one time at a funeral i panicked and said the first drink i could think of and the bartender made me the pina colada With all the fixings all the trims all the bells and whistles i didnt even ask imagine youre at a funeral and the person besides you is drinking a pina colada with whip cream as tall as the drink with a cherry and an umbrella, thats what happened to me
crazy how i find myself thinking i've got a handle on it all finally and then i see the ways that other people tangle their lives together so easily and live so easily together with their friends and i feel like that girl at the top of the stairs painting by norman rockwell
Pairing: Epilogue Charles Smith x F!Reader/ Former Arthur Morgan x F!Reader
WC: 1.7K
Summary: A long way past the past, you and Charles reminisce.
Warnings: sexual implications, discussion of violence, marriage, angst, sort of bittersweet, micah hate, no images are mine
A/N: Not sure if this will be anyone's cup of tea, and it was very much a writing exercise. I adore Charles, and I'm always a little stumped on how to write him. The title is taken from a poem by Paige Lewis. I'll get on to compiling a master list of all my work to keep it organised. I hope you enjoy and consider letting me know what you think.
"Charles?"
The mattress dips, and the clean scent of grass fills your nostrils. Curled on your side under Abigail's spare quilt, you bury your nose into it. It smells fresh. All those years of filth have made her obsessive about cleanliness. You peek over your shoulder to watch the hulking shadow strip of its clothes and settle into bed with you. One big arm coils around your waist, fingers stroking the clean cotton chemise you wear. Heat radiates from his body, and you fit your back against his chest. Spine to sternum. Beecher's Hope is cool at night, the breeze filtering through the wooden boards. The horses whinny softly to each other outside, and a lonely owl calls in the distance.
"Hm. Thought you'd be sleeping." He says, his voice low. It vibrates against your back.
"You and Marston get on okay?"
"Couple of loose ends. It was fine, though."
The warm press of Charles's lips against the cap of your shoulder makes you sigh. You feel along his forearm, feeling the silky down of hair there. Sleepily, you stroke up his arm, the muscles tighten in response.
"You alright?" He says softly. "Been quiet these past few weeks."
"I—I'm alright. Just seeing them again." You falter a little, looking over your shoulder. "Strange. That's all."
Shifting to face him, you tuck your hand into the crook of his elbow. He rolls onto his back. The moonlight filtering through the square window allows you to see his face in clear lines. Some well-travelled landscape, some path the tips of your fingers have walked so many times before. The serious lines of his face stare back at you. The broad slope of his nose and full mouth, and the white scar crawling up the curve of his jaw. The eagle feather twisted into his hair stands out stark against his face. His long, inky-black hair tickles you, drawing goosebumps up the slope of your shoulder. Stretching out his arm, he beckons you closer. To comfort you, perhaps. Or perhaps to comfort himself. Gratefully, you curl yourself into his warm side, resting your ear over his heart. The skin of his chest is smooth and hard, lined with the muscle built off years of fighting and working. Charles kisses you between the eyebrows, and you shut your eyes. He winds a curl of hair around his finger, tugging it straight and letting it twist back up by itself.
"Seeing John must be hard on you." Charles's voice is hesitant. Thumbing a starlike scar on your shoulder, he continues, "I don't want you to feel like you can't talk about him. About Arthur."
Blinking furiously to stop the tears that surge so rapidly, you cling to Charles. He tucks you into himself tighter, sensing the dangerous quiver in your limbs.
"I don't feel like that." Your voice is tremulous. "I just don't think it's fair to you."
Charles sighs. Silently, he traces his thumb around the bullet scar in your arm, the one Arthur had put there. All those years ago, when you first met. Last week, you'd seen John from the window at Beecher's Hope, his head bent over some new lambs, and for one silly, devastating moment, your heart had soared. The worn old hat you had never seen on another man. And, Charles, kind and patient Charles. Charles, who is good in ways you have never been.
While some part of you might as well lie dead, buried on that hill, Charles has taken the rest of you under his wing. The old days of murder and fear are long behind you; there is only him and the strange life you've built together. While he was throwing fights in Saint Denis, you picked up work bounty hunting and doing odd jobs. So when the decent folk of Saint Denis see Charles, mountainous and lethal, they know his gun-toting hellcat of a wife is always close behind. For two people so steeped in violence, your love is surprisingly pure. Some tenderness borne of convenience and friendship has grown into a love that is encompassing in its safety. So different from the wildfire that had consumed all your good years, turning the memories of them raw to the touch. But now, those memories bubble to the surface, and you cannot help sticking your finger into the wound, just to see if it still hurts the same.
