Work Text:
You knew it wouldn't take long for the snow to roll in from the north. Being up in Cumberland Forest had both perks and downsides. It wasn't too hot, or too wet, but it was darker earlier due to winter coming. It got colder quicker from the season changing. The leaves had all changed colour and fallen to make a soft blanketed ground.
Hosea's hands and joints would creak more as winter came down on you guys, he’d start wearing his thicker union suit rather than his usual drawers and undershirt.
Arthur could tell that it was going to be cold. His nose was already becoming red and runny, his sweat would cool quicker when he was moving around doing the heavy chores.
And you could feel the heat zap out of your shared bed rolls as soon as you lifted up a cover. Hosea would curl closer to Arthur, and Arthur would open his eyes and look at you as you slowly crept out of the makeshift bed. It was no different that morning before even Arthur was awake.
"Sorry guys, I have a job to get to this morning. Good money this time." You paused before tucking the covers under Arthur to seal the heat in. "Legal money." You whispered.
Hosea blearily opened one eye from where his face was mushed into Arthur's warm shoulder. "Is it safe?" He always asked you that.
"Its fixing fences over by Wallace Station. I'll be gone all day and maybe all of tomorrow depending on how many hands they picked up. A new rancher in town I guess. But we get paid good either way. And lunch." you can see the way Hosea smiles at you being taken care of. You just wish you could do the same for him and Arthur. "They say it's gonna snow through the night. I- I don't rightly know if it'll strand me over there but I'd have lodgings to stay at should it happen so soon." You kneel in your jeans and one of Arthur's flannels, kneeling on the canvas tarp you put down below the bedrolls, the skin of your chest rising with goosebumps where the buttons are undone from Arthur slipping his hand inside last night.
Arthur hums, a low rattle of a sound in his chest. "Hopefully it won't keep you away from camp for very long." The away from us remains unspoken between you three.
You nod softly, unable to really answer his disguised plea.
Hosea is now more awake, face turned so both eyes can see you. He looks tired and sore, his face has grey-blond stubble all over his jaw and cheeks. He hasn't shaved in a couple days due to his hands shaking too much as the winter winds hit from the Grizzlies. Javier said he'd help Hosea and who ever else needed a shave when he got back from his hunt last night.
"Be safe sweetheart." Hosea rasps around the sleepy vocal chords, "Don't need to go looking for you this time." He laughed softly, Bill and Kieran had gotten lost in the forest the day camp was set up.
Both you and Arthur grin at his words.
With the sun just barely up you could see your breath escape you as you bask in the semi-warm canvas tent. "I'm gonna go grab more blankets from Hosea's chest, you two could use some heat now that I'm going. Arthur I'm stealing this flannel for the day, smells like you." You started to button the red and black dyed shirt up, only to be stopped and tugged down from your kneeling position. Arthur wanted to nose and place kisses against your chest first, feeling your heartbeat under his cold and chapped lips.
"Be cautious. We want you back in one piece." He whispered, already halfway back to sleep with Hosea tucked against him, the old man warming Arthur's heart.
You moved your weight to sit back on your heels, leaning down to get a proper kiss from him, morning breath and all.
Hosea watched happily at the exchange, waiting for his turn for a kiss goodbye.
Usually Arthur would cup your neck or the back of your head and pull you down to keep the kiss going, but letting any of the heat out from the blankets was a bad idea for both himself and Hosea.
Shuffling a little so you were nearly laying over them both gave you access to Hosea, you smiled brightly when he pushed the covers down from his face, just enough so you could plant a multitude of kisses against his lips and jaw. He tasted like the mint Arthur usually chewed on, you wondered if they had themselves a little fun the night before while you retired to bed.
Hosea let out a little huff of protest when you pull back. He does smile when you put the covers back into place and kiss his red nose. "I'll be back, I promise. But we need the money and this is good, legal work. It'll put meat on my bones and hair on my chest." You tease, hearing Hosea say it to the people around camp.
Both of them laugh quietly, the camp still quiet besides Pearson and who you assume is Tilly. "I love you two."
You get mumbled answers back as you move off them both to finish dressing for the job you picked up.
Fence fixing.
It wasn't fun but it was honest and had high reward for low risk. Hosea was proud you found something like that to keep your pockets full and your body out of trouble. Arthur was just glad that it wasn't involving guns, he's seen you shoot and you could barely hit the broad side of a barn. However they both knew you were good with your hands when it came to manual labour.
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It was hours later that you were riding home. The fence was fixed up as much as the solid ground would allow. The horses and cows wouldn't be getting out anytime soon, that's for sure. The new ranch manager had paid you five handsomely for the outstanding work. A few hundred tucked into your satchel from the day. You had a lunch of porridge with cinnamon and apple slices. Your horse was sheltered under a sturdy shack roof and three walls along with another horse. You tore a glove by the pinkie seam but it could be fixed at camp later.
