summary: never wanted love, just a fancy car.
pairing: cowgirl!reader x cowboy!din
contents: 18+/nsfw/smut, cowboy au, typical Wild West violence & values (murder, stealing), flirting, pining, perceived unrequited feelings, yearning (if you squint)
wc: 4k
an: part two comin at yaaaaa. these two are so special to me. reader does have a code name in this that she uses, so if your name is scarlet sorry in advance!
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ch 1: takes one to know one
You don’t discuss the logistics or practicality of sticking together, you just do it. After meandering in Strawberry a few days longer to garner more money and supplies the two of you head southeast.
Din has a tent. You’ve gotten used to traveling as light as possible and staying in structures that already exist so as not to draw attention to yourself. But you already feel safer traveling with him. You feel yourself loosening up in the wake of his companionship and competency. And in that, you find a discomfort you’re not ready to unpack.
The town you end up in after dabbling in Strawberry– Cheyenne– is the closest thing you’ve seen to a true city. There are talks and whispers of New York and all the structure and opportunity it brings. Bustling with thousands of folk, buggies, art, and theater. Not to mention proper plumbing. But, settling down isn’t an option right now– or ever—you quickly remind yourself, as not to get your hopes up for something that doesn’t exist. Besides, you’re not sure you could ever imagine yourself working a steady job. Staying put in one place sounds so…stagnant.
Cheyenne is markets in back alleys, crowded streets, and a view of the sea. You’re grateful for the cool, salty air of the coast during this hellish summer. But the city has its cons: mixed in with the salty air is the stench of pollution that comes with such a populated place. Its lawman force— ever present and large— works to you and Din’s disadvantage. The work you do is harder in a place like this but the spoils will last you ten times over than in places like Strawberry or Annesburg.
You and Din have taken a room at an inn close to the edge of the city. You’ve just returned from a bath down the hall, one that was well overdue. Din’s already dressed in sleeping clothes, his hair wet and slicked back from his own bath. For just a moment you wonder what his hair feels lik. If it's as soft or thick as it looks. Whatever spell that is breaks when he closes his eyes as you enter in just a towel, turning over in the bed.
There’s nothing there for him, not that you can pick up. It shouldn’t matter, there’s nothing there for you either. He’s your partner, life has been so much better with him at your side already. It runs smoother, it feels safer. The fuzzy, unfocused picture that you were living in sharpened. Why would either of you even think to jeopardize something that works so well with the simple thought of more? You won’t.
“There’s a big wig in this city. Robert Leroy— folks call him Bobby,” You say to distract yourself from the sinking feeling in your stomach.
“What’s he got to do with anythin’? We’ve got our targets.”
You and Din had stopped at the jail as soon as you’d entered the city, eager to pick up as many bounties as you could. It earns you some trust with the lawmen and gives you an excuse to meander the city at any time, asking questions to get the lay of the land and search for real targets. This time it was easier than that, but it doesn’t mean you won’t maximize your time here, exploring every possible avenue of income.
“Bobby is the reason they’re our targets. I used my charm on the sheriff, he says Bobby’s the one who put the price on their heads. We get them and maybe we get invited to that big fancy party that’s next week.”
You aren’t able to see it, but Din frowns, teeth gritting at the mention of using your charm. He should be used to it by now, and it should never bother him. But in the recesses of his mind, there’s no denying that it does. None of those men deserve to look at you, let alone witness your charm.
“Party,” Din repeats, sounding skeptical.
“It’s at his house. His mansion. The one full of expensive shit,” You explain as you slip into the only thing of your mother’s you have left— an old, scratchy nightgown.
“You’re still not sellin’ it, girl.”
“We can’t pass up all the riches in that man’s house, Din. You’ll have to deal. I’ll charm, you’ll steal and we’ll leave this place,” You insist as you slide into bed next to him, facing away so that your backs are just a few inches apart.
