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Wild West — Cowboy x Reader

My grandpa a few generations back was actually a cowboy! He had to flee Alabama in the 1860s, so he hid out in what is now Montana and Alberta, committed a bunch of crime there then came back to the South once the dust had settled a few decades later. So I was thinking of him and took this in the outlaw direction instead of the standard rancher direction lol (and of course had to base some of it on Red Dead).

//OC, female reader, DARK CONTENT, noncon, violence, abduction, death scare, physical abuse, belting, degrading language, guns, gendered themes in parts

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The West is not called 'wild' without reason.

Law enforcement is uncommon, sparse, ineffective, and highly corrupt, most more than willing to overlook even egregious crimes for a small sum as bribery. It's not hard to get away with just about anything.

The crowds the new frontier attracts throughout the nineteenth century are often unsavory. Even the best of them are largely people with nothing to their name, drawn by the potential to achieve wealth — people with nothing to lose, no reason to not take risks or get a little violent and underhanded to achieve what they want, no reason to abide by laws that won't be enforced anyway.

Then there's fugitive secesh fleeing the collapse of the South, emboldened by their loss of everything they had, endued with a penchant for cruelty and a bitter score to settle with any perceived ideological enemies, and then there's the pure low-lifes that make up the remainder of the emerging population — criminals wanting a place to run amok with as little repercussion as possible, often forming gangs to better maximize their capacity for criminality.

Regardless, this doesn't stop poor families from the main civilization trying to establish businesses on the frontier or find work on the railroads, or the influx of newly-arrived Europeans of various national origins forming their small towns and farms in the prairie. Normal people lead fragile lives, constantly forced to navigate around the dangers of the more unpleasant fates they could meet at the hands of equally unpleasant men.

The sex ratio likewise makes it an unwise choice for lone females to be residing in the area as a whole. It's a man's world, and out here, it's a man's hell. Many of the railroad towns are filled with young men seeking a future, or sending money to their parents at home, and many areas are nearly devoid of young women, other than some prostitutes that come out to the area for that very reason.

But with the lack of law enforcement, it could also be viewed as a man's paradise. One can essentially get away with anything, should they find some poor vulnerable woman on her own. It's a matter of perspective, really.

You're just forced to take risks. It's part of life. You know that you're an ideal target, but living out here was ultimately a step up from your previous circumstances. More opportunities, just with added risk alongside it. You're truly aware of the risks of the world you live in, but you can't let fear paralyze you from potentially moving up in life.

These smaller frontier towns, based on small mines or trade outposts that won't last, they come and go, they thrive and then they die as the centers of business and trade shift rapidly. The one you initially settled into is already beginning to decline, as a larger mine has been found in a new area further to the west, thus drawing young men to a wholly different route along the frontier.

You decide the only way to secure a future is to travel to one of the big frontier towns, one of the ones that remains a consistent trading hub for the entire regional economy, and not just a temporary settlement based on a finite mine. You can work at a saloon or maybe a post office, or another of the admittedly narrow range of occupations for a young woman available outside of the usual housewife-and-mother fate that leaves them powerless to the will of some man. Eventually you can meet a nice man there and settle down in a homestead, you like to imagine, having a secure amount of money of your own to leverage fair treatment.

It won't take longer than a day and a half by foot. You can take enough water to get by, and sleep out beneath the stars for just one night. The chances of something bad actually happening are low. You probably won't even encounter anyone at all, you tell yourself.

Still, the open land always makes you feel uneasy. There's no forest to take cover in. Just empty plains and a small path in the dirt and looming mountains in the distance, a seemingly endless stretch of vast, empty prairie, only disrupted by the occasional bird flying overhead. It's beautiful... but there's something about it that makes you feel small, scared, vulnerable.

At least the sky is overcast, protecting you from the blazing sun. And because of the vast emptiness of it all, you're aware of the other human presence in the distance for a while before you actually encounter each other.

You see him first as a dot on the horizon. It takes a few minutes before you're certain it's a living being and not just some sort of rock or bush. He starts to get bigger, you begin to make out the shape, the rhythmic gait of the horse.

There's no point in you doing anything. There's no reason to assume a random man has ill intent. You're not that paranoid.

And even if you wanted to, it's not like there's anywhere to hide.

You continue along your way for another ten minutes or so. Given that you're on foot and he's on a horse, he's closing in on you faster than you're approaching him. You keep your eyes on your weary feet, but you can see him getting closer in your peripheral vision. The shapes and colors become clearer. You can hear the faint yet distinct clip-clop sound of hooves on the dirt.

But he's still a man, a stranger. You keep your gaze to the ground, just to soothe the slight feeling of wariness in your mind, to deter any potential confrontation. You don't think you look like you have anything valuable on you, so even a robber would likely view you as not worth the trouble.

You keep your head down when you finally pass by each other. To your left, you see a quick mass of brown fur and a spurred boot in a stirrup pass by your face. Your heartbeat begins to quicken, just ever so slightly, but the steed and occupant both pass you by without a word.

A few seconds pass. Your feet leave a small imprint on the dust with each step you take further in your direction. The sound of four-legged steps is audibly getting more distant with each passing second.

And then, from behind you, the rhythm of the hoof-beat is disrupted. There's a few soft thumps in quick succession against the dirt, a gentle grunt from the horse's throat. The sound begins to grow louder, closer again.

You stumble to a halt as the mass of the animal swings in front of you, forcing you to stop in your tracks. You stagger backwards, clutching your hands up to your chest, instinctively tilting your gaze upward to look at the source of the interruption.

It makes a sensation of cold run through your blood.

You can't see most of his face, obscured by the bandana tied around the back of his head, draped across the bridge of his nose. His head tilts down to look at you, his hat creating a shadow over what little of his features are visible to you.

You don't like what you can see. The eyes are cold, hardened, emanating a palpable malice. A grayish-blue that seems to pierce through your heart, a dullness to them, void of light.

What're you doing out here?

