RDR2 Drabbles and Other Sorts

A Good Man

THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE GAME.

This is sad. I cried while writing it.

For context, I was trying to sleep seeing as it's near close to 4 AM and thought about this scenario, cried a bit, grabbed my phone and started writing, cried some more, and then published it. So warning for it being sad.

Edit: Ew. I hate this a lot. Good idea imo, bad execution. I'll rewrite this at some point. Sorry.

Charles heard of what had happened at Beaver Hollow, and the next day he went back. He discovered the abandoned camp, burnt down with nothing left to spare, and the body of Susan Grimshaw.

He'd buried her.

He'd made his way up to the mountains, finding John's horse Old Boy and Arthur's beloved dapple grey Helios dead at the bottom of it.

The worst scenario came to Charles mind immediately, that John and Arthur were both killed, and that Abigail  was left without her love and Jack was left without his father. And well, his closest friend was dead.

When he'd made his way up, he discovered Arthur.

Charles paused at the sad sight of his close friend on the mountainside, facing the still rising sun. He pieced together a possible outcome after seeing not one sign of John, which was that hopefully he'd gotten away. Knowing Arthur, Charles guessed he might have sacrificed himself so John and his family could have the life they wanted. That was the man Arthur Morgan was.

"Oh, Arthur..." Charles said softly, "You deserved a lot more than what you got in the end." He shook his head. He'd went back down to Taima, grabbing the shovel and his knife he'd used previously for Miss Grimshaw's grave, and set himself to work.

He'd been up there for hours, finally getting the grave dug and filled in. He was working on a wooden cross. Charles wasn't sure just what he wanted to carve into it, but he wanted it to represent just who Arthur was. He settled on carving "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." into the circlur wooden back of the cross he'd made him.

Charles put the gravestone into the ground, and said a small goodbye before leaving the grave. He hoped that Arthur, wherever he was, didn't mind where he was buried.

He knew that Arthur had said long ago he'd wanted to be buried facing West towards what was left of the old days, but after all they'd been through, Charles thought that in the end Arthur had turned his back on the old days.

Charles visited the grave a week later.

Flowers had grown in masses around the grave, a flourishing carpet of purple, red, blue, yellow, and green.

He'd sit and talk for a little while, about nothing in particular, whatever came to his mind. He missed the days when Arthur was there to ride out with him and talk. The long hunting trips where they got to sit around the fire and laugh and talk about anything.

Arthur had grown to be Charles closest friend quickly, he'd seen the good I'm Arthur, even if Arthur denied ever being a good man.

"I wish things turned out different for us all," Charles said, "Who knows. If we'd never done the Blackwater job, bought that plot of land Dutch scoped out for us to begin with. Built us a nice big house. Could've been family." He stared up at the grave for a moment with a sigh, and looked back down at his hands clasped together, his elbows rested on his knees.

He sat there for a while longer in thought of all that could've been, and eventually left.

He went back when he felt like he needed to. If he couldn't sleep, or just wanted to talk about something. He'd also taken to writing and sketching occasionally, something he'd of course picked up off of Arthur.

On Charles visits back he started to notice things. Particularly, deer tracks, sometimes some deer hair. He figured they probably trekked up there occasionally to get the the other side of the mountain, it was quicker. At one point he'd seen the deer in question for a short moment, seeing it's head and then it's white tail as it dashed off after seeing him as he made his way up to where it'd been lounging near Arthur's grave.

He was back a few days later.

He sat down at the rock opposite the grave, working on some arrows. Charles couldn't quite tell why he kept coming back; if it was his way of mourning or if he just felt that maybe Arthur hung around up there even after he died.

"I hope it's nice wherever you are now," Charles stated, his voice at it's usual quieter but deep tone, touching up the feathers on the arrow, "Up there with Hosea n' them, with what we could've had?" He added, chuckling a bit to himself at the thought of having the gang living in the same house. They'd have been lucky if Sean didn't burn the place down.

He put the arrows away, and stayed for a while in silence, staring at the ground. A soft blow in his ear caused him to snap out of his thoughts and look over at the source.

The buck from a few days prior looked right back at him, standing less than arms-length away from him. The buck had a dark, glossy pelt and kind, dark eyes that despite the dark shade, held a glow in them that made it look wise and caring at the same time.

"Hi there..." Charles said slowly. A part of him was surprised the deer even came this close and didn't run off by now, and another part was quite fascinated by it. Sure he'd seen plenty of deer, but this one seemed different.

It stares keenly at him, and he stared back. It looked like it expected something of him. He glanced around, but then reached out carefully to pet it's nose. It shied away slightly, but then accepted the touch. "Huh." Charles breathed, withdrawing his hand.

The deer looked at him for another moment, and with a puff and a few flicks of it's tail and ears it spun around and bounded down the mountain, leaving him to stare at it.

A part of him wondered if that was Arthur's way of saying goodbye.

"Well, I don't know what I think about that," He turned to look at the grave, "That's one interesting way to say goodbye, Morgan." He sighed, standing up. "You were a good man, Arthur. A good friend. Thank you for what you did for all of us."