Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

xXx

Keith stares down at the table in front of him, piled high with food, and then across it to the man responsible for the feast.

Hunk stares back at him, smiling cheerfully, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. That being said Keith knew—could sense it on some level—that the look was a lie and the food was a trap. It could've also been the way Hunks eyes were pleading with him. There was something about the expression that was somehow more effective than Kosmo at his most plaintive, which Keith hadn’t actually thought was possible.

Casually, Keith pops a cherry tomato into his mouth and chews and he pointedly doesn't look away until finally Hunk folds like a stack of cards.

“Okay so you’re right, a hundred percent.” Hunk sighs and leans back into the creaking second-hand chair. “I need your help.”

Keith swallows. “With what?” he asks, curious. Hunk rarely required Keith’s help for things barring a helping hand with the more physical aspects of his engineering projects—apparently he appreciated Keith’s fine welding—or someone to wash the dishes for him or measure ingredients while baking. But if it were either of those things then Hunk would've just come out and said it as soon as he’d sat down and he probably wouldn’t have gone through the effort of making him and Kosmo an entire three course meal to bribe him into it.

Hunk fidgets lightly in place, further cementing Keith’s suspicion—he only fidgeted like that when he was nervous and barring the first few weeks of their friendship, Hunk didn’t get nervous around him.

It was one of the things that Keith appreciated about him.

Keith lets the moment stretch, hand absently playing with the ruff of Kosmo’s neck where he leant against his thigh.

Hunk continues to fidget with his fork and it goes on for as long as he can stand to let it.

“Hunk.” He waits until Hunk looks up at him. “What’s going on?”

Hunk takes a deep breath, and then another. “Remember how a couple of months ago you came out with me and some of my other friends to that bar?”

Keith nods. It would have been hard to forget, Hunk’s other friends were…colourful. And loud.

“Do you remember Lance?”

Keith’s eyebrow twitched.

“Yeah,” Hunk said, deflating slightly. “Thats what I thought.”

Keith sighs. “What does he have to do with anything?”

Hunk buries his face into his hands, letting out a groan. “He was watching one of those dumb reality shows—you know the ones where they hunt cryptids or ghosts?”

Keith did, in fact, know those shows. Late nights of bad tv were a staple for him while he worked on new designs for his metal working or even just when the insomnia kicked into high gear and had him haunting his own living room like a particularly pathetic ghost.

“Well,” Hunk continues, “All of us were sitting around watching one of them—the Sasquatch one—or the Bigfoot one? Is there actually a difference between them?…” he trailed off and Keith just shrugged. “Anyway, we were watching that one, and Allura, you remember her?”

Tall, beautiful with an air of terrifying competence around her—yeah, Keith definitely remembered her. He'd watched her almost reduce an asshole to tears when he didn't take Keith's 'no' for and answer and he'd happily paid for her drinks for the rest of the night.

Hunk sighs. “She made a passing comment about finding the whole thing interesting and Lance heard it and then had the bright idea to run with it.”

“What does that even mean?” Keith asks.

“It means,” Hunk says with the kind of world weariness that Keith usually associated with Iverson, “that he’s going Bigfoot hunting. And he’s convinced all the others that it's a good idea—though I suspect that Pidge is going along with is for potential blackmail material as well as scientific merit.”

Keith blinks at Hunk.

“He’s planned the trip already—apparently the forests up north are known to have had a few Bigfoot sightings over the years—and I can’t talk him out of it.”

“Okay,” Keith said slowly, while his mind races. The forests up north. “Where do I figure into this?”

Hunk leans forward, staring intently into Keith eyes, and yeah, there’s that pleading look again. “I need you to help me make sure we don’t all die.”

Keith’s nose wrinkles slightly. “You mean you want me to make sure that Lance doesn’t die.”

Hunk deflates. “Yeah, I mean that.”

Leaning back into his own chair, Keith huffs lightly.

“Please,” Hunk begs. “I mean, yeah, Lance is the one I’m most worried about—he’s never been camping in his life; I don’t think he’s ever even seen a real deer before—but I honestly don’t think the others are that much better. I don’t want anyone to die because they stepped into the path of a bear or something.”

“And you think I could stop that from happening,” Keith asks, raising an eyebrow.

Hunk levels him with a flat look. “You spent the entirety of last summer camping in like, three different national parks. In a tent. Thats more experience that all of us combined.” Hunk leans forward again, eyes wide. “Please come with us and keep us from dying horribly out in the woods.”

Keith stays quiet for a solid minute, looking between Hunk and the food spread across the table and then sharing one final look with Kosmo, still sitting by his side.

In the end, the answer isn’t easy but it was never going to be different.

“I’ll do it,” he says, “if you make us meals for a month.”

xXx

Sleep doesn’t come easy to him that night.

He tosses and turns under the sheets until he gives up, somewhere around the morning side of midnight. Outside a fluorescent light flickers erratically and the sight edges his sleep deprivation headache ever closer to a migraine.

He gives up finally when his moving about has Kosmo sending him a baleful look from his own plush dog bed that was almost the same size as Keith’s and certainly more comfortable.

“Sorry buddy,” Keith whispers softly and Kosmo seemingly accepts the apology and tucks his face back under his tail, large body somehow contorted into a vaguely dog shaped donut.

He slips out of his own bed and makes his way to the small kitchen.

The view from the window above the sink was of the plain brick wall of the building next to them but Keith appreciated the privacy none-the-less. He stares blearily at the wall until his glass fills and then he skulls the cool water. A droplet runs down his neck and he wipes it away with a swipe of his hand before filling the glass up again and taking it with him over to the table.

Sitting where he was he could into the bedroom, the giant mound that was Kosmo lit up occasionally from the still flickering light. Keith sips at his water and lets his eyes fall shut against the annoyance, wishing vaguely that he had Kosmo’s ability to ignore anyone and anything that could potentially interrupt his sleep barring Keith himself.

It’ll be good, he thinks, to get away from this place for a bit.

The city had never really agreed with Keith that much; too many people, too many bright lights and too loud noises. It made him long for the relative silence and solitude of his childhood—the Before, not the After.

The Before had been peaceful, just him and his dad and the trees and the things that lived in them. The After, not so much.

He sits like that for a while, taking small sips from his glass every now and then. Between one breath and the next he notices a soft sound rumbling in from outside and then there’s a flash too big to have come from the broken light. He blinks, the dark room coming into focus and looks out of the kitchen window to see rain streaking down the glass.

Keith takes another sip.

It'll be good to get away, but the thought of going back to those woods sent a sharp pang through his chest.

He hasn’t been back there in thirteen years. When the city got too much he’s always turned to camping but he’s been everywhere but there—Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia, and a handful of others. It felt safer almost, going to some place he’d never been before as opposed to going back to someplace he’d lived. Maybe that made him a coward but those kinds of ghosts weren’t the kind of thing he knew how to fight.

But now Hunk was asking for help and somehow...somehow that made it better. That made it possible.

He’s going back.

The thought settles somewhere between his ribs and lodges there. He swallows hard against the feeling in his chest and drains the last of his water before getting up to put the glass back in the sink.

He heads back to his room, stepping carefully around Kosmo and climbs back onto his bed. Outside the fluorescent light seems to have finally given up, leaving only the lightning and the rain behind.

With a heavy sigh Keith lowers himself onto the mattress. The sheets were cooler now, and he tugs the thinning thrift store blanket over his shoulders and curls onto his side, back to the wall. The sound of the rain is enough to have his eyes feeling heavier by the moment

He looks over his room again—Kosmo on the floor, a giant mount of fur. His small desk sat up against the only free wall and he can see the sketches and pencils and other knickknacks that covered it—chief among them the small plastic robotic lion, its red paint lit by the faint flashes of lightning.

xXx

In his hand was a toy.

It was small but it was big in his hands—a child's hands. There’s a chip in the red of one of the wings; he’d dropped it once and then cried when he’d realised he’d hurt it.

The shape of it is familiar and well loved and it’s heavy in his hands but not because it weighs much.

It’s heavy because he loves it and he’s giving it away.

The stump is old and weathered and rests half in their clearing and half in the woods. Behind him, his home stands nestled against the trees at its back, comforting and safe and he can hear his dad humming somewhere within it.

He sits down in front of the stump and it looks big like this but then again everything is big and he is small and the black lion in his hands is somehow both.

It takes a while for him to put it on the smoothed surface of the stump, its face turned out towards the woods. In his room there’s another lion, smaller and red and a matched set and some part of him wants to cry because they’re not going to be a set anymore—but that’s okay.

This was a good thing.

xXx

It takes a week for Hunk to get back to him with the date the others have decided on—enough time for Keith to double and triple check his camping equipment and give his truck a much needed tune up.

When the day finally arrives Keith empties his fridge, does a final sweep of his apartment and then hauls his things downstairs, stowing them away carefully in the bed of his truck. Kosmo jumps into the passenger seat, contorting himself to fit his bulk into the small space, head facing the window as Keith places his thermos of coffee into the cupholder and then they’re off.

He follows the GPS to the address Hunk had given him—Allura’s house, he thinks. It’s in an area of the city he’s never really gone too; houses instead of appartments, larger and more expensive than anything Keith would have been able to afford even with the insurance money.

Even without the GPS telling him where he was, he thinks he’d have been able to pick it out anyway. Large with a garden full of flowers and shrubs, it stood out amongst the carefully maintained lawns of the surrounding houses—the three camper vans parked out front might have been another clue.

