Out of the Dark

sky_daybreak

Arthur knows he's dying, can feel the unstoppable pull of it, feels the spirit appear behind him to take him along. And yet, he finds he does not want to die. There is so much that went wrong, so much he regrets and he wishes, with all his being, he could change it. Could at least ensure those that managed to get away really make it out alive.

A second chance, he asks, begs, really. Just give me the chance to save them.

The being behind him pauses and Arthur can't look away from the moment he's frozen in, staring at the dark mountainside, aching to see the sun rise just one more time.

One chance, the spirit seems to whisper, voice satin soft. Make the most of it.

what wastes and deserts of the soul

magistrate

Eight years have passed since Blackwater, Saint Denis, and the fall of the van der Linde gang. The survivors are trying to make a life for themselves – some moving on to nobler pursuits, some circling back like carrion birds to the scores they left behind.

And outside a town called Purgatory, West Elizabeth, a man wakes up without a scrap of memory or a name, haunted by a black wolf and a golden stag.

pipdepop

Bright Moments Like These

There are many things, it seems, that Arthur never told him. About his hopes. His fears. About how heavily the weight of the gang crushed down on his shoulders. About the bright moments he found out there in the wilds, helping and befriending random strangers just because he could. The strange phenomena he saw and dutifully noted in his journal, then never spoke of again. There is so much, John realises, that he never knew about his brother, because he never asked.

But really, out of all the mysteries in Arthur’s life, this one seems like a pretty big deal to not goddamn mention.

Where the Wild Things Were

Jack isn’t a baby anymore. He notices things. Notices how worried Momma always looks. Notices how tired Pa is at the end of the day. Notices how they take turns in not having dinner, saying things like ‘I’ll eat later with your pa’ or ‘I had a big lunch’ or ‘I had dinner with the fellas at work’. Notices how thin they’re getting.

He decides to do something about it.

(Or: years after the events at Beaver Hollow, Jack wanders into the woods, and meets someone oddly familiar.)

One Last Ride

Supdudes95

Arthur dies on a cliff, but that's not the end of the story. He wakes up seven years later in a body that isn't his. Will he be able to move on, or will he be stuck as a stag for the rest of eternity?

the future will take care of itself

adjourn

In which Arthur becomes a famous artist entirely by accident, and everything turns out alright.

Oracle

Lulzy (likelolwhat)

Kieran Duffy has spent months looking over his shoulder for the messy death he’s sure has been coming for him ever since his abrupt introduction to Arthur Morgan’s lasso. And come it does… except he finds himself back in May, in the West Grizzlies, about to be run down and hogtied. Again.

Given an extraordinary chance to change the course of history for the gang, can he stop what seems inevitable?

Will he want to?

i'd tell them put me back in it

cupocoffee

The last shot is accompanied by the trail of a cry, shrill, angry, fearful. Arthur lowers his revolver. Blinks. Tongues at a bloody tooth from getting hit while strangling an O’Driscoll, spits red mucus onto one of the bodies on the floor.

The crying starts up again, as if sensing Arthur’s confusion. For a moment, Arthur thinks it must be some poor lady these savages have taken alongside the house, but quickly knows it to be untrue. It’s too—wet, pointless in a way only the young can manage, knowing that something is wrong but not knowing what. Just a shout, not the bellowing anguish of someone who knows what god-awful situation they have been put in.

“Christ,” he says, once, twice. “Christ.”

or

Arthur accidentally adopts a baby, and, despite his best judgement, ends up starting to raise him. He falls in love with Charles along the way.

Enter, Pursued By Defeat

PurpleArrowzandLeather

John dies in front of his barn. He's happy enough to find out Arthur is waiting for him on the other side. However, what happens when forces beyond their control tear John from the afterlife and throw him twelve years into the past? One thing is for certain; John is going to save his brother.

time is not your friend, time is not your remedy

iicaru2

But Arthur, wish as he might, was never cut out to be a father. And even if he were, he wouldn’t be the one this poor boy needs.

All he can do is look at the man he never saw Jack Marston become, suddenly as tall as his father and nearly identical to boot. He can’t imagine what could have happened between the gang’s collapse and the hurt, angry, hardened adult he sees chewing at the inside of his cheek.

He doesn’t know what else he can say, beyond: “Oh, Jack.” Dark eyes, in color and in spirit, carefully lift to meet his. “I’m so sorry.”

(Or: Arthur Morgan closes his eyes on a mountain in 1899, only to open them on another in 1914— and he’s in for one of the rudest awakenings of his life.)

I'm too tired for this shit.

grass_willow

John Marston is ambushed by the Pinkertons and dies in 1911 after hunting down all his old gang members, not getting to finish the happy life with his family. Why then does he wake up in 1899 on Colter with Javier and Arthur rescuing him?

