Staggered Cove Station

by Elle Brownlee

  He unzipped his jacket and tossed it on the blanket sandwich. Then he reached for Dan’s, but Dan batted his hands and skittered away with an angry look.

  Karl made a frustrated noise but Dan evaded him again, and he planted his feet.

  “Give me your jacket.” His fingertips tingled, and his body ached from barely touching Dan, but they weren’t fully settled or safe yet, and he couldn’t give in. “We’re both sweating and overheating in these, and you’ll get a chill.”

  Dan grumbled and took off his jacket. He balled it and let it drop to the ground.

  “Shit, just. Augh.” Karl snatched it up and threw it behind him to land on the pallet. “Your top two layers too—as many layers gone as it takes for you to feel cold. But keep your long johns and boots on.”

  “Oh, yes sir,” Dan snarked.

  Karl ground his teeth and stripped as he’d told Dan to do. He turned away again so he couldn’t watch the innately sinuous, graceful movements he’d memorized from sharing a room. He got down to a T-shirt over his thermal-and-silk long underwear top and bottom and shivered while he draped their shed clothing over various rocks. Then he positioned their lanterns to cross and make the widest spread of light as possible. Finally he straightened and looked at Dan, who was wearing only a tank top, skintight thermal leggings, and a murderous glare that probably masked his hurt and confusion.

  He lowered to sit on the blanket sandwich and waited while Dan stood in place and pointedly avoided looking at him.

  “Well, come here.” He was doing terribly at this, and he knew it, but he was cold and cranky, and everything hurt except for the idea of getting his hands all over Dan again.

  Dan moved to look out the vent and crossed his arms.

  Karl shivered, and the damp cool started in on Dan. Karl could tell he was trying not to shiver while he worked really hard to not pay him any attention.

  “Dammit.” Karl shot to his feet and grabbed Dan’s arm. “C’mere.” He sounded gruff and annoyed.

  Dan tried to shake him loose, so he clamped down harder, couldn’t quite get Dan spun around, and then huffed in frustration.

  “This is stupid. Just come here.”

  “Stupid, eh? Stupid. How nice. This is stupid.” Dan blinked rapidly, and his color darkened to an angry red, but he didn’t budge.

  Karl huffed and moved faster than Dan could evade him. He took hold of Dan’s face and chased down a kiss. As soon as their lips met, Dan relaxed and made a low, keening sound that did something to Karl he couldn’t quite explain. He gathered Dan in his arms and deepened their kiss.

  Karl guided them back to the blankets and sank down. He pulled Dan with him and fought not to lose contact. They wound up tangled up in each other, half reclined on their packs, and Karl tugged their jackets over them as their mouths gave chase and they tasted whatever was within reach as they settled in. He turned to tell Dan something, but he forgot what as soon as he looked into Dan’s sleepy gaze and cheeks pinked from pleasure instead of anger. Karl kissed Dan again, a third time, more.

  “Hey, kid,” Karl whispered against Dan’s cheek when he eventually moved away to breathe. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

  Dan shook his head to forgive it, but Karl sat back to explain.

  “No, listen. I am sorry that’s the best I had in me at the moment. I didn’t mean anything by it, but we couldn’t stay back there, getting colder and with everyone searching and worried about us.” He laughed at himself. “But if I didn’t get with it—and away from you—I wouldn’t have been able to resist and get us safe and away at all.”

  “I understand. Man, do I.” Dan shook his head. “You did the right thing. It’s cool. I knew what you were doing and kept telling myself you were right, but it didn’t feel that way. And then I got stubborn about it.”

  “You? Stubborn?” Karl dropped his arm around Dan’s shoulders and liked how Dan relaxed against him. He liked how well they fit together—a lot. “All that before—that was more than I ever expected. I won’t lie and say I’ve never thought about it, but I never let myself want it.”

  “I never let myself think about it.” Dan squeezed Karl’s hand. “Which didn’t work in the slightest, but I still gave it my all.”

