Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

* * * * *

Hand in hand the lovers snaked, back and forth through unending trials of temptation.

Impulse purchases. (What else?) Rows and rows of them, spanning the way to the hardware store checkout counter. Most of them things that seemed to belong anywhere but a hardware store—roasted nuts and novelty toys. Local jam.

That one made James chuckle to himself.

Tempting who, he wondered. Rubes, maybe. Not him. Maybe some of that beef jerky, if he’d been alone. But Juliet was there, and so his resolve was easily fortified.

The front of the store was empty, apart from the two of them. (Well, the two of them plus the white-haired clerk who owned the place, and his hundred-and-twenty-pound Labrador—snoozing by the door as usual. He had to count for double.) Without a creeping, crawling line to twiddle their thumbs in, the sharp turns they made at each end felt almost melodramatic.

James frowned, and wondered why they didn’t have a direct-to-register route they opened at times like this—mid-morning on a weekday, when the number of people on the whole premises likely didn’t exceed a dozen.

Everyone had to be forced to march past the impulse purchases, he guessed. Had to make an extra buck one way or another.

Even still, running errands at mid-morning on a weekday had to be one of the better perks of double-unemployment. No crowds at the grocery store, no close-of-business rush at the bank. Perhaps bested only by the ability to fuck anytime.

All it’d cost him was a plane crash. No biggie, when he’d walked away with barely a scratch on him.

So the story went. True, technically, if you ignored all that followed—the sepsis and the cages and the kneeling in the mud. The times he put a palm flat against his chest, searching for a phantom wound. Hurtling through time like a bug dodging windshields on the highway.

Sometimes he wished he could buy the official story, too. Put everything that came afterwards in a jar that he sealed up tight and set back on a high shelf in the pantry. But he didn’t dare. 

There was too much sunshine peeking out from the real story—all the best moments of his life so far. Even losing one or two by mistakenly casting them away with the bathwater would be a devastating hit.

Especially now, when he knew what it felt like to face the idea of all his best moments being behind him.

Hopefully, the next time he faced that idea would come when he lay on his own deathbed.

His thoughts moved easily and graciously to Juliet’s hand in his, how warm it was. He used to tease her about her cold hands—calling it ‘playing doctor’ when they slipped beneath his shirt.

“You know I’m not a doctor anymore, right?”

“Well, yeah, Blondie—that’s why I said ‘playin’.’”

Murmured in a devilish thrum, and it always worked like a charm. (Well, almost always.)

That was before, though. Before he’d clutched her lolling form as he tore his way through the jungle, tearing apart inside all the while. Before her hand had grasped feebly for his—a quick, almost reflexive gesture James didn’t think he’d ever have the guts to ask whether she remembered.

Icy it’d felt. The hand of a ghost. And he’d been damn, dead sure that they were too late.

Now, every time she touched him, it was like being set on fire.

At their second-to-last turn, Juliet leaned into the melodrama. Marching up to the bend and rotating stiffly on her heels, as if in a military formation. She put on an expression to match—firm set in her brow, mouth pressed in a line.

Then she got bested by one of the final trials remaining between them and the register, and an open-mouth grin broke through all the gravity she’d hardened into her face.

“Look!” she hissed near a whisper. Like her treasure was some big secret, instead of one of a dozen pairs of canvas gloves in a distinctively ugly avocado green.

Funny how such a small thing could transport him halfway across the world, back through the decades. To the community garden beds Amy had lobbied Horace to get built in… oh, what was it? Summer of seventy-five? Who could remember that far back? James chuckled to himself again.

Juliet held them up like trophy. “They’re exactly the same, just no Dharma insignia. I can’t believe they still make them in this color.”

On instinct James’ neck got hot, and his head snapped toward the clerk.

“Oh, relax.” She rolled her eyes, and snatched a pair from the hook to set on the counter. Then she tilted her head back to smile proudly in his direction. “I’m gonna start a garden.”

“Sounds great, Blondie,” he replied absent-mindedly, setting the basket beside them. He flicked bills from his wallet while the clerk scanned and packed everything, then muttered a quick thank you as he crinkled the plastic bag in his grip.

