#the park ranger is Ari Afsar

[the-everqueen]

a long long time ago, i promised @stellerssong camping fic. here it finally is, with much love: 4k of wolf shenanigans and me dragging the founders. this is titled “werewolf gimmick” in my docs, but has very little to do with the tmg song - mostly i just found the dichotomy hilarious.

Thanks to general panic over midterms in the class he TAs, John gets home late that evening. Alex doesn’t jump to greet him like usual: he’s on the couch, eyes glued to his laptop screen, claws tapping at the keys. John toes off his shoes and sets down his backpack. “Have you moved at all since I left?”

“Mm?” Alex flicks an ear. “Oh. Yeah, we’re out of bologna.”

“And cheese.” John rummages around in the fridge for the salmon he’d set to marinate that morning. He has brussel sprouts he could roast, but that takes so long. Maybe he’ll make a salad instead. “Hey, Alex, would you eat kale?”

“Depends. Is there bacon in it?”

So, no. John takes out the greens anyway; he can have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. The salmon just needs a quick sear, and he boils some minute rice. Fast, simple, nutritious: the kind of dinner he learned to make in his undergrad and thought he’d never have to cook again. Back before the — before Alex was a werewolf, John might have asked him to make quesadillas or breakfast for dinner, the two meals he could be guaranteed to not burn. But last week Alex tried to cook pancakes as a surprise and ended up eating a dozen raw eggs in the process. John found him licking the remains of the last one off the counter.

Alex is now exempt from kitchen-related chores.

John hands him a plate, sans kale. There are some battles even he won’t fight. “How’s the article coming?”

“Got another round of edits.” Alex snaps up a bite of salmon, not bothering with utensils. “I might be able to finish it tonight. Already started on the next project — the editor said she’s looking for a piece for December.”

“You’ve been working really hard.”

Alex snorts. “Yeah, well. Gotta make up for those full moons.”

“That’s one day a month.”

He nibbles at the rice, swallows down another piece of salmon. John waits for further argument, but Alex stares into space, thinking about his edits or maybe the neighbor’s cat. Ever since he got that piece published in Fast Company, he’s been writing non-stop, aiming for something bigger or more permanent. John is glad he’s recovered his sense of purpose — Alex, listless on the couch, eyes dull as he watches Cesar Millan videos, should be an aberration, not the norm. But then John is starting to think Alex is going too far in the other direction: working every second he’s awake, like he has to be productive or else he isn’t worth anything. He has bags under his eyes that aren’t just patches of dark fur growing on his face.

Last semester was — well, there isn’t a word to summarize it. Alex getting bitten, Alex dropping out of school, Alex changing in so many ways, obvious and subtle, all of them uncanny valley familiar. He deserves a break, a real one, a chance to not worry about looking human and just be able to relax.

A vacation.

John takes their plates to the sink. Alex has licked his dish clean and returned to his article, ears perked at attention. His laptop is perched on the arm of the couch, his hips twisted to the side to accommodate his tail, which thumps in time to whatever’s going on inside his brain. John grabs his own computer and shoots a quick message to Harrison: you have a tent, yeah? could i borrow it?

***

“We’re going camping,” John announces over breakfast.

Alex wrinkles his nose. “Like, today? Don’t you have class?”

“No, not today. This weekend.”

“This weekend.”

“Yeah.”

“Full moon.”

“Yes?” Alex is giving him a blank look, and John presses on. “You finished your edits, and you won’t have thumbs. I booked the campsite, Harrison is loaning me his tent. I just thought —  you’ve been working so hard, and you deserve a break, and we haven’t done anything special since, well. You know.”

“Since the bite.”

“Yeah.”

Alex picks at the cleft in his lip. At this point in the cycle he doesn’t have much that could be called eyebrows, since his face is mostly dark fur, but the tawny spots on his brow ridges draw together in something like confusion. “So you thought camping?”

“I can’t exactly take a wolf to the spa. Besides, you could use a change of scenery.”

Alex shrugs. “You’ve seen one tree, you’ve seen them all.”

“That’s not even remotely true.”

“Which one of us is the naturalist here?”

“I’m going to vet school, Alex.”

“Yeah you are.” His mouth falls into what’s probably intended to be a salacious grin but instead looks very canine, his long tongue hanging over his teeth.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m dating a future doctor!”

John rolls his eyes. Swallowing down the last of his tea, he wraps his arms around Alex and buries his face in the fur poking above the collar of his hoodie. “I heard he even makes house calls,” he murmurs.

