Work Text:
***
You say move a mountain,
and I'll throw on my boots.
- “ALLIIGATOR TEARS” by Beyoncé
***
It’s Marlene’s third week in the high desert, the twentieth day since she quit her shitty, truck stop diner job, packed up her sad apartment, and left Ordersville, Arizona for the Banchory Plateau. And in twenty days, to her great surprise, she’d developed an appreciation not just for the red sand and persistent wind but also for the monotony of manual labor. She’d spent the better part of a week shoveling sandy desert soil into a wheelbarrow, feeling her muscles complain but also feeling oddly satisfied at the end of each day.
Marlene had never been the “Employee of the Month” type in her diner days. It had never felt like there was a point to applying herself. She’d always imagined she’d spend her whole life staring at the same, tired walls and having the same, tired conversations with truckers who’d run low on gas on the road from Albuquerque to Vegas and stopped in for bad coffee, waffles, and small talk. Her favorite shifts in the diner years were the ones she'd spent sitting on a milk crate behind the building, smoking with Remus. Or, alternatively, sneaking into the supply closet with Mary while Lily, ever the good girl, kept an eye out for customers.
You see, Marlene had always thought that only the Lilys and Remuses of the world ever got out of dead-end towns like this one, where all of the jobs were subsistence-level and there was nowhere to go but sideways. Lilys and Remuses were the sorts of people who got into good colleges, found rich boyfriends, and clawed their way out of the sandpit of the rural Southwest. The Marlenes and Marys of the world, she’d believed, were stuck.
She was realizing now that she’d been wrong. Marlene had never had big ambitions of her own, no grand talents, and no springboard towards achieving something even if she’d known what she wanted. What she had, though, was Mary. And what Mary had were big, wild dreams that Marlene would do anything to help her achieve. When Mary came to her with a dreamy look in her eye and a nebulous idea about high desert homesteading, about building themselves a little oasis far, far away, Marlene had started squirreling away her crumpled-up tip jar dollars until they made it happen.
Most people don’t want to live in the high desert, see — it’s tough and inhospitable, but this also means it’s cheap. They’d planned for months, Mary unwaveringly excited as she sketched and made lists, and Marlene feeling equally exhilarated and terrified at the thought of getting out, at needing to fully step up to a task for the first time in her twenty-one years of life, at running.
The first order of business was, of course, setting themselves up for survival. In the desert, this meant water collection. And so Marlene had found herself here, counting in her head while scooping sandy earth, letting the weight of her shovel work for her as she digs a deep trench that might function as a rain catchment system if Mary’s calculations were right. Marlene can feel herself getting stronger day by day as she lifts from her calves and engages her core, her elbows pressing into her thighs as she shapes the ground beneath her.
When sweat from her brow begins to trickle into her eyes, she stops for a moment, stabbing her shovel into the ground. She dabs at her face with the hem of her cut-off tee, removing the layer of orange-red dust that’s settled on her skin as she does. Everything out here is lightly coated in sand, the wind steadily painting everything terracotta as if claiming things on the barren landscape’s behalf.
Adjusting her hat to shield against the late afternoon sun, Marlene returns to her unfinished project. She lifts her shovel once more, her callused hands protesting. As she begins again, shovel moving in a steady arc, she sees a van appear on the horizon. Their van, hurtling home.
The van’s still miles away, just a small blue rectangle in the distance, but this part of the high desert is so flat that Marlene swears she can see from end to end of the plateau. Up here, it feels like everything is visible — every shrub and Pinyon pine, every coyote and tortoise. It’s like she can see the ripple effect every gust of wind causes as it sends tumbleweeds rolling and redistributing the very surface of the Earth.
Even from here, Marlene can tell that the van’s bouncing a bit as it flies down the road. It’s not because of the terrain, she knows — it’s the combined effect of a worn suspension (she’d checked it last week, lying underneath the body of their secondhand van with a flashlight while Mary read the manual aloud) and the reckless driver at the wheel. Mary had always had a bit of a lead foot, careening down the highway like she was in a hurry on even the most relaxed of days. Today, though, she’s justified in flooring it: they’re on a bit of a timeline. There are thunderheads in the distance, high walls of cloud in the usually empty early summer sky, dumping rain on the parched ground of a far-away town.
