Ormund doesn't want to give his pookie to his sister 🥺
He’s the type of guy who stays quiet about his feelings for his friend and then yells "I OBJECT" at the wedding ceremony; kicking and screaming while being dragged out of the room because WTF he's wearing a white dress LMAO.
summary: new mexico, 1884. two years after your outlaw's untimely demise, a strange man turns up at your door - vengeful and starving.
warnings: sex (p in v); came back wrong; slightly ooc (mean?ish?) roy; asshole ex-husband
notes: PART idk of blurbs!! this request comes from @ikutozero. getting freaky in the desert you already know how this goes (reader is cis female, no specific ethnicity or appearance.) yeehaw !! title is lord huron 🤠
Sweat dripping from your tired brow, you survey the dusty plains rolling out into infinity.
This land isn't yours - neither is the rundown ranch house you reluctantly call home. It's your husband's, like everything else is: the horses, the cows, the sheep, the pigs, the money… all of it. You own nothing.
Most days, you feel like nothing too.
It’s two years, now, since Roy died.
Oh, it shouldn't have surprised you when the sheriff showed up on your porch with that ridiculous hat in hand, his six-pointed badge glinting in the violent sunlight, biting at his tongue like the sorry words just wouldn't come. You knew, though, before he even spoke.
Because that's what happens to the men who run wild, isn't it? They die, leaving the ones who love them behind.
You remarried a year later.
What choice did you have? No one hires a woman ranchhand. You had a few pennies left in your bag and no options on the table. So when the dull man who would become your husband proposed, you swallowed the bile and said yes with as much enthusiasm as you could muster.
He's not any crueler than a man ought to be, but you wouldn't say you like him. No, it's more of a… coexistence. He hasn't hit you, but his tongue grows sharper with every month that passes. You wonder when the breaking point will come. You wonder what you'll do when it does. You are a hollow woman, but emptiness is preferable to starvation.
-
Night falls: the stars bright enough to burn, eerie howls echoing in the black hills beyond. You sit cross-legged on the porch spinning wool, feeling the last of the day's warm breeze kissing at your cheek. Your man is somewhere inside, drinking himself sick and polishing his pistol.
He doesn’t like you sitting out here all by yourself, but the fresh air almost gives you a feeling of being free. Like you could walk out into the night, alone, unaccounted for, wander the world with no one but yourself for company. It’s a sweet thought… but you have few survival skills: Roy had taught you a thing or two, but it takes more than a couple of neat tricks to best the snakes and coyotes and nasty men who roam this earth.
A soft whistle rings through the air.
You perk up, squinting into the darkness ahead. No movement. You wait, but it doesn’t come again. It hadn’t sounded like an animal, but what do you know?
Your husband emerges from the doorway and you fight to keep your shoulders from falling.
“You whistlin’, girl?”
“Not me,” you reply simply, returning to your wool. “Out there.”
He sniffs, fiddling with the gun. Waits.
“Must’ve been the wind.”
“Must’ve.”
“C’mon, then.”
You pick up your things.
Red eyes follow as you retreat into the house.
The nightmares are back.
They were awful in those first months without Roy - thrashing fits of night terrors, body-wracking sobs so brutal they’d rouse you from sleep. The world felt robbed of its light. You felt robbed - stuck somewhere between grief and rage and hopelessness and fury. How could he leave you? How could he, when he’d always promised to return? When you made him swear it, every time he went off chasing bandits and gold and vengeance, made him swear it on his own mother’s grave?
Morning comes.
Your small bedroom is frozen. The man beside you snores away, oblivious as ever. The sun is halfway to rising, and if you don’t get up to feed the animals, you know damn well he won’t, either.
It’s too much hassle to lace up the corset alone, so you shrug on a loose cotton dress and some old boots. No neighbours this far out, anyway.
Once ankle-deep in the pigsty, you realize that the trough is already filled with fresh feed and cool water. Same with the cows - hay overflowing from great bales that definitely weren’t there last night. As you unlatch the gate to let the horses graze, you can’t help but notice how docile they all seem. Like they’re more relaxed, somehow. Reassured of something.
A cold shiver ricochets down your spine.
-
When night comes again, you invite your husband to sit outside with you. It’s not by choice, but you know he doesn’t like you out of his sight. With a groan, he settles into the creaky wooden rocking chair, starts shining that goddamn pistol yet again. (Has he ever even used it?)
