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The Little Wood cottage is a cosy and quaint farm at the edge of the little wood after which it was named. Martyn has lived here all his life, inheriting the farm after his parents decided to move to a busier city five years ago. It would have been a chore to any other young boy but Martyn, it turns out, loves farming.
He enjoys taking his time to water his crops. He enjoys the back breaking task of gathering wheat with his scythe. He enjoys the labours of hoeing the land, planting the seeds, getting his hands grimy.
He loves to sit on the front porch with a warm tea, early in the morning, and watch the sun give a golden hue to the wheat field.
Today is harvest day. Martyn starts as early as he can, which is not that early, because he has to tend to the chickens first. Mihawk has been kinda feisty recently so he needs to make sure the coop is back to its original state. Can't have all his best (and only) chickens picking fights. They are his pride and joy, the lot of them. Martyn sells the eggs at the town market to get a little cash.
The little bit of farmland Martyn has is mostly for wheat, which provides him with regular amounts of hay for the chickens, and the rest to sell. He sometimes keeps a little for flour but his mill is pretty rudimentary. On the left side of his field, he grows a few vegetables and berries, mostly for his own consumption. And some mighty jams.
After checking on the chickens at the break of dawn and enjoying his morning cup of tea, he sets off to the shed to pick up his scythe.
It's a pretty normal scythe, but Martyn loves it most because it's enchanted. It wears down less easily and works better than any regular scythe.
Wheat harvesting is both boring and difficult. It involves a lot of swinging, bending down and picking up. By midday, Martyn is already drenched in sweat. The bright summer sun also doesn't help.
He sheds his cotton shirt and ties it to a post before resuming. The straw hat will have to stay if Martyn doesn't want to get sunstroke.
Martyn is almost done by the time the wagon arrives. He hears it coming from a mile away. Barely anyone passes through the road by Martyn's cottage, instead favouring a quickest route to the town. Except Ren's Enchanting Emporium.
Colloquially dubbed as Renchanting by Martyn, it belongs to a wandering merchant who goes from town to town to sell his enchantments. A simple wagon with an open window but lovingly decorated.
Martyn hears it pull up beside the fenced farmland. He doesn't look up just yet. Just readjusts his hat, cuts down the last wheat. Can’t look too excited to see Ren. He is, but, Ren doesn’t need to know that. Martyn waits until Ren is in the middle of the road to look up.
Ren is sat at the front, both hands on the reins as he guides the horse to a stop. The wagon’s colour has not faded, probably due to enchantments, and it looks as lovely as it always does.
'Martyn of the Little Wood,' Ren calls enthusiastically.
Martyn waves at him.
Ren is, as he always is, the most jovial person Martyn has ever met. His dog tail wags behind him and his fluffy ears are perked up. He's wearing a flannel shirt, like he somehow always is.
Martyn sets his scythe down and jogs up to meet Ren at the fence.
Ren has dismounted from his horse and tied it to a post. He leans against the fence and Martyn doesn't miss the way his eyes linger on Martyn's chest for a bit too long.
Martyn's shoulders are tanned from the sun and he knows he has pretty strong biceps. His belly is soft and the blond happy trail shines golden when the light hits it just right. Not that Martyn is trying to flaunt his best assets or anything.
‘Quite the seedage you’ve got here,’ Ren says while nodding at the field approvingly.
Martyn likes when Ren tries to pretend he knows what he’s talking about. Ren wouldn’t know a backhoe from a shovel if it hit him in the face.
‘Hmh,’ Martyn nods sagely, ‘Quite the seedage indeed, mi’lord.’
Ren smiles, shaking his head slightly. The first time Ren came by, Martyn heard the wagon coming up along the road and called out to ‘whatever king got lost on his midday stroll, you can get lost the other way’. Ren refused to answer anything but royal titles for the first three times he was in town. Now, the nicknames have stuck.
‘How’s the hoe treating you, Martyn?’
Martyn gives a look over his shoulder at his scythe.
‘The hoe is hoeing greatly. It’s a scythe. Thanks for the enchants, though. It’s the best.’
Ren runs a sheepish hand on the back of his neck but smiles brightly nonetheless.
Martyn grabs his shirt on the post and puts it back on—or at least tries to, because he forgets he’s also wearing a straw hat. After struggling for ten seconds to get his shirt collar past the brim of the hat, he resolves himself to look like a beekeeper.
Ren puts a hand on Martyn’s shoulder to beckon him closer to the fence he’s resorted to climbing on and starts gently tugging the shirt past the brim. Finally, the shirt falls and Martyn can see again.
Ren looks slightly flushed, his eyes blinking quickly behind his sunglasses. His lips are slightly parted, almost in a daze. He looks beautiful.
Martyn squashes the thought.
