#lissu

(from the never-ending universe, sometime after Further Sartorial Adventures)

Arthur collapsed forward with a groan, grinning at Charles’ strained, breathless yelp as over two hundred and twenty pounds of orgasm-limp cowboy squashed him flat against their mattress. “Think I just threw my back out.” 

“Dammit, Arthur,” Charles huffed, slapping weakly at his husband’s shoulders. He didn’t have the strength to do more—between the corset cinching his waist down to a womanly curve and the thorough fucking he’d just received, he was fully wiped. “You ain’t a skinny little consumption patient anymore, old man.” 

His exhaustion didn’t stop Charles from pinching his husband’s side when the cowboy ignored him, busying himself with nuzzling into the soft spill of Charles’ generous bosom—which was as full as a lady’s at the moment, pressed tight and high on his chest by his corset.

“Just gimme a minute to say hello to the girls here,” Arthur sighed, hiding his goofy, post-coitus grin in the bountiful mounds before him.

Charles snorted, laying his head back on the mattress with a contented sigh. “Ridiculous.” He tolerated the lack of air for a few long minutes, content to pet listlessly at Arthur’s hair as his husband sucked and licked at his breasts. 

Arthur snuffled like an animal, burying nose deep in the plunge as he kissed and bit soft flesh and softer skin to his heart’s desire. His hands busied themselves stroking Charles’ thighs, where thick muscles were overlaid with silk stockings and framed by a froth of lace and batiste petticoats, all in a lovely cream that contrasted gorgeously with Charles’ brown skin. It was a lazy Sunday, with no traps to check or pelts to process until the following morning, and they’d decided to take full advantage of the time and of Trelawny’s gift. 

Finally, Arthur parted ways with Charles’ breasts with a final, regretful kiss.

Harve-Lissu

Charles sighed, straightening from the bench where he was untying his moccasins at the entrance to the cabin. “Stare any harder and you’ll burn a hole in my shirt.”

His voice was muffled through the thick cotton of the mask they both wore over their faces, a precautionary measure. Apparently TB was more contagious than either of them had realized at the start of this whole mess. 

“I’d aim for your hand,” Arthur sniped, adjusting on the bed that had been his prison for three weeks now. He could hardly make it to the outhouse without coughing so hard he’d soil himself, and he’d never felt weaker in his life. Still, he had pride. And, good Christ, was he bored.  “Maybe if I burn it you’d let me do some damn work around here.”

Charles pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his forefinger. This was a well-worn argument. “Arthur, you’re sick. Doctor said rest.”

Arthur snorted. “What’s the use of keepin’ my mangy ass alive if I’m just gonna go crazy?”

Charles looked over his gloved hand with a peevish glare. “Read? Do anything that ain’t bitin’ my head off?”

Arthur made to get out of the bed. “Just lemme help, I could at least cook—”

“Arthur!” Charles snapped, getting to his feet and crossing the room in three long strides. He gently grabbed Arthur by the shoulders, carefully but inexorably pushing Arthur back down to the bed. It wasn’t even hard—it’d been months since Arthur had the strength to offer anything like a proper struggle. “No, damn you! You can hardly stand!” 

Arthur huffed, glaring. Then he took a shallow, careful breath, willing himself to calm down. 

Charles had been nothing but good to him. It wasn’t his fault Arthur was like this. Weak, useless. Worthless. He couldn’t wrap his head around it, most days, how his lover could stand to be trapped in this sisyphean nightmare.

Not that Arthur could really call him a lover, anymore. They hadn’t so much as kissed in months. 

“I’m sorry,” Arthur apologized, begrudging. “I just—I can’t get through, like this. Feel useless.”

Charles’ eyes were exhausted, dark circles deeply ingrained in the hollows. “Wish I had something to offer you,” he said, genuine. His shoulders slumped, weariness in every line of his frame.

Arthur shook his head. “Just wish I could care for you the way you do for me.” He reached out carefully, exhaling when Charles leaned into Arthur’s touch against his temple. Arthur tucked away a lock of hair that had escaped Charles’ braid. 

Charles’ hair was still growing back out—it was out of the awkward stage it’d been in, the first few months. Charles had looked ridiculous, thick, short hair on his sides sticking up like a porcupine’s compared to the long hair still flowing down his back. 

It was better, now. Just long enough to weave into Charles’ usual braid, though the shortest strands still escaped whenever he exerted himself, sticking out in a halo of fly-aways. 

Charles’ eyes slipped closed. His breath stilled, a deliberate hold, and his brow furrowed. “Brush my hair?”

Arthur blinked. Charles had always been particular with his hair—Arthur was hardly allowed to touch it, even the few times they’d made love before his illness had gotten so extreme that any such exertions sent him into coughing fits. 

“Don’t offer me that,” Arthur said, gruff. “Not just ‘cause I’m bored.” He swallowed the painful, hot sensation of tears building behind his eyes. “Not for pity.”

Charles shook his head, one hand coming up to cup Arthur’s against his own cheek, guiding Arthur’s fingers up and back into the warm, silk-soft strands at Charles’ temple. “Ain’t pity. I just—” Charles’ eyes fluttered open, brown doe-eyes regarding Arthur under thick lashes. He looked nervous, of all things. Shy. “I've been lonely, too,” Charles admitted. “I miss you, too, Arthur.” Arthur swallowed. He longed to trade years off his life to kiss Charles, in that moment. To press so hard against him that it'd push the lonely from his skin.

