Vows of Returning: A Red Dead Redemption 2 Story ( Arthur Morgan xOC )

False Mercury: A gilded cage, pt. 2

CW: Smut warning! (And, long chapter warning!) Also, racist language is used briefly in this chapter.

"I beg your pardon?" The woman closest to him asks, her eyes narrowing at Lena, who's sidled up next to Arthur.

Lena waves her free hand in front of Arthur as if showing off a new house. "Look how he grasps that bottle!" she says, in a simulacrum of terror, joining the throng of women to face him. "By the base; the same circumference as your neck." She chokes at her own throat, her tongue lolls briefly from her mouth. The women shake their heads in disgust and move away from her, off to another, less strange, quadrant of the party.

Arthur hears the lead woman remark, "They'll let anyone into the country these days," as Lena releases her neck, winking at him, sipping at her champagne. He returns the bottle to the table, moves closer to her to whisper, "We're kind of trying to be discreet, you know."

She spits some of her champagne back into her glass, eyes widening, a coy smile pulling at the corners of her reddened lips. "Then why did you bring him?" Lena gestures her hand of vices - the champagne and cigarette - to Bill, who's audibly gagging in front of several concerned observers, a recently-voided oyster shell in his hands. Bill seizes two champagne glasses from a nearby waiter and guzzles them, one after the other.

"OK, fair enough, have your fun, Miss," Arthur salutes her, makes to walk away. It was one thing standing next to her in polite silence on the balcony; being able to talk to her freely, to see all of her affectations up close - that damned way she holds her smoke - is a privilege that comes with complex emotions he doesn't think he has time for.

"Oh, come on, I was hoping you'd have some with me," she pouts, taking a drag from her holder and blowing smoke out of the corner of her mouth, taking the sleeve of his jacket in her silk glove. His heart leaps at the contact, he feels temporarily frozen, his tongue numb.

"I-," Arthur fumbles the first words out of his mouth, trying again, "I have to talk to the Mayor, if I can even find where he's at." He makes a show of scanning the party, a polite excuse to look away from Lena for a moment. He'd been attracted to her since that dream at Clemens Point awakened him, but she was particularly intoxicating like this, all of her charms and best features sharpened, on full display.

She brightens. "Well, I can introduce you, but later," she says, pointing through the crowd to a man in small oval spectacles and a top hat, mutton chops limning his narrow cheeks, intently listening to a pair of Native Americans. "I don't want to interrupt them; those men never get that kind of time."

Her genuine concern unlocks his early impressions of Lena, before he'd learned about her family. He lets himself stare at her, feels his heart ache for having left her behind, and then, a miracle: lets the shame go, rolling off of him. Choosing to see this party as a gift of more, unexpected time, Arthur breaks into a smile and holds out his arm for her to take, which she does, happily. "Fun it is, then."

*

They wheel about amongst the guests. Lena is the natural lead for them both; not only providing a safe inroad to Arthur's sudden shyness around the debauched-yet-snotty Saint Denis elite, but a safe one for herself to ensure that her brother doesn't know what she's up to. For any existing Bronte contacts, she speaks in Italian and moves on quickly, tugging at Arthur's sleeve.

But; for people she hasn't met, there is a gleeful trying out of all manner of identities and configurations. Arthur finds it increasingly difficult to hide his laughter at the elaborate introductions she invents, and the faces made by her conversation partners, wavering between polite confusion and then, either laughter or a slow anger as they find that they may have been insulted or duped. Arthur and Lena move on by the time that perception lands, snickering together and seeking out another person to "meet."