Work Text:
The life of a rodeo star is apparently pretty demanding. Tavros spends a good amount of time on the road for some months after you meet him, and you keep in touch over text message and the occasional chat when you catch him on skype. You’ve thought about video calling him, and the more you talk, the more the urge strikes you. But you haven’t. You don’t know if it’s appropriate. Yeah, you’ve gotten to know him better and sometimes you think about him when he’s not texting you, but how are you supposed to know he shares your desire for actual, face-to-computer-to-face conversation? You’re just some dude he recognized from a rap battle, and he’s some cowboy you chatted up at the state fair. Not a particularly noteworthy relationship, when you look at it that way.
But he shoots you a text in the fall when he’s home for the season, asking if you’d like to come hang out on his ranch. Turns out he still remembers the offer he made to let you ride his horse. He gives you directions before you can accept or decline his invitation, and you’re pleased to find he only lives one, maybe two hours out of Dallas. You play it cool, even as you scramble to set Dave up to spend the day alone.
One, maybe two hours is a long time to be alone with your anticipation and anxieties. You’ve got a kick ass crotch rocket that looks enough like the bike Uma Thurman rode through Japan in Kill Bill to satisfy all your irony needs, and you usually enjoy long rides. The weather is nice. It’s cool enough to wear your road gear comfortably, and the sky is blue and cloudless. At first, you try to fall into the meditative calm that a long ride lets you find, but the thoughts whizzing through your head are much more immediate than the usual buzz. You’re excited, and you’d be cool with that if you didn’t suspect you were over-thinking things. Excitement is fine, but you don’t know Tavros that well, and you shouldn’t assume he’s inviting you over to do anything more than hang out with you in an innocuous, friendly manner, as friends, which is what you are. You don’t even know how you feel about anything more intimate than that yet. Yeah, there’s something there, a crush, a little infatuation that fluctuates in strength from day to day, but you won’t jump to conclusions. You’re not ready to stumble into another Jake English misadventure. And when the memory of your Jake English misadventure pops up, a familiar hiccup disrupts your smooth, efficient mind, and you know you’re fucked for finding peace for the rest of the ride.
Neverland Ranch. The name is written over a gate at the entrance to the dirt driveway. Your wheels kick up dust as you follow the winding path, a fence to your left, towards a set of buildings a good distance from the road. The barn is bigger than the house, but you’re not surprised. The smell of livestock permeates the air, proving that the human population is much, much smaller than the animal population here. You can hardly believe how rural the whole set-up feels. This is the real deal. You’re deeper into the heart of rodeo cowboy Texas than you ever thought you’d be, and you’re honestly unsure whether you feel more amused or awkward as you park your bike outside the house. You’re covered in dust. So much for maintaining a clean, crisp appearance.
“Dirk!” someone calls before you can amble up the steps to knock on the door. You turn towards the barn. Tavros is hanging over a fence, a huge grin on his face. Ah, that grin. You haven’t seen it since you met him. You’d basically forgotten what he looks like, at least in the details. You remember the mohawk and the country get-up. But that grin—that had lost clarity in your mind. Like flipping a switch, your reservations dull, and you’re filled with the same glow you felt when you left the state fair with his number.
“Yo,” you say, walking over to him. He’s clean of dust and sweat today, which lets the bronze of his sun-kissed skin catch the light. He’s casual, in a dark flannel and a sturdy pair of boots, and you feel slick and modern in your own black jeans and leather jacket, with your awesome shades and carefully styled hair. The two of you are like caricatures of your respective home locations. City mouse and country mouse level shit. You love it.
“Is that your bike?” is the first thing he says to you. You glance over your shoulder like a tool, as if you had no idea you rode up to his house on a flashy yellow crotch rocket.
“Yeah,” you say, turning back to him. “You like it?”
“Yeah! It’s really cool! Uh, not that I’m at all surprised that your preferred mode of transportation would be anything less than totally awesome,” he says. He clambers over the fence without any semblance of grace, nearly catching his foot on the top bar on the way over. But he makes it, and his grin doesn’t slip at all. Fucking endearing as shit. Goddamn.
