Avery had not seen the bear all day. It was gray and blustery, the sky pale and the wind harsh, too cold to even snow. The snow that remained on the ground had frozen there, and Avery had a feeling the next thaw was far away. He felt sick to death of the scent of pine. Hunger had his sense of smell sharp as a razor’s edge and every breath drowned him in the overpowering miasma of pine sap. He'd eaten the last of the protein bars and buried the wrappers deep, far away from his little camp. There would be no more food smells to attract animals at least. But no more food either, and Avery knew his troubles with the bear weren't over.

He limped through the trees around the perimeter of his den, collecting branches. There was fresh spore not twenty feet from his makeshift tent, and markings on the trees. He ran his fingers across the white gouges on the black spruce bark with a scowl. He hadn't seen the bear, he realized, because it was stalking him. Grim determination clenched between his teeth, he dragged an armful of evergreen branches back to his shelter.

He didn't have a knife, but he didn't need a razor edge, just something that would cut. He'd found a few likely looking rocks and chipped one against the other until one was fairly wedge shaped. He sat in his tent now, warming his foot by the fire, while he stripped the branches of leaves and twigs and began slowly and laboriously sharpening the ends. With the barely-more-than-blunt rock it felt more like he was beating the wood into shape than carving it, but still the job got done.

He planted the sharpened wooden poles around the edges of his camp, pointing outward. There weren't enough to make a proper wall, but he did his best to space them close enough together that the bear wouldn't be able to pass easily. Not without getting a nasty jab or shoving the poles down. Either way, Avery would know it was coming. And he would add a few more every day if he had to, until it really was a wall. Hell, he'd dig pit traps if he could, but the foot still wouldn't allow it. He watched the washed out blue-white sky through the branches above him, hoping at every moment he would see a helicopter coming for him.

Don't make me have to fight this bear, he thought. Don't make me build a God damn house out here. I don't want to be sitting out here growing a beard and catching trout come fucking spring, Dan! Get your ass up and come find me!

He glowered at the sky, and his rock slipped and scraped over his thumb painfully. He swore and dropped it, threw the stick down and kicked at the ground in frustration, instantly regretting it as pain shot up his injured foot. He fell onto his back and a mighty force of ferocious curses escaped him, flowing out like spilled water and spat like sparks, beating the ground with his fists. He threw a spectacular tantrum, howling his displeasure for the entire baleful wilderness to hear.

When he'd eventually worn himself out, he lay on his back, chest heaving, staring up at that hateful, empty sky.

I want to go home, he thought. Dan, I want to go home.

He closed his eyes, remembering that last moment on the mountain again, Dan vanishing into the snow, and shuddered. He was still alive. Avery had to believe that. He struggled to force his memory away from the sound of Hays' jacket sliding across the snow. How had it all gone wrong so quickly?

The night before that, they'd been safe at a lower camp, talking and laughing.

“I wish we could build a fire,” Dan had said. They were huddled around a small gas-powered camp stove that was heating up coffee.

“Hauling all that wood up here wasn't worth it,” Avery said. “Especially not now that it's down to just the two of us.”

They'd started out with a group of ten. Most of them had turned back near the beginning, the last few just a couple of days before. Dan and Avery had decided to push on, against the guide's advice. Their gear had been rather reduced now that they had less people to carry it. The firewood had been one of the things left behind, counting on the supplies that would be at the regular camps as they climbed.

“Besides,” Avery said, “we don't really need it. It just would have been a pain in the ass to set up.”

“Yeah, but it would have been nice.” Dan shrugged and smiled at him. “Romantic, you know?”

“I think it's pretty romantic even without a fire,” Avery had said, leaning closer to the other man.

They hadn't been able to mess around much since the trip had got underway. The close quarters with ten other people, not to mention the cold, had put a real damper on things. But now that it was just them, sitting together under a sky full of the brightest stars he'd ever seen, Avery was contemplating seeing what they could get away with.

Hays, sitting on the other side of the camp stove, cleared his throat discretely and made a big, noisy show of getting the coffee ready. Avery tried not to let his annoyance show. Hays was the last of the three guides they'd started out with, and not the one Avery would have preferred to take to the top. The other two had been quite friendly. But Hays was a little standoffish, and Avery had a sinking feeling encouraged by the sideways glances the man gave him and Dan, that he didn't approve of their relationship. He didn't say anything about it if it did bother him. He'd never been overtly rude and Avery didn't try to call him out about it. You couldn't afford to cause drama up here. That kind of thing could get people killed. But still, he would have preferred one of the other guides. The first guide had gone back when most of the group had given up. The second had twisted her ankle and been airlifted out not long ago, shortly followed by the rest of the group turning back. Which left just the two of them, and Hays.

