Chapter Text
Chapter 1: annoyance
Upper Montana River — en route to Tall Trees — Now
None of them spoke when they crossed the river. Arthur hadn't chosen the straight path to their ultimate destination. This crossing wasn't frequently used by travellers, but that was in Arthur's interest. The water level was higher than when he had last been here.
Their horses huffed and puffed from the resistance of the water. Arthur was pale and he had his head lowered from exhaustion. He was passive about his mount struggling and stumbling sideways from the forceful currents as she was given contradicting directions from her master. Arthur was pulling slightly on the reins as he slumped down further, unawarely slowing the horse down.
Micah kicked with his spurs for Baylock to move faster and get alongside Arthur. Micah talked to the man's horse — he couldn't remember what name Arthur had given it, Arthur only ever said 'girl'. So "come here, girl," Micah called too. The water splashed loudly and wetted their clothes fiercely. It wasn't a wide river but then and there it stretched for miles it seemed and Arthur was becoming weaker like the sun was surely setting lower in the horizon.
With a grunt, Micah reached for the reins on Arthur's horse and Arthur let go of them to grope his hands elsewhere. Again, Micah urged Baylock with his spurs to move. It made Arthur's mare push on and follow them.
Micah looked over his shoulder to seek eye contact with Arthur but there was no responsive communication on his face. Just his rustling breathing and blinking eyes focused on the mane of his horse. He held on to the coarse hairs there, being slightly slumped over and swallowing heavily again and again.
"I can't…"
"Stop it, Arthur."
Micah spat into the water and wiped the excess from the corner of his mouth. He focused ahead again.
He felt a pang of relief when they were finally out of the water and back on old land. They had crossed the border into a territory where they were wanted dead or alive.
Micah didn't know how they would possibly make this in Arthur's condition. It was a suicide mission. They would die either from a bullet or ten in their bodies, or from a noose around their necks at a later point. But Micah had always been impetuous.
And the authorities were sure to punish him even harder than they would Arthur if they got caught. Micah didn't know if Arthur would even be alive when any of that may happen. What Micah did know was that they would be dead either way.
"Now take the goddamn reins."
Arthur didn't look up and he didn't take the reins. He looked like he had disappeared altogether from his body.
"Take them, I said, take them and ride," Micah repeated with a trembling voice. He did not have the patience for sympathetic gestures.
Micah roughly shoved the reins to Arthur's chest and Arthur tried grabbing them with a searching hand. His eyes were tightly shut out of unpleasant sensations drowning him. The wheezing sounds coming from inside his body became sharper with his laboured breaths.
Micah spat to the side again and took a very deep breath that felt shallow. They had to ride up a long, curvy path to get a good view of the changing land up ahead.
Arthur eventually opened his eyes as Micah started to trot upwards the path and Arthur spurred his mare to follow him. He could barely hold on to the reins but did his best so he wouldn't fall off.
He coughed hard from riding up when the sudden movements made his whole body tense. He was beginning to sweat despite the dropping temperature in the air. He felt just as cold. Trees surrounded them and he went left the path like Micah had done and he saw the clearing up ahead.
It took some time, and eventually he stopped by Micah’s side where he was waiting. Arthur looked at him then, and to the journey ahead of them that felt impossibly difficult. He was short on breath.
"Before we ride any further, Micah… Know this… You ain't… you ain't leaving. You won't… won't get any second thoughts ab– about this… you'll stick to the plan. Enough with the lies, with the betraying… this is your only chance… only one you get to do… to do right by the gang."
Micah’s eye muscle twitched as well as his mouth. "Don't you think I know that?" He snapped his head to face the other man and he hissed at him, "What fucking choice do you think I have??"
There came a glimpse of the old Arthur. The ferocious and strong one. "And what choice did I ever have!? What—"
Micah stared at the real Arthur when the latter was struck with a surprise attack of his sickness. The coughing fit never seemed to end but dragged on in eternity in these uncomfortable moments. Micah thought about ending the man's misery there and then just to spare himself the annoyance it was. His hand rested close to his gun as he suffered through Arthur's suffering.
Arthur slumped down and had his forehead pressed to his mare. His heaving breaths left him without control and Micah continued studying him indifferently. There was nothing he could or wanted to do.
"Always so quick to your feelings. Save your energy to something more productive, Black—"
Micah stopped himself and his expression turned very impassive. He didn't call Arthur black lung anymore. He simply couldn't. His lip twitched into half a dead smile by this recurring hopelessness.