To make it so Charles never felt alone again.

But it wasn't just his years he'd be risking. So he'd seize this gift, so hesitantly and sweetly offered. This vulnerability, and pray on god he didn't sully it with his thieving hands.

(I know I SAID ‘100 word drabble’ but we both know I’m a liar)

Arthur kissed Charles sweetly before laying the thick scarf over Charles’ eyes, careful not to catch his hair in the knot. 

Charles stiffened as the fabric drew tight against his brow, tensing like a hunted thing, muscles bunching to bolt. It was pointless—Arthur had already bound him securely from wrist to ankle, rendering him helpless.

“You’re okay, sweetheart,” Arthur soothed, running the edge of his thumbnail under the curve of Charles’ bottom lip, petting. Trying to settle some of the frazzled, frenzied nerves setting off fireworks behind Charles’ now sightless eyes. 

It worked, sort of. Charles managed to unclench his hands, but not his stomach.

Being tied up and blindfolded wasn’t something Charles had ever thought he’d allow to happen to him on purpose, let alone something he’d ask for. 

Charles had been called paranoid in the past, but Charles hadn’t lived a life free of danger since the day he left his father and two bounty hunters dead in a pool of traitorous blood. He’d been looking over his shoulder his whole life, and it’d kept him alive. Something as stupidly indulgent as being blind, deaf, and immobile on purpose had seemed ridiculous not two weeks ago. 

But it’d been hard to focus, lately, on any one thing. His mind seemed to be buzzing constantly with plans and anxieties and random worries. 

Dutch’s telegram, the news from Rains Falls about the attempts that were being made to herd the tribe’s children away to reform schools, Sadie’s impending visit—the simple life Charles had deluded himself into believing he’d lucked into was crumbling like sand in his hands. 

He lied awake at night, fretting, trying to account for every little way things could go wrong for him and Arthur and the world they’d made between them up in their cabin on the ridge. To plan a counter for every enemy and danger life could throw at him to try and steal away the peace he’d found.

It’d gotten to the point where he’d had his ankles locked against the small of Arthur’s back as Arthur fucked him hard; all Charles had been able to think about was the deer eating the vegetable patch out in the garden and how that would impact them come winter.

That had been the final straw.

So, Charles had asked for this. It’d taken some convincing on his part, but Arthur had agreed when he’d seen just how desperate his husband was. Anything, Charles had insisted, to shut his chattering mind up for even a moment. 

Which had led them here.

After they’d washed up from supper, Arthur had bound Charles, nude, with his hands folded together against his chest, supine on the bed. He’d tied his knees and ankles, leaving him only enough range of motion to squirm. 

And now he’d taken Charles’ sight, and another few threads of Charles’ sanity with it. 

“Arthur—“ Charles called, shaky to his own ears. 

“I gotcha,” Arthur responded, and Charles could feel the bed dip where Arthur settled back in beside him, having moved away to grab their next tool from the table. 

Arthur laid one of his big, warm hands on Charles’s side, rubbing him from hip to sternum in slow, soothing strokes. 

It’d been slow going, getting Charles all the way under, with Arthur making sure to stay in physical contact the entire time. Half the point of this exercise was Charles forcing himself to trust that Arthur would handle any danger that did come, and that he’d alert Charles the moment anything occurred.

It was easier to trust that if he could feel Arthur there beside him. Without that touch, Charles knew, he’d spiral into a senseless panic. 

As it was, being deprived of his movement and his sight was already…intense. 

Every brush of Arthur’s skin against his felt magnified to an exponential degree. Sex wasn’t the point of this game by a long shot. Still, Charles had been hard for what felt like hours, shivering and gasping under every brush of Arthur’s hands against his skin. 

“How you holdin’ up, princess?” Arthur asked quietly, reverently, unwilling to break the spell that the darkness and lack of movement had cast.

Do you still want this? he didn’t ask, because Arthur’d always done his best not to ask Charles senseless questions. 

Charles’ heartbeat was like a drum in his head. He had to work consciously to control his breathing, keep it at a steady rate even as his adrenaline spiked. 

He’d told Arthur he’d wanted everything—to be robbed of touch, sight, even sound. To only be able to feel Arthur against his skin, smell the slight musk of his body as he pressed close. 

To be wholly in the moment, unable to spin out and away in the tangential torrent of thoughts that has been driving him mad.

Charles swallowed, heart thudding.

“Do it,” he said, fingers flexing where they were trapped against his own chest. 

Harve-Lissu

(also we both have heart-shaped glasses so i know you're a person of culture)

Election race heats up as Tundu Lissu returns to Tanzania | News

Prominent opposition leader and presidential hopeful Tundu Lissu has returned to Tanzania to a rousing welcome, three years after narrowly surviving an assassination attempt.

Chanting “president, president”, hundreds of cheering supporters gathered on Monday at an airport in Dar-es-Salaam to greet the 52-year-old, who had been living in self-imposed exile in Belgium.

Lissu fled the country…