Chapter Text
“Tyler! Get your ass up ‘n greet your daddy’s new farmhand!”
Summer, 2002. Ohio.
Tyler lays on the couch. The air is sticky. The ceiling fan above him does nothing to cut the humidity. He’s on his stomach, legs kicking in the air lazily. Every blink is slower than the last, and he’s about to fall asleep before his mother’s voice jolts him awake again.
“Tyler! Don’t make me come in there, boy.”
He can hear her mutter about how lazy he is. There’s plenty of muffled complaining on his own part before he rolls himself off the couch and pads into the kitchen, clad in shorts and a baggy t-shirt. “I’m goin’, Mama, I’m goin’,” he mumbles, skirting around her just in case she wants to swat at him for good measure. The knife in her hand doesn’t do him any good.
His bare feet creak against their old wooden floors and he looks back to see his mother still cutting the onions he picked this morning for tonight’s supper. His nose wrinkles at the smell. The summer air clings to him and bugs buzz in his ears. He peers out the kitchen window before opening the screen door and sees a boy hopping out of a beaten-down red pickup truck. He hesitates in the doorway.
“Ain’t Pa supposed to meet the new guys?” He shifts on his feet and sees a pair of pretty brown eyes look in his direction. He feels his face heat up and backpedals into the kitchen. “Why do I gotta do it?”
Kelly grunts over the counter, doesn’t give him a second glance. “Tyler, your daddy’s at the farmer’s market,” his mom answers, “so go out there dammit, before I whoop your ass.”
“Oh yeah,” he says, almost to himself. “Forgot.”
So out he goes.
“Hey,” he calls out from the porch. “You the new farmhand?” He leans over the railing.
New Guy turns his attention onto Tyler and smiles sheepishly. He crumples up a piece of paper and stuffs it into his pocket. “Hi. Uh, yeah. I’m Josh,” he says, adjusting a cap on his head, “is Mr. Joseph around? Or-are you…?”
Tyler shakes his head and cuts him off. “Nah, he’s out at the farmer’s market right now.”
“All right.” Josh comes closer, with steady steps and a sturdier smile when he shakes Tyler’s hand. Tyler doesn’t have a very firm handshake. “You’re…Tyler, then, right?”
Tyler narrows his eyes just slightly. “Yeah. How’d you know that?”
“Oh, well,” Josh clears his throat and it almost looks like he’s trying to peek inside the house to see if anyone else is inside. “Your dad just said-“
“He was talkin’ to you about me?” Tyler interrupts again.
Josh is pretty. He has curly, dark hair. And it looks like he has a tattoo on his right arm underneath the button-up he’s wearing. He doesn’t look like any of the other farmhands his father had hired in the past. Way too pretty.
He stares so long Josh’s face heats up under the pressure. “Um. No,” he says. He laughs nervously. Is this kid for real? “Just…small talk. He didn’t say anything bad, I promise.” He laughs again, but Tyler seems dead serious.
“Tyler-I told ya to say hi. Stop making him uncomfortable!” Kelly shouts through the screen door. She steps outside, wiping her hands on an apron tied around her waist. “Josh, you come on inside. Let me see ya up close, sweetheart.”
Josh’s attention is split from Tyler. “Yes ma’am,” he nods and heads inside, where a chattering Kelly starts to poke and prod.
Tyler stands in the driveway still, fists clenched at his sides, mind reeling. What made his dad choose this guy? After so many years of working alone? What makes him so special?
“Tyler Robert Joseph!”
He snaps his gaze up and fades away from all the daydreaming just to earn a sharp smack on the side of his head. He hadn’t even noticed her storming up to him until it was too late.
“You got anythin’ left up there?” His mother hisses, head still shaking in disappointment. “Swear ‘ta God, boy, are your ears filled with cotton? Get in the damn house.” She huffs, and he follows her into the house.
“Sorry, Mama,” Tyler mumbles, fingers instinctively going to rub the soon-to-be bruised lump on the side of his head. Josh is standing in the kitchen, and looks slightly perturbed when Tyler comes in after his mother looking wearier than before.
