ikissdhimbck | OOM: Outside, Stables -- For Tommy Gavin

He releases his near-death grip on the saddle horn the instant Kate says not to rely on it, but he'll just let it rest there. It takes a moment for him to adjust his core balance while in a sitting position, as he's more used to doing that sort of thing on his feet on a pair of ice skates. Actually, it's almost like trying to stay upright on a barstool while drunk. Oh, he can totally do this!

After she lengthens the stirrups a notch or two to accommodate his longer legs, it doesn't feel so awkward or uncomfortable (except for the crotch thing, but he'll assume he'll lose all sensation down there after about five more minutes anyway), and he doesn't feel as if he's going to randomly tip over.

"What, the leg pats? Fine. --Just kidding. Everything's good." He gives her a crooked grin.

Her expression flattens.

Amusement is still dancing in her eyes, however.

"Good. Y'let me know if that changes."

She hands over the reins, a smile hinting at sultry tugging at the corner of her mouth. She coos something sweet at Duncan as she moves past, but it's pitched too low to overhear.

"Duncan knows the trail like the back of his hoof. He'll likely follow Rachat's lead, an' you won't hafta do much but enjoy the ride. Jus' remember it don't take a lot of pressure with your heel t'get him movin'. The harder y'kick, the faster he'll go."

She hauls herself into the saddle with the fluid grace of a woman who's done this hundreds of thousands of times. She brings Rachat around with a quick step. They're an extension of each other now, and she radiates confidence.

"Ready?"

She grins, eager and sharp.

~~I'm on a HORSE~~

As far as Tommy's concerned, there will be no kicks on this ride, and he pats Duncan on the side of his neck with the silent wish, Please don't dump my ass on the ground. With the reins in his hands, there's nothing left to do but go for it.

"Yep, ready as I'll ever-- wait. Okay, one thing: how do I-- uh, brake?"

He can't help the car terminology.

She demonstrates.

"Ease back on your reins like this. An' make sure you ain't squeezin' his sides."

She murmurs a 'whoa' to Rachat, who helps with the demonstration.

Duncan starts to shift uneasily, ready to get going already.

Tommy nods as she makes it look almost too easy.

"'Kay, got it. Totally ready now." He gestures for her to proceed. "Ladies first."

Duncan's restlessness may be seeping through because Tommy is genuinely excited to start on their way.

She settles her hat on her head, tugging the brim down until it almost obscures her eyes. She flashes him a smile.

"Whatever you say, partner. Real easy, now..."

She sets her heels to Rachat's side and clucks her tongue. The dapple grey sets off at an easy walk, meandering to one side of the lane. To Kate's credit, she doesn't look over her shoulder right away to check up on Tommy.

Tommy replies with a smile of his own that falters into a slight grimace as soon as she passes.

"Alright," he mutters under his breath, "time to take this guy outta park..."

Grasping the reins firmly but making sure he's not pulling on them, he lightly taps Duncan's sides with his heels -- or at least, what he thinks is lightly, because Duncan starts off a little more abruptly than Tommy expects.

"Jeez!" The exclamation comes out louder than he intends. "I'm okay!" he calls out quickly, before Duncan catches up to Rachat and strolls up alongside him.

He's got this. He's totally got this.

So long as she's not hearing any loud thuds she keeps her eyes forward, biting her lip so as not to laugh. She listens closely to Duncan's hoofbeats, cutting her eyes to horse and rider once they catch up.

She's as solemn as a nun.

If that nun worked a burlesque peep show.

"Howdy," she says cheerfully. "Glad y'could make it."

The path they're on will take them around the back paddocks, along the treeline and over to the lake.

"How're y'doin'?"

His teeth are still set and he's still staring straight ahead between the horse's ears, but at least he's upright.

"Uhh...good! I think. Yeah. Yeah, I'm good."

Shifting a bit in the saddle, he tries to allow his limbs to loosen up and naturally go along with the horse's movements.

"How're you?" He glances at her, the corner of his mouth pulled back in a lopsided smile.

Don't be nervous, Tommy.

"Sweetheart, I've been ridin' since I was knee-high to a grasshopper."

She's in her element.

"Tell me somethin'. What d'you enjoy doin' when you ain't savin' lives?"

He chuckles, seeing as how she looks as if she were born in the saddle and a horse rocked her cradle at night.

"Well, I like to play hockey. Do I need to explain that sport to you, too?" His grin says he wouldn't mind, and she'll probably get an earful as a result.

She gives it some real serious thought.

"S'that the game where y'push a li'l plastic disc 'round a table?"

