#kieramolly

[pailiky]

kieramolly for the culture

[2demondogs]

Woman on Fire, I'll Burn | Kieran/Molly

Tags: Molly/Dutch, cheating, unhealthy coping mechanisms, Kieran and Molly are both autistic, AU where they leave the gang in chapter 4, awkward flirting, period typical attitudes of internalized misogyny and classism, vignettes Words: 7.2k A/N: Realized I have never written them?! Also, I wanted to write a scene in Shady Belle but haven't played that far yet so I don't think I have the timeline of Sean's death and Jack's kidnapping right. Just pretend Jack and Kieran were not gone yet, okay? OK. Thanks.

Also x2, I was going to extend this but I didn't and knew I'd never finish it, so it's chronological vignettes with big gaps.

The large rocks circling the Overlook make for a decent protector against the evil eyes she feels on her back. Dutch's philosophy books don't make for much interest, and she is not finding herself a fan of Hosea's mysteries, either, as she reads through the last one she borrowed from him.

Borrowed, more like bartered for. She just finished the book jacket she intended to give to him as a thank you. Although he insisted he had been joking when he asked what she could do for him, no one here seems capable of giving a favor unrepaid and Molly would least of all like to have Hosea glaring at her. He does not like her, she doesn't think, but he is the only one she'd believe capable — skill-wise and morally — of slipping poison into her meal without her noticing, should she earn his distaste.

The only member of the gang she does not think would harm her is Jack, bright boy that he is, or maybe Arthur. That one is not a bright boy; rarely makes the impression of someone motivated by anything but blood or drink, except for when Molly has dared to compliment his sketches.

Losing track of her place in the novel right as the detective is meant to be solving the case, she turns to pondering the grass and patches of dirt, the trees that shield the camp from potential surveyors on the other side of the river. It's been a slow day. Even the clouds slog by. No hint of rain within them, yet the sunshine and modest spring temperature do nothing to stir her interest. Dutch has been reading and talking and finding all he can do besides keeping her company, lately, and Molly is realizing how few hobbies she has had the pleasure of maintaining since Blackwater.

It isn't all that different from Valentine, besides the people being of a higher brow variety. Dutch didn't care for the descriptor, but it's the honest truth. Probably. How dignified can a livestock town be? Her mouth sours, some. She wouldn't know, since the women didn't fancy to bring her on their only excursion so far. She must ask Arthur or Hosea to accompany her out soon, since they are the only ones Dutch would entrust with the task. He insists it is protection, that Javier or John might flirt with her and that the other men won't do for reasons he won't share. Most likely, he hasn't thought of them yet. Insisting that she had survived several months on her own without his help had been rebuked by the assertion that an angel like her in a town like that would be snatched up faster than a hundred dollar bill.

She supposed it was fair. Molly had never liked the men in Blackwater, either.

The consideration of her next escape must be what prompts her to call out when she sees Kieran wandering the cliffside. Thinking about jumping over, judging by the pinched look on his face and the sluggishness of his gait. Despite it, he looks much better than he had tied to that tree: his hair is brushed out, though it's thin with stress and hunger, and the duster coat he donned again covers up his dirtier clothes. Molly is far enough on the side of the aggressors to feel pity for him rather than disgust, which she does not ponder any longer than necessary.

"Kieran!" She calls.

He jolts, but walks over, eyes wide. "Yes, ma'am?"

Molly scoffs. "I'm not old enough to be a ma'am," she says, touching the slight smile line she's been worrying herself over lately.

"I'm sorry, Miss— Miss Molly?" He looks ready to leap for certain, his brows drawn tight in anticipation of a firmer scolding or a rant at his expense.

Instead, she smiles. "That's better. Why don't you sit with me?"

He smells, undeniably. She doesn't care for that, but boredom is worse and he's right here. She would be lying to say she had no inklings of curiosity about the man, unsatisfied by the tepid ramblings Dutch offered whenever she asked questions like who he was thought to be or what he intended to do with him.

Kieran shifts on his feet, worrying a patch of balding grass with his boot. She notices the toe is about to burst out, worn thin in spots. "I dunno. Think Dutch would have my head if he saw me sittin' with you."

