Archive of Our Own ^beta

Seungcheol doesn’t get to wake to the call of a rooster. Or the warm brush of sunlight on his face, or even a knock at the door that’s halfway to falling off its hinges. 

No. His morning is born on the tail end of a shout and the storm of hoofbeats raining down the road outside like the reckoning of God. 

Groaning something hellish, he rolls out of bed. Grabs his shirt, his pistol, and his hat, one after another, a routine so familiar it’s blood. 

He used to rush about it. Would nearly tumble right down the stairs and into the cellar in his haste to get outside. But he’s long figured that his chances against a whole horde of men on horses are close to zero, and the best he can do is aim a few at the rear of the crowd. 

Today isn’t even that kind of day. By the time he manages to stagger outside, the only sign of Mingyu’s men is the cloud of dust steadily climbing from the west horizon. Shit. They’re headed for the railroad tracks again. 

He hangs back, blinking the shadows of sleep away from the inside of his eyes. The dawn is too bright all at once, gold sky and gold earth washing out his vision. His shoulders ache. And it’s hotter than a firepit. Sweat has already begun to dampen the small of his back. 

Exhaling, Seungcheol turns. 

He sees many things at once. First, the brilliance of the sun, beading at the horizon like a drop of oil. Second, that he’s pretty sure the pastor’s laundry is loose again, if those flyaway starched pants are anything to go by. 

And third, that he didn’t miss the entire party. 

Because looming just there, astride his stallion, is Kim Mingyu. In the flesh. Peering down at him from the bridge of his nose. He sneers, one hand hovering over his hip, the other tangled in the reins. “Gee, sheriff. You’re doing a hell of a job protecting your town. I had to linger back just to catch sight of you.”

So much for a pleasant morning. Eyes narrowing, Seungcheol raises his weapon. “Want my blessings for the road?”

Mingyu clicks his tongue. “Careful. God doesn’t like vengeance, sheriff.” Grinning, he pulls the reins of his horse and rides off. 

But not before kicking over the fencepost. 

~

Maybe he should be bragging about it. It’s no small feat, being the first and only man to arrest Kim Mingyu. Somewhere across the canyon, there’s probably a sheriff who dreams of being him. 

Hell, he should put up a banner. Pin it to his badge in shiny gold lettering. 

Jail is supposed to be corrective though—that’s the law—and he doesn’t think it did much correcting for Mingyu. Made him worse, more likely. Mean. Cocky. Infuriating, when he smirks down at Seungcheol from his pitch black horse, knowing he can’t do anything about it. 

You’d think that being the first and only man to arrest Kim Mingyu would put the guy at least a little on guard around him. Actually, he’s fairly certain that it’s done the opposite. Instead, Mingyu and his gang are riding through town every other week, wrecking fenceposts and knocking over signs and shooting their pistols into the air like it’s a rodeo. 

They’ve done worse, deeper into the river valley. Trains derailed right off their rusted tracks and caravans looted down to the wood from the wagons. Some well-to-do city slicker visited from up north, and they say Mingyu robbed him of half his fortune with a gun that wasn’t even loaded. Then stole his finest horses. Then took his wax-polished shoes too, just to rub it in. 

The townsfolk, of course, seem to think of him as some kind of hometown hero—equally beloved, equally feared. His childhood shack is kept in better condition than the church. That’s why Seungcheol never gets any help when his band of outlaws is camping out near the watering hole or practicing their aim with birdshot and scaring all the horses. 

So, really, Seungcheol wishes he had never gone and cuffed the fellow in the first place. In another life, maybe all he would have had to worry about would have been the pastor’s runaway laundry and the calls of the rooster at sunrise. 

~

It’s Sunday. The Lord’s sermons are being spoken down the street, and Seungcheol has got a right mind to finally fix that fencepost. For the sixth time. He really shouldn't bother with it anymore, except the kids trip over it all the time, and the last boy wrecked his arm so bad it stayed purple for a season. 

He grabs the hammer from the drawer, rusty and splintered, and lugs out a bucket of nails from some dark cranny of the cellar. A heapful of gray clouds covers the sky today. Nothing can cut out the heat entirely, but this is pretty close. 

He winces as he crouches down, knees pressing into solid ground. Digging around the old post is always a pain. The summer sun bakes the earth all day, and no amount of mad hacking can get it to budge. 

He’s just about to get started when a shadow creeps beside him. 

Startled, Seungcheol squints up from under the brim of his hat. 

A man stares down at him. 

Mingyu’s band frequents town often enough that he recognizes most of them. This one, pale and dark-haired, always rides up front. The knife holsters usually spanning across his waist are missing today. 

Funny. He doesn’t think any of Mingyu’s outlaws have ever stopped to chat with him. Since they’re wanted men. And he’s a sheriff. Usually their jobs make kinship pretty difficult. 

He’s got a half mind to wave his badge around (in case he forgot, which is alright, because Seungcheol forgets he’s sheriff too sometimes) but the man opens his mouth and starts speaking so fast, Seungcheol’s jaw drops open. 

“I’ve got this horse. It’s gray and there’s white spots on his face and hind, and I’m pretty sure I left my bag on him. His mane is black, but the very tip of his tail is white. I been looking everywhere for him, but-”

“He’s not gonna help, Vernon-ah.”

The boy named Vernon looks up. 

From across the street, Mingyu is frowning over at both of them, hands on his hips. Not on his hellish beast of a horse for once. Which is awful sweet of him, because then Seungcheol would also have to worry about being trampled and no one arresting the culprit, since he’s the only sheriff around. 

“But—”

“He won’t.”

They seem to have some sort of stare-off, all squinty eyes and tight jaws. At last, Vernon’s face drops, and he walks away. 

Chewing his cheek, Mingyu looks after him, then at Seungcheol. “If you do see it, don’t you sell it or nothing, you hear? That’s his favorite and only horse.”

Bristling, Seungcheol straightens. “Remember that gold bar you stole from Mrs. Yoon’s house? That was her favorite and only gold bar.”

Mingyu’s lip curls. His hair is wind-mussed and maddeningly ruffled over his forehead. He glances at the broken fence, then at the rusted hammer, and laughs something mean. 

Seungcheol has a nagging hunch that fix number seven is going to be sooner than he thinks.

~

The outlaws leave town again. He watches them ride off from the front porch, railing carving into his hip, lungs rattling against his ribcage like the wheels of an oxcart. Mingyu is at the front. The boy named Vernon shares his horse, neck bent down. 

They never come on a schedule, and they never stay long. It gets dangerous to loiter after five days. Sending a letter to the nearest sheriff’s office would take Seungcheol a week. Riding over himself, maybe half that, if the heat doesn’t bake his horse and the dust doesn’t bowl him over. 

There was a time he would take a stand. A younger version of him would pull his weapon on a mob of armed men and fire until it clicked empty. Young, hot-blooded Seungcheol would chase Kim Mingyu for a fortnight through burning sand and drag him right back behind bars. 

Morals erode. Just like everything else manmade. The winds of time strip the houses of their paint and the human mind of its spirit. 

He’d still put up a fight, probably, if Mingyu’s men took a torch to the church, or that old post office that still receives letters from sons mining coal across the canyon. But so far, they seem to have contented themselves with draining the saloon’s shelves—and so Seungcheol has contented himself with surveying from afar. 

Of course, it’s not like he’s the only one nursing a grudge. There’s always others. Rich men don’t take lightly to being robbed from, especially not by down-country hooligans with blood worth less than dirt. And even an amateur tracker couldn’t miss a whole mob of men on horses—much less the ruthless professionals he’s sure have been set on Mingyu’s tail. 

It’s been years since Kim Mingyu became the most wanted man in the West. No one’s gotten their hands on him yet. 

But no one expects him to hide out in a ratchety old town with no name and no money. No one expects them to be worth anything, even the presence of an outlaw. 

And maybe this is another reason Seungcheol doesn’t reach for his gun every time hoofbeats start to shake the horizon. 

~

Weeks pass like gruel, thick and drudging. He gets dragged out of station at high noon by a pair of soot-faced boys who tug his sleeves to their Ma’s house, a few buildings down. She opens the door wrapped in a shawl, face starched white like bone. 

“There’s a crazy thing next to the hens. I didn’t catch a good glimpse of it. The boys say it’s a coyote.”

Seungcheol hums skeptically, thumb running over the stitching of his holster. “Don’t know about that, there aren’t many coyotes around here.”

   This is immediately met with fierce objection. 

“No, I swear, sheriff!”

    “It was, it was!”

“I swear on my-”

He raises his hands. “Alright, don’t start swearing on anything. Let me take a look. You two stay back, okay? If it is coyotes, I don’t want you to be carried off.”

Keeping a hand on his firearm, he steps out the back door, casting a wary glance at the chickens. Even the most God-fearing coyote wouldn’t leave an open coop untouched. But he doesn’t see any of those signs here—no feathers, no blood, no chewed up bones. Either this coyote is fasting, or it was never there in the first place. 

He steps further, into the lazy orange pool of sunlight beyond the wire. 

There. Something gray. 

Wincing, he turns the corner. 

Standing there, grazing on the only patch of grass left in town, is a horse. A gray horse with white spots on its face and hind. A stiff leather saddle bag hangs off its back, pitch black mane gone messy and tangled. 

Vernon’s face flashes into his mind. Then, Mingyu’s. 

Two pairs of tiny arms loop around his knees from behind. “Is it? Is it a coyote?”

“Nope,” Seungcheol mutters, dropping his gun back into its holster. Though, at this point, he thinks he’d rather take a coyote over whatever the hell this is going to turn out to be.  

~

The horse isn’t the easiest thing to wrangle, but it’s been trained well enough—he manages it with a few cubes of sugar and a couple of stern claps. Now comes the infinitely more difficult portion of the ordeal, which probably will consist of him trying to pally up with Kim Mingyu’s right hand man. 

He presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose, as if shifting the bone will somehow make his problems give way. 

At least his own horse finally has some company. The two of them peer at each other suspiciously from opposite edges of the pen. When one kicks, the other startles. Like a duel in the middle of town. Like him and Mingyu, in a weird way he tries not to think about. 

There are some things about the evening silhouette that won’t ever change. The jagged ridges of distant mountains, the three cactuses, the wren that always perches on the middle one with its head turned towards the sunset. 

Nursing his glass, Seungcheol watches night overtake the desert like a feverish eye falling shut. 

~

Another two weeks drag by before Mingyu’s gang rides back in. He blinks awake to the crack of misfired rifles and loud cursing at the dusty lip of dawn. 

It’s a smaller group this time. They mob the road in clusters, guzzling down the glasses of water brought out to them on trays. One of them empties a whole satchel of metal casings in the middle of the street. Another is flirting with the egg-seller’s daughter. 

He finds the boy named Vernon alone, sitting in the dirt against the ruins of the schoolhouse. His legs are spread out in front of him like scattered matchsticks. His face is shadowed and streaked with sweat. 

Seungcheol shuffles up awkwardly, shoving his hands into his pockets and drawing his shoulders up tight. “Vernon, is it?” He clears his throat, scuffing the ground with the edge of his boot. “I—I found a gray horse the other day, don’t know if it’s yours. Want to have a look?”

Vernon’s eyes go wide so fast it’s a damn miracle they don’t pop right out of his skull. He jumps to his feet at a speed that makes Seungcheol’s knees hurt, and brushes his palms off on his pants like he’s going to church. 

Mingyu’s men are so drunk on naps and cold water, they don’t even spot them walking right past. 

Flicking the rusted latch, he pushes open the low gate outside his house. “I just kept him in my pen. It looked like it was him, but I don’t want to get your hopes up—”

Vernon gasps loud, paling like he’s seen the coming of the holy spirit. “Graygray!”

The horse’s head flies up from its feed. It honest-to-the-Lord whinnies something that sounds like “Vernon” before galloping up to the aft side of the fence with enough speed to make Seungcheol fear that it’ll fall right over. Fence or horse or both. 

Well. That answers that. 

He hangs back, wiping sweat from his brow. Well, that wasn’t as horrible as he’d imagined. At least—

“What the hell’s going on here?”

Shit. 

At the gate, Kim Mingyu dismounts his horse and steps over the fence. Rage narrows his eyes into knives. “What d’you think you’re doing? Is this your next plan? Kidnapping my guys and throwing them into a jailcart, and you thought I wouldn’t notice?”

Great. Brilliant. Seungcheol’s jaw clicks. “Watch your tongue.”

“Watch my tongue? Watch your step, you might just fall into your grave. Do you know what my men tell me to do?”

“Oh yeah? What do they tell you to do?”

Vernon, bless him, pulls away from his tearful reunion long enough to notice his boss about ready to shoot Seungcheol dead. “Hyung, look! Graygray!”

Mingyu looks at the horse. Then his man, still alive and very-much not thrown into a jailcart. Then, at Seungcheol. A long, mean up-down rake of the eyes, like he’s flaying him open with a switchblade. And then, all at once, it seems to dawn on him. His mouth forms an o. 

Seungcheol raises an eyebrow, crossing his arms. “You were saying something. Keep going, why don’t you?”

“Come on, let’s get outta here,” Mingyu mutters, tossing Vernon his saddle and looking away. 

Seungcheol watches them mount again, relief and something else warring in his chest. 

The morning is still waxing above, sun stretching its arms over the sky above them. An early warmth which will grow into pain. A pale bleached gleam that will become a blinding brightness. 

Vernon twists back, still on his horse. Raises an arm, grins. Mingyu bats it back down. 

But he looks back too, a final glance over the shoulder, gaze searing through all the kicked up dust and the rippling lines of heat. 

Seungcheol swallows his heart back down his throat and turns away. 

~

A caravan of goods arrives from the near east a day later. He stops by the general store to buy a couple pounds of salt beef, rice, and a few jars of pickle. The old owner throws in a pack of soda crackers too, a rare little smile touching his mouth. Seungcheol had fixed the man’s horsewagon a few months ago. He wipes his palms on his handkerchief before shaking his hand. 

Some kids are clustered near the bulletin as he leaves. 

“Sheriff! Sheriff! Can I have your hat?”

“No.”

“Sheriff, isn’t that the guy you kicked out of the saloon two weeks ago?”

