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#high morgan
drizzledrawings · 8 months
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oOkay catch you later them! :D
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rdr2gifs · 2 months
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Each time Arthur has helped someone without expecting payment (that I can remember) because I’ve seen some weird takes circling around about how Arthur only cares about money/doesn’t help people (yet again)
He helped a city photographer take pictures and acted as his protector because he liked him
He helped a doctor retrieve a stolen wagon full of medicine, he wasn’t even asked to do so, he did it out of his own good will
He wanted to make an old cranky man happy and proposed finding his lost trinkets for him
He helped Deborah MacGuiness find dinosaur bones out of curiosity. He didn’t receive any financial reward for it. Just a few trinkets and he was satisfied
He risked his life for Marko Dragic’s experiments (his main motivation in this mission was again, curiosity)
He rescued a boy being held hostage by the gunsmith in Rhodes
He rescued people from being trafficked and gave them a large sum of money (he could’ve kept it for himself) for a better life
He helped Mr. White and Mr. Black gain freedom and even helped them again after they got themselves into trouble
He rescued Charles Chatenay on at least 3 different occasions
He instantly hurried to retrieve Sister Calderon’s cross even though he has never met her before
In his first encounter with Marjorie and Bertram, he helps to calm Bertram down and is understanding even though Bertram gave him trouble. He even puts the bartender in his place after he speaks about Bertram in a degrading manner
He agreed to help a man get rid of nigh folk occupying his property and after he payed him with only a rat pelt, Arthur didn’t get angry and still asked him if he’d be really fine on his own after knowing he wouldn’t be able to pay
He let a homeless man hug him and listened to what he has to say
He helped to save Jamie from becoming a cult member and stopped him from taking his life
He helped a boy look for his lost dog
He saved an injured man’s life after driving him to a doctor
He helped a woman get rid of a body after she claimed she had to kill the man in self-defence
He donated to the poor and even to build a shelter for war-veterans
He taught Charlotte how to survive on her own
He tried to save a crazed village out of his own good will
He helped a war veteran retrieve his prosthetic leg and helped him hunt
He helped a man look for his lost friend in the snowy mountains
He helped Rain’s Fall retrieve sacred items important to his people
He helped to retrieve stolen medical supplies for the Wapiti tripe
He saved Captain Monroe’s life after hearing he was in danger
He helped Beau and Penelope escape from their terrible families
He has saved many hunters from getting mauled, given many ladies a ride home, saved people from dying of poisoning, helped gather herbs, helped a lost New Yorker find his way to the town, helped save many people’s lives (lady being held hostage in her own house in Lemoyne, folk getting tortured by The Murfees or Lemoyne Raiders etc.)
Let’s not forget the fact that Arthur is a provider for over 20 people. He cannot be running around and risking his life for free for everyone he meets. He needs money. Even so, he has helped all the people above for no reward and out of his own free will. When I see someone say that Arthur is only motivated by money and never helps people otherwise, I just instantly assume they stormed through the story and didn’t pay any attention. The encounters listed above make up the majority of chance encounters/side quests and in almost all of them he is helping people. 80% of these are also pre-diagnosis.
He has a hard time accepting any compliments or gratitude for his good deeds and always downplays himself. Even in the main story he is never thinking about himself and he always puts others first.
“You did not ask for anything, you only gave”
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The encounters where he does require payment pale in comparison to those in which he doesn’t, and even so they are very justified as they are often dangerous, time consuming or straight up ridiculous. It’s weird to assume Arthur only helps people for money when he doesn’t want to deliver love letters, interview dangerous people and sneak into heavily guarded properties for free.
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random-gay-artist03 · 10 months
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some red dead 2 inspired art.
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mitchsmarners · 5 months
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the epic highs and lows of queer coded baseball
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shittybundaskenyer · 10 months
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✹ ▬   𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐃 𝐃𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐒, 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒
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rating: Explicit pairing: Arthur Morgan x F!Reader summary: it’s been half a year since you’ve last seen Arthur, and as you finish the last empty page of the journal he gifted you, a lone rider shows up down in the valley on a familiar, silver-dappled mare. warnings: high honor Arthur, reader is an artist herself, and very lonely, touch-starved, porn with feelings (and minimal plot), i’m not gonna lie 5k of this is just pure smut, cunnilingus, fingering, unprotected sex, love confessions, Arthur being a sweetheart, a little angst and emotional hurt/comfort, bittersweet ending word count: 8457  
a/n: i finally finished that wip i started cooking up during uni crunch time, but i’m proud to announce that i finished my master’s in graphic design and i’m finally fucking free of uni. it was a very depressive part of my life, i got completely burnt out in mind and soul too, so writing and drawing was more like a burden than something i enjoy. but now, now i’m so full of new passions, especially towards writing that i couldn’t wait to finish up this piece. i also want to thank everyone who came by to read my stuff even though i haven’t posted anything since like last october or something, love you all! (also special thanks to @wintersongstress​ bc you kept me going whenever you said a few kind words) <3
MASTERLIST   |   ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN
In the spring Big Valley blooms.  
Fireweed and balsamroot and irises, blue and purple and the prettiest shades of yellow and pink, dotting the landscape like careful brushstrokes of a painter’s handiwork. The earth is alive here, black and red from the fallen fir and pine needles, with mushrooms and bugs hiding under the rotting, fallen logs. 
It’s a beautiful morning—pink from the rising mist and the early sunlight.
You sit on the porch of your small cabin, its wood creaking as a gentle breeze sweeps over the surrounding forest. Songbirds confess their love above, chirping a sweet melody that sings to your heart just the same. You finish your coffee and place the worn tin cup on the windowsill behind you, leaning back in your chair to pick up your journal. 
It’s almost full now; barely a few empty yellowed paper is left. You turn another page, sketch the shape of an eagle with the last chunk of your pencil, so small you can barely hold it right. It’s been many months since Arthur gifted it to you.
It’s been months you’ve seen him the last time too. 
Your heart aches a little when the orioles begin another love-song in your small garden. A sweet smell reaches you, a late-blooming wild cherry tree, its honey lulling in bees and birds and flies and the first butterflies of the year. You draw them too, detail their wings and hair and the tiny spikes covering their legs. With shaky, unladylike handwriting you write their names there too. 
WESTERN TIGER SWALLOWTAIL
MONARCH
WILD DOVE
As you write the last word, your hand lingers over the drawing, then on the freshly pressed forget-me-not on the other page, it’s blue seeped into the paper around it like a watered up, inky halo.
Little dove. Arthur's name for you.
Christ, you miss him. 
Worry clawed under your ribs for so long you no longer feel the ache. You know what kinda life he lives, what he does in the name of survival, the largest devil. You still like him. You still feel anxious every time you go into the town post office and realize that there’s no letter nor telegram from him. He’s been… kind to you. Real kind, even though no one else was. 
You draw in a slow breath and flip the pages back right to the first one. It’s crumpled a little from all the time you’ve returned to it before. A simple sketch faces you, the lines and shading so different from your own, patches of light and shadows adding together a face that stares at you every time you look in a mirror. All the imperfections, all the ugliness and beauty your likeness wears, all the messy hair and sparkling eyes he’s grown to know. 
Little dove, says a handwritten line under the portrait. Draw me all the other beauties of this land.
You did. Christ, you did it all and he’s still away.
You sigh, fold the journal and wipe your hand in your skirt. It’s still muddy from all the work you’ve done in the garden after you've awoken, so you don’t mind a bit of graphite there too. 
The journal returns to its palace on the windowsill, beside the coffee cup and a pack of cigarettes. 
Big Valley turns into shades of gold as the sun rises above the treeline, illuminating the wet dirt roads that twist below like giant snakes. You take a deep breath and rise to meet the day. There's a prickling warmth on the line of your spine, a trail of goosebumps that make your breaths come out shaky. Maybe it's a sign. Maybe it's fate. 
You stop, halfway turned to the door already, and a rider appears on the winding paths in the distance. 
You stand and you watch, frozen in place as the familiar silver-dappled mare canters closer and closer, its rider swaying in her saddle, one hand grasping the reins and the other dangling lazily beside his body. Black hat, a worn leather coat, sky blue shirt and shining spurs. You don’t have to see his eyes to recognize the sun on horseback. 
After a few moments he halts the mare before your cabin, her breath puffing against his hand as he pets her forehead after swinging himself down from the saddle. “Good girl.” 
You grow weak in the knees, lip trembling as you suck in a hasty breath. Do all wishes come to fruition if one draws it enough times? Do paper, words and shaky lines have this much power?
He walks up the first two steps of your porch, taking off his hat to reveal golden brown locks, long and messy now, wet with sweat and yesterday's rain still dripping from the trees.
There’s a moment of silence when your eyes meet. 
A moment of truth when he says your name. 
You open your mouth, then close it. There’s so much you want to say, so much you feel, yet the only sentence that leaves your lips is, “You've come just in time for breakfast.”
*
The silence is awkward at first when you pour him the remaining lukewarm coffee, and even more when you prepare breakfast and lay out everything on your small dining table. Your bed is unmade, there’s mud stuck on the doormat, your laundry stacked in a high pile in the corner and all the dried herbs from last autumn hang low from the ceiling of the single room cabin. 
Your home is as much a mess as you are, but it’s well lived-in, like a body. A shell housing a soul. 
Arthur doesn’t mind. Never did.
“Is this the wrong time?” he asks when you cut fresh onion leaves on a plate, still dewy from the morning mist that rolled over the valley. The knife stops in your hand. You can hear him breathing, calm, even exhales, yet it feels like he’s not even real. 
“No,” you press out, uncertain in your own thoughts, and you keep cutting the leaves until they’re nothing more than a fleck of green pulp on the white porcelain. You don't even realize when he stops you. You just feel the unusual warmth, radiating from around the back of your palm, through your whole arm, until something wild and ancient flickers alive in your ribcage. 
“Are ya alright?” The calloused hand retreats and the knife falls from between your fingers. 
“I—” you swallow, throat suddenly dry and choked with tears at the same time, “half a year is a long time.”
He closes his eyes and hangs his head. ‘Course it is. You thought he was dead. You thought he got taken to prison and they hanged him like a dog. 
The food remains untouched as he swipes a hand over his jaw and takes a deep breath, leaning back in his chair. You watch him, still cautious, taking a mental note of every little change. A small scar freshly healed on his cheek. His beard longer, a bit messy. His eyes oh so tired, like he hasn't slept in days. 
“You want me to go? I get it if ya have a husband now an’ I don’t want to cause tr—”
“No!” you almost shout, panicked, and his gaze searches your face. Why do you behave so goddamn strange? You wanted him here for months! You wanted him, wanted— “Jesus, there’s no husband, okay?”
The corner of his lips curl upwards a little at that. Crow's feet crinkle in the corners of his eyes. Those tiny laughing-lines around his nose move.
