Western Lovers:Cowboys & Biologists (3/31)
Title: Western Lovers: Cowboys and Biologists <3/31>
Author:sassywitch
Beta the patient and talented charlieisagirl
Pairing: OB/DW
Rating: NC-17 for the series, PG-13 this chapter.
Summary: David is a hard, jaded warrior, Orlando is a biologist tracking Big Cats on the Double L.
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: 3020
Previous Story: Can be found here
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1| Chapter 2
Posted to: fellowshippers, monaboyd and ordaisy
Header Art: Courtesy of the incredibly talented loki_girl.
Author’s Notes: Thank you to everyone who has pushed and prodded me into working on this. Special thanks to Dylan_dufresne.
Orlando scrambled through the loose debris and threw himself down at David’s side. Even as he ripped off his gloves and his trembling fingers felt for David’s pulse, he saw the brassy glitter of spent shell casings scattered on top of the rocky rubble. A rifle was still gripped in David’s big right hand. The skin of his left wrist was cool but not chilled. He must have been conscious at some time since his fall, for he had fired the rifle repeatedly.
“David,” Orlando said, pitching his voice to be both reassuring and distinct. Still talking, he moved back from David so that he could shrug out of his backpack and down jacket. “David, can you hear me?”
A shudder rippled through his powerful body. His eyes opened, a cougar’s eyes, trapped, dangerous. The fingers holding the rifle tightened. Orlando didn’t notice, for he was spreading his bright red jacket over David’s chest.
“Do you hurt anywhere?” Orlando asked.
When David’s eyes focused on him, they changed. Life and light came back into them. He shook his head as though to clear it.
“If you can do that, you didn’t break your neck.”
Relief was bright in Orlando’s voice. Growing up on a homestead in Alaska had taught him the basics of first aid - splinting breaks, stitching up gashes, the dangers of hypothermia, but spine injuries were beyond his skill.
And the thought of David hurt bothered Orlando deeply.
Orlando pulled off the knitted ski hat he had worn underneath his jacket hood. A moment later he was leaning over David, stretching the hat to cover David’s short ginger hair, tucking stray strands in, Orlando’s face only inches from David’s, his breath bathing David’s cheeks above his beard, his soft brown curls touching David when he turned his head.
“There. That will help you to stay warm.”
“Orlando? What the hell are you doing out here?”
“Ask Baby. He dragged me out of a nice warm cabin and insisted I go for a walk in the snow.”
Gently Orlando lowered David’s head back to the ground, cushioned the rocks beneath with one of his jackets’ quilted sleeves, and looked closely into David’s pale blue eyes. Both pupils were the same size and he was studying Orlando with an intensity that was almost tangible. Whatever else had happened in his fall, his faculties were intact.
“Thank God,.” Orlando whispered, too softly for David to hear.
But David did, just as he felt the rushing warmth of the sigh Orlando gave, as though the weight of the mountainside had just slipped from the slender man’s shoulders.
“Baby must have found you earlier, sensed something was wrong and came back to get me.” Orlando continued, tucking his bright jacket around David’s broad chest.
David blinked, scattering snowflakes that had tangled in his thick eyelashes. “Be damned. Thought I saw a wolf a while back, but there aren’t any wolves around here so I chalked it up to taking a header down the mountain.”
“You did that, all right. Where do you hurt?”
“Nowhere.”
Orlando looked skeptical. “Then why are you lying here?”
“My left foot is wedged against the big boulder. When I couldn’t dig myself out, I began firing my rifle three rounds at a time.”
Orlando nodded. Three-spaced shots were a universal “come running” signal. “Baby must have heard the shots or caught your scent on the wind.” He turned back to the knapsack, pulled out the canteen, and took off the top. The coffee was still hot. He put the canteen in David’s hands. “This will help warm you. Drink as much as you can while I look at your foot.”
David inhaled deeply. “Damn! That smells like real coffee.”
