The trouble with being too sick to go to work but not sick enough to
be in hospital, was you got too much sleep in the day, it didn't help
if you spent the time between naps drinking - even if it was on
doctors orders. Buck woke up knowing he needed the bathroom and he
was about to start coughing. As softly and quietly as his still
aching body would allow he slid off the bed and padded to the
bathroom without waking Chris. He only just got the door closed
before the coughing fit erupted, bringing tears to his eyes as he
felt like he was hacking up a lung. Once it had passed, he used the
bathroom, drank some more water and swallowed a spoonful of the
linctus Nathan had left for him before easing open the door and
slipping out again. Moonlight slipped in under the blinds, like
liquid silk spilling in to give an ethereal light to all it touched.
The blind swung very gently, giving the promise of just a hint of a
breeze.
As he walked softly across the room he could just make out Chris'
form on the bed, his legs tangled around the sheet, bare chest
touched by just a thin finger of moonlight. Buck had been cooped up
for four days now, in one of the worst heat waves in years. Desperate
for some air he pulled up the blind. Suddenly the moonlight no longer
stole in gently; it rushed in, flooding the room with that strange
blue-while light that only a full moon brings. Buck leant his elbows
on the windowsill and revelled in the slight breeze as it played
across his face and moved the slight covering of hair on his chest.
He could make out the countryside clearly, all of it picked out in
stark relief of inky black shadows and blue-white light. As he
watched a fox darted across the yard in front of him, he smiled
wishing it was him, running in the warm moonlit night, free,
unfettered, unencumbered by responsibility and emotional ties.
Buck was a man who disliked greys, he wanted things black and white,
good and bad, right and wrong, love and hate. He hated confusion and
ambiguity. For fifteen years he had been Chris Larabee's friend, he
had been assigned to him as his very first partner in the DPD, sized
him up, used everything his mother had taught him about men to decide
that this man could be trusted. Trusting men didn't come easily to
the young Buck, he had been raised to distrust men, to see them as
users, abusers, thieves, bullies, unreliable, illogical and fickle.
But Chris he learned to trust. Once given, Buck Wilmington's
friendship was not withdrawn easily. He stuck with Chris through the
good, the bad and the ugly times, he came to think of him as a
brother, and then . . . Then he saw Chris standing next to Mitch Dogwood.
Mitch Dogwood was a slimy, gunrunning, crack selling weasel, who Ezra
had convinced could score the biggest arms deal of his life from one
Kristoff Larson. Mitch might have been a scuzball but he was a cute
scuzball and he had it bad for Chris, so bad they could have stood in
plain sight recording the whole exchange and he wouldn't have
noticed. Buck watched through his binoculars, headphones connected to
the directional mike. He watched Dogwood's eyes raking over Chris'
lean frame, watched them linger on that firm ass in those
ridiculously tight black jeans, he watched the way the man's eyes
seemed to grow darker, he knew enough to know that meant his pupils
were dilating.
"You're a handsome man Mr Larson," Mitch cooed. "When all this tawdry
business is done what say you and me go some place private?" With
that he reached up as if to caress Chris' cheek. Larabee, as Buck
knew he would, instantly flicked his head away and grabbed the
offending wrist. So consumed by emotion was Buck he didn't even hear
Chris' response, not until he listened to the evidence tape later -
much later - because first he had to sort out what he was feeling.
Once the bust was over and the revolting Dogwood safely locked up,
still watching Chris with lecherous eyes, Buck drove out the ranch,
saddled Max and rode out. Several hours of sitting on a rock
overlooking the valley and he finally worked it out. Jealousy, he was
jealous. He didn't want that man, or any man, to touch Chris like
that. Raised in the ways of love and sexual response, he didn't have
to agonise long over what that meant.
So there he was in the biggest grey area of his life, with no one to
turn to for advice. He found himself trying not to watch Chris,
trying to avoid him even, he tried to pretend it wasn't happening,
that he didn't feel flushed and uncomfortable every time Chris
touched him, a pat on the shoulder, and playful squeeze to the back
of the neck. Sometimes at the saloon they would sit next to each
other, and when Chris wanted to say something he didn't want the
others to hear, he would lean in to his oldest friend, pressing his
shoulder to Buck's as he whispered, and Buck would get hard. Try as
he might, Buck couldn't deny how his body was responding, it was as
if, now his conscious mind had lifted the fetters, his unconscious
mind had taken control, and it was responding in some very
inappropriate ways. Sometimes all it took was the particular way
Chris said a word at a case conference. No woman ever did that to
Buck. He was the master after all, when it came to sex he was in
control, he just didn't get hard out of the blue, not since he was
thirteen anyway, he decided when to let 'little Buck' have his fun.
