Chapter Text
The forest went on forever.
The noise of the helicopter effectively drowned out most of Keith’s thoughts, with the exception of holy shit every few minutes. Because, honestly, holy shit.
To think that only thirty minutes ago he had climbed into a helicopter with a stranger - a bubbly man named Coran - and now he was thousands of feet above the Great Smoky Mountains. Coran pointed toward one of the taller mountains looming in the distance.
“There’s the peak of the Chimney Tops trail I told you about in our interview! It is my personal favorite sight to see when I fly out here.” Coran’s voice crackled through the headsets they both wore. “I almost crashed into a cliff down there once because I wanted to see it from the air.”
Coran’s chuckle didn’t do much to dampen the heightening anxiety in Keith’s chest. He had never been the biggest fan of heights, and though the view was great, the sudden image of Coran flying them into a cliff pushed to the forefront of Keith’s brain.
“As I said before, I will be flying out here every two weeks to drop off food for the four of you. I bring this handy dandy router with me, so that’s when you all will be able to make calls back home.” Coran reached back to pat an unassuming little box behind them. “It’s just over three hours to hike to the drop off spot, and technically it only takes one person from each cabin to pick up the food, but everyone usually stops by to make calls home. I’m sure you’ll be able to meet everyone today.”
“And there’s only four of us out here?” Keith asked, his eyes glued to the trees under them. From here, the tips of the pine trees looked sharp, like they’d impale the helicopter if they happened to sporadically freefall from the sky.
“Yes, and everyone will be glad to have a fourth person again. See, two foresters live in each cabin, so when we only have three, someone will get quite lonely out here. Oh, you can see the creek from here. Look there!”
Coran pointed again, and Keith cringed when he looked straight down. But Coran was right - a creek ran underneath them, an offshoot from the wide river, named Pigeon River, that ran through most of the national park.
Pigeon River sparkled ahead of them in the midday sun, and Keith found it a much safer place for his eyes to rest on. It didn’t take long until Coran pointed a final time at an approaching clearing.
“Here’s our drop off spot! It takes around three days to hike here from the station, but I can get here in the helicopter in just under forty-five minutes. Pretty handy for me!”
Coran’s hands flew around the control panel in front of them. Keith didn’t even try to understand what he was pressing or why, or what all the numbers on the dashboard - was it still called a dashboard? - were telling Coran. They descended slowly toward the clearing.
“Are you ready for your hike? The first time is the hardest, since you have to take all of your belongings out there.”
“I’ve been spending a little more time in the gym to get ready for this job,” Keith said, but he had conveniently forgotten to mention how long it had been since he’d been on a real hike in the job interview.
“Good. You really will need it! But there aren’t many things that are better than walking in nature every single day, are there?”
Keith hummed in affirmation, but he was a little busy gripping the edge of his seat as the helicopter tilted toward the ground. His knuckles were slowly turning white, and Coran seemed entirely unbothered while the wind buffeted the side of the helicopter.
Not a moment too soon, the helicopter settled into the grass of the clearing, and the blades slowed their spinning. Coran shot him a bright smile and removed the headset.
The second that Coran gave the go ahead, Keith all but jumped out of the death machine. Not that it wasn’t cool to see the entire park laid out in front of him like that, but Keith could wait a while until he tried that again.
“Keith!” A voice shouted from the trees.
He spun around as a brightly colored shape exploded from the treeline. Pidge sported a smile, a bright green tank top, and a huge, seemingly empty, backpack. They slid to a stop a few feet away, never one for contact, but Keith closed the distance to hug them anyway.
Although they groaned and shoved him away, they still gave him a rare, wide grin. Through the scattered phone calls he had gotten from them last season, it seemed that this job was their favorite thing in the entire world.
“You dropped your compass, Pidge.” A huge man followed them into the clearing, frowning at a little compass in his massive hand. As soon as he noticed Keith, a cheery, all too friendly smile lit up the guy’s face. “Keith, right? It’s so nice to meet you! I’m Hunk.”
