#Mathematics of Grief | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

beefboyandbabygirl · 9 months

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Good Luck, Fermata Tower (18+)

pairing: fire-lookout!seungcheol x female!fire-lookout!reader

genre: firewatch au LMAO, smut (MDNI), soo much angst, COMFORT, fluff

description: after the death of your roommate you have to find a greater purpose to life. what better way than to became a fire lookout with a surprisingly charismatic neighbour tower?

warnings: this fic is a lot, please read ALL warnings. SUICIDE, implied suicidal thoughts, major character death 2x, reader goes through grief, so does seungcheol, AGE GAP, RADIO SEX??? LMAOOO, dirty talk, petnames, cockwarming, pentrative sex, strength kink, f. and m. masturbation (mutual?), PINING TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE, MENTIONS OF DOING DRUGS/DOING SHROOMS, talks of drowning, if u know the game i think you'll be able to visualize the beauty of this way more, intensive writing on the scenery and the emotions, LMK IF I FORGOT ANYTHING PLEASe

quotes from babygirl (@joshibambi): "im getting out lana", "im just gonna be making animal sounds", "can we make this into a play so i can perform this?", "OF ALL THE THINGS THAT COULD MAKE ME CRY IT WAS THE DESCRIPTION OF HIS HOT ASS FACE"

wordcount: 13.9k

a/n: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEUNGCHEOL. i love this fic. the writing is a little novelly for a fic, but i was so passionate ab this whole firewatch thing and i got SO INTO the arcs and their personal losses and i just really love yn and seungcheol. i hope this was worth the wait and i apologize for not finishing sooner. all my love, beefboy

You and Mingyu meet at college at some parkour club that you’d both joined to make friends. You face-plant into the pavement and knock out a tooth and Mingyu takes you to a nearby hospital. You click instantly.

You and Mingyu spend every moment together - you help him and he helps you. Mingyu is smart, you realize. He knows all the formulas in your mathematics course by heart. You tell him he’s smart and he says that no one else seems to think that.

You and Mingyu are best friends. You have matching necklaces that complete a heart.

You and Mingyu party together and when you get too drunk, he carries you down the halls, home. Sometimes at night he sleeps in your bed.

Your friend group thinks you’re dating, but you think you and Mingyu are something much more earnest than lovers. You think Mingyu is your soulmate.

You piggy-back ride Mingyu at graduation and you give him a peck on the cheek when he shakes hands with the dean.

You and Mingyu become roommates. You binge-watch terrible movies together and hold drinking games. It’s hard to admit some of your favorite memories are from watching the Alvin and The Chipmunks trilogy.

The night before it happens you and Mingyu eat dinner together that he cooked. You see his snaggletooth every time he smiles.

You’d almost lived together for two years that morning. He usually wakes earlier than you, but he is nowhere to be seen. The apartment is oddly still. You feel trapped.

You enter Mingyu’s room.

You think he’s asleep. You leave him alone.

Two hours later you grow worried. You enter his room to find him in the same position. You shake him. Mingyu doesn’t wake.

The doctors say a case like Mingyu’s is extremely rare - he was in great shape. You’re not sure if that’s supposed to make you feel better.

Mingyu’s funeral is grim. His death is so terrible, says the pastor, because it’s so domestic. You think it’s terrible because he is - was - the brightest, most amazing person to walk the earth. His parents want you to hold a speech, but you can’t find the words. You think you might sob if you go up there. You sob anyway. The flowers form a ring on the floor of the church and your soulmate is dead.

You can’t sleep anymore. You imagine him dying, left arm numb, alone in the dead of night and choking out your name, reaching for the thin wall that separated you. You cry for a whole month. The apartment is cursed so you live with your parents.

One day, you see an ad for a job in the paper.

You take it. _____________________________

“Hello?”

Static stormed the tower-house when the other end cut off.

“Are you there?”

Your eyes frantically darted around the cabin. It was no more than a 13 foot rectangle and yet your tired eyes couldn’t find the radio, churning out a gruff voice.

You’d just arrived, barely turned on the generator to allow light in. It was nighttime. The park’s dips and peaks were veiled in blue; the silhouettes of the trees, forking out in long, thin spikes, were navy and the lake Fermata was the brightest, glittering pearl from the moon above. Stars twinkled knowingly at you.

There. A flash of yellow in your blurred vision. You picked up the worn, dirty radio in your heavy hand, pressing at its side.

“Yeah, hi, I’m here,” you breathed out tiredly. You let go of the button and a small bit of static spoke back to you.

“Y/n?”

“Mhm.”

“I’m Seungcheol. I’m in Bay Valley Tower. It’s to the east. Saw your light turn on,” His voice was gruff, laced with sleep. It had a rasp at every vowel, strings of vocal chords straining to spit out the words in between sticky ropes of bile.

“It’s nice to meet you,” you said. You had nothing else to say. The flimsy, one person bed beckoned to your tired body. You moved, like a doll, one limb at a time, into its harbor, collapsing into the thin mattress. You laid on your side, moonlight shining in from the window by the door.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, carelessly. Impatient in tone, you imagined he’d probably been through this a hundred times before. “So,” he sighed out, deeply. “What’s your problem?”

“Hm?”

There was a shooting star, dancing across the sky in that moment. You watched it, shuffling onto your back with half-closed eyes. Stardust sprinkled from it on the open, empty sky.

“People here are all running from something. So what’s your deal?”

You sighed, watching the star’s open path. It could go anywhere, you thought. Then you moved your arm, holding the receiver to your mouth.

“Listen, Seungcheol. I’ve been hiking for two days, so I’m gonna go to bed now, okay? Hopefully you’ve found some manners by the time I wake up,” you mumbled, then let go of the button (it had a harsh, grainy texture for some reason), and laid your hand, radio in it, limply at your side.

You heard a raspy chuckle from the other end. You had no energy to be angry.

“Alright, Fermata Tower,” there was a smile in the anonymous man’s voice.

There was a pause. The sound of the fierce breeze carried whiffs of autumn, as it lulled you to sleep. You had almost fallen into a black, snow-buried slumber when you heard the radio crinkle again:

“Fermata, do you see that shooting star?”

You had no energy to respond, radio spewing static in your open hand. Thankfully, Seungcheol seemed understanding.

“That’s good luck. So...”

A moment. You and Seungcheol watched the sky-dancer, apart.

“Good luck.” _____________________________

“You’re awake!”

It was Seungcheol’s voice. Transformed by the orange hues of daytime, he sounded much more alive than the night prior.

“I can see you sitting at your desk.”

Indeed you were sitting on your desk - a flimsy wooden thing, which looked like it had come form a yard sale - studying the map of the massive park. There were simple cartoonish figures to indicate stresses of trees and drops in the terrain, and rock quarries and waterfalls and lakes. You’d delicately pointed out your own position with red marker, scribbling ‘me’ by it with a heavy child’s hand.

It was cold - the thin boards did not do much to ward away the heavy wind, hooting creeping in the cracks. It smelled like pine needles and tea, as you’d just boiled a lavender on the kettle. IT sat, heating your fingers where it rested beside them in a mug left behind by the previous firewatchman (it read: “don’t talk to me before I’ve had my coffee”).

The radio clattered against the wood when you clumsily picked it up.

“Didn’t know when I signed up for this that I would be dealing with a stalker,” you joked, smiling small when you heard the man on the other end let out a hearty laugh.

“Hey, don’t go labeling me just yet, kid.”

“Kid?!” you said incredulously, dropping the marker that you had been so diligently using to scribble excellent comments on your map (latest was: “maybe cute bears”). “How old are you?!”

“I’m 37,” Seungcheol said.

“Oof.”

“Hey!”

“I’m kidding!” you laughed, dropping your pen and leaning back in your seat. The view was beautiful. You could see the lake, surrounded by a rippling sea of trees, each top reaching for the sky, like you. “I’m 27, I’m getting up there with you.”

“Just a small decade.”

“I’m mature for my age.”

Seungcheol chuckled on the other end of the radio. You spun around in your chair (it creaked horribly - it sounded like a pig at the sight of a cleaver) surveying each square of the forest from your windows. You narrowed your eyes, trying to spot his lookout tower.

“How come you can see me but I can’t see you?” you mumbled, now standing to try and see, but it was drowned out by the sheer volume of pinewood. Seungcheol grumbled on the other end: “I should be East.”

“Yeah, fuck, I forgot to tell you, I think I dropped my fucking compass on the way here,” you ran a hand through your hair and frown.

“Uh, shit, you’re gonna have to pick up a new one, bud,” he said and you slumped. “Well, if you’re facing the lake - Fermata Lake, I mean - I should be to your left.”