Arthur was struggling, breathing in furious bursts over his weakening and frustrating state.
"I should shoot you, Arthur. You're slowing us down," Micah eventually reproached with coldness. He gazed towards the disappearing sun and the yellow landscape in the east, beyond all the tall trees and wilderness they would travel through first. "...This is your fault. All of it."
Now, Arthur pushed himself to sit up straight out of sheer willpower. "Mayb—"
Arthur had to pause to catch his breath. He nodded to himself slowly to convince himself it would pass. He would feel better any second.
"Maybe you should… " he continued. "But so should I, Micah. Oh, I'd shoot you a hundred times over. I would. But… but we gotta do this. Nothing, not even this," he gestured at them both fleetingly, "can come between that."
Micah huffed at the equally cold words. He tried thinking about something else to shut Arthur's voice out. Things that mattered, like which route they were going to take or where they should take shelter for the night. But Arthur didn't stop talking. He was as present as the very air Micah was breathing.
"And this, between us? I won't ever forgive you for what you've done." Arthur's voice was very low in pitch and hoarse from all the coughing. His lips trembled from the resentment inside of him. "No. You don't even deserve a bullet of mine. You don't deserve to die so mercifully. No. The time you've got left, I hope you'll spend suffering and nothing else beside it. There'll be… there'll be no one to witness your final days. No one's gonna be by your side, not Dutch, none of the men, not anyone... You'll die alone like the sick rat that you are."
Only now did Micah turn his head to look at Arthur again. The man was struggling to sit up straight. His thin body kept swaying in the saddle, and the memory of Arthur Morgan was already decaying. But what was always there, undying, was his steady gaze, oozing danger as always. That everlasting fight that was as alive as ever.
"No None of us will forgive the other, I'm sure," Micah responded in bitter acceptance. "I sure as hell won't."
"You ain't got something with a little more grit to give…?"
Micah only snorted, utilising the art of indifference.
"...Or has Micah Bell finally learned to stop talking when he shouldn't?" Arthur commented scornfully.
"Oh you shut the hell up now before I empty my fucking six-shooters in what's left of your lungs, Bla—" Micah had to stop himself again. "Arthur."
"Just saaaay it," Arthur egged on. "Call me names to spite me! Anything other than my given name, like you always have. Call me black lung like you've done every damn day. Say it to my goddamn face when I'm on the ground coughing the last life out of me! ...I don't care, Micah. You think any of that matters now?"
Micah bit down hard with his teeth, it felt like he could break them.
Arthur coughed again, only shortly, but his energy level was back to what could be considered normal for him now.
"We both deserve to die… And we're not forced to act politely to each other no more. There's no longer… room for falseness, Micah. It is over."
"I wasn't trying to be polite, cowpoke," Micah stated and called Arthur anything other than his name.
It drew a very dry laugh out of Arthur and it blended with a wheezing sound. "Yeeeaah… you go on ahead and be the goddamn intolerable bastard you've always been. So long as we do this right, you can treat me how the hell you'd like. I don't care anymore…"
"Likewise, think that I do?"
"Although, I'm sick of us… fighting this war between us like it was our damn duty. It's always been… pointless."
"Well you're the one who started it this time."
"That's 'cause I need to make sure that what we're not doing is getting second thoughts about this. Let's just make that one clear right now, Micah."
"YES. Quit your fucking whining. We are doing this. I don't exactly have a choice, I said so, didn't I."
Micah felt like he was imploding.
Arthur could see it too. He nodded slowly but spoke harder. "Well as difficult as it may be to realise, I don't exactly trust you, Micah. And I never will trust you again."
"Oh one look at you and I'd say that's not for much longer," Micah retorted with disdain.
"Now there's the Micah Bell I know, the one and goddamn only!" Arthur provoked as Micah spurred Baylock to motion.
Micah needed to leave Arthur's side, he started riding slowly to put some distance between him and the man. Considerable, but not too far. The last thing they should do is lose each other. He was gonna scout ahead, agents and bounty hunters could be anywhere.
Micah shut his eyes as every word Arthur had said made him want to knife him straight in the chest. Or maybe just himself. Either would have been preferable to this.
Chapter 2: pay one's dues
Roanoke Ridge — four days earlier
They had beaten each other raw.
Feelings of retribution justified their violence.
Micah was muttering to himself with inconsistent feelings. "I should've killed him. Why didn't I, why… I should've killed him. I should have… you. I should have killed YOU."