Din’s body radiates heat and despite the sweltering heat, you stay beneath the blanket with him. Sometimes if the two of you sleep close enough to the other, you’ll wake up tangled in his arms the next morning. Neither of you say anything about it, going about those mornings as if they’re any other. And maybe they are.
“Do we gotta?”
“Strawberry’s reapings will only last so long,” You reason, glancing over your shoulder at him.
“You charm, I steal,” He repeats his version of your words and you can hear the mirth in his sandy voice.
“I just said that.”
“Did you? I didn’t hear,” He stretches, snuggling further in the mattress.
“You’re full of shit.”
He snorts, shaking his head, “Go to bed, girl, we’ve got busy days ahead.”
Din was right— the next week the two of you work from sunrise to sunset capturing all the bounties you’d collected from the sheriff. Some are easier than others, frequented black markets or popular bars for folk that run in your lifestyle.
But there’s one that’s tedious to catch; Stagecoach Mary, a notorious cowgirl who you’ve always admired all holed up in her little shack that rests in its own little bayou just outside of the city. The shootout with her eats up most of your ammo, and a bullet ends up grazing your arm. Din gets Mary hog-tied and strapped to his horse before he comes to check on you. He’s deathly quiet like he always is, but you can feel the urgency in his movements. He removes your button-down without asking, using some of the water in his canteen to cleanse the wound before he covers it in salve and wraps it.
“You alright?” He asks quietly as he helps you back into your shirt.
Your eyes go a bit wide at the raw sound of concern in his voice, but you quickly brush it off, “S’just a scratch, I’ll be just fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure, Din,” You say gently, and though it stings like a bitch, you aren’t going to say differently. The last thing your resolve needs is him fawning over you, worried about your health.
His gaze raises to meet yours, eyes narrowing to appraise you before he sighs and starts towards his horse. Mary is quiet on the ride back thankfully, and when you drop her off at the sheriff’s office, you get exactly what you two have been working so hard for. Bobby himself is there– the sheriff had told him about you and Din, how promising your skills had been so far and he wanted to thank you both personally.
He looks like money, with frills and shiny leather shoes, his hair slicked back with a pomade that smells like pine, ““I can’t thank you fine people enough. She’s been a real thorn in my side.”
You take the hand he’s offered, shaking it daintly, “We’re happy to help Mr. LeRoy, no one should have to leave in fear.”
Leroy squeezes your hand before bending to kiss it, “Please, sweetheart, call me Bobby.”
You giggle softly, batting your eyelashes at him, “Bobby, then. I’m Scar. This is my partner Djarin.”
Din blinks in surprise before quickly schooling his expression into the impassive mask he’s so good at. It's the first that he’s heard of your name. He knows that this is part of the charm, knows that you wouldn’t give this man– or any man– your real name, but curiosity blooms inside of him. Had you just picked it randomly? Did it have any deeper meaning? Is it close to your real name?
“Scar? As in Scarlet? What a precious little gem,” Bobby runs his hand down the length of your arm, turning to look at Din with a glint of jealousy in his eyes. “Djarin, bet you never get enough of this sweet woman’s charm.”
“We aren’t— she’s my workin’ partner, s’all,” Din says firmly, though the way that he clenches his jaw says otherwise.
But who is Bobby to tell a grown man how he truly feels? Especially if he can reap benefits. He grins, turning back to look at you, “Well I’ll be hog wallered, I thought a dime like you’d be taken, Scar. If that’s true…I’m having this grand party in just a few days. Come, the both of you.”
“Oh, we couldn’t Bobby!”
“I insist!”
A sly grin spreads across your face and you smooth your hand over his, “Well if you insist. We’ll be there.”