You followed his instructions. You faced the lake, then took two loggy steps to face left, then squinted incessantly at the horizon. Not dissimilar to a crowd in Times Square, the trees stood toe to toe all across at every inch you spied. The pines zagged upwards like Giza, and culminated into the biggest mountain in the park, just under the sun. The mountain loomed overhead where you finally spotted the lookout tower, like a monster crouched over its prey. You tried to shake off the thought and focus on the lone, floating tower in the pit of pointy trees.

“I see you, Bay Valley,” you breathed into the radio.

The tower looked much more lonely from so far away. It was different when you were in it, but with the miles-long stretch between you two, you found it looked so small and feeble. You could make out the light turned on within it, a rectangle of burning orange. The shooting star must’ve crossed directly between your two towers.

“Attagirl,” Seungcheol smiles. “Do you see me waving?”

“No, what the fuck.”

“I got binoculars.”

“Ew, you are a stalker!”

“It’s for bird-watching!” Seungcheol informed you, offense in his tone. You cackled into the radio. “I like watching birds, thank you very much.”

“Jeez, can’t believe what this job does to people.”

“I liked bird-watching before I got this job,” Seungcheol said.

“You’re so white,” you grinned.

“I’m not even white!”

You and Seungcheol both laughed, joyous hiccups interrupted by bursts of static and 3 miles of rocky terrain and pine needles. You squint at the sun, traversing and dipping under the jagged hedges of the tree-line.

Your head lolled over to spot between the desk and doorway, where you’d dropped your orange backpack (a peculiar color, come to think of it - same color as the lifejacket they deploy on airplanes when everything has already gone wrong). Now it was flopped onto its side, zipper ripped open and knick knacks and crumbs at its mouth, spilling onto the floor.

“Where do I get a new compass?” you asked, looking at a yellowed book sat beside the backpack.

“Uh, shit, gimme a sec,” Seungcheol mumbled, and before his radio cut off, you heard, briefly, the itchy scrambling of papers, and the sound made him seem a lot more real. “We have these, uh, supply boxes scattered around. ‘M readin’ this, uhhh, fuckin’ info-thing.. Should say which of them supposedly has a compass.”

“Sounds like you really know your stuff.”

“Get off my ass, Fermata.”

You heard papers rustle again and a small bump before the radio cut off, as if he put the radio down on the table. You awaited, arms crossed over your pink and gray striped hoodie, and staring at sundown. Orange flooded the sky, as if it were all engulfed in flames and this was really hell.

“Uhhh, okay, I got it! There’s one down at Eleison Valley? The code is 1-2-3-4. That’s actually the code to all of them.”

“Secure.”

“Shut up.”

“Well, I can get some exploring done, at least,” you frown, spying a not-so-casual hike on the dotted surface of your map, when you tangoed back to the table, fiddling with the edge of the paper.

“Yeah. You should probably do it tomorrow though. Sun’s coming down.”

“Yeah. Can’t believe I slept that long.”

“Don’t feel too bad about it, kid. I was knocked out for, like, two days after the hike out here. It’s a miracle you’re already awake.”

“Thanks, Bay Valley,” you sighed, leaning back in your seat with some strained shuffling. You watched, eyes half-lidded as the sun fully disappeared behind the curtain of the park. Its light still roamed the sky, where it hid. Half dark blue, half red, the sky twinkled at you and your insignificance brilliantly. You tried not to think about how lonely and floaty your lookout tower must look from afar. Everything feels big when it’s close enough.

“You’re welcome, Fermata.” _____________________________

“You think I could eat any of these mushrooms, BV?”

“BV?”

“Bay Valley.”

“Ah,” Seungcheol sighed on his end of the radio. You were trudging through the undergrowth in your new hiking boots, lifesaver-colored backpack on the plates of your back, weight pushing through the fabric of your jacket. “No, I don’t think that would be wise.”

“Damn it. Was gonna get hella high,” you joked, eyeing another cluster of snow-white mushrooms under the shade of a tree, sloping along a gnarly root. Your crunching steps in the loose dirt came to a halt - there was a dropoff. The cliff cut off like a broken chocolate bar and a sharp rockwall supported it to the next layer of earth.

The path was snaking down towards the lake. You’d circle around and climb up towards Tri Forks Tower, where eventually the climbing heights would bowl into Eleison Valley - a flower field, supposedly (in the map a little flower icon alerted you of this).

“If I die from this rockwall, please, tell my family I love them,” you grumbled, fetching an itchy, frayed rope from the depths of your backpack. Squinting at the high sun, pale drops of sweat forming around your forehead, you slung it over the hook. The park was littered with these - rusted old things that were leaning forward from years of heavy hikers’ tugging. This one was particularly bent.

“You’re so dramatic,” came Seungcheol from the speaker.

“Am not, man, these rocks are like fucking knives!”

“Such a drama queen. A real Primadonna.”

You huffed and puffed as you lowered yourself down the cliffside. Your boots pressed flat against the jagged rock, biceps burning as you held yourself up and walked down the side of it. The whole world was with you, sideways, and you would’ve stopped to appreciate it were you not sure you would pass out doing so.

“Holy shit,” you said to yourself when you were finally on stable ground and not spider-manning the mineral deposits of the park. You put your hands on your hips and squinted at its imposing open jaw.

“You down yet, Queen B?”

You panted, grimacing, when you tugged the rope hard and it leapt down like a flying snake: “Yeah, I’m down.”

You continued padding through the forest. The earth was dry and it was summer, but the wind was harsh and it cooled your stovetop-skin as you walked along a rock quarry, Fermata Lake hiding behind the covers of huge, flat bulwark. You listened to the cacophonous call of the forest: rustling leaves and birds.

“I had a friend - uh, friend of a friend, actually - who, like, got high as fuck off mushrooms and had a bad trip,” you said, mouth to the mic of the radio, as you studied the cover of the leaves.

“Yeah? What happened?” Seungcheol hummed.

“She said that, like -- fuck,” you breathed, scrambling over a particularly rocky rock. “She said there was, like, like her house flooded. Like, water just came gushing in and the whole house was, like, underwater suddenly and she.. She thought she was gonna drown. And her fuckin’ kitchen turned into, like, a coral reef or some shit, I don’t know.”

“Shit,” Seungcheol seemed much more alert now. You heard him put something down on his table (you imagined it was just as shitty as your own). “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“It’s fucking crazy. Don’t do drugs, man.”

You turned past the quarry and was met with the sight of the huge, gaping hole of Fermata Lake. Strangely oval, the lake was flanked on all sides with thick pineland, except for a slight angle where grassy hills turned upwards towards Tri Forks Tower.

The water was much more green up close. Algae sloshed up the side of the gravel-earth, willing you into the murky depths.

You stared at it for a while. You thought maybe you could make out someone standing at the bottom of the bowl-shape.

“I’m at Fermata Lake,” you said then, and then started walking again.

“Good job! And you haven’t even died at a drop off yet,” Seungcheol joked and you laughed.

“God, you’re such a jerk. I bet you’re fuckin’.. Watching birds right now like a nerd.”

“Okay, rude-”

“Why don’t you go outside and be productive?”

“I’m looking for fires,” Seungcheol snarked back. “The binoculars are multi-use.”

You let the conversation die down for a bit, focused on the walk. It was peaceful when you let it be, but at times you came to feel like you were being swallowed alive, or like the looming figure of Aluralura Mountain was pressing its boulder-brawn in between your shoulder blades. The air in the forests was thicker, so you stayed persistent in your path, as you climbed up the clearings and spotted Tri Forks in the distance.

“Hey, uh, Y/n?”

The sudden intrusion of Seungcheol on the radio had you jolting, dropping the radio into the earth (thankfully it was fine - here the earth was softer and it dipped under your boot and water pressed out from the mull). You bent over and picked it back up.

“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me!” you scolded, wiping mud off the yellow plastic of the radio.

“Oh, uh, sorry..”

It was only then that you noticed a meekness in Seungcheol’s voice. You, of course, had not the furthest idea what he looked like, but he sounded like he was holding a knife behind his back. You furrowed your brows and stared down the radio, as if it would give you answers. There was dirt clamoring the yellow, where your fingers had held on.

“What’s up?” you said and sounded fakely bright.

“Well, I just-” he cut himself off with a cough, one that reached those stringent, thinning vocal cords and brought back the rasp. “I wanted to apologize. For the other night. I mean, when you came to the tower.”

You didn’t respond, only furrowed your brow and looked out across the sun-lit moor. There was a deer traversing across the grass.

“Uhm. Because. I was- I was kinda drunk, uh, when you came, and I know I was kinda pushy about, you know, why you came out here and all that.”

“OH!” you exclaimed and the noise ended in a laugh. “Please, Seungcheol. Don’t worry about that. It’s fine.”

“Okay, good,” he mumbled.

The flower field came into view after climbing a particularly steep hill and it was a flower field - not just cartography myth.

