Rated M for attempted rape, time travel AU, swears, smut
08/2023, author's note: It's come to my attention that there is a most unfortunate, and frankly disgusting, review that's made it's way past whatever fanfiction security may still exist, promoting and condoning racism and slavery. Please know that I have reported this user and this review to the fanfiction authorities. Hopefully it will be removed and dealt with accordingly. I in no way whatsoever condone slavery or the practice of racism.
Arizona wilderness courses by in a blur of gold and blue, the line where the horizon meets the sky nothing but a wash of shimmering heat and speed. Hell has come to this desert it's so hot, the devil himself a stone's throw of a few yards behind you.
Dry, sinful heat licks at your face. Stings your eyes as the animal beneath you shoots through the sand like time itself is running out, the horizon beyond the only salvation. The bones in your chest rattle every time hooves thunder against the ground, and you hit the saddle hard every heartbeat or so, th-thunk th-thunk, th-thunk.
Feels like you've been flying forever, outrunning the shadow of Tombstone that lurks behind you like a vision of death and despair. It's maybe only been a few handful of minutes, but time is an illusion. Survival has spiked your blood with adrenaline, though the chill across your skin rattles your teeth, a wash of goosebumps the only evidence that you are, in fact, more alive than you feel.
Reins in your hand are slick. Either with the sweat of your palms, or the well-oiled love of attention, you're not sure which. And your legs burn as if they've been simmering in venom. Muscles could, at any given moment, detach from your legs and hit the dust beneath Viper's ground-movinghooves.
The first shot explodes from a pistol, filling daylight between you and the Cowboys. Zips past you to what you assume is your left, but you wouldn't know regardless. It rips a shriek of panic from the back of your throat that could cut glass—they are shooting at you.
Moments before, in the sands beyond this wilderness they'd been coming onto you—and now they were drawing iron. Unbelievable.
Terror spikes up into the back of your neck like a tomcat, claws bared against your flesh.
You duck forward in the saddle, hoping it's enough to make a smaller target. It's difficult, being low over the horn that's cutting up into your ribs every time Viper's hooves find the earth. Your core is on fire with the effort to stay balanced. Stay in the saddle. White-knuckling the reins like they are a lifeline, you can feel Viper's tense mouth—it ripples through the animal like water.
What you wouldn't give for a cell phone right now, any sign of life in this wilderness. But reality digs between your ribs like a starving wolf—you remember where you are. How'd you arrived here, two weeks ago, like something from Dickensor Verne or a Disney epic.
It still didn't make sense, but nothing had since being thrown back in time nearly hundred and fifty years. Tended to throw a wrench in things, even though wrenches hadn't been invented yet.
Unappreciative of the added pressure in your hands, Viper snorts roughly; you feel it in the depths of his chest. Out of habit your hands relax, instead mix with the flow of his thick, sweat-slick mane for stability, the leathers now rubbing searing blisters in the webbing of your thumbs. Every ounce of upper body strength funnels into gripping the stallion's thick locks, your shoulders burn with the hot buzz of muscular effort.
You haven't ever ridden this hard, Viper has never carried you this hard.
Viper isn't conditioned for this. Arizona heat coupled with your body mass is not promising for the horse. He isn't a horse of 1881 western America—he is a horse of the modern world. Grains and air conditioned trailers, not trail broke and tack-fed is the life Viper knows.
His breed shouldn't be anywhere near the desert, something Wyatt had so aptlynoticed when you'd stumbled into town after two days of barely surviving the shrub and desolace of the Arizona wilds.
Another cruel joke in the twisted deck fate has dealt you.
Getting home is the goal, getting out of Arizona is the reality. But there's nothing to bet on, no bluffs to call. No moves to make. This is a game of another kind, entirely.
Nobody in the history of the known universe has seen what you've seen, felt the jolt of time passing through your blood. You, and Viper, are the only known bodies in the universe that have even been wretched through the wormhole. And you hope you'll be last—you wouldn't wish this on any one.
Another shot pops off behind you, this time hitting the dirt to your right. Closer, too close and Viper knows it—he locks up, skidding to a stop through the thick, searing sands of the wilderness to throw back in a hard rear. You hear the party behind you, hooves of their animals barraging the earth like a volley of gunfire, their hoops and hollers ringing hollow off your ribs.
