Chapter Text
Arthur had barely gotten off that mountain alive. When Charles had found him, he was certain he’d been too late. Beaten, broken, and barely breathing. He had wheezed and choked when Charles had knelt by his side, surely beyond all hope... But he couldn’t leave him.
Cradling that battered body against his chest, horrifyingly light, Charles had rushed down the mountainside. Arthur had been delirious from pain, mostly unconscious and begging for death when he wasn’t, and it had torn Charles to shreds. But he was selfish, Arthur made him that way, and he refused to let him go.
Taima had carried them as fast as she could, Charles with one hand on the reins and the other keeping Arthur in the saddle. He couldn’t sit up on his own, listing to the side whenever Charles so much as loosened his grip.
The ride had been a blur he didn’t remember, afraid that every thud of Taima’s hooves would be too much for Arthur to handle. He didn’t know the extent of the damage or what had even happened, but the vicious proof was all over him, and coupled with the disease that had been steadily eating away at his strength...
They’d made it, somehow, to something resembling civilization. He’d burst into the Annesburg doctor’s office, Arthur in his arms and a desperate plea on his lips. It was the dead of night, but they were rushed into the back, Arthur was set down as the doctor cut away his clothes, baring purple-black bruises, broken bones, and his gaunt figure for all to see.
Charles hadn’t been able to look for long, but he’d stayed by his side, keeping silent to remain strong.
Hours. It had taken hours, the doctor working tirelessly to set and stitch and wrap, not needing Charles’ help to turn Arthur on his side, as light as he was, to tend all the cuts and abrasions along his back. There was a wound on the back of his head, his nose was broken, his fingers twisted, ribs cracked...
“It’ll be a miracle if he makes it through the night.” The doctor had said when he’d finally finished, wiping sweat from his brow and blood off his hands. “It might be best to make some plans with the undertaker.”
Charles refused.
And Arthur made it through.
Unconscious and barely hanging on, but still alive. Charles knew this, because he’d kept his hand on Arthur’s chest and felt his heartbeat, weak and stuttering, but never stopping. Arthur was strong; no matter what he’d been through, he always kept going. Charles had to believe that this would be the same. He had to. He couldn’t handle the thought of losing him.
No matter that the disease itself had halted everything between them in its tracks. Their secret trysts in the woods, touching hands and brushing lips, all of that had to end once Arthur became sick. Even if Charles was willing to risk it, Arthur was not - he’d pushed Charles away and made it very clear that he ought to move on. Arthur was dying, he said, but Charles couldn’t let him go, not then and not now.
The doctor advised him to wear something over his face so Arthur couldn’t pass on the consumption, and despite the fact that it felt like a barrier between the two of them, he did. While not an expert, the physician had knowledge dealing with ailments of the lungs, what with Annesburg being a coal mining town, and knew more than Charles had ever thought there was to know.
Bandages were changed, cool damp cloths were placed on his head, water and broth dripped down his throat so he wouldn’t succumb to dehydration before he even had a chance to wake. He was given blankets to ward off chill, and turned on his side when he would choke on the merciless coughing that refused to leave. At one point Arthur had started to suffocate, lips turning blue and chest convulsing, and Charles held him steady as the doctor jabbed a scalpel into his throat, the trachea he’d said, puncturing the flesh and opening his airway, before taking a long metal tool and shunting it directly into Arthur’s lungs. A sickening amount of thick, pinkish-yellow fluid had come pouring out of both - blood and phlegm.
Arthur had been drowning.
Once his breathing was clear, the doctor carefully stitched him up, and told Charles to start hoping for a miracle; saving his life could have killed him, what he’d done was considered experimental. Folk often did not live through procedures like that, and the doctor himself... had never done it before.
Charles had asked the doctor why he was even still helping, if he thought Arthur was bound to die.
“Might as well practice.” He’d shrugged, and Charles felt an interesting mixture of resentment, apprehension, and gratitude. Arthur was not some... medical cadaver, and yet the singular reason he wasn’t was due to this man.
A week went by without Arthur declining any further, though no improvement was made. When the doctor had said he’d done all he could, Charles asked what could possibly be left.
