#wild west! Twilight

[luimagines]

*walks in tiredly, waves, hands you a cup of hot chocolate, does not elaborate* Hey there, how have you been doing? Hope you've been doing well lately and once again thank you for all your work in the fandom! ^^

I've been busy lately (and frankly way too sleep deprived), so I'll save the gushing over your writing after I properly catch up and refresh myself so I can yell my thoughts in here, but for now I will get this au idea out of my system that's definitely for the Warriors fans and elaborate a bit on the Twilight and Reader Wild West Rivalry Au aka the Cousin of Cattle Raider Reader, though it's still something I need to polish so apologies if it doesn't make much sense. Also, uh, apologies for the long ask ahead xD

First would be Warriors and Assassin Reader Friends to Enemies to Reluctant Friends to Lovers, also known as "Warriors Keeps Stressing Out" in my docs with the single one shot that will likely turn into a series who will never see the light of day (or won't see the light of day until I finish the Fairytale Collection who knows, that's a problem for future Wintertime).

So in medieval times most knights come from noble families right? The case would probably be the same in Hyrule though we do see two exceptions: Impa, by a technicality since the Sheikah work for the Hyrule royalty, and Warriors, who presumably lived with Linkle and probably raised her all alone and worked hard for the rank of knight so he could give them both a better life (which would explain a lot, knights get a lot of benefits in medieval times and good pay, so even without having a hunch he's the Hero he'd probably see it as the best and quickest route to get them both a better life if it's been just them, given most Links are orphans), Reader signed up as a knight because it's obligatory for their family before they inherit the ruling seat and as the eldest child of the family it's their job to do good as a knight to be eligible to the seat, Warriors and Reader thus trained together and defended one another fiercely, the kind of Ride or Die kind of friendship because Warriors wasn't of noble birth and thus had to work twice as hard as everyone else and Reader recognizes his talent (while also being in a quiet panic about possibly having a crush on him) and Warriors can see how much the pressure from Readers family is not doing good for their overall health and because they have to watch their back constantly so they won't be sabotaged by the rest of their family (and maybe he also has feelings, but doesn't process it because training comes first), everything is going well until about three years before the events of the War of Ages when Reader gets framed for a crime they didn't commit by one of their rivals to the noble seat agaisnt the crown, but when they go to Warriors to try and at least convince one person they didn't do it Warriors doesn't believe them (because he was trained to trust the word of the crown first) or is forced to not stand up for them (because he can't lose his position as a knight since he has Linkle to worry about), which causes him and Reader to fight and break up their friendship with Warriors feeling guilty but determined to rise up the ranks to find out if Reader was really guilty or not because he can't really believe his best friend is guilty no matter how hard he tries (which reinforces his hatred of traitors later on), and Reader leaving betrayed and resentful to the knights and the Hyrulean crown, eventually becoming so good at disguising themselves they decide they can monetize this to get by since they're labelled a traitor and to try and find evidence to clear their name by becoming an assassin since their reputation is already on the ground. Being always just one step ahead of the knights and never caught.

Fast forward to the War of Ages and Cia needs a strategist to keep her little rogues gallery in line while she frees Ganon, gets the Triforce and Warriors, she hears about Reader being the best Assassin in Hyrule who has a deep resentment against the crown and decides to take them in with the good ol' "Hey do you wanna tear down the monarchy that failed you and get payed a hefty sum while doing it? You'll be able to be free in full again too", Assassin Reader who has grown more bitter by the day being "Do I? :D", and accepts the position, switching between being a spy, keeping a tight ship on the others following Cia and strategist who is definitely not being payed enough to deal with all this but hey, it will get their name clean. On the day Hyrule Castle is seized Assassin Reader impersonated Artemis briefly to let the monsters in and cause confusion while sabotaging the royal army and after their work is done and Wizzrobe and Volga don't look like they're going to do too big of a mess to their strategy they try to leave as themselves, running into Warriors, marking the first of their many clashes as enemies on different sides of the war with Assassin Reader determined to bring the Hyrule monarchy down even if it kills them and Warriors trying to capture them or to at least talk, because he can probably try to help clear their name now and he's been investigating the charges and trying to find them to talk or at least apologize.

Mind you that Assassin Reader is unaware that Cia started this war not because of the Triforce or anything, but because of Warriors. Until they aren't because one day after sabotaging the Hyrule army, dealing with Volga and Wizzrobe and clashing with Warriors (and yelling at him for presumably dragging Wind, Tetra and Mask into the war because "THEY'RE KIDS LINK WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!" "YOU THINK I HAD A SAY IN THIS?! YOU KNOW ME BETTER THAN THAT READER-!" "SAYS THE MAN WHO POINTED A SWORD AT MY THROAT WHEN I JUST WANTED TO TALK, YOU TELL ME IF I EVEN KNOW YOU-" While Wind, Tetra and Mask are watching the drama from the sidelines, Mask half approving because while they are trying to murder Wars at least they are against children fighting when they shouldn't be while Wind and Tetra both wonder why Reader ain't trying as hard to murder Warriors like they do literally anyone else) they hear Cia going off about what she'd like to do to Warriors and just receives maior psychic damage.

Assassin Reader, to Cia: Wait wait a darn second, you're telling me, you started a war, recruited monsters and all sorts of unhinged folk from across time and space, and is currently planning on gathering a magic wish granting mcguffing and to resurrect the King of Thieves, all over a man who doesn't even know who you are or want you? You started an ENTIRE WAR because you were thirsty?

Cia, eyes narrowed: ... Yes. I mean have you seen him? Why? Problem?

Assassin Reader, smiling even as they're holding back the urge to shank her right there and then because while they still feel very hurt by Warriors not standing by them and practically kick-starting their villain arc they still care for him: Not really as long as the pay keeps coming boss lady.

You know, like a liar.

So they get in contact with Sheik, whom they had a hunch was Artemis after Cia stole the Triforce, and practically become a triple agent, and by that, while they still make Cia's strategies and command her forces, they now feed information to the royal army and sabotage Cia's force instead in exchange of their name getting clean after the war is over, when asked why they simply shrug non commitaly and said "I still have some standards." (Aka Link was my best friend), Even disguising themselves as a common knight to aid in combat or be more effective in sabotaging Cia's advance (and also aid Mask and Wind into pranking Warriors/tricking him into resting, because they're a bit petty still but they like the kids well enough, and it helps them keep an eye on their friend), the jig is mostly up when the Temple of Souls thing happens, because Assassin Reader heard about it in advance and disguised themselves as Warriors to try and either end Cia right there or to stall her enough so she'd be more tired when facing everyone, getting gravely injured in the process, Warriors finding them there and Artemis coming clean about their role in all this after they drive Cia away.

Warriors, incredibly frustrated and low-key terrified as he forces a red potion down Assassin Reader's throat: Why would you do that you idiot?!

Assassin Reader, coughing up blood but grinning ruefully: Your idiot. Comrades protect one another right? About time I start paying you back for letting me go all those times. *Coughs, shaking their head with a chuckle* By the way, you still hesitate on your left thrusts, specially when I'm involved, focus less on looking pretty and fix that would you?

Warriors, hit by Realization™ but sighing: ... Just shut up and rest, I missed you too. I am, however, yelling at you later and letting Linkle crush your ribs.

Assassin Reader, nodding as they lean agaisnt him: Fair enough, I deserve that.

