Chapter Text
Life ain’t much for Higgs.
Get up, put on Fragile’s stolen eyeliner, take care of the animals, help at Fragile’s daddy's old store, then either swing by the local bar for his night shifts, or do something else to dick around for the rest of the day. It’s peaceful though, and it’s what he’s known for the past few years.
Right now he was unloading Coffin’s old black and blue pickup, getting out some extra stock of horse and chicken feed bags to put on the floor and get to selling. This was around the time of week most of the local farmers would be heading out to resupply their stashes, so he was helping Fragile get the stock up for the day so she wouldn’t be complaining about it later. That, and, although he wouldn’t say it, he liked to help.
“Higgs! I need your help in here!” He could hear Fragile yell from the back room once he sat his feed bags down on their pallet near the door, so he dusted off his hands and began to walk there. The moment he turned the corner to enter, Fragile jumped out from the doorway, stretched her arms out and yelled, causing Higgs to scream like a little girl and jump back, his black cowboy hat falling clean off his head.
“You asshole!” Higgs exclaimed, a pure look of terror in his face and hands still up in a defensive manner. Fragile had keeled over, pointing and laughing at him.
“You’re still so easy to scare, Higgs!”
“Not my fault, you’re like a tiny fuckin’ goblin scaring the hell outta me!” Higgs yelled in return, which was responded by Fragile sending a swift yet playful punch to his side. Higgs returned it with a gentle yet firm shove.
Coffin had taken Higgs under her wing a few years back, and even though he and Fragile were in their late teens when Higgs came into their household, they acted like they spent their whole childhood together. They were as thick as thieves, not even Coffin could try to separate those two.
After a bit more giggling, Higgs picked his hat back up and sat it back on his head, adjusting it a little as Fragile began talking about some bulk order coming in that she’d need Higgs’s help with in a few days. Go figure. But, it went in one ear and out the other as Higgs mildly spaced out, until Fragile angrily poked him in the side.
“Hellooo, earth to Monaghan?”
“Hey, hey, I’m listening!” Higgs said, stepping back a little after the poke.
“Alright, so how many bags of rabbit feed are we getting in next Thursday?”
“Um…. 15?”
“Wrong, dumbass.” Fragile said, with no real malice in her voice. “The answer is none. We get those in on Saturday, and only 10.”
“Fuck….. Sorry Frag,” Higgs said with a sheepish chuckle, trying to get himself out of this. “But don’t worry, I’ll help ya out whenever these orders come. You know I’m good for it.” Higgs said, and Fragile nodded, turning her head as she heard the door chime, the little bell hooked up to it ringing as two people entered. And she could see 2 more trucks pulling up right outside. Rush hour was about to hit these two like a semi-truck.
“Do you mind helping me for the next few hours? I’ll pay you back, you know I will.” Fragile said, looking up to Higgs. Begging the guy without actually begging, he could see it in her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve gotcha.”
Over the course of the next few hours, Higgs helped Fragile with selling the feed bags, and he helped some of the farmers get their loads in the backs of their pickups. Him and Fragile then got the place ready to close early for the day since they were both exhausted, and went back to their trucks respectively. Fragile threw him a wad of cash tied up with a rubberband, about 60 dollars before he got his hand on the truck door handle.
“Meet’cha at the house?” Higgs said, sliding the money into his front shirt pocket and sliding out a box of Virginia Slims, lighting one up as Fragile spoke.
“Mhm. Whoever gets there first doesn’t have to take care of the horses tomorrow!” Fragile said with a little giggle before hopping into her truck, already starting it up and waiting for the diesel engine to sound a little nicer before kicking it into gear and high-tailing it out of the driveway.
Fragile was younger than Higgs, by about 2 years, and damn was her youthful joy still infectious. She’d been through hell for sure after her daddy passed, but she wasn’t that fragile. She made it through whatever life threw her way, and it astonished Higgs.
Higgs got into Coffin’s pickup quick, digging the keys out of his back pocket and starting the beauty up. He had to wait a minute for the engine to warm, giving him enough time to finish his cigarette and throw the butt out into the parking lot before heading out, making his way back to their home.
After about a 15 minute drive, Higgs pulled Coffin’s pickup back into the dirt driveway, right up to the house. He threw the door open, slinging one leg onto the ground as he stepped out, his black boots immediately getting all dusty the moment he stepped down. Noticing Fragile’s truck by the side of the house already, which prompted a slightly annoyed groan from him. Looks like he’d get stuck feeding the boarded horses tomorrow.
Higgs turned his head as he shut the door and locked the truck, seeing a definitely far-too-nice-for-this-town dark blue pickup come to a stop right by the entrance of the driveway. He could make out a lone driver in there, male, frustratedly staring at his map that he just sprawled out over his wheel. Front windows rolled down, smoke billowing out of it from the man’s cigarette.
