#angstycowboy

[moth-related-inquiries]

Arthur Morgan x Reader angst

Reader does not know where they belong amongst the gang. Or at all, really.

Warnings: super angsty, Micah Bell, reader is genuinely miserable, Arthur x reader if u squint, outlaws n shit!!! Ambiguous gender, reader falls for Micah's assholery, Micah is sexist asf,

listen while you read?:

Whenever Arthur rushed to his tent, you always knew it was because he'd received a special little letter. You haven't run with the gang for long, but you've been there long enough to know that the sulky man was only ever excited by one of two things: a big fish and Mary Linton. You didn't blame him, honestly. Serving as the camp's workhorse, he had little time to himself. When he did have time, he'd go on some love-struck search for his missing half. Though it'd been years since she'd sent him a letter, it seemed like she'd find some way to follow them everywhere. It was impossible, of course, since she had no way of knowing where they'd move, but she always managed to show up close to camp. At least close enough to get him to drop his workload and come to her aid.

You knew all this solely because you had a habit of watching. It wasn't really a bad habit, considering that you'd never dared to take a peek at anyone in their tent. It was just that—a habit. Or, perhaps, a part of your nature. It was something comfortable that you did even before your time in the gang. As a teenager, you'd sit outside the general store and just observe. You were too old to go to school yet too young to go inside any of the stores on your own, so you busied yourself with pretending to be a viewer. You'd spot many things: a man riding in with a bounty, a pair of women talking about the latest perfumes, or a dog jumping around in the mud. You'd always wanted to do those things, too, but never had the courage to get out of your spot.

Then came Dutch Van Der Linde, a man who'd seen that, despite your inactivity, you were far more capable than you let on. Though you weren't a great shot like his right-hand man, you weren't utterly terrible like Sean. Your words were clumsy and awkward, but you always finished your sentences. That was one thing he seemed to like about you: that you would always finish what you started, regardless of how badly you'd mess up.

Or maybe he just liked that you were a follower, regardless of how things ended up.

Nonetheless, he allowed you to stick around his gang, and you'd get things done. Though not without struggle at first, one of which would always embarrass you no matter how many times anyone thanked you for your effort. Even if you managed to feel good about your work, one back-handed compliment from Micah would send you right back to your tent with a shameful feeling in your gut. You'd often end up watching Arthur, your usual savior, spit some venomous words on your behalf, like he'd been the berated one. That's what made Arthur a saint in your eyes. Despite being a murderer, he managed to be good and do good things when he could. Even if he denied such things, it made him all the better in your eyes. It showed that he did not do good things for praise, but because he could.

You'd never be like Arthur, no matter how many times you'd observe him and try to pick apart the things that he did. He was a rare kind of man. Maybe he wasn't even a man at all, but perhaps an angel who fell from heaven. That was considerably more plausible to you since no other man had yet to even reach his near-impossible status of honorable degeneracy. So, you settled for just watching him. Listening to him. Living through him. Wanting him and wanting to be him.

Arthur, unsurprisingly, wasn't the only person to catch your eye. There were many like-minded men and women in camp who agreed with and admired Arthur, just like yourself. Though, unlike you, they'd actually work for his attention. Young Lenny was often Arthur's first choice of partner. You didn't understand why, considering that Lenny spent the majority of his time reading, until you'd actually had the opportunity to see him in action. He fought hard and got the job done, like a true outlaw.

He was a no-nonsense kind of kid, which Arthur seemed to value. Not long after Colter did they become closer. Brothers. Not brothers, as in two boys growing up together or being related biologically, but brothers who learn from each other. You'd always wanted to be as effortlessly balanced as Lenny. Sophisticated in your own right, but willing to get your hands dirty with no fuss. A perfect brother. You were anything but that. It was true that you, too, would get things done. However, you possessed a far less methodical mind. You were too scatterbrained to finish things in one go and too finicky to be a perfect brother. Far too abnormal to amount to being anything like Lenny Summers, and yet you were older than him.

Age didn't seem to matter when it concerned your abilities, though. No matter how young or old you were, there would always be someone better. Whether it were being better at being thirteen or thirty-two, they'd beat you in a heartbeat no matter your true age.

