Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His back muscles were sore, and the sweat dripping down the nape of his neck had made his shirt stick to his back in an increasingly uncomfortable way. They had to have been riding for days now, at least two. Hosea and Dutch had been sniffing for leads in a saloon in some mid-sized town out in Arizona when they’d heard their names being thrown around in conversation at one of the tables – their real names. Posing as a couple of up-and-coming oil prospectors from the North, it hadn't taken long for the local drunks to fill them in on what some lawmen had told them earlier – that a group of bounty hunters had just arrived in town in pursuit of two outlaws who’d caused quite the commotion a few towns over some months prior. How the law had figured out they were back in the state so soon after they'd got there seemed to elude both Dutch and Hosea, but by the hasty way they’d gone packing up everything as soon as they'd rode into camp, Arthur had reckoned they were less concerned about the ‘why’s and ‘how’s of the situation and more focused on legging it before the bounty hunters caught their scent.

Arthur didn’t know the time, but if he had to guess by looking at the sun, he’d have said they’d be seeing the moon again before they even made it across this specific mountain range Dutch had confidently deemed was their goal to get to so they could set up camp in safety. As beautiful as he found the landscape, Arthur could not tell what made these hills so special from the rest they’d rode past, but Hosea had nodded so assertively at his partner’s suggestion that Arthur could not find it in himself to fret.

That’s how he found a lot of things went around here with these two. Since the moment they'd whisked him away from the dingy street they'd found him on a few short months ago (Arthur could still vividly remember how the chill that had shook his bones and the hunger that had plagued his stomach had brought him to a new low he’d never experienced before in the couple years since he'd been on his own, one where he'd thrown all caution to the wind for the outstretched hand of a stranger and his companion’s gentle promises of a warm meal and a spot by a campfire), Arthur didn't recall a single time when they hadn't been this entrancingly in sync with one another. Oh, they definitely bickered a lot, more often than they had any type of serious conversation, but after a few instances where alarm bells had rung out in the teen’s brain to run away, get as far away as you can before it inevitably turns on you, Arthur had started to realise that what he’d recognised to be the boiling points of their fights - the point right before talking turned to screaming and fists - were nothing more than some playful words of banter smoothing over any tension between the two, lightly guiding them into a spurt of shared laughter, mirth in their eyes and an air of easy intimacy about them that sometimes gave Arthur whiplash to witness.

And, he supposed, as foreign as it was to him, Arthur found himself drawn to their company, enthralled by their companionship, the two older men seemingly overjoyed at his tentative willingness to get to know them. He’d been hesitant about staying with them after that first night, his tired mind fighting with all its might against every instinct telling him to turn tail and run, he’d already got a full meal and a bedroll to spend the previous night in, he should not keep pushing his luck; after all, ain’t nobody do nothing for no one for free. He’d wrestled with those feelings, staring up at the canvas ceiling of the tent he’d spent his snuggest night in ages inside, when he’d heard Hosea’s tranquil voice from behind the closed flaps, quiet enough so as not to disturb him were he still asleep, while simultaneously coaxing him out with breakfast. Arthur’s stomach had answered his dilemma for him, grumbling loudly at the prospect of ‘food, again, and only a few hours later!’, and after that he’d settled that if Dutch and Hosea did end up having any ulterior motives for keeping him around, well, that would only be fair, and he would probably still be getting the better end of the deal.

So, if Dutch and Hosea were the two of them in agreement about heading past the hillside before nightfall, no bickering nor nothing needed, then Arthur would trust them.

However, while his resolve to trust their resolution never wavered, it seemed the older outlaws’ trust that he wasn’t about to drop off his horse any second was shaky, at best.

“Maybe we oughtta stop just for an hour or so, maybe get a quick lie-down in before we keep pushin’ on.” Dutch said, giving Hosea what he most likely believed to be an inconspicuous look from the corner of his eye, before returning his gaze to Arthur.

“I told y’all already, I’m just fine, no one’s gotta be stopping on my account.”

“Son, you look about ready to keel over and I already know you ain’t got any water left in that canteen you keep checking every 15 minutes, as if some more will just magically appear.” Hosea smirked while tossing him his own flask, still half full and a relief on Arthur’s hands when he caught it.

“…Thanks.” He murmured sheepishly, taking only a small sip, not trusting himself not to get carried away and end up gulping down the older man’s entire supply of water.

“You can finish that off, kid, we’re gonna be making a stop right in that clearing over there just by the riverbend.” Hosea said, trotting off in the direction he'd pointed out.

“We are?” Arthur asked, face scrunching up in confusion.

“Yep.” Dutch replied from next to him, “We’d better start setting up our tents before we’re all out of sunlight!”

“Wha…” Arthur faltered, not for the first time experiencing that strange feeling that Dutch and Hosea had just had an entire conversation in his presence without exchanging a word. “You ain’t need to stop for me! I just told y’all, I ain’t no kid, I’m just fine!”

He hurried to follow Dutch in Hosea’s direction, the latter having already dismounted, and opened his mouth again to repeat his protests when Hosea held up a hand to silence him. “Fine, alright, we know you’re not tired at all Arthur, we believe you, but we’re stopping here anyway.” He said, not even looking up from where he was feeding Silver Dollar a sugar cube, the mare nipping at his hand contentedly.

Arthur looked to Dutch, an exasperated look on his face, but the man only shrugged as he started untacking his own horse. “Just humour us, kid.”

Chapter Text

A few hours later, with his head on the ground and his legs up on a rotten log they’d built a fire next to, Arthur lit a cigarette and begrudgingly admitted (only to himself) that he had in fact been desperately needing the respite. They’d had a real meal for the first time in days – some fish Hosea had managed to snatch from the shallow water nearby – and the warmth of the older men’s company had Arthur feeling as cosy as the flames between them three did. All in all, the boy was pretty content.

That is until Hosea had plucked his cigarette right out of his mouth.

“Hey! I’d just started on that one!” He griped.

“That’s like your third one tonight, kid.” Hosea returned.

“So?”

“Listen to the Old Girl, son.” Dutch chimed in, a cloud of smoke billowing from his lips even as he pointed his cigar at Arthur. “You’ll have a lot of time to puff away when you’re older, but this many in a row is gonna give ya a coughing fit like the one from the other night.”

Arthur flushed at the reminder, because as much as he’d tried to cover it up, both Dutch and Hosea had immediately noticed him choking on his smoke that night a few weeks ago, and now it seemed he’d never hear the end of it.

“Not to mention that you’re laid with your back on moist grass because you refuse to sit down like a sane person; are you trying to catch your death tonight?” Hosea said, reaching down to pull him into the sitting position of sane people. “Where’s your coat anyway?”

Dutch was already on his feet taking off his jacket and draping it across Arthur’s shoulders before he even had the chance to respond. “The nights are getting pretty cold, Arthur, we gave you a coat for a reason.”

Ah, that. It’s not like Arthur had forgotten they’d given it to him - how could he, when they’d folded it so neatly at the bottom of the pile of brand new clothes they had been adamant to buy him, no matter how much he insisted he didn’t need them and had no way to pay them back; to his horror, they’d even gone to the length of buying him new boots, a leather belt, children’s story books they were oh so confident they could teach him to read, a journal for him to practise his letters in, along with a bunch of other stuff he did not need and had begged them not to waste the money on, only for them to go and purchase all the items as soon as his back was turned.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t grateful for their generosity, – he was grateful, he spent his days with a feeling that overpowered gratefulness simmering achingly in his chest – it was more that he felt hesitant each time he made use of one of the millions of things they’d so simply offered him, like he didn’t deserve how soft the clothes fit around him, or how tender the meat from the game he’d had no part in hunting successfully was, didn’t deserve any of it – and worst of all, had no idea how to even begin making himself worthy.

Arthur shrugged, still a bit too stunned by the easy gesture to really muster any resistance to the coddling and fussing. “Just not cold, I guess.”

As Dutch sat back down, Arthur looked up next to him to see Hosea smirking, his attention on him and that glint in his eyes shining the way it did when some new con or scheme popped into his mind. “What say you tomorrow we continue our reading lessons, huh? Dutch mentioned he saw you eyeing that book with the horses on the cover.”

“And I knew when I picked it out that it was gonna be his favourite, too!” Dutch boomed.

Arthur tried and failed not to stutter. “Uh, well… I don’t know…”

“Come on, Arthur, you’ve been doing so good, son.” Dutch encouraged.

Arthur found his voice again. “I ain’t. You both keep telling me that like I’m not there to see how bad I am at it. I’m too dumb to get most of the words.”

“Arthur.” Hosea’s voice was firm, and the boy’s head snapped back up to his face, yet all he found was a sweetness that almost gave his heart pause. “You ain’t dumb. Reading and writing takes time and practise, and you’re certainly the fastest learner I’ve ever seen.”

“Even if you lack the patience for it sometimes.” Dutch added with a knowing smile. “But you’re coming along just great, Arthur, we’ve seen how good your letters you keep doing in your journal have been getting."

“Though you need to keep to keep training if you want your writing to get to the level of those pictures I saw you drawing on some of the pages.” Hosea said.

Arthur’s blood ran cold. He knew they’d given him that journal to train his writing in, and he hadn’t meant to get sidetracked, really, he hadn’t, but the horses had been grazing right in front of him, and those flowers had looked so pretty, and the deer in the distance had seemed so peaceful lapping at the river’s current, and he just hadn't been able to help himself.

He was bracing himself for whatever reprimand his bad behaviour was sure to warrant when Dutch exclaimed. “Oh, that’s right! We got a real artist in our midst! Arthur, kid, when were you gonna tell us you could do those?”

“I… What?”

“The drawings, son!” Hosea smiled down at him. “They’re something real special. You got a true talent there, my boy.”

Arthur’s eyes searched between the two, trying to pick up on whatever joke he’d just missed. It was not an uncommon occurrence when chatting with the two outlaws.

“If you sold enough of those, we’d be richer than any of them corporate schmucks or banking fools.” Dutch stated proudly, voice openly affectionate.

“They’re just some stuff I try to draw same as I see 'em…” Arthur confessed.

“And they’re beautiful, Arthur.” Hosea told him, Dutch nodding his agreement rather enthusiastically.

“Thank you.” Arthur managed to breathe out after what felt like an eternity, still not fully convinced they weren’t pulling his leg but looking down to hide the blush that rose to his cheeks all the same.

Dutch spoke up again after a minute, and the fondness in his voice had Arthur’s heart staggering once again. “Hey, we ever tell you the story of the time Hosea pretended to be a French painter looking to strike it rich in the New World?”

Arthur shook his head and Hosea’s smile was bright as he dove into the tale of this particular con. “Oh, Lord, now that was a good score! We came up with that idea when– ”

“You mean I came up with that idea.” Dutch cut in.

“Well, sort of, I guess, but it was my idea to play the French artist myself, and you fought tooth and nail against it even though you knew we would’ve been found out in two seconds flat if anyone had heard your pathetic excuse for an accent.”

“Excuse me?!”

“You’re excused, dear.”

Arthur watched the back-and-forth between them in contented silence, a soft smile playing on his lips, as Dutch and Hosea struggled to retell the rather convoluted scheme, made even harder to follow as they alternated between bickering and rambunctious bouts of laughter along the way.

By the end of the narration, Dutch was still wheezing with humour when Hosea turned to their younger companion, a merry look lingering in the lines of his face as he asked him “So, kid, you sure you’re all full? We still got some good bits of fish here to finish off if you’re hungry.”

“Oh no, no, I mean, thank you, that’s alright, I’m all full, thanks.” Arthur replied quickly. Perhaps a little too quickly.

Dutch tilted his head and set his gaze on him in that way that had him feeling like he was some complex puzzle the man was determined to solve. “…You sure?”

This was another strange thing they often did, Dutch and Hosea. Just like before, asking if he needed a break, and even after he’d refused it, insisting they needed to stop and set up camp right away on his account; these two had a tendency to ask him all manner of odd questions at even odder times (like when you’re literally on the lam from the law!). Sometimes, all the inquiries still made him uneasy, and he couldn’t help but lash out, not at all used to people coming up to him to ask anything good, let alone how he’s doing, if he’s thirty, if he’s cold, if he’s bored, if he prefers venison or veal for supper, which town he thinks they should move onto next, if the cattleman revolver they’d been teaching him to shoot with fits comfortable in his hand, what colour pants he likes best, how he’s enjoying the brand new Mustang they’d surprised him with after a day out on town.

It was all just so bizarrely unfamiliar to him, how they always sought him out to sit with them around the campfire, how invested they looked whenever he shared some rare anecdote or another of his, the way they appeared as interested in learning about him as he was in them. It was quite uncanny to him, threw him off kilter, and yet he couldn’t avoid the throbbing glow that formed underneath his skin at it, spreading alarmingly quick through his body, head to toe.

Arthur nodded, and saw Dutch and Hosea exchange glances. After a moment, they nodded minutely at each other, and Dutch cleared his throat.

“You know, uhm, Arthur… you don’t gotta feel like you need to say ‘no’ if you want more food… In fact, you don’t even gotta ask, son, it’s here for you to have it, you don’t gotta… wait for our permission or something or…”

“We don’t want you to feel like we’d ever keep food from you, kid.” Hosea said to him, eyes bright as stars in the ever-growing darkness surrounding the three, the fire starting to dwindle a bit now. “We want you to trust us to ask for whatever you need; whatever you want.”

Arthur could only gape at the two men, who just sat there donning looks of endearment morphed with a sad resolve. As he struggled to make his lips form any kind of coherent sound, Dutch spoke up again.

“Arthur, son, listen. We… we don’t really know what happened… before we found you. You said you were on your own for a couple years or so, said it was just you ever since you daddy passed and… You don’t really gotta tell us anything you don’t want, kid, we ain’t gonna make you, so don’t you worry about that. But I guess- I guess… Hosea and I, we know you didn’t have it good, at least for a while there, and we- we just want you to know that if you do feel like it… you can talk to us about it. Or not. Just… you ain’t on your own anymore, Arthur. We got you.”

Arthur felt his heart hammering loud in his chest. Distantly, he noted that it was the first time he’d ever heard Dutch toil to string together a sentence.

“Which means…” Hosea waited until Arthur’s attention was on him, then continued with the most impossibly kind stare set on the boy, the very picture of patience. “Which means, we wanna know how you feel, if you’re hungry, if you’re tired, if you’re scared, if you’re sad… You don’t gotta act how you think we expect you to act. We ain’t ever gonna hurt you, Arthur. We just want you to be you.”

Arthur opened his mouth, felt his lips trembling, clamped it shut. He looked down at the dirt, even though that put his neck in a position that did nothing to ease the tension created by the lump he felt suddenly tighten his throat. He didn’t think he could form any words right now, didn’t know if the horrifyingly thick weight of emotion he felt crushing his lungs was ever going to lift enough for him to breathe again. His heart ticked up as the noise of blood rushing in his ears dimmed a bit and he realised he must have been completely mute for a good minute now, should have already said something, that’s the polite thing to do when people speak to you, and now they’re definitely looking at him like he’s a freak, stupid, stupid, stupid,-

His internal litany was interrupted by a delicate hand on his shoulder; still, he flinched at the touch, shame colouring his face when he saw Hosea looking down at him with – well, it wasn’t really pity, no, it was something closer to sorrow. He couldn’t fight the impulse to watch the man’s hand as it slowly descended back to the spot on his arm he’d removed it from just a second ago, the movement deliberate and tender, as if he was giving Arthur all the time in the world to pull away if he so desired, and the boy felt like he was going to be sick at the immense thoughtfulness of it.

Surprisingly, the contact only settled him, like an anchor grounding him against the swirl of his own thoughts. He looked up again, only to see Hosea offer him an encouraging smile, as though he could really grasp how much this simple action was doing to bring Arthur back from the throes of the panic he was immersed in.

