Chapter Text
Amarillo, Texas
1934
Ren pulled the percolator from the stove top and filled his little tin cup with a dent in the side. He could not remember why it was he let his temper get the best of him and he threw the innocent item across the one room shack provided to him. It was probably over something silly; it was always over something silly.
The coffee was hot and strong, but Ren was not sure it would be enough to get him through another long day. Fourteen-hour shifts, working the gears in the run-down tractor, tossing hale bale after hay bale into the trucks. At night he would come home with just enough energy to shovel down a hearty meal and shower off the sweat and the filth of the day. He would collapse bone-weary into his big, wool stuffed bed and sleep the hard sleep of a farm hand before rising with the sun to start it all again.
Unless, of course, Armitage Hux got a hold of him.
“Are you going to eat something?” Ren felt strong arms grip his shoulders and give them a squeeze. He shuddered with pleasure as they began to work their way down his arms, kneading his sore muscles beneath his flannel shirt.
“I’m not hungry,” Ren said, his voice slow and weary.
He felt Hux’s nose run around the outer shell of his ear.
“I certainly worked up an appetite from last night…” Ren set down his cup and turned. He found himself being held in Hux’s arms, wanting to just melt into them.
“And I thought you were relentless before,” Ren moved an open palm into the small opening of Hux’s robe. There, he could feel the small swell of his belly. “Will it be like this with every child?”
“Greedy,” Hux scolded, pulling away, “you are lucky I agreed to this one.”
Ren knew he was. They were poor farm hands, scrapping every penny they could just to get by. Holding on to the dream that some day they might have a few acres of their own. Hux would always say ‘maybe’ to children; maybe, maybe, when things are better. When they didn’t have to work so much.
When a heat came, Ren would leave and stay with one of the other workers. They could not afford suppressants. It was bad enough they lost half their meager income keeping Hux at home as it was too dangerous to allow him to sweat out his scent in the field.
“Sun’s almost risen, you ought to get going,” said Hux. Ren leaned in a place a chaste kiss on his mate’s lips.
“I miss working with you,” he whispered.
His last heat came over a long, cold winter. Work was limited and the men found themselves with too much time on their hands. Heavy rains and hail kept them penned up together. Ren had always leaned on Hux to be the disciplined one; with money, food and their relations, but by January the hardened red-head had been completely worn down.
Hux would pant and wail, begging or relief. With Ren in such close quarters, unable to escape the overwhelming scent of his musk, Hux was constantly hot and pink and miserably slick. When Hux threatened to run out in a particularly violent hail storm, one so bad it threatened to tear their tin roof apart, Ren finally bedded his mate.
“I have work of my own here, there’s no end to your filthy shirts.” Hux’s words and knitted brow were in jest, but it still spurred a twinge of pain in Ren’s heart. He loved that his mate was carrying his child, some days it was the only thing that kept him pushing through the pain of field work. But Hux was so much more than a house wife. He was the strongest, most resilient person Ren had ever known. Even the other workers on the ranch regarded him with the upmost respect, despite him being both an Omega and a foreigner.
“Don’t work too hard,” Ren said, giving Hux’s belly another rub before heading out the door.
The day was bad as any. Thick clouds of red dust rose and choked the sky. The heat was unbearable, but Ren pushed on. He was a father now, and he and Hux would need a place of their own. Maybe, if they were lucky, they could go to California and buy a few acres near the ocean. It did not rain so much in California, and rain was the greatest bone of contention Hux had with his homeland; England.
Ren returned home to his shirts waving to him from the clothesline.
Inside, he found Hux was dressed in one of his own white button ups. At only four months, he could no longer properly tuck his tops in, his condition was now quite apparent.
“Dinner smells good,” Ren said.
“Glad you think so.”
He watched as Hux thoughtfully set their table, putting down plates and cups and brushing his hair behind his ears each time his head dipped to scrutinize his work.
“Pay day is tomorrow,” said Ren, “a few of the guys asked if we’d want to go into town with them to pick up some supplies. I thought maybe we could look for a few things for the baby.”
Hux paused his work and slowly looked up.
“I went up to Snoke’s house after you left.”
“What? Not,” Ren felt breathless at hearing the name of the cantankerous land owner, “not like that. We decided we weren’t going to tell him…not until-”
“He’s purchased six new mares, all for the purpose of breeding. I made an offer to buy one of the foals.”
“We can’t afford that.”
“What choice do we have?” Hux asked. “Ren, we have five months to start putting a life together. There is no time left to just sit and talk about what we want.”
