by Jerry Cole
Daniel, stunned, stumbled back against a tree of his own—a stunted cottonwood—and slid slowly to the ground across from Asher.
"Holy shit," he mumbled. "You're a mob enforcer."
"That's technically a word for it I guess, but that makes me sound more important than I am..."
"That explains the tattoos."
"Hey!"
"You have no idea where we are, do you?"
He fixed Asher with an accusatory glare, and Asher looked away, shame clear in his expression. He didn't need to answer.
"You just read the same brochures I did," Daniel scoffed, hopes crumbling. "We just wandered into the wilderness on your direction, you idiot!"
"What else were we supposed to do?" Asher glared back, responding to Daniel's hostility in kind. "Just sit at the bottom of that ravine? At least I gave us something to do! Better than just waiting to die!"
"We were waiting to be rescued!" Daniel refused to back down. Angry, hopeless tears tried their best to overwhelm him though he pushed them down. "If we had just stayed where we were—"
"You mean with the bear?" Asher pointed out, sneering. "By the river no one knew we'd be on?"
"It was something." Daniel threw a handful of pine needles at Asher in irritation. "At least we weren't in the middle of nowhere without even a landmark!"
"It's a damn park!" Asher shouted, throwing a pine cone back at Daniel. "I figured if we kept walking we'd have to find a trail eventually!"
"Did you even look at the map?" Daniel screeched, batting the pine cone out of the air and throwing it and two more back, one of which hit Asher squarely in the head. "This park is bordered by wilderness on nearly every side! We could be walking out of the national park entirely for all you know, you useless, lying, homophobic, asshole—"
He was cut off as Asher, clearly tired of being hit with pine cones, threw himself across the little space between them with the apparent intent of strangling Daniel. They rolled in the pine needles, scuffling and scratching at each other for a moment, neither doing much damage except to themselves, agitating their own injuries. It was Asher who finally stopped, dropping onto Daniel's chest with an exhausted wheeze.
"I give, I give," he said, though he was lying on top of the smaller man. "That was stupid."
"Yeah, very," Daniel spat, dropping a handful of pine needles into the other man's hair spitefully before he flopped back onto the ground to wallow in the pain he'd caused himself.
"I'm sorry," Asher said after a moment, his head still pillowed on Daniel's chest. "I wasn't trying to get us even more lost. I should have said something earlier. I'm sorry."
Daniel let the apology stand for a moment, caught off guard by the sincerity of it. He hadn't expected such a thing from Asher. Especially not now that he knew what the man was. He supposed that made the confession all the more meaningful.
"I'm sorry I called you useless," Daniel replied, tense but trying to make peace. "And hit you with a pine cone."
They lay in silence for a moment, Asher's head rising with Daniel's breathing while they recovered. Daniel was too tired and in too much pain to care about the awkward position. They'd spooned last night and spent most of today hanging on to one another like human crutches. He'd just sort of accepted that Asher was going to be in his personal space from now on. Which was strange, he realized. He'd never even liked his previous girlfriends hanging on him that much. Was it just because of the situation they were in that he could tolerate Asher so well?
"And I'm not homophobic."
Daniel was distracted from his thoughts by the comment Asher grumbled into his sternum.
"You sure acted like it," Daniel pointed out, not willing to let him go easy on that one. "I would have punched you if I didn't think you'd kick my ass."
"I tried to tell you before the raft went over." Asher was still speaking into Daniel's shirt, not meeting his eye. "I'm gay."
"What?"
Daniel stared, uncomprehending, at the man lying on him, golden blonde hair full of pine needles. He must have misheard.
Asher lifted his head to look at Daniel so there was no chance his words would be muffled by torso. "I'm gay."
"Are mob enforcers allowed to be gay?"
"Christ man, it's 2016. Do you really think they care?"
Daniel let his head drop to the forest floor again, considering. "Then why all the insults?" Daniel asked, nose wrinkling in confusion. "Is it some kind of internalized self-hate thing?"