“I guess I just… I’ve been alone for a long time,” you sigh and force down a bite of cheese-topped bread. Your stomach protests loudly, it wants to escape the hunger or the nerves, you can’t decide yet. 
Arthur takes that as a sign to take a bite from his food too, and you know he's hungry. As you watch you realize how tired he is. How worn—like a saddle neglected in care and used until the leather cracked, then split. He eats up the whole slice of bread before you manage to take your second bite. 
The awkward quiet persists, gets stronger even, but there's so much to say and so little courage you can muster. 
He’s the one who finally runs a bloody knife through the silence.
“Did ya draw for me?”
There’s a distant longing in his voice that’s almost crystal clear. You nod, the nerves tangled in your belly easing. He remembers, he knows. He wants to see.
You bring in the small book from the porch while he finishes his food, and he’s already lighting a cigarette when you arrive and lay the leather-bound pages in front of him. He smiles at how worn it looks, how much fingerprint-stained page edges are littered throughout the journal. It’s well-loved, and well lived-in too. 
You silently watch as he flips through a few pages, tracing a finger over bucks and birds and butterflies, over the scratchy sketch lines you immortalized nature with. The Grizzlies covered in snow. Clovers and mushrooms. Your home with opened windows and flowers hanging in pots from the roof of the porch. 
“I’m sorry I missed all this,” he says softly, looking up at you like you’re the sun and the moon and the whole world. So fond, so tender it makes you ache for something that never can be yours. “I’m sure this place is pretty in the winter.”
You nod. You don’t tell him about almost freezing to death when the storms rolled in from the mountains in the spring. You don’t tell him about the roaming gangs either, about the bastards camped at the Hanging Dog ranch or the man who got eaten by a bear in his own home. This is a dream world. A valley that can be as easily a good dream as it can be a nightmare. You want it to be a good dream for him. An escape. You know what life he lives. What he runs from. 
“It’s even prettier now,” you finally answer, watching him reading your messy handwriting beside the drawings. Forget-me-not. White clover. Blue iris. “Spring came very late, everything is still blooming.” You bite into your lip and after a few seconds you ask, “wanna see?”
Arthur looks up at you and something flickers in his eyes. Maybe hope. He nods, puts out his cigarette, dusts off his hat and puts it back on his messy hair. 
“Only if you let me draw ya again.”
*
Everything around you buzzes and dances and it’s full of life, the valley, the word ‘spring’ written by the hand of Mother Earth in flowing rivers of wildflowers and overgrown grass. Orioles chirp not far away, singing another lulling love-song, matching the rhythm a creek makes above, crystal clear meltwater digging its course from stone and black earth towards south. 
Arthur stands a bit farther away from you, with his journal and a piece of charcoal in hand, putting the scenery to paper in blacks and greys and negative spaces. Or you think he’s drawing the Grizzlies and forests and farms littered down in the valley like mushrooms popping from the ground after a lukewarm summer rain. 
But instead, he draws you.
The crown of flowers sitting atop your head—the girls at camp taught him how to make one, he said, smiling. The arch of your lips. The shadow of your lashes. The tangles in your hair, the dirt on your skirt, the sun glinting in your eyes. 
When he’s done he walks back to you, flops down into the grass beside you to show you his work. The scenery really is just the background. Hasty, faint lines of mountain-spines and plants that curl towards the sun. But you, you’re detailed like an oil painting, from the wrinkles in your dress to the imperfections of your face. 
“You wanted to draw the land, ain't ya?” you ask him, knowing, smiling at him as he slips his charcoal into the cord on his hat. He gives you a lopsided smirk, then wipes his hands on the rough fabric of his jeans.
“I just found something so much more pretty,” he looks into your eyes when he says that and it burns like how maybe the sun’s surface would burn. You know there’s a blush rising through your neck, up to your cheeks, and you hope he thinks it’s from the warmth of the day. But he would be a fool to believe that. 
“Are ya tryin’ to flirt with me?” you feel like a child. A giddy girl getting her first carved wood pony to play with. You never believed him when he told you you were beautiful. You couldn’t. Yet here, now, in the all-revealing sunlight he seems like his words are genuine. Much more pretty.
He leans back on his hands, the sun caressing his face when he finally takes off his hat. His laughing-lines crinkle. 
"Do ya remember last year, when you gave me a kiss?"
If you haven't been burning up, you certainly are now. Something wild and primal stirs in your belly, something that’s very close to want and need. Of course you remember. Of course you can’t forget the way you leaned in and gave him a little peck on the lips, a bare press just because his plump lips looked so goddamn kissable and because you were so goddamn drunk. It doesn’t mean you didn’t want to do it sober. You just didn’t have the courage. But with amber whiskey in your stomach and his hand on your knee you couldn't be stopped. It was the day he left. The last day you’ve seen him alive until now.
You nod and look away. You don’t want to think about a dark future when Arthur wants to talk about kissing you. Jesus Christ.
“I wanted to draw your lips ever since then. Sometimes I did when I dreamt about you. Always smiling, always with flowers in your hair. But I never got it right.”
“I never thought you was a romantic, Mr. Morgan,” you’re truly blushing now, breaking the eye-contact, and picking at your nails instead because hearing this is a lot. The man you were waiting for months, the man you thought you loved and was dead, now sits here beside you, making poetry bubble in your chest. An oriole sings there too, trapped by ribs and muscle, red like the rising sun. 
“I— I’m never good with words,” he shrugs, picking on a blade of grass between his fingers. “Ya know I never was.”
You smile at him, still flushed. 
“But I thought about the time we spent together in the past and I… I realized I was happy with ya.”
What is this if not a confession?  
You reach for him. Slowly, like one would comfort a spooked horse, sliding your palm over his scarred knuckles until the grass he was twirling falls to the ground. He watches your hands on each other, yours so small and mostly soft compared to his large, battle-worn fingers. 
"I was happy with ya too," you whisper, so damn afraid yet you know he said it first, it must mean something—
He looks at you, looks right through you, gazes into the deepest depths of your soul where you already carved a space for him months ago. He looks at you and he knows this is not some sick joke, that your mutual attraction was not some mirage you chased for so long. 
He leans in and the world falls dead quiet. His breathing, shaky and unsure and deep, the only sound you can concentrate on as he nudges your nose with his own. Right where you left off half a year ago. Right where you imagined this in every dream. 
You nuzzle him, brush your lips against the corner of his mouth, his beard prickling and coarse, but his parting lips are soft, gently cupping your own between them, slow and careful and so goddamn sweet. He moves, hands reaching for you as you try to deepen this embrace, reciprocating the kiss, turning your body towards his. His fingers land in your hair, getting caught on the tangles like trouts on a net, and he cups your cheek with his other hand, so warm, it's like the sun is cradled in his palm. 
Maybe you're his sun. Maybe he's yours.
The kiss turns needy after a while, tongues dart out and teeth nip gently on plump, rosy lips. He keeps you close, closer, until your noses are squished together and his hair falls into your eyes and you can feel your lashes tickling his skin. He kisses you like no one ever did. He kisses you like it means something. 
Need awakens inside you with the force of a hundred galloping horses as his hands find your waist, the line of your spine, the collar of your dress, the outwards curve of one breast. They doesn't move further. It doesn't mean you don't want them to. 
Arthur pants against your mouth as you move away, the taste of tobacco and wild cherries still intense on your tongue. 
"Will ya draw me one more time?" you ask quietly, against the side of his face, your words tangling into the wild mess of his beard. 
"How?" you look him in the eye and he already knows, yet you make a show of it as you pull on your dress and slowly bare yourself to him. There's not a soul for miles, no one to disturb this bubble of peace and strawberry champagne haze you made for yourselves so you're not ashamed. And when you discover that wild flame burning in his eyes— 
Your body becomes alive with a meadow consumed by fire, overgrowing and rotting and oozing honey from every pretty flower. You shed your chemise. The shoes. Bloomers come last, already stained with grass and bright yellow pollen. 
You sit nude in front of him, a feast for his hungry eyes, yet he doesn't stare at you for long. He wants to commit this to paper. He wants to see this every day from now on—the curve of your breasts, the wide of your hips, the hair nestled between your legs, the smile you can't keep off of your lips. 
"For the road," you chuckle with a wink, watching how he scribbles away in his journal. "For lonely nights." 
"I could put this up in a gallery and take ya to Paris," he answers with a piece of charcoal in his mouth, smudging the powder on the paper. "Wanna see the world little dove?"
You know it's just gentle banter, but your heart aches the same. You both know it would be impossible. Him leaving this country, his family—a woman is not enough for that. 
"I think I have everythin' I wanna see right in front of me," you smirk, then move, not caring about the drawing anymore, and he doesn't care either, gripping your bare thighs as you rise to settle in his lap.
It's spring and you're a flower, and you bloom too, unfolding your body like petals, legs and arms slowly sliding away to reveal soft flesh. There's no shame when Arthur looks up at you like you're the goddamn sun and the stars and the wind caressing his face. Maybe you are when you reach down and slide a thumb over his brow, the downwards arch of his eyelid when he closes his eyes. Two gorgeous pools of blue-green look up at you when your finger slides lower, over his lips, to dig in and make them part, wet tongue darting out around a small kiss. 
You watch him. His eyes, his mouth. 
His long, golden lashes lower, a dark kind of fire ignited in his gaze, doin’ the only sin he does not regret committing— wanting you.  
He grabs onto your side, the flesh on your hip and stomach, leaves heat in his wake there, large palm-shaped sunspots that ooze light into your bloodstream. Christ, you want him to touch you more. To make you burn, to make you into a flame that needs his tending.
"You're so damn pretty, little dove" he murmurs in that low voice, watching how a single flower of forget-me-not falls from your hair and lands on the top of your breast, trapped in a bead of sweat like a fly in amber honey. 
The back of his head hits the ground, like it's a pillow woven from freshly sprouted grass and wild flowers and wet earth, and he moves you in his lap, lower, where you can feel him, hard and oh so ready but still waiting for your move. 
The spark is ignited. Your sun burns inside your ribcage for this man, a heart shaped from light, and you reach between the two of you to get him rid of his pants. Arthur doesn't move, but he lets you pull up his shirt, over a strong stomach and golden brown hair, over old scars that faded into silvery lines, to a ribcage housing a kind heart. 
"Will ya have me, Arthur?" you lean close to him, your bellies touching, your hand still restless at the buckle of his gun-belt, and he sighs into your hair, hips twitching at your eager request as he leans in to lay a gentle kiss on your temple, then the arch of your eyebrow. 
"'Course, sweetheart," he reaches up, cradles your nape as he curls his other arm around your waist, turning you until the soft earth cradles you like another lover.