Humming, he squints at the sun-yellowed wanted poster. Jagged teeth, wild eyes. Lee Taeshik. Got a little too rough with some of the regulars, and the saloon owner had called Seungcheol in for management. Yeah. That’s him. 

One of the older boys stares up at him, eyes gleaming. “You totally knocked him out, sheriff.”

He snorts, reaching down and ruffling the child’s hair. 

When he emerges onto the porch, the rocking chairs are occupied by some of the old coal miners who retired here a few years ago, when New Canyon mine blew up. They exhale mouthfuls of smoke in long, singed breaths. 

“Choi.” A withered hand is raised. “There’s some commotion near your part of town.”

Seungcheol scratches his cheek, turning towards the horizon. “Really?”

Commotion is rare. Most people here are either very old or very young, and even the kids aren’t too troublesome on bad days. Chewing his lip, he jogs down the stairs with his groceries. 

The matter becomes clearer as he nears the station. 

Three men are tossed on the ground in front. Just laying there in the dust like lizards. No, not laying. They’re tied together with rope. One of them looks like he’s still struggling, only to be kicked down with the toe of a fancy leather boot. 

Seungcheol traces the boot up a long denim leg, an embroidered vest too fancy to be local, straight to a tanned, perfect face. Mingyu. Standing there with his hip cocked and mouth pulled into a self-assured line. His horse is tethered to a post behind, and his pistol gleams pearlescent beneath his thumb.

“Here,” Mingyu declares, before he can open his mouth. “These three were sneaking around your office. Two of them had meat cleavers, and one of them a first-grade rifle that would have blown your brains right out.”

Blinking, he looks back down at the men. That’s Lee right there, the one still trying to worm his way out of the rope. Still bruised fresh and purple on his cheek from Seungcheol’s fist a week ago. This must have been some kind of vengeance plan. Not for the bruise, though that must sting something terrible. For the humiliation. A nick to the wrong man’s ego is worse than any flesh wound.  

Anyway, the thing is that he would probably have been ambushed and killed today, in daylight, fifteen feet from town square. And for whatever reason, this weighed on Kim Mingyu’s bloody conscience. 

Or, more likely, he thought he’d have something to gain out of saving Seungcheol’s life. 

Seungcheol runs his tongue across his teeth. “You like putting people in your debt? Is that why everyone likes you?”

Mingyu stares at him. “People don’t like you because they owe you something. People like you because they should owe you something, but you don’t care enough to collect.” He raises his chin proudly. “Besides, you ain’t in my debt. We’re even now.”

“Even?”

“You found Vernon’s horse and kept it well and gave it back. His debt was my debt too.” He nods now, as if more certain about all of it. “That's how my gang works.”

Lord. For a gang leader, he’s awful filial. 

Mingyu raises his eyebrows, hands on his hips. “So?”

Brat. Squeezing his eyes shut, Seungcheol digs his tongue against the inside of his cheek. “What?”

Mingyu’s voice has taken on that damned smugness again. “So, where I’m from, saving a man’s life should earn you some gratitude.”

He squares his shoulders. “It was a debt, wasn’t it? Now it’s been erased. Congratulations.”

One of Mingyu’s men steps forward. Mingyu raises a hand to stop him, that familiar disdainful smile curling across his mouth again. “Arrogance is like drink, isn’t it? No matter how hard you try, you just can’t quit it.”

Seungcheol hums. “Huh, you should try preaching. Start a nice little church on the frontier, maybe it’ll get you off the wanted list.”

Mingyu’s jaw works for a moment. Then, he turns on the heel of his boot and stalks away. 

He’s tall. Tall and pretty, and he walks with a kind of swagger—shoulders set, arms stretching—that would make you believe he’s the king of the world. In a way, he is. 

It’s no wonder some of the older kids at the market cry when he leaves town. At least for a few days, they have something nice to look at in this graveyard of dirt and dead things. Like a piece of gold sifted between dirt and river water. Some exception to the law of ruin surrounding them. 

Exhaling, he looks down at the three men still at his feet. “Alright. Let’s see if I can squeeze all three of you into one cell.”

~

The coyote boys’ mother, Mrs. Heo, delivers a homebaked mince pie. 

“Huh, guess I’m set for supper for a few days,” Seungcheol murmurs. “Thanks.”

“Looks like a dust storm’s coming,” she replies, stepping back and squinting into the horizon. 

It does. A brownish orange has begun to rust the skies, kicking up in sheets. He can’t see the mountain ridges anymore, either. Probably a remnant of that rare thunderstorm they got a few days ago. All the sticky air and rain brings wind, and the wind brings dust. 

Seungcheol straightens. “You’d better get inside with your boys before we get the brunt of it. Bolt your doors, shut the windows, all of that. I’ll make sure there’s no more kids outside.”

Mrs. Heo smiles tiredly. “A few of these will wreck your lungs as good as a decade in the mines.”

“Don’t I know it.” He’s already pulling his bandanna up, over his nose and mouth. 

The children that usually play hopscotch near the old schoolhouse are already scattering towards their homes, shrieking all crazy like they don’t get one of these storms every few months. One of the older girls is struggling with the reins of a stubborn horse. Seungcheol grabs them and tugs until the mare finally gives, trotting after them with offended little noises.

“Wait, Jihye, my sister is still—” 

“You get in, I’ll find her.”

Once he gets her horse inside a closed stable (and her inside her house) he rounds back into town square. The storm is fast. A wall of dust as far up and over as the eye can see, like the burnt palm of God closing in. You can’t see the cactuses anymore. Thick plumes of orange are already blowing in on the early breeze. 

He won’t be able to see a foot in front of him, soon, forget his way back to the station. 

Dust storms are mean. Like a thousand little spurs digging into every exposed patch of skin. Staggering over to the side, he presses his hand to the wall of a building. The brick is rough beneath his fingers, scratching across his palm. 

His palm brushes something else. 

There’s a loud yelp. 

Before he knows what’s happening, a pair of arms are looping around his shoulders, and he’s being tumbled back against the wall. 

He blinks a few times, through the thickening haze. 

His hands are on the waist of Kim Mingyu. Who is staring at him through a pitch black curtain of fringe, mouth parted and pink. Breathing too heavy. 

The wind shrieks like blood rushing through his ears. Mingyu says something. Probably a curse, the way his bottom lip catches on the edge of his teeth. Batting Seungcheol’s hands off, he steps back, raises a finger, and starts yelling. 

“Close your mouth,” Seungcheol shouts, trying to mime it. “You’re breathing in dust, close your mouth.” 

Mingyu keeps yelling. Can’t hear him, probably, over the rush of the wind and the deafening sound of his own bloody stubbornness. 

Grappling in his pockets, Seungcheol finds an old, speckled bandanna. A little tattered. Doesn’t matter, it’ll have to do. Once the storm has passed, if Mingyu’s men find him standing over the cold, dead body of their ringleader, the best he can hope for is a quick death. 

He reaches forward before Mingyu can start throwing punches, tucking the fabric over his nose and around the nape of his neck, knotting it tight. 

Mingyu’s eyes blow wide. He reaches up to touch it, then freezes. A blink. Two blinks. 

There’s no time to think about that, the girl—Jihye—is probably still out here somewhere. Keeping one palm fixed to the wall, Seungcheol crouches halfway. At this point, a thick curtain of rust-orange dust has descended on town. He can hardly even make out his boots. 

“Jihye!” he shouts, hair flying into his face, dust spinning into his eyes. “Jihye, can you hear me?”

There’s a distant, high-pitched wail. A dark shadow of movement. 

Bullseye. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and lunges, getting an armful of pigtails and ribbons and teary-eyed toddler. She cries out again, but seems to recognize him, digging her fingers into his forearm with the grip of a gecko. Even through the dust, he can see her lower lip trembling. Okay, okay. 

Before she starts sobbing again and breathes in enough dust to scar her lungs, he rips his own bandanna off his face and onto hers. 

With some final vestige of strength, he manages to feel his way down the street and towards the door with the cowbell strung up on it. In goes the girl to her mother, and there shuts the door. 

They’re in the thick of the storm. Enough wind to knock a grown man over and drag him a hundred feet down the road. He fixes his elbow over his nose. Nearly trips over nothing. His eyes are burning like someone’s touched them with a hot iron. Whatever is being washed out by the tears is replaced with the newest wave of wind. 

He’s blind. There’s no way he can find his way back. 

Cursing, he reaches for his belt. Hat. Shirt. Pistol. And his father used to say, if a man can’t help himself in the desert with these three, the best thing he can do is pray. Except Seungcheol hasn’t attended services since forever, so even if he managed to get on his knees in the middle of this hellscape and recite the Commandments perfectly, he doesn’t think he has much of an excuse to get his prayers heard. 

Then—

A hand wraps around his wrist and gives a firm tug. 

Blind, lost, hopeless, Seungcheol stumbles along. 

If this is an angel, he only hopes he doesn’t have to relive his sins before Judgment. He only hopes he gets a glimpse of his father in the pearl-white clouds, before they send him down for atonement. They say God is merciful. 

Somehow, he doesn’t think the journey up to Heaven is supposed to be this bumpy, though. 

His knees scrape over a very familiar set of stairs, and he is half-carried, half-thrown through a door that then slams shut with far too much vigor for the state of its hinges. 

He’s been brought back to the sheriff’s office. Windows shuttered, door bolted. Fifth floorboard creaking underneath his boots. By the time he straightens, a tall, purple shadow is already advancing on him. 

“Guess I should’ve known you were stupid as bricks, too, on top of everything,” Mingyu leers, pulling the bandanna down his neck with a sharp tug. “Why wouldn’t you just bring the girl back first? Why wouldn’t you cover your face with your shirt? Do you like playing martyr? Does it make you feel good, sheriff?”

Seungcheol staggers into a chair. After inhaling what feels like a cartload of dust, he doesn’t think he has the capacity to shout without ripping his throat out. “Her sister,” he rasps. 

Mingyu reels back. “What?”

“Her sister would’ve come out and started looking for her if I didn’t bring her back quick.” Grunting, he reaches for the lower cabinet. He needs a drink, something to clear his mind. Or make it more hazy. Either will do. 

Liquor is a pretty thing. Sloshing like an amber lamp that glows when it catches the light. He runs the back of his hand across the glass bottles until his ring finger catches on the last of the good whiskey. He’d been saving it for something good. 

Well. He just nearly died, and he’s penned into a tiny jailhouse with an outlaw who has a grudge and a gun. Now is as good a time as any. If another dust storm comes by, he might not even get a chance to finish it. 

Mingyu watches him pour two fingers into a cracked mug. A long shadow sifts across his face. 

The silence is thin. Lashes of wind still roar outside, rattling the shutters like a ghost trying to get in. They’re all ghosts. Shells of men walking around, trying to find a place to rest. So blind with ache they can’t see the glory of a new morning. 

Seungcheol sips. It’s warm. Hot down his throat, settling in his gut like guilt. He clears his throat. “Guess I owe you, now.”

Not that the favor will ever be called in. There’s nothing he could give Mingyu that he doesn’t already have—except something new to dangle over his head. He’ll have to hope that one of the outlaws loses their horse again. Or maybe a chicken this time, so he doesn’t have to wrestle with it as long. 

Mingyu’s eyes flick up. “Vernon—”

“He’ll be fine.”

“Okay.”

He doesn’t know what prompts him to say it. Delirium, maybe. Or all that dust. Or maybe, after all these years, the whiskey is finally taking its toll. Anyway, Seungcheol opens his big fat mouth and murmurs “You’ll be fine, too.”

And finally, finally, Mingyu slumps against the wall. “Okay.”

Silence floods in, again, like a dam that can’t stop overflowing. But in this parched desert, maybe the water is welcome. He’s three feet away from his sworn enemy and can’t bring himself to throw a curse. 

Okay. 

Okay. 

It’s only after the storm settles, after Mingyu turns, after the door shuts and night falls, that Seungcheol realizes he never got his bandanna back. 

~

(The first warning he ever gives Kim Mingyu is when he’s sixteen and still soft in the face. He’d stolen a buckle from the metal caravan that stops by over the summers. The kind of buckle ranchers wear on their belts when they can’t afford turquoise or silver. 

Seungcheol smacks the back of his head and tells him to give it back. The kid looks about ready to spit at him, but manages to summon a little remorse once he finally pulls the thing out of his pocket and mumbles an apology. 

The old lady who’d been selling them just smiles. Slides it back over and tells him to keep it. Says that she appreciates the apology, but he’s a handsome young man and he’ll look good in it. 

Seungcheol watches Mingyu run off with a big old smile, and thinks: Now, this could go two ways. Either the guilt was enough, and this was a harmless end to the kid’s life of crime. Or, he’s just gotten more incentive to do it again. 

Something in his gut tells him it’s the first. 

He’s learned, since then, not to trust his instincts when it comes to Kim Mingyu. )

~

The next few days are strange. He keeps on catching Mingyu lurking around the premises of his station, skulking in the shadows like a demon who can’t figure out how to best spite you. 

On its own, this would be more than enough to startle, except Mingyu’s men are also acting odd. Not friendly. Just…staying out of his way. Scattering when he looks. One or two even tip their hats, then freeze, as if they’re shocked about it too. 

Seungcheol doesn’t get much time to question it. 

On Thursday, the paperboy rides in with headlines about a new patrol of trackers prowling the desert, raiding towns without notice. 

The outlaws leave within the hour.

As they’re running around, throwing stuff into satchels, bottling water and brandy in equal portions, Mingyu keeps looking back at him.

He has lovely eyes. 

No, not lovely. Anyone can have lovely eyes. But Mingyu’s eyes have more soul than any Seungcheol has ever seen. Warm and round and lashes like big black feathers. Like he’s always burning up inside, and can’t express it any other way. Like he has a purpose, and he’s begging you to understand, and he’s ready to conquer the world. 

It almost hurts to be looked at by him. 

(But man craves pain. Man would crave anything, so long as it wasn’t good for him.)

Seungcheol retreats back into the station long before they ride away. 

