Monthly story - male bat-like forest monster x male character (nsfw) (Patreon)

This one was a really sweet one to write, though as ever, it's about 10k words longer than I intended. I hope you enjoy these two and the autumnal forest vibes. There are also a couple of tiny little Gabe & Odessa easter eggs in there, if you spot them...

Summary: a heartsick author books a remote fire lookout tower for some solitude after a messy breakup, and for the chance to finish his latest novel, only to fall slowly in love with a voice over the radio.

Content (light spoilers): stormy conditions, then lost while hiking, forest entity attacks with constricting vines (not romantic interest). Nsfw includes oral, no penetrative, messy sex, come marking(?), and there's some purring too.

Wordcount: 13,238

(for the tower lookout vibes, this reddit link should help)

 “You’re renting a what?” Lavinia snorted, setting down her coffee cup with a clunk and gawping at Bowen like he’d just grown another head. Or maybe like he’d lost the one he’d had to begin with.

“I’m renting an old fire lookout in the Pinewatch Range for a month.”

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” she blurted. “Seriously, I know the breakup with Mike fucked with your head, and with good fucking reason because the man is a complete —”

“— it’s not about the breakup, Lav,” Bowen interjected heavily, taking a sip of his own drink and wincing. Instead of his usual coffee, he’d opted for a remarkably bland chamomile tea, and was regretting it enormously. “It’s just… I’ve been wanting to work on my novel. I think a place with no electricity other than a solar panel to charge my phone and radio, and no running water, is going to suit me just fine.”

“No running water?” Lavinia looked truly horrified at that. “Seriously? How are you gonna shower? And, like… flush the toilet? Oh my god, don’t tell me you have to shit in the woods…”

At that, Bowen bit back a rare, true laugh. “There’s a composting toilet in an outhouse. It’s not like I’m turning into a bear.”

She eyed Bowen’s gut, which was just a little softer than it had once been, and raised one eyebrow. “Sweetheart, if you put on a red flannel shirt and grew that thick scruff out into a proper beard, you’d be the definition of a bear.”

He rolled his cocoa-brown eyes at her and leaned back in the farmhouse style chair, gazing around at the new coffee shop that had opened up on North Street. Lavinia looked out of place in the cutesy, rustic tea room, but as usual, she paid her surroundings little mind. Instead, she regarded him from under her heavy, Goth makeup, with a back-combed bird’s nest of box dyed, black hair piled atop her head. Behind the dramatic makeup and the false eyelashes that looked like the kind of spiders Bowen only found in the deepest recesses of his basement, he could see real concern in her features,and his heart squeezed. He’d isolated himself too much from his friend in the past six months, and now he was running away to the wilderness.

He leaned forwards, just catching the creak of the rattan beneath his jeans above the clatter of the cafe as the chair shifted and groaned a little, and he rested his weight on his forearms. “Honestly, this will be good for me, Lav. I need to unplug for a while.”

“I’m just worried you’re not gonna be able to plug back in afterwards,” she muttered darkly. “I take it you don’t get phone reception out there?”

He shook his head. “Nope. There’s a radio that connects you to the forest service in an emergency, and there are a few other old lookout towers in the area, but unless there’s a very lost hiker, I won’t see another soul for the whole month.”

“Jesus,” she hissed. “Well, I hope you know what you’re doing. And if I come across Mike in the meantime, I’ll hex his bollocks off and make him rue the day he dumped you.”

“You already did that.”

Something flashed in her eyes. “I made him rue the day he dumped you, but it was sweet little ‘butter-wouldn’t-melt’ Hazel that hexed him.”

Bowen rolled his eyes and chuckled fondly. “You and all that witchy shit, Lav. Ever since you watched The Craft in high school…”

Easy-going Bowen had always respectfully humoured his best friend’s interest and belief in the Occult, but he’d never subscribed to anything spooky himself. The spookiest thing that had ever happened to him was a traffic light going from red to green as he approached it. Hardly cause to call the Ghostbusters in, after all.

At first, he’d thought Lav had been joking, or just using some affectionate name for the group of people who had all met after class and at the weekends, calling them ‘her coven’, but over the course of their university degree, and the subsequent years of employment, he’d come to discover they all actually believed in the supernatural. Then again, Mike’s apartment had flooded the week after he’d ditched Bowen, and his had been the only one to suffer any damage. There was now some lingering problem with a particularly stubborn and rather toxic mould all over the ceilings, according to Lavinia’s mystical sources…

“Just promise me you’ll take good care of yourself, and you’ll fucking phone me the second you get back to civilisation,” she growled, and he solemnly promised with hand on heart to keep her updated when he could.

A week later, Bowen’s pickup bounced up the rutted track to the fire lookout station, with a fortnight’s worth of water and camping supplies lashed down in the bed. The nearest town of Pinewatch was a jolting, twenty mile trip down dirt roads before even reaching the main, tarmac road to get there, so he’d be using the truck for a resupply run in a couple of weeks, but until then, he figured he had everything he needed. At least, he hoped he did.

The lookout tower itself was a cute little wooden cube of a building, set high atop a steel tower that had a switchback series of wooden stairs going up four platforms before reaching a 360°, wrap-around deck. The wide eaves of the pyramidal roof sheltered the glazed walls of the cabin on stilts, and the whole thing reminded Bowen of a modern, industrial Baba Yaga hut. Four steel cables were attached, one to each corner support strut, like guy ropes, as if to lash the building down and stop it from wandering through the mountain-top forests looking for lightning-strike fires on its own. It wasn’t currently fire season, which was why the place was available to rent until November, when the snows made it impossible to get in and out of, and the temperatures dropped too low to be safe for paying guests.

For now though, early autumn was in its fullest glory, with a riot of amber and copper aspens and birch spilling down through the evergreen firs and pines like molten gold. As Bowen stood on the veranda after unpacking his supplies and scouting around to find the outhouse, and make sure it was all in order before he needed to visit it in the middle of the night, he took a great, deep inhale of the purest air he’d ever smelled, and tried to let go of the stubborn dregs of the past as he exhaled his troubles to the wind.

For months, he’d felt hollowed out: like he’d had everything he cared about gouged out of him and shredded, and with all of that gone, he’d turned into this empty, shrivelled husk of a person. He knew how to act and how to behave the way people expected him to behave, but it had been nearly half a year since Mike had dumped him for some gorgeously hot stockbroker with a blinding veneer smile and a body to make half of Hollywood weep. And there Bowen was, six foot and a little bit squishy, with the big brown eyes of a kicked puppy and not much else going for him. He certainly didn’t have the bank account to compete with Mike’s new man, that was for sure. He had advances on his novels, and then a dribble of income, but not much else. He just felt… inadequate in every respect.

With his arms resting on the sun-warmed wood of the railing though, he stared out at the forest in awe and felt something stirring in his chest.

“I know that’s the whole point, but Christ, you really can see for miles…” he murmured aloud. The wind snatched his words straight off his lips, but it didn’t matter.

He stayed there, transfixed by the beauty of the place, for easily an hour, until the lilac veil of twilight drifted down and blanketed the pines below the tower in the soft shadows of a clear, early night. Nothing moved save for tiny birds flitting between the trees below, and the odd red squirrel that dashed across the gravel around the tower’s base to get from one band of pine trees to the next. Nothing moved, that was, until just as the light truly began to fade and the last glow in the sky was snuffed almost to nothing by the encroaching, star-encrusted night, and something huge and dark drifted up from the deepest recesses of the valley below and disappeared behind the ridge line of the mountain’s foothills.

“The fuck?” Bowen whispered, his breath misting like a ghost in front of his face. “Probably just a bunch of bats or something… Or my imagination.”

He kept his eyes on the spot but it was too dark to see more, and it had probably been his tired eyes and brain trying to make sense of the shapes and sights of the mountains.

With a shiver, he turned his back on the view and headed inside the cabin to see about making some supper on the propane stove in the corner of the simply-furnished, half-glass and half-wood cabin on stilts.