Hunk tossed the compass at Pidge. Even though he looked incredibly friendly, Keith was still unprepared for the hulking hug Hunk gave him.
“Um, nice to meet you,” Keith replied, his voice muffled in Hunk’s knitted shirt. Hunk released him and gave him a big pat on his shoulder that almost sent Keith stumbling forward.
“Hunk’s worked here for two years. He’s the resident animal expert here. Literally, ask him anything.” Pidge crossed their arms expectantly.
Keith shrugged. “I dunno… um, what’s the most invasive species here?”
“Ooh, good question!” Hunk grinned like Keith was a star student. “There’s a bunch here, like the rainbow trout. My least favorite is the hemlock wooly adelgid, though.”
“Adelgid,” Keith repeated.
But, Hunk only nodded quickly and gave Keith another strong shoulder pat. “Yep! I’ll tell you all about them later, but I need to call my family.” Hunk walked away without another word, and Keith watched him give Coran the same enveloping hug.
Pidge had spent much of their sparse phone calls over the past two years telling stories about the park and the people they worked with. With Hunk as their roommate, he had heard quite a bit about his enthusiasm. The other guy… Leo? Leroy? Larry? Definitely Larry… hadn’t been mentioned as often. From what he could remember, Pidge seemed to find the guy obnoxious.
“He’s a great guy,” Pidge said, watching Hunk squeeze the lights out of Coran. “He was my roommate last year.”
“Oh, so he’s with that guy Larry this year, right?”
“Lance. And, no. Hunk’s my roommate.”
Concrete poured into Keith’s stomach. Coran hadn’t said anything about him bunking with someone else. When he had mentioned Pidge in the interview, it sounded like he’d be able to live with them. Pidge turned to Keith, and the surprise must have been written all over him, because a brief flash of sympathy flashed over their face.
“Coran didn’t tell you?”
“I assumed I’d be living with you,” Keith muttered. Now he was going to have to adjust to a stranger? In the middle of the woods?
“I think you and Lance are going to get along well,” Pidge scoffed at the thought. “Like, annoyingly well. Don’t worry about it, okay?”
“It’s a little hard to not worry about living with a stranger.”
“Lance is fun! Speaking of which, where is he? He’s usually the first one here.” They cupped their hands over their mouth. “Lance!” They bellowed at a shocking volume, given their size.
Just then, movement flickered in the treeline, and a newcomer entered the opposite side of the clearing to yell back at them. “Don’t get your socks in a twist, Pidgey. I’m here.”
Whatever greeting that Keith was preparing got stuck in his throat as Lance approached them.
Lance was beautiful.
Undeniably, unquestionably, beautiful.
He wasn’t much taller than Keith, but he was just put together in all the places Keith wasn’t. Lean muscle lined his arms, and Keith could tell that the rest of him, under the pale blue tank top he wore, was just the same. But it was his face - his lopsided smile, a slight sunburn on the tops of his cheeks, a single dimple on the right side of his smile - that made the rusty gears in Keith’s head grind to a stop.
“Hey, man.” Lance turned that smile on him, and the force of it was staggering. “I’m Lance.”
Lance stuck out one of those long, muscled arms, and it took Keith a second too long to take it. He couldn’t help but notice the devastating blue of Lance’s eyes. “Um. I’m Keith,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t come out as strained as his throat felt.
“I guessed,” Lance laughed and dropped his hand. “Welcome to the Smokies! Sorry, gotta make a call.” And with that, he jogged over to where Coran was setting up the router.
“Pidge,” Keith said, his eyes glued on Lance. “You didn’t tell me.”
“What, that you’d probably think Lance is hot? I don’t think he’s hot, so I didn’t think it was pertinent information.” They had a mischievous grin on their face, anyway. “I need to call Matt, want to say hi?”
