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twola · 7 days ago

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Oh Red, this was amazing. I thought it couldn’t get better to your alternative ending to The Fox, but, as always, you have outdone yourself. Taking something that so many feel so (wrongly) repulsed by, by their own bodies, and using the medium of Arthur to bring sensuality and desire to someone who feels the exact opposite of.

Taking the points of it all and making it amazingly alluring to him - when he comments about how warm she is, I just about lost it. He’s so utterly devoted, showing love to her in a time she finds it hard to love herself. The entire time. Before, during, and after.

I only can wish that more menfolk were as adorning as you have made Arthur. I can only wish that more women could feel as wanted as she is during that low time. Magnificent, as always.

Nectar

Arthur x F!reader 5K words | smut | 18+ mdni Tender/comfort/hot/sweet Setting: Your small room in a Saint Denis boarding house, late afternoon Contains: Menstrual sex, penis in vagina sex, fingering, period-typical living arrangements, cerises 🍒 A response to a lost ask 💞

The stairwells and corridors of Mme Surrett’s Boarding House off Courtenay Street are fuller than usual this time of the afternoon. Doors stand wide open as you walk and twist to wend past them with the paper sack in your arms, these off-duty duchesses leaning or posing willowy in doorways in their silky dressing gowns that hang open over silken underthings, simpering as you reach your door and pat your skirts for your keys, and eying you up and down like a gauntlet of glamorous vultures. And though a couple of the kinder ones often seem to flick their pretty eyes up to yours, and say their good mornings in voices that brighten the hall, such a bevy of them all today can leave no doubt as to the reason.

He’s here.

In all likelihood lounging on your single bed, already enjoying a smoke or a drink you’ve been longing for all damn afternoon.

And like the unwitting prey he is, there he lies as you open the door, reclined on your small bed, busy marveling at his middle fingers and thumbs contriving the shape of a wide disc and glancing in mild disbelief at the magazine open on his lap. “Sixteen inches…”

“Of what?” You lean against the door to close it, picturing it pinching the nose of anyone trying to peer inside.

“Nothin I mean to get near.”

“Where'd you get that?” The sack weighs in your arms, but you can hardly move away from the door to set it down as a deep cramp begins to wring between your hips.

“Girl down the hall. Claudia? She was nice.”

“I bet she was.”

“Do they think all you do all day is order underthings and pianos? How many pianos does a person need anyway?”

“We’re completely swamped with them as you can see.”

“Oh and –” He riffles through the pages and stops. “The heck is a ‘ventilatin dress shield’?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Sounds important.”

There’s a funny innocence in the way he says such things. One of those rare glimpses into his nature that appear when he’s distracted by the unfamiliar, as unguarded as a stag emerging from the woods into the soft pastels of a meadow, and you start to straighten like a wonderstruck hunter, when, in a sudden echo of the rest of your day, you’re snagged firmly in place by your skirt caught in the door. Your paper sack of groceries and the bottle of wine clatter to the floor. There is a cheerful crack of glass. The loaf of bread rocks and lumbers oblong toward the bed. And in frustration, you whip around, and ram your funny bone so sharply on the doorknob that you crumple in a silent yell, tears springing to your eyes.

Arthur is already on his feet, bread in hand, but freezes, cringing, halfway across the room, and you’re gasping, cradling your arm. “I’m fine.”

But your tears are welling up, damn tears - you blink up at the ceiling desperately trying to force them to seep back inside - as he slides to one knee in front of you, calmly twists the knob, releases your skirt and locks the door as pure sadness rises up your throat. Your eyes flood unstoppably, and then you feel a sluice of your own blood seeping through your undergarments in a final insult from life today.

He wipes your tear-streaked cheek, strands of hair out of your face, all leisure and affability swept firmly aside. “You don’t seem so fine.”

When you allow yourself to look at him, from the toe of his dusty boot, up the long shin of his clean trousers, the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt, his freshly-trimmed whiskers, to the genuine worry in his eyes, his sympathetic crooked smile shatters your last reserve.

And you find yourself sputtering about the customer at Algernon’s who flew into a fury after you almost tripped over the leash of her tiny dog that cowered under the table, and the frustration of juggling a hundred stupid packages delivered to one of the large mansions on Milyonne for a wedding or a party of some sort; you’d never seen so many maids in black and white and butlers in tails, and stacks of bone china and crystal etched like hoarfrosted bells, and being berated out the door for failing to guess the customs of deliveries or debase yourself properly in the presence of the powerful.

And on your walk home, with a distinct wrenching pain between your hips and feeling newly sorry for yourself, how you dropped your coinpurse in the road, and weren’t remotely in danger of being struck by the huge beer wagon turning up the street, but the teamster pulled his draft horses sharply and it broke a part of the wagon tongue. He went on such a tirade at you in the middle of the street, a dozen people watching as he fumed in furious German, stupid girl, that it was all you could do not to cry. In part out of frustration that you didn’t have your gun to draw and shut him up. Living honest does have its downsides.