Kelly almost instantly softens the second her eyes are on Josh again.
“Oh, well, just look at ya,” she says. She’s all up in his business, patting his cheek. “Yeah, you’ll do just fine here. You’ve got a stocky build just like Tyler’s daddy. Good for hauling hay bales.”
She clicks her tongue, hand running down Josh’s bicep. “Y’know, it’s such a pity Tyler never took after him. All skin and bones, he is. Except for that big fat mouth.”
Tyler doesn’t say anything. Kelly continues to fawn over Josh. He watches them, jaw clenched, head pounding.
Josh smiles nervously. “Well, thank you, Mrs. Joseph-“ he clears his throat, “I’m excited to be here.”
Kelly hums. “Good. We’ll treat ya well, that’s for sure.” She turns and takes her place back at the kitchen counter. “Go show him ‘round, will ya?” She says to Tyler. “I gotta finish makin’ supper. Your daddy should be home before sundown.”
Tyler finally looks up, eyebrows raising slightly. “Really?”
“Did I stutter, boy? Now go!” She shouts at him, brandishing her knife.
He tugs on Josh’s sleeve and pulls him outside before she could get any angrier.
“Is she always like that?” Josh asks when they’re out of reach.
“Like what?” Tyler looks back at him.
Josh frowns and lets the silence settle before shaking his head. “Nothing.”
Maybe it’s just their quirks. They do live out in the middle of nowhere, after all. This is what he signed up for! The life of rural, simple country folk. Like the shows he used to watch on TV.
Despite the family’s odd personalities, the Joseph farm is truly a sight to behold. It’s incredibly well taken care of, much to Josh’s surprise. Chris had told him over the phone their primary crop was corn, but there are dozens of other smaller garden beds teeming with other produce.
“How is everything so…alive?” Josh asks, particularly interested in the veggies that seem to only grow during the fall months.
“Oh, my pa makes a special fertilizer,” Tyler informs him, fingers plucking a few ripe strawberries from the vines. He offers one to Josh. “Dunno what’s in it though. He don’t tell me. He don’t let me touch it, either.”
“So…you don’t buy anything? You grow and raise everything you eat?” Josh asks, mind racing as to how they’ve not made a killing with all of their quality livestock and produce. They should be on the cover of farming magazines or something. Or selling this magical fertilizer, at least.
“We go to the farmer’s market,” he says as he continues walking to the cattle pens, tossing strawberry stems into the grass as he goes. “Well-only Papa goes. Me and Ma stay here. He brings us back stuff we can’t grow or make ourselves.” They pass by free-roaming cows that Tyler stops to pet every ten seconds, pens of chickens and roosters clucking away at each other, and a hog house. “I don’t ever leave the farm.”
Josh’s eyebrows raise. “Never?”
Tyler’s cooing at a smaller cow-a dairy cow, from the looks of it-that has a bow tied around her neck. He shakes his head. “Don’t need to. This is Lola.” He doesn’t seem like he wants to talk about it.
Josh pets Lola. She’s abnormally small. Maybe that’s why Tyler likes her. Reminds him of himself.
“Anyway, you’re boutta live here too, right?” Tyler asks him as he feeds Lola the rest of his strawberries, “Mama said you’re gonna stay in the hayloft.”
Josh nods. “As far as I know, yeah.”
“I should probably show that to ya then,” Tyler tells him. “C’mon.”
Josh follows him, wondering how he’s able to walk over everything with no shoes on. That’s gotta hurt, right? The roads here are all gravel.
But Tyler’s already moved on, still babbling about how much he adores the animals and how he just can’t bear it when his father would take them out back to slaughter them for meat. But he’d never kill Lola, because Lola is Tyler’s pride and joy. And she’s a dairy cow, anyway. Tyler tells him that he only drinks Lola’s milk.
The hayloft inside of the barn is nicer than Josh expected. Not only will it be warm during the winter months, but there is already a small rolled out mattress pad up in the loft and a few oil lamps to light the darkness during the evening. He spies an old hot plate near the entrance, too.
