Welcome to Hickstead, home to both Seven Oak Stables, and Blue Acre - two rival stables. Both offer opportunities for their clients to reach the highest level of excellence. Each stable differs from the other, so choose wisely and never forget, loyalty is everything... Meanwhile as the stables battle it out, there's trouble brewing at the university. Be careful, if you don't pick a side you may get caught in the cross-fire...
This is an chilled out rpg with a super friendly and relaxed atmosphere! Remember to sign up with your characters full name in all caps and don't forget to do your claims! Thank you and Welcome, we've been established since 10th March 2009 but unfortunately have had to close guest view of our boards due to multiple sites ripping off our hard work, such a shame! Come chat to us in Discord before joining if you like!.
to say maverick was sore, was an understatement. it had been his first week back at work after his accident and even though his boss had said he wasn't allowed to do too much of the heavy lifting, he wasn't ashamed to admit that he hadn't really listened to her. he wasn't the type to foist his work off on someone else and he certainly wasn't the type to ask anyone he worked with for help, even though he'd be the first to offer if someone else needed it. there was a difference in being the helper and in being the helped and the difference to maverick was that one meant weakness and one meant strength. so he'd spent the day saddling the horses he'd needed to work, spent the day riding them and tucking them back into their stalls and whatever else in between that entailed. he'd made it through the day by double dosing on his painkillers and gritting his teeth but he was through the day and now, he had tomorrow off. that was something at least. he could sleep as long as he wanted in the morning. if his noisy as anything siblings would let him.
he'd stopped at the shops on the way home to pick up some frozen pizza's in case there was no food in the house for dinner. no one was really keeping on top of the house at the moment so he wasn't sure what they had and he hadn't checked the fridge this morning before he'd left for work. so he'd grabbed something that could at least go in the freezer in case derek had dropped food off for them this afternoon. he pulled his beat up junker into the driveway of the house and had to admit for a second the house, all lit up in the dark looked just like it had when his mother had been alive. it was easy to sit there and imagine that he'd walk in that door to her smiling face, always happy to see any of her kids even if she'd only been away from them for a day. but there would be no smile, no laughter and certainly no life in the house that waited for him. the lights were on but the people that had lived in the house were long gone.
he pushed the door open to his car, climbed out and grabbed the bags with the pizza's and his work bag and he headed inside. he dumped his workbag at the door, figuring he'd find the energy to walk up upstairs once he'd eaten and stolen a bottle of whatever his dad was currently drinking, so he left it at the door for now. he walked further into the house, glancing into the lounge he saw his father asleep on the couch. typical. he turned back to the front door he'd closed quietly and pushed it open as wide as it could go and then let it slam closed behind him as he stepped back in, the sound echoing through the house like a gunshot. he then walked through to the kitchen without a word and dumped the frozen pizza's on the bench before he started looking for anything to cook them on that wouldn't melt.
Shaun had managed to spur himself enough to do laundry and strip the beds in the house, laying out fresh sheets on the beds for when he got around to making them. He'd been a little more productive than his usual sluggish self, finding that he was at least starting to pick himself back up off the ground. It was hard though, there was always something that piled weight on to his shoulders, not that he told the boys about that. He knew he'd dealt them an unfair hand with going off the rails, so it was even less fair to tell them his troubles - not that he did that before hand anyway.
So he'd laid back down on the couch after hanging up fresh clothes, made the beds and put their folding on the ends of their beds, hell he'd even managed to scrub a bathroom and remove the empty bottles from the living room and after a moments thought, even put the Irish Whiskey in the bottom of the pantry behind the oil before deciding to take a brief nap. He was tired and what should've been a brief nap became something longer.
When the door slammed, Shaun jerked awake and frowned. Yawning he forced himself up from the couch and made his way out to the kitchen to get some water.
"What have I told you boys about letting the door slam?" he called out through the house as he moved into the kitchen before spotting Maverick, "Ah, home from work already hmmm?"
He wasn't slurring or stumbling, so he was clearly not drunk.
so he had managed to rouse the bear from his slumber. mav heard him shout through the house about the slammed door and he couldn't roll his eyes fast enough. that door had been slammed so many times throughout his life it wouldn't have known the difference about being closed quietly. of course his dad hadn't been home most of the time it had slammed. as much as he worked, they'd mostly worn themselves out by the time he used to get home in the evenings. he crouched down next to one of the cupboards and he regretted it straight away, every muscle in his legs hurt, the ribs he'd had broken hurt and he couldn't help reaching one hand to rest over them lightly. he grimaced as he reached in to the back of the cabinet to pull out some trays that would do to cook the pizza.
he heard his dad walk into the kitchen as he stood up, doing his best to hide the wince of pain as he did but he could feel that the colour had somewhat drained from his face because of the pain he was in, but he had to live by the family motto, no pain no gain. besides he'd down some painkillers once he was up in his room. no way in hell was he taking those in front of his father, that was just using a spotlight on himself to show weakness. twisted as it might be, he couldn't help that way of thinking. he'd been thinking like it for the last nineteen years. hiding weakness had been a personality trait he'd been born with. "nothing gets past you does it." he said sarcastically as he dropped his hand from his ribs so he could start working on getting the pizza's out of the boxes so he could put them onto the trays. "i got dinner."
"Nothing gets past you does it." he said sarcastically as he dropped his hand from his ribs so he could start working on getting the pizza's out of the boxes so he could put them onto the trays. "I got dinner."
