The Wolf at the Door

by Charlie Adhara

  “Park,” Cooper whispered, feeling like an idiot. “Park,” he repeated a little louder, but still not at full talking volume, never mind shouting. The possibility that whoever had untied his rope was still standing by, listening, was too terrifying to consider.

  “Park. Agent Park... John Park? Fred? Freddy Park?” Cooper guessed. “Frederick?” Sure. ’Cause guessing his first name was what was going to make the difference here. Stupid. Maybe he deserved to have someone drop a rock on his head and put him out of his misery. “C’mon, you bastard. Show me your super hearing. Asshole Park. Huge alpha Park. Big, strong, muscular Park. Amazing Ass Park. Pretty Eyes Park.”

  His throat felt tight from recycling the same dank air over and over again. Cooper closed his eyes and focused all of his attention on speaking in a normal talking voice and not screaming. He could not attract the wrong attention. He could not—

  “Dayton. Dayton?” Cooper was so lost in his own head, it took him a moment to realize that was his own name he heard and another moment to realize it wasn’t him saying it. “Dayton!”

  “Park!” Cooper gasped, and couldn’t help but scramble up toward the sound. He immediately slipped farther down with a grunt.

  “Are you hurt?” Park was saying; his voice echoed strangely.

  “No, I’m—” Most of his body was numb with cold and lack of blood circulation, so if he was seriously injured he was blessedly unaware. “I’m fine. Just get me out of here.” Hopefully the edge of panic in his voice wasn’t as noticeable up there on the surface as it was down here bouncing off the wall and back into his own face.

  “Right, okay, hold on. I’m going to go get a—”

  “No!” Cooper shouted. “Please don’t go. Please.”

  Park definitely heard the panic that time. Either that or he was shocked to hear Cooper say please, because when he spoke again his voice was soothing, calm and commanding. “I need to get rope from the car to get you out. I promise I’ll be back. Okay, Dayton?”

  Yeah, not before someone else gets here first, Cooper thought. He said, “Are you alone up there?”

  “Yes?” Park replied.

  “Are you sure? There’s no one nearby?”

  “I’m sure. I can call the others if—”

  “No. Don’t call anyone. Don’t let anyone else come near here. There’s rope in the second shed to the right. Please, just...hurry.”

  Park didn’t respond immediately, and Cooper shouted his name, afraid he’d already walked away.

  “I’m here,” Park said. “It’s okay. I promise I’m not going to leave you. Let me get the rope from the shed now. Count to ten and I’ll be back before you’re done.”

  “I’m not four fucking years old,” Cooper snarled even as he started counting in his head.

  ...five...six...seven...

  “Dayton, you there?”

  Cooper exhaled. “The fuck do you think!” But it came out with less bite than he’d have liked.

  “If I throw this end down, do you have enough room to tie it around you?”

  Nope. But he’d make room, damn it. If he said otherwise Park might insist on calling a rescue team or leaving to get better equipment and he needed to get out of here, like, yesterday.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Do it.”

  Cooper heard the soft thud of a coil of rope landing on a ledge far above him and then Park quietly swear. A moment passed and he heard the rope hit rock again but falling a little farther this time, sending a scattering of dirt into his hair reminiscent of the moment right before he fell. His breathing, which had calmed down a bit since Park’s arrival, picked up again. This would be a bad time to start hyperventilating, Cooper thought, which of course made his lungs squeeze even tighter.

  “Dayton?” Park said, his voice concerned.

  “Fine,” Cooper grunted.

  Stop embarrassing yourself.

  He tightened his grip, clenching the rock until his knuckles ached. He struggled to suck down another deep breath.

  “Talk to me,” Park said as he maneuvered the end of the rope down the crevice as if threading a twisted needle.

  “Not much to say,” Cooper bit out. Why was he wasting breath talking? “The atmosphere down here leaves a lot to be desired.”

  “That’s why you should always check your Yelp reviews.”

