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"I don't see why we should build a fire anyway. Surely all that will do is pinpoint our location to anyone looking for it." Darren grumbled as he searched for firewood near their chosen camping spot.
"Yeah, because there are so many people out looking for us. No, you fuckin' dumbass, our main danger out here is wild animals, and what are they afraid of? Fire. So build us a fucking fire, right?" Cody was even grumpier as he had what he considered the far harder task of putting up the tent. So far, he'd managed to put up a tangle.
It took a while but eventually the two of them had a small fire burning, and what amounted to a bundle of canvas draped over the branches of the nearest tree, propped up with tent poles and trailing guy ropes uselessly. It wasn't exactly a waterproof or draughtproof tent, but it was certainly roomy.
They intended to keep a watch, but they each thought the other was on first shift and they both fell asleep oblivious, expecting to be woken up in a few hours for their turn. They were, in fact, both woken up around the time they were expecting to be–by odd shuffling grunts–only to find that the fire had burnt out and that there wasn't quite enough moonlight to see further than a foot in front of them.
"Mmrrhthe fuck?" Cody mumbled, still groggy and half-asleep. "Why'sa fire out?"
The shuffling grunts stopped at the words. Whatever was causing them snorted and, by the sounds of things, crept closer to investigate.
"Fucked'f I know." Darren replied, not even bothering to open his eyes. "Wha'ya makin' that weird noise for, anyway?"
"Wha' fuckin' noise?"
The whatever-it-was that was making noises chose that moment to utter a loud growl right by their heads. Cody and Darren both opened their eyes at the same time, took in the bear face that was within eating range of their own faces, screamed, and scrambled backwards as fast as possible.
"That fuckin' noise!" Darren explained when he'd stopped screaming.
"That," Cody panted, "That's a fuckin' bear. I didn't make no weird fuckin' noise."
"So that wa'n't you screaming just now?" Darren asked, as if he hadn’t also just been screaming.
Cody ignored that, turning his attention back to where they'd been lying and trying to see through the darkness to their intruder. It didn't work, but after a moment he remembered the lighter in his pocket and flicked it open.
"The fuck is that?" Darren whispered, suddenly conscious of all the noise they'd been making.
"I told you, it's a fuckin' bear." Cody whispered back.
"It's a fuckin' small bear..."
"Well maybe it's a baby bear then, but it's still a fuckin' bear." Cody's voice rose on the last two words and the bear's head swung towards them. It growled again and attempted to charge them, but tripped up on its right hindpaw, which was caught in a tangle of what was supposed to be a tent.
"Hey lookit that, it's caught on your tent!"
"Yeah, that was intentional." Cody lied.
"Man, I didn't even think of setting up traps..." Darren shook his head in amazement at his friend’s ingenuity. "So what are we gonna do with it now that we've caught it?"
Cody shrugged. "I dunno...Sell it? There's gotta be some kinda black market on these things."
The bear struggled against the canvas, its growls and grunting quickly changing to bawls of distress.
"Can't we keep 'im? I mean, lookit the poor little fella, all stuck an' shit." Darren looked wistful.
"Oh yeah? And what ya gonna feed it?"
"I dunno. Let's see what 'e likes." Darren walked back to the fireside past the bear cub, giving it a wide berth and only jumping slightly at the attempted lunge that fell far too short. He dug around in his backpack and drew out a big packet of jerky. "Here boy, how'd'ya like this?" He threw one at the bear cub and it caught it in its mouth and swallowed almost immediately, then grunted and lunged for more. "See? 'e likes it!"
"Yeah, but if he eats all your food you're gonna starve." Cody pointed out. "Either we sell it - and quickly so it don't eat us out of house and home - or we skin it, butcher it, sell the skin and get some decent meat out of it to boot."
"Fuck you, Code. I'm keeping 'im. I'm gonna feed him and myself, and we're gonna be best mates, and he's never gonna make me do all the fuckin' grunt work like my other supposed best mate does." Darren methodically worked through the rest of his jerky while saying this, getting closer to the bear all the time. Eventually he was within arm's reach of it, and was still not being mauled. Emboldened by this, he held out the very last piece of jerky above the bear's mouth and the bear cub took it ever so gently. Darren grinned and got to work freeing its paw so he could get back to work being its best friend.
As soon as the paw was free the bear took a few testing steps on it, then nuzzled up against Darren in thanks and bawled for more jerky.
"I ain't got no more jerky, that was the last piece. We'll have to go huntin' if we want more meat, mate." Darren apologised to it.
The bear cub bawled again, turned around, and charged for Cody instead. Darren shrugged, knowing full well that he couldn't do anything in time to stop the inevitable, and anyway Cody would probably keep his new mate fed for a good week at least.