Author's Website: https://www.squidge.org/~pumpkin/cara/caraindex.html

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Author's Notes:

Story Notes: This story is a mirror piece to "Controlled Burn." As such, it would be best if you read "Controlled Burn" first. <G>

My old man shoulda given me a chance when I was a kid; camping's not so bad. At least it's okay with Benny. Well, given that we planned it first this time. He's so good at this kinda thing there's no way we're gonna have any problems, even if his idea of basic necessities does leave a lot to be desired.

OK, so I had to pack in the heavy tent and so we walked about half a day straight uphill after we left the Riv parked somewhere on a moose trail in middle of the Australian Outback. She'll get us back out again. If it doesn't rain.

I'm bettin' it's gonna be uphill all the way back, too. But we're here and my cell phone's off and we've got food in a cooler and that's what counts. That and this fire ring. I read in a book that a good fire ring stops drafts that put your fire out, so this one is gonna be just right. I'm gonna learn how to start a fire if it kills me.

Benny's acting funny, kinda quiet, but I'm not gonna let that bug me unless it lasts too long. He looks OK; his eyes aren't closed off like they get when he's thinking about Victoria. Maybe he's just enjoying himself. I bet he didn't talk much out in the Yukon when he was doing Mountie stuff, unless it was to Dief.

It's nice out here. Quiet except for the birds and Benny, whenever I can get him to say something. Not like Chicago, where there's sirens and yelling and cars 24/7. It's almost too quiet. Human voices make it feel better, more comfortable or something. Benny makes it better too. I'd hate to be stuck out here all by myself. I dump my load of rocks at the same time he sets down his firewood and I bump his shoulder on the way up to get his attention.

"Ya know the problem with nature? It's dirty, that's what the problem is. A guy can't touch anything in these woods without ruining his clothes. Except you. You never get dirty. Not in the serge, not in that ratty flannel. I don't see how you do it. It's enough to make a guy believe in conspiracy theory."

That oughtta give him something to talk about, a chance to tell me how dirt's natural and good for you and how he's completely innocent of working some kind of mojo against my brand new forty-eight dollar Eddie Bauer camping out shirt. But it doesn't. He looks down for a minute, then when he looks up he's got the Mountie mask on.

"Well, Ray, there is the lake. A swim provides the natural equivalent of a hot shower." Great, another constipated regulation quoted straight out of the Mountie Manual. I grin at him wryly. You'd think those Mounties would have noticed it's cold up there in Canada, but they don't think anything in the world about wading right into water that'd freeze the balls off a brass monkey.

"You mean a cold shower." I can't help but laugh at the patient look on his face. "At least it's cleaner than Lake Michigan, right?" I hope. He doesn't say anything or look squiggle-eyed, so I guess it is.

"You come too when you get finished gathering all the wood." There, that'll teach him. I grin and set out through the woods and in a second Dief passes me, his tail flying like a flag. I make a bet with myself that Benny's not gonna stay behind and get that firewood.

The lake's all silver in the sun and deep shady green under the trees. I can see it a long time before I get there. I can't keep from thinking about Benny while I pick my way down the hillside toward the shore. He's really started to act like himself again in the last few weeks, and I can't tell you how glad I am. There were plenty of times I never thought he'd make it.

If I ever get my hands on that bitch there's a promise I made her that I'm looking forward to keeping.

Now I'm doing what I didn't want him to do. No way am I gonna let Victoria ruin this weekend.

There's a coarse stony beach at the lakeside and it crunches under my shoes as I walk to the edge of the water. The rocks are roughly rounded, pinkish-brown with white patches. I bet Benny could tell me what kind they are if he was here. He always knows that kinda stuff. He can tell what kind of tree he's got by licking the damn thing, for Christ's sake! I better not ask him about the rocks if I don't want him to eat one or something.

A big stone shelf sticks out of the water a hundred yards or so out in the cove, with the sun beating down all over it. It's just the thing I was after, if I didn't have to swim to get to it. I might as well. I bet it'll make Benny happy if I take his advice, and it'll be nice lying out and gettin' toasted.