“I can take you for a ride later if you want,” you say. When the words are out, you realize the offer might sound loaded, like you’ve got some sort of ulterior motive. Fuck. To take the edge off, you say, “We’ll exchange a ride on your horse for a ride on my bike.”
“Deal!” he says, and without missing a beat, he holds out his hand for a handshake. Well, there you have it. You grip his hand, and you’re now legally bound to take him out for a spin while he holds onto you from behind, pressed flush against your back, probably giddy with exhilaration and nerves. That is now a personal obligation you have to him. Hey, you don’t make the rules.
“Oh, so, speaking of the thing you just said—about my horse, that is—maybe I should show you around! Does that sound good?” he asks.
“Whatever you want, cowboy. I am at your tender mercy,” you respond. You suppress a grimace. Everything you say feels stupid in retrospect, even though you’re pretty sure you would have said that to anyone else you know. You probably would have said it to Jake. Definitely to Jane. But this might be why you don’t have many friends.
Tavros laughs, to your relief. “In that case, follow me,” he says, and he turns towards the buildings. The first barn you pass is the horse barn, where you assume all the horse stuff goes. He points out a hay barn and equipment shed, which also looks like a barn to you, cattle pens, a chicken coop, some other junk that you can’t be bothered to process, and, of course, the house. Your face is as stoic as it ever is, but your mind keeps flashing to the copy of Pony Pals you defaced for Jane’s amusement. When he turns back to take you to the horses, you see a cat saunter from the barn, and your internal laughter almost threatens to bring a smile to your face. Tavros has no idea how much you’re enjoying yourself. You’re on a fucking ranch, and that’s hilarious because you’re you.
The cattle barn is clean and modern, which doesn’t play as much into your inner irony fest, but whatever. There are horses here. Horses are the shit. And apparently they produce their fair share of shit as well, because goddamn does it smell like pungent horse ass in here. Tavros doesn’t seem to notice. Of course he doesn’t. He gets to hang out in here all day if he wants to, the lucky bastard. He turns to you, and he’s got that sheepish look on his face that you noticed when you first met him. “Uh, so...do you remember Tinkerbell? Because she’s just over there, and we can go hang out with her, if you want...”
For a microsecond, his hesitation confuses you, but you realize that you’ve been following him around without a word, your face probably set in this expressionless, deadpan gaze that doesn’t betray a thing to him about the veritable jubilee of ironic in-jokes you’re sharing with yourself in your brain. Of course he’s going to feel self-conscious. Wow, you’re a moron and probably a jerk to boot. You let yourself relax into a smirk. “Sounds like a plan. And, just for the record, this is the best ranch I’ve been on, hands down.”
You can see his uncertainty dissolve. “Oh, really? Thanks! It’s a lot of work, to be honest, but I enjoy it and wouldn’t trade it for anything. Well, maybe there would be something I would trade it for, which is to say I can’t really think of that thing right now but recognize that opportunities present themselves when you don’t always expect them to, and maybe a little more free time would be nice as well, so I’m not without complaints.”
You follow him through the barn to the corral, letting your smile grow as he rambles on. When you first started talking, you thought his ambling sentences were a sign of discomfort, as though he were trying to fill awkward voids between you and him, which is the kind of thing you do when you’re floundering in conversation. But you don’t really think that’s the case anymore. Now, you’re not even sure if he knows how to feel awkward. Obviously he does, since you literally left him hanging minutes ago, but the little pockets in conversation that bother you or compel you to scramble for some saving phrase don’t seem to bother him. He just says what he means when he means it. It’s refreshing.
“I’m about you having more free time,” you say. “It’s a goddamn shame this is the first time we’ve gotten to hang out. Not to say I’ve got hours of spare time amassed to shoot the shit at a moment’s notice myself, but if you had called at any point previous to the current day, I’d have hauled ass over—holy shit, is that her?”
