dare to dream

You'd wanted to ride with him, but the law in West Elizabeth had grown tenacious after the appointment of a handful of new deputies in Blackwater, and Arthur would just as soon ensure you weren't associated with him where curious eyes could carry that observation back to Chief Dunbar. Especially with what a loose canon that new ring-in, Micah Bell, was proving to be. One thing had lead to another, and you'd been kept apart, communing only through telegram and notes left with bartenders, for over a week. The date had made for an easy excuse, and one you each itched to make.

Rolling his shoulders with agitation, Arthur shrugged off his coat as he locked the bathroom door behind him, determined not to think any more on that. Gang business was gang business, and he'd ridden all the way out here, days away, in order to be out here, days away. No sense dragging that mess with him.

Divested of all his clothes and armory— dumped without ceremony on the floor beside the generously-sized slipper tub— Arthur sank into the still searing-hot water, allowing himself a sigh that bordered on the dramatic. The tub was large enough that he could stretch out a little, so he did. Letting the warmth seep into his tired muscles, Arthur rested his head against the bath's high back, closing his eyes to listen to the quiet popping of the suds on the water's surface, the louder cracks and pops from the fire burning merrily in the room.

There was a knock at the door behind him just as he reached for the soap, despite him telling the clerk in advance he wouldn't be taking the deluxe bath. "No, thank you," he called firmly, setting to work on the dirt that had ingrained itself into his palm— water wouldn't be hot forever, after all.

He hissed with annoyance as he heard the door opening— what was the god-damn point of a lock on the door if they were gonna go and come in when he'd said no anyway— and opened his mouth to shoo the girl off, less kindly this time, when he felt something hard dig in to the back of his neck. Arthur froze.

"Your money or your life, mister."

Heart still in his mouth, Arthur let out a long breath before shaking his head slightly, lips twisting in a wry smile. "Well, I ain't got no money on me, ma'am." Recovered enough to play along, he raised his hands, his right still holding the bar of soap. He didn't turn his head, but tried to catch a glimpse of you out of the corner of his eye.

"Hmm," you hum, the gloved fingers jabbed into his neck turning gentle as you stroke along it and over the muscles of his shoulder before leaning in to place a biting kiss beneath his ear. "Your life, then?"

"Yours for the taking, Hellcat," Arthur whispered, still not moving, still playing along, though now you could see the tension in his body was from a different kind of arousal than the one that had him ready to fight moments previous.

He couldn't see the wicked gleam in your eye as you leapt around from the back of the tub, but that likely wouldn't have given him much forewarning regardless. Grinning broadly, you grabbed the smooth enamel sides of the tub and vaulted into it, settling on top of Arthur with a wild laugh.

"Woman," he chuckled, breathless and bemused, "you got spurs on!"

You kissed him in response, pulling your rabbit-fur gloves off with care, throwing each of them across the room, not looking up as they slapped against the re-locked door. Arthur's hands came automatically to rest on your lower back, and you grinned against his lips as you felt him exploring your soaked outfit with his hands.

"Least you ain't got your guns." You didn't need to see him roll his eyes to know he did it. "Damn wild thing you are," he muttered between kisses pressed against your throat, which he'd nuzzled his way down while speaking.

Unable to hold in your laughter, you sputter out your answer while shifting carefully to keep your spurs clear of Arthur's legs. "Needed a wash anyhow."

Arthur shook his head, grinning up at you from where he rested against the raised back of the tub. "And now I need a wash. Again. And—" You smirk, noticing the way Arthur's eyes had drifted from your face, snagging on the way your soaked shirtwaist clung to your breasts.

"And?" You prompt him, pressing your hands against his shoulders the better to grind yourself against his lap. The water sloshed, dangerously close to spilling over the edge, and you bit your lip.

"And…" His gaze had dropped to where you ground yourself against him. You watch his chest expand with a big breath as he looks back up at you. His brows draw immediately as he does. "That my hat?"