"Th'r she is, boys—get up there and get 'er off that sonuvabitch!" You don't have to see him to know who it is.
Curly will haunt your dreams for the rest of your living days, if there are any after today. Ringo alongside him. Together their cold fingers spin through your fear, like bloodthirsty dogs lapping at whatever show of terror you'll throw their way. Wolves that lay at the door, haunting Arizona lines.
And it isn't just you—everyone respects the presence of the Cowboys. Well, rather everyone fears them. They're unpredictable, like snakes. Jumping any which way they please, nearly without warning.
They'd killed Frank, the sweet sheriff who'd opened his home to you. Word had it that one of them had offed Fabian, too. The beautiful actor who'd blown in with the winds of change that sweet soul Josephine Marcus had ushered in. They'd enraptured the entire living populace of Tombstone in their short time—they'd listened to you. In ways that only people of interest and compassion would.
The red sash has been a thorn in your side since arriving in Tombstone—more interested in Viper, having never seen anything like him before. Less interested in you, until.
Well, that was it. Until.
Until he had made a show of you in front of the entire casino. An object, a trinket of fanciful display—Holliday's sweet little nothingthat made his eyes blaze and your face light up like the fourth of damn July.
They'd seen. Ringo had seen, Curly had seen—the entire damn Cowboy posse had seen. And, like all men of this century, they lusted over what wasn't theirs. One weak moment beneath Doc Holliday's enchantment and you'd shown your entire hand, cards down and heart ripped wide open for anyone and everyone to study. Then it tasted sweet, like wine. Ended up a sour poison.
Poison currently rotting a hole through your gut.
Front legs cutting through the air as he launches back, Viper releases a shrill, blood-chilling cry that shakes his entire frame. You feel it into the fiber of every muscle as you white knuckle the horn, legs locked around his barrel in an effort to keep yourself up. Eyes pinched closed, every one of their horse's hooves hitting the earth race up your spine, rattle off at the base of your neck as they get closer.
Sour bile jumps up the back of your throat as Viper starts beneath you, ripped with nervous energy and on the hair trigger of flight. God he's never been this skittish. Unpredictable. He rears again, and when his front legs find the earth, you kick at his sides. Attempt to launch him forward again.
"C'mon, Vipe–we gotta move!" His head pulls down sharply. Down, back—stubborn thing, he won't move. His protest is stronger than your will, he's got nearly two thousand pounds on you, and he plants his hooves. Stumbles back into shrubbery that makes him huff. "No, no no we can't do this right now—Viper!" The words are bitter, panicked on your tongue. Nearly cracking.
He's beyond argument. And for good reason—attempting to circle him, he paws at the ground. One check down his side and he's complete foam, like someone has lathered fine suds over his chocolate coat. Feathered hair about his shine, nearly gleaming like he's crossed the swift waters of the Colorado. Sweat ravines down his sides, carved muscle of his physique, like rivers. Fat drops rain to the earth around him, he's hot. Lathered.
There's nowhere to go, no way you can get him to move. He is trembling with exhaustion as he gnaws at the bit rolling about his mouth, and you really can't tell where the animal's fear ends and yours begins as you watch the dry cloud of dust roll in with the approaching horses.
Eyes burning with the granules of dust, your hand slides down and back, to your saddlebags—but there are none.
Virgil had warned you, but you'd been stupid. So, so so dumb.
Crescenting around you in a half moon, their animals fall into order, stepping forward to press a tight circle around Viper as your attention whips between them all, trying to keep track of the sun-leathered faces, dark eyes all bearing down like hawks.
Curly is the first to break the line, spurring his animal into a crisp trot up to you. Angling, his leg brushes yours as he comes up beside your animal, smirk twisting his sweat-slick, dripping mustache.
"Well look what we have here," he chuckles, head bobbing with the loose effort of effervescent arrogance he's displayed since the moment you'd been so graced with his presence, "seems that stud finally caught up with you, darlin'—figg'rd you couldn't keep a handle on 'im, cock an' all. Mighty big horse for a pretty thing like yourself."
His hands fall over one other on the horn of his saddle as he sits deep and low, brows lifted knowingly. "Will give it to ya, though—made it a ways out here. I'm more impressed than I thought to be, pretty."
