#ch. 25 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sednonamoris · 1 year ago

Text

arsonist’s lullaby

Pairing: John Marston x gn!reader

Summary: With Sean dead and the Confederate gold nowhere to be found, the Braithwaites learn exactly why boys are off-limits.

Warnings: Canon-typical violence/gore, canonical character death, arson/fiery deaths, angst, kidnapping, toxic loyaltyyyyy

Word count: 2,777

A/N: Emerging from my absence to post this chapter and fade back into the ether ✌️

Series masterlist • AO3

—

In the end, it’s a perfectly ordinary day when things come to a head.

Midsummer sun has beat down all day, only just now mellowing to a deep orange, early evening glow. Standing halfway up the path to camp on guard duty, nothing remarkable has happened at all, except maybe the number of deerflies you’ve had to fend off. Like the heat alone isn’t enough.

Micah and Sean and Bill rode into town on business earlier. Sean jabbered something about meeting up with Arthur and that Gray sheriff, but he was insistent on keeping the rest a mystery. High profile stuff, you know. Not for old-timers like you to worry about. You just rolled your eyes and sent him on his way.

Other than that, it’s been awfully quiet— Even after Karen and Bill and Lenny and Arthur hit Valentine’s bank the other week. If you were a more suspicious person you might call it too quiet, but it’s been nice to have a bit of a break. You and John have hardly spent a moment apart. Camp chores go quicker together, you tell everyone, but it hardly takes a genius to see you’re more attached at the hip than ever. Moving sacks of cornmeal and haying horses and chopping wood doesn’t usually result in the lovestruck looks stuck on your faces, after all.

Arthur, too, has enjoyed the down time. If he isn’t sharing a cup of morning coffee with his wife then he’s reading storybooks to his surrogate son, complete with ridiculous voices. He puts on a deep, gruff baritone for the bad guys, then pitches higher for a hero that sounds suspiciously like Jack. It’s sweet. The mantle of secondhand fatherhood fits snugly across his broad shoulders, and you can’t help but feel that if anyone ever deserved a second chance at all this, it’s him.

John’s been watching them with the strangest mix of joy and wistfulness and regret and shame. It’s always gone in a blink. You never quite know what to say.

But there’s no time to ruminate further when a slow, steady, thumping lope comes within earshot. You almost miss it, lost in thought.

“Who goes there?”

You’re not sure why you bother asking; the footfalls are too heavy to be anyone but Bill on Brown Jack. When they come into view there’s a tense set to Bill’s shoulders and unease in the whites of Brown Jack’s eyes. You see something slung behind the saddle, unmoving.

A body.

You only register it as Sean when he slows to a stop beside you.

It’s jarring to see the lively young Irishman so horribly, deathly still. His clothes are stained with blood and singed from bullets, but the gaping hole in his head is what turns your stomach and raises your hackles as well as the hairs on the back of your neck. Pulpy brains. Shards of skull. A once-bright eye bulged, crooked and unseeing. A damn good headshot.

Who would be gunning for him? you think. But really, after all the trouble you’ve been stirring down here, who wouldn’t? It’s only been a matter of weeks since you and the boys stole those horses. Less since he and Arthur burned the tobacco fields.

You look up at Bill after a long moment.

“Wanna tell me how the fuck you got the kid killed?” you say, voice low. Simmering. Seething in the summer heat.

Bill’s expression is caught between guilt and resentment. “It was them Gray boys.”

“Them Gray boys?”

“They were waitin’ for us! Arthur… well, he reckons they figured us out. Talked to that Braithwaite woman, I mean.”

“Where is he? Alive?”

“He and Micah ain’t far behind. Don’t expect they’ll be comin’ together.”

You don’t know what to say to that, so you just shake your head and try to think past the blood pounding through your eardrums. Ringing in your skull. “We gotta bury him.”

“I know,” he snaps.

Where would Sean want to be buried? With a view of the water? In the shade of the trees? Certainly not alone, but there’s little choice there. “We gotta— He deserves someplace decent.”

“I know.” Softer, this time. “...There’s a quiet spot up the other side of the path.”

You nod. “Don’t let the girls see.”

—

The air is thick and stagnant even as the afternoon fades into evening. You’ve always hated digging graves, and this heat only makes it worse. Cicadas hum. Flies buzz. Bill picked a good spot out of the dying sun, but sweat still pours down both of your faces and necks, soaking through your shirts. Salt stings your eyes and the tip of your tongue.

Once the hole is deep enough, Bill does his best to arrange whatever’s left of Sean with some dignity; arms crossed, a coin over his intact eye. It’s still a sorry sight. You take the pistol from his holster to give to Karen and let its dead weight rest in your belt while you and Bill get to burying. When the work is done, he stutters a few insufficient words over a yet-unmarked grave. He looks to you, then, and you fish your flask off your belt and take a strong swig before pouring a generous amount over the freshly turned earth.