The rancher was some rich, old money, Bostonian. He was trying to build a third cattle ranch, this one more west than the Carolinas he had already built on. It was his loss really, that the money he was paying out would fund the outlaws he was trying to keep away. You just grinned to yourself into the thick jean coat you had bought last year for winter. It smelt like campfire and sweat from the day. And you guessed Hosea had snuck a sweet peppermint treat in your left breast pocket for you, folded in wax paper and definitely the brand he likes. Arnett's sweets from up north. You sucked on it after lunch to keep your breath sweet and minty, like you had just kissed Arthur breathless.
Your hands hurt from hauling cut and sanded fence poles, your forearms got the worst of the day as the wood had reacted with your skin. You didn't know what it was but it bothered you something fierce. Could be something they had treated the wood with. Could just be the fact that Cedar gave you an allergic reaction.
All you know is you wanted some of the balm Charles made you last time you had a reaction. Not to mention the way Hosea would massage and hold your hands when he helped apply it.
Speaking of him you hoped that he was doing alright. He didn't look all that well that morning when you had to leave. You wish you could've stayed and cuddled some more, maybe gang up with Arthur on the older man. Hosea loved being held and kissed so often that sometimes it'd be the most inappropriate times at camp that he'd drag either of you into a little tousle of lips and teeth and tongues. He had thrown the group for a spin when the night you and Arthur went to him at Horseshoe Outlook and asked if he felt the same about both of you, because to you two it was both or nothing. It was after a hesitant yes and some pink cheeks on the conman that he whooped a little too loud and got the attention of too many people. He kissed both of you, grinning like mad and looking 10 years younger and not as fragile.
Arthur had confessed to you one late night that he had feelings that were not familial, that he considered Hosea as both a father figure as well as a man who had qualities that Arthur adored. He had fallen for both Dutch and Hosea when he was in his teens, had been taken aside by Bessie one day during a visit to her and Hosea’s home. And Bessie had sat him down under the guise of doing mathematics with him when he was maybe 17 only to have a soft discussion about feelings and how Arthur needed to find someone his own age, someone who didn't ache with a bleeding heart because it was too big. Arthur didn’t understand until Bessie heaved a sigh and told Arthur about being in a relationship with more than one person.
Hosea had, after all, fallen in love with both Bessie and Dutch, he had both for a while until Bessie felt left out, felt the sting of jealousy that she never had before. They had agreed when Hosea pursued his feelings for Dutch that if anything happened, or feelings changed, that Hosea would go back to just Bessie. Being with more than one person was not for everyone, Hosea knew that. So Hosea had let Dutch go, had put all his attention back to his wife and had felt full even if he knew he could hold a couple more in his heart. Hosea had felt an ache, however he loved Bessie with everything he had.
It was a long afternoon of discussion of multiple loves, desires towards many kinds of folk, relationships, and other things of the same caliber. Arthur had never really fallen in love with anyone after Dutch and Hosea. Feelings lingered for him.
That is until Mary passed his vision and he swore he felt the same Thud-Thud of his heart that he did when he had fallen for Dutch and Hosea.
You knew the whole debacle with Mary, and Arthur's self-esteem, and all the baggage that came with loving the grizzled man. You still kept at him, kept giving him blatant signals and he gave you his own even as he kept mending his heart. It was a matter of time before Arthur was ready to love again. Before he acted on the flirtations you two threw at each other and danced around.
Both you and Hosea now held the precious heart, the scars from Mary were there, the holes from Eliza and Issac too, and a few dents from the early years of loving Dutch and Hosea where some have been hammered back out. You took care of each other.
As for yourself. You were the youngest out of the three of you. Well over legal age and coming into your own surely if slightly slow. You had shadowed under a blacksmith mainly, and metal workers peripherally, had helped build the store and the metal works yard. But after the explosion of one of the melting tanks you left, the horrors of molten iron and molten gold still clung to your brain.
You had a crush on your mentor, a well built man, with a wife who worked at the doctor's clinic. He had been your whole world at one point. But the explosion took him from you, from his wife. Everett Mallory and Victoria Latham.
You had wondered if your feelings for Hosea were misplaced ones from Everett. But Hosea was far from Everett, blond, thin, tall, well read.
Arthur, you felt, was more your type.
He was everyone's type really. But you had caught his eye once you came to camp. An interesting one, shaking like a leaf the first couple weeks, nightmares in the night and a glazed over look in your eyes when you kept thinking back to the accident, much like Bill during his moments of pause.
Hosea, Javier, and Tilly had crawled into your tent a few times a piece when it was figured out that someone near or next to you during these nightmares had calmed the nightmares considerably. It was Jack that had crawled into your bedroll one afternoon as you slept, and the normal noises you made and the occasional yells were gone. You did mumble and shiver and wake up with tears rolling down you face but having a presence there calmed you.