So Artemis decides to pair the two of them together or the remainder of the war and after until Assassin Reader's name is clear and so they won't do a runner (absolutely not because she's a meddler and also realizes the best way to make sure Assassin Reader isn't scamming them is to have Warriors, who basically knows all of Reader's ticks and tells as well as he does his own, keeping an eye on them *cough*), with time they start building up their relationship from the ground up again and there's two ways this can go: either the neutral dramatic route, before LU and during it, or the chaotic dramatic route, fully during LU, either way the Chain is baffled because even while being at each other's throats Warriors and Reader are acting like an old married couple (minus Time and Wind, Time definitely saw it coming and Wind was already used to it), and I think it would personally be hilarious if Legend and Assassin Reader teamed up to mess with Warriors.

As for Wild West Rivalry with Twilight, the most I'll elaborate on for now is that Time gets framed for a crime by Dink and Twilight and Wild tag along to try and find a way to clear his name (and because Dink brought shame to Midna, who here is Twilight's best friend, and it caused her to her to leave the west entirely, making it a double revenge quest, Wild is an amnesiac mercenary with a bounty of his head he has no idea what he's in for they picked up along the way), all three of them basically becoming outlaws and recruiting the other Links along the way for various different motives (minus Warriors, who is a sheriff and covers and bails them if they get too careless during several questionable jobs and leads and feeds them information on possible bounties they can go after to get by while on the road), Reader themselves is an outlaw because their sibling was wrongfully imprisoned and their parents framed for a crime they didn't commit and who is trying to avenge them post-mortem and clear their sibling's name by going after Dark Link, and whose bounty later got bigger because their partner double crossed them and stole their horse so now they're after them too in a revenge quest of their own, the rivalry starts when Twilight and Reader both somehow end up going after the same bounties and kill steal from one another (Twilight,baring his teeth and leveling his gun at Reader: Why, we need to stop meeting like this missy/lad, I believe you have something of mine? Reader, smiling as they heft the dead criminal up their stolen horse: Hah! As if, you need to stop stealing from me first), and then straight up rolls into enemies when Reader steals Epona temporarily, his money, has one of their guns to his head and shoots one of Wild's kneecaps in the process when trying to get away from law enforcement while undercover at a cabaret, now they're both after each other's throats and bounties while also low key not finding the other too bad in a "If only thing were different" sort of way and it's all downhill from there, the lovers part comes much later in a story that also likely won't see the light of day similar to it's estranged siblings Trigun Au and Fantasy Wild West Rivals to Enemies to Lovers au which I also will not elaborate on.

And that's all I'll say for today because I shall not elaborate. And also I need a nap and to work on the Fairytale Collection, hope you're having a nice day!

-Just A Tired Anon on A Stroll/WintertimeStoryteller 🐚

Oh my goodness- I feel like I just the whole fic XD

And yet it's not enough- like buddy, when you finished the fairytale series I'd love to read both of these. You keep teasing with just snippets of the wild west story but I want more... I love wild west concepts DX

BUT TRIPLE AGENT READER

HOLY COW- can one person have so many hats to wear and complete them all?!?

And poor Warrior- the series should probably be tilted In Which Warrior Suffers ^.^*

He just can't seem to win. And having Reader be on Cia's side for a hot second-?!?! Good golly miss molly!! That's gotta sting XD

[maryworshipper]

Nintendo has always wanted to make a cowboy Zelda game, they’re just to scared to. Twilight Princess had you shoot up an old west town with cowboy music. Spirit Tracks had trains. Many Zelda games have had gears and pictographs!

The Zelda story is perfectly suited for a cowboy game: Link’s spirit reincarnates endlessly, and the Wild West was a revival of the chivalry, barbarism and adventures of the Middle Ages that Zelda is normally set in.

All that’s left is for Link to fashion himself a green poncho and cowboy hat made from the scales of a desert dragon, just like Ragnar Lothbrok. Link has wrestled rams and boars , now he should wrestle a bull like a Spaniard, and throw it at ganons head!!!! With guitar playing!

[raurquiz]

#remembering #ArleneMartel #actress #Tpring #startrek #amoktime #TheTwilightZone #route66 #PerryMason #theprincessandthegunfighter #dreamofjeannie #TheFugitive #hogansheroes #bewithched #TheOuterLimits #columbo #rockfordfiles #therestlessgun #themanfromuncle #missionimpossible #thewildwildwest #BattlestarGalactica #startrek57 @startrek @startrekonpplus

[the-insidious-dr-grey-matter]

[cinnamilks]

hello! my name is katie, i'm twenty - six and i go by she/her pronouns. this here is my new, off the rocker and random multimuse blog where chaos will ensue and fun will be had. to get rid of my past trauma with working too hard on blogs, this blog is going to be easy going and fun :)

USFW / potentially mature or triggering situations may appear on this blog! i want to tell everyone up front.

check out my muses here! and send a meme to break the ice!

[sarcasmic-skies]

gonna go blues dancing tonight i havent been to the blues club in a few weeks (mainly bc my good friend & usual lead injured her leg so she’s not able to swing or blues dance for a min) i am Nervous!!! i know one friend will b there & that’s good!! so i will dance w him & get a drink or two at the bar and smoke my silly cigarettes and i will have a good time. i have decided. and if i dont yall will see me blogging abt it later LOL

[wyllzel]

just spent the last uhhhhhhh 4 hours plotting out a last minute novel for nanowrimo wish me luck LOL

[fandom]

Video Games

We combined the console and mobile games lists and two dating sims still came out on top. Go figure.

Genshin Impact

Baldur's Gate 3

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Five Nights at Freddy’s

Splatoon 3

Twisted Wonderland

Undertale

Ace Attorney

Pokémon Violet and Scarlet

Obey Me! Shall We Date?

Disco Elysium

The Sims 4

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Deltarune

Team Fortress 2

Hogwarts Legacy

Final Fantasy XIV

Honkai: Star Rail

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Minecraft

Persona 5

Pizza Tower

Rain World

Hollow Knight

Hades

Danganronpa

Arknights

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Project Sekai

Elden Ring

Touhou

Stardew Valley

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

ULTRAKILL

Pikmin 4

Guilty Gear

Overwatch

Portal

Omori

Flight Rising

Resident Evil 4

God of War

Red Dead Redemption 2

Sonic Frontiers

The Stanley Parable

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Cyberpunk 2077

Limbus Company

Mortal Kombat

Bendy and the Dark Revival

Destiny 2

Bloodborne

Among Us

Yakuza

Silent Hill

Ensemble Stars

Cookie Run

League of Legends

Bendy And The Ink Machine

Fear & Hunger

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Cult Of The Lamb

Fallout: New Vegas

Half-Life

Resident Evil Village

Pathologic

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time

The Murder Of Sonic The Hedgehog

Professor Layton

Dragon Age 2

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Fire Emblem Engage

Devil May Cry

Pokémon Legends: Arceus

The Sims 2

Fallout 4

Cuphead

Persona 3

Metroid

Final Fantasy VII

Dragon Age: Origins

Metal Gear Solid

The Witcher

Psychonauts

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon

Street Fighter

Guild Wars 2

The Sims 3

Dead By Daylight

Horizon Forbidden West

World of Warcraft

Starfield

Umineko

Detroit: Become Human

Yume Nikki

Monster Hunter

Pokémon Black and White

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Night in the Woods

This is a newly-combined list! Yay!

[sprout-fics]

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.

[overly-dramatic-artist]

In the arms of the enemy

Who is the machine behind the bandana? What secrets remain cloaked by his cape? Is he really your enemy?

(Pls rb so others will see the poll!)

[adventuresofalgy]

Algy had the strangest sensation. He felt as though he had slept for a long, long time, and had only just now woken up again. Where had he been? He didn't know. What had he been doing? He just couldn't remember. How long had it been? He was not at all sure…

All he could recall was rain. Lots and lots and lots of rain. Rain every day. Rain every night. Rain every time he opened his eyes. Light, drizzly, all-day rain under a blanket of dense Scotch mist. Torrential downpours from menacing clouds which turned the daytime into twilight. Persistent, slanting rain driven relentlessly by winds that had roared across the ocean. Thunderous drenching rain which battered the landscape throughout the night. Rain! Absolutely nothing but rain!