“Take him somewhere warm and dry. I hear good things about Colorado, if he can survive the trip. But I still have to say... be prepared to bury him.”
Charles was prepared for no such thing. He took the rest of the doctor's advice, and his entire stock of medical supplies, before he’d boarded a train and taken Arthur west. It was smoother than a carriage, faster, and less likely for them to be found.
And even so, the law was not looking for Dutch Van der Linde’s enforcer - as far as they knew, he was dead on a mountainside. But if they were, they would be searching for a fearsome brute, not a weakened, withered, dying man.
No, not dying. Just sick. Charles put a hand on Arthur’s heart and felt the steady beat. Not dying.
He bought passage in the back of the train, with Taima and several other horses pressed close together, where Arthur could lay down and not be disturbed, where he had no risk of being seen. Charles would sit him up and carefully drip water down his throat, rubbing his neck to make sure he swallowed like he’d been shown, sometimes switching for broth if he could beg some from the dining car.
He had no more money.
But he had rations, though it was all hard tack and dried meat, and Arthur could not chew. So he fed him broth and water and what dregs of soup he was given through pity.
When Arthur started to weaken despite all that, Charles panicked, and began chewing up his own store of food, pressing his lips against Arthur’s to push the softened foodstuffs into his mouth, rubbing his neck and fearing he would choke. A memory of all the kisses they’d shared now tinged with the sour notes of desperation.
But it helped; Arthur became stable, so Charles took less for himself and ignored the hunger that tightened his gut. He could survive losing weight, but it would kill Arthur.
The days and nights bled together, and their destination came before he’d realized. Arthur was still alive, though he had yet to wake for more than a minute at a time. His wounds were healing, however slowly, but it was proof of his resilience, and the fact that Charles’ efforts were not wasted.
When the train came to a full stop at the rural station, Charles carried Arthur on his back as he led Taima out of the storage car.
Arthur was so light.
Colorado was warm, the air was crisp, but he wasn’t sure if it would be enough. But with nowhere to go and no one to help him, he had little choice but to believe it would.
He made his way to Denver, where all the sick folk seemed to converge, only to discover that the hospital was full. They wouldn’t even see Arthur, the overworked nurse explaining to him in a clipped tone that if he could wait for it, another hospital for folk afflicted with consumption was set to open next year.
Next year.
It took so little to utterly crush his hope... and yet Arthur was still breathing, he hadn’t given up yet, and so neither would Charles. If the hospital wasn’t an option... he would do it himself. He’d watched the doctor in Annesburg as he’d treated Arthur, listening to what he would say to himself and the absent-minded advice he gave to Charles...
It wasn’t only the doctors that were so special in Colorado after all, it was also supposedly the air.
He found the only hotel willing to rent him a room, some dingy third floor shoebox barely big enough to walk around in, but the bed could fit two and the windows faced a quiet alley. He set Arthur up in the bed, bundled him in the thin blanket and laid his own coat over the man when he wasn’t sure that was enough, and then went downstairs to ask about any work he might find.
“I ain’t hirin’, friend.” The proprietor wasn’t unfriendly, though he did seem quite drunk - which was probably why he’d agreed to give the room to Charles without receiving anything upfront. “But if you ain’t too proud for it, the undertaker needs a handyman to help build all them coffins these lunger folks is needin’.”
Charles almost retched, but managed to keep himself together, if only barely. “S-something else...”
The man just shrugged, taking a nip from a flask and rolling his shoulder. “Try the saloon down the way.”
He didn’t want to leave Arthur alone, and the fear that he’d return to find Arthur... gone... was overwhelming. But he needed money if they were to get through this. So after promising payment for the room as soon as he returned, he headed back outside to mount Taima and make his way to the saloon. He hadn’t slept well in days, hadn’t eaten enough in more, but there was a burning desperation inside his chest that refused to be extinguished.
He found an opportunity to run odd jobs and errands for the owner of the saloon, which soon became paid favors for the grocery and the general store. Nothing long-term, but enough that, by the end of the week, he could pay the rent for a few more days, and finally buy himself a decent meal.
And so it continued.