Micah didn't cry. He never had a reason to cry, but right now, he felt like goddamn sobbing. It was over. All of it was. He'd been trying to acknowledge that for a few days. It was only Arthur who knew.
"It won't change anything… it won't,,, won't save you."
Arthur was bleeding from several parts on his face but Micah looked even worse. It wasn't only that he was bloody and battered, but he appeared detached from reality also, from an inability to accept that reality.
"Oh but it would've felt so much better."
"Yes, Micah… It probably would have. So why don't you?"
Micah slowly unclenched his fists, smiling unsteadily to himself. "...I don't… know… Wouldn't be a fair fight, I suppose. It would be over too quickly. Too quick for me to properly enjoooy it."
Micah was meaning to say it in a condescending manner, but it came out too unsharp.
Arthur’s limbs were numb as he merely rested on the floor. He'd tried to sit up but given up halfway and his neck was bent uncomfortably against the wall. He stared out through the window and all he could see was the red sky from his spot. The setting sun cast its last light in his eyes. They both were on their respective sides of the room in this rundown cottage. Arthur had been here before in his lone travels, so he knew they would be undisturbed.
Micah coughed from the dust whirling around in the air, still convincing himself it was only that.
He forced himself to stop the second Arthur moved his head as if to hear it better for an analysis.
Micah sat on the wooden floor with his back against the wall. He lifted his head up from where it had hung down between his raised knees. "I'm gonna leave. Arthur. I couldn't care less about what happens to you, but I suggest you all do the same if you wanna live. Just go… go before I change my fucking mind. They– they know about the train job me and Dutch was planning."
Arthur frowned in utter exhaustion. He shook his head very slowly and his hair brushed against the wall. "You ain't leaving, Micah Bell. If you leave, I'll come find ya, and I'll cut your guts out, feed you to the pigs… I'll make sure you're alive when they start eating you," he muttered.
Micah could only see half of Arthur's face from the red sun landing on him through the window.
"I'll make sure the rest of the gang is there too. I'm gonna make 'em watch. They're gonna find out 'bout what you've done."
As he spoke, Micah leaned forward slightly even if he and Arthur were twelve feet apart. "They'll never believe you. Dutch won't believe you. Can't you see that?"
Arthur pulled his mouth, he didn't know if he felt rage or defeat. "I'm starting to come to terms with… that. He don't listen to me anymore. That's your doing." Arthur blinked, feeling the tears close, thinking about his twenty something years with Dutch that didn't seem as meaningful to their leader any longer. "You've… made him lose his head. His mind. His sanity. Molly's dead for nothing. And Hosea and—"
"I had nothing to do with Hosea's death!" Micah raised his voice in offense. "I had nothing to do with anyone's death!"
And Molly, she'd brought her death upon herself. Micah had thought it comical with the lengths she'd been willing to go to get a slice of Dutch’s attention, speaking of crazy things in a drunken state. Micah knew she hadn't shared any valuable information about Dutch, which was one reason for the agency's utter impatience with him.
Arthur finally looked up. "How can I believe you? You come to me, you drag me with ya, you tell me it's over, you tell me you're working with the goddamn Pinkertons—"
"And I told you I'm not doing that a second longer. I'm leaving. How many times do I have to explain it to you?"
"You don't. It's not to me you have to explain it, it's to the rest of them. To Dutch," Arthur countered vehemently. "You need to face everyone you've done wrong by, do it like a goddamn man! Otherwise you'll just remain the coward you've always been."
Micah leaned back again. "I was NEVER a coward."
"What you are, Micah, is dead either way. Running away, that's the last thing you wanna do in your life?"
The pace of Micah’s breathing quickened. "I ain't dead yet. I ain't." He repeated it constantly in his head.
"But you will be. Very soon," Arthur murmured.
Arthur remained hidden in the new shadows but Micah glimpsed the blue in the one eye he could see on Arthur’s red face. He felt like damnation was upon him and Arthur was the judge to send him there. Micah had been sure he would welcome that day, but this was an utmost eerie sight and one he couldn't stand.
"If I stay here any longer, I'm worried I might make your death arrive very much sooner than what little time you've got left," Micah warned and he grasped in the air as if he was grabbing Arthur to hurt him. "Just looking at you makes me wanna kill you. Over and over."
"Try your best, you useless streak of piss. We both know you can't," Arthur sneered.
