Chapter Text
Something has to be wrong.
Maybe it’s selfish to assume that the only possible reason why Haley hasn’t heard from the farmer in a few days is because something is deeply, deeply wrong, but it’s unusual at this point.
Haley stirs her coffee quietly, lost in thought as Emily bustles through the house, looking for something Haley can’t be bothered to find out what.
Is she sick? Is she injured? Is she tired of Haley’s teasing?
That last option sticks a bit more than she’d like.
“Earth to Haley!”
The blonde blinks at Emily’s hand waving in front of her face, and she swats it out of the way.
“Stop.”
Emily squawks as her hand is batted out of the way.
“I’ve been trying to talk to you for five minutes! You’re so out of it. What’s wrong?”
”Nothing’s wrong.”
Emily says nothing for a moment, but then decides against it, and sits across from her.
”.. something’s wrong.”
Haley bites her bottom lip.
“Have you heard from the farmer? Vicky?”
Emily thinks for a moment, drumming her fingers on the table.
”She usually drops by the saloon every other night to get some coffee, but I haven’t seen her in a while-“
“-‘cause I think somethings wrong. I don’t know. She normally doesn’t go this long without dropping by with a sunflower or something, and I just-“
Emily raises a brow. “You think something’s wrong because Vicky hasn’t dropped off your biweekly sunflower? Haley, it’s summertime. It’s the harvest season, or something.”
She waves a hand. “If you want intel, go check on her. Can’t hurt.”
Haley winces.
”Can hurt. Will hurt. I can’t do that.”
”You actually can, and you will. If you want to see her so bad-“
”Oh, my Yoba, I shouldn’t have told you.”
Emily flings her hands up, and pushes up from the table. “Unbelievable. Your.. whatever it is with her, it won’t go anywhere unless you get off your high horse and go see her, go make the effort.
Now’s the perfect chance! You knock, you stroll in and flip your perfect hair, and say something like oh, I haven’t seen you in a while, I just wanted to make sure everything is okay, and then she says wow, thanks so much Haley, and might I say you look beautiful today-“
Haley claps her hand over Emily’s mouth, her cheeks pink. “Okay, okay, shut up. Shut up. I get it. I’m going.”
Emily smiles beneath her hand.
————
After a lot of internal debate about what to wear, Haley ends up just dressing for the weather. A simple denim skirt and a turquoise tank-top with her standard gold hoops.
“Should I bring something?” She asks Emily.
“Just your winning smile. Go. You’re burning daylight.”
”It’s 11am..” Haley grumbles, but she starts the walk to the farm anyway, her hands wringing at the strap of her purse.
It’s a nice walk to the house, she realizes. The trees make a nice canopy from the shade.
It’s like she blinked and arrived at the house.
Briefly, Haley considers turning and running, but Vicky’s dog, Bear, is already barking at the door.
No escape.
She knocks once, twice at the door. Vicky usually tells her come on in, the door’s unlocked- can’t be any different today, can it?
Haley turns the brass nob and pushes the door open, immediately tackled to the floor by Bear, who greets her with generous licks to the face.
“Ough-“
She’s always been a cat person, but there’s something about the dog that she doesn’t mind.
It stays out of the way more often than not, spending its days in the barn with the cows, sheep, and pigs, but Bear is free to wander as she pleases.
She’s a big dog, too, an Anatolian Shepherd- about 100lbs, cream-coloured with dark brown ears and patches around her amber eyes.
Bear’s tail is long and feathery and wagging like a metronome as she has Haley pinned.
”Oof- ouch- okay, okay, I missed you too, off-“
Haley pushes Bear’s huge head away from her face.
“You don’t know where Vicky is, do you?”
Bear woofs, low and loud.
Why am I asking the dog?
Haley pushes herself to her feet, hanging her purse on the hat rack beside the door. Bear sits in front of her rather politely.
“You won’t kill me if I look around?”
She checks with the dog.
“Great.”
The house isn’t unfamiliar to Haley, but she certainly doesn’t frequent it.
Or, she tries not to.
If you were you ask Haley why she’s so against being involved with the farm, she’d say something along the lines of it’s dirty, it’s muddy, it smells like manure in the heat, and there’s a cave full of bats.
But that wouldn’t be the real answer.
The real answer would be if I stay too long I’ll fall in love with something I’m trying to leave behind.
The thought is buried deep in her subconscious, kicked into the darkest corner of her mind and locked behind a spooky door where nothing can access it.