"Surprised you managed a thought at all, Curly," you bite back, pulling back a little roughly on Viper's mouth. Your glower is firmly planted at the man's smirk, as if it will viscerally rip it right off his face, "Seems it didn't last long though. What was your fine plan there, cowboy? Thought you wanted my horse—he isn't much good shot dead in the middle of the damn desert."
Low calls and cackles around the circle snap Curly's attention back to Johnny Ringo, who's tongue skips through the seam of his mouth to skate his bottom lip. His gaze diverts down to the dust, tempest of dark eyes lost beneath the brim of his hat.
Curly quells the murmurings of the group with a hellish glare.
Without warning whatsoever, his rough hand reaches across the space between his animal and yours, for the reins. You snap back and away, Viper sidestepping. Unbalanced for a brief moment, Bill catches himself in the saddle, his hard glare hitting you between the eyes with the force of a locomotive.
Not rattled for long, he gathers up his own animal at rein, comes about sharply, and before you know it the back of his hand cracks across your cheek.
The smack of skin on skin is sharp. Echoes through the blood in your ears, white hot pain zinging through your face as your hand comes to cover the sure mark he's left across skin. It stings triumphantly, your distraction enough for him to rip Viper's reins from your hand.
You watch the animal attempt to look back at you, then Curly—he's confused by the transfer of power.
Curly's strength and bitterness in his mouth is unfamiliar. Different.
Pulling sharply, he brings Viper under collection. Only after a few heartbeats can you hear the group of them chuckling at you, ribbing and elbowing each other knowingly.
With a sharp pull, Viper is spurred into a brisk walk as he guides up beside Ringo, you little more than a bobbing trinket in the saddle, hands on thighs and probably looking as whipped, and raw, as you feel.
"Let's get movin'," Curly barks to the group, face pointed southwest, not even bothering to register his group of followers, "We'll camp southwest'a here—move on tomorrow."
"Aint' we gonna make tracks?" That's Ike, though you can't see him. His grating whine is enough to shatter the rest of your confidence as you all but feel his gaze slide down your form. "Earp and his boys'll come lookin' for her, Curly Bill, and I reckon—"
"You reckon shit all, Ike," Bill snaps over his shoulder, "If Holliday wants his pretty thing back, well the sonuvabitch can come get her." Shifting in his saddle, dark eyes glint over you. Smirk twisted in a coy, wolfish way, "Or he can try. His sorry lunger ass couldn't make it halfway out of town before needin' a got'damn siesta."
The mention of Holliday makes your chest fly with living color for all of lightspeed before the sensation crashes to your knees, Curly's brows wagging lasciviously.
Chin lifting as you rub at the mark on your face, your gaze is sharp enough to cut the pistol at his side.
"Doc is more of a man than any of you idiots put together," you hiss at him, eyes narrowing against the sun threatening to blind you over his shoulder, "And you will rue the day you cross pistols with Holliday, Wyatt, or any of them boys. History remembers them as great men—you, well. Any of you morons—not so damn much."
Ringo snorts beside you, shaking his head as he adjusts whatever is rolling around his craw with the tip of his tongue, "That's right," he draws the consonant in that dark way of his, brow crooking up knowingly, "little miss time travel'rs got it all figured out, boys. Hear that? Nobody remembers us in the future." He cuts his horse between Curly's and Viper, and without any warning whatsoever, his thick hand lashes out to grab you fully by the jaw.
"Ain't that right, desert flower? Nobody remembers us, huh. Well—books and shit may not 'member me all that well, but let me just tell you, bitch—by the time I'm finished with ya, you won't know a word other than John Ringo."
His slow smile claws at your soul, cold as it rips the air out of your chest with all the force of dark, testing eyes behind it, "Sweetest name I reckon I ever heard, comin' out the mouth of a sorceress whore like you."
Fuming, you seethe at him and rip his hand off your jaw, pulling back sharply. Cackling catcalls and low whistles bristle down your spine as the group spurs their animals into a trot, the air shaken with the movement of horse flesh and muscle. Gaze shadowed by the brim of his hat, your jaw is nearly breaking as you set it firm, unwilling to draw his attention.
You bob to a stop suddenly as he pulls up. His horse fidgets, his arm brushes against yours harder than you appreciate, the contact like an inferno on your skin.