  Cooper huffed slightly with reluctant amusement. Counterintuitively, that small exhale made his lungs feel better, more open, than all the desperate inhaling he’d been doing. He was able to relax his finger grips on the rock a little. It wasn’t like they were doing much anyway. It was more his butt wedged against the stone that was preventing him from falling than anything else.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking about,” Park said as he continued to maneuver the rope down.

  “Um, I don’t think I’ve ever been this grateful for having a fat ass?”

  Park chuckled softly. “It is a great ass.”

  Whether he was agreeing to its usefulness in that moment or saying it had other...aesthetic qualities, Cooper wasn’t sure. But his surprise at the comment distracted him from the aching in his back for one or two precious milliseconds. Had Park checked him out? Was he interested in him sexually? Was this a reasonable time to be thinking about it?

  Probably not seemed to cover all three.

  “What else?” Park prompted.

  “I’m thinking...” That I want you to have checked out my ass. “I’m thinking that you’re taking a ridiculously long time to thread a really skinny rope through a really big fucking hole.”

  “You’re not a very pleasant damsel in distress,” Park remarked.

  “And you’re a shitty Lassie. Timmy never had to wait this long when he fell down a well.”

  The rope chose that moment to land on Cooper’s head. He grabbed it, losing his balance in his haste, and started to slip down.

  “Shit!” He kicked out hard with his left leg and stopped moving.

  “Cooper!”

  He waited until his heart crawled off his tongue. “Present,” he said as calmly as possible. At least his voice wasn’t shaking as much as his hands were.

  Cooper quickly looped the rope through the rope harness already around his waist and tied it multiple times. He tugged on it hard and the knots stayed true. “All right,” he called up to Park. “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.”

  The rope went taut in his hands and slowly, too slowly, he felt himself begin to be de-wedged. He held on to the rope with one tight hand and put the other in front of his face to keep from banging into the wall. Even as he inched up, he kept his left foot pressed against one wall and his spine welded to the other, not easing the pressure.

  “Dayton,” Park grunted from above. “Are you stuck on something?”

  “No,” Cooper said, looking at his foot guiltily. The crevice was wide enough now that the moment he relaxed the tension in his body he would be hanging freely, relying entirely on the rope. And on Park.

  “Are you...trying to help?” Park asked, diplomatically. A polite way to ask if he was clinging to the rock because he didn’t trust Park to support him.

  Cooper took another shaky breath. “You can definitely hold me?”

  “Yes,” Park said.

  “I’m heavier than I look, you know. Not that it’s not all muscle. And ass,” he added.

  “I promise I’ve got you, Dayton. Let go.”

  Cooper grimaced, sucked in a breath and relaxed his muscles all at once.

  His body swung like a pendulum between the walls but didn’t drop any farther down. His left leg hung beneath him, an alien dead weight for a merciful moment before a thousand pins and needles burned like acid through his muscles.

  “Okay?” he yelled up to Park. “Too heavy?”

  “Please. I eat more than you weigh for breakfast,” Park
responded, way too cheerful and relaxed for someone hauling 170 pounds of dead weight up a hell portal.

  Cooper was moving at a pretty fast clip when his head bumped the first narrowing of the crevice.

  “Ow, fuck,” he said. “Hold on.”

  Park stopped pulling and Cooper tried to wedge his shoulders into the crack. Forget skin, the rock seemed to scrape at his very bones. He wriggled and strained until the tendons of his neck ached. Christ, why was this taking so long? Why was he still in here? How much longer was he going to be trapped?

  Cooper suddenly felt overheated and irrationally furious. He wanted to punch his way through the earth but couldn’t move his arms, which just made him angrier.

  “It’s adrenaline, just adrenaline,” he muttered to himself, beyond caring if Park heard at this point. Talking out loud forced him to breathe more evenly which in turn helped soothe the wave of claustrophobia-triggered rage. “You fit going down, so you must fit going up.” He scooted back down a couple inches and tried to psych himself up into squeezing through again.

  “You’ve got exactly twenty-seven hours and then I’m coming in there and trimming you down,” Park said from above.