But the rain had gone. When Algy woke up today the sun was shining, the sky was blue, the air felt warm, and he was surrounded by pretty yellow wildflowers that matched his hair. The rain had gone!

He leaned back against the drying grasses, soaking up the warmth of the unexpected sunshine, and surprised to observe that it was apparently late summer already. But although it was undeniably pleasant, something was missing. What was it? Algy looked right and left and all around, but everything seemed fine. Then he looked at the sky. Today it was beautiful. Today it was blue. Today it was calm. But today it was also empty. A vast blue expanse of open space, with nothing in it.

That was it… They had gone! The swallows and martins had left already, while he had been oblivious. For a moment Algy felt terribly sad, as he loved so much to see them swooping overhead. But then he recalled how harsh the wild west Highlands could be in the autumn and winter, and how miserable his wee feathered friends would be if they failed to leave in time. Evidently they had taken advantage of the sudden change in the weather to start their long trek south, and he hoped their journey would be safe and pleasant as a result. As he reclined in the grass he recalled a verse by a famous poet, and fervently hoped, as she had done, that his graceful friends would indeed return next year:

Fly away, fly away over the sea, Sun-loving swallow, for summer is done; Come again, come again, come back to me, Bringing the summer and bringing the sun.

[Algy is quoting the poem Fly away, fly away, over the sea by the mid-19th century British poet Christina Rossetti.]

[artficlly]

a dish served cold (mini series - final part)

Wild West Marvel AU

outlaw!bucky x reader

after the murder of your pa, you go on a journey to find justice. fate brings you to crimson junction for a reason, and that reason is bucky barnes. 

Warnings: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, guns, violence, kidnapping, kissing, groping ig, angst, bit of fluff, mentions of murder/death, sexual tension, death of parent, verbal fighting/argument, outlaw bucky, protective bucky, betrayal, animal death, animal skinning, mention of bounty hunters, no use of y/n, lmk if i've missed anything

Word Count: 5.5k

Taglist: @cakesandtom

A/N: the final part!! the journey is over. thank you all for reading along, this mini-series was so fun yet challenging to write. i mentioned in the first part but this series was the first thing i wrote after a years hiatus. at the end of the chapter i'll talk a little bit more about my plans etc for my writing. sorry for any typos - not proof read.

main masterlist | series masterlist

The kiss starts softly, a hesitant exploration as your lips meet. The touch is tentative, each of you testing the waters, but quickly, the dam of your mutual restraint breaks. His mouth is warm and insistent, moving against yours with a hunger that matches your own. The initial gentleness gives way to a needy, passionate desire.

You respond eagerly, your hands threading through his hair, feeling the softness of his dark locks between your fingers. You pull him closer, needing to eliminate the space between you. The world around you fades away until there is nothing but the two of you, tangled together in the grass, the sky above painted with the last hues of twilight.

His tongue teases yours, the sensation sending shivers down your spine. His hands trail down your sides, coming to rest on your hips. You arch into him, moaning into his mouth, desperate to feel more of his touch, to drown in his scent.

Bucky rolls over, his movements are fluid and urgent, pinning you beneath him. The weight of his body pressing you into the soft earth. His hands roam your torso, exploring the curves of your waist and the swell of your breasts. A hand slips under your blouse while another slides beneath your skirts, digits tracing upward along your thigh. You shudder beneath him, your nails scratching into his clothed back. You hook a leg around his hips as he settles between your thighs.

You want him, desperately, painfully. His fingers continue their ascent, brushing against the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, drawing a gasp from your lips.

Your hands clutch at him, nails digging deeper into his shoulders as you pull him closer, needing to feel him against you, above you, inside you. His mouth moves from your lips to your jaw, then to your neck, leaving a trail of kisses. You tilt your head back, eyes fluttering shut as he groans against your skin.

You were blinded by pleasure until that moment. As the sound leaves his lips you suddenly become acutely aware of your position. There is a small thought. An itch at the back of your skull, one growing louder and larger than the pleasure reverberating through your body. It gnaws at you—an insistent whisper.

His breath is hot against your neck, the low growl of his voice sends shivers down your spine as he murmurs your name—

Reality crashes in like a tidal wave. He killed your father. The man you crave, the man who is now touching you so intimately, so masterfully… took away the person you loved most. Your breath hitches, a tremor running through you as your mind battles against your body’s desires.

"Stop," you whisper, the word barely escaping your lips.

The outlaw doesn’t hear you at first, too distracted by his lust. His fingers ghost over your mound through your undergarments now, and your body reacts to the small amount of friction. You clench around nothing, but the momentary high is short-lived. You can’t do this. You can’t give in to lust, to sin. Not with him. Not after what he did.

Your heart pounds wildly in your chest, the weight of your grief and anger pressing down on you. The heat between your thighs is nothing compared to the burning pain in your heart. Memories of your father flash before your eyes—his laugh, his protective embrace, the life you once had. All taken by the man now laying atop you.

Your body tenses, and the weight of him suddenly becomes unbearable. Panic rises in your throat, your breath coming in short, desperate pants. The fire in your veins turns to ice.

Your palms find his shoulders as you shove at him hard, your voice rising in desperation.

“Stop!” you shout, the word tearing from your throat with a force that surprises even you.

Bucky immediately pulls back, rolling off of you and lying beside you in the grass. He looks at you with a mixture of regret and concern, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, his voice thick with emotion. You scramble away from him, curling into a ball, wrapping your arms tightly around yourself as if to shield against the storm of emotions crashing over you.

“I can’t,” you choke out. “I can’t after what you did to him.”

Bucky remains silent, his gaze fixed on the darkening sky. His lips move, but the words are barely audible—more a whisper to himself than a response to you. “I didn’t kill him.”

You blink, his words not making sense at first. The meaning eludes you, tangled in a haze of shock and confusion. It’s like trying to grasp smoke—the truth slipping through your fingers.

“What?” you ask, your voice trembling. “What did you say?”

He turns his head slightly, his eyes searching for yours in the dim light. His lips are swollen, glossy from your saliva. “I didn’t—I didn’t kill him,” he repeats, his voice a low, pained mutter.

The words slowly register, the pieces clicking into place with a jarring realisation. Anger surges up, hot and blinding, as the implications of his confession hit you.

“What?” you demand again, more forcefully this time. “What did you just say?”

“I didn’t shoot him. It was—” He cuts himself off with a sigh. “It was complicated, alright?”

“Why are you lyin’?” You demand. 

“I ain’t, sweetheart.” He says softly, his tone pleading.

“I don’t believe you.” You snap, eyes narrowed. “My Ma saw you. She told me that you were responsible. She pointed out your poster.”

“Forget I said anythin’—” Bucky mutters, turning his head away.

“So you were lyin’? And you really expected me to believe—did you think I would take pity on you—” 

“Stop—”

“This is a new low truly, Barnes—”

“Enough—”

“You make me—”

“Enough!” He bellows, frustration and pain etched across his face. His shout startles you into silence, and you freeze in disbelief. He has sat up now, his hulking body dwarfing yours in the close proximity. “If you would let me speak, I can explain.”

You raise your hands in defeat, shaking your head at him. “Go on then.”

“No. We never – I never wanted to shoot anyone. Me and my boys, we always had a rule. No children, no women, no innocents. Only law, bounty hunters, ‘n all that. We never killed for sport, no matter what they try to get you to believe. But that job… that train job. It went bad. Law turned up too early, and we panicked.”