Each afternoon he would trek back up the stairs to care for Arthur, leaving again when his self-allotted free hour was up, until nightfall when he came back and repeated it all. The very first thing he did was feel for Arthur’s pulse, each and every time, until he could abate his fear. He’d feed him and clean him and make sure those injuries were properly cared for, playing nurse as best he could. And then he would lay in bed beside him, a cloth around his face, the window open wide to let in the fresh and bracing air, and keep his hand on that bony sternum to soothe himself to sleep.
He’d feel if it slowed, he told himself. He’d notice before it was too late.
Nearly a month passed like that. When Charles could finally afford a private doctor, the man had been surprised that Arthur had made it that long, though his prognosis was bleak. Somehow, it seemed as though the TB was releasing its grip on him - his lungs were clearer than before - but it might not be enough. There had been a lot of damage, respiratory and cranial and just about everything else, and he’d said it was possible that Arthur might never wake up, or if he did, there would be nothing left of him. Despite all the work he’d done, all the effort and love he’d poured into the other man, Charles now had to worry that the Arthur he’d known would never return. The gut-wrenching thought that he was only sustaining a body, devoid of the person, kept him up that night, and he whispered to him as he carefully laid his ear against Arthur’s chest, hearing the steady thu-thump, and clinging to it desperately.
“Come back, Arthur, come back to me.” He’d said into the dark, answered only by the continuous wheezing breaths. He didn’t want to think it had all been for nothing, that he’d been deluding himself and prolonging Arthur’s suffering. He didn’t want to think about finding a coffin to fit the once broad frame, now made paper-thin, but as the thought entered his head, it gripped him and wouldn’t let go.
He got up in the morning, felt for the heartbeat, and went to work. The day passed in a daze, he didn’t think about anything, couldn’t let himself, because he knew the thoughts that were lurking around the corner of his mind.
That next night, for the first time since finding him on that mountain, Charles cried. He didn’t want to bury him, and though that first doctor had told him to be prepared, he still wasn’t. He’d been told there was nothing he could do, nothing that anyone could do. It was up to Arthur and whatever had been watching over him. Charles didn’t believe in that sort of thing, not really. He was not a religious man, his life had been too cruel and unjust for him to put stock in the concepts of heaven and righteousness. Even Swanson, as Godly as he’d been, had been a fool. But as he lay beside the other half of his heart, he’d wept and begged - God, saints, the devil, and all the spirits of his mother’s people.
He’d never been more desperate to be a fool.
“Please don’t let him die. Please. I’ve lost everything, don’t make me lose him too. We’re not good men, but give us the chance to be better. Please, give him the chance.”
He didn’t know if anything was listening, but it was all he had left.
As he’d walked the narrow streets back towards the hotel the next evening, he’d stopped in front of the undertaker, and looked at the price of coffins. They were expensive, no doubt due to them being in short supply... Would Arthur want plain pine, or smooth cedar, or perhaps something else? Maybe Charles should just make one himself, carve the marker himself, dig the hole himself. Maybe he should just cut to the chase and put them both in a grave.
Sitting in that hotel room, watching Arthur breathe shallow and weak, he’d gone through a bottle of whiskey and held a pistol in his hands. He’d loaded it with just two bullets, and it was the heaviest thing he’d ever held. All he had to do was cock the hammer, aim, and pull the trigger. A thing he’d done a million times before. He ought to, it would ease both their suffering, it would be merciful. A final goodbye for Arthur, done with love, and then for himself out of pure hopeless grief.
But his hand was locked in stone, his fingers immobile as he gripped the pistol and stared at the shining metal. One of Arthur’s, one that he’d given Charles when he’d been bequeathing all his earthly possessions to his loved ones, aware of his own impending mortality. A gun he hadn’t used - as pretty as it was practical, but not his favored Volcanic. Where that was, Charles didn’t know. But this... this was right in his hands, loaded and ready... All he had to do was pull the trigger.
And yet... He couldn’t bear it; not the infinite void of endless pain, but not this either... he couldn’t. He’d been trying so hard, and if there was even a chance that Arthur could come out of this...
He took the bullets out of the gun and put it somewhere out of sight, laying instead beside his wakeless sweetheart and feeling guilt and shame pull icy cold in his chest. He wanted to curse Arthur for making him fall so wholly in love, and yet he couldn’t do that either.
