“ i’m miserable. been a tough few days.”
can john see the way josiah contemplates agreeing with him? why, yes, mr. marston, you do look certifiably miserable! but that would be unkind, and more to the point, they’re all miserable-looking at the moment. josiah turns his face away before john ever gets the chance to wonder what could’ve come out of his mouth off-the-cuff. there’d been the shootout, of course, the loss of poor sean. then, the fire of braithwaite manor had burned for days, and he’d wondered in shock and awe at the smoke from his caravan for a grand total of ten minutes before realizing what might’ve occurred.
he doesn’t think he’s ever saddled gwydion so quickly, hoping — however naively — to circumvent the inevitable, stow the lawmen, get information to someone. in the days to follow he’d mourned his own responsibility in telling dutch and the rest of that silly little feud, perhaps encouraging them in his own small way to get involved, offering them discrete details and information. the truth, josiah knows, is that if he hadn’t, someone else would’ve beaten him to it. that’s just the way these things go, with the van der linde gang.
john’s own son, lost, well, that’s... there are no words for it, are there? there have been moments like these where he’d like to offer comfort, in the past with any one of them, but that’s the real trouble with living two lives and wearing two faces. ( or a hundred, depending on the day. ) no one can know of trelawny’s own sons, and john marston has made such a show of his own struggle in trying to bond with jack. trelawny, of course, has never been there to witness it. but he’s heard things — he’s only ever survived this life because of how well he listens.
he reaches out, wordless, to place a firm hand on john’s shoulder, and to offer him his unlit cigarette. it’s not much, hardly a kindness at all, but the things he’d like to say are things that john has either already thought, or heard, or been told before... or they give up more about himself than he’d like to ever share. perhaps john will be able to construe his shared worry through touch alone. the contact ends as quickly as it’d begun, as josiah draws back with a firm nod, mouth pressed into a hard line. in the firelight, john’s scars make him look like an entirely man.
❝ yes, i can imagine that the circumstances you’re facing now seem quite difficult, by comparison to what we’ve been struck with in the past. ❞ and isn’t that the understatement of the slowly-encroaching new century? ❝ even so, i have no doubts that jack will be found and returned to us unharmed. angelo bronte... ❞ well, trelawny has his doubts about the man himself, but saint denis is a strange place, full of odd cruelties and kindnesses in turn. ❝ if there’s anything i can do for you, john — anything — you’ll know where to find me. ❞ except john won’t, and in some ways, that’s the point.
