The next morning there was a knock at Carter’s door at bang on five o’clock.

“Morning,” Carter mumbled, still half asleep, as he opened the door.

“Morning I brought coffee.” Xander grinned holding out two take away cups of coffee.

“You know I didn’t think you’d actually be here at five,” Carter said taking one of the cups and ruffling up his bed hair. “In fact, I didn’t think you’d make it here at all!” He yawned.

“Do you always look this good in the mornings?” Xander teased, not entirely joking. Seeing Carter in just his low slung jeans, and messy bed hair made Xander want to pull him in close and wake him up. Carter chuckled and turned away hiding his blush. He walked back towards his bedroom and Xander followed.

“So why are you so bright eyed and bushy tailed? I honestly wouldn’t have thought that you would be capable of getting up this early.” Carter remarked.

“Well, I’m pretty used to an erratic sleep pattern.” Xander guessed, shrugging his shoulders. “Besides I had to make sure you had your coffee and… this might be my second.” He said with a slight smile. Carter smiled back as he pulled out a red and black checked flannel shirt and threw it on.

Now that is a shame. Xander thought seeing Carters bare chest disappear and be replaced by the soft patterned cotton.

“Alright let’s go,” Carter said lacing up his muddy black boots and slipping on his khaki bomber jacket. “I’ll drive.”

“Yes, sir!” Xander laughed saluting Carter before heading back out of the flat and down the stairs.

Xander had chosen hiking boots, as well as jeans and a navy long sleeved tee-shirt, with his favorite denim jacket, as it was so early in the morning and the sun hadn’t warmed up yet.

Once they arrived at the forest Carter got his gear out from the boot and Xander grabbed his backpack which contained his pencils, sketch pads, and charcoal.

“So how long do you reckon we’ll be out here for?” Xander inquired as they trudged along a footpath.

“A few hours at least. I have a client booked in at 11 so that gives us plenty of time to find some animals… I hope.” Carter preyed.

They trekked through the forest, following the footpaths until Carter stepped off the path and wandered into a clearing, setting up his tripod.

“So we good here?” Xander asked sitting down on a fallen tree.

“Yep. We’ll see what we get, I’ll give it an hour and if nothing crops up we’ll move on.” Carter smiled.

“Awesome.” Xander grinned, pulling off his backpack and taking out some of the contents.

Xander began looking around and tilting his head from side to side.

“What are you doing?” Carter quizzed suppressing a giggle.

“Oh!” Xander blushed but smiled. “Just trying to see things from different angles.” Carter nodded as he turned back to his camera. Xander began to sketch and all Carter could hear were the birds singing, the occasional rustle of leaves and Xander’s pencil scratching as it danced across the paper.

Eventually, Carter found his eyes drifting towards Xander, watching him, watching the concentration furrow his brow. He realized he was staring when suddenly Xander looked up. He smiled and showed Carter what he had drawn. Carter smiled at the picture as he felt relief wash over him, Xander must have thought he was staring at the drawing.

After Xander had shown Carter the picture he felt it really hard to concentrate. He kept looking up and watching the way Carter bent over when he was taking photos, how his tongue poked out slightly when he was snapping particularly hard to capture shots. Xander shook his head and looked around, trying to get back into what he was supposed to be doing. It was really beautiful here. Xander began to sketch again, slowly adding in the forest. Xander got pretty lost in his art when Carter cleared his throat. Xander snapped his eyes up.

“Err, I need to move somewhere new…” Carter stated rather apologetically.

“Oh okay cool, give me a sec to put all this away.” Xander nodded looking around at all the art supplies he had spread out around him. Once Xander had packed up everything he swung his bag onto his back and nodded to Carter to lead the way. “So how’s it going? Get anything good?”

“Yeah a fair few, I just wanna try and find some deer.”

“Oh okay, how do we do that?” Xander inquired, tripping slightly on a tree root.

“Well we’ll have to bunker down, I’m pretty sure there’s a hideout here somewhere.” Carter looked around. “Ah over there, come on!” He said heading off in the direction of the hide, Xander following close behind. When they arrived at the hide Carter set up his camera and Xander got out his art supplies again. “Okay you have to be really quiet or they won’t come near,” Carter instructed and Xander mimed zipping his lips.

“It’s kinda tight in here huh?” He whispered after a few minutes of being bunched up next to Carter.

“uhuh,” Carter mumbled, looking through his lens, not really paying attention. Xander sighed and tried to finish up his picture, he was almost done, Just one more branch and…. There done. Xander smiled as he looked over the picture. Perfect he thought as he began to put everything away, trying to create a little more room. He shifted over and scooted up towards Carter's camera. Carter feeling the movement glance over and stopped when he saw how close Xander was.

“Oh.” He whispered, eyes not leaving Xander’s.

“Sorry, just wanted to get more comfortable,” Xander whispered back.

“T, That’s okay.” Carter swallowed thickly, his eye’s flicking to Xander’s lips.

“Carter.” Xander breathed, then something caught his eye. “Carter! Look!” He hissed, pulling them both away from each other. There was a whole heard of deer, including a couple of pure white ones, one with the most magnificent antlers.

“Wow.” Gasped Carter.

“No kidding,” Xander mumbled under his breath.

After 10 minutes Carter finally pulling his eyes away from the camera. “Okay, I’m pretty sure I got enough pictures of these guys to last me a lifetime!” Carter grinned. “Let’s get outta here.” Xander grinned back and nodded.

“Xander…” Carter started.

“Yeah?”

“I, err, I wanted to ask you something.” Carter swallowed.

“Okay…” Xander asked warily.

“Is there… anything you wanna… I dunno… tell me?” Carter stumbled out. Xander looked at Carter when he should have been watching where he was going because he caught his foot on a tree root again and fell flat on his face. Carter burst out laughing as he pulled Xander up. His earlier question forgotten as he helped Xander to brush off the dirt and leaves from himself.

“Oh my god! How are you such a klutz!?” Carter snorted, still struggling to contain his laughter.

“Shut up!” Xander hissed but couldn’t help but laugh too. He really was pretty clumsy.