“Guaranteed strong enough to grow hair on the bottom of your feet.” Orlando agreed as he began pulling on his gloves.
The corner of David’s mouth shifted unnoticeably beneath his beard as he lifted the canteen and drank deeply. The hot, rich liquid spread through his body like a benediction, warming everything it touched. Reluctantly, he stopped drinking.
“You want some?” David asked.
“I’m plenty warm,” Orlando said. “Drink as much as you can hold.”
“That will be all of it.”
“Good.”
While David finished the coffee, Orlando began pushing loose rock away from David’s hips and legs, clearing his trapped ankle. As he worked, he tried not to notice the clean, powerful lines of David’s body. It was impossible. David was a large, healthy male animal, and called to his senses in ways that disconcerted him.
David licked the last drop of coffee from his mustache and watched Orlando working over his legs. His motions were sure, efficient and productive. Obviously he wasn’t going to come apart in an emergency.
He liked that as much as he liked the muscular curves beneath his ski jersey and pullover sweater and the lean angles of his slender hips. But admiring Orlando’s body was having a pronounced effect on his own, so he concentrated on his face instead, memorizing the smooth skin of his cheeks, the rich chocolate color of his eyes, the tempting sweetness of his mouth.
Orlando looked up, sensing David’s intense regard. He shifted his glance to the slope.
“You see any horses on the way here?”
“Just tracks. A big horse and a smaller one, both wearing winter shoes. Both drifting south and east in front of the wind.” Stones clattered and rattled, pushed by Orlando’s hands as he resumed digging. “I might have seen one of them under a big evergreen about five minutes up the trail, but I couldn’t be sure. The smaller horse is dragging a rope or a rein. Neither of the horses is limping, although the bigger one rolled down the same slope you did. If there was any blood, it wasn’t much. So relax. Your horses are better off then you are.”
“Big horse. Small horse. Winter shoes. Rope.” David looked at Orlando’s clean profile and asked neutrally, “Where did you learn how to track?”
“Alaska.”
“Horses?” he asked skeptically.
“Cats.” Orlando replied, struggling to shove aside a rock that was smaller than a pony, but not much. “I studied lynx in the North Woods. I came here to study cougars. After cats, tracking horses is a piece of cake.”
David’s eyes changed, intensity returning. Orlando was going to be living in the remote area around Fangorn Canyon, tracking cougars that had returned to the Double L.
And so was he.
“Damn,” Orlando said under his breath. He braced his shoulder and tried again to shift the smaller of the two boulders. “Did you try pulling your foot out of your boot?”
“Yes. Rest before you start sweating.”
Orlando hesitated then nodded. He was right. He sat back on his heels and breathed deeply, trying not to let his worry show. David’s foot was wedged securely between a big rock that was too large for him to shift and the massive boulder that had broken the back of the landslide. Loose rubble slithered and stirred and eased downhill every time he tried to dig him out.
“How’s your head?” As Orlando asked the question, his eyes were searching the slope for something to use as a lever against the smaller of the two boulders that were holding David captive.
“I’ll live.”
“Dizzy? Double Vision? Nausea?”
“No. I have a hard skull.”
He smiled without looking at him, still searching for a lever. “I won’t touch that line. How bad is your foot?”
“Cold is a good anesthetic.”
“Too good. You were unconscious when I got here.”
“I would have awakened in ten minutes and fired three more rounds.”
David’s certainty made Orlando look back at him.
“Hypothermia--” he began
“It’s not a problem yet,” David interrupted flatly. “I’ve been a lot colder under a lot worse conditions and functioned just fine.”
Orlando tugged off one glove, grabbed David’s wrist and started counting. His pulse was strong. Cold hadn’t slowed his body processes yet. And the quart of hot coffee would help hold the chill of the ground at bay.
“All right.” Unconsciously, Orlando caressed David’s left wrist and his palm with his fingertips, reassured by his tangible heat and the resilience of his flesh. Like Baby, David fairly radiated an elemental vitality. “Where did you learn to sleep and wake yourself whenever you wanted?”
