Chapter Text
Charles doesn’t sleep. Not for most of the night. He drifts a few times, but mostly he lies awake holding Johanna like he’s the only thing preventing her from falling out of bed. Guilt gnaws at him, rends him bare, and he can’t stop thinking about how violently she had reacted to the slightest wrong touch. As if her body was a separate animal from her mind. The instinct went so deep, the memory of the violence inflicted upon her so ingrained that it had sent her into a frenzy.
He should have known better. He shouldn’t have pushed her. He had done everything he could to ensure that she’d feel safe. And now it might have been for naught. He could only pray that he wouldn’t lose her after this. That she wouldn’t have to push back to something as simple as holding hands for a while, for her own sake. He can’t bear to imagine not being able to hold her, shelter her. Help create new, better associations with being touched.
He curses himself. Damn selfish, that’s what those thoughts were.
He resolves to wait to find out. And it doesn’t take long before he hears the change in her breathing, the slow build of panic that strikes when she’s asleep; she begins to whine in fear, limbs twitching and brow furrowed.
He shifts, propping himself on an elbow to peer over her shoulder. His grip on her waist wavers, as he is unsure if it will help or hurt. “Johanna,” he says gently. “Wake up, my dove.”
She whimpers again and he brings a hand to cradle her face. He repeats her name, stroking his thumb over her cheek, and finally, her eyes blink open. She looks around groggily, disoriented.
“Hey,” Charles murmurs, “hey. You’re alright. Just a bad dream.”
She looks at him— looks through him, rather— listening intently. She croaks out, “Charles?”
He nods, “I’m here.”
“Where—?” She looks around the room in confusion, and then her body stiffens up, like she’s remembered.
“We’re in the hotel,” he confirms, “in Valentine.”
She exhales shakily, nodding. “‘M sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
She relaxes, going limp in his arms. To his surprise she snuggles closer, seeking him out. Not long after, her breathing slows again, and he knows she’s slipped back into the realm of sleep, and he wraps himself around her.
He’d thought she might recoil from him when she awoke. Perhaps she wasn’t fully awake. But either way, some part of her, asleep or awake, knows deep down that he is there to protect and not harm, and so when his eyes grow heavy, he lets them slip closed.
He dreams, but not of anything definite. Dappled light through a tree branch. A rumbling of bison across the open plain. Something about his mother, he thinks.
He wakes with the rising of the sun, finding Johanna in more or less the same spot she was in when he fell asleep. He strokes a hand over her hair for several minutes before she comes awake, sighing through her nose.
“Morning,” he murmurs.
She frowns. “Morning.”
He continues stroking her hair and she looks away from him. He wants to ask. But he doesn’t want to overwhelm her, send her back into that place in her mind, her memories. They stay like that for a while longer, the both of them silent. She makes no attempts to move out of his grasp.
“Bad dreams last night,” he says neutrally.
She gives him a sardonic look, one that says, are you surprised? Then she closes her eyes and rubs them with the heels of her palms. “I hate waking you up all the time.”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
The shame is clear on her face.
“I did sleep,” he corrects, “after I woke you.”
“But not before.”
“I was— I am— worried about you.” He isn’t sure what to say next. Isn’t sure how to help her in this moment.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “About last night.” Her voice is rough, like sand scraping over stones.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I don’t know what happened,” she says, shaking her head. “I just—” She swallows hard, takes a staggering breath. “One moment, I was here with you, and the next—” She shivers. “I was somewhere else.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”
“No,” she argues. “That’s— that’s the thing— you didn’t push me. You were…” She searches for the right words. “You were perfect. And I still…” She clenches her jaw. “I hate that you have to be so worried about me all the time.”
“I don’t,” he says immediately.
Her bottom lip quivers. “Charles, I want to be your equal,” she says, halfway between a sigh and a sob. “I don’t want to be some— terrified crazy woman that you have to look after. That you care about out of pity.”
His heart gets stuck in his throat. “Is that what you think?” he asks quietly. “That I pity you?”
She doesn’t say anything. Chews her bottom lip to keep it from trembling.
“I wish—” He pauses. “I wish you wouldn’t think that of me.”
She sniffles.
“Johanna, I know you’re hurting, I know you’ve been hurt. But… I need you to try and remember that I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be. I chose this.”
“I know,” she whispers. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not looking for an apology.” He thumbs away the tears on her face. “I’ve never pitied you. I admire you. Your strength. Your courage. I think of you all the time. I see you in everything. I love you, Johanna.”
She huffs out an awkward, strangled sound.
