Chapter Text
Arthur woke up in the dirt.
This wouldn't usually stand out, there have been plenty of half-remembered nights throughout his life that have resulted in odd sleeping locations - the ground was certainly not a first. However, something was wrong. Very wrong. He felt as though he just had a nightmare, and the scenery around him he saw as he lethargically rose served as triggers that gave him flashes of memories. Memories that felt far too real, with a sickness in his throat and an awful, raw pain that was making him limp.
“Oh my Lord…” he said lowly, his voice raspy and his throat sore, like he'd been shouting.
He had to get out of this place. The swamps weren't safe the majority of the time, and the sky was already darkening. He whistled for Butterfly, and calls out her name shakily, almost desperately, for her. He doesn't make it particularly far with the limp, but makes it far enough to see the back of a small wooden cabin, one that makes his veins go icy.
He was squirming. Like a rat caught in a trap. He didn't even know what was happening, he just awoke and knew that he needed to get the hell out of whatever this was.
He hears a noise down at his feet and lifts his heavy head.
An ugly man was hunched over his satchel, rummaging through it like he was a scavenger bird, his movements jerky and violent.
When he saw the man pick up his journal and flick through it, negligent and rough with the delicate pages, his mouth moved quicker than his brain.
“Stop…” he effectively moaned, his voice slurred.
The man turned, and Lord was he ugly. Hollow and wrinkled and dirty, a gleeful expression showing what remained of his yellow and blackened teeth.
He crawled over to him, journal forgotten (but he supposed safe).
“Oh, you struggled…” he said, far too joyous for Arthur's liking.
“...and you lost,” he said, somehow smiling wider, his eyes insane. Arthur found that he could only whimper, barely able to make any other noise.
“But it was quite a tussle, I tell you,” he purrs, like a feline predator.
“Quite a tussle, my pet…”
Arthur hears the familiar sound of a belt buckle and, for the first time in a long time, feels genuine despair.
“See..? Friendship ain't so tough…” he coos.
“And neither is you…”
Arthur doesn't take in much more as his body starts to feel cold and numb, before his head droops backwards, and he's out again.
It doesn't take long before he doubles over and vomits. He vomits the lobster bisque he spent a stupid amount of money on in Saint Denis, feeling stupid for even trying to dabble in fine dining. He supposed this was a lesson. He vomits the tinned strawberries he ate as he sat on a cliff's edge, sketching the scenery, and the brown liquid he vomits he could only assume was mostly-digested venison that he had cooked for himself that morning.
Tears spill down his face as he heaves, with nothing left to throw up, but the sickness in his gut remaining. Once the blood had stopped roaring in his ears, he heard a gentle trot, which nearly made him shoot up defensively and lamely fumble for his gun, before he came to his senses. What remained of them, anyway.
He unsteadily got to his feet, and looked up to see Butterfly stood nearby. He struggled to climb on, but once he did, he made her gallop out of the Bayou as fast as he could urge her to go. He never much liked it here, anyway.
In all honesty, he didn't really know where he was anymore. He kept his head down while riding Butterfly blindly, tears in his eyes and eventual sobs making his body tremble, only one word repeating in his head like a mantra: Leave.
He'd probably only been riding for half an hour before it was too painful, practically falling off his horse and, on a rare occasion, forgoing his habit of petting her and giving her a treat for a job well done. He was still shaking from throwing up the contents of his stomach as he crawled over to a boulder, fairly far from any road. His horse loyally trotted over as he leaned his back against the rock, curling up his knees to his chest, and sobbed like a child.
He gasped and hiccuped, tears spilling out of his eyes and down his dirty face, shivering as the acrid taste of bile repeatedly rose up his throat as his mind was cast back to the disgusting feeling of… of what that vile man did to him. He felt violated. Weak. The man was half the goddamn size of him, he could've fought back. Instead, he just let it happen, his body feeling as if it were made of lead, while his brain feeling as if it were stuffed with cotton wool.
Arthur held himself, pathetically touching the back of his neck and the base of his skull to try and mimic the way Mary used to calm him, and the way Hosea would provide him with reprieve as a child when he was similarly inconsolable. He felt a wet, thick warmness between the strands of his hair, clumping it together into spikes. He recognised the familiar texture as drying blood, and he sobbed once more.
The dull throb in his head was now as noticeable as it was explainable, and he buried his head into his arms which lay crossed on his drawn up knees, covering his ears as if it would drown out the voice that repeated itself over and over again inside his head. The bastard had knocked him out. So messily, too.
You ain't so tough…
The night was mild, but Arthur felt cold to his very bones. He shook and shivered as he wept, scarcely able to find solace in himself. A dark part of his mind thought of his revolver, but he soon thought better of it. For now. He bit his arm to stop himself from screaming. He felt his delirious mind wandering, thinking of how to distract himself. Biting himself harder didn't help distract from the painful sobs that wracked his body and the memory of hands scratching at him, nor did the prospect of drawing in his stupid journal. What would he even draw? That man's grimy face, his gangly body and his bony fingers with his sharp, dirty fingernails? His own battered body? The bite marks on his arm with fresh blood beading at his skins’ surface? Should he map out his broken skull with his unsteady fingers and draw the wound?
One idea in the back of his mangled mind appealed.
Drinking was the cursed habit that was one of his father's only surviving marks on the world, unfortunately imprinted onto his very person. He almost believed he was born with liquor in his blood.
Arthur fumbled with the cork cloture so he could pour the cheap alcohol down his throat and subsequently forget how to think. It was stupid, to drink out in the open like this, late at night where he was vulnerable. The slowly dulling pain of the scarred wound on his shoulder was a reminder and proof enough that he was not invincible.
These perhaps rational thoughts were outweighed by the dirty feeling that polluted his entire body, and his pure want to just forget as he opened the bottle with shaky hands and drank as much as he could, until he was starved of breath.
His eyes continued to water, and he blamed it on the burn of the alcohol. All too quickly, he continued drinking, hoping his empty stomach would make him drunk quickly. It only took about half the bottle before his vision started to swim, and he felt lighter. The numbness that came with drunkenness was a blessing and he relished in it, finally breathing slower. He looked up at the stars, the amount of them doubled through the lens of tears, before they spilled, and the world just swam again.
How would he return to camp? He didn't think he could show his face to any living person right now, scared they would see right through him. Know how pathetic he was. God forbid his family saw him, Hosea would immediately know something was wrong. John would shoot him confused looks from a distance until he would have the nerve to actually ask if he was alright, and would see right through him when he would answer ‘yes’. Tilly wouldn't let his misery go until she knew the cause and, bless her caring soul, she would gossip and Arthur couldn't cope with that spreading. Charles would know, he always knew. And Arthur could never tell him this. Lest he wants to lose his best friend.
He thinks of their faces if he told them, and cringes at the mere idea. Their disgust – it made him feel sick all over again.
He didn't know how much longer he could stay away from camp, he'd already been gone for two weeks. He was just taking a shortcut back through the Bayou, he was so goddamn stupid to have had faith in himself…
His mind is filled with self-deprecation as his eyelids begin to close, his body slumping against the boulder. He morbidly hopes that he chokes on his own vomit in his sleep.