Chapter Text
“We can cut straight across here through the courtyard,” Albert gestured to the steps across the street from the doctor’s surgery, “Come on, Arthur. That’s it.” He maneuvered his arm to get a better grip on the man, carefully avoiding the worst of his now bandaged injuries. The man slurred something incoherent in response, his eyes still closed and his mouth slack as he leaned heavily against Albert. Sadie steadied his other side and together they managed to get him into Albert’s room at the Bastille without issue save for a few raised brows at Arthur’s seemingly inebriated state at such an early hour of the morning.
After fumbling Arthur into the bed and arranging the pillows around him, Sadie dropped back onto the tufted sofa beside the bed with a huff, “Christ almighty, he’s a heavy bastard.”
Albert nodded absently, watching as Arthur’s face began to twist in pain, his eyes still squeezed tightly shut and his lips pressing into a grimace. He fished through the bag that the doctor had given them with trembling hands, withdrawing one of the bottles and checking the label before handing it to Sadie, “Here. Now that he’s settled he can have some of this to keep him under for a while longer. I’m going to go downstairs and make some arrangements for a room for you to stay in while we’re holed up here. I’m sure you’re ready to—”
Sadie took the bottle but shook her head, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to split up. Best to stay in the same room so that I can keep watch, at least until we know more about what the situation is. I don’t want someone showing up and catching one of us off guard.”
“Do you think we were followed this far without someone tipping their hand?”
“I think we’d be fools to assume we weren’t just because no one put a bullet in us in broad daylight.”
Albert looked at the windows, half squinting at the too bright light that was coming through the lacy curtains. Exhaustion was catching up to him quickly and he was rapidly losing his will to argue anything at this point. Besides, of the present company, he was certainly the least versed in the ways of outlaws.
“Right. I’ll be back then. I at least want to get something resembling a meal arranged for us.” He placed his hand on the door and heard Sadie remind him to grab a bottle of whiskey from the bar on his way back up, a request that he was quite grateful for.
Hardly more than a few moments later, Albert was stepping back into the room with not one, but two bottles of whiskey tucked under an arm as well as a key dangling from an ornate fob, the latter of which he handed to Sadie, “Here. There is a bath across the hall, I arranged for hot water to be drawn for you. There is a slight delay on our meal, something with the delivery for the kitchens being late this morning, but I trust it should arrive by the time you finish. How is he?” Albert tipped his head toward Arthur’s now considerably more still form. If it weren’t for the slow rise of his chest making itself known at that instant, he may have sounded quite a bit less casual in the question.
“Arthur’s fine, or as fine as can be, I guess. Swallowed that medicine alright, anyway.” She looked at the key in her hand and then back at Albert, “You didn’t have to do all of that.”
He shrugged, his eyes not leaving Arthur, “You’ve been through a lot tonight. I know that your clothes are likely ruined. Of course I’ll arrange to have those replaced as well just as soon as—“
“These? These ain’t mine. Not quite my style, but I had to have something that wouldn’t draw any more attention than we already had so I went ahead and—“ She abruptly cut off and Albert finally turned his attention to her to see her fumble for the most brief of moments before spitting out, “borrowed them.”
He cocked a brow and felt the ghost of a grin twitch at the corner of his mouth as he remembered all of the times that Arthur would stumble and skirt around the reality of his ways similar to how she had just done. Before he could comment on it, Sadie excused herself and slipped from the room. Seconds later, he heard the door across the hall open and close and with it, he rushed to the bedside. Arthur was lying on his back, his head cradled by one of the down pillows that Sadie must have arranged carefully beneath him. The blankets were pulled up to rest just below his chest, revealing the clean white undershirt that Dr. Barnes had given them after the arduous task of cleaning and bandaging Arthur’s injuries. The one that had belonged to Albert had been discarded. The deep red stains that had soaked through the pale fabric would never come out. Even if they could, he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to look at the thing again without thinking of the way Arthur had looked sprawled out on the table in the doctor’s surgery.