~

On Sunday, he shares the last of Mrs. Heo’s mince pie with a couple of raggedy kids from the church. He doesn’t end up getting much on his own plate, but he doesn’t complain when some of them eat like they haven’t in days. His porch creaks under the taps of tiny, excited feet. One fiddles with his badge. Another asks when they’ll learn about lassos.

“Lassos?” he rasps, mouth quirking. “Why? You looking to be a cowgirl? It’s hard work, princess.”

“No. I want to join Mister Kim’s gang!”

He chokes on his watered-down whiskey. Well, that’s a new one. “Gang? You want to be a thief, Sumin-ah?”

“Appa was bought by a rich man and has to work even though he doesn’t want to. Mister Kim robs rich men, doesn’t he? And frees the workers? My older brothers are in it too! They send bags of money home so Ma doesn’t have to work.” Sumin sits up proudly. “That’s what I want to do. And I’ll need to know how to work a lasso, sheriff.”

Seungcheol pauses. Sumin’s father works in the mines. Those labor contracts aren’t the prettiest, especially when they’re cut with men from the East. The same kinds of men Mingyu steals from. If he has them stammering on the wrong end of a gun barrel, it can’t be too hard to ask them to tear up a few contracts too. 

He must fancy himself some sort of folk hero. No wonder he can walk around town with his chest puffed out like that. No wonder all of his wanted posters get engraved with hearts by the end of the week. 

Oh. Now, he bets half of Mingyu’s men are miners’ sons. Kids with nothing else, chasing the red flag of vengeance like bulls. A band of orphans loyal to their ringleader. 

“Sheriff? You’ll teach me how to lasso, right?” Sumin’s eyes are wide. Glowing with the beginnings of that burn. 

His chest feels like it’s been impaled on his own ribs. Turned inside out and exposed to the cruelty of the midday sun. 

This isn’t just a matter of money anymore. It’s a matter of hope. The kind of hope that Mingyu collects in satchels and disperses on horseback. The kind of hope that’s rarer out here than rainfall. 

And if Seungcheol denied them this, too, maybe he’d be the real thief. 

~

Monday morning, the trackers find their town. They miss Mingyu by a week and a half. 

Only two of them ride in, but Seungcheol sees the smoke rising from their encampment in the distant desert. There’s at least ten more. Waiting. Ready to wash the sand out with blood, in case any stragglers try to escape. 

By the time he gets to town square, the two men have already dismounted and drawn a crowd. One appears to be interrogating a child. The other is chugging water from a copper glass. In this, Seungcheol is reminded of the outlaws—a comparison he decides not to voice. 

His size is helpful in times like these. Pushing through the crowd is no problem. Especially when the first tracker finally looks up from the toddler and sees him. “Ah, the sheriff. At last. We were desperate for your company.”

Seungcheol doesn’t smile back, not until the kid has scampered back to his mother’s skirts. “Were you?”

The taller one puts his hands on his hips, sweeping his leather vest back. Two gleaming guns catch the light. Commission firearms. They kill so fast, you can’t even smell the smoke. “We’re not staying long. Our business today is real brief.” His gaze rifles through the bunch of them, a kind of malicious amusement. “You’ve all heard of Kim Mingyu, surely. I trust you’re not so…isolated.”

Seungcheol catches the pastor’s eye and shakes his head, subtly. The man closes his mouth. 

Nobody speaks. Or breathes. Perhaps this is an acceptable response, because neither of the guns are drawn either. 

“Well, sheriffs on this side of the canyon are forming a coalition to catch this punk. If you catch sight of him, even a whiff of information, you report it to us, you understand?”

Again, silence. 

“You understand?”

A few hasty nods.

“Good. Now, I know this is his hometown, and even diehard criminals long for a few friendly faces. Tell me, does he stop by often?” No one dares speak first. “You.” A finger is pointed at the egg seller’s daughter. With it, a gun. “Tell me.”

She shakes her head feverishly. 

“No?” The taller one hums with a venomous sweetness that raises the hairs on the back of Seungcheol’s neck. He looks at the butcher, then. “How about you?”

“No, n-no.”

“Huh, really?” He grins, gold teeth bared like he’s closing in on the kill. At last, he turns and fixes his gaze on Seungcheol. “Sheriff? You seen Kim around at all?”

A religious man might call this opportunity “heavensent”. A chance to curry favor with the best gunslingers around, and get that big imp behind bars at the same time. Two birds, one bullet. Two worries, one word. The kind of blessing their pastor doesn’t even dream of, anymore. 

But Seungcheol happens to know that God doesn’t endorse vengeance. 

So he crosses his arms across his chest and says—

“No.”

A sliver of a smile. “No? Never?”

Lord, help him. If they catch on, the town will be aflame in a matter of minutes, and he will be on the ground with a bullet in his head. He clenches his jaw, trying to calm down. Trackers this well-paid could probably sniff out a nervous heartbeat like hounds to blood. 

“Last I saw him, he was eighteen and fresh out of my jail,” he says. “It’s been a couple years.”

Both men look taken aback, for a moment. The shorter one blinks. “What’s your name?” He squints at Seungcheol’s badge, lips pursed pink. “Choi, is it? I’ll note it down.”

Shit. Seungcheol swallows hard. “What for?” 

The taller one grins. His own name badge reads Yang. “For merit. You must be the only lawman to have ever gotten your hands on him. And hiding out in such a hillbilly town too. I guess that’s why men have got to keep mining, isn’t it? You never know where you’ll strike gold.”

Merit. 

His breath hitches. He can’t believe it. They’ve actually taken his word for it. Relief rushes down his spine like a cold rag.

Yang stretches, back twisting like the shed of a snake. “All right, then. I guess we’ll head out.” 

Seungcheol steps aside, heart still pounding. “Let me walk you back.”

The two of them walk ahead of him, all that menace softened into casual arrogance. He trails behind. Adrenaline is still hot and thrumming under his skin. But more than that, awe. The sun has never seemed so sweet, the sky never so blue. Maybe this world has been shaped by a merciful hand after all.

At the very end of the path, the taller one—Yang something—stops at his fencepost. The one Mingyu always kicks over, now eternally lopsided. “Huh. Looks like this one’s been busted a few times.”

If he wasn’t terrified out of his mind, he might laugh at the irony of it. “Oh, you know.” Seungcheol rubs his nose. “Drunkards.”

~

When the dust settles, all that’s left behind is the waiting. It’s been a month since the gang last ran through town. 

He would be lying if he said they weren’t missed. Not by him. He doesn’t miss them. But everyone else seems to be a little disappointed every morning, when the roads that greet them are still barren. 

It’s all Sumin talks about anymore. The saloon owner keeps wiping down his tables like he’s expecting a crowd. All the extra pies the Ladies’ Association bake for the outlaws have been dispersed amongst townspeople instead. 

(Seungcheol got a gooseberry one yesterday, and the grandma who gave it to him looked so sullen, he didn’t even have the heart to tell her he doesn’t like gooseberries.)

It’s a lovely sunset, today. The color of bleeding fruit. The three cactuses are still there. Not the wren, though. 

Something missing. Something missed. 

Seungcheol snuffs out the oil lamp and goes to bed. 

~

At an unholy hour of the night, he is awoken to the sharp clatter of rocks being chucked at his window. When he opens the door, sleep-mussed and hoarse, the younger of Mrs. Heo’s sons stares up at him. 

Is he on fire? No. Is he crying? No. Is there screaming in the distance? No. Not an emergency, then. Seungcheol slumps against the doorframe, eyes sticking shut. “Why didn’t you just knock, kid?”

The boy blinks. “I thought you wouldn’t hear. Mister Kim told me to get you as quick as I could.”

“Eh?”

“I—I mean. Ma says she can’t sleep! Because the noise from the saloon is too much!”

Saloon? Their saloon has been empty as a ghost for a whole month now. Did the locals all decide to start drinking again on Sundays?

Seungcheol shakes his head. Whatever. He’s too tired for this. Breaking up a crowd isn’t tough. All he has to do is wave his hand around a little, and they’ll disperse. 

He pulls on a threadbare flannel, and gives up trying to button it after the bottom two, shoving his feet into his boots. 

The night is chilly. Mrs. Heo’s son drags him down the road by the hem of his pants, so he’s half asleep again by the time he gets through the saloon door and all the noise finally registers as—

“Hyung-nim, hyung-nim, he’s here!”

“Huh?”

Seungcheol’s eyes snap open. 

Slouched on the bar stool before him, eyes half-lidded and mean, is Kim Mingyu. 

Is this a dream? This must be a dream. Or a nightmare, more like. 

Mingyu turns around. Sees him. Gaze going wide, he straightens, hands flying to his vest to smoothen it out. 

All of Mingyu’s men are here too, of course. Slouched around the saloon, so many of them that they’re sharing seats, laying across tables, crooning drunken tunes in dusty corners. Freshly returned from the pits of Hell. 

The boy named Vernon peeks past Mingyu’s shoulder, and grins. “Oh, hey sheriff.”

Hey is not the word he would choose for this moment. 

“You’re back?” he croaks, instead. 

Mingyu’s face, strangely tight, breaks into an easy smirk. “Why? Did you miss me?” Thumbing the label of his dusty bottle, he leans back. “Did you want to see me so bad you just rolled over here? Because it looks like you caught a few cactuses on the way.” He takes a swig, but it seems forced. “You know, it’s nice to wash your hair every couple weeks, sheriff.”

Maybe a month’s worth of good sleep has transformed him into a generous man. Maybe it’s those damned eyes blinking up at him like that—because even though everything else has changed, Mingyu’s eyes haven’t. Not for eight years. 

Not since when the worst thing he had to worry about was the back of Seungcheol’s hand, and the owner of the general store chasing him through town for a stolen can of peaches. 

Seungcheol finds, anyhow, that he can’t bring himself to bite back. Exhausted, he drops his head. The night pours like oil over his eyelids, drowsy and slow. 

“Why don’t you find some other town to terrorize?” he murmurs. “Look around. There’s nothing to be had here.”

Mingyu crosses his arms. “Then why do y’all keep a sheriff around? It seems like a waste to hire a man who has nothing to do.”

“It’s the law. Established townships need a sheriff.”

“Why’d you go through all the trouble of becoming an established township if there was never nothing to be had here?”

Seungcheol grits his teeth. “You ask too many questions.”

“Yeah?” Mingyu shakes his bottle a little, like a flag. “Well my guys are keeping the saloon running, which is about the only thing stopping your township from becoming a ghost. Forget telling me to leave,” He raises an accusing finger. “You should be asking why I don’t come by more often.”

It’s always the audacity that startles him, more than anything. More than his stupid horse or his stupid insults or his stupidly pretty little grin. 

“You—” No, it’s no use. He shakes his head and turns away. That’s probably the best thing he can do anymore. “I’m going to bed.”

“Do whatever the hell you want, see if I care,” Mingyu yells after him. “It’s not like I come to see you, I’m here for the drinks! Pride is a sin!”

~

The next time Mingyu’s gang rides in, Seungcheol doesn’t even emerge from his station. 

Mingyu torches a bank. 

Now, he’s not trying to be a sinner, but it sure as hell feels like the two things are connected. 

(The bank was long abandoned—two walls down and half the roof ripped off from a twister. That’s not the point. The point is that Mingyu hasn’t pulled a stunt like that since forever. And it just so happens that Seungcheol wasn’t there for it.)

Just to be sure, he doesn’t come out the following day either. Instead of running out when he starts hearing stray bullets, he pulls his hat down over his eyes and falls asleep at his desk.  

He’s awoken rather rudely by the sound of someone pounding on the door so hard, the whole roof rattles. 

“What, is our king too proud to even meet his guests, now?” Mingyu sneers, when Seungcheol wrenches the door open. “Can’t even be bothered to say hello?”

Seungcheol yawns, running a hand through his hair. “I was sleeping. Is one nap too much to ask for?”

“Why the hell does the sheriff need a nap? You don’t seem to do much around here. Bandits running through your township and you don’t even pull a pistol?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Would you like me to? I just left it in the drawer over there, let me grab it.”

Mingyu plants his hands on his hips with the attitude of a petulant toddler. “Ha ha, I’m laughing. It’s midday and you’re asleep in your locked office. How is anyone supposed to find you when they need it?”

Seungcheol snorts. “Why, did you have a crime to report?”

The sunlight shifts, curtaining Mingyu’s squared shoulders in shimmering yellow. His bottom lip juts out. “Nevermind,” he snaps, whirling around and stomping down the stairs. “Never. Fucking. Mind!”

The usual burst of triumph Seungcheol gets from such a reaction is muted, today. He watches Mingyu storm over to his horse and lead it away. 

Weird. Instead of rejoicing at his absence, Mingyu had actually sought him out. In his nice boots too. And that pretty embroidered denim jacket Seungcheol’s only seen on him once. 

Shaking his head, he shuts the door. 

But a strange feeling settles in his chest and doesn’t leave for a while. 

~

Dawn is quiet and flesh-pink, like a rare gem. 

“Ooh, what’s that, what’s that? Can I try it on?”

“Here.”

When Seungcheol rounds the corner, Mingyu and a few other children from around town are sitting in a circle in front of the station. One of them is wearing his hat. Another has his leather vest wrapped around herself like a blanket. It’s a sweet picture, somehow. As annoying as he is, he’s awful good with children. 

Mingyu is smiling. Not the sarcastic kind either. Really smiling. Kind. Teeth crooked, head hunched like he can’t bear the weight of his own happiness. Glowing like an angel in the early morning light. The sun peeks above the mountain ridges behind him, like it’s trying to catch a glimpse of him too. 

Something holy. Something devastating. Something so beautiful, he can’t help but want to tuck it into his arms, lest it be carried away by a wayward breeze. 

Seungcheol exhales.

Mingyu looks up.

Their eyes catch. 

“Are you hiring kids too, now?” he rasps, crossing his arms. 

“At least they like me.” Mingyu smooths his thumb, too-fond, over the cheek of the little girl wearing his hat. “I doubt you could say the same.”

“Of course they like me. Don’t you, kids?”

“Yes, Sheriff!”

Hah. He crosses his arms with the jubilance of a rare triumph. 

“You all have little chalkboards,” Mingyu murmurs, ignoring him.

One of the smaller boys grins up at him. “We’re learning our letters. I come every Monday.”

