Who: Marshall and Clint When: afternoon, Sunday, June 17th Where: the new/old vet clinic Status: complete
It was a little weird, having his big brother back in town. There was such an age gap between them, Clint had felt like an only child for most of his life. Marshall was more like a cousin who kept in good touch -- calling their mom almost on a schedule, sending pictures of his time in Africa with the rhinos, briefly chatting to him on the phone every couple of months, the two of them liking each others’ posts on Instagram. He’d been out living his life while Clint grew up, more or less, and that’s how he thought it would always be.
But now Marsh was back, in a manner that seemed more permanent, and it was only months before Clint was supposed to be the one leaving home. It just felt like a weird situation. He liked his brother, Marsh was a good guy, Clint just didn’t feel like they knew each other all that well, with eleven years between them. His mom had encouraged him to try to hang out with his big brother anyway, to get to know him. Clint suspected that would make leaving for college even harder, but he didn’t like to upset his mom, so he’d promised to try.
What better way to try than to work on a project together. Marsh needed some help getting the vet’s office ready for opening, and Clint volunteered to paint and move stuff around and whatever else he needed. He picked up some Moxie’s on his way over there, just in case Marsh was hungry, and stepped up to open the door to the place a little after noon.
Marsh was happy to get some help, there wasn't much time before he wanted to open up the clinic and the current state of the place was something he could only sum up as 'Warehouse'. At least all the deliveries were on time, that just meant boxes everywhere. On the other hand he was a little nervous about his little brother coming over. It was funny how well he'd known Clint when he was still a tiny kid and now he didn't know him at all. It was his own doing, of course, he'd been away for college and he hadn't really made an attempt at getting to know him when he was home. Or had he? It all blurred together a bit. Clint was as busy with his social and sports life as Marsh had been at his age, so maybe it was nobody's fault. Still he couldn't help but feel a little guilty, like he should have done better.
No time like the present! He was sitting on the floor, screwing together one of the cages when Clint arrived and he shot him a smile that brightened a bit when he saw the bags he was holding. "You brought food," he exclaimed. "Well that puts you in my top three favorites right away, good thinking."
Clint gave him a crooked grin. “Yeah, figured we needed some fuel,” he said, glancing around before he found a stack of boxes to set the food and drink carrier down. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I just got like, four of their best burgers.” It was a ton of food, but they would probably work up an appetite with all the physical labor, so he didn’t think any of it would go to waste. He looked over at what Marsh was currently doing and cocked an eyebrow. “You hungry now, or ...? Want me to start on something? Boss me around, boss man.”
"I'm starving actually," Marsh admitted. "Been here since nine." He gestured around with an amused smile, indicating just how bad it had been before he actually got started - or had it looked better on the surface? At least all the boxes had been neatly piled when he first got in. To be fair he'd started the day getting the storage area ready to stack medicine; that had been the most urgent task since he had a delivery due the next morning. He got up and dusted himself off, tittering a bit at just how much food Clint had brought. "But hey, if you're not hungry I can put you to work while I eat," he teased and once again it struck him just how bizarre it was that his baby brother was now taller than he was. So damn grown up, it was a little surreal.
Clint hadn’t seen how it started out, so he wasn’t sure how much progress Marsh had made, but it definitely looked like he was working. “Eat up, dude,” he said, nudging the bag a little closer to Marsh with a smile. “I’m good for now, so, what do you want me to start on?” He glanced around, not wanting to just dive right in and get shit all messed up if Marsh had it the way he wanted it. It was true that he wasn’t starving, so he could wait a while for his own burger, but part of him wanted to have his hands busy with something useful so he didn’t have to stand around and just try to make small talk with his brother.
"See that cage I'm putting together?" Marsh said as he hopped up on the counter and started rifling through the bags to see what was available. "There's three more like it and it's a pain in the ass. Be my guest." They hadn't really had a chance to talk one on one since he got home but their parents had filled them in on some of the things going on over dinner when he first arrived. "So, girlfriend, huh?" he said as he picked one of the burgers he actually liked and started unwrapping it. He didn't know why dating was the easiest topic to gravitate to, but it was. Girls were easy to talk about. "Ruby, right? You guys serious?"
