stagcowboy99

[stagcowboy99]

also.. me again. i’ve been digging ur time warp shit so imagine. kieran being like a child who will beg their parents for a horse at any given opportunity. they won’t do chores until their parents promise to get them a pet horse afterwards. he is desperate. he ends up volunteering at a horse centre and the horses there like.. follow him home. but he wants his *own* horse.

kieran thinks it's hilarious to joke about getting a horse. since there's absolutely no way to own a horse at bessie's little patch of land, they usually counter with a trail ride

however, on the rare occasions where bessie matthews is super drunk, one of the first thing she will do is burst into tears hugging kieran and apologize for not being able to get him a pony

kieran always feels a little bad but also thinks it's absolutely hilarious and does love the cuddles

when he needs a horse fix really badly they'll rent a petting zoo and kieran will lay on the dirty straw with ponies and baby goats just laying around him. he's a disney princess with livestock any animal will become his friend

he has had horses follow him home, but the thing that excites him most is when there is a horse that needs constant care and he gets to take it home for a night or two. everyone can see how much his mood improves when he has a horse at home

[stagcowboy99]

Out of the timewarp couples we know that...

Sean dies before Lenny

And

Bessie dies before Hosea

This leaves The Morgans, The Duffys (Sorry Kieran it's you), and The Jones's... at least to my memory.

So in my lust for angst... who dies first, and how tragic was it?

Okay timewarp endgame let's go

Bessie and Hosea die together, so who died first is unknown. Bessie was sick first* and the one the gang most expected to die. Hosea's heart just went 'fuck not losing my wife again'.

Generally, the first shall be the last. Most of the 1911 gang actually die before the 1899 gang (minus tragedies and age related illness) simply because living rough as outlaws do for an extra 9-15 years in canon era was a physical strain they never really recovered from.

Charles dies before Arthur - he went 9 years mourning Arthur before timewarping, and I'm not putting him through that again. Only in his early 70s, Arthur noticed the tiny change of Charles sleeping more than usual and insisted he go see a doctor. Metastatic lung cancer: with only two or three weeks left to live. Instead of suffering through treatment for at most an extra 6 months, Charles decided just enjoy what time he had left - helping Arthur plan for how he would cope without him, seeing family and saying goodbyes, going to the few sights they hadn't seen and some of their favorite places for the last time. 3 weeks after the diagnosis, and only the second time he actually complained about pain, Charles simply took a nap and never woke up.

Similarly, in the once-Matthews-now-Duffscuella household, Javier dies first. Javier did not age well, and got a lot of age-related illnesses younger than most people. Arthritis in his 40s, heart disease in his 50s. Still, his death was very abrupt (only a year or so after Charles, so early 70s again). He was sitting on the couch, watching TV with Kieran. Sat his cigarette down on the edge of the ash tray, said he didn't feel like it, and laughed when Kieran asked if he could have it. But then - didn't pass it to him. Massive, sudden cardiac arrest. No response to attempted resuscitation: so quick it was painless. Didn't mean Kieran was any less distraught.

Kieran ends up living with Arthur because, as well as his self-neglecting brand of autism, Kieran was diagnosed with early stage dementia shortly before Javier died. As it progressed, Kieran's confusion manifested as basically thinking it was canon era. He'd huff he had to take care of the horses, or have moments where he still thought he was an O'Driscoll and start stealing things (from himself) because if he went back to the gang empty handed 'Colm'll have my head'. Arthur was always the best at calming him down, second to Javier, and generally knew how to keep Kieran happy in terms of things he would eat and what situations would be too overstimulating for him. Also, Arthur actually had horses so Kieran could look after them in his stableboy moments and be content. Kieran also passed away before Arthur.

The Jones's might have to be another ask oop.

