scarleeto

[scarleeto]

to give [arthur morgan x reader]

summary: after returning from Guarma amidst his battle with tuberculosis, you look after Arthur with a little bit of grooming when all he wants is to look after you.

masterlist

1.8k

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It was getting harder to deny that he was getting worse. Seeing him most days tended to soften the blow. It seemed unfair to even consider the metaphor of the boiling frog, he was the one in the metaphorical pot afterall, but the similarities were there. This life was slowly boiling him to death.

Only after he had come back from Guarma had you fully comprehended the gravity of the situation. The symptoms of tuberculosis and being shipwrecked had all blended together, but it hardly mattered, your mind was not on the cause of his state, rather the result. Arthur was going to die.

That simple fact was the only thing running through your head as you watched him; sat on his cot, keeled over himself, forcefully expelling a gut wrenching cough from his throat. It put up a fight, stuck in his lungs like a fly in honey, and it took a while for him to battle it out. You blinked away the tears brimming in your eyes. It was one thing to kill a man, in this life it was commonplace enough, but to watch a man who had lost the ability to fight back fade away was different.

Once his thunderous cough had diminished into wheezes, he regained his composure and was able to claw his way back to reality. “Sorry,” his voice had returned to him in rocky mumbles.

You would have pinned his demure tone to embarrassment if you had not known him better, if you had not known that it was down to nothing more than genuine guilt. He knew how much it hurt you to see him like this. Your whole life you had been prepared for his death, as he was for yours, as an occupational hazard, but this was not to merely die, but to creep out of existence as a ghost. It tore you up that he knew that was how you felt; a brave face could only go so far with a man you had known for the better half of your life.

“It’s okay,” you reassured him as your hand reached for the razor for a second time.

Much to your relief, he had finally let you tame his beard that had grown so much in his absence. It was not pride that had stopped him from allowing you sooner, it was his priorities, and he had decided, once again, that the gang took priority over himself. If it were not for the fact that he looked like a walking corpse, this unconscious decision of his told you his fate.

As you lathered the soap onto his beard, he said nothing, instead he leaned into your touch, letting out a shaky exhale with drooping eyes. You tried to be as gentle as possible, your touches perhaps much lighter than they needed to be as you carved the lather from his gaunt cheeks, reaping a small relief of folded soap and bead trimmings that you promptly wiped from the blade before going in for a second time. Each pass whispered the familiar scrape of a blade that, accompanying the broken scrapes of his exhales, took on a much more domestic light than either of you were accustomed to.

Just as your third swipe of the blade closed in on him once more, a course, yet overpoweringly gentle, hand grasped at your wrist as he once again sunk into a rhythm of misshapen coughs. This episode was easier than the previous, though just as hurtful; even the mere gasps he took in between his hacking spoke of a pain that went beyond his coughing, a pain that, quite selfishly, you seemed to feel in your own chest and up to the tightening of your throat as you turned you wet eyes away from his view.

“It’s okay,” he reassured you this time.

What he had intended to be a comfort made everything so much worse. Trust him to be holding you up while he crumbled to the ground. His unadulterated selflessness was something you both loved and hated about him; a gentleman through and through, yet a bonafide door mat for the world that was beginning to see the long overdue signs of wear.

Bringing his fingertips to your chin, he brought your face up until your eyes met his. You both stared at each other for a second before you reprimanded him through the biting sensation in your throat of held back tears: “Stop it, Arthur… Please.”

As his palm shifted to encapsulate your cheek, he brushed a lock of stray hair from your forehead, shaky hands and all, tucking it behind your ear, “I love you,” he whispered.

You buried your face into his palm, your response implicit, as you finally laid a single kiss on his wrist before dragging yourself away and the blade closer once again.

In all the gentleness you could sum up, you tried to finish as quickly as possible. Each wipe of the blade revealed a starkly polished edge that, upon bringing it back up to his face, was a just as stark juxtaposition with the man in front of you, battered and broken. As you stripped the lather from his face each individual hurt seemed to scream at you; he looked like a bruised apple at the bottom of the basket on market day with eye bags that not even a wagon could carry. You do not think he could manage to look bad even if he tried, not to you, though he looked undoubtedly worn in a way that you had never seen before.

As you finished up, wiping the remnants from his face with a towel that had seen better days, his eyes affixed to you. It was hard not to feel scrutinised under the rumbling discontent of his shimmering eyes, though you know he would have hated to have made you feel as such, to feel as though he were looking straight through you and into the pitying thoughts that shamed you, and would have done to him, to no end.

“Listen,” he started with much effort, “I want you to do something for me…”

Putting the towel down, you held your palms up to his hollowed cheeks. His hands found their place on yours so quickly it must have been unconscious; there was no grand romance to it, just simple comfort of two people who had been around each other far too much. “Anything,” you replied sincerely.

“When I’m gone–”

“Arthur…” you hated to talk about it. Hated it. And though he had indulged you as to avoid it so far, all things must run their course, his strong sense of duty would not let him forget that.

“Listen,” he started once again, “when I’m gone, I don’t want you around here anymore, there’s nothing here for you.”

He looked desperate, his pleading eyes and downturned mouth matched his downtrodden state in a way that, if he could see himself, he would rebuke himself to no end.

“My whole life’s here, Arthur,” you exhaled deeply, “I know you mean well but, it’s just… this is my life. I can’t just go strolling into civilisation like it’s not the very thing I’ve spent my whole life fighting.”

“I know, I know it,” he squeezed your hands, “believe me. But you ain’t a fool, you know this can’t last: us, the gang, we’re done for. Staying around’ll get you killed, you know it.”

You nodded, sniffling away all the while. “Then let’s go.”

Any brightness in his eyes that had followed your agreement fizzled, his whole body, the newly exposed muscles of a working man starved, deflated with a sigh. “You know it’s not that easy… I want to, I do, I really do, but I need to see this through to the end.”

“I don’t want you to see it through to the end,” you replied, all too aware of the bleak double entendre.

“I have to, I hardly have a choice.”

That was not true, of course, not in the literal sense, but you knew the twisted cocktail of duty, honour, and loyalty that compelled him to believe such a thing. Dutch had really done a number on him. You said nothing, there was nothing you could say.

He continued, “I want you to go. John and Abigail, they’re starting anew, go with them. Please.”

You had not realised you were crying until he wiped away hot streams of tears from your cheeks and gently pulled you into his chest.

“They’re going to build a life, a real life. There’s so much you can do and I won’t… I won’t drag you away from it, drag you down with me. I can’t.”

“It doesn’t feel that way… like you’re dragging me down,” you mumbled from your place in his arms.

“It is that way, it is,” he responded, and without the look in his eye, he seemed much more stern, perhaps the sternest you had ever heard him.

You leaned back, unwrapping your arms from him, slow and unwilling as molasses. Brushing a strand of hair from his face, as he had previously done to you, you smiled, “You’ll let me cut your hair next?”

He gave a weak smile, “Of course.”

You ran your hands through it, easing out the tangles you encountered with deft fingertips as you brushed it away from his face, revealing the damage that it concealed. It mentally winded you, like being thrown from a horse, it was something that you would not have time to get used to. But for now, it was his hair that called to your attention, that was one of the few things you could help with.

“You’ll go?” he asked after you had delayed him as much as you could with your fiddling with his hair.

“I’ll go,” you affirmed, letting your hands drop from his hair.

