping into the hem of them. Arthur leans his face back for a moment, grinding his teeth. His thighs are warm but his voice isn’t. “Dutch…”

“Tell me what I should do, Arthur. How do I save this?” Dutch murmurs, not meeting his gaze. If he listens closely he thinks he can hear Arthur’s heartbeat, thump-thump-thump like a rabbits, and Dutch might be the wolf. Always hunting.

Is this what he has done? Cornering him. All these years, making him unable to leave at his own will.

He starts to pull back, but Arthur is quicker.

It’s teeth and it’s beard, hands alternating between fisting his hair and clutching his collar. He tastes like smoke and beer and blood. Arthur is an explosive. Harmless to the eye, dangerous when ignited. He pushes up against Dutch, out in the open on the porch of the only saloon in Oak Creek Rest where anyone unsensible enough to go there could spot them.

“Arthur, Arthur”, he grunts, not to stop him but to warn him, easing his hands carefully to Arthur’s face. Arthur is shivering and breathing hard. He’s wearing an expression on his face that Dutch finds hard to read, lustful yet hateful. “My boy, not here… this can’t happen here.”

In Oak Creek Rest, is what he wants to say, it can’t happen here, a place barely visible on a map. Where some people simply go to die in their lonesome, a place of tragedy and regret.

“Where, then? Where are you taking us, Dutch?” Arthur wheezes, the tight tenseness in him doubled, and his hands around Dutch’s neck are deliberate.

Dutch breathes out against his lips – swollen and red. “I don’t know, Arthur.” Perhaps there’s something in his tone that makes Arthur pull back. Perhaps he hears something that Dutch didn’t when his voice is gentle, but final. “You better know soon”, Arthur says, and goes back into the saloon where they will sleep too. He hears the low murmured chatter from his men for a second when Arthur pushes the door open, but it dies just as quick when it closes behind him.

You better know soon.

Dutch licks his lips, tasting his own blood from where Arthur bit him. Or what? he wanted to ask, but there was no one around. There’s just him and the horses. And the whole wide world before his two feet.

But he gets up, turning his back to it for now – stepping on the cooled cigarette butt on his way back inside, in silence.