author's notes: not much to say here... i got to have fun exploring his family history in this chapter. i don't really like the idea of his father being the best thing ever, so i didn't go with that!
The first day back in the forest, the Once-ler awoke just after noon, the animals having long since scattered from his sleeping form, spare Melvin, Pipsqueak, and the Lorax, who was snoring quite peacefully while using his back as a pillow. Shoulders popping as he stretched himself awake, careful to not entice the wrath of a woken Lorax, the young man yawned and sat himself up, keeping the forest spirit upright against his back.
"Hey. Wake up." He nudged a small orange shoulder, craning his neck sideways to look at the guardian. "I've gotta set this place up, you can't just sleep on me all day." He shifted, watching the creature fall with an indignant thunk as he landed on the floor, waking up with a groan.
"Watch it, kid, can't you tell I was sleepin'?" He rubbed at an eye, and the Once-ler rolled his eyes as he stood up, making his way to the pile of clothing that substituted a wardrobe for the night.
"I've got to set everything back up. I can't just wait for some people to wake up. I'd be there all day." Taking in the sun's position in the sky, he scrunched his nose up, wincing as it jostled his bruise. "Well, what's left of it, at least."
"Fine, whatever. What's first?" The Lorax heaved himself up, hands on knees as he looked up at the tall human, who had turned away to slip on proper trousers over of the soft fleece of his pyjamas. It was too cold to take them off, he figured, and no one would know otherwise.
"Um… well, I guess…" He looked into the kitchen, with boxes of dishes (which were soon to be hummingfish homes and swomme swan nests, he was sure) and a stovetop and refrigerator waiting to be connected into his (genius, he would add) self-sufficient gas and electricity generator within the closet space of the cottage. His stomach gargled in unhappiness, and he considered the lack of dinner from the night before. "I'll set up the kitchen first, and then I'll make some… uh, lunch, I guess, and then we'll go from there."
It really hadn't taken too long to set up, and even with the small pancake break in the middle (and by small, of course, he meant several hundred flapjacks and nearly two hours of work, even the bar-ba-loots and hummingfish who hadn't helped wanting some), it took somewhere in the neighbourhood of five hours to set everything up. His bed, the kitchen, the plumbing and electricity, and he stood back with a bounce of his heels, smiling at how quickly it had come to look just as it had years ago.
"Now what?" The Lorax stood beside him, appreciating the setup with a huff and a pair of crossed arms.
"Well…" The Once-ler sat at his desk, slumped in the chair. He hadn't quite thought that far- his only real goal was to leave the factory, and his mother, behind. In fact, thinking about it, he had been more than a little careless- while he did still have his name and identity and bank account, he knew it wouldn't last him forever, especially with his mother's name beside his. He wouldn't be surprised in the least if he'd gone into town only to find that she had indeed closed the account, taking the funds for herself and his company, and he had been left with the mediocre amount in his savings. There was a cold breeze, then, and he shivered under his layered clothing. "… Firewood. For the stove. I'm going to-" His hand reached for his axe, and the Lorax shot him a sharp glare.
"You better not be plannin' on cutting down one of my trees, beanpole. You've done enough to them, don't you think?" The green gaze on him made him feel uncomfortable, and he fidgeted under the scrutiny. He could always buy firewood, he supposed, but he had wanted to conserve his funds for food and necessities. When he first came, he'd packed a month's worth of firewood himself, and he had chopped the first truffula trunk in addition, though he really only needed it for a week-long cold snap.
"… But…" He bit his lip, turning to look outside. Then it hit him- the stumps. They were just as much wood as the rest of the tree, weren't they? Surely the Lorax would have no opposition to finishing the trees off. "… What about the stumps?" The Lorax smiled after a moment's hesitation, nodding.
"I knew you had it in you to think, kid." He gave a playful shove, walking to the door. "The bar-ba-loots, they'll plant the seeds of the fruits, without the stumps in the way, they'll have room to grow…" Axe in hand, the Once-ler made his way outside with the Lorax, shielding his eyes from the bright sun he hadn't realised he'd missed while working in the factory.
Had he really not stepped out in that long? Save for sparing visits with Melvin, he had confined himself to his work, and kept paintings instead of windows. The air was getting worse around the factory, and he couldn't afford to get sick from smog; the paintings substituted windows, and a heavy air filtration kept the hallways clean of smoggy air. He hadn't seen sunlight except when it came through his balcony doors in his office, and it had been quite some time since he wandered into town. Between the paparazzi and the work his mother was adamant about getting done, he never had time and was always too tired to do much when he did go out, and his visits dwindled into obscurity in the small town.
"…and without those machines o' yours, they won't get trampled when they start to sprout." The Lorax finished as the Once-ler brought his axe down into a stump. He stopped, staring at the forest guardian.