Molly raises a brow. "Didn't say kiss me, did I? I only said sit." Kieran's ears redden, but he relents with a nod, sitting on the farthest ledge of the rock. She would normally invite him to get comfortable, but she only has so much to say to him and he does reek of sweat and barn, despite them having been out of Colter for weeks. "You know, I think it's terrible what they did to you. Nothin' deserves that." She knows it is not really done with — oh, wouldn't she be the one to know these people do not grow bored with their social torture? — but it's the politer way to speak of it, pretending that it's over.

He scratches the back of his neck. "Thank you," he says, clearly unsure of whether or not it's the correct response.

"O'course." She looks at her hands, at the book, not sure of what else to say. It's a bit rude to ask him to sit for only a sentence or two. "Are you a reader?"

"No, ma— Miss."

"Do you know how?"

He hesitates. His gaze looks at the open pages in her lap, testing himself and coming away even more unconfident. "Enough."

So, he doesn't. She didn't expect that he did. People who do usually read often. Softening her expression unlaces the tension of his in turn, but not by much. Suddenly, she is struck by that sense of pity, hard and fast. "You don't seem like a heartless O'Driscoll," she says. She imagines it's the gentlest she's spoken in a good while. "You seem scared."

"I wasn't one," he says, rushed, as if waiting for the opportunity. "And— well, I am scared. You people— I mean, these people ain't very nice to me."

"Not to me, either," Molly says. Anyone else might have called her dramatic, but she was only trying to connect with him, and Kieran seemed to be willing to allow it. "What were you, if you weren't an O'Driscoll?"

"Myself, s'pose." Kieran looks over the cliffside, squints into the sun. "I just took care of their horses, same I been doin' here."

"Before that, though, you must have done something... else?" Molly presses, skirting around what she wants to call such work.

If she could get more information on Colm's gang, it'd put her in Dutch's good graces. The better ones, anyways, she would like to avoid thinking she's fallen from them entirely. If she can get nothing but a little more about Kieran himself, then she will satisfy the natural interest that comes with having a man tied up in your vicinity for several weeks. It was brutish, and she hasn't seen a lick of a reason to have done it, but if she pries enough then she may sniff out just what makes Kieran so vile a man. Or else, she will know that Dutch's choice was ill-informed. Not wrong, of course; mistaken, a problem all good men run into.

Kieran pauses a moment, then looks at her, a small, cracked tooth grin. "I was an army man," he says.

Molly considers it with a burgeoning grin of her own. "Horseshit."

His face twitches. "You don't believe me?"

"I'd make it through bootcamp before you did," Molly says, the tease coming out far blander in tone than she wanted it to. She is young, but not a fool; who's this man think he is to lie to her with a smile? May as well go with that angle, if it's what her heart's saying. "Who were you, really?"

"I was!" He insists. Looking down and away, he huffs. "For a month or so."

She stares, then laughs. He goes to stand, and she bites it down, at once feeling guilty. "Oh, come now. I didn't mean to insult you."

"I— I just shouldn't be talkin' to you," he says, waving a hand towards her. There's no hesitation to his step as he flees the scene.

An army man. He must have thought her an idiot to believe that one! For a month? Molly makes a mental note to trap him in a conversation somewhere he cannot scurry off in the name of Dutch's watchful gaze. What could he have done to be turned away by the most desperate little group of criminals she's ever heard tell of?

Her mother had always been frightened. Molly thinks it's where she gets her habits from, that constant wide-eyed stare and fidget to her step, the twirling of her cigarette between her fingers. She nearly drops hers, now, into the sandy riverbank of the Dakota. Beige coats her white shoes. Mallaidh O'Shea is a harrowing, harrowed woman beneath soft makeup and carefully pinned curls; she has trouble figuring if she means herself or Mammy, wonders if names can pass down nervous curses and if she should have chosen more wisely when presented with the opportunity to bear someone else's.

Molly would like to think she has good reasons for her Mallaidh outbursts. What better reason than a man? Her father was, almost certainly, the one who drove her mother's hands to their constant tremble with his nonsensical ideas and risky ventures, even if they always turned out fine. Dutch is very like him, she's coming to realize. Bombastic and then quiet, always unsteady, a man who will wander in eye or mouth if he cannot follow his feet. Being on the run does not seem to satisfy his need for disruption, if the eyefuls he's been taking of the other women say anything.

