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bloodhoundsandplagues · 5 days ago

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How can I make it OK?

Arthur Morgan x reader

Summary : you're homesick.

gender neutral reader, no use of y/n, not explicitly romantic unless you wanna read it that way, 3K words

Warnings : swearing, mentions of suicide, panic attack described in semi detail, not the jolliest thing i've ever written

A/N : first post that's actually writing in 2025 ! wrote most of this on the train while listening to house in nebraska by ethel cain and more than this by wolf alice so yeah. also this isn't arthur heavy in the sense that it's reader rambling about being homesick mostly. to be read in a southern accent as god intended

Of all the places I have travelled with the Van Der Linde gang, I think this is my least favourite.

Living- or rather, camping- in the ruins of some plantation, bodies of the former owners stagnating in the pond. Sometimes I hear ‘em- the ghosts, in the walls, screamin’. I know it’s my mind, playing tricks on me; but it’s harder to have that rational thought when you’re lying alone in the middle of the night, wind whistling through broken windows. It’s not that I don’t like having a roof over my head. Shit, everyone in this godforsaken gang is happy to have a real shelter from the weather, even one as flimsy as this house. So I shut my mouth, hunt as I’m expected-which is what I am doing now, borrowed bow over my shoulder, quiver resting comfortingly between my shoulder blades.

Hunting is familiar. Back in the Grizzlies, where my daddy raised me, we’d go out any time of day, in any weather, hunt for the coming storms. I’d do everything the way he taught me to- lay out traps, wait behind a boulder, bow in hand. It builds patience, he told me when I asked why the hell we didn’t just track the damn animal, instead of waitin’ in the cold for it to find us.

Now, it’s not cold, and dear old daddy ain’t here to help.

I left my horse hitched by a lake, with enough grass for him to be fed and well until I bring back something worthy of Pearson. It’s near sunrise; already, the heat is uncomfortable; my skin is sticky, my clothes uncomfortable. It’s moments like these that I long for the snow.

I wipe my forehead with the back of my head. I’ve been walking for a little while now, waiting for a pack of deer to pass by. There’s something that bothers me about killing them- maybe it’s their eyes, so big and brown, caught frozen as they stare at you. Or maybe it’s their resemblance to this little girl I knew, at a local village at the base of the mountain where I grew up.

I shake the thought of her big brown eyes and twitchy nose as I spot a herd of ‘em, grazing near a small stream. There’s enough light for me to count them- seven, big enough to feed us.

I get on one knee, like my daddy taught me. Notch an arrow in the bow, pull it back. One of the poor animals raises its head, looks in my direction.

Before I can hesitate, I let go, and the arrow flies; a fraction of a second later, it has notched itself in the animal’s throat. It falls; its friends, the rest of its herd (its gang, I think, almost laughing) scamper off, into the woods. I don’t go after them. Pearson will have to do with this, and whatever herbs or mushrooms I’m able to pick up.

The doe is dead by the time I reach her. I kneel. Pull the arrow from her neck; thick, sticky blood gets on my hands. I almost reach for snow, to clean it off; curse myself when my fingertips meet grass and mud. The doe’s dead eye stares up at me, brown and empty as the sky. I resist the urge to close them.

“Sorry, sweet.” I whisper it as I hoist her up, put her over my shoulder. She’s heavy. I must be getting blood on my shirt- it’s a shame, because it’s my favourite colour, and I’ve just bought it.

I swallow any regrets I feel as I walk back to my horse, the weight of the doe uncomfortable against my bow and quiver.

You’re the reason she won’t come home, a little voice whispers in my head. I stop, then, because my chest is tightening and I can’t really breathe. I say something incoherent. The fields around me are empty- it’s just me and this doe.

I drop her into the mud and loosen my shirt, gasping for air. I want cold, I want crisp mountain air; not this thick, humid, barely-air that clogs my throat and makes my lungs heavy.

