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netherfeildren · 1 year ago

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FABLE OF THE DOG : 1. The Two Headed Calf

Series Masterlist;

Pairing: Joel Miller x FMC

Summary: Welcome home and buck up, cowgirl.

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Cowboy/Heiress AU; Slowburn(ish); Original Characters; Alcohol & Drug Use; Discussions of Grief; Daddy Issues; Graphic Descriptions of Vomiting; Description of a Dead Body; Death of a Parent; Parental Neglect; Older Man/Younger Woman; Jealousy; Past Teenage Crush; Unrequited Pinning; Yearning and Longing Galore; Boss’s Daughter; Complicated Family Relationships; A Home is a Place but ALSO a Person!; Found Family

A/N: Disclaimer, I know nothing about Wyoming and it’s geography, ranching, or being a cowboy and just made all this up. Any and all misrepresentations are fallacy of my laziness.

The FMC tag was decided because she has a last name. It was just too difficult for me to speak in depth about her father without giving him a name, and thus her one too. After that decision was made, she kind of went away from me and devolved into her own person who I have come to be quite obsessed with. It’s still written in ‘you’ format, anyhow.

I’ve been having a whole lot of fun with this, I hope you do too.

Word Count: 10K

Read on AO3

1: The Two Headed Calf

“She’s been shut up in that house goin’ on three days now, Joel,” Tommy says as the two brothers make their way across the lawn.

The ride had been long and hard, and Joel is tired—he levels a dark look at him. “Just sayin’. Nothin’ you find in there’s gonna be pretty to look at.” He raises his hands in surrender at the brooding glare, that non-confrontational shrug that’s set Joel on edge since they were boys.

“One of you’s should’a gone in there. Made sure she’s okay.”

“The housekeepers’ve been keepin’ an eye. And Frank tried to go in there and check on her himself, but she’s angry as a barn cat. Hissin’ ‘nd yowlin’, and just bein’ downright scary as hell, to be honest. You should be prepared is all I’m tryin’ to say.”

“Her father just died, Tommy. I’m not expectin’ pretty sights right now,” Joel gruffs, trying to swallow the panic that flutters in his throat as they crest the final hill up to the big house.

The beautiful stone, oak, glass monstrosity that’s stood as monument to this place, this home that is not truly his, for over a decade now. The Kelly Ranch. The sky above is still a sultry, yawning blue, deep and tired, basking in the throes of dawn as the sun just now makes its way over the crest of the Tetons in the distance so that the house sits for just a moment longer in its pool of shadowed blues.

Joel pauses on the border of that somber darkness, afraid suddenly of what awaits him inside; boots glued to the ground with the gum of cowardice. He doesn’t want to see her broken. He doesn’t want to see her hurting. But there’s no other recourse, he knows this. The death of the estranged father she’d fought with all her life, the inheritance of this world that seems suddenly too big for just one orphaned girl, all alone now.

He’s afraid that he’ll walk into that house he’s always seen as other and home all wrapped into one—that Olympus that was so far removed and out of reach even when he walked through it’s halls to the man who’d given him sanctuary and salvation, to the man he knew mistreated her sometimes, didn’t love her enough—and not have the capacity to recognize her, this girl who’d always been familiar and stranger all in one also.

Joel Miller suddenly feels afraid of the memory she exists as in his mind, in the face of the woman he knows she is now.

When he lets himself in the back kitchen door, it’s still nighttime within. The cool dryness of the AC cranked up to inhuman temperatures makes him shiver once while sprouting a damp sweat along his nape. He should’ve showered before coming, should’ve washed the ride and the days of camp off his skin before walking into her presence, but all he’d managed were his hands and face. There’d been panic to make sure she was well, if not then alive, at least. But he should be more presentable for her.

Hell, he should’ve been here for her when she came home for the first time in two years to the house where her father had died. He should’ve been here when the man died.

But the herd had needed moving. He hadn’t thought it’d all happen so quickly, thought he had more time, that they all had more time. He’d hoped she wouldn’t return at all, if he was being honest. There was nothing here for her. Nothing except memories of a gilded and loveless, already motherless childhood. The reality of all she was set to inherit. The truth of an aloneness Joel didn’t know if she was prepared for.

He moves through the house slowly, afraid to disturb the ghosts and the silence. The interior, immaculate and beautiful and solemn. Something out of a movie picture or the gloss of a magazine. Something covered not in dust but in sadness. The stairs are silent as his spinning mind makes up for the creak, the boots she’d sent him on his last birthday hit the richly piled rug at the top, and the hallway to the bedrooms yawns long and frightening in front of him. Two grand a pop, the boots—Lucchese, he’d looked them up on the iPhone she’d sent him the year before. A gift giver, generous to a fault, kind to a detriment. She sent something to all the ranch hands that’d worked for her father since she was a girl. Something for the entire ranch at Christmas. And all he managed each time was a perfunctory thank you card, like he did every year because he remembered, years ago, in her little voice, polite people send thank you notes, Joel, my grandmother told me so. Last year he’d written that they were too much, that she shouldn’t have, that he was grateful. There wasn’t much else to say.

That was the extent of their communication, familiar and stranger in one, the far removed golden child of the Kelly. They’d all called him that, the Kelly, for as long as he’d known the man. As if he was some Scottish laird of old, ruling over his clan and half the world. Egotistical, was what it really was. He’d thought himself a god among men, in the face of his only child. Ridiculous was what Joel saw it all for, a put on play, a farce.

And wonder of wonders, she was entirely unlike him because of course she would be. Of course a man ruled by nothing more than ego and narcissism had been sent his polar opposite in the form of his only child. Kind hearted, was what she was—sending him a birthday gift every year. Remembering them all here always no matter how far she’d gone. He sent her a thank you note for each benevolence in return, a word of respectful gratitude for the fact that a person like her could ever remember a dog like him.

Sometimes, Joel had wanted to go to him, the old man, Oswald Kelly, and ask him where his daughter was, why he wasn’t looking for her, keeping her closer, caring for her. He wasn’t the sort of man that could’ve ever understood such callous behavior towards one’s child.

The last time she’d been here, over two years ago: less than forty eight hours that had ended in screaming so terrible they’d all heard it down from the barn, sitting in uncomfortable, swollen silence, the spinning of tires ringing as she yelled at her father that he was never going to see her again, the man’s echoing laugh as she’d fled him.

Joel hadn’t seen her on that visit, it’d been so quick and angry. Flying down on the jet from New Haven for her father’s seventieth birthday and not even making it long enough for the festivities. This was what her life was, as he’d observed it from a distance for all these years, the singular daughter of this great house, coming to her father, attempting joy and finding nothing but disappointment at the end of him.

She’d been right, a knowing streak running through her. Kelly had never seen her again, and Joel didn’t know if the old man had regretted it or not, the anger and the estrangement and the lack of love. But the last time he’d spoken to him, hours before setting off on their move, the herd always came before everything else, the ranch was all that mattered is what the man had always said, with death scratching at the window, his frail and withered body licked down to almost nothing from the austere and imposing figure Joel had always known him as, he’d asked for her. His only child. Do you think she’ll come, Joel? The dying man had asked him. My girl, do you think she’ll come see me? Joel had lied a lie he hadn’t known was one, said she would, that he’d call her as soon as he was back.

In the end, he hadn’t even afforded her that decency, a personal call.

He comes to her open bedroom door now, pitch dark as grief within, and the stench of sorrow and liquor seeping from the living grave. He looks down the long and empty hall for a brief second, wishing it didn’t have to be him, that again, he didn't have to see her any way other than okay. And he realizes that there’s something about her, as she will exist now, that makes him cowardly. Something about this house without the man who’d granted him the absolution of a hiding place all those years ago, who’d understood and sheltered Joel in the midst of his own past grief, that makes him cowardly. The house feels wrong without Kelly within it, wrong with only her as its holder now.

Joel steps into her dark, and it’s a battleground—

—You are silent and motionless in the blue room.

Nothing of the gleaming splendor that dresses the rest of the home sleeps in here. There are clothes everywhere, an exploded suitcase lies open and massacred in the middle of the plush white rug, a turned over bottle of red wine bleeding into your clothes. Shredded pages with scratched on writing slashed across them, the dusted white mounds of crushed pills, as if you’d smashed each one individually beneath the thumb of your grief. The sight makes him more afraid, the scent of weed and cigarettes heavy in the air, as he takes the final step towards the wrecked bed, and a single small foot hangs limply from the edge.

He stares at it long and hard for a second, afraid, afraid again, still, of what he’ll find. He says your name once, short and gruff like a dog’s bark. It’s what he feels like. Animal, bestial, lacking any sort of cognizance amidst this minefield. His heart beats against his spine, and he thinks he should do something else, shake you, check for a pulse, his bones throb inside his skin. He needs to fucking move, but the smell of smoke is so cloying he’s choking on his own tongue.

Your ankle twitches.

And Joel sucks in a sigh of relieved air without panic, saying your name again. His voice is level now, maybe gentle, no more barking dog. His eyes move up the length of one pretty leg, and then quickly, he averts his gaze when he gets high up enough he’s met with soft-creased asscheek covered in silk. Swallowing his tongue, his eyes roll in their sockets, looking for anything else to look at besides the sight of panty clad ass. He steps closer again, gripping the edge of the sheet to pull it over your scantily clad body, eyes flitting to the silver spun clock on the nightstand, the warm glow of the hall light shows that they have two hours to get you sober and presentable before the funeral.

Joel should have been here. He does not feel that he is even here now. And the guilt eats at him like acid. The fear too.

“Darlin’, you’ve gotta get up now,” he says softly, taking hold of your shoulder, scalded by the feel of fragile skin, realizing with the suddenness of a gunshot that you’ll be the Kelly now. He gives you a gentle shake, “We’ve gotta get you ready,” and his heart pumps blood like a machine. The sight of the dry liquor bottle toppled on the nightstand, the shattered glass glittering the floor in crystal, the empty pill bottles, it all taunts him. His guilt is a cacophony in his mind. He knows he’s going to have to stick his fingers down your throat, make you spit it all up, that you’ll hate him for all of this afterwards, but when his gaze meets streaked rust, dark and shocking against the white sheets, he’s kicked into terrified action.

He turns you over, your head lolling sickeningly in unconscious stupor, hair a tangled mess strewn about your face so that he has to dig for your eyes, parting the curtains of your fringe to uncover you. He focuses on your closed eyes, the too long lashes clumped together, lips cracked and parched.

He should’ve fucking been here.

Smoothing his fingers along the lengths of your arms, he keeps his eyes on your face and averted from all the skin that keeps peeking out below, searching the divots and slopes of your arms for hurts. When he gets to your right hand, battleground of a long ago broken hurt, he finds the drying crust of blood, the ragged split in the soft, small palm, thankfully shallow.

His eyes smart, looking down at the broken glass, feeling the tear in you.

Gripping you gently below the elbows he pulls you into his arms, cradled like a child, light as loss. Your head lolls again, neck crooked at an unnatural angle as he carries you into the restroom, careful of your head, knocking the lights on and putting you down in front of the toilet bowl. He pulls your camisole to rights, making sure everything is covered, and gathers your mess of hair as carefully as he can, trying his best to not snag the fragile strands in his too rough hands, but gripping you firmly in position. And ignoring the sound of your awakening cry, he sticks two fingers into your slack jawed mouth and down your throat until he feels the hot rush of vomit.

Crouching behind you, his thighs bracket you, keeping your form from slumping over as you empty the poison from your belly, flushing the alcohol soaked bile as you struggle. He wipes his messy hand on the leg of his jeans and rubs soothing circles on your back, his fingers woven through the soft silk of your hair to keep your head in place and your face clear. His heart thumps in rhythm with your heaves, your too quick, panicked breathing. There seems to be not enough oxygen for the two of you and your grief in the too small room of the commode, and Joel gasps like a dying fish, trying to swallow calm breaths.

When you finally stop your heaving, you rest your arms at the edge of the gleaming porcelain, head hung low, defeated, wracked with shivers or silent sobs, he isn’t sure, a strange and horrible keening noise, so small he barely catches it, held in your throat. There’s the finest down of peach fuzz that covers the tender slope of your vulnerable nape, and it makes Joel feel suddenly, just as vulnerable, just as unprotected. At a complete loss for how to help you.

“Finally decided to show your face,” you croak, voice ragged with your sick.

His fingers tighten once around your shoulder, a panicked tick of reminder that he’s here now, that he’s him. “I was moving the herd. It had to be done. Your father, he—” he stutters, trying explain, tripping over his own guilt ridden words. “I didn’t think it’d happen now, so fast, that you’d get here so soon. I thought we had more time.”

We.

Your skin seems to cool by the second beneath his fingertips, and then you’re shrugging his touch away, huddling closer to the porcelain bowl, further away from him.

“Get out.”

“Let me explain. I—” And he’s begging now. He can hear the note of it in his voice. Begging for forgiveness. For a chance.

“I don’t want to see you.” You don’t say his name. “Get out.” It feels worse than anything.

“I’m here now. I didn’t know— I didn’t think.” He reaches to grab for you again, but you turn to face him suddenly. Wiping the back of your hand against your mouth, pushing your heels at his shins to kick him away. Your eyes are red rimmed, the hollows beneath bruised with lack of sleep. But fire spits from the deep color, all anger and hurt.

“Go deal with your fucking ranch,” you fling the words at him. “It’s all you care about anyways.” And they weren’t shivers, he sees now, they’re tears tracked as proof of all his guilt, all his lacking, along the slopes of your fine grained cheeks.

Your, you say. As if this place and anything in it has ever been his. He’s never wanted any of it like that, only ever seen a thing that needed taking care of, and him, with the ability to care for it.

