Romance short. An orchard labourer gives a naturalist’s education to a visitor from the city.
Romance & slice of life, cis M/M, rated M. Kissing and sweetness, some hand and blowjobs, teasing, shyness, affection. Adapted from a TweetFic.
Mention of asthma symptoms and trouble breathing throughout, but no depictions of asthma attacks or similar.
Joss was a labourer on the Hill Church Orchard. He kept to himself, for the most part, slept out in the barn although he ate his meals in the farmhouse. He was quiet by nature, polite, respectful — he was a big man, a little nervous of his size, but he got on well enough with the Smiths and their son, Butte.
Joss was good with their draft horse, too, and the cats on the farm. Not being so good with people, he tended to stay away from them, and when he ate at the dinner table he didn’t tend to say much.
The Smiths used to know Joss’ father, and they knew that they didn’t get on, that Joss preferred to be a long way off. In general, they knew him in the village too, but Joss tended to keep himself to himself. He wasn’t scared of a fight by any means, but he wasn’t an aggressive man, and he didn’t seek a fight out.
He’d come to anyone’s defence if he felt they needed defending — and anyway, it almost never came to a fight, once whoever it was came to him and realised they had to look up into his face.
Joss liked women. He wasn’t good with them anymore than he was with anybody — and he tended to get flustered when women paid him any attention. He wanted so badly to be respectful at times that he ended up coming off as terrified of them, and he knew that they didn’t tend to think much of him.
They thought he was cute. They thought he was fine for a roll in the hay, a quick kiss after dark, maybe even a walk on a nice autumn evening, but not much more than that.
It wasn’t as if he had prospects.
The nearest big town was an hour or two away — there wasn’t much to speak of in the village itself. There was the doctor, who doubled as the local vet alongside the farrier, and then there was the post office.
It was mid-summer when the doctor’s nephew, a delicate young man of twenty-five or so, was dispatched up to the country for the sake of his bad lungs. Joss never knew what to make of him in the beginning. He was sickly-looking, pale with purple shadows under his eyes because he never much slept at night, and he was as skinny as a rake, his hair a mop around his head, and he was prescribed by the doctor to take long walks in the orchard for the sake of his health.
He coughed a lot at first, spat up phlegm and all sorts, but after a week or two his chest seemed better, being away from the smog and smut down in the city.
He liked Joss, although Joss didn’t really know why. When he saw Joss, he’d run to keep pace with him and walk at his side. He’d ask Joss questions — where he was born, if he liked his work, what his family was like, what he thought of this or that, what his favourite books were (Joss had never read a book from start to finish, and wasn’t typically confident enough with his letters to read a whole page), what his favourite songs were.
He asked so many questions he made himself breathless and dizzy with it at first, and Joss always used to get nervous that the doctor would tell him off for making the lad wheezy and out-of-breath, but when Doctor Devon saw Joss avoiding his eye as he delivered eggs in the village, Devon had told him it was good that he was keeping Eric active, and making sure he exercised his lungs.
It was overwhelming, truth be told.
Joss wasn’t used to having all this attention paid him, but Doctor Devon was very nice about it all, and Eric paid very close attention to everything Joss said, as though it were important, no matter that Joss told him frequently that nothing he said was.
“What’s that?” he asked one day, and when Joss looked over, he laughed.
“It’s a squirrel, sir,” he said. “You never seen one afore?”
“No,” said Eric. “Only in books and things like that. I didn’t know there ears were quite so marvellously tufted, or that they had such finely developed little hands — one might be forgiven for thinking them a man’s hands, only made tremendously small, and given black-tipped claws. Are they very tame?”
“I’d not try it, sir,” Joss advised. “They’ll give you a nasty bite.”
“That’s a rabbit,” said Eric. “Or is it a hare?”
“It’s a rabbit, sir. Hares is different, have more of an evil look to ’em, if you take my meaning.”
“Hardly. What’s an evil look when it’s at home?”
“You’ll know,” said Joss. “When you lay your eyes on one.”
Eric laughed. “You’re a very queer fellow, Joss, do you know that?”
“No, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“Don’t be sorry,” said Eric, beaming at him. “I wish you wouldn’t call me sir, either, but I suppose there’s no asking miracles.”
“Not from me, sir, but we could go by the church and ask Reverend Biggs.”
“Is that a joke, Joss?”
“Yes, sir.”
Eric smiled at him, and sighed. “What about that?” he asked, and pointed up to one of the tree branches. Joss followed his gaze.
“Oh, well,” said Joss. “It’s a bird, sir.”
“Yes, Joss, I’m not quite as brainless as you might imagine. Do you know what sort?”
