FIC: Paved With Hearts (CWRPS AU, Jared/Jensen, PG-13, 1/5)
Master Post
"It's just for the summer," said Aunt Sam, climbing back into the SUV and pressing the map into Jared's lap. "I'll find something else for you before school starts. I doubt they have a school up here anymore."
"It's fine," said Jared, beginning to carefully refold the map along well-worn creases. It was always fine. Every time she moved him from one place to another, it was fine. "Are we on the right road?"
"For now," she said as she reached for the map again, tugging it out of Jared's hands before slapping it down loosely right where it started. "Don't put that away. We need to turn off somewhere up over this hill, and then it's old logging roads the rest of the way." She reached onto the dash and gave the GPS a derisive flick. "God damn useless thing."
"He really does live way up here, doesn't he?"
Jared had already lost track of just where they were, the map just a scrawl of meaningless lines. He'd always known he'd been born somewhere up here, in the mountains of British Columbia, but he didn't remember any of it. He'd been a baby when the accident had taken his parents, and not once in all the years since had Aunt Sam brought him back to what had once been his home. Not until now.
"Middle of nowhere is what it is," said Sam. "Jeff's strange, but you're family so he needs to take his turn. He's been on his own up here long enough."
Jared, experienced enough at recognising Sam's moods to know when not to remind her what a burden she thought he was, fell silent. Children, as she'd told him countless times over the years, had never been a part of her plan.
There was so much else to watch outside the window anyway, things more interesting than his aunt's sour, lined face: endless trees and the snowy peaks that towered over them, and a glistening river in the valley sloping off to their right. It was different from just about everything he'd ever known, and it was beautiful.
In fact, he didn't say another word until he felt the jolt of Aunt Sam turning off the main road and lurching up a daunting incline.
"Are we going to make it?" he said dubiously.
"That’s why I rented the four wheel drive," said Sam. "Hang on, it's going to be rough the rest of the way."
Not everything was like that first hill, but rough was still an understatement. If Jared didn't know better, he would've thought that nobody would live someplace this remote, so far away from people.
"I don't like this at all," muttered Sam, reaching for her phone. Jared would've had gladly made whatever call she needed to so that she could focus on her driving, but he knew better than to suggest it when she had that look on her face. At least her glance hardly flickered down as she scrolled through the numbers and finally punched one of them.
"God damn it, Jeff, answer your phone," she said, tapping her thumb against her steering wheel. She waited and waited before gritting her teeth and dropping the phone down between the seats again, both hands back on the wheel to handle a washout.
"He knows I'm coming, right?" said Jared.
"I left him a message," said Sam, which wasn't the yes he'd been hoping for. "It'll be fine. He's your uncle, he'll take care of you."
Jared had never really been in the system himself - at least not for long, just a misunderstanding - but he'd still known a lot of kids who were, kids who'd heard words a lot like those ones before only to discover how untrue they could be. But he wasn't a kid anymore, and no matter what they found when they got up to his uncle's house, Jared would just make the best of it.
He was good at that.
"Are you still mad at me?" said Aunt Sam when Jared didn't answer. "You know I can't pass up this opportunity. If it was just a few weeks you could look after yourself again, but I'll be in London for at least six months, maybe longer."
"I'm not mad," said Jared. It used to make him sad, maybe, not understanding why he couldn't stay in one place with the same people for very long, but not mad. He'd never been without a roof over his head, so there were always people who had it worse than he did. "Are we almost there?"
"Well, you tell me," she said. "You've got the map. Are we any closer to the black dot than we were fifteen minutes ago?"
"I don't know," said Jared, the view out his window not giving him any point of reference to match it with his map. But they had to be on the right road, the only road he could see, winding higher and higher up the mountain. "I guess we'll find out when we get there."
"Crazy as a loon," she muttered under her breath, slowing down as the road got narrower. It was obviously not abandoned, but equally obviously it was not a road often travelled. "Sometimes I can't believe we come from the same gene pool."
"It looks like a good place to spend the summer," offered Jared, but she didn't want his reassurances that he didn't feel abandoned. She wanted him to agree.
When they reached a fork in the road he told her which way her sketchy, half-remembered directions said to go, but other than that he didn't try to make any more conversation, not even when they finally emerged into a clearing and saw a cabin up ahead.
"If that's not it I'm leaving you here anyway," said Sam, and though she punctuated it with a sharp laugh Jared wasn't entirely sure she was joking.
There was a four-by-four parked up beside the cabin, tufts of grass sprouting up behind the back wheels suggesting it hadn't been driven lately, and while the front - and presumably back - yard could only be described as an open meadow, the side was filled with odds and ends, bits of machinery and a wood pile and what Jared thought was a snowmobile parked in behind for the summer. And everywhere he looked, mixed in with the grass and the trees and the wheels and the wood, hundreds upon thousands of flowers.
"Grab your things," said Sam, yanking the key from the ignition and shoving the driver's side door open. "I'm already running late."
She was marching him up to the door before he knew it, pounding on it with her fist. There wasn't so much as a sign of life at first, and Jared had all but resigned himself to camping out on the lawn while he waited, but Sam persisted. She had to bang twice more before it was answered by a grumpy-looking man with a close-cropped salt and pepper beard.
"Sam," he said, nodding his head, his voice almost completely expressionless. "Never thought I'd see you up here."
Sam huffed out an impatient breath. "I left you messages, Jeff. You knew I was coming."
"You've said you were coming before," he said, his eyes skating away from her and landing on Jared. His expression didn't change. "Who's this?"
Jared had the feeling, though, that he knew exactly who and what he was looking at.
"Jared, do you have all your things?" Sam asked without looking at him.
Jared just nodded, hoisting his single, overstuffed bag a little higher on his shoulder. It wasn't like he kept much from place to place. Just what he needed, that's all he was ever really allowed to bring.
"Good to see you haven't changed at all, Samantha," said Jeff. Just as she kept her eyes on him, he kept his eyes on Jared as he spoke. "You look like your father. Growing like a weed, I'm sure. Probably eat me out of house and home."
"He won't be any trouble, pretty much takes care of himself," she said. "Jeff, I have a flight to catch. Could you just show the kid where he's staying?"
It had been a couple years since Jared had been able to effectively hide, thanks to a growth spurt and his suddenly-impressive height, but he was still pretty skilled at making himself inconspicuous when he wanted to. Which right now he really, really did.
"That's it, then?" he said. "You're just going to drop him off and leave?"
"Well what would you have me do, Jeff? It's bad enough I had to haul him up here myself, since you couldn't be bothered to return my calls, or come down into town to meet him. You made this a lot harder than it had to be."
"Well, maybe dumping a kid off someplace because you can't make room in your life for him should be hard," said Jeff, eyeing Jared then angling his head towards the house, a clear indication to head inside. Jared didn't want to make waves; he just nodded and quickly ducked past him. "Get out of here, Sam. Go catch your flight."
"It didn't have to be like this, Jeff."
"No, it didn't," he agreed. "Now get the hell out of here and don't worry about the boy. Not that you were going to anyway."
The last Jared saw of Aunt Sam was her slamming the SUV door and tearing down the mountain to get away from her brother Jeff.
"Well, go on inside," said his Uncle Jeff when Jared hesitated at the door, watching her retreat. "We're stuck with one another now."
Jared took one last long look at the mountainside, at all that beautiful scenery, and took a last deep breath of the mountain air before ducking inside the cabin. "Do you think I might have a room with a window?" he dared to ask. "I wouldn't ask if this wasn't the most beautiful place she's ever left me. Even if I have to stay inside, I want to be able to look at it all the time."
Jeff gave him a long quiet look before turning to close the door again behind them. "You really think I want to keep you shut up underfoot all the time?" he said, switching on a lamp as the outside light started to dim. Jared wondered if Aunt Sam was going to make it back onto the main highway before it got too dark, but he couldn't bring himself to worry about it for long. "I made up a place for you."
"I don't need much," Jared promised him. "I don't want to be in the way." Jeff didn't say anything, just led him to the stairs at the back of the cabin and gestured for him to go on up. "The attic?"
"It's a loft," said Jeff, following him up. "Not quite finished yet but I threw some better insulation in the other day and sealed up all the plastic. It's summer so we've got some time to finish the work before it gets cold enough to feel it."
