Archive of Our Own

“I want a goddamned mess.”
- Spiritbox, The Mara Effect - Pt. I

--

The black flamingo appears against the hedgerow the second week into fall. The fence is rickety on that side of the property, the hardwood putting up a failing effort, but the bird is painted plastic with red eyes and pink legs and flaking spray paint and it weighs nothing.

A little tag around his neck declares his name, “Jerry”, which isn’t the strange thing —

You recognize the writing:

It matches each of the letters that Sebastian sent from rehab, but maybe with a little less hesitation and fewer crossed-out words.

The gift is supposed to mean something, you think, but you leave it where it is to watch over you as you till the earth, struggling for something to take root because you can’t afford the sprinklers and using the rain totems feels excessive. It’s going to be another season’s worth of silver-grade carrots and Pierre’s smug victory at the fair, at this rate.

No one said this was going to be easy, but the thought skitters before you can determine if you’re thinking about your work load, or your not-quite-relationship.

You haven’t spoken to him in a week.

Or maybe, he hasn’t spoken to you.

It’s hard to say, but whatever is jamming the air waves sends back the sort of static that leaves you prickling with nervous energy, spooked, and desperate, and lonely enough to bury yourself in the pumpkins that will not grow worth a damn without the expensive fertilizer.

You give up before the sun even dips below the horizon, dirt-caked and achey, and thinking of the city again.

It wasn’t better than this, wasn’t it?

You’re starting to forget.

The farmhouse creaks around you, winter darkness shifting along the edges and beneath the furniture, catlike and indifferent because the seasons change but you’re just… stuck in the same place with nothing to show for it.

In a slant of waning sunlight, there’s a glimpse of a ghost in the living room:

A memory of the last time Sebastian sat in the middle of your sunken couch, his knees sticking up higher than the arm rests, legs spread wide enough that you could have knelt between his Doc Martens… Shirtless and tousled, tired from the night before, but happy.

Wasn’t he?

The vision fades, crisping at the edges likes leaves on a campfire, leaving you breathing harsher for retaining the details but not the feel of his chest under your hands or the elegance of his fingers guiding you into position because didn’t he have you where he wanted you, even then?

Fuck it, you decide.

Fuck the radio silence.

And fuck him.

A little voice whispers, “But you already did.”

“Fuck this,” you croak.

The door slams after you as you head back out into the first licks of autumn chill, your arms shoved through your ratty cable knit cardigan, hat still hiding the sweat as you make your way into town on foot. The single red eye of Jerry the Flamingo watches you depart.

You flip it off for good measure too, and head for the Saloon.

—

Gus greets you with less trepidation these days, the warm welcome and the cold beer a respite as Emily slides your drink across the counter and wipes up after it.

“Oh, you’re purple today,” she tells you, a furrow appearing between her eyebrows. “With little flecks of goldenrod. Something wrong at the farm?”

It’s easier lying. “Gourd problems.”

“Oh, I see,” she says, agreeing, “Eggplants and potatoes,” which makes no sense to you, but she nods likes she gets it.

Emily leans in to confide, “Dating women isn’t any easier.”

You stall out for a second because no one is supposed to know about you and Sebastian, but Emily is off again to serve another customer and you can’t do anything other than stare after her as your face begins to burn.

It’s a moment further when you realize it’s because you’ve caught Shane’s attention.

He doesn’t move from his position beside the fireplace, one hand shoved into his hoodie pocket, the other putting a dent into his beer can.

They’re friends, at least — him and Sebastian. Ish?

The question flickers into being before you even take a step, recognized in the hunch of his shoulders and the downturn of his mouth.

“Nope. Fuck off.”

He chugs, his attention sliding sideways and behind you to anything and nothing that isn’t directly in his way.

Fine, you think: if there’s one thing you can rely on, it’s Shane being an asshole.

“It’s not about you for a change,” you mutter, tossing yourself into the stool in front of him just to be irritating. “I am drinking.” You rap the countertop. “Because I am a paying customer.  You can shut your face.”

He snorts. “That’s a different flavour.”

“That’s pumpkin spice, baby,” you return. “Peaches and cream season is over.”

He eyes you skeptically, leaning just far enough into your peripheral vision to give you an appraising once over. “You look like shit, farmer.”

“You’re the expert in personal presentation.”

He smirks like you’ve said something darkly amusing.

You glower at him over the rim of your mug, taking three chugs before setting it down with a hard thunk.

“Care to join me?”

He cocks an eyebrow. “If you’re trying to put yourself under the table, you can just crawl.”

Been there. Done that.