He drives further down and then turns around, coming to park behind the last van that he thinks might belong to Hunk’s small friend. It looks older than the other two, more antennas coming off it than a radio tower with a strip of green painted down the side for no particular reason that Keith can discern.

He’s contemplating getting out of his truck when a flash of soft pink flickers in the corner of his vision, and Kosmo’s ears prick straight up.

“Oh,” comes a softly accented voice, “Hello Keith.”

She’s smiling, fairly bouncing in place as she stops by his open window and it takes a few seconds for Keith to remember manners.

“Hey, Allura.” He gives her a brief but genuine smile and she beams back at him.

Keith’s only met her a few times before—once at the bar Hunk dragged him to and a two times after that in the library on campus—but he liked her.

“This is exciting isn’t it.” Her hands clasp delicately in front of her as she turns slightly to look at the vans. “I can’t say I’ve ever done something like this before.”

“Can’t say I have either.” Keith rubs at Kosmo’s ears when he twists in his seat to lay his head over Keith’s lap.

Allura laughs softly. “Bigfoot hunting probably isn’t on most normal peoples activities list,” she concedes. “I’m glad you agreed to come with us though.”

Keith blinks up at her, hand stilling on Kosmo’s head. “Oh,” he says. “Really?”

She looks down at him, a flash of something crossing her face before disappearing quicker then Keith could register.

“Yes,” she says after a moment. “I admit, I was relieved when Hunk said he convinced you come—your expertise will surely be greatly appreciated in this endeavour, I heard you even picked our campsite.” At Keith’s nod her expression seems to soften slightly. “Plus I’ve enjoyed your company the few times we’ve talked.”

Keith’s hand flexes on Kosmo’s head. “Oh,” he says again. “I like your company too.” It’s an honest thing to say because Keith does but somehow it comes out sounding like a question—like he’s guessing if that’s the right thing to say, which, he sort of is. Either way Allura seems to take it like the complement he meant it to be; grinning at him happily like he’d managed to stumble his way into the correct answer.

There’s a loud commotion from somewhere beyond the van in front of him and Allura leans back and looks around, eyes narrowing on whatever she sees.

“Honestly,” she says sounding exasperated. She turns back to look at him and pats a hand against the edge of the open window. “I need to go help them but we should be ready to leave in about five minutes. I assume you’ll be driving in front and we’ll all follow?”

“Thats the plan,” Keith says with a nod. “Do you need any help?”

She waves him off. “No, this’ll only take a minute to sort.”

She drifts off to fix whatever it was that needed to be fixed and Keith leans back in his seat and yawns. He takes a sip of his coffee and settles in to wait for a bit, dozing almost between the soft morning breeze coming in through the window and the comforting warmth radiating off of Kosmo.

At almost ten minutes exactly he’s roused by the sounds of shouting and the slamming of doors and he opens his eyes just at the three vans in front of him rumble into life. Hunk appears around the side of the one in front of him, sweat glistening on his forehead and he gives Keith a thumbs up before vanishing again, presumably into the van.

Keith takes a long sip of his coffee, stows it away again and then pulls away from the curb and begins to drive.

xXx

The drive out to his chosen camping ground is about an hour and a half long.

The road winds out from the city and through a small plot of open pasture land before the trees begin to creep in. The road is empty of traffic and Kosmo has his head out the window for most of the drive, the wind ruffling through his dark fur.

It was a nice drive, much like how he remembered it being when he was a kid, sitting in the passenger seat with a toy or pencils and paper or even just holding onto a full shopping bag while his dad sang along to whatever played on the radio. The fragrant morning air came as a welcome change from the usual smells of the city—the smell of fumes and fast food giving way to grass and tilled earth and then again to the familiar scent of pine as the trees began to close in around them as they passed into the national park.

Keith took the path by memory, heading down one of the smaller dirt roads to one of the lesser used campsites that he remembered his dad taking him to when he was six and wanted to try camping in the woods with a tent and a fire and smores as opposed to their cabin.

He barely spots the break in the tree line at first—only notices it because he was looking for it and the old twisted tree that marked it. He turns off the road, through the gap and pulls into a natural clearing, surrounded on all sides but one by the woods with a dirt pit towards the centre and two faded wooden tables with equally faded benches.

Keith parks off to one side and watches the others pull in and park evenly spaced around the campsite.

He opens his door and moves aside to avoid being bowled over by Kosmo in his haste to exit the truck. His dog immediately puts his nose to the ground, sniffing at the grass and smattering of wildflowers growing throughout the clearing. Keith can hear the others talking, moving things out of the vans and setting up the campsite to their liking but Keith takes a moment to lean back against the side of his truck with the last of his coffee and just…look.

The clearing was lit with thick, almost dreamy light, somehow filtering down despite the cloud cover that lingered overhead and far more overgrown than he remembered it being. The trees were starting to bow inwards toward the open area and there was grass beginning to grow inside the fire pit.

Keith drinks the final dregs of his now cold coffee and stares at the swaying line of trees. It’s dark amongst the underbrush, and the faintest hint of morning mist still not burned away by the sun clings amongst the branches.

Somewhere to the east was a cabin in the woods. Keith wondered what it looked like now.

There was the press of a cold nose against his hand and Keith startled, looking down into yellow eyes. Keith huffs, looking away from the tree line and he takes a moment to rub at Kosmo’s head.

“Let’s get to work, I guess,” Keith mutters, half to himself and half to his dog, and went to start setting up his things.

It was easy to settle into the familiar rhythm—sorting out his tent while Kosmo did his best to knock it down again. Eventually Kosmo disappears, off to bother Lance from the sounds he can hear coming from one of the vans. Keith grabs his pack, stowing it away in his tent beside his sleeping bag and a second tattered and fraying one that Kosmo likes to sleep on.

He clears away the grass from the fire pit and helps Hunk and Allura’s uncle move the coolers they’d brought along, dodging around the small one—Pidge, he remembers—and her various electronics equipment that was already slowly beginning to take up one of the tables and Allura who was looking through it all and asking questions.

Lance was off to one side, carrying out what looks to be camping chairs from the camper van that he was sharing with Hunk and placing them strategically around the pit.

“So,” he says loudly, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Who’s going to get the fire going?”

Keith grunts as he drops the cooler he’s carrying onto the free table where Hunk was pointing. “I’ll do it.”

“Will you be needing any help collecting wood,” comes a question from Coran. The man is bright and cheerful, twirling one end of his moustache as he looks at Keith. “Many hands and all that.”

Keith dusts his hands off. “No, should be fine.”

He leaves them for his truck, Kosmo loping along at his side as he walks around to the back of it and unearths his toolbox. Under the top layer with its assorted screwdrivers and hex keys and an old hammer is an ax, handle worn but well cared for and covered in its protective sheath. He pulls it out to check the blade before resting it on top of the toolbox—just in case. There were a few large fallen branches he could see scattered about the edges of the clearing. He’d pick up smaller ones first and then if need be, deal with one’s he’d need to cut down to size.

Keith left the camp behind, the sound of chatter fading slightly as he stepped into the tree line. Kosmo followed, nose to the ground as he went about picking up decently sized sticks, though he made sure to not wonder off too far into the trees.

It was cooler under the canopy—not by much but it had the slight sheen of sweat on the back of neck cooling to an uncomfortable degree. Kosmo snuffles about by his feet, ears pricking up when a shriek sounds from the campsite.

It sounds like Lance, so Keith doesn’t stop collecting firewood.

He’s got a decent armful when a sound echoes from amongst the trees.

Keith’s head whips up, turning in the direction the noise had come from. At his side, Kosmo has gone stiff, yellow eyes alert and watchful. The silence stretches, his grip on the wood in his arms tightening until it creaks ominously and he has to force himself to let go.

It’s nothing, Keith reasons to himself—just a branch falling somewhere in the distance or an animal moving about amongst the underbrush, possibly a deer. The woods get loud sometimes, he knew this and if it was an animal it was more likely to be heading away from him and their camp.

Keith slowly turns to leave, and there’s another sound, closer, coming from a thicket of dark woods to his left.

He freezes and stares but no matter how hard he looks he can’t see anything moving about in the gloom. A quick glance downwards shows him that Kosmo doesn’t look overly concerned—curious more than anything, head cocked to the side but no raised hackles.

Carefully, Keith hikes up the wood in his arms, turns his back on the woods around him and leaves.

The chill against the back of his neck lasts until he’s standing back out in the sun, carefully piling up his collection of wood off to the side of their camp. He stood back and surveyed it for a moment, considering whether it was worth it to go get more wood.

Keith shook his head. It would be enough for now.

“Ham sandwich?”

Keith looks back at the proffered food Hunk is holding out. “Thanks.”

“No worries, I even got something for Kosmo.” Hunk shakes the container in his hand and they both watch as Kosmo stops nosing about the pile of wood to come sit at their feet.

Hunk pops the lid and puts it on the ground for Kosmo to get at while he and Keith dig into their own food.

“This is a nice spot,” Hunk gets out between bites. “More remote than I was expecting though. I thought this park got more traffic?”

“It does.” Keith peels back more of the sandwiches wrappings. “But that’s more towards the far west on the other side of the ravine and you and Lance wanted some place more quiet, somewhere you’d be more likely to find something more than just tracks tourists leave behind.”

“Uhh, I think it might be a tad strong to say that I wanted to be far away from people,” Hunk says, nose wrinkling at the thought. Then he blinks. “So wait, do you actually think we’ll find something? Like, do you think that there’s something out there for us to find?”

