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sprout-fics · 2 months

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Yarrow in Bloom

(Arthur Morgan x Reader)

Rating: Explicit (MDNI) Wordcount: 13.5k Tags: Angst, Fluff, Female Reader, Flashbacks, Blood/Injury, Vaginal sex, Slowburn, Hurt/Comfort, Happy ending, The only thing I'll write for RDR2 I swear, (doesn't post for months, drops 13k, leaves)

Summary: You lose him. He finds you. Despite everything, you still love him.

The sun sets quickly north of Annesburg, golden resplendent twilight of the mountains soaking your lonely mountain cabin in long shadows of citrine and amber where the evening wind sweeps through the aging firs. The old creak of wood floorboards under your feet is a familiar echo to the solitude of your existence, here on the fringes of the rapidly dwindling frontier you call home. The logs in your fireplace crack, the stew inside offering a slow simmer of venison and wild carrots that curls through the air of the cabin in a beckoning whisper.

You ignore it, instead standing by the window and watching the long shadows of autumn dance through the clearing outside. Quiet, you listen to the bird calls of a wilderness tamed by human hands.

There’s something about evenings like this that invoke memories of the past, have them wrap their slender arms around your shoulders and murmur through your thoughts with the aching sound of regret, of a hope since lost.

It’s in your reverie you spot the shadow that flickers through the underbrush.

Your heart doesn’t hammer as you set down the tin cup in your hands, gently deposit the shawl from your shoulders on the back of your chair. Rather, it’s with practiced ease that you reach for the rifle next to your door, slinking against the wall next to the window and carefully peering outside to watch the creeping intruder who dares to sneak up on your isolated homestead.

It’s minutes before he emerges, slowly, like a panther creeping through the brush. All muscle and subtle movement, crouched low and placing every footstep carefully, deliberately against the fir needle earth. There’s a kerchief drawn up over his mouth and nose, a tightness to his shoulder that speaks less of rigidity and more of decades of experience, a life hard lived and a youth far gone. He moves quickly, silently, moving from the underbrush to the side of your stable, and from there you watch him peek his head out from behind the corner.

Then, he lifts his eyes to the fading light.

and you know.

Like the thunderclap of gunfire, the air in your chest is punched from your lungs in one solid exhale, legs weakening as the ghosts of years past stalk and whisper at the surface of your mournful soul. In your memories the blue of his eyes sparkles like the sky over the Heartlands, a cloudless joy of something hopeful, intangible, looking ever west towards a distant future he holds cupped in his palms.

The front door of your cabin creaks loudly as you step outside, your voice carrying like a clarion across the clearing.

“Are you here to rob me, Arthur Morgan?”

- - -

“There’s someone I want you to meet.”

You eye Hosea uneasily as he sits next to you at the saloon in Armadillo, where the dry desert heat bakes the back of your neck and the sun carves scorching paths into the dusty ground outside. The cash from the bounty you turned in but an hour ago burns in your pocket- a fact not unnoticed by the gunslinger beside you with gray dotting his temples.

Still, he’d been kind enough to buy you a drink upon spotting you, and rather than arouse suspicion you accepted his offer of conversation with the both of you seated towards the back of the saloon. He’d told you of his travels, sparse in details in a way you’d come to recognize from conmen. Yet underneath there lay a sincerity, a gleam in his eyes that spoke less of sinister intentions and more of genuine curiosity.

“That so.” You drawl, finishing the warm beer in your hand and setting it back on the table with a thunk. Hosea huffs a laugh at you, bemused if anything else, but makes a low hum of assent anyways.

“I’ll compensate you for your time, of course.” He goes on, eyes remaining focused on you even as you avoid his gaze. “Simply to hear us out. If you decide you’re not interested, then at least I have had the pleasant experience of your company.”

Spinning a yarn. Silver tongue. A viper hidden in the underbrush.

You open your mouth to say you aren’t interested when the saloon doors swing open and Hosea sits up to regard the newest guests.

“There they are!” He crows triumphantly, beckoning over the two men who catch sight of their companion instantly- pausing to eye you over from a distance with an equal amount of suspicion. “Gentlemen, come meet my new friend here.”

The older one, a man with slicked back, jet hair and a curling smile is the first to speak.

“Hosea.” He greets before turning his attention to you. “and...?”

His smile only broadens when you mumble your name, and for some reason it reminds you of a wolf lingering at the edge of a campfire. Hungry. Watching.

“A pleasure to meet your acquaintance.” He offers smoothly, easing into the seat on your other side even as the younger man behind him lingers, standing. “Arthur, take a seat.”

It’s only then that you turn your attention towards him, pausing, blinking as you catch sight of his glinting steel gaze. He’s young. Slightly younger than you, perhaps. Yet there’s a set to his jaw that speaks less of boyishness and more of persistence, a stubbornness that comes with youth as much as it comes with the lives you both lead.

He’s handsome.

“Arthur Morgan.” He tells you, voice firm but eyes locked on yours. Unblinking. Blue like a Sunday morning where the missionary church bells ring.

- - -

“I’ll be damned.”

Arthur lowers the kerchief from his face as he stands from the bushes, hands above his head and holding his pistol in an open grip. He doesn’t seem to look at the rifle in your hands, looking past its sight with wide eyed, astonished wonder at your face.

When he says your name, it feels like the first time.

Your chest aches.

You don’t say anything. You’re not sure if you can. What do you say to someone you lost? Someone you loved, only for them to leave?

When Arthur looks at you, his eyes are sad. You watch his lips part, words forming on his tongue, before his jaw flexes shut and he decides against it.

The setting sun catches on his hair. You remember the sensation of it between your fingers when you kissed him.

You lower the gun. There’s a scrape in your throat when you speak.

“You can hitch your horse inside the stable there.” You offer quietly, turning so he can’t see the bitterness in your eyes. “There’s...soup on the stove.”

You feel his eyes burn into your back as you turn away, leaving the door open behind you and waiting just inside. There’s a moment where you think maybe he’ll go back the way he came, will mount his horse and ride off into the setting sun the way he did all those years ago. Maybe that will be the end of your story, maybe then your ghosts will be put to rest.

There’s a whistle as he calls for his mare, a jangle of reins as he leads it to the barn.

You swallow the sob in your throat.

- - -

It’s late. Midnight engulfs the camp seated outside Armadillo, where the endless expanse of stars glimmers above the dark desert. The distant, pale light of the moon rises over distant bluffs just as coyotes raise their wayward cries towards the open skies. You’ve never had a home, not truly. On nights like this, it feels pretty damn close.

The firelight dances against your features as you sit at the scout fire, crackling low as cottonwood smoke curls upwards. You huddle under your jacket, the night breeze slithering across your nape as you idly read the book before you. The pages are frayed, torn at the edges with dog-ears that speak of the years spent lost in the words between.

Across from you sits Arthur. Watching. Contemplating. Neither of you lax enough to sleep in each other’s presence just yet. Gazes glinting, shoulders stiff- two wild animals at the same watering hole, waiting for the other to give an excuse to bare your fangs. You hear the howl of wild creatures in his flinty stare.

You try to ignore his eyes on you, but given that everyone else is asleep you find yourself unable to tolerate his terse silence for long.

“What?” You sigh at last, closing your book to scowl at him. Arthur only shrugs noncommittally.

“Nothin’.” He grumbles back despite his crossed arms, and avoids your eyes as they lock on him. It’s strangely petulant, his jaw set tight despite his feigned nonchalance.

In the silence that follows, you spot the journal by his side.

Your eyes flick to his fingers tapping on the inside of his elbow, and inwardly you feel something clever curl inside your stomach.

“Is that a journal?” You ask, watching him stiffen imperceptibly. Yet his eyes glance at you, glinting from the flames.

“...Somethin’ like that.”

You feel a smile tug at the corner of your mouth, bending towards your saddlebag beside you to withdraw a worn, leather-bound notebook. When you look back at Arthur, he’s leaning forward with interest.

“Funny.” You offer, and rather than display your notebook’s contents you lean back smugly and begin to write to yourself, enjoying the look of perplexity that flashes across his features.

“Are you...writing about me?” He asks, baffled.

“Mhm.” You chirp pleasantly. “All the horrible, nasty things I thought when I first laid eyes on you, Morgan.”

He barks a laugh loud enough to make you jump, and it sounds like the howl of coyotes singing to the moon.

- - -

The door creaks as he stands on the threshold, and the autumn air sweeps inside to tickle the flames in the hearth. You stand before it, quiet, faced away from him so he can’t see the heartache in your eyes.

There’s words on your tongue that you refuse to speak. Anger, betrayal, hurt, and most of all heartache. You want to go to him, to fold into his chest and beg to know why. The cold, bitter wind of growing winter has frosted over your heart long ago when you made a vow to live the life you always wanted- a life of peace.

You only thought maybe it would have been with him.

When he says your name again, it feels like an arrow piercing your soul. You remember the way he whispered it against your skin, the way he bellowed it amidst a hail of gunfire, the way he spoke it against your lips like the confession of a sin.

“You must be hungry.” and oh how you hate the way your voice trembles, the way your hands shake as you fetch him a plate. He stands unmoved, as if torn between staying and retreating. You feel it the same inside you. Begging him to remain, to give you just a few more minutes of his presence in hopes you can once more feel his love for you. Chasing him away, screaming, crying, the wild animal he loves in you, saying goodbye for the final time even though you know it will break you.

Yet when you look at him at last, when you look into those beloved blue eyes, you see the pain there, the regret, and you know.

He loves you even now.

- - -

“You can do better than that, Morgan, c’mon!”

Your knife finds the tree trunk just as John hollers from his seat behind you two, Hosea and Dutch leaning not far from him. If you were to turn, you’d see the broad smile on his sunburnt face shaded by his hat.

Arthur ignores him pointedly, focusing instead on the ‘WANTED’ poster of his likeness pinned to the tree in front of you both. Two of your own blades stick from it, while only one of Arthur’s lodges itself near the bottom.

“He’s right, Arthur.” Hosea calls, lifting his coffee back to his lips. “Don’t take it easy on her.”

“I’m not!” Arthur snaps back over his shoulder, before turning and throwing his knife, only for the handle to bounce off the trunk. Behind him, John whistles.

“Gettin’ sloppy Morgan.”

“Says the man who can’t keep it in his pants.” Arthur grumbles lowly beside you, and you laugh before raising your own blade once more and throw your blade forward with devastating accuracy- landing square between his eyes on the poster. Dutch’s laughter erupts behind you.

“If I hadn’t known better, I’d say you had a vendetta against our sharpshooter here.”

You twirl another blade in your grip, shooting a cat-like grin to the outlaw beside you, who levies an even gaze at you. You can see his eyes sparkle. Your heart thumps wildly in your chest.

“Y’know Dutch? I’m inclined to agree with you.” Arthur voices, and this time his knife finds a notch just behind his throat.

“There we go!” John shouts, leaning forward in his seat. “Didn’t think you’d let a girl beat you, Arthur.”

This time, your knife lodges itself into the earth at his feet, and John yelps and curses before looking down towards the dirt. A scorpion lays pinned under your blade, inches away from his boot.

Dutch explodes into laughter behind him, clapping loudly enough to make the horses startle.

You grin at Arthur, who dips his head respectfully. Even then, you see the mischief playing on his lips.

Distantly, you wonder what they would feel like against your own.

- - -

There’s silence as you both sit at your table.

What words are there to say? How do you say ‘I still love you’ to the person you lost, to the person you have said goodbye to? All these years you’ve done your best to forget him, to start anew, to convince yourself Arthur was dead and to mourn him. Even when you’d seen news of the gang in the papers you’d told yourself Arthur was not among them, that he was out west where he belonged, to the place where he always felt free.

Arthur sits with his hands folded, head tilted down so you can’t see his eyes past the brim of his hat. He’s less clean shaven now, rugged and older in a way that becomes him. Handsome still, you think with your chest aching. Hollow, just like the life you once led.

“I thought...” He says at last, voice tight, refusing to look you in the eyes.

You remember that night on the mountain, in the forest. You remember the smell of blood, the pain, the tears and the barest whisper of your voice when you called for him.

He looks at you at last, eyes sad.

You remember when he left you.

- - -

He catches you at the riverbank at dawn.

You sneak away from camp before sunrise, tiptoeing past the scout campfire and down the hill towards the river before anyone else can wake. The water is still, tenebrous and velvet as you slip bare into the gentle current, shivering as your arms wrap around your naked form. Smoothed pebbles knock against your feet as you wade deeper, soap in hand as you try to accustom yourself to the chill.

You vanish under the water for a moment, holding your breath down in the dark, liquid silence as the water closes in overhead. For a moment you’re buoyed gently by the river that washes over your limbs with a tender grazing touch, your heartbeat the only melody to your quiet existence. You emerge only a moment later with a gasp, shivering and hugging your arms tight around yourself to retain a fraction of warmth.

You rub your eyes clear of water, glancing back to the shore-

and find Arthur staring back at you.

The scream that erupts your throat is silenced by your own hand, and in a flash you vanish back up to your chin, ignoring the cold water and staring venomously at the gunslinger who immediately coughs and averts his eyes.

“Heard uh...uh commotion.” He tried to justify, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the scout campfire where he’d been dozing. “Thought maybe-”

“-That you’d what? Come sneak a peek?” You snarl, and you expect him to flinch, to bow his head, to look even mildly ashamed. Instead, Arthur smiles.

“Only if you��re offering.”

You feel your face warm, and quickly you send a splash of water that falls just short of his feet.

“Woah there.” He chuckles, holding up his hands placatingly. “I thought maybe some bandit was tryin’ to steal you off. Didn’ expect to find myself a mermaid.”

You snort. “What, you thought you’d come and rescue me?”

“Depends. You need rescuing?”

“Do I look like I need rescuing?”

Arthur’s smile tugs further at his mouth. “Not necessarily.”

“Then piss off, Arthur.”

Arthur huffs a laugh, and in doing so he shows his teeth. A coyote baring its fangs.

“Pardon me then, ma’am.”

You glower at him as he retreats a short distance, posting up by a tree nearby before lighting a cigarette. The match flame dances across his rugged features.

“What are you doing?”

Arthur doesn’t glance back at you, but flicks the match off into the bushes. “Still bandits about. Can’t have them stealing one of our best shooters bare-ass naked.”

You huff. “I think bandits are the least of my concern.”

Arthur puffs on his cigarette. “Course not, not while I’m here.”

“That’s my point.”

You can see the grin tug at his mouth, but he doesn’t answer, doesn’t turn. Eventually, when he doesn’t go away, you’re forced to go back to scrubbing, never once letting your eyes dart away from him. Yet when you dunk underwater once again to rinse the rest of your suds away and surface once more...

He’s gone.

- - -

“The others?” You ask, voice hoarse, and Arthur flexes his jaw. There’s an apology, or something akin to it building on his lips. You aren’t ready.

“We...lost some a few weeks back.” He begins. “We had a job in Blackwater that...”

You know how it goes. Dutch’s ambition was too great for his execution. You knew there would come a day when the gods of fortune would disown him. You never knew why he couldn’t see it, too blind, loyal to a fault.

“Pinkertons chased us over the mountains. Somewhere along the way we lost Davey and Jenny.”

You close your eyes at that. You’d liked Jenny, for the scant amount of time you’d spent with her in the gang. She was a sweet girl, too soft for the life you had lived then.

“John?” You ask quietly. Arthur pauses before he huffs a mirthless laugh.

“Bastard nearly got himself eaten by wolves. He’s alive. You should have seen the way Abigail tore into him. For a minute I thought it would have been better to leave him out there.”

You smile at that, the first smile you’ve had for a long time.

“Hosea is gettin’ on, but he’s as whip smart as ever.” Arthur goes on, and you see the tension begin to unspool from his shoulders. The love he has for his family is real, his loyalty to them more sacred than anything else.

Even you.

“and Jack- he’s growing so fast. He was just a baby when-”

He stops. Dares not echo the sin he’s committed. You don’t look away from him, refuse to break away from his blue eyes. The truth of the past, of what he did, of the oath he broke to you is etched across your face, in the bitterness in your eyes.

You wonder if he went back, if he would do it all over again. If he would leave you for this life of his, if he would break his promise to you one more time. This life of his, the life that was once yours, so full of violence and pain that in the end it left you alone, dying and wishing for him to return to you, begging God for the moment where he would kiss you once more.

You suppose, in the end, it was how it was supposed to be.

- - -

Whiskey stings against your tongue, the bite of it like teeth against the soft flesh of your throat. It feels like wood smoke and embers, a bite of rawness that your savor just like the untamed wilderness you’ve come to imbue inside your soul. You’ve yet to fully scrub the blood from your jacket, and if anything it adds to the flavor of violence, of brutality that marks the nature of this life you lead.

Yet Arthur’s laughter beside you fills the emptiness, brings with it the sound of rain against parched earth. It fills your soul, lifts you, and you hold it secret lest it be mistaken for weakness.

You look at him, at the way his mouth pulls sideways when he laughs. Lopsided, boyish, alive in this life without apology. Your heartbeat pulses low in your ears, a distant drum over the prairie where thunderclouds roil against the horizon. Fear is a thing that’s always existed inside you. The shadow of it drove you to a life of savagery- freedom as Arthur would call it.

In the firelight of his smile, you feel it wane low against your heart.

- - -

“I guess nothing has changed much then.” You offer in the silence that follows, your words layered with a meaning that has Arthur’s eyes flickering. “Trying to find the next big score, chased by the law, living life the way it’s supposed to be.”

“We’re living.” Arthur snaps back, shoulders tense once more, like an animal you’ve wandered too close to. Your mouth is a firm line when he looks at you, and he softens once more.

In the silence, multitudes remain unspoken.

There’s a part of you that wants to scream still, that wants to shriek like a wild thing, ignoring the tears that build in your eyes and curse him to the grave. The ghosts that linger beneath your gaze howl for reprieve, but in the end all you see in Arthur is a despair, a pain more alive than he is. It’s mirrored in your soul, in the ghost of you, the shell of yourself you’ve kept alive these years without him.

You want to kiss him, to let his arms wrap around you as you sob into his chest, in the only place that’s ever felt like home. You want to beg and plead for him to stay, to go back to that moment on that stormy night if only for the chance he would not abandon you once more.

You wonder, why despite it all, you still love him.

- - -

Fresh flowers, tucked into the bag of your saddle. You blink at them, feeling heat rush to your face just as John whistles beside you. You shove at him a little too hard- embarrassed, annoyed somehow at him witnessing the gesture, and John curses at you under his breath, bad tempered and juvenile. You don’t hear him, fingers tracing the red button blossoms.

Yarrow. You’ve seen Hosea put it in his mortar and pestle, grind them into a paste he swears does good for his heart. You wonder if Arthur knows as much, knows that the flowers he’s chosen convey so much without words.

You hide them before anyone else can see them, face warm and heart fluttering. You hide your smile when Dutch calls to you, tells both you and Arthur to ride over the horizon in sight of your next target. Even when you and Arthur mount up, your horses’ hooves thundering against the ground just as a storm brews on the horizon of the prairie, you hide the smile blossoming against your lips. You see his smirk tugging his mouth as he rides beside you. Knowing, mischievous.

While he sleeps, you press the flowers into your journal.

- - -

So what now?

Now that you’re both here, alive, regret the only thing you own in the presence of each other- what path leads forward? Is this a greeting, or a goodbye? Maybe it’s both- a chance to finally close the door on the person you were before, a farewell to the man you know will not change.

“I thought you were dead.” Arthur breathes at last, eyes full of emotion you dare not name. “I went back to look for you- nearly got shot more times than I could count. I took weeks to look for you but I never...”

He swallows, throat bobbing.

“Dutch told me to give up. They needed me. I wanted to keep looking but we had to move east. I told myself I’d go back but-”

The same as you, you think. Convincing yourself the other was dead just to avoid the heartache of a life apart from each other.