“Cheers, brother,” says a hollow voice that sounds like yours. “Save us a seat.”

You don’t bother saying where.

—

Karen hits you when you tell her. A full arm swing. Open-palmed. Then again when you hand her the pistol.

You let her.

Feels like the least you can do.

—

The evening passes in a haze of numb grief. You don’t know what to do with yourself, so you hide, only emerging from your tent when you hear raised voices outside Dutch’s.

“Where’s my goddamn son?” Abigail demands. “They took him, didn’t they? They took my son!”

And Jesus if this day couldn’t get worse. Your eyes scan the camp, like you’d be able to spot little Jack where his mother couldn’t. The sick feeling that’s been festering in your stomach since Sean’s burial twists and writhes and weighs you down like lead. Everyone knows missing is about as good as dead these days, but you don’t dare say that to Abigail.

“Where is my son, Dutch Van der Linde?!”

More and more begin to crowd around the commotion. The girls lay consoling hands on Abigail’s shoulders that quake with anger and fear. Arthur’s face is grim and drawn beside her. John’s is shadowed behind them, torn between guilt and anger. Hosea pushes past the throng to lay blame on the Braithwaites— at least, he says Kieran saw some boys what looked like Braithwaites not far from camp earlier. After what happened in town today, you have to admit it makes sense. Both families have you figured out, and they’re out for their pound of flesh.

As if Sean wasn’t enough already.

“We will find Jack, we will bring him back to you, and we will kill any fool that had the temerity to touch one hair on that boy’s head,” Dutch vows in answer to Abigail’s frantic questioning. “Right now.”

And he turns on his heel and makes toward The Count to do just that. Everyone follows. Bill calls out asking about extra guns that are accepted readily. Micah and Kieran are ordered to protect the camp while you’re all away. Weapons drawn, eyes blazing, you mount your horses and make off into the night.

This is the warpath. The beating hooves and rushing blood. Moonshine canters steadily beneath you, keeping stride with Old Boy and Arthur’s mount on either side. It’s been a long time since the whole gang has ridden out like this, chomping at the bit for a bloodletting.

“I swear, I’ll kill everyone there!” John snarls. He’s settled into his anger now, quicker on its draw than his pistol.

“Easy, Marston,” Arthur says. His voice is low and dangerous like how he warns off strangers. Not family. Not John. “You don’t check your shots, Jack’ll end up dead too.”

“Don’t tell me to take it easy! That’s my—” but John chokes on the word before he can get it out.

Son, he was going to say. That’s his son.

But Jack is as much Arthur’s as he is John’s anymore, and right now neither one can stand it. You can’t bear to look at the fear nor the anger nor the burning blame in either of their eyes.

—

The oaks that line the path to Braithwaite Manor are always imposing, but here in the dusky nighttime you swear you can feel their ancient eyes watching. Bloody roots gorged on bloodstained grounds; twisted, gnarled branches grasping for a Heaven they’ll never reach. There are few stars that shine through the scattered clouds in the early night sky, but you wish upon every one that Jack is safe, and you vow that no one will make it out of here alive if he isn’t.

Everyone dismounts at the gate. Beside you John and Arthur are tense. Mouths set, trigger fingers twitching, eyes aflame with a primal sort of anger and fear that can only come from losing a child. Dutch, too, is furious. The fact that anyone would touch one of his own is normally enough to have him ranting, almost frothing at the mouth, but he must sense that Arthur and John need him calm.

Calmer than them, anyhow.

Ahead, the manor house is lit with a warm orange glow from its pillared porch. The moon casts strange light across the shadowy night, flickering in and out of cloud cover. There is only the sound of gravel beneath your boots and anticipation.

“Get down here now, you inbred trash!” Dutch bellows at the first sight of the Braithwaite boys.

“What the hell do you want?” they call back, like they don’t know.

John makes to aim his gun and you brush against his shoulder as a comfort and a warning. He snarls but doesn’t shoot. Not yet.

Dutch continues, “We’ve come for the boy. You must’ve known we would.”

Arthur is little better off, glaring holes in the heads of every Braithwaite son and cousin and uncle and friend that emerges from the looming house. There’s more of them by the minute. You feel everyone tense around you. Their guns aren’t lifted - not yet - but all it will take is a sign from Dutch.

Not yet.

“That is a young boy. That is not the way you do things. Hand him over.”

“Get the hell off our land!”

Not yet.

Dutch’s eyes darken in challenge. He doesn’t so much as turn his head toward any of you, but the shift in energy is electric. The whole world holds its breath.

“If you ain’t gonna be civilized about this…”

Now.

All at once everyone opens fire. It’s a symphony of gunfire, bullets screaming by from every direction. You pull John behind a crate just as one grazes his ear. He snarls out a curse while you kill the man on the balcony who shot at him. The body tumbles over the railing and stains the steps red with blood and brains.

