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!.
he was half aware that his brother had knelt down as well but he couldn't focus on that, all he could focus on was the pain beating through his chest in time with his heartbeat and trying to draw a proper breath. they were broken, he knew they were broken. he'd felt this pain just weeks before, though his brothers fist hadn't packed as much punch as monster's hooves had. he was more focused on trying to breath than he was on what jace was doing so he was a little surprised when he sat down in front of him. for a second he was worried that he was going to start in on him again, considering for the first time in a long time he'd actually been trying to help his brother rather than piss him off, this was a great way to thank him for it, but he couldn't help but thinking it wasn't enough for jace.
"the fuck?" he asked his brother when he asked the most stupid question he could have. did it hurt. did jace think there was another reason he was on all fours on the floor of their kitchen trying to draw a proper breath? the next part of his brothers question just confused him even more, he shook his head a little as he slowly drew himself up onto his knees so he could sit against the wall, his hand still holding onto his chest. "just leave me a-alone jace." he doubted jace would listen if he tried to argue that no shadows had touched him and he was in too much pain to really try.
mav might not have been a student at the campus, but he did take the liberty of using the sports fields when he was there visiting his friends. he didn't play for any of the teams but he figured there was no harm in using them to try and keep fit. besides the chance of running into someone here who cared about him enough to tell him to stop running were slim, if jace saw him he'd probably egg him on in the hopes it would kill him or something. link maybe but the chance of him being out on the field and not somewhere with his head buried into a book were slim to none at the best of times. so here he was, out here on a cool crisp morning, having crashed the night on the floor of dani's dorm room.
the air was cool and his breath was hot as he breathed out slowly, trying to keep it controlled as he ran around the track. he couldn't play football at the moment but he could make sure he tried to keep the cardio up while he was off the field. broken bones be damned, he wasn't losing months of conditioning because of what had happened. if he laid down he'd give up and that wasn't in his nature. so he was pushing through it, even though he could tell that he was probably running a little funny to accommodate the broken ribs he was once again suffering through thanks to jace, his hand rested on his side over them to offer some support as he jogged. he'd rather be sprint training but that was out of the question, that would really make him feel like he was dying.
he slowly pulled up to a stop and he brought his other hand to the back of his head as he leaned back a little, grimmacing as he did and as he tried to catch his breath. "fuck.." he mumbled into the cold air around him as he glanced around the track, half checking that no one was going to jump out of nowhere and bust his balls for being out there. it was something of a fear of his, he didn't want to get banned from campus because most of his friends were stupid enough to be studying here. he couldn't see anyone but it wasn't exactly full light yet so there were plenty of shadows for people to be hiding in but he figured it anyone had a problem with him being out here, they wouldn't keep it hidden for long.
he smiled a little as shannon said that she probably had plenty of bad habits already. well that might have been true but there always room to learn so many more. not that he was going to set out to teach her the bad habits but he wasn't an expert when it came to horses and there was always the chance something would slip through and it would settle as habit in a horses mind. but as long as shannon knew that, he had no problem in taking on his horse for him. it would give him an extra challenge, something else to keep his mind of the troubles at home and an extra excuse to spend more time here at the barn. there were only so long he could hang around with his work and his job until people started asking if he was okay, so a second horse would just mean he could do nothing but hang out here and no one would bat an eyelid. he doubted anyone in his family would even notice if he started bunking down in the hay loft rather than coming home at night. well creven might notice but it would take a few days.
he could accept that. eventually he might ask to take over some of the other costs, if he and the horse worked well together. they could be an absolutely horrible match and then he could only imagine the deal would be off because if the horse hated him, he wouldn't push it with her. it wasn't fair to the horse. "that sounds like a deal to me." he said with a grin and a nod, verbal but a deal so he'd arrange to have her board taken out of his pay as well, like he did with twix now. he'd give it the six weeks that shannon had told him, when her feet were due to be done and he'd see if he could convince the other male to let him cover that cost too. he didn't like his chanced but he wouldn't be him if he didn't ask. he nodded a little as shannon asked if he wanted to swing by her stall when he finished this stall. "yeah sure, i'd love to meet her." he said honestly as the grin on his face spread just a little.
