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To Share a Smile

RDR2 | Relationship: Arthur Morgan x Female Reader | Rating: Teen +

Summary: Arthur’s & Reader's first date in a modern AU after the gang disbands, featuring deep insecurities, fears, and misunderstandings on both sides. (My first attempt at Modern AU ☺️)

Content: Reader wears glasses, Mild cursing, Angst, Fluff, Mutual pining, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurities, Self-worth, Self-esteem, & Body Image issues

Tumblr Fic Masterlist | Ao3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

*Comments always welcome! Re-blogs always appreciated!*

Chapter 1

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Sitting in the diner booth listening to the spring rain's light pitter-patter on the window along with the diner’s familiar rockabilly oldies, Arthur drums his fingertips across the surface of the table. Turns his wrist over and checks his watch again, though he doesn’t know why. He knew you’d be early for your first date, so he arrived even earlier. But now he finds himself sitting alone at the booth, left to his increasingly fitful thoughts.

He glances down at himself and wonders for the nineteenth time whether his crisp, sage green button-down with sleeves rolled up, blue jeans, and engraved platinum belt buckle are nice enough for the occasion. Whether he has enough time to run back to his cabin and change. Yet another glance at his watch informs him, ‘Decidedly no.’ Your friendship is long and dear and has been steady; he knows you well enough to know that you’re easy-going and would rather know he’s comfortable and able to enjoy himself. As it is, you’ll probably tell him he could’ve dressed down even more. It is only a diner, after all.

But he’d wanted to give this date its very best shot. Wanted to look as spic-and-span as he could for you.

Truth was he’d been letting himself think on you for a long time—years, even. Since you’d joined the gang out of necessity and shortly after you’d first become close friends. He’d found it so easy to talk with you and had even begun to bare secret, painful things he’d never shared with anyone. Things like the shredding grief of having lost his lover and child. Things like what fatherhood had meant to him, deep in his soul. Things he’d long buried, like the violent abuse he’d endured at the hand of his own father, the hand that should’ve been tender and loving and kind. After his heart had been alerted to a kindred heart in you, it didn’t seem to matter what lied within—it was all freely spilled.

And then…your eyes, your smile, your imagination, the wise cracks that you saved for only him, your laugh, and your ever-compassionate heart. All he had to do was notice them, and he was solid gone.

You’d been a consistent source of encouragement and strength, to the point that before he’d even realized it was happening, he was deeply and truly questioning his loyalty to Dutch, the purpose of the gang and their increasingly violent pattern, the wasted years, and the future course of his life. It was you that had encouraged him to see he didn’t deserve to be asked to brutalize people for Strauss. You that had nudged him to fully understand just how badly the gang would end on its current path. You that had made him feel there was a better way to live life, and to believe it was possible. All without necessarily knowing it. It was you who’d set Arthur to thinking about dissolving the gang, before things got too bad. Irreversibly bad.

And now it was reality. Now, with the dues Hosea’d made sure he was given, he was leading a peaceful life of his own, secluded in a mountain cabin he’d bought outright under an assumed name. Living on the edge of a beautiful rural town, with horses and plenty enough land for one man.

But despite all of that, he can’t begin to let himself believe that he deserves you or even could, not in that way. And in this moment, as he sits alone on the booth’s squeaky red vinyl cushion, tapping the steel toe of his boot against the checkered tile, if he’s honest with himself, his terror is rising.

.

At the same moment miles away, after having showered, shaved extra carefully, brushed your teeth and rinsed with mouthwash, you’re sitting before the mirror above the sink in the cramped bathroom of your little apartment, intently watching a makeup tutorial on your phone where it’s propped up against your ceramic toothbrush holder. With your glasses off, you’re leaning forward and squinting to get a good look at what the youtuber is doing on the screen.

“Healthy skin and lovely eyes are the two keys,” she says as you go to work following her movements with your new eyeshadow brush, glancing back and forth between her video and the mirror before you. “It’s all about playing up your eyes without going overboard.”

“It’s all about playing up your eyes without going overboard,” you quietly repeat to the empty air around you.