Flinching, you consider your bare arm—it's already pink, sure to be flaming tomorrow with a sunburn. In your fluster you hadn't even bothered with any of the clothes Wyatt had passed to you—you'd just gone. Little more than a t-shirt and jeans, boots to carry you through the desert. How far you'd get without protection hadn't even been a thought in the empty canoe of your brain.
Getting out of Dodge had been the only thought, Viper the answer to actually make it happen.
Touching your fingers to it, the white of pressure vanishes immediately and your eyes flutter closed at the sharp zip of pain that flares across your skin. Biting the inside of your cheek, your hand rubs over the sensation. And Ringo does notice, his eyes moving to your bare arm, canting to consider your choice of modern clothing—clothing he's likely to have never seen.
None of them have—you'd all but dropped jaws when you'd staggered into town, Viper at reign, two weeks ago. Nobody could make heads or tales. Twenty-twenties fashion is a far cry from the elaborate gowns of yesteryear.
You notice his eyes fall to the cut of your hip, which is more than filled out in your favorite jeans. They do make you look sinful, that was the point of buying them. At least, in your world.
Now they were little more than an unwanted neon sign that called to attention the fact of your sex, your desirability. There's one woman for every dozen men in the West, you remember hearing. And that's never been more apparent than in the hollow, cold look of John Ringo's face.
Shifting in the saddle, you can't miss the rub of his fingers over his cock.
Before you know what's happening, Ringo is bent over in his saddle, rummaging through a saddle bag. Seconds, maybe, and he's flung a threadbare ball of something at you—it brushes your arm, falls into the cradle of your legs. Not daring to touch it, your gaze drops to it.
"Unless you wanna die'a heatstroke," he gestures up to the sun with a nod, "no good to anybody if you're suncooked." Snapping Viper back into compliance, his gaze pulls ahead.
Your abs are on fire the entirety of the ride southeast, low back burning as your legs buzz with hot ache from trying to keep yourself in seat.
The afternoon has been no less than torture—between the heat, the merciless ride, and the unforgiving gazes of the posse all but eye-fucking you in the saddle, you're more than raw by the time Curly calls for dismount out in the middle of hell-all nowhere.
As if you haven't been riding for hours, nearly starving and on a brutal pace, Curly and Ringo dismount to the ground on strong, unphased legs. Immediately setting to drop tack.
Hands numb from white-knuckling the Circle Y's horn, you carefully release your grip. Fingers burning as you flex life back into them, Ringo drops the rein of his animal before gathering Viper's into a short lead. The Clydesdale still hasn't settled, foam all but cooked onto his flesh as Ringo's hand smooths down his neck, whispering softly up into the animal's ear.
With a snap of the reins, Viper's head jerks up at alert, Ringo's hot eyes cutting up to you all too quickly.
"Off," he barks, jerking his head in a poignant way that indicates compliance. For a bleeding second you hesitate, uncertain if you can dismount without crumbling into the dirt on the gelatinous, goo-ish noodles your legs have become. But he doesn't give you a choice—"I said off!" His voice rips through the hollow of your gut as he grabs at your shirt, sharply tugging you out of the saddle.
You have no time to collect or swing off before he's ripped you out of seat—your frame sinks off all 17 hands of Viper's form, through the air, for all of a few seconds. Ground comes up hard, fast.
Head cracking against the dry earth, the air knocks out of you with a sharp whistle as your left side takes all of the weight of gravity—cheek roughly kissing the dirt, sand all but leaps up into your scalp as you slack into the ground. Ringo is amused, shaking his head at you as he clucks coquettishly.
Moaning, pain rings up through your arm and collarbone, slices from your hip to your ankle like a hypodermic needle through bone. Viper startles, huffing out a strong breath as he considers you, his trusted friend, in the dirt. Lifting your head to consider him, Ringo works at the latigo of your tack. Has Viper unsaddled and your thousand-plus dollar gear hitting the dirt in record time.
Before you manage to push yourself up on an elbow, thick fingers wrap through your hair and pull sharply, igniting your entire head with fresh, shooting ache that makes you shriek. White hot pain cocktails with the fear in the pit of your gut, which threatens to send up through your throat.
Clawing up at the hands tangled in your hair, spittle flies from your chapped lips as you attempt to writhe away from the effort hauling your ass through the said, "Let go of me, you disgusting cocksucker—let go of me!" Like a pig he is snorting at every attempt your body makes to snap out of his holds.
