#🎟 // red dead redemption 2

[fabricated-misslieness]

pairing: arthur morgan x male reader

req: no | wc: 2.1k

summary: After Arthur unfortunately loses Boadicea, he’s got to have a mode of transport. With the wagons full, he has to share a horse with someone. That someone happens to be you.

warnings: suggestive, reader blushes and it’s a visible color.

a/n: inspired by Cpt. Monroe and Eagle Flies' hand placement when they ride on the same horse as Arthur. turned out longer than i thought (mainly cause i didn't know where this was going)

Warmth. All you can think about is warmth.

You wanted warmth.

You were in need of it, after riding with the gang for hours at a time in this cold, desolate mountainscape. Why did nature even grow up here? Perhaps to survive in a place it could actually thrive in, just like you once upon a time. You missed it, the wide expanse of desert and rolling tumbleweed, sand beneath your feet and the warm oh… the warm sun. You’d hated it, then, only to be in desperate need of it now.

The sun, ah, she’s only there when you don’t need her.

That was you a few hours ago. Warmth was still plaguing your thoughts, though for a different reason now. At the present moment, it seemed as if you were in abundance of warmth. It was too much, felt like too much, but it was just enough.

Arthur Morgan.

Fucking hell, Arthur Morgan.

His, damn, big hands, big and warm, hooked between the length of your waist and your hip, held you lightly, as if the mere existence of a firmer touch could set you on fire. For the record, even the ghost of firmness, even the tips of one or two of his fingers at a time or the center of his palm gripping harder at your body was enough. God knows what’d happen if he had access to bare skin unlayered by your useless coats.

Arthur Morgan.

His chest hovered right behind you. The large expanse of his broad chest made you aware of his presence, if you weren’t aware of it on your own. You were painfully aware of it.

Silently, you thanked the mountains and cold for covering the fact you were blushing. Though if anyone put a hand to your forehead, they’d think you were sick. You wouldn’t put it past Miss Grimshaw to be concerned even with the cold or her tough love behavior.

There was not much you could distract yourself with, aside from the occasional yipping of a fox or mangled shadow coming into view (it was a weird tree); and you desperately needed something. Least you’d have a settlement to distract yourself with, if you even came across one. You’d been sent out as scouts for a reason. Then again, it’s already been a couple hours or so; you already lost track of time.

Arthur, on the other hand, didn’t seem to think of it much. If he were truly comfortable with you, though, he wouldn’t mind putting his chest to your back. So he was thinking about it, at least a little bit. Although, you thought he was comfortable enough with you. It certainly seemed like it sometimes. What even were you? The two of you?

One moment, you’re under the wide expanse of the night sky, huddled together for a bit of warmth and something more; the next, you’re half-way ‘cross camp from each other, not a thought in your heads about the other. Least, mostly. The spare glances from his seat at the poker table and yours at Pearson's wagon said otherwise.

His grip on your waist comes a little harder now, when his eyes catch another weird shadow. You’re vaguely aware of him peeking from behind your shoulder until you’re fully aware because of his cold breath against your ear. You can see the end of it from your peripheral.

“What do you reckon that is?”

“Hm?” So distracted, you barely registered his words.

“That.” He didn’t seem to notice.

“Oh, um, ‘nother tree?”

It was indeed another tree. Arthur sighed, slumping back down from his alerted position. God, he was tired of scouting. He wouldn’t have taken the duty if he had no qualms with sitting around in the misery and hopelessness of his fellow gang members, or if he had Boadicea for that matter.

Oh, Boadicea… he missed her.

“How’ve you been?” He distracts himself from thoughts of mourning by talking to you, which is exactly what you’ve been avoiding.

“G-Good.”

“Just ‘good’?”

To a certain degree, for varying reasons, “Yeah… just said so.”

Arthur can feel how tense you are under his fingers, and he sees the stiffness of your shoulders. That and the state of the gang after the Blackwater job. You’re not ‘good’, he can tell. “You sure yer good? Or, uh, anythin’ wrong?”

“Nothin’s wrong, Arthur.”

You don’t loosen up in the slightest, so he’s keen on knowing whether you’re really alright. ‘Sides, he knows you. “I've been riding with you for long. I know something’s off.”

“Couple hours?”

“Couple years, more like.” Right.

Arthur moves to continue speaking, to coerce your troubles out of your shut lips, before he is interrupted by a sharp yell. It's inhuman, he learns a second later, when a buck runs across the scape right in front of you. Your horse cries out too and jumps on his hind legs.