Is she serious?

Who knows.

"That's...air hockey." He smirks. "I mean, I play that, too, but that's just a tabletop game. I'm talking about ice hockey. Same general idea -- get a puck into the other team's goal. 'Cept of course we're on ice, and we're using five-foot-long sticks, and we're all wearing skates and helmets and padding 'cause we give and take some major hits in the course of gettin' that little disc into that goal. It's a full-contact sport, which baseball isn't."

It's only when he stops talking that he realizes that he's still on a horse.

The horse has almost forgotten about you, too, Tommy. As evidenced by the way he's started to drift from the path, toward a particularly tantalizing patch of grass near the fence line.

"Right. Ice polo — or shinny, I think they call it. In case y'didn't know, there ain't a whole lotta ice in Texas."

She turns her head, her smirk shifting into a slight frown.

"You all right there?"

"Uh-- yeah, I think so." Duncan's fallen a bit behind as Tommy tries to redirect him away from the fence.

"Hey, hey, stick to the trail, pal," he reminds the horse in much the same tone as he'd address an errant cab driver, though significantly milder and without profanity, adding a light tug on the reins to bring him back toward the center of the path.

"That's it, keep it moving, keep it moving-- dammit, not that far to the right, back over this way..."

Tommy eventually manages to stop confusing him and steers him straight again, and with another gentle tap from his heels, he catches up with Kate.

"Jeezus, he's got just as short an attention span as I do."

He leans forward and to the side a bit, trying to catch Duncan's eye. "Am I boring you? I'm still here, okay? Cut me some slack, will ya?" Leaning back, he gives him a pat on the neck anyway.

"What were we talking about--?" he says, continuing as if nothing had happened. "Shinny! Yeah, there's a lot of variations on hockey, depending on your location and what you've got to work with. 'Specially if you ain't got ice."

The indecision of the other horse agitates Rachat, but Kate keeps him on an even keel while Tommy struggles to straighten him out again. To be perfectly honest, the hardest thing for Kate through it all is not laughing and spooking the animals.

"He might be takin' advantage."

Duncan's the most good-tempered animal in the whole stable, but he's smart as a whip and can tell Tommy doesn't really know what he's doing. He flicks his ear back and shakes out his mane, grumbling.

"Well, I dunno much 'bout hockey, but ridin' has always been somethin' that helps clear my head. When everythin' starts feelin' heavy, takin' Beaut out t'the lonely stretches an' jus' lettin' her rip makes it all seem like a million miles away. It's ... freedom."

"Well, one horse has already taken advantage of me today..."

Tommy keeps a better handle on the reins as they walk on, keeping an eye on Duncan and trying to gauge if he's got some other idea of where he wants to go.

He utters a thoughtful chuckle. "Yeah, our methods for clearing our heads are obviously different, but the goal's the same, at least."

A bit more pensively he adds, "I used to drink a lot for the same reason. If you asked me a couple months ago what I enjoyed doing, I would've said drinking. I actually liked to drink for the sake of drinking, sure -- I mean, I still love the taste of whiskey even though I can't have it -- but drinking has that special added bonus of making you forget things you don't wanna think about. The more you wanna forget, the more you drink, blah blah blah. A wrong kind of freedom, but freedom nonetheless."

A pause, and he utters another chuckle, brighter and more amused this time. "And now I'm stone cold sober, sitting on the back of a horse, with you, at the end of the goddamn universe. I dunno how that happened. Does this count as freedom?"

"Guess y'just have a natural allure."

Her cheeky grin is short-lived. She doesn't grasp why he 'can't' have a drink the way a modern woman might, doesn't know what Alcoholics Anonymous even means, but she understands the rest of it. She understands it the way a banker may not know a thing about deep sea diving, but they know the feel of a rock in your belly that drags you down.

She glances out ahead.

"Yes, well. The thing 'bout that is the memories always come back. No matter how much y'drink t'try an' drown 'em out. Best y'can hope for is feelin' numb for a while; hopin' old ghosts don't come 'round talkin'. S'that freedom? I dunno. Still feels like a cage t'me. Like I'm crawlin' outta my head jus' t'let somethin' else crawl in."

She leans forward to pat Rachat's neck, Tommy's chuckle rattling her bones. Her mouth twists, the question catching her off guard.

"I ain't freedom, Tommy. I'm just a dust devil kickin' up earth. This place puts on a real good show, though — "

When she looks at him again, her smile has resumed its wild abandon.

"Jus' wait until y'really go for a ride with me."