"There's a window," was the only thing Jared really noticed, smiling brightly when he saw the fading light illuminating his bed, the only piece of furniture at that end of the loft.
"Yeah, well I've got something to say about people who put kids in rooms without windows," said Jeff gruffly. "If you want a place to put your things, we'll have to make something. I didn't have time."
"So you did know I was coming," said Jared, clutching his bag to his chest.
"Of course I knew you were coming," said Jeff. "You think it's even possible to miss Sam's voice when she's shrieking into your voicemail?" Jared smiled privately and figured no, no it wasn't. "You need anything else? You hungry?"
"If it wouldn't be too much trouble?"
"Gotta cook for myself anyway," said Jeff. "Get yourself settled in. I'll be down in the kitchen when you're ready."
"Thank you," said Jared politely, but the moment Uncle Jeff was gone down the stairs he just dropped his bag and sat on the bed and looked out the window for a long, long time.
:::
It was a beautiful morning. Jared had said those words before, on mornings both beautiful and not, but he'd never really meant them the way he meant them now, stepping outside of the cabin just after dawn and really looking at his new home.
He'd gone to sleep in a warm bed with a full belly, in the home of a person who hadn't yet begun to talk about where to send him next, and he woke up to sunshine and birds singing and breakfast on the table.
It was a beautiful, beautiful morning.
"Well, let's not waste any time having you earn your keep," he heard Jeff say behind him as he stretched his arms up towards the morning sky. "There are things that need doing and I can always use an extra set of hands."
Jared wasn't surprised, and he didn't even really mind. Well, not yet, anyway, though admittedly he hadn't yet bet told just what he'd have to do. He was used to having to earn his keep, and it hadn't been all that often that earning his keep had been anything he wasn't willing to do.
"Where do you want me to start?" he said, turning back around as soon as he'd finished stretching.
"Come with me," said Jeff, motioning him around the other side of the cabin. "I figure you heard the girls last night." He didn't even wait for Jared to answer him, let alone follow, as he surged on ahead, whistling as he went. It wasn't long before he was tackled by two fair-sized dogs. "Come meet Bisou and Sadie, and then I'll show you where the dog food is."
"Hey girls!" said Jared enthusiastically, kneeling down so they could jump and slobber all over him too. "Which one's which?"
"The Rottweiler mix is Bisou," he said. "Sadie's the one currently trying to drown your ear. You like dogs?"
"I love dogs," said Jared, trying almost successfully to pet both of them at once. "I've never had one, though. You can't really take them with you. Well, I couldn't anyway."
Jeff got that dark look on his face again, like he had when they were talking about Jared's bedroom, then shook his head. "My girls will love anyone who pays them any attention," he said, "and especially anyone who feeds them. That'll be your job now, so pay attention."
"I'm paying attention," promised Jared, though at least half of his attention was still on the affectionate dogs who trailed at his heels as he followed Jeff to the back porch. "I don't think I've ever seen so many flowers in one place before."
"I didn't mean pay attention to the flowers," said Jeff, but Jared thought - no, he was sure - he saw a little smile on Jeff's face as he opened the screen door. "They all grow wild up here. Couldn't get rid of them if I tried."
"I stayed with a family who had a big flower garden once," said Jared, pausing once again to pet Bisou who was nosing at his ankle. "I wasn't allowed to go in it, though. It was perfect."
"Well, you can tear around in these ones as much as you like," said Jeff, "after you've done your chores. Come on, Jared, daylight's a-wasting."
It was still early morning so Jared didn't think daylight was wasting that fast, but he did get the point and walked a little faster the rest of the way, even if the two dogs never did leave his heels.
Jeff showed him where the dog dishes were and where the food was and where to find a lot of yard implements that Jared didn't really know what to do with, but he figured he'd learn soon enough. And the work gloves. And the garden tools. And the rain gear.
"You cleaned up after breakfast?" Jeff said when they were done and the girls were feasting by the porch stairs.
"I washed up but I wasn't sure where everything went," said Jared, hoping that was enough.
Jeff nodded and looked at his watch. "All right, I'll be out in my workshop if you need anything. Take your phone if you go anywhere; there are lots of places to get lost around here. Food's in the cupboards, books are on the shelves, and the computer's on the desk in the corner."
"You've got a computer?" said Jared stupidly, not sure what to make of all that.
"Of course I've got a computer," he said. "How do you think I get any business done? Remember to clean up after yourself if you get into anything."
"Wait, that's it?" said Jared. "That's all you want me to do?"
"Who do you think you are?" said Jeff, turning back fully to look at him. "Little Orphan Annie? You're a kid, Jared, go have some fun. Earning your keep doesn't mean working your knuckles to the bone."
It kind of had a few times before; Jared didn't think he could be blamed for jumping to that conclusion. "Are you sure you don't want any--?"
"Go, have fun," said Jeff. "You can make lunch in a few hours if it'll make you feel better."
"It would," said Jared, a smile breaking through and lighting up his face. "It would make me feel better, actually. Can I take the dogs with me if I go anywhere?"
"I don't think they're going to give you a choice," said Jeff, starting for his workshop again and giving Jared a wave over his shoulder without looking back. "Stay out of trouble!"
'Trouble' probably meant 'falling of the mountain' around here, and Jared definitely didn't want to do that. He did want to stay outdoors, though, so after dashing back upstairs for his phone - visions of calamity prompting him to make sure it was never far from him - he whistled for the girls and set off down the road.
Everything was still as breathtaking as the first time he glimpsed it, from the meadows to the trees to the mountain peaks all around him. Instead of following the old logging road back down the way they'd come, when he reached it he started heading up instead, towards the unknown.
"I don't know how long I'm going to be here, girls," he said, reaching down to scratch Sadie's head, "but I plan to enjoy every moment of it."
After all, he might be as much an imposition on Jeff as he was on Sam, but he could name a half dozen places just off the top of his head that already hadn't been as good as this one. On paper his Aunt Sam had always been his guardian, but her actual presence in his life had never been huge. It was just her job, something Jared had understood from a very young age. She'd never asked for this, for him. She did the best she could with the bad hand she was dealt.
He always understood that.
"Well, you guys look well taken care of," he said as Sadie went shooting ahead up the empty road and Bisou squirmed in between his legs. "That's a good sign, right?"
A person who took good care of his animals probably took good care of his people, too.
Odds were good Sadie probably knew where she was going so Jared followed her higher up the mountain, stopping every now and again when something caught his eye. Around every corner there were new things to discover, from the clear blue skies to the sounds in the underbrush, creatures just out of sight, a whole world that was hard to imagine when you weren't planted right in the middle of it.
Though his legs began to ache after a while, Jared still managed to lose track of time until suddenly he realized that the sun had moved far across the sky, that it had to be past lunchtime.
"Oh, no," he said, whistling the dogs back from where they'd disappeared into the trees. "Come on, girls! Sadie! Bisou! We're late!"
At least going down the mountain was a quicker process than going up it. And at least Jared had never left the road, even as it had degraded to little more than an overgrown path.
"Jeff's going to kill me."
He ran the whole way, Bisou and Sadie treating it like some new game, sometimes keeping pace with him, sometimes dashing on ahead, sometimes disappearing into the trees only to emerge again on the road ahead of him. When he finally burst into the cabin, he was sweaty and breathless and his legs were trembling so hard he could barely hold himself upright.
"I'm sorry!" he blurted out before anything else.
Jeff looked up from his soup. "Why, did you break something?"
"Huh?" said Jared, leaning against the doorframe still trying to catch his breath. "No, I... I said I'd make lunch. But I swear, it was just so beautiful up there and I lost track of time. Is there something else I can do to make it up to you?"
"Well, you can shower," said Jeff, something unreadable in his expression. Jared didn't know him nearly well enough yet to know what to make of it. "I can practically smell you from here. And then you can eat some lunch and tell me about your morning. You make it very far?"
"I... yeah, we were way up there," said Jared. "There practically wasn't even a road anymore. You're not mad?"
"Hell, I wasn't even sure I'd see you again before dark," said Jeff. "I knew the girls would be looking out for you."
Jared finally relaxed a little, pausing to sniff his shirt. "I kind of ran all the way down," he admitted. "It was a long way."
"Jesus, Jared, you could sprain an ankle that way," said Jeff, "or worse. You even think about calling, if you were that worried you were late?"