Tinkerbell is a white blob on the opposite side of the corral, grazing way in the distance with some other variously colored blob horses. “Yep!” Tavros says, and he puts his pinky fingers into his mouth and produces a shrill whistle that you probably could have heard from Dallas. The horses startle, lifting their heads, and they begin to gallop towards you. Their manes billow in the wind like they’re in some sort goddamn Hollywood click flick. They slow and trot towards you as they get closer until you’re in the middle of a small horse gang that clearly has some demands to lay on you. They prod you with their noses and sniff at your clothes. As if he knew exactly what to expect, which you imagine is probably the case, Tavros pulls something from his pockets. He turns and offers you a handful of sugar cubes. As soon as they’re out, the horses are all about him, nudging him with their velvety snouts and snorting for attention. You watch him nuzzle his face into one of the horse’s fuzzy cheeks as you take the sugar cubes, and—shit, now you’re getting assaulted by fuzzy horse snouts. You pick up a sugar cube and hold it out for the greedy bastard sniffing at your chest, and it licks it out of your hand.
Holy shit. Your palm is tingling with the ghost touch of fuzzy horse lips, and it is the best thing. You present another offering, and soon your stash is expended. When you turn your attention back to Tavros, you’re surprised to find him watching you, that warm smile plastered across his face and reaching up into his autumn eyes until they’re practically glowing. Well, fuck.
“So, uh, how about we get her saddled up?” he says.
“Fuck yeah,” you say.
He leads Tinkerbell and another of the horses into the horse barn, and you watch him prepare the two of them for riding, quipping now and then to do something with the flutter of energy you’ve recently acquired. He responds well to your jokes, just as well as he does over text, and fuck if everything isn’t feeling natural and poignant. Like you’ve done this a hundred times before. He throws around the saddles like a pro, too, which definitely gives you a thing to think about while he cinches everything in. He’s not much bigger than you are, but he’s got some impressive strength.
“Okay! Everything’s ready, if you want to give it a try,” he says, turning to you. You perk up and walk over, trying to appear cool and nonchalant. You don’t know how he senses your hesitation, but he does. “Do you want me to show you how to get on?”
“That’d probably be a good idea,” you say. He laughs and pulls himself onto the horse-who’s-not-Tinkerbell in one fluid motion, much more smoothly than he had climbed over the fence earlier. You nod. It’s not like it’s that difficult. Foot in stirrup, throw your leg over, and bam, you’re on a horse. He gets down and hovers next to you as you approach Tinkerbell to copy his example. Swinging your leg over the saddle is a little more awkward than you had anticipated, and you struggle for a second before you feel a pair of hands push you up by the ass. Well. You make it onto the saddle, and you’re pretty sure your face is only a little pink.
Tavros walks to the front of the horse and unties it from its anchor. “Are you comfortable?” he asks. “You’re not going to fall, are you?”
“Nah, I’m good,” you say, and you are. You can feel Tinkerbell twitch and move beneath the saddle, and the sheer size and power of her body is unreal. You reach out to brush you hand against her neck. You’re on a horse. Hell fucking yes.
“Okay!” Tavros says. “In that case, why don’t you take the reins, and I’ll lead you outside. Just give me a minute while I get Acorn.”
The other horse is named Acorn? Unbe-fucking-lievable.
Tavros leads both of the horses outside, and you get used to the gentle rocking of Tinkerbell’s body as she walks. He stops and looks up at you. “Okay, so, I guess I should teach you some things before I let you go, like how to use the reins and that sort of thing. Basically, if you pull right, she’ll go right, and if you pull left, she’ll go left.” You resist the urge to snort. You don’t think you can handle such complicated instructions. Better head home. Tavros gives you a few more gestures to try out, but nothing that sounds too difficult. “Does that all sound okay to you?” he asks.
“If I fuck up horribly, will you be able to save me?” you say, mostly as a joke, but you’re not going to pretend this horse wouldn’t be able to fuck you up if it wanted to. Tavros laughs.
