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That means I solve problems.; Lukassss <3
Topic Started: Aug 19 2011, 10:14 AM (234 Views)
Nathan Black
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Iberian Bull
Morning dawned soft, bright and dewy in the lower parts of Vogelsang pass. The soft flutter of waterfowl landing on mirror smooth water combined with the yellow light of dawn shuffled Nathan out of the heavy sleep that had kept him from rising with the sun. He opened his eyes slowly, allowing his brain to fully become aware of the sounds around him rather than rush himself up. He didn’t hear any movement next to him, just a steady breathing so he was safe in assuming that Lukas was still sound asleep.

When he finally did open his eyes he was greeted by the near blinding flash of morning light off of the water, and briefly he turned his head to shelter his face into his arm. With his nose smashed into the crook of his arm and eyes sheltered he listened for a few more moments, before lifting his chin, peering over his arm and into that bright light again. He blinked furiously, and when his eyes had adjusted to that light, watching a happy convent of ducks basking in the water he lifted himself up on a forearm.

After a moment of blearily watching the ducks and their antics he twisted at the waist to look over a broad shoulder to his slumbering companion. Lukas was sound asleep, and while he wasn’t so deeply asleep that he was snoring as he tended to do sometimes he was without a doubt so deeply asleep that Nathan would have been able to get up and probably get the camp packed up around him without him waking.

It wasn’t that Lukas slept deep or anything like that, but rather, had worked several doubles before breaking for vacation in an attempt to help get some disastrous mishap involving a water main break at one of the construction sites under control. No doubt getting right in the middle of the mess himself and coming home a mud covered mess, he would work himself to the exhaustion point, crash, then get up to do it again just to get everything running back to schedule again. As much as the vacation they were on was about having a good time, Lukas was still catching up on all that sleep he had lost no doubt.

Rather than roll over on him and pound on him as he was inclined to do for a moment, Nathan elected to let him sleep at least for a little while longer. He sat up, scrubbing a hand along his rough jaw and he took in a clearing breath that brightened his eyes and helped to make him a little more alert.

It was cool enough for him to think twice about going to jump in the stream they had set camp up beside, and instead of heading for the water he headed for the tree line when he stood up to take care of necessary morning business.

They were spread out by a Merced tributary, which they were following to their intended destination – Mirror lake, and a large camp site where they had parked their car three days earlier before setting off for Vogelsang lake and other peaks in the high country. Their food was secured up in a tree in the pack Lukas had been carrying, and when Nathan walked away from a sturdy spruce he had been absently admiring he cut the pack down then padded back for their messy little circle.

The fire had died sometime in the early morning and laid in an ashy, cold pile between their sleeping packs. With a careful glance towards Lukas, Nathan crouched and quietly set to starting the fire back up so they could have a quick breakfast with hot coffee. Once the fire sparked and took to burning, Nathan stood again to take care of other things as he let the fire heat up – shaving, changing his socks, packing up his sleeping bag and other things, and then dabbling about by the stream while he gathered water for the coffee.

After he had wasted as much time as he felt he could with his stomach rumbling and the desire for coffee rising, he returned to the circle where the fire was crackling happily now and put the pan of water he had gathered right into the mess of ash and heat scorched scrap wood. While he waited for that water to heat up, he ruffled in Lukas’ pack, with the intent to get together the coffee and everything else needed for it, but with a slight nosy interest in everything he had brought along for the trip.

It didn’t keep him interested for long, and the water definitely was not heated by the time he dropped the bag so he opted to perch himself in one of the camp chairs and watch the water, Lukas, the ducks and then the clouds as they called his attention. When the water finally did warm, however, he sat onto the task of getting the coffee prepared quickly and eagerly, finally pouring himself a cup and then a second for Lukas – taking care to assure there weren’t too many grounds in either cup.

At this point it seemed a safe moment to wake Lukas, or at least, Nathan couldn’t wait any longer to get him up. Aside from the fact he had a cup of warm coffee waiting for him, and he couldn’t bear to let it get cold he was starting to get restless and wanted to move on. He picked up the can of beans that would be their lunch later on and tossed it gently at Lukas' stomach – it hit the sleeping bag and rolled into the sleeping man with enough force that it should have roused him, or so Nathan thought, but wouldn’t cause any kind of discomfort.

“Hey,” he croaked, voice rusty from disuse, and thunderous in depth. He took a drink of his own coffee then, and while it wasn’t the best (in fact it was pretty terrible) it was still warm and still had the taste of coffee that he had wanted. “I’ve got coffee.” He tempted, holding Lukas’ tin cup out towards him, as if to get it closer to him so that he could smell it better.