It was only days after that when Arthur had shown what an incurably stubborn bastard he was.
He hadn’t realized at first, busy checking the state of the puncture on Arthur’s ribs, when he’d noticed a shift in his breathing and looked up in concern, only to be met with that bloodshot gaze staring right at him, tired and hazy, but full of life and thought.
“Oh my god.”
Charles couldn’t help but gasp and weep anew with the sheer, staggering force of his relief, watching those glassy eyes widen just a bit as tears fell down his cheeks.
Those eyes were the prettiest shade of blue he’d ever seen.
He couldn’t kiss his mouth, so he pressed his lips all over those shaking hands instead, over his forehead and unwashed hair, because he was awake. After everything, Arthur was awake.
He was unable to move much at first, couldn’t stay awake for long, and couldn’t manage more than a rasping sigh, but Charles would take whatever he could get. Arthur would respond in one way or another when he spoke to him, when he touched him and fed him, and when Charles would lay beside him, Arthur’s hand would slowly slide over to find him. He didn’t have the strength to hold anything, so Charles held tight enough for the both of them.
Another month went by, and Arthur was improving every day. He could sit up and feed himself, and was starting to gain back some of the weight he’d lost while unconscious, though he was nowhere near where he’d been before the illness had struck. Though he sometimes coughed and whistled when he breathed, there was no blood, and the coughing was blessedly dry. The consumption was gone, but its effects still remained.
Charles had needed a miracle, and he’d been blessed with just that. As it turned out, he was a fool after all, but he’d never been more glad to be one.
But despite his incredible progress, there was one thing that didn’t improve. Even with Arthur able to eat and drink and use his throat for most things, any sound he made was a rattling, inaudible wheeze, and trying to make words only brought him fiery pain that inevitably sent him into weak fits.
“It’s alright, don’t push yourself.” Charles would say, “Give it more time.”
He’d help him drink water once his lungs would stop seizing, help that Arthur would accept without struggle, usually so worn out by such a thing that he’d need to rest afterwards, whether he wanted to or not.
While he slept, Charles would keep busy so his thoughts didn’t overtake him. He’d clean up and pour fresh water for when Arthur woke, open or close the window, reset the blankets. And when that was all done, he would touch Arthur’s chest every time he closed his eyes, a habit he couldn’t break.
He knew why Arthur couldn’t speak. The procedure that had prevented him from suffocating on the fluid in his lungs, while saving his life, had not come without consequences. The second doctor had taken a look and commended the first for getting Arthur’s airway clear, but the incision had been too high... and he’d revealed that whatever had been done was permanent. The scar on his neck was thick and dark, but covered by a bandage just so Charles wouldn’t have to see it, so Arthur had no idea it was there. But he didn’t know how to tell him, didn’t want to see the look in Arthur’s eyes when he heard, and so he resigned to become a coward, and kept it to himself.
When Arthur was finally able to get out of bed, Charles walked him to the bath, uncaring for how it might appear to other patrons to hold him by the hip and whisper softly to him as they walked down the halls. By then, the staff was accustomed to Charles caring for his friend, and barely batted an eye. He’d been the longest tenant the hotel had ever kept, and anything odd about the pair of them quickly became irrelevant when he continued to pay rent on the room, remaining quiet and respectful at all other times.
One of the bath girls noticed their trek, and brought him an extra bar of soap, lingering for a moment in the doorway.
“Can’t believe you’re alive,” She said softly, “Your friend must have some sort of healin’ gift, you looked half dead not two months ago. Now look at you. Bet you’ll be able to talk again before you know it.”
Arthur nodded, giving her a self-conscious little smile as he leaned against the wall, withstanding her attention as Charles gathered the items she’d brought and set them around the bathtub, before she shut the door to give them their privacy.
The warm water was good for Arthur, though the steam choked him, so Charles encouraged him to tilt his head back to avoid breathing it in. He tried only momentarily to wash himself before Charles took over, knowing how important it was to thoroughly clean every inch. It was the first real bath he’d taken in over a month, and despite Charles’ best efforts, it had been hard to keep Arthur clean with only a cloth. By the time he’d finished, Arthur was asleep, worn out from simply being somewhere other than in bed, so Charles carried him back and carefully dried him off.