[stagcowboy99]

if kieran was an animal he would be a toad or frog or some sort of peculiar amphibious creature

he's a mudskipper

[stagcowboy99]

Au where instead of taking Kieran’s eyes out they sew his mouth shut (and he also gets saved teehee)

expanding on this au where they cut his tongue out and sew his mouth shut.

arthur gets back to camp one unremarkable day to everyone in a flustered panic? charles is quick to explain it's kieran: charles found him being held by o'driscolls, he's beat up, he's hurt, and the medically inclined of the gang are currently trying to cut through the stitches on his mouth that were an obvious 'you talked, you're not talking anymore'

they get through it only for kieran to roll onto his side and start hacking clumps of blood. by the time the gang get an update kieran is passed out asleep despite maintaining a white-knuckle grip on mary-beth's wrist.

his tongue is gone, there was a cut in his throat from attempted decapitation, he's so thin and weak they're shocked he's still breathing. frankly, they advise he's probably going to die during the night

instead of dying, they're greeted to the terrifying visage of kieran bolting into shady belle in the dead of night, hyperventilating, his mouth a black hole in the dim light as he starts screaming. he woke up alone and it is very quickly not a mistake they will make again

without a tongue, and with some nerve damage to his mouth and throat, kieran can't communicate. especially at first. it's hoarse grunts and screaming. he can't make words, but the thing that distresses him most is that he can't whistle. whistling meant being able to call branwen, always having an escape and a means to run from danger.

anxiety becomes all-consuming. he can't handle being alone, because he can't call for help. he can scream, sure, but screaming didn't help when he was taken in the first place. for a long while, he needed to have someone in grabbing distance. his anxiety won't let him groom horses, because he's terrified of someone coming up behind him.

lenny teaches him, and the few gang members Kieran actually might talk to (namely Arthur, Mary-Beth, Karen and for funsies Sean's alive in this au) asl, which somehow leads to a new fear: kieran is terrified of the dark. dark means not being able to find people, and dark means people not being able to understand him

when the gang breaks down those four would become their own posse, with kieran stable boy and mary-beth becoming a sadie adler style 'don't fuck with my husband' protective of him. he loves listening to her read

[stagcowboy99]

wound tending

summary: javier finds himself playing nurse and dealing with an oddly inquisitive arthur morgan who decided he couldn't lay in bed any longer recovering from blessed are the peacemakers

notes: happy holidays!! this is for my @rdrevents Secret Santa recipient, @teawithbee24! hope you enjoy

Time abandoned Clemen's Point for them all. They watched Dutch and Pearson unceremoniously dump Arthur onto his cot, while Arthur coughed and shined with the sickly sweat of infection. A chair was brought to his bedside like they were waiting for the tent to become a tomb, his corpse laying neatly for viewing. When the chaos became silent, Dutch ordered everyone to get back to the mission at hand - whatever that was. It could have been hours or months, yet they still obeyed. The gunslingers worked small jobs, the women did laundry that became mostly bloodied sheets. Pearson cooked with whatever scraps were offered. They ate broth and sat around the campfire. A lamp permanently burned in the quarantined tent, and few were allowed to enter. Fewer were allowed to leave.

Javier cradled his guitar like a shield, first frowning when he heard footsteps coming from the direction that had become a blind spot in his mind.

"Miss Grimshaw won't be happy to find you moving about," the musician warned, the last note of a song cut off lingering like smoke. Watching Arthur was like watching a feral animal explore its new enclosure with cautious steps and a hard stare scrutinizing each new obstacle.

"Keep playing and she won't need to know," Arthur scoffed, slowly and awkwardly lowering himself onto the log seat. His bottom lip almost vanished into his mouth, teeth clenching down like it was a gag designed to muffle the sound of a grunt in pain. Trying to afford him some dignity, Javier feigned intense focus on the tuning pegs of his guitar.

"How are you going?" he asked underneath the sound of the song resuming. Arthur's body went to slump forward with a sigh, before his left shoulder went tight in warning. He settled for rolling his eyes.

"Healing. Which I s'pose is good," he answered.

"You don't sound thrilled," Javier pushed, a coy grin on his face glowing in the firelight.

"I'm not meant to be lounging around. I need something to do, or I'd be better off dead," Arthur muttered in his own misery.