“It’s a blackbird, sir,” said Joss. “They’re a kind of thrush, they are. They warble a bit, when they sing — Mr Buxton, he says it’s a fluted sound, but I don’t know much about that, I don’t know that I could tell a flute apart from a tin whistle, to hear ’em side by side. Mr Buxton, he makes little wooden whistles, see, to imitate the bird calls.”
“Does it make a different song from sex to sex?”
“Don’t know,” Joss said. “But that’s a male, that is.”
“How can you tell?”
“It’s black.”
“The female blackbirds aren’t black?”
“They’re brown.”
“Why are they called blackbirds, then?”
“Well,” said Joss. “That one’s black.”
“They’re a type of crow?”
“No, I said, they’re thrushes.”
“What’s the difference between crows and thrushes?”
“Well,” said Joss, confused by the question. “Everything. Crows is bigger than thrushes, I can tell you that — bigger beaks, and they got a curve and a strength to it, not like that little thing the blackbird does there. They’re smarter, more intelligent, got different shaped feet. They don’t warble. They squawk.”
Eric, smiling, was clinging to his side like moss.
“What’s the difference between a warble and a squawk?” he asked.
“What, they don’t have that in your fancy books?”
“They’ve yet to make a book that sings for you, Joss.”
“Hm,” said Joss. “S’pose that’s true enough.”
Butte teased him for it, having a little asthmatic to carry around, but Butte liked Eric too, and on the evenings where Eric walked over to the farmhouse with Joss and Mrs Smith pulled him up a chair and told him to eat his fill — although his fill never seemed to be enough for her — Butte and Eric would chatter back and forth about crime novels, these stories they’d been reading.
One evening, Eric came by the barn after Joss had had his dinner. He was sitting on the side of the hayloft, one leg hanging down off the beam, whittling and blowing the shavings off onto the floor.
He stood in the open doorway, huffled with his hands in his pockets, because he got so cold even though it was summer and the evenings were still warm.
“Want to go to the pub?” asked Eric, and Joss glanced down at him.
“Nah,” he said. “Not tonight.”
“But you don’t read,” said Eric. “You’ve no gramophone, you don’t much listen to music or sing. What will you do?”
“It’s a nice evening,” said Joss, shrugging. “Whittling this duck. I’ll lie down, after. Listen to the toads sing. Sleep.”
“You can hear the toads from up here?” asked Eric, stepping forward.
“Sure,” said Joss. “Keep the hatch open, hear ’em right off the stream.”
Eric’s hand settled on one of the bars on the ladder. “Might I join you?” he asked.
Joss blinked down at him, but then he smiled slightly, nodded his head.
It made sense that he’d be so interested in educating himself as a naturalist, being up in the country now — Joss supposed there wasn’t anything to be seen down south where he was from.
Eric sat very close to him on the pallet Joss slept on, but Joss didn’t mind — he’d shrugged off his coat and was probably cold, no matter that it was warm up in the hayloft, a lot of the loose hay all about his pallet, and quite a few blankets too, because last Christmas he’d softly said he was thinking of buying himself a new one, and three women in the village — Mrs Devon, Mrs Buxton, and Mrs Welsh who had sheep three properties over, and wanted to thank him for helping them when the lambing had come spring before last — had given him blankets as gifts.
Joss had one of the orchard cats in his lap at first, a fat little beast that they called Satan unless the reverend was in earshot, in which case they called him Kitty, as he told Eric the difference between the toads, but he soon grew tired of all the talking and slept at their feet instead.
Joss didn’t know their fancy Latin names, but he knew the croaks of the normal toads versus the natterjacks, and then the frogs, described their different skins, their bulging necks, their eyes.
“We get one or two natterjacks now and then, but they don’t come this way, really, being as we’re too far from the seaside,” said Joss.
Eric was crammed against his side, had wrapped Joss’ arm around him, and there wasn’t much else to say about toads or frogs or newts after a while. He was explaining how you could tell daces apart from chubs when Eric clambered into his lap and straddled him like he was a horse. Joss flushed pink, all hot under his skin, and he didn’t understand what was happening exactly, didn’t have much time to ask before Eric was kissing him. It wasn’t much different to kissing a girl except that every girl he’d ever kissed had been plump and healthy, whereas Eric barely weighed anything and was all bones.
Joss couldn’t think of much right now with Doctor Devon’s nephew was thrusting his hips down against Joss’ lap with his tongue in Joss’ mouth, and Joss couldn’t help but worry that this was perhaps more vigorous exercise than was healthy for him.