“It won't be much longer now,” Dan said, looking upwards toward the peak. “It's going to be incredible.”

“We've still got skiing down to worry about, don't forget.” Avery chuckled, taking the coffee Hays offered him.

“That's the easy part,” Dan replied with a grin, getting his own coffee. “I can't wait to be done with hauling these god damn skis everywhere.”

“It'll be worth it when we get our first sponsors,” Avery said, sipping his coffee and imagining the future. “Then you'll get to haul them all over the world.”

“How glamorous,” Dan laughed. “Don't over-romanticize it for me.”

“Wouldn't dream of it,” Avery said, and winked.

They continued to talk as they drank their coffee. Hays contributed little to the conversation, usually only speaking when directly addressed, but Avery didn't mind that so much.

“What do you want to do when we get to the top?” Dan asked. “We should do something special.”

“What, like Donald?” Avery asked, laughing.

One of the other team members, Donald, had talked endlessly about his desire to piss off the highest vertical relief in the world and see how far down it fell before it froze. A charming guy. He'd lost one of his gloves and had to turn back due to frost bite.

“No, not like that,” Dan said, rolling his eyes. “Just something to commemorate the occasion. I wish we had packed cigars or something.”

“You don't smoke!”

“It's the symbolism of the thing. Or one of those little party poppers or something.”

Avery smiled, remembering how much he adored this man, and couldn't resist the urge to lean over, tug down the collar of his coat, and kiss him on the cheek.

“I know it isn't the same as a cigar,” Avery said. “But how about a kiss at the top of the world?”

Dan smiled, his eyes warm with affection.

“That sounds perfect actually.”

“I'm going to bed,” Hays announced loudly. He stood, dumped out the rest of his coffee, and quickly saw to the camp stove before shuffling off to his tent.

“I think Hays has the right idea,” Dan said when the other man was out of ear shot. “What do you say we head to bed early?”

He smiled suggestively and Avery felt a grin cover his face.

“You read my mind,” he replied, and reached for his lover's hand.

Avery, lying on his back in the cold shelter, remembered that night with a weary smile. The awkward, hushed fumbling through their clothes, like teenagers afraid to get caught. They hadn't been able to do much, but Avery hadn't cared. Just being there with Dan had been enough. They'd been looking forward to it for so long...

A sound in the trees made him sit up with a jerk, readying himself in case it was the bear. He had a branch in the fire already and he reached for it slowly, scanning the dark forest outside his camp for any sign of his enemy. Several, agonizingly slow minutes ticked past and nothing moved in the darkness. Maybe it had been a squirrel, or a frozen branch falling. He slowly settled back into his shelter and pulled his sleeping bag around him like a blanket.

It was too easy to get lost in memories. Dangerous. He couldn't afford to forget where he was and the danger he was in. Not paying attention to his surroundings was a surefire way to get himself killed. But there was nothing to think about out here except surviving and the past.

He stirred up the fire and checked the metal flask he had cooking over it. It was the only vessel he had and he was lucky it was metal so that he could use it to boil snow into drinking water. Unfortunately, he couldn't do much else with it. The opening was too narrow to fit anything but snow into. He'd been hoping to be able to reset his reusable chemical heat packs. He still had one disposable he'd been hoarding, but the situation with his injured foot continued to nag at him, reminding him he should be keeping it warmer. If he had a reliable way to boil those heat packs, he could use them all day and increase his chances of keeping that foot.

He pulled the metal flask out of the fire with a stick and dropped it into the snow until it had cooled enough to touch. He contemplated it as it sat steaming in the snow bank. It wasn't like he was going to find any other metal out here, or the tools to work it. All he had was the flask, but if he made a mistake he'd fuck up his only source of clean water. What was more important? Heat, or water? The dull pain of his foot told him it was better to risk it. As soon as it was cool enough to handle, he began drinking, wishing he had a way to store the water for later. But he was already dehydrated so perhaps it was better for now that he load up like this.

When the flask was empty he put it back in the coals, reasoning warm metal would be easier to work with than cold, and looked for an appropriate rock.

