Warnings: AU. Eventual Warnings: Slash (Stone Cold Steve Austin/CM Punk), Smut, Profanity, Age difference.
Many years ago, Steve Austin met a woman, a beautiful woman, with long hair, big eyes, a bigger bust and somehow an even bigger heart. A woman he loved more than any other person who ever has, does or will walk the Earth. They married, and bought a ranch, which made good sense to them as both were good, honest country folk, unafraid of the hard work that goes with running a ranch that's even close to profitable. It was a struggle, but they managed, they made do and somehow, some way, enough success to keep their heads comfortably above water came their way. They reared cattle, they reared puppies, kittens, chicks, ducklings, even an unexpected hedgehog, everything but the one thing they wanted to rear. No matter how hard or how often they tried, a baby was never on its way.
Eventually, they went to the city to speak with doctors more qualified than their local small town one. Fertility programs were discussed, age was considered, and of course, a sperm count carried out.
Every man lives with the assumption that they're packing a pistol of fertility in their pants, fully loaded and waiting to be fired at their spouse. The day the doctors told Steve his pistol was actually paint gun, a little part of him died, a little part of him felt less like a man. After that moment he became more obsessed with being macho, he took up hunting, and fishing, and beer drinking in the local bar. After that moment, perhaps, it would have been better for his wife to have left him to seek out a man who wasn't packing balls of nothing but useless white paint. But, Steve's wife loved him as much as he loved her, so she stayed, made do with an empty house and a husband who dragged deer carcasses home instead of giving her children. Until one day, she proposed an idea, a way to fill their home with laughter and fun once more, a way to have the children they always wanted. The first idea was adoption, but as they went to fill out papers and have meetings, they met an old man from Oklahoma, an old man who worked in the business of helping young people with troubled backgrounds, an old man by the name of Jim Ross. Now, Mr Ross started talking to Steve's wife, started telling her about the kids he helped find places for, kids who were almost in too deep, kids who needed someone to set them up straight, and help them fly right. The idea appealed to Steve's wife, the thought that she and her husband could help not just one child, but dozens, rear them, raise them, mould them into good citizens the same way she and Steve trained their dogs to be the sweetest pups in the county filled her with job. The very notion made her want to ask Good Ol' Jim to sign them straight up. The ranch was plenty big, there'd be plenty for kids to do, and honest folk are forged with honest work, the Devil makes work for idle hands was a saying she was raised with, and one she'd always taken to heart. So she spoke to Steve about what Mr Ross had told her. It's not often that Steve drags his heels, but being a temporary father to dozens of kids wasn't something he'd ever considered. He'd always wanted a pair of kids of his own, a strapping, handsome boy, and the prettiest girl to ever walk the Earth, but biology had conspired against him, and he'd reconciled himself with the idea of raising a baby that somebody else didn't want as his own. Only now, his wife wanted to go down a different path.
Fostering, or at least as close to it as they did, turned out to be far better than raising just one kid. The ranch house was full, bustling with kids of different ages, races, backgrounds, all trying to get along, all trying to be better, all being a strange little family. The first time Steve knew exactly what real happiness was, was the first Christmas they spent with a houseful of kids. He'd dressed as Santa, had snuck through the rooms of each kid dropping off a present, and gone to sleep feeling like, even knowing that he was a good man.
Life was good for years, so many years, the Ranch thrived, little side business sprung up run by the kids that passed through, handed down to the kids that came after them. It wasn't all plain sailing, there were trials and tribulations, but Steve and his wife came through them stronger than ever, more determined than ever, more in love than ever.
Until the day it all changed.
You don't expect these things in a small town like the one the Ranch was near. You expect the odd robbery, you have to expect that what with the fragile economy, but you don't expect the criminals to kill, don't expect them to use a bullet to snuff out the brightest light the World's ever seen. When she died, Steve re-housed the kids, couldn't bear the idea of having to live with such happiness, when his own was so destroyed. He'd become a virtual recluse, declining to answer his phone, only going to town when he had to, his only companion was his dog, Hershey. His wife had named her after his pet-name for her. He'd called his wife that because the only kisses sweeter than her's were made of chocolate, but she'd always thought it was a corny pet-name, so had named the dog that instead. He'd settled on Honey for her. Hershey was his companion, from the day he got that little chocolate brown pup, she'd been faithfully following along at his heels, and now it was just the two of them, she was still there.