“Sweater almost done?”
“Mhm. Maybe a week?”
“Need it tomorrow. Headed out to the valley.”
“What’s in the valley?”
“Fishin’. Supposed to be good.”
“Alright. I’ll stay up, get it done.”
He just grunts. You bite your lip.
Something whistles.
You both look up, wide-eyed.
That was no animal - couldn’t have been. Could it? No, that had been a tune, definitely a tune.
“Was that- ”
“Shh.”
You strain your ears, but like last night, it doesn’t repeat itself.
“Go’on inside, Y/N. Don’t come back out.”
“But-”
“Don’t.”
You nod stiffly, leaving your husband out in the cold.
A pistol cocks, but no shot comes.
This nightmare is gruesome.
The blood is a river, swirling at your feet, rising by the minute. Your stomach churns as the roiling red sea washes over your knees, the blank face of your husband’s head floating against your hip. A scream rips from your throat and you fall over into the hot blood, choking on it, gasping, screeching -
You jolt awake.
Morning again.
He’s asleep. You look down at your hands, half-convinced that they’ll still be stained crimson. On shaking legs you rise, pulling a warm poncho down over your bedraggled locks. There are purple bags under your puffy eyes. You feel half-dead.
As you sift through the tools in the shed, a warm memory washes over you.
You’d caught a nasty cold six winters ago, working too hard and too long in the frozen air. Roy had come outside to retrieve you, throwing you over his shoulder amid a flurry of giggles and protests, and plopped you down on the small bed you shared.
Before you could even whine, he had a tin cup of hot tea in your hand, even swirling the last of the summer honey in to soothe the ache in your throat. As you curled up under the blankets, he’d played with your hair and read you folk stories from the collection you’d bought him on some trip up to La Belle. The last thing you remembered was falling asleep to the low, adoring sound of his voice.
You wipe a hot tear from your cheek.
After having dragged the shovel all the way out to the boundaries of your land, you find that yesterday’s crooked fenceposts are all meticulously aligned. Perfectly aligned. Broken parts are rebuilt. Rotted wood is replaced.
You look around for the source, but of course there’s nothing to discover. You’re alone out here, alone for miles in every direction without so much as a tree to block your line of sight.
So why do you get the feeling you’re being watched?
-
Your husband heads out in the late afternoon. The sweater isn’t perfect but it’s done, and that’s all that matters. He shrugs it on without so much as a thank you, only reminding you to behave before setting out with his prized mare.
As soon as he’s gone from view, you pry open the false floorboard under your marriage bed.
There are a few odds and ends, remnants of another life, but tonight, there’s only one calling your name: a slim, leatherbound volume of Arthurian legends. To my hero, you’d inscribed it, with Roy’s name below. You don’t dare read this when your husband’s in the house, not when he’s forbidden you from talking about the man who loved you before.
Night falls again, and you decide to read out on the porch.
Sure, the air has an eerie feel to it these days, but you can’t really bring yourself to care - this temporary liberty is too exciting to pass up. Fuck him. You’ll read aloud in the fresh air if you want to.
You’re lost in the story of Lancelot and Guinevere when the whistle comes.
You freeze, only a moment, blood running cold. This time, there’s no confusion: it’s a snippet from a song. Not just any song - something… familiar. You can’t put your finger on it, not exactly, but the conclusion’s the same:
Someone is out there.
Tucking the book into your apron, you rise, quickly, and pull the door shut behind you, hard enough to rattle the hinges. You curse when you realize your husband’s taken his guns, leaving you with nothing more than a few dulled knives with which to defend yourself. You ram the bolt closed, locking it angrily into place and praying it holds.
In the silence, you try to still your breaths.
In the silence, it whistles again.
Closer now.
You choke on a cry, retreating to the kitchen to find something sharp. Roy had taught you to shoot, but what good is that without an actual gun? You’ll just have to make do, like always. Find a way out. Survive. That’s what you’re good at. That’s all you know how to do.
And then:
Knock. Knock. Knock.
You go absolutely still.
Again, quicker: knock, knock, knock.
“C’mon, darlin’, open up.”
The voice is muffled but it’s… familiar. Solid. Real. And…
“Wrong.”
A low laugh comes from beyond the door.
“Aw, don’t make me knock again, baby. Wouldn’t be polite.”