His injuries had been bad, but not as bad as they could have been. He at least had some sort of chance at survival, so long as his body was able to fight off the infection and fever that was ravaging him. Albert knelt beside the bed and trailed his trembling fingertips over Arthur’s hands. Even they hadn’t been spared some sort of carnage. His knuckles were a patchwork of splits and bruises in varying stages of healing. The fine bones in his broad hands seemed to stand out too prominently beneath the tough skin. His nails were blunt and ragged, some half broken, clearly having been crushed by something while others appeared to have been almost torn away. Albert’s stomach turned as an unwanted question slipped past his guard.
Had it been done intentionally?
His lip trembled as he continued to take stock in Arthur’s condition now that he was alone with him for the first time. His hair was filthy and just slightly overgrown, tangled and snarled where it matted to his scalp in places. His forehead looked pale, washed out with a sickly green cast that contrasted with the violent crimson flush of fever in his cheeks. Albert brushed the back of his fingers down over Arthur’s cheek, feeling that terrifying burn beneath the skin and grimacing. Arthur’s eyes fluttered but did not open. Albert let his hand find Arthur’s once more, balancing lightly over top of it as his mind filled in the remaining damage that lay hidden beneath borrowed clothing and blankets.
The memory of the way his body had looked bared to the harsh lights of the surgery made his stomach turn. The body that he’d loved and revered, that he’d caressed and explored in the afternoon sun or beside a crackling fire or in the blind darkness of night, damaged as it had been. Mottled bruises marred nearly the entire expanse of his skin in hideous shades of yellow and green, purple and blue, their borders overlapping and crossing one another in swaths of deep shadows. Doctor Barnes had seemed particularly concerned with one splotch of color just below Arthur’s ribs, fearing that it may have indicated internal bleeding. The words had nearly thrown Albert over the edge of full on panic in the moment. Aside from the bruises and scrapes, there had been a lengthy laceration to his chest, something clearly done with a sharp blade. He wondered if it was the same blade that had been plunged into Arthur’s thigh more recently, leaving a wound that had only just started to barely heal over but that the doctor worried about closing up before the infection found its way out. On the same leg, Arthur’s knee was swollen and stiff enough that the doctor couldn’t quite tell if there was a full on break or not though he suspected there had been some sort of considerable damage to it.
All of Albert’s observations had been quick, only allowing himself brief glimpses of the wounds before his eyes darted back to that spot on his shoulder, the one that seemed to ooze and pulse with the very threat of death itself. He’d very nearly had to leave the room when the doctor began to dig into the wound with a long pair of forceps in search of the bullet that he correctly feared had still been lodged within Arthur’s body. The sight was nearly too much though Albert sent up a silent prayer of gratitude for the effects of the ether that rendered Arthur oblivious to the pain. For the time being, anyway.
Kneeling beside the bed and watching the sheen of sweat slowly steal over his features again brought it all back into stark reality. The threat of losing him was still there, looming heavy and dark above their heads. Doctor Barnes had sent them with some herbal tinctures and medications that he claimed would give Arthur the best chance to overcome the fever and infection, but now that he was sitting here in his room, quiet save for the noise of the city swelling outside, he felt terrified that they might fail. Tears threatened and stung the corners of his eyes as he watched the man's slow, dragging breaths fill his chest time and time again, tracing the now gaunt contours of Arthur’s face with his glossy eyed stare. He let his fingers absentmindedly ghost over Arthur’s as his breathing slowed to match.
In. Out. In. Out.
The door opened and he nearly jumped out of his skin, quickly jerking his hands back before moving them to fuss with the blankets as Sadie stepped into the room and froze. “I was just— I wanted to— I thought that maybe I’d check the bandage on that side once more before we—“
“Excuse me, Miss? I have the meals that Mr. Mason requested here.” The voice of the attendant behind Sadie broke them both from their focus and to her credit, Sadie recovered far more quickly than he did.
