#arthur is horribly starved of love and affection?

[completely-real-and-normal-human]

twisted pathetic men yaoi got me feeling out of sorts

[fruitcoops]

okay so we all love dad dumo and he's an incredible parent but even dumo isn't perfect. Could we maybe have dumo snapping at logan (or sirius, if it strikes your fancy, but i love dumo+logan dynamics) and then apologizing for it like a parent actually f*cking should

Oof, yes. Combined with asks for Sirius and Logan bonding, as well as some pre-Cap and James. SW credit goes to @lumosinlove!

TW for parental figure disappointment

The car rumbled. Dumo’s hands squeaked on the wheel as he flexed his fingers. Logan felt like he was going to throw up.

Can we turn around real quick? No, too vague. Can we go home so I can use the bathroom? No, he’ll say I can wait another ten minutes. I forgot my phone at home? No, he saw me put it in my pocket. Logan ran through every possible way of asking to go back to the Dumais house without giving away his dilemma; with each scenario, they grew further from where he needed to be.

“Hey, Dumo?” he began quietly, swallowing around his dry mouth. What was it his father always said? Honesty is the best policy. “We need to go back to your house for a moment.”

“We’re already running late,” Dumo said, not even sparing him a glance in the rearview mirror. The traffic around them was a mess. “If we go back, we’ll miss the first part of warmups.”

“I know, but it’s kind of important.”

“So is the game. If it’s your wallet, you don’t need it right—”

“I left my skates by the front door.”

Dead silence filled the car as Dumo slowed to a stop at the fourth red light. Logan’s heart sank and his stomach crawled into his throat. “What?”

“I left my skates by the front door,” he repeated, staring at his hands. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking—”

“Tabernak, Logan!” Dumo snapped. He felt something inside him wither and die. “First the nap, then forgetting to wash your jersey, and now you left your fucking skates behind? What’s going on in your head? You are an adult now with responsibilities, and it’s your job to keep track of your shit.”

“I know,” Logan said quietly.

Dumo huffed. “Clearly you don’t! Do you just not care? Is that it?”

“I care.”

“This isn’t a college team, Logan.” Dumo’s accent grew harsh around his name. It had been a bad day for him—Adele came down with a nasty cold just after Celeste left to visit her parents for the weekend, and there was always an added pressure with home games. Logan knew that, and he knew he should have been paying better attention.

“I know.”

Dumo muttered a curse under his breath and pulled onto a side road, then swore again when his duffle bag slid in the passenger seat. Logan closed his eyes; there was no way they would make it all the way to the house and back to the rink in time for pre-game rituals. Damn it, Tremblay. What were you thinking?

They drove the rest of the way in silence. Dumo parked the car with a quiet “go”, and Logan hurried inside with a slight nod to the babysitter as he grabbed his skates before slinking back to the car with his head hung low.

“I’m really disappointed in you,” Dumo said when they reached the freeway again.

“I’m sorry.”

He received no response.

They won the game despite skipping all their superstitions, no thanks to Logan. He played like shit; Arthur barely gave him four shifts the whole night. Finn shot him a concerned look as he rinsed off and slipped back into his street clothes, but Logan didn’t have the energy to confront both his best friend and the upsetting feelings connected to the aforementioned best-friend-slash-secret-crush. If he tried, he’d certainly end up doing something stupid.

He packed his things, slung his bag over his shoulder, and followed Dumo out to the car like a stray dog with his tail between his legs. “I really am—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Dumo interrupted as they pulled out of the parking lot. Logan pressed his lips together. “Are you hungry?”

Starving. “Kinda.”

“I’ll heat up some leftover lasagna when we get back to the house. Will you pay the babysitter and make sure the kids are in bed?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you.”

Logan ground his teeth around the steady ache building in his chest—he hated disappointing people in general, but it was a whole different story with Dumo. He was his second father, the person Logan admired most on the team. He gave him a home and a substitute family to ease the homesickness, and was always there to cheer him on. And Logan let him down.

They went through their nightly routine silently, which was a sharp contrast to their usual banter. Marc and Louis refused to go to bed at first, nearly bringing Logan to tears in his frustration, but he eventually got them settled down and tucked in. By some miracle, both the girls were already asleep.

“I’m going to call Celeste,” Dumo finally said as Logan unloaded the dishwasher. He nodded without a word, not trusting his voice.

As soon as the dishwasher was full and running, Logan took his phone out and dialed the only person he wanted to hear from. It rang twice before connecting. “Hello?”

“Hey.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Hey, Cap, what’s up?”

“Not much.” Sirius sounded confused, and more than a little tired. “Ça va?”

Logan’s eyes burned. “Not bad. Do you have a minute?”

There was a rustling noise from the other end, followed by the clink of keys. “You’re at Dumo’s, right?”

“Oui.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

“Thanks,” he managed around his tight throat. “See you soon.”

Hushed voices came from the living room and Logan padded down the hall, knocking gently on the doorframe. Dumo looked up and furrowed his brow. “Un moment, mon amour. Are you alright?”

“Sirius is coming by in ten. We’re going to hang out for a bit, if that’s okay.”

“Tell him I say hello.” Without another word, Dumo uncovered the base of his phone and returned to his conversation. Logan nodded and headed back out into the hall, swallowing down the tears forming behind his eyes.

Ten minutes turned out to be seven minutes—Logan was simultaneously flattered and concerned—and a soft knock startled him out of his thoughts. Sirius already looked worried when the front door swung open. “What happened? Is everyone okay? Did something happen to Celeste?”

“She’s fine. Dumo says hi.” And he’s horribly disappointed in me. Logan took several deep breaths through his nose to control the tremor in his voice and Sirius gave him a worried once-over. “Can we drive around for a bit?”

“Of course.”

For all of his bluster and general brooding vibe, Sirius continued to be the king of empathy and (in Logan’s opinion) a secret mind-reader. The second his arm draped across Logan’s shoulders and held him close as they walked down the sidewalk, he felt some of the pressure in his chest release. “Sorry about the late call,” he sniffled. It was a cold night—the snot threatening to drip from his nose was frigid already. “I just—I needed to get out for a minute.”

“À tout moment.” Any time. Logan didn’t feel deserving of that kindness after the mess he had been on the ice. The heaters kicked on as soon as Sirius started the car and Logan closed his eyes, leaning back into the warm seat. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“It’s so stupid.”

“Doesn’t sound like it.”

Logan took a moment to breathe before shaking his head. “I forgot my skates. We were already running late, and I forgot my fucking skates at the house.”

Sirius hummed, but said nothing.

“It’s—Dumo has been having such a horrible day.” Tears clogged his throat again. “And I took a nap earlier because I stayed up late last night like an idiot, and Adele’s sick so he had all the kids and no help while he was trying to get ready, and then I overslept so it was already going to be rushed and forgot to clean my jersey and then—and then I forgot my skates. God, I’m so stupid.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

“It’s not.” Logan wanted to kick him for being so infuriatingly patient. Sirius glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “That’s not why you’re upset, though.”

“He’s—” Logan broke off and swiped the first tear away with his sweatshirt cuff. “He said he was disappointed in me.”

“Ah.”

“It’s such a stupid thing to be upset about.”

Sirius sighed through his nose and pulled into the parking lot of a 24-hour Taco Bell, then turned off the car and faced Logan with one eyebrow raised. “Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Belittling yourself.”

“Okay, Heather,” Logan snorted. Sirius reached over and flicked him on the forehead. “Hey!”

“You forgot your skates. Big deal. We’ve all been there.”

Logan shot him a glare. “You’ve never forgotten your skates.”

“Yes, I have. My very first game with the Lions, actually. Except I didn’t realize it until we were already at the rink.”

“Did Dumo drive you back?”

“The whole damn way. He was mad as hell, but he did it.” Sirius’ face softened, and he poked Logan gently on the thigh. “Stop kicking yourself for this one. It sounds like it was a bad day for you both.”

“I still feel like shit.”

Sirius shrugged. “I bet. Disappointing Dumo is the worst feeling ever.”

“He wouldn’t even let me apologize.”

“He will.”

They sat in silence for a full minute as Logan tried to find the right words. “How did you deal with it? Letting people down. It feels like I’m drowning, sometimes.”

“Really, really poorly,” Sirius half-laughed, crossing his ankle over his knee. “It wasn’t until I was named captain that I started accepting that people weren’t lying when they forgave me for fucking up.”

“Why?”

“Believe it or not, the people I was around as a kid didn’t make a habit of apologizing to me when they did something wrong.”

Logan looked up from the faded letters on his sweatshirt sleeve and sniffled. “Thanks for bringing me out here.”

“Pas de problem. I figured you could use some company outside the house.”

“You’re the best.”

“I try.”

“You succeed.” You’re like a brother to me, actually. “Is this what James did for you?”

“No,” Sirius laughed. Affection took over his face, bright even in the dim light from the streetlamps. “No, he snuck me onto the roof of the rink with massive amounts of junk food and stayed with me until the imposter syndrome faded. It was fantastic, but we nearly got hypothermia several times in the winter. This is much more comfortable.”

“Thanks for helping me keep all my fingers and toes,” Logan said wryly. He lapsed back into silence and folded his forearms on the dashboard, sighing at the pleasant stretch of his back. “I know I have to go back eventually, but I’m scared.”

“Honestly, Logan, I bet he’s already forgiven you. He knows it was an accident.”

“But what if he doesn’t?” The words came out as little more than a whisper. Sirius’ hand rested hesitantly between his shoulder blades until Logan leaned back into it, then began rubbing gentle circles.

“He does,” Sirius said softly. “And he loves you so much.”

Logan sniffed back more tears. “Really?”

“Ouais. You’ve been living with him for nine months now, and he’s so proud of how far you’ve come.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he told me. Last week, after your hat trick. People fuck up, Logan, but that doesn’t mean they’re unforgivable. You don’t need to flay yourself for one bad day.”

Logan shut his eyes with a slow exhale and buried his face in his forearms. “I think I’m ready to go back now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“D’accord. Buckle your seatbelt.”

He straightened up and stretched, wincing at the crack of his back. Sirius drove out of the parking lot and hummed under his breath to the radio, but Logan didn’t miss the careful glances out of the corner of his eye. “You don’t need to worry about me,” he finally said. “I’ll be okay.”

“I know,” Sirius said casually, though he looked like he was holding something back. Logan didn’t press; Sirius would talk in his own time if he wanted to. He opened his mouth, paused, then sighed. “But I do worry about you.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

Thank you, Captain Black, for the most media answer of all time. “You really don’t have to.”

Sirius parked the car and leaned his head back against the seat. “You’re my friend, and I care about you, so I worry.”

Logan blinked at him. “You care about me?”

“Obviously,” Sirius muttered. Even in the darkness of the street, his cheeks were pink. “Now go on, you've got someone waiting for you.”

“I care about you, too.”

“Out of my car, Tremblay.” Despite his words, a smile quirked at the corner of Sirius’ mouth. Logan socked him lightly on the arm and opened the door, shivering in the night air as it bit through his hoodie.

“Drive safe, Cap.”

“I will.”

The walk to the front door felt less like a trip to the gallows and more like coming home; Logan felt his muscles relax, and saw the curtains shift as someone moved away from the window. Dumo opened the door before he could even knock.

“I’m sorry,” they said in unison. Logan raised his eyebrows and Dumo opened the door the rest of the way, ushering him inside.

The moment the door closed behind him, Dumo wrapped him in a hug. “I’m so sorry for what I said earlier, Logan. You made a mistake, and I shouldn’t have come down hard on you.”

“I’m sorry I made us late,” Logan said into his soft shirt. “And for not helping earlier. It won’t happen again.”

“All is forgiven.” Dumo patted him on the back of the shoulder and held him at arm’s length with a sad smile. “I should have kept a better handle on my temper. You don’t deserve to be spoken to like that.”

Logan bit back the urge to say it’s okay or I deserved it and instead pulled him in for another hug. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I didn’t realize how much you’ve helped me until today.”

Dumo made a quiet sound and held him tighter. “It’s a gift to have you here.”

Logan squeezed his eyes shut as a wave of emotion rolled in his heart. “There is nowhere I would rather be,” he whispered. They stayed like that for a long moment, swaying slightly, before Dumo stepped back.

“Get some rest. We have early practice tomorrow.” He mussed Logan’s hair and gave him a nudge toward the stairs. “Bonne nuit, mon fils.”

Mon fils. Logan’s breath caught for a second and he smiled. “Bonne nuit.”

