[ This is the uncomfortable part of disclosure, the part he truly dreads.
Cutting open his chest and letting someone touch the bare wetness of his heart was a frightening ordeal in and of itself. Letting them see his childish nightmares, revealing those puerile fears to the cold open air for mocking voices and prodding fingers - that was uncomfortable enough. Most would think him a weak child for allowing this to dominate his nights. Their stories hadn't been much different, and they hated the reminder nearly as much as John himself did.
Pitying affection was another thing entirely. John's first urge is to pull his leg away, to remove her hand from him. Hands offered to him and pats on the back felt as easy to stomach as glass. He'd take the mockery and gawking over this, but he supposes that's what he signed up for. He's acting like a child - a sniveling, frightened little boy - and he's getting treated like one. He firms himself up and takes a breath. ]
Wasn't no lawman there to save me. Was them three came ridin' in. Dutch, Arthur, Hosea. Wouldn't be here if it weren't for the three of them.
[ Three horseman-shaped smears in a painterly sunset, soaring over the landscape, just before the horse surged out from underneath him and he was left to drop and choke. ]
I saw 'em ridin' up, but I guess... all the people came out to watch me die. Couldn't imagine anyone would be comin' to help.
[ Something else that had hung from him since that day; the number of people scared from their farm shacks to watch the hanging. Women abandoning dinner, hand in hand with their own children. All of the troubles they had pinned to the breath of an underfed, underhoused, underwashed boy. They must have thought they would kill all of their problems with him.
And, as the memory comes back to him, in the frogsong and the splashing of the marshland around them, John snorts. Even as that long-ago rope tightens around his throat ]
You believe the first thing I heard from 'em was Dutch?
[All those people, showing up to watch a skinny little boy die. She clenches her jaw to keep herself from saying anything she shouldn't; she's never been shy about speaking her mind, but maybe, in this moment, it's best not to. She'd insisted on following him, on staying with him even though he'd demanded she go back, that he just needed a minute. She can still give him that time, even as she insists on being by his side.
Her hand remains precisely where it is, for now, and that snort of his causes one corner of her mouth to give the slightest twitch.]
I believe it. Likes to make an entrance, don't he?
[She'd already known they owed Dutch their very lives, but not necessarily how very literal that had been for John.]
I see why they never told me. Ain't their story to tell.
[ This stands more chance of loosening the phantom noose around his neck than addressing the seriousness of what he'd just imparted, one of the few details from that day he could pull into gallows humor. John snorts again, descending for a moment into rare and wheezing laughter, before trying again; ]
You know how he talks? The way his voice is - good and steady and low when he's quiet, but then when he gets loud-- all honkin' and goose-like?
[ Even as a young man, he had that quality in his voice; passion and emotion riveted it until it cracked. ]
Feller whacked the horse so it ran out from under me, and I dropped, and I heard-- [ Stand by, his own voice is breaking up into wheezing and laughter, ] I heard him, honkin' away: 'Arthur, they're hangin' the boy! Arthur, they're hangin' him!'
[ This dark and idle amusement of John's probably wasn't anything funny to Abigail, this memory-relic from a time in which Dutch put John's life above his own means, this glimpse at a younger time. But it's honest - as honest as the quiet, thin, wheezing laugh John has for it. Dutch had always been a man with a penchant for flair and showmanship, but there had been none to be had for him that day. Their intervention hadn't been about a show; it had been about doing the right thing. ]
Well, anyhow. Next thing I knew, I was on Arthur's horse. He was yankin' the noose loose. I heard him all around me - 'I got 'im, Dutch,' - and I guess there was some gunfight over it. I don't remember that so well. But I been ridin' with them three ever since.
[ He hadn't been able to imagine a life where he hadn't ridden with them. Likely because, he thinks, there wouldn't be one. He'd have died tied to that tree. ]
[For a moment, she can only stare at him in response when his laugh hits her, puzzled more than anything else; it's thin and reedy and distant, but a moment later, her lips have crooked to one side as she offers a faint smile in return, blindsided by his reaction as she is.
The story, the finer details of it— none of it is a laughin' matter, but she she can almost hear Dutch for herself, the way he is when he raises his voice, when he's all stirred up about something. Honkin' really did sum it up nicely.
She's always known that the relationship Arthur and John had with the gang's co-founders was different from the rest; there'd never been any doubt that it was familial, even if she hadn't known the details of how John came to be there. Never seemed to matter much. Loyalty mattered to him, and that feeling ran deep. She'd always liked that about him, too.
