Your Duplicity series with Marston_EXE was so good im so sad its discontinued can you share with us your original ideas and plan with that series? :(
Marston_EXE may continue it eventually, but alas, yes, the co-authored aspect is discontinued. That said, I do have many much notes and am happy to share!
This may be spoilery for the Duplicity series (RDR2 modern AU; Morston). And by "may" it definitely is. I hope it sates your curiosity!
There's a whole Timeline & Character Notes document, if you're super interested. Below are the snippets I have kicking around still (I am a dragon, I keep 99% of my writing, whether it'll see the light of day or not).
The whole idea of Duplicity is that Arthur's caught in Dutch's illegal dealings as much as his legal ones, but never much minded. Once John comes into his life, that starts changing. Dutch doesn't appreciate someone taking Arthur's focus away from what matters, especially when Arthur insists that Dutch leave John out of it.
Dutch, being Dutch, decides to apply subterfuge; he recruits John, starts using him for the illegal operations and John is damn good at it. This ends in a huge fight between Arthur and John, which leads John to self-YEET for a year.
Keeps working with Dutch, until he's sold out to the O'Driscolls and John winds up in hospital from the beating. When John surfaces again after his hospital stint, he manages to get back to Milk River and promptly mistakes Charles as being Arthur's boyfriend, not friend-friend. Promptly punches him. Great first impression.
There's a lot of misunderstandings and mis-assumptions, really. Thematically, the duplicity is on the part of so many of the characters. Arthur hiding the illegal work, Dutch hiding the courting of John to their gang, John hiding his past and present from Arthur. How truth would've helped them avoid all that.
Arthur and John end up together, after a long journey of 'why talk when can fail at it' and Micah ends up shot, so it's a fair turnout all around?
Hungry Marston; Mid-Situationship
There's this knot in his stomach screaming hunger at him and John gives up ignoring it after an hour past when Arthur's supposed to stop working, but he's still over there at his shitty old work laptop, tacking onto emails and typing out, slow as hell, instructions for the stable hands that'll be working the ranch the next four weeks cause ain't no way his job'll be called essential enough to leave their apartment until the stay-at-home order's lifted.
"You hungry?" he asks the hunchback of Notre Condo as he scrolls through the apps on his phone. John's sprawled on the couch and idly rubs his palm over his stomach as it complains to how it's been five hours since he ate lunch and that's too damn long. "I want Five Guys."
Realizes five words too late how that's going to go and cringes when he hears the low chuckle, the sort that pools the heat in his gut and light the fire of his bitchin' because things're about to make him seem real stupid.
Arthur looks at him and there's this smug curve to his lip. "You tryin' to say one of me ain't satisfying you no more?" he drawls out, leaning back in the hard-backed chair he's been using since they got locked down. "Yer good for a couple times, sure, but ain't five a bit much for one night?"
Dutch & Arthur - Exchange re: focus/loyalty
D: I need you focused, Arthur.
A: You think I’m not?
D: I think you’ve been distracted.
A: There ain’t nothing distracting me. I ever say no when you call? I ain’t ever turned down when you need me, Dutch.
D: I thought we were through this, after Mary.
A: You know it ain’t like that.
D: I don’t know. I hardly know you anymore, Arthur. You only come when I call. You avoid me.
A: I ain’t avoidin’ nothing. Things’re busy is all.
@emmithar-blog shared with me a scenario from a dream that I could not resist writing, so... blame her?
Dreamt of drunken Arthur running inside modern store where he keeps trying to lasso the little kiddy horse ride and shouting 'he's getting away!' each time he misses.
Modern AU; Tilly summons Hosea to help sort a situation with an inebriated Arthur.
cw: alcohol/drunkenness, grief/mourning, child loss
Drunken Deeds
Lord knew judgment weren't the reason Hosea went for him. Sinners like them, well. They knew better than to throw stones in glass houses and his being the fine, crystalline structure it was? Made it clear, in every ironic sense, that claiming piety wouldn't do more than put a new window in what had to be a solid wall. Only so many times even a silver-tongued shyster like himself could patch up the fractures and make the illusion of it being whole.
No judgment, then, spurred him into action when Tilly caught up with him between the aisles of books and across from the jewellery counter, his eye on a lucrative little piece kept displayed under lock and key. Had himself an angle, a real nice thought to go with the wilted widower, seeking something fine to honour his late wife. In his pocket, tucked in a velvet bag, he had the cheap glass duplicate ready to switch when the attendant turned to fetch him a tissue as his old eyes misted up with fond memory of dear, sweet Bessie - sadness summoned at the drop of a hat in his line of work, the years having dulled the ache of loss.
