Chapter Text
The steering wheel shuddered in Link’s hands as the pickup truck jostled its way down the narrow dirt road, nearly bouncing his head into the roof. Rhett was beside him in the passenger seat talking about the upcoming basketball game, apparently oblivious to the rough ride. That night was the first playoff game and he was expressing his usual bravado about them certainly winning the state championships this year. Link was only half listening, eyes on the road, hands tight on the wheel. He had only had his license for a year or so and the old truck wasn’t exactly the easiest to control.
The truck’s windows were down and an unseasonably warm breeze whipped through the cab and tugged at their t-shirts. It was the first warm day since winter had set in months ago. Yesterday it had been 45 degrees; today it was 70. When the two boys had met up in the school parking lot after the closing bell that day, Link could see in Rhett’s face the same thought he had: the river. While they went to the Cape Fear River practically every day in the spring and summer, it had been months since they had been able visit it and Link was missing it something fierce. He could tell Rhett felt the same way. With barely a word required, they had gotten into the pickup and headed toward the riverbank road they were now driving along.
“Where do you think we should go?” Link asked. The river was long and winding, with many branches and outcroppings along its banks. Some parts of it were very familiar after many years of swimming and exploring, but it was so vast that there seemed an infinite supply of unexplored territory.
Rhett turned to him with an adventurous gleam in his eye. “Let’s do a part we haven’t done before.”
Link felt some anxiety, knowing the area might be in bad shape after the winter they’d had, but he quashed the emotion. Rhett was always teasing him about being nervous and he didn’t want to hear it right now. “All right,” Link said gamely, teeth bared in a grin.
The pickup jounced past their usual parking areas, the road getting narrower and more overgrown as they went. Finally, it looked like they couldn’t go any farther by truck, so they parked and started walking through the brush toward the riverbank.
They were both in cargo shorts, T-shirts, and tennis shoes without socks. Link’s shoes immediately started sinking into the loose mud, each step pulling free with a sucking sound. The water that came over the tops of the shoes was an icy contrast to the warm air. Rhett was in front of him, taking long strides through the vegetation and gracefully avoiding the puddles that Link kept splashing into.
The exertion of climbing through the brush combined with the excitement of exploration got Link’s blood flowing. By the time they reached the riverbank, he felt slightly overwarm and possibly sweaty. Rhett looked in fine shape as always, turning back over his shoulder to watch Link’s floundering approach with a grin.
“This looks like a good spot, eh?” Rhett gestured across the river to what looked like the edge of an island. “Crossing should be pretty easy, and then we can check out that over there.”
Link stepped up next to him and looked down at the water. It was murky and impossible to tell how deep it was or how fast it was moving. However, there were no visible rapids, which he took to be a good sign. The other bank was maybe 25 feet away. If it was like the other parts of the river it resembled, they could probably just walk across without getting water past their thighs. Link shrugged. “Looks good to me.”
As in previous times, they took off their shirts and hung them on branches near the bank, disinclined to get them dirty with river water. Shorts, underwear, and shoes stayed on. When Link turned back from hanging up his shirt, he saw Rhett looking at him and felt suddenly self-conscious. Despite many years together, with sleepovers and camping trips too numerous to count, something about the ongoing processes of puberty made the idea of nudity in front of each other suddenly more awkward. Link’s eyes fell unbidden to the curls of blond hair on Rhett’s chest as they caught the sunlight, new since the last time he had seen his friend’s body. Link turned away before Rhett could see him blush, pinkness blooming on his own still-hairless collarbones.
It was the desire to escape the burgeoning discomfort that made Link move to the bank and then step off it without a moment’s hesitation. He had long since learned that the more he anticipated plunging into the river, the worse it got... like most experiences in life, really. This time, as his foot sank down and down without encountering the expected riverbed, he barely had time to regret his rashness before the inky water closed over his head with a splash.
The shock of the cold was unlike anything he had felt before and it drove all conscious thought from his head. Purely on reflex, his feet kicked him back up to the surface as the frigid cold seized his lungs in a vise, locking up his diaphragm and making it nearly impossible to take a breath. A tiny part of his brain was conscious of the fact that Rhett had entered the river just behind him, before Link could choke out his fervent opinion that it was a terrible idea and they were both surely going to die.
