Would you write a prompt for Old Arthur and Sadie? I need it.
Short but we all needed this! Some Soft!Domestic!Old!Sadithur, prompted by @gentle-outlaw‘s Grandpa Arthur edits and post from yesterday.
They’d left the windows open after the afternoon shower, the smell of spring coming in with the evening breeze–petrichor, flowers, and green growing things, all fresh and light and wild. Still something of a marvel to Sadie, even forty years after she’d first left the sands of New Austin for the Ambarino mountains, and how many places she’d been since then.
It had been a good Sunday, the kids and grandkids all gone home for the night now. The sound of the radio drifting in from the living room still, where they’d sat and listened to Buck Jones’ weekly adventure with the little ones, excited to hear Jack Marston’s latest tale.
“Still think you ought to be getting co-author credit from Jack,” she said jokingly, hearing Arthur’s footsteps come into the kitchen behind her as she watched the car go down the drive, waving in case any of the little ones looked back, smiling as Matt must have seen it, because he gave a quick double tap on the horn as acknowledgment. “Given Buck’s pretty much some version of you, and Jack’s using some of your stories.”
“Don’t need to ask for trouble by getting credit for any of it. Arthur Morgan’s been dead a real long time, right? Besides, I was never a sheriff,” he said dryly, rolling up his sleeves and heading to the sink. “Or courting a cattle baron’s daughter.”
She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at that, reaching for the dishtowel to dry, waiting for him to hand her the first plate, scrubbed clean. “Sure. Cause that’s the important difference. Mr. ‘Oliver Twist of the Old West, gone to the side of good’.” She teased him with the tagline from the radioplay, looking over to see him smiling a little to himself.
“Maybe. Did have a fair maiden save my life like him, though,” he said, gaze on hers as he handed her that plate, that smile broadening into something light and boyish, eyes alight.
Something caught in her chest at that, even after all these years, a tug at her heart. She’d looked at him at Beaver Hollow, sick and fading and dying, knowing in her heart chances were he wouldn’t see thirty-seven. Then at Las Hermanas, after getting through the first six months, watching him in his exhaustion slowly rebuilding his strength day by laborious day, she’d hoped he’d make it to thirty-eight. Chuparosa–their wedding day, seeing him hold Bea for the first time, she’d begun to believe that maybe she could stop holding her breath and praying for the span of another year, and hope for more. Always imagined the TB might well clip some years off his life still, but here he was, stubborn as anything.
She took the plate from him, drying it carefully, putting it on the counter. He didn’t turn back to the sink, standing there, watching her. “I’ll take the ‘fair’, but don’t think I was much of a blushing maiden,” she said teasingly. “Though Miss Adelaide ain’t either, I suppose.”
“Expect they’ll be real happy together, whenever Buck finally gets his head out of his ass,” Arthur replied. “You and me figured it out.” He handed her another plate, his fingers brushing against hers.
Finishing the dishes a few minutes later, he turned to her, saying, “So, could a fella ask a fine gal to the movies next Saturday?”
May 1st coming up–their anniversary. She couldn’t help but smile. “What’s playing?”
“Some kind of nonsense with a singing cowboy. Should be good fun.”
She stepped in, wrapping her arms around him, content to hold him tight and be held in turn in those still-strong arms of his, swaying lightly together to the bright, brassy big band music playing out in the living room. That summer and fall of 1899 was half a lifetime ago now. Some things had changed in all those years. Living a life that included electric lights, indoor plumbing, the radio that brought plays and all sorts of music right into their house, the movie theater in town that played cartoons and talkies, medicine and art and technology that had changed so much in ways she’d never even imagined as a girl.
They’d changed plenty too. Made a life together, raised kids together, let the pain of the past scar over and recede, year by year, growing into different versions of themselves from those two people who’d met one frightful night so many years ago.
Now she’d seen Arthur at forty, then fifty, sixty, seventy, as a father, as a grandfather. Watched those first bits of silver in his hair slowly taking over all of the dark gold, year by year. Spotted all the creases and lines and spots and wrinkles of age coming on over the years. And truth be told, she cherished every bit of it, and he was as fine to her now as he’d ever been. She kissed him, touching his cheek with her hand. “That sounds real fine.”