“Suit yourself.” You finish off the glass, gesturing for another, which Emily obliges, looking between you and Shane with an obvious question mark hovering above everything.

“The Farmer was just leaving,” Shane mutters.

You counter, “He’ll take one too, Emily. On my tab.”

The new alliance seems to brighten her, because Emily lights up like a Winter Star tree at the prospect.

“See!” she tells Shane, delivering the drinks and disappearing, glancing back just the once to beam at the pair of you: the two most uncomfortable and surly people at the Stardrop in the last fifty years, at least.

You do not want to think about what she means.

“Um,” he says.

“I am way too sober to unpack that,” you tell him.

For the first time since you moved to Pelican Town, Shane appears to agree.

“Let’s workshop it.” He tinks the rim of his glass to yours, and takes the barstool two over to keep a healthy enough distance, glancing over. “Silently and without making eye-contact.”

It doesn’t last.

—

“…No, by that point the toilet was overflowing and Sam had completely emptied the paper towel dispenser.” He burps.

Shane’s shoulder bumps yours again, your midnight stroll towards Cindersap a meandering path of stops and starts as you double over again, gripping your knees for balance as you laugh. Loudly. The sound carries across the square and bounces off the clinic.

“Did you tell him?” you gasp. Your stomach aches. Everything is hilarious, and Shane —

He rolls his eyes, gesturing with a go-beer. “Would you? I’d sooner pour one out for the teddy bear. I spent a week plunging the stuffing.”

“Who does that?” You can’t breathe.

“Who does that?” he repeats. “There are thirty four people in this shithole town. Who do you think?”

“Someone with a vendetta against the Joja Corporation —”

Shane gives you a glazed grin.

“You didn’t.”

“No, but I saw the security footage.”

You waver on the spot, rocked by the revelation. “I didn’t know Pierre had it in him.”

Shane keeps walking, calling back over his shoulder, “Didn’t you used to work for them, farmer?”

The night breathes, brightly coloured and mottled with swirls of oil slick against the autumn leaves. They rustle a little, the wind creeping through your clothing to tickle out a shiver despite the flush and the heat and the strange distraction of Shane’s company, walking you back after Gus gently suggested he needed sleep.

Shane halts at your silence, swaying a little. He’s still in shorts and Crocs. Socked feet.

“A guy died in the cubicle in front of me,” you tell him, though the words sneak in with a little dissonance because it feels like someone else’s life; a sidewinder that strikes from the left all at once to leave you wondering if it really happened. “No one ever came to get the body.”

His frown is the clearest thing. “I don’t think you’re fucking with me.”

Because in three hours, it’s become apparent that there’s no need:

You’ve exchanged too much drunken honesty —

Everything but the one thing that you keep in your cupped hands.

“Can I ask you something?” you hedge, because this can’t last forever, and the bitterness that creeps in like a sobering chill is unrelenting.

Even eight beers in, he looks wary.

“You might not like the answer.”

Because Shane doesn’t sugarcoat anything.

You look down at yourself, taking in the dirt-caked knees of your coveralls and the ratty sweater, the loamy crescents under the chipped relics of your fingernails.

“Maybe I should have known better,” you say to yourself, more than to him.

“Just say it, farmer.” His jaw stiffens like he’s anticipating a blow, but the sentiment doesn’t reflect in his gaze: whatever sadness lingers there is resigned to defeat already, so you tuck any questions about Sebastian away.

Where he’s been.

What he’s doing —

It doesn’t really matter anyway.

Whatever expectations were there you’ve clearly fallen short of them, so focus on the moment and get over it.

Your voice is clear as a bell in the darkness, the crossroads between Fairhaven and the Ranch and your farm as starless and still as the ringing quiet will allow. Everything going to sleep for the winter, falling into torpor. Maybe that’s where you ought to bury your feelings. Erect a shrine to Yoba for them on the corner. Whatever.

“I expect tomorrow you’ll go back to ignoring me,” you tell him, “but I wanted to say thank you for a — huh.” You smile into your chest, shrugging. “An interesting evening, Shane.”

The look he gives you is cutting.

“I’m drunk, not stupid,” he says, but the impatience slivers when he shrugs it off, slouching  away a step. “Thank me for the hangover if you still feel that way later.”

You reach for his sleeve before he can escape, catching him by the wrist because it’s not the first time he’s dismissed you, but if the best you’ve got is kindness, you’ll dump it over his head with a bucket until he believes it.

“I mean it —”

You don’t see the rock where it juts from the path, snagging on the toe of your boot and sending you hurtling into a stumble.

Shane’s not fast enough to catch you, so when you hit him, he goes down too.

