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Hosea got himself into a pissing contest in the bar.
That's all it was, really, a damned catfight over some bad cards and whose pack of smokes were whose that Hosea refused to leave go for God knows what reason, despite the fact they'd pocketed enough cash off this saloon alone to buy five packs each.
It took ten minutes to separate the brawling men, and in that time a crowd had formed, beers in hands and cigarettes stuck in fingers right- and left- handed. They shouted when one got an advantage, seemed to favor the stranger — kinship, or the right that comes with throwing the first punch. In the ninth dreadful minute, Hosea pushed the man out the saloon doors and followed.
Followed.
Dutch has rarely been so angry at the man that he couldn't contain it, but he followed out the days and the shout of Howard fucking Schmidt came straight from his gut.
He has always been aware of the effect his sheer height and bulk has, of the seething rage that such fine-kept men as himself tend to radiate at the slightest downturn of their lips; it did not surprise him that the few horses hitched gave their own shouts, nor that the struggling drunkard beneath Hosea skittered his way backwards and out from under him at the sight of Dutch, a menacing shadow in the light that swathed the dirt beyond the saloon's front porch.
The crowd gained interest at the addition of a new opponent; they lost interest when Dutch offered a hand to the kneeling Hosea, instead of inviting him to kiss its metal rings with his temple. He would have liked to, maybe, somewhere deep down inside.
His brown eyes were wild, frightening to anyone but him. Dutch was the only man in the world who knew — rather, merely assumed with boldness — that Hosea wouldn't lay a finger on him, not with any real, malicious intent.
Neverminding — in all of this — that Dutch has gotten them into the reverse of this situation; nevermind that Hosea has always saved a good, firm smack upside the head for him instead of whatever holier-than-thou, no-dinner-for-you show he had been overcome with the urge to put on and will continue to berate him with.
Neither of them are free of sins, here, but it's so much less of one, in his own eyes, to parttake in a sin that lessens Hosea's chances of being shot dead by a townsperson trying to get some sleep.
"You've got asthma, you wretched lug," Dutch tuts as he drags a barely stood-up Hosea away from the saloon and towards their hotel. He holds his arm tight, would go the whole yard and grab him by the scruff of his neck to treat him as the bumbling kitten he's acting like, if only it weren't wet with blood. "You shouldn't even be smokin' at all." Under his breath, dumbfounded by everything, wondering if anyone else remembers why they began fighting, and suddenly overwhelmed: "Jesus and Mary, too."
Hosea laughs, teeth pink from his bleeding nose.
"You sound like me, Big Cat," he says, voice hoarse. It is probably the fault of the verbal abuse he'd levelled at the drunk man from deep in his belly.
Dutch turns his heated gaze on him, and Hosea looks dashing despite it all, because of it all. The light is draining from their figures as he tugs the man across the main road, casting him sharply. His dull, wheat hair is stained with the blood from a spot where his scalp has been torn open, sending a stream of crimson down his temple and neck, the two rivers meeting to blossom red into his pale shirt collar; his mouth is dirty, nose running red that's been smeared across his cheek by a punch or two; his eyes are frantic, still, and now they search Dutch as he smiles toothily up at him those few, much savored inches between where their heads raise.
"I feel so alive," Hosea is pleading, softly, as if Dutch had told him he should be grieving instead of grinning. Maybe his harsh tone said as much. The man's eyes fall down his body, and he clears his throat in warning. "Oh, Dutch," he says anyways, sounding so taken. It earns a jab in his side.
"Get yourself together, you old fool," Dutch says, but the command is spoken more like Old Girl is— sweet and low.
He leads him around the back of the inn they holed up in for their now even-shorter stay in town. They will probably head out tomorrow, considering there isn't much to do besides drink or cut your hair or maybe buy a horse on which to ride far away with. Their welcome in the bar has likely been cut off, and a stable doesn't offer much shade for a pickpocket.
It is dark as abyss out here, lanterns from the windows fading mid-air and leaving the ground to soak up mere moonlight. Even the moon is behind a cloud, as if just as ashamed of their clumsiness as the two of them shall be in the morning. He risks a short stroke of Hosea's back.
Dutch told Hosea to pick the lock out back. It was half as a punishment, should a man that is apparently so taken with adrenaline be punishable at all; and it was half because the way he looks would surely get them kicked out without refund. Thirdly, the back entrance was the closest to the washroom.