"The… the machines are still there." He sighed, lifting the axe again to split it completely in two- the wood was normally springy and resisted well to an axe, but now it had dried and split far too easily. At least it would burn readily, he figured. "Ma runs the company now, and I… I tried to get them to harvest, instead, but…" He brought his hand to his cheek, frowning a bit. "… I'm sorry."
"Oh?" The Lorax seemed shocked, but took it well enough in stride, a sly smile growing on his face under the mustache. "… Maybe we'll have to work with the forces of nature on that, then."
"All the hummingfish in the forest aren't gonna be enough to pick one of those things up and send them downriver, you know." The Once-ler gave a sad smile, gathering up the oddly angular firewood in his arms and placing it in a cloth sack.
"'Ey, you know, nature works in more than one way." The orange jellybean huffed, smirking under his mustache. "I've got a plan. And this time, beanpole, you're gonna be on my side, right?" The Once-ler gave a small laugh, bringing the sack with him as he made his way back to the cottage.
"Right, of course. I don't have anywhere else to be, after all." He'd left the first stump alone; in all of this mess, in the past year, the rocks had never moved or changed in arrangement, and he felt too perturbed by the thought of ruining the reminder of his promise to bring an axe to it. "I mean, tomorrow I'm gonna go buy more food, but other than that…" He opened the wood stove's front doors, carefully stacking a few short pieces of wood in the firebox. He lit a match and tossed it in the middle, fanning the flames a bit before closing the door and adjusting the diverters for a long, cooler fire.
Satisfied with the heat, he put a kettle with river water on top of the stove for his tea and made his way to the stovetop, pulling out a pot and plucking out a few bar-ba-loot hairs. He added water to the pot and started the heating element under it, scrounging through his pantry for a bag of small potatoes and adding them into the pot with a little bit of salt. He pulled out several other ingredients, including vegetable stock and various spices, setting them around the small countertop. When he set up his cottage, he'd never expected that he'd be cooking for half of the forest and not just himself, but he made due with his limited space well enough, even if his potato soup had to be cooked in three different pots to make enough for the bar-ba-loots and hummingfish and the swomme swans- he even added seasonings and things to each pot to customise the taste for each species' preferences.
Soup was different from pancakes, though, and bar-ba-loots didn't understand the concept of a spoon. In order to keep his cottage as clean as he could, he had hoisted the pots off the stove- with the help of the Lorax and Lou the bar-ba-loot- and set them on a particularly wide stump outside. The lamp hanging from his front door illuminated the night well enough, with help from the moon, and he carefully dished out platters and cookie sheets of soup and set them on the ground for the forest animals, finally spooning a bowl for himself and the Lorax and sitting on a stump to watch the animals.
"You really have a plan there, meatloaf?" He asked over a spoon, not entirely sure the Lorax knew what he was up against- big business certainly wouldn't go down without a fight, and it wouldn't be as simple as a bed in a river to win his mother and the factory over to his side.
"Sure do, beanpole." He gave a sly look, wiping potato soup off of his mustache. "And you're a big part of it, you know."
"Oh." The human looked down to his bowl a little, hat dipping a shadow over his eyes. "… You know I can't do anything, right? I'm not part of the company anymore, mom probably won't even let me back in to get the rest of my stuff, I'm just back to being some nobody living in the woods." He sighed, hoping the Lorax could change his plans at least a little bit.
"You're the nobody who founded Thneedcorp, kid. You can do plenty, trust me." The forest guardian looked up, stealing a spoonful of soup from the Once-ler's bowl before he defensively clutched the bowl closer to himself.
"Well, yeah, I guess, but…" He shrugged, taking another spoonful of soup before giving the Lorax a sharp look. "Humans… I mean, I could get arrested if you wanted me to do anything illegal. I couldn't do anything from jail." He sighed, watching one of the younger bar-ba-loots playing in the grass with Pipsqueak.
"Yeah? Well…" The Lorax took in the purple bruising on the side of the boy's face thoughtfully. "… I don't think I'd wanna put you near your mom again anyway, kid. Purple's really not your colour."
"Oh, this isn't anything. When dad was still around, I got hit a lot worse than just that. He'd get drunk and come home and…" He trailed off, leaning his elbows on his knees after setting his empty bowl on the ground. "He hit a lot harder than ma did, and he hit a lot more than just once or twice. I mean, I didn't like it- no one did- but ma and I got pretty used to it. I just… wasn't expecting that from her, after all that." The forest guardian looked over at the hunched human, feeling for the second time in too many years that horrible feeling of not knowing what to say. Humans were strange, he would give them that much- he'd seen bar-ba-loots get a quick slap if they were irritating but there was never any true malice behind it. Nothing like the angry slap from his mother, or the beatings from his father, or the words the boy seemed to have gotten much more of than either- he didn't understand what compelled humans toward such behaviour, and he didn't really know if he wanted to know.