So I wander on the bank till I guess I'm as close to the rock as I'm gonna get without getting my toes wet, then look around. We're awful far back in the woods. I bet you wouldn't find another living soul within ten miles. I don't even see any boats out on the lake. Benny sure knows how to pick a place.

"Watch out and let me know if anybody's coming." I mutter at Dief. I feel kinda silly talking to the wolf, but he swivels his head and scans the hill back the way we came. I lean over and stick a finger into the lake. Ouch. "Pretty cold, isn't it, boy?"

He lets out a pretty disgusted-sounding woof, still scanning the forest, and I sigh, then start peeling out of my sweaty, dirt-stained shirt. Yeah, that feels great-- I got hotter than I thought, fretting over driving the Riv so far into the back country, then stomping around all over creation lugging a forty-pound pack, then carrying all those rocks. Trying not to watch Benny's ass as he bent over to get firewood didn't help either.

I fold the shirt and drop it on a bush, sighing.

Benny wasn't the only one who had a lot to get used to after Victoria. I mean, I shot the guy, for crying out loud, and let me tell you, that's something you don't laugh off. Not putting a slug in your partner when you meant to waste the homicidal bitch who fucked him over and nearly took your ass down, too.

But that wasn't all. There was the hospital and the operations and the unremovable bullet and the IA investigations, then dealing with Benny's depression and my own guilt. And on top of that, I had to rework my concept of my best friend from the ground up. Not just the whole Superman-meets-Kryptonite thing. There was the whole thing with Benny and women to think about, too.

Anybody who's seen Fraser around a woman who's set her cap for him knows what I mean when I say he can take 'not interested' to a level previously unknown to a well-adjusted and healthy human male. So when I thought about that, sometimes I would wonder if maybe he was just a cold fish. Or he could've got frostbite in an unfortunate place sometime, or it might be he's carrying a torch for somebody off in Canada, or maybe he's thinking about something else entirely when he goes home and plays tug of war with the little Mountie.

After a year or so with Fraser, I was ready to put my money on one of the above, but it bugged me that I wasn't sure which. Because frankly, some of the time Fraser pings. Maybe nobody else notices it, but then, nobody else knows him as well as I do. I mean, come on, he's a neat freak fit who makes Felix Unger look like a slob. He's as pretty as a girl and he starches and irons his *boxer shorts,* for the love of God. He avoids women as much as he can and he only hangs around with guys. He won't flirt with a woman on a dare, and he's clueless about how to react when some girl makes a pass at him.

Speaking of which, I never did get anybody to tell me for sure what went on with him and Frannie. So I backtracked her whereabouts during the time in question and I know the only night she could've gone for him was the night he'd been pulped by Frankie Zuko's goons. I took care of him myself before I left him in his apartment, and there was no way in hell that man could have got it up, my friend. That whole incident got filed with the rest of my clues under "inconclusive evidence."

Yeah, sure, I can hear her complaining already that it's none of my business. Frannie's an adult even if she's my sister, and she's sure as hell no virgin to start with. I got no illusions about that anymore, and if I ever had any I lost 'em before she got outta high school. I wanted to know for other reasons. She's smart enough to guess that, so she hit below the belt and called me on it.

Afraid to reach for your dreams.

Well, so what if I am? She oughtta try being a straight guy thinkin' about making a move on a best friend who doesn't ping loud enough to be sure. She wouldn't try it if she didn't want to wind up with a broken jaw, looking for a new partner. Neither of those options appears on my list of things I want to do before I'm dead.

I kick off my shoes and slip off my jeans and my underwear before I think I should leave some of my clothes on. What the hell. I add the socks to the pile. Might as well go skinny dipping and get an all-over tan. It's not like there's anybody around to see me naked except Fraser, and Victoria answered all my questions about his orientation in a big way. She settled my doubts and sent any thoughts I might have had about working up the courage to try something right down the toilet. Fraser goes for women, at least for one woman, in a big way. While she was in his apartment you could hardly pry him out of the sack with a crowbar.