All in all, his plan went off without a hitch.
At least something has this evening.
Though, he supposes if Hosea intended to be shoved rather roughly into the bathhouse and glowered weakly at like he is now, then whatever plans he had went swimmingly, too.
"Hosea," Dutch begins, tries to soften himself against the current of emotions threatening to louden him. "What was that nonsense? Did you drink a whole shelf when I went and took a leak?"
The focus it took to steady his fingers and maneuver the lock outside must have sobered his mind, some. Hosea looks far milder, now, tongue disrupting the firm line of his mouth to wet his lips.
"I didn't drink anythin', actually," he says. Instead of meeting Dutch's eyes right away and finding the pure astonishment there, he looks around for somewhere to sit. His knees probably hurt — his everything probably hurts. Pulling it out and settling onto a high stool meant for the bath girls, Hosea sighs. "In retrospect, I see where that was foolish."
Dutch has many feelings, hearing the tone of his voice: at once absurd and yet familiar. It is solemn yet mirth dons the edges, dances around them and makes his eyes and mouth turn up despite himself. "Then—?"
"The first punch got thrown and I just couldn't get enough of retaliating," he admits, face evened out when Dutch looks at it. He is rubbing at his neck. "I don't know what 't'was. Like my eyes rolled back or somethin'."
Dutch finally moves from his rooted spot in front of the now locked door to light some of the half-burnt candles in the room with matches lain out beside them. The fireplace is unstocked at this hour, black and empty behind the metal gate surrounding the brick shute.
They go back and forth, Hosea divulging more and more of how young and free he felt getting into a bar-room brawl like the old days, and Dutch's anger fading into something fond and kind as the threat of danger wanes in tandem. If he were privy to investigating a certain part of himself — really and truly the way he says he likes to, not as superficially as he actually does — Dutch would see that his reaction was triggered by a kinship which scares him.
Hosea had a slip in his judgement, felt a nice thrill low in his belly and followed it the way good men sometimes do. He understands it, now that there are not people shouting and dust is not getting kicked all over his nice pair of trousers.
It scares him that he understands the difference between their slips in judgements, too. Maybe he's angry at Hosea for being able to maintain some level of control, as odd of a word it sounds to describe it.
He plugs the bathtub Hosea has seated himself beside, draws a pool of water to wet the already stained neckercheif around his partner's throat. Untying it is done carefully. Seeking out his eyes is too difficult, for now.
Guilt is beginning to nip at Dutch.
Why must he turn all his pent up self-loathing on the first person to irritate him? It is so outward facing that it almost twists itself around into be self-mutilative again.
It's times like these where he can feel himself barreling towards something— something big and deep and lonely.
He feels the collision oncoming every time he finds himself drunk as a fish and clinging to his lover or else, he may do what he did tonight without the ability to stop. It's worse when he finds himself begging Hosea to take him as hard and painfully as possible, to gut him and climb inside and do it all in front of as many as they can so that they should surely be shot for being filth; or when he finds himself shouting at his horse because she will not run fast enough, so frustrated he wants to throw his hat into the river and see where the first town it floats to is, hoping maybe fate can show him peace once he's walked there.
All of this misery for so little.
Dutch realizes he has been strung tighter than a bowstring, and for who knows how long; this simply snapped at the thread without breaking it, and his skin is starting to eat at itself.
Hosea speaks, nearly jumping him from his skull. "Dutch?" His voice is airy with the abused rasp in it.
"Yes?" He responds, knee-jerk, sounding nearly as bad. He only comes back to the present halfway through the word.
Fingers, no doubt stained and dirty, smooth over his hair. "I can hear you thinking," he says, gently. Lighter, playfully: "Is it about how much you hate me?"
He should be caring for Hosea, regardless of the context; why is he being gentle when Dutch has selfishly gotten lost in his own head?
He scoffs. "No. I'd think about it out loud if I hated you."
He swishes the neckerchief around in the hot water to cleanse it some, wringing it between his hands and finding some humor in how small it looks between his fists.
"Oh," Hosea chuffs, strokes over his hair again. "How sweet an enemy you'd make."
"Quiet," Dutch says, but it is weak. "Let me wash you up."
