Know My Name - a RDR2 Story

Not Exactly A Warm Welcome Home

Let me tell you a story about a young woman who fell into two crowds: the good and the bad.
Of course, there are pros and cons to each category, but I suppose it only depends on the way you look at it...

TW!: bullet wounds, blood, injury, light use of alcohol

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There were a couple of words Pierce could use to describe his experience of being shot. Burning. Tingling. Smiting. Stinging. Piercing. Lingering. Dull. Sharp. Muffled. Loud.

He hated this feeling. He'd been shot before. Twice, in fact. But never had he felt pain like this. Never had he wanted to die so badly in his entire life until now. He pried his eyes open for one second- one miniscule second to tell his friends that he was sorry for bleeding out on them.

He wished he hadn't.

Bram was pacing back and forth, biting his fingernails with such aggression that Pierce wouldn't be surprised if he ripped them off right then and there. Brock was undoing his belt and kept yelling something muffled at his twin--probably telling him to stop panicking. And Kam... well, Kam had portrayed a goddess in his eyes.

He thought her a goddess since the day he first laid eyes on her bounty poster, stapled to the post all the way down Southwest where the land is barren and the only thing one could grow out there was sagebrush. Yet, something did grow inside Pierce, and it happened to be the determination to find Kam O'Driscoll. Now that she was here in the flesh, he couldn't be happier.

Not only that, but she was tending to his wounds. He thought that there was no better way to die than surrounded by friends and woman leaning over him, her knee holding her body up as it lay between his legs.
Until he got slapped in the face.

"Jesus, Kam! You don't have to punch him!" Brock exclaimed, catching the wandering attention of his brother.

"The bastard was dyin' on me, I had t' wake him up somehow." she answered without a smile nor smirk. Pierce wished he could make her smile just one more time before he passed. The quick action of Kam snatching the belt from Brock was seen through the corner of his eye. She held it in front of him with both hands on either side of the leather belt. "You might wanna bite down. This shit's gonna hurt like a mother fucker."

He obeyed. Pierce had always been good at doing what he was told. When he was told to run, he ran. When told to eat, he ate. When told to open his mouth so he could bite down on a leather belt, he did.

Kam wiped her brow. She was nervous, but, of course, she was. Everything leading up to this moment was her fault and she drowned in it. "Bram." The youngest twin came over to her, heart pounding in his chest so loudly that even she could hear it through his veins. "Grab a bottle of whiskey. Don' matter which one. We'll need t' disinfect 'fore we cauterize."

"Woah wait- cauterize?" Pierce wheezed out.

"Yes, cauterize. Some maniac decided t' get shot, n' his punishment is cauterizati'n." Kam replied as she took the bottle of golden liquor from the man behind the bar, not bothering to make eye contact with the man beneath her.

"Y'know, I've grown quite attached to the bullet." He tried to sit up despite the overwhelming, burning pain in his side. "I think I'll keep it."

Kam's hand flew to his chest and, with the death grip Colm had always called it, pushed him down onto the mattress hard enough to make him stay there. A groan flew out of his mouth against his will, filling Kam with a dread she welcomed as 'guilt'. "Stay. Down." Those words hissed out of her mouth like steaming water, and scalded Pierce's ears all the same.