𝐒𝐊𝐘𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋, ᵏᵃʸᶜᵉ ᵈᵘᵗᵗᵒⁿ

vii. buscuits

(set in season three episode two)

"HERE you go" Tate exclaimed, handing Elaine a piece of the fish he'd caught and cooked to try.

The woman said a quick thanks, trying the fish and giving him a thumbs up when it tasted alright.

Tate ran back over to his father and mother, who'd come down to stay with them just the day before, feeling too alone up in the large house all by herself.

Elaine could understand what she meant, the house was huge and she knew she wouldn't want to stay there by herself.

Mavis catches her attention by tapping her arm, pointing to her mouth as she eyes the fish in between her mothers fingers.

All El can do is chuckle as she plops it in Mavis' mouth, watching the child chew it for a second before going back to her plate.

The two eat in silence, saying few words to include themselves in Colby and Ryan's conversation.

"Any more biscuits?" Elaine can hear in the background, immediately recognising it as Tate's.

She turns her head over her shoulder, watching as the grandfather and grandson converse and feeling a pang strike her chest.

Mavis would never get that kind of relationship with her grandparents.

After years of distaste towards Elaine for being a young mother, her own judging and disrespecting her any chance she got, Elaine cut her off.

She understood that Mavis might want to reconnect with her when she was older, but for now all Elaine could do was protect her baby from the woman she used to call mom.

She hoped Mavis would understand why in the future.

"I want biscuit" Mavis exclaimed as she watched Tate receive multiple biscuits.

It seemed that whatever the older child did, Mavis wasn't too far off doing aswell.

Elaine could only chuckle before lifting herself from the seat, helping her daughter off and passing the child her plate.

"You tell John what you want" She whispered as they got closer, watching John chuckle with his grandson as he sat another biscuit atop of his plate.

"Can I have biscuit?" Mavis asked, thrusting her plate out infront of her.

The child caught the eyebrow raise her mother directed towards her and immediately corrected herself.

"Please?"

John chuckled to himself, opening the pot and pulling out, in Elaine's opinion, a biscuit too big for Mavis.

"How's that?" He asked, watching as the child's eyes lit up as she went and sat beside Tate who was offering her some of his own, to even out their plates.

Elaine smiled as she watched them, seating herself beside John as the others joined them.

"You know my wife... she used to make two dutch ovens, full of biscuits" John reminisced, a dreamy look on his face as he stared into the fire.

"One for Kayce and one for the rest of us" Everyone chuckled at that.

"He'd stand right by the fire and ask his mother 'How long?'" He sighed, but continued. "And she'd say, 'Five more minutes', which just meant soon to my wife."

John laughed to himself "It didn't mean five minutes, didn't mean thirty minutes sometimes... he'd stomp off, and pout, and walk away and come back, then ask again and that shit would go on for hours"

Suddenly the picture of a young Kayce Dutton filled Elaine's mind, clearly picturing the broody man being broody as a child.

John looked around the fire at the people sitting around him, he didn't know a lot of them very well but he allowed himself to be vulnerable infront of them.

"When they were finally ready he'd take a plate of biscuits, nothing else. He'd just go sit at the edge of the firelight with his back to us and he'd just go at it with both his hands" John made eating gestures wildly.

Elaine looked to Kayce, who'd gotten slightly shy under the gazes of everyone and looked to the ground with interest.

"They were really good" He tried defending himself, though that made everyone chuckle more.

"Why is that funny? They were really good!" He stated.

"Like a wild dog" John egged on, watching his son smile happily for the first time in a while.

Everyone basked in the bliss of storytelling around a campfire, not expecting the sudden turn of emotions that were about to hit them.

"After an hour of standing over that Dutch oven, she'd sit beside me, hair a mess, smellin' like smoke, madder than hell... because she hated cookin' them damn biscuits" He laughed.

Elaine leaned her head onto her palm, feeling every emotion the older man was putting into words as he spoke.

"And I looked at her and said, 'Sweetheart he'll eat anything you put infront of him, just... make him something else, that doesn't take all night'. "

John's eyes were now back on the flame that burned bright, wrinkles on his cheeks from smiling over the years showing through.

His eyes then drifted over to Kayce, who sat there with an unreadable expression painted on his face. "Your mom looked at me and said, 'I know... but if I don't make them I can't watch him eat them'."

Elaine looked down at those words, feeling them hit her hard as she looked to her own daughter who sat there invested in what John was saying, even though she most likely had no clue what he was saying.

The mood around them flipped in a second, the light sound of laughter echoing turned to a heavy silence with only the cracking of the fire.

But alas, John continued his story. "Then she went to the tent, laid down and fell asleep"

He took a moment and Elaine watched closely as his eyes got shinier, a thin coat of tears covering his pupils.

"We were branding so I was up before her... and that was the last thing she ever said to me" He ended, staring intently at the fire.

Elaine felt herself frown, choosing to stare at the ground as she chewed the inside of her mouth.

To make it worse, John added one more sentence.

"Branding cattle on her goddamn birthday..." He chuckled humourlessly, a certain look in his eyes that no one could register.

With that the man stood, leaving the tension filled circle and standing a distance away as he calmed himself down.

Elaine looked up when more movement was heard, finding Kayce walking in the direction of his father.

CHARLIE'S DAYCARE !
hii my lovelies! sorry i haven't updated in a bit, i've had quite a bit going on lately but hopefully i can atleast update once or twice a month. i go back to school in a couple of days which means less time for writing so i'll try and pre-write chapters. but here's a slightly longer chapter to make up for it. also the reads went up so quick! like what?