"What? No! I was…you know..." Asher shrugged, looking away, and cleared his throat. "I was flirting."
"Seriously?" Daniel scoffed, sitting up on his hands, forcing Asher to move as well. "That's how you flirt? Has anyone ever actually responded positively to that?"
Asher shrugged again, trying to find a comfortable position that didn't inflame the wound in his side. "It's not my normal game," he agreed. "But you were so easy to fluster, and so in denial... I got carried away. You're adorable when you blush."
Daniel, to his own consternation, blushed. "Well you can forget it," Daniel said sternly. "In case I didn't make it clear before, I'm straight."
"As a San Francisco road."
"I'm serious!" Daniel's voice rose again and he struggled to bring his temper back under control. "At least show me the respect of assuming I know my own sexuality, alright?"
Asher looked a little ashamed by that and leaned away, holding up his hands for peace.
"You're right. Sorry," he said, "Don't worry about it. It was just a passing thing anyway. You have a cute face but your personality is awful."
"Wow, thanks."
"You threw pine cones at me."
For some reason that just made Daniel laugh. He sat there for a moment, just laughing, until he could wipe the tears of mirth from his eyes and stand, helping Asher up after him.
"Let's just keep moving," he decided. "We won't get found just waiting here so far from where we landed. So we might as well try and find a trail. There was some kind of body of water this way. And where there's water there's usually people."
"Good plan," Asher agreed with a nod. Holding each other up like nothing had happened, the two men limped forward, both hoping they were going the right way, doing their best not to think about the dire situation they were in.
Chapter Eleven
The forest grew denser as they trudged downhill, the underbrush soon becoming tangled and thorny and difficult to walk through, slowing their already slow progress significantly. And the sun was beginning to set as well. Daniel's stomach growled painfully. More than once they had to stop going forward and pick their way around small, sheer drops and banks too steep to drop over in their condition. Daniel felt like he'd been through hell and back and he wanted nothing so much as a good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed. Instead, as it grew dark, they stopped at the base of one of those banks and gathered branches for another hastily assembled lean-to.
"Should we try to make a fire?" Daniel asked as they settled down under the scant covering of a few loose tree branches. They were lashed together with a vine Daniel really hoped wasn't poison ivy and lined with the foil blanket.
"I don't know how," Asher confessed. "Not without a starter. I tried to learn that two sticks thing in Cub Scouts. Frickin' impossible."
"Yeah, I don't know how to do that either," Daniel confessed, unrolling the sleeping bag. "And it feels like it's going to be cold tonight."
The temperature was dropping fast, frost already appearing on the edges of things. It was going to be a rough night without a fire. He eyed the sleeping bag.
"Looks like it's going to be another night of cuddling," Asher grinned at Daniel and, now that he wasn't mistaking it for mocking, Daniel could tell the man wasn't faking his happiness about that. At least one of them was getting some enjoyment out of this nightmare.
"At least it'll be fully clothed this time," Daniel sighed.
It was already almost too dark to see. Daniel peered around their improvised campsite, war
y of bugs and snakes and wishing the neon sign of a burger joint would appear out of the darkness. He'd walk another half mile in the dark for a cheeseburger right now.
Instead he used the last of the light to check on Asher's wound, frowning as he saw it was still bleeding sluggishly through the soaked bandages. It was never going to close if Asher didn't get some rest. And Asher would only get weaker in the meantime. But they couldn't afford to just stop. He didn't say anything and Asher didn't ask. Instead he opened the sleeping bag and both men climbed in, glad it was wide enough to fit them both, even if it was a tight squeeze. Daniel did his best to zip the bag around them and keep in the warmth.