he shook himself out of his own thinking as the plate was placed down on the table and he smiled a little up at sam. he appreciated the gesture, he really did. it wasn't like he needed looking after but even someone like him had to admit that it was nice sometimes, on the rare occasion. "thanks, yeah i'll eat just about anything." growing up in the house he'd grown up in there was no allowances when it came to food unless it was an allergy. if it was served, it had been eaten and there was nothing else coming. he'd also learned to get in quick even if he hated what was being served because if he didn't get his fill the odds would have been his brothers wouldn't have left anything for him. it was a first come first served survival of the fittest style of eating that he'd grown up with, so he'd learned to eat just about anything. he picked at a little of the pastry, his appetite still not back to what it had been pre accident and before his mother had passed but it was slowly getting better.
he glanced at the cup as sam offered a top up and he shook his head a little. "if i have any more coffee i might bounce out of the booth." he said with a bit of a laugh as he looked back up at him. he didn't mind waiting the fifteen minutes for sam to finish either, it was sort of nice to just sit and think, even though sometimes it drove him crazy but tonight it didn't seem to be. maybe it's because he wasn't sitting in a quiet house, he was sitting in a quiet coffee shop, where life was still happening and the world was still turning where his house felt like it was standing still. "fifteen minute's, it'll fly by." he said as he leaned back into the seat and glanced around to see just how busy it was. it amazed him that people got coffee this late at night still. he didn't really get it, but then he hadn't gotten a lot of things until now so who was he to judge.
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.
he listened, he might have had a mouth on him but he did know when to shut it at times. he'd learned to grow up to be loud, sometimes it was the only way to get the point across in a family such as his. when you had as many brothers as he had you needed to be loud to get above the noise. he nodded a little as shannon asked if he could walk and talk and he stepped back from the door so the other man could walk out of the stall and he tucked his hands into his pockets as he kept listening to shannon talk about the horse called rockstar. she sounded like a great horse, right up his alley and something he'd very much like to try out. but it was almost a little unbelievable for him to think that someone would offer him the chance that shannon was offering him.
"i can't promise i won't teach her any bad habits." he said with something of a grin as he leaned against the door of the stall shannon had started to clean out. he couldn't accept taking her out when he wanted without giving shannon something for it. that wasn't the way the world worked, at least not to him. "i'd love to." he said honestly. he'd been looking at getting another horse when he'd been hurt by monster and now his mother had died and his savings pretty much gone, this seemed like a good option. "but only if you let me pay for her food and board." he didn't post it as a question, not leaving much room for it to be asked either and he had a bad habit of being stubborn.
if he hadn't been worried about the fact that his brother might suffer a mental break there and then he'd have walked away from him. he'd have left him to his mutterings and hallucinations because he normally couldn't be bothered. but that had been before. when he could let his mother know that jace was in one of his .. whatever this was called. he could have gotten his mother before, his father even and left them to deal with the person they'd created and kept alive to turn into his brother. but those options were gone. his mother was buried on the other side of town and his father seemed to be buried right along with her. his older brothers had left and he was the next one in line to deal with jace. it left a sour taste in his mouth but he needed to step up for his younger brothers, the way his mother would have wanted him to.
he could see the bleeding on his brother's knuckles and he frowned a bit, wanting to offer a band aid or something but knowing there was no point in trying. jace wasn't listening and he certainly wasn't in the same kitchen that maverick was. in the past he'd have jabbed, he'd have riled and he'd have done what he could to send his brother into a tail spin because it's what he'd done for the last seventeen years. if his brother was around he stirred him up. "jace stop acting like a fucking fre.." he cut off when he saw the colour drain from his brother's face and he worried for a second that he was either going to pass out or throw up right there and then but what happened, he wasn't ready for.
had he been healthy, he'd have had a better chance of avoiding, or blocking his brother's fist but he lacked the ability to move quickly right now and his reflexes were on the slow side, hindered by the alcohol he'd been drinking and the medication he had pumping through his system right now. the blow landed on his ribs and it landed hard. the pain, enough to send turn his vision into nothing but a bright white and he felt himself hitting his knees, the fabric of his jeans burning more than a little. he gripped his hand to where his brother's punch had landed and he tried desperately to catch his breath but he couldn't. it took all he had in him not to curl up on the floor and give into the light. "w-what .. the f-fuck!?" he coughed out as he curled around his hand lightly, the fingers of his other hand gripping onto the floor tile as he lifted his head and could just about make out his brother.
