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Tilly Jackson sits at her brother’s bedside, mindlessly mending a scarf.
John looks like hell. Everywhere she looks, she sees red. He’s unconscious, and though she hardly wants to think about how Reverend Swanson put him under so easily, she’s glad he has some solace. Even if every few moments, he whimpers softly, shifting in the bed, jostling tender wounds. She’ll lay her hand on his knee or his stomach, and eventually, he’ll still.
The cabin is deathly silent. Abigail is finally off to bed, gently prodded to bed by Hosea an hour or two ago. It’s well into the night, but Tilly cannot rest, not when her mind keeps on turning back to John every time she tries to think about something else. All around her, the world is silent. Colter and the mountains hold their breath as John wheezes and clings to life.
The door creaks open. She knows who’s come without even having to look back at the door. Who else would come in and stomp off the snow like him? Who else would know they’re one of the only people she won’t shoo away in this quiet solace?
“How is he?” Arthur asks, his voice softer than she’s heard it in some time. He’s brought in a lantern of his own, and he sets it at the foot of John’s bed as he pulls up a stool. Combined with the lamp she’d brought, it brightens the room only a little, making the shadows look longer and darker than she reasons they should.
“Holding on,” she says, setting aside the scarf. She’d just needed something to keep her hands and mind busy. Her hands ball into a fist in her skirt as she speaks, careful to keep her voice soft. “He’s stubborn. A scratch won’t kill him.”
Arthur hums, a noncommittal sound that makes her want to hit him. But she knows the two of them better than most, and she can see the war in his eyes. His anger only marginally manages to outshine his worry. But she’s got a certain sense that all Arthur has acknowledged is that anger.
Anger that John made him go out in the snow and chase him down. Anger that John got himself into another mess that he needed dragging out of. Anger that Arthur couldn’t say no. Anger that he’s lying here, stiller and quieter than he has any right to be.
Arthur is a man who likes to make these claims about himself. He can say all he wants; that he’s angry at John, that he’s never going to forgive him, that he’s burned John from his life. And though Tilly doubts any of it is a lie, she doubts the breadth of it all. Especially when she watches Arthur gently smooth down the edge of a bandage, tender and full of care.
He catches her watching. His expression hardens incrementally, mouth pressing into a thin line as he looks between them. Without anyone else here, without any eyes to bear witness to Dutch’s children, walls have a way of crumbling, even when an effort is made to reinforce. Arthur’s walls have never proven too tall for Tilly to look over top of.
“He’s going to be okay,” she says finally, after a long moment where they just stare at one another. “We’ll hear all the complaints, but that means he’s living. He’s still got air in his lungs to complain.”
“Marston’s gonna complain his way to the grave, if he isn’t careful,” Arthur mutters, and Tilly wonders if he really thinks she believes that roughness, that anger. John’s leaving hurt him, she knows. But there’s more to it, and she hears it with every bitter word he spits out. “What was he even thinking? What fool gets chewed up by dogs?”
“It was wolves, Arthur,” she corrects, sharper than she intends. But perhaps it’s right to do so, judging by the considering look he gives her. His mouth presses into a thin line, and she’s hardly surprised when he drags a cigarette out a moment later. He offers her one without a word, and she takes one just as silently.
They smoke in silence for a time. The wind picks up outside, howling in the distance. John mutters something in his sleep, an intelligible murmur. She gently readjusts his blankets, brushing a few sweaty locks of hair off his bandages. It may just be the shoddy lights and the harshness of the shadows, but she can’t help but think he looks like a ghoul, all skin and bones.
With that done, she draws a little closer to Arthur. He lets her grab his hand, running his gloved hand over her knuckle as they both watch the rise and fall of John’s breath. She pretends she doesn’t see the worry in his eyes, and he doesn’t mention the tears she periodically wipes away. And when she leans on him, he just adjusts so they’re both more comfortable.