After Arthur had asked you out, you’d gone straight to the drug store and bought a little bundle of cosmetics. You’d spent that night scouring the internet for the perfect tutorial that balanced subtlety and ease. And after a case of antsy and fitful sleep, you’d risen double-extra early this morning, knowing you’d have to try it and would need an allowance of additional time for error. Then you would also need time to figure out a decent outfit.

You’re on pins and needles and loaded to the brim with unruly, traitorous butterflies. If you can help it, you’re not going to be the one to mess this up. It’s your one chance with Arthur, and it’s a complete fluke that it happened in the first place. Not only do you know Arthur to be extremely guarded with his heart, but you’re no young, suave, sumptuous beauty. In truth, there’s nothing about Arthur that should be yours. No reason you should be in each other’s lives more than you are. No reason he should be more to you than he might be in another life: a gorgeous, rugged passerby in the street who glances at you with his beautiful blue-green eyes as an afterthought as he walks on his way, someone to helplessly, pathetically pin your wishes and dreams on.

But he’s endlessly more than that. He’s your dearest, truest friend in all the world. Thoughtful, kind, patient, selfless. Imperfect, but dryly humorous, sharply intelligent, secretly passionate, wistfully imaginative. A dream given breath. And since you’ve never been on a single date before and are quickly approaching your thirties, you’re willing to avail yourself to consulting any piece of internet-sourced advice that seems helpful.

“A light hand is essential,” the youtuber continues. “Make sure that by the end, the look doesn’t detract from your naturally beautiful features, but rather enhances them.”

After following along through the faintly-applied blush and mascara, removing and reapplying a couple things, you feel you’re close to the finished product presented in the video. So you sit back and don your glasses to have a look at yourself.

And you immediately viciously scoff. Your gaze travels over each portion of your face, and all you can see are the many areas you fall short.

“This is as good as it’s gonna get, huh?” you mumble to yourself with a half-smirk, trying for playfully sardonic.

But as you continue looking at yourself, all you see is something repulsive. And a large lump jumps into your throat. ‘Naturally beautiful features…’ No amount of makeup was ever going to help you if you didn’t have them.

Beginning to be flooded with a dreadful sense of hopelessness and futility, a familiar sizzling pain crests and ebbs in your chest, and you can feel the tears start to prick up in your eyes as your face contorts. But you don’t have time now to do the makeup over again if a tear trickles down your cheek. So just as a squeak arises from your throat, you shake your head, sniff, and quickly touch the tips of your ring fingers to the inner corners of your eyes, hoping to stem the flow and dry your tear ducts without ruining your hard work.

Still feeling the pain in your throat and chest, you take a deep breath and slowly let it out through pursed lips and puffed cheeks, hoping to abate it before there’s a need to panic.

When you glance up, your gaze snags on the little quote you’d taped to the corner of your mirror: “A smile is the best makeup any girl can wear.” – Marilyn Monroe

You grow still and allow yourself to think on the words and their meaning. Sure, she’d had men hurling themselves at her feet for her beauty; but she’d still said it. Sure, her life wasn’t the best example in the world to model oneself’s after. And taken out of context, the statement could conceivably be used to advocate for covering up one’s authentic feelings.

But even so, it resonates, and there seems to be a lot of human truth to it. The simple notion that a person’s joy is what draws others more than anything. The audacious hope that that could be enough.

Your eyes land on the little Polaroid photo you have of Arthur—caught in a candid and relaxed grin around the campfire, a rare moment of being unburdened. And you can’t help but smile. How you love him. Oh, how you do. Maybe it’s an audacious, laughable, repugnant reality, but it’s no less real for you. With all your heart, you do.

So after gazing down and pondering for a few more moments, you realize it’s all you can do to press on, to get up and go to your closet.

You try on several different things, ranging from a summer dress that ends at the knees, jeans, and a pencil skirt. But at the end of it all, you decide you’d be most comfortable covering up your overly plump body with a clay-hued bohemian-style tiered maxi skirt, inlaid with rows of crocheted lace. You pair it with a plain white cotton t-shirt and jean jacket, hoping it’ll offset the presence of makeup on your face, which you don’t find time to wear all that often.