Your bare legs fall open as he settles, with his hand on your knee, his thumb rubbing the spot where the broken grass stained it green. You should be shy. Ashamed. Vulnerable. You should clench your thighs tight, feel the need to be modest, yet your body betrays you even further when Arthur places his other hand on your side, making space for himself in the cradle of your hips. 
His shirt is gone. 
You watch him for a few eternal seconds, the way his eyelashes cast starlike shadows over his ruddy cheeks as he gets an eyeful of your flushed cunt. 
"Gonna have to work ya a little," he says, voice low and husky, thumbs drawing circles into your flesh, as if he's soothing a spooked creature. 
There's not enough time to get your fill of his body; the hair-dusted muscles of his chest and arms, the stubble-peppered neck that leads into a strong jawline, the strand of honey brown hair that carefully curls around his ear. You subconsciously nod instead, rapidly, sliding your hand over his own, tugging on his worn knuckles until he's blanketing you with his body. 
Arthur smiles into your hair for a second when his free hand trails up your side, up through the valley of your breasts and the bend of your neck until he can cradle your head, his fingers caressing, thumb parting your lips so when he arrives with his own you're already panting a shivering exhale into his mouth. Yes, kiss me. Conquer my lips. Conquer this monster that is my body. 
He kisses you, softly at first, cupping your upper lip between his, then the bottom one, and then, just then he lets a hot breath mingle with your own before his tongue finds its way around yours. He kisses you with all the need a starving man can feel, suckling on your lips until they are flushed, swollen, his worn thumb sliding over them once more, between gentling pecks of affection and softly opening eyes. He's mesmerized by the sight of you like this, oh so close, oh so pretty in the sunlight. 
You get bold under his stare, curling your fingers into the hair on his nape, into the coarse tangles of his beard before you give him the same treatment he gave you, mapping the plush, hot rise of his bottom lip with your thumb. He kisses the tip of it, then leans in to lay gentle presses on your forehead, your temple, the corner of your mouth. You want to chase him, coax him into another kiss, but he murmurs something against your skin instead, hefting your leg higher at his side, and your belly aches with the burning sun that grows inside it, pressed flush to his. 
"Lemme show ya somethin'," he almost whispers, and he descends downwards, draws a curling vine of blooming ivy in the shape of kisses, at the hollow of your throat, at the top of one breast, then the other. He takes your nipples between the same lips you've kissed mere moments ago, still wet, and he almost makes a show of it when a surprised moan slips out from your chest. 
Arthur commits the shape of you into his memory, counting each rib, each valley and hill your body has, the soft of your stomach when he arrives there, a star-circle of hot lip-presses, and then lower, at the edges of a gentle trail of wiry hair that leads between your wide-open legs, and then just shy of your cunt, a place so sensitive the kiss wrecks your whole body with a shiver. 
He looks up at you for a second, lifting your legs over two strong shoulders, soothing you again with circling caresses on your thigh, even though his eyes are ravenous, chest heaving as he sucks in panting breaths . The want inside you blooms alive. If you could be a forest, you would burn gladly under his hands. 
The idea is no stranger to you, you've read your fair share of off-shelved romance novels, but experiencing such an act transcends every sweet worded description you've ever seen when Arthur makes his intention clear with a look full of promises. 
Not letting you suffer longer, he leans in and softly nuzzles his way between the folds of your cunt; kisses you there. 
Your body grows weak, open, and you helplessly grab into the earth beside you, clawing up dirt and fresh grass, sinking your fingers deep, like you could plant your roots here. A noise escapes you, surprised and breathless, and Arthur mutters encouragement against your mound, " beautiful… ", then strokes his tongue over a spot where nerves meet in a most sensitive bundle. 
He sucks and licks there, kissing your flesh like he had been kissing your mouth, with his eyes almost closed, cheeks flushed and beard scraping your skin. It tickles, it scratches, it makes a flock of burning butterflies flick alive inside your belly, it makes want trickle from your cunt when he arrives there. You feel like you're already unraveling, the foreign pleasure spreading through your body like fungi webbing a forest floor, and at every spot his skin touches you, you bloom.  
Like a meadow. Like a sun.
He hums encouragement, holds your thighs firmer, pushes his tongue against you harder. You try to squirm, hands scrambling, his mouth curling into a smile at your folds, and you moan, freely, maybe the first time in your whole life, just for him. 
He pleasures you so effortlessly, so gladly, and in all the tenderness he offers you feel like you could drown. His mouth is relentless. His kisses even more are. You can't help but wretch open your eyes to look down and find him buried there, in the cradle of your hips, face flushed red and eyes sparkling so pretty when they meet your own. You don't have control over your body anymore. 
You blindly reach for his hair, your head thumping back against the earth, spine arching, shoulders rolling into the dirt. "That's it," he murmurs between suckling kisses, and you grind your cunt up, up into his mouth because Christ, you're almost there. 
Your eyes flicker open, like candle flames, neck curved back, and you can see the Grizzlies like this, snow-capped, glinting like crystals, between blades of green and sky blue iris flowers. Your whole world turns upside-down. 
It's too good—his lips, his tongue, his hot breath fanning against your weeping opening, yet you can't get there, not really, not before Arthur lifts away and the world tries to right itself but turns out all wrong. He is panting, hair messy from all the torture your fingers did on his strands, glinting golden in the sun. 
Your thighs slip away, off his shoulders as he returns to you, hastily wiping his face in the back of his hand, lips already seeking your own, soothing you. He tastes tangy, more salt than sweet, like you, and the forest of emotions threatens to split your ribcage open when he presses his mouth to your temple. 
"What's wrong?" you ask quietly, whisper the question into his opened lips between two tender kisses, and he answers with a breathless "nothin'."
"Have to open ya up," his fingers squeeze you, harder on your side, and he brings his free hand up to his lips, licking his fingers. That same sinful hand returns to your belly, then lower, cupping your whole cunt in his palm before you feel it, the thick finger teasing at your opening, spreading the wetness, and then gently, slowly slipping inside without any resistance. 
Arthur nudges your nose with his own when your eyes flutter closed, lashes tickling his cheek, and he kisses you again, moving his finger inside you, a slow, purposeful stroke. 
"Look at me, little dove," he whisper-commands, curling that finger in, making you gasp into his mouth. "Look at me. Yeah, that's it." He almost smiles when your eyes meet his own, and your belly aches as he pulls out his finger and adds a second. They glide in so easy, you can feel his palm growing sticky against your cunt. You want to be embarrassed, but he just stifles a groan against your neck when your pussy squelches, your pleasure steadily rising with the clever thrusting of his fingers.
Shit, if his fingers feel like this inside you, you can't even imagine how his cock will. 
He builds you up steadily, like a castle, like a temple, like a stairway right to the sun, and he doesn't give you a warning when he crams in another finger, three now, stretching you truly and good, shushing you with his lips, kissing you breathless until your legs yield and shake. 
"That's it," he murmurs, kisses you thoroughly, panting against your lips as your cunt squeezes tight around his fingers. "That's good."
His name escapes your throat, a plea, and you're barely hanging on by a thread now. Arthur is tender in his movements, but not too gentle, making space for himself inside you, making your poor heart flicker and trash under your ribcage like a trapped bird. He kisses you again, with opened lips, tongue clashing with yours, your teeth catching on the side of his face, a right mess, and his fingers slow, then gingerly slide out to lay drenched in your slick on the burning skin of your thigh. 
You whine at the loss. Truly, desperately. Such an unladylike sound, yet it rings sweet against Arthur's neck. 
You feel so empty.
"Shh," he quiets you, then gently grabs your hand, caressing a thumb over your knuckles, and guides it down, over the still buttoned waist of his pants, where his achingly hard cock strains against the fabric. You gasp a surprised "oh" between his lips, but follow his hand eagerly, helping him with the buttons. "Touch me, darlin'."
You do. Jesus, you do.
You worm your hand between the fabric and his feverish skin, mapping out the shape of him with curious touches. Even though you're inexperienced, Arthur's body teaches you what feels good for him without a guiding word. You grasp him, gently at first, and then firmer, and stroke your hand over his cock until your palm curls around the flushed head of him, finding a bead of wetness there. His stomach jumps, muscles tensing against you, his breath hitching sweetly beside your ear when he kisses you there too.
Did he feel a similar curious excitement like you do now, when he stuffed you full of his fingers? 
"You're a natural, sweetheart," he smiles at you, cheeks blooming a pretty red, and you feel his hand returning between your legs, thick fingers pushing inside you again. "Ya think you can take me?"
You can't answer, not at first, too distracted by the stretch, by the burning want that blooms in your belly, by the idea of taking Arthur. You kiss him instead, stroke him faster until he has to break away from you to collect himself. 
"Fuck me," you whisper to him, sweet as wild strawberries, your lips brushing the side of his face and he smiles, truly, teeth and crow's feet and wrinkles and all, and Christ, you want him so much it almost hurts. 
"Now, you really want me to fuck ya?" 
You don't know if he wants to tease, or he's truly concerned about your decision, but you give him a very pointed look, releasing his cock and reaching for his hand that is still pleasuring you, slowly pulling it away until you're empty once more. 
"Arthur," you kiss him again, almost pleading and he can't deny you longer. He worries at your bottom lip for a second, then presses his mouth to your chin. 
"Spread 'em pretty thighs for me then," he murmurs as he comes closer, bracketing the backs of your thighs with his own, and then hefting your legs around his hips. You open yourself willingly, freely, feeling the heat of him oh so close, and you help him a little, push on his jeans until his cock is free, thick and heavy and hard against the inside of your thigh.
It's the first time you see it. It's the first time your cunt clenches on nothing and it makes you desperate. 
"If I hurt ya, say so and I'll stop, alright?" he says as he gives you one last kiss before leaning back and taking a hold of his cock. Christ, you want to watch. To know how he will fit inside you, but the strong bulk of his body blocks your view, sea-colored eyes going half-lidded as he watches your every reaction, sliding against your folds once, twice, and for the third time his fat cock catches on your slick opening. 
You gasp and pull him into a kiss with renewed hunger, and it's perfect to muffle your sounds as he slowly, carefully pushes into you. 
He has maybe an inch or two inside, but you're already feeling like you could burst, like you could rip apart at the seams and bloom into a bed of wildflowers oozing honey over black earth. 
It's— 
It's everything. 
You can feel his heartbeat race against your breast, and you can feel it inside you, lighting you up, making the unfamiliar stretch good, making it divine. You pant into his mouth, let him nuzzle your cheek as he murmurs praise, his free hand coming up to cradle your jaw and caress your lips. 
"That's it, good girl," he whispers, as breathless as you, and you feel him move, deeper, making way for himself when there's barely any. It hurts and it doesn't. Aches like a good day of riding in the sun. Warm. Stretched. A funny sway in your head when it's over. A pleasure-pain so perfect you never want him to stop. "Ya fit me like you was made for me."