It still hurts — knees first — the pain distant because you’re tangled, and close up like this with his arms around you, you realize that you might be stupid for drinking too much, but Shane somehow still tried to protect you.

It dislodges a feeling you can’t pinpoint immediately —

Shapeshifting into something much more insidious, gold-tinted and glittering like a strain of ore in a stone: whatever it is, you feel like it’s something you’re not meant to see, a rare bit of treasure identifiable only by an expert.

Shane’s mouth is less than three inches from yours, lips parted —

He flinches.

Or maybe you’re imagining it.

“My fucking elbow,” he groans.

You shove off of him.

It’s over that quickly, but germination is a weird thing:

What you sometimes think isn’t going to turn into anything churns below the surface, getting its roots in deep enough to be a problem later.

“Is it broken? Do I need to take you to Harvey?”

“For the love of Yoba, woman —“

“Are you bleeding?”

“Get off me.”

You giggle. It’s a little maniacal, granted, but it’s better than crying in front of Shane — especially since he’s staring.

He clears his throat, assessing the circumstances, “Okay. You’re blasted.”

It takes a minute to subside, but the hard packed dirt under your head is a comfort, and the stars swirl into patterns when you close your eyes, the whole world spinning as if you can feel the rotation of the earth, racing through space faster than your rushing blood can keep up.

An image flashes, tightening your throat to the point of choking out something monosyllabic instead of an apology:

Sebastian dreaming somewhere. Or maybe just pretending with his eyes half-closed, your fingers twined together.

But he’s wherever — floating in the void of your imagination and you can’t touch him.

“You okay?”

When you open them again, Shane’s face blurs.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” you admit.

“Figures. You’re a lightweight.”

He squints into the darkness.

“You’re not gonna make it home like this.”

You squeeze your eyes shut. Maybe to summon the memory again, but it burns, wet leaking out at the corners.

“You can just leave me lying in the dirt,” you slur. “Here’s your parting gift.”

You hold up the offending object that set you off the first time —

A green Croc in Tunnellers colours.

“Take it, Cinderella. My arm’s getting tired and everything is spinning.”

Shane takes your wrist instead, hauling you to sitting and then to your feet as the stars swirl into curlicue patterns. You sag into him as you both stagger towards the Ranch, which is closer than trying to get home in the dark.

The door opens and closes with a practiced click, the dark softened by Shane’s breathing and the fuzzy texture of his sweatshirt in your fist, and a murmured, “Be quiet. Jas is a light sleeper.”

You fall into bed face-first, but it smells different:

A mixture of fabric softener and someone else’s skin with musky underpinnings, cheap aftershave, restless nights and wrong directions. You crush the pillow to your face, the words floating from a distance as your body slackens, “I’ll take the couch. I don’t sleep much anyway.”

Everything fades when the void beckons: unconsciousness pulling you down into mangled dreams of hands and teeth, soothing touches after the sting, long kisses with a hand pinning your wrists. Pleasure and absence bracketing you in from all directions because the figures are faceless yet somehow familiar:

Two of them with you in-between.

—

You wake clutching a Croc to your chest like a teddy bear — fully-clothed in a foreign bed, mouth sticking and tasting of stale beer.

But in the momentary confusion, you’re only processing the sealed water bottle on the bedside table and the creak of unfamiliar bed springs. Tunnellers posters. Ancient television. Muddy footprints.

You reach for hydration, and find there’s a hastily scrawled note below it that reads,

“Fed your chickens.”

Bolt-upright your vision spots over, the world lurching as your stomach sloshes, but you’re fully-dressed in last night’s clothes, absent your boots but plus one Croc-shaped trophy.

It’s Tuesday, so Marnie is at aerobics, but the little girl sitting in the hallway blinks at you with owlish curiosity as you tip-toe from the kitchen and into the Ranch reception with your throbbing head and your boots dangling off your fingertips.

So much for stealth.

“You’re the new Farmer,” she observes. “What are you doing here?”

You wonder if she’ll accept bribery.

A door opens and slams, but you stiffen, your shoulders up to your ears in self-defence.

Shane rounds the corner, coming to your rescue —

A sack of feed lobbed at you with indifference.

“That’s the new formula. On the house so you can try it out.”

Yoba, he’s smooth.

“Now, get out.”

Well, almost.

Shane waits at the door, ushering you into daylight light he was bouncing you off his property, his arms crossed and glowering, the sleepless night and the hangover kissing crescents under his eyes.

He doesn’t look happy.