“And I want to look after you. I want you safe. Happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Is that so wrong? Is it so hard to believe?”
“No,” she answers, brows pinning upward as more tears flood her eyes.
“Then let me.” He reaches to cradle her face but she gently intercepts his hand with her own, and turns it so that she can examine it. It takes him a moment to realize why— she thumbs over the burn mark on his palm, the one he got saving her from the fire on the ferry. It had healed nicely over their long winter and was now just another in a long list of scars adorning his body. It and the one from the bullet that grazed him in the O’Driscoll ambush were the only two that he had sustained for a worthy reason; visual proof of his dedication to her. Of his wanting to look after her. He just hopes that she sees them that way.
And then she kisses his palm, holds it against her own face, and he knows for certain that she does.
Charles goes to fetch the horses from the farrier. He kisses Johanna on the knuckles and leaves her to get dressed. She stares into the mirror, willing herself not to cry. It’s difficult, just like it’s difficult not to let the claws of her old fear dig themselves any deeper into her mind. She rehearses his words in her head over and over: I think of you all the time. I see you in everything. And I want to look after you.
This wasn’t the first time they’d had such a conversation, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. If only knowing that made it easier to accept. Still, an open wound would always close again with enough time and care, and Charles was giving her more than enough of both, and that’s more than she could’ve ever asked for.
She thinks of the scar on his palm and her chest tightens. He had done so much for her— had given so much of himself for her, to her. Had looked into her and seen, and refused to turn away.
She takes a deep breath and turns for the door with their belongings in tow. With each step, a new determination strings itself together in her heart: Let him love you. Let him care about you, since he’s got the nerve to do it. Don’t let Dalton win.
She drops off the door key to the clerk, and he grins politely in thanks.
“Hope you enjoyed your stay,” he says. “Y’all come back soon!”
“Thank you,” Johanna says.
Just before she reaches the door, the clerk stops her. “Uh, Miss, if you’re still lookin’ for work, I could use a new set of hands ‘round here.”
Johanna wrinkles her nose.
“I’ve got enough bathing gals,” he chuckles. “I need somebody to clean the rooms, change the linens, that sort of thing.”
“Oh,” Johanna nods. “I’ll have to think about it. Thank you for the offer.”
“Sure,” the clerk laughs. “Do try and let me know ‘fore too long! I gotta get the position filled.”
“Will do,” Johanna says. She catches a glimpse of Charles and the horses through the front window and politely excuses herself.
Charles is waiting outside, both sets of reins in hand. He passes Erebus’s wordlessly to Johanna and she climbs into the saddle. Charles does the same, turning Taima toward the road leading out of town. They ride back to camp in silence and when they arrive, Johanna checks around for Arthur and Hosea. They haven’t returned. Johanna doesn’t know why she’s surprised, considering Charles’s observation of their leaving. Still, she is disappointed— she’d wanted to talk with Hosea.
“Gonna drop off some of the money we made from the pelts in the collection box,” Johanna says, to which Charles nods.
She and Charles hitch their horses and dismount before heading toward Dutch’s tent, and they pay no mind to Micah meandering in their direction until he gets close enough that it’s evident he’s going to strike up a conversation. Charles realizes it before Johanna does, and steps in front of her, practically sweeping her behind him with his arm. She’s still getting used to him putting himself between her and any perceived threat, so there’s a mix of emotions that get caught in her throat, beginning with a defiant sort of frustration that she immediately feels ashamed for. Following that, she feels gratitude toward him, and hostility toward Micah.
“Mr. Smith,” Micah says by way of greeting. “Miss Hawkins.”
Charles stands up to his full height. “Micah.”
Micah looks at the pair of them appraisingly.
Charles’s next words are a low rumble, a demand rather than a question. “What do you want.”
Micah scowls. “I was hopin’ to speak with Miss Hawkins.” A bit more sheepishly, he adds, “Privately.”
“Not a chance,” Charles says, crossing his arms.
Micah opens his mouth, then closes it with a reluctance that brings his upper lip into a brief snarl. Whatever sh*tty remark he was about to make must’ve been so difficult for him to hold back that it physically pained him.
Johanna bites back a grin. It’s vindicating to watch him squirm. She then looks past Micah to Dutch’s tent, where Dutch is patiently smoking a cigar, already watching her. He gives her a subtle nod, and she can’t imagine what for, until Micah continues.
“Please,” Micah grumbles, and Johanna’s brows lift in surprise. She didn’t think that word was in his vocabulary. “I just wanna—” He licks his lips, rubs his brow. Whatever he’s trying to say, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for him. He finishes the thought with, “Apologize.”
