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Men who live outdoors ain’t supposed to like the rain. Seems nobody told that to Arthur Morgan. Charles is a man meant for early mornings in June, blue skies and green fields; a man who likes his feet on firm soil and the sun on his back. Taima too. She likes her hooves dry and her coat clean. They’re not meant for these heavy clouds, and racing through puddles. Arthur, on the other hand, must keep rainfall in his heart— got these big grateful eyes, and his arms outstretched, catching great splashing droplets in his hands.
Arthur looks with wonder up at the sky, and Charles can’t imagine a world in which the sky doesn’t gaze lovingly back down.
There ain’t much else worth looking at, Charles doesn’t think. The mountains and the trees and the flowers, they’re all beautiful, but they’re infinite, they’re forever. Men have been admiring the beauty of a lavender field for as long as there have been men. But Arthur, he’s impermanent, fleeting; only here for a second and then he’s gone; both of them, gone. By some miracle, Charles and Arthur exist at the same time, in the same place. Charles can enjoy mountains and trees and flowers in his next life. For now, he’ll enjoy Arthur.
Presently, he enjoys Arthur from the relative comfort of the tent, eyeing him through the split in the canvas, raindrops batting dully overhead. Charles is mostly dry and almost warm, sitting with his arms curled around his legs, his knees up to his chin. The book he holds lazily in one hand is one he’s read countless times in the few months he’s had it, but when Arthur’s nearby, it may as well still be a tree for all the reading he gets done. Charles’ gun belt is to his left, Arthur’s to his right. A new pair of leather boots, Arthur had to bully him into replacing his previous pair, stand sentinel at the entrance, his socks discarded beside, sodden and full of holes, well past their usefulness.
But Charles keeps them for the same reason he keeps all old things. Because Charles is, damn it, a sentimental old fool.
They’re socks, yes, but they’re the socks he wore on the bank job in Rhodes, and again when he escaped the Pinkertons in Saint Denis, and while he’s not superstitious exactly, he’s not not convinced they’re lucky. They also have a particular hole in the seam that had Arthur laughing and elbowing him like it was the funniest thing in the world. Just an errant toe sticking out of a sock. It was the first time Arthur touched him. An elbow to the chest ain’t exactly a gesture of affection, but it was cajoling and friendly, and nobody had touched Charles for so damn long.
With an exhale and a flurry of enthusiasm, Arthur tears into the tent, sopping wet, with flushed cheeks. A perfectly spherical raindrop clings to the tip of his nose, another sits neatly in his cupid’s bow. He’s in a good mood now, but in an hour or so he could be sour again, or worse, listless and unresponsive, staring off into the distance. Been like this the last few weeks. Up and down (and down and down…) It’s clear he ain’t been well, got a cough that won’t go, but it’s more than that. Something’s eating at him and Charles so desperately wants to ask. But Arthur will come to him when he’s ready.
In the meantime he’ll enjoy the moments like this, Arthur looking so alive, energy thrumming through him, a smile that’s infectious. So when Arthur shrugs out of his coat and dumps it at the foot of Charles’ bedroll, he only rolls his eyes and sighs fondly. When Arthur’s shaking his hair, rain spattering their lovely dry tent, Charles can’t help but laugh even as he groans, “You’re worse than a dog.”
Arthur grins, and the raindrop on his nose gathers the raindrop at his cupid’s bow and together they fall to his lips, and disappear onto the tip of his tongue.
“Shove over.”
Charles often looks a little longer than he should – at Arthur’s lips or his eyes or the way his hair curls around his ear – and while Arthur must know, he’s never said a word, just as Charles doesn’t comment on the way Arthur looks back. They’re friends who look at each other, that’s all. Friends who appreciate each other. Be a damn shame not to appreciate Arthur. Criminal. The sharp edge of his jaw, the warm blue of his eyes, the breadth of his shoulders and the power in his legs.