Eric had undone his trousers and slid his hand inside, and Joss let out a wheezing whine as though he were the one with asthmatic lungs, and he couldn’t think enough to say a word, but then Eric was sucking bruises onto the side of his neck.
“Sir, sir, what are you — what are you doing?”
“You can’t connect the dots?”
“Wait, but you can’t, we can’t — ”
“Of course we can,” said Eric, and twisted his hand in a way that made Joss keen, because a girl had never put her hand on his cock quite like this or tugged at it so adeptly, and his head was spinning with the buzz of pleasure that came from it. “Don’t you like it?”
“But you’re a man,” said Joss weakly as Eric laughed into his mouth, and then he moaned.
“I know, I know,” said Eric good-naturedly. “Means I know what I’m doing.” He was pushing Joss back onto the gathered blankets, pulling down his trousers, and then he was dipping his head.
“Oh!” said Joss. “Oh, you can’t do that, that’s dirty, that is — ”
“I’m sure it’ll be clean once I’m finished,” said Eric, and when his tongue touched Joss’ cock, he lost the capacity to string any words together, just had to take it and muffle his moans as best he could into his upper arm, his shoulder.
Afterwards, Eric laid on the pallet with him, and Joss couldn’t really say anything about it all because four utterly new things just happened to him at once and he was losing his mind over it, just a little bit. Joss didn’t even really worry about it being a sin or anything like that — he remembered the reverend telling him not to tug himself off too often when he was a young lad, but he never said not to ever do it, just not to do it so often he made himself ill. He’d never really conceived of two men touching one another like this, let alone being so forward as Eric had been.
Eric was now snoring wheezily, half on top of his chest.
When Joss finally slept, he convinced himself he’d dreamed it, until he woke to Eric saying as he slid fingers over Joss’ chest, “You know, if you bend me over, you can have my thighs.”
“Your thighs?” repeated Joss, voice hoarse with sleep.
“Well, I’ve no cunny to offer you,” said Eric, and Joss burned bright red. “And I don’t know that you deserve my arse.”
“I couldn’t fit in your arse,” whispers Joss, scandalised.
“You’d be surprised,” purred Eric, and gave him a wink.
Joss was so pink his head felt full of blood, but he let himself be pulled into his position, Eric pulling him by the wrist, and he was embarrassed by how good it was to thrust himself between the press together of Eric’s thighs, even before he started giggling underneath him and saying, “You’re lowing like a bull, Joss.”
He kept teaching him the animals around, and he taught him plants, too, the different leaves and grasses, flowers, trees — as the summer eased into the autumn, Joss taught him all the berries and the nuts around. The elder berries and the sloe berries and the blackberries and the rosehips, and going through the orchard and looking at people’s gardens and the garden in the churchyard, he showed him the difference between the different apples and pears and plums, the gooseberries and the different sorts of currants, and all the different roses in the village.
Every other night, Eric would come into his bed, slide in with him under the blankets. Joss didn’t think it could possibly be healthy to be having so much sex, especially with the two of them not being married, not being a man and a woman, but with being up here, he had gained weight the past few months, and sleeping a little better, and his lungs were better, too.
Joss wondered what it said about him, that he got as hot and bothered over the doctor’s nephew, a young man, a man who looked like a stiff wind could kill him no less, instead of over a woman.
“I’m going to stay on,” announced Eric midway through October. He really was cold now, huddled under two of Joss’ blankets and pressed against his side, and holding Satan in his lap, too. “I talked to my uncle. I’m going to learn from him, and from Mr Buxton, too.”
“Does this mean you’ll stay forever?” asked Joss softly, hearing the ache in his own voice, and Eric leaned back against his chest, reached up and played his fingers through Joss’ stubble.
“Well, if no one else will marry you, darling, I suppose I’ll have to stay.”
Joss stared down at him, burning with a blush and nearly in tears, he had so little idea what to say. Eric’s expression softened, and he turned awkwardly in Joss’ lap, kept the cat up against his chest as he turned to look up at him. His smile was beautifully soft.
“I’m only teasing, but yes, I’ll stay a while longer. Why, Joss, do you want rid of me so soon?”
Joss shook his head, and Eric laughed. “Such a sweet man,” he said. “Mind if I practice my anatomy on you? I’m learning horses.”
With one hand holding Satan up against his chest, he grabbed lower with his other hand, and Joss choked.
“Very flattering,” he said, “but I don’t know I’m much of a stallion.”
The doctor’s nephew tightened his grip, twisted his hand, and Joss drew in a stuttering breath.
“We’ll make one of you yet,” purred Eric, his reply neat and prim. “How do I need to tug to make you whinny, do you think?”
(After a few tries, he managed to work one out of him.)
FIN.
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