pure bliss forever
arthur morgan x reader
PART 1 🌀 PART 2
summary : a quiet evening in a hut in the Grizzlies.
gn reader, no use of y/n, not explicitly romantic unless you want it to be, 3.4 K words
warnings : swearing, very brief mention of suicide
a/n : if you know the song the title is based on, i'll send you a tenner and a kiss on the forehead
༅☾»⟣⋱
I’m knee deep in the snow, gloved fingers fumbling awkwardly with my bow and arrow. The gloves are Arthur’s- about fifteen sizes too big, hard to hunt with, but warm, which is the least you can really ask for in this part of the Grizzlies. I’ve had get new gloves scrawled on my list of things to do for the past four weeks- since Arthur first took me hunting in the mountains, and I realised that I might have misremembered how goddamn cold it was.
I’ve been tracking this grizzly bear for half an hour now. At first, I wanted to kill it, skin it, bring the meat back to Arthur, make the pelt into a coat (or some gloves, I think miserably). But the more I’ve been watching it; the more I’ve been following it, the less I want to raise the bow, notch the arrow, let it fly and land in the bear’s soft neck. At this point, even though I’m still holding the bow and arrow, I’ve made the decision not to kill the sweet animal. She’s too pretty, sniffin’ around in the snow.
Arthur is also out hunting; further down the mountain than me. He tried it out; waitin’ for animals, in the snow. Said it as nicely as possible, that he wasn’t patient enough for that shit. So he leaves the tracking and waiting to me, and goes to where the snow is thinner, hunts deer and such.
For the first time, he said he’ll stay the night with me, in a small hut we’ve found. It’s not like my daddy’s old hut; smaller, lower ceiling, nowhere outside to hitch the horses. We’ve had to try and plant sticks in the ground, hope the horses don’t tug and try to run away. Thought it was so funny that I fell in the snow; had to change into a pair of Arthur’s spare trousers ‘nd shirt, another twelve sizes too big.
I follow the bear a little longer, ‘till it’s nearly nightfall. Then, I turn back, trudge through the snow in my boots (they’re the only thing I’m wearing that are actually the right size). My socks are starting to get wet; these are Rhodes boots, not Grizzlies boots. I don’t mind, though. The freezing cold air, despite being sharp and almost painful at first, smells like home.
It’s night time when I get back to the hut. It looks like Arthur beat me- the lantern inside is lit, golden light beaming out through the cracked windows. It’s so cold in the hut that we had to sleep in our coats, last night; I made a passing joke about sleeping on top of each other, like I used to with my daddy when it got real cold, and we both laughed it off.
“Fuckin’ freezing in here,” I say as I kick the door open. I don’t take off my coat; but I do kick off my boots, so I don’t track snow onto the newly cleaned floor of the hut.
Arthur chuckles, his low-down laugh warm. I smile, all teeth.
“Didn’t catch anything?” He asks. I haven’t caught anything on my trips hunting. I think he knows I get sentimental about these animals. Last time, I sheepishly brought back a can of tinned beans after failing to catch a deer. Thought Arthur was gonna collapse, the way he was laughin’.
“Nah,” I answer, even though my empty arms are answer enough. “Didn’t find nothin’.” I think of the bear, probably sniffin’ around for food for her cubs. “Cold probably drove ‘em all home.”
“I’m sure.” He’s caught two rabbits. “Wanna light a fire?”
It’s the least I can do. “I gotta put my boots back on?” I complain, jokingly. “Got sticks?”
“In the corner there.” Points, with two ungloved fingers. I go to the sticks, lift them up. Slip on my boots. Take them to the hole we’ve made in the snow, for campfires. “It’s cold,” I mutter to myself as I drop them down into the hole, make sure they’re arranged right. I go back inside; Arthur is still there, skinning the second rabbit.
“Got a match?” I ask, dusting my hands off on my to-big trousers. “Somethin’ I can light this with?” I know he does, ‘cause he always does, it’s tradition, though, to ask him.
“Over here.” Wipes his hand, takes the box from his pocket, pushes it open; I grab two matches, ‘cause I always fuck the first one up, put them between my teeth, then take the box from his hand. Strike one- fucked up. I drop it onto the unlit campfire, then strike the second one. It flares up. I smiled the tiny flame with my hand, kneel down, hold the burning match to the sticks and wait for them to catch fire.
