The first thing Steve could hear when he woke up was yelling. A lot of yelling.
It was hard to even make out what they were saying through the collective noise, but he could at least recognize Eddie’s voice, “You little assholes said we were going to the hospital!”
“We will! Right after we finish the plan!”
Eddie was fuming, Steve could tell just from the tone of his voice. Though it usually took a lot to make him that angry. What the hell could have happened?
“I swear to God,” Eddie hissed, “When this is all over I am kicking all of your asses.”
Steve groaned, shifting his head. It hurt like a bitch, like someone had taken a bat to it. But the voices around him were getting clearer and clearer.
"Shut the fuck up!” Eddie hissed out, venomous enough for it to actually work on most of them, “I think he's waking up. Baby, can you hear me?”
"Why do you keep calling him that?!" That was Mike, Steve was sure.
"Why the fuck do you think?!"
As much as Steve loved the sound of Eddie’s voice, he’d really appreciate it if he toned it down a little. He opened his mouth to tell him just that, but all that came out was a pained whine. He felt cool hands go to his face, gentle as he murmured, “Sorry, Stevie. I’m here, are you okay? Can you hear me?”
Steve slowly blinked his eyes open, cringing at how that just made his head pound worse. Eddie was hovering above him, petting his hair from his spot in his lap, looking like he was on the verge of tears, “Eddie?"
"Oh thank god,” Eddie said, voice cracking near the end, “Are you okay? How’s your head?"
“Hurts,” Steve whimpered, struggling to sit up. Eddie scrambled to help him, easily lifting him by his arms pits and into his lap. Steve let his head fall onto his shoulder, grimacing at the lights flashing by. His head was fucking pounding, hard enough to make spots cloud all over his vision. But then Eddie’s arms were around him, subtly rocking him back and forth, instantly comforting.
But then Mike was yelling again, “Is he cheating on my sister?!”
Steve cringed at the noise, eyes still struggling to adjust to the difference in light.
“Just give him a second,” Eddie seethed back, his hand rubbing up and down Steve’s back, “He probably has a concussion.”
Steve brought a hand up to his forehead, a futile attempt to rub the pain away before asking, "What’s happening?”
He was at least starting to be able to see again. He looked up at Eddie who was gnawing on his bottom lip. He looked weirdly guilty like he just knew he was about to be in for it. He coughed, “A lot of things are happening, but they can wait. How do you feel?”
He felt confused, despite his vision fully clearing. He was just about to say as much when he stopped, eyes drifting down to Eddie’s chest. Had his shirt always been that red? With a trembling hand Steve reached out to touch it, eyes widening when his fingers came back wet. It was blood. Eddie was bleeding.
The sight of his boyfriend hurt was enough to snap him right out of his pained haze. He started trying to find where it was coming from, voice near hysterical when he asked, “Are you okay?”
Eddie stopped his wandering hands, holding them in his own, voice soft, “Hey, hey, I’m fine. Don’t worry, it’s not mine.”
Okay. Okay, Eddie was fine. And Steve wasn’t dying so things could officially be worse. Steve could work with that. He needed to catch up with what the fuck was happening here. It was getting a little easier to think and to see. Steve looked around, vision still a bit blurry but clear enough for him to be confused. They were in a car, with the kids? But why were they in a car? Whose car was this? And if Eddie was in the backseat with him….then who the hell was driving?
He leaned forward, struggling a little against Eddie’s hold before he caught a glimpse of who was in the driver’s seat.
Steve’s mouth fell open, before what sounded suspiciously as a screech came out of his mouth, “Is Max driving?!”
“Baby calm down! I was driving at her age, it’s fine!” Eddie said right as she mows down a freaking mailbox.
That was not nearly as comforting as Eddie thought it was. Steve stared at him, incredulous when he asked, “What the fuck happened!?”
“Billy almost killed you!” Dustin piped up, “And then Eddie came in and he like freaked out and it was awesome!”
“Yeah!” Lucas agreed, gestures wild as he tried to reenact his description, “It was crazy! He like sliced his face open and then he got him on the ground like had his arm on his neck and then knife in the other hand and-”
“And there was blood like everywhere,” Dustin went on, just as imaginative with his demonstration as Lucas, “And Billy started screaming and then Max stabbed him with the needle and we had to tackle Eddie off of him or I think he would have killed him-”
Eddie leaned over, quickly clamping a hand over Dustin’s mouth, eyes flitting between him and Steve, “I will do anything you want if you just stop talking.”
