Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines And the junkyards and the highways come between us And some other woman's cryin' to her mother 'Cause she turned and I was gone I still might run in silence, tears of joy might stain my face And the summer sun might burn me 'til I'm blind But not to where I cannot see you Walkin' on the back roads, by the rivers flowing gentle on my mind
Yay character relationship deepdive i love these, except this time we got a pretty complex one on our (er, my) hands.
Bare in mind humanverse is a little different/more politcally charged than Smurfverse so just a little warning for complex inner turmoil and small town prejudice. With that being said lets get to it
Wooly wasn't exactly raised in an educated town, so he didn't have access to a lot of terms for 'others' as his father would have called them. His parent's relationship was far from the ideal model of romance and he knew that even as a child. Sheriff didn't go out of his way to set a good example at all, and frankly so long as his son married a good white Christian girl he'd have considered his parenting a success. He certainly tried introducing Wooly to nice church girls at a young age and this was perhaps Wooly's first indication of 'hm ok they're pretty ig' and not much else. He didn't take the initiative to court any which caused suspicion from his father but he was like 'dad I'm 10' and that got rid of the issue for now. It was true that some of his friends had puppy love crushes back then but Wooly would often lie about having them too and just pick the most conventionally attractive girls in town to claim he liked because he thought that's how it worked.
This continued well into his teens until at 16 it finally happened. The sister of one of the Mexican ranch hands he worked with; Camila Martinez, his first actual crush. He knew his father would hate her and truthfully that spurred him on slightly but also he did genuinley enjoy her company and found her pretty. He felt some sort of relief that at least he was 'normal' as his peers would put it and could show that off now. A couple years go by and Wooly and Camila are just kinda drifting. You know, typical teen stuff. She was ready to settle down and start a family already and Wooly was. Not. He didn't really know why, he would have even stood up to his dad over her but between his mom leaving a while back and his own insecurities about the idea of having kids he kept trying to change the subject. Eventually they just kinda drifted apart. Such is life, Camila was engaged 6 months later to another ranch hand. Huh.
Wooly is a little baffled and ends up discussing everything with her brother Alejandro, his original friend. His venting gets a little heated but it's ok it's 11pm and dark and there's no one on the ranch at this point and the next thing he knows he's … kissing him? Weird. Same sex attraction was never discussed around town and absolutely forbidden to be discussed in anything but a negative light at his home and if Sherrif knew he'd have tossed his own son out onto the streets. So of course Wooly carries on. Truthfully he doesn't crush on Alejandro like he did his sister but they do keep up the relationship, hiding it from the entire town and Wooly realises even if he doesn't necessarily LIKE Alejandro he's certainly not opposed to men on the whole. Alejandro in the meantime realises he's very much gay and wants to challenge the small town notions of this by coming out publicly. Wooly panics and breaks off the relationship because he does NOT but promises to protect his friend. A few months later, Wooly runs from his hometown and doesn't look back.
On the road in between cities Wooly pretty much remains a lonesome cowboy and is .. MOSTLY ok with that. He thought being out from under his father's tumb might magically give him insight on who he is but it doesn't really happen. He does learn a couple lgbt+ terms and since he knows he liked both men and women figures he's probably bi, but even then he still just … struggles to make connections. He knows it's probably not normal to have one single crush his entire 18+ years of life but no matter how many more people he meets he only MAYBE feels a spark for one or two others, compared to the way his peers have always had lists of people they liked or how casual dating seems to be a thing in certain scenes. He doesn't NEED a connection to fancy people, he's seen attractive strangers on the street and felt a little flutter, but he stills feels like it's not 'enough'. Sheriff, for all his horrific parenting, was still Wooly's only father figure and left a bad impression on the way he insisted men should constantly have certain thoughts and Wooly just didn't. Maybe sometimes he did, but not in the way he felt his friends had it near-constantly on their minds. But again he was on the run he didn't think too much about it.
Eventually Wooly travels to Europe to set up a new town with a Mr.Smurf. A few years later, he meets an English man named Tracker Foster. A bit younger than him but not obscenely so, and they eventually realise they both had sucky parents and bonded over that trauma. Eventually Tracker began dropping hints he liked Wooly and Wooly … surprisingly liked him back. Not intensely, more of a dull acknowledgment that there was romantic chemistry. And since Tracker was the first man Wooly had OPENLY dated he tried to make the most of it. Wooly once again encounters the inner voice of 'ok so I AM bi but this still isn't the whirlwind of emotions I expect' and after a while he breaks it off because he starts to feel bad he can't return Tracker's intensity.
From that point on Wooly prettyyy much stayed single. He still occasionally experienced the very rare bout of longing for something less lonely but he was content to sneaking off to the next couple of towns over and being back by morning. It was still kind of a lonely existance though, and truthfully Wooly didn't LIKE being totally alone it sucked. He also knew the chances of him genuinely finding and maintaining feelings for someone were low.
He discovered something important from Lazy of all people. Someone Wooly had considered a good-fer-nuthin-layabout truth be told. And yet he overhears Lazy discussing his biromantic greysexual orientation with another Smurf. Well that's a new one. Wooly starts to research. The more he researches the more he goes 'just like me fr'. Lazy's romantic orientation was more consistent than Wooly's so Wooly starts to consider himself a bi grey-rom grey-ace and for the first time clarity hits him like a ton of bricks. It's not the macho heterosexual man that his father expected and he doesn't care. He now feels like his head is cleared for the first time in a long, long time, and he gains introspection on all his past relationships and how he felt about them.
Eventually, enter Spinner Chait, stage left. The two get stuck in a cave on the way to a mountain village where Spinner confesses to being aro-ace. The whole journey leaves them bonded and even after coming back to the village they remain close friends. Partly due to their jobs being intertwined (no pun intended) but also its just. Nice to have a buddy that can share somewhat similar experiences, though Wooly is honest about experiencing occasional attractions. Congrats, achievement; best friend unlocked.
The more they hang out the more the dynamic starts to become it's own thing and unspoken rules start to establish themselves. Spinner stays up all night one night and is dead on his feet the next day. Wooly calls him a crazy fool and gives him a little kiss on the forehead and its .. actually it's fine. Spinner wouldn't let anyone else do that who wasn't related to him but it's ok actually. If anything it's sorta nice, Spinner doesn't mind a little bit of physical affection he's just never wanted the other person to take it the wrong way.
And Wooly doesn't because the dynamic works for both of them. He's no longer worried he can't match up to the intensity of a romantic partner because that's not what it is. Spinner's not worried Wooly is mistaking his gifts and hugs for flirting because he's not. There's still boundaries in place of course but Wooly's willing to share his wool lined blankets in winter and Spinner's happy to steal them /lh. A queerplatonic relationship is just the right fit. If Wooly wanted he COULD have a romantic relationship with someone else too but honestly he's more than happy with this situation.
Surely nothing could ever happen that would irreversibly alter a large section of their lives right?
Wooly, Tracker (c) The Smurfs, Spinner adapted by me
Random people is random people
