#tnt blows up in her face but all she gets is a little singed and she has a bad hair day

[direwombat]

katc is like if a biblical allegory was also a slapstick comedy

[lunaraen]

Terror Tilling

(This is inspired by the best AU made by Peri and based on Stardew Valley gameplay, where Axel and Jesse are farmers and many shenanigans ensue.)

In fairness, Jesse is a little new to this whole farming thing.

She’s still planning on going to Endercon and winning the building competition, but that’s not for months and farming is surprisingly interesting, in part because it guarantees her a steady stream of potatoes.

It's a lot like foraging for apples, carrots, and potatoes, except that in addition to doing all of that, there's a lot more trying to sell things at the market, buying seeds and rarer foods with the ores they have, and a lot of growing her own food rather than only searching for it in the forest.

Not that Jesse isn't still searching in the forest for stuff when she can, because it makes for fun walks with Reuben and the stuff she finds might sell as well as whatever she's trying to grow.

But she's pretty sure, in the way that a person can be so certain there's no room left for even a hint of doubt, that explosives don't till the ground well so much as destroy any resemblance of life already there and send the remains flying in too many different directions all at once.

And that the resulting crater of burnt soil, clay, and stone isn't very good for planting or growing much of anything.

(Which is a lot like having a griefer as co-farmer, but that mistake's long made and one she wouldn't take back for anything, even if flying dirt clods make a good case for thinking otherwise or that they really should’ve found a way to rope Olivia in.)

"This is the worst thing you could've done."

Axel's response is a grin that doesn't bother to try and look sheepish, his hands clasped behind his back as he rocks back and forth on his heels. It's unfairly cheery for somebody standing in front of a smoldering hole in the ground, bits of his hoodie covered in still smoking dirt while his bangs look less burned than they do singed, the rest of his hair as tousled, but it manages to get Jesse to grin anyway even as she crosses her arms in return.

"Worse than the time you got stuck in the jukebox?"

That was a different disaster entirely.

Axel insisted it wasn't his fault he ended up buying a super cheap, super enchanted and maybe haunted jukebox, but he wasn't the one stuck inside of it until they figured out how to break the enchantment.

(It's amazing the jukebox still plays records as well as it does; almost as amazing as how they both decided to keep it even after the incident. By that point, getting rid of it seemed like a waste after all the work they took to fix it. Maybe they'll ask Petra the next time they see her, whenever that'll be, how much she thinks someone would pay for a probably no longer haunted jukebox.)

Jesse's grin stays strong as she rolls her eyes, absently leaning into one side to better scratch behind Reuben's ears, his gaze focused on the swaying but thinning smoke and as critical as hers.

"This is the second to worst thing you could've done."

She'll make it up to Reuben later; they were planning on making this spot the new carrot patch, but it looks like they'll have to settle for the free space next to the potatoes now.

"Aw, thanks." Axel's tone stays so unapologetic that it's Jesse's duty and right to nudge him in the side, barely getting him to budge in the process while he ruffles her hair.

Jesse's not sure what she's more resigned about, the new hole on their farm or how unfazed Axel seems by all of this, but her sigh is coupled with a smile as she shakes her head, looking up as the charcoal wisps and spirals of smoke slowly furl upwards before dissipating into the clearer air of the cloud mottled sky.

There might have been a fence post or two there before Axel decided to blow it all up, but it turns out that blown up bits of wood look really similar to blown up bits of soil.

"Do you ever get the feeling we're in over our heads?"

"Eh, not really. It's a lot easier for something to be over your head than mine." Axel raises his hands at her glare, grin growing wider before he shrugs. "I guess, but you can't tell me this isn't a blast."

"I'm not sure what's worse, the short joke or the explosion pun."

"The short-thing." Somehow his grin gets more smug, toothy and warm and as intentionally obnoxious as possible, and she still isn't expecting what he follows it with. "The pun was dynamite."

Jesse stares at him for a long second, Axel not bothering to look any less smug or proud of himself, and she's aware of the small bits of unsettled dirt by her feet tumbling to the bottom of the crater. With that, her mind's made up, and Axel has no one to blame but himself for everything.

"I'll push you in the pit."

"I don't think your arms are long enough for that."

Her arms most certainly are long enough, thank you, but if he's going to act like his height gives him any protection, she sees no reason to not go for his shins and give him a sharp reminder that being unfairly tall isn't a shield.

"Hey– ow!"

The sturdy boots she's wearing today help with that too, and Jesse's sure to start moving away from the hole before he decides to throw or shove her in instead, picking up the packet of carrot seeds they won't be using right now.

"Come on, let's get some shovels and see what we can put back."

Axel sticks his tongue out at her, waving her off even as he makes a point of trudging over to his shed. It's his shed in name only, filled with as much of her stuff as Jesse's is with his, but somewhere in the mess of TNT and general mess is a shovel and Jesse has a shovel in hers, so they get to make faces behind each other's backs and smile about it while they go in different directions.

All smiles and giggles aside, it looks like Jesse’ll just have to speed up their furniture war.

Axel stealing her bed turned out to not be a problem, because Jesse is stubborn and cuddling with friends is always fun, but Jesse's later revenge of taking various items from his place ended up being countered by the jukebox incident and, well, having to fill in the new crater seems like more than enough justification to make sure her next bit of revenge is somehow better.

(She's considered asking Petra for any haunted furniture or items the next time they see her too, just so Axel can find out what it's like to be stuck, but that seems a little much. Doing away with all of his gunpowder sounds fun, though, especially since Olivia said she'd be by later today.

A visit like that sounds like the perfect distraction.)

Jesse pauses as her leg is nudged, Reuben gently butting her leg with his head before looking up at her.

It takes a second to remember she's not the only one who wants revenge.

And revenge is always better with a pig partner in crime.

"Okay, we'll do it together." She scratches behind his ear again before patting his head and heading back to where Axel's already started shoveling.

First she needs to make sure he's not trying to mix anything else into the soil.