Tree Hugger by lavvyan
Word Count: ~ 4,100
Rating: NC-17 (don't expect much porn, though)
Summary: "I'm demonstrating against the fatal environmental implications of logging and its effects on the very sensitive floral and faunal balance of the Canadian ecosystem."
AN: Title? Blaming smuffster (do I sense a trend, here?). Also a trend: the purrrrty COVER.
Uh, this story changed genres on me halfway through. *coughs* I still think it turned out okay.
Tree Hugger
When John stepped out of his pathetically small trailer, there was a guy chained to a pine tree barely twenty feet away from him, right next to the harvester, scowling at John. He blinked, but the guy was still there: boots, jeans and a green sweater; moderately tall, stocky, short brown hair, glaring eyes, and, well, chained to a pine tree. Not quite hiding the cheerful pink 'X' John had sprayed across the bark maybe two days before; a little part of it was still visible behind the guy's head.
"What are you doing?" John asked, staring, his brightly yellow hardhat still in his hand.
The guy sniffed.
"I'm demonstrating against the fatal environmental implications of logging and its effects on the very sensitive floral and faunal balance of the Canadian ecosystem."
John looked around. There was John's lonely trailer, the harvester, the forwarder, and apart from that, nothing but trees, moss, underbrush. The nearest settlement, Beaver Crossing, was far enough away that you couldn't even hear the noise from around there, only the sounds of the forest: the solitary cries of birds of prey circling far overhead, smaller birds twittering, insects buzzing, mice rustling through dried leaves, that kind of stuff. He'd bet that he and the Greenpeace guy were the only humans in a radius of several miles.
"You're demonstrating, here?" he asked incredulously.
"A truly devoted soul does not need publicity," the guy informed him. "Also, no to animal testing."
"What the hell does logging have to do with animal testing?" John was a little thrown by the sudden change of topic.
"Oh, you're not seriously going to tell me your hair does that on its own." The man gestured a little with his trapped arm – and how he had managed to chain himself so he could barely move, John didn't know – and pointed vaguely in the direction of John's head. John scowled and put on the hardhat, with maybe a little too much force. He didn't wince, though. Much.
"Well," he said, walking over to the harvester, "I'll just let you demonstrate in peace, then."
"Yes, fine, ignore me. Go right ahead and murder innocent trees, I'm sure that'll be something to tell the guys in the pub."
"Do the words 'forest management' mean anything to you?" John asked, feeling progressively irritated, but the guy just stuck out his chin and glared some more.
"As a matter of fact, yes. So do habitat loss, soil disturbance, and soil compaction." The guy kicked against the massive harvester to emphasise his point.
"I'm felling trees right next to the road-"
"-the road which is in all probability causing erosions and landslides somewhere in this forest as we speak-"
"-which means that very little soil will actually be disturbed and compacted," John finished.
"A-hah! I see you're not denying the habitat loss," the guy crowed triumphantly, and John rolled his eyes.
"No. But we're leaving the stumps and the tops and," he stressed as the guy opened his mouth again, "this is actually about removing sick and dying trees, something even you Greenpeace guys should get is a good thing."
"These trees are neither sick nor dying; they are simply older than you youth-fixated ignoramuses would like them to be."
"Exactly. They're old. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do."
John got into the harvester and started to do what he was getting paid for.
~~~
The day turned out to be one of those surprisingly cold but sunny early autumn ones, and John thought he could almost smell the approaching winter in the chilly air. He took great care not to kill his demonstrator, and started with the trees on the other side of the road. It wasn't like he had a specific order of trees to follow, so he just went ahead. The harvester did most of the work for him, felling the trees and cutting them to length with its large hydraulic chainsaw, and delimbing them in practically no time with the four curved delimbing knives. All John had to do was sit in the cab of the heavy machine and operate the thing, and even that was helped by a control computer. He only had to get out when it came to readying the logs for transport.