Checking in on them. Checking in on them! Does he think she's an imbecile? He is not a proper man but he knows the proper ways, he has shown her; how a man should act around women, around ladies, though she does not qualify the Van Der Linde girls as such on most occasions. Molly has wound herself so tightly in the insult to her intelligence that she might, if he only admitted to the truth, be willing to accept that his heart was changing.

No, no. It's a terrible idea. If it weren't for Dutch, who knows where she would be? Dragging her feet back home, most likely, ready for nonstop verbal lashings from everyone she met for the next year. Especially now. She hasn't written them in so long, they must think her dead, abused, or worst of all, too poor to mail.

She's not really poor, is she? If it's only temporary, must she settle with such a title? Though he is a no-good bastard at times, her father made a life and then some. Certainly, Dutch can do the same. He is younger, more impassioned even. Molly bides her time if only because there is promise, somewhere, of an island just like home with a more temperate climate and richer soil and a fine, sweet man of her own.

Sometimes she considers writing. Having no one to speak to makes it difficult to ignore the dread slowly spreading in her gut. Dutch turning her loose might as well be the same as killing her, especially so far from a port city. Where would she go? She hasn't the faintest clue where they are in any meaningful sense, and she understands a little better now, with two more years under he belt, just how dangerous it is to be gallivanting around on her own as a defenseless young woman. Molly thinks of shooting a gun and shudders, pulling her shawl around her shoulders.

Maybe if any of the other women would listen to her kindly, she could put her mind at rest about these what ifs. The men have a brotherhood mandating they report to Dutch should Molly speak out of turn, but sisterhood would protect her secrets. Only, she's been denied the right to join it. No one in this gang, by her judgement, knows the way things ought to work.

As she's planning to turn back, cigarette burnt to the filter and coming apart beneath her heel, Molly makes out the shape of Bill lumbering with Kieran in tow. There is no one quite as pale and strung-out as him, though she hasn't paid enough attention to learn the broader strokes of him. (Yes, she has; far too much attention paid to so lowly a man.) Molly hugs her arms to herself, hesitating until the idea nudging at her mind forms something legible.

Kieran, if she can get him alone, might listen to her. Bill does not, though she tried in a fit of desperation many weeks ago when he was drunk and, she had hoped, more pliable. He laughed in her face and defensively asked why she thought he was the one to inquire about man problems to, then stumbled off to lose all his money in a game of poker with Micah. Whatever that meant, she didn't know or care. Seeing him grab Kieran by his collar, yanking him to walk faster towards the hill that leads to camp, reignites the loathing that blossomed in her heart that evening. She begins to walk.

"Hello, boys," Molly greets, voice shrill from the too-far distance she chooses to start in on Bill from. "What're you doing with that poor man, Mr. Williamson?"

Bill grunts out something that is hardly words and stops their march back to camp. Kieran looks as though he'd rather sleep with the fish than be caught by the scruff in front of her, his gaze anywhere but her face. His hair is wet, which concerns her at once, plastered to his cheeks and showing white scalp where it thins at the top of his head.

"I asked you a question, Bill," she says, giving Kieran the relief of ignorance to turn a colder look onto the other man.

Bill's ears redden, though he takes on the countenance of a struck-at tomcat more than an apologetic fellow. "S'rry, Miss O'Shea," he says, clearly pained to do so. She can imagine her place in Dutch's tent is all that keeps him anywhere near cordial with her, at least when he is sober enough to understand the consequences of inciting her anger. "Dutch sent the O'Driscoll—"

"—I ain't—"

"—down to bathe, on account'a him smellin' like shit. I got the job of escortin' him."

Molly nods. "And why are you holding him by the— collar? I hope not the hair," she says.

"You wouldn't understand keepin' a wild man like him in check," Bill says, cracking a grin that is ugly as a snarl.

She maintains the sweet smile on her face. "Why don't you let me try?"

Bill stares. "Try what?"

Her eye twitches. "Go on up the hill and let me walk Kieran back," she says, switching tactics. "And I'll keep it to myself that I found you sleepin' on guard duty yesterday afternoon."

"I were not!" Bill says, but he lets go of Kieran, whose shoulders drop an inch. He flinches at the raise in his escort's voice, though, which displeases Molly very much. "What do you want with this one, anyway? Ain't Dutch enough?"

