Chapter Text
Over the next few days, Arthur spent a lot of time sitting around camp. It wasn’t like he had much else to do, but he didn’t want to just lay in his bed like a corpse, so he sat by the fire and used the cursed bow to shoot rabbits and birds that got a little too close. Pearson enjoyed the extra ingredients for stew, and everyone else couldn’t complain that he wasn’t working, because he was still hauling in more game than they were, even if it was all small. Charles sat with him a lot, smoking a cigarette and talking about tracking methods. Arthur clung to every word, even if he didn’t truly understand tracking enough to get what Charles was saying.
“Once you’re back moving, I’ll show you what I’m talking about,” Charles said one day, flicking the butt of his cigarette at the fire.
“I’d love that,” Arthur responded a little too enthusiastically, too full of nervous energy to filter his words and tone.
But Charles didn’t seem to mind. “Glad you’re excited,” he replied, a smile gracing his perfect lips.
By the end of the first week, Arthur was walking around without the crutches, albeit with a limp. He still sat by the fire a lot, unable to use his stirrups while riding. Charles offered to teach him how to ride bareback once he found out about that, but using his heels was still too painful, even when he had help getting both on and off of the horse, so he passed on a second lesson until he was better. Days passed slowly, but the trek back to his bed became a little less painful every night. Knowing he would have a limp for months, Arthur focused mainly on finding ways to walk that seemed natural but kept the minimum amount of pressure on of his arch. Hosea even offered to get him a cane at one point, but Arthur just laughed.
“I’m not old, old man.”
Hosea stared at him. “What if it was one of those canes that has a sword in the bottom?”
Arthur went silent. “Those actually exist?”
“Of course, I almost got filleted with one once!” Hosea chuckled, standing up and bidding Arthur farewell before he could ask many more questions.
It seemed like camp was frozen while he was down. No one planned robberies, no one fought, no one talked about getting away from the East. Just silence. Silence and sympathetic stares. It made his skin crawl.
Then, someone finally decided to throw a party. Everyone was drinking. Sean was singing, Dutch and Hosea were dancing, and Charles was sitting just outside of the glow of the flames, sharpening his hunting knife. Arthur wanted to go over to him, keep him from looking so lonely, but he was starting to get drowsy, and he wasn’t quite sure he’d make it to the other side without sticking his foot in the fire. Besides, he could feel the alcohol in his blood, and he knew that good decisions would not be made if he tried to talk to Charles while wasted.
Within minutes, he fell asleep, eyes on Charles until the moment they closed.
When he woke, he was being carried. Again. This time, though, he was draped across someone’s arms rather than over their shoulder, which admittedly did feel nicer. He glanced up to see who was responsible, and he kicked himself for not realizing before that it could not be anyone but Charles. He shifted in Charles’s arms, sleep trying to reclaim him, as Charles took gentle, deliberate steps toward Arthur’s tent. They were there before Arthur knew any different, but he wasn’t ready to be let go. With the moonshine just starting to leave his system and his consciousness still half asleep, he clutched at Charles’s arm with his own as soon as he started to lower Arthur to the mattress. Finding that Arthur was clinging to him, Charles leaned further down, finally getting Arthur to fall to the bed with a sigh. But a hand caught him at the elbow, and Arthur’s half-lidded eyes blinked up at him.
“Stay for the night?” He slurred, sending Charles’s heart racing.
He said nothing, just kicked off his shoes and slid under the blanket next to Arthur.
“I like you a lot, you know,” Arthur said, leaning in close and wrapping his arm around Charles. His skin was hot to the touch, and with the amount of it pressed against Charles in that moment, he was surprised that he wasn’t already sweating.
“I know,” Charles finally murmured. Arthur started snoring almost immediately after. Charles chuckled to himself and closed his eyes, feeling every single one of Arthur’s breaths against his neck.
When Arthur woke in the morning, he had no memory of the night before. But he could tell he was in bed, which meant that he had gotten into bed somehow. He opened his eyes and about jumped out of his skin. Charles lay next to him, one arm under Arthur’s neck and the other on his own chest. Arthur almost screamed.
“Charles,” he whispered, removing one hand from Charles’s waist to poke him. “Charles.”
The larger man stirred next to him, pulling his arm out from under Arthur and rubbing his eyes. “Good morning,” he murmured. Noticing the panic in Arthur’s eyes, he held out his hands. “Nothing happened, I promise.”
Arthur sighed in relief and flopped back against the pillows. “Then what did happen?” He looked at Charles out of the corner of his eye, too aware of the redness creeping onto his face.
“You got wasted,” he started, and Arthur nodded. “You fell asleep.” Arthur remembered that part too, he remembered the warmth of the fire and the fire in his heart lulling him into tender dreams of the man he was falling fast for. Charles continued, ripping Arthur from the memory of his dream. “I carried you over here, then you asked me to stay the night with you.” He shrugged, propping his head up with his hand, elbow resting on the pillow next to Arthur’s head.
“Nothing else?” Arthur asked, his stomach churning.
“Nothing important.” Charles seemed so nonchalant that it physically calmed Arthur down. Maybe he hadn’t made a fool of himself. He let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Sorry about that,” he said after a moment. “Drunk, half-asleep me isn’t exactly the most logical.”
“You shot yourself in the foot two weeks ago while you were sober and wide awake. I think it might just be you, Arthur.” He grinned as he leaned in closer, and Arthur’s heart started to race again as he remembered that they were laying in bed together.
“No, that was a Lemoyne Raider,” he said in a futile attempt to push away the thoughts he was having about Charles.
Charles hummed. “Yes, of course.” The sun started to creep over the horizon behind the larger man’s body, and Arthur was filled with apprehensiveness in place of the nervous warmth.
“We’d better get up,” he whispered, his face still just inches away from Charles. “We don’t want everyone assuming things about us.” Though I wouldn’t mind if they did was dropped from the end of that statement due to Arthur’s better judgement.
“Of course,” Charles replied, starting to push the blanket off of himself. “One last thing, though.”
Arthur looked up at him. “Yeah?”
“I really like you, you know,” Charles said, so quietly that Arthur would’ve missed it if his heart was beating just a little bit louder. He cupped Arthur’s face in one hand, pulling him up as he leaned down until their lips met. The kiss was gentle, but Arthur felt like he was burning up inside. All of those feelings that he’d been holding inside had been reciprocated. What an absolute miracle. He moved his hands to hold the side of Charles’s face as they kissed slowly, sweetly, so very tenderly that Arthur thought he was going to melt on the spot.
When they pulled away, Arthur couldn’t believe that it had happened. “I confessed to you last night, then?” He asked, earning a chuckle.
“Your drunk, half-asleep self may not be logical, but he’s honest, and that’s all I ask.” Charles smiled down at him, the sunrise giving him the illusion of a halo.
“I may have to kiss you again, just for sayin’ that.”
“You’d better.”