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When Gheorghe is away, Johnny doesn’t talk much.
It’s not a purposeful thing. It’s just that without him around, Johnny finds himself without much to say. He’s not as sullen and angry as he was before Gheorghe came, he’s just… quiet.
Dierdre and Martin worry a bit, he can tell, but the whole house is quieter without Gheorghe. Just a touch melancholy. Nothing bad. Not like it was. He calls every few days, after all. They know he’s coming back. The pattern of the days is just off, that’s all.
Even the dogs feel it. They’re good dogs, two little mixed-mutt scrappers with enough herding breeds in them to help with the sheep, but not so much that they worry the household to death. Johnny had found them as pups in a cardboard box at the side of the road. He brought them home in his jacket and Gheorghe had smiled big as anything.
Martin had grumbled a bit but everyone knew that the little bastards would stay. Dierdre called them Prince and Pudding and it stuck.
With Gheorghe gone, the dogs only have Johnny to follow around all day. They’re devoted to it, sticking close to his heels until he gets properly settled in work and they know it’s safe to run about for a bit. He watches them from the corner of his eye when he can, tracking their jumps and tumbles. Sweet, stupid things that they are. It’s good to have something to care for, with Gheorghe gone.
He’s better, so much better, than he was before. He isn’t a shit to Dierdre and Martin now. He’ll knock his own teeth out if he ever gets that bad again. Still, there’s history there, between him and then. Expectations. Things he can’t let himself say or do. With the dogs, there’s none of that. He can be as soft and soppy as he wants, with them. As much as he is with Gheorghe.
He doesn’t let the little bastards sleep in the bed with them, though. That’s a step too far.
Gheorghe left in early summer, after lambing and calving. He’s been gone for three weeks and will be back in a fortnight, far too long for Johnny’s taste but not nearly enough for a proper visit home, he knows.
They have more cows now than they did before, the trainee auctioneer, once Johnny bought him a coffee in awkward apology, told him about a grant program for preserving heritage breed. Great, ugly beasts, but well-behaved, and the pay for their keep kept things more or less afloat. When it didn’t, Johnny picked up shifts driving delivery trucks here and there, knowing the farm was in Gheorghe’s good hands.
Not now, of course. But when things were as they should be. They’d carved out a real, proper little life, and even this small, temporary disruption of it makes Johnny’s whole chest ache.
“I’m a great whingy girl,” he says, his voice thick and rough from silence. Prince and Pudding pause in their rolling to stare at him, tongues peeking out while they wait for instructions. “You dumb little shites. Love you both.”
He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and starts back to the barn, knowing they’ll not only fall in behind but run out in front of him. God, he can’t wait for Gheorghe to get back. He sees the beauty in the place just fine, always has if he’s honest, but being alone in it is about to drive him mad.
**
Meeting Gheorghe for the last leg of the trip to the farm is so much better this time. Johnny is aglow with anticipation, jittering in the driver’s seat and unable to find a place to put his hands—jacket pockets? Flat on his thighs? Holding the steering wheel?
He ends up shoving them in his pockets, balled into fists to keep himself from moving them again. He tilts his head back against the seat and closes his eyes, dragging in slow deep breaths and letting them go.
He’s going to die if he doesn’t see Gheorghe soon, and that’s all there is to it.
The tapping on the window startles him so badly he almost falls over in his seat. “Jesus!” he gasps, twisting to look at what the hell that might have been. “What do you think you’re—”
It’s Gheorghe, standing there in the dark with a sheepish smile on his face, and Johnny forgets to breathe.
Johnny fumbles to open the door, but his hands won’t work right—they’re shaking, the adrenaline rush making them useless. “Gheorghe—fuck, you’re back—fuck this fucking door, get out of my way, I need—”
Gheorghe drops his bag to the ground and opens the door, pulling Johnny out of the truck and into his arms. There’s a long moment where Johnny doesn’t think at all, not in words or pictures or feelings or anything. His head’s just full of white light.
They’re not even kissing, just clinging to each other. “You’re back,” Johnny says after a moment, the words muffled against Gheorghe’s shoulder.
“I am.” George presses his cheek against Johnny’s hair, and Johnny can feel a slow shudder run through Gheorghe’s whole body. “I missed you.”
“Thanks.” Johnny winces and shakes his head. “I mean, I missed you too, that was a stupid thing to say.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Gheorghe pulls back and studies him with serious eyes. “Let’s get home, though. I want to be home with you.”
Johnny almost drives off the road twice on the way back, because he’s looking at Gheorghe instead of at the road. It’s worth it.
**
Johnny still has to get up early in the morning to feed and milk the cows. He tells Gheorghe to stay, to keep the bed warm because he’s coming right back. They’re not wasting a minute of being pressed skin to skin, not if he has anything to say about it.
But Gheorghe laughs and pulls his trousers on and follows Johnny downstairs. “I’m home, let me act like I’m home.”
The dogs follow at his heels, whimpering in joy. Johnny would drop to all fours and join them if he hadn’t essentially already done that last night. Gheorghe’s saying something about breakfast and helping Dierdre in the kitchen and how he’s missed the taste of the tea she buys, that particular brand and blend. Johnny can barely listen for how glad he is to have this, this place, this moment.
The sun’s not yet high. The cows are lowing sweetly but not trying to knock anyone through a wall. There’s nothing urgent staring them in the face all day except getting reacquainted with each other, as many times as they like.
Gheorghe is home.
Johnny has never seen a more beautiful day.