“Oh, wow,” he says, looking around. “This is…great, actually. Really nice.”
Tyler hops up onto a hay bale and frowns down at him. “You just can’t be from ‘round here,” he says suddenly, “you’re too damn polite. Last guy who stayed here told me it was the worst thing he’d ever slept on.”
Josh laughs at that, scratches the back of his neck and replies sheepishly. “Uh, yeah, I come from a very,” he clears his throat, “interesting family. They weren’t too happy when they found I was moving here to work as a farmhand. I’ll just say that. But I chose to leave. I want this kind of life.”
“Well…I’m glad ya came,” Tyler says with a crooked smile, “you’re a lot nicer than any of the others who worked here.”
Josh squints up at him through the sunlight peeking through the slats in the barn. “Yeah?”
“I s’pose I should show you ‘round more now,” Tyler drawls, legs swinging off the side of the hay bale, “but I don’t really wanna.”
Josh wanders around the hayloft, and spots a few stray cats skittering around as they hunt for mice. “Do you know what time your dad will be back?” He asks absentmindedly, breaking through Tyler’s incoherent rambling that he definitely was not listening to.
“Before supper,” Tyler answers, picking at his nails. “What time’s it now?”
Josh checks his watch. “2:37.” He watches Tyler jump down from the hay bale.
“Guess we could wander ‘round some more,” he says with a sigh. “You ever tried honeysuckle?”
“Can’t say I have,” Josh replies. Tyler hums.
“Mm. Yeah. We’ll do that. Lola loves honeysuckle.” He leads Josh around the outside of the barn. There’s a thicket of trees right next to it that dissipates into the cornfields. The shade is comforting.
“How did your family come to own this land?” Josh asks absentmindedly. Tyler digs through some bushes until he straightens up holding a white bloom.
He shrugs. “I dunno. Was before I was born. Ask my pa if you wanna know.” He holds out a honeysuckle blossom to Josh. “Just suck out the bottom,” he says, and to Josh’s dismay, “just do it, it’s good! Promise.”
Josh grimaces before bringing the end of the flower to his lips, but instantly he’s met with a sweetness leaking from the bloom.
“Oh,” he says, “wait, that’s actually really cool.”
“Told ya.” Tyler’s on his knees in the dirt, picking a handful of the blossoms. “Sometimes Mama makes ice cream outta ‘em. But not often. They don’t grow very much.”
He stands, holding his bunch of honeysuckle. “I’m gonna take these to Lola. You can follow me if ya want. Or keep lookin’ around. I don’t care.”
And then he’s humming as he starts back towards the cow pasture. And Josh feels…nosy.
He doesn’t follow Tyler back, and instead looks around at the land surrounding him. The forest seems to go on forever ahead of him, circling around the farmland and stopping where the road cuts through.
Kind of makes him claustrophobic.
He ends up back in the barn-his new home. He’s peeking through all of the old things from past employees. Scraps of paper. Toolboxes. Some weirdly red stains that are probably rust.
He kneels down as a black cat rubs against his leg. “Hi girl,” he says softly, petting her. She purrs, smoothing herself against him. He’d say this was all so jarring, but he hasn’t even gotten to the job part of this place yet.
The ad in the newspaper was vague. Maybe Josh was just desperate to get away. Maybe his family finally just pissed him off enough that they pushed him away. But now, he’s kneeling in a barn full of hay, petting a cat, and his phone has zero service.
He smiles.
“Oh. Ew.”
Josh looks up and Tyler is standing above them. The cat skitters off immediately.
“Ew?” Josh questions.
“I don’t like cats,” Tyler says, “make me sneeze. Ohh no. Mama said black ones are bad luck, too. They’re just good for huntin’ the mice in here. Only reason we keep ‘em.”
Josh shrugs. “I don’t think so. That’s just superstition.” He’d go into some rant about religion being the cause but then he sees the cross around Tyler’s neck and ends his sentence there.
“Anyway,” Tyler bounces on the balls of his feet, “you wanna go through the corn maze?”