He pulled on his extra pair of gloves before he started, afraid of tearing his main pair or cutting himself on jagged metal more than he was worried about the cold.

He laid the flask down on the biggest, flattest rock he could find and, taking a deep breath at the incredibly stupid thing he was about to attempt, took the sharpened rock he'd used for hacking out the wooden spikes, and began hitting the flask with it.

It was only an aluminum flask, made durable for hiking and mountain climbing, but not designed to hold up to direct assault with a rock. He'd soon punched a hole in it as near the top spout as he could. Relieved, he kept going, punching new holes around the top until, with the rock and a stick, he began pulling at and widening those holes. It was slow work, and his mind wandered, longing to be back home in the warmth and safety of the house he shared with Dan. The going away party, his last night in that house, seemed so unbelievably far away now. They'd had champagne, and Dan had made shrimp cocktails and joked about being one of those couples. Holding his champagne glass, cocktail sauce on his shirt, he'd sashayed around the kitchen criticizing the drapes until Avery, laughing, had pinned him against the counter and kissed him long enough to silence him. It had been an almost perfect night, except for how it had ended.

He'd widened enough holes until they joined one another and he could begin peeling the top of the flask back like a badly opened tin can. He wrenched it back and, with some more help from the rock, peeled it off, grimacing as he saw it had in fact torn a hole in one of his gloves. He hoped this would be worth it.

He had known Calder would be a problem as soon as the other man arrived. They'd known each other long enough after all for Avery to recognize how tense and uncomfortable Calder was, and how he'd grown only more so as the night progressed. Avery hadn't expected it. It had been almost a year since the split, and they had been working together well since. Avery had thought they were friends.

But then Calder had started on the wine. What had started as merely catty remarks, mostly directed at Dan, had spiraled into an all-out shouting match and Calder dumping a full glass of wine on Dan. Avery had wrestled a belligerent Calder into a back room to sober up while Dan, red faced and humiliated, had apologized to the guests and sent them home.

“What the hell, Calder?” Avery had shouted, as confused as he was angry. “What was all that? You're making a god damn fool of yourself!”

“And you're not?” Calder had slurred, barely on his feet. “This whole stupid...skiing thing?”

He gestured messily, trying to mime skiing and failing.

“Do you honestly think you can pull that off? You're almost forty, you dumb ass! You're not going to get anywhere with this—”

“Yeah, well, no one's making you come with us,” Avery said, more than a little pissed. “So maybe you should just mind your own business.”

“It's Dan's fault,” Calder insisted, leaning on a wall even as he glared at Avery. “If he hadn't put all these stupid ideas in your head, you and I would-”

“Ah, for fuck's sake, Calder,” Avery said, exasperated and embarrassed on the other man's behalf. “You don't honestly think we'd still be together?”

Calder was red, not just from the drinking. He sank back against the wall, shoulders hunched like he was warding off a blow.

“Everything was fine till he came along,” Calder insisted miserably. “We were fine!”

“Calder, we weren't fine,” Avery interrupted. “Our relationship was already over before I even met Dan. Do you not remember what those last few months together were like? We were barely talking outside of work. You were tired and unhappy all the time. I wanted to be there for you, but you pushed me away. What did you expect me to do, Calder?”

“I expected you to help!” Calder shouted. “I expected you to put a little god damn effort into things after all the years I spent helping you, supporting you! But I go through one bad spot and you're off banging snow bunnies!”

“Hey, hey, that is not fair,” Avery said, anger growing. “I never asked you to throw your life away on me. I tried to stop you when you dropped out of college! Just because you have no ambition of your own—”

“Fuck you! I was trying to—”

The door opened and Dan slipped into the room, looking concerned.

“Is everything okay in here?” he asked.

“Yes,” Avery said immediately.

“No,” Calder said over him.

“I don't even know why you came tonight if you were just going to act like this,” Avery griped.

“I don't know why I bothered either!”

Dan held out a hand to stop both of them.

“I called you a taxi,” Dan said to Calder. “It should be here soon. You're welcome to wait back here until it arrives.”

“Of course,” Calder scoffed. “Saint Dan here to save the day. You want me to kiss your ass like he does?”

“No, I want you to get the hell out of my house,” Dan said with deceptive calm. “You've embarrassed me and yourself and ruined what should have been a nice evening. Frankly if it weren't for Avery you'd be walking home with a black eye right now.”