It was all sunflowers and catmint - a huge, long stretch of purple and yellow splotches, stemming from green, untamed grass - stretching as far as you could see, disappearing into a hill at the far horizon. You were sure the smell of pollen went for miles, flowerdust sprinkling the air in heavy coats. The path you were following split the field in two, a dry, boring gravel streak, but you saw, faded from sunlight, a once deep, now light, ashy brown box at the right side.

“I found it!” you shrieked into the radio, a newfound strength gearing your legs into a sprint. “Fuck, yes!”

“Good job, Fermata!” there was a smile in his voice.

“Thank you!”

You were also smiling, when you went up to it. It was rectangular and made of planks, held together by a metal loop and a padlock. Like everything else, it was dirty and ravished, and you felt a faint worry at the sight of scratch marks on its side. You clicked in the code: 1-2-3-4.

The interior of the box was mostly empty. To your horror the first thing you saw was a porn magazine, which you did not dare to touch; then you saw a granola bar, which you did touch and stash away in your backpack, without any regard for how old it may have been; then came the compass, small and cheap metal and pointing out that you were, in fact, facing Northwest.

There was another item in the box. You did not initially see it, as it was taped to the interior of the lid, but when you raised your eyes, you saw it. It was a piece of paper - a note.

Grimacing, you ripped it off where it was blowing violently in the wind, holding it tight between your fingers and smudging dirt along the untainted white.

It read:

‘Hey, Cheol. If you head up the path there’s a family of raccoons! I left this granola bar here so you could feed them! From Jun.’

“Hey, Seungcheol?” you said absently, staring over the blue, scribbled ink, worn out from months of rainwater dripping in through the planks. He hummed on the other end of the line. “There’s a note here for you. From a, uh, Jun?”

“Oh.”

There was a pause that you couldn’t decipher - maybe you could have, had you been there with Seungcheol. Maybe if you could read his face, his body, you could’ve known what it meant. But for now you just stood in the breeze. It was picking up, getting angrier, hurling at your clothes and hair, banishing you from the field. The flowers dangled uselessly.

“Do you want me to read it to you?”

Silence.

“No, not really.”

“Oh, okay. Uh, who’s- who’s Jun?”

Silence.

“The guy who used to work in Fermata Tower. Before you.”

“Oh.”

Every second was longer than the last. You wish you knew what it all meant, but you sensed in Seungcheol’s curtness that he was not taking questions currently, and so you looked around the quickly graying sky and the suddenly spiteful wind and folded the note away in your jacket pocket.

“I’m gonna head back now,” even your voice was rocked by the wind.

Seungcheol didn’t respond.

You left Eleison Valley alone. _____________________________

This was where it was supposed to be - greatness. Not success, but something greater, larger, more alive than you could ever be. You thought you’d find it in the mountains, the valleys, the lakes and the forests and maybe that had been naive of you - to think that nature and earth could give any sort of meaning that death had taken away from you. These shadowed parts only served to make you feel smaller, you realized. The mountains glared at you, the forests swallowed and spat you out.

You couldn’t sleep. The image of Mingyu’s outstretched hand was back and you could almost see him from your flimsy bed, lying on his back with a tanned hand out for you. You left him alone, just like you always had.

Burrowed under the veil of your thin blanket, grabbing at it with clumsy hands, you turned your back to Mingyu’s corpse on your floor.

A prickle sauntered up your back. It was that emotion that something was creeping closer, something was out to get you. That you would feel a cool, dead hand on your back and when it would spin you around his face would be there, and he’d look nothing like himself; he’d be pale and purple around the mouth and his eyes would be sunken and dark and all the glitter he possessed - that he used to possess - would be gone and something menacing, like a hungry mountain, would have replaced it.

You thrashed, suddenly, to look back at the corpse. It was still there. Hadn’t moved an inch. Deja vu.

Thoughtlessly, desperately, you fumbled for the radio wrapped up the sheets of your bed. Your fingertips found the plastic hardware, and it bounced at your eagerness, before you pulled it along the sheets and up to your mouth.

“Seungcheol?” you gasped.

When did you start crying? You decided you must’ve been crying all night and maybe you’d cried so much that your brain had stopped registering the feeling of wet tears.

There was a pause. A long one. So long, you started to really become aware of the cries of the wind, the patter of the rain and the endless mumbling of the trees (and the gargled, bubbling blood rising from Imaginary Friend Mingyu’s half-open mouth). Then static spoke back to you:

“Yeah?” his voice was so raspy, you registered that you must’ve awoken him from his sleep, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. Your nails dug into the radio and you pressed it into your chest, holding on tight.

“I can’t sleep,” you whispered, words full of shaky air. There was another pause and for a second you feared that Seungcheol might’ve gotten angry and gone back to bed. But he spoke again.

“Are you okay?” You heard rustling on his end, and you imagined him standing up from the bed, looking out at your lonely island of a lookout tower. “Do I need to trek over there?”

“No!- no, I couldn’t ask you to do that,” you protested, then trailed off.

“... Are you crying?”

You squeezed your eyes shut: “I just- d’you remember what I said? About my- my friend’s friend who- who had a bad mushroom trip?”

“Uh, yeah, I remember. Her- Her house flooded, right?” Seungcheol’s voice was tainted with thorough confusion, but not annoyance. Never annoyance.

“Well, I just-” you sputtered and sighed. You almost wanted to stop talking and give up when Seungcheol stayed quiet on his end and drew the words forward: “It’s so stupid. Sometimes I just- I just feel like that. Like you’re drowning, everywhere you go. You know?”

Your voice was stringent with nervousness, and you picked at your nail, wrapped around the radio in the shallow dark.

“It’s not stupid, sweetheart,” he mumbled. It was amazing to you how gruff and tough Seungcheol turned soothing and caring so fast. The nickname felt like a warm hug, and you almost didn’t register the sound of fabric rustling once more. “I’m coming over.”

“N-No!” you gasped sharply. Your eyes flickered down. Mingyu watched from the floor, eyes glazed over from death. He smelled foul.

“Can you.. Can you just- talk to me?” you whispered helplessly, and Seungcheol quieted down, seemingly weighing your proposal.

“Okay. Okay, sweetheart, I’ll talk to you,” Seungcheol whispered soothingly, and for God’s sake, you didn’t even know what he looked like, but the rasp in his voice, and the comfort and warmth that sung out the speaker of the radio had your heart clenching in your chest. “What do you wanna talk about?”

“Um, I don’t know,” you sniffled. Seungcheol only softened his voice and sat, awake in the middle of the night, comforting you.

“Can I tell you about birds?”

He told you about birds for 45 minutes before you fell asleep (something he had predicted would happen); he told you about how pheasants are known for their striking colors and how they have excellent eyesight; he told you how he saw a nightjar just before going to bed that night, and how they’re incredibly hard to spot; he told you about Barrow’s Goldeneyes, and how they’re the funniest little guys, and he loves them, because they glow purple in the sunlight; he told you about g…

Oh. You must’ve started dozing off. _____________________________

You weren’t sure when it changed, but at some point you looked out the window, and the mountain looked a lot more like yourself.

You were getting better, happier, you were waking up with more energy, you were bubblier. You weren’t entirely sure you could blame it on the park though. For two months you’d had your job and for about two months, every once in a while, you’d radioed Seungcheol at night, and without any question, he’d tell you about birds.

It sounded stupid the more you thought about it, but his voice lulled you into a comfortable sleep even on Mingyu’s most insistent nights.

You’d wake up and patrol your area, then you’d settle back in for a couple of hours, watching out for fire hazards and guests in the park, before you’d patrol one more time. Then you’d go to bed.

This was not the type of job you took to make friends, but somehow Seungcheol had become the reason you woke up everyday. Everyday you looked forward to walking through the woods with his voice on your radio, and you looked forward to making him laugh and him making you laugh.

“Seungcheol, I’ve got eyes on what I’m pretty sure is a Red-breasted Merganser, come in.”

This morning you were up extraordinarily early - for you, that is. You weren’t certain what exactly prompted this early rise (maybe you were finally sleeping right thanks to a certain rough-throated man?), but nonetheless you’d enjoyed the view of dawn along the undergrowth and had eaten half-warm oatmeal in bed with an open book. Now you were bored and craving the attention of your only forest-companion.

Seungcheol didn’t respond like you were expecting though. When the radio crinkled in response, you heard him panting on the other end and thumps, like he was picking it up off the floor.

“That’s… That’s great, Fermata. I’ve gotta get my.. My binoculars out,” he heaved for air and fumbled clumsily with the sensitive mic. You cringed at the sound.

“What are you doing? Why are you so out of breath?” you asked. A twinge of worry slipped out in your tone. Was he okay?

“I’m, uh, working out,” Seungcheol chuckled, and he seemed to finally regain composure, clearing his throat sheepishly. “You’re not usually awake to hear it.”

“You work out every day?”

“Sure do - gotta be prepared to knock out a grizzly,” he grunted.