“Wake up.”
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Lukas Vernesen
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Bighorn Sheep
The first outside thing to brush Lukas’ senses was the distinct odor of wood smoke. He dealt with things that burned on a daily basis, nearly. Something burning usually mean that someone wasn’t doing their job. OR that someone was in trouble. Fire, for as pleasant as it was to Lukas, normally did not carry a good connotation with it when he smelt it. Reluctantly, blearily, and to the sound of silence and crackling firewood, Lukas cracked one denim blue eye to take in the outside world.

Light streamed into the cracks of his eyes, effectively blinding him. Met with such unpleasantness at such an hour never sat well with Lukas. It was why he chose the side of the bed farthest from the window, why he was keen upon the discovery of curtains to obtain a few of his own, and why he elected to get up before the sun was too ungodly bright. Nevermind that, though. Curtains and windows and waking up at the crack of dawn aside- it was too bright to get up- and that fire wasn’t industrial so he could go back to sleep. Right?

He did.

And he secured a few good minutes of it too, able to sleep through the sounds of a 240lb plus man lumbering around the campsite. A can of beans, fueled by an impatient Taurus’ toss, though, escorted him back into the blinding morning in the middle of Yosemite wilderness. He carefully cracked an eye, squinting at the harsh light filtering through the thick leaves above. The morning had a distinctly golden glow about it, so raw and natural were those mornings waking up in the woods, that Lukas was distinctly reminded of those long afternoons in the army when he was allowed to sleep till noon and woke up at lunch time. The golden glow of midday, and the soft white-blue of morning light were always key for the engineer to establish the hour of the day. A golden morning out in raw nature wasn’t boding well for his internal clock. What time was it?

Lukas rolled over, his thickset bulk aching from a night spent prone on an unforgiving turf with a root prodding up into his back. He braced himself on one arm, lifting his unused hand to rub at the back of his neck, blearily squinting one-eyed at Nathan. “Morning,” he offered thickly.

He dug his thumb and forefinger into the thick flesh at the nape of his neck, assaulting the taut muscles with a fierce rubbing. Simultaneously, he looked to the cup being held out for him, heat weaving in opalescent ribbons from the ominously dark cup of joe. “Ah, thanks,” he said, reaching for it gratefully with his massaging hand. The other groped for a bit of modest concealment, hiding his morning ardor beneath Nate’s abandoned pillow. He lifted the cup to his lips, pouring the scalding concoction back into his mouth. The moment it hit his tongue, Lukas nearly spat it out. The reflex to spit out poison ever a strong one to suppress, he did a good job of buttoning his lips even as his throat swelled in protest of swallowing something that tasted like chalk, mud, and feet.

Aware of Nathan’s eyes and the potential they might be pinned on him, Lukas muscled through the gag reflex threatening to give him away and swallowed the boiling sock water. It scalded every inch of his throat, and he could practically feel the blisters welling on his tongue and the roof of his mouth where the concoction had briefly settled. Eyes watering, Lukas lowered the cup to sit atop the pillow in his lap, nodding from beneath pinched brows. He elected not to comment.

He sat then, enjoying the quiet morning and the sunlight his eyes were now slowly adjusted to. He could make out a small battalion of ducks cutting ‘v’s in the still water they swam through, the rippling of their movements dying out before turning to the lapping waves that fed the pebble strewn beach they’d camped beside. The water was clear- he could see the rock strewn surface well past ten feet out, and only occasionally he could make out the rainbowed sides of the modest river trout darting between the mud speckled minnows and natural stick debris.

Beyond the river he could see a towering fortress of pine, a granite mountain, and the much steeper canyon wall that stood behind it. A meadow spanned the distance between river and pine forest. All explored yesterday. A good hike, and sharp, fragmented memories of yesterday afternoon curled the corners of Lukas’ sharp mouth, a secretive grin splashed across his handsome face. Forgetting how bad the coffee was, he lifted the tin for another gulp and was once again faced with the same predicament of being forced to swallow something with the taste of chalk and soil. Yet refraining from insulting Nate’s pride, he again managed to swallow the potion and cleared his raw, burned throat.

“It’s a nice morning,” he commented sedately, slowly coming around to the functioning brain he normally operated with, “not too hot. What do you think, 65 degrees? Not bad for…” he lifted his unoccupied wrist in search of the watch he wasn’t wearing. From beneath bed-tousled hair, he peered at the bull-man before him in a clear plea of ‘got the time?’
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Nathan Black
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Iberian Bull
A smile forced its way across Nathan’s mouth when Lukas stirred. He didn’t try to smother it, it would have been a totally wasted effort, so he sat and smiled a little foolishly at his dark haired, denim eyed companion.

“G’morning,” he returned deeply, leaning back into the camp chair as the wooly chested man before him settled into the cup of coffee, and so intent was he on observing the endearing show of modesty that Lukas acted out in sheltering himself with a pillow, that proud Nathan missed entirely any signs of his friend’s struggle with the terrible coffee.

