#is it bad that i think like this on some arthur and john being raised by the gang heacanons…

[omgwhatchloe]

listen i don’t know if its just me, but do you ever read or hear someones headcanons and think…

wow! thats so interesting! however, there is more chance of lenny and uncle 69ing in dutchs tent-

i dont judge many headcanons but some…just some…

[yanderes-galore]

Can I request general hc for Arthur from RDR 2?

I can try, sure! I apologize if any information is wrong, I tried to research as best as I could ^^; Not proofread, may have mistakes.

Yandere! Arthur Morgan Concept

Pairing: Romantic/Platonic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Overprotective behavior, Manipulation, Possessive behavior, Violence, Murder mention, Blood, Stalking, Threats, Kidnapping, Fear of loss, Angst, Actually sad near the end, Forced companionship/relationship.

An important thing to know about Arthur is this; He knows he's a bad man.

There are times he's kind, polite, and playful.

But overall he knows he's hurt people, will hurt people, and that he isn't the most likable person to most.

Which means, while he may be very caring and protective of you, he can do some downright diabolical things to have you.

Arthur is a very complex and emotional character, I hope in this concept I can respect that aspect about him.

He may be a better yandere on his high honor path, but he still is capable of some bad things.

He's even worse on his low honor path.

It's funny how an outlaw and criminal like him can treat you with such care despite the amount of blood on his hands.

Arthur is quick to resort to violence, murder, and intimidation... but still doesn't do unnecessary revenge or killing.

He is fully aware of the blood on his hands... but treats you with respect.

Arthur treats you as though you're innocent, even if you are in the gang.

He could be like a close friend to you... a mentor... or even a lover.

Regardless of his intentions he is very intent on meeting your needs.

I imagine when Arthur first meets you he tries not to be attached.

With his line of work, anything could happen.

You or him could be shot in any sort of altercation, so he tries to put up walls.

Although, soon he's attached to you, acting playful and concerned about you.

Arthur is definitely someone in denial about his obsession for a long while.

But eventually he caves, craving the comfort you give him.

Arthur doesn't blame you if you're scared of him.

Your fear is deserved, after all.

But your fear does not change how much he cares for you.

Arthur is a man who threatens, steals, murders, etc.

He really doesn't care too much about what he does due to being raised by Dutch.

He sometimes has remorse... but if he does something to protect you, he prioritizes that.

Arthur is at first not very affectionate.

Yet as he gets attached he ends up hugging you, perhaps going further if that's his intentions.

Arthur is scared of his own death, but he's also scared of yours.

When it comes to you he tries to think things through, he thinks of ways to protect you and care for you.

If you're in the gang then he thinks of ways to get you out of it.

He wants you safe, he feels you shouldn't live a life such as this.

If he can... he wants to join you.

Arthur and John are similar yanderes, or at least RDR1 John is.

They'd have their clothes soaked in blood, all so they can make sure you live another day happy.

Gunpowder may coat their hands but they feel they have protected you.

Arthur knows he is a "bad" man... but he wants to be better with you.

Arthur will protect you from everything, including unwanted flirting.

Another member flirts with you?

Somehow Arthur knows about it and threatens them.

You'd swear he was stalking you (whose to say he isn't?).

Arthur may even force you to stay put in certain "safe areas" while he heads out.

Soon he isn't sure if he can trust Dutch with you.

Especially when the man falls into his own insanity.

Maybe by the peak of Arthur's obsession, his own sanity, he tries to get you and him in a home together.

I also feel his obsession gets worse when he learns of his sickness.

Arthur knows the tuberculosis will claim him soon.

It may even drive him insane with ideas.

As a result, imagine him taking you away to a cabin with him.

He locks the doors and keeps you beside him.

He is fully aware that he's scaring you, he knows this is wrong...

But in the final months of his life, he wants to be beside you.

So he traps you with him... away from everything you know...

Everything except him.

He can't bear to lose you... so he plans on keeping you with him for the rest of his life... all because he loves you... even if you hate this.

[tempestuous-tempest]

You Carve Them Wooden Animals:

[Red Dead Redemption Version]

☆Going based on animals I associate them with.☆

Dutch: Rattlesnake

"Aw, look at that. Well, ain't you a real doll." He likes it. The little, well detailed miniature gets happily placed onto his shelf. There are even some times where he holds it in his hands while thinking.

Hosea: Fox

"You made that pretty little thing for an old man like me?" Goes into the box of oddities. Said box is filled with random things that other people have handed him over the years. Snake rattler from Marston, a few turkey feathers from Arthur, and other odd things. He adores the little fox.

Arthur: Stag

"You made this?" He is confused on why you would make him the cute little deer. Leaves it on his little table when at camp, but when travelling far, he puts it in his satchel.

John: Wolf

"A toy???" He doesnt know how to feel about it and gives it to Jack to play with. Dont worry, Abigail makes sure nothing bad happens to it. :D

Javier: Jaguarundi

"This for me, mi pequeña artista?" He grins. He's curious to why you chose a jaguarundi, but he loves it. Always showing it off to others. Just look at what his little songbird made him.

Lenny: Bobcat

"A bobcat?" All smiles. Carries it around on his person at all times. If he lost it he would cry. It's just too cute, and it has no business looking so fluffy despite being made of wood.

Sean: Irish Hare

"Cute, but why am I a rabbit?" Thinks there's some big meaning behind his animal. He's right, but he gets the reason wrong. Will not shut up about it. Most of what he talks about. Will absolutely look at the ones you made for the others and get all jealous and start making up derogatory meanings for why they got that animal. They ignore him. Well, 'cept John who got into a fight with him about it.

Charles: Bison

Accepted. No questions asked. He will treasure it quietly. Holds it in his hands for about an hour after recieving it, just to go over every little detail and marvle at the craftsmanship. If anything happened to it, even something small like a hardly noticeable crack that looks like part of the design, he will know. Even notes the wood it's made of.

Kieran: Stallion

"Aw, gosh. You didnt have to." He's all giddy about it. Takes real good care of it. The only thing that he will not allow people to pick on him about. He loves it.

Swanson: Jacob's Sheep

"Wha's dis?" He blinked slowly at the small carving you handed him. He was a tad wasted when you gave it to him. When you explained that you made it for him, he grinned and raised it into the air, stumbling about and showing it off. "I gots a sheep!"

Strauss: Shark

"You're giving this to me?" He was surprised that you gave him anything at all, but also found it humorous that you chose a shark of all animals. The reason for the association not lost on him. It now sits on his table with his books and ledgers. This was why you were his favorite.

[brujahinaskirt]

You know, when it really comes down to it, the main thing that tears me to pieces about Arthur & John is encapsulated so nicely in the trope of the Lonesome Cowboy.

RDR2's storytelling is particularly masterful as it shows us that everyone is the mythic Lonesome Cowboy... but at the same time, I believe it manages to quietly suggest there is one true Lonesome Cowboy of the series.

And it ain't Arthur Morgan.

DEEPLY overwritten explanation below!

On the surface, Arthur is clearly set up by RDR2 to be our Lonesome Cowboy. He even sings the song. But is he really? Really, truly? Or is Arthur's brand of lonesomeness a clever model to help us, through comparison and contrast, begin to notice and understand another, deeper type of loneliness?

Arthur thinks he's unlovable and alone because he lacks one specific type of love, romantic domesticity, which he has dreamed throughout his life and consistently been denied. But though his pain is genuine, the idea that Arthur is alone and unloved is almost laughable. R* shows us every single game day that Arthur is surrounded by people who love him, live with him, and depend upon him.

But that's the great irony of the RDR Lonesome Cowboy, right? Arthur feels lonely and believes he is alone because he is a "bad man" and nonbeliever whom "no one will have" (not even God, and he remains true to his atheism through the bitter end [and thank god for that honestly because the last thing I needed was a Come to Jesus cowboy game...]).

But the inverse is true, and his depression is lying to him; Arthur is almost never alone and pretty much everyone in his family unit actively enjoys his company and wants him around. And yes, many of these people are damaged and have trouble communicating that (though fewer than you'd think). And no, it isn't the same as getting married to one person and raising a family with them for the rest of your life. But lonesome? As in, emotionally and/or physically alone?

Nah! Come on, man! Not even close.

Arthur is more than just loved and needed: he's actually understood by those he chooses to let in, because Arthur is definitely capable of telling his closest confidants how he feels and what is lurking in his heart. We see him do this many times. Sometimes with surprising ease and honesty.

When Arthur is physically alone in RDR2, he's wandering at the player's command, and if he wanders for too long, he's eventually retrieved & lambasted by the people at camp who quite openly/forcefully tell him they missed him and worried about him. Even Low Honor Arthur is a popular man at camp, in his own way, the support beam of his strange family (though LH Arthur is more likely to selectively deny that support, or to provide that support with the caveat of verbal cruelty).

A messy run-down of some obvious examples to illustrate my point:

Despite Dutch's deterioration and manipulations, Dutch and Hosea openly dote on him and relish telling embarrassing family stories about their Big Man Old Guard son to each other. Hosea especially frets about and tries to care for Arthur, mostly physically but sometimes emotionally as well. Susan can be abrasive at best, but she also clearly favors Arthur, thinks often about his well-being, and is one of the primary worriers when he's away from camp for too long.

Abigail and Jack completely rely on Arthur for a significant period of their lives, and though Abigail struggles greatly with showing affection & vulnerability, I would argue her primary and most extraordinary mode of care and affection for Arthur is allowing him to help her raise her son. Sure, she needs the help... but Arthur needs the nuclear family experience of being heavily relied on, too, and Abigail makes it clear she understands that about him better than anybody else. (I'd go on to argue that being relied on in a family way is essential for Arthur's self-esteem and is how he can continue to function despite the massive clash between his true nature and his violent lifestyle, for which he constantly berates himself. But that's neither here nor there...)

The Girls (Tilly, Mary-Beth, Karen) actively worry about his mental health and invite him to share his burdens with them, comfort him (each in their own unique way), play games, dance, etc. They do this for Arthur we don't see them do for anyone else in camp (apart from each other, which leads me to believe Arthur is sort of an honorary member of The Girls, though I won't get too much into that here).

Sadie: "Aside from my [BELOVED HUSBAND AND SOUL MATE] Jake, you're the best man I've known."

Though Arthur seems more likely to trust & befriend women/non-masc men, he has masc men friends & confidants too, and most of the men at camp seem to rank Arthur as somehow more reliable than other members. Charles very obviously loves Arthur & vice versa to the point where I tried to pick one demonstrative example and couldn't figure out where to begin. Uncle is a pain in Arthur's ass, but when shit hits the fan, he knows (and tells him) that Arthur is the best man of them all. Lenny, while young, enjoys Arthur's company (though I would argue Arthur feels more strongly about Lenny than the inverse due to Arthur's tendency to protectively fuss over young people). Hell, Sean constantly tells Arthur, word for word, "I love ya, Arthur Morgan!!! I really do!!! I love ya!!!!" He's being goofy, but he's not joking! He said that!

And that's just a surface-level sampling of gang members. These threads run much, much deeper and we could spend essays analyzing each one, but my god this has gone on too long already.

One could argue that Arthur's story aloneness is at the moment of his death, but I can't quite agree. With Save John + High Honor Arthur path especially, I would argue Arthur has never been less emotionally (even spiritually) alone than when he chose to change the very nature of his death from a random consequence of his hard life to an act of love that gives his surviving core family (John, Abigail, Jack) a chance at happiness. In less peaceful endgame scenarios, Arthur might not actually die alone, or even have time to linger on his approaching departure from the world.

So I posit that Arthur is not, was never the Lonesome Cowboy. Arthur is loved as much as he loves others.

I posit that the true Lonesome Cowboy of RDR is John.

John Marston, who on the surface has everything Arthur ever wanted... but who, due to the nature of his heart and what he's seen, cannot bring himself to fully open up in a way that enables him to be truly understood and embraced by anyone, not even the person he comes to love most in the world (Abigail). There's a reason the epilogue feels so shocking and lonely, and while I do think Rockstar could have done a better job on the transitional cinematics from playing as Arthur to playing as John, that crushing loneliness and sense of discomfort and incompleteness is vital.

It feels awful. It feels like we just lost a limb and were thrown back into everyday life with no fanfare, no true honorable sendoff, no closure, no greater understanding of the world, no peace or contentment. And it feels that way because that discordant, jarring dis-allowance of grief is the ONLY mechanism that helps us feel how John must feel now. Because unlike Arthur, John cannot express or unfold or understand his own pain and loneliness. Not to us, the player, and not even to himself. He never grieves.

Of course, when Sadie and Micah drift back into his life, John snaps. He's never grieved! He's been emotionally alone through all of that, even when he has his family and friends, because he can't open up and let them in! He risks destroying his family in a way that would have undoubtedly caused Arthur extreme horror and anger because John's family is not and has never been a cure for John's loneliness, even though John truly loves them more than anything at the end.

John can't express it, so it's these lyrics themselves that serve as the fount of his grief: I ain't got no brother. No wonder Abigail has her own quiet epilogue rendition of this song (and she, too, is a profoundly Lonesome Cowboy in her way, just like Karen, Hosea, Javier, Jack, etc....). Once Arthur is gone from the world, so too is the only person who knew this deeply damaged kid well enough from his wild childhood to really even hope to see into John's heart.

tl;dr: Arthur thinks he's the legendary Lonesome Cowboy, but he's not. He's just lonely, not alone. In reality, the character who is fundamentally alone, truly lonesome, has always been John.

[spoonsand]

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Just finished my second playthrough and I have to say: I hate Dutch more than Micah. Don’t get me wrong Micah is scum, but Dutch knew (mostly) everybody in the gang for over a year. Sometimes over a DECADE- and he still turns his back on them. All the kids he and Hosea raised, didn’t matter, the ‘last’ score mattered. The last robbery mattered. Not the orphans or runaways he raised, taught and loved.