  “Yeah. Some of that too.” He snagged a water bottle, drank half, and passed it to Dan. “Have the rest. And then eat one of those protein bars.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dan didn’t snark that answer. His tone and the pleased gleam in his eye made Karl shift, tug at the crotch of his long johns, and grumble at Dan’s smirk.

  “I figure we’re gonna be in here a while.” He held a finger up when Dan looked at him expectantly. “I wish. But first, no, because we’re waiting to be rescued. And you know, and I know, we should talk about why we’re most likely in here instead.”

  “Right again.” Dan closed his eyes and kissed Karl with a tender press of lips that spoke of grounding comfort and reassurance. Then he sighed and sat up. He got two protein bars, opened both, and slowly ate one. Karl could tell he was gathering his thoughts, and he didn’t blame him.

  They sipped from a second bottle of water, and Dan eased away so they faced each other, but he kept hold of Karl’s hand.

  “Axe.” He smiled in that forced, heartbreaking way, and shook his head. “I think he’s alive, and even though I don’t want to admit it, I have to think he’s responsible for what’s happened or is at least involved. Grady knowing him and some files I got from a friend were the last nails in that coffin.”

  “The guy you talked to at my place?” Karl could facepalm at the question, but he wanted the answer.

  Dan didn’t seem to mind. “Yup—that’s Ridge. We were in basic together, clicked at first sight, have been friends ever since. He’s some tech genius on top of being an almost better swimmer than me, so I kind of hate him at the same time.” He blushed. “I was a real introverted dork in school, and as you know, couldn’t really risk being social. He was the first guy I notice-noticed.”

  Karl tried to be big about that, but a low growl escaped anyway.

  “I only ever noticed, and not for long. I don’t think he ever knew, and we weren’t compatible, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “I wasn’t worried.”

  “Sure.” Dan patted Karl’s chest. “Anyway, my good friend and tech genius Ridge did some poking around in Axe’s business for me. On- and off-the-record stuff.” He exhaled, and his lips twisted bitterly. “I think we were both right that Axe wasn’t into meth to use it, but I’m pretty sure he got into it and then maybe over his head for the money.”

  “Nasty business.”

  Dan fiddled with the hem of Karl’s shirt, and Karl’s heart crimped.

  “As I said before, he owed lot of people a lot of money—that gambling debt that led to a spiral of bad loans, and he soon got more than underwater with it. He was drowning. I’m thinking he started gambling for fun—like he told Ratchet—to blow off steam. But then it went too far, and he needed some kind of escape route, and drugs are quick money.”

  “I had no idea about any of it. Shit.” Karl captured Dan’s nervous fingers and kissed Dan’s forehead. “What makes you think he’s alive?”

  “The address his stuff got sent to is one of those cheap, maybe-legal mailbox centers. Ridge found out Axe’s death benefit went there too—my mom was the beneficiary.”

  Karl worked that over in his mind. “Okay. That makes sense. Grim sense, but it tracks. But if he escaped to California, why would he risk coming back here and getting discovered? That was a lot of meth, but as Ratchet said, it’s not exactly making a mint these days. Then again, relying on forged benefits is equally risky.”

  “Axe always pushed things. He was always the one to get back in the water and catch one last wave when the rest of us knew it was too dark, too choppy, too anything. It made him good at a whole lot, but it was a weakness.” Dan paused and blinked at Karl. “Here I’d been thinking him falling into gambling made no sense
, but wow, I just said why it really, really does. If he was into selling, he’d come back to grab the drugs, I’m sure of it, regardless of any risks. And even presumed dead and if his debts were cleared, he probably needed it to escape somewhere, then keep the cycle going.”

  “Did Grady act like he knew Axe might be alive?”

  “No. Grady acted like a stupid braggart. I trust that everything he didn’t say was because he has no idea.”

  Karl laughed humorlessly. “Fair.” Something dug into his back, and he resituated and pulled Dan against him. “Okay. So what do we have so far? Axe’s cabin, probably a meth lab, but useless beyond that.”