And so it was for almost a year, the anniversary of his wife death was rapidly approaching, and Steve wasn't sure what to do to remember it. He'd gotten dozens of letters in the mail, all of them from kids that have passed through the ranch, all of them asking if he needed some help, if there was anything they could do to help. He'd been invited to just about every State, had been assured that no matter where he went there'd be a warm bed and a warmer welcome waiting for him. He knows he should write them back, should thank them for their offers, but he can't think of the words. Rather than think about these things, he took his rifles out to the veranda at the front of the house, and sat behind an old trestle table to clean them, losing himself in the repetitive work. He'd settled into a nice grove, when the sound of an old beat-up truck comes to him. He knows that truck, knows the person behind the wheel, the only person to have braved seeing him since she'd passed.
"Morning Steve." Jim ambles up, hat in hand and leans against the railing around the veranda. Before he opens his mouth Steve knows what he's going to say, can tell by the harried look on his face, and the manila folder in his hand.
"How many times do I gotta tell ya? The answer is no." Steve keeps his head down, focussing on the task at hand, cleaning rifles is a dainty task that requires time, patience and no distractions from old friends.
"Just one." Jim takes a seat on the bench, and starts fussing over Hershey, the dog lapping the attention, and the treats she's being fed, up.
"Not interested." The folder lands on the table, and Jim flips it open. There's a picture of a kid. Scrawny, all solemn eyes and too long, too lanky limbs, a kid that hit a growth spurt, and is waiting for the weight one. "Jim, I don't care if it's a hundred kids, now that she's gone, I'm done."
"He's not quite sixteen... Good kid, clever." Jim starts flipping through the papers in the file, leaving that picture staring up at Steve, big, dark eyes, the colour hard to decide on because of the way the pictures taken, staring up at him.
"If he's a good kid, why'd you wanna send him here?" The damn picture keeps looking at him. It's ridiculous because pictures can't, but Steve feels like those eyes are pleading with him, begging for his help. "Hey, is that a Chicago Cubs shirt he's wearing?" Jim laughs awkwardly, and Steve finally turns to look at him, eyebrow raised, confusion on his face.
"Well... They want him out of the State." Jim rubs the back of his neck, and smiles. "Any chance of a beer?"
"C'mon in the house, take your damn file with you." Steve stands, tidying up the cleaning supplies as best he can be bothered and leads his old friend into the kitchen. It's not a room he's been in too much since she died. Almost a year ago, it'd been filled with delicious scents and laughing, his wife bustling around being helped by some of the younger kids who were staying at the ranch. Almost a year ago, there'd have been so much more to do on a day like this than sit on the porch cleaning his guns. There'd have been kids to teach, crops to harvest, games to be played, lives to be lived. Almost a year ago, August would have been far too busy. The day his wife died, the anniversary in three days, more than a little of Steve went with her.
They sit and talk, carefully avoiding the manila folder on the counter between them, talking with an aimless, easy chatter, sipping at beers. It's maybe an hour before Jim opens the folder once more, the picture of the kid staring up at Steve again.
"You know what she'd tell you, Steve." The old man says, tapping the picture once. "She'd take one look at him, and tell you to start prepping a room for him." Steve sighs; he can hear her in his ear, trying to decide which one of the many bedrooms he'd like, wondering if he had any allergies, what his favourite food was, which kind of cookies he'd like best, a million little things that she'd always consider.
"I told you a thousand times, Jim. No more, I can't, not on my own." Steve moves to close the folder, but those dark, pleading eyes stop him.
"I'll give you a week to think on it, but that's all... You're my first choice for him, but if you really don't want him, I can ship him somewhere else." Jim grabs his hat and heads for the door. "Just think on it, okay. Don't make a decision because you don't think you can help. You can, and we both know that. Isn't that right little Miss Hershey?" The dog barks in agreement, and Steve glances at her.
"You're supposed to be loyal to me, little lady." He tells her sternly, getting a look that he's sure he saw on his wife's face so many times. A look that says, there's loyalty and there's indulging stupidity, and this is loyalty. "At the end of the week my answer isn't going to change. Take this with you." He flips the folder closed, and holds it out to Jim.
"I'll come pick it up in a week. It's just a year, Steve, that's all." Jim opens the door, and puts his hat on. "I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it'd be good for both of you." Steve snorts, and finishes his beer, sometimes a year is far too long.
"How is forcing me to take on another kid supposed to help me?" He scoffs, taking the empty bottles to sink; habit makes him rinse them out to be recycled.
"Steve, you're the kind of guy who needs a project, you need to be doing someth-"
"I am doing something, Jim. I'm running a ranch. I'm getting on with my life." There's a part of Steve that's neatly pointing out that he's mostly treading water, that he's afraid to really do anything because for the first time in years he'll be doing it on his own.