“Done,” I call back into the hut, pulling my coat closer around myself. I hum to myself as I hold my hands out, let the growing flames warm them.
Arthur comes out with the rabbits, edible bits impaled on knives. He hands me one, then crouches down in the snow, holding it above the fire to cook it.
“So,” I say, once the silence has stretched too long.
“So,” he answers, in the same tone, voice going up at the end.
“Cold,” I say, because I want to say something but there’s nothing really to say.
He snorts, and we lapse back into comfortable silence.
“Thank you,” I say. My rabbit has cooked- I bite into it. Tastes like the food I ate three times a day with my daddy, when I was a kid. “For- for takin’ me here, and stayin’. All that. I really- I appreciate it.”
“I know.” He doesn’t say it unkindly. I’ve thanked him before, a lot, but I feel like I gotta. He’s done so much for me.
“And, y’know, thanks for staying the night.” It was supposed to be one night; last night, just to test the waters, see if maybe I did want to stay here longer, by myself. But I think Arthur sensed, when we woke up this morning, that I didn’t want to go just yet- maybe saw it in the way I held my shoulders, the tic in my jaw returning as I ground my teeth together. He suggested that we stay, just one more night, and I jumped on the opportunity, my jaw unclenching, my shoulders relaxing once again. My father always told me I was readable; didn’t realise it was that bad until Arthur sensed every thought before it even completed itself in my head, made suggestions that just worked for me. He doesn’t make it feel like I’m, I don’t know, burdening him, with my loud feelings and tightening shoulders. He just takes it in his stride; like he takes everything else in his stride. It’s what I like about him.
Once we’re done eating, we go back inside. Leave our boots at the door (so domestic, I think to myself, as the toe of my left boot stays resting against the toe of his right one). Keep our coats on, sit down on our separate sleeping bags.
“You goin’ straight to sleep?” I ask him, readjusting my coat. Another routine.
“You want to go straight to sleep?” Like he always does. I snort (like I always do, because we have a routine, one we’ve established the last few times we’ve come here). “Alright,” I say. I shuffle in, pull my blanket tight around myself. It hardly keeps the cold out, but it’s comfortable. I’m shivering a little less.
Arthur isn’t wearing any gloves because I’m wearing his gloves. He’s got his hands tucked under his legs where he sits, but he must be cold. I don’t want him to be cold, so I shuffle ‘round, look at him fully.
“You can have your gloves back,” I say, already wriggling out of them. “S’alright,” he answers, like I knew he would. “Really,” he adds, when he sees that I’ve got a glove off already. “Take one, then,” I say, a compromise. I throw it at him, and he catches it. “One glove each. So we can be… half warm each.”
His turn to laugh, half through his nose, half through his mouth. Slips the glove on, wiggles his fingers at me to make a point. I smile, with some teeth.
“So,” I say, tucking my ungloved hand between my knees. “You like it here?”
Arthur breathes out, looks out the window for a long moment before looking at me again. “Yeah, I like it plenty.” He pauses, looks at me more, his gaze locked on my face.
It’s cold, but something in my chest stirs, something warm and small and soft, like a squirrel, or a small rabbit. I fold my arm under my head, prop myself up like that.
“There’s a part of the mountains,” I say, after a few minutes of warm silence. “A little- I think north of here, there’s a dip, towards the top of the mountain. It’s like- the top dips, a little, so there’s a cave. You can see the stars from there, better than anywhere else in the mountains.” I smile at the thought; it’s coldest up there, the stone bare of snow most of the time. I remember going up with my daddy; just once, though. All the other times I went alone, to clear my head.
The memory turns sour when I remember the first time I stayed overnight, huddled by a campfire in my coat. When I got home, my daddy was gone, bullet in his temple, blood sprayed on the walls.
“Sounds real nice,” Arthur answers. He’s right, it is.
“Wish the gang could see it.” I smile, wipe my nose with my ungloved hand. “Jack would love it.” Arthur chuckles, lowly, softly. It makes the bunny in my chest twitch happily.
“I’m sure he would.” He lies down, pulls the blanket over himself. “How far is it, from Rhodes?”