He leaned forward, in his weakened state, exerting himself far too much for an action that, only a few weeks ago, he would have thought nothing of. You met him more than half way, catching his meaning, and bowing down to kiss him where he sat. As simple as it was, you smiled, as giddy as a youngster, the novelty of love had not worn off, and you were scared that it never would.

Your voice came out hoarse, hardly familiar to even yourself, “I’ll miss you, Arthur.”

Bringing his hands up to your shoulders, he embraced you. Your chin rested on his shoulders and your hands wrapped delicately around his torso so as to not aggravate his cuts and scrapes. Though he did not say it, he would miss you too for the time he had left, which, looking at him now, was not long. All he said was, “Thank you,” and that was enough because he had already given all that he could give.

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thanks for reading <3

[scarleeto]

masterlist

[also available on my ao3 account]

red dead redemption

rocking the boat [arthur morgan x reader]

you and arthur go on a midnight fishing trip beneath the stars where your teasing has a better ending than you had anticipated.

to give [arthur morgan x reader]

after returning from guarma amidst his battle with tuberculosis, you look after arthur with a little bit of grooming when all he wants is to look after you.  

frontier justice [john marston x reader]

john marston usually tries his best to avoid bounty hunters at all costs, but lucile whitaker doesn't seem too bad.

thanks for reading <3

[scarleeto]

rocking the boat [arthur morgan x reader]

summary: you and Arthur go on a midnight fishing trip beneath the stars where your teasing has a better ending than you had anticipated.

masterlist

2.4k

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“Stop that,” Arthur grumbled, his weathered hands looking perfectly out of place stretched out and fiddling with the dainty clear line attached to his rod, “you’ll scare the fish.”

An unhesitatingly innocent “Stop what?” was fired back amidst a discordant cacophony of disturbed water, creaky planks, and glass bottles. Each time the boat tilted, Arthur strained to watch as the subsequent ripples engulfed the lure for a split second before it was revealed once again in a brief moment of calmness. It would have been a lot easier to see if the night sky had not rendered the water a blanket of blackness that was beginning to merge with the space above it.

“You know,” he stated with his attention fixed firmly upon the line still.

“Know what?”

“What it is that you’re doing.”

“What is it that I’m doing?”

Arthur, calling back his line, buckled, turning his head to see the root of the disturbance. The root of the disturbance was noticeably disarming, his pretence of frustration seemed to be diluted by the suppressed smile in front of him so that when he responded it was in the form of a quiet, quite negligible, mumble, “Rocking the boat is what it is that you’re doing.”

Lifting your hands off of the rim of the boat slowly as though it were a deadly weapon, you look back at Arthur, smile undying. Equally as slowly, you begin to lean back, a sign of respite, extending your feet to rest on his knee as you lean you back against the wood, letting your head dangle backwards, a breath away from contact with the water.

Continuing with the inspection of his rod, he let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle, “You’ll better watch you don’t fall in.”

In reality, his annoyance was minimal; he had allowed you the small comfort of a foot-rest while he worked.

“Don’t worry, cowboy, I got my eye on it,” you dismissed as you grappled to your side for one of those glass bottles that had been making such a racket earlier. The last drop was gulped down as you aimed the cork at Arthur’s shoulder. It missed, rather whizzing straight past his view and into the dark water with a faint splash.

He turned to you once again after his eye had caught the trajectory of your makeshift ammunition, his head tilted a tad in lighthearted disbelief, “The only thing you’ve got your eye on, cowgirl, is that bottle.” He paused. “I mean it, you watch yourself.”

“Certainly,” you stretched your arms wide over the water's surface. Feeling a biting wetness on the fingertips of your right hand, you released your grip of the bottle in your hand, letting it sink into the depth as you fondled the newfound fluidity of the water, provoking gentle ripples.

Perhaps Arthur would have looked your way again if he had not been preoccupied with casting his rod. Though, perhaps he would have caught something by now if he had not been so preoccupied with you.

Once he had recast his rod and watched the lure bob in the water’s movement for a moment, a concentrated silence overcame the air. A silence that was empty and calm. However, it took on a new shape when Arthur’s free hand set itself upon your shin to rest; what was once empty and calm was now quite the opposite.

Still leaning back, with roaming eyes you scanned his face only to find an expression of a fisherman, somewhere between concentration and serenity. It was nice to see him like this; Arthur carried heavy burdens for the gang, and the weight of it all was frequently apparent in his face, no matter how much he tried to hide it. You almost felt bad for teasing him in one of his few fleeting moments away from it all.

The paradoxical desire for him to simultaneously continue with his fisherman’s glare and to look at you as he was before lasted only a brief moment before the slight shifting of your feet drew his attention past your legs and to your face. As your eyes caught onto each other the neutrality of his expression contorted into a concerned half-smile, “At least hold onto the boat, will you?”

Wordlessly, you complied. As you reached your hand down to grip the wood, drips of chilled water fell down onto you and the boat, but once your grip was secure Arthur thanked you before returning his attention to the rod.

You both remained like this for a while, until the signs of a bite saw Arthur perking up, a smile on his face as his hand left its place on your shin to man the reel. While Arthur set all his efforts to retrieving the fish, you pondered the emptiness his absent hand left before finally sitting up in your spot to watch the lure with him. The struggle was brief; much of Arthur’s fishing expertise were derived from Hosea, who was justifiably very secure in his abilities, so each tug and turn of the line was purposeful and effective.

With a grin on his lips and pleased admiration in his eyes, Arthur hoisted the fish onto the deck and detached it from the lure. From the look of it, it was a steelhead trout, its reddish hue and distinctive brown spots determined this.

“Nice catch,” you remarked as you reached down for another one of the bottles that bedazzled the deck of the boat.

Arthur watched with a sceptical look, “You know, I wouldn't say a boat is too fine a place to be drinking so much,” he laughed, “I promise you, if you fall in I’ll let you drown before I jump in after you. It's freezing, I'm sure this guy'll attest to it,” he gestured to the fish.

“Charming,” you retorted as you uncorked the bottle, “It’s actually for you and your catch,” you gave him a grin while handing it to him.

“Ah,” he chuckled, “that’s just fine then.”

He reached over to slip the bottle out of your hands before he took a broad gulp. Then he took another for good measure. Only when it was time to wrap up his catch did he put the bottle behind him.

Intently, you watched as he neatly fold the linen around the fish before he began to knot lengths of string around it to keep it secure. Once he had finished, he looked up at you, meeting your intent gaze a bit bashfully, “You wanna head back? It's getting dark”

You shrugged, breaking eye contact to look at the night sky instead; it was clear out and the stars burned bright in a way that made you feel both insignificant and limitless all at once. “It seems a waste to go back right this moment.” You wanted to bring up the stars but could not find a way to word it that would be unromantic enough to maintain some semblance of plausible deniability, instead you suggested finishing the bottle of whiskey first.

Arthur had pretended to contemplate your suggestion before you reached over with wobbly legs to grab the bottle from him. With your sudden disturbance, the boat rocked more than it had before, sending you both grappling for the edge. Being that you were on the feet, it is highly probable that you would have gone in head first if Arthur had not gripped you by you hips in a move that he claimed was reflex and, much to your humour, profusely apologised for with a slight heat on his cheeks.