He doesn’t look mad either, and maybe that’s worse, because the feeling that twists your tummy into unsettled discomfort has little to do with the way he watches your not-quite-walk-of-shame progression into the calm, clear morning, and everything with the recognition that you can still smell hints of his spicy aftershave clinging to your hair.

There’s a hint of orange in it, you think.

The feeling doesn’t fade —

That strange weight of tension, words left unsaid battering the inside of your ribcage, their little wings struggling for escape.

It’s only when you get back to your homestead that you realize he wasn’t lying: there are eight happy hens in the coop with full bellies, clucking happy noises when you pet them again.

Your head’s throbbing, the feeling that Shane’s been here casting strange shapes across the beehives and under the blackberry bushes, and you try to see the wreckage of the pumpkin patch as he might, but you can’t: all you see is the mess you ignored for an evening while you slept in someone else’s bed.

Something’s missing, yet:

You can’t figure out why Shane acting like a friend leaves you feeling bereft.

Against the hedgerow, Jerry the Flamingo bobs in the wind.

—

Two days go by with every minute counted, hours slowed to seconds. It occurs to you that if the only strategy in your possession is avoidance, you’re actually getting quite good at it, because not leaving your farm means not taking the mountain passage into town, and not having to cross the Ranch.

It’s a good plan, but while you fail to parse your feelings, the dreams are getting worse.

You wake in a sweat on the third morning to the sound of your headboard slamming against the wall a fresh rapport of percussion, the tension between your legs a heady throbbing even though you don’t think it’s physically possible to come without touching yourself.

It starts to fade as consciousness beckons, but the memory of phantom fingers circling the back of your neck persists; your face is still pressed into the mattress while your body writhes over the last dregs of pleasure.

The knocking sound echoes through the farmhouse, and you shove off the tangle of your bedclothes, disoriented.

You’re all alone.

There’s someone at the door.

Barefoot and barely covered by your coveralls, you fold your arms across your chest in self-defence as Shane’s scowl falls on you again.

You’re not wearing a bra, and your hair must be sticking up, or maybe it’s the look of guilt you’re wearing because you’re certain he knows that your thighs are still wet and your sex gives a pulse at the thought of what caused it, because Shane’s gaze narrows in suspicion.

Oh, you think. Daddy’s angry.

“I didn’t figure you for a thief, farmer.”

You pull a breath in between your teeth.

He points at his feet, and the impulse to kneel is so hard-coded you legs almost buckle. But that’s not what he means.

“You took my shoe with you,” he explains.

A smile threatens, but you smother it with a fist. You want to laugh and cry in combination, but your pussy is the culprit, not the man who, in your subconscious, was telling you just moments before what he was going to do to you because you came without his permission.

“What?”

You wave it off. “Nothing. I’ll get it. Just —” Fuck. “Wait here a second.”

But he doesn’t, and you can’t say why there’s a familiarity to Shane stepping over the threshold and into the kitchen like he owns it, but if you’re frittering excuses, it feels like something that’s already happened. Some forgone conclusion, the brain stopping and starting again within a millisecond, like deja vu, or precognition or —

“You don’t look so good.”

You force the Croc at him. “I meant to bring it by sooner.”

You didn’t.

He frowns. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Sweet Yoba, would you just —”

“We’re not friends,” he says. “So you owe me exactly nothing, but I know the difference between a bender and a distraction.”

He’s cute in the buttery sunshine of your kitchen. A little worn, and a little angry around the eyes, but compelled to ask the right questions with that absent affectation that alerts you to the fact that he’s being sincere.

“This is not a road you want to go down, farmer,” he warns. “Don’t make it a habit.”

You stiffen. “It’s none of your business.”

Shane stares a beat, taking back his Croc and slapping it against his palm a couple of times like he was testing it.

A hysterical thought harries at you: you’ve never been spanked with a flip flop either, but that doesn’t make the prospect of redirecting your frustrations any less attractive.

You attention lingers on Shane’s wide palms and thick, square fingers — the knuckles dusted with hair, and you can imagine how more covers his chest and back and belly.

He’s a broad swath of man whose heaviness has less to do with his stature and everything with whatever he’s carrying.

“Anyway,” he says. “I’ll be at the Saloon tonight. Sebastian owes me a game.”

You freeze at the mention, but you haven’t braced against the feeling of being socked in the chest. It aches in that special way being abandoned can be, because the people you care about go on living.

Shane doesn’t notice. “That bastard keeps ducking me,” he mutters, and after another beat of hesitation, his adam’s apple bobs as if trying to swallow the offer:

“Come by if you want to make more bad decisions, I guess.”

As if that isn’t loaded.