See. Charles is a man’s man. Has known all his life he ain’t normal. He likes women fine enough but he never looked at them the way he looks at fellers. The way he looks at Arthur. He ain’t happy about it but neither is he gonna torture himself into knots. Arthur is so free with his affection, though, generous with his touches. He doesn’t seem all that concerned about what’s normal. Not where Charles is concerned.
Could be Arthur’s a man’s man too…
But what of the woman who writes him? Mary? And didn’t he have a son?
Sometimes, in the moments before slipping off into sleep, or in the quiet of early morning solitude before the rest of camp wakes up, Charles wonders… Even if Arthur ain’t a man’s man, could he be my man?
***
“What you reading?” Arthur nudges the book hung loose in Charles’ hand and Charles turns it over for Arthur’s inspection. “That again?”
“It’s good.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“It was Lenny’s.”
The smile drops off Arthur’s face and Charles curses himself for an idiot. He should’ve kept his fool mouth shut. Talk of fallen friends would subdue any man, let alone one prone to fits of insulation and melancholia.
But Arthur doesn’t drift away this time. He looks Charles head-on, his smile all wrong, and Charles knows before Arthur even opens his mouth, that he’s about to say something terrible.
“I didn’t tell you before but I saw a doctor. It’s pretty bad, and it’s gonna get worse.”
“Oh, Arthur…”
Arthur doesn’t say more, but his eyes bore holes into Charles, eyes Charles usually has to pull himself out of. Now he can’t hardly meet them. When he does, Arthur’s looking at him like he might have the answers. But Charles can’t think nothing but It’s gonna get worse, it’s gonna get worse…
And then, finally, Charles draws some semblance of confidence and ease from somewhere in his gut— the same somewhere he finds the courage to stare down the barrel of a gun.
“Any day we can die,” he says. “We’re riding to break an Indian Chief’s son out of a cavalry fort. We could both die tonight. In a way, it is a gift to know.”
Arthur’s eyes narrow. “That right?”
“In a way, you are lucky.”
“Piss off.”
Charles turns to look at the man at his side.
“You ready to die, Charles? I ain’t ready to die.”
Arthur’s wrapped his arms around his knees in a mirror of Charles, and he shakes his head and laughs, but it’s a hollow sound and Charles thinks just for a moment that he looks… he looks… Haunted.
“I sure as shit don’t feel lucky.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Hope I do die tonight. A bullet,” he taps his temple with his fingertips, “would be quick. This. This is gonna eat me alive, Charles. I’m gonna end up bedbound and useless. Gonna waste away until I ain’t nothing but a shadow. And by then I’ll be begging you to—” Fingers, two long nimble fingers, on his temple again. “To end it.”
“You’re afraid.”
Arthur barks a laugh. “God damn! Course I’m afraid!”
“Afraid to die?”
That don’t seem right somehow, don’t feel like the Arthur he knows. His Arthur is fearless and bull-headed, and would follow his friends to certain death without batting an eye.
“No,” Charles decides, nudging Arthur with his elbow, prying him open. “You ain’t afraid to die.”
“No, I ain’t afraid to die,” he agrees. “I’m afraid of dying. Afraid it’s gonna be slow. Afraid I ain’t gonna know who I am at the end. Already don’t hardly know who I am anymore. I ain’t been a good man but I am trying.”
Arthur drops his head onto his knees and he gazes up at Charles like he’s searching for approval. He’s so damn sincere like this, and so damn pretty. And young. Too young to die. Charles has to remind himself to breathe.
“It ain’t too late. You got the chance to… to do something better…”
“You gonna help me?”
“What? Follow you around? Make your decisions for you?” Charles purses his lips, playfully. “I’m a busy man.”
Arthur lets out a huff of air, and his mouth curves into a the suggestion of a smile.
“Will you help me? Hold me accountable, I mean? for the time I have left. You always steer me right. Like that German family. I would’ve left them all to rot if it weren’t for you.”