“So you won’t kick our asses after all of this?” Lucas asked, “And you’ll help us burn the tunnels?”
“I-okay,” Eddie took a deep breath before continuing, like he was really capable of an explanation that would suddenly make all this shit not insane, “Angel, I kind of lost the plot when I found you beaten into unconsciousness, alright? I was too worried about you to think straight.”
“So you almost killed someone, got swindled by kids to do this stupid fucking plan, all while letting a twelve-year-old drive?”
“I-yes,” Eddie admitted, at least having the good grace to look guilty, “That about sums it up.”
Jesus Christ.
From the newest chapter of this fic!
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here to stay | rhett abbott x oc
Summary: The Amelia County Boy's Home is having a back-to-school clothing drive and Cecelia Abbott forces her son to finally get rid of those old clothes that no longer fit. However, Rhett encounters someone he doesn't expect. (wc: 4174)
Warnings: flashbacks, rhett's a bit of an idiot but he's got the spirit
✎……here it is! the long-awaited rewrite! i hope anyone who reads this finds as much joy in it as i have the past few months. this story has helped me find my love of writing again so it's near and dear to my heart - so please be kind!
✎……MASTERLIST || NEXT CHAPTER
Rhett didn’t check to see if there were any holes in the old pair of Wranglers before he chucked them into the box along with everything else. Old shirts from high school that he couldn’t remember the reason for keeping and had been too small for him for quite some time. Sweatshirts and hoodies he bought at rodeos that made him cringe — their airbrushed images of bucking bulls and rearing stallions large. And a few other pairs of jeans that were just on the wearable side of thread-bare. All this he tossed into the cardboard box his mother had given him. Not caring to fold any of it.
They were just donations, after all.
Picking up the box from his bed, and plopping his old brown stetson on his head, Rhett made his way downstairs. The stairs creaked under his booted feet like they had since before he was born.
That was the thing about old farmhouses. They were noisy. Groaned and shook against the winds that rolled along the great Wyoming plains. Settled at odd hours of the night. There was no use in trying to sneak around. Wherever you walked, a floorboard wailed. Over the years, growing up in that old farmhouse, Rhett had learned which polished planks were less squeaky than others. Which steps to avoid in the wee hours of the night. Attempts at creeping through the house, smelling like hay and cheap booze, even his mother — who grew up in that same noisy old farmhouse — found valiant.
But he didn’t care about sneaking now. It was ten in the morning and he had chores to do. One of which was already complete: gather clothes he wouldn’t mind donating to the Amelia County Boys Home.
Rhett stepped into the overcrowded kitchen to the lingering smells of bacon and eggs. He knew he missed breakfast. He slept in late, and everyone else had already been awake for hours. His father and his older brother, Perry, were probably out in the fields counting cattle by now. He hoped he wouldn’t have to see them before he left for town. Rhett set the box down on the small kitchen table in the middle of the room with a sigh. Wondering if there was any coffee left.
“That you Rhett?” his mother called from her office.
Once upon a time, that office was the family dining room. But that conversion took place long before Rhett was born. His grandfather turned it into an office space for the family ranch when he inherited it from his father. Hence the crowded kitchen.
“Yeah,” he replied, taking off his hat and setting it beside the box, knowing his mother would give him a look for wearing it inside the house. “There any coffee?”
“A little, maybe.”
Rhett turned to the coffeemaker, and sure enough, there was enough for one cup. That was all he needed. Getting down a mug from the hooks over the window, he poured what remained in the decanter and took a sip. Nothing fancy, but it did the job in waking him up some.
His mother’s small steps echoed, floors creaking, as she walked into the kitchen. She pointed at the box on the table. “Those the clothes y’re donatin’?”
Cecelia Abbott was a stout woman. Both in heart and stature. Her brown hair much like her younger son’s was cropped short around her ears. She never did anything to it like the other rancher’s wives, just let it hang around her face and hoped for the best. And her face was hard, wrinkled like old leather. Evidence of a hard life and years of hard work. She was kind — but often silent.