Arthur shifted his gaze over to Dutch, who’d presumably left his seat without him noticing and crawled closer. The man sat on his heels as he slowly reached out towards the now meeker flames, towards the stick that had their last good fish on it, now thoroughly cooked. He picked it up and extended it towards Arthur with the same conscious attentiveness Hosea had employed just a minute before, like he feared one single wrong move might send Arthur running off into the obscure forest behind him. Just like before, Arthur had to resist the urge to read into that gesture, had to contradict his pathetic, greedy heart in its frantic calls to simply let go, to trust in them, to pretend he truly deserved such careful, uniquely designed gentleness directed at him. He watched Dutch’s face, the slight line of concern adorning his brow even as his lips twitched up in a smile that laid bare sheer adoration, and almost had to look down at his feet again as that pesky lump reappeared in his throat.

Of course they weren’t even mad he had gone completely idiot and not said anything back to them for ages; of course they hadn’t even tried to push him. Arthur felt the familiar lick of guilt roil in his gut – whether due to his wretched behaviour or the fact that he’d thought Dutch and Hosea would punish him for it even after all they’d said, he couldn’t tell.

He managed to keep his trembling somewhat in check as he gradually took the stick from Dutch’s hand, his arm automatically lifting the fish up to his mouth; he hadn’t really been lying when he’d said he was okay on food, - it was more instinctive than anything else - but he'd have been lying if he'd said he didn’t feel capable of eating this second helping right now.

‘Second helping.’ Artur thought. ‘Now, that’s a first.’

~

A little while later, Arthur had to stifle a yawn as the exhaustion of days’ worth of traveling finally started to truly seep into his bones. Recently, he’d come to find that when you ain’t being plagued by a famished bellyache or the piercing fear of a random stranger around the corner eager to take advantage of some stupid kid passed out in a cranny of some dingy alley, sleep ended up coming to you much more easily at the close of the evening.

He didn’t even have the energy to remain embarrassed over his outburst just an hour or so before. He hadn’t moved from his spot, and neither had Dutch and Hosea, their voices drifting in the air in quiet conversation now – a conversation from which they weren’t excluding Arthur, their attention shifting back to where he sat slumped down wearily every couple minutes, but in which they weren’t pushing him to take part either. Arthur was infinitely thankful, the startlingly familiar sounds of their voices lulling him into a state of happy sluggishness, and he wondered, not for the first time, how Hosea and Dutch seemed to know exactly what he needed even when he himself had no idea.

His eyelids were beginning to droop and his arm felt like lead as he brought it up to cover another yawn. This time around, he weren’t so lucky as to manage to hide it.

“Alright, there, gunslinger, I think that’s bedtime for you.” Dutch chuckled and Arthur grumbled unintelligibly; he forced his eyes wide open and tried to blink the drowsiness out of them, but all he got for his efforts was another small noise of amusement from Dutch, affection gracing his features as he stood up and offered his hand to Arthur.

The boy swiftly got up on his own two legs, – he’d gone and made enough of a fool of himself in front of the two bandits tonight, he didn’t need help standing up – his vision darkening only slightly at the sudden movement. He took a second to collect himself before levelling his stare at this infuriatingly baffling and terrifyingly earnest couple of the two best men he’d never thought he’d know. “Yer givin’ me a bedtime, now?” His jaw was set, but his eyes must have belied the mischief behind his words.

“Why, you better listen to your old man and get yourself to bed now!” Hosea jested back.

“Wait- How exactly am I the old man here?” Dutch’s indignant voice pitched up slightly.

“Oh, my, I fear your father’s mind might be starting to go…” Hosea winked at Arthur, who couldn’t help but let out a chortle.

“You- You, both of you rascals think this is funny, do you?” Dutch sputtered, now straining to hold in his own laughter as well. He brought his hands up to his chest, his antics so ridiculous they conjured up in Arthur’s mind an image of some old, church-going lady clutching her pearls. “Even you, Arthur, making a mockery out of your poor old papa in such a fashion?!”

Arthur tried and failed to suppress his laughter at the theatrics, fully aware that it was now well into the night, but there weren’t much more he could do to hold his giggles at bay when Hosea erupted into loud guffaws beside him.

The boy leant down, still short-winded with glee, picking up his gun belt off the ground and bidding the pair of conmen goodnight.

His back was turned to them as they quietly watched the teen trudge his way towards his tent – and perhaps it was the boy’s fatigue, causing him to misjudge just how close to the campfire he’d set up his lodgings; maybe he was simply too dreadfully tired to even fully register he was speaking aloud. Either way, as they’d watched him disappear beyond the flaps of his tent, Dutch and Hosea both were positive they’d heard him right and clear:

“Y’ain’t neither of you nothin’ like my pa…”

Chapter Text

Sleep was eluding them.

Dutch and Hosea laid side by side, sprawled out over one another, limbs entangled in a way that questioned why they even still bothered to carry around two different bedrolls. Nights were spent under a large blanket doing just enough to keep the cold at bay, the shared heat of skins touching always doing most of the work to keep them warm. Soft whispers, tender kisses, and eventually breathing evening out in effortless simultaneity.

Tonight was not such a night.

Tonight they laid close still, but both men were yet to close their eyes, seemingly lost in their own heads. Hosea knew the two of them were mulling over the same topic, hardly anything else equally capable of keeping them from their hard-earned sleep.

Arthur.

Seemed like every day the sun came up, it rose with the promise of this kid surprising them once again. Every time they thought they knew what was going through his head, a new side to him would suddenly come to light, his behaviour catapulting them right back into the notion that they were way in over their heads with this.

Hosea was aware of the risks of bringing a child into this kind of life with them. He knew the compromises that needed to be made, the time and patience and commitment keeping Arthur around would demand. He knew all of this as well as the day Dutch had bid him over from the main road and off into a dirty side street, and he knew it even more the moment his eyes laid upon that bedraggled, scruffy-looking child, with eyes angry as a stormy ocean, but not quite furious enough to conceal the scared look underneath.

Yet all that he knew was no match for whatever feeling had overpowered all his senses right then, as he'd taken in the kid's stance, the way everything about him screamed resigned terror, like he was sure there was nothing they could want with him but to hurt him, and the certainty he’d felt as they’d brought Arthur home that first night only grew with each passing day in the child’s company.

He knew the day they met Arthur that fighting against his sentiment for the kid was a battle lost well before it could have ever even started, and so he found himself still wide awake, not at all oblivious to the cogs turning in his partner’s head over this most recent precious treasure of theirs too.

Finally, Dutch was the first to turn on his side and face his bedfellow (he always was the one to give in and break any silence first, his whirling thoughts demanding to be voiced and heard).

“Hey. Hosea.”

“Hm?” Hosea hummed, still lying on his back.

“I’m worried. ‘Bout Arthur.”

Hosea sighed, and rolled over to face the other man as well. “Yeah. Me too.”

“What he said about his father… You think he hurt him?” Dutch asked, his voice lowering to something below a whisper, as though he was scared of wording it out loud – like speaking the very question made it real. Hosea sure couldn’t help but feel a little relieved he hadn’t had to be the one to say it.

“Well, it’d certainly explain a lot, now, wouldn’t it?” He sighed.

Dutch looked down then, worrying his lower lip between his teeth, and were they having any other type of conversation, Hosea would have called him adorable, just to watch the big man blush.

As it was, the older bandit could only muster up a feeling of moroseness as his partner spoke up again. “I mean, we knew he had to have had it rough, being on his own for so long but… I don’t know, I guess when he said he’d been by himself since his daddy hanged, I just assumed he hadn’t had it bad back when he was alive too, that he…” He trailed off. “I feel stupid I ain’t really thought of this sooner.”

“I do too.” replied Hosea. “But thinking about it now, I guess it just… adds up, no? Like, the way he acted when we first bought him his clothes, remember? How he said he had no money to pay us back, and how he didn’t really believe it when we told him we didn’t need him to.”

“Just like he still seems shocked every night we call him to dinner, as though he doesn’t expect it even after all these months…” Dutch supplied, a sad frown on his brow. “And the way he broke down tonight… He looked wrecked, Hosea. We were just trynna make him see he doesn’t need to have his guard up so high with us, but I didn’t mean to get him all upset like he did there and-”

“I know, I know, and I know it was hard to watch, but I really think we did the right thing telling him all that stuff, Dutch, if anything, the reaction he had only proved how much he needed it for us to lay it all out for him.” said Hosea. “I really don’t want him to have any more lingering doubts ‘bout where he stands with us. It’s not been that long since he first started talkin’ to us in full sentences, and sometimes he still looks like he’s expecting to be told off for just speaking whatever’s on his mind.”

Dutch sighed deeply. “Yeah, and it’s been a few months now, right? Like, it don’t make much sense that he would still be this… this reticent ‘round us if he’d had a daddy who was good to him, yeah? ‘Cause folk can be pretty damn awful, even to little children on the streets, but that kinda fear he has in him, it just…”

“It just don’t come from a child who was ever used to his daddy treating him good.” Hosea finished with a grimace. He felt a quiet, simmering rage settle in his chest. He’d always held anger for the many abstract people they knew ought to have mistreated Arthur in one way or another over the course of the years he'd been on his own, unsheltered and unprotected; but now, putting a face and a name (though, in reality, he actually knew neither of those) to one specific man in the boy’s past, the kid’s own father, he felt a craving for bloody, painful revenge boiling his blood, running through his veins all the way up to his brain, his thoughts all fixed upon the fanciful wish that this man were still alive, so Hosea could put him six feet under the ground himself.

Looking at his companion, the sour, grim look on his features, Hosea could tell his thoughts didn’t stray very far from his own. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, although not able to stop his voice from wobbling a bit on the edges, Hosea spoke again. “I guess we should have seen it before, I suppose… It ain’t like that kid makes it easy to get anything out of him, but I think if we’d tried any earlier to get a remark like that from him, we probably could have figured it out much sooner. It’s not like we didn’t ever think it could be but…”

“We didn’t want to believe it.” Dutch completed for him.

“Yeah.” Hosea murmured.

A moment passed, as the revelation sat heavy between the two of them. Then suddenly, Dutch spoke again, his voice a whisper strained with emotion.

“Hosea, I know we oughtta get him to talk to us about this, so that we can help him, so that he feels safe, and… I just…” He swallowed, then looked up at him again, eyes wide and urgent. “We gotta do right by Arthur. He needs it, he… He deserves it.”

Hosea was bound in place by the solemnity in those dark eyes, and he had never felt more certain of his purpose on this Earth as he gravely nodded at his partner. “He does. And we will.” He swore.

He held his best friend’s hand, a great promise enclosed safely between their palms. Their eyes finally closed, both men drifted off in a matter of minutes.

~

Dutch had just started to dream.

Quite a silly and soft dream; considering his line of work, one would not be blamed for assuming he spent his nights haunted by memories of blood, persecuted by the vilest imaginings the mind could fabricate – and while he’d certainly had his fair share of them already, since meeting Hosea, he had been obliged to note, those had become fewer and farther between. And when he was indeed occasionally tormented in his sleep, the blood felt justified, the violence cathartic.

Tonight, however, he had slipped into a most pleasant dream, where nothing of importance was happening beyond Hosea, riding alongside him down a path of lively-coloured foliage, his smile matching the one Dutch felt splitting his face; just then, rushing from behind to meet them, came Arthur, – the most recent recurring appearance in his dreams, progressively more prominent with each and every detail of the boy Dutch carefully catalogued in his mind - galloping atop Boadicea, shouting something or another about a race, that childish glee in his voice that Dutch and Hosea had only had the privilege of being privy to a few times so far.

His happy slumbering did not last, though. No sooner had he started racing after Arthur, Hosea in tow, when the laughter of his dream was broken by an entirely different noise. A noise from outside of his sleep. A noise from outside of his tent.

He shot up bolt upright, his vision bleary as he strained his ears for any disturbance. Nothing. Hosea’s soft snoring was the only sound filling the space. Dutch looked down at him, still peacefully asleep, and fought against the remnants of drowsiness still attempting to grasp onto his brain. He concentrated again, focusing on the sounds of the forest around them, trying to listen for any signs of nocturnal wildlife, and starting to struggle to remember what kind of noise even woke him in the first place.

And that’s when he heard it again.

It was clearer this time, and whether that was due to the fact that he now felt fully awake, or because they were drawing closer to camp, it really didn’t matter. Trotting and the hushed commotions of a moving group. The bounty hunters.

Shaking himself out of his stupor and cursing under his breath, Dutch started to roughly shake Hosea awake, a million questions running through his mind. Had they already spotted the campsite? Had they waited for them to go to sleep to strike them at their most vulnerable? If so, how had they not noticed them lingering around, and if not, how had they found them? They’d been riding far enough ahead that they shouldn’t have been able to track them.

“Whadd..Wha– Wha’ is it?” Hosea came to, blonde hair a mess on his head and a disoriented look on his face.

“The bounty hunters. I can hear them. They found us.” Dutch whispered as he tried to keep his breathing under control. He hastily pulled his boots on and reached for his gunbelt, shoving Hosea’s in his direction. The older man scrambled to sit up, eyes wide and panicked as he stood stock-still for a moment, then rushed to gather his own belongings. “What do you mean they found us?!” He hissed back. “How could they have just - found us?”

“I don’t know, Hosea, I don’t-…” Dutch trailed off, his thoughts falling into place. “Did you put out the fire?”

“Me? No, I thought you’d killed it before we came to bed.” Hosea responded, looking back at him over his shoulder from where he was sat pulling on some pants. They met each other’s eyes, frozen in spot for a second, then quickly got to moving again.

“Fuck. Fuck.” Dutch swore, quickly standing up as he checked his revolver. “Fuck, ok, shit, they followed the smoke here, fuck… How did we forget to put that shit out, we had all the time in the world!”

“We were distracted ‘cause of Arthur and we forgot…” Hosea said, getting to his feet too.

Arthur. Yes, Arthur, they had to stay on track, there was no time for hysteria, they had to figure out a plan and fast, but first, they had to keep Arthur safe.

“Let’s go, let’s get him.” Dutch said as Hosea finished holstering his guns, grabbing the other man’s hand and pulling him along. They both stepped outside, and Dutch could tell by the way Hosea was squeezing his hand that he, too, could hear the riders getting nearer. They kept close to the ground, their steps as light as possible while half-running towards Arthur’s tent.

Their boy, restless child that he was, met them at the entrance of his tent, startling Dutch as he was reaching out to open the flaps. He looked up at them, the anxiety and fear written on his face leaving no doubt that he had been woken by the same sounds that had roused Dutch – yet his brow was set in a line that, once again, reminded Dutch of the fiery spirit in the kid. All he most desperately wanted to do was take his thumb and soothe it away, tell him there ain’t nothing to fret about, and watch him fall back into his arms and a well-deserved sleep.

As it was, there wasn’t much else he could do but put a finger to his lips to keep Arthur from speaking out loud and follow Hosea inside the kid’s tent, the older outlaw’s hands grabbing the teenager’s arms and pushing him in.

Inside, they were lit by the oil lamp Arthur had on low, and Dutch hastened to explain what he could in what little time he reckoned they had left. “Arthur, them bounty-hunters that were riding after us? They found us, kid. We think they must have seen the smoke from the campfire and managed to follow it over here.”

“They’re here?” Arthur kept his voice down, but Dutch could hear the frightened inflection to it, noticed how impossibly wide and childlike his eyes looked at that moment, and he felt his heart clench; they were supposed to be keeping this boy safe, damn it, how could they have been so careless as to lead their pursuers straight to them? And to think they were lucky he woke up with some time to spare, and not with a revolver to his and Hosea’s faces, Arthur whisked off by one of the paid killers in his sleep…

Hosea (marvellous, wonderful Hosea) was quick to try and ease Arthur’s tension, effectively halting the unhelpful spiralling of Dutch’s thoughts. “We heard 'em getting closer, and if they followed the smoke here it’s only a matter of time ‘till they find this spot, but they ain’t here yet – so what we need you to do is stay in here, Arthur, do not come out of this tent ‘till we’re back to fetch ya, alright?”

