#i love it when dutch contradicts himself like what are you DOING man | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

joanie-writes · 2 years

Text

Thus With a Kiss I Die

A classically tragic romance.

Dutch x GN!Reader

Warnings: RDR1 SPOILERS, non-graphic death that could be triggering, one "reference" to reader being female

Word Count: 2k

After the dreadful events in that cursed place, Beaver Hollow, you followed Dutch. Willingly? You weren't sure.

You'd been together for a few years then, you didn't feel you could abandon him. When his guns were drawn, one of them pointed at the men he called his sons, the last of your faith in him fell through the cracks. You couldn't say the same for your love for the man though. You stayed with Dutch, because even though his actions contradicted the values he'd preached for so long, his love for you, and your love for him changed, but it remained, nonetheless.

It'd be years since the final fall of Dutch's Boys. And through it all, you stayed by his side. For a few years, it was just the two of you. You were there when Dutch shot rotten old Micah Bell, you harboured a few gold bricks that kept you guys afloat for some time. You looked at John and Sadie with sadness, they at you with pity it seemed like. But Dutch didn't mention the tears he saw gathering in your eyes, and when you asked if he wanted to talk about all that, he was quick to shut you down.

The biggest change in your dynamic with Dutch was the roles you held for the other. Before, it was often Dutch holding you to his chest at night, soothing you whenever you were upset or hurt. But now it was often the other way around. You knew that watching his first boy die on that cliffside drove a knife straight into his heart, even if it didn't seem like it, especially at the time. Everybody thought it was something before Beaver Hollow, but as far as you knew, it was right after Beaver Hollow that did the real damage.

Hosea's death made Dutch heartless, but Arthur's death made Dutch insane.

You mostly felt sorry for Dutch. You had only heard tales of the gang handing back stolen wealth, but you felt sorry for him because his vision was clouded with greed. And you were unable to blame him for that. It was arguable that you were blinded by greed as well, too selfish to do the right thing and let the broken man go, and find a better life for yourself. But you remembered the Dutch you first met, the robin hood, the romantic, and the leader.

Sometimes you'd see a sliver of that Dutch, which reminded you that it was still the same man you had met so long ago now.

The classical music snob was back on show now. The familiar crackle of the gramophone brought you back to everybody dancing and laughing in camp. "This piece is called, 'la fille aux cheveux de lin', do you know what that means, darling?" Dutch asked, his thick accent butchering the french more or less.

"No I don't, what does it mean, Dutch?" You asked with your one hand in his and your other placed on his shoulder, while you danced slowly around the main room of the cabin you were currently holed up in. There was no stress, no second guessing, just the sound of piano and each other's calm voices.

"The girl with the flaxen hair. It reminds me of you a little." He said.

"Why's that?" You returned, speaking just above a whisper while you looked up at him, noticing the small details of his face, the roots of grey hair starting to show near his sideburns, the trimmed beard he was sporting in order to disguise himself while you stayed here, a grim reminder that this stillness wouldn't last forever, no matter how hard you wished.

"It symbolizes innocence. I suppose it means simplicity too, but you're surly not simple." He chuckled, pulling you closer to him gently.

"I'm not innocent either, Dutch, you know that." You countered, now leaning your head onto his shoulder.

"You don't have a tainted bone in your body." He mumbled, pressing a kiss to the top of your head afterwards.

That was only his belief. Maybe that was true at the start of your relationship, but since then, you'd killed, robbed, and loved a man like him, you were anything but innocent.

Later that night you laid in bed beside one another, chests rapidly rising and falling from a lustful activity. Dutch turned to look at you, leaning closer to kiss your temple, he said, "We have to leave tomorrow, we've been in the same place for too long now, and there aren't any leads in town."

You didn't turn to look at him, you instead turned to face away from him, deciding not to reply. Seemingly content with your silence as an answer, Dutch went to sleep, leaving you awake to stare out at the small cabin you'd only just grown comfortable in. There was never stillness with Dutch van der Linde, never could be.

Over the years, you and Dutch continued moving, and Dutch continued making no small name for himself wherever you went. You knew that it was inevitable that Dutch would collect a group of followers again, he did have you tied to him after all.

It was different this go around though, there was so many men in this gang, you didn't know half of them even, it was obvious Dutch didn't either. It amazed you how he could spew out some philosophy to the group, then get them to almost the opposite, and they did not even realize.

You condemned Dutch almost daily, telling him it was wrong to be doing this much crime on such a large scale. But he would rope you back in every time. Ever since the infamous narcissist gained a worship group again, he'd brought back the romance and the charisma he'd possessed before. Willing your anger and frustration away with pretty words and sweet caresses.

As you looked around this fortress that Dutch had resurrected, an aching anxiety nearly made you feel sick. You watched the boys talking and laughing, Dutch was out doing God knows what.

The laughter that filled the camp wasn't like it was in the original Van Der Linde crew. You didn't even know these people. And you missed everybody dearly, and the guilt you felt for abandoning them made your body rack with sobs almost daily, especially as of late. But it seemed like some magical spell kept you with Dutch. Or maybe it was a curse.

Because Dutch was so skillful at running his mouth, you were normally kept in the dark of the new gang's criminal affairs. Only wearily waiting for Dutch to return each night and solemnly celebrating with him when they got a score.

When you were in town the other week, you heard the paper boy shouting about the government issued death of a notorious gunslinger, Javier Escuella. Your stomach churned. Outlaws were being hunted like buffalo. Taken down one by one.

A loud explosion brought you from your thoughts, distant gunshots rang out after. Somebody was attacking the fort. "Get yourselves together and fight, boys!" Dutch's voice boomed out, you could see him enthusiastically raise his arms while he spoke, almost like he was excited for bloodshed. Hosea and Arthur would be disgusted.

The cracks of fire still sounded far away enough, you left the safety of the cabin to see what was happening, you looked to Dutch, he looked erratic. "Dutch? What's going on?" You wondered, you sentence inturupted halfway through by this yelling.

"Oh, just some people who are scared of the truth my dear!" He laughed manically, you looked at the man who was unrecognizable from the inside. The sound of gunshots grew closer, and now military commands could be heard from where you stood. What a sad death this would be. Dying for love was brave, but could you even call this dying for love.

Now hidden against one of the log walls, you felt Dutch squeeze your hand. "I love you." He spoke softly for once, looking at you as sincerely as he could muster. You didn't get a chance to say it back because before you could even open your mouth, Dutch brought you close for a passionate kiss, holding the sides of your face instead of holding a gun.

Another explosion brought you two apart, and then without a second glance, Dutch waltzed off.

"Looks like it's just me and you, John!"

John? There was no way. You peeked out from the wall only to have your question deemed true. Behind one of the crates, you could see the top of his familiar hat. Dutch had mentioned the government not believing his philosophy, but that was nothing new. But he never brought up anything about John somehow being involved.

Dutch cursed out more threats before picking up the crank of the gatling gun and firing at the man who was once his son. You watched with horror. Ever skilled, John took out the remainder of Dutch's men, and your heart hurt for them, because you knew they didn't deserve to die for Dutch. It seemed all your heart did lately was ache, swell, and then shrivel up again, repeat. It was growing old.

You gasped when John shot the lantern which ignited the platform you were both stood on. Dutch yelled and cursed, making a mad dash. He didn't even bother to get to you. But you ran after him, when you probably should've just run the opposite way. When Dutch grabbed your hand to help you keep up with him you ripped it away, too disgusted to touch him right now, you also glanced back often to see John running after the both of you.

"You can't erase the past, John! Killing me won't make it go away!" Dutch shouted from the top of the ladder, letting a few more bullets go. But you noticed that he wasn't remotely aiming at John.

The end. The cave opened up to the cliffside, nothing but a deadly drop below. You looked at Dutch, who peeked over the edge, his gun still in his hold. Before John emerged from the cave, he kissed your hand, keeping it in his afterwords.

"Hello again, John," He said, now faced with the barrel of John's gun. "Hello, Dutch, Y/N." John returned, glancing over to you every few seconds.

"we gotta stop meeting like this," Dutch joked, you couldn't tell how he was feeling right now, he was a Russian roulette revolver right now.

Dutch said the famous words for which too many people had fallen victim to, "I've got a plan, John."

"You've always got a plan, Dutch."

"This is a good one." You watched Dutch toss his gun off the edge, and John holstered his in return. Wether your nerves eased or heightened, you weren't sure. But you were sure that Dutch's hold on your hand tightened immensely.

"Can't always fight nature, John," He huffed, his free hand now holding onto a wound on his side, "we can't fight change, can't fight gravity, we can't fight nothing."

John watched him intensely, the stern look on his face never faltering.

"My whole life all I ever did was fight," Dutch swayed as he spoke, tired and out of breath, he was scaring you more than he ever had before.

"Then give up, Dutch." John barked.

"But I can't give up, I can't fight my own nature that's a paradox, John, you see?"

"Then I have to shoot you." He threatened, you looked over to Dutch, the crazed look in his eye ceased, he just looked tired and sad, like he did at the cabin all those years ago, "When I'm gone they'll just find another monster, they have to, because they have to justify their wages." Dutch explained, altering the situation to his ideas again. You'd never heard him call himself a monster, not even after he watched his own son die.

"That's their business."

"Our time has past, my love." Dutch stood up straight, and as you looked from him to John you could feel his weight in your hand pulling back, trying to pull you with him. You let go.

#idk how to feel abt it #dutch van der linde x reader #rdr2 x reader #x reader #reader insert #gender neutral reader #rdr1 #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #dutch van der linde #john marston #hosea matthews #arthur morgan #angst #fluff #romeo and juliet #tragedy #romance

111 notes · View notes

12timetraveler · 3 years

Note

Heyyyy if you’re doing requests could you do a little drabble of Hosea surprising the reader with a gift? 🥺👉👈

If you’re too busy then that’s totally fine, just thought I’d send in the request

Saved this one for when I really needed a pick-me-up so here we are.

Summary: Hosea has been gone on a job for over a week and reader has had the worst week ever without him.

Hosea/reader (I think I kept it pretty gender neutral except for mention of a skirt.)