Maybe he loved Victoria so much he hasn't got room to love anybody else.

Maybe. Even though I *don't* think it was very good, as love goes. More like offering yourself up to some kind of guilt-driven death by inches. God knows the one time he spoke to me right after getting out of bed with her, he looked like she'd just slammed her knee into his balls. I've never seen pain like that on his face, before or since. Not even when I shot him.

Fuck.

I step into the water as much to distract myself as to get started on my swim. It's even colder than it felt before, and I'm already shivering. The bottom is bad, too. If I keep trying to walk out into the lake the rocks are gonna slice my feet to ribbons. When I get up to knee-deep, I shallow-dive into liquid ice and start swimming like hell, hoping it'll keep me warm enough to reach the stone before anything important falls off.

I'm not surprised when he comes out of the woods onto the lakeshore just as I pull myself up out of water and onto the hot, smooth surface of my rock. What does surprise me is how he just glances out toward me and starts peeling off his clothes, too. All the way down to his skin.

"Come on in, Benny. The water's great. Warm!" I grin. To him, it probably is.

His feet don't seem to hurt him as he wades out; maybe it's a Mountie thing. I can just see him signing up for a course on how to walk on sharp rocks without wincing and impress the hell out of your tenderfoot friends.

I'm glad he came down. I don't like him to go off alone and feel isolated.

Looks like he thinks I've got a good idea going here; he's dived in now and he's swimming straight toward me.

I lie back in the sun, already feeling the water steaming off me. The rock bakes heat into my back, easing the knots in my muscles. I could sleep here till the sun went down, just let it all soak into me like I haven't since the last time I actually made it to Florida.

God he's beautiful, all pale skin and graceful arms, legs kicking up a white wake. Another time, I might have panicked. But it's perfectly safe, and I'm relieved. And disappointed. If he'd pull himself up out of the water all wet and dripping, the drops sluicing off his skin to sizzle on the stone, hair slicked back, naked body gleaming.... If he'd kneel over me like some kind of untamed water spirit and lie cool and wet and beautiful against me.... If he'd touch my lips with his, fill me with the smoky heat and taste of his kiss.... If he did those things, I'd open my arms and my mouth for him. I'd slide under the surface and never look back.

I turn over casually and pillow my head in the crook of my arm. Then I lie still and watch him from under slitted lids as he climbs onto our rock, even more beautiful than my imagination made him. He settles on his back with a sigh, near enough to be friendly, but not close enough to touch. He always knows the right thing to do.

It's a scary, thrilling sense of freedom, lying next to Benny out in the open without any clothes on, feeling the breeze and the sunlight touch places I always keep covered. Benny spreads himself out with his flat stomach shining up at the sun, droplets of water clinging like diamonds to the dark curls cradling his penis. It already looks flushed; he's gonna burn to a cinder if he stays in the sun too long with that white skin of his.

He sighs and closes his eyes. His body goes limp with relaxation-- I can tell he's feeling the same glowing warmth bake into him that I felt earlier and I know how good that is, so I don't have the heart to warn him. Maybe when he starts to get pink, but for now I can just lie here and pretend I'm going to sleep and watch him out of one eye.

He's more tired than I thought; as I bask in the warm sun and the closeness of him, his head droops to the side and his breath evens out, a faint rasp at the end of each exhale. He's asleep, lips parted slightly, lashes a dark smudge over his cheeks. His hair's starting to dry, the water-slicked black of it fluffing to rich brown in the warm breeze.

I sit up and he doesn't move. Fraser's a heavy sleeper. I learned that in the hospital; even after he quit taking the pain medication he could sleep for hours and never move a muscle. People would come in and out and talk or laugh and he never woke up as long as I was there. The nurses said he was a lot more restless when I wasn't. For a while, that was the only thing that gave me the courage to keep coming back.