“I don’t believe that.”
He shrugs and unfolds his legs, stretching the length of the tent. “Believe it.”
“Come on.”
“They ain’t my people. They weren’t my concern.”
Charles bristles. “Why? Because they don’t talk like you? What about people that don’t look like you? They none of your concern?”
“Ain’t like that.”
Arthur drops his hand so casually into Charles’ lap, he almost thinks nothing of it. Almost. Except Arthur thumbs reassurance in small circles on Charles’ thigh and Charles can’t ignore it, knows it means something… But what?
“I’ve got my people— people I’d die for. And them people needed that land. I would have run the Germans off it, killed them if I had to.”
“And yet your people are hatching a plan up at Beaver Hollow and you’re here with me, slinking off into the night to fetch Eagle Flies. The Indians— They ain’t your people.”
“No,” Arthur says, soft, his hand stilling on Charles’ knee. “But they are yours. I know how you feel about them, I see how you care—”
“And?”
“They’re your people. Your people are my people.”
Charles fights a smile there ain’t use fighting. “That mean I’m your people?”
“Not just my people, you fool,” Arthur breathes. “You’re it, Charles— The person, my person. You’re… You’re…”
“Arthur,” Charles breathes, and inches nearer, daring to hope where he’d wondered, yes, but never hoped before.
Arthur’s beautiful up close. The smell of cigarette smoke and something to cover that, something bright and citrussy. His hair damp and dark with rain, his skin still pink from running about in the rain like boy, or perhaps a man with… A man with limited time… But the fresh earth colour of his hair and the lake-water blue of his eyes, he doesn’t look like a man with limited time…
He looks like a man who could live forever. And Charles could stand beside him twice that long.
“Arthur, are you sure you’re—”
“Shut up,” he says fondly. “I’m trying to tell you something.”
And Arthur’s lips split so lovely and into what is so very nearly a smile, and it’s all so light, and it’s all so serious.
Both things at the same time. Twin truths.
“I think you know that you’re special to me. That I’d do anything for you. Will do anything you for you. Whatever you want. You only need ask.”
“What if what I want ain’t what Dutch wants?”
“Dutch?” Arthur frowns. “I don’t care what he wants no more. I ain’t concerned about no-one but you. There ain’t room in me for no-one but you— and it kills me that I won’t have more time with you.”
Them wistful eyes find Charles’. Find Charles’ every time. Since Colter, when Charles gave Arthur that bow, taught him to look, really look. To see. Charles thinks Arthur sees him now. He doesn’t talk overmuch but Charles doesn’t think he’s ever been lost for words.
“Fuck, I don’t wanna die,” Arthur says, so low it might be a moan, but one that becomes a breath of sorrowful laughter.
He lines the shot, aims the words at Charles’ chest and they strike right through his breastbone to where he’s most tender and terrified; the bit he don’t let anyone else see. Only Arthur.
“I don’t want to go nowhere I can’t take you with me,” Arthur says.
Charles swallows his reply, as Arthur falls upon him, into Charles’ arms, dropping his head to Charles’ shoulder, his breath warm on Charles’ skin.
“I want to stay,” he says into the crook of his neck. “I want to stay here…”
Here? With me? Yes, Charles wants that more than he really understands. To hold Arthur near, drawn close, tight to his chest where he can enjoy the smell of his soap, the sound of his voice, where he can see him and feel him and touch him. I want to touch him. Wants fingertips grazing, lips rasping, skin to skin to skin. Wants Arthur to run his hands through his hair, and needle his fingers through Arthur’s in return.
“Dying ain’t supposed to be so bad. It’s meant to be better after—”
“There ain’t nothing that could come after that would be better than this.”
“This?” Charles asks.
“This. You.” Arthur hooks an arm around Charles’ neck, presses him tighter. “This this this.”
Charles can’t take it no more. Pulls away. Has to know. “Do you know what you’re saying? talking like that?”
“Think so.”
