Chapter Text
Even some of the roughest fruits have some of the softest insides. Durians, for example. Rough, hard, difficult to cut into–sure. But once it gets cut open, the fruit is soft and creamy. However, people notice that it is quite a pungent fruit, and may decide not to try it, even after all that effort. If someone decides that they liked the fruit the way they had it before, they may throw it away and move on to something else, never even giving it a chance. But if someone decides to ignore that less-than-desirable quality, they will find that the fruit is sweeter than they could have ever imagined.
Most won’t make the effort to get that far, which is rather unfortunate; everyone should have the chance to try something so good.
The same words can be easily applied to people. Some people simply don’t desire much company, but once they find those that they feel comfortable around, they want to keep them around and will allow themselves to be cut into. They find though, more often than not, that they get rejected or disregarded afterwards. They allow themselves to be vulnerable, but those that they held with such high esteem end up leaving them because they don’t like the real version of themselves.
To protect themselves from repeating this fate, they build up a mask to never put their guard down, even with the people closest to them. This can lead them to having to present a front almost constantly. If their people expect a certain version of what they’re meant to be, then that’s exactly what they will present as.
Someday, if someone somehow manages to cut down those barriers, ignore that pungency, and taste the fruit, then they will work hard to guard such a rare and precious find.
These finds are far and few between, so if they can hide behind their close-off persona, they will.
If they have to hide any soft feelings inside, they will.
If they have to keep every true emotion inside until they no longer can?
They will.
Take Arthur Morgan as a prime example of this
Dutch van der Linde’s most trusted subordinate.
His precious, eldest son.
Having lived the life of an outlaw, most–even those within his own gang–would consider him to be an unthinking brute, hating everyone and everything the same. Any love and kindness is reserved strictly for the women when they need him or little Jack whenever he seeks out his uncle’s attention. That is the image that he has and will continue to maintain.
Despite all this, he is quite the wanderer. He travels around the states, collecting odd little trinkets for those that have the pleasure of meeting him. He weighs whether or not he can trust them enough to let his guard down ever so slightly, then, if there’s money in it for him, he gets them what they want.
There are exceptions, however; that someone simply entertains him and he helps them because he desires to. Relieved of the pressure of who he’s meant to be, and almost certain that he won’t make a regular habit of visiting them, he lets go of the carefully constructed mindset of an outlaw and just gets to be a man for a change, as everyone needs some space to be able to let themselves be a little more relaxed.
He would never intend to let anyone else catch sight of this, though. He would have his rare moments with Dutch and Hosea, but those were very rare. It was safer to do it like this, outside of his world filled with degenerates and criminals.
Though, as with any secret, it would have to eventually come into the light.
After all, Arthur would make a habit of wandering for too long, leading to Dutch having to send someone to find him.