"Ohh just be quieeeet…. Just…. Just shut up…" Micah’s mind suddenly became conflicted, like a wave of delusions were washing over him. It had happened frequently as of late. He rubbed his face too hard and too fast. "Shit… I can't stay here. I— I need to… think… ! I neeeeed to get away from you," he pointed accusingly at Arthur and his voice wavered, "from this gang, from the Pinkertons. From fucking everything!" Micah roared and got to his feet within the second.
Arthur watched as Micah thrashed around and destroyed the place. The man tore everything down. Every loose item he hurled into the wall, every furniture he pushed over, every chair he kicked so hard it flew away. Arthur was only waiting for Micah to release his crazed wrath upon him.
All of it was deafening. It could be intimidating but Arthur had no ability to fear anything anymore. He focused on his shallow breathing and knew their fistfight would get the better of him the rest of the night. He felt like he was gonna pass out and he longed for morning.
Micah was out of breath when he was finally done. He screamed out just to scream out. Arthur saw the conflicting emotions and thoughts take over Micah and he couldn't look away.
Things hadn't always been like this. He and Micah had gotten along once. They'd enjoyed and hated each other truly for a considerable period of time and had acted upon it too, living side by side like it was some secret life.
That was until Micah started to get closer to Dutch, while Arthur had become more distanced to their leader. Then Arthur had become sick and now he was becoming forgotten.
Micah had always been haughty and heartless, but Arthur was convinced he may truly be evil too as they were in that room and Micah had sputtered all his secrets out. Both being wiser about each other and knowing how their fates had changed, Micah didn't even have the guts to tell this part of the truth to Dutch.
Arthur had had his gun in his hand for a while, just as Micah started to lose his mind. Arthur planned on shooting him in the head when the man didn't look. Just end the misery. His and Micah's both, because Micah had become just another one of Arthur's. There would be no grace. It would be without honour. He would kill Micah like a coward because he'd rather be a coward and have Micah dead, than remain honourable and allow Micah to flee.
But Micah would be dead either way, so would he, and it was the only reason Arthur didn't immediately shoot him. He wondered if that was why Micah was yet to go through with killing him too.
Micah stood by an intact table with his hands on either side on its edges. He was trying to calm down and the whole table shook from his motions. He was furious and in distress and Arthur felt something serene in seeing Micah like that.
Arthur had raised his gun and would have likely pulled the trigger if Micah hadn't started speaking to himself.
"What will you doooo, Micah? Hm? What grand plan now, you goddamn idiot. You… fuck…! There's nothing. Noooothiiing!" Micah kept shoving at the table with his glued hands and its wooden legs scratched over the floorboards.
Arthur was untouched by the scene. Micah was rocking back and forth, not knowing what to do about the situation.
Micah had shown something other to Arthur once. Not once. Several times. Something innate to every human, which was only that — something humane — but it was just as forgotten as the moral code of this gang.
Although, Arthur suspected it had all been an act back then too. But seeing this devastation within him, even a heartless man like Micah, was humanity at its finest.
Arthur believed he could glimpse a possibility in that rare humanity. Nothing that could solve his own situation — it couldn't be solved — but maybe solve the problems for the people Arthur was leaving behind. Something that could allow him to die in peace by knowing he had done everything he could for them.
Micah was bargaining with whatever force he'd never believed in as he mumbled to himself. Arthur had done that too. Arthur knew all the questionable efforts too well. It had been a bad time for him but there had been a liberation in it as well when he'd finally reached what he some days believed was acceptance.
"There's nothing you can do for yourself anymore, Micah, don't you understand?"
Arthur had lowered his gun and Micah hadn't even noticed he'd raised it in the first place.
A red-faced Micah jerked his head to him. His blond hair hung freely and Arthur could see the tests vibrate from Micah’s inability to remain composed. Micah clenched his hands on the sturdy table but looked like he was capable of flipping it any second.
"Your own interests were always the only ones that… ever mattered to you, weren't they? You never cared about any of us."
"You shut your mouth!" Micah bawled. He shook his head unsteadily and pointed his finger at him like it was an attack in itself.
"But it's the truth, ain't it?"
"Oh I'm gonna kill you, Arthur. That's the truth. And it's the only thing that'll make this right."
"No," Arthur said immediately and his expression hardened. He would give no concessions. "I'm not dying by your hands. I'm not letting you kill me. I refuse."