He nodded and headed for the mostly-assembled cage to take a look at how it was put together so far, then started opening a box that contained another one. Clint started pulling pieces out, shooting Marsh a small grin. “Ruby Fox, yeah,” he confirmed, though he wasn’t sure that Marsh would even know the Fox name. He’d been gone for what felt like most of Clint’s life. “Serious though ... I dunno. I like her a lot, but it’s only been a few months, and I’ve got school plans and shit. But it’s really good for now, so I’m just trying to enjoy it while it lasts.” Clint realized he sounded a little sad about that, even though he hadn’t meant to, and he frowned briefly to himself and tried to refocus. “What about you though? You leave anybody special behind?”
"Nope," Marsh said. "Nothing serious, anyway. Had a fun fling with this dutch girl in Limpopo, she was crazy." He probably shouldn't tell his baby brother - eighteen or not - about all the drugs they'd taken, set a good example and all that, but it had all been pretty natural and eye-opening so he couldn't say he wouldn't recommend it. There was that fine line again, one he wasn't sure where it was safe to step. He also had no idea if Clint was cool like that or if he'd tell their parents everything - doubtful but one never really knew with people. "But it was temporary, just fun. Long distance thing would not have worked with her at all. Is Ruby going off to college too?"
“I don’t even know where Limpopo is,” Clint muttered with a faint chuckle. He felt dumb and unsophisticated sometimes, talking to his older well traveled brother. Sure, he was only eighteen, but he still sometimes felt like Marsh was setting up expectations with their parents that he wouldn’t be able to meet. Becoming any kind of doctor definitely wasn’t in Clint’s future, not even an animal one. He’d kept his high school grades up to stay on the football team, but college seemed like a whole different situation. “Nah, she’s staying here,” he answered as he pulled cage parts out of the big box and laid them out. “She might do some online classes or go later on, but she wants to work for a while first. And stay close to her dad, I guess.” They tried not to talk much about future plans, because they both knew they were headed in different directions, and it was a bummer.
Marsh hadn't exactly gotten the feeling that their parents were displeased with Clint dating Ruby but there was a faint taste when they talked about her, like they were supportive but hoping it wouldn't last. They probably wanted more for him, someone who was going to college too, someone more equal to him socially and financially. They'd never say that out loud - they were good people - but it was hard to miss the feelings there and those were one of the few tastes he was starting to recognize even if he didn't quite have a word for the emotion yet. "Her dad runs the auto shop, right? Danny?" It was easier to avoid talking about future plans, Marsh recognized just how difficult that last summer before college could be when everyone was about to scatter to different locations. He hadn't had a girlfriend at the time but he could imagine how much it would suck.
“Yeah, Danny Fox,” Clint confirmed, glancing over again. “He’s pretty cool. Not one of those asshole girlfriend-dads, you know?” He hadn’t spent much time with Ruby’s dad yet, but they’d met in passing and Mr. Fox hadn’t brandished a shotgun at him or something stupid like that. He hoped the guy knew that Clint treated Ruby well, so maybe he didn’t feel the need to be an asshole. Clint found the assembly instructions for the cage and started arranging things around him, then plopped down on the floor to start putting it together. “So when do you open again?” he asked.
Marsh laughed because he did know what those asshole girlfriend-dads were like. Those guys who hated their daughters' boyfriends for no good reason, immediately assuming the worst about their intentions. Though to be fair, they weren't always wrong. "Next week," he replied then. "I'm on duty this weekend for the emergency number but I need to hire an assistant before I actually open the clinic. It's insane to try to juggle it all alone and sometimes you need an extra pair of hands." That didn't mean he didn't start working sooner, he was already booked for a few house calls out on nearby farms so that didn't worry him. "You wanna be a vet's assistant?" he asked, mostly joking. Clint had other plans for the summer, he was sure.
There were plenty of dickhead guys who deserved suspicion from the parents of the girls they were dating, but Clint didn’t feel like one of those. He genuinely liked Ruby, he was from a good family, he had ambitions for his future, he wasn’t going to just knock her up and disappear or something. They were careful, and he treated her with respect. Hopefully that was obvious to Mr. Fox, or Ruby had told him she was happy, or something. Thinking about it too much always bummed him out about the impending end of summer, so he tried not to. He chuckled as he leaned to pick up a screwdriver. “I dunno if I’m cute enough for that,” he answered, shooting Marsh a little grin. “I’ve got a temp job lined up at the gym anyway, gonna be starting that soon.”