"I saw you with my own eyes," Molly says, unyielding. The implication stirs the fire in her chest, makes her want to take her chances on jabbing her finger into the face of a brute like him, but she tucks her fingers into fists and refrains. "Go on, find a rock to sleep under," — like the insect you are — "And we both keep our secrets. Would y'want Dutch to know you cain't be trusted?"

At that, his back straightens. Huffing, Bill opens his mouth to speak, then closes it and brushes past her, stalking beyond the hillside's path opening and to the ruins of the cabin near its mouth. Watching him, ear perked to listen for the O'Driscoll darting the other direction, she lets his bulk fade into the distance before she turns back to Kieran.

"Why'd you do that?" Kieran asks immediately, so urgent as to sound angry. "What're you gonna do to me?"

"Why, nothin' but walk you back," Molly says, placing a hand on her heart. For a moment, she considers doing just that, then adds: "Unless you'd like to lend me an ear?"

Somewhat tiredly, he nods. "That's fine."

When she holds out her arm to him, Kieran skitters back, alert once more. "What's the matter?" She asks.

"Dutch'll shoot me if he sees me walkin' you by the arm!"

"Dutch couldn't give a rat's ass who walks me where right now," Molly says, a touch terse, and then sighs, smoothing her skirts. "He is about as fond of I as he is of you."

"That's hard to believe," Kieran says, but he shifts on his feet, hands fidgeting at his sides, and when Molly offers her arm again, he takes it.

He does smell better now. Like rain and sand, though horse hair still clings to his clothes and she spends most of this first minute plucking them off of the arm of his coat. If he notices, he does not say anything about it. They will be visible against the river, his coat long and dark and her hair a swath of bright red on a boring, desaturated background of rocks and water. To think Dutch might be angry puts a cheer into her step that she can't reasonably call ladylike. He had treated her so unlike a real man would, insinuating her to be unstable for merely suggesting he might stray from her, though. Molly's last concern is measuring her own pettiness.

"Did you... fight with him?" Kieran asks. He sounds unsure if he should speak at all, and Molly has been frowning at his sleeve rather than enacting her last-minute plan.

"Yessir," she says. "We—"

He bristles beside her. "I ain't old enough to be a sir."

Molly looks up to find him grinning, small and uneven. The corner of her painted lips raises. "Mister...?"

"Just Kieran," he says. "I ain't anyone worth callin' mister."

She returns her attention ahead. "Yes, Kieran, we did. You've been watchin' over the camp, haven't you? Ain't you seen the way he alleycats around with those women?"

"You ain't testin' me to see if I'll talk bad about him, are you?" He asks.

Molly raises a brow at him. "Have the others done that?" She isn't sure who it speaks more to, but in her present state of disliking her lover, she wants to throw the blame at him wherever possible.

"No," Kieran says. Sheepish, he looks at his feet. "Yes, I think I have seen him bein' friendly with one or two."

"Never point it out to him, 'less you want your head torn off," she advises. "What possesses a man to speak to a woman that way, I haven't a clue. The way he did to me, I mean. I know why he talks to Mary-Beth the way he does." She spits the last of the woman's name, ignoring the tension in the man beside her when her tone bitters. "Suggested the stress is— well, I shouldn't go into detail. I doubt you'd like to hear it. S'pose I wanted to say somethin' to someone 'fore I burst a vein, is all."

As they make their way close to the bottom of the hill, Kieran is quiet. No reply is fine by her, so long as there is not a denial or a sympathy in Dutch's name spoken. Beneath their feet, grass begins to rustle, the dirt and sand giving way to green and brush. It's a steep climb she's glad to have an arm for, even if Kieran is not the most steady of companions, swaying here and there. It is a more equal exchange of support than with anyone else. He must be hungry, she thinks, not knowing if Pearson is allowing him more than strictly necessary in portions yet.

How cruel. She hopes Dutch sees her taking a liking to him, even if it's superficial at best, and bleeds out his eyes. The violent persuasion she's taken today will be gone by the time they lay down to sleep, his hand strong and warm on her stomach, holding her close as though they never quarreled at all. For now, she will be as wicked as he says she is.

"He seems to be nice one minute, 'n' the next he ain't," Kieran finally says.

It's as close to validation as she has ever gotten, not counting Hosea's initial warnings, all that time ago, that Dutch was a difficult man to love. That sympathy apparently had a warranty on it.

