Wilderness Training for Dummies, part one
Title: Wilderness Training for Dummies
Summary: Ian can't catch a fish, Aaron loses his underwear, and Brendan suffers a crisis of sexuality.
Pairing: Ian Crocker/Brendan Hansen. Aaron gets a lot of face time, and Michael is mentioned.
Rating: NC-17 for safety's sake, although I'd say it's more a hard R.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fantasy. None of the actions portrayed by the people herein are reflective of real life.
Notes: Written for soupypictures for the third Swim Ficathon. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to write it, and I apologize for any roughness; this is the first time I've tried this couple. Prompts were barbecue and thirst.
Posted in two pieces because of length.
They had a late start. Not because of practice, which was over by nine, but because Brendan had to find someone who would feed and walk his dog, and Aaron couldn't find his lucky hat, and Ian was on the phone talking to the usual array of people to call up and notify about where the hell they were going to be for the next two days. Brendan had his own list like that. Most of the numbers were on a piece of paper by the phone, and some wiseass-- probably Aaron-- had scrawled on top of the list, "Dial In Case Of World Ending or Brendan Losing His Virginity." Aaron was currently fifth on the list, and Brendan was seriously thinking about busting him down to fifteenth, or something suitably demoralizing.
Ian was sixth, but that was only because Aaron had the alphabetical first name advantage. It didn't matter; he knew most of the numbers by heart anyway.
The point remained: they were late, and Brendan didn't especially like being late, especially when it was for inexplicable reasons like zoning out in front of his telephone for a good ten minutes, staring at Ian Crocker's telephone number which he already knew. And it was even more pointless because Ian was actually no more than twenty feet away, finished with his calling, mostly-asleep on Brendan's couch, and waiting for Aaron to stop crashing around upstairs so that they could go on their camping trip.
It wasn't exactly a tradition because there was no set schedule. They didn't always go to the same place; they never had a day permanently fixed on the calendar, but they always seemed to squeeze it in at least four or five times a year, mostly in the late summer and early fall. This time it was more like the beginning of summer, but it was still summer and that was what counted.
"You know, I thought it was my turn to make us late, not Aaron," Ian said from the couch. "And this was his idea, too."
"Yeah, I know." Brendan looked over at Ian, and then went to sit on the arm of the couch, poking at Ian's shoulder. "Don't fall asleep, man. You know how grumpy you get when you have to wake up again after only a few minutes."
"Mmkay," Ian replied, and contradictorily sank deeper into the couch cushions with his eyes closed.
Lateness or not, it wasn't bad enough to really upset either of them, and someone was always late anyway. The main hassle with getting on the road was assuring everyone else that they weren't about to go off and wipe their asses with poison ivy, or eat poisonous berries, or fuck a yeti or something. PR had lately started throwing unholy shit fits about the weirdest things. They didn't even have a name for their trip because they didn't always go to the same campgrounds or lake; it was always just the roadtrip, regardless of distance or destination. It didn't even really deserve italics or capitals. Brendan had a suspicion that everyone else probably referred to it as "Wilderness Training for Dummies."
"Coach Reese said if we don't come back, we have to come up with three replacements or swim the medley relay from beyond the grave," Ian said with his eyes still closed. Brendan stared at his eyelashes, which were actually pretty dark for someone with blond hair, but tipped very slightly with gold at the ends.
"Yeah?" he asked, still staring. They really were long eyelashes. "He says that every time."
"And no one's allowed to skinny-dip or let Aaron do his Braveheart impression in front of witnesses again."
"No one appreciates my art," Aaron said, from above and leaning over the banister. He started coming down the stairs, waving his hat triumphantly.
"Look who decided to show up," Brendan said as Aaron jumped down the last four stairs, landing on the floor with a room-shaking thud. "The good-for-nothing. I figured you got lost up there."
Aaron waved it off. "Practically did. You hid all my stuff away in the back of that closet."
"Dude, you're not living here anymore. You gotta take those boxes to your house one of these days."
"Then I wouldn't have an excuse to visit." Aaron shook Ian's shoulder. "C'mon, sunshine. Time to get on the road."
Ian made a halfhearted attempt to smack Aaron's hands away and rolled over on his side. "Go 'way," he said. "I'm gonna camp on Brendan's couch."
"You wanna put your truck in my garage?" Brendan asked. "Did you park me in?"
"Yes. No." Ian opened his eyes. "Uh, yes I would and no, I didn't. Let me get my gear out first."
"Hang on," he said, and leaned closer without knowing why. Ian froze in his half-lying down position, looking surprised and then slightly cross-eyed as Brendan poked at his cheek.
"What is it?"
"You've got-- on your cheek-- here. Eyelash." He held it up on one fingertip, and it was blond on the tip. The skin of Ian's cheek just under his eye was very soft, and slightly dark from lack of sleep.
"Oh." Ian shrugged. "Make a wish."
"It's your eyelash," Brendan said, feeling stupid as soon as the words were out of his mouth. "Never mind."
"I've never understood that," Aaron said, looking on with mild interest. "I mean, it's an eyelash. It's a hair. Where'd the wish part come from?"
"Who came up with wishing on stars?" Ian said. "They're just, like. Rocks. Burning balls of gas." He stood up and blew the eyelash off Brendan's finger. "There. I'm gonna get my stuff out of the truck. Is your car unlocked?"
"Just pop the trunk. I'm gonna lock up in here. Someone grab the cooler on the way out, okay?"
Brendan waited until they were gone before exhaling. He looked at his finger.
That was weird. A flutter in his stomach over random things wasn't unusual-- after all, he had gotten used to hanging out with incredibly fit women in swimsuits for a couple hours a day, so less traditional things turning him on wasn't a surprise. But Ian was a friend-- a guy friend-- a best guy friend-- and the feeling of Ian's cheek, the warmth of his breath, the way his ass had looked when he bent to pick up the cooler was doing about the same thing for him as a nice lingering flip through Penthouse.
"Freeeeeedom!" Aaron yelled from outside, and then there was a thump and some ominous silence.
Brendan decided that there was no use in working himself into a mild homosexual panic this early in the day, and went outside to help Ian get Aaron into the car before any neighbors came and killed them.
***
They stopped for gas only ten minutes into the drive.
"Special requests?" Ian asked before going into the store. He had been sitting behind Brendan's seat; Brendan had seen him staring out the window every time he checked his mirror to change lanes.
"Usual stuff," he replied. "Aaron got the beer and the barbecue stuff already." A thought struck him. "See if you can find marshmallows."
There weren't many people at the gas station. It already felt like summer, heat creeping into the day at only ten in the morning. The air smelled like gasoline and exhaust, but the news had said possible showers later in the day. Brendan still wasn't used to the way that Texas thunderstorms didn't seem to cool the air, just to breathe a suffocating wetness into it. He could feel the humidity pressing close around him.
