#it's insane person johnghost hours :)

[sednonamoris]

a dark alley and a bad idea

Pairing: John Marston x gn!reader

Summary: After an argument with Abigail, John goes into town to drink his worries away. As always you follow, and as always there's trouble - seems like you bring it with you wherever you go. 

Warnings: Canon-typical alcohol/tobacco abuse, canon-typical violence, bar fight, blood, jealousy, toxic relationship(s), a singular French man, mild angst, pining, sexual tension ;)

Word count: 2,203

A/N: Just a chapter or two to go until we hit the official RDR2 timeline!!! This has been some time coming, and I just have to say a huuuuuge thank you to the people who read/comment on this story <333 ghost story is very near and dear to me, and sharing it with you all has been such a joy!! Here’s to many more chapters, and an eventual spark that turns this slow burn into a wildfire 🥵❤️‍🔥

Series masterlist • AO3

—

John and Abigail are fighting. Again. 

Leaned up against the pole of your tent, you take a long drag from your cigarette that does nothing to dull the headache forming behind your left eye socket. Every word they shout is a stabbing pain. You don’t know what the argument is about, this time, but at a guess it’s John’s failure as a father. Or perhaps Abigail’s incessant nagging. Or, more likely, two stubborn fools fighting tooth and nail not over a son, but over who’s right and who’s wrong and a years old hurt.

Maybe that mattered once upon a time, but the way they carry on now isn’t right for anyone.

The whole of camp is sick and tired of the never-ending arguments that last all day, and the too-loud fucking that lasts all night. It never seems to satisfy them, either, because come morning the fighting starts all over again. Not for the first time, you think about moving your tent to the other side of camp. Even bunking next to Dutch’s new best friend, Micah, would be an improvement. 

“Leave me be, woman! Can’t you see I want nothin’ to do with either of you right now?” John shouts in her face. 

“Fine!” Abigail fires back. “Swan off with Ghost like you ain’t got a family here! That’s what you always do anyhow.” 

“Maybe I will!” 

“Useless man,” she seethes.

She sends you a withering glare as she marches away, Jack in tow. You smile thinly in return. No doubt she’s headed to vent to Arthur, and then ask him with those pretty blue eyes to do something fun to take the boy’s mind off things. Then, once John has come back, they’ll argue over that, too.

John shakes his head and curls his lip in disgust, but does exactly as Abigail predicts. He storms past your tent with a come on, we’re leavin’, then keeps stomping on to where his mare is picketed. He never looks back to see if you follow. 

You do. 

—

These past few years have gone by in a blur, like those moving pictures Arthur told you about once. Hosea’s health has waxed and waned. Familiar faces left. New ones came. Jack is really starting to grow up, and Abigail has blossomed into motherhood in spite of John, who in between arguments has re-devoted himself to gunslinging. To Dutch. He watches over him with pride glistening in those dark eyes of his - a father figure and a moral compass and a leader all at once. Arthur is green with envy and red with an angry sort of shame. You’re just happy that unlike those two, whatever rift once existed between you and John has long since healed. 

And now here you all are in Blackwater.

To hear Dutch and Hosea tell it, this now-bustling town verging on citydom was little more than a trading post the last time they passed through. Following the two murders everyone is charitable enough not to mention, the long arm of the law has chased you relentlessly. A failed venture up North led you here, further East than anyone has been in what feels like a lifetime.

You’re trying to see it as a fresh start. 

John seems like he’s trying to go back in time.

The ride into town has given him a chance to cool down some, but he still carries a tension and a meanness in those broad shoulders of his. Riding just behind, you take a rare moment to admire him. He’s been growing his hair out. It sits lank just past his shoulder, and as much as it needs a wash you think the length suits him. It frames the sharp angles of his face that even the low brim of his hat can’t hide and emphasizes the lean, untamed power of his frame. 

The two of you are wilderness and war, survival and spite. Restless remnants of time gone by. Ghosts, you think wryly to yourself.

Blackwater is just the opposite. Each building is young and alive, cut brick and fresh paint. Wooden scaffolding reveals the newborn bones of structures still being built by construction workers that toil proudly for a city made in their image. Passersby are dressed in clothes that make up for fineness in newness and brightly colored dye. Some of the ladies even have delicate parasols to shield their skin from the prairie sun’s harshness. You spy your own sun-weathered face in the expensive glass saloon-front and manage to suppress a sigh. 

John parks his mare at one of the hitching posts there. You follow suit, not at all surprised at where you’ve landed. You, Arthur, and Hosea came to ‘test out the drinks’ your first week here. They’re good. Expensive, but good. The two of them have been scheming away about some mysterious lead they won’t let you in on. Meanwhile, Micah has bent Dutch’s ear about a river boat. You’re still sniffing out leads of your own, and figure the bar will be as good a place as any to start. It just happens John will be drinking his problems away beside you. 

“Two whiskeys,” he says to the bartender without preamble. He slaps just enough change down on the counter and takes a seat, oblivious to the glares of customers he’s interrupted. You settle in beside him with a poorly-concealed grin.

“What if I wanted a beer?”

He rolls his eyes. “You don’t.”

You hold up your hands in mock surrender. “At least let me get the next round.”

At that he clinks his glass to yours and taps it on the bartop before swallowing his drink down with a grimace. You elect to nurse yours, already prepared for a long night.

He quickly outpaces you. While John oscillates between pouring his heart out to whatever working girl is nearest and playing increasingly worse hands in the ongoing blackjack game, you begin smalltalking. One of the off-duty construction workers piques your interest. He’s a burly, hairy, mountain of a man who introduces himself as Pierre with an accent you can only place as foreign.