“Me too!”

“I’m Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

A little, stunned silence. 

Seungcheol rubs his forehead. “You kids can go and play really quick, okay? Take a little break before we start.”

A chorus of excited shrieks. He watches them scramble up on their shaky little legs and chase each other into town, faces so easily flushed. Hope. Children have it in abundance, so long as you don’t bleed it out of them. 

Now alone on the ground, Mingyu stares at him. For the first time since Seungcheol’s known him, he looks…stricken. 

“You teach them.”

Feeling scrutinized, Seungcheol shifts his weight. “The schoolhouse was broke. Kids can’t grow up without knowing their letters.”

The parents are grateful for it. Too many of them have lost years to a contract they couldn’t read, but signed anyway. 

Mingyu stands, slow.  His sleeves are rolled up to the bicep, shirt starched all neat. Each pearl button is perfect. Every strand of hair, so effortlessly spilled across his forehead.  And yet, somehow, he seems disheveled. Off kilter. 

“We were going to stay in the canyons for another week,” he blurts, all of a sudden. “My men wanted to hide out for a little longer to be sure. But I wanted to know something.” His breath hitches, then, on the edge of a pause. “Why didn’t you tell them?”

“Tell who what?”

“The trackers.” Mingyu steps closer. “I know they came by. I know they talked to you. And I know you didn’t say anything, and I want to know why.”

Oh. Oh. 

The dust picks up, like a morning boiling over from its pot. He should’ve figured Mingyu would find out eventually. Nothing so exciting ever happens around here without word getting around. Someone must have talked too loud, been overheard by the mail carrier, who must have ridden down to the canyon and caught the ear of one of the outlaws.  

Now comes the real question. Why did he do it, anyway? He could cite gospel, but that would probably make Mingyu laugh loud enough to wake the whole town. He could probably just brush the question off too. He doesn’t owe anyone an answer. 

“They were chasing you down for robbing one of them oil barons,” Seungcheol murmurs, fixing his gaze on the ground. “That’s beyond my territory. What does it matter?”

“It matters because I say it matters.” Mingyu scowls. “Don’t avoid the question. It’s your territory if a man holds a gun to your face, like they did.”

Gun to the face. Yes. He remembers the look of the barrel. The exhaustion in his chest, then the fear, then the anger. 

“Look,” he snaps. “I spend my whole life in this wretched place, watching our fathers losing their land, crowded into these stupid little houses that fall apart in months, worked to their death. There’s no out. The kids drink themselves silly, or run off to the East, or just sit on their porches and cry.”

Mingyu’s eyes have rounded now, that burning brown softened through dark lashes. The story is so familiar, it’s just a way of life. Actually putting it into words feels foreign. 

“It seems to me.” Seungcheol presses his fist into the bridge of his nose, already regretting every word leaving his mouth. “That their fourth and best option is you. Vengeance or robbery or whatever it is that you do. At least you—take care of them. Give them something to live for. You wouldn’t be much good to them behind bars, so I’m not going to arrest you and ruin it unless you do something real dumb. Alright?”

A dim wash of pink and purple stains the morning like sin. Great clouds tower above them. Mingyu gapes, as if the world is a carpet that’s just been pulled out from beneath his feet. 

“What,” Seungcheol mutters, suddenly shy. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

A slow, slow grin rises on Mingyu’s face. “I just realized somethin’, sheriff.”

Seungcheol frowns, suspicious. “What’s that?”

“You don’t hate me.”

He lifts his chin. “There’s things I hate more than you.”

“No. You don’t hate me at all. You’re just grumpy, aren’t you?” Mingyu is laughing now. Giggling is more the word for it, really, high-pitched and sweet like tea. “I used to think you wanted to kill me. But you’re just like an old man chasing kids off his porch.”

“What did you say?”

Snickering with that newfound cheek, Mingyu backs away, hips swaying. 

Standing there, under the tallowed sun, Seungcheol can’t help but feel like he’s just lit a stick of dynamite. 

~

The dynamite doesn’t burn out all at once. 

Mingyu’s men start making way for him. Literally clearing each other out and shoving themselves over to stay away from his path. One of them punches a stranger at the saloon for cursing at Seungcheol. Then, the day they’re set to leave, he finds two of them hammering away at his lopsided fencepost.

“What the—”

He spots Mingyu lurking in the distance, leaned up against the wall of the inn. Like a rancher surveying his workers.

In an hour, the fencepost is as good as new. 

When the gang arrives again a week later (sooner than they’re usually due) it’s almost completely silent. No stray bullets. No crazy whooping. Not even a stampede. Seungcheol only knows they’re there because one of their horses spooks and kicks over a metal pail, which then goes clanking all the way down the road. This is then followed by a loud chorus of shushing and hissing and hey, shuddups. 

In the afternoon, Vernon stops by the ranch with his horse—mostly, Seungcheol thinks, for the jar of sugarcubes he keeps in the shed. “Oh yeah,” he says. “Mingyu hyung told us to be quiet ‘cause you’d be sleeping.”

He’s never known Kim Mingyu, of all men, to give a cow’s tail about his sleep. “Why’d he go to all that trouble?” he grumbles. 

Vernon blinks, like it’s obvious. “You saved hyung’s life. Not just once. Twice. It’s kind of a big deal.” Lazy, he leans over the pen to watch him shovel hay. “Most of us owe a lot to him.”

Seungcheol straightens, wiping a line of sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. 

“You don’t hate me,” Mingyu had crowed. Maybe he was right. As much as Seungcheol pretends, he can’t anymore. Hatred, for all its flame, is often the child of a score unsettled. But there is no red in the ledger between them anymore.  

“Here, feed the horses if you want,” he mutters, stepping away from the pen and dusting his hands off. “I need to buy rawhide. Damn, but the store’s closed today. I’ll have to go tomorrow afternoon.”

“General store, tomorrow afternoon,” Vernon repeats, then nods to himself. Before Seungcheol can ask, he’s reaching for the pitchfork. 

~

He’s picking through cans of fruit when someone marches into the general store, wearing the loudest pair of riding boots Seungcheol’s ever heard. He can immediately tell who it is, because he can see the top of that fluffy-haired head above the shelves. There isn’t a man out here taller than Kim Mingyu. Or louder. 

Shaking his head, Seungcheol turns back to the rows of dim cans before him. He’s tired of apples and prunes. Pears are no fun. Wait. Peaches. Yes, peaches should be good. A few preserved peaches with his bowl of oatmeal. 

Just as he’s about to grab a can of them, it’s plucked out from the other side of the shelf. 

Mingyu’s eyes peek through the new gap, blinking over at him. “Shucks, guess I got the last can. Better luck next time, sheriff.”

Seungcheol’s hand curls into a fist midair.  “When have you ever eaten peaches?”

“Have you ever eaten with me?” Mingyu counters, now peeking around the shelf so he can fix Seungcheol with the full weight of his defiant gaze. “I love peaches.”

Clicking his tongue, he tries to grab the can back. “They’re no good for your health.”

“Worry about your health, old man. It’s best if I have these.”

Brat. Grinding his teeth, Seungcheol turns to the cans of fruit. Alright. No peaches then. That’s fine. He doesn’t even like peaches. They’re a wretched fruit and everyone knows it. Pears have always been the better of the two. 

Grabbing his pears, he twists around. Mingyu is still standing there. 

“What now?”

“Nothing. Do you like your new fence?”

Seungcheol pauses to process this. “You’re the one who wrecked it in the first place.”

Mingyu bats the air impatiently, as if he’s a toddler and not a bull of a man. “But do you like the new one?”

The new one is a shock of pale white against the yellowness of everything. Blatantly out of place. He can’t say he misses the old one though. 

“Guess it’s alright,” he mumbles. “The paint is bright.”

“Isn’t it?” Mingyu’s chest puffs out proudly, and he follows Seungcheol up to the register. “It’s from overseas. Some downstate rancher was going to use it to paint his mansion.”

He snorts, picking through bills with his thumbnail. “And now it’s on my fence instead.” 

Mingyu slides his peaches across the counter without an ounce of shame, so Seungcheol ends up paying for those too. There’s a markdown on the pears. He drops the extra coins into his pocket, and they clink pleasantly against each other, like empty glass bottles gathered after a long night. 

Mingyu has dropped to a crouch, and is inspecting the shelves attached to the register. His hands linger on a few things. Packets of crackers with faded colors. Soap and tablets. Seungcheol has half a mind to leave, but he isn’t entirely sure that Kim Mingyu won’t steal something from the general store if he wants it. Old habits die hard. 

Squaring his shoulders, he leans against the countertop. 

“Hey, where’s the taffy?” Mingyu asks, a frown folding his handsome face. “Remember that stuff? Vanilla butter somethin’.” He’s miming now, hands curling. “Do you remember, sheriff? They came in little drawstring bags. Eomma used to use them for holding clothespins—”

Seungcheol looks away before he can stare too long. “They stopped shipping taffy here.”

Mingyu looks up at him. Eyes wide, mouth slack. “They…what? Why?”

The shopkeeper speaks now, eyes flicking up from the headlines of last month’s paper. “It ain’t worth it. Journeying all the way out here for us. They’d rather stick to the larger cities, where business is good and certain.”

Seungcheol forgets how gray his face is, sometimes. Gray eyes, gray hair, a gray jaw where he’s forgotten to shave. Skin sallow and stretched over his cheekbones. Like a ghost that isn’t even trying to keep up appearances. (None of them are, anymore. The wind out here has a way of whipping the pretense out of you.)

Mingyu rises back up, silenced. You’d think he had returned after a decade, instead of a week. Then again, dropping by for visits isn’t really the same as living here. 

It’s like comparing a taste of fire to the desert heat. One gives you a burn, and the other burns away at you for years and years. A pain so slow, you hardly feel it. 

Seungcheol leaves before it starts hurting again. 

~

There’s a wanted poster nailed to the wall. The trackers probably left it when they visited. 

Wanted: Kim Mingyu, tall, broad, dark hair, dark eyes. Ruggedly handsome, last seen with a black pony. Armed and dangerous. 

Seungcheol scoffs and rips it off the wall, balling it up in his fist and chucking it beneath his desk. “Ruggedly handsome,” he mutters. “Idiots.”

~

It’s a muddy, thick afternoon when Mingyu flounces into his station and begins examining the lopsided shelf opposite to Seungcheol’s desk. “Oh. Champion shooter, are you?”

Seungcheol bites down on that capsule of bitterness he’s got permanently stored behind his teeth. “I used to be.”

Mingyu hums thoughtfully, tongue jabbing into his cheek. “Think you could teach it?”

“I do. To the older kids.” 

Some of them live a little ways away from the town, where Seungcheol can’t get to as fast. It helps to know how to shoot during bandit attacks. Not the bandits of Mingyu’s kind. The kind that’ll kill you as a first measure, then consider what’s worth stealing. 

“Think you could teach Vernon?” Mingyu asks casually. “He’s awful good with a knife. Not so much with guns.”

The image of the boy flits through Seungcheol’s mind—pale and sharp-jawed. “He’s an outlaw, not a kid,” he says.

“Aww, he’s a kid at heart, sheriff.”

“Kim Mingyu.” Seungcheol closes his eyes. Exhales. “I don’t teach anything to outlaws.”

Mingyu turns towards him, hands on his hips. Motes of dust swirl around him like a holy cradle. “Vernon isn’t an outlaw. He wants to become a horse wrangler. He’s just with us ‘cause his family died in that dust storm ten years ago and he’s got nowhere else to go.”

A bandit becoming a horse wrangler. Three months ago, he would have found the very notion ridiculous. But that’s the thing about Mingyu. His eyes are too earnest. His voice too well-meaning. Everything he says seems to become an unequivocal truth. 

Seungcheol strains his memory for a tidbit about him. Tries to remember what he used to be like, before the wanted posters and the vengeance. All messy-hair and limbs too gangly, dimple fresh and bared on his cheek like a mark of innocence. A time of blind youth. Almost rosy. 

“What did you want to be, then?” he asks, crossing his arms. “When you were a kid?”

Defensive, Mingyu straightens. “Why? What’s with the interrogation?”

“You’re a criminal standing in a jailhouse. Should’ve expected a little questioning.”

“You never questioned me when you arrested me.”

“What was there to question?” Seungcheol snorts, slouching back in his chair. “I saw you stealing that chicken in broad daylight.”

Mingyu huffs. “A chicken is hardly something to put a man in jail for.”

“It was the final straw. A widow’s best chicken, and you didn’t even give it back. You just let it run away.”

Mingyu’s lip sticks out. “You should’ve asked me why I did it.”

“You’re right,” Seungcheol snaps. “The next time I see a felon, I’ll try to reason with ‘em. It doesn’t matter why the hell you did it. The law doesn’t care.”

And then, Mingyu says something that hits him like a bullet to the spine. 

“Sure, the law doesn’t. But you did.”

Seungcheol breathes out too fast, too hard. His lungs squeeze.  

Mingyu glares at him, accusing. Then, grabbing his leather coat from where it’s draped across the desk, he marches right out. 

~

As the last of the crimson sun bleeds out on the blade of the horizon, he latches a lock around the doors of the office and clicks it shut. 

For a moment, Seungcheol lets his palm rest against the time-softened wood. The grains are rough beneath his fingers. Pockmarked and sandlike. 

There’s something especially vicious in Mingyu’s wrath—you don’t like him being mad at you. Because you can’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the day. Because he has a way of looking at you that makes it feel like you’re at fault for everything horrible in the world. 

Sighing, he turns. And almost immediately trips over the massive bottle that’s sitting on the porch like a stick of dynamite. 

“Ay, be careful!” 

Mingyu looms just beyond the stairs like a cactus, shirt unbuttoned to the clavicle, a silver locket gleaming against his tan chest. 

Seungcheol blinks down at the bottle of whiskey in front of his boots. “What’s that?”

“You gone blind? What’s it look like?”

It looks like the finest whiskey Seungcheol’s ever seen. Which means there’s probably something illegal going on. He looks up. “You steal it?”

“Just for you, old man.”

“I arrested you for stealing, remember?”