Micah is a superficial type. You know he’s evil. When you first meet him, you know he’s bad. But I liked Dutch in definitely the first 3 chapters, I was still liking him in 4. Guarma was iffy. Beaver Hollow is where it all goes downhill. I noticed the decline since chapter 3, but I feel it really steepened in 4 and 6 (Guarma didn’t happen). But back to Micah- you know he’s evil. The way he talks, the way he acts, his beliefs, you just KNOW that this guy isn’t who you’d want to come to your rescue (RIP SADIE). Micah did what he had to do to survive. He never had loyalty in mind, he has his own being in mind.

The Van Der Linde’s whole gang/family was so BASED on loyalty that people killed and died for the gang. Miss Grimshaw mentions killing another traitor. Molly (mistakenly assumed as a traitor) is killed because that’s how strongly they value loyalty. Loyalty (mostly to Dutch) was how the whole gang was founded.

Hosea had the same loyalty, but he actually cared about the people. I think Dutch only cared about the image. Hosea said that he cared for the people that died following Blackwater- that they mattered to him. He wanted closure. Dutch used their deaths as ammunition for his speeches. As a reason for the gang to keep on going. The only thing that set him apart from the O’Driscolls was the fact he cultivated the image that they were a family and that he might have cared. The O’Driscolls didn’t have the same loyalty to their members. When Kieran was captured they didn’t try to get him back. He said he was as good as dead if he wasn’t with the Van Der Linde’s. Dutch took Kieran in to set himself apart. The loyalty. The image.

Hosea kept Dutch in check. After Hosea died, Dutch couldn’t be kept in check. He didn’t have someone he valued highly who truly cared anymore. Micah took over Hosea’s place as the highly valued peer. Micah’s influence was never for the good of the gang- and that wasn’t a secret. Micah’s influence was for his own gain. But what I can’t get over is once Micah had that influence, Dutch didn’t care about anyone anymore. Especially towards the end. He used Eagle Flies, he left Arthur, left John (TWICE), didn’t care about the women, didn’t care about little Jack. Dutch cared about Tahiti. One last score. Reallllly messing with the Pinkertons. Getting the gang to safety wasn’t a priority. As I mentioned earlier- loyalty to Dutch was how the whole gang was founded- Dutch says something about John and Abigail and that women are poison. At the end, John was more concerned with Abigail and Jack rather than Dutch. He didn’t like that. Dutch didn’t like that John was more loyal to his FAMILY than him. He didn’t like that Arthur was more loyal to John than him. Micah, Bill and Javier didn’t have family available to have that stronger loyalty to. They had Dutch and only Dutch. I’m sure that Dutch also had beef with Hosea and Bessie; especially when they left.

But Dutch turned his back on John and Arthur- his sons. He raised them. When Susan was shot, he didn’t bat an eye. He loved her at some point. All these people he’s known for 20 ish years. Or the newer ones, that again, he either raised or feigned affection. And nothing. Turned his back.

FUCK DUTCH YOU BASTARD I HOPE HELL IS AS NICE AS TAHITI

[luvliewriting]

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Imagine: Their favourite place to kiss you

Warnings: just fluff, maybe some body issues with Javier, a little suggestive on Dutch

Notes: I'm willing to turn any of these concepts into actual fics if requested

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Arthur Morgan - Palm

Hard to explain but I think he would be a palm kisser; like just grabs your hand to flip it over with your palm up, place a kiss to it and then either hold it in his own hand or to his cheek. I mean he already loves your hands compared to his his, getting to kiss it or just feel your palm against his cheek makes him do flips even though you rarely see that giddy in love bastard side of him often. One of his favourite things if helping you down from your horse because he'll ask for your hand, flip it over and kiss it, then help you down. If he can hold your hand, know full well your palm will be getting kissed regardless of what is happening or who is around.

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Dutch Van Der Linde - Neck

This man loves being in control, you can't deny that, so that's probably why he likes to kiss your neck. I mean he just loves kissing you in general but your neck just hits different. Maybe because it makes you all squirmy to him and puts him in 100% control when he kisses the parts of your neck that he knows you're most needy. He'll even do it in front of the entire camp just to show how much he loves you and is unashamed of you.

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Hosea Matthews - Back Of Hand

A true sweet gentleman at heart. In his younger more rebellious years, I would say probably neck as well but as he's become sweeter with age, he likes to take his time with you. He likes to warm your heart with small actions, like kissing the back of your hand. If you're dancing together he'll do it, if you're just laying in your cot together he'll do it, if he has the chance to be a sweet gentleman than he will. Mainly because he likes to watch your cheeks flush red when he does and watch you get all bashful and cute.

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John Marston - Ear

Unlike Hosea, he doesn't do that good of a job being a gentleman. When you two are alone in your tent sure, he'll do his best to woo you but outside the tent, he's not much for PDA. One thing he won't turn down though is kissing and nipping your ear. Probably because he likes to whisper in your ear a lot, specifically in front of people because he'll just bite and kiss the soft curve of your ear then act like nothing happened. But when you two are alone in your tent and he's trying to wake uou up, he'll tug your ear between his teeth and tug on it till you wake up. Before you can stay bad at him long though, he'll switch from biting to kissing till you forgive him.

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Abigail Marston - Nose

Not much time to spare when raising Jack but when she does have time alone with you, she's a little touch starved. She likes to sit in your lap and play with your hair, leaning to you every so often to leave little kisses on your nose. If you want to kiss her nose as well, it turns into a little moment of you two just leaning into each other to kiss the other's nose.

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Charles Smith - Lips

He's an old-fashioned lover boy who absolutely loves it when you tug on his hair while you two are kissing. Alone in your cot, it can go close to hours of you two wrapped in each other's arms and pressing your lips together. Outside of your tent, he'll find any excuse to kiss you. On wagon rides, he'll give little chaste kisses. If you're riding his horse with him, you always ride in front of him just so when it isn't busy terraine, he can leave a quick kiss to your lips and go back to directing the horse

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Javier Escuella - Stomach

This man absolutely adores you, no like really, he blesses the ground you walk on. You learned some spanish sayings because of him, mainly in your tent. Javier doesn't understand quite how you can't see yourself the way he sees you so if he sees you having problems with yourself or your appearance, his first thought is to change your mind. While in public he prefers a simple kiss on your cheek, when you're alone he just loves to kiss your body, mainly your stomach. He just wants you to know how much he loves you and think how beautiful/handsome you are to him.

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Oh boy it feels good to be back!

But thank you for reading and don't forget to like and hopefully reblog as it really does help me out in the long run

Taglist:

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[arthurtaylorlester]

i’m going to have to be honest, i don’t think today’s episode was very good.

of course, there were bits i loved as is with every malevolent episode, like jarthur saying each other’s names like that and arthur styling his hair after clark gable and john remembering, john literally acting like trying to kill oscar was nbd :), it was all very endearing.

but man. some of the other stuff threw me off so bad. there were NO STAKES, any sense of urgency created was immediately destroyed by jarthur literally talking their feelings out. one second is literally jumping on walls like a rabid dog, the next he’s calmly communicating with john and then he’s acting superior and calling him a child.

like, we’ve seen what triggers arthur’s erratic behaviour (usually a distinct lack of john) and how he acts when he’s like that, and sorry but just don’t think this was a case of that.

furthermore, arthur calling john was weird. not in the oh no! is john is canonically a child so you cant ship him with anyone because fuck that, that was not the implication, but in the sense that i think it was incredibly ooc of arthur to say that. like, he recognised that yellow was Like That because he was awful to him, not because he was a child. so why is he saying this to john? he says john can’t handle his emotions, which yeah because he can only talk to you which john makes very clear. arthur says its unfair for john to expect that he never speak to anyone again, but that’s not even what john asked. he doesnt want to be ignored and rather be included, which is a totally reasonable thing to ask for! he even says to arthur when he’s going off the rails that he’s used to being ignored by arthur by now and i don’t think this is another manipulation tactic.

seems like both of them forgot the main goal of the show: separating john from arthur without the king taking him back.

the friendship breakup with oscar at the end was ridiculously tacked on and in my opinion shouldve been the beginning of the next episode. but no, obviously that couldn’t have been done since the next episode is the season finale.

which brings me to my next qualm: this is a terrible penultimate episode. penultimate episodes are supposed to raise the stakes higher than theyve been the whole season so the finale is literally unhinged. and malevolent has been excellent at doing that (see: part 27 the roots). But all this episode does is nullify the stakes, we’re not looking forward to anything next episode. John and arthur are in their healing era (there was no divorce this season let’s be real), theyve left oscar, the stone is gone, the butcher is in police custody and daniel is fine.

so how is the season supposed to end with them (presumably) in the dark world? around a year ago, harlan said dark world arc soon. when is soon.

the lack of stakes in s4 has been a persistent problem for me i think, most conflict has been resolved either within the episode or soon after, especially jarthur relationship problems, which are like the core of the show

don’t get me wrong, i’m not saying i dislike s4, i love it, especially the first half, i think part 31 is the best malevolent episode to date. it’s just that with how well written it’s been, i was taken aback by this one just being…. ok?

i think that because every malevolent episode is such a banger, this one kind of being all over the place, especially with arthur’s characterisation, is kinda disappointing? ofc, ik basically all of harlan’s fam and himself were sick during november + they had a whole baby, so i’m hoping the shift in quality was a circumstancial thing.

[verdemoun]

I'm just. look.hosea. hosea. Hosea Matthews.

I can't get over how you write him in the au. He's finally getting to be a dad. Finally. ough. him. finally not just taking out his kids for an occasional hunting trip, he can genuinely be a bit more of a dad without having to fight for everyone's survival. my he a rt

maybe instead of wolves i can comfort you into death with hosea content

Hosea didn't mean to become a dad. It might have been an old instinct, but he thought after raising an adolescent John Marston he was done being a parent.

It was mostly guilt. Hosea recognizes that he was equal parts responsible for the Van der Linde's becoming what they were, and setting the bricks in place for Dutch's gang to become what it was after his death.

As much as Hosea loves Arthur, seeing an adult Arthur learning how to be more than a weapon and enforcer is just another reminder of how much he is responsible for the boys he helped raise being little more than tools in Dutch's agenda.

While he knows he was never capable of leaving Dutch, some part of him wants to live in a fantasy world of what if he could leave outlawing behind and live with Bessie: have those extra years he lost in canon era at her side, raising his boys as children instead of outlaws.

Timewarp is also the first chance he gets to talk to the 1899 gang without it being in passing. In 1899 Sean was a over-cheerful pest, but in modern era he gets to listen to his stories about his da and the casually dropped reform school lore and realize how much pressure Sean felt to be 'okay'. He gets to talk to Lenny about his relationship with his father, how much Lenny wanted for more of the sentimental emotional man of letters instead of the stern father he knew. Kieran, poor Kieran, who lost his parents to cholera. Then Arthur, who wants for Dutch like a boy wants his father while still recognizing how damaging that relationship was, and is, and the burden he still feels to repay Dutch and Hosea when Hosea never wanted anything more than to see Arthur grow up and grow old.

Being a father is an accident. At first it's just polite assurances that they'll be okay, because Hosea is okay. He has his wife, a home, the safety of not fighting for every day of breath anymore. Then it's sitting beside them on a bad day, being a comforting presence. And reminding Sean he has everything he needs for work before Sean runs out the door because he will always forget something. And listening to Lenny discover things in awe of how fast he learns technology because he's always in amazement of how smart Lenny is, instead of it being expected the way his father did.

He became a father accidentally, the same way he always has. Not realizing he was the one the gang went to when they had something they were excited about, because Hosea would always say he was proud of them.

Also, Hosea needed distractions. Modern era was new to him, horrifying different. Being a father wasn't new. He could do that. He could be a father to his strange eclectic gang of misfits as they learned the modern world faster than he did, shower them with praise and validation as they learned. The slightest achievement made him proud because he had no idea how to scale achievement.

And then before he knew it, he was getting a dozen gifts for father's day, and asked for hugs he would happily provide, and getting late light texts as thoughts haunted the gang and he would merrily reply and comfort them.

Realizing he got what he wanted. They're all safe, they're out of the gang, they're happy, and if the feeling in his chest he gets when he thinks about that isn't love he isn't quite sure what is.

[shebeafancyflapjack]

"What are you doing here, Dutch?"

"Same as you, I suppose." (RDR2)

"You're just like me, John. You can't change who you are." (RDR1)

Okay I'm currently hyperfixated on these boys and I gotta talk about how fascinating this relationship is.

Because while Dutch and Arthur's relationship is heartbreaking, there's something even more crushing about Dutch and John over the course of both games.

To start we're told by both Arthur and Bill that John is the "favorite", that he's "Dutch's pet", "the golden boy", even Micah brings it up in chapter six. Part of Arthur's bitterness over John's return is how cool Dutch seemed to be about it, how he was welcomed back with open arms. However nearly all the interactions we see (or rather Arthur sees) between Dutch and John are very tense and grow more heated over the game until they're outright screaming at each other - and of course things get as bad as they can be in rdr1. But how I imagine things used to be, pre-Blackwater or pre-John's gap year, was Dutch did dote on John and John worshipped him in return. John seems to have been found the youngest that we know of, twelve years old, so he was as much of a child as can be, which allowed Dutch to mold him into a younger version of himself, whereas Arthur was clearly more Hosea's son. Dutch taught John to sound smart without really saying anything, while Arthur learned from Hosea to be smarter than he appeared. To compare the two, I think Arthur was Dutch's joy (the mirror of his best friend, his first son) but John was his pride (his own reflection). It's very typical narcissist parent behavior to latch onto the youngest or one that most resembles you most as they're the most obvious extension of yourself. And for as long as John obeyed and adored Dutch, that fuelled his own ego - fitting then how Dutch's mental decline runs in parallel to John drifting away and learning to be his own person, a father in his own right, and seeing who Dutch is without rose tinted glasses. And the stronger John gets, the more Dutch feels threatened, like when he accuses John of "wanting to be the General". Dutch is a loving granddad to Jack and caring to Abigail, encouraging John to be a good father, but not if it means they become more important than the gang (ie Him). I also think a lot of the insults Dutch hurls at John later on are things he could be partly saying about himself, how he doesn't have the grit, how he's always been weak or blind. The more Dutch fails, the more he targets John as a punching bag for his own failures, to the point of wanting to leave him to rot as he admits in one hidden BH scene.

