Pipe Bomb Dream (RDR2/Arthur Morgan fanfiction)

Prologue

Arthur Morgan was ready to die. He'd known it was coming eventually, but somehow he didn't think it would come this fast. Still, despite the quickness of it, he felt ready. John Marston was free, and that was all that mattered. And anyway, didn't he deserve to die? His short life of sin and heartbreak had finally caught up to him. He was a bad man after all, so bad that even Mary Linton was disgusted with him. In another life, maybe he would have quit the outlaw life and married her. Maybe he could have the family he had always wanted. Now those dreams were moot. It hurt just to draw breath.

He was no stranger to the pain. After all, he had been wasting away slowly for weeks. The tuberculosis in his lungs had started out as a tiny tickle, and then developed into a cough. No matter how much food he ate, he couldn't gain weight. He coughed up a mixture of blood and pus regularly, and most days he could barely draw breath. Even that was nothing in comparison to how he felt right now. His chest felt like it had been lit on fire and thrown into acid. Blood oozed nastily from the corner of his mouth and even from his nose, although whether that was due to his illness or a broken bone he had no idea. He had a feeling he had broken a couple of ribs in his fistfight with Micah moments before, and that certainly didn't help things.

The pain of being abandoned by the only father he had ever loved was as raw as the pain in his lungs. He had been holding onto hope right until the very end that Dutch Van Der Linde would have pity on him, see Micah for what he really was, and put a bullet in him. Dutch, it seemed, hadn't even had the decency to put Arthur out of his misery.

There was a memory that came to mind of a hunt Arthur had gone on years ago. He had gut shot a young doe with his rifle. Ordinarily he wouldn't have killed a deer so young, but the camp had needed the meat. The doe jumped the second before his shot went off, and instead of a perfect lung shot as usual, the bullet hit her broadside and fragmented. One piece tore her intestines to mush, and one had broken her spine. In spite of this, she was not dead. She lay on the ground unable to move because of her broken back, but she was still very much alive. Her neck stretched out as she gasped to draw breath, mouth open and tongue stretching out in a perpetual pant. The smell of intestinal digesta permeated the air, making it stink like rancid shit. As she panted, desperately trying in vain to take in oxygen, she tried to cry out in pain. Instead of a cry of pain, the lament sounded like a harsh whoosh of air. She didn't even have the breath to make noise when Arthur put his pistol to her forehead and pulled the trigger.

Years later, Arthur knew exactly how she felt. He didn't even have the strength to cry out in pain. His breath was little more than a shallow wheeze as the world began to spin and turn black. He would not die here, like this. Not facing the harsh, cold rocks of the cliff that would be his grave. A frightened tear fell from his eye as he realized this could very well be his reality. But Arthur Morgan was one tough son of a bitch. Muscles trembling with effort from malnourishment and lack of oxygen, it was all he could do to pull himself into a crawling position. The sky was beginning to lighten, and he could see shades of pink and red rising over the mountaintop ahead of him. Damn it all if he couldn't watch one last sunrise. Crawling forward a few feet was the most difficult thing he had ever done in his life. Each inch was torture. His battered body was ready to quit. Choking on his own blood, he finally reached the edge of the cliff and propped his body up on a rock. His head turned towards the horizon, where dawn was just beginning to break over the Grizzlies. As a shaft of warm, calming sunlight hit his face, Arthur finally felt peace with his fate. The dark spots in the world grew until his eyes slowly flitted closed. One last deep breath, and his chest failed to rise again.

"Ah, sport, don't do this to me!" A distant voice cried. "Charles! A little help!"

Perplexed, Arthur's chest painfully rose once more. The voice sounded familiar. The world was still wonderfully, peacefully black, but he could still feel the rock of his grave against his fingertips. It was only confusion and raw curiosity that gave him the strength to take another ragged breath.