Arthur Morgan concept art for chapter 3 of

Faith and Familiarity

Rated E

M/M

Dutch/Arthur, John/Arthur

Chapter 1: Father

“Arthur, my boy – come here.” Dutch's tone carried across the camp, and Arthur straightened up from where he'd been cleaning his saddle. There wasn't any urgency in Dutch's tone, but Arthur moved anyway. Because Dutch had called. And that was reason enough.

The evening scent carried a bit of rain, evergreen sap, smoke... just a hint of wet horse and hey - the camp alive with quiet chatter and the occasional burst of laughter. No one paid much attention as Arthur crossed the clearing to Dutch's tent; their leader summoned him often enough that it barely registered. Hosea gave him a nod. Mary-Beth hummed while scribbling in her notebook. Arthur didn't meet anyone's eyes as he ducked inside.

The flap of the tent fell shut behind Arthur with a soft rustle, sealing him inside the warm space that smelled faintly of book pages and the older man's minty cologne. Sunset painted all of it in dull, canned light through the white canvas. The older man was seated on the hides of his cot, one leg crossed wide over the other, turning his eyes up from his novel to Arthur with that expectant gaze.

“You been keepin' busy, son?” He set the hardcover aside.

Arthur approached, jaw tight, nodded once. “Yeuh. Just tendin' to the horses.”

Dutch hummed, reaching out. Arthur understood and put himself where the older man wanted, close enough for Dutch to curl his fingers into the beltloops of Arthur's pants, tugging him closer. Arthur let himself be pulled forward until he was standing between Dutch's thighs, his skin soaking up that all-encompassing heat. The man's hands slid over his suspenders, down the curve of his waist, firm digits gripping the give.

Arthur shivered.

“Hmm…” Dutch breathed low and rough. His digits traced the outline of Arthur's gun, then his buckle, slow. “Always so obedient.”

Arthur's lungs pressed high to his throat, skin goosepimpling under the man’s touch. He knew what was coming, had known since the moment Dutch called him over, but his nerve endings still boiled inside his marrow. Always did.

Dutch huffed, watching the splotchy flush creep up Arthur's neck.

The older man’s fingers worked Arthur’s belt loose with practiced ease, the leather sliding free with a dry hiss. Arthur held his breath, hands twitching at his sides; Dutch liked him pliant, so he stayed pliant.

His pulse hammered in his throat.

“That’s my boy,” Dutch whispered, palming the dip of Arthur’s ass through his trousers. “So good for me.”

The praise sent a warm rush through Arthur’s chest, even as shame prickled at the edges of it. He shouldn’t curl to the man’s touch like some desperate, flee-bitten mutt. But Dutch had raised him to know his place, and Arthur had never been good at denying him anything.

A sharp inhale cut through the thick air of the tent – not from Arthur. Not from Dutch.

Arthur’s head snapped toward the sound. And there, frozen in the half-open flap of the tent, stood John fucking Marston. His eyes were wide, mouth open, one hand gripping the canvas like he didn’t know what to do with it.

How to Cure the Devil

Rated E

M/M

Charles/Arthur, John/Arthur, Dutch/Arthur, Others/Arthur

Omega Arthur

Summary:

In Early-Industrial America, the age of freedom was dying; buffalo poached to near-extinction, forests flattened, outlaws tracked and chained, hunters turned to factory workers, and the only peoples left in the land who remembered the old ways of the pack were the very natives who were being run out of it. White man had been grooming omegas into fragility for so long, society began to believe that the ‘demure demeanor’ of the rare gender was a natural part of their biology. If only they knew. Arthur Morgan, ‘Demon of the North’ and Van der Linde’s most trusted associate, now had a price of $5,000 on his head – the highest bounty in American history rivaled only by the infamous Jesse James. Only those who’d seen the man work and survived could tell you how that number had reached such a height. If only they knew.

Chapter 1: Paradise Lost

The gunshot cracked through the canyon, echoing off the vertical, grey rocks. Arthur looked calm – relaxed, if not a tiny bit winded. He let out a sigh as he watched the O'Driscoll drop. The man hit the dirt hard, clutching his stomach, his breath gurgling gasps. Arthur stepped over him without looking down, boots crunching thick gravel. Behind him, others were still twitching.

"You—you're him," a dying man choked, torso smearing blood across the dust as he tried to crawl away from his doom. "Morgan."

Arthur wiped his empty revolver clean on his thigh before holstering it.

Up on the ridge, the rest of the Van der Linde gang watched in silence.

Normally, they'd be a part of the fray. Normally, they’d all take positions, cover each other's backs – each one fulfilling a role; Arthur would fulfill one role. Normally.

But the posse had arrived late and with thier gunpowder wet from the river. And to top it all off, they'd taken the wrong path – no way to get their horses down off this hill without going all the way around. So after arriving with the battle half-finished, blood already strewn across the hillside, the Van der Linde gang had just watched.

It had all happened so fast...