“Now who has the bad lines?” Alex asks. But he shivers as John presses a kiss to the side of his face, and his tail thwacks against John’s leg. “I’ve never been camping.”

“You never — oh.” He knows bits and pieces about Alex’s childhood, collected from hints dropped like breadcrumbs, but he feels stupid that this is the first time he’s realizing Alex probably didn’t have annual family vacations as a kid. “Well, I can do the setup and teardown myself, so that’s not a problem. Maybe you can catch dinner?”

“Oh yeah, cause I do that all the time.”

“You caught that squirrel.”

Alex shoots a doleful glance at the faded stain on the living room carpet. Two months later, and John still hasn’t managed to scrub out the evidence of Alex’s anniversary present. Who would have thought squirrel guts would be the Achilles’ heel to every cleaning product on the market?

One ear perks and the other tilts down in an expression John has come to understand as extreme skepticism. Alex says, “Let’s hope your surprise turns out better than mine did.”

***

Alex might be dubious about the concept of vacation, but that doesn’t keep him from howling along to Lorde as they drive down the interstate. Not quite in tune, though he makes up for it with enthusiasm. According to his phone, it’s a five-hour drive to the camp, and since Alex can’t pass the time with an extended rant, John has Pandora and a half dozen chew toys to keep him occupied. Alex “sings” along to the techno-pop, prods John into telling him about the latest gossip in the animal husbandry department, and manages to wrestle the squeaker out of his stuffed turtle — all in the span of an hour. Hour two, a Prius rides next to them for a couple miles, a grinning pit bull in the backseat, and Alex goes wild, barking and clawing at the door. When the car pulls ahead, he grumbles.

John takes pity on him and rolls down the window.

Alex sticks his head outside, face breaking into a canine grin. His tongue lolls and flaps in the breeze, and he laughs, an incongruous human sound.

“Having fun there?” John asks.

His tail thumps on the center console.

***

It’s afternoon when they get to the campground, their arrival delayed by a quick lunch stop. Alex has thumbs enough to open the door, but his hips have given up on being bipedal and he clambers out of the car on all fours, still wearing his Columbia hoodie. John hauls out his backpack, the tent, and the cooler. “Ready?”

Alex paws at the cooler and whines.

“It’s fine, I got it.” John hefts the gear for emphasis. “See? Marta used to make me carry her shit on vacations. Dad always sided with her, too, said I had to be a gentleman. Like she didn’t scare half the boys at school with her left hook.”

Alex snickers.

Workout benefits of being the packhorse aside, John is glad their campsite isn’t far from the parking area. He dumps their gear in the center of the cleared ground and rolls his shoulders, looking around. The weather forecast predicted a warm weekend, but cold nights in the mountains, meaning the fire pit should be useful for more than just roasting marshmallows. Through the trees, their neighbor’s tent is visible — must be a family, he can hear kids shrieking and laughing. Alex’s ears swivel in the direction of the sound.

“You can explore, if you want. I gotta set up the tent.”

He cocks his head.

“You won’t get lost, you can — I dunno — smell your way back? Just don’t go too far. Also maybe take off the hoodie.”

Alex wriggles out of his sweatshirt, with some help from John. Shakes out his fur. It’s not quite full moon, but close enough that Alex passes for some sort of wolf-dog hybrid. Only John would recognize that his thumbs haven’t yet receded into dewclaws, or what the awkward slope of his shoulders means.

Alex scratches at his belly with his hind foot.

“Oh, wait —” John digs around in his backpack until he finds the leather collar. The tags jangle as he fastens it around Alex’s neck, and his boyfriend makes a disgruntled sound. “There. Looks like you belong to someone.”

A warning growl.

“Well, you’re mine, aren’t you? Don’t want you getting picked up by some cute park ranger.”

Alex swipes a lick across John’s cheek and goes bounding into the trees.

Turns out pitching a tent is not like riding a bike — it’s been years since John went camping, and he had at least one other person to help him. He wrestles with one stubborn corner, grateful that Alex isn’t here to watch and laugh at him. By the time he rolls out the sleeping bags and stashes their gear, he’s sweating and the sun has crawled closer to the horizon.

Childish screams alternate with a familiar bark. John wanders over to their neighbor’s campsite and finds Alex playing with two little kids, sisters if their matching shirts and corkscrew curls are any indication. The younger one toddles after Alex, her arms outstretched, and he lopes just out of reach, reverses to dodge the older girl. His tail wags.

“Nice dog, is he yours?”

John turns to the couple sitting in fold-out chairs, watching the kids. “Yeah. I’m John, we’re —” he gestures back at the trees “— right next door.”