“I just wish you had spoken to me about it beforehand.”
“You would have said no.” Ren sighed and scratched at the thick stubble on his cheek.
“Well…still, it’s both our money.”
“Trust me.”
Ren did trust him. One look into Hux’s cool blue-green eyes and he knew whatever Hux had decided would be best for them both.
Well, them three, really…
“Did he say anything about you being with child,” Ren asked. Hux smiled.
“Only that he was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.”
They ate their dinner and Ren went out back to shower. Hux collected his clothes from the line. It was their new routine.
“I’m going to have to learn how to mend,” Hux said, showing Ren the finger that could fit through the hole in his shirt.
“Let me help-”
“I worked those fields, I know how tired and sore they can make a man. Go lie down, Ren. I can handle a few shirts.”
Ren did not remember anything after that. He woke up feeling guilty with Hux curled up beside him. Those moments before sleep took him were the only time they were truly together, uninhibited by the difficulty of their small lives.
Eventually Hux stirred, his gold eyelashes fluttering in the light of the breaking dawn. Ren wondered if their child would have Hux’s fine features or be dark and hard like him.
“Morning,” Hux greeted dreamily. Ren kissed his nose.
“Morning.”
And they began again.
Some mornings Hux would wake up sick and Ren was forced to leave him bent over a small bucket. It killed him to do so, even as Hux assured him everything was fine. Ren would be moody and snap at his fellow workers. Mostly they were understanding, though many of them did not have a mate of their own. This just compounded Ren’s guilt and made his question what sort of father he was going to be.
“I could go back to my father’s rodeo,” he said one night over dinner. Hux was now at six months. The mares were roaming in Snoke’s private pen with the stud.
“No,” Hux said firmly, helping himself to another hearty ladle from the pot of pinto beans.
“It was good money, better than this anyway.”
“Too dangerous.” Ren had come to learn that the less words Hux used, the more concerned he was. It was not the nature of the work; Ren was a champion barrel racer. Rarely did he ever engage of bull riding, which was easily the most perilous of events.
Ren’s family did not approve of Hux. A poor immigrant, a bastard by his own admission.
“Mother will be more accepting now that you’re carrying my child.”
“Are you really so naive?”
“I am her only son, which means this baby is her only hope for grandchildren.” Hux did not respond. “We can get married.”
Hux set down his silverware.
“All of our savings went to buy a horse, what little else we can get will be for the baby-”
“Then I will go back to the rodeo. In a year we could have enough saved for a wedding and a home,” Ren paused, angling his head in a failed attempt the draw Hux’s attention, “another child.”
“It will never work.”
They finished dinner in silence.
That night as they laid in the, Ren felt a warm whisper fill his ear.
“Come here.”
Ren turned and Hux took his hand and guided it to his belly. “You feel that?”
Ren gasped as he felt a firm push back against the palm of his hand. And then another, and another…
“He’s so strong, or,” he smiled, “she, I guess. What do you think?” Hux shrugged.
“I haven’t thought about it. I don’t really care either way.”
“Me neither. We should think of names though.”
“I like Alice for a girl.”
“Alice is nice. And what if we have a boy?”
“Theodore, Theo for short.”
“Little Alice or Theo,” Ren rubbed his belly. “I can’t wait to meet you, whichever you are.”
“You need to be here when they come,” Hux eyes flitted up to meet Ren’s. “I have tried my best not to complicate our lives further, and I know working for Snoke is rough…”
Ren placed a small kiss in Hux’s hair.
“No rodeo,” he said, “we’ll make it work here.” Beneath the pops ad cracks of their shack settling, Ren could hear a few soft sniffling noises. “Everything’s going to be okay, as long as we stay together.”
“You and me against the word,” Hux’s voice broke, “what a way to start a family.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Me neither.”
The weight of the day became too much, and sleep pulled them away.
The sun rose the next day, just as it always had. Ren had his coffee, Hux came up behind him and rubbed his muscles. Another long shift, the other workers asking about how the Englishman was and how soon it would be until the baby came. Ren came home to his shirt waving to him. He smiled, noting how well mended they looked.
A dinner of beans and pork belly.
A shower.
Long conversations about their future as Ren moved his hand around Hux’s very active belly.
Come spring though their routine would change, and Ren would return to their humble home to see Hux stepping out under the clear Amarillo sky, little Theo in his arms. In the small pen behind their house, a dapple foal named Falcon trotted along on his spindly legs.
They still talked about California.