FIC: Western Lovers: Cowboys & Archaeologists 28/33

[sassywitch]

Title: Western Lovers: Cowboys and Archaeologists 28/33
Author: sassywitch
Pairing: This chapter has no definitive BB/DM pairing but does include DW/OB
Rating: NC-17, to be on the safe side.
Summary: Broken, but there is an interesting arrival.
Feedback: Feedback is my writers crack, which is not to be confused at all with plumbers crack.
Disclaimer: Not at all true in reality. These men whilst adorable and perfectly happy to slash themselves, their actual relationship is something that they only know. This story is adapted from a series of books that I adored when I was younger written by Elizabeth Lowell.
Word Count: 4902
Header Art: Courtesy of the incredibly talented loki_girl
Previous Chapters: can be found Here
A/N: A huge thank you to Dylan_Dufresne for the inspiration, the prodding and the beta. She really deserves far more credit than just beta. This fic wouldn't be what it is without her labour of love. My grammar sucks really, really badly so she had to suffer it so nobody else would. Next Chapter on Friday.
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He's the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time, David thought, and he's headed right for me.

David watched him approach in disbelief. Most people took one look at his pale blue eyes, and unsmiling mouth and decided to strike up conversation with someone else. Anyone else. This man was different.

He had taken one look at David and hadn't looked anywhere else.

With a grace that was totally unconscious, Orlando Bloom worked his way through the bar's crowded, main room, heading instinctively towards the golden, broad-shouldered man who sat alone. Very much alone. No one in the room, filled with cat calling, jeering locals, came within arm's length of the man with the unflinching ice blue gaze and red, closely cut beard.

Even if he hadn't been told to "ask the guy with the beard" about directions, Orlando would have been drawn to the man. His isolation attracted, rather than worried him. Orlando was nothing, if not accustomed to working with solitary, wild animals.

"Hi, I'm Orlando Bloom," he said, smiling when he finally reached the bar. The lack of an answering smile didn't deter him. He would have felt better if he could have seen the color of the man's eyes, but his eyes were shadowed by the brim of the black Stetson that he wore. "The nice young man at the gas station said that you might be able to give me accurate directions to the Double L. He said to tell you that Dominic sent me."

Orlando's smile was like his voice, warm without being flirtatious. The tone was husky, as though he hadn't spoken to anyone in hours, and David wondered if he would sound that way first thing in the morning, and if his taste would be half as sweet as his smile.

Even as he tried to push the sensual speculations aside, David felt the rush of his body changing to meet the uncalculated, innocent masculinity of Orlando himself. It had been a long, long time since David had responded to a man like that - quick and hot and hard, suddenly filled with a need as elemental as breathing itself.

"The man you're looking for is Billy," David said, his voice roughened by the fierce racing of his blood. "He's over there, talking to the bartender."

"Oh sorry. Wrong beard." Orlando's large brown eyes went from David's sleek, well trimmed beard to the indicated man's scruffy shadow. "That's Billy?"

Silently, David nodded.

"Thanks." Orlando said, smiling as he turned away.

David nodded again, and then said nothing more. Nor did he smile. His bleak, blue glance went from Orlando's lithe, alluring body to the faces of the men in Helm's Deep's only bar. Every man in the packed, seething room had taken Orlando's measure the instant he had come through the door, and there was more than casual curiosity in their looks. Whether Orlando knew it or not, their perception of his sexuality, made him even more of a target than the only two women present in the bar. They could politely be described as working girls. Saturday in Helm's Deep was their busiest time. They had been in and out of the bar and the adjoining motel with the regularity of clocks striking off the quarter hour.

When Orlando turned away from David, the men in the bar realized that he was fair game for their entertainment. Nor was there any other man hovering in the background, waiting for him, ready to protect him. He was alone. Instantly, the men became more aggressive in their interest. In a town with only one gas station, one general store, one café, one motel and one bar, all of which were collectively known by Double L staff and family as Helm's Deep - strangers weren't that common. An unknown, attractive young man, with as much femininity as masculinity, and a generous, innocent smile to sweeten the package was unheard of.