"I'm sorry, kid." It seemed to fall short of the comfort he meant to give, and he fidgeted uncomfortably in the silence- a few bar-ba-loots gave a sympathetic glance, and some of the hummingfish gave a somber hum in response. The Lorax hadn't noticed the animals eavesdropping, and he didn't think the beanpole did, either- the forest had been quiet from their meal to begin with, and it wasn't hard to hear them over the sound of nothing.
"It's alright. It's been a long time, I hardly even remember it. Ma got it the worst, I think, anyway…" He chewed on his lip a little- it had been nearly twenty years since he'd seen the last of his father, and the sudden surge of memories was unsettling at best. "Aunt Griszelda ran him out after Ma went to the hospital one time, and we haven't seen him since. I think I remind Ma of him, and that's why she's so…" He paused, trying to think of a good enough word. "… angry with me all the time. I mean, he's the one who taught me guitar, and my hat's his, and… well, I guess I look a lot like him, and it makes Ma really nervous." He swallowed a bit heavily, sinking forward on his elbows. "I'm just glad Chett and Bret didn't have to go through it, they were young enough that I don't think they remember much about the whole thing. And… they're a little slow, I don't think they would really understand it anyway." Truthfully, he envied them as much as he pitied them- they never got to have a father to begin with, who the Once-ler would admit was a pretty great dad when sober. They never got to have guitar lessons during a lazy summer, or a kiss goodnight and sheets tucked around them, or a violent, jarring blow against the kitchen wall.
"That still doesn't give her a right to be treating you the way she did, you know." The Lorax's mustache twitched in sympathy.
"Y… yeah, I guess." He stood up, taking his bowl inside. "It's late, I'd like to get all these dishes done before everyone falls asleep." The Lorax sighed, taking his own bowl and Pipsqueak's inside as well, handing them to the tall man before shoving a stool up to the sink.
"Soup wasn't the best idea if you didn't want a lot of dishes." The forest guardian quipped, taking a cloth in hand. "I'll dry 'em if you're done washing them, how about that?" The human smiled, nodding a little bit as he handed the creature a wet bowl.
"If I didn't know any better, mustache, I'd say you were beginning to like me!" He laughed, nudging the creature with his elbow.
"Well, you're not as stupid as you were. You're still an idiot and you've got a long way to go, kid. Don't think I'm gonna go around callin' you my friend any time soon." The creature huffed, drying the bowl and setting it aside.
"Sure." The Once-ler rolled his eyes, content to wash the rest of the bowls in silence before making his way to the bed. It wouldn't be as comfortable as the lavish bed he had in the factory, but he would sleep the same either way; it was at least better than using a bag of marshmallows as a pillow on the road, and it was better than falling asleep at dinner or at his desk by a far stretch, and the animals joining him made him feel much less alone than he did at any of those other points in his history.
Truffula fruits were growing in the trees not too far west from the cottage- early in the morning, with the help of the animals, he'd harvested enough to make truffula fruit crepes for breakfast. The Once-ler hummed, lifting the delicate crepes out of the pan with the back end of his spatula, dolloping whipped cream and sliced fruit on top and sliding the plate to the end of the counter, where the early risers had been waiting. Most of the other bar-ba-loots and hummingfish and swans were still curled up sleeping in various positions around the cottage, and he couldn't say that he minded very much. The company of Pipsqueak and his cousins was enough for him, and he laughed as he watched the young bar-ba-loot lick whipped cream off of his furry paws.
After breakfast, he walked out to meet Melvin, offering a truffula fruit to the mule as he motioned toward Greenville. Or was it Thneedville? He remembered buying the town, but he couldn't remember if the name change had applied yet… Melvin nudged him, and he smiled, walking with reigns in hand to the city.
The bank had been his first priority- he immediately withdrew about half of his shared account's worth, opening a new account with his name only. Part of him wondered if it was excessive- it was certainly a lot of money, but he only planned to use his funds sparingly. He wouldn't let greed take him over, he promised himself, and the more rational part of him wondered if this might be the only money he saw for the rest of his life. The teller gave him a strangely sympathetic look, and he felt rather self-conscious of the bruise on his face, trying to sweep his hair over it as much as he could, though he knew it would do very little but block his vision.