"Hmm... See ya in a week, Steve." Jim leaves him alone, and Hershey looks up at him, her eyes as pleading as the kid in that picture.
"Oh no... Don't you look at me like that, girl. You and me, we can't be ma and pa, you know that." The dog huffs at him and wanders off.
The manila folder stays on the kitchen counter for three days before Steve braves reading it. It's the anniversary of her dying, and he knows she'd have taken that sad looking little boy in without a question, he'd already be here if it was a year ago. There's a lot missing, details on the kid's family are thin on the ground, chunks of information missing as though it's something that can't be revealed for legal reasons, and in that moment Steve knows that one of the many bedrooms in his home are going to be filled. There aren't too many reasons for him to receive a file as edited as this one, and every one of those reasons is something he wants to take that solemn eyed kid away from.
"Well Miss Hershey, what you think? Which room would our guest like?" Steve holds the picture up so the dog can see, and she sniffs at it, snorting when she decides she can't eat it. "C'mon. I guess, Hershey, its laundry day." He decides he'll change all of the linen, give the kid a free choice. Though based on the picture, he thinks the kid'll like the room in the attic. It's big, all interesting angles and little nooks and crannies, it seems like the sort of place the kid would like, but then again Steve never was too good at assessing a person from a photo. Hershey hops off his lap and pads down the hall, stopping at one of the small rooms near the kitchen, scratching at the door. "Oh, you think here?" He laughs, and had the terrible feeling that the dog will be right, she always was good at guessing where the kids would choose to go.
"Steve? You home?" Once the week is up, Jim returns, looking dusty and tired. Steve can't help but wonder if he's been trying to find someone else to take his new kid, wonders, almost worries he might have succeeded, and has come to tell Steve he doesn't need him.
"Up here." Steve's cleaning the gutters, it's not really an August task but there's absolutely nothing left in the house to clean, so the outside is getting a sprucing up as well.
"Well, I'm guessing your answer's changed then?" Jim laughs, his hat in his hand as he dabs at his sweating brow.
"When you taking him out here?" Steve comes down the ladder, and takes Jim into the kitchen, for a couple of beers.
"The day before schools starts back, so end of the month... You sure you're gonna have enough to keep you busy till then? I can get you another couple of kids... Got a really sweet little girl whose mommy just went to jail... She sure could use a place to stay." Jim smiles, but there's no folder with him, so Steve relaxes, he gets the feeling he'd take one look at this sweet little girl and be offering a room up. He'd not expected it, but knowing that there was going to be someone who needed him coming lit a fire under his ass, drove him forward, gave him more reasons to get his ass out of bed. He'd been planting some quick growing crops out in the vegetable patch, was planning on sorting the lawn and the flower beds out too. A thousand things he'd been neglecting in his mourning suddenly seemed incredibly important.
"So... What changed your mind?" Jim asks, opening the bottle of beer Steve passed him.
"There's nothing in this folder, Jim." Steve smacks the folder down on the counter. "I know there's not too many reasons for that."
"I don't know any more than you do." Jim sighs, polishing off his beer, fiddling with the label. "They don't like to give out too much information if the investigation is ongoing." He sighs, and hefts himself off the stool. "So I'll bring Phil out in about a week, we'll probably get in pretty late, so I'll feed him before we get here."
"Good idea... Save the poor kid from my culinary prowess a while longer." Steve laughs, and stands, fully intent on getting back out and on with the yard work.
"Hmm... Maybe you should try and find someone willing to deliver out here." Jim laughs and claps Steve's shoulder. "Well, I'll see if I can manage to send one of those messages on the phone when we're at the top of the track... Or get the kid to do it."
"You do that." Steve follows Jim out to his truck and watches his friend leave. He shouldn't be excited, but he is, and he's not going to fight with it. Its good having the fire back in his belly after all.
We'll be about 10 minutes. - Jim Ross
The text has Steve up and making last minute adjustments to the place, Hershey trailing along behind him, looking confused.
"Right, now on your best behaviour Hershey. Don't want to scare the poor kid more than he already will be." Steve pets her on the head, and answers the door at Jim's knock. He strides in after giving Steve's hand a firm shake, behind comes the kid, a thin looking duffel bag over his shoulder, dressed in clothes that look at least two sizes too big, and as old as he is.
"Steve, this is Phil." Jim steps out of the way, and Steve stares at the kid. He looks nervous and out of place, still nothing but lanky limbs and huge eyes, that in natural light look more green than anything else.
"Steve? You sure?" The kid turns to Jim, and Jim laughs nodding.
