The Apple Orchard {Arc Three; Part Four

[ashintuku]

Three days after the New Year found Zebediah and Allen curled up under the blankets of their bed, Zebediah pressing kisses to the back of the doctor’s neck and his hands tracing the shape from ribs to hip as though memorizing what he looked like from touch alone.

It was quiet and intimate and private, a moment that Zebediah and Allen rarely ever got to experience due to their busy schedules and the manner of their relationship. It was difficult to find the time, what with Allen’s schedule as a doctor and Zebediah’s schedule as a law-breaking crook. But it was a Friday, and Allen had the next Saturday off. Whether Zeb had anything planned for the weekend, the doctor didn’t know; he never told Allen what he was up to.

Shaking hands moved to press against the tops of scarred ones, fingers sliding between the gaps of Zebediah’s while Allen pushed his back against the gangster’s chest. In response, Zeb stopped paying such close attention to his neck, resting his chin - rough with morning stubble and (oddly) pleasantly scratchy against smooth flesh - on his shoulder contentedly.

“How l-long is the Orchard going to s-sstay closed for?”

“Hmmm,” the gangster flexed his hands on Allen’s hips, sliding them to rest over his belly and squeezing the man closer to him. It was comfortably warm under the sheets, and Allen had the random thought of ‘I never want to move from this spot’. “Probably a month or so. I hate gettin’ a bull’s rush on the place, but it’s good for somethin’. I can get so much done now that I don’t gotta worry ‘bout how the Orchard’s runnin’.” He pressed a kiss to the doctor’s shoulder, curving against his back and pretty much moulding them together like puzzle pieces.

“And w-what will you do with your f-f-free time?”

“Travel a bit,” Zeb answered immediately, drumming without rhythm against Allen’s stomach. “Deal with a few people I gotta deal with. Check out competition; see if there’s anyone I want on my side. Might go out of state and earn some quick cash.”

“Do I want to know…?”

“Nope.”

Allen huffed out a laugh, closing his eyes and shaking his head. He pulled his hands away from Zeb, turning himself around so that they were facing one another. Re-tangling their legs, he pressed his forehead against Zeb’s and pressed a hand over his beating heart.

“Might go home for a while,” Zebediah mused after a moment’s quiet, grey eyes looking into hazel-green, the both of them trying to read the other. “Haven’t been there in a few years…”

“H-home?”

“Hm?” Blinking away the glazed look of remembrance from his eyes, the criminal looked at the Old Money before smiling faintly, turning onto his back. Allen scooted closer, resting his cheek against Zeb’s shoulder and wrapping his arm loosely around his waist. After a moment, Zeb’s arm wound itself around his shoulders. “Yeah, home. Where did you grow up, Allen?”

“L-Lake District, in England,” Allen replied, voice partially muffled against Zebediah’s shoulder. “R-rather…big house - p-pretentious, really. I wouldn’t call it ‘h-home’, however. It was just…where I g-grew up.” Zebediah hummed out what seemed to be an understanding noise, the hand resting on his shoulder squeezing before relaxing again. “…W-what about you?”

“I grew up about five hours out from Westfield city - the outskirts, really. Farmin’ country, with the cows and the sheep and everythin’. Farm down the lane had a bunch of cats and a dog and some pigs, from what I remember. Probably changed up their livestock by now, though.”

“W-what was your farm?”

“…” Zebediah stared up at the ceiling, his hand drifting mindlessly over Allen’s shoulder and arm as he thought. “We lived on the biggest farm in the area - Grandpappy Walker built the place from the ground up to impress Granmomma’s daddy, but that never worked out. Or so I hear. My daddy, Aaron Walker, he took over once Grandpappy passed away, and he bought out a couple of farms that were next to us, enlargin’ the land and givin’ us more property.” He paused, Allen looking up to see him frowning at the ceiling and gnawing on his lower lip. “…We ran an apple orchard. It grows the best apples anywhere, so my momma tells me.”

“An a-apple orchard…?”

“Yeah, yeah, you got me - I’m a sentimental sap.” Allen smiled, hiding the expression in Zeb’s shoulder. The gangster snorted, not at all fooled, but let it slide. “My momma and my little brother are the only ones who live there now - daddy killed himself when I was still a kid, and momma’s second husband -” here he cut himself off, seeming to hesitate in what he was about to say, before pressing forward “- Mister Gable walked out on her in the middle of the night when I was fourteen and growin’ like a weed.”

Allen could just imagine Zebediah as a young man, tall and gangly and awkward. He tried to imagine what his mother looked like - did Zebediah look like her? Did his brother look like him, or like his father?

“Do you m-miss it?”

“…Kinda,” Zeb shrugged, lifting Allen’s head in the process and making the doctor laugh. He grinned, pressing a kiss to the other’s forehead, before closing his eyes. “I miss Benny - my little brother. I miss the trees and their apples - we grew this one kind, always liked ‘em best, Allen’s Everlastin’s. S’kinda appropriate, now that I think about it.”