Keith chews slowly. “I think…” he says, trailing off with a frown. He looks into the tree line. “I think there’s always a chance. People go missing in the woods sometimes—sometimes its animals or the land itself, but it happens. Sometimes you never find them. I don’t see why something couldn’t stay hidden if it wanted to.”

“Well,” Hunk says after a moment. “That was comforting. But you’re right I suppose. The world’s pretty big even if it seems small sometimes. I guess it wouldn’t be strangest thing to imagine there’s something out there in those woods.”

Keith nods. “My dad used to tell me stories about things that lived in the woods,” he adds absently before shoving the rest of his sandwich in his mouth.

He looks down at Kosmo, who’s leaning up against his leg, the container in front of him licked clean. He bends down and scoops it up, handing it to Hunk when he holds his hands out for it.

“We’re not going anywhere today?” Keith asks.

Hunk shakes his head. “Lance and the others want to sort out equipment first and work out who gets to deal with what. Why?”

“If we’re not leaving till tomorrow, I’ll start setting the fire pit up for tonight.” Keith dusts his hands off against his legs, sending fine crumbs falling to the ground. “Let me know if you need me for anything.”

“Will do,” Hunk says with a nod before drifting off towards the rest of the group.

xXx

It didn’t take long for him to get the fire pit ready and without anything else to do—having skirted the table covered in Lance and Pidge’s Bigfoot hunting tools with Hunk and Allura’s blessing—he found himself sitting in the bed of his truck, legs stretched out before him with Kosmo pressed against his side, sketching absently in his notebook.

It had passed midday and the sun was on its slow but steady descent towards the horizon, shadows shifting with it. The light had weakened over the course of the last hour or so, even more cloud cover rolling in though at the very least it didn’t smell like rain to Keith.

Despite the chatter from the others it was peaceful and Keith could feel the knot of tension between his shoulders softening the longer he sat there.

Bit by bit, the shape of trees took form on the page in front of him. Branches reached for the sky, shadows between them dark as pitch with the faintest hint of the plant life growing between them at ground level. He’s so absorbed in the task that he doesn’t notice it at first.

A chill down his neck but without the cooling sweat to blame for it. Keith looks up from his notebook in increments, facing the woods.

It feels like he’s being watched.

He knows the sensation. He’d figured out pretty quickly in the group home that it was good to know when someone was watching you. Paranoia had cultivated the skill till it was a fine art and accurate to a fault.

He stares into the tree line, a frown forming on his lips. Against his legs, Kosmo has gone still; his ears are pricked, alert and watchful as he stares—past the open clearing, past the trees and into the woods—but no matter how hard or carefully he looks, Keith can’t see anything in the deep shadows.

It’s there and gone again between one breath and the next. Kosmo huffs and puts his head back down to doze, apparently unconcerned and Keith makes the executive decision to follow suite and put it out of his mind.

Eventually he puts his notebook off to the side and scoots down until he’s laying flat in the bed of his truck. The clouds are too thick for cloud watching but the sun is still nice on his skin so he closes his eyes, one hand resting gently on his dogs neck, and he lets himself drift.

He thinks he spends a few hours like that, just laying there. The sound of the others talking fades into the background along with Kosmo’s deep whuffing breaths. There’s no cars, no flickering fluorescent lights, no people being loud apart for the occasional indignant sounding squark coming from Lance.

It’s nice.

He’s almost about to drift further towards sleeps when the sound of soft footfalls reach him, followed by a faint polite knocking against the side of his truck.

Keith’s eyes blink open to a rapidly darkening sky and Allura’s soft grin.

“Hunk sent me to fetch you,” she says. “Dinner is about to be served and we think we’ve sorted out roughly what we want to accomplish while we’re here and we need your input.”

Keith rubs at his eyes, stifling a yawn. “Okay, coming.”

Kosmo makes a disgruntled noise when Keith gets up, wriggling in place dramatically before finally rising to follow Keith.

He walks a step behind Allura as she heads over to the chairs around the fire pit where the others were already sitting, chatting amongst themselves as Lance handed out beverages and Hunk doled out more containers with food.

“There’s the mountain man,” Lance exclaims as Keith walks up. “We need your nature knowledge and also for you to start the fire.”

“On it,” Keith says around another yawn, shuffling between Pidge and Coran to get straight to the pit and the branches he’d arranged earlier. It only takes a second for the kindling to get going and for him to carefully coax it into catching properly on the rest of the wood and then he’s sinking back into his own chair, accepting his own container from Hunk and a second one for Kosmo.

Inside his own is something that might be Mac and Cheese but more gourmet while a quick glance into Kosmo’s own reveals what might actually be a rare cooked steak, diced for easier eating.

“Oh man, how come he gets steak,” Lance whines, leaning forward to catch a glimpse of Kosmo’s food.

Hunk whacks him gently in the back of the head. “Because Kosmo is a good boy and people who leave unwashed dishes in the sink don’t get steak.”

Lance rubs at the back of his head. “That was one time,” he says miserably as Allura laughs gently off to the side. “besides how do you know it’s me and not Pidge—OW!”

Lance rocks to the side, rubbing at his arm and glaring at Pidge’s retracting arm. “I actually retained the manners my parents taught me Lance, don’t try pinning that on me. Besides we have a dishwasher,” she adds, exasperated. “Why don’t you just use that?”

“Because I don’t know what you did to it,” Lance replies flatly. “I’m like, 99% certain that it’s sentient now and it doesn’t like me.”

“To be fair,” Pidge says around a mouthful of salad, “if it doesn’t like you, it’s probably because you did something dumb.”

“How do you know it’s not just because it’s broken,” Lance retorts and then immediately blanches as he’s struck with double looks from both Pidge and Hunk.

“That would be because I did the software improvements while Hunk did the hardware,” Pidge says with terrifying sweetness before leaning over to rap her knuckles against Hunks.

“Truly, I can’t imagine a creation of Pidges or Hunk’s breaking in any significant way,” Allura admits around a soft giggle.

“They are masters of their crafts,” Coran agrees, walking up to their group to sink into the last remaining chair with a sigh. “That repair job you did on the car is still working wonderfully by the way.”

Keith watches them talk back and forth, happy to listen in to the conversation without joining for now. Kosmo pants at his side, happy and content after getting food prepared just for him. Keith finishes his food quickly, quicker than all the others and puts away the container to be dealt with later and settles back down with a hand buried in the ruff of Kosmo’s neck.

Another hour passes like that, the fire flickering between them, keeping away the encroaching chill of the night. The others finish their own meals, slower than him, and relax as the stars come out.

“So,” Lance says after a while. “We were talking plans for tomorrow and we decided to try starting early.” There’s a faint gagging sound from Pidge and Lance sighs dramatically while nodding in agreement. “Yeah but we want to spend as much time as possible looking for Bigfoot, right?”

“Exactly,” Allura says. “The longer we have the light, the better off we are. Even with Keith here, I don’t particularly relish the thought of staying out in the woods too late.”

“Any ideas where we should head first Mountain Man?” Lance directs towards him.

Keith thinks back to the maps he’d looked over the week prior to refresh his memory. “Start in the west I think. It’s easier terrain that way so we can get out bearings, and we can work our way across the harder stuff from there.”

“Cool cool cool,” Lance says. “So you’ll be our guide through the dark and terrible woods, the rest of us will have our cameras, and plaster and a few other things and Coran will be manning the home base while we’re out just in case something goes horribly horribly wrong.”

“I shall do my best with this duty,” Coran says with mock seriousness. “A fire shall be lit to welcome weary travellers home, and hot cocoa awaits after a long day.”

“You do make excellent cocoa,” Hunk agrees and Coran preens.

Which is deserved if Hunk praises a culinary skill, Keith admits silently.

There’s a sudden shriek as a beetle scurries across Lance’s leg, startling the rest of them. Keith settles back down into his chair, heart pounding slightly in his chest as he watches Lance scrabble to get it off him.

“You know,” he says, eyebrow raising. “For someone whose idea it was to come out here, you don’t seem to like nature that much.”

“What? I love nature,” Lance hisses as curls his legs up into his chair while Pidge mocks him gently. “Natures great. So sue me if I don’t particularly want nature on me with like. A million legs.”

“A beetle is an insect,” Keith points out.

Lance looks over at him. “So?”

“So it only has six legs, not a million.”

“Well, I suppose that’s something be thankful for,” Lance mutters after a moment. “God can you imagine a beetle with a million legs?”

To Keith’s surprise Allura shudders along with him. “Its the legs,” she explains when she notices Keith’s look. “I’m fine with insects in general but their legs just—” She breaks off to shudder again and Coran laughs gently.

“You especially hated butterflies as a child, if I recall.” He leans back in his chair, stroking gently at his moustache. “I’ve never seen a little girl run away from butterflies as much as you did.”

“I just wanted to play in mothers garden,” Allura complained, a small grin tugging at the corner of her lips. “They wouldn’t leave me alone though.”

“Too entranced by your beauty, I guess,” Lance says, sincere and Allura snorts.

The group turns back to soft chatter and Keith lets himself zone out for a bit, watching the fire flicker back and forth in the soft breeze rolling in over the tree tops. The smell of burning wood brings back memories—flashes here and there of being in this same place in a different time.

Conversation eventually peters out and one by one the others drift off to get and early start to the night. Pidge and Allura take one van, Lance and Hunk in another, and finally Coran wanders off to the last van that he has to himself. Keith sits there a little while longer, running his hand absently through Kosmo’s fur until another yawn cracks his jaw.

