#does this count as comfort?

[beearthive]

We'll fix this together...

[radioroxx]

Perhaps some Isabeau being comforted as well?

isa comfort was gonna appear in the og post but i. didnt like the sketch so i scrapped it mb

so heres two to make up for it :)

[callsign-mimic]

Nikolai gives the best, most bone crushing hugs.

The man is a big, Russian bear. Well padded, strong as fuck, and delightfully hairy too boot ❤️

Imagine the satisfaction of hearing (and feeling) your entire spine crack and pop the first time he wraps you in a tight bear hug. And the amused chuckle from him as you go limp in his arms, groaning in complete bliss.

He would be delighted that you would seek him out every time your back pain became unbearable, squeezing you tightly before laying you down and rubbing your sore muscles. His heart would soar when you feel safe enough with him to fall asleep under his touch.

And the feeling of waking up in his arms for the first time would be more than enough for you to never want to leave.

[v-i-r-i-d-i-a-n]

Me when- me when something non-human learns how to be human 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[sunrotdropbrain]

I had the WORST cramps in my entire life so of course I had to jump on the trend

Also I had to include Monty just to prove to myself that I can draw someone other than Sun and Moon

Also I did this all one one file and my computer was STRUGGLING. I was going to include the original that wasn't cut up but 10 image limit :((

[mellosdrawings]

Content warning, please mind the tags.

"I would've given them to you if I only knew."

"I can't tell what I want anymore."

"Your wings don't fit on my back."

"Their weight is dragging me down."

"I've given you my pain yet I feel no joy."

"I've stolen your joy yet I feel only pain."

"What do I have to do to make it ll stop?"

"I can't tell what I want anymore."

[PREV] - [NEXT] - [MASTERLIST]

[lgbtlunaverse]

Nie Mingjue is the opposite of a man trying to escape the narrative. He's constantly being pushed OUT of the narrative and yet he keeps coming back in. He's a corpse before the story even starts he was a minor blip in the mc's life he should NOT be this deep in the narrative and yet there he is. Jgy literally killed him in his efforts to get out of the narrative himself and then nmj was like Fuck You (haunts you thereby trapping you both in the narrative forever) his brother's need for vengeance for his death is the reason the plot even exists he's so inside of the narrative he basically becomes it.

[scrimblobimblowhump]

whumpee being wheeled into the hospital with that sweet sweet combo of oxygen mask + swaddled in blankets + strapped down to the gurney + all sleepy and delirious >>> 🥺🥺

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Self Care

Time sighed heavily as he dragged his feet into the house. Last night had been a disaster - one trauma after another, one death after another. He hadn’t had back to back deaths in a while, maybe even since the war.

It was disheartening and exhausting, to say the least.

Four had texted him a couple times. Apparently the young man had been working last night and had been anticipating admitting Time’s cases, but they’d never made it up to him.

Malon had texted him too, a message of love, even though she had no idea what had happened; she’d been asleep, after all. Now she was at work, and Time barely had a few hours before a scheduled procedure in the late morning. He really should have just slept in the on call room, but he’d wanted to go home.

A sense of relief flowed over him as he entered the empty house. Most of the inhabitants were at work, leaving the place quiet.

Time shook the rattling sound of alarms in his head. He needed quiet.

He wasn’t much of a religious person, he had to admit, but today maybe he’d say a prayer. To whoever was listening.

Sighing, Time walked into the kitchen, finding leftover comfort food and heating it up. While he did so he closed all the blinds, trying to simulate night as closely as possible. He had four hours before he had to get going again. He’d take advantage of it.

Grabbing a bottle of beer and the food he’d warmed up, he slid to the kitchen floor, staring off into the void. Time fiddled with his phone a moment, putting soft music on the speaker. And then he stared again.

He didn’t have words, or feelings. But in this moment, he could just basque in peace.

Taking a deep breath, he slowly ate and drank. Then he grabbed some water and headed upstairs to the shower. After standing under the water for probably twenty minutes, he eventually stepped out and dressed himself in the most comfortable pajamas he could find.

And then he paused in front of the guest room.

