Work Text:
"Jesus!" Molly O'Shea yells. "You frightened me!"
"I'm." From his seat on the damp earth, cigarette dangling from his fingers, Charles blinks up at her. "Sorry?"
She doesn't seem to hear him, too busy muttering about the coffee sloshed onto her skirts and smacking the excess liquid from them. Eventually, she sighs. Sounds shaky. Watery. "Not your fault. You're better at hiding than I am at seeing."
Charles can't hold it against her, he supposes. He hasn't moved from his spot — half-hidden by a giant boulder at the edge of camp, by design — overlooking the Heartlands for a while now, sipping burnt coffee and nursing a breakfast smoke or two. There's maybe half of his cup left, and he's done pretending he'll still drink it.
He holds it up in offering. "Want mine? Not warm anymore, but." He shrugs. "Save you the walk back, at least."
Lightly bewildered, Miss O'Shea considers him. "Thank you," she says, like she's expecting him to snatch it back from her, even after his cup is cradled in her hands.
He nods. He flicks his cigarette, loose ash mixing with the morning dew on the grass, and turns back to the valley stretched out before them. Beautiful morning. Misty. Sunny. Calm. He draws the stiff collar of his thick wool coat more closely around his face, burrowing his nose in a bit. Not for the first time, he's grateful this coat is long enough to keep his ass dry. His best find.
"You cold?"
Charles's turn to startle. He clears his throat to chase off the buzz of it. He turns to address Miss O'Shea, noting the thin shawl over her blouse, her hair across her shoulders the only cover for the back of her neck. “You not?”
She snickers, a little humor in her face. The most Charles has seen on her since before Blackwater. “This is balmy, next to home.”
It’s… nice, to see a bit of life back in her. In everyone, really; but Miss O’Shea, especially. Before the riverboat job, she was the jewel of the camp, Dutch’s most precious treasure to show off at every turn. The night Charles joined up with them in fact, Dutch blared opera from his phonograph — happy stuff, grand stuff — and swept her up in his arms to twirl her around until she was rosy-cheeked and breathless from joy. First time Charles understood what it meant to see someone glow.
Of course, even back then he saw how the other girls rolled their eyes at her — and how she looked down her nose at them. Charles has no way of knowing which one started first, nor has he ever had any intention of stepping in any of that. And everyone, everyone, was miserable in Colter.
Molly O’Shea, though. She’d looked a special kind of lonely, up in those mountains. Sure, she’d made her bed with the other ladies and had to lie in it hunched over and rattling from cold. Arthur mentioned once that the one time he suggested she find company with most everyone in the main house, she’d snapped that Dutch was the only company she needed. Charles didn’t feel like he had much to say about that, having spent his days quietly with the horses. When Dutch spent time with the men in Colter, he muttered darkly under his breath about her nagging. Again, it wasn’t his business to say it then, and it still isn’t now; but to Charles, she just seemed lost, and afraid. Just like the rest of them. Time and affection from Dutch should do her well.
“Anyway,” she continues, “you’re quite the surprise, aren’t you? Big strapping lad like you running cold. Must be useful.”
Bringing his cigarette back up to his mouth, Charles frowns. “Useful?”
Miss O’Shea hums her assertion around a mouthful of coffee. Dropping her voice low and rough, she says, “‘Oh no, Mister Morgan, it’s so frightfully cold out tonight, shall we share a tent? Cozy up together?’” She shoots Charles a smug look. “Useful.”
He coughs to cover his choke, the cigarette in his hand crumbling. He stamps its remains into the grass. “Not like that,” he mutters, shoulders pulled up to his ears.
She laughs, then, a polished bell of a sound. "Ain't none of my business what you get up to out there." At Charles's warning glare, she adds, "Oh, don't worry. Ain't my business to go about spilling yours to everyone, either. You're just not so hard to figure out as that Uncle so loudly insists you are. Just, whatever you do, do it before Mary-Beth sinks her claws into him."
"She can have Uncle," Charles grouses, causing Miss O'Shea to snort coffee.