“Hosea and I are gonna try and lure them away from here before they come too close, so you just need to sit tight while we take care of this, yeah?” Dutch added.

Arthur did not look reassured in the least at the relaying of their impromptu plan of action – if anything, his features just contorted into an expression of even more alarmed agitation. “But- No, I, I’ll come with ya, I – ”

“No.” Dutch’s tone was firm as he interrupted the boy, one hand coming up to silence his protests. “This ain’t negotiable, Arthur. We need you to hide right here and not come out ‘till we come back to get you, do you understand?” He asked, placing a steady hand on the child’s shoulder and forcing him to look up at them, hoping to convey the sheer urgency of their demand to the boy.

“I…” Arthur faltered, and Hosea cut in immediately, now leaning down, matching Dutch’s posture (he realised then he had, at some point, crouched down to get as close to the kid as possible) to try and catch the child’s eye. “Arthur, listen to me: we need to handle this right now, and we can’t do that if you’re in danger. Just stay. here. Yes?”

Arthur looked between the both of them, his mouth slightly open as though he wanted to keep fighting them on this, but eventually, mercifully, he shut it and simply nodded once.

Dutch and Hosea both nodded back at him. “We’ll be back in a bit, son.” Hosea said, and as terribly much as he wanted to keep the kid in his sight, Dutch had to take his hand away from Arthur’s shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze as he and Hosea both started to hurry out of the tent and into the threat that sounded as if it was starting to surround the entire glade.

Chapter Text

Hosea and Dutch knew there wasn’t a lot of time to spare; they tacked up the horses with a speed they hadn't know they were capable of, and set off towards the noises that had woken Dutch from his slumber.

As the commotion coming from the group of hired guns began sounding closer and closer, the younger man suggested they start riding a little ways away from it, in the hope that the bounty hunters had already noticed their nearness and would try and intercept them as far away from camp – and Arthur – as possible.

Hosea nodded, a jumble of worst-case scenarios that could take place were they not able to pull this off monopolizing his thoughts. It certainly wasn’t the first time he and Dutch had had to fend off some disgruntled group of aggravating cowboys hounding for their blood, not by any means, so his heart really ain’t supposed to be hammering this painfully against his ribcage, nor should the look on his partners face be as consternated as it was – but this wasn’t like any of those earlier times, now, was it? This time around they had Arthur, small and vulnerable in spite of all the scowling and bared teeth he wore like armour, surely mortified and, on top of it, ashamed of himself for that very fear, all alone in his tent, awoken from his sleep by a threat that Hosea and Dutch had the duty of keeping him safe from. Hosea didn’t have to look to his bedfellow to feel in the air how much it was killing him too to not be by their boy’s side right then.

Perhaps not unsurprising, but decidedly unfortunate, was how quick they ended up coming upon the band of gunmen. Hosea cursed. “Though they’d be farther away still. We’re still too close to camp.”

“Thought so too.” replied Dutch, every muscle in his body tight and tense as he surveyed the approaching figures. The two of them rode slower now, and the bounty hunters matched their steady pace, advancing with deceitful calm. As they drew nearer, Hosea could count 7 of them, and found himself thankful for the visibility the moonlight and the scantiness of tree branches overhead provided.

They halted some 10 feet away from the bounty hunters, and the horseman at the group’s forefront held up a hand for his associates to stop as well. Hosea looked him over; lean and tall, a deep, wide scar marring his left cheek. Teeth sharp as a shark’s flashed a satisfied smirk.

Dutch – of course – was the one to break the silence.

“Gentlemen! Fancy finding you lot out here on this fine evening!” His voice booming, his tone deceptively jovial; Hosea knew his partner was biding their time, their minds’ set on sizing up the situation, on identifying an opportunity to strike first and hard.

“Mr. van der Linde!” came the equally genial greeting from the bounty hunter at the head of the crew. “Mr. Matthews! How nice of you to finally show. You know, me and these fine men here have been looking all over for you.”

“So we have noticed.” replied Hosea, tone clipped and cold.

“Why, you can hardly blame a fellow for being so intent on meeting ya. There’s some wild stories of your… exploits making it all the way back East through the grapevine.” The smirk on his face persisted in a way that left Hosea increasingly preoccupied that he and Dutch were missing something. “But oh, my, where are my manners? My name is Dave McCowell.” he then pointed to the blonde, bearded man on his left, the one closest to him. “And this here is- ”

“Brooke.” said the man of heavier build, sat on an old-looking horse that looked worse for wear, as he now drew a bit closer to them. “Stan Brooke. Pleased to meet ya.” He expectorated on the ground. Looked up at them slowly with a predatory grin.

“Charmed.” Hosea deadpanned.

Hosea risked turning his gaze to Dutch for a moment, the white-knuckle grip he had on his horse’s reins, and he could see the cogs turning in his brain as it prepared a speech for his silver-tongue to deliver and Hosea’s acting skills to corroborate - an impromptu scheme able to divert the bounty hunter’s attention long enough for their guards to be lowered and for the two of them to act on the opportunity. In a situation such as this, outnumbered as they were, the element of surprise and ingenuity was the only and best advantage one could have.

Dutch licked his lips, was about to open his mouth, when McCowell beat him to it. “Now, you see, there’s quite the large sum on each of your heads -”

“Large enough to split between a whole seven of ya?” interrupted Hosea, his eyes running over all the armed men once again, his mind on Dutch at his side, Arthur back at their camp, how much time must have already passed since they had left him there.

“Oh, don’t ya worry ‘bout us, Mr. Matthews.” Brooke drawled. “Simple folk like us? We ain’t need much to make do. We bring in at least one of ya alive and we’ll be wiping our asses with gold.”

The men behind him all snickered in scorn, the anticipatory glee in their voices all too evident. Hosea sneered to himself – they seemed all too convinced he and Dutch were about to bend over without so much as a fight. Well then, he thought, they got another thing coming.

But amidst derisive sniggering, Brooke was turning to McCowell, his voice amicable and unpreoccupied, and while he couldn’t tell if it was meant for them to hear it or not, Hosea’s breath caught in his throat when heard it all the same.  “Shame the other one ain’t got no bonus bounty on him yet, though.”

Never before in his life had he exerted as much willpower as he did in that moment, feeling as though his neck might break with how much force he put into not whipping it in Dutch’s direction, desperate to know if he’d actually heard that right, to catch any indication – or rather lack thereof - on his partner’s face that it was only his bad ear playing tricks on him.

All his effort was for naught however, and he shut his eyes closed when he heard Dutch let out a small surprised, alarmed noise from the back of his throat. The younger cowboy’s face remained a mask of impassiveness, but McCowell’s shrewd, beady eyes followed the clue his ears had not missed. His thin lips spread into a smile that made something in Hosea’s stomach churn.

“Shit… Ain’t no way…” He looked taken aback for a second, then let out a low chuckle. “What? You ain’t think the law would catch onto your little addition?”

Dutch and Hosea looked at each other in what they were hoping could pass for a semblance of confusion, but unfortunately, for all the fools they’d already fooled in this lifetime, it seemed none of these men bought their performance.

“Come to think of it…” McCowell continued, a malicious glint in his eye as he leaned on his horse's neck towards them. “Where is that young lapdog of yours, anyway? Thought we might be getting to meet him tonight as well. Don’t tell me you ditched your new pet already?”

“He’s only a boy.” Dutch ground out between closed teeth, a hostility to his baritone voice uncharacteristic of him - yet it carried over the cold night air as though he’d sucked up all the oxygen in the forest to utter the admission.

Because an admission it was, but at that point, as his hand slowly drifted down over towards the cattleman in his holster, Hosea knew they had no more use in attempting to deny it.

It didn’t matter anyway. From the moment they’d admitted to knowing of Arthur’s existence, Hosea had already decided none of these men would survive the night.

“A vandal is a vandal.” McCowell said roughly, eyes still narrowed on Dutch.

“I sure do hope they ain’t get rid of him, though.” One of the gunmen in the back piped up. “I mean, even if the sheriff ain’t got a bounty for him yet, if we bring in an extra accomplice, he oughtta give us a little somethin' extra for him too, no?”

Hosea could hear the blood pounding in his ears. And then he heard Brooke speak out again, and felt as though that blood was drained from his body entirely:

“Nah, ain’t nobody paying for a brat…” He turned a leering stare on Dutch and Hosea, and smirked, filthy and foul. “So maybe we oughtta find another use for him… He a pretty boy?”

Hosea saw red.

~

Arthur sat in his tent, straining his hearing. Every gust of wind, the odd hoot from a lonely owl, the occasional flapping of a moth’s wings seeking the light within the lamp that still illuminated the tight space, had him jumping to his feet and peeking outside the flaps of his tent, then sitting back down and beginning his efforts anew. The boy found himself torn between wishing to finally hear a gunshot in the distance, a scream, anything to put an end to the anxiety, and hoping against hope that he’d hear no sound of nearby peril whatsoever, even if it meant the torturous waiting would go on the whole night.

Ideally, he would hear Hosea and Dutch riding in any moment now, calling his name and bringing with them assurances that it was all just a false alarm. He knew his own luck well enough by now to understand that would not be the case, but the thought of it relieved him of some of the tension he felt stiffening his bones all the same.

His eyes kept flicking over to the freshly-cleaned cattleman he’d set down atop the makeshift cabinet by his bedroll. He’d already wiped it down three times, more so for a lack of knowing what else to do with his hands than with a clear idea of what he’d do if he actually had to put it to use.

He knew, though, that if it came down to it, he would not hesitate in putting all the practice Dutch and Hosea had been doing with him to test. How could he, when it was his own damn fault they were in this mess in the first place? If he weren’t such a needy, pathetic kid, Dutch and Hosea wouldn’t have felt like they needed to stop that evening and set up camp for him to rest his lazy ass so soon; if he’d only at least managed to not look as much of a sorry sight, he might’ve at least convinced them that he could keep riding ‘till they made it past the hills that Dutch had said from the beginning they could settle safely beyond.

These men had given him everything – they’d offered him a life when he hadn’t even known he’d been long dead. They’d fed him and clothed him and taught him how to read and how to hunt and how to keep himself safe, and they’d talked to him and listened to him and laughed with him and not at him, and they’d put up with his impulsive backtalk and given him tea that one afternoon he hadn’t been able to stifle his hacking coughs; and they had yet to ask for a single thing in return, waved away his apologies when he butchered numerous attempts at learning to skin their dinner, or when he’d return from picking pockets with nothing more than a few cents to show for it - and now they were out there, risking their necks to keep the bounty hunters and their guns away from Arthur.

And if they got hurt, if they – died? – because of Arthur? Well, that would just be the nail in the coffin for him – alone again in this dark world, after being shown so much light. All because of his own damn stupidity, his own damn uselessness, and he could hear his daddy’s shouting in his head, could feel his raging on his skin, useless, useless, useless, useless!

The guilt and worry ate at him, and when Arthur blinked away tears, the realisation that he’d got so stuck in his own mind that he’d stopped paying attention to the noises outside hit the boy, only adding to his remorse.

He looked to the brown moth stubbornly knocking into the glass of his lamp. It didn’t even understand the thing it kept bumping against was the thing that was keeping it alive.

He looked back down at his revolver. He knew he’d been told to stay in the tent. Arthur had never been an obedient boy.

Chapter Text

Everything was sort of a blur for a few seconds, yet the world seemed to move in slow-motion. Hosea had drawn his revolver, a growl of pure rage escaping his lips, had fired directly at Brooke – but his mare had whinnied and reared, caught by surprise along with the bounty hunters, and he missed his shot by a whisker. Dutch took only a second longer than his partner to react, squeezing his own trigger and taking down a couple of the men who now all pulled their own firearms on the two of them as well, right before leaping off his saddle and joining Hosea behind the big boulder he’d luckily found quick cover behind.

Their horses fleeing from the commotion, Dutch pressed his back against the hard rock and his left shoulder to Hosea’s right one, bullets whizzing close past their heads.

“I think I put down one of the bastards.” Hosea grumbled while reloading his gun.

“I got two.” Dutch answered him, bracing himself to take another shot, then poking his head out and gunning down another thug, bullet right through the brain. As he ducked back behind the boulder again for shelter from the onslaught of bullets, he saw Hosea firing a couple shots of his own from the opposite side of the rock, then letting himself slump back against Dutch’s side. He could hear an aborted scream of agony from the other side of the stone, followed by the thump of another body hitting the dirt, along with a string of curses drifting over loud enough for them to recognise the voice as McCowell’s.

“That cocksucker’s still breathing.” Hosea grunted.

“Not for long.” said Dutch, pushing himself off the boulder again, his gaze raking over the darkened woodland for the next target to put in his scope. When he caught a glimpse of McCowell, directly across his and Hosea’s position and levelling his own firearm at him from behind the cover of a wide tree, Dutch huddled back against Hosea; the shot missed him by a hair’s breadth, yet he couldn’t help the smile of relief slowly quirking up his lips.

He looked to Hosea. “Think we picked them all off. McCowell’s the only one standing.”

“You sure?” beyond the anxiety and steeled nerves written in his blonde’s frowning countenance, Dutch could detect an edge of hopeful, tentative triumph to his voice, the exact same feeling he himself was experiencing.

“Pretty sure. Ain’t nobody else but him behind that big tree over there.” Dutch replied.

They quietened down, listening out for the bounty hunter, and as if to confirm their hypothesis, all gunfire had ceased ringing out in favour of the familiar noise of frantic reloading. No other person covering for the man in that compromised position.

Dutch and Hosea looked at each other. Though the younger man had always prided himself on being able to read his partner like a book, recently he’d become more likely to find a mirror of his own emotions, his own dreams and convictions and fears, reflected in that masterfully chiselled face; he knew, somehow, without a shadow of a doubt, that Hosea’s mind was running ahead of him too, exactly for the same place as his – back around their campfire, this whole mess behind them, holding each other close, and Arthur closer still. So very soon, they’d have their kid back under the safety of their watch, and maybe then the taut knots in Dutch’s chest would loosen enough for him to breathe properly again.

Hosea nodded firmly at him, before straightening up, a ghost of a smile still on his lips as he called out, “McCowell! It’s over! Come on out now!”

They heard some more muttered cursing, a noise akin to a chuckle, even more of the clunky metallic sounds of a weapon being handled; – had the prick jammed his gun or something? Were they really about to get that lucky? – still, no response came from the sole remaining hitman, so Dutch shouted out for him too.

“Come on out with your hands up and this ain’t gotta end so badly for you!” Even as he said it, Dutch knew he couldn’t promise himself any kind of merciful conclusion to this whole bloody affair. Sure, he and Hosea weren’t the type of men to point blank execute someone waving the white flag, and if this were at some other earlier juncture, they might have let the offender scamper away with his tail between his legs.

This weren’t like any of those previous times, though. No, this time around it weren’t just him and Hosea getting threatened – it was Arthur who this man had so callously deemed too unimportant, too hopeless, to afford him a single shred of compassion, and Dutch could not – did not want to – let this man who’d threatened a child, his child, run free.

Not to mention how the son of the bitch had just stood there, placid and amenable, as that Brooke had suggested they “find another use” for the boy. Dutch’s skin crawled at the memory, and he had to make a conscious effort to stop his hands shaking.

He almost wished the fool would be dumb enough to not surrender, so he could finish him without the pretence of a choice that he’d already unequivocally decided on.

“We ain’t patient folk!” Hosea yelled when still no answer came from the tree McCowell was shielding himself behind. Dutch tapped his shoulder and beckoned him to get up, rising to his feet as well and gesturing with his hands for Hosea to leave their cover from the right side of the boulder, while he’d advance from the left, so they could close in on McCowell and trap him on both flanks.

Beautifully proficient as ever, Hosea immediately understood Dutch’s wild gesticulation – but no sooner had they left the safety of their cover, now a few paces between each of them and the sturdy rock, than they heard the unmistakable click of a gun being cocked.