Raising from his kneel before the man, he wraps the wet fabric around his index finger and begins to rub at the dried tracks of blood along his face and neck. Hosea's eyes flutter shut quickly, and when Dutch lays his free hand on his shoulder it is grabbed, moved, and pressed between two hot palms. It is then that he notices some of his knuckles are split open and seeping blood.
"You really got yourself beat up," he says. The tone is somewhere between his prior scolding and a loving coo, as if he is apologizing to a dog he caught eating a carcass off the shoulder of a road. Sorry for screaming at you, Lassy, but that will make you sick. I still love you.
He feels a little better if he pretends it is the tone he's meant to use all night.
"It don't hurt," Hosea says, but he hisses when Dutch gingerly pats at his scalp. "Skin deep, that's all these are."
Not wanting to lose his touch, Dutch squints and tries singlehandedly to move strands of crusted hair away from where his scalp wound has coagulated. It is small, much smaller than the amount of blood would have suggested. Every movement must tug on the sensitive flesh, though, and Hosea grunts with each tender wipe of the neckerchief.
Abandoning it, leaning over to wet the fabric again, he tuts at him. Hosea frowns.
He seems so young. Tears are gathering in his eyes from the irritation of his injured skin, reddening the whites of them with branchlike paths of pink.
Is this how Hosea always feels, coddling him?
Is this how he looks, too?
"You did this to yourself," Dutch reminds — mostly reminds himself — as he presses the rag uncomfortably close to the inside of his nose. Both nostrils flare at his touch.
He tries not to re-rupture the vessels that had originally sprung the leak. Hosea handles this easier than his head scrape, and Dutch rests easy knowing the bones in his nose must be intact. If he ever has to fix another broken nose with some redneck set-up, he'll be livid.
Neverminding that the other three times, it was his own nose.
"You don't care," Hosea says, speaks tightly to avoid moving his face unhelpfully. His wet eyes have an odd twinkle in them. "I could cut my own arm off and you'd still tie the tourniquet."
Dutch swallows. He's right, and he damn well knows it.
"You're startin' to sound raving mad," he chides. Hosea only chuckles. "Laughin" ain't helpin' your sanity's looks right now, man."
He laughs outright, then, and Dutch hovers in front of him, bemused, until it has passed. He tends to a cut on his cheek, then one on his forehead, and when Hosea grumbles that he'll smack him if he touches one more cut with that damn rag, he busies himself again with washing what he can of the stains from his skin.
It is still flushed with the thrills, his eyelids hanging heavy and his nose red all over with the swell of tears in his eyes. He looks as he always does in the rest of his features, but Dutch finds himself taken with the slight changes; his lashes, so blond and thin, seem darker and thicker around his eyes now that they've gathered some moisture.
"You still love me, don't you?" Hosea asks quietly, when it's clear that Dutch is searching his face for something.
He smiles. "Unfortunately, for me."
Hosea releases his hand to flatten his palms on Dutch's cheeks, fingers curling idly as he presses his mouth to his. The kiss is kind, and then it isn't — his pulse must still be drumming, some, and he bites at Dutch's lips, catches the lower one between his front teeth and tugs with poor restraint on how rough he would like to be.
It lights Dutch's insides a-fire. He wants to crawl out of his skin.
"Darlin'," he murmurs into his mouth, kissing sloppy and catching more of his stubbled upper lip than what he wants. "You think you're good enough to head to bed, now?"
"Reckon so," Hosea whispers. His own kiss misses and lands on a smile line instead.
The fire is still going in their room when they ease into it as silently as they can, or maybe some maid had lit it for them while they were gone. Dutch isn't sure and doesn't care as long as the place isn't burnt to the ground — although the floor seems unstable in the first moments Hosea is kissing him behind the fresh-locked door of their boarding, hands heated on his neck and pulling him downwards slightly.
"I need this," Hosea is saying, his voice stuffy, and Dutch is saying it, too, and neither knows who said it first. And Hosea's face is burning hot, blood pooled to the surface in so many places, for so many reasons, and his eyes are glossy again.
He does look alive.
Maybe Hosea feels this terribleness, too.
Dutch gives in to what he is thinking, presses two kisses over each of his eyelids so he must close them and rejoices when it pushes out another tear. He kisses along the cup of his cheek and down to his jaw.