“And the first time I see you in days, I’m…this.” You rub your elbow, crying to the point of laughing and feeling unhinged while Arthur gathers you close in his big arms, and he chuckles a little as you sway in place, in a huddle, by the door.

“Want me to go kill him?”

“A little.”

Grave and sweet, he holds your tear-soaked face. Wipes a fresh tear from your temple. A vague wet imprint of your face darkens the blue of his shoulder. He kisses your forehead. He kisses your cheek.

And while you blow your nose and figure out the best way to let any of his hopes down gentle, he turns away and starts to pick up the things you had dropped, holding one hand out to stop you, tsking.

He sets the bottle of wine on the bedside table, thankfully intact, but the special jar of bourbon-soaked cherries you had bought with the hope of cheering yourself up now leaks and runs into the cracks between the floorboards like it was foolish to have hoped at all.

“Can’t let these go to waste.” He unseats the white enamel bowl from your wash basin and dumps the cherries inside, where drips of syrup drain brightly down the sides, then lays a towel over the spill, and a burst of rosy red soaks through.

“Arthur –”

He looks up, eyes searching yours as he sucks a drip of syrup from his thumb. Then he’s pivoting on his boot, and with a soft groan sits beside you on the floor.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

He shrugs. “I don’t have to do nothin.” After a knowing pause, he nudges your shoulder. “Feelin okay?”

“Mm. Like a toad.”

“Quite the prettiest toad I ever saw.”

“Why thank you,” you mumble into his shirt, freshly washed, the faint musk of his sweat in the fibers, faint tang of tobacco smoke. “And a busy one tonight, I'm afraid.” A lie. And more like the next five or six days, with an hour’s notice even then. After a long bath. Stained garments discarded. It'll never come out of the silk. You pull your legs tighter together.

“Well that’s fortunate, me too.”

Something in his voice playfully calls you out as he crawls two long strides over to the bed, stretches to reach the magazine, and comes back beside you. He leafs it open, raises his arm to bring you under his wing, and proceeds to read as if he’s picking up where he left off, squinting into it like a curious portal, a foot-high doorway that doesn’t quite lead to the view he has ever known, or known of you.

“Fascinatin piece of literature.”

“That trash?”

“Now hold on, I was gettin sorta caught up in Antonio and Arabella –”

“How long have you been here –”

He mashes his fingers over your lips. “He’s a fool though. I reckon she robs him blind in the next one. And them horoscopes.”

“I’m amazed you know what yours is.”

“Somethin about findin my heart outside of what I known. Not expectin life as planned.” He eyes you sideways, matter-of-factly.

You stick out your lower lip, nodding in concession of a few broad universal truths.

“And about you –” he bats through the pages to find it and peers down his nose to read. “It says to ‘Quit bein so damn stubborn and let Arthur take care of you for once.’”

You shove him.

“Hey weren’t me that wrote it. And maybe if you took that corset off you’d feel halfway better.”

“Oh does it say that in there too.”

“I guess I just know a few things by now.” He gets his feet under him and stands, helping you up by your fingers, then he slings your right arm over his head, and before you can protest, scoops you up with his arm under your knees. He holds you close as he carries you, almost nose to nose, to the bed. “Birds and the bees for one thing.”

“About that –”

He drops you the last few inches with a bounce on the mattress and sits on the side, his touch drifting to the front of the shell of your corset as he leans close for a quick kiss. “And half the pleasure of a corset is the undoin.” He screws his lips in thought, and then winks. “More’n half.”

With purpose in his work-scarred fingers, he splits it open like a rind, easing his thumb up the center and freeing each hook with a dull pop, then spreads his hand up your chemise between your breasts, up and down your tender belly, warm and unafraid to touch you anywhere.

“And somehow every time you’re too busy to –” he clears his throat – “be together, a jar of them cherries turns up. The last three months I reckon.” He presses his forehead to yours, eyebrows hitching up, cornering you as gently as a dove in the room.

Your heart stumbles in your chest. “What about them.”

The bed creaks as he pushes himself up. “Sweetheart you are many fine things.” And he swipes the bottle of wine by the neck and fishes the corkscrew out of the top drawer of your nightstand and twists it into the cork – “But a good liar ain’t one –” and wrenches it free with a squeaky pop. “I like that about you.” He stands the bottle on the windowsill, and towers over you, unhurried as he removes his guns and wraps them and lays them on the floor. He toes out of one boot and the other. Then he kneels on one knee on the mattress with a long groan of the springs. Swings his other leg over you, propped on all fours above you, dipping down close. “What if you ain’t busy tonight.”

