Campfire Tales
Chapter Notes
I just love a lot of domestic fluff and marvelous conversation. And this chapter has a
TON of it. In particular, the bit with Alex and Ruby is oooooold, and putting it into an
actual scene felt really, really good.
Alex's POV
It feels good to anchor Lena and Lily in their stress, hold them close while they calm. I'm even
bold enough to smooch their dark hair.
"Well, if your fancy school doesn't have some sort of shop class, it really should. Girls can do
carpentry and fix things and build stuff too."
Sniffling, Lily looks up at me, the trust in that sweet face rocking me deeply. Then her brows draw
in and her jaw sets. "Yeah! Girls can do anything!"
These throttling hugs are something I'm really going to miss.
Reassured, mother and daughter are willing to go to a welcoming Sam for cuddles and a change of
venue, but Ruby stays put. So, despite wanting to be involved -and it's really not my place
anyway- I stay put. Besides, there's a tension in the teen that is coiling tighter and I want to help if
I can.
Setting aside the lightly ruined pieces to be fussed over later, I flash a little smile at Ruby. "It's not
a project without a few stumbles. The mess isn't life or death, and I should know!"
She just scowls, but it doesn't quite get to her eyes, so I take a chance on pushing my luck.
"Nah, that grumpycat routine won't work on me. I was worse when I was your age, I know all the
tricks."
I am so close to getting a smile out of her.
"Come on now, don't make me get a kitten. Because you know I will."
The mock warning finally gets a tiny quirk of amusement at the corner of her mouth and I'll count
it as a victory.
We've found a little time for some serious talks. As much as a near-stranger can coax out of a
naturally closed-mouth teenager anyway. Stuff like the pressures of schoolwork and what she
wants to do with her life and some all too common mean girls at her school.
But nothing like the sudden explosion of anger that I recognize is really sadness and frustration.
"Stupid thing at school I have to do so we can't stay longer! It's just a dumb Halloween party. They
wouldn't even miss me!"
"Ruby?"
The tirade stops at my gentle query, but it takes her a moment to raise wet eyes to mine.
"Did you make a promise?"
That's really what this is about, I can see it in her expression.
"I know it sounds like a stupid movie line that parents say, but sometimes keeping a promise means
sacrifice. Someday, you'll feel better for keeping your word. Need a hug?"
I don't offer open arms, but I'm ready to catch her when she throws herself at me to get in a good
cry. Once she starts to calm, I deliberately go for a more neutral tone and subject so that she doesn't
get self-conscious.
"Tell you what. Let's put the piano away and it can wait until you guys come back."
It hits me in the feels that she looks so startled at what I've said. "You want us to come back?"
"Of course I do! I like all four of you."
She's got a hell of a strong hug on her and I relish it.
"We'll finish up that half-assed thing we were working on and then box it up to mail to you in New
York. You can put it together and surprise your moms with it. Sound good?"
"Sounds good. Thanks, Alex."
"Any time."
Lena's POV
With the girls holed up in the RV, we adults gather around the flickering heat of the campfire.
There's a certain melancholy to the crowd, the pressure of time running out weighing heavily on us.
Something of my inner desperation must be showing because Alex debates with herself for a
moment before tossing her right arm along the back of the tree trunk bench to open up her side for
cuddling. It's a relief, because the knowledge that I will be deprived of her soon is causing an ache
I'm really trying to not look at too closely. Sam plops herself down at our feet, snuggling close and
wrapping herself around my knee. Just like Lily will do, it's a silent ask for me to play with her
hair. Well, she hardly needs to beg for that!
Kara and Lucy are a minute behind as the rest of us are getting settled in. They're each laden down
with buckets that they pull glass bottles from and hand them out.
"Got a nice, light ale we made with that great kit we were gifted and a couple local reds that are a
little more fruity than dry. Thought they'd make a good grownup dessert."
No one passes up the offerings, Alex squirming around to get into her pocket to mine and Sam's
murmured displeasure. She comes up with a multi-tool to hand off and caresses us both. Her tactile
nature is lovely and I feel very adored and spoiled. Sam squirms happily, nestling her back into
Alex's leg.
Some long minutes pass before I find my voice.
"Where did the money go? I'm just curious what we helped with."
