#forgedwest

     She’d been on the hunt for a while, getting little sleep in fear of losing track of her target. The snap of a twig caused her to freeze, eyes searching the darkening forest until she spotted movement, too tall to be a deer, and too small to be a bear. She was aware a bandit had managed to escape and there was a suspicion the stranger was that one. Lack of sleep clouded her better judgment and instead of calling out she pulled one of her revolvers and fired a shot, hitting the tree next to the stranger.

     Sunlight was quickly fading and soon it’d be hard to see exactly where they were thanks to the thick trees and heavy brush. She wasn’t about to take any risks.

The guards changing shifts told the passage of time, it was the same man every week at this time.

But today, instead of going to his post, he stopped at the door of his cell as another two sets of footsteps followed after. The door was opened and a blond man was escorted in. He stared dumbfounded as the clink of restraints removed and the door locking behind bounced as an echo off the walls. The Chelsea smile still raw from new scar tissue on the right side of his face, reminded him of a time he still had more fight left in him. Talking to other inmates was not allowed.

The cells had only room for one.

                           𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐱𝐞𝐝. Her exhale and inhale in a rhythmic motion, she appeared calm and collected, but on the inside -- the journalist was freaking out. Her skin was warm under her clothing and her shoes dug into the ground. She never thought she would face this situation. She never thought she would have to use her knife ever, but here she was, the blade inches away from the man’s neck.

                           She hired a supposed hired gun, someone that could protect her and knew the land better than she did. It was a week since he joined and now, in the dead of morning, she stumbled upon him going through her saddlebag. Slowly, his hand was raised out of the leather, turning around and in a surrendering position. He looked like a frightened deer, eyes wide and his eyes glanced down at her. 

                           She was silent, making her point awfully clear. He wasn’t going to be worth any of the money in her pockets if she was able to get out of this situation alive.

“-----YOU’VE GOTTA BE KIDDIN’ ME.” Every time. As soon as her boots hit parched Earth, Echo damn well knows she lost. That’s Samuel’s horse, and if that damn horse is sitting pretty in front of the sheriff’s building, that only means one thing: he’s taking the job she was hoping to snag. She’d like to think it’s not her fault, that some otherworldly god has forsaken whatever smug may follow, but she should have gotten here first. 

         The air is silent save for the nicker and stomp of a few restless horses, and Dolores immediately begins to straighten the reigns over one side and then the other as the stranger’s path seemed to move onward, and toward their destination. “It’s time,” She says, her head turns briefly with the meet of Angela’s eye before she clicks her tongue with the move of her heel into her horse’s side. Was no sooner did she turn away did Angela, s did the rest of the men who lingered at their backs. Her loyalists that had proven themselves to her cause time and time again, with faces hidden away within horned masks and voices beneath the deep bellow of horns at the belts.

          And so they rode down toward the overturned wagon just inward of their canyon, to where Dolores removed the belt of cartridges from her shoulder. And proceeds to unbuckle the belt around her hip once she slips out of her saddle, turning to bind it all to her saddle before handing the reigns off to Angela. Dolores turn to the rest of them with a single address:

         “You know what to do.” Her tone comes low, before they all turn their horses away and disappear into the little valley between stone. Dolores turns and picks up sand and begins to rub it into her palm as steps take her behind the wagon. Rubbing it along her skin, into her skirt, and takes a knee before she inhales.And the wait isn’t long before she hears the sound of distant trotting. Then Dolores’s brow lifts with quick suck of air and the reflection of distress across her features. “Oh, please!” She calls out, standing up with the grasp onto the wheel to see their upcoming target. She feigns caution with the slight lean over to see, and then eagerness when she steps around and allows her boot to catch on the wheel. A timed fall with the short sob curling at her features, Dolores pushes herself up to her feet and stumbles forward with the wave of her hands to bring him to a stop.

        “Please! Stop! Stop! I beg you! We were attacked-.. n my daddy..I-I-” Her voice softens and there’s the broken gesture to the wagon behind her, and the lift of her hands to cover her mouth. “I don’t know where they are-. I ran... n - now...” She shakes her head, eyes widen in a show of terror, with the burn of tears at her eyes. Good, the sand had gotten into her eyesight and now it helped the tears streaming down her cheeks. “You gotta run mister- please take me away from these devils!”