I dig my fingers into the mud and grass, as I would have done in the snow, back home. Home. What a weird thought. I catch the dead doe’s eye again, and that’s when the tears come, thick and hot and nasty, blurring my vision. So stupid, I think, as I force myself to stare at her. She- no, it- is just an animal. She doesn’t have a home, not the way I did. Do.

I think of crying out for help, but that’s pathetic, and I’m a lot of things, but pathetic ain’t one of them.

I think I stay there, on my knees, fingers deep in the mud, for a long time- when my vision clears again and I’ve stopped gasping for air, the sky is clear, clear blue, no traces of sunrise left. If I focus hard enough on it, I can almost pretend I’m back in the mountains.

I get up, teeth digging into my tongue to prevent any new feelings from resurfacing. I’m not in the goddamn mountains. All that’s left for me there is two frozen bodies deep beneath the snow, and a hut that’s probably been raided or taken over by some other gang.

I pick the doe up, this time careful to avoid looking at her face. Its face. It’s an animal, not my goddamn sister.

I make it back to my horse without another incident; strap the doe across his back and climb onto his saddle. His name is Coal, ‘cause of the colour o’ him- black and charcoal grey, a streak of white down his face.

“Hey, boy,” I murmur to him as I flick the reigns. My voice is shaky, hoarse; it’s obvious that I’ve been crying.

Coal begins to trot back to camp. I think of changing direction, of going to Rhodes, clear my thoughts. But I gotta bring this back to Pearson, or he’ll skin me.

The camp is still there when I return, which is a relief. I don’t think I’ll forget the moment when I came back after a hunt and found everyone gone, everything burned to the ground.

I shiver at the memory and get off Coal. “I’ll come ‘nd fix your saddle later,” I say to him, scratching his neck. He grunts, in a tone I hope is affectionate. I remove the doe, put her back over my shoulder. Make it to Pearson’s stand, where he’s angrily chopping vegetables.

“Hey,” I say, dropping the doe in front of him. I angle her head- her eyes- away from me. “Got some meat.”

“I can see that,” is Pearson’s kind answer.

I ignore him and walk away again, into the derelict house we’ve been callin’ home for the last few weeks. My room is on the top floor; I wish I shared it with someone, but I got lucky (Dutch’s words) and got my own, private room.

I tug off my bloodstained shirt and drop it on the floor. There’s nothin’ to be done about my trousers- they’re the only pair I’ve got (the others have just been washed, and hang soaking wet outside) and I don’t plan on walking around bare-legged.

I change quickly. Sit down on the bed, stare at the wall.

I don’t know how long I stay like that; starin’ at the peeling wallpaper, trying to pretend it’s the same white as the snow I used to see out my window. Obviously, the pretendin’ don’t work, because it’s not the snow, it’s a crumbling fuckin’ wall in a crumbling fuckin’ house. I stand, take a deep breath in (of hot, hot, humid, thick air), push it out. It ain’t cleansing- I don’t feel better once I’ve tasted the surrounding bogs- but it’s enough to calm my heartbeat, and make me feel somewhat human again.

For the rest of the day, I help around camp, doing stupid, mind-numbing tasks. I try not to think of the mountains, and how much better than this godforsaken swamp they were. People talk to me, and I answer, polite and all. I eat Pearson’s stew, listen to another grandiose speech about Dutch’s plan (or, as far as I’m concerned, concepts of a plan). I finally find a moment of quiet sitting on a log, staring out at the swamp. Not the prettiest sight; all brown and green, with hints of yellow dust.

I’m alone for only a few minutes before I hear footsteps. I turn, and find Arthur approaching, taking his cigarette packet from his satchel. I shift on the log I’m sitting on, making the split second decision that his company is something I want right now.

He sits next to me, silently. Offers me a cigarette (I decline with a shake of my head and a wave of my hand) then lights his own with a match. He stays quiet for a little while, blowing smoke from his mouth, tinting the world blue and grey.

It’s strange, sitting next to him. He don’t mind being quiet; seems to like my company well enough, ‘cause he keeps coming back here to smoke.