I ignore Sam's tiny scoff of, "we," being well used to her teasing me. There's a long lull that is
making me self-conscious until I realize that the crew is waiting for Alex to answer.
She sighs dramatically and grouses, "fine," before cheerfully answering the question. "Besides the
food and bedding and firewood, I got to order a new shop because Lucy the shark managed to find
an adequate shell for cheap when someone flaked out on an order. She even talked the company
into foregoing the down payment on it since the flake client had already done that."
"Really, it makes sense. They're only going to lose money with that structure laying around
collecting dust and they're still making a profit off it. Oh, not as much as they'd have liked, but
still." Lucy's lawyer-shark smile makes us all laugh in appreciation. "It would have been nice to get
the damn thing up here sooner, but even my growling couldn't get their asses in gear. Speaking of
which, I need to call and yell at them about the early November delivery date. With the snow
holding off for now, it would be nice to get that damn kit up here while semis can still manage the
roads safely."
"I sure as hell wouldn't mind not having to deal with the drafty barn all winter, though it's certainly
better than last winter!"
There are murmurs of agreement from the rest of the original five homesteaders.
"So, we got off track. What else did we use the money for?"
"The water heaters," Kara chimes in.
"Right! There are two portable water heaters we mounted onto mini trailers with room enough for a
fifty gallon propane tank. We bought four of those so one pair can be taken off and refilled while
the others are in use. They make badass pressure washers that can take the paint right off a building
and possibly a car. But the pressure can also be turned way down and be used to wash the animals
and provide warm water for them to drink. We also bought a crap-ton of new building materials
that are stored in the last hoop house along with most of what's left from that other farm so we can
finish putting together better winter run-ins out on the pastures. We don't have any critters here that
can't manage winter, but they need protection from rain and snow and wind."
Brainy interjects, "do not forget the manure bunkers."
Now I'm both curious and horrified, my expression making Lucy chortle and answer. "Me and Ava
scared up a buyer contract with the City of Tacoma to buy sixty of their old, beat up concrete
barriers used on construction sites for things like earth retention. They look like huge-ass Lego,
with knobs on the top and hollows on the bottom to be stacked up."
Now I understand what they mean, as familiar with civic building projects as anyone. "Oh, like a
retaining wall."
Alex gives my shoulders a friendly jostle that snuggles me closer to that soft smile, her voice
gentle. "Exactly. We'll set them up in rectangles with one short end open. All the manure and
bedding gets piled in to compost and the heavy blocks will give the tractors something to push
against in turning the piles to keep them anaerobic."
"Fascinating."
"The only shit we can't compost is the cats, dogs and our own. I mean, we could but not only yuck,
but the process is complicated. So it goes into a separate pile or into the septic fields."
Lucy speaks into the small quiet that falls. "We're keeping an eye out for a better animal trailer too.
Al's done a decent job patching the POS that came with the 'paca, but the thing is falling apart. Eh,
what do you want for a freebie?"
"Flatterer," Alex teases. "Turns out welding aluminum is a bitch, and my 2nd, 4th, 12th hand
equipment is shit, but a stock trailer doesn't have to be pretty. Thing's definitely on its last legs
though, which reminds me, we need to get new tires for it to get through the winter."
There is much moaning and groaning over that.
"It never ends, huh?" Sam teases. "Yeah, I feel that. Our business is nothing like this life, but some
aspects are universal. Like the constant need for supplies."
"Hear, hear!" Carol calls out and everyone raises their bottles in a toast. But I have no desire to talk
about business or be reminded of our time here trickling away.
"Okay, so you never did tell the story of the arm tattoo," I'm bold enough to ask, head resting
against the fat muscles said tattoo resides between.
Alex just grins enigmatically, lusty memories sparkling in night-black eyes. "You never asked."
"Doubt you were looking at the ink," Lucy snorts and Sam gets in the last word to the hilarity of
the whole group.
"Blue."
Sam's POV
I'm delighted with their laughter and can almost feel Lena's blush through the stalled caresses to
my head. Alex removes her hand and I can easily visualize how she's rubbing her nose and
blushing.
I love it.
There's amusement threaded through Alex's resigned, "for a long time it was only Sara that had
seen the thing."
