— I try to fall for her touch but I'm thinking of the way it was
ᢉ𐭩 pairing: arthur morgan x fem reader, slight arthur x mary
ᢉ𐭩 summary: you and arthur are established. happy. or so, at least you thought, because it ended almost as soon as it began when that letter arrives.
ᢉ𐭩 tags: love triangle, angst!, timeline jumps, suggestive themes, distraught reader, reader has memories/delusions of arthur, jealous reader (lowkey ‘quirky, not like the other girls trope), unforgiving reader (bc a girly has to know when to STAND UPPPP)
ᢉ𐭩 note: requested by anonymous here — lovely anon, this is my version of your request, i hope i did it justice 🤎
ᢉ𐭩 #nowplaying: glimpse of us by joji 💿
ᢉ𐭩 wc 3.1k
i.
He had always let you use his chest as a pillow.
These were your favorite kind of moments with him. Sometimes there were no sounds, except for the bustling whistles of nature, or the quiet plucking of a distant guitar.
The rise and fall of his chest was comforting enough. And it was proof he had a heart because you could hear it echo against the beatings of yours.
“Hey… don’t fall asleep first,” he’d murmured. His larger fingers playfully tangling into the locks of your hair.
“I’m not…” you’d say, a smile hid behind your supple lips. A complete and utter lie on your part, as your mind breezed through stages of consciousness.
“Liar,” Arthur whispered. And you couldn’t see the sleepy grin that lifted his face, then. Only could feel the feathered touch of his fingertips that were grazing the areas of your flushed, bare skin in agonizingly slow swipes.
The careful movements tickled you, forcing your lips into a stretched smile. The calloused bumps dragging across your cheeks, feeling down your neck until he started to trace that poking outline of your collar bone. Motioning repeatedly, as if to preserve the memory of you in this way. Like it was the last time.
Because it was.
Since that day you’d spent your evenings alone. You wondered when it had changed. Obsessive thoughts piercing your brain. Lingering down your chest until the pain had seeped, and bled into your heart so deeply that the organ grew numb. Blurring the lines between reality and that lilac fuzz of dreamscape.
You stared, blankly at the spot he’d just been lying at. Blinking rapidly, as if by the tenth time, he would appear again. Whole, and bound to your soul. By the time you opened them completely, a cold wind had smacked you, nearly knocking you off the cot.
He really is gone.
Then why had he felt so real?
Perhaps it was the angle of the sun that peeked her rays through the slit of the canopy. Speckles of gold traces, kissing his skin. Arthur Morgan was a brute of a man. Dangerous, some had warned. And the blood-soaked veins that coursed through those calloused fingertips would surely attest to that.
Yet here, he laid, no, glowed — one of God’s fallen angels.
Oh, how painfully fitting that was.
Then you remember, that he had been an angel. Once.
And the image of his body that was worn and fast asleep, with a strong arm coiling your smaller frame, had faded into yellow dust, draping over Horseshoe Overlook.
You clutched at the thick hide blanket, smoothing your swollen chest as if it could mend the break. Gauzing the heart. And you could taste the trail of salted tears with every sob you swallowed.
It was the same blanket which had made you forget the storm that froze Colter. Stitchings that had once tangled Arthur’s legs, as his feathered touches left imprints on your thighs. And it was still laced with the freshness of pine and smoky tobacco that reminded you of his kiss. The blanket he’d covered you with after his lips had seared your lowered flesh like charred game.
Lips that warmed the cold - not intensified it.
And it was in those touches that had made you forget. With him, you needn’t think about the Pinkertons that stalked cornered alleyways. Or the law that deemed you all unfit for the new world that was being crafted. A world in which you clearly had no place. How could you— without him?
With him, none of anything else existed. You could forget about the dangers which lurked. Could forget that he wasn’t someone you were meant to love. Because had he been, it wouldn’t be the ghost of a body lying next to you.
It would be him.
It was in this tent, that you were home. And he was home.
At least, he used to be.
ii.
He wasn’t aware that you’d been watching as he received that letter from her.
It happened as you returned from a watch shift.