“Opposite direction.” I sink a little, into the floor. I think I know what he’s thinking. “Too far to go tomorrow, on our way back to Rhodes. Maybe another time.”
“We can take Jack, if Abigail lets us.”
“We can take Abigail, too.” I feel my smile come back, just at the thought. “John, if he’s around. Charles might like it- lots of hidden wildlife. Stuff to watch, even if you’re not huntin’ it.”
“That what you been doing?” He doesn’t say it unkindly. When I first came back empty handed after almost a full day of what was meant to be hunting, I’d expected him to bristle, to sigh, maybe to pinch the bridge of his nose and tell me that this wasn’t enough, I gotta pull my weight (although whenever I pictured it, it was Pearson’s voice, or Dutch’s that said it; never Arthur’s). We’re here to hunt, God’s sake, not for me to dawdle and watch the animals from a distance.
“Yeah,” I say, almost sheepishly, shifting my arm, pulling at a finger of my glove- his glove. There’s a silence; not an uncomfortable one. “I don’t know why. Up here, I just…” I can’t bring myself to kill them, I want to say, but that’s ridiculous, because they’re animals, right?
But the look in that doe’s eyes, back in Rhodes, right when I shot her; the way the bear walked softly, earlier today, hunting for scraps. The way the rabbits bounce along, terrified when they see me; the way the birds fly so high above. I saw a dead wolf on the way up here, decomposing on the side of the road with an arrow through its throat- stifled an almost sob, told Arthur I was just happy to be back.
“I get it,” he says. Does he? He doesn’t seem to struggle with killing animals, hunting to keep us alive. Maybe that’s why- they gotta survive, but so do we. Does that apply to all the men he’s shot dead, for the sake of himself and the gang? A gang that I’m a part of, of course. I’ve killed for them too, finger tight on the
trigger, ribs tighter around my lungs.
“I draw ‘em, sometimes.” He adds, in a quieter voice. Like it’s a secret.
This takes me aback slightly. i know he keeps a journal of sorts, tucked away in that satchel of his. I’ve seen him around camp, or on our journeys when we stop to rest the horses, scrawling away. I know he writes- Mary Beth mentioned it in passing, once. I always thought he was just doin’ that- writing. Not drawing.
I squint at him, vision narrowing to zero in on his face.
“I didn’t know you drew,” I say.
He shrugs. Shifts on his sleeping bag, so the blanket shifts with him, pulling up, letting the cold air in.
“Can I…” I hesitate, draw my hands in close to my chest. “I mean, I get if it’s private, and all. But I- can I see?” A hesitation, a beat of silence where the cold air rattles against the windowpanes and wolves howl in the distance.
“Sure.”
I know where the journal is. It’s in its usual place, on the table, next to his satchel. My sleeping bag is placed so that if I wiggle around, reach my arm out far enough, my fingertips graze the leather cover. I do just that; am able to leverage it closer, finally tipping it over the edge and into my other hand, this one gloved.
It feels wrong, to hold this in my hands in this way. To turn it over, run my bare fingertips over the cover, the lines in the spine where it has been cracked countless times. I used to have a journal, when I was a kid, scrawled in pencil in a notebook my daddy got me from town.
Reverently, like what I’m holding is holy, I fold it open.
The first page is a log of something, initials of gang members written in surprisingly legible pencil, alongside numbers. I turn the page, find a crude map of Blackwater. A shiver runs down my back. I know he’s watching me as I turn the page once more, find a drawing of a riverbed, trees, a bridge. I want to touch it; want to run my fingers along the strokes of the pencil. The place he’s drawn is both recognisable and not; a cross between a dream and a distant memory. Next comes a church of some sort, surrounded by field and trees. I wonder when he finds the time to do all this- to sit and draw. Wish I could, I think wistfully.
The third page is writing. I feel his eyes on me as I skip that, go to the next drawing. These are his thoughts; his feelings. They’re none of my concern. I’m here for the drawings.
I flip through, ignoring the writing, tracing the drawings with my eyes. I don’t want to touch it in case it smudges. Instead, I try to picture all the places he’s drawn, try to remember them, pull them from that place in my dreams. It’s like a dip into a normal, different world; normal people in the streets of Blackwater, mingling, talking.
