#roughstock

Roughstock- intro chapter

Chapter 0.5- The Return

This is the story of Tucker “Tuff” Pillsbury and Magnolia “Mags” Carter, both past and present.

It doesn’t begin with them though.

It starts with Levi Miller, the rookie… the kid. At nineteen years old he’s as green as a bull rider can get. Every nerve ending in his body is incinerated from the moment he looks up at the rodeo hand and nods his head for the chute to be opened.

His first ride of the season. His third professional ride ever.

“Eight seconds.” That’s what Tuff always says. “It’s only eight seconds, so just… fuckin’ hold on, keep your knees in and pray like hell.”

The roaring crowd, the clouds of dust, Beau, the circuit announcer's voice… all of it fades out compared to the sound of his heart pounding in his ears, and the flex of twelve hundred pounds of pissed off muscle underneath him.

Eight seconds feels like both a lifetime and the blink of an eye when it’s this volatile and vicious. Somehow he manages to hold on until the grating old buzzer sounds over the outdoor arena, and Levi is able to dismount, hitting the dirt face first with a heavy, breath stealing thud.

He scrambles to his feet the second he realizes that he’s still alive. He dusts his chaps and shirt off with a triumphant, rough laugh escaping his throat. His eyes scan over the crowd, looking for any familiar face. Someone who’d seen his victory, and his eyes end up snagging on a figure in the press pit.

She’s sitting in the dirt just on the other side of the fence, her hair tucked up into an old baseball cap and a camera bigger than her own head pointed directly at him. He’d know that figure anywhere. She lowers her lens, noticing him looking her direction, and when their eyes meet she gives him a soft wave. The last time he’d seen her he was the ripe age of ten.

Magnolia Carter… Mags. She’s just as much of a legend around here as Tuff.

“Levi Miller!” She shouts with a grin across the din, him slowly limping towards her side of the arena to get out of the way. He’s still looking up at her as he goes, and she continues.

“Last time I saw you, you were winnin’ ribbons for mutton busting and pickin’ your nose!”

“Mags?” He shouts back, his voice slightly cracking from the pain in his ribs from his landing. He isn't asking if it’s her— that isn’t even a question. He’s wondering where the hell she’s been, and why she’s back now after almost a decade.

She only grins and sends him a wink before lifting her camera just in time to catch the next riders entrance.

That was all he needed. Levi didn’t just run, he bolted. He forgets the fans, the score he didn’t check, and the pain searing through him as he ducks under a railing and sprints towards the chutes. He kicks up dust, but his one track mind is set on his mission.

He skids to such a hard stop that he nearly knocks into Kyle “Ky” Newman, who’s in the middle of wrapping his riding hand. Next to him is the man himself… Tucker “Tuff” Pillsbury, local circuit champion and pain in everyone’s ass. He’s leaning against one of the gates, his eyes on the dirt floor as he mentally prepares himself for his own ride.

“She’s back!” Levi shouts, immediately cursing out an “oh fuck” in between when he catches a stitch in his side from running. “She’s here!”

Ky looks up with an amused, but unmoved smirk. “Who, your mom? I thought you knew she was coming?”

“No— no, not my mom… Mags, My old babysitter.” Levi gasps out between his heavy breaths, trying his best. “Magnolia Carter is here! She’s up there in the press box takin’ pictures!” He points up as if they could see through the metal frame of the arena's underbelly.

“Oh… shit.” Ky mutters, losing all of the bravado and ‘your mom’ jokes he had ready to go. The shift in the groups energy is instant. Ky stops wrapping his hand. Him and every other cowboy within earshot seem to stare at Tucker, waiting with bated breath for something in him to snap.

He doesn’t move, but every muscle in his shoulders lock up when Levi’s words register. The zone he’d been putting himself in is now crumbled on the dirt floor at his boots.

His eyes are dark and hardened as he slowly turns his neck, locking eyes with Levi who’s standing on the other side of Ky. “What did you just say?”

From a few chutes over, one of the shiny corporate champs, Colt Vance, speaks up with curiosity and a raised brow, a soft smirk already forming on his lips. “Who’s… Mags?”

Nobody dared move a muscle, or say a word for fear that they’d unleash the hell that is Tuff Pillsbury before he’s even stepped foot into the arena. Even the air seems to still, the temperature more bone chilling than a moment before.

“Nobody.” Tuff grunts, the words are low and almost possessive, his eyebrows pulled together and his knuckles gripping white around the gates railing. Everyone can tell by his reaction… she’s not nothing, she’s everything. Or she was.

The reigning circuit champ only lets out another low grunt as he stalks off towards his chute in an attempt to get his head back together before his eight seconds start. A futile attempt at best, because it hasn’t worked once yet even after eight years apart.

Hi!! This is an intro chapter to my new fic, Roughstock! The first real chapter is up now! I hope you enjoy bull rider! Tucker as much as I am. ❤️

Intro chapter!

Chapter One- The Ride

The press pit is the most miserable place to watch a rodeo from, in Mag’s opinion anyway. It’s too far away from any of the real action, too suffocatingly hot despite the cool weather, and there are too many photographers with sharp elbows just waiting to nail you in order to get their money shot.

