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Gator Tillman Steve Harrington
Active series: the modern leper (gator x f!reader) // ongoing sequel to the alarmist and the futurist. Itâs 2025. Gatorâs adjusting to life outside in Stillwater. Every step forward he takes, the emails youâd sent him since 2019 grip him tighter.
I block blank blogs, and blogs without ages or age-brackets listed.
It should also be obvious, but apparently itâs not. This is an AI-free zone.
RPF makes me throw up in my mouth. Iâm never gonna read it or write it, so please donât ask.
I donât use tag lists, and I donât want to be on any - just check my masterlists below if you want to read my fic and Iâll do the same for you.
Headers and dividers by @saradika-graphics unless stated otherwise.
âIs that you in front of me, coming back for even more of exactly the same? You must be a masochist, to love a modern leper on his last leg.â - Frightened Rabbit
wc: 10k
Correspondence between a former cop and a current data analyst, October 2025 - January 2026.
Or, the one where Scotty hits on something so real it sends the family reeling.
cw: brief mention of past recreational drug use, brief mention of past physical/sexual abuse.
You didnât have to write back. Iâd got to the point where I was pretty sure you werenât going to - Iâd told a couple of people I was okay with it, and I think I was, mostly. Ninety-nine percent, maybe. But there was always that one percent. I am glad you wrote.
Right now Iâm in my room talking at a computer and hoping itâs getting all of this down right. The software reads back to me sometimes when I give it commands. One of the guys here calls it HAL, like from some movie - I havenât seen it but apparently HAL is reliable until heâs not. The softwareâs a pain in the ass but it mostly works, so the nameâs stuck.
You asked if Iâm happy. I spent most of yesterday thinking about that. My therapist - his nameâs Joshua, smart motherfucker, frustrating as hell sometimes - he says my idea of happiness has got conditions attached to it that heâs working on helping me unlearn. Iâm not totally sure what that means yet. What I do know is that tonight the three of us who live here made chicken fajitas for dinner with our support worker Britt, and I was in charge of the chicken - cutting and cooking - and if youâve never tried cooking chicken blind (or blindfolded), donât, or do, itâs an experience. Anyway. When we were all eating and Britt confirmed the chicken was cooked through - I already knew, Iâve been practicing, but Mikey had doubts - I thought, yeah. This feels good. Britt calls us the House of Pain because of how many times we walked into things when we first moved in. Two blind guys and one guy who says heâs not totally blind but we have suspicions about. It shouldnât work but it does.
I donât know if thatâs happiness the way Joshua means it. But itâs something.
Your cactus - they donât come in litters by the way, theyâre not puppies. A cluster, maybe? Either way I like that it leans. Gives it character. Who needs a fully upright functional cactus when the leaning one still flowers?
One more thing. You donât need to apologise for the emails. Maybe I shouldnât have listened to all of them. Iâm glad I did though. It was good hearing from you, even when you werenât really writing to me.
House of Pain, huh? Iâve had âJump Aroundâ stuck in my head for five days. Iâm blaming you for that. Coincidentally, it is my go-to song choice at karaoke. I know all the words.
If you can find a good audio-described copy of 2001 - A Space Odyssey, you should watch it. Your roommate is right, it is a good movie. I took my dog for a walk earlier, before it got dark, and thereâs a huge tree trunk that washed up years ago that sort of looms on the shore like the obelisk in the movie. I thought about it, then I thought of HAL, then I thought of your software. Was it hard to learn how to use it? Does your accent give it any trouble? Mine does sometimes when I use voice commands in the car, Iâll be trying to get it to call someone and it decides Iâve asked it to find directions to somewhere random instead. Thatâs annoying.
So you live with two other guys, and you have a support worker. Whatâs that like? How do you spend your days? One thing I remember is that boredom doesnât suit you - I hope Britt has a lot of patience if she has to deal with a bored Gator Tillman. God help the girl.
Karaoke. I didnât have you down for karaoke. Iâm going to need to know more about this at some point.
The obelisk thing - okay, thatâs a good comparison. Iâm adding 2001 to the list. Britt has a whole system for finding audio described stuff, she set it up on my laptop, so thatâs not the problem it used to be. The accent thing - yes, constantly. The software and I have an ongoing disagreement about certain words. It keeps hearing âmarshâ when I say âwashâ, which makes no damn sense. Mikey thinks itâs the funniest thing thatâs ever happened to anyone. Heâs an ass.
Whatâs it like living here? Itâs okay. Itâs a lot, sometimes, living with other people, but itâs easier than the last time I did it. Britt is good at her job and doesnât take any of our stuff personally, which you have to respect. Dom is anti-social, Mikey talks too much in the evenings, and Greg - one of the overnight support workers - once talked me through a whole situation at two in the morning and then made me go to the ER anyway, which I needed but was being stubborn about. The routine helps. Iâve got things I do during the week that I didnât used to have, a group I go to, a kitchen session where Iâm learning to cook properly, Joshua twice a week, and I meet Dot most weeks too. The routine fills the days. Some days thatâs enough and some days itâs not, but most days lately itâs been enough.
Boredom isnât really the problem. Turns out thereâs a lot to keep you busy when youâre learning to do everything differently.
Whatâs your dogâs name?
Take care. Gator.
****************
He books the longer session himself, which he knows Joshua notes without commenting on out loud. Two hours instead of one, starting at two in the afternoon, which means he should be inside and occupied at home through the worst of the early evening when the streets start filling up.
Joshua had been expecting it. Gator could tell from the way heâd sounded on the phone - not surprised by it, just ready, the way of someone who has already cleared the time in their head before being officially asked.
They donât talk about Halloween directly. Thatâs not how it works, not with Joshua, not with this particular thing. They talk around the edges of it - about control, about the difference between responsibility and punishment, about the work of learning to carry something without being flattened by it. Joshua asks questions that donât announce themselves as questions. Gator answers them as honestly as he can, which is more honestly than he could have managed a few months ago, which he thinks feels like something.
At some point, maybe an hour in, Joshua says, you know she doesnât blame you for it. Not anymore.
I know, Gator says.
Do you believe it?
He holds onto that for a little while. Noise from the street outside carries through the office window - a childâs voice, high and excited, followed by the shriek of someone who has been successfully scared.
Iâm working on it, he says.
Thatâs enough, Joshua says. Thatâs exactly enough for today.
The session runs the full two hours. By the time heâs out on the street itâs past four and he can feel somehow that the light has gone and Stillwater has committed fully to Halloween - he hears passers-by talking about the carved pumpkins on porches, and the strings of orange lights in windows. A group of small children cross the road ahead of him with an adult he can hear but not see, the adult saying wait for me, wait for me in the tone of someone who has been saying that all afternoon.
He finds the bus stop. He waits.
On the bus he takes out his phone and puts an earbud - just one - in. He navigates to the email - her reply to his question, received two days ago and not yet answered because heâs been thinking about what to say, which is new, the thinking before the saying, something Joshua would comment on if he ever mentioned it.
HAL reads it back to him in its flat generic accent.
Flynn.
Just the one word. Her dogâs name, given to him freely, like itâs the most ordinary thing in the world to give someone like him something he asked for.
He thinks about it for the rest of the journey. The bus moves through Stillwaterâs Halloween streets, the sounds of it coming through the windows - laughter and doors and the occasional distant firework - and he sits in the middle of it with his phone in his hand and her dogâs name in his head and something happening in his chest that isnât anything to do with the heaviness of the date, that is in fact the opposite of it.
Heâs still sitting with it when the woman across the aisle pats his shoulder and says, have a good Halloween, honey, and he realises his face has done that thing it does without his permission.
Thanks, he says. You too.
He gets off at his stop. He walks the half block to the house, his cane finding the familiar path, the smell of woodsmoke and something sweet from a neighbourâs porch, and he goes inside and upstairs and sits at his desk and pulls up the email app and starts talking.
âHey. Flynnâs a good name. Tell me about him.â
Flynn sounds like exactly the right kind of stubborn. Mikey has opinions about the name - he says itâs a good name for a dog who knows heâs good looking, which I think is a compliment to Flynn and an insult to everyone else simultaneously. That sort of talk is pretty typical for Mikey. What sort of dog is he? Is he a mutt, or a breed?