And he had no man traveling with him, no one to discourage the blunt, sexual interest of the yahoos in the bar.

Normally the lack of a companion wouldn't be a problem, for anyone, even in the wildest areas of the southwest. But today wasn't normal.

Today was Helm's Deep's Fifteenth Annual Rattlesnake Roping contest, an event that drew every bored, restless young man for a hundred miles or more. As the snakes were still sleeping, forty young, healthy males had spent the dreary Saturday drinking beer, swapping lies and coarse jokes, ragging newcomers, passing comments about the desirability of local females, playing practical jokes, and generally being a pain in the ass to everyone in the bar who wasn't at least four beers under the weather.

David had anticipated what would happen in town, and in an effort to pull his big brother out of his heartbroken funk, and to still keep an eye on his new family, David had dragged forlorn Billy into the bar, where he was silently drowning his sorrows in good whiskey. His big brother was quickly losing himself in the bottom of the bottle he held, and currently oblivious to all around him, Billy was desperately trying to forget the pain that was crushing his heart.

As he'd mentioned to David, Dominic had taken one last drive to Arwen Canyon before leaving, and while David had seen the sorrow in the young man, he'd also seen the pain in his brother, and now was worried about both of them. So David had resolved to keep one close, and surreptitiously watch over the other for as long as he could.

Taking a seat at the end of the bar, David himself, could keep an eye on Dominic as he passed through the small town, and protect him if he needed it, and still watch his brother and ensure Billy didn't do anything too stupid. Apparently he hadn't been surreptitious enough, and he grinned at Dom's subtle revelation.

He'd been watching his second beer go flat and trying to decide which would be less tedious - helping the town's lone mechanic to patch a leaky gas tank on the Double L's pickup truck, or watching the brawl that would inevitably break out in a bar jammed with the
bored, young cowboys. On the whole, David had been leaning towards patching leaky gas tanks, when he'd looked up and seen a flash of silken brown hair and the kind of easy moving walk that was guaranteed to bring him to attention.

It had done the same for the other inhabitants of Helm's Deep, who had immediately assumed that the pretty stranger had come in for a different kind of action.

Instinctively, David knew that the other men's assumption was wrong.

It wasn't just that Orlando wore baggy jeans, outdoor boots and a hip length down jacket. It was something more subtle and more final than his hiking clothes that made this man different. The openness and generosity in Orlando's smile when he greeted him had announced he was just looking for information, nothing else. If he had any clue of the picture he painted to the inhabitants of the bar, he didn't show it. Hardened souls who had faced this sort of derision before were neither spontaneous nor uncalculating in their approach to men and bars like this.

Unfortunately, this Saturday, in this bar, in Helm's Deep, was the day and the place where redneck yokels would give the town a bad name.

Orlando's gentle manner and open smile didn't belong in Helm's Deep's marketplace, but he was here, just the same.

Wrong place, wrong time, wrong man.

And the longer he stayed here, the more insistent the men would become about attracting his attention.

With increasing irritation, David listened to the men nearby speculate on the subject of Orlando's sexual expertise, and the cost of tasting his wares. David watched from the corner of his eye as the bartender came out from behind the polished counter and stood close to Orlando, crowding him and preventing him from reaching Billy at the other end of the bar, under the pretext that he couldn't hear him over the crude background comments. Standing that close wasn't necessary.

David, who was four feet away, could hear Orlando all too well. He had a voice like summer, rich with warmth and life, a lingering British accent, but with the sensual promise in his voice that made blood beat visibly at the base of David's throat.

"The man at the filling station said you were closed, but that you might open the store so I could buy supplies," Orlando said, speaking quickly to the crowding bartender. "There's no other store between here and the government cabin. I've driven all day, and there's supposed to be a storm in the high country tomorrow, so I'll have to leave before dawn or take a chance on getting washed out. As it is, I'll need a room for the night."

"No problem," the bartender said, leaning back long enough to pull a battered, leather register book out and flipping it open with a slap. Indicating with a pen where Orlando could sign his name and provide a credit card number for payment, the bartender turned for a moment to grab a key from a small metal lock box in a drawer along the back counter. Handing the key to Orlando, he asked, "What else do you need?"