Waking with the first light of dawn, Bowen groaned, and turned his gaze to the windows on the opposite side of the cabin. In the centre of the room sat the Osborne Fire Finder, a circular, topographic map with two, vertical sighting apertures used to pinpoint the location of fires visible from the tower. Every other bit of furniture or equipment in the room was tucked into a corner or the periphery of the square room to give the Fire Finder its due reverence. The horizon of the encircling mountains formed a pale, bluish-purple ring of crowned peaks all around the tower, and as Bowen sat up and let the blankets pool around his hips, he let out a wild little laugh.

“I can’t believe I’m here, doing this…” he chuckled, shaking his head and running his hand through his thick, dark brown hair.

With a fresh coffee cradled in his hands, and duffled up in a cosy, fleecy jumper, he stepped out into the eerily still morning and lost himself again to the view.

That day proved to be his most productive day of writing in over a year, such that after reaching a colossal word count, he opened a bottle of wine that evening, and a packet of really poncy kettle chips that he’d brought with him just because he loved them so darned much, and sat back on the soft armchair in one corner of the room beside the log burner to watch the sun sink below the horizon.

Just as he set the impractically delicate balloon glass down on the table though, the radio set in the corner gave a squawk that sent his heartbeat jolting through the roof, and a warm, baritone voice issued from the tinny speaker.

“Hello? Is everything alright at the lookout?”

“Jesus Christ,” Bowen exhaled, bowing his head and panting as adrenaline and shock flooded through his whole body at the unexpected occurrence. “Fuck me,” he added as he stood on shaky legs and crossed to the small desk in the corner of the room to follow the instructions on the hand-held radio to answer the call.

“Hi? Yeah, Everything’s fine. Who is this? You from the ranger station?”

“No, I saw a light in the tower and just wanted to check everything was alright,” came the calm, measured response.

“Oh,” Bowen said, puffing the air from his lungs and scrubbing his fingers through his hair. “Scared the shit out of me. Wasn't expecting anyone to be within, you know, a hundred miles of this place really.”

A low, warm chuckle crackled over the receiver. “I apologise. I’m probably at least half that distance away, if it’s any consolation. I didn’t mean to spook you. It’s just that no one has visited that tower in a long time.”

“Yeah, the rangers’ station said it’s been out of action for a few seasons for repairs and renovation after it stopped being an official fire lookout. I think I’m the first guest in about four years.”

“Correct.”

“So, are you in another tower or something? How can you see me?”

“I can’t see you,” the stranger reassured him, “But I can see the light. I… I live out here.”

“Holy shit, seriously?”

“Mm.”

“You're like a ranger then?”

“I take care of this patch of the range, yes.”

That wasn’t exactly the same thing, but it was close enough.

“Must be lonely — I mean, I just assumed you live alone, sorry. What do I know?” he snorted, flopping back down into the chair with the receiver still in his hand. He reached for his wine and sipped while the mystery voice responded.

“No, I do live alone, but it’s not too lonely. There are others out here, just… we don’t cross paths all that often. For the most part, it suits me.”

“I can kind of see that,” Bowen sighed, looking out at the rose and heather sky over the mountain range. “It’s so fucking beautiful. And the peace… Christ, if I could afford it, I’d buy this place and never go back to the city.”

The radio was silent for a such long moment that when it crackled back to life, Bowen jumped a little. “What’s it like…?”

“What’s what like?”

“The city.”

“You’ve never been?”

“Evidently not,” came the wry response.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like that.” Bowen thought for a moment. “You’ve always lived out here?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know how to describe it to you then. I’m assuming you go into town — Pinewatch is the biggest place round here, I think, right?”

“I… know it.” The stranger didn’t sound like he went there that often, but Bowen took what he knew of the place from stocking up there on his way to the lookout, and ran with it.

“Ok, so the main street in Pinewatch is pretty straight, but the city is all straight lines. All the blocks are built around a grid, so the only curves and natural forms come from the older, stone buildings like churches and law courts and libraries — fancy old buildings. The rest is mostly towering, reflective glass and unyielding steel frames, though there’s some brick and concrete thrown in for spice.”

He paused and wondered what else to add.

“The exhaust from traffic washes over you like some kind of toxic ocean current as buses and delivery vans and cars go past in waves with each set of traffic lights, and the sound of people’s footsteps on the hard pavements at rush hour is like a distant hailstorm. If you walk through the market square though, you get rush after rush of different smells, from the fruit stalls to the sweet clouds rising off the donut stands and the warm, malty smell from the baker’s…” He faltered to a halt and took another sip of wine to ease his throat. The voice at the other end of the radio stayed silent. “You still with me?”

“… yes.” The whisper was just barely there; awestruck and a little stunned. “You… You have a… a way with words.”

Bowen huffed a little laugh out of his nose. “I should hope so. I’m an author, so I need my words for a living.”

“You write books?”

“Yeah.”

“What kind…?”

“Novels — fiction. A mix of genres, but I’m mostly known for my detective series. I had a successful run a few years ago, so I’m trying something different this time with a romance. It’s going ok, I think. I had a good day of writing today.”

“I see. Thank you for describing the city to me. It sounds… overwhelming to someone like me, but I’m glad to be able to imagine it.”

“Happy to help,” he smiled.

Another pause seemed to press the silence up against the glass walls of the tower before the radio crackled again and the stranger said with a heavy, dolorous intonation, “I apologise for disturbing your evening. Thank you for… humouring me.”

“You know what, I came here looking for solitude, but… this was actually nice.”

A purring kind of chuckle rumbled out of the small speakers and the sound of it did strange things to Bowen’s groin that he didn’t want to think about. “I’m glad,” the stranger murmured.

“You know, I’m here for a while, so if you wanted to reach out again, feel free.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, I might not be around or whatever — I plan to go for a few hikes and stuff as well as just sitting on my ass all day and writing, so I can’t guarantee I’ll be around if you reach out, but if you see the light on and want a chat…”

When he next spoke, the stranger sounded oddly choked. “Thank you,” he said in his quiet, softly-articulated voice. “I… I will.”

“Goodnight,” Bowen said.

“Goodnight.”

The radio fell silent after that, but Bowen’s thoughts remained loud.

Who was this person who had never left the woods and lived all alone out here in the wilderness? God though, his voice was gorgeous. Bowen could tell it was rich and deep, with a gravelly kind of purr that did things to him that he definitely hadn’t been expecting to find out here in the mountains.

That night, with the glow of the embers in the log burner and no other light but the stars outside, Bowen drew the covers up and halted as they brushed over his boxer-briefs. It had been so long since he’d even felt like taking his cock in his hand that he almost felt guilty and embarrassed as he reached under the waistband and gave his half-hard cock a few experimental strokes. But before long, the memory of that warm, dry chuckle drifted across his consciousness, and he was done for. In record time, he came into his hand, his chest heaving and his mind blessedly clear.

The weather over the next few days grew from grey to blustery, and finally, Bowen watched it sweep down the valley in a silvery curtain of rain that drenched the forest and hammered against the glass for hours. Wind whistled through tiny gaps in the windowpanes and around the cabin, and he wondered just how sturdy those renovations were. But his little hut on stilts stood firm, braced against the onslaught, while all the trees below swayed and lurched.

As he added another log to the fire that night, the radio crackled to life and Bowen jumped, though without the initial fear that had been there before.

“Hello? Are you there?”

He secured the door of the log burner and crossed the room in three long strides. “Yeah, I’m here,” he smiled. “Foul night, huh?”

“It is wild,” the stranger agreed. “Are you alright up there?”

“Yeah, think so. I did feel like the whole thing was going to lift off and blow away like matchsticks when it started, but we’re still here, and so’s the glass in the windows, so I think we’ll be ok.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“You doing ok wherever you are?”

Static crackled across the speakers, biting off whatever reply he gave, and Bowen frowned.

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

“Yes… can hear you. Storm is … up here…”

“You’re breaking up… But you’re ok though?”

“Yes. I will… again when… conditions improve.”

“Ok. Take care.”

“You too.”

And the line went dead.