Nodding, you knuckle the brim in playful salute. "You were real engrossed in that bath of yours, cowboy."

"I ain't a—" He snapped his mouth shut halfway through the frequent refrain, a wide, appreciative grin overtaking his features as he recognized your game. "Expect you know the rules, Hellcat."

"I was hopin' you did too, matter of fact." You can't resist rolling your hips against his again as you lean in to kiss him, darting your tongue into his mouth just to hear the soft little moan your desire for him always drew out. His hands trail warmly over you, one coming to rest on the curve of your ass and the other roving up your side, along the flare of your ribs and around toward your breast. You each lean harder into the kiss, ravenous. Still grinding yourself against Arthur's hard cock you move a hand to the back of his head—

There's a sharp, metallic screech. You both freeze, the frantic kiss breaking into two near-identical winces.

"Reckon we got to get them spurs off you before we get billed for a new cast-iron tub, don't you think?" Lifting you gently off him to deposit you at the opposite end of the tub, Arthur flashes you a grin, reaching for your leg and trailing his hands down it to unbuckle your boot. "Ain't never much wanted to be a cowboy," he said conversationally as he dropped your soaking wet boot over the side. Taking your calf easily in his hand, he peeled your wet sock away from your foot as tenderly as if it were the silk stocking of a dainty lady, pressing a kiss to the bone of your ankle as this he too discarded. "If we talkin' about that rule, though," he pulled you closer to him by the foot, kissing the underside of your calf as he watched you, laughter in his eyes, "ain't sure I ever wanted to be somethin' more." He nipped the swell of muscle before your calf turned into your knee and reached for your other foot. "Gonna have to be real stubborn about enforcin' them rules, mind."

You let your eyes go round, affecting innocence as much as you can while trying to remove the rest of your soaked clothing without wetting the entire floor. Your soaked sleeves clung stubbornly to your skin. "I'd never dream of evading the law, mister." Your innocent act is spoiled somewhat by one wrist getting stuck in your cuff, causing you to pull at and struggle with it in a way that was neither particularly coquettish nor efficient. You'd hoped for at least one of the two.

Arthur, though, shook his head, unable to take his eyes off you. A smile equally amused and fond quirked his lips. He only took his gaze from you when you finally freed yourself from the sleeve, and the wet slap of your clothing on the floor reminded him that his own, very much less wet, clothing was piled all-too close to the encroaching puddle of yours. He leaned over the side of the tub to chuck his things as far from yours as he could. "You're really somethin' else."

Settling back into the now solidly gray water, Arthur folds his hands behind his head, shaking it at you. The affect of admonishment was thoroughly spoiled by the fond smile you could tell he was trying to school from his lips. He's speaking as you, having finally divested yourself of your clothes, clamber over his legs and back into his lap. "We're gonna need another bath," he murmured into your throat as you settled against him, his hands coming automatically to your hips, "and to get them things laundered and," he laughs with a shrug, "how you gonna get to our room when your things is all wet? You ain't that much of a wild woman to go about undressed."

The firm muscle of his shoulders is warm under your hands as you run them over his skin, up until your hands cup his cheeks. "Your shirt would cover me up well enough," you quip, your grin widening as you enjoyed watching the effect this thought had on him. He swallowed hard, whatever clever retort he'd had ready on his tongue scattered to the wind at the mental image of you in the faded blue shirt you knew— without having seen it— he'd have worn here today.

Amused at how that— the thought of you in nothing but his shirt— had him more riled up, at least for the moment, than the reality of you naked, you slip your arms around his neck and press yourself against him, your bodies as close as can be without being joined. The hot length of him presses against your belly, and you reach between you, wrapping your fingers round his shaft as you turn your head to kiss him. Arthur groans into your mouth as your fingers skim over the softest of his skin, and you murmur a gentle sigh of contentment in kind.