I crane my head back to make out her shadowed expression, noting how Lena gazes with open
adoration. Even as I get it, much of me feeling the same, there's still a little flicker of what might be
jealousy if I were willing to look closely.
Luckily for me, Alex keeps talking. "Sara and I have no shame around each other. Known each
other too long and were fuckbuddies for years. Hell, she pitched in on finding a good design for it-
"
Not to be outdone, Lucy interrupts, "and we all had to sit through the whining of her healing!"
"I beg your pardon," Alex objects with a dramatic gasp. "I am a mature master of the healing arts
and a scientist!"
the smartmouthing is half drowned out by Lucy and Kara chorusing, "whining!"
"I took a week off work to get the black done," Alex says, deliberately ignoring them and patting
her artfully adorned belly. "Damn thing took almost five hours too! Unfortunately, I had to get the
top half of the pubes shaved for it and a week off wasn't enough by a long shot. The entire
emergency room got a good laugh over my squirming a like a bored four year old stuck in church
for nearly two weeks! The color was easier."
Strangely, her mood alters then, becoming somber and quiet as she strokes her heavy jacket that
covers her inked skin.
"Hibiscus grows all over Hawaii. My grandmother's place was choked with it, the smell constant. I
miss her." Shaking it off, her smile grows sly and sexy, the sadness banished to the corners of her
expression. "Obasan always thought my Casanova-ing with the ladies was hilarious -told me I was
a charmer in diapers- so making this piece a little dirty was a no-brainer."
Whatever filthy thing that was going to fall out of my head becomes a yelp as Lena gives my hair a
sharp little yank. The warning just makes me laugh, but I let her win, squeezing the leg I'm draped
all over.
The prim note in her question doesn't fool me in the slightest. She's every bit as wild as I am in her
own way.
"It's so weird to feel like I know all of you, when I really don't know you at all. How did you all
meet?"
There is no mistaking the instant shift in Lucy's body language at the innocent question. Like
flipping a switch, she goes from housecat to threatened jaguar.
It's eerie and alarming.
In the startled pause, Kara laughs nervously and starts to say something, halting when Lucy sort of
waves at her.
"No, Kara, I've got this. But thank you for trying to cover. It's good to remember that it's in the
past, right?"
Even with only Alex's leg against my back, I can somehow feel the stalwart, gentle support in the
feet separating the friends. With a deep breath, Lucy sets aside her beer and rubs both hands over
her face before leaning forward to stare into the fire. "Some of what I saw and did in uniform…
broke something in me. At first, I could handle it, but it caught up to me eventually. It's weird, but I
still don't remember the breakdown at all, even once I saw the security footage later." Smirking
humorlessly, she takes another bracing breath, voice a bit mechanical. "They tell me the only
reason the guy I went feral on survived is because he happened to be turning around and it threw
off my aim. It took five guys dogpiling me to stop me. Literally just crushed me down under their
weight and I was still struggling. If you can avoid waking up in a strange place, drowsy and beat to
hell, strapped to a hospital bed, I recommend it."
The quiet around the campfire is profound.
Sitting back, Lucy's voice became a bit more animated in a clear attempt to lighten the mood.
"In the Army's favor, they really did their best to help me back to myself. Therapy, meds, a
moderate length of time. But I couldn't shake that sense of brokenness and needed more time than I
could ask of being a soldier. So honorary medical discharge it was. I'd liked Seattle when my father
was stationed there when I was a kid, so that's where I went."
The fire shifted with a whoosh of noise and sparks, but we all remain quiet as mice, unwilling to
break the spell Lucy holds over us in the fire lit darkness.
"Unfortunately, with no friends or family to help, it's easy to get lost. And I just couldn't bear
dealing with some stranger for some sterile apartment I had no desire to furnish and would feel like
the walls were closing in anyway. So I just wandered around as I saw fit and subsisted at the bare
survival level."
It hits close to home, the words bringing up memories of a past I'd as soon forget. Too many years
of being a rat, a cockroach, scrabbling for food and shelter for my sweet baby. Somehow we'd
made it intact before our salvation came in the form of a girl with more money than sense who had
somehow needed us as much as we'd needed her.
Lena must know what is running through my head, feels the way my hug to her knee becomes the
clutch of a shipwrecked survivor in angry seas. And like it has a million times since our lives
braided together, her gentle touch soothes me, my nerves jolting pleasantly as another warm touch
comes to rest on my bowed neck.