Monsoon season wasn’t supposed to start this early. When they’d planned their great escape, they’d thought they would have more time to set up their infrastructure before there was even a chance of a storm. If this rain reaches them, it will be the first test of whether or not what they’re doing here could work and whether everything they’ve done in pursuit of this vision — every book Mary read about desert homesteading and every blister Marlene’s give herself in pursuit of this dream — was worth it. If they can learn to cultivate land in this place that supports only the hardiest of life forms, maybe they can grow things and maybe they can stay.
Mary zooms onto the plot, driving past the fence they’d finished building just last week and bringing the van to an abrupt halt a few meters away from the catchment. Marlene smiles and tosses her shovel aside — it hits the ground with a thud. She makes her way toward the driver’s side door, rearranging flyaway bits of hair under her hat as she walks.
Mary’s door is open before she’s even cut the engine. She hops down, sand crunching underneath her boots as her feet make their impact. She’s wearing a sundress, blue and flowery, with a red bandana hastily tied around her curls. Under the too-bright sun, she looks like something Marlene might have hallucinated, sort of aglow as the light reflects off of her skin.
Mary's a whirlwind, a blur in this still, quiet place, and she sucks Marlene into a vortex of information and frantic energy as she whips around the van. There’s no kiss hello, no “hi, Marley, how was your day?”, just immediate action.
Marlene picks up her pace to meet Mary at the back of the van, where Mary’s already begun to unload a seemingly random assortment of buckets she’d crammed into the back. This van was also their primary residence — plans of building a house were a long way off — and as she walks around it, Marlene can see their mattress crammed in the passenger seat.
Mary’s speaking rapidly, beginning what will clearly be a detailed recount of every interaction she's had since she went to town on an emergency supply run this morning. “Alastor told me we should put out every container we’ve got in case the catchment doesn’t hold water - he says there’s never any telling what the rest of monsoon season could be like, that this might be the only shot we get for a while. He sent me back with a bunch of barrels and whatever he had lying around. I have no idea what he was using all of this for…” As her girlfriend speaks, Marlene imagines a series of suspect things their slightly mad, survivalist neighbor could have been doing with this many buckets. “... So we’ve definitely gotta make sure we distill anything we catch.”
Marlene’s about to reach Mary now, and she’s taking her in, this gorgeous, frantic girl moving at a determined pace.
Mary’s carrying on, still moving things from the van interior to the ground as she speaks. “I also stopped at the general store and picked up a few tarps. I figured we could try to hang them up, see if we can catch anything that way? I know the water tank’s getting pretty low, so I just thought -”
Marlene catches Mary by the waist just as she’s reaching for the last bucket. Mary looks surprised, then delighted as Marlene pulls her in before leaning down to press a kiss to the corner of Mary’s mouth.
“Breathe, baby,” Marlene says, giving Mary's hand a gentle squeeze as she pulls away.
Something warm flashes in Mary’s eyes behind her gold-framed glasses, and she stills for a moment, takes a breath, and grants Marlene a soft smile. There’s no stopping the tide of conversation now that Mary’s started, though — Marlene can almost see it rising again within her as Mary turns back to the van.
Marlene hauls out the last of the stacks of containers, groaning a bit as her arm muscles complain about even moderate use. Mary says, “Oh, Minnie wanted me to say hello — I stopped by the library quickly on my way back. I thought we’d need something to do if we’re stuck in the van all night.”
Marlene can think of many, non-reading activities they could engage in while stuck in a small space together, but before she can say anything to this effect, Mary's grabbing a heavy-looking tote bag that had been tucked away safely in the pocket of the back door. She pulls two books from the top of the bag. Marlene sees Permaculture Techniques for High Desert Climates — a practical choice — and Desert Garden Design: Building Your Own Oasis. The second book’s cover features a beautiful, impeccably landscaped, rock garden full of cacti, leading up to a home that was certainly designed by an architect and not by two twenty-one-year-olds scrapping things together from abandoned building materials. It’s idyllic and impossible.
Marlene pauses and bites her lip before she says anything about the second book, wanting to proceed carefully so as not to squash a possible hope. “You know we’re a long way away from being able to do anything on that scale, right?”
She says it as much for Mary as for herself. Right now, they have almost nothing built but a fence, a shed, and an outhouse, plus an outdoor shower they were still filling with water they brought in from town. There was a lot of basic, subsistence-level work to do before they could worry about anything aesthetic… but sometimes Mary got this sort of hazy, wanting look in her eyes that Marlene found utterly disarming. It was the sort of look she’d been wearing when they were nineteen and she’d told Marlene she thought she might love her and wanted to kiss her to see, the same one she’d had on when she’d proposed this madcap homestead idea. If Mary asked for a succulent garden, hell, a sauna before they’d even squared away non-vehicular shelter, and if she looked at Marlene like that when she suggested it, Marlene would find herself picking up her shovel and getting to work. Her desire to make Mary’s face light up was sometimes stronger than her self-preservation instinct.