“Mattie,” the woman says, holding out her hand. “This is my husband, Thom.”

The man gives John a considering look. “What brings you out here?”

“Well, uh, it’s spring break.”

“You’re a student?”

“Grad student. Vet school.”

Thom nods. “So you like the outdoors.”

“Yeah. And Alex needs a lot of exercise.” John glances at his boyfriend, who’s getting belly rubs from the girls.

“I didn’t think wolf-hybrids were a thing in California,” Mattie says, not accusing, just curious.

“He’s not — we don’t know what breed he is? Got him at the local shelter.”

“Well-trained,” Thom observes.

“Ha. Well. You should see what he did to the couch. But he likes kids.”

“I’ve heard larger breeds tend to be really social.” Mattie adjusts her sunglasses. “We were thinking of getting a pet, since the girls have been asking. But I’m not sure how much time I can afford to train a dog when I can’t even get this one here to make the bed.” She swats playfully at her husband. “I swear, he gets up at six in the morning just to get out of fixing the sheets.”

“I’m checking the temperature!”

“You’re a philosophy professor.”

“Global warming is a real issue that affects us all.”

She rolls her eyes. “See? No help.”

“Pet ownership is a serious commitment,” John says, relieved to have the conversation move away from the subject of his boyfriend. “You wouldn’t believe how many animals we get at the shelter because someone didn’t realize their cute little puppy would grow into a bigger dog.”

From there the talk revolves around hypoallergenic dogs and finding a reputable breeder. At some point Alex wanders over, panting. He rubs his face on John’s leg, and John pets the tawny spot between his eyes. “Hey, ba — boy.”

Alex snorts.

Thom gives them a funny look.

John blushes and opens his mouth to — explain? deny that he’s dating his dog? — but the girls choose that moment to interrupt, the younger climbing into Mattie’s lap and burying her face in her stomach.

“Oh dear, someone needs a nap.” Mattie pats her back soothingly. “Thom, you want to get her blankie out?”

That’s their cue to leave. John pats Alex’s side. “We should go. Those hot dogs I brought won’t cook themselves.”

“Sure,” Thom says. “We’ll see you around.”

At least Alex holds in his (suspiciously human sounding) laughter until after they get to their tent.

***

“Alex, no — drop it!”

John grabs for him and Alex dodges, running to the other end of the campsite, the bag of marshmallows dangling from his teeth. He drops it, not for John, but to paw at the hole cut into one corner, trying to make it wider. Sugar smell, want want want. He bites at the opening and manages to snag one marshmallow before John snatches the bag from him.

“These are for s’mores,” he says, exasperated.

Alex grumbles. What’s the difference? They’re going to be eaten regardless, and Alex can’t have chocolate. Graham crackers are bland and not made for people whose canines evolved to better tear apart flesh and bones.

“We’re gonna toast them.” Oh, of course, that human fascination with cooking food. John continues, “Besides, you can’t be hungry, you ate an entire package of hot dogs.”

Like that’s ever stopped Alex from going through the trash. He whines, giving his best pout.

“Nope. That’s not working.”

He gets down on his belly and rolls over.

“You can wait the literal two minutes it’ll take to brown these.”

Fine. He slinks over to where he abandoned his book and lays down with a huff.

Three minutes later, he’s licking gooey marshmallow off John’s lips.

***

John has a hike planned the next morning. Nothing too long — Alex might have better stamina than him, but he hates exercise as much as he did when he was human, fetch and the occasional game of “chase me around the living room” being the exceptions. But it’s cool and green out, and Alex preens at the attention from other hikers, and when they reach the end of the trail there’s a waterfall.

Alex jumps onto a flat rock and tilts his face toward the spray. His whiskers twitch, eyelashes fluttering and collecting little droplets. John sits down next to him, shrugging off the backpack. “Having fun there?”

He wags his tail. Then his expression turns considering. John has just enough time to register his boyfriend tensing before Alex leaps into the water with a terrific splash.

Since the bite, Alex hasn’t been a big fan of baths, but he likes water — at least, more than he seemed to as a human. He paddles around for ten or so minutes before he climbs back onto the rock and shakes out his fur. John grimaces at the drops that spatter his face and shirt. Their tent is going to smell like wet dog tonight.

As if reading his mind, Alex flops into his lap, rubbing his muzzle on John’s cargo shorts. He looks up, fur sticking out in wet spikes. John bursts out laughing.

“I brought peanut butter bars,” he says. “Eliza gave me her recipe. I might’ve left them in the oven too long, though.”

