#every time I write anything remotely geology related I go ham

[author-morgan]

Title: Silver Moonlight

Pairing: Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader

Rating: M

Summary: Arthur stumbles into one of your dig sites and your heart. 

Two day late Christmas present ficlet for my good friend, @dynamicorbit.​ Also tagging @kvitravn​ and @wolfxkissed​ because, Arthur. 

THE DIG SITE bustles with activity under the cool Colorado sun, but the day’s hours are slipping by. Stretching your back and legs, you crouch back down next to a boulder of red sandstone and begin working at it again with a hammer and chisel —stopping only to brush away the dust. Just north of Morrison was a treasure trove of dinosaur fossils and boundless discoveries. Spending the rest of your days digging the area would likely see your budding career to retirement and old age.

Loose gravel crunches under heavy footfalls, but you pay no mind to them —the site is crawling with paleontologists and rock-hounds looking for a quick buck. The shadow of a wide-brimmed hat blocks the sun as someone kneels beside you and rests a hand on your shoulder. “Watcha doin’, darlin’?” A low, rasping, and familiar voice asks. 

“Arthur!” Dropping the chisel and hammer, you clutch the buttons on your stained shirtwaist. “One time, my heart might stop beating,” you tell him, pushing back on his shoulder despite the joy of seeing him again. 

He hardly ever announces his arrival —instead, he’s keen on sneaking up behind you and scaring the living daylights out of you. His lips curve into a smile as he reaches out, cupping your sweat-slicked cheek for a quick moment. “Pray that never happens then,” Arthur says with a wink.

“Mind your boots,” you remind him. Dig sites were delicate things, and you didn’t need him stomping around without a care. He crouches down next to you again, looking over your shoulder at the blackened bone slowly being revealed. The last time he found you hunched over a pile of rock and bone you told him it was an Allosaurus and showed him a tooth as long as his forefinger. 

Arthur didn’t know a damned thing about dinosaurs or paleontology beyond what you tried explaining to him one night —albeit the whiskey probably didn’t help. It doesn’t matter much if he understood everything or not, seeing your smile and the twinkle in your eye when you spoke about fossils and postulates was something he would never tire of. All his efforts to remain aloof are in vain, for Arthur is smitten with you. “What’re you diggin’ up this time?” He asks. 

You glance at the exposed bones chiseled from the stone and reach for your notebook, making a quick annotation and sketching a complete picture of the vertebrae. The backend of this particular specimen was missing, but a handful of yards away, one of the professors from Harvard was working on cleaning a dismembered tail that looked about the right size to match. “I think it’s what Professor Marsh described as a Stegosaurus.” You point toward a line of wide and flat bony plates you spent the last month working on. “See those?” Arthur nods. 

He listens to your ramblings until the sky turns and you pack away your tools and notes, leading him to your small wall tent at the south end of the site. It’s been months since you last saw Arthur Morgan —roaming the plains and running from the law. Somehow his path always leads back to you, whether you’re digging bones or taking a day’s break in a town in the middle of nowhere. Arthur has a habit of knowing right where to find you, even in the open expanse of the American West. He stokes the small campfire, the golden flames mixing with the silver light of a full moon. 

You spare a longer glimpse of him —his beard is thicker than last you saw, his hair longer and tinged with the first hints of gray. “C’mere–” you smile, pulling on his dark neckerchief, unable to resist the urge to kiss him any longer. He’s quick to wrap an arm around your shoulders, chasing away the space between your lips as your fingers slide into the hair at the back of his neck. 

Arthur wraps an arm around your waist, drawing you onto his lap with a crooked smile. For all the nights spent under the stars, he never feels at ease until he’s with you. It stirs a feeling in his gut and heart that he wishes he could stamp out, but the sparks had taken to flames long ago. You and Arthur make for a strange duo —an academic and an outlaw. He stares up at you when you take his rugged face into your hands, thumb running across the scars on his chin.

You take his hat off, musing his dark locks. In turn, he reaches behind you, pulling two silver pins from your hair —fingers running through frazzled twists and messy braids. “What’ve you been up to?” You ask, kissing the corner of his lips to feel the tickle of his beard against your cheek.

“The usual,” he responds —raising hell and laying low. The Pinkertons chased him out of Oklahoma, and he wasn’t keen on seeing them again anytime soon. He followed the words on the wind and wound up near Morrison, Colorado, with you sitting on his lap —not caring about the things he'd done, only that he was back within an arm’s reach. “Ever made love under the stars?” Arthur asks, lips brushing over your jaw. 

“I haven’t,” you answer, knowing by the look in his dark blue eyes that’s about to change. He bends his knee, wedging his thigh between yours —the soft whimper you make quieted by his sloppy kiss as his lips move across your cheek and down your neck. 