"It's Arthur," Tilly said in a hushed voice, looking over her shoulder to ensure no one peered to close at them.
"Arthur?" Hosea shook his head and set a gentle hand on her arm. "No, Arthur's not here, my dear," he assured her. "Dutch has him covered." In a sense. Keeping Arthur from trouble were a two-man job at the best of times, but with how close the young man'd become to the whiskey bottle of late, well. It meant a certain degree of supervision needed to keep him from drowning and it weren't his lifeguard shift quite yet.
Tilly fidgeted with the hem of her jacket, a lovely flowing yellow piece which lent her a sense of innocence that the world'd otherwise stolen from her sweet soul. "That's just it," she insisted. "Me and Mary-Beth both heard him holler and she's there right now, trying to talk some sense into him."
"I'm afraid Miss Gaskill will run out of air before making any headway," he said. "Boy never did possess a lick of sense."
Hosea gave her a crooked, confident smile - something to ease the tension that tangled her fingers together worriedly. He patted her arm gently, knowing that none of Miss Grimshaw's ladies aimed to cause a fuss when the matriarch weren't around to cause it for them. They were observers, sharp-eyed and sharp-witted, able to find the smallest opportunity and make it lucrative when the airs were peaceful.
That worried him some, then, that Tilly spoke of Arthur and hollering, a disruptive shift to her subtle efficiency. He paused, head tilted back with some consideration, then nodded as though his decision made - one already decided when she insisted on it being Arthur. Never had a son, him nor Bessie, and with his wife gone to heaven, well, Arthur were the best son he could hope for, so he'd always be ready to go after him. "Why don't I go speak with him? Then you and Mary-Beth can continue on your day."
Many things existed which Tilly Jackson could handle and he had no doubt that she'd've done herself justice here if he hadn't been around, but ability didn't mean comfort, nor the confidence needed to snap Arthur back off whatever track he'd gone down. The man wouldn't never hurt no lady, of that they all knew, but he could be right ornery and a headache all the same. Ruinous for a lovely shopping afternoon, or for a scouting foray hid amidst feminine wiles.
She smiled, a bright ray of sunshine and relief, and took his arm when he offered it, guiding them towards the back of the department store.
The deeper they went, the more apparent it became that the ladies hadn't made the call to fetch him lightly. Hollering he heard loudly, and the plaintive requests from store employees doing their best to stop the chaos that'd started unfolding. He could hear Mary-Beth's voice pitched louder than the lady preferred, asking Arthur to let things go and come walk with her. A last-ditch appeal to those few gentlemanly manners he kept hidden beneath the gruff.
Then, as they came around the final corner, Hosea understood the extent of disruption his not-quite-son'd gone and done. Toys lay scattered everywhere, the aisle one for toddler treasures, and Arthur stood in the midst of it. Swayed more like it, glassy-eyed and clearly drunker than a skunk bathed in moonshine. He, in turn, faced off with a truly formidable opponent that seemed to have him bested: A small horse on four wheels, the sort that one might give a toddler to scoot around on in the house.
"Ye- You ain't gettin' no away, y'bastard," Arthur muttered, words slurred together as he readied up a lasso made from skip rope. "I ain't- You ain't-" The effort of talking too much, he raised up the lasso and cast out, missing the horse by a good foot. "Dang-- Stupid-- Horse, stop! He's gettin' away!"
Hosea gave Tilly one final, gentle pat on the arm and stepped away, an understanding sinking deep into his bones to what was going on. Three weeks ago had been the phone call that severed the faintest threads of hope for a life away from his past. Three weeks since Arthur broke his phone by punching it and his fist into the wall until something broke. The phone could be replaced, but his knuckles still bore bruises and half-healed scrapes from repeated impact against the brick wall. Three weeks since the young man'd been sober and, based on Hosea's own experiences with grief and liquor, likely three months or more until he'd return to it.