You traded with Karen that day, and a part of you wished to never having agreed to it in the first place. Maybe if you hadn’t, then you wouldn’t have ever seen how his eyes sparked as Susan handed him the envelope.
And you definitely wouldn’t have watched him drop everything for it— the jar of strawberries you’d requested— smashed at the toes of his boots. Glass crunching beneath thick soles of leather.
Your heart sank as you heard what came next.
“Mary?”
And why had he said it so sickeningly. With a tone practically singing her name. As if he’d lived life up until that moment.
Lived life with you as a placeholder.
A lovesick dog, loyal to whatever bone Mary-Linton decided to throw next. How pathetic.
You wished to gouge out your eyes. You felt of filth for watching in despair as he tore at the letter’s casing. Yet, seeming to handle the actual paper itself with generous care. His eyes skimmed across each letter, every delicate curve of schoolgirl penmanship. Over and over, until his thumb glossed the elegant curve of her signature.
Biting your cheek that hard had almost brought you to tears, but you had no choice. If only to stop the rising bile that would cause you to hurl.
Not here.
Then he’d gently, maybe even too neatly, folded the paper and tucked it safely into his satchel. Leaving a gushy trail of ruby berries, glistening behind his feet.
Still— when he’d left that night, you waited and waited. His side of the cot turning empty and cold as a watch hand sifted. And even after one night had grown into days, you still held onto that foolish flicker of faith that he would return home.
He’ll come back soon. He’ll do it… for me.
Never once did you ever think that it would’ve been the last time, you would ever see Arthur Morgan.
iii.
He missed you.
Had missed your lips that always tasted between a mix of honey and ripened cherries. The scent of your wild tendrils that warmed his nose on the colder mornings.
But more than that, he missed how less you cared about any of it. Had missed how he could steal a kiss or two after a bottle or more of beer. He missed how the grime caked underneath his fingernails wouldn’t make your face sour, but instead cast a playful smile that stretched your face as you dragged him to the nearest lake. And he’d watch the warm glow of your exposed skin as you scrubbed him clean.
These days he was expected to always be clean. And to stay clean. He reckoned it wouldn’t have been so bad if his new wardrobe had been less itchy, and a tad more comforting. The suits were too tight. And his hands were always greasy from the amount of waxy pomade that stiffened his hair. Life with the gang allowed him certain freedoms. The freedom to wear what he wanted when he wanted. And to look how he wanted.
Not to mention his cot had always felt warmer next to you. Lately, the velvety dressed mattress he slept in felt ice cold— even with another body snuggled into him.
He always attempted at least writing to you. But to say what? To apologize. Maybe. Though he’d torn the page after barely managing to scribble in the first word. So, he opted to write to John next.
No answer. And he should’ve suspected so. It had been three months since he left.
Arthur didn’t blame you, or anyone, really. He knew he had left too soon. Had jumped the gun and into the arms of a woman he thought he once knew. The truth of it was that he and Mary were nothing but ghosts. Floating in the place of a love that maybe wasn’t ever actually love, but a kind of youthful infatuation that died long before her own husband had.
On some nights, it got lonely. So he’d pretend. Pretend like she was what he wanted. But then, on those very nights, after his naked body was slick with sweat and the daze of his euphoria grew numb, he felt rotted with shame. How shameful to admit that in the darker hours after Mary fell asleep he liked to pretend that her slung arm, which felt like a snake tightening his torso, belonged to you.
And pretend his mind did, imagining your softer voice calling for him. Warm. A syllabic hymn of a sound caressing his ears. When he closed his eyes, he saw a vast color that mimicked your shining irises. His favorite place.
Though when he looked down at the hand that had slithered sharply into his, all he could remember was that tender grasp of yours. And he thought about your sleepy stirrings. How he would softly soothe you, coaxing you back into a softer sleep.
“Jus’ me, darlin’. Ain’t nobody else. Jus’ you n’ me,” he’d whisper.