You leaned back in your seat, a less than amused expression on your face, because a twirling strand of fire danced up your chest and settled into your cheeks. Why was it suddenly so hot? Fire spread across your nerve endings and twinged you red in the apples of your cheeks. You ran your hands over your face to soothe the sizzling.

This was ridiculous, you thought. Seungcheol was not making you blush. You didn’t even know what he looked like! He might as well have had an eye patch and a mohawk. But even as you halfheartedly scrutinized yourself, your thoughts clouded over the idea of sweet, attentive, raspy Seungcheol with big arms and thighs and a sculpted chest and-

“Are you- are you, like, buff?”

The question left your lips before you could stop it. Your voice broke halfway through the sentence and you let go of the button with an embarrassed hiss, like a kettle huffing out air. The embarrassment, that was potent and squeezing at your chest, worsened when you heard Seungcheol’s throaty chuckle on the other end, limp and dry.

“You’re curious today, aren’t you?” he mused then, smirk clear from the tone and pronunciation of the words, and you squeezed your eyes shut because why was his voice and the thought of him and the warmth coming through the radio speaker suddenly bothering you so much?

The truth was you hadn’t masturbated in months. With everything going on, you simply hadn’t felt the urge or the want. But, it occurred to you, now that you were slowly becoming a functioning human once more, the urge was returning hot and fast in your core, and, of course, your only companion with the raspy voice and the attentive words and the apparently muscly body was bringing forth this urge with ease.

You pressed down the urge, taking a deep breath before you pressed the button once more. You were not going to masturbate to the thought of Seungcheol - not Seungcheol who you only knew by voice, who had been nothing but caring and sweet to you. You could not corrupt the preciousness of your companionship with your lewd, depraved thoughts.

“I’m just curious what you look like. Unlike you, stalker, I don’t have binoculars!” That sounded a lot more like the you that had not just gotten wet at the thought of Seungcheol’s bulging muscles.

“Hey! The power of the binoculars is limited. I can only really see your silhouette, nothing fancy,” he defended and then right as you were about to respond, he knocked the wind out of you again: “And yes, I’m pretty buff, if I do say so myself.”

Ugh.

You went the rounds that day and got through another day without having to complete fire protocol, ending out the evening with a pack of instant noodles your family had so graciously sent you (Seungcheol scolded you: “That has no nutrients!”). However each step through the forest and each slurp of noodles and page of your book was plagued by the latent fire inside you. A burning occupied your abdomen fueled by the echoing morning voice of Bay Valley Tower.

By nightfall you gave in. You were only a girl. This didn’t have to change anything, you thought, as the park turned plum purple. You settled into bed in your pajamas, sitting upright against the frail wood wall and letting your hair bunch on the rattling plate of glass. Your eyes moved to and fro, bouncing over the now lived-in cabin and taking in the dark void of the farest corner.

Briefly, you fiddled with your radio in your palm. You could call Seungcheol and- wait, why would you do that? No, no. You packed away that wicked thought - it only served to make you feel more guilty. No, instead you slid down the wall to lay in your pillow, now positive you were alone.

An owl hooted outside and you slipped your hand into your underwear.

It was surprisingly easy to surrender your consciousness to the lust (and you had, God bless your soul, stayed wet throughout the entire day). It clouded you over, as you began rubbing up and down your pussy, ghosting over your clit to dip down to your glazed slit. Your eyes squeezed shut and you conjured your best doll-replica of Seungcheol.

In your dream he was a faceless mist, but he had a carved upper body, and from the fog surrounding his head spewed his voice - dripping in warmth and comfort, as you imagined it was his toned arm reaching between your legs and pumping into you.

Your other hand snaked down to your clit, where your hips canted off the bed. In the whirl of thrusting into yourself and rubbing tight circles in your clit, you realized, lip bitten raw under your prying teeth, that there was no reason to hold back your moans. It was only forest and wasteland for miles - and surely Seungcheol would not hear you in his floating snow globe.

“A-ah, Seungcheol,” you wantonly murmured, burying your head in your pillow and sighing lazily. A flush had crept up your neck, where your chest expanded to allow for air. The pleasure was immense - probably more intense, since it had been quite a while - warmth spreading in your lower stomach and culminating at your throbbing clit. Recklessly, you moaned and thrashed as you fucked yourself on your fingers, hiking towards your orgasm. “Seungcheoool-”

“Y/n?”

You froze.

Maybe you’d imagined it. Still, your fingers were stopped in their tracks, simply resting on the warmth of your folds, itching to continue. You sat up in bed and tried to ward away the creeping panic. Your heart began to gallop to the beat of a siren.

The air had been starched when you finally pulled your hand out of your underwear, hot cheeks and glistening hands all over, when you began searching for the radio.

“Y/n, are you okay?”

You had your back hunched over the edge of the bed, searching for the little yellow receiver, when his voice came again in a thick forest of static. You snapped your head to under your comforter, where the noise was slightly muffled.

In a blurred panic, you threw the comforter off of you and spotted the small radio by your calf, and you scrambled to pick it up. When the dirty plastic touched your cheek, you stopped, sighed a shaky, hot breath, and closed your eyes.

“Yeah, I’m, uh, I’m fine. What’s up?” you let go of the button and cringed at your own disheveledness, the breath and shake in your voice. You pressed your forehead radio-front in a silent prayer.

There was a hesitance to Seungcheol when he spoke next: “... You were calling for me, you sounded in pain?”

This was certainly the worst thing he could’ve said. You would’ve rather he told you he spotted a bear at the foot of your tower, trying to eat you! You must’ve accidentally kicked the radio and hit the button, you decide, and you damn yourself for keeping it in the bed - of course, shit like this would happen!

“I was…-” (If only you were a better liar), “- pranking you…”

Seungcheol huffed out in amusement on the other end and you wanted to jump off the railing to the lookout tower and break your neck. “You were pranking me?”

You gulped with a decidedly dry mouth. “It was a bear attack prank.”

Seungcheol was smiling: “Yeah?”

You were not: “Yeah.”

There was an entropic silence, where you thoughts came rambled and pleading in your head: Please, just let this go, please, just let this go, let’s pretend it never happened, let’s-

“You wanna know what I think you were doing?”

Seungcheol’s voice had dropped an octave. The smile in his voice was gone and there was something menacing and commanding about him now. In the moment, overcome with a cocktail of guilt and shame, you could not discern if this was anger or lust - the first seemed fitting.

“I think you were fucking your little fingers thinkin’ about me,” he hummed and in response you whined and squeezed your eyes shut. The shame encapsulated you. “Shh, shh, calm down, I’m not mad, honey.”

Blinking through rapidly forming tears, you opened your eyes to stare, dumbfounded, at the radio (as if it were Seungcheol and you were not several miles apart). “Really?”

“Not mad at all. Jus’ think you should’ve told me if you wanted my help,” he tutted on his end and, God, he was so nurturing and comforting and he knew it, and it was so sexy. Your pussy, which had vaguely throbbed from the negligence throughout, was now screaming for your attention, hole clenching sadly around nothing.

“I thought you wouldn’t want-”

“You’re crying again, baby,” he must’ve noted from the hoarseness of your voice and the sniffles that accompanied every syllable.

“Just want you so bad,” you sobbed, now shamelessly slipping your hand back into your underwear and sighing dazedly in relief when you touched it again.

“Need Seungcheol to take care of you, huh?” The smile in his voice was back.

“Yeah.”

“Bet you don’t want me talking about birds now, hm?” he chuckled (at his own joke), voice low and raspy. “Are you touching that pretty pussy?”

“Mhmm,” you responded lazily, floating high on the sound of his voice and jolts of electricity they sent as you worked up a pace on your clit once more. The pain of the interruption ebbed away.

“Good girl, hm?” He knew. “Getting off to the sound of my voice, eh? Don’t even know what I look like.”

“Hng- k-know you’re b-buff,” you gritted out, voice coming in sharp breaths. Your body moved languidly, back arching off the bed and hair coming out in choppy strands on your pillow. Seungcheol scoffed out a laugh: “Like knowing I could just fold you in half? Fuck you into tomorrow? Hm?”

You let out a loud, dumb whine of his name. It was a total inability to get over his words; how melodious it was, and yet, how contradictory the smoothness of his words were to the strained nature of his thrumming voice. And the worst of it all was how confident he was - you supposed hearing someone else masturbate to you would be a confidence boost - and how the arrogance swelled out in the most comforting, nurturing way. Each word felt like a hand on your body, like a caress that sent shivers down your spine.

“Fuck, princess, say my name like that again. Please.”

“Seungcheol!” you obliged mindlessly, legs shaking on either side of your glistening hand.

“Shit, I-” he grunted, and you heard a fumbling of fabrics on his end. Your nerves spun in excitement at the thought of him getting hard at your voice. “Can you put two fingers in the pretty pussy - it’ll feel like one of mine, baby.”