"The best thing you can do for us right now is to let yourself recover," Javier said, voice nearly matching the tune he was playing despite the inflection becoming lethally serious.

"Not you, too."

Javier's eyes darted towards something over the lake: the expansive nothing far more interesting than the irritated, self-pitying scowl on the lead enforcer's face. His tongue found English too clumsy to be sincere in: the brevity of the words not bearing the weight of what he wanted to say.

"It's true. We need you, Arthur. For a few days there, we didn't know if you were going to make it," he said flatly, letting his hands become autonomous as they kept plucking away at strings like any other night. There'd been too many nights that felt like any other: a night where he was on guard duty, struggling to keep his eyes open, when he heard shouting from camp and feared someone had snuck past him. The relief of realizing it was Arthur had already consumed him before he watched the others drag Arthur to his tent, their workhorse too weak to lift up his legs. Someone had barked for him to get back to his post - and shouting became screams as their ragtag medical crew tried to clean the gaping wound in his shoulder.

"I've been shot plenty of times," Arthur mumbled, the pause before his reply more telling than the response.

"Not like that," Javier insisted, forcing the quick flash of a grin as he turned his gaze back. "If forcing you to rest means you getting better, we'll chain you to your tent like a dog."

"I'm not overdoing it sitting out here," Arthur countered, exhaling a silent laugh. The quiet became comfortable, consumed by the persistent soft melodies that came with the presense of Javier's guitar by the campfire. Arthur caught his mind wandering, chasing his thoughts back to the sensation of his foot silently tapping in time to the beat. Despite Dutch's best efforts, music had always eluded him, but he recognized the four-time beat. "What's that song about, anyway?"

"Huh?" Javier asked, brain lagging behind the question despite Arthur's gesture to the guitar.

"The song you're playing. It's the one with the howling."

"El coyotito?" Javier confirmed, eyebrows furrowed as he stared at the guitar like a possessed object in his hands. "I don't know. I wrote it while I was crossing the desert."

"You wrote it, and you don't know what it's about?" Arthur jabbed, finally distracted enough from his own mind to snicker. Javier joined in, chuckling at his own expense.

"It's about endings, I guess," he divulged, head tilting as though in his mind he was listening to his own lyrics for the first time. "Death. I'd just left Mexico, having killed a man over a woman - a woman too good for me, who didn't love me, knowing that even though I fled, my family would suffer for my actions. The nights were cold, and I had to choose between lighting a fire and revealing my location, or shivering. For days, the only reason I kept moving was a single, lonely coyote following me. He looked as skinny and rough as I felt. It was like dancing: we were both starving, both waiting for the other to drop their guard so we could move in for the kill. One day, he was gone. I was completely alone, with no reason to go on other than not wanting to die. I started making up songs to keep myself sane. El coyotito ended up being one of the better ones."

"Huh," Arthur said aloud as he thought. Javier flinched as he realized Arthur had actually been listening to his rambles. The corner of the older outlaw's mouth twitched, rubbing his chin to hide the smile. "John's right about you."

"What?" he asked with unmistakable nervousness in his voice.

Arthur snorted. "You are a cynic."

"You're the one that asked," Javier defended, despite the unnoticed tension dropping from his shoulders.

"I guess you're right," Arthur admitted, defeat in the bags under his eyes despite the days he'd lost to sleep. His knees creaked with the strain of standing, a profoundly unsettling pop as he tried to roll his shoulder and caused them both to grimace. Glancing over his shoulder with the affection one would have to a prison cell, he sighed. "I should get back to the damned tent before Grimshaw wakes me up to change my bandages."

"I'll do it," Javier offered, placing his guitar on his old ratty bedroll as if he were about to tuck it in. He was on his feet suspiciously quickly, as if he didn't trust Arthur's legs to carry him the few yards back across camp. "I'll tell her I changed them. She might leave you be for the morning."

"Don't like the odds of me sleeping, regardless," the gunslinger scoffed, obeying the gentle shepherding back towards the wagon hospital he dreaded as much as hospice.