And he’d remember how clammy your skin had grown on the nights you’d wake up from a nightmare. Labored breaths that swelled your lungs— the flash of Davey’s lifeless eyes and the trail of blood that stained the slope of the ambarino mountains. Echoing cries and mirrored realities that haunted the roots of his brain. Roots he knew that Mary couldn’t possibly, ever grow.
Maybe a seed was planted. Sprinkled with a touch of water, even. But it would never fully harvest. He knew it to be true: Where her biggest worry had been the fittings of her new dresses, the sophistication of a restaurant menu or which picture show to drag him to next, Arthur’s mind was geared on survival. He was bred for it. Was all he ever knew. All you had ever known.
Now, under the impenetrable oak ceiling, lay the husk of him. Masking into a world he knew he would never fit quite right. Not even the cozying fire blazing the bricked hearth could thaw his frostbitten chest. And as the moon poked through the sheer cotton curtains, there was a demonic glow assaulting the face of a man whose only ability was to run.
Next to that, a lone star, twinkling as he saw you. Because it was in everything, that he saw you.
So perhaps tomorrow, he would rip out another page of parchment. Scribble your name. Toss it out. And start his day all over again.
iv.
Arthur watched as the train boarded ten other passengers and Mary Linton, preparing to cog its way up north. He waited to see if she’d spare a glance outside of the cracked window. It never came. He coughed, clearing his throat. His wrist brushing at the tip of a creased letter written back to him from John.
Arthur scratched at his neck as the trolley car disappeared. He wore his beard out, now. Thicker mostly. No longer having to trim his hair short or style it cleanly as Mary preferred.
As the morning light filtered into the sweltering skies of late noon, the ride to Beecher’s Hope took him just short of a couple hours.
Spotting the hitching fence, he parked the horse and a sharp aroma of cattle dung assaulted his scrunching nose. He took in the grand view of the landscape and the house that was perched atop a wooded foundation.
So, the son of a bitch had really done it.
Arthur balled his fist, readying to knock at the door, but before his fleshy knuckles could make any kind of contact, the entrance swung open.
It was Abigail, glaring, arms crossed. And John with a sheepish expression, cowering behind her.
“Got some damn nerve, Arthur Morgan,” her voice austere.
He stared at his boots. “She here?”
When she didn’t immediately respond, Arthur’s eyes flicked to John, communicating with their eyes. The only answer he gave was a quick shrug. Abigail sighed, and when he looked at her, her eyes had glistened as if tears were threatening at the beady corners.
“She’s just starting to get better. Don’t do this to her— not now,” she whispered, pleading, if not begging.
When Abigail left, it was only him and John. A hand clasped Arthur’s shoulder, then. “Listen… I meant everything I wrote ya. Yer stayin’. Long as ya need,” he said, and when Arthur gave him a twisted look, watching as Abigail turned a corner, he waved it off. “Don’t worry ‘bout that noise. Girl shit. Abigail’ll come around.”
He said nothing, except the slight give of his head. John took a slow exhale and nodded back. Slipping through the archway, he left the door unlatched and Arthur waited.
And he’d wait and wait until the sun had sank behind the protruding rocks and until he finally smoked his last cigarette. His heart skipping as the wind rolled, rustling the leaves at which he had turned, thinking it was really you. It wasn’t.
The opal sky disappeared and the moon turned into a half eclipse when he decided that you weren’t coming. With a flick at the ground and a smush of his boot, the smoking tip sizzled out. On, his eyes stared into the dissipating smog.
Thinking, what a fool he was to chase another ghost.
v.
It was him and that horse, which had stopped you where you stood. The ground tugging your boots still, a locked feeling in your legs as if the ground turned into quicksand. Dredging your body. Fast and suffocating. Your heart swelled with rhythmic palpitations, choking every small breath out of what should’ve been a broken throat. Because it was— you’d barely spoke those days.
Your gazes crossed like stars. Why wouldn’t he speak first? Say something. Anything.
He stared until he knew you couldn’t take it anymore. And that feeling you hated, something bitter and polluted took form, crawling inside your stomach. Twisting and gurgling with rage, as if clawing for a way out.
You could hear that atrocious jungle of his spurs, and you still hadn’t moved an inch.