Peering in, he saw the one inhabitant in the home aside from him. Sky didn’t have to work today, so naturally the young man was sleeping in.

Time thought of the family mourning their lost loved one, and he stepped inside the room.

Sky didn’t stir as he sat on the bed. Didn’t stir as he ran a hand through his hair. Only furrowed his brow slightly when he kissed his temple. Time sat there watching him for what felt like forever, and he said a silent prayer.

Taking a deep breath, he walked to his bedroom, closing the room darkening curtains, sipped his water, put on an ambiance video, and went to bed.

He’d be fine. But for now he’d just focus on taking care of himself.

[radioroxx]

ouu reqs,,,,mayb odile comfort again,,its changed me forever i never knew i needed it

something something odile gets to write for her family in her own familytale post-canon. love and light

[softcuddledrone]

"I can give you safety. I can give you comfort. I can give you a warm home where you want for nothing, where you can heal from the cold outside world. I can give you this, and more.

"All I ask in return is that you allow me to help you. All I ask is that you submit yourself to my love. All I ask is that you surrender yourself, body and mind, so that I may love you and change you into what you were always meant to be."

[arthursfuckinghat]

The long sleep loosens it's grip as your eyes flutter open. The warmth of sunlight kisses your skin, and a soft breeze combs through your hair, as if welcoming you back to a place you've always belonged.

You find yourself cushioned by the rustling grass around you, serving as a meal for horses in the distance. The chirping of birds and the trill of crickets create a nostalgic symphony from a time you can't quite remember.

You look up to the sky, eyes following the clouds to the outline of mountains that stretch before you. The view of New Hanover welcomes you.

The breath you didn't know you were holding is released, along with all the uncertainty it contained, you remember that you've been here before.

But this time, it feels like you're home.

[jude-shotto]

[Day 13 - Angsty RK1k - Anon💖]

Connor was having nightmares and needed confirmation that Markus was safe. And also the I run hot & I run cold couple!

You can check out the days early posts and wips up on Patreon!

[adversary-to-inamorato]

"Aren't you tired of doing this?"

[killerpancakeburger]

Attending a wizards soiree with Rolan headcanons - Angst Version

Rolan is about to ask you to come with him when he stumbles upon you and one of your warlock/wizard/sorcerer (pick wattya want) friend asking you to come with him to said soiree.

Didn’t mean to listen to the conversation. Does it anyway when he realises what it's about/that he's been beaten to it.

Your nonchalant, sardonic reply breaks his heart a bit. "Why would I go to that stuck-ups gathering? It's going to be full of pompous jerks who like to listen to themselves talk all night. Hard pass." With a derisive laugh.

He goes back the way he came from, face unscrutable, resolutely determined to not mention it at all to you.

You notice his change of attitude - he's colder, less patient, snaps more easily - in the next days but despite racking your brain about it, you don't get where this is from. 

The evening of the event, he disappears and you go to his siblings for information. Awkward conversation ensues. 

"Have you seen Rolan?" "Well he's at his beloved wizards gathering obviously" "... what gathering?" "...you mean he didn’t tell you?" "Tell me what??" Cal and Lia exchange anxious, embarassed looks. Your worry and apprehension boil over. "What is it!?”

Once you wring the truth out of them, you pause for a moment, before remembering your conversation with your friend, and everything brutally makes sense. Welp, time to fix this mess.

You find a fancy outfit in a hurry and rush to the soiree in a panic, while still trying to look dignified.

You get pushed back at the entrance. Invitations only. You try your best to not cause a scene but it ends with the guard and you raising your voices high enough to be heard from the guests. You're considering knocking them out until Rolan shows up.

Of course he recognized your voice from afar. It's not like he had been spending the whole evening trying to keep you out of his mind. To no avail.

"They're with me." Crisis averted. Well, for now. You're in like you wanted but now it's time to face the music. Despite coming to your rescue, Rolan does not look happy.

"Why are you even here?" are the first words crossing his lips. His features are twisted in a scowl. Being familiar with his temper, you can tell that he's restraining himself from yelling.

