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“You like that.”
Arthur says it, tentatively, when the sweat is still cooling on their skin, Charles body pinging with dozen happy aches. He’s still breathing a bit hard, face pillowed on his forearms in the tent they’d assembled hours before. There was no need for it, the weather warm and dry under an endlessly spinning spring night sky, but after they’d split their rations, Arthur had cleared his throat and said, “Think I’ll set up the tent,” in a quiet voice, tinged with hope. It was a tacit offer of a little extra privacy, even this far out from civilization. Every time they had done...this, Charles thinks carefully, there had been walls or tent flaps around them, making the world small and narrowed to just the two of them, protected from all the demands heaped upon Arthur’s heavy shoulders.
Charles had blinked at him, slowly, over the fire, and let his mouth twitch. “Alright, then.” Arthur’s face had flamed brilliantly, face ducked low.
“I don’t expect - “ Arthur had said quickly, “We don’t gotta, I mean-” It was the closest he’d come so far, to putting words to what they were doing. Charles doesn’t think it’s shame, exactly. Or, not the shame his Church would want from him. He remembers clearly how fast Arthur had gotten hard the first time Charles slid a hand inside his jeans, how wet he’d been in moments, dick jerking impatiently in Charles’ grip, his voice low and shocked as he chanted out a string of curses and Charles’ name. No, if anything, Charles had simply nudged open a door Arthur had faithfully ignored for years. There are many things Arthur tortures himself over, unduly, but the way he so quickly and easily goes to pieces in Charles’ arms doesn’t seem to be one of them.
It's sweet, Charles thinks, how careful Arthur is. Charles has watched Arthur buy a woman’s time more than once, the way he smiled, how he made them laugh before walking them to the saloon’s bedrooms, one hand easily and confidently in the small of their back. He’d even heard one pretty, dark-skinned woman gossiping to the other saloon girls, the morning after Arthur had paid for some hours in her bed, about how charming he had been, how he had nice thighs, a nice cock, how sweet his mouth had been between her legs. Arthur’s not some blushing virgin, Charles knows, but nothing in the way he looks at Charles, the shock every time Charles goes down on his knees for him, the frantic knotting of his hands in Charles’ hair, says that Arthur has ever indulged himself like this.
“Hmm?” Charles says, turning his head to rest his cheek on his arm, watching Arthur through half lidded eyes. Charles is nude, his hole still aching from Arthur’s cock, and Arthur is stripped to only an undershirt; they hadn’t managed to get it off him once they’d abandoned pretense and gone to bed together. Arthur’s hand feels rough but moves gently down Charles’ spine. They haven’t kissed, not ever, but Charles’ thinks it’s only a matter of time. Often, Charles will glance at Arthur in the chaos of the gang’s camp and find the other man’s eyes on his lips, expression distant, considering.
“When I-,” Arthur says, more open, less careful after sex. He isn’t thinking too hard about what he says, “When we...do this. You like it.”
From another man, it might have come out degrading. “ You like it, sit on my cock, you like it don’t you, whore. ” Charles hadn’t been with men like that in years; too often it mixed with the sort of man that fucked you through the bed at midnight, and punched and spat filth at you with dawn’s light. Charles has gotten better at seeing that self hatred lurking behind men’s eyes and avoids it; he knows who he is, and isn’t interested in men that flay themselves and their partners out of shame. He hasn’t been that foolish in years.
“I do,” Charles says, after a moment, and leaves it at that. The bonelessness in his limbs and the cries he’d made moments before are testament to that, but he doesn’t think that’s what Arthur is asking, not really. There is some glacial thought moving through the valleys of Arthur’s mind, something that won’t be hurried by pestering. Arthur jerks a nod and grabs a handkerchief from their pile of clothes, gently seeing to Charles before himself.
“It don’t...hurt, none?”
Charles hmm’d contemplatively. Despite the ease with which Arthur conducts himself around women, Charles doubts he’s ever asked this of a lady; likely, it wouldn’t have occurred to him. The first time he’d had Arthur inside him, they’d been holed up in a no-where saloon, one roomed booked against the dogged, unending rain that burst the bridges between them and camp and left the countryside a churned mess of mud that invited horses to break legs if pushed too hard. Charles had paid for a bath and prepared himself afters, fingers and oil twisted up while he thought about the way Arthur had watched him, rapt and reverent, the first time he’d fitted his fist around Charles’ cock.
He’d gone back to their room and asked Arthur’s help moving the heavy bed frame away from the wall, and watched understanding bloom along with a blush on Arthur’s features. But, Arthur had helped him move the bed, and slid inside him sweet and slow, and when Arthur had finished first - embarrassed, cursing himself for it - he’d flipped Charles onto his back and, for the first time, closed his mouth sloppy and unpracticed over Charles’ cock; had shocked Charles, too, by sliding two thick fingers up inside him, slick with Arthur’s own come and some of the oil that had slicked Arthur’s cock.
