Arthur Morgan X Oc - Tumblr Posts

when men like you come around chapter II

Pairing: Arthur Morgan x OFC!Ethel

Summary: Arthur reflects on how he feels about Miss Ethel Taylor when they find themselves stuck together, running a con as a married couple.

Tags/Warnings: Rivals to lovers, slow burn, sexual tension, High Honor!Arthur, bickering, Arthur POV, he lowkey is pining for Ethel but doesn't know it.

Wordcount: 3.4k

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Arthur knew women like that Miss Ethel Taylor.

“High society ladies,” or so she liked to call herself, were nothing but trouble, if you asked him.

He would know this well, after spending up all his hopes and dreams on one.

A woman like Miss Taylor had her own best interests in the forefront of her mind at all times. Her moves were carefully calculated, in a way that Arthur had to respect, especially when the whole gang saw the hauls that she and Hosea began to bring in once the old man taught her how to use those pretty little smiles and smooth talkin’ words to their advantage.

But he couldn’t trust her, not completely. Even when Hosea would clap her on the shoulder and tell Dutch about the effortless act she had put on with just a hint of pride, Arthur would watch the way her mouth curled up into another smile, wondering if every twitch of her lips was as deliberately plotted out as it was towards the folks she had been taught by those same men to swindle.

Arthur tried to tell himself that he wasn’t being petty. That he wasn’t unfairly perceiving her the same way he did all those rich city folks.

But that was the heart of the issue.

That despite all Miss Taylor’s fancy talk, her dignified air, the polished manners and prim posture—there was something about her, some look in her eye, that he had never seen in a lady born and raised for the finer things in life.

There was the strike of match behind an amber glow of those eyes, one that he wasn’t sure could start a fire or light a fuse to something considerably more dangerous, explosive, not just burning down everything down around her, but taking it all out in one definitive blow.

He had seen this fire the first time he met the lady, drawn to the sounds of gunfire like a second nature, following the instinct of survival and death in the air to see the dead body left on the trail and two people riding at breakneck speed away from it.

There was another gunshot as a blur of a woman passed, not from the rifle she gripped on for dear life with one hand just as much as her reins in the other, the bang echoed by a choked sob, and Arthur was swiftly climbing into the saddle of his trusted mount before speeding after the lawman hot on her trail.

He was aiming down the sights then before he could stop to think, pulling the trigger by reflex alone, watching as the lawman becomes deadweight caught in the stirrup of his saddle, dragged away as the woman brought her horse to a slower pace, dared a glance back, and Arthur saw her fire for the very first time.

Blazing dangerously, threatening to burn him at a moment’s notice, and Arthur didn’t feel fear then, but sympathy.

It was a wild-eyed look, similar almost to pure fear and natural instinct to fight like hell that he had seen in the eyes of one of his dearest friends when the gang had found Sadie, who he could hear in the distance then riding hard to catch up to him.

Despite that fear, despite that dead body she had just left in her wake, this disheveled woman had replied to his inquiry about her current state with an almost appalled accusation of his own murder.

Arthur couldn’t resist turning it right back on her, even as he holstered his weapon, symbolically offering a hand to her even though he had a feeling of just how hard she could bite it, if not tear it off from him entirely.

And maybe she would have, if Sadie hadn’t showed up and saved one or both of their lives then.

There was an instant bond between the women that Arthur could almost see form, maybe some sort of familiarity passing through the two, but he didn’t think he could ever fully understand. Ethel had relaxed then, the rifle finally relaxed in her grip when Sadie carefully approached her, the shaken woman giving her first name and hesitating on a slight stutter, a syllable drawing from chapped lips that was not at all the same as the last name she finally offered.

It was a peculiarity that he could not put a finger on. A strange juxtaposition wrapped up in one woman, the first of many.

And that was perhaps the most infuriating thing about Miss Ethel Taylor.

That for all the ways he thought he knew her, or assumed he could read her, she was in all actuality a goddamn mystery.

Because a civilized lady doesn’t shoot down a lawman while she’s fleeing from another one in a blood-soaked gown.

A woman from high society wouldn’t have adjusted so easily to a life of lying shamelessly, stealing effortlessly, and shooting men without a second thought if needed.