Arthur fumbles with the pearl buttons of your shirtwaist, sliding the calico fabric down your arms with a low groan upon seeing the pale pink satin corset laying beneath. You stifle a laugh, knowing how much he dislikes the slow process of lacing and unlacing your corsets —a handful of times practicing had only resulted in a marginal increase in speed of which he could take one off. “One day,” he starts, loosening the laces, “I’m just gonna cut this damn thing off you.” You shake your head, laughing at his impatience.

Peeling the corset away, he tosses it toward the open entrance of your tent, and his rough hands find your breasts while you push the suspenders off his shoulders, fingers working the buttons of his stripped blue-flannel shirt until it hangs open. Arthur is a sturdy man —barrel-chested and broad of shoulder— built for fighting and fucking. His hand slips beneath the hem of your walking skirt, bunching the material up around your waist as his fingers find the wet heat between your thighs. Two fingers slip into your heat, curling, and stroking —Arthur watches your face twist in pleasure as he feels you grind down on his hand, the heel of his palm pressed against your clit. 

As skilled as his fingers are, you want him. Pushing his hand away, you quickly do away with your skirt and settle down astride his lap again. He groans, low and deep enough you can feel his chest vibrating against yours and bucks his hips —clothed cock pressing against your bare cunt. You both reach for his belt at the same time, but he swats your hands away with a dry chuckle that’s quickly silenced when you kiss him. 

Arthur lifts his hips from the ground, hastily pushing his pants down and freeing his hard cock —he’s thick and ribbed with throbbing veins from base to tip.

He lays back, head resting on his balled-up shirt with you straddling him, and his dark pants pushed down to his knees. The silver moonlight highlighting the slick wetness between your thighs. Arthur mutters something under his breath that you don’t quite catch, but the lusty glint in his eyes says enough. You reach behind you —fingers wrapping around his cock. His eyes slip close, lips parting as you stroke him, stopping only to lift your hips and drag his cock through your folds. 

You moan softly as you start to sink on his length. The head of his cock stretching you slowly. Arthur’s hands slip from your breasts to your hips, urging you down until you’re filled —thighs flush with his hips. You still for a moment, readjusting to his girth but slowly start to grind your hips into his. “What a sight,” Arthur muses as you pick up your pace, riding him lazily as he fondles your breasts, tweaking one of your nipples. 

Up and down, still, but with a bit of a rolling motion helping you hit every sweet spot that makes your body tremble and breathe his name like some kind of prayer. It’s been too long since you felt this —since he felt this. He can tell you’re close, teetering on the edge of the abyss because he is too. Arthur reaches between your bodies, fingers pressing against your clit and rubbing quick circles —hissing when your walls flutter and tighten around his cock. “Arthur,” you choke, head hanging forward. The Seraphs of Heaven could have raptured the world, and they would find you riding Arthur in the silver moonlight, lips parted in a silent cry and nails digging into his chest —not a care in the world. 

Bracing your weight on bent forearms next to his head, you crane your neck down. Lips ghosting over his as your body buzzes with your release, walls still pulsating around his cock. He pushes himself up, sealing his lips to yours —tongue parting your lips just as he pushes his hips up into yours to chase his own end. Arthur bends his knees, planting his feet on the ground, and begins to buck his hips up into you, faster than you had been riding him. He pulls another ragged moan from your parted lips, mixing with his grunts and groans.

You cling to his shoulders as he ruts up into you, gently biting down on his shoulder to quieten your moans if only to hear his. He lets out a strangled groan when his hips stutter in their rhythm, stilling deep inside you as his cock twitches, filling you with warmth. 

Arthur lays back again, holding you against his chest as he kicks off his boots and pants —laying just as bare as you now. A moment passes, your breathing and hearts synchronized. “I’ll volunteer for the supply run,” you tell him, chin propped up on his chest, fingers brushing through the dark hair on his chest. Before the week’s end, a small group would head back to town for fresh supplies, enough to last another week or so. You always enjoyed helping with the runs. It meant a night at the inn on a bed instead of a cot and a proper bath. “We can stay a night or two in Morrison.” 

Arthur runs his fingertips up and down your spine —a different kind of smile playing on his lips in the silver and gold light. “You know darlin’, I was thinkin’ bout stayin’ a while,” he says, watching for your reaction. “If you’ll have me, that is,” he adds.

Smiling, you press your lips against the bottom of his chin, laying your head against his chest again, listening to the beat of his heart. “Of course, I’ll have you,” you tell him. Arthur Morgan may not have been a good man, but he certainly wasn’t a bad one either, and it just so happened that when he first stumbled upon you at a dig site several years ago, he’d stumbled into your heart too. You’d keep him with you for the rest of your days if you could. “I missed you.” He wraps an arm around you, holding you tight to his chest. “Even with that ugly mug,” you laugh. 

He echoes your laughter —you can feel the low rumble rising from deep in his chest. Arthur turns his cheek, lips brushing against your forehead before settling back under the stars with a soft sigh. It feels good to be home.