What dove has ever flown right into a hand?

A flustered flush sears your cheeks. “We shouldn’t.”

“Why not.”

“The sheets –”

“I'll do the washin,” he mumbles pleasantly into your lips.

“It'll be a mess.”

He hums against your throat and kisses you there. “I'll wash you too.”

And knows exactly what he’s goddamn doing, gently fisting and caressing your tender breast, talking soft to you like this.

“It’s risky, just you being here. You’re gonna get me kicked out - borrowing magazines - everyone knows -”

“I didn’t even sneak in through the courtyard this time.” And, equally bold, he muffles you with a fast bombardment of kisses –

“My (kiss) mhfpoint (kiss) mmmexactly –”

– and he flicks his tongue against your lips, teasing and plying your mouth in wider, slower kisses, his hand circling and rounding and gripping your breast in irresistible waves of yearning, and when you start to seek him for more, his mouth breaks from yours with a breathy smile. He nudges up your jaw, and sucks and lightly bites your neck.

“You think there ain’t a thing made better, bein forbidden?” His low N resounds in your ear, the feeling alone enough, in one uncontrollable sigh, to make you reconsider the entire nature of shame.

You reach for the bottle but he earnestly shakes his head. Instead, he picks it up by the neck and takes a long sip for himself, glancing at you sideways. After which he leans down, presses his lips to yours, cool and tart from the wine, and with a long kiss he lets it trickle into your mouth and drinks it with you. You swallow together. A loud, unlocking sound. He sips a spill from the corner of your lips, the drop that trails to your neck, and crawls up the bed with you, joined in a long and heavy kiss.

Whatdyou say? He brushes your cheek with his finger.

The taste of the wine contains the taste of rain, the taste of minerals warmed and cooled, and a glint of memory, not many weeks before, when you ran with him in a downpour, escaping whistles and footsteps in the dark alleys of the city, and the smell of warm cobblestones in rain mingled with the horse slop and street trash and abundant jasmine blooming everywhere, when, rainsoaked and trembling, you began to hide yourselves well in the shadows as your limbs wrapped, your needs came bared, hands grasping, mouths confessing in fragments of breath Yes, Me too, Good, grinning, Don’t stop as you blindly, hurriedly sought each other, skirt lifted, buttons prized free, and you felt the shocking fullness of his desire for the first time as he fucked inside, and in that fearful, thrilling rupture of body and breath you became aware of all you both were and could be.

And now again you find yourself risking, sighing Yes.

And sighing, and sighing with his breath on your skin as he backs himself down your body and your love-drunk mouth goes unmet.

You open your eyes.

There he idles between your legs, propped on one elbow by your hip, and he pulls the ribbon of your chemise until the knot breaks between your breasts. Slowly plucks the laces loose. Delicate as petals, the sides fall away for him as if he’s drawing you to the surface from that other place inside.

Nonchalantly, he reaches to the basin of cherries on the side table. Eyes daring you to stop him. He lifts one by the stem and lowers it, a delectable lure, into the cup of your navel.

“I don’t half mind a cherry.”

Mischief crooks his mouth before he laps it from you like he’s drinking straight from the spring, sucking and kissing your navel clean, a trail of burgundy dribbling down his chin. He spits the stem from his teeth into the ashtray.

“Already making a mess.” You try to swipe the juice from his chin and he swings his face out of reach.

“Thought you liked me dirty.” Grinning, still chewing, he carefully balances another cherry for himself between your breasts.

Being honest, you’re a bit disappointed that your own treat is getting enjoyed without you. “I do –”

“Well I’m dirty.” And with that sublime rumble in his voice, your fears crumble, and this outlaw half sprawled between your legs glances up, eyes glinting like a phosphorescent sea in a beam of sun.

His whiskers scratch right over your heart as he kisses your sternum and eats that little fruit, first teasing his tongue in the pitted slit before he sucks up the last taste from your skin, hard enough to leave a pink mark, and he smiles in private victory to feel your breath come quicker, your breast lifting against his cheek.

Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he gets up on his knees, fishes his middle and ring fingers into the bowl and coaxes a cherry out between them, stemless. Lets the juice drip in a pattering line up your chest. Holds it over your lips. You rise up to bite for it and get the meat of the cherry between your teeth. With hunger in his eyes, he watches you bite and chew, and when you’ve swallowed, he touches your lips with his red fingers like a holy stain, and slowly pushes them into your mouth to the second knuckle, large strong fingers caressing your tongue. He makes you suck them clean. And you are slow to let them go, and bite them. He draws them out. Sticks them in his mouth and sucks the nectar from them too.