"Ornery old bastard won't take too kindly to being called sir, but-"
"Steve Austin, call me Steve, son." He extends his hand, and the kid looks at it dubiously. In the back of his mind Steve can hear his wife telling him to be patient, that they're all scared at first, that sometimes scared seems arrogant and cocky, but underneath this is a frightened little boy, and you need to remember that.
"You can son me all you want, I ain't calling you dad, Mr Austin." The kid takes Steve's hand and shakes it, his eyes narrowing, and Steve fights a smirk. Sometimes cocky arrogance is a very flimsy disguise for the fact that all they are is a scared little boy, and based on how flimsy Phil's swagger is, he's terrified.
"Well, good..." The kid looks fidgety like he wants to have made a better first impression, leave or something in the middle. "Any room you like, apart from the big one on the second floor, Phil. That one's mine." The kid nods, and grabs his bag, trudging from the room.
"Well... What ya think?" Jim follows Steve to the kitchen and takes the beer from him, sipping on it and perching on a stool.
"I think..." Steve rubs a hand over his head, and sighs. "I think this'd be a lot easier if I wasn't on my own, Jim." The old man laughs and nods, setting a big envelope on the table.
"I had him pick out his electives, if you wanna take a look." Jim taps the envelope once. They sit in silence, sipping at some over-priced but good ale Steve bought at store in town, nothing but the sort of comfortable silence between old friends between them as Steve reads through the papers. Art, music, English, not too much in the way of sciences. It seems Phil's the creative type, and Steve can't say he's overly surprised. There's something about him that seems like he would be. The silence is broken by the sound of Hershey's claws clacking on the floor, and Steve glances up, watching her wander out of the kitchen and down the hall.
"He's a smart kid." Steve says eventually, the transcripts, the school reports all suggest that he is, just never really realised the full potential of his intelligence stuck as he was in his previous situation. A situation that Steve doesn't think he knows enough about to comment on beyond it wasn't good. The manila folder had been painfully short on details after all.
"Plenty smart." Jim nods, setting his empty glass down. "Good kid... I was told he's got quite the mouth on him, but was plenty quiet on the flight down, but I think that's cause... Well, this is all very different for him. He's a city kid, Steve." The old man stands, picking up his hat. "I'll come by next month, see how ya'll are doing, okay?"
"Sure thing, Jim." Steve stands and walks him out to his pick-up. "Do I get the full story on why they wanted him out of the State, or is that gonna stay a mystery?" Jim laughs awkwardly, and shakes his head.
"I can't say nothing, cause I don't know nothing, Steve. Your best bet is trying to get Phil to tell you himself." Jim starts the engine, a roar followed by a soft purr. If Steve's honest, he's proud of the work he did on this beat up old truck, that purr was his and some tear-away from Detroit's hard work. "Well, g'night Steve. Mind to wake him up for school tomorrow."
"Will do, Jim." Steve offers the old man a short salute, and watches the truck drive away, up the dust dirt road to the ranch.
He ends up sitting watching TV for a few hours, considering going and finding the kid, but knowing it's probably better to let him settle in. It's scary enough coming to somewhere so far away from everything you've ever known, without some strange man harassing you. It'd always been his wife's job, making sure the new kids settled in okay, plying them with fresh milk, and straight from the oven cookies. Steve was always too awkward, too nervous to be comforting or reassuring, and he doesn't think that'll have changed. So he spends his time watching random sports, trying to remember if he can cook anything at all, cause there's going to be an extra mouth to feed tomorrow morning, and he's not sending the kid to school with nothing but coffee in his stomach.
"Hershey?" Steve calls eventually, intending to go to bed. It's getting late, and he's gotten used to having the side of the bed his wife used to sleeping in filled by the dog. He wanders through the house calling her, finally coming to one of the small rooms on the ground floor. A little bedroom near the backdoor, the room Hershey had decided would be the one their new houseguest would pick. There curled up on the bed is Phil with Hershey lying half-on top of him, her foot kicking as he scratches one her ticklish spots behind her ear. "This is the one you chose? There's bigger ones upstairs, you know." Steve shakes his head, not really surprised that Hershey picked right, he doesn't call her a wonder dog for no reason. Phil glances over at him and sits up, or more accurately slides up from under Hershey's weight.
"I don't need a bigger room." He shrugs; resuming scratching Hershey's head, the only sound in the room for a long time is that of her tail thumping on the bedspread.
