farming in the dead of winter; [OTA]

[thishurts]

Who: Jimmy (thishurts) & YOU

What: Jimmy setting up his little farm

When: Early-Mid December

Where: Library, Around Town and in the Farmlands, and at his own Farm

Warning(s): dyslexia frustrations and depression mentions



[I've got problems; Not just the ones that are little]



Jimmy’s never been much for reading.

But getting an AI to read him websites out loud really isn’t much of an option anymore. And if he wants to pull any of this off he’s going to have to do this the hard way.



And he hates that, he really does.



He’s in the library. Gritting his teeth. He’s tried to pick out the easiest books he’s been able to find on animal husbandry. He really has. He even has a small notebook next to him, trying to take notes on the important bit like he’s in high school again, like he’s going to be tested on it.



Jimmy can’t even remember the last time he actually applied himself, put in effort into something he wanted to do, and now that he’s actually trying? It’s fucking hard. And discouraging.



The words on the page muddle together like fucking soup and his eyes are exhausted.

He sighs. Slams the book shut. Resists the urge to throw the damn thing. He rests his hands in his forehead.



Later he’ll end up checking out a few of these books. For now, he’ll continue to struggle a bit longer.




[It's those people problems; That's something to consider]



You may see Jimmy in various parts of town around the Winter acquiring different things. Mostly purchasing livestock, from the looks of it. Not the whole Noah’s Ark by any means, but certainly enough. Though unless you know Jimmy, you’re unlikely to notice the trend, and honestly, it’s not as if the man stands out by any means.



Or really has any friends to speak of.


Because he doesn’t.



Not many, anyway.



He purchases goats, a few hens, and two bunnies over the course of two weeks, arranging transportation for said animals in the process. You’ll find Jimmy walking across town, one end to the other, carrying individual hens in his arms trying to make sure they don't just fly away, rabbits tucked into his winter coat with their heads sticking out, and at one point pulling the goats behind himself on leads fashioned out of rope.



It’s all going about as well as it sounds it would.




[When you come for dinner at my place]



It wasn’t exactly Jimmy’s brightest idea to set up a new farm in the dead of winter. 

He’s realizing this now as he’s in his front lawn, trying to fix up the fence around his property. His animals are presumably inside his own home as he’s out with a hammer and nails in hand, a few boards at his feet, hammering away.



His hands are numb and aching. It’s so damn cold out. But surprisingly, this feels, good? He feels good. It feels good to do something with his own hands. His fence looks like fucking shit, frankly, and he knows it, but he doesn’t care. He’s fixing it with his own two hands. It’s tangible results that he can see, in real time, and honestly, he’s impressed with how good it actually feels to be doing something with himself.



It beats the hell out of any job he’s done so far. And it certainly beats the hell out of sitting around in the Oak & Iron, staring at the ceiling, doing nothing, napping the days away.



This feels good. It feels important. Right.

If you would have told him a few months ago that he’d be content working on a farm, Jimmy would have laughed. But now. Now? It was starting to feel like an actual real possibility that he might enjoy this kind of work.

Comments

[thishurts]

"The people watching's decent." That he will admit to. Honestly just the two of them look like a pair, considering, "But I'm not really into, a lot of that shit. Don't know if you exactly noticed, I'm not really. You know. I don't really go where people go. Don't know many people around here."

He's not going to tell Livvy he spent his first month here almost entirely inside of his room in the Inn. Plus, a brothel? That's the worst idea ever. For him in particular. He thinks he might be scared away from illicit activities for the rest of his life considering how badly he does not want a mini Jimmy running around.

[aphroditish]

"Well, maybe I just need to keep you company, then." She gives him a wink.

Olivia can already tell that Jimmy feels a disgust towards some aspect of his physicality--- the fear of reproduction and intimacy pick up on the easily. But she's meant to be pretending she's "normal". If Jimmy wants to turn her down, he'll have to say so.

[thishurts]

He shrugs as he points at a fork in the road and taps her shoulder. A left instead of a right. Jim heads in the correct direction.