His voice isn't any less unpleasant. It's harsh, deep, and only made more threatening by a low rasp induced by what must be years of heavy smoking.

Your eyes are wide. You're certain you must look terrified. You shake your head, hands clasped together and held up to your chest in an instinctive defensive gesture. You say you're only headed to town. You're just looking for new work is all.

There's a few moments of silence. You flinch with the sudden movement and harsh sound as he swings out of the saddle, feet hitting the ground in one smooth, routine-perfected motion.

Maybe if you were in a town, you'd scream or run. Maybe you wouldn't just stand there, paralyzed in panic.

But the awareness of your surroundings — rather, lack of surroundings — is a weight on your shoulders. It only heightens your dread. The conscious awareness of your own vulnerability and helplessness chokes you like a hand around your throat. There's nowhere to run.

But he moves so fast that you wouldn't have had time anyway.

His hand moves in a flash even faster than the dismount. You feel cold metal press to your forehead. There's a click. Your body goes completely stiff.

Down.

There's no room in your brain or time for anything but blank, cold panic, no conscious thoughts or internal dialogue.

You barely even process your own actions. Obeying the voice, you knees hit the dirt and you can't seem to breathe, your chest burns and every muscle in your body feels tight.

You eyes squeeze shut. You cry out with the harsh boot to your back, forcing you down flat.

His hands are rough and calloused, but they move quickly, binding your wrists behind your back and your feet together at the ankle. The bag you had over your shoulder, containing what little you had in this world, is snatched up out of your frame of sight. You wince at the sharp pain as a rope burns against your skin with friction, you try to turn your head to keep the dirt out of them. You stiffen and thrash when his hands grasp your head, but a few harsh, jerking motions get your mouth bound up as well with ease, thick rope between your teeth.

A pitiful little sound comes out of your throat as you're dragged back upwards. You grunt with the impact as your stomach hits the horse's back, knocking the breath out of you. You can't form words with the rope in your mouth, but you begin to cry out in panic, sounds that don't need words to express your sentiments.

The horse shifts with the added weight as he climbs back on, keeping one hand latched onto your bound wrists, but not even so much as acknowledging your distress and confusion. There's a click of the tongue, and you feel yourself begin to move, far too fast for comfort. You fear you're going to fall off, but his hand, reaching back behind him to hold onto your clothing, keeps you steady.

Your heart doesn't stop pounding, but there's now at least enough time to process what's happening to you. The fear shifts — the initial panic was an instinct, a primal reaction without conscious thought, but what overcomes you now is a sense of dread and terror, driven by your active thoughts. Your life flashes before you, whatever plan you had for your future shattered in an instant, contemplating each of the unpleasant possibilities of your immediate fate. You could be sold to someone else, you could be held captive, or in the worst case scenario, he could simply be looking to rob you and just wanted to get to a more remote location to ensure no one finds your body.

You're left to think for far too long, the passage of time itself a form of torture as the uncertainty leaves you nauseous, agonized by your own helplessness. You don't want to face whatever is coming, but you don't want the wait to go on any more. You keep your eyes open, staring out into the horizon as the sun begins to set, as if maybe, maybe someone else will show up, some other human soul will appear in the backdrop of the open prairie and gray skies.

No one does. You have to swallow the urge to vomit as you come to a halt, a makeshift campground in a shallow cave in the mountainside in your peripheral vision. You're grabbed by the back of your dress in one hand, a fistful of hair in the other, dragged off the horse with the same harshness with which you were forced on, set firmly onto a mat already laid out on the ground, squirming helplessly before the shadow his figure casts over you through the path of the faint rays of the setting sun.

There's no words exchanged, other than a gruff warning to hold still. He kneels down, unties your legs and shoves your thighs apart.

He's not nice in bed. Well, mat, rather, a rolled-out padding for sleep providing some softness and barrier between the hard ground and your bodies. Your clothes are pulled off without grace, your body penetrated without notice or preparation, dry friction causing you to wince. You hiss in a gasp of air between clenched teeth in pain.

His jeans stay on, unzipped and spread apart for his cock. The denim rubs against the soft flesh of your ass with each thrust. The belt buckle makes a clacking sound as it bounces against itself in rhythm with the motions.

Much like him bringing you to this place to begin with, it all happens so quickly it barely feels real. You don't know this man. You know nothing about him other than the fact that he ripped you from your life at gunpoint and is now balls deep inside of you. His hand is on your throat. You don't know his name. He's hurting you. It burns. It's too deep, it's too rough, and whatever pleasurable sensation you might have been otherwise able to feel is drowned out by your fear.

There's a quietness once it's over, when the only sound left is your heavy breaths. You flinch as his hand grasps your jaw with crushing firmness.

He says he's keeping you. He says you're staying with him now. He says you're going to do what he tells you to. He says he doesn't want to hear you bitching about it.

You're gon' be real good for me from now on, you hear?

You frantically nod your head.

You can see the slight grin on his face in response to your compliance and evident fear, even in the fading light. With the bandana removed, you can see his masculine features more clearly — broad jaw, dry crackled lips that part to teeth stained by tobacco snuff, stubble growing across his lower face from what appears to be maybe a day or two since the last shave, some scarring on one side. Maybe in his mid-thirties. A face reflective of a rough, unforgiving lifetime, one unlikely to treat you with any mercy — if he's ever even come to know the concept himself.

The quiet is crushing, awkwardness only outweighed by tension and unease. You lay shivering — the cold, the overwhelming stimulus and intensity of everything, the fact that you're still terrified — as you watch him move around. You only find the courage to speak as you watch him begin to rummage through your bag.

That's... that's mine...

A cold glare shuts you up. You watch helplessly as your belongings are sorted.

Nothing of much value, which sprouts a visible disappointment on his face. Only a change of clothes, basic hygiene items, a canteen of water, and a packet containing the last paycheck you picked up earlier that day before leaving your old town — that's the only object that gets transferred to the saddle bag, the rest gets stuffed back into your bag and tossed beside the bed.