You cried out when your fingers entered yourself, pads of your fingertips rubbing against your walls. Outside of the windows, the park was an empty wasteland of mauve and orchid, and the Fermata lake was brilliantly alive and dipping under the three-quarter-moon.

“Wish it was your pussy wrapped around my cock right now,” he grunted, and he’d lost breath and composure and if you knew what his face looked like, you would imagine it sweaty and twisted up and a red-lipped ‘o’ letting the jaw slack.

Resuming your earlier motions (double-handing your own kitty), you felt your orgasm lurking in the pit of your stomach, a tight-wound knot being ripped apart. You were panting into the cool air, creating silver-clouds in your tower-home. “A-ah, want you inside me so bad, Cheol- shit! Gonna- gonna cum-”

“Yeah? You gonna cum thinking about my cock inside you baby? Thinkin’ about me just bouncing you up and down like my little fuckdoll?” His speech ended in the prettiest moan you’d ever heard, and you imagined every well-defined, flexed muscle under the moonlight and the thought had your whole body jerking and shaking and when you closed your eyes the stars stayed with you, white and glimmering under your eyelid.

The strangled moans of your orgasm sent Seungcheol over the edge - at least from what you could tell. His dirty talk turned into strings of curses and moans and grunts until the radio went dead, and all you could hear was your own labored breaths and the faraway hooting of a horned owl.

The silence flatlined the excitement into nervousness. Your lip was almost automatically caught in your teeth and you glanced over the radio beside you through your lashes.

Oh shit. What the fuck had you done?

“Uh, did you-” the smell of sweat shot up as you shuffled in your sheet to grab the radio once more. “Did you, uh, cum?”

Oh fuck. You just made it way worse.

The silence from the radio was much louder than any response, but when the receiver did finally crinkle with static, the sound of laughter exploded from it.

“Don’t fucking laugh at me, BV,” you scolded, but you were smiling and relief flooded you like water overflows Fermata Lake during heavy downpour.

“I’m sorry,” he hiccuped on the other end. “It’s just-.. ‘DID YOU CUM?’”

“Alright, I’m going to bed now. You suck,” you quacked, and even though you were alone you thought to suppress the gentle tugging at your lips into a sharky smile.

“DID YOU CUM?”

He sounded pretty when he laughed. _____________________________

“I can’t believe I have to hike down here to confiscate some fireworks.”

Your grumble came from the forest beside Fermata Lake. You were walking down a patch of dirt revealed from years’ of trampling feet, dewy sprigs of grass arching into the mud. A group of (presumably) teenagers were firing fireworks down near the edge of your assigned territory.

“They’re a fire hazard!” Seungcheol squawked obviously, and you huffed in your boots, preparing to climb down a rocky slope.

“I know that! It’s just everywhere - the website, the signs - don’t use fireworks!” you complained. Seungcheol hummed absently on the other line: “Go teach those suckers a lesson, Fermata!”

“I will,” you said, agitated.

“Just don’t fuck with their personal belongings. Last thing we need is a lawsuit. Again.”

“I won’t,” you said, deflated.

Even in your most angered moments, you could hand yourself over to the gentle forest. No longer were you protruding into a bubble, straining to get through a barrier that was urging you out, but you were absorbed into it, like you were one of its own.

The forest was lush with pines and brown and green moss painting bark and rocks, and the grass leapt higher than your knees, as you trudged further and further in.

SWOOOOSH!

A firework propelled into the sky about 100 meters away, and you watched its ignited trails of smoke before it exploded into a fest of sparkling blue and gold. You huffed out in anger at the sight. The sky wasn’t even fully dark - it was merely a muted blue evening.

“Did you see that?” Seungcheol came from the radio-speaker.

“Yeah, I’m right with them.”

As you padded closer the smell of wet pine cones and coltsfoot accompanied the sound of distant voices - indeed, they sounded juvenile. You could make out at least two girls and at least one boy, although their voices were hard to distinguish, the way they echoed in between the grid of trees.

“Hey!” you yelled, as you creeped just close enough. Their voices hushed and you saw their frightened faces lit by handheld, Target-bought flashlights when you peeled back the screen of a bramblebush. They were gathered together amongst a tent, flashlight lighting the plates of the faces ablaze in cool white.

“Cut it out with the fireworks, alright?” you huffed and your anger melted a little when you saw that they were indeed just kids - maybe 19? They seemed to have nothing to say, and so you scanned the beer cans and the scattered backpacks and finally caught sight of a bundle of rockets in the grass. Your brows furrowed, and you picked it up with a sternness.

“Hey, that’s ours!” one kid chimed, but he made no move to stop you, really, as you trudged angrily back to the bush you had come from.

“Not as long as you’re in our park, man. It’s a fire hazard.”

“We’ll take them back home-”

“Goodnight!” The desperate plea fell on deaf, tired ears. You just wanted to eat dinner, so you disappeared out on a trail of pine needles and valiantly ignored the trail of curses and insults following you. You could care less.

“I got the fireworks, Seungcheol,” you sighed tiredly and your eyes were dark pits and your face was relaxed, if only to conservative energy.

“Good job, Fermata.”

You were not in the talking mood. Maybe Seungcheol could tell by your tone of voice; maybe he could hear it in your sigh; but Seungcheol piped up again: “You know, if you need some energy for the hike back, there’s a supply box - uhh, 52? - if you head upwards instead of towards Fermata Lake.”

You wanted to be grumpy, you really did, but the thought of a salivating, expired, delicious, out-of-date granola bar had you changing course to the slowly gaining hill of the forest.

It was weird. This was probably the closest you’d ever been to Seungcheol’s tower. Under the prickly cover of pine some mile in the distance, you could see a glowing square, perched over the treetops by long, wooden pillars, support beams crossing the middle. You couldn’t help but wanna go up to it. There had been an unbearable magnetic pull to his tower ever since that night however long ago. You decided to stay the course for Supply Box 52.

“I can practically see you from here,” you commented, and the tower was becoming a beacon as the evening mulled darker and darker by the minute.

“Really? Hang on,” he did not let go of the radio-button, and so you had the pleasure of listening to the ruffling of fabrics and thumps on the floor. “Can you see me flexing in the window?”

“You’re such a dork,” you laughed, and the sound bounced off the pines and traveled up to the rock of the nearby Aluralura Mountain. “No, I’m not quite that close.”

“Damn it!”

“Yeah, it‘s a real shame,” you muttered, smiling, and then you caught sight of the supply box up ahead. The hill flattened out once more (to which you breathed a sigh of relief) and the box was perched on the edge facing the path that began onto the cliffs. This was Seungcheol’s territory - cliff sides and all. “I think I see Supply Box 52.”

“Open that bad boy up.”

You entered the code, scrolling the mechanisms one by one until the numbers read 1-2-3-4 (you still thought this combination was ridiculous), and when you opened the lid it creaked horribly, worn from the weather.

The wind was harsh that day, and a note, identical to the one you’d found at Eleison Valley, broke off its tape from the mean pushes of the wind. Instinctively, you grabbed it as it started to fly off, and your hand closed around it and crinkled it under your fingers. You looked at it with knitted brows.

Wordlessly, you tucked it in between your side and your arm, redirecting your attention to the goodies in the supply box. 52 held a rope and a map and another directory for supply boxes and, to your exhausted delight, a box of grandma-looking caramels. You took the whole thing and stuffed it into your bag.

As you shuffled, you put the note between your lips, stuffing the plastic container of gold-wrapped, sugary candies in between your rope and your own map and a coat for possible rain. When you zipped it up, the fabric of the bag warped grotesquely to fit the various items you’d brought.

You pulled the note back out from your lips. A small wet patch of spit lingered on the paper, as you unfolded it.

It read:

‘Hey Seungcheol,

If you find this, I gotta go be with my mom now. I’ll miss you forever.

From Jun.’

The wind blew kisses on your back like the presence of a ghost.

“You find anything good?” Seungcheol’s voice peeked through the static of the radio. It had been quiet for a while. You couldn’t take your eyes off the letter. The ink was smudged and slurred.

“Uh, caramels, actually,” you said, eyes dancing over each slope of ‘forever’. “Like, granny caramels.”

You put the letter away. _____________________________

A week later and you were looking out of the window at pouring rain. The sky was smothered by a duvet of dark gray clouds, and the rain was coming harder than you’d ever seen. It was like thousands of bullets pelting into the ground and turning it soft and muddy, and the drops hit your roof like the nonstop click of a keyboard.

"Rainy season, huh?” your mouth was to the radio.

“Yeah. We’re gonna be staying up all night to watch out for lightning. Fire hazard.”

“Shit, I should make coffee.”

“I’m way ahead of you.”