It wasn't easy to get the logs onto the forwarder without someone to help him, though, but John managed. Usually, forestry measures such as this one were executed by a small team, except John's employer was a little stingy when it came to hiring more staff – so what if working alone out here was technically a little bit illegal? As long as nothing happened to John, no one would be the wiser. And if he wanted to keep this job, he damn better make sure he didn't hurt himself.
John took a short lunch break to eat a few sandwiches and swallow them down with a can of coke. He thought Greenpeace guy was looking a little hungry and possibly a bit cold, but every time John glanced over to that particular tree, all the guy did was scowl at him. Whether because of John's evil tree killing, or because the exhaust fumes of the harvester's diesel engine kept drifting in his direction, John didn't know. He just knew he was getting a headache from the glares drilling holes into his skull.
It was late afternoon when he called it a day. He had gotten quite a bit of work done, and the forwarder was loaded almost to its full capacity. He'd have to drive to the landing tomorrow and unload the logs – at the rate this was going, he'd be done in another two days.
"I trust you are very satisfied with your day of meaningless destruction."
John sighed as he climbed out of the harvester and jumped to the yielding forest floor. Over the last few hours, he'd almost managed to forget Greenpeace guy and his protest campaign of one. Almost, as the guy had kept on shouting every now and then, his words lost under the harvester's roar, but their insulting intent nevertheless coming over loud and clear. It had been more than a little annoying. Also, John couldn't help wondering if the guy didn't need to pee at all, chained up to his tree as he'd been all day.
"Yeah, it was nice. And now I'm gonna celebrate by devouring an innocent little pizza in a cruel and unusual way." John shrugged. "Maybe I'll even do it in front of you, seeing how you're helplessly chained to a tree. I'm evil like that."
"Please. I've got the key right here."
The guy dug around in his pocket and fished out a small metal key, waving it around for emphasis.
It made a dull little thud as it dropped to the ground.
They both looked at it for a moment; a tiny, alien little thing among the moss and dirt. Greenpeace guy squirmed a bit, but of course the chains wouldn't let him move enough to reach it. Their eyes met.
"You could, ah, unchain me?" the guy tried.
John nodded and smiled amiably.
"Sure. I could."
He turned around and calmly walked over to his trailer, ignoring the spluttered protests behind him. The door fell closed with a satisfying little click, and shut out all noise from outside.
~~~
An hour later, his guilty conscience drove him outside again. The sky was turning dark and it had started to drizzle lightly; the guy had to be freezing against his stupid tree. Sure enough, the glare wasn't quite as fierce anymore when John bent down to retrieve the small key from the moist earth, and he could hear the distinct clatter of teeth as he unlocked the chain. The guy didn't say anything when John grabbed him by the elbow, the sweater damp under his hand, and led him back into the trailer. He sat down where John pointed him, shivering and looking utterly miserable, and John felt like a heel.
He tried to distract himself by making them some coffee, watching as the dark liquid dribbled into the glass pot, only looking at the guy again when he handed him a steaming mug.
"Here."
The guy shot him a quick glance as he accepted the mug and cradled it in his hands, then his eyes fluttered shut as he took a sip. He really had insanely long lashes, John noted distractedly.
"You should get out of these clothes."
Still, the guy didn't say anything, obediently raising his arms as John took the hem of the damp green sweater and pulled it up, pulled it off, fingers brushing over cold, pale skin. He didn't mean to stare, really, he didn't, but the guy's broad chest kind of distracted him with its scattering of fine brown hair and the two rosy nipples the cold had hardened into little nubs. It took an effort to tear his gaze away, and when John looked up, the guy was watching him, silently, his eyes an impossible blue.
Maybe he was hypnotising John, because that was the only sensible explanation for the way John didn't step back after letting the sweater fall to the floor, instead reaching out again, watching gooseflesh rise on the guy's chest in the wake of John's cautious touch. Skin still cold, unexpectedly smooth underneath the soft hair, heart beating fast against John's fingers as they approached a nipple, circled around it, finally flickered across. The guy let out a little gasp at that, and John reached out again, let his palms wander along a surprisingly well defined biceps, over elbows and forearms, to pick up the guy's hands and put them on his own hips; an invitation, a question perhaps. His strange companion answered by running his cold hands over John's back as far as he could reach under the shirt from his sitting position, before dipping one of them under the waistband of John's jeans, sliding it underneath his boxers to cup his ass.