Arthur brings his left hand to your cheek, calloused palm feather-light against your soft skin. He kisses along your shoulder, even as with his free hand he pulls your hip harder against him. Wanting, as always, to be closer. Nearer. Your skin against his. As close as two people can be.

Grinning, your chin against his hair, you stroke your hand up and down his cock, cherishing the way he pauses and shivers with every deft movement of your hand. Lifting your head so you can watch him, you bite your lip as he shifts in the very-full tub. Arthur turns his face back to you before long, leaning up to kiss you as deeply as he can.

When he breaks the kiss to press his face into your throat, he speaks. "Thought you didn't like doin' it in the water, Bede," he murmurs against your skin, deep voice little more than a whisper.

At that you frown slightly, turning your head down to nuzzle in his damp hair. "You're thinking too much, Art." Even with your faces hidden from one another, you can imagine the blush creeping subtly across his cheekbones at the simple intimacy of a fond nickname. Barely visible between his deep tan and faded sunburn, but there to you, who knew where to look. Still, you'd never have expected him to remember your having said that; so long ago now that you'd forgotten it until that moment.

You'd not been together very long, and you were still cautious. Wary. Unable to trust him as you did now. When you thought there'd be limits on his kindness to you, a hard boundary beyond which… well. You'd long since stopped comparing Arthur to the men you'd known before.

Close as you are, and as well as you know him, you can almost feel him thinking; stalling as he presses another kiss against your collarbone, both hands now traversing the contours of your body. You squeeze him in your hand, pulling his foreskin back to rub your thumb across the smooth head of his cock. In the water, the friction makes your thumb drag stutteringly across him, and Arthur lets out a wordless sound, rutting against your hand even as his arms urge you further into his embrace, as if there were anywhere for you to go, any space between your bodies. After a moment he huffed a rough sound that might have been a laugh against your skin, then turned to catch your lips with his. "You said—"

Shaking your head, you take his face in your hands, watching his eyes. "Never mind what I said." He nods, watching your eyes as you shift slightly, the now lukewarm water sloshing noisily over the sides of the tub as you do. You angle yourself to take him without moving your hands from his cheeks, without breaking your gaze. You find the thick head of his cock easily, hum contentedly as you shift till it's nudging into the hollow of your sex. If Arthur was hesitant to do something you'd long ago told him you didn't want, his cock had no such conflict, hard and eager as ever as you rock yourself against him. That odd friction from the water stopped him from sliding effortlessly into you as he so often did; you had to work yourself open on him in thrilling little movements that before long had your mouth hanging open as you stubbornly held his gaze.

It was a thrill, seeing his pupils blown from lust, watching every twitch of his brow and eyes as you rocked yourself onto him, until both of you were gasping and Arthur's hands at your hips had tightened against your body until he was almost clutching you in his inescapably strong grip. Not that you'd ever want to escape from him, not that he'd ever given you a reason to fear him, not that he'd ever given you cause to doubt he'd stop the moment you asked him to.

Because it did hurt, a little, working him between your legs in the water. A little, but less than the pleasure you gained from watching his enraptured expression. And when he finally pressed through, sliding sudden and hot inside you, that little pain was nothing, in comparison. You shivered as your cunt sheathed him, as you sank down and into his tight embrace. "You always feel so good," the words tumble breathless from your lips as you rest your cheek against the strong muscle of Arthur's chest, and he folds you closer against him, one hand coming to stroke your hair.

"You said it hurts," he murmurs, and you look up to find him looking down at you, flush high on his cheeks despite the concern tightening his eyes. "It ain't— I don't want to hurt you, darlin'." Running your hand over his arm until your hand meets his, you feel the tension coiled in him.

Oh, Arthur. You can't help but smile up at him; supposing that you shouldn't have expected him to forget. To simply absolve himself from caring about such a thing. "A little," you admit, taking the rounded muscle of his shoulders in hand the better to look at him as you roll your hips, biting your lip as you hold his gaze a moment before leaning in to kiss him. He's troubled by this. You can feel the way his lips quirk at one corner as you kiss him. "Mostly, you just feel even bigger."