This can’t be real. Is there a ghost out there? Your mind reels and you nearly drop the knife in the confusion. It can’t be - it makes no sense, he died, you know that, you went down to the morgue and identified the body yourself, you -
“Baby? Y’gon’ let me in?”
“Roy?” you whisper, unsure if you want the question answered.
“Who else?”
You nearly choke.
“But you can’t be, it’s- he’s dead. No, Roy’s dead.”
“Then who’s out here howlin’ for ya, honey?”
A small sound escapes you.
“What d’you want?” You hate how weak your voice sounds.
He pauses.
“Well, you.”
Death doesn’t scare you.
It hasn’t for a long time. Whatever it is it comes for us all, and frankly, if there’s even a chance your Roy is waiting for you somewhere in great beyond, it’s probably preferable to your current pitiable situation.
This is what you tell yourself as you unbolt the door with shaking hands.
The man who greets you is familiar and pale, nearly white in the watery moonlight. Not quite gaunt, not sick, but more like… whatever soul once animated the body is long gone. A memory of a man, a half-alive, infinitely-suffering thing. He smiles, warm, like he’s greeting an old friend. Nothing makes sense… but there’s no question, really, none at all in your mind: this is Roy.
Or… some version of him.
You whisper his name and he breathes like there’s life in it.
“But you died, you… I saw you.” Your small voice wobbles. He smiles.
“Well, m’here now, ain’t I?”
“Are you?”
“Flesh n’ blood, sweetheart. Ha! Speakin’ of - “
He kicks something toward you. A rough lump, heavy and dark, covered in… hair?
Your husband’s lifeless eyes stare up at you.
A scream rips from your throat.
You try to slam the door shut, but Roy intercepts it, jamming a foot through the small gap between your bodies. You abandon the effort immediately, sprinting off towards the back of the house. Without any thought in your mind except for RUN, you tear out of the kitchen into the black night beyond.
His gentle laugh is almost fond.
The land at night is like something from your nightmares: total, unrelenting nothingness. No brush in which to hide, no rivers in which to lose your scent, no concept of north or south or east or west. You’re half-crying, half-panting, lost somewhere in the delirium, but still, you run.
You know he’ll find you eventually, but that doesn’t stop the determined right left right left right left or **the incessant burning in your lungs. He whistles again and it comes from all around. This time, you recognize it.
The song playing in the saloon the night of your first kiss.
There’s no space in your mind to process it, any of it, and so you don’t. You can’t afford to linger on the specifics of Roy’s appearance tonight. He's just not quite right. He's something else, perhaps, but then… you can’t deny that this thing knows you. In your carelessness, you tumble over an upturned stone, shoulder landing hard against the cracked earth below.
You cry out at the force of it. You can't think, can't concentrate on any kind of plan. Shoving off from the ground, you scramble to your feet, forcing yourself upwards and onwards and -
Collide with something. Hard.
“S’fun and all, watchin’ you run,” he says softly, holding you upright, “but I ain’t about to let you hurt yourself. Where’re you tryna get to, anyway?”
You whimper, thrashing in his grip.
“C’mon, baby,” he murmurs, undaunted, nuzzling at your ear like you’re one of his unbroken fillies. “You know I’d never hurt you.”
“Roy-”
“Have I ever? Hurt you?”
You stop. Shake your head, slowly. No.
“And I ain’t about to start.” He kisses the burning skin of your forehead. “So take it easy, baby, ‘fore you twist an ankle. Yeah?”
“But… you killed him.”
A sob threatens to escape your wobbling lips. The cowboy smells of damp earth, of ozone and frozen mountain air. His solid arms are icy under the layers of clothing. Whose clothes are these?
“You miss him?”
“No,” you reply, a little taken aback at how easily the answer comes. “No, I- I really don't.”
“Good. Y’weren't his, anyhow.”
“But-”
“Baby, I clawed my way outta hell only t’find my girl shacked up with some son of a bitch talks down to her like a dog. You're sayin’ I should’ve let that stand?”
His arms cradle you tighter, digging into the warm flesh of your hips. There’s a fury in those pale blue eyes, a glint of rage that catches in the bright moonlight. Your breathing goes still as you look him over, tracing over those familiar features. Out here, out of the sun and the harsh lamplight, he doesn’t look quite so… wrong.
He misinterprets your silence.
“What? You fond of him or somethin’?”
“No, but-”
“You happy I got outta your way, darlin’? S’that it-”
You slap him. Hard.
