Chapter Text
“Askuwheteau.”
“...Why do you look like that?”
“Askuwheteau.”
“What happened to your eyes? Who are you?”
“Askuwheteau.”
“You’re not my nêhe .”
“Make death proud to take you, Askuwheteau.”
Charles jolted awake, his eyes flying open and every muscle beneath his skin coiling until it felt like some of them were about to snap. He tuned his ears to his surroundings, for signs of danger or distress, but all he could hear were the cicadas and Uncle’s snoring.
Right.
He was with the Van Der Linde gang, and they were at Horseshoe Overlook… after Dutch shot an innocent woman at point blank, and the Blackwater job went to utter shit, and he had almost ruined his hand beyond repair doing something so dumb he didn’t want to think about it.
He blinked into the night with a painfully dry mouth, and the feeling that he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep any time soon. He slowly undid his bedroll from around him and dragged himself off the cold ground, carefully stretching his stiff limbs in the dimness of the night.
Charles washed his face in one of the barrels of water and looked to the sky for an indicator of the time. He found the North Star and figured out the Big Dipper’s location in the sky relative to it. Grimacing internally, he realised it was barely three in the morning.
There weren't a lot of things he could do in the dark, at least not without waking other people up. Those who didn’t sleep in tents had grumbled about the stars being ‘weirdly bright’ the last time Charles had tried to do something by candlelight, so he tried to avoid it.
He considered trying to go back to sleep, but a part of him knew full well he wouldn’t be able to, especially not after that… nightmare .
He pulled some day clothes over his union suit as well as his boots, and made sure he was well equipped with weapons - throwing knives, tomahawk, shotgun - before wandering to the edge of camp to look for whoever was on night duty.
It was Lenny that he found smoking in the dark, leaned casually against a large tree with the muzzle of his carbine repeater pointed to the ground.
Charles went to tap him on the shoulder, but thought better of it, a distant memory of Sean muttering that they needed to put a bell on him flashing through his mind. He stepped on a nearby twig instead, sending a small crack into the night.
Lenny startled, almost snapping his cigarette in half with how hard his teeth came together. It took him another second to haul his gun up and aim, but by then Charles would have been able to take him out without anyone noticing…
Hm .
It probably wasn’t productive to think about murdering fellow gang members.
“ Chrissake , Charles, anyone tell you you’re one scary man?” Lenny cursed, catching his breath.
Charles grunted and walked over, eyes on the horizon. He could see a family of opossums skittering around in the dark, furry little bastards who made too much noise when no one needed them to.
The mother carrying its children on its back was somewhat endearing.
“...You’re just gone stand there and say nothing then, huh?” Lenny asked with a confused smile.
“I’ll take over watch,” Charles told him shortly. He crossed his arms and tipped his head back to the campsite, and didn’t say anything else.
Lenny regarded him with a furrow in between his eyebrows. Charles was a little more fond of him then say, Sean, because he wasn’t so obnoxious and he wasn’t such a drunk. Lenny seemed like a fine young man - a boy - if Charles believed that he was really only nineteen, who probably could have, or might have, had a good future ahead of him.
“You’re always takin’ night watch,” Lenny muttered, scratching the back of his neck, “and you’d probably take guard duty in the mornin’s and evenin’s if you weren’t so busy. You a paranoid man, Charles?”
“Somethin’ like that,” Charles huffed. He had expected Lenny to leave without question, but if there was anyone beyond Arthur or Hosea who was genuinely interested in what Charles had to say, it’d be Lenny.
“Nice place, isn’t it? Compared to Colter, it’s like the Gardens of Eden! Makes me wish we could stay,” Lenny remarked, smiling softly in the dark.
Charles frowned to himself, and though he wasn’t usually one for idle conversation, aside from with Taima and Arthur, he asked, “What makes you say that?”
“We’re the Van Der Linde gang, ain’t no way we’re staying in a place this nice for long!”
Charles let out a noise that could have maybe been a laugh, while Lenny dug out another cigarette.
“Ever been in a place this nice, Charles?” Lenny asked, offering one to him.
Charles took and let him light it. He took a drag, feeling a tiny bit of the tension run out of him. Maybe the insomnia made him more conversational. “Been to the Big Valley before? Real pretty place.”
“Not yet I haven’t, but if I ever get the chance, I ‘spose I should, shouldn’t I? You know, we should head out some time, me, you and Tilly, might actually get somethin’ done for once,” Lenny joked with a grin.
Charles inclined his head in silent agreement. Other than the fact he didn’t like senseless killing, he was sure he could make some money for the gang if he put his mind to it.
“Say, you’re… You’re part Native American, aren’t ya?” Lenny asked, a bit awkwardly.
Charles hummed in confirmation. He wasn’t sure where the conversation was going, but Lenny was educated, as educated as you could be without going to school, and a considerate boy.
“…Must be hard. I don’t mean to pity you, but it didn’t work out so well with my folks… Well, some drunks did my father in, might’ve or might’ve not been racists, and I know my grandmother killed her overseer after the civil war…” Lenny made a face, as if he regretted broaching the topic, but he continued, “Some folks are weird, you know.”