Huh, thought Dutch, Maybe didn’t jam it after all.

Looking over to Hosea to confirm he’d heard the same sound, Dutch straightened his back; there was still some distance between them and McCowell, and the fact of the matter was they had the upper hand. Not only were the odds two-to-one in their favour, they’d just proved how little they needed the numerical superiority in the first place. This tawdry bounty hunter didn’t stand a chance.

“You’re outnumbered, McCowell. Kick that weapon over and just give it up, friend.” Dutch allowed his voice to take on its most presumptuous tone.

To his surprise, all he received in return was a dry laugh from the man hiding just a small step away from the crosshairs of his revolver.

From the corner of his eye, Dutch could see Hosea visibly bristling, and then he heard the man’s voice raising with some unease, almost imperceptibly to anyone listening – anyone but Dutch, that is. “Somethin’ funny, partner?”

And whenever Dutch detected nervousness in Hosea, Dutch grew nervous himself – a fact which was not at all helped by another derisive laugh coming from the fool still hiding on the other side of the wide sycamore trunk.

“Sorry,… ain’t nothing really…” McCowell said, and the humorous ring of his voice, the kind of cheery, huffing arrogance with which he spoke still weren’t making any sense. “Just… I guess I just don’t really get why you two’s hanging around here so long… You could’ve already made it back by now.”

Dutch threw a quick look to Hosea, the confusion he found on that beloved face emulating the one he felt inside. He knew the older man was as impatient as he was to return home to Arthur, and that anticipation could no longer be kept out of the usually slick, soft-spoken storyteller’s tone. “The hell is you talking about, McCowell?”

“Oh, come, now…” the gunman continued, and he still sounded far too full of himself for a man with only a tree between himself and the six-round cylinders of two revolvers, and Dutch’s hold tightened around the grip of his gun. “You didn’t think we really ain’t found your little spot, did ya? Campfire smoke was guiding us all through the night… We just heard you moving to cut us off and decided to take the bait.”

“Stroke of genius.” Deadpanned Dutch, letting his eyes rove over the dead bodies strewn around them in the glade with contempt, even though he knew McCowell couldn’t see him.

“Yeah, bet you’re rethinking your little strategy now…” Hosea added. “Ain’t really matter no more whatever you think you found, McCowell. It’s over.”

Dutch could hear the bounty hunter shifting on his feet, and just as he was preparing himself to take his shot the moment that son of a bitch showed himself, McCowell spoke up again.

“You really think I’m outnumbered?” The man sneered. “I had six men with me.”

Dutch looked between Hosea and the tree trunk behind which the voice was coming from, expecting his partner to have the same dumbfounded look on his face he himself was wearing, because What's this guy trying to get at?!

But Hosea wasn’t looking at him. Hosea was looking around them, down at the ground, at the leaf-covered peat, at the corpses blighting the nighttime landscape. He looked like he was counting them.

And so, Dutch counted them too. One, two, three, four, five. He looked back up at Hosea. Tremulous moonlight shimmered in his eyes as he uttered a single word. “Brooke.”

They heard another cackle from McCowell, and they both turned their attentions back to him. “Took y’all long enough, huh?” He called back mockingly.

“Where’s Brooke, McCowell!?” Dutch shouted, the sound thunderous, even as he felt his throat constrict and fear lodge itself deep in his lungs.

“You’re still wasting yer time here with me?” The thug kept on laughing and laughing as though Dutch and Hosea’s whole world wasn’t being turned upside down on its axis, as though he was the one at an advantage despite the only thing preventing him from staring down the barrels of both Dutch and Hosea’s weapons being a solid wood trunk, as though getting five of his men killed wasn’t that much of a hitch in his plan now that he’d jabbed at their potential Achilles’ heel and immediately struck gold. “Now, don’t go tellin’ me you’re really that eager to ditch your little companion?”

He was howling with laughter, and Dutch wanted to turn around and run, wanted to shoot that tree down and watch it crush McCowell’s bones and splatter his insides over the already soiled greenery, but it was all he could do to look at Hosea, recognize in his eyes and stunned features the same sickened turmoil he felt scorching his gut, and follow his partner’s action in bringing his fingers to his lips.

They whistled for their horses – and that seemed to finally shut McCowell up – and drew backwards slowly as they listened for the stalwart creatures’ hooves pounding the ground towards where they’d shooed them from just minutes ago, taking care to never turn their backs on the sycamore that hid the bounty hunter, their revolvers still trained in that direction.

Dutch knew that Hosea and he understood each other perfectly – that it wasn’t worth it risking either one of them getting injured if they tried to round on McCowell right now and finish him off, not when a bigger threat posed itself against a much smaller target back at camp – and so they both mounted up, keeping their movements slow and careful so as to not give their adversary any chances should he choose try anything, even as Dutch could feel every fibre in his body urging him to hurry the hell up and get to Arthur now.

They burst into a gallop as soon as they got on the horses, McCowell’s scorning laughter returning as soon as he realised they’d presumably turned their backs to finally ride away, and soon joined by his shotgun’s cracking as it pierced the night air, and rode hard back home, back to Arthur.

“Fuck, fuck!” Hosea was cursing as they put more and more distance between themselves and the gory scene of the shootout. “How could we not have seen him leavin’!? When the fuck did he even get away!?”

“I never saw him get off his horse.” Dutch said, and it was difficult to swallow past the dread closing up his throat. “He might’a took off before even doing any shootin’ himself.”

“Shit.” Hosea swore again, and it really wasn’t that usual for Dutch to hear his partner running his mouth like a sailor, but given the circumstances, he guessed Hosea was feeling as horrifically helpless as he was – and Dutch did not enjoy feeling out of control. “If he laid a finger on him, I swear to God Almighty,-”

“Hosea!” Dutch’s voice broke, and Hosea’s own words seemed to die in his throat – the thought too terrible, too wicked to even be spoken aloud. “Please.”

Their Arthur, so slow to trust and so quick to scare, still so scrawny for his age but putting on some meat on his hollow cheeks ever so steadily, – the same cheeks that would grow fuller and pink when he graced them with a shy, bashful smile at the simplest praise – with hands that were marred with scars and blemishes which looked so wrong on such young skin, yet so achingly gentle in brushing through the horses’ manes, so lovingly patient in how they’d reached out to a dingy alley cat’s wet nose a few weeks prior, so innocently pure as they draw the charcoal lines of a small, lone fawn on the back of some old newspaper.

Their Arthur, scared and alone, who might have been anxiously expecting his and Hosea’s arrival when he was found by a different man, a stranger with a weapon more powerful than his, a bastard with over a foot on him who could be holding him down at this very moment, and he and Hosea had sworn to themselves, to each other, that whatever the kid had gone through, no one would ever harm him again, and now, now he may have already been taken away, he may have tried to fight and failed and-

The stallion reared at the force with which Dutch must have been digging his stirrups into his sides, but he managed to hold onto the reins long enough for the animal’s front hooves to settle on the ground again, and that’s when he noticed they’d made it back to camp. Hosea’s mare had stopped at the perimeter of the site, and it seemed that had been indication enough for Dutch’s horse to do the same.

He hurried in dismounting after Hosea, who was a few feet ahead of him and looking around for Arthur, or Brooke, and Dutch joined him.

At first sight, no one was at camp. Dutch and Hosea met each other’s eyes and, keeping a lookout for what the shrubs and conifers surrounding them might conceal, their gazes jerking from one shadow to the other, slowly advanced inwards.

The campfire, where just mere hours ago the three of them had sat around eating some flaky fish, talking and laughing, – oh, the things Dutch would do to still be in that moment, with his belly full and next to the two people he loved best in this world – was still alive, as though this whole predicament hadn’t been its damn fault in the first place; the embers remained glowing, almost taunting them.

They kept close to the ground, treading quietly as they could until they were a stone’s throw away from the fire. They stopped, crouched by one another, and looked around – yet still nothing could be seen or even heard, safe for an owl hooting a mating call in the distance.

“You think he’s still in his tent?” The older of the two cowboys asked, and when Dutch looked down at him, the turbulent blue of his eyes reminded him of Arthur’s (he had once joked fondly, if with a hint of jealousy, about the similarity, of how easily Arthur could pass for Hosea’s kid). He thought of his petrified stare and how he’d attempted to cover it with a scowl on that day they’d first brought him home with them. Images of Arthur trying to put up that same brave front as Brooke came for him ran through his brain, and he fought them out even as he wondered if he’d ever see those eyes, the same bright colour as summer sky, twinkling next to Hosea’s ever again.

“What if he took him?” He breathed, desperation causing his heart to palpitate unsteadily. “What if he got here, and got him, and ran off?”

“Dutch– Stop. Stop. Breathe.” Hosea gripped his forearms in an attempt to ground him, but the fear was all too palpable in his tone as well, the usually steely steadiness of his hands wavering ever so slightly. “Just- Let’s just look in his tent. Let’s look in the tent, alright? Maybe Brooke ain’t found his way back here. Maybe he- I dunno, let’s just go look, okay?”

Dutch nodded, and as they crept towards the canvas, he found himself clinging to the hope that the bounty hunter had indeed got lost on his way to the camp, that they’d reach out into Arthur’s tent and find him there, right where they’d left him, unscathed and untouched.

They peered inside. The oil lamp they’d given Arthur to keep in his tent still burned low in one corner. Arthur himself was nowhere to be found.

And neither was his cattleman.

They pulled back from the tent, and Dutch opened his mouth to ask Hosea if he’d thought of looking for Boadicea when they’d scuffled into camp, - because it was only now occurring to him that they should have looked for her - when he heard shuffling coming from the treeline.

He barely had a moment to look towards the sound before Hosea was throwing himself over him, yelling something unintelligible, and as they hurtled towards the dirt, the crackle of gunfire hit his ears.

Chapter Text

Just a few hours ago, he’d fallen asleep in the arms of his beloved, a plan to take his kid fishing the next day on his mind and a dull ache from sitting in a saddle all day long in the small of his back.

At this moment, he and Dutch were face-down on the dirt, hands over their heads and bullets flying right above. They hid behind the long, weathered down log by their campfire they’d been sat on just yesterday evening, happily stuffing their mouths with some freshly-caught trout.

When Hosea had noticed the figure moving by the shrubs, it was only because the moonlight had glinted off of the guns it was holding, and before he knew it, he’d thrown himself down and pulled Dutch to the ground with him – luckily, miraculously, landing just by the tree trunk that was currently stopping any bullets from boring numerous holes into their skulls.

Hosea tried to reach for his firearm, hesitatingly, and he could feel Dutch moving next to him, knew he was attempting to grasp his own revolver – but their range of movement was rather limited in the awkward position they found themselves in, and so there wasn’t much they could do as long as the shells were raining down on them this hard.

And then suddenly, a shout rang out over the gunfire, and the shooting ceased. It took Hosea a second to discern that the word that’d been yelled out was “Stop!”, but he immediately recognised the voice.

He and Dutch looked to the right, to where their apparent saviour had come from, and were met by a nasty smirk on a scarred face and McCowell’s shotgun aimed down at them.

He was back on his horse, but his satisfied grin only remained in place for a second or two as he seemed to be catching his breath; he then turned his stare onwards, towards the assailant that had been so intent on blowing their brains out just a minute ago - and now that Hosea knew that hadn’t been McCowell, it really wasn’t much of a surprise to hear him call out to the treeline– “Brooke! Ya damn fool, the hell ye think you doin’?!”

“What am I doin’? I’m doin’ what I been told to do to get paid, the hell is you doin’?” Hosea heard the grimy voice shout back, and considered for a moment using the lively discussion as his opportunity to find some sort of escape route out of this situation – but it only took one quick look up at the barrel of McCowell’s weapon for the bounty hunter’s eyes to be trained back on him, even as he answered his associate:

“You kill ‘em, they pay us less, idiot!” He rearranged his grip on the shotgun so as to keep Hosea and Dutch staring up its barrel while he carefully dismounted his steed, his attention turning back to the men laid down on the dirt. “Gentlemen, please do keep those hands over your heads, just like that, face down on the ground, if you would be so kind.”

Hosea obeyed but met Dutch’s eyes, saw him do the same, recognised in the other’s face the same helplessness he was feeling taking over his chest, constricting his lungs, and the harder it got to breathe, the harder it got to think, and if he and Dutch could only have a minute to think, to figure out a way to crawl out of the hole they’d got themselves trapped in, if they could only get to Arthur, wherever he might be, and-

And then Hosea put a stop to his own rampant thoughts and tuned back into the conversation that had resumed between Brooke and McCowell, because they had apparently remembered Arthur as well.

“ –hell’s the kid, anyway?” McCowell snapped at Brooke, his gaze flicking between his henchman and the two outlaws he had his shotgun pointed at.

“Hell if I know.” Brooke shrugged. “Place was empty when I got here. He weren’t in any of them tents so I been lookin’ ‘round these trees, and then I saw these two showed up.”

Hosea raised his head and found Dutch looking back at him, his lips slightly parted. A swift sparkle of hope passed through his eyes. Hosea felt as if he could read his mind, though it was more likely they simply had the same sole thought ringing out in both of their brains.

Brooke didn’t catch Arthur.

McCowell was still talking.

“-ain’t matter now. They weren’t gonna pay us for the brat anyway.” He smirked down at Hosea and Dutch, his yellowed teeth showing. “Shame we didn’t get to meet yer little friend, though.”

Brooke laughed like that had been some very funny joke. Hosea could hear him drawing closer, and when he looked up, he had holstered both his revolvers, and was lighting a cigarette. “You know,” he said, smoke escaping through his nostrils and drifting up in the air as he fixed Hosea and Dutch with an amused stare “when I got here and I didn’t find yer pretty boy, I thought my friend’s whole plan here might’a gone to shit.” He chuckled and McCowell grunted.

“Unlike you two, I knew who we were up against.” McCowell spoke, bringing Hosea’s attention back to him. “Stories of all the trouble you been causin’ travel fast and wild all the way back East, ya know. I knew things could go south quite quick. So when we heard you riding away from yer camp to cut us off elsewhere, I told my associate here to get ready – either you’d show up with a kid at your side, or you’d’ve left him back here. Whichever way it went down, he’d be makin’ you easier targets.” He chuckled quietly. Hosea couldn’t tell if the ground was vibrating beneath him, or if it was Dutch who was shaking.

Brooke blew some more smoke from his splintered lips. “When we saw just the two of yous ridin’ in for us, we knew it must’a been no accident that you was tryin’ to ride far from yer campsite here. So we thought – if things go south, one of us just needs to go for the camp, grab the boy, get the upper hand again. And look at that! No kid in sight and we still got you fools!”

Both bounty hunters chuckled at that, and Hosea could see Brooke had produced some rope from God knows where, was slowly untying the lasso it was coiled into. It really was starting to feel like their chances of making it out of this one sooner rather than later were slimming by the second, and Hosea’s thoughts once again raced back to Arthur – alone and scared wherever he may be in this wilderness, with no way of knowing he and Dutch were both still breathing, so incessantly worried about him; and he was a survivor, that he was, but he was still only a child (as much as he liked to counter that fact), and how long would he be able to fend for himself out here, in the middle of bumfuck nowhere?

It wouldn’t be the first time Dutch and himself had broken themselves out of a jail cell, – though this time around, it was sounding like the prices on their heads were a little too high for them to be passed over to the hands of security lax enough to allow them to leave the sheriff naked and hogtied on their way out – but in the meantime, they wouldn’t be able to look after Arthur, to make sure no other law enforcers decided to come back to this spot on a whim, just to arrest a kid – or worse. And if he elected to move away from here, instead, and got himself lost? Hosea had no way of reassuring himself he and Dutch would be able to find him at all then, and the thought made his stomach turn.

