Chapter Text
The town where Annabelle Parker grew up was a small town. Most of the land was taken up by various livestock, save for the small cottages scattered across the gentle rolling hills. In the center of the small village was a town square with a few buildings, but mostly a collection of various market stands and carts where the farmers from the surrounding homes could sell their produce and other goods.
As with most small towns, the town of Daybreak had all the basic amenities when it came to shops and businesses. They got their food either from growing it themselves or buying it from their neighbors. They had a local bank, a small restaurant, a church, a post office, a school, and a graveyard. But what set the town of Daybreak apart from other towns its size was the small public library in the center of the town square. This library was run by Mr. Parker, Annabelle’s father.
For as long as she could remember, Annabelle had been helping out with sorting books and inventory. When she wasn’t helping her dad around the library, she spent most of her time reading. By the time she was 17 she had already read nearly every book in their catalog, and had reread most of the ones she liked.
Having spent most of her life in the library meant that Annabelle was quite a soft spoken young lady. Her skin was pale, and her blond curls fell in coils around her soft freckled face. She had thin wire-framed glasses that rested across a dainty button nose that perfectly complemented her wide, doe-like brown eyes.
Josie Butch was quite the opposite of the reserved, polite and clean Annabelle Parker. She rarely went by her first name, instead favoring her surname Butch and introducing herself as such to most everyone she met.
Butch’s family had a fairly large plot of land near the outskirts of the town. Their house was small and a little bit crowded, but their family spent most of their time outdoors so no one truly minded the cramped bedrooms and living room.
She was the youngest of four kids. As soon as they could walk, they were outside playing with their older brothers and their family’s animals, roughhousing through streams and racing up the big oak tree next to the house.
As they got older, they found their passion in horseback riding. They spent countless hours cantering through the countryside on the back of Cider, their Appaloosa. Cider was tall for an Appaloosa, measuring about 16 hands of feisty lean muscle. Her coat was mostly a rich, fiery red that reminded Butch of autumn leaves and apple picking. Scattered across her back and rear were splashes of warm, creamy white fur, with spots dappled down her legs and towards her neck as well. Cider’s mane was a toasted chestnut brown with a couple little braids tied with red ribbon sprinkled throughout the coarse fibers.
As Butch’s brothers got married and moved off the farm, 17 year old Butch found themself running errands and tending to the cattle for most of the day. They rarely had time to explore the rolling hills of Daybreak, racing the wind on horseback until their parents called them in for dinner. They missed it, but they supposed that this was the way life was now, and they’d have to be okay with it.
Life was predictable for Annabelle Parker, and that was the way she liked it. She followed the same routine every day - she got up, ate breakfast, bathed, changed, then went to work. Even work was the same every day, the only vaguely interesting parts coming from her interactions with people coming to pick up books, although those were all pretty much the same anyway.
There was something different about the tall, broad shouldered person who walked into the library today. She wore khaki pants with a leather belt and a form-fitting black tank top that highlighted the toned muscle underneath. They had a short brown shaggy mullet that perfectly accentuated the chiseled line of their jaw.
Annabelle watched from her perch in the reading nook in the rafters of the library as the person wandered into the library. They looked around, probably searching for someone who worked there. Annabelle knew she should go down and greet the new person but something compelled her to stay put and observe for a little longer.
The stranger was wearing combat boots with very tall heels that looked a little impractical but very cool. Their skin was very tan, a warm sun weathered hue that Annabelle knew could only come from being outside all the time, although she could tell that they had naturally slightly darker skin than herself. Annabelle felt her face flush a little bit. Why was she so nervous to talk to this person? What was wrong with her? She should really go down there and do her job. So why couldn’t she will herself to get up?
“Hello? Is anybody here?”
Annabelle jumped a little, startled by the sudden noise. Her movement, although small, was enough to get the person’s attention.
They looked up at her, their dark eyes meeting hers with eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Why are you all the way up there?” the stranger asked.
Annabelle, already quite flustered, was taken aback by the question. This person either was oblivious to the semi-revealing angle they were looking at her from or was shameless enough not to bother trying to avert their gaze. Not that they would really be able to see anything through the petticoat and underskirt she was wearing anyways. She quickly gathered up her skirt, shielding herself from the stranger’s view as she began to make her way down the wall.
Being as unsettled as she was, Annabelle forgot about the precarious position the novel she had been reading was laying, and as she swung down from the rafters the book fell off-balance and thudded to the ground.
Annabelle’s face flushed even hotter. First she was watching the stranger instead of doing her job, then the stranger saw her and probably saw up her skirt (which was a very improper thing for a lady to show), and now she dropped the book she was reading. To make matters worse, she had been reading a rather inappropriate novel with detailed intimacy between two women. If the stranger recognized the book title, she didn’t know what she’d do with herself. She’d probably have to move to a different town and change her name and get a job working on a farm to escape the embarrassment.