You have to rein in your first instinct which is to snap back "Why do you think!?". Aggravating the situation is not why you came. You afford yourself the luxury of taking a deep breath to compose yourself.

"I came for you, of course." You stare directly into Rolan's gleaming eyes as you say those words, trying to convey your sincerity and your feelings through your gaze.

Rolan crosses his arms, still frowning. "Far be it from me to suggest you should waste your evening by spending it listening to pompous jerks who love the sound of their own voices."

You put your hands on your waist and raise a dubious eyebrow. "Come on Rolan, I was deliberately exaggerating to make my friend laugh. Surely you figured that out. Plus I distinctly remember all the times you complained about the wizards you interacted with, and how they drove you crazy with their contempt and their egoism."

The frown on his forehead progressively disappears, but his gaze becomes shifty, avoiding yours. "I... I suppose I fail to comprehend why you would have accepted my proposal when you declined his."

You open your eyes wide in suprise, then your shock makes way for understanding. "Oh, Rolan." you sigh with both endearment and annoyance, a fond smile stretching your lips.

"What", he retorts, crossing his arms again, but in a different way than earlier, akin to sulking. A light blush adorns his cheeks. He knows that smile of yours, and that tone. You're about to say something sappy.

You close the gap between the two of you, tenderly cupping his face with your hands - he makes no move to stop you. "Rolan, rolan, rolan. Is it so hard to believe that I would endure hours of nagging, self-important wizards just to make you happy? Just to spend time with you? I defied shadows in a cursed land to save your tail, I braved the army of an immortal man to free your family, and I slaughtered the so-called greatest wizard of the Sword Coast for daring to lay a hand on you, and you think I'm scared of a soiree?"

He closes his hands around your wrists, not to repel you, no, but to gain more contact with your skin. He's able to look you into the eye again. "I suppose... it does sound foolish when you put it this way."

At last, you both join the function, but not before you first reclaimed a kiss or two from Rolan, to make up for his coldness the last few days.

[2demondogs]

Dutch x Reader. just pure heartbreaking, soul crushing, stomach aching angst you can write where Reader gets killed by Colm , making them yet another lover of Dutch’s fall victim to him.

We never see Dutch have a breakdown, and not a "Oh my God, we need money or else we all die" breakdown, but a "Oh my God, my whole world just got taken away from me and there's nothing I can do to save them" break down (maybe with Hosea but I need this man to UGLY CRY)

Doesn't matter how you get reader in Colms hands. That's completely up to you! They could be kidnapped and killed, caught in a shootout between Dutch and Colm, perhaps a ransom situation gone wrong! I'm just throwing ideas out there, but I'll say it again it up to you!

I love your writing so much, thank you :))

Thank you! This one got the Evil Gears working. You guys never fail to complete my villainous whump urges. I be like "cut his arm off with a boulder" and y'all are like "he will never love again."

Hosea's there and so's some others... it takes a village. Thank you to my platonic husband once again for some ideas because the block on this one was tuff. I'm sorry if the execution is not that good T-T.

Words: 3.7k Tags: canon typical violence, grief/mourning, trigger warning Micah (and I guess the rest of it)

The muscle memory kicks in before his consciousness does: the boom of a rifle — Charles' bolt-action, Dutch knows in his veins, can usually tell each of his men's guns apart by report — and then instantaneous sit up, find his gun, rub his face into some semblance of wakefulness as he storms half-dressed out of the tent, canvas flapping. Chilly midnight air is hitting his skin before the echo of the shot has faded into the treeline surrounding camp.

The stillness wakes him up the rest of the way. At least, the stillness of the woodlands, eerie-quiet as they always fall after fire. For the camp's part, men are stumbling out and tripping over themselves, tents rustling, and the women are getting up, Abigail shushing a too-loud Jack. Susan nearly beats Arthur to meeting his stride, her kerosene lantern roving light over the dying grass on the ground.

Micah is always first, a dark shadow already standing at the perimeter where Charles is looming over two shapes heaped on the ground. He doesn't think that man ever sleeps.

"Charles!" He calls, and the two turn from talking hushedly. "What's goin' on?"

