Roughly finished but still untitled Charthur TB whump, because apparently I've decided there isn't enough of it. This is totally for a fixit tho itll grt to ao3 at some point I promise it gets better, ha ha hahahaaaa.
In a rare stroke of luck after going so long without, Charles ran into a doctor just outside Annesburg. The man, Renaud, if the name painted on his gaudy red wagon was anything to go by, was well-spoken and even better dressed. More importantly, he had agreed to follow Charles easily enough, in spite of the latter's admittance that he had little with which to pay.
“I try to prioritize treating those without the means, as they are often the ones most in need of it,” he'd explained as they rambled back down the southern road. “It's one of the reasons why I'm headed into Annesburg. All sorts of afflictions can arise from coal dust in the lungs, but those poor workers are barely paid enough to keep their bellies full, much less keep medicine. They pay what they can. It's not glamorous, but I do okay.”
Charles says nothing. He knows he probably should; it would be the polite thing to do for this man who has gone out of his way for him, but he also finds himself with little space in his crowded head for the kind of pleasantries the man is owed. His dark, shadowed eyes continually scan along the path ahead. It hasn't been long enough since the shootout in the Hollow. He knows the town, the whole area, really, is still flush with army and federals alike. It was a big risk straying from the cabin where they'd holed up, but Arthur…
Arthur still hasn't come around, and Charles is wrestling with the fact he may never will, that they're like as not to return to a corpse, and theres probably little this doctor could do for him anyway. He supposes it doesn't matter too much, at the end of the day. All he knows for sure is that he had to move, had to find something to do beyond spending another sleepless night curled in on himself at Arthur's side, listening to the broken rhythm of his ragged breathing and waiting for the moment that it stopped. It's enough to drive a man to madness, and he feels it well enough, all tense and wound up like a cornered dog ready to snap. Maybe he should've just stayed well enough away while he could, and yet.
He remembers what feels like an age ago now, watching the sun crest over the forests and the foothills of the grizzlies in a brilliant burst of orange, the feeling of awe never fading at watching a land so treacherous and desolate come alive. He remembers hearing the call of a dove over the mournful wails of a displaced people, the whistle of its wings in startled flight as a herd of deer burst onto the path, and a huge stag, almost glowing gold in the foggy morning light, bringing up the herd at the rear, protecting them from behind, bleating as it passed.
He'd turned then, from the Wapiti caravan heading north through the narrow mountain pass, back to the south towards the Hollow, feeling somehow like that aptly named place had hooked a line into his gut and was yanking at the thread.
There's always something more to do, always someone that needs help, these people especially more than most, and yet…
“Take this next right,” Charles calls to Renaud as he shakes himself, guiding Taima down the fork.
-
Dr. Renaud sits back in the chair he'd pulled up next to the bed with a long sigh, hooking his stethoscope around his neck with a shake of his head.
“He's been like this how long?” He asks.
Charles lifts his head from where it was resting on his chest, straightening up a little by the wall he'd sagging against near the door so as to give the doctor the space to do his examination.
“Since last Sunday, I think,” he hazards, sounding doubtful.
Funny thing, Charles doesn't know exactly how long it's been. From returning to the ransacked camp, to tracking Arthur's and John's flight across the ridge, to finding and bringing him here, and what time had passed since then, the days sort of just blended together into a singular exhausting nightmare.
He risks a glance at Arthur, and quickly looks away with a grimace. The doctor had carefully extricated him from the mound of blankets and old shirts Charles had piled on him before he left, and unbuttoned his shirt so as to listen or feel his chest or whatever it is doctors do. Charles had done his best cleaning him up, but the bruises look just as dark as that first day, the cuts barely even scabbed over, as if Arthur's body had nothing left with which it could even begin to heal itself.
Not for the first time, Charles can only wonder why. Why everything had gone so steadily wrong, why Arthur of all people found himself so ravaged by sickness, why he keeps dragging in breath after awful, ineffective breath in spite of it all.
Charles had found it admirable, that first night, Arthur's insistence in clinging on, the refusal to surrender to death even when it seemed the only plausible option. Now though, it almost seems like more foolishness.
Never did know when to stay down, he thinks ruefully.
“You said he's been taking water and broth?” Renaud asks skeptically.
Charles nods, dragging himself out of his thoughts. That'd been the one he could think to do that didn't feel completely useless. It wasn't much, just a stock of boiled rabbit bones with a pinch of salt. It gave him hope though, the way that Arthur, utterly dead to the world in every sense but the literal, would turn his head whenever Charles prodded at his mouth with a spoon. The man couldn't even swallow. Charles had to dip his head back and dribble it carefully down his throat, but it had to mean something that he responded at all, right?
“But nothing out?” The doctor presses.
Charles shrugs a little helplessly.
“Not that I could tell,” he mutters.