Before Orlando could answer, a voice called out. "Yeah, that's it, Dan. Find out what he needs, and we'll give it to him."

David didn't need to turn and look, to know that the voice belonged to a young cowhand named Johnson. Tall, well built and almost as handsome as he thought he was, Johnson earned his reputation as a lady killer, drinker and fighter. Last year, Billy had fired Johnson from the Double L for showing up not quite sober enough to work, for the second time in less than a week. Since then, Johnson had spent more time raising hell than working. The cowboys drinking with Johnson were the same as he was, too old to be boys, and too undisciplined to be men.

Orlando pocketed the key, and acted as though he and the bartender were alone in the room.

"I need basics, mostly. Salt, sugar, flour, coffee -"

With barely restrained laughter, Johnson inserted a stream of his own basics that would have made a seasoned streetwalker wince. David was the only man sober enough and perceptive enough to notice Orlando's almost invisible flinching at the ugly language, but that was his only reaction.

"Hey baby, look at me when I talk to you!" Johnson yelled. "You looking to be a pain in someone's ass? Where's your boyfriend, sugar?"

David's hand tightened on his beer bottle, a reflex as involuntary as his own arousal in Orlando's presence. Slowly, he relaxed his fingers. Meeting Billy's alcohol-glazed look from across the bar, he nodded almost imperceptibly, and straightened.

Unzipping his jacket, Orlando pulled a small tablet from an inside pocket, praying that no one would notice the fine tremor of his fingers. He had dealt with too many wild animals not to have a sixth sense for danger. He was in danger now. What was a coarse, verbal assault, could change at any moment into something worse. The men around him had drunk enough to be uninhibited, but not unable - and he was a stranger that had walked into their territory with nothing more to protect him than whatever basic goodness might exist beneath their veneer of civilization.

If the situation were different, Orlando wouldn't have worried about being alone with any of them, even the cowboy who was running is mouth off at Orli's expense right now, but he had made his brags in front of the pack. Now he had to dominate here, or lose face. It was an old, old story among animals. And the man was definitely an animal.

While Orlando flipped through the tablet to find his shopping list, Johnson started wondering aloud what he would look like without his clothes, stripping him verbally, adding fuel to the savage fires that always burned just below the restraints of civilization.

Turning, David looked at Johnson and the four drunken idiots that were urging him on. The rest of the men in the room didn't notice David's abruptly predatory intensity, because they were watching Orlando with the single-minded purpose of a pack of jackals closing on their prey. At the opposite corner of the bar, Billy sat straighter, his alcohol clouded brain clearing, watching the events unfold and measuring his brothers control of them. David sent Billy a subtle gesture, their own code from years of small, unruly bars and watching each others backs, to let him know that he had this covered, then resumed his surveillance.

A glance at Orlando told David that he sensed the building ugliness, and beneath his calm expression, was an animal wariness that increased with every deep voice that joined in the chorus, egging Johnson on. David had heard similar mutterings from men before, and with each guttural word, civilization had been eroded a bit more, until finally the savagery beneath broke free, destroying everything in its path that wasn't stronger and more vicious than itself.

With a feeling of acute relief, Orlando found his supply list, tore it out and handed it to the bartender. Not by so much as a fast, sideways glance did he acknowledge that there was any other man in the room.

"This is all I'll need," Orlando said.

"We can give you what you need," Johnson called savagely.

Reluctantly, the bartender, Dan, looked to the piece of paper. Taking it, he scanned the list quickly and shrugged.

"Yeah, I got everything." His smile was just short of a leer as he looked back at Orlando. "The store is in the next room. I'll unlock it for you. When you're done, holler and I'll open up the cash register."

"Thank you," Orlando said, zipping his jacket again, despite the stuffy heat of the bar. "I appreciate your kindness."

Surprisingly, Dan had the grace to look uncomfortable.

With half closed eyes, David watched Orlando follow Dan through the inner door that joined the store and the bar. As though sensing that David was watching, Dan came back quickly and resumed selling drinks. The door joining the two rooms remained open, and from where he sat at the bar, David was in a position to watch both Orlando and Johnson without appearing to notice either one.

