Labor of Love

Four

Over the next week, Bret slowly recovered to the point that he even took a swing at poor Richie for trying to keep him confined to the cabin. His friends couldn’t help snickering as he managed to dodge the dazing blow, both knowing all too well how he was. The shorter blonde was far too Independent for his own good sometimes–he hated being waited on hand and foot like an invalid unless necessary. But he always put those he loved and cared about above himself, even if he shared no blood with them.

        Marissa chuckled as she made her friend cease and desist before he actually took a blow, and in front of his niece and nephew, at that. Said blonde looked contrite when he realized there’d been children present, quick to apologize for scaring them, if nothing else. Luckily, the Witch they considered an aunt’d already explained why he’d tried to hit their uncle, and they were equally quick to forgive.

        After allowing him to get dressed and take a trip to the outhouse–on his own, no less–everybody settled for breakfast. The bassist was still figthing his attraction to her, so he focused wholly on his food. If he so much as dared look up from his plate, he was no doubt to make a fool of himself.

        With breakfast consumed and the young Witch cleaning up with the help of Richie’s niece, the menfolk headed outside. Bret was insistent upon working with the Horses again, ’cuz it was one of the things he enjoyed as much as Music. Given that none of them’d any accessta their instruments, they wouldn’t be making any of that anytime soon, so he’d to go with another great Love. Aside from Horses, his other biggest Passions were sports and guns, neither of which were available to him.

        In the barn, Bobby somewhat literally took the reins by taking said Horses out to the pasture. That’d allow them to graze and keep the humans safe while they were mucking their stalls. He still wasn’t to happy with that, but at least he didn’t try to fight him on it too much.

        “Look, I know ya don’t want the help,” the bassist told him as he unbuttoned his shirt, his wavy hair tied back.

        “Considering I’ve cared for more than four Horses on my own before,” Bret grumbled, even as he followed his lead.

        “Just humor me, man,” he sighed, draping said shirt over one of the stall doors. “’Cuz I’m doing this for you as much as myself.”

        “Oh, really?” That caught the front man’s attention and made him cock a brow curiously.

        “If I don’t work myself into exhaustion, I’ma do something that I’ma regret later,” Bobby told him. “If not ’cuz I beat myself up about it, then ’cuz Marissa or Richie makes me regret it.”

        “Oh, ho,” he chuckled as they grabbed shovels. “So, you’re hot for the Witch, huh?”

        “Don’t even try to tell me you’re not as horny as Satan, himself,” the bassist told him. “’Cuz I’ll know you’re lying out your ass, if ya do.”

        “I’m not gonna deny it,” Bret swore. “But I’m not too sure I’d go after a Witch, even if she did save my Life.”

        He couldn’t help a chuckle as he admitted that he was definitely wary of the Power she and even Richie so obviously commanded. But at the same Time, he wasn’t scared of her since he could tell she was a peaceful woman. Marissa wasn’t gonna hurt any of them unless by accident or ’cuz she’d been given reason to.

        To that End, Bobby saw no reason to let religious differences come between them, if they really wanted to be together. For fuck’s sake, she’d taken them in when she coulda just thrown them to the Wolves. She’d saved his friend’s Life, even with the help of her friend, when prolly no one else of the Time could. If she hadn’t stepped up to the plate, so to speak, he’d no doubt be six feet under with a simple cross marking his grave right now.