“Um. Not really, actually,” Josh says sheepishly, “that sounds terrifying.”
“What. You scared of corn?” Tyler cocks his head.
“More like…what’s in the corn.”
And yet, he’s lead out into the damn field anyway. It’s the middle of the day. How scary could it really be? Right?
Right?
Tyler immediately walks between the corn stalks and leaves Josh behind before glancing behind him.
“You comin’?”
Josh hesitates.
“You can hold my hand, if ya want,” he offers. Josh feels himself flush before grasping Tyler’s hand. It’s weirdly soft. Not what he was expecting.
“You guys plant this field like this every year?” He asks, grimacing at the bugs on the leaves that rustle as they move.
“Yeah,” Tyler says, “I’ve got it memorized. Been playin’ in it since I was little.”
How brave.
“Has it always been like this?”
“Since before I was born, yeah,” Tyler replies.
They make it to the center of the field, into a clearing of stomped down dirt and old corn stalks, and Josh already feels uneasy enough. “So, why have this?” He asks, “do you guys host like hay bale rides or something during Halloween or before harvest?”
Tyler turns around and stares at him. “No,” he says, as if the question was absolutely insane to even think about.
Josh feels like something is watching him.
“Oh,” he says.
Silence falls between them. “Ookay,” Josh continues, glancing around anxiously. “We should probably head back then, right?”
Tyler shrugs. “Yeah. I guess.”
He leads Josh out of the field and they see a setting sun. Josh can already hear Tyler’s mother calling for the both of them from their back porch and Tyler’s face heats up.
“You stay here,” he tells Josh. He runs back up to the house, and there’s a faint sound of yelling and the sound of skin hitting skin before Tyler’s jogging back out to him.
“Okay,” he says, with a considerably redder left cheek than before, “you can come in now. Mama says supper’s ready.”
Josh frowns. “Oh. Okay.” He hesitates before following inside.
He has a lot of time to take the decor in once Tyler leads him in. It’s very…religious. It dawns on him just how many crucifixes are hung on the walls when he takes specific note of them. His family isn’t religious. Sure, they’d pray before Thanksgiving dinner. But this is something entirely different.
“So Josh,” Kelly calls out from the dining room, “what’d ya think? Good quality farm for a young man like yourself?”
Josh wipes his brow and tries to ignore Tyler rummaging through the fridge, bent over. “…Uh, yes ma’am. Gorgeous land you have here. I’m more than happy to be working on it.” He walks into the dining room, and it’s just like the rest of the house.
Old. Creaky. There’s a grainy portrait of a family on the wall, and a painting of Jesus next to a closed door. All of the doorknobs look so old. They have skeleton keyholes.
A chandelier hangs above the dining table, but it looks like it’s seen better days. Melted candelabras sit on the table runner, surrounded by the plates of food Kelly is laying out.
Kelly nods in knowing approval and continues to dish out bowls of spaghetti and meatballs in their proper place settings. “Tyler, go call your daddy in for supper.”
Tyler perks back up with a pitcher of tea in his grasp and sets it on the table before jogging outside without a word as the sound of an approaching pickup truck becomes louder.
“Go ahead and grab a seat, Josh,” Kelly says, setting the final serving down on the dining room table. Four bowls. Four place settings. Six seats at the table.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Josh says, taking a seat. The heads of the tables are reserved for Kelly and Chris, surely, so he’ll be eating across from Tyler. Kelly serves him salad alongside the entrée, and God, Josh hasn’t seen produce this fresh in forever.
“Apple pie for dessert,” she says. Josh is suddenly aware of just how hungry he actually is. His stomach growls, and she laughs.
“I’m assumin’ you’ve got a man’s appetite just like my Chris,” she says, piling a bit more onto his plate. The meatballs themselves could be a main dish. They’re huge. It’s Josh’s turn to laugh. “I guess so,” he says, “I’m sure I’ll work up an appetite once Chris puts me to work.”
“Not Tyler though, God bless him,” Kelly mutters, “I couldn’t beg that boy to eat half as much as his pa. Just a skinny thing.” She makes a noise in the back of her throat and shakes her head, still mumbling as she moves on to her own plate.
