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romeoandjulietyouwish · 11 months

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Chapter 1: A Long Walk (Wildfires to Rain Storms)

Hey yall! This is the first chapter of my new fic that I am so excited to finally share with you. I'm also trying a new way of posting fics <3

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The Emon forest stretches for miles and miles, the landscape full of trees and plains and ponds and rivers. But with such natural beauty comes the risk of fires.

It’s easy for a single blade of dry grass to catch a blaze and it’s even easier for that flame to spread across the entire plain in a matter of minutes. And then to the trees, sending birds fleeing for safety, other critters not far behind them. Dense smoke would fill the air, choking out the sun until all that remains is a thick haze of ash and smoke.

And then the rain would come, a cool summer rain to stop the inferno in its tracks. The ash would turn to soil, the dead trees fall, and things would continue as they were always meant to. Growth. Fire. Rain. Repeating until the end.

It's a comforting cycle to those who understand it. After fire always comes rain. The fire can’t burn forever. The bad times will be over soon. And in its place, new plants will grow.

Vex doesn’t know how much she believes in that metaphor.

Sometimes the fire only grows worse and worse and worse until there is nothing left but barren land, the wind scattering the ashes and pushing the fire onward. And sometimes rain comes with no fire, with no herald. Sometimes it rains for no good reason at all.

Vex rolls her eyes at herself, a few hours outside of civilization and she’s already waxing poetic. This summer is going to be a long one, no doubt. And yet she wouldn’t trade it for the world.

There’s not a trail this far from civilization.

What some people don’t realize about hiking trails is that they have to end somewhere, usually there’s a loop or a sign marking the end of the trail, but here there’s nothing, just the dirt path gradually melting back into grass and plant covered ground.

Taking out her compass, Vex double checks that she’s heading the correct direction before tucking it away with a slight smile. Of course she’s right, she’s always had an impeccable sense of direction.

She takes a long breath of the fresh air, feeling it cleanse the dirty, city air from her lungs. Not for the first time she considers just running into the forest and spending the rest of her days here in the woods with Trinket.

She looks down at the dog trotting happily at her side, tongue lolling from his mouth. Just like her, he’s always happier out here. There are so many new smells, trails to follow, squirrels to chase. And rivers to jump in. Gods, Vex is already dreading having to give him a bath out here.

The green leaves of summer surround them, shifting playfully in the warm breeze, catching in the sunlight. In the distance she can hear the babbling of the river and chirping birds and the rustling of leaves somewhere to the West. This far into the wilderness, the sounds of cars and people don’t reach her, and they won’t for three months.

Vex has been working at fire lookout towers for three years now and she can’t think of a better way to spend the end of summer and fall. Here there aren’t any deadlines or cars hoking or stuffy air or garbage and piss covering the streets. Here it’s just clean air and freedom and so much beautiful land to explore.

Her backpack slung high on her back, Vex walks with a spring in her step, something she only finds deep in the woods. There’s an easy smile on her face as she follows her heading to the lookout tower.

Her feet tread easily over roots and rocks, mostly thanks to the rather expensive hiking boots Vax bought her for their birthday a few weeks prior. She’s wearing her favorite shorts with plenty of pockets for Trinket’s treats and her compass and on top of that, a tank top and a flannel to keep her skin safe from sunburn despite the heat. And a baseball hat to do the same. This one bears the emblem of her favorite climbing gym.

For the next three months the only contact she’ll have is with whatever poor sod they found to keep lookout in the North tower.

It’s been a different person all three years and for good reason. The North tower is by far the worst one, it’s poorly taken care of since it’s much more remote. You need to be either a skilled rock climber or willing to walk two hours in the wrong direction to get there.

But Vex puts off those thoughts, instead reaching for her radio. Vax dropped her off at the trailhead less than a day ago and she’s been hiking for almost that long, having slept on the trail during the night. Now, she knows that she’s about to go out of range of their radios.

So taking a quick break, she sits on a downed log and asks, “Vax, are you there? Over.”

There’s some crackling and then her brother’s voice comes through the shitty radio, “Hey, Stubby, already wanting to turn back?”

Vex chuckles, “As if. I just wanted to let you know that I’m going out of range shortly, I’ll be at the tower by dusk.”

“Alright, Kiki’s working tonight so she’ll be the one to answer when you get there.” Vex can hear the pride in his voice at that. Keyleth worked her ass off to get a job at forest services. “Safe travels, Vex, stay safe. I love you.”

“Love you too, bird brain. See you in October.”

With a click, she turns the radio off and keeps walking with a smile.

The remainder of the hike, thankfully, goes quickly. Even though she’s done much longer hikes than this, she still feels exhausted by the time the sun begins to set. It’s the sight of the lookout tower in the distance that keeps her going.

It’s an imposing figure, shadowed this way. Its four legs and large room up top make it look almost like some kind of monster, like the ones she used to hear folktales about. Vex shakes her head quickly, those kinds of monsters aren’t real.

She finally arrives at the tower just after sunset, Vex plodding up the steps slowly. The stain has long since worn off the boards, leaving them grey and full of splinters, she knows better than to use the railing. When she gets to the top, after three flights of stairs, she makes her way to the breaker box, flooding the darkness of the night with light.

Despite the tension in her shoulders and the pure exhaustion running through her, she can’t help but relax as she unlocks the rickety door, feeling at home for the first time in months.

Trinket immediately plods over to the large dog bed by the foot of the bed, makes a single circle, and plops down to sleep. Vex chuckles, dropping her backpack by the door as she walks over to the long range radio on the table. Static fills the room as she tunes it until she reaches the number scrawled on a sticky note beside the radio.

Once she’s locked in, Vex smiles and says, “This is East lookout checking in, over.”

A crackle and then Keyleth’s pleasant voice reaches her, “We hear you, East lookout, did you make the trip alright, over?”

Vex smiles, “A bit slower than expected, but just fine. You better put some dog treats in the next supply drop, Trinket has more than earned them. Over.”

Keyleth laughs, “Noted. Get some rest, check in in the morning for debrief. Over and out.”

With that permission given, Vex sits down on the bed. It’s creaky and lumpy and thin but she loves it all the same. She unties her hiking boots and doesn’t even bother changing into pajamas before curling up under her blankets.

As she lies down, she can’t help but look out the window across from her. In the far distance, she can see the glowing light of the other lookout tower. Despite how far away it is, she finds the presence comforting all the same.

It doesn’t take long for her to fall asleep after that.

The morning comes far too quickly for Vex’s liking. The sun beams down on her face and no amount of hiding her face under the blankets will block it out . Vex groans and drags herself out of bed.

Might as well take stock of all her supplies and get ready for the day before radioing to forest services and officially starting her summer.

A quick look through the cabinets tells Vex that the next supply drop should be coming soon, probably before the end of the week since the previous lookout left a few days prior. So she grabs a full bag of granola and shoves a handful of it into her mouth as she gives Trinket his breakfast as well.

He gobbles it down quickly before returning to his bed and falling back asleep. Vex chuckles, “You poor dear, you’re so exhausted.” She pets his head pitifully before laughing and grabbing a change of clothes before heading down to the showers.

Of course the water is freezing cold and the water pressure is absolute shit so it’s not the most relaxing shower she’s ever had, but it does the job of removing the sweat and dirt from yesterday’s hike.

Once she’s dressed and her hair is braided and she’s back in the tower, she sits down in front of the radio.

“East lookout checking in, good morning, forest services, over.” Vex leans back in her chair, looking out at the forest before her. At this peak of summer it’s still lush and green, but Vex is looking forward to the leaves turning amber and crimson.

“Good morning, East lookout,” Keyleth greets back cheerfully despite the early hour. An overnight shift for her then, and yet she still sounds just as chipper as always. “There are just two things I need to go over with you. First, North lookout arrived a few weeks ago so reach out to him sometime today and let him know you’ve arrived.”

“Noted, over,” Vex replies.

“Second, there’s a small fire towards the Southwest, we’re not concerned about it yet, just keep an eye out.” Vex immediately starts taking notes as Keyleth goes over how long the fire has been burning, where it has started, and wind directions. “South lookout has been evacuated just in case. And after this check in this frequency should be kept free for emergencies only. Over.”

“Copy,” Vex responds. “How worried should I be about the fire? Over.”

“We’re not classifying it as a wildfire yet and we’re hopeful some rain will stop the spread or put it out before we have to have it professionally extinguished. Over.”

“Thanks, Keyleth.” Vex smiles after a moment, asking, “Is there anything you can tell me about North lookout? Over.”

Keyleth chuckles, “And ruin the surprise? I’ll let you figure out that enigma for yourself. If you need anything, Vex, don’t hesitate. Over.”

“Will do. Thank you, please tell my idiot brother to stop worrying about me, over and out.”

Vex drums her fingers against the table, her eyes drifting to the lookout tower to the north. It’s harder to see in the daylight, but she still spots it easily. An enigma, hm?

In past years, the lookouts have mostly been filled with either no-nonsense rangers or shut-ins who only wanted to communicate if there was a strict need. Perhaps Keyleth calling him an enigma means that there will be conversation to be had with him. Gods she hopes so, especially since they need to keep the frequency clear to forest services frequency.

Checking her watch, she figures she should give the man in the North Tower a bit more time to wake up before reaching out.

Perfect time for a quick hike. After tying her hiking boots and packing a few supplies, she whistles for Trinket. He bounds over happily, tail already wagging. Vex kneels down as she ruffles his fur, “First hike of the summer, are you ready?”

Trinket plants his paws on her legs and licks up her cheek. She laughs, pushing him away with a groan. “Come on then, Trinket.” She opens the door and the two of them quickly jog down the stairs and set out into the wilderness.

With the early morning sun shining on their faces, Vex and Trinket make their way to one of their favorite spots out here. It’s called Red Run River due to the color of the rocks that line its shores. Though, it’s not much of a river, more of a shallow creek made of mountain snow so it’s always cold.

Once Trinket figures out where they’re going, he starts sprinting towards it, whining petulantantly when Vex is too slow for him. She laughs at her dog, “You can go ahead, buddy, it’s just right there.” But as always, Trinket refuses to stray far from her side and instead just continues whining about the pace.

“You know,” Vex tells him, “I’m going to tell Keyleth you’re being a bad sport and then she won’t send you more treats.” As if he can see right through her lie, Trinket huffs and keeps plodding along by her side.

When the river comes into their sight, there is no holding back Trinket any longer. He sprints towards it, leaping into the shallow water and stomping his feet in excitement. He tries to bite at the water spray, not quite understanding why he can’t.

Vex smiles as she sits down at the bank, taking off her shoes and socks to sink her feet into the cold water with a sigh. She can feel the smooth river rocks under her feet and the muck beneath those. Trinket has thankfully scared away any fish from her feet.

Her mind is quiet out here, maybe that’s what she loves about it. That and the lack of service. No clingy ex-boyfriends or uncaring fathers trying to get her attention. Just her and whoever the fuck is in the North tower. It’s with a sigh that Vex remembers him.

It’s taken them about half an hour to make it here so Vex figures now is as good a time as any to reach out to her neighbor in the North tower before the day gets longer. She takes her radio from her pack.

“North lookout, this is East lookout, come in. Over,” she says, making sure to speak clearly.

There’s a long pause and she half expects there to be radio silence when a voice crackles through to her, “This is East lookout, I’m here. Over.” It’s a man, her age, posh accent and Vex would probably say wealthy judging by the tone of his voice. Odd.

“I’m Vex, glad to be spending the summer with you.” The sentiment is false, but might as well start off on a good note. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long.”

“Not at all, I’ve only been alone here for a few days, your predecessor got a late start on his hike back. I’m Percival Frederick-...just Percy, a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Did forest services tell you about the wildfire Southwest? Over.”

“Yes, they just said to keep an eye on it. They said they expect rain and that should hopefully stop the spread.” There is a long pause of awkward silence. Soon enough Vex can’t take it anymore, saying, “I’ll let you get back to your morning, just thought I’d introduce myself. Over.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Percy tells her stiffly. “Over and out.”

Vex taps her finger thoughtfully against the plastic exterior of her radio. He’s not what she was expecting. He sounds younger, about her age. And Keyleth called him an enigma. She can’t help but wonder what kinds of secrets he’s hiding, but to be fair, no one chooses this job without at least a dozen secrets. Gods know she has her fair share of them.

Something to ponder at least, before the summer goes on too long.

She sighs and lays back, dragging her toes through the water as she gazes up at the sun. She is able to all but tune out Trinket playing and just breathes in the fresh air. At least until Trinket bounds out of the river, shaking his thick fur and spraying all over her.

Vex sits up with a gasp, “ Trinket! ” The dog quickly starts wagging his tail and pads over to Vex, shoving his nose under her hand.

“Buddy…” Vex sighs as she starts to pet him. Somehow he’s gotten himself completely wet from head to toe. She sighs, “I’m going to need to rinse you off before you are allowed inside.” As though he understands her words, Trinket whines, resting his head on her knee pitifully. She rolls her eyes, “You're lucky it’s not a bath.”

With sigh, Vex lies back down, this time with her dog’s massive, wet head, resting on her stomach.

As Percy sets down his radio, his hands tremble ever so slightly. He almost told her his name out of instinct. A novice mistake. Hopefully she didn’t notice or forgot. At least she doesn’t have the internet out here, no way to search his name and find all the news stories.

He sinks down onto the bed, wincing at the creaking sound it makes and repeats the words Keyleth and the police told him over and over, he’s safe out here. There’s no way for anyone to know where he is, no way for anyone to get here without being noticed first. He just has to make it to October and then this whole mess will be over.

Percy sighs at his own thoughts. It will never be over. Even after they’re all rotting in prison, his family will still be dead. He’ll still be alone.