Bowen didn’t sleep well that night, snatching pockets of shallow sleep between gusts of wind and squalling rain, but sometime around three or four in the morning, the storm must have blown itself out because he stopped jerking awake. When he stirred next, everything was almost eerily calm, and he sat up slowly to find great wreathing banks of fog and vapour swirling upwards from the trees.

“Oh wow…” he murmured, and shuffled from the warmth of his bed towards the chilly window with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak.

Steam lifted from the dark pines to reveal pockets of stubborn autumn leaves that had clung on during the furore of the previous night, and he felt almost like he was flying as he stared out at the shifting snapshots of the panorama he’d already come to know in such a short time.

A darker shape swept through a bank of cloud to his right and he twitched his head around, heartbeat skipping. Larger than any bird of prey could ever be, it had been about the size of… well… perhaps a microlight plane or something, with a wingspan of about ten metres, but it had been completely silent. If it had even been there at all.

“Probably just the clouds shifting,” he muttered, hoping he wasn’t going nuts after just a few days of solitude.

But the more he stared at the spot where it had been, the more he convinced himself he’d seen something. The pattern of vapour in the air was different there, as if it was still rippling with the lingering vortex of something having passed through it, but try as he might, Bowen couldn’t spot anything else.

To avoid giving himself eye strain from staring out at it, he shook the blanket off, dressed in something warm, and trudged out to the outhouse to start his morning routine. It was only as he slogged back up the stairs and his foot slipped a little on a slick bit of wood that he realised he didn’t know what channel to reach out to his unnamed friend, and he made a note to ask him next time he got in touch with Bowen.

By lunchtime, the clouds had lifted to reveal a gloriously rich, cobalt blue sky, and Bowen had blasted through another chapter of the novel. At this rate, it’d be finished by the time he needed to go into Pinewatch for his halfway resupply.

If Bowen had picked up the receiver ahead of time, and had it cradled in his lap while he read and sipped his wine that night, he told himself it was merely so he didn’t have to un-pretzel himself from the warmth of the blanket and armchair. If he waited a few seconds before responding after that now-familiar voice had asked him if he was there, it was only so that he didn’t appear to have been quite so ready. Quite so eager for contact. He realised then that he’d come to look forward to these evening chats with this faceless stranger.

“Hey, I’m here,” Bowen smiled. “You all good after that storm?”

“Yes,” and the reply came with the sound of a smile too, low and syrupy, and enough to make Bowen swallow thickly, almost choking on the vapours of his wine that still lingered in his mouth.

“Listen, thanks for checking in on me during the storm,” Bowen said, his own voice croaky and hoarse.

“You probably don’t have conditions quite like that in the city. I wanted to make sure you weren’t alarmed… That you were… alright.”

Out of nowhere, the grief of not having had many people care about him enough to check up on him — Lavinia not withstanding — overwhelmed Bowen and swamped his chest like a tsunami. Tears obscured his vision and he couldn’t reply for a moment, knowing that the stranger would hear the emotion in his voice.

“You are… alright? Yes?”

“Yeah,” he rasped. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“You sound… different.”

Bowen coughed out a bitter laugh. “You know, for a bloke fifty miles away, you’re remarkably perceptive. My ex couldn’t tell what was going on with me when he was lying in the same bed as me, but you can tell without even being able to see my face.”

“Your ex should have listened more closely,” came the growling response, and fuck, if it didn’t sound like this stranger was being protective of someone he’d never even met…

“Yeah, well, my ex could have done a lot of things a whole lot better.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to distress you.”

“You didn’t… it’s fine. Mike was an arsehole, and I should be over it all by now, but… you know what it’s like.”

“I… I can’t say I do. I’ve never had a relationship.”

“Fuck, sorry. This is going well…”

An amused snort played over the airwaves.

“So, my name is Bowen, by the way,” he said with a little cough to help wrangle his emotions back inside his chest. “You got a name?”

“I…” for a moment, Bowen thought he didn't want to share it with a stranger, but he started speaking again before Bowen could reassure him. “I have been called ‘Jasper’… for the reddish colour of my eyes…”

The strange syntax snagged on Bowen’s mind before he processed the sentence properly, and then he asked, “Jasper? I think that’s a lovely name. But… you don’t like it?”

“I don’t have much need of a name out here,” he said quietly. “I like it well enough though.”

“You mean you don’t hail every lookout guest on the radio just to chat about your day?” he grinned playfully. “I really am special then?”

Jasper laughed quietly, the sound rolling over the radio like distant thunder. “I told you, no one has stayed in that tower for years.”

“You also told me there are other people out here,” he countered. “So you clearly do know other people. But I’ll believe I’m a special exception, Jasper of the Unusually Red Eyes.”

“You are,” came Jasper’s response. “I haven’t spoken with anyone on the radio since the last fire lookout retired and the tower was converted for guest accommodation.”

“Is that how you got the radio channel?” Bowen asked. “I don’t know how to reach you, by the way. What channel are you on? I didn’t want to accidentally hit the rangers’ station and sound like a nut job reaching out into the void…”

“Thank you for that. I hadn’t considered that you might.”

“So you’re not supposed to have a radio?”

“… No.”

Bowen laughed. “I won’t tell.”

“Thank you. And channel three should find me, but like you, I will not always be there to answer it.”

“I understand. Must take a lot of firewood and stuff to live out here full time.”

“… Yes. I also like to… roam.”

“I can see why,” Bowen sighed, glancing out of the window, but all he saw was his own tired reflection looking back at him like a spectre in the dark glass. “I was actually thinking of following a few of the suggested trails in the next few days, if the weather stays good.”

“Make sure you take waterproofs with you,” Jasper advised. “And lots of layers. And stay on the trails. It can turn dangerous out here very quickly.”

“Too bad you’re fifty miles away, otherwise I’d suggest you show me around,” he blurted without thinking. “Fuck, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to presume.”

But Jasper just gave that throaty laugh again and Bowen tipped his head back into the soft armchair and groaned quietly.

“You alright?” Jasper asked.

“Fuck, did I press the button?”

“Mn.”

“Yeah, I’m good.” He sighed and then added, “So any recommendations for this part of the forest?”

“It’s been a while, but I seem to remember there being a route marked with blue arrows that leads to a small lake.”

Bowen stood and crossed to the guide pack that sat on the desk in the corner. Leafing through it, he found the marked routes and pressed the button on the receiver. “Found it. It’s about an eight mile loop that goes along the valley from here.”

“Are you going to try it?”

“Yeah, if the weather’s good, I’ll go tomorrow.”

“Take care.”

Again, the weight of concern from a complete stranger threatened to crush Bowen’s bruised and broken heart, and he nodded. “I will.”

“Bowen, will you contact me tomorrow when you’re back? It doesn’t have to be for long, but I’d like to know you’re safe.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

“Thought you could see the lights from wherever you are though?”

The silence that stretched felt different that time, as if he’d upset Jasper by pointing out that he didn't technically need to use the radio for Jasper to know he’d got back.

“Jasper?”

“Yes, forgive me. The lights will be sufficient.”

“No, wait, I was just joking around. Of course I’ll call you.”

“I didn’t mean to be overbearing,” came the quiet reply. “You don’t know me, and you don’t owe me your time or your privacy.”

“It’s fine, Jasper. Like I said, when I came out here, I wanted to be alone, but… hearing your voice… having you listen to me prattle on… it’s been… it’s been really nice.” He swallowed the lump in his throat with some difficulty and added, “It’s been a while since I’ve had someone actively take an interest in me, you know?”

“I know.”

Those two words marked Jasper out as a kindred spirit, and an unspoken understanding coiled its way across the vast distance between them.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Bowen murmured.

“Tomorrow.”

Feeling oddly flushed, Bowen set the wine down and put the radio on to charge, then stepped out into the chilly autumn night. There were no other lights visible but the stars, so wherever Jasper was, he didn’t have as prominent a position as the lookout did in the landscape.

Mist curled up in the base of the valley from the river that ran along the gully between two folds of the mountain range. The stars formed a network of glittering pinpricks, and as the soft sounds of the forest at night washed over him, a profound calm settled around Bowen’s shoulders like a physical weight.