Sometimes, like her birthday last year- when Vicky had baked her a pink cake, her favourite kind of cake, and piped messy little icing sunflowers on top- the idea knocks quietly at the door.
When Vicky drops by with fresh coconut water, it knocks at the door.
When Vicky found her grandmother’s bracelet which she thought she lost for good, it knocked (particularly loudly, that time) at the door.
Like how all roads lead to Rome, the times that she’s been genuinely happy these past three years usually lead back to the stupid farm with the stupid animals and the stupid, perfect farmer.
Haley practically stomps up the stairs, unsuccessful in finding Vicky anywhere else in the house. Bear follows behind her. Unequivocally Vicky, plants litter the house. She’d try to explain the assortment, but it had nearly put Haley to sleep.
”Vicky?!”
She calls, her voice echoing in the old house.
A faint groan is the only response.
Quick as a mouse, Haley zips over to the area the sound came from- the master bedroom. Vicky’s bedroom.
She doesn’t even think twice before opening the door.
“Vicky-?”
Vicky grabs a pillow and very sluggishly holds it against her ears- protection against the onslaught of new stimuli. The air in the room is stale with illness, and Haley wrinkles her nose.
Bear bounds into the room, jumping on the bed and nosing at the farmer, barking occasionally as if to report on her status. Haley can see Vicky twitch at the sound.
She steps further into the room despite feeling some type of way about the sickness in it.
“Vicky?” Haley’s voice is still high, still worried.
She settles on the floor beside the bed, and her breath stutters.
Bleary brown eyes, fever-hazy and half-lidded, meet her own beneath a tangle of matted brown curls.
It takes Vicky a few seconds to register what she’s looking at, but she eventually moves the blanket away from her mouth to speak.
“What’re you doing here?” Her voice is raspy, rough from her illness and disuse.
Haley blanks.
Why is she here?
She can’t even begin to dwell on that- Vicky’s looking at her with those wide eyes, and it’s like nothing has ever been so important as keeping them on her.
”Um.” The blonde swallows. Looks away. She does a shitty job at pretending not to be affected, and flips her hair over her shoulder, praying that Vicky is too out of it to catch her fumbling.
“No one had heard from you for a few days, and they..” they told me to check on you. A lie. One that keeps her heart safe.
She remembers what Emily said. Nothing’s going to change unless you make the effort.
“.. I wanted to make sure you were alright.”
Vicky’s lips part, then close again. Haley? Being nice? Voluntarily?
Yoba, has Haley really been so rude to her that even something as simple as that is surprising? She has to hold back a wince at the idea.
”.. oh.” She mumbles. “.. that’s… nice. Of you.”
Haley bites back the urge to resume her usual air of grandeur and say something like is this your usual idiocy or the fever that’s making you buffer like the library computers?
She calls the restraint self-improvement.
Emily would call it love.
“Yeah.” She mumbles, looking away. Real nice. “So, are you?”
”Am I.. what?”
”Okay. Are you okay?”
”Oh.” Vicky rubs her face with her hand. “… not really.”
Blue eyes snap over.
”You look like it. Do you have a fever?”
Vicky’s about to mumble something about how unfair it is that she has to feel hot and cold at the same time, but the opportunity is relinquished.
Haley is already leaning closer and gently, so gently, shifting the tangles and sweaty hair off her forehead. She presses the back of her hand to the newly-revealed skin.
The first thing she registers is the warmth she’s feeling. Not good.
The second thing she registers is how Vicky presses up into the contact like a needy cat. How her eyes drift closed and her shoulders drop. She’s usually so strong- physically and otherwise. That, Haley had noticed for sure. Not everyone can take her verbal beatings on a daily basis, and not everyone can do the amount of physical labour that a farm demands every day, either.
Haley has never been so aware of another person in all her life.
Her hand, by its own mind, moves down to brush against her cheek.
“You’re all red..” she mumbles, seeing the blotchy pink blossoming across the other woman’s face.
Vicky cracks an eye open.
“You should write that down, y’know.”
She coughs.
“For Harvey. Patient turned pink when I touched her cheek.”
“Shut up.” Haley hisses, her own cheeks flaming.
“It’s an astute observation.”
”Go to hell.”
Vicky grins, closes her eyes, and Haley can’t do anything but stare at everything in front of her and wonder how she thought she could ever stay away from her. Her hand on Vicky’s face. Vicky leaning into the contact like she needs it to survive. Some anxious part of Haley’s brain tries to speak about germs and viruses and any number of things she can’t be bothered with considering when Vicky is smiling like that because of her.
