#I am down with ditzy himbo john marston

[cortibah]

 Have tiny, hilarious fic.

Inconveniences of Shared Living

Warnings: none

Nobody was quite sure when or how it became standard practice that, should one want some alone time with someone, John’s tent was the place for it.

Nobody was sure when it started, but John Marston knew it would end now. If it wasn’t dealing with far too many and concerning smells, it was the (frankly horrifying) wet patches, or it was the clothes left behind. (He had long since made it clear that any clothing left behind was his by default, but so far all he’d gotten from that was some mismatched socks.)

But the last straw? That was all the times when he had just gotten comfortable and was right about to drift off, and then at least two people (sometimes more) would stumble in, occasionally step on or kick him, notice he was still there, and then either throw him out of the tent, or yell at him and then throw him out of the tent.

“It’s my goddamn tent,” John muttered ineffectually after another incident, bleary-eyed and clutching a blanket around his shoulders, shivering in the chilly spring night. “Can’t even sleep in my own damn tent...”

He’d tried to keep people out, but most of the methods he’d chosen also made the tent impossible for him to sleep in. He was still finding crumbs from the time he’d upended the breadboard over his bedroll in an effort to discourage everyone. And the less said about the time he’d deliberately pitched it underneath a tree that was very popular with the local bird life, the better.

But he had a perfect solution now: Cain.

Cain, the dog, who everyone loved even when he stole food right off of your plate.

Cain, who thought that if two people were sitting close together, he belonged right in the middle.

Cain, who in addition to being a dog who very much liked to be the center of attention and join in on all the fun human activities, was shockingly heavy for a dog of his size, and not easily made to move.

“Good boy,” John murmured, scratching the dog’s ears as he curled up next to John’s feet. “Now... stay. Stay... good boy.” It took many days of careful encouragement with bits of jerky and plenty of ear scratching, but eventually, Cain got the message that this was now his bed as well. It was a little awkward to have to curl up on his side to avoid kicking the poor thing in his sleep, but John didn’t mind it so much. The minor discomfort would pay off.

Not two nights later, the camp was woken up by Karen’s scream, and Sean yelling, “Get out ya mangy mutt! Fuck off!”

Cain’s joyous barking told John that Sean had just done the worst possible thing, which was to throw something for Cain to chase. A few minutes later there was another round of heavily-accented shouting, more barking, a sound John tentatively identified as ‘Sean MacGuire having a very heavy dog, or possibly Karen’s foot, collide with his balls’, and then a very red-faced Karen storming back towards the women’s lean-to as an equally red-faced and limping Sean stormed back towards the scout’s campfire.

John just grinned, as Arthur struggled to breathe through his laughter. Only Abigail silently shook her head.

“What?” John asked, the laughter still in his voice.

“The dog, really?” Abigail shook her head again. “Why not just move your things?”

“Then they’ll just do it wherever I move to, this is better.”

“Mm. This won’t turn into a problem at all,” Abigail observed airily, and gave Arthur a very meaningful look.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” John asked, looking from Abigail’s disappearing back, to Arthur’s worsening laughter. “Arthur, what’s she talking about?!”

John discovered several weeks later. Several weeks of blissfully uninterrupted sleep, several weeks of sleeping on a real bed with a real mattress in Shady Belle, and several weeks of that real bed being all his own. The next day after Abigail had moved into that room, in fact.

On the plus side, John reflected as Hosea pulled the bandages tight, at least Abigail hadn’t been the one who had screamed when sixty pounds of over-excited dog had landed on top of the both of them. And he’d managed to keep it to very pained wheezing noises, at least until he’d tried to move Cain and something had sent a fiery lance of pain through his side.

It had not been helped by Arthur being the one to investigate the noise, and standing in the doorway for a good five minutes staring at the scene of very naked Abigail, very obviously naked John, and Cain sprinting out of the door, having finally realized that he had done something wrong.

It had been Arthur’s inability to laugh himself half into fainting quietly that had brought Karen and Mary-Beth to investigate - thankfully giving Abigail enough time to get decent, while John tried to get enough pain-free air to communicate that he was pretty sure he’d broken something.

Arthur eventually correctly interpreted John’s wheezing noises, and, wiping away tears of laughter as he went, got Hosea. Cain had managed to break one of John’s ribs.

Cain was promptly barred from the room, much to Jack’s disappointment. Arthur and Hosea were left leaning on each other, laughing to the point of tears yet again as they listened to John trying to explain why.

“But Papa-”

“No buts, Jack! It really hurt when he jumped on me!”

“Well- well maybe you and Momma should leave room for him then!”

John gave Abigail a helpless look, and she just smiled and shook her head. “Told you that you’d regret it.”

“Well- what am I supposed to tell him? I can’t tell him... you know...”

“I ain’t the one who let the dog in,” Abigail said over her shoulder.

John sighed heavily, and groaned as Jack said, “We could make Cain his own bed, then!”

“No! No, Jack... I-I don’t want him to be in the room at all, alright?”

“But why?”

“Because... because he snores, okay, Jack? He snores, and it- it keeps your momma awake.”

“...you snore,” Jack retorted.

“Wh- yes, but your momma’s used to it-”

“I’ve never heard Cain snoring,” Jack added, earnestly. At the poker table, Hosea collapsed into his arms, as Arthur stopped making any sound at all, still shaking with laughter.

“W-well... and he chewed your momma’s shoes, too. He can’t be in there if he’s going to chew things, Jack.”

“Momma didn’t say anything about that.”

“Well that’s because Momma doesn’t know,” John said as quietly as he could, getting down to Jack’s level. “Okay? It’s a secret. I’m gonna go buy Momma some new shoes, so she doesn’t notice. But I can’t do that all the time. So you gotta keep Cain out of the room, okay?”

“Oh... okay,” Jack finally said, and then very quietly handed John a dollar.

“Uh... what’s this, Jack?”

“To help you get new shoes for Momma,” Jack whispered. “Don’t tell her! She gave it to me to give to Uncle Arthur for taking me fishing.”

“I won’t tell her if you don’t,” John whispered back, ruffling Jack’s hair. “Now run along, ‘fore anyone sees us.”

Jack took off, and John sighed and sank into a heap on one of the stairs. It could’ve gone better, and now he was definitely going to have to buy Abigail a pair of shoes - what size does she even wear? - but at least he hadn’t yelled at Jack, and... well, Jack would figure it out when he was older, right?

John wasn’t going to be having that conversation, anyway.

As he passed by the campfire, Abigail called, “So you’re off to get those shoes, right?”

John internally cursed at the peals of laughter. “Yes, dearest, I am!” he called back, as cheerfully as he could manage.

Twenty dollars later, John decided that it had all been worth it to finally have a bed more-or-less to himself.

Now if he could just get Cain to stop scratching at the door all night...

“No,” Abigail mumbled drowsily. “No more scheming.”

---

A/N: So, I wanted to imply here that Arthur’s dog Copper similarly had no sense of decorum and would just show up at the worst possible moments.

This is loosely based on a number of true stories from myself, my ex, and mutual friends of ours, who have all lived in shared houses and/or had pets with no consideration for privacy while also having partners. It can seem embarassing as hell at the time, but if you can laugh about it a few years later then it wasn’t that bad. 

With that being said? Don’t have sex in your friend’s beds. They have to sleep there. C’mon, guys. Don’t be gross.