[fecto-forgo]

rating fandom affection terms for characters because i have nothing better to do

favorite character-simple, straight forward, not bad at all, but it lacks spice and a true demonstration of love, 8/10 gets the job done

problematic favorite-a great term, once again straight forward but in this case about the guy in question being acknowledged as a stinky rascal, 10/10

cinnamon roll-its ok, i was never into it bc idc for those types of characters, suffered a sad fate of eventually becoming a term associated with diminishing characters into just their "cute and pure" traits, 2/10 bc i remember it getting really annoying after a while, it being from old fandom times society wants to forget doesnt help its case

smol bean-same feelings as above, but suffered a more tragic fate that its downfall was caused by 30 years old adults attempting to call themselves smol beans, 1/10 i use smol every once in a blue moon

tol-i honestly dont think this was ever put in proper use, it was created to match smol but taller people (in fandom height standards thats anyone above 5'0) do not give off the vibes fandom people need to want to infantalize them, 5/10 for sounding a bit funny

waifu/husbando-i think someone using those to refer to any character at all should be a red flag, 1/10 someone can get more 4 points if their favorite is of age to be called that

best girl/best boy-can be a red flag but can also be used as a term for "whos your favorite from *gender*?" so it gets a mild pass, 4/10

baby boy (baby)-cute! came from a decently funny meme, 7/10 funny to scream out when youre rotating them in your brain

gay baby-im honestly convinced this wasnt used by a single lgbt+ person outside of like, maybe a gay baby jail joke, 0/10 called me a slur

rat-was funny the first fifty times, 6/10 not horrible but after a while it felt like itd meet the same fate as cinnamon roll

komaeda-i do not know how i feel about this, if its used in a conversation itll either be hilarious or be the worst attempt at making a character summary, ???/10

twink-i keep getting flashbacks to the chubby twink fight in that post about the animal crossing owls everytime i hear it, 6/10 i dont know what it means anymore

sexyman-funny term for us, slur for the characters, im confused if this is even an affection term/10

son/daughter-adorable i love seeing this get used for a character who had family issues, 8/10 just very sweet

poor little meow meow-the specific brand of irony is genius, its like watching a victorian woman throw bread crumbs at a starving orphaned homeless child, 9/10 my friend wanted to kill me for calling lancelot from king arthur my meow meow

skrunkly-meow meow but with a bigger brand of pity, truly like seeing a cat who just got out of a bath and is in misery, 10/10

blorbo-a fine revolutionary term used to fight back against angry ops their posts were getting fandom tags in the fandom app, 20/10 cured my fear of judgement

*any sexual term*-would maybe be a bit funny if you guys used it for men who actually look pretty for once, 2/10 has ironic potential

slut/whore-very funny if used in a couple of men, otherwise its just awkward 3/10

any graphic paragraph of wanting to fix a man through something such as putting them in rice-a great way to show concern but still hint at being able to laugh at them, 10/10 i tried joking about this with a friend outside of tumblr and she acted like i was insane

will update if i remember more <3

[coochiequeens]

If the courts accepted self defense for women who killed their abusive partners that boy would be with his mother, not an abusive father and stepmother

Tuesday 16 June 2020 started the same as any other for six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes: in misery and in pain.

Barely able to stand, he folded away his bedding in the living room where his father and new stepmother had been making him sleep on the floor, all the while monitored by CCTV set up to catch him "misbehaving".

For three months, his life was dictated by a cruel punishment regime enforced by Emma Tustin and Thomas Hughes.

That day would be his last alive.

Warning - this article contains distressing content.

Arthur's short life had been difficult. He lived with his mother, Olivia Labinjo-Halcrow, after she and Hughes split not long before his second birthday. After she was arrested for killing her abusive partner in 2019, Arthur was left in the sole care of his father.

Despite the challenges, he was a happy and cheeky child who was adored by his extended family. He loved school, football and superheroes.

Dad and partner guilty of killing six-year-old

Not long after taking responsibility for Arthur, Hughes, 29, met Tustin on an online dating site. When the UK went into lockdown in March 2020, the new couple made the decision to merge their families at Tustin's home on Cranmore Road in Solihull, where she lived with her own children, aged four and five.

It didn't take long for things to deteriorate for Arthur. By April, social services and police had paid a visit after referrals from his concerned grandmother, Joanne Hughes, and an anonymous tip off from Tustin's own parents. The 32-year-old was said to have "bristled with hostility" towards Arthur.

Mrs Hughes spotted extensive bruising on her grandson's back and he'd told her Tustin had slammed him into the stairs, calling him an "ugly, horrible brat".

The authorities found no cause for concern.

Tustin and Hughes manipulated visitors, told them his bruises were down to play. Hughes would even call Arthur's school and tell teachers he'd been playing out in the garden. It was a lie.

What they concealed was a campaign of violence, cruelty and abuse, designed to terrorise, debase and dehumanise the boy who depended on them.

Prosecutors noted how the day Arthur was fatally injured, there was barely an indication that he even lived at number 39 Cranmore Road, such was his isolation from the rest of the family.

He was monitored on CCTV set up around the home, cameras that would eventually capture Tustin callously trying to administer Calpol to the boy she had murdered just out of view in the hallway.

The hallway where Arthur's heart stopped beating is where he had spent most of his time during lockdown. For up to 14 hours a day, he would stand facing the door, deprived of food, drink and affection. He would stand there alone while his father enjoyed chocolates and other treats in the kitchen with Tustin and her own children.

His treasured possessions, including a favourite blanket, teddy bear and his beloved Birmingham City football shirts, were torn up and destroyed before his eyes by an enraged Hughes as another twisted punishment.

As he grew weaker and struggled to stand, Arthur would be punished further if he tried to move or sit down in the hallway.

While alone, Arthur would often cry to himself. Tustin would record more than 200 clips of him in distress, including two particularly harrowing recordings where Arthur is heard begging in tears, "I want you to feed me, no one's going to feed me" and crying "no one loves me".

Tustin sent these recordings to Hughes who would respond with violent threats, encouraging his partner to harm his son. "Just end him," one message read. "I'll sort him out when I'm home," said another.

Tustin complied, and by the time he died experts said the extent of Arthur's injuries met the medical definition of child torture. His tiny body bore more than 130 bruises.

All the while, Arthur was cut off from those who loved him and could help him. Tustin and Hughes simply kept him out of view.

His maternal grandmother, Madeleine Halcrow, said Hughes had stopped her from seeing Arthur since 2019. She was not to see him again until he was fighting for his life in intensive care.

Tustin's hairdresser Catherine Milhench, known as 'Affy', and her husband Tobias Jarman were among the last people to see Arthur alive. Not long after weakly putting away his bedding on 16 June, Tustin took Arthur to her appointment at Ms Milhench's home.

The couple were struck by the state of the boy they had last seen in February. Then, he was really quite healthy looking, they told the court. Just a few months later, he was gaunt, malnourished and too weak to hold a glass of water Mr Jarman had smuggled him.

In his eyes was fear, they would say, and it soon became apparent why. Like at home, he was forced to stand in the hallway and when he failed to stand up straight, Hughes was heard bellowing at his son, threatening to put him six feet under and to rip his head off and use it as a football.

Shortly after 13:00 that day, the family was back home. Hughes took Tustin's children to the supermarket, leaving his own son in mortal danger.

It's thought as soon as they were alone in the house, Tustin forced him to drink a salt slurry in the upstairs bathroom. Poisoned, Arthur would have deteriorated within about 45 minutes.

Tustin bombarded Hughes with messages complaining of the child's behaviour as his condition worsened. In a three-minute phone call, Hughes pretended they spoke about balloons for a birthday party but more likely, prosecutors suggest, he acted as he routinely did when Tustin reported Arthur's behaviour to him: in a rage, with threats, and encouraging violence.

Minutes later, Arthur was unconscious. Tustin had inflicted a catastrophic brain injury by shaking him and repeatedly slamming his head into a hard surface.

As he died, she did nothing save take a photo and send it to Hughes. The camera in the living room captured Arthur slumped on the floor.

She carried him around the house, plotting how best to arrange him to fit her deception that she was blameless. Eventually, she would call an ambulance but it was too late, and Arthur died in hospital shortly after 01:00 the following morning.

Since that moment, Tustin has sought to deflect blame. In differing accounts, she would variously blame Arthur for his own injuries.

"Whatever has happened, it has been done by his own actions," Tustin told jurors. Medical experts disagreed. There was no way the six-year-old boy could inflict these "unsurvivable" injuries on himself.

She presented herself as a victim. She claimed it was in fact Arthur who was the aggressor in the house, that he had treated the couple badly, causing them "daily stress".

Tests after his death revealed something else sinister - salt poisoning had been routine for him.

He had consumed at least six-and-a-half teaspoons of salt the day he was fatally injured. Tustin had been repeatedly lacing his food and drink with it. Severely underweight at the time of his murder, he was a hungry boy who would not eat because the food he was given was inedible.

For police investigating the case, nothing short of evil suffices to describe Tustin. Arthur's grandmother, Mrs Halcrow, agrees. She branded the couple cold, calculating and wicked.

Hughes was described as weak by the senior investigating officer, Det Insp Laura Harrison. Far from being a loving father, he completely let down his vulnerable son. Although he was not present for the final attack on Arthur, he was also found culpable for his death for the months of abuse he enforced himself and encouraged from Tustin.

Serious questions are now being asked of authorities which could have intervened to save Arthur. A review by social services is currently under way and the Independent Office for Police Conduct is also examining whether opportunities were missed by police.

The Child Safeguarding Partnership said it would be "inappropriate" to comment ahead of its findings, but said the "terrible tragedy has had a shocking impact on Arthur's family and across the whole community". Their report is likely to be published next year.

While what happened to Arthur is rare, the NSPCC has raised concerns about the risks to children during lockdown.

"We know that the Department for Education reported more serious injuries and deaths of children during the last year with a higher percentage in the first six months - so we do know that lockdown had a significant impact on children and families," Helen Westerman, from the NSPCC, said.

She said children were "the hidden victims of this pandemic" and that the charity had seen an increase of 23% in calls from adults concerned about a child's welfare.

Arthur's case was "horrendous, horrific and heart-breaking," the NSPCC said and the charity called for the serious case review to "establish the lessons that need to be learned to prevent this awful case from happening again".

From prison, Arthur's mother said the memory of her young son she would treasure the most was his smile. Arthur wasn't just her only son, Labinjo-Halcrow said, but her best friend with a gentle and caring nature.

She wants the world to remember her son, not for the harrowing end to his short life, but for his superpower - his smile.

If you have been affected by the issues raised in this article, help and support is available via BBC Action Line.

That father allowed his son to be abused because he didn’t want to be tied to a kid whose mother wasn’t providing sex.

[simping-on-the-daily]

I have a DND cast and I will discuss them

Arthur Innozett: Chondathan Human Bard Severe main character syndrome. Stop overworking this dude pls Very loud,,,,, and outspoken,,,, horrible with woman lol Special instrument is his lute. Really enjoys pissing off Silhouette XD Severe workaholic and his spells could be way better if he slept and stopped drinking beer at every single tavern he goes too. The Hamilton to Silhouette's Burr

Plumeria Nikidew: Satyr Monk There's some sap on the trees that turns the friggen goats gay- I love her so much???? Heart, stolen. Says fuck without knowing what it means, someone tells her what it means, and then she still keeps saying it because it's a fun word. Flower crowns galore. People often underestimate her, enemies and allies included until she does an air kick with her goat legs. Wants to try and keep the party's spirits up. Party animal who will drink your ail She also have an unrequited love arc with Narallyn's sister who Narallyn ended up murdering and didn't know her love died until Narallyn told the party,,, so like,,,,,, PLS HUG HER-

Silhouette Faxshein: Changeling Bard LIFE DOESN'T DISCRIMINATE, BETWEEN THE SINNERS AND THE SAINTS, IT TAKES AND IT TAKES AND IT TAKES~ Here's the one with common sense! Widower due to his wife's murder. The resident certified angstlord. Really capable. He's just very traumatized, and in dire need of affection,,,,,,

Destiny Kalkane: Teifling Rogue The trend is skewed moral codes Our other resident edgelord, y'all. Parents were Tiefling crimelords so she got thrown in prison as a young teen and was there for a fucking long time until she escaped. Very touch starved and joined the pary for company~ Professional thief and would probs be the fan favourite

Juelra Arajor: Half-Elf War Cleric Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. Her mum is the general of a kingdom and was used to war as a result. Middle child between two other sisters and ran away from home so she could more then just 'the general's daughter'. Doesn't believe in needless bloodshed, but won't hesitate to cause it if someone gets in her way. She has an axe and isn't afraid to use it. Shaved hairstyle pogggggg

Narallyn Elond: Elf Druid I aM tHe LoRaX, aNd I sPeAk FoR tHe TrEeS- She ended up having to kill her own sister, and ended up being best friends with the girl who fell in love with her who was unaware of the death. Princess. Very delicate, but can kick ass. Still cares for her sister, but refuses to believe that maybe she was responsible for her mental decline, blaming other situations to avoid the guilt. Mum friend. She and Plumeria actively hang out in nature!