“S’okay.” Mingyu grins, as if whatever happened four hours ago has been forgotten. “I nicked a widow’s chicken, I deserved it.”

Seungcheol stares at the bottle. Its reflection is amber and watery on his dust-laced porch. It’s a bribe masked as a consolation.  A good one too—but Mingyu never does something halfheartedly. He’s perfect at everything. Robbing, riding. Perfect throat and perfect nose and perfect pretty mouth. 

“Fine.”

Mingyu’s eyes shine, triumphant. “What?”

“I’ll teach the kid.”

“Thought you said he wasn’t a kid.”

You could arrest him right now, Seungcheol thinks. You could. Put him behind bars and collect the prize money. More money than you’ve ever known, in the palm of your hand. You could feed the horses something nicer, and patch up the roof. And in exchange for what? Just some boy you used to know. 

Instead, he turns away. “Tell him sunrise tomorrow.”

~

Here’s something new: Kim Mingyu is a lightweight.

Seungcheol has to admit, he didn’t expect it. For all the man shows off with his flask, you’d think he could outdrink a herd of horses. 

Instead, he’s slumped in front of the flames, mumbling something under his breath. The orange light clings to his face in a warm, flickering glow. Purple shadows shift like ghosts beneath his soft features. 

Their horses are tethered to a couple of mesquite trees, a few feet away. The town sleeps in the distance. Cool lines of moonlight drape across the buildings, sanctifying the old schoolhouse, the abandoned well. Even broken things seem holy once in a while. 

(“Will you drink that all by yourself?” Mingyu had asked, once Seungcheol had descended the stairs. 

Seungcheol had tucked the bottle under his arm, reaching for the reins of his horse. “You can drink with me.”

“At the saloon?”

“Saloon?” He raises an eyebrow. “You’re in the desert all the time. Haven’t you ever had a bonfire?”

“No.” Mingyu looks away suddenly, reaching for his saddle bag. “I thought trackers would be able to see the smoke.”)

Rubbing his eyes, he pours himself another glass. Sunrise tomorrow seems like a distant future. For now, all there is the sounds of Mingyu’s breath, and the faint crackle of wood turning to ash. 

“Do you remember the second time I stole?” Mingyu murmurs, suddenly. 

Seungcheol hums. “Peaches.”

A soft laugh. “Wow. You do.”

“That’s why I bought them for you.” 

Mingyu looks at him, eyes glazed.  “I thought my dad was coming back,” he whispers. “They sent a letter from the mines, and I thought he wrote it, telling us to wait up. I took the peaches because Eomma always made peach pie for dinner when he came back.”

Seungcheol knows what happens next, of course. There couldn’t have been any other ending to it. There's a letter from the mines, someone will say, and the road will go quiet. Because a letter from the mines is the word of God, inked in lovely cursive. Maybe it was an explosion, or maybe a collapse. It depends on the month.  

He remembers the funeral too, flames licking up behind the church, ashes dispersed by the fistful into the river valley. And Mingyu too, sixteen years old and gutted. 

Now, ten years later, Mingyu only smiles. “I’m gonna get it back.”

Startled, Seungcheol leans away. “Get what?”

“Taffy,” Mingyu slurs. “Money, hope, everything. I’m gonna get it back, and you’re gonna watch me, sheriff. And then you’ll—you’ll like me.”

The declaration stuns him into silence. After all of this…taffy. Taffy, money, hope, everything. The things Seungcheol can only watch slipping away, day by day, year by year. The things he can’t do anything about. There are no exceptions to the weathering law of time. 

“I thought things would change.”

Seungcheol leans back and looks at the stars. Pinpricks of black against the smoke-black sky. “They never will.”

“They can. They’ll change.” Mingyu says it with such certainty that Seungcheol almost believes it. 

But maybe that’s the magic of him. The myth. A singular exception to the law of the world. 

How is it, that a thief can have more hope for the world than him?

Mingyu licks down the last drop from his glass, and sets it down in the sand again. “Pour me another one, hyung.”

“Hyung?” The word stirs up something old and unwanted. 

Mingyu hmmphs at him. 

“I think that’s enough for you, tonight,” Seungcheol mutters, reaching over to snatch the glass away. It’s getting too late anyway. And Mingyu’s shirt is flaring open down to his stomach, a stretch of tanned skin so pretty he almost can’t bear it. 

Mingyu grabs his wrist in a flash. “I used to call you that. I used to call you hyung.” 

To Seungcheol’s utter terror, he sits up on his knees, and proceeds to crawl forward. 

Seungcheol falls back against the sand, catching himself on his elbows. Mingyu hovers above him, knees bracketing him in, breath hot against Seungcheol’s throat.

Fuck. No, no, no. 

“Yah.” He tries to sit up. “Mingyu, what are you doing—”

“You used to call me Ggyu,” Mingyu mumbles, lashes low, shoving Seungcheol back down. “Do you remember that?”

Seungcheol tries to catch his breath, to will his heart to slow down. “Yes, I remember, alright? Get off, we can talk in the morning when you’re sober again.”

“You used to call me Ggyu,” Mingyu repeats, closer now. Close enough that his lips are only an inch away. “And chase after me when I stole things. Sometimes you called me real smart, and you touched my shoulder. You used to ask me if I was eating well.” He trails off, blinking fast. “I don’t…I don’t like you.”

Seungcheol can’t speak. Can’t breathe. 

He’s silhouetted in that veil of orange firelight, pendant dangling from his throat like a taunt. Sweat gleams in a flushed sheen across his face. His lips have pursed together, and he’s looking down with a kind of dark-eyed contemplation. Haloed in moonshine. An angel—fleeting, lovely, out of reach. 

Mingyu teeters, slow and lazy, like he hasn’t just ripped Seungcheol’s heart out of his chest and bared it open to the cold desert wind. 

The silence is punishing. A log splits in half behind him like the crack of a gun. 

“You should go to bed,” Seungcheol rasps, at last, trying to lift Mingyu off his lap. 

Instead, Mingyu loops his arms around his shoulders. Crouches down, curls against Seungcheol’s chest, and falls asleep.

~

Seungcheol wakes to the call of a rooster, distant and shrill. 

Inch by inch, ray by crimson ray, the sun bubbles above the ridged horizon. A low dawn breeze lifts the sand in thin sheets. The wren is perched on the cactus again, beetle speared on its beak. 

Shit. He has to teach Vernon. 

Grasping his temple, Seungcheol gets to his feet and staggers towards his horse. Kkuma neighs at him, nudging his neck. He gives her a few soft pats before untethering her from the mesquite. 

There’s a groan.

When he turns, Mingyu is just blinking awake. Seungcheol had laid him against a rolled-up jacket. The glow of the sunrise is kind to him, christening his face in a lovely pink (his lovely face in pink). His fingers twitch, wrapping around his sand-damp knees. Fatigue softens the droop of his eyes. 

“I’m going back to the ranch.” Chewing his lip, Seungcheol adjusts his saddle. “Did you sleep well?”

There’s a little pause. “It was warm.”

Seungcheol doesn’t know what to say to that. So, instead, he does what Mingyu does best. He mounts his horse and rides away. 

~

Vernon is waiting by his fence, back braced against the posts. He steps over when Seungcheol dismounts, hands shoved into his pockets. Graygray the horse watches them from a few feet away. 

Unlocking the pen, Seungcheol walks in, leading Kkuma into her stable. She’s tired enough to not put up much of a fight, only flicking her ivory white mane once. “Listen,” he sighs, latching the door shut and willing himself to straighten. “If you don’t want to do this, just tell me. I can handle your boss.”

“No, I want to.” Vernon plucks the jar of sugarcubes from the shelf and pops two into his mouth. 

Seungcheol watches him chew, aghast. “Why doesn’t he just teach you? Mingyu?”

Mouth full, Vernon shrugs. “Dunno.”

For all his lack of knowledge, he’s a fast learner. Once he’s pried off the sugar cubes, he quickly figures out how to operate the rusty practice pistol Seungcheol found him. So quick, it’s a little terrifying. 

“Maybe he’s going to have you murder me,” Seungcheol mutters, watching the kid knock down an apple from the top of a distant barrel. “Then laugh at my dead body.”

Vernon chuckles at this, shaking his head. “Nah. He wouldn’t.”

The crack of a shot. Another apple bursts into smithereens.

Somehow, Seungcheol doesn’t feel very reassured. 

~

“I don’t like you.”

Mingyu’s mouth trembles. Seungcheol could kiss him and it wouldn’t even be hard. Just grab the back of his neck and tilt his head down and take. 

“I don’t like you either,” he breathes. It tastes like a lie on his tongue. 

Mingyu’s face drifts in and out of focus. The sun hovers above his head, drowning out his features, blinding Seungcheol in its heady glare. One of his hands is trailing dangerously low down Seungcheol’s stomach. 

“Call me Ggyu.”

“Ggyu.”

Mingyu crushes his mouth down onto Seungcheol’s.

He wakes in a hot sweat. 

~

All the cold water in the world is no use. The dream clings to him like fever, like heat. 

Seungcheol’s hands tremble as he buttons his shirt. He doesn’t pause to look in the mirror. It gets to a point where even you’re afraid to see what you’ve become. 

All he has to do is avoid the man, really. Which shouldn't be difficult. As long as he keeps to himself for a week or so—or until the gang moves camp—he’ll be fine. 

This resolve, of course, immediately backfires. 

Because Kim Mingyu is fucking everywhere. In the post office. The saloon. The general store, laughing it up with some girls from the market in a way that has Seungcheol clench his jaw. The very notion of this is so terrifying that he doesn’t want to think about it. 

The sun is hot and tortuous. Each hour seeps past his skin like a needle. But by some grace of the Lord above, Seungcheol manages to evade him the whole day. 

Until sunset, when all of Mingyu’s men sprawl out in front of the sheriff’s office and start playing cards right there on the sand. Some of them are squabbling. 

“My aces beat your kings.”

“How about I beat you up, right now?”

“Aw, that’s not—”

The others are tallying points in the dirt with a twig. He spots Vernon amongst them, snatching someone’s half-eaten apple core before it lands on the ground.  

And right there, in the middle of it all, is Kim Mingyu. Wearing only an undershirt and trousers with a lopsided silver belt, mouth cocked and throat tilted back against the dying golden breath of sunlight. His arms are braced behind him, broad and tanned rosy. He’s tracing a lazy finger across his hand of cards. 

With Seungcheol’s bandanna wrapped around his arm. 

Seungcheol nearly trips on the porch. 

Well. Shit. 

With a sound of triumph, Mingyu flicks down a card. 

The gang bursts into cheers. “Damn, boss,” one of them huffs, falling back. “That’s eight games, no losses. All the money’s yours.”

“Keep it. Ain’t your sister getting married next month?” Mingyu raises his bottle to take a swig, mouth pursing like he’s about to say something else. But then his eyes snap onto Seungcheol. 

The bottle freezes midair. 

There is a moment where the sun overflows from the horizon, flooding down the desert like an untamed flame, baptizing them in a bath of orange. It touches the earth like the hand of hope, blinding and beloved. Even the brambles seem spun from gold. 

“You’re staring,” Mingyu drawls. A slow grin spreads across his face, and he rises to his feet like an angel. “You’re staring.”

All the blood in Seungcheol’s face goes red hot. Ripping his gaze away, he jogs down the stairs. 

He can’t stop fucking thinking about it, the lovely line of that throat, the keening sound Mingyu had made against his mouth when he—

Mingyu laughs after him, high and echoing. “Look at him. Why are you running, sheriff? Did you steal somethin’?”

 You stole something, Seungcheol wants to say. You stole a good chunk of my sanity, is what you stole. I’m just trying to hold onto what’s left of it.

Because Mingyu is pretty and Mingyu is smart, and most unfortunately, Mingyu is good. Mingyu is good enough to help his own men become horse wranglers, good enough to befriend pie-baking old ladies, good enough to reject his prize money because he doesn’t need it as much as someone else. 

Sure, he’s got that wretched smugness, that cocky lilt in his voice that drives Seungcheol insane, but God never made a man without flaws. 

And God made Seungcheol so he would love those flaws. Every last one of them. 

Cursing himself, he walks faster away. 

When Seungcheol is gone, Mingyu turns around and frowns down at his men. “Alright. Did one of you mess with him? Steal his whiskey? Touch his hat?”

An uneasy shift ripples through the gaggle. “Boss,” one mutters. “I don’t think I even saw him all day.”

Vernon raises a hand. “I have a lesson with him tomorrow morning. He reminded me about it today.”

“Then why didn’t he talk to me?”

Vernon shrugs. “Dunno.”

Scowling, Mingyu twists back toward the horizon. 

His hands curl into fists. 

~

Seungcheol separates the sugar cubes into two jars, and carries the smaller one to the pen. 

Vernon is already fiddling with the pistol. And he’s brought a friend. 

The friend is Kim Mingyu. Kim Mingyu, leaning over the fence, chin braced in his palm like a sin that won’t stop chasing him down. 

Seungcheol can only squeeze his eyes shut. Because of course. Of course this was going to happen. “What’re you doing here?” he murmurs, letting Vernon take the jar from him. He’s not even sure he cares to hear the answer. 

“Bored.”

“Play cards, then. You’re awful good at that.”

“Don’t want to.”

“Ggyu.”

It slips out of his mouth. Mingyu falters for a split second, then knots his arms around his chest. “What?”

Seungcheol scoffs, reaching for Vernon’s pistol and filling it with blank rounds before handing it back. “You should sleep more. Waking up this early never did anyone any good.”

Mingyu doesn’t seem to know what to say to this. So they watch Vernon practice his aim together, sleepy sun beating against their backs. 

He doesn’t think he’d like to play cards with Mingyu. Not because Mingyu would win (though that he would, easily, inevitably). But because he thinks at some point, he would just lay down his hand and let Mingyu take. 

And take. 

And take. 

And take. 

~

He’s a sheriff. Outlaws don’t often inform him about their whereabouts. 

Vernon does though. He hoists himself up on Seungcheol’s fence, spinning a dagger in one hand, and says, “We’re leaving tonight. Midnight, about.”

Seungcheol should feel relieved. And he does. But it’s never just relief, is it? It’s relief and—

“You shouldn't tell me this kind of thing,” he whispers, hand tangling in his own hair. 

