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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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Published:
2020-11-05
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1,244
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1/1
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Trouble With Reading

Summary:

Books can give a fellow ideas.....Another Appaloosa fic. Hope you enjoy enough to leave a tiny little comment! I've got my fingers crossed for more fic in this fandom, too.

Work Text:

Title: Trouble With Reading
Author: Neichan
Fandom: Appaloosa
Genre: Slash
Rating: FRT
Summary: Cole is always reading.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Parker rocks.
A/N: Comments will much appreciated!
Dedication: For nancy...who asked for more!

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"Hitch?" I heard Virgil call out in his soft voice from across the
fire where he rested back against the rolled up bulk of his bedroll
and saddle. We'd made coffee, and the smell of it filled the cool air,
bitter and strong.

"Yeah, Virgil." I straightened up, turned to see he was nose deep in
one of the ratty spined books he never failed to pick up wherever we
went. I never saw him turn down one when it was offered, didn't matter
what the subject was. He spent the same diligence reading a cookbook
as a history, cover to cover, taking in every word. This one had the
lettering worn off as well as most of the rest of the cover, leaving
me unknowing of its contents or subject. It had been occupying his
time every night when we took our rest after a day of riding.

Virgil raised his pale blue eyes up from the page and met my
questioning gaze. I could see the glistening of the fine blond beard
that he didn't bother to shave all that much on the trail. It was much
lighter than mine despite my hair being lighter in general.

"Listen here," he said. And he read a line to me as was his custom
from time to time when he was puzzling an idea out. "...watch the
object of your love, pure and chaste, and erotic love, unquenched, no
love more passionate, on the earth's face." He read slowly, then he
looked up and blinked.

He didn't take to spouting poetry all that often, in fact this was the
first, and being as I had just been ruminating on romantic, erotic
thoughts myself it shocked me to my core. I cleared my throat. I was
in a right state, my jeans a mite too tight, and the low light all
that was saving me from a full exposure of the condition. We'd been on
the trail for a long time, with the pounding rhythm of the saddle to
wake the kind of thoughts that weren't easily dealt with without
access to a woman and a dollar.

"Don't know much about that kind of reading. And I'm not sure I'd
agree. That kind of thinking might strangle a man's parts." I said
before the silence drew out too long. And I didn't. I couldn't recall
ever having a woman around me long enough that I'd feel comfortable
spouting out such sweetness to her. Mostly I said I liked what I saw,
and what would it cost me to see some more. But Cole, now he was a man
more given to other thoughts, for all he said he had no feelings, he
was the romantic of the pair of us. He was the man whose cheeks would
stain on talk of sex or love. To me sex was more a case of getting
inside a woman, and making it pleasurable for us both, not so much
thinking or talking about it if I had a choice.

But Cole...here he was...reading them words, while we were three days
ride from the nearest town, crickets sounding out all around, not a
bed or a woman to be had, just our bedrolls, and a brisk wind that
wouldn't put up with any nakedness or the kind of romancing that went
without clothes.

When I didn't say anything else, Virgil flipped back a few pages and
looked at it for a moment. "Courtly love." He said as if tasting the
words. "What mad bastard made up such a thing?"

"I'm with you there." I said, and I was. Loving from afar wasn't
nothing but pain. To that I could testify. I'd take plain honest
fucking any day. When I was in a loving way I wanted what I loved to
be real, and there and ready as I was to make that love a physical
thing. There other was...misery, pure as snow. I grasped that thought
and considered it some.

"Not touching, and not fucking...not being able to, it would serve to
focus a man mightily," I offered after a time.

"It would." Cole said, turning another page in his book. It did appear
to be plenty well read, held together with spit and string.

I dared look at him and maybe it was the light of the fire that put
that expression on the face turned my direction. Whatever it was, it
caught me unexpected and I couldn't look away.

We sat there looking, the two of us, not knowing what to say. There
was feelings there, I would swear to it. But not the kind of feelings
that could be spoke out loud by any man with any other man as witness.
Maybe he could say those kind of thoughts to a woman, but I'd never
felt for a woman anything as strong.

It was him who nodded and went back to reading.

I lifted my saddle and settled it near his, set out my bedroll, poured
my tin cup full of the thick coffee and grabbed a cold hunk of hard
tack to dip in it to soften. I leaned back against the leather and
chewed, tasting the flour and the salt-soda soaked with the flavor and
the heat of the coffee.

Virgil said, laying aside the book. "Seems a mite restrictive."

"A mite." I said, looking out beyond the fire. He sat up and added a
branch of dry wood, stirring the low flames up a bit higher. I saw his
face in profile as he did. Lean and handsome, a strong face, weathered
some, and not so young as he had been, but still a face that women
found worth looking at. The newly stirred flames caught up in the
short gold of his beard, making it gleam against the tan of his cheek
and chin.

When he finished and leaned back our shoulders touched, firm,
companionable, not an accident, and both of us were content to sit
like that, being close.

Ten minutes later the fire was dying down again, glowing coals, and
Virgil had his hand cupped around the back of my skull and his tongue
in my mouth and I wasn't fighting it none. I had nothing to say
against it, and everything to say for it. I tore open my belt, fumbled
open the buttons and left it for Cole to go further if he wanted. No
way he could miss the rod sticking up out of the flies, unless he was
being willful about it.

When a man makes do with whores, he doesn't get the same kind of
loving that a man with a wife can expect. Which can be good or it can
be bad. There are things a good woman won't do, or so I've heard. And
there are things a whore won't.

Virgil was the first person I'd kissed in a long time. The first
person who kissed me. And I'd missed it fierce, kissing. He wasn't a
gentle kisser, but nor was he bad at it. He went on slow, his mouth
strong, his taste, mostly coffee, but under laid with something male,
something good. He gave it all his concentration, and I've never known
a man better at concentrating than Virgil Cole.

I laid back against my saddle, with him laying over me, crickets all
around, the fire warming our boots, kissing. There weren't no time I
had to stop and get on with other things. Nor was money being laid
down. No words had to be said. He leaned back far enough to look at me
once.

"Everett?" He asked, his voice low, deep. His knee working its way between mine.

"Virgil." I answered, no easier to hear. "That'd be just fine."

nei