“I am so sorry, I-“
“It’s quite alright, ma’am,” the stranger said, stooping down to pick up the book and hold it out to her.
Annabelle blushed as she took the book from the stranger. They didn’t seem to have recognized the title, either that or they were very good at keeping a straight face. She stumbled over to the counter, stuffing the book into her bag that rested on the chair before standing up to face the stranger. She smoothed down her skirts, trying to put on an air of professionalism with what meager scraps of dignity she had left.
Up close, the stranger was even more handsome than she thought. They were around her age, with a kind face and a sparkle of mischief in their eyes that made Annabelle want to go and chase the thrill that came with breaking the rules with them.
“Hello, my name’s Butch. Nice to meet ya,” they said, giving Annabelle a short bow. They reached out and Annabelle was pleasantly surprised by the gentleness in their grip as they grabbed her hand and kissed it. Their hands were calloused and strong but Annabelle could feel that she wasn’t in any danger in Butch’s presence. Their lips were so soft; a delightful contrast to the rough palms of their hands. Annabelle wondered how their lips would feel on hers if they were to kiss- no, what was wrong with her? She barely knew anything about this person, and here she was fantasizing about kissing them! Maybe those religious people were right, and she really was sinning by reading books about queer people. Maybe this was the devil they always went on about, poisoning her thoughts and infiltrating her purity with unholy ideas.
“I’ve been sent ta pick up some books for my mama, she gave me a list for ya to know which ones ta get,” Butch said, saving Annabelle from her religious guilt spiral and handing her a small folded up paper.
Annabelle took the paper and unfolded it, reading through the list of hastily scrawled titles and trying to decipher the messy cursive.
“Okay, uh…” she said, trying to fill the slightly awkward silence. “I think we have all of those… except- what does this one say here?”
Butch leaned over the counter to look at the list, then looked up at the young librarian’s pretty eyes- wait, pretty eyes? Butch took a second to examine the girl’s facial features, tracing her eyes over the soft rosy cheeks and back to her beautiful eyes. Butch felt her face flush a little bit. The librarian was pretty- and not just by conventional standards.
There had been many a time where Butch’s brothers tried to set her up with one of their friend’s younger brothers, but Butch never really got the appeal. They knew what features on a guy were typically attractive, but they never felt any different looking at what was supposed to be pretty on a man than they did looking at a beautiful sunset.
But now?
This librarian, with blonde curls and adorably awkward yet polite movements and the elegant wire glasses that rested atop her petite nose?
Butch understood it now. She was breathtakingly beautiful. She made their heart race as if they were galloping through the open pastures on their beautiful mare, Cider. This must be how it feels to be a bird, soaring on the wind without a care in the world, flying simply for the sake of feeling the wind on its feathers and the sun on its back.
“Are you alright?” Annabelle asked tentatively, a look of nervous concern displayed across her beautiful face. The stranger, Butch, had been going to help her decipher the last title on the list, but stopped halfway through to stare at her face.
“Yeah, sorry,” Butch said, shaking their head as if to clear their mind. “What did you need again?”
“What does this one say at the bottom here? I can read all the others, this one is just a little smudged and I can’t really tell what it says.”
Butch looked at the paper, their cheeks flushing in embarrassment. “I’m sorry ma’am, I can’t read very well,” they said, standing back up and looking at the ground.
“Did your mama not teach you to read?” Annabelle asked.
Butch weighed their options. In truth, their mother never bothered to teach any of them how to read. But to admit something like that would bring shame on their mama, and Butch loved their mama.
They studied Annabelle’s face again. She seemed genuine, like she wouldn’t judge their mama for not teaching them to read. “No, she didn’t. We never really needed to, most of the time I’m out workin on the farm so I ain’t got time to sit around and read.”
“Oh,” Annabelle said. She too was conflicted. Would it be insulting if she offered to teach them to read? But then again, if they said yes, then she’d get to see their handsome face more often. “Would you… would you like me to teach you to read?”
Butch’s face lit up. “You mean it?”
“Yeah!” Annabelle said, a hopeful smile dancing across her face.
“Yes please, if it ain’t too much trouble.”
“Of course not! How about you stop by tomorrow?”
“I need to be watchin the cows all day at the farm…” Butch trailed off.
“Or I could come to your farm?” Annabelle asked hopefully. She could get her father to run the library that day.
“That should work! I just gotta be near the cattle, so if we’re out in the field it’ll be fine.”
“Where is your farm again?”
They eventually decided that as Annabelle had no way to make it to Butch’s farm on her own, Butch would come and pick her up in the morning and she’d spend the day at the farm.