"It brings me back, you know? John and Abigail, and Uncle. Feels a bit like the old days." You say. The old days of love and war, and sleeping under the stars and singing by the fire. Arthur's warm chest against your back, before it turned thin and hollow. You had lain in his bed, counting the ribs jutting out under his thin white skin.
"Eight years." He says contemplatively. "Feels like yesterday, sometimes."
"I wonder what happened to Dutch. I wonder if he made it, in the end." Dutch Van Der Linde, the name fills you with a hatred that your body feels too small to hold.
"I reckon he's out there. Men like him don't die easy."
"Death is too good for him. He and Micah." You say, suddenly vicious. "I'll kill them. If God ever gives me the chance, I'll rip them apart with my bare hands if I have to."
Charles, ever the gentle one, runs his hand up your shivering spine, grounding you a little. He would help you if it ever came to it, but he would not take the savage joy you will take from it. You long to smash their faces open and watch them bleed, crying for their mothers. Arthur's face at the very end is engraved in your mind.
"My girl, my sweet girl. They ain't worth it." His face worn thin by illness and betrayal, eyes bloodshot. The only colour not lost in his beard and hair. Kissing your forehead, he holds your face in his hands, sweeping angry tears away. His arms go around you, and you press your face into his jacket, breathe in the scent of sickness. "Dutch, I know he's there. Maybe I can get through to him."
You look up at Arthur's face, so battered and beautiful. The leonine rage flares up in you again, and you swear to yourself. They will pay. Pay in blood.
"You call out for him sometimes, in your sleep." Charles's voice is mild, no hint of accusation in it.
"I'm sorry." You say softly, and he shakes his head, raven strands of hair falling into his eyes.
"Don't be sorry." He says quietly. "How can I grudge him your dreams? He's dead, and I'm not."
"Do you think of—of him?" You say, propping yourself up on his chest. Arthur's name burns in your mouth; you cannot say it.
"Yeah. I do. Often." He says, a sad smile gracing his face. He tucks a curl of hair behind your ear. Strange that the last hands that cradled Arthur's poor, exhausted body now cradle you so gently. "I think about what a good man he was. I think about how much he loved you."
"I love you." You say, suddenly. "I love you, Charles. You know that, right?" Desperately, you kiss his corded neck, the divots of his collarbones. He sinks his fingers into your hair, fanning it over your back.
"I know." He says softly, his lovely dark eyes like candles in the night. "You love him, too. It ain't your fault. I loved him too."
Now the tears come, and Charles does not tell you not to cry. He only strokes your hair and tells you he loves you, and that he understands. You cry harder, for what have you done to deserve him? Killed and lied and stolen. After one great love, you do not deserve another. Your heart, against its will, has expanded painfully; they lie side by side within it.
Once you have spent your tears, you lie close to each other. Wrung out and strange, swollen with emotion. Your hand cups his jaw, tracing the familiar lines of the scar spidering up his jaw. His dark, brown skin is illuminated in the spare light of the room, and you press it to yours. The planes of his chest swell with every breath he takes. Then, the ache of closeness.
Silently, he takes permission, enters you gently, easing your thighs apart. Whispering endearments that are lost to the roaring in your ears and cradling you against his warrior's body, he takes you. It is not possession that urges him to do this, for he has nothing to prove. It is an act of love.
As he kisses your scarred palms, you recount the day you were married. He had pressed his beaded necklace into your trembling hands and promised in that solemn way of his that you that he would be yours till he died. You have never been given reason to doubt him. His fingertips, the marks of a bowstring etched in them, crawl up your vertebrae. He bends his dark head to kiss over your flayed heart. Carefully, you run your fingers through it, aware of the privilege of touching it. Burying his face in your neck, he makes a broken sound as he spills himself inside of you.
Afterwards, you do not sleep for a long time. Till the light of dawn spills through the spare room at Beecher's Hope, you watch him sleep. As light breaks through, you find yourself in a dream.
A beautiful loping creature, picking its way through the corners of your mind. A glint of an antler and golden brown fur. It stops in your path. You curl your bare feet into the cool mud. Breeze lifts your skirts around your legs, the whooshing sound musical in your ears. Raising the bow in your hands, Charles's carved bow, you aim it at the Buck's chest. It does not scare. Charles's voice rings in your mind.
"Don't kill it. Don't you see? It's part of the land. It's only trying to live. Leave it, there is already plenty to eat."
Lowering the bow, you watch as the Buck raises its proud head, antlers gleaming in the sunlight like branches of an ancient tree. The creature looks at you, long lashed eyes still and knowing. Light blinds you, the heat of a thousand suns.
To my 25 - 35 year olds, you've reached the age where people around you are starting to give up on themselves because they think it's too late. Don't let that energy rub off on you. It's not too late.
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