snowed in
thinking about ... yeti!Gojo and his new pet friend, researcher!reader
You'd probably starve to death before your name was ever published on a research paper.
The bills were piling up on the counter of the apartment you hardly get to do more than catch a few hours of sleep at, scrounging through the scraps of food in your pantry and the few foods you could afford with your measly paycheks. One more missed payment and you know what'll be next, a bright red eviction notice slipped through the crack of the door.
That was how you ended up on some snowy rural mountain in a foreign country, accepting a sketchy solo assignment no one else wanted to study the flora and fauna that grew in its own microclimate at such high altitudes. Potential medicinal purposes, or keeping an eye on extinct species, whatever they wanted, you'd do it as long as they paid you more than the pennies you'd been receiving to survive on at your previous lab job.
It couldn't be that bad, a few months freezing your ass off and staying in some rickety cabin while you collected samples and data.
And it was fine, at first.
Scribbling notes and clicking photos, putting up trail markers to not get lost in the thick snow-capped trees and dense forest, branches hanging low and heavy with ice. But there were still plants, places where bushes and shrubs sprung up, cataloguing what felt like every leaf you saw before retracing your steps back to where you were residing for the next sixteen weeks.
Food was stocked in the pantry, a satellite radio set up in the tiny living room in case of emergencies, enough toiletries and supplies to last you till the day someone would show up to take you back to society. A heavy duty taser you kept on you when you left the cabin, although you were sure you would probably accidentally use it on yourself before you'd ever run into a wild animal considering everything was so frosted over.
You were starting to think of it as a mini-vacation, curled up on the practically ancient recliner in the evenings and slowly making your way through reading the books you'd brought with you, dozing off by the fire and waking up to the soft pink sunrise.
Sometimes, though?
You felt a little on-edge.
Skating on thick ice that thinned out when you least expected it, like everything might give way from under you feet the second you weren't looking. You told yourself it was just the loneliness, a bit of cabin fever creeping in.
The hair on the back of your neck would stand up, your skin itching with the feeling of being watched when you were out walking through the woods.
It was stupid, considering you knew you were alone, that this was the sort of remote wilderness where no one was near, but you still found yourself glancing over your shoulder, squinting through the trees.
All there was to see was white.
It was still your little slice of winter wonderland.
That was before your heater stopped working though.
You checked it ten times, fingers trembling in the cold as you give up and kick it like it'd magically start back up again. a faint little sputter as it tried to kick on, but nope, nothing. In hindsight, you should've called then. Shouldn't have tried to tough it out or wait for your problem to solve itself.
The fire you managed to get started helps, but bundled up in blankets and shivering on the floor wasn't exactly sustainable.
The idea of spending three more months like this suddenly made your empty stomach back home seem more appealing when you at least had a warm bed to sleep it away in.
You could call, but there was no telling when they'd be able to fix it, and maybe you weren't a weather reporter, but the clouds overhead had been growing darker, hanging oppressively over the treeline like a threat waiting to strike. They probably wouldn't even bother sending someone to help until it passed.
There was firewood for a few more days, your palms hastily patched up with your meager supply of bandages in the bathroom's first aid kit after getting calloused and cut up from your attempts to chop enough to last you through the storm brewing.
It hadn't been enough.
And the satellite phone wouldn't do anything other than ring, refusing to connect while you paced back and forth across the creaking wooden floors attempting to reach, well, anybody.
You could scream from sheer frustration, well, you did actually.
It just didn't matter.
No one could hear you anyway.
Throwing on yet another layer of clothes and wiggling your toes in your thick thermal socks to make sure you could still feel them before trudging out into the several feet of snow piled outside the door, hoping for a better signal to get you through to another human being.
Phone pressed to your ear, wind burning and nipping at your nose while you shielded your face from the blinding snow and walked deeper into the woods, thinking of a clearing not too far from your cabin you might have better luck at. Snow was sticking to the hood of your winter coat, shivering and sniffling as you hoped and prayed for something to happen before you died of hypothermia.
You probably should've been more specific.
Because one second, you were seeing the little huffs of your breath hang in the air, and the next you were in the air, the world flipped upside down. Disoriented and confused, thick snowflakes fluttering down on your face while you furiously blinked them away, struggling to process what happened until you realized you were caught in some kind of primitive trap. Something thick was snared around your ankles, stringing you up to a tree and dangling you down from a dizzying height.
The horror hadn't even set in that you weren't alone out here when you saw him.
You thought he was a man at the first glimpse of his face, vision swaying and snow clinging to your lashes casting everything in harsh shades of white.
It was his height that gave it away.
He was looking down at you, your brain short-circuiting trying to do the math to figure out if any human could be that tall without holding a fucking world record for it.
The natural conclusion was one that made you nauseous.
You forgot the fucking taser too, reaching for it by your side just to find empty space.
It was only then you noticed the rest of him.
The thick white fur covering his arms, his wide frame that could easily crush you if he wanted, but he made a soft grunt, your attention snapping to see he was almost pouting at you.
Maybe you were dying, or this was some insane dream, but no, the blood rushing to your head felt very much real.
You opened your mouth to speak, scared to make a noise in case it'd spur him to do anything other than stare, but then he was snapping the tie that bound you to the tree, your body sent into free fall.
But he caught you, warm and soft arms wrapping around your waist and tossing you over his shoulder, like you were just a piece of game he'd snared.
God, were you about to seriously be eaten by a fucking yeti?
"Please don't hurt me," You murmured into the tufts of his white fur, throat hoarse and raspy. You hardly recognized your own voice after so many long days of near silence, but it could've been the undercurrent of fear that'd burrowed into your bones.
He made a noise that sounded almost offended.
As if he could somehow understand you.
Like he wasn't carrying you away into some unfamiliar corner of the forest, taking dark paths you'd never ventured. For a wild thing, he had the awareness to duck through the twisting trees before any icy branches could get caught in your hair or smack you in the face.
You weren't sure when it struck you.
When he first deposited you in a pile of thick fur pelts inside a deep corner of a cave you supposed was his home, wrapping one around you with a furrowed brow? Or maybe when he pulled out a familiar MRE and gestured for you to eat the second your stomach started to growl?
He'd been studying you while you studied the plants.
Probably thought you were just a helpless little animal who couldn't take care of herself.
Saving you from driving yourself to extinction.
He watched you eat, his icy expression melting into a smile once you finished it, fighting to keep your fingers from trembling when you pushed the empty packaging forward. He made another noise, one you couldn't decipher. But you thought he was pleased.
In another life, this was the sort of find that would make you famous.
A yeti, or whatever he was, would be subject to headlines and studies plastered over the news, all over the world.
Or, would've if you'd stumbled on him, scribbled down his schedule and diet, watching him in his natural habitat rather than being stuck as his captive in it.
You weren't dead yet though.
Spring would come.
If you could survive until the day they discovered you weren't at the cabin, if you could make it until they sent a search party to comb through the woods. And even if they didn't, you might be able to make it back to the cabin once some of the ice and snow started to thaw, grab the taser and find the phone to make it back to civilization.
You sure as fuck weren't spending your life (or what was left of it) in a cave.
But maybe, you'd just found a new research subject.
