"You're the best friend that I ever had..."

[texasbadboy]

Who? Garrett Holt and Fin Bennett
What? Reunion
When? Night between heats and final competition
Where? Rodeo

Garrett was nervous as all fuck. He hadn't seen Fin in a long time now... not years, but it felt like that after all that had happened in the in-between time. Garrett had missed his brother from another mother ever since he left, and that heavy weight of guilt deep down in his gut hadn't ever gone away. He needed to see Fin face to face and know without a doubt that his best friend was okay. He was so nervous that he'd actually passed up a cute little cowgirl who'd stopped by and asked if he was looking for a good time while he was making his way over to where he knew Fin's horse was stabled. He'd definitely given her a good look-over, but his mind was on getting to his friend.

He found Michelangelo in his stall, and gave him a big grin. "Hey, Mikey!" he told him, rubbing his soft nose and offering him a carrot that he'd brought just for him. He loved the dapple grey stallion, and he knew that this was the place to be if he wanted to find Fin. He didn't ride again until tomorrow, but he'd be here to check in on his boy just the same.

And just like clockwork, Garrett looked up to see his best friend walking in his direction. "Finnie!" he cried out. "Dude!"

Comments

[texasbadboy]

Garrett's eyes watched as Fin brought up the photos of his horse, and his eyes lit up. He'd always loved horses, and Fin's girl was beautiful. The angles of the selfies were strange, and Garrett tilted his head. "Are you guys sitting down in this picture," he asked, tilting the phone to try and figure out what they were doing. "She's gorgeous, dude. I can see how you fell in love with her right up. So she's basically adopted you as her baby? And you're out there without your mom, so I guess maybe you needed her to fill in a little, too?" He smiled. It was just calming to know that Fin was being loved by such a beautiful animal. "So she's got the skills and talent, but also got the personality to go with it? That's pretty spectacular, dude. Your dad must really care about you a lot and want to see you happy. I'm glad stuff's going better at your school. What did they do to you? I'm gonna have to come to New York and kick their asses. Then again... I'm kind of thinking of coming to New York anyway."

"You're really looking after him, huh?" he asked gently. "Do they know why he has that pain? That must really suck for him. You, too, really. Not ever knowing if he's gonna be in pain from one day to the next. And I know you. I know how much you hate to see anyone hurting. I'd really like to get that chance to meet him, though. He sounds like a good guy, but you know we have to vet him. And I personally never thought you'd be looking to marry a horse. A dude hung like one, sure, but not a horse itself." It took a long moment for Garrett to be ready to answer that question, but he breathed deeply and looked at his best friend. "I... I know where they came from 'cuz they came from me," he confessed, looking down at his feet and not being able to look back up at his friend. "I sold them to the kid that gave them to you, but I didn't want anyone to give them to you. I was trying to make some extra money to send home to Mom, and I just... I fucked up."

[truthrunswild]

It only clicked then that Garrett didn't know Shannon was disabled. Which is about the moment Fin realised it wouldn't be obvious on his Facebook pages because there was no big deal made about it. Shannon was Fin's boyfriend, they were Facebook official and all. But Shannon had his profile locked up, so even if Garrett Facebook stalked, he wouldn't see any of Shannon's stuff. The photos Fin has posted of Shannon, there was no obvious evidence of a wheelchair. He nodded. "Yeah, we're sitting. I'm sitting on his lap. Shannon's disabled. He's in a wheelchair," he explained. At least then Garrett wouldn't get a shock. A shock Shannon might see if he wasn't forewarned. "She's an amazing girl. She makes me smile and she grounded me again when everything was going awful for me. It was one big shitstorm when I got there. Then I met Shannon, and he... I don't know. Gave me everything I didn't realise I desperately needed. Dad does care. A lot. He just didn't know how to put it in action at first. Last he ever saw me, I was in diapers. They pants'ed me in front of the entire gym class, boxers and all. They'd be harassing me and saying awful things. Then they put this shit in my water that made me puke over and over, I ended up in hospital because they thought something was really wrong with me. Then as if that wasn't enough, they did it with laxatives too. You can imagine how that turned out," he mumbled. He gave a shake of his head and busied himself getting Michelangelo's blanket from where it was hanging in the back of the stall. He was still embarrassed as all fuck with what happened.