"Christ," you hiss, hands curling into his neck and shoulder, digging into the meat of them, almost drawing blood as Arthur's hips meet yours, his hot length fully settling inside you. "Arthur, Jesus I—,"
"Shhh," he quiets you softly, one hand cupping the back of your palm on his shoulder, massaging it until your fingers yield, no longer digging into his flesh, and he brings your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles. A distraction. A gesture so sweet your body warms even more. 
"S-sorry," you manage to say, out of breath and tingling all over. He's so deep inside you you can feel it. All the space he fills, all the ways pressure makes you twitchy and sensitive and ready to burst. He kisses your fingertips next, the inside of your wrist, all the while his other hand smooths over your trembling thigh. 
"Watchu sayin' sorry for?" his question is a mere whisper against you, a soothing rumble at the side of your face. He waits for you to settle, to let you calm like a rapid summer storm, keeps himself still until the way he holds you open becomes from an unfamiliar intrusion into a shivering spark of something. Can pleasure feel like this too? Can the joy of joining coat your bodies like crushed candy that melts in the sun? 
You can't focus on his question, not until he caresses your brow with a finger, and even then you don't know the answer. You just close your eyes and tremble, too lost in the closeness of him, too distracted by the spark of pleasure bubbling hotly inside your belly. 
"Tell me when I should move," he brushes your hair back, wipes the sweat that started beading at your temple. "Or tell me to stop."
"N-no. Don't stop, please Arthur. Jus'... just be slow," you murmur against him, your words slurred into his beard, lips brushing a scar there. 
He nods then, reassures you with a small kiss that says "I've got you, don't worry," and it's enough for you. Enough to brace for the inevitable outwards pull. 
You have to dig your fingers into his arm, have to cling to him for dear life, because even though his movement is careful, you still want to rip apart from the seams, just from his cock gently grinding into your cunt. 
You groan, dear Christ, and you clench on him, the pleasure-pain so intense it rushes you towards the edge with the speed of lightning striking a lonely tree out in the prairie. 
"Yes, sweetheart, open up for me," he praises you, licking the same fingers he stuffed inside you earlier and returning them between your legs, feeling where he holds you open, and then drawing a gentle circle on your clit, another sharp sparkle of pleasure, and you whine. "Can you come like this?"
You can't answer with words, your throat locks up and tears well in the corners of your eyes as you nod eagerly, racing towards an edge that ends in pure free fall. So he keeps his slow torture sweet, a purposeful grind of his hips and knowing touches with his fingers and you pant, into his neck and then into the soft grass, your head lolling to the side, and even though you're outside, up in the mountains, there's barely enough air to fill your lungs. The only thing you breathe is Arthur. He trickles into your every vein, every muscle and fat and bone, blankets you in honey and dew and the warmth of the sun. 
"Look at ya, little darlin'," he says, fond, as he reaches for your face to give your flaming cheek a gentle caress. Your back arches as he pushes in again, his movement turning into longer, truer thrusts. "Look how good you take me."
"Shit, Arthur I—"
"Gonna take care of ya," he murmurs and leans back, settling on his haunches with his cock still rooted deep and your thighs wide open around his hips. 
He looks down at your body, at all the imperfections you hate, at all the unique curves of your form, at all the unevenly smooth skin and marks and scars. Then, at your face that is softened by a deep frown of pleasure. 
Your eyes meet. 
You can see the want flickering in his eyes like blue flames in a marsh, alive and hot, and maybe your own burns the same, because he can't control a hard thrust then. You almost yelp, but your joining is slick now, you can feel wetness collect on your cunt every time he pulls out, so the pain is nonexistent. 
"That—" you pant, sucking in a hasty breath, "that felt so good."
"Christ, darlin," he exhales on a smile, and digs the meat of his fingers into the bend of your knee and the puffy flesh of your cunt and you almost scream, the good kind of scream, as he thrusts in again, hard and deep. "You're so goddamn beautiful."
It's your turn to tense up, to clench on him, hot and full and barely hanging on by a thread. He makes you run down the hill of pleasure until you trip, until you're falling, until the pressure becomes too much and not enough all at once. Like graphite grinded into dust and swept by the wind, that's how you float too, towards his calloused hands and sun-worn cheeks and you're a parchment laid out flat, your body the same, bare and vulnerable until his fingerprints stain you, in forms of lilac bruises on your hips, in never ending paths of grey sunlight. 
He lets go of your leg, puts a palm on the soft of your belly, just above your cunt, and he feels himself there, moving, filling you so full, so good, so whole, until there's no more air to breathe and no more hill to tumble down on, only the vacuum of a night sky littered with stars, the inside of his irises, watching you as you come. Sudden, violent. 
Your body shakes as it sweeps you away, a fire eating you alive like candlelight makes a moth catch aflame, and Arthur leans down to kiss you through it, still fucking you, still not stopping when the too much hits, but oh, he's a great distraction, the way his soft lips apologize, the way his tongue reassures you sweetly that you're doing good. He hums into the kiss, nips on your upper lip as your hands rise and dig into his neck, keeping him close, trapped in your body like a butterfly in sticky honey. 
"Ya okay?" he asks softly, whispering the question onto the corner of your mouth, his hands curling around your shoulders, the back of your head. An embrace. Butterflies growing in the same cocoon. 
"Feels so good," you whimper, clinging to him, feeling his cock hit deep again, resuming a lost rhythm like one replays a song on a guitar. The same chords flowing for a dance practiced by lovers. "Ar-Arthur."
He keeps on going and you keep taking him, the grass crushing under you bodies and you’re sure your whole backside is gonna be green, just like his knees and palms are. It’s blurry from that, your mind so fogged by pleasure that the world swims, a sea of light and wildflowers and clouds, pools of piercing blue-green eyes and crooked teeth that snarl into a smile. 
“Do ya have one more for me?” his forehead knocks against yours, his rhythm slowing. 
You don’t understand the question, not at first, but his fingers return between your legs, rough on the sensitive flesh of your clit, circling oh so carefully, and you know, Jesus, you know you want to give him everything you can. 
"Arthur," you pant, your lips buried in his hair as he plants a humming kiss into the crook of your neck.
"Hm?"
"Don't hold back. Please. Wanna feel you even when you're gone," your tighten your legs around his hips, answer his thrust with the rise of your own, meeting him halfway, like how the sun meets the horizon when pink dusk falls over the valley. 
"Don't ask me that I—" he chokes on his words at your interruption, a soft kiss, placed right on the plump of his bottom lip. 
"Please,” you encourage him, plead him. You want this so much it almost hurts. Not where he splits you open. Not where he hits deep as he picks up his pace. No, it’s the chest where you ache, the rapidly beating organ that pumps and beats and jumps and flickers, a mass of red, a cluster of muscle that somehow houses all the feelings you have for this man. A heart full of adoration. A heart full of love.
He kisses you so hard it makes you dizzy. Makes the doves caged in your ribs escape and tear you open, leaving only a wide wound in their wake, a door that leads straight down to the pocket-universe you handcrafted in the shape of a golden-haired, glacier-eyed man. 
You can feel him getting close, his hard thrusts falling out of rhythm, his fingers urgent on your abused clit. It sits there, the pleasure in your belly, bubbling, spilling over as he desperately chases your own orgasm, fucking you into the ground almost, planting you like a flower, to bloom just for him, just so you can weave your roots together. 
Arthur’s arms tremble as he groans into your neck, pulls back to leave a kiss on the side of your mouth, not focused enough for a proper one and you can’t help yourself. That choking feeling you felt rising from the start overspills, makes a landslide, an avalanche. You swallow and look up at him, mesmerized by his half-lidded eyes, glinting in the sun like twin-lakes, his hands holding you tight to him, his cheeks ruddy from all the loving you did to each other. 
You slip, and the world tilts. 
"Love you," you murmur, breathless, and there's a sudden shudder against you, Arthur's hands going bruising on your flesh, and he's coming, halfway on his way of pulling out. The warmth startles you, and then his grunt too, when he pushes back inside, because it doesn't really matter anymore, with his seed spilling out beside his cock, and some sick, possessive part of him enjoys how you whimper when he stuffs you full again, everything too wet and too hot. You tremble in his hold, terrified and riled up all at once, because feeling him like this makes you a little stupid and so sick with love it aches. 
You come again from it, softly this time. 
"I'm so goddamn sorry," he groans, trying to play the gentleman, trying to erase memories surfacing. This is not like it was then. He can still do right by you.
"'S okay," you murmur, almost feeling drunk, out of your mind with the way his cock twitches inside you, spurting one last time. "'S okay, Arthur." 
You pull him closer, with your fingers in his hair, in his beard. He sags against you, body weak from both his climax and emotions, and he presses his forehead to yours. It's a thing almost more intimate than a kiss. A thing full of the unspeakable truth, but you're not ready for it, and he isn't either. 
He watches you for a few seconds, his eyes flickering, a candle flame in a storm, but finally, finally he gives you a small smile. It's just in his eyes, a secret thing, a treasure so little and so precious it needs to be protected from the ugly cold reality. 
"I don't wanna awaken false hopes inside ya," he starts, gently, like calming a wild horse, "but I can't leave ya here thinkin' I don't love you the same." 
That's it. That's the time for a tear that sneakily bubbles from the corner of your eye and slides down to the calloused pad of his finger still caressing your face.��
"I ain't a good man," he continues, voice impossibly soft, "but I always wanted to do right by ya."
"Arthur," you tremble as you whisper, your hands on his nape, in his hair. Your mouth brushes his brow as you lean in. "Just come back to me. I don't care when. Jus' come back alive."
He nods, then buries his head into your neck, kissing your heated skin, writing a promise there with his lips. 
The sun moves and the surrounding mountains start to paint blue shadows over the blooming meadows so you move, first from the embrace, then from the flattened patch of grass and flowers you’ve tangled into each other on. You only put on your dress, no bloomers or shoes, his come still sticky on the inside of your thigh, and he leaves his shirt on the ground too, not ready to let go of this moment. 
He looks up at you, eyes sparkling, taking in the sight that is so pretty he wants to never leave. With flowers in your hair, a crown braided from daisies and forget-me-nots and marigolds, with dirt and grass on your skin, with a content smile in the corner of your mouth—you look radiant. 
Arthur sits with you in the grass, picking on wild-green blades and chewing on the end of one while he searches for the prettiest little flower blooming right next to your bare feet, nestled close to his. 
A perfect bud of white clover. Faith, love, good fortune.
He takes your hand in his, kisses your knuckles, and ties a ring around your finger from the stem, makes the flower sit pretty in the middle, like a chiseled, shiny rock of moonstone. 
What is this if not a vow? 
What is this if not a promise?