“I got picked up by some missionaries.” You mumble, looking down into your hands to avoid Arthur seeing your wet eyes. “They took care of me, nursed me, didn’t ask any questions or anything. When I finally was healed I-”

I couldn’t bear to look for you. Not after you left me.

“Sweetheart, I-”

“Don’t.” You snap sharply, emotion cracking at the cage of your ribs, and when you look up the tears finally spill over, eyes brimming with the anger and despair that has haunted you all these years. You stand sharply, the chair falling behind you so loud it sounds like thunder. “You don’t- don’t get to call me that. Not anymore.”

Arthur looks wounded, and there’s a sick curl of satisfaction inside of you at seeing his pain, at seeing the guilt you wish he’s always had for what he did. Yet his eyes are open, the color in them a touch darker, like a summer thunderstorm like washes the earth clean.

When he speaks, it’s scarcely a whisper. A confession you’ve hoped for all these years, and now rings hollow inside your chest.

“I never stopped loving you, darlin.”

- - -

“Stay still.” You snap, and Arthur hisses through his teeth as you dab at the wound with alcohol, like the snake that bit him. Venom in his veins, cured only by a tonic of wild yarrow and ginseng that blossoms bright in the summer sun. He’s broken out in a cold sweat as his body fights the poison, face ashen and shivering as he clenches his jaw tight enough to pop.

He clenches and unclenches his hand, sitting wide and forcing a breath through his shivering shoulders. You raise a hand to wipe sweat from his brow and he catches it on instinct when you get too close, like a bear trap springing closed. You’re ready to snarl back at him, all teeth and fangs, when Arthur pulls you closer instead.

You think it’s the venom that has his eyes dancing with a strange sort of light- a coyote snapping its teeth at something in the tall grass. He licks his lips as he leans closer, wound forgotten as he bends towards you.

Poison, you think, as he kisses you for the first time. Poison of the sweetest kind, aching and open and desperate as he shivers fully against you- as you knock the hat from his head and loop your arms around his neck as if he’ll dare to part from you. You swallow him down fully, heedless of the venom, of the fever he possesses just for you, of the starving thing that hollows out both of your souls, only to be filled by the other.

- - -

Despite yourself, despite everything, you fold.

It begins like a distant rainstorm, the soft mist of rain against the earth. You swallow a sob despite the tears against your face, despite the urge to hold it all in. Showing weakness was how this story began. It was how he left you.

Your weakness has always been him.

A sob startles loose from your chest, and you vainly press your palms to your eyes as if it can contain your tears. Anger, despair, hopelessness but above all else longing for the things you lost, for the time you had with him, for the things you did just to stay with him.

You hate him, hate yourself, hate the things you both lived for even if it kept you alive just to be with each other. You want to go back to the sunny day where he kissed you under the open sky and confessed his love for you against your lips. You want to banish him and scream into your solitude, you want to go back to a time where you never knew him. You want him to never leave you again.

Wordless cries, desperate noises from the broken thing that’s resided in you all this time, and all at once you’re swallowed up by his arms. He presses you to his chest and you try to fight him, you do, but Arthur holds you despite your struggles, hushes you as he hugs you to him like he’ll never let you go again.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers against you as you fall apart, as you shatter into pieces that have been held together by string all this time. It’s the words you’ve wished for all this time but it doesn’t matter anymore. He’s here, and you hate yourself for allowing yourself to weep into his arms despite your promises you never would again.

Then again, you’ve both been fools from the very start.

- - -

You don’t see the third coach guard crouched on the floor.

Wet, warm breaths cling to the fabric against your nose and chin, sweat beading your forehead as you peek out from behind the tree to check for any remaining gunmen. Corpses litter the ground on the country road, the horses whinnying frantically as shouts call out between the group of you. The scent of blood, of gunpowder is a familiar aura to you by now. It cloaks itself around you, drapes its skeletal arms about your shoulders and whispers a tender embrace of death.

You stare into the barrel of a rifle, eyes wide.

Death does not lend itself to you when the shot rings out- not his.

From the tree beside you, Arthur’s pistol smokes, the bullet having found its mark.

Your heart hammers too loudly, too close to keep it silent from him you think. It feels lodged in your throat, something akin to a scream, a sigh stuck there unable to release. Arthur’s eyes are flinty from above his bandanna, steel blue like platinum, like a blade so sharp it slices through your ribs and inward towards your soul.

You try to speak, all you can manage is a nod.

“You okay?” He asks, breathless, weapon still raised. Your hands shake.

“Fine.” Your voice is calmer than it should be. “...Thank you.”

Arthur shrugs, but his eyes don’t leave you, not for a long while.

“Let’s get this done!” Dutch calls, voice cracking with his volume as he darts towards the lockbox. You wait until Arthur goes after him to follow, unsteady on your feet.

You pass by the guard in the coach, halfway hanging out of the window, a red dribbling from the center of his head.

His eyes reflect you.

- - -

“I waited for you.” You sob, fingers gripping his shirt and bunching the fabric between your fists. “You told me you’d come back. You said-”

“I know.” Arthur soothes, voice cracking as you sniffle into his chest. “I’m sorry.”

“I told myself you were dead. When you didn’t come back, I told myself you died if only to spare myself the pain. I wanted-” You sob.

I wanted you to be dead rather than live a life without me.

There’s an ache inside you fit to burst, a seed planted the moment he kissed you goodbye with false promises of a reunion. It blossoms scarlet in eulogy, painting your remembrance in washes of crimson cast aphotic upon your soul. You want to burrow yourself inside its thorny stems where he can’t touch you, resign yourself to solitude in vain hope it will dull the pain.

Yet Arthur holds you, cradles you in his arms like a fawn hidden in the goldenrod where you empty yourself of cries, confessing to him the seed of grief he planted all those years ago.

“You’re okay.” He whispers into your hair, and his embrace nearly squeezes the air from your lungs with how tight he gathers you close to him. “I’m here.”

“I’m here.”

- - -

You awake with a gasp, back bowing off your bedroll and eyes wide with sightless terror. Your fingers curl into your blanket, a whimper bubbling up your throat. In the vision that plagues you, your hands are dipped red, holding a bloody rifle pointed at the eyes of the stagecoach guard. He reaches for you with a wet gurgle, offers a damnation that shivers under your skin and sinks into your bones.

His eyes reflect you.

Hands land on you, press your shoulders back against the ground and you struggle against them on pure instinct, throwing out your curled fist only for it to meet empty air.

“Hey- hey!” A voice whispers harshly above you, weight settling over your hips to pin you down. “Calm- calm down!”

It takes a few moments for the voice to register, and in that time Arthur wrestles your hands above your head in one gloved grip, the other holding your face with a gentle shake until your eyes focus on him.

“It’s me.” He breathes, shoulders heaving, eyes glimmering like stars in the darkness. “Just me.”

You’re shaking, trembling from head to toe as the scent of iron clogs your lungs and you try to think through the haze of terror gripping you. Arthur’s voice cuts through the fog, and you go lax under him. Trusting, sincere, knowing that of all the people in the world, it’s Arthur who will guard you- keep you safe.

“I’m here.” He whispers, softer, dropping his head towards you as you shudder. “You’re okay.”

- - -

“Why did you have to die, only to come back to haunt me?” You ask hoarsely into his chest, nose pressed against his shirt. You remember the feeling of the hair underneath as you traced it under the pads of your fingers.

Arthur is silent, one hand slowly tracing the curve of your spine as long shadows dance through the small, dim interior of your cabin. A single oil lantern casts you both in a yellow glow as sienna fades against the sunset fading west to the place where you both belong. Open, wild, free.

“You’re the ghost I never wanted to see.” You whisper, and Arthur stiffens. Yet you nuzzle closer into his chest. He still smells the same. Tangy sweat, acrid smoke of gunpowder, and beneath- something unshakable, tender, something that feels like home.

“Tell me to leave.” He tells you at last, and he sounds desperate in a way you haven’t heard in so long. “Tell me you hate me. Tell me to go and never come back.”

His hand cradles your head, presses you closer, and you melt further into his hold, into the thing you’ve hated yourself for ever wanting, and you go willingly.

“Tell me.” He says again, voice all wood smoke and pine, a forest campfire against a glimmering expanse of stars.

Yet you’re silent. The voice that holds your protests, your anger feels weak in his embrace, tendered by memory and the touch of him. The rational part of you knows you should, that you should let go of him forever and try to live a life free of violence in pursuit of glory. You know hanging onto Arthur means anchoring yourself to a ship destined to sink to the bottom of the ocean, but the part of you that remembers what it meant to kiss him, to be held by him, to be loved, doesn’t seem to care.

So instead the word that falls from your lips is:

“Stay.”

- - -

“Stay.” You ask him quietly, gripping at his sleeve as if you were a child. Arthur seems frozen to the spot, unbalanced and unsure. His own bedroll lays a short distance away, at the edge of the fire that licks warm against your bare arms. You half expect him to gently withdraw your hand from him, whisper a goodnight and turn with his back towards you. The taste of his lips upon yours those weeks ago lingers, and you wonder if the poison inside of you both has finally quelled the gnawing hunger inside both your souls.

Arthur turns to you, lips parted. You want to steal another kiss from them just as you live your life on thievery- this treasure more precious than all the others. You want to wrap yourself in him like smoke, bathe in the moonlight waters of his gaze and burrow deep into his chest where you’ve made your den. The wilderness of his soul feels inherent to yours, alight with the misty green valleys and towering, ancient forests of which you find yourselves in.

“Stay.” You say again, quieter. Softer. Pleading.

He goes to you, and it feels like a dream of a different nature. It feels like something from a vision, the way he bends to you, raises you to his lips and breathes whiskey onto your tongue.

“Sweetheart.” He whispers there, and you shudder at the slow, sweet drip of his voice onto your tongue. You crane towards him, shivering, too warm, wanting to burn alive in the cinders of his touch.

He kisses you again, harder, more forcefully, a low groan spilling past his lips. You wrap your arms around his neck, drag him down with you into hell, where the sins of the lives you’ve led taste just as sweet as the other upon your tongue.

- - -

“Just for tonight at least.” You whisper hoarsely, fingers gripping at his jacket, nose buried against the worn cotton of his shirt. You know from experience that Arthur’s loyalty runs deep, far too deep for even you to conquer. To ask him to stay is like asking a wild thing to release dying prey from the clutch of its maw. Even if you pry at his jaws and make your fingers bleed he won’t relent. Red from your palms blooms like yarrow under sunlight, and all it does is make his eyes glimmer with an unquenchable hunger.

“I just...you owe me that much.” You go on, and it’s a low blow, one he doesn’t deserve after the time he spent trying to search for you, but you’re selfish just as he is. In this moment you need him, you need him to stay just to call him yours for the scarce time you have together.

Arthur’s arms are still around you. You can hear his heartbeat thump against your cheek as you nuzzle against him. You can hear the hesitation held between his breaths just like the calm before a thunderstorm before it slaps against the space between sky and earth. Silently, you beg whatever god has not deserted you that you can be afforded this much, that you can close your eyes and pretend just for a moment he won’t leave you again.

Finally, Arthur breathes. Rather than speak, you feel the moment he surrenders with the tension bleeding from his shoulders, reaching to tip your chin upwards into his waiting mouth. You go without an ounce of resistance, too tired to fight, to scream, to even feel the tear that escapes the corner of your eye.

“Alrigh’.” Arthur sighs into your lips, and swallows your shuddering breath.

- - -

You’re drunk on the taste of him, on the low moan that rumbles from his chest. You taste endearments on his tongue as he whispers them with low, sinuous tones that make your toes curl. To kiss Arthur is to feel the vibrancy of life itself against your lips. Living without regret, without fear, reckless as he smiles to hail of gunfire and glinting knives. Alive, wild, untamed in a way you can’t seem to manage but want so desperately to be.

Arthur kisses you without any hesitation, without a sense of gentleness. Desperate, wet, noisy as he laps at the inside of your mouth, feeds on the mewl that bubbles up your throat. His teeth find your bottom lip, your jaw, your breast. He finds the pulsing vein of your throat and you wonder if he’ll bite down on that too, let red gush into his mouth if only to quench the hunger inside of him. It’s not enough- it never is. The very act of living isn’t nearly enough for his soul- as endless as the map of the world itself. Neither is the sensation of your blunted nails digging into his shoulders, crawling beneath his shirt and tracing through the coarse hair of his stomach just as his muscles jump under your touch.

The desire of being wanted, of being found, of belonging here is enough to make you fall apart in his arms, where he feasts upon the sin of your flesh. Into your neck he whispers “Darlin’.” Against your bared breasts he growls “Sweetheart.” Between your legs, where his tongue laps against your glistening folds he breathes. “Mine.”

All your life you have wandered in search of somewhere to rest the empty fringes of your heart, to lose yourself in someone else just as the horizon swallows up the setting western sun. If Arthur asked you to open yourself to him, to swear yourself to just him, to follow him into hell itself, you think you would follow just as long as he held your hand.

He kisses the tears of overwhelm from your eyes, and you taste the salt of them upon your lips.

Arthur devours you, and you allow him gladly.

- - -

He takes you to bed, gentle in a way that feels unfamiliar. A younger version of him would have met you with clacking teeth and a bruising grip- overeager, hungry and ferocious all at once. Now Arthur is softer, dulled at the edges like a worn knife. Still sharp enough to leave a jagged wound upon your heart. Every slow, languid kiss melts away at the loneliness that has kept you as your only companion for years. His hands pull carefully at your shawl, your shirt, popping each button with nimble hands trained from years of violence.

He tastes like bourbon, like cigarettes, like sweat and gun oil. Traces of the life he lives beyond the bounds of laws. Your fingers tangle in his overgrown hair, drag him down so he can lick inside your open mouth and pour careless whispers onto your tongue. You want him to surround you, to be inside you, to crack open your ribs and make himself home in the place where he’s always belonged no matter how much it might hurt you.

There’s a need inside you unlike anything else. To call it hunger would be to call a wolf tamed. It cannot be fed no matter how much he indulges you, and with every second he parts to breathe it howls with something primal and ferocious that threatens to bleed him dry. Your teeth snag on his bottom lip and Arthur growls in return, a low rumble of warning you dare not heed.

“I want you like you used to have me.” You pant, bracing his forehead against yours, feeling the sweat build against his nape as he presses you into the wall with his bulky frame. “Like we had nothing else to live for.”

You feel Arthur pause, feel a fission of tension run through his shoulders, his hand curling as it braces on the wall behind you.

“My girl.” He offers then, in a voice that haunts your waking dreams. “Mine.”

- - -

He’s looking west.

The sky arches over both of you, cloudless, azure, open to the horizon in any given direction. Prairie grass tickles your cheeks as you lay beside him, your hand trapped beneath his gun calloused palm. The wind ruffles his hair and in this moment you can’t help but think how alive Arthur looks- sunburned but smiling, wistful in his eyes as he stares at the western sky. Hoping, longing, desiring something you both will never reach.

You reach for him, and wordlessly he goes to you, breathing against your lips as if he would a prayer. Without words you understand each other, through touch alone you convey symphonies of the endless sky and all the hopes wished to it. Arthur kisses you like the wind that carves through the bluffs- wild and beautiful and home.

“My girl.” He rumbles from above you, braced on his elbows as he gazes down at you. You trace the growing lines on his face, of age that finds you both. Proof of the life you’ve both lived, of survival despite brutality and violence for the sake of this thing called freedom.

He is no longer the young man you knew when you found him all those years ago, and you find yourself have changed as well. You’re softer now, aged by the blood on your hands that sinks into your veins and transforms you. Guilt and regret are things that are not allowed to you, not with the sins engraved into your soul. You think the longing for peace is the same thing Arthur feels when he looks west. Freedom of a different kind.

Yet you know too that you’d do it all again for him, for this moment where he kisses you under the beautiful blue sky the same color of his eyes looking ever towards the horizon. In this moment you are happy, you are loved, and you would gladly drown yourself in sin if it means you can stay with him for just a moment longer.

- - -

The scars on him are different now. You trace them under the bare pads of your fingers as he pauses to hold his own between his bared teeth and pull off his gloves. Under him, you lean back to admire the strength in his bare shoulders, the sinewy muscle that lays under a thick thatch of curls that you trace down to his stomach. Arthur shudders above you, braced on his forearms, panting, hair falling into his wild, flinty eyes.

Arthur looks at you like he’s seen a ghost, too transfixed to look away. For a moment his eyes are distant, and you know where his mind goes, to that stormy night atop canyon bluffs where he had held your limp form and begged you for something you could not give.

“Arthur.” You whisper, and the light in his eyes changes. You watch his throat bob, his jaw tighten for a moment before he shudders into you, the bulge in his pants nudging insistently at your thighs, which you spread to either side of him with open invitation. “Arthur.”

He leans down to kiss you again, groaning openly into your mouth. It’s messy- wet and slick as he sucks at your tongue. Brow scrunched, he lets himself fall into you, allows himself the cardinal sin of remembrance amidst betrayal. You welcome him with open arms, knowing despite your fruitless efforts that you were meant to be here, in his embrace.

“You’re going to haunt me for the rest of my days.” He murmurs as his hand strokes the bareness of your inner thigh.

Outside, coyotes howl at the moon.

- - -

The golden glow of the fire casts him in resplendent light. Bare chested, sinewy with taut, lean muscle. His hair has gotten longer, clinging with sweat to his nape and brushed from his eyes. You follow the silvery skin of an old wound from his rib to his side- a shallow knife slash you stitched yourself. As he bends forward you long to knead the soft flesh of his stomach under your palms, trace the line of hair from his navel downwards into his lap where the worn, leather-bound notebook resides under his palms.

You lay on your side, bare under his draped bedroll, watching him sit beside you. He traces your likeness into the pages of his journal, eyes flickering like flames as they dart from you to the paper as if he can’t entirely trust himself to remember the vision of you. The spend of his leaks between your wet thighs, and you know by night’s end he will have added to it, so ravenous is his hunger for you.

“Writing about me?” You ask as he glances up at your face, a knowing smile on your lips.

He hums a low note, raspy in his chest as his mouth tugs into a smirk.

“Horrible, nasty things.” He muses, and you snort.

Your hand travels from under your chin, southward to cup the swell of your breast under his hungry gaze. You catch your lip between your teeth as you moan, watching his eyes glimmer and his hands pause over the pages. Temptation, bait for a wild creature who crawls towards you, over you, smiling into your purring mouth.

“Again.” You tell him without preamble, and you taste his smile against his lips.

- - -

He settles himself above you, all musk and smoke as he rolls his hips against yours in languid, slow thrusts. You feel his shoulders shiver under your bare hands, forehead pressed to yours and every rattling breath fanning across your skin. He’s indulging, gentle, remembering what it was like to have you as his. You wonder if he’s lost the memory of every scar, every dip and curve of your body against his.

The stretch is uncomfortable at first, larger than you remember as you whimper into his neck. A hand braces at your hip, rubs soothing circles into your skin as he angles with slow, powerful motions that drag at the burning need inside of you like a riptide. The tip of him nudges something deep inside you that’s remained untouched since you lost him, and the aftereffect sends coiling pleasure fissuring out along your limbs like gunpowder igniting under your skin.

Your need dribbles out around the plug of his girth, stretching you until your toes curl and you moan openly, baring your neck to his ravenous gaze. Arthur is loud above you, an endless stream of words and noise that burrows warm and viscous into your veins.

“Yeah, that’s it. Fuck- fuck. That’s my girl. So damn pretty.” He huffs, voice catching something low and rough in his chest. He moans long and loud as you clench up around him, gritting his teeth as his hips stutter for a moment- exhaling long through his nose. “Not gonna last if you tighten up like that, sweetheart.”

Cheeky, you flex down on him again and the noise that drops from his mouth is sinful. It only lengthens his thrusts, bracing himself so he can fuck down into you, his tip nudging your slick walls that grip him with every retreat. The pace is enough to drive you mad, gripping at him until bruises are sure to form along his skin. You want to leave a memory of you there, want to mark him so that when he leaves he’ll remember you for just a little longer.

and quietly, despite yourself, you hope he stays.