The mention of ghosts makes his hand that's resting on the saddle horn tighten slightly, and he swallows, falling silent and wondering if she's just being metaphorical. But she's right about the numbness -- that was all he sought for the pain. Not a cure, not a solution, just anesthesia. It felt like freedom at the time. It wears off, but the pain never does.

When he catches her smile, though, he can't help an answering grin, sly and crooked, eyes narrowed and appraising. Is she being metaphorical again? He still hasn't been able to read her when she says things like that. Women who wear cowboy boots and hats unironically weren't even on his radar until he came to Milliways.

He stares ahead, the corners of his mouth still twisted upward. "Somehow I get the feeling that if I really go for a ride with you, a couple things could probably happen, one of 'em being that I'd find myself agreeing to another deal and spending way more time on a horse than I ever expected to in my entire life. Nothin' against horses, I'm actually starting to like horses, but I think you get the idea now that I sure as hell ain't that much of a cowboy. As for the other thing that could happen..."

A beat.

"Well. I already told you that I ain't that much of a gentleman, either."

Another beat, in which he shoots her a glance.

"Lack of a hat an' all."

She glances back, eyes narrowing in a quick tic.

She isn't all that sure she follows. For one thing, if he's starting to like horses then why not spend more time around them, cowboy or no? It isn't like he's pressed for time here; what else is he gonna do in a bar where he doesn't drink?

But it's the 'other thing' that really confounds her. She's quietly connecting the dots, trying to read between the lines of a man who already feels like a monograph.

Eventually, voice as dry as the desert, she says:

"If you're askin' my permission t'court more of my stock, I'm afraid I hafta put my foot down."

Tommy chuffs out a laugh at that.

Plus he hasn't heard the word court in this context since he last heard stories about how his great-grandparents met in the Old Country. (Boy meets girl; boy courts girl; boy beats up every other boy in the county who sets eyes on girl; boy marries girl; boy and girl sail to America; the end.)

Amused, he shakes his head, turning to look at her with an insufferable grin even though she sounds as sarcastic as a cactus.

"Not exactly, but..." He loosely shrugs his shoulders, turning his gaze back to the path ahead of them. "I still owe you another bourbon next time we're at the bar."

"Good. Because if a hat's the only thing keepin' you from goin' down a dark road t'harrier an' less two-legged sweethearts, I'll buy you a damn hat."

She chases the statement with a quick smirk. It's obvious she's mocking him, though it's not to be cruel; the only reason she doesn't make a follow-up about what a shame it would be should he abandon the fairer sex is because she's gleaning his intent now.

At least, she's suspicious. But with Gotland a week behind her, along with everything Teja said, she doesn't want to encourage him. She's got enough to figure out.

Still.

"You can always buy me a bourbon. Or a sodapop."

Another bright-eyed glance.

"I'm not choosy."

She gets a short, sharp laugh with a side of eyeroll. Oh, she's a ball-buster, that's for sure. Somehow, he always seems to find them.

Not that it's a deterrent or anything. Sometimes it only encourages him.

At least she's still somewhat interested, if coyly so. But they've already shared so much so quickly, and Tommy can't help but feel that this makes things different between them. For him, more often than not, the sex comes first, the details come later -- if at all.

He's not going to push it.

"Alright," he says harmlessly enough, though he can never fully rid his smile of that toothy wolfishness. "I'm not choosy, either."

The lake is just ahead of them now and its calm surface is dazzling in the late morning sunshine. Tommy's never approached the lake from this side before, so it's a whole new perspective on the end of the universe.

"Is it true that there's a giant squid in there?"

Because talking about giant squid after abandoning an attempt at steering this acquaintanceship toward casual sex is the most natural thing to do.

At the End of the Universe, anything goes. There's a popular soap opera that very well might agree; sex + squid = common conversational progression.

Her grin slides the way butter skirrs across a hot pan, stretching from ear to ear.

Yeah, I just bet you ain't choosy.

"There's two, actually. Hey — you're in luck, come t'think of it. They play fetch."

Between the horses and the squid Kate will frankenstein you a dog yet, Tommy.

He pulls a face.

"Really? What--? How is that even--? ...Never mind. I don't wanna know."

Fuckin' Milliways, man.

Taking his mirrored sunglasses from his t-shirt collar, he unfolds them and slips them on, and he squints out over the lake, checking for suspicious-looking ripples. But Kate is also in his line of sight, so he catches her with the light in her hair and her proud profile shadowed under the brim of her hat. After a few moments he turns back to the trail.

"Yeah, the only squid I deal with are fried and dipped in marinara sauce. Ever tried calamari?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject