I’m your secret cupid, @southernlynxx !!! I’m so sorry this took forever dear; the past few weeks have been totally insane and out of my hands to control. I chose your first wish and decided to mix it up with some good reassurance (happy) angst which i found fitting for the theme;
John trying to understand & accept Arthur’s affection around camp! I hope you enjoy it, happy late Saint Valentine’sday!!!
P.D → I was inspired by this photo I took in my game! Totally worth it.
John never thought it would be like this.
At first, it was awkward—maybe bizarre. But that was just the beginning.
As the sun rose from the West, John walked out of his tent like a dead man; dark bags under his eyes and scratching his side, yawning without shame. Thirty minutes of sleep—or less—felt great. Just what he needed, right? Taking guarding rounds at night for the past few weeks to avoid him. Yes, that man. The one who had become his greatest relief and headache at the same time, Arthur Fucking Morgan.
While John agonized, Arthur was at his best. Refreshed, clean, and glowing like a damn pearl who had found its way to the surface, gleaming under the Sun—too shiny for John’s liking. Thankfully, his tormenting and seductive eyes were nowhere to be found yet. But, why was John avoiding him as if he was a pest? It’s complicated, you’ll understand later on.
John walked to the empty soup cauldron and grabbed the coffee pot next to it and a metallic cup nearby. He sighed as he sipped from the coffee he had just poured himself; feeling the smoke coming off his mouth like locomotor steam. He needed it to be functional, it had become his coal and main source of energy.
He stood next to the fire in the common area, waiting for Dutch to give a speech he had asked everyone the night before to hear. Why the hell would he give a speech so early in the morning when even the rooster hadn’t yet given his call to the sky? He wondered, staring his distorted reflection in the coffee in his hand.
It was a quiet morning, everyone who woke up, quickly waved at John and left to grab a coffee, or so it remained until the feared one appeared. He walked graciously without effort, his shirt had some buttons undone that showed his chest and collarbone, looking like a damn angel. He rinsed his face and John saw with detail from afar how every drop of water dripped down his face and neck. It made him thirsty. That man was no other than Arthur Morgan.
Arthur ran his hand through his hair and over his nape. To John, that man could’ve been the Devil himself walking on Earth, an angel who had fallen from Heaven for his ego. He was too full of himself, afly in making everyone blush in a moment’s notice. Before John could realize, Arthur was staring at the red in his cheeks and grinned, satisfied from his reaction.
“Damn you!” John whispered, looking anywhere but at him as he burned his tongue and narrowed his eyes.
Arthur, with his smug grin, quickly grabbed his coffee and sat next to the fire a few feet away from John, who didn’t know Arthur was just mesmerized with his foolishness, head over heels for a stubborn and reckless but loveable little piece of shit—a nickname truthful to his nature. A true rascal! Against his better judgement and all prognostics, an all-standing jinx befell upon him like rain in a desert.
He admired John from the ground, his strong jawline, the scars on his cheek that ran to his nose and the corner of his lips. However, his foul mouth didn’t catch up with his beauty—quick witted and far too fast for his train of thought that always got him in trouble. Arthur drank from his coffee and looked at John in the eye who, this time, didn’t turn their gaze away but held it dearly.
“What are you thinkin’ about?” John asked with his raspy voice, trying to sound uninterested but contradicted by the widened pupils in his curious eyes.
A walking contradiction, Arthur thought with a grin. “Wanna’ know?” He took a long swig of his cup and let it sit in his lap.
John hesitated for a moment. "No.“ Nevermind.
The blue-greened eye man cleaned the corner of his mouth with his thumb and licked it and slightly blushed. "What a shame.”
John couldn’t stop staring Arthur, something had lit in the corner of his mind.
“Anyway, what does Dutch want this early in the morning?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.” Arthur rolled his eyes and looked at his feet.
John gulped, bothered by Arthur’s sudden behavior to which he decided to blind the eye on.
“He’s been acting… strange,” John mutters, making a long pause.
He was right. Dutch had changed; it was the gleam in the eye he had always told them to not have—those of an ambition far too great, burned by being too close to the Sun. Everybody had noticed but kept quiet, making a silent agreement in not talking about the matter. John had a hunch of what it meant, but also kept quiet.
“No more than you; what’s going on with ya’? Did the wolves eat the brain whole? You’ve been avoiding me!”
Did he notice? He knew he wasn’t hiding the fact so well, but admitting it hurt his pride.