Perhaps you would have reassured him if it were not for the fact that you had been too preoccupied laughing; though he seemed okay after another gulp of whiskey. When he had composed himself he managed to reiterate his concern of you falling, “I told you to be careful and here you are jumping around the boat.”

“Jumping!” You laughed, still stood on your wobbly legs, “you call that jumping?”

He joined in with your laughing, though still clearly concerned as he motioned for you to sit down once again.

“Arthur, I’m fine, See?” You smiled proudly as you extended your arms to balance yourself as you stood independently on your own two feet.

“Very impressive, miss,” Arthur nodded in jesting approval.

“Thank you, sir,” you responded with all the formality that you could muster, “now, I shall commence with the real jumping?”

Arthur reached out and grabbed your hand to pull you down. The whiskey must have melted away his previous embarrassment at skin-to-skin contact as he did so without so much as a hint of hesitation, neither in his hold nor his gaze. “Please,” he smiled and spoke gently, “no jumping.”

Allowing your left hand to remain in the comfort of his grasp, you raised you right in defence, “Alrighty, Mr Morgan, no jumping,” you conceded, “although, I will have more of that whiskey that you’re trying so hard to keep from me.”

“For your own good,” he defended as you reached past his body to reclaim it.

He was firm in keeping it from you, stretching his hand behind him to linger over the water, though you were equally as determined as you had practically climbed over him as he tried his best to restrain you in your pursuit.

Perhaps one of you would have noticed the rocking of the boat if it were not for the fact that the mixture of the brief battle for the possession of the bottle and the prolonged contact were all too enthralling. Neither of you cared for the near danger of the water until it was too late. Until the splash sounded out and you were already submerged.

The night water was much more freezing than the brief contact of your hand had told. The warmth of the whiskey did little to counteract this. It froze your whole body for a second and all you could do was take a sharp, hungry gasp for air as you angled your head upwards and frantically splashed your arms to keep yourself afloat. You must have given Arthur quite a fright with your own panic because, after realising the futility of trying to drag you back by your collar, he had shed his jacket and jumped in after you.

It was only after he had pushed you back on board that you fully comprehended what had happened, and once he had hoisted himself back up you felt yourself overridden by remorse, though all you could seem to form was a quick “Sorry, Arthur.”

His demeanour was surprisingly calm, he was almost laughing, perhaps it was the whiskey, “You’re as bad as Marston: can’t listen, can’t swim...”

“I can swim,” you defended yourself, “I was just shocked.”

“Oh, sure,” he chuckled.

“It was freezing,” you said in an attempt to justify your shock.

“No need to tell me,” he gestured to his soaked form.

You both quietened down for a moment.

“I am sorry,” you reiterated, “I hardly noticed how much the boat was rocking.”

“It’s okay,” he responded with much less anger than you had expected, “I'm just glad you're okay.” If anything, he sounded more relieved.

You smiled at him before laughing a little, “I know it's probably poor timing, but may I have some of that whiskey now?”

He smiled back at you incredulously.

“Only to warm me up...”

“I'm sorry,” he sighed, seeming a little bashful all over again, “I dropped it in the water.”

“Maybe that's for the best,” you smiled at him in attempts to reassure him. It was wrong that he should be apologising when it was your fault that he had just jumped into freezing water after nightfall, but that was just his nature.

“Probably,” he chuckled as he leaned back, his eyes drawn up to the sky, “at least the stars are well tonight.”

Your smile only grew as his eyes remained on the sky, flickering from star to star. He was beautiful like this: concentrated. God, you wanted to kiss him.

His gaze was only drawn away from the sky when you placed a lingering hand upon his shoulder, feeling the cold damp underneath. You had expected him to look confused, but he did not, rather he looked like he knew exactly what you were thinking. Suddenly feeling like your thoughts were naked in this lingering waiting, you leaned forward, connecting your lips to his. He reached out to rest his hands on your waist, reciprocating the kiss. You expect his lips would have felt more chapped if they had not been dripping with water, but you nonetheless indulged in the feeling of their smoothness. The most notable aspect of the kiss was how cold he was, you expect he thought the same thing of you. You could barely distinguish whether the shiver that erupted down your spine was caused by the chill in the night air, or the closeness of Arthur.

When you pulled back you felt as bashful as he looked, “The stars are very beautiful.”

He held your hand for a moment, speaking no words, as he looked up once again to the sky. The moment felt much longer that it probably was, but soon ended when Arthur declared that you both better get back to camp before anyone started to worry.

As Arthur rowed the boat back, each moment was filled with stolen glances and unyielding grins in addition to your regular chatter. It was nice. The shimmering moonlight danced through the ripples in the water, and with the distant echoes of breeze ridden shrubbery, you were filled with the otherworldly sensation that the entire world was empty except from you and Arthur on your boat. It was almost as disarming as the stars.

Although he was hardly angry, you could not help but feel sorry for him; with each shiver that racked your body you were reminded that he was likely just as frozen. It was only about a quarter of the way back when he offered you his jacket. After putting up a fight, you finally accepted when his offer morphed more into a demand. You felt bad, but no longer cold.

When you both got back to camp, Arthur hardly hesitated to tell everyone the cause of your dampness around the fire at dinner, leaving out a few details. Everyone was quite amused and teased you mercilessly, especially Karen who, for the next few days, would chuckle at you wordlessly when you passed her by. More interestingly, a remark made by Dutch about Arthur jumping in because he was smitten with you was met with a blush from Arthur who did not entirely deny the accusation.

Needless to say, John was very glad to see that the camp had a new target for 'can't-swim' jokes.

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thanks for reading <3

[scarleeto]

arthur stans:

john stans:

dutch stans:

sadie stans:

hosea stans:

kieran stans:

sean stans:

karen stans:

bill stans:

micah stans:

[scarleeto]

Wouldn’t mind being a bounty caught by John Marston. To be six inches from & at eye level with that ass?

[scarleeto]

Catching up with an old friend

[scarleeto]

[scarleeto]

🦌💔

[scarleeto]

[scarleeto]

[scarleeto]

yeehaw its out of touch thursday

[scarleeto]

Is this John's version of "draw me like one of your French girls"?

[scarleeto]

I will never forgive R* for not expanding on John and Arthurs brotherly relationship more. Arthur mentioning him more in his Journal, John talking more about him in the epilogues, etc there was so much opportunity to be had there. I want their dynamic to be more fleshed out so badly. Please if you guys have any brotherly john & arthur content pm me immediately.

[scarleeto]

frontier justice series [john marston x reader]

[also available on my ao3 account]

just an fyi: i use an oc, but there are absolutely no physical descriptions excepting a narrative significant scar. she/her pronouns used for the oc.

part one

john marston discovers there are more joys to booze theft than he originally thought.

part two

a romantic night of storytelling, drinking, and violence.

part three [tba]

part four [tba]

part five [tba]

[scarleeto]

big scary outlaw doing big scary outlaw things

[scarleeto]

a story for another time [john marston x reader]

summary: A romantic night of storytelling, drinking, and violence.

series navigation

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On an evening like this, it was no wonder that the saloon was jam packed full of patrons with no places to be but the mindless euphoria of a drunken conscience. There was something in the air, no doubt, something antsy on the verge of snapping. The doors were on a constant swing, Old Earl on the piano was bashing the keys with a special spark in his fingers, and the patrons were sufficiently rowdy. Already, one chair had been broken, two working girls had gotten into a spat over a client, and many punches had been thrown — whether friendly or otherwise.