The lightning came and thunder followed. The sound was enormous and terrifying. It grumbled like a hungry beast and the sound bounced off of every mountain-wall and echoed from all sides. You felt very small, wrapped up in a blanket at your desk, a steaming cup of coffee by your side and your fire extinguisher evacuated from its holder to stand beside you, all red and shiny aluminum and rubber nozzle.

“Did that look like it hit a tree?” you asked after seeing a zig-zagging bolt of lightning hanging a little too low over the crowns. Your voice was louder than usual - this night was a game of overpowering the screaming rain. It was some 1 AM.

“Uhhhhh, shit. Maybe. We’d see the fire, but it’s possible it’s at the root.”

“Fuck,” you whispered. “Was that yours or my area?”

“Uhhhhh-”

“I’m gonna check it out.”

Determined, you let the radio fall on the table, as you fumbled for another sweater. The knitted fabric slipped over your other sweater, and then you were wrapping yourself up in your raincoat.

“Maybe I should go - it’s slippery right now, it’s dangerous as fuck. You could fall and hit your head, you know. I think it was closer to me anyway, so--”

“Seungcheol, I already have my coat on, I’m going!”

And indeed you were going, despite the grumbled protests of Seungcheol. Your coat blew in the hurricane wind as you stood atop the cliff, looking down at the cascading water, that’d all race down to the sinkhole that was Fermata Lake. Through the clouds, there were no stars to trade glances with, not even ghosts.

You fought headwind the entire way, your hair flowing wildly and your coat threatening to unbutton at the will of the blasts. The ground under your rainboots had become mud and the further you trudged into the forest, the more the mud crept up your yellow shoe, slinging over you like liquid ropes.

“I’m going down the drop off again!” you were screaming to overpower the wind, radio to your mouth before you dropped it into your pocket and retrieved your bag to regather your rope.

“Be careful!” Seungcheol commandeered bitterly, muffled from your pocket. “It’s slippery as shit! Radio me immediately when you’re down, so I know you’re okay.”

Even as your face grew wet and sore from the whipping rain, you scoffed. A gloved hand shoved into your pocket, brought the radio back up to your red lips: “Stop being such a pussy!”

“Say yes, Y/n!”

You rolled your eyes. “Aye, aye.”

“... I’ll take that, asshole.”

Wet as a wipe, you slung your rope over the hook and prepared it in a slew of motions you’d by now memorized. Although, you noted your movements were awkward, somewhat impaired by the layers of fabric that encased you. Stubborn, you stood before the hook, grabbed onto the rope, and began walking backwards.

Your booted foot curled around the edge of the cliffside, and with the tightened rope you began your careful horizontal walk. Raindrops pelted your face like a clenched fist, but you only blinked away the water and tried to focus on stepping carefully down the side of the rockface.

KRRRRRRRRKKKKKK!

You screamed girlishly when your rope snapped from the hook, and you watched it come flying out over the ledge, before you realized, horrifically, you were already falling.

It was barely a second, just one blurry image of the weeping sky, before you were on the ground, groaning in pain. A pulsing ache creeped up your spine, and you twisted your body in the mud to put the weight on your side. You sighed into the mud, dirt on your squished cheek.

The rain was uncaring of your unfortunate situation, as you laid pathetically in the dirt, body scrunching up like an elastic, while your shadow was cast by sudden bursts of lightning. Panting, you pushed yourself up by your arms and felt blindly for your-

Where was your radio?

Your pocket was deflated and empty, and you scrambled in the dirt, desperately, pushing yourself up completely to scan the area. You noted how the pain subsided into a small, dwindling soreness, thanking whatever God for your layers of clothing and the softness of the earth.

There. A flash of yellow in your blurred vision, aided by another strike of lightning atop Aluralura Mountain. You picked up the worn, dirty radio in your heavy hand, pressing at its side.

“Hello? Seungcheol?”

There was no static to indicate your message had been relayed, and the usual red digital numbers telling you what channel you were on was gone, a simple, black screen remaining, mirroring your muddied face, twisted in anguish.

“Fuck this,” you hissed, standing up on two legs. You looked back up to where your lookout tower was still ablaze, a yellow box in the heights. The rope was fucked. You had to go down anyway. Huffing, you started walking.

You marched through the undergrowth, crossing through unpathed forest to reach the destination. It was near a hollow marked on your map, and so the expedition, although scarier, more empty and dark without Seungcheol's warm voice, was mild.

Wet petals brushed your face from rows of bushes, and even through your gloves the cold left your fingertips numb. You sniffled in the dark.

You found the hollow, then you found the tree. There was, indeed, ash going up the side of it, seemingly stemming from a smaller bush in the clearing, but the fire had been long put out by the insistent rain, and partially you felt disappointment that you’d trekked all the way out here, only for there to be no real danger.

Heavier than ever, you turned your gaze to the glowing hut in the distance.

You almost wanted to go back to your own hut, to turn your back to Seungcheol’s glowing tower and forget this ever happened. The anticipation of seeing him - of him seeing you - was a tall wall to overcome. But, you realized, not only was his tower closer; you also needed help.

Your radio was fucked, your rope was fucked and moreover, you needed to be sure you hadn’t done irreparable damage to your back. With water dripping over the ledge of your hood, you began walking towards Seungcheol.

Rainwater cascaded off the edge of the trees and the consistent dashed dots looked like tiny glass orbs in the light of Bay Valley Tower. It was intensely quiet for a while - it seemed like every bush-tailed critter of the forest had scuttered away to hide from the rain and the echoing growling of the sky.

“Y/n!”

You were so tired you almost could’ve missed it. Each layer of fabric weighed you down and the dirt smearing your cheeks and hands and fabrics could’ve melted you right into the earth. But indeed, a voice - so familiar it almost hurt - was calling to you in the dead of night.

“Seungcheol?” your first call was not a call, but a whisper, as you peered into the thick grooves of the forest. Then, your senses returned to you and you screamed as loud as you could: “Seungcheol!”

“Y/n!”

You and Seungcheol called for each other, syllables echoing off the huge, towering presence Aluralura Mountain. Getting closer and then closer, and then you could see the figure of another raincoated person, shaded by a hood.

“Y/n? Oh, thank God!” He ran to you, swimming in the rubber of his red coat and pink lips peeking over the closed hood.

It was a little paralyzing. He was so beautiful, you didn’t even know which speck of his shadowed face to look at. Tan, wet skin and big eyes from which the longest, blackest lashes you’d ever seen sprung. Most notable were his fuzzy, blocky eyebrows sitting over his brown eyes, fine wrinkles springing from the corners (you’d like to think you’d helped create some of those). His lips were big and bright and pouty, but it was wiped away when he smiled at the sight of you, and you could die, because a dimple indented itself in his cheek at the motion.

“Are you okay?” his smile faded when you said nothing, only stared at him, and then stared at where his thick fingers wrapped around your arm. He leaned into you and God, you hadn’t seen him before this very moment, and now he was leaning over you and he was so close and he smelled like pinewood, and you were pretty sure you smelt exactly the same.

You lowered yourself from your daze, trying to follow the pattering of rain atop both of your hoods. “Uh,” you gulped, finding his eyes, “yeah, I jus’... I thought you were joking when you said you weren’t white.”

His laugh. His laugh was even prettier in person and it had the same rasp and the same disapproving hint to it that it had had at all your other jokes. “You’re unbelievable, you know that, Fermata?”

“Bird watching is crazy, man.”

He smiled and studied your face for a moment, still leaned over you and thoroughly ignoring the rain and the thunder and the dirt on your boots. Then the smile faded, just a little: “What happened to your radio?”

“Oh- oh my God! Do you- do you remember my first day? The drop off! I fuckin’- fell down, my rope came undone on the hook! My radio was knocked the fuck out, it was crazy, I’m gonna need a new one-”

“Are you okay? You fell?” Seungcheol’s strong eyebrows became furrowed and the sight was so utterly mesmerizing to you. You waved him off: “I’ll be fine, please, I just want to get out of this weather.”

Seungcheol did not seem to entirely believe you, but nonetheless he grabbed your hand - in his own rough, used one - and started leading you upwards (“If I don’t hold your hand, how can I be sure you don’t fall down another drop off?”).

Time was not as agonizingly slow by his size, and the tower seemed to propel towards you and the hands on your wristwatch seemed to move backwards. Not before long, you were climbing up the stairway with Seungcheol’s iron fist on your wrist, so as to prevent you from falling down something else (you had a feeling that he would not let this go).

“I’m gonna make us some tea,” grumbled Seungcheol when you arrived.

“Yes, please,” you murmured. Your coat was folded beside you, starry raindrops soaking into a blanket thrown over his bed.

It was warm in Seungcheol’s tower house - he had half a brain to put an electric heater in the corner of the room, unlike you - and it was only the sudden embrace of warmth that had you looking out into the park and realizing you would have frozen to death if you’d stayed.

