♡ synopsis: when you break into a strange man's trailer looking for food to steal, you find much more inside when he comes home sooner than expected and offers for you to stay.
♡ content: age-gap
Tumbling head-first through a mildew covered window you only just managed to pry open with a rusted prybar but a moment ago—pretty stupid to leave such a tool lyin' around outside, as if the owner is just begging for the place to get broken into—you land on peeling linoleum with a soft oomf. Pushing yourself into a sitting position, you slowly survey your surroundings.
All you find, though, is nothin' more than a predictable single-wide interior: a worn recliner, broken-down sofa, drooping Christmas lights strung across the top of the wall, and an overflowing bookcase are amongst your finds.
Standing, you pluck a yellowed novel with softened edges from a middle shelf and trace your fingertips across the striking, abstract cover: a purple backdrop, with a boy's gaunt face positioned in the middle, drawn in what looks to be charcoal, half hidden away behind brown stalks that stretch toward the top of the book.
Can't much tell what the title is, though.
Only words you manage to make out are "The" and "It" before losing interest entirely. Tucking it back away, you consider the rear of the house before spotting a modestly-sized kitchen at the front. Eyeing a box of Pop-Tarts on the counter, you reach it in record time and rip the cardboard top off before prying out a foil packet and tearing it open with your teeth to get at the frosted pastries inside.
Only after you've gone through four of them do you bother wrenching open the rest of the cabinets and cupboards in search of other treats to take with you on your journey to God knows where after this. Makes no never mind to you whether the man who lives here'll miss 'em or not.
Small glass jars and condiments clink together when you open the fridge door next. You greet a container of pickled eggs with a raised brow before moving on. Swiping a can of peaches from the top shelf, you set it on the kitchen table with the rest of your gathered provisions.
The low rumble of an engine suddenly grows nearer then, causing you to still like a deer in headlights. Reverberations swell, and you consider the still open window with wide eyes and a pounding heart.
When he kills the engine, you bolt toward the back of the house.
Searching every room in a frenzied panic for a place to hide, you opt for the closet in the bedroom with a lack of other options at your disposal. Shoving a pair of wooden folding doors open, you grit your teeth and curse—fighting desperately to get them shut again. Kicking a scuffed boot out of the way, they finally slide closed, submerging you in muffled silence. Daylight streams through the thin wooden slats in front of you, drawing lines across your neck and breasts and knees.
You hope it doesn't soon turn to rope instead, should he find you here. Not many men 'round these mountains got a gentle disposition... Like your daddy.
Why didn't you hide the damn food?
Hinges creak open, followed by the front door being slammed shut, and silence descends once more.
You count the seconds and the seconds between the seconds while holding your breath in anticipation of what comes next. Would've, could've, should've thrown yourself back out the window.
You just wasn't thinkin' straight, not expectin' him to be back anytime soon. He'd only just left when you bothered comin' in.
"Come on out now," commands a deep, steady timbre, underscored by a southern drawl.
He's down the hall; doesn't know where you are yet. But you imagine there ain't many places to hide in a house as small as this one. Not from what you saw, anyway.
Footsteps grow closer, and your breath hitches in your throat.
He's in the doorway now.
"Outta the closet 'fore I start firin'," he warns. "Nice and slow. With your hands raised."
Reluctantly obeying the orders set before you, you slowly slide the doors open again, then emerge with palms held in front of your chest. Stepping over the boot from earlier, you stare at the tall, bearded man who's holding a revolver aimed at your belly. Would be a terrible waste, considerin' that the toaster treats are still digestin'.
Lowering the weapon with a sigh, he pops the lever back into place and tucks the gun away into the waistband of his jeans. "Christ," he sighs. Running a hand down his weathered face, the strange man crosses his arms atop a round belly. "You're just a kid."
You glower. "I'm older'n that."
Snorting amusedly, he shakes his head. "Younger than I am, so that makes you one in my eyes." Jerking his head toward the hall, he eyes you curiously. "You take anything else? Or just what I found in the kitchen?"
Raising your chin, you meet him with defiance. "Just the snacks. Pop-Tarts are coming with me."
He barks a laugh. "The ones you bothered not eatin', sure." Lips quirking into a grin, he tilts his head. "You still hungry?"
Clink, clink, clink.
Scrape, scrape, scrape.
"Slow down," Leonard—that's his name, you've now learned—insists with a large, steady hand rested on your shoulder. "Or you'll choke, if not make yourself sick."
You tug the dish territorially toward you.
"If you're still hungry after, I'll make you another plate. Just... Give it a chance to settle first."
Stabbing another slice of country ham with your fork, you pop it in your mouth and chew. But slowly this time.
Seems to please him when you do, so you take a sip of juice and nibble on a buttered roll next.
Might just be the best meal you've ever had, you think.
He chuckles. "Should mind our table manners, starvin' or not."
"I ain't got none," you grumble over a mouthful of food.
Wooden chair creaking when he leans back, he slides the pad of his thumb down a glass bottle of beer slick with condensation. "Don't have any."
Cheeks bulging with food, your brows draw together. "What?"
"Don't have any table manners," he enunciates. "Proper way of speakin'."
You shrug, uninterested in a grammar lesson right now. Or ever.
"Elbows," he continues with a nod. Leonard slides his own off the table until just his forearms remain positioned on either side of his porcelain plate in way of example.
"Why's it matter?" you question after swallowing.
He lifts a shoulder. "Just does. Not here necessarily, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't learn. Also impolite to talk with your mouth full."
"It's not now," you counter.
"But it was." Grabbing his fork with one hand and a serrated knife with the other, you watch as he slices into a salty slice of ham. "Things to keep in mind if you're plannin' on stayin' here for awhile."
