‘‘I appreciate you hospitality, Miss Roberts, but I ain’t got much to give in repayment for it.’’ @pratektar || SC.

           “N-no, no… I understand.” Even though he loved the woman, he couldn’t deny the flame had died a long time ago. Perhaps when he ran away like a coward. He cast his gaze away, trying to focus into the darkness of the forest in an attempt to conceal any trace of heartache.  Charles was everything John wasn’t. So in a strange way, he was happy for her. 

           “You should leave, you know?” He said after a pause, managing to bring a faint smile to his features. “The gang– it ain’t a good place for Jack right now.” 

         ‘   JOHN MARSTON,   don’t you go   pushing   us away.   ‘   voice   cracks,   brows furrowing together as she   desperately   tries to hang on to whatever was   left   between the two.   ‘   i know   …   i know   i said a lot of things,   made you   promise me   a lot of things.   ‘   a pause,   fingertips   ghosting   his arm before she takes it,   tries to   comfort   him.   ‘   our boy,   he still needs his   daddy.   ain’t   no one   can replace   you.   ‘

     it’s too early for this. another four years, and it’ll still be too early. 

   ❛ chrissakes, ain’t you never let up? ❜ ( the question is hardly for her, muttered sharp into the morning brisk without care or want for a response. he does not will not heed her, eyes anywhere but the badlands of her person as he stalks off, glower fixed fast to a sack of grain laying prostrate a little ways due south. ) ❛ askin’ me ‘ain’t we reason enough’ — ❜

    ( he realizes, too late, that repeating it is a mistake; recognizing her use of ‘we’ is a mistake, just as much as lingering on ‘our boy’ is, constraining, condemning. john stops in his tracks, volume rushing to meet the spike of heat in his skin as he turns for her, expression wrenched, his own temper sparking. ) ❛ — as if you ain’t too goddamn much as it is? you ever listen to yourself? or am i the only poor bastard gotta hear you? ❜ 

wrong answer.   always the wrong answer.

          ‘   john marston,   YOU PIG   !   ‘   anger hides the   fear   in her   voice,   cup thrown   carelessly   as she   follows   after him.   she knew   better   than to ask questions she didn’t   want   the answers to,   but perhaps she was   praying   for a different outcome.   always stuck in a fantasy.   ‘   you ain’t even   MAN ENOUGH   to look me in the eyes,   let alone   FATHER OUR SON.   ‘

      ———  ( NSFW  ; accepting !  )  *  @apocryphorum​​.

      ———  ( NSFW  ; accepting !  )  *  @charlesmiith​​.