Among such patrons, John Marston occupied a seat at the bar with his newest friend, Lucile Whitaker, alongside him, whose long-awaited tale of near-death heroism would have had him on the edge of his seat if it were not for the fact that he had been discreetly shuffling closer and closer to her ever since they had sat down. She told her tale ferociously in her inebriation, the potency of her dramatics like the whiskey John had sat in front of him: just as formidable with something sharp and burning to be sipped and savoured with cautious indulgence or gulped down in haste.

“Mack Clayton was a hillbilly if you ever saw one, to say that that country bumpkin was quite a bit more than a few cards short of a full deck would be appropriate, if you know what I mean…” Lucile spoke through a chortle as she trailed off, gripping her half-gone glass of whiskey with white knuckles as she started up again. “Cards was never his strong suit, and I had just cleared him clean as a whistle of all he had, so he insisted that I’d been foldin’ over the corners of the cards to crease anything worth having: kings, queens, aces, and the lot. When he started yellin’ and hollerin’ that I was a cheat, everyone just guessed he was a sore loser,” she paused before beaming out brightly with a shark-toothed grin and a wild look in her eye, “until he pulled a revolver on me that was...”

John, feeling that he had no right to be as delighted as he currently was, was finding it harder and harder to suppress the unwarranted grin on his face. Lucile’s uninhibited (and wildly inappropriate) glee captivated him. If this was her after a few glasses of whiskey, John would have to reconsider his prior occupation as a booze thief.

“...Now, the other fellers we were playing’ with took particular offence to this because they were real uppity about their poker — like no guns at the table type of rules — it was real strict. Strict enough to take the fun out of it at least. So when Clayton had that barrel between my eyes, Layton was straight on him, houndin’ him about the rules and insistin’ that he hand him the g— ”

“I find that hard to believe,” John scoffed, smiling all the while, leaning in even closer to her with his arms crossed in front of his almost-empty glass.

“What?” Lucile snapped and furrowed her brows. Having been thrown off of her flow, she was sufficiently irritated. “What’s so hard to believe? We’re hardly at the hard-to-believe bit yet.”

John shrugged, basking in her irritation, “Just the idea of you lettin’ this Clayton feller pull a gun on you is all.”

Lucile sighed, exasperated and not much knowing what to say other than what she already had. She seldom told this story, in fact she could count on three fingers the times she had told it: once to the sheriff as she bled out on his doorstep, another time to the doctor as she bled out on his table, and finally to the doctor’s cat, whom she had grown quite close to in her recovery. Never in these three retellings had she had to explain much beyond what had happened, the facts of the matter, but this hardly satisfied John, he inquired — nay, demanded — to know the who, why, and how of it all. Satisfying this demand was carried out reluctantly, she had no desire to give John too much to think about, lest he wind up hurting himself. 

“Quit interruptin’, you’ll throw me off and we’ll be here forever tryin’ to remember where we were…” She lost herself for a moment for perking up, “Besides, like I said, there was a strict no-gun rule. Are you even listenin’?”

“Oh so you were unarmed, were you?”

“...Well, no. Of course not. But I was supposed to be. I wasn’t going to let a stupid move, like killin’ Clayton, get me shunned from the gang. As strict and as borin’ as they were, these were high stakes games and I could make a pretty penny and then some from them,” her previous annoyance seemed to fizzle out as she spoke, John’s interrogation was so relentless that she was quickly becoming immune to it as she found herself progressively less annoyed about his interruptions each time.

John laughed at that, finding that his delight had finally gotten the better of him, “And how’d that work out for you?”

She glared at him, blankly and brutally all at once, before pulling her glass to her lips and sinking back into a state of delight similar to his. “John Marston, you smug bastard, you can’t just shoot everyone who you have a minor disagreement with.”

He leaned in to her, looking sideways before his eyes settled directly onto her, his voice solemn and quiet as he deadpanned, “You can’t?”

“Well, sure you can, if it’s a life in county jail that you’re after,” she retorted.

She could sense the smart remark John had ready for her as soon as she said that, so when he set down his whiskey glass to begin, she manually put it back in his hand, haphazardly pushing the bottom of the glass back to his lips before scolding him once and for all, for now. “No. Now drink your whisky and listen up, okay?” 

He finished his whiskey in one final gulp before setting it down again with a smile of what she hoped was confirmation. She expected him to continue his line of inquiry but he did not.

She grasped the faltering opportunity of quiet and continued, “Anyway, Clayton, being that he had a few too many nuts loose, shot Layton straight in the leg. No hesitation. That sent the rest scurryin’ like mice from a… Well, a gunshot. Apart from Layton, that is, they left him there to roll around for a while before he bled out… So much for honour among thieves.”

“I resent that,” John bit in.

“Of course you do,” she bit back instantaneously before continuing, “Now, you have to understand, Clayton wasn’t playin’ for the money because God knows he never won in all the days that I played with him. He was a proud man — of what, I couldn’t tell you — but I suppose losin’ so much has to wear thin eventually. And, of course, it did. But even if he had been playin’ for the money all along, he definitely wasn't playin’ for the money anymore. Clayton had it in for me. Perhaps it was pride, or just them few loose nuts he had, but there was no doubt about it: he wanted me dead.”

Lucile paused for a second before throwing back the rest of her whiskey with a hiss. She looked from her newly empty cup to John’s before suggesting that they ought to get more before she continued.

“That bad, huh?”

“Not particularly. Only if I recall correctly, which I do, one of the terms of me telling you this story was that I did so with a drink in my hand and I would hate to compromise my integrity,” she answered as she called down the bartender, Mrs Murphy that was, signalling for another round of whiskey for herself and John both.

The jovialities of a busy night had sent Mrs Murphy to hard work. She was in a perpetual cycle of sweeping the bar, serving the drink, and shouting down the patrons who had stumbled over the line of too rowdy — which turned out to be most of them. This was her element, by no means did she shy away from work like this, she had her sleeves rolled up and her hair slicked back, ready to dig her elbows in even further. It was hardly a surprise to anyone that, on top of her ever growing list of customers, she took to conversation like a cat to a mouse.

“Jeez, Lucile, you ain’t tellin’ that one again, are you?” Mrs Murphy shook her head as she made her way towards them, wiping down the bar with a grey rag in her left hand as she simultaneously grabbed for the whiskey from underneath the bar with her right.

“You wound me, Whitaker,” John put his hand over his heart with a wince in mock hurt, “And to think, I was startin’ to feel special that you was tellin’ me such an exclusive story. You’d almost wooed me.”

“Again?” Lucile raised her brow, ignoring John and his delusion, “I ain’t even told it once.”

“Sheriff Darnell has told it much more than once,” Mrs Murphy leaned in closer, an arm rested on the bar and a soft smile on her face as she refilled both the glasses in front of her with a smooth trail of browned whiskey. “Sometimes, if we get him drunk enough, we can get him to act it out, voices and all. You should see it sometime, he does an uncanny impression of you, Lucile.”

At that, John gave up his delusion and barked out a hearty laugh, slamming a firm hand down onto the wooden top, “Now that, I would pay good money to see.” He turned to Lucile, not needing to shuffle much closer to nudge her side with his bony elbow, “Maybe we should’ve stuck around after that shine got uncorked, right, Lucile?”

Lucile was too preoccupied with the lingering thought of Darnell’s drunken impression of her to deign John with a response, that or it had finally become impossible to hear him over the ever-increasing racket emerging behind them.