She presses her lips together.
”Have you eaten?”
Vicky stays right where she is, and gives a faint shake of her head no. “Too nauseous.”
Haley thinks for a minute, chews on her lip. “I’m not good with sick people.”
The farmer laughs, which turns into a cough, and the sweet contact between them is broken as she turns her head to cough into her other fist. “I- I can see that.”
Haley has to clench her fist to not reach out and reclaim the touch. She clears her throat. “You should shower. You smell like a sick person.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Vicky mumbles, rolling over onto her back. “Yoba, I don’t want to get up.”
”Well, you have to. Go. Go take a shower. I’ll make food. And you better eat it.”
Haley’s sure the reason why Vicky snorts as she sits up isn’t due to the mental image of her cooking.
Bear barks at the sight of the farmer looking half-alive (clearly half is better than whatever the hell she was looking like before Haley showed up, which she thinks with no small amount of pride), and jumps off the bed, likely to head outside and resume her duties of.. whatever farm dogs do.
Haley watches owlishly as Vicky slowly maneuvers out of the bed, fever still dragging down her movements, and stretches with a tiny groan.
The sight of the hard-earned muscle in her arms tensing as she stretched should be illegal with how quickly it makes Haley’s mouth dry.
Vicky’s in nothing but a tank top and flannel shorts- probably because of her fever, but Haley thinks she’s dressed like this as a test from Yoba. She looks away as Vicky rifles through her dresser for clothes to change into after her shower, scrubbing a hand over her face.
Get a grip.
Haley trails behind her without thought as she moves to the main bathroom. Vicky pauses at the door. Turns around.
Haley opens her mouth to ask what’s wrong, but the other girl beats her to the punch.
“Thank you. For coming.”
For a moment, Haley can’t do anything but stare at the woman in front of her- Vicky has that effect on her usually (something she’d normally refuse to admit) but today? With her brown eyes half-lidded with feverish delirium and her flushed face and her tangled curls?
Eventually, she remembers how to speak again, and looks away before talking.
“.. just go shower.”
Vicky nods and closes the door.
Somehow, Haley’s legs still work, and she walks down the hall, down the stairs to the kitchen.
————
The faint running of the water coming from upstairs helped to drown out Haley’s thoughts as she prepped a simple meal for Vicky when she got out of the shower.
Lightly toasted sourdough bread that she has no doubt the farmer made herself with a little bit of butter from the cows outside.
The older kitchen was initially harder to navigate, but as she got more comfortable in the space she started anticipating the strange organizational methods Vicky had put in place. The amount of vining plants hanging off the cabinets didn’t make it easier. Haley almost felt like she needed to apologize to the things with how much she would move the tendrils out of the way.
When she reached in the fridge, now she knew what she would find. The thought of feeling so at place here shook her right down to her core and cracked open something she’d hoped she’d locked away.
Haley cuts a small piece for herself from the loaf of bread and tries not to hope for impossible things.
The ambient lighting of the room (Vicky’s insistence on the absence of a big light) makes everything look bathed in gold. Welcoming. Friendly.
Everything that Vicky is, and everything Haley fails to be.
It’s interesting to see someone so clearly reflected in the alterations they make to their own space. She’s so lost in thought that she doesn’t notice the water stop running, or quiet footsteps padding down the stairs, until Vicky speaks.
”Hey-“
Haley shrieks, jumping a foot in the air at the sudden intrusion.
The brunette holds her hands up in a placating gesture.
“It’s just me.”
Haley recovers, in a manner she wishes is smooth. “I can see that.” Her voice comes out hoarse.
”Do you feel better? After your shower?” She brings the plate and a glass of water over to the round wood table in the center of the room. Vicky makes a so-so gesture with her hand, and Haley allows herself to look up at the other woman.
She seems more awake after spending some time in the steam, her eyes that were previously half-lidded and glassy have once again adopted their usual look of a sort of permanent curiosity. Her hair is wet and freshly washed, the normally frizzy ringlets falling in dark swirls across the small towel she’d put atop her old band t-shirt to catch the moisture. She wears different shorts, threadbare and made of flannel, but the humiliating effect the exposed skin has on Haley is the same.
Her eyes are still drawn to the power that seems to exude from her even in her state of weakness. Still drawn to the toned, bulky muscle of her legs and shoulders.