"Anything in particular?" Aaron asked. It was more of a courtesy question than an actual query; he was already flipping through the CD wallet, humming a little.
Brendan shrugged and watched the numbers click. It was sort of hypnotic. "Whatever, man."
Aaron picked the music. Aaron always picked the music because despite all the bitching they did about who drove and who packed the frisbee and who had to make the run into the gas station for drinks and snacks, they always ended up falling into the same roles out of default. Brendan drove because Aaron had a lead foot and Ian tended to fall asleep in moving cars. Aaron picked the music because Ian would overplay Bob Dylan, and Brendan didn't want to be bothered with changing radio stations while he drove. And Ian always did the food run because Brendan could never keep the list of who wanted what straight in his head without writing it down, and Aaron was indecisive and just couldn't be trusted not to go into the store and buy things for a joke. The last time they'd gone camping and Aaron had gotten to pick snacks, they'd ended up with a bizarre array of jerky from at least four different kinds of animal.
There were other factors to it, Brendan figured. Like, the fact that he was good at not getting lost, and Aaron made the best mix CDs, and Ian remembered what people liked and never forgot it. But it was good to have a routine, better yet that it was a voluntary routine that any of them could change if they really wanted to. Best of all, they didn't want to.
From where he was standing, he could just see Ian through the front glass window, moving away down an aisle. It looked like he was heading towards the drink coolers. As usual, he hadn't bothered to take a basket or anything, and looked only five seconds away from dropping everything in his arms.
The gas pump beeped and clicked off. Brendan automatically jiggled the handle to get the last few drops, stuck the nozzle back in place, rescrewed the cap, and jogged inside the station. He paid in cash-- Christ, prices were high-- made a mental note to reorganize his wallet, and was just in time to help Ian make it to the counter without dropping anything. He waited for Ian to pay with a credit card, waited for the clerk to recognize Ian, waited for Ian to sign an autograph, signed an autograph himself, and tried to enjoy the last contact with indoor air conditioning he'd have for a while.
Back in the car, Aaron had his hat over his face, his feet up on the dashboard, and his thumb stuck through a CD. He slipped it into the player as soon as Brendan started up the car, and Queen started playing.
Aaron's mixes were weird-ass things, where the Rolling Stones were followed by Green Day, followed by the Beach Boys, followed by Counting Crows. Classical music was back to back with heavy metal, techno and country and jazz were all crowded together with no rhyme or reason to the order. Ian had once referred to it as the aural equivalent of being beaten in the head with a sock full of quarters, but somehow it worked.
"Turn it up, turn it up," Aaron urged, and cranked the volume dial himself without waiting for Brendan.
Ian climbed into the back seat with the bags, just in time to chime in with Aaron on the Bohemian Rhapsody. Brendan revved the engine as Aaron began to play air guitar, throwing both of them back in their seats. It didn't stop either of them and he had to laugh for the sheer hell of it, for anticipation of the trip, for a full tank of gas, for good music, and being with friends.
He realized that he was wildly, inexpressibly happy.
Brendan was laughing maniacally when they pulled out, laughing when he floored the gas, and was still laughing by the time Aaron and Ian reached their glorious vibrato finale complete with head-banging, and launched into an encore of the Turtles' "So Happy Together."
***
They sang loudly and intermittently all the way there, stopping only once to pick up subs to eat. Ian was the only one who could really carry a tune, but that didn’t stop Aaron from belting out the lyrics to U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" or even Brendan joining in on "Magical Mystery Tour." Normally there was a rule about singing in the car, but it was broken so often that none of them took it seriously anymore.
At the campsite they rented a canoe, signed another round of autographs for the clerk, and started unloading all their gear. Then they gave up on unloading their gear, and sat down on the ground to eat their subs. Aaron tried to feed his pickle slices to an unimpressed squirrel. Brendan ate the gummi worms Ian had bought (as well as Swedish fish and goldfish crackers, because Ian occasionally had a weirder sense of humor than even Aaron did) and drew patterns in the dust with the toe of his sneaker.
Once everything had been eaten, and all the trash had been wadded up and stuffed in a garbage bag for later disposal, they had the traditional tent race. Brendan won handily, having had the most practice. He looked over at his friends and shook his head. "Y'all are hopeless."
"You suck, man," Ian said, looking over at the finished tent, and then at his own. It was still a mess of poles and fabric. "This is supposed to be, like, a five-step tent. I think I'm on step sixty-two or something. I have all these extra poles."
"You think that's bad?" Aaron was standing in the middle of his tent-attempt. His, at least, was partially standing. "All I can find is the Spanish instructions. I'm doing this by picture."
Brendan came over to take a look. "Your diagram is upside down," he noted helpfully.
"Shut up," Aaron said, and reversed it. He squinted. "This doesn't make any more sense."
"You need to swap those two poles."
Ian was tying knots with great concentration, his brow furrowed and his tongue slightly sticking out of one corner of his mouth. Brendan finally felt bad-- well, he felt like he should have felt bad-- and went over to help. Between the two of them, the tent finally went up without looking like it was going to collapse any second.
Ian patted his tent affectionately. "That's my girl."
"Please don’t tell me you named your tent," Brendan said.
"Not really," Ian said. "Just cars."
"They're still both things you get inside," Aaron said. "And you went with female names, so that probably means something."
"I think this is all getting unnecessarily Freudian," Brendan said. "Jesus, Aaron, how'd you make that worse in the five minutes I had my back turned?"
"Dude, shut up, I've almost got it."
"Can swim the two hundred meter backstroke in under two minutes but can't put up a simple tent," Ian observed, somewhat hypocritically.
Aaron smiled pleasantly, and then lunged forward and tried to body-check the both of them. However, he stepped right in the middle of a coil of rope and ended up getting yanked back to the ground. Ian jumped out of the way just in time, the fucking traitor, but Brendan tripped on what felt like a pinecone and went down ass over elbows. Right before he hit the ground, he made a note to hide some pinecones under Ian's sleeping bag. He rolled over to see Aaron's tent collapse on top of him, leaving only Aaron's struggling feet sticking out. Ian laughed so hard he hurt his jaw.
Over the course of the drive and lunch, Brendan had managed to convince himself that the flutter in his stomach that morning had been an aberration. He had been hungry, he hadn't gotten enough sleep, he had been high on some kind of hormone from training, or something. Nothing had happened on the road or while they were eating. He had probably just been excited about the trip.
Now, flat on his back on the pine needle-covered ground and staring up at Ian, he had a sudden and dismal conviction that he was sexually attracted to one of his best friends, that he was apparently less straight than he thought, and that he really, really wanted to lick the hollow of Ian's throat.
Ian smiled at him and offered him a hand up.
Brendan closed his eyes, said a very quiet profanity to himself, and took it.