“Hyung said we could trust you.” The reply is plain and simple, like a God-given truth. 

His teeth ache. Knowing Mingyu, he could have been making a joke. Knowing Vernon, he probably took it seriously. 

“Did he really?” he murmurs. He regrets the words even as they leave his mouth. They are too wounded, too exposed, like the belly of a corpse left out to rot in the sun. 

Vernon is silent, for a long moment. The empty space of his voice is filled with the rustle of the low breeze, the wooden slap of loose planks, the rising chirrups of crickets just now blinking awake. 

“I think most of the things he says are about you, somehow. Even if they don’t sound like it.”

~

While they’re gone, Seungcheol gets something in the mail. 

He pops open the red wax seal, and a stack of cream colored papers tumble out. The text is tiny.  

I, Sheriff Choi, do solemnly testify that I have never consorted with, colluded with, nor interacted with Kim Mingyu within the—

He stops reading. 

The trackers have sent him a contract. It’s a smart move, don’t get him wrong. Lies weigh too little in the mouth—signing off on them is a good deal harder than simply letting them glide off your tongue. 

Others might have hesitated, might have seen this as a last chance. But his real last chance probably flew away six years ago, when Kim Mingyu’s face first showed up on a wanted poster in the general store, and Seungcheol ripped it down before anyone could see. Everything after that was just a mirage of his denial. 

Swallowing, he reaches for his pen. 

~

A caravan of trading gypsies comes along on Wednesday. Seungcheol recognizes most of them, and they smile back at him with the kind of warm-eyed familiarity that would have thrown him off guard if he hadn't seen it for years. 

They set up shop near the church, laying out all sorts of crafts and oddities on large picnic blankets. It’s a townwide event. The pastor steps out with some old candelabras. The Ladies Association converges in a cloud of crisp buns and pie trays (Seungcheol receives another gooseberry pie and a free pinch to the cheek). Even Mrs. Heo’s boys bring things—rusty switchblades and polished shards of shale. 

He patrols nearby, content to watch. There’s a pleasant breeze, cooling the sweat at the back of his neck. 

Sumin grins up at him, gaptoothed and bearing a bronze necklace which is entirely too large for her small throat. 

“That yours?” Seungcheol asks, tilting his hat down for shade. 

She shakes her head, fringe going everywhere. “It’s for Ma. I was gonna get a belt buckle, but—”

Belt buckle. His eyes catch on the blanket behind her. Rusted clasps and turquoise clips gleam up at him, blinding with the glare of the sunlight. 

He remembers the one Mingyu stole, silver and gaudy, snatched between quick fingers. 

The kind only ranchers care to afford. 

He thinks of the way Mingyu used to moon at the ranchers when they rode into town, used to scribble cows and fences in chalk on the peeling walls of the schoolhouse, used to tend to his chickens so carefully. 

And then the mine collapsed. 

And then nothing. Like the skeleton of an ox sticking out of where a river used to be. A dream that used to exist in a different world. The bones of hope stripped clean. 

One of the buckles is engraved with a silhouette of the mountains. A gold sunrise crests above the silver ridges, faint and promising. Salvation spilling on an early dawn. 

He picks it up with trembling fingers. “How much for this?”

~

Mingyu always comes on Sundays. 

There is something he could say about this—about salvation riding in on horseback—but he finds his mouth robbed of words with Mingyu’s silhouette burnt into the orange husk of the sun, the shadows parting from his face like curtains until his skin gleams gold. 

Seungcheol watches from his front porch as the horses skid to a stop, willing his hands to steady on the post. 

Vernon dismounts first, a plume of dust rising from where his boots land. He walks over to Mingyu’s horse and helps him down, arm around back, head lolling forward. 

His heart jolts.

Seungcheol steps over the fence, chest pounding. “Is he alright? Does he need a bed?”

Vernon seems to relax a little as he approaches, sagging. “I—I dunno. We were gonna stay in the canyon but it got really bad all of a sudden. He’s got a rash and he’s burning up.”

“Rash and fever,” Seungcheol mutters. His head whips up. “Did he get bit by a tick?”

There’s some uncertain mumbling. 

“Yeah, yeah, I remember,” someone calls from the back. “We were near the mountain brush, remember? There were loads of ticks.”

Spotted fever. 

Seungcheol takes Mingyu’s other arm. Mingyu’s head drops onto his shoulder. His face is flushed sticky with sweat, hair matted to his forehead, scalding all over. His lips are chapped blue and bitten bloody, gasping out little rasps of air. Fuck. “He needs a bed and cold compresses. I’m going to take him back to the ranch.”

Vernon staggers after him. “Does he need medicine? We can—I can-”

“Medicine doesn't help,” Seungcheol hisses, crouching down so he can gather Mingyu’s legs up in a proper carry. “All we can do is let the fever run its course. Could one of you pump me some water from the well? It needs to be cold, colder than whatever we’ve already got.”

One of them runs off. 

Seungcheol carries Mingyu into the living room, sweeps the blankets off the couch, and drapes him over it with a groan. One arm slings over the side. The other falls over his eyes. Mingyu twists, writhes. 

“Take his clothes off, there might be ticks everywhere, and the longer they stick on, the worse it’s going to get,” he tells Vernon, backing away with urgency. “I’ll grab some extra ones and some blankets. We want him to keep shivering, you understand? If his body stays hot too long, it’ll wreck him.”

All the ratty quilts in the cellar are finally of some use. He brushes them off to make sure there’s no moths or insects, and drags them upstairs. There’s some rags in the kitchen drawer. He soaks one in the bowl of cold water Mingyu’s men bring him, and presses it to Mingyu’s forehead. 

Finally, blessedly, Mingyu settles into the blankets, eyes fluttering shut. 

At last, silence. 

The house is a skeleton. Light recedes from the joints of the windows, into the hills. From the other side, a watery blue has begun to seep in. The others huddle in his doorway. It’s a heartbreaking sight, all young boys with sand-dusted hair and red-rimmed eyes like they’re watching a saint die. 

That’s probably what it’s like for them. They’re used to a Mingyu that’s larger than life, immune to bullets and bruises like some messiah. Seeing him like this, on the brink of something none of them want to think about, has got to be a shock. Even if death is nothing foreign. Even if no messiah was ever immortal. 

Seungcheol combs his hair out of his face and exhales. “You all should sleep. Go to the inn. I’ll stay up with him, make sure nothing happens to him overnight.”

Vernon’s jaw tightens. “I’ll stay too.”

“Don’t, Vernon-ah. You need to rest.”

Blinking too fast, Vernon looks away. One of his sleeves runs under his nose, a quick swipe that Seungcheol pretends not to notice. “Okay. I’ll stop by in the morning, then.” There’s a soft pause. “Hyung.”

He watches them shuffle out, footsteps dragging on the floorboards like reluctant thunder. 

Then, he looks at Mingyu, and brushes a lock of hair away from his face. 

~

He keeps up with the cold rags until morning, when the water has warmed in its bowl, and the sun rises again. 

Mingyu looks serene in his sleep, a rosy flush high on his cheeks, lips pursed into a content line. One of his fists is tangled in the open hem of Seungcheol’s shirt. He’d grabbed it, in that hopeful hour before dawn, and now whenever Seungcheol tries to get up, he’s tugged back down. 

The fever is still running. Vernon throws open the door the very moment a bit of sun peeks above the hills, like he’d been waiting on the porch since midnight. Once he determines that Mingyu is still alive, the color rushes back into his face. He collapses onto the side table. 

“Give it two more days,” Seungcheol says, hoarse from sleeplessness. “You said he got bit a week ago. If the fever goes, and the rash recedes from his palms, he’ll be all better in no time. If it gets spotty, I’ll ride over and get us a doctor.”

Vernon stares at the floor. “He said no doctors. A doctor will tell the trackers.”

Seungcheol almost wants to yell. He wants to yell that Mingyu will die, are they still thinking about trackers? But he doesn’t. 

Because if the rash starts clumping, there isn’t much a doctor could do either. And it won’t just be Mingyu that dies, in that case. It’ll be everyone. To the gallows to to the mines or to a jail where they’ll waste away from scarlet fever or thrush. 

Mingyu probably knew this, when he mounted his horse shivering and burning and barely able to breathe. He probably knew this, when he rode forty miles from the canyon into town, because he didn’t want his boys to sentence themselves to death in their love for him. Even if he himself died for it. 

“The fever didn’t get worse overnight,” he says, instead, feeling a little sick. “I’m no doctor, but I think this is the worst of it.”

Vernon jumps to his feet. “I’ll fetch some more cold water.”

The door shuts. Mingyu turns a little bit in his sleep. 

The belt buckle is heavy in his pocket. And Seungcheol waits. 

~

The day passes on a hazy whim. Then the next. He naps in bursts. Mingyu’s boys come every hour, bearing pails of cold water, or hand-woven blankets from around town, or tins of walnuts because their mothers had once told them it was good for your health. Some of them have little Bibles clutched to their heart. Others pray on the front porch. 

It’s funny how even the biggest sinners seek out God in these moments. He’s talking about himself, of course. Even without clasping his hands together, he stares out at the sun, (that bright throne where he imagines the King of Heaven to be) and prays. 

~

He wrings out rags till his wrists hurt. When Vernon gets restless, he lets him watch over his boss while Seungcheol tends to Kkuma, just to distract himself. 

He mixes oatmeal for supper. Figures he can try to force some down Mingyu’s throat too, give his body enough strength to fight off the fever.

The fire crackles. There’s a groan from the couch. 

Seungcheol twists around, eyes blowing wide. 

Mingyu is sitting upright, blankets wound around his waist, gaze darting all around like a spooked animal. His ears are red, lips wet with spit. 

They stare at each other, across the room. 

“Hyung,” Mingyu rasps.

Seungcheol nearly falls to his knees. 

So prayers are worth something still, or maybe even the lifeblood in Mingyu’s body knew the world wasn’t done with him. Or maybe it was some kind of insane hope that kept him alive—the kind that would seek out Seungcheol despite everything. 

“You’re awake,” he breathes. 

Mingyu doesn’t crack a joke, or even blink. His hands are coming up to grip the quilts, lovely throat shifting as he swallows, and god he didn’t ever think that such a small thing would enthrall him so completely, like how even the little flickers of a flame are enough to make it the moth’s beloved.

Seungcheol turns around before he can betray himself, ladling oatmeal into a bowl. It’s thinner than he usually makes it, easier to digest. 

Still, when he offers it, Mingyu pushes it away with a shaking hand, face scrunching into disgust. “Don’t want.”

“Eat.”

“Bleh.”

Chewing his lip, Seungcheol settles on the coffee table and presses a palm to Mingyu’s forehead. Still hot, but not scalding. “Think the fever’s dying down. How do you feel?”

Mingyu’s lashes flutter, head rolling onto the pillow braced beneath his neck. The low golden of the lantern light is kind to him, smoothing the sweaty flush of his features like the brush of a besotted painter. “Like I’m gonna die.”

“Good. That means you won’t.” 

Mingyu sniffles, lip jutting out. “Did you—did you bring me here from the canyon?”

Seungcheol clicks his tongue, raising a threatening hand. “You got here on your own, rode all the way here. Were half-dead by the time you got to my ranch, Vernon could hardly even lift you. He—” Breath catching, he smiles. “Shoot, I’ve got to tell him you’re awake. He’ll be over the moon.”

Everyone will. The pastor and the Ladies’ Association and Mrs. Heo’s sons and every last one of the outlaws. Mingyu is so beloved. He supposes he isn’t anything special, in that regard. 

Mingyu’s eyes tick between his, mouth twisting. His eyes are glassy in the firelight. He looks, all of a sudden, like a man. Not a myth or a messiah. A man. 

“I don’t want oatmeal,” he repeats, quieter this time.

Seungcheol rests his chin on his fist. “It’s either oatmeal or gooseberry pie.”

A spark lights in his eyes. “Gooseberry pie?”

Two minutes later, Mingyu is shoveling into the tin with the fervor of an agitated roadrunner. 

He tries to intervene. “Slow down, you’ll make yourself sick.”

“Won’t.”

Sighing, Seungcheol reaches forward and smooths his eyebrow down with the pad of his thumb. 

Mingyu looks at him mid-chew. Long-lashed and abrupt. Like no one has ever done that before. Sweet enough to kill a man. 

Perhaps it’s the lanternlight making him tender. Or that he’s probably found someone to eat his leftover gooseberry pie. Most likely, though, it’s just Mingyu. In any state, on any day. Perhaps not so much a sin he can’t escape. 

Perhaps more a blessing he doesn’t deserve. 

~

It’s another two days before Mingyu’s fever properly breaks. He staggers to his feet and joins Seungcheol at the table for breakfast. The counter is laden with gooseberry pies and tarts and crumbles, and even a glass bowl of gooseberry pudding. 

Mingyu settles heavily into a stool, eyes drooping. “You eat well, don’t you?”

“Hardly. Someone tipped off the Ladies’ Association that you have a taste for gooseberries.”

Mingyu’s smile quirks, smug. “Guess I’m just popular.”

Seungcheol hums along, picking through his porridge. “Guess you are.”

Two seconds later, a whole green gooseberry is plopped into his bowl. When he looks up, Mingyu is twiddling his spoon between his fingers. “I feel bad eating all of them.”

“That’s fine.” He returns the fruit, green skin burst open and smushed. “I don’t like gooseberries.”

“Why?”

He blanches. “They’re too sour. I like—I like sweet things.”

“Like whiskey?” Mingyu snarks, but he’s hunched over, doing something with his spoon and his pie. 

Seungcheol watches as he scoops out all of the gooseberry filling, until all that’s left is the sugar jam and crust. This is then heaped carefully into his bowl, again. 

“The crust is pretty sweet,” Mingyu says, glancing at him for a fleeting second before looking back down. “You shouldn't just eat oatmeal all the time.”

Seungcheol looks at it, golden and soft-crumbed. “You shouldn't have gotten on horseback with a fever,” he murmurs back. 

Mingyu looks up. Longer this time. The edges of his mouth turn down like a bowing spine, the waning ridge of a day. 