Against his own will, his eyes drift to the radio. He’s not alone here. The thought is much more comforting than expected. Maybe these months won’t be so unbearable after all.

#firewatch au #critical role #vox machina #percahlia

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hauntedjpegcollection · 7 days

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in the dark

wc: 5267 au: firewatch au ch: xavier, benji

His sister is in the trees.

Xavier can see her. But not reach her. He keeps running, thin branches whipping across his face and arms, little cuts welling black beads of blood. His breath puffs in front of him, as if it’s winter but it’s not. It’s spring—it’s the cusp of Summer. He’s barefoot, and the rocks cut his feet. This isn’t real, it can’t be real, none of it makes sense. But his sister is in the trees. He thinks.

“Tess!” He yells, stumbling through wet underbrush. His bare soles slide across leaves and dirt, the blood making it even more slick and sticky. His chest burns, his veins throbbing. It’s the beginning of night, when the sun parts the trees and makes it look like a forest fire. Everything smells like rot. Everything decays around him.

And Tess smiles between the trees. Every glance of her she smiles wider, until there’s blood round the corners of her lips, splitting skin, too many teeth. She smiles and her eyes crinkle with it, until they’re just slits in a pale, freckled face. Black and angry. Her arms are too long, her hands spider like as they wrap around tree trunks she hides behind. There’s divots from her nails. Xavier screams her name again, trying to reach her. But he never does.

He’s not even sure it’s her. How could it be?

Tess would never leave him alone in the dark.

—

Xavier wakes with a gasp. It’s so violent that he’s already sitting, legs swinging from the bed, hands to his face. He breathes heavily, heaving shoulders and pained sides. Sweat soaks his red hair and flattens it to his skull. It pools at his lower back, under his arms, along his collarbone. Xavier pats around himself, as if searching for an injury. As if the dream could have hurt him. Memories of his sisters ever yawning smile, torn skin, multiplying teeth make him nauseas enough that he quickly leans over to put his head between his knees.

A beat passes, where he stays just like that. Wind chimes that the last firewatch put up ring pleasantly, mingle with morning bird song outside the cracked window.

“Nasty,” Xavier whispers to himself, hands cradling the back of his neck. The unrest in his stomach calms enough that he unfolds and flops backward onto the mediocre twin mattresses. “Should I call Tess?”

Talking to yourself is one of the first symptoms someone isn’t of sound mind—that’s what he’d been taught in his safety training. But Xavier’s only been at his cottage, underneath his lookout tower for a few days. He’d arrived at the beginning of the week and spent an entire day unpacking—another day just trying to set up all the equipment they’d sent him with. The last firewatch—the man who’d put up those adorable little chimes—had taken his own wood axe to the radio.

Xavier wonders if he’d started talking to himself three days into isolation too.

Routine is a balm against an unwell mind. Something else he’d been taught; not that he agreed with or even liked the phrasing. Unwell mind. It makes him snort as he pulls himself from the bed, pads around the cottage to dress himself and start the meager coffee machine they’d supplied. He wasn’t even really a coffee drinker, but along with slightly offensive idioms about keeping yourself well, he’d been told he would walk away from this job with a new caffeine addiction.

Tess was in the back of his head saying, better than your last addiction. Which was fair. If not doing nothing to make Xavier feel less insane.

It was the dreams.

Xavier’s only been at his post for four days now, and all four days, he’s had those fucking dreams. Not just of Tess, but something in the woods. Something in the woods. Some. One? Not an object, but a manifestation of—a creature or—someone. Haunting the leafy sage atmosphere like a ghost.

“Or a monster,” Xavier quips to himself as he pours black coffee into a mug. He decides to dump at least three spoonfuls of sugar into it and then he makes the same breakfast he’s made the last few days. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich on bread he’d let thaw from the storage the first night he’d arrived.

Routine, unfortunately, was what he was going to have to build. So he did.

Xavier finishes the sandwich. Then he stretches, full body, until he’s limber and loose. Then he lays on the ground and does fifty crunches. He rolls over onto his stomach and then does fifty push ups. He alternates planking on his hands and then on his elbows for sixty second intervals. He hops up to do fifty five pull ups from the bar he’d brought with him and stuck in the closet door frame—just because pull ups were his favorite. He washes the plate and the knife he’d used for his breakfast.

Xavier stands in the middle of the cottage and finally realizes that he has to go outside.

—

The dreams had made him scared of the woods. But once he was in it, that fear melted away.

He shrugs his pack up onto his shoulder as it slips down once more. He parts branches gently with his hands, careful not to disturb the nature too much. He fishes a map from his pocket, even though he’s already memorized it. Something about putting his finger to the little blue line makes him feel good. He glances behind him at the little blue cottage as it becomes smaller and smaller. The lookout tower that it’s directly beneath however, never gets smaller. If anything, it becomes more and more imposing the farther Xavier gets from it—being able to see it, knowing he’ll be sitting in that tower, staring at all this forest.

He continues on.

“Bug spray,” he says aloud, to remind himself. He swats at a fat mosquito that makes an audible thwapping sound against his open palm. “Lymes disease,” he ponders idly as a reminder to thoroughly check for ticks once he’s back at the cottage.

Xavier’s father had laughed when he’d talked about his posting. You’re a fisherman in a forest, he’d said in his loud, raspy baritone. Technically, no one in his family had been a fishermen since his great grandfather, but James Wolffe still clung to some sort of pride about all that. Sailed in the summer time, had taught Xavier all he knew about the water. He wasn’t drawn to the forest, landlocked as he is now. It’s just—well, it was good money. It was good money, if you could stand the loneliness. And Xavier needed the money.

He needed…he needed to pay Tess back.

The woods thin. The ground beneath him gets rocky, the soil harder. Xavier’s breath catches as he finds the river.

Trees line either side of it, but it’s a sizable stretch of water that breaks apart the land. An old, rotting trunk is half fallen, nearly a bridge on either side. A large slate of rock sits at the edge, as if it was created for someone to wander onto and rest. The water bubbles happily, currents helped along by churning miniature falls. He lets his head fall back on his shoulders, inhaling the smell deeply, arms akimbo for a moment as he soaks it in.

It’s doesn’t look deep, but Xavier knows water can be deceptive. Still, he tosses his pack onto the shelf of rock and begins to strip. He’d worn trunks underneath, a short blue thing that he didn’t really care too much about. The sun warms his skin instantly, along his shoulders and arms and bare chest. He won’t be out long enough for sunscreen, at least he hopes not because he doesn’t pause to slather any on. Like he can’t help himself, he crashes into the water.

Then he falls back into it with a slap as his back meets the river. And then, Xavier floats contently.

“Is it considered swimming, if you’re just floating?”

No one answers him. Xavier stares at the blue sky above him, crisp in its morning glory. Lazy clouds slide by, hiding him from sunlight every once in a while. His eyes dilate and contrast each and every time until he decides to close them. The water laps at his ears; occasionally it’s all birds and forest and then it’s his muffled heartbeat. Back and forth, back and forth. His limbs go limp and weightless and the only thing keeping Xavier above water is that innate ability to float he’d learned as a child—that all the Wolffe’s had learned as children, growing up in Massachusetts.

Oh, stop. You can’t be scared of sharks in a swimming pool, Xavier.

He smiles at the childhood fear, but he doesn’t know why it comes to him at that moment. Tess pulls him along into the deep end of the community pool, where the teenagers swim. And Xavier cries, because every time he closes his eyes, he sees Bruce from Jaws.

Sharks can’t breathe in chlorine. Only saltwater.

“Bull sharks can live in freshwater,” Xavier mumbles to himself, nearly asleep underneath the clouds and sun. Just like his little river. The thought makes a childish spike of fear hurt his heart, makes his eyes snap open, his hands dipping into the water to touch the smooth stones below him. Too shallow for a shark, surely. A stupid line of thinking, anyway—there were no bull sharks in this God damn river. Why was he trying to scare himself? Xavier swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. Tess’ hand drags him further and further into the deep end of the pool, her girlfriend laughing high pitched, their friends buzzed from the weed he’d caught them smoking just outside the fence.

No, Tess, don’t make me, I’m scared—

“Fucking idiot.” He can’t help indulging the child in his heart by sitting up in the river—he turns to kneeling, the water rippling at his chest. He glances toward the small falls, where a shark surely can’t survive, and then down further along the river bed where it opens even wider into faster churning current. His heart beats against the side of his throat, his breathing fast. Xavier runs an oddly shaky hand through his hair, wetting it further.

“Fucking idiot,” something whispers in his ear, close enough that he can feel their breath, making a scream rip from his throat. Xavier whirls to catch whoever is behind him, scrambling along the cool river stones, splashing—that attracts sharks—and yelping loudly, terror making him cold and useless.

There’s no one there. Just the burbling sound of the river. The birds in the trees. His eyes scan, panicked. They hop everywhere and all it is is fucking green. He shoots to his feet, stumbling, wicking water from his face aggressively.

“Alright?”

“Jesus!” Xavier screams again and this time, his clambering results in him falling backward into the water. He screams more because of it, briefly dunking his head under the river water (hearing his heartbeat louder and louder) before he pops up again. Xavier jerks himself to stand once more and looks at the stranger, on the rock, directly beside his pack.

His first thought is that his knife is in that pack and not on him, so if this stranger wants to kill him, it’ll be a fist fight. His second thought is that if someone’s going to kill him, at least they are very good looking.

“Shouldn’t swim in the river,” the man calls. His voice is a clear ring across the river, sort of like the wind chimes if the chimes were British and sounded like they hadn’t slept in a few days. He has his hands in jacket pockets, denim shorts messily shorn to the thighs, little white strings hanging off here and there. A hole cuts across the thigh as if he’d made a decision to cut there first and then changed his mind. Xavier tries not to stare, but his maybe-killer has a fucking set of legs on him, muscular and defined and hairy. They end in heavy black combat boots that are lazily laced.

He stands with the sun to his back, putting him in shadows, but not enough to obscure him entirely. From what Xavier can see, he’s got facial hair and a handsome curving nose and eyes that match his sleepy tone.

Xavier also realizes then that he hasn’t said anything at all.

“Hi,” he decides on and then cringes at the stupidity of it all. “Uh, no—I’m the firewatch.”

“Makes two of us.”

“What?” Xavier starts, hands brushing back through his wet hair so it’ll stop clinging to his face. The man stares at him so directly, Xavier feels momentarily pinned in the water. His eyes are black, and narrowed and aimed slightly lower than eye level. Xavier’s very suddenly aware he’s in nothing but these stupid blue swim trunks. He makes for the bank of the river, his movements sluggish, his embarrassment making his cheeks a similar color to his hair.

“M’in the third tower. C Tower. You replacing Gresham?”

“You knew him?” Xavier asks with a quick glance up. He steps and then pain suddenly lances up his leg. Xavier gasps, stumbles back, lifting his foot. Dark red blooms in the water, immediate and thick, like spilled wine. “Oh fuck?” He says it like a question, staring at his foot as he lifts it further and blood wells at his heel, where something translucent is half in his flesh.

“Huh.”

“Fuckin’ hell.”

The other firewatch makes for him then. It’s awkward—his dark brown hand cupping underneath Xavier’s calf, arm wrapping around his waist immediately. Xavier feels light headed and not because of the dull pain in his foot or the sudden injury. He knocks the beanie from the strangers head with a too-long arm and black curls lift in the wind, touching his cheek and his chin. Xavier blinks, his skin warming in a way that also has nothing to do with the injury or the earlier humiliation.

“Oops,” Xavier says mindlessly as he’s lowered to the rock by strong, helpful hands. His own shake, the sudden adrenaline of surprise making him twitchy even though it’s not yet started to actually hurt. “Wow. That is—Wow, that’s bad luck. Is that glass? I thought—this park—people aren’t allowed out here.”

“’Course people come out here. Can’t keep people from doin’ what they want. Hold still.”

Xavier watches deft fingers take hold of the glass and yank without any preamble. More blood blooms, dripping onto the rock and making tiny splattered patterns. Fire ignites from his foot up his leg, but he watches in dull amazement as one of his socks is snatched up from the rest of his clothes and quickly tied around his heel. It gets yanked tight enough to put pressure on the little injury.

And then the man steps back and stares at him.

Behind him, his beanie floats down the river and disappears.

“You said you knew Gresham?” Xavier prompts.

“No I didn’t.”

“Well, you said I was replacing him, which means you knew he was in the B tower.”

“Knew that, didn’t know ‘im.’

Xavier attempts to stand and a firm hand pushes him back down. A brief flare of anger makes his face rearrange into a snarl, but the stranger is nonplussed and certainly not intimidated. His hands have returned to the pockets of his jacket and he stands there, taller than Xavier only because he’s standing. He’s toward the sun this time, and his dark brown skin is a golden sort of pretty under it. His eyes are lighter because of it. Xavier’s snarl disappears, replaced with wariness.

“Thank you,” he says slowly, a glance to his now moderately bandaged foot with his own sick.

“Needs a stitch,” the stranger replies gruffly. His eyes stay on Xavier’s chest, as if he’s unwilling to meet eyes.

“Okay.”

There’s nothing but silence then, except for the sounds of the woods. Creaking branches, birds and the wind. The river that stole the mans hat and cut Xavier’s foot bubbling behind them. Xavier feels the sun on his shoulders and the back of his neck and regrets not putting on sunscreen. He stays there on the rock, wondering if he tried to rise again if he’d just be met with that flat, annoyed palm.

The curly haired man grunts, scratches a hand back through that wild untamed mane, glances left and right and then gestures with annoyance. The silence has either unnerved him or frustrated him; Xavier can’t tell because his expression hasn’t changed from it’s pinched and tired slant.