“Tinkerbell is the sweetest, most gentle horse you’ll ever ride, so I don’t think I’ll have to save you. I think that, realistically, the worst that could happen is that you’ll just stand there, and she’ll ignore what you do, which isn’t that big of a deal.”
Well, you can live with that. A horse that’s ignoring you is still a horse that let you on its back. “Cool,” you say. “I think I got this. Time to live the dream.”
Tavros takes that as a cue to release you, and you give some of his instructions a try. He didn’t warn you about the little nuances you’d have to get right to communicate your exact desires to Tinkerbull, but you think you get the gist of it. Hell, she walks when you instruct her to, and that’s enough for you. Tavros rides up next to you on Acorn with all the skill and finesse a proper cowboy should have. He’s showing you up like it’s his job to ride horses or something.
“You’re doing really well,” he says, and you smirk. You can’t remember the last time you got honest praise for completing a simple task in the most mediocre way possible, but you’ll take it. Tavros watches you get a feel for horseback riding with all the enthusiasm you’ve come to expect from him, and you don’t even feel embarrassed. Your cool kid facade can go fuck itself. You’re riding a horse on a ranch with a guy who jumps at any opportunity to talk about Pokémon. This is simultaneously the least and most badass thing you’ve ever done in your life.
“So, do you let every guy you meet come over and ride your horse?” you ask. You’re pretty sure Tinkerbell is just following Acorn’s movements at this point, and you’re also pretty sure Tavros knows that.
“No, not really, since not every guy I meet is as earnest about horses as you are,” he says.
“I can’t believe that.”
“I know. I think it’s weird, too.”
“Are you going to stick me on a bull next?” you ask.
“Maybe if you hang out here a lot and learn everything that you need to know to get the skills necessary for that, I would consider it, but, uh, I don’t think it’d be a good idea. Besides...” he says, and he glances at your shades, “you’d have to take off your sunglasses.”
“Oh, well, there goes my bull-riding career. Shame,” you say, and he laughs. You hardly notice how easily you’re smiling. Must be that country atmosphere.
“You’re going to get a really weird sunburn if you wear those sunglasses all day out here,” Tavros comments. “Do you have sunblock?”
“Nah,” you say. He’s right, but without sunblock, there’s nothing to do about it. Looks like you’re going to have an awesome triangular sunburn. You are the coolest.
“Well, next time you come, I’ll make sure I have some for you,” Tavros says. “Maybe, if you’re good enough at riding, I’ll take you out into the pastures and show you the herd. We have some really cool Texas Longhorns, which I think look really awesome on account of their big horns.”
Next time you come? Well, that answers a question you were afraid to ask. The thought of Tavros leading you into the pasture to ride around some frumpy bulls with massive fucking horns is more appealing than you thought it’d be, and you indulge in a brief, purely ironic Brokeback Mountain fantasy—you, Tavros, a picturesque as shit wilderness somewhere in the mountains that clearly don’t exist anywhere close to where you are, some chill horses and a fuckton of cows, and a tent for some naughty cowboy lovin’. You don’t know when you developed a thing for rugged, outdoorsy men in the wilderness, but apparently that’s a thing you like. Jake English had you jacking off to his booty shorts-clad ass in jungle adventure fantasies, and now you’ve got a flannel-clad cowboy and his pastures. But maybe you’re getting ahead of yourself. The first step to wooing Tavros in a tent would be to learn proper horse-handling technique, and you’re lacking.
“I’d better get good enough at riding, then,” you say.
“I think you'll be able to achieve that, in a reasonable amount of time,” he responds without a note of hesitation. “It's a hard thing to do, but I think that you have the natural disposition to be good at things quickly, which is the sort of vibe I got from you ever since I first met you—and, by the way, I want to say that I find that to be a truly enviable trait, one that I admire a lot, and I’m excited it extends to horseback riding as well as to things like rap and having cool hair.”