He drops you, and you stumble backwards.
“Fuck you,” you spit.
The cowboy laughs. You lunge at him again, shoving at his solid chest, howling.
“You left me, Roy! You left me when you swore you wouldn't, left me on my own without so much as a fuckin’ goodbye, without so much as a few dollars to live on, left me - left me to figure it out without you. I did what I had to do and it killed me. You killed me.”
You spit the words as if they’re bullets, aiming directly for his heart. It’s a still-raging fire in you, a fury that you’ve never managed to extinguish, years and years of words you’ve been aching to spill.
“You blamin’ me for dying?” he demands.
“You blamin’ me for surviving?” you volley back.
“Surviving, you call it*?* Or movin’ on without me?”
“I hated him!” you screech into the night. “Ain’t no one alive gonna mourn him, least of all me! But it’s- you can’t just go around killin’ the folks you hate-”
“I can.” He cuts you off, low, matter-of-fact. “I can, I have, n’I always will.”
You still, letting your legs fold beneath you before they give out. A cold sneer blooms on his soft lips, a predator playing with his food. He crouches before you, thumbs a lock of hair come loose from your tight braids.
“What’s the matter, baby? Huh? What, all of a sudden you don’t like hearin’ about the nasty things I do? Well, shit. Y’didn’t seem to mind it any when I was alive, robbin’ folks and gunnin’ em down.”
“You're being cruel.” It comes out no higher than a whisper. “Roy was never cruel.”
He opens his mouth to speak some retort, but reins it in before he can. Nods stiffly.
“M’sorry, sweetheart. I forget myself sometimes.”
You study him, running a light finger over the soft line of his pale cheekbone. He shudders like you’ve taken a great weight from him.
“Are you really him?”
“I think so. Ain’t that enough?”
“Maybe. But…”
“Baby, I don’t know. That's the truth of it. All I know’s I was gone, and now I’m back. Y’really think dying could keep me from ya?”
A tear burns its way down your cheek. He wipes it away with the icy skin of his thumb.
Your faces are close enough for breath to become a shared thing. His comes out in visible puffs of white air. Yours are warm, and he inhales them right from the source.
The black of his pupil has taken over the whole of his pale iris. You’re sure your own eyes are a mirror of his.
“For?”
“You know what for.”
His hands ghost over your arms, not quite daring to touch. Waiting.
*“*Ain't thought of nothin’ else since I found myself topside. Swear to Christ, I ain't come back for any reason other than t’love you. You know that. Know y’know that.”
You reach up to touch softly at his jaw, still dusted with russet stubble. He sighs at the contact.
“Y’gon’ let me take what I came for?”
A soft nod.
And then he’s on you.
The kiss is far too gentle. He exhales into it, a weary, keening thing, a sweet sound of relief: thirst quenched, hunger sated. He grips at your flesh, your clothes, your hair - anything and everything he can get his hands on. For a dead man, he feels awfully alive.
Your apron is discarded with ease, the forgotten book tumbling into the dirt. He notices it - of course he does - and kisses you harder, arms settling around your waist like a vice.
Roy sits back and lifts you to straddle him. You whimper as his hands crawl up under the thin material of your nightgown, the ice of his skin a shocking contrast to the indifferent air of the night. You arch into him, grinding down without really meaning to. He snickers against your panting mouth.
“Y’that hungry for it, baby?”
“Mhm,” you nod against his lips, unwilling to break the kiss.
“You’d let me take you right here, wouldn’t ya?”
“S’long as my husband-” You yelp when he lands a warning slap! to your rear - “So long as his head’s on my kitchen floor, I really don’t see where else we could go.”
“That man,” he spits, grabbing a soft handful of your hair and pulling it back, “ain’t your husband. Ain’t ever been your husband. No, your husband’s right here, baby. Fixin’ to fuck you out where anyone c’d see. That what you want?”
“Yes,” you gasp, rolling your hips.
“Then you keep that bastard’s name outta your mouth, hear me?”
You nod again, eyes screwed shut. “Please, Roy- “
He nearly moans. “Missed that voice, baby, beggin’ so sweet for me. Don’t you worry, darlin’ girl, gon’ give you what you need.”
