Chapter Text
This was the last place Natalie thought she’d find herself on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Before the crash she wasn’t too much of a swimmer or had anything to do with any aquatic related activities but the bright yellow ‘HELP WANTED’ flyer in their apartment intrigued her.
Travis told her that he got himself a job at the local swimming pool. She didn’t think too much of it, just a simple ‘nice’ slipping out from her mouth while she lit her cigarette.
Their therapists told them that they should start looking for small part-time jobs to “adjust back into society,” as she put it. They even gave them a list of places that were willing to hire two trauma-pilled 21-year-olds.
Travis found it easier, of course, but Natalie hated the interviews. Hated how they all had that same look on their faces when they found out she was one of the Yellowjackets. It was a cross between pity and fear.
Midday, and the sun was blazing. Natalie was bored after Travis left in the morning. Their AC was fucked cause their landlord does jack. and nothing good was playing on the TV, but the bright yellow flyer was glowing at her in the corner of her eye.
Fuck it. She thought and went to get changed.
She might as well see what his new job was.
Nat also realised that the flyer and Travis were very vague about it. They didn’t specifically say what the job was. She figured maybe warehouse night shifts or in the snack bar—something low-contact and invisible, just like him.
~
The place smelled like chlorine and cheap sunscreen. Kids screamed, water splashed, and lifeguard whistles pierced the air like clockwork.
Natalie didn’t see Travis straight away when she walked in. The snack bar had two people in it, a young boy and a middle-aged woman. Outside in the pool area, there was barely any staff, just a beach blonde girl sitting up on the lifeguard’s chair, looking bored out of her mind.
Natalie didn’t think too much of it as she set her bag down on an available lounge chair right across from the lifeguard’s post on the other side of the pool. Travis was probably hiding in the back somewhere or on his break.
She applied her lotion and slipped off her sandals, all the while the beach blonde lifeguard had left her chair and was replaced. Natalie didn’t even notice until she settled into her chair, and her eyes immediately darted towards the new figure in the lifeguard stand.
Her brows pulled together.
There was no mistaking that posture—shoulders broad, one knee up, elbow draped lazily, but alert like he was still waiting for something to go wrong. Like he always was. Natalie blinked once. Then twice.
No fucking way.
It was Travis.
Her Travis. In red board shorts, shirtless, tan like he’d been working this job longer than a week, wet strands of dark hair curling at the ends. Aviator's low on his nose. Whistle hanging loose from his lips. He hadn’t noticed her yet—too focused, too still. But she was frozen too, caught somewhere between mortification, rage and something else…
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered.
She watched the way some of the moms giggled when they walked past. Watched how a pair of teenage girls whispered behind their hands near the edge of the pool, glancing up at him like he was a goddamn summer fantasy. Natalie rolled her eyes so hard she swore she pulled something.
He said he got a job at the pool. He didn’t say he was on display.
Because that’s what this was, wasn’t it?
The muscles, the sun, the height of the chair—every bit of it framed him like a scene straight out of some teenage drama.
She sank deeper into her chair, arms crossed, sunglasses slipping lower on her nose as she stared daggers across the pool.
He looked good. Too good. That was the problem. Tan and lean and calm in a way she hadn’t seen since before the crash, like he’d finally found a version of himself that could pretend nothing ever happened.
Natalie hated how much it made her stare.
And then, like he felt it, he looked straight at her.
Eyes behind dark lenses. Jaw tight. Whistle still at his lips.
Their silence stretched across the water.
He didn’t smile.
Neither did she.
But a slow smirk curled at the edge of his mouth. Just a flicker. Just enough.
Natalie narrowed her eyes.
This was war.
.