the sky had long since gone dark outside the coffee shop but mav had no intentions of moving from his seat until closing time. if he left he'd feel the need to go home and home wasn't the happiest place right now. he found more comfort being here around the smell of coffee beans, overpriced milk and recyclable straws that melted the second they touched liquid than he did by being at home right now.
he wondered how other families handled grief, the loss of the glue that held them together and kept them all on the straight and narrow. did they fall apart like his was or did they find someway to stick together. so far mav wasn't sure which way his family was going to fall but he knew one thing, it was going to get a lot worse before it got any better than it was. he had just ordered a fresh coffee and the scalding liquid was forcing steam out through the gaps of the lid. he could almost smell the heat as he lifted the cup to his lips and took a long sip. it burned but it was the good sort of burn, almost like the taste of whiskey as it coated the throat.
he was waiting for closing time because it was when his mate knocked off work, he couldn't go home so he figured the next best thing was to bug his friends, at least for a while. plus if there was anyone who knew what it was like to lose someone you loved it was sam. he turned the cup in his hands absently as he sat there, staring at the back of the booth he was sitting in, letting himself get lost in whatever thoughts crossed his mind as he waited for the clock to slowly tick the hands to where he needed them to be.
he really didn't get people's desire to try and make everything as safe as it could be. they were scared of an animal for acting like an animal? that really didn't make any sense. if he was being honest he could have been just as badly hurt in the middle of a boxing ring but no one would be crying for the destruction of his opponent or for him to leave town because of it. he watched as monster stood in the corner of the stall and he really felt bad for him. he'd been thinking about buying him at one point but he couldn't now. his savings were being eaten away by needing to help support his family so the idea of getting a second horse wouldn't be on the table for a while now. he needed to make sure he could afford the one he had before he thought about getting another.
he held out his hand, the treats in his palm but it didn't seem like monster was interested in them from the get go. he brushed his muzzle against his hand but he left the treats there, untouched and mav sighed just a little. "i promise they aren't poisoned mate." he said but he sat reached into the stall a little to drop them into the horses feed bucket, just in case the hand that was offering them to him was the problem and the reason he didn't want to eat them.
he smiled a little when shannon promised to keep his secret and he was glad of that. not that he was worried about being ratted out but because it made him feel slightly more like he wasn't being treated with kid gloves. he hated that, from the moment he'd been released from the hospital he'd tried to go about as normal, surviving on painkillers and the will to never show weakness to his family. he stepped back as the stall door opened and shannon stepped out and he nodded curiously as he said he had an offer for him. "yeah i'm listening." he said as he wondered what the offer could be.
he saw the way his older brothers lip twitched at the ribbing and he couldn't help but smirk just a little. people might look in and think they lived like animals and that they treated each other worse but they didn't really. ribbing each other was one of the ways they showed they cared, actually it was one of the main ways. though he did admit that sometimes they took it too far. but today, he was enjoying it. perhaps because it had been a while since he'd been in the same room as this many of his brothers. he hadn't been at their mothers funeral or there in the week after her death. by the time he'd got out of hospital derek had moved out of the house, their father was a drunken idiot and everyone was dealing on their own. so he'd spent the first few weeks recovering in his room. he made sure to look pointedly at the dishwasher and he tilted his head slightly. "that looks far to complicated for savages like us. too many buttons." he said as he waggled his fingers a little before he let a proper smile slip.
but the mood didn't stay quite as light for long. he knew better, but he couldn't help it. "fuck stain, that's a new one. losing your creativity are you you heaping pile of psychotic deranged energy," of all their brothers he and jace were the two that butted heads the most. they weren't the closest in age but they were the closest in order and jace had been making his life a living hell for the last seventeen years. okay that might have been a stretch but it had felt like it. "you can't think it's not the truth." but he didn't say anything more on that matter. none of them would ever go so far as to have their brother committed, because he was their brother and that was the part that sucked, the fact that no matter what he put them through, that fact wouldn't change and they'd always have his back when push came to shove.