***
The fish weren't biting much, but the mosquitoes were. After he started scratching at the first welt on his arm, Brendan started digging for the Cutters. They slathered it liberally up and down their arms and legs, wincing at the sharp chemical smell. Brendan just hoped that the combination of the Cutters and chlorine wouldn't combine into something toxic on his skin.
"When was the last time you and Neil went out to the lake for this?" Ian asked. He was in the middle of the canoe. Aaron was in the stern and Brendan was in the bow.
Brendan thought it over. "A while ago. Probably not since early spring." Something was nibbling on his line, but it felt small. Bluegill, maybe.
They sat in silence for a while. It was easy to relax with no one around, to be around water without the first priority being to cross it. Above them, the sky was overcast and beginning to pile up with clouds in the west. Brendan had forgotten to check the weather forecast in the car to hear anything more about the rain on the way. He hoped it would hold off until later.
"Baby fish," Aaron said later as he tried to work the hook out of the lip of a fish that was only half the length of his palm. "Little tiny baby fish. We're horrible people. We're probably making a lot of fish parents very sad."
"Maybe we're using the wrong kind of bait," Ian suggested. "Maybe fish don't want worms. I wouldn't eat a worm. Maybe the babies just don't know any better."
"So we're catching the stupidest fish," Aaron said. "That's evolution. Survival of the fittest."
They both looked at Brendan as though waiting for contradiction from the authority on the subject. Brendan shrugged. He felt way too relaxed to do anything as strenuous as argue. He wondered if he should warn Ian that the back of his neck was getting pretty pink.
"And not even my lucky hat is helping," Aaron added.
Even later, they had all removed their shirts and Aaron and Brendan had very gingerly managed to use their life jackets as backrests to relax against at either end of the canoe. Ian was the only one still trying to catch a fish; Brendan didn't think he even had bait on his hook at the moment and Aaron's fishing pole was lying in the bottom of the canoe.
"Alligators," Ian said out of the blue.
"Huh?" Aaron said.
"Alligators," Ian repeated. "I bet alligators ate all the fish. That's why we're not catching anything."
It took Brendan a moment to catch up. "Are we south enough for alligators?" He thought hard. "East. South-east?"
Ian nodded. He had a great poker face, and it was hard to tell when he was kidding.
"I wouldn't mind being an alligator," Aaron murmured. "Just hanging out on the bottom of lakes and kicking ass now and then. Hey. Lake Placid."
"Was that an alligator?" Ian asked. "I thought it was a crocodile."
"Totally an alligator." Aaron waved his hands around vaguely. "There's been. Like. A couple. There's one just called 'Alligator'. Except those were supposed to be radioactive mutated gators from the sewer. Actually, I think they made two of them. The second one was really bad, it was this fake alligator snout being pushed on a surfboard or a skate board in all the shots. The scenes where you see the whole thing, it's actually a real gator in sized-down sets."
"Not worth seeing?" Brendan asked. "Hey, I remember, there was this one about alligator people. I think that was what it was called too. Alligator People. Man, you know it's bad when the title is all obvious like that."
"That doesn't stand up all the time," Ian disagreed. "There's like, the Alien series. That's classic. And Jaws."
"Yeah, but not all the Jaws movies are good movies. The fourth one was terrible. It's even worse when they don't even use a number anymore, they just take the original title, add a colon and then some word like revenge or revisit or reckoning."
"Okay, point. But the first two were good, and even the third one had its moments."
"Oh, come on. They should have left it alone after the first."
"Who made you the authority on naming movies?"
"I'm in a boat with a friend who blames his lack of fishing luck on alligators, and another friend who wouldn't mind being an alligator. I think I'm the only one here with the right to say anything."
"I think the radioactive alligator was named Raul," Aaron said, still musing. "No, that's not right. Ramon. Ramon the alligator."
"The alligator named himself Ramon?"
The canoe rocked a little bit as Aaron shifted and Brendan automatically mirrored him to keep the canoe level. The breeze had picked up a little, and it felt good on his skin. The water rippled away and stilled.
Ian reeled in his line, examined the empty hook and sighed. "Damn alligators."
***
Fortunately, they hadn't depended on fish for their barbecue, and the hotdogs and hamburgers were still in the cooler. One year, they had left their food alone without properly locking the cooler and had come back to find the site crawling with raccoons. It had been sort of funny in a way, although less so when they had to eat leftover PBJ sandwiches for dinner, and Brendan had thought a lot of dark thoughts about coonskin hats.
Brendan made the fire while Ian slapped the burgers into tinfoil packets. Aaron came back with an armload of firewood, and then cooked a hotdog apiece for everyone to eat until the burgers were done. They all sat around and passed the bag of chips back and forth while staring at the flames.
"They always taste different when they're cooked outside," Ian said, as he poked one of the logs with a stick. It collapsed in a shower of sparks. "Better. But different from even the grill, you know?"
"Yeah," Brendan agreed absently. The smoke was blowing out towards the lake.
Ian's neck had gotten kind of sunburned since Brendan hadn't said anything after all. When they were passing around the water bottles earlier, he had leaned forward and placed his on the back of Ian's neck for a minute. Ian had closed his eyes, smiled, and then leaned back trustingly into Brendan's touch. Brendan had been so glad he hadn't told Ian after all, that he was pretty sure he had passed right over the line of Irresponsible Friend and was frolicking deep in the fields of Actively Evil People.
Aaron was leaning back on his elbows, one leg crossed over the other. He tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. "You should've brought your guitar, Ian."
"We're not doing lewd campfire songs again this time." Ian was smiling, despite his tone. "Seriously, get help."
They had already gone through half a case of bottled water-- fishing made you thirsty, Brendan had found. He wasn't sure it was all the sweating or the doing nothing or what. Then again, training made them thirsty too. Maybe it was just being around water and not being able to drink it. Sympathetic thirst cravings, or something.
Ian finished off his bottle and glanced over at Aaron. Aaron nodded back. They both got up and went towards the car, and Brendan wondered if he was about to be ganged up on and tossed in the lake. Instead, Ian came back with a bottle of Coke, and Aaron came back with a bottle of Jack Daniels and some plastic cups, brandishing both happily.
"Oh Jesus," Brendan said, and started to laugh. "You remembered. Hey. Don't we already have beer?"
"Beer before liquor, never sicker. Liquor before beer, shut up and drink to another successful roadtrip," Aaron said, and sat down.
Ian poured Coke into each cup, Aaron topped it off with alcohol, and they all raised their cups and drank. The Coke was warm and the ice was melting too quickly and Brendan got bubbles up his nose when Ian smiled at him, and thought he'd never been more content, ever.
As soon as the coals died down properly, Ian whipped out the bag of marshmallows with the air of a jeweler revealing his prize diamond. They all scrambled off to find the perfect branch.