Charles hmphs a short sound that could be a laugh, only it’s mirthless and bitter. “You got a lot of nerve, you know that?”
Johanna looks back at Dutch, who does a small, expectant shrug, more with his hand than his shoulders. He’s… giving her the choice to hear Micah out or walk away, perhaps?
Johanna puts her hand on Charles’s arm and steps around to his side. “Charles,” she says, and he glances sidelong down at her. “It’s alright.”
His brow furrows incredulously and she quickly shoots her eyes over to indicate Dutch. He follows her gaze, and in less than a second, a whole conversation seems to pass between them. He relaxes, only just, and turns his attention back to Micah, who is waiting awkwardly.
“Out with it,” Johanna says to him, firmly but not wholly unkind.
Micah shifts his weight, unsure about Charles sticking around for this. “I-I’d really rather—”
“You say it here and now,” Johanna explains. “Don’t forget, the whole reason for this is because of what happened last time you and me spoke privately.”
Micah’s scowl deepens. “Fine.” He clears his throat, adjusts his posture. “Miss Hawkins, I regret what happened between us this last winter—”
“‘What happened between us’?” Johanna asks incredulously. “Nuh-uh. Try again.”
Micah snorts out a long sigh, his mouth forming into a thin line. “I am sorry I went after you. I was… drunk, and… tired of bein’ up in those damn mountains. Nasty case of cabin fever.”
“That’s your excuse?” Charles growls. His hand goes to his hip to hover over the grip of his sawed-off.
Cabin fever. Much as she wishes she couldn’t, Johanna can sympathize with that. She’d almost bitten John’s head off for the same reason the previous winter. She squeezes Charles’s arm patiently. His forearm tenses and then relaxes in response, dropping back to his side.
Micah narrows his brows at Charles, his face drawn into a full-on glower, but he continues his attempt at an apology, which at this point seems more like an exercise in public humiliation. “I’m sorry, alright?”
“What about Sam?” Johanna hears herself ask. She feels Charles’s eyes on her.
“You can’t be—” Micah begins. “We’re a gang of killers for cryin’ out loud.”
“He didn’t deserve to die.”
Micah rolls his eyes. “Don’t forget, Miss Hawkins, he went after me first. Boy coulda taken my head off with that axe!”
As if she could forget that moment. It’s seared into her mind— Sam’s final, unfortunate mistake.
Charles’s hand goes to the small of her back. His mistake, not yours. Micah’s fault, not yours, it seems to convey.
“Fine,” she spits.
Charles’s fingers swish slowly back and forth across her back. You’ll never convince him. You know that.
But acceptance of that fact feels like sandpaper across her skull.
“Look, I know we got our differences,” Micah concedes, “I don’t expect that to change, but— I shouldn’t have gone after one of our own. I am sorry.”
Johanna squints at him, waiting for more, but he looks like he’s also waiting for her to speak. Honestly, it’s more than she ever thought she’d get, and she feels genuinely gratified from his embarrassment if nothing else. She plants her hands on her hips, sighing. “Well. I can appreciate that. Thanks.”
Micah looks at her like he’s expecting her to say more, be a little more grateful, but when he realizes that she’s not going to let him off the hook so easily, he claps his hands together and huffs out an, “Okay then.” He smiles crookedly, like making a joke will make the situation more palatable. “Don’t worry, Mr. Smith. This don’t mean we gotta make friends. I’ll still stay well away from your woman.”
“She’s not my—”
Micah scrunches up his face. “Yeah, yeah,” he says impatiently, lilting a dismissive hand at them. “Not your woman. Like anybody believes a word of that now, heh.” He salutes them awkwardly over his shoulder, “See you ‘round.”
Johanna stares after him, making a face at the back of his head. She finds Dutch again, and he looks pleased as punch. Did he put Micah up to this?
“No way he meant a word of that,” Charles states quietly. A tic is going in his jaw.
“No way,” Johanna agrees. She lowers her voice to add, “I think Dutch put him up to it.”
“Tell me you’re not going to forgive him.” Charles shakes his head lightly. “Sorry— I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s alright,” Johanna says. “I knew what you meant.” He wasn’t trying to command her, make the decision for her.
Charles nods in relief. He nudges his head in Dutch’s direction, “Guess he wants you to bury the hatchet.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” She sighs. “I’ll bury it, I guess. But I ain’t gonna forget where.”
One corner of Charles’s mouth pulls upward. “Good.”