Look anywhere else. Don’t look at him. But you did.
And he was beautiful. You hated that, too. Hated how with just one look he’d uncoiled the spring of your heart. How he had watched you with a mix of awe and suspicion. You knew his eyes were wandering for any evidence of another man’s touch.
He hadn’t changed. Maybe he never would.
Then, his hand raised to gently remove his hat. And he placed it across the embroidery of his vest.
You shook your head, eyes closing, and a part of you thinking that it was just another cruel dream. And you would wake and his body would vanish with the humid dew that crept up the flesh of your spine. It was how it always went in the days that he’d been gone.
And that was what still hurt. How quick he was to toss you away. To waltz back into your life, expecting the ache to disappear as quickly as he did.
Your eyes snapped up, wet with tears, he was still there. Not a dream, but cold, cleaving reality. And the gambler hat was still covering his heart.
“Where is she?” you blurted, shaking. A half-need to know, balanced by the need to not.
“Who?”
Oh, the audacity of him to play coy. To fiddle with the shattered pieces of your chest. A bitter laugh escaped your lips as you shook your head.
“Don’t do that…”
He stepped forward. “I wrote you— always meant to,” he said, his throat bobbing. “I fucked up. I did. But I thought about you. Every goddamn day.”
“No!” you shouted, backing away. Tears falling as the darkened clouds clung to the night. “You don’t get to run off on me— on us! And then come back like nothing happened!”
Like you didn’t twist the knife yourself.
Your sobs came uncontrollably now. Why did he even come? And then, you thought, maybe it would’ve been easier if he hadn’t ever come back. Why, when things were just getting better, when you finally had the energy to walk into town on your own, to smile like you once had, did he have to return and break your heart all over? And how long would it be before he would do it again?
He had nothing to say, of course. Watching as you wept in the dark.
After a silence, the tears stopped. Or maybe they had dried out. You couldn’t tell. All you knew was that you had wasted months crying and longing. Waiting for a man who had made you so grievously ill that you’d stopped eating. Even now, your insides twisted with that same foul sickness you felt on the night he left.
You couldn’t do this again.
Your eyes were heavy and warm and fogged with pain. So much that you could barely see as Arthur had gotten closer, handing you his journal.
Your hands trembled as you grabbed the bind, the tips of his fingers lingering over yours. And when your eyes glossed at them, there, on those loose pages were each of the dates scrawled at the top corner.
June to October.
Your hands fished through the pages. There were words and drawings and torn letters that Arthur had crumpled and then folded twice over into the slots. Turning the next page, your fingers paused. Your heart felt frozen. An image of him and his horse that you had drawn for him, was staring back at you. A small memory flashing with it.
"That 'sposed to be me?"
Arthur reached for the picture, stunted as you shrank back, clutching the journal to your chest. A rosy flush settled below your eyes.
"It's just... something I saw..." you lied. And he flashed you that toothy smile that made your heart swim.
“Lemme see.”
The memory faded. You looked up, gazing at him. “You kept it?”
He swallowed again, nodding slow. “Yeah.”
But then, that same thought prickled like sharpened stone. Dulling away any joyous feeling you thought you felt.
Mary.
Because when the time came— and you knew it would— she’ll write to him. And he’ll respond. Because he always did. And he would rip that stringy vein from your heart, knotting it between the etchings of a nexus that was Arthur Morgan and Mary Linton. A chained soul you were desperate to sever from.
Reminding yourself you couldn’t survive this again. You barely had the first time.
Not anymore.
It was an unexpected move. Arthur flinched, and his face hardened as your hands ripped the drawing in two.
“I deserve better.”
Tears stained your cheeks again, as you pushed past him. The flutter of the pages tumbling with the breeze. And you didn’t look back to see if he was still there. To see if he was watching. You wouldn’t give him that kind of power.
Because I deserve better, you thought.
I deserve better.
a/n: as i was writing this piece, this was the only realistic ending that felt natural to me because a) angst is just so delectable and i'm a whore for it and b) we love a reader who knows her worth likeeee ! anyways thank you sm for reading and giving this love ♡