Aaron and Ian were both oddly fussy about the way they toasted marshmallows. Brendan liked to let his catch on fire and get charred a bit before he blew them out-- it got the job done quickly and he didn't mind eating the ashy bits as well. Ian liked to slowly toast his on all sides, until it was golden brown and swollen to where it was practically falling off that stick. Aaron toasted his the same way, but he would pull the toasted outside skin off, eat it, and then toast the layer below that until it was too small. Brendan analyzed all three methods in his mind over five marshmallows and then decided he didn’t give a fuck, and started thinking about putting a melted marshmallow in Aaron's hair while he was asleep.
He didn't let himself think about whether Ian's mouth would be sticky-sweet, or what it would be like to lick his fingers.
Ian looked over at him. "You want one without the char-broil, Brendan?" He pulled it off his own stick and held it out to Brendan.
Brendan flushed, muttered thanks, and shoved it in his mouth. He was glad that he was sitting close enough to the fire to blame his red face on the heat. Really, he didn't care so much about being attracted to a guy, it was just the fact he was acting like a total girl about it, and that was sort of unnerving.
***
"Ian, man," Brendan said. He was pretty sure he had intended something to follow that, but nothing was coming. "Ian," he repeated. Oh. Oh yeah. Now he remembered. "Dude, we swim enough already. Let's go back."
"Fish," Ian repeated stubbornly. "I'm going to catch one of them. Not swim."
Aaron was already in his own tent. Brendan was leaning on Ian, half-dragging and half-draping himself on Ian's shoulder so he could inhale sweat, citronella, a ghost of cologne, and even fainter hints of chlorine. They had stayed up late enough to get mildly buzzed and Brendan was pretty sure Ian wasn't as drunk as he was pretending to be. It was just nice to be silly.
"The fish are gone," Brendan said. "Alligators, those fuckers. C'mon, let's go back to the tents." Back to my tent, he wanted to say, but didn't. He might be able to get Ian back there anyway, if Ian kept up the tipsy routine. They had all crashed on each other's couches enough for it to be second nature by now.
"We're just using the wrong bait. I know it," Ian said plaintively. "Lemme just give it a shot. Let's try something good. Like. Hotdogs. We can try one of those. Or, hey, I know. Let's try the gummi worms."
The idea of fishing with gummi worms simultaneously intrigued and horrified the fisherman part of Brendan's brain. What the hell, he figured, at the worst he and Ian could sit on the sand and eat gummi worms. He didn't think either of them was fit to be in the canoe right now. The only problem was--
"I think we left those in Aaron's tent," he said.
They made their way back to the tents, tiptoeing exaggeratedly and shushing each other every few seconds. It only took a few seconds of fumbling with Aaron's tent flap zipper before they crept inside, hunched over, and trying not to step on any lumps that looked particularly Aaron-shaped. Unfortunately, none of the lumps looked particularly gummi worm package-shaped either.
Brendan fussed around a fold of tent that he was sure he had heard a crinkle of cellophane from. When he looked up, Aaron was leaning on one elbow, half-raised out of his sleeping bag.
"Um," Brendan said, and then decided he'd let Ian field this one.
Aaron watched for a minute with detached interest, rubbing his eyes as though to be sure of what he was seeing; then he sat up completely and spoke in a conversational tone. "I will be a sonuvabitch if they aren't in my tent at one in the morning, fucking around in the dark with a fishing pole and a package of hotdogs."
Brendan nudged Aaron's sleeping bag with his toe. "Go back to sleep."
"Funny, but nearly naked people stomping around in my tent while I'm asleep don't make for great sleeping conditions," Aaron said, and squinted. "Are you naked? The answer better not be yes."
Ian stopped rummaging in the corner. "Found 'em. Who ate all the red ones?"
"Not me, I like the green ones," Brendan said. "Hey, bring the Swedish fish, too."
In the end, they all went out to the lake, pushing and shoving, stripping down to boxers since they couldn't be bothered to find their suits, and all of them tripping over hidden rocks and branches every five feet. Shit, Brendan thought, how drunk were they? Not too much. Should they even be near water, let alone swimming?
"Alligators," Ian reminded them as they stood on the shoreline. "Or bears. Maybe bears ate the fish."
"I think it should be illegal to have to be worried about both bears and alligators at the same time," Brendan said. "I mean, one or the other, okay. But both of them in the same place, that's. That's just not right."
"You gonna complain to the DNR?" Aaron asked. "Hey. Actually, that might make a good horror movie. Bear-Alligator. Alligator-Bear. Like, a mutated combo of the two. The legendary Alligator-Bear, a bear with the head of an alligator, and.... the body of an alligator."
"No, it should be like a team. The bear stalks you on land, the alligator nails your ass in the water." Ian swayed a little bit. "Hey. I forgot the fishing pole."
"And the hotdogs," Brendan added. The stars were bright, even through the clouds overhead. He wondered if they twinkled like that normally or if it were just the remnants of the alcohol in his system.
The water was blood-warm against their feet, but the breeze was getting steadily stronger and the air was cooling down. The rain was coming soon. They splashed into the water and it was a foregone conclusion that they were all going to lose the boxers eventually. It only took fifteen minutes. Brendan noticed though, that none of them went into the water above their knees.
"I'm really happy right now," Ian said suddenly. "I just wanted you guys to know that. Even if it sounds sappy and like a load of crap. I'm really happy to be here. And I'm going to dunk my head before I say anything else stupid."
"It's--" Brendan knew, just knew, this was one of those moments that you didn’t get twice. And he had nothing ready to say at all. "Yeah. I'm-- happy. I'm happy too. Thanks."
"We're cool," Aaron said simply. And then, because Aaron was good at things like that, he grabbed both Ian's and Brendan's hands and squeezed hard. And then he yanked them both forward and they all went down in a splash that scared away any remaining fish in the lake at all. The significant moment was drowned under a tidal wave of lake-water.
"Oh, you fucker," Brendan sputtered as he came back up. "Don't think I won't drown you and hide the body." He charged.
In the middle of the epic water fight, Ian froze. "You hear that?"
"Cut it out, man. That's not funny." Brendan found himself scanning the lake and forest regardless.
"I heard something," Ian insisted. "Over there. What's that shape? Was that here when we got here?"
"I heard something moving too." Aaron crouched down in the water. As if in answer, they all heard it-- some kind of furtive rustling on the shoreline to their left. "I see it. Over there."
There was a dark mass of shadow among the trees. Brendan honestly couldn't remember if it had been there before. He moved a little closer to the other two. "It's shaped kind of weird."
"It is shaped," Aaron hissed, "like a bear."
Brendan stared at the patch of shadow hard enough for his eyes to hurt. "It hasn't moved. I don't think. Should we throw something at it?"
Ian waded forward cautiously. "I think... I think it's a bush."
"We're all pansies," Aaron said dismally. "It's probably just a deer."
Brendan was just beginning to exhale when there was a much larger crash and rustle from about twenty yards to their left. He found he had quite a lot of breath left in him after all, as they all sprinted through the water and back to the campsite.