Her cheeks turn pink when her thoughts stray to things she’s always censored- what calloused hands would feel like on her body, what a strong thigh would feel like pressed between her own. Haley shakes her head, admonishing herself silently- you have a job to do, something to prove.
“I hope you don’t mind I rifled through your fridge to put something together,” she says as she moves to stand beside Vicky when she shuffles over to the seat. “But the bread is good.”
Vicky eyes the food warily, occupying herself with a sip of water. Haley knows the spooked look on her face probably comes from failed attempts to keep any food down these past few days. “Good choice.”
“I figured it would be easier for your stomach.” She explains. “That’s what my parents would always do. Sliced bread and salted crackers.”
She pushes the plate closer. “Eat. You said you would.”
The other girl sighs shakily, but complies, taking a measured bite of the toasted sourdough.
A few minutes pass of silence, and then it becomes obvious that Vicky’s stomach was too sensitive to handle the food. She pushes the plate away with a clatter, the chair sliding out from underneath her as she sprints up to the bathroom.
“Vi- Vicky!”
Haley is quick to follow her up, but the door is slammed in her face. The sound is followed by retching, and she’s.. glad she’s not in the room for that. She waits until the sound has quieted down before opening the door and walking over to where Vicky is resting her forehead on the toilet seat.
For her own sanity, she doesn’t look at the contents in the bowl, and fumbles blindly for the toilet handle to flush. She sighs quietly, lowering herself down to Vicky’s level, trying to get a glimpse of her face. She’s trembling faintly, and her eyes are closed. Probably miserable.
Haley purses her lips, lifting her hand to push her hair out of the way.
“Vic?”
Her breathing is raspy, and concern laces Haley’s brows together.
“Vicky, look at me.”
What Vicky does is even worse.
She turns her head and leans forward until she’s pressed into the crook where Haley’s shoulder meets her neck. Her face fits in the dip like the action was fated. One arm falls uselessly on the tile and the other fisting into the back of her shirt.
Haley has completely frozen at the feeling of Vicky’s body in contact with her own. Not out of discomfort- never that. She could laugh at the thought.
She’s just so infallible. All the time. So much so that the sight of her on her knees, shaking and hiccuping, knocks Haley flat on her ass with the shock of it all. She’s never been particularly good at comforting people. But she will be damned if that holds her back.
She shifts so she’s sitting on her ass on the cold bathroom tile, wraps her arms around the other girl, and pulls her closer (but never close enough). Vicky’s breathing evens out slowly but surely, and Haley rests her cheek on top of her head. Her hand comes up to gently detangle Vicky’s still-wet curls.
The urge to touch is strong, and Haley is very, very weak.
”I shouldn’t have forced you to eat,” she mumbles. “I’m sorry.”
The brunette’s breath fans over Haley’s neck. Haley shudders.
“Don’t be sorry.” She murmurs. Still reassuring. Her voice is hoarse- from the illness, from the vomiting, from the everything. “You.. helped. Yoba, I hate throwing up.”
Haley sighs out of relief at the realization that Vicky wasn’t upset with her, but she still gives her a small squeeze as an extra apology. Vicky squeezes back.
They sit in a comfortable silence for a few moments before Haley presses her nose into Vicky’s hair.
“You smell nice.” The words tumble out without warning. The Haley that’s used to pulling away is saying take it back.
She ignores her, and bravely continues. “Like mangoes.”
Vicky hums, her head shifting to get more comfortable. Not moving, Haley notes. Adjusting. Staying.
“It’s my shampoo.”
“Oh.”
There’s no sound in the room except for their breathing as the two fall back into silence.
”Y’smell good, too.” Vicky whispers after a few minutes, like it’s a secret, and Haley feels the words against her skin more than she hears them. “And you’re warm.”
“Glad you’re comfortable.” She whispers her reply.
Her hand doesn’t let up on its ministrations in the farmer’s hair, and the farmer doesn’t seem inclined to loosen her grip on her shirt anytime soon. Vicky is.. clingy, and Haley wonders what happened to the version of herself that would have insisted on personal space.
Maybe Emily’s influence is turning her into a romantic. Haley thinks it’s humiliating for someone she has nothing in common with but a last name to be able to read her so well.
But the proof is in the pudding, and she wouldn’t move even if the world caved in. It terrified her, and excited her, and made her feel like butterflies were swarming her stomach. She exhales shakily.
“How’s your fever? Better?”
”Better.” She mumbles, but Haley moves to check anyway. She won’t pass up an opportunity to get away with touching the other girl. She shimmies, just a little bit to free her hand from Vicky’s hair, her head still firmly tucked into Haley’s shoulder.