I can study him now: the battle scars that somehow don't make him any less perfectly beautiful, the smooth unmarked flesh everywhere else, the delicate shape of his lips and the white glimmer of teeth inside. The heavy line of his brows and the faint dusting of stubble on his jaw. His flat pink nipples and the few dark guard hairs circling them. The shadow of his navel. His foreskin, protectively sheathing the tender head of his penis. His thighs. His knees. His calves and his ankles. All well-shaped and strong. He isn't very hairy anywhere on his body except his head and his groin.

I've seen most of him before, with a few major exceptions, but I've never had the chance to look my fill, never been able to put all the pieces together at once. If I had, I might've tried something before Victoria ever came and showed me he really was straight after all. Like I ought to be. Only when I look at him, something inside me ties itself in pain-filled knots that feel a lot like his face looked when he came out of her bed to meet me, and I know nothing in the world can untie me inside but loving him.

I'm in way over my head, out of my depth, and swimming hard with no land in sight.

My shadow touches him, my head making a crescent of darkness onto his shoulder. I reach out slowly till the shadow of my hand falls across his chest. A dark fingertip touches his nipple, the opaque palm glides down across his smooth skin to his groin. I let the shadow of my hand hover over his penis, shading him from the sun. A phantom caress, the play of light and darkness across skin.

I'm hard; I've been getting harder ever since he got here. If I ever doubted the way he made me feel, I can't pretend anymore.

I look at his face again; he's absolutely still except for the slow rise and fall of his chest. I'm gonna have to wake him up soon, at least to get him to turn over so he burns a little on both sides instead of all on one. If I don't want him to see how hard I am when he wakes up, I better do something about it.

I move till my head's shading his midsection-- there's nothing worse than getting a sunburn there-- and let my right hand go into my lap. Stealthy, like I used to when I was a kid and my folks were still up making noise in the house, I take a deep breath and get started. I make sure to turn my body a little away from him, just in case.

I start with long, slow strokes, lazy and hot-- like the sun, like us. Like the humid summer fire washing through us and baking away the chill of bad memories and too much time spent alone. My pulse beats in my ears, matching the rhythm of my hand and the water lapping against the stone.

Benny. Benny. Benny. One of only two guys who ever turned my head, the only one I'd be willing to give up being straight for. Benny. Fragile, indestructible Benny with his stubbornness and his blindness and his kindness and his scars and his relentless drive to live up to his own crazy standard of perfection. He's merciless like an undertow and seductive like a warm bath.

Benny. He's naked and sleeping next to me. I'm close now, panting low in my throat, euphoria making me want to laugh and sing and shout-- the joy of almost having what I want. I let my head fall back and the sun dazzles my eyes as I come and come, silent in pleasure, one perfect moment stretching and telescoping in on itself. Benny.

I fill my lungs with clean air and lift my head, running a loving glance along Benny's perfect body for one last time.... but this time when I reach his face his eyes are open, looking at me with dawning wonder. I freeze, caught. My heart starts banging so hard he has to hear it; I can tell I'm turning redder than his serge jacket.

He smiles, a lazy sleepy smile, half-opened lids. "Ray...." he murmurs, low and sultry.

"You-- you're gonna get a sunburn," I manage to whisper.

He shakes his head no, lifting his left arm to shade his eyes; I realize he looks like he did in the hospital the first time he smiled at me, the first time I knew everything would be all right again someday.

His right arm lifts and his fingers curl, beckoning me.

Trembling, I obey. I scoot closer and hesitate there, leaning over him. His hand lifts, touches me. It slides over my shoulder and behind my neck. His skin feels warm and soft, his hand heavy, guiding me down. There's no mistaking his intent.

My head is swimming; I feel dizzy and tired from the long hike, the cold water, and the summer heat. I'm drained from sex and adrenaline and fear and the shock of his touch and the look in his smoky blue eyes. I can't fight the currents any longer, and I don't want to, so I stop treading water and dive into him.

I sink into his kiss.