John’s mock hurt quickly became less mocking when Lucile put down two dollars, one to cover her and John’s drinks, and another to maintain Mrs Murphy’s gratitude and speedy service. While he was not particularly opposed to tipping, he did have a quarrel with his gentlemanly manners being hindered, especially when it was done by the recipient of such manners. “Woah, what do you think you’re doin’?” John laughed slightly as he pushed the cash back to Lucile, “Just because you aren’t wooin’ me with your story, doesn’t mean you can woo me with drinks.”

“John, I’ll drink your pockets dry,” she shrugged, “I can burn through whiskey quicker than fire.”

“Then that makes two of us,” John retorted, putting Lucile’s two dollars back into her pocket himself before pushing forward a twenty dollar bill of his own, “Mrs Murphy, would you be so kind as to leave the bottle?”

Mrs Murphy, being that she was so kind, had no problem leaving the bottle.

Lucile, not having an issue with free booze, accepted her two dollars back with no argument before taking a sip of her fresh glass with a grin, her eyes lingering on John who was likely feeling sufficiently pleased with himself. Perhaps it was the few glasses she had already drunk, but when she thanked John she did so with an air of earnestness that she had never before addressed him with, even going so far as to brush her fingers down the length of his forearm, even if it was slightly heavy-handedly. 

She would have thought it silly in the morning, to be so enamoured by a bottle of whiskey. While whiskey often provoked such reverence in her, it could not help but be noticed that the bottle was not where her gaze had settled.

Similarly enamoured by whiskey, a couple of patrons by the piano had clearly become too well acquainted with the effects of their admiration; their friendly disagreement grew less friendly by the second as they both began to raise their slurring speech more and more until they were red in the face and loose spit was firing this way and that. Mrs Murphy was able to periodically pacify them with a sharp hey tossed directly at them. 

In the midst of keeping things in order, Mrs Murphy persisted on the topic of Darnell’s version of Lucile’s story, “I’m sure that any regular in here could tell you that story back to front and left to right. I know that I definitely could,” she laughed as she kept an eye on the rowdy fellers who began to grow louder once again.

Lucile shook her head, still harbouring on Darnell’s drunken retelling of her near-death experience, and mumbled off-handedly, “I’m sure it was a load of shit.”

Mrs Murphy agreed to her throwaway comment regardless, “You’re right it was a load of shit, because there ain’t no way in hell that—”

As one could have easily predicted, the drunk patrons, having submitted themselves to their most primal urges, had grown violent and volatile. What started as an experimental nudge to the shoulders soon escalated into passionately haphazard punches from both sides. Old Earl’s janky tune halted in an instant before dissolving into a few final echoes of broken notes when their tumbling figures sent him sprawling over the keys. Soon enough, Old Earl’s magic had been replaced by the jaunty scraping of chair legs — whether that be by those springing up to catch the action, or those acting as they bumped and bashed any and all surroundings. A gathering crowd engaged with hoots and hollers to perpetuate the violent outbreak, while Mrs Murphy did the exact same in hopes of an opposite outcome.

Both John and Lucile stayed seated when the ruckus broke out and were enticed to remain as such by the fresh bottle of whiskey that had been laid out in front of them.

One sound, however, that seemed to drown out all of the shouting, scraping, and scrapping was the creak of the wooden floorboards as a bulky figure leisurely descended the stairs step by step from the rooms above. Immediately Lucile was able to recognise the countenance of the figure: Mr Murphy, despite having the build of a giant, wore his usual expression of hanging eyelids and a lopsided smile which reflected nothing more than his typical good-natured indifference. Even at a time like this, when the integrity of his much prized establishment was being threatened by a couple of good-for-nothings, his expression remained unchanged. Of course, none of this changed the fact that Mr Murphy was a man to be feared. The muscle he carried testament to his old days in the ring.

As the creaking grew louder and Mr Murphy’s figure loomed closer, the chaos of the fight gradually died down. Dispersing at his presence, the crowd swept back to reveal the aforementioned good-for-nothings in their drunkenly pathetic fist fight. One had the other sloppily pinned to a wooden table as he pummeled his flying fist into his enemy’s face so weakly that it seemed closer to a caress than anything. Mrs Murphy — who had given up any attempt to stop the fight, if it could even be called that — stood satisfied as she watched the obedience her husband’s presence had entailed. 

When both the men clocked onto the sudden silence that engulfed the room they looked up, both donning sheepish looks at the eyes they were met with.

“Mr Murphy!” The standing one exclaimed, “W-we were just… err…”

Mr Murphy stood watching, making no move to intervene, his arms crossed in front of his puffed out chest and his lopsided smile ever-growing. “About to kiss, by the looks of it. Don’t let me stop you, McConnel, go right ahead,” he deadpanned.

Intensified by the rumble of laughter surrounding him, a brief shadow of outrage crossed the face of Willard McConnel, before he quickly remembered the man whom he was faced with. Considering this, instead of defending his honour by spouting out an array of crudely-worded insults at Mr Murphy, he threw his victim to the side and made up for his actions with a rigid laugh, “Mr Murphy, we ain’t meant nothin’ by it, we were just messin’ around is all.” He turned to the man whom he had just thrown on the floor and gave him a sharp kick, “Ain’t that right, Chester?”

Chester coughed and sputtered on the floor, only managing to roll onto his back rather than rise to the support of his own two legs, before he gave a matching rigid smile to Mr Murphy, “Just messin’ around is all.”

“Well, cut it out,” he spoke firmly, “and next time you want to ‘mess around’, as it were, you ain’t doing it in my saloon… A hotel maybe,” he chuckled before speaking gravely, “but not in my saloon.” And with that Mr Murphy wandered off to his usual place behind the bar, leaving them to flounder in their quickly diminishing dignity.

Upon seeing his favourite face at the bar, Mr Murphy’s lopsided grin grew wider — and with that, even more lopsided. “Whitaker!” He exclaimed, “We haven’t seen you down here in a while, what’s the occa—” He began to inquire before cutting himself off, his smile dropping like a suffocated flame. His eyes sauntered from the face of Lucile’s companion to the bottle of whiskey in front of them. Mr Murphy, somewhat defeated, sighed, “I should’ve expected as much.”

Lucile, as she often did, chose to ignore another of the frequently scathing reviews of her company. “The occasion, Mr Murphy, is that we are celebratin’ the swift release of my dear friend, John Marston, from the sheriff’s cell,” she said as she gestured to her companion with flourish.

The man in question smiled and nodded his head in acknowledgement, “Mr Murphy, nice to see you again.”

“The feeling isn’t mutual,” he responded, the lopsidedness of his smile hidden by the lack thereof, “I’m hopin’ you paid for this one, Marston,” he gestured towards the whiskey bottle in front of them.

“And it seems that your hope has come to fruition,” his smile persisted, “cost me twenty of my hard earned dollars.”

He received a scoff in response, “someone else's hard earned dollars I’d say.”

John remained silent for once.

“You’re lucky I don’t charge you for that shine you stole,” Mr Murphy stared him down as he had just done the drunkards, but was not met with the same effect, “You know, I never did see any compensation for that.”

“My luck isn’t lost on me Mr Murphy, and as for your compensation, well, you can take that up with sheriff Darnell. I do believe that he is the law enforcement around here.”