The doctor sighs once more, then reaches down to root around the bag at his feet.
“I ran into this man down south a couple months back,” The doctor starts, his tone taking a sudden turn towards the conversational. “Never spent much time there before. I've heard stories, of course, but I imagined I would be spared the worst, since I was trying to do some good.”
He laughs, then, a sort of self depreciating chuckle as he withdraws first a vial of something clear, and then from a case some sort of canister with a needle on the end.
“It was foolish,” the doctor goes on. “I was in Rhodes for all of an hour before some lovely so-called patriots stole my wagon, which would have been the end of my livelihood. And I thought myself lucky that that was all they took.”
Charles watches as Renaud eases the tip of the needle into the vial, the liquid inside spilling into the canister.
“This man took on the lot all on his own, just to help out a stranger. It was a kindness I was not expecting from someone who looked like him. It wasn't so long ago. Seeing him this way is, well. Consumption usually isn't so… swift,” he trails off as he sets the nearly empty vial aside, flicking his fingers now against the canister, while pressing the plunger down with his other hand.
The story isn't all all surprisng, knowing Arthur. Charles can't help the small smile that twitches as his lips as his eyes find the narrow window on the side of it. Little bubbles of air rise to the top of the tube only to be pushed out through the needle, until a tiny drop beads on the end of it. Apparently satisfied, Renaud lowers the device for a moment, waving Charles over.
“You're going to… give that to him?” Charles asks as he comes to kneel by the bed. “You think it'll help?”
Any trace of humor the doctor had left vanishes as his mouth sets into a grim line. He reaches for Arthur's arm, tapping along inside the crook of his elbow. There's something almost reverent about the way he goes about it. Charles finds himself holding his breath.
“I'm afraid he is far beyond the help of any man,” Renaud admits reluctantly. “But I can do him the kindness of easing his passing.”
He gestures with the needle, and Charles’ gaze snaps to it at once.
“What?” He asks dumbfounded, disbelief standing in the way of understanding.
“This is morphine,” the doctor explains gently to Charles’ darkening countenance. “Enough to put down a horse, really. I can assure you he won't feel a thing.”
Charles can barely hear the words over the sudden ringing in his ears. For a moment all he can do is watch, feeling like he is all at once floating away and plummeting to earth, as the needle pierces the pale skin on the inside of Arthur's arm.
“What are you doing!?” He cries out, his body acting out on instinct before the meaning of the words can fully click into place.
In the instant before Renaud can start pressing down the plunger, Charles is upon him, knocking the doctor’s deadly hands away. He clutches the canister in a shaking fist as he pulls it out and rises from his knees to force himself bodily between Renaud and the bed.
It takes almost everything Chalres has in him not to strangle the other man then and there. Even he himself is surprised by the viciousness of the urge, but he holds himself steady, arms slightly splayed and his weight tensed on the balls of his feet, like he's expecting Renaud to try and dive past him. Perhaps the Doctor senses that, or has sense enough at least to scramble out of the chair to take a couple steps back, arms raised placatingly as pity and fear swim in his stare. For a beat, the strangled gasping that rises from the bed is the only sound that permeates the cabin.
“I know this isn't what you hoped for, or what you wanted to hear,” Renaud starts slowly, “but sometimes, the kindest thing we can do for our fellow man is to end their suffering when there's nothing left to be done. I'm real sorry, friend.”
Charles bears his teeth in a silent snarl, half anger and the other half agony. Of course it would come to this. It's one thing to spend enough time looking at Arthur, hearing him struggle, but to have a real, honest-to-god Doctor suggest to put him down like a lame horse, it's–
“No,” he growls, vehement. He takes a more steadying breath, still shaking around the surge of fight-or-flight. “He wouldn't want that."
Renaud lowers his arms, casting his gaze aside. Arthur makes a particularly wretched sound just then, the wheeze of his breath catching and going quiet for a moment before it bubbles out around the snag. Christ, it sounds like he's drowning.
“I know what I would choose, if it were me,” Renaud says quietly. “But you would know him better than I.”
He ventures on a step forward, gesturing towards the bed and its wheezing occupant.
“From what I heard, the left lung is completely nonfunctional. Collapsed,” he goes on, still in that hushed tone, “You see the tips of his fingers, the lips? Blue. It's a sign that he can't get enough air. He's suffocating, slowly but surely.”
Charles already knows, has already spent more than enough time fretting over the color. He doesn't move.
“So tell me how to help him,” he pleads. “He's hanging on for something.”
Infuriatingly, Renaud simply shakes his head. He pulls the stethoscope away from his neck and holds it out, even giving it a little shake like Charles needs convincing.
“Listen for yourself if you want,” he urges. “I've seen to dozens of folk just like him. I’m telling you, he won't recover.”
Charles eyes the offered instrument dangerously for a moment, the same way he would a coiled snake. At length he shakes his head, curling his lip.