Charles tenses up, and Micah speaks before he does, face clearing as Dutch squints the blurriness from his eyes. "Your, ah," — throwing a hand up at Charles, starting towards Dutch with his hands out to grab his elbows — "You oughta be warned, sir."

His brows furrow. Micah of all people is not one to beat around bushes, let alone with him. It gnaws at him, some, a vague sense of dread. It passes his mind where you are, but you had a habit of staying nights over in town if it got too dark to ride comfortably.

"What the Hell are you talkin' about?" He repeats. He shrugs his hands off, pushes past him, hears his gunbelt clinking as he stumbles a step. "Charles, what—?"

"Ain't no one else," Charles starts, not stepping from where he stands in front of the tree they'd assigned as an unofficial camp outpost. That's odd, too, and he has a feeling the man doesn't believe there's no one else, not with his gun clenched in his hands like that. No one else? "But there was an O'Driscoll with—"

And then Susan's lantern swings once across the start of the brush, throws light against hair and a fallen hat, laying on its crown. His fingers ready at his trigger, eyes hardening. "How did they find us this goddamn time?" Dutch asks the air.

Unlike usual, Charles does not keep talking once he's put his two-cents in the pot. He has that tension about him that he always does when there's something he would prefer not to say aloud, a habit that scratches Dutch raw in the wrong ways. He's about to spout off some aggressive twist to avoid the one in his gut, something about I'm the fucking man, Thomas, why are you not explaining this to me? until Susan steps the few paces ahead of him to meet the tree, and the warm glow of her lantern lands on familiarity.

His finger slips from the trigger, all curling bone-white around the grip instead.

Arthur puts a hand on his shoulder, and he waves at the heap with his gun, throat clicking loud enough he thinks he may have cocked it on accident. When he turns to him instead of the ground, he can't make out his son's face in the shadow cast by his own head, only sees glints off his eyes in the darkness.

"You... you take care of this, Arthur," Dutch is saying, feels a hand on his elbow, curling into the inner of it to hold him back, and brushes Micah off once more. Micah, or someone else— the fingers were thinner, but his ears are starting to ring. His throat feels clogged, sticky.

"Dutch," a voice says, and he isn't sure who it is through the roar of blood.

Sanguine is seeping into the ground that Susan's lantern reveals, sliding over the dirt from a gaping hole in the skull of an O'Driscoll. Always goes for the instant kill, Charles does. Green bandana, green vest, dressed like a big green clown by his standards — an imitation of uniform, all of them wannabe munton-shunting clowns wear green, munton-shunter wannabes is all those men are at the end of the day: swine united under one God, hollow be His name — and flailed onto the dirt by the rifle blow. Not from this close, no, he'd be gone from the shoulders up, which means the bastard had almost made it past the perimeter, unnoticed. Dutch can't find it in himself to tear Charles a new asshole for that.

You lay there, too. Unbleeding, but shot all the same.

"Dutch," comes again. He listens this time, because it's Hosea's sleep-ridden nasal and his cool fingers on his burning wrist, pulling him away as his mind grows louder. "Let Arthur handle this."

And he listens to the words this time, because it's Hosea.

He won't think of why Charles is good at fashioning these wooden crosses. Perhaps it's selfish to think that, and to neglect most anything besides the blackness eating at himself— but you are gone.

If he were a different sort of crier, maybe he'd turn to him now and tell Hosea he's lucky to have lived through two. That Arthur and John are, too, and especially Susan— but you are gone, and Dutch only finds one thing funny, in the sour way men laugh over spilled blood and ashes and misfires.

It's own his negligence that must've led to this. Letting you do as you wished, wanting you to be happy instead of entirely safe. If he had only listened to that little voice in his head, surely, you would have come back from town alive and well and pressing some little jewelry piece you'd stolen into his hands like some of promise, the way you always did.

But no, that's not right. The regret is talking now that something has happened, trying to paint over the simple fact that Dutch trusted you enough there were no nagging inclinations when you went out on your lonesome. He wouldn't have liked you this much if there weren't that ability to hold your own, how you offered him some semblance of safety in every regard that he hasn't felt in a long, long while. Give and take.