Jared suddenly remembered the phone he'd tucked away in his pocket. "It won't happen again," he promised him. "I just--"
"Panicked?" suggested Jeff, slurping a spoonful of his soup. "That's a habit you'll want to get out of up here. Panic won't get you anywhere. Go on, go shower. I'll warm some of this up for you."
Jared was still a little uncertain about what had just happened, but he'd had too good a time up on the mountain to worry about it for long, and so he stripped off his shirt right there where he stood and headed into the little washroom for a quick shower so he'd be decent for lunch. There wasn't a whole lot of hot water, but after a run like that he wasn't all that keen on hot anyway.
He dashed up into the loft afterwards for something clean and dry to wear, from the meagre pickings that were his whole wardrobe, and sat down at the table just as Jeff was pulling the pot off the stove.
"I could pick up," he said, having gone through all the things he could do for Uncle Jeff while he was hastily scrubbing the sweat from his body. He didn't stop listing them even when his food was placed in front of him. "The yard, I mean. Or the house. Or maybe you need some wood chopped?"
"Do you even know how to chop wood?"
"I could learn," said Jared. "I'm pretty tall now, but I could stand to put on some muscle."
"Your kind of pretty tall before you figure out what to do with it usually means you'll cut your foot off before you manage to chop wood," said Jeff. "If you're itching to help out that much, I guess you could help with the weeding. I'll be in my workshop all afternoon."
"You got a lot of work to do?" said Jared, a smile breaking out again when he realized he was going to get to spend the afternoon outdoors too. "That's what you do, right? You make things out there?"
"Yeah, that's what I do," said Jeff, rising from the table when he finished. "You can do what you like, Jared. Just leave the axe out of it, would you? We can work on that another day, if you're determined."
Really, that was probably just as well, all things considered. Jared cleaned up the lunch dishes and made a point this time of learning where everything was in the small kitchen. Next time he would make lunch, just like he promised.
The garden out behind the cabin was vast, and definitely not decorative. Jared would bet that between the garden and the shotgun Jeff kept in the back porch, Jeff didn't have to do a whole lot of grocery shopping. In fact, he was pretty sure that Jeff didn't go down off the mountain much at all.
Which didn't make much sense to Jared since Jeff was beginning to seem like a genuinely nice guy, but maybe even genuinely nice guys sometimes liked their solitude.
The garden ate up most of his afternoon, but Jared couldn't bring himself to resent a moment of it. He was out in the sunshine in the path of a pleasant breeze, and Bisou kept him company all day even if Sadie seemed to prefer disappearing down a path into the surrounding trees rather than frolicking in the garden. In fact, Jared didn't even wrap it up until he saw Jeff heading into the cabin and realised how much time had passed.
He needed another shower after hours in the dirt, but this time it could wait till bedtime as long as he washed up his hands and arms for dinner. Which he did - thoroughly - as soon as Jeff got out of the shower.
When he came out, though, and headed upstairs to his room, he found that Jeff had already beaten him. And not only had he beaten him up there, but he'd hauled a new piece of furniture with him.
"Is that... where did that come from?" he said, looking at the dresser curiously.
"Out of my workshop," said Jeff, sliding it into place against the wall. "Will it do?"
"Will it do?" said Jared, rushing up suddenly to run his hand over the smooth top. "Are you serious? It's great! Did you really make this for me?"
"Well I didn't call IKEA and have them deliver it up here," said Jeff. "You'll have some shelves tomorrow, unless you want a chair first."
"What? Oh, no," said Jared. "I'm sure you have real work to do, Uncle Jeff. Really, this is more than enough already."
"A boy should have his own bedroom, with a place to put his things."
"I, uh, I don't actually have many things to put anywhere," admitted Jared. "I can't even fill half this dresser. Not even close."
"Well, we'll have to do something about that too," said Jeff, giving the dresser one last pat and then moving off towards the stairs.
"Thank you," said Jared. "Thank you, Uncle Jeff, it really is wonderful."
Jeff just nodded, but then he paused at the top of the stairs. "Until Sam called," he said quietly, "I didn't know. I didn't know what you'd been through, Jared. I always thought you had a home."
"Hey, I didn't even really know I had an uncle," said Jared. "It's not your fault."
It was silent then, for a long time. But Jared was a good listener and he knew he heard Jeff say, "Don't be too sure about that," before he headed down the stairs to make dinner.
:::
Jared wouldn't say things fell into a routine after that, because nothing so amazing as life at Uncle Jeff's cabin should ever be called routine, but after that he didn't wake each morning uncertain whether this would even be his home for long. Most days he spent some time in the garden, and sometimes he took care of the house too, but the rest of the time he didn't have anywhere he particularly needed to be.
Part of Jared, the boyish part, decided immediately this would be dog-playing time. But the other part, the part that had lived in well over a dozen places over the years, use the time to try to figure out what other things he could do to earn his place.
Things like mow the massive lawn, which, once he determined Jared knew enough not to mow down the wildflower meadow or get tangled up in the assorted machinery littering the side yard, Jeff was happy to let him do.
Jared liked it as much as he liked anything, never sorry for any task that kept him outside for long stretches. It never got too hot, even on the sunniest days, and he never worried about burning when he left his shirt behind and did his chores in just a pair of cut-off jeans that had quickly grown too short for him and his battered sneakers. He still didn't have a lot of clothes to his name, even after Jeff had passed a few hand-me-downs on to him, so any time he could use fewer of them was a good day.
He was just about finished, carefully rounding something that looked like part of a tractor, when he could've sworn he heard an engine that wasn't an echo from his lawnmower, something out on the logging road.
"There's someone coming," he said, bending down to turn off the lawnmower so he could better hear the sound of someone coming up the road. "Jeff? I think there's someone coming."
Jeff came out the front door of the cabin, wiping his hands on an old rag. "That'll be Chad," he said after a moment. "It must be Friday already."
"You have guests on Fridays?" said Jared, looking at his slightly-less-pale-than-before chest, his bare, grubby knees. "I didn't know."
"Chad's not a guest, he's just a local kid who runs errands for me," said Jeff. Bisou and Sadie obviously heard the sound of an approaching vehicle too and went tearing off the lane. Jeff tried to whistle them back, to no avail. "Figured I should introduce the two of you anyway. He's about your age."
"Does he live near here?" said Jared, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand and then trying to get a glimpse of the approaching vehicle through the trees.
"Couple of miles away," said Jeff. Jared was pretty sure that qualified as near around here, a lot nearer than anyone else. Jeff had mentioned he wasn't the only one who lived up here, that there were a few people who preferred the mountain way of life, but he'd never really talked about who any of those people were before now.
They watched as the battered pick-up truck turned up the lane, then swung around and backed in closer to Jeff's workshop.
"Chad," Jeff called gruffly as soon as kid hopped down out of the vehicle. He was a little shorter than Jared, but then most people were these days, a skinny guy with unruly, sandy blond hair. "Come meet Jared."
Chad didn't bother to hide the fact that he was beyond surprised to realise someone else was up here besides Jeff.
"Wow," he said. "Jared? Are you...?" At first just his eyes flicked uncertainly between Jared and Jeff, then his whole head got in on the action. "I'm sorry, I have no idea who you are."
"Jeff's my uncle," said Jared, jumping in before Jeff even could. "I haven't been up here before, though. Well, not since I was a baby, I guess."
Chad still looked a little stunned that there was someone besides Jeff here at the cabin, but he nodded like the explanation made it all make sense to him. "So you're visiting for a while?"
"Jared's staying with me now," said Jeff, curling a hand around Jared's shoulder and squeezing, a solid and comforting weight, "so you'll probably be seeing a lot of him."
"Oh, hey, that's awesome!" said Chad, any surprise or confusion lost beneath his instant and obviously genuine pleasure. "Usually the only people I can hang out with around here are my brothers and sister."
"Well, how about you save any hanging out until we get the truck unloaded," said Jeff, "and Jared finishes with the lawn."
"Right," said Jared, backing up a couple steps before he even got that one word out. He didn't want Jeff to think he was shirking his duties already, just because something more interesting had come up. "I'll just... right. I'll totally come help you when I'm finished out here!"
"I'm sure we'll be fine," said Jeff. "We always have been before. Come on, Chad, let's get started."