“Please just try,” she says softly, as their lights start to fade, as the night stretches on, “And find some peace with him. You’ve both been mad at one another for so long. Don’t you think it’s time to let it be?”
Perhaps it’s folly to ask. Anger has a way of remaining, after all.
“I can’t forgive as easily as you, Tilly,” he says. And his voice is fond and gentle, but she knows he’s just trying to lessen the blow.
“I think you’re just too afraid to try,” she says, her voice a hiss in the darkening room. He stiffens against her, but doesn’t argue, letting her go on. “I’m still angry at him, I am. I haven’t forgiven everything. But I haven’t made him think I don’t love him, still.”
She expects him to snap back, to return her words with hisses of his own. But after a long moment, he just sighs and relaxes again, pulling her closer. She rests her head on his shoulder and lets the conversation drop, this time. Just this time.
For now, though, they’re both just focused on John, breathing on that bed. She can see the boy she first met in him, see the edges that he never liked to show, see the youth he’s never let go of. Despite it all, despite all he’s done, all the foolish choices he’s ever made, he’s still her brother. And so is Arthur. She just wishes they could mend their bridge.
Maybe if she keeps wishing, they’ll find a way one day. Until then, she supposes all she can do is keep on loving them both, and hoping they can remember the youth they shared and the lives they have lived together. Because if not, what family does she have anymore?
John Marston doesn’t know how to pray, not anymore. Prayers failed him so much as a boy, he forgot how they’re supposed to go, forgot the tune, forgot the tempo. Now, when he needs them the most, all he can conjure up is a dry throat and these angry, pained noises that sound like the keens of a dying dog.
There’s a lot he wants to say. There’s a lot he doesn’t know how to say.
And Arthur’s laid up in bed, dancing with the reaper, slipping from their hands with each hour that passes. He looks like a ghost already, pale and haggard, knocking at death’s door without even asking anyone if they would miss him. It’s so very Arthur, it almost feels, or maybe John’s just trying to rationalise the irrational.
He doesn’t hear her come in, doesn’t even register she’s there until her hands are on his shoulders, a gentle weight. “Hey, Tilly,” he says as her hands leave his shoulders with a kiss to the top of his head. She sits in the other stool and takes his hand in hers, not even looking at him. He wonders if he’s also angry at her. Everyone seems to be sick of him, as of late. Arthur, most of all.
But here he is. Sitting in what may become his deathbed. Crickets chirp outside, and he can hear the distant sounds of the camp, but people keep a wide berth around this tent. No one is singing, no one but the wind. The world feels silent and still and wrong.
John adjusts the blankets, trying to make the world settle into place. Tilly smooths the edge of a bandage, leaning forward to brush a kiss to Arthur’s cheek. He doesn’t stir once. Tilly still won’t speak to him.
“Swanson asked Dutch and Hosea about prayers,” John says into the silence, not wanting to just sit here and hear the weight of his sister’s silence. Her eyes settle on him, as dark and discerning as they’ve always been. “Just in case, he said. I wanted to punch him.”
“I hope you didn’t,” she says, and god, when did she perfect that perfect tone of disapproval? They’re all so far from the kids they were when they came to this gang, so far from the easy camaraderie of their youths. And John knows so much of that is his own fault. He just wishes…wishes that…
“I feel like none of them care that I’m—I’m…well, you know,” he tries to say, scowling as his tongue refuses to put his muddled thoughts into words. He can’t look at Tilly, can’t meet her gaze as he says, “I told Dutch I was going here. He fucking looked surpsied, like he didn’t think I’d care.”
“You’ve hurt a lot of people, John,” she says. Her voice is flat and emotionless, but that betrays her. She’s made an effort that Arthur never has, and yet, he knows she’s angry at him in her own way. He sees how she looks at him after he argues with Abigail or refuses to do something with Jack. Her disapproval has always felt like a slap. Her words may just be a knife to the ribs.