“Thank you. I’ll take it from here.” She grabbed the tray and handed the bath key back to him before slipping into the room and toeing the door closed. Once they each had a bowl of some sort of thick, sweetened porridge in hand, they settled in to eat.
“On the ride here, you kept looking out into the night. Were you looking for signs that we were being followed?”
“Something like that.” She picked up a slab of bacon and stuffed it into her mouth quickly, her eyes darting toward one of the paintings that hung on the wall beside the bed with an out of place sort of focus.
Albert set his half eaten bowl aside and leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees, “You’ve trusted me thus far.”
She huffed a tired laugh and shrugged, “Yeah, I guess so. I was making sure we didn’t have company, but I was looking out for Charles, too. He was supposed to be following along at a distance just in case anyone tried to catch up. He said he’d signal me if that happened and he needed help, otherwise he would make sure we got to the city safely and then he would turn back.”
“Why didn’t he join us? He could have—“
“He’s a little more noticeable, especially if he were to be seen with all of us. Wouldn’t take someone long to piece it together if they had half a brain and knew who to ask.” She set her empty bowl to the side and finished the last piece of bacon in two hasty bites before continuing with an amused snort, “Then again, saying that anyone in that bunch has even that much going for them is high praise.”
“The O’Driscoll’s was it?”
“Yeah, bunch of low down bastards. Shame we couldn’t kill any more of ‘em before we—“ She suddenly stopped and snapped her mouth shut, her eyes carefully watching for a reaction that Albert was far too tired to summon.
Instead, he looked over to Arthur. A few months ago, his civilized sensitivities may have been appalled and shocked at her words and their implication but now, staring at the man he loved sprawled on the bed before him where he would have to fight to survive, he couldn’t help but share in the sentiment.
“It is a shame,” he said quietly.
After a long silence, Sadie spoke again, softer this time, “He’ll be fine. He’s strong. In the meantime…” She turned and grabbed the bundle of bloodied clothing that had been discarded near the sofa, quickly withdrawing a revolver from the tangles of fabric and giving it a glance to ensure that it was loaded before tucking it down between the sofa arm and cushion beside her.
“Do you anticipate company?” He asked, wondering if he should retrieve his own revolver and have it at the ready.
She shook her head, “We should be fine, at least for now. I’ve got to admit, hiding him in the city probably was our safest bet. This place is big enough that unless someone knew where to start looking, they’d be hard pressed to track him down, especially if we lay low for a while and keep him out of sight until he’s up and moving again.”
He nodded numbly. There were other questions that he wanted to ask but his mind wouldn’t cooperate through the thick haze of weariness that had only grown heavier by the minute. All that mattered in that moment was that Arthur was safe, at least for now, and they were in the relative safety of a bustling hotel in a room that held no ties to the gang or to Arthur himself. For the time being, it was the best they could hope for. He yawned and rolled his stiff neck on his shoulders, feeling the bones creak and protest.
“I’m sorry for the single bed. I suppose I should have asked downstairs about having a cot brought up if nothing else.”
Sadie waved him off and grabbed the throw blanket from where it was draped on the back of the sofa before she laid back and covered herself haphazardly. “I ain’t worried about it. Hell, anything beats sleeping on the ground at camp, listenin’ to a bunch of men snorin’ up a storm and having bugs crawling all over.”
“What are you doing? There’s room enough on the bed and I certainly don’t think Arthur would mind if you–”
“I’m fine here. You take the bed,” she said, the corner of her mouth twitching as Albert’s face flushed hot.
“What? No.” His face flushed deeper and Sadie’s lips quirked up a little higher in amusement as he stammered and stumbled over a more substantial response before finally landing on one. “Besides, I can’t let a lady sleep on a sofa for god’s sake.”
“Tell you what, you let me know when you see a lady around then, cause I sure ain’t seen one in this room.” With that, she rolled over, placing her back to him as she shuffled to get comfortable. Albert stood frozen for a moment before he reached for a pillow from the bed at last. As soon as his fingers touched it, Sadie spoke again, her voice slightly muffled from the sofa, “You better not sleep on the floor, neither. He’d want you to sleep in the bed and I don’t feel like hearing him bellyache if he wakes up and sees it.”