It snowed on Saturday. First proper snow of the year - I knew it was coming, the air had been doing something different for a few days, that kind of cold that means business. But I still wasnât ready for it. I was on the bus when it started and I could hear it before I understood what I was hearing - the sound the wheels make on the road changes, the whole of the outside changes, and then someone near the front said âoh, itâs snowingâ, and I just sat there and listened to it come down. I donât know what I expected. Iâve been in snow before, obviously. But this was different somehow. Quieter than I expected. It settled.
Group on Tuesday was good. Leticia was late - her car wouldnât start in the cold - so we just sat there for a while, the five of us, waiting. Marie said, âwell, Iâll tell you what I heard on the way hereâ. And she did. She talked for about ten minutes - the sounds of her street in the morning, what the coffee place on the corner smelled like, the noise of the bus she takes. Nothing about what she might have seen though. I donât know if she knows she does that. I didnât say anything.
Michael in the cooking workshop has started teaching me to bake. Cookies, this week. The first batch went about as well as youâd imagine - Michael was very nice about it, which tells you everything. The second attempt was a little less burnt. Iâm going in on Tuesday with the goal of producing something actually edible. Iâll report back.
Take care. Gator.
****************
The storms havenât arrived yet. Theyâre coming - you can feel it in the air, the sort of heaviness that settles over the coast before the weather turns - but on this mid-November morning itâs still walkable, the beach is still accessible, the sea is doing something dramatic but not dangerous in the grey light.
Flynn runs ahead. You walk. The usual arrangement.
Youâve been thinking about what to write back to Gatorâs last email. Not anxiously - thatâs new, the not-anxious quality of it, the way the back-and-forth has settled into something that feels more like conversation than negotiation. Youâd told him about Flynnâs name origin, and heâd come back with a whole thing involving his roommate Mikey and a movie marathon and a very strong opinion about naming conventions for animals that youâd found genuinely funny. Youâd written back the same night and told him about the Therapet training process, how Flynn had come to you as a failed police dog, already partly trained, already himself, just needing the right context to be useful in.
Heâd said, âthat sounds like most people actually.â
Youâd thought about that for two days.
Flynn doubles back, checks on you, accelerates away again toward the northern rocks. You watch him go and take your phone out of your jacket pocket and think about writing something, here, now. You look out at the ocean, the vast grey ahead, knowing that somewhere out there the winter storms are building up.
You put the phone away.
You think, âIâll tell him about the storms when they come.â
Flynn says thank you for asking, the groomer was great. Heâs doing well. He had a very important Sunday last week - we went on a Therapet visit to a care home along the coast, his regular placement. He has a favourite resident there - had, I should say. She died in September. Her name was Mrs Okafor and she was eighty-four and she used to call him á»ba mi, which is Yoruba for something like âmy kingâ - itâs lucky he doesnât speak Yoruba because that would have gone straight to his head. Her daughter told me at the funeral that she talked about Flynn every week, and that sheâd thought he was something her mother had dreamed up. Sheâd been living with dementia, so sometimes the things sheâd talk about had happened forty years ago, if theyâd happened at all. But heâs very real and heâs asleep at my feet right now, dreaming about something, his legs going nuts. Whatever it is, it looks like hard work.
We spent most of the afternoon there. Thereâs a man whoâs been living there since 2018, Walter. His son and grandkids moved to Arizona for work last year and the nurses in the care home said they could see him fading every day, like heâd given up. No one else comes to visit him - except for Flynn. Walter tosses a ball every so often for him, which Flynn brings back each time, and they sit together and Walter tells him stories. Sometimes I stay to listen, but I always feel a little like a spare part - the residents donât really need me, itâs Flynn they look forward to seeing. Heâs very good at his job. The nurses say Walterâs doing better now. I hope that continues. Iâm going to bring him some magazines next week - he loved going fishing with his son, so Iâll try to find some angling magazines or something like that.
Thanksgiving this week. Iâm spending it with my friends Esha and Kim - theyâre a couple, they live about ten minutes from me, theyâve been here longer than I have and theyâre the closest thing I have to family out here. We used to host a big dinner for everyone in the community who didnât have anywhere to go, which was a lot of people when I first arrived. Three years on, most of those people have coupled up or moved away or found their people, so now itâs just the three of us with too much food and a very competitive game of Scrabble that Esha always wins. I donât mind. Itâs warm and itâs ours and thatâs enough.
I spent Thanksgiving with Dot and her family. Dot is - sheâs complicated to explain. She was my stepmom for a little while, before Karen, but when I think about it, she didnât ever really feel like a stepmom. Sheâs only a couple of years older than me so that might be part of it. The truth of it all is pretty bleak. Anyway.
Sheâs been - she's important. Thatâs the clearest way I can put it. She got me out, which is a long story, and now we have coffee most weeks and she picks me up from Joshua sometimes and on Thursday she made me sit at her table with her family and pass the cranberry sauce and pretend I knew what I was doing, which I didnât, but I figured it out. We never really did Thanksgiving properly, in Lehigh.
Her husband Wayne cooked. He has opinions about stuffing. Strong ones. Iâm not going to weigh in on the stuffing debate because Iâve only been out of jail since May and I donât have enough data yet, but Iâll say this - it was good. Dotâs daughter Scotty was there too. Sheâs sixteen and she doesnât miss much. Sheâs a good kid. It was - it was okay. More than okay, some of it. I didnât know what to do with most of it, if Iâm honest. Itâs been a long time since I was at something like that.
Your Mrs Okafor - Iâm sorry. She sounds like she was something. Sounds like she had good taste in dogs, and people. Walter likes fishing? Heâll like the magazines. Thatâs a nice thing youâre doing for him. I donât think youâre as peripheral to Flynnâs job as you think you are.
Esha and Kim sound good. Iâm glad you have them.
Happy late Thanksgiving.Â
Gator.
****************
The smell of it hits him at the door.
Heâs been to Dotâs enough times now that the house has its own geography in his head - the three porch steps, the door that sticks slightly in its frame, the right turn into the living room, the left into the kitchen where the island is, where he knows to put his cane. He knows the distance from the front door to the couch. He knows which floorboard creaks in the hallway and has learned to step over it out of habit, though heâs not sure why, nobody minds.
But he doesnât know this smell. This is new.
Turkey and something sweet - sweet potato maybe, or the cranberry sauce Wayne has been making since seven this morning according to Dot, who had called at eight to tell him this in the tone of someone filing a report. Underneath that, thereâs sage, butter, cinnamon, and the dry heat of an oven thatâs been on since early morning. Itâs a lot. It fills the house. He stands in the doorway for a moment longer than necessary, just holding it.
âYou okay?â Dot, from the kitchen.
âYeah,â he says. âJust - it smells good.â
He can hear her deciding not to say something, which is its own kind of saying it.
âCome on in,â she tells him. âWayne needs someone to tell him the stuffing is fine.â
âIs it fine?âÂ
âOh yeah, itâs incredible,â she smiles. âBut he needs to hear it from someone other than me and Scotty.â
He hears Wayne working at the stove with the concentrated energy of a man who takes his cooking seriously and knows it. Gator can hear him moving - the rhythm of someone who knows their own kitchen completely, who has been cooking in this space for years and doesnât need to think about where anything is. He finds that comforting in a way he doesnât examine.
âGator,â Wayne says, without turning around. âGlad youâre here. What do you know about stuffing?â
âNothing,â he says, as a cold Coke bottle is pressed into his hand. âNot a damn thing.â
âPerfect,â Wayne says. âUnbiased opinion. Try this.â
Something is put in front of him - a spoon, he thinks, and then the smell of it, sage and butter and something else, something thatâs been cooking long enough to become its own thing. He tries it.
âItâs good,â he says.
âOf course itâs good,â Wayne almost laughs, satisfied. âDot thinks I put too much rosemary in.â
âHey, I didnât say too much,â Dot cuts in, from somewhere behind him. âI said a lot.â
âThose are the same thing, Dottie.â
âTheyâre not.â
He stands in their kitchen listening to them argue about herbs with the ease of people who have been arguing about the same things for years and enjoy it, and something in his gut does something he doesnât have a word for. Not envy. Not quite. Something adjacent to it, and also something else entirely.
Scotty arrives from upstairs at some point - he hears her on the stairs, the footsteps of a teenager descending without urgency - and she says hey, Gator, in his direction, which is a little warmer than the first dinner, and then she immediately starts an argument with Wayne about the music heâs got playing, which Wayne loses, and then the kitchen fills with something loud and vaguely familiar that Scotty informs him is essential Thanksgiving listening, which he has doubts about but doesnât say a word.