“Benji,” he says. Xavier blinks, for a second not understanding, before it clicks into place that’s his name. Oh, Xavier thinks, slowly starting to smile. That’s a cute name. It feels suiting, but he can’t place why. Benji clears his throat and points to Xavier’s foot. “Can help with that. C Tower is closer.”

“I didn’t realize there was anyone in that tower,” Xavier says as he reaches for his pack. He tugs out a shirt. “I’m Xavier, by the way.” Once its on, sticking in places where his skin is still mostly wet, Benji finally seems to look at him fully. His eyes do a quick, assessing circle—Xavier can’t help but wonder if it’s simply clinical or more. If he’d maybe like it to be a more sort of look. He runs knuckles over his jaw, tilting his head as he stares in turn. That makes Benji look down and away.

“C’mon. Should clean that cut ‘fore it gets infected. Fuck knows whats in the river. Fish shit.”

“Fish shit?” Xavier barks as he starts to stand. Benji is beside him, a hand taking his arm to loop over his shoulders. He reaches for Xavier’s pack, easily swinging it up and carrying the load like it’s not stuffed full.

“Where else fish shittin’ but in the water, mate?”

“There’s perch in this water,” Xavier comments, allowing his weight to shift mostly to this handsome stranger. He doesn’t mind playing damsel in distress a bit—the bottom of his foot does hurt. And besides, he gets the sense that Benji doesn’t actually mind being the knight in cut off jean shorts. They make an awkward duo none the less, as Xavier tries to ensure his heel doesn’t touch the ground.

“Right, and are the perch walkin’ onto the land and shittin’ there? Point stands.”

“I’m not talking about their shit, man. Jesus.” But Xavier laughs and realizes that it feels good to be talking to someone out loud. Not just himself and the forest. “I mean—perch are good for fishing. You fish?”

“No.”

Benji hefts the pack on his shoulder once more, keeps Xavier balanced as they walk the trail toward his looming tower. They’re far separated. A, B and C make a triangular point of protection in the park—but A isn’t occupied. The ranger who had put Xavier in charge said that the cottage was too derelict and spending the money to fix it wasn’t in the budget plans. It wouldn’t be fire season for another month, so it didn’t seem pressing.

But Xavier wonders about the tower now. Why hadn’t anyone told him that C was occupied?

“Did you know I replaced Gresham?”

“No.” There’s awkward silence for a moment. “They radioed me and told me that he was gettin’ evac’d out. Didn’t say he was bein’ replaced.” Benji looks contemplative for a long moment, his handsome features turning solemn. “Was nice, though, ‘cause the men dropped off premium toilet tissue in a supply crate at the same time, so not too mad he lost his marbles.”

Xavier’s laugh echoes loudly in the forest, sending birds careening into the sky, little ‘V’ shaped dots against the clouds and the wide expanse of blue. He thinks he sees Benji look satisfied, but his chin is tucked close to his chest and their height difference makes it too difficult to look properly.

—

“Wow,” Xavier says, as they stand inside the cottage.

“Didn’t know I was goin’ t’have company, yeah?” Benji’s voice is gruff and annoyed as he slings Xavier’s pack onto the table.

The layout is exactly the same. It’s economy sized, meaning small. A bed pushed into the corner (not made up after a nights sleep), a kitchenette modest enough for cooking and not much else. A table to sit at and a closet. There’s no decoration, just like Xavier’s cottage, but Benji has made the little space look well lived in. There’s clothes piling up in the corner, a stack of vinyls on the kitchen counter, a portable and obviously loved record player beside it. A sketchbook is open on the table but Benji crosses to it and snaps it shut and then pushes everything as far to the side as he can.

Xavier sits without asking, in the rickety wooden chair and feels altogether too large for it. His foot has started to hurt worse, tingling and leaden. The sock is luckily black to begin with, so he doesn’t have to see how badly blood has soaked through. His body aches from the shuffling he had to do to get to this tower, even though Benji was helping. He waits patiently as a first aid kit is brought out the closet and popped open on the table.

“Hello, nurse,” he teases in a playful purr as Benji pulls his leg up. Benji snorts—which Xavier is coming to realize might be his way of laughing—and his cheeks darken. The sock is peeled painfully away and tossed to the side, which makes Xavier cringe harder than the feeling of fabric unsticking from his wound.

“S’not as bad as I thought,” Benji comments, tilting Xavier’s heel on his thigh. He pauses to shed his jacket and toss that backward as well. It lands on his bed and Xavier’s mouth feels oddly dry seeing the blankets all tangled as they are. For a brief moment, he pictures Benji laying in it, sunlight streaming in from the window and turning his dark eyes amber. The intrusive thought makes his entire body flush hotly, his hands coming together to twist and turn in front of his chest.

He tries to focus on the painful push of Benji’s fingertips to the cut in his heel. But with the jacket gone, Benji has also revealed far more of himself. Just like the shorts, he’s seen fit to cut the sleeves off his shirt as well, leaving him bare armed. His biceps are corded with muscle, his forearms tautly defined, and he’s just as much body hair as his legs. But truthfully it’s the absolute sprawl of tattoos covering most of him that makes Xavier stare. The shirt also leans open at the collar, like a mouth yawning, and the peek of Benji’s clavicle is enough to make Xavier blush.

“Just gonna use glue, then.”

“Huh?”

“Medical glue—it’s just going to close it up. You’ll be walkin’ on it, anythin’ else will get ripped open. Glue and gauze. S’all I got for you, mate.” But before the glue, Benji pulls out supplies to clean the cut. Xavier settles back on the chair, trying for comfort. “You need somethin’ for it? Don’t have anything harder than Tylenol.”

The warmth in his body drains, replaced by a creeping cold that makes his throat narrow. Xavier’s twisted, tangled hands unlace and he puts them behind his neck. He smiles, but can feel it flickering, feel Benji accessing him more.

“No, I have a high pain tolerance. Swear.” He raises two fingers in mock scout salute. Benji stares at his fingers and then slides those dark eyes back to his face. Xavier pats his own forearm, where his medley of tattoos spans from shoulder to the dogs head on the back of his hand. Benji looks to them, head tilted curiously. He raises the tube of medical glue and softly puts it to the dogs head tattoo on his hand.

“Good boy,” he says simply and Xavier snaps his head to the side to stare out the window instead. He hears the glue uncap and thinks he might hear that tell tale breathing laugh Benji seems to do.

They lapse into silence as Benji takes care of him. Benji’s window overlooks a stretch of the forest, the same as Xavier’s, just in the opposite direction. Never the less, it’s dense and the sun is starting to get lower and lower, descending the woods into an eerie sort of mid afternoon dark. His eye lids droop, his elbow to the table as he rests his chin in his hand and stares. The trees are closer to his window than Xavier’s. The trees. They have little scratch marks in them…

Thoughts of Tess’ long, thin fingers wrapped around bark, digging into trees that weep red sap make him jolt.

“Sorry—that hurt?”

“No,” Xavier answers quickly, breathlessly. “No.” He repeats it, because the marks aren’t there. It’s just craggy bark, nothing more. Xavier flattens a hand to his chest. He’s starting to feel cold, in just the flimsy cotton shirt and his silly blue swim trunks. The adrenaline dump of his wound, the mild blood loss and the introduction of a stranger. The realization that they’d been kept secret from each other—maybe not secret, but they’d not been told the others existence, which felt like a secret. Xavier rubs a hand down his face.

“Since I got here earlier this week, I’ve—I dunno. I’ve been having wicked weird fucking dreams.” He braces for a laugh, or an insult, but it doesn’t come. Instead, Benji dutifully wraps gauze around his heel, in a hypnotizing, practiced motion. Xavier wonders if he has some sort of certification, or maybe he was pursuing a degree in the field, before he decided the loneliness and pay was worth it for this instead. His hands are blunted and broad, strong, with callouses on the palms. Xavier chews the inside of his cheek. He bounces his heel once on Benji’s thigh and makes the man look up at him.

“You having any weird dreams, or am I just not cut out for this?”

“Don’t sleep much,” Benji replies, noncommittally.

“You should make your bed, then, if you’re not using it,” Xavier comments. Benji looks to be holding in a grin, shaking his head, moving Xavier’s foot from his thigh and onto the ground and then sliding the chair back so he can stand. Xavier does as well, leaning his weight on his uninjured foot. The pain is a dull ache that is almost comfortable, considering he’s been living with it for at least an hour now and it’ll likely continue for a day or two. He thinks about asking Benji if he can come back to have him check it out, but he instantly feels too shy. Instead, he reaches for his pack on the table and begins rummaging for the pants he’d worn before his dip in the river.

Their silence isn’t uncomfortable or awkward, the way it might have been before. Benji finds the sock he’d tossed, throwing it into the trash. He washes his hands diligently and puts away his first aid kit. Xavier struggles a bit with the pants, but doesn’t ask for help because he cannot imagine the idea of Benji touching him more than he already has. He notices the radio in the corner of the room. There should be another, all the way in the look out tower. Xavier has the exact same set up.

“Hey, uh,” he motions toward it, making Benji look at him. “If you ever get bored, you could…” he trails off then, shrugging his pack onto his shoulder and nearly colliding with the wall. It makes Benji grin, his cheeks dimpling. Xavier pats at his chest, as if trying to settle his oddly beating heart. He smiles back, his large, wolfish smile.

“I’ll be on channel seven,” Xavier says.

—

He’d never truly understood dark until he’d come to the woods. Xavier was born and bred city. He’d grown up in Boston where lights never turned off. Noise never stopped. Where people were always there; a home full of parents and his siblings, neighbors that were almost too close for comfort. People talking, the cars running all through the night, sirens in the distance.

The woods were silent. They were dark.

Sleep comes to him partially. Like being submerged in the river water again, he feels waterlogged and exhausted. He lays in the twin bed, his feet dangling off the edge, his arms across his stomach. His head tilts toward the window, toward the dark looming trees. His eyes blink as he dozes, in and out, as the marks of his sisters nails appear again and again in the bark. Xavier’s foot throbs dully with his heartbeat, but he’s nearly asleep when he hears a crackle.

Then his name.

“Xavier?”

He bolts upright in the bed, feet colliding with the floor. He howls at the sudden explosion of pain up from his heal. Xavier stuffs a fist into his mouth to stop himself from yelling any louder, his other punching his own pillow. The crackling resumes, the static of the radio loud in the silent night.

“Fuckin’ hell, is this on? Is it working?”

Benji’s voice is distorted, but still clear. His accent makes his words a little jumbled, but it’s endearing. Xavier had liked the mans voice. He’d liked it a lot. He shuffles quickly from his bed, landing in the cozy recliner by the radio. He fumbles for it.

“Benji?” The radio receiver crackles once more.

“Couldn’t sleep.” Xavier glances out the window, to the forest. To the dark. “You?” He’s not about to admit that he’d been half asleep already and that Xavier was actually, frankly, very good at sleeping almost all the time. He’d even fallen asleep standing up once, leaned against a wall.

“I’m up,” he says instead, looking at his gauze wrapped foot. “It’s late.”

“Do you wanna discuss the weather too, then, yeah?”

“Wow, you don’t like my conversation starters? Tell me your deepest secret and biggest mistake, man, if you hate small talk.”

“Suppose it is late,” Benji replies gruffly and it makes Xavier laugh. He wishes they were in person, because Benji had lit up briefly under that laugh the first time. Instead he rubs his fingers across the radio, just for his hands to have something to do. “Where’s your accent from?”

“Boston,” Xavier replies into the radio. He’s grinning and for a moment, he doesn’t mind the dark of his cottage. The night time like a blanket around him. “You?”

“Liverpool.”

And then, the flood gates seem to open and the two of them talk. And talk. And keep talking. Xavier learns about Saha and he talks about Tess; they talk about music and come to the conclusion they both have very different tastes but Xavier wouldn’t mind coming over to listen to some of the records Benji had brought with him. They talk about easy topics and more than once they say a joke at each others expense and the teasing turns to something mildly flirtatious that makes Xavier’s skin prickle and heat at the reminder of Benji’s rough palms. They talk. They talk all night.

And outside, something in the dark grows.

#writing #firewatch au #bp #xw #xw x bp #addicted to new aus

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darubyprincx · 1 year

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oh also if any of yall are enjoying ashes but want another long-form fic that has about the same level of involvement and detail in the plot while you're waiting for us to update ours, i'd reccomend quara @quaranmine's Firewatch AU! basically mumbo goes missing and grian goes looking for him and makes friends with his coworker scar on the way. its a lot of angst of course but it's also BEAUTIFULLY done and the author has put the same level of thought and effort into it as we did ashes, if not more! :]

#ray's tag #firewatch au #seriously it slaps go check it out if you need something else to read while we're on hiatus

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i-am-still-bb · 7 months

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The mountains were calling.

#personal #hoping for some #firewatch au #inspiration while I’m hiking #hoping I can hike all that I want #already miss my tiny human companion #and the big one too

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lizpaige · 10 months

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i missed wip wednesday but here’s a belated snippet from my firewatch au. if you’re unfamiliar with the videogame firewatch, basically ronan just took a job as a fire lookout at a national forest. adam is is supervisor of sorts.

“Hello, Two Forks Tower.”

Ronan sat up abruptly as an unfamiliar staticy voice entered the small room. Disoriented, he looked around the room and assumed he imagined it. That is until he heard the walkie talkie chirp and the voice came back.

“Two Forks Tower, this is Thoroughfare Tower, come in.”

Groaning, Ronan made his way over to the desk, leaning heavily against it as he scrambled to pull the device from its charging base. He fumbled for the talk button on the side and, voice worn from disuse, managed, “uh, hello? Whoever this is.”

“It’s Ronan, right?” the stranger on the other end asked. “I’m Adam.”

