Chapter Text
One of the joys of riding around Holland Valley was finding John’s silos and blowing them sky high. There was nothing more satisfying than spotting one on the horizon, grabbing a remote explosive, and taking it off the map. John would usually radio her soon after to complain. God, did the man love to complain. And if Luna was being honest, she loved to listen. Her day revolved around the things she could do to in Holland Valley to make him mad and draw him out; blowing up his silos with remote explosives and setting fire to the Green Busch Fertilizer Plant were only a few of her recent adventures. It was so easy to get John riled up.
Luna had thought that today would be just the same but she miscalculated. She had been casing John’s ranch out for quite some time now, trying to figure out when the best time would be to ambush the place. She usually stayed until dusk to make it easier for her to go unnoticed as she made her way back to a Resistance outpost. Tonight was no different in that respect. She had only recently noticed the silo near John’s ranch and under the cover of near darkness, she decided to blow it up. Hell, she thought, the fire from the silo explosion would throw off enough light to help her see her way home. The problem with this plan, that she found out really quickly, was that she couldn’t see who also didn’t see her in the darkness.
She grabbed the remote explosive, threw it about a hundred and fifty meters towards the silo, and then backed off. She hit the remote trigger and the silo blew up like usual, but upon detonation the fire lit up the entire area and that’s when she saw John’s men close by. And they saw her too.
Luna took off running, but the men were too quick. They grabbed her around the waist mid sprint and threw her to the ground. Three men had given chase, but only two descended on her – kicking, punching, and kicking some more – and she didn’t even have a chance. Every time she tried to stand they would kick her down again. Every time she reached for her backpack (with her fucking gun in it), they would punch her in the face. Soon, she was curled into a ball trying to protect herself from serious damage, with dirt matting her hair and blood staining her clothes. The fight was hardly fair.
Neither she nor her attackers saw John arrive on the scene, but there he was behind the men. Luna saw him first and began to laugh bitterly. Of course, he’d show up to see her suffer. Of fucking course.
“Gentlemen,” he said, stern and clear, his handsome face contorted in derision. How his voice managed to penetrate the chaos of the burning silo and the angry yells of her captors, Luna did now know.
The men froze immediately and turned in horror. The taller of her two attackers, taller than even John, spoke up, “John! We’ve captured the sinner.” Sinner came out of his mouth like it was a dirty word – contemptible, cold. He pointed down at Luna, crumpled in the dirt. John spared her a quick glance and then looked back at his men.
“What did I tell everyone about capturing the Deputy?” John asked the men, voice strained.
The shorter attacker parroted previous instructions, “Not to hurt her, but to shoot her with bliss bullets.”
The onlooker said nothing and was rooted to the spot, his eyes wide with fear. Luna guessed he had been a witness to John’s outbursts before.
“And yet,” John bit out, “here you are, doing exactly what you shouldn’t.” When the tall man tried to give an excuse, John held up his hand to stop him, and walked by him towards Luna.
John had a sympathetic look on his face, kind eyes regarding her thoughtfully. Luna had long stopped laughing. Seeing him here turned the blood in her veins to ice practically and she too was afraid of what he would do to her. She wasn’t normally scared of John, despite the crazy outbursts and threats he had given her in the past, but being weak and vulnerable in the dirt below him suddenly made her nervous. He could do anything to her now and she didn’t have much fight to give. It hurt to even breathe at this point.
John reached where she laid in the dirt and sunk to his haunches in front of her. She couldn’t see the men behind him anymore and all she could see was John. John with his too-blue eyes and not a hair out of place, with his immaculate shoes and his expensive coat sweeping in the dirt. He reached out to her and she withered away from his touch. Instead of hitting her too though, he smoothed a lock of hair away from her face delicately, his fingertips brushing against her temple.
“Deputy, what should be done to these men?” he murmured, talking just low enough so none of the men behind him – his men – could hear.
Luna couldn’t believe the trap he was setting for her. Alarm bells were ringing and ringing and ringing in her ears. Tears ran down her cheeks, but she didn’t have the strength to brush them away. His tenderness seemed like the last kick to her gut. She closed her eyes and waited for John’s temperament to switch.
“Hmm, Deputy?” He prodded, his voice soft and soothing, “What should be done?”
Luna began to laugh, low and pained and a little maniacal too. He was asking her what she would have him do? The cruelty of a supposed choice was almost too much to bear. Her chest and stomach burned with the exertion of even a laugh, so she switched back to tears and rolled from her side to her back. “Kill them all, John,” she opened her eyes and leveled a sneer at him, “Will you do that for me?”
He reached out to her again and brushed the tears from her cheeks and when he pulled away, his hands were covered in her blood. He didn’t seem to notice. “My goodness, Deputy. I can’t say I’m surprised you’d say that.” The words were smart, but his tone was still sweet.
She braced herself for more pain.
John wheeled around on his heel and addressed his men, his voice detached from any real emotion he normally displayed. “Gentlemen, you’ve broken my rule about hurting the Deputy. You’ve broken the Father’s rule,” he reached into his coat, nonchalantly, and revealed a gun. Luna shrunk away from him and closed her eyes, getting ready to be murdered in a field over a fucking silo.
John continued, “And the lady wants you to die so…”
Luna’s eyes snapped open.
“That’s what you’re going to do.”
There were gun shots, and cries for mercy, and John standing above the men while he kicked them. It all happened so fast and when they were dead (even the onlooker, she realized with horror), John panted from the exertion and laughed heartily in equal measure. Was he happy that he had killed them? Elated that he had “won”? Probably both. When he spun back to Luna, she noticed he looked happier than he ever had been in her presence before, with a beatific smile that was so genuine it actually reached his eyes. Her guts roiled around in her stomach at that look of happiness despite the pure misery inflicted. Fuck.
Luna tried to pull herself backwards while John stalked towards her. “Deputy,” he growled, “Don’t move. You’ll only hurt yourself more.” He grabbed her backpack and slung it over his shoulder and then bent over her, scooping her up in his arms like she weighed nothing. The pain of being held and moved was unbearable. The realization that she was captured by John and she could do little to nothing about it was terrifying. She cried out and tried to push away from his chest, but it was of no use; her strength was gone and John was on an adrenaline high – she could feel his heart hammering in his chest – and for the first time in her entire life, she felt helpless.
The frenzy of the moment dropped her in and out of consciousness, shards of memory pieced together only later: John’s shoes covered in blood, the tune he whistled absentmindedly as he made the short trip to his ranch (“We’ll Meet Again”, she thinks it was), the softest fucking bed she’s ever felt before, and then nothing.