He sits back down, pulls out a flask. Drags you upright. Presses the tip to your mouth. You're not bold enough to be defiant, and you squeeze your eyes shut and drink, gulping down slow swigs until he pulls away. The liquor burns running down your throat, and it hits your stomach like a punch. You assume it's to keep you good and still and ensure you sleep rather than keeping him up with what would otherwise undoubtedly be a restless night for you.

A few moments of quiet pass. Part of you wants to look away, but you can't find yourself doing anything but the opposite, some defensive instinct commanding you to keep your eyes glued to what registers as a threat, a predator, an enemy. You watch him rummage through his own pockets, stuffing his lower lips with tobacco snuff from a tin. It explains the smell he gives off, you think to yourself, a mixture of tobacco, smoke, and that sort of distinct musk of an outdoorsy man. It's not overwhelming, if anything you're used to quite a lot of men with similar scents in your world, but they're generally not so close up.

He lays next to you as if you've known each other forever, no sense of hesitancy in wrapping an arm around you to pull you close. As if he's already fully accepted and adjusted to the arrangement he's determined. You stiffen against his hold, but even if he notices, he doesn't seem to care.

You jolt when he speaks again. You can feel the rumbling of his chest against your face as he speaks. He asks you what your name is.

You hesitate, only for a moment, before you murmur out an answer.

Mm.

The affirmative hum is all you get for a moment before he replies with his own.

He says something more, after a few more moments pass, but it's hard to make out. The alcohol begins to work as intended, as you soon find yourself lulled into unconsciousness, held firm to the new, unfamiliar warmth by your side, fluid still leaking out between your legs.

Your head throbs when you wake. There's a stirring beside you, motion jostling you into consciousness. The sun has just risen, climbing higher into the sky.

But what really wakes you up is the hand latching into your hair, pulling you upright, dragging you forward to tie your legs shut again.

You're gonna stay right here today. His voice is just as firm as it was the night before, hand clutching your face again, holding it in place. If I see you tried to get out of this when I come back, I'll hurt you. Got that?

Thus you realize, with sickness in your stomach, against some faint hope in the back of your head as you rested, it was all, in fact, real. In the full light, you now see his unclothed arms against his huge frame, biceps nearly the size of your head, muscle flexing beneath the skin. The promise of hurting you suddenly seems that much more grim.

You nod your head again.

Good.

You feel yourself begin to panic again as he releases his grip, dragging his shirt back on, pausing a moment to work up the buttons. You realize he's leaving. You stammer out a question as to where.

Out.

It's the only answer to that question you're going to get. You try another angle, asking when he'll return.

Today. Later.

There's a slight irritation to his voice with the second answer, as if your questions are unnecessary or obnoxious. You swallow.

Can I have my clothes ba—

No. I'm leavin' now. Be good.

You clamp your jaw shut, not willing to risk upsetting this man who is still all but a stranger. You watch silently as he rides off into the distance. You're only at the edge of the mountain range, the otherwise flat horizon allows you to keep track of him for quite some time until he finally gets too far away to see.

The passing of the day is scarier than you would have anticipated, the fear itself staving off what might otherwise be boredom. You thought you'd be grateful for his absence, yet the stillness and quietness feels threatening in a way it didn't before. It doesn't combine well with your restricted movement.

What if he abandons you? Just decides on a whim he doesn't want to bother coming back and leaves you to die? What if he gets arrested or killed in whatever venture he's on now? What happens to you then?

And more importantly — what should you do?

It occurs to you that it's almost absurd to think you'd actually just stay here and wait instead of at least trying to break free. You must at least look at your options. You've been left alone with nothing but the sleeping pallet, the ropes that bind you, and what appears to be a blackened pail for cooking over a fire, which has been filled with a layer of water for you. Admittedly, the thirst is beginning to become overwhelming, and you lean down awkwardly onto your stomach to lap some of it up, bitterness and shame twisting in your gut at the thought that he likely took some degree of enjoyment in the notion that you'd be drinking out of this like an animal.

You resolve yourself to scraping your bindings against the rock. It's the only thing you can think to do. Maybe, just maybe you can wear it down. If you can free your hands, you can untie your feet, then you can get up and... run, go in the opposite direction, run into the mountains and try to get back on the road at a later point. Make makeshift clothes out of... something. Anything. Hitchhike. Anything feels like a better option than staying still.

You bite your lip as you shift in your place. Your insides are still sore, they ache and burn with each movement. You blink away the tears that form as the feeling of shame and humiliation from the night before comes back into the forefront of your mind.

But you keep going. Push the pain away mentally, the pain from your insides, the awkward pull against your muscles from the positioning against the rock, and the burn of your muscles as you keep going and going, not relenting in your efforts. You think you begin to make progress in wearing at the rope.

You jolt to a halt when you hear it. It's very faint, distant, but distinct — the bang-bang-bang of shots in the air. A few minutes pass. A flock of birds appears in the same direction as your captor disappeared into, flying speed rushed with startle.

Something about that sound makes you feel a newfound wariness. It makes you feel like you should stop. Like you're afraid of the possibility of him returning and seeing what you're doing. He could technically come a different way than he left, and suddenly appear around the side of the concave formation in the mountainside. You wouldn't want him catching you like this.

But even though that notion turns out not to be correct, it's not long before you see him coming back, anyway. You have nothing better to do than watch, so you notice very quickly as he emerges in your vision again. You lay still, keeping your gaze fixed to the ground as he approaches, your heart beating faster as he grows closer again.

It's okay, you tell yourself. You will get away from this unwell man. He'll have to leave again at some point. You'll keep working on it little by little whenever he's gone and you'll pick the right time to escape. It will be fine.

He dismounts and makes his way to you.

Alright, turn over.

You stiffen.

...Mm...?

You don't get a second command. His hands grab you by the shoulder, jerking you with a harsh motion that rolls you onto your stomach with a grunt.