Cw: hurt and comfort.

~~~~~~~~~

The last ten days had been absolute hell for you.

Well okay maybe not hell. That was a little dramatic. But a dark storm cloud had been hanging over your head since Hosea left with a few of the other men to run a con out west a ways. You missed your lover desperately. You and Hosea had been officially a couple for nearly two years, and had been flirting coyly for six or seven months before that, starting the moment you’d joined the gang.

You weren’t the needy sort of partner who needed your beloved’s attention on you all of the time. No it wasn’t just that you missed soft little kisses in the morning to rouse you for the day, or that you missed the feeling of his arms randomly slipping around you throughout the day and pulling you close. Though you did miss all of that terribly.

But more than that, it was simply his presence that you missed. Seeing him sitting across camp, watching him read to Jack, the way he’d comfort and advise everyone in the gang. Even the little snores he made as he slept beside you. Heaven help you, you even missed the horrible coughing that wracked through his lungs. You just missed HIM.

On top of missing him, you seemed to be having the worst luck. You burned your hand checking on the stew for Pearson, jabbed a needle so far into your thumb while sewing that Susan had to be the one to pull it out, seemed to trip over your own feet every step you took, stepped on a piece of broken glass barefoot (fortunately the cut hadn’t been too deep, but it stung like hell), and your horse bucked you on the way back from a mail run in town and you’d had to walk back to camp.

You could hardly remember a worse week, and you just desperately wanted to curl up each night against your lover and whine about everything that was going wrong. But the bedroll next to you was cold and empty, and you found yourself lying awake most nights, not crying exactly. Well not audibly. But tears streamed down your cheeks in those dark hours when you were alone.

Just when you thought you were about to lose your mind, and that you wouldn’t be able to handle one more second without your sweetheart, Davey called a happy hello from where he stood at the entrance to camp on sentry duty, and you heard a chorus of tired hellos reply.

You shot to your feet like lightning, dropping the tin plate you were scrubbing back into the tub. You hiked up your skirt and raced toward the hitching posts, where Hosea, along with the three others he’d taken, Charles, Arthur and Lenny, were dismounting.

Hosea grinned ear-to-ear when he saw you and opened his arms wide. You practically pushed Dutch out of the way as you barreled into Hosea’s arms. Hosea stumbled back a couple steps as his arms enveloped you, falling back against Silver Dollar, who huffed but supported you both without further protest.

“I missed you,” You whimpered, nuzzling your face against his neck as you clung to him tightly.

“I missed you too.” He cooed, squeezing you even tighter. "How were things here without me?"

You didn't respond beyond a soft little noise, somewhere between a whimper and a groan. Hosea pulled back just enough to look at your face. He cupped your cheek in his hand, and his thumb came back wet. Oh shit were you crying?

"Hosea!" Dutch said cheerfully. "How did it go?"

Hosea didn't say anything at first, only staring down at you in concern. You leaned your head into his touch and closed your eyes.

"Just fine," Hosea finally responded to Dutch. "I'll tell you about it all later. Right now I need to hold my darling and rest for a while." He said.

Dutch let out a chuckle, letting you know exactly what he thought you and Hosea were going to do. Neither of you contradicted him as he went off to greet Arthur.

Hosea wrapped his arm around you, keeping you close as he loosened Silver Dollar's girth and pulled his saddlebag down from the horse's back. The two of you strode across camp to your tent, unable to let go of each other.

You closed your tent flaps behind you as Hosea sat down on his bedroll with a tired groan. Your bad week forgotten, you immediately got to work.

You sat behind him and helped him out of his coat, setting it aside. You could see the tension tight in his shoulders, travel and stress having built there. You immediately began massaging his neck, touch light at first then growing stronger.

"Dearest..." Hosea murmured, but you just hushed him gently.

"Let me take care of you. Please." You begged. You desperately wanted to just help him right now, even though your eyes were still damp, though no tears were falling. Hosea seemed to be able to hear the desperation in your voice, that you needed to do this, so he didn't protest further.

His head began to droop as your hands worked at his muscles, rubbing away the exhaustion from the road. Soon his muscles were soft and pliable under your fingers, and his head was bowed low in relaxation. You pressed a soft kiss to the back of his neck, and rested your chin on his shoulder.

"Thank you, dove," Hosea sighed. "That felt wonderful." You just hummed in response, wrapping your arms around him for a moment and holding him tightly.

Hosea slowly lay down on his side, pulling you with him, and he rolled over to face you. He gently caressed your cheek with the back of his finger, eyes flickering across your face in that analytical way of his, reading your emotions as easily as he would his newspaper.

"It's been awful without you here, Hosea." You sighed, tears beginning to brim over and spill down your cheeks once more.

"How so?" He asked gently.

So you began venting to him, telling him about your horrible week. When you told him about stepping on the glass, he immediately sat up and removed your boot, checking over your bandaged foot. Thankfully it was healing well. He lay back down and let you continue venting.

"All this because I was gone?" He asked gently once you were done. "I'm flattered that you think so highly of me, but I'm not sure what I could have done to stop any of that," his tone wasn't judgemental, or taking himself seriously. It was just a normal Hosea quip.

"No, obviously not. But it just felt like... I don't know, like the universe was taunting me when I already missed you so much. And beyond that, I missed your comfort, your sage counsel." You nuzzled your face into his chest. "I missed having you next to me each night, and talking to you at dinner." You sniffled, trying to push down your tears, and failing.

"I'm here now," he soothed, stroking your hair back and kissing your forehead. "I'm so sorry you've had such a tough time in my absence. I wish I'd been here for you."

You said nothing, just clung to him tighter and let your tears wet his shirt as you let yourself cry.

"How was the job?" You asked once your tears began to subside.

"It went fine. Nothing too exciting," Hosea said. "I did get you something though,"

"You got me something?" You asked, looking up at him. He smiled and nodded, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a little box. The two of you sat up so you were sitting facing each other.

"Yes. I came across this traveling fortune teller, who collects things from far and wide. She had a variety of trinkets and things. But then I saw this."

Hosea opened the box to reveal a small cameo-style pendant necklace. Only instead of an image of a person carved out of the little white stone, a fox sat amongst some long grass, staring back at you with a cunning grin. The background color was an enamel in your favorite color.

"Hosea it's beautiful," you gasped, gently picking up the little pendant and brushing your thumb across the carving.

"I thought you might like it. You always call me your sly fox." Hosea chuckled. "Also," he held the pendant and slipped his fingernail into a little crack, revealing it to be a locket. Inside was a picture of Hosea.

It was a younger picture of him, from a couple years before you'd met him. He was your Hosea, not that dashing but wild and untrustworthy young man in the picture by Arthur's cot. But he did have a few less wrinkles on his face.

"Oh Hosea," you gasped, reverently taking the pendant back from him and studying it. "Thank you so much. I love it."

"I'm glad." Hosea said, pulling you into his arms. You settled into his lap, sitting with your back to his chest. You couldn't take your eyes off the locket in your hand.

"It's no replacement for being here with you," Hosea murmured in your ear. "But maybe it'll help keep me close if I ever have to go away again." He kissed you cheek. "Although I doubt I'll be going anywhere anytime soon," he groaned, flopping back on the bedroll dramatically. You giggled and lay down beside him.

"That's fine by me"

#rdr2 #rdr2 fanfic #requests #hosea mathews #hosea/reader #hurt and comfort #somft hosea

31 notes · View notes

coldmorte · 3 years

Note

Hey! I really really like your blog and all the Dutch content, and I read your posts on Molly and Dutch and I just felt like sharing my thoughts :) If you don’t feel like it, just ignore this

I like Molly, even though I agree that she’s very much a snob and very paranoid at times.

It’s always felt very clear to me that Molly really, truly loves Dutch. And love makes you do stupid, desperate things (just look at Arthur).

Molly’s interaction with Abigail is about Dutch’s love for Molly, not the other way around. It’s Abigail saying that Dutch doesn’t love her and Molly lashing out (probably to protect herself from the truth).

This is brought up again in An Honest Mistake, when she talks to Arthur about Dutch, questioning how Dutch seems to him. When Molly says, “I really love him, you know,” Arthur averts his eyes and doesn’t look at her. I’ve always seen this as Arthur knowing Dutch doesn’t love her in the way Molly wants him to, if he loves her at all.

I’ve always seen Dutch as being kind of ahead of his time when it comes to certain progressive ideas (especially as it pertains to race), but when it comes to women, he’s very much a product of his his time. The way he talks about them and to/at them, whether it’s Molly or Abigail or Mary-Beth or Sadie, is often either dismissive or condescending.

While he doesn’t outright say it, the way he acts around the women at camp has always left me feeling like he prefers women (at least the ones he takes an actual interest in) to fit into the roles society has carved out for them; they have to be beautiful and docile and romantic-minded for him to take an interest.

You’ve said yourself, that Dutch deals with a lot of self doubt and that stems from wanting to be seen as a great and powerful man, who the people in camp can look up to, and women (especially young women) were (and to some degree stil is) seen as symbols of status. Molly is a beautiful woman from a wealthy family; she could have anyone she wanted, and she chose Dutch and ran away with him, leaving her old life behind – that’s the ultimate powermove on Dutch’s part.

I’ve always thought of Dutch as a romantic, the way he talks about love and how it’s the one thing worth living for, and I believe that he may have at some point actually loved Molly or at least convinced himself that he did, but the second he grows tired of her and realises that he doesn’t actually love her, he’s moving on to another, younger woman.

His inner romantic and his ego and need to be perceived as powerful are at odds with each other, and as the game progresses we see how his romantic and kind side wilt under the weight and pressure of his responsibilities as a leader and his need to be perceived as powerful and a great leader.

Those are my thoughts at least :)

Hello!

Thank you for the ask and the kind words! That really does mean a lot!! 💜💜💜

I am very grateful for your message, and no!!!! I don’t want to ignore it!! That wouldn’t be very fair of me, as I feel like you bring up some good points to discuss. Also, I appreciate the respect in your message and for taking the time to write so much out! I’d be happy to give you some of my time in return 🥰

(Warning: SPOILERS below)

I’m going to take your points one at a time here. So, starting with liking Molly, it’s totally fine! I don’t want to be too negative on my blog, and I don’t want people to feel like they have to think the same way I do. That wouldn’t be any fun, so it does make me happy that you can enjoy her character. I don’t want to take that away from you!! By all means, love her to your heart's content!!! ❤️

Furthermore, though I don’t personally like Molly, I don’t think she was a truly bad person. Just like every other character in the game, she had flaws and made mistakes. I primarily wish I could have gotten to know her better because she was presented during a very dark time in her life. I feel like this affected my perception of her, and I might have seen her differently, if I had gotten the chance to interact more with her character (especially outside of the RDR2 timeframe). Everybody deserves not only to love somebody, but everybody also deserves to have faith that the person they love can truthfully say the same back to them. I felt bad that Molly died such an unhappy, loveless death.

About the love Molly had for Dutch, I agree that she loved him. My point in bringing up infatuation was to primarily highlight the reason and the degree to which she honestly loved him. Did Molly love Dutch for the man he was, or for the idea of the man he was? Maybe, it was a mix? I am not sure there is enough information to give a conclusive answer to this (as I somewhat mentioned before).

To be fair, the same thing could (and should) be asked of Dutch. Did he truly love her, or did he just love the idea of having her at his side? Again, it would be fascinating to see the early part of their relationship. It would answer a LOT of questions. You mention that Dutch arguably saw Molly as a symbol of status, and I agree that it was very plausible. I think, to some degree, both Molly and Dutch saw each other as being favorable for what they represented, unfortunately.

In regard to the interaction between Molly and Abigail, I realize my response was unclear about this (that’s my bad). I'll try to write it better here, but this is really complicated to put into words! I'll do my best!!

What I said was that Molly got angry at people she “perceived” as challenging her love (this was subjective to her POV and not necessarily reflective of true reality). My original answer was not objective (nor was it meant to be - I was trying to write this part from her POV), and there are a few layers I want to analyze here. First of all, from an objective perspective, you are correct. The conversation between them was ultimately about Dutch not loving Molly the way she wanted to be loved. However, the first thing Molly did was state to Abigail that she loved Dutch. If she didn’t see this point as being in question, why did she feel the need to immediately justify it before saying anything else? To me, it seemed like she needed to actively prove that she loved him to others.

This was also seen with Karen and Arthur. The conversations with Karen were confusing because they didn’t have much context, but perhaps, that was the point - to show the extent of Molly’s paranoia (in other words, that there was no context and that she was imagining Karen to be against her out of insecurity). Molly continually complained that Karen said bad things about her, and she insisted that she not only loved Dutch, but that he loved her as well. Then, as you mention, Molly emphasized to Arthur that SHE loved Dutch (it was not directly about his love for her). Again, by constantly having to profess her feelings, it was as if she thought people were doubting her on some level.

But here is where the contradiction comes in - I believe that Molly was smart enough to know that this doubting wasn't entirely genuine. She knew it was never really her love that she should have been concerned about. Although, by focusing on herself, it was a way to deflect from her insecurity regarding Dutch and the fact that she knew, deep down, he didn’t truly love her (at least, not anymore). That’s why she got so upset when Abigail, for instance, brought this point up. As soon as the conversation shifted from Molly’s love to Dutch’s love, she lashed out and stormed away.

