.☘︎ ݁˖ strangers to lovers headcanons with arthur morgan - mdni! (light smut)
Arthur Morgan, who first truly notices you when he catches you grooming his horse.
Arthur loves his horse more than most people, and he’s fiercely protective of the animal. For weeks, he’d seen you around camp – the quiet girl who didn't make a fuss – but it wasn't until he returned from a short hunting session with Charles to find you meticulously brushing the grime from his horse's coat that he actually saw you.
He stopped in his tracks, leaning against a nearby wagon, watching the way your small hands worked with such tenderness.
You hadn’t only been cleaning his horse. Rather, you were whispering to it, your voice a soft melody that seemed to calm even the most spirited beast. He watched the way you leaned in to kiss the horse's velvet nose, a genuine, sweet smile lighting up your face.
In that moment, the hardness in Arthur’s chest cracked just a little. He felt a strange, sudden pull toward you, a desire to be the recipient of that kind of gentleness.
He didn't say much then – just a gruff “Thank you, Miss” – but as he walked away, he found himself glancing back over his shoulder.
He couldn't stop thinking about the softness of your expression and the way you handled something he loved with such genuine care.
Arthur Morgan, who starts spotting you everywhere you go around camp.
Once he noticed you, it was as if a veil had been lifted. Suddenly, you were the center of his periphery.
Whether he was cleaning his rifle by the fire or chatting with Hosea, his eyes would instinctively drift toward you. He’d watch you helping Pearson with the stew, the way you laughed at something Mary-Beth said, or the way you tucked a stray lock of hair behind your ear while reading a book by the lantern light.
He began to find excuses to be near you. He’d linger by the horse picket longer than necessary, or he’d “happen” to be walking toward the coffee pot just as you were arriving.
Arthur loved the quietness of your presence: you didn't demand anything from him, and you didn't judge the blood on his knuckles or the weariness in his eyes.
You just smiled at him – a small, shy thing that made his heart hammer against his ribs like a trapped bird.
He started noticing the little things: the scent of wild herbs that clung to your skin, the way your voice hitched when you were nervous, and the way you looked at him with a curiosity that felt like a warm blanket.
Truth be told, he was terrified of these feelings, but he was even more terrified of the thought of you disappearing from his sight.
Arthur Morgan, who begins bringing you wildflowers from the fields during his rides.
Arthur isn't a man for poetry or fancy gestures, but he found himself captivated by the colors of the wilderness.
On his scouting trips, while the world was quiet and the wind was whistling through the pines, he’d spot a patch of bright yellow primrose or a cluster of deep blue cornflowers. He’d stop his horse, look at the blooms, and immediately think of you.
He’d awkwardly pluck a handful, stuffing them into his satchel, feeling like a fool for doing so.
“What am I doing..?” He’d mutter to himself, shaking his head.
But the moment he rode back into camp and saw you, the embarrassment vanished, replaced by a desperate need to see you smile.
He wouldn't make a grand production of it. He’d walk up to you while you were working, clear his throat loudly, and thrust the slightly wilted bunch of flowers toward you without looking you in the eye.
“Saw these. Thought... thought you might like 'em.” He’d grumble, his cheeks flushing a deep red.
“Why thank you, Arthur. They’re… well, they’re gorgeous.” You’d reply, face heating up as you grinned up at him.
But when you took them, your fingers brushing his rough skin, and thanked him with that beaming smile, Arthur felt a rush of warmth that no amount of whiskey could ever provide.
Arthur Morgan, who lets his guard down during a drunken slow dance at a camp celebration.
The camp was in high spirits, the air thick with the smell of roasting meat and the sound of a fiddle playing a lively tune.
Arthur had been drinking – more than usual – and the whiskey had softened the edges of his anxiety. When the music shifted to something slower, more melodic, he found himself standing near you.
The courage of the bottle pushed him forward.
He reached out a large, calloused hand, his voice low and slightly slurred.
“Dance with me... please?”
You didn't hesitate, sliding your hand into his.
Arthur was a mountain of a man, and he felt clumsy as he pulled you close, his boots stepping slightly out of time. He wasn't a dancer – he was a fighter and a killer. But as he felt your body press against his, the world around them blurred.
He loosened up, his grip on your waist tightening just a fraction as he rested his chin on the top of your head.