The silence that fell between the pair was not awkward, but enjoyable rather as Lukas turned to admire everything that panned out before the two of them, and Nathan mimicked his friend. He took a slow breath of the cool air, refreshed and invigorated by the crisp smell of it and the way it felt at the back of his throat – heavy and rich with all of the wildness in the middle land between the high country and the lower regions of the park.

He contemplated the journey left before them with a thirst; snaking back to Mirror Lake on a path they had not come up, to perform an odd sort of circle dictated by the harsh topography. Mountains and valleys carved their path, and had they been able to get away from work longer perhaps they would have ventured through every pass and over every peak, but the time restraints kept them from doing so.

He wasn’t disappointed, despite his boyish nature and his hunger to experience it all. They had traversed rock faces and navigated the rocky slides of falls together – they had experienced a great deal of adventure all ready, rock climbing they both liked so much and a good deal of paddling from check point to check point on the obliging Merced river. His shoulders were a little redder from all of the time spent under the sun, where the pack had rubbed the sunscreen off of his skin and the relentless sun had found ample time to burn him. But the burn was a pleasant, faraway sting now – a good night’s sleep with it had either dulled him to the pain of it, or it was not such a bad burn. He lifted a hand without much thought to rub over his shoulder, eliciting a soft burn that was more pleasurable than painful now.

Lukas’ soft, melodious voice drew him from the craggy peaks he watched, away from the trees that bled down them like scattered toys from the distance they sat at and he looked to his soft eyed, tousle headed friend.

“Oh, surely.” Nathan answered in regards to the favorable feel of the morning, taking another sip of the coffee that he was quickly warming to simply because it was filling his belly and waking him up. He glanced to his wrist watch when Lukas inquired so politely as he did, and then he looked back to the other man with a grin.

“Just off nine.” He provided, lips still curled in a light smirk. Sixty five degrees for nine o’clock was pretty good, and he was sure that the afternoon was get warmer – hovering around the mid to high eighties but the heat never bothered either of them, they were well used to the heat what with their backgrounds. In recent years, Nathan might have developed less of a gut for it spending all of the time indoors that he did anymore for work, but Lukas would surely have no trouble with it. After a moment he leaned down to grab Lukas’ rucksack, going to rifle through it without asking, and without any shame whatsoever in doing so. He surfaced with their breakfast rather gracelessly – tossing Lukas a bag of his trail mix, the crap he had with him at all times and ate like a toddler with candy. Nathan had several granola bars that looked almost as appetizing as a few of the rocks along the stream they were rested at, and he quietly promised to buy them both a nice, heavy dinner on the way back home later in the evening.

“Bog in,” he advised, tearing open his granola bar while pulling off an impressive balancing act with his coffee and knees. He set into his own granola with an intent that would have led anyone looking on to believe that he was actually enjoying the taste of the nutty, oaty thing in his hand when in reality, he was enjoying it nearly as much as he would have enjoyed sandpaper.

“It’ll be a good one today,” he resumed their previous conversation, regarding the weather and the day that awaited them. “I’d say we won’t breech ninety this afternoon, seein as it is now, this late in the morning.” He contemplated around bites of the bar and a few mouthfuls of his coffee. When he cleared the cup out, he tossed it unceremoniously onto the ground before his feet and considered the peaks above them and over the stream for a moment before he looked to Lukas again.

“It’s about a three hour pitch from here to the truck, we could take things good and slow and be out of here by three.” He wagered, and held off on suggesting dinner just yet. Verbalizing his desire for some big slab of meat and a baked potato with it would only make it harder for him to digest the bird food he was already gnashing in his teeth. He stood, crumpling the torn wrapper and tossing it carelessly into the fire where it began to shrivel and writhe against the heat, and he dropped himself down beside Lukas to overlook the stream and the fire. He reached out to help himself to the trail mix, more of that bird food he was less than thrilled with simply to fill the cavernous depths of his growling stomach.

“Or,” he began, mouth full of the snack. “If you’re tucked out, we could book it and make it home just after noon.” He offered, teasingly of course, ready and eager for a shove.
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Lukas Vernesen
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Bighorn Sheep
Lukas caught the trail mix one handed; one of the numerous flavors he had on him at all times that he could (at any given moment) be seen gnawing on. Gracing the cup of coffee with a cursory glance to make sure he hadn’t bathed his pillow concealment in the black liquid, Lukas removed the cup and sat it down. Using a couple stones to anchor the cup in place, Lukas then set to tearing open the bag and sinking his hand, wrist deep, into the salty, nutty party bag of flavor. He withdrew a handful, sliding a varied bundle of shapes and colors into his mouth- taste savoring the saltiness and the earthy aroma that lifted from the bag at once. Teeth grinding, rough jaw working, and mouth happily savoring a more palpable breakfast than the cup of coffee, he listened and nodded to the words he was hearing.

