Chapter Text
1885
Arthur was alone and trying to convince himself he loved it.
He wasn't so far from the road as to be deaf to the traffic, but far enough away that he'd notice if anyone were to approach his camp with intention. Presently, he heard just that. The hooves were familiar, but so unlikely that he didn't believe it at first. He crouched in the mouth of his tent, gun cocked, as the regal shape of The Duke broke through the underbrush, black flanks blazing in the firelight.
Dutch didn't even hitch his horse, just swung off the beast with a mighty thud and strutted into Arthur's little camp with that hips-forward swagger, spurs tinkling. There was aggression in his body language, arms wide and gait measured, but a playful grin on his face, self-congratulatory.
"I tell you what," Dutch said, "it is a fine feeling tracking you down after all Hosea's caution against 'hunting wild Arthur Morgans.'"
He pulled Arthur to his feet before he'd even holstered his gun. Arthur's relief at seeing Dutch was only temporary.
"Eureka, you found me."
"'Better to try catching smoke,' he said, and yet here you are."
Arthur barked a laugh. "I ain't nearly so pretty."
"But you are given to disappearing." The playfulness gone, Dutch gave Arthur a lengthy stare, taking in the disheveled, feral look of him. Long hair damp with rain and tangled like Spanish moss, face muddy, dried blood on his collar, clothes ripped and stained after weeks of bushwhacking. Hell, he was barefoot.
"What happened to the boots I gave you?" Dutch said.
"Traded em."
"You sold your own shoes?"
"Can't very well eat leather."
"Where is your horse?"
"Gone." Arthur didn't elaborate, and at least Dutch knew better than to ask.
Arthur took a seat by the fire on a soggy log he'd pulled up earlier, put his frigid bare feet before the coals and prodded a couple of mushrooms he'd been cooking rotisserie over the flame. As he brought one of the skewers to his mouth, Dutch slapped it out of his hand.
"Hey!"
"There are quicker, less agonizing ways to kill yourself than with death angels."
Typical of Dutch - saving his life within less than five minutes of riding in a white horse, so to speak. Arthur wiped his hand on his pants, finding it easier to ignore his empty stomach for the time being.
"So you hunted me down. Now what, you gonna skin me alive?"
"I sorely ought to after what you did." Dutch stood over him with folded arms. There was suffering in his voice - real or performative, it was always hard to tell. "It's been a month, Arthur. Grimshaw's been in my ear. Hosea's been… Hosea."
Arthur said nothing. Not because he had nothing to say, but because he knew Dutch didn't need him to speak.
"You always came back. We never stopped you from running, but you always came back, son." The word stung, and Arthur swore Dutch knew it. Knew when to pepper its use for full effect. "I know you're prone to your fits of antisociality and introversion," Dutch went on pontificating, "and we have never imposed any rules or curfews, always given you space and freedom. And I knew you would need space after… after. But an entire month? Were you ever coming back?"
Arthur gave a shrug, refusing eye contact.
"And you couldn't have done us the courtesy of letting us know you were safe? Say something, boy!"
"I wasn't safe!"
Arthur stood up, but whatever words he had to say were tumbling down his throat, gulped back as Dutch met his eye with that powerful glare of his. A stillness came between them, but Arthur felt like a man caught in an undertow or a tornado. His breath stuck in his chest.
When Dutch raised his hand, Arthur expected discipline. He wasn't expecting fingers in his hair, combing its length, freeing a dead leaf or two. "'A wild Arthur Morgan'," Dutch repeated with a sweet chuckle, and Arthur realized that the man was pleased to see him. "Letting it grow out?"
"Barber's a luxury," Arthur mumbled.
"Is that why your face looks like you got in a fight with a cat?"
Dutch poked the shoddy job he'd done at shaving with only running creek water for a mirror. Arthur couldn't help his laughter. Swatted the hand away.
"Shut up, old man." He too noticed Dutch's appearance had changed since he saw him last. He wasn't unkempt, but certainly not as polished as usual. Pit stains, muddy boots, stubble. "Ain't like you not to shave."
"Well, I've been busy, haven't I? Combing the hills for some mangy cur."
"Just how long you been lookin for me?"
"Long enough." Dutch was still preoccupied with Arthur's hair. "I like it." Voice low with vocal fry as he ran his palm over Arthur's head.