- - -

On the third dawn of your long ride with Arthur, you awake tangled in his arms, legs entwined with his as the low, blue glow of sunrise softly colors the sky above. The fire has burned down to cinders, and the cool bite of morning against your bare skin has you cuddle all the closer to him, listening to his sleepy groan as he rouses.

He whispers good morning against your soft lips, and in return you smile against the corner of his mouth. Arthur tastes like sweat and sunshine, like something wonderful and wild that you can never truly wrap your hands around despite the yearning inside you.

You should rise along with the sun, should pack up camp and continue on this scouting mission Dutch has sent you both on. You’ve taken long enough, should have been heading back days ago, but instead you find yourself here, tangled in each other's arms as the low, azure hues of dawn settle over your bare forms.

Arthur seems to think the same, because when you try to wiggle out of his arms, reach for your haphazardly shed clothes, his arms only fasten around you all the tighter, nose buried against your collarbone.

“Stay.”

For him? Always.

- - -

There’s tears brimming in your eyes. From the overwhelm of sensation as Arthur gently tugs one of your nipples between his teeth, from the sharp stab of memory between your ribs, you aren’t entirely sure. They well hot in your eyes, your voice caught between a sob and a moan, legs trembling as you press your heels into his back.

Arthur’s blue eyes fasten on you, look up at your knotted brow and trembling lip as he softens at the seams, takes your face in his hands and turns you up to him.

“Darlin’.” He rumbles, syrupy and sweet like the warm bite of bourbon. His lips descend to the corner of your fluttering eyes, drinking in the salt from your wounds laid bare beneath him.

“Arthur.” You whisper, voice cracking on the sound. It hurts, you think, somewhere deep inside of you, but the pain is buried by the sensation of him inside you, above you, around you, engulfing you like a tidal wave out to shore where all your reservations drown in the deep.

You kiss him, salt upon his tongue, melting into him. It’s what you’ve always wanted. It’s the place you thought you belonged for so long. In this moment, it’s the only thing you’ll ever have.

Arthur’s gun calloused hand slides down to the meat of your thigh, hauls you up so your calf is pressed against his shoulder and you moan, the new angle allowing him to press deeper inside you. It’s all you can do to cling to him as Arthur resumes his pace, whimpers bubbling up your throat as he leans back and begins to truly fuck you, grunting and groaning, words incoherent.

“Fuck- fuck beautiful. Feel so fuckin’ good, so pretty.” He pants, pausing to suck a bite into your calf which has you bow off the bed with a yelp. “Yeah, that’s it. Lemme hear you, honey.”

“Arthur-” You moan in return, and if it’s a plea or a prayer you aren’t sure. Everything feels too warm, too bright, nerves narrowing down to the feeling of him inside you, the press of his public bone into your clit as he claims you like you’re his.

You remember this. You remember the snarling, wet kisses and bruised lips and the feral sensation of it all, two wild things in the wilderness lost except for each other.

and, quietly, you find the words within you to say:

“I love you.”

- - -

He takes you there under the open blue sky, tucked away in an aspen grove where a vixen barks nearby. Sunshine fills your head, golden and honey-sweet as you laugh under him, his teeth nibbling against your neck where you can feel his smile. You’re wasting time, laying in the sun bare and uncaring, wrapped in each other, and you can’t think of any place you’d rather be than here.

Arthur braces on his arms suddenly, twisting off to the side and hauling your bare leg over his hip. You think for a moment he’ll slide inside you again, but instead Arthur pauses. Thinking, eyes distant.

“I...” he tries at first, suddenly hoarse. There’s an emotion in his stare you don’t have words for. His scraped knuckles brush your cheek. “I love you.”

You blink, caught off guard, eyes wide with wonderful realization that blossoms like yarrow under rising summer sun.

“You...I...” He tries again, at a loss. “Hell, I’ve never been good with words sweetheart, I-”

You lean forward, brush your lips with his. It silences him with a little noise of surprise, a breathless sort of shudder that trembles through the sinew of his shoulders.

“I love you, Arthur Morgan.” You whisper, fingers stroking through his sweat damp hair. “I love you.”

He grins, and you feel your chest flutter helplessly, surrendering completely to him.

“My girl.” He rumbles, lips descending to yours again as sunshine abounds inside your heart.

- - -

“I love you.” You say again, holding his face as Arthur pants into your mouth, chasing his release just as he chases yours. “Despite everything, I love you.”

His forehead drops to yours, tongues entwined as he groans into your mouth, lost in the haze. You can still taste the salt of your tears, and you wonder if Arthur allowed himself, if perhaps he’d cry too. For the regret of leaving you, for the pain of losing you, for the years spent without you, for this moment where you both pretend like this will be the rest of your lives.

“Gonna fill you up.” He growls, teeth catching on your lip. “Let me. Let me, please darlin. I want-”

“Tell me you love me.” You manage between gasps, hands tangled in his hair, hauling him down against you, legs locked around his hips to prevent any thoughts of escape. “Say it.”

“I love you. I love you. Fuck, honey- I love you. I’ve wanted you all this time, needed you-” Arthur babbles, hips stuttering. You can feel him twitch inside you, and you cant your hips up to meet him just as Arthur curses, leans back to rub a calloused thumb over your clit and your body sings. Lightning fractures your spine, the pressure building so fast and overwhelming you can hardly choke out a warning of your impending orgasm before it begins to crest.

“Cum fr’me, c’mon.” Arthur growls, jaw grinding as he thrusts into you with the beginning throes of his release. “C’mon sweetheart lemme feel it, need to feel it, c’mon- oh fuck-”

You sob as you finally cum, legs shaking as the pressure recoils taut through your muscles and spreads warm along your limbs. Your ears are ringing from the force of it, so severe and sudden it’s all you can do but to hang on to Arthur as he grinds his thumb into your clit, working you through it, punches the final few thrusts inside of you with a whine bitten off at the back of his throat.

“Good girl- damn. Good girl, my girl. So good fr’me.” He slurs, feeling the ricochets of your release ripple down over his length just as he empties inside of you, shuddering and grinding his release into you. “That’s it. My girl. Feels like heaven darlin.”

He cuts himself off with a low, shuddering groan before dropping his weight onto you, cock twitching still. You pepper his face with kisses. His mouth, his nose, his eyes, his cheeks and knotted brow. Arthur pants against you just as you catch your breath, skin damp with sweat and sex, the cabin too warm now in a way that makes you want to wrap yourself in him all that much more.

“I love you.” Arthur says again, but this time it’s aching, tender, and you hear the years spent without saying it in his voice. “Never stopped lovin’ you.”

He pauses, and you feel him swallow with his head dropped to your shoulder so you can’t see his eyes. “I tried. I tried to stop but...”

You raise his face to yours, and feel his confession upon his lips.

- - -

“I love you.” He says again, as the stars glimmer above, as the fire crackles beside your tent. Here in the middle of everything you are the only two creatures to exist, away from violence, from machinations and savagery and the curse you’ve both gained through the weight of your sins.

The fire catches golden against his eyes, his hair, his bare chest as he braces above you. Sweat beads his brow as he rolls his hips against you, your heels pressed into the small of his back as you swallow his confession with a breathless gasp. The dizzying intoxication of him glows warm in your veins, thrums under your skin and electrifies you. Pleasure curls hot and liquid below your belly but it doesn’t compare to the warmth in your chest as he echoes your name again, braces his forehead on yours.

“I love you.” He tells you, and it’s desperate somehow, as if he thinks you haven’t heard him, as if he’s never said it before and will somehow lose the chance. You kiss him, swallow his moan with your tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth, fingers tangled in his hair to drag him impossibly closer. “My girl. God-”

He sits up, hauls you with him so you’re braced into his lap. You loop your arms around his neck, bounce on his lap and feel the smile he presses to the corner of your lips when you giggle. His hands splay against your back, cup the swell of your ass just as he nips at your collarbone, knowing the mark he’ll leave there for the others to see. You don’t care. Let them know, you think, that the things you fight and kill for, the murders you commit, the lives you ruin, are for this- for the freedom he loves so much.

Freedom, if only to love him in return.

- - -

He lays with you tucked in his arms, fingers tracing along your nape, legs tangled. If you close your eyes, you can almost feel the desert stars above from all those years ago. It’s warm here, and your home is finally complete with him in it.

Yet the unspoken lingers, the whisper of goodbye both past and future quiet ghosts to this moment of peace you wish you could stay in. You cling to Arthur like a life raft amidst stormy seas, knowing at any moment he can be torn from you, that you’ll be cast into the cavernous depths below.

“I don’t want to be alone again.” You whisper to nobody but yourself.

Arthur’s fingers pause, and with his heart below your cheek you feel him shift, tip your face towards his.

Blue eyes. The color of a Sunday morning where missionary church bells ring. The color of skies promising rain, of the oceans you never got to see, of the waves that threaten to rip him from your hold.

“I am never leaving you alone again.” Arthur whispers, and the fierceness of it startles you, makes your heart leap in your chest. It would be a snarl if it weren’t for the tender caress of his hands against your bare form, the way his thumb presses down on the soft bed of your lip.

When he kisses you, it feels like a vow.

- - -

You stand atop the valley at sunset. Orange bleeds across the sky, where the train station waits below. Smoke curls up into the heavens from the steam engine, and you watch the distant glimmer of gold from high above as it’s loaded onto the train.

Beside you, Arthur whistles low and long, lowering his binoculars. There’s a telltale glimmer in his eyes, the kind you see only when he’s sizing up a score. Grinning, all teeth, fangs bared. If he had a tail, he’d be yipping at the sky.

A thief, through and through, even though you’re the one that stole his heart.

“Think we can manage it?” You ask, and your horse seems to sense your trepidation, pawing at the soft earth anxiously.

Arthur hums low, considering. “Need to do it smart, but with Dutch and the others I’d say so.”

Smart. You’ve known Dutch to be clever, wily, but smart...

You can’t shake the dark cloud that looms inky over your thoughts like distant thunderclouds, the feeling that this isn’t as easy as it looks. There’s something off here, and you can’t seem to place it.

Above, a vulture circles.

“Might get away with enough for me to buy you something.” Arthur murmurs, shooting a sidelong smirk at you. You huff, trying to cover the doubtful flicker of your eyes.

“Like what?”

“A ring?”

You stare at him, slack jawed, the wind whistling between you the only sound on earth. Flabbergasted, you try to speak, to question him, anything, but Arthur leans forward out of his saddle, uses his gloved knuckle to close your mouth.

“Gonna catch flies, sweetheart.”

You splutter, reaching for him, but he darts away. In fact, he urges his horse about, turning on his heel and racing back down the trail as your voice echoes after him indignantly.

Arthur laughs upwards towards the setting western sun.

- - -

He falls asleep holding you, arms wrapped around you as if he’ll never let you go, just as he says.

It takes effort not to cry.

You tell yourself you believe him, that this time he’ll stay. You tell yourself he loves you more than he loves freedom itself, that all that glitters is not gold. For the briefest, fleeting moments, you allow yourself to dream of him growing old by your side, of getting to watch the grays dot his temples, smile lines etched into his face. You think about what it would be like to watch the setting sun with him as you both slowly fade away.

You think about how you asked him to leave with you once, how you’d quietly confessed to him that you could no longer live this life but were unable to part from him.

You think about the heartbreak in his eyes.

and you know, deep inside yourself, here tucked in his embrace...

That it is better to think of this as just a dream.

- - -

You don’t feel the bullet. Not at first.

You hardly hear it above the din, the echo of gunshots all around you. Yelling, gun smoke, the shriek of horses as you try to out-ride your pursuers suffocates the world around you. Your mare stinks of foamy sweat as her legs pump under her, trying to carry both you and the bags of gold dust secured behind your saddle. The whites of her eyes show, wild as you race alongside the others, turning to fire behind you as gunfire glints in the darkness.

You can hardly tell the difference between the whistle of bullets and the slicing wind, the rain that drives hard against your skin, leaks into your eyes so you can hardly see.

It’s only after you raise your gun arm again, feel it fall limp and weak to your side that you notice something’s wrong.

As the world tilts, you hear Arthur scream.

You’re still trying to raise your gun when you slouch sideways in the saddle. Your mare races onward with you as her limp passenger, blind with fear and twice as fast.

Arthur is yelling as you fumble for the reins, as you finally notice how the rain seems to seep below your clothes, how it feels warm against your skin.

You focus on trying to sit up, trying to breathe against the blinding pain that erupts from your shoulder. Your ears are ringing, trying to discern the thunder from the eruption of guns behind you. There’s voices, muffled as you try to focus on them, movement on either side of you as John and Davey drop back to cover you. You try and urge your mare faster, spurs digging into her sides, and she only squeals.

All at once, arms fasten around your middle and you feel your body hauled abruptly sideways, off balance. They cradle you to his chest as you slouch sideways in his saddle, blood trickling down your arm and onto his.

“C’mon.” Arthur grits, trying to shake you before his voice goes breathy, desperate.

“Stay with me. Stay with me.”

- - -

You wake to an empty house, and a note.

Sweetheart, it reads, and you graze the torn edges of the paper, fresh from his journal

I’m sorry. There’s things I need to do, debts I need to settle. I’ll be back for you. I promise.

I love you.

- - -

“We need to draw them away. Keep them on our tail and then shake em.” Dutch announces, voice low and grim. You feel Arthur’s arms tighten around you. It feels as if you can barely grip his jacket. The fabric slips under your fingers, slick from the rain. The grove at the edge of the valley rise is dark in the rain. You can hardly see Dutch beyond the darkness. No lanterns lest your pursuers spot you. Even now, you can hear them in the distance. Hollering, searching.

“We can’t just leave her-” Arthur tries to protest, voice bordering on a snarl and-

“Arthur.” Dutch says, voice ringing deep with his baritone, and you hear Arthur’s jaw click shut almost instantly. Duty bound. Kept at heel.

There’s words then, quieter, more grim that you can’t make out. You drift in and out of awareness. The world around you feels too cold, the grip on the pistol in your hand too loose in a way you can’t seem to tighten. Blood oozes steadily from your wound, dresses you in a blossoming red of yarrow flowers laid upon your grave.

Then, Arthur.

“We gotta go darlin.” He breathes, voice tight, and you are awake just enough to try and shake your head no. Not like this. You always thought he would be here at the end. “Just- just stay alive. Please.”

“Arthur.” You wheeze, gripping at his coat, his arms, anywhere you can reach. Pistol forgotten so you can touch him. Just him.

He presses kisses to your scrunched brow, bloodied hands cupping your wan face as you whimper. You can feel the warmth of his breath spill across your skin as he speaks. It smells like cigarettes, and where you usually wrinkle your nose now it feels like the only tether to him.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll be back soon. Stay here.”

Your protest is a dull, groaning sound in your ears as you try to grip at him, weak and exhausted as you are. You try to form words on your leaden tongue. Please, please. Just a little longer. Stay, until the end.

You don’t realize you’re crying until Arthur kisses the corner of your eyes, warmth beading in your liquid gaze. There’s a hiccup forming in your throat, and it clogs the words you want to say to him, a plea to stay just a little longer until you fall asleep forever.

“I’ll find you.” He promises, voice catching in his throat even as he begins to pull away. “I will. I promise.”

“No-” You try in one last, feeble attempt. “A-Arth...ur.”

“I’m sorry.” He whispers against the corner of your mouth. “I love you.”

When he pulls away, the cold is all you feel.

- - -

Just like that, you’re back where you started. Except this time, it’s so much worse.

There’s traces of him everywhere in your home. The scent of him clings to your sheets, his empty dinner plate on your table, a stubbed cigarette burn on the porch outside. Undeniable, painful. It hurts to see the ghost of him after he had held you, told you he loved you, and promised to never leave again.

You should have known. You should have never allowed yourself to think even for a moment this could end any other way. Arthur could never be tethered down, could never be tamed by your gentle hands seeking his bloody fangs that squeezed tight down onto something he could never let go of. To think otherwise was beyond foolish, and yet you’d allowed your heart to open for a fleeting moment in which he nestled between your ribs, only to leave something bitter and rotten in its wake.

In the end, you try to convince yourself it was just a dream.

Even if you do wish it was real.

The seasons change. The golden afternoons of fall fade to winter. Snow blankets your homestead in silence, and you pretend not to notice the chill of tears against your cheeks as you stand on your front step and try not to look down the lonely road where you dare to hope he’ll return from.

You tell yourself he died, if only to make it easier.

As spring blossoms new life in the valley you think more about moving west again. It’s been years, and you know whatever life you lived there is long gone. The lives that stained your hands, the sins you committed, the person you were, died on the night Arthur left you. Nobody would recognize you now. You could tell them you’re a widow, say the man you loved died and you’re there for a new start. Folks would believe you, if only for the way your eyes always look a little lost, distant, looking for somewhere to belong again.

You think about Arthur riding up onto your empty home where the only thing left behind is the yarrow flowers you’ve kept pressed in your notebook all this time. You wonder if he’d hurt as much as you do.

It’s better this way, you tell yourself. Arthur was never going to change. He was never going to be the man you needed, but maybe that’s why you loved him so. You loved Arthur because he was intangible, yours but never truly there, his eyes always looking west, his gaze glimmering in a way you wished so dearly would be only for you.

You pack your things, quietly tell your neighbors you’ll be leaving. They wish you well, buying your meager belongings so the only things you have to your name fit on the back of your horse. It’s achingly familiar, living just from your saddle bag and satchel. You tuck your rifle along the saddle of your mare and pray you don’t need to use it, and make plans to head west.

The night before you leave, you cry until you’re hoarse.

and come dawn, he comes to you.

You awake to the sound of a horse neighing, and you know it isn’t yours. Your feet carry you to the porch before you even know you’re there, heart leaping wildly as you watch him quietly ride up to you. Slowly, each hoofbeat slower than your racing heartbeat, and when Arthur looks up at you from beneath his hat, you sob.

It’s the heartache that keeps you rooted to the spot when he dismounts, removes his hat to his heart. You want to laugh at the gesture, so unlike him, but the sadness, the plea in his eyes makes the air in your chest so thin it hurts to breathe.

You stare at each other. Words alone are unable to convey the depth of emotion shared in your gazes. Everything inside you screams to race down the steps, fling yourself into his arms, cry until you're empty and welcome him home to the place inside you that’s always been empty in his absence. You want to scream, to yell, to curse him, but the only sound that you can summon is simply: “Arthur.”

You watch his throat bob, at a loss for words before he finally speaks.

“I’m not going back.”

When you say nothing, he goes on.

“I...I’ve done things, bad things. I’m not a good man, that I know. I’ve made my peace with that. Even if I try, I’ll never...”

He pauses, and you see him struggle. You stand firm, unmoving, scarcely breathing as he offers himself to you.

“We...I-” He falters, and there’s an emotion that flashes over his face that you don’t recognize. A compass broken, his axis failed under him. Arthur stares through you towards something you cannot see, another future that plays out before his eyes with horrifying viscera that paints his gaze.

“I tried to settle debts, make things right. But Dutch-” His voice cracks. There’s something caught inside of him, guilt torn between devotion and realism that changes the polarity of his wayward path. “Dutch isn’t the man I thought he was. I shoulda seen it sooner but I’ve been so blind. Blind to...a lot of things.”

Arthur looks at you, looks at you, and for the first time you feel like he sees you.

“Things went down. The others, they’re fine. Hosea is lookin’ after em now. Gave me his blessing. I rode out of camp. Didn’t look back. I...don’t fancy myself a traitor but for the first time I managed to...to see things for what they were.”

He takes a step forward. You don’t move away, don’t move towards him, but you feel the tears overspill against your too-warm cheeks.

“There is a price on my head, and there will be until the day I die.” Arthur declares softly. “But...if you’ll have me, then I’ll stay. For good.”

You stare at him through the tears, try to school your face into a valiant attempt of passivity, of anger, of righteous fury, anything. Your fists sit clenched at your side. When you try to speak, the only thing that comes out is a hiccup.