‘What are these?’ Ren asks, pointing at a pile of scrap metal by the fence gate.
‘Those are sprinklers that I’ve been scammed into buying.’
He is still pissy about it. This will be the last time he buys anything from Scar Goodtimes.
‘Oh,’ Ren says intriguingly. ‘Do they not work?’
‘Oh, they work.’ Martyn crosses his arms, looking disapprovingly at the pile of sprinklers. ‘They’re just proper rubbish. They don’t hold a lot of water and they spray everywhere except where they should.’
As Martyn picks up a sprinkler to toss it meagerly back in the pile to express his discontentment, he notices a thin purple shine to them.
‘Ren. What did you do?’
‘What I do best,’ Ren smiles proudly. ‘Aqua Affinity.’
‘You mean, infinity?’
Ren stills.
‘Uh. Hmh. Yes, I meant infinity. That’s not the enchant. The enchant is affinity. I’m stupid.’
Martyn starts cackling before he can stop himself.
‘What does it do, then?’
Ren looks sadly at the ground.
‘It, uh, it works better under water now.’
Martyn tries to stifle his laughter under a cough.
‘Can I get you anything to drink, my liege?’
‘Oh,’ Ren exclaims, as if suddenly jolted by the promise of a beverage. ‘I would love that.’
‘Follow me into my humble abode, then,’ Martyn says, holding the gate open for Ren.
As Martyn heads to his cellar to find a bottle of homemade juice, Ren gives little shy looks around Martyn’s cottage. Martyn downs the stairs to the cellar two-by-two, eager to get back up and just look at Ren be in his space. He’s seeing his house through Ren’s eyes. The rickety old sofa, the weathered wooden table, the lattice windows. Martyn’s heart and soul. And Ren standing in the middle of it.
Except, when Martyn comes back up, Ren is nowhere to be seen. Martyn shoots a look through the window but the courtyard is empty. He puts the bottle on the table, ready to investigate.
‘Who’s this guy?’ Ren calls from the kitchen.
Martyn pops his head through the door to discover that one of his chickens has somehow broken in. Little rascals, all of them. He picks up the lucky burglar and holds him towards Ren, encouraging pets.
‘This is Cavendish, but I call him Cabbage.’
‘Cabbage?’ Ren laughs, lifting his hand to pet Cabbage. ‘How come?’
‘Long story involving a broken coop, my garden and twelve poor vegetables.’
Martyn opens the back door of the kitchen and lets Ren follow him to the coop.
‘Wow,’ Ren whistles, ‘that’s beautiful work. Love the heart shaped window. Did you make it?’
‘The coop? Nah, it was a friend. Got a timber shop on the road out of town.’
‘Was it Keralis?’ Ren asks, bubbling with both excitement and jealousy.
‘Uh, no? It’s a guy called Sausage.’
‘Sausage? Like the…?’
‘Yeah. I think it’s a nickname?’
Martyn shrugs and opens the lock to the run to deposit Cabbage.
‘How many do you have?’ Ren asks, peering into the coop.
‘Four,’ Martyn says, opening the hatch to show Ren his little guys. ‘This one, sleeping with his head in the hay, is Barto. This one, with the black streaks, is Mihawk. And that’s Doflamingo.’
‘Doflamingo? But he’s a chicken. Shouldn’t he be Dochicken?’
‘Hey dude,’ Martyn laughs, ‘don’t come all up in my groove renaming my chickens. Plus, there’s a story behind that name, too.’
Ren looks at him inquisitively.
‘Nah,’ Martyn says, ‘that’s a tale for another time. You’ll just have to come back.’
There’s not even a story. Martyn wishes he could Sheherazade Ren into staying longer.
‘Guess I will,’ Ren replies with a soft smile.
They drink the cool glasses of juice on Martyn’s porch. The bench there is small and shaky, and Martyn is trying hard to focus on something else than Ren’s thigh against his.
‘Are you leaving soon?’ Martyn asks, eyes on the tree line.
‘I’ll be in town for a few days.’
Martyn hums.
‘Staying anywhere?’
‘Lucky Bird Inn.’
Timmy’s. He’s more of an unlucky guy, if you ask Martyn. But Timmy will tell anyone willing to listen about the time he was mining and a canary saved his life.
The Inn is still a few hours away, in between Martyn’s cottage and the nearest town. It’s a long trip from Little Wood to anywhere and the day isn’t getting shorter. Most likely, Ren will have to do a bit of the journey in the dark.
‘Stay here tonight,’ Martyn offers before he even realises what he’s saying.
Ren turns to look at him and Martyn meets his eyes.
‘Stay here tonight,’ he repeats. ‘It’s a long journey to Jimmy’s and—’
‘Okay.’
Martyn blinks, surprised.
