#i did. the lines in like 20 minutes. and i KNEW i shouldn't have coloured ANYRHIJG

[mangosteen]

bro get a grip fr

[immajustvibehere]

Spark (4/8)

Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader - Enemies to Lovers

Chapter 4 summary: You and Arthur slowly become closer while managing the trifles that come with running in the van der Linde gang. Arthur might even be ready to forgive you for your last offense...

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first chapter, second chapter, third chapter

Hey. Sorry it took me so long. Aside from a full schedule, this was a hard chapter for me to write because its purpose is to display a transition and it might not be the smoothest thing I have written, but it's necessary to progress the plot.

4000 words, 20 minutes reading time

It was early in the morning, but Arthur had given up trying to sleep. Despite the sun not having risen yet, the light grey colour of the sky suggested that it wouldn't be long until the sun's warmth would touch the damp grass and shy away the small clouds that hung in the sky. Only a few people had already left their bedrolls and slowly started the daily business of running a camp. As Arthur opened his tent flaps some more, he lazily greeted Javier who had just finished his guard duty. Then Arthur sat down on his table, his journal in front of him.

You had been on his thoughts all night, he hated to admit it. So much had happened. And though yesterday Arthur was sure that he was anything but disgusted by your presence, he was concerned. Concerned that you had actually left camp, as he had threatened you yesterday. There was something in your features when he told you to leave, that stuck with him. An expression that haunted his dreams.

No. He had been seeing things. Better to stick to the things that he knew for sure; you annoyed him and had taken his journal.

Again and again, Arthur had reassured that you hadn't ripped out something, and he was almost disappointed to find out that you hadn't. It didn't fit the picture he had of you. For the tenth time since yesterday, Arthur skimmed through the pages, absentmindedly reading his entries when he overheard a conversation taking place.

He turned his head a bit to see you in the distance, talking to Abigail. He couldn't make out what the two of you were saying, but you looked calm - quite in contrast to the conversation you had with Abigail yesterday. Arthur curiously watched as you handed something to her. Then she closed in, it almost looked like Abigail wanted to hug you. But you stumbled back a couple of steps, extending your hand to shake hers.

Arthur furrowed his eyebrows, not knowing what to think of that, when you suddenly turned and walked towards his tent. Flustered, he sat up straight, directing his gaze to the table in front of him. Why did he react like that? He hadn't done anything forbidden. And still, Arthur grabbed a pen and scribbled away on an empty page in his journal. He didn't even know what to draw, he just started with some simple lines, hoping he wouldn't have to think of something.

Then he heard you clearing your throat.

"You awake, Mr. Morgan?", you asked, standing at the entrance of his tent.

"Depends", Arthur replied briefly. He clearly was awake, you could see him very well sitting and scribbling in his journal, but his voice was gravely.

"Look - I'm...I'm sorry", you almost choked on your voice and had to supress a cough.

Arthur snickered, not even looking at you: "Sure. For what exactly? For all of it?"

"Taking your journal", you added and since Arthur didn't say anything, you took a big breath to repeat: "I'm sorry for taking your journal. I shouldn't have done that."

"Alright."

If you expected to be forgiven, Arthur was far than ready to do so. Simply that you had mentioned that you had taken his journal made his heart beat faster in anger. Nevertheless, hearing you mumble an apology was some sort of satisfaction.

"For what it's worth I really like the drawings. They are well done and...you don’t have to worry about me reading your secrets cause I read none if it”, you explained.

"Course you didn't", Arthur replied sarcastically.

"I can't read", you admitted silently.

"Ya got a damn big mouth for someone who can't read", Arthur mocked. Then he looked up and wished he hadn’t delivered this line like that.

You looked...-well. You certainly didn't sleep much last night. Your hair was messy, your hands and pants dirty with soil as if you had been digging something. Underneath the dark circles around your eyes there was a blooming bruise on your cheek bone where John had hit you. It looked painful. Your eyes were glassy and additionally to your feeble appearance came a blush on your cheeks. Arthur looked you up and down and noticed that one holster was empty. So, despite searching for hours last night, and evidently not getting any sleep at all, you hadn't found the gun he had thrown over the ridge. Briefly, he thought about mentioning it, but decided against it. You broke the silence again.