He held up both hands, calling up the attention of the employees and passersby that were staring wide-eyed as Arthur tried and failed once more to lasso the toy horse. "Ladies and gentlemen, I implore you to forgive my son," he said, voice one of authority and apology both. "Things have been quite difficult of late and, as you see, he doesn't have much sense to be dealing with it sober. My humblest apologies for the disruption - and I assure you, any damaged merchandise will be paid for." This he said with a hand over his heart, a promise he could later wheedle them out of. "If you could all just move along, I can promise there will be no further disruptions."
Mary-Beth, looking rather relieved, took that as her sign to start shuffling gawwkers away, while Tilly took a rather more blunt approach against the stubborn few clingers that remained. "Shame on you, with the phone? Would your mamma want you recorded when you're in need?" She shook her head and the filming rubberneck drew back, interest curbed and phone lowered. "Why don't I help you delete that, so no one needs know better, hmm?"
Content that the ladies had that part of the process handled, Hosea approached Arthur, who'd sunk down to his knees and held the skip rope tightly between his hands. "Okay, Arthur," he offered, calm and steady, as he crouched down. "Why don't we get up now, leave these folks to their day."
Arthur blinked slowly, focus broken from his horse nemesis, and looked up when Hosea offered him a hand. Bloodshot eyes, shadowed by weeks of drinking and despondency, flashed recognition, than the heaviness of understanding that he'd gone and screwed something up. "What're… 'Sea?" he mumbled, looking down at the skip rope, around at the toys.
There'd been a part of him that hoped to get Arthur out of there before he realized quite where he had ended up, and that part must've lost its bet with fate and luck. Hosea did not sigh, nor did he judge, as he let his knee rest on the ground, providing a barrier between Arthur and the few store employees left to deal with his mess. "That's right, Arthur, it's me," he assured him, reaching to gently pull the lasso from his hands. "Why don't you and I go for a walk?"
"That- Dutch said." Arthur shook his head, grasping blindly through the fog of intoxication for whatever sense had led him here. "Dutch said I oughta walk… get some air. Some space. Be good for me."
Hosea bit back the desire to curse, to pull out his phone and send Dutch a sharp text reminding him that Arthur needed folk around him, not to be sent away. Foolish, prideful desire to go off on one of his plans no doubt spurring Dutch to encourage the boy outside the confines of their safe house. "I think you've had plenty space for today," he replied, setting said the skip rope and shifting to haul one arm over his shoulders. "Let's get you up."
Arthur tried, lord did he, but he must've found and drank the good whiskey by the way his legs kept turning to rubber and dragging them down. Then, halfway through a third attempt, Hosea heard a small, choked sob and the man's full weight pulled them both to the ground.
"S'gotten away, 'Sea," Arthur muttered, miserable and hoarse as he stared at the little toy horse. "Don't- It don't matter hows far I try, he's…"
"Gone, Arthur." Small and softly spoken, for all the ache it awoke in his chest. He let the man slump there a moment, shielded him from prying eyes so the tears that tracked down his face had no witness to haunt him later. The mourning, the loss - he knew this pain. From going through it himself with Bessie, drunken and cussing for months on end. Now watching Arthur go through it, his heart shattered because it ain't never been true love with him nor Eliza, no. But Isaac? Weren't no love more true than that father to his son.
Lord knew judgment weren't the reason Hosea worked hard to get Arthur on his feet, thanking Mary-Beth when she came back and offered her assistance. And judgment wouldn't never be the result of seeing Arthur broke down like this, shattered since the day he got the call, the day he'd learned his son'd been taken from life. Judgment had no place here, never would - Hosea'd make sure of that, a small consolation for a young man dealt one of life's worst hands.
Stickers, paint pens, protected with matte modpodge or a clear cupboard liner.
Are you working on the sequel to Sinful Mercy?
Yes! I finished customizing notebook #3 with about 20 pages to spare in #2. I had a 24-month stretch when I didn't write, but that stress burnout receded and I'm puttering along!
(Type of notebook varies; I've used spiral bound lined, stone paper, but usually a Leuchtturm1917.)
Written to the advent calendar prompts of:
- New horse, but it's a donkey
- Lost and Found
&
"Care to explain how you ended up here in nothing but a union suit?"
-
Sean encounters a very drunk Arthur Morgan riding into camp with a new friend, of sorts. Thank or curse @emmithar-blog and @danger-r-98-5 for the beautiful prompts they put into my advent. I adore them. 💕
Well if it weren't the most hootin' hollerin' hilarious thing that'd been seen in ages.