“They’re pretty,” I murmur, more to the journal itself than to Arthur, whose gaze is still firm on my face, flicking occasionally to the page I’m on.
There’s one word, however, that I stop on. Davey, a cross drawn next to the name. Nothin’ else on the page. I touch this one, run my fingers along the loops and curves of the name. Does he do this for all our dad? Dedicate a page, a cross, a whispered prayer as we pass on? Will he do it for me, if I ever by some misfortune find myself with a bullet in my temple?
I shake the thought away and keep going. Drawings of our camp in the Grizzlies; drawings of the train we robbed, owned by that Leviticus Cornwall. Horseshoe Overlook, drawings of the gang around the fire. I think I spot myself in the background of one of those drawings, a dead rabbit over my shoulder, my hair shorter than it is now. The church in Valentine; a grizzly bear. Then, a familiar face, only in pencil, catches my attention. I stop, narrow my eyes slightly. I don’t get much of a chance to look at myself; can hardly remember my own face most days, if I’m honest. But this- the lines of the face, the swamp scrawled in the background. A drawing of me, the day he sat with me and smoked and talked about home.
I feel my throat tighten. It’s strange, seeing that someone thinks about me in that way; wants to have my face in his journal, drawn with soft grey lines.
“You’ve made me look soft,” I say, turning to him once more. “Drawn me the way you draw rabbits.” Ain’t a bad thing; in fact, it makes the rabbit in my chest happy, makes the warmth come back twice as strong.
He chuckles. Knows me well enough to know it’s not a criticism.
“’S real pretty, all of this,” I tell him, tracing the drawing with my fingertips. The lines smudge, make me look slightly blurry. I pull my hand away, find the pads of my fingers slightly silver. “Sorry,” I say, because I’ve ruined it.
“S’okay,” he answers, with a smile. “Do what you want with it. ’S a drawin’ of you; may as well.”
I laugh, shut the journal and slide it over to him. Turn fully, so I’m angled towards him. I fold my arm under my head again, the cold forgotten slightly as the blanket falls away.
“Thank you,” I say, trying to push as much of the warmth that I’m feeling into my voice. “For lettin’ me see your journal. And, y’know, other things.”
He chuckles, shifts. It’s dark; the candles have burned to the bottom, hardly illuminating the hut. I’d be more scared, but I have him, his warm everything.
“Maybe I’ll draw you,” I say, and that earns me another laugh, because we all know I can’t draw for shit. I was put in charge of drawing a map once, for the gang; looked more like a self portrait than anything else, pencil smudged where my tears had fallen.
“When we leave camp,” I tell him, because I know we will leave Rhodes, and Saint Denis, and the swamps and alligators, behind. The thought doesn’t fill me with distress. Maybe we’ll go somewhere colder. But as long as I have him, it’s okay. “We might go far- too far to come back here for day trips.” Already thinking of the end; of how I’ll live with the memory of this, and the knowledge that I won’t be able to return.
“We can make it work,” he answers, firmly, but softly. “We’ll just stay, one or two nights.”
“You can teach me to draw.”
There it is again; his laugh. I love it, and I love him, for what he’s doing for me.
“I’ll buy you a journal,” he says, and I don’t think he’s joking. I curl up, knees closer to my chest, then stretch out again. Somehow, he’s closer than before. A simple extension of my arm, and I could touch his hand (the one with the glove on, but his hand, nevertheless). Hell, if I stretched my leg out, I could cross my ankle over his, although I’d have one hell of a cold leg.
Our conversation has ended, I realise, and we’re watching each other fall asleep. He’s the first to go, eyes dropping shut. We discussed taking turns on the lookout, then decided we were safe enough, hidden by pine trees and miles and miles of snow and mountain.
When his breathing slows, really slows, I reach out, touch my bare fingertips to his gloved palm. I rest my hand there, hoping he doesn’t notice. I consider touching his wrist, feeling his pulse, but my hand is cold, and I don’t want to wake him.
I drop off; but not before I feel gloved fingers slightly tightening around my wrist.
I wake up in that position, hands molded together. His ankle crossed over mine, despite the freezing cold. Somehow closer to each other than before.
I smile, close my eyes again.