Tyler walks back in, looking between Josh and his mother before slipping into the seat across from Josh. “He’s comin’,” he tells Kelly.
“Thank you, honey.”
Kelly places a considerably smaller amount of food on Tyler’s plate as he sits down. Josh waits for a reaction, but there’s nothing. Guess she was telling the truth.
“Thank you, Mama,” Tyler says instead. He’s so incredibly timid when in the presence of his parents. Josh hasn’t seen how he is around Chris yet, but he’s assuming it’s probably even more so.
Kelly kisses the top of his head.
“You’re welcome, sweetheart.” She busies herself back into the kitchen, humming under her breath. It’s just Tyler and Josh, sat across from each other.
Josh feels awkward. He clears his throat, opens his mouth to speak but then the screen door slams open and heavy footsteps echo off the wood-paneled walls. Tyler damn near flinches at the sound.
Chris enters the dining room and Josh finds himself standing. He feels weird, but, this is the guy he’s supposed to be reporting to, so...
And the fact that he’s already sat at the table when the head of the house arrives. It feels like some sort of disservice to have made himself at home before properly introducing himself.
He walks up to him, a bit awkwardly. “Hi,” he says, moving to shake Chris’ hand. “It’s so nice to finally meet you in person, Chris.” He smiles, and Chris doesn’t. His handshake is firm.
“That’s ‘sir’ to you, boy,” Chris says gruffly. “Don’t be forgettin’ your manners while you’re workin’ for me.”
Josh’s expression falters slightly. “Right. Sorry.” He sits back down, and he feels like he’s just been scolded by a teacher. Tyler glances at him from across the table. He keeps his head down. Picks at his food. Josh tries not to feel intimidated.
“Oh, Chris, take it easy on him,” Kelly scolds as she walks into the dining room, “it’s his first day. Tyler showed him ‘round, so he probably filled his head with all sorts of nonsense.” She gives Josh an empathetic look as she sits down at the opposite head of the table, across from her husband. “Don’t worry, hon, Chris’ll give you a real first day tomorrow.”
She clears her throat. “Now, since everybody’s here.” She holds her hands out. Josh takes one of them, and Tyler takes the other. Chris is too far away for them to hold hands, so they just…reach for him, palms flat on the table.
Chris starts the prayer, to which Tyler and Kelly follow along under their breath. Josh keeps his head bowed because he doesn’t know the words.
“Bless us, oh Lord, for these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
“Amen,” Tyler and Kelly say. They release each other’s hands and everyone seems to wait for Chris to nod curtly before they start to eat. Josh worries his food is going to be cold, but it doesn’t bother anyone else, apparently.
“Don’t worry ‘bout the prayers, you’ll learn ‘em soon enough,” Kelly whispers to him.
Josh gives her a soft smile, but it quickly fades. He tries to change the subject. “Um. This is really good,” he tells Kelly, gesturing to his pasta. “I never had a lot of home-cooked meals in the city. My parents always worked a lot.”
Tyler still watches him. Chris watches Tyler. Josh tries not to look at either of them because he feels really weird and out of place right now and maybe Chris is just like that. One of those scary old men who are actually really nice and soft on the inside. At least, that’s what he’s hoping for.
“You’re sweet,” Kelly says, waving him off. “These two never compliment my cookin’ anymore.” She shoots a look at Tyler and Chris. Tyler seems to shrink in his chair slightly.
He’s really not trying to be a kiss-ass, but God does he feel intimidated. It feels like he’s constantly intruding on something.
A silence falls between them all. Just the sound of clinking silverware and the rustling of the trees outside breaks the silence. And they seem okay with that. No one else tries to make small talk.
Tyler’s foot creeps over his under the table and-is he trying to play footsie right now? What the fuck?
Josh looks up, glancing between Chris and Kelly, mouth full of food as he tries to register what’s happening. He frowns, mouth full of food. Tyler pretends like nothing’s happening.