“I know, I know,” he says. He can’t look away from Arthur, lying there. He looks so small, so sick, and so…unlike Arthur. This is a man who is as bright as the sun, as brilliant as the dawn, as unshakable as a mountain. Seeing him laid low is wrong. The boy in John, the one whose older brother was his hero, is crying already. The man he is feels like doing that.
His voice is weak, thick with unshed tears, roughened up by the grief that is strangling him like that noose did, all those years ago. “I just…I don’t want him to die mad at me.”
“He still loves you,” Tilly says, voice softening. Her hand is still in his, warm and real, dragging him back to reality. How long has it just been the three of them, the first of the children of Dutch? His golden boys and his little girl have all gone and grown up, but they’re still those kids, somewhere in them. She’s never seemed to forget that, despite her hurt. He loves her for that.
“Got a hell of a way of showing it,” he says with a shake of his head. He laughs, hating how bitter it sounds. But if he doesn’t laugh, the tears will pour forth and never stop until he’s watered the ground and caused the grass to come back.
“He sat at your bedside, that first night,” she says. She has a way of making the softness of her voice feel like an accusation, like a knife of its own. “He sat with me. Counted your breaths as much as I did, made sure you made it through the night. He can’t say it, John, but you are still his world. He loves you. We both know it. You’re both just too afraid to try again.”
“I’m not the one who picks apart every single mistake the other’s ever made,” he says, and he’s angry, damn it all. Nothing I’ve ever done has been good enough for you, he wants to shout, scream into his face until he wakes up and comes back. I could die, and I wouldn’t be able to convince you I am more than what you see.
But the words don’t come. The silence remains, following his words.
“He loves you, John,” she says. He looks at her—really looks at her, at her face that is half in shadow due to the candles that burn low around the small tent—and feels his heart clench in his chest as he sees the look in her eyes. He wonders how much the division between her brothers has hurt her. Shame rises into his throat, but he can’t swallow it down. “How long until you see that again? How much longer can you both hold onto your hurts?”
“I don’t know,” he whispers. “But I don’t think I want to find out.”
Arthur Morgan feels like a fool and a failure.
Grimshaw had offered to watch over Tilly, but some streak of protectiveness had risen up in him, and he’d swiftly refuted her. He’d even gone so far as to insist that she sleep in his room tonight, where she’d be out of the cold while she sleeps away the trials of the day. Her wounds aren’t as bad as they could have been, but she’s still wounded, and—
“I brought beers.”
Arthur doesn’t turn to the man coming in, doesn’t even say anything. He hears John huff, but he comes over to Tilly’s bedside all the same, handing Arthur a beer without a word. Arthur takes it, taking a generous swig of it, feeling it burn its way down his throat. John’s eyes are carefully turned away from Arthur, fixed on Tilly. The room is darkening, but there’s just enough light for Arthur to see how tense he is.
“She’s alright?” John finally asks. His fingers trace the rim of his bottle, and Arthur just watches his hands, not wanting to look John in the eye. “Grimshaw didn’t tell me anything but the fact that she was here. God, if I’d been here—”
“You weren’t, though,” Arthur cuts in before he even knows what he’s saying. John inhales sharply, and Arthur looks away from him, staring at the floor, watching the light flicker as the lamp does the same. “She’s fine, though. A few scrapes and bruises, but she just needs rest. She’s better off than we’ve been in the past.”
Tilly told him John sat at his bedside with her. He hadn’t been able to disregard the similarities to a night with him and her, a few months back, at another bedside. And here they are, repeating the pattern all over again.
“Can you just give it a rest, for once?” John whispers. Despite his quietness, Arthur can hear the anger in his voice. Hear the hurt. Arthur closes his eyes, hanging his head. He hopes his hat and the flickering light hide the fact that he can’t open his eyes and look at John. “I was out following a lead for Dutch. You know I would have ridden with you. For her? I’d do anything.”
