STATS.
name: josiah ❝ jo / josie ❞ barnabas moore gender & pronouns: cis male + he / him orientation: demiromantic pansexual age: twenty-nine date of birth: 19 august, 1993 zodiac: ☼ leo - virgo cusp ☽ scorpio ↑ gemini occupation: park ranger + wilderness guide positive traits: charismatic + resourceful + intelligent + engaging + hard-working negative traits: flighty + narcissistic + sarcastic + blunt + secretive
BIOGRAPHY.
TW : domestic violence, abandonment, cancer, chronic illness, drugs, death, alcohol
Josiah Barnabas Moore — or Jo, to most, and Josie only if you know him well — was born the youngest of four in a small trailer just a stone’s throw from Fort Payne, Alabama to Laurel and Oliver Moore. They didn’t have very much growing up; his father worked full-time at a struggling hardware store in town, and his mother sold her paintings and handmade jewelry at local markets and fairs when she could to supplement their income, but it was still incredibly difficult to feed and clothe and house a family of six. Their trailer was small, cramped, the siblings nearly sleeping on top of each other as they grew older and rooms had to be shared and sofas had to be converted into beds. The Moore siblings were close, though; they had to be. Laurel and Oliver had a tumultuous marriage, to say the least, and the paper-thin walls of their trailer did very little to muffle shouting matches at all hours of the day and night. His older siblings did their best to shield Josie from the worst of it when he was young, and as a result, they’d often spend much of their time outdoors, exploring the woods surrounding their trailer. He grew up scraping his knees falling out of trees and wading through muddy river water to catch tadpoles in old jam jars. Nature quickly became a safe space, a haven for him away from the chaos of home.
He was thirteen years old when his parents separated. And okay, that’s a nice way of saying his dad just packed up one day and decided to get the hell out of dodge, taking half of Josiah’s siblings with him. With the eldest remaining sibling away at college, Jo and his mother were left alone in a trailer that suddenly felt very spacious to figure out how to fend for themselves. Laurel picked up an overnight job at the gas station about a mile up the road, and by the time he was sixteen, Jo was stocking shelves at the local supermarket when he wasn’t at school — Mama Moore insisted he keep his grades up, it was the only way she’d allow him to keep the job, in spite of the great burden his added income relieved of her. She never wanted to ask her son for help, but he was ready to offer it the moment he could. Everyone else might have left, but Jo wasn’t going anywhere.
In his senior year of high school, Jo was offered a full-ride academic scholarship to the University of Alabama, but he chose to decline the acceptance in favor of classes at the nearest community college so he wouldn’t have to leave home or make an impossible commute five days a week to try and make it work. He didn’t even tell his mother that he’d been accepted, and he tried to act like he couldn’t see the disappointment in her eyes when he told her where he’d be going instead. But she encouraged him all the same, and he graduated with a degree in environmental science all while balancing a full-time job at the supermarket. After graduating, she suggested he try finding a job in the field, and after a few months of trying, he secured a position at Little River Canyon National Reserve. It was about a half hour drive from the trailer, but the pay was good and the benefits even better, and for the first time, he actually felt like they weren’t struggling to get by. He felt relieved. Secure, even. He was happy.
But, of course, all good things must come to an end — a concept with which Josiah is all too familiar. He was twenty-five when Mama Moore was diagnosed with an aggressive and advanced form of breast cancer. For two and a half years, any time he didn’t spend working was spent by her side; taking her to appointments, sitting with her through chemotherapy sessions, teaching himself how to cook so he could make anything she wanted and might be able to stomach. In spite of how dangerous it was and how much of a risk it posed to everything he had, being employed by the government in a state like Alabama, Jo put his botany knowledge to good use and learned how to grow marijuana because he’d heard it helped with the side effects of treatment. He hid it well inside of their trailer, opting to sleep on the couch in order to convert their second room into a space to grow his plants for her, and he very, very rarely indulged with her, insisting that it was strictly medicinal and he couldn’t get caught with it, especially if he got tested at work. He’d lose his job and their insurance, and they’d be even more under water than they already were. ( Not that Jo would ever let her know that; he’d taken on the finances from the time he got his job with the National Reserve, and he’d be damned if he’d let her think for a moment they were struggling. ) They never did get caught, and once she'd moved onto stronger forms of pain relief in hospice care, he got rid of the plants and cleared out the room he'd used for growing.