Johanna glances at Dutch again. He’s watching them expectantly. She knows he’ll want to speak with her, so she starts toward him and Charles follows.
He greets them in his usual fashion— a polite, “Miss Hawkins, Mr. Smith.”
“Dutch,” they say at the same time, taking turns dropping money from the pelts they sold into the collection box.
He cracks a smile. “How’d you two get on?”
“Pretty well,” Johanna says. “Got a good price for all those pelts we collected in the mountains.”
“Good, good,” Dutch nods. “How ‘bout the town? You pick up any leads?”
“The clerk at the hotel offered me a job,” Johanna answers.
Charles glances over at her.
She continues, “Needs somebody to clean the place, change the linens, and all that.”
Dutch asks, “You gonna take it?”
She shrugs. “I dunno. I’m gonna think about it.” A beat of silence. “Could be a good way to scope out other leads.”
“Sure.” He doesn’t sound totally convinced. “And what about our esteemed Miss Blackbird? You hangin’ up the proverbial hat?”
“I, uh…” She wrings her hands. “I dunno. I don’t think I can go back to bein’ her just yet.” Not to mention there was no theater to speak of in Valentine. Who knows where the nearest one might be?
Dutch nods in understanding. “But you haven’t given up, I hope.”
She shrugs, unsure of how to answer that. “What happened in Blackwater… I’m still figurin’ out how to move forward.”
“You’re not alone,” Dutch says reassuringly. “I hope your talk with Mr. Bell went alright.”
Charles crosses his arms.
“Fine,” Johanna says. “‘Bout as well as it could’ve, I guess.”
“Good,” Dutch smiles.
“Did you put him up to it?”
“He is working to get back into my good graces,” Dutch says, “just like you. Only, he’s got much farther to go. I figured the next best step would be to mend fences with you.”
There’s a friction about that sentiment that doesn’t quite sit right with Johanna, but she lets it go. “Well… I can appreciate that, Dutch. But I’m not ready to forgive him for what he did.”
“I’m not sayin’ you have to,” Dutch concedes. “But it’s important to me that he took responsibility for it, and that you two can act civil.”
Johanna nods, even though she doesn’t necessarily agree that Micah took responsibility. A glance at Charles tells her that he doesn’t, either. But, she says, “I understand.”
Dutch smiles. “I’m glad to hear it. Mr. Smith, how about you?”
“Understood.”
Dutch looks amused, as if he didn’t expect anything but a one-word answer from Charles. “Thank you. And thank you both for your contributions. Miss Hawkins, you think about that hotel job. Let me know what you decide. Hosea and I may be able to finagle some clever ways to use it.”
After that, they’re dismissed, and they head for their tent. As they walk, she tries to put their awkward conversation with Micah out of her mind. She didn’t believe he was truly sorry, that he felt remorse about what he’d done, but rather that everyone had caught him in the act, and that it had earned him a cozy place on Dutch’s sh*t-list. It had landed her there, too, incidentally, but that was a problem she was working to solve. Even if she didn’t agree that she needed to solve it.
Tilly and Mary-Beth greet her and Charles in passing, sharing a knowing look, and a question occurs to Johanna. “Why do you keep tellin’ everyone I’m not yours?”
“You belong to yourself,” he answers. “Not me, or anyone else.”
She can’t help but be moved by the sentiment. She remembers what she’d said to Micah in the barn at Colter: “I’m not his. I’m not anyone’s.” But then, she and Charles now shared something special. Something the both of them chose. Was it really so bad if she were referred to as his? Whatever the others thought was of no consequence. He knew, and she knew, that it didn’t mean that he owned her. She didn’t belong to him; but she did feel as though she belonged with him.
“I don’t mind being called yours,” she says quietly, ducking into the tent.
The words stop him in his tracks just outside.
She drops her game bag off in the corner, beside her trunk, and turns to look at Charles, inviting him into the tent with a beckoning hand. “Dalton thinks I’m—” Thought? “I was his property. But I know you don’t think that way.”
“You can’t own a person,” he says, dropping his bags off beside hers. “You can pledge yourself to people, but you can’t own them.”
Johanna smiles softly. She thinks she wouldn’t mind pledging herself to Charles. Maybe she already has. Another thought occurs to her. “Walk with me,” she says, reaching for his hand. “I wanna ask you something.”
He nods, brow quirking with suspicion, and gives her his hand.
She leads him to the edge of camp, down the hill into an outcropping of trees where they can talk more privately. She lets go of his hand and when she turns to face him, he’s watching her expectantly.