Follow Me and Gravity

Rated E

M/M

Dutch/Arthur

“Hello again, John.”

“Hello, Dutch.”

“We gotta stop meeting like this.”

“… Sure.”

The wind bit at Dutch’s face. He stood on the cliff’s edge. Rocks, grey, dirt, grey, snow, grey, the prodigal son… everything grey. The drop behind yawned wide, a hungry mouth waiting to swallow him whole. There weren’t no salvation there. No chance of survival. No odds. He’d always beaten the odds, beaten everyone – hell, he’d laughed in their faces while doing so – but this wasn’t about odds. This was about choice.

The silver ring felt heavy against his collarbone.

“I’ve got a plan, John.”

The kid groaned, deeper now – a grown man, a real one, “You’ve always got a plan, Dutch.” He sounded strong, confident… and exhausted in that way that was too familiar… the way Arthur had started sounding towards the end.

The blonde's voice, rough, rich, flickered through his mind like a half-remembered dream. The way he'd drag out the vowel every time he said Dutch’s name, pleading, or cursing, wary, or desperate. The older man looked to his left... 

...but the boy wasn't there. His jaw clenched. That had been a different cliff, a different time. Arthur had been beside him then, breathing hard behind his bandanna, sweat streaking through the dust on his face.

Dutch waved his gun, meaningless. He looked back to John, tossing the metal aside, “… This is a good one.”

John lowered his own gun, “I don’t doubt it.”

“We can’t always fight nature, John,” Dutch started, the same words felt poetic - felt right on his tongue. “We can’t fight change… We can’t fight… gravity.” The string around his neck was too damn heavy. “We can’t. Fight. Nothin’.

Dutch heard the brunette suck his teeth, clearly too tired to listen to another one of Dutch's sermons. The kid knew him well, after all. “Then give up, Dutch.”

Dutch swayed at the cold breeze. “But I can’t give up, neither… I can’t fight my own nature.” He watched the brunette’s frown curl into a sneer at that. They both knew what he was really talking about. Dutch smiled, breathing heavy, “That’s the paradox, John. You see?”

The younger man held back the growl in his voice, clearly trying not to give Dutch the satisfaction, “Then I have to shoot you,” he leveled.

Dutch’s chuckle came out, natural, “When I’m gone, they’ll just find another monster.” The look in John’s eyes clearly disagreed, but Dutch continued, “They have to… because they have to justify their wages.”

“No, Dutch,” John corrected. “Ain’t never met a monster till I met you.”

Dutch’s blood pulsed cold against the skin of his arm. The kid wasn’t wrong.

Dutch stood alone in the snow. He could almost hear the echo of hoof beats – The Count, Silver Dollar, Boadicea – the ravings of the reverend, the shouts of Susan, the ugly, off tune singing of those idiots that could barely pronounce a word of Spanish, the distant shouts of the posse who’d once trusted him, loved him. He’d been a god once, or near enough. Now he was just a man with nothing left to lose.

He looked to the sky. Lord, when had it all gone wrong? Why had it? This wasn't what he'd wanted. It used to all be… It used to all be so simple. When had he changed? Why had he changed?

The hate in John’s eyes looked almost like Arthur’s. But Arthur’s was never quite hate, not really…

Jesus. He missed him.

Blue-green.

“… Gravity…” he whispered. For himself.

He took a step back.

“We can't fight… gravity,” again he parroted his own words from that time… That time.

That had been the first time… the only time he had ever experienced Heaven. When Arthur followed him at those words. No questioning it. And then…

~*~

Blue-green and fear stared into him – into his soul as they plummeted. Fear… but also some last vestiges of trust.

“YOU'RE MAAAAAAD!” That voice, rich, unique. Arthur.

Dutch couldn't help but laugh as he plummeted through air into river.

The water hit like a slap from God himself, cold and brutal. Dutch surfaced gasping, sediment stinging his eyes, but it was Arthur’s face he saw first. Not the rocks, nor the logs, nor the jagged teeth of the cliff above them.

The current carried them; Dutch found land, the odds ever in his favor.

“Come on, Arthur. Take my hand!” The blonde swam as best as he could along the current, his large body clearly slowed and weakened by its curse. “Here. Oh, don't give up now!” Arthur swam to him desperate, a lost child. Hot skin found Dutch’s; he pulled, “Come here, big boy... I got ya.”

He dragged Arthur onto the riverbank, his own muscles still screaming from the impact. The blonde coughed up half the river, chest heaving like a fireplace bellows. Dutch stared.

Water dripped from Arthur’s face; he rolled over, hair plastered to his forehead like a damn golden halo. The boy’s scent was even stronger now, now that the river had washed off the last vestiges of those sharp, cloaking herbs.