So, to try to summarize this all up, what I am trying to say is that Molly “perceived” challenges to her own state of emotions as a means of shifting away from her concerns about Dutch’s feelings. She knew her "perceptions" were really more like lies to herself. Molly wanted the conversation with Abigail to seem like it was about her because she felt she was more in control of that and could handle it better. From a neutral perspective, the conversation was definitely not about Molly - it was entirely about Dutch, which Molly knew (she just didn’t like Abigail directly pointing it). I hope my response makes more sense? Sorry, if I am still being confusing!

Now, as for Dutch and his progressive ideas, I think a lot of them were formed in his youth. Little information was given about his childhood, but he did seem pretty sensitive about the fact that he grew up fatherless. His dad died in the Civil War (a conflict primarily centered around the issue of slavery and states’ attitudes towards it), while fighting on the side of the Union. One reason Dutch was probably so progressive in regard to race was because of his anger over losing a parent to racially-motivated violence. Racism seemed like a waste of time and life, so he was bitter towards people who still harbored racist sentiments. He knew firsthand how destructive they could be.

Minimal insight was provided into Dutch’s relationship with his mother, other than the fact that it was quite strained and unhappy. He left home at a young age and essentially disowned her. He obviously didn’t keep in touch with her, judging that he didn’t even know she died until years after the fact. Could this have affected his attitude later in life (towards women)?

I suppose it’s possible. Maybe, Dutch would have looked better on women, had he been closer with his mother. I consider his attitude towards women as pretty average for the era. It’s not entirely fair to compare him to Arthur, who was very progressive for the time and definitely above normal standards. As you say, I think Dutch was a product of his time. In RDR2, he didn’t come across as physically abusive, nor did he overtly sexualize women. However, he did seem to expect women to act in a subordinate manner. It's not great (and I certainly do not agree with his attitude), but again, the contemporary standards in regard to gender roles did not exist in 1899.

Lastly, I COMPLETELY agree about Dutch being VERY romantic, sentimental, and idealistic. This wasn’t just limited to interpersonal relationships either - it also fit his entire perspective of America and the values he held dear. Just take a look at some of his quotes:

“The promise of this great nation - men created equal, liberal and justice for all - that might be nonsense, but it’s worth trying for. It’s worth believing in.”

And:

“If we keep on seeking, we will find freedom.”

In the beginning, he had such high hopes and strong faith that he could find a way to live free from social and legislative demands. Compare that to the end, where he started to say things like:

“You can’t fight nature. You can’t fight change.”

And:

“There ain’t no freedom for no one in this country no more.”

Dutch wanted to believe that there was a chance to live free from the threat of control, but as he started to lose people he loved and got closer to losing his own battle, he started to take on a much more cynical tone. He began to realize that his romantic notions and idealistic visions of life were not always obtainable - no matter how hard he tried to reach them - and it broke him. This change in his life outlook was kind of similar to his interpersonal relationships. When he realized they were a lot of work and not always happy/perfect, he seemed to grow frustrated. Love requires a lot of patience and energy. Despite full effort, love still does not always succeed.

Also, I just want to add that I think Dutch knew he had a problem with his pride, but he tried his best to maintain his tough, confident persona because he didn’t want to be perceived as weak. He definitely realized he messed up in putting his pride first in the end, but at that point, it was too late. Whatever was left of his idealistic aspirations in life died with Arthur up on that cliff.

Anyhow, I’ve said more than enough. I’d like to once again thank you for the ask!! I hope my response was worth the time to read and that it makes sense. Feel free to share any more thoughts you may have!!!

~ Faith 💜

30 notes · View notes

daintykeith · 4 years

Text

DESERVING

Title: Deserving

Summary: A one-shot love story featuring Arthur Morgan and John Marston in which John struggles to understand Arthur's new behavior around camp.

Word count: 1.6k+

Notes: mild cursing | feedback is appreciated!!!

Tags: @southernlynxx @rdr-secret-cupid

I’m your secret cupid, @southernlynxx !!! I'm so sorry this took forever dear; the past few weeks have been totally insane and out of my hands to control. I chose your first wish and decided to mix it up with some good reassurance (happy) angst which i found fitting for the theme;

John trying to understand & accept Arthur’s affection around camp! I hope you enjoy it, happy late Saint Valentine’s day!!!

P.D → I was inspired by this photo I took in my game! Totally worth it.

John never thought it would be like this.

At first, it was awkward—maybe bizarre. But that was just the beginning.

As the sun rose from the West, John walked out of his tent like a dead man; dark bags under his eyes and scratching his side, yawning without shame. Thirty minutes of sleep—or less—felt great. Just what he needed, right? Taking guarding rounds at night for the past few weeks to avoid him. Yes, that man. The one who had become his greatest relief and headache at the same time, Arthur Fucking Morgan.

While John agonized, Arthur was at his best. Refreshed, clean, and glowing like a damn pearl who had found its way to the surface, gleaming under the Sun—too shiny for John’s liking. Thankfully, his tormenting and seductive eyes were nowhere to be found yet. But, why was John avoiding him as if he was a pest? It’s complicated, you’ll understand later on.

John walked to the empty soup cauldron and grabbed the coffee pot next to it and a metallic cup nearby. He sighed as he sipped from the coffee he had just poured himself; feeling the smoke coming off his mouth like locomotor steam. He needed it to be functional, it had become his coal and main source of energy.

He stood next to the fire in the common area, waiting for Dutch to give a speech he had asked everyone the night before to hear. Why the hell would he give a speech so early in the morning when even the rooster hadn’t yet given his call to the sky? He wondered, staring his distorted reflection in the coffee in his hand.

It was a quiet morning, everyone who woke up, quickly waved at John and left to grab a coffee, or so it remained until the feared one appeared. He walked graciously without effort, his shirt had some buttons undone that showed his chest and collarbone, looking like a damn angel. He rinsed his face and John saw with detail from afar how every drop of water dripped down his face and neck. It made him thirsty. That man was no other than Arthur Morgan.

Arthur ran his hand through his hair and over his nape. To John, that man could’ve been the Devil himself walking on Earth, an angel who had fallen from Heaven for his ego. He was too full of himself, afly in making everyone blush in a moment’s notice. Before John could realize, Arthur was staring at the red in his cheeks and grinned, satisfied from his reaction.

“Damn you!” John whispered, looking anywhere but at him as he burned his tongue and narrowed his eyes.

Arthur, with his smug grin, quickly grabbed his coffee and sat next to the fire a few feet away from John, who didn’t know Arthur was just mesmerized with his foolishness, head over heels for a stubborn and reckless but loveable little piece of shit—a nickname truthful to his nature. A true rascal! Against his better judgement and all prognostics, an all-standing jinx befell upon him like rain in a desert.

He admired John from the ground, his strong jawline, the scars on his cheek that ran to his nose and the corner of his lips. However, his foul mouth didn’t catch up with his beauty—quick witted and far too fast for his train of thought that always got him in trouble. Arthur drank from his coffee and looked at John in the eye who, this time, didn’t turn their gaze away but held it dearly.

“What are you thinkin’ about?” John asked with his raspy voice, trying to sound uninterested but contradicted by the widened pupils in his curious eyes.

A walking contradiction, Arthur thought with a grin. “Wanna’ know?” He took a long swig of his cup and let it sit in his lap.

John hesitated for a moment. "No." Nevermind.

The blue-greened eye man cleaned the corner of his mouth with his thumb and licked it and slightly blushed. "What a shame."

John couldn't stop staring Arthur, something had lit in the corner of his mind.

"Anyway, what does Dutch want this early in the morning?"

"Don't know, don't care." Arthur rolled his eyes and looked at his feet.

John gulped, bothered by Arthur's sudden behavior to which he decided to blind the eye on.

"He's been acting... strange," John mutters, making a long pause.

He was right. Dutch had changed; it was the gleam in the eye he had always told them to not have—those of an ambition far too great, burned by being too close to the Sun. Everybody had noticed but kept quiet, making a silent agreement in not talking about the matter. John had a hunch of what it meant, but also kept quiet.

"No more than you; what's going on with ya'? Did the wolves eat the brain whole? You've been avoiding me!"

Did he notice? He knew he wasn't hiding the fact so well, but admitting it hurt his pride.

"The hell you sayin'?! No, I haven't!"

Arthur smiled in response, as if it was the answer he was expecting.

"Why?"

John narrowed his eyes.

"Why what?"

"You know."

He stood up, spilt the coffee left in his cup into the fire and slowly walked to John. His body swung with temptation, a fierce cat-walk with a daring look in his eyes. John felt like his feet were stuck to the ground, unable to take just one step aside to avoid the storm walking straight to him. His metallic eyes were bewitched by Arthur's; he sure knew how to charm him every damn time.

He didn't stop until he towered over John, trapping him with his voluptuous figure.

"Why are you so shy?" He whispered to John in the ear with a burning breath that heated and tinted his cheeks in deep red.

John forgot how to breath. He was so close that he felt their bodies touch and their minds collide.

"I, uh..."

"you what, dear?"

How shameless could the bastard be? Didn't he have any limit?

"I don't wanna talk here; let's go somewhere else." John imposed in a soft mutter.

"Alright."

They went to John's tent taking hands. They were cramped in such a small place, where their breathing burned eachother's skin and only a dim light shined through the entrance. A long pause arrived when the world had seemed to stop rotating and time had gone somewhere else, making everything but them oblivious and unimportant.

"I don't understand why are you doing this," John said with long sigh, finally giving in.

John rested his head in Arthur's shoulder, feeling his body finally relax after the tense moment.

"I thought we were a secret, ya' know?" he muttered, "a thing only you and I knew. Our thing."

Arthur combed his fingers through John's black hair, softly caressing the back of his head and humming in agreement.

"I don't seem to understand why you smile at me every time you see me or why you, like, want to touch me every time you can—or when you look at me like that."

"Does it make you uncomfortable?"

"No! I, ugh... I don't know."

Arthur chuckled. “I get it.”

John sighed in relief. Did it mean he would stop acting weird? I mean, Arthur would always be a bastard no matter how you look at it, but he called it an improvement.

“I'm sorry” he continued ”, but there's no stopping me in loving you.”

What. In. The. World. That's not what he meant!

“Arthur, you're not listening—”

“Every damn word, of course I do...”

“Then why are you doing this?!” John buried his head deeper, frustrated. “I'm an asshole, okay, I get it. But that's not a reason for you to do this to me.” Enchanting me, making me drunk with every word you whisper. Damn you.

“John, I—”

“I don't deserve it.”

A long silence between them came to be except for the more recurrent footsteps outdoors, stumping into the grass and dirt. John held tighter to Arthur, who stepped back only to take a closer look to his face, eye to eye.

“Listen closely, you little piece of shit.”

John flinched to the sudden grab by his collar, wanting to look away but Arthur only held his gaze closer.

"There's no denying that you are an idiot— but my idiot. I'm a fool myself, an old dirty bastard that's only getting older with every day that goes by, thinking that I'm the happiest man alive every damn time I look at you and even though I know I don't deserve it either. I ain't a good man, John. And you fucking know it." He grabbed his collar stronger as if it was a threat, with that dead look in his eyes that had seen the deeds their owner had done.

After Arthur realized what he did, he let John go.

“If it was about deserving, John, you would've never been mine."

He gently took John's hand laid it in his face, placing a gentle kiss in the back of his hand.

John couldn't speak a word. His mind had gone blank except for the beautiful image of Arthur lovingly playing with his fingers, laying kisses in the tip of his fingers, and the words that uttered in the corners of his mind, echoing Arthur's whispers.

"I'm sorry, John. But I beg you, let this damn fool love you and show it to you."

John placed his hand in Arthur's earlobe. As if both had read their minds, they looked into each other's eyes before leaning into a soft, gentle kiss.

Their kisses never tasted sweet. It was rough, with sweat and blood that was so common in there lives. Neither of them deserved the sweet taste of paradise, but they were making one of their own.

“You make me feel like a fool, Arthur.”

“You too.”

John wished this moment lasted forever. He wanted to enjoy the moment when their souls had gotten closer, but a voice outside called.

“Arthur, John, Where are you?!” Dutch called, irritated of waiting.

They separated and held each other's gaze for a moment.

“We should go,” John whispered tenderly as he rolled he eyes.

“Let's go,” Arthur chuckled.

Arthur gently held John's hand before heading out of the tent, ready for the world.

#rdr secret cupid 2021 #Morston #Morston2021 #Arthur Morgan #John Marston #rdr2 fanfic #rdr fanfic #rdr2 photography #rdr2 community #rdr2 #red dead redemption two #red dead fandom #red dead photo mode #rdr2 Morston

35 notes · View notes

wannabecowpoke · 4 years

Text

Consumption

TITLE: Consumption

RATING: Explicit

PAIRINGS: Javier Escuella/Arthur Morgan, Arthur Morgan/Mary Linton (implied)

WARNINGS: explicit sexual content, unsafe sex, implied cheating, canon compliant

DESCRIPTION: The Guarma humidity is starting to get to Arthur, and so is that nasty cough of his.

xX————————————————Xx

In the quiet stone halls of La Capilla, Arthur polished his revolver, trying to ignore the humid, oppressive heat that seemed permanently affixed to the tropical island of Guarma.

Ever since they’d been taken in by Hercule’s men, it’d been a lot of sitting and waiting — they weren’t in any position to launch an assault on Colonel Fussar’s men, at least yet, nor were they able to try making their way home by boat, due to the ships patrolling the surrounding waters.

Being unable to do anything made Arthur restless, eager to get back to the action, because last he knew, John had been taken into custody and the rest of the gang was stuck at Shady Belle. Arthur was hardly able to sleep, kept awake at night by both his worry for them, and by the pervasive cough that seemed to plague him. He’d been sick before, but stranded on a humid island where he needed to be in peak condition, he wished that whatever cold or flu he had would’ve picked a more opportune time.

“Dutch seems different,” Javier mused.

“Hosea was everything to him,” Arthur reminded him wryly. They’d known each other for over twenty years, and he knew that Dutch had loved Hosea in ways that weren’t exactly... brotherly. It’d been so abrupt, him getting shot, that they’d immediately descended into panic. He wasn’t about to start unpacking his own feelings on the matter. “But I’ve come to think that maybe he started to decline a while ago, not just after Hosea... y’know.”