Arthur eased out from under him. "Dutch."
"Arthur."
"Why?" he said bluntly.
"Why what?"
"Why are you here? Why bother?"
Dutch let his arms fall to his sides. "Because, you fool, I love you." He said it in the same way Arthur had heard him say to other men, 'I'll kill you' - without sentiment, without emotion or pause, just bare undressed fact. The coldness of it disarmed him. Only Dutch could make love sound like a threat.
And then he shattered the tension with a laugh. "But I don't love the way you smell, lost boy. You need a bath."
Dutch mounted The Duke, extended his hand, and Arthur knew he couldn't outrun the beast even if he wanted to.
-
By the time they saw lamplight flickering in the distance, Arthur's ass was numb from riding bareback on the horse's rump, his elbows locked around Dutch's waist. An hour's ride had led them to a small, sleepy town bordered by farmland. They passed wheat fields heavy with seed, the warm dry smell of it welcome after the rain. It was mid-evening and a few folks milling about one particular veranda identified the only building that could possibly have been a saloon.
They copped a few stray looks as they rode up, two big fellers on a big black horse. They hitched, fed and watered The Duke and Dutch made some comment about finding a new mount for Arthur, but Arthur was too focused on getting indoors. Rarely did he crave four walls and a roof but after a month of nothing but canvas and canopy over his head (and most of that time in the rain), he was as a castaway returning to dry land.
The saloon wasn't much finer indoors than out, but it was all finery to Arthur. Oil lamps cast a friendly glow, taxidermy adorned every other inch of wall, a cheerful piano in the corner, and the smell of pine and half-decent bourbon permeated. There was women's laughter and men's chatter, drink and company plentiful.
Dutch hailed the bartender without hesitation, ordered whiskey for both of them, bought them lodging with a bath - "oh, and put some food in front of this stray dog". Actual food (not poisonous mushrooms, bitter weeds or sap-filled roots) appeared before Arthur and he shoveled it down before he even knew what he was eating: freshly baked bread and a hearty chicken broth that was manna from heaven. He was two servings and two drinks in before he broke the encroaching silence between them.
"Don't think this means I'm comin back with you," he warned Dutch.
The bartender made to fill Arthur's glass but Dutch cupped his palm over the rim, dismissed him. Arthur wiped his mouth, soup still in his whiskers, and turned his whole body to front Dutch, but the man barely even acknowledged him over his own drink.
"Go on then," Dutch said, nodding toward the swinging doors. "Get yourself a head start. I'll see you in the morning."
Arthur didn't move. "You can't chase me forever."
Finally Dutch looked at him. "I'm not the law, Arthur. I won't give chase until I grow fatigued and then wait for somebody else to bring you to me. I will hunt you off the highest cliff and into the deepest canyon if I must. And if you doubt my stamina or my will, well then you have made a very poor judgement of my character."
Yet again, words of devotion delivered with threat. Arthur's gut tugged in a way that had nothing to do with his stomach. "Yeah, well, poor judgement is in my character."
Now Dutch laughed, full-bellied and genuine, and threw his arm around Arthur's shoulders. "Oh, I've missed you."
Reluctantly, Arthur smiled. The drinks came again.
There was still the air of unfinished business hanging between them but they soon grew softened by booze and the unexpected comfort of each other's company, both deprived of each other after a month. The evening was spent catching each other up on the time apart, anecdotes of easy scores and hard losses. Dutch regaled his genius in a small-minded railway town where he and Hosea had successfully managed to start (and profit from) a bidding war over 'scrap metal' that just so happened to be the train track itself.
Arthur hung on his words. He had forgotten how easy it was to fall thrall to Dutch's charisma. The grand gestures he made with his hands, the way his voice cracked on emphasis, the broad smile and throaty laughter. Arthur spent too long staring at his mouth, the bob of his throat as he drank.
Eventually Dutch tugged him over to the barber at the back of the saloon, had himself clean shaven and then flicked a coin at the man for Arthur. Grimacing, Arthur tolerated a shave but immediately leapt up before the man could do a thing to his hair. The barber rolled his eyes, said something about 'effeminate youth' that had Arthur showing his teeth.
"You cut hair for a livin and you think you got the stones to call me effeminate, you cocksucker?"
