Work Text:
Dating Troy Otto Includes:
1.)Pulling your weight: learning to farm, mending the ranch
If there’s one thing that matters more than anything to Troy, and he takes a lot of things seriously, it’s pulling your weight. Not just around the ranch, but in general. He works hard, lives for the place, and if I want to impress him (I do) I have to do these things without being asked, or, in his opinion, it probably won’t count.
So I start training my internal clock. I get up earlier and earlier. I observe. I sneak a peak at some of his charts and to-do lists and a couple of old journals I find tucked under his mattress. All turn out to be incredibly informative. (He doesn’t porn under there- yes I checked, but surprisingly enough he just has farmer’s almanac, no porn. Full of surprises he is. That’s certainly something you need to know about the men you date)
I’ve never done anything like this a day in my life, but I want to do it right. I start with something I have experience in. Dad taught me a thing or two about basic building construction and I apply that to mending a few spots on the fences in the garden when he’s halfway across the property dividing his time (I still don’t know how he does it).
After that I try my hand at helping with the harvesting and seeding of the gardens. It really is amazing when you take a look at all the little things that come together to make a place truly self-sustaining.
Maybe that’s what keeps him going. The sense of pride. He’s always seemed to live and breathe for this place, and love it. There’s definitely reasons not to. And I think he knows that. But maybe this is how he does it. And he deserves a little hand once in a while but has a hard time ever taking that- if he catches you at it. Wouldn’t matter if his life was on the line or the cabbage needed to be harvested- he loves someone taking initiative but he has a hard time asking for help or acting like he even wants it. He’s a complicated guy. One of the things that keeps me coming back is that fact.
2.) Getting into his hobbies, no matter how macabre they might be...at least not being judgemental: This includes his enjoyment of hunting walkers, as well as wild animals, his insatiable thirst for science..steering him on the right path, away from the “lab” type things
The way he hunts them is kind of a lot to witness. There’s skill, which is amazing and comes naturally. And then there’s the way he feels about it; which is kind of scary (depending on who you are) and kind of sexy (if you’re me). He may have been a virgin when we met but the look on his face is pretty much orgasmic- and I’ve seen this show before we started screwing.
By the way, it’s more than that to me now. But I don’t make love- and I think he’d kill me or make me an experiment if he did catch me saying it.
Speaking of experiments. Troy grew up sheltered, kind of tortured, and had his intelligence underestimated because of his ‘problems’. And as disturbing as I found it, god help me, I get it. I get it but I’ve encouraged him and been pretty successful actually- in steering him away from the ‘lab’ into other scientific endeavors. Healthy, and safer ones.
We’re both voracious readers so I don’t mind the time spent, or that sometimes the subject is human- because it’s usually me and it’s usually during sexy times. Another thing you have to get used to dating Troy Otto. He takes a lot of notes. And lying still while he takes an hour and a half while he details the intricacies of giving a blow job- what works, what doesn’t, what makes me beg for more...it’s a challenge but I’ll take it any day.
It’s certainly more fun than all the time lost (and very rational) fears I had to put aside, learning everything about all the guns and other weapons of the trade. Those are less fun- to me anyway. Again, to him, he has practically orgasmic feelings about the proper use of them.
But it’s a fair trade considering that sometimes his studies are just as much for me as for him.
3.) Addressing his virginity/1st time sex without making a big deal out of it, because perceived manhood is a big thing to Troy, his dad is kinda rough on him:
In the true fashion of the Otto family, he doesn’t open up emotionally. Almost never. That somehow included him not telling me he was a virgin before the first time we fucked. To be honest, it was actually more like three times before he said anything. And I had to ask.
I don’t know what pushed me to do it, what little thing tipped me off, but I asked him flat out if he’d been a virgin. The little smartass said, well, we’d fucked three times now so no, earlier tonight he had not in fact been a virgin.
But before...I’d pressed.
He’d stared me dead in the eyes and said, yeah, so?
Really so *nothing* at all I just thought I should’ve known. The fact that I didn’t weighed a bit heavily on me because, let’s face it, doesn’t everyone want their first time to mean something? Or is that one of those things society programs into us?
And just as I was thinking that he mentioned much the same. An expert study of people he certainly was, but sometimes I wondered if he actually could read my mind.
Socially inept he may be, but an expert study of people. And I pride myself on knowing him well enough to now that the proper course of action was to squeeze in with his naked sweaty body and act like we had the last two times. Cuddle in and enjoy the after, because ‘talking about it’ or making too big a deal would not be wise.
His father hadn’t been easy on him. ‘Perceived masculinity’ may as well be the Otto family motto, because being too sensitive about it might send him into that same frozen kind of state I’d seen a few times when Jeremiah had ‘joked’ about his masculinity. And then either Troy backed down or a hand was raised. He was taught this was how people would react to him being ‘weak’ (read, in touch with his feelings), and while that wasn’t the way I was raised, I have to tread lightly.
Eventually, we’ll work towards it, but walking on eggshells is my motto for the moment.
4.) If he does cry in front of you, be supportive...but mostly quiet, he’s certainly not a do-nothing crybaby:
It barely comes to the surface, even after his dad dies, that Troy sheds a tear. He’s extremely protective of his inner thoughts and emotions, and that forum in particular is the last place he wants to let loose.
Not me, I cry like a baby at the littlest thing and have always felt like it helped more than hurt. Again, I have to say that’s because no one ever punished me for it.
Even when I notice a silent tear fall, him turn away and wipe it with his sleeve, I know better than to say much. Or even do more than stand there still and silent, not crying like I want to because, think about the strongest person you know and how you felt the last time you saw them cry? What would you do?
Well, I can’t, because that’s not what he needs. And I know, that he IS sensitive. He tries like hell to push that down and feels weak because he can’t. But I know it. Jake knows it. Unfortunately, so did Jeremiah. And he railed into him at every chance for it.
It may have seemed like I killed him for what he said about my mom, but that’s not entirely true.
I just hope as he and Jake drag the body away to bury it, if it comes up, Jake will know what he needs and support him. Because the older brother may have hated his father, but in spite of everything Troy had tried to love him.
5.) Getting along with Jake, because he’s Troy’s hero: (this part is post ranch, and Jake survived Brother’s Keeper)
Apparently, Jake makes a mean chicken soup.
Also, no matter the malady, he makes fucking chicken soup. And sits in bed with Troy, reading to him and, more often than not, actually spoon feeding him the ‘cure to everything’.
While he’d been cooking he’d actually slapped Alicia’s hand with a wooden spoon. My sister who I’m fiercely protective of and Jake’s own girlfriend had been told in no uncertain terms to ‘NOT TOUCH my brother’s food’ as he buzzed around the kitchen and gently stirred a huge pot he’d completely made by hand- including butchering the damn chicken.
In a few hours he’s coming in without so much as a knock, to our bedroom where we could’ve been doing anything (if Troy hadn’t been under the weather) and kicking me out of the bed.
By the way, Troy is the biggest complainer when sick. Probably because it rarely happens and, in his defense, getting a cold in the apocalypse could be fucking terrible. Still, he’s a pain in the ass so I almost don’t mind the harsh way Jake barks at me to get out of the way, his tone quickly turning gentle as he sets a steaming bowl of soup down and asks Troy what book he’d like to hear.
That’s right. He stays up all night with his slightly feverish baby brother. Feeding him soup and reading him whatever he demands.
The Otto brothers had teased that Alicia and I were ridiculously close for siblings. We had thought that was due to their stunted upbringing. At least we know they quietly adore eachother as much as the Clark siblings do.