“Yeah,” Rhett replied, turning to lean back against the counter.
Cecelia picked up the sweatshirt laying on top. A sweatshirt with Amelia County Rodeo printed on the front with peeling letters — a cowboy riding a bull just underneath (also peeling at the edges). A relic from his days on the high school rodeo team. First time he ever rode a bull and really caught the thrill for it. The best part of his high school days, in his opinion. She turned it around so he could get a look at the logo. A small, fond smile flashed across her face only long enough for him to recognize it.
“Sure ya don’t wanna keep this one?” she asked, turning it back over and tracing the letters with her thumb.
Rhett took a gulp of his coffee. “Why would I?”
“I don’know…For the memories?” she suggested, “Show your kids one day?”
He scoffed over the lip of his mug. At this rate, there was a slim chance of that happening. A wife, couple kids — that entire settled-down life that it felt like everyone in their small western town was ready for him to have. He was twenty-three and every girl he tried to date either left him or didn’t seem interested in getting married until the relationship after him. He blamed the bad luck on still living at home and his reputation as a bull rider, but really, deep down, he knew it was him that was the problem. Every time. There wasn’t any sense in holding out hope for something that wasn’t in the cards for him. So he shook his head and sipped up the last of his coffee.
“‘Member jus’ fine without it,” he said, watching as his mother folded the sweatshirt gently and put it back in the box.
All she did was hum in answer.
Amelia County, Wyoming had one real city, along with a few other unincorporated communities. Wabang. The Dirty Bang to those who managed to escape but still came back from time to time. Rhett thought the name was funny, though his parents gave him a glare any time he used it in front of them (Perry, without fail, always laughed).
The city itself was small. With a square downtown full of mom-and-pop shops or empty storefronts. Just enough stuff for the ranchers and farmers that made up the population to get by. If you wanted clothes from somewhere besides the Tractor Supply or watch a movie in theaters or eat someplace nice — you had to drive the two hours to Casper.
Everything felt a little dusty in Wabang. A little worse for wear. A little like everything and everyone was on the verge of keeling over. Like that old horse put out to pasture a long time ago. Just waiting for the day to come but stubbornly refusing to give in. Stuck in some space between life and death.
At least, that was how Rhett saw it.
He remembered when he was eighteen and telling anyone who would listen that as soon as he graduated, he was getting off his family’s ranch and out of that little nothing town. Graduation came and went. He knew he couldn’t go to college. His grades were never going to be good enough for that. And getting up and leaving everything he knew, no matter how much he wanted something more, scared him — now that the time had come. So he decided to wait a year. Save up. Make a solid plan. Then one year turned into two. And so on until suddenly he was twenty-three and he was still on that ranch and still in that town.
Maybe he too was dusty, worse for wear, on the precipice of some death that he saw coming a mile away. Stuck between.
He glanced at the box full of clothes sitting in his passenger seat as he drove into town. Adjusted his grip on the steering wheel as well as the lay of his hat.
It wasn’t that the Boy’s Home scared him. It just made him uneasy. A big Victorian with peeling white paint and missing roof tiles on the outskirts of town — surrounded on either side by more old houses with faded colors and rotted porches — rumors spread easily that the place was haunted. At the very least ghost adjacent. Or maybe the real source of his unease was the fact that anytime he misbehaved as a kid his dad would purposefully drive by and threatened to drop him off and leave him there.
Either way, whether by the speculation of specters or his father’s threats, he felt slightly wary as he pulled up in front of the Boy’s Home now.
Only, it wasn’t like how he remembered it.
The paint had been redone. It was no longer chipped and faded but pristinely, bright white. Even the roof was fixed, completely replaced by brick red tiles all in neat rows. There were flowers, brightly colored mums and coneflowers, and bushes planted out front. The plack that read Amelia County Boy’s Home est. 1905 by Miss Abigail Granger was no longer crooked, hanging by one screw beside the front door, but perfectly straight. A sign was pushed into the lawn about the clothing drive. The entire house stood out in stark contrast to the still decrepit buildings surrounding it. The only blemish was a porch swing with a broken chain.
This place didn’t feel dusty. Or worse for wear. Or on the verge of some slow, long-awaited death. It felt…Welcoming. Homey. Full of life.