Arthur takes a step towards you, eyes crestfallen, and it takes every ounce of strength in you to not fall apart at the seams.

“Why should I have you?” You demand at last, voice thick with tears. “You...you’re a no good, rotten bastard Arthur Morgan. You think you can be an honest man for me, hmm?”

Arthur looks wounded, but he takes it. He takes your anger, purses his lips and it makes you angrier.

“How the hell are you going to earn a living, huh? You only know how to kill and steal a-and-” You break off, scrubbing furiously at your face.

“I...” Arthur tries. “I can read, and write. I can...I can hunt and I’m good with horses-”

“and you probably don’t even have a penny to your name-”

“I can...I can ranch I suppose, but-” Arthur breaks off with a muttered curse. “Goddammit woman, will you have me or not?”

You stare at him, face wet, chest clogged with your cries...

...and you launch yourself down the steps and into his open embrace.

“Ride west with me.” You tell him as he parts from your kiss, his arms fastened around you, blue eyes sparkling. “They way I’ve always wanted.”

“West?” He breathes, breathless. His smile is so radiant it almost burns. “Where?”

“Past new Austin. Out towards Montana, or...I dunno, California. Past the mountains. Back to where it all started and then some.”

Arthur kisses you again, and again. You feel fit to burst at the seams, so outdone by joy and hope that you think you’ll float off into the dawning blue sky above.

“Anywhere.” He promises you. “I’ll buy you that ring, and I swear to God I’ll marry you.”

“You think I’m going to marry a no-good outlaw?” You ask him, tears overflowing.

“I’ll earn some money somehow, even if I have to pan it from a spring myself.”

You laugh, kiss him, hold his face in your hands and dare to dream of the future.

“I love you, Arthur Morgan. I will never stop loving you until the day I die.”

Arthur’s eyes glimmer, and even without words you know the truth that lies in his gaze. Arthur will never leave you. Never again.

“Let’s go.” You whisper against his lips. “Let’s go be free.”

You ride west. In the empty house where he found you, yarrow blooms red in the sunlight.

#arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x you #arthur morgan x female reader #rdr2 x reader #arthur morgan smut #I'm done looking at this take it

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g-xix · 11 months

Note

okay but a coming and supporting ginge at his Sunday league fic?? like super close friends who have this first kiss after a match where he makes a really good save??? Would be so cute if you’re still looking for ginge!fic ideas 🫶🏻

Sunday League | AngryGinge13

THINGS TO KNOW -AngryGinge plays as a Goalkeeper in football -He's hot -I've never watched Sunday league in my life, idfk what im writing abt here.

-October, Autumn weather was steadily rolling in when your best mate Morgan had his football game over the weekend -"You coming to watch?" He asked, cheeks tinted pink as he dropped into the driver's seat besides you, fastening his seatbelt before looking at you for your answer -"You know I don't know much or really care about football that much?" You shivered, the car's seats feeling almost frozen despite the fact it was just Autumn. -Ginge noticed your coldness and plopped his jacket in your lap and put the car heaters on, before pulling out -You always had a little bit of a crush on your mate Morgan, and as he looked back- putting his arm around the back of your seat to check he road before pulling out, you felt yourself blushing at the way his biceps peeked from beneath his jersey, his fingers just close enough to brush your shoulder and send electricity racing down your skin -You'd only known one another for a couple years, but had definitely become close friends. -So close that you often wondered whether your hopes of it developing into something more were ridiculous. -"Well, I don't care if you don't know much about football," He shrugged, "I like having you there with me." His words brought a certain warm to your heart from their sweetness, and you could only feel yourself melting inside as he leaned over with a cheeky grin. "...Plus you're my lucky little lady- always save more goals when you're watching"

-That last line was what sold you- and before you knew it, you were wrapped up in a woolly scarf, beanie and even your gloves- the Autumnal chill too harsh for you to go out unprepared -It wasn't a massive game- just a Sunday league one, and you could walk down to the pitch and find a place to watch in there -You got there and wasn't expecting many people to actually be there watching, but there was a little queue outside the pitch which surprised you, considering you thought it was just a little Sunday League game -Turns out Strathon (neighbouring, and most competed) town's team was going to be playing against Morgan's team. -Little breakfast bar in the pavilion area was packed with lads getting their early pints going and people just basking in the warmth -You joined in the pavilion, blowing on your fingers and warming yourself up... -Your nose was bright red and stinging, along with your ears. Felt like bloody Winter. -As you ordered yourself a hot chocolate, you felt a weight drop onto your shoulders. -You wheeled around and spotted a grinning Morgan behind you, his arm draped around your shoulder, hands kitted in the keeper gloves -"See you arrived alright, pet." He gave your head a little pat with one of the gloves, flicking the fluffy bobble of your beanie -"Yeah, wouldn't miss it for... much." You answered slowly as intrusive thoughts slowed your thinking. Morgan just laughed, already knowing your reason -He looked damn good in his kit- flicking his head so his fringe fell back, chest large and puffed confidently as he punched his gloves together, clearly excited for himself

-You let him get down to the pitch and warm up, watching from the pavilion and walking down into the stands after a ten or so minutes when everyone started running to get to their seats -Despite not being a massive football fan, you were a bit nervous for Morgan. -For some reason, you really wanted to see him do well. And you hadn't seen him play before, especially not actually trying hard before, so you were praying for him to pull out a masterclass.

-And by god by half time were you on edge. -Surprisingly, for someone who was generally uninterested in football, the tense atmosphere had you stood up the majority of the match -Morgan had been working hard in goal, some of his saves having you screaming as every time your heartrate shot up, fearful of Morgan missing. -Clearly though Morgan could hear your excited yells from pitchside, as he clearly let out a laugh each time he caught the ball or punched it away- his eyes drifting just slightly left to try catch a glimpse of your ecstatic face before kicking the ball out again -So far, Morgan hadn't let any goals in either- the score a solid 0-0. -That did however mean you were bricking it for the second half. -Second half, your heartrate was above 80 for much of the game. -And you couldn't help but admire how good Morgan looked (which only had your heartrate going higher) -His fringe was messy and spiked about his head, and the developed muscle definition on his legs did have you feeling a bit feral in the stands -Somehow you managed to calm your nasty thoughts down and focus on the game, though, instead settling for bricking the second half. -You watched as Morgan booted the ball down pitch, one of the forwards controlling it and making a break through the defence line- getting you up and out of your seat, face pressed in your mittened hands in suspense as you watched the forwards do his thing and swing his leg back before... -Yells and cheers were heard as you and the rest of your row all got onto you feet, celebrating the forwards that'd been scored, as well as Morgan, who'd set it up in the first place. (Though it might've just been you who was cheering for Morgan, there) -Your head flicked back to Morgan in goal and you watched as his he let out a victorious yell of his own, patting his mate on the back before looking out into the crowd- his eyes scanning the crowd before they found your own, as indicated by the grin that lit up on his face, his eyes sparkling even brighter as he pointed with the gloved finger straight at you- a little shoutout to his unofficial-but-both-of-you-wanted- WAG. -And it was clear you were passionate for Morgan when one of the defenders got in Morgan's way and ended up letting Salford let a goal in- Morgan could hear you yell WANKER from the stands despite the uproar from both sides of the crowd and the rest of the pitch's yells. He couldn't help but let out a chuckle at being able to hear you despite the slight annoyance of conceding a goal.

-The full 90 minutes had elapsed and still your heart rate was through the roof, as the ref blew the whistle and it was decided- penalties were going to be taken. -The opposition took the first penalty... And Morgan's fingers brushed it, only just letting it in. -But luckily, your town scored one as well. -The next one also went in, and Morgan yelled a curse out, your heart thumping in your chest in fear. -And you were thanking God as the next ball went in, as your town scored once more -You coudn't help but admire Morgan in goal, sizing up the opposition as he waited for them to shoot. Morgan just looked so good, hitting his gloved hands together and bouncing from side to side, all too good looking in his kit -All admiring was cut short as you watched the shooter take his run up though, striking the ball and sending it mid-left... -Morgan caught the ball, pulling it tight to his chest and skidding to the side as he saved the pen, a scream leaving your throat along with the rest of your stand as you all cheered the save, watching Morgan let out a yell of his own, completely high on the adrenaline as he rolled the ball out and jumped, looking back to your stand -His head moved bit by bit slowly until he found you in the stands, the grin lighting up on his face once more as he found you- lifting his hands and signing the love symbol as best he could with his gloved hand, making your heart swell a bit as you felt your cheeks blush a bright pink, making heart hands at him before crouching down behind the people in front of you so that he didn't see how bright your cheeks were glowing (and only glowing brighter by the second) -You had your fingers crossed behind your back as you watched your team take the third penalty, the same forwards that had scored earlier took the run up, striking the ball hard and sending it up right... and crashing past the goalie's fingers and into the net behind.

-Screams filled your stands as the front few rows began jumping over the wall to go and join the winning team on the pitch- the bustle around you sending you forwards also, leaving you no choice but to get up and onto the pitch as well. -"Y/NNNN!" You heard your name yelled happily, before feeling a great force run into you -Morgan's arms wrapped around your waist, picking you right up as you squealed happily, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and leaning into his body whilst he gave you a joyous spin, his heat radiating through the thin kit and warming you up greatly also, the hug slightly sweaty from Morgan's playing, though neither of you cared -"You were bloody brilliant!" You exclaimed as Morgan placed you back on the floor, getting up onto the tips of the toes to place a little kiss against his cheek whilst your arms were still wrapped around one another -You took your arms off Morgan's shoulders, one of Morgan's hands leaving your waist and coming up to his face to touch the place where your lips had left a kiss against his cheek. You could feel a blush rising to your cheek as Morgan paused completely to acknowledge the kiss, whilst his other arm still remained around your waist- his eyes looking off into the distance as if completely zoned out. -"I played great?" He repeated, and you could see a little grin start forming on his face as his eyes came back into focus before meeting yours, the cheeky grin now fully formed on his face as he tapped his lips with a gloved finger. "Surely I deserve a bit more for that then..." -"What, you want a proper snog?" You joked, though you could feel your heart lurch into your throat, almost making you choke up as you felt a nervousness wash over you. It wasn't quite clear whether Morgan was just giving friendly banter at this point or genuinely trying for something... -"Only if it's from you," He shrugged with the grin still plastered on his face, though he broke eye contact to look to the ground almost as though he were nervous, himself. -Fuck it. -You got back onto the tips of your toes, one hand resting on his cheek to pull his face down to yours so that you could press your lips onto his own firmly... before pulling away approximately after a millisecond of contact. -Morgan's eyes fluttered open. -"What, that's all?" -"You want more? You fucking initiate it then, it's nerve-wracking, you know?" -"Fine!" -THERE. Morgan got that great big snog he was looking for. -His arm snaked around your shoulders, holding you possessively as his lips met yours, fireworks fizzing and exploding in your stomach and making your heart thump even harder than it was at the start of the second half. You were sure he could taste the coffee and cocoa butter on your lips as well, as it felt almost as though he were chasing something- the way his lips moved on top of yours so passionately. -"GOWARN MORGAN!" The cheers from his teammates were what broke the kiss up, your lips detaching from his as you let out a laugh, burying your head into the crook of his neck, nose warming against his body- hot from the adrenaline of kissing and football. You could feel Morgan's body shake slightly as he was slapped on the back by his teammates, shouting a variety of other praises and cheering for him for "Finally getting some..." -You personally? -Couldn't be more grateful for the fact you'd come to watch the match and were now in the arms of your first kiss.

BONUS SCENE!

You waited by the car, taking a sip of your gingerbread latte and checking the time on your watch. It'd been almost a whole forty minutes since Morgan had said he'd be out the changing room in a sec, and had given you enough time to get through three peanut butter cookies from the pavilion and two hot drinks.

It had been courteous of him to offer to drive you back, especially after your little moment on the pitch (which still had you smiling giddily and blushing when you thought about it), but you were half considering just walking home, when-

"SORRY, I didn't mean to take that long!" The back door of the changing rooms leading into the car park swung open, as a dishevelled looking Morgan flipped his head, flicking his fringe out of his head as he jogged over to you and the car.

"Yeah, you took your time," You responded, opening the passenger seat door as Morgan opened the car, chucking his duffel bag in the boot and plopping his ass in the driver's seat.

The car wobbled a bit as the two of you sat down, and as you reached over to put the radio on- Morgan leaned back to grab his seatbelt when something shiny fell out of his pocket.

"Oh shoot, you dropped-"

You held up the four or so shiny packets that'd fallen out of his pocket.

TROJAN CONDOMS XL STIMULATION WHERE IT COUNTS-

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" You exclaimed, dropping them back down and rushing to unbuckle your seatbelt, jaw dropped whilst Morgan scrambled to pick the other three up and shouted "NONONONO-"

"THEY'RE NOT MINE, I PROMISE, PLEASE JUST REALISE-"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY'RE NOT YOURS, ARE THEY FUCKING USED?!"

"YES- I MEAN- NO, NO OF COURSE THEY HAVEN'T BEEN USED-"

"wHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE THSOE RIGHT NOW?!"

"I CAN EXPLAIN-"

"ARE THEY MEANT TO BE FOR US?!"

You looked past Morgan as saw the rest of the team exiting the locker rooms, patting one another on the back as they said goodbye- one of the players spotting Morgan and yourself in the car- his face stretching in a cheeky grin as he pointed at the two of youse, drawing attention from the other boys as he yelled:

"USE 'EM WELL, EH MORGAN?" He passed a wink on to you as well, making you groan and slide down your car seat in embarrassment, hands pressed over your face as Morgan tried not to cringe too hard himself.

"Yeah, they were the ones that gave it," Morgan explained wearily, rubbing his face with a hand of his own as he tried not to make eye contact with the others outside the car.

"It was only a kiss, anyways..."

"Yeah well, that's what The Killers said as well and look how that ended up."

You couldn't help but deadpan up at Morgan whilst he tried not to burst out laughing at what he thought was god-tier comedy.

And as if it couldn't get any worse, his phone was connected to the car's sound system-

"OI BIXBY, play Mr Brightside on Spotify!"

Hearing those starting chords from the car's tinny radio system drew a second groan from you as you sunk even further into your seat, much to Morgan's amusement as he cackled and pat your head.

"Get used to the shitty jokes, love, I'm taking you out for dinner tonight for a first date so you better start liking me sooner or later..."

--------

WELLLL IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE WE'VE SEEN SOME ANGRY GINGE CONTENT HA'NT IT??!! Much love n hoping everyone enjoyed bc i LOVE LOVE LOVE a little bit of autumn fanfiction it's such a cute lil vibe teehee

Hope you enjoyed reading!! Feel free to interact- whether that be a comment, vote or follow! Requests open, feel free to submit what u wanna see... Much love!!

To see more, here's my MASTERLIST

And here's my WATTPAD, with 50+ more oneshots to read

#angryginge13 #angryginge #angry ginge #morgan burtwistle #fluff #oneshot #youtube #youtuber #twitch #twitch streamer #sidemen #danny aarons #aanny daarons #wroetoshaw #ksi #tobjizzle #zerkaa #miniminter

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boldlyvoid · 1 year

Text

I Know Places 2: Minimal Loss

18+ Aaron Hotchner x Fem Reader | Masterlist | AO3 link

Summary: Away on a case with Reid, he and our dear reader are held hostage by Libertarian Cult Leader, Benjamin Cyrus. It's now Aaron's turn to try and keep his cool while Leading the Hostage Recovery and Support mission at the same time he's realizing he's fallen in love with his subordinate…

Warnings: Canon Typical Violence (child sexual assault, hostage situations), hurt/comfort, Drug use tw, unrequited love (so he thinks), mutual pining, angst with a happy ending, drug-induced love confessions

Word count: 10.3k

It’s weird being in the office without her. She flew out to Colorado with Reid last night, the two of them stayed in a hotel (one with two queen beds this time) and she texted him this morning before she headed out for the case. He missed her. He missed picking her up this morning. He missed their coffee banter and how every morning without fail she got the same breakfast that always left his car smelling like a buttery croissant.

He smiles to himself as he thinks about her. He wonders how she’s doing, he can’t wait to call her tonight and catch up… hopefully, the interviews don’t take more than a day. He’d miss her too much if he didn’t get to see her tomorrow too. Maybe he could pick them up from the airport? No. She drove herself and Reid there, so maybe he’ll bring her a baked good and they can watch TV together? Either way, he wanted to see her as soon as she got home.

When they were approached by Colorado child protective services, they received a copy of the 911 call that sparked the investigation and a short summary of the alleged unsub. Libertarian cult leader, Benjamin Cyrus of the Fringe Religious group called the Separatarian Sect. was being accused of being inappropriate with the young teenage members. The age of the caller who made the 911 call is 15. This was a crime, no matter what the libertarians personally believed, under Colorado state law, he was breaking the law by having any kind of sexual interaction with a minor.

Sending Y/N and Spencer was a no-brainer. They couldn’t send JJ because she was pregnant, but they wanted a woman there to make the children feel safe. Spencer went because he’s memorized the entire bible and most historical quotes, he’d be able to deal with a libertarian cult leader the easiest. He had faith in—

“HOTCH!”

With his door open, he’s able to hear Morgan's scream even better, he’s immediately up and out of his seat, rushing towards the door when he notices everyone watching the TV.

“The TV, Y/L/N and Reid,” he points to the screen.

The report on screen is standing a few miles from the compound, showing footage from a raid and cutting back to his face as he speaks. “No one knows for sure how many people are inside. It is believed that at least three child service members are still trapped inside the compound.”

His heart drops into his stomach as if he just fell 30 feet in 10 seconds. His eyes widen, he steps towards the railing outside his office and grips the metal pole for dear life.

This can’t be happening.

She can’t get hurt.

He can’t lose her too.

Just then every single phone in the office starts to ring, he’s pulled back to reality and he catches his breath, “alright, that means we’re the lead with Hostage Rescue and Support. Let’s go!”

He runs to his office and grabs his go bag, he shoves his phone in the bag, makes sure his gun is still on his hip and his badge and wallet in the back pocket of his suit pants. He doesn’t bother bringing his suit jacket, he honestly doesn’t even remember to take it as he bounds down the stairs and runs to the elevator.

They all rush to the plane as quickly as possible, it’s always fueled and ready to go, so getting into the air takes less than 15 minutes. Once in the air, they open up their laptop and Penelope patches over a live feed of the Colorado news.

“It turned deadly when the Colorado state police officers tried to serve a warrant. Colorado attorney general, Jim Wells, says the reclusive cult has been the subject of a 6-month weapons investigation”

“6 months?” Morgan repeats. “We didn’t check?”

“Oh, we did,” JJ pipes up, visibly pissed. “I had ATF call Wells and he told ATF there were no pending state investigations. He lied.”

“Why?” Rossi asks, not understanding why he’d lie about that.

“Wells is challenging the governor in the upcoming election,” JJ explains. “He thought that ATF were going to poach his big election-launching weapons bust. Now, it’s clear he didn’t know there were FBI agent’s there, he just thought the best time to serve a state warrant was when the kids were safe inside the school being interviewed.”

“What do we know about the sect?” Rossi poses the question to the group.

Penelope, listening in on a video call the whole time, flips the screen from the news to her face. “Liberty Ranch was founded in 1980 by Libertarian Leo Kane. He created it as a self-sustaining commune.”

“Libertarians believe that everyone has the right to do what they want as long as they aren’t infringing not eh rights of others,” Derek points out.

“But libertarians aren’t religious,” Dave reminds them. “Clearly this sect abandoned libertarian principles.”

Aaron takes a deep breath, he’s still anxious, and his heart is racing but he has to get his head in the game. “Benjamin Cyrus, the current leader, introduced religion 8 years ago when Kane left.”

“Garcia, what do we got on Cyrus?” Derek asks her.

“Oh, we got bupkis,” she sounds disappointed. “It's like the guy never cast a shadow on the known universe… however his predecessor, Leo Kane, is doing a 17-year stretch at Deerfield Federal Prison… apparently libertarians do not like paying taxes.”