Jared smiled and gave them a little wave, then smiled a little wider when Chad waved back.
He wanted to rush through the rest of the job, but he also didn't want to have to go back and do it all over again when he botched it, so he took his time and did it right, even when that meant moving at a snail's pace so he didn't get anything caught in the blade. When he finally finished he pushed the mower back in the shed and went looking for Uncle Jeff and Chad, first in the house, then in the back porch, then out by Jeff's workshop.
"You missed all the fun," said Chad when he spotted him. "We're already done."
"I'm sorry," said Jared sincerely. "I just had more lawn left to do than I thought. I promise I'll help next time!"
"Thanks for doing the lawn," said Jeff instead of expressing any kind of disappointment. "That'll save me some time. Why don't you get Chad something to drink?"
"You're not coming in?"
"Still got work to do," he said, already heading for his workshop again. "See you next week, Chad."
"Sure thing, Mr. Morgan," he said, and didn't wait for Jared to lead him inside to help himself to a drink. Uncle Jeff might've tried to include him, but the truth was Chad obviously already knew this place a lot better than Jared did. "You want anything, Jared?"
"I think I'm supposed to serve you," he said, looking at the interior of the fridge and realising one of the things Chad brought was groceries. "Oh, hey, mayonnaise!"
"You know, I wondered why Jeff wanted more stuff than he usually does," said Chad, grabbing the lemonade. "Mom thought he finally coaxed a chick up here, but I told her she was crazy."
"So you know him pretty well?" said Jared. "Uncle Jeff, I mean?"
"As well as anyone does," said Chad. "I mean, he's not exactly Mr. Sociable, but we look out for our own up here."
"My Aunt Sam doesn't think much of him," said Jared. "She says he's a weird recluse."
"Well, he is," said Chad, closing the fridge and grinning at him. "He's a little weird and he's a lot recluse, but there's nothing wrong with that. Your Aunt Sam... she's Jeff's sister?"
"Yeah, I guess so," said Jared. "There were three of them, Jeff and Sam and my mom. Jeff's the baby."
"Yeah," said Chad. "Yeah, I guess." Jared expected him to ask, like everyone else always did, but when he didn't he figured that maybe people up here already knew the story of what happened to Jeff's other sister. "Is that where you were, before you were here?"
"Yeah, sort of," said Jared. "Aunt Sam had to go out of town on business. Mostly I think she just wanted Jeff to take his turn taking care of me. She's had me long enough."
"Huh," said Chad, like words were coming out of Jared's mouth but he didn't really understand what they meant. "So hey, how long have you been here? Has Jeff shown you much?"
"A few days now," said Jared. "Almost a week, I guess. Mostly Jeff works and I go for walks and play with the dogs and read books."
"Well, we can't have that," said Chad. "I hereby proclaim myself your friend and tour guide, cause God knows you look like you need one."
"A tour guide, or a friend?"
"Both," said Chad with another grin, draining his lemonade and then heading out onto the back porch.
"Mr. Morgan?" he called in the direction of the workshop. "I'm going to take Jared out to the lake, all right?"
There was a long pause, then Uncle Jeff called back, "Have him back before dark. He doesn't know his way around here yet."
"Will do!" Chad called back cheerfully, then tugged Jared out the doors and in the direction of the trees where Sadie always liked to play. "Come on, the path's this way."
"Is it close?" said Jared. "Should I put something else on?"
"Nah, it's the lake, you'll be fine," said Chad without even looking at him. "Hell, you'll probably just end up taking something off. Clearest water you've ever seen."
"Jeff never even told me there was a lake," said Jared, picking his way along the path behind him.
"He would've eventually," said Chad, pushing a tree branch out of his way. "I think he likes to come out here fishing sometimes, even though I've never caught him at it."
"Well, he must go fishing somewhere because we've got a freezer full of fish," said Jared. He'd never really seen Jeff do anything other than work, though, and wondered, not for the first time, if that maybe had something to do with him.
"I figure everyone who lives around here must come to the lake sometimes," Chad went on, "but as long as I never see them I can sort of pretend that it's mine, you know? Or at least that this little corner of it is. You'll see what I mean when we get there."
"Jeff said that there were a few other people up here," said Jared, careful to step over a thrust of jagged rocks in the middle of the path, "but it was hard to believe him. I mean, you're the first person I've seen in a week. I mean, besides Jeff, obviously."
"Oh yeah, there's a few," said Chad. "Miss Gamble, she lives up that way, she used to teach me piano when I was little. And there's Mr. and Mrs. Collins, they're pretty cool. He has this software company he runs from their house, and his wife's an author but I have no idea what she actually writes. Just that they're successful enough have this gorgeous house. Sometimes they have all of us over, all of us who live up here. I mean, just because you live up on the mountain doesn't mean you want to be alone all the time."
"Unless you're Jeff."
"Well, Jeff's different," said Chad, "but we like him fine that way. I mean, we're all a little eccentric, you know? It comes with the territory. That's what my mom and dad always say."
It really wasn't far to the lake, not by the standards Jared used to measure things here on the mountain. If he'd taken a different path one day, gone left in the woods instead of right, in just twenty minutes' time he might've found his way there himself.
"This way," said Chad, trying to lead him to the side as they emerged from the trees onto the rocky shore, but Jared had frozen where he was, staring over the calm waters, at the trees and the flowers and the peaks surrounding it all.
"How does a place like this even exist?" he said, with all appropriate awe. "It's like the whole rest of the world disappears and this is all just for us."
"Yeah," said Chad, pausing to look back at him. "And it's good for swimming, too. You coming or not?"
Jared took a last look at the view and then started to follow Chad down the path closer to the water. "Yeah, I'm coming," he said, stumbling a little on some loose rocks. "Wow, this is just normal to you."
"Well, it's home," said Chad as Jared caught up to him. "More or less. We live over on the other side of it. No, don't bother looking, you can't see it from here." It was true that all Jared could see was water and mountains and trees."
"It's like glass it's so clear," he said. "I hardly want to disturb it."
"So does that mean you're not swimming?" said Chad. "You do know how to swim, right? Jeff wouldn't have sent you out here with me if you couldn't swim, right?"
"It never came up," said Jared, "but yeah, I know how to swim. Well enough not to drown, anyway. I have a lot of survival skills."
"Well that sounds ominous," said Chad as they finally reached their destination, a wide rock plateau about three feet up from the surface of the water, backed by meadow grasses and flowers and, beyond that, more of the majestic trees that Jared had been seeing since he'd first come to the mountain.
Jared just shrugged, and pulled off his shoes when Chad did, peering over the edge and into the water. "I can see the bottom," he said in wonder, and not because the water was shallow but because it was clear all the way down.
"Not for long," said Chad, stripping off his shirt and shorts as well, in quick succession. When he was done, swinging in the wind, he looked back at Jared who still had his shorts on.
"I thought you were swimming!" he said. "What, are you worried someone's going to see you?"
He had a point there, and the truth was that Jared had been a lot more naked before, and for a lot less reason. "Just taking my time," he said, unbuttoning and pulling his cut-offs down his long legs, dropping them on top of his shoes. "You go ahead."
"Way ahead of you," said Chad, taking a flying leap off the rock, arms and legs stretched out in all directions before he curled himself up and cannonballed into the water.
The dogs weren't interested in the whole jumping in the lake nonsense, but they did fly in and out of the underbrush nearby, playing some dog game unfathomable by their human friends.
It was a little weird to be all hanging out like this, but Jared had always been open to new things - he'd had to be - so he gave his whole body an experimental shake and then leapt off the rock into the water.
The very, very cold water.
"Oh my God!" he blurted out when he came up for air, sucking in huge, shocked lungfuls. "You could've warned me!"
"What, did you think it was going to be heated?" said Chad, splashing him as he swam by. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it. I promise your balls haven't crawled up inside your body permanently."
God, Jared hoped not, but Chad was right that he did get used to it before long. And while it didn't stop being cold, the whole place didn't stop being amazing either.
Jared had always made casual friends pretty easily, a skill he picked up moving around so much, but making real friends was a little more complicated. He always had to think about that a little more, weigh out the varies intimacies they'd shared and figure out where the balance of the interactions came out.
This time, after they'd arrived back at Jeff's place before dark and Chad was getting back into his truck to head home, Jared didn't think about whether they were friends now. For once he just knew.