Shaun raised a brow at the comment but let it slide for now - he was getting to be more aware of the fact that his sons had a particular unforgiving streak where he was concerned. He was at fault for a lot of things, yes - he wasn't going to deny it and play victim. But his talk with Eli still sat on his shoulder, serving him a constant little pearl to take it easy on them - everything was still raw.
"Thanks Mav," he said gently, filing up his, "What did you get up today?"
He knew it probably wasn't the most interesting question to throw out there, but he was at least making an effort.
it was a strange moment. his father didn't bite back and maverick wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. before his mother's death the relationship between him and his father had been a complicated one but it had been predictable. they'd box together and then they'd come home and mav would do what he could to stir shit up. he hadn't been able to help it when he'd been younger, it was how he'd made sure he hadn't been ignored or fallen through the cracks in his parents eyes. if he was getting into trouble, how could they ignore him? it worked for jace so he'd picked up the habit too. but things were all different now, they needed to be different but there was one big thing blocking mav from letting that happen. the anger he still felt towards his dad. it was there, ever present, burning brightly and doing everything it could to keep rising to the surface, to let itself really show but he kept pushing it down, masking it with a layer of whiskey and medication but it was only doing so much.
"i worked." he said as he moved to grab a coke from the fridge, going to sit at the table as his father picked up some of the pizza from the trays. "someone needs to pay the bills around here." he half muttered to himself as he cracked the can open and took a sip, hoping the sugar helped him feel better than he currently was. the week had been hard, the hours had been long and the work had been ten times harder than it ever had been. he didn't want any of the pizza that was sitting on the bench waiting to be eaten, he'd only brought it so crev, paul and link had had something to eat. jace too but it was hit and miss with him at the best of times. he kept his arm wrapped around his middle, his hand supporting his ribs as he sat there.
Shaun couldn't help the soft sigh that escaped him - another aspect of their broken lives laid bare. His sons paying for shit that he should've been taking care of. He shook his head.
"I appreciate it," he said calmly, "I do. But you shouldn't have to deal with that. Let me know what you've spent out of your pocket and I'll get it put back into your account."
He moved about the kitchen, getting plates down and set them on the table, trying to pick things up that he used to do.
his dad wanted to repay him for the bills he'd paid for while he'd been finding the bottom of the bottle? he hoped his dad extended the same offer to derek who had been helping out just as much money wise, keeping them topped up in food when mav had still been laid up after the accident. technically he should still be laid up, but the money had been running out fast and he'd not wanted to spend any more time laying down than he had in the last few weeks. he couldn't see the harm in going back to work early, especially with his boss making sure he really was only on light duties, riding the calm horses, much to his annoyance. though with the way his body felt now, he could only imagine he'd be feeling a whole lot worse if he'd had to ride horses he'd needed to jostle with.
he watched his father set the table and briefly he was taken back to a time when all his siblings, minus keith, would have been sitting around the table with them, their mother and father sitting together, laughing and keeping in control of the chaos that happened around dinnertime. he frowned slightly, trying his best not to picture it in his head, because it was never going to happen again. "i don't want your money." he said simply as he took another sip of his coke. it wasn't like he was going to be able to handle another horse in the near future anyway, because as good as his father might look today, there was every chance he'd be back on the couch and drunk the next day. "i rode horses, i mucked stalls." he said, his job wasn't interesting, but he loved it. he hadn't been meant to muck the stalls either, but once he'd been told not to, his nature had kicked in and he'd just had to. he was paying for it now, everything hurt, but it had been worth it.
Shaun glanced up for a moment, "It's not a matter of wanting Mav, it's a matter of principle. I fell off when I shouldn't have, and now whilst money doesn't fix everything, what you have spent on bills and food should be repaid."
"I rode horses, I mucked stalls."
He frowned a little bit as he began to pull trays from the oven, "So the doctor's have given you clearance to go back to doing things like that?"
He looked over at Mav, "How hungry are you? We're having steak, chips and eggs tonight."
well his dad had a point, money didn't fix anything, though he wished it could. then they'd have a chance to go back to what they had been before their mother had died. the only thing it would fix would be the negative his bank account was now in but taking the money almost felt like it would be a slap in their face to his mother, he didn't know why. it just did. though he'd never voice that reason to his father, there was nothing that could make those thoughts become reality with words. "just start paying for everything now and give derek and me a break on keeping your other kids alive and fed." he said as he took a sip of the coke, that was as little of an argument he was going to make on that, though he knew that it was very possible it would turn into one, arguments were the way him and his father discussed everything.
he couldn't help the scoff that he let out as his father asked the question. "it matters now?" he looked across at his dad. he mentally bit his tongue though, it seemed that his father was at least trying to have a conversation with him and he could tell he was actually sober so he figured he should put a mental effort into not being a shit for a few moments. "i'm on light duties anyway." he said as he drained the last of the can and he crunched it with one hand, tossing it into the bin that was by the back door.
he shook his head when his father asked if he was hungry. "not really." he hadn't really gained his appetite back since he'd been released from hospital. "be sure to let the little shits know you cooked it for them." it was a small thing but he knew it would probably mean more to them that it did to him at the moment. he wasn't in the mood to really acknowledge how good it was to see his dad trying, but he knew his brothers would. they were better than he was, he wasn't ashamed to admit that to himself.