Side note, this also feeds into his resentment of Arthur, firstly of also no longer being a yes man, but Dutch also notes how much Arthur sounds like Hosea - except Dutch was ignoring Hosea right from the start of the game, even if he did help keep Dutch grounded to some sense of reality, Arthur is a reminder of Dutch's recent loss and also insulted at the idea of Arthur replacing Hosea - that's not Arthur's job, in his mind, it's just to be his big scary grunt. Once he's becoming weaker, he doesn't see the purpose in having Arthur around if he's just going to question and possibly (if he believes Micah) betray him. And he writes Arthur off as dead anyway once he starts getting sick, he already lost Hosea, he's not putting himself through that again so it's easy to just leave him for dead. But despite all that, Arthur still loves Dutch enough to ride back and try one last time to convince his "father" that Micah is out to get him, he even spends his last breaths begging him to see sense - not for his own sake, but the man who raised him.

But with John it's a different, more raw tragedy that Dutch's self-loathing and insanity grow in their time apart, despite both clearly having had Arthur's shadow hanging over them, eventually pushing them to the exact same destination on the exact same day with the exact same purpose - to kill Micah. John has been haunted by guilt that Arthur had to sacrifice himself for him, while Dutch has been haunted by (imo) the guilt of leaving Arthur to die as well as allowing Micah to manipulate him. But both men are also not killing "for Arthur's sake" here, more their own, as they both know Arthur didn't agree with revenge. But they do it to try to ease their own consciences. For John it works, for Dutch it just sends him off into isolation and his eventual fate.

And the saddest thing is, John thanks him. Even after everything Dutch did to him and Abigail, he makes an attempt to reach out. There was a brief glimpse from John of the boy who loved his adoptive father, but Dutch's ice cold stare and silence remind them they can never go back to what was. And John let's him go. But this moment seems to change something in John's perspective, as earlier he had always said he believed Dutch had been hiding who he was the whole time, but by the time of RDR1 he's saying similar things as Sadie that Dutch was a good man who "went insane". He now wants to believe that there was a part of Dutch that cared, long ago, but it's now gone.

The Dutch that John eventually has to hunt down is different than the one he last saw on Mount Hagen, the one who admitted that he didn't have much to say anymore, the man who still cared enough to spare John and leave him the Blackwater money. Dutch is now a complete bloodthirsty monster who kills for sport, who openly calls Abigail a whore and Jack a whore's son - the same boy he once doted on, found a puppy with, that he rode into hell for. His disgust for John, his boy, working for the government, being the "rat" he feared him to be, is enough to get him to not hold back on shooting him anymore, but I also can't help but think most of his words are egging John on to get him. "You'll have to kill me, John!" he yells. But when it comes to just the two of them, both on a mountain yet again, they both put away their guns. It's the closest thing we get in the first game to a hint of their past relationship, of father and son, rather than adversaries. John's name, his "golden boy's" name, is the last thing to leave Dutch's lips before he falls. The speech the same one he said with Arthur at his side. As insane as he was, he spent those last moments thinking of his sons, and possibly Hosea too, before he fell, how he wasn't able to fight his own cowardly nature to do right by them, you can't change my mind.

And while John would never talk about it openly, its just awful to think how this man had to watch the father he loved and who doted on him back, to slowly become a monster, to hating each other, trying to kill each other, then to see a glimpse of what was but being unable to save him. It also adds context to his own behavior to Jack, how he tries to be a doting father but doesn't discourage him too much from having his own interests, as much as they confuse him.

And then, the final nail in this angst coffin, walking out to face his own death knowing Dutch was right, that they did just find another monster to come for.

[notsofriendlyfriendlyreminder]

I've been thinking about rdr2 atla au and just mkay hear me out:

RDR2 AS THE PLOT OF ATLA (+ A ROUGH PLOT)

John: The fucking Avatar, left the temple when he realised, walked the land, when he realised war was about to start he wanted to fly back to the air temple, the storm caught him on his way. Very mad that he is the avatar but also really wants to kick firelords ass, just doesn't know if he is capable enough.

Arthur: The adoptive son of the southern water tribe chief, a firebender but keeps it a secret bcs FUCK FIRE NATION. Knows the ways of the water tribe and is pretty mad the chief left him and Charles here. At the beginning of the series he only knows basic firebending- his technique is very much akin to waterbending (WHICH ALSO MEANS eventually mf will have no problem with lightning bending wink wink) Finds John with Charles while fishing.

Charles: Biological son of the southern water tribe chief and will soon be the new one, with Arthur they are true brothers ALSO he knows Arthur is a firebender. Takes him out to fish regularly to calm both their minds, is also frustrated their father didn't take them with but also understands someone has to protect their tribe. Waterbender, knows basic healing. (The idea is that their father had Charles quite young therefore while he is old, that man is STRONG AF like yes grey hair but also just an incredible water bender, he took in Arthur as a young child/toddler).

Dutch: Zuko and Azula in one. A firebender and a firenation ex-general, kicked out because he spoke out of line. His punishment is looking for the avatar because the firelord knows it's a goose chase. At this point he wants to find an avatar AND overthrow the firelord. (Don't worry Hosea I have a plan).

Hosea: You know he is the uncle Iroh, firebender ofc. Dutchs bestfriend, goes to look for avatar with him, because of that he is no longer a general. Did attack Ba Sing Se, failed and his wife died during. Conflicted on the war, connected with spirit world, taught Dutch his techniques, protective over his and Dutchs soldiers.

Mary Linton: Princess of the northern water tribe, TURNS INTO THE MOON, poor Arthur.

Sadie Adler: Firenation killed her husband, earthbender and is the one to teach John earthbending.

Javier Esquella and Bill Williamson: Send after avatar by firelord, their tactic is to befriend John, end up being conflicted if they want to turn him in or let him kill the firelord

Micah: the firelord- no, I'm kidding, but the guy that got appointed into Dutchs place. When the word spreads that avatar is back and the firelord realises Javier and Bill aren't as efficient as he thought, he hires Micah to find and catch the avatar. At some point teams up with Dutch.

THE ROUGH STORY (i choose to age down the rdr2 characters and subsequently age up their character forms in atla)

Young John is raised at the temple by the air nomads. He is pretty fiesty and overall not a great student, but the monks know he is the avatar. When John finds out, he is very conflicted and unsure of himself. He gets intense airbending training, but because he is not a very well mannered student, they decide to send him away to continue his training (they know war is in the air). John, overwhelmed, runs away and walks the land for few years, somehow managing to never be found. As a young adult, he realises how bad everything is and goes back. He finds his sky bison still waiting, surviving in a cave. Guilt sets in and he flies off, but gets caught in a storm AND FROZEN.

100 years later, Arthur and Charles are the only two men who didn't go with the others to war. They go out fishing and because Arthur is frustrated (they didn't get a message from their father for a long time), Charles suggest him trying some firebending to "blow out steam". It gets out of hand and their ship burns, melting some of the ice. And so they see John and get him and his bison out of the ice. The explosion alerts nearby Dutch and Hosea. But worry not, John kicks their asses.

John, Charles and Arthur start their way to the northern water tribe. Arthur tags along because he thinks that when John finds a firebending master, he could finally learn something new. In the north, Arthur has a romance with Mary, but who turns into the moon while saving the moon spirit. Dutch and Hosea do catch John for a while, but he gets saved by the others. In the end, he and Charles learn new waterbending from the waterbending master.

In a village near Omashu they find Sadie, a strong earthbender and a widow whose husband was killed by the firenation. She agrees to teach John earthbending. They also find the kyoshi island, where Susan, Karen, Tilly and Mary-Beth promise to help if the avatar ever needs it.

During their time they have Dutch and Hosea on their tails but also Javier and Bill. Their tactic on befriending them ends up causing Javier (because he is a way stronger firebender than Bill) to teach John firebending. But the learning is not finished when a huge fight happens between them all AND Micah, who starts it. Javier and Bill show their true colours, so it's Dutch, Micah, Bill and Javier againts Arthur, Charles, John and Sadie. Hosea (at that point againts firelord), gets killed by John when he is in the avatr state. It ends with John being hurt while in avatar state.

Now on the run, John, Charles, Arthur and Sadie end up on a small island in the sea around the north. There he gets healed by a waterbender aka Abigail.

Sozins commet is close and so the final fight comes. John againts the firelord, Arthur and Charles againts Dutch (agni kai, Arthur is able to send back Dutchs lightning), Sadie and Charles againts Micah (they find out Javier and Bill never came back to the firenation, instead they deserted).

In the end John comes back to the island and finds out Abigail is pregnant (cough cough they had a one night stand) and so he spends most of his time there. ALSO PLOT TWIST WHY WAS ARTHUR SUCH A POWERFUL FIREBENDER WELL HE IS RELATED TO THE ROYAL FAMILY and so by some paperwork lies he becomes the new king (during their travels they find more firebenders who helo him with ruling + his father helps). Sadie stays with Arthur mainly just to look for excuses to kill- I mean be mean to ex-firenation soldiers. Charles is now the chief of the southern water tribe and when he and John have time, they look for any airbenders that could leave the temples and survive in hiding.

[herbatalover]

Hello, hope your having a good day/night?

I dont know if your still taking requests but if you are could I request HH Arthur Morgan x LH Male S/O

A/N: I'm sick, so I might write more fanfics now. Hopefully you'll enjoy <3 I'm sorry if it's not what you had in mind!

HH Arthur Morgan x LH Male Reader

"Crazy bastard"

You were sitting by the fire late at night, drowning your sorrows in some whiskey. It was the usual time where dark thoughts came over you. You were a bad man. A horrible one. You lived a bad life. Not by choice... You had to adapt to the life you were thrown into.

Taken in by a strange couple and their unruly son when you were just a kid. Saved from getting shop by an angry shop lifter. What an interesting day.

"Hand them over boy..." The man growled at you. You hugged the two cans of beans closer to you, glaring at him. You were desperate, starving. You didn't know how to use a gun, how to hunt, so you had to steal. This time however, you got unlucky.

"Piss off" you hissed at him. The man looked furious, pulling a gun out, pointing at you. You froze, feeling like a caged animal. Nowhere to go, getting killed over some food... Not exactly how you wanted to die. Your pa would be disappointed.

No, he'd be disappointed if you gave up. You won't. You held the cans tighter, only raising one hand slowly. The man watched you, hoping you'll pass the cans over to him, and instead was greeted with a middle finger. You gave him a grin.

"I am not dying yet partner" you pushed down the fear, getting ready for a bullet. If you're going to die, then at least with some honor.

There was a gunshot.

But the bullet never came. Instead, the man fell on his knees, wide eye, blood slowly leaving his mouth. He fell on the ground, face first. You looked at him confused before noticing a hole in the back of his head. There was a quiet chuckle behind him.

"Nice work Arthur" said a black haired man, you soon-to-be leader, walking over the man, approaching you. "Now who do we have here?"

From that day on you joined Dutch's boys, becoming their second son. You grew close with Arthur, akward conversation turning into late night talks. But, it wasn't a family you hoped for.

You killed many people. Men, women, children sometimes too. Robbed people, both wealthy and poor. Became an errand boy, especially when Herr Strauss joined, having to go around collecting debts. Beating the crying people who begged for mercy.

You were there when the Backwater mess happened. When John got brought back from being torn apart by wolves. When they brought the woman, Mrs. Adler and the "not O'Driscoll" in. When they brought Sean back home.

And now you were stuck near Rhodes, staring at the fire, thinking how your life would look if you'd try to be a good man. If you tried to behave. If you didn't stole those damn beans.

You got up, sighing heavily, feeling the alcohol go into your blood. You headed over to your tent, passing Dutch. You could've stayed quiet, but something pushed you to open your mouth.

"There he is... When are we going to Tahiti, boss?" You scoffed at him, only to get a confused look. You narrowed your eyes "we both know you plan is bullshit, so how about you tell everyone the truth that we're fucked?" You growled. Dutch, now turning irritated turned to you.

"Cut it out, son. I get you're stressed, but we don't need that right now."

"oh I ain't stressed... I'm just seeing clearly" you grinned, but got yanked away to the side. You blinked confused and turned to yell at whoever grabbed you, until you realized it was your beloved Arthur Morgan.

"What are you doing Y/N?" He frowned and looked at Dutch with a sigh "he's been drinking again.... Don't mind him. You'll work it out, you always do" he nodded to him, pulling you away. You rolled your eyes, pushing him away, yet going in the same direction he was pulling you to - his tent.

"Why do you have to lick everyone's ass?" You muttered, walking in. Arthur frowned, following you.

"We're in a tough situation, no need to steer up more commotion" he walked closer to you. You turned to him, glaring at him.

"Of course, because you're the high and mighty Arthur 'Perfect Son' Morgan, aren't you?!"

He looked at you surprised. To be honest, you yourself wasn't quite sure where that came from.

You loved him. He was the love of your life, you'd never hurt him. But you were jealous. Jealous about how he was better than you. How he was nice to everyone, how they all adored him. How he got smiles and pats on the back while you got scowls and scoffs. You were a bad man, you knew that. But you wanted to be adored. To be known.

Yet being nice seemed to be pathetic.