“I’m glad there’s someone you’ll run for,” Arthur says, and he just can’t help the anger. John has this impossible ability to rile him up, to make him feel like he’s clawing at the walls from how frustrated he is with the fool. And the worst part is, he doesn’t even think John gets it, not entirely.
“That’s not fair,” John says. His voice is thin and warbly. Arthur squeezes his eyes shut, holding onto the bottle like it’s a lifeline. “You’re so fucking unfair, Arthur. Nothing is good enough for you. I love her as much as you do. She’s as much my sister as yours. You were just here. I wasn’t. Don’t go howling on me all over again.”
“I just want you to prove, for once, that you care about someone other than yourself,” Arthur says from between clenched teeth. “I want to know, John, that you’re not just here because you’re expected to be here.”
John says nothing, not for a long moment. Arthur tucks Tilly in as she shifts, tucking a curl behind her ear. He can feel John’s eyes on him, feel how he studies him.
“She kept telling me you still love me,” John suddenly says. Arthur stiffens, his mouth twisting as he tries to gather his thoughts. John’s voice gets ragged as he keeps on going, “She keeps telling me to try, to just talk to you, but I don’t think she really gets just how impossible you are. She’s better than both of us, and we know it. She sees things we can’t, she always has. But just this once, I don’t know that I can believe her.”
Arthur thinks about the day John left. Thinks about the sound of Abigail’s sobs, thinks about Dutch’s haunted look, thinks about Hosea’s grief anytime he looks at the few things John left behind. He thinks about Tilly, trying to pretend that it didn’t hurt, because she’s kinder than he is and wanted John to have someone when he crawled back to them.
Thinks of her, mediating between them. They’ve forced her to stand between them, forced her to watch her brothers hiss and spit at one another for almost three years now. We’re some awful brothers to her, Arthur thinks, remorse burning through him. And here she is, being the best sister I could have ever asked for.
“I’m so angry at you, John,” he says, unable to hide the tears in his voice. “You fucked up. You left. I can’t just forget how much that hurt everyone here. You didn’t get to see what you did to the people who loved you. You didn’t hear how Abigail cried or see how Dutch and Hosea looked. You just got to crawl back and pretend nothing had happened.”
John says nothing. When Arthur dares to look at him through blurred vision, he sees a man who is still a boy, somewhere in him. As the wind whistles outside, carrying the sounds of a song around the campfire, John hunkers in on himself, making himself look small. Arthur’s stomach rolls.
“But you’re still my brother,” Arthur finally manages to say. The words hurt, taste like blood and anger, but they’re raw and true. John shakes his head, shoulders still curled inwards. Tilly shifts in bed, and they both look at her, ever worried. “And that’s why I’m angry. I know you’re better than what you did. I know that you know you fucked up. And yet, you—you—”
Arthur’s voice fails him. He sighs, running a hand through his hair, looking at Tilly.
“Can we just try again?” John asks, voice soft, pleading. For all he pretends, he ain’t that old yet. Neither he nor Tilly are. And it’s always been Arthur’s job to look out for them. “We’ve all almost been lost, this last year. The wolves, Colm, and if this had gone any poorer, if you’d been a little longer, Foreman might have taken her from us. If not for that, for her. For the people we used to be.”
Arthur sips at his beer. He takes Tilly’s hand in his, from where it lies on the bed and remembers a distant night, not that long ago, at the bedside of the man next to him. She’d said things he couldn’t forget that night. Cut him to the bone with only a few words, picking him apart and leaving nothing but the truth in him.
And that truth remains in him.
“Things are changing, John,” Arthur says. “I don’t know how much longer we can run until we run out of road. But you and Tilly will always be my family. Even your stupidity can’t undo that.”
That gets a laugh out of John. Arthur laughs a little himself, letting John lean his head on his shoulder when he draws closer. They don’t say much of anything for the rest of the night, but they’re both there (and half-asleep) when Tilly blinks awake the next morning. And her smile makes the ache in his back and the lingering hurt worth it.