Haunt you forEVER

[Luka Hollister]

Luka felt really good coming out of Birdy Bee Cafe! He was awake and energetic from the espresso and he had some good food in him which helped to brace against that cold, clammy fog that had settled over Hazleton like a gray down quilt. Outside he bundled his coat closer to his body and walked himself—and his large protest sign—over to the bus stop which would take him out of town.

As he waited he stamped his feet to keep warm. It didn't really do much but he'd seen it in movies and thought he'd give it a try. All it really did was smush some dirt onto his boots, which he leaned down to wipe carefully with a (scented) tissue out of the packet in his coat pocket. Then the bus came and he hopped on, giving the driver a sunny smile despite the miserable weather outside. Luka settled into an empty seat, carelessly tossing the sign in front of him. He scrolled through social media for a while as the bus rolled away.

"Pft." He couldn't help but snort as he went through a set of pictures that popped up on instagram, featuring a blonde girl and a dark-haired young man. Pft. Their poses were so contrived. And the number of pictures on the guy's account which included his girlfriend was almost disgusting. He could barely find one without her in there somewhere—like the guy couldn't seem to stop reminding the world that he had a girlfriend. Luka rolled his eyes... but didn't stop stalking the account until he had seen all of the new pics and read through some of the comments.

Yeah okay, so he stalked a few people around the place. It wasn't a crime!

It was—research!

Know the enemy... to know yourself. That had to be a saying, right? Luka felt like he'd seen it somewhere, maybe on TV or in a book. He'd have to ask his book club where he remembered that from the next time they met up at his apartment. But for now, he continued catching up and followed Birdy Bee Cafe across all the social media platforms he could find it on. Corporate Shill Luka, check. Didn't hurt to show his new boss that he was enthusiastic!

Eventually the bus took him to the outskirts and dropped him off at a rickety old sign that read Maple Lane. With a determined expression, Luka squared his shoulders, puffed out his chest and marched off down the worn dirt road. Good thing he wore boots—the path was slick and muddy with rain! It didn't get much easier off the path, as he tramped right on up to the Carter Ranch. Luka was halted by the locked gate; he lifted the sign over one shoulder, opened his mouth and let loose.

"MEAT IS MURDER! MEAT IS MURDER!"

[Wesley Carter]

Oh for crying out loud. Not that shit again. Wes rolled his eyes as he mucked out the horse stall, listening to that racket out there. What was up with that asshole, anyway? It was like he was on a mission to just irritate the crap out of Wes and his family. Maybe mostly Wes, because Wes' dad just ignored him and Teddy and Gil didn't seem to care. But Wes... He let out a long breath and then he finished with the stall.

Closing the stall behind carefully, he peered out by the locked gate, where Luka was still shouting and waving his stupid sign. Annoyed, Wes marched his way over to the gate.

He didn't know why it was so irritating... If nobody else in his family cared than why did it get under his skin so much? It wasn't as if he believed that crap Luka spewed about meat being murder. Having grown up on the ranch, he knew they took care of their animals and that when it was time, they put them down humanely. It wasn't like they were making the animals suffer!

"When are you going to get bored of all this?" Wes asked when he drew up closer.

[Luka Hollister]

Oh gooood, it was him again. Luka could already tell by the way he walked and by the figure striding toward him that it was Wesley Carter. Wes to his friends. (So... Wesley to Luka, definitely.) Standing his ground with both his head and the sign held high, he waited until Wesley had come up to the fence.

"I'll get bored of this when you get bored of keeping all those animals in captivity, just to have them killed for no good reason!" He shook the sign at Wesley, glowering at him through the fog. Too bad it wasn't thick enough yet to obscure everything in front of him! Luka half expected his girlfriend to pop out from behind a fence post or pop up from the ground or something, since they apparently were glued at the hip (at least in pictures they were).

:Meat. Is. Murder."

[Wesley Carter]

Seriously? It was one guy and he kept showing up at different farms and ranches, shouting about how meat was murder. Wes heard he even went down to the Duffy farm and they didn't even slaughter meat! Luka, he was pretty sure, was just looking for attention and that... was probably why it was a bad idea to even address him. All the smart Carters were ignoring him.

"We don't keep them in captivity," Wes said with another roll of the eyes. "They have plenty of space to roam and eat and you want to know what happens if we just let them out? They get eaten by coyotes and wolves."

