ᴍᴜʟᴛɪғᴀɴᴅᴏᴍ ɪᴍᴀɢɪɴᴇ | ᴏʟᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴇᴡ ғɪᴄs ғʀᴏᴍ ᴍʏ ɴᴏᴛᴇs

What He Would Never Say (Arthur Morgan x male!reader)

Summary: what's the title said

Warning: Mhmm.. One sided love troop.. allow me to try something new, high angst, broken, love,

based on this request, tq!

As usual, I'm sorry if there are any wrong sentences or typos or grammatical mistakes, please forgive me and again English is not my first language, so I try to improve my language and writing in this way.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

He watches you the way a man watches the last light on the horizon — knowing it will go, but holding on anyway.

You're not doing anything special. Just sitting by the fire, laughing at something Charles said. Your coat's wrinkled from the saddle, your boots muddy from the road. There's a leaf caught in your hair that you haven't noticed, and your smile doesn't belong in a place like this — too warm, too alive, too untouchable.

Arthur watches you and thinks, God help me.

He doesn't need a reason.
Love doesn't ask for one.

He tells himself it's nothing. A passing thing. A foolishness, like dreaming of spring in the middle of snow.

But you're kind. Not in the way saints are, but in the way people remember. You help when you can. You stay quiet when people are angry. You look at things like they still mean something.

And when you smile at someone else — not him — Arthur feels it in his chest like the crack of a rib.

He carries it like he carries everything else: silently, steadily, and with no expectation of return.

There's a softness to the way he treats you now. An extra portion of stew by the fire. A repaired strap on your saddle. A glance, always a glance, before any gunfight, like you okay? without needing to ask it out loud.

You never notice.

You smile at someone else. A younger man. Louder. Sweeter, maybe.

Arthur doesn't hate him. He couldn't.
But he wishes he didn't look so much like the right answer.

There is a moment, one night, where your hands brush.

It's nothing. Accidental. Brief.

But Arthur feels it like thunder. You laugh and keep talking. You don't even notice how still he goes, how his breath stops.

You never see the storm that blooms under his skin.

If anyone asks, it's fine. He's always fine.

He drinks when you aren't looking. Smokes a little more than he should. He watches you dance with someone else by the moonlight and tells himself, it's alright, it's enough to just see him happy.

But it isn't.

And yet... it is.

Because Arthur Morgan knows what kind of man he is.
Knows what he's done.
Knows that some hearts don't get to be held.

So he keeps yours in silence.

Tucks it away in the quiet corners of his chest, where it aches but doesn't scream.

He'll take it with him wherever he goes.

An unspoken love.
A name he'll never say out loud.
A warmth that never belonged to him, but which he loved all the same.