WHO: Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet, very momentary Addy WHEN: Monday evening WHERE: Parsonage WHAT: A check in, and then some smuuuut WARNINGS: Smuuuuuut
Things had been going pretty well for Tuck, all things considered. He was healing well, if slowly, which meant he could be a little more mobile. It also meant he could start weaning off of his meds, and while he had worried it was going to be rough and he was going to think about the drugs all the time, it was going more smoothly than he had expected. He still had rough moments, but he had support for those. He could even leave the house, if only to go to the church next door. The rule was that he take a wheelchair the second he left the threshold of the parsonage and since the church was set up for disability access and the parsonage really wasn't, the wheelchair lived on the little porch. And since it got him out of the house, Tuck liked to meet with Ezra - his peer support worker, in the church office.
He wheeled back, leaving his session with Ezra feeling lighter and better than when he had headed over. Ezra had disappeared upstairs to have dinner with his brother, and Tuck managed to wrangle himself out of the wheelchair and back into the parsonage, his heavy moon boot thunking across the wooden floor as he went to collapse into a chair in the lounge. From there he could see Will in the kitchen - probably warming up something for dinner, and their daughter Evie standing beside him, her little hand wrapped in Will's pant leg as he spoke to her about what he was doing.
As soon as Tuck sat down though, Evie yelled, "papa!" and ran out of the kitchen to stand in front of him. She reached out to touch his injured leg so very carefully, and whispered, "gentle". And for a moment, Tuck felt like his heart was being ripped out of his chest.
Evie had learned the concept of gentleness early on, because Saint David had an elderly cat in the household, and it wouldn't do to have the poor cat's tail pulled or ears twisted when it was naught but skin and bones. And then Evie had had to learn far too soon for a child who wasn't even three, that the concept of gentleness sometimes had to extend to the people closest to you. Sometimes even the people who were supposed to take care of you. Her own mother, who had been brutalised by a terrible man, and then who had tried to take her own life. Her dear uncle Henry who had had his fingers broken by a demon. And now her beloved Daddy Tuck, who could still barely walk, needed to be treated so gently and she wanted Tuck to know she understood and all at once Tuck hated it. Hated that that was a lesson she had had to learn so early, even though gentleness in and of itself was something Tuck believed in very much. It was the why, more than the what of it all.
The brief moment of pain showed on his face, not that Evie noticed at all. Will would have. Evie was a happy little girl, and thank everything for that. And a second later, Tuck shook it off and he leaned forward to smile at her. "That's right, just a little bit gentle. You can still come up here and hug me. Are you glad Mummy's on her way to take you to your other house for a few days?"
Evie climbed up onto the sofa in her ridiculously uncoordinated way, and then she leaned against him. "Yes. Puddin!"
Tuck chuckled, amused that of all the thing Evie was looking forward to, the one she mentioned was Henry and Iestyn's cat. "We'll still see you tomorrow during the day, hmm. Maybe we can convince Daddy to take us all to the park!" Oh he hoped so. Will and Evie could take turns pushing Tuck around in the wheelchair, and trying to keep Evie from jumping off the top of shit.
"PARK!" Evie screamed, looking at Will. "Daddy, park!"
Tuck grinned, his face impish, "yeah, Daddy, park!"