"You can do whatever you want." He shrugs it off. Part of him is screaming at him to say no. But there's another part of him, an itching in his brain that wants to see where this is going. She's an attractive woman, and he doesn't know why she wants to be around him.

And he wants to know why.

[aphroditish]

Olivia turns with him, chuckling. "Is that so? You sure you won't regret giving me blanket permission?"

[thishurts]

He feels something, like a pit of coal deep in his stomach. Something that's screaming at him to run.

"... I guess if I yell stop, then you stop." He makes himself laugh. Like he's joking.

He's not entirely joking.

[aphroditish]

"Oh, baby, you're gonna need a clearer safeword than that," Olivia teases, giving him a quick wink. "How 'bout 'pineapple'? That's a classic."

[thishurts]

"Don't make shit weird." He grumbles, as he points off to a house on the right, "That one's mine."

It's a small little farmstead, but enough to get started. There's a chicken coop in the front lawn with a fence around it on all three sides that Jimmy spent more hours than he'd admit to Olivia setting up.

He walks up, headed towards the front gate of that little fence surrounding that little coop, and stands there, waiting for her.

"I gotta open it up and then close it real quick, there's this one, she'll try to fly right once the door's open. These animals are all assholes." But somehow, he says that last sentence with absolutely no malice in his voice. Just acceptance.

[aphroditish]

Don't make shit weird, he says, as if that's not Olivia's specialty. He'll learn, though.

Olivia approaches the quaint little farmhouse and its chicken coop, hen in hand. "So let her fly. She'll figure out real quick that outside is cold and the coop is warm and she fucked up by flying out here. The animals can't talk to you, so they don't know that you're here to help. Give them time to figure it out."

[thishurts]

"I just thought she'd never come back." He says honestly. He still seems hesitant as he opens the coop up very very slowly for Olivia to put the new hen in with her friends.

[aphroditish]

"Well, you have a fence, and they're not the best at flying. The chances of you permanently losing a chicken are pretty low."

Olivia carefully body-blocks the chickens as they crowd the door, shuffling her way in and setting down the new hen, which sufficiently distracts the others for at least a moment, and slips back out.

"And there we have it! Isn't teamwork grand?"

[thishurts]

He actually, genuinely and truly, lets out a sigh of relief. And then composes himself, stands up straight, acts like he didn't do that. Like he wasn't worried at all. Nope. Not worried at all. Hens are whatever. He can just get another one. Not a big deal.

"Uh, thanks." He says. "... Do you want to come into the house? Not that there's a lot there yet, but you know. I can make coffee. It doesn't taste like complete shit."

[aphroditish]

Olivia's smile returns at the offer. Red-clawed fingertips graze Jimmy's arm as she moves toward the house. "I'd love to, sweetness."

[thishurts]

He tries to ignore her as he ends up following behind Livvy. Which he does hate.

Inside the place is barely decorated. He did just move in, and he doesn't exactly have much to his name. There's a sparse kitchen. A small dining table with two chairs, and a bed. That's about it.

Jimmy moves to the kitchen and heads right to the stovetop to brew up said coffee, grabbing two mugs as he does.

He's grateful he can brew real coffee now. It feels authentic, doesn't come from powder from a machine. Jimmy wonders if Olivia comes from a world worth going back to. His sure as fuck isn't.

[aphroditish]

"Cozy," she remarks genuinely. "Reminds me of where I grew up. It'll start to suit you more, the longer you live here."

Making herself at home, she sits at his dining table.

"So, tell me about you. Where'd you come from? How'd you get here? How do you take your coffee? How do you like your steak? Tell me everything."

[thishurts]

"There's not much to tell." He lies, standing in front of the pot, waiting for the water to boil, "And I don't know why you want to know all that shit anyway... how about this."

The water boils. He pours out two mugs of coffee, carrying both to the dining table, and placing both at opposite ends of the table. He sits down, but he doesn't drink from his own mug, not yet.