Nathan was right. Come noon they’d be at Mirror Lake, and once there it would be just warm enough for them to enjoy the glacier cold waters of the secluded little waterhole. Be it swimming, fishing, or even simply scooping out a palmful of that clean runoff, they’d have a nice retreat at the heat of the day at Mirror Lake. He was preparing to tell Nathan such when the lumbering mammoth of a man plopped down in the rumpled nest he’d left at Lukas’ side. He sampled some of the trail mix, chided Lukas’ late wake up, and was grinning playfully all before Lukas could retaliate to being stolen from and mocked.

The older man laughed.

“Are you in the mood for an ass kicking?” he chided through a morning thick chuckle. Jerking the bag out of reach, he batted his thick, square elbow against the broad bicep beside him, digging the sharp point into the bulged hardness like it was a spade mining through cold clay. Lukas knew, though, that saying such things was almost always seen as a direct challenge, and quick to divert the bull’s attention lest he demand to see just how well (or not well) Lukas could make good on his word, he continued.

“Mirror-Whatever-It’s-Called is close you said? Three hours?” came the garbled question, spoken through a mouthful of trail mix. He glanced out of the corner of one blue eye at Nate. He inclined his jaw, turning his head a fraction of an inch to look down the long, muscularly ropey arm of Nathan Black, before he flicked his eyes up to the strong jawed profile and somewhat delicate (though he’d never ever say this aloud) nose.

Lukas was warm suddenly with Nate so near. Nathan was a hefty man, and when perched beside Lukas (who was fairly large himself at around 200lbs of muscle –and a bit of fat), the 65 degree morning seemed sweltering. He shifted on his buttocks, one hand deftly pinning the pillow in place over his groin before he reached for the cup of coffee to give his hand something to do. His fingers halted inches from the handle of the tin cup. Wait. That coffee was terrible. Maybe if he knocked one thick knuckle against the side ‘on accident’ he could be rid of it altogether.

On second thought, the sleeping area would probably get soaked with foul smelling coffee. Lukas didn’t want to haul damp bed things in his rucksack. He was already burdened with the food…with its tendency to leak.

“Hmm?” he prompted.
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Nathan Black
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Iberian Bull
Nathan grinned through the mouthful of trail mix, preparing to reach out a massive mitt to smack Lukas across the chest, then possibly force him onto his back to deliver the ass-kicking the other man was offering him but Lukas spoke, and it quickly distracted the blonde.

“Mirror-Whatever-It’s-Called is close you said? Three hours?”

Nathan chuckled, a little snort of a laugh in his throat and he nodded his head, electing to overlook the butchering of the very simple name – all Lukas would have had to have done was add the very easy word ‘lake’ to the end of it to get it right – instead of teasing Lukas about it now. He would wait until later to bring it up, hours after the incident, probably to a look of slight confusion and then the dawning of understanding. The idea of the expression, and the reaction, made the bull grin wider, handsome white teeth bared for a minute before he resumed gnawing the trail mix.

“Yeah – three hours if we move at our typical pace, and we don’t get distracted like we did yesterday… Though,” he paused, recollecting that hour or so spent in the sun and the thigh high grass, with a slight smirk that crawled slowly over his mouth. “I wouldn’t really mind being an hour or so late.”

He sat there for a few minutes, in that reminiscent silence while his companion crunched on trail mix, his insatiable hunger sated for the moment by concentrating on things that roused another sort of hunger in him. He was claimed by the desire to make use of the clearing, the cool morning and his partner’s tousle-headed, sleepy eyed lethargy that would make him easier than usual to overtake, as well as the weapon he had concealed beneath his pillow. He knew however, the likelihood of someone coming across them here was greater than it had been in their meadow the previous afternoon, as they elected to bed down nearer to the well traveled trails they would pass instead of in the wilderness where they might have inadvertently lain themselves down in the path of a wandering bear. They would venture off into a part of the woods families and lesser outdoor adventurers wouldn’t after they had gathered their bearings and cleaned up the campsite, and while getting on up on Lukas would be tougher with him being more alert, fully dressed and less venerable it would be safer – they wouldn’t end up accidentally destroying some child’s youth.

He inhaled quickly then, resolving, deciding this was the best course of action and he straightened up, looking to Lukas without the smolder that may have filled his eyes were he a man of lesser self control. He lifted his brows then, smiling lightly at him in a manner more patient than expectant before he plunged his hand into the bag of trail mix, which tasted better the second time around than it did when he had first dumped it in his mouth. It tasted very nice with the coffee, which, he was still rather proud of. He took a drink of it, satisfied by the runny, acrid mess and then held the cup up, eyeballing it.