Micah prodded his own fingers to his chest several times. "You've already killed me, Arthur! You've. Killed. Me!"
"Petty revenge then. Running away. That's how you gonna make your last days count? It's pathetic. You could at least try and set things right for the people you've wronged. People who welcomed you when you were but a stranger—"
Micah pushed the whole table away so it crashed into the corner but remained standing. "HOW AM I GONNA DO THAT?!" he roared at Arthur and strode to him with aggressive steps. "WHY should I do it?!"
Micah towered over him and Arthur gazed up from where he half sat, half lay on the floor in his uncomfortable position. He was still too exhausted to move. "How…? Well, ride out with me. Just the two of us. There's a way to set this… right."
Micah looked absolutely appalled.
"What?"
Arthur swallowed and his gaze drifted around as he considered the plan he'd come up with. The stupidest of all. He'd never been the best with planning. But he was desperate now.
Arthur snorted. His eyes were red and wet as he suppressed a cough. "Where you gonna go? If you leave?" he asked Micah.
The blond man became briefly befuddled, believing it to be a sudden change of subject.
Micah gestured pointlessly with an abrupt hand. "...Somewhere else. Alone. Like I should have from the beginning. I was always fine on my own before. My troubles only started with all of you."
Arthur nodded two times and couldn't hold back the cough. "And what exactly will you do 'somewhere else'?"
Micah calmed down slightly from the questions as he was forced to consider them. His eyes were big and confused but he didn't look down at Arthur anymore. His adrift gaze wandered to the window and he saw the black trees outside and their branches swaying. It looked peaceful when the violent winds couldn't be heard as clearly.
"Oh I don't know anything anymore," Micah confessed in honesty and could barely hear himself. He gestured with crooked fingers like he was squeezing the life out of something. "And I despiiiise this feeling."
"I know," Arthur said under a long exhale.
Micah gave a grim chuckle. "And?"
"And… nothing. You just have to take it for what it is."
"Is that idea supposed to help?"
"Not really," Arthur said and chuckled too, but weakly. He then shrugged his shoulder. "...Look. You hate me like the plague right now. I hate you like the plague right now. As it should be. But I've… I've gotta pay my dues, Micah… regardless of what is happening now… I've come to realise it's the only thing worth dying for when there's… nothing left to live for, in every sense. I have to do this. My part... And I suggest you do yours too."
Micah truly didn't know how to respond to such words of an irreparable fate. His whole world had been turned upside down in only a few days. All his objectives gone and he was without purpose. He didn't feel like doing anything anymore aside from shooting every person he laid his eyes on.
He simply lowered himself to sit by Arthur's feet. Micah still looked through the window and Arthur looked there again as he had minutes ago. They both saw the same thing now, and it was only the swaying black treetops reaching for the red sky outside.
Micah rested his face in his hands and Arthur could sense the man's selfish agony. Arthur felt satisfied with it.
For almost ten minutes, they both remained silent apart from Arthur's occasional coughing fits and curses under his breaths.
Micah shifted each time. It was like his ego became smaller every moment he heard the sounds of a dying Arthur. He wanted to shut him up to shut him out.
"...So what you had in mind? Where are we riding?"
Arthur had almost fallen asleep but he blinked clear awake as Micah asked him. He could feel the caked blood on his face from where Micah had gotten in a few good hits. As Micah turned his face to him, Arthur was reminded of how battered he too looked. Arthur figured this sickness hadn't weakened the dangers of his fists when they'd been fueled by so many reasons.
"Blackwater."
Micah’s eyes narrowed a little. Arthur figured it was the last thing the man had ever expected to hear.
Arthur smirked thinly. "You never could stop talking about Blackwater, and now you can't even come up with something to say 'bout it? Ironic."
Arthur grimaced as he put his palms to the floor to finally push himself up to a sitting position. His chest ached. His face ached. His throat ached. Everything ached and he was reminded of a past life where nothing had hurt.
"Now, we can't let Dutch go through with that train job."
"No, the uh, Pinkertons know about it."
"Don't lessen your role in this, dammit. You told them about the train job. 'Cause you was the rat all along."
There wasn't even a hint of shame in Micah’s expression. "Yes I told them," he managed to confess.
"So it would be suicide to go through with it. We'd all end up captured or dead, probably both."
"That was the intended result. Yes." Micah didn't have to say it like that, but he did anyway.