  “Right. And the key Axe sent me that unlocked the boat. He sent it right after he got here, with a note about how excited he was to get out on the water and live off the land, so I’m guessing he bought the boat and the cabin property at the same time.” Dan pushed his hand under Karl’s shirt and sighed. “That letter was the last I really heard from him. He wanted me to visit and see the place. He kept his thoughts inside growing up, and I came to understand why. He was responsible for a lot, and I was too young to get it, but that never changed. We drifted apart, and it didn’t matter to me so much. I didn’t think about not hearing from him, and after a while, it felt like there wasn’t much for either of us to say. But he was a good big brother when I needed him, and I guess I just failed to pay that back completely.”

  “Hey, no.” Karl shushed Dan and kissed his temple. “This isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have magically gotten all this info from him and then magically ridden up here to the rescue. Even if you visited, he wouldn’t have let on. And if you found out, you couldn’t have saved him. If anyone knows there are some rescues we gotta accept are a loss, it’s us.”

  “True.” Dan rubbed his face against Karl’s shirt and sniffed. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Move onto the other shoulder if you need.”

  “I never told anyone all of this.” Dan looked up and traced Karl’s eyebrows and then rested his finger on Karl’s lips. “Not even Ridge. I can talk up a storm, but it’s usually designed to give away absolutely nothing, because that distracted people from paying careful attention to me. But this feels easy—telling you, I mean. And you always listened and seemed to know when I was trying to hide.”

  Karl felt like he’d been given a gift, one bigger and better than their frantic reunion in the back cave.

  “I’m glad.” He kissed Dan, but his exhale was shaky. “God, what a mess for you to confront and wade through. I’m so sorry.”

  “At least I’m not alone.”

  Karl tightened his arms and wanted to vow that Dan would never be alone again, but he wasn’t sure the cave was the place for that.

  “What was the red thing you found?”

  “Oh, right.” Karl had nearly forgotten why they were in the damn cave. “A hunk of dry suit.”

  Dan tensed and sat up. “The medical evac we did, my first mission here? When I was onboard, the captain gave me a radio beacon they dredged up. It hadn’t been in the drink that long. I could tell. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I just buried it in my footlocker and decided I’d figure it out eventually. But I knew the moment I saw it that it was Axe’s.”

  Karl frowned, and Dan held up a hand to quiet his questions.

  “That was the last part of the mystery for me—was Axe really dead or had he survived when you guys had to leave him at that wreck. The beacon made me think foul play, and someone had slowly been getting rid of him ever since.”

  Karl grimaced, but it was a realistic consideration.

  “But there’s just too many coincidences that hinge on that theory, and it started to fall apart pretty much immediately.” Dan licked his lips and started to fiddle with Karl’s shirt again and roll a small fold between his finger and thumb. “I jumped off our pier and swam to the boat to see if it was possible. It wasn’t quite the same conditions, but it was a similar distance. If I could do it, Axe could for sure.”

  “That’s why you had the chart, and why you asked Ratchet about the manifest of the Fairweather.”

  “What chart?”

  “You forgot it in the chopper after the evac, and no wonder, since you were carrying that beacon around.” Karl shrugged. “I found it tucked into a side pocket, and it started my gears turning about you. I more or less goaded you into following me to Axe’s boat.”

  “Yeah. I worked that much out. I’m sure I seemed like I was acting funny. I kinda was.”

  “I didn’t suspect you of anything for long. Part of me outright just couldn’t.” Karl smiled ruefully. “But nothing you did added up to anything devious. I still wanted to know what you were up to, though. I never quite believed Axe was lost at sea, and not because I hated having that on my conscience.” He flattened his hand on Dan’s. “Explain to me swimming to the boat.”

  “Right. So, like you noticed, I had the Fairweather’s route figured out and where they were in relation to Axe at the wreckage site. Add in the beacon and a few other small things, and I started to wonder if Axe took advantage of an opportunity. I don’t think he went on that rescue that day planning to fake his own death. Kinda like the murder theory, there’s just too many things that would have to line up perfectly for that to be a plan—but once he was out there? And knew you were leaving him for a window of time and the Fairweather went by? Well….”