You perk up at that. Crossing your ankles, you study his features—waiting for his eyes to crease at the edges, or for his mouth to turn upwards into a mocking smile, indicating that it's all one big joke. Such a reaction never comes, however. "I... I can stay? Here?"
"'Less you got some place else to be. But from the sight of you, I take it that's not the case?" He slides a bite of ham off his fork and chews.
So he thinks he knows everything, apparently. Actin' like he can read you like you're one of his lengthy novels when you've only just met. "It could be."
He studies you with a quizzical brow. "You just do B 'n' Es for fun, then? Never heard of a grocery store?"
You roll your eyes, then peel fluffy buttermilk bread apart. "This way's cheaper."
Leonard huffs a laugh. "Given you don't get caught." He takes a pull from his beer. "Where've you been stayin'?"
You bob your head from side to side. "Here and there."
He leans forward. "Meanin'?" he presses.
You stuff half a roll in your mouth. "Nowhere."
Thought as much, he thinks, but doesn't say. He keeps diggin' long and hard enough, and he'll get the answers he desires. You seem pretty harmless—just looking for a bit of food, and maybe even some clean clothes—but one can never be too sure.
Not here in Marshall.
"You like readin'?" he inquires with folded arms.
You shift in your seat. "Don't have much time for it."
"Should make time," he groans while standing. Padding over to shelves brimming with stories you'll surely never read, Leonard peruses the selection put before him with hands planted on his narrow hips.
"What's your favorite genre?" he calls over his shoulder. "Romance? Mystery? Non-fiction, maybe?"
Quietly sipping your drink, you silently will him to drop the subject. "I dunno," you mutter. "Didn't have many books growin' up."
Not sure you had any, truthfully. Your folks were more concerned with spendin' what little money they had on keepin' beer in the fridge and meth in a bulb for smokin'.
"Well," he begins before turning on his heel with a book in hand. "This is one of my favorites. Faulkner can be a bit..." He sucks his teeth.
Leonard sets the book on the table and nervously rubs at his brow with his thumbnail. "Can both be easy to read and not, dependin' on the person, I s'pose. Used a style for this one called stream of consciousness. Peculiar when you first start it, but once you've got the hang of what he was tryin' to convey—" he shrugs. "I flew through it my first time."
Man sure does like his ten dollar words, you muse. Makes him sound full of himself. But also worldly and intelligent, in a confident, lived-in sort of way.
You wish your daddy had been more like him growin' up. Or even just your mama. Carin'. Instead, they was—
He taps a finger on the title. "Can you tell me what that says?"
By his tone, you would think he was requesting something simple—like for you to pass the salt, or tell him what time it is. Not somethin' you're incapable of doin'.
You've lost your appetite all of a sudden.
"I—I will later," you whisper ashamedly.
"Like for you to now," says Leonard.
Balling your hands into fists beneath the table where they rest in your lap, you study printed letters through eyes blurred from welling tears. "As I... L—" A, but not a hard A. Its sound should be similar to the A from the first word. "L-ay..." You huff in frustration after a beat of silence.
"You're illiterate," he murmurs with just a hint of mild disbelief.
Jerking your head back, you scowl up at him—your face immediately heating in burning mortification. "I'm not stupid!" you shout acidically.
"Didn't say you were," he assures with a gentle hand cupping the back of your head. "Just a word, like any other. That's its definition is all: if you can't read or write, you're illiterate. It's nothin' bad, darlin'. Promise."
Sitting again, he slides a calloused palm between your shoulder blades. "I could teach you. It's what I used to do. I mean, not English. History. But—"
You cock your head to the side and narrow your eyes. "What do you do now?"
Leonard's pursed lips morph into a lopsided smile. "Everything I shouldn't."
You can't help but return the funny look on his face. "Me too."
Picking up your forgotten utensils, he cuts up the remaining meat on your plate. "Least we got somethin' in common, then."
leonard shuler x female original character | preview
[ˈjəNGkē] [fəˈläs(ə)fər] noun
- a college dropout with a good brain and a better set of legs- stuck in a Carolina holler under the haze of benzodiazepines.
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From under a polyester quilt in the back bedroom, shivering up against the edge of morning, a long-held sigh shook out of her in a rattle. She couldn’t move too much without waking him up; he was such a light sleeper where she was concerned, that she was surprised the shakes hadn’t done it already. His habit of babying her rankled in the harsh, ill-fitting cover of sobriety– it would be a tense 36 hours until he re-upped and she could sink under the honeyed spill of his blues. She found that she quite liked being treated with his kid gloves then, when everything was soft and round at the edges; he would lay with her on the couch, reading to her with her feet in his lap.
She recalled with a sort of barbed fondness a time before now, before the sweating and shaking, when the giggles bubbled up through her mouth and out across the knuckles of his left hand as she mouthed at the valleys in between them, letting her teeth graze the peaks. Eyelids low as she turned her face up to him from her place on the floor in front of the couch, the soft yellow lamplight spreading like honey across everything. His voice, quiet with tenderness as he spoke,
“Whatchya doin’, my girl?”
“Nothin’ much,” her answer slipped out of her, almost a sigh.
“You bite like a puppy. Are you a little puppy, baby?”
Her eyes rolled beneath their closing lids as she breathed out a laugh.
“I’ll come when you call, if that’s what you mean.”
Dr. Mr. The Pitt (as I and my friends call him) insists on dead doving himself in every piece of media. I need other people plus him in some capacity, whether OC or canon or reader. There's like one person doing this, I think? @backonmybullsht. And we got ideas from @fanfictionideas. There might be others I'm not seeing, but...