"Just let me see," Javier tutted, unphased by the grumbling as he started to unwind the bandages. With each layer, the cream color of cotton became more yellowed, finally turning red as the last of it peeled away like animal hide from a carcass. Javier squinted as if wrinkling his eyes would distract from the smell - not the pungency of infection, but still unmistakably raw. "It's oozing."

"Weeping. Wounds weep," Arthur corrected, teeth clenched as he braved glancing down to the macerated muscle that was his shoulder. Before his mind captured the details and draw comparisons to the image of trambled rabbits, the wound was erased by a fresh patch of gauze. Javier fell quiet in complete focus, supporting the weight of Arthur's arm in one hand as he wrapped the wound. The touch was strange: Javier's hands far rougher than Arthur expected with how delicately the man preferred to carry himself, but more readily capable of being gentle than any of his other temporary carers. His fingertips looked as flat as trusses, angled by the smooth, solid scar tissue of a lifetime of his favorite instrument: impeccibly clean, but still bearing a permanent nicotine stain between his middle and index finger.

Perhaps when he was allowed the liberty of a pencil, he'd try drawing Javier's hands.

"I think you're better at this than Abigail. Maybe you should be our resident nurse," Arthur teased. Javier laughed, hands tensing with the passing thought of hitting the patient. They softened again instantly, fixing the last length of bandage into place firmly under its own wrapping.

"I'd miss the fight too much," Javier replied, the irony and sympathy not lost on either of them.

"Sure," Arthur agreed, surveying the cot like a battlefield for the arduous task of laying down. "Well, thanks for the company."

"Of course," Javier dismissed, despite the sudden softness in his voice. His footsteps were deliberately slow: mulled crunching over grass instead of the hardened dirt paths the gang incidentally wore everywhere they called home. Sighing through gritted teeth to mask pained muffles, Arthur tried to adjust on the canvas cot without putting weight on his shoulder. Quiet should have been good - it meant those on guard had nothing to shoot at; the rest of the gang were peacefully asleep; even Hosea's snoring seemed a little quieter in Clemen's Point. Arthur stared at the thin sheet ceiling of his wagon-side tent, and wondered if Hell would contain the same silence.

The first pluck of a guitar string seemed as loud as cannon fire wrecking through the still air, nearly sending Arthur bolt upright before the tune became familiar. Javier had moved from his stage at the main camp to the scout fire, facing towards Arthur's tent. It was like the sound was traveling through the earth, vibrating through the tent-posts and wire bedframe. Every sense was assaulted by the blanket of a melody. He couldn't hear anything other than that song if he tried.

Sleep insnared him before he had the chance to consider if their musician wound accept his gratitude.

[stagcowboy99]

♫"No matter

What the weather

We're together"♫

[stagcowboy99]

[stagcowboy99]

Dutch😭😭

Never let me cook again ts took me 1 hour itd not funny

[stagcowboy99]

charles time!

[stagcowboy99]

most underrated gang member, imo

[stagcowboy99]

ridin' with peepaw :D

[stagcowboy99]

i'm probably going to doodle more later, but some requests from today! :)

[stagcowboy99]

pictures for ask ?? idk.

[stagcowboy99]

Hi, in timewrap, about Isaac do you think he developed clinical paranoia or even delusion of persecution, because, you know, the way he died. Just asking.

Isaac definitely has paranoia paired with anxiety, which deeply effects his ability to sleep. I hc the break-in that resulted in his death happened at night, and he was woken up to the gunshot that killed Eliza and saw her body before being killed himself. He cannot sleep unless he is in a locked room/house, and needs to personally check every single door, window and possible entry compulsively before he'll even try to sleep. Any new environment, he won't sleep for days until he collapses exhausted.

When he started spending nights at Hosea's with Arthur, he missed a lot of school because when he got back to Eliza's he'd need to catch up on sleep. It took 3-4 months before the first time he actually slept while over, and only when he was sharing the bed with Arthur. It wasn't until 12 months he could comfortably sleep alone in Hosea's house, only to start the whole process again when Arthur moved out. Any new presence in the house, it takes a month to readjust. When he can't sleep, he will walk around checking doors and windows every half an hour. Any noise that wakes him up from sleep will send him into a complete paranoid panic attack, convinced someone is breaking, in until he either panics himself back to sleep or every single light is turned on and every room is checked.