Suddenly, he was feeling like he should have checked those Wranglers for holes.
Rhett sighed as he cut the engine and climbed out of his truck. Box cradled in his arms. He followed the short stone path up to the front porch, looking for somewhere to put his donation or at least someone to leave it with. But there was nothing except that porch swing, one side still held aloft by the intact chain. Another sigh slipped past his lips, huffed and slightly agitated. He was hoping to get by with this chore without having to talk to anyone besides maybe a here ya go and you’re welcome. But alas, he adjusted his hat one more time and rang the doorbell.
“Coming!” a feminine voice called from inside. A few moments later, the blue door was pulled open. “Can I help you?”
He knew her. Nearly a head shorter than him, athletic build gone slightly soft, with long light brown hair kept back from her face by a kerchief covered in daffodils. Her eyes were big and blue and expectant. The corner of her full pink lips quirked up in the beginnings of a smile. She looked kind, but not silent about it.
Her name was just out of his reach though, on the tip of his tongue.
But he remembered her from high school.
The Wyoming/South Dakota Rodeo Invitational was always the one event in the season that Rhett looked forward to the least. He hated the South Dakota team. Mostly because they were good, but also because they knew it too. Liked to rub it in their faces. Call them a bunch of dirty hicks when they were all a bunch of dirty kids of hicks with something to prove.
It made Rhett angry, so he rode better. But not good enough. He only placed third. Shiny yellow ribbon pinned to his protective vest nearly mocking him as he walked back to grab his gear.
He passed by the dirt riding pit, the stands now completely empty and the fairgrounds only lit by the yellow street lamps above. A few people still milled about. Other kids and their parents, talking excitedly about their scores or abysmal about their performance. Rhett was just glad his parents couldn’t make it to this one. He didn’t know if he would have been able to stand the fake positivity from his father or his mother’s sympathetic face.
There was a girl standing at the pit railing, still wearing her back number with Amelia County printed at the top. She was alone, hands in her back pockets, white stetson tilted back on her head.
“Bus’s leavin’ soon,” he called out to her.
She turned to face him with a bewildered look, eyebrows raised and pink lips downturned, and he stopped walking. A big blue ribbon was pinned to her flannel.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, pushing away from the fence and walking towards the show barn where their teams' gear was stored during the rodeo.
Rhett only had to take a few long strides to catch up with her. “Congrats.”
“Thanks,” she said again as she glanced down at her ribbon.
“Barrel racin’, right?”
“Uh-huh.” Her cheeks looked pink in the yellow light. “Bull rider, right?”
“Yeah,” he laughed softly.
They walked the rest of the way in silence. He waited for her to grab her things and walked back to the bus with her. She sat towards the front, by herself. And Rhett went towards the back where his friends were calling his name.
She was that same girl. That same barrel racer who won first place and walked with him quietly and pink-cheeked. Looking up at him now with some sort of knowing smile forming on her face. Like she was in on the joke but he didn’t get it. His tongue suddenly felt too heavy in his mouth, too large for the space, as he adjusted his grip on the box and tried to say something.
He still couldn’t remember her name.
He also couldn’t remember if she had been that pretty before.
Her head cocked to one side, knowing smile growing as she prompted, “Is that for the clothing drive?”
“Y-Yeah,” he managed to stutter out around the growing weight of his tongue, blinking rapidly as he glanced down at the Amelia County Rodeo Team sweatshirt neatly folded on top. “Uh — there-there wasn’t a place f’me t’put it, so…”
“Oh, God, sorry! Brought everythin’ in t’start organizin’. Got more than I’thought we would,” she replied, smile that showed maybe too much of her teeth never leaving her face, then she reached for the box. “Here, lemme take that.”
Her small hands slid over the sides of the cardboard box and caught his fingers by accident. Rhett felt something flutter inside him, like his gut twisting in a knot. Her skin was warm. Even from such a brief touch, he knew her hands were soft — untouched by years of hard work. He glanced down at his now empty hands. Rough, hard callouses stared back at him. Immediately, he dropped them back down at his sides. Adjusting the weight of the box in her arms, she stepped back into the doorframe.
Her name scratched at the back of his mind like the dog he left out in the rain. It was right there. But he just couldn’t grasp it — and he knew he couldn’t just ignore it.