There is, too, the wish that he had been with you in your last moments. If he were, they wouldn't have been your last; but even if things went the way things always do — which is the end, eventually — he would've liked to have been there, holding you, the way lovers die.

Susan did her best to clean you off and freshen you up. Charles' crosses, and her mortuary sciences. They're both skills that shouldn't be held. Dutch kneeled by your side and gripped the stiffened hand as if the warmth of his skin could've made the flesh tender and rosy once more.

The work is done by the time the sun reveals itself over the treeline. A patch of clearing near camp holds you now, in the grave Charles and Arthur have dug. The two strongest, as reluctant as he was to ask anything of them knowing they were his first choices for scouting a new campsite. He was reluctant to even consider the fact that as soon as you were buried, he might have only a few minutes with that sorry, scored cross that now claims to be you.

Dutch wasn't sure what to do with himself when the work began, and he isn't sure what he spent the hours since midnight doing now that they've passed. He doesn't think he's moved from the spot he stepped into, and Hosea's arm linked through his is so burning hot in the crook of his elbow that he believes maybe he hasn't even breathed.

A respectable distance, in front of the boys. Arthur offers him the last shovel's-worth of dirt, and it means something that Dutch will probably soon regret shaking his head to. His brain skitters at the hard casing of his skull when he does, eyes backed up and stinging. That pain started sometime while he knelt beside you, which seems so long ago now.

Once Charles and Arthur leave, he crumbles onto Hosea, and it all feels very far away. Enclosed in it, locked outside of it; his nostrils burn as if he's snorted capsaicin, mucus coming to his throat without any tears.

"I know, Dutch," Hosea says, voice so weary that Dutch feels his fingers grow stiff and numb with it.

Here he is, and there goes his knees, Hosea stepping back once under his weight but holding him up, in the end, arms tight around his ribs. He realizes it hurts because he's talking, that Hosea has spoken in response to him.

"I should've—" He's starting, but now that he's listening to himself he does not know what he was going to say, and grows frustrated enough that he only groans, inhales a mouthful of the half-dirty collar of Hosea's fur-lined coat.

Here he is, and how he has forgotten what the shards of a broken heart feel like stabbing into a man's lungs.

Dutch has crumbled two sets of tobacco leaves in his fingers, blinking the sun out of his eyes where it crawls up and beneath the overhang of shading the folding chair beside his tent. He sighs sharply, hanging his hands and head between his knees. At this rate, he'll crush every last leaf in his rolling tin and still be out the soothe of nicotine.

Months have passed, but still he struggles to grasp himself again. The idea that you were gone for a job was a lie so clear to him by the end of that first week, Dutch could no longer fool himself on why his cot didn't smell like you anymore. He packed your things alongside his own, but they stay in the crates they were placed into — not stuffed, not like his possessions were — since the gang moved from Blackwater, to Colter, to here.

God, you're all the way back there.

Why did life not cross the border with us? He wonders, at times. He then remembers that it's little use to think that way, before he continues to do it.

There was no use toting a — as impersonal as it sounds, he has no other words for it — corpse around. If he could have, he would've buried you where he believed they might stay for a while. That place hasn't come to him yet, either, as quiet as the overlook seems to be, and so who knows how long he would've been playing that sick game. A proper graveyard was out of the question, if it even could've been done; the only usefulness in such a burial is a relatively sure landmarker by which to find you. Dutch has never been one to go back to the past.

But it's you. He did not go to his mother's grave, and he wouldn't go to hers now. You're more than the past, though. He wishes he could have buried you somewhere beautiful, at least; he wants to go back and sit with you. He doesn't think you will ever be so little as the past.

Dutch doesn't realize he's been mumbling these things to himself until Arthur's voice breaks through the drone of his own, rumbling murmurs and brings them to light amongst the ambiance of camp that he had tuned out.

"You okay, Dutch?" Familiar, gritty like his own voice. Lighter, and concerned.

Dutch looks up at him and sighs, seeing the draw of his brow. His hand raises to gesture before he can think of what he should say— what he even can say, or if there's anything that needs saying to begin with. Finally, the struggle exhausts his mind too much to do anything beyond summarizing his thoughts.