It seems fate, or a more malevolent force, has given John a second chance and now he has to live among his familial ghosts as he figures out how he can fix it this time. But, people are getting concerned by his new behaviour- what's there to expect from a 39 year mind in a 26 year old body? Or more importantly, what's there to expect from a hardened man forced to live next to everybody who betrayed him?

my little boy

latelyitsemily

(a snapshot inspired by 'I'm too tired for this shit.'! A scene that doesn’t exist that wouldn’t leave my mind)

Struggling to reclaim a body he doesn’t feel like he belongs in whilst being thrust back into a life he left long behind, John is grappling with the happiness of seeing his family so young once more. Blessed with a second chance to do better, he can’t help feel bitter about himself back then, and vowing to change.

This is only reinforced after a visit from his young son, Jack.

Sins of Thy Sons

BlankPersonality

Badly wounded in the middle of an O'Driscoll camp, Arthur meets a strange young man who keeps looking mighty familiar.

Grieving and lost, nineteen-year-old Jack Marston finds himself stumbling across a long-dead gang, face-to-face with long-dead men.

--

Not a game retelling fic.

Blind Fortunes

Gingersnap741

“Hello there! Ah, I see you’re new around these parts. I’m old around these parts. Blind Man Cassidy is my name. If you’d like your fortune told, I just ask for a bit of gold.” He holds out a tin coffee can smothered in rust, full of empty, whistling desert air. Heat broils up around them and makes the horizon waver.

---

Arthur knows now, so many miles later, he never should have stopped. He never should have stopped along the trail, and he certainly never should have given that man any money. Damn this moment of charity, of weakness, and all the change it brought about.

John Marston Rides Again

DarkLord935

Funeral Derangements

After his resurrection, John Marston reunites with his wife and son.

John Marston, Undead Bounty Hunter

Undead John gets back to work bounty hunting. Millicent’s uncle gets what he deserves.

TOTC

glorifiedturkey

Turn Of The Century

“Hey brother! Did we have to move camp? Where’s everyone?” And with that same smile, with features washing with relief at seeing someone he recognizes, and with a pep in his step, he approaches John. Jolly and completely unaware, simply glad to see his friend who, for sure, is going to give him answers. “Say, was this place always this…covered?”

Javier Escuella.

Javier Escuella, the revolutionary-turned-bounty-hunter he’d killed less than a couple weeks ago.

Javier Escuella, from 12 years ago

-

John returns to West Elizabeth after his run-in with Javier and Bill in Mexico before going after Dutch, and runs after what he can only assume is a physical manifestation of his past; a ghost sent to haunt him, a devil sent to torment him.

Javier Escuella, from 1899.

Turn Back The Clock

The wind blew harder, the water rose to his calves.

Closer to his ear, thunder roared again.

Click.

Click. Click.

…nothing.

Why does he feel relief when all he wanted was to put an end to all of this, he wonders? Impatient and confused, he checked the amount of bullets still in the gun. Two out of five. It should’ve been enough, but the gun jammed.

…perhaps death was too kind a punishment for the likes of him, he thought.

-

After experiencing four years of grief over his lost family due to being dropped into the future, Javier is suddenly transported from 1915 right back to 1899, where everything began.

a minute from home, but I feel so far from it

BreadAndBlankets

Jack is not a good man, long quit pretending to be, but—

"Need those purple blocks," Junior says seriously. Jack lets him back down to grab his next weapons of creativity.

Junior's just a kid.

And Jack's just been given a one in a lifetime chance to heal his inner outer child.

----

Or, Jack Marston wakes up 28 years in the past, Jack Marston is four years old and kidnapped, and Redemption is neither easy nor linear.

Wolfsbane

hound4horror & trbotunnel

Lycanthrope

John Marston was attacked on a mountain one night by what he though was wolves, but it ended up being so much worse than he expected.

But I'll Rot Like a Dog

Arthur has known that something rotten has been incubating inside of his lungs. After a botched coach job near Annesburg, he discovers what it is. He has no time to ruminate, however. The full moon has yet to rise.

A Familiar Gaze

John Marston works for the Pinkertons against his will. He is their tool, their hunting dog. Literally.

girlwithabird42

Clear skies and storms alike

Arthur doesn't die on the mountainside in the morning. The ripples are felt through the dawn of the twentieth century.

The land of litter and lights

Susanna Marston has no cause to question who her family is, they simply are to her, until one day they aren't. At Beecher's Hope in the summer of 1923, the past is a foreign country.

A sequel to Clear skies and storms alike.

all hope abandon

MathildaHilda

One says that those you've loved and lost are not entirely gone.

In John's case, that is more true than for most.

***

A psychic AU no one asked for.

The Sudden Resurrection of Abigail Roberts

Zorbo_Jorks

He’d learned of her death on the back of Arthur’s horse, fresh from Sisika and asking after his family, not knowing it would break his heart.

“Oh, John…” Arthur had sighed, low and sad and chalky with startling illness. “Abby never came back from Saint Denis.”

