Chapter Text
Mike thought that Bobby was a pathetic bastard, and he would have said that to his face if it wouldn’t significantly affect his chances of getting what he wanted.
“I don’t see why he’s gotta live in the barn, Bobby,” Mike said. “It just seems like overkill.”
Bobby only shrugged. “I’ve told you, Mike, there’s no room in the Little House,” he reasoned. “It’s outta my hands.”
It sure was out of his hands, alright. Mike wondered why he had even bothered to talk to Bobby at all when June was the one who was really running things around here. June, Mike’s cousin and Bobby’s wife, called all the shots and everyone on the ranch knew it – hell, even Richie and Lou knew it. If anything Richie and Lou especially knew that June was in charge with the way they grovelled to their older sister constantly. The only people who were the least bit intimidated by Bobby were the teenagers and poor bastards who came to work for them, and only because they never stuck around very long to find out what was what.
Mike would have gone to June first if Bobby hadn’t been easier to convince on his good days. It was once in a blue moon, but every now and then he could make some minor changes if he really put his mind to it (or if his ego overcame his laziness. Mike's problem, however, was that this was in direct conflict with both Bobby's ego and his laziness).
“Hell, I’ll let the kid have my room,” Mike argued.
“Sleepin’ in the same bed as him?” Bobby smirked in a way that was almost a sneer. “Richie ‘n’ Lou’ll never let you live it down.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Mike frowned, curling his hands into fists. He could have punched Bobby for that comment, but he held back. Bobby was shorter than him, but he was stockier. Mike had thought that working on a ranch for years would have made him gain some muscle mass, but he had stayed as scrawny as ever, with only blisters on his heels and calluses on his hands to show for his hard work. And anyway, punching Bobby would help his chances of convincing him as much as calling him a pathetic bastard would. “How can you expect him to be productive if he’s sleepin’ in a barn every night?”
“He’ll live,” Bobby assured Mike, with that same annoying smirk plastered on his face.
Bobby didn’t care about the kid’s productivity and they both knew it. If he left, another skinny kid in need of a job and a place to stay would take his place as they always did. The only consistent staff on the ranch were The Family – June, Bobby, Richie, Lou and Mike – and that was only because they couldn’t quit as easily. (Mike prayed to the Lord that his siblings were smart enough to avoid working on their cousins’ ranch when they turned old enough. May they learn from his mistakes).
No, this wasn’t about productivity or lack of space or whatever excuse Bobby made. The only reason Bobby was willing to uphold June’s orders this time was because he enjoyed testing this new kid. The boy was indebted to him for some reason, Mike didn’t know what, and Bobby was willing to see how far he could be pushed until enough was enough. He liked holding it over the boy’s head.
Mike hadn’t spoken to Micky Dolenz yet, but he had heard what people (mostly Richie and Lou) said about him. He had only been there a week and had supposedly lasted longer than anyone had expected him to already. He had noticed Richie and Lou placing bets on how long they thought he would stick around (the verdict being less than two weeks at most after he had exceeded their expectations those first seven days). Apparently he was a city boy, California born and raised, with a bad leg and rumoured to be queer. And even if he wasn’t queer, that wouldn’t stop Richie and Lou from cackling about it behind his back and at the dinner table.
Mike had gotten a few glimpses of him from afar, his long legs and wild curly hair and (if he got close enough) his small pug nose and big chin. Sure, the kid was stumbling and awkward and had obviously never had to work very hard in his whole life, but he seemed enthusiastic enough to make up for it. Overzealous, maybe, but that wasn’t a crime.
Lou and Richie had even gotten some of the other guys working for them in on the joke, which seemed unnecessarily cruel to Mike – the kid was already sleeping in a barn for Christ’s sake, hadn’t they done enough? If it hadn’t been for their insistence on proving Micky was anything less than heterosexual, Mike would have just told him to take his room in the Big House by the end of the first week, June and Bobby be damned. But even if he had slept on the couch in the living room, someone would still talk.