"Cocksucker? Ha! Hear that, boys? That's'a new one—oooheee, ain't that just sound like somethin'?" He goads you, creeping fingers cutting into the curve of your sides, attempting to brush beneath your ribcage greedily, "Head's up—Billy! Get yer ass over her and grab her legs, fore she kicks the will out of the devil!"
Nails gouging at the hand buried in your hair, you realize it's Ike that's issuing orders, his comrade's head snapping up to consider his proposition from his own animal. He drops you roughly into the dirt, your head kicking back into the crags of desert soil as Ike stares down at you, hands slung over his belt.
He licks at the spit across his chapped lips, heavy eyes dragging over you like frostbite slowly eating away at your flesh. Even fully clothed, he looks at you like you're naked as the day you were born. Cold fingers of realization claw at the back of your head, attempt to throttle you as you can't draw enough air into your chest beneath his gaze. Rung tight with adrenaline, fear chases through your blood, bringing new life and strength to exhausted muscle that's flaming through every inch of you.
He drops into a crouch, nails scratching through the unshaven, slick stubble across his jaw. Crooked, infectious teeth appear through a thin, steely smile that's meant to take you apart. It does, in all the wrong ways, and you work yourself up to crawl backwards, away from him. Any and all daylight between you and Ike will never be enough, and his eyes flick to your tits, which rise and fall with the effort of shallow, shaking breaths.
Every one of his movements are sharp and defined, like living color as Billy comes up beside him, hands lazily slung over his own belt as he stares down at you from beneath the brim of his own hat. Both of their intentions may as well be written as bright as Vegas neon across their faces, though Billy does a better job of containing himself. You swallow a thin breath when Ike palms over his cock, the quiet squeak that pops from the back of your mouth amusing them both to the point of chuckling.
Standing slowly, Ike swipes that hat off his head, passing it to Billy easily, brows lifted in the air as he considers you down in the dirt. "Think it's some kind of bad luck to fuck a sorc'ress, Clanton?" His eyes drag over to the other man, who's head cants to the side as he considers you on the ground.
He thinks about it for a minute, your eyes moving between the two of them. The rustle of leather and the clink of a buckle snap your gaze back to Ike, who's already got his gunbelt, and chaps, well past still on. He wets his lips as you hustle back a few inches, fingers biting into the ground.
"You even think of touching me, and so help me God—"
"Shut yer fucking mouth!" Ike scrambles over you, stoops low, his stained fingers savagely taking you by the chin and squeezing hotly around the bone of your jaw, "You say one damn word other'n what I tell ya and I'll cut that damn tongue right out yer damn mouth and shove it up your ass, fuckin' whore."
He releases you roughly before swinging from over you, ripping the hem of his shirt up and out from where it's been tucked into his pants. Cutting Billy a look, the other man's face is riddled with amused surprise, before he shrugs. Ike swings his belt off, moving to drop it beside his hat.
"Reckon it works the same way, sorc'ress or not," Billy saunters up beside Ike, rubbing at his jaw before he squats and reaches for your booted foot, "And you ain't one to worry over bad luck, Ike. Never met an unluckier sonofabitch than you." His gaze breaks back over his shoulder to Ike, who's glaring daggers at this cohort with enough weight that it may as well drag the sun from the sky.
You see your chance—distracted, you kick your foot up and slam the toe of your boot beneath Billy's chin, the man howling and dropping back to his ass under its force as you writhe beyond reach, twisting in the dirt to haul yourself out of the sand. Rock and shrub and sharp sands grinds beneath your nails to the point of blood, but you can't feel a thing except the buzzing electricity of adrenaline kicking like a mule through your veins.
Square-toed boots grinding through dust as you bolt for Viper, you barely make it to speed before someone attacks you from behind. Tackled nearly to the dirt, the arm that snags around your waist is like iron, clamping tight around your hips as the other swings home around your neck.
Tight, you can feel the constricting cut of muscle against your throat as the chuckle comes low over your ear, smelling like tobacco and whisky. You're fairly sure your heart will launch out of your chest and to the ground beneath you at any second as you claw at the arm around your neck.
"Goin' somewhere, desert flower?" It's Ringo. His other hand dances over the low of your stomach, fingers dipping beneath the band of your jeans as you attempt to arch forward, away from his chest pressed hot and flush against your back.