Sutha Egemen: Half-Orc Barbarian Friendly screaming to say hello is my aesthetic Probs more innocent then Plumeria. Parents fell into forbidden love and kept her away from society so neither orcs or humans would kill her. However, the two groups eventually found out of the romance and decided to keep them alive, but eft them to captivity and torture instead. However, they didn't find anything about the child. Sutha, unaware of the pain her parent were going through, took this as a chance to leave, with parental permission. Buff nice lady. Giant teddy bear. Like, horrifiyng giant teddy bear XD The best hunter when it comes to killing animals. She and Juelra be good friends. Really doesn't understand why people are so scared of her. Trans woman!

Adryan Toniette: Daraman Human Fighter Middle school kid that regrets his middle school phase, just trying his best If Arthur is Tommy/Hamilton, Adryan is Tubbo/Laurens. Giant weeb who's a very nervous aromantic. The man also keeps jumping out of windows and Juelra is tired of healing him. Parental figures? Wtf is that???? He only knows brotherly or sibling figures,,,, Severe density due to orphan perks,,, Also believes in stereotypes and gossip very easily,,,,

[the-awkward-outlaw]

A New Adventure - Pt. 7

A Slow Burn 

I think the title speaks for itself... We’ll see how long I can manage it! (I predict not very long at all)

Masterlist 

Read on AO3

It’s been a week since the big earthquake. You read that there’s been over 200 documented aftershocks. Most have been under the 2.5 range, meaning they’re barely noticeable without equipment. However, there were some above 4.1, meaning they were enough to frighten you and Arthur. 

As you predicted after spending the first night with him, nothing between you and him has been the same. In a good way though. 

Arthur was an ideal gentleman that night. Of course, you expected nothing less from him. He was the last man you needed to worry about. 

The morning after the quake, you woke up to an empty bed. He walked in about five minutes later with a cup of coffee for you to drink in bed. 

There was a tense, awkward silence. You weren’t quite sure what to say to him. “That was great, I hope we do that again”? No. “Thanks for letting me sleep all packed against you”? Worse. 

He broke the silence by explaining there’d only been a few small aftershocks. 

“Guess… guess we need to talk. About last night,” he’d said. 

“Guess we do. I… I understand if you prefer to sleep in the other bed.” 

He smiled and looked away. “Well, I was thinkin’... it was nice… to uh, not be alone for once. I didn’t expect to sleep last night with all the rumblin’, but… I slept surprisingly well.” 

You couldn’t but smile back at him. “Me too. Thank you, Arthur. I don’t think I would’ve coped if you weren’t here.” 

He surprised you yet again by gently grabbing your hand and squeezing it. 

Since then, the two of you have been more touchy with one another. Not in any sexual or romantic ways of course, but just the small bump here and there, and the occasional hand holding. He’s also taken to sitting on the same couch as you, as though he likes the physical closeness. 

You’ve always had a suspicion, even when you only knew him from the gang, that Arthur was secretly touch starved. His behavior now only solidifies that. 

You aren’t overly touchy, but you find yourself making an exception for Arthur. 

More and more, you want to ask him to be your boyfriend. You can’t tell if he likes you in that way though. However, it’s not just the complexity of his situation that prevents you from asking him. It’s only a matter of time before he figures out you’re not worth his energy. 

The thought breaks your heart, but you decide to enjoy his company while you still have it. 

Lately you’ve been testing how he reacts to you, to see if maybe there is something between the two of you. 

One night, you’d walked up behind him while he was sat on the couch and brushes the back of his shoulder, claiming his shirt was laying in an odd position. This was a downright lie of course, but you noticed the back of his neck burned red after your touch. 

Ever since that night after the earthquake too, he’s been more flustered around you. Not that you’ve been any different. It’s almost impossible to look him in the face without blushing. 

There’s still lots of aftershocks from the quake. 

After the first night, you thought Arthur would spend the nights with you in your bed. However, he chose to sleep in his own bed but said you were welcome to bother him should anything happen. 

This bummed you out. Perhaps he didn’t like you in that way. Maybe he blushed whenever anybody touched him. It’s not like he was used to it, afterall. 

Your feelings towards him have become confused and indecipherable even at times. You still love him as the sarcastic, tough, secretly sensitive outlaw protagonist from the video game you love, and you still have a raging crush on him as a person. However, why waste your time and energy on loving him that way if the feelings aren’t returned? 

You’re rather draggy today, a combination of poor sleep and the fact that you cried yourself to sleep. It wasn’t just the constant stress of the aftershocks. Your depression and doubt had gotten the better of you last night. 

All you could think of was how no one seemed to want to stick around you, that you were just a giant waste of everyone’s time. That Arthur would be far better off if he’d been discovered by someone else. 

You didn’t even consider the fact that without you, Arthur would probably be in a horrible place. Either back in the game and dying/dead or in a mental hospital being treated for an illness he didn’t have. 

The only thing your brain could focus on was that, just like everyone else in your life, Arthur would leave too. After all, your dad’s dead, taken from you by force. Your mother is too occupied on herself to give you the time of day. Your only sister, whom you’ve never been close with, lives in a different state. You don’t have any friends. You’re just one of those people that exists to take up space. It was not a good place to be. 

Arthur knew from early in the day that you aren’t yourself, that you’re far more quiet than usual. You lack your usual excitement towards Sage as you prepare to feed her is gone.

“You okay?” Arthur says, sipping his coffee. 

“What?” you say, completely lost in your head. 

“I said ‘you okay?’”

“O-oh. Yeah, I’m fine.” 

You decided this morning that you need to shelve your attractions to Arthur. He doesn’t like you in that way, in fact he’d be a fool to. But for your own mental health, you need to take a step back. 

Part of you wishes you’d never asked him to spend that night in your bed. It’s made things so much more complicated. If only you’d been strong enough to handle the night alone. 

“You don’t seem fine,” Arthur says, pulling you back out of your head. Damn it doesn’t help he’s wearing nothing but his union suit and his jeans, so you can see the definition of his body fairly well. “Ya seem… I don’t know, sad for some reason. Just kinda down.” 

Tears begin to well at the bottom of your eyes. Of course. You’ve been trying so hard to keep yourself together, but the moment someone asks if you’re fine, you have to break down. You turn away and wipe your eyes so Arthur won’t see. 

“I’m fine, Arthur. Like I said. Do yourself a favor and… don’t worry about me.” 

You turn back to Sage’s food. Poor dog, she’s been patiently waiting for a while now. 

Suddenly there’s a hand on your shoulder. 

“But I do worry about ya, Y/N. Y’know, you done so much for me. I know I been a… a burden.” 

“You ain’t been-” you start. 

“No, I have been. Please, let me… let me finish. I know you’ve had a lot of stress. From what I can gather about your time is that it’s hard. In different ways then my time was hard. This world moves so fast, I can hardly keep up with it and I barely have a part in it. I know it ain’t easy on anyone, even you. Then I come along, make things harder. Know my meds have been expensive. Then these earthquakes. Please, let me help you for once.” 

“You’ve helped me, Arthur,” you say, feeling incredibly embarrassed. “I mean, you got all that money for me when this COVID crap hit.” 

“Sure, but… Please, Y/N. Lemme help ya.” 

That’s all it takes and you’re breaking down in front of him. God, he must find you pathetic. It’s no secret he’s got a short fuse and doesn’t often have the patience to deal with emotional people. With his background, he has to be tough and it must be easy for him to find you weak. 

“Please, Arthur,” you beg. “Please don’t worry about me. It’s fine, I can deal with this on my own. Besides, you have your own stuff to worry about.” You wipe your tears, unable to muster the courage to look at him. 

A finger goes under your chin and lifts your head up gently so you have to look at him. Instead of the anger or annoyance you expected, you see pity and worry. 

“Ain’t got a whole lot other than you to worry about, sweetheart. I just wanna help ya.” 

“I… I can’t,” you whisper. How can you tell this man that you’re growing to love him more than any other person. He can’t know, and you wouldn’t even know how to begin to tell him. 

“Why not?” he asks. 

You swallow and look away. “Because you wouldn’t understand, Arthur. You and I… we’re nothing alike. We’re cut from different molds. I wouldn’t begin to wrap my head around the burdens on your shoulders, so I don’t expect you to understand mine.” 

“Try me,” he says with a small smile. 

He leads you over to the couch and sits you down on it. His eyes are soft and gentle, but he doesn’t press you to talk immediately. After he hands you a tissue, you decide it’s safe to at least tell him some of the things you’re feeling. 

“Arthur I… I know you know how it feels to just not live anymore. What it’s like to long for death. Well, I… I guess I been feeling that a lot lately. I just… I don’t matter to anyone.” 

You sniff and wipe your eyes again. He opens his mouth to speak but you cut him off. “And please don’t give me that trope of ‘there’s people who care, blah blah blah’ because I don’t see them.” 

You tell him about your past experiences with people and why you prefer being alone and how you expect you’ll die alone. 

“People just don’t like me, Arthur. Everyone figures it out in the end that I’m just not worth being around. There’s not a single person in this world whose life I’ve affected.” 

“Then I guess it don’t matter that I owe you my life.” 

You look up at him, your eyes wide. He scoots a little closer. 

“Y/N, who cares if ya don’t make a difference in this world? Most people don’t. Most people are barely remembered five minutes after their deaths except for those they were close to. Trust me, you’ve no idea the effect your death would have and there’s no way for you to know, just like the rest of us. And please don’t say you don’t matter to no one, because… you matter to me.” 

He takes your hand and squeezes it softly. Instead of feeling the affectionate flutter of your heart you expected to feel, you feel a soft tenderness and surge of friendship towards Arthur. It’s this moment you realize that he’s the one person you can trust to tell anything to. Already you feel better. 

“Thank you, Arthur,” you say, squeezing his hand back. “You’re a good man.” 

“Nah, I ain't. You don’t know the things I done.” 

“I know some of them. Bu you’re a good man to me.” 

[dreamy--dolly]

tag yourself: my version of the knights of the round table

arthur

trying his best

very tired

(finger guns)

lancelot

cue the bishie sparkles

affection starved

horrible in relationships

gawain

would die for his family

eats pop-tarts w/o toasting them

has the power of god AND anime on his side

bors

“get out of the way its the LORD”

done w/ everyones crap

does not like bunnies

galahad

kind of a nerd

lancelot 2.0

except for the fact that he’s a cinnamon roll, protect him at all costs

kay

everyone forgets about him

the kind of person who’ll get really angry but then you say something funny and he forgets what he was even arguing about

cereal or milk first??? doesnt matter. there is only c r o n c h

percival

loves his cats

also a cinnamon roll

hes like the baby of the group even tho hes not THAT young

mordred

basically a barn owl, probably eats mice

kinda creepy but in that “give the poor kid a break” way

spams people with meme texts at the ungodly hours of two in the morning

agravaine

the only reason he hasn’t been kicked out is bc he’s hot

just likes sipping tea as chaos ensues

“sometimes it be like that”

[a-merman-not-a-guppy]

BDRP QUESTIONNAIRE

Your Name: Lena

Characters: Anthony Coleman, Arthur Pendragon, Ashley Armbruster, Celia Gorgon, Fflewddur Fflam, Finn Flounder, Kanga DeRosa, Llewellyn “Louie” Mallard, Sora Hamasaki/Roxas

Pick one of your characters and talk about their growth: Oh man I think of my characters I’m the most proud of Celia’s growth? I mean a lot’s changed since I got her, and I’ve been able to see the progression and build up that change from her being and nervous and terrified about everything to starting to come into her own and be a confident woman. I’m proud of having taken that journey with her, and I like that she’s no longer the mousy shy character that I thought she would always be in the beginning. There’s a lot more strength and determination to her than I honestly expected. She’s been through a lot, she fell in love and everything and I think the amazing part is that she’s not regressing now that she’s heartbroken. She knows a little more about what she can handle. I find that super exciting for her. I’m really really pleased with how far we’ve come since I rejoined with her.

