#thanks authors for addressing the things rockstar didn't

[pinep-ne]

When the post-batpm fic has Arthur frantically calling for Dutch and repeating "it's a trap" in the feverish aftershocks of his trauma.

When the author writes his chronic pain and long-term disabilities from the point-blank buckshot to his shoulder, and the shackles he was hung from at his ankles, and the beatings to his ribs, and the now present confrontation of living with it when all he's ever known to wield most has been his body so what use is it without strength?

When they drive deeper into Arthur whipping his head to the side at Colm's touch, or how much worse his self-image has gotten at the sight of so many new scars, mental and physical, for the times he looks in the mirror. When they portray the horrors of sepsis, the frustration and grief and fear that boils over in every small setback as he heals. The gang's timid withdrawal from seeing their protector weakened to such an extent. Dying, just nearly, and in that, when they stop visiting his wagon all together. What that parallels to his eventual sickness; when all there is to be done is leaving his suffering unanswered, supposedly.

And when it's all "said and done", there is Dutch's singular reassurance that yes, they were coming to rescue Arthur, blazing guns and all, and just how much of a fool he feels that it weren't soon enough. That no, it's really not that big of a deal to Arthur, as he is alive, and Dutch has nothing to be sorry for. But he wakes still, weeks after the fact, sweaty films of striking, taunting hands and words all over his body, hammering fear into him, and peeling off like tidal waves in the dead of night.