"You're right about that," she says, tempers her excitement at the prospect of having someone to confide in so as to not scare the fellow off. Resting her hand on his forearm properly, she can feel how tightly he has his arm held in place, not daring to brush against her. She sighs. "So long as he treats me well most of the time, I s'pose I can't say much. But I'm a sensitive lady."

"I ain't a lady, but I think I'd be hurt, too," Kieran says.

Molly could kiss him, then and there. "I appreciate the sentiment," she says, because she must acknowledge the reality despite how pleasant it is to be understood. "But I'm afraid it's true."

"If somethin' hurts your feelings, of course you're upset," Kieran says. "Ain't you allowed to be upset?"

There's a confusion to it that makes her blush, as though she were the one to not understand how things must be. She does not like them nor particularly think they are right, but— Molly received enough lectures as a girl and mistakenly confided in Grimshaw once, and these proved to her that there is an understanding of emotion far simpler than her own which is accepted as standard for a lady. Having Susan say some running mascara simply came with being Dutch's woman was daunting, yet she ignored the fear. She had said it would be good, too, that he knew how to treat a woman. Rather than giving in to the far-away look in her eye at that statement, she went on a far less sympathetic tirade about how if Molly helped with chores, she might find Dutch a little more forgiving. She stopped listening at that point.

"It ain't that I'm unallowed," Molly says, hesitating. "I just— I cry, and then he feels sorry, and it's a whole lot of trouble that needn't be made."

"I thought you was mad at him," he points out. "Now you agree with him?"

Molly's blush darkens. "I... why, you're a very smart man, Kieran," she says, because she sees no other way to escape the conversation prematurely. "S'pose you're right."

Half of a hill still faces them, and she can't very well hurry up the rest of it, turning Kieran loose. He would be off to the hills or maybe even going to find one of Colm's roving bandits to report Dutch's woman is unhappy, could be bought into the company of fellow Irishmen, could be turned unfaithful; oh, the thoughts of what he may do now that she's shared a little of her burdens weighs on her greatly. She regrets ever opening her sorry mouth to a man she barely knows. One with such a violent background to boot, who can barely dress himself with any decency. Molly squeezes his arm tighter when, really, she wants to shove him away, suddenly disgusted with— something, someone, she isn't sure what or who or why.

Kieran mistakenly interprets it as a bid for comfort. His hand is calloused but warm where it presses atop her own, then quickly falls away. "I think you're a nice lady," he says.

"Thank you." Her skin crawls. He is only being kind. Why does she feel insulted? Instead of lingering on it, she returns to their last conversation. "Will you tell me who you were before Colm, now?"

That humor enters his voice again. "I told you. I's an army man."

She tsks.

Kieran's beard is wiry against her fingers. He seems pleased by the touch, eyes closing as she scratches his jaw. Docile like this, he reminds Molly of a dog that's been kicked one too many times. She would think an animal would learn fast, a man faster, but as a child, she'd seen her father's hunting dogs trail her governess as though the old witch hadn't taken her cane to their backs moments before.

The rosiness of his gaunt cheeks, the soft sigh when she brushes her thumb over his cracked, dry lips— Kieran is as relaxed as a man who has never before closed his eyes expecting a slap, stretched out in the grass beside her. His jacket is warm under her, denim keeping her dress safe from the dirt. She knows better than to assume he has tuned everything out, still entrusts her life to his ability to hear anyone else approaching.

Some day, someone will notice them missing from camp and come looking around the perimeter. The risk used to eat at her each time they stole away, but now, she has to will it to the forefront of her mind, the fact that they would certainly both pay if caught. Since they sprawled out on the ground, she has been more taken with just how much of a gentleman he is for laying out his jacket for her. Dutch would have found a rock or a stump, even if it meant his lover walking an extra mile of rough terrain in heels. He didn't seem built to care for a lady, she's coming to believe.

"Your beard's awful patchy, isn't it?" Molly talks just to talk, maybe wants Kieran to know she notices these details. How often has someone had the pleasure of seeing him like this, content?

His eyes flutter open. "I can shave it, if you don't like it," he says.

The assumption makes her sad, but the offer elates her. Is it cruel to consider asking, just to see how far he will go? Yes, she thinks, it'd be a terrible thing to do. Kieran looks at her without malice but with a sense of urgency. Shame crawls over her neck, knowing she'd had even the slightest inkling of committing such manipulation. She would be stooping to Dutch's level, taking advantage of someone without a lick of black in his heart, as she sees it. Forgiven streaks aren't considerable.