Pick another character and talk a little about where you WANT them to go. What are your plans for them going into the new year? So I honestly have a lot of plans for a lot of my babes that I don’t want to reveal but I can say in the vaguer sense where I want them to go. Anthony - honestly just want him to terrorize and go hard. Unleash his full villain in this next year. Help him do that friends. Arthur - I know I want him to do something heroic and noble, but on a smaller scale, I want him to form a proper attachment, maybe have feelings for someone. I think he’s so work focused it’d be interesting how that might affect him as a character. Ashley - I have a lot of change in mind for her. I want to see her move past the struggles she has with her family/find her own way. Celia - just see her continue to gain confidence and figure out what makes her happy. Fflewddur - I honestly want to see him really struggle. He’s always had everything handed to him. I’d love for things to go horribly horribly wrong for him. Finn - Honestly my plan is to go into who he is as a merman and more of the magical side to his life. I love the teen stuff but I am very very eager to do mer stuff with him. Kanga - It’s a secret. But it’ll be fun. Louie - As always I want him to get into a lot of trouble. lol. I also want to see a rift with family with him and see how he handles that. He has a tendency for the dramatic and I think that’d be fun. Roxas - see them figure out what’s going on/learn about Sora Sora - see him learn about Roxas. it’ll be fun.

Pick a thread or a plot that you’re proud of and talk about why you loved it. Honestly it’s still ongoing but I’m really proud of what I’ve developed with Arthur. The ongoing quest for the sword and everything around that. It’s the first time I’ve had a longer term plan with a character and known what I wanted to do with it and it’s so cool! It’s exciting to do, and I really really loved the thread lauryl and I had in the lake and writing the Lady of the Lake briefly. It was just COOL.

In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 strengths and talk about why you think it’s one of your strengths. oh I’m so bad at this. ahaha. I’m gonna do my best but it’s hard for me to talk about myself and stuff like this. Let’s see...I think 1) Dialogue. I think I’m pretty good at making my character’s voices distinct and their own. It’s been especially fun with Finn because of his stutter and the way that he speaks. 2) Teen hijinks. I know this is an odd thing to put as a strength, but honestly I do think I somehow have my niche with teenagers. Maybe their drama just suits my dramatic cancer self who knows. I feel like all three of my teens are unique and quirky and idk is this valid? I find it far too easy to think of ridiculous teen plots. 3) Getting into character’s heads. Thoughts and stuff, I feel like I am good at sharing where my characters are at and how they feel and all that. I feel like I do a good job of diving right into emotions.

In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 areas of improvement. 1) showing not telling more. You know trying to really give more detail to what’s happening around characters and their actions rather than a ton of their thoughts. I know I need to work on this more, sometimes I just get lazy and go with what’s easier and habit. 2) There’s another thing I want to work on and again get lazy, where with dialogue you don’t respond to every thing a person says cause that’s not natural to a conversation. You want to respond to like the last thing and then maybe something else after. I think about it but I forget about it and I could work on it. 3) Description. I want to do better at describing things and giving a better visual image of things happening and stuff. I feel like that’s something I’d really like to do better with in the new year.

Pick one of your plots, or even just a character, and come up with a list of 3-5 “mentor texts” where you can look for inspiration or research, then write a short (2-4 sentences) why you picked those texts So I noticed I used tv and film as inspo more than books and stuff but it’s still a reference material to go back to and I’m not sorry. Finn: -It by Stephen King. So this is largely chosen because the character of Bill Denbrough in It has a stutter, and it was one of the first real examples I could think of where I could listen to it and the sound via the movie and how that would work with Finn’s stutter. I go back to it every once in a while for reference. And I’d love to read the book one day and see if there’s more to uncover. -Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: Study of Cameron Frye. So this is a high school movie which also helps with the right vibe, but the most important thing to me is the whole vibe and fear of going out to do ANYTHING. Finn has a really hard time with that and Cameron Frye is honestly pretty good inspo on this sort of thing. Also he’s got two more outgoing friends in a sense, which Finn also has in the form of Ariel and Nemo. -Star Trek: Study of the character Bones. I think this is sort of a good reference as to where I’d love to see Finn in the future and it’s a cool thing to try to work toward. Bones has channeled his innate worrying into helping people, and I think that’s something that Finn could learn to do. How and in what way? I don’t know. But it��s a good reference point for the future maybe. -The Rugrats: Study of Chuckie. Yes is it a bit funny to find inspo from another animated character for Finn? Sure a bit. But honestly the more I think about it, Chuckie Finster is a very anxious child and that is basically Finn on the regular. And again a character that has a much more confident best friend and gets dragged along on the adventures. And even though Chuckie the character is an actual baby and Finn’s a teen there’s a lot to really look at and be inspired by. When I was little I didn’t think Chuckie was that relatable but when I got a little older I was like ‘oh man that’s a mood’ and honestly he’s anxious, I’m anxious, and I’m writing about an anxious character so it all kind of works.

And now, a wishlist!  I looooove wishlists and this’ll probably be the longest part of this whole thing so that if anyone wants to brainstorm stuff/looks at this list and goes ‘hey me too’ we can start scheming. -fake dating! -alexa play fake love- it’s a trope for a reason and I really really love it. Someone get in on it with me. -rags to riches (I want Louie to experience being rich for like a day or something. I think that’d make a really interesting story for him.) -murder. well. If anyone wants to get rid of a character one day hmu. -more magic based plots. I have magicks but somehow they HARDLY use it and that’s lame. I want more magic. I want to def explore mer stuff with Finn more especially, and generally just chaotic magic things. -i want Sora/Roxas to fuck with people. Like I want someone to date one of them just for an awkward scene in bed or something. That’s a very small plot thing but I think it’d be hilarious. -I really like romantic plots and I like the soft puff/seemingly cold slytherin relationship. idk I guess I want a duo like that. Or more romance in general. Date my characters. Long term, short term, to make someone else jealous? let’s go. -DISASTER AGENTS. I had a vague idea and I want it but who knows if/when that happens but two brothers with a rescue agency but they are completely incompetent. I like the witty characters sue me. Anthony: -i already said this but murder. -i also want him to hook up with/become friends with a sorcerer. i. have.an.idea. =D -continue to have him sink his teeth in the board and try to influence the town Arthur: -a slow burn love story would suit him nicely. i have plans for him and i think it would up the stakes. -a buddy cop story. idk Arthur is a workaholic so I feel like the best way to be buddies with him is to work with him. lol. this loser. Ashley: -i have her future planned mostly. she’s good i think. Celia: -turn a boyfriend to stone. seriously! -a hero moment for her? idk i think it’d be cool to have what she thinks of as a curse save someone’s life. Fflewddur: -someone let him spill your secrets with his harp. let him cause DRAMA. -connect him to other musicians. He’s got an ego and he’s kind of the worst, but I want him to talk more music and do more music things. Finn: -MER THINGS!!! -i want to explore some of his trauma from the bullying and everything. I know I’m gonna do a one shot, but I also would love to have him be able to open up to a friend about how things were/have been. I don’t think he’d even have told Ariel all of it. -touch. touch is his love language and I think that he’s probably fairly touch starved as he keeps to himself a lot and is afraid of like everything lol. So I’d love to explore his relationship with touch and see him learn to trust people and open up and more free with his affection and holding hands and hugs and that sort of thing. -first love/kiss. with him i think it would be a very slow thing but also it would be SO CUTE and yeah. he’s more of a romantic than my other teens so gotta ask for it here. lmao. Kanga: -board things. She’s on it now woo! I’m here to explore that more -it’s a secret. It’s coming soon to theaters. Louie: -again. Rich for a day, see how the other 1% lives that sort of thing. -family plot line. I want it to happen so bad. I want to see Louie sort of self destruct. Someone help him get there. -further down the trouble path. Drugs? Or fighting or something considerably more reckless? He’s still a fairly good kid, I’d love to explore something a little darker with him. -also to explore him being gay and let him really come into his own there. He’s too busy being Louie to notice so that’s a thing I really want to push with him and see him figure out feelings more. Roxas: -have them figure out about Sora first. Let him and friends struggle with how to handle that. so really mission a) make Roxas a few friends. then b) share the chaos of their life with said friends. it’ll be fun. -get in a fight with battle magic. I think it’d be interesting to see it in play, especially since they are not fully in control. A magic fight guys. Who’s in?Sora: -oo you know what might be fun? having him become good buds with someone and move in somewhere with them and then and have him and Roxas’ stuff make a mess of things. roommate drama HEIGHTENED. -Someone telling Sora about Roxas. Because he is not the smart one of the duo. He’s pretty damn oblivious -break someone’s heart. I feel like he’d be the type to do it without realizing and that’d be an interesting thing to go into.

OPTIONAL: Why do you RP? Well honestly I’ve been rping for so long it’s hard to remember a time before I did it. It’s a good escape from reality sometimes and I really love to write. Writing makes me feel good and unwind and I like that I can express things through characters that I might not be able to do myself places because I’m too awkward. It’s nice to be able to let things out and enthuse online and to get to know a great community. I’ve made some great friends through rp and I love that a lot about the whole thing. Plus it’s through rp that a lot of the time you can let out over enthusiasm. Or at least for me that’s the case. As many of you already know I tend to obsess over things and when I do it’s like I need so many outlets to get by. Right now BTS and then having Finn as my outlet for example. But before that it would be like my years long Steve Rogers fixation and how I’d be off and on in group rps with him as a character or on an indie blog and that would be how I expressed my love for this character and let some of that out. It’s so helpful and therapeutic almost, since I feel like I get too enthusiastic for people around me to relate a lot. 

[galadrieljones]

A Funeral: Chapter 14 (Arthur Morgan x Mary Beth Gaskill)

Fandom: Red Dead Redemption 2 | Pairing: Arthur x Mary Beth | Rating: Mature

Content: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Touch-Starved, Humor, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Angst, Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Fake Marriage, Epiphanies, Backstory, Banter, Deep Emotions, Sharing a Bed, Swimming, Arthur to the Rescue, Forests, Abduction, Angst, Heavy Angst, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, Sexual Content

Summary: To help her process Sean’s death, Mary Beth asks Arthur to take her on a hunting trip, somewhere far away. He agrees, and on their journey, they find quietude and take comfort in their easy bond. In their desperate search for meaning together, they endure a number of trials, some small, some big—all of which bring them closer to one another as well as to the future, and to the unchecked dangers of the natural world.

Credit to @bearly-tolerable for the banner! Art is my own.

***For the rest of this story, you can visit the masterpost or AO3, both linked in the replies to this post and also at my blog.***

Chapter 14: Bad Dreams

Arthur dozed off. The daylight warmed his body until he sort of vibrated into sleep, sank, very heavy, like oil in the river mud. At some point, he opened his eyes, and it wasn’t long past, as the sun had only melted a little bit, a fuzzy fixture on his face but he still felt cold. When he turned his head, he expected to see Mary Beth, asleep and warm in the blanket beside him, with her hair in that rat’s nest that he wanted to touch, but she was not there.

He sat up, confused for a minute, looking around at the freshwater earth. “Mary Beth?” he said.

“Right here,” she said. She was dressed, right over there, golden in the sun. He was relieved. She was wearing new clothes—clothes he didn’t remember her having before. The blouse was pink and familiar, but he didn’t remember her having those before.

“You look real pretty,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said, standing there, holding her basket in her hands. “You looked so peaceful, sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

He hung his head. “I shouldn’t’ve fallen asleep like that.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I fell asleep, too. It wasn’t long. Maybe a hour or so?”

He nodded, yawned, looked around. He though he heard something. “Did you hear that?”

“I gotta pee,” she said, smiling, adjusting the strap from her shotgun over her shoulder. “It ain’t far.”

“Wait for me,” said Arthur.

“Don’t worry, cowboy. I’m just peeing.”

He gave her a look. She never called him that. His brain was so groggy though, so full of fog and the warm memory of her skin, her insides—maybe he’d misheard. He was grateful. He didn’t know he could feel it anymore, that sort of need in him that made his blood rush to the surface. Women frequently wanted Arthur, but he did not always ascertain their reasoning and he didn't entertain them much beyond warm smiles of intimate rejection. Now here he was. She was so clear, he thought. She was crisp and right there, but he was having a hard time getting up off that blanket. He regarded himself, stark naked on the river bank, and he felt very heavy. “Don’t be long,” he said.

“If I see her,” said Mary Beth, looking over her shoulder as she went away toward the trees, “I’ll be sure and tell her you say hello.”