Next Part | Master Post
"It's just for the summer," said Aunt Sam, climbing back into the SUV and pressing the map into Jared's lap. "I'll find something else for you before school starts. I doubt they have a school up here anymore."
"It's fine," said Jared, beginning to carefully refold the map along well-worn creases. It was always fine. Every time she moved him from one place to another, it was fine. "Are we on the right road?"
"For now," she said as she reached for the map again, tugging it out of Jared's hands before slapping it down loosely right where it started. "Don't put that away. We need to turn off somewhere up over this hill, and then it's old logging roads the rest of the way." She reached onto the dash and gave the GPS a derisive flick. "God damn useless thing."
"He really does live way up here, doesn't he?"
Jared had already lost track of just where they were, the map just a scrawl of meaningless lines. He'd always known he'd been born somewhere up here, in the mountains of British Columbia, but he didn't remember any of it. He'd been a baby when the accident had taken his parents, and not once in all the years since had Aunt Sam brought him back to what had once been his home. Not until now.
"Middle of nowhere is what it is," said Sam. "Jeff's strange, but you're family so he needs to take his turn. He's been on his own up here long enough."
Jared, experienced enough at recognising Sam's moods to know when not to remind her what a burden she thought he was, fell silent. Children, as she'd told him countless times over the years, had never been a part of her plan.
There was so much else to watch outside the window anyway, things more interesting than his aunt's sour, lined face: endless trees and the snowy peaks that towered over them, and a glistening river in the valley sloping off to their right. It was different from just about everything he'd ever known, and it was beautiful.
In fact, he didn't say another word until he felt the jolt of Aunt Sam turning off the main road and lurching up a daunting incline.
"Are we going to make it?" he said dubiously.
"That’s why I rented the four wheel drive," said Sam. "Hang on, it's going to be rough the rest of the way."
Not everything was like that first hill, but rough was still an understatement. If Jared didn't know better, he would've thought that nobody would live someplace this remote, so far away from people.
"I don't like this at all," muttered Sam, reaching for her phone. Jared would've had gladly made whatever call she needed to so that she could focus on her driving, but he knew better than to suggest it when she had that look on her face. At least her glance hardly flickered down as she scrolled through the numbers and finally punched one of them.
"God damn it, Jeff, answer your phone," she said, tapping her thumb against her steering wheel. She waited and waited before gritting her teeth and dropping the phone down between the seats again, both hands back on the wheel to handle a washout.
"He knows I'm coming, right?" said Jared.
"I left him a message," said Sam, which wasn't the yes he'd been hoping for. "It'll be fine. He's your uncle, he'll take care of you."
Jared had never really been in the system himself - at least not for long, just a misunderstanding - but he'd still known a lot of kids who were, kids who'd heard words a lot like those ones before only to discover how untrue they could be. But he wasn't a kid anymore, and no matter what they found when they got up to his uncle's house, Jared would just make the best of it.
He was good at that.
"Are you still mad at me?" said Aunt Sam when Jared didn't answer. "You know I can't pass up this opportunity. If it was just a few weeks you could look after yourself again, but I'll be in London for at least six months, maybe longer."
"I'm not mad," said Jared. It used to make him sad, maybe, not understanding why he couldn't stay in one place with the same people for very long, but not mad. He'd never been without a roof over his head, so there were always people who had it worse than he did. "Are we almost there?"
"Well, you tell me," she said. "You've got the map. Are we any closer to the black dot than we were fifteen minutes ago?"
"I don't know," said Jared, the view out his window not giving him any point of reference to match it with his map. But they had to be on the right road, the only road he could see, winding higher and higher up the mountain. "I guess we'll find out when we get there."
"Crazy as a loon," she muttered under her breath, slowing down as the road got narrower. It was obviously not abandoned, but equally obviously it was not a road often travelled. "Sometimes I can't believe we come from the same gene pool."
"It looks like a good place to spend the summer," offered Jared, but she didn't want his reassurances that he didn't feel abandoned. She wanted him to agree.
When they reached a fork in the road he told her which way her sketchy, half-remembered directions said to go, but other than that he didn't try to make any more conversation, not even when they finally emerged into a clearing and saw a cabin up ahead.
"If that's not it I'm leaving you here anyway," said Sam, and though she punctuated it with a sharp laugh Jared wasn't entirely sure she was joking.
There was a four-by-four parked up beside the cabin, tufts of grass sprouting up behind the back wheels suggesting it hadn't been driven lately, and while the front - and presumably back - yard could only be described as an open meadow, the side was filled with odds and ends, bits of machinery and a wood pile and what Jared thought was a snowmobile parked in behind for the summer. And everywhere he looked, mixed in with the grass and the trees and the wheels and the wood, hundreds upon thousands of flowers.
"Grab your things," said Sam, yanking the key from the ignition and shoving the driver's side door open. "I'm already running late."
She was marching him up to the door before he knew it, pounding on it with her fist. There wasn't so much as a sign of life at first, and Jared had all but resigned himself to camping out on the lawn while he waited, but Sam persisted. She had to bang twice more before it was answered by a grumpy-looking man with a close-cropped salt and pepper beard.
"Sam," he said, nodding his head, his voice almost completely expressionless. "Never thought I'd see you up here."
Sam huffed out an impatient breath. "I left you messages, Jeff. You knew I was coming."
"You've said you were coming before," he said, his eyes skating away from her and landing on Jared. His expression didn't change. "Who's this?"
Jared had the feeling, though, that he knew exactly who and what he was looking at.
"Jared, do you have all your things?" Sam asked without looking at him.
Jared just nodded, hoisting his single, overstuffed bag a little higher on his shoulder. It wasn't like he kept much from place to place. Just what he needed, that's all he was ever really allowed to bring.
"Good to see you haven't changed at all, Samantha," said Jeff. Just as she kept her eyes on him, he kept his eyes on Jared as he spoke. "You look like your father. Growing like a weed, I'm sure. Probably eat me out of house and home."
"He won't be any trouble, pretty much takes care of himself," she said. "Jeff, I have a flight to catch. Could you just show the kid where he's staying?"
It had been a couple years since Jared had been able to effectively hide, thanks to a growth spurt and his suddenly-impressive height, but he was still pretty skilled at making himself inconspicuous when he wanted to. Which right now he really, really did.
"That's it, then?" he said. "You're just going to drop him off and leave?"
"Well what would you have me do, Jeff? It's bad enough I had to haul him up here myself, since you couldn't be bothered to return my calls, or come down into town to meet him. You made this a lot harder than it had to be."
"Well, maybe dumping a kid off someplace because you can't make room in your life for him should be hard," said Jeff, eyeing Jared then angling his head towards the house, a clear indication to head inside. Jared didn't want to make waves; he just nodded and quickly ducked past him. "Get out of here, Sam. Go catch your flight."
"It didn't have to be like this, Jeff."
"No, it didn't," he agreed. "Now get the hell out of here and don't worry about the boy. Not that you were going to anyway."
The last Jared saw of Aunt Sam was her slamming the SUV door and tearing down the mountain to get away from her brother Jeff.
"Well, go on inside," said his Uncle Jeff when Jared hesitated at the door, watching her retreat. "We're stuck with one another now."
Jared took one last long look at the mountainside, at all that beautiful scenery, and took a last deep breath of the mountain air before ducking inside the cabin. "Do you think I might have a room with a window?" he dared to ask. "I wouldn't ask if this wasn't the most beautiful place she's ever left me. Even if I have to stay inside, I want to be able to look at it all the time."
Jeff gave him a long quiet look before turning to close the door again behind them. "You really think I want to keep you shut up underfoot all the time?" he said, switching on a lamp as the outside light started to dim. Jared wondered if Aunt Sam was going to make it back onto the main highway before it got too dark, but he couldn't bring himself to worry about it for long. "I made up a place for you."
"I don't need much," Jared promised him. "I don't want to be in the way." Jeff didn't say anything, just led him to the stairs at the back of the cabin and gestured for him to go on up. "The attic?"
"It's a loft," said Jeff, following him up. "Not quite finished yet but I threw some better insulation in the other day and sealed up all the plastic. It's summer so we've got some time to finish the work before it gets cold enough to feel it."