He pauses, the weight of his words hanging in the air. “I was tryna get a wedding ring off some lady, bad business I know. She was wailin’ and hollerin’ and my boys were tellin’ me to hurry up. Your Pa, well he stepped up. All heroic like, tried to grab the gun ‘n -–” Bucky trails off. 

“You shot him.” Your voice is flat, devoid of emotion.

Bucky frowned hard, then spoke up in a near whisper. “No. He just… dropped dead in front of me.”

Silence falls between you, heavy and suffocating. Your heart pounds in your chest, your mind struggling to process his words. 

“Some lawman had jumped onto the train, in the chaos mistaken him for one of us. Shot him in the back of the head while he was arguin’ with me, playin’ hero.”

You were silent. Dead silent. You feared you could not even feel your own pulse, as if you had dropped dead on the spot. You felt the blood drain from your face, your mind sweeping back to memories, conversations that you had with your Ma. 

She had never said Bucky had shot your Pa. Only that he was responsible. 

A series of emotions flashed through you, grief, rage… you felt as if you were moments away from emptying your stomach as the dread rose through your body, leaving you numb. 

“Your Ma must’ve blamed me for it, gettin’ him tangled up in that mess.” He paused as he saw you sweep your head around to look at him once more. “I ain’t askin’ for forgiveness. I just–” 

“Why would she…” Your tongue, although heavy, finally begins to work once more, paralysing shock still leaving your body rigid. 

“I don’t know.”

There is a long pause between the two of you. 

“Why didn’t you say something sooner? Why did you play along?”

“Do you really think you would’ve believed me?”

You shake your head, dumbfounded. “No. I don’t believe you, even now.” You say, although even you are unsure if you mean what you say.

“It felt cruel to correct you after all you did, n’ after all the shit we’ve been through. It might’ve been the wrong time, wrong place situation darlin’ but I am still partly responsible for what happened.”

You don’t know how, but tears begin to spill across your cheeks. A ragged sob leaves your chest as you hug your middle. Maybe it was the exhaustion or hunger. Maybe days of walking across a desert, days of being under the captivity of cruel men. 

In that moment, all you wanted to do was hug your Pa. Breathe in the scent of ash and leather, feel his callused hands brush through your hair. You missed the way he would hum to himself in the forge, how he and you Ma would laugh and dance in the kitchen. You missed your home, baking with your Ma, walking to church, and laughing with your friends. 

It had all been torn away from you so quickly. Sudden and violent. And the man you blamed wasn’t even guilty. You had come all this way… for nothing.  

“Oh, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” You barely register Bucky’s words. You hadn’t even noticed his attention turn back to you. He was closer now, having moved closer until he sat in front of you. 

His hand raises up, rough skin wiping away the tears still streaking down your face. You lean into his touch, lids heavy. How desperately these past days you had just wanted someone to hold you. 

You tilt your head, Bucky’s hand cupping your cheek. You look up at him through wet lashes. His eyes are darker than usual, which you quickly realise is due to his pupils being blown. His lips part as he gazes down upon your bruised face, his finger tracing across your split lip. 

He brushes strands of hair from your face, and you freeze up. You feel your entire body tense in a wave before you stiffly pull away. Your gaze hardens, tears running dry as you compose yourself. 

Bucky looks somewhat stunned by your sudden change in demeanour. After he beat he follows your lead, his own expression hardening as he withdraws. The sweet moment is dust on the wind, a tense atmosphere descending in seconds. 

“This doesn’t change anythin’. If my Ma thinks you’re responsible, then I will bring her justice.” You say, words chosen carefully as you navigate the tight feeling in your chest. Dread, you realised. With each word you spoke you felt dread creeping up your throat.

“I wouldn’t expect anythin’ less.” Bucky replies. He doesn’t seem disappointed or upset. Rather, he seems somewhat proud.

You look down at his unbound hands. He still hadn’t tried to attack you, nor escape. 

He seems to have accepted his fate. 

—-

You made a point of skinning the rabbit with expert precision. 

From a young age, your Ma made a point of teaching you all sorts of skills. She had wanted you to be delicate, educated, and kind, but also a bit rough around the edges. Capable. You often recalled the time, as a child, when your Ma took you into the yard, handed you an axe, and ordered you to slaughter one of your hens for supper. You had cried at the time, but you had eventually swung that axe down as not not get a beating. 

How strange it was that you had cried over a simple chicken. How would you have reacted in the past to the thought of killing a man? You wondered if Bucky had cried the first time he killed, if he had thrown up his guts and sat in paralytic shock for hours as you had. 

You look over at him to find he had a rather queasy look on his face as he watched you work. 

Your thumbs strain as you push the rabbit’s knee points through the thin layer of fur, stripping it with a pulling motion down its little legs. Without a knife, you had to make do. The final product wouldn’t be perfectly stripped, but it would be close enough. You tug the rest of the skin downward, and it slides off in a sleeve, leaving the raw, pink flesh exposed.

As you prepare it over the fire, your mind drifts. There was a sort of homesickness that nestled in your chest, a sickening fimilarlity of going through the motions of cooking a meal. It’s hard not to think of home, of your Ma and Pa, and how life was before all this. You had never known a day without food or a comfortable bed.

Despite knowing that some of your survival is due to sheer luck, you can’t deny Bucky’s role in keeping you alive. Without his help, how much longer would you have starved? True, you’re in this desert because of him, but you’re also not dead because of him. He had killed your Pa—or hadn’t; it’s all so confusing now after his confession. If you didn’t know him, if he were a total stranger, would you assume him a killer? Yes, there was a darkness to him, something in his eye akin to a wild animal that was caged. But there was also a sadness. A mystery yet to be solved. 

Why would a man willingly choose a life of crime? Or had he been given no choice at all? All the actions he had shown you, the way he presented himself—he didn’t seem like a man who enjoyed cruelty. 

When the rabbit is finally cooked through, the aroma nearly drives you mad with hunger. In some half-starved madness, you leave Bucky untied, allowing him to enjoy a meal unbound for the first time in days. It’s an unspoken thank you for his guidance earlier, a small gesture of trust.

The two of you eat in silence, too ravenous to bother with civility. The rabbit, although unseasoned and a bit tough, almost brings you to tears. You never thought you would feel so emotional about having warm food in your belly.

It was nearly thirty minutes later that he finally broke the silence that had plagued you, his eyes downcast while you stared into the flickering fire. “Where’d ya learn to skin a rabbit like that?”

You consider his words, deciding if you could be bothered with dignifying the outlaw with a response.

“My Ma. That’s all she ever talked about, cookin’ n’ cleanin’. Womans work. Used to bore me to tears, I would hide out in the forge with my Pa until she came n’ found me, dragged me back to the house by my ear.” A part of you wished for the simplicity of house chores to be your only worry.

“I take it ya don’t get along with yer Ma much?” Bucky asks as you fidget with your skirts. 

“We got along fine enough. She just raised me like she was raised—to be a wife.” You reply with a sigh. You were never raised to be out here, to become a murderer in some damn desert with a wanted criminal. “I feel like we’ve had this conversation before, Barnes.”

“It’s just nice, thinkin’ about a normal life like that.”

Your brows arch as you look at him over the flames. “Why, you never had chores?”

“Never had parents,” he replies.

You suck in a sharp breath. “Oh—”

“‘Least not ones I can remember. I grew up on the streets, fighting for scraps of food, robbin’ and pickpocketin’ to survive. Sometimes the church would give us hard tack ‘n broth, nasty shit  that was. When I got older, that was when I moved out west, got tangled up with bad men n’ bad business.” His hand waves in the air as he speaks. He doesn’t seem affected by his own sad tale.