“17 years for tax evasion?” Derek laughs.

“Oh no, that would be 2 years for tax evasion and 15 years for going after four IRS agents with a Louisville Slugger…” Garcia pressed her lips together awkwardly, what a dumb crime to commit.

“Let’s have Kane brought to the scene,” Hotch instructs her to get the paperwork going. “He’s our best chance at finding out some idea of who we’re dealing with.”

“You got it,” she cheerfully agrees and turns off her camera.

They all settle into their plane seats then. It was a 3-and-a-half-hour flight, all he could do was prep negotiation teams and worry about Y/N. He worried for Reid's safety too, of course, Spencer was like a son to him… his heart just yearned for Y/N and after losing Kate, he can’t bare going through that kind of loss again and so soon.

He felt as though he was destined to only know what it was like to be left, not loved. He had such a tumultuous relationship with his ex-wife, being high school sweethearts also came with high school drama. He graduated a year before her, he was in college and she wanted to see other people. So they took their first break. He was doing law school and she was in teacher's college and they took a second break because his studying took up too much of his time and she felt as though she needed physical attention he couldn’t give her… then he went to Scotland Yard, back when he didn’t know if he wanted to work for Interpol or the FBI and once again distance caused them to go on break a 3rd time. He met Kate Joyner, they had a thing and when he returned to the States he asked Haley to marry him. He should’ve known that she would run once his attention shifted to things other than her. He thought maybe having a baby would change that about her. He thought maybe she loved him— loved their family enough to stay.

He was wrong.

Now he’s divorced, Kates dead and… and he thinks he might be falling in love with his subordinate.

He takes a moment to go to the bathroom on the jet just for a chance to get away from everyone. He leans against the sink and puts his hands over his face, shaking his head with disbelief. It all happened so fast. One minute they’re co-workers and he enjoys working with her and the next she was filling the void in his heart. Mind you, he knew her when he was married, he didn’t have the capacity to see her as anything other than a friend… now that’s all changed.

He took the ring off and his heart searched for warmth. For comfort. For morning coffees and laughter on the drive to work. For late-night chats and gossip about celebrities. For a hand to hold. For a body to cuddle into in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. For someone to care for him. For Y/N.

He doesn’t know how he’s going to do this. How he’s going to stay calm and cool and collected while he knows she’s in there? He doesn’t know what he’ll do if she’s hurt. He isn’t sure how he’ll make judgements and do the negotiations knowing that every decision he makes could have consequences.

He heads back to his seat to see everyone else is also doing their best to stay calm. They all love Reid and Y/N, and each of them wants to bring their friends home in one piece… he’s not alone in being anxious and worrying for their safety. Maybe he can play it off, maybe they won’t guess he loves her in a way that differs from how they do.

—

Once they land they’re met with bureau issues SUVs and given an escort to the crime scene, all their sirens on, they speed down back county roads causing dust to fly behind them and rocks to flick up from under their wheels, hitting the car behind them.

When they arrive at the Hostage Negotiation and Support Command Centre, Aaron lets Morgan and JJ head in to set up and he pulls Dave aside. “They’ve left the choice of negotiators up to me.”

“I taught most of the hostage negotiation unit,” Dave reminds him. “You want a recommendation?”

“I’m making you lead negotiator.”

“Me?” Dave can’t believe him.

“why go to the students when I have the teacher,” he simplifies his decision.

“because the teacher is emotionally involved,” Dave spits back. “So is the agent in command.” He stares Aaron down, watching for any facial moment that would give way to just how much he cares for Y/N. Of course, he knew.

He gives in, looking down to the ground, he can’t explain how much this is hurting him. “I know I am. This is a unique situation. We have two agents who could affect the outcome on the inside.”

“True, but I can’t be objective. I know them too well!”

“This outcome depends as much on our ability to predict the moves of Y/N and Reid as much as it does Cyrus,” Aaron explains. “That’s why you’re the best man for the job.”

“Assuming that Spencer and Y/N—” he puts weight on her name to make Aaron know he caught that. The use of her first name and Spencer's last, it’s a hierarchy of needs. He knows Aaron subconsciously wants her safe just the tiniest bit more than Reid. “Are still in a condition to make moves.”

“I-I know how bad this is,” Aaron says, voice dropping down to a whispered tone. “That’s why I want you doing the talking. I need you doing the talking.”

“Alright,” Dave gives—.

“You’re obviously not in charge, I can see that!!!” A man's voice bellows through the air.

“I’m sorry sir, I’m under direct orders from the FBI,” one of the hostage negotiation team members explains.

“I’m the attorney General of this state, I demand to know why I wasn’t told the FBI was sending undercover agents into the Separatarian Ranch?”

It’s Wells. The man who got them stuck in the position, to begin with.

Aaron starts walking away from Dave, driven by anger, he walks right up to the man. “The only thing that you’re in a position to demand is a lawyer.”

“Who the hell are you?” The man asks as if he’s about to laugh at Aaron's voice of authority.

“I’m Aaron Hotchner, Unit Chief. I’m the guy who’s going to tell the Attorney General of the United States whether to charge you obstructing a federal investigation of negligent homicide,” Aaron spits back, getting more in this man's face.

“You can’t talk to me like that.”

Aaron takes another step in, towering over the man, “Get off my crime scene.”

And just like that, the man cowers, running away to his car and driving away.

Aaron turns to the other man, the one who was trying to answer Wells’ questions before. Aaron knew him from the bureau. “Hey Dan, you know Dave Rossi?”

“Sure do,” Dan smiles, reaching over to shake Dave's hand.

“We’ve been here before, haven’t we?” Dave jokes.

“Waco, Ruby Ridge, Freeman standoff,” Dan recounts. “Let's hope someone listens to you guys this time.”

“Oh, they did more than listen. They put us in charge,” Dave announces, hands on his hips, ready to go.

“So bring us up to speed?” Aaron asks.

“I've sent the state police packing. They started this mess and lost a man in the process. I hope that’s okay?”

“If you hadn’t we would’ve.”

“Good.”

“The county Sheriffs have had no run-ins with the sect, so we’re using them as support. We’ve had no contact with them so far. they’re got power. Solar. We can shoot out the panels if you think—

“No, no that’s an escalation,” Dave shoots that down.

“Okay, that means they have access to the news,” Dan reminds them.

“I’ll get JJ to talk to the press. Are your men ready to be briefed?” Aaron asks. Dan nods. “Let's go.”

Inside the trailer they’ve set up for secure meetings, Derek, Dave and Aaron start to give the preliminary profile and brief. There’s only a handful of men, which is best. Having too many cooks in the kitchen leads to chaos. 6-10 people, that’s much more manageable.

“We call this the Minimal Loss scenario,” Dave explains. “Every person we get out is a life saved. We won’t save them all. All of us have t be prepared to accept that situation.” He looks over at Hotch and then presses his lips together awkwardly.

Derek steps up to the whiteboard and picks up a marker, “cults are structured like pyramids.” He explains while drawing a triangle on the board. “You got the leader at the top, die-hard believers beneath… and the biggest group, the base. The followers.” He makes a point to circle that group and look at the other men. “Women and children are in this group. These are the people we can save.”

“The ‘trickle, flow, gush’ strategy is designed to get the base followers out,” Aaron explains. “First one or two, then three or four, then as many as we can, as fast as we can. And if at any point it starts to go bad. We go in.”

“The leaders are charismatic sociopaths who target the most susceptible to their seduction. They have the ability to see what each person needs and then they become that thing. We have to undermine their perception that we’re an invading army laying siege to their homes,” Dave explains.

“We’ll lose the fatigues,” Dan assures them. Losing the army look will make them much more approachable. “Ranchers clothes work for you? Like we did at the Freeman standoff?”

“Perfect. Anything we can do to demilitarize the situation,” Dave agrees. “But that’s about it… we have to make first contact and then we can act accordingly from there.”

“We have a phone set up for you guys outside by the lookouts,” Dave explains. “Nightfall is coming, they’ll be the most in need when it’s dark. We should call then.”

“Agreed,” Aaron nods.

Dave hits the speed dial button for the ranch, they wait for 5 or 6 rings and then they answer. “you killed my mommy and daddy, are you going to kill me too?” A little girl's voice answers, on speakerphone for everyone to hear.

“No one is going to kill you, honey,” Dave assures.

“This is Benjamin Cyrus, who am I talking to?” Comes down the line mere seconds later.

“David Rossi. I’m an FBI agent. We’ve sent the state police away, there’s just us and the local sheriff now. All we want to do is resolve this before anyone else gets hurt,” he explains.

“Then leave us alone.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that, Benjamin, one of the police bled out on the way to the hospital,” he explains, wondering if they haven’t watched the news yet. “So let's just stop this before things get worse. Please, just put the guns down and come out.”

“we’re believers Dave,” Benjamin starts. “We believe that god says what he means and means what he says. His laws don’t depend on what state you live in.”

“I have no issue with your beliefs,” Dave reminds him.

“You don’t. But the state does,” Benjamin is clearly pissed off that any of this happened today.

That makes two of them.

“I can’t answer for other people,” Dave states.

“God will answer for everyone in the final battle that I’ve foreseen.”

Aaron sighs, leaning his head back and shaking it. He hates these religious types. Rossi makes eye contact with him as he keeps talking, “That’s why I’m here. To make sure that this is not that battle.”

“We shall see…”

Sounds more like a taunt.

“Now the three child services workers—

“one is dead,” Benjamin interjects.

Aaron's heart sinks down to his stomach further, he feels like he could be sick. They all have the same look on their faces.

“It wasn’t us,” Ben assures them. “It happened in the standoff, a stray bullet flying into our chapel clipped her.”

“We need a name, so I can alert the family,” Dave explains. Hoping to pry it out of him.

“Nancy Lund,” he says and everyone lets a wave of relief selfishly pass over themselves.

“Okay, now please, Benjamin, send out your wounded. I promise you they’ll be taken care of,” Dave asks. Trying to start the trickle.

“With enough supplies, we can tend to our own,” Benjamin explains. They’re not leaving any time soon.

“Okay, I need a few hours to put it together,” he explains. “I’ll bring them up myself at first light.”

Without a goodbye or a thank you, Cyrus hangs up.

They head back into the trailer after that, prepping med kits and retrofitting any electronics that get sent in with small microphones so they can spy on their every movement and plan. Aaron’s just excited for the chance to hear her voice again and know she’s okay.

“I’m going to go in and double-check that the kids, Y/L/N and Reid are okay,” Dave announces as he walks back into the trailer.

“Rossi, at least let me go with you?” Derek bags.

“No,” he shakes his head. “This is about building trust. I go alone.”

“I want the parabolic arc mics fixed on every window in that structure,” Dan announces to the rest of his crew.

“They won’t pick up much,” one of them pipes up. “They have blinds on all the windows, unless they’re shouting the glass won’t vibrate enough for us to get audio.”

“Well if they’re not shouting, these bugs will pick 'em up… at least until the batteries die,” Dan assures them, screwing the back onto an electronic thermometer. “How familiar are your agents with our playbook?”

“The BAU wrote the CIRG handbook,” Aaron reminds him. “They’ll know that we’re trying to get ears in there at all times.”

“Good, let’s hope they can get these people talking.”

“They will.”

—

At first light, Aaron sits at the listening station with a mug full of freshly brewed coffee and his headphones on, listening to everything as Rossi drives up to the compound.

He hears their introduction, muffled through the boxes of supplies. He hears Cyrus spout some more godly bullshit and claim he’s trying to protect the children. He’s not ready to let any of them go now, so Dave shakes his hand and heads out on his way. As soon as the door is closed, Cyrus says: “Prepare the wine.”

There’s a shuffling sound as everyone moves around the room, the elders no doubt do everything Cyrus says and the women and children stay seated. After a few minutes, he hears Cyrus again, muffled but there, saying something about being 1 day closer to god…

“Look at Jessica's body language,” Y/N’s voice can be heard as though she’s standing right beside the box of supplies. “The way she looks at him.”

“She literally worships him there’s no way she made that 911 call?” Spencer questions next.

Derek and Aaron look at each other, nodding with a small smile, they’re okay. Not safe, but okay.

“Look at how she comes between Cyrus and her daughter,” Y/N speaks again. “She’s inserting herself between them…”

Cyrus is getting everyone to drink just as Dave is running back into the trailer. “Reid and Y/L/N are okay.”

“what about Cyrus?” Derek asks.

“He's too calm? It's like he was waiting for this to happen?” Dave suggests. “And now that it has he feels vindicated.”

“Hey guys,” Dan calls their attention back to the headsets.

“We’ll be with him soon. We have drank the poison together,” Cyrus’ voice is heard.

They all turn to each other with horrified expressions. “What the fuck?” Aaron exclaims, “I thought you said he was calm?”

“He was! He wanted me to think nothing was going on, he’s a master manipulator! We have to take everything he says and does with a grain of salt,” Dave reminds him.

“We need to go in!” Derek shouts, gathering his things with Dan.

“If we go in there people are gonna die!” Dave shouts.

“People are already dying!” Aaron shouts back, headset pressed to his good ear, he’s still listening to Cyrus preach.

“What do we do?” Y/N whispers.

“Nothing,” Spencer assures her.

“We have to do something these people just took poison!” She snaps back at Reid.

“I don’t think they did?”

“Wait! Wait!” Aaron gathers them all back towards him. “Listen,” he switches the audio playback to the speakers.

“Cyrus just told them they did, I think he’s bluffing,” they hear Spencer’s whisper loud and clear.

“Why do you think that?” Y/N asks.

“Just after he told them they took the poison he waited for them to react and then he nodded to Cole who started to note down everyone who looked sad, look…. They're scanning the audience for the people who are fine with dying now and who are a bit skeptical. This is their way of narrowing down the true believers and those who he can send out to Rossi,” Spencer explains. “He’s smart enough to possibly know our strategies, he wants to send out a trickle of people and then do something during the gush…”

“Jim Jones pulled the same stunt,” Rossi reminds everyone, agreeing with Reid. “They did a test run just like this years before they did the real thing.”

“Dan, prepare your men to go in but not before I give you the go-ahead,” Aaron points back to him. “We need to wait just a few more minutes, if I hear Y/L/N or Reid say anything about people falling sick or passing out, we go in.”

“Got it!”

Aaron covers his hand over his mouth and hopes to god he doesn’t have to send men in there. They already lost one social service member in the crossfire, he can’t lose his agents too.

“Be still, there was no poison,” Cyrus speaks. “Instead a test of faith BECAUSE YOUR ADVERSARY THE DEVIL WALKETH ABOUT AS A ROARING LION!! Choosing who he may devour. Watch each other for signs of weakness. You are your brother's keeper.”

“Dan!” Aaron calls out to him, he comes popping his head back into the trailer. “Stand down, Cyrus said it was a rouse.”

JJ comes walking in behind him, “The former sect leader just arrived.”

“I got it,” Derek volunteers himself. “call me if there are updates.” He says as he leaves, holding his phone up to assure them he has it.

“Charles Mulgrew, convicted in Kentucky at the age of 18. Three counts of statutory rape,” Penelope says through the phone, recounting her findings to the whole team now… well, the free 4.

“So we need to talk to the warden,” Derek says with a sigh.

“Way ahead of you there, honey,” she assures him, making Derek crack a small smile. “Mr. Kentucky Warden said that once inside, Mulgrew found religion and became a model citizen.”

“Well it’s not that hard to behave when you’re in protective custody,” Derek reminds her.

“General populations a rough place for a child molester,” Hotch adds.

“No, no, no, I don’t think guys understand he was a Model Citizen. This guy volunteered at the prison hospital,— the aids ward, he was reading to prisoners dying of HIV… he was emulating saint,” Penelope explains father.

“Good stuff, mama,” Derek compliments her the way he always does.

“Damn straight now you get our friends back, baby,” she says before clicking off the call to do more digging.

“Well,” Dave stands a little straighter and sucks in a deep breath. “This makes things worse.”

“What? That he’s a model citizen?” Derek laughs.

“That he’s been to prison,” Dave looks at him, he’s completely serious. There’s no room for giggles now.

Derek closes his eyes for a moment and his shoulders drop, “right. He knows what happens to child molesters there…”

“If the current sexual allegations are true and he thinks we know it, he’s not coming out of there,” Hotch agrees.

“Then we have to make him think he’s not going back to prison,” Dave assures.

“JJ,” Aaron calls back into the main tent for her. “I need you to release a press statement saying that we have absolutely no evidence of sexual allegations.”

JJ comes marching back over to them, sweaty and exhausted, she rests her hands on her pregnant belly and shakes her head, “You need to see this, pop the laptop open. Click on the news tab and play the audio…”

They follow her instructions, gathering around the laptop they see the same news guy from yesterday, he’s set up a little camp for himself in the hills somewhere. He has a perfect view of the ranch and he’s keeping his voice low.

“Now well into its second day, the standoff at the Separatarian Sect Ranch is now been taken over by the FBI. There is much speculation in regard to hostages, but anonymous sources inside the state attorney general's office have told us there is an undercover FBI agent currently being held inside the ranch. Hostage negotiators say they are making headway with the sect's leadership and are hopeful for a positive outcome. There is still no word as to why an undercover FBI agent was sent in alone…”

“Are you fucking Kidding me?” Hotch stands, anger than ever before. “I’m going to I’m going to wring that fuckers neck. I’m going to make his life a living hell.”

“Hotch,” JJ can’t believe those words left his mouth.

“You two,” he points at Derek and Dave, “you get to the parabolic mics and listen in as best as you can. JJ I want you to circle back with Penelope and tell her she can dig into Wells' life as hard as she can and you can reach out to the press with dirt on him. He wants to win the election so bad he’s willing to get federal agents dead, then we’re going to air all his dirty laundry.”

“Got it,” JJ likes that idea and runs back into the tent to make her calls.

Dave and Derek run to the parabolic mic station, leaving Aaron to head back inside and listen to the other spy mics they sent in.

There’s a silent chatter in the church, the mics are picking up more now that they’re not trapped inside boxes and surrounded by supplies. There are a few different angles they get based on what supply was places where. They’re all synced up, playing at the same time and able to be pinpointed for spy-in on individual conversations.

Suddenly, they hear the sound of a struggle, “Get off me! I can walk without you pulling my fucking hair!” Y/N’s voice shouts back.

“FBI scum like you don't get to give orders,” one of Cyrus’ goons speaks back to her and then he hears a slap.

Y/N groans at the pain and Aaron covers his mouth. He’s never been this anxious in his whole life. He wants to run down there, break in and kick the shit out of anyone who laid a hand on her. And then it gets worse.

More mics pick up the sound of the struggle. They hear what Aaron supposes is her body being dragged as she struggles and then the sound of her smacking the concrete. It sounded hard. Like she hit her head.

“I thought I told you not to put me in this position!” Cyrus shouts. Slamming the door behind himself.

Of course, he wouldn’t do this in front of the members.

He slaps her again, the sound of her struggle makes Aaron want to throw up. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. One second he’s covering his mouth then holding the headphones to his ears and the next he’s just holding them out for no reason. He listens in as she keeps getting hit. Punched, kicked, slapped… he really hopes that this is the extent of Cyrus’ abuse. If he had to hear anything else…. He would actually throw up all over everything.

“We’ve gotta go in,” Aaron says as he takes the headphones off. Derek and Rossi come running into the trailer then.

“We can’t go in,” Dave reminds him. “We’d be risking the lives of everyone in there.”

He knows Dave is right, Dan’s put the sound of her struggle on the speaker for everyone to hear and Aaron can’t escape it. The sound of her being hit again and again, moaning from the pain, she’s struggling to defend herself.

“Get up!” Cyrus says, hauling her up and then punching her in the face again. She slams into something this time, there’s the sound of a window or glass or something shattering and then her crying.

“Proverbs 20:30 tells us blows and wounds cleanse evil,” he spouts his bullshit at her. Then he growls, tossing her in another direction and she falls to the floor once more.

She cries, breathing in sounds like it hurts as she whines as she does so, “I can take it!”