Through the eccentricities of the air-conditioning, the empty store was even hotter than the crowded bar. Orlando hesitated, then peeled off his stifling jacket, working quickly, finding supplies and stacking them on the checkout counter. When he was finished, Orlando walked to the doorway, and backlit by the bright lights of the store, his slender silhouette was a siren call far older than civilization.

A silence came over the bar.

"I'm ready, Dan."

Johnson's hand shot out and fastened on the bartender's arm. "I'll take care of him, Dan."

Johnson grabbed his half empty beer bottle and headed for the store, and four of his friends quickly followed. Although many of the men in the crowded bar looked around uneasily, no one stepped forward to stop Johnson. Alone, the cowboy was bad enough. At the head of the pack, he was more trouble than anyone wanted to take care of.

Except David.

With a deceptively lazy motion, David came off the bar stool and stood between Johnson and the path to Orlando.

"Get out of my way," Johnson said.

David said nothing.

With a quick, practiced motion, Johnson flicked his beer bottle against the side of the bar. In an instant, the lower third of the bottle disintegrated, leaving behind the smooth neck and three, wicked blades of glass.

David neither moved nor spoke. He simply watched Johnson with the pale, unblinking eyes of a cougar.

In the electric silence, Orlando's harsh intake of breath was as clear as a scream. From his position in the doorway, he could see that the aloof stranger he had spoken to earlier was even more isolated now than he had been when Orlando first walked into the bar room. He looked at Dan, who was backing away from the bar as quickly as he could, making clear that he wanted no part of whatever fight developed. The rest of the patrons, with the exception of the man, Billy, that the silent stranger had pointed out earlier, were backing up as quickly as possible, leaving a wide clearing around the other men.

Billy slipped from his bar stool slowly, his boots silent on the floor as he stood waiting, gauging his brother's reaction and ability to tame the yokels. Seeing David's subtle signal, he relaxed a little. David had this covered. Billy had seen it before. His brother's innate ability to subdue in the heated, alcohol soaked environment of a bar fight was something that Billy had seen before. Many times.

Alone, David waited, feeling the world change as it always did when he was fighting, time stretching, dragging, nailed to the ground, leaving him free to move and other men mired in slow motion. It was a primitive, physiological gift, a trick of the adrenal glands, a quirk that had been passed down through centuries of warriors; adrenaline coursing through his body with each rapid heartbeat, speeding him up, a warrior's reflex that had saved lives when other, slower men had died.

Orlando saw the subtle shifting of David's body, the electric tension of a cougar set to spring.

"No!" Orlando called, his voice tight with fear for him. "Damn it, no! There are five of them and you're not even armed!"

Having reached the same conclusion, Johnson rushed forward, closing the distance between himself and David.

David moved.

His hands flashed out, grabbing Johnson, then he pivoted, throwing him against the bar so hard that bottles bounced and skidded. As David finished the pivot, he smoothly converted his momentum into a different kind of force, lashing out with hands and feet in an intricate sequence. Two of Johnson's buddies went to their knees, and then onto their faces. One staggered backwards and fell. The remaining cowboy grabbed one of his dazed friends, yanked him to his feet and headed for the exit.

Even though Orlando was accustomed to seeing big cats take their prey, the speed, co-ordination and precision of David's attack shocked him. He was so quick that individual motions blurred. Only the results were clearly visible. Three men down, two men running away.

David's pale glance flicked over the remaining inhabitants at the bar, dismissed them as a source of danger, gave a nod to his brother and came back to focus on Johnson. With a silent, gliding stride, David started forward to teach the cowboy the kind of lesson a man would be lucky to survive. But at the moment, David didn't really care about Johnson's future. Better men had died and the world had kept on turning.

Just as David reached for Johnson, two slender, determined hands locked around one of David's wrists. He could easily have shaken off the hands, but the combination of softness and strength was quintessentially disarming him. Orlando smelled of sunshine, and his breath was a rush of warmth flowing over him.

