#this is about jarthur cowboy au when the land was godless and free but we don’t have to talk about that

[vee-lociraptor]

romance is so cool i wish it was real and not made up for fanfiction

[ananxiousgenz]

HEY YOU GUYS KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS????? JARTHUR COWBOY AU TIME!!!!!

this one also comes with a bit of info for the beginning:

@percymawce-arts and I have finally given this monster child of ours a name!! from here on out, this fic shall be known as "When the Land was Godless and Free" (a lyric from the song foreigner's god by hozier)!

the chapters we are posting are like. severely out of order. we've just been going crazy behind the scenes (we keep getting good ideas and then discussing/writing them for literal hours, it's a great time). percy basically wrote all of this and i just did some minor edits and left all caps comments screaming about how fucking GOOD this is, so any and all compliments should be directed at him <3

and some trigger warnings: this chapter contains alcohol and some suggestive themes!!

@izel-reblogs and @ellamenop (if you guys want me to stop tagging you please lmk)

“Here’s to John and Arthur! Arthur and John!” Noel shouted, stepping up onto the bar and raising his beer, some of it sloshing over the side of the cup with the motion. “Freaky-ass, sharpshooting, vigilante crime-fighting extraordinaires! Without you two, those gangsters would still be shooting up this charming little town.” He flashed a wink and a gaggle of girls seated behind John giggled. John rolled his eyes. “To John and Arthur!”

“To John and Arthur!” the bar echoed, jovial sounds of conversation and rowdy drinking soon filling the space again. John smiled into his drink, only to choke and nearly fall out of his chair when Noel clapped him on the shoulder. 

“Get ready for a lot of free drinks,” he said, hopping down to the floor. “This town’s full of generous rich folks just waiting for a chance to throw some money around.” 

John groaned. “Does that mean I have to talk to people?”

“I’m afraid so, darlin’,” Noel said, all easy charm and swagger as he leaned up against the bar next to John. “Uh oh. Don’t look now, but there’s one coming up behind you.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” John swore under his breath as a young blonde woman in a pink (and startlingly revealing) dress came up to the bar beside him. “That was fast,” he whispered to Noel, who barely managed to hide a snigger.

“Hi!” the woman squealed, her pitch akin to metal nails on glass. John winced. Voice aside, her general disposition was the near equivalent to staring straight into the afternoon sun, and the neon pink of her dress didn’t help matters.

“Can I buy you a drink, cowboy?” she crooned, gently brushing a hand over his shoulder as she smiled far too brightly (the whole blind sharpshooter gig tended to work better when only one of them was blind). 

John shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Oh, I don’t-”

“It’s on the house for you, sweetheart. I’ll pay for everything, don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. So, how about that drink?” She moved in closer beside him, her hand drifting up his neck and along his jawline. John was only beginning to think of how to politely decline when he felt a looming presence over his shoulder.

“Only if you buy for all of us,” Arthur said, not unkindly. But John had been traveling with him for long enough to recognize the hint of something else beneath the politeness. Not what it was, just that it was there. The woman giggled.

“Well, of course! Anything for our dashing heroes!” John glanced over his shoulder at Arthur. His face was set in stone, watching the woman like a hawk on a rabbit as she slipped a few coins into the bartender’s hand and waited for drinks in return. He looked… tense. Like he was a piece of rope, stretched to the verge of snapping, and if that annoying woman made one wrong move, he would.

Noel raised an eyebrow at Arthur. “You must be a real hit with the ladies,” he murmured into his glass, looking Arthur up and down as he did so. Arthur paid him no mind.

The sunshine woman was not the last to buy them a round of drinks, not by a long shot. Plenty of flirtatious ladies (and a few flirtatious men), thankful patrons and impressed watchmen approached them, hoping to show their gratitude by buying them a shot or a glass of whiskey. Arthur didn’t leave John’s side the whole night, quick to shut down any attempts at seduction by feigning ignorance to the intentions of anyone who approached them. But John knew better. John could see the hard set of his jaw, how he gripped his glass too tightly whenever a scantily clad lady twirled her hair around her finger, or a rambunctious young cowboy leaned too far into John’s personal space. It made John’s heart flutter wildly in his chest. 