He sat there and contemplated the state of Arthur’s recovery. His bruises had long since healed, as had the cuts and scrapes. The broken bones in his hands had thankfully mended with little other than an ache, if he understood Arthur right, and his ribs had been given the perfect amount of motionless rest to be good as new. But Arthur had a variety of new scars, and the one that remained most prominent was the line on his throat, and its brother just beneath his ribs.
It was not something he could hide forever, but... just a little while longer. Just until Arthur was strong enough. He’d been through so much, lost even more than Charles had when the gang had fallen apart, and... to know he’d lost this too... it would hurt, and Charles had spent the last few months doing everything in his power to fix all the hurts that Arthur had suffered. This was not a physical wound, but he still couldn’t bring himself to be the one to inflict it.
Carefully, Charles wrapped his throat with gauze just for the sake of it, and then took his bandana from around his face and affixed it loosely on Arthur’s neck. The TB was concretely gone, and for the first time since parting at the Wapiti that lifetime ago, Charles kissed him.
In his sleep, Arthur stirred.
---
After a total of four months, Arthur had gotten as well as he was ever going to be. He’d somehow survived the weeks of unconsciousness, the tuberculosis, and being beaten near to death on top of everything else. It was unimaginable, and yet Charles wasn’t about to question why or how it had happened. The first month of awareness after he’d awoken hadn’t been easy, and it had taken time until Arthur was able to get up and move around. He’d needed to relearn how to walk, his legs atrophied and weak, his coordination rusty, and though he was still easily short of breath and could stand to gain more weight, he had stunned the doctor stupid when Arthur had walked himself into that office for a visit.
He needed a cane to go any further than around their hotel room, which he refused at first, but the difficulty of simply standing convinced the stubborn mule of a man to take the aide. He had a small appetite, and there were still some days where fatigue struck him hard, but the biggest pain was no doubt that in his heart - the pain of losing his family, of everything breaking apart, of his life shattering.
And every time he touched the scar on his neck, Charles would take his hand away from it and cover it back up, ignoring the question Arthur couldn’t voice, asking instead with his imploring gaze.
“We’ll talk about it later.”
It was a painful reminder, and it was selfish to refuse to tell him, but Arthur had lived because Charles had been selfish, and this was the one thing he didn’t know how to address.
But without his voice, there was very little talking they could even do, very little expressing. Arthur clearly needed an outlet for him to get his more complex thoughts across. Charles initially hadn’t known how to help - and their usually comfortable silences were strained with the fact that they were forced. Touch helped, but Arthur was still too weak for anything more than kissing, and Charles was afraid what might happen if he pushed too hard.
All of it clearly frustrated Arthur to no end; to be stuck in such a small space most of the time, limited in his energy and range of communication, unable to contribute to their living situation. There was very little to keep him busy, so naturally, as soon as he had the energy to do so, he lost his temper.
Charles had been readying himself for a day of work when Arthur had gotten to his feet and slowly walked over, placing a hand on his shoulder and catching his attention.
“Hm?” Charles looked up, and saw the stern look on Arthur’s face. He pointed at himself, and then at Charles. The larger man slowly frowned. “What?”
Arthur’s brows drew downward, and his mouth formed the shapes of words. Charles didn’t catch the meaning, and shook his head, so Arthur did it again, slower.
Take. Me. With. You.
“Arthur...” He sighed, and he didn’t have to say anything more. Arthur’s face turned from stern to plaintive, and he held the sleeve of Charles’ shirt a little tighter.
Please. He wheezed as he attempted to speak, unable to do more than make the pop of the P and the hiss of the S.
“I need to work, I-” Somehow, Arthur managed to cut him off without making any noise, tugging on his arm and scowling. He nodded and motioned to himself, and then at Charles again, and the younger man understood.
He felt something twist in his chest, both at Arthur still thinking he needed to work, and the fact that Charles couldn’t let him. He was doing so much better, but he wasn’t in any state... and might never be. “We can go somewhere on Sunday, alright? Maybe find that park again... but I can’t take you with me, Arthur...”