"I knew you told me to leave but...I won't", you were almost scared of the last two words. Scared he would yell at you and throw you out nevertheless.

"Real shame", Arthur sighed instantly, before he looked at you again and decided the harsh treatment was maybe not the right way, "It's none of my business anyway. But if ya can't stop annoying people around here I can't guarantee for yer safety."

You sighed in relief: "Understood."

You looked around at camp and caught sight of the Indian who was about to heave up a ridiculously huge sack of flour. Despite his physique, he seemed to struggle.

"What’s the Indian's name again?", you asked Arthur without letting your eyes off the man.

Slightly confused, Arthur answered with: "Charles Smith." Then he barely caught your mumbled 'bye' and saw you disappear from his tent. You headed towards Charles, determined to offer help. You sighed when you got closer. Maybe two apologies and one offering of kindness was too much for 7 am in the morning, but Charles had already caught sight of you, so there was no turning back without making things even more awkward.

"Need a hand, Mr. Smith?” you asked, approaching him. He looked up surprisedly but replied with a "Sure" before even thinking about it. His eyes lingered on your bruise, and you watched his slightly sceptical look. It was clear that you had a sudden change of heart, but there was no way Charles could tell how this had come to be. Unless it was connected to the ugly bruise right on your face. But he hadn't been present when John had punched you in the face, neither had he noticed that Arthur had thrown your favourite gun over the cliff and that you had been searching for it all night. All that was clear to Charles was, that you were in a peculiar mood. Your cheeks blushed, obviously embarrassed but at the same time somewhere else with your thoughts.

You tripped over your own feet as you helped Charles to carry the sack to Pearson's waggon. They were fucking heavy, and you feared that you might be less actual help for the man that was about five times your size when it came to muscles, but you tried nevertheless. Tried, while thinking about stuff you had been mulling over the whole night.

Something about Arthur kicking you out yesterday had made you realize that you didn't want to leave. You never were someone who lived with many people. If you had been with a gang, it either ended with being stabbed in the back, a disastrous job with many casualties or just your misjudgement making you shake hands with people who didn't have any good intentions for you at heart. But last night, as you crawled through the bushes you had realized something: This was not your average outlaw gang. You swallowed at the term, but this wild mix of people was a family. There were people who needed to be taken care of, and there were others who stepped in and provided. Of course, a Jack or a Reverend is useless in a fight, but they made this random mix of people a family.

"Y/N?", you looked up to Charles who had called your names a couple of times now before you listened.

"We can drop the sack here", he said, waiting for you to let go of your end so the weight wouldn't overwhelm you if he let go first.

"Sure", you sighed at the realization that you hadn’t been listening. After the sack had been dropped off, you wiped your dusty hands on your jeans.

"That's a nasty bruise you got there", Charles remarked, "I could mix you something with some herbs that grow around here. It'll make it fade faster."

You looked at his like he had just suggested the most ridiculous thing ever, and without even thinking about it you blurted out a: "No thanks, I'll manage." You turned on your heels to get out of there, when you halted, slowly turning around to Charles again, who hadn't moved at all: "Though...if it isn't too much trouble...?"

Charles stated a short: "Not at all." You nodded, cleared your throat and mumbled a "Thank you."

A few uneventful days passed. While you still rode out every day, at least to bring in some fresh game or a couple of dollars that you robbed from the first fella that had the misfortune of crossing your path, you stayed around more often and helped out with the daily chores. On a rather warm afternoon, you were on guard duty, lazily walking up and down, when Dutch and John rode up to you. Strauss was on John’s horse and his face was unusually pale. The pace at which they had approached you and Dutch’s tense face told you that something wasn’t right.