"No," she reassures. She scratches at his jaw again, then moves to run her fingers across his cheek. "It's endearin'. Makes you look like you." Whatever that means. Dutch is rubbing off on her, in his good and his neutral and his awful ways. As the words settle, they sound less like a compliment than she thought they would. To cover the tracks, she runs her thumb over the crow's feet by Kieran's eyes, watching them close once more. "You're a sweet boy."

His mouth cracks. "I ain't a boy, I— why, I'm older than you," he says.

She smiles, guides him by the chin to close the few inches between them. His beard scratches her chin, the struggling stubble of his upper lip leaving that much unbothered; maybe there is an advantage, at least until it grows out, but having second-guessed herself already, she decides not to make things worse by trying to rectify whatever insult she might have accidentally given him.

"S'pose I have a type," she jokes.

"I'd hope not," Kieran says, just as fast as he'd offered to go clean-shaven. That same urgency is in gaze. "Dutch is awfully mean. I'd never treat a woman that way." He pauses. "Ain't too many men I'd treat that way, neither."

Heat spreads up and onto her face, but Molly cannot place why. It could be embarrassment, since she didn't expect him to take her so seriously. And then there is a little taste of bile in her throat and a hot, personal anger in her belly, because even though she knows Dutch is awful and Kieran says it to make her feel seen, probably— she can only hear Abigail's reminder that she is unloved, the mean-spirited laughter at her expense, thinks of how easily everyone in this camp takes their own sorrows and finds a way to reflect them onto hers. Everything is shared amongst these people, grief and blamed included, but no one offers to take a share of the mortification she feels when she remembers how much of herself she has sunk into that man.

"Molly?" Kieran's voice is softer.

She scratches his jaw again, smiles though it doesn't reach her eyes. "You're sweet," she repeats, forgetting she's said it already.

"I'm sorry if I shouldn't'a said that," he says. "It just makes me angry."

"If someone heard you speak about him that way, you'd be out in minutes," Molly says. "They don't trust you. They don't trust me, I don't think."

"So I'd take you with me," he says. "I been thinkin' of it."

Oh. Kieran's gentleness always goes so far, then fades into the youthful sort of confidence that had made her love Dutch. There's no question of whether or not she would go with him. Not in his face or his eyes, and it isn't tacked on in the beat of silence that follows. For once, he doesn't waver an inch. (Idly, she wonders how watching him come into himself would feel.)

Molly is inclined to be insulted, at first, but he's right. She has done nothing to convince him otherwise, either, is curled up with him in the grass stroking his face and hair and badmouthing her own lover with him. Then again, how many people have believed a word of what she says? Dutch disagrees with all of it, especially as it pertains to himself, and the women would not believe the sky was blue anymore if Molly dared to point it out. Even Arthur, who she had taken for a very sweet boy, just like Kieran, has denied her her own feelings when she's tried to speak to him privately, begging to know if his father had always been this way. To have someone make an assumption about her that is actually correct is enlivening.

"I would," she says, finally.

Despite his apparent sureness, surprise colors his face. "You would?" Kieran pushes himself from his comfortable spot beside her, grass rustling. He nudges her curls, careful not to yank on them. "What if I left today? Would you then?"

"Oh, Kieran," she says, puts a hand on his bicep. She chuffs. "We couldn't possibly make that sort of decision right now."

"Then let's make it in an hour," he says. "What's there to decide? They hate me, they— no one could ever hate you, Molly, but they ain't nice to you." Sweet, she thinks. Untrue. "Why stay somewhere we ain't wanted?"

Molly runs her hand over his arm. He shifts to sit up so he might put his hand over it, though she can feel how tense he is beneath her touch. Wanting, and scared. How familiar a feeling that is. She sighs, lets go of him to push herself up and come closer. That uncertainty and tension infects the rest of him, the way it always does when she nears, and the crude flattery of his gaze falling distractedly from her face is enough to make her play along.

"Where would we go?" She asks, leaning her cheek on her shoulder. Dutch's attention is difficult to grab unless she swoons, fawns and so she knows what men like. Hopefully. It doesn't seem to work well, anymore, but Kieran responds how she wants him to, stammering.