He and Jack had ditched the gang near as soon as John could get off his prison suit. But the terrible heartbreak— Arthur’s sad, sallow face, and the headstones of their three lost members (only two staked above bodies)— had lingered with him ever since. Arthur was long dead now, if the papers told it true. And so, he thought, was Abigail.

John has been living quietly with his son for years now, thinking the two of them all that was left of their family. Some bounty hunters passing through town thoroughly dismantle those beliefs.

[Or, a role reversal AU in which Abigail is the one sent after Dutch, Bill, and Javier, having been arrested during the bank robbery in Saint Denis]

Red Dead Redemption 2: Prehistoric Nightmare

I_Think_ThereFore_I_Ham

After what appeared to be an unusual but otherwise beautiful event where lights suddenly shone in the sky, prehistoric animals started showing up in random parts of the 1899’s Wild West. Now the Van Der Linde gang has to worry not about O’Driscolls or Pinkertons, but ancient animals that have no business being here at all.

I'll Follow You Into The Dark

Adiaphory

Into the Dark

Nothing more confusing than dying on a mountainside of tuberculosis in 1899, only to wake up with a concussion and a husband in 2023.

It's fine, it'll work itself out.

I'll Follow You

After a nasty fall from his roof, Arthur wakes up in a time that doesn't seem quite right. Or possible. But as long as he had Charles by his side, he could figure anything out.

how many times do i gotta bury you, john marston?

westernmoon

John rides out to Valentine with a small herd of sheep to sell. He expects to lose a straggler or two, miss his family, and make less money than he hopes he will.

He doesn't expect to be recognised.

And he certainly doesn't expect to get shot.

~

There was no strength in him. He sure as shit didn’t want to ride into his own ranch on the back of Abigail’s horse, slung over the old mare like some bounty hunter’s prize, but even now darkness pulsed at the edges of his sight. He swallowed hard against rising bile. He didn’t say no, unable to admit to that weakness, but Abigail didn’t need to hear it. She knew.

“Rest, John.” She kissed his fevered brow. Then, her voice back to its usual bluntness, she added, “And try not to fall off, you damn fool.”

Inevitability of Death

H_arfang

Jack Marston is dead. He did not live the life his mother had wished for him the moment he drew his gun on Ross, and a part of him feels bad.

But now he finds that Hell is a mild, cloudless day that is suspiciously like earth, and even more suspiciously like the Wild West.

---

John Marston was shot to death by the Pinkertons outside his barn, never to reconcile with his son, falling right into the fate Arthur had tried so very hard to steer him away from. He wishes he could have done something differently, that things wouldn't have ended up so terribly in the end.

Unfortunately for him, that means getting mauled by wolves all over again, it seems. But this time, he will not mess things up.

Winter Songs

perilit

A Burst of Heat So Bright

Arthur's not sure why everyone is making such a fuss over John disappearing. He's fine.

...right?

Despair, yours, and mine

Dutch had finally deemed it time to get off that damn mountain, and not soon enough - Arthur thinks he might have gone crazy if they'd have been stuck up there another week. It'll be good for all of them, being in warmer climates again, most of all for John, still unsettlingly feverish even after two weeks of bed rest. What Arthur doesn't anticipate, though, is the damage it's done to John's mind.

Follow up to A Burst of Heat So Bright

Something Wicked In Saint Denis

heyihavesocks

Arthur takes John to Saint Denis. It doesn’t end well for either of them.

Or,

John stumbles upon the vampire of Saint Denis.

Once Upon a Time Somewhere East of Here

AndiTheMagnificent

After a disastrous job forces the Van der Linde gang to flee the town of Blackwater, Arthur puts aside his bitter feelings to rescue an idiot who got lost in a snowstorm. But whatever it was that attacked John that night, it wasn't a normal wolf.

A retelling of chapters one and two, now with 100% more monsters!

Getting Under Your Skin

tulo

John recognizes that body anywhere.

After all, it’s his.

Sunset in Purgatory

nmousy

Sunset in Purgatory

The wind drops, suddenly, and the swirls of billowing snow settle between them slowly. Arthur squints as the figure becomes more defined, familiar but… not.

Wrong.

John Marston stands at the top of the crest of the mountain covered in snow and blood. There’s a dead wolf pelt with the head still attached wrapped around his neck and shoulders and he drags two more by the tail behind him. Four violent gashes cut through his cheek and up over his nose.

It’s hard to tell how much of the blood is his and how much is from the wolves.

“The hell, Marston?! You kill those with your bare hands?” Javier demands, looking shocked.

John makes a face that might be intended to be a grin but it’s all teeth. It makes the cuts on his face weep and Arthur feels himself wince in sympathy. Those must be painful.

“I had a knife.”

Or

John closes his eyes on Beechers Hope and opens them to teeth at his throat.

That which can't be given

Arthur doesn’t notice that something’s wrong with John until they get back from Guarma. That occasional cough he’s been hearing from the other man has developed into something wet and thick.

A coda to Sunset in Purgatory - the one where John has Tuberculosis.