There’s a punch of want in Charles' gut now, just remembering. This time, Arthur had slicked his fingers and opened Charles’ himself, asking gruffly for guidance and instruction, and had lasted through Charles spilling over the horse blanket beneath them, had fucked Charles for another five, blissful minutes before his arms went taut and firm where they were planted on either side of Charles’ head, his cock getting impossibly harder and bigger inside him, before he spilled inside Charles with a breathless, choking sigh.
“Feels more good than it hurts,” Charles says, finally. The chill of the night feels a bit sharper, now the sweat has cooled. Quietly, they both dress to propriety, bed rolls laid out alongside one another, the blanket kicked outside to be dealt with in the morning. It could be an innocent set up, but Arthur, unthinking, lets his arm close over Charles’ side when they lay back down, his palm spread wide over Charles hip.
“You’re...you make more noise, s’all,” Arthur murmurs, just when Charles is slipping into sleep. “When I...” Arthur clears his throat, Charles hears him swallow dryly. “Than when we do...other things.”
He thinks for a moment, how to explain that as lovely as Arthur’s hands and mouth feel wrapped around him, eager and uncertain, it’s different than the stretch of Arthur inside him, the licks of pain and the white hot jolts when he moves in him so deeply. Charles bites his cheek and muffles himself when Arthur is at him, usually, but it’s impossible to remember to do so when Arthur is sliding into him, body tense against Charles’ back, Arthur’s cock heavy and thick inside him.
“You make it hard to remember to be quiet,” Charles says truthfully, after a moment. Arthur laughs dismissively.
“I ain’t all that much.”
Charles tsks. An argument for another day. After a moment, he says, “It feels good. Different to other things. There’s a spot...” He trails off, wondering if Arthur will listen to him talk frankly or shy away. But maybe he’s not giving Arthur enough credit, remembers the way Arthur had pushed fingers up into him after that first time, curling like he’d no doubt been instructed by some forthright whore along the way, unwittingly pressing that spot inside Charles expertly and making his knees shake around Arthur’s ears.
“Not too different than a woman, I suppose. Feels...very nice, that way.” Charles lets himself smile slightly in the dark. “It’s like, when I - “ And here he makes a very specific gesture with one hand, meaning, it’s like when I press my fingers behind your balls when you’re so close to shooting you can’t even talk, remember how you keened that first time, and jerked into my mouth so hard I came back to camp hoarse and Hosea asked me if I needed a doctor and you startled so bad you nearly turned an ankle while carrying the hay - like when I do that to you, when I’ve got you spread out beneath me and you say my name like you’re praying - it’s like that.
“Oh,” Arthur says, maybe understanding, maybe not. If Charles turned right now, he thinks that Arthur would be blushing. Arthur often blushes, when they’re alone.
“I like all of it,” Charles says, in case that’s what brought this on. It’s a fool's errand, loving in the kind of life they lead, but he didn’t set off meaning to and there’s little hope of stopping now. Charles will take all that Arthur is willing to give, and the longer they do this, the more Charles realizes that what Arthur is willing to give him is everything.
Arthur grunts and says nothing for a long while. Sleep pools up around them, warm and soft and yielding to the exertions of the day. Charles is drifting when Arthur’s hand on his hip tightens a bit; there are bruises from Arthur’s fingers there, beneath the denim, Charles wonders if Arthur remembers that, if this possessiveness is intentional or subconscious. Doesn’t much matter, he supposes.
“Wouldn’t object,” Arthur says, voice sounding half drugged with sleep.
“Hmmm?”
“If you wanted to,” Arthur murmurs, his beard scratching the back of Charles’ neck, lips kissing the vulnerable lumps of his spine. “I wouldn’t mind, if you want to, to me.”
Charles has known Arthur long enough to know the careful way he phrases his desires; Arthur is so careful to not ask too much, to take only what was given, so careful not to offend by just existing in the chaos Dutch drags them through. I wouldn’t mind , Charles think, likely means, please.
And isn’t that a pretty picture, Charles thinks. Of course he wants Arthur on his back on fine linen, Arthur’s banged up hands on his shoulders, his calves locked around his waist. He’d thought about that when all he knew of Arthur was the heavy cut of his frame, the gentle light in his eyes when he sat satisfied at the campfire at the end of the day. That was long before he’d seen beneath the heavy cloak of duty that Dutch had burdened Arthur with, thick enough, sometimes, to snuff out the joy that Charles still only caught glimpses of.
If you want to
, like Charles could possibly object.
Charles captures Arthur’s hand in his, brings it up to kiss the scarred knuckles. “I’d like that,” he says, satisfied at the way Arthur jolts when Charles traces his knuckles with his tongue. Arthur presses his face to the back of Charles’ neck, breathing heavy, fingers wound tightly through Charles’.
“Alright then,” Arthur says, unsteadily. Arthur heaves out a breath he’d been holding, tension bleeding out that Charles, drowsy in Arthur’s arms, hadn’t even realized had crept in.
“G’night, Mister Smith,” Arthur says.
"Sleep well, Mister Morgan," says Charles, meaning, anything, of course anything, for you.