“What’s on your mind?” he asks.
She fans her fingers against the fabric of her pants. Her palms are already sweating. “What did you mean,” she begins, “when you said, ‘all the people’ you had been with?”
He swallows, averting his gaze.
“In the hotel, you said you’d been with people,” she elaborates. “Not, ‘women.’ Are you…” She fidgets with her hands, trying to think of a way to say it. “Are you like Dutch and Hosea?”
“What are Dutch and Hosea like?” Charles asks quietly.
“They’re like… Well, Hosea used to be married to a woman named Bessie, and before Molly, Dutch loved a girl named Annabelle. But even so, they were still…” In love? She doesn’t know if she should use those words exactly. But she does know they cared for each other, in a different way than a person normally cares for their friends. “They loved each other, too.”
Charles takes a ragged breath and rubs the back of his neck with a hand. He blows out a sigh and fixes her with a square look. He’s getting ready to confess something. “I’ve never… shared anyone the way they did.”
Johanna’s mouth slips open just a little, her head tilting to the side. What was he…?
“Hosea mentioned it once,” he continues, “and I’ve thought a lot about it. I’ve always known you care for Arthur, so that’s why, when we were in Blackwater—”
Johanna’s heart skips a beat. That is… not what she was asking. But she can’t deny that she is pleased. “Oh.”
His brows lift upward as he realizes that he’s answering a question she didn’t ask. “Oh. I—”
“I didn’t—”
“Johanna—”
“When we were in Blackwater, you—?” she asks. Stunned, she lowers her voice. “Hosea mentioned…? He told you?”
Charles nods sheepishly.
“When?” she asks. “What?”
“He—” A shy smile creases his lips. “He said that he and Dutch used to be… lovers. But that they also had women. I’ve heard of something like that before.”
Johanna stands silently, heart hammering in her chest.
“He said that it wasn’t for everyone, but that it’s possible.” He pauses, trying to gauge her reaction. She’s sure she looks like a fish out of water. “There’s a freedom to it.”
She remembers every time he’s said he doesn’t want to take her freedom from her. Nor she from him. “You’re not…?” Opposed?
“Jealous?” he supplies instead, brows lifting upward. At her nod, he shakes his head. “I think… It’s not that I don’t feel it. I was jealous of Sam. I don’t like hearing Javier talk about you— or the other men, for that matter. Except for one.”
She swallows. “Arthur.”
“Hosea said we might be able to work something out.”
Johanna’s head swims. She has to lean a palm against the nearest tree for support. Part of her is giddy, but another part is… ashamed. Embarrassed.
“I’d like to think it could work,” Charles adds. “I know it worked for them for a little while, but… obviously they’ve separated. Dutch has Molly now. And Hosea has no one.”
“They’re still close,” Johanna says, but it comes out as more of a rasp.
“I wonder about how much staying power something like that really has. In the long run. And Arthur would have to be… willing.”
Johanna scoffs. “He’s not even willing to let one person into his life. If he were even to let himself have that, I doubt he’d be as generous.”
Charles nods thoughtfully.
“You’re really not jealous of him? That I love him?”
“I was, once. When I first joined. But I didn’t… I never wanted you all to myself. It was more like… I wanted to be a part of what you two already had.”
“We don’t have anything,” she murmurs.
“Maybe not now,” Charles concedes, “but you did. Or, at least, you could’ve. You still could.”
“Charles—” she shakes her head, turning partially away from him to glance at the skyline.
“Just listen,” he says gently. “I know it’s strange, but… Seeing you happy, it makes me happy. I’m proud that you chose me. That you choose to come back to me at the end of every day.”
“I don’t understand,” she shakes her head. “You want me to—?” She turns to face him. “What do you mean, you wanted a part of what we had?”
“I mean… I saw you and Arthur as two parts of a whole. Not two halves. But… more like… two strands of a rope, twisted together.”
“Twisted together.” Johanna almost laughs. She and Arthur were more like two strands lying parallel rather than twisted together. Close, but never quite touching.
“Two strands are fine,” Charles says. He reaches for her, and she thinks he’s going to take her face in his palm, but instead he gathers her length of hair, still plaited from the night before, and pulls it over her shoulder so that it’s lying against her chest. He holds it tenderly, swiping his thumb over it, and says, “But it takes three to make a braid.”
A braid? Her stomach flutters. She catches a glimpse of the scar on his palm and wonders how she ever got so lucky.