Alex snuffles at the backpack, tail frisking.

“Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

***

The thing about the outdoors is, it gets dark sooner than in the cities. Not that Alex really cares about the dark: his night vision is good enough he could read by the full moon light (theoretically, if his eyesight wasn’t fucked for small type and the Roman alphabet), and he usually goes to bed around midnight even when he’s not working on a project. But John is human, and worn out from their day of hiking and swimming and playing tug-of-war with his shirt; once the fire dies down and the stars come out, he crawls into his sleeping bag and promptly falls asleep.

Alex turns in a circle, settles down on his blanket. Waits. John’s breathing is deep and even. Soothing, in the general mate is content, mate is safe sense, but it’s not getting Alex any closer to rest. He crosses his paws, flicks an ear. Outside the tent crickets chirp, an owl hoots. Something rustles through the underbrush.

That gets his attention. He lifts his nose, scents the air. Musk smell, animal smell. His mouth waters. A twig snaps in the distance. His ears perk and swivel. Big animal, close, sniff it out, run it down.

He glances at John. Mate is sleeping, mate won’t notice if Alex goes out for a quick hunt. He’ll be back soon, maybe bring a share of the kill with him.

Alex creeps out of the tent on silent paw pads.

***

The first thing John registers is that there’s something warm and wet on his face.

He forces his eyes open. There’s a dark blur in his vision; it takes a second for him to focus and realize it’s Alex’s muzzle. Alex noses at him again and whines. John sits up, blinking hard. “Babe? What’s wrong?”

Alex prances in place. The fur on his face is matted and slick, the rest of his coat disheveled. Where has he been? “Are you hurt? What happened?”

He grunts and bounds out of the tent. John follows in his t-shirt and boxers.

Outside, Alex has picked up a large, misshapen stick. No, not a stick — he lopes toward John with the thing in his mouth, and it’s not a stick, it’s a leg, it’s a fucking deer leg, the hoof still intact, and Alex shoves it at him.

John stumbles back with a yell. “What the FUCK?”

Alex pauses, his tail curling between his legs in confusion. He whines around the mouthful of animal carcass; he hasn’t dropped the leg, and his teeth glint in the moonlight.

“What the — where did you even find that?” Alex huffs, and John feels his stomach swoop. “You killed a deer? What the fuck, Alex? How —”

“HEY, what’s going on?”

A bright beam of light cuts across the campsite. John raises a hand to his eyes.

“Excuse me,” the woman says. She’s wearing a khaki uniform and a green jacket with RANGER in bold letters on the side. She aims her flashlight at them, and Alex cringes, moving closer to John. “Would you like to explain what happened?”

“Uh…” John brushes a stray curl out of his eyes. His hand comes away dark, and he realizes the wetness on his face is blood. Shit, he must look like a mess. What is a park ranger doing out here this late? Did the neighbors hear them and call someone? Or maybe she’s on patrol? John didn’t think park rangers did night patrols.

“Sir.”

“Sorry, ma’am.” John gives her the most charming smile he can muster. “My, um. My dog — I guess he found some dead animal. Just, startled me, is all.”

“This is your dog?” The ranger frowns.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She shoots him a Look. “You know wolfdogs are illegal in the state of California.”

“He’s licensed. And — uh, I got him at a shelter? I think he’s a shepherd mix.”

“Uh-huh.” She turns her light on Alex. He drops the deer leg and licks his lips, folding his ears down submissively. He looks at her with wide, sincere eyes. Her face softens.

John interrupts, “Yeah, so. Are we good here?”

“You said he found it?” The ranger glances dubiously at the leg on the ground, mostly intact and smeared with fresh blood. Alex inches closer and butts his head against her thigh with a whine. “Hey, boy,” she says, holding out her fingers for him to sniff. “Well, out-of-season hunting results in a fine. But, since you weren’t hunting… I suppose I can let you off with a warning. Just this once.”

John sighs, relieved.

“But make sure you keep…”

“Alex. His name’s Alex.”

“... Right. Keep Alex from wandering beyond the campsite without supervision. There’s bears and wolves around here, you know.”

Alex coughs. John glares at him.

“Oh, and make sure to get rid of that.” She points at the deer leg with her boot. Grimaces. “You don’t want to attract scavengers.”

“Sure thing.”

“If you want, I could…”

Alex grabs his prize by the ankle, tenses like a puppy ready to dash off with its newest toy.

“I think we can handle it,” John says.

“Then you boys have a good night.” She waggles her fingers at Alex. He frisks his tail.