“Dutch?”, you asked when his horse was next to you.

“Cornwall’s men found us. We had to shoot our way out of town”, Dutch sighed in brief explanation.

“Anybody got hurt?”, you eyed the men and your gaze found a deep red stain on Strauss’s leg.

“Not seriously”, Dutch answered. You heard Leopold mockingly repeating the answer under his breath. The sweat on his forehead suggested that his definition of seriously hurt might differ from Dutch’s.

“We’ll have to move soon”, Dutch thought out loud and kicked his horse into a slow trot again. You walked next to him: “Want me to go scout ahead?”

“That’s…very kind of you, Miss y/n. I’ll need to discuss it with Hosea first, but you might as well start packing.”

And only two hours later, you were called to Dutch who was surrounded by Hosea and Arthur. You walked up to them with crossed arms: “So we’re moving?”

“We are. South, for now. I want you to go with Charles and Arthur here”, Dutch said. Looking at Arthur’s face, he had already found out that you would be joining the scouting mission and surprisingly, didn’t seem too disgusted by the idea. There was just a hint of annoyance in his features.

“Sure”, you nodded complyingly, “Not a problem. I’ll get my horse saddled –“

“Actually”, Dutch interrupted you, “We might need yours to pull a waggon. Bill let his be injured so we are one strong horse short.” You were still processing those words and what they were supposed to mean, when Dutch shortened the pause: “I’m sure you’ll find some space on either of those fine gentlemen’s horses.” Then Dutch gave you a slimy grin and turned around, implying that this conversation was over and there was no room for discussion.

You silently followed Charles and Arthur to their horses. And when Arthur sat tight, he offered you a hand to climb on his horse, but you were already headed to Charles, asking with a questioning look if you were allowed to ride with him. He nodded, understanding your implication without any words being said and watched you mount Taima behind him, not even bothering to offer you a hand. Because he knew you were capable, and he knew you didn’t like to be offered help, even though you had started to accept his offers more willingly with every new day.

Arthur watched those happenings as if he wasn’t sitting on his horse, one hand reached out to where you had stood ten seconds ago. He felt like an idiot, but since you ignored him completely, he could live with the embarrassment. “Didn’t want ya on my horse anyway”, he mumbled under his breath, for nobody but himself to hear.

“So we are heading south…”, Charles assessed five minutes into the ride.

“Yeah, area called Dewberry Creek. We’ll make sure if it’s clear and a good place to lie low for a while”, Arthur explained.

“Man, I’ve been with you for like two weeks and in those two weeks you’ve done anything but lying low”, you teased.

Charles agreed with you and even Arthur kind of did when he said: “There ain’t no lying low. Dutch is not gonna hide away in a cave somewhere. Goes against everything he stands for.” Both Arthur and Charles must have heard you snicker but ignored it.

When you finally arrived at the destination, a dried-out rover creek, you couldn’t help but grin bitterly: “That’s a shit camp spot, even for your kind of lying low standards.”

The place was exposed, with barely any trees around to cover tents or two dozen of heavily armed people walking around. This was no nice camp spot, and you couldn’t even start to understand why Micah, of all people, would recommend it. Not that you had any trust in your stepbrother’s suggestions to begin with, but he usually was sharp when it came to things like that.

“Let’s look around”, Arthur ordered, and you rolled your eyes. “Waste of time”, you hollered sarcastically, but there was no way of riding off with you sitting behind Charles on his horse.

After a while though, you heard Arthur exclaim: “There’s a camp over there. Let’s have a look.”

With that, the horses were dismounted and you walked up to a couple of rather big tents, barrels and clothing lines. “Looks empty…”, Arthur assessed.

“Let’s make sure”, Charles chimed in.

“Looks like they left in a hurry”, you commented while you kicked a couple of still glowing sticks into the fireplace, “or hid in a hurry.” You saw Arthur pulling away some crates from a waggon with Charles help. When you had approached, they were about to uncover three figures hiding, one of them holding a double-barrel right in your face.