He thinks them a set of three parts. Imagines them woven together to create a stronger, more intricate whole. Just as she once had, at least in her far-off fantasies, when they would spend their evenings together on the dock at Quaker’s Cove. When we were in Blackwater, he’d started to say, but she’d interrupted him. What had been the rest of that thought? Johanna’s eyes widen and she blinks at him in surprise.
“How long?” She tries to swallow but her mouth is dry. “How long have you felt this way? When did Hosea tell you his… idea?”
“I don’t remember when, exactly,” he says, “but I’ve known for a while that I was never going to have you to myself. Not while Arthur was around. And I’m… alright with that.”
“You are…?” She searches his face for any signs of reluctance, of untruth, but… there are none.
His hand drifts down to take hers. Gentle. Always so gentle with her.
That scar on his palm again. Her eyes grow misty.
“Your heart is your own. I just want to share in it.” He presses her palm to his chest, over where his own heart beats. “If that other person happens to be Arthur… All the better.”
She’s dreaming. She has to be. But on the off-chance that she isn’t… she has questions. “Does that mean you also wanna… be with other people?”
She tries to imagine it. Tries to imagine how she would feel about him seducing one of the other girls, only to make his way back into her tent afterward. A strange, melancholy rises in her throat. They could give him what she could not, and that did not sit so comfortably with her. But it was only fair, if he was going to let her pursue Arthur extraneously. Perhaps she could learn to tolerate it.
This is all so much to take in, and not at all the conversation she’d prepared to have.
“Don’t let your imagination run wild,” he says softly. “None of the other women have caught my eye— and if they did, they never held it for long.”
There he goes again— none of the other women. “But…?”
“But what?”
“That could change,” she says, slipping her hand out of his grasp so that she can wrap her arms around herself. “If another woman did catch your eye, and you wanted to pursue her, I’d have to be okay with it. That’s only fair.”
“Sure,” he nods. “But, honestly, that’s not likely.” He shifts his weight, dropping his eyes to the grass beneath them. “You know me. I’ve always been on my own. Don’t really like people. Never been good at friends— never had a use for them, ‘til I joined the gang.”
“I know,” she says softly, comfortingly. “But you made friends with me.” And Arthur, goes unsaid, but not unrecognized.
He smiles shyly at the ground. “We warmed up to each other.”
She smiles at him.
He continues, crossing his arms, “I don’t hunt for what I don’t need. Since we met, there is only one other person I’ve had my eye on.” His brows are drawn downward, mouth pressed into a firm line. He looks like he’s expecting the guillotine to fall. Like he’s waiting for her to figure it out.
Like she’s known all along.
Like he already told her.
“Arthur,” she whispers. He nods subtly and she remembers what she originally meant to ask him. “Charles, you’re—?” Her cheeks flush, her heart beating so loudly in her own ears she can barely hear her own voice when she murmurs, “Have you been with other men?”
He is quiet for a moment, his expression unreadable. “I have.”
Her knees threaten to buckle. Hosea was right.
“Does that… bother you?”
“No,” she blurts out. “Of course not.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” She co*cks an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Some people take one look at me and hate what they see. They don’t need more reasons added to the list.”
Her heart drops into her stomach. He’d told her once that he thought his reason for being born was to suffer. That he didn’t understand life very much. All because he was born into a family whose people were under constant threat of ruthless and unjust persecution. The world was already cruel to him, and, as Johanna had learned, it was cruel to people who sought out relations outside of what was considered ‘normal.’ But when had the gang ever lived according to the norm?
“Charles, I could never hate you. Especially not for that.”
His face softens. He’s no longer bracing for a blow. “I’m glad.”
“But… let me ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“All those times that you joked about Arthur, when you caught me staring—” she remembers vividly the time that Charles had said, “What’s not to like?”
“They weren’t jokes.” He smiles softly. “He’s very easy on the eyes.”
Heat floods her face.
“Hosea must have sensed it,” Charles continues, “because he sent us to Blackwater together, and he told me about his idea the night that you tried to confess to Arthur. I think… I think maybe things would’ve fallen into place if not for Dutch.”
That long ago, and he hadn’t told her. “Why didn’t you didn’t say anything?”
“I did,” he frowns. “Just… Not in so many words.”
She opens her mouth to argue, but the reality of it hits her like a fist to the stomach. How many times had he told her? How many times had he confessed these very things to her, hinted or otherwise? He’d always told her not to give up on Arthur. Encouraged her to continue to pursue him, even if it went against his own best interests.
He drops his hands to his sides. “It’s my turn to ask you something.”
She blinks at him, startled out of her thoughts. “Yes?”
“Did you know about Hosea’s idea?” he asks.