  “Like your big head could fit,” Cooper said. “And twenty-seven hours? It’s 127 hours! What do you think, he sawed his own arm off after one day?”

  “You want to make it twenty-seven minutes, Dayton?” Park said.

  Cooper swore at him viciously but the handful of neurons still firing logically knew Park was talking shit to distract him. Since he now wanted to punch his partner instead of the rock, he supposed it was probably working.

  He exhaled as much as he could, reached his hands up to grab the wall above his head and pulled. This time he scraped through with just a bit of pressure on his sternum. The rock in front of his face was flecked with rust. Dried blood.

  Cooper swallowed heavily and blinked the sweat out of his eyes. Still there.

  It must be his own blood from the way down. Looked like he’d had trouble fitting down the hole as well. He didn’t remember the fall, exactly. But maybe that was a good thing.

  Cooper tugged on the rope. Hard. “Clear.”

  The rope started its ascent again and he made it toward the top without incident. Soon he could see Park standing over the crevice.

  He had looped the rope around a tree and was carefully pulling it hand over fist, his face calm and relaxed; the only sign that he was doing anything out of the ordinary was his bulging arm muscles. Maybe he was a little biased, but in that moment Cooper was sure he’d never seen anything more beautiful.

  “Oh, hey there,” Park said, as if he’d just noticed Cooper. “What are you up to?”

  Trying to imitate his calculated calm, Cooper said, “Not much, just hanging.” It was forced, but Park snorted gamely, as if he couldn’t hear the tremble and crack in Cooper’s voice.

  As soon as he was close enough, Cooper grabbed the edge of the ground. Park knelt and grasped Cooper’s forearm with one hand and the makeshift rope harness at the small of his back with the other and tugged him up, falling backward with Cooper beside him.

  Cooper pressed his cheek to solid, sun-warmed ground and inhaled the heavenly scent of dry earth and grass and, shit, just life.

  Park’s hands were gently working over Cooper’s body. Feeling for injuries, Cooper realized distantly. Nothing serious made itself known and Cooper muttered a thankful prayer into the dirt.

  “What was that?” Park said from beside him.

  Cooper turned to face him sitting on the ground beside him. Park looked curious and kind, but there was a little tell of strain and worry creasing his eyes. Worry about him, Cooper realized.

  “I said I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque,” he choked out.

  Park smiled and shook his head. The hand that was checking him over brushed across the lines of thickened scar tissue on Cooper’s stomach and hesitated. Park traced the lines as if reading braille and then abruptly came up to rest on Cooper’s shoulder.

  “You did well,” he said softly. “Not a lot of people would have held it together like that.” All the overly cheerful banter was gone from his voice, his thumb massaging the tension out of the joint of Cooper’s neck and shoulder. If Cooper had the energy, he would have leaned into the touch. He didn’t, so he just stared at Park and willed him not to stop. Cooper’s body was flushed, the muscles quivering. He could feel his pulse pounding beneath Park’s fingers.

  It’s just the leftover adrenaline, Cooper thought. You fell down a giant hole. Don’t confuse physical arousal for sexual arousal. Maybe a little bit of savior worship.

  Still, Cooper couldn’t look away.

  “Hey,” Park said. “Oliver.”

  “What?” Cooper’s voice sounded huskier than usual. Maybe due to breathing the foul air of the crevice. Maybe not.

  “My name’s Oliver. Though if you want to call me Pretty Eyes Park again, I promise I’ll still come running.”

  Cooper felt the flush on his body spreading to his cheeks. He didn’t look away from Park’s eyes. The cool amber had warmed to amaretto and were, again, laughing at him. Teasing.

  Cooper wanted to shut those eyes up. See them widen in surprise. He tilted his head a little and gently kissed the top of Park’s hand, still resting on his shoulder, without breaking eye contact. Park hadn’t really been moving around before but somehow he seemed to still further.