"Yeah, they know why. He was thrown from a spooked colt on his family's farm and broke his back. He could've died, but he didn't. He was in a coma and they thought he was either quadriplegic or paraplegic. He was paralysed for awhile, but then they did some massive surgery on his back and he got the feeling back. But his spine at his lower back is full of pins and plates. He's not paralysed but his back was damaged so badly, he can't stand or walk. He can move in and out of the chair and he's pretty self-sufficient. He can move his feet, but he can't really move his legs much. Because the injury was so bad, he still has pain issues. Mostly he's good, just some days are real bad for him. But it's okay, because he's taken just as much care of me when I've been sick. It's not all one-sided. No. No, I don't want anyone vetting him. No one needs to vet anything. He's judged enough." He was brushing Michelangelo down now, but his last words were firm. He didn't want any of his friends interrogating Shannon about his intentions. Shannon didn't have to prove himself to anyone. He stopped the brushing abruptly though and he looked over Michelangelo's nose at Garrett. "You brought the drugs to the party? They were your drugs?"

[texasbadboy]

"Oh," Garrett said, not wanting to come off like it bothered him that Shannon was disabled. It didn't. Like, at all. He just felt weird for not having noticed in any of the photos from Fin's Facebook. "Dude, what's it like having sex with someone in a wheelchair? I'm not asking that to be a dick... I just... I know you weren't a virgin before you left here, but I wanna understand your relationship now. I mean, this ain't like your friends you ended up just sleeping with because you were horny. You two look real happy together, Finnie." He smiled as Fin talked about Gypsy and how much he loved her. She sounded like a fantastic horse, and any horse was a horse that deserved love and affection in Fin's book. And Gypsy clearly gave it right back to him. She was beautiful. "He sounds amazing, dude. And so does your girl. She's stunning, buddy. I'm glad your dad turned out to not be a dicksplash, though. Because I've seen pictures of him, too, and that dude's huge. I wasn't sure how I was gonna kick his ass if I needed to." Garrett flushed with anger at the explanation of what the other kids had done to Fin. "Fuck, dude. I wish I'd been there with you. Those fuck faces never would've gotten away with fucking with you. I would've pounded them all into the pavement after school. Did they get suspended?"

The older boy took a deep breath and held it before letting it out in a long exhale. "Shit, dude. That's... that's fucking terrible. Thank fuck he even made it. Those must have been some pretty fucking fantastic doctors to be able to help him like they did. I ain't gonna judge him, Finnie. I swear. Least of all for bein' disabled. If he looks after you and cares about you, that's all I need to know... I mean, that and I'd like to get to know him myself, but if he makes you happy, dude, I'm nobody to question it. It ain't exactly like I've got much of a love life goin' on to speak of anyway. Sex life, sure, but not love." He nodded slowly, the shame plain to see on his face. "Yeah. I did. And I should've spoken right up when it happened, but I was scared... I didn't know what to do. I should've told, dude. I'm so sorry."

[truthrunswild]

Fin stopped where he was buckling Michelangelo's blanket and gave Garrett one hell of a side-eye look. "Magical Inspector Gadget dick. it grows about ten foot and slides right in my ass," he offered, smirking. He hadn't been that much not a virgin when he left Arkansas. It had only been a couple of months before he left that he lost his virginity, so he was hardly a residence manslut. There had been a thing with Skylar and Cooper when he got there, when they thought Fin easily pulled with a guy in a diner. It had been a bit of a hook-up, but it was only a blow job and Fin never called him back. It had been more being annoyed at everything that caused him to do it, just trying to find people who had similar interests to him. This guy worked with animals, Fin thought that was cool. Then there had been Noah. That had been something different, for different reasons. Still more searching. Fin hadn't been overly sexually active, but enough to know what he liked, and enough to guide Shannon with sex. They were learning a lot off each other too. "How do you think we do it? And no, they got arrested. Dad knows this scary-assed Irish cop that looks like he's in the Irish Mafia but he's high up in the ranks. Covered in tats, looks like he'll beat the shit out of you if you breath wrong. They all got expelled and the ring leader got arrested for assault."

"He's sensitive about stuff. Not to the point he wants folk walking on eggshells around him, but you don't just suddenly wake up okay after going through that stuff and knowing you're different to everyone all of a sudden. I get it, I know the whole pissing contest where people want to threaten to beat the shit out of my boyfriend if he treats me wrong. But seriously, y'all can keep in it your fucking pants and not flop it around to show anyone who's boss. Shannon's boss. Shannon's my boyfriend, and if anyone wants to get up in his grill threatening him not to hurt me, I'll bitch them the fuck out, and then some. I don't need anyone fighting my battles, I make the choice who I love and how I let them treat me." He was a bit on edge here because it was a hard blow to take hearing Garrett was the one who brought the drugs to the party. "Why the hell that party, though? I told you, leave me outta that stuff you do. That's not me, it's you. You do your shit, I do mine. That got me sent away. Everyone thought I was a druggie."