Arthur furrowed his eyebrows, placing his hand on your cheek. You let out a quier sigh, turning your head away. He was looking at you a bit, then cupped your face, turning to him.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing" you pushed his hands away "go be adored. Go find someone who won't ruin your reputation. Go suck everyone's dick so they love you"

"The hell are you talking about?" He laughed, but stopped, noticing you were serious. He frowned, taking your jaw, turning your head to face him.

"I am not leaving you."

"I'm not good for you, Arthur!" You glare at him. "I'm a monster! A good for nothing killer, I don't deserve you, I'm not good for you!"

"Horseshit" the man rolled his eyes. "You're perfect for me"

"I'm not! Maybe you're perfect, but I-" you couldn't even finish because Arthur captured your lips in a soft kiss. You wanted to push him off, but sighed, melting into it. He snickered quietly to which he earned a hit (more of a tap) on the chest. He slowly broke the kiss, looking you in the eyes.

"That's not true" he smiled. "You're everything I could ask for"

You were staring at him quietly, before burying your face in his chest.

"... You smell like cigarettes" you changed the subject. You always did when you got embarrassed or didn't want to face the truth. He sighed softly, petting your head.

You stayed like this for a bit, before you could hear his voice again, jumping a bit as you didn't expect it.

"Hey Y/N?"

"Yes?"

"Have you had the dark thoughts again?" He placed his head on top of yours, petting you softly. You blinked.

".... Maybe a bit"

"You know what it means~" he hummed, one of his hands sliding down, grabbing your ass. You tensed up surprised before chuckling quietly.

"Crazy bastard...."

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Five Times John Wanted to See a Movie, and One Time Kayne Made it Suck - a Malevolent Podcast Oneshot

In which Arthur struggles with right and wrong, bemoans the Hays Code, tries (and fails) to define love, and gets a second chance.

Spoilers up to Malevolent ep. 31.

AO3

----------

In January, John says, Arthur, I want to see a movie.

“Damn it, John… fine. You know what? Fine! We’ll go sit in the dark and be perfect targets for someone! Is that what you want?”

He gives in, though.

Arthur can be stubborn. He can be foolish in refusal, often saying no just to say it. 

But to this?

To an innocent request, almost childlike in its intensity, and in its expectation of reply?

Arthur can’t hold out for that long.

Not when it seems to bring John such uncomplicated joy.

#

The movie is called Dancing Lady, and Arthur already knows nothing will ever be made like it again once the Hays Code has its way.

It’s a ridiculous love triangle, a “tarnished” woman (a concept Arthur finds absurd) torn between a rich sponsor and a poor lover, both of whom, at least, see her talent for what it is.

There are some scenes in this one. At one point, Clark Gable massages Joan Crawford’s leg, raising it above his shoulder, only hinting at the things that must surely be on display from Gable’s point of view.

Yowza.

It’s hard not to imagine Joan Crawford making the kinds of faces John describes, and Arthur can’t help a little bit of distracting response.

He focuses on his popcorn instead of anything else prone to explode.

“Those guys are a lot of silk hats and silk socks with nothing between,” says Clark Gable on screen, and Arthur laughs.

John huffs. Why are they being so particular about this?

“Particular about what?” says Arthur.

Tod, Patch, Janie. Why the fuck doesn’t she just lie with both of them? Why do they give a fuck?

Arthur is completely taken aback. “Well, it… I mean… she can’t do that.”

Why not?

Arthur has never in his life considered this question.

It’s about offspring, John decides.

“Ah… no, it’s not really—”

They demand monogamy so there can be no question of inheritance.

“She’s a dancing girl. She has nothing to inherit.”

Sure, but Tod does.

“Yes, but… that isn’t it, John.”

Then what is?

Arthur’s really not sure how to answer. What’s he going to say? That it isn’t the Christian thing to do? “I… it just isn’t done that way. Generally.”

Though in his musician days, he witnessed some truly unique romantic configurations.

It’s a lot to think about.

Stupid, pronounces John with fiendish delight, and continues to tell Arthur everything that’s happening on screen even though Arthur does not reply.

#

In February, John says, Arthur, I want to see a movie.

Arthur sighs. “John. I’ve been fucking stabbed.”

Only a little, says John. The three stitches are fine. You’re fine.

He is fine, honestly. It wasn’t that bad, and in the end, they took out the giant bug-thing that poked him.

He’s pretty sure he isn’t poisoned. Maybe that alone deserves celebration.

Arthur sighs. “Well. I suppose an evening of distraction isn’t such a terrible idea.”

Of course it’s not a terrible idea. It’s mine.

Arthur rolls his useless eyes, but can’t help a little smile. 

#

This movie, though. This movie hits different.

Death Takes a Holiday is about Death himself, who is tired of being misunderstood, and decides to go slumming among humans for a few days to see if he can figure out why.

And he falls in love. 

With a human.

Which can’t end well for that poor lady.

Arthur forgets his popcorn.

The drama is absolutely contrived and thoroughly effective. The struggles of the inhuman to understand the human—

The choice of the human to understand the strange—

“And tonight, I must go back to my distant kingdom,” says Fredric March, whose portrayal of Death is passionate, quiet-spoken, and rife with tortured drama.

“Will you take me with you?” says Evelyn Venable, who plays Grazia, the love interest, and whose name means grace.

“Take you?” says Death, who is pretending to be something he is not, who is carrying on a wild con with the goal of… enlightenment? “Take you? I should be so unhappy alone. Take you? Oh, no, no… don’t tempt me. But Grazia, give me one hour of you—let me hold you once, and feel your life.”

Holy shit, Arthur thinks, because he’s pretty sure he knows how Grazia feels.

Sort of. He’s no damsel, and whatever he and John are isn’t romantic, but still?

“Now you see me as I am,” says Death, at last revealed as shadow, as monster, as darkly divine.

“But I've always seen you like that! You haven't changed,” says Grazia.

She chooses him, knowing what he is.

She chooses him, knowing what it will cost.

The music swells, and Arthur finds himself tearing up. “Then there is a love which casts out fear, and I have found it! And love is greater than illusion… and as strong as death!” Death declares.

John cheers. She goes with him! She went with him! Yes, Arthur!

Does John see the parallels, too?

Arthur isn’t brave enough to ask.

He wipes his eyes, amazed, moved. Almost envious of that stupid made-up girl.

Yeah. This one hit different. 

He can’t help wondering, silly as it is, if this movie was based on something that really happened.

Death and Grazia, reaching across the gap.

It’s not him and John.

But then, who can say just what they are?

#

In March, John says, Arthur, I want to see a movie.

Arthur is tired. “Really? Now?”

Why not? We owe ourselves a little treat.

They do, but after Death’s little romance, Arthur’s not sure he’s ready.

He has decided “friend” is the word for them, but only because he doesn’t have a better one.

Its problem is, it’s not strong enough. It’s nowhere near strong enough.

Arthur is well aware that facing off against the damned pallid mask cult again is the reason for his mood, but what he needs to remember is they failed. 

He’s alive. 

John is still here.

John did not take his exit, his gilt and crafted fire escape, much to the cult’s confusion.

When Arthur destroyed their framework of magic and bone, John cheered him on.

John doesn’t seem to miss them, or regret Arthur’s success.

That means a lot.

Friend? Sure. In lieu of a better word.

Arthur sighs. “What do you want to see?”

#

Jimmy the Gent is bonkers.

Arthur half wonders if it pushes the bar so hard because the Hays Code is breathing down Hollywood’s collective neck, threatening to end artistic freedom forever.

He also wonders if anyone but James Cagney and Bette Davis could have pulled this plotline off.

Cagney plays an unscrupulous man who seeks out wealthy folks who died without a will, then produces heirs to rake in the moolah—heirs who aren’t even real.

The main conflict is his girlfriend balking at his techniques, bailing to join a competitor, and coming back again when the eponymous Jimmy shows himself to be slightly less wicked than the other guy.

There isn’t actually a hero. It’s not black and white; it may be comedy, but it’s comedy gray.

“The only thing he's got that I want is you, and he took you away from me,” says Jimmy.

Oof. Those are some words to hear, and Arthur struggles not to apply them.

“He's got ethics,” says Davis, the dame Joan.

“I don't care if he has carbuncles. The only difference between him and me is he's got a smoother line,” says Cagney as the eponymous Jimmy.

Haha… ah. Wow.

“You can't make yourself clean by making him dirty,” says Joan, and Arthur’s stomach twists.

Arthur slowly exhales. This is a poor allegory for the King in Yellow and him, isn’t it?

But it maybe isn’t so bad for him and Larson.

He’s a little bit better than Larson. Just a little. Is that enough to make him good?

John, funny enough, doesn’t wrestle with morality at all in this, but has a blast with the humor, and praises the cleverness of the characters. He particularly appreciates the way Jimmy puts on airs to win back his lady love. Goal achieved, intimacy earned, all for the price of a barrel of determination and a pinch of deceit.

Arthur is uncomfortable as fuck, and eats all the popcorn at the film, too much popcorn, and gives himself a stomachache.

Somehow, he feels it is deserved.

#

In May, John says, Arthur, I want to see a movie.

They end up picking one all about deceit, romance, and false identity.

The Thirty Day Princess is a heck of a ride.

Are you trying to tell me something? Arthur thinks at a god he doesn’t believe in, thinks at the King in Yellow who is and is not John.

“She Reminds Me of You,” croons Bing Crosby as the hero dances with the princess-under-false-pretenses, who’s filling in for her sick counterpart for a total of thirty days.

Who looks exactly like the ill royal, but most definitely is not her.

I'm standing all alone I've got nothing to live for She reminds me of you And she reminds me of you And it breaks my heart in two

Dear fucking gods.

John is not the King in Yellow.

Except that he is.

Arthur hasn’t processed this. Hasn’t figured it out.

I am the King in Yellow, sounds John’s voice in Arthur’s memory, and Arthur ends up physically ill at the end of the film.

John is quite concerned, but Arthur doesn’t know what to tell him when he asks what’s wrong, and leaves all his questions unanswered like unraveling thread.

#

In September, John says, Arthur, I want to see a movie.

Enough time has passed that Arthur’s resistance has worn down.

He refused two months in a row. He rejoiced (in silence) that the madness with the Order of the Falling Star prevented any such frivolity through August.

But now that’s done, and Kayne has another poorly defined deal that began with an entire group of cultists violently dead, and Percy has Arthur’s blood in a jar for some reason and a promise of future contact, and it’s done.

For better or worse, it’s done.

And it’s quiet.

And John wants to see a movie.

“You know what?” says Arthur, who could use the distraction. "There’s one I want to see, too. Do you know the poets Elizabeth Barret and Robert Browning? Well… Elizabeth wrote some of the most wonderful verse about love and longing that anyone ever has, and apparently, there’s a movie about it, so let’s go see.”

#

The Barretts of Wimpole Street turns out to be completely not what Arthur expected.

Love disallowed by a sex-repulsed parent, physical illness barring the freedom afforded any ordinary adult, a stressful and creepy scene with incestuous undertones, and a decision to kill a beloved pet dog (which fortunately did not pan out) leave Arthur feeling absolutely weird about the whole thing.

The movie tiptoes a lot about morality, about right and wrong, about societal norms and familial expectations.

At least some of it reminded him of arguments with Daniel, after Bella had come down pregnant.

At least some of it reminded him of arguments with James, the day Faroe was born.

All of it reminded him of whatever he has with John, and he doesn’t know how to interpret that.

Norma Shearer as Elizabeth asking, “Robert, have you ever thought that my strength may break down on the journey?”

Frederick March as Robert answering: “It had occurred to me, yes.”

Arthur feels so very mortal, these days.

“Supposing I were to die in your hands?” she says.

“Are you afraid?”

Yes, thinks Arthur. I’m very afraid.

And then comes the line that hits hardest. “Yes,” says Robert Browning. “I am prepared to risk your life, much more my own, to get you out of that dreadful house and into the sun and to have you for my wife.”

Was that an okay thing to say?

Arthur doesn’t know.

He feels like he and John have each made that decision for each other, more than once.

But nobody’s a wife. 

Or something.

He’s not really sure what he’s internally protesting.

“I'm sick of fighting alone. I need a comrade in arms to fight beside me,” Robert says.

“But not one already wounded in battle,” Elizabeth says, who feels lesser, who feels so weak.

“Wounded but undaunted, unbeaten, unbroken. What finer comrade could a man ask for?”

Undefeated.

Arthur swallows hard. Maybe this one was pointed at him, after all.

That was kind of depressing, John pronounces with great cheer as they leave, having enjoyed every moment, and described it all to Arthur in an effort to help him enjoy it, too. I can’t believe he wanted to kill the dog! 

“Well,” says Arthur. “Some people are… cruel… when they lose.”

Someone should kill him instead, John says, and he is joking.

Probably joking.

It feels like John’s moral compass is more reliable than Arthur’s own, these days, so Arthur decides to just let that one go.

#

In October, Arthur says, “John—I want to see a movie.”

Really? You do? You want to hear one, you mean? says John, who’s being clever.

Arthur is able to laugh. “Yes, you whacko.”

John’s pleased. Arthur can feel it. I know you are, but what am I?

Arthur laughs again.

The back-and-forth is ridiculous, but feels so damn good in spite of that. Easy; effortless. Affectionate, knives long stashed.

Three whole weeks have passed since the Rancid Ruby case, and their successful retrieval of the jewel (and the minister’s daughter, whom they hadn’t even known was missing) has brought them enough business and enough income that Arthur has begun to believe John is right: they’re going to be okay.

It’s also put the final nail in the dismissal of their murder case. The minister stood as a character witness, and finally swayed the judge. Who knew?

Parker and Eddie’s deaths have been officially attributed to a burglary gone wrong—backed by Arthur’s wrecked car, miles from the scene; by hospital proof that Arthur, unidentified, had been in a coma; and by Arthur’s indisputable claim of amnesia, causing his disappearance for many months. 