"You tell me one thing about you, I'll tell you one thing about me."

[aphroditish]

"Oooh, I love this game." Olivia drums her nails on the side of her mug. "Let's see. I've lived in a lot of places, but I was born in the Swiss Alps. Most recently, though, I'd moved to Columbus, Ohio for work, networking informational connections for a research institute."

[thishurts]

"You went to Ohio on purpose? You're weirder than I thought." He says, chuckling darkly, "I was born there, in Toledo, lived there my entire life. Did retail, janitor work, whatever I could get hired on for until I got into shipping."

He keeps it vague on purpose. He really doesn't want shit connected together.

[aphroditish]

"It was a good job. Columbus is fine. Kind of a hotspot for my kind of people. Not as exciting as London, or so I've heard," she teases. "But it really was lucrative work."

He doesn't need to know that it was a position representing the Flesh in a Senate of Fear in a nightmare horror apocalypse.

"Let's see... my favorite food is braised beef stew with polenta. My favorite animal is a sheep. My favorite color is red. I speak four languages. I enjoy cooking, fashion, gardening, yoga... I know how to butcher most livestock animals from memory. Hmm, what else... I'm polyamorous. And I can't have children. I'm sterile."

[thishurts]

He swallows down some coffee, suddenly his throat feels heavy, a knot in his stomach. Jimmy wonders why. It's just some stupid small talk, right?

"Uh, favorite food is- honestly, anything that doesn't come from a powder." He's become real appreciative of real food since being here, "Snakes are cool, I like green, I only speak english. I guess I like gardening now? Or I'm going to learn to. Also need to learn how to butcher livestock. Uh, I've only ever dated one person at a time, and I'm- I'm not sterile at all."

The last two facts are said with an absolute certain amount of hesitancy to them. Granted, he hadn't been in that many relationships to begin with, and none that really mattered to him. It had all been going through the motions, boring, a status symbol more than anything.

[aphroditish]

"I can teach you a lot about all of those last few things." With a devilish smirk, Olivia leans in toward him, putting a finger under his chin. Her face gets close to his, lips dangerously close to his ear, and in a sultry tone, she murmurs just above a whisper. "Ich möchte dir mit meinen Zähnen das Herz herausreißen."

[thishurts]

Jimmy leans backwards, catching her wrist in his hand. He's wary, caught off guard, but really, shouldn't he have known this is where this was leading? She oozes it, somehow, he was just ignoring it.

Maybe because no one ever gave him the time of day.

Probably because he doesn't deserve it.

"What's the catch?" He asks, voice caught in his throat.

[aphroditish]

"Oooh, he's so mean," she sneers, faking an exaggerated pout. It quickly fades as she cracks another smile and winks. "But I'm meaner."

Olivia snaps her wrist free of his grip in a sharp, decisive motion. She's strong. "There's no catch. I just know a fun toy when I see one. But if you don't wanna play, I can get my kicks somewhere else."

nsfwish? I guess. General Jimmy grossness. Anya is mentioned it sucks when that happens tbh.

[thishurts]

He's caught off guard as she snaps her wrist back, he feels her strength, and he also feels something that he's been avoiding since arriving here.

Arousal.

It makes him sweat, makes him feel fear, and he feels the two intermingle and run up and down his spine. He ignores the sweat beginning to form at his temples.

She's the exact opposite of Anya, now that he takes a moment to think about it, which is probably how he ended up inviting her into his home in the first place, dropping his guard despite the warning signs blaring in his head. Despite what many people probably think, he was never really attracted to Anya at all. In fact, he kind of always fucking hated her. Her meekness, the way she bent around Curly, it was just all unpleasant and frankly kind of disgusting to him.

Olivia was different, strong, dangerous, spoke her mind, didn't give a fuck. And sterile. Infertile. That fact sticks to his mind like a leech to skin.

"... You can stay." Jimmy finally says, after much too long of a pause. Does he trust Olivia yet? Not really. Does he want to know where this goes, despite everything? Absolutely yes.