Right proper thing would've been offering a hand, a hat, or something of dignity, but Sean took pride in being anything but proper, so it was his hootin' and hollerin' that roused up camp the early hours of the morning.
And what inspired his being found all but rolling on the ground, holding his stomach because he were at real risk of laughing his breakfast up and out? The sight of Arthur bloody Morgan riding into camp, drunker than any skunk, half-fallen off a god-blessed donkey of all things, and wearing nothin' but his union suit. A step down from his birthday suit, but with it bein' a threadbare, worn-out thing, weren't much left to no imagination, if anyone were to catch his meanin' on that. And the man's humming some off-key song to top it all off, a serenade that no one needs to be hearin' at this early hour.
"What in th' fuck're y'doing, English?!" his wheezing demand, far and away from the cautious callout what'd challenge most on the approach to camp.
"M'riding in, dumbass," Arthur slurs as the donkey shuffles steadily forward. "What's it look like?"
The man's more than three sheets to the wind by his reckoning and Sean can hardly haul himself up from his arse where it landed in the dirt during the first guffaw. He manages with a mighty effort and grabs the donkey's bridle to halt the ride and the ass atop it from going no further.
"Sure y'are, King Arthur," Sean says agreeably, even as he moves to turn the donkey about to leave. "It's real cute, you thinkin' I'd let you tromp into camp when you ain't got a lick of sense left to ya."
Arthur's swipe at him nearly unhorses the man - though, reckon it'd be an un-donkeying with his steed being about as much a horse as Sean is . "What's real 'cute' is you thinkin' you got some sorta sway in it," he mutters with a chuckle at some slippery thought in his liquor-fogged head.
"Tell y'what, English," Sean says, taunts him even by the grin he bears. "Ye get this here donkey turned back around and into camp? I'll let ye be! But I'd put money on ye hittin' the ground 'fore anythin' more."
"He ain't Donkey!" The correction sees Arthur straighten up to his intimidatin' full height, no matter the lessened effect of it when it's done in his union suit, soaked in booze, and riding an ass. He blinks blearily and angles a glare at Sean what takes him two attempts to be within the same cardinal direction as him. "This here's Franklin. S'my good pal," he says, patting the donkey twice on the neck. "Been havin' some hard times, him. Mules're tryin' to take his work, so's… I bought him a drink." Arthur pauses, eyes unfocused as some recollection strikes him. "Well, I tried to buy 'im a drink, only them high society wannabes at the saloon said somethin' 'bout no donkeys allowed." He snorts, cries out indignantly. "No donkeys? What kinda hole-in-the-wall place says donkeys ain't allowed?"
The donkey - Franklin - brays and it's either in agreement, or annoyance that Sean clapped a hand down on his hindquarters to make him lurch forward and away from camp.
"S'right, Franklin!" Arthur leans over the donkey, arms laying lax on either side of his neck, and buries his face into his coat. "Yer a fine donkey, they don't deserve none of yer class, boy."
Sean watches as the pair amble onwards, the challenge of coming to camp forgotten. When they disappear into the predawn darkness, he hitches up his pants and nods, right pleased with himself. Turns back to his watch, only to near stumble into the face and person of John Marston - man what'd gone and manifested there while he was busy seein' to business. "Jay-sus, Marston, y'tryin' to stop me heart?!"
John's grin is grim, his wit dry as he replies. "You think I wouldn't've tried scaring you to death long ago if I'd thought it'd work?"
"Now don't be getting all sour, boy!" Sean admonishes, smoothing down his waistcoat, getting his scraps of dignity back. "It's unseemly and y'don't want to become ol' English, sourer than spoiled milk."
Reference to Arthur gets John's scrutiny off him and onto the indistinct shapes of the shadows beyond. "What was all that about?" he asks, nodding to where the donkey disappeared.
Sean scoffs. "Nothin' that the Irish Terrier couldn't handle!" he proudly proclaims. "Just Arthur bloody Morgan riding in on a donkey, drunker than a skunk and wearin' nothin' but his union suit, if you'd believe it!"
'Troubled' is how he describes the expression taking hold of Marston's face, followed quick by concern that's even faster drowned under irritation. "And that don't seem odd to you?" he asks, and it's a challenge by the sharpness of his tone.
"Morgan likes his alcohol and who'm I to be keepin' a man from the only passion he's got?" Sean keeps up the cheer, though he bristles some under the implications that he missed key details here. "Why's that got you up in a dander?"