Sometimes, they didn't even leave the property and they were attacked but the family took as many precautions as they could with the animals. The Carter ranch was hardly even that big. Sure, they had some animals. Some pigs here, horses there. And yeah, sure, they raised some of them to be eaten. What made a pig edible and a horse off limits? Wes didn't know, honestly didn't care that much. This guy, though?

"At least when we kill them, it's done and over with in a few seconds. Can't say that for the ones that get torn up by wild animals. And that savagery is what you prefer?"

[Luka Hollister]

It seemed like every time he came around, Wesley was somewhere around just waiting to argue with him. Joel Carter gave him a dry look; Gilbert Carter pretty much did the same and little Teddy Carter--the only one Luka could stomach--was too cute to wave a sign aggressively at. But it didn't stop Luka from giving him a stern lecture on how eating meat was bad. He had a feeling, though, that his words went right over the little kid's head.

But Wesley. Oooh, Wesley Carter, he was just irritating. All those smart-aleck quips, the way he acted like he was somehow doing right by these animals just because they let them run around the yard sometimes...! Luka had a stomach full of anger towards anybody who could eat another once-living creature and try to justify that on moral grounds.

"Okay first of all, get off that high horse because you're no better than any of those so-called savage animals out there. That's the natural food chain, at least. Wolves and coyotes don't keep pigs and sheep in pens to slaughter at any given moment. They don't have the kinds of options people have, okay? And second, if you didn't have them here, they wouldn't be in danger of being attacked by people or animals in the first place!"

He brandished his sign as if to prove his point.

[Wesley Carter]

"Yeah? But they sure know where to come when they can't find anything out in the woods, don't they?"

The coyotes and wolves didn't have to keep any animals because they could just mooch off the farms in the area! If you asked Wes, that was even worse. Especially since it was never any fun having to clean up a mangled corpse after a wild animal got a hold of one of the animals. Not to mention, they didn't kill all of the animals on their farm. What about the barn cats? Or were they the devil, too, because they ate mice?

"And you know humans are omnivores, right? Animals are part of our options. If we didn't domesticate chickens, they wouldn't even be here anymore."

[Luka Hollister]

"...what? That's what I just said!" If they didn't keep all these animals here, the wild animals wouldn't be able to savage all of the poor chickens and pigs and horses! At some point they had come to a weird agreement on that one point--but how they got there and where they went from it were apparently completely opposite.

Luka let out an aggravated noise. "Humans are also hunters. We're supposed to HUNT animals, not sit around waiting for a waiter to bring us a steak!"

Which... to be fair, Luka would prefer to hunting a pig with a spear. If he had to eat meat, he wouldn't want to butcher the animal himself or anything. Theoretically, though, he could talk out of his ass all he wanted! (Which he was. Oh, yes he was.) Setting down the sign, he leaned way over the fence and prodded Wesley in the shoulder. Not quite like a tough-guy-from-a-movie, but close. He lost some cool points, though, because he was pretty wobbly bent over the fence and felt like he might lose balance any second.

"I think chickens would prefer to be extinct than to have people steal their children and turn them into chicken fingers!"

[Wesley Carter]

And some people did hunt animals, during hunting season. As ranchers, though, the Carters didn't really have to do that. They had what they needed here and then some. And sure, they sold some of their products in town but since when was that a crime?

Wes looked at the finger that poked him and then reached out and prodded Luka--on the forehead, pushing him backward. Maybe the dumb-ass would end up in the mud. Served him right for coming all the way out here just to shove his agenda down their throats. It wasn't like any of his family or the ranch hands were running up to Luka and expounding upon all the reasons he should eat meat.

Honestly, it didn't even fucking matter one way or the other to Wes.

"You know most of our chickens are laying hens, right? I mean, if you really want to get technical, we're stealing their fetuses and turning them into omelettes."

[Luka Hollister]

"DON'T--" He saw the hand coming but wasn't fast enough to dodge it. Luka clung to the fence with both hands, hugging the topmost slat. "It's MUDDY out here! What kind of monster are you?!" Didn't Wesley know that if he fell, he'd ruin his clothes?! And he'd have to bus home all squelchy and muddy and gross?! What kind of person did that?!

Wesley Carter, that's who!

He glared. "Ha. Ha. You think you're clever, you caveman! Sooooo funny, omelettes! Well that just... it makes you an even worse person to joke about taking lives!"

[Wesley Carter]

"A fetus murdering monster."