It’s forehead to forehead, one pressing into the other and keeping the balance from the constant push and pull. You breathe him like the world has changed, like the past two years have been nothing but a bad dream. It shocks you how easy it is to disregard the pain, to move past it with such ease. Because right now, your entire universe is limited to the moonlight and the black night and the dead man you love gripping at your hips like you’re salvation itself.
“Take me out, honey,” he pants into your mouth. “G’on. Make yourself feel good.”
You oblige, movements hurried and imprecise, clawing at his borrowed belt. He peppers soft kisses at your cheeks and jaw while you work, drawing a pinched breath when you finally find what you’re looking for.
“Fuck - goddamn. Bet you’re wet enough to take me now, hungry girl.”
Not willing to waste these precious seconds on a clever reply, you line him up and take your seat.
It’s a stretch, at first, and you can’t keep the pained whine from escaping your lips.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he coos in your ear, struggling to keep his own breathing even. “Jus’ hold still, yeah? Let your body learn what it already knows.”
“Roy,” you plead, kissing at the shell of his ear, burying your fingers into the wild tufts of his hair.
“M’ right here. Ain’t ever gon’ leave you again, hear me? You’re stuck w’me, baby. Forever.”
As if to prove his point, he offers an experimental push of his hips - just a fraction of a movement. You choke on a moan and before you can think, you’re raising yourself up and dropping down, a little deeper now. In response, Roy grabs at your thighs, cold fingers digging deep into the bare flesh. By now, the iciness of his skin has become a balm against the heat blooming between you, a welcome anchor point in this cloudy haze of pure desperation.
“Jus’ like that, love, that’s it. That’s my girl.” You repeat the action with more and more force as your body opens up to him, reminds itself of how good lovemaking used to be. Your bare knees dig sharply into the arid dirt below, no doubt opening up any number of tiny cuts, but now’s not the time to care.
“I missed you - ah! - everyday,” you babble, delirious from the stretch and the pleasure and the chaos. “Ain’t religious but I prayed, Roy, I prayed every night n’ I thought I wouldn’t survive it.”
“My girl,” he rasps, moving your body faster and deeper. “Sweet girl. It worked, baby. I’m here.”
The air around you is crackling with something hot and alive: a forest fire, a lightning storm, a cloud of smoke sizzling with electricity. Maybe this is your Roy, maybe it isn’t - but who the fuck cares? The creature beneath you knows your body like it’s something obvious, like it’s divine, innate knowledge. Knows your tastes, knows your past, knows just how to make you swoon and scream.
“Had t’come back, sweetheart. Couldn’t rest f’I tried,” he continues. “Couldn’t - shit, couldn’t stay down, not with you up there waitin’ for me.”
“Don’t leave again,” you beg between whines. “Don’t, it - it’d kill me. You’ll kill me - ”
He cuts you off with a shake of his head, with repeated protests of no no no - “Not a chance, sweetheart, no fuckin’ chance of that. Never could. M’yours, you’re mine.”
You don’t last much longer, not after he tugs at the neckline of your gown to suck at the soft skin of your chest, nuzzling into you like you’re the only safe haven he’s ever known. You come with a cracked cry of his name, holier than any prayer, and it’s not long before he reaches his own peak, grabbing at the sides of your head to pull you in for a broken kiss.
When the dust clears, when his hips still, when the world once again goes quiet, only then do you let yourself curl up into the solid weight of your Roy’s chest.
He rubs soothing circles against the expanse of your bared back, palms still icier than a mountain spring.
“Meant what I said, Y/N. I ain’t ever leavin’.”
“I know,” you whisper into his shoulder. “You never could.”
“Gon’ scrub them bloodstains from your floor. Bury that fucker’s head. Fix up the rest a that little farm. All that's yours, now.”
“You’ve done enough.” He sighs when you kiss softly at his jaw. “I saw what you did for the animals. My fenceposts. Takin’ care of me from a distance.”
“Now I’m takin’ care of you from up close. Gon’ do a real good job of it, too. Promise.”
“I know,” you say again. “You always do.”
The dark desert is alive with the soft cries of nightjars and screech owls. Somewhere in the distance, there’s the easy rush of a stream, the gentle babbling of a brook. There’s life in this place, you realize, more than you’ve ever given it credit for.
You reach over for the fallen book.
“Would you read to me, Roy?” You meet his gaze, peering up at him in adoration. “Or - no, what am I saying? S’too dark to see.”
He grins, pressing an open-mouth kiss to your temple.
“’Course I can, darlin’. Still remember every word.”
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