"Don't," Orlando said softly, holding on to David's hard arm, seeing his eyes for the first time. A cougar's eye's but pale blue, bottomless, Hell unleashed and waiting to spring. Orlando caught David's unresisting hand in his and squeezed it tightly. "Please. He's not worth what it would cost you."

Orlando felt the tiny shudder that ripped through David's strength, sensed the gradual uncoiling of steel muscles, and breathed his thanks. Slowly, his fingers slid from David's arm until they were no longer connected by touch. Restrained by nothing more tangible then his acceptance of Orlando's plea, and the heat of his lithe body standing so closely to him, David reached once again for Johnson. Lifting the heavy cowboy to his feet in a single motion, David noticed how the stunned Johnson sagged between his hands.

"That's your free one," David said calmly. "Understand?"

Johnson tried to speak, couldn't, and then nodded. Opening his hands, David released the cowboy, the rest of the room watching as Johnson staggered, caught himself on a bystander, then pushed free and reeled toward the front door. He didn't even pause to look at the two groaning men who had followed him into the fight.

"Take them with you," David said.

His voice was still soft, but it carried clearly through the stunned silence of the room. Struggling, limping, able to use only one arm, Johnson got the other men upright and they all stumbled out the door.

Turning to the bartender, David gestured towards Orlando. "Total his bill."

"Sure thing, David," the man said hastily. "Right away." Scurrying away, his hurried footsteps were the only sound in the bar.

David turned on his heel and looked at each man in the room as the tense silence stretched. Smoothly, he stepped behind Orlando, laying his hands on the Brit's shoulders.

"Gentlemen," David said softly, his tone transforming the word into an insult. "I want you to meet Orlando Bloom. In the future, you will treat him the same as you would any of the other Double L family."

David said no more, because he didn't have to, and when David's eyes met Billy's over Orlando's shoulder, a slight smile turned up the corner of his lips.

"Go get your supplies," David said, squeezing Orlando's shoulders reassuringly before he released him.

While Orlando paid his bill, David shrugged into his jacket and leaned casually against the bar while he waited for the groceries to be bagged. Slowly the other men in the bar turned away and began talking in subdued voices. Most of the conversations centered around the fight, or rather, around David, and the aftermath of the fight. Billy's lethal fighting skills were well known thanks to those who had witnessed them, and while David's had often been speculated upon, no one had been curious enough to rattle his cage and find out for sure. Until tonight. Helms Deep had just discovered that the aloof, silent cowhand called David was every bit as skilled at fighting as he was at tracking cougars - and he was known as the best cat-tracker in five states.

When Orlando was ready, David easily lifted some heavy sacks into his arms, and helped him carry the supplies out to the truck.

Outside, a raw, sad wind combed the streets, sending shivers of motion over puddles that had just begun to dry. The landscape was losing its hold on the dry, arid summer, and was showing promise of the snow that would come.

In the distance, an isolated group of mountains rose against the darkening sky, while clouds gathered and slowly seethed around the peaks. Other clouds stretched in a wind-smoothed front across the icy arch of the sky. Orlando glanced overhead, saw the weather front that was supposed to bring torrential rain, and debated whether or not to take on the rough road between town and the government cabin that would be his home until next summer.

"You'll be safe enough at the motel," David said, following Orlando's glance at the threatening sky. "No one will bother you now."

The subtle rasp in David's deep voice intrigued Orlando, but then, everything about David intrigued him and had since the first instant he had seen him.

"Thank you," Orlando said quietly. "If I had known what this was like, I would have bought my supplies in the town I passed a ways back."

David shrugged. "Most of the time it's real quiet. You just came on the one Saturday a year when the local halfwits get together and howl. Two hours earlier and no one would have been drunk enough to run off at the mouth. Two hours later and they would have been too drunk to care who came through the door."

"I doubt you ever get that drunk," Orlando said matter of factly. He braced a sack of supplies on his hip as he unlocked the truck door. "You're too disciplined."

David gave Orlando a sharp look, but before he could ask how Orlando had known that about him, he saw a huge, dark shadow moving inside the cab of the weather beaten truck.

