We're Dead, No Redemption

Luck Of the Irishman (Or Lack Thereof)

(CW for animal abuse; speed edited out of excitement
I am so sorry for another wait. I have no excuse other than falling out of the fandom. I can't keep abandoning this thing, I say I'm so proud of it and the never touch it for several months in a row
How're you guys doing? I hope life's been treating you all well.)

The boat lurching was starting to make Sean's stomach join in. A whine from the wiry old pooch beside him told him the poor thing wasn't having much fun either. "Can we not hurry this up a little?"
"Shut up, you!" Came the answer from above his holding cell.
"I'm thirsty as fuck!" Sean raised his voice. "Can a man not get a drink around here?"
"D'you want us to throw ya overboard? You'll have a lot of drinks then!"
He didn't have anything to counter with, so he regretfully fell quiet. The old dog beside him sniffed at the burlap bag over his head and licked it, presumably trying to lick him.
"They'll get us out of here, Beans." Sean bumped the dog's head with his own, unable to pet him due to his hands being tied behind his back. "My gang members'll come back, and when they get me out of here I'll take you with me. That was our deal, right?"
Beans sneezed as an answer. Sean laughed and nudged him with his shoulder. "That's my boy, Beans, you old dodger!"
"BE QUIET!!"
Beans barked a response, his raspy voice right in Sean's ear making him wince and lean away. Someone came stomping down do the lower deck where the Irishman and dog were, threw the dog to the ground and presumably kicked it (if the thump and yelp were any indication).
"I don't need you mouthin' off at me too, ya stupid mutt," the bounty hunter spat at poor whining Beans. "You keep your mouth shut. You may have more brains than most but that won't stop me from braining you!"
"Piece of shit," Sean grumbled when the man left. "You alright there, Beans?"
Claws scraped wood as Beans painfully stood up again, then rested his chin in Sean's lap. Sean fought every instinct to scratch under the dog's chin (since he physically couldn't) and decided to gently bounce his knee instead.
At last, the boat rocked to a halt. Three men came down and two grabbed Sean's arms as the last one did something to Beans. The sun filtering through Sean's burlap sack blindfold did next to nothing for his vision and he couldn't tell which he preferred more; the light or the dark.
He stumbled to his knees when someone gave him a push and the bounty hunters laughed, one of them grabbing his arms and pulling him back to his feet again. "Stay on your feet, stupid bastard. We can't have ya killin' yourself before the law gets you!"
The sound of a scuffle and a rough voice shouting "WHOA" was followed by the sound of Bean's choked barking. The men holding Sean stopped roughing him up for a moment and presumably looked back. "You're not bringing the dog, are you?"
"He'll tear apart the boat if I don't," the shouter behind them said. "It's either we bring the mutt or I shoot him here and now."
"So shoot 'im!"
"Aw..."
"You're not goin' soft, are you?" One bounty hunter asked as the other started laughing.
"It just seems like a shame to put down such a smart animal!" Beans' manhandler shot back.
"Pigs 'r smart," Sean piped up. "I heard of one that even learned t' cou-"
Pain shooting across his temple made him wince and stumble. One of the bounty hunter's voice came almost straight into his ear. "I didn't ask you."
"Bring the dog along, then." An eye roll was clear in the same hunter's voice. "But keep a good hold on 'im! The son of a bitch got attached to this Van Der Linde and I don't want it tearin' us apart to free 'im."
Beans' manhandler's response was drowned out when the dog started barking again. His bark seemed quieter now that he was out in the open air instead of caged in unforgiving wooden walls.
Sean's ears still rang from every time the dog had let out a full-force woof. Whatever breed the wiry old pooch was, it gave him one Hell of a voice box.
The road to somewhere continued at a painfully slow pace. Sometimes the bounty hunters would rib Sean, sometimes they'd rib each other, sometimes they'd yell at each other, sometimes they'd send off gunshots at seemingly nothing. They didn't seem to keen on ending Sean for every little thing anymore, at least.
Though the fact that they kept "reassuring" him that he was to be handed off to the law wasn't very reassuring. Death by bounty hunter would at least be quicker than being hanged.
They finally came to a stop once Sean complained about his feet hurting. For several seconds he was afraid they finally got fed up with him before the burlap bag was yanked off his head and a small camp came into view once his eyes adjusted to the new light setting. There wasn't much to the camp beyond a few tents, some horses tied to a hitching post and an old tree.
And old tree with a rope tied to it, the other end in the shape of a noose. 'Oh no.'
"Welcome to your new home!" One of the bounty hunters got into Sean's face, forcing him back a step. "For now, anyway. The law's coming to getcha in a few hours."
"You sure you're not gonna string me up yourself?" Sean motioned to the noose-or tried to, at least. "You're sure prepared to."