Eyes round, cheeks full of colour, Arthur’s looking at him with wonder, with worry, with hope. And he’s so goddamn earnest. He ain’t yet thirty-five. Looks twice that sometimes. The deep grooves of his frown lines. The dark circles round his eyes; the man don’t hardly sleep. But looking through them long eyelashes, Arthur don’t look his years, and grasping at Charles like he is, the weight of him in Charles’ arms, he don’t feel like a dying man.
“I ain’t got many friends, Arthur, I’ll grant you, but you ain’t talking like friends…”
“I know. Am I crossing a line?”
Crossing a line?! Charles’ open palm sits lower on Arthur’s back than is reasonable, sensible. Arthur ain’t crossing a line Charles didn’t cross first; that Charles hasn’t been begging Arthur to cross for weeks now.
“Yes. You’re talking like you love me.”
“Yeah. Want me to stop?”
“Never.”
Arthur slides a hand round Charles’ side, hooks a finger into the beltloop of Charles’ pants. Takes every ounce of energy not to groan with want… with anticipation.
“Think you know I love you. Think you’ve known a long time. It kills me that I’ll die having never kissed you.”
Charles frowns. “You ain’t dead yet.”
“No. I know,” Arthur says with a disappointed smile. “But it’s catching.”
“Kiss me anyway.”
“You want it too?” Arthur snips, but he’s laughing.
Charles ain’t laughing. “I don’t care.”
It’s true. Charles doesn’t care. Any day we can die. Why not today?
But Charles ain’t hardly moved forward before he’s pushed away with a strength no man sick as Arthur’s supposed to be could possibly muster. No. Arthur ain’t dying. Charles doesn’t believe it. Won’t believe it.
“You trying to die too, Charles?” Arthur’s suddenly serious, eyes flaring.
“Who said it was catching? Who said you were dying?” Charles captures Arthur’s cheek in his hand. “Slept beside you every night for a month and I ain’t sick.”
“That don’t mean nothing.”
“Who told you?”
“The doctor down in Saint Denis.”
“Wait,” Charles laughs, furious, relieved, terrified— some combination of all three perhaps. “He’s a quack! Haven’t you read the paper?”
“You read the paper too?”
“You listening to me?” Charles reaches for Arthur’s hand, reassured when Arthur finds it and laces their fingers. “He tells people they’re sick, real sick, but he can keep them alive a little longer… for a price.”
“A feller had to drag me to his door after I collapsed on the street. Think I’m real sick.”
“I’m not saying you ain’t sick. But that doesn’t mean you’re contagious and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re dying. If there was something to catch, I would have caught it by now.”
“Charles—”
“You’re not dying, Arthur. You’re not.” And Charles takes Arthur’s face, his lovely, pink, full of gorgeous life face. He says each word short and slow, and absolutely certain. “You- are- not.”
Speaks them into Arthur’s eyes. Into the universe. Like he can will them into being. And who’s to say he can’t? A woman in his mother’s tribe could make it rain.
“You are not dying, Arthur.”
“Okay,” Arthur says, smiling. “Okay.”
“You’ll get a second opinion?”
“Yes.” A brush of Arthur’s lips on Charles’ knuckles and the meeting of eyes. “Yes, I will. For you I will. Okay?”
“Yes.” Charles nods, opens his hand, the backs of his fingers fluttering on Arthur’s cheek. “Yes, okay.”
Arthur nuzzles into the touch, and sighs “God, maybe you were right. Maybe I am lucky.”
And though he doesn’t let Charles kiss him the way a man like Arthur ought to be kissed (hot and eager, all lovely tongue and teeth and preferably shoved up against a wall) he does allow Charles’ head to drop to his shoulder, Charles’ chest to touch his chest, his fingertips to trace the length of Arthur’s spine. He lets Charles mouth along his jaw, lets him press his teeth into the paper-thin, petal-soft skin of his throat, turning his body away, never kissing back, but leaning into the touch anyway, humming appreciation and swallowing sigh after sigh.