Larson is MIA, having been carried off by the monstrous thing he summoned.

The Butcher is retired, having philosophized himself into a monastery, eager for hypocritical redemption and literal flagellation.

Kayne hasn’t called his favor, but right now, it’s hard to look toward that with horror.

Even this latest case worked out, with a wild showdown in Central Park, loads of witnesses, and the Jade MacGuffin returned to its owner.

It’s all coming up roses. Arthur is almost able to hope.

So what did you want to see? says John.

“Well, they’re saying this will be one of the last great movies—the Hays Code, and all,” says Arthur, who has tried to explain it, and shared John’s frustration at the enforcement of false human experience and morality on screen. “It’s about the great Egyptian queen Cleopatra—a tragic love story, and one that’s inspired all manner of art, music, poetry, and more for centuries.”

Sure. Sounds good. The theater on 15th has popcorn, you know.

That’s all Arthur needs to hear.

#

And it isn’t pointed, it really is not. But it sort of fits how he’s feeling, anyway.

“Together, we could conquer the world,” Cleopatra says, Elizabeth Taylor making every word so sensual that Arthur could drown in any one of them for a week.

“Nice of you to include me,” Warren William’s Julius Caesar replies, and Arthur chuckles, and John says, Hahaha! You can do better! and it’s such a beautiful, perfect shared moment.

And of course, she can do better—in the form of Marc Antony, played by Henry Wilcoxon.

Arthur loses himself in it all, even though he can’t see. The cast is huge. The effects (via John) are jaw-dropping. The music score is moving and expertly done.

When Taylor says, "On. Your. Knees,” Arthur feels some things he really doesn’t know what to do with, but the moment passes quickly.

Cleopatra is everything Arthur wanted in an evening of self-indulgent escape, and John’s continued enthusiasm only makes it more sweet.

Arthur sniffles at the tragic ending, even though he knew it was coming, which Taylor plays to the hilt.

It definitely doesn’t feel pointed like the other movies did. Arthur figures out why when it’s done, while he’s waiting for everyone else to file out so he can leave the theater unhindered.

A lack of communication and irreconcilable core values led to the tragedy on screen.

That’s not him and John. Well, it used to be; but Arthur is certain it’s not anymore.

John says, I think I understand her.

“Her? Cleopatra? How so?”

And with that unnervingly good memory John sometimes demonstrates, he quotes: ‘So Rome would forgive and take you back? And all they demand is for us to part. Why don't they ask the sun to fall right out of the sky?’

Arthur swallows.

That’s how I feel about you, says John, who has never said he loves Arthur, but has shown it, repeatedly and without hesitation.

Arthur has some thoughts on that. "I feel the same,” he says, who has never said those words to John, even though the King in Yellow called him on it months ago.

But Arthur’s fairly sure he’s shown it, too.

He's been thinking a lot about love, of late.

About what it really is, and how it is expressed.

About how the movies usually portray two kinds: romantic, and familial.

This love is neither. It’s different, loaded with unknown spice, broken free from a mold Arthur cannot name.

But it is absolutely real, and Arthur has come to a conclusion that shakes him to his core: he was already willing to die for John, many months ago, yes. But now?

Now, he’s willing to live for him.

Even if Kayne decided to offer me a body, I’m not going anywhere, John says out of nowhere.

“A body?” Arthur isn’t sure where that idea came from. “I doubt he’d do that.”

John says nothing.

Arthur tries to bridge whatever unexpected gap this is, squirming with things in the dark. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to obtain papers for you, if that happened. Make you all legitimate.”

Really. Is that so?

Arthur has to poke. “I’ll say you’re from Montana. That should explain away any obvious social gaffes.”

Gaffes! I’ll have you know I’m far better at handling people than you.

“Well, I suppose we’ll see, won’t we? In this theoretical future that probably won’t happen.”

There’s another slight pause. Arthur frowns.

I want my name on the business, John suddenly says.

Arthur snorts.

Arthur! I’m serious!

“Yes, yes. I don’t see why not.” Arthur is more concerned he might not get his sight back than that John’s name is painted on frosted glass. “Lester and Doe, Private Investigators For Hire.”

Doe and Lester.

“Excuse you. I was in it first.”

But I’m clearly the smarter partner.

Arthur laughs. “You dork.”

And will probably be better-looking, too.

“Now, that’s going too far,” says Arthur, chuckling. 

You’ll see. I’ll draw everyone’s attention with my glorious form, and that’ll give you time to riffle their drawers.

“That’s… not a horrible idea, honestly, though there are a few problems with that—namely, you have no body, and even if you did, I’d still be blind.”

Well, I… well, we…

“Gotcha,” says Arthur, smug, because it’s easier to laugh at this possible future than actually deal with any of it, though even the shadow it casts hurts.

You did not. That’s not even a point. Half a point, maybe.

“Lester and Doe, it is,” Arthur says, because it’s fun to poke the bear.

Instead of answering, John gasps.

Arthur knows John. Knows him well. And immediately stops walking.

“You know, just when I think you two can’t get any cuter, you go and wrap a bow on your dicks and call it Christmas,” says Kayne so close that Arthur can feel breath on his lips.

Arthur staggers back a few steps, then stops himself. Running won’t help. “What do you want?”

Kayne must have kept pace with him, because he speaks just as close, an inch away. “It’s your lucky day! Oh, did you tell him, snippet? Did you? I assume you would have by now, I mean, it’s not like you had half a year or something to figure out how to broach the topic.”

Oh, no. What?

It’s like the ground under Arthur’s feet is shaking, ground he’d thought was solid, but hides a deep and jagged fault line. “What is he talking about?”

Arthur, I—

“Too late now!” says Kayne, and there is a whoosh of air.

Arthur staggers. He didn’t move, but he did, and the sounds and smells tell him he’s no longer on the sidewalk, but in an alley.

And then comes a voice he hates.

A drawl, casual and arrogant, and it doesn’t even matter that it’s coming from waist-height, because his immediate urge is to attack it at once like a bird in a mirror.

“Well, this isn’t what I expected,” says Wallace Larson.

Arthur takes a step.

John reaches across his chest and grabs his arm, hard, like a physical restraint.

“Oh, the webs we weave when we practice to deceive,” says Larson, who sounds fine and dandy, if a little shorter than before.

Arthur, says John, evenly. He’s not alone. He’s strapped to a weird, short table, barely fitting into the alley, and his legs are jammed against the wall. And he’s not alone.

And because this wasn’t fraught enough, the next voice is identical.

Identical. But it isn’t John.

You! Murderer!

“Yellow?” says Arthur, shock stealing sound and sense from this moment, tingling through his body so his face feels numb.

Kayne bounces something light off the side of his head.

“What?” Arthur startles.

“Sorry, thought you’d open your mouth for it, like a baby bird. Popcorn?” Another one hits right under his eye.

“Stop it! What are you doing?”

It’s time for justice! Yellow declares.

Oh, shut the fuck up, John snarls.

Traitor! bellows Yellow.

And Larson starts to sing. Insultingly, it is a hymn.

“Bury my body,” Larson croons in a surprisingly pleasing baritone. “Lord, I don't care where they bury my body. Lord, I don't care where they bury my body, ‘cause my soul is gonna live with God.”

Arthur is going to kill him. The rest of this can sort itself out. He takes another step.

“Hold on there, boyo,” says Kayne in the Butcher’s accent, and takes Arthur’s hand. “You’ll need this.”

That is the handle of a knife. A knife, pressed into his right palm, which means Kayne wants him to do this, and that pours cold water all over the whole operation.

The handle burns, but Arthur ignores that.

Go ahead, says Yellow. You’re already a killer. I see it in your eyes. I know you, Arthur Lester!

This can’t be happening.

“It is, though,” whispers Kayne in his ear. “Looks like Little John didn’t tell you anything, did he? That’s a real foundation for trust.”

“What?” says Arthur, who feels stuck like a skipping record.

You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, says John.

I do. He confessed. He murdered that man and fucking ATE HIM.

He did that because of you! John roars at Yellow. You’re the one who put him in the pit! You’re the one who sent him the gods-damned cannibal! What did you want him to do, just sit back and be eaten?

“What?” says Arthur, weakly.

Because for Yellow to have done that means—

I did? says Yellow, sounding as confused as if he’d been thocked on his phantasmal head.

“Oh, oh, oh yeah,” sings Larson. 

Arthur needs a moment.

“I’m not leaving,” he snaps before anybody can yell at him, and turns to stand at the entrance to the alley, just breathing.

He’s very, very glad he had no alcohol with dinner tonight.

“I dunno, pal, it might’ve helped you out,” Kayne says.

“What is this?” says Arthur.

“Isn’t it clear? No, I suppose it’s not—guess good old Liz (or maybe Henry) redirected the blood from your brain to elsewhere. You’re here to kill your enemy, my boy! End the torment. Flip the switch. Bring that hammer down.”

Arthur swallows. He’s tasting metal again—a thing he’s noticed only happens when he’s on the verge of panic.

Which he is. He doesn’t know what’s going on.

Arthur, I can explain.

“Shhh,” says Kayne, and touches Arthur’s lips.

Arthur tries for him with the knife. 

Of course, it only hits brick, jarring his hand. “Ow,” he mutters. “Damn it!”

“He’ll get to explain it all after. For now, however, you, being the key in this situation, being fully entangled with him, and thus, his representative with a physical form, have a job to do.”

“What job? I haven’t agreed to—is this my favor? For killing those cultists?”

Kayne laughs. “No, you sweet thing. It’s his.”

“His?” Arthur’s voice is small.

I… Arthur, I…

Get back here! Coward! Yellow calls from the alleyway.

“I have questions,” says Arthur, but he honestly can’t think of one.

Kayne tsks at him. “I can see you’re in shock, you tender soul, you, so let’s make this simple. Do this, or John’s gone.”

“Gone?” Arthur’s voice cracks.

“Removed. Incised. Purged, if you will. It’s what he agreed to.”

“John?” says Arthur.

This is what you wanted him in New York for? John says, sounding incredulous.

Arthur’s brain has skipped parts of this conversation like it touched an electrical fault, and he blurts, “Yellow is the King in Yellow, isn’t he?”

Kayne laughs. “Wow, are you behind! They’re both the King in Yellow, my darling rose. Snippet, what have you been teaching him? What, nothing? Well, this is on you, then.”

Get back here! howls Yellow. We’re not finished!

“I said all right,” Larson starts singing again. “You know it's alright. It's alright, c'mon.”

And it calms Yellow. It calms the piece of the King in Yellow, the copy of John that Arthur betrayed, that Arthur ruined so badly that he’s refused to think about it because there’s no fixing what went wrong.

“You are correct on that one,” Kayne confirms. “This is fun, and all, but boys… you’re losing my patience. It’s time.”

Arthur finds himself walking back into the alley.

It’s easy to follow Larson’s voice. 

To follow the sweet-syrup sound of that most hated man, who is awfully damn calm about this, and that is the one thought that surfaces. “You’re awfully damn calm about this, Larson,” Arthur snarls.

“Of course I am, my boy. I’m about to enter immortality. Little hard not to face that with some sorta joy, given all I paid for it.”

“Paid for it!” Arthur’s voice breaks. “You didn't pay for it! Your daughter did!”

“So did yours,” says Larson, who shouldn’t know that, who must have been told by Kayne. “We both got to where we are through that most unfortunate necessity, didn't we?”

Murderer! Yellow declares.

Six months ago, that would have been it.

Arthur would have lost it. Gone feral, melted into violent goo, stabbed and tore and shouted until he was covered in gore, until Larson was unrecognizable, until the form could compete with Uncle for mess and mayhem and pulp in bad places.

Today, he pauses.

It’s not the same, says John, calm, because this is only for Arthur. You know it’s not. We’ve been over this.

He killed his daughter! says Yellow.

He made a mistake and she died—and what the fuck are you crowing about? Your guy sacrificed his on purpose! One’s an accident and the other isn't! Fuck, how stupid are you? Did I get all the intelligence, is that it?

What? says Yellow, again taken aback, again stuttered to a halt in the middle of rage.

Arthur realizes with a little gut-twist that Yellow is weirdly naive.

Gullible. That’s the word. He just accepts what anybody says in the moment, then applies that black and white, childish morality.

Yellow would not understand half the movies they’d seen of late.

Why? Why was this?

“Because he didn’t get to spend a month all alone, silly,” says Kayne. “Isn’t that neat? It’s all about godhood and nature versus nurture and all that kind of thing. If you’d been awake the whole time, your John would be even screwier than he is. It’s almost like your bad luck scratches the itch of some eager, chaotic observers. Anyway! What’s the hold up? That’s the guy who hurt you, Arty. That’s the guy who made your teeth loose. You really gonna hesitate now?”

That’s the guy means Yellow, not Larson, and this just got more complicated. “What happens to Yellow if I do this?” says Arthur, because he never asked that before, and he should have, and it’s probably too late, but that’s just how his life goes.

“Hm? Oh, he’ll die,” says Kayne.

John gasps.

Shit. “And what happens to John, then?” says Arthur.

“Heck if I know. This is all new territory, which is why I’m being so patient. Don’t want to miss a thing.”

“Lead me, Jesus, lead me,” sings Larson. “Why don't you lead me in the middle of the air, and if my wings should fail me, won't you provide me with another pair?”

“So you’re crackers,” says Arthur. “Barmy. Lost your damned mind. This isn’t Jesus. This is Kayne. He’s not going to do anything good for you.”

Kayne gasps. “Such ingratitude!” And he laughs. “Next, you’re going to say you don’t want your office filled with music boxes.”

Okay, that—

Okay.

Arthur needs another moment.

“You don’t get one,” Kayne whispers in his ear. “It’s time. John didn’t tell you, and I’m glad he didn’t, because you are fucking glorious this upset, but it’s time. Kill him.”