“He isn’t declining,” Javier contradicted him. Arthur had considered himself the most loyal member of the gang before, but once he’d started growing a mind of his own, it was difficult to not notice the blind adoration that the others had for him. “He’s just tired and upset, like the rest of us.”

Humming, Arthur holstered his revolver, dragging a hand over his face and through his hair. Without pomade or a proper bath, his blonde curls were becoming unruly and greasy, and he promised himself distantly that whenever they got back, he’d immediately go wash it. “Maybe so.”

“You aren’t starting to doubt now, amigo?”

Arthur opened his mouth to respond, but his breath caught in his throat, and he dissolved into a coughing fit before he could catch himself, hacking raggedly into his elbow. Standing up abruptly, Javier hurried to come up behind him, rubbing his back gently while he murmured reassurances in Spanish. “I— it’s,” he managed to choke out, “I’m okay—”

“You should go to a doctor when we get back,” Javier suggested, mouth pulled downwards into a worried frown. He tried to brush away the tears that’d welled in Arthur’s eyes, but he brushed him away. “That cough doesn’t sound good.”

“Just a—” Arthur cleared his throat, feeling phlegm loosen itself in his lungs. It struck him that maybe it was pneumonia, which wouldn’t be good whatsoever, but he’d cross that bridge when he got to it. He’d always been bad with dealing with his own illness, especially the sicknesses that led to him being bedridden, and pneumonia could be debilitating to anyone. “I’m just a— a little sick.”

Javier didn’t look convinced, but he sat back down regardless, using the table to support himself as he rested on the bunk he’d been given. The bullet wound in his leg was healing well — it hadn’t gotten infected, but he still had bandages wrapped around it, and he was still walking with a limp. It’d be some time before he could use it properly again. “Last night,” he started wearily, “I realized that every one of these heists that Micah is involved in end badly.”

“You just noticed that?” Arthur scoffed, and Javier shoved at his shoulder, a smile spreading on his lips. Once the conversation was away from Dutch, he seemed much more relaxed. It didn’t hurt that they shared a mutual, passionate hatred for Micah Bell. “But seriously,” he continued, “there was this bank robbery, the meeting with Colm, Blackwater...”

“It makes me wonder whether he’s truly worth keeping around,” Javier huffed.

“Yeah,” Arthur drawled in agreement.

Javier pulled out his knife, absentmindedly twirling it between his nimble fingers skillfully, and Arthur watched him in vague fascination. The man was as talented with knives and blades as Arthur was with guns — there wasn’t anyone who could beat him with a dagger in the gang, and he doubted there were man people who could in the country, either.

It wasn’t like he was trying to be discreet, but Javier still clucked his tongue when their eyes met, tossing it into the air before catching it by the wooden handle. Arthur imagined what would’ve happened if he’d caught it by the blade, and he cringed internally at the image. “See something you like?”

“No,” Arthur scoffed, even if his eyes tracked the movement of Javier’s throat as he swallowed and licked his chapped lips. He raised a thick eyebrow, eyes glimmering with mischief, and Arthur remembered the promise he’d made to Mary, trying to calm the twitching of interest in his pants.

“You sure seem interested,” Javier prodded, “amigo.”

A lump formed in Arthur’s throat. “I ain’t into men.”

“You don’t have to be,” Javier assured him, his smile turning sly.

He was playing a risky game, being so open with him like that.

But Arthur had been lonely, and sad, and it’d been longer than he’d like to admit since he’d shared the warmth of another person. He would’ve liked to pretend it was a difficult decision, but it wasn’t.

Standing up, he walked towards Javier, and the man spread his legs, allowing Arthur to come kneel between them. He bent down, quickly catching Arthur’s lips in a kiss as his hands came to cup the back of his head, and Arthur massaged Javier’s thighs where his hands rested on them.

“Mierda,” Javier cursed into his mouth between messy kisses, “I’ve fucked,” he combed his fingers through his hair, tongue swiping at his teeth, “most of the people in camp,” Arthur could feel his own pants straining, and he hurried to reach down and relieve the pressure before he actually popped a button, “but I’ve always wanted to fuck you most of all.”

Arthur pulled away long enough to unbutton Javier’s shirt, rumbling with them but knowing better than to simply tear it open. It wasn’t like they had a lot of clothes to begin with, and Javier was especially picky about what he wore, so he wouldn’t risk invoking his ire for ruining his shirt.

“What am I to you?” Arthur asked as he pushed it off his muscular, broad shoulders. Quickly, he worked at the buttons of Javier’s pants, eager to wrest them open. “An item on a shopping list?”

Javier laughed breathily, hissing through his teeth when Arthur wrapped a hand around his length and pumped it once, then twice. Stilling his hand, he reached into the bag next to him, pulling out a vial. “Gun oil,” Javier explained needlessly, “do you want it? Or should I use it?”

Arthur had bottomed before — he plucked it from Javier’s fingers, standing up to remove his own shirt as Javier fully removed his pants. “I’ll do it,” he said plainly, pushing Javier onto the bed. He hadn’t been wearing undergarments, and his cock stood at attention, clearly aroused. Shucking his own pants, Arthur straddled him, then shifted down the bed so that his head was level with Javier’s impressive length.

Pressing two lubricated fingers into his own ass, Arthur held Javier’s length between his forefinger and thumb as he slipped the head of his cock between his lips, tongue caressing the underside of his foreskin. It’d been awhile since he’d held a man’s length in his mouth, but he remembered how to stroke his tongue along the underside of his length, how to hollow out his cheeks as he sank down on him and then suckle gently at the tip when he pulled back slightly, sinking down again afterwards.

Javier’s fingers curled in his greasy blonde curls, and he licked his lips, blinking up at the ceiling. “You’re good at this,” he sighed, more a complaint than a compliment, and Arthur hummed around his length in response. The hand fisted in his hair pulled harder, and though the sting made his eyes smart, it made him twitch against the bedding. “Oh, damn. You’re really good.”

Arthur added a third finger to himself, pushing it past the ring of muscle, and crooked them to roughly press against his prostate, hips canting back into his own hand. When Javier started to thrust up into his mouth, he knew that he was getting close, and he pulled off of him, crawling up his body to position himself above him.

“Arthur,” Javier murmured softly, gaze soft.

Arthur looked stubbornly up at the ceiling, even as Javier reached up to caress his collarbone and his jaw with a tenderness that made him want to cry.

Holding Javier steady, Arthur sank down onto his length, and the man took a shaky breath underneath him, fingers clenching his hips tighter. He filled him completely, thick enough to put pressure against his walls without being painful, and Arthur’s cock leaked onto his tan stomach in interest.

“Arthur, cariño,” Javier groaned, caressing his ass as his eyes flitted over him, from his chest to his flushed cock leaking clear fluid onto his stomach, “eres hermoso, te quiero—”

Arthur didn’t speak much Spanish, just what he’d picked up from Javier and other folks over the years, but he knew what those last words meant.

It wasn’t something that two men should say to each other, let alone something that anyone should be saying to him. Back in the States, he had Mary, too, waiting for him to come back so that they could run away and spend their lives together, and here he was, letting his male friend fuck him. It’d change everything if he acknowledged it, if he recognized it as attraction, and he didn’t want anything to change, whether out of his desire or just his pride.

So, even if he knew, he pretended that he didn’t.

“Javier,” Arthur groaned, rolling his hips down into him, “shit—”

Slicked with gun oil, it was easy to fuck himself onto Javier, feeling the head of his cock pressing against the place inside him that made him moan with every thrust. Javier stroked his chest, twisting his nipples, and the sensation made electricity shoot down his spine.

It wasn’t long before Javier groaned, “I’m gonna’ come, cariño,” and Arthur didn’t pull off him when he tensed, lips parting in a moan while he pressed himself further into his pliant body, shooting his seed into him.

Arthur gripped himself, hand still wet with their makeshift lubricant, and it was only several loose thrusts of his hand that had himself spilling over Javier’s stomach, pearly white streaking across his tan skin. He tried to imagine that it was Mary underneath him, that his release was painting creamy breasts and being licked from plush, pink lips, but she was so different from Javier that he couldn’t. He wasn’t sure if he was angry or terrified that he didn’t quite mind.

“Mierda,” Javier cursed quietly in Spanish, “shit, that felt good.”

“Sure,” Arthur mumbled.

Spend dribbled out of Arthur’s ass as he rolled himself off him, collapsing into the bunk next to him with a wheezy sigh, and he regretted not pulling him out before he came in his ass. Limp and satiated, he breathed raggedly, staring up vacantly at the stone ceiling. Javier tried putting a hand on his shoulder, but he pushed it away, forcing himself out of the bed.

“I’m gonna’ go get cleaned up,” Arthur said, an excuse, and he pretended to not see the hurt in Javier’s expression.

#javiarthur #i don’t usually write angst #but that’s what this is i guess #rdr2 #smut #nsft #arthur morgan #javier escuella #i need positive reinforcement #please tell me what you think #red dead dedemption 2 #guarma

49 notes · View notes

the-awkward-outlaw · 5 years

Note

While I love all the smut, I crave for drama to happen between Arthur and reader. I loved the jealous Arthur post you've written and the bits of drama in your fanfic but how will he handle if the reader is one who is jealous and it leads into a heated argument, where the reader almost breaks up with him? Or vice versa.

Okay, this was supposed to be short, but I just wrote ten pages for this. God, why couldn’t I have had this motivation in college! Anyways, hope you like it!

You’ve been at this stupid ball in Saint Denis for a little over an hour. The mayor of the city was throwing it for the Italian big suit that kidnapped Jack. You were suspicious about the whole thing immediately. Why in the hell would the man who kidnapped Jack and then returned him invite Dutch and the others to a ball? Definitely strange, but it was above you when it came to information. Dutch and Hosea explained to you and Tilly that they wanted you both to come in order to help them blend in a bit more with the crowd. Easier to pick up on contacts and potential future schemes.

You’ve always hated balls. Having to dress up, look perfect in order to impress people you’ll never like anyways. You’d take an old, dirty pair of jeans and work shirt anyday over all these damn layers. There couldn’t be a worse torture than this.

You’re waiting in the courtyard while Dutch and Arthur meet with this Bronte man. Hosea and Bill are mingling in the crowd, Tilly’s getting involved with a group of young men who seem to find her interesting. Dutch told you to go mingle as well, but that isn't your thing. You don’t “mingle”.

You head over to the banquet tables where fruits, cakes and other delicacies are being offered. You hope Arthur will come down soon. You’ve been involved with him for quite some time now and things couldn’t be going better. He’s the perfect companion. You couldn’t design a better man. His only flaw is his insecurities in himself and it sometimes tends to make him a bit jealous. Not that you mind. You get jealous when passing women eye him hungrily.

When you’re standing next to the table, you grab a glass of champagne and are about to ask the man behind the table for a piece of cake when you hear your name being called. You turn and see not Arthur, but a man you haven’t seen since you were fairly young. His name immediately springs into your mind. Benjamin Dowel. When you were fourteen, you lived in the same town as him and held a massive crush on him. He never knew this of course. Most of the teen girls in town had a thing for him, you were just another face in the crowd. But your relationship back then had been different. You were close friends through your teens until his father got a job in Saint Denis and his family moved down here. You wonder quietly how he wound his way into such an illustrious event as this.

“Y/N!” he says again, stopping from you only a few feet away. You smile and then notice his suit. White jacket and shirt, white bow tie and black dress pants. Exactly like all the other waiters.

“Benjamin!” you say, ignoring his position. “Oh my God, how many years has it been? You look great!” And he does look great. His ears aren’t nearly as large and his skin’s cleared up. It doesn’t help that he’s got a pleasant square shape to his shoulders, though that could be the jacket. He’s still handsome with his dark hair and eyes, plus his smile is still enough to make any woman swoon. It’s no surprise he’s even more attractive now than he was all those years ago.

“Y/N!” he says, gesturing to you. “You look… wow, you look great!”

You blush and clasp your hands. “Thanks. So… you’re a waiter here?”

“Yeah.” He goes on to tell you that when he turned 18, his father demanded he get his own job, so he found a position working as a waiter at the saloon, but would work events like this. He’s been doing it for nearly ten years now as it is good work and pays well enough.

For the next little while, you and Benjamin continue to talk and reconnect. You’re reminded why you had a crush on him for so long. He’s sweet, observant, funny and has an unwaverable sense of loyalty to his father. You’re constantly aware that Arthur’s around here somewhere and he’d be furious if he saw you flirting with this guy. However, he has no room to talk. You know that if Mary called on him again, he’d be off to see her faster than you could blink.

You’ve always been jealous of Mary. She treated Arthur horribly and yet he let her keep a hold of him that you’ve never been able to understand. There’s no doubt in your mind that if things went the way Arthur wanted, he’d pick Mary over you. After all, you’d seen her. She’s beautiful, smart and not afraid to voice her opinions. It’s no secret that Arthur views you as just a second choice. He’d rather have you than be alone, but Mary is still his preferred option. That knowledge has always been a sore you’ve worked hard to hide.

A reasonable amount of time has passed and Arthur hasn’t come to find you. He must be out trying to find the mayor. It’s given you and Benjamin a lot of time to chat. You ask him at one point if he needs to return to work, but he just shrugs and says you’re worth getting fired for. The two of you head off the edge of the courtyard near a nearly empty gazebo. He’s moved much closer to you than you’re almost comfortable with, but you don’t step away.

“Y/N, can I tell you a secret?” he asks. You nod. “When we were kids, I, uh, I was really sweet on you.” He’s blushing worse than you’ve ever seen and rubbing the back of his head.

You blush too. “Oh, Benjamin. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Because I knew there was no way you felt the same. And we were such good friends. I didn’t want to ruin that.”

“Well, you should have,” you smile. “I was sweet on you too.”

He smiles again, almost as though he couldn’t believe it. His hands come up and settle just above your elbows. He squeezes lightly and moves even closer.

“You were always pretty,” he whispers, “but now you’re damn near radiant.” He leans down and places a soft kiss on your lips. It’s so sudden that you’ve no time to react, no chance to tell him about you and Arthur. Plus you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t always been curious what his lips feel like.