He finds a place at the kitchen island and stays there. Not in the way, not quite participating, just being present. Learning the choreography of it. Dot passes him things without being asked - a dish to hold, something to mash, small tasks that fold him into the preparation without asking him to know what heâs doing. He notices sheâs doing it. He doesnât say anything.
At the table Wayne says grace, which Gator hadnât expected - a short, plain thing, nothing elaborate, nothing like his fatherâs self-indulgent speeches - just gratitude for the food and the people around the table and the year thatâs been. He sits with his hands in his lap while Wayne talks and thinks about the years before, the Thanksgivings in Lehigh that werenât really Thanksgivings, that were just days when Roy was present and required things of people and called it a celebration.
This is different. This is the thing itself, he thinks. Whatever this is supposed to be - this is it.
âCould you pass the cranberry sauce?â Dot asks, to him specifically.
He finds it. He passes it. He gets it right.
âThank you, hon,â she says, exactly as she would to Wayne or Scotty, exactly as though heâs always been here, exactly as though this is ordinary.
He decides to let it be ordinary.
Later, when Scotty has disappeared back upstairs and Wayne is doing something in the kitchen that involves a lot of clattering, Dot sits beside him on the couch.
âYou doing okay?â she asks. Second time today.
âYeah,â he says. âI think so.â
âGood,â she says, her hand on his arm. And then, after a moment, she leans in beside him, conspiratorially, lowering her voice to a whisper. âSave me from more playlist fights at Christmas?â
He thinks about it. About the smell at the door, and Wayneâs stuffing, and the cranberry sauce passed correctly, and Scottyâs playlist, and grace said plainly over a table that had room for him at it.
December on the coast is a whole different thing from the rest of the year. The sea has been genuinely angry this week - two days of storms that kept us off the beach entirely, which Flynn took as a personal affront. Heâs been pacing the cabin and whining at the door, stopping sometimes to look at me as if Iâm responsible for the weather, which Iâm not, for the record. We did get out yesterday when it eased off, but we stayed well back from the waterline - the waves have been coming up high and fast and neither of us felt like finding out what that felt like up close. The big logs on the shore have been rearranged by the storms, some of them shifted twenty feet from where they usually sit. Flynn assessed the situation and decided his usual log was unacceptable in its new position and staged a small protest. I let him have it. Itâs been a hard week for the dog.
Work is steady. Weâre in the quieter stretch before the end of year reporting period, which means I can breathe for a few weeks before everything gets busy again in January. Iâve been using the time to get ahead on some things, which is either virtuous or compulsive depending on how you look at it. Probably both.
Iâve been watching the weather reports for the midwest this week - I do that sometimes, check the forecasts for North Dakota out of habit. Iâve started checking Minnesota too, lately. Howâs the snow in Stillwater? I keep seeing warnings for the region. I imagine the bus route gets interesting in winter.
Flynn staging a protest is the funniest thing Iâve heard all week.Â
Yes, the snow is definitely here now. Itâs been snowing since the end of November, on and off. The bus route is fine - the drivers know what theyâre doing and the city keeps the main roads clear. The halfway mark is different in the snow, the sound is different, the way the wheels sound on the road, the way the air feels when the doors open at each stop. Everything is quieter. I didnât expect that, how quiet it gets. In Lehigh the snow was loud somehow, or maybe just everything around it was loud and the snow didnât change that. Here it just settles. The whole city settles under it and gets quiet and I find that I donât mind it at all.
I donât know what the weather is like where you are now - I donât know what itâs like on the coast in winter. But I remember what snow looked like in North Dakota. The plains especially. Nothing stops it out there, it just goes, as far as you can see in every direction and then further. I remember thinking it looked like the end of the world and also like the beginning of it somehow. I donât know if that makes sense. Did it feel like that for you?
Iâve been thinking about Christmas. Dotâs already sent me approximately nine hundred messages about the playlist argument situation, which Iâm staying out of. I told her sheâs on her own with that one. Scotty and Wayne have these running battles about music - thereâs nothing angry in it, but they argue and fight about bands and songs and playlists and. Iâve never seen that before. They fight like theyâre having fun about it. I think they are. They always laugh, at the end.
This is going to sound strange. I was thinking about the office - the one in Dickinson, the main building. And I remembered you always had a little Christmas tree. In the corner of your office, or near your desk, I canât remember exactly where. Little green thing, covered in glitter. Do you still have it?
I canât believe you remember that tree. I bought it in K Mart in a rush one morning on the way to work, on a whim. I saw it at the counter and just grabbed it, and then once it was on my desk it looked so pathetic being the only Christmas thing in there, so I went back after my shift and bought the lights and glitter and paper chains and ornaments. I managed to fit everything in a box the next January and I stored it in the basement, beside the uniform supply room. The box is probably still down there. Maybe someone found it, and itâs being used again?
The coast is usually mild but stormy. It doesnât get so cold where I am, but further inland or on higher ground it can get colder and thereâs usually snow at some point. I mean, I say mild, itâs somewhere around forty-five degrees which is still pretty damn cold but not cold enough for ice or snow. The rain, though. Some days the rain feels endless. It seeps in everywhere, into your bones even. It comes down hard and fast, then eases just a little before the wind brings in more heavy rain. Itâs thick and relentless, every day. Weirdly, I like it. I like the dramatic weather. It feels like the whole coast is getting clean.
I remember the snow, and yeah, it felt like the end and the beginning all at once for me too. I remember how quiet the plains got, even with the wind. It was like a thick blanket had been laid out over everything. It was beautiful. I miss it, sometimes. I miss parts of it.
How are you feeling about Christmas and New Years? Any plans? You and the guys in the home going out on the town?
Flynn appreciated the scratch. I appreciated the email.
The coast getting clean - I like that. It sounds like exactly the right way to think about it.
I hope someone found the box in the basement. Things should get to keep being useful.
Christmas. Iâm going to Dotâs - that was settled at Thanksgiving, her idea, I said yes before Iâd finished thinking about it which seems to be a pattern when Iâm with her. Wayne is already in some kind of pre-Christmas cooking preparation phase that Dot says is both impressive and exhausting. The playlist situation has escalated. Iâve been asked to weigh in and Iâve declined. Iâm staying out of it. This is not my battle.
Mikey is going back to his family in Duluth for the week. Dom is moving out soon. Britt is taking some time off. The house will be quiet for a few days between Christmas and New Year, just me and the overnight staff. I donât mind quiet. Iâve gotten used to quiet.
Itâs been a while since Iâve done Christmas properly. A long while. I donât really know what to expect from it, if Iâm honest. Dot will make it okay. Sheâs good at that, making things okay without making a thing of making them okay. Iâm grateful for that, even if I donât always tell her.
Legally I am not permitted to go out on the town in any capacity. Strict ten pm curfew and regular drug and alcohol testing. Iâve dealt with it fine since May.Â
May is a long time to have dealt with it all fine. Iâm proud that youâve done that.
Esha and Kim are hosting Christmas Eve this year - their place is bigger than mine and Kim cooks so much youâd think twenty people were invited. She fills the whole kitchen with food, and we basically graze on it all night even after the elaborate meal she cooks to go with the snacks. Thereâs a loose group of friends they always invite for these things, some of them I havenât seen for months. Itâll be good. It always is.
After that Iâll be on my own, which is exactly how I like it. I donât fly home for Christmas - my mother is in Ohio now and going back invites questions I donât have good answers for, and Iâd rather not spend the holiday explaining myself or the last few years to people who knew me before. Flynn and I will stay here. Iâve taken some PTO over the holidays, and Iâm looking forward to the time off. Iâll cook something good, drink something good, walk the beach on Christmas morning if the weather holds.Â
Thereâs a real nice quality to the coast at Christmas when thereâs no-one around - the sea doesnât know itâs a holiday, the logs on the shore donât know, Flynn doesnât know or doesnât care. Everything just continues. I find that comforting rather than lonely, which I know sounds strange but I think you might understand it.
New Yearâs Eve Iâll pop into Tom and June Hendersonâs place for an hour - they live nearby and always have people over, itâs warm and easy and I donât have to stay long. New Yearâs Day Kim drags us all out for a walk in the woods, which is non-negotiable and actually very good once youâre out there.