It had been an exhausting day, and Daniel expected that sleep would have to come easily. Instead it eluded him. He lay awake, terribly conscious of Asher's chest pressed against his back. The other man had fallen asleep almost at once, his arm around Daniel like a beloved teddy bear. Daniel pondered why he had to be the little spoon again. At least this time there was more than just thin underwear between his backside and Asher's hips. Especially with the way Asher kept shifting in his sleep, rocking his hips against Daniel in a way that Daniel almost suspected intentional. But Asher was definitely asleep. Daniel could feel the other man's warm, shallow breaths stirring the hair at the nape of his neck.
He closed his eyes tightly and forced his heart to slow, wondering why he was acting like a hormonal teenager, now of all times. It wasn't like he'd never slept next to a woman this way. But somehow it had never felt this intimate before, never agitated him to the point of sleeplessness. Maybe Asher was right, he thought, stomach twisting. Maybe he was in denial? He shoved that thought away quickly and hunkered down further into the bag, determined to sleep. There was no way he was gay. Asher was just projecting, and Daniel was only considering it because of the stressful situation they were in. Once this was over, he would go back to his normal life and never consider something like that again.
He did eventually sleep, and his dreams were strange, conflicted things. He was in the river again, but this time the figure on the other side was reaching through, pulling him out. He looked at it and saw his own face, dead, frozen solid. He slung his frozen corpse onto his back and walked, carrying it, back into the city and up to his office. He worked, ignoring the rictus grin of the body that wore his face and hung near his ear all day. He laid it in his bed at night and it talked, telling him awful things. The kind of things his parents had never said out loud, but that he’d always suspected they felt. The kind of things he himself had thought and been too ashamed to ever admit. When it was done, he turned out the light, went into the bathroom, and climbed through the mirror to take his place on the other side. As he plunged through its silver surface, he found himself in the river again, once more desperately stretching for air. But there were arms around him, warm and tight, dragging him down into the deep dark waters. And as they squeezed him closer, he stopped caring whether he reached the surface again. It was fine down here where he was wanted.
He woke in the morning shivering, his head throbbing with hunger. He felt even worse than he had yesterday, and no amount of snuggling from Asher, who seemed to be under the impression that Daniel was his personal stuffed toy, could correct it. No wonder he’d had so many dreams about being clung to. The man was an octopus. Daniel practically had to scrape him off with a spatula.
Daniel struggled out of the sleeping bag in silence and the two men began cleaning up their little camp, such as it was, sharing the last of the water and storing the sleeping bag and thermal blanket again. Daniel felt weak and distracted from hunger and every part of his body was in varying degrees of pain. He'd reached the point where he didn't know how to process it anymore. The pain just was, and it was endless. He and Asher limped on, silent in the early morning mist, too tired and stiff and hungry and cold to speak to one another.
Daniel scanned the underbrush ceaselessly for a sign of anything remotely edible. He was going to be ready to start stuffing leaves into his mouth at random soon. How long could a person live without food before starving? Especially while doing something as calorie intensive as hiking all day while injured? He had a feeling it wasn't long. They needed to find somewhere sheltered to hide before they ran out of energy. If they could rest and conserve their strength, maybe they could catch something. A rabbit maybe. Thinking of rabbit was a mistake. Daniel pushed the thought away as his hunger clawed at him.
Hunger made him sullen, and as the sun rose and the day got no warmer, his temper only worsened. Judging by Asher's icy glare, it wasn't doing great things for his mood either. They just needed to catch a break, Daniel thought. Just a little luck to keep them going.
They both saw the bird at the same time. A fat grouse, speckled brown with a white and red spot on its neck. The two men froze, both considering what their chances of catching it might be. They weren't even thinking about how they would cook it. As long as they could catch it, that was all that mattered. Asher caught Daniel's eye and, with a slow nod, began to circle as quietly as possible around the bird. Daniel went in the other direction, ready to catch it if it ran towards him, or else drive it back towards Asher. Daniel's heart was hammering, his mouth watering already, imagining grouse must not be too different from chicken. He couldn't wait to be full again. It would make walking so much easier, even on his sprained—
His sprained ankle, already complaining loudly from the ceaseless walking, buckled. Daniel caught himself, but not before he'd stumbled, the noise startling the grouse, which took to the air. Asher jumped after it, only to stop short with a wheeze of pain as the movement stretched his injury. They both took a moment to regain their breath and let what had just happened sink in before Asher kicked at a bush, cursing loudly.