That brightens him, lips quirking in a proud little smirk as, one brow raised, he leans forward to kiss you again. "Yeah?" This he breathes, taking your hand in his and placing it once more on the back of his neck.

His mouth is soft against yours, and you nip his lower lip, sucking it into your mouth as you rock your hips, sighing at the hard press of him inside you. Arthur was yet so still, you could almost feel the way his thoughts had snagged on that jagged piece of information, snared and unable to let it go even if his body was. I don't want to hurt you. You could hardly fault him for that. The hand at his neck you run tenderly over his hair, your other coming to cup the scruff of his cheek. "I wasn't sure then, if—" You pause, thinking back. It didn't seem fair to say you hadn't trusted him fully at the time. It was a funny thing; you'd trusted him with your life. How strange, then, to remember that you hadn't trusted him with your body. The doubt had been for yourself, in a way. You'd been wrong before.

Arthur's eyes, which so rarely miss anything, are intent as he watches you. He opens his mouth, and you anticipate the old insistence that 'You don't gotta tell me nothin',' which so often rolled off his tongue when difficult topics of your past arose, even before he says it.

"I thought you might change. Once we were together like this. I wasn't sure. I didn't trust you— couldn't. I am now—I do, now." You force the tumbling words out before he can speak. Because he was wrong; you did have to tell him. He had to know you trusted him. That he was better than your past had made you fear, back then. That your hesitant judgment wasn't about him; that if it had been about him alone, you'd have trusted him as easily as breathing. Because even now, you knew, he struggled to see what you saw in him.

The look in Arthur's eyes deepened in the way it always did when you told him things like this, and you found his big hand cupping your cheek, the rough pads of his fingers softer than they had any right to be. Gentle. There's a flash of anger in his lovely blue-green eyes as he turns his head, tucks a stray lock of hair behind your ear. You know it isn't for you. "We all got ghosts."

That was true. But the bright sun was filtering in through the bath's high, dusty little window. Arthur's hat was overlarge on your head, and his cock was hard and heavy in the clutch of your cunt. You thumb the brim of his hat, forcing those sober thoughts aside. Hadn't you jumped in this bath fully clothed for some fun? "To hell with the ghosts," you say, for him and for you, and lift yourself off of most of the length of him before sinking sinfully back into place, every inch of movement heightened in the water's strange embrace.

If Arthur had been about to say anything, that stole those words away, the only sound from him a tumbled out, stilted groan of pleasure. Finally, he takes your hips in his hands and fucks up into you like he means it. Hard, deep strokes that left your mind blissfully blank. You let your head fall back on your shoulders, remembering at the last moment to hold his hat to your head before it could topple off into the water. Something about the act catches in your mind, and you raise your other arm in the air, affecting riding some bucking bronco. You grin down at him, tongue between your teeth. "Git along," you urge in the very best imitation of his drawl you can muster.

"God almighty," Arthur groans, looking up at you with eyes full of disbelieving lust. There's a line of sunburnt heat across his cheekbones, darkening blush visible even in the softly lit room. Affected as he is, he still does as you ask, thumbs caressing your hips as he ruts up into you.

Inevitable from the first but forestalled until now, water splashes noisily over the sides of the bath, the sudden gouts of water slapping against the floor in a cacophony oddly suited to the fervent meet of your bodies. Letting out a tumbled moan, Arthur kisses your throat messily, his teeth grazing over your soft skin, before leaning heavily against the bath's high back the better to brace himself against you. One hand stays anchored to your hip, but his other disappears into the water of the ruined bath, giving him purchase against the slippery enameled shell. It's all you can do not to wail at the sensation of his thrusting inside you, the thick, hot length of him dragging through your clutching walls, the friction driving you to a gasping, breathy mess.