She nods shyly.
“Is that… something you’d want?”
Yes. Yes. A thousand times, yes. She wants so badly to say it— to shout it. She had desired little else than the two of them at her side— to not have to choose, as Hosea had said. But she had never let herself hope. It was too good to be true, too selfish. She was too afraid of being accused of being greedy, or selfish, or a harlot, or impudent.
She had never truly considered that their little love triangle might truly become a triangle; Hosea had hinted at the possibility, but she’d dismissed him. For him to be right, and Charles to not only be interested in the potential arrangement, but to also have some manner of feelings for Arthur… The only component that remained was for all of these things to be felt mutually from Arthur’s corner.
“Johanna?” Charles is waiting patiently for her answer. “Don’t think about it too much. Answer me honestly. If you say no, then I’ll drop it and the whole thing ends here. But if you say—”
“Yes,” she breathes, as if the word had been choking her. She covers her mouth with her hands, waiting for backlash. Charles grins softly in surprise and Johanna’s face gets impossibly warmer, her whole body trembling. Now that the truth is out, she can’t stop the next sentence that follows. “I think about it all the time— not so much anymore, but before, in Blackwater… It was my biggest wish, even more than children, but I never let myself hope. Not really.”
Charles nods like he understands. And possibly, he does.
Excitement gutters through her like oil and a lit match, then goes out. “But… Charles, how could that ever work? Everything about our lives—” she gestures to the camp around them— “is already so damn complicated. And Arthur and I still aren’t even speakin’, and we don’t even know if he would agree, or if he’s—”
“Easy,” Charles says gently, placing his hands on her shoulders. “It’s just an idea. Not something we have to act on. Not something we have to figure out now, or all at once.”
She nods warily. He was right. There was enough they needed to iron out between the two of them without adding a third person to the mix— and that was only if Arthur was amenable, which he likely was not.
“Truth be told,” Charles continues, tucking his thumb under her chin and tilting her face upward. “I’d still be alright with it even if he didn’t feel the same about me.”
Johanna stares at him in disbelief. This is exactly what she wanted but now that she’s gotten it, she doesn’t know how to feel. Perhaps because she never thought she’d get it at all. “Why? How?”
“I care for you. I know you care for me, too. But you also care for Arthur. I know I can’t— wouldn’t— change that. I enjoy knowing that you know you have your freedom. I enjoy knowing that even despite that, you keep coming back to me. And, I don’t know. I just… It’s good knowing there’s another person who would stop at nothing to keep you safe. Who would appreciate you the way you deserve.”
Johanna shakes her head at him in awe. “Dalton would’ve burned the world to the ground to keep me to himself.” He still might.
“Best way to put out a flame is by smothering it.” He regards her with a focus that makes her ears burn. “You’re not mine to possess. You’re mine the way the fire in camp is mine— mine to tend to. Mine to enjoy, to be warmed by. Mine, and everyone else’s. I don’t want to own you. Lord over you. I want to stand beside you.”
“I want to be your equal,” she’d said earlier. And here he was, echoing that sentiment back to her.
“So where does that leave us?” she wonders.
“We’re right where we were before,” he says, and she exhales in relief, “only, now we can see more pathways branching up ahead.”
She can’t suppress the smile that creases her lips. Tears are starting to gather in her eyes and she wipes them away.
“I’m glad you asked me,” he says, a hand drifting up to her cheek.
“I’m glad you told me,” she echoes, grabbing his wrist and massaging his palm with her thumb. Quietly, she says, “But how are we gonna tell Arthur?”
“We’ll figure it out. If and when the time comes.”
She smiles shyly at him. “We have enough to figure out, just the two of us, anyhow.”
“What do you mean?”
She takes a deep breath. “I mean… Last night.”
He opens his mouth in a silent, ah, as if remembering. “We don’t have to try anything like that again. We can take a step back, if you need—”
“No,” she blurts.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to keep hurting you, bringing back those memories.”
“You’re not hurting me,” she insists. “I’ve gotta face them eventually. I only wish I could think of a better way to go about it.”
“I don’t want to make you feel like you have to—”
She smiles. “Charles, I’m choosing this.”
He sighs with a mixed expression, partly in relief, and partly, perhaps, because she’s using his own language against him.
She continues, “It’s worth it to me, to be able to… touch you. To be with you. Last night, when you… I’ve never felt anything like that. I want… I want it again.”