She's laughing with him now, softly; it's good to hear him laugh like this, enough so that it eases her anxiety ever so slightly.]
Can see why you would, after all that.
[She knows he owes his life to Dutch. In a way, so does she— though not so directly. He's done a lot for them over the years.
She removes her hand from his knee, gently taking one of his own hands between both of hers without looking down. Instead, she keeps her gaze fixed on him, and there's no pity in it, but understanding, patience. For all the barbs they might exchange in mixed company, her thorns are nowhere to be found now.]
Dreams play tricks sometimes. Try to fool us into thinking we never escape our worst memories. Got more power over us than they oughta, feels like. Don't seem fair, does it? Can't fight back when we're asleep.
[ He supposes, privately, that that fits; he hadn't been much good at fighting back at the time, either.
The moment dies, of course. It always does. The only difference is that John hadn't been the one to kill it this time, not with some out-of-line comment or snippy remark. It isn't John that comes to defense of himself. It's the simple reminder that light peal of laughter pinning beneath his own deals him, the reminder that he's not alone in this moment. He's leading Abigail through it, sharing in that private and grim amusement he'd taken with him through the years, and she is partaking in it, with no thorniness or reprisal. Something in his chest withers in response, and he feels its legs break beneath him.
He can't find or name what just died. That doesn't stop him from mourning it, from touching the new hollow in his chest and feeling heavy regret sink his gut.
Maybe he could perform an autopsy on this fresh carcass he's carrying inside of himself later. If he's lucky, he could find a sober and dark corner to brood in and be left alone, and he could identify what he wanted to participate in - what had been taken from him in that moment, who took it, and what poison they had used. Why he felt, at once, exposed and alone - relieved and horribly sad. But not now. This particular sober corner is already reserved for Better, and that's what he's going to try to do. Even as his entire body compels him to stand and leave her here to this tree. John, silent, rubs at his forearms and looks up at the tree branches.
They could have held his weight, he thinks. ]
It always goes wrong. They don't come sometimes, or they're-- [ The words stick in his throat, ] --watchin', or... sometimes it's like the horse is the rope, and it takes off with me draggin' behind, and they never get me.
[She doesn't draw his attention back to her. Let him look where he will, do what he needs to get through the moment. That he's sharing it at all— that has to be a step towards something better. Healing, maybe? Seems silly even to think it, too lofty, but even she knows there's power in speaking something aloud, something what's been playing shadow for God knows how long.]
All them what-ifs.
[What-ifs and impossibilities, a memory twisted up into countless nightmares, the way the worst memories always knew how to do.]
Mighty long rope, to be trailin' after you all these years.
[It was probably going to get longer, still. These weren't the kinds of moments you ever forgot.]
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no subject
Cutting open his chest and letting someone touch the bare wetness of his heart was a frightening ordeal in and of itself. Letting them see his childish nightmares, revealing those puerile fears to the cold open air for mocking voices and prodding fingers - that was uncomfortable enough. Most would think him a weak child for allowing this to dominate his nights. Their stories hadn't been much different, and they hated the reminder nearly as much as John himself did.
Pitying affection was another thing entirely. John's first urge is to pull his leg away, to remove her hand from him. Hands offered to him and pats on the back felt as easy to stomach as glass. He'd take the mockery and gawking over this, but he supposes that's what he signed up for. He's acting like a child - a sniveling, frightened little boy - and he's getting treated like one. He firms himself up and takes a breath. ]
Wasn't no lawman there to save me. Was them three came ridin' in. Dutch, Arthur, Hosea. Wouldn't be here if it weren't for the three of them.
[ Three horseman-shaped smears in a painterly sunset, soaring over the landscape, just before the horse surged out from underneath him and he was left to drop and choke. ]
I saw 'em ridin' up, but I guess... all the people came out to watch me die. Couldn't imagine anyone would be comin' to help.
[ Something else that had hung from him since that day; the number of people scared from their farm shacks to watch the hanging. Women abandoning dinner, hand in hand with their own children. All of the troubles they had pinned to the breath of an underfed, underhoused, underwashed boy. They must have thought they would kill all of their problems with him.
And, as the memory comes back to him, in the frogsong and the splashing of the marshland around them, John snorts. Even as that long-ago rope tightens around his throat ]
You believe the first thing I heard from 'em was Dutch?
no subject
Her hand remains precisely where it is, for now, and that snort of his causes one corner of her mouth to give the slightest twitch.]
I believe it. Likes to make an entrance, don't he?