Instinctively, your hand went to your holster, only to grip thin air. You hadn’t got used to missing your main firearm, when you tried to go for your second one, Arthur gripped your wrist so firmly, you hissed in reply.

“It’s okay. You can come out of there”, Charles spoke to them in a soft voice while he raised his hands defensively. Arthur shot you a warning glare, before he let go of your hand to give you the opportunity to raise your hands too, which you unwillingly did.

“We don’t mean you no harm”, Charles affirmed and the three of you stood still, patiently waiting for the oldest of the three people, a woman probably around 20, to move the last crate to crawl out from under the waggon. As the three people moved, still very much holding you hostage with the raised weapon, Arthur shoved you behind him, moving away from the armed girl. You hated him for handling you like that. It might have looked like he wanted to protect you, shoving you behind his back, but you knew it was to prevent you from saying or doing something stupid.

“G-german?”, the oldest stuttered.

“No…”, Arthur replied confusedly, “no go on, get out of here. Go, we need the land. Go!”

When they didn’t budge, Athur got louder: “Get the hell out of here.”

A blonde girl, probably not older than fifteen finally said something in broken English: “They took our father.”

“Who did?”, Charles asked without hesitation.

“Men. Last night”, the girl explained.

“Where did they take him?” Charles asked.

“Ain’t no business of ours”, Arthur said, turning to Charles offense as if he had just added useless stuff to do in todays list, “I don’t even speak their language.”

“You ain’t as tough and dense as all that”, Charles said, holding an erect index finger under Arthur’s nose. You worked hard to hold back a snort. Charles walked off to his horse, leaving you and Arthur standing there. A small giggle escaped your lips and you hit Arthur in the side with your elbow, secretly happy you kept your mouth shut the whole time, “Whose the insensitive bastard now, huh?”, you chuckled.

Arthur clicked with his tongue before shoving you forward nonchalantly: “Come on.”

While hunting down the men who kidnapped the father, you found the perfect camping spot. Plus, you had the opportunity to gun down some men, which you gladly did after not having had the opportunity to practice with your other gun. The business was taken care of faster than you had anticipated, and before you knew it Charles was riding to get the rest of the gang, Arthur brought the man back to his family and you guarded the newly-acquired camping spot.

Arthur was back before Charles and while you rampaged the place for valuables, Arthur sat down underneath the big tree. No words were spoken, and distance was kept.

---

"What are you staring at?", you snapped at Arthur. His eyes followed you while you walked through camp and did chores. They had been for a couple of days now, but he never approached you or said anything about it. He just watched. And at some point, it had started to annoy you. It angered you even more that you cared about it, but you couldn't ignore it any longer.

"Just checkin' if yer behaving", Arthur commented.

"Don't give me that bullshit. I told you I don't need babysitting", you said.

"Well then maybe, you should stop doing all those dubious activities", Arthur almost whispered.

Your eyebrows knit together, and you gave him a quizzical look: "What the hell are you talkin' about?"

"You know what I'm talking about", Arthur simply replied.

"I don't. But fine, keep your secrets. But stop stalking me."

"What was that thing that you gave Jack earlier?"

"What?", you hoped Arthur hadn't caught your look of surprise or the way you held your breath for a moment, "Nothing."

"Sure", Arthur chuckled darkly.

"Stop watching me", and then you walked off.

But as much as you would have liked to keep it a secret, it wasn't long until Arthur unveiled this mystery. To be fair, you had never done anything truly suspicious, he had just found it weird how well behaved you had become. It wasn't like you were going around throwing compliments at the others, but now you would stumble over a sleeping uncle and just curse him under your breath, in comparison to kicking and yelling at him to get his shit together. In fact, Arthur hadn't heard you fight with anyone recently.

Abigail had asked Arthur, who had caught up with her over a cup of coffee, to fetch Jack who should be playing nearby to help her get some chores done. It didn’t take long for Arthur to find him. He was just playing hidden behind Abigail’s tent, moving little wooden figures and thinking up a role play. And next to Jack? You, just as immersed in the little game that was going on.