Oh right, Adam Parrish. They told him about this before he made the hike. Adam was his sort-of boss this season, or at least his point of contact for questions, he wasn’t totally sure of the arrangement. He wasn’t exactly sure how Adam knew he arrived so quickly after he did, but as he turned to look out the far east window, he saw another tower in the distance, lights on, a shadowed silhouette facing him. Must be Adam, then.

“Yeah, that’s what the guy said on the phone.”

“So,” Adam replied quickly. “What’s wrong with you?”

Ronan sputtered, nearly dropping the walkie talkie as he answered, “Excuse me?”

“People take this job to get away from something,” Adam said impatiently. “So what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong with you?” Ronan shot back, annoyed and too tired to deal with this tonight.

“That’s a great idea, go ahead.”

Huh? Still too tired for riddles, Ronan said as much. “Look I just hiked for two days, so I don’t really follow what you’re doing right now.”

There was a pause, so Ronan took the walkie talkie back to his bed and sat down, kicking off his books and laying back.

“You take a stab at what’s wrong with me.”

What the hell was this? Ronan hated this. Whatever this was.

“Fine, then can I sleep forever?”

“Sure. Now go ahead.”

Ronan sighed, trying to wrack his brain for a witty response. He didn’t know anything about Adam, but he sounded like an asshole. He normally got along well with assholes, being one himself, but this was bordering on gossip, which Ronan hated. Maybe Adam was just trying to be funny, break the ice a little. Ronan was horrible at small talk on a good day, let alone after two days of hiking, one night without a bed. He was just thinking about how great this was going to be not having to interact with people much and here was Adam, what, trying to make friends with him? Ugh. Ronan hated friends.

“You’re really gonna leave me hanging?” Adam’s voice roused him. Ronan didn’t even realize he had shut his eyes.

“Fine,” Adam continued. “Then I’m going to take a second here and make a guess about you. Let’s see… I don’t know anything about you. But maybe you just really like trees,” Adam’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Maybe it's a borderline fetish… a tree fetish.”

Ronan snorted, then held the talk button to say, “goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Adam replied in a gentle, patronizing singsong. “Welcome to the job.”

#firewatch au #wip wednesday #but belated cause i missed wednesday lol #ronan lynch #adam parrish #pynch #trc

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callforhelp · 2 years

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🌹!

Stretching the definition of "currently working on" (as is my right 😜)

He’d once prided himself on living both behind the scenes and center stage, pulling strings and lending his voice to so many puppets he’d occasionally look up to find he’d only been talking to himself.

#asks #firewatch au

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silverphoenixwritesoutlines · 2 years

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The Blaze Within Us (Firewatch AU)

Alfred F. Jones just wanted an escape from the world, to leave behind his neglectful family and abusive boyfriend and just lose himself in nature. Which is why he signed up to be part of the firewatch. Eight months of being stuck in the middle of nowhere was going to be just the escape he needed. On his first day, however, he gets a radio call from his supervisor, and fellow watch member, Arthur Kirkland, who is stationed several miles away. Over the course of his eight months, Alfred can feel something growing between him and Arthur. But while Alfred and Arthur’s relationship grows, so does something darker in the forest.

#ideas #cw mentions of abuse #hetalia #hws america #hws england #usuk #firewatch au #mystery #horror #romance

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cairos-wing · 10 months

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Today’s thought is a Firewatch/36 Questions AU.

Jace as the main dude (I forget his name), running to the firewatch after his life goes into upheaval when it turns out his wife has been lying to him.

Judith as Delilah, also running from the truth, not realising the Jace who applied is HER Jace, and when she does realize she thinks it’s her chance to apologise without him ever knowing. She’s been firewatching on-and-off nearly every year, as a way to get away from the lies she keeps telling people.

Jace thinks it’s kinda weird that the Firewatch woman out here has the same name as his ex-wife, but the walkie talkies distort her voice enough that he never realises.

When he first tells Judith about what he’s running from, and how they first fell in love (the 36 questions) she jokes that they should go through them as something to do out in the woods. This way, she gets to answer them all truthfully.

I’m specifically thinking a different line order in “For the Record”, something like the following:

Jace: For the record, this is self destructive

Judith: For the record, I’m aware of that.

Jace: For the record, I’ve been picturing her body, draped over the sofa wearing nothing but her hat.

Judith, laughing: For the record?

Jace, also laughing but sighing: I’m screwed.

Henry is the turtle you pick up when you’re on watch, so when Jace goes downstairs (to say, maybe go to the toilet or grab some cold drinks he left in a box at the base of his tower) Judith talks to Henry the turtle through the walkie that Jace leaves in the tower.

That night when they get drunk and Delilah reveals a little more than she should and then doesn’t talk to the guy for a bit? That’s when Judith tells Jace what she tells him in “Our Word” and then doesn’t talk to him for a while.

It would also then make sense when, at the end of the game, Delilah tells MC she doesn’t want to meet. Judith doesn’t want Jace to realise who she is, so refuses to meet him when he’s airlifted out.

Following the events of Firewatch are “Attachment” and “The Truth” except Jace will never know that Judith was on the Firewatch with him. (Which I feel links to Judith lying to Jace’s son at the end of the musical, and also the open ending that the original 36 questions has.)

Also last thought: This section from For The Record but edited.

Jace: Did you light candles in your tower?

Judith: Yeah, I thought it’d help “set the mood”

Jace: And what is “the mood”?

Judith: I don’t know, hopeful? Just like a, first date. You said you sat on your carpet, drank two bottles of wine?

Jace: This is, different. You’re a different woman, my whole life was a lie.

That was tonight’s thought.

#fic ideas #firewatch #36 questions #firewatch au #fic concept #musical fic

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auspicioustidings · 6 months

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Savage

Summary: Request for some Scottish warrior Soap taking an English maiden as a prize.

Words: 3.7k

CWs: Violent non-con (I am so serious, do not ready this if it's not your thing), hardcore smut

–

Authors Note: This is very much a rape fantasy. Traditionally rape fantasies have historical grounding in minorities who felt ashamed of their own desires so had to fantasise a situation in which they were blameless for engaging in a stigmatised action because it was forced. It’s sort of where a lot of the noncon trope in bodice rippers comes from because women in unhappy marriages need a fantasy in which they can get rid of the shame for wanting passionate or rough sex because they imagine they fought against it. A lot more people have rape fantasies than people generally realise and truly a miniscule barely there number of them would ever think it was ok to actually assault someone. All that to say, this is not me condoning anything in real life. If you find fantasies like this don’t do it for you, then do not read it, but don’t then shame people who do. There is psychology behind why people fantasise about these things, it’s pretty normal and you don’t need to be worried that it is some moral failing. Mind your business.

It was a miraculously good match for you, a high ranking soldier of the King’s army. You were technically of noble blood, but just barely. You lived simply, not in a large house but in a small village where you held no sway over anyone else and were treated as common. But the village was close to the border between England and Scotland and every day it became more tense as whispers of raids from villages to the West skittered between houses like rats.

You didn’t know how your uncle had made arrangements for this beneficial marriage for you, but it would get you moving South in a few days time to marry and then you would finally be able to relax with this war much further away from you. You had heard horror stories of what happened to young maidens when savages came pillaging. They said that they didn’t wear anything under those kilts, they said it was to make it easy to bury their cocks in any hot hole they could find. They said they didn’t have any tame qualities, not like the English. Scottish men were feral, the comparison to dogs not holding water because at least dogs could be trained.

When you retreated to bed you got on your knees to say your prayers. As always you had to beg forgiveness for the licentious thoughts that sent thrills straight to your cunt whenever you thought about the images all those rumours put in your head.

–

The noise of chaos woke you in a panic, heart hammering against your ribcage as the smell of smoke drifted on the air and war cries sounded. You recognised your own kinfolk of course, the battalion of soldiers stationed here to keep eyes on the border. But it was the cries of those animals from the country to the North that sent you scrambling out of bed in only your chemise, knowing you had to run and hide before they could see you.

You slipped out of the bedroom, a frightened little rabbit looking for a burrow to hop into. The smell of smoke was stronger in the main room and you could see the orange glow of flames through the window. Going outside would be a risk, but hiding in here may get you burned to a crisp should this building be lit up. You did not have time to make the decision as the door burst off of its hinges, a muscular man in a blood spattered kilt with a warrior's mohawk and wild eyes panting like a dog as he caught sight of you.

You were frozen, unable to even breathe. And then after a beat his mouth stretched into a horrid manic grin as he bounded towards you. That finally shifted you from freeze to flight as you scrambled back through to the bedroom, trying to get to the small window. You threw the top half of your body through the gap but his rough hands grabbed your naked ankles and yanked you back, hard. You felt the chemise catch on the window frame, the fabric bunching up to completely expose you to him before he let go of your ankles letting you crash to the ground.

Your knees throbbed from the hard floor and by the time you were trying to crawl away he had his hand in your hair, brutally pulling your head up and craning it to look at him leaning over and getting into your face.

“Hear I have a wee noble bitch on my hands.”

Of course he would know. There were families here who would tell them anything to save themselves and pointing them in the direction of a noble maiden, one who was betrothed to an English soldier at that, would certainly be information that could spare them. The shouts outside sounded more heavily weighted towards those in his own gruff and growling accent now. The English soldiers were losing.

“I-I don’t know what you are talking about ser” you cried gently, not knowing how else to save yourself.

“Bonnie words” he growled, pulling so sharply at your hair that you thought your scalp might be bleeding and using his other hand to grope meanly at one of your breasts through the rough fabric of your nightwear.

You cried out, feeling the tears immediately spill over and stream down your face. He was so strong, you could barely budge against his hold, and he reeked of blood and fire and sweat and hot arousal. You squeezed your eyes shut and he only growled at you.

“Ye’ll keep those eyes open, yer going tae watch yer wee English cunt take me like a whore or I’ll take yer tight arse instead.”

You choked on a sob and opened your eyes, seeing that his were full of sick glee and heat. The hand groping at your tits moved under the chemise to cup roughly at your sex and he pulled you to your feet by that hand. You screamed at how it felt as he abused you with his hand, grinding the heel against you. You felt a hot flood of bitter shame as he swiped a finger violently through your folds. What he found there made him pause for a moment, his face lighting up in unrestrained glee.

“Fucking English slut. Y’er dripping.”

You had heard women who said it would be better to be wet if they were to be taken against their will. You did not agree. Him knowing that your traitorous body found his rough abuse of it arousing was so humiliating you felt you would rather die. He was so oppressive in his demeanour, so big and aggressive above you that you imagined he may break your bed with what he was about to do to you. How foolish of you to think he would have that level of mercy.

“Going tae show all those bastards how their women take Scottish cock” he laughed, spearing two fingers inside you to their full length with no softness at all and pulling you by them.

You could not breathe. You had never had anything inside you and those two fat fingers felt like they were stretching you so much you would tear. He walked backwards so he could keep them firmly inside you and you stumbled pathetically after him, needing to keep as close to him as possible to stop the painful press against your walls that came from him pulling if you did not move.

The shame was overwhelming as you emerged, full of his fingers and stumbling after him with tears streaming down your face, to find that your country's soldiers had been defeated with the survivors on their knees, hands bound. You were being paraded in front of them you realised, they had been put right here in the town square so they could bear witness, the Scottish soldiers standing behind them feral and full of lust as they took in their leader pulling you in front of them by the cunt.

When he ripped his fingers out of you, your knees buckled and a high whine left you. You had went from feeling too full to feeling far, far too empty. You could barely hear anything but the blood rushing through you as your heart hammered. That and him as he taunted the soldiers on their knees.

“Our women would ne’er let ye touch them, they’d die first. Yer clean wee English princess on the ither hand?” he said, planting a booted foot to your chest and pushing until he had you pinned on your back underfoot, “she’s gagging fir it. Foaming at the gusset tae take strong Scottish cock, put a real warrior in her belly.”

His own men cheered at that and you watched on with horror as he cocked his head at one of them and he began to approach you.

“Naw a monster though am I my wee slut? Ye’d be wet enough fir one of their small English cocks nae doubt, but fir mine? Going tae need something to help me sink in good and deep.”

The other soldier went to his knees between your legs and you watched as he pulled his throbbing cock from under his kilt, jerking it violently. You tried to move away, his cock so close you could feel the heat of it between your legs, but the boot on your chest held you still. When you tried to close your legs the man touching himself used his other hand to wrench one of your knees until it was touching the ground, using his own knees between your thighs to help him keep your glistening cunt fully on display.

When the head of his cock stroked through your folks, slicking you with his pre-cum and bumping at your clit, you were so overwhelmed that you didn’t quite manage to bite back your moan. They laughed meanly at you as the man found his release, spurting hot cum all over your pussy, smacking his cock against your stomach when he was done to shake off the last drops.

It was filthy, you felt sticky and like you were on fire. The next soldier took his place and spat right on your already disgusting cunt as he began to stroke himself. By the time he had painted you with his seed and the third was started, the man above pressed his foot harder to get your attention and all you could do was stare up into his taunting eyes, trying to focus on him so you could not think of what was going on between your legs. You cried up at him, trying to find any level of sympathy in him.

“Keep crying and I’ll gie ye something tae cry about princess.”

Oh you hated him calling you that when you were pinned down in the dirt, defeated soldiers of your country watching as their enemies smeared their cum all over your exposed body. Watching as they made a sloppy mess out of you in preparation for their leader to shove his cock deep inside and pump you full of his savage children.

You did not know how long you stared up at him, not able to look away as you felt the heat of his men on your body, your own body getting hotter and hotter with each slide of velvety throbbing skin against your own. He had started to talk to you, his eyes not budging. It wasn’t the defeated soldiers he was taunting, it was you, ruined and disgraced under his boot.