A few nights later, after spending the days in fitting rooms, shopping (and stealing), you and Din are finishing up getting ready for the party in your inn room. You peek around the partition to make sure that he’s dressed and your mouth goes dry. He’s in a sleek black suit, the silver accents of his belt buckle and cowboy boots glinting in the last rays of sun that flood the small room. He looks incredible, his hair wet and slicked back, skin scrubbed completely clean. You lean back, bracing yourself against the wall as you force those thoughts out of your head. A distraction, you need a distraction. You look down at your dress, toying with the skirts– perhaps your distraction could be in distracting him.
“How do I look?” You ask as you step from behind the partition, holding your arms out as if to present yourself.
Din simply stares at you, and you’re about to tell him to forget it when he finally speaks. “You look—“ He stops, going quiet for what seems like forever before he clears his throat.
“What, is it? I look bad, don’t I? It’s stuffy, but we gotta look the part.” Your head tilts as you turn this and that way, watching the skirt flutter as you twirl.
“You look—it’s good,” He supplies, turning towards the mirror to fiddle with his tie. He swallows, ignoring the way the fabric of his tie sticks to his sweaty hands.
You turn to look at him, frown deepening as you smooth your hands down the intricate corset of the dress, “You sure? I need him to look at me, and if it’s not pleasin'—“
“It’s plenty pleasin’, now finish up and let’s go.”
You and Din rented a carriage, standing out to others invited would just make this evening worse. The ride– like most of your traveling with Din– is quiet, and you fiddle with your fingers, forcing yourself not to pick at the polish you’d gotten down for the occasion.
The mansion is grand, all cream with pillars and statues so delicate they look fit to shatter if you look at them wrong. You’re guided inside by men dressed in impeccable suits, hor devours and glasses of champagne pressed into your hands as you make your way through the expansive foyer and down the stairs into an even large backyard.
This is something you could only imagine in those moving pictures you’ve only had time to see once or twice. There are tables full of food and alcohol, droves of people dressed to the nines dancing and laughing and eating. And while you’re impressed, disgust accompanies it. The excess when there are so many who don’t have enough to make it a week. You’d seen plenty of unhoused folks on the streets as you and Din explored Cheyenne and this party could feed them all for days on end. You swallow your disdain for everyone here by focusing on the goal and painting a smile on your face as you breeze through the crowd. Try as you might, you can’t find Bobby so you park at a table that’s moderately far from the various groups of others.
“Maybe he hasn’t come out yet,” You whisper to Din as you pretend to look over some of the food. It looks so fancy that it’ll make you sick.
“Stay here and watch for’em, I’ll see what I can find out.”
Your eyes don’t leave him as he skates through the crowd easily and your mouth turns down in a frown when he’s stopped by a beautiful woman. To your surprise, he doesn’t blow her off, smiling as he begins to talk to her. You’ve never seen Din like this before. In the short month or so that you two have been together, you’ve been the lead on charming as all the places you’ve been in teem with men and their testosterone. You aren’t sure what this feeling is that rises in your chest as you watch the woman Din is talking to throw her head back with laughter. What you do know is that you want to end. Your feet are moving you towards him before you can think logically about it.
“Djarin, could I speak to you for a moment?” You say in your sweetest, most polite voice— emphasis on your southern drawl.
The woman he’s speaking to gives you a smile that doesn’t touch her eyes.
Din excuses you both, walking you over to a quiet spot beneath an ice sculpture that is surprisingly intact despite the heat of tonight’s air, “What is it, girl?”
Delicately as not to draw anyone’s attention, you remove your arm from his grasp, mouth pressed into a thin line, “What the hell happened to ‘you charm, I steal’?”
“She’s been in the house before. I was gettin’ the lay of it. You ain’t doing much charming if you’re chewin’ me out, are you? Look who it is.”
Bobby has finally made an appearance.
You narrow your eyes at him but stay silent. Din just stares back, unphased and you eventually give up, slinking off to do your part. To charm. Once you’re by his side, Bobby stays close to you like a bee stuck in honey– it's annoying really but this life has given you incredible acting skills so he’s none the wiser.