"California, maybe," he says. "It's good business out there. Lots of people, lots of horses. I'd never be out of a job."

"If you've got a job, I'll never see you," she says.

"I won't have one forever," he counters. A dreamy quality enters his ramble, and his eyes look away, focusing on where her hand rests atop her skirts. "I'll just work until we have enough to start our own business. A ranch or somethin'. My Pa wanted to start a farm out there, but both my parents died before he could. Hopefully that won't happen to us," — a chuckle, though her brows draw in concern — "But it was his plan, too. I just know horses better'an I do plants."

"When did your parents die?" Molly asks. Suddenly, she's self-conscious of how little she's asked Kieran.

"I was young. We got cholera."

She gasps. "That's terrible."

"People die," Kieran says.

"Well, yes, but your parents—" She stops, not wanting to add salt to wound. "I just mean, you must have been terribly lonely. It's sad to think about."

Kieran's eyes crinkle. "I'm still lonely. 'Less I'm with you." He looks at her face, raises a hand and seems to consider caressing her cheek or fixing her hair and instead pushes his own behind his ear. It falls immediately after, too short to stay put yet. "That's why we should leave together. You're lonely, too, aren't you?"

She cannot deny it. "I am."

"So come with me," he says. He twitches before he finds the guts, his breath hitching, but he takes both of her hands and piles them between his own, squeezing. It's antsy, a little too hard, though it doesn't yet hurt and so she lets him. "I'll treat you like a princess and get you whatever y'want. Hell, we can even go to Ireland. I think I got cousins there. We can do anything, Molly."

Eeriely, it reminds her of Dutch's initial speech. A hotel room just outside of New York, her hands on his heart, feeling his deep voice reverberate through his chest as he spoke of freedom and excitement and, one day, riches unlike any she'd seen amongst the class of her breeding. We'll buy the whole damn country if you want to go home, he'd said, laughed, and she had laughed, too, not realizing the endearment she felt was more the kind given to an old man reminiscing on things that never happened.

But Kieran is sincere. Dutch meant to say every word, but his intentions didn't go beyond that evening, or possibly that week. Dutch does not live beyond a week. She knows that now. Kieran thinks of the future, she's learned, and he's feeling all the years of desire for her at once because of it. He's been with these criminals his whole life, she presumes, if his parents died so long ago. He knows their tricks, he must, and she has learned to be pleased without asking where nice things came from. Capability is there.

"Give me a day to think about it, Kieran," she says. "Please?"

"I'd give you the whole year," he says. "Whatever you want, Molly, that don't start tomorrow."

It could work. She could certainly get re-accustomed to being the center of a man's world.

Molly first expects to find Dutch coming into the room when she hears the hallway creaking. Then, she decides the steps are too light and purposeful. He's been dragging his feet without aim, lately. They pick up, and Kieran passes by the threshold, then retreads, coming to rest against the doorframe.

She bristles. "Where's Dutch?"

"He's talking to Susan," Kieran says. His usual anxiety is smoothed over, which unnerves her more.

"Arthur? Hosea?"

"Molly," he coos, not dissimilar to the tone he talks to the horses in when Micah spooks them. "The house is empty."

With her worry seemingly settled, though it isn't, he takes a few steps inside the room. She knows he wouldn't put her in that situation, not knowingly. Whether or not it could be called danger she isn't sure. Certainly, their trysts have been less fun, more fear as of late; she had once been sure that Dutch would not lay a hand on her, if only because she was certain Hosea would beat him into the ground in kind, but he has grown so unpredictable she thinks he may shoot them both. It would be fine. She is unhappy and so everything is terrible, but Kieran does not deserve a bullet for—

Does he love her? She has never asked. He's never said.

"Molly," Kieran repeats. His hands are strong on her waist, and she gives in to it quickly, falling against his chest. A hand on her head is more uncertain, patting awkwardly. "I don't like this place. Don't think you do, either."

"No," she admits. Righting herself, hands pressed to his chest, she looks across the room and out the window. All she can see is sky and trees, but she knows that just below her line of sight is the land, dreadful and hot under the sun. "You can't be in here long. I think Dutch knows."

"That's fine," Kieran says.

She balks. "Fine? It's fine?"

Before she can continue, he says: "Molly, I'm leavin'. I want you to come with me." He licks his lips, hesitates. "I need you to. I got a bad feelin' about this place."