He rises and sets about banking and taking care of the fire. The breeze is picking up and there’s a chill to it that wasn’t there ten minutes ago but it still doesn’t quite smell like rain but the first hint of something hangs in the air—a charge that wasn’t quite ozone but might become it given half the chance.

Eventually he drags himself back to the familiar sight of his tent. The shadows are long and deep, the moon half hidden by clouds. When he looks out at the tree line he can see a few feet at best before everything becomes a mess of black and the suggestion of shapes. Things move in the dark, branches bending under the wind and stirring shadows or maybe even wildlife coming out for the night.

He stands there for a long moment, eyes falling shut, just listening.

He can hear the ever present creaking of wood and somewhere off in the distance an owl—in the dark something flies overhead on silent wings, maybe a bat.

Fur brushes along his fingertips as Kosmo passes him and he makes to open his eyes.

The hair on the back of his neck prickles.

His eyes snap open but the feeling is already gone, the sensation of being watched melting away into the night. On a breath, he looks down and Kosmo is watching the woods, yellow eyes gleaming.

Keith licks his dry lips. “Come on boy,” he whispers.

Together they make the rest of the way to his tent and he crawls his way inside, holding the flap up for Kosmo to follow. He strips and tugs on sleepwear and then worms his way into his sleeping bag, Kosmo curling up on his own, close enough to press against Keith ever so slightly.

Outside the tree’s sound like water, the wind running through the leaves, a sound Keith remembers. Windy nights before storms, curled against his dad and fighting to stay away as his voice lulled him ever closer to sleep.

xXx

“Watcha doin’ kiddo?”

Keith cranes his neck back to look up his dad. “He need’s a toy,” Keith said simply before looking back at the lion.

He feels his dad hand come to rest lightly against his head. “Who need’s a toy?” His dad sounds confused which is silly because his dad had been the one to tell him.

He points to the woods. “He needs a toy,” he says again. “He needs a toy to play with so we can be friends.”

There’s a moments silence and then his dad laughs, soft and warm and it rolls through him like a summer breeze. “You mean the little one? You wan’t to give him a toy?”

Keith nods and then moves the lion forward a bit to the red of its wings catches the light. There’s the crack of his dads knees as he crouches down behind him, both hands resting against his shoulders. They squeeze gently.

“We should leave ‘em a note I think.”

“A note?” Keith looks up at his dad and watches him nod. “Why?”

His dad hums. “Otherwise he might be worried that if he took it, it might be stealing. You should leave a note so he knows it's a gift.”

“Oh.” Keith looks at the lion again. “That makes sense.”

“I try,” his dad says, ruffling his hair.

“Can you help me write it,” Keith asks as he takes his dad’s hand and stands.

“Sure thing kiddo.”

And they walked back to their home and somewhere off in the distance a branch snaps.

xXx

Their first day searching though the forest is a bust as far as Bigfoot goes.

It's moderately sunny when he wakes, cloud cover scant at best but as he takes a deep breath, standing at the opening of his tent he can smell the faintest hint of rain on the air.

Keith looks up, squinting against the light.

It doesn't look like it’s going to rain soon at least, if he had to wager a guess he’d say maybe mid to late afternoon.

Morning preparations pass quickly once the others are awake. It's not early exactly, maybe an hour or two had passed since Keith woke with the dawn but the sun had already begun to weaken, going watery and thin as the minutes pass.

“Do you think it’ll rain?” Keith spun to look at Allura and she gestured to the sky. “It just looks incredibly...dreary I guess. Not the most auspicious of beginnings.”

Keith shrugs. “Later in the afternoon I think but we should have a few hours before it starts.” He looks over at the rest of them and add, “Provided we, you know, actually leave any time soon.”

Allura quirks a grin at him. “They are rather slow to start. They’re not used to sleeping in beds other than their own, I think.” She gestures vaguely at the woods around them. “Too different sounds.”

Keith hums in agreement. It had never bothered him that much but that would have been a luxury he couldn’t afford.

“It doesn't bother you?” Keith sat down against the bench he’d been leaning on, gratified when Allura followed suit.

“I traveled a lot as a child,” she said with a small smile. It wasn't a happy one, exactly but it wasn’t entirely sad either. “My parents were diplomats and while they insisted I had a relatively stable childhood, I still spent a fair but of it in and out of hotels. Nowadays I don't travel as much but Coran and myself still try and make yearly trips if we can.”

“Oh?”

“Last year he took me to Italy.”

“Sounds nice,” Keith murmurs

Allura looks at him curiously. “Hunk said you travel a lot.”

Keith shrugs again. “Within America and mostly to national parks and stuff. Never been to New York or anything like that.”

“Don't want to or just no chance,” Allura questioned.

Keith thought for a second. “Both, I guess? I tend to go places to get away from people; not too keen on going somewhere with even more of them.”

“Fair enough.” Allura smiled at him. “Cant say I enjoy being around too many people either sometimes.”

“You always seem to enjoy it,” Keith says hesitantly. The few times he’s seen her on campus she’d been surrounded by people.

“I do,” she assures him. “For a while at least. But then sometimes my battery runs low and I need some time away—I just suspect it takes longer for it to happen to me that it does to you.”

“Sounds about right,” Keith sighs.

“I know this probably wasn't what you were hoping for,” Allura said carefully.

Keith blinks. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that Hunk always told me that you travel to places like this to get away from people. But now we’re here too.” The look in her eyes, when Keith glanced at her, was sympathetic and vaguely apologetic. “I just can’t imagine this was your ideal trip.”

Keith doesn't reply for a moment. “Its not so bad,” he decides after a moment. “Im out if the city, I've got Kosmo with me—couldn't ask for more than that really.”

“You really wouldn’t, would you?” There’s a curious tone to her voice then, something soft and gently. When he looks at her, questioning, she merely smiles and shakes her head.

“Well,” she says after a moment, “regardless I for one am glad you’re here. This whole thing is so exciting and I feel like having you here can only increase our chance of success.”

“You think we’ll find something.”

Allura cocks her head to the side, considering. “I would certainly like to. And it just seems terribly dull to go into this thinking there’s nothing more out there than we’ve already seen.”

“Don't take this the wrong way,” Keith says slowly, “but I guess i wouldn’t have figured you for the type.”

Allura waves him off. “No offence taken. In another situation I might not have but Coran has aways been enthusiastic about the...unusual.” At Keith’s raised eyebrow, she continues. “His family had always been fascinated by the strange and he is very much the same—and it was a passion he shared with my father.”

“Oh?”

Allura nods. “My mother also, though to a lesser extent I believe. I’m almost surprised that Coran has never been Bigfoot hunting before, to be honest.”

At that moment there’s a call from the man in question, bright and as loud as his hair. Allura stands, brushing her hands off briskly.

“I suppose it's time to be off then.”

“Looks like it.” Keith watches as the others sort out their packs and equipment, poking and prodding at each other. “I’ll grab my pack.”

Allura nods as she walks off and Keith nudges Kosmo, where he’s lounging in a thin patch of sunlight.

“Time to go buddy.”

Kosmo makes a sound of discontent before budging, shaking himself awake.

It takes only a minute to grab his pack and strap on his mother’s knife and then he’s joining the rest of the group at the edge of the clearing. He can see the burnished red of Coran’s hair milling about by the fire pit, going about whatever chores he’s set for himself while they’re gone.

Lance and Pidge are arguing between each other but it doesn't take much for Keith to tune them out.

Together, they head off down the path Keith had chosen days ago.

The feeling of being watched is gone and the forest around them is peaceful. Keith finds deer tracks, an interesting rock which he pockets quietly, and has the joy of watching the others freak out over a small salamander they find after knocking over a rotting log. It starts drizzling lightly about an hour in, more of a mist than anything, and it lasts for a good few hours but otherwise its a genuinely nice day with his dog and friends.

They get back to camp just as the sun began sinking below the tree line.

The others fell into their chairs with grateful groans as Coran handed out dinner one by one. Pidge and Hunk looked about half ready to fall asleep in their food and Lance and Allura didn’t look much better by the time they’d finished eating.

Their exhaustion mean that the night was a quiet one. Keith was tired too, but not to the same extent. Still, he was more than happy to sit back with Kosmo laying across his feet and listen to whatever story Coran was willing to tell by the firelight.

It was easy to drift like that; soft and easy. His limbs ached ever so faintly from the long walk, but it was a pleasant ache. He was warm from the fire, he was full with Hunk’s cooking and Kosmo was a heavy weight against his legs. When the first yawn cracked his jaw, he wasn’t surprised.

“I suppose it is getting late,” Coran mused at the end of his story. “Perhaps it’s time to turn in?”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Pidge yawned wide, glasses reflecting orange and yellow. “I thought fresh air was meant to make you feel energised.”

“Probably not after the day we’ve had,” Hunk says, bending down to haul her to her feet. “Beside Keith’s tired too, so it’s gotta be normal.”

Keith blinked at them drowsily. And watched as Hunk pulled Lance to his feet as well.

“I’m pretty sure my feet aren’t meant to feel like bricks,” Lance groused, flopping dramatically against Hunk’s side. “Just leave me here, my legs don’t work.”

“And listen to you complain about insect bites in the morning? Ahh, no thanks buddy, I’ll pass.” When Lance didn’t make a move to stand on his own, Hunk sighed and then hefted him up over his shoulder like a sack.

