Chapter Text
This is fine.
You looked into your tired eyes in the mirror. A smudge of dirt lay just below your hairline, but you simply didn’t care. It probably came from under your fingernails as you were combing your hair out of your face. One thing you have learned in the last month of being a farmer was that you never quite get the dirt out from under your fingernails.
When you received the letter from the law offices of Barrels and Schults informing you that you had inherited your grandfather's old farm out in the valley, your first thought was to get it appraised and see how much it would be worth if you just sold it off to the next guy who so happened to come looking. Before you could act on that, however, you remembered your visits to that farm back when you were a kid. You remembered picking strawberries and sneaking one away to snack on later. You remembered petting the cows and feeding them freshly scythed hay. You remembered the pure joy you felt working so close to the earth. With that, what else was there to do?
Now, you have finally worked that earth enough to have a disposable income. It was a lot harder work than when you were a kid, and for a while you didn’t believe you had it in you, but deep down you still held that same love for being out on the farm.
Pelican town, however, was a different story. As a fairly sociable person, you had felt as if you were walking into the twilight zone as you explored around town on your first day on the farm. Every smile or greeting you sent towards a local was seemingly returned with a cautious hello or for some particular people flat out rudeness. You remembered seeing a blonde girl on the beach, very obviously there to watch a sporty looking brunette guy practice his football throws. When you walked over to her to say hello and introduce yourself, she had told you that “If it weren’t for those horrendous clothes you might actually be pretty”. Ouch. Greeting the sporty brunette wasn’t any better, as he had looked you up and down with a creepy looking smile across his face and said something to the effect of “We’re going to get along great”. You still have yet to learn their names.
The worst, however, was Shane. The only reason you knew his name was because your friend Leah knew it and had told you after one of your many rant sessions to her. When you first moved into town, you noticed a man who seemed to always be walking around town at the same time as you in the morning during the week as you did your daily errands. He never seemed to pay you any mind as you walked, and you were normally too busy to stop and chat. One morning, however, you were particularly ahead so you decided to introduce yourself. And thus it began.
When you jogged towards him, he looked at you as if you had just risen from the sewers. Upon closer inspection, you were able to fully take in his appearance. He was built as if he once worked out, but had given it up for quite some time due to the slight chub he had on his limbs and torso. He wasn’t very tall, maybe around 5’6 or 5’7 which was barely taller than you were. His face had an oddly hollow look to it. His eyes were a dark shade of green, which would have been quite pleasant if not for his thick eyebrows narrowed in a grimace over them as well as the more than noticeable bags below them. His frowning mouth was surrounded by a good amount of uneven scruff, and his hair hung messily over his forehead. His hair was dark, and reflected almost violet in the sun.
You had caught up to him and shot a warm smile at him in contrast to his cold scowl. “Hi!” You had said, “my name is y/n, I moved into the old farm just down that way. It’s nice to meet you!”
The man looked at you without a slight change in expression and opened his mouth to reveal a deep gravelly voice. He simply said “I don’t know you, why are you talking to me?”
You were taken aback, but tried to laugh it off as you had thought he must have been joking around. “Just trying to be friendly is all.”
He stared back at you without saying a word. You had felt your cheeks flush as your brain scrambled to find something else to say to break the awkward silence. You had looked down and noticed he was wearing a Joja Co. sweatshirt.
“Oh, hey, I have one of those sweaters. Do you work for Joja? I worked in their corporate office before I moved-”
He scoffed before you were done talking. “Yeah, I work for Joja. I’m supposed to be working for Joja in about 5 minutes so why don’t you fuck off so I can go do that.”
Before you could say anything else, the man hurriedly walked away from you, leaving you dumbfounded and slack-jawed standing in the middle of the town square. And that was Shane.
Later that day you had stopped by Leah’s cottage to drop off a dandelion you had found at the side of the road, and mentioned the odd interaction you had with the violet haired man that morning.
“That’s just Shane.” you had picked up a slight sigh in her voice. “You gotta kind of just ignore him, he’s like that with everyone.”
“Well that sucks.” You said.
Leah shrugged. “He doesn’t go out of his way to bother anyone, he just likes to be left alone is all.”
And from then on, you followed her advice. Even though you saw Shane every morning, you just went on with your day without so much of a glance in fear of another unpleasant exchange like the one you first had.
And here you are now. You were sitting in your farmhouse living room, makeup and hair done for the first time in a while, flipping over a piece of paper in your hands. You had received a letter in your mailbox on Wednesday, reading
Hey Farmer Y/n
Me and Elliot (long haired guy that lives on the beach) were going to go to the Stardrop Saloon on Friday Night if you wanted to join. Hope you can come!