Mary replies with a dismissive wave and a sheepish smile. “I know. But I can dream, can’t I?”
She sets her books down before returning to rifle through the tote once more. “I got something for you too!” She pulls out two tattered paperbacks whose worn covers feature burly, shirtless, men in tartan kilts. Minnie seemed to order these for the library in large numbers.
Mary places the books in Marlene's open hands, and her face splits into a bright grin at the Marlene's visible confusion as she scans the front covers of The Laird’s Lover and Highland Hotties: The Stablehand’s Secret. Mary presses her tongue at the gap between her front teeth as she gives Marlene a cheeky smile. “I thought you could read them to me,” she says, a little smug like she's offering Marlene a grand opportunity.
***
They spend the rest of the afternoon tying down supplies and setting out any container capable of catching a raindrop.
By dusk, the air is cool and the desert is unusually loud with what Marlene surmises is the padding, buzzing, and fluttering of animals moving away from the approaching storm. It looks as though they are still in its path, and she sends up a silent prayer to anyone who might be listening. She’s grown used to sitting with Mary in the evenings, moving lazily into each other as they fall asleep at night, muscles sore from satisfying kinds of overuse. She’s fallen in love with taking her coffee outside in the morning, looking up to the generally cloudless sky, and listening to wren song and the rustling wind. She can’t imagine failing, needing to give this up.
Marlene plods towards the van from the outdoor shower. She's washed off the dust of the day and the smell of smoke from the campfire they’d made earlier in the evening, embers now ash, greying as they cool to the temperature of the night air. The van’s back doors and windows are open, curtains pulled back, and the interior’s been reassembled. Mary’s put the mattress back in place, and re-hung the strings of floral garland she’d strung from the ceiling weeks back (“Just because we’re broke doesn’t mean this place shouldn’t be pretty, Marlene”). She’s turned on the lanterns, which are now illuminating everything in warm light, and she’s lying on their soft, paisley comforter, propped up with pillows and with one arm behind her head. With the other arm, she’s holding one of the bargain bin Highlander novels up so the pages catch enough light to read.
Their wind-up radio is on, I’m a fool to do your dirty work piping in fuzzily. If heaven is real, Marlene thinks, it should look and sound like this.
Marlene takes a seat on the floor just inside the van, propping one foot on the bumper at a time as she unties the laces of her dusty work boots and peels them off, setting them haphazardly on the ground outside before crawling in. She slides into bed behind Mary, who shifts slightly so Marlene can curl behind her. Mary turns to give her a brief smile before returning to her book.
Marlene wraps an arm around Mary’s waist, her fingers trailing over the silky fabric of a champagne-colored pajama set. She presses her lips to Mary’s bare shoulder, planting lazy kisses on the constellation of birthmarks scattered over her skin. Mary hums almost imperceptibly and Marlene can feel her shifting to settle into her, but Mary’s eyes remain trained on her page. She must be at a good bit.
“Started without me, huh?” Marlene speaks in a low, teasing voice. “What’s Scottish Fabio up to?”
Mary chuckles. “The clan chief’s daughter just caught the stablehand alone, and I think they’re about to do something about their absolutely sizzling chemistry. He’s just pressed her into a wall.”
Marlene smiles as she listens and traces Mary’s hipbone with her thumb, gentle but focused. She closes her eyes as Mary reads, taking in the warmth of Mary in her arms. She smells a little like apricots, honey-sweet.
When Marlene’s heard the rustle of a few more flipped pages, she opens her eyes and leans into Mary’s shoulder, now able to see the page herself. “What are they doing now now?”
Mary answers. “Mmm. Well, she’s been doing this coy thing for the last hundred pages, pretending she isn’t flirting but showing up in increasingly compromising positions. And he’s just called her on it.”
“Ooh,” Marlene says, between kisses pressed to Mary’s neck. “How’s he handling that? Any witch accusations flying around?”
“Oh, nothing like that. He’s being terribly romantic about it, actually.”
“Hmmph.”
“What, you wanted more drama?” Mary asks, amused. “Why don’t you just read with me if you want the full recount?”
