A/n: Hey y'all, it's been a bit but you get the drill at this point, I leave and come back with a new obsession. You had to know the change in theme was there for a reason, so here it is. This is a series but per my usual will be verrrrryy slow to update.
Rhett Abbott (Outer Range) X Reader
Sunlight streams through the open windows of your childhood bedroom, the sheer white curtains doing little to dull the shine and the thin french panes even less to dull the chirps of the swallows just outside. You roll over in a poor attempt to hide your face from the rays and catch just a few more minutes of sleep on this Sunday morning, unfortunately your mother has other ideas.
You hear the door swing open and you can feel her presence, it makes you want to bury your head under the covers and never come out again. She stands in the doorway, hands on her hips impatiently awaiting your recognition.
Eventually she gets tired of waiting, all you hear is heavy footsteps and a loud sigh before the covers are ripped away from you and suddenly you're grateful you opted to throw some shorts under your oversized t-shirt last night.
“Come on now, we’re leaving for church in an hour and I expect you to look halfway decent.” Ever the charmer, your mother.
“Ma..” You groan and try to yank the covers back over yourself, hoping she’d take some pity on you this once.
“I don’t wanna hear it.” she says, tugging the blankets back off. “Should have thought twice before coming in at three am last night, Sugar. Now hop to it!” You sit up in bed, fixing her with a glare which she only returns with raised eyebrows and a look that says ‘you don’t want to argue with me right now’. You let out a huff and swing your legs over the side of the bed, your mother smiles victoriously and turns to head back down the stairs.
You flop back down on your bed for a moment, thinking that maybe if you lock your door and pretend you don’t exist she’d give up on you. Unfortunately she’s been hell bent on saving your soul since you were a little girl and she had no intention of throwing in the towel now. Especially with your being back home unexpectedly.
You decide that this is not a hill you want to die on this morning and stand from your bed, stretching your limbs and running your hands through your hair… or at least you try, the leftover hairspray and unbrushed mess you’d left it in last night had made stubborn knots that likely needed a shower to comb out.
Making your way to the bathroom you pause in front of your full length mirror, the one you’d been so excited to pick out in seventh grade. It once had a bright pink frame that had now been overtaken by stickers and polaroids from middle and high school. Once cherished memories that now only brough reminders of who each of those people had become. Your eyes flit over the images, one of you and your best friend Milly Kinders who had gone off to college for film production and had since moved out to California to try and make it big. She was working as a PA now on some TV show that you hadn’t watched more than a few episodes of, she didn’t call as often anymore so it wasn’t like you had to keep up with the plot anyway.
Moving on to a picture of you and Maria Olivares at her senior night, each girl on the basketball team had picked a junior to present them with their flowers and medal of achievement. You’d felt so special when she’d picked you to be her underclassman, the two of you are smiling in the photo, not a trace of tears that fell later in the night when the realization set in that she was actually leaving. She’d gone off to school to be a veterinarian, the whole town was very proud when she got into one of the best programs in the country and she was sent off with so many well wishes and high hopes. Not unlike yourself five years ago.
You sigh, looking around the frame once more before heading to the shower just before you’re stopped in your tracks by a polaroid with a scrap of paper taped to the bottom. It’s a dimly lit photo, one that hadn’t developed quite right due to the lack of light. Nevertheless the edges of the polaroid are worn and it’s not taped to the frame like the others, instead it's stuck between the frame and the glass for easy removal. The photo shows the silhouette of two teenagers sitting on the open tailgate of an old truck in front of a bonfire. The girl in the photo, yourself, has her head leaned on the shoulder of a much taller boy. Scrawled across the torn paper at the bottom in barely legible writing is ‘have a good summer, Sugar. I’ll see you around- Rhett.’
You stare at it for a while, your hand itches to reach out and snag it from the mirror's edge, to feel the soft age worn edges of the photo between your fingertips once more.
“Sug, I don’t hear you moving!” Your dads shakes you from the thought. “I am!” You yell back, grabbing your towel and stepping into your ensuite bathroom.
Church wasn’t much of an event in Wabang, but it made your mother happy, or at least content for the time being, that you went. So every sunday morning, give or take a few years, you sat in the middle row and listened to the pastor drone on and on about shit you didn’t believe.
It wasn’t that you didn’t believe in a god or a higher power of some kind, it was more that you didn’t believe that this old man in bum fuck Wyoming was a expert on an all knowing power. If the Earth was just a blip in time and space then how could we have uncovered the secrets of the universe or did God reveal them to American white men to be his devine mouthpiece? Yeah, right.
It was all you could do to keep your hands clasped over your knees, mouth shut, and your eyes from rolling. Eventually the service would come to a close, the invitational sent and the prayers said on knee at the base of the pulpit and this chore would be over for yet another week.