Closing his eyes, he let himself breathe in the scent of your hair, swaying slowly to the music. For a few minutes, he wasn't an outlaw on the run; he was just a man holding the woman he loved.
“Yer real pretty…” He whispered incoherently yet sweetly into your ear, a confession born of alcohol and longing, and for the first time in years, Arthur felt truly at peace.
Arthur Morgan, who finally kisses you after you help him back to his cot.
The party had wound down, and the whiskey had finally caught up with him. Arthur was stumbling, his head spinning, and you were the one who caught him, looping his heavy arm over your shoulder to guide him back to his small, secluded corner of the camp.
He was leaning heavily on you, his breath warm and smelling of rye, his gaze fixed on you with an intensity that made your skin tingle.
As you helped him lower himself onto the cot, you lingered for a moment, your hand resting on his chest to steady him. You started to pull away, but Arthur’s hand shot out, gripping your wrist with a surprising firmness.
He pulled you down, and before you could gasp, his lips were on yours.
It wasn't a polished kiss; it was desperate, hungry, and filled with all the words he had been too scared to say. He tasted of alcohol and longing, his beard scratching your skin, but the heat of it was intoxicating.
While he groaned into your mouth, his hand moved from your wrist to the back of your neck, pulling you deeper into him. When he finally pulled back, his eyes were clouded with emotion, his forehead resting against yours.
“I've wanted to do that... for so damn long.” He whispered, his voice cracking.
Meanwhile, you had hidden your face in the crook of his neck, too speechless to reply.
Boyfriend!Arthur, who is a mess of shyness and awkwardness the morning after.
The sunlight filtering through the canvas of the tent felt far too bright the next morning.
When you woke up and looked over at Arthur, he was already awake, staring at the ceiling with a look of sheer panic on his face. The bravado of the whiskey was gone, replaced by a raw, vulnerable uncertainty.
Whenever you tried to speak, he shifted away slightly, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Mornin’...” He muttered, his voice gravelly.
He couldn't quite look you in the eye, his ears turning a bright shade of crimson. He was terrified that he had overstepped, that you would regret the kiss, or that he was simply too ruined of a man to be what you deserved.
But as the day progressed, the awkwardness turned into a tender, tentative courtship. He started holding your hand in secret, his large thumb stroking your knuckles while you walked. He’d leave little notes or pieces of candy on your bedroll.
He was still the rugged outlaw, but with you, he was a boy in love, constantly checking to make sure you were happy, his eyes following you with a devotion that was almost painful to witness.
Boyfriend!Arthur, who treats your first time together with a reverence that borders on sacred.
The transition from kissing to something more happened on a quiet, moonlit night, far from the prying eyes of the camp. He had led you to a secluded spot by a stream, the grass soft beneath you.
Arthur was trembling – not from cold, but from a sheer, overwhelming nervousness. He had spent his life taking things by force or fighting for survival; the idea of being gentle, of truly cherishing someone, was terrifying.
As he stripped away your clothes, his hands were shaking. He kept pausing, looking into your eyes for permission, his voice a low, unsteady rumble.
“You sure? I– I don't want to hurt you. I'm not– I ain’t a gentle man, darlin’.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more sure in my life, Arthur.”
You’d assured him that you wanted him, and the look of relief and desire that crossed his face was heartbreakingly sweet.
When he finally entered you, he did so with agonizing slowness. He stopped the moment he felt any resistance, his muscles locking up, his breath hitching in his throat.
He stayed still, his forehead pressed against yours, waiting for you to adjust, whispering praises into your skin.
“Yer so tight… fuck, sweetheart.” He hissed, his voice thick with emotion.
He didn't rush. He focused entirely on your pleasure, his movements patient and rhythmic. Every time you gasped or arched your back, he would slow down, kissing every inch of your face, ensuring you were with him every step of the way.
“M– Mmh! Arthur… feels s’good..!” You’d mewled into his ear, and he responded by capturing your lips in a kiss.
Arthur was so focused on your comfort that he almost forgot his own needs, his heart hammering against your chest.
And when he finally came inside with a groan against your ear, he'd let go. He collapsed against you, sobbing quietly into your neck, finally feeling like he belonged to someone.
