#arthur morgan x john marston | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yeehawpurgatory · 2 years ago

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Knots & Peculiarity

Apologies for the late post! Posted earlier to AO3--But I finally got to my desktop so Tumblr it is! @rdrevents

Here is my 2023 RDR Valentine Fanfic Exchange for the awesome @southernlynxx once again I hope you enjoy, I loved all of your prompts; especially John using Arthur’s lap as a pillow :’)))

Title: Knots & Peculiarity

Pairing: John x Arthur

Summary:

“Arthur…you really there?” This time it’s louder than a whisper, ghosting over his lips. ”Right here Marston, lie back now.” Arthur mutters quietly, he hoped they hadn’t garnered any attention. His eyes widen when Marston raises a trembling hand; Arthur holds his breath. The younger man’s palm pressed against Arthur’s chest for too many seconds. Just a solid, seeking touch is all it is.

The silence in the cabin nearly made him forget about all the other occupants. Only the occasional sniffle and shuffling, the sound of a cigarette’s light hissing as it burns, reminds Arthur he’s in the main cabin with the women and the others.

The past few days he’d made himself sparse, not on purpose though, between hunting most days and planning that train robbery with Dutch, he hadn’t much time to check on folks the way he liked. People hadn’t seen much of him for a few days. That’s probably what made him a jarring sight now, standing with mist-clouded eyes in front of another good man they’d nearly lost.

Arthur takes his gloves off as he hovers closely to the cot.

There’s another sound, quiet, nearly missable. The laboured, ragged breaths of his longest friend, injured and shaking, barely conscious through it all. They’d found Marston just days ago, bleeding, starving, nearly dead up in the mountains. Laying on the cot, chewed up and spat out, the younger man looked pitiful with half his face bandaged; the showing skin was painfully raised and colourfully splotched. A gory sight before, but little Johnny Marston looked downright bad now.

Worse than Jenny’s corpse had looked when he’d helped Lenny and Karen bury her, the youngest hands shaking the entire time. He looked worse than Davy too, and he’d all but held his own guts inside his body, the poor bastard.

Arthur bit his chapped lips and brushed a few greasy, tangled locks of black hair away from Marston’s mouth. The younger man’s unwrapped eye flickered beneath his closed lid, otherwise he didn’t react to the touch. Swanson must’ve seen to him earlier.

Arthur’s compelled to this spot in this cramped cabin for reasons he can’t quite explain, like an unseen force dragged him here and kept him staring stupidly. Waiting for something or another.

His bare hand rests just above Marston’s head.

It’s Susan that snaps him out of his stupor. The older woman had just been sitting on the stool, picking at Marston’s stitches with Strauss; pained sounds leaving the injured man’s lips the entire time.

“Mr Morgan.” Her tone is firm, but her eyes were softer with him than with most others. He grunts his acknowledgement to her.

Arthur feels Grimshaw’s eyes burning a hole through him, as though his leisurely presence was unacceptable to her. He half expects her to tell him to git. To go make himself useful. To go find some food or firewood.

She doesn’t.

Instead Susan stoops low, rummaging through a meagre box of the camp's belongings. She pushes aside a sewing kit and spools of thread, some scraps of fabric, a bottle of medicine; she pulls out a simple black comb with a few teeth missing.

Susan glances at him again, a different look in her eyes this time, and Arthur is brave enough to look her in the face with his own clouded pair of eyes.

“Might as well do some work if you’re set on standing around.” Her tone conveys no nonsense, a harsh barking command. She presses the comb into his hand. “Been tempted to cut that mangled mop from his head—I would’ve if I didn’t think he’d wake up kicking and screaming like last time.”

Like last time. Arthur huffs, his lips twinge upward in amusement, thinking of the last time someone had tried to cut Johnny’s hair without expressed permission.

When he doesn’t move Susan’s face falls slightly. He can’t look at her suddenly, throat too constricted and stomach churning. “He don’t like many folk handling him.”