It really looked like they were rapidly progressing from kind-of-adversaries to people who were having sex. John shook his head, bemused.
"I don't even know your name."
"Rodney."
They guy's voice was low, a little scratchy, and this was insane; Rodney was probably only looking for warmth, and John had apparently inhaled too much diesel exhaust over the last few days, but still… still…
"I'm John."
It was all they said, both of them silent as John lowered Rodney onto his narrow, too hard bed, as they explored each other with hands and tongues, as John reached for the lube and condoms he had brought when he had still hoped he might be able to score with one of the local guys. He doubted that any of them would have been as responsive as Rodney, though, gasping and arching and clenching around his fingers. Rodney's body was warm and a bit sweaty by the time John pushed inside, his eyes wide as they held John's locked in an almost forlorn gaze. Maybe there was a message in there, something John was meant to decipher, but it was hard to concentrate with his dick inside a tight ass, with a sweat-slick body moving in counterpoint to his own. Rodney came when John bit down on a nipple, muscles clenching, dribbling semen all across the pale expanse of his belly. John kept fucking him right through it, picking up the pace until he found his own release, groaning, feeling his come slicking up the inside of the condom.
They lay together on the uncomfortable bed, spent and exhausted, still locked up in that weird silence. John's head was pillowed on Rodney's shoulder, Rodney's chin resting against John's forehead as they caught their breath. It was strange, John thought, being so close to someone he didn't even know.
Rodney got up in the middle of the night, slipped quietly into his clothes, and left. John pretended he was asleep.
~~~
When John got back from the landing the next day, Rodney was sitting on the cover of the harvester's motor block, grinning. It made John instantly suspicious – and a little glad, because it seemed to mean there was no fallout to deal with.
"You did something."
Rodney didn't bother to deny the accusation; if anything, his grin just grew wider. It was crooked and honest, and for a brief moment, John was lost in the memory of that same crooked mouth stretched around his dick. He shook his head to chase the image away.
"What did you do?" he demanded instead.
Rodney inched forward, supported his weight on the harvester's giant front wheel, and jumped down from there.
"Let's just say that this baby isn't going to be harvesting any time soon."
That did a pretty good job of making the last night fade into unimportance.
"What, are you crazy? You can't just go around doing stuff like that!"
"Changed your mind, did you?" Rodney looked even smugger than before. "Yesterday, you seemed to find my presence, or rather, my predicament, somewhat amusing."
"It's not funny if it's going to cost my job!"
"And such a fine job it is. I hear the Wall Street Journal did a great survey on your occupation of choice, calling it instable, poorly paid, and pure danger. You must be really proud."
"Well, sorry it doesn't meet your high standards, Rodney. It's the only job I have, so excuse me if I actually want to keep it." John was pacing in front of his forwarder, seriously pissed off. Enough to yank his arm away when Rodney reached out to touch him, his expression suddenly serious.
"Look, it's, uh, it's not like this is personal. Because it isn't." Rodney sounded sincere, and it made John let out an annoyed huff of breath instead of yelling at the man. "But you're doing irrevocable damage to the forest's ecosystem here, even if you don't see it. I can't let you do that."
"Rodney, I'm all for a 'green and peaceful future', but this forest has a management plan, and that plan says these trees will have to go."
"Well, that plan is wrong. You are doing more harm than good here."
"That plan has been worked out by experts," John snapped. "And I'm doing what I'm paid for."
"Well, not with this baby." Rodney crossed his arms over his chest, radiating righteous self-satisfaction, and John wanted to hit him.
"Sabotaging others' property is illegal, Rodney!"
