Chapter Text
A bloom of deep red dust followed the truck as it made its way through the heart of outback Australia, the movement in stark contrast to the stillness in the surrounding desert. With only the occasional gust of wind to move them, the sands of the astutely named Great Sandy desert lay smooth and quiet under the blistering sun. Broken up only by the splattering of shrubs and the occasional long dead tree, branches bending and cracking from wear.
The truck had been travelling for some time, and its once white paint coat was stained with streaks of red and brown as it continued on its journey. So red was it that you wouldn’t notice the patches where the paint had peeled away, leaving the metal below to rust into the same deep red that surrounded it.
Inside, it carried much needed supplies out to those who dared to live out in such an unforgiving environment. The mix of extreme temperature changes, dangerous animals and the harsh barren land made living out here a challenge at the best of times. Trucks like this one were employed to travel from southern Western Australia, up through Perth before cutting deep into Australia's largest desert, then through the Gibson and into the Great Sandy before reaching the border into the Northern Territory, and after that, Darwin. They carried just about anything; from medical supplies to pliers, from scrap metal a farmer had asked for to repair a fence to, quite literally, a kitchen sink.
In the cabin of this truck sat a man.
Skin bronzer then it should have been due to the many long days spent out in the desert sun, and hair tips, curling just below his shoulders, bleached blonde from the heat. He wore a beaten old hat, leather worn thin around the rim exposing the stretched wire beneath. And his shirt was a faded white button up, turning nearly pink from the red desert sands.
One hand clung firmly on the wheel, directing the trunk around whatever obstacles the driver wished to avoid, the other busied itself with hanging out the open window. There was no way to stop the grime of the desert from eventually creeping in, so the man had learned to accept the fact that the inside of his truck, and his arm, would be half stained red brown. The other side, while not dirt free, still managed to hold onto some of its original cream colouring.
Remus Lupin was decidedly not paying attention to the road in front of him. Instead, his focus was set to the right of him, on the very edge of the horizon. A frown played at his lips as he watched the clouds darken in the distance. It may not rain much out here, but when it did, the last place Remus wanted to be was in the middle of the storm.
A storm had been forecasted to show its face over the next few days, but Remus had been hoping to avoid the worst of it by leaving a little sooner than planned. Being stuck in a storm wasn’t as bad as being the first to travel after one, though it would set back his arrival time by more than a few hours.
It wasn’t safe to keep pushing through a storm, not when any one of the dry sandy arroyos close to him could suddenly turn into a full force river at a moment's notice. The flood water would be powerful enough to drag his truck off course and it could happen seemingly instantly. No, it was safe to pack down for the time being, park on some sturdy and high ground, not that there was much of it, and wait out the rain.
If he had waited a few days before leaving for his return trip to Perth, he would have been one of the first on the road. A dangerous thing to be if you didn’t know what damage had taken place. Whole roads could disappear and leave drivers wandering for days, looking for civilization. With limited fuel supply, and limited food, drivers had died out here from being put off course, if only by a few kilometres.
So focused was Remus on the brewing clouds, and the long stop that awaited him if the storm did decide to start earlier, that he nearly didn’t notice the man walking along the side of the dirt track.
He wasn’t a particularly tall man, and his weather beaten clothes had clearly seen better days. Curly black hair clumped in a knotted mess and a funny looking hat was pulled low over his face, obscuring his eyes and mouth from view. The man walked just off to the side of the road, along a small beaten track where some unlucky driver had been scraping his wheels. Footsteps trailing behind him spoke of the journey he had endured, yet, although Remus didn’t know him, the man seemed to be in an almost jovial mood.
By no means was he dragging his feet as he trekked under the hot desert sun, thumb stuck out in the universal sign for ‘pick me up please’. Remus couldn’t help but feel a twinge of empathy for the poor bastard. The sun was hot enough to blister your skin if you stayed out too long, and it was the perfect environment for a snake to try and take a bite out of you if you took a wrong step.
Still he couldn’t afford to slow down. With a storm brewing on the horizon, he needed to get out of the Great Sandy and onto the more rocky Gibson desert tracks that were less likely to wash away. And it was clear the man was some city freak, coming out here looking to find his fortune. The kind that expected everyone to look at them in awe and looked down on those like Remus for their lives. But they were always as green as they came and left just as quick as they did arrive. It only took a few minor disasters for them to be packing up and walking out. And if the dark grey-blue sky was anything to go by, the guy was about to experience a major one.
Ah fuck, the storm.
As bad as it would be for Remus, hunkering down in the truck cabin as rain pelted on the window and water seeped through the broken seal on the door. It would only be worse for anyone trapped outside, possibly deadly even. While it was against company policy to have anyone else in the truck with the driver, something about insurance and car jackers, and as much of an asshole of Remus knew he was, he couldn’t leave another block out in the cold while he had a perfectly good, if not crowded with random shit, second seat.
Cursing under his breath, Remus knew he couldn’t leave the man, as foolish as he was for being out in the middle of a desert with only some fancy ass hat for protection against the deadly heat. Pushing down firmly on the brakes so the truck would slow to a stop a little way up from the dark haired man, the thought that had been bugging him from the corner of his brain finally came to the forefront along with the dawning realisation that it probably should have been his first thought.
’What in fucks name is someone doing out here?’