Part of you wondered how much emotional, or showmanship, brought these people to cry on bended knees every Sunday. How interesting, or boring, does one's life have to be to have a new gut wrenching sin or tragedy each week. You suppose you would never know, life was astoundingly quiet for you Wabang.
“What did you think about the service, Sug?” Your father spoke around a mouth full of mashed potatoes. One thing that made Sundays more bearable was the spread your mother would slave over after church, her cooking was the thing you missed most about this town while you were away.
“It was good, I thought brother sawyer sounded better today” You say, pushing the food around on your plate and hoping that answer was satisfactory. To be completely honest you couldn’t remember a thing from the sermon, but you did remember that one of the choir singers, brother Sawyer who only held his place in the choir after his cancer diagnosis due to sheer pity and his status as a deacon.
“I think so too, you know he’s had such a hard time of it but I’m glad he seems to be on the up and up, Louanne seems lighter too.” Louanne, his wife, used to teach Sunday school. She’d been your favorite teacher and you couldn’t count the number of pictures you had with the woman before her husband was diagnosed, she was mostly quiet these days.
“I really hope so, she deserves a break” You mumble, pushing the food around on your plate, losing your appetite to the memories, an occurrence that seems more and more common these days.
“Sugarbear, would you mind taking this pie over to the Abbotts today?” Your mother breaks the silence after a while, you hadn’t even noticed her clear the plates from the table and place the pie in a heat bag.
“The Abbotts?” You say back, your voice sounded a little dumb in your own ears.
“You didn’t hear? Joy closed Rebecca’s case today, suppose they aren’t interested in looking for her anymore.
You knew she’d been missing for quite a while but you hadn’t realized it had been long enough for them to stop looking. You’d gone out to the ranch to watch Amy while the search parties traversed the expanses of both the Abbott and Tillerson ranches looking for even a scrap of her existence, but nothing ever turned up. Your mother had always been close with Cecelia Abbott, even since they were kids growing up in Wabang, which was an even smaller town then than it is now. When Amy was born you couldn’t get over her, only ever seeing her on Sundays when you visited on weekends. When she was older and you came back after college Rebecca had asked you to sit at Cecilia's recommendation, you adored that little girl and it tore you apart to see her ripped from her mother so young.
“Yeah let me change and I’ll take it over” you say, pushing your chair back.
“Why don’t you wear your dress? You look nice.” She’s smiling at you with that knowing grin, it makes you want to bolt up the stairs as quickly as possible.
“Mama..” you warn. She just smiles back and the stalemate starts while you try to muster the courage to fight her and she firmly stands her ground. Your father sits at the table, shifting his eyes between the two of you and awaiting further action, you swear you can hear maracas and an eagle cry in the background.
“Are the boys still trying to get that fence fixed?” He asks seemingly no one, “I thought they had a tore up stretch. Royal was wanting to get it fixed before they moved pastures.”
You shift your eyes to him hopefully, a beat of silence. Your mother sighs and hands you the bag, you drop your shoulders and take the compromise. You would wear the dress if there was no chance you’d be seen in it by an Abbott other than Cece.
The drive out to the Abbotts was boring as all hell, but the anxiety of pulling up the drive was even worse. A few familiar trucks sat in the driveway and a dirt path up to the porch almost made you feel like you were back in highschool.
You knock on the door only to be greeted by two things, the last person you felt like seeing and the reality that your father was a dirty rotten liar.
Well now you feel like a bitch. Rhett’s half grin fades at your greeting and he looks off to the side, chewing the inside of his cheek.
“Uh, sorry.” You mumble, shaking your head as if to reset your thought, “Hi Rhett, how ya holding up?” You offer him a little smile.
He looks back at you, his face a little more neutral now, “I’m alright” he smiles back but it doesn’t reach his eyes, it’s cold and unfamiliar enough to set a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach.
You snap out of your thoughts and hold the pie out to him, “My mama wanted to bring this over, I’m sorry about the news on the search for.. Well”
This couldn’t get worse, good god.
He takes the pie from you, staring at the ground. “Thank you” is all he says.
You know you should just go, but you can’t help but ask. “How’s Amy?”
His eyes meet yours again, and it’s almost like some of the warmth of return to them, he knew how much you loved that little girl after all. “You know, better than I expected” He says, and you swear you see him smile a little, real this time.
“She’s a tough kid.” You say, smiling to yourself at the thought. “If y’all ever need anything more than a pie, you got my number” You offer.
There’s something in the way he looks at you. It’s somewhere between questioning and sincerity but it’s there and you can’t help but hold his gaze for a moment before nodding and turning to go.
“I’ll keep that in mind, Sugar”
As you climb up into your truck and close the door you look back at the house, just soon enough to see the door close all the way.