“We're okay.” Dutch laughed, heart beating a mile a minute, maybe from the jump, maybe from swimming through rapids and narrowly dodging those life-ending rocks, maybe from that scent… That scent that had been getting stronger the last two days, that scent that had helped Uncle Sam track them down and corner them so quickly in the first place. That goddamn intoxicating smell no one in their right mind would expect from his enforcer. Arthur Morgan, the 6 foot-something strong man with more kills under his belt than half the country's criminals combined. The boy panted. Coughed. Dripped. “… You're okay.” Dutch looked away.

“What a mess,” the blonde wheezed.

“I know… But a mess is what we need.” He didn't explain what he meant. He didn't need to.

Dutch stared at the fast-flowing water, weighing their options. The scent clung to Arthur like a second skin – honey, peach, rosemary – sweet and unmistakable. No amount of river water could wash away what nature had carved into his bones.

Dutch turned, eyes tracing the broad outline of the man spread out over sand and rocks, water still seeping dark from his clothes into the dirt. “Give me your shirt.”

Arthur's head rolled to him, brows furrowed. “The hell for?” His voice was rough, still catching on the remnants of river water in his lungs.

Dutch didn't smile, “Faith, Arthur.”

A beat passed. The blonde let out a sigh, then stripped his jacket and peeled the thin soaked fabric from his shoulders. Dutch took it without ceremony.

He tore the sodden shirt into uneven strips with his teeth, the fabric resisting before giving way with a wet rip. The honey-rich aroma in that cloth was warm, alive. Jesus fucking Christ, so good. He schooled his expression; thank God Arthur wasn't looking, too busy panting into the sky catching his breath, taming his biology.

“They want to follow the scent, let them try,” Dutch grumbled, tossing one scrap into the churning current where it vanished downstream in seconds. Another he wedged between jagged rocks further upriver, the third he rubbed against a tree branch before flinging it across the stream into dense brush.

Arthur watched him work through tired lids. “Ain't gonna fool 'em long,” he rasped, wiping at the incessant river water that continued to drip down his temples.

“Long enough,” Dutch countered, crouching to rub the remaining fabric against Arthur's bare neck. He paused then, fingers lingering a heartbeat too long on curse-warmed skin.

"Long enough for what… Dutch?" 

Arthur’s pulse hammered under his fingertips, fast and insistent, and Dutch wondered if the boy even realized how hard he was breathing.

“Long enough for us to find a way out of this mess,” Dutch said, standing abruptly and tucking the cloth into his pocket for use further up the trail. He offered a hand.

After a beat, Arthur took it, hauling himself up with a grunt.

They moved upstream where the cliffs offered shadow and cover.

Arthur's bare back gleamed soft in the fractured light. Dutch watched the play of muscle under skin, the old scars he'd memorized years ago blending with the flush of exertion. Arthur had always been strong, always acted it. So this, this protective hunch, the way his body curved into itself, this was new.

Or maybe Dutch had just refused to see it before. It had only been, what? Two months? Maybe three? The boy had spent so long hiding his curse that the truth almost felt alien. Fifteen years. Fifteen years of herbs and perfumes and secrets and lies. Fifteen years wasted. Unfortunately, he understood why Arthur had made that choice. With their rough way of life. With Dutch’s expectations. With the way the boy always seemed so desperate to prove himself, desperate for respect, approval. Dutch's approval.

His boy.

Still, though. He should’ve told Dutch.

“So, we going to get out of here, or are we just gonna wait around for them to come shooting?” Arthur threw his sopping coat back on, decidedly frowning into the dirt. Dutch hadn't realized he was staring.

The older man huffed a laugh, but his throat was dry. “Just making sure you're not drowning on land, son.”

Arthur's scent spiked - warmth, peaches crushed under boot - before he tamped it down again. The line of his shoulders tightened.

Dutch gauged the reaction; it had been a while since he’d called the blonde that – had been hard to ever since… well…

But that look the boy had always given him – like looking at a hero, an idol… that spark had been gone for a while.

Dutch watched Arthur's hands – those big, calloused palms that could break a man's neck or skin a cougar with equal ease – tremble as he wrung river water from his pant legs. The scent of him was thicker now, unguarded, curling into Dutch's lungs like smoke from Pearson’s cook fire after weeks of cold rations. It made his teeth ache.

“You're shaking.”

Arthur snorted, flexing his fingers like he could will the tremor away. “Cold.”

“That all?”

Arthur's eyes snapped up, wide and blue-green under the mess of his damp hair. The words hung between them. Had the boy really not known how obvious it was? How strong he smelled? For a heartbeat, Dutch thought he might bolt, might actually turn tail and run from him for the first time in twenty goddamn years. But then Arthur's jaw set, that stubborn tilt Dutch knew so well, and he squared his shoulders like he was bracing for an insult.

“I'm,” the boy looked to the ground, “running low on red herb… Been running low… Been out…” he chewed on the inside of his mouth. “I need to head into Valentine and get—”

“We ain't heading near roads or civilization anytime soon,” Dutch leveled. “We gotta find somewhere to lay low till them troops cool down… or you do.”