"Woah! Steady, steady!"

He has to cling onto your waist to keep himself from falling off as you calm your stead down. The moment ends within a minute, but Arthur clings on all the same.

It's after this that he notices a lot of things, your sharp inhale as the horse stands back on four legs, and the remaining stiffness from your alert pose. Even after, you can't find yourself calming down.

He loosens his grip eventually, and then he notices something else, too.

You sigh in relief once Arthur's grip loosens. Not that you weren't quite fond of it –made you feel rather secure, actually– you were just not in need of the scalding heat that it brought.

"Oh." Arthur breathes out audibly as he comes to a realization.

"Oh, wha-" You stop mid sentence as he grips at your waist hard again. You hate yourself for it, but you will admit that you let out an embarrassingly high squeal.

The squeal would've been higher had Arthur pressed his chest to your back at the same time, although it didn’t seem like you’d have to wait any longer for that, ‘cause he pulled that same gesture only a few seconds after.

"Nothin,” He chuckles, “just, thought that Buck's shout was a man's."

Right, nothing; of course it wasn't 'nothing'. Arthur Morgan had you fooled in one lovely way, but he did not have you fooled this way.

“Say, (y/n), I don’t see so much as a shiver in you.”

“Really?”

His grip tightens around your waist. Surely he’s caught on by now… but if he hadn’t, you weren’t going to reveal it to him any time soon. These thoughts about him, Arthur Morgan and his piercing actions that left you stunned, they weren’t new; yet, he hadn’t discovered their effects on you thus far, and you wanted to keep it that way.

For what? Fear of shame, embarrassment.

Though, it seems you couldn’t avoid that anymore.

“Not a peep of it.”

“I got a… tolerance, to the cold, ‘suppose.”

“Uh-huh,” He affirms at first, nodding his head. The tip of his hat bumps against the back of yours and pushes it forward. The brim of it covers the top of your field of view, urging you to look down just that little bit more. “supposedly, anyway.”

Just what was he planning?

Your eyes find his hands and you swear you can see them tighten. You can certainly feel it, too.

Arthur goes silent, so you do too, thanking whatever God decided to shut him up. His audacious actions hadn’t stopped, but at least you didn’t have his sharp tongue and deep voice to accompany them.

You thought that to be a miracle, his lips zipped shut, but where the absence they left was, his hands took over.

“What’re you doin’, Morgan?” You know what he’s doing, clear as day.

His fingers rub circles along your waist, slow and steady and pressing hard, but not too hard. They hold purpose, supposedly, but purpose you know nothing of.

You’re so focused on his fingers that you don’t notice where he keeps his lips. “Eyes on the road.”

The whisper comes right at your ear, along with the subtle touch of his lip against the shell of your ear. A shiver goes down your spine… so much for that tolerance earlier.

You follow his command, anyway, or at least what you can see of the road through the storm and his distracting actions.

Fucking hell, Arthur Morgan, the things you do to a man.

Focus on the road.

“Yer awfully warm there.”

You can’t focus on the road, not when Arthur’s right there. The cold tip of his nose presses against your warm cheek, and he leans his chin ‘gainst your shoulder. Rather bold of him, you think; then again, he’s done bolder things on occasions where you need less warmth and more breeze.

“...ain’t awful in this d-damned hellscape.”

He chuckles, “Y’got that right.”

You bask in the silence that ensues, and even more, you bask in the warmth of him. The scalding heat, like that of your beloved west’s summer sun, that is Arthur’s touch soon becomes comfortable, nice and cozy, like a campfire.

Oh, sitting by campfires was so warm. But Arthur… he, was warmer.

His cold breath hits you right on the cheek like the kiss of a breeze, which in this snowy circumstance is not what you’re looking for, yet it doesn’t drain the heat from your cheeks. And his hands, phew, they work their way down to your hips, finding a steady grip around them. His pinkies work away on the meat of your…

Eyes… eyes on the road.

“Shit! Woah, woah, steady!”

Suddenly, Arthur is thrown off your horse. You’re barely on it, if it weren’t for your deathly (you hadn’t noticed) grip on the reins.

You’d run into a goddamn tree.

You turn, quickly after settling your horse down, to Arthur. The cowboy’s on his ass, on the ground, sunken in a good fifteen centimeters into the pure white. His entire backside –calfs, thighs, hair and all– is covered in a nice layer of snow.