"You goddamn asshole. Goddamn rat," Arthur muttered gravely, and still couldn't believe what the man had done. He imagined Micah unabashedly sitting there with their mutual enemy with the intention of sacrificing everyone else's skin if it meant saving his own.
"I know what I've done. You know what I've done," Micah rushed out defensively from speaking loud about it, but not making an actual effort to hide the ugly truth of it. "Just say what you want to say."
Arthur wrestled with his own calmness. "...The money we've gathered these last couple of months is a lot, but nowhere near enough to what people need to leave this life, for the rest of their lives."
"And why is this my problem?" Micah questioned with incredulity.
"Paying your dues," Arthur repeated with a hard, meaningful voice. "If you're planning on fleeing like a frightened little child, without knowing where you're going or what you're doing there, you might as well do something that matters for once in your miserable little life."
Across the floor, Micah dared himself closer to Arthur as a warning response. "Careful with your words there, Arthur. I might cut your tongue out if any more bullshit comes out of your mouth," he threatened with sincerity.
Arthur’s eyes narrowed. His voice trembled with strength. "You know, you might be the only man I know who's got the nerve to speak that way to me! To act like you do, even after all you've done wrong to us. To me. Truly obstinate, sorry piece of shit to look at!"
"What can I say? Their situation ain't my fucking problem—"
"But it damn well is. You were prepared to decide their situation for them. You were planning on killing all of them. All of us."
"I wasn't—"
"You was. You've been feeding us lies for weeks now, making Dutch believe everything would work out fine, saying you were trying to save folks, all while going behind our backs and preparing the noose for us all! That's the same as killing us!"
Micah instinctively tried pulling away when Arthur swiftly seized him by his arm. Arthur refused to let go and Micah’s breath hitched when he was forced to focus on this dying man's words.
"If you'd just told us you was picked up by the Pinkertons, we could've used it to our advantage, be one step ahead. And you could've told any lie to those bastards as easily as you've told lies to your own people! It wouldn't have been too late and it still ain't too late! You should've used your goddamn head!" Arthur condemned.
"It is too late," Micah articulated loudly.
He tried to rid himself of Arthur's clinging hand but the man grabbed him anew and shook him hard.
"For us. Not for them! They've got a chance to come out of this alive still. We don't. Which is why we're the obvious choice of people to get that money back from Blackwater!"
Micah didn't think Arthur stupid. It was a great plan. Of course it was, Micah had been trying to tell this to everyone ever since they'd left the money behind in the first place. An opportunity to finally get it back made something recurring and familiar stir inside of Micah. An obsession he'd never got rid of. However, sacrificing himself for a family he couldn't possibly consider family didn't fall so naturally for him as it did for Arthur.
"And how are you gonna make Dutch agree to us doing it, hm? He would never spill a word to me about the Blackwater money, not once. And you always said it was a fool's errand. You never agreed with me about going back there. Never."
"Thought you said you and Dutch were planning on getting it back?" Arthur countered. "Before you set your sights on this godforsaken train job, that is."
"Well, Dutch’s planning tends to stray from the big picture sometimes." Micah sighed in exaggeration. "The Blackwater business has always remained a, rather, mm, sensitive subject for the man. One day he agrees, the rest of them, he doesn't."
Arthur shook his head in dislike. "Yeah I don't trust him the way he's been acting. He's been doing crazy things thanks to you … But he can still come to his senses about this one. I have to believe he can."
"I haven't done anything to make him act any differently than how he still would have."
"Are you kidding—"
"Dutch is his own man. You just can't accept that is who he is."
Arthur’s hand clenched harder around Micah’s arm. "Don't you dare telling me who Dutch is! I know who he is! You don't! You weren't around when Dutch was himself! Who he's supposed to be!"
"I hate to break it to you, but you're living in the past with your head in the clouds, Arthur! Open your eyes and look at what we've got!" Micah took his own hold of Arthur's arm and pressed back intently. "Ain't no one who's forced the man to make the decisions he's made!"
"No! It's you that's been poisoning his goddamn mind!"
Micah breathed fiercely and his eyes darted wildly over Arthur's face. "If that's really the truth… then where was you to stop it?"
Arthur bit down and breathed hard and fast through his nose. He outfaced Micah, his mind turned blank but his chest became very heavy. "Don't you even start with me, you liiiiar. I've done all I damn well can. I tried to warn him of things but he can't see them clearly with you around."