You frown. You can’t imagine a life like that. A life of uncertainty, a life where you never knew those who were supposed to care for you the most. How different your life would have been without your mother's nagging and your father's steady hands to provide income. You almost felt embarrassed or foolish for complaining.

You must have been lost in silent, deep thought for awhile, because Bucky speaks up once more. “What does yer Ma think about you wonderin’ around in the desert playin’ bounty hunter?” He asks and you falter. 

You hadn’t told your Ma. She thought you were out husband hunting in some respectable city back east. Out of all of the thought you’d put into your journey, you’d never really stopped to consider how your Ma would react to all of this. You hoped she would be proud, that maybe she would feel peace knowing that the man who was responsible for her husband’s death would swing—but would she ever look at you the same? 

“She doesn’t know.”

“Jesus, darlin’. Ya wondered out here without tellin’ nobody?”

You frown hard at the ground and decide it is best to ignore his question. 

Would you tell her all that you had done to survive? The sins you had committed? The lies you had woven to keep yourself safe? The people you hurt, the blood that stained your hands? Could you look into her eyes and confess that you had become the very monster you had set out to destroy? The person she had raised, the child she had nurtured, was now a stranger? Would she even recognise you or see only the shadow of what you used to be?

Each memory, each act of desperation… The faces of those you had deceived, the cries of those you had harmed—all in the name of staying alive. You had told yourself it was necessary, that there was no other way, but did necessity excuse the darkness that had taken root in your soul? Could good intentions justify evil actions?

“Do you think good people can do evil things?” 

You hear Bucky shift in place. “Yes.”

You look up at him, truly look at him. The firelight warms his dark hair, casting a soft glow over his features. His blue eyes hold a gentleness you hadn't noticed before, and his eyebrows draw into a concerned frown. You inspect every inch of him: his chiselled jawline, defined cheekbones, and now that he’s clear of dirt, the gash across his temple where you struck him. His stubble is slowly growing into a short beard

Your eyes travel down his neck, past his Adam’s apple that bobs as he nervously swallows.

“I thought finding you would give me more of a reason to hate you.” You admit, hands wringing together. “But I have found it is the opposite.”

Bucky’s eyebrows lift in surprise as you sigh. 

“You don’t know me. You have never truly known me. Yet each time, each version of myself that I present, you have shown me kindness. You have protected me from the men I expected you to be. And I can’t help but think back on all those apparent criminals I have watched hang, the ones the law bring in. Some of them are bad men, men who have killed, robbed, worse. But some are just people. Some were just mothers tryin’ to feed their children, fathers tryin’ to keep their families afloat. Children who are on the streets, pickpocketin’ for their next meal…”

You trail off, voice wobbling. “It makes me… it makes me sick.”

“It ain’t black and white, sweetheart,” Bucky says softly. “A good man can be bad as equally as a bad man can be good. I find that both breeds are as desperate as each other. They’d do terrible things to survive.”” 

You believe him. You’ve known bad men—bad men who paraded themselves as gentlemen, men whom society praised. Men who took what they pleased and killed anyone who got in their way, yet were rewarded.

“Why did you do it?” You ask.

Bucky is quiet, as if contemplating.

“Why did you rob that train?” you repeat, your voice firmer.

“Because I was desperate,” he finally speaks. “‘Cause I had nothin’ and nobody. ‘Cept for my boys, of course, but we all grew up the same. Thievin’ is all we know, darlin’. It’s all I know.”

You believed him.

You believe him because, despite everything, you can’t shake the feeling that he’s stolen your heart too.

—

The rising dread remained.

You couldn’t place it as fear. You weren’t feeling exposed or in danger; rather, it felt as if you were doing something deeply wrong. The feeling nagged at you all through the following day.

Bucky trailed behind you on foot, hands bound. You were more forgiving than you had been previously, halting your horse whenever he stumbled so he could regain his footing. You’d stop regularly to drink from the river. Your stolen horse was growing weary; the prairie grass was not substantial enough to fill her belly, and the heat continued to beat down mercilessly.

A thin layer of sweat coated your body, and you imagined your skin had grown red and irritated from the constant sun. Bucky was certainly used to this lifestyle, but you noticed the peeling skin across his forehead, nose, and lips had grown worse.

Your thoughts often lingered back to moments you had shared, the things the two of you had spoken of. The conflict of good and bad men had long plagued your mind, and the idea of there being something in between, something not wholly one or the other… well, your church-going, God-fearing grandmama would roll in her grave at the idea. You had been raised to believe that good people went to heaven, while the bad were pulled straight to hell. You wondered where Bucky would go—limbo? Neither bad nor good? Did that mean all the men you could think of—the ones who showed you kindness and the ones who showed you evil—would end up there too? Was life not more complex than simply good or evil?

Your gaze swept back to Bucky. You pictured him as he had been at that river, hair wet and dripping down his defined back and chiselled chest. Your eyes had followed the droplets as they trickled down lower, lower. You’d think of his lips against yours, his hot breath along your skin, his fingers trailing up your thigh—

You snap your head back around, focusing ahead. The sun stung your eyes, but you pressed on.

It was only as the silhouette of a small town came into view that you nearly let out a small sob.

It seemed to be a travelers’ town, a place to rest and pick up supplies while braving this endless desert. You were sure you could somehow wrangle up some supplies with the little cash you had—you could also use some of your acting skills you had picked up along your journey to make yourself more persuasive.

As the two of you drew closer, you expected to feel relief, joy even. But instead, that rising dread reared its ugly head, pushing down on your chest. Maybe it was the heat, but it suddenly felt as if you could scarcely breathe, the gasps you took in not substantial enough to fill your lungs.

When you went into the general store, would you see the posters? Would Barnes’ face be decorated across their walls, a sneering criminal with a price tag? Would you see the face of the man you hated, the one you loathed for so long that you took matters into your own hands?

As sick as it made you feel, as ridiculous as it felt to admit…

Maybe you didn’t want Bucky to swing.

The thought hit you hard, like a church bell chiming. Your entire body reverberated from the shock. Your hands moved before you had time to think, tugging on the reins as you pulled your horse to a halt. The town wasn’t far away; you could see the bustle of people on the streets, waggons moving in and out.

It took a moment for the sun to thaw your frozen stature. You swing your leg over, boots hitting the dry earth, and march over to Bucky.

“What are you doin’?” He questions, his voice a mix of confusion and suspicion. You don’t answer, your focus is solely on his bound wrists.

His mouth opens to protest, his body tensing as if he were bracing for an attack. His eyes widened, watching your every move.

Your hands, steady yet trembling slightly, grasped his wrists. You felt the rough texture of the rope against your fingers as you began to unwind it, each loop coming undone with a deliberate tug. The outlaw remained still, his breathing shallow. The rope fell away, freeing his wrists. Before you could change your mind, you threw the length away, the fibers thudding against the nearby earth, disappearing into the tall grass.

“You’re free,” you demand, motioning outward with a sweeping gesture. He stared at you, confusion etching deep lines into his face, his brows knitting together. “Go.”

“Go where?” Bucky retorts.

“Anywhere. I don’t know. Just take the damn horse, get out of here before someone in the town recognises you.” You insist. 

“What are you gonna do?” His voice is low, tinged with a concern that catches you off guard.

“What does it matter?” Your voice raises.

“You’re expecting me to strand you out in some junction town, penniless? Women have become whores for much more, sweetheart.” Bucky counters, his tone a mix of disbelief and something softer, almost protective.

“Why do you care?” You shout, and the outlaw pauses in disbelief. Your chest rises and falls, anger and exhaustion leaving you on the cusp of tears. 