***
Continue to part two.
Summary: Ian can't catch a fish, Aaron loses his underwear, and Brendan suffers a crisis of sexuality.
Pairing: Ian Crocker/Brendan Hansen. Aaron gets a lot of face time, and Michael is mentioned.
Rating: NC-17 for safety's sake, although I'd say it's more a hard R.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fantasy. None of the actions portrayed by the people herein are reflective of real life.
Notes: Written for soupypictures for the third Swim Ficathon. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to write it, and I apologize for any roughness; this is the first time I've tried this couple. Prompts were barbecue and thirst.
Posted in two pieces because of length.
They had a late start. Not because of practice, which was over by nine, but because Brendan had to find someone who would feed and walk his dog, and Aaron couldn't find his lucky hat, and Ian was on the phone talking to the usual array of people to call up and notify about where the hell they were going to be for the next two days. Brendan had his own list like that. Most of the numbers were on a piece of paper by the phone, and some wiseass-- probably Aaron-- had scrawled on top of the list, "Dial In Case Of World Ending or Brendan Losing His Virginity." Aaron was currently fifth on the list, and Brendan was seriously thinking about busting him down to fifteenth, or something suitably demoralizing.
Ian was sixth, but that was only because Aaron had the alphabetical first name advantage. It didn't matter; he knew most of the numbers by heart anyway.
The point remained: they were late, and Brendan didn't especially like being late, especially when it was for inexplicable reasons like zoning out in front of his telephone for a good ten minutes, staring at Ian Crocker's telephone number which he already knew. And it was even more pointless because Ian was actually no more than twenty feet away, finished with his calling, mostly-asleep on Brendan's couch, and waiting for Aaron to stop crashing around upstairs so that they could go on their camping trip.
It wasn't exactly a tradition because there was no set schedule. They didn't always go to the same place; they never had a day permanently fixed on the calendar, but they always seemed to squeeze it in at least four or five times a year, mostly in the late summer and early fall. This time it was more like the beginning of summer, but it was still summer and that was what counted.
"You know, I thought it was my turn to make us late, not Aaron," Ian said from the couch. "And this was his idea, too."
"Yeah, I know." Brendan looked over at Ian, and then went to sit on the arm of the couch, poking at Ian's shoulder. "Don't fall asleep, man. You know how grumpy you get when you have to wake up again after only a few minutes."
"Mmkay," Ian replied, and contradictorily sank deeper into the couch cushions with his eyes closed.
Lateness or not, it wasn't bad enough to really upset either of them, and someone was always late anyway. The main hassle with getting on the road was assuring everyone else that they weren't about to go off and wipe their asses with poison ivy, or eat poisonous berries, or fuck a yeti or something. PR had lately started throwing unholy shit fits about the weirdest things. They didn't even have a name for their trip because they didn't always go to the same campgrounds or lake; it was always just the roadtrip, regardless of distance or destination. It didn't even really deserve italics or capitals. Brendan had a suspicion that everyone else probably referred to it as "Wilderness Training for Dummies."
"Coach Reese said if we don't come back, we have to come up with three replacements or swim the medley relay from beyond the grave," Ian said with his eyes still closed. Brendan stared at his eyelashes, which were actually pretty dark for someone with blond hair, but tipped very slightly with gold at the ends.
"Yeah?" he asked, still staring. They really were long eyelashes. "He says that every time."
"And no one's allowed to skinny-dip or let Aaron do his Braveheart impression in front of witnesses again."
"No one appreciates my art," Aaron said, from above and leaning over the banister. He started coming down the stairs, waving his hat triumphantly.
"Look who decided to show up," Brendan said as Aaron jumped down the last four stairs, landing on the floor with a room-shaking thud. "The good-for-nothing. I figured you got lost up there."
Aaron waved it off. "Practically did. You hid all my stuff away in the back of that closet."
"Dude, you're not living here anymore. You gotta take those boxes to your house one of these days."
"Then I wouldn't have an excuse to visit." Aaron shook Ian's shoulder. "C'mon, sunshine. Time to get on the road."
Ian made a halfhearted attempt to smack Aaron's hands away and rolled over on his side. "Go 'way," he said. "I'm gonna camp on Brendan's couch."
"You wanna put your truck in my garage?" Brendan asked. "Did you park me in?"
"Yes. No." Ian opened his eyes. "Uh, yes I would and no, I didn't. Let me get my gear out first."
"Hang on," he said, and leaned closer without knowing why. Ian froze in his half-lying down position, looking surprised and then slightly cross-eyed as Brendan poked at his cheek.
"What is it?"
"You've got-- on your cheek-- here. Eyelash." He held it up on one fingertip, and it was blond on the tip. The skin of Ian's cheek just under his eye was very soft, and slightly dark from lack of sleep.
"Oh." Ian shrugged. "Make a wish."
"It's your eyelash," Brendan said, feeling stupid as soon as the words were out of his mouth. "Never mind."
"I've never understood that," Aaron said, looking on with mild interest. "I mean, it's an eyelash. It's a hair. Where'd the wish part come from?"
"Who came up with wishing on stars?" Ian said. "They're just, like. Rocks. Burning balls of gas." He stood up and blew the eyelash off Brendan's finger. "There. I'm gonna get my stuff out of the truck. Is your car unlocked?"
"Just pop the trunk. I'm gonna lock up in here. Someone grab the cooler on the way out, okay?"
Brendan waited until they were gone before exhaling. He looked at his finger.
That was weird. A flutter in his stomach over random things wasn't unusual-- after all, he had gotten used to hanging out with incredibly fit women in swimsuits for a couple hours a day, so less traditional things turning him on wasn't a surprise. But Ian was a friend-- a guy friend-- a best guy friend-- and the feeling of Ian's cheek, the warmth of his breath, the way his ass had looked when he bent to pick up the cooler was doing about the same thing for him as a nice lingering flip through Penthouse.
"Freeeeeedom!" Aaron yelled from outside, and then there was a thump and some ominous silence.
Brendan decided that there was no use in working himself into a mild homosexual panic this early in the day, and went outside to help Ian get Aaron into the car before any neighbors came and killed them.
***
They stopped for gas only ten minutes into the drive.
"Special requests?" Ian asked before going into the store. He had been sitting behind Brendan's seat; Brendan had seen him staring out the window every time he checked his mirror to change lanes.
"Usual stuff," he replied. "Aaron got the beer and the barbecue stuff already." A thought struck him. "See if you can find marshmallows."
There weren't many people at the gas station. It already felt like summer, heat creeping into the day at only ten in the morning. The air smelled like gasoline and exhaust, but the news had said possible showers later in the day. Brendan still wasn't used to the way that Texas thunderstorms didn't seem to cool the air, just to breathe a suffocating wetness into it. He could feel the humidity pressing close around him.