Again, he extracts and bites a cherry, and sets the bowl aside, that final little fruit glistening between his teeth as he lowers himself to you. A drop of juice trembles from its belly. When you lift your head to take a bite, he rears back an inch, fooling you closer until the sweetness of the cherry and the burn of the bourbon spill between your lips, and he devours you. First the cherry in your mouths, the tart gush on your seeking tongues.

Down the center of your breastbone he kisses every drop he left there for himself like a trail, and your hips move in an arching stretch beyond your control and find him rock-hard against the curve of your pelvis. Hard to the extent that his trousers strain in taut spans from the ridge across his upper thigh as he pushes himself between your legs, lowering, caged over you on his elbows and urging himself up your leg, and you can’t hide your breath and you can’t hide the way your neck stretches long when he can’t hide what he wants.

Somewhere in the midst of this swimming, drunk-kissed splendor, you find yourself urging with him, letting him ply you, riding his erection against the inside of your thigh. But when his hand rises up your skirt, you clench in a contortion of dread.

Before you can pull away, he reaches for the bottle and touches it to your lips, waiting for you to open them and let him pour a slow sip, and he sets it back, and kisses a small portion for himself from your mouth as he begins to carve under the waist of your drawers.

God, his ardent hand that cups you there, god, his strong fingers that rediscover you, first his middle finger slipping in, your squirm of sensitivity strengthening, rounding, enlivening in waves as his ring finger reaches inside, and both of them hook you there. The look blown in his eyes to watch you feel him, loving how you ride the fine saddle of his hand and weaken with lust in his arms. His sharp breath spurs you with a swell of excitement; you feel warm and soaked on his fingers. When he sighs with you, unable to help himself, you begin to feel ripe, proud for him to know your arousal, emboldened and surging on his fingers that curve and stroke inside, drawing from the well of your body, and you get up higher, darting close to kiss him roughly, and darting again, bruising your lips on his heated, breathless grin. Met by his harder, more daring kiss, his grip plainly adoring your own thrusts on his fingers. Panting sweet praise. Right now you could live for his voice speaking such things in your ear.

But at some point you glance down, and in that shadowed space a dispiriting stain of deep red seeps through the silk. Horrified, you sit up –

No no no no he hushes, holding you tight, and captures you in a pleading kiss. Stay with me. Softening you. Breathing with you. Please. Now working the buttons of his shirt free, two bloody fingers raised away from the rest. Elbowing out of his suspenders between kisses, near-escaping his clothes as if to lay himself bare in front of you.

He kneels up, briefly fighting a bit with his sleeves in back, his brawny chest expanding, the coarse hair grown there in a pattern so primal and moving with his breath, funneling down the great slab of his stomach and beyond his beltline out of sight, that you follow it helplessly with your gaze.

No matter how many times you’ve seen him undress, it stirs you like a trancelike vision, the revelation of the trail from his navel to where his hair thickens and curls, and the first stirring sight of taut skin beneath, the blue welt of a vein, and the long contour reaching under the cloth you’re now staring at openly as your fingertips drift up his seam.

His hands fall away from his fly, his right hand brightly stained, and at your first touch his chest and stomach give way with a rush. Pensive, he watches your fingers spread over his shape. His hips twitch forward, delivering himself into your petting, stroking hand, and breath streams from his nostrils flared. Above you, he towers like a hardened hero who has found himself at last in a private place, receiving softness he’s needed far too long.

You work the open waist of his trousers farther down, his fly splitting wide and catching on the ledge of his cock. He lets you struggle, keeping his hands away and tempting your impatience, though his smile fades, almost heartsick for a moment when you look up.

Tempting him in kind, you brush the backs of your fingers under his shaft, feeling him thicken through the cloth, but a sudden pulse of fragile hope and shame almost brings tears to your eyes as another small, fearsome gush trickles warm between your legs.

You won't mind?

Mind? A troubled wince crosses his face, and he tilts his head the other way. Musingly, he takes your hand, and squeezes you around himself, overcome for one lovely breath, and swallows hard, and gingerly cups your jaw, dipping down for a long and savored taste of your mouth. There ain't a thing about you I ain't crazy for.

And leaves you blinking as he rises again. Watching you stretching his fly open as far as it will go, lifting him out like a delicate and heavy object, so stiff his veins bulge and it jumps to be touched, flushed in beautiful gradients of blushing flesh, a proud upward curve ready to gore into you like a horn. When you stroke him down, his chest begins to spread and fall, and a few milky droplets bead and roll down from the slit of his needy tip.