“This stuff isn’t half bad, is it?” he questioned, speaking more so to the woods than Lukas, but that didn’t stop him from looking over to the engineer for his opinion – as trees couldn’t give him their input on the matter.
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Lukas Vernesen
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Bighorn Sheep
Giving Nate a stern stare, Lukas contemplated his words. He wasn’t implying they…here…on the way to Mirror Lake perhaps? Lukas’ morning timber twitched at the thought of it. But then, suddenly as a flash flood, the image of two innocent eyes belonging to a little girl spying two very large, very hairy men doing things they shouldn’t do in public snapped him away from that idea and the implications of his companion. Little did he know the train of his own mind was on the same tracks as Nathan’s.

Gutturally he cleared his throat, hefting himself up on his long legs. Thick thighs bunched on his ascent and the beefy and tight muscles of his calves ached at the movement after such a long day of hiking and strenuous activity yesterday. He gasped faintly, taking a step forward so that his feet scraped through the blankets, heading towards his gutted looking pair of hiking boots sitting with their mouths agape. Before getting too far from Nate, Lukas passed over the trail mix to be consumed no doubt.

He still clutched the pillow at his groin as though embarrassed Nate might see the natural behavior of his male anatomy. It was an innocent, youthful gesture, and it wasn’t typical of his au natural personality. Nonetheless, he held it fast.

“Ah, yeah. Great coffee. Y’can finish mine if you want, you know how I am about drinking too much in the morning.” Was it for this exact moment that he’d long ago developed a dislike for drinking too much in the morning hours? Oh sweet, intelligent providence.

“Be right back, gotta take care of some business here right quick,” Lukas stated matter-of-factly. He didn’t mean anything carnal or erotic in that statement. No lusty itch was he trying to scratch. It was nothing more than a gentleman begging Nate’s pardon so that he might go relieve himself without encroaching on an otherwise pleasant morning.

Lukas slipped his naked feet into the gutted innards of his shoes, not bothering to tie the stringy laces as he trudged through the leaf litter and dirt. He glanced over his shoulder, roughly tossing the pillow at Nate’s head. His back now to Nate, there was no need to hide the tent that was slowly becoming less unrelenting anyway for the more pressing urgency of his bladder. Dipping his hand down to curl his hand in front of the thin material of his boxers, Lukas searched the immediate area for some kind of partially concealed copse and locked his eyes on the perfect spot well off the trail and thick enough with bushes and trees that should any early risers happen by, they’d be none the wiser.

He shuffled into the dense undergrowth, doing a cursory glance for poison ivy or oak, then steadied himself, dropped both hands to his groin and tilted his head back. He pondered as the steady sound started up.

Had Nate brought the digital camera? Since they started hiking, both of them had been using the little disposable cameras Lukas was so fond of buying (he preferred them to digital cameras any day of the week). He realized that the last pictures they’d snapped would probably be illegal in about four states – but more importantly, they had been the last of the shots on the last camera. They were bound to stumble upon a fair few scenic areas to take a few goofy, or memorable pictures. For example, he knew that the path they were currently on led right up to a beautiful, albeit quite small, waterfall that they’d no doubt try and scale or get soaking wet fucking around in. That was a candid moment Lukas didn’t want to miss.

He furrowed his brow, jiggled on the spot, then kicked the dirt between his legs into a semi-mole hill before trudging with might more purpose back to the camp.

“’ey!” he called alertly. “Did you remember that digital camera of yours? We used up the last of the disposable cameras yesterday.” He didn’t need to remind Nate that they’d burned through all of the Polaroid film on the very first day- he’d been cross about that for several hours already at the beginning of the trek.
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Nathan Black
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Iberian Bull
Nathan lifted his cup to Lukas in something of a salute, before reaching to grab the engineer’s cup of coffee off of the ground to drain the rest of it himself. He glanced after Lukas as he walked away on long, muscular legs and contemplated the shape of the handsome man appreciatively and quietly. He observed him all the way up to the point where Lukas squared off his feet, and then with a polite turn of his head and dip of his chin Nathan looked away and into the bottom of his coffee cup.

He was quiet and still for a few moments, until finally the idea to finish getting the camp packed up occurred to him again. He stirred then, lifting his body out of the chair to unconsciously mirror Lukas; kicking a little mound of dirt over the fire to smother it. He refilled his own cup one more time, before walking the pan and Lukas’ abandoned cup to the river to dump the remaineder of the coffee into the dirt, and swill water through the dishes to clean them out.

By the time he was straightening back up, Lukas was headed back towards the smoldering remains of the fire. Nathan lifted his brows, providing his partner with a curious, attentive look as he moved to meet him, and douse the pile of dirt and smoke with the pan of water.

“Hmm? Oh yeah, it’s in the bottom of my ruck if you want to take a look.” He said, with a great deal of confidence. He remembered shoving the fully charged camera down into the bag in the beginning of it all, and he knew it was there, probably surrounded in a nice little nest of his socks and skivvies.