"You like dogs?" Steve isn't sure how to deal with this kid. The quiet, difficult ones like Phil were always his wife's speciality. She'd win them over with cookies and unshakeable patience. Steve doesn't have her patience; he'd always do so much better with the kids that came to them needing to be brought down a peg or six. She'd handle the ones who were like stray cats, and Steve would handle the rabid dogs. It'd been their system and it'd always worked out, but now he's facing something odd in Phil. His file had suggested that he'd be more snarling and vicious, but he seems like a stray cat that's been forced into a corner one too many times and now he's tired of fighting, like he just wants to be left to lick his wounds in peace.
"I don't mind dogs." He shrugs again, but the smile on his face gives that away as a lie. He looks more than happy to indulge Hershey by petting her for as long as she wants. "They're stupid though." At that Steve laughs.
"Not Hershey the wonder dog, she's a genius." The dog looks at him, before settling back against Phil. There are times when Steve is convinced that dog understands what some kids need in the same way his wife did. More times than he can count, he's found her curled up around a kid in tears, offering nothing but her utterly un-judgemental, undemanding presence. Phil snorts, his attention still on Hershey.
"Down from my parents' house, there was an old man with a dog." Phil fidgets on the bed, and Hershey bumps at his hand with her nose, demanded that he continues scratching behind her ear. "Every day the old man beat this dog to within an inch of its life. It was skinny, didn't look like he'd ever fed it, so I started using my lunch money to buy it food, feeding it through the fence." Phil stops scratching, ignoring Hershey in favour of rubbing at his right arm, shoving the sleeve of his too big shirt up. "Now, one day I'm coming to feed the dog, and the old man's out in the yard, smacking the dog with a stick, and I've had enough, so I jump the fence and grab the stick, gonna give this guy a taste of his own medicine. But the dog..." Phil trails off, rubbing at an old scar on his right forearm. "The dog bites me." He laughs sadly and strokes Hershey's head once more, smiling down at her. "I wanted to save that dog, and it goes and bites me cause it thinks I'm gonna hurt its master. I think dogs are stupid cause they don't realise that some people... They just aren't worth protecting, some people deserve what they get." He shoos Hershey from his lap and stands. "Good night Mr Austin. Mr Ross told me I was going to school tomorrow, so I should get some sleep." Steve nods, and offers the kid a quiet good night, pointing out the nearest bathroom, but getting nothing but short and curt thanks in return.
"Well now, Hershey, what you think of our new house guest?" Steve asks as he settles in bed, the dog huffs as she flops down. "I know, I think he might be a hard nut to crack too."
Be patient with him, Steve. These things take time, you know they do.
Steve doesn't really believe in ghosts, doesn't really believe in God either, not since he took her from him, but he thinks there must be something after, because when he needs it, he can hear her voice, soft like an April shower in his mind, telling him what he knows she'd say. He knows he needs to be patient, always he needs to remember to be patient with kids like Phil, ones who are hurt and scared, hiding behind walls that are high and thick.
He'll come around. Just wait for him, don't rush him, don't force him... Be careful with him, my dopey rattlesnake.
He's never been sure why she'd called him her rattlesnake, but she had, and even though he knows it's just him talking to himself, he can hear her laughing at him for being so antsy over this one kid. Rushing Phil will be bad; he's in the dangerous grey area, where if you push too hard he'll clam right up. The other side of that is if you don't push at all, then he won't get anything out of being here. It's a fine balancing act, and Steve's been out of practice for over a year now. They've plenty of time to get to know each other, a whole year in fact, and this is actually the first time it's ever been just one kid on the ranch, so Phil's going to find himself with Steve's full, undivided attention. He only hopes that doesn't scare him, the file Jim gave him had a lot of blanks and there has to be a reason they wanted him out of the State. It's not really Steve business, not yet at least, but once the kid starts talking, Steve has the feeling he's not going to be able to go to Illinois for fear of having an enforced stay in one of its many fine correctional facilities. It's always irked him how you have to have a license to have a gun, to drive a car, or to own a liquor store, but they'll let any idiot have a kid. Some people shouldn't be trusted to raise kids, some people shouldn't be allowed fragile burgeoning minds that need nurturing and handling with the utmost of care, because some people don't deserve it. He thinks Phil had a point when he said that dogs were stupid, they don't judge, they don't see that some people aren't worthy of their unconditional affection, and give it far too freely.
"Good night honey." Steve whispers into the darkness, but as it's been for over a year now, the only reply is Hershey snoring.
Hi... I'm kind of nervous about this one... Another AU, with perhaps not as much research behind it as I'd like so if there's anything incredibly squiffy PM me and lemme know, okay? :)
Needless to say... I'm more than interested in your thoughts, so please do review!