Gently nudging Vicky’s head over, she presses the back of her hand to her forehead. As she thought, the fever was not better, not by a lot. Vicky is still warm, and the sweaty feeling on her skin was made worse by her bouts of nausea. Again, Vicky leans into the cool touch, like a compass needle pointing north.
“You’re a liar. You’re burning up,” Haley admonishes, but her voice goes soft and her hand moves down to her chin, holding it gently to get her attention. “There’s no way you’re comfortable.”
“Didn’t wanna move.” She mumbles.
It’s like she knows exactly how to make Haley fumble. “Vic..”
The nickname makes Vicky’s eyes open, just barely. Enough to reveal the deep pools of amber-brown, bleary from fever once again.
She’s so close.
Haley wants to look away. Wants to keep chastising her for not telling her she felt like the sun was under her skin sooner. Wants to tease her, like she usually does. Safely. From a distance.
She can’t.
She’s not sure she wants to.
Her mouth has gone dry, her heart is in her throat, and her cheeks are probably as red as the tomatoes growing in the greenhouse. Her fingers twitch where they hold Vicky’s chin.
There is nothing to save Haley from the tense silence- no call from a friend, no big crash outside, no saving grace. Vicky licks her lips, and Haley’s eyes follow the movement with a delirious sort of fascination.
Like she’s moving on autopilot, she leans forward. Closer.
Closer still, until the space between them can’t with good conscience be re-classified and called a coincidence.
Her breath is coming in shaky pants, and her heart is pounding, and everything but Vicky’s mouth, Vicky’s lips- pink, pretty even though they’re slightly chapped- fades to black. Like she’s wearing horse blinders.
“Haley?” Vicky whispers hoarsely. “Haley,”
Haley wishes she could watch that pretty mouth form her name up close for the rest of her life, but the urgency in her tone begs for her attention.
”What?” She mumbles, only half-focused.
They’re close enough that they’re sharing air.
”Haley, are you gonna kiss me?”
The wind gets knocked out of Haley and she blinks rapidly. Kiss her. Kiss her. “Wh- huh?”
Vicky talks as well as she can with Haley’s grip on her chin. A delicious flush pinkens her cheeks in a way that she knows isn’t from the fever.
”I just want to ask since you were getting pretty close, and I wouldn’t wanna get you sick.” Good point.
Vicky’s eyes glance away from hers. “And I just lost my lunch. So these aren’t the best circumstances.” Another good point.
Haley smiles, but doesn’t back away. The realization that Vicky’s clearly thought about a kiss between them (in her muddled fever brain, but she still thought about it) any amount makes her chest tight.
“But you’re still interested in the idea?” She murmurs, brushing her thumb against Vicky’s bottom lip, suddenly emboldened. It has the desired effect, which only spurs her on further.
”.. yes.” Vicky rasps. “I just.. need you to wait a few days.”
“I’ve waited all this time, I think I can handle a few more days.” Haley uses her free hand to push her bangs out of her face.
Vicky lets out a quiet, pitiful exhale. “You’re killing me. You can’t do this when I’m like this. I won’t even remember it.”
“Do what, Vic?” Haley says sweetly.
”Whatever evil charm you’re casting on me. Stop it.” Vicky reaches up to poke her forehead. “You’re- you’re playing mind games on me. With your eyes.”
Haley laughs quietly.
“I’m serious!” Vicky demands. “You’re a temptress. You can’t look at me like that and then agree that I shouldn’t kiss you.”
”Well, you shouldn’t.”
Vicky moans and presses her face into Haley’s shoulder. Feeling bad for her and selfishly entertaining her own desires, Haley presses a chaste kiss to the top of her head. The action comes so easily that it’s shocking, but so right that it’s welcome.
“For what it’s worth, you’ve been casting charms on me since I met you,” she adds, the words muffled against her hair. “You and that stupid hat.”
The straw hat she’d won by collecting the most eggs at the egg festival in her first year. Abigail is still sour about her win streak being broken.
“I love that hat.” She frowns up at her.
”I know, I love your hat too.”
”It’s a very nice hat.”
”It is.” Haley agrees.
A sense of calm has replaced the butterflies in her stomach. A kind of rightness that she’d been denying entry. And now, as she looks down at the strong, gorgeous girl who’s managed to make her see something worth staying for in this shitty town, she can’t seem to remember what she was so afraid of.