“Oh…p-posh,” Allen shook his head, attempting to pull away. Zebediah would have none of that, wrapping both arms around the doctor and dragging him to lie directly on top of him. “Z-Zeb!”

“It’s true, though!” Zebediah said with a grin, squeezing his arms before relaxing. Allen didn’t pull away, however, merely settling himself more comfortably on top of him. “…I miss the singin’, too.”

“Singing?”

“The workers used to sing all the time,” Zebediah murmured, voice becoming quieter as he remembered. “Louie, Bobby-John, Michael…they was all from the South, where their mammies and pappies used to pick the cotton ‘fore slavery was made illegal. They were only kids - Michael practically grown - when they came up North. Michael had worked the orchard since my daddy was a kid, and he was still there when I was small. Crippled old Negro, but he told the best stories.” He shook his head, pulling back to the present and smiling down at Allen sheepishly. “Louie had the best singin’ voice, though, no one could beat him.”

Moving so that he was partially sitting up, Allen crossed his arms over Zebediah’s chest and looked down at him with a curious expression. “S-so when Eli P-Price said you were raised by N-Negroes…”

“That’s just him bein’ a smart aleck,” Zebediah shrugged, brushing back a wayward curl of Allen’s. He tangled his fingers into the other’s hair, pulling his head down so that they bumped noses. Allen snorted, pulling back and wrinkling his nose to get rid of the funny feeling he received at the collision. “But I basically was, in all honesty. No one outside’a ‘Zekiel knows ‘bout my family life.”

The gangster fell silent, his gaze gone introspective. One hand curled against the back of Allen’s neck, the other gripping onto his arm near the elbow; he seemed curious about that particular confession. As if he were wondering whether he should have actually said that or not.

After a moment, though, he seemed to pull himself back to reality, looking up at Allen and giving him a weak grin.

“What ‘bout you? What was your childhood like?”

“O-oh,” Allen paused, looking away and giving a pained expression. He promptly rolled off of Zeb, resting beside him with their arms touching but nothing else, staring quite pointedly at the ceiling. “W-well…it was…” He swallowed, trying to figure out a ‘nice’ way to describe the clinical detachment that was his upbringing. How his father only paid his sons any attention when they did something exceptionally good - or exceptionally bad. How Mother treated her eldest like a precious china doll that she could dress up and play with because Allen was a good child and a good son and did exactly as he was told, while Richard threw fits and was coddled for it. How his nannies knew more about his favourite foods and his favourite toys than either of his parents.

A hand on his arm broke him from his thoughts, and he turned to look over at the man who had edged his way into his life and slipped his way into his heart, hazel-green eyes understanding and sympathetic.

“I think I already know.”

Allen smiled weakly, taking Zeb’s hand and squeezing it within his own.

“Okay.”
______________________________________________________________________________________________
After the Feast of the Epiphany (something Zebediah Walker apparently celebrated - who knew?), Zebediah disappeared from Allen’s life to go to do what he had to do. From dealing with unsavoury people to crossing state borders to ‘earn a quick buck’, Allen wasn’t aware; he was kept completely out of the equation, and that was probably for the best.

Near the middle of January, his brother was finally released from the hospital, given a cane and strict instructions for how he was to handle himself now. The younger Townsend’s bodyguard, Dustin, kept as true as his word and followed after Richard like a loyal lapdog who would growl and bite at anyone who approached the younger man; whether the person was a friend or a foe, it didn’t seem to matter. Even Allen had difficulty getting past the man if Richard had told him he didn’t want to be disturbed.

Allen wasn’t sure what he thought about Dustin, in all reality. A seemingly polite man when he first met him, he saw more and more viciousness in the shorter Englishman the more and more he saw him. He also made Allen feel absolutely judged under the harsh glare of heavy blue eyes, as if Dustin could see straight into his soul and into the sins that he committed every time he met up with Zebediah in safe houses, hotels, and his own townhouse.

It was unnerving to say the least.

But he made due, spending time with Rachel (who had a lot to say about everyone and everything around her - it was unbelievable, how much the moll knew) and going out to lunches with Liam. Sometimes these lunches were awkward, since Allen could tell Liam wanted to ask everything about the night life Allen led, but the surgeon was too polite to ask.

(It shouldn’t have amused Allen, but it did.)

On the last week of January, Zebediah finally came back from whatever business it had been that he was doing, opening up the Apple Orchard for business and returning the night to the regulars who had been forced to go to smaller speakeasies to kill the time. They kept things on the down-low, however, Elliot and Zebediah changing out the password was handed out to people (as Aiden had revealed that the coppers had know the night’s password, which was why the doorman had opened the door for them in the first place).

The doctor and the gangster also reunited that first night, Allen spending the night at Zeb’s hotel and leaving it early in the morning, heading home for a bath and a quick change of suits before continuing on with his day.

And everything was fine.