Shane’s blink takes a long, mortified second to happen as if he’s already regretting it, his mouth opened as if wanting to take it back but he can’t because you both know how it sounds.

The answer wavers in and out of focus: possibilities on the perimeter of your life turning from liquid to haze and obscuring any way signs indicating how you’re supposed to handle this.

Shane doesn’t wait to make an escape.

“Later,” he says, and he doesn’t run but you glimpse pink high on his cheeks, and that one word tumbles over your senses like gravel over silk. It leaves your skin prickling with goosebumps, your nipples piqued, the warm flush of arousal spilling over from your centre because this time you’re certain:

It’s not just you.

He’s felt it too.

—

“I’m surprised he didn’t say anything,” Robin tells you.

Bravery isn’t enough to fill the hollow left behind: a darkened bedroom and an empty garage, sheets made neatly and laundry folded.

You tried, you think.

You tried despite the feeling that something had slipped between your fingers despite holding quick — not moving an inch. Hope spills over sometimes, and maybe that’s what brought you to the carpenter’s instead of the Saloon, but the problem with hope, you’re learning, is that something so ephemeral isn’t meant to be clung to.

“He said he’d be back in a few days — he wanted to meet with his parole officer face to face, and take care of a few things, I think.”

But you know the reason why Sebastian said nothing at all to you: there’s no explanation needed when the person you’re sleeping with is insignificant.

Maybe if you had given him a bouquet if would have made a difference. Maybe it would have been a declarative statement of your intentions towards him, but you didn’t: you had feelings, and feelings aren’t promises.

Old customs aren’t meant to be fucked with, no matter how insular. Some are important: flowers to declare a partnership, shells to make it permanent.

Now you know, you think.

Does having closure change anything?

The winding path from the mountains carries you past the derelict community centre, your feet determined to keep moving despite the empty feeling in your chest, but nothing lifts the weight of understanding.

It doesn’t hurt, you tell yourself.

It can’t. It didn’t mean anything.

The town square has its lanterns lit for the evening, and you stand on the central cobbles for a long moment, each little inhalation the sliver of a knife leaving cold tendrils of unfeeling in its wake. The Saloon awaits, but if Shane is in there, then it’s better for him if you’re out here.

Say it again to yourself, farmer: you’re saving him, even if he doesn’t know it yet.

“It’s better like this.”

You turn, prepared to drag yourself back home the long way again, prepared to make the right decision, and there he is:

Haloed by an amber pool of lamplight in front of Emily and Haley’s, his hands in his pockets, both Crocs on his feet, and a frown etching lines into his face. Shane’s expression remains guarded, but his gaze is as sharp as a razor, and you can’t help but think that if this is the one night he chose to go sober, maybe you’re the one who should be frightened.

Your heart hammers like it.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says, but there’s something heartbreaking in the way he says it that pushes you towards him, propelled by something blooming where there was only an inkling a moment before.

He waited.

Sebastian didn’t.

But it’s not that simple when you can see your reflection in another person.

Mingled disbelief and despair trail him when he moves finally, and you remember every time you tried to befriend him and the one time Shane said, “Please,” with an ounce of defeat when he asked you to stop trying. A glance around the square and a small shake of his head covers over the sad smile he points into his chest.

“You deserve better,” he says.

You make fists of your hands.

“Maybe I’m the villain here,” you answer.

The shadow of a rakish smile appears — a relic from a former life, maybe. “Do you want me to make you worse?”

But you know a liar when you see one: this white knight pulled a blanket over your shoulders and then he fed your chickens at some ungodly hour of the morning while you slept off your hangover in his bed.

You shake your head, because your throat is closing off and you fear that any attempt at explanation will shatter the illusion that you’ve got it together.

Your fingernails are crusted with dirt.

Your pumpkins look like warty orange toads.

And despite sowing all the love you can, you’ve never seen it grow into much.

Shane lets out a breath, but there’s no relief in it. “Got it,” he says.

He doesn’t. Resignation limns his edges.

In a voice that’s high and ringing, and full of something that isn’t quite pain, you tell him, “I want you to make it better.”

Because this feeling of never fitting into anything anywhere is an ache that never goes away.

Shane wipes a hand down his face in defeat, reluctance and desire intermingled into a potent cocktail that no one wants to taste. Maybe this is a catalyst, or maybe it’s poison, but he’s braver than you think.

“Fuck it,” he says. “Come here.”

You’re so similar. How did you never see it?

But you know the answer:

He’s only ever offered glimpses.

“This is a really stupid idea,” Shane says before the collision, but it happens anyway: a half-laugh-half-sob that’s wrapped in quiet destruction and a thrum of feeling, lit on contact as his arm slides around your waist.