"Anything in particular?" Aaron asked. It was more of a courtesy question than an actual query; he was already flipping through the CD wallet, humming a little.
Brendan shrugged and watched the numbers click. It was sort of hypnotic. "Whatever, man."
Aaron picked the music. Aaron always picked the music because despite all the bitching they did about who drove and who packed the frisbee and who had to make the run into the gas station for drinks and snacks, they always ended up falling into the same roles out of default. Brendan drove because Aaron had a lead foot and Ian tended to fall asleep in moving cars. Aaron picked the music because Ian would overplay Bob Dylan, and Brendan didn't want to be bothered with changing radio stations while he drove. And Ian always did the food run because Brendan could never keep the list of who wanted what straight in his head without writing it down, and Aaron was indecisive and just couldn't be trusted not to go into the store and buy things for a joke. The last time they'd gone camping and Aaron had gotten to pick snacks, they'd ended up with a bizarre array of jerky from at least four different kinds of animal.
There were other factors to it, Brendan figured. Like, the fact that he was good at not getting lost, and Aaron made the best mix CDs, and Ian remembered what people liked and never forgot it. But it was good to have a routine, better yet that it was a voluntary routine that any of them could change if they really wanted to. Best of all, they didn't want to.
From where he was standing, he could just see Ian through the front glass window, moving away down an aisle. It looked like he was heading towards the drink coolers. As usual, he hadn't bothered to take a basket or anything, and looked only five seconds away from dropping everything in his arms.
The gas pump beeped and clicked off. Brendan automatically jiggled the handle to get the last few drops, stuck the nozzle back in place, rescrewed the cap, and jogged inside the station. He paid in cash-- Christ, prices were high-- made a mental note to reorganize his wallet, and was just in time to help Ian make it to the counter without dropping anything. He waited for Ian to pay with a credit card, waited for the clerk to recognize Ian, waited for Ian to sign an autograph, signed an autograph himself, and tried to enjoy the last contact with indoor air conditioning he'd have for a while.
Back in the car, Aaron had his hat over his face, his feet up on the dashboard, and his thumb stuck through a CD. He slipped it into the player as soon as Brendan started up the car, and Queen started playing.
Aaron's mixes were weird-ass things, where the Rolling Stones were followed by Green Day, followed by the Beach Boys, followed by Counting Crows. Classical music was back to back with heavy metal, techno and country and jazz were all crowded together with no rhyme or reason to the order. Ian had once referred to it as the aural equivalent of being beaten in the head with a sock full of quarters, but somehow it worked.
"Turn it up, turn it up," Aaron urged, and cranked the volume dial himself without waiting for Brendan.
Ian climbed into the back seat with the bags, just in time to chime in with Aaron on the Bohemian Rhapsody. Brendan revved the engine as Aaron began to play air guitar, throwing both of them back in their seats. It didn't stop either of them and he had to laugh for the sheer hell of it, for anticipation of the trip, for a full tank of gas, for good music, and being with friends.
He realized that he was wildly, inexpressibly happy.
Brendan was laughing maniacally when they pulled out, laughing when he floored the gas, and was still laughing by the time Aaron and Ian reached their glorious vibrato finale complete with head-banging, and launched into an encore of the Turtles' "So Happy Together."
***
They sang loudly and intermittently all the way there, stopping only once to pick up subs to eat. Ian was the only one who could really carry a tune, but that didn’t stop Aaron from belting out the lyrics to U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" or even Brendan joining in on "Magical Mystery Tour." Normally there was a rule about singing in the car, but it was broken so often that none of them took it seriously anymore.
At the campsite they rented a canoe, signed another round of autographs for the clerk, and started unloading all their gear. Then they gave up on unloading their gear, and sat down on the ground to eat their subs. Aaron tried to feed his pickle slices to an unimpressed squirrel. Brendan ate the gummi worms Ian had bought (as well as Swedish fish and goldfish crackers, because Ian occasionally had a weirder sense of humor than even Aaron did) and drew patterns in the dust with the toe of his sneaker.
Once everything had been eaten, and all the trash had been wadded up and stuffed in a garbage bag for later disposal, they had the traditional tent race. Brendan won handily, having had the most practice. He looked over at his friends and shook his head. "Y'all are hopeless."
"You suck, man," Ian said, looking over at the finished tent, and then at his own. It was still a mess of poles and fabric. "This is supposed to be, like, a five-step tent. I think I'm on step sixty-two or something. I have all these extra poles."
"You think that's bad?" Aaron was standing in the middle of his tent-attempt. His, at least, was partially standing. "All I can find is the Spanish instructions. I'm doing this by picture."
Brendan came over to take a look. "Your diagram is upside down," he noted helpfully.
"Shut up," Aaron said, and reversed it. He squinted. "This doesn't make any more sense."
"You need to swap those two poles."
Ian was tying knots with great concentration, his brow furrowed and his tongue slightly sticking out of one corner of his mouth. Brendan finally felt bad-- well, he felt like he should have felt bad-- and went over to help. Between the two of them, the tent finally went up without looking like it was going to collapse any second.
Ian patted his tent affectionately. "That's my girl."
"Please don’t tell me you named your tent," Brendan said.
"Not really," Ian said. "Just cars."
"They're still both things you get inside," Aaron said. "And you went with female names, so that probably means something."
"I think this is all getting unnecessarily Freudian," Brendan said. "Jesus, Aaron, how'd you make that worse in the five minutes I had my back turned?"
"Dude, shut up, I've almost got it."
"Can swim the two hundred meter backstroke in under two minutes but can't put up a simple tent," Ian observed, somewhat hypocritically.
Aaron smiled pleasantly, and then lunged forward and tried to body-check the both of them. However, he stepped right in the middle of a coil of rope and ended up getting yanked back to the ground. Ian jumped out of the way just in time, the fucking traitor, but Brendan tripped on what felt like a pinecone and went down ass over elbows. Right before he hit the ground, he made a note to hide some pinecones under Ian's sleeping bag. He rolled over to see Aaron's tent collapse on top of him, leaving only Aaron's struggling feet sticking out. Ian laughed so hard he hurt his jaw.
Over the course of the drive and lunch, Brendan had managed to convince himself that the flutter in his stomach that morning had been an aberration. He had been hungry, he hadn't gotten enough sleep, he had been high on some kind of hormone from training, or something. Nothing had happened on the road or while they were eating. He had probably just been excited about the trip.
Now, flat on his back on the pine needle-covered ground and staring up at Ian, he had a sudden and dismal conviction that he was sexually attracted to one of his best friends, that he was apparently less straight than he thought, and that he really, really wanted to lick the hollow of Ian's throat.
Ian smiled at him and offered him a hand up.
Brendan closed his eyes, said a very quiet profanity to himself, and took it.
***
The fish weren't biting much, but the mosquitoes were. After he started scratching at the first welt on his arm, Brendan started digging for the Cutters. They slathered it liberally up and down their arms and legs, wincing at the sharp chemical smell. Brendan just hoped that the combination of the Cutters and chlorine wouldn't combine into something toxic on his skin.