Arthur had seen Ethel on occasion, during the rare situation where Dutch or Hosea were foolish enough to stick them on a job together, with her finger resting on the trigger after she pushed it down by instinct, hardly flinching form the kickback of the bolt action rifle against her shoulder, smoke rising from the barrel and drifting across her concentrated face as she stared down at the body she had left in the dust.

He had found her with that rifle on that day they first crossed paths, and she hardly let the gun out of her sight since. Nights not spent with one of the girls at her side were spent quietly by one of the campfires, a tattered old handkerchief saturated with gun oil in hand as she cleaned the rifle almost lovingly, with near reverence.

It was the way he cleaned his own weapons.

It was not a way any true high class lady would treat such an instrument of death.

Those nights when he would see her taking care of her beloved weapon across the camp, soft face aglow and auburn hair burning a deeper red in the firelight, Arthur would find his fingers itching for a pencil, feeling the phantom weight of his journal resting in his satchel on his side, and he’d turn away quickly.

It was a feeling he resisted on more than one occasion, but had given in on just a few.

Scattered throughout his journal, usually forced into a corner so as to not let her take up an even bigger space in his private thoughts, were drawings of a poised, elegant lady, delicate hands wrapped around the worn wood of a rifle with fire in her eyes.

Or there would be, if he could ever get to her face.

All those drawings were half-finished, face left blank, always abandoned the moment he began to sketch out full, soft lips before quickly crossing it out, page turned in a hurry to move on to the next beauty to catch his eye—mountains and forests, majestic steeds and loyal canines, and eventually, when he couldn’t seem to draw his eye away for long enough, her again.

The urge for his journal he gave into again now, not to draw, but to write, pencil to paper as he rambled to the beloved pages of his innermost thoughts the things he could never dare say aloud, for fear of mockery from others or even himself if he actually admitted them out loud.

And now I am trapped in some sort of “vacation” estate, so I am told, that is far richer than my blood, but might as well fit Miss Taylor like a glove the way she moves through the crowds of these fancy folks like not a day has passed since she was one of them. As if she was not planning to rob them blind with the same delicate hands she shakes theirs with now.

It is a strange thing, those hands. I have seen them kill, and I have seen them hold. I have seen their softness, just as I have seen the faint calluses on her fingertips. I wonder not for the first time just what mystery of a life this “civilized” lady has led. I also wonder how they would feel—

The words that were flowing from his mind to his hand were scratched out in an instant, a groan pulling from his throat as he snapped the journal shut and slipped it back into his luggage, back stiffening as he heard her voice from behind him, “What?”

“Nothin’,” Arthur mumbled, waving a hand to dismiss her attention without daring a glance back, setting his hands on his knees, feeling the uncomfortably high quality of the pants he wore as he leans forward, fingers gripping the fabric tightly as he remembers why he was distracting himself in the first place. “You done yet?”

“Patience, dear husband,” she responds in the smooth, silky way she talks when running a con, though the sharp way she enunciates the supposed term of endearment was not lost on him, thick-headed as he was. “That any way to talk to your beloved wife?”

“Not my wife in here,” he shoots back, hands clasping together to hang between his spread thighs now, grip tightening as he hears another rustle of soft fabric behind him, followed by a considerably unladylike snort that he was loath to admit he quite liked the sound of.

“How charming,” she muttered, no small amount of venom in her voice, and Arthur sighed, but made a wise decision for once around her to keep his mouth shut just then.

The entire time preparing for this elaborate ruse, from the camp to the train ride up until the moment they finally arrived at the mansion, was filled with her pointed jabs towards just how ironic it was that they were the two trapped into putting on this little show together.

“I don’t see why we have to be in a happy marriage,” Miss Taylor had said before departing camp for the train station. “Especially considering Mr. Morgan’s firm beliefs that such a thing does not exist.”

Arthur paused in the midst of loading their luggage into the back of the stagecoach, staring stubbornly ahead even as he felt Hosea’s gaze focusing on his face. Stubbornly turning his head away to finish packing their things, he listened to the older man’s sigh before the gentle response of, “Nobody will look twice at newlyweds doting on each other. You and Arthur will have the perfect excuse for whispers and getaways, if need be.”

There was a disgruntled sound of acknowledgement from Ethel then, and Arthur avoided looking at them both for another moment as he rounded to the front of the stagecoach once it was loaded up with the bags full of an absurd amount of ridiculous clothes for a few days trip.

