Wild Raspberries (8 page)

Without Dan in it, the cabin seemed smaller, quieter. Stifling. Tyler waited until his ears had recovered from the slam of the door and then took a single, careful sip from his beer before putting it down.

Had he ever been that stupidly melodramatic? Probably. He considered what little he knew of Dan and concluded in less than thirty seconds that the boy wasn’t likely to come back, tail between his legs, bedraggled and apologetic. He’d left his home, the only one he’d known, and even hunger and his experiences on the road hadn’t turned his steps south again.

Tyler had given him shelter for a day, a few meals, a blow job, and the promise of a week of boredom, hard work, and little else.

No, Dan wouldn’t be coming back. Tyler finished his beer, his thoughts studiously blank, and listened to the rising wind as it played with any items not securely fastened down, batting at them like a curious kitten. His garden could stand some wind, and the rain would be welcome, but a big storm, that could do some damage, and he wouldn’t be able to go out there and tidy up the mess when it’d blown over without suffering some, not for another few days.

The beer had been a bad idea; he needed to take a leak, and he’d probably have to haul his ass out of bed in the middle of the night, too, because he felt like drinking more. Lots more.

When he finished in the bathroom, already used to the mechanics of balancing himself against the wall so that he could piss standing up without making his ankle throb, an unfamiliar splash of color attracted his attention. He focused on it; Dan’s toothbrush, a bright neon green, cheap and decorated with a blob of lurid blue toothpaste on the handle. Tyler gathered up everything Dan had left in the bathroom, the sparse, basic supplies all cheap, all disposable, and put the items into a plastic sandwich bag. He stood in the kitchen, holding the bag in his hand, irresolute and depressed in a way he hadn’t been for months now. Throw it away? Keep it in case Dan did show up again, his flash of temper burned out?

Or go after him and give Dan a face-saving chance to spend the night dry and warm, no matter what he did in the morning? Tyler wasn’t used to examining his motives for what he did; he acted and dealt with the fallout, end of story, but what had happened with Dan didn’t need picking to bits to make sense of. He’d fallen for Dan’s mix of vulnerability and guts — and for all his efforts to keep his distance, Dan was just too fucking tempting after two years of nothing but his own hand and some memories for company. Not his type, no, Tyler hadn’t lied about that — but then, he’d always, pragmatically, gone for what was available, and that had never included anyone remotely like Dan, so who knew.

Rain struck the windows like angrily tapping fingers, and Tyler sighed and went to get his car keys. Time to see if he could drive with his left foot useless.

***

He expected to find Dan on the road, headed for the town, but even though he drove slowly, scanning the wind-whipped trees for a wet figure sheltering under them, he didn’t see Dan. He could’ve gotten a ride in with someone, but the odds weren’t good. Tyler hadn’t seen anyone else on the road; they’d all be safe and dry at home or checking that their property was secured against what was looking to be a wild night.

The rain was coming down hard now, too much for the wipers to handle. Tyler drove around town for ten minutes without seeing Dan and was about to start checking the bars when some instinct made him turn around in a spray of dirty water. If Dan was in a bar, he was fine for the moment; if he wasn’t, if he was still in the woods —

Tyler got home, the journey longer than usual because the unlit road was barely visible through the streaming glass and he didn’t want to end up in the ditch, and took out a flashlight from the glove compartment. It worked; all his flashlights did, just like the truck was always kept gassed up and ready to go. Old habits, too much part of his routine for him to give them much thought. Without bothering to do more than fasten his slicker, he got out, took a firm grip on his cane, and turned on the flashlight. He couldn’t follow Dan’s tracks because there weren’t any; just mud and grass and water, but he could see the path that led to the raspberries.

He trained the small circle of light onto the path and, feeling vaguely ridiculous, yelled Dan’s name into the shriek of the wind and heard it take the word away. Each repetition of the name was easier, until soon he was calling it every few breaths, every few steps, calling it and almost forgetting to leave a space for Dan to reply, always assuming he was around to hear it and felt like answering.