"There's a window," was the only thing Jared really noticed, smiling brightly when he saw the fading light illuminating his bed, the only piece of furniture at that end of the loft.
"Yeah, well I've got something to say about people who put kids in rooms without windows," said Jeff gruffly. "If you want a place to put your things, we'll have to make something. I didn't have time."
"So you did know I was coming," said Jared, clutching his bag to his chest.
"Of course I knew you were coming," said Jeff. "You think it's even possible to miss Sam's voice when she's shrieking into your voicemail?" Jared smiled privately and figured no, no it wasn't. "You need anything else? You hungry?"
"If it wouldn't be too much trouble?"
"Gotta cook for myself anyway," said Jeff. "Get yourself settled in. I'll be down in the kitchen when you're ready."
"Thank you," said Jared politely, but the moment Uncle Jeff was gone down the stairs he just dropped his bag and sat on the bed and looked out the window for a long, long time.
:::
It was a beautiful morning. Jared had said those words before, on mornings both beautiful and not, but he'd never really meant them the way he meant them now, stepping outside of the cabin just after dawn and really looking at his new home.
He'd gone to sleep in a warm bed with a full belly, in the home of a person who hadn't yet begun to talk about where to send him next, and he woke up to sunshine and birds singing and breakfast on the table.
It was a beautiful, beautiful morning.
"Well, let's not waste any time having you earn your keep," he heard Jeff say behind him as he stretched his arms up towards the morning sky. "There are things that need doing and I can always use an extra set of hands."
Jared wasn't surprised, and he didn't even really mind. Well, not yet, anyway, though admittedly he hadn't yet bet told just what he'd have to do. He was used to having to earn his keep, and it hadn't been all that often that earning his keep had been anything he wasn't willing to do.
"Where do you want me to start?" he said, turning back around as soon as he'd finished stretching.
"Come with me," said Jeff, motioning him around the other side of the cabin. "I figure you heard the girls last night." He didn't even wait for Jared to answer him, let alone follow, as he surged on ahead, whistling as he went. It wasn't long before he was tackled by two fair-sized dogs. "Come meet Bisou and Sadie, and then I'll show you where the dog food is."
"Hey girls!" said Jared enthusiastically, kneeling down so they could jump and slobber all over him too. "Which one's which?"
"The Rottweiler mix is Bisou," he said. "Sadie's the one currently trying to drown your ear. You like dogs?"
"I love dogs," said Jared, trying almost successfully to pet both of them at once. "I've never had one, though. You can't really take them with you. Well, I couldn't anyway."
Jeff got that dark look on his face again, like he had when they were talking about Jared's bedroom, then shook his head. "My girls will love anyone who pays them any attention," he said, "and especially anyone who feeds them. That'll be your job now, so pay attention."
"I'm paying attention," promised Jared, though at least half of his attention was still on the affectionate dogs who trailed at his heels as he followed Jeff to the back porch. "I don't think I've ever seen so many flowers in one place before."
"I didn't mean pay attention to the flowers," said Jeff, but Jared thought - no, he was sure - he saw a little smile on Jeff's face as he opened the screen door. "They all grow wild up here. Couldn't get rid of them if I tried."
"I stayed with a family who had a big flower garden once," said Jared, pausing once again to pet Bisou who was nosing at his ankle. "I wasn't allowed to go in it, though. It was perfect."
"Well, you can tear around in these ones as much as you like," said Jeff, "after you've done your chores. Come on, Jared, daylight's a-wasting."
It was still early morning so Jared didn't think daylight was wasting that fast, but he did get the point and walked a little faster the rest of the way, even if the two dogs never did leave his heels.
Jeff showed him where the dog dishes were and where the food was and where to find a lot of yard implements that Jared didn't really know what to do with, but he figured he'd learn soon enough. And the work gloves. And the garden tools. And the rain gear.
"You cleaned up after breakfast?" Jeff said when they were done and the girls were feasting by the porch stairs.
"I washed up but I wasn't sure where everything went," said Jared, hoping that was enough.
Jeff nodded and looked at his watch. "All right, I'll be out in my workshop if you need anything. Take your phone if you go anywhere; there are lots of places to get lost around here. Food's in the cupboards, books are on the shelves, and the computer's on the desk in the corner."
"You've got a computer?" said Jared stupidly, not sure what to make of all that.
"Of course I've got a computer," he said. "How do you think I get any business done? Remember to clean up after yourself if you get into anything."
"Wait, that's it?" said Jared. "That's all you want me to do?"
"Who do you think you are?" said Jeff, turning back fully to look at him. "Little Orphan Annie? You're a kid, Jared, go have some fun. Earning your keep doesn't mean working your knuckles to the bone."
It kind of had a few times before; Jared didn't think he could be blamed for jumping to that conclusion. "Are you sure you don't want any--?"
"Go, have fun," said Jeff. "You can make lunch in a few hours if it'll make you feel better."
"It would," said Jared, a smile breaking through and lighting up his face. "It would make me feel better, actually. Can I take the dogs with me if I go anywhere?"
"I don't think they're going to give you a choice," said Jeff, starting for his workshop again and giving Jared a wave over his shoulder without looking back. "Stay out of trouble!"
'Trouble' probably meant 'falling of the mountain' around here, and Jared definitely didn't want to do that. He did want to stay outdoors, though, so after dashing back upstairs for his phone - visions of calamity prompting him to make sure it was never far from him - he whistled for the girls and set off down the road.
Everything was still as breathtaking as the first time he glimpsed it, from the meadows to the trees to the mountain peaks all around him. Instead of following the old logging road back down the way they'd come, when he reached it he started heading up instead, towards the unknown.
"I don't know how long I'm going to be here, girls," he said, reaching down to scratch Sadie's head, "but I plan to enjoy every moment of it."
After all, he might be as much an imposition on Jeff as he was on Sam, but he could name a half dozen places just off the top of his head that already hadn't been as good as this one. On paper his Aunt Sam had always been his guardian, but her actual presence in his life had never been huge. It was just her job, something Jared had understood from a very young age. She'd never asked for this, for him. She did the best she could with the bad hand she was dealt.
He always understood that.
"Well, you guys look well taken care of," he said as Sadie went shooting ahead up the empty road and Bisou squirmed in between his legs. "That's a good sign, right?"
A person who took good care of his animals probably took good care of his people, too.
Odds were good Sadie probably knew where she was going so Jared followed her higher up the mountain, stopping every now and again when something caught his eye. Around every corner there were new things to discover, from the clear blue skies to the sounds in the underbrush, creatures just out of sight, a whole world that was hard to imagine when you weren't planted right in the middle of it.
Though his legs began to ache after a while, Jared still managed to lose track of time until suddenly he realized that the sun had moved far across the sky, that it had to be past lunchtime.
"Oh, no," he said, whistling the dogs back from where they'd disappeared into the trees. "Come on, girls! Sadie! Bisou! We're late!"
At least going down the mountain was a quicker process than going up it. And at least Jared had never left the road, even as it had degraded to little more than an overgrown path.
"Jeff's going to kill me."
He ran the whole way, Bisou and Sadie treating it like some new game, sometimes keeping pace with him, sometimes dashing on ahead, sometimes disappearing into the trees only to emerge again on the road ahead of him. When he finally burst into the cabin, he was sweaty and breathless and his legs were trembling so hard he could barely hold himself upright.
"I'm sorry!" he blurted out before anything else.
Jeff looked up from his soup. "Why, did you break something?"
"Huh?" said Jared, leaning against the doorframe still trying to catch his breath. "No, I... I said I'd make lunch. But I swear, it was just so beautiful up there and I lost track of time. Is there something else I can do to make it up to you?"
"Well, you can shower," said Jeff, something unreadable in his expression. Jared didn't know him nearly well enough yet to know what to make of it. "I can practically smell you from here. And then you can eat some lunch and tell me about your morning. You make it very far?"
"I... yeah, we were way up there," said Jared. "There practically wasn't even a road anymore. You're not mad?"
"Hell, I wasn't even sure I'd see you again before dark," said Jeff. "I knew the girls would be looking out for you."
Jared finally relaxed a little, pausing to sniff his shirt. "I kind of ran all the way down," he admitted. "It was a long way."
"Jesus, Jared, you could sprain an ankle that way," said Jeff, "or worse. You even think about calling, if you were that worried you were late?"
