"[S]he made haste to light the whole bundle of matches."
~The Little Match Girl, Hans Christian Andersen

"Arthur!"

"Arthur, son, can you hear me?"

Slowly, Arthur blinked. Everything hurt, and he could hardly breathe. Something was pushing down on his chest, and he gasped, trying to draw a breath and finding himself wanting.

"Arthur, where are you!"

'Hosea,' he tried to say, but all that came out was blood, throat burning as he coughed and gurgled, squinting, dust burning his eyes. The moon shone bright overhead, stars twinkling, and it took him a moment to make out a lantern gleaming, flame flickering against Hosea, the man standing tall as he peered into the hole.

"Arthur, come on son! Throw me a bone here!" the debris shifted as Hosea moved to clamber down, twisting and picking his foot- and hand-holds carefully.

And Arthur focused, reached deep down inside of himself, strained and strained, felt blood burble up in his throat as he finally managed to call out in little more than a gurgling rasp, "Hosea,"

but it was enough, the lantern swinging around, light making him squint as it burned his eyes. When he opened them again, Hosea was standing over him, youthful face soft with a relieved grin, "Oh son, I was starting to think I'd never see you again."

He offered his hand, and although it hurt, stabbing pains racing through him down to his bones, let Hosea pull him to his feet, throwing his arm over his shoulders and taking most of his weight. "Careful," he wheezed, trying for a chuckle that was more a burst of air, "don't wantya breakin' yer back."

Hosea didn't look up at him, giving him an eyeful of his bright blond hair as he looked at their feet, carefully picking their way through the mess, "Ain't gotta worry about that, son. You've lost weight." he tsked, shaking his head, and then they were silent as they climbed out of the basement, Hosea adjusting each time Arthur listed, the world dancing around him.

The older man led him over to his horse, Penny standing tall and grazing as he had to be helped into the saddle, clenching his eyes shut when he left the ground, bile rising in his throat. He shivered, even as Hosea mounted up behind him, holding him tight to his chest as he spurred the mare into motion, kicking her down the path towards a camp he'd set up nearby.

Arthur was asleep by the time they'd turned onto the main road.

He woke up when Hosea pulled Penny to a stop, the campfire already burning bright. Hosea apologized for waking him, helping him out of the saddle and apologizing again when he cried out in pain as bone shifted against bone, walking him over to a sleeping bag and helping him to sit down. Arthur reclined back, closing his eyes, feeling as though he were forgetting something as he listened to Hosea putter around the camp, gathering things, only opening them again when something warm blew against his face.

"Hey Bou," he wheezed a chuckle, reaching up to stroke her painted face. The mare snorted, and shoved her nose against his face, before moving down to nose at his pockets, looking for treats. Hosea had to push her away to get her to stop so he could have a look at Arthur's wounds.

And, yeah, that hurt. Arthur barely managed to stay quiet as Hosea stitched up his gashes and cuts, not wanting to think about where they'd come from—falling rocks and wood and bones, probably—wrapping tight his broken bones. He needed a doctor, but there wasn't a town nearby and it wasn't safe to ride so late besides. So he gave Arthur some pain medicine to drink, kneeling down by the campfire as the medicine put his boy to sleep.

He frowned, staring at Hosea.

Something… something wasn't right.

The firelight ghosted against Hosea's face, casting his side profile into shadow.

For some reason, Arthur found he couldn't look away. Hosea's eyes… had they always been so brown? And since when had he looked so young?

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he shivered, moving to climb to his feet and regretting it when everything hurt. Hell, right, there'd been a reason he was laying down.

"Arthur?" the older man asked, and Arthur's gaze looked on his, and he found he couldn't look away.

"I've given you enough chances…"

The bang of a gun.

A strangled cry of pain.

A body hitting the ground.

"You're dead." he said, suddenly, realization dawning in equal parts with horror in his chest, seeing the man thrashing on Saint Denis' cobblestones, blood pooling around him in those endless brown eyes, and Hosea aged before him, no longer half so young, now as old as he'd been when he watched him die.

"I am," he sighed, reaching out to run his fingers through Arthur's hair, and the world trickled away in raindrops of black; and then, as though from far, far away, he only barely heard, "and so are you." as he fell away.

A lantern shone through the cracks of a collapsed basement, ghosting over bones hidden among rocks, only that strange texture just they could have setting them apart. "Hello?" the sheriff called, frowning from where he sat on his horse, leaning forward. That cowboy that had warned him of the serial killer had directed him here, and though he was late he had seen a horse tied down not far away. So he feared there had been someone inside the basement when it had collapsed (though if it were the killer, it wouldn't be much of a loss, if you asked him).

He swung down from his saddle, approaching the basement as close as he dared, fearing that more would crumple and bring him down with it. "Is anyone down there?"

The sheriff brought the lantern around again, casting an eerie light on the mess, and there was no denying this was ('well,' he thought sardonically, 'had been' ) a serial killer's lair, even with everything scattered by fallen, rotted wood. Bloodied and faded bone gleamed in the dark, and he flinched when a skull grinned ghoulishly from where it had landed atop a pile of debris.

Still, though, nothing could have prepared him to see the bloodless face of the cowboy sticking out from beneath one of the fallen pillars.