In a tempest of clothes, he’s kicking off his trousers. Your skirt comes unbuttoned, your skirt comes unwrapped, he’s lifting your hips, and he’s so erect he’s practically vertical between your legs, rigid and rubbing his full length within the blood-soaked silk between your lips like a warm and glossy peach, and when his mouth falls open with a sigh, gratified beyond reason, you lose your breath completely. Little groans escape his throat with each short unsheathed and awestruck thrust. He fucks against you harder, clutching your hips, letting his balls press and linger against you like a kiss, again and again, unraveling in this new sensation he didn’t know he could like so goddamn well, the way he kneels in the light from the window like a painted prayer, until he can’t take it anymore and releases you long enough to grip the gusset of your drawers with both hands, and rips them up the center with the shocking squall of ruined silk. Glancing down, with a face like he’s seen pure grace, he wraps his hand around himself, stroking his full length as he aims a lewd drop of spit that splashes through your pubic hair, and eagerly thrusts up the furrow of your body, both of you gleaming, his cock rising shining and crimson.

His lip curls in unabashed satisfaction, as if it would bruise you anywhere else to fuck your flesh so mercilessly, both of you suffering at this final barrier, deliriously slippery as he slides his dick in the embrace of your lips until his head begins to push inside and you gasp. He stops, meets your eyes, and his mouth opens with a gutted breath as he pushes in further, pulls out, rubbing again in new thick gush of crimson slick, his brow pinched at the edge of loving pain, in this feeling intoxicating as the wine, and a rush of energy overtakes you both. Crazed to feel each other as deeply as your bodies will allow. He’s hooking his arm under your waist, dragging you up as you lash yourself to him tightly around his shoulders, necks strong and madly nuzzling as he reaches under your thigh to guide himself in place.

And you pull him close by the neck, digging your heels into his ass, and together you fuck him inside to the hilt. He pants against your lips, the grateful bastard, Ohh– his moan dissolving into pleasure like steam, and his mouth drops open between hungry, clumsy kisses, Oh fuck…you’re so warm, as if he can’t believe how hard he is right now, neck going weak as he glides in and out in a heavenly slippery unending drill. Oh honey –

He’s incoherent, suffering and groaning, and finally in one full thrust he wraps his arm around your waist and pushes you higher, toppling backward on your bed and dragging you on top of him, and with a hitch of his hips stakes you on himself so deep that both of you flinch and weaken, surrendering to the surge of mindless, grappling need.

His head lifts and falls, sawing with his full-chested sighs like he's about to die in bliss. Christ, I love to hear you make that sound, he grunts, strong hands pumping you faster on his bone-hard shaft, and when he drives your hips down in a slow-bucking undulation, you cry out uncontrollably from the deep and aching rub inside.

Oh just like that – His body rocks with you, his face upturned, adoring the velvety fluid squeeze around his cock, the pretty bounce of your breasts and flesh, the slap of your seat on his hips. When he thrusts up too vigorously, you bounce high and he slips out and smacks on his belly. A print of faint red remains. Hurriedly, both of you shaking, he curls up, holding himself straining, vertical, and guides his head between your lips until he finds your cunt again, another moan released in the fast enveloping rescue of your body.

Oh goddamn, honey – I ain’t sure – I gotta –

You’re vaguely aware of the bed creaking and banging – damn the thinness of the walls – as he braces you up by the hips and fucks his thick cock up into you hard and fast, concentration in his brow, like he’s doing his damnedest to think about stagecoach timetables or the names of constellations because otherwise he’ll spend before he gives you the pleasure he longs to feel more than his own. His heels dig into the mattress. When you notice the blood streaking down his driving, plunging shaft, the lust in his breath seizes you, helpless against the pressure released so wild and deep you go weak in his grip, a trickle of watercolor streaming up his heaving stomach as you brokenly sob for him to come inside you.

How gently he slows, hips urging as he pants with you, rushing, loving moans escaping with yours, dire devotion in his gaze. Time stills in silent wonder in the dreamlike evening air. He strokes your cheek. Then a hitch arises in his throat, and abruptly he’s sucking air through his teeth with two rapid, desperate thrusts before his whole body stiffens from the electric pang, the seething groan as he comes so hard his whole stomach jerks, again and again. You watch it like a wonder of nature, like earth moving, a giant wave swelling. He stares in blank-eyed awe at the place your bodies join. Then he shudders, and lies spreadeagle as his slow pulses wane inside you.

Heart thrumming in your ears, you collapse atop him like you’ve just sighed a thousand sighs. You lie froglike and straddling, your chests warm and wet, your feet hooked between his hairy thighs. His arms band heavily across your back. One, then the other. In time, you stir from the brief exhausted slumber of the spent. And as his length draws out, soft and satisfied, and rears and slowly falls against your inner thigh, the thick drip follows, slipping to his stomach.

You begin to tense up, fearing the result like a shattered dream, but he holds you tight, sliding his forearm behind your neck, and rolls with you onto your sides. Hoists your leg up over his waist and stretches with you front to front, as if relishing the thin melt of that slippery film between your bellies.