"Nah, you're definitely not cute enough to be a vet's assistant," Marsh replied with a crooked grin. "High standards, aspiring models only." He was sure the lady clientele would be delighted to have a cute and friendly teenage boy in the reception but it was a very female coded job so he wasn't even sure any guys would apply. He also wondered if he would be hiring assistants based on attraction level; he didn't want to be that guy but he was only human and he wasn't immune to charm. This hiring process was probably going to be harder than he expected. "I also don't offer a free workout plan with the job so you'll probably be happier at the gym," he added. "You should get me a discount."
When Clint thought of a vet’s assistant, he thought of a busty cute girl in scrubs at the front counter. Maybe that was sexist of him, but those were the only types he’d seen in that type of job. Clint would rather hang out around the weight machines all day and have that free membership for himself to use afterward. If he was going to do any college sports, he needed to be ready to compete in a much bigger pond than Point Pleasant. “I’ll see what I can do,” he told Marsh with a grin. “You don’t stay in good enough shape like, deadlifting huge dogs and cows and stuff?” His tone was teasing -- he knew Marsh couldn’t pick up a cow -- but he didn’t even know his brother’s workout preferences. But if he was into it, maybe they could bond over doing gym stuff together. At least a little, before he left.
"Oh I deadlift cows and horses all day long," Marsh replied with a delighted laugh. "I need more cardio though, something fun. Dad keeps telling me to join the country club." He wrinkled his nose at that and while he didn't exactly feel ashamed of being born into a rich Overlook family, he definitely felt his privilege all the damn time and wasn't too eager to flaunt it. Joining the country club felt a bit snobby, but maybe he was still in some rebellious phase and would change his mind about it all later in life. Right now he just wanted to join a normal gym and not be known as the rich vet who played squash at the Overlook Country Club.
Clint was still too young to see the country club as anything but boring and stuffy. He knew how to play golf, but he didn’t really enjoy it, and there were plenty of other places to swim, so what was the point? “Gross,” he agreed with Marsh’s expression. “There’s no cardio there, just a bunch of old white dudes jerking each other off.” Clint paused, then laughed. “And dad, of course. So ... yeah, I’ll get you a hookup, come to the gym and we’ll run together or do some HIIT stuff or something.” He couldn’t really fathom that he knew more about anything than his big brother, so he was sure Marsh knew how to work out already. “They’ve got some good heavy bags set up too, if you’re into any kickboxing stuff. That’s always good cardio.”
Marsh let out a hearty laugh at Clint's disturbing description of the country club and he could just picture their father sitting in a towel with the most awkward look on his face as everyone around him behaved inappropriately. It wasn't an image he particularly wanted in his head so he just gave Clint the finger as he laughed. The rest was better, kickboxing was something he could get into. He'd done all sorts of training at college but he felt rusty now after his months in Limpopo. He'd moved plenty out there, but nothing really focused and no real training and he wanted to change that now. "I'll have to stop by. No way am I ever going to the country club now."
It was kind of cool to make his big brother laugh like that, and Clint just grinned in the face of that middle finger. “Good, then we’ll be the generation to put it out of business finally,” he said, amused. He hadn’t meant all the rich old white dudes were literally jerking each other off, but they might as well have been, in Clint’s opinion. He didn’t want to be that kind of rich guy, especially not after dating Ruby had taught him a few things about inequality. Clint focused on assembling the cage, moving up to his knees to get some leverage as he pieced it together. It was kind of a pain in the ass, but there was something nice about helping his brother out, even if Marsh was just eating and watching.
"I bet dad said the same thing when he was younger," Marsh said and now that he was getting closer to thirty he felt a bit old and not quite as at odds with his father's ideals as he'd used to be. "See?" he chuckled as Clint struggled with the metal. "Pain in the ass, I told you." He wiped his hands on some tissues and set aside the half eaten burger to join Clint. "Might be easier with two, let me hold that still." He was glad to have the help, even just having company made it easier to work and it wasn't often he spent time with his little brother.