John whistles sharp over his shoulder, Old Boy looking up and hauling himself about to trod towards them. "Arthur left here sober, on a damn horse, with his normal kit," he snaps out, grabbing at the reins to loop them over. He hauls himself up into the saddle. "Don't it seem odd to you that he'd come back with none of it?"
See, now that's a bit of sense that has Sean pausing, has him left standing in the proverbial dust as John rides hard past him to catch up to the wayward donkey. "I'm not sayin' you have a point, Marston!" he calls after him. "Just so's you know!"
Ehhhh, maybe he has a point. But it's a wee one and that's all Sean'll allow. Right? Right.
* Trick-or-treat first manifested in NA around 1911, so I blurred the years a lot for this little ficlet. Enjoy!
Definitions Unclear
"That ain't the sort of trick they meant, Marston," Arthur growls out, voice low and rough with frustration.
John gives him a blank look that shifts straight into annoyance. "Then why'd they offer it?"
"'Cause it's a trick OR treat, not a trick, THEIR treat."
"The hell they get off on false advertising?" John demands. "Offering up tricks and leaving a guy hanging without nothing?!"
"The hell you get off on thinking they meant you'd get a free time with one of them fine bathing ladies in all that?" Arthur gestures towards the saloon and hotel, where they'd been enjoying things before John got 'em locked up here in the local sheriff's cell by crying foul over nothing.
John rolls his eyes. "I ain't dumb, Arthur," he shoots back, knocking the side of his fist against the bars. "Abigail done told me her line of work's all about turning tricks."
The attitude, that unfounded confidence, has him scruff John about the neck and shove him against the wall. Arthur opens his mouth to correct him, but the grin John bears has him pause, as does the way John holds his arms up and back against the wall in smug surrender. "...you damn well knew it ain't meant that."
John shrugs and hooks an ankle around Arthur's knee to stumble him closer. "There were too many damn folk there," he says, close as to agreement as his cocky look allows, "weren't no better way to get us some alone time than a bit of lock up."
John ain't seen as graceful nor beautiful, but the man's breathtaking in a fight. Draws his Cattleman with flawless fluidity and pulls the trigger without falter nor fail. Ain't possible to look away from him - and ain't wise neither. Let your eyes stray too far and the reaper will swing his scythe for you in the flash of that bullet in your heart.
Sunday afternoon musings about John Marston’s lethal confidence and surety in combat.
The One To Call (wc: 2,068)
Spent my lunch break today scratching out this modern AU test-write based on a exes-to-lovers prompt:
They are still each other's emergency contact. Which becomes apparent when one of them ends up in the hospital.
Morston, modern AU; reference to injuries sustained, but no details or visuals. John reacting to being the one called when Arthur turns up at the hospital, beat to shit and no one knows how. Plenty of vague/inaccurate medical terms because I am bone-tired and braindead.
Streetlights stretch and streak overhead, a blurred mirror to the dotted lines demarking the lanes on the freeway. Recently refreshed, the paint burns bright under the headlamp, waits for the grease and dirt of the daily grind to dull it into the same muted hues of the cityscape's south end. Rush hour's petered out, though plenty of vehicles still cut between lanes, seeking to make the small gains that'll save them thirty seconds on their commute home. Their pace is sedate in comparison to the streak of copper-and-chrome that routes through without care nor caution.
Wind whips at the hem of his jeans, tangling with threads worn loose from the denim weave. Arms half-bared make targets for bug bodies to strike, stinging as they collide and crash away from the lone motorcycle rider. Ducked low, making the best of his bike's swift profile, John shifts the gear and lets go the clutch. Uneven, the frame jerks beneath him before the tires grab at asphalt and rip him forward faster.
The steady, streaking lights count out a tempo that matches the beating of his heart, but it can't hope to catch the racing of his thoughts. He drives on instinct and reflex, tearing through the narrow spaces between cars, earning hollers and honks that curse his lineage back to the beginning, but he ignores them. Lets muscle memory guide as he counts the miles and urges the speedometer to edge just a little bit further beyond its max.
Internally, there's a litany of thoughts that demand he go faster, be there sooner, and a dizzying spiral of questions to why him, what's happening, and who's responsible. Two he can't answer, but the first has the audacity to make sense. 'Why him' is because he's named on the file - the only name - and it's best he comes to talk with the doctor per the voice what'd called him.