There was a warm glow from a naked bulb in the ceiling (you guessed Seungcheol had put it up himself), an old rug full of sand-corns, and a shelf with various books. Seungcheol also had a small kitchen, a desk and a bed, just like you. The layout was exactly the same, but sitting down on Seungcheol’s bed, you noted he must’ve made some alterations. Your fingers pulled at the white of the mattress - it was his own and it was much softer.

When the electric kettle (a rusted, iron old thing) was cooking, Seungcheol turned to you sheepishly and unzipped his coat. You waited in secret anticipation for his supposedly smoking-hot bod, but were disappointed to see another sweater underneath it.

Seungcheol stopped the kettle and took two large mugs from his cupboard. These, he placed on a carved tray (you thought he might have made it himself from pinewood), and then from a small, wooden tea box on his countertop, he produced two bright yellow tea packets, which he gently placed in the mugs. Then he poured in the water, steam traveling up to open his pores and whatnot.

“Do you want anything in yours?” he asked, not really looking.

“Uhm. No, no, thank you,” your hands were folded in your lap.

He only grunted in response and left one tea untouched, then took a clear, plastic container of honey from an array of unrefrigerated condiments, and squirted half the bottle into his tea. He sniffled when he was done, grabbing the tray and turning to you. Tonight, Seungcheol was uncharacteristically nervous.

“Can you-?”

“Hm?”

“That little- little table over there-”

“What?”

“Can you grab it?- For- for the tray?”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

The tea sat on the tray and the tray sat on the foldable table and you and Seungcheol sat before them on the edge of his bed. You took the hefty mug in your hand and took a slurp, looking over at him from the rim. Seungcheol looked at you awkwardly. He did not move for his tea.

“I should take a look at your back,” he said.

“What? Why?” you quacked disapprovingly. “You fell on it,” Seungcheol reminded you.

You shook your head silently. “I like your hut. It’s way better than mine.”

“I’ve been here longer,” Seungcheol shrugged. You looked at him and he seemed displeased - this would not have been a big deal were you speaking to him on the radio, but his aura was much more commanding in person - something about his eyes, you thought. You had to look away, settling on your mug again (there was a cartoon dog on it).

“I suppose that’s true,” you murmured. Seungcheol stared into the side of your face and his obvious concern for you weighed down at your muscles.

A gentle pause where rain pattered his roof.

“Are you okay?”

You glanced over, nervously: “Tired.”

He bit his lip: “Maybe I should’ve made coffee... Can we put instant coffee in tea?”

“Seungcheol, I wanted to ask you something,” you said and put your mug down on the tray again with a small ‘clink’. Seungcheol rubbed his hands over his trouser-clad thighs, nodding, maybe more nervous than you. The warm glow of the bulb made him even prettier and all was warm and dry in the hut, even though rain was falling down in thick curtains just outside by the troughs. “It’s just..” you began, “you’ve been so avoidant about this.. Jun guy..”

Seungcheol’s sigh interrupted you before you could finish: “He was just the guy that worked here before you.”

“I found another letter.”

Seungcheol’s furrowed expression softened and he looked at you with big, glassy brown eyes, hidden under a waft of choppy bangs. What was that in the shine of his pupil? Fear? Vulnerability? Sadness?

“It was about- it said he was gonna go be with his mother and that- that he would miss you,” you explained and your voice was snotty and throaty, and your eyes averted to a folded napkin beside a half-eaten slice of bread. A fly circulated it hungrily.

Seungcheol’s lips made a tight line, dimples poking out pathetically. He cleared his throat and you heard the strain in his vocal chords once more (and it was so real because there he was - right beside you).

“Me and Junhui came here together. We’d just finished college and we didn’t want-.. We didn’t want to be adults yet. Like, an office job, wife and kids,” he began and there was a tremor about Seungcheol tonight. “I don’t think he was made for a job like this though. I think the loneliness got to him.. Think he just lived with it ‘cause he could tell I liked it.”

You nodded along until he wasn’t speaking anymore. Then a thick silence absorbed the two of you, a patch of moss drowned in the downpour.

“His mom was dead, so..” he whispered. Tears gathered at his waterline like a string of stars. “So, yeah, he went to.. To be with her.”

“I’m so sorry, Seungcheol,” you whispered and the echoing whispers of the storm bouncing off the rock faces of Aluralura mountain beckoned your hand onto his woolen sleeve. “I had no idea.”

“They never found his body, you know? He’s just out there, somewhere,” both you and Seungcheol turned your heads out to the pitch black expanse of the massive park. Your mind wandered to every crook and crevice you’d seen out there, wondering if a dead body had hidden behind a quarry rock. “Fuckin’ terrified I’ll find him one day. Just… Rotten.”

You didn’t know what to say. What do you say? Even though you’d stood in a similar situation - losing a friend - you couldn’t find anything that could ease his pain, the pain that was now tinting the light blue and dulling the sound of the rain. The whole room was pulsating. Luckily, it seemed Seungcheol had something more to say. You watched his lips pucker as the words tried to leave his tongue, then watched them draw back.

“He used to.. He used to say this thing. It reminded me so much of what you- you said that night about, uhm, your friend’s friend. He used to say that- that sometimes he’d wake up in the middle of the night and he’d just be.. Totally.. Convinced that he was at the bottom of Fermata Lake and he was drowning,” Seungcheol’s voice broke one too many times and his jaw clenched. “God, I was so worried. Jus’ thought I couldn’t- I couldn’t be the reason that happened again.”

“I…” A tear slipped down your face and your hand left Seungcheol’s arm to wipe it, furiously.He turned to you pitifully, the broad width of his shoulders hanging low. “I’m sorry- you weren’t meant to feel that way-”

“It’s okay. I wanted to help,” Seungcheol grabbed your hands in his, a deep frown on his lips.

You stopped the tears, face burning hot and wet when you looked up at him again, calmed. His thumbs stroked over the backs of your hands. The pads were rough and beaten.

“Y’know it was sort of the same for me,” you said. Seungcheol waited for you to talk patiently and with a small, encouraging smile, as warmth streamed from his hands into yours.

“Yeah, my- uh roommate - best friend - died. And I couldn’t stop thinking about how I found him, like, his hand was just outstretched towards- towards the wall to my room, and he must’ve just lied there while his heart was giving out and I wasn’t there-... And I found him the next morning like that and I thought he was asleep and I left him there. Again. And I just can’t stop seeing him everywhere and for a while I was afraid that he would move, you know, like, start crawling towards me or some shit, but I think now I’m actually more afraid that he’ll never move. I think that’s the joke or whatever, he just won’t move, he’ll just be there the way I left him- and I guess- I guess, I thought I could find some sort of higher purpose out here, but I just can’t.. I feel more as though.. Like, it was these things that took him away from me, these fundamental parts of- existence. Like all the cliffs have evil faces and they want to take me too, and maybe I did want them to take me, but not- not anymore. I don’t know if that makes any sense?”

You peered up at Seungcheol through your lashes, wet and heavy. He was frowning, hands gripping yours tighter.

“You don’t want them to take you anymore?” he asked quietly. You shook your head. “How so?”

“Honestly, I don’t think it has much to do with me or the park. I think-” you gaze flitted to Seungcheol and he smiled knowingly. You scoffed and smiled too.

Although you both were fully clothed (Seungcheol annoyingly so), it felt as if all the layers had been stripped away one by one; sweaters and trousers, skin and meat and bones. All there was left were two brightly glowing hearts in front of one another.

“It’s okay,” he whispered then. “You don’t have to say it.”

You rolled your eyes: “I think it’s because of you.”

He grinned, wrinkles crinkling the corners of his eyes and cheeks bunching up in shiny, red fat. You poorly suppressed your own grin and the two of you leaned into each other when your eyes hooked, laughing into each other's shoulders.

“You’re so dumb,” you complained, forehead scratching against the stiff, knitted threads in Seungcheol’s shirt.

“I think- I think we both jus’ get dumber together,” you could feel his smile into your neck and the hot stream of air that bounced against the skin.

Right as you were about to pull away, Seungcheol’s arms wrapped around your back and pushed you back into him. You giggled at the motion, but with little thought your own arms wrapped around his back too, and your knees clashed where they met.

“Seungcheol?” your voice was muffled by his neck. His only response was hum, that ruminated from deep in his throat right by your ear. You pulled away until you were staring at his face.

Each thick stroke of eyebrow hair, each long, black eyelash and each mole dotted on his softly aging skin was crystal clear then. Your hands wrapped around his biceps and felt your heart buzz at their pronounced carvings under the wool. Seungcheol smiled down at you in a sort of adoring way.

“I think-” you began, then felt stupid, then felt idiotic and cowardly. “I don’t know- I think we should kiss now?”

It came out as more of a question than a statement.

Seungcheol gravelled a laugh and his eyes became all squinty and he pursed his lips as if it concealed his amusement in any way at how you squirmed beneath him and your face heated up.