“It seems an awful lot like your luck is lost on you, actually. Don’t get arrogant, kid, or this nice drink you’re havin’ will end up a different way.”

John raised his hands in defence, finally dropping his self-satisfied smirk. 

“As it goes, Marston,” Mr Murphy leaned into the bar, donning a lopsided version of the self-satisfied smirk that John had just dropped, “seein’ that you owe me a big ol’ bottle of moonshine, how about you do something for me and we call it quits, huh?”

“What’s in it for me?”

“What’s in it for you?” Mr Murphy laughed, “What’s in it for you is that I let you continue to drink this fresh bottle of whiskey, that I’m sure you wouldn’t care to lose, in my bar.” He paused, “That and your personal safety.”

John was taken aback at this, threats to his personal safety meant little to him. Not only was he not much to cherish his personal safety, but having his own Arthur Morgan — and when that failed, a gang of decent outlaws — at his defence meant that Mr Murphy’s threats were lost on him. 

He was about to say as such before Lucile beat him to it. 

“What is it that you’re after, Mr Murphy?”

When John gave her an incredulous expression in response she shrugged and stated simply, “I like drinkin’ in here, John.”

“Clearly,” he huffed, unable to mask his annoyance at the ruin of his night with Lucile, an opportunity that he cherished much more than his personal safety.

Mr Murphy cared little for such antics and was much more concerned with his errand that he needed running. “All I need is for you two to go and teach them hoodlums Willard McConnel and Chester Alford a lesson. Nothing serious, their patronage would certainly go missed, but I’m gettin’ too old to keep breakin’ up fights… that and the lady doesn't like it.” He looked towards Mrs Murphy.

Lucile laughed, “You seemed to break that one up just fine.”

“Ah!” He swatted his hand through the air dismissively, “It’s a temporary fix, never lasts as good as a good walloping does. I'll give them as long as it takes you to finish that bottle before they get at it again.”

“Huh,” she pondered, “I suppose the situation is more dire than I originally accounted for.”

In that moment, as if Mr Murphy were a bonafide prophet, his favourite hoodlums had begun to rise into racket once again. It began as all things did, only a whispered promise of what it would escalate to, but the promise was there nonetheless. A brief glare pacified them.

“You see, this is what God gives me for being such a forgivin’ guy,” he sighed.

“You do seem a forgivin’ guy,” John confirmed.

Lucile scoffed at that, feeling entirely as if her scoff had no requirement for explanation. She was entirely prepared to continue the conversation without a hitch until she looked up to be met by two pairs of perplexed eyes. “Oh come on!” She looked to John, “Forgivin’ guy? He’s barely forgiven you for that shine!” She threw up her arms in exasperation, “Hell, I stole shine from him years ago and he still ain’t forgiven me!”

“Ain’t forgiven you?” He fired back, equally as exasperated, “I let you drink in here all the damn time, you practically live here!”

“Yeah I practically live here,” she assented, “at the rent of all your snarky comments!”

“Snarky comments?” Mr Murphy doubted, quite at a loss, before sinking into a state more of contemplation than of confusion. “Yeah…” he finally agreed before moving onto his previously defensive state, “Well then, rent is up: sort out those hoodlums!”

“Me? Me sort out those hoodlums?” Lucile raised her eyebrows, “It was Marston that stole your shine, remember?” 

“Hey, hey, hey! Cool it, Whitaker,” John disrupted his silent sipping of his whiskey, “I mean, if I remember correctly, you were the one who popped the cork on that shine anyway.”

Mr Murphy donned a look of pure betrayal and nothing else.

Lucile soon followed suit with her own look of betrayal, “Rat,” she declared in a huff.

John Marston, that rat of a man, just shrugged his shoulders.

“That settles it,” Mr Murphy declared, “I’m cuttin’ you both off until you figure out those hoodlums!” And with that he swooped up the bottle of whiskey and returned it to its old home underneath the bar.

“Woah, I paid for that,” John protested.

“Well, there’s a first,” Mr Murphy ruled as he stomped off to serve other customers.

John’s sour expression found itself quickly diluted by his drunken amusement. When he turned to face Lucile, he found that the whiskey had not done the same for her as it had for him; she looked at him with a blank expression as she gnawed on the inside of her cheek, “You sure do get me into a lot of trouble, don’t you?”

He tilted his head, feigning thought in an inadequate compensation for an otherwise lack thereof, “I suppose I do,” he chortled, “but you’re a returnin’ customer and I ain’t heard any complaints.”

“Then consider this my first. Officially.”

“You ain’t complaining. Not really. From what I hear, you found yourself in plenty enough trouble before you met me,” he said, smiling in the face of any complaints, real or otherwise. “Besides, I know full well that you get a kick out of  it.”

She allowed one side of her mouth to curve upwards slightly, despite her scrunched brows, “No one likes trouble, Marston.”

“No one except you,” he took note of her smile and dared to go further, “That’s why you like me as much as you do.”

“Is that so?”

“It is so.”

Her slight smile lingered for a bit, neither growing nor shrinking, sitting just as it had when she had uncorked that shine for him back in the sheriff’s office, just as it had when she had spotted him from across the saloon, and just as it had throughout the rest of the evening. No matter how many complaints she lodged, that smile was always the same, even when she scolded him for interrupting or harbouring trouble, the stains of her smile stood unwashed. 

For this very reason, when she rose from her seat undeclared, leaving John in the dust, he was riddled with confusion, “Where are you goin’?” He asked her plainly with a downtrodden expression that she would have called it pathetic if she had not felt her chest twinge with the faintest reverberation of guilt.

“We’re goin’ to go sort out those hoodlums,” she beckoned with a jerk of her head in their general direction before adding decisively, “Together.”

“Oh,” he looked away for a moment before getting himself together, “Okay, sure. Let’s go.”

And away they went, bound for the infamous Willard McConnel and Chester Alford, the fiercest drunks of the West. 

Lucile strolled over there assuredly with John in her shadow who followed with his feet while his eyes bore holes into her back. 

Upon arriving at their destination, Lucile shot straight into unwavering conversation with McConnel as if he were an old friend that she was dead set on catching up with, “May I sit?” She questioned loud enough to be heard over the fizzling bickering of the hoodlums as she gestured to an empty chair between them.

Both of them fell out of their lingering argument as their sights set on the newest intrusion. However, while Alford’s confusion persisted, McConnel soon realised who it was who had intruded. “Lucile,” he stated with mild distaste as he crossed his arms over his chest, “I already told you, I ain’t got nothin’ for you, not now, not ever… Not unless you’re payin’ that is.”

Lucile brushed him off as she sat herself down at their table, “I ain’t here for information, McConnel. Not that you ever have much anyway.”

“Then I don’t see why you got any reason to be here,” he defended in borderline squeals, “We ain’t pals.”

“We sure ain’t, and I intend to keep it that way. I’m here because I have business with you.”

He scoffed aloud at that, and, donning the most mocking tone he could manage, asked, “And what might that be?”

Lucile leaned back in her seat, eyes averted to the ceiling as she seemingly pondered what her business in fact was. John thought she might have kicked her boots up onto the table, but perhaps even she knew that this was too much as her feet stood firm on the ground. 

It was no surprise that her all-the-time-in-the-world attitude was not met with grins and giggles, no, instead, it was met with the steaming anger of McConnel, like a boiling pot almost pouring over itself. If she had noticed, she did not allude to this fact and only continued when she felt she wanted to.

