Author's Note: Mein Gott, was this chapter ever stubborn! It took me a week to get past the first 300 words because they just would. Not. But I'm so, so happy with how it turned out, and hopefully it was worth the wait. Hosea always makes me into a big sap (mostly because he's a big sap too.)

To help keep track of ages here: Hosea is 41, Dutch is 30, Arthur is 22, and John is 12.

I hope you enjoy!

Day 11 Prompt: Going Ice Skating

Big Sioux River, Sioux Falls, SD - December 11, 1885

Arthur stared dubiously at the pair of skates Hosea held out to him, hesitating to touch them as if they were some kind of dangerous, sleeping creature just waiting to wake up and bite him.

"So, lemme get this straight. You expect me to put on some kind of crazy shoes with metal blades on the bottom, and not only stand up on them, but slide all around in the middle of a frozen pond and not fall?" He scoffed, giving Hosea a look like he thought he might have actually gone insane. "And that's fun, somehow?"

"Oh, come now, Arthur, don't be such a stick in the mud," Hosea fondly chided him. "Ice skating is a great way to spend an afternoon like this. Bessie and I do it all the time, on that little pond out back of the house." The thought of dear Bessie warmed his heart, and he absent-mindedly twirled his simple gold wedding band around his ring finger. He hadn't seen her in a few weeks now, and he missed her terribly. While he knew she understood what kind of man he was and never held his long absences against him, in that moment he also privately resolved to take a trip home and visit her sometime before the new year came around. "But you won't have any fun at all if you've already made up your mind not to."

Arthur sighed, but allowed a small smile to pull up the corners of his lips as he took the skates from Hosea's hands. "Alright, if you say so. Just don't blame me when Marston falls over those gangly doe-legs of his and breaks somethin'."

At the mention of John, Hosea turned to look over his shoulder and check on the other two members of their ragtag little group. A few yards behind them, on the porch steps of the cabin where they were making their home for at least the next few weeks, Dutch was doing his best to assist the aforementioned young man with putting on his own pair of skates. From the looks of things, it was going about as well as getting John into any type of new clothing usually did. The scrappy young boy had been with them about six months now, and he was becoming less wild and more trusting every day, but some things - namely, his willingness to acquiesce to the accepted societal standards of dress and hygiene - still left a lot to be desired.

"Ow, Dutch, they're too tight!" John groused, his voice just this side of whining.

"I promise you, son, they're not," Dutch gritted out as John jerked his foot back and undid his work tightening a few of the laces yet again. The man's jaw was clenched a little too hard for the way he bared his teeth to be called a smile. "If they aren't laced up snug, they'll wobble around and you won't be able to stand up and balance."

"But if I lose all the feeling in my feet I won't be able to stand up neither!"

Hosea could practically see the vein beginning to throb in Dutch's forehead, and he sighed and shared a knowing look with Arthur before getting to his feet. "I'd better go assist the pair of them, before this gets ugly. Finish lacing those up - good and tight, remember - and we'll get started in a minute."

When he reached Dutch and John, he exchanged a silent look with the raven-haired man, pointing his chin back toward Arthur and getting a grateful smile from Dutch in response.

"Alright, John, let's see what we can do here," Hosea said once Dutch was out of earshot. "And don't you try and tell me they're too tight, either. I've been puttin' these things on longer than you've been alive, I know how to fit 'em."

John huffed but didn't argue, the hot-blooded boy never as willing to butt heads with Hosea as he was with the equally hot-blooded Dutch. The two of them really did make an interesting pair - although a pair of what, Hosea wasn't quite sure.

"There, now," he said once he'd gotten John's skates secured and double-checked to make sure they wouldn't twist around on his feet. "You've got your skates on. Ready to try 'em out on the ice?"

John hesitated, his brows pinching together as he looked nervously out at the smooth surface of the pond. "Are... are you sure it'll hold us?" he asked, so soft it was nearly a whisper. "I ain't wanna fall in."

"It will, John. I promise," Hosea chuckled, knowing full-well how terrified the boy was of deep water. "That pond is so shallow, it's probably frozen all the way down to the bottom by now. Come on," he said, standing and offering John his hand. "Hang onto me while we walk over there. Trying to walk over the ground on the blades can be tricky, you don't wanna -"

"Shit!" they heard Arthur yelp, turning just in time to see him fall face-down in the snow with a soft flomp.