“Why?” whispers Arthur, and means so many things.

Kayne doesn’t bother to reply.

I… Arthur, I….

“Will you be all right, John?”

I don’t know.

Arthur grips the knife. Its burning leather handle creaks, and Arthur accepts the pain in his palm, because something this messy should not be easy.

Yellow gasps. You’re going to do it in cold blood?

“I’m sorry, Yellow,” says Arthur, because Yellow is not really the King in Yellow, any more than John is. “It seems I fucked up for you all over the place.”

You’re a killer. I don’t expect anything better from you.

He’s human, says John. He’s made mistakes, and stayed alive. Your guy’s no better.

Yellow seems stunned again. He’s not?

Larson laughs. “Little guy, it’s all right. This is where it was always going. Why do you think I had to get you to New York? You’re my final step. My sacrifice. Your death’ll elevate me, son. Mister Lester, I’m fully ready. Do the deed. Let’s get this over with. Then, when I’m ascended, and I’m a god, I’ll be sure to stop by and say hi.”

Arthur’s throat is tight. “He can’t be serious.”

“His deals aren’t for you to know,” says Kayne. “Also, you’re out of time.”

“Wait,” says Arthur.

“Say goodbye to John in three,” says Kayne.

“Wait!” says Arthur, who has an idea, who suddenly thinks—

“Two,” says Kayne. 

With a choked, miserable sound, Arthur cuts Larson’s throat.

But not with the knife Kayne gave him.

“Oh, foul!” Kayne cries. “Oh! Oh! Cheater!”

Andrew! says Yellow, sounding distraught. Andrew! No! No!

What did you do? says John.

“Improvised?” says Arthur, who has no idea what he’s done, except he had to save John, except the knife Kayne gave him was maybe special, except this complete guess was the only hope he had, and he’d only had time to stuff Kayne’s knife away and grab his own instead.

Larson gargles. He sounds like he’s trying to laugh.

Andrew! Yellow sobs it. Andrew! He doesn’t seem to be dying.

So it worked?

So Larson doesn’t get godhood?

Arthur’s hand is warm with blood. He doesn’t know what to do. He tries to clean that knife inside his jacket, where he hopes it won’t show.

Kayne sighs. Paces. 

Kayne punches the wall.

It’s a bad sound, cracking, crumbling. Something inside the building crashes down, and there are screams.

Arthur shakes.

“You know,” says Kayne. “I’ll give you this one. I’ll hand it to you. Didn’t predict it. That’s awful rare. So I’m really pissed at you, and you’ll feel that soon enough—but I can appreciate a good scam.”

“I didn’t pull a scam,” Arthur says, quieter, because Yellow has begun to sob.

It is an ugly sound, wretched, utterly unselfconscious.

He’s doing that because Larson is dead.

It doesn’t feel good. None of this does. Arthur isn’t the same as he was in Addison. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Yellow doesn’t stop crying long enough to answer.

Kayne shoves him suddenly, bruisingly, against the wall. “I am… really… mad at you. I won’t get to pull an experiment like this again for who knows how the fuck long. But… that was the deal. You did the deed. Technically, you’re off the hook. But you, Arthur—you still owe me a favor.”

“I won’t kill Yellow,” Arthur says.

Arthur!

Arthur takes Kayne’s knife back out of his pocket and throws it down, and the clang it makes in the alley is weird, wrong, otherworldly. “I won’t. I’ve done enough to him! Fuck you, I—”

He chokes.

There is a fist is in his throat, impossibly swelling, knuckles distending, expanding, distorting, threatening to tear him from the inside. Can’t swallow around it. Can’t—

It stops. 

Arthur gasps, ragged.

“Better idea,” says Kayne, and suddenly, Yellow’s sobbing is inside his head.

“John!” Arthur manages, gagging, terrified John was swapped into the dead man’s body.

I’m here! I—what the fuck?

Leave me alone! Yellow howls.

They’re both in there, equally loud, equally growly, and it’s too much, there is a weight to the fulness of an eldritch god in his brain, and his own soul feels pinched and battered and stepped on, and he can’t breathe, and—

“This should be fun,” he hears Kayne say, and then he passes out.

#

The arguing is what wakes him.

That doesn’t matter. I don’t care.

Then you’re a hypocrite of the highest order, John snarls.

What does that make you?

Look, you moron, just calling me things doesn’t make it—Arthur! The change in tone is remarkable. Arthur—are you all right? Talk to me, Arthur.

The sharp concern in John’s voice—tenderness mixed with violence, crafted for him.

Arthur recalls Yellow weeping over Larson, and he aches for him, and wonders if his own inner compass has gotten even more broken over the last day. “I’m… I’m here. Fuck, I sound strangled.”

He does. Haggard, raspy. 

Larson could out-sing him at this very moment, and he won’t be able to sing to calm Yellow for a while, and that is such an odd thought to have that Arthur’s face burns, and he rolls over to press it into the cool pillow.

Wait. Pillow?

Lucky, says Yellow, low and bitter. Yours woke up.

I told you he would. He’s remarkable.

Andrew was remarkable.

Wallace Larson was a motherfucking cheat who traded children and people’s lives all the time to seem interesting. Arthur does it all on his own.

Arthur feels not all on his own a little too much, right now. “Yellow.”

What? says the new voice, and the tone is fearful, and challenging, and tight.

Is he doing this?

He’s doing this.

Arthur already decided he’s doing this, and he may be many things, but he doesn’t easily change his mind. “I’m sorry.”

Both the voices in his head are still for a moment.

What? they say together.

“I’m sorry. I met you when I was… I was at the worst of myself. I lied to you, and tried to control you, because I was so afraid of losing you again. Losing… John again. Kayne told me you were him, and I thought… you know, it doesn’t matter what I thought. I fucked up, Yellow. I’m sorry.” It feels weak. “That’s all.”

There is a trembling inside, a non-corporeal shaking that feels like maybe the fault line has been transplanted into him.

How dare you? Yellow says.

I told you so, says John.

How dare you lie to me! You just murdered my… you killed him!

Arthur sighs. “I did. I wasn’t letting John get taken. No matter what shape I’m in, that’s… just how it’s going to be.”

That trembling again.

Larson was ready to sacrifice you, like I said—but you’re safe now, says John to Yellow, which Arthur did not expect. You’re me. He won’t hurt you.

That’s more faith in Arthur than Arthur has for himself.

I’m not you. We can’t even merge, Yellow says.

“You can’t?” says Arthur, who’d forgotten that was a thing until this moment.

No. We… we’ve both changed too much. We can’t.

There is sorrow in John’s voice, deep and aching, a finality that communicates loss Arthur can’t fully comprehend.

It’s a farewell to a thing Arthur cannot even imagine needing.

He has no idea how to engage with it, so he goes for familiar ground. Not a poem, but the movie they just saw—a way to say, I love you, without saying those words. “‘You choose me, Cleopatra, against the world,’” he says.

John practically surges to respond. ‘Then we'll meet it! We'll smash it to pieces, put it together again and call it ours!’

Yellow is, understandably, confused. You’re going to smash the world?

“No, we… no. It’s a movie.”

What’s a movie?

John scoffs. Your asshole of a guy didn’t even take you to see a movie? We’ve seen six in just a few months!

But what is one? I want to see one! What is it?

Arthur is not going to see a movie right now. He feels like his head weighs a thousand pounds. “How did I get to a bed? Did Kayne bring me here?”

There is a distinctly guilty pause. So, says John. When you’re fully unconscious, uh. We. Um.

We have control of your hideous form, Yellow informs him. You’re in your hotel room.

“What? Wait, what?” Arthur sits up. He feels the same. Blind, left hand and foot numb. Head too heavy, but—“What?”

When you’re unconscious, repeats John, we have control. So we got you out of there, because there’s a dead body, and we don’t need to face the police again.

Cowards, both of you, says Yellow.

Maybe he should take Yellow to see some morality plays before the movies, or something. “Where’s the knife? It had my fingerprints.”

Fucking Kayne took it back. It was weird, Arthur. I’m glad you couldn’t see it. Even with me looking through your eyes, they bled.

Arthur stiffens and reaches up. Sure enough, there are dried tracks of blood from his eyes down his neck. “Fuck. Can you see?”

Yes. You seem all right. Just… that knife was bad.

Why—Yellow stops.

“Why what?”

Why didn’t you use it?

Arthur’s not sure he’s in any shape to verbalize this. “What I did to you before wasn’t right. What Larson was doing to you now wasn’t right. It’s time someone didn’t do the wrong thing by you, is all.”

Silence in response.

Whatever that means.

Arthur stands, shaky as a newborn lamb, and feels his way to the bathroom. He strips as he goes, dropping clothing in a trail.

Is it time for a rite? says Yellow, oddly hopeful.

Rite?

He’s naked.

So?

This is too weird, and Arthur does not engage. He turns on the shower. 

But… humans get naked for rites.

John scoffs. He told you that? What the fuck?

They don’t get naked for rites? Yellow sounds lost again.

“So what you’re telling me is fucking Larson never washed his arse,” Arthur mutters, and John laughs.

Don’t you know anything about humans? says John then, disgusted.

Of course I do! More than you!

They are clearly going to be at this for a while.

Arthur lets them, hoping they tire themselves out.

He’s scraped from the bricks in the alley. Bruised from Kayne’s manhandling, and, he thinks, inside his throat. His right hand, disturbingly, seems to have been slightly burned where he held that weird knife. He can’t be sure, but he thinks he’s lost his fingerprints.

But he’s okay. He made it.

He always makes it.

And for the first time in his life, weirdly, he feels like he might have a second chance at something he truly fucked up.

They’re still fighting about naked humans. It’s obviously a cleansing rite!

You’re a moron!

“Yellow,” says Arthur. “I’m sorry you lost your person. He was a monster, but… I get it, and I’m sorry. Good, bad—they don’t matter when there’s grief.”

Another trembling pause as the steam rises, and Arthur washes away the blood, the sweat, the dubious stickiness he finds where Kayne grabbed him through his suit jacket.

I… didn’t like it, says Yellow, soft.

“I know. I think we’ve all… we’ve all gone through some loss here, through no fault of our own.”

Don’t tell me you feel bad for taking that fucker out, says John. You’ve been wanting him dead for months.

Arthur knows clarification is needed, and it is the hardest thing to do, but he has to make this second chance count. “Since I learned he sacrificed his daughter for power, yes. It made me think of losing my little girl, and though that was… that was an accident, I couldn’t… imagine someone doing it on purpose. I went a little insane.”

A little? scoffs John.

“A lot insane, then. Still. Yellow wouldn’t have landed in him at all if I hadn’t been such an ass.”

Actually, says John. About that.

Arthur has been thinking. “You made a deal with Kayne.”

I… yes.

Why? says Yellow.

To get back to Arthur.

Why? Yellow says.

He’s mine, says John.

“And, what? It was just about getting me to New York?”

Yes. He said if I did that, I could stay in you. He even hinted he might give me a body, if I paid his debt right, though it wasn’t… worded clearly. If I failed, and couldn’t get you to New York, I’d… I’d go back to the Dark World. But then we were here, and nothing happened, and I… I sort of hoped he’d forgotten.

“You could’ve told me.” It hurts a little. More than a little.

I’m sorry.

Arthur sighs. “I forgive you. We made it through. Just tell me anything else like that, all right?”

I will. I promise.

Yellow is quiet. 

Arthur has no idea how this conversation might stack up against whatever else Yellow has heard.

He dries off and limps back to the bed, where he falls face-first into the pillow. “No joyrides while I’m out. I need rest.”

You adapted to that news pretty quickly, says John, suspicious.

“I have not adapted at all. I’m simply too damn tired to engage with it right now. Tomorrow, I’ll have a proper panic over it, but for the next few hours, I mean it. No joyrides.”

Fine. No joyrides.

But what if we—

We promised. No joyrides.

I didn’t promise, Yellow grouses.

I did, and we are both the King in Yellow, and that’s our word. Shut up.

They are never going to stop.

Weirdly… it’s not that hard to tune them out.

It reminds Arthur of the strangest thing: those noisy, chaotic, wonderful days when Faroe’s “friends”—really just toddlers her age, in the neighborhood—came over, and everybody was yelling and squealing and laughing and demanding, and all the other parents (mothers, they were all mothers, and Arthur never fit in) clustered like chortling geese to add to the ruckus.

And it shouldn’t have been peaceful, but it was.

It shouldn’t have been the kind of noise he could sink into, but it was.

Why this is like that, Arthur doesn’t know.

Maybe he doesn’t need to know.

For some reason, John is now telling Yellow the plot of The Thirty-Day Princess. And then the Baron said, ‘We are on a wild goose egg!’

Yellow laughs.

Is it safe, to leave them unmonitored like this?

Then again, maybe they need it.

Arthur certainly needs it.

He has no idea what to do with this. He has no idea if he can keep them both in there. His skull feels oddly… strained.

But now, right now, he needs sleep.

John promised no joyrides. (Arthur will deal with that horror tomorrow.)

John’s promise, in spite of today’s unpleasant surprise, is good enough.

Yellow’s grief is real. That’s going to take time to navigate. Arthur feels he owes that much.

So… is everyone safe now? At least until Kayne returns?

Maybe.

Arthur doesn’t know how this works, and he’s no longer arrogant enough to assume he ever will.

Maybe he doesn’t have to know.

Maybe it’s enough to survive, and listen, and forgive, and try to make up for mistakes.

To take his chance to make up for one, and hold it with all his heart.

Arthur drifts off to the sound of John’s attempt at a Ruritanian accent.

Maybe it really is coming up roses, after all.

--------

NOTES

Of course, I had to do ridiculous research for this so it would all be accurate.

It's part of my self-indulgence. Hush.

Dancing Lady on Wikipedia, and you get to see the scene that made poor Arthur hot and bothered right here on YouTube.