The thought of turning around and climbing back up the bank he had just stepped off seemed more difficult than swimming forward. Link could make out the island ahead of him and focused his body’s panicked flailing in its direction. As the blood drained from his extremities, everything seemed to slow down, including his own thoughts. He moved his arms in an agonized doggy-paddle, keeping them close to his body in an instinctual attempt to protect the tiny amount of heat left in his core.
It felt as though he were trying to move through concrete that was slowly setting around him. After what seemed like an eternity of weak kicking and sluggish arm strokes, hyperventilating through clenched teeth and emitting a string of involuntary whimpering, Link felt the far shore under his knees. He dragged himself up it with cramped and screaming muscles, inch by inch onto the bank, just far enough to get his feet out of the water.
He lay silent and shivering, waiting and hoping he would eventually regain the ability to think. He wiggled his fingers and toes to confirm they still worked. After at least ten minutes of near-paralysis, he cracked an eye open and saw Rhett lying on the bank ten feet from him. His best friend was facing him, eyes open and unfocused. Link forced his numb lips to move. “Rhett?”
The boy didn’t respond. Link felt an irrational panic. He himself had almost died… what if Rhett had fared worse than he did? The panic gave him enough energy to drag himself on his hands and knees over to Rhett’s side. His friend’s lips were tinged blue. “Rhett!” He gave Rhett’s shoulder a shove, harder than he meant to.
“Uuugh.” Rhett blinked a few times and rolled over onto his back, wincing. Half of his face and chest were caked in mud from where he had lain. His shorts were sopping wet and clung to his thighs. He coughed. “Why did I follow you?” he slurred.
Relief flooded through Link, warming him and taking the place of his waning adrenaline. “It was your idea in the first place to cross there,” Link pointed out. After a pause he added, “You’ve got something on your face. And everywhere else.”
Rhett reached across himself with a weak hand and brushed ineffectually at the mud on his face. His eyes finally focused up at Link. “Hey, you do too.”
Link put a hand to his face and felt the gritty wet sludge on his cheek and chin. He tried to scrub it off along with the gunk that had worked its way into his hair. “Gross,” he muttered.
Rhett heaved himself into a sitting position, resting his elbows on bent knees, long legs splayed out. “Don’t worry, you’re still pretty,” he muttered.
Rhett had been teasing him about his looks for the past year or so, ever since Link had the temerity to try to grow facial hair. He suspected that Rhett, with his wispy blond chinstrap/goatee combination, was jealous of Link’s slightly better success with his darker van dyke. That, and the fact that Link had landed on a real hairstyle that was even somewhat stylish — slightly past his ears, parted just to the side — whereas Rhett was apparently sticking to the buzz cut for the time being. The extremely short cut was popular on the basketball court but it really didn’t suit his narrow features and protruding ears. For once Link was starting to feel like he could actually compete with his friend in the appearance arena, and Rhett evidently didn’t like it.
Link almost snapped at him, but held back. They had just suffered a near-death experience, after all. He remembered all too clearly the moment of pure terror when Rhett hadn’t responded right away. His mind shied away from imagining too far down that path. He wanted to get up and moving and avoid thinking about how close they had just come to inconceivable tragedy.
He clambered awkwardly to his feet on legs that felt like overstretched rubber bands. He tried to squeeze some of the water out of his hair and wring it from the bottoms of his shorts. He briefly considered taking them off to wring them out more fully, but decided it wasn’t worth stripping down to wet underwear even for a minute or two. Eventually he determined he was as dry as he was likely to get.
Rhett was looking more lively too. He had also gotten to his feet and wrung out the bottoms of his shorts. The small amount of hair on his head was already dry. When Link looked over, Rhett was carefully stretching the muscles in his arms and legs, facing away from Link looking out over the water. The pale winter sunlight caressed the smooth skin of his long, narrow back and shadowed the cleft of his spine.
Link looked away. “Ready to check this place out?” he asked. Rhett made an affirmative noise and together they moved away from the riverbank to explore the inside of the island.
They pushed through the underbrush, shirtless, streaked with drying muck and river scum, mud squelching inside their shoes. Link tried hard to ignore the chafing of his damp clothes. As usual on these river expeditions, they had no particular purpose or destination in mind, merely to see things they had not seen before. It was enough to be outdoors on a warm day, breathing in the fresh air.