“Ya know, it’s funny, really…” McCowell addressed them again. “Maybe I could’a not risked sending Mr. Brooke back here, I mean, I started doubting the stories of you ridin’ ‘round with some kid… But then you just showed your hand so quickly, huh?” He was looking down at Dutch mockingly, the barrel of his shotgun inching closer to his head, – and Hosea saw a sickening look in the man’s dark eyes, knew he was taking some sort of twisted pleasure out of goading them like this – and when Dutch remained deceptively still, he wound his leg back and landed a kick to his ribs.

Dutch groaned in pain, and before he knew what he was doing, Hosea felt himself lower his hands and raise his head, and McCowell’s aim sharply turned to him, and–

And then a shot rang out through the night air, and McCowell brusquely keeled over with a scream of agony, his hands dropping the firearm they were holding in favour of clutching his leg. Hosea barely took a second to register the blood steadily gushing from the man’s calf – he whipped his head around, towards the treeline whence the gunshot had come and from where Brooke had sneaked up on them just some minutes before.

And, goddammit, there he was.

Arthur.

~

Dutch was still wheezing from McCowell’s boot making contact with his side when he heard the bang. From then on, it all felt like it was happening both at the pace of a funeral march and in a one thousandth of a second-long rush of colours and sounds.

Before McCowell had hit the ground, Dutch’d already turned his head over to Brooke, who had spun on his heel in shock and quickly reached for his revolvers, his attention now on the small figure standing a few feet behind and to his side – an old cattleman revolver in his hand, barrel still smoking.

Dutch got to his feet in a flash, and before the bounty hunter could level either of his guns at Arthur’s head, a bullet pierced his skull from behind – and then Stan Brooke was nothing more than the latest soul Dutch van der Linde had laid to rest in this wasteland of a country.

He heard Hosea finish the job to his side, McCowell’s frantic screaming and unintelligible words ceasing with the sound of another gunshot that was all but entirely drowned out to Dutch’s ears. All his senses honed in on the scrawny teenager who, even from this distance, looked like he was shaking worse than a leaf.

Dutch only had eyes for Arthur then, but felt his hand fly out of its own accord to tightly grip onto Hosea’s wrist; and then they were running, the crushing of leaves under their feet and their ragged breaths a symphonic crescendo towards the last note, the last moment that mattered – and that, too many times in a single night, had begun to feel so sickeningly out of reach.

Dutch threw himself on his knees in front of Arthur, bringing Hosea down with him. As they began to run their hands over the slight, trembling body, looking for any sign of injury or harm, a tiny voice in the back of his head seemed to be trying to get his attention, to remind him that neither he nor Hosea had made such sudden or swift movements towards Arthur since the very first days they’d had him along with them - back when it took the boy flinching away from them a couple times and raising his arms over his head when they so much as looked in his direction too quickly, for them to realise they had to keep a careful distance in order for the kid to even breathe properly.

Right at that moment, though, Dutch couldn’t listen to that voice – couldn’t listen to anything but the frenzied chorus of “sorry”s and fearful pleas that belonged anywhere but falling from Arthur’s lips; and so, there was nothing he could do to stop himself from grasping the kid’s shoulders and pulling him into his and Hosea’s hold.

The child went stiff in their arms, but before Dutch could martyrise himself for distressing him further, he felt the boy begin to relax ever so slightly into the embrace. Arthur’s chest was heaving, his breathing irregular, and Dutch would’ve thought he was crying, were it not for the fact that he wasn’t making a sound.

“It’s alright, Arthur. You’re alright. You’re okay.” Hosea was whispering into the tousled, blondish hair. Dutch hadn’t even noticed his own fingers gently carding through it. “It’s over now, son.”

Chapter Text

Arthur wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, huddled close together on the ground. He hadn’t realised how much his breathing had picked up until he felt it slow down with every gentle stroke of Dutch’s fingers over his scalp, Hosea’s warm hand a safe presence on his back, rubbing in circular motions. It might have been hours, or only a couple minutes. Arthur didn’t want to move.

A rustling sound from the shrubs startled all three. Arthur felt arms tighten around him before looking up at a very familiar face.

“Oh!... It’s just Bo.” Dutch said with a sigh of relief.

And just like that, Arthur felt the bubble of soothing quietude he’d just been enveloped in burst around him. It all came rushing back to him at once: the weight of his cattleman in his hand (which he was only now noticing he’d dropped on the floor at his feet), how he’d scratched his arm climbing a small tree to hide at the top of when he saw someone ransacking the camp for something, the deafening noise of bullets being fired one after the other, the awful ruckus those strange men had made, laughing and screaming and talking cruelly to Dutch and Hosea, who’d just laid prone on the dirt with a shotgun pointed at their faces…

“Arthur?”

He was reeled back to the present when they called his name. Dutch and Hosea were both looking at him, concern etched onto their faces, and suddenly Arthur no longer felt so comfortable standing so close to them. He took a small step back.

Bo was looking at him, but even the familiar sight of her didn’t ease the tight coil of guilt in his gut.

“I didn’t know where you was at,” Arthur spoke, and his voice sounded distant to his own ears. “So I got on Bo and I was gonna go and look for you, but then I heard somethin’, and I thought you got back, so I stopped, but then it was that man…” he trailed off and his eyes flickered over to the lifeless body a few feet away from them; blonde matted hair covered the bounty hunter’s eyes, and Arthur noticed the pool of blood spreading under his head.

Dutch craned his neck to look in the direction of the corpse too, and then his eyes met Hosea’s. The two of them nodded, and Dutch slowly stood up from where he was crouching. “I’m gonna… clean up around here. Back in a jiff.”

He turned on his heel and walked towards the blonde man’s dead body. The blood was pooling fast beneath the stiff figure. He’d never seen a dead person this up close before, Arthur realised. Except for his pa. But there was no noose around this man’s neck, and there hadn’t been blood like this when the hanging judge had allowed him to come near the gallows after his father’s neck had snapped and his body had been lowered and the small crowd watching had started to scatter. Arthur remembered touching his fingertips to his pa’s skin. It'd still been warm. He remembered feeling wrong inside when a hand didn’t shoot out to slap him silly. He wondered if the blonde man’s corpse was still warm, too. Arthur’s stomach felt sour.

His eyes were glued onto Dutch’s hands as they reached down to pick up the body, when he suddenly felt another pair of them cupping his face. Hosea forced him to look him in the eyes.

“Hey, hey. Look at me, Arthur.” Arthur couldn’t have looked any other way had he wanted to; Hosea’s hands held his neck in place. He was grateful for it. It felt as though he’d watched that dead man for hours.

Hosea’s hands slowly lowered from his face, and Arthur suddenly felt exposed. Vulnerable. Hosea had a way of stripping him of any fortitude of mind with only a look, and Arthur hated it.

To his horror, Arthur felt his throat tighten. He looked down and noticed his hands were shaking. He wasn’t sure what the hell was wrong with him, but he knew he needed to push it down and make things right, and quick.

“Arthur? Y’alright?” came Hosea’s voice.

“Fine” he mumbled, still looking down at his feet.

“You sure? You’re shaking…” Hosea lifts up his right hand, touches it to Arthur’s trembling arm, and Arthur should’ve known it probably wasn’t to hurt him that bad, at least not right away, but he couldn’t help it – he flinched.

“Arthur…?”

He was holding his breath. His eyes were squeezed shut, but when the pain never came and he just felt Hosea’s hand drop away from him, he cautiously cracked them open.

His eyes met the older man’s, and maybe it was the way his heart had started painfully banging against his ribcage again, or the fact that the air seemed scarcer in his lungs with every passing second, but Arthur could not read the expression on Hosea’s face for the life of him, and that just made it even harder to breathe.

But he knew he had to at least try to make it right, to apologise, to make it up to Dutch and Hosea, and before he knew it, words came tumbling out his mouth, pathetically shaky, drawn forth by that urge he’d been carrying since he was born – to prove himself good enough, even though he knew he was not.

“I –, I’m sorry, I’m-…you…’m sorry, I just… I swear, I was already on Bo and I was comin’ to find you, I swear it, but then I heard noises back in camp and I was dumb and I thought it was you and Dutch, but when I saw that man in camp and not you I-, I didn’t know what to do, ‘m sorry, I just ran and hid in a tree ‘cause I thought he seen me, but he didn’t come after me, so I was trying to climb down without makin’ any noise to go after you, but– but then I had to climb back up again ‘cause he went into the woods and he was right under me, but he ain’t seen me then neither, because then you two was back and the man was shootin’ at you and I- ”

“Arthur.” Hosea’s voice was quiet, but Arthur felt it like a firm grip around his rapidly spiralling stream of consciousness. He immediately clamped his mouth shut.

Hosea’s eyes narrowed in on him. “Arthur, kid, calm down, you’re alright, we’re all fine.” He had his hands held up in front of him, just hovering in the air, as though he was stopping himself from reaching out towards the kid – and Arthur felt his breathing quicken even worse, the reassuring words not registering with the part of his brain that was screaming at him to just stop being such a wimp and take it!

“I’m- I’m sorry ‘sea, ‘m sorry, ‘was all my fault, I ain’t-“

“What the hell have you got to be sorry for, Arthur?” Hosea’s voice sounded genuinely confused, which got Arthur to snap his eyes back to him. He looked at him dumbly for a minute until he realised Hosea probably wanted to hear him admit exactly how and why he screwed up so badly. His own father had often demanded explanations from him (sometimes for stuff he hadn’t even done), only to punch his idiot son in the face when he couldn’t even struggle to the end of a sentence.

Just then, Dutch approached them from behind Hosea. The older man turned his head towards his companion, who was dusting his hands off, one against the other. “Alright, all done… I hitched up Bo by the front but I think McCowell’s horse must’a run off…”

Hosea hummed. “Brooke’s as well, I reckon.”

Arthur watched Dutch crouch back down next to Hosea; he looked between him and Arthur, and when his dark eyes turned to him, the boy found he’d lost his voice again.

“What’s goin’ on?” Dutch asked.

He was once again under the gaze of the two outlaws, squirming and unable to find the words to properly apologise for all this trouble he’d embroiled them in.

“I’m – I’m sorry, sir, ‘m sorry, I- I know I fucked up, I’m sorry, it was all my fault, I shouldn’t have-  I mean, I know I should’ve gone and found you sooner, and I’m sorry it took me so long to shoot, I wasn’t-”

“Wait, Arthur. Stop.” Dutch interrupted, and Arthur felt icy fear grip his heart. Like it hadn’t been enough to let Dutch and Hosea down like that, now he couldn’t even talk normal, couldn’t even compose himself and now the two men who’d offered him more than he’d ever dared hope for in this lifetime would finally see how truly weak he was, how useless, how…

Arthur felt a wave of nausea rise within himself as he realised he’d probably be lucky to get out of this with only a sound slap to his face, or a bruise on his arm. After all, Dutch and Hosea had been unreasonably kind up to this point, but there had to be only so much they could tolerate. Arthur was pretty sure he’d surpassed their limit, this time.

Still, he was afraid. He knew he deserved it, and he’d taken enough thrashings in his days to be used to it by now, but he couldn’t help it, he was scared they’d beat him – or worse, leave him.

“Arthur.” Dutch spoke again, and for all the upsetting possibilities of what the man would say next running through his mind, Arthur couldn’t have seen this one coming. “You ain’t done nothing wrong son. Nothin’.”

“But…” the teen’s voice wavered. “What? They… but they found us here… ’s my fault they-”

“None of this was your fault, my boy, nothin’. You ain’t got nothing to be sorry for.” Dutch spoke solemnly, looking deep into the kid’s eyes.

Arthur’s head was reeling, scrambling to understand what kind of trick they were trying to pull on him, the nervous disorientation he felt doing nothing to aid his already hysterical state of mind.

Hosea shifted, resting one knee on the ground as he addressed him. “Arthur, we’re the ones who got to be sorry. I’m sorry we put you through all this, we didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

“I- What, I’m not– I wasn’t scared.” The boy choked out.

A corner of Dutch’s lips quirked up in a small, fleeting smile. “It’s alright to be scared, son.”

“We sure were scared tonight. ‘Specially when we couldn’t find you.” Hosea tacked on.

Suddenly, every other thought process halted in his brain, and incredulity took over. “You were?” Arthur’s voice was a whisper. The emotion he saw in Hosea’s eyes, clear and crisp in the moonlight, barely allowed him to get the words out at all.

To his surprise, Hosea huffed an unbelieving laugh, as though Arthur had said something to slight him. “Of course we were! When we first saw those men in the woods and found out they knew you were with us? When we realised one of those bastards had gone after you? And when we got here to camp and we couldn’t find you? We were scared shitless, kid!”

“We wouldn’t know what to do without you, Arthur.” Dutch said, and the boy felt that booming voice fill his chest with warmth.

Arthur was speechless. Here these two men stood, crouched down next to him with earnest fondness on their faces, and none of it was making any sense to the boy.

“You- I… Why aren’t you angry?” He managed to squeak out, perplexity taking over all his apprehension.

Dutch frowned, turned to Hosea, and the two simply blinked at one another.

 “Angry?” he asked, confusion evident in his baritone voice. “What… Angry at you?”

“Yes!” Arthur nearly shouted, startling both Dutch and Hosea; he knew it wasn’t a smart move on his part to be raising his voice at them, but he just did not understand, and that was scaring him more than anything. “Ain’t you angry? Why are you not yellin’ at me? Don’t you wanna beat me or something?”

Both Dutch and Hosea reacted to that as if Arthur had slapped them.

“Beat you?!” Dutch spluttered, his moustache twitching. “You think we would beat you?!”

Arthur felt his brows knit together. “…You ain’t?”

“No!” Dutch and Hosea shouted in unison, as though the boy had just suggested they move to Europe and become serious businessmen or something equally deranged.

“But…but I was- was the one who got us into this mess in the first place, ‘cause you stopped ridin’ forward on my account to set up camp, and then-” Arthur attempted and failed to take a deep breath; try as he might, he could not help stumbling all over his own words. “Then- just now, I… I couldn’t even pull the hammer back in time to shoot the man again, and then when the other one turned to– to fire at me, I, I was stupid, I didn’t move at all and you had to save me or he was gonna shoot me and–”

“He weren’t ever gonna shoot you, Arthur.” Dutch declared, putting a stop to his hopeless rant. “He was never gonna shoot you.” The outlaw spoke with such fury in his eyes that it shut Arthur right up.

“We wasn’t ever gonna let somebody hurt you.” Hosea’s soft, calm tone added – but it was fraught with something else: something desperate, something like grief, and Arthur deeply wished he could make it go away. “And we ain’t never gonna hurt you, Arthur. Never.”

Once more, Arthur found himself speechless at this outlaw couple. He felt like he was outside his own body, felt as though this conversation was all happening to some other boy, some place else – because there weren’t no way it was really happening to him.

His mind was still straining to catch up when Dutch began talking again. “And even if we were seething, smoke-coming-out-of-our ears mad, we still wouldn’t hit you, Arthur.”

Hosea and Dutch, though still at arm’s length, were both looking intently at him now, as though trying to push all of their words through Arthur’s skin and into his very being with the sheer force of the conviction behind their eyes.

Arthur had known a lot of people in his life. No man ever did anything for anyone and wanted nothing in return. He’d learned not to trust the seemingly freely given kindness of strangers who passed him on the streets. His own pa had taught him the value of pulling his weight, had often reminded him of the consequences of failing to do so. He knew from experience that when you fucked up, you got punished.

But Dutch and Hosea – Arthur had never known anyone like them. They’d said all that like it was the simplest thing in the world, like he should have already expected them to say it, like these promises they were vowing to him weren’t breaking through his ribcage and gripping his bleeding heart in an unyielding grasp.

Suddenly, the boy noticed Hosea’s hand drifting ever so slowly towards his face. He didn’t manage to suppress a flinch when it made contact (and felt his heart clench even tighter in his chest when he saw Hosea’s expression fall), but the man’s thumb simply stroked gently across his cheek. It came off glistening in the moonlight when he took his hand back.

That’s when Arthur felt it. He was crying.