The hike the next day was gorgeous, if a little more strenuous than he’d been anticipating, but once he’d showered off the grit and sweat in the little camping shower in the shed down at ground level, and had rushed up the stairs with nothing but his towel around his waist, he got cosy in the armchair again with a cup of tea, and reached for the radio receiver. Flicking it to channel three, he hesitated, oddly apprehensive about being the one to reach out. And in daylight hours too. Sunset was still a good few hours away. It felt more casual somehow, and yet more intimate; like they were friends and not merely, well, whatever they were. ‘Radio acquaintances’ perhaps.

“Grow up,” he growled at himself, and hit the button. “Jasper?”

When he received no answer, his stomach dropped, but after trying again ten minutes later, he was met with that familiar, rumbling voice, and his heart leapt. “Bowen. It’s good to hear your voice.”

“You too.”

“How was the hike?”

Bowen spent the next hour detailing everything he’d seen and experienced, and Jasper listened, interjecting every now and again so that Bowen knew they hadn’t dropped out of contact, and laughing his gorgeous, attractive laugh at all the right moments. He was a wonderful, attentive listener, and Bowen felt like he’d never talked so much in his whole life. Certainly Mike had never been interested enough in what he got up to in a day to spend so much time listening to him talk about it.

Bowen supposed that over the years he’d just trained himself to think that what he had to say wasn’t of any importance. That the things that mattered to him, didn’t matter to anyone else.

But Jasper, listening and laughing quietly on the other end of the radio, made him feel… valued again.

Evening filtered down around the tower again, but Bowen barely noticed its arrival.

It was only when Jasper waited for a lull in the conversation to say, “You haven’t turned your lights on…” that Bowen even realised what time it was.

Then, of course, his stomach rumbled raucously and he laughed. “Did you hear that?”

“No, what happened?” Jasper asked, with just the slightest flutter of anxiety in his voice.

Still laughing, Bowen got to his aching feet and patted his soft paunch a little. “My damned tummy rumbled so loudly I figured you could hear it from three valleys over, or wherever are. Where are you, by the way? I mean, which direction? I never asked.”

“I’m north of you,” Jasper replied. “Go put some lights on and get some food, Bowen.”

The way he said it sounded so fondly concerned that it choked Bowen up all over again. “Yeah. Will do,” he said. “You have a good evening too, Jasper.”

Setting the receiver down, he crossed and flicked on the little lamp in the corner. A second or two after he did, Jasper’s voice crackled over the radio, “Goodnight, Bowen.”

“Night,” Bowen exhaled into the empty room before he began stoking the log burner and finally heating up some water to make pasta.

The next week passed in much the same vein.

Either Bowen went for a hike along one of the suggested trails in the booklet, or he stayed in and wrote, and in the evening, he told Jasper about his day.

By the time he’d been there for just over two weeks, he felt like Jasper knew him better than almost anyone, save perhaps Lavinia. And he’d never even met the man.

“Listen, I’m going into Pinewatch tomorrow to do a restock run,” he said on their habitual dusk-time chat. “I know you’re fifty miles in the other direction, but is there anything you want? I could meet you somewhere if there is…”

Jasper remained silent for longer than usual, and when he reappeared on the radio, he sounded different. “No, thank you,” he said, his voice breathy and even grittier than usual.

“You sure?”

“Yes, but… I’m touched that you offered.”

“Ok, well, don’t blame me if you’re craving chocolate in a week’s time and you didn’t ask me to pick you up some.”

Jasper laughed, long and low, and Bowen inhaled steadily through his nose. Over the past week, he’d come every night and every morning, dreaming of that deep voice and that warm laugh. He’d imagined unseen hands skimming up his thighs, and as he lay there on his back with his eyes closed and his hand beneath his boxers, he imagined the wet heat of Jasper’s mouth sinking down around his cock. That was all very well for the privacy of his bed, but it had started to make their radio calls sweet torture for him, what with his damned dick responding the way he’d conditioned it to when thinking of that laugh and that voice.

“If you’re too tired when you get back from Pinewatch, don’t feel obliged to call me,” Jasper said, “I’ll look out for the lights, as usual.”

“Fuck…” Bowen exhaled roughly.

“Bowen?”

“It’s like you wait up for me,” he admitted.

“I… I do…” he said. “Now.”

“That’s pretty new for me.”

“And for me,” he said. “I… I didn’t want to admit it in case it made you uncomfortable. I swear I can’t see you or anything so… intrusive. The tower is barely more than a pinprick of light on the horizon.”

“You looking at it now?” Bowen asked, the pitch of his voice dropping by a few notes.

A slight breath ghosted across the microphone on Jasper’s end. “Yes.”

In order to distract himself from the fact that all the blood in his body was starting to pool in his crotch, Bowen crossed to the window and pressed his palm against the cold pane of glass. “I’m looking out of the north side.”

For a while, Jasper said nothing, but after a minute, he said, “I’ve never had this with anyone before. I was friends with the lookout before he retired, but… we didn’t talk often. Certainly not every night like this.”

“You want to meet up?” Bowen blurted, waiting with his heart pounding for the reply.

When it didn’t come — when nothing came over the radio — for a long time, he felt his anxiety start to choke in his throat.

“Jasper?”

“No,” came a quick-fire response. “That’s not a good idea.”

Disappointment clattered through him like falling church bells, resonating in all the dark and insecure parts of him, and he withdrew his hand from the glass, turning his back on the window and sitting down heavily on the bed, which was the nearest piece of furniture.

“Sure. It’s probably best to keep it like this anyway,” he said. “Listen, I’m going to turn in early tonight, ok? Uh… over and out…”

And with that, he dropped the receiver onto the bed and sat breathing steadily through his nose for a long time.

Nothing like sitting in a dark room with the shards of a shattered fantasy lying at your feet to bring down the mood of a holiday.

Sleep came reluctantly to him, and he woke gritty-eyed and restless for the first time since the storm in the first part of his stay.

Bowen spent the day in Pinewatch and the surrounding area, calling Lavinia for a catchup but conveniently leaving out the radio conversations, before visiting the little general store on the main street. With his shopping complete and his drinking water restocked, he climbed back into his truck as the afternoon ground down towards evening. He sat in the driver’s seat with the huge cool box secured on the floor of the passenger side and a crate of fresh fruit and veg beside it, and stared into the distance without really seeing the passers by on the street outside or even the battered, red pickup truck parked right in front of his.

A spell had been carefully woven around the lookout cabin during those first two weeks, but, like a snagged spiderweb, it had been broken in a moment when he’d asked to meet Jasper.

It had all just been a fantasy. Two lonely souls pouring their hearts out into the night.

To meet someone in the flesh would be to face the disappointing reality that they were probably just two mediocre, ordinary people, living mediocre, ordinary lives.

Besides, there had to be a reason that Jasper lived all the way out there in the literal middle of literal nowhere. Maybe he was a serial killer, or a convict on the run. Maybe that was why he hadn’t wanted anyone to know why he had a radio.

The more Bowen thought about it, the more he regretted allowing himself to buy into this fairytale he’d spun for himself, and by the time the truck jolted to a halt on the gravel outside the tower well after dark, he had resolved to unplug the radio and turn off the receiver. If Jasper was worried about him, he could damned well look south and know that Bowen was there, but didn’t feel like talking.

Three days passed with Bowen in a complete funk.

The weather didn’t help either, going from gloriously clear autumn to flat, grey mist and mizzle that smothered the forest and choked all the daylight out so that Bowen had to keep the lights running in the cabin even during the daytime if he wanted to feel even half awake. He also kept the fire going because it was damp and cold, and his incredible writing streak dried up to absolutely nothing.

He deleted an entire day’s worth of writing the plot in the wrong direction, reverting to an old draft, and sat back in the armchair to stare out at the fog that pressed its face against the glass like a ghost trying to get in. He shivered and added another log to the fire.