“Do I weigh nothing to you,” Keith heard Lance mutter. If he got a reply it was too soft to hear.

Pidge followed, feet dragging as she went.

There was the crackle of wood in the fire pit and a shower of embers licked up into the sky as a branch collapsed in on itself. Allura was still sitting across from him, head leaned in towards Coran’s as they talked in low voices.

Keith closed his eyes for a second and then opened them when a hand touched his own.

“Goodnight Keith.” Allura was standing by his chair. The fire was lower than it had been, more coals than flame. “Go and get some sleep."

“‘Nite Allura.”

He didn’t watch her leave instead he just yawned again and stretched. His spine cracked and Kosmo looked up at him at the sound. “Time to go to bed.”

Keith stood and made for the fire pit, ready to bank it properly when Coran cut in front of him, waving him off.

“You go on and get some sleep; I can take care of the fire.”

Keith paused. “You sure?” he asked hesitantly.

Coran smiled at him. “Of course. Shouldn’t take too long to do and you look like you’re ready to fall asleep standing up.”

Keith lingered for a long moment but eventually nodded. If Coran was offering then who was he to turn it down.

With a quick goodnight Keith walked around him and headed off to his tent, Kosmo at his side.

With the fire at his back and quickly dimming, the walk to his tent seemed longer and darker than it was. His eyes struggle to adjust for a moment, spoiled with the abundant light provided by the camp fire. Now that the heat is gone, the chill of the wind nips at his face and his fingers and a light shiver runs up his spine.

Keith took his steps cautiously—it was easy to think that the walk to his tent was clear in his experience it was that kind of thinking that lead to sprained ankles. He moved on instinct, naturally following Kosmo as he took the lead until he’s, once again, standing in front of his tent.

There’s the sound of Coran moving about somewhere behind him—around the chairs and heading towards the vans until the sound of a door opening and closing reaches him—and then he’s alone. The faintest hint of woodsmoke clung to his clothes and Keith took a deep breath, breathing in the familiar scent.

By all rights he shouldn’t like fire. It had taken from him, it had taken so much from him. But this, this smell and the lingering warmth that had seeped into his clothes, buried itself further.

Nights around a camp fire, the fireplace in the cabin—the same smell had clung to his dad clothes along with the sweet smell of the honey he’d like to put in his tea and on his toast.

Above him were the same stars he’d learnt at his dad’s knee.

Keith’s breath rushed from his lungs.

There was a press of warmth against his leg and he looked down into yellow eyes. They heard his gaze for a moment before cutting away as Kosmo yawned, revealing long, sharp teeth to the faint moonlight above. The cloud’s parted further and the shadows shifted with it until Kosmo was an ink blot at his side, and above them, stars glimmered in streams and ribbons.

The clouds shifted again and the stars fade.

The wind whips over the tree tops and across the clearing, stirring the grass like ripples across a pond and somewhere off in the night a wolf howls.

“Chimes at midnight,” Keith murmurs to himself.

Kosmo makes a sound, soft and warm, pressing against his side again before turning and nudging his way through the flap. Keith lingers, for a second and then a minute before finally turning away to follow.

The nape of his neck prickles and off in the distance there’s the snap of a branch—loud against the quiet stillness of the night.

For a brief second, Keith wonders if he might be dreaming. But the moment passes within a breath and he’s standing there, one hand against his tent and his back to the woods.

Carefully, Keith turns around.

No matter how hard he strains, he can’t see beyond the tree line. Shadows stretch too deep between their trunks, the bows of the tree’s too dense to let the smattering of moonlight through. There’s a moment when he think’s he sees something—a massive shape in the dark, looming in the spaces between two trees—but then he blinks and it’s gone.

A trick of the light.

Goosebumps raise the hairs on his neck and on his arms but, as he stands there, they subside. The sensation of being watched is still there but his heart rate lowers until it's a steady beat.

The initial flash of fear is gone, washed away and replaced with the odd certainty that whatever was out there meant him no harm.

Eventually the dull ache of his legs threatens to turn into something more, and the chill of his fingers becomes too much. He turns his back to the woods and heads inside to sleep.

xXx

Day two goes very much the same way at the beginning, minus the salamander.

Keith wakes to another morning of dull sunlight and lingering cloud cover. The wind is biting enough that the first thing he does afters morning routine is build up the fire—the others will probably appreciate the warmth this early in the morning and Coran would no doubt enjoy having it as he kept the camp.

One by one the others join him around the fire, quietly eating the food Hunk hands out and the fresh coffee Coran follows up with.

Pidge and Lance settle into a quiet conversation—or arguments, Keith honestly found it difficult to tell sometimes. Allura was dozing lightly, steaming mug clasped in her hands and her head leaning against Coran’s shoulder where he had dragged his own chair to but up against hers. Kosmo is slowly eating his way through his own food at his side and Hunk drags his own chair over to Keith and sinks down into it.

“You look tired,” Keith mutters, half into his own drink.

“You wouldn’t think it to look at him but Lance is a loud sleeper.” At Keith’s raised eyebrow Hunk waves vaguely in the direction of the camper van. “He doesn’t snore or anything but he talks. It would be funny if it wasn’t so distracting.”

“I thought you guys were roommates, aren’t you used to this?”

“Nah.” Hunk takes a sip of his own coffee. “Housemates not roommates; I love him but if I had to overhear constant ongoing commentary about his dreams all the time I would have helped Pidge murder him agues ago.”

Keith snorts, almost choking on his drink. “That bad, huh,” he says dryly.

Hunk shrugs. “If nothing else it’s good blackmail material.”

This time Keith actually barks out a laugh. It's short and sharp and makes the others look up briefly in surprise.

“No seriously, some of its gold. ‘Oh princess, come into my arms and I shall spirit you away’.” Hunk’s impression of Lance is both scarily spot on and also pitched only for Keith’s ears; the others across the fire don’t even look up.

Once Keith manages to swallow the laughter trying to claw its way out of his chest he asks, “Princess?”

Hunk sends a pointed look towards Allura.

“Huh.” Keith cocks his head to the side and then shrugs. “Thats sweet I guess?”

“Definitely could have been way worse,” Hunk agrees. “Though if you do hear knocking on your tent in the middle of the night, it's just me.”

“Looking for a place to sleep or in need of help to hide a body,” Keith asks.

“Hopefully the former.” Hunk pauses and then a smile spreads across his face—its a little like looking into the sun. “Aww, you’d help me hide a body?”

Hunk seemed inordinately pleased by that for some reason—his eyes were misty and Keith was positive that if this was a cartoon then there would be sparkles.

Keith’s hands fidget around his mug. “I guess?” he says hesitantly but also truthful.

“Thats the nicest thin—or actually its kinda awful I guess but man, Keith—” Hunk stops mid sentence and then wraps an arm around Keith’s shoulders and hugs.

It’s a bit awkward—the chair arms between them dig into Keith’s side a little as he’s yanked closer and he hears Kosmo make a disgruntled noise as the sudden movement disturbs him. Keith thinks he feels a bit of his coffee spill over the rim of his mug and for a second he can’t breathe, face smushed against Hunk’s yellow and green jacket.

It still feels good somehow though. Hunk is warm and his grip isn’t tight enough that Keith couldn’t get out of it if he didn’t want to. It lingers for a few seconds and then releases before it crosses the line from comforting into uncomfortable.

Hunk pats him gently on the shoulder and then takes his mostly finished coffee from his hands before stooping down to pick up the bowl Kosmo had been eating out of.

“Guess we should probably get ready to head off,” Hunk announces, coughing lightly.

Keith blinks up at him.

The others make sounds of agreement—though not overly enthusiastic to Keith’s ears—and slowly the camp begins to break up.

The woods are damp, air heavy under the looming branches and mist continues to linger in places, swirling gently in the eddies coming off the breeze high above. The bark of the trees is dark where its wet and the foliage is green and lush despite how grey the lighting remains.

It takes about an hour before the weather turns, the fine mist from the previous day returning.

“If it doesn’t stop raining sometime soon I’m going to loose an entire layer of skin,” Lance grumbles. “It’s just going to slough right off my body and no-one wants that, you hear me? No one.”

“Consider it extreme exfoliation,” Pidge snarks back and Keith huffs out a laugh as he ducks under a low hanging branch.

Keith got it though—the water in the air wasn’t falling, just merely seemed to exist around them while sometimes drifting vaguely downwards. It was pervasive, and if he hadn’t been wearing the right clothes then Keith would have had it seeping in, right down to his skin.

They continue onwards, leaf litter and dead plant matter crunching under their feet. Kosmo trotted ahead, stopping to sniff every now and then, coat glimmering with fine water droplets in the low light—stars studded across velvet.

In the distance he could hear the faintest sound of running water. There was a creek that ran close to where his old home was; he knew that it snaked its way through the forest and down towards the canyon—somewhere beyond them was one of its meandering bends.

Ahead the trees parted ever so slightly and Kosmo slipped ahead into the small clearing. A boulder sat half sunken into the soil, nestles in amongst the ferns growing around its edges and carpeted in thick moss.

They all gathered around the centre of the tiny clearing, sipping at their water. Hunk handed out snack bars and they all chewed in silence for about ten minutes before Pidge spoke up.

“So,” she said around a mouthful. “Are we just going to walk around and hope we stumble onto something or is there a way to attract them?”

Everyone looked to Lance who froze, mid bite.

“Why are you all looking at me?”

“Well, you are the one whose idea this whole thing was,” Pidge said dryly. A bead of water dripped down her glasses. “Did you pick up any tips or tricks from those shows you watched.”

