WHO: Eliot Waugh & Ronan Lynch WHEN: Thursday WHERE: The Barns WHAT: Eliot visits the Barns to procure peaches. WARNINGS: None
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Eliot didn't care for farms. In fact, he'd made a solemn oath to himself that he wouldn't ever tend to one again. Of course, fate was laughing in his face over that vow. He'd been told that he was going to have to help the Fillorian farmers learn to farm during his rule in Fillory. It'd been part of the information dump that Margo had given him upon her arrival in Tumbleweed. And of course he'd been prepared to start something akin to a depression era garden when they were in emergency prep mode at the cave dwelling.
Thankfully, that hadn't been necessary, and they were back in a time where he could rely on other people to do agriculture while he focused on things he enjoyed far more. Cooking, art, alcohol, etc.
Of course, even though he didn't like farms, that didn't mean he didn't see their value. He was a firm believer in farm fresh ingredients and frequented the local farmers market on most weekends. But he'd discovered a little secret not too long ago.
Ronan Lynch had the best peaches.
And thus Eliot found himself at the barns, looking incredibly out of place, but it had been fully intentional on his part. He moved across the yard with careful footsteps, as he didn't want to step in anything that might ruin his shoes, and moved for the steps of the main house. Once at them, he bounded up them and took the extra step or two to reach the front door. And then he knocked.
"Ronan, Adam," he called out, hoping one of the two were home.
--
Mid-afternoon at the Barns was one of the laziest times for Ronan, who was in the habit of waking up early and heading out into the fields. When the sun was at its hottest, he usually wandered back inside for lunch, to cool off, and sometimes, to dream. Adam was at work, and Baelfire was off somewhere doing something Ronan hadn’t asked about, so Ronan and Opal and Chainsaw had the place to themselves.
He had made himself a sandwich and was sitting in the living room, watching as Opal tried to prevent Chainsaw from taking little splinters and leaves off of the stick that Opal was trying to eat. He absentmindedly admonished them every so often, but mostly he was lost in thought; he almost didn’t hear the sound of someone calling his name. But it caused Chainsaw to squawk and flutter towards the door, so he got to his feet.
Warily, he opened the front door. Chainsaw fluttered around his head and settled on his shoulder to peek around the door, too. Opal, he hoped, was behind him somewhere, out of sight.
He raised an eyebrow at Eliot, who hadn’t told Ronan that he was coming. He wasn’t the worst kind of unexpected guest, and Ronan mostly got along with him, but something about him always seemed to make Ronan’s hackles go up. So he sounded a little irritable when he said, “What do you want?”
--
Eliot was more or less accustomed to Ronan's bristly demeanor. It didn't phase him. In many ways, Ronan reminded Eliot of Penny, and while Eliot wasn't ever going to say he missed Penny, it was almost like a nice reminder of the previous companion. Completely ignoring the sound of irritability, Eliot turned and pointed off in the direction of Ronan's orchards.
"Peaches."
Then he turned back to look at Ronan and smiled. "I know I could have gone to the store or the market but, see, I've decided I don't want them from anyone else but you," he gave a firm nodded. "So I hope that's alright."
--
Ronan raised his eyebrows. He had plenty of peaches, and they were for sale, but he had not advertised that anyone could just come to his door and buy them. And the way Eliot said it made it sound like he wanted a lot of them, and he wanted them for something specific, and Ronan found himself initially distrusting the request.
If it had been a complete stranger, he probably would have told them to fuck right off. But because he kind of knew Eliot, and distrusting him was their weird version of normal, he said instead, “What do you want them for?”
- "Small project. An experiment, actually," he commented, with his eyes moving away from Ronan to look back in the direction of the orchards. It was all very simple in Eliot's mind. He needed something to preoccupy his time and the notion of a real job wasn't going to be in the cards. He'd given that a chance upon his arrival when he'd discovered he was employed by some local honky tonk. If he could have stomached the aesthetic of the place, the gruelling task of flipping burgers non stop would have been enough to make him quit. But the atmosphere coupled with the mundanity of it all had made it so Eliot had lasted no more than three days, complaining of the smell of grease for days after. He'd even implemented an emergency skin care program to undo any possible damage that might have occurred during those three days.