Looping the strap of your crossbody satchel over your head, you glance at the time on your wrist and know you have to head out; you’d still like to be a bit early. You stand before your oval cheval mirror and spare one last look, trying hard to let yourself audaciously hope and to feel its effervescent bubbles, more than the empty resignation, deflated defeat, or agonizing loneliness that want to creep over you like shadows.

Squinting at your reflection and blinking back your tears, you sniff and gulp. Taking a deep breath, releasing it, and finally nodding to yourself, you manage to relax into an easy grin.

All you could do—the best you could do—was hope, and try. But wasn’t that all anybody could do?

.

Arthur flips his wrist over to check the time for the hundred-twenty-eighth time. Seeing that there’s still twenty-four minutes to get through before the agreed-upon time finally arrives, he wipes a splayed hand over his left eye socket and down over the side of his face with a whine. He unceremoniously plops his chin onto the heel of his hand. The dense pit of dread has long taken root and sprouted deep in his belly.

Why did he do this to himself? To you? He can’t believe that he ever let himself ask you out. Can’t believe that one sunny afternoon, sitting side by side with legs dangling over the edge of a nearby river’s bridge, he’d caught a glimpse of your smile, looked into your shimmering eyes filled with something like latent hope, felt the atmosphere settle and calm, and as if a teenager, simply asked if you’d like to go out with him.

Well…maybe he can.

Grinding out a deep groan and releasing a long sigh at his continuously growing realization of just how much of a goner he is for you, he drops his forehead into his palm.

Just as soon, he’s greeted with the memory of how quickly you’d jumped to accept his invitation. How clearly he can still see you in the warm, yellow glow of the setting sun: your gasp, your bright, beaming smile, and practically a little bounce where you sat.

The memory won’t release its hold on him without a proper smile and an almost indulgent chuckle. But it’s chased away by his very next thought—another about just how far away he is from deserving you, maybe even how bad he is for you—and he starts to realize what a fool he is. He never should’ve done this.

For what he hopes is the last time, he glances down at his watch to gauge whether he has enough time to make a getaway. Maybe he can call and let you know he wasn’t feeling well, and just maybe your treasured friendship will be salvageable after that. But it’s the only hope he’s got left.

So at the same time that the bell above the diner’s front door jostles and rings in the vague periphery of his attention, he makes a move to grab his scuffed, camel-hued jacket and black leather hat from the seat beside him. But as he looks up, it’s as if he’d inadvertently summoned you. For there you are, with your sparkling eyes, your easy, beautiful grin, your billowing skirt.

As he meets your gaze, he ends up standing anyway, as a gesture of respect and courtesy, maybe a natural result of the last grueling hour or so of anticipation he’d needlessly forced on himself.

You immediately sit and bounce a bit into the booth across from him with a buoyant smile, and he follows to sit himself.

“H-hi, Arthur. Hi,” you’re quietly murmuring as you unloop the strap of your satchel from around you and set it in the booth beside you, tucking your hair behind your ear. And only after you hear it do you realize you hadn’t had a moment to think on how idiotic it would sound, before you’d already said it. You push away the impulse to scold yourself and dwell on it. But though you keep a pleasant smile on your face, you seal your lips together in hopes of giving yourself the buffer of a few extra moments before you next speak.

“Hi,” he airily chuckles with a gracious grin.

“Thanks for invitin’ me,” you add as you get comfortable in the booth.

“Sure,” he says. “You look…great. Just lovely.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Nibbling your bottom lip and grinning sheepishly, you go to tuck your hair behind your ear again, finding it well and secure there. So you take the edge of your eyeglass frames between your fingers and adjust them instead. “You too. I mean—handsome,” you catch yourself.

“Aw, ‘at’s all right,” he drawls with a chuckle and glances down as a bashful rosiness brews across the tops of his cheeks, something you know he either isn’t aware of or hopes you’ll miss, but you don’t.

“You’re even earlier than me!” you tease. “How long you been waitin’?”

“Oh, uh…” he chuffs nervously and mumbles with a ferocious rub of his neck, “a while…”

You lift your laminated menu from the tabletop and peruse it. “So what’ll it be? What’s good here?”

“Pretty much everything,” his voice ambles.

“Well, what’re you in the mood for?”

“Haven’t had a chance to think about it,” he drawls.

“No?” you laugh, glancing up at him and back at the menu. “Fries are always good.”