“See how good I am tae ye little whore? Letting my men make ye flush wi pleasure. Don’t deny it, think I cannae see yer face whenever ye feel a cock on that wee untouched pussy? Like a fucking bitch in heat. I’ll fuck ye like one. Get ye on yer hands and knees so ye can look yer precious King’s soldiers in the eye when ye fall apart on my cock. When ye’r fucking begging for my cum. Wilnae even have tae dae any work, ye’ll be fucking yourself back on me ye needy slut.”

You shook your head in horror at his claims, the true fear being that he would make them true. Already you felt in a daze, felt empty and desperate. But you felt fear as well as he put his arm under his kilt, rucking the fabric up to grab at his cock. It was huge and you found yourself panicked and squirming as the last of his soldiers grunted and slapped the meat of your thigh to get you to stay still. You were rambling incoherently as the man above stroked slowly at himself, causing that thick weapon between his legs to throb and seem even bigger.

“It won’t fit, it’s not going to fit, please I’ll die, you’ll split me open. It’s so big no no I can’t, I can’t!”

You didn’t even feel the last of his soldier’s loads splatter onto you, didn’t notice when his hands left your flesh. You would have rapidly purpling skin in the shape of fingerprints all over your thighs from how you had been held still by all of them, but you could not feel the dull pain of it through your fear of what was to come.

“Ye’ll take whit I gie ye and ye’ll fucking thank me princess.”

He removed his foot and it was only then you realised that he had been pressing down hard enough that your breaths had been shallow. The rush of oxygen from being able to fully expand your lungs again made you horribly dizzy, but it also flooded right down to your clit and made your body jerk violently with the sensation.

He didn’t take his hand from his cock and he bent so he could use the other to grab your ruined hair again, yanking your head up and shoving himself into your mouth. You choked, legs scrambling to get underneath you to give you some stability with which to batter your fists against his thighs, trying to pull away. He laughed meanly at your attempts, moving the hand that was touching himself to join the one tangled in your hair on the back of your head and pulling your head at the same time as he thrust forward, settling himself fully in your throat.

You were gagging around him, tears really streaming down your face now as you begged him with your eyes to let you breathe. He held you there, his own eyes glittering with satisfaction, until your muscles started to give in and you felt your eyes dropping closed as your brain became cottony. Then all at once he pulled you off and you were gulping in oxygen around your coughing and sputtering, the rush much more intense this time.

He held your head tilted up at him so he could watch your face as he shoved his boot between your legs and got you over the edge. Oh weren’t you a delicious little thing for him, getting off so hard on how he used you, moaning shakily and wantonly in the dirt beneath him in front of his triumphant soldiers and your defeated ones.

“Good fucking girl” he growled with a feral grin, letting you ride it out with little aborted thrusts on his boot, unable to control your body.

You looked gone, eyes glazed and body slack. Couldn’t have that, he needed you screaming for him. He needed your blood fighting between being frozen with terror and boiling with need. And he needed you full of him, needed to be able to feel his own cock through your stomach so fucking clearly that he could jerk it.

You were thrown forward, top half of your body collapsing pathetically into the dirt right where it was covered in the sweat and cum of his soldiers. He manhandled your hips up, leaving your face crushed into the dirt and your ass up high for him, cunt presented. You felt his hot breath at your ear and it was a sudden shock when you realised he was growling lowly into your ear, his words for you and you only.

“S’going tae hurt, yer going tae scream yerself hoarse for me and then I’ll get ye tae milk me when I rip pleasure out of all that pain. Will treat ye right after little princess, like one of my good Scottish lassies, but right now ye’r my fucking English whore.”

The confusing mix of sentiments cleared some of the fuzziness from your mind but you had no time to dwell. He was right, it did hurt and you did scream yourself hoarse. He had lined himself up and plunged into you, cock coated and slick from the cum of his soldiers but no less huge inside your tight virgin pussy. He had split you in two, you were sure of it. His cock must have broken through you, was sitting in your ribcage and punching all the air from your lungs.

You blacked out for a moment, coming right back to when he pulled out to fuck brutally back into you again, slapping your ass so hard that you felt the sting all the way up to your fingertips and making you choke on the sob that fought through the screaming. He ripped at your hair, making you look at the defeated soldiers on their knees. Making you watch their own cocks swell at your treatment. Your utter ruination was making them hard. Your head being wrenched back meant you had to go to your hands as he pounded you, and you saw how they looked as one of your breasts was fucked right out of the chemise, bouncing lewdly for them to see with every hard thrust.

The humiliation had you digging into the dirt like you had claws, feeling the bite of the earth pushing under your nails. It sparked something in your brain, almost like you could see them sharpen. Like you could feel your shoulder blades become more pronounced, become something sinewy and sleek and animal. He was fucking you like a predator and you were drooling and howling and panting like his prey, back bowed as he pulled your hair harder and had to staring at the sky babbling prayers into the night air.

“S’too much, can’t, I can’t. Full, too full.”

“Ye fucking can. Yer tight fucking cunts trying tae strangle me, wants my cum so bad naw? Perfect English pussy, so slutty and needy for a real cock” he growled, hand letting go of your hair and smacking your ass right over where he had before, causing you to howl at the pain.

The pain and something else, something that had no place here and yet had been lingering from the moment he had caught you. Something that had been getting closer and brighter and more insistent with every abuse you were subject to. Something that he invited in when your arms collapsed beneath you without him holding your heads weight anymore and he ground your face into the ground before bringing his hand to your clit and pinching.

Your scream was raw and hoarse, throat well past being able to produce a clear sound. The orgasm was blinding and every bone felt like it had liquified. You saw white and then you saw hardly anything, only vague shapes and colours. The only thing now was how his cock filled you. The shame was gone, replaced with the truth that you loved this. You loved how he used you like this, how he violated you in front of these soldiers just because he could.

“That’s it princess, fucking take it” he hissed, stopping his thrusts and letting you do all the work.

You didn’t even realise now how you wildly fucked yourself back on his cock trying to chase the pain of overstimulation, addicted to the way it made you feel some sick hazy pleasure. You were drooling onto the dirt, tasting the earth mixed with cum and finding the disgust of it only felt right now. When his hand came to your stomach and pushed to feel himself bulging there you came again, harder, babbling thank yous to him.

He bit out a string of curses above you as your pussy squeezed so hard it was forcing him out, but he was strong as he forced himself balls deep and held there, finding his release as you milked everything out of him and into your womb. The liquid heat of it was the last thing you felt as you passed out, blissed and fucked out of your mind.

–

John MacTavish allowed himself a moment to lean his body against your back, inhaling the scent of sweat and dirt and cum and fear and lust from your limp body. So good for him, took it perfectly. He hissed when he finally pulled out, resisting the temptation to just keep going beyond what would feel good because fuck, being inside you had been a religious experience.

He was nothing if not a man of his word though, and he scooped your body gently into his arms to get you onto a horse and ready for him to take over the border where he could give you that princess treatment he had promised. The surviving soldiers they would leave beaten and bloodied but not dead. After all, someone had to tell your betrothed all the details.

“Fucking MacTavish” he hissed after excusing the man who had given the report.

He had made him give it in full detail, told him to leave nothing out.

“Kept her alive by the sounds of it, maybe looking to get a bastard out of her” Garrick mused.

“Knowing him he’ll keep her near the border to taunt us instead of moving her further up North” Price added.

Simon Riley would not be letting his betrothed get away with allowing MacTavish of all people to take the maidenhood that rightfully belonged to him. She needed a proper punishing fuck from an English man to learn better.

“Doesn’t matter where he keeps her. I’m going to take her, and she’s going to learn what happens to sluts who spread their legs for those Scottish bastards”.

#mhairiwrites #fanfic #cod au #john soap mactavish x reader #soap x reader #cw: noncon #rest assured this isn't likely to become the kind of thing I write because it is well out of my wheelhouse #I've got a half chapter of Firewatch written and will finish that off #But I'm looking to do a little more of the Teashop AU after and that is going to stay fluffy and wholesome as hell #darkfic #dark content

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astralnymphh · 2 months

Text

copy that, romeo

— ellie williams was supposed to be your supervisor, not your object of infatuation ~ ♡

⋆❝ this is cordero tower, calling in.❞⋆

CHAPTER ONE: SUMMERTIME INTERLUDE . NEXT CHAPTER > ♡. pair; firewatcher!ellie x recruit!reader

♡. summary; it's 1995, and the angel crater national park welcomes you; a retrograde lookout all to yourself, a space nerd for a supervisor, and a whole summertime job spent in hues of sepia and juniper, waiting for the first sign of smoke. ninety–three days. you don't know her face, you share no breath— but by walkie–talkie, you know her voice.

♡. a/n; READ THESE; 1 and 2, HELP HERE, BOYCOTT. CLICK HERE. DO NOT BUY THE REMASTER, TLOU2, TLOU1, OR ANY GAME FROM NAUGHTY DOG! neil druckmann (the creator) is a zionist. PLEASE READ THIS. AND REBLOG THIS. ALSO THIS.

♡. content; EVENTUAL SMUT, narrator present, silly fourth wall breaking, a dash of comedy, slowburn (somewhat), living alone, long–distance pining, reader/characters are similar ages(mid–late 20s), depression, heavy metaphor usage, complicated poetry styles, mentions of organs, mentions of weaponry, metaphorical death, grim humor, drinking alcohol, drunk!ellie, drunken flirting (vaguely and bluntly), ellie jumpscare, uh-oh sassy masc apocalypse, she's corny and cheesy too (a dork), awkwardness, humiliation, lighthearted bickering, nicknames used. [lmk if i missed anything] . SERIES PLAYLIST .

WC; 6.1k+ ✮ thank you @trackinglessons for your sexy brain and beautiful ideas + custom art ✮ masterlist ✮ series masterlist ✮ ellie ref sheet

Summertime is the interlude between misery and Mondays.

May was a rough patch for you. A coagulated chapter within the spring world, a shunned ponder, red jello in the gradience of passage. Tempus, time. Early months hence were just as pessimizing, doubt is an arid reservoir in you. But, as a maypole sits a svelte giant in the sweet Beltane soil, braving an invisible smile whilst little ones— little laughters, spun prances and wraps of dainty satin to an ensnare on its long body, it weeped for its delicate capture. You; flesh coarse like timber, relate to the log standing, ensnared. Sunk in that gelatinous texture, unmoving as pressures collided with the surface outward, ripples everywhere yet incapable of sprinkling through you. Something would have to delve itself to drag you out.

Chapters; cusp of autumn to April, every single month, wound ‘round you. They each had separating colors, and spared turns to soundly fold your limbs and bulge your skin in ribbons. It snipped your circulation, shriveled the ripe breath in your skull and traded it for a pressure. A throb. Weight upon the cranium, you felt the narrowing cradle inside wilt from thought, drain from consciousness, and soften your stiff eyes locked on drywall. Hour to hour.

But those weren't the only things taunting you with a dance— expectations danced faster. Expectators, paired minds heaping expectations; yourself and the selves blackjacking their wants expressed as worries onto you. Stressful creatures, they are. Bosses, co–workers, energy vampires disguised as lover boys prowling about your workspace, general creatures of the retail world. God, they're like ravenous wolves snarling hunger through their teeth, slobber moonlight–bright of that dire carnality for variety meats. Depression just took the first serving before they could.

Even the domesticated places are a wilderness untamed.

Stress drained you of life. It softened your desire to even try. Gods are dulling, blamed you, on another dull morning where the trickling sound of coffee pouring drilled irk into your ears, rather than simply a trickle. Caffeine, a roast so void–black was brewed to un–drain you. Yet, it fuckin didn't.

Impugning was your everything, until it could no longer purify; Elaine. Emptiness. Hmm, you gave this state of vacuum–headed hollowness a name, keenly because it deserved so by its dismantling of your autonomy. You don't want it. It's not you. It's Elaine. A some–angel fallen out of grace, weary of its wander upon a washed up cove, beige toned and swept shivering–cold. Interested by the warmth your sundry organs pushed into its light silhouette.

And perhaps, if the bird was never freed from its heavenly cage, it would be powerless to pester you, to poke the meat inside with the pointy end of plumage.

Elaine was an organized assault on your wellbeing, moreso against the pulpy, pinkish-gray blob sitting ugly above your throat. Believe it, or assume it. A paralysis, moving shoulders from bed sheets proved farcical, running bristles over your teeth twice a day rhymes with nonsense, and midnight ink born to swirl and curtsy to convey thoughts gone rancid, goes unused atop the white flutter between your journal hardcovers. You have a morbid case of the seasonal blues, except this time, the season is beyond its blue hues. Spring, a fuckin’ kaleidoscope embellished. Blotches of big fuck you greens so vibrant you'd long to die from your tears, and an abstract spit of smell me reds thorny as your stomach brought to a scream for something. Anything.

It was a slow, banal descent into the jello.

January, floating atop the sweet delicacy, atop your bed.

February, the solidity gave out beneath you, goo subtly etching around your ankles, calves, elbows, unforgivingly cold when it first hit. When in reality, the bed was heating from your lay.

March, marrow goes heavy, your limbs at this time could not lift, your efforts waned, and satiating the rumble in you with sustenance was forgotten, as that rumble got so, so.. quiet.

April, the jello had stuffed your nose, your sockets, and lullabied your ligaments. You let it happen.

May.

You let yourself sink. Let yourself decompose and go mush in the head. Like a zombie.

The descent doesn't taste of sweet delight, but it also fails to churn your lips with a heavy saccharinity. Neutral, your hopeful side did say. Nothing, rationality slapped past your lips.

Five months, either a misery, or a Monday.

Yes Eve, a bite out of the Apocrypha will indeed fill this human abysm in me. Forbidden knowledge is my craving. Contraband of truth, bite to bite, I envy that I could not cope with its coating of my empty gut earlier.

