Chapter Text
The grass looks greener on the other side.
Literally.
Wilson has never been someone who cared much about grass. He has never looked at a lawn and thought “wow, that is a particularly impressive shade of green”.
But standing in front of his new house, suitcase still in hand, he has to admit that the field on the other side of the fence is impressive.
Almost suspiciously so.
It is the kind of green that looks edited. Too bright, too even, too alive. The kind of grass that belongs in a gardening magazine where someone with suspiciously clean hands explains how they created their “perfect outdoor sanctuary.”
Meanwhile, Wilson’s yard looks like it lost a fight.
The grass is patchy and uneven, with dull yellow spots scattered across it and weeds growing wherever they have apparently decided they have the strongest chance of survival. One corner near the porch looks especially tragic, like it gave up years ago and has simply been waiting for someone to officially admit defeat.
Honestly, the whole place looks a little dead.
Which, Wilson supposes, is fair.
The farmhouse had been empty for years before he bought it. He knew that. It had been right there in the listing.
Needs renovation.
Quiet surroundings.
Words that had sounded completely reasonable when they were printed neatly on a screen.
What they had failed to mention was that “needs renovation” apparently meant “everything is falling apart and several parts of the building are being held together entirely by stubbornness.”
Wilson stands there for another moment, staring at the house.
Eventually, he will fix it.
Hopefully.
For now, though, he should probably focus on making sure the building itself does not collapse before he gets the chance.
The house is not impressive.
Not yet, anyway.
It is just… there.
The paint on the porch is peeling away in long strips, curling at the edges like the house is slowly trying to shed its own skin. The wooden steps creak every time he shifts his weight, despite the fact that he is barely putting any pressure on them, and there is a very uneven part of the roof that Wilson has decided not to look at too closely.
Some problems can wait.
Especially when those problems are located above his head.
Old wood. Faded paint. A place that clearly used to mean something to someone and now mostly means an expensive problem.
Wilson exhales, adjusting his bag on his shoulder.
“Okay,” he mutters. “I can work with this.”
It is a lie.
A comforting one, but a lie nonetheless.
He turns toward the front door, the gravel crunching beneath his shoes as he walks across the driveway. The sound feels strangely loud in the quiet.
That is probably the first thing he notices about this place.
The quiet.
There is no traffic passing in the distance. No neighbors talking through apartment walls. No constant hum of a city that never completely sleeps.
Just wind moving through the grass. Birds somewhere he cannot see. And the occasional creak of a house that seems unsure whether it wants him there.
Halfway through opening the front door, Wilson stops.
Something feels wrong.
Not dramatically wrong. Not someone-is-hiding-inside-waiting-to-murder-him wrong, but just enough that his brain catches up before the rest of him does.
The door is already open.
Not wide.
Not enough that he would have noticed immediately.
Just slightly.
Like someone had walked inside recently and forgotten to close it properly.
Wilson stares at it.
Then at the empty driveway.
Then back at the door.
“Nope.”
Because absolutely not.
He has seen enough horror movies to know how this works.
Nobody in a horror movie thinks they are about to make a terrible decision. They always think they are just checking something quickly.
And then they die.
He looks around again.
Nothing. No cars. No movement. No mysterious person standing nearby waiting for him to notice them.
Which somehow feels less reassuring.
Wilson grips the door handle and pushes it open further.
The hinges complain loudly.
“Great,” he says quietly. “Very welcoming.”
The smell hits him immediately.
Something faintly earthy, like rain that soaked into the walls years ago and never completely left.
Inside is colder than outside.
Wilson steps over the threshold carefully, his shoes landing against the wooden floorboards.
They creak beneath him.
The kitchen is the first room he checks.
The cabinets are old, painted a yellow that might have once been cheerful but now mostly resembles something someone chose during a questionable decade and then abandoned. The wallpaper has seen better days. There are at least three different shades of beige happening in one corner, and Wilson has no idea how that is possible.
He keeps walking.
The living room is somehow worse.
Dust covers almost every surface. The table looks like it might collapse if he puts anything heavier than a mug on it. The couch is old enough that Wilson briefly wonders if it came with the house.
There is a strange mark on the wall.
He looks at it, then immediately decides he does not want to know what it is.
