Charles takes female reader with him on hunting trip. Maybe she gets injured somehow and he fixes her up? Some good hurt/comfort
Just an Accident
wc: 1,976
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A swell of pride filled your chest as you approached the bison you’d just killed. You looked out over the plains and saw Taima standing patiently next to a kneeling Charles as he skinned an animal of his own. The two of you had a friendly competition going for the last few days on your hunting trip: whoever got more pelts had to pay the other what they were worth.
You were determined to win, and so far you were. You’d managed to kill a deer with a bow and arrow, some rabbits, a fox, and now you had a bison pelt.
“Oh Mr. Smith, yer goin’ t’ have wished you’da taken someone else along with ya.” You knelt down to the ground and began skinning the animal. It took a lot of effort and by the time you’d finished peeling the pelt off the carcass, Taima was nudging you with her muzzle.
She was an odd-tempered horse. Aside from Charles, Taima only let you and Arthur handle her, Kieran was the only exception when he was brushing or feeding her. The last time anyone else had tried to lay a hand on her, Micah ended up face first in the dirt, and Taima had gotten a sugar cube from her owner.
“Quit it girl, yer goin’ t’ make me mess up. Then this really won’t be worth anythin’.” You grumbled softly, but took a second to give the horse a loving pat. She whinnied before deciding to munch on some of the grass she was standing on.
You’d gotten the pelt all tied up and rolled neatly, ready to be tossed onto your own horse for transportation. You lugged it over your shoulder with a grunt, and took a deep breath before starting to walk towards your horse.
It was over by Charles, who seemed to be feeding it something some twenty feet away, and he offered a wave as he saw you heading towards them.
“What kind of trash did you pick up?” He hollered as he ran his hand across your horse’s neck. You shook your head and laughed at his jab.
“Yer jus’ jealous Charles, ‘cause I got the winnin’ amou-whoa!” You cried out as your ankle bent underneath you, and the ground rushed up to meet you. Your hands got tangled in the string holding the pelt together, so it cushioned your head, but everything else was in pain. Your elbow had slammed into the dirt, along with your knee and hip. Basically the entire right side of your body.
“Hey! You alright?” You could hear Charles yell through the ringing in your ears, and you pulled your hands away from the pelt, then tried to sit up. You shook your head, which ached a bit, and saw your horse rearing a few feet in front of you as Charles jumped off it’s back.
“What the hell did you do?” Charles asked with an amused note to his voice as he picked up your pelt and secured it to your horse. Then he came back over and held out his hand to you.
“I stepped in a god damn fox hole is what I did. Somethin’ like that…” You mumbled as you brushed off your arms, taking note that there were a few decent cuts that would need to be cleaned. You took Charles’s hand and used your left foot to push yourself off the ground, but as soon as your right foot started to bear any weight, you hissed in pain as your ankle gave out.
“Whoa, whoa. Easy there.” Charles wrapped his arm around your waist to catch you, his other hand holding yours tightly so that you wouldn’t hit the ground a second time. “Can’t walk on it then?”
“Shit, no I don’ think so.” You grimaced and held your foot just off the ground, and Charles shifted you both around so that you had an arm over his shoulders and his arm was holding you up around your waist. For a second you were worried that it was an uncomfortable position for someone as tall as Charles to be leaned over in, but then you remembered both of your horses were right in front of you.
Charles let go of you for a moment, so you rested a hand on Taima’s shoulder to keep your balance, but you were quickly swept off your feet as Charles’s hands gripped your waist and he hauled you onto his saddle. You wobbled a bit as he set you down, ergo you wrapped your fingers around the horn so that you didn’t fall off of his horse.
You pushed yourself towards the back of his saddle as Charles started to mount Taima, and once he was settled, you wrapped your arms around his waist for stability. You’d never admit it to anyone living, but you could die in this man’s arms. He was rough and strong, but when he wasn’t using his fists to fight, he could be quite gentle.
Taima took off in a canter and you whistled for your horse to follow. The two of you rode for a few hours, your head resting against Charles’s back as you took in the expansive prairie around you. Deer, bison, and pronghorns grazed along the hills, their heads perking up as they head your horse and Taima’s hooves beating against the ground.
The four of you arrived into camp around sunset, the horses trotting up to a pair of hitching posts. Some of the other members of the gang looked up in curiosity and smiled at the two of you when they realized it was just you and Charles arriving back from your trip.