It was the strangest thing to say. He almost laughed. “See who?” he said.

She just smiled. “Eliza.”

He awoke. Real hard. It was a fuckin dream.

“Mary Beth?”

He sat up very straight. He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes while he came back into being. He immediately turned to touch her. He felt fucked up. But the sun had gone below the tree line across the river, and the sky was purple and cool, and the feeling, a bad feeling—it gnawed him hard, and the blanket was cold, and she wasn’t there. He jolted when she wasn't there. He looked back to the fire, which was also cold and not as he had remembered, and she was not there either. It was very disorienting. Her clothes were gone, and so was her gun. “Mary Beth?” he said again. “Where’d you go?”

There wasn’t any answer.

He breathed. He tried to recall the dream. What had the dream been? He couldn’t remember. Something with Eliza. A haunt, the barbed wire, and he could barely even remember her face anymore. It couldn't have been. He didn’t even know if he had any pictures of her, of them, but he remembered them being taken—right when the baby was born, and he wondered if there was one maybe, somewhere, with Hosea’s things. Hosea had been there, when the baby was born. Sometimes the pictures got tossed in with Hosea’s things. He was better at keeping track of the past in an organized fashion and suddenly Arthur was anxious over this and over everything else. He was anxious to be a father, a man, feeling genuine love for a woman out of nowhere. He was anxious to be alone—on that blanket, in the world, as he looked around and wondered where she’d gotten to—Mary Beth.

He got up. He threw on his pants, put on his boots, his shirt, left it untucked, fussed with the buttons. He said her name again, adjusting his collar. He picked up his own shotgun from where it rested by his satchel. His was much more intimidating than hers. He cocked it once. Called out for her again. “Mary Beth?” he said.

He gazed upstream. He squinted into twilight. He saw the horses were lazying, with their hooves in the water, some ways down. He said her name again, and there was still no answer. At that point, a disturbance flew up behind him on the water in the other direction, which served as a momentary distraction—seven or eight ducks exploding into the sky. He turned around to see what it was. He said her name again.      

At first nobody was there, he saw nothing. Said her name one more time. Then he squinted into the treescape across the river. He had no idea what it was, what was coming, but something was there. He raised up the gun. But then he saw something else that he didn’t expect, and it was like a fucking wake-up call straight into his face. Coming back out to drink, to reserve its spot by the river for the evening—it was the moose. That goddam moose, the same moose. It was so strange, he thought. Strange, like stopping time. He stared in awe, and then it saw him, and it lifted its head, alarmed, and, it looked right at him. Arthur lowered his gun, and for no discernible reason that he could presently identify, he just stared at this moose in what felt like fantastical stupidity for a long time, its hugeness controlling all of its surrounding atmospheres, and in his trance, he totally lost grip on his reality, began to wonder if he was awake or asleep—because sometimes with bad dreams it was not so easy to tell, and he thought that yes, this must be one of them—one of the bad dreams. He searched his mind for what it meant. But then, like the hand of God, he was jerked hard back to the surface, accosted by the loud sound of a gunshot—a real, fucking awake and alive gunshot, going off, cracking like hell, nearby. It was not a dream.

The moose ran off. The horses had spooked and were coming his way. Arthur blinked rapidly, turned around to face the advancing trees beyond their camp from which the gunshot had arisen. Several black birds had gone into the sky with the blast, out the brush somewhere he could not see. He told the horses to stay, then he set out quickly in the direction of the gunshot, where it had echoed out, and where the birds had been, now entering an outright panic.

“Mary Beth?” he said again, louder this time. It was so weird. But his ears were ringing and he could barely hear his own voice inside his own head. He could no longer envision what lie ahead of him. Where was she? “Mary Beth?”

He stood in what felt like the middle of the goddam haunted forest. It seemed like hours had gone by, but it had been only minutes. And it was not a haunted forest. It was just a patch of trees behind the river, he told himself. But it felt huge as he was looking around and the day was leaving fast all of a sudden, swinging through his vision like the shadows of ghosts that he could barely register. He said her name one more time, as loud as he could, his voice like a horrible barking noise ringing through the valley, and he was not thinking, not seeing. His mind felt like knives. For a split second, he convinced himself that she was dead, and he, himself, would soon be dead.

But then, his heart caught. Like a on a fishing hook, real sharp. Finally, he heard her: she called out to him in direct reply from somewhere up ahead. “I’m here,” she was saying, in her voice. “Over here.”

He breathed out. It was such a dramatic exhale, he thought he might trip over the relief. She was not dead. She was not disappeared. “Don’t move,” he shouted, his voice breaking. He took off in the direction of the sound of her voice.

When he got there, she was closer to the river than he had realized. She hadn’t even gotten that far, he thought. She wasn’t that far, but the trees were thick all around her, and the river was loud. There were some rapids. She must not have heard him. She was dressed in her yellow skirt and her blue blouse, just like before, and she was on her knees with her back to him, holding that shotgun in both hands, shaking. It was a strange sight.

“Mary Beth,” he said, coming right to her.

She did not turn around. “Arthur,” she said.

“What’s going on?” he said.

She just shook her head. “I don’t—I didn’t wanna.”

“What’s wrong?”

He got close, knelt behind her, flung his gun over his shoulder and placed one of his hands on the back of her neck in a reassuring fashion. He peered over her shoulder then, and he saw it up close—the thing that had happened. Curled into the dirt, there was a mess of blood and fur, an animal. A wolf. A dead wolf. Its jaw was exploded from its skull, shot clean off at point blank. “You shot a wolf,” he said. “Holy shit.”

She was still shaking, he felt it. She was crying, too. He came to realize how affected she was then, and how close the call, so he just pulled her into his embrace. She gave into him easily. He held her—so hard—he thought he might lose consciousness. “Jesus Christ,” he said after a minute of comforting her, finally allowing the relief to wash over his tired heart, pressing his whole face into her hair. “Are you okay? You scared the gotdam shit out of me, Mary Beth.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. She was nearly sobbing. “I’m okay.”

“What happened?”

“I just—I had to pee,” she said, still crying. “Then I started gathering blackberries again. I thought—I thought maybe when we got back to the cottage, I could render some of that lard from the deer you brought in yesterday, or find some butter in the pantry, bake a pie. I saw flour and sugar in the cupboard under the basin. But then I got off the trail. I just got distracted for a second.”

Arthur looked past her, back at the dead-eyed wolf. “You should’ve woke me.”

“I know,” she said. “But you just looked so peaceful. I only intended to be gone a minute.”

He blinked and shook out his head. He held her tight. “It ain’t no reason not to wake me.”

“She just came out of nowhere,” said Mary Beth, shaking her head, staring at the dead animal. “I barely saw it coming. I had to do it. I didn’t wanna.”

“It’s okay,” he said, holding her to his chest. “It’s okay. You did real good.”

“But it ain’t good,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

She broke away from him a little then and wiped her eyes on the palms of her hands. She had blood on her knuckles, and a little on her blouse. She leaned forward and shoved the wolf over to its back, showing Arthur what she’d seen—the underside of its belly, sagging and full. “She has cubs,” said Mary Beth. “Little ones, somewhere. See? She’s all full of milk. She was a mother.”

Arthur was still breathing so hard. He didn’t understand at first, why she was telling him this. The negotiation did not make sense to him, not initially. It was a wild animal that had tried to kill her. She killed it first. But then he really saw her, like really looked at her, sweaty, flustered, familiar to him, watching the dead wolf, her hair still a dampened mess from their sex on the riverbank, her eyes puffy and red from the ordeal with the wolf, the blood on her hands, how she had discarded the gun to her side now like a foreign and dangerous instrument that she did not understand and did not want to touch. He felt such a tremendous need to protect her. It was bigger than anything he could fathom. He forgot all about Eliza. All about the dreams.

“You’re okay,” he said. He placed his hand on her shoulder, real firm. “That’s all that matters.”

She sniffled, wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I know,” she said, touching her hand to his. “I know you’re right. I know it had to be done.”

“You can’t punish yourself. It ain’t like that.”

“I know.”

“Come on,” he said. “It’s getting dark. We should head back to the cottage.”

“Can we bury her first?” she said, looking up at him, her eyes wide and glassy.

This was confusing. “The wolf?”

“Yeah,” said Mary Beth. “Somewhere there’s cubs now, with no mama, and I’m responsible. It feels right.”

Arthur looked around, sighed. “I ain’t got no shovel, Mary Beth, and the ground...well I reckon it's too hard here to do it by hand.”

She was disappointed by this. “Right,” she said.

He could sense her sadness. He sighed, capitulated in his way. “We could just…I don’t know, maybe cover her with brush? Lay some flowers, if you want.”

“Scavengers will come.”

“That’s nature,” he said, looking at her, putting the hair behind her ear. “Any wolf was gonna die like that anyway, one way or another.”

Mary Beth took a deep breath. She thought on this, and then she nodded her head. “Okay,” she said, believing him. Together, they took a moment to gather their calm, their consciousness. Then he stood, and he gave her his hand, and she took it and pulled herself up, dusting off her dress. He threw her gun over his shoulder. It felt heavier now than it had back at the swamps outside of St. Denis. She looked at him, incredible remorse on her face even still. “I’m sorry I wandered,” she said to him. “I didn’t think it was far enough for something bad to happen. It felt safe. Even after the other night. I swear, it felt safe.”

“I know,” said Arthur, touching her ear, looking around. “Don’t be sorry. I trust you. It could’ve happened anywhere. It could’ve happened back at the fire.”

“I scared you half to death though,” she said, smiling as she realized, touching his face. He looked at her. “The color’s all gone from your cheeks, Arthur.”

This nearly made him laugh, but truth be told his heart was still pounding in his skull a little bit, and he felt dizzy from the adrenaline. “I panicked when I heard the gun,” he said. “I did.”

“I’m so sorry, Arthur,” she said. She hugged him around his waist. He hugged her back.

“It’s okay,” he said, breathing in the smell of her hair, which no longer had any identifying scent or quality at all beyond just that of her hair, what she smelled like. It was its own thing now, its own comforting feature. She had gone off into the woods. Something bad had happened, and she saved herself. He couldn’t get his mind around it yet—why he wasn’t more concerned in the aftermath. It should have terrified him, and it had before, but now that he saw what had come to pass, it reassured him in remarkable ways. “Come on,” he said into her hair. “Let’s get moving.”

They covered the wolf in branches and piles of bramble. Mary Beth picked some lavender and golden poppies and set them on the top. It was a funeral. Arthur removed his hat and Mary Beth stood quietly over the little mound of flowers and nature with her hands cupped together, but she didn’t cry anymore. She just stood very still, very solemn, and said, in a quiet voice, “I hope your cubs find their way without you.”

Then it was done.

They packed up the horses very quickly. It was getting quite dark. But at a healthy canter, they made it back to the cottage in under an hour. All was quiet—nothing evil to discern. They hitched the horses, fed and watered, then they went inside, and Arthur lit the fire. The temperature had dropped quite a bit, but at least the sky was clear. It didn’t look like it’d be raining again anytime soon. Mary Beth had talked of baking her blackberry pie, but once they got inside, she seemed too tired. She made tea instead, with whiskey and sugar, like they’d had at Hamish Sinclair’s. They changed into softer clothes and sat down with blankets around their shoulders, warming their hands to the whiskey tea in front of the fire.

Arthur felt heavy now, now that the events of the day were over, but it still didn't feel done. He was heavy with the inclination to talk to Mary Beth. So much had come to pass between them, he realized, and they hadn’t talked—not really, not since Hamish's, not about what was going on. He realized that up until now, he hadn't wanted to say anything else. He'd just wanted to do, to be with her. So they'd just been acting, because it was immediate, and it felt good, and it felt normal, to let go with one another. He wanted to be with her. It all felt right with her, like he was set. But something was still unsolved. Something still hurt, made him scared inside, anxious for the days to come, bringing on his bad dreams, and she was the only person he knew how to talk to about it, and really the only person he could.

“Mary Beth,” he said after a little while.

She looked at him. “Yeah?” she said.

He sighed. “Can we talk?" He grazed his rough knuckles to her jaw.

She smiled in her warm way and invited him to love her. He did. She nodded. She seemed to know just what he meant, as usual. “Of course, Arthur.”

Far away, back at camp in Shady Belle, Mrs. Sadie Adler was cleaning her gun on the porch, looking out over the swampy courtyard, how it shown bright in the pure night sky. Abigail came, sat beside her. She brought a little batch of whiskey, poured some into two tin cups. She gave one to Sadie, kept one for herself. They made a little toast, and then they said, “Cheers,” and they each drank. Used to the hard stuff, neither one of them flinched.