He seems to wait for something, swiping your hair aside behind your ear, and rests his brow on yours. Until the final supple sigh washes through your body. And then he kisses you long and slow, and meets your sleepy gaze, glances down between you, peeling back, where his spend paints you both incarnadine, and he raises his eyes full of new and loving sight. He pulls you closer still.

A/N: this is my regrettably long-delayed response to an ask (which tumblr ate at the last minute) for an Arthur x F!Reader period fic. after writing three different responses and being utterly unable to figure out what someone else would like, i finally just had to pick the ripest one, and i really hope, if they're reading, that they like it 💞 also, while i wrote this for F!reader, coming from my own experience, i want to be clear it is in no way meant to deny or minimize the experience of anyone else, regardless of identity

If anyone’s interested, here’s a mag of the sort Arthur was browsing in the beginning (cw: period-typical everything, 1899)

tagging @cassietrn @pinescent-and-gingerbread💗

[Masterlist]

#arthur morgan x f!reader #f!period sex #menstrual sex #rdr2 fanfic #arthur morgan smut

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twola · 18 days ago

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Oh what a wonderful find this is! I simply could not put it down. It is so full of emotion - from her, especially from him. The vacillation between caring and fear and possible regret - ending with the fortitude of shared adoration.

Please, please read this. This is a masterclass in hurtfic, in fluff, in our cowboy realizing his feelings and being as dumbly awkward as we all know he is as he works through it.

Seams are Torn

When a hunting trip with Arthur goes bad, you find yourself holed up miles from camp and inches from death. This story takes place in the cabin you take refuge in, with fear burrowing into your bones, Arthur's honeyed reassurances, and the threatening icy embrace of death's hand looming at your shoulder.

Tags for: hurt comfort, angst, fluff, caretaking of reader, and Arthur Morgan crying. A03 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

For the second morning in a row, you woke to the soft rustling of wind through the trees. The hunting trip Arthur had persuaded you to join him on had come as a welcome respite, and as you woke once more to the lack of clanking of pots and pans, the absence of shouting and a day’s rigid plans, you hoped you wouldn’t have to turn back too soon.

Stretching the stiffness from your limbs, you sat up and brushed back your hair, stealing a glance at the sky as it bled into soft blue and gold. Arthur was already up and pottering by the small fire, but that was hardly a surprise. With a deep yawn, you pushed yourself up on your elbows to watch him. It was something you’d never admit, not to him, not to anyone, but you enjoyed watching Arthur more than you should.

Arthur had been an enigma when you’d first joined the gang. A gruff, taciturn presence that people either feared or dismissed. Some thought him mean; others thought him stupid.

You knew better.

After eighteen months of riding together his wariness of you had waned inch-by-inch, replaced gradually by a trust that you felt sometimes even teetered on the edge of respect. Long hours spent on watch had taught you how to tease out the lighter side of him, how to coax a smirk or a chuckle when no one else could. Hushed conversations by a campfire when sleep just wouldn’t come had forged a bond. A bond that month by month had blossomed into teasing that bordered on flirtatious. Over a year and more, Arthur had grown on you like a limpet, latching on without you even realising.

Sometimes, you felt like the only person who truly saw him. He wasn’t cruel, and he certainly wasn’t dumb. Not to you.

When you’d first met, he seemed this sullen mountain of a man, but about eight months ago you’d noticed him. Really noticed him. And then his self-deprecating humour was no longer funny to you.

Amidst the bustle of the camp, you found yourself noticing the way his shoulders shifted as he hauled hay bales, each ridge of muscle flexing beneath the taught confines of his shirt. The way his hands moved with practiced ease as he saddled his horse, gentle fingers stroking along her neck. The way the corners of his eyes crinkled in the rare moments when he laughed – really laughed – the sound full-bodied and rich. Even now, crouched with his back to you, hat tilted low over his brow and brewing coffee against the backdrop of a painted sunrise, you found yourself noticing him.

Feeling a blush rise to your cheeks, you scrubbed the back of your neck and tossed off the blanket, hauling yourself to your feet.

The sun had fully risen by the time the two of you reached the patch of land Arthur had been keen to hunt. Dismounting and leaving the horses to trail languidly behind, the crunch of leaves and twigs beneath your boots filled the quiet as you moved through the dense forest, the air thick with the scent of pine and damp earth.

Arthur walked ahead of you, rifle slung over his shoulder, his broad frame cutting an easy path through the undergrowth. You followed a few steps behind, not because you needed to, but because, well… the view wasn’t half bad.

“You starin’ at my ass again?”

Your eyes snapped up, his words jolting you from your thoughts.

“What? No!”, you retorted a little too quickly, your voice coming out a touch higher than intended.

Arthur glanced back, smirking.

“You sure?” He slowed his pace just enough to fall in beside you, that knowing grin still tugging at his lips. “’Cause I swear I felt your eyes burnin’ a hole back there.”