Horror spreads through your face. This was all your fault-

Then, he laughs. He laughs it off, and you follow suit. He distracted you, you remember that now. If anything, it was his fault. And god, if the sight of him messy like this wasn’t hilarious. His mouth is wide, wide open, and even in this bastard of a storm, he’s laughing loud.

Until he’s not.

Suddenly, he’s coughing, and your concern is back. “Arthur? Arthur, y’alright?”

Clearly, he’s not. “I-khoff” He clears his throat, “I, er, think I swallowed some,” (a lot) “snowflakes.”

And you’re laughing again. It’s only after a lung-full of air that you realize you should get moving. “Get up, cowboy! ‘Fore you freeze your ass off.”

“Not helping me, darlin’?” Yet, he stands up on his own.

“Sure.”

So you go behind him, resist all your urge to touch his ass for longer than you need, and wipe him down. Arthur wipes himself down, too, best he can, but for the most part it’s your labor. Still, you don’t fail to notice the shiver in him, regardless of your swift work.

He turns to you, bashful, when you’ve got most of it off. “Seem to have frozen my ass off anyway.” He clears his throat, and despite that fondling he’d done earlier, rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Can I take the reins?”

“Um,” You think about it for a mere second. She was your horse, but this was Arthur Morgan. Even if you’d done the same fondlin’, he’d have handled it better than you. Eyes on the road. “sure.”

Arthur settles on your horse, with you behind him. You’re sure why he’s asked for this, a hug or more than that to warm him down, just as he’d once done to you. He needed that warmth, more than you, after all.

After falling into snow, he was extremely cold, not that it wasn’t obvious. You could notice his shivering, with your arms wrapped tight around him; and from the close proximity, it wracked your body almost like it did his. Your hands were cold, too, from wiping him off, so you kept them intertwined to be warmed up and used later. Your chin found refuge on his shoulder, and Arthur could feel you just like you did earlier.

Yet, even with this cold, he felt warm. You’re sure it’s the butterflies of love or the knowing that you were holding the man you oh so adored; but it was also that Arthur was a warm man, big grizzly bear as he was.

You press a kiss to his temple. Arthur seems to lean into it.

“When this is all over, I’m takin’ ya out on a date.”

“Planning on courtin’ me, Arthur?”

“I thought I was already.”

[fabricated-misslieness]

pairing: javier escuella (rdr2) x male reader

req: no | wc: 1.08k

summary: Javier’s sweet on you, you’re sweet on him. Home doesn’t feel so far anymore.

a/n: reader has lived in Panamá long enough to be emotionally attached and have its accent, also speaks spanish like a native. if i had it my way the whole fic’s dialogue would be in spanish but eh gringos

Javier’s used to shouting out lyrics for the gang, thankfully in his native language. Though singing out “Canta y no llores!” high and loud with that strong pair o’ lungs o’ his is nice and all, he has no objection in singing them lower.

“...porque cantando se alegran, cielito lindo, los corazones.”

His cielito lindo this particular evening is you, o’ course, and you’re actually able to appreciate the lyrics on a level the gang can’t.

Your humming along to in rhythm fades to silence at the same time its counterpart, his singing, does.

Javier relaxes for a bit, as best he can with the heaving up and down of your chest moving him along. His ear is to it, actually, right between your pecs. He can hear the beatin’ of your heart and finds it calming; in fact, it’s the reason for his slower tempo.

It's hard to sing in one tempo when another is right at your ear.

Or at least, that’s what he’d say to everyone else. Music, he’s so good at it, comes subconsciously now, as did that song. His main focus was your heart, and knowing you’re there.

He needed that to ground him after that heist you’d pulled off earlier that day. He feels as though he’s still recovering from the high of adrenaline as bullets pierce the wood of the table he’s hiding behind, just nearly hittin’ him, and the feeling of a bullet grazing his hair right at the moment he begins to peek his head a mere centimeter above the table.

“You saved my life back there.” You say.

“You always say that.” He says.

“And it’s always true.”

Your heart much contrasts his own. Yours is calm, beatin’ as fast as it needs to. His, on the other hand, is much quicker; both with the adrenaline and without. He’s still not quite used to this, the pure, tender, shameless lovin’ you share with him each day.

“Javi.”

The silence is broken. He doesn’t mind.

He turns his head up to you, chin restin’ against your chest causing it to jut out slightly, and hums in response, “Hm?”

You’re about to speak when he interrupts you, seemingly forgetting you were calling his attention instead of the other way round.

“Why do you always call me Javi?”

“An apodo for mi amor.” (A nickname for my love.)

He’s about to “aww” when you continue.