After a full week of no contact on the radio — of keeping it completely switched off — Bowen packed his rucksack on the next clear day and headed out on a new trail that he’d spotted from his pickup while jouncing along the track up to the lookout. By now, his body had grown accustomed to the longer hikes, and so long as he took enough water and enough snacks, he usually got through the ten to twelve mile trails without feeling too sore.

However, for the first time since starting his little hiking routine up at the lookout, he must have taken a wrong turn, and when he realised he was completely off the trail he’d thought he was on, he stopped and stared at the map with wide eyes.

“Shit,” he hissed, looking from the map to his surroundings and back again. There was no way he could make the two match up. In front of him was a shallow but fast-flowing river, dotted with rocks that looked like the humped backs of tiny, mythical creatures just waiting to sprout limbs and bumble their way upstream in a little herd. He might have smiled at the thought if he hadn’t been miles and miles from home, with the autumn daylight fast disappearing towards dusk.

“Why didn’t I check the fucking map sooner?” he growled.

Exhaling, he decided to backtrack while he still had enough daylight. If necessary, he could stop. He’d brought his small fire-making pack, and while it would definitely be a cold night without a tent and sleeping bag, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. He could still see the stars, which meant it would be dry, if cold, and there wasn’t much wind beyond a light stirring of the speckled gold and amber leaves above him.

He passed a line of aspen trees and tried not to jump at shadows as adrenaline built in his body and saturated every muscle with a quivering kind of tension that felt horribly like being prey.

Something flickered along his vision on his right hand side though, and he stopped and stared.

“Probably just a deer,” he muttered, but the forest had gone quiet in a way he’d not experienced before.

Earlier, jay birds had squawked and scolded him, and innumerable tiny birds had burbled away to each other like gossipping washerwomen, but now the chatter of the forest had fallen utterly still, and every snap of a twig beneath his boots and every grinding crunch of gravel felt out of place and terribly, intrusively loud.

He really did feel like a deer now, waiting for the leaping pounce of a big cat from the shadows.

“Fucking… stop it,” he chided himself. “Get a grip. There are no bears or big cats in these parts.”

Before long, Bowen stopped recognising this trail too, and realised he had wandered away from the route he’d taken to get there, and was now completely lost.

“Fuck…”

A fallen fir tree made for a good spot to stop and gather himself, so he unslung his pack from his shoulders, took a long drink from his CamelBak, and unwrapped a protein bar to give himself the energy and the comfort to start thinking more clearly.

The map case also housed his compass, so at least he could figure out which direction he was facing, but before he could work out the best course of action — stopping or forging on into the fading twilight — a branch snapped nearby and he twitched around.

For a moment, he didn't see it.

It looked like another tree, but it was darker and more vine-wrapped and twisted than the surrounding pale stems of silver birch, and his gaze drifted back to it when he realised what was out of place.

He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him — his brain seeing patterns where there was only the chaos of nature — but when it moved, his brain seemed to ice over with the horror of what he was actually seeing.

A tree was moving.

A tree that had a humanoid form.

He saw legs of woven bramble and long, gangling arms of honeysuckle sinew and root-like claws, with trailing creepers for hair and a face like a hollowed-out log and a rotten mouth gaping and spilling over with maggots.

With a scream, he scrambled to his feet and fell over the log, abandoning map and rucksack both as he bolted up the twisting deer path in a blind panic.

Glancing over his shoulder, he found the… thing… following at a steady pace along the winding track behind him.

“Holy shit,” he gasped, lungs burning as he raced up the incline out of the gully and up onto a short band of summer-tired meadow grass. The stalks had bleached and were now drained of their summer vitality as the plants put all their energy into making seed heads. Fluffy dandelion puffs wafted past him like dust motes as he charged through the meadow, but the ground began to shake and slip away beneath him.

Looking down, he saw roots racing along through the earth, snagging at the laces of his boots and at the hem of his walking trousers. Little barbs scratched at his socks and then bit into his flesh as more roots tangled around his calves and ankles, and he went down with a crash, landing hard on his hands.

All the air left his lungs in a harsh shout of terror as his lower body was encased in writhing green tendrils, and he thrashed over onto his back and screamed, jerking and scrabbling at the roots as they locked him against the cold ground and started to constrict him.

Out of the gathering dusk at the edge of the clearing, he saw the tree-figure again and he was pretty sure he screamed again, though his ears were ringing too loudly for anything to register.

The entity advanced on him slowly, regarding him with dead, black eye sockets. Maggots spilled freely from its gaping mouth, tumbling down onto the floor at its feet where they burst in a rain of black liquid. From the fluid that erupted from them, mushrooms sprouted, filling the air at the creature’s feet with a cloud of greenish yellow spores.

Terror overwhelmed him utterly and he strained against the bindings that held him fast. Soon though even breathing became impossible; his ribs unable to lift, the pressure building on his chest until he couldn’t draw in more than the tiniest little snatch of a breath.

For what felt like hours, the creature above him just stood there.

It was as though it was waiting for him to suffocate to death before it did whatever it was going to do to him. Perhaps it was going to suck him dry like a spider with an ensnared fly, or perhaps it was going to use the meat of his body to grow a forest of mushrooms like he’d seen in an episode of some gruesome television show.

“Please…” he hissed, exhausted, sweating, freezing and still terrified out of his wits. “Please let me go…”

Bowen had no idea how much time passed from his capture until true night descended on the forest, but just as he’d abandoned all hope of ever escaping his bindings alive, a screaming roar rent the night air above the clearing and he heard the beating of enormous wings.

In the down-draft as something dark and massive entered the sky above the tiny meadow and blocked out the hazy blur of stars above, more dandelion puffs lifted and spiralled above him, and he watched with vague vision as a creature that had to be seven feet tall stretched its massive, leathery wingspan wide and growled deep and resonant at the treelike creature.

Was this why he’d not been devoured? Was the thing holding him so that this new creature could tear him to pieces with those dark, taloned hands?

“He is not for you,” a thunderous voice spat. “He is not. For. You. Release him.”

A protest like splintering wood sounded, creaking and shrieking and groaning, and the vines tightened around his chest so the meagre inhales he’d been snatching for hours dwindled to nothing at all, and his ribs groaned in protest.

The grey-black creature above him yelled an unfamiliar word that sounded like a name, issued as a command, and then roared, “Release him!”

Bowen gasped and sucked in a great chest-full of air as the tendrils encasing him suddenly retracted, retreating through the dying grass like so many slender snakes. Coughing and choking, chest heaving, Bowen stared blearily up at the bipedal creature and took in the animalistic legs and taloned feet, the slender but incredibly defined legs, the muscular arms that ended in knuckly, clawed fingers, the narrow waist leading up to broad shoulders that bore the weight of those magnificent, bat-like wings, and wondered if he’d completely lost his mind.

Seen from behind, the silhouette of the creature seemed to have devil’s horns that curved upwards and inwards, but as the attacking entity retreated into the treeline and the dark, winged creature in front of him half-turned as if to regard him, Bowen realised in the darkness that they were in fact upright ears like a bat’s. The glimpse he caught of the face though was like a monstrous gargoyle, with jutting canines and a squashed, bat-like nose, and deeply-recessed, glittering black eyes.

“Oh my god,” he whispered, and felt any remaining strength in his limbs just… dissolve.

He lay flat on his back on the trampled grass and stared as the creature’s wings retracted, folding almost delicately along its back, and it seemed to force itself to turn around, its movements shaky and grinding as an old hinge that refuses to move.

“Are… Are you hurt?” the voice said, and as he truly listened to it this time, Bowen’s world did a strange, dissonant shift.

He knew that voice.

He’d listened to it almost every night for a fortnight, save for the past week when he’d deliberately shut it out.

No.

It couldn’t be.

When he didn’t respond, only stared blankly up at the silhouette in the dark, the creature approached and dropped to one knee beside him, its huge, clawed hands fluttering inches from Bowen’s chest where the vines had constricted his ribs.