Now however you were in a relationship with both Hosea and Arthur. The pair having attached themselves to you quite solidly.
All your thinking had gotten you to Valentine in a matter of a couple hours, the light completely gone from the sky, your lantern out on your horse to guide you. and you were right, the snow clouds from the north had rolled over the mountains over the course of the afternoon. And the lights of Valentine were somewhat visible as your Andalusian snorted and whinnied, picking up her speed a little to get to the familiar stable. She knew it was time to turn in for the night.
It was as you were coming to the stable that you saw a very familiar pair of horses. Arthur's mare was nosing under Silver Dollar's neck, looking like she was enjoying herself under the turkoman's neck. Both of them had winter blankets on, their saddles on the rack by the doors, and Boadicea had a longer blanket to cover her full back. Arthur took good care of his horses.
You knew the men had paid for the pair of horses to stay together for the night, huddling. Yours was more of a blanket and hay horse, liked being alone when in a stall. But Silver Dollar and Boadicea whinnied over at you as you lead your tired stead into the warmth.
You paid for the night for your own horse, letting the workers take care of it as you grab what you’d need for the night and headed to the saloon where you knew the pair would be. They’d wait for evening to really set in before they’d call it a night if you didn’t show up.
Snow whipped around in the air and fell to the road where mud was freezing up into uneven tracks from wheels and horse hooves. You pulled your lapels on your coat higher and made a jog for the saloon doors, hearing Hosea’s laugh with the piano playing and glasses clacking on wood. It was his real laugh too, the warm crackly one that made your toes curl in your boots and your chest heat up from the inside.
Arthur spotted you as you walked through the wood swinging doors. He liked to face the door where as Hosea liked facing the room. Arthur’s face lit up and he smiled into his whiskey glass before putting it down with a clack. “Well lookit who we got here.” He stood up, a little wobbly, before making his way to you as you walked over to their table. “Nice to see you didn’t get stuck on the other side of the river, Darlin’” he grabbed your chilled glove covered hand and brought you over to sit in one of the empty chairs, watching as you put your hat on the table. His cheeks were a nice peach pink from drinking and his eyes were a little glossy. “Want somethin?” Arthur asked, leaning against the back of your chair as he stood in wait.
You nodded, “Some food and a beer?” You asked nicely tilting your head back so the top of it hit his belly. Earning a small smirk and a nod of his head he turned towards the bar.
Hosea’s eyes followed. “What a fellow we fell for, hey dear? A love drunk fool.” Hosea got your attention and smiled at you softly. “Did you do alright today?” You leaned over and opened your satchel, flashing him the thick rolls of cash you earned. “Damn sweetheart, should put you to work more often if that’s what you’re coming home with?”
You grinned at him before settling in the creaky wooden chair. The varnish peeling a little where boots and spurs dug into the legs. “Maybe you should let me come fishing with you and Javier and Kieran more often. Get used to catching meals and selling off the rest.” You teased.
Hosea raised his brows, a smile playing on his lips. “Maybe- we’ll see come spring. It’s too cold to be fishing now.” He let his knee knock against yours. “Charles is seeing about getting me a better pair of gloves, ones like his own with the fur cuffs. Could use a little more heat in my bones.”
“I can heat up your bones just fine if you let me try, old man.” your smirk was teasing but your eyes roved over his body, from boot to hair as he sat relaxed in his seat. Hosea’s eyes were watching you as you took him in, catching yours when you brought your gaze to his. “Get you warm the old fashioned way?”
Hosea’s lips parted softly, pupils blowing wide at the thought of you and him and Arthur naked and pressed close together. He did like the sound of that. “I managed to get us the big bed room at the inn, only cost a couple more quarters for the trouble of having it cleaned tonight from the previous renters that stayed this morning.”
You hummed happily, watching as a hand with a bowl of rice and sauced meat came past you to put it on the table, a large beer with a good layer of foam being set down next to it. “For the rancher .” Arthur purred into your ear. You nodded your thanks before turning to face the table fully, not wanting to spill any of it.
“A king sized bed sounds pretty nice to me. You’re in the middle this time.” You pointed to Hosea with your fork before digging in, seeing cabbage and carrots being steamed at the bottom of the bowl under the rice and sauce. You moaned quietly as the beer braised pork hit your tongue, earning a soft chuckle from Arthur.
“New cook” was all he said.
Hosea just nodded at your comment, picking up his own glass of gin to clink against your pint glass. “You’ll warm me up well.” He took a sip and savored it on his tongue as he looked at you and then at Arthur. “You too.”
Arthur let his foot nudge yours under the table, turning in his chair to sit facing both you and Hosea, leaning against the arm rest. “Get your fill darlin’, we have plans to get good use out of that bed tonight.”
You felt your ears heat up and turn a blazing red which caused Hosea and Arthur to laugh. You rolled your eyes and shook your head before tucking in fully to your meal. It ended up being a not too bad day.