If anything, it gets worse as he gets older - with Charles and Arthur aware their camping trips can't be more than 3-4 days. Isaac will have loads of fun but will not sleep for the entire duration they're out. He wouldn't even sit in a tent until they figured out how to lock it from the inside. Chronic insomnia baby.

[stagcowboy99]

what if hypothetically…darragh went to seans funeral in the timewarp…

I know you asked for different angst but I’ve been sitting on this one until I was in the mood.

Sean’s funeral was a mess. Lenny and Sean’s wedding was the first big wedding the gang had to organize. Sean’s funeral was the first funeral they had to arrange.

Following advice, Lenny and Karen impulsively chose open casket. It made sense; they’d all seen corpses before, and the idea of a final goodbye sounded pretty. Instead, they all felt nauseous. Sean wasn’t meant to be still or peaceful. He was meant to be alive. There was so much make-up on his face they couldn’t see all the faint marks on his face. The moles were there, but the little scars and blemishes that made him look real were hidden. His hair was too well maintained, combed back the way Lenny always loved him wearing it but Sean never would because it wasn’t him.

Midway through eulogies, Darragh staggers in, the sort of drunk you can smell. He takes a seat at the back, poorly trying to straighten his blazer and unironed shirt. Everyone is trying not to cry, including Arthur during his own speech remembering the proper old days, but Darragh is doing a significantly worse job. Him trying not to cry was its own wail of deep, primal, animalistic mourning, pushing everyone closer to their own breaking point.

Hosea ends up dragging him outside, apologizing profusely because he has never been in the situation where he needed to bury a son, but warning him to pull himself together. For Lenny's sake, the gang's sake, for Maeve's sake, when Maeve barely understands Sean isn't waking up or coming home, he needs to hold himself together and if not he can stumble back to whatever bar he just left.

Darragh takes a breath, and agrees. Goes back in, and Hosea quickly takes a seat beside him in the back. He saw Darragh twitch, like the strike of a match. It was the same angry glower Sean would get, the moment Hosea knew a grudge would never be let go. Darragh's angry and looking for a fight.

With every speech, Darragh looks more like a slowed down explosion. His face is turning red, skin raw from wiping tears away, hunched over with every breath an expansion of his entire body. The gang is healing, telling stories of good times, remembering Sean so warmly they're actually finding comfort in the morbid spectacle they were denied so often in canon.

When they ask if anyone else has a few words, Hosea grabs Darragh's wrist in the same second the old irishman goes to stand. To his shock, Darragh actually simmers, but not without a hissed 'he was my son'.

Eventually, it's Hosea and Darragh alone, far into the night, standing at Sean's grave - because Hosea knows better than to leave someone that angry, and bitter, and isolated, completely alone. Darragh pulls out a scrap of paper from his pocket.

Darragh, through gritted teeth and tears, told a story about a 5 year old Sean, climbing trees far too tall because he knew his da was there to catch him when he inevitably fell. That was his son: brave but not naive, fearless but not reckless. As far as Darragh knew, Sean Macguire, his son, died in 1889. Darragh didn't know the stranger he bumped into in a bottle shop with his son's face, or the lives others remembered so innocently. His son wasn't the sort of repressed idiot who lightened the mood with drunk antics, or burned tobacco fields, or got women pregnant. His son wouldn't be stupid enough to walk home alone at night and get shot in a robbery gone wrong. None of them knew his son, and he's sorry they didn't, because his Sean was brilliant. He was sorry he was standing over a stranger's grave, because he'd never get the chance to know what happened to make his son change into someone else, or get to know his son again.