Iâm glad Dot will make your holiday okay. She sounds like someone special.
Happy Christmas, Gator. I hope itâs a good one.
****************
You wake at nine, which is late for you, Flynn already at the bedroom door with the mournful whine of a dog who has decided that nine oâclock is a frankly unreasonable hour and heâs bored of waiting for you.
Your head is making its feelings known. Not badly - youâd had the sense to drink water before bed, which was the right call - but enough that the light through the curtains is doing something unhelpful and you lie still for a moment, taking stock.
Merry Christmas to you.
Kim and Eshaâs last night had been exactly what it was supposed to be - too much food and too much wine and the bright warmth of a room full of people whoâve chosen each other, the fire going, someoneâs mixtape doing its best work. Gabriel had been there, back from Stockholm for the holidays, easy and warm and exactly as heâd always been. Youâd hugged him hello and talked for a while and somewhere in the middle of it youâd noticed - registered, filed, made note of - that there was nothing there. Not absence exactly, just⊠nothing new. He felt like someone youâd known a long time, comfortably, without a hint of a spark left between you. He felt like a friend and nothing more. Youâd noticed that and moved on and had another glass of wine and danced badly in Kimâs kitchen at midnight, which was the right thing to do.
You noticed it again, briefly, walking home.
Youâre noticing it now, and then youâre not, because Flynn is making a sound that means the situation has become urgent.
Alright, you tell him. Alright.
**
The beach is wild.
The wind is coming off the water hard and fast, the kind that gets inside your coat regardless of how well youâve zipped and fastened it, and the waves are enormous - not dangerous, not today, but impressive, the kind of waves that make you feel appropriately small. The logs on the shore are half-buried in sand and stones from the recent storms. Flynnâs usual log is barely visible.
Today, Flynn doesnât care. There are no canine protests today. Flynn is magnificent in this weather, bounding along the waterline with the loose joyful energy of a dog who has decided that wind is just more air and more air is always good. You watch him and feel, despite your sore head and the cold and the spray coming off the waves, something uncomplicated and good.
Happy.
The beach is completely empty. Just you and Flynn and the old logs and the sea, all of you exactly where you should be.
You walk further than usual. The cold is helping, the salt air cleansing, the cobwebs clearing with each gust. By the time you turn back youâre properly awake and your sore head has receded to a distant suggestion and Flynn is running circles around you with the enthusiasm of a dog who has thoroughly enjoyed himself and wants you to know it. He barks like heâs telling you all about it.
Good boy, you tell him. Good Christmas.
**
The shower is long and hot. You stand under it until the bathroom is entirely steam and then you stay a little longer. Then you put on the clothes youâd laid out the night before - the big soft jumper, the oldest pair of sweatpants, the thick socks - and you pad downstairs and feed Flynn and put the kettle on and survey the contents of the fridge.
This is your Christmas. You built it over three years, incrementally, one decision at a time - the walk, the shower, the movies, the food, the simple pleasure of a whole day with nowhere to be and no-one to perform okayness for. You love it. You love every quiet hour of it.
Flynn settles comfortably on the couch beside you, which heâs still not supposed to do, and you donât say anything about it.
**
By lunchtime youâre two movies in and the pastries are gone and Flynn is asleep with his head on your thigh and outside the wind has picked up fiercely, the trees visible through the kitchen window moving in long slow sweeps.
The movie catches your attention again, and you laugh out loud, loud enough that Flynn lifts his head, half awake, before flopping back down to your thigh, and you reach for your phone before youâve consciously decided to.
You stop, and put your phone back down.
You look at the television, where the scene is still playing, and you think to yourself, heâd find that funny. Not a general he. A specific one. Youâd wanted to send him a message, a quick one, the kind youâd send to Kim or Esha without thinking - do you remember this, this bit, listen to this - and the impulse had arrived so naturally that youâd already had the phone in your hand before youâd caught it.
Thatâs not what he is to you, is he?
Flynn shifts in his sleep, his legs twitching, chasing something. You put your hand on him and feel the warmth of his chest rising and falling.
Outside the wind gusts through the trees and the coast roars somewhere below the cliffs and the movie continues, the scene already past, and you think, I could just email him. Not a text - you donât have his number, he doesnât have yours, thatâs not what this is (is it?). But you could email him. Later, perhaps, when youâve thought about what to say. Or you could not - you could just watch the movie, and tell him about it next time you write anyway.
You watch the movie.
Youâre smiling, a little. You notice that too.
****************
New Yearâs Eve he spends alone, which is what he wanted.
Mikey is in Duluth. Domâs somewhere else. Britt is on vacation. The overnight worker - a newer guy named Pete who heâs met twice and likes - does his checks and leaves him to it. The house is the quietest itâs been since May, just the sounds of the street outside, cars and distant music and at some point the sound of people who have decided New Years Eve fireworks are worth standing outside for.
Heâs in bed by ten.
He lies in the dark and listens to the house settle and thinks about nothing in particular, which heâs gotten better at. The year ending. The year that contained May, and the bus route, and the halfway mark, and Joshua, and Dot, and the group, and Marieâs yellow door, and the omelettes, and the emails. All of it fitting into the last seven months of one year, which seems impossible and is nonetheless true.
He doesnât remember much about last New Year, and what he does remember heâd rather not. He knows where he was - Larson Unit, North Dakota, his second facility, the one that had decided early on that Roy Tillmanâs blind son was worth making an example of. He knows what heâd taken to get him through the night, something that cost him more commissary credits than he had and had left him somewhere between sleep and not, and he knows what came after - the door, the hands, the fierceness of the things done to him by men who knew they wouldnât be stopped, and others who let it happen. Heâs learned, with Joshuaâs help, not to follow that particular thread any further than he has to. He takes a long breath, counts to twenty, and comes back to tonight. The quiet house. Pete doing his rounds downstairs. Tomorrow, and Dot picking him up at two. Itâs the end of a very long year.
He doesnât need to see it through to midnight. Heâs asleep before it arrives.
**
Dot picks him up at two pm the next day, which sheâd arranged the week before, the way she does when sheâs decided on something and he doesnât really have a say in the matter. The curfew exemption had required phone calls and paperwork that she hadnât mentioned to him until it was done, which is exactly how Dot operates.Â
You didnât have to do all that, heâd said, when she told him.
I know, sheâd replied with a chuckle. Pack a bag, Iâm bustinâ you out for the night.
The drive to Scandia takes the usual thirty minutes, no detours or diversions today. Dot has something on the radio - not the humming this time, just listening, comfortable in the car with someone else and not needing to fill it. He sits in the passenger seat with his bag at his feet and feels the new year begin through the window he canât see out of, which is a thought he has and then lets go of, the way Joshua has taught him to let go of things that arenât useful.
How was last night? Dot asks him, somewhere on the highway.
Quiet, he says. Good quiet.
Thatâs nice, hon, she says, with a gentle pat on his leg.
Thatâs the end of it.
**
The house smells different in January - woodsmoke and something baked, the dusty heat of the central heating doing battle against the cold coming in from outside. Wayne meets them at the door as usual, with the easy welcome of a man who is genuinely glad to see him arrive, which is one of the things heâs come to understand about Wayne - that the welcome is always real, never faked for his or Dotâs benefit.
Scotty is on the couch with her phone - he hears Dot chastising her for it as heâs hanging up his coat - and the huff of annoyance when Dot takes the phone from her hand and puts it on the table with a thud is as familiar as it is amusing. She reminds him of himself.
Hey Gator, she says.
Hey, Scotty.
Theyâve gotten better at this, the two of them. The subtle calibration of how much space to take up around each other, how much to say and when to say nothing. Sheâs still cautious, still watching, still filing things away with the determined attention of someone who takes people seriously. But the caution has a different aspect now than it did at the first dinner. Itâs not wariness. Itâs just attention.
Wayne has made a casserole, which has been going since morning apparently, the smell of it meeting them at the door alongside the woodsmoke. Dot had told him this in the car with the satisfied tone of someone who knows Wayneâs beef casserole is worth driving thirty minutes for, which it turns out it is.