You rolled your eyes, huffing for effect. “Arthur Morgan, I do not spend my time ogling your backside.”

Arthur chuckled, low and warm, clearly enjoying himself. “That so?”

“Damn right,” you shot back, stepping over a fallen branch. “I’ve seen better.”

Arthur let out a soft hum, his smirk pulling at dimples in his cheeks as he nodded thoughtfully. “That’s right. Didn’t you see Bill drop his towel last week?”

“Ugh! Arthur!”, you grimaced through a whine, barging your shoulder into his as you pulled a face. “I only just got that image outta my head!”

Arthur’s grin spread wider, and a deep rumbling of laughter emanated from his chest as he adjusted the rifle on his shoulder, turning his gaze back to the narrow path winding through the trees. You side-stepped a patch of brambles, the sharp thorns tugging at your pant leg.

“Yeah, well,” he said after a moment, “I still say you were starin’…”

“Oh, you sure are full of yourself today.”

The trees thinned slightly as the two of you moved into a small clearing, and that’s when you saw it – a small house, isolated and nestled against the slope of the hill. It wasn’t grand, barely more than a cabin, but there was something about it that made you smile. It looked as though it belonged there with its moss-covered roof sloping down in such a way that it seemed it had grown right out of the hillside, settled into the land rather than imposed upon it.

Arthur let out a low whistle. “Well, look at that.”

You tilted your head, intrigued. “Huh. Wonder who lives there?”

Arthur didn’t even pause. “No one.”

You frowned, looking up to Arthur with knitted brows. “How do you know?”

“’Cause I know things.”

“Oh, well, that’s specific.” You narrowed your eyes at him and crossed your arms. “What is it? What do you see?”

Arthur’s eyes flicked to you, then back to the house with the tugging of a smile at the corner of his lips and an exaggerated shrug. “Nothin’.”

Leaving you with mouth hanging open, he adjusted his rifle and flashed you that shit-eating grin once more before trudging back towards the trees.

With an exasperated sigh and a final glance at the house, you followed after him, jogging a little to catch up to his long strides.

“You seen it before? That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Nope.”

You narrowed your eyes at the back of his head, quickening your pace until you were walking beside him again. "Liar."

Arthur smirked but kept his eyes ahead. "Ain’t lyin’. Swear on my life, I ain’t seen that house before.”

“Alright. So, Hosea or someone’s seen it?”

“No. I told you, I just know things.”

“Oh sure, you obviously have some ancient cowboy wisdom”, you drawled with a scoff, waving your arms.

Arthur turned to you with an exaggerated, patronising smile. “Finally, you get it.”

You groaned. "You are impossible."

"I dunno why you’re gettin’ so riled up over my knowledge of homesteads”, he chuckled.

"You just like seein’ me annoyed," you muttered, kicking a rock out of your path.

Arthur grinned and nudged your shoulder. "I do enjoy that, yeah."

“Fine”, you huffed. “Keep your spooky cowboy secrets.”

Arthur huffed another laugh, his smirk softening. “I plan to.”

You’d just about opened your mouth but before you could speak, a sound shattered the tranquillity of the woodland, sharp and unnatural against the soft rustling of the leaves. Twigs snapping, louder than any deer could have made it. Deliberate. Close.

In a split second, Arthur's smile faltered, his body tensing like a coiled spring as he swung down his rifle. You hesitantly followed suit, eyes flicking through the trees.

Like shadows shifting, three men stepped from the trees with slow, casual arrogance and weapons drawn. Their grins wolfish. Hungry.

“Ain’t often we see folks wanderin’ out this way.”

Arthur exhaled slowly through his nose and shifted his stance ever so slightly, placing himself just a step in front of you.

The rustle of boots against fallen leaves behind you made your stomach twist. Slowly and steadily turning your head to look over your shoulder, your mouth went dry as a fourth man took a few steps closer to the rear of you.

“Arthur…”, you murmured through trembling lips.

Arthur’s gaze flicked behind you for just a second before snapping back to the three men in front. His jaw tightened, and you could almost feel the tension rolling off him.

“It’s okay”, he said firmly, just loud enough for only you to hear.

For a split second, everything was still. The trees themselves tensed. The wind held its breath.

Then… everything happened at once.

Once again, you’d failed to see something could Arthur sense before it happened. As one of the bandit’s fingers moved to squeeze the trigger, Arthur reacted in the same heartbeat. Rifle coming up, braced tight, the crack of the shot split the air.

Arthur shoved you down behind cover, bullets splintering bark around you as chaos erupted. Adrenaline surged through your veins as you ducked behind a tree and fired back. Time seemed to slow along with your breath as you aimed and fired again. Missed. The yell that echoed through the leaves told you Arthur hadn’t though.