The drinks only slowed as the saloon emptied out, leaving Noel, Arthur and John three sheets to the wind, laughing uproariously at something stupid as the morning sun came over the horizon (Oscar had retired hours before, drunker than anyone at the bar much, much faster. Arthur had squeezed his shoulder and bid him goodnight with an expression of concern that made John’s heart clench).

Noel wiped tears from his eyes and looked over John’s shoulder, out the window behind him. When he saw the beginnings of daylight creeping over the horizon, he sighed. (He watched them, Arthur and John, engaged in a quiet but passionate discussion about something he couldn’t parse. They were both flushed and leaning in too close, chuckling at every other word that passed between them, oblivious to the rising sun or the empty saloon or Noel’s hands on their arms, steering them towards their room at the inn upstairs).

John chuckled (he did not giggle, he chuckled) as Noel tossed him into their rented room, with Arthur following soon after. He tripped over a trunk near the foot of the bed on his way in, falling forward onto the mattress with a gentle oof. Arthur laughed at him much too loudly for whatever time it was. 

“Alright, you two,” Noel said, trying to hold back a laugh, “wash up and go to bed. God, I should’ve never given that toast, you’re both insufferable drunks.”

“Oh, shhhhhhh,” Arthur hushed, pulling John out of bed by his wrist. John leaned fully against Arthur in an effort to stay upright. It mostly worked. “You loooooove us,” he laughed. Noel smiled.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, rolling his eyes but unable to keep the fond expression off his face. “You keep telling yourselves that.” He wiped his nose and tipped his hat to them. “Goodnight, you two.” Then he closed the door, and it was just them. John and Arthur, Arthur and John. 

“Okay, come on,” John said after a long stretch of silence, inelegantly turning Arthur in the direction of their shared washbasin and mirror. Arthur giggled a bit as John tried to move him forward, mumbling some drinking song under his breath that John didn’t recognize (maybe it’s a British one, John thought lamely). They tripped over each other's feet a few times, but ultimately made it to the edge of the sink without completely falling over. 

When they did, John braced his hands on either side of it with a tired sigh, watching his reflection in the mirror. There was a thin sheen of sweat across his forehead and a flush to his cheeks from the alcohol, but otherwise he seemed in decent condition. A few cuts and scrapes, some new and some old, and his braid was a little out of sorts, but nothing really concerning–

Then all the haziness of the alcohol and the late night was gone because Arthur’s full weight was at his back, his warmth permeating the fabric of John’s shirt and vest. His hot breath fanned across John’s ear and jaw, his eyes fluttering closed with the weight of inebriation. John inhaled shakily, suddenly brought back to shifting bodies and whiskey and fireworks with such vivid clarity it could have been real.

But it wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. John was drunk. Arthur was drunk, he could barely stand up straight, for fucks sake. He was just using John for support, falling asleep on his shoulder, and… 

And pressing his nose behind John’s ear, ghosting his lips over the back of his jaw. Breathing his name with a pained expression. John’s own expression matched, half lidded eyes never leaving the mirror, tense and pained and wanting, oh-so deeply, for the one thing he knew he couldn’t have.

Despite himself, John’s eyes slipped closed. His shoulders relaxed, tension leaving his body as Arthur hands came up to rest on his hips. His head tilted, granting Arthur access to more of his jaw and neck. And Arthur took it. He didn’t kiss, but he skimmed. Barely there, almost not real, deniable. Like a spirit. Like a gut feeling. Like instinct.

“John…” Arthur breathed. John felt a shiver work its way down his spine at the sound of Arthur’s voice at the base of his skull, reverberating in his head like it was meant to be there. It took every ounce of will that John had to keep the small moan building in the base of his throat from escaping.