Innocence is so dull. You are depressed, not a fucking saint for staying indoors, starving your rage.

But on came a crisp bouquet of biker–boy newspapers; ‘Hiring’, and a few scans further; ‘Do you harness a great love for the evergreen?’

A honed section in Missoula's local print— jobs. A publisher boldens and compresses enthusiasm sporadically; writing–on–the–wall hollers speckle themselves meticulously on the newsprint that strike a sense of obligation into the susceptible and soft–of–heart chunk of the population. A pert voice read with persuasion between your ears, gritty in tone and stereotypical of a middle aged ranger, vocals fried by cigarettes but as booming as a cannon.

“Do you care for the animals inhabiting our national sanctuaries?”

Abutting small paragraphs, the sagging belly of a black bear, tender caramel snout and snoopy–faced, fitted on its head a mustard yellow campaign hat labeled, ‘Smokey’. Its burly, blundering frame on all fours stood out over a comic–style vista of the Montana rockies, paws obscured by blocks of thickset text reading ‘Only you’.

Huh, a realistic depiction of Smokey Bear— over a not–so–realistic background, avant–garde.

Tree greens sprawly that didn't shout ‘Fuck you’ on your poor, sunken eyes searing for sleep and a twilight darkness. Sagey lichens that didn't draw out the spasms above your own bones, calling your regard to bring pin–sized problems and blemishes sprawling your own flesh out of the bliss of ignorance. Brunette muds with only a fleck of sun, a slice of earth dull, humble and unprocessed enough from benevolence to leave you unconsumed, unsunken. A mere slop and pudge in the future and wake of your walk. Nothing obnoxiously grand, nothing sanctimonious. Nature is by birth— righteous, regardless.

“Before we can be proud of our nation, our nation must be proud of us!”

The advertisement gropes for a summertime made free. A cyclopean sinkhole in the becoming of time. Recruits–in–waiting are called to bargain normalcy and the bustling cities plump with lumbering limbs of sheen–tight pantyhose shaded under short shapes of plaid skirts for boot–cuts n’ backpacks hefty with gear that could either save you the trouble of mountaineering by path, or trouble your time with a faulty snapping of two things. Rope and neck.

Too grim?

A months’–long moment of tension snapped at the pressure joint— Summertime the snapper. You'd be devoting ninety–three suns, ninety–two moons, and some two–million breaths of fir laden air up in Angel Crater National Park, northwest of here. Pupils flickering the double-page setup, you continue: A pictographic, old–fashioned lookout taller than the timber spires surrounding would be your station, your core of operations, for those three young and sunny months. Boxed provisions and supplies are guaranteed to ship every other week, and testimonies encourage even the anxious, balmy buzzes of your brain to sigh in solace learning that the weald creatures there— are mostly harmless, if you aren't bred an imbecile. Alongside, an appointed supervisor, whose name was never disclosed duly except for a scratch of text gingerly clasped in quotations reading, “E.R.W” trailing the mention of said supervisor. What’s required of you was delivered plain written and patent on that shoddy newspaper, held thick in your intrigued thumbs; Keep the forest from catching wild fire.

You fiddled the idea. Should I? Or should I wallow the summer away? Fiddled it anxiously, fiddled it needily, bumped the clumped rim of the newsprint on your cupid's bow in bending rumination, steadied it cause newspaper smells oddly good— but next to minutes racing hours upon musing, a conclusion had to knock your static looping of gloomdom in the butt.

One phone call, and the bird would be barred again. Pesterer, Elaine the Terrible, would be cast back where eyes can't roll over the cottony clouds. Just a couple fucking prods to your number–pad, might genuinely un–drain you.

Luckily, you aren't an idiot reared to take bullshit longer than meritted.

You took the job.

May 30th, 1995, 7:28 PM.

What does any clever pedestrian traipsing capricious terrain store in their pack to avoid total gangly–branch–grips–of–nature butchery?

Item one; Black nylons— scratch that, you aren't getting paid to snag at every kink and curl of the forest, tighties of gossamery fabrics are a no–go. Citywear stays citywear. Double scratch on those sweet, blackberry Mary Janes too prized and polished to muck up in shit of the earth. Immolating the rigid underside of some chunky hiking boots to the unruly woodlands is the adrenaline pinnacle of out–worlding, come on. It proves you've got a hardy backbone and the right row of teeth to chew what you've bitten off, sullying boots ‘till the color is forevermore stained. Backup boots are tradition, so that's item number two. Best get used to cargo, ankle–length overalls and miscellaneous graphic tees, cause the rockies’ fashion gurus can't get enough of ‘em!

Clothing, check.

Swathes of ropes twined pumpkiny orange and plenty of clanging anchors to bolt them in, goddesses and gods forbid you be tight on anchors. Medical kits— duh, did you trudge all from yonder just to die out here? This country is dicey, at the cuddly claw of a bear, or not. Hair ties, scrunchies you hoarded as a teenager in the eighties, disposable camera to suit your flaky memories, and an eclectic dump of nutty and fruity cereal bars galore. Unless you're allergic. Substitute.

Accessories and essentials, check.

Ah, and a spare pistol and switchblade in replacement of newcomer paranoia! Keep that hush–hush though. No matches or lighters, obviously.

True American, illegal weaponry, check.

All this paraphernalia bangs and clangs heavily on the polyester holding of your backpack, straining your scruff uncomfortably as you tiptoe, scarcely tumble, and tread lightly across a log. It creaks, it groans, it wobbles slightly over the blaring white rush of a stream, suctioning your heart–to–stomach when it grinds a wee bit louder than you thought it should.

“Shit!” you crimp your torso in and dart wary hands on the timber beam at your feet, assuming a gawky newborn–bambi–pose in hesitation, shuddering in cracked tones, “This can't be the right way..”

Hoping on an evaporated sun, you frazzlingly testify in repetitive thought that the map mailed by the rangers a week prior led you on this perilous and incorrect path.. for the last two days. Winding and wounding, literally— your bruises are measureless and on top of that ache your skin to want no more of this. But, you have to. A boulevard of brown, short and stout, wrung unyielding from one gray side to the greener other, a shortcut. Assumed to be a shortcut, based on the route drawn by utter confusion.

Oh yeah, and remember the advertisement stating the park was twenty-five miles out?

Nothing about that hot-press, black-cat inked newspaper accounted for the extra eight weighing your ankles down and your motivation dead low. Twenty-five only stretched out unto the ranger parking lot. The entrance, for fuck's sake.

Shaky flit of your digits, they float gently off the carve–veined surface of the wood, unfolding your spine as you rise. “Wrong way—” you utter to your chest, oven–warm as it puffs, “—gotta be the wrong..”

Tentative–ism is normal here, right? Like, no way you're cautious and sweating at the brow for nothing. Right?

One foot— creeakkk— in front of the prudent other, two sailing lunges, three hurried hops and a matched thud soft as marshmallows plants your shoes to hallowed ground. Blades of verdant whiskers so innocent crush under, and it feels fucking— demeaning, actually. All that gulping and pausing.. for nothing.

You tuck a shoulder–glance to the makeshift ricket of a bridge, and blankface, “Didn't feel like killing me today?”

The tree bears no reply.

“Hmph, surprising. Seeing as someone killed you,” a sigh parts, fading into the whip and straightening of your head, “figured the pursuit of revenge doesn't stop at ghosts.” and the hoist of your boot up, carrying onward.

Sundown paints, crescent layers repose approaching moonlight and dying sunlight sprawls psychedelic limbs above you. Balance ambling in tiny bops only made the swirling grasp of those gradient rays more trippy on your eyes and coercive of daydreams, rot–nip for the brain. You spot nutbrown brick— a fireplace in your mind, fevered heat roasting on the inside wall of your forehead too. It was Christmas before the storm, a subzero December. And it was, in fact, colder than the unreachable heaven. Dad was hunkered down in front of that innocuous amber crackle, his right leg slack to the ground and his left arched in the neck of an acoustic guitar, arms plaiting its hollow curve into his chest. 1971, when the veil through and within was thin, and love–vomit poured so easily through. A time of justified ignorance; Childhood.

Stood you adjacently, legs short and posolutely not stout, dimpled in the knees. Aged two years, and mushy as ambrosia, contorting your mouth jubilant as you're told for the camera, contrary to your father with his expression drooping to his strumming fingers. Sickly sweets, adult–you unpurposefully neglects to twirl lips at, your extraordinary grins now turned ordinary flat–lines. Holiday memoirs, those spoiled ripe quick after adulthood bolted itself in the slabs of your tender spine and instilled an artificial love for labor and country, displacing nostalgia from ever being seen as a flesh existence.

“Say cheese!”

America is sub–human, and sub–humans created America, the imperfect cycle. Families tear, eagles outcry, friends drink their death, and the days continue to unfold without a trace of acknowledgement. Days exist where you soak festivities and stave off the pointer–finger poking at so called slack you relish, and some twenty dwindling years ahead the slowly deadening oak grove road, carousals will be criminally known as layabout–makers.

Joy is a luxury now.

A blockage prevents your foot from winching clean forward, meeting the bone–hard kiss of a boulder to sore your toes. “Fuck!” you brand your throat walls to a shout, pissed at the rock rather than your woolgather that lead you to said rock, “Fucking fuckhead rock!”

Woolgather means daydreams, by the way. Funner to use words that don't make a split of sense. Yay for English.

The sunset clouds dripped with a mania of fascination and had strung your brain to its hypnotic whims, like a siren had soloed a trance, drifting your mind somewhere utopian and phantasmagorical. It sounds silly, but, blanking out seems so often out of grasp from your control, you usually could never flag what caused it, when it started, and why. Nothing practical surfaces. Fuck, your head is so tangled upon memories, you haven't even noticed the progression of scenery twelve o’clock from you.

Ponderosa boughs band together where your eyes brush shapes and forage for a clue of what scene wants to greet you ahead. The sequestering silence of rustles indicates a clearing, possibly. Possible as it could be, you fully expected this cruel footslog to wallop your ass into a minefield, so you bet cards and course carefully beneath the crowns of pine, completely bent to the chance of another obstacle threatening your tender ankles. Leafy whispers above strum your ears brimmed with its sotto voce song, and then— colors it silently behind.

“Holy shit.”

Presence crumbles above you, and opens before you. The lookout. Wood shafts slant in opposing directions, up and up along four brawny beams in three consecutive layers, like a blocky cone. The face closest to you overlaps the backing rest, giving the illusion of tufted wooden legs sketched under all lackadaisical. Endgame daylight spies from behind this one–roomed cyclops, gushing final spurts of citrus rays as if it truly was an orange squeezed to pulp. So, the flank and forehead of that towering, mountainscaping lookout rolling a cold shoulder to the sun, paves in a tattered tapestry of garnet smokiness instead. Shadow of sundown. From where you sow feet, a football field apart, petty details are difficult to squint into clarity, but the window panes appear tawny, too.

An intimidation, “So much for a tiny room.” A beaute intimidation, “And no actual bathroom.” it makes you feel like a genuine insect compared.

A sort of stairwell serpent faintly chokes the foot, the calves, the thighs, and punctures kindly a mouth leading up to the skirting balcony hedged in many gaunt teeth. Tamping gravel closer, subtleties and fine points fade as the tower's plank–lined and flat underbelly turns to you. Larger and larger, it dips darkly from miniscule masquerade.

Bringing your decently aching foot to the first step, you press into the curb and meander your cruder aching— thanks to a random boulder— foot weirdly on the outer ridge of your boot. Making it up the stairs to fund yourself a fucking break was a palpable mockery in itself. Like, ‘Hey! Climb this long–ass stairwell for a teensy break before doing it all over again the next day!’.

Un–fucking–believable.

Fifty years of history and past rangers grate in your walk, the floorboards thump with their stories, thump into your skin— verse you a wordless eulogy. Each step is a sentence, and every sentence branches into a whole tree of genealogy, lives. Lifestyles you can't understand now, but will.

Really redundant of me to highlight the generations alive in those floorboards. The walk up there isn’t that exciting.

After the last step, you're met eye–to–frame with a scratched door, pygmy window centered and paper–screened from within, and the stories predating your stay inspire a comical theory, “Jeez— bears make it up here?” you half–suppress a snort, palming a fist on the doorknob coldly before rotating and giving sympathetic pressure to the door.. jammed.

“C’mon..” knuckles pulse into the knobs plate, gradually upping the force you pushed, “.. losing light out here..” eventually adding your other hand to sweeten the push.

Sure, a whole year has gone by since it homed somebody, and it's retro, but come on.

Breaking splinters into the door was your last intention, so you try so–so carefully— to some extent, “Please..” now butting the tip of your boot on the rim to ease it— ease, and finally pry, a clapback of wind blowing dusty, nightfall air past your crescent cheeks following the snap of the fallow door.

Thank goodness for your grace and balance, some days, avoiding a timely trip face–first to a floor so powdered in light dust, any kid would mistake it for a good time sweeping snow angels.

Not so good for the respiratory system though.

Muggy space filtering your lungs tightly, you cough out, “Gah— fuck!” nothing higher than the level of a guttural wheeze, your chest punching into your throat. Gaping out the last flock of butterflies clumped at your collarbones, the tickle inside calms, and you find your sights taking in a dark box. A dim orb of lily silver glow rests in the middle of the pall room, raising the natural, “Where's the ligh— ah, big clunky thing—”

Flicking the off–white and stubby nub attached to an impractically sized lightswitch, which frankly resembles an electric box externally, an essence of Apollo ladens the room. Lemony–gold light, passably bright off the redwood ceiling, and murmuring a low buzz through one ear, and out the other, your pupils caper along the contrasting shades awakened.

“Definitely retro, but.. no roommates.” spoke you, gingerly content with the colors piecing this camper pad together. You observe.