The sliding doors opened to a blue and brilliant day, where the sun’s very rays felt imbibed with hope. They smattered like glitter in the tiny curls framing Juliet’s crown, and made her lift a hand to her brow as a shield.

“Did you know the word ‘versus’ comes from the Latin word for ‘turn?’” she asked, squinting at him.

“Usually a safe bet I dunno a thing when it comes to Latin.”

If her eyes weren’t squinted so tightly, she might’ve rolled them. Instead, she scoffed, and swung their hands back and forth between them like a pendulum.

“Well, you might’ve been able to figure this one out. The root gets used everywhere—traverse, inverse, adversary… Anyway—they used to use the word specifically to refer to plowing, like the turns you make to till a field.”

They reached the car, and James stuck beside Juliet all the way to the passenger door, lightly tapping the handle to check how hot the paint had gotten during the brief period they’d been inside.

Really fucking hot. Why the hell had he gotten a black car, again? More importantly, why the hell had it gotten up to eighty-five degrees before noon? Not even July yet.

He grimaced as he threw it open as quickly as possible, then jogged around to the driver’s side.

They groaned in unison when they got cloaked in the oven of heat inside, and the backs of their thighs slid slick against the leather seats.

“I just think it’s funny,” Juliet continued as they pulled onto the road, fanning her face with her hand. “It’s like an acknowledgment that the act of farming is an inherent conflict. Which it is, when you think about it. You’re manipulating the earth for your own needs. That’s bound to cause problems.”

James turned to look at her, glad the road wasn’t too busy. Hard to take his eyes away once they’d landed. He nodded eagerly, prompting her to continue.

“It’s also really funny to think about how every court case makes a direct reference to agriculture.”

She was wide-eyed, a cautious smile teasing the corners of her mouth. The ugly green gloves she’d removed from the bag and nestled in her lap, like she hadn’t been able to wait to get home to look at them again.

“Well, what does that make you, Persephone? You the judge?”

She snorted. “I think I’m more like a defendant who got in way over their head. But we’ll see.”

“Your bed with Amy turned out pretty nice.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, as she angled away to gaze out the window. She tightened her grip on one of the gloves, pinching at the rubber-padded underside. A muscle in her jaw twitched. “She did most of the work, though.”

He nodded again, but Juliet didn’t see. So she didn’t continue.

* * * * *

James loved Juliet, and he loved her plan. He loved the big, floppy hat she wore when she came out after lunch, two gloved fists on her hips while she surveyed the grassy area they’d agreed got the most sun.

But the problem she was sure to encounter became clear to him within a minute or two, and he watched with amusement as she stumbled around the edges of it.

Finally she stopped short, and faced him. Hands falling from her hips dejectedly.

“I need supplies.”

The smile creeping on James’ face couldn’t be tempered. “What, your magic green gloves ain’t enough?”

She made a face at him at first, but her smile couldn’t be tempered, either.

He went back to reading, and Juliet made another trip to the hardware store. Within the hour, the distance between the driveway and the designated garden zone got strewn with a breadcrumb trail of all she’d acquired.

Big bags of soil and mulch stacked into lopsided piles, seed packets that she’d tucked too loosely under her arms and had thus fluttered to the ground. Then as well, several shovels and hoes she’d dropped and left upturned at hazardous angles. Their spikes and sharp edges faced skyward, like a fence around a castle meant to impale intruders.

Those tools caught and held James’ attention, and he couldn’t help addressing them once Juliet had gone out of sight. But she was too quick for him, and trotted back shouting protests while he was carrying a rake on his shoulder to prop against the wall.

“I don’t want any help!” she insisted as she grabbed it from him roughly. “You do everything for me—go read.”

“Seem to recall you changin’ the oil all by yourself last week,” he said with a raise of his eyebrow, reaching to take the rake back just a moment after she yanked it away.

Deep down, though, he knew she was right. Vehicle maintenance was merely the exception that proved the rule, since every time he tried to do anything more than pump gas—even put air in the tires—something went terribly wrong, like the car could smell his fear.