Charles’s smile turns feline. He closes the gap between them with one careful step, eyes dark with the longing she saw in them the night before. She becomes acutely aware of how close she is to the tree behind her and steps backward until she’s pressed against it. Charles follows, matching every movement beat for beat, until there are only mere inches between their bodies. He props a hand against the bark over her head, looking down at her intently, his other hand hanging at his side. She wishes instead that it were on her, and gathers the courage to make it so.
He watches her tug his hand up to her waist and when she tilts her head upward like she’s come to do when she wants him to kiss her, he grants her request.
He leans down to press his lips to hers, patient and unassuming. It lasts several seconds but despite the glint in his eyes which preceded it, it lacks the fervor that she’d been hoping for. He pulls back, and she almost whines, until he kisses her once on the forehead before straightening up.
She quirks an eyebrow at him in question, finding herself, surprisingly, disappointed.
“Much as I would like to have you against this tree,” he murmurs, “we shouldn’t rush anything.”
Her face gets so hot she’s not convinced there isn’t steam coming out of her ears. His proximity is intoxicating and his free hand has not left her waist. That ache pulses within her and she squirms, unable to hold his gaze as she presses her thighs together. He tracks the movement, his eyes not missing a single thing. They never do.
Much as I would like to have you against this tree. She almost lets herself imagine it— his hands roving over her, his towering frame pressed flush with hers, holding her steady while he lifted her up by the hips— but she knows he’s probably right. She nods in gratitude and takes a breath to clear her mind.
“There is something we might try,” he concedes. “In the meantime. It could help.”
“What?”
He wipes the smile from his face, looking at her with a soft seriousness. “You could use your own hands,” he says quietly, “in place of mine.”
A fever pitch rises through her. Her jaw quivers and her focus is all but narrowed to the delicate way his thumb is massaging her side. When she remembers how to speak, she asks, “My own hands? What do you mean?”
He blinks at her surprise. His hand drops from her abdomen. “You’ve never…?”
Patiently as she can manage, she asks, “Never what?”
He says it plainly, which somehow makes it sound even more appalling. “Pleasured yourself.”
“Why the Hell would I do that,” she gets out, though it sounds more like a cough than a question.
Charles looks like he’s trying to put on a poker face but he’s not really succeeding. “For… release.”
“Release of what?”
“Pent-up feelings. Anger. Loneliness. Or sometimes, just… for no reason at all. Because it feels good.”
Her mouth hangs slightly agape. Then she shakes her head, as if trying to shake off her own imagination of herself doing such a thing. She’d grown up Catholic, and the handmaid that raised her in place of her mama had been very strict in her lessons. Masturbation was taboo, for women especially; it would earn you a place in Hell. But Johanna was probably already headed there for her other misdeeds, anyway. Not that she necessarily still subscribed to such beliefs. She’d forgotten most of them, really. But some of them had buried shame so deep within her she could never tell how much more she had to unearth before the task was done. Perhaps it would never be.
“I don’t think I could—” she gets out. “I wouldn’t even know how.”
“You just… go somewhere private and think of something, or someone, you want in that way. And then…”
She resists the urge to cover her face.
“It’s not something you have to do,” Charles says gently.
“Do you?”
He swallows, the column of his throat bobbing. “Yes.”
Heat swells in her core. She imagines him taking himself in hand and— “And do you think of me?”
Charles swallows again, his eyes darkening once more. She’s finding more and more that she enjoys that look. “Yes,” he admits.
The woods around them seem to be spinning.
“I’ve tried not to,” he adds, and she suspects that it’s out of respect rather than repulsion. “But you find your way in.”
“I don’t mind if you think of me,” she hears herself say.
He snorts. “I don’t have much time alone for it, now that we share a tent.”
“But if we’re apart,” she says.
“You planning on being apart from me sometime soon?” he teases, and it’s so different from the way Dalton would’ve said it— No, she thinks, don’t allow him here. The warmth in Charles’s tone is so infuriatingly charming that she ends up shoving him backward with a gentle palm to his chest. He chuckles, not taking it to heart.
She pushes off the tree and goes to move past him, tugging on his hand. When he offers resistance, she glances over her shoulder to find him waiting expectantly. She lets him reel her in, and wraps her arms around his large frame, an embrace which he reciprocates.
“I love you,” she murmurs against his neck. She pulls back from their hug to cup his face, staring lovingly into his eyes. “You know that, right?”
“I know,” he whispers. “I love you, too.”
She stands on her tiptoes and kisses him. “And I’ll keep coming back to you at the end of every day, as long as you’ll have me.”
“Then that’s all I need,” he nods, reassured. “We have time to figure out the rest.”