The thought of Dan hearing it and ignoring him, or, worse yet, hiding from him, was uncomfortable enough that he shoved it away. Besides, he had enough to deal with keeping his footing on the rain-slicked earth, a layer of wet over baked-dry dirt making each step chancy. The bandaged ankle was a fucking pain, too, the grass catching at it and wet and dirt working their way inside the leather sandals he’d tugged on before leaving the cabin.

Anne was going to rip him a new one when she saw him next. This just didn’t qualify as resting.

Tyler came close to falling three times, the spike of adrenaline flooding his system each time. Fear of falling, fear of the dark. He’d never been conscious of either in the past, not even as a child, and he wasn’t afraid now, just wary and angry. The dark hid Dan and made finding him more difficult; so would falling, which was why he wanted to avoid it.

Each foot of path he traveled made his objectives narrow to a pinpoint beam, intense and searing. He was going to find Dan, bring him home, and if fucking Dan or rolling over for him would keep Dan around for a few days, and take that helpless, hopeless look out of his eyes, Tyler would consider it.

“Would have been simpler to shoot you, boy,” he muttered. “Should have gone with my instincts, because God knows, if you do come back, you’ll complicate things.”

Like they’d been so simple before.

He felt the cool tickle of water running down his spine as the rain found its way past the upturned collar of his coat — his hood kept blowing back — and sighed. Fuck. Just… fuck.

“Dan!
Dan
—”

It took him another ten minutes to find Dan, a miserable, huddled shape sheltering — in a loose definition of the word — in the overhang of a rock outcropping, about half a mile from the cabin. Not far, but Dan’s trail had circled around; he’d gotten lost. Luckily for them both, Tyler never could; his sense of direction was built-in. Dan didn’t look up, even when Tyler was standing next to him, the pale illumination from the flashlight picking out clenched, shaking hands and filthy jeans.

Tyler couldn’t squat down beside Dan, not with any certainty of being able to get back up again with any grace, and using his cane to poke Dan seemed rude. He settled for switching off the flashlight to save the battery and leaned against the rock, his face turned up so that the rain could wash away the detritus of leaves and dirt he’d collected during his search.

He gave Dan a minute, two, and then he pitched his voice to compete with the waning storm. “I could use some help getting back. The path’s washed out in places.”

Dan stood without a word, slung his sodden, dripping pack onto his shoulder, and gave Tyler a sidelong glance, caught in the renewed light from the flashlight. He looked… Tyler couldn’t think of a label to hang on his expression, not then, and not during the time that followed as they made their way through the gradually slackening rain back to the cabin.

He could have made it without using Dan as a crutch, but he didn’t. Let the boy see that he was needed; it was about the only bait Tyler had for the hook he wanted to plant. He let Dan hold the light and slung his arm around the broad shoulders that braced to take his weight. He slipped once and Dan held him upright, one cold hand coming up to grip Tyler’s equally chilled hand briefly.

By the time they got to the cabin, Tyler was in a world of pain. His ribs ached and his ankle — fuck. Fuck, fuck — He found that he was saying it under his breath, like a mantra, and made himself stop.

Once inside, the dry, warm peace struck like a blow, too much of a change to be comforting in that first moment. Tyler turned to Dan. “I need — “ He pulled at his coat, with fingers made clumsy by the cold. The summer heat had been drained from the world by the storm, leached out, or maybe just from him and Dan as they stood, shivering, muddy, soaked.

Dan dropped his pack and came to help Tyler, his face still shuttered, his eyes downcast. He hadn’t spoken to Tyler, and Tyler was too tired to have any desire at all to force the issue. They were both safe, and that would do for now.

Dan stripped him down to shorts, his hands guiding clammy, clinging clothes over arms and legs without ceremony. The clothes were left in a heap by the door, a puddle already spreading out, and Dan, his boots discarded, walked, dripping water, to the couch and got the blanket that lay over the back of it.

He held it out to Tyler, who took it and fumbled it around himself, juggling the cane from hand to hand. He was unsure of what to do next. He couldn’t go to bed without drying off a lot more, and he needed a bath, he supposed, although the thought of getting wet again, even in clean, hot water, wasn’t as appealing as it might have been. Sitting down was out of the question; he wouldn’t have the energy to get back up again.