Even though it's been a constant subject of her rumination as of late, she falters. His denim jacket is course between her fingers, and she runs her hands over it just to have some sensation to distract her from how her brain pleads to go empty, stillwater. It's her reaction to most things, anymore, and then her eyes sting hot with tears and the last thing she wants to do is make a choice of any kind.

"I do, too," she says. "Have a bad feeling. So much death, it gives me headaches." Her face twists. "For Christ's sake, there's a graveyard!"

"I know," Kieran says.

She looks into his eyes, then, really looks, and finds he is not nearly as sturdy as he seems. They shine with alertness, animal, flickering all around the room. She realizes he has never been in here, nor in any of Dutch's tents.

Does the mess reflect on her? She had kept the other places they slept tidy, though they rarely needing keeping-up with how neurotic Dutch used to be about things being in their places. Clothes are strewn about the room, papers, books. The debris already present before they came still rests everywhere but the bed, which she had taken care of the first evening. She's been too sad to do anything else. It is overwhelming, the reek of sorrow that comes up from the ground. She has never been a spiritual girl, hardly a Christian woman, too young to feel she has to care about whether or not things like God and ghosts are real or any different from one another, but she thinks this place is cursed.

She doesn't realize she is crying until she hears herself choke on a sob. She wants to turn from him, hates the idea of Kieran seeing her cry, as if seen tears might cement the truth of how terribly Dutch's behavior bothers her. Instead, she presses her face to his neck, smelling the sweat dried there, the scent of hay.

"Molly," he says, quieter. "Do you know where the train tracks are? They're just north of here."

"I think," she manages.

"Meet me there. Today, I'll wait, but I won't wait any longer."

The fact he is putting his foot down makes her cry more, even though she knows it must be done. There is nothing she's waiting for, nothing to tether her here but her own grief. What makes it any different than leaving home? Kieran pushes her away to take her face in his large, calloused hands and kiss her forehead. The floor creaks as he leaves, looking as she feels, but dry-eyed. Unlike Dutch, she is certain that he hates to leave her this way.

Is it that she cannot come back? Molly's father would be satisfied with whatever story she told, only happy to have his little girl back to be the prize of the household during his business meetings; her mother would want to kill her, briefly, and then would settle down if she made it clear she would not go away again; her governess might have been let go to help another family, unless they adopted another child. The idea of being replaced makes her burst into fresh tears, even if she has never felt particularly loved by her parents. Is this why her mother insisted a puppy would make her father's dogs sad?

Is it the future? She hadn't been sure of what she would find in America, not beyond better. It was a questionable assessment. The city she arrived at was surrounded by homelessness and poverty. Molly whimpers. Has she not landed there herself, now? She cannot decide if her family would scorn her for living amongst these people or pity her for falling, as the clueless young girl she feels, into the arms of such a devilish man as Dutch. Man, man, man, must she always live with, for, around a man?

At least Kieran is different, she thinks. She startles at the thought and tosses them all away. Of course, she will never be without a man. It wouldn't be natural for a girl like herself, pretty and proper, to be alone. Unbecoming is the word. She ought to write a poem, when it's safe. She will have to walk to the tracks, or she might have penned it on horseback with the paper pressed to Kieran's spine for stability. Her heart races so fast she may faint. Molly has never been good at regulating her emotions, and now they threaten to simply kill her, her chest aching hard, squeezing as she begins to gather up her things into a pile on the bed and search for the bag she had them neatly folded into when she came here.

Two years now. Two decades, two years, two days, two hours all at once. She can smell the slums of Manhattan. There was a fire the week before she would have arrived at Ellis Island. Despite her skepticism, Molly thinks, I should'a seen the signs.

Retreating to what she once knew as confusion is easier than focusing. Treading light down the steps and finding the downstairs empty, Molly takes to her corner to stare blankly out the window at camp. People frown as they mill about. This place is full of death, alright, that poor MacGuire boy and all of the joy that went with him. She can feel more on the horizon.

Blinking once, twice, she sees Dutch following Micah, walking away from the plantation house, and decides her time is running out. His tolerance for that sniveling, ugly thing is growing, but it still has a limit. Darting from the back door, she does not care to take notice if anyone sees her marching into the trees with her bag. If they do, no one calls out.

[2demondogs]

❝It's too close to home, and it's too near the bone.❞ ✧