“I needed you,” you whisper as if the thought comes along on a second wind of anger, a realization that sends your voice breaking, hitching, your chest caving in on itself as the tears come faster and faster now. “He’s dead, and I needed you.”

“I’m sorry,” he begs. “I’m so sorry.” His voice breaks now too. He thinks he’ll cry now too, for the man who he also lost, who despite it all meant something to him, as well. For you, who’s lost even more. For Joel’s own guilt.

But he doesn’t think you see any of that, not his apology, not his regret, not his own grief. You turn away from him again, laying your temple down again on your forearm. “Get out. I’ll be ready soon.”

And so he goes.

Your father is made small and withered in death.

One of the wealthiest men in the entire world. A stranger, a titan, a nightmare of a man.

It wasn’t something you’d ever considered, that a human body could look so colorless and frigid and not alive. Like a shock or a ringing bell, it’s a realization that you’re an orphan now. That you’re all alone.

You feel something like a memory of regret. Or something that’s like the idea that you should feel regret, that you should feel guilt for how it was between the two of you. But all that is overshadowed by the reality of what you weren’t. All you feel even more, or in actual reality, is the old loss of what you’d never been to each other. That, you realize, is the seed of your grief. That long ago wound, that child’s understanding that he wasn’t like all the other fathers, that he’d never care for you the way other children were cared for.

Looking down at the frozen face that looks nothing like the one he’d worn the last time you’d seen him, the wispy thatch of hair that hadn’t been so jarringly white before sickness had ravaged his body, you realize that this is no new loss, it is only a continuation, a reopening of a very old one.

The cavernous cathedral at your back is silent, vacated by the sea of people that had congregated here earlier. And with sickening curiosity, you uncoil an arm from where you’ve got it wrapped around yourself, reaching out to press a finger against the ice cold back of his hand. Shockingly not alive; he feels made of rubber.

Everyone that’d been here to bid farewell to this behemoth turned slip of a man, to catch a glimpse of you, packed like teeth into Jackson’s grandest cathedral; business men and heads of state from around the world, the oldest family names in the country, figures of the highest echelons of wealth and society, vipers circling the barrel—half the world here to see this person who was supposed to have been your father but was really only a stranger.

You take your hand back, and you don’t say goodbye as you turn away from his body. There’s no farewell to really tell.

And at the back of the church, hiding in a bright ream of sunlight, Joel stands propped against the face of a saint. Dark and silent and maybe even more far removed than your dead dad. Watching sentinel. Oswald Kelly’s hovering man—come to watch over him one last time.

The silk of your stockings slide against each other at the junction of your thighs, the hiss of your skirt around your calves as your reed thin heels click against the stone, and you pull your armor as tightly around yourself as you can. There’s a hollow echo inside of everywhere and everything, your mind like a gong, reverberating, and his gaze is so steady, hazel bright, deeply shaded by the lip of his dark hat, beckoning you towards him from beneath the brim.

Large and strong and steadfast, your heart gives a painful, longing thump—stupid, writhing thing—and you can only bear to look him in the eye for a second, and if you were to really think about saying goodbye to that father that never really was, lying behind you, slipping further and further away, you’d say it to the man that always stood as his shadow before the world, before you ever said it to the man himself.

The drive back home is cast in frigid silence and made all the more uncomfortable because you can practically hear Joel’s brain clicking and ticking away with worry.

He’d sent your car and driver away with a harsh word while you collected your final goodbyes and words of respect from the last smattering of people congregated and waiting for the newly birthed heir to one of the greatest fortunes in the world.

Hovering over your shoulder, he’d kept anyone from stepping too close or getting too friendly, so close you could feel the heat of his chest through the silk of your blouse, and then going suddenly full on aggressive when a reporter from the New York Times had approached, fishing for a quote on the future of the Kelly empire. Ushering you away with a hovering hand at the small of your back before the man could get half a question out, he’s opening the truck’s door for you as a haze descends over your eyes, the distant shutter and flash of cameras bursting in your peripherals, a latent hangover and sleep deprivation and not enough to eat in the last forty eight hours causing you to sag in his hold. Then it’s only his big fist wrapping around the span of your wrist as he lifts you into the truck, your eyes downcast and unable to take in sight or sound, vision all a blur. You murmur a barely there thank you with his hand fitting at the dip of your waist, big body blocking yours entirely from prying eyes trying to catch a glimpse or a stumble, and for a single second, your entire weight is suspended in his hold, allowing you to bypass the struggle of balancing your high heel on the step up, and then you’re sliding onto the leather of the seat, the whisper of your cashmere and silk rustling around you as he handles you like a child being spirited away from the scene of a crime.

The door shuts gently behind you, face turned away from the flashing lights, the watchful eyes of the whole world, and worst of all, the assessment of his concerned gaze. All you’re afforded are thirty seconds of privacy to let out a single gasping sob.

And now, an hour and a half of silent purgatory.

You slip your heels off, flexing your smarting toes against the damp of your stockings and tuck your folded legs beneath you on the seat. Paying the frantic energy of his anxiety and lodged words no mind, you consider instead: your new reality. The burden of it all means very little to you now. The last of your worries is being readied for entombing as the two of you speed down the eighty nine, zinging past the bright Wyoming green. The thrum of his truck drowns out your thoughts, brand new, probably over a hundred grand, only the best for your father’s right hand man, and the Kelly Ranch insignia emblazoned proudly on the sides. A brand for the whole world to see just who exactly is being whisked away to her old home turned brand spanking new grave.

You might be feeling a little bit dramatic. But then again— you’d just put your last remaining parent in an actual grave, surely that provides you some allowances.

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see his big paw gripping the leathered steering wheel in a death clutch, knuckles white with his frustration at the dilemma you pose, his own discomfort. You’re sure if he thought you wouldn’t catch him, he’d be squirming in his seat.

You do something to him sometimes, you know this. Not in any way you’d like, not in any interesting way, that of a woman affecting a man, but something respectfully harrowing. Maybe something a little bit like fear.

There has existed between the two of you, always, that strange intimacy of two people who’ve known each other for a very long time, and yet, have always remained at a far removed, arms length distance from one another.

A professional intimacy of sorts. Your father’s foreman, shadow, fixer. The man who guarded that treasure trove you’d inherit one day, today; the thing your father loved most in the world. Two people who’ve known each other a long time, and yet, don’t really know each other at all.

There has always been, however, the fact of the birthday.

The birthday. Your birthday.

The way you’d latched onto that small, immense, detail when you’d first discovered it at fourteen, when he’d newly arrived at the ranch and the true weight of your first real crush had really hit you, it was probably not entirely healthy. But you’d thought yourself in love with your father’s man, the first figure of the male species who’d ever drawn your attention in such a way.

He’d never paid you any mind; you were the boss's daughter, a figurehead or a responsibility, maybe a nuisance, although he’d never ever treated you as one. But the day someone had let slip it was his birthday, on the same day as yours, your teenage heart had swelled with the naive hope of fate. It was meant to be, the two of you were connected, so on and so forth, swallowed by girlish innocence and made buoyant by fantasy.

But you’d had something to share with someone, which was what really mattered. Something tangible, even if only in your inexperienced little mind, something to wield as comfort so that the first time your father had forgotten your special day, fifteen, and what a tender age it had been, you’d had something to cling to. That's when your gifts to him had started. It was your way of making sure there was at least one person in the whole world who’d remember that was your day too. That you were alive, that you mattered. A reminder of yourself. And as the years and birthdays passed, sometimes, when he sent those coldly gracious notes of his, you’d wished you could’ve written back with honesty. Said something like, I’m so lonely, wish you were here, wherever it was in the world you’d found yourself at the time.

And of course, he was gorgeous and older, strong and patient and capable, entirely unattainable. Impossible to forget. You’d gone so far, traveled wide, gotten yourself an overpriced education that would probably serve you for nothing, had lovers and parties and splendor, and always, you remembered your gifts for him, you remembered him. It was the single most important detail of your birthday every year.

The leather creaks beneath his fist again, chapped knuckles set to burst before he flexes his fingers out, long and straight. Thickly built hands, strong, made for working or hurting, on a man who you’ve never seen be anything but stoically patient.

He was strange in that way, neither wholly impulsive nor precisely intentional in his mannerisms. More so, it was that there was something extremely neutral about him, a middle buoyancy of personality. Strict with the cowboys, exacting, wielding his title as ranch foreman with an iron fist and your father’s blessing, and yet still, quiet, serious, with that patient gentleness about him. You’d seen it in the way he’d handled Ellie when she’d first come to the ranch, young and skinny with that hollow look of trauma kids who’d seen things they shouldn’t have shamed adults with. She’d been a little older than you, and with an air you’d not understood, a sort of lived past you’d been naive to the existence of, frightened when confronted by it, and yet inevitably, the two of you’d become fast friends eventually.

You’d even experienced it yourself, on two treasured occasions, that gentleness that you’d held onto for years. Nurturing the memory of him in your mind like a delusional bloom.

He stretches his hand again, wheel caught between his thumb and forefinger, cinching it there, back and forth. His nails are meticulously clean, cut to the quick, and you imagine he must spend a great deal of time cleaning himself up when he works so hard at getting himself so dirty most days.

You can see him sneaking glances at you, and he coughs once, a clearing of his nervous throat. Averting your gaze, you turn your face away so that you’ll be able to watch him through the reflection in the window. He monopolizes the space in the cabin of the truck, broad shoulders and hulking form, all the fine leather smell washed away in the scent of him. That bay rum aftershave he’s always worn, the one with the distinctive notes of bay leaf, cloves and citrus. An old fashioned scent, masculine and crisp.

You’d snuck into the bunk once with Ellie, before he’d moved into the foreman’s cabin, before Switzerland, when the two of you were still girls running rampant and free through the ranch, clutching desperately at the last vestiges of any sort of happy childhood you could scrounge up for one another. You’d peeked in his things, found a whole world of Joel shaped curiosities. The glass etched bottle of aftershave, a hole spotted t-shirt with a burnt orange longhorn across the front, Flannery O’Connor’s The Complete Stories—something you found comforting, knowing he could read about the small, the freakish, real life; thinking that perhaps he was homesick for the comfort of the South, hungering for a taste of the life he’d had then, through books. And then, in a spine cracked copy of Suttree, the pages almost falling apart beneath your fingertips, dog eared and well loved, her picture tucked between the pages.

It had been the first time you’d done something you knew you shouldn’t have and actually regretted it, looking down at that green eyed photograph.

You’d run back to your room after that, ashamed and something a little bit like jealous, desperate to know who she was, desperate for someone to keep a picture of you like that—as if they loved you. And years later, you’d found the scent for yourself. The little molasses glass bottle you still have and pull out on occasion, when you’re feeling extra bad, extra lonesome, extra far away from the whole world, just for a reminding of home.

Beside you, he sighs again, coughs again, brings you back to himself and the present. Just spit it out already, you think exasperatedly, say something, anything else besides how sorry you are.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he starts, and you roll your eyes, scoffing quietly.

“You already said that.” Sullen. Mullish. You wish you were a child who could still throw a tantrum and get away with it. Letting your eyes go unfocused from his reflection in the window, you brood at the sight of everything that’s yours now as he turns off the highway, passing below the iron eave of the Kelly Ranch entrance. Eight hundred thousand acres of pristine Wyoming land nestled into the deep valley surrounded by the Grand Tetons mountain range.

“Well, I’m sayin’ it again.” He’s driving too fast, and you refuse to turn and look at his face. Your heart beats blood in your ears, and you screw your eyes shut to the dizzying blur of green legacy, not wanting to see any of it—him.

Your belly swoops, going slightly nauseous and gurgling.

“I didn’t think you’d get here so quick.” He swallows, “Hell, I didn’t think it’d all happen so damn fast.”

“I was already in New York,” you tell him, voice clipped with breathlessness. “I left Paris last week.”

“What? I didn’t know— I—”

“Why would you?”

“I would’ve called you. I would’ve gotten you out here quicker.”

“Ellie called. It’s better like this, Joel.” Finally letting yourself say his name out loud, it feels wrong and molten on your tongue, a heaviness being spit up from the depths of your stomach. “We don’t have to pretend anymore. He’s dead now.”

“There’s no pretending. He wanted to see you—”

“Please, stop.”

But he urges on unheeded: “He told me so before I left. Told me—”

“Stop,” you snap. Finally turning to look at him and hating him for it. For how gorgeous he is, for all the things he’s always made you feel for as long as you can remember what it was to feel something for a man, for all he did or did not have with your father when you had none of it or so much of an entirely different thing. “Stop. I don’t want to hear any of it. It doesn't matter anymore, Joel.”

“But you should know. You deserve to know that—”

“What?” Because that one hurts. “I deserve to know what?” That he actually had loved you but had just never been able to show it? That now it was too late? That the only person the great Oswald Kelly had ever been able to speak to of the supposed care he had for his only daughter was the hired help? You’d read once that one should never let their parents anywhere near their real humiliations. You’d tried your damndest to follow that as soon as you’d grown up. “It’s not your place,” you seethe with teeth bared, an animal shoved into a corner and made to fight for its life, deciding you won’t ever let Joel near them either.

He spits a cursing, growled sound of frustration, but doesn’t continue. The two of you find yourselves at an impasse, and you turn back to your windowed mirror of him, eyes pinching hot, filling with tears. One of the things your father disliked most about you, your easy tears, and a single salt marred inadequacy tracks down the slope of your cheek, dripping off the edge of your jaw into the bandaged cup of your palm, and you breathe slow and measured through your open mouth, watching the fog cloud grow and shrink against the glass obscuring your vision of him.

The last time you’d missed your mother, the one you’d never known, in any sort of real and true way, you’d been eighteen. Returning to an empty house after celebrating your high school graduation in a far off school, alone.