"When was the last time you and Neil went out to the lake for this?" Ian asked. He was in the middle of the canoe. Aaron was in the stern and Brendan was in the bow.
Brendan thought it over. "A while ago. Probably not since early spring." Something was nibbling on his line, but it felt small. Bluegill, maybe.
They sat in silence for a while. It was easy to relax with no one around, to be around water without the first priority being to cross it. Above them, the sky was overcast and beginning to pile up with clouds in the west. Brendan had forgotten to check the weather forecast in the car to hear anything more about the rain on the way. He hoped it would hold off until later.
"Baby fish," Aaron said later as he tried to work the hook out of the lip of a fish that was only half the length of his palm. "Little tiny baby fish. We're horrible people. We're probably making a lot of fish parents very sad."
"Maybe we're using the wrong kind of bait," Ian suggested. "Maybe fish don't want worms. I wouldn't eat a worm. Maybe the babies just don't know any better."
"So we're catching the stupidest fish," Aaron said. "That's evolution. Survival of the fittest."
They both looked at Brendan as though waiting for contradiction from the authority on the subject. Brendan shrugged. He felt way too relaxed to do anything as strenuous as argue. He wondered if he should warn Ian that the back of his neck was getting pretty pink.
"And not even my lucky hat is helping," Aaron added.
Even later, they had all removed their shirts and Aaron and Brendan had very gingerly managed to use their life jackets as backrests to relax against at either end of the canoe. Ian was the only one still trying to catch a fish; Brendan didn't think he even had bait on his hook at the moment and Aaron's fishing pole was lying in the bottom of the canoe.
"Alligators," Ian said out of the blue.
"Huh?" Aaron said.
"Alligators," Ian repeated. "I bet alligators ate all the fish. That's why we're not catching anything."
It took Brendan a moment to catch up. "Are we south enough for alligators?" He thought hard. "East. South-east?"
Ian nodded. He had a great poker face, and it was hard to tell when he was kidding.
"I wouldn't mind being an alligator," Aaron murmured. "Just hanging out on the bottom of lakes and kicking ass now and then. Hey. Lake Placid."
"Was that an alligator?" Ian asked. "I thought it was a crocodile."
"Totally an alligator." Aaron waved his hands around vaguely. "There's been. Like. A couple. There's one just called 'Alligator'. Except those were supposed to be radioactive mutated gators from the sewer. Actually, I think they made two of them. The second one was really bad, it was this fake alligator snout being pushed on a surfboard or a skate board in all the shots. The scenes where you see the whole thing, it's actually a real gator in sized-down sets."
"Not worth seeing?" Brendan asked. "Hey, I remember, there was this one about alligator people. I think that was what it was called too. Alligator People. Man, you know it's bad when the title is all obvious like that."
"That doesn't stand up all the time," Ian disagreed. "There's like, the Alien series. That's classic. And Jaws."
"Yeah, but not all the Jaws movies are good movies. The fourth one was terrible. It's even worse when they don't even use a number anymore, they just take the original title, add a colon and then some word like revenge or revisit or reckoning."
"Okay, point. But the first two were good, and even the third one had its moments."
"Oh, come on. They should have left it alone after the first."
"Who made you the authority on naming movies?"
"I'm in a boat with a friend who blames his lack of fishing luck on alligators, and another friend who wouldn't mind being an alligator. I think I'm the only one here with the right to say anything."
"I think the radioactive alligator was named Raul," Aaron said, still musing. "No, that's not right. Ramon. Ramon the alligator."
"The alligator named himself Ramon?"
The canoe rocked a little bit as Aaron shifted and Brendan automatically mirrored him to keep the canoe level. The breeze had picked up a little, and it felt good on his skin. The water rippled away and stilled.
Ian reeled in his line, examined the empty hook and sighed. "Damn alligators."
***
Fortunately, they hadn't depended on fish for their barbecue, and the hotdogs and hamburgers were still in the cooler. One year, they had left their food alone without properly locking the cooler and had come back to find the site crawling with raccoons. It had been sort of funny in a way, although less so when they had to eat leftover PBJ sandwiches for dinner, and Brendan had thought a lot of dark thoughts about coonskin hats.
Brendan made the fire while Ian slapped the burgers into tinfoil packets. Aaron came back with an armload of firewood, and then cooked a hotdog apiece for everyone to eat until the burgers were done. They all sat around and passed the bag of chips back and forth while staring at the flames.
"They always taste different when they're cooked outside," Ian said, as he poked one of the logs with a stick. It collapsed in a shower of sparks. "Better. But different from even the grill, you know?"
"Yeah," Brendan agreed absently. The smoke was blowing out towards the lake.
Ian's neck had gotten kind of sunburned since Brendan hadn't said anything after all. When they were passing around the water bottles earlier, he had leaned forward and placed his on the back of Ian's neck for a minute. Ian had closed his eyes, smiled, and then leaned back trustingly into Brendan's touch. Brendan had been so glad he hadn't told Ian after all, that he was pretty sure he had passed right over the line of Irresponsible Friend and was frolicking deep in the fields of Actively Evil People.
Aaron was leaning back on his elbows, one leg crossed over the other. He tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. "You should've brought your guitar, Ian."
"We're not doing lewd campfire songs again this time." Ian was smiling, despite his tone. "Seriously, get help."
They had already gone through half a case of bottled water-- fishing made you thirsty, Brendan had found. He wasn't sure it was all the sweating or the doing nothing or what. Then again, training made them thirsty too. Maybe it was just being around water and not being able to drink it. Sympathetic thirst cravings, or something.
Ian finished off his bottle and glanced over at Aaron. Aaron nodded back. They both got up and went towards the car, and Brendan wondered if he was about to be ganged up on and tossed in the lake. Instead, Ian came back with a bottle of Coke, and Aaron came back with a bottle of Jack Daniels and some plastic cups, brandishing both happily.
"Oh Jesus," Brendan said, and started to laugh. "You remembered. Hey. Don't we already have beer?"
"Beer before liquor, never sicker. Liquor before beer, shut up and drink to another successful roadtrip," Aaron said, and sat down.
Ian poured Coke into each cup, Aaron topped it off with alcohol, and they all raised their cups and drank. The Coke was warm and the ice was melting too quickly and Brendan got bubbles up his nose when Ian smiled at him, and thought he'd never been more content, ever.
As soon as the coals died down properly, Ian whipped out the bag of marshmallows with the air of a jeweler revealing his prize diamond. They all scrambled off to find the perfect branch.