“Uhh…” Lance stood frozen for a second, eyes flickering between them all, lingering on Allura for a second longer than the rest. “Well most of the time the Bigfoot hunters in the show set up traps, like with actual meat.”

“That seems like a bad idea,” Keith says, frowning. “You’re more likely to get a cougar than a Bigfoot.”

“And you wouldn’t know that how,” Lance snarks at him, before deflating. “But you’re probably right and I really don’t want to get eaten by the local wildlife. Thats not how I die.”

Hunk shuddered. “I second that.”

“Motion carried then,”Allura says with a faint smirk. “So what’s the next best plan?”

Lance squinted off into the distance. “What if we try calling it?”

Pidge and Allura share a look. “You try calling it,” Pidge suggests, arms folding across her chest. The grin on her face is mildly disconcerting.

Lance looks down at her and sniffs. “Fine. Sure. I can do that, I can definitely do that.”

He shrugs off his pack and hands it to Hunk who take it without a word. Strolling towards the boulder, he clambers onto a small section only about a little ways off the ground but tall enough that he’s now a head above Hunk. Sitting beside the boulder, Kosmo is looking up at him with an expression of bewilderment that probably mirrors Keith’s own pretty closely.

“This’ll be good,” Pidge whispers. “All right,” she says louder, “Do it.”

Lance clears his throat and then raises his hands to cup his mouth.

The stillness of the woods around them is shattered by the crescendoing call Lance makes into the gloom. It seems to echo for a bit and everything is silent once it fades. Kosmo’s ears are pricked in alarm and Keith had to work to keep his eyebrow from hiding itself amongst his hairline.

They all stand, motionless, listening intently to the trees around them.

There’s the twitter of a bird from somewhere nearby, likely startled by the sound but otherwise, nothing at all.

Lance sighs, heavy and disappointed and hops down from the boulder, feet almost slipping on the wet ground. Hunk catches him, handing him back his pack and Pidge chortles.

“Well if it’s any consolation you look like an idiot.”

“Thank you Katie,” he says through gritted teeth and then winces as he gets a smack to the arm.

“So what now,” Hunk asks.

“Keep walking?” Allura suggests. “I suppose there’s nothing we can really do until we find a clue that points us in the right direction. Or any direction really.”

“I don’t suppose your dogs has any secret tracking abilities?” Lance turns to look at Keith as fixes a strap on his pack.

“To track what?” Keith asks. “It’s not like we have a scent to follow, nothing that says Bigfoot This way.”

“Of course not,” Lance sighs. “What about you, do you have any special tracking abilities?”

“Why would I have special tracking abilities?” Keith asks.

Lance opens his mouth to say something when Pidge whacks him int he arm again, harder this time.

“Ow! Pidge will you quite it—”

“Okay,” Hunk says loudly. “Time to go before it rains any harder.”

“I don’t really think this counts as rain,” Allura says, brushing strands of wet hair back from her face.

Like Hunk’s words were prophetic, not long after they set off again the heavy mist shifts into actual rain. It doesn’t last long but it's enough to have them huddling under a gnarled tree, it's sheltering branches stooped with age and woven thick enough above them to keep the worst of it off them. It doesn’t last long but the ground below their feet has softened, plant life littering the ground turning it into a dangerously slick mess.

Keith presses a foot against the soil and watches as his boot sinks in past the tread and he grimaces.

“I think we should head back for now,” he announces, lifting his boot back up. The soil clings like its trying to keep him there. “The trail gets tougher up ahead and I don’t want to walk it when the ground’s like this.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Pidge says with a grimace. She takes her glasses off to wipe them down. “I feel like I went swimming while wearing clothes.”

It takes twice as long for Keith to lead them back the way they came, having to double back on occasion to avoid areas where the ground had turned into slick mud and decomposing plant matter.

The rain had stopped but water dripped from the laden branches above them, enough that it was like the rain hadn’t ceased at all. The air was dense amongst the trees, thick like he could choke on it if he wasn’t careful. They curved further west and a sudden feeling of wrongness, skittered down his spine. Keith slowed and the hair along his arms rose.

Keith had felt watchful eyes on him since the first day they arrived—almost since the very moment he had stepped into the trees.

It hadn’t felt like this.

Carefully Keith pulled away from the others, though he made sure to keep them within eyesight. Up ahead Kosmo was stopped at the base of a tree and Keith came up beside him and hand already reaching out to run through his fur.

Keith froze as Kosmo rumbled once and fell silent. His ears were pinned back, hackles raised ever so slightly but it was the intensity of his stare—yellow eyes fixed off somewhere in the gloom, beyond what he can see—that sends his heart beating into overtime. He looks into the thick press of trees and for a second he thinks he sees something move—a figure maybe, dark and lurking.

The moment lasts for a second, it stretches and lingers and and is broken suddenly by the cry of his name.

“Keith! You coming or what? You’re the one who’s leading us out of here!”

Keith blinks and the shadow is gone and Kosmo is ever so slowly relaxing.

He clears his throat. “Yeah,” he calls back, “I’m coming.”

xXx

Day three is different.

On day three they find something and then something finds them.

Wakefulness comes slowly and then all at once for Keith, the faded edges of his dream already slipping away like so much smoke. He remembers running through the trees, snatches of his dads voice—“Houses can have strong hearts if you love 'em enough kit”—and the familiar sound of branches creaking under a strong wind.

The strong wind turns out to be real.

Keith stares blearily up at the roof of his tent. It's grey outside, sunlight breaking through in waves, there and gone again as the cloud cover moved rapidly across the sky. He could hear the wind whistle through the trees, leaves and grass a sibilant chorus broken only by the creak of wood.

Reluctantly he digs himself out from his sleeping bag, Kosmo huffing slightly at the noise, and dresses quickly, shivering in the chilled morning air. He slips on his jacket and unzips the tent and steps outside and immediately goes back in to get his jacket.

He’s the first one up following the pattern set by the previous few days. Its less than an hour after sunrise and the air still carries the chill of night and Keith has the sneaking suspicion that it’ll stay cool throughout the day.

He goes about his morning routine, with only Kosmo for company.

With a soft sigh, Keith sinks down onto one of the wooden benches, munching absently on one of the home bad bars Hunk had given to him. Kosmo meanders over and flops at his feet.

The wind is whispering through the trees and there’s a strange quiet hanging over their campsite. The forests green was washed out in greys, the gloom beneath the heavy boughs of a darker sort than the previous days.

The air felt...heavy in a way Keith couldn't pinpoint. In the distance he could hear the beginnings of birdsong and if he strained he could catch the faint sounds of animal life rustling through the underbrush. It was quiet though, like they didn't want to be heard.

There was a commotion behind him. Keith contained his flinch and Kosmo’s ears pricked. He turned in time to catch the others stumbling out of their camper vans one by one.

Hunk and Allura waved at him while Pidge stumbled her way to the closest seating and dropped onto it with a groan. Keith looked at her, raised an eyebrow and then looked at Allura.

“Late night,” she explained with a soft laugh. “I told her to put away the phone but something must have caught her attention and, well...” she gestured at the lump of green and glasses and a smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

“She’ll be fine.” Hunk meanders over, three mugs wisping steam into the morning air. “She’ll be slightly more human after she gets some caffeine in her, though she might want to murder us all by midday.”

“Being murdered in the woods, sounds about right,” Lance complains, walking up and bumping shoulders with Hunk. He reaches for one of the mugs only to look betrayed when Hunk moves them beyond his grasp and finally hands two of them off to Allura and Keith.

“So who’s murdering us,” he asks, pouting as he watches the three of them sip at their coffee.

“Pidge,” Keith replies.

“Ohhh.” They all turn to look at her. “Well, i’ll just make sure to keep one of you between me and her then.”

“You admitting that you’d be the one to drive her to murder?” Keith asks.

Lance shrugs, hands raising slightly. “A) she hates morning people and b) she’s been telling me that she’s gonna kill me since the day we met. Honestly i’d be concerned if two weeks passed without the thread of bodily harm from her.”

“That is true,” Hunk muses lightly. “The one time when I don’t remember her threatening to strangle you for more than a week was when Matt’s appendix burst.”

Lance winces. “Yeah that was not a fun time.”

“Matt?” Keith questions.

“Pidge’s older brother.” Allura sips at her coffee, ignoring Lance’s longing gaze. Keith isn't sure if its meant for the coffee or Allura or both. “Brilliant like the rest of the family and another good friend, he would have been here too if he didn’t have a time sensitive project he was working on.” Her eyes flickered over Keith. “I think you’d like him.”

Beside him, Hunk nods in agreement.

Keith hums, noncommittal. He doesn't like most people but so far Hunk’s been right four times so he figures he should give them the benefit of the doubt.

“Where’s your uncle,” Keith asks instead.

Allura gestures towards the van Coran had claimed as his own. “Looking for a book, I believe, though what about i’m a little unsure.”

Keith shrugged, easily accepting.

“So,” he says after a moment, “We have breakfast, get ready and then go?”

Lance sent one last longing look towards Allura’s coffee before turning to Keith with a sigh. “Thats the plan anyway.” He runs a hand through his hair, tousling the brown locks. “Hope it doesn’t rain again today.”

“Agreed,” Allura says with a soft frown. “It’s fine for a few moments but it’s cool enough today that I’m worried we’ll get sick if we lingered in it like we did before.”