It’s then that the waitress comes to your table with her pad and pencil to get your order.

“I’ll just have…a diet cherry and fries for now. Thank you. Arthur?” you look at him as she takes your menu.

“Uh, same,” he whispers with a small smile up at the waitress, raking his fingers back through his hair. “Same’s fine.”

As the waitress leaves, you watch his thick fingers make rows through his short locks and admire the golden hues that briefly flash at you here and there, catching the light through the softly rolling sea of light brown.

Fighting to be a little less mesmerized than usual, you pull yourself back to the moment.

“You all right?” he says, having paused when he caught your momentarily vacant expression.

“Oh, I’m fine,” you smile genuinely, resting your hands on the tabletop. “How ‘bout you?”

“Just fine, I guess.”

“You guess?” You always loved the syrupy way the word rolls off his tongue. But you know him well enough to know that when he uses it, there tends to be something slightly amiss.

Arthur finds himself pulled like a fish on a line to look at you fully in the face. And when he can’t resist, he finds a complete lack of pretense. No manipulation or contrivance. Only sincerity, anticipation, and happiness in your gaze. Hope.

“Well, I… Well, there is somethin'…I feel I sh-should probably say. If I can get it out.”

“Okay, sure. Anything,” you smile, bringing your hands to your lap and giving him your complete attention.

He clears his throat, begins to try to imagine how he’ll put it into words. “I, um…” his voice grows dim and hoarse, but he forces himself to continue. “Well, I been thinkin’. You know, I ain’t sure this is such a good idea.” Noticing the way your smile falters, he hurries to clarify. “Truth is… It’s only that— What I m-mean to say is…” Finally, he decides to try to lighten things with a dry, windy chuckle, a lighthearted smile, a soft shake of his head, and a use of your first name. He hopes it’ll all at least smudge the words he has to say. “Truth is, you’re just too good for me.”

He watches your smile completely vanish. And though your eyes are initially centered on him, he watches them skitter away to nothing. Watches you struggle to grin again and try to playfully roll your eyes before returning your gaze to him.

“That’s a joke, right?” you weakly chuckle, a pathetic, crumbled little sound. But you take note of his smooth expression as he silently, gently shakes his head in answer.

Once again, Arthur watches your smile disappear, more slowly. And this time, something in the shattered look in your eyes tells him it might be gone for good. That any effort to get back to a few moments ago would now be an uphill battle. He’s done it, and he hates himself for it.

“Who told you to say that?” you whisper, your voice hushed, but your tone is level and your words sharp. “Dutch? Micah?”

“What? No,” his brows gather sourly at the thought. “No, no. Ain’t heard hide nor hair a’ them in ages. No.”

“Then where'd it come from?” you effortlessly pin him down with quiet words.

“I—” But his breath is stunted as he pauses to contemplate the answer, with the way you’d put it to him. “Don’t rightly know,” he finally quietly admits.

Taking in the features of his starkly beautiful face, meekly solemn expression included, your own brows begin to draw up, and your mouth begins to sag. “Arthur,” you begin with a muted breath, your words slow and labored, “you have to know that you are so…so…so far out of my league.”

Again his brows briefly pinch, this time in faint confusion and dissent as he draws his chin back.

But you choose not to let him express it, opting instead to look him straight in the eyes and to try to get him to understand with a newly-discovered firmness in your tone: “So much so that words like that fall on my ears like a joke.”

The sharpness of the word to the ear lingers in the air between you.

You take another moment to decipher his expression, letting your eyes dart a little over his face. But there’s no duplicity there. Only complete earnestness. Just like the Arthur you know.

“But you’re serious,” you manage to whisper, more to yourself than to him.

He simply solemnly nods.

It’s more than enough to confirm it to you, and it sends cracks through your heart, sends your mind into a spiraling tangle. “Arthur…” you breathe, looking down into your lap and swallowing. “All my life, my whole life, all I’ve been shown…and told…are all the ways I don’t measure up. All the reasons I’m not good enough.”

“And now,” you continue, finding the boldness to look up at him and squinting a bit in your frustration and exasperation, “you’re tellin’ me I’m too good for you?”

You couldn’t think of any other way to say it, to make him see the perfect pit that had been left for you, that you’d fallen into.