Boyfriend!Arthur, who becomes incredibly protective and affectionate in the aftermath.
After that night, Arthur changed. The softness he had shown you became a permanent part of his demeanor when you were alone. He became your shadow, always ensuring you were fed, warm, and safe.
If another man looked at you for a second too long, Arthur didn't need to say a word; one dark, warning glare from beneath the brim of his hat was enough to send them scurrying.
But with you, he was a different man.
He loved to wake you up with soft kisses on your shoulder, his large body curling around yours like a protective shield. He started talking to you about his past: the things he regretted, the dreams he had given up on.
He trusted you with the parts of himself he had hidden from Dutch and the gang; the parts that were fragile and frightened.
He’d spend hours just watching you, his hand resting on the small of your back, a look of pure, unadulterated adoration on his face.
He still brought you flowers, but now he’d tuck them into your hair, his fingers lingering against your skin.
He had found something in you that he thought was lost to the world: a reason to believe that he was more than just a gun for hire.
︵ ೀ fluff. you call satoru by his last name in public and he is a bit dramatic about it
the staff meeting at jujutsu high was supposed to be the most boring hour of your week, the kind where yaga talks about statistics and everyone quietly checks how many minutes are left before they can go get lunch.
but you and satoru had gotten into a fight that morning, one of those stupid arguments that starts over something small and somehow spirals into “well maybe you just don’t think about anyone but yourself,” and neither of you had really resolved it before you both had to show up to work like functioning adults.
so when he strolled into the conference room fifteen minutes late, blindfold pushed up onto his head, grinning like the whole world owed him a good morning, you didn’t even glance up from your notebook.
“morning, morning, did everyone miss me?” he said, dropping into the seat next to yours like nothing at all had happened between the two of you a few hours earlier.
“gojo,” you said, without looking up, your voice perfectly even, like you were greeting a coworker you barely knew.
the entire room seemed to freeze for a second. not satoru. not babe, not the nickname you swore you’d never use in public but absolutely used constantly at home. just gojo, delivered with all the warmth of a weather report.
nanami’s eyebrows climbed so high they nearly disappeared into his hairline. shoko made a small choking sound and had to set her coffee cup down before she embarrassed herself further. even yaga, who had seen a thousand strange things happen in this school, paused his sentence about budget allocations to look between the two of you like he’d wandered into the middle of a drama he hadn’t signed up for.
satoru blinked, the smile faltering just slightly at the corners. “huh?”
you flipped a page in your notebook and underlined something that absolutely did not need underlining, just to have somewhere to put your hands.
“did you,” he started, sitting up straighter now, all his earlier ease draining out of him, “did you seriously just gojo me?”
“can we please get back to the agenda,” you said, addressing the room in general rather than him specifically.
nanami cleared his throat and tried to steer things back on track. “as i was saying, the eastern district has seen an uptick in curse activity over the past—”
“she gojo’d me,” satoru interrupted, loud enough that the whole table heard it, staring at you with the wounded expression of a man who had just watched his house burn down in front of him. “in front of everyone. she used my last name like i’m a substitute teacher.”
you still didn’t look at him. you clicked your pen closed, then open again, then closed, a habit you knew drove him up the wall, and said nothing at all.
“focus, gojo,” you said again, watching the way his whole soul seemed to leave his body when you said it a second time was a little more satisfying than you’d expected.
“okay. okay, everybody hold on,” satoru said, raising both hands like he was trying to talk down an actual hostage situation. “nobody move, nobody speak, something has gone horribly wrong here. she just used my government name. in public. on purpose.”
“that is your name,” nanami pointed out, deadpan, not even looking up from his own notes.
“not to her it isn’t! not in four years has she ever once called me gojo, and now suddenly, out of nowhere, in the middle of a staff meeting, she’s talking to me like i’m a stranger she met at the post office—” he turned to you again, voice climbing with real panic now. “okay, you know what, meeting’s over, everyone go home, thank you for coming, we’ll reschedule—”
“the meeting,” yaga said flatly, unimpressed, “is not over.”