“I thought you wasn’t back for a few more days?” Tilly called out from the nearest table, where she was sitting and eating dinner for the night. Your cheeks burned red as you opened your mouth to tell her what had happened while Charles lifted you off the horse, but he beat you to it.
“We weren’t. Her horse got spooked by a cougar and bucked her.” Charles spoke up as he set you down, but kept his arm out to support you with. Your hand wrapped around his forearm, and you could feel the muscles flex under your fingers as he helped you keep your balance.
You looked over at Charles in shock at the fact that he’d lied about what had happened. There wasn’t any benefit to it other than you avoided being the camp joke for the next two weeks. Your eyes narrowed and he shrugged innocently, but you could see the ghost of a smile on his face.
“Good lord, well are ya alrigh’?” Mary-Beth chimed in from somewhere nearby, and it took you a second to find her in the increasing darkness as she moved over to the table Tilly was sat at.
“Yeah, I jus’ have t’ bandage it or somethin’ t’ keep it straight.” You waved off the two women as you pulled Charles in the direction of the tent you and the other women shared. You wanted to get off the damn thing so that it could heal sooner than later.
You waved at Sean and said your hellos to some of the others as you walked past them to your tent, where Karen was fast asleep next to a beer bottle. You couldn’t help but shake your head with a quiet chuckle. Charles held his arm still as you carefully set yourself on the ground.
“You alright now?” He looked down at you and folded his arms across his chest, and you had to pull your eyes away from his arms with a nod.
“I can take care o’ it myself. Thanks for help Charles. I owe you one.” He shook his head and waved his hand in the air in dismissal.
“I’ll get Pearson your pelts and see how much you owe me.” He tilted his head, and you could’ve sworn you saw him wink before he turned away and headed for your horses. You watched him for a moment as he untied your bison pelt and stacked your other pelts on top of it before carrying them over to Pearson.
You figured it might’ve been best to distract yourself from Charles so he didn’t catch you staring, and thus began the process of cutting up some fabric as a bandage. You’d changed into a skirt to make the whole business of bandaging you leg easier since pants were hard to push that far up your leg, and you’d taken off your boots as well so the wrap had an anchor point.
About five minutes later you heard footsteps coming towards your tent, and you looked up to see Charles walking back over with a roll of fabric in one hand and a coin purse in the other.
“What’re you doin’ over here? Come to give me my winnin’s?” You teased him with a whisper so as to not wake Karen up. When she had a hangover she was never particularly pleasant, and if she was woken up by someone else, she tended to be extra nasty.
Charles chuckled deep from within his chest, the sound of the rumble making your heart flutter.
He was a quiet man and when he did speak it was usually of little words. Everyone made comments at some point or another at how fast Charles seemed to be warming up to you, but you’d just say that he was the same with Arthur. The two of you were really the only people he’d hold a conversation with.
“Actually yes. You beat me by five bucks, no doubt with that bison pelt you tripped over.” Charles dropped the coin purse at your feet before he sat down on the ground next to your and let one of his arms rest across his knee.
“Well thank you, kind sir.” You took the purse and tossed it over by your trunk of things before picking up your makeshift wrap again.
“Here, let me help.” Charles shifted closer to you and took the fabric from your hands, setting his own down on his leg. He unraveled what you’d done and set it on your bedroll, then picked up the roll he’d brought over.
The two of you sat in silence as you held your skirt up to your knee and Charles’s hands moved carefully around your ankle. You watched him as though it were the most interesting thing in the world, only moving to lift up your foot so Charles could wrap that as well to hold the rest of it in place.
His hands were rough against your skin, the callouses and scars giving you little goosebumps from his light as a feather touch.
Once he’d finished, Charles carefully set your foot back down on the ground and you looked up at him bashfully. His expression was soft as he looked at you, his fingers still lingering against your bare calf.
He didn’t need to say anything. You understood. Charles didn’t look at Arthur the way he looked at you, didn’t touch Arthur the way he did you. That was because the way he felt about Arthur was different than the way he felt about you.
Charles reached up to your face and touched your burning cheeks with the pad of his thumb, the rest of his hand holding up your jaw. You nodded at him in return when you noticed his gaze flickering up and down between your eyes and lips.
And with that, he pressed his lips against yours hesitantly. You didn’t move a muscle, not wanting to spook him, but when his fingers gripped your jaw a little tighter, you reciprocated. Despite how odd his mannerisms seemed to come off as sometimes, the way your first kiss happened felt just right.