Hands on his narrow hips, he guides Hosea to turn around and then to follow as he steps back to the bed, nearly trips over where they had lain their bedrolls earlier in the day. Careless, that was; what if one of their own kind had swung into the hotel and taken them for all they had?
But they hadn't and like the fire, Dutch doesn't care about what hasn't happened yet.
Not now.
When he sits and pulls Hosea into his lap, the man groans. "Not so fast," he says, the lustor falling out of his voice in favor of pain. "M'head is killin' me."
Dutch kisses his temple. "Poor fool," he dotes. Hosea huffs; despite who initiated the intimacy, he hesitates before he says: "I know a way to take your mind off the hurt, Old Girl."
Words like if you want and only if you're feeling like it don't exist often in his vocabulary — but Hosea could read his expressions blindfolded, understands that it's an offer which can be refused with no bad blood. A smudge of it is still on his cheek, and Dutch licks his thumb to rub at it. Hosea squints an eye in a half-wince, the motion pulling at the scrapes along his face.
"Think I oughtta use some of that," he says, nudging Dutch further onto the bed.
Behind where they lean, a window rests, their bodies blocking out a shadow on the floor amidst the moonlight that filters through the glass. Perhaps too tenderly for the way Hosea is sucking on his tongue and trying to catch his top teeth in his bottom ones, Dutch turns the man onto his back with strong hands splayed behind his shoulder blades. Their shadows sink into invisibility on the floorboards.
His fingers are slow unbuttoning his stained shirt, mouth warming his throat and brusing the skin when he reaches below the point a neckerchief will hide. They bloom well along his pallor, beginning to shift from red to purple by the time he has moved on to suckling the next in, breath heavy where it falls around the colorings.
Hosea's jaw bumps the top of his head, his fingers carding through his hair and nails scratching so very nicely at his scalp; so gentle for a man who had, not two hours before, been attempting to evict someone's consciousness from his body, even for just a moment.
Dutch dislikes that the image doesn't make him recoil. He dislikes that his sense of honor has no room to siddle up besides their love.
No, he's thoroughly and utterly condemned to the man's affection. Hosea could kill in cold blood and all he would see was a man that is capable of doing what he pleases, taking what he wants; a man whose hands look thick and sturdy around the trigger, a man with nice strong fingers and biceps that press against his sleeves so well when he fires that killing shot with practiced ease.
He has often studied how he slices open game, peels the flesh off.
Dutch worries he is strange in his loving.
He opens his shirt and tugs away what's left of the neat tuck he always does into his pants, splays it open and takes his fill of running his hands along his torso before sliding it down his arms. Hosea lifts to let him peel it off, grunting with the effort of lifting himself with his core.
"My back," he explains, when Dutch raises to give him a questioning look. He sighs, then, closes his eyes and his smiling mouth falls some as he raises a hand to push his hair back. "Lord, I'll be stiff as a board in the morning."
"And I'll work you soft again," Dutch says, never missing an opportunity to insinuate.
Hosea flushes some, he thinks, can't really tell through the webs of sunburn and tan and bloodstain and irritation all over his skin; he kisses him anyways, works at the buckle of his belt as he does.
As if to preview tomorrow's start, he loosens the waistband of Hosea's pants and digs his thumbs into his hips and his fingertips into his ass, rubbing. He groans and shifts beneath him, digs his nails into the base of his skull and drags them down his nape — Dutch sighs shakily, nosing into his jaw, placing a kiss over his larnyx.
The pleasant little sparks of the attention get harder to ignore as Hosea keeps doing it, having found his favorite sweet-spot of the evening; once a low moan has fallen out of his mouth, Dutch shoves the man's pants down his legs and moves out of his grasp.
Like always, Hosea follows anyways. He thinks they'll follow each other until they're old and sour, and then they'll follow each other through the thickets of Hell.
A pillow is pulled down to support Hosea's midback. He rests on an elbow, threads his fingers through Dutch's hair again as he mouths wetly along where his pelvis folds into his leg, sucks a mark into the soft flesh of his upper, inner thigh. He hears a breath as shakey as his own had sounded, and gives Hosea another loving bruise.