Charles wants more, pushes on, and Arthur indulges eager fingers knotting in his hair, a nail under his collar button, popping it open. Closed-mouth kisses… Kisses and kisses. But not enough…
“Arthur.”
And, oh, with a whimper, it’s over. Charles doesn’t know if the sound is Arthur’s or his own, but it is final.
“We should sleep,” Arthur says.
“Sure.”
“Get a few hours at least. Leave around midnight?”
“Sure.”
Arthur pulls away to lay on his back, but he doesn’t let go of Charles’ hand. Their eyes meet and Arthur nods in reply to a question Charles hasn’t even asked. Charles shifts in beside him, Arthur pulls him into his chest. A chest that rises and falls, rises and falls. There sounds a heart. A heart that beats beats beats beats. Arthur brushes a kiss on the crown of Charles’ hair. Breathes “I’m so glad I’m alive.” Breath that’s clear and even. “I’m alive.”
“You are, Arthur. You are.”
They travel places Charles hasn’t heard of, let alone seen, in search of doctors and specialists. With Arthur at his side, he could ride the world end to end. Taima’s up to the task, pushing herself to keep up with Dido, Arthur’s half-wild Arabian, fuelled by frequent pear halves and a competitive spirit. At night the men find each other, hands lacing, legs twining, Charles buries himself in Arthur’s chest, but still Arthur denies him what he wants most of all: just a kiss.
Arthur’s a fool if he thinks he’s protecting Charles. If he thinks that they could exist in this small space, two large bodies in a tent meant for one, that they could whisper into the small hours, hold each other ‘til morning… He’s a fool if he thinks they could share like they do, food and beer and cigarettes, Charles’ lips where Arthur’s lips have been, and not share ailments too. It’s so obvious to Charles that whatever Arthur has ain’t catching— but Arthur won’t budge. Lets Charles kiss him from his stomach to his throat but draws the line at mouths touching.
Draws the line at sex too, but Charles thinks that might be for different reasons. Even with his cock pressed hard to his jeans, or in the morning pressed to Charles’ back, Arthur doesn’t try for more, just apologises for the state he’s in. Apologises. Ridiculous. Like Charles ain’t in the same state. Like Charles doesn’t want him that way.
So Charles apologises too.
So Charles doesn’t try for more.
And every night, under the moon, in the sun or in the rain, he takes his favourite face in his palm and says, “You’re not dying, Arthur. You’re not.”
Takes two months and a second, third, fourth opinion before Arthur believes it.
They don’t run with Dutch no more. A dying man weren’t no use to him. Arthur saw John and his family out. Saw Sadie out, the women out. And that was it, the Van der Linde gang fallen to pieces because Arthur, turns out, was the twine binding them all together. Dutch, Micah, Javier, Bill— Charles heard they’ve gone south maybe, or west, in search of money. Charles has no use for money, he can live off the land. He don’t need riches if he has Taima at his side, and clothes on his back. If he has Arthur, he don’t even need that.
There’s a sweet, familiar silence between them on the ride back from the fourth doctor, one of them that cuts, a surgeon. They’re to come back tomorrow. They’ve got a plan to treat it. Five years ago, three even, Arthur would have be sent off with a ginseng tincture and a grim farewell, but there are medical advances every day. Arthur doesn’t have to die.
You’re lucky, Charles thinks. God, I knew you were lucky.
And Charles was proved right, of course, he can’t catch it. Obviously he can’t goddamn catch it. Bathed with him, slept with him, breathed in every precious second of him. Thought Arthur might pounce on him right there, right then, doctor be damned, but all they shared was a look, and a thought— I’m gonna kiss you, Arthur Morgan.
So they ride slow, ain’t in a rush this time, Taima as close to Dido as she can get, like she knows Charles wants to hang his hand loose at his side, waiting for Arthur to do the same. Wants the lightest touch of their fingers almost as much as he wants the crushing weight of Arthur’s body.