‘What?’
‘Okay,’ Ren repeats softly.
They watch the evening go, as Ren shares stories about customers and adventures on the road. Martyn, in turn, shares chicken misadventures. Before long, night rolls out and they have to go in. They take the time to unburden Ren’s horse and park the wagon.
Martyn spares one quick thought about the wheat he left on the ground when Ren arrived and saves the task for tomorrow. Tomorrow-Martyn will hate yesterday-Martyn, but today-Martyn only cares about one thing. There is a gorgeous man in his house and he needs to feed him.
They grab a quick supper and continue trading stories until Martyn starts yawning a little too often and Ren forces him to get up and get ready for bed before he ‘drops in his bowl’.
It’s only as Martyn washes off his face that he realises a crucial detail. He has only one bed. And the sofa is definitely too small to fit a man as tall as Ren.
‘Wow dude,’ Ren says cheekily when Martyn breaks the news to him, ‘if you wanted to sleep and cuddle with me, you could have said so.’
Martyn cocks his head.
‘Oh, I wanted to ask you out for dinner first.’
Ren flusters and Martyn can’t help a little chuckle. Ren is a very dramatic person and a flirtatious one. It’s funny to see him getting caught at his own game.
‘Well, we already had dinner, so…’
‘So you can just get in my bed,’ Martyn finishes when Ren trails off.
‘If you want me to,’ Ren says, even though there is no other option, really.
But Martyn wants to.
Martyn’s grandfather, from whom he inherited the room, used to have a very large bed and Martyn downsized a little when his parents left. Didn’t need that much room for him by his lonesome. But now, he kinda wishes he hadn’t because Ren is very close and Martyn’s brain is not sure how to handle that.
His bed creaks an awful lot every time he turns or shuffles so he tries not to move too much, as to not disturb Ren. Their arms are touching and that’s enough to send Martyn into overdrive.
If he moves too much, the shitty mattress will dip and Martyn will just roll into Ren. So instead he grips the edge of the bed and tells himself he can perfectly fall asleep with every muscle clenched.
When he’s just about resigned himself to the most painful sleep possible, an arm lands on top of his chest and hooks on his arm.
‘You stupid idiot,’ Ren says, and pulls Martyn closer.
Martyn finds himself bracketed against Ren, his strong hand firm on his back. He doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s pretty sure he’s laying on his own arm and that can’t be good in the long run.
‘Will you just relax?’ Ren asks blarily. ‘Some of us are trying to sleep, sheesh. Joking. But it does feel like lying next to a dead body.’
Martyn can’t help a nervous laugh. His shoulders shake silently and Ren starts laughing as well. Before long, every single shake from Ren’s laughter just makes Martyn laugh harder and they’re giggling like children. Martyn can feel Ren’s deep laughter in vibrations where Ren’s stomach is pressed against Martyn’s arm.
They eventually have to separate to calm themselves because at this rate, one of them will pop a blood vessel from laughing too hard. Martyn lays on his back, trying to take small breaths in between giggles. Ren does the same beside him, one hand on his chest and the other against Martyn’s.
Eventually, Ren takes his eyes off the ceiling and turns his head towards Martyn. Martyn wants to pretend his breath doesn’t catch in his throat when he sees the way Ren is looking at him. Soft eyes and quiet smile illuminated by the moon’s glow.
‘I like you an awful lot, Martyn of the Little Wood.’
Martyn can feel his entire face burn up. He hides his face in the crook of Ren’s neck.
‘I like you an awful lot, too,’ he says, more to Ren’s shirt than anything.
Ren’s hand tucks a stray piece of hair back behind Martyn’s ear and settles on the nape of his neck. Oh dear, if Ren starts playing with the little hair at the back of his neck, Martyn’s not sure how his body is going to react, but he’s pretty certain it will be very embarrassing.
Ren does nothing of the sort. He just lets it lay there, present and warm. Martyn’s body finds itself lying against Ren’s and they just stay there. Before long, Ren’s breathing evens out. Martyn listens to him just existing. In Martyn’s space. In his bed, against his skin.
‘Thank you,’ Martyn whispers in the crook of Ren’s neck.
Ren mumbles back sleepily. Martyn’s not even sure he heard him properly.
Thank you, Martyn thinks again. Without Ren, Martyn would have never gotten so far. All the enchanted tools, the fixed appliances, the little helps. All because Ren was too stubborn to ask for directions and wandered by. A prosperous farm.
In the morning, he’ll teach Ren to plant strawberries. Teach him the right way to plough the ground, to water it, to shelter it. He’ll carry Ren’s grimy hands and wash them gently in the outdoor basin. They’ll part with a promise of ‘see you soon’.
But tonight, he is lying next to a beautiful man. And he likes him an awful lot.