“I think you’re right,” he nodded and you could barely register the feeling of joy that exploded in your chest, before Seungcheol’s pillowy lips crashed into yours at the same instance as a crack of thunder.

The lightning was a flickering show to the performance of yours and Seungcheol’s passionate kiss. His lips molded to yours and yours to his, warm and chapped and your hands couldn’t help but wrap around the soft planes of his cheeks - to pull him further, to keep him with you.

Seungcheol grappled for your hips, and you moaned in a sort of discombobulated agreement, as he, with shocking ease, pulled you into his lap. His hands on your body, stroking and pressing into the meat, left a burning ghostly trail behind it.

“Can I be honest?” you mumbled in between bitten kisses and panted breaths. “You’re hotter than I imagined.”

Seungcheol smiled into the kiss at that: “You too, baby. Now you get the real thing, hm? After fucking your sweet pussy thinking about me?”

You whined in response, hips canting down into his and head dropping into the warm crook of his neck. You licked mindlessly at the skin, rolling your hips into his. Seungcheol groaned and steel hands halted your eager core.

“Desperate so quick?” he quirked, and you cried out because how could even begin to describe how hot it was that he could entirely still your movements so nonchalantly? You swallowed before you tilted your head from the safety of his neck.

“I have waited so fucking long for your cock, Cheol. I need it inside me now,” you said seriously, and it was his turn to swallow the rising viscous in his throat, before he nodded and pushed you off his lap to remove his trousers.

You saw the way the metal of the belt reflected the light, as he (almost angrily) began journeying it off his middle, and you took the hint, beginning to discard your clothes. Your first sweater fell to the floor, then the next followed, and then you were stomping the floor to rid your soaked trousers. Another article of clothing that was soaked - your panties! And embarrassingly so, you thought, watching the slick, wet patch as you lowered the material to the floor.

Only then did your attention return to Seungcheol, now fully naked in his hut with windows on all sides, and you audibly gasped.

His torso was one huge slab of muscle and meat. The skin was relatively pale, pronounced pecs and his arms were like tree trunks at his sides. His thighs were fucking huge, indentations of muscles peering through his skin, as he impatiently worked his boxers off.

He halted though at your gasp, smirking cockily before returning to his work.

“Is it as good as you imagined when you came thinkin’ ‘bout me?” he muttered as his boxers slid down his calf. Too busy staring at his girthy, leaking cock sprouting between his legs, you neglected to answer and Seungcheol continued in a deliberately raspy tone: “Jus’ thinking about your pretty moans, my cock’s aching for you, princess. You’re not gonna come warm it up, beautiful?”

“Yes-” you stumbled over a treacherous boot, “yes, I am!”

“Good girl,” Seungcheol rumbled, bemused, as your knees floundered into the mattress and back into his lap. Seungcheol seemed to have other plans, however, because as soon as you had found your footing, and his warm hands were sliding up your back and his neck was craned up to you, breath hitting your breasts, he raised you and flipped you over, so you were digging into the mattress and he was above you. The shadows only served to define the chisel of his arms further.

His hand slid down your soft thighs, settling in between your legs to run two fingers through your folds.

“Your pussy is so pretty,” he whispered, somewhat mesmerized at the slick coating his fingertips. You squirmed impatiently and he shushed you, ever so gently: “Shh, baby, I’ll take care of you.”

Immediately following up on his promise, the two fingers snaked down to your sensitive, pulsing hole, prodding gently. You wiggled and whined, one of your hands (which had been gripping his bedsheets) stopped him at the wrist. He stopped, eyes flitting up to your flushed, shiny face questioningly.

“I wan’ your cock now. No prep,” you scowled, strands of hair sticking out messily. Seungcheol frowned.

“I need to-”

“I’m wet enough, please, been thinkin’ ‘bout this since-..” you cut yourself off with a frustrated sigh, eyebrows knitted together in frustration. Seungcheol couldn’t help but smile at how fucked out you were already, so precious, all beautiful and naked and womanly.

“You sure?” he asked, voice matching the depth of the thunder. You nodded eagerly: “Please, please-”

“Okay,” he murmured, sticky hand leaving your burning pussy in favor of pressing it against the underside of your thigh. At the command of his strong hands, your body folded in half and the realization of your position had you crying out pathetically. “Anything for my beautiful baby.”

My. His. The word choice had you clenching around nothing, all spread out for him while he lined his pretty, red cock up with your entrance.

“Gonna feel real full in a minute, yeah?” he said absently, watching intently at how your pretty pussy was splayed out and ready and aching for him, mind reeling at the sight of you and the smell of you and how you felt under his hands.

And suddenly it was there - a mountain of pressure building around the head of his cock as it pushed inside, bursting when he pushed in a little further, until he was fully nestled inside. Seungcheol was not unaffected, body curling over yours animalistically with a deep, throaty groan. You, too, had to squirm and moan wantonly, as your body shone under the bulb.

“You’re so tight, pretty,” Seungcheol managed, face scrunched up, as his pelvis met your pubic bone. His hands gripped your shaking legs once more, fully folding you in half and you cried as the movement invited him further inside, feeling him brush the spongy spot inside you.

“Feel s’good!” you moaned, even as he hadn’t moved yet, and Seungcheol’s hands squeezed you in response.

Experimentally (perhaps fearful, as you had rushed into it without preparation), Seungcheol thrust shallowly and was pleased at your broken cry, so he did it again and then again, and then he was building up a rhythm and your sultry moans were slipping through the cracks of the hut and bouncing off the walls of Aluralura mountain and echoing twenty times over.

There was nothing sweet about the pace of Seungcheol’s hips. He was pistoning in and out with an impressive agility, huffing over your folded body. It was desperation; the way your nails raked over his back and his sloping arms, and sweet, little whimpers and your pussy choking his cock.

“Sweetest, prettiest-” he squeezed his eyes shut and groaned, stomach caving inwards and clenching. “Fuck, cutest, little princess being stuffed full of my cock.”

“Love your cock,” you babbled, “Love- love your cock, love you.”

The words slipped out as if they were nothing, but their meaning was solidified by your raking hand sneaking up to his neck and pulling him down into another sloppy kiss. Tongues melding and spit trickling down your chin as he hummed into your mouth in the most wonderful way.

“Love you, too. Pretty, funny, sweet girl-”

“A-ah, ‘m gonna cum soon,” you warned, voice nothing but a breath, and your face pleasured, scrunched up in the dead of night. Your stomach was a well of pressure.

“I know, baby, I know. Squeezing me so tight,” he soothed, hands running up and down the plush underside of your thighs, as his hips continued their unrelenting pace. “Come on, cum on my cock.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, Seungcheol-” a string of curses and his name followed as your pussy clenched one last hard time and your cum seeped out around his thick, veiny length.

Holding his own orgasm at bay, he clenched his jaw and gritted out: “Where d’you want my cum?”

“Inside!” you mewled, overstimulated and sore, and legs still pressed to your chest, clammy and slick.

Seungcheol would’ve made a snarky remark was he not already cumming at your words, white seed painting your insides and spilling out around his softening length. He thrust a couple more times, relishing in the sounds of your fucked-out moans before he’d emptied himself, and he dropped down beside you.

Due to the nature of a one-person bed, you and Seungcheol were both pressed close to one another, covered in sweat. Your panting, huffing breaths synchronized and you stared into each other's eyes, all wild and blushed.

“Holy shit,” you whispered, brought back to reality by a distant calling owl. You were still in the park, you realized - not some other pleasure dimension like one may have thought. Seungcheol smiled giddily.

You looked out into the wasteland, and your eyelids and limbs (draping over Seungcheol’s big, pretty body) were suddenly heavy. You yawned.

“D’you think we have to stay up anymore?”

Seungcheol watched you gauging the pinelands with starry eyes. “You can go to bed,” he offered gently, “I’ll stay up and make sure the storm’s over.”

“Are you sure?” you mumbled, but you were already settling into the domes of his chest, closing your eyes. Seungcheol looked at you and thought you were adorable.

“Yeah.”

“Can you stay here?”

“Yeah.”

“Can your dick stay inside me?”

This prompted a laughter blooming all the way from his chest, where your cheek bunched up against the skin. His arm was wrapped around your back.

“Sure, baby.”

You mumbled something like ‘okay’ or ‘good’ or ‘thank you’, and you drifted off into sleep with his arms around you, and when Seungcheol was certain the storm had passed, he nuzzled his head into your hair and dozed off himself.

At the swimming red sky of dawn, your eyes pried open to see Seungcheol already awake, still wrapped around you.

Nonchalantly (that is to say: as if your chest was not bursting with glee), you nodded your head over to the window behind him:

“Is that not a black-billed cuckoo?!”

And Seungcheol thought that maybe you and him could find birds together elsewhere too.

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