Alex.
"That was a rough few months, homeless and paranoid and disassociated," Lucy is continuing on,
her voice shaking off some of the paralysis of the sweet touches on me. "Shit happens to veterans
all the time. I was lucky in a way that I was dangerous enough to not get assaulted, though there
are a few mystery broken limbs and sundry out there to be sure. Close to reaching for my sidearm
for something other than self-defense, I finally got into trouble I couldn't handle and ended up in
the ER."
In the fire awakened from its own sparks, a twitch of soft smile at the corner of her tense mouth
speaks even more eloquently than her words.
"Then, whatever Creator you believe in, sent me a guardian angel."
"I'd only just come off my residency and got to be a real, actual doctor." Alex reminisces fondly as
she kneads the tension from my neck like I'm one of her beloved cats. I can't say I mind. At all.
"And it was far more different than I thought it would be, not having someone supervising me. Oh,
the freedom was amazing, but there was no one there to answer my questions, to catch me when I
tripped up, all that fun stuff. As the new kid, I got the shit work, but that was to be expected.
"I'd worked with all types, but was by no means hardened to it. Then this mean wildcat dropped
into my life and there was just something in her eyes that struck a chord with me. Somehow, I got
her talking and that led to getting her cleaned up and I could tend the messy shape she was in, and I
got too involved, but made a best friend in exchange."
"Sap," Lucy says soggily and no one comments at how she rubs her eyes before speaking up again,
her voice wobbly but strong. "I transferred over to the VA hospital and got some help to pull
myself out of the spiral and after a couple months, I went back and found this sap to thank her.
Turns out she was every bit the amazing and badass caretaker when I wasn't such a mess too.
Inside four months I had a decent place to live, a few things to call my own, some friends, and a
nice, calm, civilian attorney job. I just needed that one helping hand that didn't trigger all the
demons inside me, y'know? Then I could do the rest."
Clearing her throat roughly, Lucy picks at her beer bottle and her voice is small and grateful.
"Um, thanks you guys. Y'know, for letting me get that out there."
There's another long quiet around the fire, but this time there's a sense of togetherness that sinks
into my bones. Imagine a family where words like that can be said without repercussion?
Amazing.
"What about you two?"
Nia's question has me figuring where she had directed it and Lena's dramatic sigh chases back the
stain of ghosts in my smile. When I look up, blinking back the sting of tears, her smile is wry and
sweet.
"Oh, go on then, darling. God knows you love the story."
With explicit orders from the lady to mischief, I wiggle happily and do a little fist pump of victory.
"Yes! So this adorable dumbass and her dumbass posse-"
"Flattery will get you nowhere Sam."
"Liar."
Bet she's blushing faintly in the crappy light!
"Aaaaaanyway, do carry on."
"Your wish is my command. So, underage, already drunk and looking for trouble, this gaggle of
college girls comes into the shitty bar I was working in at the time. The fake IDs were good, but
not good enough. So I gave them some sass, took the fakes and threw them out."
That gets Lena involved in the story, her tone amused and exasperated. "It was my first night out
since Lily had come along! I was desperate!"
"Yes you were. So a year later, someone buys the bar and I'm scared to death I'm going to lose my
job and her highness herself strides in well, like she owns the place. Because she did. Would you
like to tell this part, babe?"
Once again, Lena sighs dramatically as though all of this is a trial. The farm gang doesn't know her
like I do and still none of them are buying the act, bless 'em.
"You are a pain in the ass, but you're lucky I like that," Lena sasses with no venom, the pets
soothing on my scalp an entirely different and sweet conversation. "So, I was so livid about the bar
incident that I'd gotten myself into quite a rage. My brother was so amused by my over the top plot
for revenge that he sighed off on the millions the building cost."
Yeah, I can empathize the little ripple of shock the casual mention of millions earns. It takes some
getting used to.
"The building the bar is in," Lena explains casually and Lucy speaks up.
"You were that pissed off?"
Shrugging delicately, Lena's little smirk is pure mischief.
"What can I say? The hot bartender had made quite the impression."
That earns a round of filthy laughter and she leans over to kiss away my smile.