Forget–me–nots bled the cotton bedsheets baby blue, leavening the mattress with a tidy emotion as it's tucked, folded at the top and draped in a complimentary quilt— benevolent blues, hues your lids soften on. The bed beelined from the doorway, a corner counter fawn–brown as the wood extends adjacent to it, covering the northeastern angle of the room. Magpied brands of canned food clutter shelves, spines spanning thick books of epic poetry to sci–fi comics create a ribcage of literature along a compact bookcase perching that countertop, and sunken in the east side of it, a steel sink. It shimmered sunflower bands of light as you moved, a rainbow–arched faucet brightened completely.

Step by step, you draw near a circular table in the middle. Strange rods and gadgets stuck out of the borders, inlaid glass protecting a local map so sleek you could see a phantom of your face in it, and a black bar looming the width, so it rings with tangible importance. Of which you'll gauge about later. Truthfully, the journey by foot here? Dead–beating, your knees bloated, throbbed flesh hot, and almost buckled; fatigues infamous way of scolding you to sit the fuck—

“Sup Maple lake, you there?”

A pang hammers to your heart, and a crawlish wave of startled blood pales from your face and drops to your jaw, “Jesus!” sweat hitting you a blink after, every normal function just— flunked. That voice, more like a ruptured stereo sizzling, caught you the fuck off guard. Now you dither, dumbassery taking your eyes through a new loop of figuring out where–why–how and what the robotic intruder wants.

But pre–realizing, your ears perk to a more coherent, and outstretched string of static, “C'mon, know you're checked in.” and post–realization tugs your eyes to a mustardy n’ black cased device; a walkie–talkie.

Okay, way to creep recruits out. Whoever, for whatever reason— at the nick of night too, gimme’ a break. You wry, knitting raisin crinkles above your nose, trying to discern your palette of options; pick up the walkie, tap in and feign politeness in the shortest and sluggiest scraps of small talk to be done with the day, or rant off the bat— highlight how fucking late it is, and how taxing a double–goddamned–day hike made your head and patience feel. And right now, the second response route feels arguably more tempting than—

“This is Cordero Tower, calling in. Can see ya’ standing by the Osborne, by the way.”

Its staticy feedback has waned completely, densening a thick husk and tilting towards a honeyed undertone. Relaxed sounding or not, what the fuck.

You react predictably, flicking your chin west, then east only for you to meet the dead of night— thanks mountains— stalking perfectly in every single window. So, useless to check. Answering it was a yes–go, it would be sickenly awkward to thrust it under the rug now. Your knees pull forward, eyes calligraphing the power buttons tinted in cherry light, palm drawing to meet your focal point.

The case is ribbon gentle under your fingertips’ graze, fresh and in store–new condition. Maybe the only thing hot from the pot of newfangled technology. Plastic intricacies roll under until you settle on a swollen button, denting the plush of your finger as you press, hold, and speak. A crisp crackle activates your line, tuning you in.

Breath hesitates between your chords, “Maple.. lake.. speaking,” off–the–tongue words manifesting on–the–spot, “you can see me?”

“Yeah.” the walkie chuckles, sugary curl pitching up and through their tone, “Look out ur’ north window, you'll see her.”

Her?

Nooking your nose north, you only widen pupils on that same, starless coast of darkness nosing the rim of your window sills. What do they mean to—

“Nh–no,” You literally said north, “get closer to the window, n’ look up.” What, are you a fucking sparkling, rasp–voiced eagle?

“Fuck are you talking about,” mouthed you void of voice, stumped on what this person was getting at. Wedging your knuckles below the meshy underside of your backpacks right strap, you wrangle it down your arm as you glide rubbery sole along croaking oak, tossing that bag so cumbersome atop a lily white pillow— looking fresher than a daisy, and clamber the mattress pliantly dented to your knees to grasp a broader panorama.

And with that window hood washed over, a convoy of fireflies focus a tiny constellation in the murked glass. Little pinholes of light, dots in the distance. They rough–hew a blur, but the excess seconds taken to brood squints and balance the blurry blotches, an outline crops up. Another fire lookout, sprouting from rock and rise of a berg. Offspring of the distant cordillera that gives this whole park its sense of a cradled–woodland, but either way thought, a lookout hosts it home on top.

“You can see me from all the way out there?” you wondered, truly. I mean— at minimum, a sore sprawl of miles bridges you both.

“Mhm..” a pause loiters that fluid hum, then some really throaty syllables, “Binoculars~” you could almost envision— nah, feel the stare of those binocs, undoubtedly taking note of every contort in your body right now.

“Oh thats, totally.. not,” you blunt your tone, shying a few inches from the glass, “.. creepy.” awkwardly. “Uh, who are you anyways— are you like, uh, another recruit?” as you engage small talk, grumpy frown pouting, the habit of kissing your wrist to your jaw as you would a piglet–tailed telephone overruns your burnt out focus, having to wince the walkie away when your eardrums nearly burst.

Ouch.

“For one, I'm actually your supervisor. I know, I don't sound like a typical smoker–lunged, middle–aged white dude.” their tone gruffs and deepens to impersonate, finger air quotes practically radiating from the other end, “And two, my name is Ellie— Ellie Miller–Williams, if you care.”

“Don't.” you heave out the pain stretching your head, aching each time you simply thunk.

“Straightforward,” her timbre ups in approval, seemingly, “I like it. I like you, recruit I dunno’ the name of.” and a bubble hics her throat, quite audibly.

“Not single.” Wrong, just uninterested. Hooking two fingers in the fabric handle of your bag and craning it to the ground, with scattered grates of plastic buckles skating the floor.

“What?”

Oh, shit she wasn't— oops, ‘course she meant that platonically, heads so damn muggy, “Uh, it's—my name.. sorry I’m just a bit out of the loop—” Dumbass, unscramble your brain alphabet soup, will you?

“That’s a long ass name, what were your parents thinking? Haha.” Her duo–beat chuckle flares your humiliation, and then proceeds to pinch its swollen parts into total inflammation, “Where does it originate from?”

Cheesy bitch, “Can you not— I like, pfhh..” you temper yourself with a moon–cool blow to chap your lips and inflate your cheeks, ending up with a draw of an even more loosened tongue sour as it complains, “Did a whole two–day hike through the most torturous terrain just to get here, I really don't—”

Please.

And if gripes trudged through teeth aren't persuasive enough, you recess your bone–ache bod avidly in the springy haven of your bed which chirped at your weights shifting motions, collarbones packing down on your vocal chords. You shouldn't sound up to chat whatsoever. Instead, vehemently drained, “I just wanna get some shut eye, talk me over n’ the mornin’.” your thumb lying a button away from disconnecting.

“Hey, hey—” Ellie ushered, her slurry breath fogging up the mic. Lips squeak softly into it, smacking before an intone, “Can't I be a little curious?”

You synchronized in noise, sucking teeth behind heart–pursed lips, “Do you think somebody this exhausted has the appetite to entertain you?” stilling your thumb–pad on the power off key.

“If I keep bothering you,” that alone ticked you, her blatant drive to carry on when your brain rejected its substance, “.. yeah. Maybe you'll be nicer then too.. huph!” a heartier peep hicced up on the speaker, and right then that noise jogged a discovery.

“Are you drunk?” has to be.

Of course, she ignores the naked and sorely obvious, “Did your boyfriend break ur’ heart or something— an’ that's why you're out here?” bottle sloshing in the background of her mumble.

Dumbstruck, you furrow a miffy expression, “W–what, boyfriend?”

“Said you weren’t single.” she recalls, warmly unspinning the fuddle that knit your brows, “Think I forget so easily?” drawled like a sultry retort, baking your ears.

You a hundred percent forgot though.

Gosh, short–term memory sucks, or it's just your energy drought making you woozy. Blame it on lethargy, “No no, that was just.. tired talk. I thought you were hitting on me.”

“Oh? That's cute.” her choosing to say that latter statement unfolded discordantly, you seriously couldn’t gauge if that was a flirt, or another paper daisy— mock honey, a platonic notion. Even so, it sounded so damn smooth, lace to the ears. “But no, I wasn't— m'not like gay or ‘whutever.” stammered her, light snort fanning.

A stifled chuckle hops from your chest, mixing with hers, “Uhuh, cool.” halfway uncaring and halfway amused, bafflement working your facial muscles.

“Yeah, um, but seriously..” her voice drifts into a ponderous rasp, the faint rustles of flimsy paper licking page to page subtler than her speech, “what's got you out here, newbie?”

“Newbie. Really?” A brow pricks.

“I mean, you're new— new to the lookout, new to the job, in need of my phenomenal supervision and my wide range of knowledge. Yeah, a newbie.”

Then your brow mellows, tension held in your face dropping dead on backhanded flattery, “You are funnily agonizing.”

“Aw.” her scratchily suave coo has your jaw set like stone, “That's so sweet.” but her short–lived song has your heartstrings soaked in ripe honeycomb, touched to the core by sweetness nebulose and an assortment of some foreign threads. Thickened heart, tighter ribs, a churn to weaken your stomach, a maverick of things unfamiliar to you.

Momentaries, but still noticeable even if your senses were twisted backwards.

Chewing over how you'll begin to explain, a few letters sift through your chords, until you hook on a sigh, “Ah, well, I'm out here for a fuck ton of reasons—”

“Reasons, or— huhp, problems?” Ellie blurt–hics, nosy.

“..”

A brief gulp and exhale wheezes from her, “Sorry, it's the bourbons’— super good. Continue.”

You loosely split your mouth, gasping to exchange a gale for words pressing out, “A series of reasons, and problems, that I don't bother to lay on a grand platter, so you'll get a summary tossed on an appetizer plate.” you preface. Allow an elliptical gap to cut through, rousing her hum to let you know her ears are as intent–peaked as a Chihuahua’s, “Contact with my parents’ has gone cold, my last job made me want to hurl into a pack of crocodiles— and the city became too loud and too heavy–handed. Saw this job on the local paper, and got the hell out of dodge.”

An omissive summary, you meant.

There’s more that eats the heart. People can’t just.. drop the burden of knowledge wantonly on randos like they’re idling under fertile treetops waiting for the apples to plummet, biting into a pulpy biography. She’s just a girl, not a therapist.

A discomforted purr lengthens into her reply, “Mmmmh, ever try a drink or two?” her intoxicated reply.

“Oh, see,” you flap your hand and slap it to your denim clad thigh, “you are drunk.” as if she could even see your gesture.

“No, I’m Ellie, hmhm~” comes with a giggle, and you consider her state of insobriety to be— wavering, but it’s stimulating to hear her fluctuate between groaned jokes and extra raspy comments, “Still haven’t told me your name though.”

Some moments during this whole ‘Who are you?’ seminar made you concerned for your future here— if you’ll make it out psyche intact, but some moments found by winnowing through the illogical backtalk touched you with inbound camaraderie.

Invisible touches that inhabit your neck with a leak of your name so— sincerely. It transforms into a fairer sound on your ears when she repeats it, affirming it. Nobody else's teeth clutches your name so welcome as she.

“Hmm, ‘name kinda fits your voice.” odd commentary, but since composed with her already peculiar and drunken tongue, the shoe fits.

That said, crabby confusion seems easier to articulate, “Thanks, weirdo.” but lips rebellious, they press an inevitable grin together.

“No problem, sleepyhead.”

So many nicknames.

Recognizing that downtick in hubbubs and breaths on the walkie, checking out for the night posed as a passionate option the burden weighing your eyelids couldn't or shouldn't veto. So you haul your torso up, kick and poke your toes over ankles to butt your boots off prior planting your heels, whisking toward the lightswitch and committing your lookout to swell with the outside's dark fresco.

Stygian tones.

“Speaking of sleepy heads..” you taper off speech, leaving the rest to her— touch wood— wide enough, hopefully–not–drunk–enough imagination to fathom as you slide and slip desperately beneath woolen blankets, sleepy worries, and sentences sailed to rest.

“Aw man.” Ellie bums so, so stupidly, for comical value.

“Yeah, man.”

“Mpht—” wetness smacks, “wanted to bore a pretty girl to death with recruit regulations and syllabi..”

How would you know?

In reality, Ellie was reaching a transcendent caliber of wasted, drinking up your atmospherics and drunken to her gutly core. Woods hatch forlorn people; forlorn people get thirsty, “But, mhh, heads’ nearly falling off, whoof.” she expresses a soaring of vowels, but it parallels a gruff howl more.

Drowsy, buzzy jubilancy, plucking her flirty strums. You sugarcoat the flare in your chest hearing ‘pretty girl’, ears clicking to the swallow convincing your heart that Ellie was not flirting. As established; She’s under the influence, and not gay. Your brain repeats that, over and over, repeat, repeat, she isn’t flirting.

“Hey, here's a tip..” you inch the walkie a penny away from your flopped head, clefting your lip open, “Don't get drunk on the job. They didn't hire you to decoct your brain the day before chaperoning a recruit in the literal wilderness. So, stash that shit, n’ let's both get some shut eye, yeah?” and saying all that, may have just cashed in your last dose of breath and brain cells for the night.

Ellie being Ellie— well, what you suspect is a ‘her’ thing after these few speckled minutes, dopily laughs at you. And dammit if she wasn't glamoring a dopey smirk in accord, you’ll have gleaned wrong.

A voice, “Who’s the boss again?” her witty and cruel wisecrack, “They didn't pay you to boss the— hup, boss around.”

They will pay you to confront and reflect your spectrum of limits if this girl brushes their seams, that's for certain. Or, play God and lambast her, tender as milk.

There's even a stroke of a chance, that your crooked lips poached her dopey grin instead, “Kay, well, maybe they'll reimburse me for your poor services.”

“My services are not poor. You'll see, tomorrow.” the volume of her melts away, going muted under liquid swills clanging on glass.