*
In the morning, after loving each other once more in the flickering moonlight, you wake up sore between the legs and dizzy from an intelligible emotion clawing deep inside your chest. The bed is empty next to you, the coffee that Arthur made still steaming on the table. You don't dress up, just pull the quilt over your body and run outside, onto your small porch to gaze down the valley bathing in golden light. A silver dapple mare gallops down there, on the spine of a mud-snake road. 
Arthur rides away. 
You stumble back to the chair on the porch, full with something bittersweet. Overripe cherries rotting on a tree. A black heart dripping honey. Your ribcage squeezing your lungs like a fist. You take a shaky breath and when he completely disappears from your view you lean back, almost sit down on a leather-covered book. It's a journal. Another one, smelling like fresh paper and horse hair and him.
You open it as you settle, the quilt drawn tight around your barely covered body.
There's a drawing on the first page, two wild doves huddled together, and a flower of white clover tied into a ring, pressed down into the page. 
Under it, scrawled hastily with Arthur's flowing handwriting:
I promise.
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70spostergirls · 5 months
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Morgan Fairchild
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woodlnds · 7 months
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“Charles, you said you’d ride with me.”
“I did, Arthur. Always.”
© Partial background belongs to Rockstar Games
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toaster-trash · 16 days
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Is this still funny
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highonbeauty · 1 month
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atomic-chronoscaph · 2 months
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High Road to China movie poster art by Morgan Kane (1983)
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cowboy-competition · 1 year
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FINALS!!! 🐎
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drizzledrawings · 1 year
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Insert a deep quote about seeing your grief in everything
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rdr2gifs · 3 months
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''the morning light, when it comes to me, it was there but I could not see''
Arthur’s life was profoundly shaped by his self-hatred, lack of self-worth and disbelief in the existence of kindness in a seemingly dark and cruel world.
I strongly disagree with the statement that Arthur only became a ‘’better’’ man after being diagnosed with tb. His struggle with his true/inner self is apparent as early as chapter one. ‘’You are not who you think you are, sir… which is lucky’’
He has lived a rough life, raised by criminals and surrounded by violence ever since he was born. It was installed in him early that his value lied within being a violent enforcer and he has lived this life since, knowing nothing else. As a highly aware person, Arthur's actions weight heavy on his soul. He accepts that his actions have consequences. He knows that a person who has caused so much suffering is not meant to have happiness in life. His way of life has caused him to believe that he is not worthy of love or redemption. He doesn’t want to believe that a person like him could be capable of any good. (a thing to note here is that imo, Arthur’s actions near his death weren’t attempts at redemption but rather a strong desire to do right and possibly be his true self.) This is why he keeps living as he does as it’s the only thing he’s ever known, it’s the thing that brings him profit, praise from the person he looks up to and he is already damned so he might as well continue living this life anyway.
The internal problem Arthur faces is that this violent, cruel way of life doesn’t align with what I’d call his true self/ideals. He is torn between the harsh reality he has known and an unconscious yearning for righteousness/love. To be able to carry on with his actions he must enforce certain ideals within himself, such as: I am bad, ugly, nasty, ignorant, mean etc. He also decides to see the dark side of reality, telling himself that the world is a grim dark place and this is just as things were meant to be. This is why he feels so uncomfortable being complimented for his good deeds, because a bad rotten person like him should not be able to do good. It breaks the image he has built for himself and he doesn’t want that happening. This can be seen a lot during the ‘’Money Lending and Other Sins’’ missions where he is unusually mean (even for his standards) to each of the debtors. Imo, he acts this way because he must truly convince himself of being a terrible man to be able to carry out a job which revolts him so badly. In the last debt collecting mission with J. John Weathers, it can be seen in his face/expressions how much he is struggling to put on a tough, uncaring, heartless act. He needs to maintain a ruthless persona to survive in the world he knows. He must convince himself of his own cruelty.
''Forgive me, but that's the problem. You don't know you.''
Contrary to Arthur’s beliefs, he is a naturally kind-hearted person who is unconsciously drawn towards kindness. And yes, even before he was diagnosed with tb. This can be seen in the people he respects the most and, in his willingness to help strangers (notice how he often does unnecessary acts of service for total strangers such as: carrying their things, holding out hands etc. even though they had already troubled him). Despite the life he has lived, Arthur does not enjoy violence, he does not enjoy hurting people. He doesn’t want to dominate over others. He thinks mostly about others and not about himself. This fact alone is very telling of his character.
He writes about Charles, a man who he truly respects: ‘’He’s a better man than me. He does not need to think to be good. It comes naturally to him, like right is deep within as opposed to this conflict between GOOD↔EVIL that rages within me.’’ A man who is not struggling with his inner self would not have written this. To me this clearly implies an inner desire to be a better man. He writes about his mentors: ‘’I love Dutch like a father, but in many ways, I love Hosea even more. He’s kind and fair and like a human being. Dutch is something else.’’ Clearly showing a preference for Hosea who is of a more gentle nature and shows genuine kindness. Unsurprisingly, these are the people who see through his dumb/though act and encourage him to drop it.
When he comes across Brother Dorkins for the first time, he writes: ‘’(he)was one of those innocent people who make you feel better about human beings and about yourself a little. Must be odd to see all that goodness in the world. Place always seemed dark and brutal to me.’’ Expressing how he does not see goodness in the world, implying lack of good examples/kindness/good experiences in his life. Yet, the monk leaves an impression and imo, this encounter (seeing genuine goodness) disrupts Arthur’s perception of what the world truly is. ‘’Just as evil begat evil your whole life long, so good may begat good’’ (what strengthens my belief in this, is the following, symbolic scene of Arthur realising the consequences of his actions right after picking up a crucifix. He was aware of them before sure, but is unable to truly ignore them now having seen it right in front of his eyes). If only Arthur was presented with more examples of goodness in his life.
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''You have it in you... I can tell!''
His desire to do as much good as possible after realising he won’t live long is instant. This would not be the mindset of someone who did not already possess kindness in his heart. ‘’Know glory and forget about shame.’’ Arthur’s shame and self-loathing caused by his previous actions were what was holding him back from allowing kindness into his life. Knowing that he has limited time left has not made him into someone he wasn’t before. The diagnosis was a catalyst, allowing him to embrace that love/goodness truly does exist and accelerate the process of chipping away from the persona he has made for himself. This was a newfound understanding for him as in the past he was rejecting any notion of kindess. In himself and perhaps the whole existence of it. ‘’You keep hidden all that matters, even from yourself.’’
After being diagnosed, he writes: ‘’What kind of a man have I been? What kind of a man am I? What world is this we live in? A land of fury or a place of love? Am I being prepared for eternal damnation? Am I past any kind of saving? Is that all fairytales? Man ain’t got much good in him. I ain’t got no good in me… I don’t think and yet I see goodness. I see it. If not in me, in good folk. In Abigail and her love for Jack. In that silly monk. In Downes, I guess. Begging not for himself but for the poor, even though he was near starving himself. Maybe I don’t want salvation. Part of me has always longed for death.’’ This entry perfectly shows how deep Arthur’s self-loathing goes and just how much it has damaged him. As his journal allows a look into his true feelings, he truly does not see a single good thing about himself. He knew for a long time that the way he lives is detestable but he could not let go of it. Not because he didn’t want to, but because it’s all that he has ever known. He didn’t believe in anything else. This sudden acceptance of goodness has allowed him to see clearly, which was obscured from him before, and for the first time, enabled him to act free of past regrets for what is right.
⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪
Arthur’s redemption is not about becoming a good man. It is about finding the strength to change and recognise your true self despite a lifetime of self-loathing and breaking free from destructive beliefs of the past.
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In Arthurian legends a stag is a symbol of the unending quest of spiritual knowledge/enligtenment
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chonidale · 5 months
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2.18 | 4.08 | 4.17
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coltermorning · 4 months
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A Christmas to Remember (RDR2 Fanfic, Arthur Morgan x F!Reader, 18+)
Summary: You and Arthur have agreed to meet on the night of Christmas Eve. The evening and the following day turn out to be more than either of you expected.
Author’s Notes: Just some good ole fluff for the holidays! Set a year or so down the road from the events of RDR2, and in this instance Arthur never got sick and rides alone now.
Tags: Arthur Morgan x reader, high honor Arthur Morgan, implied sex, fluff
AO3 Link
~
A Christmas to Remember
Word count: 5994
The firelight flickered, throwing shadows across the wooden walls, shimmers of gold rising and collapsing in the night. The room was warm, comfortable for all the drafty air threatening to cut through it. It never quite managed to get in, like the flames stood guard in their grate, pushing against the inevitable winter.
The room had been decorated for the season with a tree and garland and ribbon and light. This place had likely never seen such decoration until the end of the year, the woody smell seeping into the very walls it was so thick. The source of it, a small pine, was standing crooked in the corner. It was a promise of what was to come. Inviting and, had the room not already held its heat, warm. Perfect for the occasion.
On the night before Christmas, you were perched by the window, ignoring the beauty of the room surrounding you in favor of the company you awaited. Mr. Morgan, a promise to meet you here not having left your thoughts since the moment it parted from his lips. You had your gift, your best clothes, expectation wrapped around you like a bow. And yet, all there was to do was wait. To feel the anticipation for his arrival and let all else fall away.
The minutes passed, and soon there was a horse coming up the path with its familiar white spots flashing in the night. That white would normally stand out more but for the snow, falling thick and slow in the December air. It made Valentine prettier. It made the mud seem less untidy somehow, more familiar.
You felt a smile curve your lips when you saw just the man you waited for approach, his hat slung low, his blue coat fastened tight around him. You watched him encourage his horse onward until he rounded the building out of sight. You wondered if he would stable the animal or not, caring as always or too taken by his haste at seeing you. How that eagerness of his for you made you giddy. To be known and to be wanted anyway.
You left your place by the window and took in the room with a sweeping glance. The lights, the smell, the warmth. It was homey in the same way he was. A welcome respite to come back to, a place to look forward to when things got hard.
You stood closer to the fire, knowing sitting was useless when all you wanted was to embrace him the moment he walked through the door. It had been too long. So you remained standing if a little impatient, feeling the nerves that quickened your heartbeat course through you. You would be parting with more than just a gift tonight, and the very thought made you restless. But you owed it to him. He deserved it.
You fiddled with a piece of ribbon tied on the garland that framed the fireplace when you heard bootsteps in the hall, heavy and determined. They made you smile. But for all his bravado, he knocked softly on the door when he reached it, as if you would whisk away into nothingness the moment he did. Like a dream and nothing more.
“Come in,” you answered, and your gentle words were all it took for him to regain that sense of pride. The door swung open, and nothing could have suited you better than the smile he wore, the light in his eyes when they landed on you.
“Y/N.” It was a happy sound. Not a greeting so much as a satisfied release of breath. Your feet were moving before you could respond.