He’s the one who found me, all that time ago, on a solo hunt in the Grizzlies. It was at the edge of the mountains, where it starts to get warmer; where the sun melts away most of the snow. Was from Blackwater, he said- I asked if I could go back with him. Promised I’d leave ‘em all alone when I got there, I just needed a job, as far from my daddy’s corpse as I could get. He’d said yes, maybe reluctantly.

Turns out, I’d found somethin' better than a job. Not quite a family, but a gang, people to rely on, people to distract me from the emptiness created by my father’s death. I suppose it’s these people keeping me here, in this swampy nowhere, sweating my socks off. Here, I’ve got people- back in the mountains, I’ve got two dead bodies and an empty house.

My chest tightens again, and wordlessly, I take the cigarette from Arthur’s hand, take a long drag. I hand it back, still silent, and dig my fingernails into my knuckles.

“You miss home?” Arthur asks me, his words marked by the smoke curling from his mouth. I take the cigarette from his fingers again, press it between my teeth, inhale ‘till I can blame the burning in my eyes on the smoking rather than whatever has grabbed hold of me; whatever old, buried feeling I’d thought long gone had chosen to make an appearance. Guess it must be more obvious than I thought, that I’m feelin’ odd, ‘cause he clearly smelled it on me.

“I don’t know, I guess,” I say, softly, fiddling with the dirty fabric of my trousers as I hand the cigarette back; as if I don’t know the answer, as if I haven’t spent half my goddamn life thinking about this. I exhale, blowing out smoke from my nose. “Never really thought about it.” The lie burns in my throat, so thick I can hardly breathe.

It’s not the stability that I miss. The weather in the Grizzlies was nothin’ permanent, not in any sense- one minute it’s a blizzard, the next you’re standing staring at the bright blue sky, knee deep in snow. I guess it’s the wolves howling, it’s the comfort of a fire as wind rattles against the window panes; it’s even the way the stars look after three days holed up inside. There’s no one thing I miss or don’t miss- I just know I miss it, so much that my chest tightens at the thought.

When my daddy got shot, three- no, four- years ago, I thought the one answer was to leave that place behind; pack up my clothes and go out into the Wild Wild West, make my own future away from the smell of his freshly dug grave, right next to my mama’s frozen bones. And when I came across Arthur, and later his gang of gung-ho outlaws, who seemed ready to take on the world, I thought that was it- my life was set.

But I don’t like the constant moving like I used to. It don’t feel like adventure anymore; it feels like escaping, like we’re always running from something.

“I don’t…” I hesitate, reach up to dig my nails into the dip of my collarbone, try to dig the feeling out, hold it up to the light to examine it. “I guess it’s different.” A veiled confession. Away from the Grizzlies (away from home) it’s hot, stiflingly so; I can’t climb onto my horse without breaking a sweat. It’s already too warm by the time the sun rises- clothes sticking to your skin uncomfortably, flies buzzing above, drowning in the smell of swampy nothingness as soon as your eyes open. I don’t hate it- it has become familiar, but familiar in the way the weight of a revolver at my hip has become familiar; the way the constant paranoia that clogs my throat has become familiar.

“Different how?”

Another pause, as I scuff the yellow dust ground with the toe of my boot. Different in a whole lotta ways, I want to tell him; even the colour of the sky isn’t quite the same back home.

Home. I think of the snow as I stare at the yellowed leather of my shoes. Where there’s snow and wolves and no people to shoot at you unless you really look for it.

“I don’t know,” I say, even though my whole body knows; it courses through me, the knowledge that a few days ride away is the mountains, and the snow. “It just is.”

The answer dissatisfies him, I think. “C’mon,” he says in that gruff voice of his. “You gotta be able to find one difference between here and the goddamn Grizzlies.”

“’S warmer,” I say, the words followed by a short, slightly forced laugh. “Don’t snow as much.”

He snorts, shaking his head. “Alright,” he responds, maybe a little condescendingly. “Think o’ anything else?”

“You got less wolves down here,” I add, after a few moments. I don’t say that I miss the sound of them howling; that when I close my eyes, I try to picture it, try to pretend I’m back there instead of here.