Not now though, 'little Buck' had taken things to a whole new level
and it scared him. It really was like being a pubescent teen again,
raging hormones, uncontrollable erections; he was even sweating more,
at least in Chris' presence.
Days turned to weeks, and it got no better, he had to fight to retain
his composure, to not let his feelings and responses show. Buck
wasn't homophobic in any way, not the way he was raised, but he
never, not once, thought of laying with another man, he wasn't even
curious. Looking back he considered that might be odd, most
adolescent boys went through a homosexual phase, at least had a crush
or two, but not him. Maybe because he was sexually active more or
less instantly after puberty was done with him, and that had happened
early and fast, he just never gave his libido a chance to wander and
explore other possibilities. Now the possibilities were in his face
and unattainable - or so he believed until now.
Turning back from the window and the empty moonlit world beyond it he
looked at Chris, lying in a tangle of sheets and pillows - Chris was
a squirmer in bed - bathed in soft blue-white light. He looked
younger than he was, softer. The moonlight picked up the natural
highlights the sun had bleached into his hair and made them sparkle
like diamonds. Oh God, but Chris was beautiful! He had never stopped,
not in all those years, to see that, handsome - yes, hard lean body -
yes, this he knew, but beauty was different, how had he not seen this
beauty that was now before him, how had he not seen those lips, those
wondrous green eyes. People said Chris' eyes were cold, deadly, his
glare could near enough kill at twenty paces, but it just wasn't so,
Chris' eyes were wonderfully tender and caring, so full of love, how
did he not see this? Chris had told him he had always loved him, how
had he not noticed this? What kind of shallow person was he? In sleep
Chris' face was totally relaxed, the hard edge that so often made had
him look as if a frown was just a step away, totally gone.
He turned back to the window, not even noticing the tears that now
fell silently down his cheeks. He wasn't sure how long he stood there
or why he turned back to the bed, only that he needed to see Chris,
to reassure himself once again that he really was there. When he did
his eyes met Chris'. Larabee was watching him from the bed; concern
hardening what in sleep had been so relaxed.
"You alright?" he asked softly. Buck just nodded. "Come on back to
bed," he encouraged, but the taller man at the window didn't move. " . . .
please, for me."
**For me** Chris was asking him to do something, for him, for Chris.
He wasn't ordering, he wasn't demanding he was just asking, how could
he refuse?
He lay down with his back to Chris, and intently Larabee moved
closer, he draped an arm over Buck to lay a hand over Buck's heart.
"You're cold," he commented, feeling the cooled skin beneath his
hand. With that he pulled the heavy cotton sheet up over the both of
them.
"Better than hot," Buck muttered. Instinctively Chris moved his hand
to Buck's forehead. Tired of being felt, prodded and poked at, Buck
pulled his head away, but not fast enough. "I'm alright, don't
fuss," he growled.
He had expected Chris to tell him to stop complaining and do as he
was told, so he was surprised when all he heard was a soft sigh.
Chris' hand had been there long enough to register that Buck was
right, he was alright, there was no heat radiating from him, the
fever had broken.
"Yeah, I reckon you are, well nearly. Look I know . . . " Chris hesitated,
unsure how to proceed.
Buck rolled over to face the men he loved. "What do you know?"
"That I love you, but that love isn't always enough, you're getting
better, stronger, better enough to start complaining and fighting for
your freedom again." He smiled. "Before we do anything, before we
take this to the next stage, we have to talk . . . really talk." He left it
there, but when Buck didn't respond he found himself leaning forward
searching for Buck physically, seeking out and capturing his lips.
"That's all the talking I need," Buck commented as he finally pulled
away.
"Yeah? Well I'm not you, this is all new to you, but I've been
waiting for this for fifteen years, I'm not going to risk losing it
now, not when I'm so . . . "
"I know," Buck filled in the empty space. "Alright, I'll wait, just a
little longer - not much thought Larabee, I need you."
"And I need you, but I want it to be right, the first time should be
special - shouldn't it?"
"Any time with you would be special," Buck cooed, nuzzling into
Chris' neck.
Chris growled. "Don't, please, don't . . . " he was already getting hard
and he truly didn't want it like this, not yet.
Buck pulled back. All his life if a girl said 'no' or 'don't' he
didn't. If she was just teasing and didn't get what she really
wanted, well that was her problem. "One thing you gotta know about
me, you say 'no' or 'don't' or 'stop' that's what I do - stop. So
don't say it unless you mean it."
"I mean it, this time and I'll remember that." Chris slowly rolled
over and pressed his back up against his partner's broad
chest. "Tomorrow, we'll talk tomorrow," he assured.
Buck kissed the naked shoulder in front of him and settled back down
on the pillows, pulling Larabee with him tomorrow couldn't come fast
enough for him.
The End
Continues in
Getting It Straight