"No it ain't because of me… It's just you, Arthur. And you don't wanna realise that Dutch don't want Arthur Morgan by his side anymore. You don't wanna admit he stopped valuing your opinions a long time ago. He don't want to hear anything you have to say, while he can't wait to hear me out."
"Your words aren't as big as you pretend they are. They're just empty… they hold no meaning… same as you. You might think they do. But they don't."
A breathy, disrespectful snigger escaped Micah as if eagerness washed over him. "Let me ask you this then… since you got sick, how many times has he– has he sat down to check on you? I sure as hell haven't discouraged him from doing so. You wanna know what Dutch’s done instead? Do you?"
Micah paused but Arthur remained silent and focused.
"Well, he… he laughs at you." Micah explained and read Arthur's face for a reaction. "He's been asking me, 'Micah, where did the old Arthur go? Where is he now and who is this sorry joke that's in his shoes?' He asks me this when you're not around to hear, and then he laughs. Laughs at the joke. And how do you explain something like that, hm? 'Cause I always thought you was like a son to him. So… How many times, Arthur? Just answer the question. Ain't that hard."
Micah smiled widely and nasty as Arthur's hand tightened harder, softer, harder, over his arm. He noticed Arthur's wet eyes but also knew by his look that Arthur refused to shed a tear in front of him.
"I see. I take your silence as 'never.' He don't care about you, Arthur… That's because you're a burden. You're of no use to him anymore. A burden and a joke. He thinks you weak…!" Micah grabbed tighter and tighter over Arthur's arm, squeezing hard enough to know it hurt him, donning the strength he thought Arthur wasn't capable of anymore. "Weeeeeak."
Arthur swallowed and it all looked difficult for him. He rested his head back against the wall and watched Micah through half lidded eyes.
"So will you be, Micah. You seem to forget," he breathed out. "You'll become weak like you'd never think possible. And then you'll just… die. Slowly. It's already begun. I heard your coughs before." Arthur nodded towards the other side of the room. "For me, when it started sounding like that, it was a very quick journey from that to this. It'll only get worse from here. You've nothing but suffering ahead of ya. I promise you that…"
Micah’s expression became contorted by the facts. His lips curled as he was both smiling and closing them shut from sheer contempt and a refusal to accept what was inevitably true. His eyes were blinking rapidly to make sense of his colourless situation for what it was.
Arthur's eyebrows tensed and his gaze so intense it was unsettling. "How's it gonna be, hm? The time that's left? You're gonna fight the whole world till you draw your last dying breath? You gonna fight me? Or are you gonna do something about the mess you've created for all of us?!"
Arthur finally exploded.
With his other hand, Arthur grabbed the collar on Micah’s shirt and yanked him to himself. He shouted straight into Micah’s face with a strong full voice.
"ARE YOU?! Answer ME RIGHT NOW!!" he demanded.
Micah released his own hold to push himself away but Arthur had grabbed the back of his head and kept him in place with unexpected force.
"Answer me GODDAMMIT! HOW'S it gonna be?!"
Micah tried to budge Arthur's hands but it appeared impossible. He felt frozen from this side of Arthur. It had been long since he'd met him.
Arthur’s eyebrows twisted in something close to despair. "HOW could you do this to us? How could you do this to ME?!" he barked more desperately.
He bashed Micah with a hard fist straight at his temple.
Micah finally tore himself free before Arthur could strike him again. He scrambled back and far away from Arthur. Micah was panting and he looked shocked from the sudden, frenzied outburst. As if he'd forgotten what Arthur had always been capable of. Even now in this feeble condition. There was difference between strength and power.
Arthur stared at him relentlessly. He panted heavily too, but he managed to speak with an eerily composed voice. "Out of all the very questionable things I've done in my life, killing you will be the one thing I'll never regret."
Micah was pressed against a leg of the table in the corner of the room. The same table he'd shoved away. His gaze was unfocused and his eyelids fluttered. He didn't know if it was the blow to his head or what Arthur was saying that caused it.
Arthur was fascinated by how quickly Micah was torn between his self and a new, strange one. A new one who was realising how meaningless anything else than life itself became. Perhaps it would be like that to Micah just like it had been to him. His only hope was that Micah would realise the only logical thing that was left to do. The only right, even for someone like him. Even after what he'd done.