“‘Cause it’s my fault you’re here, in this mess.” The outlaw clarifies, his voice heavy with guilt. You flinched as he raised his hand, his movement slow and deliberate. You held your breath as his fingers slowly reached towards your face, moving with the caution one might use with a spooked animal. His fingertips ghost over your temple, where a scab had begun to form over the split in your skin, down past your bruised cheek. You suck in a sharp breath as his fingers reach lower, passing over your split lip, then down further to your bruised neck. 

Your breathing comes to a halt.

In that moment, the outlaw wasn’t the hardened criminal you had feared and hated. He was just a man, broken and remorseful, seeking redemption in the most unlikely of places. And you, despite everything, found yourself caught in the web of his sorrow, unable to turn away.

“I’m a bad man, darlin’. And I’m tired. No matter where I run, I will always be a wanted man. I will always be hunted. Maybe it’s best I let you get your vengance, let you move on with your life.” 

Your ribcage felt too small for your body, each word squeezing tighter and tighter, like a vice around your chest. The sensation was suffocating, the pain flaring up and spreading through your lungs, making it hard to draw a full breath.

Heartache. 

Why did you feel each of his words tearing you apart?

“I think I hated the idea of you.” You burst out, your tongue feeling thick. “I hated what I thought you were. But now I realise... that it was never real.” The outlaw remained silent as you threw your hands up in the air in frustration. “Even now, faced with freedom, all you worry about is me! Why? Why are you making this so difficult? It’s infuriating.”

You turned away, staring back towards the town, seeking solace in its silhouette.

“I’m sorry I can’t be the man you want me to be.” The outlaw speaks quietly behind you. You looked over your shoulder in disbelief. He stood tall, stoic as always, but you could see through it. You could see how his shoulders curled in, as if ashamed. His eyes had always been so icy, stark, and blue, in contrast to the red earth that surrounded you. But now, those eyes seemed softer as they looked down at you, the crow's feet between his brows relaxing.

“I need you to go, Bucky.” You say slowly, quietly. 

Bucky opens his mouth to argue, but you stalk forward, pressing your pointer finger to his chest.

“Do it. For me. As a thank you, for this journey. As terrible as it was.”

The outlaw considered your words, then wordlessly smiled. The smirk was small, just a quirk of the corner of his mouth. He nodded slowly, his adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.

“Will it make you happy?”

“Yes.”

“Alright, darlin’. That’s all I needed to hear.”

You let out a deep breath, walking back a few paces. A sense of relief flooded your veins, and you could finally breathe again. The curling sense of dread still remained—anxiety wracked your brain. What would this mean for you? Would letting him go be a mistake? How would you and your mother survive? You brush it aside for the moment, instead relishing your quiet moment of relief as the outlaw stands next to the horse.

You watch as he pulls your rifle—your father’s rifle—from the saddle. With a grunt, he tosses it across to you. The metal glints in the sun as it arcs through the air towards you. You catch it, staring down at the wooden grain, the familiar weight grounding you.

The outlaw doesn’t explain, instead silently grinning to himself as he unties the saddlebags and tosses them at your feet. They were mostly empty, with only a few coins and a handful of clothing left. Bucky goes to swing into the saddle. You stare at the rifle, then swivel your head to look back at him. Before you could resist it, you bark out a quick “Wait!”

Bucky frowns, his eyes turning to you. He nearly loses his balance trying to pull his foot from the stirrup as you march towards him. Only as he steadies himself do you come to a halt, neck craning as you look up at him.  

Despite your better judgement, you reach for him, gripping the front of his shirt with a fist. His eyes flicker across your face, as if unsure where to rest. His eyes grew dark, his pupils overtaking the icy blue as you lean closer.

“Be safe.” You utter, near whispering. 

The outlaw doesn’t seem interested in words. You’re unsure if he even processed the words you spoke, as his expression has turned hungry. You had seen that expression upon him before–- desire—and for once you did not feel conflict. It drew you in further. 

Your lips part involuntarily as you sense the warmth of his breath against your skin, anticipation hanging heavy in the air. Without warning, he closes the distance between you, his lips meeting yours with an intensity that steals your breath away. His hands find your waist, fingers pressing into your sides as he pulls you firmly against him.

Responding instinctively, your own hands leave his chest and travel up, threading through his hair. The touch is electric, sending shivers down your spine as you surrender to the fervour of the moment. His lips move against yours hungrily, a silent plea.

In that moment, he consumes your very being—desperate, needy, and panting with desire. It dawns on you how long this dance of attraction has been silently playing out between you, how long the two of you have been drawn together despite all else. 

Only as the kiss slowed, his tongue slow and gentle against yours did you pull apart. Your mind was whirling, a thousand thoughts, questions, and uncertainties. You would not have time to explore them or to understand this string of fate knotted around both of you. 

When you finally pull back, breathless and overwhelmed, you rest your forehead against his, feeling the rise and fall of his chest match your own. You close your eyes for the briefest moments, feeling your breath mingle with his before you pull away completely.

“You need to go, Bucky.”

Bucky did not speak, instead nodding, and you could see the conflict written across his face. Grief for something that had just begun, but also excitement for what was to come. His tongue darted out, licking his lips as he walked backwards a few paces, as if relishing the taste of you. 

Only as he swung into the saddle did he speak, pulling the horse up alongside you. 

“When will I see you again?” He questions. 

You grin, shaking your head. 

“Get outta here, cowboy.”

---

hello!! tysm so much for reading this crazy little series of mine. if you enjoy western aus, i have two one-shots: me & the devil (outlaw!bucky x saloongirl!reader) and king of pentacles (outlaw!bucky x fortuneteller!reader - includes smut). i also have some other au series, so check out my masterlist!!

i have a feeling people will ask so yes, there will be a sequel! i have it mostly plotted but haven't started writing. it will focus on reader and bucky reuniting and teaming up with sam to free steve from jail.

i mentioned this in another post but i am going back to studying full-time (as if the first degree wasn't bad enough lol). new writing might be a bit slower to update but i'm hoping to do a similar process of pre-writing and then releasing weekly.

if you enjoyed this series please let me know!! i'm always happy to have a chat, so if you have any questions or feedback lmk. lots of love <333

[dcwildwestfest]

DeanCas Wild West Fest 2024

Thank you to all the artists and authors who made this first year of the DeanCas Wild West Fest a success! All twelve of the teams' fics are live and available below and in the in the DCWWF collection.

Keep on the lookout for info regarding next year's Wild West Fest coming this summer!

Over the Wide Plains by allthismusic Twilight Embers by Celestial_Starlight Wild Blue Iris by Sunkenfox Catching a Sleeping Weasel at Crow's Pass by GhoulsnHalos (Morgawse) Wanted Man by Hexentaenzerin love is a cowboy by deancaskiss The Prodigal by FriendofCarlotta when i saw you all alone against the sky by an_ardent_rain Posse: One Seraph, One Hunter, One Archangel by Hectatess Dean West by IncandescentUmbrage A Love Beyond Boundaries by Mydestielbabies_67 A. fragilis by spirithorse

[acquired-stardust]

Game Spotlight #16: Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories (2000)

Just in time to celebrate its upcoming release as part of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Early Years compilation, Ash takes a look at the very first title in the series released in the west with Dark Duel Stories, a quirky little game that remains surprisingly playable to this day. Come take a quick look at the game to know what you're in for when The Early Years releases later this year!

Yu-Gi-Oh! is a series that Larsa and I have a lot of affection and nostalgia for. Once upon a time we were even avid players of the physical card game (Larsa to much greater competitive success than I), and we've kept up with the series in all its various forms for most of our lives now. Binging the notoriously campy and hilarious English dub of the anime together was one of the first things we did as a couple, and when we started Acquired-Stardust it was a no-brainer to create some content in tribute to the series. That content even went on to become some of our most popular posts, so the series holds a special place in our hearts as well as in the history of the blog.