Quickly coming back to himself, he scrubbed quickly at his eyes with dirty sleeves, even as he felt blood rise to his cheeks. Shame quickly joined the myriad of emotions bouncing around in his body as he finally looked back up, realising there’d be no way of hiding his tears from the two cowboys.

“Y’alright, son?” Dutch asked.

“Yeah.” Came Arthur’s raspy reply. He was never good at reading folks’ faces, but he was pretty sure they weren’t mocking him, nor shooting him any pitying looks, and for that he was grateful.

“Arthur.” Hosea spoke, and his tone seemed serious. Arthur straightened up immediately. “Do you remember us telling you to stay in the tent ‘till we got back?”

The teen furrowed his brows and thought back for a second before nodding. He remembered it vaguely.

Hosea sighed softly. “Well, it was a good thing in the end that you didn’t – I mean, we wasn’t expecting one of these fools to know about you and come looking, and it probably would’ve been more dangerous if you had stayed in the tent-”

“But the point is–” Dutch interrupted his companion. “while it worked out in this case – and it was our own damn fault we let that son of a bitch get away without noticing – it might’a not worked out so well in a different situation. You could’ve given away our spot if they hadn’t already found it, and they might’ve come after you-”

“No, I- I would’ve moved away from camp fast, trust me, I was already on my way to do it before I saw that man and hid in a tree- But I swear, I was already coming to help you, I– ”

“What- Arthur, no.” Hosea cut him off, shaking his head in confusion. “The whole reason we wanted you to stay here was to keep you safe, not so you would come to our rescue!”

Arthur’s face scrunched up in puzzlement. “But- You were gone for a while and I- I thought maybe you were in trouble and needed some help so-”

It was Dutch’s turn to cut in. “Arthur… Kid. We understand you wanted to help, and I’m sorry we left you on your own so long, but we wanted you here so we’d know you were safe – otherwise, we’d never be able to handle those bounty hunters.”

“And what you pulled back there? You’re a damn good shot kid.” Hosea praised, a small grin now gracing his lips, but before Arthur even had the chance to process the compliment, he added “But that could’ve gone very differently. You could’ve missed and hurt yourself, y’know? We know how hard you’ve been training, but we told you to only use the gun in practice or in an emergency.”

“But it was an emergency!” The boy exclaimed. “I- I saw the bounty man kick you-” he turned to Dutch “and, and that blonde man was pullin’ out a rope to arrest you, I saw it, they was gonna arrest you, or kill you, and I didn’t know what to do-”

“Son.” Hosea halted his rambling once more. “Dutch and I have escaped from this kind of thing before. We would’a been fine. But if you hadn’t made that shot? If Dutch hadn’t shot the bounty hunter next to you so quick? What would have happened then, hm? What in the hell would we do if we lost you, kid?”

“But…” Arthur felt his eyes well up once more, and really, he didn’t remember ever crying this much before. At least not since his ma had died. “But they was hurtin’ you! I- I couldn’t just let ‘em… You’ve been so nice to me, and I didn’t know where they was gonna take you, or if they was gonna shoot you or-”

“Arthur.” Dutch spoke, and when the boy looked into his dark eyes, he thought he might get consumed by the emotion shining through. “You’re our kid. We’re the ones supposed to protect you, not the other way around.”

Arthur opened his mouth, but all that came out was a choked sob. He felt so very tired. He could no longer find it in himself to care about the tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Why…” The boy felt his heart was spilling blood all over his insides. “Why are you so good to me?”

“Oh, Arthur.” Hosea moved first, throwing his arms around him like he’d been restraining himself from doing so this entire time. Arthur didn’t flinch – he could do nothing but collapse into the man’s chest, and he immediately felt Dutch’s arms wrap around his shoulders too.

“I- I’ve been nothin’ but a burden to you.” Arthur lamented brokenly into Hosea’s chest, feeling as though if he didn’t get all his remorse out now, he might implode. “I don’t even do nothin’ to earn my keep and you let me stay with you, and you look after me, and you buy me clothes and give me food like I did somethin’ to deserve any of that and-”

The boy feels Dutch pull away slightly, and then his calloused hands are clutching Arthur’s slender shoulders; there’s a promise with the weight of a lifetime behind Dutch’s eyes that even Arthur can’t deny.

“Arthur. Son.” Dutch drags in a shaky breath. “We’re family. You ain’t ever gotta do anything to “earn your keep” here. You ain’t gotta do anything to deserve being with us and having our protection.”

“You certainly ain’t gotta risk your life for us.” Hosea tacked on, and his voice was shaking a little, too.

Dutch squeezed the kid in his grasp gently. “You’re not burden, Arthur. You’re a treasure to us.”

Arthur’s heart was bursting. He was sure of it.

As he crashed into Dutch and Hosea’s arms, the boy could only think of how he’d never be able to stop himself risking his life to protect his family.

Chapter Text

“How’re you feelin’? You tired? Sleepy?”

Arthur looked up at Hosea, only half-heartedly trying to lift his head from the crook of Dutch’s neck.

“’m fine. Ain’t tired.”

He weren’t lying, not really. Up until a few minutes ago, he’d thought the adrenaline coursing through his veins could have him up for weeks. But now, within the arms of both Dutch and Hosea, he was starting to feel his heartbeat slow up a bit, and his eyelids growing heavier.

The boy was finding it awfully difficult to pry himself away from the arms of the two cowboys, if only because he knew whatever had possessed him to hug them – or whatever reason they’d had to embrace him back – wasn’t something he should be getting used to. His ma had passed away over a half decade ago – that was around the last time Arthur could remember being held like this – and now he was a whole thirteen years of age, far too grown to be acting this clingy.

Suddenly shaken by the thought that Dutch or Hosea were coming closer to the same conclusion with every passing second, Arthur slowly stepped away from the both of them.

Hosea eyed him suspiciously still. “You sure?”

Arthur looked down, biting his lip. Truth was, he didn’t much feel like he could get back to sleep right now, but he didn’t want to look needy either – at least no more than he already had. Besides, the men were definitely tired themselves, they deserved to get some rest, and here Arthur was bothering them still, holding them up again.

Dutch craned his head slightly to try and catch his eye. “You don’t gotta go back to bed if you don’t wanna.” he said.

“Yeah, we can just sit for a bit. Would you like that?” Hosea asked.

Probably too quickly, Arthur nodded his head. Dutch smiled down at him as both he and Hosea got up, the latter motioning for the boy to lead the way towards the smouldering remains of their campfire.

Arthur settled down on one of the tree logs – the one farthest away from the spot where Hosea and Dutch had been held at gunpoint on the ground. For a moment, Arthur almost felt himself getting stuck in those torturous moments, but then the two conmen sat down, one on either side of him, and the kid was pulled back to the present. Everything was fine. Hosea and Dutch were unharmed, and they’d taken care of those men, and Arthur didn’t need to be worrying no more, because Hosea and Dutch didn’t look worried no more.

That is, until Arthur absentmindedly rolled up his sleeves.

“What the hell!?” Dutch exclaimed, making the boy jump. He didn’t seem to notice though, his shock-stricken expression focused on Arthur’s forearm where it was laid atop his knee.

Oh. Right. He’d scratched up his arm against some bark when he’d climbed that tree trying to hide from the strange man who’d appeared at their camp. It ached slightly, but he was surprised to see that much blood smeared over the small cuts.

“Arthur, what happened?!” Hosea, who’d obviously followed Dutch’s gaze as well, slid from the log and kneeled down in front of Arthur, grasping his arm. Arthur cringed on instinct, but the man’s grip was gentle and careful in how he deliberately avoided touching the scraped area of the skin.

“I’m sorry.” Arthur said automatically.

Hosea’s eyes met his, his brows furrowed. “That’s alright, son. But why didn’t you tell us before?”

It was the boy’s turn to scrunch up his nose in confusion. “Tell you what?”

“That you were hurt.” Dutch replied, his voice taking a tone of incredulity, as though he couldn’t believe he had to spell this out for Arthur.

And that, Arthur didn’t have an answer to.

“I’m gonna go get some bandages.” Dutch broke the silence, standing up.

“Bring some whiskey, too.” Hosea called after him, receiving a gesture of acknowledgement from Dutch’s retreating form.

Hosea continued to study his injury, his hold on Arthur’s arm as tender as ever, and yet the boy still couldn’t help the feeling that he’d just mucked up this interaction, somehow.

When Dutch returned, he handed Hosea the whiskey, who set his eyes on Arthur’s again as he started uncapping the bottle. “This is probably gonna sting, kid, I’m sorry.”

Arthur only nodded his understanding, and hoped Dutch and Hosea didn’t notice him biting his lip only enough to stop himself making any sound.

As soon as the alcohol hit the cuts on his skin, Arthur felt another hand lay on his shoulder, larger than the one grasping his arm but just as soft; he stopped himself short of flinching back as he realised it was only Dutch, of course, and after a minute, he felt the stiffness he hadn’t even known he’d been holding his body with seep out of him. By the time Hosea started securing some bandages around his forearm, Arthur was almost fully slumped against Dutch’s chest.

“Arthur?” Dutch spoke up. Arthur could not decipher his tone.

The boy straightened his back as Hosea finished his work on his arm, and looked up at the dark-haired man, waiting for him to talk; but Dutch only stared back at him. Arthur’s mind was reeling, the familiar certainty that he’d done something wrong returning to him as strong as ever. Well, it probably weren’t too complex – he’d got a few nasty cuts on his arm because he hadn’t been careful enough, and what with Dutch and Hosea being so unbelievably generous, they’d felt obligated to waste their supplies on treating his injury. It really wasn’t fair to them, that they had to pay the price for Arthur’s own idiot doings.

And so, he decided to beat Dutch to the draw just as the man had opened his mouth to speak.

“I’m sorry.” Arthur started. “Sorry, I didn’t mean- I’m sorry you had to waste your stuff on me…” At the way Dutch’s features morphed into disbelief, the boy realised how ungrateful he was likely coming across, and hurried to fix it. “I mean, thank you! Thank you for that, you didn’t have to at all, so thank you, but I swear I… ‘m sorry, I’ll pay you back, promise, I’m sorry.” he finished feebly.

Dutch’s expression was almost comical, and Arthur would have laughed if he weren’t so worried he’d just further offended him.

Instead, he stayed put as Dutch eventually stuttered out: “You… do- you’re… What?”

“What?” Arthur parroted dumbly.

Dutch shook his own head forcefully, reminding Arthur of a dog jumping out of a river. Arthur waited for him to explain – but then he felt Hosea’s hands on his knees, bringing his attention to the elder thief.

“Arthur.” He said, his eyes serious enough to make Arthur gulp. “Why would you say sorry for that?”

“Because… it was bad?” He tried.

The corners of Hosea’s lips pinched down a little, and Arthur instantly knew he’d said the wrong thing.

“Kid- It, it’s…” Hosea paused, and scoffed lightly to himself. “No, it’s not bad. It’s not bad that we used our supplies to take care of you. They’re your supplies too, don’t ya see?”

“I- I…” the boy stammered. “But… if it ain’t bad then- why’re you cross with me? What’d I do?”

He stared between the two men, trying to fight off the despair that threatened to overtake him at his own incompetence. Lord, only he could fuck up and not even know how he’d done it.

But Hosea only pinched his eyes closed, as though in pain. “My boy, we…” he started, then took a deep breath and opened his eyes again. “We ain’t cross with you. God, after all that, how could we be angry with you, Arthur?”

Arthur couldn’t help but eye the two outlaws warily, not quite understanding what they was playing at. “You’re… You’re not angry?”

“No, son, we ain’t angry.” Dutch told him. And though it felt irrational to take him at his word, the man had that steely determination in his eyes – and whenever Arthur found himself at the receiving end of that stare, he couldn’t help but believe Dutch.

Ever since the day he’d joined Dutch and Hosea on the trail, he’d been introduced to the younger man’s long-winded speeches (filled with words Arthur had never heard before in his life) about America’s destiny as a land of freedom and reborn innocence, about those who’d wielded their guns and politics to corrupt that fate, and about the dream he and Hosea had set off chasing, of building that utopia (that was one of the words they’d taught him), of returning this country to its original purpose of happiness and harmony.

Arthur had never known of such a country. Before meeting Hosea and Dutch, he’d never thought of the world as anything other than angry and dusty. So, he clung onto every word of hope and compassion that spilled from Dutch’s lips. He noticed the way Hosea would sometimes roll his eyes at his partner’s most outlandish claims, but otherwise drink in his every word, an admiring look in his eyes. He watched Dutch’s face light up whenever Hosea inevitably joined his declamations. He started seeing the world painted in the colours Dutch and Hosea showed him.

Arthur was sure a lot of it must be going right over his head, but whenever Dutch spoke like that, he couldn’t doubt him.

 “We were never angry with you, Arthur, we just…” Dutch sighed slightly. “Why didn’t you tell us you got hurt?”

The kid gave a one-shoulder shrug. When both men kept looking at him expectantly, he figured it’d be wiser to elaborate. “I just scratched my arm when I climbed that tree to hide from the bounty hunter when he showed up here.”

“You could’ve told us right away, you know that?” Hosea asked him, that saddened look still contorting his features a little. Arthur knew he was somehow responsible for it, and he hated it.

“I weren’t gonna bother you with a scratch.” he said honestly. “And I forgot about it anyway. It weren’t that bad.”

“The point ain’t how bad it is. The point is you gettin’ hurt and us not knowing we need to treat you.” Dutch responded, his voice sounding a lot the way it did whenever he was teaching Arthur how to sound out a particularly complex word in one of his philosophy books.

“We always wanna know. It don’t matter if it’s a scratch or a bear bite, son.” Hosea said, and when that pulled a tiny giggle out of Arthur, the cowboy’s face finally relaxed, and he cracked a small smile at the boy.

Dutch patted his back. “Your trouble is our trouble, kid.” he claimed simply, as though Arthur’s place in their tiny gang was a sure thing, a definite fact, like he’d always been here and always would be.

For what seemed like the millionth time tonight, Arthur felt splayed open in front of these two outlaws, unable to form a single sentence in fear his voice would betray him.

Thankfully, no one seemed to expect an answer from him as Hosea produced a can of peaches from somewhere within a bindle that sat by them.

“Please, do tell me those aren’t peas, Hosea.” Dutch moaned.

“These aren’t peas, Dutch.” Hosea replied patiently, jerking the can open and shooting Arthur a cheeky grin. “But nobody said they was for you, either.”

As Dutch complained away at his companion’s cruelty, – Hosea only made him go fetch a drink of water before allowing him to eat the fruit too – Arthur leaned back contentedly, all too happy to merely stuff his face and sit there, huddled between Dutch and Hosea, watching this curious couple bicker back and forth.

~

The fire they’d reanimated was nothing but glowing embers once more. He and Dutch had kept chatting, but only in whispers, so as to not disturb the slumbering child who snored softly now, his head rested on Dutch’s shoulder.

Hosea watched, consumed by an amount of fondness unbefitting of a rugged outlaw, as his partner looked down at the sleeping boy with an adoring smile tugging at his plump lips.

Hosea had never really imagined himself as a father. Sure, the fleeting thought had crossed his mind here and there – in another life, one in which he lived to die of old age, he might’ve had a few little ones running ‘round, watched them grow and live and make him proud – but the fantasy wasn’t anything more than that (and unlike Dutch, he considered himself enough of a realist to not dwell too long on things that could never come to be).

Yet, since meeting the man, that distant ache had become more poignant – and in the pitch black of the nights, watching his partner’s chest slowly rise and fall, Hosea had found himself adding Dutch to his intimate flights of fancy. In that other life, Hosea knew Dutch would have made a great father, and would’ve joined him on the porch of the little house they owned to watch the children play in their mildly unkept garden.

And in moments like this, it all just felt so… natural. Like this was the way the Lord designed things to be since the very first day He let there be light over the waters.