Jared suddenly remembered the phone he'd tucked away in his pocket. "It won't happen again," he promised him. "I just--"
"Panicked?" suggested Jeff, slurping a spoonful of his soup. "That's a habit you'll want to get out of up here. Panic won't get you anywhere. Go on, go shower. I'll warm some of this up for you."
Jared was still a little uncertain about what had just happened, but he'd had too good a time up on the mountain to worry about it for long, and so he stripped off his shirt right there where he stood and headed into the little washroom for a quick shower so he'd be decent for lunch. There wasn't a whole lot of hot water, but after a run like that he wasn't all that keen on hot anyway.
He dashed up into the loft afterwards for something clean and dry to wear, from the meagre pickings that were his whole wardrobe, and sat down at the table just as Jeff was pulling the pot off the stove.
"I could pick up," he said, having gone through all the things he could do for Uncle Jeff while he was hastily scrubbing the sweat from his body. He didn't stop listing them even when his food was placed in front of him. "The yard, I mean. Or the house. Or maybe you need some wood chopped?"
"Do you even know how to chop wood?"
"I could learn," said Jared. "I'm pretty tall now, but I could stand to put on some muscle."
"Your kind of pretty tall before you figure out what to do with it usually means you'll cut your foot off before you manage to chop wood," said Jeff. "If you're itching to help out that much, I guess you could help with the weeding. I'll be in my workshop all afternoon."
"You got a lot of work to do?" said Jared, a smile breaking out again when he realized he was going to get to spend the afternoon outdoors too. "That's what you do, right? You make things out there?"
"Yeah, that's what I do," said Jeff, rising from the table when he finished. "You can do what you like, Jared. Just leave the axe out of it, would you? We can work on that another day, if you're determined."
Really, that was probably just as well, all things considered. Jared cleaned up the lunch dishes and made a point this time of learning where everything was in the small kitchen. Next time he would make lunch, just like he promised.
The garden out behind the cabin was vast, and definitely not decorative. Jared would bet that between the garden and the shotgun Jeff kept in the back porch, Jeff didn't have to do a whole lot of grocery shopping. In fact, he was pretty sure that Jeff didn't go down off the mountain much at all.
Which didn't make much sense to Jared since Jeff was beginning to seem like a genuinely nice guy, but maybe even genuinely nice guys sometimes liked their solitude.
The garden ate up most of his afternoon, but Jared couldn't bring himself to resent a moment of it. He was out in the sunshine in the path of a pleasant breeze, and Bisou kept him company all day even if Sadie seemed to prefer disappearing down a path into the surrounding trees rather than frolicking in the garden. In fact, Jared didn't even wrap it up until he saw Jeff heading into the cabin and realised how much time had passed.
He needed another shower after hours in the dirt, but this time it could wait till bedtime as long as he washed up his hands and arms for dinner. Which he did - thoroughly - as soon as Jeff got out of the shower.
When he came out, though, and headed upstairs to his room, he found that Jeff had already beaten him. And not only had he beaten him up there, but he'd hauled a new piece of furniture with him.
"Is that... where did that come from?" he said, looking at the dresser curiously.
"Out of my workshop," said Jeff, sliding it into place against the wall. "Will it do?"
"Will it do?" said Jared, rushing up suddenly to run his hand over the smooth top. "Are you serious? It's great! Did you really make this for me?"
"Well I didn't call IKEA and have them deliver it up here," said Jeff. "You'll have some shelves tomorrow, unless you want a chair first."
"What? Oh, no," said Jared. "I'm sure you have real work to do, Uncle Jeff. Really, this is more than enough already."
"A boy should have his own bedroom, with a place to put his things."
"I, uh, I don't actually have many things to put anywhere," admitted Jared. "I can't even fill half this dresser. Not even close."
"Well, we'll have to do something about that too," said Jeff, giving the dresser one last pat and then moving off towards the stairs.
"Thank you," said Jared. "Thank you, Uncle Jeff, it really is wonderful."
Jeff just nodded, but then he paused at the top of the stairs. "Until Sam called," he said quietly, "I didn't know. I didn't know what you'd been through, Jared. I always thought you had a home."
"Hey, I didn't even really know I had an uncle," said Jared. "It's not your fault."
It was silent then, for a long time. But Jared was a good listener and he knew he heard Jeff say, "Don't be too sure about that," before he headed down the stairs to make dinner.
:::
Jared wouldn't say things fell into a routine after that, because nothing so amazing as life at Uncle Jeff's cabin should ever be called routine, but after that he didn't wake each morning uncertain whether this would even be his home for long. Most days he spent some time in the garden, and sometimes he took care of the house too, but the rest of the time he didn't have anywhere he particularly needed to be.
Part of Jared, the boyish part, decided immediately this would be dog-playing time. But the other part, the part that had lived in well over a dozen places over the years, use the time to try to figure out what other things he could do to earn his place.
Things like mow the massive lawn, which, once he determined Jared knew enough not to mow down the wildflower meadow or get tangled up in the assorted machinery littering the side yard, Jeff was happy to let him do.
Jared liked it as much as he liked anything, never sorry for any task that kept him outside for long stretches. It never got too hot, even on the sunniest days, and he never worried about burning when he left his shirt behind and did his chores in just a pair of cut-off jeans that had quickly grown too short for him and his battered sneakers. He still didn't have a lot of clothes to his name, even after Jeff had passed a few hand-me-downs on to him, so any time he could use fewer of them was a good day.
He was just about finished, carefully rounding something that looked like part of a tractor, when he could've sworn he heard an engine that wasn't an echo from his lawnmower, something out on the logging road.
"There's someone coming," he said, bending down to turn off the lawnmower so he could better hear the sound of someone coming up the road. "Jeff? I think there's someone coming."
Jeff came out the front door of the cabin, wiping his hands on an old rag. "That'll be Chad," he said after a moment. "It must be Friday already."
"You have guests on Fridays?" said Jared, looking at his slightly-less-pale-than-before chest, his bare, grubby knees. "I didn't know."
"Chad's not a guest, he's just a local kid who runs errands for me," said Jeff. Bisou and Sadie obviously heard the sound of an approaching vehicle too and went tearing off the lane. Jeff tried to whistle them back, to no avail. "Figured I should introduce the two of you anyway. He's about your age."
"Does he live near here?" said Jared, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand and then trying to get a glimpse of the approaching vehicle through the trees.
"Couple of miles away," said Jeff. Jared was pretty sure that qualified as near around here, a lot nearer than anyone else. Jeff had mentioned he wasn't the only one who lived up here, that there were a few people who preferred the mountain way of life, but he'd never really talked about who any of those people were before now.
They watched as the battered pick-up truck turned up the lane, then swung around and backed in closer to Jeff's workshop.
"Chad," Jeff called gruffly as soon as kid hopped down out of the vehicle. He was a little shorter than Jared, but then most people were these days, a skinny guy with unruly, sandy blond hair. "Come meet Jared."
Chad didn't bother to hide the fact that he was beyond surprised to realise someone else was up here besides Jeff.
"Wow," he said. "Jared? Are you...?" At first just his eyes flicked uncertainly between Jared and Jeff, then his whole head got in on the action. "I'm sorry, I have no idea who you are."
"Jeff's my uncle," said Jared, jumping in before Jeff even could. "I haven't been up here before, though. Well, not since I was a baby, I guess."
Chad still looked a little stunned that there was someone besides Jeff here at the cabin, but he nodded like the explanation made it all make sense to him. "So you're visiting for a while?"
"Jared's staying with me now," said Jeff, curling a hand around Jared's shoulder and squeezing, a solid and comforting weight, "so you'll probably be seeing a lot of him."
"Oh, hey, that's awesome!" said Chad, any surprise or confusion lost beneath his instant and obviously genuine pleasure. "Usually the only people I can hang out with around here are my brothers and sister."
"Well, how about you save any hanging out until we get the truck unloaded," said Jeff, "and Jared finishes with the lawn."
"Right," said Jared, backing up a couple steps before he even got that one word out. He didn't want Jeff to think he was shirking his duties already, just because something more interesting had come up. "I'll just... right. I'll totally come help you when I'm finished out here!"
"I'm sure we'll be fine," said Jeff. "We always have been before. Come on, Chad, let's get started."
Jared smiled and gave them a little wave, then smiled a little wider when Chad waved back.