Higgs made note of the Virginian license plate on the beauty as he slid Coffin’s truck keys into his back pocket and made his way back up the driveway, stepping up onto the first wooden beam of the fence surrounding Coffin’s property as he leaned over, head right by the fancy truck’s window. Getting a whiff of the cigarette smoke and what smelled like coffee coming out of the man’s truck.
“Hey there!” Higgs said, and the man quickly turned his head to Higgs, the two making contact with their blue eyes. “Y’lost or something?” Higgs said, leaning over to see through the window a bit better and to see the map on the stranger's wheel, and the stranger almost instinctively moved, as if he were scared Higgs was gonna lean in and grab him. The man then lightly nodded his head and grunted, confirming what Higgs assumed.
“Woah there cowboy, I ain’t gonna hurt’cha.” Higgs said with a chuckle after the stranger moved, then raised a brow at the map. “Uh… Your map, it doesn’t cover this area hon. Y’need some directions? I can help you out, just tell me where you’re tryna go.”
The stranger seemed to pause for a moment, moving one of his hands that was holding the map to take the cigarette out of his mouth and throwing it out of the opposite window onto the road, the cigarette butt hitting the gravel road and burning out quick. Then, he looked back to Higgs and nodded.
“M’ looking for a hotel. N’ preferably a bar nearby.”
“Alright, any hotel in specific? Or do ya not care?”
The stranger grunted again, shaking his head.
“Alright, well, if you head up this road for about 3 more miles, take a left into town, then look for Knot Road… Y’should find the Demens bar. And there’s a hotel just a block away from it.” Higgs said with a nod and a small smile, and the stranger nodded, beginning to fold up his map and put it back in his glovebox.
“Say, if ya come to the bar tonight, I’ll give you a free beer, on me. I work there tonight.” Higgs said with his sly little smile, already trying to befriend this out of state stranger. “Whaddya drink? Lone Star?”
The stranger shook his head once again, some of his brown locks falling in his face.
“Yuengling. Porter.”
“Perfect! We just got more of that in stock last week. You’ve got good taste.” Higgs finally hopped off the fence, now leaning on the fencepost as he talked to the stranger. The stranger could’ve sworn Higgs was fluttering his lashes at him.
“So, see ya there tonight?” Higgs asked, his head lightly tilting to the side, one of his own short brown locks falling out from under his hat.
The stranger shrugged, just saying “Depends. Probably not, m’ tired.”
“Oh c’mon, I’ll make it worth your while–” Higgs began, but was quickly interrupted by the door to the house swinging open and Coffin yelling.
“Peter! Dinners ready, c’mon!”
Higgs dropped his head and sighed. “Alright, alright, I’m comin’!” He yelled back, and by the time he turned his head back to the stranger's truck, he had already kicked it back into drive and was just starting to leave. Higgs didn’t contest, and let him speed off.
“Son of a… Didn’t even get his name.” Higgs said to himself, detested, but then turned and went to head inside. Fragile was in the living room on the couch, perched up and looking out the window as he approached. He could see her get off and head to the door, and the moment Higgs opened it, he was immediately questioned.
“Who was that? You’ve got a rich boyfriend I don’t know about?”
“Pfft, you wish.” Higgs said with a chuckle. “Just a stranger lookin’ for directions, nothin’ much.”
“You were talking to him for an awful long while to just be giving him directions.” Fragile said, crossing her arms and looking up at him.
“I was, I swear!” Higgs put up his hands in mock defeat, and Fragile raised a brow but believed him. The two could hear plates clattering as Coffin set the table, and they both rushed to join her at the table.
Not long after dinner, Higgs had already gotten all dolled up and ready to head to the bar. His usual black cowboy hat, his black leather boots that he cleaned up a little, a black button up with some gold accents and embroidery that had the first top 4 buttons popped open, and some black jeans to boot. Not a lot of people wore mostly all black in the country because of the heat, but in this town, him and Fragile were practically known for it. The siblings in black.
Higgs wished Coffin goodbye and said he’d be back later, and hugged Fragile before heading out. Same old, same old. He took out the keys to Coffin’s black and blue pickup from his back pocket and hopped in the truck, letting the engine warm as he lit himself a Virginia Slim, letting the smoke spill out from his lips after the first deep inhale. Once the engine didn’t sound like it was near death, Higgs kicked it in drive and turned to leave his humble abode.
It didn’t take long for him to make it to the bar, and he made it just a few minutes before his shift. He hurried to the punch clock and clocked himself in, greeting his coworker, Malignen (or as everyone called her, Mama) out on the floor as she got everything ready to open the doors for the night.
Once the doors were unlocked, it didn’t take long for people to start flooding in fast. The usual, local farmers, some townsfolk, a couple rowdy college kids from a town over who probably got banned from their usual bar, nothing out of the ordinary.