“McConnel,” she nodded at him, “Alfred,” she did the same to him, “my business with the both of you depends entirely on each of your temperament.”

“My temperament?” McConnel seethed, and by the look on Alfred’s face, he felt the same way.

“Your temperament,” Lucile emphasised. “You fancy yourselves well tempered men?”

At that, Alfred all but lunged forward, shoving McConnel out of the way in the process, and slammed his fist on the table as he leered over the leaning figure of Lucile. “Listen here, lady, I’ve had it with your yappin’. You might be able to confuddle simpletons, like McConnel over here, with your forked tongue and riddled words, but not me… not me!” He gritted through his clamped and corroded maw. “My temperament,” the word left his mouth as if it were a burning flame that he was desperate to spit and stamp out, “ain’t none of your concern, but if you are so set on putting yourself where you don’t belong, I will make it your concern. Lucile, you will soon discover my temperament, and you will soon wish you hadn’t.”

McConnel, in different circumstances, would have perhaps fired back at being labelled a simpleton, though considering Alfred’s state, he was understandably reluctant.

John, trusting Lucile’s grit, but more so trusting that her wrath would meet him if he interjected himself into her plan, had so far stayed quiet. He stood with his hand clasped over the back of Lucile’s chair, falling sideways in his signature — albeit now a little bit drunken — lean as he merely observed. Seeing Alfred, however, a man deep into both his cups and his rage, towering over Lucile in such a way struck him like a splinter, he had an almost instinctual urge to snatch Lucile back and rip out that splinter of a man before tossing him to the mud. Such an instinctual reaction would have been carried out if it had not been for the sharper instincts of Lucile.

Lucile stayed seated but ditched her backwards lean for a forwards one; her eyes had grabbed that of Alfred and her face was so close to his that she could smell the deadly rot of his browning teeth. “It’s too late to wish, Alfred, you’ve made yourself clear to me. Now, I will make myself clear to you, if it was not already: you sit yourself down, shut the hell up, and enjoy your drink in peace, or else you’ll find yourself bound and bleedin’ on the back of my horse out there on your way to the nearest undertaker — understand?”

Alfred’s hand shot straight to Lucile’s collar, ripping her up from her seat and bringing her closer than she previously was to the rotting cavity that was his mouth. Instead, however, of firing more idle threats at Lucile, Alfred only tightened his shaking fist as he foamed and fizzled at the mouth.

John, not being conscious enough of his actions to realise he was throwing all regard of Lucile’s wrath to the wind, shot out of his lean in an instant and with a blunt shout planted the flat of his palm into the shoulder of the towering man in front of him sending him falling back into the table, along with the fistful of Lucile he had. McConnel only watched, still in recovery from such a devastating label of simpleton.

The kerfuffle of the scene had attracted all eyes in the saloon. Everyone was mesmerised by the spittle filled threats, shoving, and flying Lucile of it all. Mr Murphy, among such eyes, had taken to a ferocious shaking of his head and mouthing of curses under his breath as he distracted himself with the cleaning of a stack of water stained glasses.

“You just clock me, boy?” Alfred snapped after having semi-regained his composure, Lucile being left to fall to the floor.

“Yeah… I guess I did.”

Alfred murmured an unintelligible response, what was likely a string of poorly connected insults came out more like a malformed predatory grunt. This drawn out communicative grunt quickly morphed into a grunt of exertion as he swung his floppy fist clumsily towards his target. John, being almost as drunk as his opponent, found he was able to dodge the main brunt of the hit, but still felt a grazing pressure on the left side of his face that sent him side stepping.

Lucile watched wide eyed as she picked herself up from the floor and brushed herself down with an incredulous chuckle at the chaos going on behind her. When McConnel caught her eye he looked back at her warily. “I ain’t hit many women before… none ‘cept my wife, and my sister before that… and a few workin’ gals here and there...”

“You must choose your opponents wisely then.”

His eloquence must have gotten the better of him since his response came in the form of violence. McConnel’s punch was less drunkenly flaccid as Alfred’s, yet had a tinge of restraint in it regardless. The restraint slowed him, and Lucile was able to redirect him with ease as she slithered under his lunged arm in a crouch and gave him a push forward into his old buddie, none other than Alfred Chester.

When Alfred turned to see the perpetrator of his assault, he was by no means surprised, but by all means infuriated. It seemed as though the busted lip he had given John in the meantime had little therapeutic quality.

“Willard McConnel, you slimy bastard! I've had enough of you, by God I swear it, I will kill you!”

With that, Alfred briefly scrambled for his boot before revealing a rusted and blunted pocket knife that had, by the looks of it, seen less death than a small child. Such an assumption was confirmed by Alfred’s poor wielding of the weapon; whether through drunkenness or lack of ability, the knife seemed to find every space in front of him apart from his target.

Despite this, the revelation of knife based violence had provoked a much larger reaction that Alfred had perhaps intended. A much wider array of people had now involved themselves in the display of violence: men who resonated with ideas of justice sided with McConnel in hopes of outweighing the power of a weapon with more men, while men who resonated with victory by any means sided with Alfred and his — perhaps unfair — advantage.

While those who had succumbed to the mob of brawlers brawled, Lucile and John looked to each other through the chaos, unsure whether to laugh or not. It seemed that the idiocy of her targets had crumbled Lucile’s plan. In fact, it had gone so terribly that John was beginning to doubt whether or not Lucile had ever had a plan in the first place.

Screams and shouts reverberated off of the walls until the room became a box bouncing with echoes of repeated violent promises. Among this the crunch of landed punches and the tap of loosened teeth on the wooden floor was accompanied by the scent of fresh blood and sweat which had become intermingled with the typical boozy scent of the saloon. The only indicator that this violence was not unanimously welcomed was the unheard bellowing of Mr Murphy’s idle declarations that any man to throw a punch would be barred for life, though even he knew such a thing was inconceivable, given that drunkenness was often the predecessor to violence, he had long ago realised that situations as these were occupational hazards for men in his line of work. 

As Lucile scrambled for her way out of the mob of people she felt the familiar hand of John guiding her way roughly by the elbow. He shook his head at her as he dragged her towards the saloon door which, when accompanied by his rough treatment of her, made her feel as though she were being scolded. Though, not being one to submit to a scolding, Lucile resisted in favour of a different way.

“Lucile, I really think it’s best if we get out of here,” John implored.

Lucile looked back at his furrowed eyebrows with a smile, “Entirely,” she agreed, “though I believe you’re forgettin’ somethin’ that belongs to you.”

As Mr Murphy screamed at his clientele, and Mrs Murphy shoed those he could not manage to get to, the bar sat deserted. John watched as Lucile scurried towards it before hopping up to rest her hips on the top and dangle her torso down the barman’s side. As she rummaged more and more, the amount of her top half that was visible diminished until all that could be seen of her was her decapitated legs. She sunk further behind the bar and the clinking of bottles intensified until it halted all together. Soon after, she arose with a countenance of pure, unadulterated glee — a toothy grin of victory — as she revealed John’s hard-earned bottle of whiskey retrieved from its captor. Victory secured, she hopped down and scurried back to the door, guiding John as he had previously done to her. He followed in a similar sort of dazed glee.