The water was unappealing, though. His hand disappearing completely into it had not gone without your noticing, and you yet had the presence of mind to feel a little guilty about it. The look on his face had been worth it. "Arthur," you gasp, reaching for his shoulder to still him. He stops, panting, looking at you questioningly, that big hand still clutching your hip. Unable to resist, you roll your hips against him, loving the moan it draws from deep in his chest, the slow sluice of your bodies too much to leave unanswered. You still, pulling him up to kiss by the shoulder, wrapping your arm around his neck the moment he was close enough to do so. "Got a question for you, big boy," you bite your lip. It was wicked, you knew. Using pet names on him, knowing how affected he was by them.

Unsurprisingly, he swore again. "Jesus." He pressed his eyes against the crook of your neck, and you feel the movement of his whiskered lips against your skin, the shiver of want that trembled through his big frame. "Yeah?"

"But I ain't asked yet," you laugh into his hair, and this time the shiver that passes through him is a chuckle.

"Woman," he sighs, his frustration utterly fond.

You nose around his head, from his hair, down past his temple, over his cheek. Till he's turned his head back up to you, lips parted, eyes wide and blown with lust. You can feel his heartbeat, the pulse of it, against your chest and deep inside the warm heat of you. "Can you pick me up?" It's only half the question and both of you know it. You've seen him lift men who weigh far more than you ever have, slung them over his shoulder as though they weighed nothing. Game animals. Sacks of grain. Your small weight was nothing to his strength, and the clarity returns to his gaze as he watches you, brow quirked.

"Yeah."

Grinning, you press a kiss against his mouth that catches his lip between your teeth, squeezing it in a nip as you wriggle in his lap. A mischief, you were, and your eyes are lit with it. You turn your head to his ear to whisper. "Can you hold me up and fuck me like that, do you think? Or perhaps against that wall, there." You seal the words with a kiss, laughing softly at the way he, in lieu of replying, immediately gathered you against him, his one hand bracing the two of you as he stood carefully in the slippery tub. If there was any difficulty in standing for him, it wasn't because of his holding you, but the staid caution that almost always marked his movements.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but seemed to think better of it when you, grinning slyly, clenched yourself around him. You bit your lip, and he huffed helplessly, the sound not quite a laugh.

You looked down into the grey water as he stood there, holding you, the two of you dripping noisily. "We're gonna need another bath," you say lightly, as if that state of affairs weren't entirely your doing. As if nothing else were on your mind.

"I oughtta dunk you in the river, hellion," he muttered against your cheek.

"Oh! Hell-lion is it, now. An upgrade?"

"No," Arthur huffed, both hands supporting you as he moved your legs around his hips. "don't think I'd survive getting clawed by one of 'em. I like my Hellcat just fine." His mouth is hot on your throat, and when he stops kissing you, it's with a small sigh of regret. "I gotta put you down to get outta this tub," he mutters against your skin, "or we'll break our necks."

"So serious," you tease as he sets you carefully down beside him, never taking his lips from your neck as he does. You feel him laugh at that, though he also shoves you lightly in the direction of the side of the tub with a mat to stand on.

It squelches swampily when you climb out, and you make a small noise of displeasure at the cold wet of the floor after the pleasant warmth of the bath. You have a second to see Arthur shaking his head fondly at you before he's out as well, his hand cupping your jaw in an instant. He pulls you against him, unperturbed by the wet floor. His big frame folds around yours as if it's the most natural thing in the world, and you sling your hands to hook around his neck, twisting your fingers into the hairs at his nape. He crowds you until you're leaning against the side of the tub, the rounded lip of the bath pressed against your bare thighs, and you feel more than see the part of his lips into a smile. Feel, too, the smooth flat shape of his teeth against the soft swell of your cheek as his smile turns into a tentative, gentle nip of a kiss. "Itty-bitty thing like you, I can hold you long as y'like." His whispered words shake a little with his eager breath, and as you raise your mouth to his you find yours does, too.