You choke a breath because there’s relief amid the panic, and a rush of heady desire that lifts you off your feet and into the soft solidity of his chest with a whimpered, “Disastrous,” muffled by his lips and a sigh that knocks you both backward into the bushes.

You trip, roll sideways against the siding and pushing him into it, taste spearmint over pizza and the hunger beneath the surface.

Shane pulls you into him, the hand cupping the back of your neck all courage, because you being here is confirmation:

“Be fucking sure, farmer —”

You bite his lower lip in answer, and his grip on you tightens. If this is a pull-no-punches situation, Shane shudders into movement, exchanging your place for his against the building. The kiss is sloppy and desperate, but earnest in a way that slots your legs together and pushes your chest into his — like it’s been ages since anyone’s touched him, and he needs everything all at once in case it disappears.

“Shane.”

It’s plaintive, and you feel him stiffen like hearing it flips a switch. His hands grip the meat of your ass, and your hands are in his hair, and his mouth is on your neck, and his teeth —

He nips at the soft spot below your chin, and the gush of wet heat is almost embarrassing.

Worse, maybe, than the pathetic little mewl that escapes you when he does it again, sucking on the spot to sooth a mark into it. His fingers find the clasp of your jeans, the button popping open with a flick, the zipper pushed open as his hand takes the place of his hip and you grind on his fingers through your panties.

He slows, surprise cracking the syllables into smaller pieces, “You’re soaked.”

You swallow a whimper. You know.

He presses forward, rubbing up into the gusset as if the small scrap of fabric is a minor inconvenience, the glitter of surprise in his smile tender enough to be weaponized.

“Don’t you dare,” Shane says when you start to squirm, because darkness chases delight and he’s revelling in it. “Don’t you turn your head. I want to see every bit of what you’re feeling when I touch you like this.” 

On a breath, trying so hard not to climb up his body, wanting to beg him to slide your panties to the side, you manage, “Make me,” despite your embarrassment, and reach for his fly.

He cups your throat, tipping your face towards him before you can fumble the motion, and holds you there against the building as his fingers dip lower, mapping the secrets between your legs, and venturing deeper when the elastic stretches to popping and skin touches skin.

“Fucking drenched,” he says like he doesn’t believe it, watching your eyelids flutter as you squirm against him, bucking into his palm as if he’s the solution to every problem you’ve ever known.

“This is what you want?”

You hate that he still sounds unsure, so you cup him through his shorts in retaliation, the tent of his hard on hot against your fingers as you close around his length as best you can, giving him a tentative squeeze.

Shane shudders a breath, pressing into your touch with a grunt and a moan, his forehead touching down on your shoulder.

“Okay, then.”

Into his ear, you whisper, “I want a few things but I’d like to hear you make that noise again first.”

His, “Mmph,” into your throat is offset by the slip of his fingers along the edges of your slit, pushing gently inward to wet himself to the knuckle, and then stroking without penetration —

A long glide from the edge to your clit and back again, teasing to prolong the moment, or maybe to make you squirm.

Shane chuckles, “In a minute, farmer, don’t be so fucking impatient.”

You kiss him, hooking a knee over his hip as Shane’s exploration coaxes you open around his fingers, memorizing the feel of your tension spindled higher by the rough tread of callouses. He spreads his knuckles, already too thick, and curls them up as he begins to thrust, his mouth on your pulse as you lose your grip and sag in his arms.

He pushes you up. “Hold on a little longer, sunshine, you’re going to give me what I want first, and then you can do whatever you like to my cock.”

You’re done, your choked cry smothered by his hand as he covers your mouth, the pace he sets rough enough to tear the release from your body with a guttural sound of surprise.

“Shh.” He doesn’t want to get caught. “People in this town talk.”

You whimper behind his palm.

Shane’s chuckle is so full of smug satisfaction, you forget for a second that your expectations have been shattered —

Who is this man?

“Again,” he says, his lips catching your protest before it happens, his fingers stroking over the back of your head. It’s too tender — too soft for what you deserve, like the touch of a true lover whose affection bleeds into every gesture. It makes your eyes burn, so you squeeze them shut.

You’re still throbbing on his fingers, his pace slowed to a languid stroke, but even twitching in sensitivity, the brush of his thumb across your clit is a little bit of redirected relief.

“I can’t —”

“You’ve been annoying me for weeks. Now you’re paying for it,” he says against your mouth. “Kiss me, sweetheart, and show me what this pussy is going to do to my cock.”

