the best things in life... (fic for wreckinreckless)
Prompt: Anne taking Leo to meet her family...and take him hunting.
It was just too good to be true. She’d known that the moment she brought him over for dinner the night before the hunting trip. Cadence was drooling, Christine was smirking all over the place, and Harvey was talking bikes and cars with him within the first twenty minutes. Mamma kept trying to give him seconds and thirds at dinner, and Daddy was an even bigger smartass than usual.
Her family loved him…it was just too good to be true.
They even went along with the charade the next afternoon, loading up the gear and driving into the forest, chattering about permits and shooting techniques. They dressed more appropriately, and Anne delighted in the split-second shock on Leo’s face when she showed up before him in green camo cargos and a black tank top, hair tied back and face free of makeup.
It was too perfect when they ended up together, stalking a trio of stags. It was too perfect when they split, timed too well when she was isolated with her pair.
Casting off the bow, pulling off her boots, she took off at a run and gloried in the rush of it in her ears. The smell of her prey, the flicker of a white tail or a pale antler in the dim brush…it was where she belonged. It was home.
It was just too good to be true…right up until the moment she took her quarry down and snapped its neck at the same moment she heard Leo suck in a soft gasp.
Her head shot up, eyes wide as she flashed back to another day in another clearing. Hidden behind a stand of bushes, she’d been crouched and feral, thirsting for blood and frightened. She remembered little to nothing of those days, but for a moment she saw herself as Horatio Walker had seen her: destroyed, wild, subhuman. She wasn’t covered in her family’s blood this time, and she knew the sight of Leo’s face, but streaked in dirt and sweat, her hair a mess of badly tied back flyaway strands, crouched over her kill…she wasn’t sure he knew her.
Time passed. Nobody moved or spoke.
“You’re…not normal.”
She just barely managed a nod.
For a moment he stared…and then smiled.
“Neither am I.”
He didn’t elaborate, didn’t say more, but when he moved forward she let him help her haul her kill back to camp. It didn’t matter that she could have carried it far more easily, and it didn’t matter that he had nothing else to say on the matter as he helped them all clean and prepare their kills that night.
She knew by his smile that he was different. Not Folk, but something else.
He was, quite simply, too good to be true.
It was just too good to be true. She’d known that the moment she brought him over for dinner the night before the hunting trip. Cadence was drooling, Christine was smirking all over the place, and Harvey was talking bikes and cars with him within the first twenty minutes. Mamma kept trying to give him seconds and thirds at dinner, and Daddy was an even bigger smartass than usual.
Her family loved him…it was just too good to be true.
They even went along with the charade the next afternoon, loading up the gear and driving into the forest, chattering about permits and shooting techniques. They dressed more appropriately, and Anne delighted in the split-second shock on Leo’s face when she showed up before him in green camo cargos and a black tank top, hair tied back and face free of makeup.
It was too perfect when they ended up together, stalking a trio of stags. It was too perfect when they split, timed too well when she was isolated with her pair.
Casting off the bow, pulling off her boots, she took off at a run and gloried in the rush of it in her ears. The smell of her prey, the flicker of a white tail or a pale antler in the dim brush…it was where she belonged. It was home.
It was just too good to be true…right up until the moment she took her quarry down and snapped its neck at the same moment she heard Leo suck in a soft gasp.
Her head shot up, eyes wide as she flashed back to another day in another clearing. Hidden behind a stand of bushes, she’d been crouched and feral, thirsting for blood and frightened. She remembered little to nothing of those days, but for a moment she saw herself as Horatio Walker had seen her: destroyed, wild, subhuman. She wasn’t covered in her family’s blood this time, and she knew the sight of Leo’s face, but streaked in dirt and sweat, her hair a mess of badly tied back flyaway strands, crouched over her kill…she wasn’t sure he knew her.
Time passed. Nobody moved or spoke.
“You’re…not normal.”
She just barely managed a nod.
For a moment he stared…and then smiled.
“Neither am I.”
He didn’t elaborate, didn’t say more, but when he moved forward she let him help her haul her kill back to camp. It didn’t matter that she could have carried it far more easily, and it didn’t matter that he had nothing else to say on the matter as he helped them all clean and prepare their kills that night.
She knew by his smile that he was different. Not Folk, but something else.
He was, quite simply, too good to be true.