He looked over at Dan, who was standing by the door, still wearing his coat, and realized that Dan was waiting for something from him.

“Get out of those wet clothes and have a shower or a bath,” he said. “I’ll find you some dry clothes to sleep in and make some coffee.” And his was going to have a slug of whiskey in it.

Dan nodded, a slow dip and rise of his head, as if even that small gesture was an effort, and added his clothes to the heap, dragging them off without a trace of self-consciousness until he was naked.

Tyler watched, his throat closed around an ache of longing, all the more intense because he had no intention of acting upon it, and even if he had, he was too damn tired. Dan’s body, muscles shaped by hard work, was marked with nothing more than sunburn, freckles, and the dark silk of hair, faintly shadowed on his chest and a thin vertical strip on his belly. He probably had the scars everyone accumulated on elbows and knees and his farm work might have added to them, but Tyler couldn’t see any. His own skin was interrupted in half a dozen places by permanent messages from bullets and blades — oh, yeah, and that freaking bite from a guard dog with entirely too much pit bull in his lineage.

By the time Dan came out of the shower, Tyler had put the wet clothes into the washing machine in the kitchen and made coffee. He’d given in and sat down on the couch to drink it, having pulled on a sweatshirt and sweatpants. The bandage on his ankle was wet and filthy, forcing him to change it, and he suspected that his ankle had swollen as it hurt more than it had that morning. He was going to have to see Anne again, and she was going to give him hell.

Dan had a towel wrapped around his waist. He still looked on the dazed side, but he’d stopped shivering.

“I put some clothes on my bed for you,” Tyler said. “And there’s coffee here.”

“Why are you being nice to me?”

“Because I’m too damn tired to kick your ass.” Tyler put his mug down on the floor and winced as the small movement jarred his ankle. He was reclining on the couch, and it felt entirely too comfortable given that he was going to have to move soon. “Get dressed before you catch cold.”

“Are you kidding?” Dan walked around the couch into Tyler’s line of sight, filling it completely, and gestured at his body, watermarked in scarlet. “I’m boiled. I’m a lobster. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.”

“Good thing I’d decided to skip a bath if you’ve used up all the hot water.”

“I didn’t use it all.” Dan hesitated and then sat down on the floor by the couch, leaning against it. The towel stayed wrapped, just, but his legs, bare and damp, were exposed to mid-thigh. He smelled of rain and soap. “You came after me.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t expect you to do that.”

Dan turned one hand palm up and, without looking at Dan’s face, Tyler slid his into it and felt Dan’s fingers close around it, hanging on.

“It wasn’t on my to-do list,” Tyler admitted. “But I don’t think I’d have slept well knowing you were out there.”

“
You
shouldn’t have been out there,” Dan said. “Your ankle —”

“Fucking hurts,” Tyler said succinctly. “I’ll see Anne tomorrow, and she can take a look at it when she’s through yelling at me.”

“Oh, God.” Dan bent his head so that it was pillowed against Tyler’s thigh and began to cry, the harsh, shuddering sobs of a man, not a child, wrenched out of him by emotion rather than willingly shed, Tyler guessed. Dan didn’t seem like the crying sort. Tyler turned a little, rolling onto his side, and used his free hand to smooth Dan’s wet hair in an impulse to comfort. He found himself murmuring the sense-free litany of a mother to a hurt child, which left him profoundly unnerved. He changed, “it’s okay, it’ll be okay” as his fingers carded through the thick, slippery hair to a more bracing, “Boy, stop that. Look at me,” his fingers finding Dan’s chin and forming a hook to lift it.

Tear-wet eyes met his. “Fuck, I’m sorry.” Dan sniffed and then tugged his towel free and used it to scrub his face dry. He dropped it back into his lap, but not before Tyler had seen the flushed, damp curl of Dan’s cock. He knew the shape it made when it was hard. Knew what it tasted like. He knew that, and he barely knew Dan at all. He felt as if he’d been given a book to read and told to start at chapter four.