He blinked a few times at her amorphous shape beneath the blanket, unsure of whether the weight he heard in her words was truly there or if it was something that he was implanting himself. Perhaps she knew that Arthur was simply a kind hearted man despite his rough lifestyle and that he wouldn’t want to see anyone sleeping on the floor when there was reasonable space to be used available. Besides, bedsharing wasn’t all too unheard of, though it was something more often used by those less privileged than men like himself. He shifted his weight again and looked at Arthur for a long moment before desire finally won out and he slipped into the bed beside him being careful not to jostle the mattress too much as he did. Not that it would matter much given the sedatives the man had in his system.
With the drapes drawn tight against the sunlight and the noise of the city fading out into a background hum, Albert’s eyes grew heavy. In the darkness, he slid one hand out beneath the blanket in search of Arthur’s, desperate to reassure himself that the man was still there, vital and alive beside him. His fingers brushed the back of Arthur’s hand and moments later, he fell into a deep sleep.
——————
A rustling of fabric dragged him from his dreamless sleep and he blinked against the sliver of late afternoon sun that streamed through the split in the drapes.
“Didn’t mean to wake you,” Sadie said softly from where she stood backlit by the light from the window.
“No, I should get up. I—“ His words fell off when he realized he’d rolled closer to Arthur in his sleep, nearly curling his body completely against the man without realizing it. He started and jerked back, throwing a look to Sadie where she was doing the last of the buttons on a simple, dark colored dress. She didn’t seem to take note of their closeness and simply went to the dresser and poured a glass of water from a pitcher and brought it to him without comment. “Thank you.” He took it and sipped as she went about tucking her revolver into a hidden pocket on the dress. “Where did you…?” He gestured at her vaguely.
“I got up a while ago. Talked one of the maids into letting me borrow it until I can get out and get something to replace it.”
“Tell me that you didn’t threaten the staff.” Albert said, only half joking.
Sadie snorted a laugh, “Come on now, I can be charming and personable when I want to be.”
“I have no doubt.” Albert chuckled and finished the last of the water. “I’m sorry that I didn’t wake with you. I didn’t think I would sleep quite that heavily. Has he stirred?”
“Not yet, but I’m sure he will soon.”
“What happened? When you and— Charles, is it? When you went to rescue him, how did you find him?”
Sadie flipped the edge of one side of the drapes open a little further to peer out with sharp eyes. “Took a lot of tracking and watching the gang that took him. Of course, a little extra persuasion when we got ahold of one of the slimy sons a bitches didn’t hurt.” Her lips turned up as she faced Albert again, “Didn’t hurt us anyway. Still took some time after that just watching them to see if we could find out where he’d been kept but when we figured it out, we were almost too late. Got there early in the morning on a little ridge overlooking the cabin but we couldn’t get eyes on him, we saw the guards though and knew it had to be the place. We decided to make our move once night fell but just as we were getting things ready to sneak down to the camp, we heard a commotion.”
She tipped her head toward Arthur, “Turns out we were almost too late. He’d gotten loose somehow and was attacking the guards. Almost didn’t recognize him with the state he was in. We rushed down and we damn near didn’t make it in time. He’d killed a couple of ‘em but there was too many for just him in his condition. One of them had him on the ground with their hands around his neck by the time we got close enough for me to get a shot off without risking hitting him. We only got to take down a few of them when the last couple took off, guess they figured it was more than just two of us coming after him. It was only a matter of time then before they’d be bringing backup so we had to grab Arthur and ride like hell to get out of there.”
“My God…” Albert whispered, playing the scene out in his mind’s eye with a combined horror and admiration. “How many were there?”