Unless it’s you. She didn’t say that—but she didn’t need to. It weren’t no kind of secret between the folks who’d been with them since the beginning. The boys are— were inseparable, would still be if not for Marston’s big mistake.

The big mean bastard he is, Arthur thinks there ought to be a nasty part of him which takes satisfaction in seeing the fool broken and pathetic and needing someone for the littlest task, but there isn’t. That’s the thing that confuses him the most. He’s not enjoying watching John fight for his life while he thinks on the past, not one bit, never mind how much he thought he would. All he feels is loneliness somehow, a need to stay by Marston’s side for reasons beyond him.

Arthur sits on the stool. He breathes long and deep, clearing his throat. He blinks away mist to see Marston clearly. The hand atop the greasy mop just sits there for a few seconds.

This is intimate. In spite of the crowd, of the audience , brushing Marston’s hair feels like something he should be doing behind closed doors. He can’t understand why. Even when his heart starts to flutter.

Still, Arthur’s fingers card through the cold greasy locks. True to Susan’s word it’s a tangled mess better suited for a pair of shears; but then they’d have to deal with Marston’s peculiar anger. Arthur didn’t get it, why grow your hair if you hate washing and brushing it?

Still, Arthur picked at a tangled chunk of hair with the comb, careful of the brittle teeth. He pauses when Marston moaned quietly, as Arthur moved to his scalp. The vulnerability in this moment makes his stomach uneasy. This is a man he’s felt nothing but animosity towards for a few years now, and here Arthur was, carefully brushing his hair, while he lingers in the precarious spot between life and death.

He couldn’t get all of it with the bumps and bandages covering Marston, but Arthur carefully worked the comb through as best he could till his fingers could card through Marston’s hair without getting snagged on too many knots.

---

Arthur lessens the gap between them, hunching over Marston when a particularly nasty gust of air enters the cabin and makes him shiver. Damn cold…Damn drafty cabin…Damn soft wet wood…

Another heavy gust finally wakes the other man. One dazed dark, blood filled eye looks up at Arthur without an ounce of recognition; he knows what a man looks like when he’s dazed from drugs or fever. This is it. The look of his eye makes Arthur shiver. John shifts around, muttering nonsensical ramblings.

“Careful now Marston.” If he doesn’t sit still he’ll hurt himself—already seems to be in pain by the sounds he makes. The younger man grimaced, teeth clenching together as he willed himself upright.

“What'do you need?” Arthur mutters and slips an arm around his back to hold him upright. Marston’s real close to him now, but that pesky fool won’t stop wriggling around.

“Morgan?…”

John’s voice stills him. His name is said in a cracked whisper, far too quiet for others to hear, but loud enough for Arthur to hear the peculiarity in his tone. Like Marston was surprised to see him here. That hurt.

“Morgan…” he trails off again, this time squinting up at the older man. Unseeing eye tracing over Arthur’s worn features, peering inside him, yet seeing nothing though he still searches. Cold as it were, Arthur feels himself heat up under the scrutiny. It makes him want to shove off and leave, to chastise himself for seeking company, from Marston of all folk. Then he speaks again.

“Arthur…you really there?” This time it’s louder than a whisper, ghosting over his lips.

“Right here Marston, lie back now.” Arthur mutters quietly, he hoped they hadn’t garnered any attention. His eyes widen when Marston raises a trembling hand; Arthur holds his breath. The younger man’s palm pressed against Arthur’s chest for too many seconds. Just a solid, seeking touch is all it is.

He huffs just then, making little frustrated noises as he eases his way back down, clearly deciding whatever he attempted rising for weren’t nothing important. His hand leaves Arthur’s chest, and the older man can finally breathe.

“Stop movin’ around…M-Marston!?”

A weight fell across his lap. Arthur blinked.

Half asleep, half drugged, half whatever—Marston had dragged himself across Arthur’s lap. If folk weren’t looking before, they sure as hell were looking now.

Arthur’s hand hovered just over John’s head. Marston laid awkwardly, with his lower body stretched out onto the cot, his upper body resting on Arthur. He suddenly didn’t know what to do with his hands; he let one rest gently atop John’s. Arthur swore then. Marston’s hands were icey. He slips his discarded gloves over them without thinking.

