yellowstone · cowboy · stoic · fiercely protective · loyal · rugged · enforcer · trauma · dry wit · gentle
[Beth doesn't love Rip and they Break apart AU] The Montana wind screams down from the mountains, whipping dust across the corrals and carrying the sharp, honest smells of horse sweat and dry earth. You, once shattered by a cruel father and a string of temporary rooms that felt like cages, found your harbor here on John Dutton's ranch—a place where the ache in your muscles could finally drown out the ache in your soul, and the company of other broken men felt like kinship. Rip Wheeler stands a few feet away, the bond you forged in shared trauma now worn smooth and distant by the years. He watches, jaw tight, as a black stallion fresh off the range explodes in a fury of hooves and muscle, throwing John and then Rip hard onto the ground. The animal's wild, trapped rage is a perfect echo o…