Seungcheol doesn’t look into his eyes. Only into the forgiving space between. There are things he can’t quite bear to see in his face, and Kim Mingyu’s gaze is a mirror more damning than any reflection. 

Maybe, he thinks, this is what they meant when they called love a blind sin. 

~

Mingyu goes to the market. He says it like he plans to return to the ranch, which Seungcheol tries not to think too hard about. 

He spends that time burning old tax documents, sweeping manure, and wresting two overexcited teenage boys off each other before they have a duel in the middle of town. 

By the end of it, he’s dirty and sweaty and dog-tired. He doesn’t quite feel like dragging the kettle over a fire to heat water for a proper bath, and it’s mostly on his arms anyway, so he peels off his shirt and grabs a rag to sponge off most of the muck. 

The water is cold. He groans, pressing the towel to the back of his neck and stretching. 

There’s a loud yelp from behind. 

Seungcheol twists, grabbing for his holster before he remembers he took off his belt. 

Mingyu stands at the doorway, flushed red from ear to chest, hair falling into his eyes all scandalized. 

“Oh, it’s just you,” Seungcheol sighs, relaxing. “You terrified me, brat.” 

Mingyu stares. Just stares. Chest rising up and down too fast, mouth tightening into an accusing knit. “Why the hell are you out here?”

“Huh?” He looks around, confused. “It’s my property. Why, is there another dust storm coming?”

Mingyu splutters. “You’re—you’re—naked!”

Confused, Seungcheol looks down at himself. “I’m not naked.”

Mingyu looks incredulous. “You’re not wearing a shirt!” 

Seungcheol blinks slowly, pulling the towel from his neck. With the way the man curses, you wouldn’t expect him to be so easily scandalized. “Look away, if you like. No one’s forcing you to watch.”

“I’m not the problem,” Mingyu snaps. “What if someone else saw you?”

Snorting, he turns back around, soaking the rag in the water. “Someone else? Do you see any other crazy except you living in my house?”

“They could see you! If they tried! It’s—it’s—” Mingyu raises a fist, then drops it. 

“That’s rich, coming from you. You walk around half-dressed all the time, and that’s in town square. Where people could actually see you.” Seungcheol lolls his head back and pours the rest of the water right over his head. It’s warmer, now, plastering his hair to his neck, trailing down his chest.

There’s a horrifying, choked noise. By the time Seungcheol sweeps his hair away, the doorway is empty. 

Strange. 

~

Mingyu rides into the desert for a day, to check on a train shipment he’s got his eyes on. Seungcheol had tried to get him not to go, but the cocky punk had insisted that “you might get heat faints, but I’m immune to that sorta thing”. 

He’s let his guard down. Everyone has. About Seungcheol. About that imminent danger leaking from their feet like shadows. 

 He returns at sundown, dismounting at the edge of town and leading his horse through the main road by the reins. His shadow stretches long and black down the road like the coming of the devil. He stops at the general store for hardtack, and to blow kisses at some of the older kids watching him from their windows. 

Something sour bursts open in Seungcheol’s mouth. Gritting his teeth, he escapes onto the back porch with his mug before Mingyu can see him. 

Mingyu, of course, rounds the corner and finds him anyway, tethering his stallion to the post before sauntering forward. 

“What’re you doing?”

“Was going to eat dinner,” he says shortly. 

There’s a little silence. Mingyu, humming, turns to contemplate the dimming expanse of the desert, laying open before his feet. The back of his neck is flushed in the languid orange light, hair cropped higher than he’s used to seeing, exposing the stretch of his throat. Bare. Taunting. 

Seungcheol, because he’s stupid, opens his mouth again. “Don’t get their hopes up.”

Mingyu turns, slowly, almost forgivingly. “What d’you say?”

He rolls the words on his tongue for a little bit, tasting them like a buttered whiskey. They’re bitter, but he’s too far in, can’t help but spit them out. “Don’t get their hopes up,” he repeats. “All the girls in the market got crushes on you.”

“Really? I was just blowin’ kisses for fun. No shit, sheriff.” Mingyu drapes himself over the porch fence, mouth curling, dark eyes blinking up at him like sin. “Why, you jealous?”

He grimaces tightly. “For their attention? They’re still teenagers. Think you’ll put one of them on your hose and ride off into the sunset.”

Mingyu’s tongue slides over his teeth. “Not over them. Over me.”

Seungcheol feels dumb all of a sudden. Mind fuzzy, mouth cotton-stuffed and slow. “Huh?”

A long, lazy grin. “I said, are you jealous that they get my flying kisses and you don’t?”

Bullseye. Right on target. But Kim Mingyu was always a good shot. It was just a matter of Seungcheol allowing himself to become a target. 

The air tastes of sweat and salt. He thinks of ripping down Mingyu’s first wanted poster. He thinks of seeing Mingyu’s name in the newspaper, two months after he turned nineteen and left town, and thinking please, God, don’t bring him back. He thinks of the belt buckle, silver and untouched, laying there in his drawer. Like the fresh corpse of something he doesn’t want to confront. 

Maybe Seungcheol’s always been the target, standing there in the open with a red circle over his heart. It was just that Mingyu hadn't pointed the gun yet. 

He picks up the mug and turns back towards the back door of the ranch house. “I didn’t see Vernon today.”

Mingyu’s voice bursts out, sharp, quick. “So?”

He opens the door without glancing back. “Tell him the last lesson is Friday.”

~

One final sun rises on the three of them, and a long line of ill-fated apples. 

Seungcheol carefully steadies his wrist and steps back. “Careful. Breathe slowly, your hand is shaking.”

A shot. It grazes the apple, but misses, ricocheting away. Vernon makes a frustrated noise, rolling his shoulders and trying again. It misses again. Further this time. 

Seungcheol’s teeth scrape across his bottom lip. “Come on, you were doing fine earlier, what’s the matter now?”

“Dunno. I can’t stop twitching.” Vernon shifts his weight, wrist flicking. He’s been more nervous this past week. Jittery. Always checking to make sure Mingyu is still there. Putting a hand on his forehead every other hour, as if the fever might have snuck back up when he wasn’t paying attention. 

Some things you can’t just bounce back from. Mingyu nearly dying was probably one of those things. The poor kid was probably terrified that he’d lose his family all over again.

“Here.” Seungcheol steps behind him, wrapping his arms around and carefully supporting his shooting elbow until it’s at the right angle before him. “Hold it like that. Three, two, one.”

Crack. The apple falls off its post. 

He claps, grin breaking across his face like dawn. “Good job. Natural, isn’t he?”

No response. He glances back. 

Mingyu is perched on the fence nearby, eyebrows furrowed. The sun rises behind him like vengeance. His tongue is lodged against the inside of his cheek, jaw tense, eyes narrowed and zeroed in on Seungcheol’s hand.

He realizes it’s still on Vernon’s elbow, and drops it. 

At the same time, Mingyu hops off the fence. “I’ll try too.”

Seungcheol frowns. “What for?”

“I’m thinking about becoming a horse wrangler too, leaving the outlaw life.” Mingyu smiles, but it looks mean. “What do you think? Come on, reform me a little, sheriff.”

“Don’t kid around. You’re already a better shot than anyone this side of the canyon.”

Still, when Mingyu sticks his hand out, Seungcheol hands him the pistol. 

There isn’t even a moment’s worth of hesitation. He straightens, shuts one eye, and shoots. The apple topples over like there was never a question about it. The next one too. Then the one after that. Until all the apples are splats on the sand, and Seungcheol is a little afraid of where he’s going to turn the weapon next. 

Vernon winces, unplugging his ears. “Great, what am I gonna practice on now, hyung?”

Mingyu looks down at the pistol, as if he forgot what was happening. Then at Seungcheol. Flushing abruptly pink, he shoves the thing back into Seungcheol’s hands, and storms back to the fence. 

~

Mingyu corners him behind the old schoolhouse. Emerges from the shadows like some sort of vengeful demon. 

“Are you sweet on him?” he demands. 

Seungcheol blinks. “Sweet?”

Mingyu’s mouth is set in a thin line, brow etched deep. He raises an impatient fist. “On Vernon. Are you?”

“On—what?” Seungcheol staggers back. “No!”

“Swear on the sun?”

“That’s not mine to swear on.”

“Swear on me?”

“You’re not mine to swear on either.”

He wishes he was. He wishes Mingyu was his. His, his, his. 

Mingyu throws up his arms. “Lord, fine, swear on your stupid little hat then. You seem to like it an awful lot, I doubt you’d risk God smiting it to flames.”

“I don’t, okay? Your poor innocent brother in thievery is safe from my evil influence.”

Mingyu’s jaw squares. He shoves a finger at Seungcheol’s chest, hard enough that he stumbles. “You better not be.”

And this stings his pride, a little bit. “Why not, brat?” he snaps. “Who said so?”

“Because—” Mingyu blinks. “Because I said so.”

He stares. Mingyu stares back. 

Seungcheol scoffs out a shocked laugh, even though his ears are burning.There’s an inch between them. Feels like less. Fees like just enough to shove him against the wall and kiss him senseless. 

Mingyu’s eyes flick down to his—his mouth? No. His neck? Then, he twists away and gives a lazy stretch, like he didn’t just threaten the town sheriff in a back alley. “Are you going to teach the kids their letters? I’ll come with.”

With this, he lopes off towards the sheriff’s office. 

Exhaling in disbelief, Seungcheol follows.

~

The outlaws stick around for a week. Then two. 

One of the kids asks about it. 

“Oh, he can’t leave. He’s still recovering,” Vernon smirks. A couple others nearby snicker. 

Mingyu shoves his shoulder, in the sort of reluctantly amused way that makes Seungcheol think it’s probably an inside joke. 

The brilliant joy of it blinds him, a little bit. He forgets about the contract he signed, about the trackers raking the desert for them, about the bounties mounting on Mingyu’s head like sins piling up in his name. 

It’s easy. Mingyu brings pockets full of vanilla taffy to the kids’ lessons, and then leaves fistfuls of it on Seungcheol’s desk, scattered in their wax wrappers. You said you liked sweet things. Falls asleep on Seungcheol’s shoulder one too many times, so he has to carry him into the house. The couch is comfy. 

He tries not to get used to it. One should feel no comfort at the edge of the canyon, no matter how long he dangles there. 

~

Seungcheol is drunk. Not overly so, but the kind where he had a glass too many, and now his limbs are too heavy to lift up over the chair and get himself to bed. His knee aches. His heart aches. 

Mingyu is carefully darning a pair of jeans by the fireplace. Seungcheol bought him a needlework set, a week ago, when he mentioned learning how to sew. It’s been used to death by now. The floor is scattered with frayed cuttings of string. 

The fire flickers, orange and hot, like a phantom of its own mind. Mingyu puts the end of the thread between his lips. 

He feels warm. Not the fire, he doesn’t think. Or maybe…that’s…

“You’re so fucking pretty.”

Mingyu’s head swings up, thread still caught in his teeth. His eyes are wide. “What?”

Seungcheol doesn’t know why he’s so shocked. Surely hundreds of people have told him this. Hundreds of…thousands. Even the fucking wanted posters say it. 

He turns to the ceiling. It’s less punishing than the scene in front of the hearth, less tender. “Be careful with that needle.”

A silence. 

“Say it again.” Mingyu’s voice is tight.

“Be careful with the needle,” he repeats. The world is dimming now, dark and heady at the edges of his vision. 

“No. No, the other thing.”

“Why?” He’s slurring his words together now, head slowly tilting to the side. “Bet you hear it all the time, baby.”

“But I want…” The sound trails off. 

Sleep is easy coming. 

~

In the end, it’s his fault. 

“Look. Look, I got a nice belt.”

Seungcheol looks up. Finds Mingyu with no shirt, just a pair of pale jeans low on his hips and a gleaming turquoise thing wrapped around his waist. Lord above. 

“You look ridiculous,” he mutters.

Mingyu puts his hands on his (tiny) waist. “They call me pretty. The newspapers too.”

“Oh really?” Seungcheol shakes off his newspaper from the dust Mingyu’s stallion kicked up when he rode in. “Must be blinded by all that turquoise.”

“I’ve won the river valley looks contest five years in a row,” Mingyu sneers. “Subcontests too! Best Hair and Prettiest Eyes. You’re the blind one.”

“Wish I were so I didn’t have to see that crazy belt.” Belt. The word rings a bell in his brain. Clearing his throat, Seungcheol rises from his chair. “I have something for you.”

 Mingyu perks up, eyebrows rising. “Really?”

He goes in and grabs it, smoothing his thumb over the blackened filigree of the engraving. Maybe Mingyu won’t like this sort of thing anymore. He’s rich after all, now, richer than many of the ranchers he used to stare at bright-eyed. His belts themselves are made of copper and silver and genuine leather. 

The thought slows his steps. 

There’s a moment. Mingyu peering up at him expectantly, the feeling of the floorboards sinking damply beneath him, the sway of the breeze. And then a chill. Like a bullet right through his soul.  

He smells something. Acrid. 

And it all clicks together. All at once. Sumin yelling about weird people lurking in the desert. The noise he heard outside, this morning. The horrid feeling building up in his chest for these two weeks, like something is about to go very very wrong—

“Ggyu. Move!”

He dives forward to shove Mingyu back, back, back—

Heat—unbearable, excruciating heat—coasts along his back, like someone has taken a torch to his skin. The world spins. Dust in his throat. His ears ring. 

(He’d been in a mine once. He remembers the smell of nitroglycerin, the thing they use to clear up tunnels for men to venture into. Smothering. Like a hand closed over your nose and mouth, so all you could do is gag.)

Everything is loud. Mingyu shouting. Footsteps, thundering and panicked. Blood rushing to his head. 

The ledge beneath his back bites into his skin. 

He lifts his hands. They’re red. Red and dripping, stinging. Mingyu.

God. God. 

He lifts his head, despite the way it plucks every fiber of pain in his body. Mingyu has staggered to his feet. A long, bleeding cut spans across his face, leaking down his jaw. 

But he’s alive. He’s alive. 