Arthur exhaled harshly through his nose, biting his lip to no doubt quell his urge to shout, cheeks flushing with anger or shame or both. He didn’t release his grip, and when Charles tried to pry his hand away, the ex-outlaw snapped.
He slapped Charles’ hand away as hard as he could, trying to push him towards the door in a moment of jilted defiance, a very clear intention of fine, go! But his strength wasn’t what it used to be, and Charles was not easily pushed around. Arthur had been the one who’d lost his balance instead, and Charles scrambled to catch him, his aching heart in his throat.
Grabbing Arthur around the middle, he saw the flash of surprise on Arthur’s face before his expression crumbled. The older man covered his face, clenching his jaw and sucking in a weak, shuddering breath, overcome by the level of absolute ineptitude he’d never dealt with before.
Slowly, Charles sat them both on the floor, and brought the man into a proper embrace, feeling the way Arthur’s shoulders shook as the anger turned to sorrow. He heard the rasping, voiceless sobs, Arthur choking silently on his tears, hands clutched on Charles’ arms. His grip trembled, but whether he wanted to push him away or bring him closer, Charles didn’t know.
When he’d finally calmed down, Charles was late, though he hardly cared. Arthur was the reason he was working, the reason they were still in this city, the reason for everything. The necessity of affording the things they both needed pulled Charles away from him, but he’d give anything to be able to stay.
Arthur’s eyes were red and damp when he pulled his face away from Charles’ chest, and he mouthed one more word.
Journal.
It struck him like a mallet, and Charles couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid. He hadn’t needed to be told that Arthur’s satchel and everything in it was gone. It hadn’t been up on that mountaintop, though even if it was back then, it surely wasn’t now. But that meant his journal was absent, too. The thing he’d used to write his thoughts in, sketch the things he saw, express himself. If Arthur couldn’t talk... he could at least get his thoughts out on paper.
The very next day, he’d presented Arthur with a lovely leatherbound book, pages white and crisp, with AM embossed inside the cover.
Arthur had been so grateful it had brought tears to his eyes, and taken the book like food offered to a starving man. He spent days writing page after page, sometimes becoming distressed as he no doubt revisited memories that wounded him, but it seemed to do him some good, as soon enough his frustration ebbed into a calmer sort of energy.
Oddly enough, the turn of the century had snuck up on the both of them, Charles only realizing on his walk home, what with people already beginning to revel and celebrate. 1900 would arrive at the stroke of midnight, and when he’d said as much to Arthur, the man had seemed completely blindsided.
“What have you done for New Years Eve in the past?” Charles asked, and Arthur looked slightly blue for a moment, before he replaced it with a smirk and mimed taking a drink from a bottle. Ah, Charles should have guessed.
He went out and splurged slightly on a bottle of whiskey, the kind he knew Arthur liked, and when he brought it back the outlaw kissed him on the cheek for it.
As they sat together by the open window, slowly finishing the bottle between the two of them, watching the bursts of color and noise in the sky not far off, Arthur brought out his journal and scribbled something down, sliding it over so Charles could read the page.
Didn’t think I’d live to see this.
Charles gave a small huff of laughter, unwilling to extend himself into that dark thought, and trying instead to follow the lighter path it offered. “It’s pretty hard to believe, isn’t it? A whole new century.”
Arthur nodded his head, tapping his pencil against the page, watching the last of the fireworks show. The finale lit up the sky, reflecting off Arthur’s face in hues of blue and green and red, and made the air smell like gunpowder. People were cheering and laughing, and when Charles turned to him again, Arthur had clearly come to a decision. The next line he wrote was not so innocuous.
What happened to my neck? I know that’s why I can’t talk.
Charles’ hands had shook slightly as he read that, chest constricting, and slowly, he nodded.
“Y-yeah, it is.”
Arthur looked at him, imploring and stubborn at the same time in the way that only Arthur Morgan could manage to be. Begging without giving an inch. It was part of why Charles loved him so much.
He took a deep breath and picked up the empty bottle as he spoke, twisting it in his hands, voice soft with pain. “The doctor in Annesburg. You were suffocating on... fluid, from the TB, and he did a procedure so you could breathe, stuck a scalpel into your throat and something sharp into your lungs to drain it. I... he said you might not live, and if you did, there could be consequences. The doctor here only confirmed it... this is what he meant.”