“Oh, you can take it?” Cyrus just gets more pissed at that. He slaps her again and she cries more.

“I can take it!”

“Listen to what she’s saying…” Dave suggests.

“She’s antagonizing him!” Derek gets defensive, on Hotch’s side and wants to go in.

“She’s not talking to him, she’s telling us not to come in,” Aaron agrees with Dave, bowing his head, he hates that he’s right.

He can’t take this anymore. He gets up and leaves the room, Dave can listen to the rest. He has to step outside, away front he watchful eye of everyone there and around behind the trailer. He rests his back against it and sinks down to the floor, his face in his hands. He cries.

The weight of everything comes crashing down on him in that moment. He lost his wife. He hasn’t seen his son for more than a few hours in the last 6 months, his friend and colleague died in his arms in the middle of the street and he almost died too. The only good thing that’s happened in all of this is that he’s gotten closer to Y/N.

If anything happens to her he’s going to actually go insane. He may have joked about it before, when he was off work and had nothing to do… but now it feels real. He can’t lose her. He can’t go through the trauma of burying another friend. He can’t imagine losing another woman he loves. Cause he does love her. He loves her more than he should love a co-worker.

It all started when he got divorced. He never had eyes for any other woman but his wife, however, after the divorce… he found himself enjoying her company for reasons other than friendship. Sure, getting coffee together in the mornings was nice and he didn’t care for her choice of TV shows but hearing her talk and knowing her opinions on things felt special to him. He knew a side of her that no one else on the team knew.

And sleeping beside her didn’t help his crush either. She was so soft. She cuddled into him like she was always meant to be there. When he woke up that next morning, spooned into her, he could smell her hair and he had his hand on her stomach… under her shirt. As if in the night they got even closer than either one of them ever thought possible.

Derek comes out to find him just a few minutes later. Aaron’s managed to wipe his tears and pull himself together a bit, he accepts Derek's hand and gets pulled back up to his feet. “They took her to another room but there are blinds on the windows so we can’t hear anything.”

Aaron just nods. “I don’t know why she did that, why she put herself in danger like that.”

“He probably held a gun to one of them and got them to confess, he did that to get Kane out of the ranch, too,” Derek theorizes. “Maybe she confessed to get him off Reid? Reid’s only in there because he knows the bible so well, he can get on Cyrus’s good side and help us out. She knew that.”

“Still,” Aaron can’t really argue.

“I know you love her, man, but we’ve got a job to do,” Derek whispers. “I feel the same way about Spencer.”

Aaron’s a little shocked to hear that but then again, not? It makes sense. The teasing, the closeness, the room sharing… that time Spencer missed his flight to hang out with another man he knew as a teenager. There were signs there from both of them, he just never thought to read them until now.

Aaron stares into his eyes, the two men would do anything for their team already, knowing they both loved someone in the ranch, which made them even more eager to do this right. “So let’s get them out of there.”

Back inside the trailer, Rossi has the speakers on still, and Reids talking. “Nancy said she was a child abuse interview expert from Denver. In the four years I’ve worked with her, Nancy’s never lied to me before.”

“As far as you know,” Cyrus spoke, believing him. “Their law says that a 15-year-old girl is a child when just 50 years ago that same law said that a 14-year-old was an adult. Have children changed so much in 50 years?”

“I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve investigated abuse charges against small religious groups… most all of them turn out to be false,” Reid lies to him. Successfully.

“What do you think of that?”

“What does it matter what I think?”

“It matters to me,” Cyrus assures him.

“Why?”

“Because god wants to save you,” Cyrus spouts.

“I swear to god if Cyrus comes out of there alive I’m going to beat him to death with my bare hands,” Derek mumbles under his breath to Hotch.

“Get in line.”

“I mean, that’s why god sent you here, isn’t it?” Cyrus poses, making reid feel like he’s a part of them now.

“I think… on the next call you should test them,” Reid suggests. “Test the negotiator. Make him prove that he isn’t a liar.”

“How would you suggest do that?”

“Ask for the identity of the FBI agent—

“We already know her identity,” his goon responds for him.

“They don’t know that we know,” Cyrus agrees with Reid.

“but the FBI would never tell is that?” The goon responds again.

“They keep asking you to release people, say you’ll release a kid only if they tell you her identity and if they really care about the children they’ll have to tell you her identity,” Spencer tries harder to get Cyrus on his side.

“You’re trying to get us to release a child!” The man fights with Reid.

“It’s one kid,” Spencer talks to him like he’s an idiot. “If they don’t hold up on their end of the deal then you know they can’t be trusted.”

“He’s right,” Cyrus ultimately agrees.

“Reid has ‘em,” Rossi turns back to them, clearly proud of the kid.

“What is it, Christopher?” Cyrus asks his friend.

“Well… some of them have been talking about… leaving?” He poses the suggestion.

“Leaving?” Cyrus repeats.

“yeah…”

“Wake the baby. Let them see the orphan they’ve made.”

“Okay, everyone!!” Hotch calls out of the trailer, getting the other's attention. “We’re about to get a call, we should expect some members to be released shortly. Get ready for phase one.”

Everyone rushes around then. Preparing to make room for the followers, cars are called in to collect people and take them to a hotel for the night and a few ambulances show up in case anyone is in need of medical support.

But no call comes in.

They wait all night until the sun comes up. But nothing.

“They’re probably going to ask when we call them,” Rossi suggests. “I’ll give my morning call at 6.”

“Okay,” Hotch agrees. “Morgan, I want you to take the truck up to the ranch and collect the little girl, if anyone else is released, Dan will come up and help escort them over here.”

“Yes sir.”

—

Rossi calls in right at 6. They haven’t heard anything else over the mics or through the windows. Most of the members must’ve been asleep in the chapel overnight. Sleeping in pews or on the floor… they all must be exhausted and mostly ready to leave now that the condition of their stay has changed.

“Good morning, Ben, how are you today?” Rossi speaks to him cheerfully.

“We are prepared to release a child if you tell me the identity of the FBI agent promise no harm will come to them from this point forward,” Cyrus leads right into it.

A wave of relief washes over Aaron.

“I can’t give you that information,” Rossi eggs him on.

“I will send the child now.”

Aaron waves his hand to Dan who’s got eyes on the ranch, a little girl has started to walk out of the compound and is standing in the gravel driveway. Dan motions to Derek who’s already taking his gun off and handing it to Hotch who hands him a radio in return. He takes off to the truck then, one of the other men drives Derek up and they watch on the cameras as Derek calmly collects the little girl and gets her into the truck safely.

“I’m taking a big risk here Ben,” Dave tries to play it cool with him.

“Trust is earned,” Cyrus reminds him.

“Her name is Y/N Y/L/N,” Rossi says her full name. “She came in with two child service workers to talk to the girls.”

“There’s a good chance we can work this out, Dave” Cyrus assures him. “I’m gonna provide another sign of good faith.”

“You’re doing a good thing here,” Dave assures him. Hyping up his confidence, getting on his good side.

Cyrus hangs up after that and they rely back to the microphones. “Assemble everyone in the chapel. Get agent Prentiss back down here,” Cyrus orders Christopher.

“This is it,” Aaron assures Dave and Dan. “We’ve started the trickle, it’s about to flow. We need to be prepared for women in children to be released as well as some of their husbands who’ve lost faith in Cyrus.”

Just as they thought, 10 minutes after the order to gather everyone, Cyrus starts to explain why he has them all gathered there. He points out that some of them have lost their faith, that he no longer can support people who don’t support him and his god. And then he starts to name names.

“He looks pissed?” They hear Y/N whisper.

Of course, the two of them would stand where they could be heard the best by the others.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she assures Spencer.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers to her.

“Look at who he’s releasing,” Y/N says again.

“It’s the ones who failed the loyalty test,” Spencer explains. “I’ll get word to the team. You wait for a sign from the outside that will tell us when the raid will come.”

The room goes quiet for a few moments and then they heard, “Take her back.”

Y/N was being sent back to whatever room they had her locked in, in the first place. They need to figure out where that would be… they need to be able to find her during the raid and get her out of there safely.

“Those of you standing, collect your belongings and meet in the main hall immediately,” Cyrus orders.

Not long after that, they start to see a bunch of people start to leave the chapel. Just then, Cyrus calls them. They send Dan and his guys out to collect the survivors and Hotch listens in on the phone call.

“We will surrender tomorrow at noon, we want the press there to make sure that we’re treated fairly,” Cyrus makes them a deal. “We’ll discuss the details tomorrow at our 7 am call… I’ll see you then Dave.”

“I look forward to it,” Dave agrees.

“Oh, and one more thing, could you send in some food in?” He requests.

“Sure, what would you like?” Dave pretends to be hospitable but by the look on his face, Aaron can tell he rather take a bite out of a leather shoe than keep this act up.

“Fried chicken, all the fixings.”

“You got it! I’ll have it brought right up to you.” Dave hangs up and shakes his head. “I hate this mother fucker.”

“I don’t understand, why did you let them go?” Another goon asks, more like, demands to know from Cyrus.

“They weren’t prepared to do what was needed of them,” Spencer butts in.

“Yeah, no offence but you’re not one of us so shut the fuck up,” he spits back at Spencer.

“Listen to him,” Cyrus sides with Reid. “Tell him, Spencer.”

“They failed the test,” Spencer explains. “They-they had a chance to prove their faith when Cyrus told them that they’d sacrificed themselves for god, but instead they showed they weren’t worthy…. That’s why he wants the media to bear witness to your true final act of sacrifice.”

“how do you know that?” The man asks.

“I’m always looking for signs of things to come.”

“Spencer’s asking us for what time to expect the raid,” Dave understands his meaning right away. “He’s telling us this is it! Time is running out! We’ve gotta go in!”

—

The food arrives around mid-day, and they have it delivered to the trailer first. They examine it all to make sure nothing's been tampered with by the restaurant and then they get it all boxed up and ready to go.

“We obviously can’t spike the food 'cause there are kids,” Aaron explains to Dan. “So we need to find another way to alert Spencer that there is a raid coming…”

Just then he picks up a red Sharpie marker and writes on the lid of the chicken box. “New management, open until 3 AM tonight!!” He underlines it a few times and then repeats it on the boxes for the corn and mashed potatoes and biscuits. Spencer has to see it somewhere.

Aaron and Derek are so positive that Spencer can find a way to prepare for the raid inside and figure out a way to get the women and children out of harm's way when Derek, Dave and Dan come crashing through the doors. He’s not going, he has to stay back with JJ and oversee the whole operation. He hates it. But it’s his job.

Derek and Dave go up to the ranch to deliver the food and just as there’s a commotion at the door and everyone is busy at the ranch, the parabolic mikes pick up Y/N’s voice.

“AARON!” Dan yells for him from outside, causing him to rush down to him.

“What?” He fears for the worst.

“it’s Y/N, she’s listening to the blinds with her high-heeled boot and we can hear her, listen,” he hands him the headphones.

“If you can hear me, I know you’re coming. I can try to get the women and children down to the tunnel but I need to know when you’re coming.”

She keeps repeating those two sentences over and over.

“come on,” Aaron gets up, grabs a riffle with a laser scope and they head to the hill closest to the ranch. Dan follows behind him with the transmitter, listening in on what Y/N’s saying still.

He points the gun right at the window and she sees the laser shine against the wall in the room she’s trapped in.

“I got you, what time are you coming in?”

He blinks the laser 3 times.

“3 am?”

He keeps the beam steady and nods the gun, up and down, as if he’s nodding yes.

“Got it. Reid is on the first floor somewhere with Cyrus, and please remember there are children here... someone's coming,” she’s quick to pull her foot away from the window and they lose signal with her.

Dan starts to retreat, leaving Hotch there with the gun and a hopeful feeling. “Hang in there, sweetheart.”

—

At 2:15 AM they start preparing for the raid. Swat is called in, they’ve got a supply of Humvees supplied by the army, weapons, ammunition, and tear gas. They’re ready to go. All without Aaron.

Aaron has his headset on and his radio with him, listening in on the Sect while also in contact with the team as they make their way closer to the ranch.

They know somethings up, that somethings coming… they should’ve cut the lights to the Humvees and gone in there blind.

Cyrus heads outside of the chapel, points his gun in the air and starts shooting the sky, gathering attention from the media just over the hill. He wants them to see how this all goes down.

Luckily, Cyrus just doesn’t know how much they know. When Derek met with the previous leader, Kane, he drew them a map of the whole facility. Secret tunnels, bunkers, you name it, they know where it is. So that’s where they go in.

On the radio he hears Dan give the go-ahead for phase one, the men storm the tunnel exit and surprise the guard down there with flash grenades and tear gas, subduing him. The men force their way inside, they drag the guard to the corner and cuff him up so he can’t cause any trouble and within seconds, Derek is on the radio.

“Y/N’s here, she got the women and children down to the tunnels,” Derek alerts him. “I’m sending them out to you, Dan.”

“Ten-4, I have a vehicle ready to transport them to safety,” Dan responds.

“They’ve wired explosives,” Derek alerts through the radio. “We need to move, now!”

Aaron throws on a bulletproof vest then and starts to run out of the tent, “where are you going!?” JJ calls after him.

“to help get them as far away from the blast as possible this is an all-hands-on-deck situation!” He yells back and keeps running.

He runs as fast as he can, following the dimly lit dirt road up to the chapel, he can see the women and children running out of the tunnels and towards the front of the building. “Over here! This way!” He calls to them, “Over here! You need to get away from the building!”

“Aaron!” Y/N shouts, as the last one to leave the tunnel, she ushers the women and children towards him and hobbles along as fast as she can.

She runs right into his arms, and they both make an audible “oof,” as their chests collide but he holds her close. “You’re okay?”

“I’m okay,” she assures him, pulling back, she turns to face the others, “Keep moving, follow the lights, head to that tent back there!”

They usher them up the road, keeping them at a safe distance from the building, he rests his hand on her back and when she turns to him again, he uses his other hand to cradle her face. He can’t really see in the dark, but he can tell she’s all beaten and bruised, “are you sure—

“I’m fine, we need to go back in there, they have Spencer,” she worries, almost in tears. “It’s bad Aaron, the whole building is rigged to go, they have TNT and gas everywhere, in every hallway way, doorway, support beam… it’s going to go up like a fucking tinderbox.”

“Dereks got it,” he assures her. “They’ll be okay.” She doesn’t look like she believes him, so he pulls her in closer again and cradles her head. “It’s going to be okay.”

They hear a few shots then, followed by the chapel door flying open, Derek and Spencer come running out of the building, and Dave comes running out of the tunnel exit with Dan just as the building goes up in flames.

“Jesse,” Y/N whispers, shocked.

They rush to the building, running up the few concrete steps toward where Derek and Spencer were knocked down by the blast. Aaron picks up Derek, Y/N picks up Spencer and as a team, they retreat away from the fire. At a safe distance, they all stop, turn to the blaze and realize they made it. All of them.

Y/N pulls Spencer into her arms, breaking out in a sob, she crumbles. Her knees give way and Spencer does his best to keep her upright, Aaron steps in and supports her, and Derek too. “We did it,” Spencer whispers, “we’re okay.”

“We’re okay,” she repeats, absolutely exhausted from everything she’s been through.

“We need a medic!” Aaron calls, “Someone, please, get a stretcher over here!”

“I’m fine, I’m okay,” she tries to push them away, standing on her own two feet again but she’s wobbly.

“No, you’re not,” Aaron argues with her. “You got beat up, I heard it all. You’re not okay, I don’t care how strong you think you are you’re—

She reaches out and covers his mouth, “Stop yelling at me, my head is killing me.”

“Sorry,” he apologizes, wrapping his arm under her to support her, he helps her down the stairs just as the ambulance is pulling up to the church.

—

It doesn’t take long for both Y/N and Reid to get checked out by the paramedics. Spencer has some general ringing in his ear from being so close to a blast, and Y/N has a concussion and severe abdominal bruising. They don’t suspect any internal bleeding, but they advise her to have someone watch her all night and to go to the hospital if she feels sick or light-headed.

Derek offers to drive himself, Reid, Rossi and Y/N back to the hotel, JJ and Hotch just have to finish up a few things and then they’ll join, but she turns down Derek's request. “I’m going to stay with Aaron and JJ,” she whispers, not really wanting to talk unless she has to. “You guys head out, it’s okay.”

“Are you sure?” Spencer gives her his puppy dog eyes.

She nods, giving him a sweet smile, “Yeah, I don’t think I can handle Derek's driving right now.”

“Fair enough,” Rossi pats her shoulder, heading off after Derek.

“Okay,” Spencer understands the real reason why she isn’t going, he looks at her and then at Aaron. He’s not dumb. Far from it, actually. Of course, he knows there’s something going on between them… Aaron just wonders what it is on her side.

“Spence,” she stops him, pulls him in for another hug and holds him there. She whispers something in his ear, something Aaron can’t hear, but by the look on Spencer’s face, it’s sweet. When she pulls back, she speaks louder. “You come get me if you need anything, I mean anything… okay?”

“I will, thank you,” he smiles before turning away and heading off to the SUV.

She comes to sit beside Aaron after that, he’s filing out some paperwork about the supplies they used and Dan’s signing off on everything, too. JJ’s wrapping up from things on the phone with the state, and firefighters are now on the scene putting out the blaze… it’s a commotion, but he doesn’t care about anything other than Y/N.

He reaches out for her hand, under the table, he holds it and looks at her. Asking if she’s okay with just his eyes.

She nods, “I’m tired.”

“I can do the rest of this,” Dan offers.

“Yeah?”

He nods, “Yeah, you guys go get some rest, you’ve done more than enough for us.”

“Okay,” Aaron doesn’t fight it, he simply lets go of her hand and starts to stand up, helping her up too. “Come on, let’s get you out of here… JJ?”

She’s still on the phone but peaks her head over, asking what’s up with her facial expression.

“We’re heading out, come on.”

She holds up her finger, asking for just a second, which is good. It gives him a chance to pack up his things and help Y/N into the passenger seat of their SUV. JJ comes rushing over not 2 minutes later, the phone still pressed to her ear, she gets in the back seat and all they hear is “Thank you so much, half our team should be there in a few minutes, we’re about 30 minutes out… thank you, again, bye.”

“Good to go?” Aaron asks.

“Yeah, and I got us all hotels for tonight Rossi is alone, Derek is with Reid and I will partner with Hotch tonight so Y/N can be alone and—

She cuts JJ off. “I don’t want to be alone,” she says in a low tone. It hurts to talk. “Not with my concussion.”

“Oh,” JJ didn’t expect that. “Um, I guess we can be together, Hotch can be alone?”

She shakes her head, “No, mama you go be alone for the night, I’m sure you’re exhausted. You’ve done so much these last two days, Hotch can babysit me, make sure I don’t die in my sleep.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” he looks over at her, completely serious. “You’re okay, the paramedics said it’s not too serious, you’re going to be fine.”

“I was kidding,” she gives him a sweet smile.

It doesn’t take long for them to get to the hotel, they check in, they’re handed their room keys and off they go. The double rooms are on the same floor, they’re just across the hall from Derek and Spencer, JJ’s a floor above them and Rossi is on the top floor. He really doesn’t care how much money he spends, he always wants the best rooms.

He carries both their bags upstairs. He had someone go to her other hotel, the one she and Reid were sharing when they arrived, and get her things. He sets them all down on one of the beds and she just stands there, sore and tired. She looks like she wants to cry again. She’s bruising slowly, everything’s getting worse and darker in colour the more time passes.

“Are you okay?”

She nods, “Yeah… I just hurt all over.”

“I don’t want this to come off as weird, or anything,” he prefaces. “But do you need or want help changing? Do you want to take a bath? I can help you get in or out— I won’t look, I promise. I just want you to feel better.”

She laughs lightly, but it hurts to do that. “I don’t think I need help… but thank you.”

“You took such great care of me last month, I just want to repay the favour,” he gives her a small smile.