Lucky for you he gets distracted by some bigwig oil men who start to throw around some big numbers. You stand by his side, listening politely– gathering the names of these men just in case you ever run into them again– until you grow bored. You excuse yourself to the powder room, assuring him that you’ll return shortly as you leave the sweetest kiss on his cheek. You feel the way he shivers against you, his eyes cloudy as he nods.
Not long after you’d gone to talk to Bobby you’d seen Din slip out of the crowd and into the house. It may be a pain to find him a place this large but if you’re caught it’ll be realistic to play a dizzy, turned-around maiden.
As soon as you’re out of sight you spit, wiping your mouth with your sleeve in a move most unladylike as you try to find Din. The halls are empty, it seems as if Bobby’s staff is either occupied with entertaining guests or off for the evening.
“Up here, girl,” Din calls from above you, and when your eyes meet he holds up a sack that looks fit to burst. The smile that spreads across his face is different than the one he’d given the woman he talked to early, this one is genuine and it makes your heart flutter.
“How’s it going?” You ask once you make your way up to the stairs to stand beside him.
“Good, last room we got left is his office. C’mon.”
You follow after him closely, keeping your steps light like a cat so as not to draw any attention from below. When the two of you turn a corner down the final hall which holds Bobby’s office, there are two guards— one blonde, one brunette— standing outside of the door that is gilded in gold. You roll your eyes at its gaudiness but step forward with wide, guileless eyes.
“I’m sorry you two, it seems we’ve got lost trying to find the powder room. Could you help us?” You bat your lashes at the two men, standing up a little taller to push your breasts out.
“Back the way you came, down the stairs, to the left,” the blonde one says, unaffected by your attempt at charm.
Nevertheless, you try again, getting a little closer to the brunette, whose eyes have had a hard time staying on your face.
You gaze up at him with puppy dog eyes, “Could you maybe walk us? I mean— we are lost.”
You raise your hand to fiddle with the distracted guard’s tie, but the first one’s hand shoots out, wrapping tightly around your wrist. You gasp, looking over at the guard in feigned offense, like you’re some helpless maiden– like you wouldn’t slit his throat if your knife wasn’t buried under so many layers of fabric.
“It would do you best to walk away ma’am or I’ll have to call the lawmen,” The blonde says, his grip tightening around your wrist until it makes you wince.
Din takes a step forward, his voice so low and rough it sends a welcome chill down your spine. You don’t have to look at him to know how terrifying he looks right now, “No, it would do you best to let her go or I’ll have to crush your windpipe.”
“You threatenin’ me, yokel?”
You lean closer to the brunette guard, grimacing as you say, “Well this ain’t gonna end well is it?”
His eyes widen for a moment, flickering behind you and you know that Din is moving, already going in for the kill. You do your best to pry your hand from the other guard’s grip but it is tight, and as you struggle the one in front of you struggles to get his gun. As soon as your hand is free you reach for his neck, planting your feet so that you’ll have the strength to snap his neck. There’s a loud crack from beside you before you can get your hands in the right place, and your glance over to Din, seeing the way he followed through— the man's face is red and limp, the blood vessels in his eyes busted.
You regret getting off track because it seems the guard still alive is successful, getting off one shot that flies up into the ceiling. Refocusing, you knee him in the stomach, and his gun clatters to the ground just as you get your hands around his neck and twist as hard as you can.
“Fuck,” You breathe as the second man’s body hits the floor. His gunshot will absolutely draw attention, you and Din need to move quickly.
“In and out, no safes, whatever is unlocked and out in the open.”
You follow his instructions with no hesitation, stepping over the two bodies and moving through Bobby’s office with ease. There are solid gold paperweights, stacks of bonds, maps of train routes and what they’ll be holding, and even a few stacks of money in drawers. It's a jackpot if you’ve ever seen one and the two of you share a look of wonder before kicking it into gear to get out of there. You can hear the footsteps of lawmen rumbling through the house and give Din the signal to move into the room across the hall– it's another powder room. The two of you squeeze into the shower, listening intently as the lawmen call to each other, trying to figure out where you’ve gone.