He was a tad dramatic when he wanted to be.
So, typical employment was out, and at present he was doing casual lessons with a budding witch known as Megan. And with Kylo actually working at the Espresso Pump (which Eliot secretly loved), Eliot needed a way to occupy the hours when he was alone. The hours he hated most.
He didn't function well alone.
He glanced back to Ronan. "You like peach wine? Not as common, of course, as other wines but I've always thought it to be an exotic and tasteful variant."
--
That was a surprisingly normal request. Ronan wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it wasn’t… that.
“Never tried it,” he said, surprised into simple honesty without any pretense. “I like beer.”
He eyed Eliot for a moment, and then opened the door a little wider, but stepped into the space to make sure it wasn’t taken as an invitation to come inside. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Eliot inside (although he didn’t, particularly; he hadn’t yet been convinced to like Eliot enough to spend extended time with him alone), but if they were going out into the orchards, he was going to have to go back outside. He had been planning to do that anyway.
He had more questions, but he didn’t ask them aloud; he stood and stared at Eliot silently, waiting for him to explain himself. On his shoulder, Chainsaw quirked her head at their visitor, as if she wanted to know what he wanted, too.
--
"You're missing out," he replied back, with his gaze still out at the orchards, before he turned his attention to Ronan again. "I remember," he added, withholding an outward look if disgust. Eliot hated most beer. Sure, the micro breweries that were now in fashion were alright, and he could appreciate a specialty brew from time to time, but those weren't what he imagined when someone mentioned beer. He pictured cheap alcohol, drunken family members, and a whole lot of shouting.
Plus, it tasted god awful.
Noting the silence, Eliot made the assumption he needed more information. "I'm hoping to make some. And if I'm going to put in an effort, I want quality product. You've got quality product."
He then glanced back to the orchard. "Is the change in season going to be a concern in regard to your crop?" Once the question was asked, he glanced to Ronan, raising an eyebrow. Eliot grew up on a farm and he knew there were fluctuations in when produce was at its peak. He might have been from Indiana but he knew that peach season, even in Texas, was coming to a close and yet Ronan's crop was still high quality. He had a feeling it wasn't just a fluke.
--
Ronan wasn’t sure what “I remember” meant, but he didn’t break his silence. He waited for Eliot to explain himself, and it wasn’t long before he did just that.
Ronan’s eyes followed Eliot’s back out to the orchards, just barely visible over one of the sloping hills of the farm. He loved his trees; he especially loved that they didn’t require a magically powered soul to survive, or at least his father’s plants hadn’t seemed to change after his death.
“The trees are hardy,” he said after a moment. “But they don’t produce year round.”
He actually didn’t know precisely when the trees would stop producing fruit. Once it got cold, he assumed they would lose their leaves like everything else. He could have dreamed them to be able to produce peaches even when it snowed, but Ronan wanted them to be more trees than dreamed beings. He wanted their leaves to change color, to fall off, to grow back, to start flowering, and then bear fruit. He wanted them to be normal. But he also wanted them to survive without his help, and he wanted their fruit to be delicious, so he’d given them that little extra boost.
--
Eliot didn't turn to look at Ronan as the man answered him. Instead, he made a quiet 'hmm' sound to himself. He'd hoped that perhaps they would bare fruit the entirety of the year, but he supposed he could work with what was available at present. It'd give him time to experiment with the spells and flavors. And, if it was successful, he could work on it being a larger project once the season came back around.
"Alright," Eliot finally said before pulling his attention from the orchards and back to Ronan. "Can I get, oh, three bushels today?" He paused before adding, "For the experiment."
--
Ronan raised his eyebrows, but the phrase The Experiment, as if it had uppercase letters, amused him enough that he didn’t refuse.
“Yeah, alright,” he said. He stepped out the door and closed it behind him, only for it to open again a moment later when Opal bounded out to follow them. She skipped off towards the fields, towards the trees, where their baskets of fruit lay from the morning’s picking. Chainsaw took off from his shoulder and flew off after them. Ronan watched them for a moment with an amused but satisfied look on his face, and then started off, gesturing for Eliot to follow. “Come on, then.”