“Afghanistan.” His voice was clipped, foreclosing any other questions.
“They have some big mountains there, and a lot of mines,” Orlando said absently. He looked past David into the forest, focusing on a piece of deadfall that might work as a lever. “Are you a geologist?”
“No.”
Despite the warning in David’s voice, Orlando was beginning to ask another question when he felt wetness on his fingertips. He looked down and saw a trickle of blood across David’s hand. Ignoring his brief protest, he eased off his leather glove. A jagged, partially healed cut went across the back of his hand. The scab had been broken in one place. Fresh blood oozed slowly towards his tanned wrist.
Orlando breathed David’s name and stroked the uninjured flesh on either side of the cut. Memories of anger and fear and the razor edges of a freshly broken beer bottle lanced through him.
“You should have let me take care of you last fall.”
“I don’t need anyone to take care of me. I never have. I never will.”
This time the warning in David’s voice got through.
“Really?” Orlando asked casually. “Then I hope you’re comfortable, cowboy. It may be a long time before anyone comes along this particular piece of mountainside.”
There was a tight silence before the left corner of David’s mouth shifted very slightly.
“You must be the exception that proves the rule.”
“Gosh, I’m so glad you explained that too me. I was beginning to wonder if you hadn’t hit your head too hard on one of those rocks.” Suddenly Orlando frowned and shifted his grip on David’s wrist. “Are you sure you feel all right? Your pulse is pretty fast right now.”
“My resting pulse is in the low sixties.”
“But -”
“I’m not resting.”
“You have a point. But your pulse has increased in the past minute or two.”
“If anyone else was leaning over me and stroking my wrist like a lover, my pulse wouldn’t have budged.”
It took a few moments for the meaning of David’s words to get past Orlando’s concern for him. A rising tide of color marked the exact instant of his understanding that he was cradling David's hand between his own. Even worse, he was running his fingertips caressingly from the pulse point on David's wrist to the base of his fingers and back again.
“Sorry,” Orlando said dropping David’s hand. He pulled on his glove again and spoke quickly. “I’m a tactile kind of person. When I’m nervous or worried or thinking hard I tend to stroke things. You were within reach.”
It was partly true. The rest of the truth was that was there was something about David that made Orlando want to stroke him, to learn his textures and pleasures, to make him smile, to warm him, to….heal him.
And then set him free?
There was no answer except Orlando’s silent, inner cry of pain at the thought of David turning away from him again. The depth of his reaction was irrational and he knew it. He also knew it was as deep as a night sky, and as real. Knowing that, Orlando stopped fighting his response to David. Working in the wild as much as he did had taught him to accept things that did not make sense within the narrow cultural limits of modern rationality.
“Tactile, huh?” David drawled. “Must make life interesting for the men around you.”
“The only men in my life have fur and fangs and go on all fours.”
Stones rattled as Orlando went back to work clearing debris around David’s trapped ankle. It seemed that for every two handfuls he pushed aside, a handful more slithered down to fill the depression.
“Can you reach my backpack?” Orlando asked after a few minutes.
Instead of answering, David twisted his body, reached and snagged the backpack. Any lingering questions Orlando might have had as to David’s hidden injuries vanished. Except for the trapped foot, David moved with supreme ease.
“What do you need?” he asked
“Not me. You. This is trickier than I thought it would be. There’s a survival blanket in the backpack. Turn the black side out.”
David didn’t argue. Though nether of them had mentioned it, both knew it would take time to free his ankle-if it could be done at all. Even with the help of hot coffee, his body couldn’t hold heat indefinitely. Lying on the cold ground was slowly sapping his living warmth.
He opened the backpack and sorted through its contents with growing approval. Orlando’s fingers might be as hot and gentle as moonlight, and his breath might be as sweetly heady as wine, but he was no hothouse flower when it came to living in the wild. He had everything he might reasonably expect to need in an emergency, except a weapon.