Seeing Arthur nestled up to the younger man, Hosea realised he not only dreamed of a future where he got to watch the slow greying of Dutch’s jet-black hair – he also longed to build a life where he got to see the fine man Arthur would grow up to be. This boy, who he cherished deeper and harder with each passing day – Hosea could no longer possibly imagine going a single day of his life not worrying about him, and fuck, isn’t that exactly the way a father feels?

Surely Arthur deserved more than being brought up by a couple of foolish hustlers, but tonight had confirmed what Hosea had already known in his heart to be true – this child, this life in their care, was the single most valuable prize in the world. Hosea would sooner burn himself and this whole damn country to the ground before letting anything stand between Arthur and the life of happiness he deserved.

“I was scared he’d be too shaken up to get back to sleep.” Dutch’s quiet voice broke him out of his thoughts. He tore his gaze away from Arthur to look up at his partner, but Dutch’s eyes were on the boy, too.

“Whole thing probably wore him out.” Hosea whispered. His face grew sullen for a second. “He must’a been terrified.”

Dutch didn’t say anything back for a minute, his attention still entirely on the small child leant on him. When he did look up at his companion, his expression gave away all the fear and anxiety Hosea himself had felt burning under his skin the whole night.

“I was scared, too.” confessed Dutch.

Hosea sighed. The kid was asleep now, and between the two of them only, there weren’t no use in hiding the toll the whole ordeal had taken on them both.

“I know. So was I.” Hosea agreed. “For a minute there, I thought we wasn’t gonna get back in time. I thought…” he trailed off, his eyes falling to Arthur once more. His cheeks were still a tad on the hollow side, smeared with dirt, which matched the stains on his clothes, but there weren’t no blood apart from that which could be found under the bandages around his forearm, and for that, Hosea was thankful.

“I think if I couldn’t feel his head on my shoulder right now… I’d’ve had some trouble getting to sleep myself.” Dutch whispered, and his voice sounded suspiciously tight. It felt as though the proper gravity of the whole situation, how close they’d actually come to losing Arthur to those sons of bitches, was only now truly sinking in for them.

“Yeah. Feels like it’s not safe to take my eyes off him for more than a second.” whispered Hosea.

Dutch sniffed, and finally looked up at his partner in crime. “He’s safe, now. That’s all that matters.” he whispered, a gentle smile gracing his lips.

Hosea took a deep breath to steady himself, and then forced his knees to get him up. “Well, we best get him to bed, or you’ll both wake up with cricks in your neck tomorrow.”

He moved to reach for the kid, but Dutch held up his hand. “Don’t worry, dear, I got him.” He said, and with a gentleness Hosea had never quite thought this rogue of a man capable of, effortlessly picked up the teen in his arms, his right arm under his knees and his left hand cradling the kid’s head to his chest.

“He’s still far too skinny.” He commented, as he moved towards Arthur’s tent.

Hosea stepped ahead of him to throw open the tent flaps and allow easier entrance to Dutch and his precious charge; he mindfully removed the boy’s boots as he laid nuzzled in Dutch’s bosom, looking very much like a small foal who had yet to master the feat of walking. But as Dutch leaned down to place the boy on his bedroll, Arthur stirred, and Hosea saw his fist clench around the front of Dutch’s shirt.

Dutch looked to him, the fondness in his eyes so overwhelming Hosea could see it shine even in the fairly obscured interior of the tent. The child mumbled something unintelligible in his sleep, but only after loosening his grip on Dutch did the man finally lay him down.

Both men looked down at their charge, this miracle of a boy that had fallen headfirst into their lives, the missing piece of the patchwork family they were meant to be.

Just as it always had been and always would be, it only took a single look shared with Dutch for Hosea to instantly know the other’s mind as well as his own. They’d both sleep sounder with Arthur close by; feeling the child’s proximity was the only way either of them would sleep a wink tonight.

So they gathered up their one bedroll, silently cramped it into Arthur’s small tent, and laid down to sleep next to their kid.

Chapter Text

Sunlight had infiltrated his tent, and despite feeling as snug as he did, Arthur opened his eyes and surrendered to the new day's call. He could hear birdsong in the distance, and Hosea and Dutch chirping away too.

At once, the previous night’s events flashed to the forefront of his mind, in a flurry of bloody images and cracks of gunshots; but the turmoil of feelings did not overwhelm him, ‘cause he could hear Dutch’s low chuckle just beyond the canvas of his tent, as well as the smell of coffee Hosea always prepared for the two of them in the morning. In the end, the lack of a recollection of climbing into his bedroll the previous night, and the understanding that the two men chatting outside must have put him to bed themselves, caused embarrassment to overtake any other emotions.

Arthur pulled on his boots, which’d been neatly placed at his feet, and with a shyness he hadn’t experienced quite this strongly in the last couple months or so of riding with Dutch and Hosea, stepped out of his tent.

The blonde and dark-haired pair of heads he’d not quite yet got fully used to greeting him in the morning turned around, looking as genially carefree as always.

“Ah, there he is!” Dutch turned his body towards him, his right arm reaching in his direction as though he were presenting Arthur on a stage for an audience at one of them fancy city theatres Hosea had once told him about. Arthur couldn’t help a quick quirk-up of his lips – that was just one more thing that put him in Dutch and Hosea’s debt, whether they realised it or not: these days, since joining these two cowboys on the road, he was finding a lot more funniness in life than he could ever remember finding before.

“Sleep good, kid?” Hosea asked him, a tranquil smile playing on his lips as well, and Arthur nodded.

“That arm doin’ okay?” Dutch questioned, holding out his arms towards Arthur’s bandaged one.

Arthur nodded once more, and allowed Dutch to unwrap the cloth around his skin. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He replied.

Looking down at Hosea’s feet, the boy noticed new bandages laid on the ground, and the thought that the men had not only remembered to check on him over his (frankly quite minor) injury as a spur of the moment act of attentiveness, but had in fact been sitting there waiting for him to wake up so they could replace his bandages, sent one of those strange jolts of confused glee through his heart – one of them ones he felt with every act of unmerited kindness Dutch and Hosea extended his way.

After repeatedly reassuring the two outlaws that he was feeling just fine, Arthur finally managed to silence their incessant fretting. He wondered if it’d ever feel any less bizarre, being fussed over like this; he couldn't really say if he enjoyed it or not – most times, it still threw him for a loop, and he ended up acting even stiffer and gawkier than usual, like his feet couldn’t quite keep him standing upright. He was not comfortable with that type of treatment – to be a topic of discussion between two adults in this way, where they used his proper name and spoke of things other than whether to beat him or turn him over to the sheriff for sleeping on their store’s front porch; to have hands touch him, and no blow ever meet his skin. He was infinitely grateful to Dutch and Hosea for never having handled him like that, of couse – but he was used to it. He had no idea how to react to all of this patient tenderness – regardless of whether or not it was honest.

Still, in the quiet of the night, Arthur would find himself wishing it was – that these kind temperaments and touches were real and true; most of all, though, he’d hope against hope that even if they weren’t, they wouldn’t stop. That he’d get to be spoken to in such considerate tones for as long as possible, that he’d have these men always there to bandage up the smallest scrap on his skin, the way they’d done the night before. Even if the other shoe would inevitably drop, – because Arthur knew his own luck all too well, and good things like this fairy-tale type of life didn’t just happen to street rats like him – he still found himself pathetically clinging to what he knew he’d end up fucking up, like every other good thing he'd had in his life. He was not strong enough to up and leave on his own, even if he knew it’d be that much more painful when Dutch and Hosea up and left him.

~

They’d spent the better part of the day riding, and his muscles were sore, but they’d finally made it past the hills and crossed those damn state lines.

With his own body aching the way it did, Dutch had worried that the kid would be in pain too, after riding so hard for hours on end – and knowing the boy, there was no way in hell he’d let them know if he was.

But when they’d started setting up camp in this woodland, Hosea had asked Arthur if he’d like to go fishing for dinner with him in the small lake they’d spotted nearby, and the child had complied. He’d seemed reluctant at first, muttering something about not knowing how to fish, but when Hosea had assured him he’d show him the ropes, Arthur’s face had lit up instantly, the way it did every time they offered to impart any knowledge onto him, with a mix of eagerness and seriousness Dutch always found himself uncontrollably endeared to.

He was busying himself brushing down the horses when he heard approaching footsteps, and Hosea’s most tender voice (the one he always used when talking to the kid, or in the nighttime when he’d whisper sweet nothings into Dutch’s ear) drifting through the air.

He turned around to see a shy grin on Arthur’s face, the child clearly enraptured by whatever story Hosea was telling him. Dutch could relate to the feeling.

“How’d fishing go?” Dutch greeted them back.

“Oh, young Arthur here has a talent, Dutch!” Hosea exclaimed, his hand falling on the boy’s shoulder, and said boy’s cheeks gained a shade of pink.

“Oh yeah? That right, Arthur?” Dutch said, looking at the boy expectantly.

When the boy simply got even pinker and didn’t reply, Hosea stepped in. “Me and Arthur were chatting when I hooked a real big one – a carp, I reckon. Arthur even had to help me pull when I was reeling!” He shook the boy’s shoulder lightly, and Arthur looked up. His eyes met Hosea’s, and Dutch wondered if the kid could see the pride held in them. The child did have a knack to somehow miss the sheer affection both of them carried for him – not that Dutch would ever fault him for it. If anything, it just meant they had to make it all the more obvious to him.

“But the fat beast was thrashing like crazy and we ended up losin’ it.” Hosea continued. “So that was a shame, but we did manage to catch a few decent-sized ones.” He said, holding up a satchel that was admittedly well filled-out with fish.

Dutch smiled. Hosea always was a stellar fisherman. What couldn’t the man do?

“Was it really that big, Arthur?” Dutch asked as they moved towards the campfire. “’Cause y’know the old man here has a tendency to aggrandise his stories.” He whispered furtively to the boy, hand covering his mouth, but from the outraged gasp that sounded from behind him, he knew Hosea had heard it.

“Me?! I’m the one with the aggrandising tendency?!” Hosea cried out dramatically.

Dutch only rolled his eyes. “Oh, c’mon Old Girl, you know damn well some of your stories are a load of crap!”

Arthur giggled, an amused, childish thing, and both men looked towards him at the sound. “Well, this one was a load of carp.” He said, then giggled again. It weren’t so often they got such a happy, relaxed sound out of him, and goddammit, it was just precious.

Dutch and Hosea burst into laughter, both at the kid’s silly joke and his infectious chuckle. Wearing matching face-splitting grins, and probably looking very much like the happy fools they were, Dutch and Hosea set about cooking dinner (while attempting to coax Arthur into getting a little rest before the food was ready, to little success).

~

All things considered, they probably should have seen it coming. Sure, after the long night they’d had yesterday, the kid had gone out like a light – but tonight, with all the excitement long gone, they should’ve predicted Arthur would be rather on edge.

Dutch woke with a start at the sound of the boy’s cry, and in a flash, he was at the entrance to his tent, Hosea in tow and thoughts of bounty hunters who were most certainly very dead assaulting his mind.

He could hear faint whimpers coming from the other side, and when he pulled the tent flaps apart, the small figure inside scrambled out of his bedroll and curled up in the far corner, knees to his chest and hands over his head.

“Arthur, hey, son, it’s okay, it’s alright.” Hosea soothed, but neither he nor Dutch dared to take another step towards the kid. “It’s just us, son.”

Arthur looked up, recognition dawning on his face at the familiar voice, and he slowly lowered his hands. His voice was raspy as he spoke. “… ‘sea?”

“Yeah, son, it’s just me and Dutch here, you’re fine, it’s alright.”  reassured Hosea.

Ever so slowly, the boy lifted up his head, but he didn’t move from his spot in the corner. He looked between Hosea and Dutch, Dutch and Hosea, a look of confused fright on his young face that Dutch felt the urge to wipe away as quickly as possible – along with the tears that he was now noticing tracking down the boy’s cheeks.

“Bad dream, son?” Dutch asked, and Arthur nodded dizzily, like he was just now realising that was what had happened to him.

It wasn’t surprising. They’d never been woken up in the middle of the night by Arthur’s screams before, but after a few mornings when the kid had got out of bed with bags under his eyes, his behaviour even more jittery than usual, Hosea and Dutch had put two and two together and figured out when he’d had a rough night. Knowing what little they did about the kid’s life from before they met him, it wasn’t all that unexpected, really.

They’d tried broaching the subject once or twice, but whenever one of them tried mentioning his nightmares, the teen would clam up, or scowl, or mutter something under his breath, and effectively end that conversation.

Tonight though, the despair in his dreams had been strong enough to wake them both up, and now that they were here to witness the haunted look in the child’s eyes, they weren’t about to just let him wallow in his panic by himself.

The kid looked around for a moment, and as his sleep-addled expression turned into something more cognizant, a look of apprehension came over his features. Instead of appearing relieved, the more awake he became, the more Arthur resembled a scared street cat, disgruntled and shivering all curled up into himself.

With a sudden, sickening lurch in his stomach, Dutch realised the kid was scared of them.

His arms ached to encircle the cowering child, but even he had enough sense to see that would only frighten him further.

His eyes shifted to Hosea’s, and even within the dimness of the canvas, he could see the other man understood the plan. They had to pull their boy out of the terrible pit in his mind he was trapped in.

“Arthur, hey.” Hosea started. “You’re alright, kid, it’s okay. We just wanna help, yeah?”

Arthur’s eyes were wide and wild, and it looked like he was struggling a great deal to even stutter the words out. “I- I’m, ‘m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t… ’m so sorry, woke you up, I’m sorry–”

“Hey, no– No, son, it’s okay, it’s alright-” tried Hosea, unconsciously shifting closer to the kid – and Arthur flinched. His whole body was shaking, head half-buried in his knees and his bottom lip quivering as he went on begging for mercy from some horrific punishment he seemed so sure was coming to him.

“Please.” the boy sobbed hoarsely. “Please, don’t- I’m… ‘m sorry, please, please, don’t hit me, please…”

Dutch could almost hear the clatter of the broken pieces of his heart dropping into his stomach. This boy, their boy, their dear, dear boy, who had just woken from a nightmare, was gasping for their forgiveness, like they had anything to forgive him for, like he truly deserved for Dutch and Hosea to beat him, and what for? Because he’d disturbed their sleep? Because they could, and the grown men whose care he was under shouldn’t be expected not to hurt him?

“Son… Arthur, please.” Dutch cleared his throat, swallowing past the thick lump that had suddenly formed there. “Arthur, listen.”

And that, at least, got the kid to stop crying. None of the calming words before had quietened his weeping, or even seemed like they had registered with him at all, but now Arthur’s wide-eyed stare was fixed on Dutch, petrified and resigned all at once. It was almost as if the child’s brain was predisposed to respond to firm commands and nothing else, even in a state of distress.

Dutch wanted to kill everybody who ever had a hand in making it so.

“Arthur… Son, it’s alright. You’re alright, y’ain’t in trouble, promise.” Dutch said, staring at the kid earnestly, willing him to believe his word. “We ain’t angry, son. And even if we were – we ain’t gonna hit you, Arthur. Not ever.”

Arthur was still trembling, but his arms loosened around his legs. When he kept quiet still, Hosea spoke up.

“You’re alright, son, you ain’t done nothing wrong.” His partner’s voice was shaky in a way Dutch had never heard it before, and when he glanced at him, that face he loved so dearly looked stricken with guilt. The boy had flinched away from him, and now Hosea was holding himself back stiffly, clearly afraid that one wrong movement would send the teenager rushing away into the night.

Arthur swallowed, his face ashen and wary, as if he was bracing himself for a rebuke for daring to speak. “But I… I’m sorry, I, I woke you up, I didn’t mean to, I swear, I-”

“Of course you didn’t mean to, son, it ain’t your fault. We ain’t upset, we just wanna help.” Dutch reassured him.

The boy stared blankly. “…Help?” he asked, like he’d never had such a thing offered to him before, and Dutch felt his guts twist painfully.