But he cooked, he cleaned, he fixed things when they were broken. He tugged Juliet back when she stepped close to the street, and lifted heavy things so she wouldn’t have to. He trailed behind her to switch off stove burners and appliances, and forged ahead of her to move any obstacles that threatened her balance or a knock upside the head.

She didn’t like it; of course she didn’t like it. He was about an inch away from testing her food to make sure it wasn’t too hot. He would hate it, if their positions were reversed. And it’d be a lie to say he hadn’t noticed she didn’t like it. That he hadn’t caught the frustrated scowl on her face when he’d opened the car door for her back at the hardware store.

The argument he’d preemptively mounted in his head for this day—the day she inevitably called him out—was pure bullshit. It had nothing to do with chivalry, and he knew it. Nothing to do with her, even. All about him, and his selfish desire to never be left by her again. To never witness her experiencing any pain or hardship again.

So he let the argument float away. Maybe she wanted a hardship. Maybe she needed a hardship. Gardening wasn’t exactly an extreme sport, anyway—impaling rakes and shovels notwithstanding. At least he’d managed to get all of those but the rake upright before he’d been caught. Hopefully, they’d stay that way.

“Alright,” he said, throwing his hands up in surrender before he dropped back into the lawn chair and lifted his book from the ground. He shook the grass off it, watched a few gnats escape from the inner ridge of the spine. “S’all yours.”

For a long moment she stared at him with narrowed eyes and the rake grasped tightly in her hand, almost like a weapon. Then she gave a slow, suspicious nod, and set it gently to rest beside the other tools against the wall.

He stayed in place with the book open, but it was difficult to tear his eyes away from Juliet for longer than a few seconds. She grunted as she dragged back the heavy bags one by one and clawed them open with her nails, magic green gloves flung over her shoulder.

Once it was all laid out before her like a loamy canvas, she sowed several rows of seeds, then dug wells for the small starts she’d bought pre-sprouted.

The brim of her hat obscured her face as she knelt there, scooping dirt into the wells with the gloves back on her hands. With the last one finished, she rocked back on her heels and looked up.

“Different than my plot with Amy,” she said, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead. “Less colorful. But it looks okay.”

“It looks great,” James insisted. And it did—like something out of a storybook. Teeming with potential. “We ain’t exactly in a tropical climate anymore.”

She hummed. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll plant some flowers, too.”

“Better wait to see how much everythin’ grows,” he cautioned. “Don’t wanna run out of room.”

Her eyes widened, like the idea of running out of room excited her. And for a moment James could feel it, too—the promise of Juliet with a real trophy to show off. Plump, juicy tomatoes that begged to be eaten like apples. Bouquets of lettuce she could cradle in her arms. Something she’d grown with her own two hands, something that was all hers.

It didn’t matter to him that she wasn’t working—they had money to spare and then some. But he knew it mattered to her. She’d tried, twice. Once at a clinic, and once at a lab. Physically she was up to the task. (Clearly up to it, based on the fortitude with which she’d dragged all those bags of dirt around the yard and brandished that rake at him.)

Something about the environment made her freeze up, though. Panic, if she tried to keep pushing through. She didn’t want to talk about it, so they didn’t.

On the days she didn’t spend with Rachel and Julian, she passed most of her time in the study, poring over journals with a red pen in hand. Lots of research to catch up on after six years away, James figured—and doubly so, if she wasn’t working.

He’d linger conspicuously each time he passed the open door, just to drink in the wonder of Juliet deep in thought with her pen-free hand knotted in her hair. Curls draping down, obscuring whatever experiment she was hunched over and muttering along with. Making James feel so grateful it nearly knocked him off his feet.

More balance-stealing gratitude, as she grinned at him while she collected up her tools and scraps. Good thing he was sitting down. Good thing, since once she’d put everything away she came up behind him, placing her green gloved hands on his shoulders.

The dirt they’d taken on shook down his t-shirt, but he didn’t care. That’s what the laundry was for. That’s what the shower was for. He tipped his head back, and it took a few tries for Juliet to get her kiss past the brim of her hat.

He shut his book so he could reach back and grab her by the hip. Giving her a pinch that made her smile again.

“It’s gonna be a good summer,” she mused.

Her breath tickled warmly across his open mouth. And James knew she was right.