They eat at the table, the four of them, the new year settling around them. The conversation is easy - Wayneâs fishing plans for spring, Scottyâs band resuming practice next week, the incompetence of their bassist which Scotty describes with the exasperation of a girl who is fully baffled by the situation. Dot tells them about a book sheâs been reading, the latest from the local book group she joined in the summer. He listens and contributes when he has something to contribute, which is more often than it used to be.
Theyâre talking about pets - Scotty wants to get a cat, which Wayne is open to but Dot is more cautious about, something about shedding and litter boxes giving her the dry heaves.
At some point, semi-related, he says, ââŠmy friend has a dog. A German Shepherd. The dog does therapy work - visits care homes, that kind of thing.â
Heâs smiling before heâs finished the sentence. He can feel it arriving on his face without his permission, the gentle joy of it, and he lets it stay because by the time heâs noticed it itâs already there and thereâs not much to be done.
He hears Dot make a sound - not quite a gasp, something in the region of one - and then the small deliberate click of her teeth hitting her glass as she drinks.
Wayne says nothing. He chews on his casserole, deliberately, and Gatorâs sure he hears Dot kick out at his leg under the table.
âWait, hold on -â Scotty, out of the blue, her fork tapping the edge of her plate idly.
He turns his head towards her voice, hoping for the best.
â- you have a friend?â
She sounds even more bemused than when she was talking about her wayward bassist.
âYeah,â he tells her, with more nonchalance than he thought he was capable of. He feels a younger version of himself smirk, somewhere deep inside.
âLike an actual friend? That you talk to regularly?â
âEvery week or so, yeah.â
He can almost hear the cogs in her mind turning.
âWhat kind of friend?â she asks him, eventually. âLike - is this a blind friend or a crime friend?â
Dot makes another sound, less ambiguous than the first. âScotty Lyon, thatâs - that is enough -â
âWhat? Itâs a reasonable question. Itâs not like Gatorâs got that many options -â
He hears both Dot and Wayne erupt, in their own quiet way, trying to shut down any more insensitive remarks and thatâs quite enough Scotty and you canât just ask someone if their friend is blind or a criminal - thatâs not how things work!
He sits with it for a moment, then bursts out laughing, loud and loose with it. The table around him falls suddenly quiet, their familial bickering forgotten. He can feel all three of them - Dot with her wine glass, Wayne with whatever expression Wayne is wearing, and Scotty, indignant and prepared to wait for his answer - turning to look at him.
âNeither,â he says once the laughter has settled. âSheâs just a friend.â
âShe.â Of course Scotty picked up on that.
âYeah. She.â
âYour friend with a dog. Whatâs the dogâs name?â
Someoneâs fork scrapes on a plate.
âFlynn. Heâs a German Shepherd.â
He hears her repeat the name under her breath, trying it out. âThatâs a good name.â
He smiles again, deliberately this time. âYeah, thatâs what I said too.â
He hears her go back to her food. He hears Dot set her wine glass down with great care. Wayne says something about the casserole that nobody quite responds to, which Wayne accepts with his usual equanimity.
The dinner continues, and New Yearâs Day continues with it. And he sits at the table in the warm house in Scandia and thinks about a German Shepherd on a Pacific Northwest beach and a woman who told him the coast gets clean in the rain, and he lets himself smile about it because Scotty has already seen it and thereâs no point pretending otherwise.
**
Dot shows him to the guest room later, long after dinner.
The room has been prepared - he can tell from the freshness of the air, the slight lavender hint to it, the way the space is clear around the bed, the nightstand accessible, his phone charger already in place within easy reach. Dot would have thought about all of this. Dot would have moved the furniture slightly, checked the route from door to bed to bathroom, done it quietly without making it a big deal. Thatâs who she is.
He doesnât say anything about it. Saying anything would make it a thing, but he squeezes her hand once, then twice, and she says his name, just his name, before she goes.
She leaves him to get comfortable, and he finds the edge of the bed. The sheets are crisp and slightly cool the way guest room sheets always are, and the house settles around him - Wayneâs television playing low somewhere downstairs, Scottyâs music through the wall, the January snow coming down hard against the windows.
He gets changed, slips into bed, pulls the thick quilt up to his ears and thinks, this is a good place to be.
Happy New Year. I hope the house was okay on New Yearâs Eve - I thought about you, when the fireworks started going off along the coast. Flynn was unimpressed by the noise and spent the evening sitting on my feet, which I appreciated. How was dinner with Dot and her family? Any more music fights or has that all calmed down? The more you talk about Scotty, the more I like her. I think teenage me would have wanted to be friends with her.
I went for my usual long walk with the group on Saturday morning. The forest was quiet - it usually is in January, most of the day-trippers are gone and itâs just the regulars, moving through the trees in the cold and the wet. It was good. Itâs always good. I looked like someone had turned a hose against me when I got back to the car, and Flynn didnât look much better, but the wet was worth it.
I was talking to someone, on the walk. She said something thatâs been sitting with me since - the details arenât important, itâd take too much typing to explain and itâs too cold to type that much today. But Iâd been talking about our emails, about who you are now and a little about what happened, and she asked me something I couldnât answer.
So Iâll ask you instead, since you were there too.
Was any of it real? The outpost. Your apartment. That winter. Was any of it real, or was it just⊠circumstance? Two people stuck somewhere, in a shitty situation, making the best of it.
Iâve been wondering about that for a long time. I think I need to know.
The part where I. The diner. What happened there. That wasnât real in the same way. It was a thing I had to do to get you out of something that would have been bad. Worse. And I know it was bad enough already. I know that, I do. I told you I was sorry for it and I meant it. But it was real, the outpost. The walk. And my place and everything before that. All of it.
It.Â
It was the realest thing Iâd ever had and it fucking terrified me.
I was in no position to be starting anything with anyone. You know some of what my life was then, maybe not all of it, but you probably know enough or can guess. And I knew that. I knew what it would mean for you to be anywhere near me or any of it and I let it happen anyway because I wanted it. Wanted you. Thatâs on me. I was selfish and I let it happen and then I had to end it the way I did because it was the only way I knew how to get you clear of what was coming.
I know thatâs not an excuse. Iâm not offering it as one. You asked me a question and Iâm answering it.
It was real.Â
And Iâm glad you asked.
Gator.
****************
The email alert pings on his phone the next morning, when heâs sitting at the table with Mikey and Britt, listening to them bicker about the way she makes the coffee.
He holds the phone to his ear, and listens as the software reads it out to him.
Thatâs all I needed to hear.
And then - a string of digits.
Iâve made you use that speech to text software for too long. You can call, or send a voicenote, or text, or whatever.
He pushes his chair back from the table, ignoring Brittâs complaints when it scrapes harshly against the tiled floor. He finds the wall, then the open arch that leads to the hallway, then the bannister, then the stairs. Then his room. He listens to the email again, and again, making absolutely sure sheâs given him what he thinks she has.
Her phone number.
He tells the phone to save it as a new contact.
**
He saves her contact as apt3b, not quite trusting himself to add her full name to it yet.
He doesnât tell anyone.
Not Mikey, who is now echoing Brittâs complaints about the chair scrape when he comes back downstairs, and who doesnât notice anything different in him because there isnât anything different to notice, not on the outside. Not Britt, who makes a fresh pot of coffee with great pointed emphasis and slides a mug in his direction, almost goading him into complaining about it.
He doesnât. Not today. (He finds Brittâs coffee to be better than Gregâs, but thatâs no big compliment).Â
He doesnât tell Dot, who calls on Sunday evening to ask how heâs doing and gets the same answer she usually gets - fine, good, yeah Iâm eating properly - and who he can hear deciding not to push for anything more, which is the thing about Dot, she always knows when not to push, and heâs grateful for it in a way he couldnât have articulated six months ago.
He holds her number - the olive branch of it - like heâs shielding a spark from the wind.
Thatâs the only way he can describe it, even to himself. Something small and certain, cupped in his hands, kept out of the weather. Not fragile exactly - he doesnât think itâs fragile - but it is private. His. The decision already made, sitting quietly in him, waiting for the right moment the way heâs learned to wait for things since May. Not anxiously. Just knowing itâs coming, and being okay with that, and letting the days be what the days are in the meantime.
Monday is quiet, and Tuesday is a full day.