“I’d guess he managed to take down two or three before we made it down. Charles and I got another three or four and maybe that many took off. We didn’t stick around long enough to know for sure, just threw Arthur on my horse and tore out of there before they came back.” She moved to the edge of the bed next to Arthur and pressed the back of her hand to his forehead that was gleaming with a fresh sheen of sweat. “Didn’t think he’d make it, honestly. It was hard on the horses. We kept switching off because there was no way he could have ridden on his own. It was almost like as soon as he realized we had him, all the fight went out of him. Never seen him like that.”
Albert retrieved the wash pitcher and basin and wet a rag, wringing it out and shaking it out on his way to the bed to cool it before he began sweeping it over Arthur’s face and neck, careful to avoid the worst of the damage.
Sadie slumped on the sofa and tipped her head back. He could tell she was still exhausted but he was sure she hadn’t slept very deeply, no doubt because of her vigilance over them. He internally vowed to himself to take the next watch so that she could rest. “He was pretty out of it from the time we got him out of that damned shack, but it didn’t get really bad until we got closer to Rhodes. I was worried about him even making it that far. I planned to steal the next horse we saw so that I could keep running him through to the swamps, figured I could try to find a place to hide out there while I tended him.”
Albert stiffened, his hand tightening on the damp rag. A bead of cool water swelled between his fingers and slipped free, dripping onto Arthur’s temple where it traced downward and vanished into his sweat soaked hair. What would he have done if they hadn’t come to him? If he was still sat in Rhodes wondering what had become of the man he’d fallen so deeply for? What if Sadie had managed to get him to the swamp only to have lost him due to a lack of proper medical care? His stomach churned uneasily. He never would have known. If he hadn’t stumbled on Charles near the camp, if Charles hadn’t agreed to keep him updated, if they hadn’t come to him…
“Why didn’t you? Ride straight through? Or even steal a wagon or a cart to get him to the city? Surely you could have gotten here without me.” He hated saying the words, feeling only after he said them that they may make it sound as if he was unhappy with his involvement when that was far from the case.
Sadie reached out and placed her hand over his, stilling the dabbing motion he’d taken up absentmindedly and taking the rag gently from his tightened grip to refresh it. “Charles insisted we stop and come to you first, he said that you would help with anything Arthur needed.” Albert nodded numbly, his eyes still stuck on Arthur’s resting features. “I’m glad we stopped. Without your help, I don’t know if he would have made it. I know I certainly couldn’t have dragged a doctor from sleep and had him tend him, at least not without drawing the attention of the law shortly after,” she snorted. Albert returned a weak smile at her joke.
“Thank you. For— Well, for letting me help. I know that it’s… I know you didn’t have to do that, but I’m grateful. I’m not quite as heroic as the rest of you are, but I’ll do what I can regardless.”
“I don’t know if heroic is the word I’d use to describe a bunch degenerates and criminals like us, but I know now that you deserved to be a part of what was going on.”
He looked up at her quizzically, “I’m not sure what you mean… I just—”
“You’re real important to him,” Sadie cocked her head toward Arthur as she readied another dose of one of the tonics from the doctor. It seemed that he was just beginning to swim through the murky depths of unconsciousness as his features began twitching into a muted grimace. “I wasn’t too sure at first. Hell, I thought it might have been a trap from the Pinkertons, sending someone in to get close just to get their hands on him or the rest of us.”
Albert frowned and shook his head, “I could never.”
She smiled at him again and capped the last bottle of concoctions, swirling the contents briefly in the small glass she held in order to mix the various liquids, “I knew that the minute I saw you lay eyes on him.”
Albert carefully helped her pick up Arthur’s head, wincing at the heat that still radiated off of him in waves. Those dusty blue eyes started to open but quickly closed again with a pained expression while one hand came up in protest as Sadie moved to position the glass against his lips. After a few murmured encouragements from her, Arthur’s lips parted seemingly on instinct alone and she slowly tipped the medicine into his mouth. The quiet of the room seemed to amplify the thick, painful sound of his body swallowing once, twice. Once the mixture was gone, they carefully lowered him back down. All the while, Albert’s mind was racing at the implication of her words. While he knew he’d been far from subtle, he hadn’t thought it that obvious. Surely a good friend could be excused of his concern in the face of a brush with death. They cared for Arthur enough to stare the reaper himself in the face to rescue him so was it that far reaching to assume that another friend may simply be passionate about helping however he can?