After a short hello to Matt, Keith had left the siblings to catch up. He tried to match Coran’s expert stacking method as they stuffed food into the empty packs everyone had dropped by the dormant helicopter. Coran had given him a vague explanation of the router system. Every time Coran touched down in the clearing, he’d hook a portable wifi router to the helicopter to give them temporary access to wifi. As Coran predicted, everyone had immediately set off to different corners of the clearing to talk to their family.
“If we only have wifi when you’re here, how are we supposed to contact you?” Keith asked, stacking bags of dehydrated food.
“There’s a ridge above your cabin that has the height to radio the station. Lance has been handling that the past few years, but you’ll be able to reach me there too, if you need to.” Coran started packing Lance’s backpack for him. Lance was still on the other side of the clearing, one hand on his hip, and the other holding his phone to his ear. “Actually, thanks for reminding me! I need to give you your radio when we’re done with this food. All of you should be able to radio each other on frequency one, so you should always leave your radio on that one.”
Keith nodded, and his eyes wandered around the clearing. Hunk stood a few yards away with an easy smile on his face as he listened to his phone, and Pidge was pacing back and forth, hands gesturing wildly.
A fond smile threatened the edge of Keith’s lips at the familiarity of their movement. They never had been able to stand still when they were on the phone. Back in college, Keith had often walked into the apartment to see them pacing the living room or standing on the couch to speak to Matt. He’d always give them a look, but it never phased them. Usually, they’d just put Matt on speakerphone so he could talk to Keith as well.
Pidge was the first to finish their call. They bounced back to Keith’s side, already rambling about what Matt had said. Something about violins? Keith nodded along and watched them haphazardly stuff their bag with dehydrated foods.
Two years since that little college apartment. Two years, and Pidge had already found their place in the world, in the middle of the Smoky Mountains.
Now that he could see the setup, a part of him felt humbled at the fact that they had taken some of the little time they had every few weeks to send him a call. To be fair, most of their calls were short, and filled with Pidge rambling about every little thing that had happened in the park. But, still, those calls had been highlights in Keith’s standstill life.
After college, Keith had accidentally fallen into a corporate engineering job. He worked horrendous long hours that left him with no time for anything else. More often than not, he’d fall into bed after work without even thinking about dinner. Even so, he’d always take his measly breaks the second Pidge’s number popped up on his phone. He had never taken the time to imagine where Pidge would be standing on the other end of their crackly phone connection - in a clearing, in the middle of the woods, hundreds of miles away.
Hunk and Lance joined up with them soon after. Hunk’s eyes were a little damp. They all made quick work of packing the rest of the food into their packs.
“Alright, Keith. I’ll be back in two weeks with the rest of your stuff,” Coran said brightly. He had suggested that Keith bring two packs - the first with all of his essentials and clothes for two weeks, and the second to be dropped off in a few weeks with the rest of his clothes and some extra stuff that would be easy to carry with the food supply.
“I’ll take most of the food this time, since you’re carrying so much.” Lance hefted his backpack, half his size and bursting at the seams, onto his back with a tiny wince. “You ready?”
“Ready.” Any space in Keith’s own bag had been stuffed with the food that Lance couldn’t fit. The weight of it pulled Keith backwards, but he managed to steel himself against it.
“Okay! Pidgey, Hunk, Coran, see you guys in two weeks, right?” Lance gave Pidge a meaningful look that Keith didn’t quite understand, but they nodded just as significantly.
“Remember to radio me if you come up with any necessities,” Coran said, then clapped Keith’s shoulder. His focus on staying upright shattered, and he stumbled to the side a few steps. He didn’t miss Pidge’s smirk. “Have fun, Keith! Good hiking!”
They all backed away as Coran fired up the helicopter again. Lance loosely saluted the helicopter, and Keith just caught an answering wave from Coran before he disappeared into the sky.
As soon as the noise died away, Pidge spun to the rest of the group. “So next time we’re switching?” Almost as an afterthought, they added in Keith’s direction, “sometimes we’ll switch cabins for a few days after the supply drop so we can mingle. Not that Hunk isn’t a dream to live with-” they smacked Hunk’s side with the back of their hand “-but sometimes we need a change of face.”