Jack was quick to notice Arthur, jumping up and greeting him: “Uncle Arthur! Look! Auntie y/n made this for me because I lost mine!”

Jack was stretching his arms up to Arthur to present a wooden carved figure of…he wasn’t sure exactly. It could be anything from a deer to an elephant, so Arthur smiled and nodded, taking the carved monstrosity in his own hands: “That’s real nice, Jack.”

The boy nodded excitedly, but when Arthur looked down to you, you simply stared at the dirty ground with red cheeks. You didn’t mind if Abigail knew you spent time with Jack, Hosea had also seen you just a couple of days ago, when you were collecting flowers with Jack…but Arthur. His teasing could already be heard and he hadn’t yet said anything.

“Jack, yer momma is asking for you. Why don’t ya go and check if she needs something”, Arthur said to the boy, patting him on the back and watching him run off.

For a while, neither of you said anything. Finally, Arthur made a couple of steps to stand next to you and held the carved thing under yer nose.

“What the hell’s this thing? It’s damn ugly”, he said mockingly.

“Oh, that’s why it reminded me of you”, you shot back, a cheeky, half-assed grin on your lips. You looked up to Arthur who looked taken aback for a second before his lips curled into a soft smile. He squatted to place the - he had decided that it was most likely to be meant as a horse - on the grass next to the more professionally carved wooden soldiers.

“Yer not so wrong about that”, he mumbled. You barely made out the words, but when you did you knit your eyebrows together in a surprise. Arthur? Giving in? To one of YOUR snarky remarks? You swallowed thickly under the enlightenment that this conventionally handsome man just compared himself to your feeble attempt of a wooden horse, but didn’t say anything. There was nothing to be said.

“I got s’mthing for ya”, Arthur said, standing up again. Some smart replies came to your mind but you remained silent, following him to his tent. You watched as he opened his chest and pulled out a peacemaker.

“Here ya go”, he presented it to you.

“What’m I supposed to do with that?”, you asked, eying the gun all over. It was a beautiful gun. Clearly rather old, but well cared for with carvings all over.

“Take it”, Arthur assured.

You looked up at him to see him staring and you, almost pleadingly.

“You’re clearly a fan of double-wielding and if ya don’t, yer shooting’s off. I don’t want myself killed ‘cause you miss half the targets with one gun”, Arthur explained, pushing the gun into your hand.

You snickered, knowing damn well that this wasn’t the reason. The bastard was feeling bad because he threw away your gun. This revolver he gave you weighted heavily in your hand. It was a bit too big, clearly made for huge manly hands instead of your smaller, though trained, ones. You’ll make it work, you thought. The last thing you wanted to do is refuse it, it looked special. Arthur observed you inspecting the carving. When you discovered his initials carved in as well.

“It’s one of the first gun’s Dutch and Hosea ever gave me. It’s old, but still good”, he briefly explained.

“Sure”, you answered. You could tell. “Thanks.” With that you put the gun into your holster that had been empty for a while now. After you had made sure the gun sat properly, you looked up to find Arthur offering you a cigarette.

“What’s up with you today?”, you asked, taking it and putting it in between your lips.

“Good mood, I’spose”, Arthur replied. He struck a match, and you watched attentively how small sparks flew around and were gone as soon as you blinked. Arthur lit your cigarette first before he moved on to one he had placed between his own lips. You watched as he took a first drag, closing his eyes in the process. It didn’t struck you as a way of enjoying the nicotine, but more as a way of calming down. The old peacemaker put a nice weight on your hips, you felt more balanced again and you couldn’t help but imagine that Arthur had put off lending you his gun for a few days now. So having finally managed that, he must be relieved.

You smiled over this realization. You’d have never thought that…well…he’d forgive you for the whole journal ordeal. But this was probably his way of saying ‘We’re good’.

That’s that then, you thought.

--------x

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