See you soon,
Leah
You were strangely nervous about your first night out in your new home. Although you were a generally sociable person, your busyness on the farm had only really allowed you to form one friendship, that being with Leah. You hoped that tonight would maybe expand your social circle a bit, as you were starting to feel a bit isolated in Pelican Town.
So you walked over to the saloon, a cool breeze running through your hair providing a well needed break from the humid summer night. You were barely ever out late in town as you had decided that the best way to be productive was to work yourself to the bone every single day, leaving you exhausted by 6pm almost every night. You enjoyed the sight of the warmly lit saloon that stood in the center of the quiet town. You heard muffled music and laughter coming from the inside. It almost felt as if the saloon itself was offering you a friendly hand and saying “Come on in!”
Smiling to yourself, you opened the door and walked in. The smell of alcohol and various spices hit you immediately, and you couldn’t help but stop and stare at the place.
Almost half of the town was there. Robin the carpenter and her husband Demetrius were dancing to the jukebox, and to your left Mayor Lewis and Marnie (who you vaguely knew was your neighbor to the south) were sharing a pint and chatting. When they noticed you, they both smiled and waved, and you returned the gesture. In another room, you saw a pool table housing Abigail (the owner of the general store’s daughter) and her two friends seemingly in a heated competition. You hadn’t spoken to those two too much, and you had identified them in your head as mullet and emo.
As your eyes continued to survey the saloon, they stopped in an area where the mood of warmth seemed to vanish. Leaned against a corner by himself was Shane, sipping on a beer with that same signature grimace plastered across his face. You stared at him for a moment, feeling somewhat sorry for him despite your general distaste for the man. It was a friday night, and all he could think to do was get drunk in a corner all by himself?
As you were lost in that thought, you realized that Shane’s dark green eyes were staring right back into yours from across the room. You were more than startled by this, and almost jumped as you tried to lock your eyes onto something else that would explain why you were staring so intently in his direction. Before you could figure that out, however, you were thankfully saved by Leah’s voice calling towards you.
“Hey y/n! Over here” You turned to the opposite corner of the bar to find Leah and Elliot at a corner table waving towards you. You smiled, relieved that you didn’t have to be looking at Shane anymore, and made your way over to them.
“Wow y/n! You look really nice! No offense, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without some kind of earth on your overalls!” Leah joked.
You laughed. “Gee, thanks Leah.” You turned towards the long haired man sitting beside Leah. “Hi Elliot, how are you doing?”
Elliot smiled. “Good, I suppose.”
Leah looked between the two of you. “I didn’t know you guys knew each other!”
Elliot laughed “I don’t know if you know this about y/n, but she loves to fish. I think I see her in my front yard at least once a day. We were bound to chat at least once or twice”.
You both laughed, and the three of you ordered a round and began chatting about life in the valley.
Two and a half hours and many rounds of drinks later, you, Leah, and Elliot were laughing and talking like you had known each other for your entire lives. The bar had cleared out most of the older residents of Pelican town, leaving only your group, Abigail, Mullet, and Emo in the next room, and Shane. After hours of talking about yourselves, you decided to use your time to find out about some of your new neighbors.
“So, what are the names of the two guys that always hang around Abigail?” You asked. With a slight laugh, you added on the fact about your private nicknames for the two boys.
Leah and Elliot giggled. Leah lowered her voice slightly and said “Well, Mullet is Sam, and Emo is Sebastian. Although I think I like your names for them better.”
You laughed “So like, what is their deal? They both seem to have a little thing for Abigail. I always see them hanging out and they’re like, all attached at the hip.”
At that, Leah and Elliot both smiled and looked at each other in a way that certainly meant they were hiding something from you.
“What?” you giggled.
“Well…” Elliot said. “You didn’t hear this from us, but Leah and I have this theory that Abigail isn’t the reason they love being around each other so much.”
You shot them a look of confusion, and looked back over to the other room where the group had been hanging around in. You saw Abigail looking rather tired and sitting on one couch in the room scrolling on her phone. Sam and Sebastian were sitting right next to each other on another couch, laughing and chatting as animatedly as they were a couple of hours ago.
You smiled and turned back to your friends. “I see,” you giggled.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Leah bluntly asked “So why were you staring at Shane earlier?”
You felt your cheeks flush. “I wasn’t staring!” you spluttered. “I just so happened to see him, and I was thinking about how I feel bad for the guy. I mean he's spending his time just getting drunk alone. I kinda got lost in thought afterwards. That’s why I was so spaced out.”
Leah shrugged. “Alright, like I said I don’t think he really minds. You seem to spend a lot of time talking about him for how little you guys have interacted”. A sly smile spread across her lips as she added on that last bit.
Your face began to feel hot and you frowned at the implication. “I mean, I see the guy every day. He was a total asshole to me when I just tried to be friendly and now we literally ignore each other every time we see each other. Hell, I don’t even know where the guy lives. He’s just mysterious, and I’m curious.”