“Bowen? Oh gods, it’s you, isn’t it? Please, please tell me you’re not hurt…” the creature hissed through a clenched jaw, lips pulled back off its teeth to reveal the curved length of its canines. “Gods, please…”

“I’m… I’m ok… I think…” he finally choked out.

At his words, the creature’s head bowed and he exhaled a great, whooshing sigh. The wings that had been drawn up around his shoulders fell like toppling stage scenery to the floor and trailed in the grass, one of them brushing against Bowen’s shin.

“Jasper?” he whispered, and the creature fell utterly still.

Without raising its head, it spoke. “I didn’t know it was you. I didn’t know she had you. If… If I’d known, I’d have come for you sooner. When I didn’t see the lights in the tower though, I… I went looking though. I’m… I’m sorry.” He sighed expansively into the silence that followed his slightly panicked torrent of words. “Well, at least now you know why I didn’t want you to see me.”

Slowly, gasping around bruised ribs, Bowen struggled to sit upright, and the creature rose fluidly and stepped back, almost blending with the gathering night as he backed up and up.

“Wait… Let me see you.”

Jasper halted. Then, after a resigned exhale, he paced nearer and stood there with his wings hanging dejectedly off his back and his arms softly by his sides.

“What are you?” Bowen asked, still unable to give his question proper voice, the sound barely louder than the breeze whispering through the papery autumn leaves around them.

With those bat-like ears though, Jasper clearly had no trouble hearing him. “My kind has always lived in these parts, but we have no real name for what we are. I was afraid that you would look at me and name me monster though.”

Bowen’s eyes drifted to the trail of festering decay that the retreating forest entity had left behind it and said darkly, “Something that attacks without provocation is a monster.”

“She follows her nature,” he sighed. “And it is in her nature to consume.”

“And yours?”

“To protect.”

Like a gargoyle indeed, Bowen mused.

“I didn’t realise I’d left the trail until I was completely turned around,” he sighed, rubbing his ribs and trying to stand.

When he staggered and the world slipped sideways again, Jasper rushed forwards to steady him. Those clawed hands closed around his forearms and held him upright, and for the first time, Bowen felt truly held.

Whether it was the shock of what had just happened to him, or relief at finding himself still alive, he didn’t know, but he rocked sideways against Jasper’s leathery chest, and let out the kind of whimper he’d been holding back for months.

Jasper didn’t hesitate, and closed his arms around Bowen, wings following suit, until he was completely enveloped again. This time though, he felt so safe it made him cry.

For a long time, they stayed like that, until the juddering tears turned into shivering, and goosebumps rushed across Bowen’s flesh as the true temperature of the late night finally registered.

“You need to get back to the lookout,” Jasper said. “I… I can fly you there, if you wish.”

“What?”

“It will be colder than walking, but much, much quicker.”

“Fly me?”

He stared up at Jasper’s face and took in the details properly for the first time; the completely black eyes, with no visible sclera or pupil, the flattened nose like a bat’s, and the ridges and folds like moulded leather.

“I thought you said your eyes are red?” he asked, and to his surprise, Jasper chuckled.

“They are. It’s too dark for you to see that just now.”

“Oh.”

His ears had curved lines and ridges like a shell, funnelling the sounds downwards, and at his shoulders his darker skin seemed to shine like a piece of burnished leather armour, or even chitin. The texture of his chest was again like armour, or a lava flow that had cooled in folds and ridges, and as he took in all the details, Bowen realised that in the wake of his fear, he found Jasper utterly, mesmerisingly beautiful.

“Bowen?”

Jasper’s low voice was soft, just barely there, but it cut through his thoughts and brought a slight warmth to his cheeks. “Sorry. I… This is all just… a lot.”

“I can imagine. Would you like me to lead you back to the lookout on foot, or fly you.”

Something swooped inside his gut at that, and he huffed a slightly wild laugh. “Fly. I’ve always wanted to fly.” After a beat he added with a concerned frown, “Though I have no idea how you’re going to pick me up, let alone take off. I’m not exactly… uh… light.”

“I’ll manage,” Jasper said and there was a new smirk in his tone that went all the way down through Bowen’s poor, confused body to his cock, especially as Jasper approached and placed one arm around Bowen’s broad shoulders and seemed to be preparing to crouch down to scoop him up under his legs.

“You’re going to carry me bridal-style?” Bowen practically yelped, going tense and still.

“It was that or like a bear cub on my front,” he grinned back, his sharp upper and lower canines flashing in the darkness. “But it’s much easier this way.”

Bowen snorted, shook his head, and relinquished whatever was left of his dignity after the strangeness of the evening’s events.

“Ready?” Jasper asked, and when he nodded, the strange creature crouched, laced his arm under Bowen’s knees, and leapt upwards.

His powerful legs launched them both up into the air, and Bowen let out an undignified shriek that he was not proud of, and clung to Jasper’s muscular neck with both arms as those leathery wings beat once, twice, three times, over and over, until they had cleared the trees.

“Holy… shit…” Bowen exhaled as he braved a glance over his shoulder at the forest rushing past, only a few metres beneath. “Holy shit!”

Jasper’s chuckle was a little strained, but he didn’t seem to be struggling overly much with the weight of a six foot, grown man in his arms as he flew.

“I’m flying,” Bowen whispered, wide eyed. “I’m actually flying…”

In only a few minutes, the distant ridge-line with the lookout tower came into view, and he saw, silhouetted against the slightly lighter sky, the switchback ladders of the staircase and the little cube of windows and wooden walls sitting atop it.

For all that he’d been out walking for the entire day, as the crow flew — or, as Jasper flew — the journey home was direct and only took perhaps twenty minutes.

Jasper had been right though: flying was cold.

By the time Jasper’s wings flared wide and he banked upwards, clearing the railing and landing with a stagger on the wooden wrap-around balcony, Bowen was shivering.

Jasper’s arms shook a little as he let him down, and he leaned his weight against the railing behind him for a moment.

“You alright?” Bowen asked, looking up at his strange features in the darkness.

“Yes,” he grunted. “It’s been a while since I’ve flown with… another.”

“A while? You mean… you’ve done that before?”

“I was friends with the lookout here before he retired.” His voice sounded thin and winded, but he didn’t look as exhausted as Bowen had expected.

“Friends, or…?” Bowen asked without thinking through the implications of the question.

“Or,” Jasper confirmed rather dryly, with a little roll of his eyes. “Now, you need to go inside and change into something warm. I would suggest a shower, but the system won’t heat up for a while, if I remember correctly.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Go, Bowen,” he said, and turned his head away, his hand resting on the wooden balustrade.

Bowen looked at the onyx talons at the end of his knuckly fingers, looking more like the gauntlets of a set of fantasy armour than anything he’d ever experienced, but when he reached out and put his own palm down gently over the pronounced tendons and slightly protruding veins on the back of Jasper’s hand, it was as warm as a human’s. Certainly warmer than Bowen’s at that moment.

Jasper fell still for a moment, then turned his head slowly back to regard Bowen.

“Thank you,” Bowen said. “You saved my life back there, and I’ve behaved like a child this week. Will you… Will you stay? While I change?”

Jasper shook his head. “I need to hunt… I need to feed.”

“Oh.” With a long sigh, Bowen let go and turned to unlock the door, and only then realised that the keys were in the rucksack which had been abandoned near the log in his frantic escape attempt. “Shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

When he’d explained, Jasper nodded. “I’ll bring it.”

Without waiting, he vaulted over the railing and glided off into the night, his wings silent as a bat’s in the dark.

With nothing else to do but sit huddled against the door, Bowen sank onto the wooden platform and hugged his knees, turning everything over.

It definitely hadn’t all been some kind of hallucination — the access hatch in the platform that led to the stairs was still up; exactly how he’d left it when he’d headed out for the walk earlier. And his bruised ribs were all too real.

Twenty minutes ticked past, night pressing in around him and sinking into his skin. He was truly cold by the time he heard the softest whisper of air passing over leathery wings, and when Jasper’s strange form loomed in out of the darkness and he vaulted back over the railing with his rucksack in his clawed hands, Bowen was cold to the bone.