In the midst of your sophomore year, you’d been sent away to a Swiss boarding school. It had been something worse than devastating, losing your life in Wyoming, the only home you’d ever know, Ellie, the other people on the ranch… But it was far removed enough that you couldn’t bother, where you couldn’t ask for things like attention or consideration. The education had been excellent, the upbringing desperately lonely ending on a whimpering sigh despite your many accomplishments. You’d wanted her very badly then indeed, your mother. To have been there, to have helped you pick your dress, kissed your cheek after watching you walk across the stage. To have wiped your tears when she told you that your father wasn’t there because he was busy managing the whole world, but that he was proud of you, that he’d have been there if he could. You’d wished she could’ve been there to lie to you so that you wouldn’t have needed to lie to yourself.

Peering down from your balanced perch atop the deck’s bannister, you survey the deep bed of Lily of the Valley, destroyed beneath the vindictive soles of your bare feet. He’d planted them for her all around the house after she’d died, her favorite flower.

You’d always hated them.

And that was the thing of it all, which you’d learned when you grew old enough to recognize such things like disdain. He couldn't stand you because you reminded him of her. Clichéd and old and tired. An excuse for being a neglectful father. The daughter who was too much like her dead mother, and thus did not deserve to be loved.

You tip your head back, nursing at the lip of fine aged Macallan, and the sky is a glass mirror of blackened silver streaks. You’re almost positive that all the stars in the Milky Way are visible from right here at this very spot in the heart of Wyoming. The sight makes your broken heart feel full and falsely mended.

You’re certain you’re painting a pretty picture right now: tipsy on a bottle of your dead dad’s sacredly hoarded whiskey that probably cost as much as someone’s house, staring up at the stars in your newly inherited home with a whole unappreciated life full of possibilities ahead of you. Basking in the title of your newly minted— orphan-hood? Orphan-ness? A peer of the orphans.

You snort softly, sucking on the bottle again, letting the heat of it settle in your belly, smolder in your heart. Your head feels full of bubbles and sugar and sad.

There’s a part of you that feels a little ridiculous, despite the circumstances. You’re good at compartmentalizing, good at being objective of your realities. Obviously: sad because your father is now dead, and it’d been nine months and eleven days since you’d last spoken to him. Sad because he’d never given a shit about you. Sad because you’re alone, dumped by the stupid French jockey boyfriend who you’d not even liked very much, just a few days before this whole pathetic ordeal of acquiring your orphan-hood, yeah, that’s what you’re sticking with, had occurred. Not to mention the army of looming lawyers and financial advisors and various heads of business vying for your attention, waiting for the what next?

And Joel.

A one man army of looming Joel.

So you’re feeling morose, blue, maybe a little spoiled, but brought low and cut short. Depressed and unsatisfied with your life thus far.

Poor little rich girl. Poor little orphan. Poor little me.

What you want?

Someone to care.

Someone to love you.

Hard to come by. Impossible to buy.

The stars gleam purple silver, winking at you. The bracketing black so dark it swallows the eye. Another taste of the nutty bouquet of smoked apple oranges, and soon you’ll be tipsy enough you won’t be able to balance your butt on the bannister’s ledge anymore. Maybe you’ll go humpty dumpty over the edge and crack your skull against your mother’s valley of destroyed Lily’s.

You laugh again with sound now, not crazy, only an orphan, ha, but you think that it’s only that it feels shockingly as if you’ve fallen through the surface of your life. As if you are still falling with nothing and no one to grab on to, to help stabilize you. A really terrible, shit-out-of-luck feeling.

Your eyes continue their infernal leaking, and you blow your nose loudly on the inside of your sweater. You’ve given yourself three days to do whatever the hell you want, be as disgusting as you may. When the three days are up you’ll plan to get your act together, take responsibility and hold of your life and become the woman you should be.

Who that is? Still being decided.

You think that maybe you’ll buy another jet before that time’s up. Or an island. Something ridiculous. Maybe you’ll sell the goddamn ranch.

You eye the dark rolling hills of the valley with seething suspicion. Let’s see what Joel says about that. You, marching up to the highway entrance and spearing a For Sale sign in the dirt of the largest privately owned cattle ranch in the continental United States. Way more than that God forsaken surly frown is what you’d get.

So long, Joel, it’s been swell. I’m done with this place. It’s time to pack it up and find some new hunk of land to care about more than you care about me or anything else.

Maybe you’ll be real funny and put up a Craigslist ad.

And it isn’t that you don’t love this place, the only home you’ve ever known. You do. In a way that is passionate and consuming and irreconcilable. Everything about it, the serenity, the guarding mountains and the deep woods, the home you’d been born in, that both your parents had died in. You do love it in your way.

It’s only that every man you’ve ever loved—loved—had always cared more about the place than he’d ever cared about you.

For the longest time, most of your youth until you’d decided that you officially felt an adult, you’d thought you’d hated your father. There was just so much anger and resentment and the resound of his ever furious words and insults and endless disappointment. The echo of no mother ringing so loudly in your ears that the confounding feelings had all been mistaken for hatred. But with age and distance and life, you’d realized you didn't hate him. You never had. You thought, actually, and this was a very good and mature thought of yours, that you were the only person in the whole world that had ever seen him as only a man and not a god.

He was only a man, full of greed and grief and missing the mother of the child he’d probably never wanted. Nothing more or less.

Maybe it was that you felt sorry for him. Not in the way of pity, but in the way of one person feeling empathy for another in a clinical and helpless sort of manner. And a numb, detached sort of sadness. A longing for something that you’d never had and had always wanted but eventually learned to live without.

Ultimately, his disappointment had turned on him, and now it was all you felt you had for him at the end of it all.

But, for some reason, and an annoying one at that, you do think that, if you try very, very hard, you could bring yourself to hate Joel Miller. There’s satisfaction in that possibility, vindication—resentment that even now, as practically strangers, you know he’d be able to pull that sort of feeling out of you which could result in hatred. Something strong and overwhelming and not easily escaped.

Your stomach rumbles, and you smile blithely at all your inherited legacy, filling the hollow with more drink. Three days to behave very badly, as badly as you can. The whiskey is so good, and swishing it around in your mouth, you tip your head back further, gurgling it loudly at the back of your throat.

“What the hell are you doing?”

You jerk, scrambling to keep your balance, choking a little on smokey apples and your own spit. A trickle of the golden amber liquor drips out of the corner of your mouth as you find him hiding in the dark across the deck. Accustomed to drooling over him, you wipe it away with the back of your hand.

“Having a party. Would you like to join?”

“Are you drunk again?”

Tough crowd. Ugh. “Never mind. You’re not invited. Go away.”

“You need to go inside and go to bed.”

You tip your chin at him, putting on doe eyes. “Alright. And are you going to be my new daddy also?” You say in a baby voice.

Fucking Christ, you hear him whisper under his breath, turning away to run an exasperated palm over his mouth. Frustration seethes off of him like sulfur. He’s tired. Of you maybe. Of the whole circus this place has become in the past few days—and rightfully so.

“What do you want? I’m extremely busy, if you can’t tell.”

“Just thought I’d check on ya.” Courteous, always the gentleman, bullshit. You roll your eyes at him.

“I don’t need you to check on me.” And you, ever the child. One day you swear you’ll grow up.

But it can’t be said that you’re entirely selfish either. You have considered the fact of Joel’s own grief at the loss of your father. After all, they’d been much closer than you’d ever been to him for many years. And maybe, in his own cold and removed and superior way, your father had seen this man who you’ve thought yourself in love with since you were a teenager, as something like a son.

Probably, that’s just your own wishful thinking: that Oswald Kelly had ever been capable of such tender feelings.

Maybe the fact of Joel’s own grief is the thorn beneath your nail bed that’s making you so angry with him, so needing of his attention. Maybe it’s that he’d failed to fulfill your silly and girlish fantasy that upon receiving the news of your only remaining parents death, he’d have been here waiting for you, at this home he’d guarded for you for so long, ready to take you into his arms and console and care for you.

When instead, he’d been off doing what he’d always done for as long as you’d known him. Protecting your father’s interests, his legacy.

“Is this how it’s going to be?”

“How?”

“You, being difficult.” Driving me fuckin’ crazy— he adds again under his breath.

“I’m an orphan now, Joel.” You’re becoming quickly addicted to the word. “I think I should be afforded a tiny bit of leeway to drive people fuckin’ crazy,” you mock his Southern drawl. Enough of your time had been spent in Europe over the past two years, kissing Europeans, that you’d sloughed off the last of your American twang; something of a vaguely European lilt peppering your words every now and then that Ellie likes to tease you for whenever the two of you speak on occasion.

A muscle under his left eye twitches at the jab, and you take another deep swig of the bottle, provoking him with your gaze. Wishing you had whatever it is a woman needs to entice this man. Like the fucking vet. Fucking world renowned, brilliant, highly coveted, beautiful veterinarian. You know about her. You’re sure he thinks he’s been discreet over the years with their whatever they’ve had, Tess, but you know.

Maybe you’ll be insane and irrational and possessive, taking advantage of your three crazy days, and fire her with your new found power. See what he has to say about that. Ha.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Obviously not.

Despite your current hysteria, your goal is not to send the ranch head over heels into a tailspin.

But the imagining is soothing.

“Want some?” You hold the heavy crystal out towards him in a peace offering, held precariously between two sweaty knuckles. “It’s probably worth as much as your truck. Would be a waste for me to finish on my own.” You eye what’s left of it, about half, and give him a sheepish grin. It really is very good.

He looks at you for one long, solemn moment, always so silent and pensive, this strange enigma of a man. You get to watch in real time as he loses whatever fight it is he’s trying to fight against you, victorious when he shrugs and comes over slowly, resting his butt against the bannister—a carefully respectful distance away from you.

When he takes the bottle from your swinging clutch, gripped from the base, careful not to touch you in any way, you see the real sad in his eyes. The dim lights bleeding out through the big windows of the family room without a family shine on his face in strips and bursts. A shadow here, golden warmth there. He’s got more lines around his eyes than you remember from the last time you’d been this close to him. Smile lines made bright white in the center and gold burnished at the edges from too much sun. There’s little bursts of silver threaded at his temples now too, a gleam here and there in his dark beard. Forty four years old, he’d turned on your last birthday.

You dig your nails into the soft meat of your palms, and your belly smolders as he brings the bottle to his lips, tasting the exact place your own mouth had just been moments ago. You press your knees together as hard as you can, head a little woozy with the color of his eyes; the most gorgeous green, caramel hazel.

You’d graduated two years ago with a degree in art history and had done absolutely nothing with it since. It was just that everything appeared boring and pointless and shallow. Your whole life had one day suddenly seemed just a little silly. Useless, overpriced degree, nothing to be done with extensive knowledge in color theory when your world is expecting such different things from you now.

But you sure as hell can appreciate the color of his eyes in extensive and meticulous detail. There is that.

Watching the slow slide of the amber liquor down the bottle-neck, the long pull of his lush mouth, the ripple of his strong throat, and the way his eyes go a little wider, shocked at how good it is. You laugh soft: “I know, right.”

He takes another pull, another swallow. That’s what you want to be—swallowed just like that. “Damn, that’s good.” His mouth is a little wet, bottom lip shiny with thousands of dollars worth of your father’s favorite whiskey, and his eyes are sad.

You’d said you were going to be bad, but you don’t want to be bad to him. “I’m sorry,” you whisper.

He swallows again, tipping his head towards you, trying to catch your too soft words—he’s got a bad ear, you know why—and turns to peer at you from beneath his low pulled brow, the tip of his tongue peeking out to swipe at the drop of liquor you wish you could suck off his tongue.

“You’ve got nothin’ to be sorry for.”

The first time he’d shown you that gentleness of his: You’d fallen from your horse at school in your junior year. Something had frightened the beast, and she’d bucked you, sent you flying ten feet in the air, ragdoll-like, before you’d landed badly on your right arm, a comminuted fracture in your radius that you’d needed surgery to fix. At your insistence, and with only a few weeks left to spare, you’d been sent home for the remainder of the semester. Your father had been incensed but eventually allowed it. He’d been away from the ranch on business, after all, at no risk of being truly disturbed by you. But when you’d been readying to return to Switzerland at the end of the summer, arm healed, courage not, you’d not been able to get back on a horse no matter what you tried. Joel had helped you, before they’d shipped you off again. Trotted the corral with you for hours and hours before you’d finally been able to relax and sit on your own without tears and vertigo. No questions or admonishments, nothing but the quiet burr of his deep voice, guiding you and the mare along.

It had been a kindness unlike any you’d experienced in maybe your whole life.

“I’ve been bad.”

“Nah. You couldn’t ever be.”

The second time: “Did today make you think of Sarah?” Years after you’d found that green eyed photograph, he’d shared her with you.

His gaze turns suddenly sharp, but you’re not worried you’ve stepped in unbreachable territory. “Yeah.” The echo of her name rings around the two of you.

“In a bad way or a good way?” He takes another long swig, a low whistle through his teeth and a shake of his head before he’s handing the bottle back to you—again, carefully.

“Both.”

You take your own swallow, slicking your tongue all around where his just was, and you’re drunk for real now. Drunk on a man.

“Do you ever regret telling me about her?”

“Nah.” He tips his head back, looking up at the thick beams of the deck’s awning. He’s got the longest lashes you’ve ever seen on a man, thick and curling. The deepest voice you’ve ever heard too, sultry, a bedroom voice. A voice for fucking. Your belly swirls and dips, and you want so much you’re dizzy with it.

Heart beating like it’s about to burst, out of breath on the verge of hyperventilating, you can taste his mouth in your mouth, the imagination flavor of it. This is what it must feel like to die. This is what your father must have felt like three days ago, this agony.