You realize what he's doing. You didn't think he'd bother to check closely. Your heart rate spikes in an instant. You stammer out some timid plea of wait, wait—

But it's too late.

That's a lot of damage.

You feel him tug at the frayed pieces of the rope.

You squirm. You stammer. Wait, no, I didn't— I didn't do any—

You thought I was bluffing, is that it?

No! No, I don't—

You recognize the sound above you. His belt is coming undone. You squirm and thrash, but his boot on your back keeps you firmly in place.

You squeal and cry out when it strikes you. Your ass, your hips, the back of your thighs. You lurch forward, your body writhes and struggles. He keeps his free hand on your head, forcing you bent over one of the low rock formations on the ground. The pain is so intense it wipes your brain of any coherent thought, mind blank of anything but panic and instinctive reaction of desperate struggle, every muscle in your body fighting to pull away, to no avail. Your cries echo into the empty distance. He hits hard. No trace of mercy or lenience. It goes on longer than reasonable, longer than a man in normal society would punish a wife or child the same way. So hard you can't even apologize, your mouth can't form the words to say you're sorry, you only wail and scream and sob.

You can barely make out what he's saying. Something about how he'll teach you to listen. That you're going to learn real fast that he's not going to be merciful with you. That he doesn't fuck around with his threats. That one way or another, you're going to be learn to be good for him.

By the time it's over, you're gasping for breath. Snot and tears run down your face. Your backside burns, a heat radiating off of your bare flesh even as everything goes still.

He grasps a fistful of your hair. Jerks your head backwards.

You gonna disobey me again?

You shake your head and cry.

You're so overwhelmed you don't process the further sounds that follow for a moment, don't think about what he's doing now. You shiver, your chest and shoulders heave with each gasp for breath, staring forward into the distance, too stupefied to notice him get on his knees behind you — you scream when he shoves himself inside in one harsh thrust.

It stings on your sore flesh as he fucks you, hips bouncing off your ass. Nearly all the fight you might have had has been already wiped out, but you still squirm, still whimper. He keeps a grip on your hands still bound behind you, using it as a handle to bounce you on his cock.

He mutters as he thrusts into you, speech slurred by motion and intensity of sensation, rambling mindlessly. You know. This is really nice. Your insides clench so hard on him. He loves the shape of your body. This is a nice way to relieve all the tensions from the day.

It gets lonely out here, you know? People are so hostile towards him, since all he's ever doing is robbing and killing people. He doesn't get warmth. He doesn't get the gentleness and softness a man is supposed to get from a woman. Men need that to stay sane, you know? They go crazy without something soft and warm and affectionate to take all their violence and rage and love them anyway. Something to keep them human.

That's why you're going to give him that, he tells you. He looks down at you when it's over, still buried inside you, tilting your head back to look him in the eye.

You're going to give him warmth. Even if he has to beat it out of you. You're going to give him love. You're going to be good.

You clearly didn't understand the first time. But you'll learn. You will be good for him.

It all becomes part of the routine very quickly, the second and third day. He leaves for a short time, returns with a new satchel or saddlebag or wallet in hand, filled with valuables to sort out.

Lots of fools running down these roads, he says, when you ask about it. He's not hesitant to elaborate on what he does — he seems to take quite a bit of pride in it even, a smug grin on his face as he elaborates, eyes fixated on the hard cash he's sorting in his hands. Rich idiots come barrelling down the road in their fancy stagecoaches, poor ones in their covered wagons. Even the ones who are armed usually aren't paying good attention, and a surprising portion don't bother to bring a gun at all. They put their hands up and hand over everything they have without much of a fight. They're all so stupid.

He turns to you and smirks.

But I think you're 'bout the dumbest one I ever did see, girl.

Your expression contorts in embarrassment and fury. You jerk your head to the side as your eyes water, grinding your teeth as he laughs at your reaction.

It's your own fault for being so endearing, he adds, after a few moments of pause. Most people at least have the courtesy to look up and give a friendly nod of acknowledgement when passing someone on the open road. If you'd done that, he might have been too lost in his own thoughts to do anything to you. It wouldn't have crossed his mind to do what he did.

But you, how you dipped your head down and kept your gaze to the ground, so meek and timid and so very obviously afraid — it was just too cute.

Seeing you like that, the realization that you were scared, wary of some big strong man you didn't know, well, it caught his attention. It made him think about why. Made him wonder exactly what you were afraid of him doing to you.

And that gave him the idea.

It was your fault, really. All you had to do was give a polite smile or something. But you chose to keep your head down and make him think about what you were scared of and got his mind running. Lured him and seduced him with the implicit promise of getting to see your fear.

The words are too much for you. You curl up, burying your face into your knees. He isn't cruel enough to keep taunting you further.

But you make no progress on escape, regardless. From the first incident onward, you learn quickly, to your dismay, that there's just never enough time to fully break out of your restraints in the gaps of time that he's gone. You try several more times, and you meet the same results with each attempt. You become too afraid of the punishment to dare attempting the act.

Eventually, after a few days, you can't stay out in the open anymore. He's out of food, the hunting here isn't good enough, and needs to pawn off the valuables he's collected. You'll have to venture into a town.

And that means you're going to be nice and quiet and compliant.

You don't want some poor soul to get their head blasted off because of you, do you? No? There's tears in your eyes as you shake your head. If you don't want that to happen, then you're going to be good.

In a way, compliance feels wrong. It's unnatural that you're just going along with it, letting him lift you up onto the saddle, sitting still. It would be so easy to fight back. Your hands aren't bound, you could take off and start running into the prairie. You could fight him.

But you know how futile such an attempt would be. You know it's not worth the pain that would follow. Thus you find yourself getting dressed (as you're finally allowed to), wrapping your arms around his torso from behind, clinging to his frame as you travel.

You'll have to go a bit of a journey to get to where you're going. He can't stop at towns where he's already known to authorities, he says.

For your sake.

You hesitate before you ask what he means. He shrugs.