“You speak real good English,” you blurt without thinking. “Where are you from?”

He laughs, a deep sound that comes from his belly. “I have been told I speak English very well, yes. I am from France.”

“Awful long boat ride to break your back layin’ brick.”

“Perhaps so, but I like the work. It keeps my mind and my hands busy. Surely you know something of this, Cowpoke?”

You snort a laugh in agreement and try to ignore the heat that rises in your cheeks at the nickname. It sounds… nice, when he says it. A little romantic, like you’re some lone figure on the American frontier and not a liar, a killer, and a thief. 

Mischief and delight dance in the dark brown of his eyes when he catches your fluster. “Let me buy you a drink, hm? Then maybe I will tell you about France, and you will tell me about America.” 

—

You’re the warm, happy kind of drunk by the time the sun starts setting. Pierre is kind, and funny, and his stories of France paint such a vivid picture in your mind. You’ve traveled plenty, sure, but never across oceans. It sounds equal parts exhilarating and frightening. He tells you about laying strong foundations, and you tell him about breaking young horses. He explains what to look for in a fine building, and you tell him how to buy decent horseflesh. It’s fun. Freeing, even, to speak to someone outside of the gang like this. Of course he mentions a wealthy old landowner outside of town too paranoid to keep his money at the bank, and of course you’ll rob the place later, but he shares this not to screw someone else over, but because the construction of the old house fascinates him. Because he wants to share that passion with you. Because, you remind yourself, he doesn’t know you are what you are. 

He tells a joke - something about construction, you think. It’s hard to tell because he leans in and places a hand on your arm and your mind suddenly goes blank. His eyes smile with him, just as strong and warm as the rest of him. You smile back. Then in the blink of an eye there’s a shout, and before you realize what’s happened Pierre is cradling his bleeding nose after someone lands a vicious right hook.

“You keep your hands to yourself, partner.” 

“What the hell, Marston?!” you say, scrambling back from the commotion. But it’s no use; John can’t see past the blood red of his tunnel vision.

To your great dismay, Pierre rises to his challenge. He flashes you a look - apologetic or resigned or disappointed, it’s hard to say -  before standing to face off with your idiot best friend, piss drunk and fighting mad. He’s easily twice his size, but what John Marston lacks in muscle he makes up for in meanness. When Pierre swings high, he dives low and takes him out at the legs. And so the mountain topples. Straddled on his chest, John beats and beats and beats on Pierre’s face, until finally the larger man throws him off and comes to an unsteady stand. His face is pulpy. His eyes shine bright with anger and dark with understanding the kinds of company you keep. The bloodthirsty crowd that’s gathered jeer and laugh. They catch John on the fringe and push him back into the fight. Standing opposite, Pierre spits blood in his direction before putting his fists up once more. 

The bartender is still shouting for them to stop. 

You’re just frozen, watching John defend the honor you don’t possess against a man who probably has more than the whole gang combined. 

When their fists collide once again, crowd-goers start passing crumpled bills and calling out bets. Twenty on the skinny one, and I’ve got thirty for Frenchy, and let’s see forty for the cowboy! Even they can see John has more fight in him, no matter how many times Pierre clobbers him with a powerful left hook the idiot can’t seem to block. 

Fools. Goddamn blood-blind fools, both of them. 

John gets full-body thrown against the bar, all sprawled limbs and wind-knocked-out-of-him. He wheezes an insult, goading Pierre closer. Only you can see the writing on the wall, but the cry of warning comes too late; The moment he closes the distance, John whips a bottle out from behind the bar and breaks it over Pierre’s head. He comes crashing down, over two hundred pounds of dead weight lost to the crunch of broken glass and police whistles.

The moment the lawmen burst through the front doors is the moment you finally unfreeze. You rush over to where John stands lording over his fallen opponent and all but tackle him through the back door. 

“What the hell were you thinking?” you hiss at him as you dodge through backalleys and behind buildings. “I was working a lead - He was buying my drinks for Christsakes!”

“Shut up,” he snaps, then tugs your arm and pushes your back to scratchy alley brick with a hand over your mouth.

He crowds close, and you seriously contemplate kicking him in the balls or biting him - maybe both - when three officers run past, clearly hunting for you. His dark leather coat blends with the unlit alleyway, but still you don’t dare move a muscle. The two of you hold your collective breath until the sound of their footsteps fade.

John removes his hand from your mouth, but it doesn’t go far. Rather than retreating, he cups your cheek and lets his thumb brush against your lower lip. 

“He was touching you,” he says, half defense and half confession.

Somehow you find your voice. “What if I wanted him to?”

“You didn’t.” Alcohol and iron sit heavy on his breath. His grey eyes are blown black, drunk and something else you’re too scared to name. It’s hard to breathe. You wish it wasn’t. 

“What do I want, then?”

He tilts his face forward, so the bridge of his nose brushes against yours. Your eyelashes kiss his cheekbones. You can feel how wide your own eyes have blown, can feel the want and the warmth and the desperate, pathetic hope that builds in your chest and threatens to bubble out of your mouth.  

“Someone who ain’t afraid of ghosts.” He doesn’t speak so much as breathe the words into you. 

You open your mouth - to respond, to kiss him, maybe - but before you can say another word the sound of heavy footfall at the opposite end of the alley snaps both of your heads to attention at breakneck speed. 

“There they are!” a voice shouts, and a whistle blows shortly afterward. 

“Fuck!” John curses. “Shit.”

The two of you sprint off into the night, to the edge of town where you whistle desperately for your mounts to follow. Two ungraceful running mounts later you’re off, shaking the police tail with ease on moonlit backroads.

Once the danger has passed you let your heart break to the sound of hoofbeats that lead home.