“it is for me!” satoru stood so fast his chair scraped loudly against the floor, then leaned across the table toward you, blindfold slipping further down his forehead, genuine desperation creeping into his voice. “what did i do. just tell me what i did and i’ll fix it. is this about the mission partner thing? it’s the mission partner thing, isn’t it. i can undo it. i can un-fix the fixing. i can grovel right here in front of everyone if that’s what this requires—”
you finally looked up to deliver the final blow with the sweetest, most devastating calm you could manage:
“i’m not sure what you mean, gojo. we’re in the middle of a meeting.”
that was the moment the room completely lost it. shoko was laughing so hard into her coffee cup that she had to set it down entirely, wiping at her eyes. nanami pressed a hand over his face like he was praying for the strength to survive this job for one more day. even yaga, who never smiled during meetings on principle, was clearly biting back one now, badly.
“that’s it,” satoru said, dropping back into his chair. “fine. that’s fine. be like that. see if i care. i am literally the strongest sorcerer in the world and i am being disrespected in my own place of employment, in front of my own coworkers, by my own—” he lowered his voice for the last part, leaning toward you like it was a secret, “—girlfriend, who apparently doesn’t remember that we live together and that i know exactly what cereal she eats and exactly what she looks like without—”
“gojo,” nanami cut in, exhausted, “please let the meeting continue.”
“see! even he can feel that something is deeply wrong here! the temperature in this room actually dropped! shoko, did the temperature just drop or was that just me—”
you allowed yourself the smallest, most private smile, tucked safely behind the cover of your notebook, as the strongest sorcerer alive continued to unravel in real time over exactly one syllable of his own last name, in front of the entire senior staff of jujutsu high, on a random tuesday morning.
by the time you got home that evening, satoru had clearly spent the whole day rehearsing something, because the second you walked through the door he was already there, hovering, almost vibrating with nervous energy like a dog that knows it did something wrong but isn’t sure what.
“okay so,” he said, following you into the kitchen, “i’ve been thinking about this literally all day, and i want to formally apologize, on the record, for the mission partner thing, and also i want to say, for the record, that what you did today was actually kind of terrifying and i need you to never do it again.”
“do what,” you said, setting your bag down like you had no idea what he could possibly mean, even though you absolutely did.
“you know what,” he said, sliding an arm around your waist from behind before you could even take your jacket off, chin dropping onto your shoulder. “the gojo thing. please. i’m begging you. never again.”
“it’s your name,” you said, echoing nanami from earlier, and you felt him groan directly into your shoulder.
“it is not my name when you say it like that,” he mumbled. “when you say it like that it sounds like you’re breaking up with me in front of witnesses. i had to sit there for an entire meeting wondering if this was it, if this was the day my girlfriend decided she’d had enough of me and was breaking the news.”
you turned around in his arms, biting back a laugh, and he immediately seized the opportunity to rest his forehead against yours, eyes closed like he was bracing for more punishment.
“so you admit you deserved it,” you said.
“i admit nothing,” he said, “except that i am deeply, deeply sorry, and that i will never again swap your mission partner without telling you first, and that if you ever call me gojo again in public i will actually die.”
“say please.”
“please,” he said immediately, no hesitation at all, pulling you in tighter like he was worried you might change your mind and use his last name right there in the kitchen just to torture him further. “please, please, i’ll do anything, i’ll even do paperwork, just—just be normal about it. call me anything else. call me an idiot, call me insufferable, i don’t care, just not that.”
“fine,” you said, finally letting the smile show. “satoru.”
the relief on his face was almost embarrassing, the way his whole body seemed to unclench at once, like you’d just lifted some enormous curse off him.
“thank you,” he said, dramatic as ever, pressing a kiss to your forehead, then your cheek, then finally your mouth. “never again. i mean it. that was the scariest six words of my entire life and i’ve fought curses that wanted to eat my ass.”
“it was one word,” you pointed out.
“it felt like six,” he said, and pulled you into a hug so tight it nearly knocked the breath out of you, laughing into your hair, all traces of this morning’s fight forgiven, or at least thoroughly overridden by how badly he never wanted to hear his own last name from you again.
practicing my hot weather affirmations. You are not evil, you are just sweating. You do not hate your friends you are just walking down a street with no shade. You aren’t anger incarnate, you just need a glass of water.
Not rdr, but still a western. This is my thesis project is based on the book "The Quick and the Dead" by Louis L'Amour. I stumbled upon this book and decided to illustrate it