His Adam’s apple bobs, and it’s so pronounced, the skin of his throat sun pebbled. There isn’t an inch of him that isn’t all rough-hewn man. “You needed to hear about her then, I s’pose.”

Yes. “You told me when I needed you to.” After that lonely graduation, the last time you’d missed her really very badly, longed for a mother. Alone, alone, alone little girl.

“You were missin’ your momma somethin’ fierce. Needed to know you weren’t the only one that felt like that sometimes.”

You laugh a not-laugh, butt scraping against the railing, slipping off your perch, socked-feet thudding beside his gifted boots. The pleasure you feel whenever you see him use one of the things you’ve given him is indescribable.

“Silly,” you say with barely any sound, his bad ear reaches for your voice again. “At the time it felt like I was the only person in the whole world that had ever felt like that.”

“We all feel like that at one point or another, I reckon.”

“Will you miss him a lot?” You ask looking up at him, the beautiful profile, the strong jaw. You’ve always wondered how he sees you. If he’s ever thought you were beautiful. Other men do, it’s a common thing, a nothing sort of thing. There are always men, there will always be men. But this singular man—this one is not like the rest.

“Maybe. Can’t tell yet, don’t think. But it felt wrong earlier, walking through his house without him in it.” His house, not yours.

“Do you wish he’d been your father?” And he turns to look down at you at that, gaze snapping, and you can tell you’ve shocked him with the question. But you’d always wondered.

“No. Never,” he says with such assuredness, an uncompromising shake of his head.

And the answer doesn't necessarily shock you in turn. You don't think anyone could have ever wanted a father like that. But it also doesn't help you understand what it was that lived between them either.

He sighs, perhaps reading the confusion in your gaze. “He helped me at a time when I needed it real bad. Gave me a place and a purpose and a thing to do and take care of. You get me? It was gratitude—maybe. He saved me in a way, after Sarah. Nothing more.” He thinks for a moment, and then, “Perhaps it was that we understood each other about certain things.”

You gaze across the sprawl of dark land as far as the eye reaches, that point of no return where the earth shoots up into the sky, purple blue behemoths in the shape of mountains.

From this spot, rooted to the deck of your family home, it seems like the whole world is yours to keep. Also, like you’ll never be able to touch any of it with fingers or taste or meaning.

Your love for this place is complicated—tied up in the people, the memories, the could’ves and should’ves, the whole dreamscape idea of the monument of childhood and all it’d really never been. The time away had felt eternal, like you’d never really been here to begin with, like the young girl who’d grown up on this land had never really existed. But you’d not forgotten them, this, despite your distance. Your home, the father that wouldn’t want you, Wyoming and all its splendor, the people you’d left behind, Joel and Ellie and shared birthdays that meant a secret world to you. Morsels of small happinesses interloped amidst a largely lonely and sad childhood. That’s what it was at its core.

“Would you be angry with me if I gave it all away?”

He thinks for a moment, maybe you’re making him sadder, but then finally says with a swallow, “No. It’s yours to do with as you please.”

You eye the quarter of whiskey left, but your belly isn’t hungry for its warmth anymore. You want something heavier now.

“Could you even do that—legally—sell it or somethin’?”

“Probably not. He probably tied it to my fucking life. Sell and die.” You mime your name in an imitation of your fathers deep voice, frowning at yourself the way he’d always frowned when he looked at you, but it pulls a laugh from him, and the painful memory is worth it. “But I have a billion dollars to spend now. More?” You tap your chin—you want to make him laugh again. “Gotta think of something interesting to do with it all.”

His mouth slides into an easy half grin. Like the moon—that beautiful. And he turns to face you fully. “You’re gonna be just fine. You know that, right?”

You turn to face him too, gripping the bannister for dear life. “What? Will you make sure of it?”

“That’s my plan.”

“How’re you gonna do that, d’you reckon?” The American twang bleeds back into your voice, and you’re all swollen lush on the inside, heart a beating fist in your chest.

“Haven’t gotten that far, if I’m bein’ honest with you.” God. His eyes, the strong bridge of his nose, his mouth. He’s so tall your head has to crook back to look up at him. “I’ll figure something out.” And after another pensive second, and still with that soft, sloped eye smile, he asks, and nicely, “Will you stop drinking now—for me?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” you say with the same sort of smile in return.

And then suddenly, like vomit again but maybe more humiliating this time: “Did you respect him?” Because you don’t know all the things about him that there are to know, but you do know that Joel Miller’s respect is a thing hard earned.

He clicks his tongue, and you hear the pop of his jaw as he shifts it like he’s chewing on an honesty. His eyes, his eyes, they’re serious, mercurial, warm and deep also. You worry he won’t answer, that he wouldn’t want to disappoint you or something, but then: “No,” said real simple like.

“Why not?”

And the way he looks down at you, you know already, and it makes that falling through the surface of your own life feeling rise up inside you again, makes your ears pop with embarrassment. Ah. “He never did a very good job of hiding the way he treated you, sweetheart. I couldn’t ever respect a man like that.”

This is reality right here, this is you falling through your life, this is the realization that it wasn’t only you imposing yourself, your existence, on someone with gifts they didn’t want or ask for. Joel had seen. Joel had understood.

Someone else had noticed that you exist, and it had been him.

What else had you ever wanted?

And in the blink of a desperate, yearning eye, drunk on a man still, you’re throwing yourself at him, pressing your mouth hot and heavy to his, kissing him full on the way you’d dreamt of since you knew to dream of such things.

Chapter 2; Sugar, Not so Sweet

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

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#fable of the dog fic #vic fic #joel miller fanfiction #Joel Miller x FMC #joel miller smut #Joel miller angst #the last of us AU

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lizkeen · 2 months ago

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🧺* ― 𝑭𝑶𝑳𝑲 𝑯𝑶𝑹𝑹𝑶𝑹 𝑺𝑬𝑻𝑻𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑷𝑹𝑶𝑴𝑷𝑻𝑺.

001, a deserted road with only one house.

002, a circle of standing stones perched atop a desolate hill.

003, an old patio with creaking floorboards and a swing.

004, a small cathedral in the middle of nowhere.

005, an abandoned barn.

006, a slaughter house at the outskirts of town.

007, the woods but all the trees are marked and maybe you are too.

008, a wild and overgrown yard in an otherwise very suburban neighborhood.

009, a gas station in the middle of the night.

010, branch tents in the woods.

011, behind a clothesline in the morning hours.

012, hay bales under a blue sky in the summer.

013, the nearby sea with skeleton floating.

014, the empty grave in a forest.

015, a rusty red metal gate on a meadow.

016, a house situated in a field of overgrown grass.

017, a tree in a wooded area adorned with numerous animal skulls and bones.

018, an old, rustic barn with tire swings hanging from the rafters

019, a set dining table with floral arrangement positioned near a body of water.

020, a chicken coop that smells of rot.

021, an open field surrounded by scarecrows.

022, a bus stop in the middle of nowhere.

023, a paddock at night.

024, a tractor in front of a corn field.

025, an unguarded barn that is too quiet to be trustworthy.

026, an empty church/cathedral at night.

027, a perched hill with dry, brown earth.

#folk horror rp memes #folk horror rp prompts #folk horror rp meme #folk horror setting prompts #rp setting prompts #rp prompts #rp memes #rp setting memes #folk horror setting memes #folk horror rp prompt

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xiiithhazard · 2 months ago

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Echoes of the Unseen Children – Chapter 18

First Chapter

Prev. Chapter

Chapter 18:

The black hedgehog led them out of the city again and even well past the massive campsite just outside its walls, before heading even further into the hills. A process that concerned Sonic, as he didn’t like traveling so far from the place where Knuckles and Tails had disappeared. However, he couldn’t deny that this was their best chance to find them again.

It seemed Amy was reading his mind, as she gently placed her hand in his and smiled when he looked down at her. “It’s okay.” She said softly, squeezing his hand ever so slightly. “We believe in them. Right?”

Forced to admit that he was being overprotective again. He reminded himself to take a breath and squeezed back. “Yeah. We do.”

The journey continued quietly from there, the group navigating the rugged terrain with a determined silence, each step bringing them closer to their goal, but also deeper into the unknown. At some point, the sun began its descent, casting long shadows that danced upon the hills, painting the world in hues of amber and gold then dark blues and blacks. Further frying their nerves and heightening the unease. Making every rustle in the bushes, or distant wildlife call a heart pounding affair.

Of course, the black hedgehog seemed to not even notice, instead leading the way entirely in silence. Following the paths and taking random turns with an unwavering confidence that had him never even glancing back to see if they were still following.

But eventually they came upon a gate, set into the chokepoint of two shear, cliff walls. However, instead of going through the door or unlocking the gate, like someone who was actually supposed to be there. He instead just snapped out of existence for a second and reappeared on the other side.

“Hey.” Sonic complained, but the black hedgehog didn’t even so much as look back, as he carried on his way. Forcing Amy and Sonic to look around for a way through. Only to find that the door was locked as well. And, not knowing who’s it was or why it was there, they didn’t feel right breaking in.

Instead, Sonic just pulled Amy into his arms again and rushed back for a running start that allowed him to jump the wall entirely.

“That wasn’t very nice.” He complained, as he ran to catch up with the grumpy hog once again and set Amy back on her feet. Only for them both to stop in their tracks. Forgetting the slight to their pride and instead looking on in amazement at what they had just arrived at.

A large home set directly against one wall of the small, rounded canyon. While a barn and a few smaller buildings took up most of the back wall. Allowing the vast majority of the area to be used for fields. And to top it all off, the place had its own river, several ponds and even a waterfall.

“It’s beautiful.” Amy breathed in amazement and Sonic really couldn’t help but agree. After spending his life in a one-room tree house and seeing only the occasional stone structure or hut, this was absolutely amazing.

“Shadow.” A young female voice called out. And before Sonic and Amy could even blink, they were accosted by a small army of – children, appearing from the fields where they’d been farming. All of which were strangely happy to see the black hedgehog, despite his gruff deminer.

“I – did not see that coming.” Sonic admitted in shock and Amy elbowed him. Hissing a reminder to be nice.

“Who are you?” A little voice asked, and they looked down to find a tiny hedgehog girl looking up at them with curiosity. Earning them a glare from Shadow. Warning them that they had better be on their best behavior.

“My name’s Amy. Amy Rose.” She stated with a soft smile and knelt to be at the child’s level. “What’s yours?”

“May.” She declared, before looking at Sonic, who introduced himself as well. Though the little girl seemed to find his name funny, for some reason. Claiming that sonic was a sound not a name.

“Well, if that’s how you’re gonna be. ‘Shadow’ isn’t a name either.” He complained. Whipping a thumb at the black hedgehog, who folded his arms, still glaring sternly at his counterpart.

“Sonic.” Amy growled at him, and he winced. “Be nice.”

He sighed, but didn’t refrain from folding his arms too and glaring back at the other guy. “So – where are our friends?” He demanded, but Shadow only continued to glare at him, until an actual adult appeared. An extremely friendly-looking rabbit, who was also extremely pregnant.

“Hello.” She said with a smile that honestly made it impossible for him to continue countering Shadow’s gruff act. And he quickly smiled back, offering a greeting in return. “My name’s Vanilla. Are you friends of Shadow’s?”

“No.” They both said in unison. Only to glare at each other again, not knowing how to react to the fact that they’d just agreed.

Vanilla seemed used to this however, as she just giggled behind her hand. Before opening her arms to them. “Whatever the case may be. You are both welcome here.”

“Really?” Amy said softly, walking up to stand with Sonic. “You don’t even know us.” She pointed out, but the rabbit only giggled.

“That’s pretty much how everyone got here, hon.” That made sense. “So, what’s brought you here then?” She added, only for Sonic and Amy to deflate a little as they were reminded that their family was two members down.

“Is Rouge back?” Shadow asked instead and Vanilla looked concerned about this reaction but answered.

“No. I thought she was with you.”

“We got – separated.” He lied, obviously annoyed. Clearly Rouge had just ditched him for some five finger discounts.

“Oh dear.” She said worriedly, before looking up at Sonic and Amy again. “Why don’t you two come inside. We can –”

“I’m sorry.” Sonic really felt bad for interrupting her. However, it was clear that she was trying to distract them so Shadow could leave. “But the only reason we came here was to find our friends.”

“I see.” She said and looked down at Shadow again, who actually looked a little awkward under her gaze. Truly an impressive feat. “Why don’t you two wait for them then?” She insinuated, causing the hedgehog to bristle at the idea, but something held him back from shutting the idea down. Instead, he just sighed and looked away. “Good.” Vanilla crowed happily, her smile returning, as she turned to Amy next. “Why don’t you come inside dear. We can dry your clothes?”

Looking down at her new dress, she noticed that she was completely soaked by the rain. However, she turned back to Sonic first, who nodded and smiled, telling her that he’d take care of it.

And, with that, the children were all called into the house, leaving Sonic and Shadow alone. The silence defining, as they both refused to be the one to give in first. However, in the end, Sonic had to face the facts that his own stubbornness was not helping them.

“So –” He finally said, rubbing at his quills nervously and looked back to find the guy was still just standing where he’d been. His arms folded and his eyes on the sky. “You know – we’re not your enemy. You don’t have to treat us like criminals.” He tried, but received no response, leading Sonic to sigh loudly and rub at his face in irritation.

Gees, and he thought Knuckles had been hard to crack.

“Come on, man. At least give me something.” He begged. “You tried to kill me without any warning. I think you owe me that much.”