Arthur was motionless as he took that in, touching his neck with an understanding blooming on his face. A moment passed before he wrote again.
But it saved my life?
“Yeah, it did.” Charles nodded again, setting the bottle down to clasp his hands, contrite under the guilt he still carried. He felt responsible for Arthur’s state, his recovery as well as the accidental collateral damage done to him. It was worth it, at least to Charles, but that didn’t mean he held no blame.
Arthur’s brows furrowed slightly, and he reached up once more to touch the thick scar in the center of his throat. It wasn’t long, but the skin was dark and raised. Even though the doctor had sewn it up almost immediately, it had gone all the way through, and was impossible not to notice.
Dropping his hand, Arthur began writing again, taking pauses as he no doubt thought of how he wanted to phrase certain things.
You told me I was unconscious for weeks, worse than that time after the O’Driscoll’s. If not for you, I know I would not have made it. I’m still not certain how I did. I thought the TB would kill me. I was ready for it, even if I was afraid. I’d come to terms with dying. I said goodbye to you.
“I... I know.” Charles struggled, his voice thick and his eyes stinging. “I know you did. But... you might’ve been ready, but I wasn’t, Arthur. I couldn’t leave you.”
You’d be the only one.
Charles didn’t know what to say to that. He hesitated, aching for the man beside him, and for his own lost companionship of the gang. How could he even put the importance of the past year into words? What could he say that would express it without minimizing or patronizing anything?
He couldn’t have explained it if he’d had a million nights, so how could he do it in one?
When Charles remained silent, Arthur slowly began writing again.
I’m not stupid enough to be ungrateful that you’ve saved my life. I earned a bad death through the life I lived, but in the end it didn’t come for me. And then he paused for a while longer, and swallowed slightly. When I was lying there, after Micah had beaten me like a sick dog and Dutch had abandoned me to it, I thought about the people I’d wronged in my life, but that wasn’t all. I thought about you too, and I hoped you’d be able to find some form of happiness. It never crossed my mind that you’d come back for me.
Charles’ efforts to keep his eyes dry failed, and he didn’t think he’d ever wept so much in his life as he had the past few months. He shut his eyes and tightened his jaw, turning away from those written words and putting a hand over his mouth to keep the tide of sorrow and rage at bay. Of course it had been Micah who had done that to him, who had blackened Arthur’s eyes, cracked his ribs, and broken his fingers. Micah who had seen a man dying of tuberculosis and decided to brutalize him. But the fact that Dutch had been there, had watched it happen... Charles couldn’t imagine what that had done to Arthur.
God, it was no wonder he became so upset when Charles had to leave him alone here. Did some part of him fear that Charles wouldn’t return at nightfall?
But Charles always would. He had gone back because the alternative would have haunted him for the rest of his days. Even if it had just been to bury him, he couldn’t imagine a world where he simply left.
Not knowing what became of the people he loved... he’d had too much of that in his life. He’d been unable to prevent his father from wasting away into an alcoholic stupor, choosing instead to leave him to his fate, but ultimately ignorant of what that fate was. He’d been too young to rescue his mother from the men who had snatched her away, never knowing where they’d taken her or when she must have inevitably died, and perhaps the litany of failures and loneliness that had dogged his steps through the years had pushed him to refuse to give up on Arthur, to disavow the notion that life was allowed to take even more from him.
Hadn’t he earned the right to keep at least one person?
Slowly, Arthur put the journal in his lap and took Charles’ hand, squeezing and trying to catch his eyes. Charles realized he wanted to look at him, needed to, and placed his hand on Arthur’s cheek to hold his gaze steady.
“I’d do it again, even if... if you hadn’t made it. I’d do it a thousand times. Do you understand? I will never leave you.”
The look on Arthur’s face tore something in Charles, and the kiss they shared was a culmination of all their wounds bleeding together, and the ragged scars they’d left behind. Charles had dedicated himself for months to ensure that Arthur would live, and in that time, the success and progress had healed something in Charles, a part of himself he’d thought long dead.
He realized it now, breaking the kiss and gazing into Arthur’s watery eyes. For the first time in twenty years, Charles had a firm, unshakeable hope.