Keith takes a deep breath, looking up at the sky. The clouds were still there with no sign of dissipating but— “It doesn’t smell like rain.”

“Really,” Lance says, “Thats what you’re going with?”

Hunk jabbed Lance in the arm and the, to Lance’s delight, handed over his still half full mug. “The nose knows. I’ll get Pidge her caffeine and see what her weather app says, but I’m pretty sure it’ll just back up Keith’s prediction.”

Hunk breaks away from their small group and Keith and Allura watch him go while Lance buries his face in his newly acquired coffee.

“Well,” Allura begins. “I’ll go tell Coran our plans.”

Keith nods. “I’m going to pack.”

Lance snorts into his cup. “You say that as if you aren’t ready to wander off into the wilderness 24/7.”

Keith shrugs. “Can’t hurt to double check.”

“Whatever you say, mountain man.” Lance sends him a sloppy salute and then turns on his heel, wandering over to where Hunk was carefully placing another steaming mug in front the green lump that was Pidge.

“Mountain man?” Keith blinks, looking over at Allura in bewilderment.

She merely smiles at him, bends to give Kosmo a scratch before patting him on the shoulder and walking away.

xXx

Keith can feel the change as soon as he steps into the tree line. It’s quiet, is the first thing he notices, proper quiet unlike before—no birdsong, no sounds of small animals moving about the undergrowth. The feeling of being watched isn’t back but in its place is a feeling of anticipation, like the forest is holding its breath.

Kosmo sticks close to him as they get deeper and deeper into the trees. The others trailing behind him grow quiet very quickly as they pick up on the atmosphere. He find himself reaching back multiple times to check that his knife is still there and he sticks closer to the rest of the group than he has in the last two days.

It’s Allura who notices the tracks first. Keith zero’s in on the slight sound of surprise she makes and is at her side in an instant. He freezes when he sees what she had noticed first.

A large footprint in the ground.

Keith kneels beside it, frowning. The soil below them was softened by the rain but there were no other tracks beside the one which was…odd. It was only a partial but Keith could tell that the full thing would be far larger than any person.

“What is it?” Pidge asks, leaning to look over his shoulder.

“I don’t know,” Keith admits. “Maybe a bear but…” He trails off, frowning harder.

“There are bears out here?” Lance says, sounding alarmed. He looks about them as if expecting one to come lumbering out of the trees around them.

Pidge snorts and punches him lightly in the arm. “Of course there are bears in here,” she says. “I’m more interested in the ‘but’ part of that sentence.”

“Me too,” Allura chimes in. “Keith?” She prods.

Keith just shrugs. “I don’t know exactly. Just these don’t look exactly like any bear tracks I’ve ever seen.” He stands back up, running a hand over Kosmo’s head. “But it’s only a partial print so I could be wrong.”

“We should still document it,” Allura says, tugging her camera out.

“Agreed.” Lance nods to himself and then poke at Hunk. “You have the casting stuff?” At Hunk’s nod, Lance snaps a finger. “Okay Allura, Pidge you two take pictures and video. Hunk, my man, you help me with the plaster.”

Keith lets them do as they please, drifting off just a bit so he’s not in their way. At Keith’s urging, Kosmo stays with the others, standing guard.

He’s looking off into the distance, not really focusing on anything in particular when he hears the faintest snap of a branch somewhere in the trees. He straightens out of his slouch, suddenly completely alert as he scans his surroundings. It had come from somewhere relatively close by and the longer he looks the more the prickling sensation at the nape of his neck grows.

They’re being watched.

Keith doesn’t move, just waits silently. It feels the same as the day of their arrival; not threatening but curious. A minute passes, then five, then ten and the only sounds he hears are the others talking amongst themselves as they collect their evidence and Kosmo’s doggy pants.

“Done,” comes Allura’s lilting voice, satisfied and the others cheer.

Keith turns back to look at them and out of the corner of his eye there’s a flash of movement. He spins, taking an aborted step forward, the urge to chase nipping at his heels before he comes to his senses.

It had been light in colour whatever it was, big but eerily silent and there was no way of telling what way it had gone, or even if it had been something to begin with.

Someone calls his name and as he returns to the group he can’t help but notice that it no longer felt like he was being watched.

“It really is…well, big.” Hunk comments, eyeing their cast with a critical eye.

Lance slouches against his side, one hand clasped around Hunk’s shoulder and the other holding an empty container for the cast.

“You know what they say about big feet,” he says with waggling eyebrows.

“Big monster.” Keith says with a straight face.

He watches Lance’s face contort itself briefly over his ruined joke and shares an amused look over his head with Hunk.

The group, energised by the discovery of the track, decides to press on for as long as they can before the failing daylight forces them to turn back. They trek down a ridge that Keith remembers and stumble into a clearing that he doesn’t. They stop for a quick water break and Keith is in the process of capping his water and stowing it back in his bag when Kosmo growls.

The sound is startling in and of itself. Kosmo is a quiet dog and Keith can count the number of times he’s heard him growl on one hand. They all go quiet and look at Kosmo. His fur is bristling slightly, his yellow eyes fixed off to the left of Keith.

Keith drops his back and turns, following his line of sight and then freezes.

“Hello there,” the hulking man at the edge of the clearing says.

“Oh fuck—uhh, I mean hi.” Lance sounds just as startled as Keith feels.

The man lumbers forward and Keith can see two others who remain standing just out of clear sight. In the dying light Keith can tell that the man is dressed like a hunter—weatherbeaten clothes, heavy duty pack and boots and he can see the imprint of something that might be a gun under his vest which makes something in Keith clench.

There isn’t meant to be any actual hunting in this forest. His dad had always told him that.

The man stops just before them and stares. Keith’s skin crawls and Kosmo edges closer to him, pressing against his thigh. The man looks down at him and Keith has to resist the urge to bare his teeth at the look on the man’s face as he takes in Keith’s dog. It looks like interest. It looks like hunger.

That thought makes no sense but it’s an impression that sticks with him as the man introduces himself to the group.

Sendak. His name is Sendak.

The name tugs at something—a thought, a memory—but as soon as he tries to grab at it, its slips away from him.

Keith doesn’t pay a huge amount of attention as Sendak talks to the others, mainly Lance. He’s too busy keeping an eye on the other two hunters lurking in the shadows, too busy keeping an eye on Sendak’s hands every time they stray too close to whatever he has hidden under his vest.

“Excuse me,” Sendak’s voice interrupts Lance. It’s directed at Keith but his eyes a fixed on Kosmo.

“What.” Keith grits out.

Sendak’s eyes don’t flicker and Keith can feel the subvocal growls Kosmo is making where they’re pressed together. “ What kind of dog is that?”

The question is polite and Keith is instantly on edge.

“He’s a wolf-dog,” Keith answers, slowly.

“Really,” Sendak murmurs and it doesn’t sound like a question.

Keith’s lip curls. “Really,” he replies flatly. He turns to Lance. “We gotta go, daylights wasting.”

Keith scoops up his pack and the others scramble to follow his lead. Kosmo clings to his side almost and Keith isn’t ashamed to admit the way he keeps a hand buried in his ruff to reassure himself.

“Wait.”

The others slow to a stop and Keith grits his teeth. He turns, reluctant, and is gratified to see that Allura and Hunk’s expressions are at least slightly suspicious.

Sendak smiles at them and it feels like a threat. “You said that you were hunting,” he enquires politely. “Hunting what, may I ask?”

“Bigfoot,” Lance replies before Keith can say anything.

“Ahh.” Sendak tilts his head to the side, intent. “Have you found anything?”

There’s a thread of amusement in his voice, like he’s asking as a joke but his eyes are flat and Keith can feel the hair on his arms raise.

“No.” Keith cuts in before anyone else can say anything. “No, we haven’t found anything.”

Sendak looks Keith dead in the eyes. “Thats a shame,” he says sincerely.

“Yeah, it’s a real tragedy.” Keith holds his gaze. “Do you know it’s illegal to hunt in these woods?” He asks, just throwing it out there to see what happens.

Sendak shifts slightly and so do the others, still hiding in the trees. “You’re hunting though?”

“With guns,” Keith clarifies even though he knows he doesn’t need to. He senses more than sees the others startle behind him but he doesn’t look at them, just keeps his eyes on the men in front of him. “It’s illegal to hunt with guns in these woods.”

Sendak hums. “Well if we run into anyone with guns we’ll be sure to tell them.”

“Yeah, you do that.”

Abruptly Keith has had enough of the situation and it appears so has Sendak. They hold the look for a few seconds longer when Sendak finally huffs and breaks the gaze. With barely another look at them, he turns and melts back into the forest, his two lackeys following.

Keith waits for a minute, shushing Hunk when he starts to say something but Keith stays stock still until Kosmo, still pressed up against him, finally relaxes.

“What, “ Lance asks, “the fuck was that about.”

“We didn’t like him,” Keith mutters.

“Dogs do know best,” Pidge agrees, pushing her glasses up. “Kosmo definitely hated him.”

“He did seem a tad suspicious.” From her voice, Allura sounded like she though he was more than just a tad suspicious.

“Hey Keith,” Hunk asked, hesitant. “Did he really have a gun?”

The others grow quiet when Keith nods.

“Well shit,” Lance mutters and Keith snorts.

“Yup,” he agrees and beside him Kosmo huffs in agreement.

Keith herds the others together and out of the clearing, back the way they came. Keith falls back as they go, trusting Allura to keep them on the path back home and spares his energy to keep an eye out around them. It doesn’t feel like they’re being followed but he doesn’t want to stake their lives on a feeling. Not that he’s a hundred percent certain that Sendak is a threat to their lives, exactly but…it’s a feeling he can’t shake.