Arthur did not rush out his words, he said them slowly, minding his current shortness of breath. "We're going back to Beaver Hollow and we're going to tell Dutch 'bout the plan… We ain't telling him 'bout your role with the Pinkertons, 'cause since he only listens to you now, you'll convince him as many times as it takes to tell us the location of the money. You're gonna make sure he understands why you and I have to—"
Abrupt coughs stopped Arthur momentarily. Micah couldn't stand the sound. He couldn't look at Arthur so he kept his gaze away.
Arthur went on where he left off. "...You and I have to do it… Which is why you're gonna tell him you're dying… That way, he'll know the money is of no interest to you, or to me. You're gonna make him trust us in full with it… Micah?"
Arthur demanded the man's presence in mind.
"Micah."
Micah’s nostrils flared and his jaw was clenched.
"Stop staring at the wall you moron and look at me. MICAH."
Micah forced himself to do as he was told. He foresaw the raw fury in Arthur's face but he predicted wrong because the look on Arthur's face was only pitiful and Micah had no capability to take pity.
"Micah, make Dutch come to his senses… you're the damn reason he lost them in the first place… He trusts you. So you're gonna calm him, not incite him. You're gonna talk him into leaving camp with what's left of us. It's not too late… And you– You're good at talking, so prove yourself one last goddamn time and talk like only you can… Whisper in his ear, one more time, tell him, what has to be done, for all of us. Otherwise… we will all die."
Micah snorted but his body language didn't accompany the sound.
Arthur watched Micah closely. The man was at his most vulnerable at that moment and through this order, Arthur seized the opportunity before the man shut himself off again. Arthur needed to reach out to him in a way that shoved him into a corner with no escape. He needed to pull him in and attack him all the same. It was the only way. By learning a lot from Micah he had also learnt a lot about Micah.
Blue eyes lingered on eyes with a different hue until someone tore his away.
"Just mentioning that money always made you damn near ejaculate before. So if you won't do this, for the sake of the gang, or for me, then do it for yourself. Like you've always done things. It's a lot of money we're talking about. Hell, you get to be rich, whatever that's worth… And if you do this, you'll be praised like you've always wanted… You'll be saving folks and you'll be doing it for real this time… like you've always tried to convince everybody of. Maybe… it's time to live up to the picture you've painted for us all. You won't do that if you run off."
To Micah, Arthur's face was now expressionless, but the man was indirectly communicating the idea of not ratting Micah out. If he did this. This notion shouldn't have affected Micah, none of it would matter the second he was on his way from here, but leaving also meant that Arthur stood in his way and he'd have to kill Arthur, or Arthur would have to kill him, and Micah knew which of these two outcomes was the only probable in his world. But it did affect Micah, because he was already of two minds at this point.
There came a sniffle from Micah and Arthur watched him wipe his nose hurriedly. Arthur didn't know if it was blood or snot or both.
"Just do one single helpful thing in your life Micah... Time's running out… and this is your only opportunity to make amends… Just set things right, do what needs to be done… You'll regret it if you don't. Trust me."
It was too much for Micah. Arthur was asking a lot from him and Micah had been quick at turning down the request at first, just out of pure hate for what Arthur had caused him.
Regret, making amends and doing what was right was nothing that mattered to Micah before, how could it now? He was filled with more bitterness than he'd ever been in his life.
Micah didn't care about what happened to the rest of the gang. Especially not when he had no future. He told himself he didn't care about Arthur either, because of how illogical it should be. They despised each other. Even if they hadn't once, it was their mutual feeling in this here and now.
Arthur had destroyed Micah’s life, but in a sense, Micah supposed he had too. The gang, the family, was Arthur's life, and Micah had paved the way for its impending demise, though that demise was yet to happen. He figured they'd taken everything from each other at this point. Paying one's dues may be the one thing he had left to do, and could do, because he surely didn't have anything else left anymore. And he loathed the idea of just roaming around to wait to die. Because he surely would. Micah needed to keep himself busy till that day. To him, returning to Blackwater wasn't about making amends or paying his dues. He just needed the action that he'd based his whole life upon. He needed to keep going. Let Arthur call it what he wanted but it wasn't what he called it for Micah.
"...If I do this– this… job, what's gonna happen to me when we're done with it? Hm?"
Arthur regarded him quietly for some time. "Your secret dies with me. I won't do anything to you. What happens to you is up to you."
Micah stared into his eyes to evaluate the guarantee laid openly on the table. A guarantee was never a guarantee. "And if I won't?"
"And if you won't do it, not even for yourself, then I swear I'll damn your soul, Micah."
Arthur's words shouldn't have sounded so terrorising, but to Micah, they did.