Whispers and word spread fast in the still small town, and as he made his way to the market, he could feel eyes on him. He brought a hand up to shield his face as he turned away, shuffling and tying Melvin to a post outside. Briefly he wondered if the mule would be bombarded or injured from the attention of being the Once-ler's mule, but he figured Melvin had no qualms with kicking people if he were to be disturbed. Patting him on the snout, he entered the marketplace, feeling much smaller than his height would betray him to feel. The whispers and stares didn't stop as he slowly crept down the aisle with a basket in hand, trying to decide what would last him and what he really needed in his cottage. For a moment he contemplated asking people to stop staring, though he knew an outburst would only draw attention to himself- when he'd been in the limelight, he tried to sneak out for milkshakes and gotten trapped by paparazzi and curious folk. Now it seemed to be the same, and he wondered if it was in part due to his fame, still- he couldn't have expected to just disappear, of course, and he pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. At least, he attempted to, cringing when pressure shot through his face with a "darn it."
The cashier gave him a strange look when he brought his basket up to check out- he had enough food to feed an army, nearly, and coming back in a week when the animals had depleted it would be awkward. He hoped he didn't get the same cashier, rubbing the back of his neck nervously and getting lost in his thoughts when the newspaper stand caught his attention. ONCE-LER LEAVING THNEEDCORP was addressed in all capital font, and below was a pair of rather large, full-colour images of himself- before and after his "rise to power," as the newspaper claimed. One showed him as "too big too fail," with his green suit, and the other showed him huddled on a wagon with a bruise on his face and wind-tousled hair, and he sheepishly grabbed the top paper and added it to his bags before the cashier could put the two together. He probably already had, he thought, tipping his hat to the man and paying before making his way back out to Melvin, bags in hand.
No one was waiting for him outside like he had half-expected, but he could still feel the gaze of eyes on him as he carefully put his groceries in Melvin's sidebags. It was enough, he decided, turning to face the man nearest to him.
"What is it?" The Once-ler's voice held a quiver to it, and he tried to swallow back any fear he might have had- he was much taller than the other man, and no one had done anything malicious to him yet. Would they even be malicious? He didn't intend to find out the hard way, but from what he could tell, most people were simply… confused. Maybe even more confused than he was.
"Everyone's been wondering why you quit." Definitely confused. He looked at the paper in his bag, scanning the article for any trace of what could have been on everyone's mind- the only thing that caught his eye was a comment about the bruising on his face and his colder-than-usual demeanor toward the reporter.
"There was a… disagreement, of sorts." The Once-ler straightened, trying to seem as formal as he could. "It was in the best interest of the… company that I leave." He nodded with a slight smile, turning back to his mule. "Yep, without me there the company is sure to run smoother!" He stuffed the paper back into the sidebags, gathering up an armful of bags and nudging his hat back when it fell over his face. Quickly, he shuffled off, Melvin in tow, and he wondered vaguely how stupid he looked to everyone in town, with his bruised face and deflated ego, before straightening his back and making his way to the cottage with a renewed vigor.
The paper didn't really say much about the situation- he sat at his desk with a mug of tea, poring over the article. It was surprisingly short, ending with a "Mr. Once-ler denied further questioning," and he leaned back in his chair at the conclusion. They hadn't been able to reach his mother before being published, and he wondered if they would even try- his mother was notorious around reporters, and with her in charge, he doubted the reporters would get even close to the truth, or the woman behind it all.
"What's that?" The Lorax was blunt, if nothing else, taking the paper into two furry orange paws and staring incredulously at the pictures.
"Can you even read, meatloaf?" The creature shook his head, and the Once-ler gave a sigh before taking the paper back. "Whatever. Everyone knows I left, but they don't really know why. I dunno what Ma's gonna say when she finds out, or if she'll say anything…"
"You gonna fight her, beanpole?"
"What?" He looked to the Lorax, not sure what the creature was implying. "She's my mother, I'm not gonna-"
"I don't mean fight her, I mean… fight back. You can't do nothin' illegal, you said, but you can spread the word. Ain't nothing wrong with that. Go find those reporters and tell them all about the harvestin' you were gonna do." The creature gave a nod at his own idea, crossing his arms. "Me and my forces of nature'll do what we can, and you just gotta do what you can." The Once-ler gave a wide smile, thinking about the idea- he was sure his mother would have her fair share of opposition when he uttered a word about the harvesting. He would have to have a backup plan to win against a company many times larger than himself. His guitar, duct taped at the neck, lay against the wall of his studio bedroom, and he gave it a sly smirk.
"Is one of those forces of nature, I don't know… maybe the force of a backup chorus?" He stood up, crossing to the kitchen and dumping out pots and pans and wooden spoons, handing them to bar-ba-loots. "Think you guys can learn a little drumming?" Pipsqueak swung a spoon against a pot, followed by several other bar-ba-loots, and he gave a grin at the animals. "Let's get to work, nature."