“How could they, if you never give them the chance?” He asks in disgust. “So eager to kill a man. If you're not gonna help, then just go. I'm seeing him through till he's done, on his terms and no one else's.”
The doctor deflates a little at that, but he nods along as he returns the stethoscope to its place around his neck.
“It isn't eagerness at all, my friend,” he offers. “It pains me to see him suffer, truly. I fear your compassion, though admirable, is misplaced, but I see there is no swaying you. May I collect my things?”
Charles keeps the man pinned under his stare for just a little while longer before he steps aside, sinking to the edge of the bed once more, and though he doesn't look it, his guard never falls as he watches the doctor kneel beside his bag. He glances down at the needle still clenched in his fist, then wordlessly holds it out for him to take.
After a moment's hesitation, the man shakes his head. He reaches out with his hand as though to retrieve it, only to end up curling Charles’ fingers tighter around the device.
“I'll let you hold onto this,” he says gently. “Perhaps you would reconsider, after you've had some time to think.”
For that, Charles wants to hurl the damned needle right into the doctor's eye. He imagines it's not that different from a throwing knife. Instead he just sags a little further into the bed, the fight going out of him all at once.
“Just go,” he repeats tiredly, suddenly too exhausted to put any real venom into it.
Renaud collects his bag and straightens up, rolling the sleeves of his coat back down as he does. He vacillates in place for a moment, looking between the door and the bed, before he clears his throat.
“You may want to prop him up a bit more, at the very least,” he suggests, sounding timid. “It could help his breathing, for what it's worth.”
Charles blinks at him, his expression stony and clouded, though he says nothing.
“And look after yourself as well, for your own sake,” he implores a little ominously.
With that, Renaud turns and all but scurries out the door, slamming it as he goes. Charles listens to the sound of his retreating footsteps, the creaking of his wagon. It isn't until the rumbling of the wheels has fully faded from earshot that Charles allows himself to fully collapse, his back sinking into the mattress. The needle slips out of his hold and clatters onto the floor as he brings his hands up to his face, fisting them against his eyes as he strangles a frustrated scream behind his teeth.
He gives himself the time to take a handful of what are supposed to be calming breaths, but the sluggish, erratic rhythm of Arthur's own ragged wheezing keeps throwing him off. At length he lowers his hands, ignoring the wetness of the tears that slipped through his restraint, and turns his head to the side.
From this angle, in this light, Charles can barely make out Arthur's profile. He can see the crooked line of his nose, the dip of his hollow cheeks, the cracked, blood-flaked shape of his blue lips. His skin, ghostly pale, seems almost aglow with the flush of fever. If it wasn't for the sound of his truly shitty breathing, Charles would think he was already looking at a corpse.
What am I even doing? He thinks to himself, a tiny seed of doubt taking root. Why? What good can any of this do?
He reaches out then, to where Arthur's right arm is laid lifeless beside him. Charles brushes his knuckles across the back of Arthur's hand, finds it feels cold to the touch, and pulls back, squeezing his eyes shut once more against another wave of anguish. Perhaps the morphine really would be a kindness, if Charles weren't so selfish as to not let him go so easily.
After another long moment, he draws himself up. His boot accidently kicks the syringe still left on the floor, sending it skittering under the bed. Charles leaves it be. He spends a few minutes following through on Renaud's suggestion of propping him up, even pulling his own bedroll off the floor to roll up and tuck behind Arthur's head. Maybe it's just his imagination, but for a moment Charles swears he saw Arthur's eyes fluttering. The latter's breathing seems to settle into a more steady rhythm for it, even if his chest still rattles like a matchbox full of quarters.
After, he gets a fire going in the cold hearth to warm the cabin up as night falls proper. He feeds himself a dinner of cold beans on stale crackers, slips a few spoonfuls of water into Arthur, then settles into the chair by the bed for another long vigil, watching the moon rise over the lake through the window on the other side of the wall.
Tomorrow, he'll go out to check the snares he set, hopeful for another pot of broth. Eventually, he'll need to go into town proper for some more supplies, but he supposes that's a bridge he can burn when they get to it, assuming Arthur's even still alive at the point.
Right now though, he can feel the heat of the fire settling over him like a warm blanket, dragging his eyes down in drowsiness. With his bedroll currently put to another use, he's half tempted to just crawl into the bed. He probably would too, if he wasn't so worried about his presence somehow disturbing the rhythm of Arthur's breathing, steady for the first time since this whole nightmare started.
A sore neck it'll have to be then. Arthur will either make it through another night, or he won't. Charles at least can take some solace in the fact that he tried, for whatever it's worth. As he drifts off, he can't help but wonder if Arthur had felt the same, running up that ridge after John, with only the thinnest thread of hope that anything worthwhile or meaningful could come of it.