You’re waiting for that spark though, now that he’s kissing you. Instead, you feel nothing. Not like when you first kissed Arthur. When that happened, there was definitely something there. But with Benjamin, there’s not even the sense of remorse or guilt. Just nothing.

You pull away. “Benjamin, I… I can’t. You’re a great guy and my closest friend growing up, but-”

You’re cut off by the sound of breaking glass. The two of you turn and see Arthur stomping away, everyone else watching him, and a broken champagne glass only a few yards from you. Shit, there’s no question he witnessed what just happened.

“I have to go,” you say, squirming out of Benjamin’s grasp. You chase after Arthur, calling his name, but he doesn’t respond. You see him in the darkness heading off the mayor’s property and towards the swampy pond, its banks dotted in manicured flowers.

“Arthur!” you call again as he stops near the water. He turns to you and his eyes are angry and betrayed. Your stomach drops, but you run up to him anyways.

“Arthur, let me explain. I didn’t mean-”

“You didn’t mean for me to see that shit, am I right?” he snarls.

“No, that’s not what I was going to say. He kissed me, not the other way around.”

“Who is that feller anyways?”

You sigh and explain how you know Benjamin. Arthur’s eyes darken further.

“So he’s your ‘what if’ guy, am I correct?” he demands.

“I… I guess so. Arthur please, what he did was the last thing I wanted to happen. You know I’d never cheat on you.”

“Do I?”

You’re taken back by his response and a little offended. “Yes, Arthur you do. You know I’d never betray your trust and I know, or at least I hope, I have the same courtesy from you.”

“And what the hell does that mean?”

“You know exactly what it means, Arthur!” you say, your temper flaring. “Don’t lie to me and say that if that Mary didn’t say ‘Oh Arthur, I need you’ that you wouldn’t go galloping off to her. We both know that’s exactly what you’d do. I ain’t stupid, Arthur.”

He glowers down at you, his jaw tight. “That ain’t fair, Y/N! You know that ain’t the way it is-”

“Yes it is, Arthur! I know for a fact that I’m better than you being alone, but if things were different, you’d pick her. A thousand times over and over again! So don’t you dare tell me that it isn’t fair!”

“You always been jealous of Mary,” he hisses. “You always suspected the worst of me whenever her name is even mentioned.”

“And have you proven me wrong, Arthur? In Horseshoe Overlook, you went tromping off to her. It didn’t matter we’ve been together for over a year, you still went to her. And then what did you do? You lied to me, said you were just going off to tell her to stop pestering you. But I know for a fact you went in hopes she’d take you back!”

“And how the hell would you know that?”

“Because I followed you, Arthur! Forgive me for being suspicious, but I had to know for sure. I know your past with her and so I doubted you were going to tell her goodbye. And guess what? I was right! You went chasing after her brother hoping that she’d see how good of a man you are and want you back again.”

“You seriously followed me? Well so much for us having a trusting relationship!” he roars.

“Yeah, I know it was a shit move on my part, but like I said, I’ve always known you’d choose her over me. I know if she ended up saying she actually wanted you back, you’d have come back to me and said things were over. I know I’m not a prize, Arthur!”

You’re crying at this point and you’re hurt and upset. Not once has Arthur said you were wrong, that you were what he wanted. You can tell by the look in his eyes he’s not planning on contradicting you either.

“It’s not fair,” you go on, more quietly this time, “for you to still be pining for Mary and for me to not have anyone else in case this doesn’t work. You have no idea how much it hurts to know you still love her and to know you’d just toss me aside so easily the moment she says your name.”

You wipe your cheeks, waiting for him to say something. His face is still dark, his eyes glaring at you. “Yeah, but I don’t go around kissin’ people from my past. Especially in front of you. What you just did hurts too, Y/N.”

His words are enough to confirm your fears. He loves Mary more than he’ll ever love you. Nothing you can do or say can change that.

“You know what, Arthur?” you finally say. “We’re done. I’m not going to compete for your affections. Not with some silly woman like Mary who isn’t even around. It’s not fair to me for you to be jealous and for me to just be okay with you wanting Mary. I can’t do it anymore.”

His eyes widen. “Y/N, no. Ya don’t need to do this.”

“Yes I do, Arthur. I’m never going to have you the way I want, so I’m not going to try anymore. It’s over. I’ll move my things out of your room back at Shady Belle.”

Before he has the chance to say anything further, you run off towards the street. You should be going back to Dutch and the others, it’d be the easiest way for you to get back to camp, but Arthur will surely be there too. You can’t bear to be around him anymore, so you wander the streets for a moment until you see the other guests’ horses lined up, waiting for their masters. The boy watching over them is napping, so you pick the horse farthest from him and canter off. You don’t care that the boy is calling and hollering for you to come back. You have to get away.

When you’re back in camp, you head immediately up to your shared room. Or what was your shared room. There, you strip out of this stupid dress and tear off the jewelry. You leave them on the chair near the table. They were gifts from Arthur; you don’t want them anymore. You change quickly back into your everyday clothes and quickly pack up your belongings.

You head outside and towards the two wagons where the other girls sleep. When you first joined the gang, there wasn’t really any room for you, so you slept under the wagons. It was actually kind of nice because it was covered from the elements and you didn’t have another person on either side of you. You stuff your belongings under the wagon again and roll out your bedroll. Mary-Beth asks what you’re doing, but you wave her off, not really in the mood to explain what just happened.

When your things are set out the way you like, you’re not really tired enough to go to bed, plus you’re still hurt and angry. You also know Arthur’s likely to come find you and want to talk, but that’s the last thing you want. You head off to the boathouse behind the manor and sit on a rickety chair you’ve seen Strauss occupying multiple times.

It’s late in the night when you hear the sounds of the coach rolling back in and Dutch’s loud voice carries over to you, though you can’t really make out what he’s saying. Your stomach tightens almost painfully as you worry about if anyone will tell Arthur where you’ve gone. An hour passes though and he doesn’t. Finally, you feel safe enough to go and try to get some sleep under your wagon.

A few very awkward days pass and Arthur still has not tried to talk to you. Now that your anger is finally gone, you feel somewhat hurt that he hasn’t. Even though it was you who broke things off, you didn’t want to. You had to in order to protect yourself, but you still love him. He must be satisfied with things being the way they are. Hell, he’s probably daydreaming about Mary, or worse, he’s actively looking for her. A letter from her came to him the day after you broke up and Arthur’s been running off to the city a lot.

The other girls try to get you to talk about what’s going on, but you still don’t really want to. Dutch has even approached you and tried to smooth things over, but you wonder if Arthur asked him to. You never saw it, but Hosea spoke to Arthur and gave him a few honest opinions, trying to help him straighten things out as far as how he felt about things.

Part of you wonders if maybe it’s time to leave the gang. Arthur is such a vital part of it, he’s involved with pretty much everything. You won’t be able to do any jobs anymore without him being involved in some way or another. You come to the decision that you’ll just go off on a hunting trip for a few days. You’ve done it plenty of times before, so Dutch won’t think anything of it. And maybe, if you end up preferring the isolation, you��ll just end up not coming back.

You pack up your bedroll but leave most of your other possessions behind. Most of them are gifts from Arthur anyways. A picture of some wolves he got from a photographer, another photograph of you and Arthur taken from a few weeks back. You feel a pang when you look at it. He looks so happy. You lay it back down and then crawl out from under the wagon, hop up onto your horse and leave. No one stops you, they all know at this point you and Arthur aren’t together anymore. You secretly despise their mixed looks of disappointment and pity. The likelihood that you’ll ever see any of them again is small.

Once you’re away from Shady Belle, you gallop north towards New Hanover. You have not enjoyed Lemoyne much. Too hot and humid. You prefer the green and blue hues of the Heartlands. The change of scenery is a welcome relief. The vast open landscape feels incredible. You realize now that you’ve been cooped up in that swamp for too long. You’ve needed this.

Game is plentiful and you do some hunting, catching a few deer and rabbits. You only take what you can carry on your horse in case you end up not going back. Right now, you don’t want to at all. It feels good to be out here on your own, enjoying the warmth and the light. No one’s around to bicker or perform mindless chatter. In fact, no one’s around at all. It’s all wonderful.

When night comes, you pitch your tent in case it rains. You stock your fire and cook some of the meat. Instead of Pearson’s usual stew, you treat yourself to a can of beans, an apple and some fresh cooked venison. Stars twinkle above you, reminding you of your newly acquired freedom.

While it’s been nice to be out here on your own and take a few steps back from life with the gang, you find yourself missing company. Particularly Arthur’s. You spent many nights with him out in the wilderness and they ended up being some of the best times. It wasn’t just that you could be as loud as you wanted while fooling around with him, but all the walls between you came tumbling down. You could be yourselves. You find yourself crying again at the thought that it would never happen again.

Somehow, you end up falling asleep. In the morning, you lie inside your tent, feeling slightly miserable. You don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t really want to abandon the gang and Arthur, but you don’t know if you can manage to live with them and him like this. You don’t want to end up like John and Abigail, barking angrily at each other at every turn. At least you and Arthur didn’t have a kid together.

The smell of roasting coffee beans wafts into your tent. Did you make some last night and forget about it? No, you couldn’t have. You never have coffee except early in the day since it keeps you up too long. The thought that some stranger might be in your camp going through your stuff sends a jolt down to your stomach and makes you get up quickly. When you get outside, you find not a stranger, but Arthur.

He’s kneeling down next to the fire, cooking some fresh meat on your grill. From the percolator you can hear water bubbling a little and steam coming from the spout. That explains the coffee smell. Arthur looks up when you come out, his face blank. Your stomach clenches tighter. He’s probably come to finish the fight.

“Arthur, I-” you begin, feeling defensive.

“You ain’t gotta be worried, sweetheart,” he says, his eyes hidden beneath his hat. He pours some coffee into a tin cup and hands it to you. “Why don’t you come sit down?”

You hesitate and then accept his cup, sitting down on the opposite side of the fire. Having no idea what to say, you take a sip of your coffee. An awkward silence passes between you for a few moments before Arthur finally says something.

“Y/N, I um, I didn’t come here to beg you to take me back. I ain’t gonna put that kinda pressure on ya. But I did want to try and apologize, but you never gave me the chance at that ridiculous party.”

“I’ve been in camp with you three days, Arthur. You could have come talk any time.”

“I know, but I wanted to talk with you alone, but you were always with someone. It was like… I don’t know, felt like ya didn’t want me to.”

“I didn’t,” you admit. “We said our things at the party, Arthur. There isn’t more to say.”

He looks down at the fire. “Maybe for you. But please, Y/N, give me the chance to talk?”

You recognize that he’s asking and not demanding, so you nod. He sighs and rubs his eyes for a moment.

“What you said about me and Mary. Well, you were right. If she said even the tiniest word, I woulda gone to her. But these past few days without you have been tougher than all the years I spent without Mary. When she broke things off, my heart was broken. But when you broke things off. My heart wasn’t broken, it was just gone. I’ve taken ya for granted, Y/N. And you were right. It ain’t fair of me to accuse you of tryin’ to start things with other men when I’ve kept Mary in the wings for so long.”

Arthur stands up and approaches your side of the fire and sits down. He leaves several inches between you out of respect. “Y/N, I said I wasn’t gonna beg ya to take me back, and I’m not. However, if you wanted to reconsider trying again, I just want ya to know I’ll always be waitin’ for you. I’m willing to leave Mary in my past where she belongs. I guess I’m just hoping you’ll be in my future.”

You’re trying not to cry again. You know when Arthur’s lying and his voice and just his energy says he’s being as authentic as ever. Your logic is telling you to say no, to leave things off. But that’s always been your problem. You’ve always listened to your brain more than your heart, which was why you were automatically suspicious when his first letter for Mary came. Maybe if you listened more to your heart, things would be different now.

Arthur sighs again, looking away. “Anyways, I just wanted to set the record straight between us. I understand and I’ll respect your decision.”

Arthur gets up and starts walking towards his horse, forgetting the meat he left on the grill to cook. If you let him leave now, the door to your future with him will close forever. You can’t let that happen and so you launch to your feet.

“Arthur!” you wail, running up to him. He turns to be almost knocked off his feet by you throwing your weight at him. Before you can control yourself, you’re sobbing into his chest. He says nothing, but he wraps his arms around you, holding you tight and sets his chin on your head. He’s warm and familiar. You’ve buried yourself into him like this many times. His scent envelopes you, only adding to the range of emotions rushing through you.

After a few moments, he loosens his hold and pulls you away slightly, giving you the grin that shows his wonky tooth. You love when he smiles like that. He dries your cheeks with his fingers before pulling a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

“Hey, you’re okay,” he says softly. You sniff and nod, feeling like you must look like a child. His hands find yours, rubbing them softly. “So… I hope it’s not too soon to ask, but-”

You shake your head and cut him off. “It’s not, Arthur. And yes, I’m willing to try again.” He smiles again and all you want him to do is hold you again. As if reading your mind, he pulls you back into his arms, letting you rest your head into the crook of his neck. His right hand settles on your lower back and his left wraps around your shoulders.

“You’re too good for me, darlin’, but I’m grateful you’re giving me a second chance. I love you.”

#arthur morgan #red dead fanfic #awkward asks #rdr2 fanfic #I'm awkward

51 notes · View notes

maddiesmt-morphina · 5 years

Text

7 minutes in heaven Chapter 13

Chapter 13 - About dates and wishes

His fingers seemed to strum the strands of the girl's white hair sleeping peacefuly in his arms. He admired the softness contained in them, like pure silk freshly taken from the cocoon. Ryo had spent the night awake, and yet he could tell that it was one of the best nights of his life. Her deep, slow, easy breathing relaxed him. No wonder she was the only person in the world to tame him deftly. Often his animal behavior contradicted her class, but he was sure that that was exactly why they got along so well. He took a deep breath for the thousandth time that night. He would record in his memory the scent of her mixed with his. Although they lived together for years, it was the first time Alice had let him lie in her bed. It was the first time he'd ever seen her so desperate for him that she'd let him hold her for a whole night. And it was not the first time she had made sure his life would never be the same. Alice had always been willful and her chivalrous spirit held him hostage from her playful gaze til the tip of her upturned nose.