“He said your name,” Sadie said almost too casually as she went about the room, straightening up and preparing clean bandages. “When we first got him, I mean. First word out of his mouth and he kept asking for you off and on for the first couple hours before he really went out.”
“Asking for me?”
“I’m guessing. He kept saying your name but it was hard to make out. He kept mumbling and whispering but half of it was jumbled and while we were riding it wasn’t easy to understand. Mostly just made out Albert here and there. Course, I didn’t know who the hell Albert was at the time, but thankfully Charles seemed to.”
He straightened and stood, tugging at his waistcoat and picking at a loose thread near one of the buttonholes in an effort to distract himself from the absolute chaos that was now coursing through his mind. “That’s quite curious. I wonder why he—“
Sadie stopped and turned to face him, her eyes seeming to stare straight through him to the very core of his feelings. “I was married once. His name was Jake.” She looked up and blinked a few times as a small, sad smile stole over her face. “He was the love of my life. A wonderful man. We had a little farm up north in Ambarino, up past Colter a ways. I loved it up there even though the winters could be brutal. It was still a beautiful place… A beautiful life.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss, I can’t imagine.”
Sadie waved a hand and went back to setting out supplies beside the bed and with Albert’s help, they began slowly and carefully discarding the old bandages and exchanging them for the new as she told the story of the night that the gang had found her, locked away in the cellar of the home she had shared with her husband where she’d been kept for days. She kept the details mercifully brief, but the pain she still carried from the experience saturated every word as she recounted the killing of her husband, the destruction of her life as she knew it by the very same hands that had stolen Arthur away. Of the adjustment she’d gone through upon joining the Van Der Linde gang. Albert sat in stunned silence as she spoke, even further awed by her tenacity and strength in the face of all that she’d been confronted with. As she finished her story, they fell into silence, the only sounds that of the subtle and gentle shifts of Arthur’s limbs as they worked over him.
After they tied the final wrapping, Sadie leaned back and stretched her arms over her head, dropping them back down with a groan. “Arthur’s been through more than his share of pain in life, all of us have, it’s how we all wound up together lyin’, cheatin’, and killin’ the way we do. But you know, these last couple months seemed like something changed… Like, I don’t know, like his step was a little lighter, like there was more life behind his eyes than I’d ever seen. Thought for a while I was imagining it but now I get it.”
Albert shifted under the weight of her gaze, “Get what?”
“The way he was saying your name made me wonder. Then Charles told me that you and Arthur go back a ways, but he wouldn’t tell me any more than that you were important enough to rope into this mess. It didn’t come together until I saw the way you looked at him, though. I know that look. Hell, I’ve worn it myself. Worried sick and half to death, wondering if the last time you told them you loved them was going to be it, all the while prayin’ that you’d have the chance to say it again.”
“Mrs. Adler, I— I’m not— I care for Arthur, yes. He’s been a great friend and I—“ He let the words die on his tongue, unable to protest further when it was so clearly obvious that he’d been had. “I hope that I can trust in your discretion. I don’t know if Arthur… Well, I’m not sure how pleased he would be to know that I’d fumbled this so greatly.”
Sadie patted him on the shoulder and stood before making her way to the door where she paused with her fingers resting on the handle. “There’s plenty cruelty in this world and it doesn’t make sense to invite anymore in where it's got no business being. Arthur deserves happiness, even if he’s too damned stubborn to see it himself. As long as you’re the key to that happiness, I reckon I’m in your debt, too. Now, I need to make my way to the edge of town to leave word for Charles to let him know we made it okay. I’ll be back shortly. If anyone tries to come in, shoot first.”
The door closed quietly behind her and the moment the latch clicked, Albert dropped onto the edge of the bed and let his face fall into his hands.