It’s easy to tangle your fingers in his hair, to tug the strands at the roots as he takes what he wants of your mouth and your cunt, and never once does he let you feel like he might let you go: pressed between him and the building at your back, the nighttime dark and the heat of his chest.

“Okay.” Your voice sounds tiny, even cradled against him.

You don’t remember the last time you felt so safe with someone so completely determined to shatter what little control over yourself you had left.

He pulls back just enough to wipe your face, frowning. “Why — farmer, are you crying?”

“Shut up, Shane.”

“Are you okay —”

You kiss him again, squeezing out the sadness as you come again. This one earns a grunt as your body contracts, the swell of pleasure bordering on something painful —

Not because it hurts, but because while the things that are broken don’t always have a fix, you can still mourn them.

“You’re so fucking tight.” There’s admiration in it, but also a touch of soft concern you cannot handle. “We should go somewhere.”

“I know a place.”

And here’s where it gets complicated, because he’s rubbing your clit again and you need the feeling of his hands on your skin. Shane takes a step with you in his arms, but he’s not stopping: the whole of your body is his to play with, if he wants it, and when he gives you a squeeze, you’re certain he’s fighting basic instincts.

“Better tell me where,” he says into your throat, his other hand slipping under your shirt and beneath your bra. He grips your breast, the delicious roughness bordering on discomfort.

You forget the words. They evanesce when he kisses you again.

“I swear to Yoba I’m going to fuck you right here if you don’t tell me —”

“Community centre,” you whisper. “It’s closest.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and impatient, you change direction:

“Can I touch you now?” you ask him, because everything trembles like it’s about to fall apart.

His hair is tousled, his mouth swollen, but Shane’s lips purse in a way that’s soft and delicious and you want to wrap your legs around him just to be closer, or maybe your mouth. You want to drown in him, and you realize that some part of you could: a lifeline held onto with the sort of careful hope for returned affection that you realize you’ve always offered with two fists.

His voice cracks, and the fracture makes him sound a decade younger. “You can touch me whenever, as long as you’re not —”

“With my mouth?” you clarify.

He doesn’t have an answer for that. Shane just gapes and blinks as you undo his belt, the pre-come on his boxers a little warm dot, the musky heat of his body welcoming you as your knees touch the ground and some part of you remembers that Sebastian also knelt at your altar and Yoba, this is so fucked —

You nuzzle him through the cloth, his thighs stiffening under your hands, and while the scent and the feeling is unfamiliar, the gentle touch of his hand to your cheek is as soft as a feather.

You press your lips to his shaft through the cotton, licking at the wet spot, and his cock jumps. It’s all him — the flavour and the texture and the scent of fabric softener that reminds you of his bed, and you wouldn’t trade the circumstances or your position, even if there wasn’t a precedent or past experiences so close to the surface.

You’re here with him.

This is not a mistake.

Your mouth fills with spit.

“Fuck,” Shane breathes.

“Can I, please —”

Fingers pluck at his waistband, ready to free his cock — the tip juts against the seam in the pouch.

When he says your name, you don’t hear it.

Shane clears his throat and grabs your hand before you can do anything further and he says, “Come on,” and those heavy, rough fingers tilt your whole face up while you cling to his waistband like a good little —

“Stop.”

His thumb swipes at your cheek, his expression alight with an indiscernible mixture of emotions that all churn together: concern and desire and a little bit of that stubborn, determined anger setting his jaw when something pisses him off.

“Up.” He tugs. You resist, because you’re sure you’ve done something wrong and it must show because —

“Come on, sunshine,” he says again, softening. “Come here.” Into his arms.

This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.

“Don’t you want to?”

Everything trembles, threatening to shatter: the high, tight plaintive desperation an embarrassment you can’t hide because Shane doesn’t want you either and the sting expands inside you into a giant, empty cavern and you’re all alone in the darkness.

“Hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done,” he says into your hair, “turning down a blow job.” And finally, you choke a sob.

His body is a buffer against everything, and you find yourself gripping him around the waist as he squeezes you tighter like he could smother the bad feelings.

“Why did you stop me?” you manage.

His inhalation is steadying, but pained as he disengages — your bra pulled back into place, shirt straightened. He even zips and buttons your jeans as if the process of putting you back together is fortifying, but all the while, Shane watches your expression like you’re the one who needs caring for in this situation.

Something threatens to break — a tremor across a still surface.

“You want something I can’t give you.”

Because for him, it’s just that simple. You should be used to it: the sharp bite of rejection so much worse than every other time you’ve exchanged barbs in the attempt to befriend him. This kind of lie is intimate.

“But you were waiting for me,” you whisper.

“You left the smell of your shampoo all over my pillows.” It’s an accusation.