He pointed with the pan towards his rucksack, and then set to putting away the dishes, taking a few more handfuls of trail mix to stuff into his mouth before closing and putting away the bag of goodies into Lukas’ bag. He stretched out his shoulders with a groan of approval, before moving on to packing away the bigger things like his chair and bed.

He thought about the cameras – the disposable ones that Lukas had mentioned – and with that thought he was drawn to chuckle about it a little. Lukas had certainly been ticked after the cameras had been frivolously used, but he had certainly made a good time of using them up with Nathan. There would be good shots, and they would be fun to go through, no doubt that last camera would be the most fun of them all but Nathan could understand his companion’s upset. They should have brought more with them, it was just good fortune he had actually packed his instead of leaving it behind when finding out Lukas had purchased a heap of disposable cameras.

“What do you think about framing that last picture we took yesterday afternoon and sending it to your folks for Christmas?” He asked, grinning over at Lukas as he wrestled his bed.
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Lukas Vernesen
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Bighorn Sheep
Lukas laughed out loud at Nate’s last comment. He could imagine the looks on his parent’s faces at the sight of that.

He knew what Ginny would think. She would assume that the business that happened early in his life was the cause of it. His father wouldn’t have an opinion- the cancer he’d had before Lukas had been born has been an experience that had taught him many things in life, and judging based on who you loved was something he had apparently given up. Of course, both parents would be happy to learn he was happy and in a somewhat stable relationship. But they would not appreciate the photograph for its content.

Not that Lukas was thinking that hard about giving them the picture.

Shaking his head and pushing the crouching Nate as he passed, Lukas wrangled the rucksack with one hand and turned to promptly sit his heavy haunches on the fallen tree they had draped their clothes over the night before to dry out from their brief wash last night. The tree, easily three times the thickness of Lukas’ thigh, shuddered a bit under his weight with a springiness that suggested it hadn’t been dead long.

“They’d love that. Maybe we could send a matching pair to Australia. That little town of yours- they’d all love to see what you’ve been up to- or should I say down on?” He said while rifling through various articles of clothing. He pushed passed a rather large pocket knife, the map, a compass, some kind of black leather kit with a zipper, several unused pairs of socks and underwear.

One pair, a pale blue pair, Lukas recognized. His heart squeezed a little as he stared at them, hand hovering over the material. They were old, faded, and Nate had been wearing them when he propositioned the two of them save on utility bills and mortgages and shack up at Lukas’ place. Despite having been said in as a flippant suggestion, the magnitude of such an offer didn’t escape Lukas’ notice.

They had to be too small to fit the man, still.

Lukas flicked his eyes up to Nate, a slight smile curling his thin lips, before he pushed the boxers aside. More socks were piled at the bottom of the bag and as Lukas bravely shoved his hand down into the next of foot clothes his fingers hit something hard and cool. Plastic. And a slender rope –more like a string –that he recognized as the camera’s cord.

He fished it out, making a triumphant ‘Aha!’ before setting to turning the technology on.

“I wonder what pictures you have on here,” he said offhandedly, fiddling with the buttons and attempting to get out of Picture Taking Mode.

“What the hell, how do you…huh. What button do I push-oh wait a minute.” The camera blinked and changed its display. It was still viewing everything in live time, and there was now a little red ‘REC’ flashing down in the right hand corner. He was capturing a video of his knees and untied boots.

“Nope. That didn’t do anything. What do I push- I don’t know what this thing is doing…I just want to get to the pictures.”
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Nathan Black
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Iberian Bull
Nathan was thoroughly entertained by Lukas’ comment about what he’d been down on since he had been home. He giggled, the sound speaking more of his entertainment with the idea than of his concern for the state of his masculinity. He wasn’t worried about that at all, despite the situations he got himself into with Lukas; he had gotten Lukas in those same situations just as many times. Neither one of them could respectfully claim they were more masculine than the other with any of that in mind.

“Oh yeah, that’d be a hit.” He said, and he glanced over towards Lukas briefly before he turned his focus back down on the sack he was rolling up tight so he could force it into his bag. He knew his mother would probably handle it with less grace than his father, though to say either of them would really enjoy seeing a picture of their oldest son in such a position…

He laughed again, shaking his head and listened as the man he had been in that position with went digging through his bag to find his camera. With his bed finally tied up secure he tossed the roll to the side and stood to head towards the tree Lukas’ had his thick thighs on to snatch up the clothes that had been drying out.

He glanced towards Lukas, watching him as he fiddled with the camera he had located and when he heard the soft, musical tone he rolled his eyes with a soft smirk. He reached out to take the camera from him and fix the problem, throwing their clothes over one arm.