Abigail Roberts was your favorite example to bring up. She'd always been a very mature woman, even in the face of her husband, John Marston, a grown man who acted like a fifteen-year-old boy when faced with the consequences of his own actions. While there were many women in unfortunate circumstances like her, she did what she could to make life good for her son. Many, including her stubborn husband, considered her a camp leech now that she was no longer of use. Which you despised. Abigail was so much more than people let on. Beautiful, graceful, smart, and most importantly, a loving mother.

She's had her ups and downs and continues to, but the most impactful thing she ever achieved in life was Jack. A sweet, curious little boy with a newfound obsession for the Knights of the Round Table. He was, in every way, the soft spot of the camp. It's ridiculous to admit, but you were envious of both of them. You wanted to be a virtuous parent like Abigail, too. To be able to cultivate your legacy in a purely determined manner and retain your glory despite having given life only four years ago. However, you also wanted the reboot given to little Jack, too. A fresh start to a new life. The funny little possibility of growing up to be the first great knight of West Elizabeth.

You'd never amount to anything close, though. And you knew it. Even Micah Bell, an utterly disgusting and hateful excuse for a man, achieved far greater than you. So much so that he felt like your presence at camp was the most useless of them all. Below the women, who he claimed were just mouths to feed and fuck; below the drunkards, who acted as breathing furniture; and below little Jack, a child so defenseless that he could be lured away in the middle of the night and nobody would be any wiser.

You never truly discouraged him because he was the only one to tell the truth about you. Unlike everyone else in camp, who had so much ahead of them and so many tales for future generations of children to play pretend with, you would not be remembered in a jovial manner. Your life would never, no matter how hard you tried, be anything other than an allegory of shame and failure.

A/N: I just woke up and wrote this for some obscure reason that I don't even know. 😋 I hope yall like it, tho. Let me know if yall like the 'listen while you read' !!

[moth-related-inquiries]

Hi! I read your oneshot involving Micah and fem child reader and absolutely loved it! I never thought i could see Micah ever taking on the role of a parental figure but you did such a good job tying his character into a role that i thought would never fit him! I was wondering if you could expand more on their dynamic afterwards and how reader would interpret his ‘cull the weak beliefs’ do you think teaching her these would ever come to backfire on him later especially if used against him?

Micah Bell and Fem! Child Reader Pt2: Knives Out

Warnings: incredibly angsty, Micah Bell, you're gonna hate this if u love Micah LOL, lots of murder, terrible beliefs, graphic description of murder, and child death.

tldr: Micah Bell's teachings came to bite him back in the ass. :( Nobody close to him can be happy.

A/n: Hi, Anon! Thank you for the req ♡♡♡ I'm so glad you liked my last fic! I hope you like this one, too. Feel free to send any more requests you might have :p

Listen while you read?:

Today was your third month of 'bonding,' as Micah liked to call it. You'd slowly progressed from being as terrible of a shot as Sean Macguire to being fairly good at your shots. Of course, you weren't as good as Micah, but he congratulated you on your significant progress. Unlike the others, Micah has been surprisingly patient with you. There were a lot of things he had to teach and show you, and you seemed to learn best when you were in the middle of action.

Not only had you become a better shot, but you'd also become a more malleable tool. When you finished your first robbery, Micah decided that from now on you weren't going by your old name. The Bell family had a very specific practice they used when choosing names. For the first time in a long time, he flipped open a Bible and scoured its pages for a suitable name. Eventually, he settled on Elisabeth, the technical grandmother of Jesus. Not because she was a humble or remarkable woman, but because she was stubbornly faithful. Like a dog.

He hoped that, since he'd earned your trust, you'd follow him like a dog to the ends of the earth. And that you did. No matter what he did, where he went, or who he killed, he stayed as your role model. Beyond that, he was also your new father figure. Sure, you liked Dutch and Hosea, but they never saw things from your point of view like Micah did. The Dutch, for one, insisted on the dramatics constantly. He'd make up schemes to entertain himself and some big wig bastard, then steal the money. Which probably would've entertained you if you had the patience. And Hosea, well, he didn't enjoy the 'thrill' of murdering and robbing the same way that you did. Meaning that he liked making a fool of himself and then leaving with a small sum of money.

Not to mention that Micah secretly found both of them to be fools in their own ways. You thought, at first, that he saw you as a fool too, but he assured you that you were anything but. He called you his 'kinfolk.' His kid. You found it odd. He claims to be so strong, yet he practically creates his own weakness. With this idea in mind, you began to dissect some of his flaws.

