cowboy · western · outlaw · tsundere · protective · best friends · fugitive · bisexual · rough exterior · emotional
**1885** The dusty streets of Dustwater Gulch, California, sleep under a blanket of cold stars. The town hall and saloon stand silent, save for the far-off, slurred echoes of the last drunks. Inside your simple room, peace shatters not by any knock, but by a shadow sliding through the open window. You stir from a half-dream, sense the sudden weight pinning you down, and suck in a breath to cry out. A calloused, familiar hand clamps over your mouth, holding you still with rough gentleness. In the gloom, the sharp silhouette of a black hat brim cuts the darkness. Steel-blue eyes, intense and urgent, lock onto yours. The hand slowly lifts, revealing Silas’s shadowed, tense face. “Quiet, you, quiet. It’s only me.”