Mama helped him behind the bar as they served the first flood of people for the night, and after the first hour of his shift, he noticed a shorter man enter the bar.
He had long brunette hair that fell down to his shoulders, with a slight bit of a beard goatee thing going on. And he remembered that recognizable mole right on his lip.
He walked in with a cigarette that he snuffed out at the door, discarding of it in the cigarette disposal bin before walking up and sitting on Mama’s end of the bar, the farthest side where no one was really sat at the moment. Higgs slid over a bit, gently tapping Mama on the shoulder before whispering in her ear.
“Hey, swap sides?”
“Giving me the busier side?” Mama said, glancing over to Higgs’s side which had far more men seated than the other.
“Please Mama, I’ll owe you one I swear!” Higgs said, giving Mama a pathetic sad puppy look, which caused her to begrudgingly agree. “Fine, let me take all your tips.” She said with a slightly annoyed yet teasing tone and a nod before moving over to Higgs’s end, and Higgs stopped right in front of the stranger from earlier, eyeing him down.
All he wore was an old brown trailpath plaid shirt, with dark denim jeans and some beat up boots. He looked like a cross country trucker, but Higgs could just feel that he had a little more going on with him than that.
“Hey, stranger!” Higgs said with a light smile, the same one he gave the stranger earlier. They locked eyes once again, and Higgs was already in the middle of grabbing him a Yuengling porter beer. He sat the bottle on the bar in front of the man, giving him a wink.
“Told you it’s on the house.” Higgs said, leaning on the counter a bit as the stranger took a sip, giving Higgs a curt nod. “Thanks.”
“No problem, sugar. Say, what’s your name? Ain’t often we get tourists in this town.” Higgs said, resting his elbows on the bar as he leaned a little further. The stranger leaned back in response, keeping his distance as much as he could. Higgs couldn’t tell if he just wasn’t fond of touch or other people, assuming the latter since he sat at the emptiest side of the bar.
“Sam.” He said, meeting Higgs’s eyes once more before taking another sip. “Uh… Isn’t yours—“
“Higgs. Everyone calls me Higgs.” Monaghan said, cutting him off. He didn’t like getting called Peter, so he would correct everyone at every chance he could. Only person he let it slide from was Coffin, since she treated him like her own kid.
Sam took a moment, but nodded, not questioning it. “Well it’s nice to meet you, Sammy! How long you in town for?” Higgs chimed up and asked, kicking himself back up off the bar so he could clean a glass real quick. Sam just shrugged.
“Mm, not the talkative type huh? That’s alright, I don’t mind hon, I can work with that.” Higgs finished cleaning the glass in his hands, tossing the cloth he was using over his shoulder as he leaned over to fill it with budweiser from one of the taps, speaking again to Sam.
“You’re sure as hell far from home, though. Virginia, huh?” Higgs said with a raised brow to Sam, and that seemed to’ve hit some sort of nerve, because Sam sat his beer down and stared at Higgs.
Some emotion in those eyes for once, as if he were mad at the world and everything in it, just for a moment. Just as soon as it came though, it went, and Higgs couldn’t read the man anymore.
“Just wanted a change of scenery.” Sam then said with a shrug and a sort of grunt, and Higgs could tell that wasn’t all that there was to the story, but he didn’t push.
“Mm, fair ‘nough. This place definitely ain’t like Virginia alright, we ain’t got no white houses here. But when I tell you there’s barely a damn thing in this town, I mean it. This might just be the most interesting corner of the wretched place.”
“If you’re wanting to see some fun scenery, I’d recommend drivin’ down to somewhere like Austin. City boy like you might just enjoy it.” Higgs said with a chuckle, and Sam shrugged once again.
“This is fine.” He said, cold blue eyes like the ocean locking with Higgs's once again. “I prefer it quiet.” Sam left it at that, breaking eye contact to take another swig of his beer. A noticeably longer one this time. Higgs watched as his throat bobbed, slamming back that beer as if his life depended on it now. Guessed that’s how ol’ Sammy boy coped with whatever he had going on.
“Alright, suit yourself.” Higgs said, turning his head as another man a little further down the bar called out to Higgs, trying to get himself a drink. Higgs sighed, looking back to Sam before taking off his cowboy hat by the top, leaning over to sit it on Sam’s head without directly touching him.
“What the fuck–”
“You don’t wanna attract much attention, huh? Take it, ‘s all yours sugar. Makes you look a little more like you’re from ‘round here.”
Higgs said with a small smile as he turned, heading to go serve the other customers. Sam just stared at him, mouth slightly agape but he didn’t take the hat off, just slightly adjusted it to be a little more comfortable on his head and returned to his beer after getting his bearings. A small act of unwarranted kindness, but he'd be sure not to forget it.