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."
well that was a little weird. normally when mav bit his brother would bite back and tonight he wasn't. it was almost like he was transfixed on something else in the room, someone else even though there was no one else in the room with them. he set down the spoon on the table as he watched his brothers face twist with frustration and he couldn't help the fact he felt a little worried about his brother. he may be a shit and he may be bat shit crazy but he was still a breckah and they were blood, that meant a little something.
"what can't we see?" he asked as he turned in the chair, his arm hooked over the back of it as he searched the room for whatever his brother might be looking at. "if i could, i'd make them leave you alone." he said honestly as he turned back to his food while keeping an eye on his brother out of the corner of his eye. it seemed quiet for a few moments but then his brother spoke again, this time sounding more anxious and he shook his head a little before he got out of the chair and he walked over to jace. "fucks sake jace, there isn't anyone there." he said as he looked back over his shoulder, as if to make sure before he looked back at jace. "now shut up before you wake everyone else in the house, okay?"
mav couldn't help but frown when he heard that the horse was being moved. and it was because of what had happened? that didn't sit well with him. the blame was being put onto the wrong being and he didn't like it at all. "he's being moved? that's stupid." he said as he looked at the horse in the stall. he didn't know what had caused the snap within the horse but he was 98% sure that it had been something around them than something either he or the horse had done. anyone who looked at the horse could see he hadn't always been treated the best and that wasn't something to hold against him. he just needed a chance.
he felt his back pocket for some of the leftover treats he'd brought for trix and he turned them around in his hand before he pulled them out, distracted for a second by shannon's question. he shrugged a shoulder carefully before he answered. "alive. honestly." he said with a slight grin as he straightened his hand with the treats in his palm in case the horse wanted to trust him enough to come over to him, he hoped the horse would see it as a show of trust on his part and wouldn't try to take his fingers off. but who could blame him if he did anyway. he'd probably been treated like crap by the people in the barn who were scared of him. "well don't tell my doctor you saw me." he said with another small grin. if there was a terrible patient in town, it was him.
he half grinned as link pulled the toastie out of the oven and couldn't help but smirk slightly as he saw the smoke that had started to come from the surface, so it had almost burnt. "aren't you supposed to be the genius?" he joked as he rubbed his hand over the back of his neck and he looked across at derek as he started putting the things he'd brought in the fridge. it took everything in him not to frown and say something sarcastic to derek because deep down he knew they all needed to do better. "we're not housebroken yet." so he decided to settle on a joke as he rested his arms down on the table as link asked him a question.
before he could answer though, jace had seemingly listened to just that part of the conversation and assumed the question was about him so he opened his own mouth and went off on a little tirade. mav rolled his eyes and looked at link. "typical isn't it." he shook his head a little before he looked back to his other younger brother. "he wasn't even talking to you jace." it was then that derek piped into the conversation saying they did care, because jace wasn't behind bars. he raised a brow slightly and took a sip of the coke, muttering into the can as he did. "no better place for him actually."
he couldn't help but roll his eyes when his brother said that he didn't care. of course he didn't care. he'd never cared about anything but himself, well at least it always seemed that way. it made trying to keep the place they lived in clean, although it wasn't like they were all making a huge effort but when jace made non, came through and messed the house up regardless it just made it hard. "every time you open your mouth," he said as he pulled the half heated chinese out of the microwave and he grabbed a spoon and sat down at the table, digging into the rice half heartedly.
he paid vague attention as jace moved to the bin and threw out the biscuit he had been eating and while that wasn't strange it was when he threw out the soaked cigarettes. he hadn't smoked before but he did figure the smokes could just be left on a surface and dried out, but he didn't say anything about that. it wasn't his money that his brother was wasting so that didn't bother him as much as the biscuit did. he gave his father money for groceries, he brought groceries into the house and like his older brother, didn't like seeing them go to waste. it was then he saw a confused look cross onto his brother's face and he followed his gaze back over his shoulder, but he couldn't see anything there. he turned back to see jace's face and he raised a brow as he dug his spoon back into the food. "what's wrong with your face?"