“Please tell me that's the sound of you putting the bottle away.”

“Mhm!” came out plugged, the bottle confining her garble, then popping clean as a cork, “Fuck— okay,” she siphons air in, pure little clink tinting the end of her sharp–edged sniffle, “Make sleeping in earlier worth it t’morrow, wanna drive you nuts with my questions.” she nasals, drawing near the mic again.

Such a magpie, “Cause you're lonely?” and weird.

“Shut up,” she shushes you, a satin whisper light–hearted and quick on beat, “M’not lonely anymore, right?” The type of softly spoken outcry that would balloon your cheeks with soreness if you were face–to–face with the throat that conducts it. Involuntary smiles plague you everywhere. But there is no mouth, no larynx, no throat that you view the swallow of. Just a walkie, so you settle in stoicism.

You tug your upper–lip and pivot your eyes, drumming up something clever to combat, “In a sense. Not like we’re bunkmates, thank goodness.”

“Fuck you,” Ellie breaks into a cuss spout so serenely, she sounded small and harmless, “just go to bed.” reduced to birch in winter shed of its brittle autumn arguments.

“Don’t gotta tell me once.”

By the first full and emphatic giggle she cast just now that wasn’t suppressed nor achieved by humble pie, you take it that Ellie found you funnily harrowing just as her, two peas in an outstretched pod. Fault be with her, for getting wasted. Otherwise, you might have pried her skull open with questions dolled up as a pruner, clipping the forelimbs that are foliated in a messy breadth of first glance leaflets and attitudes until you piece it prettily, in a way that thralls you to never shrink your eyes back into their sockets. Drunk people are like prone beehives though, so you don't prod them.

Tomorrow, you can paint her portrait, or vice versa.

“Whatever you say, newbie.”

And with the whirry crunch of the walkie shutting off, Monday, came to a close.

if you enjoyed this chapter, please lmk what you thought!! i love getting asks about my content ♡

perm taglist: @whore4abby @aouiaa @ellieslittlewhore @baumbii @tlougrl @mina-281 @beabeebrie @fleshunger @elliewilliamsisactuallymygf @nicolicht @cosmikoo @xinyaya @sawaagyapong @reinersbigolboobies @brunettedolls-blog @syrenada @fairyysoiree @p4ison1vy @nil-eena @hi2647 @disaster-bi-suki @rarestdoll @narieater @hrtmal @eudaemoniaaaa @ellie-07063 @luvfaeri @carleenaelaine @kissyslut @ellieswh0r3 @beemillss @elsmissingfingers @bugaboodarling @slynxs @maleelee @savannahsdeath @littlegingerperson5 @seraphicsentences series taglist: @tearouthearts @planetloverr @elliesexual @isitadinosaur @eveshyper @3lli3l0v3r @yourmothersfavgirl @emst4rr @theloserqueen @crxmxnzl-c0rpzes @whenlostinthedarkness @diddiqueen @deliriousrn

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honeylashofficial · 2 months

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A completed rough animatic

“Where is Mumbo?” That’s what Grian has been asking for a year now throughout the bitter winter of 1988 and 89, after his best friend’s disappearance in Shoshone National Forest. Now equipped with a job as a fire lookout, and with the added ulterior motive of searching for his friend, Grian will begin a journey of highs and lows; of healing and heartbreak. And so much more.

I don’t currently plan to post this rough animatic on YouTube, and I’m not really sure yet if I’ll make it a finished piece, but figured I got this far, so I should show it to someone.

I guess there’s not any flat-out spoilers (besides events) with this animatic, but it definitely makes more sense when you have all the context, as it bounces back and forward in time, so go read @quaranmine’s fic “The Incandescence of a Dying Light”!! It will make you feel all the feels. I promise.

#firewatch #hc_firewatch_au #grian #mumbo jumbo #goodtimeswithscar #animatic #rough animatic #art #hermitcraft #hermitcraft au

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romeoandjulietyouwish · 11 months

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Chapter 2: Ashes (Wildfires to Rainstorms)

Read on ao3 (3k)

Vex wakes up to another morning in the watchtower. The smell of the old wood fills her nostrils, comforting and familiar. She can hear Trinket snoring softly from his dog bed. Vex sighs and pulls the starchy blankets over her head, not ready to face the day yet. But the sun is rising so it’s time to begin the day.

After a slow few minutes of waking up, she pads over to get breakfast for herself and for Trinket, the two of them eating side by side on the floor as Vex stretches out her legs. She learned the hard way her first year that if she doesn’t stretch her legs before hiking that she’ll wind up with the worst cramps the next day.

This deep into the summer, it doesn’t take long for the temperature to rapidly pick up. Vex is very much looking forward to when fall finally comes. But she’s more than able to deal with it until then. Trinket however, is not.

It’s too hot today for Trinket to hike as far as Vex wants to so she fills his water bowl and turns on the small air condition unit. Immediately, he laid down in front of it and fell asleep, causing Vex to roll her eyes. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” Vex promises him before packing her backpack and heading out.

Vex has light supplies, just her climbing gear, some food and water, and a garbage bag in case she finds any litter. She knows these forests like the back of her hand, able to navigate without needing her compass. However, even the bright green canopy of the trees can’t protect her from the sweltering heat. By her second mile, she’s almost envious of Trinket, but it’s been so long since she’s got to hike like this that she’s not about to turn back.

She’s hiking along the river, following it South. She has half a mind to investigate the wildfire she was told about on her arrival, but she knows she probably shouldn’t wander that far from the tower, let alone towards the fire. But she can’t help her curiosity, in three years of doing this, there’s never been a real wildfire. Sure there are little ones but they almost always extinguish themselves before doing much damage.

Fire has always fascinated and terrified Vex. She remembers getting the news that her mother had died in a house fire, the old house nothing but ashes. After the grief and devastation came a deep desire to know more about the element. Vax thought she was insane, spending hours pouring over books and videos of wildfires. But he can’t argue that it made her more than qualified for this job.

Just as Vex is about to turn back, a voice comes from her radio. Percy addresses her, “East tower, check in.”

Vex sighs and pulls her radio from her pack. “You can call me Vex,” she responds. “I’m hiking South of the tower, along Red Run River.”

Percy doesn’t reply in a conversational tone, he’s all business as he says, “I see smoke to the West, by the lake.”

The lake is a popular camping spot for through hikers, Vex knows so she tells him, “Probably a campfire that wasn’t put out properly. On my way,” Vex responds. “Over and out.”

With another sigh, Vex changes her course, resigning herself for at least a little while in the sweltering heat.

Vex finds some stepping stones to make her way across the shallow river. Her boots leave dirty footprints on their smooth surfaces. As she keeps walking, she thinks about that a bit too long.

She remembers the first year she spent here, how she would spend hours upon hours exploring to get familiar with the terrain and where all of the landmarks on her maps are. It had been good for her, not that she would ever admit that Vax was right when he showed her the job posting. The months, years really, before coming out here had been some of the worst of her life. And then coming here…being alone and free, gods she felt like herself again. The first time since meeting him.

There are two names forbidden from being spoken aloud between her and Vax. His is one of them.

Before she can think too far down that rabbit hole, Vex comes across the source of the smoke.

And just as she suspected it’s just a campfire that wasn’t put out properly. Thankfully the fire is still in its pit, the rocks are well stacked and the wood remaining is burned down to nothing but embers.

With a frustrated sigh, she sees candy wrappers and chip bags also littering the ground where two tents were obviously pitched. Most hikers here respect the land and take good care not to harm it, clearly whoever camped here didn’t have that mindset.

After picking up the garbage and stowing it into her backpack, Vex turns to the smoldering fire.

She takes her water bottle out and drowns the pit in half of its contents. A smoky scent fills the air as she mixes it with a stick until the embers have stopped glowing. Then she kneels down in the dirt, touching the extinguished coals with her hand to make sure they’re cool, wiping the ash and dirt off on her pants as she stands.

“Percy, the fire is out,” she relays through the radio. “Nothing to be concerned about, over.”

“Alright.” He is silent for a moment before sighing and asking, “Do you happen to know where the tool box in this tower is? I can’t find it anywhere.”

“Uh,” Vex starts her walk back, taking a swig of water, “did you check the storage under the tower? Or under the bed?”

“Will do, thank you, over and out.”

Vex rolls her eyes as she tucks the radio away, clearly he’s not interested in much conversation.

As she’s walking, she catches the scent of fire from further South. She frowns slightly, she shouldn’t be able to smell it this far up wind, that must mean it’s either bigger than they thought or farther North than they thought. Mentally making a note of that, Vex keeps walking.

The next morning, Vex wakes up to Trinket shoving his nose against her neck, whining softly.

She groans, trying to roll over, but he just whines louder and noses her back. With a sigh, she sits up, “Okay, buddy, come on.” She drags herself from bed just as the sun is rising and doesn’t bother to put on shoes or change from her pajamas as she opens the door to the tower and Trinket sprints down the stairs, wagging his tail all the way.

She follows after him with a yawn, plodding down the creaky steps. This early, the birds are just starting to sing, the sun just starting to warm the horizon. She plops down onto the last step as Trinket starts sniffing about the grass, searching for a place to do his business.

Vex leans her head against the railing, listening to the birds and the rustling of leaves. If she listens close enough, it almost sounds like the crackling of embers.

There’s a supply drop today thankfully. She is very much looking forward to a replenishment of food in the tower, all that’s left are a few canned soups and cereal. One gets tired of that rather quickly. Not to mention that Keyleth promised Trinket some dog treats and knowing her, she also threw in a toy or two for him since she knew Vex couldn’t fit any in her backpack. And knowing her brother, he’s found some way to sneak something to her.

Trinket sniffs along the edges of the storage containers where an animal is presumably hiding. All it takes is a quick call of his name for him to leave the trail alone and come bounding back to Vex, happily accepting the pets he receives.

“Can we go back to sleep now, buddy?” Vex asks him with another yawn, digging her fingers into his scruff.

Trinket barks softly and pushes past her back up towards the tower. Vex rolls her eyes and follows after him.

It’s mid afternoon now, Vex having finished her chores and the bit of work that needed her attention. She sits in the tower, legs kicked up on the table as she carves an arrowhead from a piece of wood she found yesterday.

The radio crackles and Keyleth’s voice fills the tower, “East Tower please come in, over.”

Quickly Vex pushes her rolling chair over to the long wave radio, “I’m here, Keyleth, over.”

“Your supplies were just dropped off in the Yellow Rock supply box. The code for the lock should be written on your information sheet, over.”

“Did my brother send anything?” Vex asks.

“He did,” Keyleth tells her. “Just a letter to let you know that everything is okay. Be sure to get the supply drop before tonight, over.”

“Thank you, Keyleth, I’ll leave right now to get it, over and out.” Just those few words from Keyleth let her know that everything back home is alright. Keyleth would have said immediately if anything was wrong.

As she stands, she whistles to Trinket who lifts his head immediately. “Want to go for a walk, buddy?”

He jumps to his feet, wagging his tail happily as she collects her things. She brings an empty backpack, the hike is short enough that she doesn’t need anything but she’ll need all the space she can get to bring everything back.

The hike to the supply box isn’t long and since she set out early in the morning, the heat hasn’t started yet. Trinket bounds along happily beside her, stopping every so often to sniff tracks. As she’s hiking, Vex takes out her radio. Her thumb hovers over the button, so far Percy has been nothing but professional. But if she doesn’t try to talk to him, then she might just go insane this summer with no one to talk to but Trinket.

So she stops stalling and lifts the radio to her mouth.“Percy, are you there, over?”

There’s a long moment and then, “I’m here, what do you need, over?”

She rolls her eyes, “You’re the only person I have to talk to for three months. I was wondering if you got a supply drop as well today.”

“Yes, I did,” Percy tells her shortly. “I’m not sure how Keyleth managed it but I find myself with an almost overwhelming amount of licorice. I only mentioned that I liked them once.”

Vex chuckles, “That’s Keyleth for you. Do you know her well?”

“Somewhat, I’ve only known her for a few months.” Vex knows when people are concealing something, it’s obvious Percy is. And won’t that be exciting to figure out.

“Well she is dating my brother. His name is Vax. So I hope she has also given me plenty of sweets,” Vex smiles, watching as Trinket immediately halts his walking to sniff insistently up a sapling tree. As he does, Vex pauses to wait for him.

Surprise colors Percy’s voice as he replies, “Oh. I cannot believe I didn’t put that together. I feel rather stupid.”

Vex laughs, “Don’t worry, darling, it can be rather confusing.” Without her meaning to, the endearment slips out, a word saved only for people close to her. Hopefully Percy doesn’t read too much into it. “She also promised Trinket some treats.”

“Trinket?”

“He’s my dog, he comes with me every year. Keyleth is rather fond of him. And he does very much enjoy hiking and playing in the river.”

“It must be nice to have company,” Percy responds, his tone almost shocking her with its softness.

“You do, you have me, whether you like it or not,” Vex chuckles. “I’ve heard stories of old rangers going insane without talking to someone. So please don’t go insane on me, darling.”

Percy laughs. He has a nice laugh. “I’m already insane, I’m afraid to report.”

The response shocks a laugh out of Vex, “I didn’t think you were capable of making a joke.”

She can almost see the snark on Percy’s face as he responds, “I am more than capable, I simply just choose my moments.”

“Well I look forward to seeing more of those moments,” Vex tells him. “But for now I will leave you and head to my supply box.”

“Of course, over and out.”

Vex tucks the radio back into her waistband, a glimmer appearing in her eye. She likes him, he’s charming and she does enjoy puzzles.

She clicks her tongue for Trinket and continues on her way to the supply box, the small smile not quite leaving her face.

Finish reading on ao3

#firewatch au #critical role #vox machina #percahlia

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