“Arthur,” he answered, voice hoarse and quiet. He wanted to open his eyes. Wanted to see himself in the mirror with Arthur over his shoulder, arms around him, nosing at his neck and shoulder, resisting the urge to press warm kisses into his skin. Or maybe to bite. To draw blood. John had never been shown a difference between violence and love. Maybe they weren’t so different. He hoped so. He wanted… 

He wanted to see the look on Arthur’s face. Would it be like it was that day in the cabin? Shocked and a little confused but mostly needy. Yearning for something. Yearning for John. Or would it be darker? Dark like the clouds before a storm, the kind of storm that drowned you with rain and filled the air with electricity. Would it be dark like he was holding back? Like John was? 

But John didn’t open his eyes, no matter how badly he wanted to know. If his eyes stayed closed, he could pretend Arthur’s gentle, delicate touch wasn’t there at all. Just a taste of something more, enough to leave John wanting. Enough for him to imagine. Enough for it to stay a pleasant, alcohol induced dream. If he opened his eyes it would be real, and it would have to stop. And John did not want it to stop.

“John,” Arthur murmured, his voice just above a whisper now. “Open your eyes.” The timbre of it was deep, so much deeper than John had heard it before. How could he have possibly known? How could he know John so well in so little time? So completely? The moan John was holding on to finally slipped past his lips when Arthurs grip on his waist tightened, ever so slightly. “John,” Arthur choked. 

“I can’t,” John whispered as Arthur’s fingers moved from his hips, leaving a burning heat behind in the shape of Arthur’s palm. They trailed up and up, tugging at the buttons of John’s shirt as they went, making his breath hitch. Up to his open collar, nails dragging across John’s collar bone and hollow of his throat. Until they wrapped ever so gently around his neck, the thumb coming up to guide John’s jaw this way and that. John was breathing hard, now.

“Why?” Arthur asked, pressing himself closer, still, to John. John whined.

“I…” I want to. God, I want to. Make me. “Please, Arthur, don’t make me. Please, just–”

John gasped when he felt Arthur’s teeth scrape lightly over the skin of his neck, his hand flying up to grip Arthur’s hair, his shoulder, something. To hold Arthur. But he was stopped by a strong grip on his wrist, which guided his hand back down to the edge of the sink, holding it there. Pinning it. 

“John,” Arthur whispered. John’s chest was rising and falling like Akke’s after a long sprint, his heart fluttering like a hummingbird’s. Arthur’s thumb caressed his knuckles, white with the strength of his grip on the sink.

“Please,” they said at the same time. John’s brow furrowed, his lips hung parted in anticipation. His mind swung wildly from the present, between Arthur and the mirror with a hand around his throat, to the cabin, pressing Arthur to the wooden floor, pinning his wrists above his head. The burning momentum between them suddenly halted by John’s fear, like a landslide on the track before a train. Now the train was out of control again, brakes screeching against wheels that just wouldn’t stop, sparks flying. Sparks like fireworks. Sparks like live wires. Sparks like exploding gunpowder.

But then the warmth at his back was gone. Along with it the hand at his throat and the one  pinning his own to the sink. The teeth at the junction of his neck and shoulder and the hot breath on his skin vanished, leaving only a stark coldness where they’d been before. John sighed, whether in relief or disappointment he didn’t know, and opened his eyes.

The flush on his face had migrated down his neck and chest, which was exposed now (when had Arthur done that?) and heaving. The ‘light sheen’ of sweat was beading at his temples and brow now, falling in drops down to his jaw, along the bridge of his nose. His lips were parted and his eyes were wide and his neck was bare. 

And Arthur, leaning drunkenly against the wall behind him, arms crossed, expression chilly. He was breathing heavily too, and his face was red like the first hints of daylight in the sky. But it was the hard set of his mouth and brow that made John shiver.

“We should go to bed, John,” he said, voice still raspy. A needy, sad little sound rose from John’s throat then, and John’s hand flew to his mouth, as if to force the offending sound back in. Arthur swallowed and turned, ready to head back to one of the twin beds awaiting them. Side by side and yet still miles apart. “And don’t worry.”

“It’ll all feel like a dream, tomorrow.”