“Partly, anyway. The other reason is ‘cause of this puta, Carrizo, vecino mío del mismo nombre tuyo. Bastardo, era… Anyway,” You clear your throat, and Javier laughs at how quick you are to change the subject, “this relates to what I was going to say—si no me hubieras interrumpido.” (bitch, Carrizo, neighbor of mine with the same name as you. Bastard, he was. / if you hadn't interrupted me.)

And he laughs again.

The humor of the conversation makes him expect something just as light, perhaps poking fun at Sean or something, not whatever comes next.

“¿Extrañas a casa?” (Do you miss home?)

He’s quick to reply, anyway. The answer is obvious.

“Claro…¿y tú?” (Obviously... and you?)

“Clarísimo. Panamá… Panamá prácticamente está en ruinas, de un tirano a otro. El canal ni siquiera está en nuestras propias manos. Es mierda.” (Obviously [to higher degree] Panama is practically in ruins, from one tyrant to another. The canal isn't even in our own hands. It's shit.)

“I feel you.” Javier turns his head back to the side, back to nature; the dark green of the trees and grass and brown of the squirrels and red of the raspberries… It soothes him for a bit, though it doesn’t drive his thoughts away from his dear Mexico. He can’t even be there to lead the revolution against ese maldito gobierno. He’s wanted more dead than alive, even, in that mess of a land.

Home was so far, more for you than him, really, but who cares; it was equally as hard for the both of you to even think about it without sorrow.

“Pero…¿Sabes algo, Javi? Lo extraño menos y menos estos días.” (Although... You know something, Javi? I miss it less and less these days.)

His head snaps up to you, “¿De verdad?” He can’t stop the spitting out of words to even register if they’re rude in his disbelief. (Really / Truly?)

“¿Montón de ‘bogus’, aha?” (Buncha bogus, huh?)

“No, no, yo también.” (No, no, me too.)

“Ah.” So you weren’t alone in this. To say it’s a relief is an understatement. “It’s just that, I feel like I’ve found a new home.”

“¿En los Van der Lin’s?” (In the Van der Lin's?)

“Ehh,” You shift up to lean on your elbows, bringing him up with you, “not exactly.” The gang… they were your home, yeah, but that wasn’t what you were thinking about right now; not when you had Mr. Escuella layin’ over you.

“Then where?”

He can barely register the hand you use to cup his cheek –though instincts take over and he leans on it anyway– too attentive awaiting your answer to really realize.

“You.”

Oh. It shouldn’t’ve been a shock, thinking logically. Your love for each other wasn’t new, and while he wasn’t expecting for you to say he was home right now, he was hoping for it. The words after that come out naturally, “Yo también.” (Me too.)

“Then I’m the happiest man this side of the Earth.”

“What about the other side?” He asks as he begins his ‘climb’ up to you.

“I’m sure the king of England is a happy man.”

Javier allows himself to chuckle just for a moment. Why he wouldn’t in the first place, though, is because he wanted to kiss you. His hands find refuge between your body and your elbow, and he uses them to prop himself up as he presses his lips tenderly against yours.

When your lips meet, he actually thinks about it again. You could say the kiss brings him back to reality.

You considered him your home, and he considered you his home.

Mieeerda. (Shiiit)

He falls onto you; quite literally, on your chest, nearly flooring you against the log you’ve been laying on. Javi doesn’t seem to mind that, though, or maybe he doesn’t register it, as he wraps his arms around your neck and becomes utterly absorbed in the tender kiss.

“Dios mio.” He gasps when he comes out for air, “If I hadn’t known you…” (My God.)

“No estarías ‘draped’ sobre alguien ‘pre-ca-riós-ly’ en el medio de un bosque como un joven rebelde. Además, no serías tan liviano como un joven para vivir sin preocuparse por el hombre debajo de ti.” (You would'nt be draped over someone precariously in the middle of the forest like a young rebel. Also, you wouldn't be as light as a teenager to be living without a care for the man below you.)

He takes the hint and holds himself up again, even if he feels weak from the revelation and kiss. He clears his throat awkwardly, little embarrassed at how you pointed his weakness out to him so frankly. In an attempt to hide it, he says, “Creo que la parte fuerte de esa palabra estaría en 'ca' pero supongo que solo conozco tu acento panameño.” (I think the strong part of that word [precariously] would be in 'ca' but I suppose I only know your Panamanian accent)

“Sure.”

fun fact: that Javier I talked about exists, although he's not an asshole and the z in his last name replaces two letters. carrizo means straw, by the way.