The sound of horses returning from the robbery had already blended into laughter before they even reached the entrance to camp. The job had gone even better than expected, and not a single person had taken a bullet. In the Van der Linde gang, there couldn't have been a better reason to celebrate. Pearson was already standing over the stew pot, the smell of slow-cooked meat spreading through the camp. Javier had already picked up his guitar. Sean, meanwhile, hadn't even finished his second bottle before he started claiming the robbery had been successful almost entirely because of him.

Laughter drifted through the damp night air of Shady Belle as whiskey bottles passed from hand to hand.

Arthur came back a little later than the others. He had taken his horse down to the river to wash the blood and mud from its coat. After the day he'd had, all he wanted was a few moments of peace. More accurately, he wanted to share that peace with you. To lean his shoulder against yours, take a few swigs from the same whiskey bottle, and catch you smiling at him every now and then, even while you talked with everyone else... After a day like this, that would've been enough.

It didn't take him long to find you in the crowd. You were throwing your head back in laughter at one of Sean's ridiculous stories. The orange glow of the fire danced across your face, slipping through your hair and lighting your cheeks. Arthur smiled without meaning to. Before he even realized it, his feet were already carrying him toward you.

As though that had been where he was supposed to sit all along, he settled down beside you. His shoulder brushed lightly against yours.

The conversation carried on with as much energy as ever. Lenny tossed in a remark, and Tilly laughed as she called Sean a liar. While Sean was still telling his story, Arthur finally managed to get a word in.

"Hell, half o' that ain't even true."

Sean protested immediately, and with a laugh, you took his side. Sean let out a triumphant laugh while Arthur only exhaled quietly through his nose. The faint smile at the corner of his lips disappeared just as quickly as it had come.

Every now and then, he looked over at you. Maybe you'd turn to him and say something. Maybe you'd give his knee a light tap and say, "Well? Your turn." Maybe you'd simply meet his eyes. But you didn't.

At one point, your whiskey bottle ran dry, so Arthur silently held his own out to you. You took it and had a sip, but at that same moment something in the conversation made you laugh, and you never even got the chance to thank him.

Eventually, he gave up. He tapped the whiskey bottle lightly against his knee before getting to his feet. Without saying a word, he slipped away from the fire, climbed the creaking staircase of the old manor, and disappeared into the room the two of you shared. The laughter and music downstairs slowly faded behind him.

By the time the celebration finally began to die down around midnight, you made your way through the dim, aging halls of Shady Belle. The old mansion had settled into its usual silence, interrupted only by the distant murmur of voices still lingering outside and the steady chorus of crickets beyond the broken windows.

When you reached your room, the door stood slightly ajar. Then you noticed the balcony door standing open. Stepping outside, you found him there. The first few buttons of his shirt had been undone and carelessly left that way, as though he'd loosened them the moment he'd come upstairs.

He stood with one hand resting against the weathered railing, a cigarette balanced between two fingers of the other. The ember glowed softly each time he took a drag before fading again into the warm Lemoyne night. Beyond the trees, the moon reflected across the dark water surrounding the estate, while the muffled laughter from below barely reached this far.

At the sound of the balcony door, he glanced over his shoulder. Your eyes met.

He held your gaze for a second before looking back out across the swamp. "…Am I really that damn borin'?"