"Anywhere that isn't with you, you sonofa—" his hand clamps down around your mouth, and you attempt to kick your head back to break free of it. No such luck—his grip is like bronze, hard and warm, and his hand burns with the scent of gunpowder, sweat, and animal as it bites into your flesh.
His chuckle rattles around his ribs and you feel it more than you want to against your spine before his arm drops away from your throat. His arm at your hips loosens only enough for his fingers to find your belt hoops and bring you about sharply, any and all daylight that's separated the two of you gone as he crowds you up against the side of his horse, his face merely inches from yours.
"I'll give credit to Holliday," he speaks in low, cold tones that feel like hot coals down the length of your spine as every fiber of your being attempts to reel back, against his horse, away from him, "good taste in women," his tongue skates his bottom lip as his dark eyes flick down to consider your mouth, "tell me—you whore for that lunger? He tasted you with that poison mouth of his?" Face twisting with seething, dark anger, his hand shoots up from nowhere to grip your face again, his knuckles ghosting with the effort as his nails bite into the flesh of your face.
"Tell me, you cocksucker—you let Holliday part those pretty legs of yours? Fuck that tight little cunt of yours?"
That's enough.
Wrenching out of his grip, you reel back far enough to land a sharp blow to his jaw—it isn't enough to send Ringo reeling, but it's enough to turn his head. And within heartbeats the mark on his cheek matches the one that's started to ache from Curly on your skin, and you offer him a sneer that curls your lips just enough to give you a flare of superior confidence.
Ringo isn't rattled. Actually, he looks impressed as his hand smooths over the kiss of red lighting up the line of his jaw.
From nowhere, light eyes and fevered sweat cut through your mind like a dagger, for a moment separating reality with fantasy.
It's impossible for your body to disengage Holliday's hands at either of your hips, anchored like they've always belonged there. The way his heat rushes through you like wind. Enchanted is only a mild way to put it—you'd been enamored with him since he'd pulled you out of your saddle the first day Viper had wandered into Tombstone. You all but delirious, half dead.
You'd thought he was an angel.
"My, my—fortune does spring eternal. Wherevah did you come from, dahlin'? Pretty thing, blowing in on a shallow wind and tangerine skies an' all," his chuckle had melted over you, feet finding ground, "Must be nothin' short of heaven bound—and you'll be closer still, if we don't get you looked ovah."
Lusty eyes and his arrogant smile had swiftly changed your opinion of him—he was the devil, you nothing short of temptation. In the best way, of course.
You can still feel his chest brushed up against yours, the th-thunk of his heart perfect between your ribs—the way he looks at you, crowded anywhere anyone else isn't. Those inferno lips, sucking deep marks into your skin. Lewd, sinful. Unforgiving. With any and all strength God put into his soul he had kissed you and God, was it wildly magnificent, far more perfect than it had rights to be.
Your eyes blow wide thinking about him, knowing he isn't here. Can't be here, won't be here. He could be, perhaps would move heaven and earth—-if you weren't foolish. So quick to run the hell away.
Holliday still on your tongue cracks a bolt of lightning down the length of your spine.
"Who I let ride this tight little cunt is my business," you seethe at him, a hot smirk pulling at the corner of your mouth as his eyes track yours, discerningly, "there, Ringo—look at that. We match." Proud at the mark on his face, your tongue skates over the bottom of your teeth.
Movement over his shoulder tracks your attention, and your eyes move to watch Curly's feet weave a careful path to the two of you. Looking amused and smug, he rubs the cut of his hip. Deliberately.
His tongue clicks off his cheek, matter-of-factly. "Alright, Ringo boy, that's enough," a hand on John's shoulder snaps him back a half step, opening up the air between the two of you. Only enough for Curly to angle in. "Had quite enough of your filthy little mouth, young lady. I suggest you play nice," his index finger and thumb hooks your chin, tipping it up and back a little, "or I'll feed what's left you of you to my hogs, if anythin'."
And before you know what happens, he clips you at the shoulder and shoves you forward, away from Ringo's horse. You're forced to the ground in a sitting position, Curly snapping sharp orders for you to be left alone until he gives word.
Ringo dishes out orders for camp, the men muster to duties as you attempt to will the throb of a headache out from behind your eyes.