That’s why after enduring the heat for three hours, both professionally and literally, Mags decided to head down to the dirt circle between the arena fence and the stands. This is where she always gets her best shots, from the same ground that shakes from the force of nature occurring upon it.

That’s exactly where she is when she looks up from the itinerary on her phone to find Tucker Pillsbury clambering over the side of the metal chute, his jaw set and shoulders unusually stiff as he settles on a bull called Hells Bells.

His form is all wrong, and not in a ‘technique change’ way. No, it’s an ‘I have a death wish and something to prove’ way… He knows.

Levi must have told him after he darted off like his ass was on fire. She should have figured that he would. He worships the ground Tuff walks on, and if asked would gladly lick his boots clean with mud caked in his smile.

Tuff… the moniker makes her damn near laugh, her lens shuttering as she focuses back in and catches a few pre-ride shots of this impending disaster.

He wasn’t Tuff to her. He was Tucker… Tuck. The boy with calloused hands that shook when he touched her for the first time. He’d had the riding name even back then. Every cowboy worth his salt has a nickname around here. When she knew him though, he hadn’t had it wrapped around himself like a tomb and a shield the way he does now.

His jaw tightens, and she captures it in real time through her zoomed in lens. A strange perspective now, when she once was the one standing on the side of the chute, pressing her lips to his for as long as he’d let her. She never knew if it’d be the last, so every single one was cherished by her, and lovingly tolerated by him.

He’d eventually start swatting at her, and if she seemed especially uneasy, he’d plop his hat onto her head. A silent vow that he’d be coming back for it, even if it was one he was never sure he’d be able to keep.

All of those memories are now just the wreckage that his Tuff persona was built on top of. He lifts his free hand and tips his Stetson back far enough to give the ranch hand a nod. His helmet is nowhere in sight.

The familiar and still bone chilling clang of the metal gate releasing sends dread shooting through her core.

Hells Bells launches out of the confined space with an angry snort, already corkscrewing the second they clear the edge of the arena. The two thousand pound animal is a tornado of muscle and destruction, unflinching and determined to buck Tuff off.

The bull kicks its hind legs off of the ground, dirt spraying against the stadium lights. Chunks of it hit the arena railings, making a tinking ricochet sound as it bounces off. The crowds excitement is palpable. This is the most entertaining ride they’ve seen all night, and everyone is on the edge of their seats.

The veteran riders, who are standing not too far off are already nervously shifting and the low hum of their commentary floats towards Mags alongside the ever present scent of corndogs from concessions.

She doesn’t need to hear it though. She watches as the bull bucks up, and before its hooves can hit the ground again, Tuff marks out, he wraps his legs around the front of the bulls shoulders and digs his spurs in as hard as he can. A move that makes Mag’s stomach lurch for many reasons.

Marking out is a requirement in bronc riding, but in bull riding, it's just a reckless and arrogant display. He’s not riding the bull, he’s fighting against it, trying to prove to himself that he has worth more than her or the audience.

He’s punishing himself for still letting her get into his head so damn easily, even after all of this time.

His free arm is loose and flailing like a flag in the wind instead of being held above his head for balance. His chaps violently slap against his legs every time he slams down after catching air.

Mag's camera drops from her face and she watches in sheer horror as he arches his back, his teeth barred against the force. His head swings dangerously close to Hells Bell's hindquarters, the way many riders before him have caught a horn to the face when their body violently smashes forward.

An involuntary sound of fear escapes Mags’ throat, one she hasn’t made since she was eighteen. Unlike the audience, she’s all too aware of the danger he’s purposely putting himself in.

The veteran riders to her left are now slowly getting closer to the fence, some putting their scuffed boots on the bottom rung in case they end up having to clamber over and scrape Tuff off of the ground. When the old timers move fast… it’s never a good sign.

The buzzer sounds after eight seconds is up, and he’s somehow managed to hang on out of pure, stubborn willpower. The low beep signaling it’s over is the most grating and relieving part of the ride… until his dismount. The most dangerous part of the sport.

Tuff doesn’t dismount though, not this time. He simply lets go, and is flung off of the animal's side like a ragdoll, landing face down in a cloud of dust and pile of limbs.

Get up. Get up. Get. Up.

Her brain chants (or prays), as it always did, despite insisting to herself that she doesn’t care in anything but a professional way. The pounding of her heart and her lack of blinking would beg to differ, but she swallows it down.

Tucker staggers to his feet after what feels like a lifetime of suspended pause. The audience even seems to hold their breath, but erupts into joyous cheers at the first sign of life. How twisted, she thinks to herself, to celebrate a man just breaking bones, and not dying like it’s a victory.

His bottom lip is split, blood pouring from his mouth and down his chin. He clutches his chest with one hand, and gives a cocky two finger salute to the crowd with the other.

Bastard.

Every ounce of fear and horror drains from Mag’s body and is replaced by overwhelming rage. His act of stupidity started in the chute, and judging by the way he’s limping towards her with a humorless laugh while spitting copper and dirt, it’s not over yet.