What, you want to get shot at? He'll take risks when it's just himself, but it would be much harder to deal with enemies or law enforcement opening fire on him if he's got to watch out for the both of you. It's safer to travel a further distance, he's done combing this area anyway, and at this rate the law will be coming down the trails to hunt him any day now. He's protecting you.

There's a few moments of quiet. The horse's hooves are heavy on the dirt with each step.

I said, I'm protecting you. Little gratitude wouldn't hurt.

You stiffen. You don't mean it in slightest, but the thanks comes out of your mouth anyway, purely by fear of the implicit threat to his tone.

Most of the journey under the blazing sun goes by silently. You don't even realize how much you've missed civilization the last few days until you see signs of it. It's not the town you were headed towards before all of this, but it's nice to see other humans and a bustling public space.

At the same time, none of it feels right. There's something almost surreal about going around in public normally — you tie the horse to a public rack with the others, you let him hold your waist as you dismount, you begin walking wherever he's guiding you — with him. The two don't fit together. The sensation of normalcy from the town itself and the conscious awareness of the man's presence, of your own unwilling state and extreme predicament, the fact that no one around you knows what's happening to you, it makes it all feel unnatural, wrong.

He takes your hand in his, lacing your fingers together. You almost wish you could believe it was a gesture of affection, and not effectively a leash.

You pass by law enforcement on your path. A few sheriff's underlings leaning against a fence and chatting amongst themselves.

There's a squeeze on your hand. A silent warning, just in case you get any ideas. You pass them by without issue.

You watch him pawn off the various items in his possession to a shop owner who clearly knows not to ask questions. You get to sit down and eat at a saloon, have a meal that isn't stale canned goods or raw meat roasted over a campfire for the first time in a few days.

Everything else was so overwhelming, you didn't even really notice how hungry you've been. You scarf it down without regard for table manners — which isn't a big deal, seeing as it's very evident he has none himself. He even lets you choose what you get.

You order something a little expensive out of spite, but he seems to let it slide. He makes some awkward small talk about how the town has really taken off since the last time he robbed a place here.

And no one around you knows a thing. No one is aware you're not with him by choice.

Your eyes flicker over to the people around you, as if there might be some miracle that would allow you to ask for help without him knowing. But of course, no such thing comes.

And he's aware of your awkwardness, your desperation, your uncertainty of what to do. He knows you're looking for an opportunity. He knows you're debating in your mind if you should make some move. You can see it in his own eyes, fixated on you like a hawk. His voice lowers for a moment, amidst what was otherwise a casual tone.

Don't think I won't kill everyone in this place if you try some stupid shit.

You clench your jaw and nod.

No opportunity ever comes. You're taken back to the inn. He pays the front desk with your paycheck he took.

You get to feel your back on an actual bed again, but it's only with your thighs pressed up to your shoulders. It feels as if he thrusts even harder now, the soft surface providing easier fluid motions, hips rolling with each slam into your body. His fingers pinch at your nipples with careless roughness.

He runs his fingers over the top of his head, brushing back any hair from covering his vision. He smiles down at you with that same cruel grin you've come to hate.

You're not fighting back so hard anymore. You starting to like this?

You know it's the desired response. You know he likes it when you fight. But your fury gets the better of you anyway. You snarl and thrash and struggle.

There you go.

He says you clamp down more firmly when you're fighting. He says it makes you cum harder too. He says so many things that make tears pool in your eyes, that make you claw at his unyielding hand on your throat. You hate knowing you're reacting as he wants you to. You hate that it feels like there's nothing you can do in response that he won't enjoy.

You hate the unsubtle mockery in the way he tells you you were good afterwards, thanking you for making it so enjoyable. You really are adorable.

He forces you to take the side of the bed against the wall, ensuring you can't escape. He snuffs out the provided oil lamp on the bedside table. His massive arms keep your body caged to his.

He tells you he's glad he took you. You're shaping up to be a good little brood sow.

The routine begins to solidify from that day on. Everything begins to blur. You go from town to town in between stays in the open West, reaping the exploits of the crime that keeps you fed and grants you the occasional stay in the inns. You adjust to it all. You become numb to the knowledge that your life is now sustained by violence and wrongdoing against other people.

He starts to feel normal.

You don't jolt when you wake up to him by your side. The strong odor of tobacco and smoke no longer makes you feel nauseous. The taste of it on his mouth doesn't make you cringe the way it initially did. You still wrinkle your nose in disgust whenever he stuffs tobacco snuff into his lower lip or spits it out onto the ground, but you're growing less sensitive to it regardless.

You get used to the humiliation that comes with any physical intercourse you have together. For someone so intent on receiving your affections, he doesn't seem to make any effort to achieve it from you naturally, instead demanding that affection from you in spite of his rough treatment. It's always very sudden, harsh, forceful. It gets to a point where he can undo his belt, pull his cock out and shove it inside of you in a matter of seconds.

The degree to which it soothes him actually quite the discovery on his end. It's almost therapeutic to be able to take out any residual stress on your tight little holes, your soft skin and fragile body. It's one of those matters where he didn't even really notice just how much pent-up stress and tension he had until he had an outlet to take it out on, and had no idea how relieving it would feel. He's a much happier man than he was before.

Your struggling doesn't really affect that. If anything, it makes the whole thing more intense. He loves feeling you claw at the ground and try to pull yourself off from the pain of how deeply he's spearing you, he loves the exertion of tension in jerking back against that resistance, slamming you back onto him, hearing you squeal.

It's not as if you get to deny him warmth and kindness in the end anyway. Once it's over, you'll hold onto him and bury your face against his chest regardless.

You will. Or he'll hurt you. And then you will do it anyway. It's just a matter of how much resistance needs to be beaten and fucked out of you before you do what he wants. And you learn that quickly. Soon you act as he wants you to without having to be told.

You get used to his presence on a social level, the sorts of conversations you have. He's not particularly talkative, but when he does speak with you, it's rarely without unwarranted comments of amusement on your weakness or demeanor or lack of knowledge. He likes how you pout and sulk. It's cute.