Shadow's gaze remained fixed on the horizon, the silence between them growing heavier with each passing second. Sonic shifted uncomfortably, his patience wearing thin as he tried to decipher the enigmatic hedgehog's thoughts. Until finally the guy spoke, his voice low and measured. “You don't understand.” He began, his eyes narrowing slightly. “I am their protector. I cannot take risks.”

Sonic's irritation gave way to curiosity, his ears perked up at the hint of an explanation. “You mean like the one you just took to bring us here?” He urged and quickly took another step back when a steely glare was promptly directed at him. However, for just a second, he also saw something else in those eyes.

Sadness

It was heavy, suffocating, agonizing even. And maybe even tinged with the same loneliness Sonic himself suffered from. And, for a moment, he thought the guy might actually open up. If for no other reason, then he would be forced to or be crushed by the weight of his own loss.

But then his defenses locked down again and he shook his head. “It's not that simple.” He said, turning his back on the conversation. “Just – stay out of my way.”

Disheartened but not deterred, Sonic watched as the guy left, his figure melding into the shadows of the night. But he didn’t follow. Instead, he was met with the sound of large wings overhead and he looked up to see the bat from before, Rouge, landing softly on a nearby rock.

Clearly recognizing him, she looked a bit taken aback by his presence there. However, a quick look in the direction Shadow had gone was all she needed to relax. “What’s up, Blue?” She sassed, as she folded her wings again. But he ignored her and walked over with determination.

“Where’s Knuckles and Tails?” He demanded and she tilted her head at him.

“Is that his name?” She said, as if she’d been kicking herself for not asking. And seemed ready to redirect the conversation even further, before Sonic stopped it.

“Yes.” He all but growled and she blinked, startled by his fury. “Now where are they?”

“Honey, I left them in the city. They should have made it back to your camp by now.”

“We don’t have a camp.” He yelled and her smile dropped.

“Oh – well that’s unfortunate.”

Sonic promptly gripped his head to keep it from exploding. “Will you just give me a straight answer?”

“I did. They’re in the city. Why would you come all the way here any–” She started to finish her sentence, but it seemed that another look in Shadow’s direction answered the question for her. “Wait a minute – he brought you here?”

“Yes. We figured you and Knuckles would be in the same place.”

She appeared to consider this new information rather intently. As she had suddenly let her normal sassy mannerisms drop. Replaced by an odd seriousness. “Just for the record. Are you a Chaos User?”

Sonic stood up straight, slightly shocked by this random turn in the conversation. “What does that have to do with anything?”

This appeared to answer her question, as she was quick to ask another. “And – Knuckles? Is he one too?”

Sonic’s instincts were starting to flare up. Something was wrong. “Why?”

He didn’t get an answer. Instead, she had whipped out her wings, to quickly glide over the ground, calling for Shadow. Who arrived immediately, her uncharacteristic screaming actually getting him to act.

“What’s wrong?” Sonic demanded, running after them. And Rouge turned back, looking unusually worried.

“All of those children are Chaos Users.” She pointed at the house, and he looked between them. “We’re protecting them because there’s a mafia in this city that hunts them down.”

“Hunts – them?” Sonic repeated in horror.

“Yes. We need to find your friend – now.”

…

Knuckles sighed to himself, as he looked around the area. Pretty certain that he was in the same place that he’d been separated from Sonic and Amy. Though, to be honest, the whole city kind of looked the same to him, so he really wasn’t sure.

Regardless, he wasn’t seeing his friends anywhere. And all the chaos that was still going on because of the aftershock wasn’t helping. However, the coming of night and the heavy rain had finally forced the people inside, giving him room to move around at least.

Hopping back down to the street, he leaned under a canopy to stay dry, wondering where to go from there. At that point Tails was getting hungry, so, maybe it would have been better to find shelter and food and try looking again in the morning.

“Well, hey there.” The echidna looked up when a voice spoke over his thoughts and found an adult wolf leaning against the wall directly across the alley from him, offering an overly friendly smile. “You look a little lost.”

Knuckles narrowed his eyes, reminded of the unpleasant encounter they’d had with the last wolf. But he tried not to show prejudice toward this one. “I am fine.” He insisted. But the man didn’t move. Instead, he looked even happier than he had before, which immediately had his instincts rising. As a result, he became aware of the fact that several other wolves were slowly approaching from the allies and shadows around him.

While he may not have had their incredible night vision, his sharp hearing allowed him to be fully aware of their movements. Even so, he didn’t react, not wanting any of them to know that he was onto them. Instead, he kept his eyes on the one speaking, clearly trying to keep his attention.

“We know these last few weeks have been pretty tough. Theres accommodations for children though. I can take you there, if you like.” The wolf proclaimed with an exaggeratedly pleasant tone, clearly honed to take advantage of the innocence of kids. Unfortunately for him, Knuckles’ innocence had been buried with his clan.

“No, thank you.” He stated firmly, but the guy still didn’t take the hint.

“You don’t need to be afraid. I’ll take good care of –” The wolf didn’t get to finish his sentence. For the second he had approached and reached out to touch Tails, Knuckles had leveled him with a single punch.

“I said ‘no’.” He informed the unconscious lump on the ground, before turning to address the rest of the wolves that had paused in shock. He used that to his advantage and ran at the nearest one, basically walking up the guy’s face, to put some air between him and the ground. Allowing him to glide over the market stalls below and set his spikes into a wall so he was out of reach.

Looking down, he found the wolves were working to get themselves organized and give chase, but he ignored them after that. Carefully cradling Tail’s sleeping form against one shoulder and using his feet to aid in his climbing back to the rooftops, suddenly grateful for all the one-armed practice he’d gotten.

Once up top he waited, knowing that running would only give the wolves a chance to herd him. And he didn’t know the city well enough to hope that he might outmaneuver that. So, instead he found a dark corner and crouched into the shadows.

It wasn’t long before he started to see them coming to the roofs as well. Though they were pretty scattered. Clearly spreading out to better locate him. But eventually their noses brought them straight to his hiding spot.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” One of them sang, slowly circling a low wall, until he spotted his prey. Only to have his nose caved in by another punch.

Knuckles examined the second body he’d leveled in as many minutes, realizing it wasn’t a fluke after all, and looked at his fist, making sure that he wasn’t accidentally using his Chaos energy. Starting to actually impress himself at this point, as he’d always had to rely on his skill and battle prowess before. Using his smaller size to get in close to his enemy’s weak points. Now he barely even needed to hit them.

Even so, he crouched back into the shadows, noticing that the wolves were becoming more cautious, being aware that their prey wasn’t as defenseless as they had first thought. And, as a result they were starting to forgo the innocent act and instead pulled out weapons.

Knuckles recognized the general shape of a bat, though it was metal and obviously enhanced with technology. However, it was the guns he was concerned about. That wasn’t something he’d ever delt with, only been told about.

He kept his ears open to every sound his senses on high alert. Listening to their whispers, the subtle movements of their feet as they attempted to flank him. He smirked. While they were taking the situation itself more seriously now, they were still underestimating him, and that would be their downfall.

A sudden rustle to his right caught his attention. A wolf trying to be sneaky, but not sneaky enough. Knuckles waited until the guy was almost upon him before he lashed out, a blur of red and strength that left another wolf unconscious on the cold rooftop tiles.

The remaining wolves quickly caught on to the noise and hesitated, doubt creeping into their once confident stances. Knuckles took the opportunity to reposition, moving Tails to a more secure hold as he found another shadowy nook. He needed a plan. As much as he enjoyed the thrill of the fight, his priority was keeping his brother safe.

A low growl echoed through the night and the leader of the pack stepped forward, this one much larger, more muscular, and reeked of authority. "You've caused us quite a bit of trouble, runt." He snarled, revealing several golden teeth that glinted ominously in the dark. “Get out here.” He barked.

Taking into consideration the possibility of ending this with just a single opponent. Knuckles carefully laid Tails into a small cubby, ensuring he was completely hidden before stepping into the rain.

Immediately, the leader's eyes met his, a silent challenge passing between them. And the echidna quietly took his stance. His fists clenched, but his heart racing with the thrill of the upcoming battle.

However, the leader seemed to momentarily forget that his participation was in order. As he squinted and stood up straight, before turning to one of his guys. “You didn’t tell me this kid was an Echidna?” It was pretty clear that the wolf he was speaking to didn’t understand why this was an important detail. But his leader did. As he was quick to laugh whole-heartedly and turned back to Knuckles with a sickening smile. “Word is your kind is extinct.”

Knuckles twitched, but otherwise didn’t move. However, the leader’s smile still grew.

“That makes you and that little fox rare products.” He proclaimed, pulling a small device from his belt, which whipped out into a large baton, that surged with electricity at the touch of a button. A second later, he had another in his other hand, which he made a motion with. And his men quickly formed a circle around them. Ensuring Knuckles had no way to escape. “Break out the part favors, boys.” The leader announced proudly, before falling into a crouch and attacked. “We’re gonna be rich.”

…

Please share some reviews and comments, I’d love to hear what people think of my work.

#knuckles the echidna #sonic the hedgehog #miles tails prower #amy rose #rouge the bat #shadow the hedgehog #sonic movie universe #year of the echidna

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outofangband · 7 months ago

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Birds of Nargothrond

Note: Nargothrond refers to the caves that became a kingdom under Finrod but also to the region surrounding it. In this world building post I use Nargothrond to refer to the region unless otherwise specified

Other bird world building lists can be found on this list here! As always I included world building notes so it’s not just a list of species

Forested hills: common nighthawk, rock dove, black kite, tree sparrow, common jay, golden oriole, common treecreeper, nuthatch, long tailed tit, wood warbler, common wren, barn owl (rare), sparrowhawk, song thrush, spotted nutcracker

Talath Dirnen: red grouse, black grouse, grey partridge, wood pigeon, swamphen, short toed eagle, black headed bunting, common linnet, twite, great grey shrike, blue tit, ring ouzel, wood lark, meadow pipit, wryneck, grasshopper warbler, whitethroat, grasshopper sparrow, prairie chicken

Around the river Narog: ruddy shell duck (rare), common pheasant, cettid warbler, garden warbler, sedge warbler, common goosander, water pipit (rare), kingfisher, hobby

World building notes

Images of birds are found throughout the actual stronghold of Nargothrond including engraved into the arches of the main doors, into the wood and stone of bed structures and along the bridge. Nightingales with sprigs of elm leaves line the pillars near the throne, a homage to Thingol and Melian

Birds are not kept in large numbers for agricultural reasons however a small number of quails are kept for eggs and feathers. This practice is adapted from the elves of Doriath as I talked about here.

The majority of feather quills in Nargothrond are quail feather quills however some fancier ones are from the tail feathers of golden eagles or from various sea birds. The latter were gifts from the Falathrim to Finrod and evoke nostalgia from his childhood in Alqualondë

The autumn festival, held within the orchards of Nargothrond includes hours of watching departing birds.

Some of the Noldor of Nargothrond including Finrod maintained communication with the Falathrim through scrolls carried by birds though these originated at the Falas and Barad Nimras

Woodland birds such as pheasants and grouse are sometimes eaten during feasts at Nargothrond but most birds eaten are killed by hunters and scouts

#the silmarillion #musing and meta #the children of húrin #Nargothrond #beleriand

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impala-dreamer · 10 months ago

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Embraceable You

A Story from the MCU

Bucky Barnes x You

970 Words

Pre-War, Young!Bucky, Fluff, Romance, Longing, and the magic of NYC in the fall...

Cozy Drabbles ‘24 Masterlist

Impala-Dreamer’s Masterlist ~ Patreon ~ Published Works

There’s nothing like New York in the fall.

The air is crisp and the wind carries the scents of the city on cool gusts that lift your spirits like nothing else in the world.

The trees ignite in brilliant golds and oranges, striking a stunning contrast to the gray sidewalks and steel buildings. The city comes alive with color, bustling with an undercurrent of peace that seeps into every citizen, rushed or not.

Leaves crunch underfoot. Birds sing a little sweeter. The world is beautiful and love is in the air.

Bucky smiles whenever he looks your way and there’s nothing sweeter. He comes off as confident and tough, but when his blue eyes meet yours, he shies away nearly instantly, becoming little more than an adorable young man who wants nothing else but to touch your cheek, hold your hand, kiss your lips.

Perhaps you’re being mean by making him wait, but it’s just so fun to watch his cheeks burn with embarrassment whenever you back away from an obvious advance. He’s too cute when you bat your eyes at him innocently; too handsome when he offers you his arm.

Central Park is busting with life as you take your afternoon stroll. Tourists stop to take photos on the Bow Bridge or order hotdogs from the various vendors stationed around the park. Children run around chasing pigeons or escaping balloons. Couples picnic on grassy hills and bicycles fly without care. It’s perfect.

He’s perfect.

Bucky kicks at a rock in his way as he talks about his week. He tells stories of his friends and his dreams. He goes on and on, wanting to tell you everything, wanting you to really get to know him. You listen on, wrapped in the warmth of his voice and the enthusiasm with which he speaks. The Brooklyn on his tongue becomes thicker the more excited he gets and it makes you smile as he stumbles over words, dropping Gs and skipping like a stone over a few Rs here and there. You could listen to him for days and never feel the need to say a word.

When he does close his mouth, it’s somehow more captivating. His lips are wet and plump, his smile so endearing it makes your heart swell. The fact that his gaze is locked on your face makes your stomach flip and your pulse quicken. If it weren’t so improper, you’d sneak behind a tree and let him sneak his big hands down your curves. If it weren’t so obscene, you’d unbutton his shirt and slide your hand down his firm chest. If it weren’t so dangerous, you’d let him know how much you wanted him, how hot you felt whenever he was around. The last few weeks of chaste handholding and walks through the city were just about driving you mad.

Mother always told you to take it slow. If a boy was worth it, he would wait for you.

Bucky was worth it.