Glancing up, he can see his collarbone is decorated nicely with them. He pulls himself away, swallows at the twitch of Hosea's bare cock as stray strands of his hair brush along where it lays heavy against his stomach.
"I really shouldn't you reward you like this," Dutch says. No commitment lays in the words.
Hosea looks like he tries to hide the grin that pops on his face. "Hardly a reward, Dutch," he assures, pats his head and says his name like its a term of endearment of its own. "You've got clothes on yet."
He doesn't make a move to disrobe, only snickers and kisses a path to his middle. He does want to take his mind off his aches, thinks in its own way that sex can be healing; he draws his tongue up his cock and delights in the hefty sigh, the shift of the bed as Hosea relaxes back into it. Taking the head in his mouth, he suckles at it lazily until he twitches — it doesn't take long, his sorry man probably too tired and hurt to stave off his natural, jumpier reactions.
Dutch continues unaccordingly, draws his tongue along his frenulum. He steadies him with his fingertips to trace his veins with his tongue and — carefully — teeth. Hosea's right knee bends and then he raises again, a hand gripping Dutch's hair and loosening it entirely from its styling once and for all.
The sensation of him ruffling it out of place is so familiar, he doesn't notice until he takes him back into his mouth and raises his gaze to Hosea's, only to find coiled curls being swept out of his eyes.
He growls about it, hardly means any harm; Hosea pants, the corner of his mouth lifting as he says to do it again. Dutch groans around him, low and longer than any real sound would be, especially staring up at him and feeling this vulnerable. It garners a genuine one from Hosea.
He looks lovely, all battered and still hot as coals, eyes burning holes into him and leaving fiery tracks over his shoulder to where his back curves up and his knees bend to keep himself on the short bed. He's staring right at his ass, Dutch is sure, and he closes his eyes to let him enjoy the view in peace.
It feels good to lusted after, really, and he doesn't want to know when he looks away.
When fingers trace down his head and nails trace over that patch of sensitivity at his nape, Dutch pushes further down his cock and sucks. It might be cruel, if there were any way to make a simple man like Hosea dislike getting blown.
If only.
It might have saved his jaw a few times. It's already starting to ache over the stretch, lungs complaining alongside it as he focuses on pulling his skin further into his mouth instead of panting through his nose. A groan provokes him to fall apart entirely, as Hosea scratches at his scalp and starts to run his nails along his shoulder blades and neck, pushing in rough so he might feel them through his shirt.
Oh, he does feel them.
Gates open, or maybe his tongue just loosens, and any kind of grace he may have maintained is gone; the sounds of his near-choking are lurid, his ears going pink with the wet noises that come with every re-adjustment of his mouth and the salvia that clings to his lip when he draws away to catch a needed breath.
At least Hosea looks like he hasn't seen pain a day in his life, not now. He looks very pleased, indeed, and very full of want; the skin of Dutch's chest is not safe from the flush that creeps over him, having glanced up at his face and finding himself unable to tear his eyes away from that sharp, clear desire in Hosea's. He feels wanted, feels like he has been wanted.
Hosea has that power, the kind that makes it seem like he's felt his present emotions for all of eternity and will feel them forever more: love, anger, sorrow, everything.
Dutch shuts his eyes to escape the enormity of it, busies himself with the simple task of taking Hosea into his mouth inch by inch so that his nose might press into the light blond hair at his base.
And it does, relatively fast, because Hosea works his fingers into his scalp in a massage too gentle for the moment. It takes a level of clarity that he himself is losing despite being the giver of the pleasure, and it is almost maddening to think that Hosea can look at him like his mind is completely empty of anything but sensation— yet be capable of such fine motor skills, too.
He can barely contain himself. His hips twitch forward and he wants nothing more than Hosea, no matter what it means. If it's his fingers pressing hard into the spot he likes the most or his arms holding him, sweet and secure, as their hips roll together; his cheeks hollow and he fights the urge to gag that rises when Hosea's cock rubs the roof of his mouth wrong.
Grazing his fingers along his balls and taint, Dutch experiments with massaging where he knows a thumb has been appreciated before, with his fingers inside of him; Hosea writhes, so lively, completely uncontrolled for the seconds the sensation is novel. Dutch works himself harder, feels his middle begin to ache with need as Hosea pleads please, Dutch, that's s'good, you're s'good.
He says his name like it's worship.
