' ~𝑅𝑎𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐶𝑎𝑖𝑛'✓ [RDR2 OC]

The Chink of Spurs

"Come on, dear, let's get these horses out of here."
Sadie muttered, hauling Cain out as he miserably followed her lead. His hands were shaking as she rounded up the horses, attaching two to her steed and one to Cains. His hands shook uncontrollably. The panic wouldn't let up as he found he could barely reholster his gun without it slipping from his clammy palms. He sobbed for a while in Sadie's arms after she'd patched up his eye. No one else at camp would ever know about that. He knew Sadie wouldn't go around running her mouth.
"He'll kick me out for sure for this."

John had sold the horses for a mediocre price that would at least put some food on the table and meat in the pot for some time. Cain had gone back to shrinking away from everyone in camp. Sometimes, he stayed so still that he was sure Arthur was sketching him in his thoughtful state. Thankfully, there was one man who kept pulling a reluctant and stubborn man out of his self-pity.

Whenever he felt minutes start to fall and melt together, the man would be beside him, strumming and tuning his guitar. When he was inches away from pulling himself out of that shawl, then enraptured his mind via a tauntingly bright cigarette butt to the palm, Javier seemed to rock the table, and before he knew it the man had him drinking a beer and mumbling about his slum back in Ireland.
He began to slip less and less. He found himself staring at his gun for shorter spans of time. It annoyed him how this man could change how he thought. He didn't want outside sources helping him. He wanted to get back on his feet by himself. Whilst sharpening his sickle, he watched the stone slide over the edge of the blade. Like they were old buddies, Javier strolled over once more, noticing Cains mental absence.

"Rough break, huh, with that, uh, Milton and such, wasn't it? And now your eye... Arthur said he saw them, too. With the kid no less."

Javier sat on the barrel beside him. Cain slowed his movements but didn't respond. Javier continued anyway.

"You know Dutch promises us stuff all the time. He delivers, you know that. But we have to give him something in exchange."

Cain waited for the point of this exposition.
"Loyalty is gold for us. It is more than money because if we are loyal, no one of these people will starve."

Javier lit a cigarette as he continued to talk. These people often did that when they needed to focus. Cain found it made his blood rush faster, and when he slipped out of feeling, he heard his heartbeat. He didn't smoke because when he did, it sped up. The tension from the speed made it seem like it was going to stop at any moment. He leant his head back, looking over as Javier puffed out a long whisp of smoke.

A twist of jealousy arose in his gut. He still wore his ranch garments that were once black and had now faded to grey and white around the seams, with billows of dust patterned on his shirt. His boots were scuffed and foggy. People at camp thought Javier was feminine and vain for how he dressed. Cain thought it was a message.

It was a way of saying, "I'm at rock bottom, but you wouldn't think it, I'm dressed better than most aristocrats and have also probably murdered less people than them, I fuzz the line between good and bad and that makes you stuck up white men employed by serial killing capitalists feel dumb. And if you feel dumb that means your morals follow the same likeness too."

Maybe Cain was thinking too deep into it. He fancied Javier would make a good muse, with all those cameras coming into townspeople possessions and such.

"I'm not going to aggravate you further by asking if you led those agents to us."

Cain turned his head to Javier, slowly, dragging out the seriousness of his not-asked question. He stopped the action of sharpening his sickle.

"And I fancied you a muse."

He mumbled grumpily. Javier raised his eyebrows at him, confused by what he said.
"Never you mind."
Cain said, before straightening up and losing the American drawl in his voice he'd started to pick up. He hated to admit it, but he felt a bit of contempt about his own identity. Knowing other irishmen were coming to America, and fucking up a chance for a new life for a few dollars. The O'Driscolls were terrorising him even when they weren't burning down his home and taking his eyes.

"If I wanted to rat out a gang, I woulda' joined Colm." He mumbled.
A flash of guilt appeared over Javiers face. In the week before he met the gang, his belongings had been robbed, and with it his life. He didn't see exactly who had robbed his homestead, but Dutch had been giving out about how Colm's gang had run through the heartlands, and it was likely they were the only ones with enough self absorption to rob a family farm and leave it to burn. Still, he didn't like the look Javier had given him.

"Why are you doing all this?"
He said, waving away Javier when he offered him a drag of his cigarette.

"Doing what, talking to you?"

"Yeah. Thought I was, uh... new comer. Foreign to this life of enlightened living. Far too low down for your standards."

"Like I said, I'm loyal to Dutch. We're blood now. Men in arms. Honour amongst theives, no?"

Cain laughed dryly.

"I can't see honour in men anymore, Javier. I don't think I ever did. I think I saw dwindling expectations. I'm nothing like what he wanted me to be. What she wanted me to be."

He leant back, breathing in a deep breath as he felt his throat closing up.

"And know that I've let their expectations go, I don't know what I'm going to do. Die by the gun, I guess. Like my brother. End the family curse on a cheerful note."

Cain finished, putting his hands on his knees, getting up, and heading towards the tent. He heard Javier make a satisfied "hmph" before turning into the table. He smelt gun oil, smoke, whiskey and the thick air of comradeship. If he belonged anywhere, it wasn't where he was placed, it was where he moved.

His belonging was never in Ireland, in that old slum, it was never in that tidy Homestead, or in that barn. It was the people. It was that old woman by the furnace who would tell he and his brother celtic tales they'd only half understand before she reverted to her mother tongue.

It was Elioh and Mary, who would stomach his cooking and wear the clothes he sewed for the winters. It was these theives, crooks, conmen, and ex-call girls who offered him a home, not out of hasty manipulation, but of recognition, seeing the kind of fear they'd lived through, reflected in his gaze. Aiding those who'd suffered as them, rejecting a life destined to work them into the grave.

He turned back to Javier and furrowed his eyebrows. He tugged a smile at the corner of his mouth.

"Thanks, Javier. I mean it. Tá mé leat go dtí bás. Gach duine agaibh."