The two looked at you with their eyebrows raised.
“What?” you asked.
“Nothing,” Elliot chided. “You were being a little loud.”
You sunk into your chair a bit.
“Shane is like, your neighbor. You didn’t know that?” Leah asked. “He lives with Marnie and Jas”.
You were confused. You didn’t visit Marnie’s ranch very often because you had no animals, but the few times you did you only ever saw Marnie working the front and Jas (who you assume is her niece as she only ever referred to her as Aunt Marnie) playing with her toys in the living room.
“I’ve never seen him around there.” You said, confused.
Leah Shrugged. “He only ever hangs around there on the weekends. As far as I’ve seen he leaves for work, goes to the bar after work, and doesn’t come home until way after dark.”
“Why does he live with Marnie? Does he rent or something?” You were trying to wrap your head around all of it.
“He’s Marnie’s nephew”. Leah said.
You imagined Marnie and Jas’ sweet smiling faces, always ready to greet you whenever you saw them, and then looked over at the scowling man at the other end of the bar. It was hard to imagine any kind of relationship between them.
“Wait, so is Jas’ like Shane’s cousin or something?” You asked.
Elliot sighed. “We don’t really know. Apparently the two of them showed up around a year and a half ago, only a couple of months before I moved here. I don’t think I’ve had a single conversation with Shane since I moved down here. Most people haven’t. Besides Lewis and Marnie, maybe Emily or Penny would know more? Emily sees him the most as the only bartender around here and Penny is Jas’ teacher.”
Before you could respond, Leah waved at the blue haired girl behind the bar that you knew as Emily. She walked over with a smile on her face.”Hey Leah, Hey Elliot.” She looked over at you. “It's good to see you out and about, Farmer y/n! We were worried about you spending so much time on the farm”.
You appreciated the thought. “It’s good to be out. It’s hard work farming.”
Emily nodded in response when Leah asked “So what’s up with Shane? Us and y/n here were curious”.
“Leah-” you hissed under your breath.
Emily let a slightly sad looking smile show across her face. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” Leah continued, “we all see him but nobody really ever talks to him. What’s his story? We figured you might know since he’s here so often”.
Emily shrugged and lowered her voice. “He’s not much of a talker, so I probably couldn’t be much help to you guys. All I know is that he moved here a while ago with Jas, but he gets weird if you ever bring her up. I don’t really know their relationship, I just kind of assumed she is his sister or something. I think he moved here because something bad happened. I don’t really know what, but he mentioned once after a particularly long night that he ‘wished it would all go back to how it was before’. I don’t know what event he was referring to, but he seemed really upset so I didn’t want to push.”
A heavy silence fell upon the table, broken by Emily about 30 seconds later.
“It’s good that you guys called me over, I was about to make the announcement that we’re gonna close up a bit early tonight. Our dishwasher went funky and Gus wants to fix it before we have any more business because our sinks can’t really handle too much more”.
At that, your group got up and wished Emily a good night. As you left the saloon, you saw Emily talking to Shane about what you presumed was the same thing she had just told you. That was the first time you had seen his expression change from that scowl he always seemed to have on. He looked sad. It made you sad.
You and Leah decided to walk Elliot home as you didn’t want to part ways quite yet. After a slow walk to the beach, the two of you said goodbye to him, and it was decided that you would cut through Cindersap forest to walk Leah home as well, so you would only need to walk a short distance alone to get back to your farm.
After a half hour, you were at Leah’s front door wishing her a good night and telling her that you hoped to see her soon. Finally, you were alone once again. It was almost midnight now. And for a moment, you stood there in the forest drinking in peace and quiet. The traffic sounds and yelling of Zuzu city had been replaced by the faint buzzing of mosquitoes and the song of crickets. Before you could relish in that fact, however, you heard the distinct sound of metal clinking against metal in the distance.
You looked over towards the sound, and from afar you saw a figure sitting at the dock by cindersnap pond. You couldn’t make out who it was at first, so you slowly moved closer. When you were a mere couple of feet from the end of the dock, you saw it. A blue Joja hoodie, and a mop of black hair that shone violet in the moonlight. It was Shane, and he had a six pack of beer cans that he seemed to be about halfway done with. He didn’t notice you behind him, and was simply staring into the moon. You noticed that his shoes and socks were sitting beside him, with his feet most likely dangling in the water. Even though you could only see the back of him, he looked peaceful.
You felt that similar twang of pity for him, before you forced yourself to remember how much of an asshole he was to you, and how if you attempted to speak to him now he most likely would have acted the same way. At that, you slowly turned around as you didn’t want him to see you and began walking back towards your farm, hopeful for your growing social life in Pelican Town
Little did you know, as you walked away, Shane was staring right back at you.