But surprisingly, you find he doesn't ask you questions about your life before. It occurs to you one day that he's never asked you what you were doing, where you came from, what your life was like and what your plans were. You eventually bring it up one day as you cling to him from behind on the saddle — he only shrugs. It's better to just leave it alone and let you forget about it. Thinking about the past only makes you more resistant.

Not like it matters now, yeah?

Likewise, you end up asking him to tell you about his life — a subject that, instead of the same attitude of apathy given to the previous subject, earns a quiet stiffening of his shoulders. He spits the tobacco out of his mouth onto the dirt with a scowl.

Nothing worth telling.

There's a palpable bitterness lying just beneath the abrasive shift to his tone. You decide it's better to not push that any further.

You learn more about him than you'd like to know anyway.

You know he gets angry easily. The slightest disobedience is met with harsh punishment, and any semblance of getting an attitude, as he calls it, leaves you sleeping on your stomach for days. You learn to watch your mouth, refraining from any sarcastic or spiteful comments. Even when he's in a good mood, a single misspoken word of defiance or sourness on your end can flip him like a switch, eyes narrowing with a furious spit of tobacco onto the ground before asking you who the fuck you think you're talkin' to, grabbing you by the hair to pull you forward for whatever punishment you've earned.

Nor is that anger just directed at you. He gets irritated when talking about much of anything — the world, the state of society, other people, the law enforcement. He always thinks the pawn shops are undercutting him, while the stores are trying to gut him.

You know what he wants. He likes you being sweet. Not in a fake way, of course — any attempts at being a little too eager or nice earn you accusations of being manipulative, and some form of punishment on par with that otherwise reserved for defiance.

He likes some sort of middle ground, you come to understand. A sort of state where you don't pretend you asked for any of this or are happy about it, but you end up leaning into him anyway, driven by sheer human nature, the natural tendency to adjust to your circumstances and yearn for human contact.

The way you end up shuffling close to him at night while the fire crackles before you, leaning to rest against his side, only slightly flinching when his arm wraps around your shoulders. The way you end up washing his clothes and tending to the horse while he leans back in rest against a rock or stump, watching you with observant eyes, shrugging when you get a defensive tone and say you have nothing better to do, but you grind your teeth at the faint smirk on his face nonetheless.

The way you wake up with your arms and legs draped over his body, clinging to him in the cold of the night, and scramble backwards when he makes some sly comment about how you can't stay off of him.

Or the way you try to resist looking when you get the opportunity to finally bathe when you stay at the inns. Absent-mindedly, you find your eyes trailing down, grazing over the toned muscle and scarred flesh of his body, not realizing you're staring until he clicks his tongue to draw you out of your stupor. You feel hot shame twist in your gut when he grins at you and asks what you're looking at. You end up whimpering and whining, bent over the side of the tub, water sloshing over the sides with each harsh thrust.

The way you get some pleasure out of what he does to you, even if you won't admit it. He's not a gentle or attentive lover, he isn't going to bother himself with trying to do something specifically for your pleasure when he can just rut into you hard and fast instead and you'll quiver and squeal on his cock regardless. His hands latch onto your hips and he slams his cock into your body again and again, whenever he gets the urge, with no regard for how you might feel about it at the given moment.

He feels the fluids that drool out of your slit anyway, feels the way you shudder and clamp down, hears the involuntary moans that pour out of your throat. Those tells mean more than any words of denial that come out of your mouth, and he doesn't hesitate to bring it up to humiliate you, should you suggest you don't enjoy it. He sees the effect it has, the way you flinch and your eyes water with embarrassment and shame when you're reminded of your own body's reactions to him. That's enough to keep you quiet on that matter.

He likes those things. You hate that he likes it, you hate that you find yourself engaging in the behaviors he desires out of pure human nature and craving for social bonds. You mold yourself into the framework of a relationship he's set up, as water shifts to the shape of its container.

In the end, you do form something almost like normalcy, like a relationship. You have conversations about a wide variety of things. You learn his thoughts. He's quite stubbornly opinionated on just about everything, and despite his initial gruff demeanor, over time you start to sense he likes having someone to force to listen to those opinions.

You once, in a moment of frustration, have the nerve to ask him what is wrong with him — you expect immediate outrage, but for once you only get a slow sigh, smoke he inhaled from his pipe billowing out of his mouth as he grumbles back.

God knows, girl.

Over time, you summon the courage to begin to ask about the crime, too, during your slow horseback travels, having nothing better to do.

He shrugs, gives you irritated huffs. Why? Because it's easier than doing shit work for shit pay, that's why. You got a lot of nerve, whining about his choice of occupation when it puts food in your mouth all the same. If you're the sort of soft-hearted fool that feels bad about it, then stop asking about it and don't think about it. Easy.

You ask if he was ever in a gang. He sighs and gives you a frustrated yes. You ask why he left. He tells you he got mad at one of the other members and killed him and thus realized he's better off working solo. You ask him how many people he's ever killed. He says he has no idea. You ask him what his current bounty is with the federal authorities. He tells you he thinks you should talk less.

You grow used to it all, in a way, but you keep your mind strong. You talk to yourself in your head at night, desperately try to keep yourself from going crazy or otherwise accepting it all. Reminding yourself that you have a life to return to.

He knows better than to trust you, too. He doesn't let his guard down when you go into towns. More than once you thought you might be able to get away in the night, but once you slowly started to creep out of bed, you felt his arm shoot out, snatch you and drag you back, asking you where you think you're going. You always stammer out some excuse, but he doesn't buy it, and you end up with sore holes for the effort.

At one point, you manage to lose him, only for the briefest of moments in town. He's too busy haggling with a shopkeeper, you find yourself able to slip out the door unnoticed. You wander around for the police station, heart filled with a momentary burst of hope — but you don't even find it before a hand snatches you into an alleyway, dragging you back to the town edge with a hand over your mouth. You stay tied up and lose your 'going into town' privileges for some time.