The bus, the halfway mark arriving in the January dark because the days are still short, the icy cold of a Minnesota Tuesday in the second week of January. The group - Marie describing what she heard that morning, the sound of her street, the rhythm of it, less and less of what she might have seen - and him sitting with that the way he always sits with it, present and careful and not naming what he notices. Another kitchen session with Michael, something with fish this time, the smell of it not pleasant but he keeps it to himself. Joshua at four, the session running its usual course, him answering everything honestly except the one thing sitting quietly in his chest, which Joshua probably notices and doesnât push on, because Joshua also knows when not to push.
He gets home at six. Mikey is watching something loud in the common room, the smell of whatever he and Britt made for dinner is lingering in the kitchen. He makes a plate of the leftovers and eats it at the table and washes up after, the ordinary end of an ordinary Tuesday, and then he goes upstairs.
Greg comes on duty later and sticks his head around the door at eight, the way he always does at the start of his shift. âDoinâ alright Gator?â
âUh huh,â he says, fingers paused over the Braille book heâs been chipping away at for weeks. âGood day.â
âNice,â Greg says, with a rap of his knuckles on the doorframe. âIâll leave you to it.â
The door closes. The house settles. Downstairs the common room television is a low murmur through the floor, and outside the street is quieter, and his room is his room, the desk and the chair and the laptop and the phone on the nightstand where he left it when he picked up the book.
He sits on the edge of the bed.
He picks up the phone.
He tells the phone to open her details - apt3b, sitting there, the number underneath it - and he holds the phone for a moment, just feeling the weight of it, and the Tuesday evening quiet of the house around him.
Before he can think better of it, he tells the phone to make the call.
It rings once. He sits very still on the edge of the bed, both feet flat on the floor, his free hand pressed against his thigh. It rings again. He becomes aware that heâs holding his breath and makes himself stop doing that. It rings a third time and he thinks, sheâs not going to -
Hello?
The word lands in the quiet room like something physical. Her voice, real and present and coming through the phone in his hand. He knows this voice. Heâs been carrying this voice for six years without knowing thatâs what he was doing.
âHi, uh. Hey. Itâs me. Gator.â
He hears her take a breath, sharp and involuntary. Then she swallows.
Gator. Itâs really you. GodâŠ
Something happens in his chest. Not the breakdown of Dotâs kitchen, not the shaking - something quieter than that, something that arrives without drama and sits down and stays. He presses his free hand harder against his thigh, his fingers digging into the denim of his jeans.
Thereâs a long moment of quiet, where he just listens to her breathe down the line and knows that sheâs doing the same. The house is settled around him - the television a murmur through the floor, cars moving along the January street outside - and none of it matters, none of it is the point, the point is her breathing in his ear and him breathing in hers and the six years between this call and the last time they were in the same space together folding into something smaller than he expected.
I wasnât sure youâd call, she says. I thought maybe calling would be⊠I donât know. I guess I just wasnât sure youâd use my number. I was going to email you tonight actually, but⊠She trails off. He hears her swallow again. Iâm rambling. Sorry.
âJesus,â he says, and his voice comes out rougher than he intended, rougher than he was prepared for. âYou sound just like I remembered.â
The silence that follows has a different colour to the one before. Warmer, somehow. Fuller.
She smiles. He can hear it in the way her breath changes, the slight shift in the silence on her end, Flynn moving somewhere in the background of wherever she is.
Yeah, she says. So do you.
He stays on the edge of the bed for a long time after the call ends, both feet still flat on the floor, the phone warm in his hand.
He asks HAL for the call duration. Twenty-three minutes and forty-two seconds. If anyone asked him what theyâd talked about on the call, heâs not sure he could give a clear answer, but he knows it felt like they spoke for less time and somehow also much more time than twenty-three minutes and forty-two seconds.
I lost the whole afternoon to BG3, oops, and I got nowhere because I spent forever downloading mods and creating a new character. And when I play again later Iâll probably start again because Iâm not sure about the class I chose. Any fave classes for a Mephistopheles Tiefling?
Now I need to fill the car and go to the recycling centre, then come home and pack for my holiday, then eat and watch some football and thank my lucky stars that Good Things Are Happening. âš
pairing: gator tillman/f!reader
wc: 4.4k
tags/tw/cw: roy is a big meanie
MASTERPOST//all chapter links
&&
Chapter 12: Plans in Motion
âYou wanna tell me what happened, son?â Roy asked, seated at the breakfast table, the full ranch staff, Bowman, the twins, and Karen all present. All listening, all watching, except for you. Roy had made the decision to leave you in the carriage house for the morningâbecause Bowman had been waiting in the kitchen first thing, intercepting Karen as sheâd been ready to head out to collect you.
Karen had gone for Roy, who had come down, bare-chested and scowling, while Bowman explained in a calm, cool voice what had occurred last night in the barn.
Roy had listened, standing at the bottom of the stairs, one foot still on the lowest step, one hand on the newel post. He kept his expression straight, stoic, brow furrowed.
âAnd where is she now?â Roy asked.
âCarriage house,â Bowman said simply. âGrabbed her, threw her back in there. Locked her in. Stood watch for an hour or so, then roused Phillip ând had him watch. No movement from her since I heard her go upstairs.â
Roy nodded. He lifted his chin and studied the ceiling, eyes moving over the white expanse of it. âLeave her there for now, K,â Roy said, looking to Karen, who only nodded. âGet breakfast together.â He looked to Bowman. âGet one of the other girls in there to help her out.â Bowman nodded once, then turned on his heel and left to go collect one of the handsâ women. Roy looked at his wife again, once they were alone. âYou think Iâm making a mistake?â
âNo,â Karen said, hurriedly, stepping closer. She reached out tentatively toward Roy, touching him only when he didnât draw away. âOf course not.â
Roy let her skim her hands over his chest, his sides. âSo you think putting Gator in charge of taking care of her is working out. Is that right?â
Karen blinked, realizing the trap that he'd lain. âNo, Iââ
âGet breakfast ready,â Roy said, brushing her hands off of him as he turned and started back up the stairs. Karen waited a moment, then shuffled into the kitchen, waiting for whatever assistance Bowman was finding for her.
Upstairs in the main house, Roy went about his morningâshowering, shaving, brushing his teeth and dressing for duty, and as he cut out of his bedroom, he took in the second floor landing. His sonâs bedroom door was open now, neon blue light still spilling out of it even in the morning sun, and so he took a step inside his sonâs room to wait for him to emerge from the bathroom.
Roy hadn't been in Gatorâs room in a whileâyears, probably. He never had a reason to, never wanted to. Gator was about as deep as a puddleâthere was nothing hidden in this room that could offer any further insight into his sonâs psyche that he couldnât glean from a thirty second conversation with him. He was barely more than a disappointmentâthe kid couldnât do anything right, which Roy had learned from watching Gator try to locate his wife. Nadine.
This new skirt Roy foundâwell, was gifted from Above, more likeâwould be like something more of a trial run if the goddamn kid could get his act together.
The bedroom wasnât nearly as disorganized as Roy assumed it would beâthere were tacky posters on the wall of women in bikinis and a questionable flag hanging above his bed, one that Roy couldnât quite accept being there. But thenâRoy wouldnât expect Gator to understand the intricacies of his ambitions as sheriff and would, of course, liken them to a political statement like that goddamn flag. The Tillmansâ position of power in Stark County was so much more than either symbol hanging on his sonâs wall.
Royâs eyes skimmed over the unmade bed, the clutter on the dresser, the ten-gallon tank in the corner holding a greensnake that heâs sure the kid fished out of some scummy pond somewhere. Like a child would. Shaking his head, Roy closed his eyes, rubbing his face with his whole palm, because even if Karen wouldnât tell him to his face, he knewâhe had made a mistake. With Gator, with you, with everything he was trying to do on his ranch.
The bathroom door opened, and Roy set his jaw, slipping his hands into his pockets even as the smell of breakfast started drifting up from the kitchen downstairs. A minute, maybe two, passed, and then Gator strolled back into his room, clutching a towel around his waist, casual as anything. He rounded the door, reached out of habit for the closet doorhandle, then caught sight of Roy and startled, a quiet yelp leaving him.
Quickly, he cleared his throat, skimmed a hand back over his hair, loose and falling down over his forehead, and shook his head. âFuck are youâwhatâs wrong?â
Roy said nothing, only held Gatorâs gaze.
âDad?â Gator looked his father over from head to toe, pulling the towel tighter around his hips.