You hugged the man you had been missing for weeks, wishing like always that the pair of you could make this permanent enough to keep you together for longer than an evening.
“I missed you,” you whispered, sinking into the feeling of him holding you. His coat was cold but his warmth outweighed it, swallowing you in the scent of tobacco smoke and outside air. You had missed that smell so much your chest ached with it.
“I missed you too, sweetheart,” he said. Always so intentional. Always saying just what he thought. You adored that about him.
You pulled back to look at him but remained in his arms. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Morgan.”
“Christmas Eve,” he corrected. “We still have a few hours yet.” Then his eyes were filling with meaning like they always did before he kissed you. The look that said nothing in the world mattered more than this. You tilted your chin up, happy to greet it with all the love you held for him. He leaned in with that enamored look, and his lips met yours with the soft release of anticipation for all the days spent waiting. All the days apart that would be dreadful if not for the knowledge that you would have this again. You kissed him back just as slow and soft, like this was what it took to remember.
The pair of you got a bit lost in each other until you could hear his breathing grow heavy. It always did that, and it never failed to make your heart race in kind.
You pulled away and looked into those ocean water eyes. “I got you something.”
He quirked an eyebrow, running his lips together subtilely like he could still taste your kiss. “Did you now?”
“Yes.” He had told you not to. This was your first Christmas spent with him, the first chance you had to give him a gift. But, just like his birthday that had come and gone without your knowledge, he didn’t want a gift. Just your company. You had already gotten onto him plenty for letting his birthday squeak by. You wouldn’t let it happen again.
You stepped to the side and motioned to the bed, to the small parcel laying atop it. You had done your best with wrapping it, a small bit of twine done up around the paper with a bow.
“It’s two, actually. I’ve been working on one for a while.” When you turned back to him, the small flash of concern on his face didn’t go unnoticed. “Don’t worry,” you assured him. “I didn’t expect anything in return.”
His eyes snapped to you then. “Well, that’s too bad,” he said lowly, and before you could ask why, he was reaching inside his coat and pulling something out. A present, a little battered from his travel, the paper wrinkled and the tie around it crushed. You only loved it more for it. It was endearing in the same way he was.
“Arthur,” you chided with a smile. “You were just going to let me show up without a present when you had one for me?”
“‘Course.” He smiled with his teeth, that toothy grin that reminded you of the boy he had once been.
You gave him an incredulous look, and he laughed, the sound spiraling upward and into your bones like liquid gold.
“Fine then. You open mine first,” you said, unable to shake the high that was being with him.
He raised his hands in mock surrender before repocketing his gift and making for the parcel. You felt nerves flash through you, hoping against hope he would like it. One you knew he would, but the other was…a bit different.
“You didn’t have to spend your money,” he said, picking up the package and pulling the string so the bow slipped apart.
“I wanted to,” you told him. “It didn’t cost much anyway. More time than anything.”
He eyed you, the remnants of that grin still on his face, then the paper crinkled as he undid it. It finally gave way to fabric—his favorite color. He smiled.
“Darlin’,” he said endearingly as he pulled out a new shirt. Nothing special, nothing fancy, just something for him to ride in, the softest blue you could find. You always teased him that everything he owned would be blue if he had his say in the matter. “I love it,” he said with a smile bright enough to make you return it. “Thank you.”
He made to hug you but you stopped him. “Unfold it.”
He hesitantly did so, dropping the wrapping to the floor. He held the shirt up, and the moment he did, a loud thunk sounded—his second gift hitting the floor.
“Shit, sorry,” he said, reaching for it.
You could only laugh. “It’s not breakable.”
He picked it up, and the low light in the room was enough for him to see the wood. To see what you had carved into it.
He flipped it over, examined it from every angle. “You did this?” He met your eyes with such an open admiration in his that you felt your face heat.
You nodded. “It’s for your shotgun. The stock. I made sure it was the right kind to fit your gun if you wanted to…swap them out.” You suddenly felt that was a little presumptuous of you.
He stared at it so long your nerves got the better of you.
“You don’t have to, of course-”
“No,” he said, meeting your eye with sincerity in his own. “I love it. I mean it. Thank you. I’ll get it put on there first thing tomorrow.”
You were beaming. “Really? It’s not too…I don’t know. Effeminate?”
He gave you a chiding look so you kept on. “You’re just…you, and I want you to like it, but you don’t have to use it if you-”
He stopped you with a kiss, sudden and sure enough to melt away your doubt. Then there was nothing but him. No worry about some gift that he ended up liking after all.
Arthur pulled away from you slowly, reluctantly. “Open yours.”
He pulled the parcel out of his coat and handed it to you as he sat on the bed, urging you to sit beside him. You joined him, admiring him as you took it. There was no nervousness about him like there had been in you. His mind didn’t even seem to be on the gift. He was thinking of you and little else. So you smiled when you opened it, knowing you would love it before you even knew what it was.
Sure enough, he knew you well. “A journal?”
He nodded as your smile stretched wider. You thumbed through the empty pages, yours to fill. The two of you had that in common—a need to record in drawing as well as words. He was heavier on the words, journal entries lining the pages of what little he had let you see of his leather-bound book. But you preferred drawing. Mimicking art. It was why you had carved the woodland scene into a gunstock for the better part of a month, knowing upon seeing its inspiration how special it was and that it needed to be remembered. So maybe now, that proud deer on the foreground of a valley would forever be cradled in his appreciative hand just as this journal would be cradled in yours.
“Thank you, Arthur.” You met his eye to show that you meant it then melted all over again at the way he was looking at you. You debated speaking the feeling that bloomed within you but didn’t, not when he picked up the stock again and brushed a thumb over your handiwork.
“This is fine work.”
The words made a blush tinge your face. You couldn’t help it. He always bragged on you in a way that would make any woman blush, much less the woman who somehow found herself on the doting end of this rugged, outlawed man. He was a blunt instrument, violent and determined, yet all he trained on you was softness. Kindness you didn’t know how you had come to deserve.
“I told you you was better than me.” This meaning your artwork.
You snorted a laugh. “Yeah, right. And I told you, maybe I’d be a better judge of that if you let me get my hands on that journal of yours.”
He chuckled, the sound soft and warm as the room surrounding you. But to your surprise, for the first time since you’d found out he carried a journal, he didn’t protest.
“Actually,” he said, reaching around to his satchel. “I got you two gifts too.” And, to your shock, he was turning back to you with said journal in hand, holding it out like a bough of hard-earned trust.
“What?” It came out as a whisper, all you could manage in your surprise.
“Take it,” he said, holding it out farther. “I used up all the pages anyway. It’s nigh time I offload it, and I’d feel better about it being in your hands than lord knows who else’s.”
“You mean…” You looked from it to him. “You’re letting me have it? Read it all?”
He nodded his head to the side, a self-conscious gesture. What it must take for him to trust you this much. What he must feel for you.
You took it from him and ran your hands over the worn leather face. All Arthur. Your heart leapt in fondness for him.
You set the journal down atop the new one he had gifted you and turned to face him fully. You felt so deeply for this man. You had for a while. And you wanted him to know it. The journal was just proof he felt the same.
Before you could utter a word, Arthur swept in close and kissed you on the cheek, then stood. He offered you his hand. You took it, and he pulled you up and against him in one fluid motion, his fingers tangling with yours, his other hand finding your back. Then he was moving back and forth. Dancing. Arthur Morgan, outlaw of the state, dancing.
You laughed aloud. “What’s this?”
He ignored whatever gruffness he would normally have over something so carefree and led you in a soundless dance around the room, the only music the warmth, the lights, the way you felt for each other.
“You know how to dance, don’t you?” he said.
“Vaguely,” you replied. “Do you?”
That really got him going. He gave you a roguish grin and spun you, making you twirl with his fingers alone before pulling you back in. And when he did, he crushed you to him. Then his lips were on yours, and there wasn’t anymore air in the room apart from the love he granted you, how it filled your lungs.
Now. Now, in this perfect moment. It was time. You pulled away.
“Arthur?”
His eyes were closed, his hands cradling your face as he rested his forehead against yours as best he could with his hat. And still he swayed, a subtle back and forth even though it couldn’t quite be considered dancing anymore.
“Hm?”
You didn’t care that his eyes were shut. Didn’t care that he didn’t know what you were about to say or how long you had mulled over saying it. Because you felt it. And it was never more real than it was when you were with him.
“I love you.”
He stopped swaying.
You watched his blue eyes open slowly, like he didn’t quite believe what he had heard. Then his gaze met yours, soft and searching under those eyelashes, complicated as he was.
He didn’t answer. Just held you, watched you. In disbelief, you realized. Or maybe wanting to hold onto this moment like you were, committing it to memory. Too bad he no longer had a journal to draw it in. The thought made you smile. Then words were spilling from you like a flood.
“I’ve loved you since the day I saw what kind of man you really were. I’ve loved you since I saw that page in your journal with the deer drawn on it. I’ve loved you for so long it’s like I was just waiting on you to get here. Like you were made for me.”
His eyebrows drew together in emotion. Still, he did not speak.
“I love you so much it hurts when you’re away,” you muttered, finding his coat in your hands and clutching it, pulling him closer. When you met his eyes again, he was so close you could see every fleck of color in the firelight, the blue and gold that crashed together into green. You kissed him, and this time he was reluctant. Unsure. So you moved back just enough to give him room to breathe, time to think enough to speak.
His eyes never left you as he said, “I don’t know what I did to deserve that.”
It was quiet and vulnerable. So true of him, that he didn’t think he deserved to be loved.
“You’re you,” you said. “And that’s enough for me. Enough and then some.”
He was pulling you to him in less than a heartbeat. Crashing his lips to yours with all the passion of a man born again.
He broke from it for a breath, whispering, “I love you too,” before kissing the words into your mouth.
Nothing would ever be better than this. Nothing. It didn’t matter that the feeling was temporary. That Christmas would be over, and he would be gone, and you would ache at the loss of him again. There was no losing this. This memory would hold on forever as the happiest you’d ever had.
Arthur pulled back, and you were both breathing heavy. Far beyond any arousal or want. This was deeper.
He held your face like he held his life in his hands as he said, “I love you too, sweetheart.” Just because he could. The privilege of getting to say it addictive.
You looked at him and couldn’t keep the smile on your face at bay. He met your gaze and kissed you softly, a press of his lips against yours. A guarantee.
Wordlessly, he led you back to the bed. Your heart started to pound with thoughts less innocent until he picked up his journal, flipped toward the back, and held it out to you again.
“I may not have admitted it until now but…well. See for yourself.”
You took the book and turned it toward you, sitting back on the bed. The page you were met with had a drawing of you on it. Patiently drawn, thought out enough that it truly resembled you. You had wondered that—if he had ever drawn you. And now you had your answer. There were no words inscribed beside it like usual, like he just wanted the memory of you down on the page. Absentminded fondness. It burned you up inside.