It ain’t been like this for Charles before. He doesn’t rush anything that doesn’t need rushing, except sex. Why would a man linger in that ever-long tedious place between wanting and fucking? Why hinder yourself with the likes of romance and falling in love? God, why even talk or swap names when sex is right there at the other end of it all. Charles loves the end of it all. He loves the after. The heavy, lovely, sleepy after. Loves saying goodbye, hopefully to never see their face again.
But with Arthur— they only have that place between wanting and fucking, they only have romance and falling in love, and Charles is utterly gone with him. Moonstruck. Ain’t just love he’s fallen headlong into but a devotion that will surely outlive them both.
What a fool Charles was believing that they were only here on earth for a second, to think that Arthur was finite, when Charles loves him with a love that will endure as long as any mountain and any trees. And maybe, in a world different from this, in a time fifty years from now, or five hundred, a man could love another man as easy as he can shoot one.
Maybe in that world, men will talk of them the same way they talk of lavender fields. As something that’s always been. Always will be.
***
Evening falls quickly, the endless sky shifting blue into purple into a vibrant, preternatural red, promising tomorrow will be a good morning. But first things first, Charles thinks, a good night. But Arthur urges them to keep riding until dark.
Finally, “Wanna set up here?”
Big Valley, West Elizabeth.
“Sure.”
A stream beside for the horses to drink from and a enough space that they won’t likely be disturbed. Something pleasant hangs in the air, something floral and dusky. It’s not far from here that he and Arthur met. Does he remember? Charles remembers. Charles remembers everything.
As has become a custom now, a habit almost, Charles watches Arthur from inside the tent. In the dark he’s just a silhouette in the campfire. The night doesn’t stop Arthur from enjoying every moment, not even now he knows he’ll live to see a thousand more. Arthur prods the dwindling fire, squints into the full silver moon— he’s just marvelling at the stars, he says, and at how very small he is.
Doesn’t he know he’s the whole world?
He takes his time coming to bed, kicking off his boots slowly, not quite looking at Charles as he peels off his belt and steps out of his pants. It doesn’t make sense until it does. Eyebrows drawn, the slightest quiver in his smile. Arthur’s nervous. Looked death in the face, but can’t quite look at Charles. Suppose this isn’t the way it usually works for two men. You meet, fuck, maybe you kiss, maybe you don’t, and if you’re lucky, you form a bond. They’ve done it the wrong way round. Charles wouldn’t change it one bit.
“Hey,” he says, and Arthur bites his lip as he smiles.
It’s so out of character, so delightfully boyish and shy. It fill Charles with fondness; makes him brave. He reaches a hand for Arthur to take, pulls him into the tent, down beside him, both of them laughing, Charles pressing hungry kisses onto Arthur’s cheeks, into his temples. He smells a little like soap, a little like mint, this thing he likes now called toothpaste, and a little like the earthy scent that’s all his own, all Arthur. Drives Charles wild.
“Told you you weren’t dying,” Charles says into his ear.
And Arthur looks at Charles, pensive and wishful, got daydreams in his eyes and long eyelashes pretty as any lady’s.
“You gonna kiss me?” Arthur asks.
“You gonna let me?”
“I’m gonna beg you.”
Charles lights up from the inside and Arthur only hesitates a second before pulling Charles to him, wrapping a hand into his hair. Charles has kissed every inch of this face, a face he knows so well, but never here, never this part. These lips that open for him, and a tongue that tastes like whiskey. Arthur laughs a gorgeous laugh that thrills through Charles, head to toe, and right back up.
“You’ve denied me so long.”
“Denied you?” Arthur asks between kisses. “You think I was denying you? I was—”
“Protecting me, I know, you fool. From nothing.”
“Charles.”
“Arthur,” he replies stubbornly.
“Is it so terrible that I wanted to be sure?”