Half a smile twitched at Charles’ lips, too bitter to be considered a proper one. “I know.” Micah , his subconscious supplied. He suppressed a scowl. “But you and me are both African, though I don’t know much about my father’s side. Got a lot of shit to face,” he added.
Lenny nodded.
“I’m glad you threw Micah to the ground after he…” he trailed off, as if reading his mind. “He deserved it, and some more. Dutch is good at treating folks equal, but Micah… ain’t like the rest of us. He’s meaner than Bill and sober at the same time.”
Charles also disagreed with the fact Micah was running with them, but he wasn’t allowed to complain since he’d only been with the gang less than half a year.
They stood in silence for a few minutes, smoke pouring from their lips. Charles listened to the night and it’s quiet noises, wondering if he’d ever be able to leave this particular type of peace behind for the city life.
He doubted it.
“Lenny,” he said aloud, and the aforementioned seemed shocked that Charles was initiating conversation.
“Yeah?”
“Short for Leonard?”
Lenny visibly cringed and he pinched his cigarette tightly between his thumb and index finger. He kicked at the ground at his feet. “Yeah. I know it’s a dumb name but-“
Charles cut him off with a small, weary sigh. He dropped his cigarette and dug it under his heel. “Come with me,” he muttered, walking off without waiting.
Lenny made a confused noise at the back of his throat, snuffing his own cigarette out and hurrying to follow Charles. “What about watch?” he asked as they navigated through the camp.
“This will only take a second,” Charles told him, digging through his satchel.
He found what he had been looking for wrapped up in a silk handkerchief. He spent a second regarding the package, left hand throbbing in memory even though it was almost completely healed.
“Here,” Charles said. He handed it to Lenny and moved them closer to a small lantern so Lenny could see what he was unwrapping.
Lenny’s face flashed with hope when he first weighed it in the palm of his hand. He forcibly wiped it away, preparing himself to be disappointed as he untied the knot of cloth.
The handkerchief fell away to reveal a silver pocket watch that would go for a good sum of cash if Charles were to sell it.
Lenny froze like a rabbit catching sight of a hungry wolf. He stiffly opened the pocket watch at its hinge and read the inscription on the top of the lid: To Leornard, My Dear Boy.
His breath caught in his throat, and Charles was painfully reminded of how young he was when his eyes became wet. Lenny’s attention turned to the handkerchief, eyes snagging on the small JK embroidered in the corner of it.
“Is this…?” he whispered, like they were in a dream and being too loud would shatter it.
“I saw it on the ground during the Blackwater job… Didn’t know whose it was. Figured I’d hold onto it until I found out.”
Cleaned off the blood, polished the silver, bleached the handkerchief to get the reek of ash out of it.
Lenny did the last thing Charles was expecting.
He hugged him.
Clumsily, he threw his arms around Charles’ shoulder and squeezed . Charles froze, tense like a rabbit stepping onto a bear trap, and didn’t move a muscle, barely breathed until Lenny let go.
“Thank you so much,” Lenny told him, sounding choked up. “I thought- I thought I lost… these. I… saw them but I couldn’t…”
Charles breathed out a careful sigh. “I saw an opportunity to grab them.”
Thought it might have been my mother’s engagment ring
. “...You stay here, alright? Give yourself time to process it. Don’t try to rush grief, it’s a long road.”
He knew that the objects were as much of a comfort as they were a reminder of what had been lost. When he first saw the JK embroidered on the handkerchief, he had frozen himself a little.
Jenny had been a crackling but sweet girl, almost as sweet as Mary-Beth. She hadn’t warmed up to Charles… before passing , but Charles liked the cautious ones. He knew Lenny was sweet on her, and he knew that it had started months before he had joined.
If a handkerchief was able to offer Lenny so much, Charles wasn’t going to take that away from him.
Lenny nodded stiffly and walked over to the tent he shared with Javier, leaving Charles alone among his things. Charles made sure Lenny had laid down first, then rolled his bedroll up and made sure his belongings were neat.
Lenny had left the repeater with Charles. He took it and walked over to the borders of the campsite, drumming his fingers on his thigh.
Being honest with himself… a part of him wished that silver that he had spotted on the way out of the mess that was the Blackwater job had been his mother’s ring, the last thing she had managed to give him before the soldiers had taken her.
He was glad that Lenny had something to remember whoever it was that had given him the pocket watch - his father most likely, but Charles was bitterly envious.
He had no idea where his mother’s ring was. It could still be in Blackwater, maybe at the bottom of the ocean, or maybe one of the gang members had picked it up during the chaos and sold it already.
He couldn’t blame them if they had - the only thing that made it a personable item was the engraving on the inside of the ring: To The Soul Of My Soul, Chenoa , and that name meant nothing to anyone except for himself and his father.
It wasn’t like he could go asking around for it either. Aside from the fact it was rather embarrassing… he was sure it would hurt a lot more if he ever found out that his mother’s ring had been pawned off.
Like how much it would hurt if he knew his mother and father were dead.
He didn’t know if death would be a kinder fate for either of them, and that scared him down his bone marrow.
Despite everything, he liked to think that his father had moved on, and healed, and was living honestly and properly.
Without Charles and Chenoa.