Your brain takes a fraction of a second longer than usual to find a respectable response. “You’re going to make me blush,” you manage, which sounds just enough like a joke to pass, but damn, you’ve never gotten a compliment quite like that before. He’s forward with the praise and encouragement. Or maybe just unapologetically honest, which, if that were the case, makes you more flattered than you’d care to admit.
“Really?” he asks, and his grin takes on a devilish quality, much like it did when he was joking with you at the pie contest during the state fair. You can’t help but smirk as well.
“No,” you say, “but you can keep trying if you want.”
He leans forward on his horse and eyes you with unabashed interest. “You don’t seem like the kind of person who would blush easily, even if something undeniably embarrassing happens, like a person you like walking into the bathroom while you’re taking a shower or your pants ripping in public or something like that.”
“I like my pants tight, but not that tight,” you say, eliciting a laugh from him. He’s easy to laugh, and you’re really starting to like that about him. “And as for the person I like crashing my ablutions...I’d probably invite him in. What the hell, it’s not like I’ve got anything to hide.”
“Him?” Tavros repeats, and your thoughts crash to a halt. Shit. You thought he might’ve picked up on your preferences, what with all the teasing, winking, occasional innuendos, and exchanging of personal information. So was all the flirtatiousness in your exchanges wishful thinking, or...? But in any case, it’s not like it’s a huge secret. Sure, you probably could have breached the topic in a more tactful manner, but fuck it if you have to go around planning a coming out party for every new person you meet. The brief concern that a country cowboy like Tavros might have some homophobic tendencies flashes across your mind, but you suppress it. You’re you and he’s him and if there’s a problem...that’s that, then.
“Typically the people I like fall into the ‘him’ category,” you say. You hope your concerns aren’t showing on your face, but your smile can’t quite carry the same sincerity it did before.
“Oh, yeah, I mean, I sort of thought that might be the case, but, uh, I wasn’t sure enough to, you know, jump to the conclusion without reasonable confirmation, which I guess you just gave me, so...that’s good to know, I guess,” he says quickly, his voice growing sharper than usual, and you notice that now he’s blushing. You breathe a mental sigh of relief and switch gears to accommodate the interesting new development his reaction has introduced. You let your eyebrow lift visibly.
“Any particular reason you were curious?” you ask. The sincerity is sneaking back into your smile, and this time you’re the one with the devilish curl at the tip of your smirk.
“Uhh...” he says, and shit, can he blush. How the tables turn. He glances away, sheepishness sneaking back into his posture and making him more adorable than a grown ass bull-riding cowboy has any right to be. He clears his throat and says, “I just, uh...got the impression that you were being...maybe a little flirtatious with me, but if that’s not the case, that’s okay, too, since I’m not usually the most, um, observant person, and I can read things the wrong way sometimes...”
Holy shit. It can’t really be that easy. “That’s funny,” you say, “because I was also under the impression that you were being flirtatious with me. But I wasn’t going to jump to any conclusions until I, too, received reasonable confirmation.”
The way he looks at you starts up a party of inebriated butterflies in your gut. Those butterflies are flopping all over themselves on the dance floor of your stomach and don’t even have the decency to be embarrassed about it. “Oh, uh,” he says, “in that case, I think you could probably consider this reasonable confirmation, for my, um, flirtations, and also my interest in the category of people you might generally fall into, as both a guy and a person with your unique interests and disposition.”
You’re pretty sure that was a romantic confession of some sort. You’re riding on a majestic fucking horse in a corral on a Texas cattle ranch in the golden light of the late afternoon with a rapping cowboy whose best friend is a pothead juggalo, and you’re pretty sure you’re exchanging awkward, roundabout romantic confessions in the most unbelievably inept way possible. Is this real life? Who are you again?
“You know, we should really do this more often,” you say. “This whole ‘hanging out’ thing. Your place, my place, anyplace is cool with me, if you’ve got the time and desire to make that happen.”
That grin. You could picture yourself kissing a face like that on a fairly regular basis. “I definitely believe that I could find the time and, uh, plenty of desire to make hanging out a thing that happens more often,” he says.
Fuck. Yes.