And that’s just how the rest of the dinner goes. Dessert is indeed homemade apple pie with ice cream on top, and Tyler beams when Kelly notes that the ice cream is made with Lola’s milk. Chris doesn’t seem phased by it at all.
Kelly collects the plates at the end, and Josh offers to help clean up, but is very quickly turned down.
“Oh, no, hon,” Kelly says, shaking her head, “not a job for someone like you. I’ll take care of it. You better head off to bed, though. We’ve got an early morning tomorrow since it’s Sunday.”
Josh nods. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, again. For everything.”
Chris stops him at the doorway.
“6:00 AM mass tomorrow,” he tells Josh, “don’t be late. We’ll start workin’ straight afterwards.”
“Understood,” Josh says. “I mean-I won’t be late. Sir.”
Chris grunts and stalks off. Not much of a talker. Josh isn’t too sure who he spoke to on the phone when he called the number on the newspaper ad for this job, but it certainly wasn’t him.
“Tyler, go on and walk Josh back to the barn. It’s too dark out to go alone,” Kelly says.
The air is chilly when they walk back out to the barn. It’s not a long stretch, but long enough that the lights of the house are twinkles in the distance. It is almost dark, too, just like Kelly said, and Josh is lucky the sun is out just enough so that he can see the silhouette of the barn. He’ll be making this trek alone in the future.
They’re trudging through the weeds and Tyler just never shuts up. “They’ll want ya to come to church with us,” he tells Josh in passing. “We go in the mornin’. Pa probably already told ya that.”
“Where’s that at?” Josh asks, “nearby?”
“Yeah. Just down the road. When it’s nice we ride the horses. Sometimes Pa makes me walk. Most of the time we go in the pickup, though.”
Josh feels that pit of discomfort in his stomach again. What is it that these people have against Tyler? He doesn’t seem BAD by any means. He’s just…simple. Maybe that’s the wrong word.
“Did you go to school?” Josh blurts out.
Tyler stops them in front of the barn. “Huh?” He frowns. “Why d’ya ask that?”
Josh shakes his head. “It’s a stupid question. I’m sorry-“
“Mama homeschooled me,” Tyler tells him, “my brothers and sister got to go to the town school, though. Not me.”
“You have siblings? Do they live here?”
Tyler shakes his head. “Not for a long time. How old are ya?”
Josh shifts with his hands in his pockets. “22.” He really just wants to ask Tyler about his siblings now. Call it natural curiosity or just plain nosiness, but there’s something beneath it all that makes him want to pry.
Tyler’s face lights up. “Me too!”
Huh. Interesting.
“Nice,” Josh says, returning the smile, but he’s interrupted by a yawn.
Tyler (thankfully) takes the unintended hint. “Well…all right,” he stands with his hands behind his back, like he wants to say more. “I’ll…leave ya now. To get comfy and all that. Hope you brought your church clothes for tomorrow.”
“Goodnight,” Josh says, smiling.
Tyler chews on his bottom lip. “‘Night.”
And then he’s gone. Josh slips inside the barn, and it’s…quiet. But not, at the same time. Cicadas are crying. Mice shuffle amongst the hay. Josh hoists himself up into the hayloft and throws his bags into the corner. He didn’t bring much, but thank God he looked up what a hayloft was before coming here. While the previous tenant left some small blankets and a rolled-out mattress pad, it’s pretty bare. Smells like hay and cats. He sneezes.
The threadbare lightbulb swinging from the ceiling doesn’t seem to have an off switch, but he’s fine with a little nightlight.
Josh strips his shirt off, wriggling out of his jeans until he’s just in his boxers. It’s warm up here, despite the air cooling down during the evening. He’ll have to inquire about where to shower later.
That is, if they even have a shower.
It’s only when his head hits his pillow does he realize just how worn out the day has him. Overstimulating is one word for it. Maybe just…busy, if he’s being polite.
The switch from city to rural life has him reeling, but dammit. He’s not admitting defeat, especially not to his parents. It would be the bluff of the century for him to slump back home and admit he was wrong.
He’s sealed the deal.
And he’s not going back.