Aaron and Ian were both oddly fussy about the way they toasted marshmallows. Brendan liked to let his catch on fire and get charred a bit before he blew them out-- it got the job done quickly and he didn't mind eating the ashy bits as well. Ian liked to slowly toast his on all sides, until it was golden brown and swollen to where it was practically falling off that stick. Aaron toasted his the same way, but he would pull the toasted outside skin off, eat it, and then toast the layer below that until it was too small. Brendan analyzed all three methods in his mind over five marshmallows and then decided he didn’t give a fuck, and started thinking about putting a melted marshmallow in Aaron's hair while he was asleep.
He didn't let himself think about whether Ian's mouth would be sticky-sweet, or what it would be like to lick his fingers.
Ian looked over at him. "You want one without the char-broil, Brendan?" He pulled it off his own stick and held it out to Brendan.
Brendan flushed, muttered thanks, and shoved it in his mouth. He was glad that he was sitting close enough to the fire to blame his red face on the heat. Really, he didn't care so much about being attracted to a guy, it was just the fact he was acting like a total girl about it, and that was sort of unnerving.
***
"Ian, man," Brendan said. He was pretty sure he had intended something to follow that, but nothing was coming. "Ian," he repeated. Oh. Oh yeah. Now he remembered. "Dude, we swim enough already. Let's go back."
"Fish," Ian repeated stubbornly. "I'm going to catch one of them. Not swim."
Aaron was already in his own tent. Brendan was leaning on Ian, half-dragging and half-draping himself on Ian's shoulder so he could inhale sweat, citronella, a ghost of cologne, and even fainter hints of chlorine. They had stayed up late enough to get mildly buzzed and Brendan was pretty sure Ian wasn't as drunk as he was pretending to be. It was just nice to be silly.
"The fish are gone," Brendan said. "Alligators, those fuckers. C'mon, let's go back to the tents." Back to my tent, he wanted to say, but didn't. He might be able to get Ian back there anyway, if Ian kept up the tipsy routine. They had all crashed on each other's couches enough for it to be second nature by now.
"We're just using the wrong bait. I know it," Ian said plaintively. "Lemme just give it a shot. Let's try something good. Like. Hotdogs. We can try one of those. Or, hey, I know. Let's try the gummi worms."
The idea of fishing with gummi worms simultaneously intrigued and horrified the fisherman part of Brendan's brain. What the hell, he figured, at the worst he and Ian could sit on the sand and eat gummi worms. He didn't think either of them was fit to be in the canoe right now. The only problem was--
"I think we left those in Aaron's tent," he said.
They made their way back to the tents, tiptoeing exaggeratedly and shushing each other every few seconds. It only took a few seconds of fumbling with Aaron's tent flap zipper before they crept inside, hunched over, and trying not to step on any lumps that looked particularly Aaron-shaped. Unfortunately, none of the lumps looked particularly gummi worm package-shaped either.
Brendan fussed around a fold of tent that he was sure he had heard a crinkle of cellophane from. When he looked up, Aaron was leaning on one elbow, half-raised out of his sleeping bag.
"Um," Brendan said, and then decided he'd let Ian field this one.
Aaron watched for a minute with detached interest, rubbing his eyes as though to be sure of what he was seeing; then he sat up completely and spoke in a conversational tone. "I will be a sonuvabitch if they aren't in my tent at one in the morning, fucking around in the dark with a fishing pole and a package of hotdogs."
Brendan nudged Aaron's sleeping bag with his toe. "Go back to sleep."
"Funny, but nearly naked people stomping around in my tent while I'm asleep don't make for great sleeping conditions," Aaron said, and squinted. "Are you naked? The answer better not be yes."
Ian stopped rummaging in the corner. "Found 'em. Who ate all the red ones?"
"Not me, I like the green ones," Brendan said. "Hey, bring the Swedish fish, too."
In the end, they all went out to the lake, pushing and shoving, stripping down to boxers since they couldn't be bothered to find their suits, and all of them tripping over hidden rocks and branches every five feet. Shit, Brendan thought, how drunk were they? Not too much. Should they even be near water, let alone swimming?
"Alligators," Ian reminded them as they stood on the shoreline. "Or bears. Maybe bears ate the fish."
"I think it should be illegal to have to be worried about both bears and alligators at the same time," Brendan said. "I mean, one or the other, okay. But both of them in the same place, that's. That's just not right."
"You gonna complain to the DNR?" Aaron asked. "Hey. Actually, that might make a good horror movie. Bear-Alligator. Alligator-Bear. Like, a mutated combo of the two. The legendary Alligator-Bear, a bear with the head of an alligator, and.... the body of an alligator."
"No, it should be like a team. The bear stalks you on land, the alligator nails your ass in the water." Ian swayed a little bit. "Hey. I forgot the fishing pole."
"And the hotdogs," Brendan added. The stars were bright, even through the clouds overhead. He wondered if they twinkled like that normally or if it were just the remnants of the alcohol in his system.
The water was blood-warm against their feet, but the breeze was getting steadily stronger and the air was cooling down. The rain was coming soon. They splashed into the water and it was a foregone conclusion that they were all going to lose the boxers eventually. It only took fifteen minutes. Brendan noticed though, that none of them went into the water above their knees.
"I'm really happy right now," Ian said suddenly. "I just wanted you guys to know that. Even if it sounds sappy and like a load of crap. I'm really happy to be here. And I'm going to dunk my head before I say anything else stupid."
"It's--" Brendan knew, just knew, this was one of those moments that you didn’t get twice. And he had nothing ready to say at all. "Yeah. I'm-- happy. I'm happy too. Thanks."
"We're cool," Aaron said simply. And then, because Aaron was good at things like that, he grabbed both Ian's and Brendan's hands and squeezed hard. And then he yanked them both forward and they all went down in a splash that scared away any remaining fish in the lake at all. The significant moment was drowned under a tidal wave of lake-water.
"Oh, you fucker," Brendan sputtered as he came back up. "Don't think I won't drown you and hide the body." He charged.
In the middle of the epic water fight, Ian froze. "You hear that?"
"Cut it out, man. That's not funny." Brendan found himself scanning the lake and forest regardless.
"I heard something," Ian insisted. "Over there. What's that shape? Was that here when we got here?"
"I heard something moving too." Aaron crouched down in the water. As if in answer, they all heard it-- some kind of furtive rustling on the shoreline to their left. "I see it. Over there."
There was a dark mass of shadow among the trees. Brendan honestly couldn't remember if it had been there before. He moved a little closer to the other two. "It's shaped kind of weird."
"It is shaped," Aaron hissed, "like a bear."
Brendan stared at the patch of shadow hard enough for his eyes to hurt. "It hasn't moved. I don't think. Should we throw something at it?"
Ian waded forward cautiously. "I think... I think it's a bush."
"We're all pansies," Aaron said dismally. "It's probably just a deer."
Brendan was just beginning to exhale when there was a much larger crash and rustle from about twenty yards to their left. He found he had quite a lot of breath left in him after all, as they all sprinted through the water and back to the campsite.
***
Continue to part two.