You sit there, cross-legged and observed, trying to calm the heart kicking at your ribs. Watch as Viper is hobbled expertly into compliance, nose wriggling against whatever shrubs the desert has to offer as he investigates the night's accommodations. Foam has all but melted off of him to the desert floor. He's shining with sweat but has stopped heaving for air, at least.
Blinking the sweat from your eyes, Ringo drops the blanket by your side. Hesitation stops your breathe for a minute. Eyes scraping up his form, he smirks at you, shrugging a shoulder.
Dragging the back of your hand over your mouth, your fingers twist into the material. Draw it around your shoulders, bonelessly and complacent. It's thin, tawdy, reeks to high heaven and back again. But it's protection from the taskmaster sun hanging in the sky nonetheless.
Fortressed within the folds of the material, you can't really say how much time slips through your fingers as red sash's move to and fro about the makeshift camp. Bedrolls snap open, saddles are arranged for sleeping. Hard tack is passed around, booze and smokes. Horses passed handfuls of whatever trail provisions any of them have managed to pack, and much to your relief, Curly does order for Viper to receive rations.
Barely able to grip the hem of the sheet, though it may be a courtesty to call it even that, it takes herculean effort to stay awake. Aware. Alert. Because soon, every one of these Cowboys will be piss drunk and passed out, hopefully—and if you can manage consciousness, even for a while, there's a good chance in hell you can swipe a pistol, mount up, and leave.
Once the heat of the desert acquiesces to the cool of night, stars make their way out among the canvas of black desert. Breathless sky hangs overhead and you sit motionless, staring into the twisting, licking flames of fire jutting up from the rocks and brush these idiots have gathered.
Your tongue rolls thickly through your mouth, over your bottom teeth as your toes curl and uncurl in your boots. Reminded that you're alive, your skin is all but burning. Sweat has been chased even from beneath your clothes, but you're slick with grime and the heat of the day as you sit, sunkissed and caked with dirt, on the desert floor.
You haven't stopped studying Viper across the camp, who's mingling innocently with the other horses. Standing like a behemoth among the paints and quarters of the herd.
Why Curly Bill wants him is no mystery–Viper stuns. Steals the breath from your lungs. Living color to a world that's never seen his kind before. A glittering jewel. You'd mentioned how much he was worth to Wyatt that day in the stables and the entire town had nearly combusted—twenty eight thousand dollars was no small change, not in the 19th century.
"All the more reason to get you back where you belong, sweetheart," Wyatt had looked at you with sympathy, rough hand clapping on your shoulder, "Helluva stud, though. Never seen someone ride nothin' that big. Especially not a thing like you," he'd winked at you and you'd blushed.
He didn't let it slide. "Don't you ever lose that color, pretty girl. You know what it does to us men? Cuts us at the knees—can't hardly breathe when a thing like you lights up so nice."
The corner of your mouth ticks up in an amused smirk. Wyatt is nothing short of character. Charming, enigmatic. Handsome in all the right ways, dangerous in many of the wrong ones. Walking antithesis of Doc Holliday, but they were a fine pair—a romance of opposites, apologetically friends but at distance, not much more than enemies.
Their friendship was the stuff of legend—history remembered them both fondly, and to know them? To have witnessed their revolutions around the same sun that is Arizona history?
It's gripping, soul-changing. You'll never be the same.
Your throat closes a little as you pull in a slow breath, bottom lip rolling beneath your teeth for you to gnaw. Curling tighter into the blanket, your eyes close for a minute, the cool darkness immediately chasing tension from the base of your neck.
Ike and Billy's game of cards is loud, but it fades beneath the kicking heartbeat between your ribs. Focusing on the blood in your ears, the tension rolls through muscle. Attempt to breathe—but it hurts. Locks up your chest, spins tightly through your lungs so much that the effort makes you cough.
Curling forward, your arms draw your knees as far forward as your body will allow. Head lolled to the side, your cheek rests against the muscle of your arm as you stare blearily into the serpent-like flames that bite up to the sky, smoke curling around them almost rhythmically.
Tongue skating between your lips to wet at chapped skin, you rake a hand down the length of your face in an attempt to stir life back into your veins. It does little, only ignites the hot burn on your skin. Dropping your gaze to your lap, your eyes slip closed.
And you wait.