Clearly passion was not a common sight in town for the whole saloon went quiet. Dutch said nothing but cast a look at Arthur that begged him to think about his choices. The barber raised his hands and stepped back. "I meant no offense, young sir."
Again, the adjective bristled him but Arthur let his fists rest. Dutch pushed a hand in the space between Arthur's shoulder blades, flicked another coin at the barber by way of apology and excused them both upstairs to their room. As soon as the door closed behind them, Arthur flinched out of his grasp like hot iron, throwing a wild, pitiful punch.
Dutch dodged him effortlessly, grabbed him by the wrist and yanked, tossing him in a heap on the floor.
"The hell is wrong with you?" Dutch hissed.
"Plenty wrong with me, Dutch."
"Look at yourself, boy! You're starving, stinking, you're barefoot for god’s sake. And it's no wonder you're in such a state if you go about picking fights with anyone trying to help your sorry ass."
Arthur didn't bother to pick himself up, just slouched drunkenly back against the bed frame, his lips curled all sour and petty. The man was right. He usually was.
"Goddamn you, Arthur. You could have died out there. You- you could've stepped on a bear trap! You know I might well have found your rotting corpse next to a patch o' toadstools! O-or worse, a few bullet holes in you."
Arthur shrugged. "Who cares?"
Dutch knelt down in front of him, and slapped him. Arthur couldn't remember the last time a man had slapped him. It almost felt good, the freshness of it, the flash of heat rushing to his cheek. Dutch sighed at him. "You always were so morbid. Now get in that tub and wash your filthy hair."
Without argument, Arthur gathered himself and shuffled over to the bathtub, already full and steaming. He peeled his still-damp clothes off and threw them over the divider. It felt like weeks - and it had been - since Arthur had fully undressed to bathe. The closest thing to a bath he'd had recently was a brisk dip in a stream barely three feet deep. All the fight went out of him as he slid down into the warmth and the suds. He closed his eyes.
-
Before he knew it his body was waking him in the water gone cold.
He got out shivering and found his dirty clothes gone, but a silk robe hung in their place. As he pulled it on, the fabric smelled of dry tobacco and orange oil, of Dutch. Across the room, Dutch was asleep sitting up on the bed, book on his lap, arms and chin resting over his chest. The floorboards creaked as Arthur set a bedroll down. He reached to blow out the candle, and halted.
Dutch's eyes, heavy-lidded and weary, shone like little black beetles in the low light. Silently, he beckoned.
Arthur was too tired to defy him, obliged and sat before him on the bed. Dutch pulled a comb from his breast pocket, the one he used to slick his dark hair. The teeth were fine, not meant for brushing, too fine for detangling the wet tumbleweed that was Arthur's hair. It hurt (and he was certain Dutch meant it to hurt) as he tugged at each knot, yanking him by the scalp. It had been years since Dutch had brushed his hair. He remembered it being much less shameful, less painful when he was a boy.
"I know you're avoiding it," Dutch said with a softness that belied the torture of his hands, "but we are going to talk about what happened in Diana a month ago."
"What's to talk about?" Arthur said, and winced as Dutch tweezed a particularly stubborn tangle. "I killed someone I ought not have, happens all the time."
"It was different, and you know it. It doesn't have to be now, or even tomorrow, but it will be soon. And then you're going to come back with me and you're going to apologise to Hosea and Susan for making them worry. No one is angry with you. No one but me, that is."
"You're the only one with anger worth fearin." It spilled out before Arthur could stop himself, but Dutch just chuckled.
"I'll choose to take that as a compliment."
He attacked Arthur's hair for minutes on end until he could comb it smoothly without catching. The brushing softened into a caressing so gradually that Arthur hardly even realised it when Dutch started running his hands through his honey-brown locks with such a reverent slowness, turning his fingers this way and that. Arthur's neck sloped back, melting into the attention.
Fingers in his hair became hands on his skin, palms sliding over his clavicles, arms folding across his chest as Dutch enveloped him. Light, sweet touches as welcome as whiskey on a cold night and just as intoxicating.
Arthur could put aside the meaning of it for now, drinking the feeling of Dutch's affection without acknowledging the place it came from. Dutch's shivering breath against his nape, the broadness of his forehead pressing down into Arthur's hairline. Rasping chapped lips in the hollow behind his ear. Arthur’s heart quaking like a rabbit’s nose.