It’s a cold night, even colder camped out on a mountain ridge, but the views alone as worth the drop in temperature. Out here the silvery moon is so big Samuel swears he could almost reach out and touch it and the uninterrupted views of the starry sky are so wildly bright and expansive that the bounty hunter has been dazzled into silence on more than one occasion. The chill in the air might be biting, but it’s all the more reason to shift closer to the fire and in turn, closer to August.

Flicking what is left of his rolled cigarette into the fire, Samuel’s hand comes to rest down by Gus’ and the cowboy can’t help but smile as he feels the blacksmith’s hand, rough and large as a bear’s paw, slip into his own, their fingers slowly entwining in a tight embrace, one which is both affectionate and reassuring. The touch alone is enough to finally prompt Samuel to say the words that have been on his mind all evening. Although, in truth, he still can’t look at Gus as he speaks them and so he sets his gaze on the slowly dying fire.

“Sometimes…out on the trail, on cold nights like this, when I ain’t been back in Sweetwater for weeks…I miss you…” The bounty hunter swallows hard, unused to appearing so vulnerable in front of another and yet the words keep coming, pushing their way out of him, desperate to be heard.

“I miss you so damn much sometimes I can barely stand it and sometimes…sometimes it ain’t even been weeks, it’s been days August, even just hours…”

Turning towards the Blacksmith, it’s clear Samuel’s cheeks are scarlet red and not from the heat of the campfire. Feeling their heated flush, he buries his head in Gus’ chest, nuzzling into his large solid form, finding immediate warmth and comfort there. Is this what it feels like to love someone? To have them constantly on your mind, to want them constantly by your side? To ache to be touched whenever they’re around? How does someone survive it?

I miss you.

As the bounty hunter hides his blushing face into the blacksmith’s broad frame, Wilder finds himself tongue-tied. He so often expects his gentle touches to lead to rejection. Or rather, a reassurance that his worries are well-founded, that Samuel indeed does not think of their bond anything beyond a profoundly deep friendship. He’s always kept a back-up plan in mind, a way to play it off as a joke. To laugh and move on. To settle comfortably into his lonesome fate and spend every day henceforth protecting and loving someone who could not, should not love him back. 

But having his gesture prompt a confession? Hearing his own thoughts echoed in Samuel’s voice? This is a scenario he never prepared for, simply because he never deemed it possible.

     “ I... ”

The greater part of him still isn’t convinced that he hasn’t simply misheard Sam, isn’t convinced that this isn’t a dream. All that keeps him grounded in reality is the weight of his companion’s body against his own. The way Samuel nuzzles into the center valley of his chest. The recognition that the heat of the bounty hunter’s flushed skin is the undoubtedly the most soothing warmth that the blacksmith has ever known. And was it not for the apprehension in the quivers of Samuel’s body that makes it so very clear he’s hanging on the edge of the blacksmith’s every breath, Gus just might have remained stunned into silence for the rest of his  days --- a silence of equal parts JOY and DISBELIEF.

Ever so slowly, ever so carefully, August wraps both of his enormous scarred-and-painted arms around the other, pulling Samuel even further into the consoling confines of his massive physique. He presses his lips into the bounty hunter’s mussed ginger mop, and bares his soul in a whisper so quiet that not even the heavens above can overhear.

@forgedwest​ ;; x

Eleanore grunted in response, pulling the blanket closer to her person. “That hardly seems fair. You need SOME sleep, too, don’t you?” It was a purely rhetorical question; Eleanore found it...UNCOMFORTABLE to treat hosts any different than another human being. The uncanny valley was nigh non-existent in Westworld (to her, at least. She could not speak for the other guests who derived sick pleasure from murdering, TORTURING the hosts, simply because they weren’t human). As fascinated as she was at this technology (that boldfaced-ly laughed in the face of the Turing test), she didn’t see why she should treat the hosts any different. It DISTURBED her to see the way some of these “true” humans behaved.