“Bowen?” Jasper sounded concerned and knelt beside him. “You’re too cold. Come, can you stand?”

He helped Bowen to his feet and asked him where the keys were in the rucksack. In under five minutes, Jasper had unlocked the lookout and shepherded Bowen inside, instructing him to strip out of his damp, scuffed and muddy clothes. While Bowen changed into something fresh and warm, Jasper kindled a fire in the log burner for him and began to stoke it until it blazed bright and golden in the lookout.

Bowen fumbled his fleece on last and turned to watch the play of firelight and shadow over the incredible, carved muscles of Jasper’s back where he was crouched in front of the burner, and he stared openly at the inviting narrowness of his waist. Jasper didn’t seem to have hair on his body, and he certainly didn't have any clothing on, so Bowen was also treated to the sight of his muscular backside as he pushed himself upright and turned to look at Bowen from beside the fire. Bowen had the decency not to stare between his legs, but only just.

“Are you alright?” Jasper asked him in that warm, familiar baritone.

“Yes,” Bowen breathed, then, “Is this real? Are you real?”

Jasper nodded slowly. “It’s been a lot for you to take in, I know. Will you be alright now?”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

With a final dip of his head, Jasper headed for the door. “I will hunt for perhaps an hour. After that, if you need me…”

“Channel three.”

The tension melted from Jasper’s incredible shoulders and he smiled. “Channel three.”

Bowen spent the rest of the evening in a daze, barely tasting the mediocre pot noodles he made himself for supper, and went to bed with his head spinning.

Despite his exhaustion from the hike and the subsequent attack, sleep refused to come, and by two in the morning, he had given up.

Flicking on the light in the corner of the room, he stared around at the glass, half expecting to find some monstrous face pressed up against it, but he saw only his own reflection again. He tried to read, but his mind kept skipping words.

Finally, he made himself a cup of tea and stared at the receiver in the corner of the room.

He was across the room in three strides, and had hailed Jasper before he really knew what he was doing. “Jasper? Are… Are you there?”

He waited with the receiver in trembling hands, but he didn’t have to wait long.

“I’m here. Are you well?”

“I’m fine. I just… I couldn't sleep. Not after… Not after everything. You know?”

“Of course.”

“If you’re picking this up, that means you must be back home.”

“Yes. But I can see your light. I was worried when it stayed on.”

“You were watching?”

“I was keeping an eye out.”

Again, the knowledge that Bowen had lingered in someone’s thoughts for that long warmed him as well as that fire had earlier, and he sighed. “Can I see you again? I mean, can we start again now that I know about you?”

The pause made Bowen’s ears ring, but finally Jasper responded. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, of course I’m sure. I…”

Jasper sighed audibly and said, “I shouldn’t come during daylight. It’s remote here, but it’s still risky.”

“Of course,” Bowen said, pushing his own disappointment aside. This wasn’t about him; it was about Jasper’s life. If someone saw him, or worse photographed him, it could mean persecution, study in a lab, or even death. “I didn’t think of that. I wasn’t planning on going anywhere tomorrow anyway, so… you know… after sunset is fine…”

“Bowen, would you like me there now? Is that why you reached out?”

Yes. The word was on the tip of his tongue. He ached for company in a way he never had before. Specifically, for Jasper’s.

“You don’t have to do that. You’ve flown, what… forty miles already today? And half of that was with heavy cargo. No, it’s fine. We’ve talked on the radio before.”

“If you ask me to, I’ll come. I’m used to flying much greater distances than this, so that’s no trouble to me.”

“… really?”

“Yes.”

“Then… if… if it’s no trouble to you — or at least… — yes. Please.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

Bowen crossed the room and tossed a few logs onto the glowing embers of the fire that he’d planned to let die while he slept, and sank onto his bed to watch the flames lick up the sides of the logs.

When a tapping sounded at the glass-paned door, he fairly leapt out of his skin, and his heart still slid sideways in his chest at the monstrous form standing outside, even though he knew it was only Jasper, and that he was safe.

Puffing out a quick breath, he stood and opened it, shifting to one side to let the strange creature enter. As he walked past, wings stowed, he brought with him the scent of ozone and pine needles and supple leather, and Bowen inhaled.

“Thank you,” he breathed. “I… I’m not normally the kind of person who can’t be alone.”

“I rather suspect you wouldn’t have booked a remote fire lookout for a month if you were,” Jasper replied dryly, and Bowen laughed.

“I’d offer you something to eat or drink, but I don’t know what to offer you.”

“I’m alright, thank you.”

Awkward silence billowed between them. A log snapped and popped behind the glass of the burner and Bowen jumped again.

“I was afraid of this,” Jasper sighed.

“Of what?”

Jasper shook his head a little and half turned away. His body, sinuous as living stone, fascinated Bowen instantly and he stared openly. “That knowing what I am would change everything. That I would… unsettle you, at best.”

“You don’t unsettle me. Not now,” Bowen said, closing the distance between them and pressing his hand around the vambrace of his lower arm. His skin was hard but still supple, just like burnished leather, and despite the cold night outside, Jasper was warm. Bowen squeezed his grip a little tighter and stepped right in front of him. With his other hand, he reached up and pressed his palm flat across Jasper’s chest.

His pectoral muscle twitched and his torso heaved as he sucked in a breath through softly parted lips, his huge canines sliding into sight behind dark lips and his eyes rolling.

“It’s been a long time,” he finally rasped, “Since anyone touched me.”

“Me too,” Bowen smiled, then he yawned unexpectedly.

Jasper’s hands closed on his waist and Bowen felt his knees go a little weak. “Come… let’s get comfortable and you can ask me anything you like about me.”

The only piece of furniture that would comfortably fit both of them was the single bed in the corner of the room, but Bowen didn't object as Jasper led him over to it and drew back the covers for him. The bed was pushed up against the cabin’s wall, and the windows came down almost to the same height as the mattress, so as Bowen climbed in first and looked up at the reflection, he saw Jasper hesitate.

“You can get in too, you know?” he murmured. “I mean, if your wings will fit. How do you normally sleep?”

“Hanging upside down from the cave ceiling,” he said deadpan, and Bowen jerked around.

“Seriously?”

“No,” he chuckled. “I can fold them out of the way, or against my body.”

“Jesus, you had me for a second there.”

Jasper smirked, showing off one side of his upper canines, and then climbed in to lie on his side behind Bowen, with his wings draped off the side of the bed like curtains.

With the warmth of Jasper’s body pressed against his own, and the weight of his hand on Bowen’s hip, Bowen never even got to ask him a single question before sleep wrapped its arms around him too and drew him down.

While sleep had come upon him suddenly, awareness dawned slowly the following morning. Warm breath brushed in regular sighs across the nape of his neck, and the solid, steady weight of an arm remained slung across his waist. There was also a weight along his whole body that was far heavier than the blankets he had grown accustomed to, and when he convinced himself to blink his eyes open, he sucked in a sharp breath; not quite of surprise, but perhaps of sudden awe.

Just above him sat the ‘thumb’ joint of Jasper’s wing, with its hooked talon shining in the morning sun that streamed in through the windows on all sides. Slowly turning his head, Bowen looked back to see Jasper’s face on the pillow behind him. His eyes were closed, his lips very slightly parted, and he was taking slow and deep breaths. Occasionally, his fingers twitched and his eyes roved back and forth behind those smoke-grey lids, but otherwise, he seemed perfectly at peace.

Bowen drank in the sight of him, staring in wonder for a long time, before he finally reached up and ran the very tip of his finger around the base of the talon on the wing that rested over him like the slanted roof of a shelter. The whole wing twitched a little and Jasper’s sleeping breaths hitched, but he didn’t wake. When Bowen continued to run his finger down the delicate architecture of his wing though, the fingers at Bowen’s hip tightened and Jasper let out a long, deep moan as he woke and murmured Bowen’s name. He felt the breath of it across the nape of his neck, and shivered a little.

“Morning,” Bowen said, his voice thick and rough with sleep.

“How are you feeling?” Jasper asked.

“Good, surprisingly. Yesterday was quite the day.”