“Dutch asked about Arthur today,” said Abigail, swirling the liquor around in her cup. “Like I know what the hell is going on in that man's brain.”

“Fuck Dutch,” said Sadie, drinking. “He needs to worry about his own self a little more, and Arthur a little less.”

Abigail smiled at this. “I wish I had your guts.”

“You got more guts than you realize,” said Sadie. She rested her elbows on her knees, dropped her head a little. “How’s Jack.”

“He’s fine. Keeps talking about Papa Bronte like he’s man of the year. Little shit.”

Sadie laughed. “I bet that gets under John’s skin.”

“It affects him,” said Abigail. “That’s for sure.”

A breeze came through. Somewhere, Javier was playing a strange song on his guitar. It made the air feel dreamy. “You ever think about leaving?” said Sadie. “This place. This fuckin gang.”

“All the time,” said Abigail—without hesitation.

“Me, too,” said Sadie. “Don’t know where I’d go, but it’s like inertia, that’s what I’m learning. Like fast rapids on a fast river. You get going, you can’t stop. You start losing choices left and right. Then you paddle right into a fuckin tree.”

“I know what you mean,” said Abigail. “I been here almost five years. I know what you mean.”

“You got a kid,” said Sadie. “Ain’t it enough of a motivating factor?”

“You’d think,” said Abigail. “But John don’t see. He just don’t see. Or, if he does, he's too dense to realize what it means.”

“I hope you leave,” said Sadie, looking up at the stars. “You and John and Jack. I hope you leave and find better lives.”

“Thank you,” said Abigail. “Doubt it though.” She smiled, low and sullen.

They sat for a minute, listening to the music from Javier’s guitar.

“What do you think they’re doing?” said Sadie, drinking. “Arthur and Mary Beth, right now. You think they’re in love yet?”

Abigail laughed, but she brought it all back down to earth. “Arthur is a good man," she said. "He deserves love. And Mary Beth is…well she’s a little weird, but she’s still got innocence inside of her. Just like he does. I think they fit. Though he's a fair bit older, I don't think that matters.”

“You see Arthur as innocent?”

“Not in any traditional way,” said Abigail. “I just mean like, in his soul. When I talk to Arthur, always, he’s happy to see me. He’s one of my best and oldest friends. He’s been through a lot. You know, he had a girl once, and a child.”

“That Mary? I didn’t know they had a kid.”

“Not Mary,” said Abigail. “Before Mary.”

Sadie straightened up, real surprised. “What happened?”

“They was killed,” said Abigail, finishing her whiskey. She looked down into the bottom of her cup, a dark place. “Both of them. It was before I got here, but John said it destroyed him, for a long time.”

“His child was killed?” said Sadie.

“Murdered,” said Abigail. “He was just four years old. Like Jack.”

“My god,” said Sadie. She looked out at the dried up fountain of Plantation Shady Belle. She felt overcome with emotion and the gut-wrenching sensation that she might cry. “I didn't know.”

“Most people don’t,” said Abigail. She picked up the bottle, refilled both their cups. “He don’t talk about it to no one.”

They drank some more, feeling like lead in their boots. The music went on, Javier playing a song neither of them knew. It seemed of the Spanish tradition. The bugs and the animals were loud, really loud, in the distant and immediate swamp. Karen stumbled by, said goodnight, went into the house and let the door slam shut behind her. She had looked sad, thought the women, her eyes lidded, drunk. Everybody worried about her because of what happened to Sean. It wasn’t like it was love between them, or maybe it was, but either way, you get to finding someone you like spending time with in this world—any time at all—and you lose them, that’s nothing easy to overcome. Ask anyone. Ask Sadie, Arthur, Hamish Sinclair, Abigail, Mary Beth, Javier. Ask Dutch. Ask Hosea. Any one of them. It’s a nightmare, losing someone like that. It’s bad dreams, and nothing so easy at all.

[avengers-nextgen]

For each kid, what would be the most painful thing to lose?

Okay, so I’m going to try and go the less obvious route here because I think it’s more interesting and not base these entirely off of loved ones or significant others. James: Losing his sense of purpose. All of his life he’s grown up with the idea of becoming a hero and doing good things. It’s a huge part of his identity, and he’s pretty much the only one in the group who doesn’t have a major defining interest, moment, end goal, or ambition. If he ever lost sight of what his purpose in life is it’d hurt him. It’s partially why he tries so hard to define good and evil as a black and white concept. It’s why he’s so hesitant to even consider that people like Sage can be good and bad. For him it’s always been one or the other. It’s also why he tries so hard to justify his growing attachment with Fox because-like Sage- she’s in that thin grey area. Not good or bad just human. Fox: To me the most painful thing she could ever lose is her sense of dignity. It’s one of the few things she’s managed to hold onto despite all of the crap she’s been through. If it somehow was ruined it’d be very hard for her to find a reason to get back up again. It’s the entire reason she’s managed to survive so long. Just to keep her chin up and even if she’s not feeling it-exhibit dignity and confidence. It doesn’t matter what people have done to you, you make yourself confident or weak. Which means something extremely devastating would have to happen in order to destroy her dignity. Siyanda: Watching her kingdom slowly degrade right in front of her and she’s unable to help. It’s one of her worst fears. It would emotionally destroy her to feel so helpless and at the same time feel like she’s supposed to be doing something. It’d be easier if it happened quickly. If it was over with, and you didn’t have to think about it much, but the lengthy decline is sort of like watching a person starve to death. It’s absolutely horrible. She loves her home more than pretty much anything else in the world and there’s a deep spiritual connection there as well. It’d be devastating. Thalia: Losing hope. Thalia’s always been resilient and hopeful. While it makes her seem naive at times she’s only trying to believe that things can change. If she lost hope It’d not only effect her but everyone else around her as well. If she can’t believe that she and the others make a difference in the world then it takes away any point in fighting. It would become a waste of energy. And that’s ultimately what’s happened to Thor. He’s just lost hope. After spending so many years fighting he just can’t believe that he makes a difference anymore. Thalia’s hope is what separates her from her father and it’s also what unites the people around her. Nathaniel: Well, he’s already lost a lot but I think one of the most painful things for him to lose would be his relationships. He thrives on making others happy and he adores seeing people grow. He members baby James and baby Alex and he’s just so full of love all of the time. It’s why he’s always afraid he’s messed up the relationships he has with his siblings. Even if you’re not close with him it would hurt. He’d feel like it was his fault and he gives everyone a tiny piece of himself. So if you break off that bond you take that small part of him with you, and if doesn’t come back to him. Piper: Creativity. Piper sees everything from a completely different perspective. She’s a creative soul to the very bone. All throughout school she hated the basic black and white. Technology is supposed to be innovative and inspiring. If she ever lost that creative drive she’d become very depressed. Things would be glum, and it would take all the joy out of building, planning, creating, and just dreaming. She’s always been the girl with a vision whether it’s achievable or not. Creativity is what makes Piper: Piper. Without it she’s just another scientist in a dull lab doing work because they have to. Scout: I think that aside from what @mug-full-of-classic-rock said with the dementia head-canon-Scout losing his eyesight would be horrific. He wouldn’t be able to read like he used to, wouldn’t be able to process things as quickly as before, and he’d miss the expressions of his fiends. He doesn’t smile much on his own but he loves the smiles everyone else has. There’s so much visual information in the world that her thrives off of just by being an observer, that if he was no longer capable of that he’d be crushed. Orion: Hearing. Music grounds Orion. He’s very collected on the outside but he’s extremely messy on the inside. He has to balance two worlds, and atmospheres, that each have their own set of challenges/ problems. There’s earth and there’s space. The only constant throughout it all is music. It��s the only thing that connects the two hemispheres of his life. Losing the ability to fully enjoy music for all its worth would throw his inner balance off. He’d be a complete mess. Alex: Losibg her sense of compassion. She’s always been the girl to give people her all. She’ll pour her heart and soul into you without asking for much in return. While James worries about her because of this trait-it ultimately makes everyone happier. It’s nice to see someone so warm and caring despite the cold reality of life. If she became calloused and uncaring it’d make everything seem bleaker. Sort of like Thalia’s hope, Alex’s compassion helps hold things together. It’s what makes her the Alex everyone loves. Sage: Magic. It sounds shallow and stupid, but magic is the only continuity in her entire life. It’s the one thing that remotely connects Sage to her father, it’s what connects her to Enzo, and it’s what made her friendship with Bianca even possible. Most of the good things-despite the bad things- in her life have happened because of magic. To lose it would be icing on the cake and I don’t want to really think what would happen if it did somehow go away. Bianca: Bianca’s harder to pin point on this one because she’s still trying to assert her own identity. I think what she values most is her voice. Having an opinion, being able to vocalize interests, and expressing emotions are all things she never had before. It helps validate the fact that she’s a real person. Losing that all over again would crush her spirit. It’d make freedom always seem like a temporary thing when it should be permanent. Penelope: Believe it or not the most painful thing for her to lose would be her Dyslexia and ADHD. While it’s challenging at times it’s what makes her-her. She wouldn’t trade it for the world. It puts things in a constant perspective that people have challenges, individual challenges that effect day to day life. She also loves showing people that you may not be perfect but you can still function as a productive member of society. Penny hates when people use disabilities, disorders, or other troubles to escape every day responsibilities. Arthur: His sense of self worth. It took Arthur ages to build up his confidence and self esteem. For a long time he felt like he just wasn’t worth anything. Wasn’t worth the money his dad used for his surgeries, wasn’t worth anyone’s time, and wasn’t worth anyone’s affection. He’s come a long way and is really rocking self confidence. The last thing he or Chloe would want is for him to lose all of that and have to start from scratch. Chloe: Inspiration. Losing inspiration is one of the hardest things in the world to respark. Once you get burned out it’s hard to find joy in something you used to love. It would take a lot of comfort and security out of every day life. It would be especially difficult to lose inspiration for writing since it functions as a huge and healthy outlet for her. Enzo: His ambition and childishness. He’s such an excitable kid and he wants to do so much that sometimes it seems he gets over loaded with hopes and dreams. Still, losing his ambition and his childlike wonder would make things too grey and cruel for him. In a way it’s a defense mechanism, but it also is just who he’s always been. A kid with a big heart and big hopes. It would also hurt Sage to see his spirit ruined, she admires his ability to be so positive, and even if she doesn’t say it she kind of wishes she was more like him.

[ajokeformur-ray]

For the headcanon thing (if my suggestion even counts as one); how about Arthur joins or is joined by reader in the shower/bathub? I don't mind smut since it'd fit but I think it would also work SFW, however it's up to you - knowing your writing it would be great and sweet either way! :)

Thank you so much nonnie! I was gonna do both SFW and NSFW for this one but I posted the filthiest thing I’ve ever written yesterday (A Bloody Smile) so I’m gonna go with soft and sweet SFW for this one!

It seems kinda obvious but there’s nudity in this; no smut though! Just two weary adults sharing water.

Enjoy!

It was the end of just another day for you and you wanted to go home.

Well, no… You wouldn’t mind walking through your front door but even then, surrounded by pieces of you and your comforts, you wouldn’t really be home.

Not until you saw your Arthur.

Only when his arms surrounded you would you be home, and thoughts of this keep you company throughout the day, partially filling the void in your heart put there by his physical absence.

Your journey home somehow took forever and yet no time at all; so consumed were you by thoughts of going home to Arthur.

People gave you strange looks for smiling so widely on your way home, but you barely noticed them.

They didn’t have the one thing that you did and you almost felt sad for them.

Almost.

They would never know the absolute gift that was loving Arthur Fleck and being loved by him in return.

But you did.

You knew how lucky you were and it was for this reason that, in the moments you were conscious of it, did you wear your smile proudly.

Let them stare. It wasn’t like you were ever gonna see any of them again, anyway.

You practically ran up those horrible concrete steps, racing through the filthy streets of Gotham.

With the thrill that came from knowing that in minutes would you be seeing Arthur, you had the physical energy needed to forgo the rickety old lift entirely and soon you were at your shared apartment.

Despite your excitement at finally being in the place you knew Arthur would be, you entered slow enough so that, if he was lingering by the doorway, Arthur had enough time to get out of the way.

You had once hit him with the door on your way in, not knowing that he had his face pressed up against it; looking for you through the small peephole.

You had apologised a 1000000 times that night and each time had Arthur giggled and kissed you; he didn’t mind. It wasn’t like you had done it on purpose, though it had stung a little.