As they recovered more fully from their ordeal, they started talking about the usual subjects — girls, basketball, and the future. They had sent in the last of their college applications a few weeks ago, to all of the same schools. They shared a confidence that they would get into the same ones, given their similar grades and SAT scores and the fact that they had worked on their applications together. The only thing that differentiated them was Rhett’s basketball skill, and it still remained to be seen whether he’d be awarded a scholarship by any of the schools that interested them. If so, that’s where he — and therefore Link — would go.
Link realized that other people might find it odd that he would base his college decision on where Rhett went, but other people didn’t have the kind of friendship he and Rhett had. It was a bond that felt unbreakable, certainly stronger than Link could imagine having with his step-sister, and apparently more powerful than Rhett had with his brother. It seemed more like the almost supernatural connection that some twins had… which made sense, really. Growing up the same age, twins share every childhood experience together. He and Rhett had been doing the same since first grade.
They talked about their plans to pursue engineering degrees and get jobs that made enough money for them to afford their hobbies. It didn’t seem too glamorous, but maybe once they were able to invest in some better guitars and amplifiers they could get a respectable band going. It was a fun conversation, because it reminded them both that they would always have the other one around to lean on. If they screwed up at school or had a hard time finding a job, at least they would be dealing with it together. Link found the concept profoundly reassuring.
As for girls, they lamented the fact that they were both currently single. It seemed to bother Rhett more than Link, though. Link was already looking toward the future and the prospect of college women. Why start something up senior year and then be tied down when the time came to spread their wings? The only problem with being single right now, as far as Link was concerned, was that it made the question of prom dates more difficult. Fortunately, that issue was still a few months out.
Ahead of him, Rhett gave an excited shout. “Link, look at this!”
Link came up behind his friend and looked around his shoulder at the ground in front of them. Pressed into the mud were a sequence of curved triangular tracks in pairs. Rhett squatted down for a closer look. “It’s definitely a deer.”
“On this little island?” Link laughed. “Weird.”
“Uh huh. Maybe this is actually a peninsula or something.”
“Or maybe the deer’s a better swimmer than we are.”
Rhett twisted to look up at Link with wide eyes. “Let’s track it.”
Link grinned back at him. “Yeah!”
They spent the next hour or so in intense concentration, following the faint tracks carefully over the rough terrain and examining any potential clues. A number of times they thought they had lost the trail entirely until one or the other would let out a hoot of discovery and the slow pursuit began again. Link was caught up in the sense of adventure and didn’t give much thought to what would happen if they actually encountered a live deer. Something awesome, no doubt. Maybe they could wrestle it with their bare hands and ride it back across the river before returning to school as backwoods heroes.
Perhaps fortunately for the boys, they never found the deer. Eventually the trail faded out near the riverbank and they couldn’t pick it up again. As they reached acceptance of this, Link became aware of the fact that the temperature had dropped significantly since they had arrived on the island. At some point a thin cloud cover had rolled in, and even though their shorts had long since dried, the steady breeze was uncomfortably chilly.
Link looked up at the weak sun, gauging by its nearness to the horizon that it was at least five o’clock, possibly later. Rhett was still crouched by the bank, looking under the vegetation for any sign of the animal. “Uh, Rhett?” Link asked.
Rhett straightened up and turned to him. “Yeah Link?”
“We should probably get going if you want to make your game.”
Rhett looked up at the sun’s position and his eyes widened. “Oh crap, you’re right. I gotta get back, like, now.”
The two of them peered across the water at the other bank. The river was wider here, frothing white and swirling around visible rocks. The far shore didn’t look to be anything like where they had come from. “It’d be suicide to cross here,” Link said.
Rhett grunted in agreement. “We need to find the place we crossed before, if not something better.”
At first they tried to follow the riverbank, but they both kept slipping on the rough terrain at the water’s edge. Moving with increasing urgency, Rhett pushed back toward the interior, Link stumbling close behind. Following the twists and turns of the deer’s tracks through the island had disoriented them both, and they only had a vague sense of what direction to go to get back to where they started.
With each step, the sun got dimmer and the air got colder. After at least half an hour, when they stopped at a clearing to try to get their bearings, Link realized he was shivering. Rhett’s brow furrowed in frustration and confusion as he cast about for a sign of anything familiar. He folded his arms across his slim chest, lips pressed together, expression approaching outright panic as the playoff game tip-off loomed ever closer. Without a word, he crashed forward again into the brush, heedless of the branches that whipped against his bare skin.
Link followed with a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach. This was not going well at all.