Mary underlines her place on her current with her index finger. Marlene finds it and then begins to read aloud in what might be the worst Scottish accent ever heard. “‘ Yer the bonniest lass I’ve ever seen, and if ye dinna leave me now - ’”
Mary snorts before adopting a breathy voice and reading the next line. “‘Fergus, I willnae leave unless ye demand it. I willnae let ye stand in the way of yer own happiness. I amna afeared - I want ye to be reckless wi’ me.’” They dissolve into laughter.
When it dissipates, Mary pulls Marlene’s arm back around her before clearing her throat somewhat ostentatiously and adopting a different voice for the role of narrator. “‘ His hands roam her body like he’s cataloging it, like he wants to remember every curve. His hands are rough, but he’s gentle with her.;”
Marlene’s hands are also wandering now (as they are wont to do with Mary this close to her). She gently walks her fingers down the curve of Mary’s hip towards the place where her thighs meet. Mary makes a soft, throaty sound as Marlene moves.
When Marlene finds her target, she smiles to herself a little evilly, one hand still gripping Mary’s hips as the other moves, fingers curling expertly. Marlene’s favorite activity is trying to make Mary sufficiently flustered that she runs out of clever comebacks. She whispers into Mary’s ear, “How many pages before there’s a riding innuendo, do you think?”
Mary turns towards Marlene, making a real effort to roll her eyes, but she has to close them mid-roll, apparently overwhelmed. She makes another one of those perfect, pleased noises as she presses back into Marlene’s hips. Marlene gently takes the book from her hands and sets it down, not to be returned to for the rest of the evening.
***
Forty minutes later, it’s grown dark. The radio’s buzzing a bit as it tries to play a bassline the small speakers can't quite handle — We are stardust, we are golden.
The only light visible outside of the lantern-lit cocoon where they’re sleepily tangled together is lightning, streaking across the sky before it’s re-absorbed into the clouds. The wind’s picked up a bit, to the extent that Mary’s motivated to push herself up from her comfortable place with a groan to close the windows before settling back in and threading her hands through Marlene’s hair.
When the rain begins, it grants them a minute or two to adjust to the sound of heavy drops on their steel-encased home before it’s pounding. Marlene knew that the rain here would be intense if it deigned to arrive at all, but this is torrential, jarring and loud. She’s a bit wide-eyed, feeling like a small, soft creature under attack. Mary notices, pulling Marlene back into her chest and resting a comforting hand on her collar.
As the rain pounds away at the roof, Marlene thinks about the catchment — if they’ve done any of this properly, if they’ll be able to sustain anything on their little plot, or if the water is hitting the ground and channeling away. Mary whispers reassurances — “There’ll be another rain, whatever happens” — but with her head on Mary’s chest, Marlene can tell that her heart is pounding, too.
***
When Marlene wakes up the next morning, it’s too hot. Muggy, even, a bizarre feeling out here. Mary’s still curled behind her, fast asleep, which would the sort of thing Marlene might want to prolong if she didn’t feel a desperate need to get outside and see the aftermath of the storm. Very carefully, Marlene lifts her girlfriend’s arm to sneak out from underneath, not wanting to wake her. She seems to succeed; Mary’s still snoring softly as Marlene steps into shorts and a tee and opens the van door slowly, trying to prevent it from squeaking.
Marlene’s boots have been sitting outside all night. They’re waterlogged, which is gross, but it doesn’t stop her from putting them on and sprinting towards towards the rain catchment area, not even bothering to tie her laces. She sees a series of full buckets of water as she walks, laid out in an arch like an odd little choir of plastic bins. As she moves further, she sees it: a pond, water up to the brim and shimmering in the morning sun.
She feels a rush of giddy energy, bringing her hands to her face and staring open-mouthed. They’ve done it.
Marlene runs back to the van, elated. She clambers in through the open doors, not caring that she’s bringing desert inside, leaving tracks on the floor, needing to tell Mary now.
Mary wakes to the sound of the clatter as Marlene throws herself on the floor next to the bed. Mary’s still blinking herself into consciousness as Marlene puts grips Mary’s face with both hands, leaning in for deep kiss.
When Marlene pulls back, she speaks with awe in her voice. “We did it, Mary.”
“We… it worked?”
Marlene feels like she could cry.
Later, they’ll walk out together, and they’ll look at what they managed to build. It’s only a first step, of course. There's much more to figure out..
But for the first time, this feels like more than a foggy hope — it feels like the desert has welcomed them home.
***