“…Yeah, kid. We just wanna help you.” He replied honestly, a pesky prickling feeling in his eyes.

“…Why?” Arthur asked, a genuine look of confusion on his crestfallen features. Dutch wanted to run his hands over them, desperately wished he could reach out and smooth away the creases of fear and shame marring the impossibly young face.

“Because…” Hosea recovered faster than him, but had to clear his throat before trying to explain to the kid the reasoning behind their desire to relieve him of his suffering. “Because we care about you, Arthur. We told you so before, didn’t we?”

Haltingly, Arthur nodded, as if he was expecting Hosea to reveal the underlying motive they must have had to tell him such a thing.

“And we told you we wouldn’t hurt you, right? You remember that?” Hosea, voice full of horrible grief and heavenly patience, asked the boy.

At that, Arthur’s brow furrowed, and the two men before him could see the storm behind those blue eyes, the waves of emotions battling one another in that sea.

“But…” he looked frustrated, visibly wrestling with himself to find the right words. “But that was before, like… with- after the bounty hunters, and, and I’m grateful that- that you ain’t punish me then, even after you’s already done stopped them hurtin’ me, I’m grateful for that, really, I am!” he rambled into a tone of urgency, like he was afraid Dutch and Hosea would find him ungrateful after abstaining from fucking beating him.

Dutch was warring against himself to keep the blinding rage and impossible anguish he was feeling from showing on his face as Arthur went on about how he deserved to be treated as poorly as the dirt underneath one’s shoe – and Dutch knew this recent brush with death was what had set the boy so on edge, had made him more unsure and fearful than he’d ever been before, and he desperately wished Brooke and McCowell were still alive, just so he could give them a more fittingly agonizing end.

“…and, and now it’s- I mean, I was bad before, but now I just… I woke you up, and I didn’t mean to and, and I’m sorry, but- but I know it was real bad this time, so I get–”

“So you think we would hurt you because you woke us up?” Hosea interrupted the boy’s progressively incoherent self-diatribe. “So you deserve it now?”

Arthur just nodded, both determined and scared. Like he was somewhat glad Hosea seemed to finally be grasping the deeply violent treatment he deserved – even if he was cowering at the prospect of receiving said treatment.

“Arthur…” Hosea sighed, his fingers coming up to scrub at his closed eyelids. Dutch observed the surprise on the teen’s face as Hosea raised his eyes up to him again, brimming with unshed tears that the older man swiftly tried to blink away. “Son, you never deserve it. Not then, not now, not if you set fire to my clothes or Dutch’s books;” – the boy’s eyes widened in panic at the mere idea. – “You never deserve to get beat. You have never deserved it, Arthur.” He finished delicately.

“We told you, son, it don’t matter how angry we might get, we ain’t never gonna hurt you.” Dutch told the child, noticing fresh tears cascading down his face. “And- God, Arthur, we ain’t want you grateful for- for…” his throat seemed to close up and he had to pause for a minute. “And we are not angry that you woke us up.”

Arthur’s head tilted to the side, puzzlement bleeding into his tone again – but at least he didn’t sound too doubtful. “You ain’t?”

“Of course not, son.” Dutch chuckled, perhaps a little wetly.

Hosea shifted his feet slightly, and when Arthur’s attention snapped over to him at the movement, the outlaw smiled down at him softly. “You mind if I light this?” he asked, pointing at the lantern on the ground next to them.

Hosea waited for Arthur’s nod, then lit a match and brought it to the lamp’s wick. Arthur tracked the action attentively, and as Dutch watched him watching Hosea’s hands, he understood his Old Girl’s intentions perfectly: the boy seemed calmer now as he focused his attention on Hosea’s deliberate motions, and as the light painted the canvas yellow around them, Dutch noticed the miniscule change in Arthur’s stance. He looked slightly relieved at being able to see the men with him properly now.

That relief, however, was accompanied by a certain embarrassment as the boy seemed to remember the tears on his face and hastily wiped them away with his shirtsleeve.

“You ain’t in any trouble, kid.” Dutch started, wondering how to best word his next sentence. Though there might not have been any bounty hunters in the camp tonight, that didn’t mean they weren’t still fresh and alive in the child’s mind – but Dutch knew Arthur was less than likely to openly share the anxieties plaguing his sleep. He needed to play this shrewdly if he hoped to lure any information out of the child.

“So… do you wanna talk about it? The nightmare?” he finally ventured.

He could feel Hosea at his side itching to rap him upside the head for such eloquence. Fortunately, the blonde man refrained from doing so, which was probably for the best – it wouldn’t be very helpful to risk startling the boy any further right now.

Arthur simply blinked up at him for a minute, then shook his head and directed his gaze to his feet, grumbling something along the lines of ‘I’m fine’.

Dutch was starting to notice how often the boy said so when he was anything but.

“You sure?” Dutch asked him. When he only got a small nod back, he decided to just cut straight to the point – even if he was chancing actually getting a smack from Hosea. “Did you dream about those bounty hunters?”

Arthur stiffened, but just as Dutch readied himself to assure the boy there wasn’t any pressure on him to talk about it, he sighed, closing his eyes. “They wasn’t… I mean, it was about them – the dream, I mean. But then it wasn’t…” the boy trailed off.

Arthur’s eyes were cast downwards, and he held himself rigidly, like he was putting a great deal of effort into grounding himself in the present moment. After a moment, he cleared his throat – but his voice still came out raspy and tremulous. “Those two bounty hunters was runnin’ after me, and they were shoutin’, and they was mad that you killed them,” blue eyes flicked up at Dutch and Hosea, then looked back down the next moment. “But… B-but then, when they, when they caught me– one of them threw me down, an’ I was kickin’ him, but I couldn’t get away, and, and then-”

The kid hiccupped quietly, and Dutch saw his eyes shimmering in the low light. “Then I wasn’t in the forest no more, an’ I was in my old house, and the man holdin’ me down was-” he took a stuttering breath. “It weren't the bounty hunter- it was my…”

Arthur stopped there, staring into the distance as if frozen in place, and Dutch felt incapable of releasing the breath he was holding.

Then, Hosea whispered. “Your pa?”

Arthur looked up at him, startled, as though he’d the forgotten the two of them sat in that tent with him. He bit down on his quivering lower lip – hard enough Dutch worried he’d make himself bleed – and slowly nodded before returning his gaze to the ground.

Dutch wasn’t sure what to do next. He looked to Hosea, and saw the same desperate helplessness written across his face.

It ended up being Arthur breaking the silence. “I’m sorry.” he murmured, eyes darting between the two of them.

Dutch was truly starting to loathe hearing that word come out of the kid’s mouth. “You still ain’t got nothing to be sorry for, my dear boy.”

Arthur simply shook his head minutely, as if denying himself the lack of fault.

“Arthur…” Hosea spoke gently, but the boy’s eyes still snapped to him as though expecting to be told off. “Your pa…” he started, and Dutch saw the child stiffen. “He weren’t very good to you, was he?”

After a beat, Arthur shook his head no, and a single tear slid down his face. He didn’t wipe it away this time, and Dutch wondered if he even felt it. His eyes were a million miles away.

“He…” Hosea continued, and Dutch could feel the careful tone of his voice like a tentative touch to his skin. “He hurt you a lot, did he?”

Another beat, and the boy nodded again. Then he furrowed his brows. “I- I mean…” he stammered. “It weren’t that bad, really, I– Sometimes he- he would beat me, but other times, like when it was raining and I got home and didn’t bring back enough money for him, he’d just lock me outta the house… to- to teach me a lesson, he said, but it was fine, ‘cause there was this tree by the road with a big hole in it, and I could fit inside, so…” the kid shrugged. After a moment, though, something like panic flashed across his countenance, and he scrambled to explain himself. “I- I don’t mean like- it ain’t- It weren’t often, though. I, I always… I mean, I almost always brought him enough money, and he- I always did good picking pockets ‘round town, I swear, I-” and Dutch felt a strange choked noise being ripped from deep inside of himself, sitting there listening to this child frantically try and prove that he was a good enough thief to justify their keeping him. As though one day, if he came back from a day of pickpocketing with nothing to show for it, they’d hurt him over it, or ride away and leave him in the dust.

And when his eyes met the kid’s, Dutch could see he believed it, too.

“I’m sorry, Arthur…” Dutch spoke quietly, and the bewildered look that crossed the boy’s face pulled the knot in his throat impossibly tighter. “You… you know that’s not gonna happen to you here, right? Hosea and I– We’re never gonna hurt you.”

“But what if I’m bad?” Arthur asked, and Dutch was surprised by the slight raise in his voice; there was an edge of desperation to it, like he wanted more than anything for he and Hosea to understand just how bad he was. “What if I’m bad with you, like I was for him? He… I could never make him happy, I tried, I swear to God I tried, but- but he weren't never happy with me, and then one day, they hanged him, an’ now… Now you keep bein’ so nice to me, an’ I ain’t deserve it, I ain’t–” he gasped in a sob, and whimpered ever so quietly, and suddenly, Dutch realised why they’d never been woken up by the boy’s nightmares before tonight. The way Arthur cried – virtually silently, barely making a sound – sent a shiver of discomfort down his spine. No child should cry like this. It was eerily unnatural. This was learned behaviour, something trained into him.

“Oh, son…” Hosea’s voice was hoarse and cracked at the edges. “You- Oh, Arthur, you ain’t bad, you’re- you’re good, Arthur, you’re so good. You deserve everything good, my child.” The man had a watery smile on his lips as he looked at the quivering boy before him.

Arthur looked like he was splitting his efforts between wanting to argue against the kindness in Hosea’s words, and resisting the urge to leap at the warmth they held.

“There ain’t no more punishments, Arthur. Ain’t no more obligations or… or debts.” Hosea promised. “It don’t matter if you bring us a million dollars or nothin’ at all, son – you’re always gonna have your place next to ours at the campfire. Me and Dutch… We’re gonna take care of you.”

“You make us happy when you are happy, kid.” Dutch asserted. “And so, if you get hurt, or have a nightmare, or… or even if you just wanna talk to us… We’re always gonna be here for you, Arthur.”

The boy was looking at the both of them like he weren’t quite sure he wasn’t still dreaming. Both Dutch and Hosea held his gaze determinedly, gentle smiles on their faces but a firm, fiery resoluteness behind their eyes. Dutch understood – and he was sure his partner did too – that they couldn’t give Arthur the tiniest chance of misinterpreting their priorities here, or doubting the fervent truth of their declarations.

Finally, Arthur nodded – albeit hesitantly.

“Alright?” Dutch prompted him delicately.

Arthur sniffled feebly, and wiped away the few final stray tears that had poured down his cheeks. He looked up at Dutch, and nodded. The blue in his eyes shone bright as a clear summer sky even in the dusky interior of his small tent. He looked so damn innocent. Dutch looked at the boy’s hat where it rested on the ground next to them, and once again questioned how its previous owner could have ever so much as thought of bringing any harm upon this child.

Never again, he vowed to himself. So long as he lived, no more suffering would befall his son.

Hosea shifted beside him. With deliberate, calm motions, he positioned himself closer to the boy, halting just before coming within arm’s reach of the kid. Hosea smiled that smile of his at their young charge, unsparingly kind and infinitely sweet as only Hosea could ever smile. “Can I touch you, son?”

Arthur hesitated only for a second before nodding his assent, and Dutch watched as, ever so slowly, Hosea reached a hand towards their boy, cupping his cheek. Arthur promptly leaned into the touch, his eyes fluttering shut for an instant, and then Hosea moved the rest of his body until he was fully cocooning the small teenager, his tired head resting against Hosea’s chest.

Dutch looked on over the scene for a moment, overcome with a sense of reverent devotion. And then Hosea outstretched a hand, and when he looked to Arthur’s face, a sheepish smile turned up the corners of the kid’s mouth. Dutch enfolded the both of them in his arms, eliciting a contented sigh from the youngster.

~

Arthur shook himself awake when he started feeling his brain slipping out of awareness. He was still just conscious enough to remember where he was, huddled between Dutch and Hosea; it was shameful enough that he’d allowed them to see him in such a state tonight – he couldn’t just go falling asleep in their arms now like a toddler, too.

Hosea and Dutch both startled when he raised his head, and Arthur realised they’d been whispering to one another, keeping their conversation quiet for his sake. The thought was as unfamiliar as it was pleasing.

“Sorry” he said quietly as he attempted to sit up. Dutch and Hosea adjusted to give him the space to do so, but didn’t loosen their hold on him.

Dutch sighed slightly. “You say that way too often, son.”

He reached up to ruffle his hair, and Arthur stopped himself from flinching back at the unexpected touch. He was glad he did too, because his head felt heavy and the man’s hand rubbed light and mellow against his scalp.

“Think it’s time we all get back to sleep, huh?” Hosea chuckled, and Arthur hadn’t even noticed he was yawning.

But the rage that had contorted his father’s face in his dreams was still vivid in his mind, and Arthur was scared he’d visit him again as soon as he closed his eyes.

“I-” he started, cringing at the thinness of own his voice. “I mean, can… Can I just stay by the fire? I- I ain’t so tired anymore…”

Immediately, he could see neither outlaw believed him. He really was a pretty shitty liar.

“Kid, you were asleep just a minute ago.” Dutch pointed out, amusement coloring his tone.

“…was not.” Arthur protested, unconvincing to his own ears. He just really didn’t wanna stay in his tent by himself right now.

The two men met each other’s gaze for a second. “Well…” Hosea spoke up, glancing to the side as he tried to suppress a grin. “I suppose there ain’t no harm in stayin’ up – if you really reckon you ain’t tired, that is.”

Arthur’s eyes widened in relief. “Yeah, no, I’m- I’m wide awake now.”

“But you can’t be hanging outside with this wind, either. Nights are getting colder now, you’ll catch something nasty.” Hosea continued. He seemed to be pondering over the matter for a moment before looking back at Arthur. “Unless… d’you wanna stay up in our tent? It’s warmer than yours here.” He leaned towards Arthur conspiratorially. “Dutch here sweats enough through the night to make me toss away all the blankets.” he added with a snicker.

“Don’t believe any lies that old man tells you, Arthur…” Dutch told him, but to Arthur, it hardly sounded like a denial. “But you’re welcome to keep us company. What do you say, son?”

Arthur looked between the two of them, trying to assess whether or not they meant the offer as genuinely as they seemed to. He’d burdened the men enough for one night, after all.

“That- that’s okay, I don’t mean to be intruding-” he forced himself to reply.

“Now, how can you be intruding when we’re the ones offerin’, kid?” Dutch interrupted him.

Arthur bit his lip. Hosea and Dutch sat there, patient and generous and kind in a way Arthur wasn’t worthy of – but he could feel what was left of the fight in him draining away completely, because he was tired, and he wanted to go to bed and not have to worry about his father or creepy bounty hunters coming after him in his sleep - and something inside him was telling him that the only way he was gonna get any rest tonight was if he followed Dutch and Hosea into their tent.

He knew he didn’t need – didn’t deserve – all this goodness they was affording him, but his pa had always said he was weak, anyway.

“O-okay then… If- if it ain’t no trouble, I mean…” he finally breathed out.

“Ain’t no trouble at all, my boy.” Dutch smiled down at him.

Hosea started to get up, and he gently brought Arthur up with him. When the three of them stepped inside the bigger tent, Arthur realised he hadn’t brought his bedroll with him, but as he turned around and made to go get it, a hand on his shoulder stopped him in his tracks.

“It’s alright, kid, got it right here.” Dutch told him as he laid down Arthur’s bedroll right next to the one already covering the ground.

A gentle hand guided him down to the spot the two bedrolls met one another, and another pressed a drink of water to his parched lips. He hadn’t even realised how thirsty he was.

As he laid between Dutch and Hosea, Arthur let his eyes fall shut, feeling certain that no more frightening dreams would torment him tonight. He barely had time to remember he was supposed to be pretending he wasn’t tired at all before darkness consumed him.