“No, my love. Course not.”
Wandering hands, sliding fingers, the tip of Charles’ tongue on Arthur’s teeth, Arthur tugging Charles’ shirt from his pants, their breath heavy…
“You’re right,” Arthur gulps. “I’m a fool.”
“Yes and I love you.”
“I know. Take off your goddamn shirt.”
Charles laughs, helps Arthur help him out of his clothes. Arthur looks at him, eyes intent as any hunter and Charles, his ever-willing hart, lets Arthur study every inch, hot and mortified under his gaze.
“Now you.”
Arthur’s body is strong despite his sickness. He doesn’t smoke any more, drinks less, eats for pleasure not just survival. Paler than before but his cheeks ain’t so hollow and the meat of his body is just as firm as always, just as powerful. So when Arthur pushes Charles down onto his bedroll and swings a leg over his waist, pinning him with all of his lovely weight, Charles thinks he'll be the one to beg.
He’s got an arm either side of Charles’ shoulders, his hands pressed into the ground, keeping him upright. And Charles has two free hands, one to urge Arthur nearer and another to trail down his stomach to his—
“Charles—”
They ain’t been here before. Talked around it, begged pardon for it even. This time Charles wants confessions not apologies. But not if the price is Arthur’s comfort. He’s waited months already. He can wait longer. He could wait forever— Could wait longer than that. He’ll find Arthur again in the next life. Charles trusts that the same way he trusts Taima will always get him home. Ain’t just belief, but certainty.
He and Arthur are too big for just one life. They’ll find each other over and over. Be they two men or two women; foxes running in the moonlight, or trees growing towards one another. They will do this again and again for as long as there are mountains and trees and lavender fields.
So it doesn’t matter to Charles if Arthur wants to stop.
“Arthur, we can—”
The words disappear with a kiss and Arthur takes Charles’ hand and leads him to his length. He presses Charles close, urging him make a hollow of his hand, showing Charles what he likes, closing his eyes as he does, like he’s imagining he’s doing it to himself. That works for Charles. It might be Arthur’s first time in a long time, and it’s almost definitely his first time with a man. So however he finds his pleasure, Charles will allow it, like it, revel in it, howl like a damn dog for it.
Charles likes to give pleasure. Wants to see Arthur spent and strung out, wants his name on Arthur’s tongue, and his tongue in Arthur’s mouth. Wants his tongue on every divine bit of him, goddamn it.
Arthur lightly whines as Charles pulls his cock out of his drawers and wraps a greedy hand around it. Then Arthur sinks into the touch, clings to Charles’ chest, and they hush each other, swallowing each other’s moans. Ain’t nobody but the hills gonna hear them, but it’s better safe than sorry. And Charles ain’t gonna be sorry about this, not one day in his life.
Then Arthur hesitates, slows, pulls himself out of Charles’ embrace and urges him above, so that Charles is the one gazing down.
“How you wanna do it?”
“At your pace,” Charles says, trailing little kisses down the dark hair of Arthur’s belly.
“How will it go?”
“Slow as you like.”
“Will I be the woman, I mean?”
A soft laugh forms in Charles’ stomach that flitters into nothingness when he catches Arthur’s face, utterly serious. There’s so much wrong with that sentence, Charles don’t know where to start. Neither of us is the woman, he wants to say. And as for fucking like that— It doesn’t have to be that way. Not tonight. Not ever if Arthur don’t want. Charles thinks maybe Arthur doesn’t want—
“I ain’t done it before, Charles.” Fingers trembling but reaching for Charles anyway, showing he’s willing, he says, “Be patient?”
“Oh, Arthur, no.”
He should have been clear. Arthur thinks kissing and touching like this is a quick stop along the way to being bent over and fucked raw. Maybe if they were two fellers in a back alley, that’s how it would go. Maybe in their next life that’ll be who they’ll be. But in this life—
“It will go exactly how you want it to go. I ain’t gonna fuck you like some stranger, Arthur. I’m gonna fuck you like I’ve loved you all my life. Couldn’t fuck you any other way.”