âI need you to think, kid,â Roy said, not moving other than to turn his face more toward Gator. âBack to last night. Why donât you run me through your evening after dinner.â
Gator swallowed, curling his fist around the terrycloth in his hand. âI donâtâwhat d'ya mean?â
âThink back real hard,â Roy said, his voice cold, a steel edge grating against Gator. âWe had dinner like a family. Had a nice drink. Your little miss thought who she was for a moment.â Gator opened his mouth, but Roy lifted a hand, silencing him. âYou walked her home. You walked yourself home. Am I missing anything?â
Gator lifted his free hand to muss the hair at the back of his head. âNo?â
âNo,â Roy repeated. âYouâre right. I donât think I am.â He took a step closer to Gator, who flinched away as his father approached, pressing his bare back to his closet doors under the guise of giving him space when he really wanted to put distance between them. âI want you to think. Real hard. About everything I just said. And you tell me if either of us missed anything last night.â
Gator just looked at his father, then nodded, once, uncertain but not about to argue.
âGood,â Roy said, reaching up to clap a hand onto Gatorâs cheek, not quite a slap, but not quite a friendly gesture either; it felt like a warning. âDonât take too long. Need ya down there for grace.â
Roy vacated Gatorâs room, and Gator loosed the breath heâd been holding, inhaling deeply. Something had happened last night, something involving you, something heâd fucked up. His eyes skimmed around the room like it might hold answers. He went through what Roy said. Dinner. Drink. You. Carriage house. Back home.
Dinner. Drink. You. Carriage house. Back home.
He shook his head, taking a step back and closing his bedroom door, pulling clothing out of his closet and dresser, stepping into boxers and camo pants and tugging on a thermal henley.
Dinner, drink, you, carriage house, back home. He slicked his hair back with pomade as he wracked his brain. What the hell had he fucked up in between all of that? It was simpleâit was what he did every night since theyâd put you in there for the most part.
He looped his fingers into his boots, picking them up, then crossing to grab his tactical vest and sunglasses, making sure his vape was tucked into his pants pocket too.
Dinner, that was normal.
Drink, that had been when youâd first copped the attitude, but still, normal.
You, he knew what Roy was talking about. You were asking questions after youâd been told not to, and Gator knew it was only a matter of time before he would be expected to⊠remove that impulse from you.
Carriage house, heâd walked you home. Youâd slammed the door before he could retort, and heâd left you fucking alone.
Back home, heâd gotten a call from Lemley, vaped, went inside, went to bed.
Dinner, drink, you, carriage house, back home.
Gator finished dressing himself, carrying his boots and vest downstairs, leaving them by the front door before he doubled back to the kitchen. Every pair of eyes in the room turned toward him, faces all frowning except for the twins, who waved at him, Maude while holding her fork. Karen plucked it out of her hand and put it down beside her empty plate.
Shuffling into the kitchen, Gator took his place at Royâs right hand, leaving an empty seat between himself and Bowman, where you usually sat. He glanced at it as he lowered into the chair, and without a word, Roy lifted his hands, extending them palm up, toward Gator and Karen. They each took his hands, and the rest of the table joined hands as well as Roy led them in prayer. Gator bowed his head, but he kept his eyes on your empty chair, your space occupied by his hand joined with Bowman, and as he did, his stomach fell into a pit.
Dinner, normal.
Drink, normal.
You, normal (as far as you went).
Back home, normal.
But: Carriage house. He hadnât locked the door behind you. Youâd snapped at him, thrown him off, slammed the door and disappeared into the house, and Gator had just walked away, the keys staying in his pocket.
Fucking Christ.
Keeping his head down, he flicked his eyes over to Roy, who was still speaking, eyes closed. Gatorâs fingers twitched in his hand, nervous. Heâd left your door unlocked, which could mean any number of things.Â
Maybe youâd tried to run and gotten caught. Maybe you were laying in the carriage house right now, black and blue, beaten, dazed, unconscious.
Maybe youâd tried to run and werenât caught. Maybe youâd been found somewhere out on the property, half dead. Or actually dead.
Maybe youâd tried to run and got away. Maybe they hadnât found you. Maybe you were gone.
By the time Gator looked up, Roy was staring at him and Karen was spooning eggs and potatoes onto his plate. She moved onto Gatorâs plate next.
âBeen thinkinâ?â Roy asked, and Gator nodded.
Behind him, the ranch hands, their wives, and Bowman started serving themselves.
âYou wanna tell me what happened, son?â Roy asked.
Gator took a breath, cleared his throat. âI don't...â he began, but trailed off. He huffed an unamused laugh, leaning in toward Roy and gesturing to the rest of the table's occupants, some of whom were looking on, some of whom were just digging in to their plates. âWe really need ta do this in front'a all them?â
Roy turned toward him, shifting his weight in his chair so it creaked beneath him a little, placing his left hand on his hip and his right elbow on the table, leaning toward Gator. Gator's nostrils flared as he exhaled, but he held himself where he was, not giving an inch, not wanting to concede.
âI think we do, son,â Roy said, matching Gator's quiet tone. âHow else will you set the bar?â
âIââ Gator said, then just exhaled and straightened up.
Roy kept his eyes on Gator, waiting. When he didn't speak, Roy continued, keeping his voice low, still. âIf you want to act like a child, I'll keep you at this table until you open your damn mouth.â
âFergot t'lock the door,â Gator said, and it was clear that only Bowman and Karen knew what he was really talking about, in context.
âWhich door?â Roy asked, and when he spoke, the ranch hands and the other women at the table turned to look.
Gator knew what his father was doingâgoing for humiliation as a lesson to never forget to lock the door again, but he was pretty sure that the early morning visit to his bedroom would have been enough to shock him into double and triple checking that that goddamn door was locked from that point forward.
âThe carriage house door,â Gator said.
Roy hummed, then shifted his gaze from Gator to Bowman.
âWanna fill everyone in?â he asked, inviting Bowman to speak.
âI found her in the barn,â Bowman said. âToward the back.â He shook his head dismissively. âGrabbed her, threw her back in there. Ain't made a peep since.â He looked at Phillip, who nodded.
âYeah, it was quiet all night, sir,â he said, looking from Bowman to Roy, nodding again.
âI want it to be clear,â Roy said, purposely not looking at Gator, though it was obvious that this was for him; Gator kept his eyes fixed on his untouched breakfast, âanything that interferes with her routine, anything that causes bumps or snags, anything that risks her presence on this ranch, is going to be taken care of. She's here to stay and through the grace of God we're fortunate enough to let her help make a home out of the carriage house.â Roy scanned the table, taking in Gator's head bowed in shame, though he kept his satisfaction at that tamped down. âThings are in the works. Things are changing. But in time we'll all reap the benefits. Including you, kid.â
Roy placed his hand on Gator's wrist, not squeezing it, not grabbing it, like he'd done the last time they'd touched, to snap some sense into him. Just... holding it for a moment.
âGet down to the station,â he said. âY'got some work waiting for you on my desk.â He surveyed the rest of the table, the hands and their wives all watching, meals half-eaten. The twins were slapping at each other and Karen was trying in vain to get them to stop. âEat,â Roy said, breaking into a smile and trying to ease the tension. âBy all means, have your breakfast. Business over.â
Everyone only resumed their meals when Roy picked up his fork and knife.
&&
The morning came and went and you spent it with Aidy. Your ribs hurt from when you'd fallen to the floor the night before, but you were just thankful you hadn't hit your head. Unless you were about to be taken out and executed, you'd started to wonder if you might not see another beating from this. You'd been found on the property after allânot really trying to run. At least, not that they could prove.
You were running out of milk for her, and you'd have to try and get some more from the barn the next time that they let you muck the stallsâif they let you. But why wouldn't they? You were under constant surveillance before your attempted escape too, so what was really different?
The clock was showing 9:07 when you heard the click of the key sliding into the lock, and you made a mad dash upstairs to stow Aidy away in the smaller bedroom. By the time you emerged again, onto the upstairs landing, Bowman was standing in the living room, looking up at you, a frown affixed to his face. You waited; he waited. But you broke first, descending the steps.
He was holding a plate covered in plastic wrap, eggs and toast with two orange slices. You looked at the plate, then up at him.