Death Takes a Holiday is on YouTube in terrible resolution here, BUT if you skip to 1:04:44, you get to see where Grazia chooses to go with Death.

The romp that is Jimmy the Gent. The quip about ethics and carbunkles is right here, at 1:25.

The Thirty Day Princess was hard to track down, but I found a solid review of it, a clip of the Ruritanian accent, and of course, Bing Crosby's She Reminds Me of You.

The Barretts of Wimpole Street, including that DEEPLY uncomfortable clip where the father seems to think all sex is evil, then gets weirdly handsy with his daughter. Yowza.

Oh, Cleopatra... they don't make movies like this anymore. On. Your. Knees.

As for Yellow... well, I saw how he responded to Larson at the end of 28. He just... accepted whatever Larson said - weirdly innocent about it, which made Larson even creepier to me. I sort of figured without a chance to reset and think (like John had during the coma), he wouldn't be able to grow the same way.

The hymn Larson was singing, My Soul is Gonna Live With God. In your dreams, asshole.

[divinekangaroo]

i might be super late to the party but i was lurking in he tags and: i would LOVE some more explanation/in depth study of what was going on with Tommy and Finn, especially in the last season. I am still, not confused per es, but just wondering alot about some of the choices

This is so interesting, isn't it, particularly when you look at it comparing what 30yo Tommy says to 11yo Finn in S1 versus what 43yo Tommy says to 25yo Finn in S6.

I will warn this isn't coherent in ANY WAY as my infant is being grumpy, but here's a lump of things which struck me as worthy of indepth consideration:

-S1 Tommy telling Finn "don't be me" versus S6 where Tommy basically forces Finn to break his promise to his wife and drink, a mimicry of all the things Tommy has done (go abstinent, fall off the wagon, break promises to his wives).

-Finn being present at all the various violences the Shelby brothers commit, including as a child picking out his own machete (!!!) for one of the mob battles (think it was Epsom?); doing this well enough that he had a reputation -- Songbird Lady in S5 knew enough about the Shelbys to name her new Songbirds 'Tommy, Arthur and Finn'.

-Accidentally or deliberately, Tommy having set up Finn to develop Tommy's vices - cigarettes, drinking, drugs, whoring - pretty much all by the time Finn turned 16. But S5 Tommy nevertheless being very opposed to Finn developing Tommy's vice for violence and risk-tasking, albeit framed as 'we're too high in criminal hierarchy to do grunt work now' not 'you of all of us never have to risk yourself'

-Finn being involved in and integrated into all their illegal business but as a sort of free labour, gopher ('go for'/fetch like an apprentice, or a squire to a knight) - manning the door, bringing around the car, etc

-Finn seeming to hero-worship Tommy, but actually having a brotherly emotional relationship with Arthur. Tommy to emulate, Arthur to actually be a brother.

-Finn and Arthur being the only ones willing to entertain a conversation with their father on his return - Finn trusted Arthur not Tommy, Finn had no father figure, and Tommy did not fill this father figure space or Finn never would have gone with Arthur.

- Tommy brokering Arthur, John and Polly's marriages, and endorsing Ada's partnerships before the family accept them (and Tommy doing what he likes with his own marriages). Then, this way S6 Finn asks Tommy about marrying a girl 'who likes the life' and Tommy telling him no, 'find a girl who doesn't like the life'. And then Finn marries Mary with Tommy's endorsement to the family, and Mary tells Finn not to drink until after 6pm. I did wonder if Mary was the first girl, or was Mary a different girl that Tommy found/endorsed? Because Mary doesn't seem like a girl who likes the life if she's setting limitations on drinking time?

- Finn was effectively raised by Polly. The Shelby mother and father were gone by the time he was 1. Arthur and Tommy (and John) were gone to war by the time Finn was 5, and only returned at when he was 10. Finn had no father figure, ever.

---

So there's this odd push-pull where Finn is clearly one of the Bad Shelby Brothers, because at that time, having him integrated and present in their business was likely the best and easiest way to signify he was protected as well as keep an eye on him. They also used him very much like a squire to their knights, doing the labour and supportive chores and shitty jobs in order to learn the higher level jobs. But then those many conflicted occurances where it seems that Tommy wishes Finn wasn't so involved? Tommy wishes in many ways Finn was less invested in the business so Finn could be released from it? But maybe he doesn't, because Tommy in multiple circumstances challenges Finn with presentation of a vice and Finn always, always indulges -- even if that time, Tommy said don't rather than do?

---

Then we have this interesting symbolic thing happening in S6 between Duke and Finn and Tommy, all revolving around watches.

Duke steals Arthur's watch -- 'I can tell the time' - and in S5, Michael's supposed takeover piece has this strong sense of time -- time for the next generation to step up and time for old men like Tommy to step off the stage and Michael fully brings Finn into it (with Finn's consent/support, or unexpectedly??) and the camera focuses on Finn. So, linked to Michael's failed takeover via the motif of time, Duke can also tell it's time for the next generation, demonstrated by getting one over on ol' Arthur?

Then, Duke only believes Tommy is his father after Tommy explains about Duke's mum's watch that actually, Tommy stole in his youth; and Tommy's brought Duke into the fold so preciptiously because Tommy's (due to terminal diagnosis) running out of time to tidy up his family's loose ends and has to do this now. But also, Duke is symbolically returning time to Tommy that Tommy otherwise wouldn't have by bringing back Tommy's decades-old stolen watch?

Then Tommy has that explosion at Finn about drinking when he wants to and uses Finn's watch to make his point: that says Shelby and you're a Shelby so you tell the watch what time it is. Behind all that is this sense that I bet Tommy wishes he could control time, too, because he'd love to wind it back right now that his time is running out, but also, Finn is a young Shelby and could determine it's time for himself to step up if he simply stopped doing what Tommy kept telling him to do?

In a world where Tommy wasn't running out of time and/or Duke didn't appear, I imagine Finn may have been brought to one side for a quiet chat about Billy Grade and his role in Polly's death. I imagine Finn would have been absolutely destroyed that his sole true caretaker figure was dead because of his loose tongue. I imagine he would have killed Billy, or at least supported Billy being executed. But in this world, Tommy is dying and running out of time, and Tommy is delegating many of his painful tasks to others to do because he can't do everything right now, and why not test both Duke and Finn? Test this next generation as to their readiness to take his place? And who's left in the next generation but for Finn and Duke given Michael's proven himself unsuitable and Charlie is far too young? (I'm sure Uncle Charlie probably had some secret remit to re-home Duke if Duke failed in that scenario too)

---

And I also find it a super interesting parallel that Tommy forces Finn to demonstrate Shelby family loyalty by shooting his best friend, an act Tommy himself did with shooting Alfie for Alfie's betrayal that nearly killed Arthur. In this instance Arthur only almost died so Alfie only almost died - whereas Billy had to really fully die.

---

I mean, none of this gets to a satisfactory conclusion, it's just a bunch of conflicted threads/thoughts. I feel Tommy was vaguely treating Finn like a squire in a faint anticipation of one having Finn step up and take over the business from him, there's a near 20-year age gap between them, but Tommy was always conflicted by this because 1) he didn't really want his littlest brother to have to do the same shit he did, and 2) Finn was not leadership material, smart or cunning in any way, he was really just a consumer of the Shelby proceeds and always obeyed and never really acted to assert himself in the hierarchy. This faintest possibility of Finn taking over was then derailed heavily by Michael who was smart so Tommy dropped those vague unformed thoughts about Finn, but after Tommy knew Michael would be out of the picture in some way in S4 when suspicions start to rise? Finn starts to show up again in Tommy's arc in a very different way, and is put under various levels of pressure, right up to this S6 contrived scenario between Finn and Duke.

I get a sense that over time, Tommy challenged Finn repeatedly with situations of vice, corruption, conflict, difficulty, in the hope Finn would demonstrate enough strength to push back against Tommy instead of performing the vice. But Finn never did, and even when he fucked up, it was a silly mistake not worthy of any respect, not even in the way Michael is worthy of the respect of being killed; and so he is always framed in Tommy's mind as the weak one. There's a clannish behaviour (where clans are about constantly fluid status, not granted/earned and static rank) where you only get status if you behave in a way that already is of that status. Finn never, ever did this. Tommy then contrives a situation of extreme pressure as a last ditch effort to see if Finn will stop being that squire, weak one, or will he finally act according to the status he should be able to claim.

It's also this working class thing of dumping shit and abuse on your sons until your sons are strong enough to force you to stop. Finn's not a son, but that mentality...

---

I'm sorry this is so rambly, one of those fun things that it takes more time to be brief and succinct than just word-vomit on a screen XD Post S6, I have only two fic concepts in my to-write list, and one of them is 100% about Finn, trying to reconcile all of the above. I think Finn's actor did an amazing job of packing so much pain into that final scene it'd be a disappointment if any eventual movie doesn't give him a heavy arc.

[traumadumpwriter]

Heavy trigger warning: Blood, violence, gore. Mentions of self harm, sexual assault and rape.

Check out the other chapters by going on the Freedom tag on my page!

Sorry for the slow updates. I'm much more regular on my Wattpad and already have a lot more chapters uploaded there. The @ is slowlychanging.

Don't forget to like and comment if you're enjoying! It really does mean a lot. Stay safe xx

Freedom: A John Shelby fanfiction

Chapter Eleven: 2900 words

Knuckles white as he gripped the wheel, John raced to the shop without even thinking to pick up Ada - only able to focus on the rage. Red hot, blistering rage, fuelled by the haunting image of Alice's crumpled body. It taunted him like a ghostly apparition whilst the smokey, serpentine roads felt like they stretched on forever.

By time he got out of the car, slamming on the breaks in the middle of the street, his anger had reached new heights. Luckily, it wasn't particularly busy at the shop; just the usual workers sat around, and so there was no halt when John stormed into Tommy's office, immediately met by alert blue eyes.

"You're a fucking prick, you know that?" John's voice was instantly raised as he paced to his older brother, who didn't as much as flinch upon recognising the intruder. Tommy had already received a bollocking from Pol that morning and wasn't at all surprised to see John's furrowed brows and closed fists. Still though, he couldn't help but be annoyed by the disturbance - he was busy dealing with the other results of last night after all - so his mouth remained straight and his gaze unsympathetic.

"She's in hospital right now because of you! Do you even care?" John slammed a hand down onto the desk with a shout, desperate for even a crack in his brothers face. "Huh Tommy? Do you even give a fuck?"

"Yes John, I give a fuck. And that's why everything worked out, didn't it?" The patriarch responded flatly before lighting a cigarette.

"No it didn't all fucking work out! Did you not fucking hear me? What about her being hurt is bloody alright to you? Alice could've died last night." John growled in response, almost spitting in his fury.

This newfound opposition from one of his most loyal soldiers was starting to get under Tommy's skin.

"Well she can't be doing that bad if you're fucking here, can she John? Huh?" His eyes started to widen with irritated energy and his voice got gradually louder. "Because she ain't even your wife and you've gone soft for her! Where's your balls John, she fucking agreed to it and if there's an issue she can come speak to me. Are you a fucking carrier pigeon now?"

John gritted his teeth.

"No, I'm not fucking not. I'll tell you what you are though. You're a fucking cunt. An egotistical fucking cunt. And-"

"Well at least I've not gone soft for a nut job, John. Because that's what she is, a fucking nut job! And you plan on marrying her! You're even thicker than I thought-"

That was it. John leapt across the desk and punched Tommy's face, quickly earning an equal punch back as they started to brawl. The noise instantly caught the attention of everyone in the shop and Pol soon burst in with a drunken Arthur - only just awoken and still stumbling.

Her shouts were being ignored as the brothers hissed at each other in between their attacks, knocking over furniture and sending each other flying.

"You're just fucking bitter that your woman ain't ever coming back, but mine did. You're still fucked off over some clapped cavalry cunt!" John declared before shoving Tommy backwards with a scoff. He went to punch him again but his brother had suddenly floored him.

"Cus' she's such a woman ain't she John? Still acting like a bloody animal whenever there's any opportunity to do so!" Tommy had a grip on John's leg, dragging him with gritted teeth until he was also pulled to the ground.

John used this opportunity to jump up and start kicking his brother, although he quickly clambered up too and threw a heavy punch to his face. Blood spat from John's mouth before he threw a heavier punch back.

"You've got no one." He growled before gripping Tommy's shoulders and slamming him against the bookshelf, classics falling down with the intense shake. John's fingers moved to squeeze Tommy's throat.

"Well last time I checked this so called woman ain't even yours, she's still Mrs Buckley." The elder mocked with wide eyes and a venomously sharp tone. He knew his brother wouldn't kill him.

Although if John was seeing red before, it was now a faded shade in comparison to the colour he saw then. The words made him feel sick. Mrs Buckley. It gave his whole body an intense wave of revulsion as he threw his brother down to the ground and then kneeled over him, quickly starting to pummel his face as Tommy landed punches to his gut.

"Don't you ever fucking say that!" A guttural shout much louder than the others erupted from his mouth followed by a flurry of hits that halted Tommy's arms entirely and finally drew over Arthur.

John didn't stop hitting until he was suddenly grabbed by the eldest, which was a mistake on his part because he swiftly received a punch to the face that also sent him to the ground whilst Tommy was clambering up.

Just as John was about to go for his brother again, Pol's voice finally broke through the violent haze and he turned to her for the first time since she entered, paying attention.

"Alright John, you've floored them both. That's enough." Despite the demanding tone, it was a familiarity he found comfort in and the red began to fade. Unbeknownst to him, she shot Tommy a sharp glare just as he was about to open his mouth and make another taunt.

"What's she in bloody hospital for? I thought you said she was alright last night?" Her words grounded him back into the current reality and his breathing started to even out; followed by a glance down at his fists which he realised were splattered with blood.