"Good God. Is that a wolf?" David demanded.

Orlando smiled. "You're mostly right. The rest is husky." The truck door grated as it opened. "Hello, Baby. You ready to stretch your legs a bit?"

A black tail waved, and sounds of greeting that were a cross between a growl and a muffled yip came from the wolf's thickly furred throat.

The instant David moved toward the truck, the sounds became a definite growl and the tail ceased waving.

"It's all right, Baby. David is a friend."

The growls ended. Yellow eyes looked at David for a comprehensive instant. Then, accepting the stranger, Baby leaped to the ground.

"Baby?" David asked dryly, one eyebrow quirked "He's got to go at least a hundred and twenty pounds."

"One hundred and thirty three, but he started small. I found him in a hunters trap when he was half grown. The leg healed almost as good as new, but not quite. In the wild, the difference would have slowly killed him."

"So you kept him."

Orlando made a murmurous sound of agreement as he leaned into the passenger side of the truck to deposit his supplies.

"Do you make a habit of collecting and taming wild animals?"

"No." Orlando neatly piled two sacks where a passengers feet would have been, arranging them to ensure that there was room for more. "I'm a wildlife biologist, not a zookeeper. If I find wild animals that are hurt, I heal them and turn them loose again. If I kept them, there's nothing I could give them that would compensate for the loss of their freedom."

Silently, David handed over the sacks he was carrying, one at a time, and as he did, Orlando noticed that he had cut his left hand in the fight. Orlando quickly dumped the supplies in the truck and took David's hand between his own.

"You're hurt!"

David looked down into Orlando's eyes. In the fading light of day, his eyes were almost black with tiny golden flecks. His hands on David's skin had the healing warmth of summer, the softness of spring sunshine, and David wanted nothing more than to bend down and take Orlando's mouth, his body, sink into him until he couldn't remember what it was like to be cold. But that would only make the inevitable return of the ice all the more painful.

"I'm fine," David said, tugging his hand free.

Orlando took David's hand again. The renewed touch of his skin sent hunger searching through every bit of David's big body, making his muscles clench with need.

"David," Orlando said, using the name the bartender had called him. "That is your name, isn't it?"

David nodded curtly, trying to ignore the exquisite heat of Orlando's breath as he examined his hand again. "Friends call me, Daisy."

"You're bleeding, David. Come with me to the motel room. I'll clean the cut and -"

"No."

His rough refusal surprised Orlando, and he looked up into eyes as cold and bleak as a blue winter's moon.

"It's the least I can do to thank you for what you did for me in there," Orlando insisted softly.

"Take me to your motel room?" David asked, his tone sardonic.

"You know that isn't what I meant."

"Yes, but I mean it." David freed his left hand, hesitated, then let out his breath with a whispered curse while his fingertip skimmed the curve of Orlando's lower lip with aching slowness.

Sliding his hand under Orlando's chin and cupping his cheek,David's eyes searched Orlando's face slowly. His large, calloused hand lifted to trace the side of Orlando's face, pushing tousled brown curls from the golden, tanned skin they tumbled across. Thumb brushing across Orlando's full lower lip, David's eyes searched Orlando's chocolate brown orbs seriously as he leaned in closer.

As their lips touched, David's hand carded through the thick, tousled curls and cupped the back of Orlando's head, pulling him into the kiss, slowly. His tongue traced the seam of Orlando's lips, seeking entrance, and as they opened under his, David's breath left him in a contented sigh, his tongue delving into the honeyed softness of Orlando's mouth.

Losing himself in the sweet, sunshine taste of Orlando, David trailed his free hand down Orlando's back, letting his fingers curl over the curve of Orlando's buttocks. Several long moments later, a car racing down the main street in a swirling cloud of dust broke the spell Orlando's innocent flavor had wrapped around them.

"Stay away from me Orlando. I'm a warrior, not a knight in shining armor, and I want you more than all the men in that bar put together. And then some."

Abruptly, David turned and walked away, leaving Orlando standing motionless in the bustling street, watching him with a mixture of shock and deeply sensual speculation in his eyes.

Chapter 29