"That was gonna be the initial plan, but...Nah." The bounty hunter moved behind him and Shawn felt blood rush through his veins again when his hands were cut free. "We get paid more if we hand you over alive. Now don't even try to do anything like wrestle free or we will shoot you here and now."
The click of a gun being aimed at his head punctuated his point. Sean swallowed hard before grinning. "Nah, you know me, I'm a good boy."
The bounty hunter behind him scoffed and gave him a shove. "Get over there, 'good boy'."
Sean made his way over to the tree and stood beside it as the bounty hunters worked to untie the noose from it's overhanging branch. Beans sat nearby-quiet for once, laying with his head on his paws and a watchful eye on the humans around him. The horses, for their part, couldn't give a shit-
Was that Ennis?
Sean's double take apparently got the attention of the bounty hunter standing near the horses. His smile was more of a grimace as he sneered at the redhead and patted Ennis' neck. "You like him?"
"What're you doin' with a horse that ain't yours?"
The bounty hunter shrugged. "It seemed like such a shame to let such a good horse go to waste. He runs like the wind, this one."
"You fuckers stole my-"
A bounty hunter grabbed the front of Sean's shirt and yanked him over to them, cutting him off. He stumbled over a rope, a tree branch creaked and suddenly he was suspended a few inches off the ground upside-down.
The bounty hunters around him started laughing as one of them spoke. "That was beautiful! The distraction was just what we needed!"
"Now, you stay here until we're ready." The hunter crouched down to try and look him in the eye. "Good luck trying to free yourself, unless you came from a circus."
Sean would have spit in his eye if he could. Sadly, he couldn't reach. The bounty hunters went off on their business and one barely avoided being bitten when he tried to pet Beans.
From his new vantage point, Sean noticed a lot of things. For one, the reason Beans hasn't gone on a rampage is because he was tied to the hitching post with a strong-looking rope. For another, there seemed to be rifle muzzles sticking out all over the place. The tent fabric, too, seemed to be thick enough to stop someone from stabbing through them. 'Must be Hell to sleep in with this heat.'
In all, it seemed that for all their laid-back shenanigans, these bounty hunters didn't fuck around. Not even when it came to innocent-looking large dogs. They must be being funded by the government, to; those horses didn't look cheap.
All the animals' suddenly went on alert. Beans' head shot up from his paws and the horses straightened up, ears pricked. Sean strained his ears and found he could listen in on what they too were hearing. Gunshots.
"YEAH NO KIDDING!!" A shout came from one of the thick tents as a bounty hunter emerged, gun in hand. "Simon, help me guard the entrance! And so help me if anyone misfires and frees the Van Der Linde I'll kill you myself!"
Who Sean presumed was Simon finally gave up trying to pet Beans and rushed into another tent, emerging with his own gun. He joined the first bounty hunter at the two rock walls edging a small gap.
The next few minutes after that were so quiet a pin dropping would sound like thunder. Not even the horses made a sound. Sean was starting to think he had gone deaf from the blood rushing to his head when chaos suddenly erupted all at once: men were falling, horses were shrieking and fighting to break away from the hitching post, Beans was barking and choking against his rope chain as he lunged against it to free himself, men were falling everywhere; either diving for cover or dropping dead.
There was a brief awkward pause as the chaos ended after several deafening moments. A familiar man shouldered his gun and carefully made his way to the spooking horses and two others stood at the entrance for a moment to talk.
Sean knew two familiar men who would make spooking horses their priority after a gunfight. He knew one familiar man who would do it without at least glancing to make sure any humans were okay. "Charles! CHARLIE!! CHARLES!!!"
"Well howdy!" A voice coming from above him made him look up (or down, rather). Amusement shone in Arthur's eyes as he smirked down at him. "Looks like you're in a bit of a twist."
"Ha ha, very funny. Sean swiped at Arthur's foot with one of his hands. "Either let me down or let me brace against you so I can free meself, please-"
He cut himself off with a grunt when he suddenly landed on his free hand and then his side. Ignoring Javier's shouted apology, he rubbed his face and arms to get the blood back where it belonged before stumbling to his feet. Arthur watched him rush towards Beans and drop to his knees in front of the excitedly barking dog. "What're you doing with that animal?"
"This here is Beans!" Sean reveled in the feeling of finally being able to bury his face in the dog's coarse fur before trying to free him. "Shit. Does anybody have a knife on 'em?"
A hunting knife landed in the dirt beside him. He half-heartedly thanked Charles as he started cutting through the rope binding Beans to the hitching post as the dog washed his face with dry-tongue kisses.
"We're not bringing that thing with us, are we?" Javier asked, crouching beside him.
"This dog has been through as much as I have." Sean pressed harder on the knife as he spoke. Man this rope is tough! "If I ain't keepin' him I can at least set the poor bugger free."
"You bonded with their watch dog." What was probably supposed to be a question from Arthur came more as a statement.
