Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Arthur Morgan/Charles Smith Characters: Arthur Morgan, Charles Smith (Red Dead Redemption) Additional Tags: MerMay, merman!charles, Whump, im sorry i am just a filthy filthy charles whump enjoyer, (slaps this fic on the hood) this bad boi can fit so many painful painful wounds and healing processes in there, Fantasy AU, Human Arthur, it's love at first fishy boyfriend sight really, first meeting, Pre-Relationship Series: Part 1 of when the tides fall Summary:

So when he spots a trail of… something, leading from—or to?—the cave's entrance, along the short stretch of the beach and into the sea, Arthur's on high alert immediately. It looks like… blood. Of some creature, or monster, luminous even in the glaring afternoon sun, and a shimmering blue. Arthur digs around in his head, trying to remember what he knows about non-humans, and comes up empty. Most species have red blood, and a few have gold, but blue?

He squints, pulling out a pair of binoculars. The trail looks… diluted, dissipated. Like the tides have washed over it countless times. Yet still the trail persists, which must mean that whatever is oozing that stuff is still in the cave, bleeding out. Arthur briefly wonders how it ended up in there; perhaps the tide brought it in, and the creature was left stranded here after the tides fell.

The sun is setting by the time he reaches camp, two days later. Along the way he doodles some new herbs, offers a poor woman a ride back to her town after heaving a dead horse off her leg, and accidentally tramples a fat turkey under his horse’s hooves, which he picks up and ties to her saddle. The horse is a wild mustang he found and tamed impromptu off the side of the road, because for some reason Boadicea wasn’t waiting for him outside the lab - but Arthur’s not too worried. She’s been nicked before, but has always found her way back to camp. A smart devil, she is.

All in all he has a pretty good time, and by the time the lush greenery surrounding Shady Belle comes into view, with not a hint of pain on his body to remind him, Arthur has all but forgotten about the whole little life-and-death situation he experienced back at the lab.

That is, until he spots the all too familiar figure standing vigilant guard in the shadows of the trees, and all of a sudden all the guilt and despair he’d felt in that split second of electric shock comes flooding back to him.

Charles watches him as Arthur kicks his horse into a trot. Arthur can’t quite make out his expression, the sun now just dipping beneath the horizon, but he thinks Charles hesitates, something uncertain flitting across his face.

“Arthur,” Charles greets, when Arthur is within speaking distance. “Finally cut your hair, hm?”

Arthur blinks, pausing mid dismount. “Huh?” he says smartly, shaking his boot loose of the stirrup. Then remembers he had his hair trimmed a week or two ago, when Charles had been more or less busy out of camp-and Arthur has very fond memories about the night he came back-from barely touching the collar of his shirt to cropped at his nape again. He’s surprised Charles even notices the minute change. He reaches up to rake a hand carelessly through it, tousling it even more than the wind already has, and Charles watches the motion. “Yeah. Was getting kinda long.”

Patting his horse on the rump to usher her towards the herd, he closes the few steps between himself and Charles, and presses a quick kiss to his lips, a hand coming up to cup his cheek.

“Missed you,” he says softly. “Almost didn’t make it back here alive to tell you that.”

Many things happen at once.

In the time it takes for him to complete his sentence, he realises that Charles hasn’t kissed back. Hasn't moved a muscle. In fact, he’s frozen under Arthur’s palm, entire body going still where he stands, and when Arthur looks up from his lips he’s met with brown eyes burning with bright hot fury. He’s only seen that kind of anger once, back when they confronted the bison poachers, and not once has he ever thought he’d be on the receiving end of that wrath.

Then Charles’s hand is fisted in Arthur’s shirt collar.

“You will not,” Charles breaths, “try that with me ever again.”

Arthur’s mind goes blank. There’s confusion, mixed with hurt, with alarm, then Charles’s other hand is pulling back, and before Arthur can process what his sweet, gentle lover is about to do, the fist connects square with his jaw.

RULES: Make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous, and tag as many people as you have WIPs. People send an ask with the title that most intrigues them, then you post a snippet or tell them something about it.

Tagged by @tciddaemina 🥰🥰

Voices (chapter 4)

Cowardice and other virtues

Staccato

Archenemy

Midnight train

Fixpoint

untitled mermaid fic

Only temporary

By a thread sequel

So dig two graves

... And a bunch others

yeag guys apart from voices all the other ones are in... various states of being drafted. also all of them are charthur except so dig two graves 😭

i have too many wips so i am resolutely Not tagging the equal number to my fics 💀 @rockscanfly @gathersnomoths @pipdepop @un-beleeevable

Scene from The Cowboy's Interchonometric Guide to Pining, chapter 6