"Please, Dutch," he pants. Like a prayer.
Hosea falls to the bed again, ungracefully this time, his hips stuttering. Dutch draws back to suckling on his cockhead, splaying his hands on his stomach, idly smoothing down and then up his thighs as he comes, the muscles twitching beneath his touch. His hips roll up, greedy, and then relax, leaving the incessant movement to his middle instead. Dutch can't help a groan around him, swallowing thickly; Hosea grunts, oversensitive.
He doesn't realize he finished until he lets Hosea fall from his mouth, wiping his lips with the back of his hand and remembering he has a body of his own. He doesn't know when he did it, either, just feels his teeth buzzing and thinks maybe it was so damn nice he just blacked out and came back too — but that's a little dramatic for not even being touched, and he decides he does not care enough to work his foggy mind that hard.
He feels himself hurtling, again, and swallows the dread.
Sheepishness only finds him when he leans back on his haunches to gets his pants off, Hosea's brows raising at the softness between his thighs.
"I already..." he trails off, flushing.
His face is blank, and then cracks into a toothy smile. "You're a lovesick fool," he taunts, pushes his foot into his hip and Dutch catches it to finally remove his boots and socks and tug his pants all the way off of his legs.
"And you're a run-a-the-mill one," he grumbles, working at his vest buttons with perhaps more aggression than is necessary.
A night of sleep seems to have set Hosea straight again. He stirs when Dutch presses kisses to his knuckles, wincing even before his eyes flutter open; he groans when he sucks at the pulse in his wrist, waking the rest of the way.
"Le'me sleep, damnit," he grumbles, but it is gravelly only for being half-awake.
Dutch smiles into his skin, his own eyes heavy with fatigue.
He hardly slept, himself; he couldn't force his body into it, had spent most of the night pacing around the hotel room and wondering what could possibly drain the last barrel of energy inside him. Hosea had slept through it all. He was careful to be silent in his restlessness.
"No can do," he says, hauls his half-clothed body the inches to where Hosea lays naked on his side and wraps an arm around his waist. "Are you sore?"
"'M fine," he grunts, but he curls into himself when Dutch lays a hand on his bare hip.
When he is— normal, Dutch supposes, Hosea refuses to admit to being in pain. It's only moments of excruciation where he will say my joints are aching today or, God forbid, ask Dutch to rub his shoulders.
He's learned how to tell when Hosea holds them wrong, just to skip over those inhibitions. He isn't sure where they come from, if they are like his own that make him feel weak for desiring cloth comfort for life's scars; but he would kiss where his shadow fell if Hosea said it would bring him a minute of peace.
He knows, or perhaps just hopes, Hosea feels the same. The inhibition, of course, keeps him from worshipping quite that intensely without provocation.
Dutch thinks inhibition could kill a man, the way it draws his body tight and threatens to stretch it apart.
His lover's face twists when Dutch presses his fingertips into the skin stretched over his hipbone, works his way from there to the middle of his lower back. He murmurs that he's doing good, and Hosea's neck flushes pink, easy the way tiredness always makes him flush. Dutch tests it more with a whisper of how handsome he is, knows he is laying the sweetness on somewhat thick but doesn't care.
Freckles dot his behind, borne of sunlight on bath days taken in streams. Dutch kisses a brown dot on his shoulder rather than moving all that way.
Admittedly, his hand dances and the first real response Hosea gives is a knock it off when Dutch takes a handful of his ass and squeezes lightly. The words are fond, and he runs his palm down the back of his thigh to caress his bruised knee.
Hosea shivers at the touch, but says nothing.
As Dutch gives a real effort to rubbing his back, manages to break through some of the tension — Hosea groans, low and soft, and curls into himself to spread the muscles open further for his touch.
Shivering when Dutch is done, smoothing his splayed hands over the expanse of his back and rubbing along his spine; doing nothing but touching for the sake of feeling his skin on his. He brings him close again and notices his half-sitrred cock, mouths at the crook of his neck and delights in how Hosea stretches along his body.
"Told you I'd rub you soft again," he speaks into his ear.
"I wouldn't say I'm soft," Hosea says, and Dutch leans further over him to catch the grin at his lips.
He snickers, presses his face into his hair. "Insatiable is what I'd call you, then," he says.