“Right.”
“It doesn’t have to be tonight.”
Arthur’s relief is palpable. “Right.”
“Or— it doesn’t have to be ever,” Charles says, and picks up kissing Arthur’s stomach, lets those kisses rove lower still. “There are other ways.”
And Arthur understands this part— clearly likes this part, throwing his head back as Charles takes him into his mouth. Charles likes this part too, humming his desire around Arthur’s cock. One hand at the base, the other tiptoes up to Arthur’s chest. There he rakes his nails, encouraging Arthur to takes his pleasure, and he does, God he does, fucking into Charles’ mouth, looking down at Charles with eyes blown wild, and then he’s panting.
“I’m—”
Gonna come already, Charles knows. Because it’s been so long for Arthur, and they’ve waited so long together. And he’s alive goddamn it! If the man wants to come, he’s damn sure gonna come. Charles don’t move away and Arthur’s groaning, laughing, his eyes widening, saying, “Fuck, Charles!” and his fingers tug at a fistful of Charles’ hair as he spends quick and hot on Charles’ tongue.
After that they move mostly by instinct, Charles letting Arthur lead, going only as far as Arthur allows. Charles wants everything, but expects nothing, and so he’s still half-dazed when he winds up in some kind of fever dream, Arthur’s legs on his shoulders, and his cock buried into Arthur’s ass. Arthur’s grabbing him with clumsy hands, pulling him in to kiss him and kiss him, like now that they’re kissing, ain’t nothing going to stop them.
Takes all of Charles’ will to go slow with Arthur golden and gorgeous beneath him, thighs spread wantonly, and slick with hair pomade.
It’s a little clumsy, a little uncertain, Arthur’s brows knitted together, Charles’ stomach knotted with concern… All the hallmarks of the first time. But with laughter and giddiness too, and the eagerness of teenagers. Arthur whispers I love yous and reassurances, an encouraging hand on each of Charles’ hips, fingers needling into his skin.
And then Arthur doesn’t need to encourage or reassure, because Charles hits that spot inside him that makes men buck-wild and Arthur’s looking at Charles through heavy lids like he’s doing some kind of magic.
Some kind of magic is right.
Charles comes with Arthur’s name on his lips and his face pressed into the thin skin of his throat, glistening with sweat and delicate as spiderwebs. A secret tenderness on this bear of a man. They fall asleep tied up in each other, all of Charles encircling all of Arthur.
***
And then it’s tomorrow, and the six o’clock sun streaks through the tent opening, amber illuminating a sleeping man as pale as lamb’s wool and just as soft. Charles can’t stop touching. Can’t stop watching either, the swell of Arthur’s chest that promises a life together. Charles thinks he can spot a glint of colour in the sky. Part of a rainbow.
Somewhere it must raining. Somewhere a man holds his hands out to catch raindrops, revelling in being alive one, in seeing one last morning, thinking his time is coming to an end.
But not Arthur.
Charles gently extricates himself from Arthur’s embrace. He hardly stirs. God knows he needs the rest. With a kiss to Arthur’s shoulder, Charles tears himself away, lingering a second longer to wonder at how you could love someone so much it makes you ache—
But the day is beginning and there’s work to be done. Charles can wonder in his next life.
In this life, he’ll pull on his pants and his boots, he’ll start a fire and feed the horses and make breakfast, and just love Arthur until he can’t no more. Love him as long as they’ve got. Be that the rest of the year, or the rest of their lives. And the lives that come after and after…
Charles pulls open the tent and he sucks in a breath, heart skipping, as his tired eyes fill with a bright blue sky above a shock of endless purple.
What would the sky see? Two men in love, their small tent just speck of white in fields and fields of lilac flowers.
No, not lilac, Charles realises. Not lilac.
Lavender.