“You went t’Amelia County High, right?” he asked.
Her mouth shut with an audible clack, smile and teeth gone, as she cocked her head at him. Brows furrowed in something like curiosity. Rhett smiled as he watched her. She looked cute when she did that.
“Yeah, I did.” She adjusted her grip on the box, thigh coming up to push it further into her arms. “Uh — we sat next t’each other at graduation, actually.”
It was an absolutely sweltering day in May, 2015. The sun high in the sky by mid-morning and not a cloud in sight to block the bright rays. Rhett wished he could have at least worn his stetson to keep the light out of his eyes. But he had a different hat to wear today.
A golden graduation cap with a blue tassel hanging by his left ear.
Amelia County High School held its graduation ceremony at the fairgrounds, in one of the big metal-sided show barns with stands already set up on either side of the dirt-covered floor. There was always a notice sent out to all the seniors not to wear nice shoes.
Inside the barn, the sun wasn’t shining in his eyes, but he could feel the sweat running down his back. The air pulled into his lungs thick with that early summer heat and the smell of old cow shit. With the last name Abbott, Rhett had the distinct privilege of sitting in the front row of his graduating class of 150. Closest to the makeshift stage and the valedictorian finishing up her speech. She was going off to Georgia for school — something medical — and Rhett could only wish he had that kind of excuse to get out of Wabang. But senioritis had hit him hard, and his grades suffered for it. He hadn’t even bothered putting in an application anywhere. It wasn’t like he would’ve known what to major in any way.
His plan was to leave the following morning. Pack up his stuff and go west. Follow the rodeo, live out of his truck. Find…Whatever it was he was looking for. There had to be something out there for him. He just knew it. And he wanted to find it.
He looked over his shoulder at the rest of his classmates. All in those matching golden gowns. Maria Olivares stood out to him easily. Beautiful and posed and smiling up at her friend on stage. With skin like caramel, full lips painted pink, and hair dark as night. She was getting out of this town too. California to learn how to be a veterinarian.
Maybe she was part of what he would find out there in the wide world.
“Rhett Theodore Abbott.”
He strode across the stage, his family cheering wildly from the stands. Taking his diploma, carefully tucked in a blue leather case, he shook the principles hand. Then he walked off the stage and back to his seat. It was over in seconds. Four years — and it was done. Part of him felt as if it, getting his diploma and walking across the stage, should have felt like more. More momentous, more exciting, more something had ended and something else was beginning. Instead, it felt like nothing. There he sat, sweating in his seat, diploma in hand.
And he just felt stuck.
The next person’s name was called. Another last name starting with A. She was short, her gown nearly covering completely the old cowboy boots she wore. Her hair, brown as young tree bark, shone with hairspray and curled around her shoulders. Her smile big and wide as she accepted her diploma and walked across the stage. Her applause was just a bit louder than Rhett’s — a whistle piercing the air that made her laugh.
That whistle sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place where he had heard it before.
The girl came down from the stage and sat next to him back in their row. For a moment, it was just the two of them.
“We did it!” she laughed awkwardly, fists slightly raised in celebration.
Rhett chuckled. “Yeah.”
They said no more as the ceremony went on. As the names of all their classmates were called. As they got to their feet and moved their tassels from the right — to the left. And as everyone cheered, Rhett looked back to see Maria Olivares kissing her boyfriend.
“Abernathy.”
The name he suddenly remembered came past his lips more like a question than he intended. His head tilted down as he looked at her through squinted eyes, wondering if he was right or if he had just made a fool of himself. Her lips peeled back in a smile before she laughed, loud and beautiful. A relieving sound to his doubt.
“Yeah,” she laughed again, adjusting her grip on the box again. “Most people call me Tessa, though.”
He repeated her name on a mutter, tried it out on his tongue. A smile quirked the corner of his mouth when her cheeks turned pink. Just like they did under the yellow lights of the rodeo. But in the mid-morning sun, the blush tint made the freckles high on her cheekbones stand out more. Like wildflowers dotted in a field.
