You're my ~*Daydream*~ // {Kneedles}

He snuck away to the garden after dinner, never told anyone where he was going. Maybe it was silly feeling as though if more people knew that something about it would be lost, like a magician telling the audience the trick after the show, losing some of the magic in it. Maybe it was sensible to keep it separate from the Tansy place where there was a festering disease at the heart of everything- where his father didn’t need any more ammunition to hurt him, especially if he knew that there was something outside of the boundaries of their land, outside of the dirt and the pigs that Scutcher really, honestly and truly loved.

The flowers. It was the flowers he loved, the scent of them blooming, the work that maintaining them entailed and the feeling of peace that came in the isolated pocket of the world, hidden away from the fields and the threshers and the animals. At least, those were the only parts of the garden he had any business loving, the only parts that it felt safe to love. But he couldn’t really help the rest, couldn’t let go of feeling anymore than he could the bones buried deep inside of him. Not that he was going to stay away from the garden either, it had taken root like a seed in him too- blossoming pale pink and white up through his veins and in a way that made his chest ache. To think of what would happen if it wasn’t there anymore. But it was well tended, they were good for it and all the new life that came through the earth through the seasons, they had created in a way- together- they nurtured it and they tended to it- together.

The meal was insubstantial; watery pig stock boiled up with a few limp vegetables and his stomach was still rumbling, in itself not so alien a feeling and the bag of manure on his shoulder- collected from the pig huts, it really did wonders for feeding the plants- was heavy and stinking, so Scutcher was looking forwards to being able to set it onto the ground of the garden as soon as he could. Approaching the edge of the thicket, enclosing the garden and keeping it safe- Scutcher could have sworn that he heard his name carried to him on the wind from somewhere muffled. It took him a while to realise- smiling at the thought when it came to him- that Noreen might be working and she might have seen or heard him moving through the thicket.

Getting closer, he heard a moan, and his shoulders tensed- worried that Noreen could be hurt or something, which was why she called to him and why she sounded hurt now. He hurried quickly into view of her, dropping the manure to the ground to find Noreen on the ground. His worries that she was hurt turned to a blinking as he realised that her moaning was the other kind- the kind that didn’t hurt none apparently,’ at least- not in a bad way ‘(though when did things ever hurt in a good way?), her hand secreted away into her jeans to a place where Scutcher couldn’t help but think about and flush scarlet.

He should have left, just run away, or…maybe, come back again but very loudly this time. Or he could have been honest and stammered out his apologies. But Scutcher didn’t really know what to do, felt fixed to the spot, mouth open, face read as no words escaped his mouth and no real coherent thoughts formed in his brain. Except perhaps deep down, some primal part of him was thinking about how lovely she looked in the dirt like that.

((ooc: OH HAI NONNIE. LONG TIME NO SEE. YOU'RE LOOKIN REAL GOOD, GURLFRIEND. ALL ALIVE AND SHIT))

“I didn’t see nothin’,” he started quickly as she sat up; his voice a couple octaves higher than normal as though his balls had up and left him. Probably too embarrassed, Scutcher wanted to up and leave too but he was fixed to the spot. “I didn’t see you…doin’…that…” he tried to explain, never the most proficient liar in the world especially not with a beetroot face and images of a second before playing in his mind. Especially not when she got up and stood next to him, so close that…he could smell her, right there in her pants, a scent rising as heady as the way the earth smells after rainfall.

It was either some cruel joke or some wonderful dream that made her eyes lock on his, Scutcher couldn’t decide which but either way it couldn’t truly be real. He wanted it too much for it to be real, had run over the scenario in his head so many times- she’s there waiting for him in the garden, ready and full of want, burning with it so hard that he can see it in her icy eyes. She takes a step towards him, plants a delicate finger on his lips, rises onto her toes and—

This is the part where he wakes up. It always is. But his imagination today must be more vivid than usual because it doesn’t stop right at the part when her lips touch his and things finally start to get good, goes right on past that to the point where he must be in a very deep sleep or something because he feels each touch as sure and as solid as anything he would while awake. And it’s so good that he doesn’t really care that it’s either some cruel joke or some wonderful dream because whatever happens it feels solid enough for the moment. He shuts his eyes and kisses her back but when she pulls away and he opens them he’s still there. Still in the garden and looking down on her.

"It’s okay right?"

She asks and Scutcher isn’t entirely sure what it is and if there was an earlier part of her speech that he missed. If she means it’s okay to kiss him then that’s just laughable because surely that’s his line, surely it should be the other way around. Is it okay for the filthy stupid pig boy to kiss the smart pretty girl with the great boyfriend doing perfectly well without him? The answer is almost invariably going to be no. But she wants an answer from him, the way she looks up- poor Noreen, he didn’t have any answers at all. He could barely remember how to talk. Why would he say anything anyway?

One hand goes through her hair and she gets a stiff little nod for her pains while Scutcher moves forwards a little, like as to kiss her only thinking better of it, jerking it back. She just kissed him but it still feels like some mistake she’s made, like she’s lost her head in the scent of the lavender and kissing her would just be taking advantage when something inside of his head just screams at him to shut his eyes and kiss her already.

And he doesn’t have much in the way of brains, so normally instinct wins. He holds her head in his hands, leaning down with a sharp intake of breath, robin’s egg blue eyes fluttering shut. It’s mad. It’s not true. It’s a dream so he’s going to have to make the most of it, breaking one kiss and replacing it with another, the kind of deep searching kiss that robs a man of breath and senses.