He allowed himself to admire her for a few more seconds. Capturing, with his eyes, the rhythm of her breathing, the white skin of the arms that embraced him, the furrows of her fleshy lips that were so close to his own lips that it seemed sinful not to trace them with his fingertips or with the tip of his tongue.

Ryo blinked a few times to try to free himself from the prison that his own desire had put him again and very carefully, tried to break free to start his tasks of the day, starting with the mocca that the girl loved so much. However, as he tried to get up, he felt the resistance in the girl's arms and she didn't take long to speak.

"I don't need it"

"Miss"

"I don't need anything, Ryo. Just stay."

"But miss ..."

"You know..." She finally said, opening her eyes and letting the red iris meet his blood-colored eyes. "Yesterday, Hisako did everything you told her to do. She followed all the recipes and schedules ... but ... it was not the same. I ... I don't need any of that Ryo ... I just need you. .. so ... please, just stay."

"Anything for you, milady."

And with that she snuggled even more into him and finally Ryo closed his eyes, letting the warmth of her body rock him into a peaceful sleep.

When Hisako awoke, the day after her meeting with Hayama, she swore she was trapped in a parallel universe. Alice hadn't left her room, much less Kurokiba. Had the young woman's aide forgotten her mocca? And most impressive, she didn't hear Alice's angry screams. Another question that made her wonder if she had actually woken up in the right world was that Erina was not home, and hadn't even told anyone where she was going so early. But nothing made her question more her own sanity than a good morning message on her cell phone.

Hayama Akira [8:00 a.m]

Good Morning, Arato. I hope you had a pleasant evening just like me. Every word I said yesterday was sincere. I really hope we can make this misunderstending an opportunity to get to know each other better. May your day be lovely, as well as your smile.

-Hayama-

Hisako coudn't help the involuntary sigh. She felt her lips curl in a slight, automatic smile. That man was going to be her downfall and she didn't even care. Somehow his message made her bolder. And with trembling fingers, she wrote her brief, but full of meaning, answer:

Arato Hisako [8:00 a.m]

You sure know how to make a girl blush. I don't doubt your words or intentions. To be honest, I can't wait to live them. So why don't we start with our name? I mean ... you can call me Hisako if you want.

A few miles away, the boy admired his cell phone screen for an answer that soon arrived. It made him laugh with relief. He was afraid he'd been too sharp or tacky.

"Hisako" He tested her name on his tongue and felt it tingle like fresh pepper squeezed into the papilla. It seemed that only her name had already warmed his insides and he was enjoying that feeling.

Hisako wasn't the only one to wake up with a message, in the Polar Star dormitory, Megumi didn't know if she breathed or answered the message of a certain blond Aldini.

Takumi Aldini [8:00 a.m]

Good morning, Tadokoro. I hope I didn't wake you, I apologize for sending you this message so early, but I couldn't help but remember of you when I saw ta trailer from a movie that happens to be playing on a nearby cinema.

Takumi Aldini [8:00 a.m]

So I thought if you were free today,

Takumi Aldini [8:00 a.m]

We Could go ...?

Takumi Aldini [8:00 a.m]

But only if you want, obviously, don't feel pressured, is that ...

Takumi Aldini [8:00 a.m]

ahh I think I'm freaking out, right?

Takumi Aldini [8:00 a.m]

MY GOD! Look how many messages I've already sent ...

Takumi Aldini [8:00 a.m]

And you are probably sleeping.

Takumi Aldini [8:00 a.m]

And I must be disturbing your sleep and

Takumi Aldini [8:00 a.m]

I'll stop now. Kami-sama ... I'm nervous ...

Takumi Aldini [8:00 a.m]

I WROTE THIS? How do I erase it?

Takumi Aldini [8:00 a.m]

Ahhh ... Pretend you didn't read it, Tadokoro, I'm sorry. Good Morning.

Megumi hugged her cell phone as she laughed nervously. She felt so comfortable and at the same time so aware of her own reflexes while she was with Takumi. She couldn't help but remember the moment when, for a second, she imagined he was about to kiss her. The memory made her face burn with shame, but her heart throbbed with desire.

Megume Tadokoro [8:15 a.m]

Good morning, Takumi. I would love to see the movie with you.

Takumi Aldini [8:15 a.m]

Ah, Tadokoro. I'm extremely happy. It will be an honor to accompany you. Can I pick you up at 3 p.m?

Megume Tadokoro [8:15 a.m]

Of course Takumi! But wouldn't it be to much trouble for you to come here?

Takumi Aldini [8:15 a.m]

For you, nothing is trouble, Megumi.

Takumi Aldini [8:15 a.m]

I mean, Tadokoro. I mean, I'll be there at 3 p.m sharp.

Megume Tadokoro [8:15 a.m]

You can call me Megume, Takumi. After all, I already call you by your name, rigth?

Takumi Aldini [8:15 a.m]

Ok. So. Our date is arranged, Megume

Takumi Aldini [8:15 a.m]

I mean, not a date

Takumi Aldini [8:15 a.m]

I mean unless you want it to be a date, then it might be a date.

Megume wasn't so sure of what to say. She really wanted it to be a date, but did that mean that she now had feelings for Takumi? She knew that, in the past, she even thought about having feelings for Soma, but what she felt now, for Takumi, was something totally different and new. She chose a short and sincere answer. Bluntly and no spaces for regrets.

Megume Tadokoro [8:15 a.m]

Is a date then.

"RYO !!!!"

Alice's excited voice made Ryo nearly fall off the bed. He stared at her with frightened eyes and his hand toward his red cloth, ready to wake the monster inside him, if need to.

"Miss, what happened? Are you injured? Do you need something? Someone hurt you, because if someone did, I swear to god, that bastard will wish he'd never been born"

The boy looked around for something threatening that might have triggered that her reaction. It was then that he heard her laugh and turned his attention to her smiling figure at his side.

He watched the girl bite her lips, a clear struggle to contain her laughter. An attempt at pouting turned out to be a lovely pucker up. He couldn't stop his right hand from settling on the girl's cheek. He stood there, hypnotized by those lips still marked by the teeth that pressure them earlier.

"Why are you laughing?" He whispered as if he was telling her the most secret of secrets.

Alice shuddered at his touch. The boy's voice had the most comforting tone in the world and she wondered if his lips tasted like home.

"What do you think you're doing in my bed?" Alice watched the boy blush and his eyes fluttered. Finally understanding, where it was.

"I, well, you asked me to bring you to bed and then you asked me to stay, and well, I do what milady wants."

“Is that so”

“Yes”

"And you know what I want now? More than anything else in the world, Ryo? " Alice leaned close enough to almost lean her forehead against his. The gaze fixed on the boy's lips. Meanwhile, Ryo felt his stomach knot and his body wake up to every threat of soft touch her fingers now made. Going from the side of his neck, through his strong arms and finally reaching the red cloth strapped to his wrist.

"I ... I think so." Only she could make him nervous enough to almost forget how to speak.

She leaned closer, whispering words half a centimeter from his lips. Untying the bandana of his wrist and tying it on his black hair. Demanding his full presence.

"So ... what are you waiting for, Ryo?"

And with nothing else to hold him, Ryo plunged toward her lips.

Hisako found her in one of the school kitchens. She watched the banquet prepared by the God's tongue and smiled as she notice the blonde concentrated on preparing another plate that would enter the menu.

It had been some time since Hisako had seen her cooking with so much determination and pleasure, and she supposed she knew where all that creativity and desire to cook came from.

"That seems delicious, Erina-sama."

The blonde almost let the pan with syrup fall from her hands, so was the concentration in which she was in.

"Hisako! Are you trying to kill me?"

"Forgive me, Erina-sama, but I'm afraid anything I've said or done would scare you anyway"

"What you mean?"

"I mean, you were too focus to notice anything but the bubbling of this wonderful strawberry syrup with pink pepper."

Erina smiled to see that her friend had hit the recipe.

"You are right. I was lost in thought"

"I know. Thoughts about a certain strawberry-red-haired boy with a peppery personality."

“I don’t know what are you talking about, Hisako. No one here is thinking of Yukihira”

The blonde turned off the fire and poured the syrup under a Dutch cream with bits of buttery biscuits fresh from the oven.

"But I didn't say his name ..."

Erina immediately stopped decorating the dish she was making. She had denounced herself.

"Erina, if you'll excuse me, I must say it's kinda obvious you're thinking about him. Look around, all the dishes you made have at least one red ingredient and one yellow ingredient and I wonder ... Don't we know someone with such a characteristic color combination?" Hisako put her finger on her chin and pretended to be deep in thought.

"Hahaha Hisako ... this is not funny ... I ... I don't even know why I made these dishes or even why I'm cooking ... I just ... I had this impulse ... this huge desire to ..." The girl bit her lip and the secretary finished.

"To vent all your worries and thoughts through food? Feeling lighter as you finished each dish? Feeling closer to him every time you created something new and totally unexpected?"

"Yes ... but ... how do you know?"

"Well ... maybe I'm going through it too?"

"Hm? Do not tell me you and Hayama ..."

"More or less ... maybe?"

The silence stretched as the two stared at each other, trying to discover the unspoken secrets in their mouths, but obvious in their eyes. At last Erina snorted and they both laughed.

"Hisako! I demand that you tell me what happened yesterday!"

"Only if you tell me what's making you so anxious to the point where you make such a feast at ten in the morning."

They looked at each other again and laughed together. Erina felt that finally Hisako had allowed herself to be her friend and not just her secretary.

Soma stared at the ceiling of his room with such concentration that he seemed to want to merge with it.

Through his head were vivid memories and confused desires. He knew exactly what he wanted ... He just didn't know the meaning of that.

He closed his eyes and touched his lips again. He had lost count of how often he had tried to feel the touch of her lips through his own fingers. He sighed as he imagined her tracing the paths he made himself. The hand rested over the mattress of the bed and he reopened his eyes in disappointment. The cotton sheets didn't contain even a third of the softness of her skin.

His body was claiming hers, and his mind was long gone.

He decided to pay attention to himself and the signs he showed. The dry mouth of anxiety to kiss her again accompanied the tremor that the nervousness of seeing her made him feel.

Since when did he feel so out of his body just because he knew he would see her?

Could he blame his juvenil hormones for all this mess of cravings and wants ? No. Soma knew that that was not the answer. And when he began to reflect a little more he could hear it. His own heart, which in its steady and accelerated beats, told him quietly why it felt so entirely hers. He smiled as he imagined what face she would do when he told her his recent discovery.

He sighed knowing that this was another battle he was going to fight, but this time he would make sure he would win.

Takumi was so nervous that he almost left his house barefoot. After nearly running halfway to the dormitory, now he was trying to recompouse himself before ringing the buzzer on the Polar Star dormitory. He was still trying to catch his breath as the door opened suddenly.

"Takumichii what are you doing here? Are this flowers? you're bringing with you?"

The blonde ran up against Yuki and Sakaki who were ready to leave. They looked curiously at the Italian and the flowers in his hands.

"Ah ... ehhh Yoshino and Sakaki ... eh " Takumi tried to hide the flowers, even if it was too late. He searched his brain for something to say, then he heard a sweet voice behind the girls.

"Don't need to answer the door, it's for m ..." the three of them came face to face with Megumi who couldn't finish the sentence. Wide-eyed and with her mouth half open, the blue-haired girl watched her friends glance at her and at the boy in the doorway. Yuki exchanged a malicious look with Ryoko and before making a biased comment, she felt her friend's hands pull at her wrist as she spoke.

"Come on, Yuki! We're going to be late! It was good to see you Aldini-Kun! Take care of Megume for us."

And as soon as they appeared ... the girls disappered.

Megumi was still a little shaken when Takumi asked her if she was okay.

"Ah yes. I am"

"hm ... alright ...so..." the boy took the small bouquet of wildflowers that he hid and offered to the girl "They are ... are for you."

He watched her cheeks flush and he blushed too.

"They are beautiful! Thank you, Takumi! You didn't need to trouble yourself"

"As I said Megumi, you never are and never will be a trouble."

Megumi hugged the flowers, felt the soft scent coming from them and tried to calm her racing heart. She opened her eyes and found him still admiring her. They blinked a few times and spoke at the same time.

“Let's go?” They laughed in embarrassment and headed for their date.

The smell of wet grass in summer was one of her favorite scents. She filled her lungs with fresh air and felt renewed, but not less nervous. When Soma had suggested the place, Erina imagined that it was only a meeting place and that they would go somewhere else from there. But when she came across the boy waiting for her at the edge of the lake, and beside him, a boat with space for two, she understood they would not leave.

She couldn't stop the redness that covered her cheeks when she saw him without the famous blouse of the Yukihira restaurant. It seemed that he had really struggled to get out of the ordinary. The blue button-down blouse was open with the sleeves drawn up to the forearm, making his arms look stronger and more tempting. The way the white t-shirt hugged his body also made her aware that his attributes weren't just his cooking. And to top it off he smiled. Not that mischievous grin he gave out to his friends, but a smile she thought was only for her. With the power to eclipse the sun and rival the moon. Erina swallowed and walked toward him trying to fix her gaze on the horizon and no longer in the boy's anxious gaze.

For his part, Soma was totally captive by her. In addition to the relief to know that she had actually come, he also had to control himself the best he could to avoid to take her in his arms ... as he had done a few days ago.

And she didn't make it any easier with that wine red high waist short clochard with a beige long sleeve off shoulder top , black bailarina shoes and a black floppy hat on her head that crowned what he thought was the vision of paradise.

He felt something turn inside him and he had to hold back the sigh that was about to come out of his mouth.

Silence. It was what she found as she stood in front of him. She looked down at the floor and gripped the strap of the small bag she carried.

She could feel his eyes burning as they ran from her head to her toes. She was really aware of the attention he was giving her. So she scratched her throat and tried to start a conversation.

"So?"

"Ahh yes ... I'm sorry Nakiri is that I didn't expect to see you so .... well ... so out of the uniform ... maybe."

As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Soma knew he'd said something wrong. He saw her bite the insides of her cheek in obvious irritation.

"Look who's talking about uniform, dinner boy."