John stalked over to the harvester, and Rodney moved out of his way, stepping back from the huge machine. He was frowning, apparently getting a little frustrated with John's attitude.
"This isn't about whether or not this is legal. It's about protecting this forest, which is infinitely more important than petty personal profit. If you weren't so preoccupied with your own life, you might even see that."
"You know, Rodney," John said slowly, lifting up the harvester's motor cover, feeling the anger boil inside his chest, "if you weren't such a self-righteous asshole, I might even like you."
After last night, he hoped those words hurt, at least a little. Rodney nodded, looking a bit sad, like he had expected nothing else, and John tried in vain to make enough sense of the harvester's innards to undo whatever Rodney had done. He looked up after a few minutes, fully prepared to yell at Rodney after all, only to find that he was alone.
~~~
No one in Beaver Crossing seemed to know how to fix a harvester. Getting a repair team all the way out there and deep into the woods was expensive, and John's bosses weren't at all amused at the continued tampering with their equipment. Especially since there was no trace of anyone out in the forest besides John.
When the harvester broke down for the third time in as many days, John was fired.
~~~
Lester Orin, grey-haired owner of Beaver Crossing's little grocery store, was generous enough to accept the canned goods John wouldn't be needing anymore, and even give him the full price back. The damn trailer belonged to the company, so now John was both unemployed and homeless, and grateful for every bit of money he could scrape together.
John looked around the small store while Lester was busy adding up the price for the cans. A few of the older locals were browsing the three or four shelves, men who looked like they had spent most of their lives out in the open. Maybe he would have looked like them one day, if he hadn't lost his job.
"Sorry to see you go," Lester remarked, handing John a thin wad of money. "Was nice to smell some freshly cut wood again for a change."
John snorted, stacking the bills into his wallet.
"Yeah, tell that to Rodney."
He looked up when he realised that the store had fallen eerily silent. Lester was staring at him, as were the few customers.
"What?"
"You met Rodney?" one of the customers finally asked, a disbelieving expression on his face John didn't quite get.
"Yeah. You know him?"
"Rodney McKay." The other men murmured and nodded in confirmation at the name. "My father was a lumberjack; they used to work together."
John eyed the man doubtfully, and was still searching for a polite way to say, 'you're shitting me', when another customer wordlessly pointed toward a framed photograph on the wall. Frowning, John stepped closer.
It was a yellowed black and white shot of a small group of men in front of a bunkhouse, wearing heavy boots and simple work clothes. John held his breath as he brushed his thumb over the familiar figure on the right edge of the picture.
"But-"
"He was a strange one, that Rodney McKay. Never too good with a saw or an axe, but the devil when it came to fixing a machine or adding up numbers. Hard working, too, so the company was paying him pretty big bucks in the end, just to keep him."
Another man chimed in. "They were logging like crazy those days, not caring what damage they did to the forest. One fall, the men were working at the foot of a hill they'd cleared during spring when the earth simply gave way and slid down right on top of them. A lot of good men lost their lives that day."
"I remember how my mother was crying," the first man said. "It took them almost a week to dig out everything, the machines, the workers. Another week before they stopped looking for Rodney McKay. His body was never found; he'd simply disappeared. That was 1938."
"You're kidding, right?"
Lester leaned over his counter to point a finger at John. "You saw him, didn't you? And you're not the first. A lot of people did over the last sixty years, usually when they tried to fell a tree in the wrong place."
"Are you saying I spent almost two days with some kind of forest spirit?" John asked, feeling like he had stepped out of his life and right into an episode of the Twilight Zone.
Lester leaned back and started to staple the cans John had brought back, not looking at him.
"I'm not saying anything. Just that you're probably lucky to be here, is all."
~~~
John locked up the trailer and picked up the duffel with his meagre belongings. He wasn't quite sure what he'd do now, although one of the guys in the store had mentioned one of the saw mills a good twenty miles away was looking for a driver. Maybe he'd try his luck with them.