âStarting the renovations soon,â Bowman said. âNeed you out of the house.â
You tried to keep the panic from showing on your face. âFor how long?â
âDay, roughly,â he replied. âYou'll be back in the main house with the family for tonight.â He held out the plate toward you, and you took it. It was cold, and so was the food. âShouldn't take that long. Just fixing the downstairs bathroom and taking care of the vermin upstairs. You do anything about those spiders?â
You blinked. âNo. I don'tâlike bugs.â You couldn't be sure but you thought, maybe, a smirk tugged at the corner of Bowman's lips.
âWhich rooms needed attention?â he asked.
âUm,â you intoned. âDownstairs bathroom. Upstairs bathroom has the spiders. Smaller bedroom has the mouse. I... didn't go anywhere else up there. Kitchen, living room, and mudroom are all fine. I think the...master bedroom too.â
âAll right. Eat that, then head out to the barn. Horse stalls for you today.â He turned toward the door, but stopped when he reached it, looking back at you, because you spoke again.
âWait,â you'd called.
Bowman quirked an eyebrow, like he was doing you a huge favor by listening to your request.
âWhen areâwhen are you guys starting this stuff? Do I really even need toâto leave if it's just the one bathroom being fixed up?â
âStarting today,â Bowman said. âAnd I didn't make that call. Orders from above.â He paused. âLeave anything you'll need tonight on the couch. It'll be brought over.â He looked you up and down. âBarn, then main house after work. Think you can find your way?â
It wasn't even really a threat, but you knew it was a comment on what you'd done last night. Despite that, you couldn't believe your luckâyou were going back into the barn, where you knew the cat was, sometimes, at least. You could steal more food for Aidy, then look around for where to put her. Maybe the cat had a nest or den or something tucked into an alcove by the cabinet where you'd seen it the night beforeâanything that could help you make sure Aidy was taken care of after you left this fucking place would be what you were looking for.
The eggs were spongy and the toast was soggy by the time you got to it, but at least the oranges were fresh and tart, the perfect chaser to an otherwise mediocre breakfast. You chugged some water from the kitchen tap, then headed upstairs to make sure you were bundled up enough to be outdoors for an extended period of time. After you pulled your coat out of the closet, you looked down at Aidy, still on the bed. She was still too small to walkâher eyes weren't even open yetâand you had to decide what to do with her. Leave her here, hide her, bring her with you? It was just one day. It was one whole, long day. You could keep her on your person and hope not to be caught with her, or you could leave her here and hope that she was still fine tomorrow when you returned. As much as you hated both options, that one seemed less risky for both you and Aidy. But you weren't leaving her up here, where workers or Bowman or maybe even Roy would be strolling around. You took her in the crook of your arm and carried her downstairs. You'd fed her earlier, but you gave her even more to try and hold her over before carrying her into the mudroom, where the heat was always cranked up due to its door leading outside, and settled her down there. It pained you to leave herâyou felt like a villain just doing itâbut pet her on her tiny little forehead and whispered that you'd be back as soon as you could. She was purring in your hands, even as you set her down, hoping she'd stay hidden and safe.
Once she was tucked away, out of sight but nowhere near out of mind, you made your way out of the house and walked to the barn.
Most of the horses were gone today, again, except for a couple at the far end near the cabinet, which could potentially give you an excuse for lingering around over there while you looked for the barn cat's hideout. You began your work, startling only once as Bowman popped in, appearing in your periphery so silently that you wouldn't have been surprised if he'd just materialized there in a blink. Just as quickly, he'd left, like he wanted to make sure you were at work. Taking the chance, knowing it was a risk, you hurried to the cabinet and, with a glance over your shoulder, pulled the metal door open, crouched down, and this time took two containers of the milk supplement, tucking them into the back of your coveralls. Then, after straightening up and hesitating for a moment, you kicked them over so they toppled, hoping that the jumble on the bottom-most shelf would keep anyone who viewed them later on from counting them and noticing any were missing.
With the milk supplement tucked safely away, snug against the small of your back, you just had to worry about being caught with it on your person, but that wouldn't be for a while at least. As you mucked out the stalls, still looking for signs of the cat, you started to feel more and more anxious about the rigid edges of the packages cutting into your back, and so you finished one side of the barn and crossed to the door. Bowman wasn't there, but Phillip was, looking spectacularly bored. When your head appeared out of the doors, he startled, then squinted at you.
âUhâwhat?â he said, and you weren't sure if he was trying to sound intimidating or not, because he definitely didn't.
âI have to go to the bathroom,â you said, looking past him at the carriage house.
Phillip looked as though he wasn't sure what to say to thatâhe'd surely been told to keep watch for you, without further instruction for if you approached him or if something went wrong.
âPlease?â you continued, trying to appeal to him, and he just cleared his throat. He, too, looked around for Bowman, but when it was clear that he wasn't around, Phillip just nodded to you.
âAll right, main house,â he said, reaching for your armâhe'd probably been told to keep physical contact with you too, just in case you tried to make a break for it.
âNo, um,â you said, thinking on your feet. âI need to use my bathroom.â
Phillip frowned, and you started bouncing on your feet a little, feigning a serious urge.
âIt's an emergency. I won't make it to the main house.â You bounced a little faster.
âWellâthey're doin' work in there,â Phillip said, gesturingâsure enough, as you watched, you saw the front door open and the old downstairs bathroom sink being carried out by a worker you didn't recognize.
âThere's an upstairs bathroom,â you said. You reached for his arm, imploring him. He didn't look much older than you, was definitely younger than Gator. Then, without waiting for permission, you just took off, hurrying toward the carriage house with Phillip in tow.
You reached the door just as it opened, another worker you didn't know stepping onto the step, stopping when he saw you right there.
âSorry, I gotta go,â you said, pushing past him. You made a break for the stairs, rushing past another man you recognized this time as another one of the hands, and slammed the upstairs bathroom door behind you. The spiders were gone from the corner, and it seemed like there was no one else up here, after the one guy had been heading down. Unless there was work to be done in the main bedroomâwhich you hadn't noticed when you'd peeked in thereâyou might have the upstairs to yourself.
You checked the door lockâit was on the outside of the door, but you trusted that Phillip would explain your urgency and that would buy you a few minutesâand then pulled the sealed containers out of your overalls. The medicine chest was too riskyâtoo easy to open. You crouched and checked beneath the sink, but it was empty of anything else, nothing to hide the milk behind until you could retrieve it. The linen closet was in the hall, not the bathroom. You took a deep breath, composing yourself after your mad dash, and forced yourself to think.
Think.
Then, you turned, lifted the lid off the toilet tank, and placed the kitten milk inside it, replacing the lid. Confident that you'd be able to retrieve it later, hoping like hell that it stayed sealed and uncontaminated with water, you went pee and flushed the toilet for good measure, so they would buy your story at least.
When you emerged, the upstairs landing was deserted, and as you came downstairs, you saw that the men were concentrated in the bathroom, which they seemed to be gutting. You weren't sure why you needed to be brought to the main house for just one room, but you also knew that nothing Roy Tillman ever decided would make sense to you.
Just as the thought crossed your mind, just as you stepped off the lowest step of the staircase, the front door opened again and in walked the man himself, Roy, gaze fixed on you like the bead of a rifle.
âYou just love bein' places you're not supposed to be, don't you, little miss?â
âIâhad to use the bathroom,â you said, as Phillip stepped into the house behind him, and you would have felt betrayed if youâd thought that anyone here might give half a fuck about you. As it was, you figured that was just par for the course.
âMain house too far?â Roy asked.
You took a breath. âIt was an emergency.â
Roy held your gaze, then smirked, like he was actually amused. âGood thing you made it.â
You stayed silent.
âDid you finish in the barn?â
You swallowed, then shook your head. âNot yet.â
Roy turned, glanced at Phillip, who retreated out of the house as Roy stepped to the side, holding the door open for you. He made a sweeping gesture with his arm, inviting you to step past him and back outside, but still you hesitated, because you wanted nothing more than to stay out of his reach. But that wasnât an option. You crossed to the door, giving Roy as wide a berth as you could, but he still leaned in to you, crowding you, keeping you from stepping out the door by taking up the space himself. You were trapped right between him and the doorjamb.
âIf you get any more bright ideas like you did last night, you wonât want to know whatâs in store for you,â he said.
Swallowing nervously, you looked up at him, meeting his eyes, the cold, dead blue of them burning you like dry ice.
âGet,â Roy said, stepping back, and you hurried past him, past Phillip, making your way to the barn.