His hands linger on your hips, thumbs drawing circles beneath the hem of your shirt, like he’s reconsidering, but you know when someone’s shovelling shit. You’re a farmer.

“Why didn’t you go into the Saloon?”

His eyes are tired, but alert as he searches for an answer in your features, or maybe he’s memorizing them. He looks so pissed that for a second you want to shrink out of his grip and run in the other direction.

Instead, Shane darkens.

“You weren’t supposed to show.” And there’s a finality to it.

His gaze trails across your shoulders, up your throat and back to your mouth where it lingers.

“I spent all night thinking about what it might mean if you did. And I think I get it.”

The air that spills between your bodies is colder even that the autumn breeze tumbling down from the mountains. It leaves you shivering as his hands fall away.

“I know what it’s like to want to feel nothing, farmer — whatever it takes to get a moment of quiet,” he explains.

It stuns you into silence. “That isn’t what this is.”

But you don’t wholly believe it either: you’re too fast, too reckless, too driven to impulsive decisions. You dropped everything in the city to move to the Middle of Nowhere, Ferngill Republic, and take up growing crappy pumpkins with barely five hundred gold in your pockets.

Somehow, his honesty makes it worse:

“I might be a piece of shit,” Shane says, wetting his lips as if weighing it. “But I’m not going to be treated like it.”

He swallows, but you don’t know what to say to him that isn’t so complicated that you can snatch at the frayed edges. It’s falling to pieces over something that hasn’t happened yet.

“Nothing to say, huh?”

Shane shakes his head.

“Figures,” but the smile is full of self-deprecation, and it withers before he reaches the end of the alley while you keep trying to put it all together. The one thing that’s clear is that he’s leaving.

And you’re angry.

It rises suddenly and with a swiftness, your body aching at the unfairness that he can drown in his drug of choice but you can’t get closer to him because he doesn’t believe he’s worth it —

“You just don’t want someone to give you a reason to stay.”

It hangs like a blade, because knowing seeing the mirror of your own despair up close and personal can be someone else’s reckoning.

You know you don’t know him at all, but you recognize the shadow beneath the angry surface: Shane, who turns flinty and hard to cover up whatever’s hurting him while you pinned your heart to your sleeve and let the damned thing keep bleeding.

“I’m not the solution to whatever’s eating at you, farmer,” he says, as if he’s got you pegged.

He’s gone around the corner before you have an answer, but your answer isn’t what he wanted to begin with. You’ve just taken too long to realize it:

“I don’t know what this is yet.”

But you think you know that it meant more to him than he was willing to admit.

—

No one said you didn’t learn from previous experiences.

The bouquet is already tattered around the edges, a collection of sweet pea, fairy rose, and tulips that you battered bringing home from Pierre’s because you can’t stop debating if you should offer it to Shane or beat him with it.

It’s gone into the kitchen trash can twice so far, but it doesn’t make a damned bit of difference:

Yoba, you’re so mad at him for making assumptions.

You’re fucking furious.

And maybe a little bit ashamed too:

The Community Centre. Really?

Like he was a damned dirty secret.

Okay, you think: you could have handled that better, but he didn’t hesitate to kiss you back, and had you given him the opportunity, he would have fucked you stupid in that alley off Willow Lane without a second’s hesitation.

It only occurred to you later that he wanted it to mean something, echoes of Emily’s, “See!” from the Saloon all the confirmation you need.

Staring blankly out the windows doesn’t help because after a while, your eyes begin to burn and you haven’t figured out if there’s some other folk custom that demonstrates “begging for forgiveness” other than a bouquet to announce that you’re clearly affected, and maybe a little delirious.

You don’t even like each other.

But you can’t stop thinking about the way he put you back together after practically tearing off your clothing, and when you touch your fingers to your throat, you can still feel the tender spot where Shane marked you with his mouth.

Maybe this is a bad idea.

Maybe you should wear a bandana or something.

A scarf.

A fucking cravat.

“Fuck my life,” you groan, but you’ve arrived at a decision that has you snatching up the bouquet and marching straight for the door and the garbage can outside by the chicken coop, farthest from your second guesses and regrets and unwelcome household guests: Sebastian’s heart beats under the floorboards. Shane’s rejection drags after you like a mantle.

You’re all alone, but maybe you deserve it.

You open the door.

With one foot on the lowest stair to your porch, Sebastian raises his head to smile up at you again. He folds over the little name tag that he’d hung around the flamingo’s neck in his hands, and now, you can see the smear of writing on the back.

“Hey, farmer girl,” he says. “Is that for me?”

The bouquet sags.