“You’ve got it recording, you yob.” He informed the engineer, turning the camera on him to capture more of the man than just his knees and feet. “You’re really hopeless, you know it?” he said, and then he switched the camera into gallery mode before he added his own considerable weight to the log Lukas had perched on. It shuddered and groaned, but held up under his excess of two hundred pounds.

“Here.” He said, and held the camera out for his companion to look through. He had a vague idea as to what was on the camera; Lukas had borrowed it for work once, to take photographic evidence of vandalism on some work site so he could send it into the company they were contracted to for monetary compensation for their machinery that had been destroyed. Then there were a few shots from Kit’s birthday party the previous year, the one where they had rented a jump –jump to try and get her to bounce in. They had only succeeded in getting her in it once Nathan himself had entered the bouncy castle.

There were a few pictures of Lukas’ hands as he attempted to figure out the gallery function months ago, pictures of his boots as well and their wooden floor. There would be a few pictures of Megan and Kit both on Nathan’s back (in his Geis, of course) after they had coaxed him into giving them a ride through the park. He had taken a few pictures at a pilot’s retirement party of Lukas peeing in one of the hedges outside of the Ramsden, and he was pretty sure there was probably a picture of Nathan himself hung-over and naked on the sofa – which Lukas of course thought was hilarious.

Vaguely, he even remembered seeing a picture of Megan and Kit’s more pleasant tempered brother Anson on a tractor. To assume it had been taken at Alwin’s Orchards was safe but… If the picture existed, he couldn’t really, truly remember if that’s where it had been taken or above that, why it had been taken.

“Take a look – I really don’t remember, there’s some good stuff on there but I know that there has to be more than what I’m remembering.” He said, brow furrowed in thought as he leaned into Lukas’ shoulder to get a better look at the view screen.
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Lukas Vernesen
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Bighorn Sheep
Lukas took the camera when it was offered and lifted his eyes to Nate as he did so. The look that he offered was one of thanks, a gentle and heartfelt rarity that was quickly lost when the thick lashes of the engineer dropped to the screen of the camera.

He flicked through the pictures with a mild curiosity, aware of the man’s gaze beside him. It was a comforting respite to sit with Nate on the log and look through the pictures. Not that he needed a respite. The man had just woken up. As he sat flicking through the images on the camera, Lukas thought about the things they had to do today, the places they needed to be.

The trek to Mirror Lake would take all morning and well into the afternoon, and that didn’t even include the activities they planned to engage in at the lake –which neither one of them had fully voiced as a clear cut plan of action. Swimming? Fishing? Reclining? All viable projects the both of them could undertake once there.

Projects. As if hanging out around the lake was a project. Lukas, ever the working man, caught himself thinking it and gave his brain a mental wringing. This was fun, not work.

Closing up the camera before he could get to the real juicy, good shots of naked, hairy, drunken mornings, Lukas crammed the digital device in his pocket and stood up.

He was antsy to get moving.

“Alright, great,” he said, ambling forward to kick more dirt on the barely smoking fire and pull one of the rucksacks down from the boughs of the trees.

“Camera’s good, stuff’s packed up. Anything you need before we start out?”

The message couldn’t be clearer. Hurry up. Why are we still standing around doing nothing?
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Nathan Black
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Iberian Bull
Nathan was silent as Lukas went through the camera's memory, which he had been pretty accurate in recalling though there were a few surprises that made him smile. He watched as the engineer scrolled through the lineup of them, drawing closer as he came on what would be the really good stuff and was a little shocked when Lukas shut down the camera.

He looked up to the burly, dark haired man with his brow furrowed in a sincere expression of confusion mingled in with concern. He prepared to open his mouth and ask him just why he had stopped - probably with a little bit of a protest in the inflection that Lukas would have called a whine but he stood up and Nathan understood before he even spoke in that soft, rough honeyed voice.

He knew by now Lukas' impatience, and as laid back and patient as Nathan was himself in contrast to Lukas instead of getting frustrated or pissed he was entertained. He handled it with a smile and a laugh, standing up himself despite the fact he had just sat down.

"Nope," he answered, that same smile still on his face as he reached down to pick up his pack. "I'm ready, just had to get off of my fat ass." he said.

He knew Lukas wouldn't think much on the answer, probably too focused on the horizon and it didn't bother him at all. It wasn't because Lukas didn't want to hear, or care but rather in this moment his mind was only on what was to be done next. The engineer didn't know how to sit down and relax by nature - he had to be reminded sometimes, and Nathan would remind him, just not now. He'd let him get moving, a change of scenery and progress would take the edge off of that impatient tension in him, and then that's where Nathan would snag him and force him into some wrestling match without a point, or push him down into the grass where they would lose time and he would have to relax.