Still, it was getting harder and harder to stay a good little girl when he dragged his blue eyes down your body. Harder to stay innocent when he licked his lips so slowly as you spoke. Impossible not to feel that wetness between your thighs when he sat so close, knee and shoulder touching yours.

The hour was coming to a close and you’d be due back at work soon. Lunch breaks simply weren’t long enough for romance.

Bucky felt it too. Looking down at his watch, he sighs.

“Gonna have to be getting back soon.”

Nodding, you turn to face him. “Me too.”

There’s a sadness between you but it fades when he tips his head and looks into your eyes.

Desire trumps lamentation every time.

“Hope we can go for another stroll soon,” he says, lips turned into a half smile.

You take a deep breath, filling your lungs with the afternoon sun and the warmth pushing off of him. “I think that’d be nice.”

“Or maybe I can take you out… maybe go see a picture?”

Bottom lip snagged between your teeth, you nod. “I’d really like that. Gimmie a call later, yeah?”

The goodbye is always terrible. Awkward and timid, with a current of want that zings between you, never to be quelled.

Bucky looks away and clears his throat, trying to calm his ache.

“Well,” he says, looking back to you, “I guess I’ll see ya later.”

“I guess so.”

He starts to turn to leave and something inside of you snaps. Reaching for him, you stop his retreat and set your palm against his smooth cheek. He gasps in surprise before taking the hint.

Dropping down, he leans close and exhales a breath as his lips finally brush over yours. Your body sings with joy as he presses a bit harder. He cups your face in his warm hands, holding you close and begging with everything he has.

You let him in and everything explodes in brilliant color when his tongue touches yours.

The city is ablaze around you, the sky is a brighter blue, and the Earth turns a little bit slower. For a moment, there is nothing but his kiss.

Reluctantly, he pulls back and stares into your eyes. Young love floods his gaze and you feel every bit of yourself falling harder for him.

Soon, you know, it will be impossible to walk away.

Another kiss and you melt against him, your fingers curling in the soft fabric of his shirt.

“Been waitin’ too long to do that,” he whispers, backing up just enough to make you lean in and ask for more.

You grin and sigh. “All good things come to those who wait.”

Bucky laughs and wraps his arms tight around you, holding you close. “You’re certainly a good thing, Doll…”

#bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky x reader #bucky x you #fluff #mcu fanfiction #drabbles #cozy drabbles 2024

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proton-wobbler · 18 days ago

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Great Backyard Bird Off - Schedule & Info

Round Two Schedule

Africa - July 1st - 5 polls

the Americas - July 10th - 8 polls

Asia - July 19th - 7 polls

Australia - July 28th - 10 polls

Cosmopolitan - August 6th - 7 polls

Eurasia - August 16th - 7 polls

Europe - August 25th - 4 polls

New Zealand - September 3rd - 3 polls

Poll Info

8 brackets, 208 species. Who will be declared the favorite backyard bird of Tumblr?

Ranges were determined either using the self-report feature added to the submission box or with eBird sightings. "Cosmopolitan" is a bracket involving species of birds which were found on at least three continents, regardless of which they were submitted for. "Eurasia" are birds which seem to appear equally between Europe and Asia (majority of the continent, not just Middle East). "the Americas" includes all of the Americas, with US birds removed- granted, some Canadian or Mexican birds can show up in the US, but they're not common enough backyard birds (imo) to have been disqualified.

Polls will be a week long, and are tagged #Great Backyard Bird Off. All subsequent reblogs are tagged as #poll reblog. Be sure to block this tag if you want to avoid me spamming your dash. Any reblogs containing support for a species will be tagged #[species] support. Results will be tagged #poll results.

Please-- advocate for your favorite bird! Reblogs, tags, asks, replies- whichever way you want to support your favorite bird, it's encouraged!

I also have a Google Form for support if you'd prefer to share that way.

vvv Round 2 Participant List under the Read More vvv

Africa (11 species)

African harrier hawk, blacksmith lapwing, cape white-eye, hadada ibis, klaas's cuckoo, grey go-away-bird (Kwevoel), nile valley sunbird, purple crested turaco, southern double-collared sunbird, southern masked weaver, white backed mousebird

the Americas (16 Species)

canada jay, southern lapwing, white bellbird, bananaquit, ruddy ground dove, blue and white swallow, hoatzin, green headed tanager, chimango, great kiskadee, sayaca tanager, masked water tyrant, austral thrush, lesson's motmot, bushy crested jay, green backed firecrown

Asia (15 species)

azure winged magpie, colombo crow, common hill mynah, mandarin duck, oriental magpie-robin, oriental pied hornbill, palau fruit dove, pallas's gull, red billed blue magpie, red junglefowl, red whiskered bulbul, whistling green pigeon, white spectacled bulbul, yellow bittern

Australia (20 species)

eastern spinebill, welcome swallow, crested pigeon, willie-wagtail, crimson rosella, splendid fairywren, superb fairywren, sulfur-crested cockatoo, magpie-lark, grey fantail, australian ringneck, laughing kookaburra, weebill, galah, pied currawong, australian magpie, bush stone curlew, tawny frogmouth, satin bowerbird, pheasant coucal

Cosmopolitan (14 species)

bohemian waxwing, canada goose, common chiffchaff, common kingfisher, common nightingale, common swift, eurasian collared dove, eurasian kestrel, european bee-eater, european starling, great crested grebe, great grey owl, rock pigeon, western barn owl

Eurasia (14 species)

carrion crow, common chaffinch, eurasian bullfinch, e. bittern, e. jay, e. magpie, e. oystercatcher, e. sparrowhawk, e. treecreeper, e. wren, great tit, hawfinch, long tailed tit, northern lapwing

Europe (9 species)

eurasian blue tit, common wood-pigeon, crested tit, eurasian blackbird, eurasian green woodpecker, european herring gull, european robin, middle spotted woodpecker, red kite

New Zealand (9 species)

Kaka, australasian swamphen, kakaruwai, kereru, titipounamu (rifleman), tui, tomtit

#great backyard bird off #poll info #bird support

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suddalgi · 7 months ago

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Finding yourself in the mountain god's palace far from home, you explore in search of answers. ➶genre: fantasy au, slow burn, power dynamic, soft dom! dk, arranged marriage vibes, 18+! ➶ w.c: 2.5k ➶ chapter warnings: none

➶-͙˚ ༘✫ ➶-͙˚ ༘✫ ➶-͙˚ ༘✫ ➶-͙˚ ༘✫ ➶-͙˚ ༘✫ ➶-͙˚ ༘✫

chapter two

---

“If you go now, you’ll be burned to a crisp.”

Your father’s admonishments were already fading as you ran out the door of your house into the main road, a beaten strip of dirt that twisted down the hill toward your village. You weren’t following it today—your feet carried you weightlessly across the grass toward the fields where the men were working. You could hear their songs rising into the midsummer sky, baked by the sun and perfumed with the thousands of wildflowers that whipped at your legs as you ran.

Maintaining a fair complexion was the furthest thing from your mind. Even as you ran, a giggle was bubbling up inside of you—your mind raced with thoughts of running through the cut rows of hay, chasing the barn dogs and splashing through the narrow streams that wound over the fields. At this time of day, the men would be eating their lunches and singing and laughing together. You’d find a place to sit where the shade was cool, and steal a bit of bread and listen to them talk of the seasons changing and what weather the mountain god has sent and of the fruit groves beginning to ripen.

You jumped across a narrow stream bank, your toes digging into the soft cool mud. You were invisible, another skinny dirt-smeared child, a nuisance underfoot, unimportant. Nothing like your father, with his stiff shirts and his frown that never seemed to go away. And when the weather was cold, you’d have to stay indoors and act the same way. But when it was summer, you were free.

It was a long while before you stopped crying. When your tears ran out, you realized that you were cold. Freezing.

So you brushed yourself off and wiped your eyes, and began to wander. You could barely feel your feet in the dewy grass as you explored the wall, and all the paths, retracing every step you had taken when you first arrived. Nothing was changed. You suspected nothing had changed for a long, long time—except for the ivy that grew over everything, long and wild and untamed.

Somewhere the sun was shining, you just knew it. That place seemed so far away now.

Following the wall, you arrived at the door you had noticed before. It was a huge, thick door of wooden planks wrought together with iron in delicate, careful work. It was painted in the bright, vivid royal colors of blue and red like your temples back home, but the architecture felt foreign. No doubt humanmade, though whatever humans had built this place were likely long gone, honored guests in the halls of the gods for their service. That sounded like a nice fate.

You reached out with freezing fingers, testing the handle with a few careful pushes. It was unlocked, creaking gently from the pressure of your touch. Your heart leapt in your chest, whether from hope or fear you could hardly say.

The idea of leaving this beautiful, awful garden filled your next decision with confidence: you pushed at the door, letting it swing heavily on its hinges inward to reveal a passage laid before you. It was lit with countless touches, a warm living glow, rivaled by the blue wash that poured through tall windows covered in silk screens that bent the moonlight into rippling shapes on the floor. The high-ceilinged hallway led deeper into what looked like some sort of keep built with the same pale stone and subtle finery. Narrowing your eyes, you followed the hallway with your gaze until it turned a corner and disappeared. For a moment you wondered how deep it went, and if it ever ended at all.

You held the door open, stealing one last glance at the garden you had awoken in. The warmth of the palace beckoned you silently like a lover’s breath, warming your skin as you stood before its open, waiting mouth. Whether it was better to embrace it or to stay in this frozen garden, there was no way to tell.

But you were only human, after all. Your tired, shivering frame defeated the logic of your mind and carried you inside the palace, shutting the door behind you.

With the heavy wooden doors firmly closed, the silence that closed around you was changed. Instead of the whisper of wind and the rustling of trees, a profound quiet had settled among the gentle crackle of the torches. You walked forward, your gaze following the shifting light of the windows as they reached up toward the cavernous ceiling. Trapped inside the screens were even more painstaking brushstrokes—countless scenes and characters and words you couldn’t even begin to fully absorb, unrolling like a map before you. Though you did not understand them, you knew they told a story older than the bones of the mountain you stood on.

The mountain. Your thoughts wandered with every step, growing more and more tangible as your panic subsided. Though you had never left your valley and traveled the mountains, the stories you had heard were endless. Miles of trees taller than the shaman’s greatest temples, their thick canopies and strangled branches providing shadowed hiding places for all manner of creatures. Clever, illusory dokkaebi, beautiful gumiho and dragons as long as the rivers that ran though your valley. The gods lived among the clouds because humans could not tread there—it was the danger of the mountains that became their sanctuaries, their temples, their altars. The patron god of your valley was no different, it seemed.

You thought of all the saints that had journeyed to visit the gods, holy pilgrimages and acts of human hubris alike. What made them favorable in the eyes of the gods? Where they pure by their own merit, or were they chosen just like you were? What distinguished sacrifice from honored guest?

You reached out with a hand, tracing the delicate pictures that covered the windows, feeling the texture of their rich history under your fingertips. Someone had made this, whether it was a human or some godly craftsman. They had always been here, even as you had lived every day blissfully, miles below. Maybe they had been waiting for you. Maybe, if you looked hard enough, you would find your own image wrought in silk among them.

Was it right that you were exploring like this? The god had given you no directions, no quarters of your own. Maybe the garden was meant to be your prison—but then, why would the door be left open, as if to invite you inside?

Before you could finish the thought, the hallway suddenly ended. It opened up into a wide room with a ceiling that climbed cavernously above your head. The small torches had become great copper and iron sconces, their flames leaping high and hot around you. Pillars of regal red, blue and green rose around you. Every wall was draped in silk paintings of unmatchable beauty and detail, mountains and fields and distant lands in countless strokes of paint. You stopped at the threshold, your heart pounding at the size of it, following each carefully laid stone with your eyes until they settled on an image set into the floor at the center of the great room.

It was wrought in stone, jade and lacquer, a glittering compilation of what must have taken years of tiny fragments and deliberate precision. Like the rest of this mysterious place, a significant story was clearly illustrated, another you did not know. You approached, kneeling to inspect it thoroughly, your pulse roaring in your chest.

Thirteen figures in a ring, each emanating holy light outward till the sunbeams of glass and stone reached the walls in every direction. Some of their faces were visible, simply illustrated but nevertheless breathtakingly beautiful. Below each one, a name had been written in ancient tongue. They were all different, each adorned in their own flowing hanbok and bearing items that you could recognize—a scale, three birds, a jug of water, a human skull…

They were all gods. Patrons of their own domains, but connected in this ring together, nonetheless.

You inspected each one with awe, until one captured all your attention. One whose face was not depicted—instead it was covered in a veil of white, pinned in place by a long arrow pierced through his chest. At his feet was a lantern, illuminating his pale hanbok even in mosaic form. It was impossible not to recognize him.

Your mountain god, and captor. The name below his feet was written in the way of the gods, but you could read it. Seokmin. Patron god of love.

You had heard his name before. A whispered name of reverence toward your valley’s provider and protector. The priestesses had described him as an affectionate god, a god of plenty and vitality… and the desires of men, fleshly love, lust. Seokmin was the name they prayed to when they offered sacrifices to him. Sacrifices like you.

But even still… what a simple name. Beautiful, even. You sat on the floor in that strange place, tears still crackling on your cheeks, and you tried to fit that name to whoever had spoken to you in the garden. The soft, musical voice, the subtle lisp, like he was any other man. You tried to imagine the other gods calling to him by that name, like he was a friend, or a brother, a name called in affection instead of fear and reverence.

Your thumb traced the smooth, prismatic lacquer that made up the picture’s veil. Being burdened with a thing such a love, it was little wonder that he covered his face. Was it beauty or monstrosity that he hid? If you were meant to be here forever, which would be worse?