You hear a voice say, “They must’ve gotten by us. Comb the streets.”
That works perfectly in your favor, and you grin over a Din, knowing that the streets are not how you plan to escape. As soon as the coast is clear, Din grabs your hand, leading you the opposite way of all the lawmen and house staff that have started towards Bobby’s office and bedroom. The two of you sneak out a side door and make your way toward the bayou in the backyard. You’d already set up a boat there to make an escape— no one would expect it since you and Din had rented a carriage to arrive.
He helps you step in the boat, grasping the hem of your skirts so that it’s easier for you to step in, and joins you as soon as you're settled. He doesn’t know how to row— not well at least— so you grab the oars and get to work. Your horses are strewn up to trees not too far from here and afterward you’ll collect your belongings from the inn and leave Cheyenne for good.
Din has started to count the money he retrieved, thumbing through the bills with his steady fingers.
“I pocketed a few things here and there while I waited for you— mostly watches but some wallets too. This should be a lot, we could rest in the next town for a bit if you wanted,” You whisper into the night.
He nods at you but doesn’t stop counting, pulling out a few gold bars you imagine he got from a safe. Once he’s finished counting he restarts, wanting to make sure he’s right.
“This is enough to get outta this,” He mumbles once he’s finished.
You think you’ve misheard him. “What?”
“This enough to get outta this,” He says again, looking up at you. You’re too busy rowing to gaze back at him and he takes this opportunity to look at you unabashedly, something he never lets himself do. It’s foggy enough that even if you were to notice his eyes burning into you, he could play it off, blaming it on the wispiness in the air.
Though you both look ridiculous, stiff, and dolled up for this party even as you row diligently through the muggy bayou, everything about you still shines through. His eyes are syrupy slow, following the curve of your jaw, the swell of your cheek, the line of your nose.
“Din?”
“Hmm?”
“Outta this profession, you mean?” You repeat the question he hadn’t heard as he got lost in you.
He clears his throat and sits up, staring into the fog, “You can’t tell me you never thought about it. Slowing down with a little patch of land, few animals and crops.”
Sure you had– on your loneliest days you’d let your mind wander. You let yourself dream about a life like that with someone. When Din came into your life, those dreams became a little more specific no matter how many times you tried to push them away.
Your brows shoot up as you finally look at him, face twisted in surprise, “You want to settle?”
“I said I’ve thought about it. This is just enough to get far enough that no one knows us. We’d need a lot of money to get everything for a stead. Not to mention makin’ it sustainable.”
This is the first time you’ve ever heard him talk like this and though you’ve only been doing this together for a month or so, you’d think it was something he would mention before entering into a partnership with someone. But hell— he still doesn’t know your name. It's worked so far, hasn’t it?
You make it to where your horses are, Augustine and Cresida look at you both expectantly, as if they’ve been waiting all day and have places to be.
“You’re serious,” You say in disbelief as he helps you out of the boat.
“There’s no reason for me to lie, girl,” He starts to shed his layers, removing the suit jacket and the crisp white button-down in favor of his long-sleeved undershirt. “You’ve never…”
You fish the pair of jeans you stashed on your horse out, hiking them up under the huge skirt of your dress before you take a knife and cut through it. You easily cut through the fabric of the tight corset, letting out a relieving breath.
“I have. Here and there. Didn’t see a point for it if it was just to be alone,” You murmur, shrugging into your shirt.
He’s quiet for a moment, before whispering into the night, barely heard over the symphony of crickets and cicadas, “Different now, ain’t it?”
“Yeah.”
Everything’s been different since meeting him. As the two of you mount your horses and start off into the night, your mind can’t help but wander back to that key detail— this man wants to settle down with a wild, nameless woman like you. Maybe that says enough. Maybe it’s all you’ll need.
ch 3: eyes full of stars
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