Not that he would tell you that.

He had just laughed through the slight pain ‘til he hadn’t felt it anymore, just like he dealt with everything else in his life.

This time, though, there was no one there.

You weren’t even slightly disappointed that Arthur hadn’t been waiting for you at the door like an excited puppy when their human goes to the kitchen. Not even a little. Nope.

You ignored the little voice in your head that called you a liar.

You could hear the radio being played in the bathroom, and you followed the sound easily; as if there was a rope between Arthur’s body and your own. 

You were being pulled to his side by the mere knowledge that he was just on the other side of the door and you were powerless to stop yourself; not that you ever would.

Arthur was a force unto himself and never would or could you resist him.

You knocked three times in rapid succession with the second knuckle of an index finger and let yourself in, smiling at the sight which greeted you:

Arthur in the bath, bubbles everywhere. 

It was in his hair, on his face, all over his body; he even had some bubbles on the tiles.

You had known that Arthur liked bubble baths but even this surprised you for a few seconds before you smiled gently at the man sat in the tub.

He was so soft and you loved him so much for it.

“Well, someone’s having fun.”

Even though you had knocked, Arthur still jumped at the sound of your voice.

You smiled at him and raised a hand in a tired greeting. “Hey.”

“Hi!” A small smile quickly dominated the whole of his mouth as Arthur took in the sight of you.

His smile soon turned into a frown, his strong dark brows creased in the middle; deepening the early wrinkles already there.

“You look tired.”

You shrugged, walked fully into the bathroom, shutting the door behind you. 

“No more than you do.”

As Arthur spoke, you made your way over to him, toeing off your shoes and tugging off your coat, your bag and anything else that was strictly for the Outside World, which you wanted nothing to do with for the rest of the day.

It took so much from you and rarely gave back; so it could all go away for now.

So long as you had Arthur, you had everything.

You sat on the edge of the bathtub, your fingers sliding into Arthur’s wet curls.

His eyes closed in bliss as you lightly scratched his scalp.

“Have you washed your hair yet, honey?”

“No,” He hummed, “Was hoping you would be home in time.”

That was a daring admission in Arthur’s book and you rewarded him with a kiss, having to lean over in a slightly awkward manner to do so.

With your lips on his, your fingers in his hair, did tensions build, but you didn’t want that. 

You just wanted to relax in his presence and have Arthur relax, too.

You pulled away from the kiss just in time to see Arthur looking dazed as he opened his eyes and you smiled, reaching over to grab the shampoo that he preferred to use - yours.

It made his hair smell like you, it made his pillows smell like you, and it helped him so much during the day to have pieces of you all around him; so that it was hard to deny the reality.

His delusions were far less vivid, less controlling of his perception of reality, when he had solid evidence to say that you were real.

You got to work on washing Arthur’s hair, massaging his scalp as you worked the suds through his dark curls; Arthur’s face was tipped towards the ceiling, a rare serene smile on his lips.

Periodically did you murmur instructions - tilt your head back a bit more, keep your eyes closed, stay still for me - and Arthur listened to everything.

Sometimes he would moan quietly or arch into your touch.

He was so touch starved that even the simplest of touches were almost sensual to him. 

Every time he moaned, you would say something like “you’re so good for me, love” or some other small praise, which would only make him smile a little wider.

You just wanted to love him so hard that his life seemed infinitely better with you by his side.

Little did you know, all you had to do was stay - even without all these tender affections was Arthur’s life made better by your existence.

You rinsed out the suds and then conditioned his hair, grinning at the thought of how soft and fluffy it would be when you were done.

Maybe he would even let you brush it.

You knew he would - he trusted you completely.

When at last his hair was done did Arthur’s hand encircle one of your wrists as his intense greens met your eyes.

Though he said nothing, you saw his wants written on his face as clearly as if he had written join me? on his forehead in ink.

You stood from the side of the bath, undressed without a care - you ignored his hitched breath, his choked inhale, and put a hand on his shoulder - move forward - as he did so, you climbed in behind him, using your grip on that same shoulder to tug him back into resting against your chest.

You cuddled until the bath water started to grow cold.

You made it a point to press kisses to the bruises which littered Arthur’s back so densely that it was rare to find a spot of unblemished skin.

You were glad that he couldn’t see your face; it made hiding your tears that much easier.

You kissed every single bruise, trying to heal him with the strength of your love.

If such a thing worked in real life then never again would Arthur feel even a twinge of pain for the rest of his life.

As you cuddled, you spoke about your days, traded jokes, and just basked in each other’s company.

There was nothing you loved more than quiet nights like this, and even in the future when he grew darker, more sure of himself, when he traded what the world expected of him for who he really was, did you still enjoy and cherish nights like this.

For always would you come home to each other; no matter what.

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[galadrieljones]

A Funeral: Chapter 6

Fandom: Red Dead Redemption 2 | Pairing: Arthur x Mary Beth | Rating: Mature

Content: Existential Angst, Friendship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Nature, Touch-Starved, Humor, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Angst, Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Fake Marriage, Epiphanies, Backstory, Banter, Deep Emotions

Summary: To help her process Sean’s death, Mary Beth asks Arthur to take her on a hunting trip, somewhere far away. He agrees, and on their little journey together, they find quietude and take comfort in their easy bond. In their desperate search for meaning together, they endure a number of small trials, which bring them closer to one another as well as to the future, and to the unchecked plights of the natural world.

**Chapter-specific Content Warning: distant reference toward sexual violence

Masterpost | AO3

Thanks @bearly-tolerable for the banner!! ^_^

Chapter 6: A Couple Busted Umbrellas

The dream he’d had at the Winterson's B&B was not a good one. You know, there is this abandoned homestead in Scarlet Meadows? Not far from Rhodes, and outside that homestead there are two little crosses set up on either side of a big, pretty tree. It is familiar. Arthur stumbled upon it once while out hunting whitetail for camp, not too long ago, and in doing so, he remembered all the bad things that had ever happened to him. The little crosses and all of their lonely passion dredged up a layer of guilt from so deep inside that his vision went white and he nearly stumbled into his horse. The guilt was covered in barbed wire. It hurt a lot to swallow it back down again, but he did it anyway and then he went back to camp with a dead deer for Pierson, and it was twilight and Dutch sat, consumed in his own neurosis with his head in his hands. Nobody else really knew about Eliza except for Dutch, Hosea, John, and Abigail. Arthur went to his bed that night and he went right to sleep, very early.

Arthur didn’t dream of the two little crosses that first night with Mary Beth. He didn’t even dream of Eliza. He only dreamed of the polar bear—climbing again out of that polar bear skin and seeing the world burnt around him and wondering where it was everyone had gone to, everyone he ever cared for. It woke him up, and when he woke up, he sat up, and the barbed wire had unfurled and ensconced him in its horrible pain so deep he got to thinking it was happiness. What else could be so all-consuming without causing death? He rightly had not known before. But it wasn’t Mary this time—nagging him, this petty pain just below the surface. No. It was much too deep for that. He felt twenty-five again, in that moment, sleeping in a soft bed next to his pregnant girlfriend who he had made that way. How he loved her. Like he had never loved anything—no man or woman or child could come close to the desire he had to keep her safe. She was the love that came first, that preceded all. And when Mary Beth touched his shoulder that night, he was not awake yet. He was still in the dream, next to Eliza, in a farmhouse in Butte, Montana. Where the buffalo roam, he thought. And when he woke up he was crushed at all that had come to pass. He felt so old. But also, all at once, he was relieved. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact sensation. It was of the most conflicting he had ever felt in his life.

Now he and Mary Beth had started continuing their way north again, eventually headed toward O’Creigh’s Run. It was so pretty here. So damn pretty, thought Arthur, especially once you got up in the Grizzlies a little, and these orange flowers grew everywhere, poppies or something, Arthur wasn’t quite sure. Ram and Whitetail all over the place, hopping and stumbling and drinking from the ravines. Arthur knew now that, as they left Emerald Station, they would soon be leaving civilization as they knew it and entering into a kind of dark territory. They still had time. Ambarino was a good, clean place, still wild terrain populated mostly by animals, hunters, fishermen. But once they got further east, it was all ghosts and people that looked like ghosts, and fog and strangers in the windows of rotten shacks way high on the cliffs. At times he became bothered with anxiety and regret at having brought Mary Beth on this trip, as he thought intensely about the dangers that could await them in the northern stretches of New Hanover. But it was too late now, and he didn’t rightly know anything, and for all of his certainties, it was just as dangerous, her sleeping alone at Shady Belle in the southern swamps of Lemoyne, as it was her riding with him in the deadzone of all that lie north of Annesburg. He supposed he could have taken her to Strawberry. To West Elizabeth. Real good hunting out there. But it was further west than he was willing to go, and the closer he got to Blackwater the faster the true dangers began to appear.

He knew it would be fine. He would make it fine. And for now, it was Ambarino, still just mountain prettiness and fields of wild flowers, and he knew that she would like it up here. He just knew. It all sort of looked like her, felt like her—soft and good but with unexpected outcroppings and steep drops and you had to keep a watch on your footing lest you loose your step. Plunge off a cliff. As they rode north, away from the Winterson’s comfortable B&B she was quiet for a time and wistful, like she was caught in a dream. He did not disturb her. He had not meant to worry her that night before. He had bad dreams all the time—it was nothing new. Nothing to do with Mary Beth.

But the truth was, that memory was already stoked by now. It was a creeping heat. He could feel it. Other times he might try and dull it out of himself with whiskey, but not today. He needed to be sharp. He needed to be fully awake and aware because even if it was pretty country there were a lot of dangers in the Grizzlies and there was nothing that was going to prevent him from protecting the two of them, protecting her.

So there he rode, right on the sharp knife’s edge of his worst nightmares, and yet fully in the present on the trail to Ambarino. They rode at a trot mostly. Mary Beth was contemplative and sometimes, she would slow down to scribble something in that book of hers and then she’d put it away into her dress folds again. He would smoke and light her a cigarette, hand it across to her as they rode on their horses, and she would take it and smile and thank him for his chivalry. These little pieces of their time together would tug the strings inside his heart. His affection for her was growing and this, too, like everything else in his conflicted mind made him homesick, and worried. She was a little like Eliza. She was young and had long, wavy hair that curled in the humidity, and she was kind and dutiful. They both liked to read. But unlike Eliza, Mary Beth was sure of herself. She had all this confidence, and until now, he’d never really known it. He’d always sort of seen her as the wildflower in the camp. Prettier, softer than the other girls, but incredibly stoic. It was hard to see through her. He felt in, in some ways, transparent by her side.

Arthur Morgan was a callused man but he had never once closed his heart to love. He was an optimist. He wanted to believe things would be okay. It was not this part of him that made him so difficult to crack.

They made camp near a lagoon called Moonstone Pond. Arthur took Mary Beth fishing. She was not experienced with a fishing rod and desired a lot of guidance. He showed her how to hold it, how to cast, watched her closely. She regarded the water with a close eye. She was very eager to learn, got a single bite, but it was kind of a big feller and she couldn’t manage. She broke the line and stamped her foot with comical indignation.

"Dammit," she said. "I’m a terrible fisherwoman."

"Nah, you’re just fine," said Arthur. "You know how many lines I break daily? And I’ve been fishing for...years. You’ll get it. Want to try again?"

She looked at the fishing pole then handed it back to him. "I’m too hungry to try again," she said, smiling. "I’d like to watch you."

He had a toothpick between his teeth, took it out of his mouth, flicked it to the weeds. It was chilly up in these parts and she had put on her riding gloves. "I’ll do my best not to disappoint you."

"You couldn’t disappoint me, Arthur Morgan."

This amused him. He fixed up his hook with a nice bait worm, cast it into the water. They stood quietly for a while. Mary Beth dropped to a crouch to look at her reflection. She tapped its surface and made little ripples in the water. The sun was getting lower, like a hot burn on the horizon, just past the trees.

Arthur caught a nice, fat bluegill, then another. Mary Beth clapped. She was very excited by the catch. He cleaned and filleted both fish as Mary Beth ground up some salt and pepper in a little mill. Arthur set the fillets on the pan and she sprinkled on the seasoning. By now the sun was down and the nighttime animals had come out for their evening prize. They could hear raccoons chattering and other weird animal noises in the distance, but nothing close enough to fear. After frying up and eating the fish, they split a can of strawberries for dessert. Between them it was like a whole swelling song. A harmony of nothing and thinking and peace. The temperature fell a little further with the sun gone away, and now they could see their breath, so they put on their coats and huddled close to the fire and close to one another, leaning up against a big rock. Arthur sensed that something was on Mary Beth's mind. She seemed to watch the fire like she was begging it to breathe into life, a Phoenix.