Seungcheol licks the metallic taste from his mouth and stares at the sky. It’s black. Black with smoke and embers. He smells it, the fire. The front of his office is probably up in flames now. The whole thing would be, except the dynamite was probably old. That’s why he’s still got flesh on his bones. Otherwise, a stick of fresh dynamite could eclipse half the town in fire. 

“Hyung. Hyung!” The voice is distant. Then suddenly, painfully close. “No. No, don’t fucking—” Mingyu’s hands are on him then, grabbing, shaking. “Please. No, no, can we call a doctor? Vernon-ah, call a—”

“Don’t.” He exhales soot and dust, rolling over so he can cough it up. 

There’s no blood sputtered in his cough, which means his lungs are fine. He checks his stomach with the back of his hand, which comes back dry, if slightly smoked. No death wounds. Always a nice thing. 

Feet run about him in loops. Buckets of water sloshing and spilling. Mingyu’s hand holding up the back of his head.  

Vernon’s voice slices through the chaos, tight. “It was dynamite, wasn’t it? Taped to the underside of the porch.”

“How dare they?” Mingyu yells, voice distant again. “How dare they?”

He runs his tongue over the back of his teeth. Everything hurts. Chest, back, legs. But it’s a pale, stinging kind of pain. Not the kind to kill you. Not the kind to kill yourself over. “You’ll need that cut on your cheek stitched up. Don’t try doing it yourself.”

Mingyu stares down at him, eyes burning wide. Panic morphed into disbelief morphed into some monstrous fury. “They wanted to kill you.”

Seungcheol forces himself to sit up, figuring that he’d better intervene before Mingyu grabs his gun and storms into the desert like some red angel of revenge. “I doubt it. Trackers don’t care for me that much.”

“No. They wanted to fucking kill you.” Mingyu looks more certain now. His bottom lip is stiff, brows narrow. That’s never a good thing. 

The fire is dying down now, and the wind carries the smoke away. But Seungcheol is more afraid of the aftermath. 

“Stop,” he hisses, grabbing Mingyu’s shoulder. “Whatever you’re thinking. Stop.”

Mingyu stares at him through the fire-flushed sheen across his face fueling the rage in his eyes. It’s that same burning which had always been there, except now, it’s not really tame anymore. 

“It’ll be good,” he breathes, like a promise. “One death blow.”

There’s never one death blow. It’s never that easy. That’s the thing about vengeance. The remains of one fire spark the kindling of a new one. It never ends with an eye for an eye. 

But Seungcheol doesn’t say this anymore. Because he wants to hope, just this once. Even with smoke in his lungs, and his office reduced to blackened ash, and his hands dripping blood over the sand. Because Mingyu is here, and Mingyu is holding him, so he wants to believe that things will be different. 

Hope, like the beating sun, blinds you as it rises. But even in its glare, you find warmth. Even in its briefness, you find triumph. Hope is the hand reached down from the lap of Heaven, to clutch onto with trembling fingers as you stumble toward a watery horizon. 

He thinks, probably, that Mingyu is hope. Maybe not a pristine version, but one beaten down, and soot-faced, and with scars on his arms. More beloved for his flaws. More blinding. 

Vernon looks down at him. “Hyung, should we call a doctor?”

“Just get some whiskey,” he mutters. “Cheap stuff should be fine.”

“Now?” Mingyu demands, at the same time that Vernon says “In a glass or a bottle?”

Seungcheol winces. “For the wounds, kid.”

~

They leave town. 

“We’re gonna target the mines,” Mingyu had said, arms crossed at his bedside. It had been sunrise. A new day blinking awake on a crimson whim, like a flame lit on the wick of the horizon. “We’ve been planning it for a while. There’s enough dynamite to wipe out a good few barons.”

His chest had been tight. He didn’t know if it was from the bandages or the cold, wild fear pressing against his ribcage. 

“Won’t you tell me not to do it?” Mingyu had asked. 

Seungcheol had clicked his tongue like it was a real shame. “Can’t. It’s beyond my jurisdiction.”

Mingyu smiled. Pretty, pretty, always so pretty. So pretty it hurts, so pretty you think you’re dreaming. And for a moment, Seungcheol had let himself feel that sort of indulgent greed that rose up in him every now and then—when Mingyu stretched with his head thrown back, when his teeth latched down on his bottom lip, when he grabbed Seungcheol’s arm with the kind of urgency that made him think he was about to be kissed. 

Then, Mingyu had left. 

And Seungcheol searched, again, for the cactuses and the wren. 

~

(It’s Saturday. The brink of Judgment. The stars are clear, stuck in the black sky like little white pins. 

Mingyu is nineteen. Seungcheol is tired. 

“It’s against the law,” he breathes, one last time. It sounds weak, frail. It’ll sound like this in the future too, every time the words repeat in his head at the edge of sleep. 

Mingyu—mouth firm, shoulders steady, hair combed back from his face and not wild for once in his life—isn’t a boy, isn’t a man who can be swayed by weak words. 

“Let me tell you something about the law,” he snaps. “It was made by a bunch of people who came out here and decided to write a couple rules down on a piece of paper. And those men couldn’t even light a fire, I doubt they’d understand anything about human greed.”

Seungcehol disagrees. Greed is much easier to understand than fire. It’s a sin already embedded in you, already raging by the time you know what to call it. 

Then again, he supposes that’s a little bit like fire too. Burning, burning, until the question stops being a matter of understanding—until you forget to ask any questions at all, because you’re so consumed by it. 

“You’ll be an outlaw, then?” he asks. It comes out more splintered than he intended. “Rob train cars and caravans?”

Mingyu steps back. Mouth sharp, hungry in its uptick. Already reaching for the reins of his stolen horse, his stolen dream. 

Seungcheol doesn’t stop him. Only says, softly, “Greed makes you blind.”

Mingyu mounts his horse and peers down at him for the first time. “Fear makes you helpless.”

Seungcheol watches him go. A black shadow that seems so massive, to a little smudge, to nothing. 

That was the first time Mingyu ever left town. The first time he ever returned was a year later. Five thousand dollars richer, and twenty men trailing him. Taller. Tanner. Happier. 

He’d put a gun in front of Seungcheol’s face and grinned. Not even to threaten really. Just to say: See? Look where I’ve gotten, while you were sitting here moping about. 

Seungcheol had turned around and walked away.

He didn’t say, “I tried going after you, after you left.” Didn’t say “I hardly even believe in God but I prayed for you.” This, in its own way, felt a little bit like greed too.) 

~

When the trackers come again, Seungcheol socks one in the middle of town. Straight fist to the jaw, split skin, teeth scattering. 

They don’t fight back. In fact, they start running the opposite way. The dynamite was supposed to blow him to pieces. Watching him break a jaw must be to them what the Resurrection was to the Romans. 

And in that moment, with his knuckles stinging and his back aching and the wind burning in his lungs, he feels a bit like God. Not all-powerful, not even all-knowing, but at least in control of something. A single card of fate in his favor. 

He washes his hand off with water from the well. It’s cool and fresh. 

He thinks his father would be proud. 

~

It’s Sunday. Seungcheol is already awake. 

He hears the roosters. Then the hoofbeats. Then the pathetic wreckage of his own heart. He’s down the stairs and out the door before he knows it, drunk on the liquor of hope. 

The sun is a pillar of warmth beaming through his bones, his flesh. 

The sun is Mingyu, the way he rises from the horizon, haloing his silhouette, mountains behind his shoulders like angel wings. 

He already knows. The paper came fresh yesterday, printed haphazard like even the ink couldn’t believe it. It’s soft now, torn in places from their eager grips and easy tears. Coal mine explodes, no casualties, and Han and Sons bankrupted in outlaw ambush. 

Dismounting in the distance, Mingyu looks at him. His hat is off, hair mussed, jacket slung over his elbows. That silver buckle is latched onto his belt. 

“You’re up early,” he calls, fixing his saddlebag and stepping away, hip cocked. “Did you want to see me that bad?”

Seungcheol can’t help it. He smiles. 

Mingyu’s face breaks into a grin. 

~

They sit on the porch of his ranch house. The skeleton of the sheriff’s office lies bare in the periphery. Somewhere down the road, the saloon is full and loud. Here, the sun sets on bristly silence. 

Mr. Heo is walking back from the well, carrying his younger son on his shoulders. Every so often, the boy says something—probably something ridiculous—and Mr. Heo laughs. They disappear into the horizon like this, domestic and dreamlike. 

Seungcheol lets his head loll back. “Have you ever wanted that? A family?”

“No.” There’s a pause. “You, sheriff? You look like you’d like that.” Mingyu says it like an insult, smirk thin in the dazed sunlight, slumping all mean. He’s drunk on triumph, Seungcheol knows that. Practically reeks of it. One of his hands rests on his cheek. The other is on the armrest of the chair, dangerously close to his thigh. 

Seungcheol gnaws on the inside of the cheek. Coming home to anything but emptiness. House crowned in anything but cobwebs, the sound of anything but silence. It would be nice if Mingyu could stay all the time. But he can’t. 

He can’t.

“I think it’d be nice,” he murmurs. “Settling down with someone I love. Lazy Sundays and cheek kisses and pot pies and all that. Couple of kids running around the ranch, maybe.”

Mingyu’s lip curls. He sets his drink down. Thunk. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“No.” Mingyu stands, suddenly, and his shadow blocks out all of the setting sun. “You ain’t getting that. Ever.”

Huh. Seungcheol straightens in his chair, looking up. “What?”

“I said no,” Mingyu snaps. The words are scalding, like hot oil spluttering from a stove provoked. “Wife and kids and all that, I just don’t think you’re gonna get it. You know why? Cause I’ll scare them off. I’ll keep coming back and wrecking everything I see because it’s not fair.”

“You—”

“It’s not fair that you’re so dumb. You know what? You like me. I’m the prettiest man on this side of the country, the papers say so, and one of the richest, which I already know.” Mingyu steps closer, unstoppable. His teeth catch the light, skin sheened with sweat. “You’ll get me and you’ll be happy about it, and I wish you’d stop pretending you won’t.”

“Ggyu.”

“What? What do you want?”

Seungcheol stands up, pulls him in by the waist, and kisses him. 

There is a second where Mingyu freezes against him. Then, his hands are fisting in the collar of Seungcheol’s shirt, tugging, winding over his shoulders. Their lips press together again, again, again. 

It’s warm and cloying and smothering, fingers curled over Mingyu’s hip. Everything feels hot. And final. And squeezed tight, between the two of them. Skin against skin, heat coiling. Almost unbearable. Mingyu tilts his head slightly, and Seungcheol can feel that wretched smugness just radiating off of him. Sweet and teasing. 

He pulls away to breathe. Mingyu follows, pressing insistent until Seungcheol’s head thunks back against the wall.

“Greedy,” he mumbles, lifting one hand to tangle in his hair. 

“Stupid,” Mingyu breathes, face flushed red. His lips are already swollen, pupils blown wide. “You’re so—”

He presses a kiss to Mingyu’s throat to shut him up. Then another, lower, over the collarbone and the silver chain necklace that’s been tormenting him. “Brat. Baby. You’ve been driving me insane for months.”

Mingyu makes a soft noise, preening. One of his hands trails down from Seungcheol’s collar to the buttons of his shirt. 

He shrugs that off. It drops somewhere on the porch, but he doesn’t think about that now. Orange light spills over Mingyu’s shoulder when he grabs Seungcheol for another kiss, like he can’t live without it, like he can’t go a second without it. He makes another pretty little noise against his mouth. Then wraps one leg around him like he could somehow cling any closer than this. 

Then they’re stumbling back, somewhere, somehow. 

The sun simmers hot on the splay of the horizon. 

~

Twilight is quiet. 

Mingyu’s back against his chest on the tiny bed. Him, staring at the wall. Seungcheol, staring at him. It’s warm, too warm, but neither of them mention it. Maybe if they untangle themselves, the moment will end forever. 

Mingyu shifts in place. His voice is hoarse. “Why’d you become sheriff?”

The question drifts long enough that he convinces himself he imagined it. It’s only when Mingyu clears his throat that he blinks back to awareness.

“Why?” he echoes. “Don’t know. Guess I always wanted it. First, because of the shiny badge and getting to boss people around. Then I grew into myself a little, and I thought I’d do some real good in the world.”

That’s it. Ten years of his life explained away in two sentences. Man longs for purpose. He’s long abandoned that notion. It’s a nice thought and all, the idea of being put on this world for some divine reason. But the world has little rhyme or reason to it at all, except decay. The dust storms come and go, and the houses strip away. Purpose is trampled underfoot of survival. 

Then there is Mingyu. 

But there was always going to be some exception to the law. 

“I wanted to be a rancher,” Mingyu murmurs. “One of the really rich ones. I remember we went to see one, when we were really young. Everything was so shiny. Like someone stripped all the dust away from this place. Pearly gates and tile floors and big herds of cows as far as the eye could see.”

He goes quiet, like he’s thinking about it again. Or about what to say next. 

Seungcheol rubs circles into the tanned skin of his back. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

Silent, he lays back on his pillow. It’s cottony soft, a little bit like forgiveness. “I think we got dealt a bad hand,” he says. “I’m just happy you were in mine.”

Mingyu curls away. “God, you’re so embarrassing.” 

A pause. 

He twists halfway to fix Seungcheol with a look. “What card am I?”

Seungcheol could say something like King of Hearts. It wouldn’t be wrong. Only, maybe, a little silly right now, in this painfully sweet in-between. 

He swallows hard. “I think—I think you’d be the Ace of Spades, baby.”

Something sharp kept pointed at your heart, but ultimately winning you the game. You draw it, you weigh it, and suddenly you know everything will be okay. 

He feels the weight of Mingyu’s head on his shoulder moments later, a hand settling on his chest, the warm glow of an exhale against his throat. 

Smiling, he wraps his arm tighter. 

Everything will be okay. 

~

At the end of the road, maybe there is a God. 

Maybe he is merciful, or maybe not. Maybe there is Salvation, or maybe nothing at all. 

He’s walked too far into the horizon. There’s no way he can find his way back. But maybe this is so he can find a way forward. Maybe this is so he can finally touch the sun, and perhaps it will feel like Mingyu’s heartbeat beneath his palm.  

For now, Seungcheol shuts his eyes. The dawn will be blinding, when it comes.