" - do that..." Hosea finished, shaking his head as Dutch hauled their oldest back to his feet and linked their arms together before guiding him toward the pond the same way Hosea was doing with John. Arthur, for once, looked nervous and unsteady on his feet as he clung a little closer to Dutch, a fact which John clearly also noticed and immediately took delight in.

"The hell was that, Arthur?" John shouted, laughing gleefully as his big brother's cheeks reddened slightly. "Thought you were supposed to be better at this than - awk!"

Hosea released John's hand and watched as he fell into the snow like a sack of potatoes, pinning the young boy with a hard stare while he helped him back up.

"Hey, you let go!" John said, offended.

"I sure did. And I'll do it again if you don't cut that out," Hosea said sternly. "Arthur's never done this before, either, and he's gonna be learnin' same as you. I won't have the two of you out here bickerin' with one another all day long while we're supposed to be havin' fun. Is that clear?" When John nodded reluctantly, he turned to look over at his eldest again, knowing he'd heard every word. "Arthur? We clear on that?"

"Crystal," Arthur answered, keeping his eyes focused forward and his steps careful as he and Dutch neared the edge of the pond.

Dutch, wisely, stayed out of it, content to let Hosea keep their two unruly children in line for the moment.

"Alright, then," Hosea said, satisfied. He and John reached the spot where Arthur and Dutch were waiting, and Dutch gestured for John to sit down beside Arthur on the ground, right where the snow turned into ice.

"Both of you watch Hosea and me for a moment, and see what it looks like," Dutch said, as both of them glided out to the center of the pond. "We aren't figure skaters, by any means, but we know enough to teach you boys a thing or two."

"You sure you still remember how to do this?" Hosea teased him under his breath as they joined hands and began making a few slow, easy circles around the perimeter to warm up. "It's been, what... two years since the two of us skated together?"

"I think that's about right," Dutch answered, not missing a beat as the two of them reversed direction and made a wide circle backwards, matching each other stride for stride. "It was just before your wedding, wasn't it? We all went together, me and Annabelle, and you and Bessie." His expression saddened slightly for an instant, the way it always did at the mention of Annabelle, but he continued on quickly. "Arthur was on his first date with Mary, if I remember correctly."

"Yes, I think so." Hosea squeezed Dutch's hand twice, a signal he knew the younger man would recognize after nearly a decade spent doing this together from time to time. Dutch did, and they separated as they came around the curve again, both using their momentum to leap up into the air and spin in a quick waltz jump before landing on the right foot, left legs raised up behind them and arms extended out for balance so they looked a little like two birds in flight.

"Whoooooa!" they heard John exclaim from behind them, and Hosea turned to look at Dutch, smiling slyly.

"Think you're up to showing off a bit?"

Dutch winked and returned the smile with a grin of his own. "I thought you'd never ask, Old Girl."

They took another couple of laps around the pond, making a few more easy jumps and lazy figure-eights, and then Dutch let go of his hand before turning himself around backwards to grab it again, leaving them facing one another as they spun in a circle around their outstretched arms. Hosea propelled himself forward faster and faster, until they were no longer face-to-face and he was instead almost pulling Dutch along behind him. He lifted his left leg up and bent it at the knee, still twirling around in a tight circle as he balanced on one foot. Dutch's arm came up to wrap around his waist and pulled them nearly flush against each other, the closeness allowing him to be brought into the spin in perfect alignment with Hosea.

They swirled around in place like that for a few seconds, then separated just enough to reverse direction. Dutch gripped his hand tight and pulled upward, using their shared momentum and the arm around Hosea's waist to lift him a few feet into the air, and then tossed him with a flourish just before the blades of his skates touched down again. Hosea slid backwards on his right foot, his left leg raised to the height of his waist and his arms extended, and the effect made him appear to take a slow-motion bow as he glided backward away from Dutch's outstretched arm.

When they finally turned around to look again, both Arthur and John were staring at them in absolute awe from their seats in the snow, mouths agape as they enthusiastically applauded their adoptive fathers. Arthur even tried to raise his fingers to his lips to whistle at them, although seeing as he'd forgotten he still had his thick woolen gloves on, it didn't actually work. But Hosea appreciated the sentiment anyway.