Likewise, any conversation on what he intends to do long-term is met with no concern. You one day gather the courage to ask if he'll ever let you go.

You can't just keep me forever!

His eyebrows furrow, an expression of genuine confusion, taking a long drag of his pipe.

Don't see why not.

He never budges, never gives. It's a stubbornness you don't even know how to begin navigating, it's impenetrable. It leaves you dumbfounded and silent, unable to even come up with some kind of retort.

Occasionally, he takes you to meet with other people, people he seems to know, people whom you can tell with a single glance are of the exact same caliber of character as himself. None of them seem to have a smooth relationship with each other, a lot of conflict and tension highly evident in each interaction. It's always in shady venues, nearly-hidden rooms behind the public-facing sections of establishments, gatherings under the cover of night, generally for the exclusive purpose of gambling, drinking and the occasional return of debts.

He likes to hold you in his lap and show you off, even if he rejects requests to borrow you. He's very transparent about how he acquired you. He jokes about what I picked up off the side of the road. He holds your jaw and forces you to keep your head facing them so they can get a nice look at you.

The other men are no less unsavory characters than himself, they make comments that make you bite your lip and look down at the ground in rage, too afraid to lash back out. They only find your meekness that much more endearing. They make snarky comments about how if they win a card game they'll take you from him as a prize and bicker back and forth when it makes him get snappy and irritated with them in return.

Sometimes they get very, very angry with each other. It's a collective of bad men drinking, gambling, arguing, and other things that never end well. They accuse each other of something or another. They bring up the money one owes another. They pull guns on each other. You once watch one get shot straight through the head after a dispute — the others chastise the shooter with why'd you have to go and do that?, but then merely go right back to playing with his body growing cold in the corner. No one liked that guy much anyway.

You try to get through the nights. You close your eyes and pretend you're settled into a nice home in the towns, reading a book or the like. Anything but the reality you actually have to exist in.

One night, inevitably, the conflict involves him. You venture into a new town, meet with a similar crowd. Some guy you haven't seen come to these meetings before staggers up. He has a group of others with him. He accuses your captor of not paying back that money from that one time, to which your captor asserts he in fact did pay him back, their voices get louder and their posture gets more aggressive and you turn your head back and forth and then there's a hand in your hair, dragging you forward, hurling you onto the floor away from the man you now only want to cling to.

You squeal and shrink into yourself at the series of blasts that sounds off around the room, coming from more than one direction — but only one hits. The one that grabbed you hits the floor right beside you, motionless.

It goes quiet. There's a heavy tension you can feel without needing to see any faces.

Hands reach around you. Pull you up. Somehow, even without hearing a voice or seeing a face, the touch alone registers in your brain as one you recognize, one you, in the circumstances, latch onto rather than flee from. His arms hoist you into the air and you move with such sudden force everything in your vision is a blur.

You cling, holding on with every scrap of energy you can summon, muscles of your arms trembling from strain, fingers curling against his back as you make your way out the doors. You feel his torso shift to lift you up to the saddle. It's over now, but you're hoisted up to mount and flee nonetheless, a burst of speed that lasts until the town is only a distant set of lights, before finally slowing.

He doesn't speak much about the incident after that night. He hated them all anyway. Not the first time that guy tried to kill him either. Won't be going back there. At least he took care of him for good.

But it's nothing to dwell on. You'll forgive him for it. It's not like you have any other choice.

You pay for his mistakes and crimes often enough anyway. Sometimes you have to pack up fast when he returns from outings, having encountered the law or someone else who has reason to come after him.

You rarely get an explanation, only a harsh shove to wake you and telling you in a firm, urgent tone to get up and get moving. It's not like you have many belongings, so it's not too difficult of a task, but you still delay behind him, which he doesn't fail to point out.

You're a real inconvenience sometimes, you know that?

He tells you as if you're lucky he keeps you. You know better than to give him an attitude, but on those occasions, you often let your anger get the best of you and suffer for it anyway.

You encounter the occasional other adversary as well. A corrupt patrolman who tells him he recognizes him from his last stint in prison, asking him with a knowing smirk if he's aware of all his current outstanding crimes — but he's quickly deterred from further questioning with a grumble and a hefty wad of cash, at which point he sends you on your way, letting you go through town without hassle. Sometimes you're stopped by a rival criminal, sometimes a bounty hunter.

Normally, the incidents pass with a quick bribe or a bullet to the head, the latter of which you get to witness plenty of as well. He's got excellent aim, you'll give him that much.

But one day, you linger too long in the same area. He goes too far and gets too reckless with his actions, makes it too easy to track him back to your campsite as the two of you sleep.

There's a commotion. You hear hooves drumming on the ground. You startle awake, bolting upright. You feel him do so right beside you. His hand latches onto your hair, holding you in place.

You're surrounded. Men mounted on tall horses, clad in identical, navy blue uniforms. Several already have their handguns drawn and ready. They form a half-circle around the two of you.

They ask if he is— they say a name, the same first name he told you, and a surname you've never heard. You realize he never gave you one.

You see his face turn to a scowl. They seem to take that as affirmation enough.

They say he's wanted. They read a list of charges — robbery, murder, assault, and a variety of other violent crimes. They look at you. The hand he already has holding you in place and the distress on your face is enough to clue them in that you're not a willing participant in your current situation either. You can see that fact register on their own expressions, that they understand you to be a victim in immediate danger, and that this arrest just got more risky. One of them tells him to make this easy and let the woman go.

You squeal. Your entire body is jerked with force. There's a familiar coldness against your temple within an instant, the very same from the day he took you, metallic chill of the barrel pressed firm to your head. Your body covers his, putting you between him and the officers, leaving the latter immobilized.

Their voices grow firmer. They tell him to drop you. They point their own guns, but every present individual recognizes the threat as empty, knows they're not going to open fire and undoubtedly get you killed.