"Oh, I missed you," Dutch said again.
"Stop that," Arthur said, but weakly, forcing himself to say it.
"Why?"
"Hosea doesn't like it."
"Hosea's not here." But Dutch stopped all the same, and left him alone. "Go to sleep, Arthur."
The ache of his absence. It was worse with him now just inches away than it had been after miles and weeks apart.
1879
Arthur lay awake on his bedroll pretending to be asleep. It was an early spring night and the chill was still enough that he couldn't stop shivering, even in the radius of the campfire. A soft weight fell on him and he realized Dutch was surrendering his blanket. The wool smelled of him, orange blossom and cigars. That scent had been in his lungs all day.
Earlier, Dutch had been showing him how to shoot a rifle. Standing close behind him, guiding his stance, one hand gripping Arthur's hip, the other holding his arm and his aim… ghosting his finger over Arthur's on the trigger, breathing into his hair so Arthur could match his carefully measured breaths before taking the shot… Dutch was so much bigger than him, taller and stronger and smarter and so goddamn handsome and so goddamn close, his smell filling Arthur's throat.
Arthur sneezed and fumbled the shot, but it didn’t matter. His aim was true even if it wasn’t clean. He’d felled a buck and Dutch had hollered and shook him, arm thrown around his waist. Spontaneous lips smacked to his cheek. "You did it! I'm so proud of you!"
Presently, Dutch touched Arthur's forehead where he lay, combed his hair a little off his face and said a goodnight, whispered his pride again. Arthur resisted a smile, laying still.
Hosea was seated on the other side of the fire, cleaning a cast iron skillet they'd cooked the venison with. He'd been quiet most of the night aside from a few congratulations to Arthur. There was nothing unusual about his silence but there was something sinister in his voice when he finally spoke.
"You need to stop doing that, Dutch."
"Stop what, exactly?"
"Stop manhandling the boy like that. You'll give him the wrong idea."
"And what idea would that be?"
"The idea that-... That it's okay to manhandle a boy."
Dutch scoffed. "I would never 'manhandle' Arthur. I love this boy, Hosea."
"Yes, that's my concern."
"Well now. When did you get so small-minded, my friend?"
"Pardon me?"
Dutch took a lengthy pull on a whiskey bottle. "This world is the way it is because men are made of stone: cold, bloodless, without feeling. I'm not stone. I love Arthur and I love you, Hosea, and I am neither ashamed of it nor ashamed to say it aloud."
He heard Hosea shuffle uncomfortably as Dutch waited for a response.
"Do you not love me, Mr Matthews?"
"Of course I damn well do, but there ain't call to say it out loud. Some words are better unspoken."
"Why? If we are not honest with our emotions then we live lives no better than animals."
"Animals don't need words to know themselves. Fine. You want to hear me say it aloud? I love you, Dutch, truly I do. If I didn't, I wouldn't question your choices."
Dutch gave a moment for pause, voice low as he said: "It's not a choice, Hosea."
"It's a choice if you choose to coerce that boy!" Hosea hissed.
"Lower your voice. You'll wake him."
There was a long time, or at least it felt long to Arthur, where neither of them spoke, and the night sounds - an owl's hoot, tree boughs knocking in the breeze, the distant yelp of a coyote - seemed to intrude on the space between the two men. Arthur could feel their gazes on his back like knifepoints, certain that they could see him poorly feigning sleep. But neither of them acknowledged him. This talk was not for him to join, even if he was awake and they knew it. He was not old enough to have a voice, but old enough to listen. It was Dutch - it was always Dutch - who broke the unbearable silence.
"I'm disappointed in you, my friend," he said. "That you think such ugly thoughts. No, don't speak. You need to take a good, long while to rethink your mind. In my world, there is none of that prejudice that's out there-" The swooping sound of his arm gesturing widely. "-none of those arbitrary unspoken laws that 'civilized folk' pass on who a man can love and whom he can't. It's all made up, it's all false, it's all nothing. Only this is real, Hosea." Arthur flinched as he heard the muffled thud of a fist impacting a chest, and when Hosea did not respond he realized Dutch was beating his own breast.