They didn’t give Micky much of the hard work to do, mostly feeding the animals, collecting water from the well, cleaning the barn - the menial stuff nobody else wanted to do. He often helped the stable-girl, Jo, out with the horses if he had the time. It wasn’t like the boy was a slacker, so Mike didn’t understand why his family seemed to have it out for him. Someone had to be the whipping boy, Mike supposed, and he should have just been glad that it wasn’t him.
Speaking to Bobby had only served to frustrate Mike, and with nothing else to cool off his temper, he had taken one of the horses around the ranch to blow off some steam. He didn’t go very far or very fast but being away from all the people was enough to level him out. It was still lunch time when he had gone out, and he had expected most people to be eating and resting. And most people were, except for Micky Dolenz.
Mike had seen him as he rode past the well, staggering back to the barn with a bucket in each hand. Micky had probably tripped and spilled all the water on the way back and had to refill the buckets, hence why he was still out at lunch time. That, or someone (probably Lou) hadn’t let him take a break.
It was far too hot in the middle of the day to be out. Even Mike, who had lived in Texas his whole life, was sweating underneath the dry, unrelenting sun. He was still some distance from Micky, but he had seen him set the buckets down several times to wipe sweat from his brow and fan himself with his hat.
Mike slowed down even more as he approached Micky, the horse walking along at a gentle and steady pace. Just say hello to him. You’re gonna have to speak to him eventually. But he couldn’t. He didn’t get close enough to Micky to call out to him, he wasn’t even close enough to see the curls that stuck out from underneath his hat, or the ring that he sometimes wore on his pinkie instead of his ring finger.
Mike had gotten a little closer (still not very close at all) but still, he did not say hello. It felt strange having heard so many things about the boy (though he couldn’t be sure how many things were true), and yet he had never spoken to him. It was probably the same on Micky’s side, though; the staff in the Little House were bound to have talked about Mike and his family amongst themselves at some point. He wondered if the things they said about him were as hurtful as the things Lou would say about Micky. He wouldn’t be surprised if they were.
Micky had caught Mike staring from across the field as he stopped once again to give his arms a break from carrying the heavy buckets. He waved. Mike nodded in return, tipping his wide-brimmed hat downward bashfully, and turned the horse around to go back to the stables. It was too damn hot out.
He had other chores to do during the day, none of which lead him to see Micky around. That night, after surviving dinner with his family, he took a walk outside with his guitar, breathing in the fresh air. He spent most of his days outside, and the concept of ‘getting some fresh air’ wasn’t anything special after years of life in the country, but the still and quiet air of night, cooler than during the daytime, never really lost its appeal. It didn’t to Mike, at least.
Most of the ranch was flat, empty plains, but around the houses and barns and stables there was a little bit of greenery, a little garden with an old swing set that hadn’t been used since June, Richie and Lou were kids, and some tall trees that provided shade and stretched up to the sky. They would have been beautiful had most of the plants not been dry and yellowing, and the swing set not been run down and rusted. But still, there was a kind of charm about them that Mike liked nonetheless, and the flaws were certainly hidden in the dark of the night.
Mike didn’t feel like being bothered by his family tonight – Richie, especially, was inclined towards picking on him for his music – so he stuck to the gardens around the Little House, where the staff stayed. Maybe he would even say hello to Jo; she had been there the longest of all of them (still not all that long) and had always been kind to him. Maybe later. For now he sat in the garden, a ways away from the window with the light on, on a picnic bench where he had spent his summers as a kid eating lunches underneath the shade of the trees with his Aunt and his cousins and younger siblings.
He plucked out a little melody on his guitar, strummed a song or two, sang a little tune to pass the time. He had been playing a while when he looked up and saw a silhouette of someone in the window, watching him. A silhouette with fuzzy curls. Then another silhouette, Jo, talking to him, and Micky was talking back. Maybe Micky hadn’t been watching him at all. Maybe he had just happened to be at the window, and Mike was feeling too self-important. Anyway, he was leaving his place at the window now, and in no time Mike saw him again at the front door of the house, calling to Jo, waving goodbye as he made his way to the barn. Mike watched him, his features lit by the light escaping the front door and falling across the patio of the house. He was smiling jovially, waving expressively, walking back to the barn with an animated kind of energy.