  Dan shook his head and left the rest for Karl to fill in. He did.

  “So he swam to it and hitched a ride back into the cove. Like you guys used to do as kids. That gave him an out from the debts, the likely trouble breathing down his neck about it, and whatever tangle the drugs added to it.”

  “That’s about it. As I see it.”

  “Sounds plausible.” Karl wracked his brain for anything they might have missed, but he came up empty, and that scared him. “Grady’s going out of town tomorrow.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what Ratchet said—that he heard Grady was headed out of town. What do you want to bet those drugs are going with him and the short-sale money for them is in Axe’s pocket somehow?”

  Dan’s expression clouded, and he sighed raggedly.

  Karl rubbed his hands up Dan’s arms. “He never liked it here, and we never got along, but he always did his job. He never left anyone hanging—not me, not the rest of the station, not a victim. Okay?”

  “What about the winch blowing out?”

  Karl went cold at Dan’s question. He hadn’t planned to bring that up.

  “Was it sabotage? Just tell me.”

  “Yaz took a fine-toothed comb to it, but he…. It could have been. The exact right things were messed with in the exact right ways to cause what happened.”

  “Yeah. I wondered.” Dan rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Hell of a thing if Axe sabotaged that for whatever reason, and it wound up the only reason I stumbled upon Grady.”

  “There’s no reason for Axe to have done it, though. It didn’t accomplish anything.”

  He remembered the glint of light from the trees after he collected Dan from Grizzly Ben in town. He sighed. It could still be nothing, but it felt like something.

  “If he felt backed into a corner—which I’m sure he does at this point—he did it to cause confusion. At the least. He had to know his cabin didn’t fall down by itself, and he had to suspect someone was on his boat that day we escaped to your place. Yaz asked around about his boat, and it’s not like asking around is a one-way street.” Dan closed his eyes. “You don’t have to make this better or pretend he hasn’t gone way too far. I already know. I knew all along, I just didn’t want to admit it until now. He lured us in with a hunk of dry suit that would probably fit to the hunk of dry suit that was attached to the radio beacon. Then the disabled chopper? Kinda speaks for itself.”

  “Fuck,” Karl breathed out. “Put it that way… and just… fuck.”

  “Yeah.” Dan swallowed, and his eyes rimmed with tears.

  He let Karl
hold him close and rock them as Karl muttered apologies and low, soothing noises. They sat quietly for a long time as they processed everything they’d compared and discussed. It was a lot to take in. Karl had trouble fathoming how Axe got into that kind of trouble and got in so deep, but he’d seen it happen more than once.

  “What did you get out of the Jeep?”

  “Hmm?” Dan squinted in thought. “Oh, that. The trail map—but something tells me it’s not also an under-the-trails cave map.”

  “Yeah, probably not.” Karl smoothed down Dan’s mussed hair. “Good thing you thought to get us tied into a line before I went any farther.”

  Dan laughed. “Safety first.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t hurt?”

  “Nothing that won’t heal. You?”

  Dan’s double meaning sliced neatly through Karl, and he pressed their foreheads together.

  “I’m fine. And damn lucky.”

  He hoped Dan got his double meaning too.

  Dan cupped his hands around Karl’s throat. “You’re cold.”

  “It’s okay. Not all of us put out heat like a fucking furnace.”

  “Too bad my California blood’s so thin it doesn’t do me any good.”

  “It’s doing me plenty.”

  Dan kissed him, and Karl deepened the kiss.

  “So what do we do now?”

  Karl cocked an ear. He heard shouting nearby. Their guys were almost to them.

  “We get rescued, and then we see about the rest.”

  “I can do that.” Dan stood and started to dress and pack his gear. He didn’t look at Karl again, but instead barked, “Well, get a move on, Radin.”

  Karl decided right then he wouldn’t let Dan confront Axe or be the one to call in his own brother. He’d figure out a way around that and spare Dan the added pain, even if it meant he had to kill Axe to do it. That son of a bitch deserved it for hurting Dan and breaking his hero-worshiping heart.