He stepped away from their camp, turning one more look on the muddy remains of the fire before he looked out towards the blue sky morning, set against the heads of trees older than either he or Lukas that would without a doubt outlive the both of them. He glanced for his partner, loitering, a casual, lumbering mass with blue eyes, blonde hair, and no where better to be than here in the middle of nowhere with a man he loved unconditionally.

"If we're lucky, maybe we can get out of here by noon." he said, teasingly, tossing a wry look towards Lukas.
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Lukas Vernesen
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“Sorry,” Lukas said, giving Nate a tiger’s look of apology. An admission of guilt for something he couldn’t control; his impatience.

The man with the bull geis knew him better than any other human or animal on this planet and could understand the difficulty he had with sitting around. Years of working full tilt for ungodly hours had sped up his internal clock to a constant chirping drum the man couldn’t ever seem to ignore. Even on relaxing hikes meant to reset that clock to a more manageable rhythm Lukas couldn’t quite slow down until closer to noon each and every day. There were, of course, other factors to his bit-chomping impatience, but none with an outline as easily defined as work. They were more like sketches, little doodles of ideas and theories as to why Lukas was the way he was.

And if it wasn’t a blueprint, it wasn’t worth analyzing.

Lukas reached for the drying clothes on the log they’d been sitting on, gathered every article of clothing in his hand, and was surprised to find everything dry. The small fire they’d built under the clothes had done a good job of drying them out. Setting the articles back on the log, Lukas wrenched free his jeans, one hand holding the bundle of clothes to the log as he peeled the pants free. He shook them out, the material crusty and slightly hard, crunchy, from the mess and dirt of yesterday. Cracks released the ice like hold on the material and dust flew up and then filtered down in the veins of light snaking through the boughs above.

Pulling on his jeans, Lukas then reached for another shirt, a rough and clean one from the inside of his rucksack. It was a sturdy shirt and it was a button down –perfect to pull over the clean nightshirt he had underneath. As he pulled his arms through the sleeves and tightened the material across his broad shoulders and back, the smell of clean linen overrode the musky smell of his jeans. He bowed his head, concentrating on each translucent cream button his fingers pushed through the slit. Next were a fresh pair of socks and finally he pulled on the heavy, mud crusted boots he’d been shuffling about in all morning. He crouched to lace them up, one knee planted in the hard dirt, then he switched knees, and finally stood to stretch out the kinks brought on by crouching.

Once dressed –in the lull time between Nate lumbering from the log to the edge of the campsite—Lukas stepped over the cooling pile of dirt where the fire had been and took up Nate’s side. He paused a moment, looking over their campsite with one last look farewell before turning and setting off through the underbrush and trees.

“That was a nice little spot to stop at. That tree and the fire dried these puppies out completely.” He slapped a hand to his firm thigh, sidestepping a thicket frosted with deer fur and looked over his shoulder to Nate. “And the view wasn’t half bad.” his eyes lifted to the ribbon of blue he could see sparkling between the trees a good several yards out.

“How’d you sleep?”
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Nathan Black
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Lukas’ apology was the sort of apology that meant; “I’m sorry you can’t handle it.” Instead of the sort that meant; “I’m sorry for the way I am.” - and Nathan preferred it that way. It made him grin, and he rolled his shoulders and waited, with all the patience in the world for his man.

He glanced to the engineer with that same soft, easy grin that spoke to his patience and his lack of concern, and then hummed in agreement with his partner’s declared opinion for their campsite. He loitered behind, with a look out across that campsite and everything that it had been for them the previous night and this morning before he looked ahead and moved on after the forward charging ram.

He picked up his thick knees then, and started casually after Lukas. If he moved slowly enough, either Lukas would snap at him and ask him to hurry up, or leave him further and further behind; which he would note sometime, and it would force him to slow down and wait for Nathan. Maybe it would even make him calm, relax some. That was just a vague idea, again, as a patient man Nathan wasn’t going to force his long legged companion to do anything he wasn’t ready to do – and, as wholly as Nathan loved him to be honest Lukas’ constant movement and his inability to slow down was something that made the bull of a man grin, his temper made him laugh, maybe even made his heart squeeze a little.

“Oh I slept great.” He answered, and then he took a deep breath of the cool air. It was crisp and clean, and his lungs felt brand new, as did his eyes, his ears, his skin and all of his muscles. Waking up in the morning outside, being part of that first few hours of the day as the sun rose made him feel as though he was being reborn, just as ancient cultures had always assumed the sun was being reborn when it rose each morning. “Like a baby.” He continued, and glanced from the sky and the shrubby horizon to Lukas’ broad shoulders and back.

“What about you? I didn’t hear you snore at all – I think you were out before I even got settled in.” he commented, lifting his hands to pull them through his hair. The path they were on gradually wound to the southwest, and by Nathan’s hesitant and general understanding of the area they would be able to follow that route for quite some time in the search for Mirror Lake.
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