“Alright.” He says it kinder this time, like we’re getting somewhere.

“The sky looks different.” I dig my fingers in deeper. He offers me the cigarette; I take it, repurpose the burning in my throat. The smoke flickers around me as I exhale. “It’s- clearer, up there. More blue.” Here, the sky is tinted almost yellow. It ain’t ugly, but it ain’t home.

He doesn’t answer, now, staring out at the swamps. I don’t know how he feels about this place- about Rhodes, and the foreignness of Saint Denis, with its factories and smoke and cobbled roads. I wonder if he misses home- if he ever had one to begin with. “I guess I do miss it,” I say, to fill the silence more than anything. “But… I don’t know, I don’t think I wanna go back.” Alone is the word I don’t add. I think- maybe- if I had the gang, my new family, I’d go back to the Grizzlies. After we escaped Blackwater, and hid out in that abandoned town up in the mountains; that was the happiest I’d been for a long time.

But alone isn’t something I want to be. Not the way I was alone, the few weeks after my father passed- just me and the freshly dug grave, me and the wolves, me and the gun that killed him, sittin’ on the table, an unwanted temptation.

“I don’t wanna be alone again.” It comes out soft, hoarse, pathetic, the words grating in my throat, like sandpaper on my tongue.

It’s true. Yes, home is in the mountains; I know that now, when my chest clenches at the simple thought of the snow. But home is also with these people- with Arthur, and Mary-Beth, and Pearson, and the rest of them. Hell, even Kieran, the O’Driscoll boy, has become home, in a way. Home is not just the place where I grew up (the place where my daddy now lies); home is also the people that have become my family; who have embraced me so kindly and warmly. I know deep in my stomach that if I were to leave now, take a horse back to the hut, I’d end up like my daddy, a bullet in my head and a gun in my hand.

He did it ‘cause he was lonely. So lonely that even I wasn’t enough to stop him from pulling the trigger. Lived in the mountains his whole life, but he had my mama then, and his parents. I guess fifty years of snow and not much else can drive you insane.

My hand goes to my temple; I dig my fingers into the skin, right where I found the bullet in his head.

“Y’won’t be,” he responds gruffly. He’s finished his cigarette, and yet he’s not made any attempt to get up, leave me with my thoughts. I snort, wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Don’t know that,” I say. “With the Pinkertons on our asses, ‘nd all.” It’s meant to be lighthearted, but it comes out quiet, rough.

“Yeah, but they’ve always been on our asses.” He puts a hand on my leg; it engulfs my entire knee. “Tell you what.” He hesitates, clearin’ his throat a little. Squeezes my knee. “I’ll take you huntin’, once a week- or twice, or less, if you want.”

“I go huntin’ anyway,” I answer. “Not in the mountains, y’don’t.” My chest both tightens and loosens at the same time. I swallow; my heart is thumping in my chest. I put my hand to my collarbone again, digging my nails in. “C’mon, it’ll do you good. Cold air and all that.”

I know there’s a deeper meaning to that. Cold air- he’s giving me the chance to go home, and not by myself. Even if it’s not for long, it’s enough- to feel the snow again, to hear the wolves. Maybe once I’ll camp overnight, ride back to camp in the morning. The idea fills me with hope- a feeling we’re all starved of, these days.

“Really?” Is all I manage to croak out.

“What, you don’t wanna?”

I laugh, and it’s genuine this time. “No, I- I wanna.”

“Alright then.” He gives my knee a last squeeze, then stands. I stand with him, smooth my shirt with the flat of my hand. “Tomorrow then?” Tomorrow. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. I’d sing, if my throat weren’t so damn tight. My eyes sting, and I wipe at my nose with my hand.

“Thank you,” I say, quietly. He don’t respond, but he nods, and I think maybe he smiles a little.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll get to take a piece of my new home to the place I grew up- someone I love, to the place that holds my heart.

I watch him walk away; and suddenly, the humidity don’t feel so bad anymore.