Cry if you must, he had said. You’ll have no use for your tears here any longer.

It did not matter if this god was beautiful, or monstrous, or both. If he cared for you, it was the love a farmer would show an injured calf—whether he nursed you or drove a axe through your neck was entirely at the whim of what was most convenient. And what were humans to gods, anyway? Cattle? Vermin?

You had returned to taking in the picture laid before you when the silence was broken by a distant voice. It drifted into the chamber, quietly at first, buzzing at your ears like the tickle of breath. Singing.

When the sound first reached your ears, you weren’t sure it was a voice at all. It hummed ambiently like the echo of a bell ringing, one note resounding weightlessly from wall to stone wall forever into silence. Then you heard the following notes, as quiet as an exhale and colored delicately in the timbre of a tender, male voice.

If there were words, you didn’t catch them, as much as you found yourself straining to listen. Each phrase of music ended in a soft vibrato, a hauntingly perfect run of notes, no breath misplaced. The cavernous palace around you seemed to still in response to the distant lullaby, as if the stones themselves were settling into slumber. It left a haze of warmth over your mind, your lungs loosening in a deep, easy breath as the music poured over your senses.

For the first time since you arrived, you felt your body relax. Something like joy was blooming in your chest, though you didn’t understand it. Even as you wiped the remains of your tears from your face, you felt a renewed urge to cry.

You thought again of the sun-soaked grain fields and fragrant meadows you used to run through as a child, from a valley you would never see again. You thought of the taste of fresh summer fruit warm from the vine, and the farm dogs that followed at your heels, and the freedom of being far from your village in the hidden oases beyond the valley that only you knew. If those memories were a song, you thought it would sound just like this.

Warm tears dripped down to your chin, and you held your cheeks gently in your own palms. As each phrase echoed to silence before the next, you found yourself hoping desperately that each note was not the last.

After a moment you stood, curiosity overcoming your stunned senses. Though the voice was distant, you could follow the echo of it down one of the corridors that lead from this central place. It was impossible to tell just how large this palace was, but there were no doors locked to you, and he had given no instruction not to explore.

Following the music led you through a side passage, the floorboards soft under your bare feet as you passed through a moonlit courtyard with a glittering pond. You walked for a while, unsure of the reason why, as if your legs moved on their own accord.

Your heart thudded a warning in your chest, a human instinct that was completely eclipsed by the sound of the music now growing louder in your ears as you ventured deeper into the palace. Every note was sweeter and warmer than the last, as strange and quiet as a secret that only you and the walls of this place knew. Your path took you through the courtyard, lush grass cushioning your every step as you wove deeper into the beautiful, ornate labyrinth before you.

I just want to hear it, you told yourself. He won’t have to know where I am.

Your steps were light and silent as you finally turned a corner and reached a wide, closed door. Testing the handle, you found it was also unlocked—but several other things caught your attention before you even opened the door.

You noticed the smell first. The fragrance of flowers and rich green growth—similar to the garden you had come from, now made even more inviting by the warmth of being indoors. It was thick and intoxicating in your nose, a welcome change from the rain-soaked stones and the chill of cold.

The knob was turning before you realized. As the door opened, you caught a glimpse of rows of glass windows covered in vibrant screens, and a chamber glittering with moonlight, and more flowers than you could count—and then the music stopped.

You shut the door with a silent gasp, your heart leaping all the way to your throat. You waited there, hoping against hope that the singing would continue… but silence fell heavy and profound over the entire palace. Even the trees stopped rustling outside. Your minds’ eye was still reeling at the glimpse of what was behind the door, all the green that seemed so much warmer than the garden outside. Like it was alive with a soul. Like it had seen you, too.

You contemplated running, but where would you run to? What would you be running from?

You had just drawn your hand away from the door when the sound of soft footfalls reached your ears—footsteps like the ones you heard in the garden, but quieter. And closer.

It was pointless to run. You know that he was everywhere, his grip closed entirely around you in this place. You found yourself running anyway, away from the ornate door, from that haunting voice, back through the passages that had led you here…

Your first act of disobedience. And with eternity stretching before you, you knew it would not be the last.

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wordingg · 1 year ago

Text

Christmas Bonus - Chapter One (Jason)

Summary: Jason and Tim unexpectedly spend the Christmas holidays together and find that they have more in common than either expected. Third part of the 'Life Down on the Farm' series.

By the time that Jason reached the little farm that he had last seen Tim at, it was so late that it was nearly early. The weather was bitter cold, his breath fogging in front of his face as he pulled his motorcycle helmet off. His fingers were numb, even with the thick leather gloves he was wearing. Little fluffy flakes of snow had started floating down from the thick low cloud cover just as Jason had started to rumble slowly up the rutted dirt driveway to Tim's little farm house. Outside, the smell of wood smoke was thick in the air, a cheery little column of it marking out the top of the stone chimney to join the gray clouds crowding close to the ground and obscuring the coldly twinkling stars above.

As Jason dismounted his bike and pulled off his helmet, he regarded the ridiculously quaint picture it made. An old stone farmhouse squatting on the side of a rolling hillside framed by a red barn, bare fruit trees and a quiet empty field with soft fluffy gray clouds disgorging even fluffier light snowfall. It was like a picturesque old Christmas card and Jason was having a hard time reconciling it with being the home of Tim Drake: hacker, vigilante and youngest CEO of a fortune five hundred company in history.

Already tired from the long drive, Jason blew a curl of hair off his forehead and turned around to unpack the box of cookies from his saddlebag. Hopefully they were still intact after all the bouncing he had done up and down hills to get there.

The old wood of the front porch creaked under Jason's boots. He raised his fist to knock on the front door before he could talk himself out of it. From behind the door, Jason heard some thumps and fumbling. A warm firelight orange stained the thin white curtains in the front windows. The curtains were twitched aside by pale thin fingers and a single dark blue eye peered out at him. Jason peered back impassively for a pregnant second. Then, the curtain twitched shut, and no more sounds came from the other side.

Jason fully expected Tim to ignore him and was already trying to psych himself up for what was promising to be a long, cold drive back to Gotham in snowy weather when the sounds of the door unlatching from the other side reached him. Before he could do more than raise his eyebrows in surprise, the door was swinging inward to reveal a Timothy Drake that Jason didn't recognize.

When he had last seen Tim over a year ago, he had looked like a ghost of the boy he presented to the rest of the world. The Tim that was regarding him suspiciously from the doorway (and hiding a small knife in the palm of his left hand very well, but not well enough for Jason to miss it) looked like a completely different person.

His hair was longer, long enough to be gathered into a loose ponytail at the nape of his neck. The longer pieces of hair around his face made him look softer and kinder, even though his face was still angular and narrow. Speaking of his face, that had filled out a lot too. It had never occurred to Jason that Tim's razor sharp cheekbones and chin might have been owed more to malnutrition than good genetics, but Tim's fuller face made Jason re-evaluate that. Even his skin looked different, no longer ghostly pale white, his skin had a shade of brown to it where he got the most sun and little moles had popped up on his face and the backs of the hands that Jason could see.

Everything about him looked healthier, more solid. His shoulders were wider, his body language more relaxed, he even looked like he had grown an inch or so since Jason had last seen him.

Jason didn't realize his mouth was hanging open until Tim scoffed and put his knife away with an eye roll. Jason closed his mouth with a click of his teeth.

"Jason. What are you doing here?" Tim asked suspiciously. His voice sounding husky, like he had been sleeping. Maybe he had been. Jason had lost track of the time, but it was probably late.

After a pause that probably went on too long, Jason belatedly held up the baker's box and rattled them unwisely to demonstrate their contents. "Alfred sent me," he explained.

At that, Tim's eyebrows made for his hairline. But, after a moment of thought, he stepped aside and gestured Jason inside.

The inside of the farmhouse was a bit less quaint than the outside. Inside, it became a more apparent that an unsupervised teenager was the owner in residence.

The walls in the hallway were bare and looked to be in the process of being repaired. Bits of old wallpaper still clung to the plaster here and there in the corners. The hardwood stairs and banister looked like they were in the middle of being sanded to remove a really hideous paint in the color of turquoise and stained back to their original color. There was no furniture to be seen in the hall either, no tables or rugs or anything to make the place more homey.

Jason glanced into the front room where a wood stove was crackling merrily away and found what looked to be Tim's nest. There was a foam mattress with a fitted sheet over it thrown on the floor in front of the stove. It was piled up with tatty handmade blankets and quilts that looked like they would have been at home at a thrift store or church sale. In a halo around the mattress was a detritus of battered paperback books, snacks and a small flat screen TV balanced on top of a milk box and connected to what looked like a GameCube.

A real honest to god GameCube. With only one controller.

"You've been playing games?" Jason asked slowly as he followed Tim down the hall into a small retro kitchen. The linoleum on the floor looked straight out of the 1970s.

"What?" Tim asked, distracted as he was looking around the kitchen for plates and cups. He glanced over at Jason and saw that he was still looking back toward the front room. "Oh, you mean video games? Yeah, I found a copy of Wind Waker in town that I've been playing through."

"Why a GameCube?" Jason asked. It was an old console, even when he was a kid. Though, come to think of it, Jason was only two years older than Tim, so it wasn't like he was from a whole different generation. Jason had played a few GameCube games when he was a kid, because his neighbors had one that they were willing to share with everyone. There had been three boys in that apartment and only one game, Super Smash Bros Melee, but that was more than enough to entertain pretty much all the kids in their whole apartment building.

"I don't know," Tim said with a shrug. He had returned to the table with two chipped coffee mugs and mismatching small plates in his hand and put them on either side of the small table set up in his kitchen. Jason obligingly set the box of cookies down between the two place settings. "I used to play video games a lot, you know, before..."

He trailed off, a strange expression crossing his face as Jason watched him.

"Before Robin?" Jason suggested, grimacing at the thought. Tim hadn't grown up like him, tough as leather and always keeping an eye out for the next hit. Jason could imagine a Tim before Robin, an overly intelligent upper middle class kid that probably went to special STEM classes over the summer and enjoyed the newest of whatever was popular with kids every Christmas. And, he could imagine how everything probably changed for him when he became Robin.

There was a time when Jason wouldn't have given a shit about Timothy Fucking Drake and him having give up his cute little hobbies in order to become a nighttime vigilante. Jason never had any of those things to give up in the first place. If being Robin was hard, so was everything else in his life up to that point. He had no perspective to see the difference between his life before Robin and his life after, only the ways that Wayne money and the excitement of Robin and the differences he could make had improved him and his life.

But, a little time and age had blunted a lot of his resentment of Tim. Was it sadder that Tim had once known innocence and comfort and then decided to give it up for the sake of someone else? Or, was it sadder that Jason had never known that innocence and comfort in the first place? Jason supposed they were both equally sad in their own way.

"Yeah, before Robin," Tim said with a strained smile. "Do you want coffee or tea or something? I think I have eggnog too?"

"You like eggnog?" Jason asked, cautiously pulling out the chair at the table farthest from Tim and sitting down. Tim hadn't actually invited him to sit, but he assumed he hadn't set two places at the table just for aesthetics.

"I don't think I've ever had it. I saw it at the store next to the orange juice and I thought, you know, why not?" Tim explained, pulling a plastic jug full of thick yellowish beige liquid out and shaking it at Jason. The viscosity was the exact opposite of appealing.

"God, that stuff's awful," Jason laughed, awash with his own memories of choking eggnog down the whole month of January after his Mom filled the fridge with it. The sales were too good to pass up, but the weird egg/milk/cinnamon mixture would forever be associated with the after Christmas season for him.

Jason picked up the mug that Tim had sat out for him. It was pink with a big fat cartoon cat wearing a party hat and holding a cupcake on it. He held it out to Tim with a lopsided grin.

"Might as well have some. 'Tis the season or whatever," Jason said.

Tim returned his grin, if a little less enthusiastically, and poured Jason a generous serving of grocery store eggnog. Then, he poured a much less generous helping into his own mug (this one was a Campbell's soup mug with a pair of red-headed kids drinking soup on the side) and took the seat across from Jason at the table. He popped the lid off the box of cookies and smiled, the first genuine smile Jason had seen since he opened the door.

He took a deep breath in. "God, Alfred's cookies. Nothing quite measures up."

"Ain't that God's own truth," Jason sighed in commiseration.

It hit him suddenly that Tim was probably the only other Bat who would know the feeling of searching all over for any cookie that might come close to how good Alfred's tasted. Jason had tried bakeries all over the world after he came back to life, but none of them were ever quite right. He wondered if Tim had ever gone through the same thing.

Tim started handing out cookies, starting with giving himself easily twice as many as Jason, but Jason wasn't going to begrudge him that. He probably deserved more than a little revenge from Tim, and taking Alfred's cookies was vicious, but likely well deserved.

"So, I guess you're not just here to deliver cookies," Tim sighed. "So, what is it? The world is going to end if I don't come back and solve a math equation? Has my evil self from the future shown up, and I have to deal with him? Or, what, does Bruce need me to talk him down from a cliff or something?" Tim asked all of this as casually as if he were asking about the weather, but there was an edge of resentment that even his carefully crafted bland expression couldn't disguise.

"Jeez, you really don't think much of us, huh?" Jason asked with a raised eyebrow. He took a sip of the eggnog, and somehow it was exactly as nasty as he remembered. He drank some more.

"Is it really undeserved?" Tim asked blankly. He took a sip of his eggnog too and let his facade of disinterest crack as he wrinkled his nose in disgust at the taste.

"No, I guess not," Jason replied mildly. He dipped one of the cookies in the eggnog. That was a real improvement. Jason committed to dipping the rest of his cookies in the eggnog.