Once he realized they were nearing the devastating but inevitable end of his mother's long and exhausting battle, Jo wrote letters to his father and all of his siblings inviting them to show up to say their goodbyes. His father never showed up, and much like the first time when he’d left, Jo was left to try and figure things out on his own. There was a small, modest service held for her, and per her request, she was buried in a shady spot under a willow tree. It felt surreal, coming back to the trailer alone, and it took several weeks for Jo to find it in himself to begin to pack up her belongings. He took an indefinite leave of absence from his job and spent many nights seeking solace at the bottom of a bottle as he struggled to swallow the loss of his guardian, teacher, and best friend all in one. He knew he needed a change, that the amount of hurt contained in the peeling wallpaper of that shitty little trailer outside of Fort Payne was too much to continue to bear, to make himself bear. Not when he didn’t have to.
After his mother passed, Josiah decided there was nothing more keeping him in Alabama and nothing left for him there but memories, so after an extended period of isolated grieving, he promptly made the choice to pack up in search of a change of scenery. Something new. An online search of jobs in national parks with zero distance restrictions led him to a listing for an available position as a park ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park near Bradford Springs. Colorado. It was a far sight from where he’d spent most of his life, but still promised the familiarity of mountain views and fresh air the likes of which would serve as reminder enough of home to keep him from growing heartsick for it. The entirety of his life fit into a few bags and boxes in the back of a beige Jeep Wrangler from the turn of the millennium, and with the aid of a bunch of old CDs and a handful of maps picked up at rest stops along the way, Jo made the thirteen-hundred mile drive all the way from Fort Payne to Bradford Springs over the course of two days and one night spent trying to catch a few hours of sleep in a rest stop on the state line between Missouri and Kansas.
Jo acclimated very quickly to his job at Rocky Mountain National Park after a few weeks spent studying the local flora and fauna. His efforts were expedited by his choice in domicile — a cabin out in the woods, only a short walk from the ranger station outfitted with the basic amenities thanks to solar panels and a well that he outfitted with a submersible pump and a supply line to the cabin. Being in close proximity to the ranger station gives him internet access, so he’s not entirely off the grid, but almost everything else about his lifestyle would suggest otherwise. Once he was familiar enough with the area, Jo took on the task of leading guided tours on hikes through the trails, taking tourists through scenic mountain and river paths to explore the natural views and wildlife. He loves his job, for the most part — he’s of the belief that people, generally speaking and on the whole, suck, and he’d much rather spend all his time in the company of the animals and trees, but he’s cultivated a skill for turning on the charm and enthusiasm for his job, if only because it’s a cost well worth the reward.
EXTRAS.
Only a few short weeks after settling into his cabin, Jo was walking home one night when he discovered a wounded baby raccoon abandoned in the brush. Unable to bring himself to leave it there to be a meal for any of the other predators lurking in the woods, the ranger took the animal back to his cabin until he could get it to an emergency vet, and after it was treated for the severest of its’ injuries, Jo brought the raccoon back home to nurse him back to health. He’d never bottle-fed anything before, let alone a raccoon, but he developed a very strong bond with the animal over its first few weeks in the cabin, and it wasn’t long before Jo realized he’d end up having a permanent home there. Meeko’s been living with Jo for over a year now, and in that time, Jo’s learned that he has to child-proof every drawer and cabinet in his home to keep the mischievous raccoons wandering hands out of his things.
Jo is promiscuous and unashamedly so. ( As for if he’ll admit that he uses this as a blatant distraction from feeling anything too real is still up for debate. ) Whether it be flirting with the most attractive park visitors that sign up for his hikes through Rocky Mountain and inviting them back to his cabin for a night of roughing it out in the woods ( a frequent pastime of his ) or his trips into town to hit up the dive bars and clubs and drink and dance and charm his way into the hearts and pants of strangers, locals and tourists alike, Jo is wont to seek out fleeting intimate connections. He’s not one for commitment, not beyond a handful of recurring, no-strings-attached situations, and he’s also not selective when it comes to gender. He just likes people. He’s wondered more than once on Uber rides back to his cabin if some of his successful flirtations have suspected him some sort of kidnapper, serial killer for his cabin out in the woods, but it’s not hard to fall in love with the place once you’ve seen it and understand why Jo would live there.
WANTED CONNECTIONS + MORE TBA.