She takes a step towards him and wraps her arms around his middle, resting her head on his chest. He carefully holds her back, his cheek resting against her head. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“You need a lot more than a bomb to get rid of me,” she teases. He said the same thing in the hospital in New York.

He smiles, dragging his cheek across her hair until his lips are pressed to her head. He kisses her gently, “Come on, let’s get you ready for bed.”

She sighs as she pulls back, “Would it be weird to share a bed tonight? I really don’t want to be alone.”

“Not weird at all,” he assures her.

“Good,” she smiles.

He brings her over to the one bed that their bags are on, they each zip open their own bag and start digging for their things. She takes out her pyjama shirt and her shorts, her little bag of toiletries and her phone charger and then she remembers she doesn’t have a phone anymore. “I can’t believe that fucker blew up all my stuff.”

“We’ll get you a new phone when we get back tomorrow,” Aaron assures her. “Penelope knows to call me if anyone calls work looking for you.”

“Okay, good… I’m going to change in the bathroom first, I’ll call you if I need help?”

“Okay,” he agrees.

He takes the chance to change in the room, he slips out of his khakis and dress shirt and quickly replaces them with a new pair of boxers and a fresh white shirt. It's what he slept in beside her before… that was the best sleep he’s had in years. Even beside his ex-wife he never slept that good.

He heads over to the empty queen bed that their shit isn’t on and folds back the covers for them. He fluffs the pillows and even sets a complimentary bottle of water on each of their night tables, that’s when he remembers he still has medicine in his bag. She emerges from the bathroom soon after, all changed with a soft smile on her face. “Tada?”

“You look nice,” he compliments her. “I uh, I still have some medicine— the T3s…”

“Ooo,” she thinks about it. “I was just going to tough it out but that sounds like a much better option.”

“I just don’t like the idea of you hurting all night long, you’re supposed to be resting,” he reminds her, handing her the pill bottle once she’s closer to him. “There’s water on your side.”

She takes two of them, sets her water down and starts to get into the bed, Aaron stands at her side, watching as she hisses. “Are you okay?”

“Mhm,” she hums. “Getting punched and kicked in the gut sucked, I’m surprised I don’t have internal bleeding.”

His heart breaks even more, “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she waves it off. “Come get in bed.”

Before he does that, he flicks on the lamp on his side of the bed and heads back over to the door to turn off the main light. When he finally slips into bed, she reaches over for his hand and pulls him over so he can spoon her. She just wants to be held. He gently places his hand on her stomach, he doesn’t want to hurt her at all. She lets out a deep sigh, relaxing into his arms and waiting for the pills to kick in.

“I’m really glad they put you in charge of everything,” she whispers. “The second Rossi showed up in the church I knew we were going to be leaving okay.”

“You should’ve heard Morgan scream for me when the situation popped onto the news in the bullpen,” he recounts, still astounded by it himself. “I was just thinking about you when he called for me and then all the phones started going off and I knew we’d be the ones doing the rescuing.”

“You were thinking about me?” She repeats. “What were you thinking about me for?”

“Oh…” he feels suddenly embarrassed. “Just that it was weird not having breakfast together and I was thinking if you didn't drive to the airport, I would’ve driven you home.”

“Awe,” she swoons, she places her hand over his and interlocks their fingers. “We can get lunch together tomorrow after we land… before you take me back to the airport to get my car.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he whispers. “But we’ll have to take it to go…”

“Why?”

“I don't want anyone to think I did that to you,” he explains, a sick feeling in his throat at the mere thought of someone thinking he could hurt her.

“Oh, oh yeah,” she forgot. “Sorry, I’m starting to feel the medicine… if I fall asleep on you, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, go to sleep if you have to,” he assures her. “I’ll be right here all night if you need me.”

“Thank you, Aar,” she mumbles out, already slipping into her slumber. “Love… you.”

His heart skips a beat, he wants to say it back but he doesn’t know how much of that is just the medicine and him taking care of her and how much of it she really, truly means. He doesn’t want to risk it, so he just snuggles in closer, kisses the back of her shoulder and attempts to fall asleep with her.

General Taglist

@ncsls0515 @stevesmunsons @reidsbookclub @sweetyyhippyy @manuosorioh @mrs-dr-reid @k-k0129 @squishyturtle @katsukis1wife @babybisexual @marsmunson86 @buckleyhans

IKP

@southernraven @alluringshawn @lambsheepsheeping @lmg-stilinski24 @louderfortheback @deludedfruitcake @kleff03 @mrs-ssa-hotch @maxinehufflepuffprincess @lokifanfic2021 @art-and-thoughts

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotch hotchner #aaron hotch x reader #aaron hotch x you #hotch smut #hotch x reader #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine

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goldshirtleia · 6 months

Text

Hello yes it is that time of year again, I am listening to the 1970 OG recording of JCS on vinyl and have decided to finally make a list my rankings for every role and aspect of this show. For the record I am a pagan whose only real knowledge of the Jesus story is from this show so forgive my unhinged takes.

Characters:

Jesus:

Ian Gillan (OG album/broadway)

Ted Neeley (1973)

Ola Sålo (Swedish 2014)

Jack Hopewell (North American Tour 2022)

Morgan James (all female cast 2022)

Judas:

Carl Anderson (1973)

Brandon Victor Dixon (2018)

Murray Head (OG album)

Shoshana Bean (all female cast 2022)

Peter Johannson (Swedish 2014)

Honourable mention to Colm Wilkinson (it is a CRIME that there isn't a full recording of the Irish cast)

Mary Magdalene:

Yvonne Elliman (OG album/broadway/1973)

That's it, no one else even comes close

(Maybe an honourable mention for Gunilla Backman)

Pontius Pilate:

Barry Dennen (OG album/1973)

Filippo Strocchi (Vienna 2018)

Orfeh (all female cast 2022)

Caiaphas:

Bob Bingham (OG broadway/1973)

Norm Lewis (NBC 2018) I will ALWAYS stan Norm

Victor Brox (OG album)

Simon Zealotes:

TIE - Larry Marshall (1971)

TIE - Eric Grönwall (NBC 2018)

John Gustafson (OG album)

Tony Vincent (2000)

Herod:

Alice Cooper (NBC 2018)

Mike D'Abo (OG album)

Chris Moyles (Arena Tour 2012)

Overall - staging/set design/costumes:

1973 Movie

NBC 2018

North American Tour 2022

Arena Tour 2012

Honourable mention to the OG broadway production -- I haven't seen enough footage to accurately rank it but I LOVE Jesus's cape in Superstar.

Best overall rendition of Superstar (incl. staging, costumes, etc)

1973 Movie

NBC 2018

Arena Tour 2012

Swedish 2014

Best facial expressions:

Carl Anderson during Simon Zealotes

Carl Anderson right before he engages in respectability politics to slut shame Mary

Tim Minchin when the priests take his joint lmao

Best Superstar costume:

Carl Anderson's white maxi fringe jumpsuit (come ON)

Peter Johannson's shirtless #lewk (I have a whole thing about how Judas should not look like a demon but the sparkly red pants and the Legolas hair are too fantastic)

Brandon Victor Dixon in the full silver fit

Best WTF moments:

That bit in the 1973 film where they all form The Last Supper for a quick second and no one comments on it

When the 1973 crowd says "won't you die for me?" in Hosanna and it just FREEZES on Jesus's face

The Swedish cast pushing Jesus into Jerusalem in a shopping cart

The fighter pilots swooping at Judas after Blood Money in 1973. What WAS that. How did they get that.

That is all lol. Every time we watch even a clip of a new production my mother and I spend 2-3 hours discussing how it fits into our rankings, so this could change.

#jesus christ superstar #y'all are gonna hear me #JCS #jcs 1973 #jcs 2012 arena tour #jcs 2000 #jcs 2018 #swedish jcs

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vomitdodger · 6 months

Text

This is actual an amazing time to analyze all this. And what’s going on still while people are becoming awake.

Notice the title of the speaker in the chyron. She was also on the Biden Harris campaign of 2020. Always have to push the narrative.

The reaction to the OJ acquittal at the time couldn’t have been further apart based on race (GENERALLY speaking and according to the media). Video still in below article shows an all black university classroom erupting in joyful tears to OJs acquittal. Funny how Screw tube took that video down. The exact university escapes me now. Videos elsewhere were what one would expect: disbelief and outrage mixed with sadness.

“Fringed” groups have been lied to and manipulated as useful idiots forever to promote an agenda. Academics, politics, media, etc. Complete pandering on every aspect.

Funny thing is that these fringed groups are ever more awakening to how they’ve been used and lie to. Social media is awash with blacks (predominantly) saying they’re done with democrats. Good. Be done with useless RINOs as well. Just yesterday the below happened to Trump at a Georgia Chick Fil A. You’ll note her color and statement. Pic from accompanying article below it but it’s viral everywhere.

Morgan Freeman said it best a while back in a famous interview and yes I know he may have walk it back a bit since. I suspect he is progressively down with the libtard for whatever reason as his commentary on climate change couldn’t be more leftist. At least in his paid narrative nature documentaries.

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smolwritingchick · 8 months

Text

Forced To Believe Chapter 48- Armageddon Part 2

Chapter Summary: The Shield continue to take on The Wyatts

Words: 6,000+

Author's Note: Trust the process :)

------

Melanie was elated right now. She was about to face her boyfriend in a match. It had been a while since they had a match together, and she hoped she wouldn't disappoint the fans. She's been working on a new Morganizer ever since the day after Survivor Series and she hopes to debut it tonight. And what better person to do the move with, than her boyfriend?

Celeste tweeted 'Holy shit! This is gonna be GOOD!'

The Bellas tweeted 'Morgan! I hope you know what you're doing. Dean! Save her!'

"The Lunatic Fringe going up against The Outspoken Diva. Man...these two know each other so well. This is going to be very interesting." Cole said.

"Interesting!? This is epic!" King grinned.

"Epic!? Interesting!? This is horrible! They are supposed to be a couple! They aren't supposed to fight! Physically I mean!" JBL complained. "This is a nightmare! Don't do this!"

"John, you are taking this a little too far. Morgan wants a match, so maybe if she wrestles Dean, she may be saved." Cole informed.

"Yeah...MAY be saved." JBL replied. "I hope Dean knows what he's doing."

Morgan narrowed her eyes at Dean. "Looking at you brings back unpleasant memories..."

"Oh really?" Dean recalled.

"Break him in half! Make him feel what you felt! Make him pay!" Bray yelled.

"Your ass is mine, Morgan." Ambrose declared.

"Oh really? Since when am I yours?" she replied.

"Since day one. And if you ever kick me again, I swear-"

"Oh! You're swearing now? Really? What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do!? I'll beat the crap out of you, for sure."

Dean starts pacing around.

"Dean, there is still time to rethink this!" JBL shouted. "Rethink this!"

"I don't think so!" Cole yelled as Morgan did the matrix evasion when Ambrose tried to go for a clothesline.

He turns around as she spins and hits him with a roundhouse kick to the face.

"And it's on! This place just exploded!" King exclaimed over the loud cheering.

Morgan goes for the pin but Dean kicks out at two.

"Stay on him! Stay on him!" Bray ordered as she put Dean in a headlock.

"Common Dean!" Seth cheered as Ambrose grunted and managed to stand up.

She jumps up and puts her legs around Dean's torso to try to tighten the hold. He manages to escape it and she tries to kick him in the stomach but he grabs her foot and shakes his head.

"Nope." He said.

"Right back 'atcha!" She jumped up and hit him with an unexpected enzuguri as he fell to his knees.

"I got a feeling these two are going to blow the roof off this place soon. They're just warming up and taking the pace a little slow." King grinned.

"How can you enjoy watching this!?" JBL exclaimed.

"It's a sight to see," Cole said. Morgan runs to the ropes and hits Ambrose with a shining wizard.

"What a kick!" Cole exclaimed as Morgan spun on one knee and stopped to have a staredown with Rosa.

She slowly smirks at her and blows her a kiss.

"Are you kidding me!? Dean! Tag me in right now!" Rosa yelled.

She really wanted to put her hands on Morgan. She hated her guts for taunting her.

"More mind games by Morgan. Looks like payback." Cole said.

The Outspoken Diva stands up but as soon as she turns around, Dean takes her down with a lariat.

"What a takedown by Ambrose! The game has changed now." Cole looked on.

Morgan holds her head but sighs loudly when he puts his right knee on her back and puts her in a headlock submission from behind.

"Hurts doesn't it? It hurts, huh? This is what happens." He taunted. "Maybe next time you should watch your back!"

"Ugh, shut up!" She yelled.

"Do you submit!?" The ref asked.

"Will Morgan tap!?" Cole shouted.

"Rose! Do not give in!" Bray yelled.

"Dean! That's painful! Why would you hurt her, like this!?" JBL exclaimed.

"Morgan has to dig down deep." King looked on.

The Philly Diva manages to hit Dean in the face, making him stumble up to his feet. She quickly drops him down, face first and puts him in the breakdown as the crowd cheers. She leans back and puts her feet on his while putting his arms in a straightjacket position.

"Grin and bear..." She retorted as she put more pressure.

"Painful!" King cringed.

"Come on, Dean! Do not tap out!" Seth yelled.

"Put more pressure!" Bray ordered.

"Tap!" Morgan yelled.

"Like hell, I will!" Dean yelled and managed to get one of his arms out as he escaped the hold.

They both stand up and Morgan tries to go for the bulldog but he pushes her away. As soon as she turns around, she gets dropped by a clothesline.

"What a shot!" King shouted.

Dean runs to the ropes and does a little wave before hitting her with an elbow drop. He goes for the pin and she kicks out at two and rolls over to the ropes. She gets up and leans on the ropes while Dean runs, striking her with a running front dropkick as she holds her stomach and slides down.

"And Ambrose is dominating now," Cole said as he hit her with a few shots near the turnbuckle. He throws her to the ropes but Morgan jumps on the middle rope and jumps off to hit him with a springboard forearm. "Morgan with the counter!"

"Amazing!" King said as Dean rolled over to the turnbuckle next to the Wyatt Family's corner and sat on the bottom turnbuckle.

She gets up and runs her hands through her messy black hair. She runs towards him and uses the ropes to jump up and connect by giving him a dropkick on the chest while landing.

"Jeesh! What a dropkick!" Cole looked on.

"Morgan! What are you doing!? Stop it! Stop it right now!" JBL whined.

Dean rolls over on the apron, near the commentating table and manages to get up. She connects with a spinning heel kick to the face as he falls off the apron.

"Look out!" King yelled as she got on the apron and hit Dean with a diving clothesline.

"She's not messing around! Uh oh." Cole said as Seth, Roman, and Rosa got off the apron and headed to Dean to check on him while Morgan had a stare down with them. The Wyatts get off the apron to accompany her. "This is getting intense."

The ref starts to count and Morgan slides back in the ring, to wait for Dean to crawl back in. At the count of 6, he slides back in. Morgan gets on the top rope and goes for a crossbody but Dean catches her.

"Uh oh!" Cole shouted as the crowd cheered while she tried to get out of his hold but failed.

He hits her with a backbreaker as she yells out in pain and puts her in a submission by making her stay in the backbreaker hold.

"Make her tap!" Rosa cheered.

"Your back isn't supposed to do that," King said with worry as Dean continued the pressure.

Morgan sighed loudly. "I can't take this anymore!"

"Then give up and come back to me!" Dean yelled.

"No!" She yelled and punched him away as she escaped the hold.

She rolls over and stands on the apron. Dean gets up and goes to punch her but she ducks and slides back into the ring, in between his legs. As soon as she stands up, he quickly turns around and grabs her for the headlock driver but she pushes him away.

"Not today." She retorted and threw him to the ropes, hitting him with a big boot.

She pins him for a two count. She gets up and runs to the ropes but Dean gets up and follows her to hit her with a knee to the stomach. She groans out in pain and drops to her knees. Ambrose smirks and puts his hands on his knees.

"That hurt, didn't it?" He taunted as she clenched her stomach, shooting him a dirty look. "This is what happens, Morgan! This is what happens!"

She stands up and strikes him with a quick roundhouse kick to the face, making him slowly drop to the mat.

She looked at his dazed form. "Who do you think you're talkin' to!? Do you know who I am!?" She yelled.

Dean begins to smirk as he starts to sense her coming back to him, but it isn't enough. He'll have to dig down deeper to save her. He stands up and they lock up but he puts her in a waistlock from behind.

"You know...I always think you're beautiful when you're pissed off." He said in her ear which made Morgan feel a spark in her head.

She starts to remember the times when he would try to calm her down whenever she got angry. She shakes her head and elbows him in the stomach, making him release the hold. She throws him to a corner and walks back to the corner across from it.

"Uh oh! I think I know what's coming next!" King grinned as Morgan connected with the handspring back elbow. "Woo hoo!"

"This is pure torture..." JBL retorted and buried his face in his hands.

Although it seemed that Morgan hit Dean with the elbow, he quickly grabbed her from behind and slammed her down.

"What a counter! I thought she got him!"

Dean picks her up and puts her on top of the turnbuckle. He gets on the middle rope and puts her in a double under hook suplex hold.

"Put her down! Put her down, now!" Bray shouted.

Dean smirks at him but Morgan manages to wiggle out and punch him down.

"Phew! That was close!" JBL sighed out of relief. "W-wait, Morgan! What are you doing!?"

She goes for the moonsault but Dean moves out of the way.

"Nobody home! Gosh...I hope Morgan is okay." King said with worry as she clenched her stomach.

Dean goes for the pin but Luke gets in the ring and breaks it up.

"What the hell!?" Seth yelled as Roman gave Luke a dirty look.

Dean glares at Luke and starts arguing with him as the crowd gets excited about what will happen next.

"Watch your back!" JBL warned but Morgan took advantage and hit him with the Morganizer.

"She got it!" King yelled as she quickly went for the pin.

"No!" Rosa yelled.

"Kick out!" Seth shouted

"1!"

"2!"

"Oh!" The crowd yelled as Dean kicked out.

"What!?" Bray shouted.

"I thought she had it!" Cole shouted as Seth, Roman, and Rosa looked relieved.

"Just what I expected," Morgan said.

She gets up and goes to a corner and waits for Dean to get to his knees. Once he does, she runs to hit him with a knee to the head but he quickly moves out of the way and grabs her for the headlock driver.

"It's over!" King yelled as he quickly went for the pin.

"1!"

"2!"

"Oh!" The crowd yelled again as Morgan kicked out.

"No!" Rosa shouted

Morgan holds her head and remains motionless.

Nikki tweeted 'Kick out after kick out! This is making me nervous!'

"Unleash Rose! Unleash!" Bray shouted angrily.

"I'll unleash on you, all right." Dean pointed to him and stood up.

He picks Morgan up and throws her to a corner but they both try to fight their way up the top rope.

"They are just unloading on each other," Cole said.

They manage to get on the top rope and Morgan positions him for the Morganizer.

"No way, off the top rope!?" Cole exclaimed.

Brie tweeted 'Please don't tell me...'

Nikki tweeted 'WWEMorgan101 you crazy son of a gun'

"Oh no, no, no, no~. Put him down~! Put him down~!" Seth said in a whiny voice while Morgan smirked in amusement.

"Morgan! No! Put him down!" JBL yelled. "Put him down now! What are you doing!?" He got up from his seat but King pulled him down.

"Calm down!" King exclaimed.

Morgan exhales and hits Ambrose with the Morganizer off the top rope while doing a battle cry as the crowd starts chanting 'Holy shit!'

"No! No! Morgan! Why would you do that!?" JBL yelled. "I gotta get in there-" He stands up but King and Cole pull him back down.

"Sit down!" King and Cole yell.

"We gotta see that again!" King yelled as they showed Morgan's Morganizer a few times from different angles.

"Morganizer off the top rope! Somebody pin someone!" Cole shouted.

Morgan and Dean lay motionless and they both were panting. Morgan was lying on her back, looking at the ceiling while Dean was face first on the mat. She kind of felt some weight lifted off her shoulders while she began to wrestle Dean. She started to feel less stressed out with Sister Abigail and more content while wrestling Dean in the ring.

