#isaac... isn't it enough you fucked in your brother's BED?

[acidheaddd]

Meanwhile...

[verdemoun]

I love your au but can we have some angst?? How often do they cry??

oh boi i love angst

hosea cried learning about what happened to dutch. he didn't want to and he hated himself for it but he will always love dutch and it hurt knowing dutch became the very opposite of what he believed in. it devastated him in a way he didn't know he could feel grief anymore. much like how dutch was there for him when he mourned bessie, bessie had to be there for him when he mourned dutch or the sheer overwhelming depression might have killed him.

sean cries because he misses karen. in typical sean fashion he tries to pretend everything is okay but see post for details alcohol isn't enough to stop him crying over how much he misses karen. he doesn't cry over the gang so much because in a way he feels morbidly lucky for escaping seeing the gang fall apart. his death truly marked the end of the gang's golden era.

but you know what really fucked up the whole lot of them? going to a little field that used to be part of beecher's hope, all hyped up ready to be reunited with the powerhouse that is abigail marston nee roberts in the modern era equivalent of 1910 and instead, a tiny little girl still holding the teddy, stuffed squirrel her dad gave her appears out of thin air. the lost marston daughter, who died at aged 3, standing in front of them asking for her mom and dad

they try to tell her it's okay and she's safe but she doesn't know any of them. john never spoke softly about the gang, his family. he repressed it and tried to forget and as a result his daughter stares wide-eyed at the gang as terrifying as strangers. the gang literally faced with the fact john has been actively trying not to remember them.

sadie adler, who has not cried since the day the grief of losing her husband turned into rage, has to remove herself. abigail marston jr's nickname is addie as a direct nod to how much sadie adler helped the marstons build a new life. she held that little girl as an infant, and played with her as she grew into a toddler. she sobs because that little girl is so scared she doesn't recognize her auntie sadie and she can't even hold her to comfort her

arthur is able to convince addie marston she's safe by drawing her mama and dad and very gently explaining he's her dad's brother. he's her uncle arthur, who she's never met or heard stories about, but she doesn't need to be scared because her daddy will be there soon and uncle arthur's going to take care of her until then.

they manage to get her home and she almost immediately falls asleep still clutching her stuffed squirrel dressed as a cowboy.

arthur is fucking ruined. he isn't crying, he's weeping. it's the grief he felt all those years after losing isaac: losing a child. his brother lost a child and somewhere across time his brother is having to dig her grave alone and mourn her while she's safely tucked into arthur's bed. arthur has no way to tell him she's safe, she'll be protected and cared for until he's there because the canon era gang don't know the timewarp exists after death. he has no way to talk to him, to be there for him as someone who understands that grief. his little brother is as alone as arthur was when he went through mourning isaac and arthur can't do a damned thing about it because the cruelest irony of the timewarp is knowing what the surviving gang members are going through and not being able to do a damned thing to stop or change it.

charles has to cry silently, because he doesn't want arthur to hear and try to console him. he knows there is nothing he can do or say that will comfort arthur and that ruins him. even for those who escaped, those who lived a life after the VDLs, death still haunts them. there's nothing and no one to blame for addie marston dying at aged 3. she died of an unknown illness, like so many children in the early 20th century, and now they have to pretend they're okay for her sake and each other's sake.