Arthur's skin is damp and smooth as you trail your hand from where it rests at his neck, down over the firm muscle of his shoulder. Your fingers part the gently curling hairs of his chest as your hand ends its path, settling against the firm cushion of his pec. As you kiss him, slowly now, you press your palm a little harder against his chest, so you can feel the steady beating of his heart. Feeling, too, the rumble of his voice as he hums contentedly, leaning further into the kiss as his hands begin to move. The one at your cheek tenderly sets a stray lock of hair behind your ear before tracing a path down your hair and back, caressing the swell and dip of your back and waist before coming to a halt at the top of your leg. His other hand had rested on your lower back, and made the shorter trip to stroke the rounded muscle of your ass idly, calloused fingers tracing up and down, up and down.

"Reckon I can fuck you real good like that too," his voice rumbled between your bodies again, just as you shivered with a sudden draught through the room's rickety window frame. The muscles of his arms flex as he lifts you against him, lifting you higher than he needed— or maybe just high enough that he could kiss and mouth the sensitive underside of your breasts, and you laugh, breathless, arms wrapping around his head.

"Show off." Your words are tumbled by your laughter, Arthur meeting it with his own as he slowly lowered you, kissing along your body as he did.

"You asked," he scoffed, lowering you frustratingly slowly, you thought to further tease you. He pressed a biting kiss against your throat, low and near your collarbone, sucking at your skin where he knew your shirt would later hide it. You thought distantly you didn't give a damn if he left a mark the whole world could see. "Ain't a fool on command for nobody but you."

Whatever you were going to say to that was forgotten as he lowered you further, sheathing himself into you in a swift, powerful thrust of his hips. Your hands clutch at his hair, and he groans against your mouth, having kissed you fiercely as he pressed his cock in deep. "Darlin'," he breathes between kisses, his hands tight on your hips as you take hold of his shoulders. "My girl," the endearments tumble rough from his lips, an endless nonsense stream of pleasure-tinted words as he lifts and lowers you onto his hard length, each move met with a rough buck from his hips in time.

Words are beyond you entirely, managing only to gasp and moan with each hard thrust. Keeping one hand at his shoulder, to take whatever of your weight you could, the other grips tight to the bulk of his bicep, the hard muscle hypnotizing as it strains and moves under his skin. "Arthur," you gasp his name between kisses pressed in a frenzy against his open mouth, his cheek, his jaw, "the wall."

It takes only three strides before your back is pressed against the aged wallpaper, the cap and rail of the wainscoting digging into your ass. You squirm only once, Arthur moving the two of you till the timber slid unnoticed behind the arch of your back. You feel him leaving another love bite on the meat of your shoulder, and bring your mouth to leave one of your own at junction of neck and shoulder when he ruts himself hard into you again. Something about the angle has stars in your eyes and you moan, ecstatically and unambiguously and loud, your head knocking against the wall as you squeeze your eyes shut. "Good?" Arthur breathes, and you nod, fast and urgent, your hands clutching his shoulders desperately.

A few more thrusts like that and your ears are ringing, your body convulsing around his with the strength of your orgasm. Distantly you think you hear someone belting on the door from the other side, but you're too busy kissing Arthur to hear the angry words outside. His skin is sweat-slicked and hot as you run your hands over his neck and cheeks and card your fingers through his hair. "Can't—ah— feel my toes," you laugh, breathless, between kisses and his steady, slowing movements.

Arthur makes a sound that might have been an apology, his cheek pressed to yours. "Ain't gonna—where can I…" You realise he's a little incoherent with pleasure himself.

With a shimmy of your hips, you urge him finally to lift you off him and drop you, landing on your tingling feet with the grace of your namesake. Though maybe it had more to do with his big body still bracketing you against the wall. "Let me," you smile up at him, reaching between you to take the hot length of him, sticky with your wetness, in your hand. Arthur groans, the sound almost physical. Looking down at you, he braces his weight on a forearm, other hand reaching to pull you in to him.