“Keep turning.”
You looked to him. He wouldn’t meet your eye, embarrassment keeping his gaze glued to his journal, but it was endearing on him all the same.
You did as he asked and saw drawing after drawing after drawing, a few entries here and there. A few animals, a few towns, and nearly every other page, you.
It amazed you. You had thought you’d fallen first, and hard, but seeing this proved otherwise. Based on the entries, these drawings were done mere weeks after you met him.
“I could never seem to get your likeness just right,” he admitted quietly.
“Arthur, these are…” You wanted to reassure him. That this warmed your heart to him more than anything. You looked at him. “Thank you. I never thought…” You had stopped on a page that drew your gaze like none other. Because it captured a look in your eye you had only ever given to him. It was your admiration for him sketched out on the page, all subtle shades of black and gray. And the entry beside it nearly made you tear up.
I get to see her again.
He had drawn a heart beside it. You sobbed a laugh, a sound so happy it was all you could speak.
“I’ve been pretty damn fond of you from the beginning,” he admitted.
You set the journal aside and rose to meet him, wrapping your arms around his neck. “I love you.” You said it on a smile. Because that’s all there was for it.
“Well if it ain’t obvious now…” he started. And he didn’t have to finish. Because you knew he loved you back.
You kissed him slowly then hugged him tight. He was yours.
You had a sudden idea and broke away from him, sitting back on the bed, reaching for the unused journal. “Here.”
“You don’t want it?”
Even the thought crushed you. “No, I want it. But I want you to christen the first page.”
“It’s yours,” he said. Like that would change your mind.
“I know it is. And every time I open it, I want to be reminded of the night I got it.”
He just stared, so you spoke. “Draw me.” Not from memory. Not without your knowledge this time.
“What, now?”
It was true, the pair of you didn’t have long together. But this was more intimate than anything somehow.
“Yes.” You smiled at him. And the look you gave him must have made up his mind, because he took the journal from your hand, the motion subtle and soft in the firelight. He went to the corner and pulled the lone chair over, setting it before you and sitting in it. He reached in his satchel and pulled out a drawing pencil. Then he sat back and looked at you. Really looked at you. He smiled. And he opened the journal, set pencil to paper, and began.
Every time he studied you, you admired him. The way his eyes focused, the way his pencil shaded gently. Such a light hand, easy in the same manner he was to you. A vast difference from when he was holding a gun, just as he treated everyone else so differently. This was the real Arthur. Only yours to see.
Minutes passed, and you shifted as you watched him, the big, tough man hyper-focused on the small journal in his hand.
“Hold still.”
When he met your eye, his were glinting with playfulness. You knew he was only kidding. You had seen him capture birds in flight, fish mid-leap out of the water, animals of all sorts on the run. He didn’t need you to be still. And just being here with him, letting him draw and joke and tease, filled you with such happiness as to make you want to plant this in your memory forever—a warm room and a man who loved you.
When he finished the drawing, he closed the journal and stowed his pencil, standing.
“Let me see.”
He shook his head with a lazy smile as he bound the journal back up. “Later.”
“Why later?”
Then he was stepping closer, the air in the room going thin as his eyes fixed on you.
“Open it when I ain’t here,” he said, eyes full with want. He tossed the journal on the bed and boxed you in with arms on either side of you, leaning in and kissing you slow and lazy. You soared. In this room full of merry light and special occasion, you soared. You hadn’t known what to expect when you first met this man, certainly not the gentle, easy love you had fallen into with him, but as he laid you back and began kissing you like you were the very air he breathed, you were more thankful than you ever had been. He was yours, and you were his, and nothing else in this inconsequential little life mattered. Maybe one day, it would even be enough to make him stay. Or better yet, for you to gain the courage to go with him. Whatever he asked of you, you would do it. For him, you would.
“I love you,” you whispered into his mouth again, eager to be able to say it. And then he was losing all semblance of patience and control, borne on the back of the desire that was having you all to himself for the night, those full words repeating and repeating.
“I love you,” he said, low and true. You smiled.
~
The following morning, Christmas morning, the two of you hesitantly stepped down the stairs of the hotel together, neither wanting to leave the other.
Sure enough, Arthur’s horse stood just beside yours, hitched to the post outside the hotel. He, like you, had been too full of anticipation over seeing you and had refrained from taking the time to stable his horse. No matter. The two animals had always seemed to get on well. Like they knew their owners had something special and got along like old friends, like siblings, because of it.
Arthur stepped up to his horse, giving it a treat and a loving pat. Not saying a word, not wanting the moment to end.
“Want to go get that stock put on your gun?” you suggested, knowing whatever else there was could wait.
He eyed you. Then turned, stepped closer, took your hand.
“Come with me.” He looked down at your hand as he spoke. Like the mere act of holding it was precious.
“Of course,” you said, a smile already forming.
The pair of you led your horses together down the main thoroughfare, the slight worry of someone recognizing Arthur lingering in the back of your mind. It had been a long time since that gang of his stirred up so much trouble here, but not long enough.
You got to the gunsmith without a fuss and offered to hitch Arthur’s horse while he went inside. He just rolled his eyes at you before taking your mount, leading them over himself. Ever the gentleman.
When he returned to your side with his shotgun strapped over his shoulder, he led you up the steps with a hand at your back. He used to be so nervous about touching you. It only made you fonder for him over time, and especially now that he had gotten over it.
He held the door open for you, and you stepped inside, looking over the racks of guns, the counter display, the gunsmith. He eyed Arthur a little when he came in behind you but didn’t say a word about it if he recognized him. He only gave a Christmas greeting and an offer to help.
“Need to change the stock out on my shotgun,” Arthur said, laying the weapon down on the countertop.
“Sure. We have a fine selection of-”
“No need,” Arthur said, holding a hand up and using the other to pull the gift you had carved him out of his coat.
“This is a fine piece,” the smith said upon seeing it laid down.
“She carved it,” Arthur said with pride as he turned to look at you, eyes alight.
“You?” the man said, drawing your attention away from Arthur’s loving gaze. “Well, if you’re looking for work, I could use someone with this kind of talent.”
“Thank you but no,” you said respectfully. “I don’t live around these parts.” Just a passerby, choosing this spot to spend one perfect evening because you knew how the hotel room would be decorated, how homey and worn the town was. Just like Arthur.
The smith nodded his head and got to work, taking Arthur’s gun. When he was halfway finished and Arthur said, “That piece goes on first,” realization hit you like a slap. Arthur never said he needed to go to the gunsmith to get the new stock affixed to the gun, just that he would get it put on. He would. He knew how, likely knew more about guns than most gunsmiths. Including how to take one apart and put it back together. So why had he agreed to come here, pay what little penance the labor would cost?
When Arthur’s gaze shifted from his gun to you, the answer dawned on you. He wanted to spend what little time he could with you. Your whole being melted at the very idea. He was such a sap.
You held his eyes then let the moment pass when the smith announced he was finished. Arthur checked over his gun and smiled when he brushed his hand over the carved wood. “Perfect,” he said. You felt your face heat again, just glad that he liked it. Even more glad he was willing to carry it around like a badge of honor.
He turned to the smith. “What do I owe you?”
“You let me keep this stock and we call it even,” he said, holding up the old one. It was worth more than that, but Arthur let it slide, seemingly favoring his new one too much to care.
“You got a deal,” Arthur said, tipping his hat. “I appreciate it. And uh, merry Christmas.” He shouldered his gun and placed his hand at your back once more, leading you out.
“To you as well,” the gunsmith replied. Then you were out the door and away from any remaining worry that Arthur would be recognized.
The two of you ambled back over to the horses, wordless. Not wanting this to end so soon. Arthur stowed his gun. You stood and watched him. Then he turned and sighed as his breath plumed in the cold air, like he had to remember how to breathe when leaving was inevitable. Maybe one day it wouldn’t be.
He pulled you in for a hug, resting his head atop yours. You nuzzled into his warmth.
“When will I see you again?” The words had more sorrow in them than you intended. He must have noticed, as he moved back enough to place a finger under your chin and lift your head to look at him. The smile under his eyes was sad too, but filled with hope.
“Soon. Real soon if I played my cards right.”
“What does that mean?”
He just shook his head and smiled, that boyish grin. “Just write me when you feel like putting up with me again.”
That was odd. Normally he gave you a time frame. “That’s always, Arthur,” you said. “You may as well stay if that’s the case.”
He laughed. You’d been over this before. He only refrained from asking you to join him in fear of his past catching up with him. You used to want to keep a healthy distance from that past, but now you weren’t so sure. Things were different when love was involved.
“Well, if you’ll have me, I’ll be back then. How’s that?”
That still raised more questions than it answered, but you didn’t ask them. His smile was distracting you. He was normally more solemn than this when he left.
“Why are you acting so funny?”
He leaned in and kissed you, a quick peck on the lips. Then he held your eye, the look on his face smug. For the life of you, you couldn’t decipher why.
Finally, he gave some. “Just take a look in that new journal of yours for me. When I’m gone.”
Your eyebrow raised high. Or even higher. “Why not now?”
“Just…” He let out another long breath. “Trust me. Can you do that?”
The dashing, bashful smile he leveled on you would have had you agreeing to murder.
“Yeah. Of course. You know I do.”
“All right then.” He pulled you in for another hug. This one tighter. This one more like a goodbye. It was a strange place to end things, almost unlike an ending at all. It had you wanting to rip open that journal right now and figure what on earth he was on about.
He pulled away and, with a calmness in his eyes, said, “I love you.” He held it like a breath. “And merry Christmas. I’ll see you…real soon. I hope.”
As suspicious as you were, you let him be. If he wasn’t telling you what was up now, he had to have a reason. So you held onto the hope that the promise of soon was a surety, that you would see the love he had for you made just as palpable as it was right now, stretching across his face in the morning light.
You loosed a breath and gave in to that love. “I love you too. More.” He grinned, color reaching his face. “Merry Christmas, Arthur.”
“Indeed,” he said. Then he was kissing you again and letting you go. Heading for his horse all too soon.
He mounted and turned to look at you. “Remember, don’t open that journal ‘til I’m gone. Long gone.”
“Why? What’d you put in there, a stick of dynamite?”
He let out a happy laugh. “Oh, it’ll blow something up, that’s for sure.” That left you stumped. “Just relax. You can read it as soon as I’m down the way, how’s that?”
You shook your head at him but couldn’t help the smile that turned your lips. “You’re something else.”
“You love me,” he taunted. And he was right.
“Go then,” you said, shooing him. “Go on. I have journals to read.”
“Good day to you too, miss.”
You laughed, and he kicked up his horse, rounding you. He got close enough to duck down and lift his hat, planting one last, brazen kiss on your lips. It had you blushing like a kid.