John waits until he hears her driving off to address Alex. “Did you really have to do the whole puppy eyes thing?”

He snorts.

“Yeah, thanks for getting us out of a fine. You wanna get rid of that thing?”

Alex slaps his paws on the ground.

“No, no, I don’t want to play with it.”

He runs a few feet, dragging the leg with him. John sighs. Moves to rub his face, remembers the blood, thinks better of it. “Fine. Just… bury it, at least? Don’t bring it in the tent.”

Alex trots off to the other side of the campsite and settles down, gripping the leg between his paws so he can better gnaw on the protruding bone. John climbs back into the tent, puts the pillow over his head to muffle the sounds of his boyfriend eating a deer’s leg. At least he’s enjoying himself.

***

One perk of dating a werewolf is that John never wakes up cold.

Sometime during the night, Alex wormed into his unzipped sleeping bag and laid down next to him. His face is buried in John’s chest, and he makes little grunts and whuffs as he sleeps, ears flicking. John rubs the velvet fur of one ear between his fingers — it’s damp but not tacky with dried blood. Alex must’ve washed off after he finished his snack. John feels a warm flush of affection, despite the unsexy smell of wet dog. He presses a kiss to his head.

Alex stirs and squints at him.

“I was thinking we could go for another long hike,” John whispers, “but maybe we’ll just sleep in? I can cook sausage for breakfast.”

Alex closes his eyes and snuggles closer.

***

“Y’all leaving?”

John shoves his sleeping bag into the backpack. “Yeah, I have to TA a class tomorrow and I still need to finish grading their midterms.” Also Alex is starting to get his thumbs back and twisted the lid off the tea thermos this morning, but it’s not like John can mention that.

Thom laughs. “Just give ‘em all a B-minus.”

“Well, it’s a lab-based class, so it’s kind of important they can do the math.”

He waves a hand. “Grades are just an artificial metric for determining whether students grasp the basic concepts.”

Yeah, and John doesn’t think Ethan realizes he solved question thirteen with the formula for quadratic equations, which has nothing to do with the test. At least Ethan is a double-major; maybe he’s better at bassoon performance.

“Are you teaching this semester?” he asks.

“Nah, on sabbatical. Supposed to be finishing a book on Voltaire, but…” He makes a vague gesture. “My best work is more last-minute. Besides, I want the girls growing up in the outdoors, you know? Our lives are so industrialized these days. Is your dog reading a book?”

John glances over his shoulder. Alex snaps his copy of Gibbons shut with a guilty look.

“Oh. Um. He must’ve… gotten it out of my stuff.”

“Huh.” Thom stares at him for a moment, then shrugs. “Well, the girls will miss him. He’s a good dog. Seems real clever.”

“He is,” John says, a bit too enthusiastically. “Erm. I have some stuff for s’mores left over, if you and Mattie want a treat for the girls? I can’t eat it all myself.”

“Sure.” Thom accepts the half-full bag of marshmallows as well as the uneaten graham crackers and chocolate bars. “I’ll tell them you said bye. Gotta extend the nap for as long as possible — I can’t believe Mattie got them to lie down in the first place, their schedules have been out the window this vacation. You should swing by the philosophy department sometime. Bring the dog, I’m sure he’d have more to say on Foucault than my upperclassmen.”

“I’m… certain he would.”

Alex barks in agreement. John tries to imagine a class discussion on French philosophers being led by an opinionated werewolf.

“There you go, open-invite. Where’s the place you work? The girls are gonna want a dog after this weekend, might as well go local.”

John gives him the name of the shelter.

“You boys have a safe drive.”

***

Hour three of the ride back, John makes Alex drive, claiming he’s too tired to focus on the road. Alex thinks that’s a weak excuse for poor night vision, but since John organized the trip and loaded their gear into the car, he supposes he can do this thing. Even if he doesn’t particularly like driving anymore: his new chase impulse means he’s tense behind the wheel, ears swiveling every time a car zooms past. His paw pads don’t get much traction on the gas pedal, either, so he cruises just above the speed limit.

A compact car pulls alongside him. The driver taps on their horn — probably wants to flip him off, the asshole, he’s trying his best here, it’s not his fault he can’t wear shoes —

He sneaks a glance. The woman behind the wheel gapes, slack-jawed.

John mumbles, sinks down so his face is buried in his sweater. Alex returns his focus to the road. Warm, pleasant feeling inside him: he and his boyfriend had a romantic weekend, and it wasn’t even new moon.

He drives them home.