Lance leaned in like they were sharing a secret, and Keith had to try not to stare at the brightness in his eyes. “Technically we aren’t supposed to. Coran doesn’t know.”
“So if anyone ever asks, I’ve never seen this man before in my life.” Hunk gestured at Lance. "But, we should wait for the drop after next. Coran promised to bring me a new piece for my binoculars so I can check out the eagle nest near our cabin."
Pidge squinted at the sky. “We should all get going so we don’t get back too late.”
“Did you just read the sun?” Keith asked, eyes narrowed. But, Pidge only laughed at him.
“You’ll get used to it. Lance can navigate with the stars like a fucking pirate,” they said, pointing accusatorily at Lance.
“You’re just jealous.” Lance smirked. “But yeah, we should go. See you guys in a few weeks!”
Hunk gave both Lance and Keith another crushing hug, and then he disappeared into the trees with Pidge. Once they were alone, Lance gave him a long, studying look.
“What?” Keith shifted uncomfortably and looked away.
With a shrug, Lance turned to the trees and set off. “Just looking.”
Keith had to trot to catch up. “Looking?” He asked, looking back to watch the trees close off the clearing.
“Yeah. Should we do the good ol’ college orientation icebreaker introductions?”
Keith shot him an incredulous look. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Ooh, the newbie has a mouth.” Lance grinned back at him. “I’ll go first then. My name is Lance McClain, I’m twenty four, this is my third year working out here, my favorite food is banana chips, and my favorite color is blue. Specifically baby blue, today. Your turn!”
All of Lance’s words came out so quickly that Keith’s brain had to work overtime to keep up. Even so, it took a few seconds after Lance had finished until he truly processed all of the speech. Lance was giving him an expectant look, stepping over roots and rocks without so much as glancing down.
“Oh… okay…” Keith cleared his throat and trained his eyes on his feet as they stepped over a network of exposed roots. “Keith Kogane, also twenty four, obviously it’s my first time doing anything like this. Also, banana chips, really?”
“What do you mean, really? They’re the gods’ gifts to mankind. I always tell Coran I’ve run out of them so I can really stock up. Wait until you see our pantry.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Keith noted Lance’s smooth smile. Everything about the guy seemed so relaxed, so easy. Maybe a few months of living with him wouldn’t be so bad.
“How far away are Hunk and Pidge, anyway?” He asked.
“Their cabin is almost twenty miles away. Takes about nine hours to hike there, on a good day.”
The branch of a thick pine tree whacked Keith’s in his face as he twisted to stare at Lance. “Twenty miles? Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.” Lance nodded sagely. “Luckily, the drop clearing is almost exactly between both of our cabins. So we hike about eight miles there and eight miles back every two weeks.”
“This wasn’t in the job description,” Keith muttered mostly to himself.
“Oh, it gets better. Sometimes we have to go on overnight hikes because we can’t get all the way out to the edge of our jurisdiction in one day.”
“I haven’t camped since…” Keith thought about it. “Ever. I’ve never camped.”
It was Lance’s turn to stare at him in disbelief. “Never? You’re joking, right?”
“I might have exaggerated on the resume.” Still, Keith couldn’t keep the sneaking smirk off his face at the sight of Lance’s obvious shock.
After an assessing sideways glance, Lance shrugged it off. “What better time for your first camping trip?”
Keith made some sort of unconfirming noise, and they paused to pick their way up a steep, rocky incline. The pine trees stretched high above them, waving quietly in the wind. Somewhere to their left, a river gurgled through the rocks, but Keith couldn’t see the water yet.
Maybe he had jumped the ball a little. Coran had explained the outline of the job, and it had all sounded manageable, but had he sugarcoated it a little? The eight mile hike the first day, loaded down with all of his stuff, had sounded like it would be the hardest bit of the job.