Your teeth flash white, bared in a grin as you dodge his hand, nimbly dropping to a crouch before him. You're still grinning as you rest your cheek on his thigh, looking up at his breathless, surprised expression as you lick a stripe up his length from root to tip. "Oh," he murmurs softly as you take the head of his cock in your mouth, the hand he'd meant to hold you with moments before anchoring in your hair.

Sometime in the wild ride from bath to wall Arthur's hat had fallen from your head; after all, it was too big for you. His hand cards through your hair now, harrying strands from your loose plait as he unconsciously flexes his fingers. The sound Arthur makes as you take as much of him into your mouth as you can is divine. A soft, stuttering moan. High and small and so unlike the him he shows to the world that hearing it is an intimacy all its own. One beyond, somehow, that of having his cock between your jaws. "Darlin,'" he whispers in a breath, the endearment soft as the touch of his rough fingers on your cheek.

He's close, you know, balls drawn up tight and the muscle of him under your hands drawn taught and hard as stone. Your hands on his hips are much smaller than his had been on yours. Delicate, feminine fingers dug in to the hard mass of him. Arthur is hot and desperate in your mouth, his hips twitching in aborted thrusts he won't allow himself to take. You think you wouldn't mind if he did, but don't stop to tell him, swirling your tongue around the smooth head before diving down till he hits the back of your throat. He whimpers, an eager little sound, as his fingers clutch carefully in your hair. "Bede," Arthur gasps, as you stroke the delicate soft round of his balls, and he comes with a shudder, hot spurts of musky rapture sharp on your tongue.

No sooner have you swallowed than he's hauling you up against the wall again, kissing you as if he's not seen you in days— distantly you realize that's true, before you'd surprised him in the bath— your mouth and your cheekbones and your throat, his hands stroking your cheeks and your shoulders and your ears until finally, foreheads pressed together, his hands are at your hips again and the two of you pant softly together, sated and exhausted. "Missed you, my girl." His lips curl up at the corners as he breathes the endearment, shy as he always is about it once he has his wits about him.

Reaching up to smooth his hair, wild and disheveled after all your disruption, your grin is broad and shameless as you look at him. "Happy Valentine's, my love."

Author Notes: Let's all pretend it's 14 February instead of 14 July? Thank you all so much I love you. I hope you enjoyed this! I had a fun time writing it lmao we will never speak of why and how it took me 5 months. I wish I had had a little more time this afternoon to edit it, but it's been so long and the date today is so perfect that I desperately wanted to get this out into the world, so here we are. Maybe I will edit it more later. Hopefully not, lmao.

Yes that is a reference to one of my favourite in-game cheats. He's drunk on something else when Bede's concerned, though. I was thrilled when I had the idea to include it

A couple things didn't make it into the fic but since I know them, I figure I may as well share them:

the banging on the door is the beleaguered manager of the Saint who is telling them that that is not what the bath room is for, you animals (is he upset because the room is truly only for bathing or sensual bathing, no funny business, or is it because Arthur didn't pay the extra 50c? Who knows, I didn't ask him)

Bede hired room 1B, which is literally directly opposite the bathroom. Arthur might always rent the upstairs room but Bede did not actually plan to run through the whole place in a state of undress. It has a double bed, even if it also has quite a meager curtain

Bede's spurs absolutely did damage the enamel coating in the tub, that's why in the game the Saint does not have a cast iron enamel plated one. It done got rusted. oopsie oopsie oopsie

I also intended to mention that at this point I am just fully committed to the fact that Bede's presence has changed the timeline. I know that Arthur canonically shouldn't be in Valentine before the events of the game but Bede isn't in the game either, so. Her presence changes a lot of things!

Taglist: @honeycoyotes @redlipprimate (please ask if you want to be added I'm shy)

I made all the graphics myself this time, though I didn't draw them, I dug into my very ancient collection of assets and chucked this together with Photopea. The font is Brilant and the graphics come from a single set of resources here