"Don't misunderstand me Nakiri, it's just that, I didn't know that well ... let's start over? OK?" The boy scratched his throat and tried to recover as much as he could.

"You look really beautiful, Nakiri."

"You're decent, at least."

Soma gave a long sigh. A mixture of relief at having escaped with the nervousness that still enveloped him.

"Well, shall we?" He offered her his hand, and they got into the boat.

The path to the center of the lake was done silently. It was rare to find them in total silence. But there they were, surrounded by water and without a word spoken.

Erina could see the sky changing color in a breathtaking spectacle. The sun was setting and the reflections gave a unique color to the clouds. The orange and the pink dominated the sky and the sound of the oars disturbing the calm of the waters gave the place a bucolic air.

"Why did you choose this place?"

"Well ... to be honest ... Tadokoro said something about weeds, so I thought I'd take you to the dorm garden ..."

"I beg a pardon" Erina's eyes widened as she listened to him continue his story.

"But then she said that that wouldn't be right ... and that it would be better if we met in a place away from everything and everyone"

"Far from everything ... and everyone?" At that moment Erina felt her cheeks burn, he couldn't be serious ...

"And well ... we are in the middle of a lake ... I can't imagine how much far we could go..."

Soma was fluttering and this was sometimes a big flaw. In spite of being absolutely sincere, the words he was uttering resounded with a different sense in the ear of the girl who soon burst with rage.

"Yukihira! YOU PERVERT!"

"Hm? What? " The boy widened his eyes, startled and disoriented.

"I'm sure Tadokoro would never say something like that!"

"But it's true! She said I had to stay alone to solve this problem."

Dense as a door. His naiveté would one day be his end, and it seems that this end came sooner than he expected.

"Problem? Are you calling me a problem?"

"Nakiri ... can you please let me explain!"

"No! I've heard everything I had to hear! Take me back right now!" Erina was practically standing on the boat as she pointed toward the lakeshore.

"Nakiri, we're going to fall! Just Let me explain"

"I don't want to hear another word from you!"

Now they were standing in the boat that swayed as if it were on the high seas.

"Give me this oar because I'm going to go away from you even if I have to row by myself!"

"Wait a second! You can't go taking the oars like that! Do you even know how to paddle?"

"If even a moron like you can do it, then I can do it myself!"

"Moron is the ..."

Maybe fate gave the boy a blessing, causing him to swallow water instead of finishing the sentence.

The boat couldn't stand the discussion and turned. Throwing the two occupants in the lake.

Soma was the first to emerge from the depths of the lake. Coughing and trying to recover from almost drowning. Erina reappeared shortly after, under the same conditions. Her hat now floated in the lake, and her hair kept her from looking around.

The boy approached her and took her by the waist and running the girl's arms over his shoulder, ensuring that she had where to lean.

He watched her catch her breath as he did and tried to remove the strands of hair that were leaving her temporarily blind.

It was enough for amethyst and topaz to find each other and then lose each other.

"I said we were going to fall," he whispered, squeezing the girl's body even harder against his.

"So that was your plan? To try to drown me?" Erina couldn't avoid the teasing tone. And they laughed together after that.

The sky now, predominantly blue, had a full moon capable of lighting the whole region. The stars shone brighter without the competition of city lights.

When their laughter died ... their breaths intensified. Erina was still holding the boy and he made no mention of releasing her so soon.

And it was in this calm settled after the storm, that they let themselves be carried as a sea wave.

"And when they flew on the magic carpet, my god! That was so exciting!"

"Yeah"

"But it wasn't right of him to hide his origins just because she was a princess. Not at all."

"I think I understand Aladdin."

Megumi looked at him intriguedly, and the boy soon tried to explain himself.

"Don't get me wrong, but I don't think Aladdin found himself worth of Jasmine's affection. And there is nothing worse than this feeling of inferiority. Insecurity can destroy the confidence of a man Megume, believe me, I know.

"Do you feel inferior Takumi?"

"Sometimes, yes. Mainly when I lose to Yukihira."

At that moment, Megumi stopped walking. They could already see the dormitory ahead so they could afford to talk quietly.

"Something wrong?"

"You're not inferior to Soma-kun just because sometimes you lose to him in a Shokugeki, Takumi. There are so many other things that define you more than a simple competition."

"As what?"

She approached him until they were face to face. Golden eyes illuminating blue ones.

"You're kind and respectful, you're a good listener and you have a great taste for movies, you entertain me and give me peace, and the main thing, you saw me when even Soma-kun couldn't see me. And that's why, Takumi, I think you're mistaken to feel inferior because, in fact, you're already much more than you think you are."

The blonde felt renewed. Her words resounded like a new air drag on a drifting ship. He let himself relax, resting his forehead on hers and admiring those beautiful amber eyes. He didn't restrain the hand that was now resting on her right cheek and that she had no choice but to bend over so that she could absorb all the warmth of his touch.

He sighed as if to hold them there.

"Thank you."

Not far away from there, hungry and restless lips crashed each other like waves crashing into the rocks. Soma pressed her against his body even more and in response, she hugged the boy's waist with her legs.

Soma let out a hoarse groan as he felt her body so close to his. How he had missed this intimate and intense contact. Her skin was as soft as it had been a few days ago, not that she could change in such a short time, but he feared to forget every inch of her. The soft texture of her skin, the intoxicating scent of flowers he couldn't name, her lips as velvet as fresh peachs, every corner of her mouth and every movement that that divine tongue knew how to do to made him crazy.

He pressed her even harder against him. Letting one hand roam around her shapely legs while the other was burrowing into her silky strands of hair. He felt himself to be, at the same time, the owner of the world and her hostage.

Erina thought of nothing else. She choose just to feel his body even closer to hers. And as he gave a slight pull on her hair as he kissed her neck, she swore she'd forgotten who she was.

Her fingernails were again nailed to his broad shoulders. She felt him sigh her name and that made her more bold. She lightly rolled her hips and felt him gasp. She tried the movement again and this time he gently pushed her away.

"Erina."

“What? What happened?”

She said breathlessly, still wrapped around his waist.

"Even though I adore what you ... I mean ... what we were doing ... I ... well ... I think we'd better get back on the lakeshore so we don't get colds."

"For the first time in this life," she says as she approaches the boy's lips, "I'm going to have to agree with you."

He still closed his eyes, waiting for one more kiss. However, the only thing he felt was the cold left by the absence of her body in his.

"Don't just stand there, Yukihira, you're still going to have to bring this boat with you, aren't you?"

The boy sighed and let the lake's water calm him. He almost lost control again. Being with her was deliciously risky.

She came out of the water first, her wet clothes marking her body, her dripping hair dripping water drops down her face and down her back. Soma lingered, taking her with his eyes.

"What are you waiting for?"

Her shaken voice woke him from the trance.

"Of course ... just...hm..just a moment."

The girl stared at him as she folded her arms. The act did nothing to help the poor boy who now had a privileged view of the almost transparent neckline of the wet blouse.

"Could you ... hm..could you turn around for a second Nakiri."

Erina blushed as soon as she heard the embarrassment in the boy's voice.

"Hmpf"

It didn't take long for her to feel something warm on her. She looked at the blanket around her and saw Soma straighten him as he tried to dry her hair.

"What do you think you are doing?"

"Taking care of you... so you don't get a cold"

"And where did that come from?"- she pointed to the blanket.

"Ah ... that ... well along with the other things I had prepared for a picnic."

"You ... prepared a picnic?"

"Yes ... that's what I wanted to tell you earlier. Look ... it's all there."

The girl turned to the area where the boy was pointing and could see the basket with fruit and other sweets.

"Soma"

"But I think we can leave it for another day ... I don't want you to get sick." He finished drying her hair and wrapped her around the blanket even more.

"But and you? Aren't you cold."

"I am but ... I'd rather you to not feel cold."

She looked at him without reaction. The boy was totally drenched, shivering with cold, and all he could think was her. Erina opened the blanket and hugged him, covering the two of them.

"This blanket is big enough for both of us."

This time it was Soma who had no reaction. Her body warmed his. They seemed to fit perfectly.

Soma sighed deeply and hugged her as she relaxed her body in his. Her eyes closed, her head resting on his shoulder, the breath so close to his neck that it made him shiver, and it was not from the cold.

He rested his head on top of hers and closed his eyes too. Feeling the peace of being in peace.

"I like to be like this with you."

He revealed, sincere.

She stripped of her pride and took a deep breath to respond.

"Me too, Soma."

"Can we ... can we stay like this forever?"

She laughed at the innocence of his words.

"Forever is a long time, silly."

"Forever is a short time when I think about how much I want to be with you."

At that moment, Erina's heart seemed to stop. She fixed the purple gaze on his gold ones and whispered

"Soma ... what do you ..."

"Erina, I ... I can't stop to think about you .... I can't imagine me without our competitions, our fights, our kisses .... " The boy slowly approached the lips of the girl, causing his nose to touch hers in a delicate affection. "And I can't and I don't want to avoid what is happening"

Erina felt his hand caress her face and held it, holding it there.

"What do you mean, Soma? What do you really want?"

He smiled as he continued.

"I want to devote all the food I make to you. I want to offer you everything I have and I want you to be my eternal inspiration. I want to make you happy and I want to offer you the promise to have all your wishes fulfilled."

"And can I ask you how you plan to do that. At least this last one?"

"Well ... it should start any minute now."

He briefly parted from her and cast his gaze to the starry sky.

"What you mean?"

It was then that Erina saw one, two, three, a shower of falling stars gracing the sky.

"Make as many wishes as you want ..."

"Did you know that?"

"Yes. It was one of the reasons I chose this place. Here is far enough from the city lights, so we can see the stars better."

"Soma... you never fail to amaze me ."

"So..Aren't you going to make a wish"

The blonde shook her head. In her eyes a few tears stuck there and refused to fall. She took his hand in hers and whisperes quietly.

"Everything I could wish for is right here by my side.

"Does that mean you accept it?"

"It depends ... are you thinking about what I think you're thinking?"

"If you think I'm thinking that you finally accept the fact that my food is delicious then yes, we're thinking the same thing!"

Soma had a cynical face on his face, and Erina began to walk away from him, showing her displeasure at the out-of-hours joke.

"Geez Soma, what a mood killer!"

"Easy Erina! I was just kidding! Come here"

He hugged her again.

"So...would you accept me as your boyfriend?"

Erina toasted him with the most beautiful of smiles as she answered him.

"Of course, you idiot!"

He kissed her again. A gentle kiss, calm and in the light of the rain of falling stars.

"Now don't move away from me ... you have the blanket and it's cold."

"Soma!""

And the starry sky blessed all the kisses and teasing from that night.

ANND CUT!

SOOO...I came back from the dead ..it seems. I'm so very sorry it took this long! It wasn't my intention but then...this was a hell of a chapter to write... It took me months of write it and then erased it...because I never found it to be good enough... I wanted to do some fluffy things but...I don't think Soma and Erina are this kind of couple...so I have to change this a little bit and then I gave birth to this...I really hope to hear your opinion about the chapter and what do you expect to be the next and last chapter. ( YES THIS WAS THE SECOND TO LAST CHAPTER). Thank you so much to all of you who followed this fanfic 'til now!I'm very grateful to you all! You guys are the true owners of this story. Hope to have made you guys go from lol to wow...and then to awnn. Let me know If I manage that reaction out of you! Once more thank u and see you next time!

Special thanks and happy birthday to my friend and eternal inspiration @brisadouce !! This is your birthday gift girl! go on and take it!

69 notes · View notes

squidproquoclarice · 6 years

Note

Would you say Arthur is... well, kind of a push-over? This is kind of inspired by some discussion I saw earlier where Arthur was said to be kind of one of the true “henchmen” of the gang compared to, say, someone like John, who was more confrontational and assertive with Dutch earlier. I’d say he’s only ever really one when it comes to the gang (or Dutch) and Mary, depending on interpretation. People who he seeks affection or validation from, I suppose. Your thoughts on that, lol?

He’s an interesting contradiction, our boah. He can be a confrontational asshole. As stone cold badass as that “Maybe when your mother’s finished mourning your father, I’ll keep her in black on your behalf” is, it’s also incredibly aggressive and dickish towards a young man who’s just lost his dad thanks in part to Arthur, and who’s understandably eyeing this guy with a pissed-off expression because of it. Yeah, we get it, it’s Arthur putting on the "heartless bastard” front so he can manage to do a job he hates, and also projecting his anger at the whole usury business into picking a fight as a defense to cover his own doubts and self-loathing, but sweet baby Jesus, really, son, it is not one of your better moments as a human being.He also picks some fistfights for the lolz, like with Tommy, Random Annoying Dude, etc. So he’s capable of being aggressive without much overt justification rather than just walking away. Buuuut how much of that is a role he plays, that really gets to your question. Given we get to see a lot of his thoughts in the journal, and the man he grows into who prefers to help rather than intimidate, who’ll stand up to the man he used to love and respect most, it feels like a lot of the intimidating, aggressive behavior seems to be posturing. He’s being the man expected of Dutch’s chief enforcer and strong right arm, a big dumb brute who’ll readily crack skulls and threaten violence.I don’t think he’s a pushover in the bigger picture. He’s capable of standing his ground, and even pushing back. But yes, when it comes to people he respects and cares about, or people he desperately wants to respect and like him, we see him acting much differently. He’s more prone to give way, to do what’s asked of him and not argue. He’s had it hammered into him that unquestioning loyalty is the highest good he can express. Dutch asks him constantly: Be what I need you to be, and believe in me. These are the people he loves, his family, the ones he’s given up anything else to be with. So for their love and esteem, he’d do just about anything for them, as he proves throughout the game. He’ll keep them fed, do the chores, help keep the morale up. He’ll do the little things like find them personally meaningful items to help keep them happy. He may play the big dumb hellraiser, but there’s a surprisingly soft streak in him that clearly instinctively tries to be, and enjoys being, a caretaker for those he loves. So when he’s challenged by them, yeah, he’ll readily give way. Because he doesn’t have a chip on his shoulder, for one, but mostly because he’s so afraid to lose their love and respect. He hasn’t had the chance in his life to learn that genuine love isn’t that fragile. But if he upsets them, he thinks he risks losing the one place in his life where he feels he belongs, where he’s respected, cared for, has some level of authority. He likely sees himself as 36 years old, still single, wanted by the law, and with a skillset that while impressive, doesn’t lend itself to a heck of a lot of legitimate occupations. He thinks without the gang, he’s nothing, he’s nobody. So he’ll do what he has to do to keep them happy, and that’s why Dutch and the rest seem so shocked when Arthur starts bucking the harness, so to speak, because he is literally the last person they probably ever expected to turn up defiant and starting a confrontation.