It's a fascinating series that has taken on a lot of different forms throughout the years and you might be surprised to learn that the iconic physical card game, now mostly known for its incredibly long first-turn combo plays that determine who wins and loses before you're even able to do much playing, wasn't even the original hook of the series. Yu-Gi-Oh! began life as a manga by the late Kazuki Takahashi, the story of a high school boy possessed by an ancient spirit that would punish Domino City's many bullies and thugs through the power of Shadow Games, dishing out Twilight Zone-esque ironic punishments to them, with the signature card game the series is so synonymous with only being played a total of twice in the first 60 chapters before becoming the main focus with the Duelest Kingdom arc which the anime most western fans are familiar is based on. It was a shockingly dark and violent manga especially compared to the camp that the series is more well known for.

Just as well, the physical real-world card game itself has undergone radical shifts in mechanics and formats over the years since its 1999 introduction, and the result is a series that means something different to everyone. If you poll a hundred people, odds are they'll all have a different bit of the franchise as their favorite and consider a different era to be its peak. Larsa and I are personally most fond of the early years of the series, and so playing some of the video games set in that awkward 'wild west, anything goes' time when they were learning and experimenting with exactly what they wanted the card game to be was a pretty intriguing prospect.

And make no mistake about it - Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories is very much in that early feeling-out period. So early in fact it released a mere two days before the Playstation classic Forbidden Memories and eleven days after the debut of the physical card game in America. Dark Duel Stories may have been the first Yu-Gi-Oh! game released in the west, but it's actually the third game in a Gameboy-specific series of Yu-Gi-Oh! titles (and has had its name swapped with its predecessor - whereas Dark Duel Stories is the name of the second title in Japan, this game was originally titled Tri-Holy God Advent in Japan). This series follows what I'll be calling the Gameboy Format for the game for the purpose of this piece, and for the most part it faithfully recreates the base mechanics of the physical card game (which we're assuming you have at least some level of familiarity with, but if not actually playing Dark Duel Stories yourself is a fine way to learn) with a number of key differences.

The first important difference in the Gameboy Format is its de-emphasis, but not total elimination, of Effect Monsters, Traps and Magic cards. Decks consist of a mandatory total of 40 cards, each with their own cost and level limit associated with them. Monster cards will make up the bulk of decks due to their low costs compared to the very costly Magic and Trap cards, necessitating clever usage of the game's largely weak lineup of Monster cards. Facilitating this is the biggest key difference between the traditional physical card game and the Gameboy Format in the much larger emphasis it places on the elemental typing of Monster cards, more inspired by the original manga's version of the card game. Each monster card in the game has an element associated with it (a total of eleven elements exist in the game), with the elements following a rock-paper-scissors sort of mechanic not unlike Pokemon that sees elements strong against one another (such as Water being strong against Fire) be able to inflict increased damage on their opposing element. Unlike Pokemon however, Yu-Gi-Oh's Gameboy Format sees Monster cards of an element weak to its diametrically opposed element outright destroyed before inflicting any potential lifepoint damage to players.

While this can (and will) lead to asinine scenarios in which the iconic Blue Eyes White Dragon card is destroyed by the meager Kuriboh, it adds an interesting layer of strategy to the game that goes beyond simply loading decks with the most powerful cards obtainable. It also stands in stark contrast to the physical card game in which setting up unbeatable scenarios with very little counterplay outside of hyper-specific scenarios on the first turn has become a hallmark.

Another aspect of the Gameboy Format that differs from the physical card game is the lack of Polymerization, a Magic card that enables the fusion of Monsters into a new and more powerful creature. While the Polymerization card is missing the fusion mechanic itself remains, relegated to an entirely unexplained process in which the player can attempt to combine any two monsters to potentially result in a successful fusion with getting the formula incorrect resulting in the first card being replaced by the second. It's small touches like this and the unique elemental system that promote a lot of experimentation and make sure that every Monster card has a potential use regardless of how weak they are statistically.

Players are given a deck of cards to start with and tasked with defeating three tiers of opponents, all of whom being an iconic characters from the manga and anime, five times each. Defeating opponents will earn the player more cards and card parts (more on this in a moment), as well as raising the deck level and cost limitations imposed on the player slowly but surely. There are a total of 800 obtainable cards in the game which can also be acquired through the usage of the Password system that allows players to add one of each card to their collection through entering the corresponding password associated with them. The Password system also allows players to unlock the game's hidden bosses as well as enabling additional post-duel drops indefinitely.

The game's main hook is its allowing of the player to create custom cards through combination of obtained card parts, with players able to combine top and bottom halves of original Monster cards in all sorts of ways that change their attack and defense values, elements, names and appearances. It's a small gimmick that the player is not necessarily required to interact with by any means but does help immerse you in the series by allowing you to create your own unique signature cards.

The end result of Dark Duel Stories' gameplay loop and format is a game that is perfectly suited for its handheld platform in all the best and worst ways. Its small, almost bite-sized duels go by rather quickly and painlessly but obtaining cards without the use of Passwords is a grind-heavy experience that leaves the player completely at the mercy of random chance. The costs associated with constructing decks can feel stifling at first but forces you to engage with the game and appreciate some of its eccentricities like the elemental system, and makes finally being able to include higher-value cards feel like the major upgrade in power that it really is.

It's a perfect fit with the Gameboy Color that allows you to sink however much time you want into it, grinding away to raise your level and cost limits or obtain cards on long road trips or just spending a few minutes beating Joey Wheeler or Seto Kaiba one more time.

Another strong aspect of the game is its art, faithfully adapting 800 cards from the game's early era to the Gameboy Color with a lot of success. Opposing duelists are also particularly strongly adapted, including a lot of (but unfortunately not all) the iconic characters one would expect to find in the game in impressive detail all without an over-reliance on digitizing existing artwork from the manga's original artist. The beautiful pixel art splash screens after selecting an opponent hold up extremely well and have my vote for some of the best visuals on the platform.

Not quite as strong is the sound, with songs being inoffensive and not super memorable but certainly serviceable - you won't be muting the game to protect your ears or anything, but turning on your own music instead might help with some of the grind if you're wanting to invest bigger chunks of time into obtaining Dark Duel Stories' large amount of cards or raising the limits imposed on your deck.

A small touch I greatly appreciated was the lack of manual saving, with Dark Duel Stories featuring a reliable autosave that happens after every duel, making rematching or putting the game down both a painless experience. One particular annoyance is the lack of a search function in the card library, so it's helpful to keep a guide on hand to reference individual card numbers you might be looking for rather than having to scroll through 800 cards manually.

While it's not a perfect game by any means, Dark Duel Stories remains a very fun and addictive time capsule of an era of the game now decades past and comes at an extremely early point in the existence of the physical card game and series at large. There's a lot of charm and a deceptive amount of depth to hook new and old players alike, and the gameplay remains smooth and fast all these years later despite obvious platform limitations.

It even allows players to link two Gameboy systems to duel or trade, though this will be less attractive a feature to people playing the game via emulation on PC which typically lacks the capabilities necessary for multiplayer functions. Original manga author Kazuki Takahashi constantly designed little games that appeared in the backs of compiled volumes of the manga, most often played with dice, and it's not surprising that he'd also come up with a very fun card game too even if this wasn't exactly the format we'd come to know in the years after the release of Dark Duel Stories.

A gem hidden among the stones, Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories is undoubtedly stardust.