He walks backwards towards the horse, dragging you with him in your stumbling steps and gasps for breath. There's a voice in your ear as he reaches your steed, holds you awkwardly by the waist as he begins to maneuver up.

Calm down. 's gonna be fine.

As if somewhere in his heart, the man with a gun to your head has some trace of empathy for your panic. Or maybe he's just trying to get you to comply more easily. You don't bother to try to determine which it is.

The moment of takeoff is explosive. He has to finally release the threat against you and turn his torso away from them to gallop off — albeit sort of turned to the side, one arm still reaching behind him, but it provides an opening nonetheless.

Bullets fly through the air, whizzing past your face. They wouldn't be so cruel as to get you killed outright, as they thought any actions moments prior might have, but now they're not hesitant to take a now much smaller risk of hitting you to hit him.

Likewise, his arm not holding the reins now turns and reaches over your shoulder, blasting in their direction with what can only be the precise, deadly aim of a lifetime of experience. You see one of the officers suddenly slump over and collapse off his mount, then another, both collapsing into the dirt.

The horse himself senses the tension, spurred on by the blasts. It's the fastest you've ever felt him run. You cling to your captor's shirt for stability as the terrain grows more dire, weaving your way onto the mountainside. He's leading them onto a difficult landscape on purpose, you're certain, but a fall here would send you plummeting off the mountainside just as much.

You realize with panic and despair that there's no other option you have here but to squeeze your eyes shut and pray. You crouch down to the best of your ability, inadvertently giving the officers a better shot at his back.

You feel him turn back forward. He reloads the revolver with perfect precision, despite the one-handed limitation and bumpy, rapid movements as the horse heaves uphill, jumping over a large rock. He reaches back and fires again. Blasts reverberate across the empty mountain.

You feel him stiffen. There's a gutteral sound from him, pain through clenched teeth. Opening your eyes, you can see two blotches of red bursting against the pale fabric of his shirt, oozing from his right shoulder blade.

But he reaches back with one arm again with no hesitancy. The movement causes more blood to seep from the holes.

BANG!

There's hesitation. Taking a moment to perfect the shot. There's a final—

—and then there's quiet. The last remaining horse trailing behind you whines, seemingly noticing the sudden absence of its rider, and its gait audibly slows. Only the sound of your own horse's gallop remains, hooves pounding the rock with each stride.

You slow down. You feel his body begin to go limp, right as you reach the very summit of the climb.

And as it comes to a halt, he no longer has the strength for proper dismount, attempting to do so, but crumbling onto the ground the second his feet hit.

You feel panic at first. An instinct, more of an impulsive reaction to the situation than conscious thought. You follow, dismounting on the other side and quickly circling behind the animal.

It's not until you see the revolver now laying on the ground beside him that you begin to think. Still not exactly conscious thought, nothing rational or reasonable, not taking into account consequences or the actual significance of what you're doing.

Just raw emotion. The stress and fear and degradation he's made you feel, festering and growing and finally expulsing itself from your gut.

You move without thinking. You're not sure what comes over you. The action happens on its own, as if possessed, some impulse from the darkest corners of your brain, bursting out and overtaking your body.

You lean down, and your hand lashes out. Grabs. Pulls. Points. You stagger back out of his reach before he can even react.

And for a moment, as he turns to face you, his eyes, even in his exhaustion, are wide with a moment of startle.

They fixate on you. Standing there, fear etched across your expression, trembling at you aim in his direction. Then those eyes grow cold. There's neither panic nor anger in his voice.

Do it then.

You flinch at the gruff sound of his voice.

You hold still, trembling, but otherwise unmoving as he glares.

You want out so bad? Shoot.

Your lower lip trembles. Your eyes water. Your hand shakes so profusely the gun makes a rattling sound. The skin around his eyes has wrinkled from years of exposure to the sun, scrunching up at his eyes narrow further.

Make sure you kill me. If you don't, I'm gonna get you again. I'll find you. You can't run from me.

There's a coldness in his eyes. No matter how much warmth you give him, no matter how much you obey and how much your heart opens up, that coldness never really goes away, always lurking just beneath the surface.

The only way you'll get away from me is if you put me in the ground, girl. Come on. Do it.

You bite your lip. Your eyes water so intensely it blurs your vision. For a moment, there's nothing but silence, your expressions illuminated by the faint light of sun rising in the dawn.

The weapon hits the ground with a thud. Your body follows, crashing down to your knees, mind overwhelmed and legs trembling too much to hold you up any further. Your shoulders wrack with sobs.

There's a long quiet.

He mumbles something about how you're so weak, as he stumbles over to pick up his gun. Guess you understand that's why he's the one that does the dirty work and you're the one that obeys.

You still have tears streaming down your face as you watch him pull his shirt up over his head. They got him good, two bullets straight into his shoulder blade.

Even in the most vulnerable of moments, the subtle threat of every command is still there. Go to the saddle bag. Get the small medical bag on the right side out. Help him fix himself up, you hear?

If you're not gonna do this goddamn world a favor 'n finish their job for them, you're gonna help.

He says it in that same gruff, blunt tone as always, as if your actions mere moments ago were merely another small act of defiance.

You sniffle as you work. He curses and hisses when you pull the metal shreds out of his flesh with a pair of tweezers. Hurts more than the shot itself. He'll take the frustration out on your holes later anyway.

Once it's done and wrapped up, he reaches back to place his hat atop his head again. The way it sits always leaves a shadow over his expression, frames his face in a way that only seems to accentuate the hardened, dark aura he always seems to exude with every breath. But you suppose that just makes it more fitting. You don't fight him when he pulls you back to the saddle.

That's over, then. You made your choice. You'll move on to the next town. New victims. New places to see. Eventually, who knows? Maybe you'll get something more permanent, if he lands enough money. He's not going to dwell on what you did. He's too used to having guns pointed at him to care too much.

After all, there's a future to be carved in this grand, lawless place. And you've just chosen yours.

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