When he only continues looking at you helplessly and fails to respond with words, you can tell he’s fully processing and thinking things through—what you said it’s been like for you and what you must be feeling in this moment. You’re just fine leaving him to the time he needs, at least a little more. So you glance down at nothing, first at the area where his chest is covered by his sage green button-down, then further down into your lap.

In the meantime, your own thoughts have brought you to the only abysmal conclusion you could find, the only one left. And you can’t keep your expression from crumpling. Can’t keep your heart from splintering, even as you sniff and squeak and pool with tears. “Ah, God. I think I…” you say with meager, broken syllables, “I’m just not meant to have this. Wasn’t ever meant to. I see that now.”

Inwardly berating himself for his apparent inability to make a single sound, Arthur can easily tell how sorrowful, how broken, even embarrassed you are. He notices the painful twitches of your mouth, and his heart twinges and clenches in response, as if seized in a cruel clamp. He watches you sputter and fight hard to remain collected, to gather your composure through the barrage of deep emotions. He knows you’re imagining your lonely life ahead and trying to accept it.

You finally glance up at him. And when you see him, you somehow find a brief soft smirk and a genuine, tisked chuckle to give him. “Arthur…” you breathe. Before long, you have to quickly return your gaze to your lap as the corners of your mouth are pulled down tight and your brows bunch together in pain. “I love you so much. I have for a long time, a real long time. And I always will.”

Arthur’s eyes flash wide, and his jaw hangs limp and askew. If he didn’t have the ability to speak before, it’s assuredly shriveled up and gone from him now; he feels an icy shock slowly seep through the blood in his veins and permeate his whole body.

As you look up at him again with those beautiful misty eyes, he notes the same soft, broken smirk on your mouth that was there a few moments ago. But a sorry slant draws your brows upward, and you give your head a slow, pitiful shake.

“But what am I doin’ here?” you ask softly.

Before he can fully register what’s happening, you’re turning to the side to grab your satchel and looping it over yourself again with truncated sniffles, making ready to leave. And Arthur’s damning himself for being so at a loss for any words.

Before you get up, you pause one last time, though you can’t muster the courage to look up at him. “I hope you find…what you truly deserve, Arthur.”

For a split moment, his eyes dart down at nothing, flitting to and fro across the empty tabletop as he puts all the pieces in place.

Just as you get up, the waitress returns with a round black platter and announces your orders of fries and sodas as she sets them on the table, blocking you from his view.

No way was he gonna let you go. Not out of his life, and not like that. He wouldn’t even risk it, not a chance. Especially not after the news that you love him.

In a panic, he hurriedly grabs his jacket and hat from the seat and stands to rush after you. Donning his hat, quickly slinging his jacket around his shoulders, and slipping his arms in, he winces when he’s snagged by the thought of having received the order of food and literally dashing. The last thing either of you need is an arrest for such a paltry thing.

“Shyit,” he hisses under his breath, keeping an eye on your form where you’re retrieving your transparent umbrella from the stand in the corner as he frantically pulls his wallet from his back pocket and flips into it for a few bills. Finally slapping them on the table, he practically launches off after you, just after you push your way through the front door and make it outside.

When he pushes past the door and steps in his sturdy boots out from under the awning into the rain, he calls out your name. And when you stop and begin to turn, he’s filled to the uttermost with leaping jitters. He couldn’t restrain his burgeoning grin then if he tried. Because as he stands there, rain pummeling his tanned jacket and pouring from the brim of his hat while he looks at you, he knows he won’t ruin his second chance. Not this moment, and not in life.

Trying to reign himself in just a touch, he looks up and away for a moment. But the thoughts of what he wants to say only serve to send his grin flashing more brightly over his mouth. So moving only his eyes first, he knowingly peers back at yours, closes his lips, and allows only the mischievously crimped crows’ feet embroidering his eyes to show his warm, latent elation.

“We’ve got two people,” he begins, his even voice veiled by the trickling sound of rain as he fully faces you and takes lazily sauntered steps until you’re a splayed hand's width apart, “who love each other, but don’t think they themselves are worth anything.”

The wispy sound of your voice catching, the stilled look in your eyes as you gaze up at him. They were exactly what he’d wanted. And he grins toothily in response.