"How many more people I love?" He muses, flicks his wrist and lets it fall back to limply resting on his knee. The sentence cracks and falls between them, Arthur shifting on his feet uncomfortably.

Everyone has been uncomfortable around him, as of late, and that's getting on Dutch's nerves more than it is depressing him. He supposes it does its fair share of that, too. He believes that he does a fine job of swallowing himself and giving them what they need: a leader, strong and shiny and well-groomed, who knows what he's doing, what they're all doing. A man to be proud of, and to make proud.

A man who feels very unlike the way Dutch feels behind that blank expression he lets them paint something better onto in their heads.

Arthur is nodding, looking both ways as if clearing the camp of witnesses before he lays a hand on his shoulder. Lord, Dutch remembers when his hands weren't so meaty and rough. Near dainty, spindly fingers on some teenaged mutt that could barely lift an arm long enough to wave, hands that always seemed too-cold and clammy. That— now, that is the past.

"I know, man," he starts, and says something else he does not hear. All he can think of is when Arthur used to call him Dad, every now and then. "—have to move on," he's saying.

Dutch assumes what needs brushed past, and he has never been a man to agree with the truth, so he asks of Arthur the least he can imagine asking of him. "I know, son," he interjects, gently moves his hand from his shoulder to raise. Arthur steps back, sighs. "Can you...?" Dutch aches, he does; aches for something here that he cannot put a name to, unsure what would soothe any part of him that's currently stirring. He doesn't find the answer as his eyes search the collar of his red workshirt, the treeline past his shoulder where the horses are grazing on the sloping ground. "I need to be alone. Please."

Arthur's jaw clicks as he moves it, then nods and steps away. He pauses before he obeys.

"I..." — that pregnant, lingering thing comes between them again, keeping Arthur's chin raised as he hesitates — "Sure, Dutch," he says, and leaves him to picking up the larger crumbs of tobacco that fell to the ground.

Bitter brown and orange scattered through green grass and patches of raw dirt. In the soil, he figures out that, foolishly, he wanted to be embraced.

Not much more can be done about you. Not now.

It's been burning his skin, this need to be held. It's less than that, Dutch thinks, maybe just a desire for a vague thing like the right kind of comfort.

What can fill a hole this vast?

What can mend a man?

"What's wrong?" Hosea asks, and it's the only what Dutch knows the answer to.

He must know, too. In the lantern light inside Dutch's tent, his face is sliding away from even into one akin to the expression men turn on kicked dogs. They've grating on one another since abandoning the Overlook, and it's been too long since he's seen that much warmth in his eyes.

If only the kinship didn't come from something so terrible. Dutch hasn't pulled him aside this late into the evening since Annabelle's death sent him to nightmares. How strange it feels to taste her name in his thoughts again. Slowly, you've come to stand beside her, to be dead just like her. Nor with as much haste, with hands that shook so hard gripping Hosea's shoulder that he followed without a question.

"I just," — wringing his hands, pacing around the sprawling bear rug thrown over the ground, seems so gaudy now, all of it seems gaudy — "I don't know what to do with myself."

"Ah, Dutch," Hosea says, voice soft. His face grows hot with the sting of oncoming tears. "I know."

His hands are shaking before the words have fully left his mouth. It comes to him that he hasn't cried in the months since you've passed, and suddenly the wave of it hits him at once. He didn't cry for Annabelle until a year had gone by and Arthur had asked, unknowing, if he'd felt the same way with her as he was feeling with that Linton girl.

He had, was the worst part.

He had felt it with you, too. That youthfulness, the carelessness, let them all know; the way his eyes would soften and give him away before he could ever hope to hide it; the burning of loneliness without you, your hand on his arms or how right your skin felt under his palms; how he liked the way you laughed and smiled, so much that it left him bristling with an energy he didn't know how to waste. Dutch was always bad at hiding himself away, in anger or love. His breath never steadied, 'round you. Nothing was even, nothing was ever as clean-cut as he wished it to be. He realizes he's thinking as if he is dead, and stops himself.