-- Ash

[butmakeitgayblog]

Medusa and The Blind Woman

Part I

~~~~~~◇~~~~~~~~~◇~~~~~~~~~◇~~~~~~

She crashes in on an easterly wave. 

One that threatens the bare spindles of a long dead port. The wind bites at stilts gnarled by sea salt and the negligence of time, threads of frayed twine whipping in retaliating lashes against the onslaught versus sturdy grecian wood. 

Lexa watches from on high, eyes on mastheads and white sails in the distance when she takes a moment to admire her only non-hissing companion, the sea. She stands an eagle in her nest of serpentine thorns, as the speck of a sailor draws near from the horizon, boat marching on the back of winds that carry it onward. The ocean howls of intruders long before they arrive, the swishing churn of embattled rip tides announcing the threat among rustled gusts and spits of algae foam. 

It's all become so painfully predictable. 

Lexa sighs at the sight of them marching on toward her fortress. 

A sinking weight floods her stomach, weary resignation presses heavy against her throat.

The grip of her spade reminds hers they mean nothing to her morning, to her unforgiving schedule that must be kept. What with the chill slipping through the cracks of a waning afternoon sun setting on the intruder's horizon. 

She doesn't bother to watch their approach further, instead keeping her thoughts to steady hands that churn earth and crumble stone, driving her blade against charcoal and turning it to soot. She checks her moorings to the west and fells a few fresh saplings for kindling. Nuisances in that particular corner of her nest of thorns, ones she's been waging a losing battle with for ages.

Her thoughts scatter like the seed and silt that pour through the calloused cracks of her fingers, wondering—

A sharp whine fills the air below, followed by a screech and crash of splintering wood. A thunderous boom echoes along the rockside loud enough to shake the very gravel under her feet followed by a full chested bellow.

"Gods damn it all!"

Lexa straightens from her work at the cry of anger, loud enough to have her dropping her tools where she stands. Loud enough to send a shiver across her scalp that hisses and spits its welcome in return. 

She slips past brambles and thickets of overgrowth. Moves between boulders and shrugging aside the hang of vine, winding her way to the edge of her oasis. The sweet scent of honeysuckle mixes with sea water as she moves close to the rocky ledge of the cliff shore. 

Careful to stay hidden, tucked neatly in the shadows, she lifts a few leaves on the tips of her finger to see her would be… captors…

Or. Captor.

The waters are littered with floating bits of dock and warped wood, now useless and broken into a thousand tiny shards that bob their way back out into the wild. 

In its place is a boat. 

A rather pathetic boat, Lexa notes at the feel of a nose nudging her cheek. A vessel of one lonely single seat, barely a rod for a mast, with two matching oars on each side. The sight of its paltry build makes her frown, her lips slackening in shock as she looks past the debris of the wreckage to the fleeing white sails receding into the burgeoning twilight distance. 

Another screeched caw from a circling bird above makes Lexa jump, ignoring the snap and hiss in her ear at the same time the air fills with a strained, "Oh shut up!"

Well.

This is certainly not what she had expected. 

Because…

She's blonde. 

Her apparent assassin is blonde. 

And a woman.  

Altogether a decidedly less muscular figure than Lexa had become accustomed to seeing her would-be heroes in the making that washed up on her shores. Not the type bearing rippling muscles, or the thuggish brawn born of beating one's own chest.

In fact, this assassin is downright dainty.  

~~~~~~◇~~~~~~~~~◇~~~~~~~~~◇~~~~~~

Read on AO3

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Hey, do you by chance have any dialog prompts for internet friends? Thanks!

Hi! This reminded me of how letters can sometimes be similar to how "internet friends" communicate. So here are some examples that may be used as prompts:

“Send me the words ‘Good night’ to put under my pillow.” —John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“To say I apologise just seems to be inadequate. Please write to me soon.” —Hughes to a ticked-off Lowell (similarly, internet friends may argue; one may apologise, sometimes beg for a response)

“I am lonely, Neal, alone, and always I am frightened. I need someone to love me and kiss me and sleep with me; I am only a child and have the mind of a child. . . . It is pure pity that I beg now, not comradeship or love or sympathy.” —Ginsberg to Neal Cassady (similarly, internet friends may confess their emotional turmoils)

“When you write my epitaph, you must say I was the loneliest person who ever lived.” —Robert Lowell, in his letter to Elizabeth Bishop, recalls this message to have been said by her

“Why are you alone in London, and when do you go to Salisbury? Do go there to cool your hands in the grey twilight of Gothic things, and come here whenever you like. It is a lovely place and lacks only you; but go to Salisbury first.” —Oscar Wilde to Lord Alred “Bosie” Douglas

“How can Death get at the Unborn, go back before birth and look at death. Or look at death though a coffeecup or sharpen your pencil on it, protect the chair against it, don’t destroy the chance of a boulder to life.” —Snyder to Ginsberg (similarly, internet friends may not always be coherent in their messages)

“Teaching is a groove, I have total freedom, and my poetry class is full of interesting hip young minds.” —Snyder to Ginsberg (similarly, internet friends may talk [or gossip] about their daily lives; so-and-so is “one of the meanest cats in Japan” -Snyder)

“My main psychic difficulty . . . is the usual oedipal entanglement . . . I have been homosexual for as long as I can remember.” —Ginsberg to Wilhelm Reich (similarly, internet friends may verbalise their internal conflicts)

“I ask you for violence, in the nonsense, and you, you give me grace, your light and your warmth. I’d like to paint you, but there are no colors, because there are so many, in my confusion, the tangible form of my great love.” —Frida Kahlo to Diego Rivera

“Ah, how good it was to hear your voice. It was so inadequate to try and tell you what it meant. Funny was that I couldn’t say je t’aime and je t’adore as I longed to do, but always remember that I am saying it, that I go to sleep thinking of you.” —Eleanor Roosevelt to Lorena Hickok

“My heart has often been too full to speak or take any notice I am sure you know I love you well enough to believe that I mind your sufferings nearly as much as I should my own...” —Emma Darwin to Charles Darwin

“I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way.” —Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf

“...you are lavish with little secondary loves, like that night in Thiviers when you loved that peasant walking downhill in the dark, whistling away, who turned out to be me.” —Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone de Beauvoir

“Think of me, sometimes, when the Alps and ocean divide us, –but they never will, unless you wish it.” —Lord Byron to Teresa Guiccioli

Notes on writing internet friends' dialogue (similar to how people write letters):

Example: "Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell" — Similar to these poets, your characters may lead very different lives, which you can make apparent in their dialogue:

For instance, Bishop's letters contain ardent descriptions of Brazilian flora and fauna, affectionate accounts of her humble neighbors in Petrópolis, and wry gossip about her upper-class social circle in Rio; whilst Lowell updates her on his tumultuous life with wives #2 (Elizabeth Hardwick) and #3 (Caroline Blackwood) and on the stateside literary scene.

Despite differences, your characters may still remain friends. Example: Bishop and Lowell's politics differed. Yet both tactfully avoided debating politics, and remained fast friends. (While Lowell was very publicly protesting the Vietnam War, Bishop was socializing with Brazil’s leading conservative politicians.)

Write your character's dialogue in a descriptive way. Unless they are sending one another photos or videos, most internet friends would be very vivid in their description. Example: In Hughes' 1956 letters, he frequently reported encounters with animals in a descriptive way (usually including his own interpretations): he’s sitting in a valley reading when a wildcat comes along and starts “to stare me out—very offensive”; he’s walking across a field when he sees a “beautiful cow” alienating the affections of a calf from a jealous horse.

Sometimes internet friends tell each other mundane things, like their dreams: For instance, in his letters, Hughes recounts, and attempts to analyze one, often violent animal dream, after another.

Also found this article on The Psychology of Social Media, which you might find useful.

Sources: 1 2

Hope this helps with your writing. Do tag me, or send me a link. I'd love to read your work!