It took him a moment to collect his thoughts, looking around the room and seeing Arthur still on the floor. He made a step towards him, an instinctual desire to help his brother but quickly stopped himself as soon as he remembered Pol's question.

"Her ribs.. and the cuts." He answered numbly, staring back down at his hands. "I should get Ada-"

"Leave Ada out of it and go back there yourself. God knows she's got enough on her plate without your bloody mess." Tommy finally spoke, earning a side eye from John who's tone immediately soured again.

"You sold Alice out to get fucking ravaged by those sadistic pricks!" His shout brought a heavy silence to the room, even Arthur's groans stopping. "And you told her she'd be fine."

Everyone in the room felt a guilty pang in their guts at those words, John's pain so palpable it was no longer something even a brother could mock. Tommy didn't know what to say in response, there was no justification that wouldn't just further anger John. And so he pursed his lips and said nothing, resuming his previous cold face.

It wouldn't have to last much longer anyway as John was heading towards the door, spitting on the ground before scoffing "You're lucky, you'd be fucking dead if I'd found her a minute later" and promptly exiting, his miserable pace out considerably slower than his determined march in.

Everyone waited to hear the front door slam before moving, Pol marching across the room and landing a firm slap on Tommy's bloody cheek as Arthur hoisted himself up with a grunt.

"You happy with yourself?" She tutted and then turned to Arthur "Both of you need to sort your bloody acts out."

~~~~~

Knowing the Shelby's reputation very well, the nurses attempted to give Alice the best care they could. It was just a few stitches and some ribs that needed to be set - the care didn't need to be amazing. But her vacant expression, hollow voice and visibly self inflicted scars made them mostly quite uncomfortable, leaving just one nurse in charge.

"If she were a woman off the streets she would surely be moved to facility more suited to her needs; a nuthouse of sorts. But because she's with that awful gang, that's not allowed. She's my responsibility instead." The nurse thought bitterly.

She stayed sat a few feet away from the bed, keeping her watch on the tangled hair and tired eyes; doing anything to avoid her tattered arms. The nurse didn't know why it made her so uncomfortable but it did. There was something so unnatural about it, so unnerving. And so instead of continuing her awkward attempt at conversation with the sunken down woman, she handed her a small bottle, the glass thick and brown.

Alice shot a confused look to the nurse, knowing the contents of said bottle were quite unnecessary for her current predicament.

"I don't need this." She spoke lowly, earning a hidden eye roll from the nurse before she replied "It's for the pain."

"Yeah I know, I'm not hurting too bad-"

"I meant up here." The nurse pointed to her own head. "Shuts my thoughts right up."

Despite the passive aggressive nature of the nurse's offer, something that Alice would usually call out, she was too tired to voice a response. And she actually quite liked the idea of her thoughts shutting up. Morphine wasn't too dissimilar to the opium that Jones had fed her - something to make her stop fighting back - and although that specific idea made her feel sick, the sweet numbness seemed heavenly.

The syrup was soon dripping down her throat before the bottle made its way into her pocket, something the nurse couldn't even be bothered to argue with. "She clearly needs it." She mentally justified to herself.

It didn't take long after that for the effects to kick in, Alice's body melting into the bed and her brain going numb. There was no longer such an intense shooting pain whenever she moved and the previously shouting voices in her head mellowed out into calm whispers. A sigh of relief left the nurse's lips upon seeing a slight smile finally form upon Alice's, even if it was twitching and tiny.

The mental quiet was so relaxing, a desperately needed reprieve that Alice bathed in for a while. The opium has never been that relaxing, accompanied by the abuse, but by itself Alice could really see the appeal. She lay, blissed out for some time, until the sound of heavy footsteps pacing through the tiled corridor caught her ears.

She opened her eyes and John appeared in the doorway a second later, his body immediately un-tensing slightly upon seeing Alice awake and seemingly okay. The nurse promptly excused herself, completely ignored by him.

Now that they were alone with so many things to discuss, his pace slowed and the lump in his throat started to build again. Every step closer to the bed his brain became more desperate for something to say. Scrambling but unable to choose. There were a ridiculous number of topics to pick from and yet none of them seemed right.

Hurting his brother hadn't made him feel any better, in fact it made him feel worse; even angrier at Tommy than before - and he definitely didn't want to talk about that, let alone let slip the cruel words said about her. There was also the conversation of what to do next - get married soon or don't - and that didn't seem appropriate given the current mood nor did John even want to risk hearing rejection in his current mind state. And then there was the uncomfortable "How are you?" when the answer was glaringly obvious - that would just be stupid to ask.

It was too late now, he awkwardly stood at the end of the bed and still couldn't think of what to say. All air left his lungs and a heavy silence filled the room. What could he do now?

"It's okay. Come here." Alice's soft voice thankfully broke the silence, sounding like an angel choir to John.

Despite her hazey head, not only were his physical injuries visible but so were his emotional. Eyes a dizzying array of sadness, guilt and anger. Brows tightly furrowed. Lips pulled harsh into a falsely apathetic line. A moment passed before he let it up, finally releasing a heavy sigh and pulling a chair to sit beside her.

She held out her hand and he immediately gripped it, holding his head to her cold fingers for a few seconds before looking up again, her face always managing to make him feel extraordinary - bruised or not.

"You alright?" She gently cooed again, moving that hand to stroke his face which was now just as marked as hers.

Her touch made him feel even more strange, a trail of sparks left behind on his body by her beautiful, soft skin.

"How does she do this to me?" He thought as her hand started to feel like a cradle, almost comforting enough to lull him to sleep. Almost. His gut still felt knotted and a lump still danced in his throat.

"It's okay, we don't have to talk." Alice remained soft and calm, her light mood being aided significantly by the morphine. Only an hour beforehand she was certain that she'd ruined everything; her thoughts festering and screaming that John would never want her again, she'd be disowned by the Shelby's, everything had been ruined by her inability to say no to danger. Now those worries no longer bothered her. Instead she was just content with John's presence, comforting him instead of needing it herself.

"For once." A nagging thought attempted to pull her from the comfortable numbness but it was quickly squashed as he finally spoke, his mouth open for a second before he managed to get the words out.

"I want to talk." He stammered, swallowing again before continuing in a tone closer to his usual confidence.

"I want to talk, I just don't know where to start... I'm so bloody angry at you for even putting yourself in danger. You're a magnet for it and the worst fucking part is that you like it. You like the blood. You're sick, Alice." He took a sharp inhale, Alice's hands slowly falling from his face as each painfully honest word landed; the cloud she was on suddenly sinking.

"But I fucking love you." Now his voice quietened and his hand quickly made its way to her still face, rubbing her cheek softly as she had to him. "You're the dream that kept me going somedays in the trenches. And now I've got you, it feels like everything in the world is trying to take you away from me. Yourself included."

His words were slowly sinking in; heavy and hot like tar. It took Alice some time to think of an adequate response, her heart feeling simultaneously overjoyed and broken by the admittance, and just as she was about to mumble a slew of apologies, John spoke again, eyes boring into hers.

"They've given you something, haven't they? I should've waited to talk about this." A humourless chuckle left his lips, not even giving Alice time to respond before pulling his hand away and standing up, the chair legs making an ugly scraping noise that sounded ten times louder than usual combined with the sudden withdrawal of his touch. "I'll go find a nurse and sign you out-"

"W-wait!" She blurted out, anxiety now managing to creep it's way back up her spine. John's stare did nothing to alleviate that anxiety, but she knew she had to push through the fog and say the right thing - something intelligible at least.

"Can we continue.. from yesterday, yesterday morning I mean.. I'll make us breakfast, we can dance and everything will be good... I love you."

The heavy weight anchoring his lips down finally seemed to have been lifted, a smile that met his eyes lighting up his pale face. There was nothing he wanted more than to continue from yesterday morning and act as if none of this had happened.

"You're on bedrest, Alice. I'll make breakfast." He said with a playful scoff.

And just like that, the comfortable adoration had returned at least partially. Rocks removed from stomachs and lumps from throats, Alice sunk back down into the bed with a relieved sigh as her body relaxed again whilst John headed to find a nurse.

Looks of judgement were passed between patients and staff when he speedily wheeled her down the hall, the pair giggling loudly and the occasional gasp escaping Alice's lips at the every sharp turn. The dried blood and dark bruises heavily juxtaposed by their visible joy; as per leaving the nurses with more questions than answers when it came to the Shelby's.

Less than an hour later, the pair were laid back in John's bed and instead of laughter the room was silent. Contently silent. Their fingers were intertwined and their eyes glued to each others faces, taking in each minute detail with deep satisfaction.

The undivided attention was an intense aphrodisiac for the both of them, an unspoken wish that this moment could last forever. It was like a spell neither could explain, no words even needing to be spoke. After a while, John started to drift into sleep but not before Alice mumbled a quiet "I love you" and promptly dropped into a deep sleep moments after.

[queenofcats17]

I had some new ideas regarding my roleswap idea.

First of all, the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of John being raised in a cult.

I especially like the idea that he was specifically raised to be a human vessel for the King in Yellow. He was an orphan found and taken in by the cult for the sole purpose of being a vessel for the cult's great King.

And for a long time, John didn't question any of this. After all, it was the only life he'd ever known. But something happened that made him realize how horrifying everything he was being forced to do was. I feel like... maybe it would have something to do with Sarah Cummings and Anna Stanczyk.

Whatever it was, it was bad enough to shake John's belief in the cult and help him realize he needed to get away. So, he planned his escape and got as far away from the cult as he possibly could, taking on the name John Doe. I feel like it probably took him a bit to settle on private investigator as a job, and he's not incredible at it, but it's good enough for the moment.

He's worked very hard to avoid any and all supernatural nonsense for fear of drawing the cult's attention again. Which is why he's very frustrated when he happens to receive a mysterious music box that shoves an eldritch entity into his head.

Second of all, Arthur.

I was trying to think of a reason why an elder god would have a human name, let alone a name like Arthur Lester, and I came up with the idea that Arthur was, in fact, a human once upon a time. He doesn't really remember how he became what he is now, and honestly, he doesn't really care how it happened.

Faroe is the only thing he remembers clearly from his human life. He's fiercely held onto those memories, even as the rest of his memories of his human life faded. He doesn't remember anything about Faroe's mother or what his life outside of Faroe was like. He just remembers Faroe. And that she died because he wasn't paying attention to her.

The song he shares that drives people crazy is the one he wrote for Faroe. He doesn't remember any of the other songs he composed during his human life. Just that one.

I still wanna keep some Song of Horror inspirations for him because I really like that idea.

[meeks-just-wants-to-scroll]

For the ask game:

Micah: 12, 22

John: 6, 8

Oh boy!!

Micah

12- What's a headcanon you have for this character?:

Far too many. I have the bad habit of only giving interesting headcanons to my comfort characters.

A half baked headcanon I have in mind is that Micah doesn’t like dogs because his father would use the threat of being eaten by dogs to whip Micah and Amos into obedience, especially if the kids ever tired on long stretches of walking and fell behind. If Micah Bell Jr ever found a guard dog, he would shove Micah precariously close to the dog, maybe even walk Micah to the perimeter of where the dog’s leash ends so the dog will be barking and snarling a foot away from the kid.

Micah stomachs most of his fear of dogs, coming off as him being an asshole and not liking dogs to look aloof. He will yelp and get away if a dog suddenly gets in his space or barks.

22- If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to ths character? Something you don't like?:

Woof this is a tough one. I am pretty happy with any fan fic with Micah. I have yet to read a LOT a lot of fan fics on ao3. I’ve read a few on Tumblr (the yn x Micah kind of fics).

I really like when writers accept / lean into Micah being an imperfect, unsexy, sexy man. @amrass is really good at nailing what I mean. He is a bad man! He is fat! He is unhygienic! He is old for the era! He is contradictory and sly! He is somehow a sex god yet also shy as incompetent as a virgin when it comes to genuine flirting! He slouches! I love him for all his flaws and love it when writers find a way to incorporate them instead of brushing them under the rug to make him more conventionally attractive.

John

6- What's something you have in common with this character?

!!!! Hm. I suppose it is being the “middle sibling” , having a parent who loses your trust, and “golden child” feeling.

John and Arthur have always been compared to one another (no matter how much Dutch or Hosea would deny it). Arthur will always be more accomplished because he is older. That is how I feel with my older sibling. I used to be the eldest sibling and I used to be the accomplished golden child (I still am. I still get all A’s) but with me being an adult, I am now expected to reach all these milestone and suddenly have my shit together. John is much the same, being in his 20’s and being forced to be a family man and a pillar of his gang. him disappearing from the gang was bad and foolish, but some days wish I could do the same thing. John gradually becoming disillusioned with Dutch too. This might be more fitting of Arthur, but I was raised so much by my biological mother that I struggled to see her without rose tinted glasses. It was only after she was in the hospital / died that I was able to live without her in my life and unpack what she did. It helped me realize how neglectful and emotionally abusive she was to me and my sibling. Me and John, I think we both had a realization during our long absences.

8- What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

I don’t know. I haven’t been around the fandom (rdr1 and 2) long enough to get an idea of the ins and outs of how characters are treated. From what I can tell, John is treated like a troubled rascal of a man. I feel most interpretations are faithful to the material and have value.

If I had to grab at sticks and pick something to say “this. This is what I dislike,” then I’ll say it is when John is infantalizing in Morston media. Infantilizing characters is my biggest pet peeve in fandoms. John is an adult and much of his story is about maturing. I especially hate when it is used in Morston media because it presses on a bruise when it comes to the fetishization of gay men. Strong dom / sub gay stuff where one guy is treated like an incompetent shy virgin while the other is a buff sexy sex machine makes me frown. It’s mainly just boring to interact with.

Very very few things actually go as extreme as I make it out to be. Most Morston media is fine (I assume). I’m making a strawman loosely inspired by read stuff I’ve interacted with in the past.