Only upon exiting the saloon had Lucile realised how late it was: the sky was encapsulating in its star-spotted darkness and the air bit endearing nibbles into her skin. The chill almost stung her face as much as her smile. As the commotion of the brawl fell further and further behind them, the sound of laughter came to their realisation. Perhaps the glee found in such simplicity would have been embarrassing in other — less drunk — circumstances. Though now it felt appropriate. Even when the following silence prevailed, they remained unashamedly content, content in what had deformed into some sadistic competition for who would dare to speak first.

Lucile toed the line with a raised eyebrow.

John dared to try when he chuckled awkwardly, a prelude to what should have been words, but nothing came out. His voice seemed to leave him with only the wisps of rasp that lingered in his breath.

Lucile looked down at the browned whiskey in her hands, studied how it sloshed in the bottle as she brought it up for further inspection and how it became more violent when she lightly fiddled with it. The more desperately she studied it, the more desperately her mind ran back to John. She found him to be inescapable at the best of times, all the more now that he was directly in front of her.

Everything about John was noncommittal when she looked back up at him: his eyes, slightly open, looked back down at her through the tilt of his head; his mouth rested in the barely open remnants of a laugh; and his upper body looked as though it was being pulled into her by resisted magnetism. He had to say something, but words had once again failed him. He was hardly eloquent at the best of times and he had found that strong whiskey and pretty women never helped him in that department.

“Lucile…” He fumbled with his words, wanting just to grab her instead.

“John.” 

She smiled. They both did.

“Luce, I really—” he paused, smiled, and then continued, “I really think that… well, I don’t much know how to say it bu—”

She stepped forward and suddenly her hand had found its way to his forearm, finding its way higher as she found herself closer. He felt the warmth of her hand replace the cold of the night; he cursed himself as an idiot, a fool, a good for nothing bastard, and every other name he could think of for the fabric of his shirt that blocked the direct contact. The contact, as indirect as it was, stood every hair on his clothing-covered arm upwards and his chest felt tight and floaty all at once; he would have called the feeling uncomfortable if he had not been mentally clawing for more. Anticipation racked every bone in his body.

Her eyes bore into his as his did to her, though there was something questioning in hers, if they could convey words they would be uptilted and light-footed. As he saw her leaning up towards his face he saw the ever-increasing questioning light up in her.

She was waiting for reciprocation.

The realisation hit John like a stampede and he could have sworn his body physically jumped at the revelation if it were not for the fact that Lucile had not seemed to have noticed a thing. He acted quick, perhaps more eagerly than he would have wished, as he leaned down to meet her lips with his own.

The first thing he took notice of was the texture of the scar on her lower lip, second to that, the surface level chill her lips had to them, courtesy of the evening climate, but after a second he felt the pulsating warmth of blood beneath the skin. Slowly the warmth became heat, searing heat, that, if John were not preoccupied, would have sent him spiraling. Right now all he could focus on was the basics of it all: he kissed, she kissed, and his achy chest demanded attention no matter how much he willed it not to. His thoughts were being transmitted through his brain at a primitive level; he would have liked to indulge in an array of poetic observations about the rawness of it all, but how could he manage that when multiple syllable words felt to be a lucky find for him?

After the initial instance of connection, John felt the idleness of his hands and sought to find a place for them to occupy. It took little exploration to discover the immense comfort he felt along her arms, then her shoulders, her back, and her waist. His exploration morphed into occupation and his splayed hands brought her in closer, a vice-like grip staking a claim to this moment and despairing to let it slip through his fingers.

She must have had the same thought because her free hand had long ago left his forearm for bigger adventures through the land of his torso and eventually his waist. Her other stayed firmly wrapped around the neck of the whiskey bottle.

Through the aches and pains of romance, he mourned more deeply the passing of every second, how the moment passed through time like grains of sand through an hourglass. As she pulled away his mourning became deeper, only allowing him to recover when he saw the smile on her face brighter than it was before. He felt his own face do the same.

“Sorry,” she chuckled in an attempt to regain her composure, something John never wanted her to have again, “I forgot about your lip.”

Her fingers ghosted where her lips had just been. The cut was raw and made John wince, something that he had seemingly forgotten to do previously.

“I’ve had worse.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that — trouble brings trouble.”

“Trouble?” He tutted, “That’s the pot calling the kettle black if I ever saw it — how was it that this story of yours ended?”

“In travesty,” she deadpanned poorly, the shadow of a suppressed smile surfacing slyly.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less. But you’ve more than a drink in your hand,” he nodded towards the bottle, “now indulge me.”

“I tried to reason with him-”

“You do reason very well,” he interjected.

Not a wisp of annoyance reared its head, only a thank you, John, before she continued.

“Though they say a fool can’t be reasoned with, and rightly so. I ended up pullin’ a knife on him and he pulled it right back on me… What a fool I am, being sliced with my own blade.” She chuckled, hesitating slightly, “It… it really isn’t too heroic John.”

She had begun to trace the nervous fingers of her left hand over the vertical bump of scar on her neck. She followed it up until she was dusting over her own lips.

“It doesn’t have to be,” he shrugged.

“When it came down to it, I ended up the faster bleeder. We were both pretty cut up between us but I was going faster. Much faster.”

She paused a much longer pause, her fingers growing more hasty in their exploration of her own scar. John waited.

“He looked like a corpse even when he was still strugglin’. He was white like a ghost and his eyes had sunk back into deep black crevices already. It— It was like I was waiting for him to start decayin’ that very instant… You know, skin falling off his bones. I can only imagine that I looked much worse… But eventually I began to, started acting how I likely looked as I struggled against my own unconsciousness to get out of that damned bloodbath. 

“I’m lucky for the Captain, the horse that is. If it weren’t for him I would have died then and there: all woozy and covered in another man’s blood — not to mention my own. He barged right through the door and trampled Clayton right down… When he first stepped on him I guess I thought it was an accident, but he trampled him. Vindictively. He probably resented him for keepin’ him waitin’ too long,” She chuckled, “He even managed to get me into the saddle somehow, that or I did it myself… I don’t really remember all too much… I guess I was too busy bleeding out.”

“The state I turned up at the sheriff’s office… I suppose I must’ve looked like Clayton did. A corpse.”

John said nothing.

Her hand dropped from her scar.

She looked up at him for the first time in a while, smile gone, but hardly melancholy. “Not as fantastical as you imagined, huh?”

He shrugged, “I weren’t expecting anything fantastical, miss. Stories that end up half in the grave usually aren’t.”

“I guess so…” She trailed off. “You want to know the real kicker?”

“Shoot.”

“He was right. I had been cheatin’ the whole time.”

They both stood in silence for a bit. John was the first to crack a smile and the rest fell like an avalanche until they were in fits of laughter, barely keeping themselves off of the mud.

John weezed and weezed until he could finally get out his next words, “Lucile, I’d like to see you again.”

“You’d like to see me again?” She repeated, testing the feeling of the words in her mouth, “John, you’re seein’ me right now.”

“You know that's not what I mean,” he smiled. “After this.”

“After this,” she agreed, “but let’s not get ahead of ourselves now, Mr Marston, the night is young; we got a bottle full of whiskey and a sky full of stars,” she gestured to each respectively, “why waste it wishin’ for tomorrow?”

Hardly able to stop the excited expression on her face, she continued, “besides, the company isn’t looking to be too bad.”

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thanks for reading <3

[scarleeto]

The Grays vs The Braithwaites

Horse flesh for dinner - The fine joys of tobacco