SILVER BULLET ⊳ arthur morgan x reader

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"So, you said you were part of a group." The woman begins, perhaps in the hopes of striking up a conversation. Her voice is muffled by the fact that she is in another room of the abandoned house they're currently looting. If Arthur's to share his opinion, he deems it rather hopeless to look through the houses in the rural area, seeing as they must've been sucked dry of anything useful in the past two decades, but he digresses. Dying men don't get to argue when it comes to the long term.

Arthur glances outside the broken window at the lazily shining afternoon sun, then kicks open a cabinet and peeks inside. Empty, just like the rest of the damn place. He should've just gone for the squirrels instead of this nonsense.

"How many of there were you?" The stranger continues as she steps into the room, leaning her side against a broken doorframe.

"What's it to you?" He snaps back, ignoring the slight remorse he's feeling all of a sudden. What does it matter if he's hurt some woman's feelings? Apparently enough to leave an unpleasant feeling in his gut.

She leaves the room.

Arthur pads around the house a tad longer, facing the silent consequences to his rudeness. He sighs before trying to justify it to the best of his abilities. "I don't even know your name."

More silence.

Goddamnit.

Arthur clenches his fists, overwhelmed by anger. What the hell is he even doing? Following around some stranger and for what exactly? He should be out there amongst Infected, risking his life to keep his family safe, and yet he feels like he should stick around with the stranger. He wouldn't call it caring about her per se...it's more of an instinct to want to ensure things go smoothly for as many people as possible before he faces his inevitable demise.

He trots over to an old bookshelf he finds, stroking his fingers over the spines of the books. Various titles, ranging from sci-fi to historical fiction, amongst which he finds a few titles he could see himself enjoying. Not that it matters. Books are too heavy to carry around for long, and they're meant for entertainment, not survival, which is something Arthur has almost forgotten.

He reminiscences with how little regard he'd treated things before the pandemic, especially the mundane ones. Baths, books, electricity, warm food, coffee. He misses them almost as greatly as not living in constant fear. Not that there's much living left to speak of. Not for him.

"My name is (y/n)." He jumps when he hears the voice behind him, having completely forgotten about the stranger's presence. "There you have it."

He's heard the name before, somewhere, in a whisper. But he can't be bothered to dig through his memories to find out when or where it happened. Besides, relying on nothing but first names is foolish at best.

He grunts affirmatively, then turns his attention back towards the bookshelf. A philosophy book strikes his fancy, with its authentic, leather-bound cover. Arthur presses his index over the top of the book's spine and tilts it diagonally out of the shelf. It's too thick to carry.

"Kant?" (Y/n) asks, walking up behind him, peeking at the book. "Not bad."

"You keen on philosophy?" Arthur returns the question, but doesn't look at her. He doesn't know why he can't quite muster the courage to.

"Hmm...to some extent." She responds and clasps her hand around the book, sliding it out of the shelf to leaf through it. "And you?"

"Not too big on anythin', to be honest." He admits with a shrug.

"Didn't read much before the pandemic?" She asks, and Arthur smiles bitterly. (Y/n) must consider him some big, dumb moron. Not that it matters. He's dying tomorrow or the day after that anyways.