Hosea stood up, gravel crunching under his boots. "I would like to live in your world, Dutch, believe me. But right now, the population is you, just you."
"My country has no borders," Dutch said, "and no law to stop you coming or going as you please."
Hosea left the camp, Tuesday nickering softly as he rode her out into the night. Arthur had no fear of him disappearing, knew he'd be back by morning at the latest, and with a brace of rabbits for breakfast more than likely. No matter what words were exchanged or what argument went unfinished, Hosea never ventured far from Dutch, and stuck even closer with Arthur in tow. But whether he guarded Arthur from a place of concern or of mistrust, the seed of doubt was planted in Arthur's mind now.
Arthur felt Dutch's hand on his shoulder and it paralyzed him like a rabbit under the shadow of a fox. He'd never shied away from Dutch's touch before, but after that conversation, something felt new about it, something that made him aware . Acutely, he felt each fingertip, the barest pressure as Dutch squeezed him through his shirt, the clamminess of his palm that left a damp chill in its wake as he pulled away sensing Arthur's tension. He heard Dutch bed down, and then Arthur was alone with himself. Alone in Dutch's country.
-
Gentle hooves roused him early and he sat up, blankets falling off him, to see Hosea back again, untying a pair of pheasants from Tuesday's saddle. A glance around the camp showed Dutch was gone but his belongings remained. Arthur frowned at the chill that wouldn’t leave.
"Good morning, Arthur." Hosea's flat tone said he knew there were no secrets between them. "I'm sorry if we kept you awake last night."
"It's fine." Arthur wanted to say more, wanted to defend Dutch, wanted to take the blame, or whatever it was causing this chasm between them. But he didn't fully understand it, didn't know how to say it, any of it, and Hosea knew better than to trouble him for his soupy thoughts.
"Here, come help me pluck these." He beckoned Arthur over.
Silence with Dutch was complex, but silence with Hosea was easy, it always was; the nature of two introverts behind an extrovert. Without talk, they cooked and ate breakfast, took down the camp, packed up and got everything ready to move on while they waited for Dutch. Arthur took out his journal, pressed a couple of wildflowers into the leather pocket at the back, idly sketched the great pines above them.
Hosea whittled a piece of smooth, dry driftwood he'd rescued from the firewood pile last night, carved out a little yearling buck with the speed of someone practiced at it. He gave it to Arthur and he understood then what Hosea had said about some things being better unspoken: Arthur thought he might weep if he said thank you, so he said nothing at all. He clutched the little figurine until Dutch returned.
Dutch neither announced himself nor greeted them, just swung off of Hercules and began packing up his things, no mention of where he'd been. Arthur glanced toward Hosea, trying to gauge him but his face was granite. There was some perfunctory exchange about where to move on from here, a few ideas tossed around as they gazed over a map, and they all agreed on scoping out a nearby town for leads. Arthur would have preferred to linger in the forest but it wouldn't do to prolong the tension. They needed the distraction of other humans.
He hung behind as they rode silently through the trees, heading northeast, the dappled sun prickling his eyes through the branches. He felt a mite foolish to still be riding a pony rather than a horse, but Toejam was a good and quick-witted animal, sensitive to his commands before he even offered them. Without needing to be told, the pony matched pace with the bigger horses but hung back at a distance, close enough for Arthur to listen without imposing. For once, and possibly the first time Arthur had ever heard him do it, Hosea spoke first.
"I'm sorry, Dutch."
Dutch looked to him, waited.
Hosea lit a cigarette as he talked. "You're right. I… Last night, I spoke from a place of prejudice. One that I need to mend. I am sorry."
"Already forgiven."
"Having experienced a bit of 'manhandling' myself, I've never trusted other men." Hosea did not elaborate, but he didn't need to. "You are the exception."
"Now that," Dutch said, "is something that did not need to be said."
"It was wrong of me to doubt you."
"I value your honesty, more than you know."
"I would like nothing better than to be a citizen of your country, Dutch."
"You're already in it, my dear friend."
Arthur smiled helplessly. He wanted to speak, to claim his citizenship as well, but he didn't dare impose on them, the sacred space of friendship.
And then Dutch glanced over his shoulder at him, something in his eye that Arthur couldn't name, something that sent a twisted prick of adrenalin through him, until he turned away and looked ahead toward the path.