It's almost more than you, now. The weight of it takes him to his knees, all the while ashamed in the back of his mind of what he's come to. Hosea follows. Grunting when his knee joint pops, but follows instantly all the same. For some reason, Dutch's face scrunches up harder at that, and he lets it happen when arms link around his shoulders. He remembers the cold of the air the morning you were buried, and lets out a whinging, broken noise.

Time lapses fast and slow. He's unsure how long he spends crying, or how pitiful it must sound. He's unsure when the last time he even cried was. There's not much to mourn in a life spent living amongst the dead, not really— and not much else warrants tears, not out of a man like him.

They come hard, and then dry up enough his head throbs with the strain to find more with which to release himself. His heart races alongside, pounding hard in his wrists where they are both pressed between their stomachs, fingers clenching and unclenching, rings making divets in the webbing that ache. Nose pressed to the breast pocket of Hosea's shirt, gasping breath in between sobs, Dutch comes to a semblance of his senses, to consciousness. It's still difficult to think through the migraine threatening to take out his vision entirely when he attempts to crack his eyelids. It's almost like a first hangover.

Whiskey would do me much better than bawling, he hears himself pondering.

There's nothing more to think of, not about that evening nor the ride you took. There's nothing he has not thought of on the matters of what those groveling weasels may have done to you before they took your life, and there's nothing he has ever doubted on what information they tried to extort from you.

It was personal, it was. No point would have been had in ratting Dutch out to the law, no safety in sending one of his sniffling newsies to the cops only for that one to be extorted and take everyone down with them. Nothing is fair in love nor war, and this feud has always been made of both.

Your death was a chess piece to Colm. If he really meant it, really wanted Dutch to do anything but get pissed off and show his soft belly while struggling to retaliate— Colm would have brought himself and his best men, and he would have dumped your body before him. Personally, like a real bastard. At least, this is the fantasy Dutch imagines in a world where revenge is feasible, and smart.

There's nothing he hasn't done for you in this world besides cry, and if he doesn't stop this heaving, he'll suffocate. His temple is scorching, burns worse when he tries to pull his head away and he cringes, fumbling for his handkerchief to get rid of the mucus sticking his nose to Hosea in thick strands.

"God, I'm sorry, this is— I'm disgusting," he groans, throat clogged. He's on the brink of tears again just from using his voice. It's thick, and he squeezes his eyes shut trying to fix the mess he's sobbed onto him.

Hosea's hand smooths over his shoulder blade. "No, you're grievin'," he says. "You're lovin'."

Curse him and how— how open he is in being kind. Dutch's feverish forehead falls onto his shoulder, but at least these new tears well up right into the handkerchief instead of all over the already soaked patch on his friend's shirt.

Friend. Brother, really. Hosea must be a brother to hold him this quietly as his organs try to squeeze out his body, to give him this thing he never could have asked for in a silence so much more tolerable than lies of how things will be better soon and reminders that men do not show their pulse points like this.

He is getting old, and Dutch doesn't know what he will do. He thinks the last piece of his soul will die with the man.

His mind thrashes so violently inside his head, he thinks it may come out in bloody chunks as he blows his nose. The skin is screaming and raw by the time he can wrangle a bit of air through his nostrils again. Once hot and writhing, he feels his body going numb, painfully empty. His fingers lock up where they cling to each other at Hosea's chest, and it grows hard to breathe; he slumps against him, rakes in air until his stomach feels connected to himself again, and lets out a shuddering sigh that sinks his shoulders back towards the ground.

Wherever he had been, it was very far away. Maybe it was closer to you.

"When does it stop?" Dutch asks, moving to lay his mouth hard against Hosea's collarbone through the shoulder-seam of his shirt. It's sharp and he leans hard enough to feel as though the bone is grinding on his teeth.

He opens his eyes, though it feels more like prying with the drying tears on his lashes, and— looks at the tent, he supposes, but doesn't see much. A crate of your things stares back at him.

Hosea sighs. "It doesn't," he says, pats his shoulder once. "You'll hurt until you join them."

Dutch hates that he's right.