  Cooper’s heart was fluttering, quick and giddy. Where the hell had that come from? He could play it off. Say he was just so thankful to these hands for tugging him out of hell. It was true enough. He should say that. Which was why he was astonished to find himself kissing Park’s hand again, this time a little slower, a little wetter, his lips slightly parted, his eyes drifting shut. Park’s skin was so warm against Cooper’s crevice-cold lips. Neither of them moved for a moment. Cooper looked up.

  Park’s eyes certainly weren’t laughing anymore. They were narrowed, heavy-lidded and predatory. It made Cooper’s lower belly heat and unfurl pleasantly, like a waking cat stretching in the sun. He bit his lip to prevent any of the embarrassing sounds he felt fluttering in his chest from escaping.

  Park’s hand twisted until his fingers gently cradled Cooper’s chin, his thumb gently tugged his lower lip free and then swiped over Cooper’s mouth.

  Park shifted positions so that he was kneeling up beside Cooper, hovering over him and looking down. His close presence felt like a tangible physical weight. Cooper instinctively rolled onto his back to see him better and felt Park’s hand twitch where it still rested, thumb on his lips, fingers stroking his throat. Park leaned farther over him, left hand bracing against the ground by Cooper’s head.

  When he spoke, Park’s voice was rough and gritty. “Do you—”

  “There you are!” a voice called out. Park snatched his hand away and sat back on his heels. Cooper was shocked to see a faint blush stain his cheeks. What had he started to say? Do you...want to continue this in private?

  Cooper also sat up, a lot less quickly, and looked around.

  Harris was striding toward them, face unsmiling for once. Park was already up on his feet and reached down to help Cooper up. All the bruises and scrapes on his body chose that moment to sing a choir of complaints, and Cooper grunted.

  “Okay?” Park asked. His voice was quiet and concerned, but the moment Cooper was standing he snatched his hand back and shoved it into his jeans pocket. Do you...actually think I’d be interested in you sexually? You?

  “Fine,” Cooper responded as Harris stopped next to them.

  “What’s going on?” he said, voice suspicious. “Where have you been?”

  “I fell down a hole,” Cooper said, gesturing at the crevice. “Thought I saw something and tried to take a closer look.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “N
o,” Cooper said shortly. “Where’s Christie?”

  “Looking for you. You’ve been MIA for over an hour.”

  Cooper blinked and looked at Park. “Have I?” He shivered. It had felt both like seconds and like days down there. He supposed an hour was a reasonable compromise.

  “We should have you looked at by a doctor,” Park said. His voice had returned to its normal soft and smooth tone.

  Do you...have a concussion that’s making you come on to your partner in weird ways?

  “I’m fine, just dirty.” And cold and aching and...confused.

  Park frowned and looked like he was going to push it, but Harris fortunately interrupted. “I should find Christie. Let him know I found you before he pulls out his sonar. Crime techs are about ten minutes out. You want to head out or—”

  “We’ll stick around,” Cooper cut him off. “And can you get more uniforms up here? I want to do a full search of the property.”

  Park shot him another look and Cooper shook his head slightly. Don’t argue, he begged with his eyes.

  Whether Park picked up on the message or he was still feeling too awkward from their hand-mouth encounter to engage with Cooper was unclear, but he kept quiet until Harris walked away to give orders into his radio.

  Then Park said softly, “You should go back to town. You don’t need to be here, and you’re bleeding. You might have hit your head—”

  “I said I’m fine, so back off, okay?” It came out harsher than he’d intended and Cooper felt a twinge when Park quickly looked away from him, face shuttering, shoulders tensed.

  Cooper felt a bit like he’d just smacked a puppy with a newspaper. But honestly he was fine. Now that he was in the open air, anyway. He wasn’t hurt. A few bruises and scrapes burned dully, but so what? He’d shed more blood learning to ride a bike. And if he wasn’t physically hurt, Park must think he was mentally hurt. Vulnerable. Shaken. That was not something Cooper wanted Park thinking.

  “Look, I just mean I don’t need to be taken care of.”

  “Who’s offering?” Park said, without turning around. “I was just trying to take care of myself. You stink like death.” He stalked off after Harris.