“You want to fuckin try it?” Calder lunged for Dan clumsily and Avery quickly got between them to hold Calder back. Calder took a swing at Avery instead, who ducked the clumsy blow easily and shoved Calder away.

“For fuck's sake, Calder!” Avery shouted, considering punching the other man himself. “Look at yourself! Is this really what you want to do with your life?”

“What the hell else am I supposed to do?” Calder shouted back, his voice breaking. “What am I supposed to do, Avery?”

Neither Avery nor Dan had an answer for that, staring at Calder in uncomfortable silence as the other man's chest heaved with emotion. The taxi honked outside and Calder shoved his way past the other two men.

“I hope you both freeze,” he snarled, and slammed the door behind him.

***

Avery felt a heavy despair settle in his chest at the memory as he finished tapping down the jagged edges of the newly opened flask, making it safer to handle.

It was still flask shaped, thin and deep, but it was wide enough to fit one of the reusable heat packs now. He'd use and reset them in shifts. He got it packed with snow and started it on the fire again at once, his thoughts still far away. He'd almost forgotten about Calder in all of this. He'd sent him a photo right before they'd started the climb, half hoping to mend fences, half just to rub it in, but Calder hadn't replied. Avery wondered if the other man knew he was missing. Was he looking for him too? Maybe he and Dan would team up like some kind of bad buddy cop movie and finally learn to get along.

It sounded a lot better than the alternative, one dead and the other hating him forever. He wished he could apologize to Calder. The man hadn't been completely wrong back then. It wasn't like Avery hadn't noticed that Calder basically had nothing of his own. He worked for Avery's business, supported Avery’s ambitions, and lived in Avery’s house. All his friends had been Avery's friends first. But the truth was Avery had found it flattering. And he'd thought that, if Calder was happy that way, there was nothing wrong with it. He'd realized too late Calder wasn't happy with it.

A movement in the trees distracted him. Avery grabbed his stick, instantly on alert. He stood slowly, peering into the shadow of the trees, trying to make out the shape of whatever was out there, expecting the heavy bulk of the bear. Instead, the light caught on the antlers of a deer, or perhaps an elk, as it stepped quietly through the underbrush. He moved and it turned its head quickly to stare at him with large, black eyes. Its ears were turned toward him like dishes, its body tense, ready for anything. The sunlight through the branches dappled its dark brown hindquarters in coins of golden light. It was thin, having shed the weight it packed on during greener seasons through the thin months of winter. Avery shifted, lowering the branch, and the deer darted, vanishing into the trees with a kick of its long, graceful legs.

It was a good sign, honestly. If deer were around, the bear probably wasn't. Avery let himself relax a little, settling back into his shelter. The thought of the deer made his stomach ache with hunger. How many days had he been here? He'd lost track. His sleeping schedule wasn't exactly reliable lately, he was passing out a lot more often than he liked, and sometimes he woke up certain he'd slept more than eight hours. Besides that, the weather and the nature of the sun in this part of the world made night hard to tell from day sometimes.

Regardless, he was going to need food soon. He could last weeks without it, two months maybe, eighty days on the outside, probably long enough for rescue. But he'd be getting weaker all the time. He was already hungry, and it was only going to get worse. After about three days, the hunger would stop, and he'd start dropping weight and muscle mass fast. The cold would become even more dangerous as he lost insulating fat and his body stopped producing heat to conserve energy. He'd slowly lose the strength to even get up, much less do the work he needed to in order to stay alive. Before long, the bear could wander in here and eat him alive and he wouldn't even have the strength to put up a fight. He needed food. Ideally, double his usual calorie count.

His mind wandered back to the deer. There was no way he'd be able to catch one of those in his condition. Might end up gored for his trouble. He bet even the bear wasn't wasting energy on that right now. It was probably...

He looked down at his injured foot, remembering the ice he'd broken through on his way here. It wasn't far from these trees if he'd made it there crawling. And if there were bears in the area, there might be salmon. He couldn't hunt in this condition and there wasn't going to be much greenery to eat, but he could fish. It was a possible solution.

His water was boiling and he took the heat pack out cautiously, sighing with relief as he activated it and slipped it into his boot. He had water, he had shelter. He had a plan for food. He also had a bear problem, and not much in the way of a solution for that. But all things considered, he was in good shape. Tomorrow, he thought with some satisfaction, lying back in his shelter, he would go fishing.