“What’re we supposed to do with that?” he chuckles and loosely shrugs.

As he watches you look back and forth between his own eyes and notices your eyelids falter a bit, he imagines you’re experiencing a similar moment of realization and understanding to the one he had minutes ago. It’s one that strings in its wake a mingling of unbridled delight and unruly terror.

And though he knows growing accustomed to being loved will take time for the both of you, he can’t tarry another moment before removing his hat, holding it to his chest. Dipping his head under the edge of your umbrella, drawing close.

He looks into your eyes as he does it, his own gaze growing warmer all the while. He sees flashes of incredulousness, trepidation, nerves. Feels you hold onto your breath as he draws nearer. But a full wave of love and joy crashes down over him when he sees you drape your eyelids closed and slowly lift your beautiful jaw up to meet him. He tilts his head just a bit and only closes his eyes when he feels the treasured brush of your lips.

It’s the barest, softest touch of his mouth to yours. And that’s all it needs to be. Lips fitting miraculously with lips, as if puzzle pieces fitting perfectly flush beside each other.

You couldn’t possibly have imagined how plush Arthur’s lips are, how tenderly and gently such a man could kiss, or what it would feel like to kiss and be kissed by him. Such sweet and respectful affection, a hopeful promise from one dear and precious friend to another. It saturates your world and your heart with a vibrant new color.

It’s a brief few moments stretched like dough into an impossible few minutes, as if your heart held its breath mid-beat along with you, refusing to resume its life-giving rhythm until the miraculous play of skin-on-skin was complete.

When Arthur pulls away, you ruminate in the sensation of him that lingers on your lips. And it takes you several moments to finally open your eyes and look back at him. He’s already returned his hat to his head, and the rain is still dripping from its brim.

Arthur keeps his eyes locked with yours, keeps his gaze steady on your seemingly unmoving expression. It’s when you start to slowly take a step backwards under the awning that he takes note of the way it crinkles an almost imperceptible amount, the way your eyes are quickly filling full with bulbous tears. He watches you lower your umbrella and back up until you’re flat against the wall of the diner. Watches your throat pulse a bit as you gulp, watches your hands softly stir at your sides. Something in you is squirming, and he can’t quite place it.

“You all right?” he finally asks with genuine concern.

“I never thought that would happen to me,” you quietly admit, sipping back hiccups as your chest rises and falls heavily. “Just trying to be cool about it.”

And his face relaxes with understanding and sincere empathy. “You’re just fine, darlin’,” he graciously chuckles.

You take a breath and hang your head. “Um, do you wanna…try again,” you mumble weakly, “for another date?”

“Yeah,” he smiles and nods.

“Okay,” you squeak in a little high-pitched cry as you bring the stretched web between your thumb and first finger under your glasses and over your eyes, and nod together with him.

Arthur can’t yank back the quiet, huffed giggle that leaps out of him at the endearing sight of you. Trying so hard to be your idea of mature and suave, yet so thoroughly overwhelmed with relief, gratefulness, joy, and a multitude of other complex emotions, in addition to what he now knows is steadfast love.

He walks over to you under the awning and slides his hand down your lonely wrist. He slips his palm into yours, intertwines his fingers with yours, and brings the back of your palm up to his lips, planting a few pecks there.

When you feel it and come to, you pull your hand away from your face and look up to see his entrancing, jewel-like blue-green eyes on you. Laughing through your sniffles, you throw your arms around his midsection, wrapping him in a hug until your tear-stained cheek finds its way past his thick tan jacket to rest on his smooth button-down. You feel yourself melt into the warm panels of his broad chest, not caring in the least if your glasses smush, or if you leave a tear-puddle on his shirt or an imprint of his buttons on your face.

“I’ve wanted to just hold you for so long, Arthur. So long,” you whisper as you feel him bring his big arms around you too.

Contemplating just how long it might’ve been for you both, Arthur rests his cheek atop your head and nestles it there. But when he thinks on the future ahead, a peaceful smile inches its way onto his mouth. He brings his large hand up and brushes your hair back from your face, tucking it behind your ear.

“We won’t ever be lonely again, Love. It’s you an’ me.”

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