Staring down Sendak had felt like staring down a dangerous animal—no worse, he amends. It felt like staring down the worst people he ever met while in the system.

Animals he could deal with but people could be a special kind of evil and Sendak gave off those feelings in waves.

They make good time and soon enough they come up on the area Keith recognises as where they found the footprint. He slows, chewing on his lip and when Hunk calls out to him he waves them on.

It only takes a second for Keith to double back a bit, looking for the tree they’d found the print under and it’s takes no effort at all for Keith to drag his own foot right though it, scuffing it out and erasing it from existence.

As he makes his way back to the rest of the group, his neck prickles.

xXx

They get back to the campsite just as the sun dips below the horizon. Coran is bustling about, preparing food for them when they all spill into the open air. Keith goes to stow his bag away and when he comes back the others are filling Coran in on what happened while they were out in the woods.

His eyes practically sparkle as he takes in the cast and looks through the photos while they all sit and eat. The sparkle goes away when Lance gets to the part about Sendak.

A hard look falls over his face when he’s filled in about the encounter and he sits back, a hand tugging at his moustache in a way that Keith assumes is a nervous tick.

“Did they really have guns,” he enquires at Keith and Keith grunts out a yes in-between mouthfuls of food.

Coran hums and gives a particularly violent tug at his moustache. “Unsavoury types,” he mutters half to himself. “Hunting in a no hunting zone.”

“It’s more the fact that they were concealing the guns that worries me,” Keith says, sharing a piece of meat with Kosmo. “Did any of you even notice until I said anything?”

A chorus of no’s comes from the group except for Allura. “It was that odd line of his vest wasn’t it.” At Keith’s nod she continues. “I did notice it but I wasn’t entirely sure.” A look of unease crosses her face. “How many were there?”

“At least two more off in the tree line other than Sendak. Not sure if there were others that I couldn’t see.”

“You said he was asking about what you’re doing here?” Coran questions.

“Yeah,” Lance says with a frown. “Got really pushy about it too. Not to mention his weird fascination with Kosmo.”

Keiths hand drifts down to scratch between Kosmo’s ears. “Yeah,” he mutters darkly, “and that.”

“Oh?” Coran looks at him eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, he wanted to know what kind of dog Kosmo was,” Hunk chimes in, frowning. “Seemed really intent on getting an answer for some reason too.” He sounds angry a bit, on his behalf or Kosmo’s, Keith isn’t sure but he appreciates the sentiment.

“And then,” Pidge picks up, “Keith tried to get us to leave but Sendak stopped us again by asking about Bigfoot.” She leans forward, chin planted on her raised knee. “Seemed really interested in whether or not we found something and not in a fun way either.”

“No,” Allura agrees grimly. “No he seemed…”

“Hungry,” Keith murmurs, softly.

“…Yes…” Allura says after a moment, eyes pinched. “Yes, that’s exactly how he seemed.”

“Do you think he’s out here hunting Bigfoot?” Lance asks, looking around at them. “I got that vibe about him before when he was askin’ questions.”

“Hunting Bigfoot with a gun though?” Hunk says. “Do people really do that?”

“Oh yes,” Coran huffs. “It happens more often than you’d think when people go out looking for cryptids. Deplorable business,” he says with a shake of his head, “going out to find something unique with the express purpose of killing it.”

“Didn’t you say that your grandfather took a shot at a Yeti once,” Pidge asks dryly.

Coran gasps, a hand flying to his chest. “With a camera, not a gun!” He exclaims. “He tried to take a shot of him with a camera. Hieronymus Wimbelton Smythe would never have tried to kill such a creature.”

Pidge holds her hands up in surrender. “Got it.”

“Regardless,” Allura cuts in with a quick smile. “I think we should be cautious going forward. We don’t know Sendak’s motives but we can all agree that he’s a suspicious character at best.”

There are nods all around and then the conversation switches to lighter topics. The fires is burning low when the others begin to drift off to their respective trailers, Hunk and Lance to one, Pidge and Allura to another with Coran taking the last one.

Keith stays sitting in the dying light for a bit longer, Kosmo’s at his side warmer than the embers in front of him. The night air is cool and sweet and he hums quietly to himself as he pokes at the embers with a stick.

The very thought of Sendak sent a bolt of revulsion through him, far stronger than their brief encounter warranted. He’d met plenty of people he disliked for various reasons over the years but none had inspired such an immediate and visceral reaction. Keith trusted his gut, and more than that he trusts Kosmo’s instincts.

As he goes about banking and dousing the fire he can’t help but think that he made a good choice in destroying the foot print. He doesn’t know if it was from a bear or something far stranger but Keith hates the thought of anything loosing its life to that man.

Keith slips into his tent, Kosmo trailing in after him to curl up beside him. It's easy to fall into a light doze with the warm press of him against his back.

He has a restless sleep that night—old memories blending with dreams.

He lays like that, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness until a sound outside his tent sends adrenaline coursing through his veins. He jolts, heart rabbiting in his chest but everything is silent aside from the normal nightly wildlife and Kosmo is still happily asleep, paws twitching lightly as he chases something in his dreams.

Keith takes his hand off his knife, hidden away under his pillow and puts his head back down, closing his eyes with a heavy sigh.

xXx

He wakes with the sun before all the others and crawls his way to the tent opening, eyes blurry and neck prickling. He’s still half asleep as he sits there, half in and half out of the tent and it takes a few seconds for him to notice the three rocks, stacked expertly in a tower just in front of the flap.

Keith stares and then rubs his eyes hard enough to see stars, but when he opens them again the rocks are still there.

They’re round and smooth, like river stones. He sits up to look at them from the top and he can see the grass below them though the holes that runs through the three of them.

Hag stones, his mind supplies, sounding oddly like an echo of his dads voice.

Keith looks around him, half expecting to see the others recording him for his reaction. A prank, he thinks but it’s not with any amount of conviction. Briefly he thinks about taking a photo or calling one of the others but something stays the impulse.

There’s a shuffling sound behind him and then a furry nose is poking its way out under his arm. Kosmo goes still when he notices the stones and Keith shifts to let him edge forward until he can sniff at the little tower. Whatever he smells mustn’t bother him because he merely sneezes, yips quietly and then licks a stripe right up the side of Keith’s face.

Keith watches as he pushes his way out of their tent, being careful of the stones. He shakes himself while Keith watches, absently rubbing at the wet streak on his face.

When he’s done Kosmo yawns, teeth flashing like knives and then he stills, ears pricking forward and tail wagging. He trots back over to the tent and sniffs at a patch of ground just off to the side of the tent where Keith had been sleeping last night.

Twisting to look, Keith see’s the faintest indentation in the ground.

Another partial footprint.

Instantly he’s thinking about when he woke up the previous night to the sound of something moving outside the tent. It had been a small noise so he’d dismissed it as nothing, especially when it hadn’t woken Kosmo up but the footprint in front of him is…big. Like the one they’d made a cast of the day before.

When he looks up Kosmo is watching him, tongue lolling out in a doggy smile. A few seconds go by where they’re just staring at each other and then Kosmo huffs, stretches and he’s off, milling about the camp. Keith watches him for a bit and then he lets himself sit back on his heels and thinks.

Whatever it was hadn’t tried to harm him or anyone else. When he’d woken up he’d felt tense and surprised from the shock of suddenly being conscious but he hadn’t felt threatened and neither had Kosmo.

Instead whatever it was had snuck into the camp and…left him rocks?

One has something that might be quartz running through it, smokey and grey, and the other two are dark and shiny. His hands itch to hold them, to feel the weight of them in his palms.

He shuffles forward and then, looking around him like a nervous child, he plucks the first one off the pile. It cool and heavy with a smooth grain and he brings it up to his eye to look through the hole.

Sunlight distorts slightly as he focuses through the stone. The camp is still quiet, dew shining on the grass and Kosmo must have been rolling in it because his fur glimmers slightly under the weak morning light, dewdrops clinging to his dark fur.

Keith drops his hand, looks down at the stone in his palm and huffs, running a finger over the smooth surface. After a second spent just admiring it, he picks up the other two, turning them over and inspecting them. He likes them, he thinks and he can’t stop the small smile that clings to the corners of his lips.

He ducks back into his tent and scrambles to get changed. When he steps out of the tent completely, Kosmo is waiting for him, panting happily. He ruffles his ears and then jogs over to his truck and slides into the front seat and begins rooting about the glove compartment.

Papers, sunglasses, a bag of sour lollies…there!

He pulls out the tangled length of leather chord and uses his knife to cut off a piece of it.

He heads back to the tent and sits down in the entrance way, Kosmo watching him, head cocked to the side and curious. Keith puts the stones down in front of him and considered them carefully.

The two dark ones are slightly bigger but his eyes are continuously drawn back to the grey one in the centre. He picks it up and goes about trying it to the leather and then once its secure and the ends are tied together, he hangs it about his neck and tucks it under his shirt.

It rests against the centre of his chest, cool and smooth and pleasantly weighty.

As the sounds of the others stirring reaches him, Keith tucks away the other two securely in an inside pocket of his pack along with the leather. He stand up, taking the time to stretch, back cracking as he twists. As he goes to get the fire started for Coran and Hunk, he freezes mid-step.

He only realises it now that the sensation is absent, but the feeling of being watched is gone.