Green highway signs with white lettering catches his attention and he gears down, crosses three lanes and leans to balance the curve as he takes the ramp at an ungodly speed. The red light at the intersection exists as an afterthought, traffic slower here, with fewer cars to obstruct him and he takes full advantage to push the limits.
Too long still passes before the backlight sign emblazoned with The Blackwater-McCourt Memorial Hospital zips overhead. There's an anthem of sirens accompanied by flashing lights that surrounds the area, but there's no blue to slow him and so he don't. Rides straight up onto the concrete walk and kicks down the stand, kills the engine and grabs the keys before he's through the front doors. Ignores the unhelpful call of a bystander telling him he can't park there, focus intent on the front desk. A sleepy-eyed volunteer sits there, turning the yellowed pages of a bodice-ripper romance. She blinks and looks up when he stops there and demands the room number.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't quite hear you," she says, apologetic as she dog-ears the page and leans forward with a helpful smile. "The, ah. The helmet doesn't help."
Right. He loosens the latched belting and pulls it off, dragging a gloved hand back through his sweat-streaked hair. "I said: Got me a call about an 'Arthur Morgan' being here?" he repeats, breathing slow and steady against the rising anxiety that hospitals bring about. "Whereabouts should I-"
The name stills her, the rosy hue of her complex fades brief before she shakes it off and smiles wanly. "I'll call the doctor," she says, hand automatically lifting the phone from its cradle. An older model, push-tone and connected to a landline, she manipulates it smoothly, whispers into the mouthpiece and nods at what she hears.
John sets his helmet down on the counter, fingers tapping erratic beats against it. His leg twitches, foot bouncing as he holds down the need to move, to do something, to get answers without asking half so nicely.
"Doctor Roberts is on the way," the young woman tells him, an interruption to his reverie and John swears.
"You gotta be kiddin' me," he mutters.
The lady - Mary-Beth, by the volunteer's tag she wears - looks up at him with wide, serious eyes. "She won't be more than a moment."
"No, I bet she won't," he grumbles, dragging his helmet off the counter. John paces, walks the five steps across the hall and back again at least a dozen times before an exasperated noise jars him out of the motion.
"You meanin' to wear a hole in my floor?"
Doctor Abigail Roberts walks up and near past him, grabbing his elbow to pull him along as she nods to Mary-Beth. "I got this from here," she says sharply and there's no fight against it. Mary-Beth sinks back into her chair, novel absent from her attentions as she digs out a phone. Whatever's gone on, it's about to hit the shitfan of social media and that makes him groan.
"Ain't you gonna stop her?" he asks Abigail, wrenching his arm free. John keeps pace with her, lets her maintain the half step lead needed to guide them both.
Abigail shakes her head and points down the hall that'll route them past trauma care. Her hair's pulled back, messy wisps plastered along her temple; sign that she's been in the OR, not long done. They were together for a while, once upon a darker time; one of them whirlwind romances what happened when she was the trauma care doctor and he was the trauma-suffering fool that'd needed care. John knew her well, knew she liked to look at least a bit composed before starting her rounds, so knew this hectic break from habit meant something real and something that weren't apt to be good.
"You know as good as I that there ain't no point," she reminds him. True, there ain't. Mary-Beth is no doubt connected to the same network that most of them are and won't be long for her to rouse the rest of the gang now that John's been dragged into it. "Let it happen, John. It'll make things easier."
"Nothing's gonna be easy here, Abigail," he tells her flat out. "You know I ain't been 'round Arthur for three years now, so why's I the one that got the call?"
Crisp steps on smooth linoleum and Abigail does not look at him, only holds her head high and keeps her eyes forward. There's a clarity to them, the sort of shine that comes on when she's feeling something fierce and that makes his gut clench because the thing they're talking about, the man Arthur Morgan? Well, he's means something to a lot of people, and it sets a poor stage to have that mist about her eyes before they get into the meat of it.
"Arthur ain't never updated his emergency contacts," she says quickly, checks the chart she's been carrying. Taller than her, John can make out details on the patient's file and sees his name listed there, like she's just said. "There weren't no one else I could call."
"That ain't telling me why I'm here." Why he got a call; don't matter to him if Arthur took his name off his file or not. They'd had a good run and ruined it, but it ain't so easy to change all the records, all the details to strike the other from their lives. Hell, he'd found out week before last that Arthur's name still sat on the lease when he went to renew it, had to explain to the landlord that weren't no one but John there no more. Had to endure the lamenting that Arthur'd been the best thing to happen to him and John never disagreed, but that ain't changed that Arthur'd done the best thing for himself by ending it.