As if reading his mind when Arthur finally turned back around to face them, Hosea offered a small smile, one that did manage to loosen the tension in his shoulders a bit along with the reassurance of, “It’s only for a few days, you two. As long as Miss Ethel does the talking, and Mr. Morgan does the robbing, you’ll be in and out in no time, and we’ll be all the richer for it.”

It was by reflex then that Arthur offered a hand to Miss Taylor to help her up into the seat, and he told himself it was also by reflex that she took it. Only once she was comfortably seated did she look down at the soft, ivory colored fabric of her gloves in the thick black leather of his, and she snapped her hand back in the same moment Arthur recoiled.

Shifting backwards, he found his hand flexing at his side, as if to desperately rid himself of the feeling of her own in it, before striding around to the other side to climb in beside her without a word. Even as their gloves removed any real feeling of contact, he could almost feel the burn of her touch. Not to mention the subconscious way the gesture had happened unsettled him, and clearly her by the tension that settled between them once they sat side by side, the reality of the fake life they were about to lead finally sinking in after going over the plan for nearly a week.

“Just try and act like you’re actually infatuated with each other instead of that,” Hosea remarked, and Arthur hated that he knew his old mentor was right, casting a brief sideways glance and quickly snapping the reins to go on their way to avoid acknowledging the hint of a jovial smirk on Hosea’s face.

For most of the trip, Arthur wondered to himself if such a thing was actually possible. Ethel was sending him fleeting glares more spiteful than the ones he usually got from her, and the continued passing remarks about their fast approaching ruse let him know she was still angry about what he had said to her over the silly book she was reading.

He knew it wasn’t about the book, not really. It was the pigheaded thing he had accused her of, and Arthur had enough sense to know that it was something he should not have said. There had been the instinct to apologize as soon as the words had left his mouth, when he had seen the fire go out of her eyes for the first time, creating a chill to settle in his bones, the familiar sharp sensation of guilt when he realized his stupid comment had put it out.

But then it was back, blazing as brightly as ever, licking at his skin with the taunt of burning him, and he didn’t have the courage to apologize now. Not when she’d surely not believe him, and not when he was most likely to just say something stupid again.

The ruse was sure to fail given how her hatred of him had just increased tenfold. They’d have to turn back as soon as they set foot on the estate that was to be full of rich folks on a getaway—from what, he wondered, papercuts and ink spills on pressed suits—to socialize, drink and hopefully, if their intel was right, gamble. 

But when the time finally came, Miss Taylor’s countenance completely shifted the moment they stepped out from the carriage that picked them up from the station and led them up to the opulent mansion’s wide doors. Her arm was looped through Arthur’s, gloved hand that had been so quick to pull away from him earlier draped on his shoulder, constantly pulling herself up on her tiptoes to whisper nonsense into his ear that appeared intimate and lovestruck to all the naive passerby who didn’t look twice at the way she held his arm in a vice-grip, a true testament  to how much she loathed doing so.

Following Hosea’s as always sage advice, Arthur let Miss Taylor do the talking as they made introductions, more than content for her to do the small talk, and the two settled into their roles as the happily newlywed Mr. and Mrs. Callahan just fine.

Until they were left alone in what would be their room for the next three days, and she was detaching herself from him in an instant once the doors closed, striding away towards her luggage to rifle for—

“Another dress?” Arthur had said incredulously as she pulled the fabric out before turning away from her to preserve her decency, even as she moved behind the changing screen in the corner of the extravagant room that was even larger than any of the nicer hotels he had stayed in. “Ain’t the one you wearing now good enough?”

“This is a day dress,” Ethel explained with a huff, and Arthur was reaching for his own luggage, searching for his journal to distract himself as soon as he heard the rustling and shifting of garments from where she undressed in the hidden corner of the room. “Tonight’s dinner is a call for more formal attire.”

“Day dress. Formal attire,” he had scoffed to himself as he settled onto the bed to begin scribbling away on the pages, hoping the words he was writing made sense as his mind surely didn’t at that moment. “All looks the same t’ me.”

But now, as Miss Taylor finally gave the all-clear that she was decent, Arthur realized just how wrong he was.