At the top of the hill, Keith had to stop to catch his breath. Lance seemed completely unbothered - he wasn’t even breathing hard, even with almost all of their food strapped to his back.
“Coran explained some of it… but what do we really do here?” Keith asked through quick breaths, if only to distract himself from being embarrassed.
Lance stretched his arms above his head, and a bit of tanned skin poked out from the bottom of his tank top. “Oh, just the normal stuff. We make sure the trails in our section are clear of fallen trees, pick up trash if we find any, monitor the lake and river to make sure no one’s fishing without a license. Report any incidents.”
“Incidents?” Keith repeated as they set off again.
“Hiking injuries, unauthorized fireworks and fishing, bear attacks. That kind of thing.”
Keith practically wheezed. “Bear attacks? ”
Thankfully, Lance didn’t outright laugh at him, but Keith still caught the barest hint of a smile on his face. “Yep. They happen pretty often. A weekly grizzly attack, usually. Only like four people die every summer, though.”
Keith stopped in his tracks, eyes wide. Holy shit. “Four people?”
Then, Lance faced him, a laugh evident on that unfairly pretty face. “Keith, dude, I’m fucking with you. There aren’t any grizzlies out here, only black bears. Take a deep breath. You brought bear spray, right?”
Keith tried to regulate his breathing as the last of the shock rippled through his spine. “What’s bear spray?” He barely managed to get out.
The corner of Lance’s mouth twitched, like he was putting all of his effort into holding back a smile. “Like pepper spray, but worse. You can have some of mine when we get back to the cabin.”
He willed his wide eyes to relax and forced a deep breath into his chest.
“How are you holding up?” Lance’s lips twitched again.
“Fine,” Keith replied shortly and gestured for Lance to lead the way. Rocks slipped out from under Keith’s feet, and the weight on his back threatened to knock him to the ground.
“But, yeah, it’s pretty simple work. The biggest thing we have to look out for is hiker misdemeanor and fires.” Lance reached over and gave Keith’s backpack a pull, and suddenly the weight felt easier on his back. Lance ignored his thanks and moved on. “This is a weird job for you to take with no camping or hiking experience.”
“I guess so,” Keith said with a shrug. “Pidge seems to think pretty highly of it, and they’re much less nature-y than I am.”
“Nature-y?” Lance laughed. He seemed to laugh a lot. Or, maybe he just found Keith stupid. “I guess you could say that, but they’re really into prevention planning. They’ve come up with a lot of good stuff. But, what about you? What are you running from?”
The blunt question caught Keith off guard. He tried to push his backpack into the position that Lance had set it, but it didn’t sit as well on his back. “What do you mean?” His question sounded weak even to himself.
“Oh, come on. You don’t just drop everything to live in the middle of the woods without any phone connection just for the hell of it. Everyone who comes out here is running from a problem. So, what’s yours?”
“What is this, court?” Keith scoffed, eyes once again fixed on his feet. “I don’t have a problem.”
“Sure,” Lance said indifferently.
“I’m serious!” For some reason it mattered that Lance believed him. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to sway him.
“Sure,” Lance repeated himself and gave Keith another smirk.
Keith crossed his arms over his chest, then immediately uncrossed them when he almost tumbled over a root. He really needed to watch his feet, even if Lance had barely even glanced at the ground since they had started. “Fine, what’s your problem, then?”
“What is this, court?” Lance mocked him, smirk widening.
“That’s not fair, why am I supposed to tell you about my life if you won’t?”
“So there is a problem!” Lance looked a little too triumphant. At Keith’s unimpressed glance, he shrugged. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Keith huffed. “You’re ridiculous.”
The view from the cabin was so much more than Keith had expected. From his bedroom window, the entire valley spread out in front of him. Pigeon River glowed orange in the light of the setting sun.
He and Lance had made it to the cabin just as the edges of the sky started to turn purple. Keith couldn’t help himself. He had ignored the cabin and walked straight out to the back porch to watch the colors change, but Lance didn’t seem too surprised.