"Well, John," Abigail begins, taking a breath, "that's 'cause it ain't good."
John reaches out, grips her arm to stall them both and turn her towards him. "What's that mean?" he asks, eyes seeking to pry something from her gaze that'd answer that. "I been told that already, but it don't mean shit without more. You know that."
"It means that it ain't good," she replies, unflinching under the stop, under the inspection. "I done what I could and he's stable now, but..."
The words don't trail off so much as his grip tightens. All these words, this dance around it, tells him more than he wants to know already. "What happened?"
Abigail pulls herself free and gestures him ahead, pointing to the left hall. "We ain't sure and I don't got details, but Sadie came by not long after he showed up, says he went missing a week ago, maybe more." She shrugs, leaves out the why of Sadie being there, but the woman ain't family, so must've been present for function. That meant the police were getting involved, sending her out to get a bead on it.
They slow up outside a door closed, lights dimmed in the hall and the profile of a police guard half hidden in the shadows. John didn't recognize him, didn't much care to because Abigail stopped with her back to the door, keeping him from crossing the threshold. Beyond it comes the muffled melody of medical equipment, monitoring the someone there what'd been hurt. "All I know's that he walked up to ER looking a right mess," she explains, fingers pale in their grip on the chart. "Blood and bruising and, well. You know Arthur. Anyone else'd not be able to walk, but he managed it. Said something about gettin' away, keepin' folk safe before we lost him."
John feels the jerk in his chest, his heart threatening to up and stop on him. "Lost?"
Abigail shows a flicker of annoyance, smacks one hand against his chest. "Not like that, y'fool!" she hisses. "Charles got him breathing again, Tilly and Karen got him stable, Sean processed him while Lenny paged me." It's a report, a buffer to give him a chance to breathe again before she provides more details. "I spent seven hours working on him," she adds, shaking her head. "Ain't much that weren't busted or broke; looks to me like he got worked over real good. Shoulder torn up, ribs broke, couple fingers were twisted up bad. I ain't sure all what's wrong. Seven hours to step the bleeding, pull the mess of debris from his shoulder, and cut out the infection, John. Could be worse, but I won't know more 'til diagnostics gets me the details. And I ain't sure it'll be smart to put him on the table again too soon."
The flicker of panicked fear calms at the assurance the man's alive, but the small spark of it feeds the fires of his temper at whomever attacked Arthur. Once he knows the extent of it, John will find them - ain't no point denying it, not when the heat of his anger near as burns in him. John'll find them and revisit it on them, but first-
"I talked to him some in Recovery, but weren't long," Abigail says, stepping away from the door, up closer to John where she can drop her voice and give an air of privacy. "Arthur said somethin' about Colm O'Driscoll."
Everything hones in on the name, the target of what'd been a man and was now, in John's eyes, a dead man walking. He jerks back, makes to leave, but Abigail stops him with a hold on his arm.
"Not yet." Her voice is insistent, a steady pressure to keep him from leaping off into the dark void wherein the violence beckoned to him. "I ain't had you called to mess with no stupid vengeance," she tells him, nails pressing against his skin where it's pockmarked with the remains of bugs that crossed his motorcycle's path.
"Then why's I even here?" he demands. "Arthur and I ain't nothing, no matter what no file says. You know that well as I do."
Abigail hesitates, the sharp edges of her softening, her expression one she'd used when trying to calm him. "He asked for you," she says quietly. "Fevered and dying and barely nothing, but as he was coming out in Recovery, weren't no name but yours on his lips. Weren't awake long, weren't real coherent, but you're the one he wanted here."
Tagged by the precious @gaslightwestern for the Last Line. Lemme see here...
(it's a bit more than the last line per se)
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"Feels like we're slumming it or something," he muttered as they descended towards the cellar entry. Worn wood panels showed packed earth where time or patrons'd broken through and the lighting flickered as though the power teetered on the precipice of being turned off.
"John Marston, you ain't no golden goose yourself," Abigail said with an exasperated roll of her eyes. "Honestly. Slumming?" The brusque huff of her laugh wormed beneath his skin, setting off a prickle of annoyance he struggled to suppress.
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Tagging... @emmithar-blog and @danger-r-98-5! (if they want)