[She'd already known they owed Dutch their very lives, but not necessarily how very literal that had been for John.]
I see why they never told me. Ain't their story to tell.
no subject
[ This stands more chance of loosening the phantom noose around his neck than addressing the seriousness of what he'd just imparted, one of the few details from that day he could pull into gallows humor. John snorts again, descending for a moment into rare and wheezing laughter, before trying again; ]
You know how he talks? The way his voice is - good and steady and low when he's quiet, but then when he gets loud-- all honkin' and goose-like?
[ Even as a young man, he had that quality in his voice; passion and emotion riveted it until it cracked. ]
Feller whacked the horse so it ran out from under me, and I dropped, and I heard-- [ Stand by, his own voice is breaking up into wheezing and laughter, ] I heard him, honkin' away: 'Arthur, they're hangin' the boy! Arthur, they're hangin' him!'
[ This dark and idle amusement of John's probably wasn't anything funny to Abigail, this memory-relic from a time in which Dutch put John's life above his own means, this glimpse at a younger time. But it's honest - as honest as the quiet, thin, wheezing laugh John has for it. Dutch had always been a man with a penchant for flair and showmanship, but there had been none to be had for him that day. Their intervention hadn't been about a show; it had been about doing the right thing. ]
Well, anyhow. Next thing I knew, I was on Arthur's horse. He was yankin' the noose loose. I heard him all around me - 'I got 'im, Dutch,' - and I guess there was some gunfight over it. I don't remember that so well. But I been ridin' with them three ever since.
[ He hadn't been able to imagine a life where he hadn't ridden with them. Likely because, he thinks, there wouldn't be one. He'd have died tied to that tree. ]
That ain't always how it goes when I dream it.
no subject
The story, the finer details of it— none of it is a laughin' matter, but she she can almost hear Dutch for herself, the way he is when he raises his voice, when he's all stirred up about something. Honkin' really did sum it up nicely.
She's always known that the relationship Arthur and John had with the gang's co-founders was different from the rest; there'd never been any doubt that it was familial, even if she hadn't known the details of how John came to be there. Never seemed to matter much. Loyalty mattered to him, and that feeling ran deep. She'd always liked that about him, too.
She's laughing with him now, softly; it's good to hear him laugh like this, enough so that it eases her anxiety ever so slightly.]
Can see why you would, after all that.
[She knows he owes his life to Dutch. In a way, so does she— though not so directly. He's done a lot for them over the years.
She removes her hand from his knee, gently taking one of his own hands between both of hers without looking down. Instead, she keeps her gaze fixed on him, and there's no pity in it, but understanding, patience. For all the barbs they might exchange in mixed company, her thorns are nowhere to be found now.]
Dreams play tricks sometimes. Try to fool us into thinking we never escape our worst memories. Got more power over us than they oughta, feels like. Don't seem fair, does it? Can't fight back when we're asleep.
no subject
The moment dies, of course. It always does. The only difference is that John hadn't been the one to kill it this time, not with some out-of-line comment or snippy remark. It isn't John that comes to defense of himself. It's the simple reminder that light peal of laughter pinning beneath his own deals him, the reminder that he's not alone in this moment. He's leading Abigail through it, sharing in that private and grim amusement he'd taken with him through the years, and she is partaking in it, with no thorniness or reprisal. Something in his chest withers in response, and he feels its legs break beneath him.
He can't find or name what just died. That doesn't stop him from mourning it, from touching the new hollow in his chest and feeling heavy regret sink his gut.
Maybe he could perform an autopsy on this fresh carcass he's carrying inside of himself later. If he's lucky, he could find a sober and dark corner to brood in and be left alone, and he could identify what he wanted to participate in - what had been taken from him in that moment, who took it, and what poison they had used. Why he felt, at once, exposed and alone - relieved and horribly sad. But not now. This particular sober corner is already reserved for Better, and that's what he's going to try to do. Even as his entire body compels him to stand and leave her here to this tree. John, silent, rubs at his forearms and looks up at the tree branches.
They could have held his weight, he thinks. ]
It always goes wrong. They don't come sometimes, or they're-- [ The words stick in his throat, ] --watchin', or... sometimes it's like the horse is the rope, and it takes off with me draggin' behind, and they never get me.
no subject
All them what-ifs.
[What-ifs and impossibilities, a memory twisted up into countless nightmares, the way the worst memories always knew how to do.]
Mighty long rope, to be trailin' after you all these years.
[It was probably going to get longer, still. These weren't the kinds of moments you ever forgot.]