With an uncomfortable squeak, the back door swung open, and Lance joined Keith by the railing. The cabin was simple - two tiny bedrooms, a simple kitchen, a table with two chairs, and a couch in front of a tiny TV. But, Keith already knew that the porch would be his favorite place. It was decorated sparsely, with two wooden chairs and a nearly insane number of colorful potted plants, but the view was enough decoration for an entire mansion.
On second glance, the ‘potted plants’ were more like… contained plants. Leaves and shoots sprouted from all sorts of containers: cracked tupperwares, an old kettle, an assortment of cups, and even a pair of hiking boots.
Lance planted a hand on the rail to twist his back, and the loud pop in his spine almost made Keith cringe. “Killer, right?” Lance gestured unnecessarily toward the landscape. Still, Keith felt a little breathless as he nodded. “Want some dinner?”
“Sure, what do we have?” Keith couldn’t force his eyes away from the glowing river, even as he felt Lance’s eyes on him.
“Oh, some real gourmet shit. Almost every soup you could think of, lots of jerky, fruit leather, pasta, whatever.”
As if on cue, Keith’s stomach grumbled. “Pasta sounds great.”
“Sure, but don’t expect too much of my cooking, okay?”
Keith finally turned from the river to watch Lance snag some leaves off a little plant that sprouted out the side of a broken watering can. “Basil,” he explained simply, then held the door open for Keith.
As Keith stepped into the cabin, his waist crackled.
“Have you guys made it back yet?” Pidge’s voice sounded from the walkie talkie still clipped to his belt.
Lance snagged the radio from Keith’s belt before he could even react. “What? Mine’s still in my bag,” Lance said, but the mischievous glint in his eye looked worryingly similar to Pidge’s trademark expression. Lance smirked at him as he pressed the button on the radio. “Yeah, we’re back. Good hike?”
“Only two grizzlies, but Hunk fought them off.”
“I already tried that one,” Lance laughed into the radio.
“Fuck you, man! That’s my favorite.”
“You guys suck,” Keith grumbled, and Lance kept his finger on the button so Pidge could hear him too.
“Don’t worry, Keith. They pulled the same thing on me last year, but they kept it going for an entire week. I was ready to shit myself every time we left the cabin.” Hunk’s voice crackled through the radio.
Keith rolled his eyes at the unconcealed joy on Lance’s face. “At least I’m not the only one.”
“What do you think of the place?” Pidge asked. Lance tossed Keith the walkie and began grabbing things out of their pantry.
He fumbled with the walkie for a minute before he found the button. “Well, the view is incredible.” His voice trailed off at a weak thud from Lance’s direction. He was right - the pantry was literally overflowing with bags upon bags of banana chips. A couple bags had fallen on the floor, and Lance uselessly tried to stuff them back into the bursting pantry. Apparently satisfied with the haphazard arrangement, Lance shot him a sheepish grin.
“That’s a given. You’ll never get used to it, don’t worry.”
“What’s Lance growing this year?” Hunk asked, sounding far away from the radio.
“Um, Basil?” He said uncertainly. Lance suddenly seemed much more into the conversation, and began listing off.
“Basil, lavender, parsley, oregano, mint, chives-”
“We get it,” Pidge interrupted.
“I’m trying blueberries this year, too.”
Hunk’s gasp was clear through the radio, even though he still sounded like he was across the room. “Ooh, will you save some for me?”
“Is that even a question?” Lance laughed and examined the pot sitting on their little two-burner stove.
“Maybe Keith will eat all of them. I don’t know him.”
Keith settled into one of the rickety wooden chairs at their table. The water in Lance’s pot began to boil, and pulled out a plastic bag that held what looked eerily similar to dried blood. But when he poured the suspicious mix into a pan, the cabin immediately filled with a spicy aroma.
“I’ll keep two or three for you, I guess.”
“Bless you, Keith.”
A tiny, hopeful smile edged onto Keith’s lips when Lance turned away. Maybe, just maybe, this summer would turn out alright.