"I'm serious," she insists, wiping her nose with her sleeve. "Should've heard her playing dominoes with Arthur the other day, batting her eyelashes at him and asking to read his diary."
Curiosity gets the better of Charles. "What'd he say?"
Miss O'Shea scoffs. "No, of course." Head tilting, she raises one slim eyebrow at him. "Bet you'd have better luck if you asked."
Charles will not be asking, thank you.
She goes quiet again, Miss O'Shea, staring into her cup like she lent it Strauss's money and it's time to collect. Charles waits; he feels her words brewing. He wonders a bit at himself in that moment, that he's spent this long talking with her when he can barely stand some of the others. Maybe that's it, though. He likes having a place, people, to come back to, sure. Far, far better than so many nights alone. But still, even when he chooses to step from the shadows and join the others in the light, they don't seem to know what to do with him; even when they try, sometimes, feels like they expect something from him he can't give, or like they've got an idea of how he should be that doesn't match what he is. So he doesn't know what to do with himself, except step back again. The only exception, really, is Arthur.
Dutch is the only company I need.
Taima was the only company Charles needed.
After a while, Miss O'Shea says, "They used to talk to me like that. The girls, y'know. Not for the same reason, obviously, but we were. Friendly." She sniffs. "Don't suppose you know anything about not fitting in anywhere you go?"
Stunned, Charles openly stares at her.
It takes her a moment, but to her credit, she realizes her mistake on her own. She deflates at the tail end of an exhale. "Forgive me. That was... crass. I even passed by your photograph coming over here, I don't know what came over me."
Better than nothing. Charles shrugs. "You're nicer about it than most others."
"Still. Embarrassing." She can't meet his eyes as she flings out her coffee dregs over the cliffside. "Your mother's very beautiful. You get your looks from her, I'd say."
"Flattery won't get you far with me, Miss," Charles scolds, grinning a little despite himself.
"Tell that to that big lumbering Morgan oaf," she blurts out, like she can't stop herself, visibly relieved when Charles huffs a quiet chuckle. "Actually, speaking of. I know I don't have the right to ask you any favors, Mister Smith, but—"
"'Charles' is fine."
"All right," she agrees, "'Molly', then. But do you think you could keep him busy, just for a day or two? If he tells me to smile one more damn time I'm liable to— well I don't know what, but it won't be nice."
Like a threat from a spitting kitten, Charles thinks, laughing to himself. "I'll see what I can do."
"Thank you," Molly says. "I am fond of him, really, I am. He's like a brother, but— less."
"Like... a cousin?" Charles almost had one of those, once.
"Exactly!" She brightens at his understanding. "An overgrown, irritating puppy of a cousin."
"You have my word," he promises, a bit warmer now at her pleased smile.
Arthur Morgan, it seems, has eerily accurate timing. "Charles," he calls out from a few paces away on his path over, "there you are." He falters for a half-step when he notices who Charles has been talking with. "Good morning to you as well, Miss." He tips his hat to her.
"Morning, Arthur," she says, pointedly dropping the 'good'.
"Didn't know you were looking for me." Charles rises to his feet, purposely meeting Arthur a couple steps in front of Molly. "Everything okay?"
For a moment Arthur's eyes dart between the two of them, but he quickly blinks his confusion away. "Just wanted to know if you were goin' huntin' again soon, thought I might come with you if you were okay with it."
"That was my plan for today," Charles lies. "Pearson's been complaining about too much venison, so I thought I'd venture a little farther out, see what else lives in the valley."
"Busy day for you lads, then," Molly says, sort of loud and obvious, but it's the exit she needs. "Good day to you, Arthur. Charles."
"Molly." Charles dips his head at her in place of a hat brim.
"Sure thing," Arthur says, clearly baffled. Charles catches him noticing the two coffee cups in Molly's hand as she crosses camp back to the provisions wagon to drop them in the wash basin. After she's gone, he looks back to Charles. "Wha's'at about?"
"Beats me." Allowing himself a small smile, Charles claps Arthur on the shoulder as he starts off towards the horses. "Come on."