[stagcowboy99]

the only interaction between kieran and hosea is hosea carrying the poor guys head to his grave

pleasssssseeee more 1899 interactions i need them to fish together

- Hosea wasn’t sure if it was just to spite bill, or if despite himself he was getting attached to their little o’driscoll, but when he saw Bill very loudly threatening the nervous creature to drink a beer, he decided to draw his weapon. He shouts to leave him alone, Kieran has horses to tend to, because Kieran actually does something other than sit around camp and be pathetic. Bill storms off, Kieran scurries back to the horses, and Hosea has the satisfaction of killing two birds with one stone. Chasing Bill off, and - he wasn’t sure about the second one.

- Until the next morning, where instead of their usual passive greetings as Hosea reads the paper and Kieran cleans, Kieran approaches like a skittish horse to thank him. An opportunity to finally talk to the nervous fellow, of course!

- Hosea gushes. An obligatory ‘of course’, before insisting to Kieran if it happens again, to go to him directly because he’s one of them now and he won’t have bullying in his gang. Kieran is slightly amused by the mention of ‘his’ gang, but agrees.

- With Hosea going out of his way to encourage conversation despite Kieran’s understandable nervousness, they end up in a routine of Hosea sitting at the table with the paper early enough to catch Kieran washing the tables, and Kieran starts asking what the news is. It’s fun - since so much of the paper is reports of the gang’s activities, without Kieran knowing, Kieran starts to make little gabs and jokes at their expense and Hosea finds it hilarious. ‘Holding up a train? That’s a bit old fashioned.’ ‘Who steals a stage coach?’

- Being used to talking to Hosea, Kieran can barely contain his excitement the morning after the old guard returns with fish. What did they catch? Did they use bait? There was meant to be amazing bluegill in the area. Hosea raises an eyebrow, asks if Kieran fishes. ‘Yeah, I guess, maybe sometimes-‘

- Hosea insists there’s a fishing spot nearby he’d like to try, literally in sight of camp. Trusting his chores are completed, he’d be delighted if Kieran would join him that evening.

- Hosea’s worried for a second Kieran won’t show, when the poor fellow comes sprinting up to him rambling apologies. He dug up some bait, and asked Pearson for some line so he has something to fish with. Hosea, realising a rod would have been amongst the possessions confiscated when they captured him, quickly pulls a spare he carries and insists it’s a gift.

- They are barely out of camp, barely, but the anxiety melts away. Hosea almost wants to tell him he’s scaring the fish away but he’s too delighted seeing Kieran actually relax. He’s almost sure half the stories are the typical fishermen follies, but who knew the O’Driscoll had the confidence to insist he once caught a 50lbs channel catfish pink as sunset and released it. Kieran was talking, and relaxed, and laughing at Hosea’s many, many entirely true stories.

- Another day, Hosea insists on Kieran rowing the boat because he’s too old to do it so they can do some proper lake fishing. Kieran both catches Hosea second before a sturgeon pulled him off the boat, and then helps wrestle the beast in. Deciding it was too fine a fish to let Pearson destroy, Hosea directs Kieran to one of the small islands in the bay and they cook it themselves. Well, Hosea cooks, Kieran picks burdock, and then infodumps about burdock as a herbal medicine.

- Hosea taking Kieran into Rhodes to buy him a new pair of boots because his old ones never recovered from Colter/Horseshoe Overlook: tree era. He tried to buy him ore clothes, but Kieran insisted the gang’s hand-me-downs were fine.

- Hosea taking the time to assure Kieran it wasn’t his fault Jack got taken when the gang moved to Shady Belle.

- Slapping his back warmly the night they celebrated Jack’s return, when Kieran was drunk and happy and truly acting like a member of the gang celebrating with them. Hosea insisting now that the situation was resolved, they could get back to figuring out how they were going to track down that monster sturgeon in the lannahechee. Kieran offering the sort of sincere smile one could only achieve being drunk, guaranteeing they would.

[stagcowboy99]

Kelpie Kieran?

😞 kieran is human so he can be whipping boy of the gang Warrior Cats style.

“Ewww, he smells like a human!” Groans all the assholes of the monster vdl gang.

bit harpy Mary-beth has a loving for her weird human hubby. (Fun fact: Bessie is also human in the au!)