He wanted to rush through the rest of the job, but he also didn't want to have to go back and do it all over again when he botched it, so he took his time and did it right, even when that meant moving at a snail's pace so he didn't get anything caught in the blade. When he finally finished he pushed the mower back in the shed and went looking for Uncle Jeff and Chad, first in the house, then in the back porch, then out by Jeff's workshop.
"You missed all the fun," said Chad when he spotted him. "We're already done."
"I'm sorry," said Jared sincerely. "I just had more lawn left to do than I thought. I promise I'll help next time!"
"Thanks for doing the lawn," said Jeff instead of expressing any kind of disappointment. "That'll save me some time. Why don't you get Chad something to drink?"
"You're not coming in?"
"Still got work to do," he said, already heading for his workshop again. "See you next week, Chad."
"Sure thing, Mr. Morgan," he said, and didn't wait for Jared to lead him inside to help himself to a drink. Uncle Jeff might've tried to include him, but the truth was Chad obviously already knew this place a lot better than Jared did. "You want anything, Jared?"
"I think I'm supposed to serve you," he said, looking at the interior of the fridge and realising one of the things Chad brought was groceries. "Oh, hey, mayonnaise!"
"You know, I wondered why Jeff wanted more stuff than he usually does," said Chad, grabbing the lemonade. "Mom thought he finally coaxed a chick up here, but I told her she was crazy."
"So you know him pretty well?" said Jared. "Uncle Jeff, I mean?"
"As well as anyone does," said Chad. "I mean, he's not exactly Mr. Sociable, but we look out for our own up here."
"My Aunt Sam doesn't think much of him," said Jared. "She says he's a weird recluse."
"Well, he is," said Chad, closing the fridge and grinning at him. "He's a little weird and he's a lot recluse, but there's nothing wrong with that. Your Aunt Sam... she's Jeff's sister?"
"Yeah, I guess so," said Jared. "There were three of them, Jeff and Sam and my mom. Jeff's the baby."
"Yeah," said Chad. "Yeah, I guess." Jared expected him to ask, like everyone else always did, but when he didn't he figured that maybe people up here already knew the story of what happened to Jeff's other sister. "Is that where you were, before you were here?"
"Yeah, sort of," said Jared. "Aunt Sam had to go out of town on business. Mostly I think she just wanted Jeff to take his turn taking care of me. She's had me long enough."
"Huh," said Chad, like words were coming out of Jared's mouth but he didn't really understand what they meant. "So hey, how long have you been here? Has Jeff shown you much?"
"A few days now," said Jared. "Almost a week, I guess. Mostly Jeff works and I go for walks and play with the dogs and read books."
"Well, we can't have that," said Chad. "I hereby proclaim myself your friend and tour guide, cause God knows you look like you need one."
"A tour guide, or a friend?"
"Both," said Chad with another grin, draining his lemonade and then heading out onto the back porch.
"Mr. Morgan?" he called in the direction of the workshop. "I'm going to take Jared out to the lake, all right?"
There was a long pause, then Uncle Jeff called back, "Have him back before dark. He doesn't know his way around here yet."
"Will do!" Chad called back cheerfully, then tugged Jared out the doors and in the direction of the trees where Sadie always liked to play. "Come on, the path's this way."
"Is it close?" said Jared. "Should I put something else on?"
"Nah, it's the lake, you'll be fine," said Chad without even looking at him. "Hell, you'll probably just end up taking something off. Clearest water you've ever seen."
"Jeff never even told me there was a lake," said Jared, picking his way along the path behind him.
"He would've eventually," said Chad, pushing a tree branch out of his way. "I think he likes to come out here fishing sometimes, even though I've never caught him at it."
"Well, he must go fishing somewhere because we've got a freezer full of fish," said Jared. He'd never really seen Jeff do anything other than work, though, and wondered, not for the first time, if that maybe had something to do with him.
"I figure everyone who lives around here must come to the lake sometimes," Chad went on, "but as long as I never see them I can sort of pretend that it's mine, you know? Or at least that this little corner of it is. You'll see what I mean when we get there."
"Jeff said that there were a few other people up here," said Jared, careful to step over a thrust of jagged rocks in the middle of the path, "but it was hard to believe him. I mean, you're the first person I've seen in a week. I mean, besides Jeff, obviously."
"Oh yeah, there's a few," said Chad. "Miss Gamble, she lives up that way, she used to teach me piano when I was little. And there's Mr. and Mrs. Collins, they're pretty cool. He has this software company he runs from their house, and his wife's an author but I have no idea what she actually writes. Just that they're successful enough have this gorgeous house. Sometimes they have all of us over, all of us who live up here. I mean, just because you live up on the mountain doesn't mean you want to be alone all the time."
"Unless you're Jeff."
"Well, Jeff's different," said Chad, "but we like him fine that way. I mean, we're all a little eccentric, you know? It comes with the territory. That's what my mom and dad always say."
It really wasn't far to the lake, not by the standards Jared used to measure things here on the mountain. If he'd taken a different path one day, gone left in the woods instead of right, in just twenty minutes' time he might've found his way there himself.
"This way," said Chad, trying to lead him to the side as they emerged from the trees onto the rocky shore, but Jared had frozen where he was, staring over the calm waters, at the trees and the flowers and the peaks surrounding it all.
"How does a place like this even exist?" he said, with all appropriate awe. "It's like the whole rest of the world disappears and this is all just for us."
"Yeah," said Chad, pausing to look back at him. "And it's good for swimming, too. You coming or not?"
Jared took a last look at the view and then started to follow Chad down the path closer to the water. "Yeah, I'm coming," he said, stumbling a little on some loose rocks. "Wow, this is just normal to you."
"Well, it's home," said Chad as Jared caught up to him. "More or less. We live over on the other side of it. No, don't bother looking, you can't see it from here." It was true that all Jared could see was water and mountains and trees."
"It's like glass it's so clear," he said. "I hardly want to disturb it."
"So does that mean you're not swimming?" said Chad. "You do know how to swim, right? Jeff wouldn't have sent you out here with me if you couldn't swim, right?"
"It never came up," said Jared, "but yeah, I know how to swim. Well enough not to drown, anyway. I have a lot of survival skills."
"Well that sounds ominous," said Chad as they finally reached their destination, a wide rock plateau about three feet up from the surface of the water, backed by meadow grasses and flowers and, beyond that, more of the majestic trees that Jared had been seeing since he'd first come to the mountain.
Jared just shrugged, and pulled off his shoes when Chad did, peering over the edge and into the water. "I can see the bottom," he said in wonder, and not because the water was shallow but because it was clear all the way down.
"Not for long," said Chad, stripping off his shirt and shorts as well, in quick succession. When he was done, swinging in the wind, he looked back at Jared who still had his shorts on.
"I thought you were swimming!" he said. "What, are you worried someone's going to see you?"
He had a point there, and the truth was that Jared had been a lot more naked before, and for a lot less reason. "Just taking my time," he said, unbuttoning and pulling his cut-offs down his long legs, dropping them on top of his shoes. "You go ahead."
"Way ahead of you," said Chad, taking a flying leap off the rock, arms and legs stretched out in all directions before he curled himself up and cannonballed into the water.
The dogs weren't interested in the whole jumping in the lake nonsense, but they did fly in and out of the underbrush nearby, playing some dog game unfathomable by their human friends.
It was a little weird to be all hanging out like this, but Jared had always been open to new things - he'd had to be - so he gave his whole body an experimental shake and then leapt off the rock into the water.
The very, very cold water.
"Oh my God!" he blurted out when he came up for air, sucking in huge, shocked lungfuls. "You could've warned me!"
"What, did you think it was going to be heated?" said Chad, splashing him as he swam by. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it. I promise your balls haven't crawled up inside your body permanently."
God, Jared hoped not, but Chad was right that he did get used to it before long. And while it didn't stop being cold, the whole place didn't stop being amazing either.
Jared had always made casual friends pretty easily, a skill he picked up moving around so much, but making real friends was a little more complicated. He always had to think about that a little more, weigh out the varies intimacies they'd shared and figure out where the balance of the interactions came out.
This time, after they'd arrived back at Jeff's place before dark and Chad was getting back into his truck to head home, Jared didn't think about whether they were friends now. For once he just knew.
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