#arthur morgan #rdr2 #Anonymous

40 notes · View notes

46ten · 6 years

Note

In a letter to Eliza, Hamilton tells her about a girl and says, "If all her sex were like her, I would become a disciple of Mahomet. I am persuaded she has no soul; and as I am squeamish enough to require a soul in a woman, I run no great risk of becoming one of her captives". What does he mean when he says this? Was he saying that he doesn't like a woman with a soul? That seems like an odd thing to say to the woman you plan to marry. Or perhaps I just misunderstood what he meant?

What a great and interesting question! I’ll offer my interpretation. If you don’t mind, I’m going to back up a bit to try to give a better answer/guess. For others’ reference, the letter in question is dated 3Sept1780:

We have been fortunate of late in Quarters. I gave you a description of a fair one in those we had at Tappan. We have found another here; a pretty little dutch girl of fifteen. Every body make⟨s⟩ love to her [flirts with her], and she receives every body kindly. She grants every thing that is asked and has too much simplicity to refuse any thing; but she has so much innocence to shield her, that the most determined rake would not dare to take advantage of her simplicity. This you will say is a very favourable character; but I have summed up all her excellencies—beauty, innocence, youth, simplicity. If all her sex were like her, I would become a disciple of Mahomet. I am persuaded she has no soul; and as I am squeamish enough to require a soul in a woman, I run no great risk of becoming one of her captives. [My emphasis]

1. In a previous paragraph, AH is quoting Alexander Pope, “the poet”, and John Milton, particularly noting their descriptions of women. [I wrote very briefly about the literary references in this letter here, and about AH’s use of Pope in another letter to ES here.] With this new girl, he’s noting that she lacks any additional excellencies other than the ones I have bolded above. One can compare what he writes above about this girl to how AH describes Elizabeth to herself(!) in letters from 1780 (see this post and AH’s 2-4July1780): The sweet softness and delicacy of your mind and manners, the elevation of your sentiments, the real goodness of your heart, its tenderness to me, the beauties of your face and person, your unpretending good sense and that innocent simplicity and frankness which pervade your actions; all these appear to me with increasing amiableness and place you in my estimation above all the rest of your sex.

2. “If all her sex were like her, I would become a disciple of Mahomet. I am persuaded she has no soul…” AH likely means here that if all women were like this girl he’s writing about - soulless - he’d be damned/going to hell. In other words, he’d lose his own soul before he gave up women.**

3. “…[A]nd as I am squeamish enough to require a soul in a woman, I run no great risk of becoming one of her captives.” Substitute “scrupulous” for “squeamish” and that might help: paraphrased, “As my Christian beliefs necessitate that I have a partner who has a soul, and as there are women who HAVE souls [such as Elizabeth Schuyler] I’m not likely to fall in love/under the spell of this ‘soulless’ girl.” He’s not going to lose his own soul and salvation over this 15-year-old. It’s religious wordplay.

In my interpretation, he’s jokingly stating that this girl’s “excellencies” are not only insufficient to make him fall in love with her, but her lack of other virtues makes him jokingly draw the conclusion that she is soulless. I don’t think he’s making a theological argument about this 15-year-old, but funnily stating that she doesn’t seem to have anything else going on that would seriously tempt him into pursuing her. But he’s noting that if all women were like this girl, he’d be going to hell, as he would not give up women altogether.

Ultimately, I think AH is again affirming his estimation of Elizabeth above all the women he sees and trying to be witty and cute about perhaps having the reputation for being a bit girl-crazy (as Webb, Tilghman, and McHenry all seem to joke in letters at different times, see here for a brief overview).***

Now why is AH writing about this 15-year-old girl at all? He continues:

You see I give you an account of all the pretty females I meet with; you tell me nothing of the pretty fellows you see. I suppose you will pretend there is none of them engages the least of your attention, but you know I have been told you were something of a coquette, and I shall take care what degree of credit, I give to this pretence.

He’s insecure and a bit jealous - he’s acknowledging to ES that he notices other girls but they are poor comparisons to her. But he really wants to hear about the young men that SHE finds attractive and encourage her to write about her romantic past and reputation, so that he can compare himself to men she’s found attractive and argue in a many page letter for his superiority.

(I’m partly joking, but since he sorta does that here: “I fear you will admire the picture so much as to forget the painter. I wished myself possessed of André’s accomplishments for your sake; for I would wish to charm you in every sense. You cannot conceive my avidity for every thing that would endear me more to you. I shall never be satisfied with giving you pleasure, and I am mortified that I do not unite in myself every valuable and agreeable qualification. I do not my love affect modesty. I am conscious of ⟨the⟩ advantages I possess. I know I have talents and a good heart; but why am I not handsome? Why have I not every acquirement that can embellish human nature? Why have I not fortune, that I might hereafter have more leisure than I shall have to cultivate those improvements for which I am not entirely unfit?Tis not the vanity of excelling others, but the desire of pleasing my Betsey that dictates these wishes. In her eyes I should wish to be the first the most amiable the most accomplished of my sex; but I will make up all I want in love,” it’s a reasonable guess.)

*How much AH followed Pope in the latter’s complex and sometimes contradictory thoughts on women is a fascinating topic that I can’t adequately address. But AH was certainly very familiar with Pope’s work, so I’ll leave this here (from Epistle II, To a Lady. Of the Characters of Women, 1743):

And yet, believe me, good as well as ill,Woman’s at best a Contradiction still.Heav'n, when it strives to polish all it canIts last best work, but forms a softer Man;Picks from each sex, to make the Fav'rite blest,Your love of Pleasure, our desire of Rest,Blends, in exception to all gen'ral rules,Your Taste of Follies, with our Scorn of Fools,Reserve with Frankness, Art with Truth ally’d,Courage with Softness, Modesty with Pride,Fix’d Principles, with Fancy ever new;Shakes all together, and produces—You.

**That’s my best informed guess as to what this 18th century man meant by “disciple of Mahomet.” I don’t think we can take it as AH’s definitive thoughts on Islam, if he had any, but more his use of wordplay. He’s trying to be 18th-century witty, and writing something that’s offensive to modern readers.

***AH (hopefully jokingly) states in this letter that he’s thought about “taking a new mistress” = messing around with another woman to get over his consuming feelings for ES. Was ES flattered by these declarations? If only we knew.

#asks #Alexander Hamilton #Elizabeth Schuyler #Pope #letters

11 notes · View notes

biofunmy · 5 years

Text

Pope.L’s Group Crawl: Protest, Pathos, Provocation

“Crawlers, come to the line — please don your blindfolds,” said William Pope.L, the multidisciplinary artist, serving as master of ceremonies before a large crowd who assembled Saturday in a Greenwich Village playground.

Five men and women, each missing a shoe and encumbered with a flashlight in one hand, came belly down to the ground. They began to crawl along the gritty, unsavory New York City sidewalk, led by a marshal perfuming the air and sweeping the ground before them — and serenaded by a trumpeter playing melancholic riffs. The procession stopped traffic and drew people out of shops and restaurants, wondering what was going on.

Over the next five hours, some 140 people participated — wide-ranging in ages, ethnicity and physical ability — by dragging their bodies block-by-block, relay-style, along a 1.5 mile route through the Village. They traversed past the AIDS Memorial on Greenwich Avenue and under the Washington Arch. Then the collective action culminated at Union Square, with all the participants streaming up the steps, en masse, as the trumpeter and a drummer played “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

The arduous, rebellious, absurdist spectacle was the largest group performance orchestrated by Mr. Pope.L, the Chicago-based veteran of more than 30 international “crawls” over the last four decades. He has used this willful gesture of vulnerability to explore race, class and power.

“Giving up one’s privilege in order to debase oneself is an act that you don’t have to do,” Mr. Pope.L said before the event, called “Conquest.” He is interested in what people can learn by doing — and witnessing — such an action.

Organized by the Public Art Fund, the performance kicked off an exploration of Mr. Pope.L’s career beginning this month, adding exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art (opening Oct. 10) and the Museum of Modern Art (Oct. 21).

The Modern’s exhibition consists of 13 seminal performances and related videos and objects by Mr. Pope.L, from 1978 to 2001, which were recently acquired by the museum. At the Whitney, which had bestowed the 2017 Bucksbaum Award and its accompanying $100,000 to the artist, Mr. Pope.L will offer a new immersive sound and sculptural installation, titled “Choir, ” its roots in the water crisis in Flint, Mich. An upside-down water fountain evoking Jim Crow-era segregation will intermittently gush 800 gallons of water into a tank, its sound amplified and mixed in with 1930s field recordings of African-American choirs singing spirituals.

“The idea of the public fountain as a point of congregation echoes with what’s literally happening on the street,” said Christopher Lew, the curator of the Whitney’s show, during the performance of “Conquest.”

This trifecta of performances and exhibitions places the work of Mr. Pope.L, a provocateur who’s long worked in the margins of New York’s civic spaces, at the nerve center of the art world.

“There’s this image of struggle and contradiction I’m interested in,” said the affable, rangy 64-year-old artist, during a walk last month along part of the crawl route. He chose the Village, now among the most expensive and exclusive neighborhoods in the city, for its layered history — the place where blacks could intermarry and own land as far back as Dutch colonization; where artists and poets and musicians congregated in its more bohemian era; where the tragedy of the AIDS crisis was localized.

“Pope.L sees the paradox of this abjection happening in the context of Greenwich Village,” said Nicholas Baume, the director and chief curator of the Public Art Fund. He conceded that a performance centered on denigration could “sound like a pretty un-fun day out.” But the theatricality and community achieved along the path, Mr. Baume said, created “a wonderful mix of protest and pathos and humor and humanity.”

Born in Newark, Mr. Pope.L attended graduate school at Rutgers in the late ’70s, with an interest in experimental theater. He was first inspired to do a crawl by the prevalence of homeless people sleeping on city streets and in tunnels, including members of his own family at the time. He imagined “all those folks, who seemed inert and unwilling to lift themselves up by their bootstraps, starting to move as one.” By stubbornly refusing to give up their horizontality, he said, they “have this energy of moving forward.”

Early on, he was unable to convince others to join him. “I didn’t realize it was going to be such a big ask,” he said.

The MoMA exhibition will open with an image of the artist in a business suit striking out alone on his hands and knees in his first crawl through Times Square in 1978.

“People got pissed off because I’m black,” said Mr. Pope.L, who drew the curiosity and consternation of passers-by and authorities. “If you’re not drunk, if you’re not ill, if you’re not crawling to Jesus, what are you doing?”

A documentary video of his 1991 crawl around the perimeter of Tompkins Square Park — by this time, the artist had shifted to a more grueling, military-style crawl using just his forearms — shows a young African-American man, also in a suit, becoming irate that another black man would intentionally put himself in such a position. It led to a very intense, almost violent exchange.

For “The Great White Way, 22 Miles, 5 years, 1 Street,” Mr. Pope.L crawled the length of Broadway from the tip of Manhattan to the Bronx, in segments, from 2001 to 2009, wearing a Superman costume. “He’s constantly putting pressure on these symbols of success and aspirational behavior,” said Stuart Comer, the chief curator of MoMA’s department of media and performance, who organized the museum’s upcoming show.

As an observer on Saturday, Mr. Comer pointed out that “‘Conquest’ plays with how polarized the country is at this moment and what it means to try to create a space of assembly.” He added, “It’s about togetherness and the falling apart of the social fabric at the same time.”

The artist designed T-shirts substituting the S in the Superman logo with a backward C as part of the costume for the participants in “Conquest.” He incorporated the blindfold and flashlight used in his 2011 group crawl in Göteborg, Sweden, and introduced music, scent and the relay format for the first time. “It sets up the individual-group dynamic much more vividly,” he said.

More than 480 people responded to the Public Art Fund’s open call, from which the artist selected 140 with an eye to the greatest possible diversity. Several people crawled with their wheelchairs in tow. When 6-year-old Silas Kraus, who crawled with his grandfather, completed his segment, he excitedly asked the artist what the prize was.

“The prize can be a little bit elusive,” Mr. Pope.L responded with amusement.

Daniel Blanco Melo, a 33-year-old scientist from Mexico, heeded the artist’s instruction to each participant to choose a style of crawling that would be most challenging. Mr. Melo started on his back and did a kind of elbow crab walk; he finally flipped over, drenched in sweat but exhilarated. “I’m not a U.S. citizen, but I really do love the city, so what better idea than to actually kiss the floor in New York,” he said.

Annie Leist, a 45-year-old artist who is sight impaired, crawled holding her white cane as an added degree of difficulty. “You really felt the experience of being this soft mass of human body on the hardness and roughness of the sidewalk,” said Ms. Leist. She found it physically more difficult than anticipated but felt buoyed by people cheering her on. “It wasn’t a race but it was sort of a competition with yourself,” she added.

Mr. Pope.L dispensed a bear hug to each crawler who mounted the podium at Union Square. “Everyone who participated goes home with their own story about what happened,” he said. “It’s a fantasy about community and making things O.K., no matter what shadows fall.”

Sahred From Source link Arts

from WordPress http://bit.ly/2M6qwWF via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

0 notes