Some mysteries are better left unsolved.
Upstairs does not improve.
The stairs make every step sound like a personal complaint. One bedroom smells like old wood and something else that Wilson chooses not to identify, and another has a hole in the ceiling that looks like it has a story behind it.
A story he does not want to hear.
By the time he finds the bathroom, he is almost impressed by how consistently disappointing the house manages to be.
The sink barely works.
The mirror has a crack running through one corner.
Wilson stares at his reflection.
He looks tired.
Which is fair.
He is tired.
“Great start,” he says.
…
Wilson only goes outside because he needs the bottle of water he left in his car.
It is supposed to be a simple thing.
He has already spent enough time inside the house trying to decide whether the strange smell in the hallway is something he should worry about now or something he can ignore until tomorrow, and he has decided that water is a reasonable enough excuse to stop pretending he is making progress.
The problem is that there is now a chicken sitting on his car.
Wilson stops halfway down the driveway.
For a moment, he simply looks at it.
The chicken looks back.
He glances around, mostly out of instinct. The driveway is empty, the road is quiet, and there is nobody nearby who looks like they are about to explain why a chicken has decided his car is a good place to sit.
He looks back at the chicken.
It has not moved.
“Okay,” he says quietly.
Not because he expects an answer.
Mostly because he is not sure what else he is supposed to do.
He had known there would be animals here. He had moved next to a farm. That part was obvious.
A chicken, however, had not been included in any of the things he had imagined when he pictured his new life.
He takes a few steps closer.
The chicken stays exactly where it is.
Wilson stops.
“Are you supposed to be here?”
The question sounds ridiculous as soon as he says it.
The chicken, unsurprisingly, does not respond.
Wilson sighs and looks toward the fence.
Maybe someone is missing a chicken.
That seems like the kind of thing people would notice.
Before he can decide what to do next, a voice comes from behind him.
“Don’t move!”
Wilson freezes.
He turns around.
Someone is crossing the grass toward him quickly.
Not running exactly, but close.
The guy looks like he belongs here in a way Wilson definitely does not yet. Dark jeans, worn work boots, and a flannel shirt that looks like it has actually been used for working rather than just worn because it looked nice.
When he reaches them, he slows down and looks at the chicken first.
Then at Wilson.
“Sorry,” he says, slightly out of breath. “She gets away sometimes.”
Wilson looks back at the chicken.
She remains completely uninterested in the situation.
“I figured.”
The guy smiles a little.
“She’s usually not this difficult.”
Wilson glances at the chicken again.
That is hard to believe, considering she is currently sitting on his car.
The guy notices where his attention goes and steps closer.
“Daisy.”
The chicken immediately looks toward him.
Wilson notices.
Not because it is surprising that the chicken recognizes her owner. Mostly because of how quickly she changes.
A moment ago, she had been completely ignoring him. Now she is paying attention.
The guy reaches out and picks her up easily. Daisy settles against him without any hesitation.
Wilson watches.
It is clear this is not the first time this has happened.
“Daisy?”
The guy looks at him.
“Her name.”
“Right.”
Wilson nods slightly.
The stranger adjusts the chicken in his arms, clearly far more used to this situation than Wilson is.
Wilson watches for a moment.
There is something strange about seeing someone handle a situation this ridiculous so calmly.
Like a chicken appearing in a neighbor’s yard is not an unusual event, just another thing that needs taking care of.
“Does she always do this?”
The guy looks down at his chicken.
“More often than she should.”
The chicken makes a quiet noise.
He looks at her.
“Yeah, I know.”
Wilson almost smiles.
Almost.
The guy turns back toward the farm, Daisy settled comfortably against him.
“I should get her back before she decides somewhere else belongs to her.”
The guy takes a few steps away before looking back.
“You’re probably going to see her again.”
“I hope not.”
The guy smiles.
“Yeah.”
A small pause.
“Probably will.”
And then he walks back toward the farm.
Wilson stays where he is for another moment, watching them disappear behind the fence.
He had expected moving here to be an adjustment.
He had expected the house to be difficult, the quiet to feel strange, and the distance from everything familiar to take some getting used to.
He had not expected a chicken to be the first thing that made this place feel less unfamiliar.
But somehow, standing there beside his car, it does.