"So, why are you really here?" Tim asked again with a sharp look that was much more reminiscent of the Red Robin Jason knew, the only version of Tim he had ever really known.

"Alfred asked me to come. Just to check up on you and, you know. Offer you some company. It is almost Christmas and all that. Nobody else knows I'm out here," Jason said awkwardly, his eyes mostly on his plate. He had said as much to Alfred, but he still thought that he was the worst choice to come check on Tim. As much baggage as the rest of them had, they at least hadn't attempted to murder him at one point. Except maybe Damian, but nobody was suggesting that Damian come out to the middle of nowhere to talk to Tim. It was hard to even fathom the level of disaster that would have been.

Tim continued to stare at Jason with those piercing eyes. They had the uncanny ability to make you feel like he was seeing every hidden bit of you that you most wanted to remain unseen. Jason struggled not to fidget.

"That's really all. Everyone is really worried about you!" Jason blurted out. "I think I was just volunteered because I'm the person with the least recent beef with you and therefore the most likely to be let in. Plus, I'm one of the few people who knows where you are," Jason finished with a mumble.

"What the hell does that mean?" Tim asked, looking sincerely confused about his last statement. "How are you the only person who knows where I am?"

"Not the only one, just, uh. Just one of two. Babs being the other of the two," Jason fumbled out.

Tim's face did something complicated, like he was torn between going into hysterical laughter or overwrought sobs. Jason briefly panicked. He supposed that did sound bad without context, but he had no idea what he was going to do if Tim started crying. Or laughing. Any reaction was terrifying at that moment.

"You leaving totally threw everyone for a loop, okay?" Jason said, leaning forward and putting his forearms on the rickety table. He leaned down to try and catch Tim's unfocused eyes as they stared somewhere into the middle distance. "Bruce especially basically came apart at the seams. It was pretty fucking brutal, actually," Jason said with a nervous chuckle.

"That wasn't my intention-" Tim started to protest, his eyes getting wetter.

"Hey, hey! I don't blame you at all! Honestly, I'm both impressed and depressed that you hung on as long as you did," Jason interrupted him to say. "After you disappeared, Bruce insisted that you had been kidnapped and lead everyone else on a wild goose chase trying to find your kidnapper. Except for me and Babs-"

"The only people who would openly defy him," Tim finished Jason's thought a lot differently than Jason would have, but that was basically the gist of it. Plus, he looked a lot more even tempered at having put some pieces together, so Jason wasn't about to split hairs over it.

"Right," Jason said uncertainly. "So, she and I sort of independently tracked you down and told the others what really happened. That you ran away?" Jason asked, looking at Tim for confirmation and continuing once he got a dazed nod from him. "Once they realized what happened, they decided to respect your wishes and leave you alone. But, that doesn't mean that they don't still care about you and worry about you, kid."

Tim looked dazed by the news. After a moment of both of them just breathing and Tim staring down at his empty plate, Jason leaned up out of his chair to put a few more cookies on his plate. When Tim didn't react, Jason nudged his plate closer until he finally picked up a cookie and took a bite.

"Things have been really different, since you left. I guess me being here is probably a big indication of that," Jason said wryly.

"Why?" Tim croaked, still looking down at his plate.

"Why?" Jason repeated, confused.

"Why is that an indication that things are different?" Tim asked.

Jason was momentarily stumped by that question. There were a million reasons, most of them related to how much his relationship with the bats had changed in the last year. They all crowded to the front of his mind at once, but he had to pick just ones, so...

"Well. Alfred is talking to me now, for one," Jason explained, still sounding befuddled. He gestured to the box of cookies between them to illustrate his point.

At that, Tim's face and eyebrows both came up. He regarded Jason with surprise. "Alfred wasn't talking to you?"

That only made things more confusing for Jason. "I mean. Yeah? None of you talk to me."

Tim frowned and opened his mouth to reply, but then paused. He frowned a little more, but it looked more frustrated than indignant.

"I talk to you," he grumbled.

"Red Robin talks to Red Hood sometimes. And, honestly, he's probably the most civil out of all of you. Or, he was until this past year, I guess," Jason said wryly. It was still wild to think about all the bats that were tangled up in his life lately, both in and out of the mask.

Tim frowned some more, and Jason frowned back. He took the opportunity to grab another cookie, dunking it in his eggnog, which was steadily getting more lumpy as more cookies lost bits and pieces to the drink.

Finally looking away, Tim admitted, "I thought Alfred *did* talk to you. I just figured he probably did it surreptitiously. In order to avoid a fight with Bruce."

"Well," Jason said awkwardly around a mouthful of cookie. "You thought wrong. I haven't talked to Alfred at all until tonight."

Tim went to take another drink of eggnog, wrinkled his nose at the taste, and then sat it back down with an angry click.

"I'm making coffee," he declared. "That stuff is foul."

Jason cackled fondly and knocked back the rest of his, half congealed cookie bits and all. It really was such a strange texture and flavor. He still couldn't turn his nose up at it, though. It tasted too much like old memories.

Holding out his own mug, Jason tried to put on his most charming grin, but he suspected it probably held too many teeth to look properly appealing. "Can I get a cup too?" he asked.

Tim seemed startled at the question, his eyebrows raising, before he shook his head and took Jason's mug with a belated, "Oh, yeah. Of course. Sorry. I've been living alone too long."

"No worries, kid. I'm not judging your etiquette," Jason chuckled, leaning back in his chair.

Jason looked up at the crackled plaster of Tim's kitchen ceiling and listened to the sounds of him filling up the drip coffee maker with water and slotting the empty carafe onto the hot plate. The visit was honestly going a lot better than he expected. It was a little weird to think that Tim, probably one of the smartest bats around, hadn't noticed how isolated Jason was. But, honestly, Jason preferred to know that Tim barely gave him any thought at all, compared to his fear that Tim was constantly haunted by the thought of him.

In no time at all, the coffee machine was gurgling away, filling the small kitchen with the rich smell of coffee.

"What happened tonight? That you got to talk to Alfred?" Tim asked awkwardly, leaning back against the beat up kitchen counter and fidgeting with the end of his flannel button down. It looked like the kind of shirt that would have been more at home on Clark Kent than Tim Drake, but Tim was pulling it off better than Jason would have expected.

"The first annual bat Christmas party," Jason said with a laugh. "Babs set it up in the clock tower. All the Gotham vigilantes, plus most of Dick's generation of Titans and almost half the Justice League, were in attendance, it seemed like."

Tim's eyebrows were practically off his face by the time Jason stopped talking. "And, Bruce went for that?" he asked incredulously.

"That's the best part," Jason said with a mischievous grin, "He wasn't invited!"

"What!" Tim squawked. Then, after a pause, burst out with a laugh that looked like it even surprised him.

"Oh yeah," Jason said with relish. "He's been persona non grata for a while. Babs has basically been running the ship by herself since you left."

Tim laughed again, sounding nervous. "Uh, why-" he cleared his throat and quickly turned to start pouring the coffee into new mugs. "How did that happen?"

"It started with him going no contact with everyone after the fiasco with your search. I mean, he might have run into Kate a few times, but it sounded like that didn't go over well," Jason explained, accepting his new drink from Tim.

"Didn't go well?" Tim prompted, digging in the fridge and coming back with creamer and a glass canister full of sugar.

"As in, I'm pretty sure she punched his dick in. But I wasn't really in the fold yet at that point, so I only heard bits and pieces," Jason said as he poured cream into his coffee.

Tim snorted so hard Jason was briefly afraid that he would choke. But, he got himself under control and assumed his previous seat across from Jason.

For a while they both silently fixed their coffees the way they liked them and sorted out some more cookies from the box to each of their plates. The box was getting dangerously empty by that point.

"It wasn't because of me, was it?" Tim asked nervously.

"Hm?" Jason grunted, his mouth still full of cookie. He had already lost the thread of what they had been talking about before.

"Bruce getting the cold shoulder. They're not doing it because I left, and they blame him, are they?" Tim asked while frowning down at his plate.

Jason swallowed what was in his mouth and chewed on his words for a moment. Because it was, and it wasn't, was the problem. Tim hadn't really caused Bruce to stop talking to them, but him leaving was the catalyst that started it all.

"Nah," Jason finally sighed, thoughts sorted. "Bruce did it to himself. Even after he fumbled the search for you, he could have come back and been in the group. But, his pride won't let him admit he's wrong, and the others aren't going to let him forget it, so," Jason shrugged. "I guess he just does his own thing by himself now."

They were silent again for a little while. Tim's expression made it plain that he was going over what Jason had said with a fine tooth comb, rotating it in his head and looking at it from all angles to make sure it made sense. And, based on his face, whatever he was seeing didn't make him very happy.

After a while, Tim said quietly, "Is it stupid that I feel guilty anyway?"

Jason sighed. "No. Of course not," he grunted. "But, it's still not your fault, okay?"

Tim looked up at Jason doubtfully. "You're being awfully nice about all this," he said.

Jason shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Speaking of that. There's something else that I've been thinking about. Something that I've been meaning to say, but I never thought I'd get the chance again."

Tim looked wary and leaned back in his chair. His right hand drifted below the tabletop, likely toward a concealed weapon, but Jason made a concerted effort not to track his movements. It was a fair enough response, considering their past.

Tim opened his mouth to say something, but before he could Jason charged onward. "I owe you an apology. For what I did. When we first met. It was beyond awful of me. You don't have to forgive me, but I think it's the least I can do. I'm sorry," Jason said, getting a little choked up at the end.

Apologizing had been impulsive of him, but it was sincere too. It wasn't like Jason had never thought about it before, but he had thought he would never get a chance. Apologizing to Red Robin had always felt impossible. Tim worked hard to put up a barrier of professionalism between them when they worked together as Red Robin and Red Hood. Then, Tim was gone and unlikely to come back and Jason figured there was no point thinking about it anymore. He had missed his chance.

But now he was sitting here in some weird time and place where Tim was a farmer and Jason was just his least favorite brother coming to deliver Christmas cookies from their shared grandfather figure. And, Tim had been nice to him. And, he had shared the cookies and gave Jason nasty eggnog. It didn't feel like he was going to get much more of an opportunity than that.

But, that didn't mean that his apology was going to be accepted.

"Jason," Tim sighed, sounding exasperated beyond words. "That's ancient history."

Before Jason could get a handle on it, his temper flared. "What the fuck? How is it 'ancient history'? It was only five years ago!"

"Five years ago is ancient history for us!" Tim yelled back. Jason had a clear enough head to notice that Tim no longer looked wary or scared, but he wasn't sure if pissed off and tired was much better. "Back in Gotham, more shit would happen to me in a month than would happen to other people their whole lives!" Tim spat.

Jason's mouth was open to retort, but he didn't really have anything to say to that.

Grumbling, he finally shouted, "So, what? I shouldn't apologize because you've already forgotten about it?"

"No! You still kicked my ass for no fucking reason! You should definitely apologize!" Tim shouted back.

"Then, what the fuck are we yelling about!" Jason shouted back, pulling on his hair in frustration.

"I don't know!" Tim yelled, running a frazzled hand through his own long hair, pulling his hair loose from its messy ponytail. "I don't know," he repeated in a tired whisper.

"Well," Jason grunted, quickly ashamed that he had started yelling. "I'm sorry, anyway. Really sorry. For what it's worth."

"Thanks," Tim sighed. "I don't know why I- Ugh, never mind," he sighed again and started drinking from his coffee, likely for an excuse to stop talking.

After a long awkward pause, Tim surprised Jason by being the first to talk. "You know, Dick has a theory. That the Lazarus Pit made you crazy. That was why you did all that crazy stuff when you first came back..." Tim trailed off, obviously looking to Jason to either confirm or deny this theory.

Jason sighed heavily and tried to restrain himself from rolling his eyes. "It doesn't actually work like that, you know?"

"First-hand accounts of the Lazarus Pit are sparse and some wildly contradict each other, so it's actually pretty hard to know how they work," Tim replied dryly.

"In that case, I'll tell you personally that the Lazarus Pit did not make me 'crazy'," Jason said with disdain, making the air quotes around crazy with his fingers and everything. "At least, no more crazy than any reasonable person who was just raised from the dead would be," he grumbled.

"So. Still crazy. Just not like magical crazy," Tim said with a little curl to the corner of his mouth.

"Yes. Correct," Jason agreed with a sniff.

"That lines up with my theory, then," Tim said with a secretive smile.

"Oh yeah? And what's that?" Jason asked, knowing he was walking into a trap, but feeling like the kid was probably owed it.

"That you just came out the womb already cracked," Tim said with a snort. "After all, who else would put on a Robin suit to beat up a teenager."

"Oh my god!" Jason groaned in pain and put his head down on the table as the memories overwhelmed him with embarrassment. He knew he was walking into a trap, sure, but he didn't think it was going to be so incredibly painful as that particular memory.

"A nearly grown man showed up at my kid's clubhouse dressed in a racy Halloween costume, nude legs from hip to ankle," Tim continued smugly.

"God, please kill me," Jason begged whatever deity was listening.

"You even had the flasher coat and everything," Tim said in an impressed tone.

"I want to die," Jason told the tabletop.

"Where did you get that thing anyway? I know they don't sell them in adult sizes," Tim asked.

Jason tried to resist answering, but the same voice that had been dogging him to apologize whispered that it was his fair comeuppance.

"I had to order it from a specialty store," Jason groaned.

"Like... Like a sex store?" Tim asked gleefully.

"... yeah," Jason moaned.

"Holy shit. Oh my god. That is excellent," Tim crowed.

But, at least, it sounded like Jason had been forgiven.

#jason todd #red hood #tim drake #red robin #batfam #jason & tim #christmas fluff #pov alternating #reunions #life down on the farm #kittywrites #fanfiction

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