“Mary Beth,” he said, after some time.

“Yes, Arthur?”

“Everything okay? You seem a little...quiet.”

“I’m fine.” she said. She shifted toward him, held her hands over the fire. “I just been thinking. The country up here is big and it makes me feel things. That’s all.”

“I get that,” said Arthur. “I get that a lot.”

They warmed their hands to the flame. She leaned against him, casually, placed her head on his shoulder. “Are you okay?” she said.

“I’m fine,” said Arthur. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” she said. “Or—just, last night. You had a bad dream. Do you remember?” She was looking up at the dark night sky. The smoke from the fire went up and was mingling with the stars.

Arthur didn't say anything at first. "Nevermind," she said.

“It's all right," he said. He looked down at his gloved hands. "I do remember. Sort of. I remember the dream.”

“What was it?”

“I’ve had it a couple times now,” he said, scratching at the back of his neck. He wore his hat with a judicious feather of Cardinal. “It’s like, I’m living inside this polar bear skin.”

“A polar bear?” said Mary Beth.

“Yeah. I’m about to die, but I climb out instead, and when I do, the world is gone. It’s burned. It wakes me like that every time.”

“That sounds awful,” said Mary Beth.

“It ain’t pleasant,” said Arthur, resituating against the rock. He pulled his knees up to study the elaborate threading of his leather boots. “And every time I wake up from the dream, I been seeing something different. Someone different.”

“Like who?” she said. "Like Eliza?"

He looked at her, curious. He nodded. "Like Eliza."

She perked up a little, her eyebrows very pursed in concern. “That is what you said to me. You thought I was her?”

“Yes, or no. It wasn't that simple.”

“Who is she, Arthur?”

Arthur was quiet about it. The barbed wire creeping. But he was aching, too. He didn’t see the good in holding it inside. Not here, all alone out here, just them two. He and Mary Beth, they saw the world in such a similar way. He had opened up to her before. He sighed. “I can’t remember the last time I talked about this,” he said, almost to no one, to nothing. Almost laughing at himself.

“I know you had a girl once, before Mary Gillis. Abigail...she might have mentioned, once. Don't blame her. It wasn't gossip. Is that Eliza?”

“Yes, ma'am,” said Arthur.

Mary Beth just nodded. “I see. Is it bad? Is it bad, what happened?”

“She died,” said Arthur, surprising even himself. The words tasted, felt odd in his mouth. He picked up the empty can of strawberries. He studied the label. “We had a baby. A boy. He grew to about four years old, and then the two of them—they was killed by bandits, at home. For ten dollars. I wasn’t there. I suppose I dream about it, sometimes. I want you to know, I wasn’t calling you Eliza, Mary Beth. It wasn’t that. I was just…confused about where I was, after the dream and all. I’m sorry. These dreams—they can really take hold of you if you ain't prepared, which one never really can be.”

Mary Beth was staring now, right into him. He was staring at the fire, but he could feel her. She linked her arm inside of his with a great deal of intent. It was sort of like she already knew, or like she had divined it out of him, but of course that was foolish. He felt her little arm in his.

“I’m so sorry, Arthur,” she said. “Truly, I am. Thank you for trusting me with your story. For letting me help you carry it.”

“Of course,” he said, tossing the can into the darkness. “But there ain't nothing to be sorry for. I’m just shocked I found a way to say it out loud again.” It felt simple right now, but he knew. He knew nothing was so simple as just talking. He took a very deep breath.

Mary Beth smiled. He smiled down at her, in some sort of relief or embarrassment. She just put her head back on his shoulder for a little while and they waited beside one another, feeling the earth, hard and sore beneath their boots.

“You want some gin?” she said in a little while, out of nowhere. "Seems appropriate."

“Gin?”

“Mrs. Lizette Winterson gave me a novelty bottle before we left the B&B,” said Mary Beth. “You want some?”

Arthur smiled. “They sure liked you.”

“They liked you, too,” she said, and she hopped up. She patted him on his hat and then went to fetch the bottle off her horse nearby. “It’s a good bottle. It smells clean.”

“Clean is good,” said Arthur.

“You want some?”

“Sure. Just a little though.”

“A little is good,” said Mary Beth. She sat back down by his side and poured a couple slugs into their tin cups from dinner. She garnished the gin with little sprigs of mint, mostly for the looks, but it smelled nice. They touched their cups together.

“What are we toasting to?” said Arthur.

“I’m not sure,” said Mary Beth. "What's brought us here?"

“It was Sean, wasn't it?" said Arthur. "Old Sean MacGuire."

She got bright. “That’s right,” she said. And she held up her glass. “To Sean, and to all those who’ve gone from this life and on to the next.”

“To Sean,” said Arthur, solemn, but grateful. “He was a gotdam idiot, but I liked him.”

"Me, too."

They drank.

Arthur liked the gin—the mint made it feel very refreshing, like a cap on his sadness. Meanwhile, Mary Beth immediately shook out her head and laughed. “Yuck,” she said.

“Yuck?” said Arthur, admiring the gin in the bottom of his cup. “Tastes like Christmas trees if you ask me.”

“Well you are clearly more accustomed to the hard stuff, Arthur Morgan.”

“I don’t doubt that, Mary Beth Gaskill.”

They drank some more. Mary Beth sipped hers little by little and seemed to become tipsy in an instant. She was funny now, like she was trying to lighten the mood. To cheer him up as she was wont to do, and she spoke very fast about many things that interested her about their trip so far. The color of the mountains, the idiots on the bridge, the funny Frenchwoman, Lawrence and his little glasses, Arthur's bullet wound, the fight. Just as he had thought, she liked the orange flowers of the terrain very much. She liked the sky here, too. She said it was so clear, she thought to drink it. He thought it a beautiful image. Arthur listened to her talk, and he listened to the night world going off around them. It seemed safe. They were safe here, he thought. No trouble would befall them that night. He had decided. He sipped his gin.

“You know,” said Mary Beth, after a little while. She had finished her cup and poured a little more. Arthur stopped after one. He could sense she had warmed to him and she felt him responding. He was okay inside, sort of. She could tell.

“What is it?” he said.

“I used to have a really good daddy,” she went on, a little random, peering down into her drink. She nodded, stirred it a little with her finger. "He was a good man."

“Is that right?”

“He was a blacksmith,” she said. She took another sip. “And he was good to my mama and my brother and me. He was a literate man. We all could read, he saw to it. We had a homestead ranch in the cuts outside of Shawnee, Kansas.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” said Arthur.

“Oh yes,” said Mary Beth, smiling to herself. “Well, I did. Before he died, that is. He was about four years older than me.”

The way she'd said it was nonchalant. Arthur fixed on her. She was watery in her eyes now. Not drunk, but softened by the booze. He knew she wasn’t done with her story and sensed her unfolding. Like she was going to tell him now, her tragic past. Just as he had told her his. “Go on,” he said.

“My mama was a baker, and she sold her pies to the local market. I had a good childhood.”

“That sounds real good, Mary Beth. Real good."

“Yeah, it was,” she said.

He waited. She seemed like she wanted to set down her cup. It was not empty, but she seemed to be finished with it. He held out his hand, she gave it to him. He set it aside, staring right at her. But she was looking at her boots.

“When I was about twelve," she continued, dreamy at first, but then solemn, sniffling from the cold, "my parents was out, on the town one night. They went to a show or something. They was in love. They went on dates. My brother was home with me. We was playing a card game, Spades I think. He let me stay up late. My parents was robbed that night, on the ride home, my daddy killed by bandits after his pocket book, and his coach. They took the dress off my mama’s back and she nearly died as well from the cold. Violated, of course. Probably somewhere dark, outside. Only I didn’t realize then. I was...naive. I was twelve. When we found her, my brother covered my eyes and he put his jacket over my mama’s shoulders and we helped her home. I never saw my daddy’s body. I didn’t get to see much of anything, but I do remember my mama was just in her slip. She soon got...very ill, after that. Local doctor said she caught Typhoid Fever. Nobody knew where. The event and my daddy’s death put her at the end of her life, and she was depressed, on top of the illness. I do remember her, her drinking. All day. She wasted away. Mumbling and such, picking at her bed clothes like she thought they was infested with bugs. The fever made her say and do odd things. I’ll never forget. She died a month later.”

Arthur sighed. He took her gloved hand in his. It was very small. “I’m sorry, Mary Beth. That sounds very hard.”

She smiled, low. It was her way. To smile. To always try and smile. “Thanks, Arthur. Anyway me and my brother was taken away from each other after that. Me and Bobby. That was his name. They stuck me in a home for orphans in Shawnee, but he was old enough and he found work at the mine.”

“Coal mining?” said Arthur.

“Yeah. Coal. But he had a...accident. That’s what they told me. About a year later. A bad fall. Broke his spine. That's how he died. All the money he made, he kept squirreled away and he would bring me a billfold every Saturday. I had been saving. I used most of it to bury him proper. We had a church funeral and I was the only one who came, save for the pastor. They let me out of the orphanage for it and that is the night I slipped their eye. I went to Kansas City with fifteen dollars to my name. I met a madame who was good and she found me before it was too late. Said I was too young and too pretty for whoring but she liked my disposition and taught me to pick pockets instead. To be…persuasive. I ain’t never whored, Arthur. I ain’t never been that kind of girl, no matter how bad it got. I swear.”

She seemed nervous as she said it, like she was apologizing, or meaning to prove something to him. Arthur was just listening, but when she got to this part, he became almost alarmed—not by what she’d said, but how she’d said it. He straightened up. He felt something snag inside him. Some hard protective nature coming into focus. He didn’t want her thinking like this, feeling these things about herself. “I would never judge you for that, Mary Beth. Not ever. Do you hear?"

“Arthur—“

“I said, do you hear?"

She was fixed in his eyes, blue as winter. She believed him. He could see it. “Yes, I do.”

“Good,” said Arthur. He slouched back a little. There was a cold rock for him to lean against. He opened up his chest and put his arm around her shoulders. He kissed the top of her lavender head, held her fiercely out of some pure instinct. He was deep inside that moment and not coming up for nothing. He was reminding her of something, something real between them, and about him, who he was. What little he truly understood about himself, this was it. He wasn't going on and letting her think her worth to him somehow depended on her past hardships. They sat like that for a little while.

Meanwhile, Mary Beth felt protected and guilty and happy and uncertain and very warm in his embrace. She was tipsy, but she was not far gone, and she’d never been held like this—not by him, not by a man she cared about, so safe and familiar. The way he smelled was indescribable. It was just Arthur. Like plants and skin and warm mint on his neckerchief. Sweat and smoke and bonfires. She placed her face into the scruff on his neck and just breathed. It made her feel all better. It calmed her senses, her nerves, her sadness and her anxieties. He was allowing her to do this. He had one of his big gloved hands in her hair. He took a deep breath and she could feel his wide chest rising and then falling against her in an exhale. Then, she closed her eyes for a moment, and he began to speak in his deep voice.

“I remember that day I met you,” he said. She could hear the smiling in his voice. She opened her eyes. “We brought you back to our camp in Leawood. You had about a hundred stories and you had a…very expensive hunting knife holstered on you, if I recall correctly, one of the likes I’d never seen. What was it, five years ago?”

“About,” said Mary Beth, smiling. “I stole that knife off a brigadier. Or, that's what he said he was. I’m not sure what a brigadier would be doing in Kansas. Even still. It wasn’t hard.”

“Well, you’ve got talent.”

“I was little more than a kid I suppose,” she said. “When you found me.” She shrugged.

“You wasn’t no kid,” said Arthur, like an affirmation. He looked down at her, very serious. “You was surviving. It’s all we’ve ever done, souls like us, Mary Beth. Growing up fast, living hard, because we have to.”

His wisdom crushed into her, face first. She was so grateful. “I reckon we are just a couple of busted umbrellas, you and me,” she said. “Been through one too many storms in this lifetime.”

“Maybe,” said Arthur. “But you have taught me that there’s always some good in the world, somewhere. Despite it all. And we’ll get through it. It’s gonna be okay, Mary Beth.”

He squeezed her tight. She smiled to herself. Something between them cracked wide open. Arthur watched the fire. She put her head back onto his shoulder. She examined the sky. It was so big. So big, she could barely understand. “It sure is pretty here,” said Mary Beth, wistful. They seemed to float.

“It sure is,” said Arthur.