Arthur fixes the blanket over Marston’s form when the younger man turns his head in his lap again. He sighs and Goddamn nuzzles his nose against Arthur’s leg.

The display heats up his cheeks—makes his heart race. John hasn’t accepted any semblance of closeness with anyone these last few years, much less Arthur. Gone were the days where they slept back to back, where they embraced each other with bear hugs and delightful shouts and pats on the backs.

He’s got half a mind to shove the other man off him and walk right out. Damn him. Instead, Arthur resumes his task with a pounding heart when Marston’s breathing evens out. Methodically, he brushes the rest of Marston’s hair until it falls straight and loose. Oily beyond belief, but cleaner looking than it had been in weeks.

Then he sits there and pockets the comb, his silly little task is done. He should get up. Do some actual work, not just sit here pondering.

Marston shivers again. Arthur stays seated. He’s stuck in place, unless he wants to dump Marston back onto the uncomfortable looking cot to shiver with his threadbare blanket. His head tells him as much, but his body won’t do it.

Goddamnit! He can’t do it, Arthur’s rooted to the spot as though Marston weighs a tonne, with his head pillowed in his lap. It’d be downright cruel to shove him away, as sorry as his state is.

Arthur tries his best to ignore the familiar warmth and conflicting fondness which filled him the longer he sat there, watching John sleep soundly in his care.

Behind him, folks start talking softly.

---

“It’s awful kind of you, letting him do that again.”

Arthur nearly jumps at the voice which caught him off guard. It’s Hosea. Of course it is. Who else could sneak up on him like that? His old friend has a glimmer in his eye, one Arthur stopped trying to guess the reason behind a long time ago. A special type of fondness he reserved for only a select few; Arthur, John, Bessie long ago, Tilly, Lenny, little Jack Marston…

“Sure, I’m real kind when I have to be.”

Hosea ignored his retort. He looked off to the side wearing an expression Arthur can’t read, an expression he shares with Susan, who stood by the fireplace. He catches her face however; it’s soft. Understanding. Knowing. When her gaze shifts from Hosea to him, Arthur drops his head. He looks only at Marston. At his sleeping form pillowed on Arthur’s thighs.

As precarious as his injuries are, the man curls up in a way that can’t be comfortable, never mind the relaxed expression on his face; he looks a lot like Jack in Abigail’s lap, or like how Copper used to curl up in his. Arthur chuckles and thinks to himself. Marston ain’t a cute kid like Jack, his company isn’t as enjoyable as a dogs neither.

The thing is…Marston is annoying and lazy, and stupid and entitled. They’ve been competing with each other for too damn long. But…he’s dear to Arthur. Oh so dear. Oh so dumb and useless too …but he’ll always have an incredible, inexplicable love for John. For the boy he was and the man he is today. One he doesn’t quite understand the depth of. A love he knows he’ll carry with him until the day he dies. He’d do anything for the other man, no matter how much he wants to deny it. Anything he was asked.

Arthur runs a hand through Marston’s hair, humming in satisfaction when his fingers card through without resistance. The younger man made a soft noise at that, tilting his head up, searching for the gentle hand once again. Arthur hesitates for a few seconds, fingers frozen but not from the cold. Then, like he always seems to do when it comes to the other man; Arthur relents. He strokes Marston’s greasy locks, paying special mind to repeat the actions which draw soft content sighs from the younger man.

Be it traversing through a shit snow storm, brushing his damn hair, or allowing the younger man to use him as a pillow with basically the entire gang bearing witness; there wasn’t anything Arthur wouldn’t do for John.

Even now, with his legs long asleep, and back screaming at him, Arthur stays in place and lets John rest in his lap. He’ll stay there as long as he can, for as long as he’s needed.

#john marston x arthur morgan #Morston #RDR Valentine fanfic exchange 2023 #rdrvalentineexchange #arthur morgan x john marston

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