“The hell you sayin’?! No, I haven’t!”
Arthur smiled in response, as if it was the answer he was expecting.
“Why?”
John narrowed his eyes.
“Why what?”
“You know.”
He stood up, spilt the coffee left in his cup into the fire and slowly walked to John. His body swung with temptation, a fierce cat-walk with a daring look in his eyes. John felt like his feet were stuck to the ground, unable to take just one step aside to avoid the storm walking straight to him. His metallic eyes were bewitched by Arthur’s; he sure knew how to charm him every damn time.
He didn’t stop until he towered over John, trapping him with his voluptuous figure.
“Why are you so shy?” He whispered to John in the ear with a burning breath that heated and tinted his cheeks in deep red.
John forgot how to breath. He was so close that he felt their bodies touch and their minds collide.
“I, uh…”
“you what, dear?”
How shameless could the bastard be? Didn’t he have any limit?
“I don’t wanna talk here; let’s go somewhere else.” John imposed in a soft mutter.
“Alright.”
They went to John’s tent taking hands. They were cramped in such a small place, where their breathing burned eachother’s skin and only a dim light shined through the entrance. A long pause arrived when the world had seemed to stop rotating and time had gone somewhere else, making everything but them oblivious and unimportant.
“I don’t understand why are you doing this,” John said with long sigh, finally giving in.
John rested his head in Arthur’s shoulder, feeling his body finally relax after the tense moment.
“I thought we were a secret, ya’ know?” he muttered, “a thing only you and I knew. Our thing.”
Arthur combed his fingers through John’s black hair, softly caressing the back of his head and humming in agreement.
“I don’t seem to understand why you smile at me every time you see me or why you, like, want to touch me every time you can—or when you look at me like that.”
“Does it make you uncomfortable?”
“No! I, ugh… I don’t know.”
Arthur chuckled. “I get it.”
John sighed in relief. Did it mean he would stop acting weird? I mean, Arthur would always be a bastard no matter how you look at it, but he called it an improvement.
“I’m sorry” he continued ”, but there’s no stopping me in loving you.”
What. In. The. World. That’s not what he meant!
“Arthur, you’re not listening—”
“Every damn word, of course I do…”
“Then why are you doing this?!” John buried his head deeper, frustrated. “I’m an asshole, okay, I get it. But that’s not a reason for you to do this to me.” Enchanting me, making me drunk with every word you whisper. Damn you.
“John, I—”
“I don’t deserve it.”
A long silence between them came to be except for the more recurrent footsteps outdoors, stumping into the grass and dirt. John held tighter to Arthur, who stepped back only to take a closer look to his face, eye to eye.
“Listen closely, you little piece of shit.”
John flinched to the sudden grab by his collar, wanting to look away but Arthur only held his gaze closer.
“There’s no denying that you are an idiot— but my idiot. I’m a fool myself, an old dirty bastard that’s only getting older with every day that goes by, thinking that I’m the happiest man alive every damn time I look at you and even though I know I don’t deserve it either. I ain’t a good man, John. And you fucking know it.” He grabbed his collar stronger as if it was a threat, with that dead look in his eyes that had seen the deeds their owner had done.
After Arthur realized what he did, he let John go.
“If it was about deserving, John, you would’ve never been mine.“
He gently took John’s hand laid it in his face, placing a gentle kiss in the back of his hand.
John couldn’t speak a word. His mind had gone blank except for the beautiful image of Arthur lovingly playing with his fingers, laying kisses in the tip of his fingers, and the words that uttered in the corners of his mind, echoing Arthur’s whispers.
"I’m sorry, John. But I beg you, let this damn fool love you and show it to you.”
John placed his hand in Arthur’s earlobe. As if both had read their minds, they looked into each other’s eyes before leaning into a soft, gentle kiss.
Their kisses never tasted sweet. It was rough, with sweat and blood that was so common in there lives. Neither of them deserved the sweet taste of paradise, but they were making one of their own.
“You make me feel like a fool, Arthur.”
“You too.”
John wished this moment lasted forever. He wanted to enjoy the moment when their souls had gotten closer, but a voice outside called.
“Arthur, John, Where are you?!” Dutch called, irritated of waiting.
They separated and held each other’s gaze for a moment.
“We should go,” John whispered tenderly as he rolled he eyes.
“Let’s go,” Arthur chuckled.
Arthur gently held John’s hand before heading out of the tent, ready for the world.