"Phew! Alright then," he said, taking a deep, theatrical bow and breathing a little harder as the pair of them made their way back over to the boys. "Now you see what a few good winters of practice can do for you, eh?"

"Hosea, you don't... you don't really think we could do any of that?" John asked, incredulous.

"Sure I do! If I could teach Dutch 'Two-Left-Feet' Van der Linde to do it, anyone can!"

"Hey!" Dutch huffed.

"It's the truth, and you know it."

"Yes, I know, but you didn't have to tell them that."

Hosea ignored him, helping John to his feet as Dutch did the same with Arthur. "Alright, hang onto us for the first little while, until you've got your balance. Go nice and easy at first, and just take it slow. Feet shoulder-width apart, and bend your knees..."

They stayed out on the pond until almost suppertime, the afternoon full of lessons and successes as well as plenty of falls and laughter. Both young men did better than Hosea had expected, Arthur in particular. By the time the sun was nearing the horizon and the clouds were burning bright in shades of orange and salmon, the young man was comfortably sliding around in increasingly complicated patterns, the most recent having been a slow backwards figure-eight. He still periodically got a little overconfident, taking his turns too fast or trying to show off in front of John. This inevitably either landed him on his ass or sent him spinning spread-eagled across the ice until he looked like some kind of bizarre cowboy-garbed starfish. Arthur took all the bumps and bruises in stride, though, and every successful new trick left him grinning like a fool, bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked like they hadn't seen him in months.

John, for his part, wasn't quite as adventurous. He was still a little skittish about being out on the pond, despite Hosea's repeated assurances that the ice was so thick a full team of horses couldn't have fallen through it, let alone one bean-pole of a twelve-year-old. Still, he did eventually get the basics down, able to follow along behind Dutch and Hosea and make wide, cautious circles around them as they leapt and twirled and raced one another (and took a few good tumbles of their own). He chased Arthur, too, the pair of them playing a form of tag that Arthur - although he would never admit it - let John win more than half the time.

Much to both men's surprise, Arthur even allowed John to hang onto the back of his belt while he raced them both around, his grudging-but-growing fondness for his adoptive brother on full display as he helped him overcome some of his fear. Even when they inevitably lost control and crashed into a snowbank, landing in a pile of tangled limbs in the snow around the pond, Arthur's first priority was John. He was quick to make sure the boy was alright, and then as soon as he did so he hoisted John back upright onto his gangly legs before the two of them began the game all over again.

By the time Susan called out to them from the back door to tell them supper was ready (sounding much too chipper about not having seen any of them all day), all of them were tuckered out. Hosea and Dutch leaned on one another as they limped back up the path to the cabin, their sore feet and ankles protesting the long afternoon of abuse. John had flopped onto the ice on his back ten minutes ago and refused to get up, telling them he was fine staying there until morning and they should just leave him where he was. Arthur didn't bother fighting with him, simply grabbing the scrappy boy by one skate and dragging him along behind him by the leg until they were off the ice. Then he hefted him over one shoulder like a sack of flour, shaking his head when John just sighed and relaxed into it, going limp like he was doing his best impression of a dead animal.

"Yeah, sure, don't help out or nothin'. Guess I'll just carry your lazy ass all the way home," Arthur grumbled, although there was no heat behind it.

"Mmkay..." John mumbled, barely listening.

Hosea chuckled at the pair of them, sharing a look of fond exasperation with Dutch as they made their way up the steps. He couldn't have asked for a better day with his boys - both the ones he called his sons and the big, overgrown child of a man he was blessed to call his best friend. A mismatched bunch of degenerates they might be, but they were a family, and he loved the lot of them with all his fool heart.

As they sat around the table, Arthur shaking John into wakefulness long enough to eat his dinner while they regaled Susan with tales from their day of adventure, Hosea just grinned like a fool, his heart so full of warmth he thought it might burst.

He couldn't wait to tell Bessie all about it.

Notes: (And then Arthur secretly kept practicing every day so he could show off for Mary next time he saw her.)

Next chapter we'll be coming back to the present, this time to visit Kieran and Mary-Beth Duffy and their lovely new family. The prompt for Day 12 is "Tucking Them In." See you then! :D

(Comments and suggestions are always welcome!)