He walked over to the forwarder and threw his duffel onto the passenger seat. He'd use the transport machine to drive into town, then it was each to his own. Making his way around the driver's cab, he reached into his pocket to fish out the keys.
"So you're leaving."
John spun around, heart pounding. Rodney was leaning against a pine tree, the very one he had chained himself to not even a week ago. He looked healthy, if a little nervous; not at all dead, and John couldn't believe he was. But neither did he believe that the photo had been lying.
"So you're a ghost," he retorted bluntly.
Rodney snorted.
"Hardly. If anything, I'm an appointed dryad, but I don't believe in that superstitious hocus-pocus. Well, I say dryads even though they're technically supposed to be women, but I, uh, was called away before the landslide, so to speak, therefore I didn't die, and that means I cannot be a ghost. I mean, I'm not ageing anymore, but that's hardly equivalent of being dead, and-"
"It's not superstitious if it's true, McKay," John interrupted the rant, feeling his adrenaline levels slowly approaching normal again. "And how the hell does one become an appointed male dryad, anyway?"
It didn't seem to be an issue Rodney wanted to talk about.
"By appointment," he snapped acidly, but looked immediately chagrined. "Look. I, ah, wanted to apologise. About your job. It wasn't my intention to, uh, end you up on the skid row, so to speak."
John shrugged.
"Damage is done, McKay."
"It doesn't have to be, you know. Damage. You could, um, stay with us."
"Stay where, in a tree?" John snapped. It had been a long day, he was tired, homeless, and unemployed, and people kept trying to convince him that this was a fairy tale forest. To top it all off, dense autumn mist had started to rise from the ground, growing thicker by the minute. Driving would be a real joy.
"Not a tree, no. More like a city."
Right. Probably some town on the other side of the woods. John opened his mouth to tell Rodney where he could stick his city, but the words died on his tongue as he realised that the mist had become really dense, but the space between him and Rodney was perfectly clear. As was the air around them, a perfect fog-free circle that was maybe ten feet wide.
He thought he could glimpse something through the trees behind Rodney, something huge, a mass of giant, angular shapes, but the fog made it impossible to be sure.
"Rodney?" he asked, his voice sounding small in his own ears. Suddenly, the idea of ghosts and male dryads didn't seem so ridiculous anymore.
"I'd say 'it’s not much but it's home', except I'd be lying – it's incredible." Rodney actually bounced a little. "I think you'd love it."
"Why me?" John wanted to know. The only thing that connected them on a personal level was one night, and that had been just about sex.
Right?
Rodney shrugged awkwardly, anything but casual.
"Because, despite you being a self-righteous asshole, I kind of like you. In a way," he added, raising his chin and glaring at John. "Though God knows why."
Or maybe it hadn't. Maybe for Rodney, it had been about the connection. Maybe that was what hade made him look so lonely that night.
"It's the work boots. They make me sexy." John waggled his eyebrows, trying to lighten the mood, and was rewarded with a brief appearance of that crooked grin. It made him feel a little reckless, and he leaned forward, deciding to test his theory. Rodney didn't pull away, returned the kiss slowly, if a little hesitant. It was enough to make John take a step back, licking his lips.
"Ah, sorry. I thought that was what you wanted."
"It is," Rodney said quickly. "It's just, I'm not used to actually getting what I want. That's all." This time, it was him who leaned forward, leaving John to be the one to reciprocate. It felt a little weird, kissing Rodney, who seemed nice enough, but was still a virtual stranger.
At this point, the strange connection they seemed to share was all John had, though, and if it meant he could trade his old life for something better, he was more than willing to play along for a while.
"So, what's it like?" he asked when they pulled apart, and Rodney started to bounce again.
"You'll see."
John saw. And after a while, he discovered that he didn't have to play along that much anymore. Even later, he wondered how he could ever have wanted anything but Rodney, with his quick temper and quirky humour and warm, solid body. They fit together in a way that made him feel, well… accomplished, somehow.
It wasn't a fairy tale happy ending. But on most days, it was content.
~~~
End.