Mike stayed quiet in the shadows, hoping not to be seen, but perhaps Micky had felt his gaze anyway, because he waved to him from the path and called, “Heya!”
“Howdy,” Mike said, waving, but he had been too quiet for Micky to hear.
Mike didn’t go see Jo. Soon after Micky had waved to him he went back to the Big House to find June hunched over paperwork in the study, a single reading light turned on in the dim room. Her blonde hair was falling from where it was tied up in a bun in messy curls. His guitar was still slung across his back. He could hear Beth, the maid, doing the dishes in the kitchen.
“Not now, Mike,” she told him upon entering the room.
“I won’t be very long. I just wanted to ask,” Mike said carefully. “How long’ll the Dolenz boy be in the barn for?”
June looked to him with a disconnected expression, lips pressed in a thin line and eyes glassy and spaced out, and Mike knew that there was no convincing her on nights like this. She sighed and turned back to the paperwork. “I don’t know. Until we can find some space for him.”
Mike bit his lip. He decided to test his luck (though Mike had never had much luck in his lifetime). “I could let him have my room. I-I could sleep in the barn or on the couch or – “
“Why do you care?” She asked, every word she said sounding like a sigh. She didn’t look at him again. She hadn’t accused him of anything as obviously as Bobby had, but she never had to be apparent in her words for them to sting. There were still implications.
“I just want what’s best for the ranch,” Mike argued, and it wasn’t exactly a lie.
“Well, you’re not in charge,” June said, more assertively now. “Frankly, you’re pretty low in the pecking order, so let me ‘n’ Bobby handle things.”
Mike could tell his temper was about to get the better of him. If only he could have his way … But Richie had entered, standing in the open archway that lead from the living room to the study, distracting Mike from any argument he could make. Richie had apparently not heard much of the conversation.
“Hey Mikey, gonna play somethin’ for us on your gee-tar?” He teased, slapping him on the shoulder. Mike ignored him and turned back to June.
“Where’s Bobby?” Mike asked.
“In town. I don’t know,” she shrugged. Richie looked between the two of them.
“What’s Mike in here for?” He asked June.
“He wants the Dolenz boy outta the barn,” she explained. Mike blushed red, knowing what was coming next.
“Oh!” Richie hooted, cracking a smile, his hand returning to Mike’s shoulder. The gesture wasn’t friendly. Even if he was ‘just joking around’, there was still malice. “Got yourself a crush on the city slicker, huh?”
Mike wanted to tell him to piss off. But he bit his tongue. He couldn’t go picking fights with his family. Instead he rolled his eyes nonchalantly and ascended the stairs to his room. Wherever Richie was, Lou wasn’t very far behind, and once the two of them got started they didn’t stop, and Mike didn’t want to be there for it.
“Your boyfriend waiting for you up there, Mikey?” Richie called after him.
“Quit your hollerin’, Rich,” June scolded him before Mike closed the door on the noise.
He set his guitar down against the wall and laid on his creaky bed in his clothes and boots. It had been pleasant outside but in his room it was too hot to get underneath the covers and he was sweating uncomfortably.
It was loneliest at night. During the day he was usually so busy he didn’t spend much of his downtime thinking about it, but at night he didn’t have much else to pass the time. He didn’t always mind. It gave him something to write about. It was almost a comfort at this point, it had been with him so long. He remembered when he had first arrived at the ranch, a little after his aunt had died, and he had felt so lonely and homesick he couldn’t stand it. He wrote to his ma every other day and called up his siblings every night. Now he could deal with it better. The strangeness of a new environment had worn off quick and hadn’t been a problem for years now. But still, none of the staff that weren’t blood related stayed with them long enough to make friends and he’d had nobody but his family for three years.
His cousins were dysfunctional, and he just about couldn’t stand them most of the time, but they were his family. This was his home. They would never say it to his face, but they needed him, and Mike couldn’t just abandon them. No, Mike could get by just fine with his own company. He had his guitar and his work to keep him busy and he didn’t need much else.