“Mn,” Jasper agreed.

Slowly, Bowen rolled over to face him, and Jasper let him. From that angle, Bowen could see his eyes and as the light hit them just right, he realised they truly weren’t black as he’d thought yesterday in the dark, but were in fact a beautiful, rust red, like glass.

“You’re really beautiful,” he whispered, trailing his fingers over the ridges and lines of Jasper’s strange face. Somewhere between human and bat, the features were rugged but refined, like a cliff smoothed by the passage of wind and sand.

“You have the most wonderful eyes,” Jasper replied, and when Bowen smiled bashfully at him, he smiled back and revealed those animal canines.

When Bowen’s fingers wandered down Jasper’s face to his collarbones and over the huge muscles that helped him unfurl his wings though, Jasper sucked in a breath and rocked his head back with a moan that was nothing shy of filthy. “Bowen,” he growled, his grip tightening still further on Bowen’s hips.

“You want me to stop?”

“No,” he replied immediately, gasping and shuddering as he half rolled onto his back with another gasp, trapping his wing awkwardly beneath him. He didn’t seem to notice, nor to mind. “I don’t want you to do something that will… oh… that will make you uncomfortable, but… I don’t want you to stop…”

“It’s ok to touch you then?”

“Yes…”

Bowen explored all the contours of Jasper’s body, discovering where he was most sensitive, and what made his back arch right up off the bed, his clawed, animalistic hind legs flicking the covers back as he kicked out in pleasure. His jaw parted in a silent gasp of pleasure as Bowen's fingers trailed down over what was obviously the sheath of his cock. The skin was soft as velvet, and as he circled the soft mound again, dragging his fingertips over it, the bright red tip of his hardening cock appeared, leaking already.

“You want me to keep going?” he asked, a little breathless. He’d never wanted anyone this much and he’d never felt so… powerful. Just one glance at those talons on Jasper’s claws and the length of those canines and the power behind all those muscles showed Bowen that Jasper could kill him in the blink of an eye. He could crush him, maim him, tear out his throat, but instead, he’d submitted to Bowen’s gentle, explorative touch, and had let him do whatever he wanted to him.

“Please…” Jasper groaned. “Your touch… It’s… I’m so close already… I’m sorry… it’s… it’s been…”

“Shh,” Bowen smiled, leaning down over him and kissing him on the mouth. “I know.” His lips were warm and gentle against Bowen’s and he kissed as though Bowen were made of glass or sugar, ready to shatter or dissolve if he pushed too hard or too far.

Emboldened by the fact that Jasper’s slick cock unsheathed itself in a single motion in his hand, revealing a long, thick, red length with ridges on the underside like those on the rest of his body, Bowen shucked off his pyjamas and when he turned back to look at Jasper, he found him staring with unmistakable hunger in his eyes.

He clearly saw the softness around Bowen’s middle that had only grown as he’d stopped taking proper care of himself in the aftermath of the breakup, and just as Bowen started to feel the prickle of self-consciousness, Jasper’s cock twitched again and drooled clear pre-come all over the ridges of his lower torso, and a shudder went through Jasper’s whole body.

“I want you,” Jasper snarled. “I want to taste you…”

Bowen had hardly had the chance to nod and lie back before Jasper was on top of him, nuzzling his legs apart and groaning as he rubbed his cheek against the inside of Bowen’s thigh. His clawed hands held Bowen’s legs wide, leaving him vulnerable and unspeakably aroused. His balls clenched tight in anticipation as Jasper licked and bit his way up Bowen’s inner thigh and then let his long, ash-grey tongue lave over the contours of his sensitive, full balls.

“Oh God,” Bowen cried out, arching as those delicate claws added a perfect counterpoint to the insistent pressure of Jasper’s tongue in places no one had ever cared to touch him.

Jasper rutted against Bowen’s shins as he closed his dangerous mouth around Bowen’s hard cock and sucked. Slick with saliva, he worked his ridged soft palate up and down Bowen’s length, his tongue supporting its weight, and Bowen knew he was done for.

As Jasper swirled his tongue around the head of Bowen’s cock again and then swallowed around a moan, cupping and cradling his balls in one hand, Bowen felt his orgasm rip through him and he didn’t even have time to warn Jasper.

But Jasper swallowed him down and kept suckling his cock until he had nothing left to give, and Bowen slumped back into the pillows behind him, spent and dazed.

“Come over me, Jasper,” he hissed, opening his eyes and staring up at him from under heavy lids. “Please…” He could see Jasper’s red cock hanging heavy between them, long lines of pre-come stretching down from it to drool across Bowen’s thighs when Jasper moved even the tiniest bit, and under his scrutiny, it jerked and another load leaked out.

Jasper shuddered, nodded, and crawled up the bed a little way.

With one hand braced by Bowen’s shoulders, and his knees straddling Bowen’s hips, he stripped his huge, red, cock in his fist. Pre-come rolled freely between his clawed fingers and down over his knuckles, and Bowen stared in awe while he lay beneath him. Drops of Jasper’s arousal started to drip down from his fist onto Bowen’s stomach and he ran his fingertips through them before reaching up for Jasper’s chest and then up to his neck.

As his fingers brushed against the point where Jasper’s wings spread out from his shoulders, and ran them along the membrane, Jasper gasped, snarled, bared his teeth, and spilled in long, hot ropes of release all over Bowen’s torso.

His narrow hips thrust his cock repeatedly into his clenched fist and he gripped his grey fingers tight around his cock as it spurted, and Bowen moaned at the sight of Jasper’s whole body going taut.

Slowly, his orgasm faded and he bowed his head, chest heaving, until eventually he sat back on his heels and regarded Bowen with an almost sheepish look.

“That was beautiful,” Bowen murmured around a hazy smile.

“I made a terrible mess of you,” Jasper said, regarding Bowen’s stomach and chest.

Jasper stayed to wipe Bowen clean with a wash cloth and, while Bowen braved the shower below, Jasper remained in the lookout, stoking the fire again before stepping out onto the wraparound deck.

He was standing there, staring off across his forest, when Bowen climbed the stairs in his towel again, and only looked around over his shoulder to watch him as he passed and headed inside to dress. He continued to watch Bowen dress from the other side of the glass, and when Bowen was wrapped up in a fleece and his scruffy jeans again, he watched with those now-black-now-red eyes as Bowen approached him.

“What now?” Bowen asked as he tucked himself up against Jasper’s body and let his wing shelter him from the wind that had picked up over the course of that morning.

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know. This has all been… a lot.”

“I understand.”

Bowen glanced up at him. “What do you want?”

Jasper smiled, though it didn’t touch his eyes. He looked achingly sad. He looked like he knew it wouldn’t last.  

Sliding his arm around Jasper’s narrow waist, Bowen hugged him sidelong, and Jasper tightened his wing reflexively around Bowen’s shoulders.

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” Jasper said, so softly Bowen almost missed it. “You’ll return to your city in a few days. I can’t follow you there.”

“No, but I can work remotely,” Bowen smiled. “And this place is nothing but remote…”

“I couldn't ask that of you, Bowen.”

“You didn’t. Tell you what: why don’t I get in touch with the rangers’ station and see if anyone’s booked the lookout for the rest of the season. I’ve got enough saved up to book it, and we can get to know each other. If it works out, we can think about what comes next, and if it doesn’t, at least I’ll have somewhere peaceful to finish my novel.”

For a while, Jasper stared out at the trees in silence, simply holding Bowen against his body. “You would do that… for me?”

“For us, but yeah. I would.”

Jasper nuzzled the crown of Bowen’s head with his cheek, and Bowen became gradually aware of a gentle vibration.

“Are you… purring?”

“Yes,” Jasper chuckled. “I’m about as pleased and as surprised about it as you seem to be. It’s been a long time since I’ve been happy enough to make that noise, and I can’t seem to stop it.”

It was a sound that Bowen heard a lot of between then and the end of the season, and it wasn’t the only sound he got out of Jasper; not by a long shot.

It was a good job that the tower really was remote.

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