Speculatively, David looked over at Baby, who was watching him with yellow eyes that missed nothing.
Maybe he doesn’t need a gun after all. I’ll bet Baby would go to war for him. Hell, I did once and I would again. No hesitation.
I wonder if Johnson knows just how lucky he was.
A snap of David’s wrist unrolled the survival blanket. He sat upright. The bright red of Orlando’s snow jacket slid away from his body as he put the empty canteen in the backpack. Wind blew across his chest, penetrating even his own Shearling jacket’s thick protection, making him shiver in a reflexive effort to warm himself.
Instantly Orlando was at David’s side. He put the backpack aside and helped him to wrap the thin, incredibly warm material of the survival blanket around his body. Orlando tried not to notice the intimacy of David’s breath on his face when he leaned over him, urging him to lie back. He tried not to breathe in fast and hard, taking David’s breath into his body, shivering at the realization that even in such a small way David was a part of him now.
“Lie down,” Orlando spoke, his voice low. “There’s less of you for the wind to work on that way.” Methodically he folded up his jacket and made a pillow for David’s head.
“Here. I don’t need this while I’m digging.”
David’s senses were far too acute for him to have missed the telltale catching of Orlando’s breath, the new huskiness of his voice, the concern that went beyond that of one human being for another who needed help. Orlando was intensely aware of him as a man.
Grimly David tried to still his body’s violent response to the knowledge that Orlando was as drawn to him as he was to him. He succeeded in quelling the rush of his blood, but only up to a point. When Orlando pulled the survival blanket more snugly around his hips, he was confronted by the one thing David couldn’t control - the hard evidence of his response to Orlando. The mixture of emotions on his face when he saw the fit of David’s jeans would have made anyone but David smile.
“Reassured about my health?” he asked in a dry tone.
“Try astonished,” Orlando said faintly.
“Why? I’m a man, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re a man who is in a hell of a jam at the moment.”
“So?”
“So I wouldn’t think you’d be feeling very, er, lively,” Orlando muttered. He ducked his head, knowing his cheeks were red from much, much more than a cold wind.
“I accepted a long time ago that nobody gets out of life alive.” David said matter-of-factly. “Once you accept that you stop worrying about the details of when and where and how. Dead now or dead fifty years from now, dead is dead. And alive is alive, all the way, full to the max. I’m alive and you turn me on deep and quick and hard. I don’t like that one damn bit, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Orlando looked at him, a question in his eyes that he wouldn’t ask. David knew what that question was. He knew what the answer was too.
“I don’t like being turned on by you because you still believe in fairy tales like love. I know better. That’s why I told you to stay away from me. But it didn’t work out that way did it?”
Slowly, Orlando searched David’s sharp blue eyes, wondering what had made him the way he was and what might heal him so that he could live completely again.
“No, it didn’t work out that way,” Orlando said, his voice both gentle and determined. “Life is always unexpected, David. That’s why laughter is vital and very real. And life always seeks life. That’s why love is vital and very real. Not fairytale. Reality.”
“Sex is real,” David said flatly. “Love is a game. I’m too old to play games and you’re too young to do anything else so finish digging me out of this hole and say goodbye.”
Orlando looked at David’s icy eyes and knew that arguing with him would be futile. Yet he couldn’t help reaching out to him, stroking the smooth skin of his cheek and the sleek pelt of his beard, soothing and reassuring him that he wasn’t alone within the bleak world of his choosing.
With shocking speed David’s hand locked around Orlando’s wrist, preventing Orlando from deepening his caresses.
“I’m trapped but I’m a long way from helpless,” he said coldly. “Dig or get the hell out of here and leave me alone.”
Orlando had no doubt that David meant it: he would sooner lie trapped in a snowstorm than submit to a kind of touching that had nothing to do with sex.
Chapter 4