He was the monster that ate meat and collected chicken eggs and joked about it. Oh, and he couldn't forget the part where he tried to knock the self important vegan dude from his family's property... and into the mud. Did it make him a monster that he sorta wished it happened? That Luka got himself all messed up? Wes wasn't generally the fighting type but he also didn't suffer fools gladly.

Crossing his arms, he quirked a brow even though his mouth remained an unamused line. He was still annoyed with Stef for being a weirdo and cornering him into... he didn't know what. But on top of that, he wasn't helping him with the damn chores, either, and he was getting paid for it. The world was hardly fair.

"Have you had enough yet?"

[Luka Hollister]

"Had enough of you being a savage animal killer? Absolutely!"

Luka got off the fence and brushed himself off indignantly. Good thing he was wearing a thick coat; the fence had some pretty big splinters that he would have hated to get all over his chest and stomach! Ouch!

Staring back at Wes, equally unamused, Luka raised both brows. Now that he was on firm ground, he felt better—safer, and less prone to falling back on his ass from a little prod. "If this fence wasn't locked, you'd be in some real trouble, buddy! Trying to push me off the fence like that!" Luckily the fence was locked because... er... Luka didn't do fighting. Look at him. He wasn't made to take punches OR throw them!

[Wesley Carter]

"Really?" Wes said, taking a step forward, not at all afraid of that little threat. He even dug into his pocket and produced a key.

"So you're saying if I unlock this gate right now, you'd come at me with those wimpy fists of yours?" he asked. He twirled the keys in his finger, not immediately going to unlock anything.

"Or are you going to be super predictable and cry lawyer on me if I lay a hand on you?"

Even if he was the one throwing out the threats, guys like Luka Hollister hid behind the law. They were allowed by law to harass people with their stupid signs because it was a peaceful protest. (Never mind that nobody got any peace with all that caterwauling about meat being murder.)

[Luka Hollister]

Oh, COME ON. Really now! What were the chances that Wesley just happened to have a key in his pocket for the front gate of the damn ranch? Pretty high, apparently.

Luka took in a deep breath and hoped to god it looked like he was just trying to restrain all of that... manly anger boiling up inside his stomach. Instead of cussing inwardly like a pissed-off queen who had just been Exposed. Capital E, too. Why did he even throw out that stupid challenge? Why did he think Wesley would somehow back down?

Oh god.

Was there some part of him that was... manly? That bristled at being prodded, that wanted to retaliate in a manly way, by challenging another man to a good old-fashioned thrown-down? ...naah. He was just trying to bluff his way through almost losing his balance on top of a damn fence, because he was embarrassed and had a big dumb mouth.

That dumb mouth kept going though. Now his brain was buzzing, blanking out on him, and his mouth kept running. "You're assuming you're good enough to get a hand on me, asshole. Or a finger, for that matter. I don't need a lawyer to fight my fights for me."

Again he reached out and prodded Wesley, on the chest this time.

[Wesley Carter]

Of course he had the keys to the gate. How else did he think he let the new ranch hands in? Why did he look so surprised to see that Wes even had keys? He was the oldest son on the ranch. Of course his dad was going to drop that responsibility on him. (But then, he had to remember that Luka didn't know a thing about hard work, did he? Or dads who heaped it on them.)

"I don't know, man. Sounds like you're trying to lure me out there for a fight you can't finish."

He shoved the hand away from his chest. Seriously. A fight the dude could not possibly finish. Look at him! He would probably start crying the second he took one punch!

[Luka Hollister]

"I don't know man, sounds like you're scared."

He mimicked Wesley's tone as he withdrew his hand a little quickly, in case Wesley did something dumb like... bite him. Why? Oh, Luka didn't know, he wasn't making any sense even to himself at this point! Why was he still talking?! He should be running!

But... as much as he shouldn't have thought it, the chest he poked was quite firm. Toned. Ranch boys did have nice bodies, even he had to admit. And he was maybe a little distracted in the moment after he went and poked the bear. Literally. Since the gate remained locked, however, he did grow a little bolder--and a little mouthier.

"Maybe you're underestimating me. Maybe I'll kick your ass with these... uh wimpy hands!"

Okay that. Did not make sense. At all. Maybe he shouldn't be here...

Luka backed up a step, but didn't forget to grab his sign. "But not today. I don't feel like beating anybody up today so count yourself lucky, you brute."

He turned and marched off with his sign over one shoulder, head held high—even if he was burning with humiliation and embarrassment on the inside.