Tessa Abernathy. Now that her name was in his grasp, memories of her came flooding back. Watching her barrel race with a kind of determination that cast her face in shadows that gave him chills. Her standing across a circle of mutual friends in the school hallway, never saying much and shifting foot to foot. He remembered her eyes. Blue as a cloudless day in July and always looking at him like she was just caught doing what she shouldn’t. A little different maybe, but harmless. They hardly ever spoke to each other and they both seemed content that way.
That girl from Amelia County High was nothing like the woman that stood before him now. Or had she really always been that pretty and he was too stupid to notice? She looked up at him with those same July eyes — only all he could see was confidence. Maybe amusement as she waited for him to say more. Should he say more? He didn’t know what, only that he wanted to.
Swallowing down the weighty feeling on his tongue, he rubbed at the rough material of his work jeans as he started, “I d’know if y’member me — “
“‘Course I ‘member you, Rhett Abbott.” She grinned, ear to ear, as if they shared some secret.
She remembered him too. Probably from the instant she saw him. An unexpected guilt tugged at the pit of his gut. He was always doing that. Forgetting shit he shouldn’t. Like the name of the pretty girl he went to high school with. Just another one of those things he didn’t know how to fix and at this point, no one expected any better from him. So he stopped trying a long time ago.
“I — m’sorry,” he muttered, gaze focused on his dirty boots.
“Nothin’ t’be sorry for,” she answered, “S’not like we were friends or whatever.”
“You were friends with Laney, right?”
Laney Griner. Small and blonde with big opinions and an even bigger voice. The life and organizer of many parties. But still sweet as the pies she liked to bring to bake sales. Rhett never liked the way she would play dumb in order to get the other guys to pay attention to her. It never worked on him — and he wasn’t sure if Laney ever wanted it to. She really only had her eyes set on one boy.
“And you were friends with Walker.”
Walker Browning was that boy. Rhett’s best friend since kindergarten. He was shorter than Rhett and broader. Built like the son of a ranch hand he was. Walker liked to dream — but he wasn’t much of a doer. He liked to drink and party and everyone wondered when he was going to grow up. Cecelia Abbott liked to blame Rhett’s lack of ambition on the Browning boy, but there was never any real malice behind it
Laney and Walker came as a package deal, forcing their friend groups to be together often. Though that never seemed to mean the two halves talked to each other much.
“Yeah,” Rhett chuckled nervously, wiping at his mouth. “Um — when-when’d you get back in town?”
Tessa laughed again, eyebrows furrowed in disbelief. “I never left.”
All Rhett could do was stare at her for a moment, thinking. There was no way. It had been six years since they graduated. Surely he would have seen her around town in that length of time. One of the bars, the rodeo, a weekend bonfire, the grocery store — something. But he couldn’t recall anything. Not that too big smile or eyes like easy summer days. He even still hung out with Walker, and Laney was with them often (when they weren’t broken up for the time being).
“Seriously?” he questioned, still racking his brain for somewhere he might have seen her but just missed it — guilt pulling at his insides again.
“Seriously.” She turned and set the box down on the floor inside with a soft groan, when she straightened, she leaned against the doorframe with arms crossed. “Don’t feel bad — don’t get much free time workin’ here.”
Rhett glanced around the porch, eyes catching on the black metal plack. Right. He had nearly forgotten. “Y’like it?”
“I do. What about you? I’know ya still ride bulls, but — uh — ?”
“Family’s ranch,” he replied with a nod.
Tessa smiled, and suddenly it didn’t seem too big or to show too much teeth, it was perfect for her. Beautiful even. Like her own personal bit of sunshine that she graciously blessed him with — that warmed his belly and made his own small smile try and form some reply.
“Nice,” she said, then a voice called from inside the house. She looked over her shoulder, then back to him apologetically. “I gotta get back t’work. Thanks — f’r’the donation. It was nice talkin’ to ya.”
“Uh, yeah, yeah.” He nodded with a small smile, stepping back towards the porch steps.
Tessa Abernathy smiled at him one last time as she grabbed hold of the door, lip caught in her teeth and that pink back in her cheeks. “See ya around, Rhett.”
He really hoped that he did.
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a/n: yeah i rewrote the fic...don't look at me. i originally wrote this when i was deeply lost in trying to please literally everyone besides myself and i lost my creative voice. so here we are. i am much happier and i hope the people who enjoyed the og version of this fic like it too.
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