Dutch calls out marching orders, but through the din he’s nearly impossible to hear. John heads inside. You follow suit. The manor doors swing wide open like the unhinged jaw of a snake, welcoming you into the belly of the beast.

“Jack!”

“Where are you, kid?”

“Jack!”

His name echoes off expensive oak floors and through lofted ceilings. You tear through the lower floor like someone possessed, ripping open mahogany chests and finely stained china cabinets and the couch cushions of richly-rugged sitting rooms. Anywhere a little boy might fit. Then plenty of places he wouldn’t just for good measure.

Somewhere in the rush you lose John. Over the gurgling rasp of a Braithwaite son’s last breath you hear him shout something from upstairs. You make to run up the winding staircase but stop dead in your tracks when you see Catherine Braithwaite being kicked down them.

Dutch sneers, his lip curled with generational distaste for a man who preaches against revenge. She’s sobbing, spewing vitriol with every shaky breath. All her sons are dead now. You can see it in the gape of her burnt ash mouth. In the flames that lick the polished wood floors from their dropped torches. In the fire reflected back in Dutch’s eyes.

—

Jack isn’t there. Catherine Braithwaite uses her last breaths to gloat that he’s been sold to a man in the city.

Sold.

You watch Dutch let her go, then watch still as she runs screaming into the flames. The house collapses over a shrieking phantom of the Deep South with a groan and a sigh. By the color of the flames it’ll burn for hours yet.

The trees stare as you leave, gorged on blood and ash.

—

Dawn comes blood red and brutal, streaking through the sky with its first light warning. Dutch, John, Hosea, and Arthur are all gathered around the camp table to discuss your next moves. Whatever those are, though, you can’t imagine. John didn’t sleep a wink last night, just staring at tent canvas and stewing in blame. He looks awful. Everyone does.

You’re sat next to Abigail by the campfire. She says nothing, but the hunch of her shoulders and the blue-hot flame of her eyes tells you there’s nothing to be said. Her boy is gone. Missing.

You brought her a bowl of porridge for breakfast, but neither of you is up for eating much. She stares into the fire while it sits untouched in her lap. You push your oats around with the spoon and pretend not to eavesdrop.

Of course Marston’s scared rotten, Arthur says in hushed tones. I am too. We killed all them people— for what? For nothin’. There ain’t no gold here.

For living, Dutch corrects him, and you can’t help but think it’s a shame that not all of you got to that part. The living. Sean is dead and gone forever. For all you know, Jack might be too.

But all of that is put immediately to rest when Lenny walks into camp with two Pinkerton agents at gunpoint.

Milton and Ross, they call themselves, swaggering through the whole of camp like you’re not all outlaws and thieves. Killers. Everyone stands as they pass, slowly circling in like vultures to the promise of violence.

The matching felt bowler hats on their heads can’t hide the pockmarks on Milton’s face nor the smug, bristling mustache on Ross’. The government is surely paying a pretty penny for your capture if the fineness of their clothes is anything to go by. Their shoes are shined and polished. You can’t help but notice the way the red Rhodes clay oozes up beneath the soles and paints them muddy.

“This thing? It’s done,” Milton announces when he makes his way to Dutch.

Dutch barely bothers to turn and face him. He doesn’t stand. Everyone else slowly, slowly creeps closer. One step at a time. All coming together. Vultures. Violence.

Things like this are never just done.

Never.

Milton calls Dutch a lot of things. A shepherd of lost souls. A messiah. Sarcasm drips from the syllables, and you wonder how he might react if you told him Dutch was the only god to answer a single one of your prayers. Even Swanson lost touch with Christ long ago. Now when he falters he begs Dutch Van der Linde for forgiveness. All of you do.

“I’m nothing but a seeker, Mr. Milton,” Dutch finally says.

Milton’s eyes narrow. There's a faint expression you can’t quite place on his face when he replies, “You ain’t much of anything more than a killer, Mr. Van der Linde.”

He offers freedom, then. Three days to run and hide and live like civilized human beings in exchange for Dutch. It’s almost laughable.

Dutch steps forward and every gun in camp cocks. Agent Milton seems suddenly to remember how very much outnumbered and outgunned he is.

“I think your new friend should leave, Dutch,” Ms. Grimshaw says.

Milton calls it a mistake, calls you all fools, but the only foolish mistake you can see is letting them live.

—

John and Arthur leave together after all that. They make for a place called Shady Belle and promise Abigail it’s close to the city where her son is being held. A good spot to camp while everyone does what they can to bring that little boy home.

Looking at Karen, miserable and bleary-eyed drunk, you can’t help but think it’s awfully far from Sean’s grave.

#john marston x reader #rdr x reader #rdr2 x reader #ghost story #fran writes #ch. 25

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