"Son of a bitch!" he swore, abusing the bush some more. "Why the hell did you make that noise? We almost had it!"
"I tripped, alright?" Daniel, defensive, glared back at Asher in defiance. "Why didn't you catch it? It flew right towards you!"
"Because I have a damn hole in my side!" Asher shot back. "You're the one who should have been catching it!"
"I wouldn't have had to catch it if you hadn't spooked that bear and made us lose all our supplies!"
"Spooked it? What the hell else was I supposed to do? It was about to eat you!"
"No, it wasn't! Not until you made it think we were a threat by yelling and running. If you were a real trail guide you would have known that."
"And we're back to this again." Asher threw his hands in the air and turned away, stomping off in the direction they'd been walking before they'd seen the grouse. "I said I was sorry, okay?"
"Sorry doesn't really cut it when we're starving to death in the middle of nowhere." Daniel limped after the other man, glad for the anger if only because it distracted him from how hungry he was.
"I tell you what," Asher laughed bitterly. "If I die first, you're cordially invited to eat my fucking ass!"
Clinging to their anger to fuel them, the two men stomped onwards in silence, glaring and exchanging furious insults whenever they began to lose steam. By afternoon, Daniel's head was throbbing, his pulse pounding painfully in his ears, his throat raw from yelling at his companion. Asher was pale as a ghost and moving even slower than Daniel's limping pace, clearly not going to make it much farther. Daniel didn't think he would be far behind the other man. His muscles burned from prolonged exertion with nothing to refuel them. He felt dizzy, and he'd stopped caring about walking any further. He just wanted to lie down and go to sleep.
They found a small stream and paused to refill the water bottle and drink to fill their empty stomachs. Daniel contemplated whether they could catch any of the minnows darting in the shallow water. He had a feeling that even if he did, they wouldn't go far enough to be worth it. "Do you think this stream leads to the lake we saw yesterday?" he asked.
"How should I know?" Asher bared his teeth, too exhausted to look threatening. "I'm not a real trail guide, remember?"
; "We should follow it," Daniel didn't have the energy to argue. "It's better than wandering blind, and at least we won't run out of water."
"Whatever." was Asher's only answer. They carried on walking beside the narrow stream, Daniel hoping it would somehow lead them to a five-star hotel and a free steak dinner. Or even a truck stop and a microwave burrito. He wasn't picky anymore. He just wanted to be somewhere comfortable with food.
He kept thinking of his sparse little apartment, how bare and empty it was. Nothing unnecessary or complicated. Barely even anything decorative. And he always ate the same things and never really enjoyed them. If he got out of here, he was going to turn his apartment into a comfortable, pleasant place to be. No more of the empty uneasiness that kept him at work late so that he wouldn't have to face being alone. He'd fill his home with pillows and colorful decorations and teach himself to be less gloomy and antisocial somehow. And he'd never eat anything he didn't love, or hold back from indulging in things that made him happy. If he made it through this, he was going to start a new life.
"Asher," he said, stumbling a little on the loose stone bank of the stream, his ankle throbbing dully. Everything was dull now. "If we get out of this, what will you do?"
"Don't if me," Asher snorted, his breath a fog of derision riding the air before him. He split it as he passed through it. "We're going to be fine. It's only been two days."
"You didn't answer the question."
Asher made an irritated sound in the back of his throat. "First I'm going to murder your boss," he replied with deadly seriousness. "Then I'm going to sleep for a week. And then I'll just go back to how I've always been. What, are you planning some big life change because you almost died?"
He looked back at Asher and the scorn in his eyes scalded Daniel worse than the cold air.
"Sorry to disappoint you," Asher went on, "but this is just a shitty weekend for me. I'll forget about it in a year."