Your world tunnelled into a blur. There was shouting, but it didn’t make sense. Just noise, just static. Bullets tore into flesh. Bullets missed. You didn’t think, didn’t feel, as you reloaded and took aim again, losing your sight of Arthur. Men lunged. Men fell.

Your bullet hit its mark, and a figure jerked, crumpling into the dirt. You didn’t register his face, didn’t watch him fall. You were already moving.

Spinning from behind the tree, you spotted Arthur on the ground, a man atop him. Grunting through bared teeth and biceps flexing, Arthur struggled for leverage against the man straddling him, boots digging into the dirt. Both broad hands were wrapped around the man’s wrist, around the hilt of the knife that was edging ever closer to his chest, fighting against the downward force of the blade.

You didn’t hesitate.

The shot rang out.

The impact snapped the man back, his body slumping sideways onto the ground as silence fell.

And just like that, it was over as quickly as it had begun.

Arthur shoved the man’s dead weight from him off with a grunt, chest heaving as he pushed himself up. His eyes darted up, catching yours for the briefest of moments, before chuckling under his breath and hauling himself to his feet.

"Well, ain't never a dull day with you around”, he exhaled, wiping the sweat from his brow and shaking his head as he retrieved and shouldered his rifle. "We better get outta here before more –“

Arthur stopped dead in his tracks when he saw you.

You were stood still as stone, staring down at the hand clutching at your side.

Arthur's expression shifted instantly. The breath he had just exhaled, the tension he had just begun to shake off, all of it returned in a crushing instant.

His steps were cautious - deliberate - as if moving too fast might make it worse, his eyes not leaving you for a beat and palm outstretched. You didn’t hear your name when he said it, only the unfamiliar tinge to the softness of it.

You forced a weak smile as you looked up at him, now inches in front of you. "I… it's okay."

Arthur’s jaw clenched. "Let me see," he murmured, gently wrapping his hand around your wrist.

You resisted for half a heartbeat, eyes stinging, but then you let him guide your hand away from your side and saw the exact moment his stomach dropped.

“Goddamnit”, he muttered, voice low and tight. “You’re hit.”

The blood seeped freely now, darkening the fabric of your shirt, blooming like ink on paper. You barely registered the way it painted his fingers as he pressed your hand back over the wound, his own palm tightly covering yours.

Funny. You hadn’t even felt it.

If Arthur felt panic, he certainly didn’t show it as his eyes darted over his shoulder, locking onto the house just through the trees before exhaling a cool, measured breath and turning back to you.

“We’re gonna get to that cabin, and we’re gonna fix you up.”

“You just wanna prove you were right that it was abandoned…”, you half smiled through a hollow chuckle, but Arthur didn’t seem to hear you. That or he chose to ignore you as his hand searched your back for an exit wound.

“You’re gonna be alright.”

“Well,” you blinked, feeling your lips twitch, a sickening heat rising upwards through your body, “that’s… good news.”

Arthur huffed, shaking his head, but the usual amusement that danced in his eyes wasn’t there. “Ain’t funny.”

Your breath stuttered, a weak chuckle escaping even as blood oozed, hot and sticky between your fingers, even as the edges of your vision dimmed. “S’a little funny.”

Arthur’s jaw tightened but his voice was soft. “Not even a little.”

It wasn’t even cold out, but suddenly you couldn’t stop shaking. The tremors started slow - just a slight shiver in your fingers - but within seconds they were rolling through you, unstoppable. A deep, bone-deep chill settled in, creeping outward, numbing your limbs.

Your breaths were coming faster now, shoulders shaking as you suddenly felt the cold. Your heart pounded in your chest, the blood rushing too loud in your ears, your limbs buzzing with a strange, disconnected kind of numbness. You felt the shivering now, the way it rattled through your limbs, making it hard to think, hard to focus.

You blinked again, slower this time, trying to focus through your narrowing vision on the lines of worry etching his face as he gripped you tighter. Arthur never looked worried. For some reason, you found it deeply amusing.

“It…it doesn’t even hurt…”, you whispered just as your treacherous knees gave out beneath you.

Arthur grunted a curse at the sudden weight, adjusting quickly, one arm scooping beneath your knees, the other locking around your back as he pulled you against his chest. As he started towards the house, your head lolled against his shoulder, staring up at him with half lidded eyes.

“You’re gonna be just fine”, he said, readjusting his grip and casting a quick glance down at you.

A pulse of warmth flickered through you - somewhere between panic and a strange, deep sense of safety. Your lips trembled, and you swallowed hard before whispering. “…Okay…”

“You look at me, darlin’”, he said firmly. “You just keep lookin’ at me.”

#sickfic #arthur morgan fluff #arthur morgan #rdr2 #arthur morgan fic #red dead fandom

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