He straightened and donned his hat, his face the same red as yours likely was, though neither could be contributed to the cold.
“Bye. See you soon.”
“Goodbye, Arthur. It’d better be soon, or you owe me an explanation.”
“It will be. I hope.” There he went again. You just waved him off, and he passed you smiling wide, his horse stepping out into the muddy, snow-logged street. You watched him go with awe. That handsome, proud man. How you had ever won him over, you couldn’t be sure. But you had. And you were pulling out your new journal to find out why before he had even gotten halfway down the street.
You unwrapped its binding in haste, feeling the new pages crack and reluctantly give in your hands. You flipped and flipped and reached the first page and were…struck dumb. Utterly.
On the left was a drawing of you. Subtle and suggestive with its shading, perfect, the way all of Arthur’s drawings were. But on the right, in big, bolded letters: The future Mrs. Morgan. And underneath, May she forgive me for not having procured a ring yet. I’ll make it up to her in kind as soon as she’ll let me.
You could have cried. You couldn’t believe it. The decision to stay apart all this time had been both his and yours, and knowing now that he had changed his mind…
You looked up and found him to be nowhere in sight. You wished he still were. If he were, you would drag him back here and tell him a ring didn’t matter. Of course you would marry him. It didn’t require any thought. The decision was already made the minute he whispered that he loved you back.
The future Mrs. Morgan. Having that down in his writing, on the very first page no less…you could die happy.
You took one last look and shut the journal, stuffing it back inside your coat. And, riddled with giddiness, you faced the street and the daylight, soaking it into your bones. For all the chill the wind held, it couldn’t cut you. For all the months spent away from Arthur, you couldn’t feel sorry that you had needed to be so patient. Because this was real, and true, and unlike anything in the world.
On Christmas Day and for the first time in years, you faced your future with surety. And what a beautiful, merry sight it was.
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villain-apolog1st · 5 months
Text
Mile High Club (David Rossi x Reader)
Summary: you and David can’t control yourselves on your way to your vacation
Tags: NSFW, teasing, semi-public sex, plane sex/mile high club, [unprotected] PinV sex, assumed birth control, (fem!reader)
Translations: amore (love), dolcezza (honey), gattina (kitten), tesoro (treasure)
A/N: inspired by a suggestion from anon, ty!
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“You? Going on vacation? Yeah right,” Morgan laughed in Rossi’s face. The two of them sat across from each other on the BAU jet. The team was flying back to Quantico after successfully closing another case.
“Yes, me. Why is this so hard to believe?” Rossi asked incredulously.
Reid chimed in from where he was seated across the aisle. “Probably because you’ve told us multiple times that you don’t ‘do’ vacations.”
Rossi rolled his eyes. “Well, this is more for Y/N than it is for me. I’d like to do something nice for her.”
“Breaking one of your truths is more than doing ‘something nice’, Rossi,” Morgan chuckled. “Y/N has you head over heels.”
The older agent said nothing and turned to face the window, but not before the team caught a glimpse of the smile that adorned his lips.
•••
You grinned in excitement as you walked down your driveway to David, who waited expectantly outside the taxi. “I can’t believe we’re actually going,” you exclaimed, embracing him. You hadn’t seen him in the past few days, both of you busy sorting the logistics and packing before your trip.
Much to your surprise, David had been the one to suggest the idea of a vacation. You’d been together for a few years now, and always figured with the nature of his work and his known disinterest in vacations that it wasn’t necessarily something you’d together. But he’d planned all the details and now the two of you were going to spend two (two!) weeks in Portugal, exploring the country’s coast and its famous wine region.
David pressed a kiss into your temple before taking your bags from you to put them in the trunk. “You and everyone else,” he chuckled.
Once the both of you were inside the taxi, the driver began the trip to the airport. You turned to David, a pressing question in your mind. “Are you sure you won’t go crazy being away from the BAU for two weeks?” You asked. David’s dedication to his job was something you really admired, but you worried it would get in the way of him enjoying the trip.
David intertwined his fingers with yours and pressed a kiss against your hand. “Trust me, amore. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than in Portugal with you for the next two weeks.”
You smiled contentedly and squeezed his hand. “Besides,” he continued, a devilish smirk on his face. “I can think of a few ways we’ll be spending our time.” David began pressing kisses into your hair and face, making you giggle.
“And by that I’m sure you mean spending our days enjoying the sun and the culture of a beautiful country,” you teased. David’s hand was making it’s way up your thigh, getting dangerously close to your center.
“Well there’s that,” he said lowly in your ear. “Among other things.” His lips captured yours in a deep kiss as his hand cupped your sex over your clothes.
You gasped, grabbing his wrist to stop him from going further. “Dave,” you hissed, surprised by his brashness. There was warmth spreading under your skin, especially with the driver being right there. You spared a glance towards the front seat, but he thankfully seemed to be none the wiser.
You turned your attention back to David, who seemed delighted that you were now hot and bothered. Before you could say anything further, you felt the taxi slow to a stop and looked out the window to see that you’d arrived at the airport. “Looks like we’re here,” David winked at you before opening the door.
•••
You were just about home free, having gone through check in and most of security seamlessly, when the TSA agent seemed to find an issue with your luggage.
“What do you have in there?” David leaned in and asked you quietly as the agent put your suitcase through the scanner again.
“I don’t know,” you whispered back. You were wracking your brain trying to think of what could be setting off their system. You hated this part of flying - so many rules; it was easy to forget something and cause a whole issue at security.
“Sir, ma’am, can you step this way please?” The two of you followed the agent to a table next to the security check, where she put your suitcase down and began unzipping it.
You felt your cheeks flame when you saw that you’d packed your suitcase in a way that meant the new lingerie you’d bought for the trip was the first thing visible. You’d spared no expense - you had two new matching sets, a dainty slip, and a very revealing teddy - all of which were clearly on display for you, David, and the agent. Remaining professional, the agent politely maneuvered around your garments to find the offending item.
You heard David clear is throat and shuffle next to you. You glanced over at him and saw that he was now standing with his arms clasped in front of him, almost as if he was trying to…oh. You returned your attention to the agent, trying to stifle the smile making its way onto your face. You’d wanted the new lingerie to be a surprise for him, but upon seeing his reaction, maybe this was even better.
“Here we go,” the agent interrupted your thoughts, holding up a bottle of body oil. Oops. You’d meant to pack that in the suitcase you’d checked in, not this one. “A reminder ma’am that liquids in carry-on baggage must be less than 100mL. We’ll be tossing this.”
You apologized, slightly embarrassed, before the two of you grabbed your things and made your way to the gate. The baggage mishap meant there was only about 30min left until your flight. As the two of you sat in the lounge waiting to board, you leaned in close to David.
“I’m sorry about the body oil, honey,” you purred into his ear. One of your hands played with his hair, which you knew drove him crazy. “I know how much you love to use it when we’re together.” Seeing the outline of his growing bulge, you could feel yourself getting wetter by the second.
“I won’t hold it against you, dolcezza,” David smirked, his hand lightly rubbing your thigh. “But you can make it up to me once we arrive. Maybe by putting on one of your pretty new purchases.”
You squeezed your legs together at his words. This game you two were playing was dangerous but oh so tempting, and it was unlikely either one of you would back down. But before you could stoke the fire further, the gate attendant announced your flight was boarding.
•••
You weren’t usually the biggest fan of flying, but the two glasses of wine you’d had since getting in the air were doing a great job of taking the edge off. David had, of course, gotten the two of you seats in business class, which wasn’t too crowded. It also helped that it was a late night flight, so most of the passengers were either asleep or trying to be.
Not you and David, though. Both of you were known night owls - a fact that you’d bonded over when you first met. So while the rest of the plane was half-asleep, the two of you were tipsy on wine and giggling like teenagers in your corner of the plane.
“I can’t stop imagining you in that skimpy little set of yours.” David’s breath was hot against your ear, making you so aroused it was almost painful. “And with your teasing earlier…I don’t think I’ve ever been this hard.”
“Oh really?” You hummed playfully. The dim lighting of the airplane cabin and the blankets you were provided made it easy to check for yourself. David inhaled sharply when you palmed his hardened cock over his pants. “I want this inside me,” you whispered in his ear as you teased his cock.
David suddenly grabbed your wrist, looking at you with lust-filled eyes. “Get in the bathroom,” he whispered. You nodded, feeling a thrill of excitement pass through you, all sense and reason out the window.
You quietly made your way to the bathroom. As soon as you slid the door closed, your hand was in your pants, soothing your throbbing clit. You stifled a moan, surprised by how wet you were.
The door opened, startling you into withdrawing your hand. You relaxed when David came in, grinning. He locked the door behind him before pressing up against you. “Couldn’t wait for me, hm?” He smirked before his mouth met yours in a heated kiss. His lips were demanding and his tongue slipped into your mouth, eager.
David replaced your hand with his and rubbed his fingers along your slit before dipping them into your opening, feeling the juices collected there. “I think you’re ready for me,” David whispered. Gripped your hips and turned you around to face the bathroom mirror. You heard him unzip his pants as you quickly pulled your own down, desperate to have him inside you.
David’s eyes held contact with yours in the mirror as he aligned himself with your entrance. He slowly pushed himself into you, making you moan breathily. His cock slid in easily and filled you up completely.
“Shh, gattina,” he whispered in your ear as his hand came up to cover your mouth and silence your moans. “You and this tight pussy of yours are gonna get us in trouble.”
Wasting no time, David began fucking you relentlessly. His eyes never left yours in the mirror as he licked and sucked the skin at your neck. The hand that wasn’t covering your mouth slid around to play with your clit, making your eyes roll back in pleasure.
“Such a dirty girl, Y/N,” he hissed in your ear. “Getting fucked in the airplane bathroom. What would everyone think, hm?”
David moved his hand from your mouth and slowed his pace so you could switch positions, half of your ass now propped up on the sink as he positioned himself between your legs. He slide his cock through your folds, nudging your sensitive bundle of nerves. “Please,” you whispered softly, desperate for him.
His lips met yours again and he slid himself back into you, groaning into your mouth softly. You were heady with pleasure as David’s thumb circled your clit. Heat was spreading under your skin now and you felt your muscles tighten right before waves of pleasure rocked through you intensely.
You held David close against you, panting against his mouth, as you came down from your high. The squeezing of your walls was enough to bring him over the edge, and he gasped quietly as his cock pulsed, releasing his cum.
“We should probably get back,” you said, pressing a kiss against his lips. The two of you quickly cleaned up before returning to your seats. Thankfully, no one seemed to have noticed that you’d just joined the mile high club in the bathroom.
David pressed a kiss into your hair as you curled up in the blanket, ready to get some sleep. “I love you, tesoro. Sleep well.”
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