“ you ain’t gonna die. not yet.”
the sunlight setting overhead turns the water a strange purplish-orange, like the outside of a bruise that hasn’t fully formed. trelawny, still sore, watches the shifting colors instead of looking at arthur. he lifts his hand to touch at a still - tender jaw, the split lip, frowning, even as he lets loose a soft laugh to himself — a few seconds of humor, now shared with arthur. ❝ no, i suppose not, thanks to you. ❞ he’s already thanked arthur. twice, actually, once when he was still delirious with pain and again when he was more conscious of the world around him.
nothing broken, thankfully, but he doesn’t know that he’ll ever walk without a twinge in his knee again. something about that, the physical scarring of the work he does, and the life he leads and lies about leading, bothers him. arthur, however, is a bruiser. he knows what he does, and josiah has never been able to quite figure out how well that sits with him.
josiah’s lies and tells and truths and falsities are all very much put - upon. they’re in his words, and not the way he carries himself. arthur certainly has tells, truths, lies and falsities. all of them in the van der linde gang are pretending, in some shape or form, to be something that they’re not. he takes no small delight in wondering over that, over what that means not just for him but for all the rest of them too. they’re no-good criminal vagabonds, vaunting their pride and capabilities in the face of powers that wish they, in whatever form, didn’t exist. no wonder the pinkertons had gone out of their way to find him, to track him down.
❝ do promise me you’ll be more careful, arthur. i have a feeling... ❞ but that would be too honest, to admit it seems that their days have come to an end, that the tides are changing. he leaves it there, instead, for arthur to work out the rest, however vague. i have a feeling. besides that, dutch himself as expressed that the last thing any of them need is overt uncertainty in the face of men like milton hunting them down. stay strong, the man says, stay with me. josiah, for now, finds himself with no other choice. neither, perhaps, does arthur. he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette, then another. one for him, and one for the gang’s most loyal enforcer, who — in every sense — did not have to rescue trelawny. that is the least he can do.
@redempting / ask meme.