There was less fabric gathered on this dress than the one she wore during travel. What she wore now was sleeker, the fabric appearing a soft navy blue that shined sapphire in the lit lamps of the room, flowing around her curves like water that he desperately needed to satisfy the sudden dryness in his throat as she walked up to him.

Ethel’s brow rose, and Arthur only then noticed his jaw hanging open just slightly, snapping it shut quickly before it popped right back open when she gestured towards him and said, “Take it off.”

“Huh?”

With a roll of her eyes at his gruff sound of confusion, she gestured for him to stand, which he did, albeit with uncertainty until she tugged on the lapel of his jacket and repeated, “Take it off.”

“Why?” he asked warily, watching as she turned to kneel at his luggage, reaching her hands in to unceremoniously rifle through it as he snapped, “Hey! Keep your hands out of my things, woman!”

“Relax,” she sighed, pulling out a dark charcoal vest with a blue sheen to the lapels, along with a similarly colored checkered ascot tie with it. “I have no interest in your secret little diary, Mister.”

True to her words, Ethel didn’t touch his journal resting haphazardly on top of his things, but he still glared at her even as she gestured towards his jacket again with his clothing items in hand, repeating with no room for argument, “Off.”

With a long sigh of annoyance, Arthur tugs the jacket off, dropping it onto the bed behind him before pulling his current neckwear free of his collar in one smooth motion, deftly unbuttoning his vest in the next moment, all the while maintaining his glare.

Ethel didn’t shy away from it, nor did he expect her to. She merely watched him shed the vest before passing him the new one, letting him go through the process of buttoning it up and straightening it out before she took a step closer, surprising him when she popped the collar of his dress shirt up to pull the tie around it.

“I can do it myself,” his voice came out of his chest in a low grumble, yet Arthur made no move to do so himself.

“Sure,” she hummed, an acknowledgment to his statement, yet she made no move to pull away and let him.

Once the tie was adjusted in a way Ethel was apparently satisfied with, given her small nod and faint smile of approval, she pulled his collar back down, soft fingertips he had hardly even dared to daydream about brushing against the exposed skin of his neck with the action. The muscles jumped under her brief, surely unintentional touch, and only then did Arthur pull away, stepping out of her reach, well out of the danger zone of her roaring inferno, grabbing the jacket from the bed to pull back on.

“We ready to go then,” he started with a sigh, subconsciously tugging at the cuffs of his jacket before straightening, composing himself before looking back with a pointed address of, “Mrs. Callahan?”

Her chin rose in her own stubbornness, and Ethel wrapped her arm around his once again, though he offered it this time. She smiled that pretty smile he had tried to deduce so many times, feeling his stomach flip at the sight of it and the sound of her smooth voice replying with just as much of a bite in the address, “Ready when you are, Mr. Callahan.”

Arthur couldn't help but marvel at what a pair they were in all their tenacity and aggravation with each other, wondering how they were going to both get through this situation without one of them shooting somebody, or perhaps even each other.

Well, her shooting him, at least.

Lord knows why she hadn’t already.

taglist: @kmc1989 @5oh5 @vickie5446 @cupofjoel @joelsgreys

Dutch and Hosea sighed as they watched Arthur and Athena skirt around their mutual feelings. The two having been partners in crime for years and who had swiftly become inseparable, were hopelessly in love. Neither having the confidence to finally confess their very obvious feelings, were tiring the two men. Tiring the whole camp even! Others had tried to help, telling one of the others feelings, though their attempts had fallen on stubborn ears. The nudges being brushed off with the words;

"What would you know?"

"Don't joke around like that, no he doesn't."

"She couldn't love a man like me."

Hosea and Dutch knew something had to be done, they couldn't stand to watch on any longer. And so, the two men devised a plan, for once a well thought out plan, as well as a few back up plans.

...

The two gave each other a grin as they dressed up for the big night. They had managed to get a hand full of the men and women of the gang to assist in their plan. Thus, operation [Redacted] began...

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I've only now found my drafts on the app version of this hell site, and I found this old thing sitting in it and collecting dust. Remnants of a bygone era of my writing, I suppose.

I guess let me know what yall think, and if you'd want this thing finished. Idk, this thing is OLD. Idk how old, but definitely older than 4 years.

@dollivication YOU NEEDDDDDD TO MAKE AN ARTHUR MORGAN BOT - I NEED HIM MORE THAN I NEED MY HANDSSSS