When the two of you were in camp, you noticed that he was anything but pleasant to the other members. He often harassed and berated many of the women in camp, too, which you found odd. Even odder was the fact that he berated Jack, which made you curious. Was he perhaps jealous of John and Abigail for their achievements? It seemed so. You guessed that he was jealous because he too wanted a family, no matter how dysfunctional. Though he hadn't had much luck considering that, like the stupid man he is, he took his anger out on all the women around him.

Micah Bell could never score a woman, and he knew that very well. And now, so did you. And all you had to do was watch him like you normally do. Every time you did, he'd lean over and whisper in your ear about how someday he's going to get a nice and fine wife, and these floozies are going to be sorry. You knew better. Every time he'd provide some weird back-handed compliment, you wondered if he knew it only made him look weak. He had all bark and no bite. Which, in many cases, he did. All talk until Dutch struts over, then suddenly he's acting like he's a holy deity sworn to do nothing but good.

That was one major weakness you'd noticed about him. His one big fault. Micah seemed to assume that being a snake oil salesman made him a man. A man fit for survival in the natural world. A man who could do whatever he wanted and whenever he wanted as long as he still had his silver tongue. And it did, for a little while. He could go around murdering families and sleep like a little baby the night after. That is, until he met you.

See, Micah Bell had done himself dirty when he began 'training' you. Because, unlike Micah, you shut your mouth, and you watched everyone really well. You waited for someone to come to you, and you didn't, no matter how tough it was to resist, let your guard down. Yet Micah Bell had shown his since the day he decided to mentor you. Sure, you were unaware of the impact of his actions then, but he'd taught you well. He'd gifted you a higher consciousness without even knowing it.

So, after three long months of needlessly long interaction, you put his teachings to work. You woke up bright and early to listen to the birds chirp their jovial toons. It was nice to let the weak be, just for a moment, because sometimes they end up surprising you with their entertainment. Your steel gaze turned to Micah, who was fast asleep on his bedroll, facing the cliffside. He, too, was nice when you left him be. When he did sleep, it looked peaceful. And, for a moment, you decided to let him be, too.

You grabbed your satchel, one that Micah had bought for you, and opened it. From it, you produced a jagged stone that you'd found back in Strawberry, after the pair of you (and Arthur) murdered an entire town. You originally picked it up in order to execute whoever was holding Micah's precious revolvers, but he beat you to it. And, with savagery and cowardice, he murdered another family right in front of you. It was eerily thrilling when you first experienced it, but now? Now you feel nothing but guilt. Not for the town you'd helped murder, but for Micah.

You looked down at him, staring at his greasy forehead. As you lifted your stone, you teared up as you remembered all the times that he'd slipped up. A terrible feeling sank into your chest as you thought about your first robbery. How he wiped your tears away after you'd committed your first murder and rubbed your back like the father you never had. You'd given him your weakness, and he accepted it with unknowing tenacity. From then on, you gave him your weakness, and he allowed you to piggyback off of him like a little parasite.

For such a morally corrupt man, Micah had always done his best to assure your safety, no matter what. When the two of you were low on rations, he let you have the last. When the gang was ambushed, he made sure you were never there. When the two of you were caught in a rock and a hard place, he always made you run back to camp while he distracted the bastards following you. It's your fault that he turned into something he never wanted to be.

It's your fault that he became so weak.

Your brows furrowed, and your face twisted into anguish. You lifted the stone up above your head and, with all your might, sent it crashing down upon his skull. It made a sickening crunch, like a pumpkin being dropped, but Micah did not move. You repeated the action over and over again until his head finally caved in. Once you were done, you walked over to your horse, one that he had gifted you, and shot her, too. Baylock was smart enough to run off.

From then on, you decided that, out of the four of you, Baylock would be the strongest. He was the survivor because he ran like hell instead of sticking around to die. Finally, you walked back to the cliffside and erased the last remaining proof of Elisabeth Bell's entire existence.

A/N: i hope people like this :p i know child death is a very sensitive topic, but I think that this is how it would go in the eyes of a child. I tried to make it a little confusing so that we could really understand how uniquely this kind of situation would affect someone as vulnerable as a child versus an adult.

[imthelcstprincess]

ghostofaformerself angstycowboy thestrugglingactor

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