"This here ain't no watch dog. They say this dog was used as bait to rob a bank, and when the authorities got their hands on 'im he killed two of 'em before breaking free." He stopped for a moment to flex his fingers, causing Charles to step in and try to cut through the rest of the rope. "He's a bandit just as much as the three of us."
"He's a dog, Sean-"
"You remember how bright Boadicca was?"
Arthur fell quiet when Sean raised an eyebrow at him. "Yeah. He's jus' a dog as much as she was jus' a horse."
The rope finally snapped. Beans' first action as a free dog was to jump up and lick everybody in sight-mostly Sean and Charles, who had freed him.
"I say we keep him," Charles said, watching Sean dance around with a dog practically as tall as he was.
"What're we gonna feed 'im?" Arthur asked.
"We've got chickens."
"Yeah. Abigail's chickens. And she can't stand dogs, no way we're askin' her to sacrifice some of her hens t' feed a giant mutt."
"It wouldn't hurt!" Sean called over, him and Beans stopping their dance for a moment. "I can sweet talk just about any lady into doin' what I want!"
"He's like a kid with their first gun, Arthur." Charles shook his head with a laugh as he watched the duo. "A Irish man with an Irish Wolfhound. They were made for each other-"
"All right, all right." Arthur raised his hands in surrender. "We'll take 'im along. But I ain't the last word, Charles, you remember that. The ladies of the camp and Dutch have to agree before we bring that thing in."
"You're so sweet, Arthur," Javier teased, lightly swatting his arm and dodging a return hit. "A real bleeding heart."
Arthur gave him his best death glare. Javier playfully winked at him and walked off, whistling.
"Are we goin' now, Arthur?" Sean and Beans had the same look in their eyes when he spoke to the cowboy. "I enjoyed this outin' and all but I really wanna get home."
"They were made for each other" indeed.

It took hours of sweet-talking, guilt-tripping, arguing and making compromises before Miss Grimshaw would let Beans lay a paw near the grounds. Dutch was sold upon meeting the dog and hearing his story, most of the girls were sold upon interacting with him, even Abigail relented (after making Sean swear up and down that he would buy his own chickens to feed him). Grimshaw, on the other hand, took one look at the dirt-covered Wolfhound and said "absolutely not!".
Still, Sean wore her down. Beans was on thin ice, but he was allowed into camp. Just in time for a party, too.
"To celebrate Sean's return!" Dutch announced once the party had been called. "It's another step towards a bright future. Not all is lost, as I promised!"
"Aw, did you lot miss me?" Sean teased Lenny, who merely shook his head in response.
Shrugging, he moved on to sit next to Karen, who was sitting next to Beans and petting him as the large dog lay halfway into her lap. "I see you two are already bondin'."
"He's the friendliest canine I've ever met." Her voice was hardly above a whisper, as if she was hesitant to let anyone else hear her. "He's like you but in dog form."
"Now don't insult the man-"
"I'm being serious, Sean!"
Sean laughed and kissed her cheek. "I know."
"It feels like we're a real couple now," Karen went on. "With a dog and maybe a kid on the way..."
"I'm gonna be a father?!"
"I said maybe!" Karen shouted with a laugh. "I don't know yet!"
"We could try again to make sure."
The blonde playfully (and lightly) slapped him, making him move away. He stood up to get some drinks for them and almost walked right into Uncle.
"Good to have to back, Sean," he said with a nod.
"Good t' be back. I ain't pulling no big heists for a while, I'll tell ya that much."
"Right. Well." Uncle dropped his voice to a whisper. "Have you seen anythin' about the walking dead?"
Sean blinked at him. "The what?"
"Somethin' strange is goin' on here." Uncle cleared his throat. "Now I ain't one t' know all about it, I'm just some bumbling old man, after all. Or so I'm always told."
"You ain't that old."
"Thank you. But still-those old wives tales are really gettin' to everybody. So I'll ask again-have ya seen any dead gettin' up and walkin' around?"
Sean gave Uncle a sideways look. "How much have you been drinking?"
"I swear on my life, McGuire, I'm dry as sand. Now answer my question."
"I've seen nothin'. Now what's this really all about?"
Uncle stepped closer, forcing Sean back. "Absolutely nothing? Not one thing since you got caught?"
"Well there was one thing." Sean rubbed the back of his neck. "One fella I was with claimed he got bit by some rabbit. It musta been rabid since he went wild and bit a few other folks. Even tore one apart."
"Jesus."
"Not then. One of th' bounty hunters tried puttin' him down, he took three bullets to th' chest to fall. An' when we were riden' away again, I swear I saw him gettin' up and trynna follow before losin' interest. Now why're you suddenly asking about this?"
Uncle shook his head with a laugh, though Sean didn't see what was so funny. "Have I got some stories to tell you, son. Come sit by th' fire and I'll get ya all caught up."