"Pin him!" Bray yelled.

"Dean! You gotta make a tag!" Seth put his hand out. "Come on, Ambrose."

The Outspoken Diva turns her head and sees Ambrose looking at her.

"Dean..." She managed to say as he looked into her eyes.

She starts to feel a stronger spark in her head while he begins to recognize the look in her eyes. He wasn't much of a hopeful guy, but he felt like he had a strong chance to save her now and he thinks he knows how.

"1!" The ref started to count for a double count out.

Dean had a strong feeling she was coming back to him but it still wasn't enough as she managed to crawl over to The Wyatts.

"Why didn't she pin him?" Cole asked.

"Maybe she's coming back," King said with hope as Morgan tagged in Luke and rolled out the ring to recover. "That Morganizer took a lot out of her and it may have just hurt her as much as it hurt Dean."

Celeste tweeted 'Whoa! Morganizer off the top rope!? Badass!'

Brie tweeted 'OMG! Morgan! What were you thinking!?'

"I think Ambrose is still dazed from that Morganizer," King said but Ambrose hit Luke with a neckbreaker and tagged in Seth.

Seth picks up the pace by hitting Luke with a one leg dropkick and a roundhouse kick to the stomach and a side kick. He starts unloading on him near the turnbuckle and heads for the top rope but Erick gets involved. Erick gets kicked off the apron but Harper takes advantage. He tries to go for a suplex but Seth lands on his feet at the crowd 'Ohs'.

"Oh man!" Cole shouted.

"What!?" King yelled in a high pitched voice as Seth clotheslined Luke out of the ring and hit him with a suicide dive, getting pumped up.

Seth jumps on the rope and gives him a knee to the head. He tries to go for the blackout but gets slammed by Luke. Luke tags Bray in and throws him to the barricade while Morgan looks on with worry. She did not want to see Seth in that condition.

Celeste tweeted 'Whoa! Seth is all over the place! #SethRollinsTheSpiderMan'

Morgan cringes as Bray gives Seth a splash. To hear him yell out in pain broke her heart. Roman gets off the apron and has a stare down with him.

"Why don't you bring that crap over here!" Dean yelled as the ref tried to restrain him.

Morgan shows a faint smile as she starts to remember his short temper as another spark goes off in her head. The Wyatts begin to take control of Seth as the crowd continues to chant 'Lets go Wyatts, Lets go Shield!'

"Morgan is still down and out," King said as the camera showed Morgan resting.

"Come on, Seth..." She mumbled as Luke continued to take control of him.

"Come on, Seth! Come on!" Dean yelled in his raspy voice.

Bray slams him down and goes for the pin but Dean breaks it up. Luke gets in the ring and hits him with a big boot as the crowd 'Ohs!'

Morgan puts her right hand over her mouth in shock as Ambrose rolls out the ring. She wanted to run over there and help him but Rosa got off the apron to check on him.

Nikki tweeted 'Uh huh, I saw that WWEMorgan101. #MorganStillCares #BelieveInDeanAndMorgan #PissOffSisterAbigail'

Celeste tweeted 'Still care for the crazy man, don't you? I knew you did. If only you would show it.'

Morgan holds her head. Her emotions and actions were starting to get out of control. One second she feels sympathy for her former teammates and wants to help, and the next second she wants to fight them and obey Bray. She started to feel a little bit more free after wrestling Dean but it wasn't enough. She thought a match would work but she needed something stronger. She needed to try and find a way to piss her off.

But what would piss Sister Abigail off?

Morgan gets back on the apron and Seth manages to fight back. Seth crawls over to his team but Rosa tags herself in as the crowd begins to boo.

"I got this." She got in the ring.

"And the crowd is not happy," Cole said.

Rosa pointed to Morgan. "You and me, right now." She said as the Wyatts turned to Morgan.

The Outspoken Diva narrows her eyes and puts her hand out as Luke tags in her. The crowd cheers for her as she slowly gets in the ring and runs a hand through her hair. She ducks Rosa's clothesline and grabs her for a reverse DDT. All of a sudden, Roman goes at it with Luke outside the ring which catches Morgan's attention. Dean gets involved as he goes at it with Erick and gets the upper hand by throwing him to the barricade.

"That's it..." Morgan retorted and slid out of the ring, marching right over to Ambrose. "I'm not done with you, yet!" She yelled and tried to hit him but he grabbed her forearm.

"Oh no!" King exclaimed.

"Oh boy," Cole looked on in anticipation.

"Don't do anything reckless! You already gave me a heart attack after watching that Morganizer off the top rope. The top rope! They could have broken something!" JBL shouted as he held his heart.

Morgan looks into Dean's eyes. The voice in her head was telling her to hit him and push him away but she got lost in his eyes and started to gain the control of blocking everything out. Ambrose pulls her to him and begins to slowly lean in.

"I know what you want me to do. This better make you snap out of it," he muttered

"W-wait what are you doing?" She managed to say, feeling Sister Abigail's resistance. She tried to pull back but he held a strong grip.

"About to give you justice." He replied.

She tries to pull back again but grunts as he keeps holding her in place.

"N-no. D-Dean stop."

Dean could sense the reluctance in her voice when she told him to stop.

"Is that really what you want?" he asked.

"Yes! Now get off of me!" She tried to hit him with her other hand but he grabbed it and kissed her as the crowd began to go wild.

"Whoa!" King shouted as Ambrose wrapped his arms around her waist.

Morgan felt a strong spark in her head as she felt Sister Abigail's desperate resistance in her body, trying to fight him off of her. She tried to quickly hit him off of her but he took the hits and continued to kiss the hell out of her. With each second that passed, the more Morgan was starting to give in.

"Yes! Thank you! Thank you!" JBL yelled as the crowd began to cheer loudly and chant 'Yes'. "Morgan! Do not fight it! Kiss him back!"

Nikki tweeted 'This is hot! Keep kissing her! Make her feel the love!'

"He's kissing the heck out of her, that's for sure," Cole said as Morgan's hits started to slow down.

"She's fading! Is she about to kiss him back!?" King asked.

"Come on, Sister Abigail, you can't fight the power of love," JBL said as Morgan's hits started to stop.

"No..." King pouted as she shoved him back.

"It didn't work?" Cole asked.

"This is tragic...she can't be saved..." King sadly said.

Morgan started to space out until she saw Ambrose turn away. Her body felt heated from that kiss as she started to remember the things he would make her feel whenever they kissed. The passion was too much for her and she snaps out of it and turns him around. She wanted to kiss him and she needed to kiss him again for the sake of her wellbeing.

"What now?" He asked but she grabbed his face and kissed him with the same passion he kissed her with as the crowd exploded.

She could hear the fangirls screaming as Bray turned his attention to them and his eyes widened.

"Yes!" JBL yelled.

"Oh!" King shouted as Dean was taken aback but began to kiss the hell out of her again, while slowly wrapping an arm around her waist. "Oh my gosh, you guys. They-they are all over each other!"

She wrapped an arm around his neck while Bray looked on in shock.

"Please tell me that woke her up," JBL said.

"I-I don't know but I'm enjoying the show right now," King added.

Bray was seething. This was not good.

"Rose!" He yelled. He couldn't lose her. He had to get her back. "Rose!"

Morgan began to block everything out as she ran her fingers through Dean's hair. He began to lower her down to the floor with the support of the apron as he put one of his hands on it and released her.

"Dean..." She managed to say but he shook his head.

"You know how I feel about you..." He whispered and stood up.

Morgan sits up and looks at him in shock. She touches her lips and stands up before backing up and running a hand through her hair.

"I think Morgan is wondering what got into her and made her do what she did," King said. "Phew, is it hot in here? That kiss was just...wow."

Celeste tweeted 'LMAO! #TheKissOfJustice needs to be one of the Kiss of the Year nominees this year.'

Bray was seething and had to take a drastic measure to bring her back to him. He marched over to her and backslapped her in the face as the crowd looked on in shock.

"You do not disobey me! Snap out of it! He is your enemy! Unleash!" He yelled.

"What the hell!?" JBL exclaimed.

"He just hit her! What is going on!?" Cole exclaims.

Dean begins to see red and lunges at him and starts unloading on him. No one touches her like that.

Morgan touches her cheek and has tears forming in her eyes from the stinging sensation of the slap. It was a wake up call for her as she got back in the ring.

"No...no way..." She mumbled and held her head. She got on her knees and mumbled, "That slap...That's an...in...injust no...no one...No one ever touches me like that...No one ever puts their hands on me like that...But no...Bray did it to protect me...right?"

"Why is she mumbling? Who is she talking to?" King asked.

"I think she's having a war in her head," Cole said.

"No one ever disrespects...no one...no one ever...I...follow no...believe in the...follow the...believe...follow..." She continued to mumble.

"What is going on? She's mumbling all sorts of stuff. Is she okay?" King asked.

"I hope that kiss is making her have second thoughts," JBL said.

"Moment of truth...what is Morgan going to do?" Cole asked. "Is she back to herself?"

"We will find out momentarily," JBL said.

'Get out of my head!' Morgan thought until she heard something shatter inside her head as she looked at her hands and stood up.

She fixes her gloves and looks ahead to lock eyes with Rosa. She starts to remember how badly she wanted to kick her ass and begins to smirk at her while Rosa replies with a scowl. Rosa's eyes widen as soon as she gets speared by Morgan as the crowd cheers.

"Spear!" King exclaimed.

"Is she back!?" JBL shouted as Morgan started unloading on her.

"Looks like all that frustration over the months has really taken its toll,"

Cole said.

Morgan picks her up and throws her to the turnbuckle. She places her on the middle rope and hits her with a double knee smash to the stomach.

"That's gotta hurt," JBL said as Rosa fell and held her stomach.

Morgan tries to grab her but Rosa pulls her down to the middle turnbuckle. She grabs her and drops her down with a suplex before getting on the top rope.

"Where is Rosa going?" Cole asked. But Rosa lifts up her leg and does a split off the top rope, landing on Morgan as the crowd 'Ohs'.

"Whoa!" JBL shouted.

"Did you see that split!?" King exclaimed as Morgan held her chest and looked hurt.

Morgan didn't understand. At first, she felt energetic but now she feels drained. Emotionally and physically.

Brie tweeted 'Morgan! What is going on!? Get up and fight! What happened!?'

Celeste tweeted 'Morgan, you look really drained. You were just on a roll a few seconds ago.'

Alicia Fox tweeted 'WWEMorgan101 was just on a roll a few moments ago. How could you let Rosa hit you that easily #DidSomeoneSuckTheLifeOuttaYou'

A fan tweeted 'I think WWEMorgan101 is distracted because of that kiss. Come to think of it #WhoWouldntGetDistractedAfterAKissFromAmbrose'

"I'm surprised. I thought Morgan would move out of the way." JBL said.

"I guess we all underestimated Rosa, tonight," Cole said

Rosa goes for the pin but Morgan kicks out at a near fall as the crowd chants 'This is awesome'

"When did she learn how to do a split!? Can-can we see that again!?" King asked as the titantron showed her split.

"I thought that was the end," JBL said. "If that kiss from Ambrose didn't work, then maybe if Morgan gets defeated, she'll be okay. I'm rooting for Rosa to win this."

"Rose! Unleash!" Bray yelled. He quickly turned to Erick and Luke and started to whisper in their ears.

"Looks like Bray has something planned," Cole said.

"You know, if the match with Ambrose didn't work, or the kiss and slap, maybe if she gets pinned, it'll work," JBL said.

"Or submitted," Cole said as Rosa hit Morgan with a double foot surfboard as she held her arms.

"Give up!" Rosa yelled as she put her feet on her back.

"Gosh..." King said with worry.

Dean narrowed his eyes at Morgan. He knew she wasn't going to break this easily. He had hope that she would fight back.

Morgan closed her eyes. 'Why do I feel so weak?' She pondered.

She couldn't give up. She had to fight back.

"Give up!" Rosa yelled again.

"No!" Morgan screamed.

Moments later, Rosa releases the hold but drops her back down with a kick. She goes for another pin by Erick quickly gets in the ring and breaks up the pin.

"That looks like what the Wyatts are trying to avoid," Cole stated. "Did you see how fast Erick got in that ring?"

"I agree," JBL said.

Rosa quickly tags in Roman while Morgan tags in Erick. The crowd gets loud once Roman gets in the ring. He drops Erick with a clothesline and takes out Bray off the apron. The Samoan is about to hit Morgan but he stops himself when she flinches.

"Second thoughts?" Cole asked as they looked at each other, making the crowd cheer loudly.

"Come on Morgan, open your eyes or I'll have no choice but to spear you," Roman said with concern.

"You couldn't bring yourself to spear me..." She mentioned as another spark went off in her head.

She starts to remember the accident back at TLC when he speared her instead of Punk.

Moments later, she looks ahead and sees Erick about to attack Roman from behind. Roman senses this and quickly elbows Erick in the head and hits him with a Samoan drop before unloading on him. Luke gets back in the ring and grabs him off of him. He throws him out of the ring but Roman runs and gives Erick a dropkick off the bottom rope.

"Show off..." Morgan mumbled while Roman smirked at her comment as he started to think she was coming back to The Shield.

He gets on the apron and pulls down the top rope, making Luke fall out of the ring. Roman slams Erick down and goes for the pin.

"Is this enough?" Cole asked but Bray broke it up. Dean slides back in the ring and jumps on top of him as he starts unloading on him. "And things are breaking down, guys."

"Look at Dean Ambrose go, here," King said.

Harper throws Dean to the ropes but gets elbowed in the face. Bray gets on the apron and gets dropkicked by Dean. Dean turns to Bray but gets hit with a suicide dive by Harper as the crowd 'Ohs'.

"Are you kidding me!?" Cole exclaimed.

"You gotta be kidding me!" JBL yelled as Seth ran and hit Luke with a Swanton out of the ring.

"There are bodies everywhere!" Cole exclaimed as Roman went for a roll up but Erick kicked out at two.

Roman and Erick try to go for a clothesline but they both drop each other down. Seth marches over to the Spanish announce table and takes off the cover as the crowd gets loud and hyped.

"Oh boy..." Morgan mumbled.

"Watch it! Watch it!" King yelled as Seth got attacked from behind by Bray. Bray and Luke start to jump him but Ambrose gets involved as the crowd cheers as he goes at it with Bray. "Whoa! This is a war!"

Bray and Dean fall over the barricade and start fighting out in the crowd. Morgan starts to look worried as soon as Bray comes back and not Ambrose. Meanwhile, in the ring, Erick and Roman start to give each other hits until Roman hits him with a leaping clothesline. He pins him for a near fall.

Morgan jumped off the apron and walked up to Bray. She gave him a look, asking him, 'What did you do? What did you do to him? Where is he?'

"He's taken care of. There's no need to worry." Bray reassured.

Seth gets up and starts attacking Luke but Bray hits him from behind. In the ring, Erick slams Roman and he rolls out of the ring. The Wyatt Family stands before Seth. Erick and Luke lift him up as Morgan's eyes widen. She starts to look conflicted. She wanted to scream and shout.

"Morgan! Please stop this! Do something!" King yelled.

Brie tweeted 'BE OUTSPOKEN! OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND SPEAK UP WWEMorgan101! #WhatHappenedToTheOutspokenDiva'

Nikki tweeted 'I can't believe I'm saying this but...I think WWEMorgan101 is officially broken'

"This is not gonna be good! They are gonna break Seth Rollins in half!" Cole exclaimed

"No!" King yelled.

As soon as Seth gets thrown onto the Spanish announce table, Morgan drops to her knees and puts her hands over her mouth.

"Oh my God!" Cole yelled while Bray gave Rollins a blank look.

Brie tweeted 'Why...why didn't you do anything!? WWEMorgan101'

Nikki tweeted 'Seth has been there for you...The Shield has been there for you...Why didn't you do something?'

Celeste tweeted 'Morgan, do I need to give you a spear and gutbuster to make you open your eyes?'

Bray walks over to Morgan and kneels before her. "This is closure for you, Rose. They gave you so much pain...now they get to feel what you felt."

She nodded a few times and sniffed. "Yes. I understand." She said and stood up while The Wyatts circled around Roman, in the ring.

Roman gets on his hands and knees while he looks at the Wyatts.

"They're acting like The Shield now. This is what they did over a year." JBL said as The Wyatts started to jump Roman and take control.

Moments later, the crowd chants 'We Want Morgan!' as Morgan looks at the crowd. They wanted her to wake up too, but it just wasn't enough.

"Roman has no help," Cole mentioned as Bray gets tagged in.

When Bray sets Roman out for Sister Abigail's kiss, Roman grabs his hands and makes him release the hold as the crowd gets excited. He hits Bray with a Samoan drop and cleans house. He hits Bray with a superman punch as he starts to gain momentum. He sets up for the spear but Luke gets back in the ring. Roman spears him as the crowd cheers but then Erick starts to distract the ref.

All of a sudden, Rosa slides into the ring out of nowhere and hits Roman with a low blow as the crowd looks on in shock. Bray was on his hands and knees, grinning at the sight

"What!?" King yelled in a high pitched voice as Morgan narrowed her eyes at Rosa.

"Who the-what is going on!?" Cole yelled.

"I knew it! I knew she was working with the Wyatts! Why do you think she sucked up to The Shield? Why do you think she left as soon as Morgan and Dean broke up? She was nowhere to be seen." JBL exclaimed. "She was so persistent about ruining Morgan's relationship with The Shield."

Morgan looks on in shock as Rosa smirks while Bray gives her a nod.

"And now Bray Wyatt off the distraction from Rosa is gonna take advantage!" Cole said as he positioned Roman for the Sister Abigail.

Nikki tweeted 'I knew it! I knew it! This is bad. Really bad. Morgan, please open your eyes! Please! Do something!'

Celeste tweeted 'Was not expecting Rosa of all people to be working with the Wyatts this whole time.'

Morgan walks to ringside, near the ramp as Rosa leaves the arena. Bray turns his attention to Morgan and she nods in approval before he does the Sister Abigail on Roman. He goes for the pin. After the ref yells three, Morgan's body language shows that she is defeated as she reveals a disappointed look at the fallen members of The Shield.

"The Wyatt Family rule at Elimination Chamber!" Cole yelled as The Wyatt's theme came on.

"The winners of this match, The Wyatt Family," Justin announced.

The Wyatts are down and out but once Bray stands up, he locks eyes with Morgan. He motions her to get in the ring with the family. She obeys and they look down at Roman.

Morgan is about to leave the ring but stops and slowly looks back at the fallen members of The Shield, causing the crowd to cheer loudly, feeling hopeful. Moments later, she gets out of the ring and gets picked up bridal style by Luke Harper. She wraps an arm around his neck and looks back at The Shield while the Wyatts begin to slowly walk up the ramp.

"So many questions unanswered. Is Morgan back to herself? Did Sister Abigail gain control?" Cole asked. All of a sudden, Morgan began to show a smirk as she looked back at The Shield. "Would you look at that..."

"She's smirking," JBL said. "I kind of like this."

"I don't understand. What does the smirk mean?" Cole wondered.

"This is killing me. Is she back or is this Sister Abigail?" King exclaimed.

"I guess we'll have to check tomorrow night, on Raw," Cole announced.

Celeste tweets 'Um, I could have sworn Ambrose was still a part of that match. #GettingWorried #WhereIsDean #ShouldIMakeAMissingPersonsReport?'

Brie tweeted 'NO! WWEMorgan101 why!? Why didn't you wake up!? I thought you were gonna get the last laugh. #ItsOver'

Nikki tweeted 'Ooh! Rosa is in hot water now. Just watch. The Shield is gonna get her good.'

Brie also tweeted 'I don't understand...I thought the kiss...the match...I thought that all worked...The Wyatts got her locked up well. Don't let this be the end.'

#the shield #dean ambrose x oc #dean ambrose fluff #the shield 4th member #wwe #wwe imagine #wwe scenarios #wwe oc #wwe fanfiction #seth rollins #roman reigns

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