“You… you could die! Why did you eat it?”
Damian squeezed his shoulder. “This way we’ll know. And you can eat me if I die. I told you.”
“Asshole!”
“My new name?” He laughed and turned to forage those pools, some of them waist deep. Jumping into one with a smile. “Get hunting, eco boy. Or scrape some weed. We need to eat.”
Gabe watched him dive after a deep breath to scrutinize the nooks in the rocks, and he turned to gather as much weed as he could and moss. Hearing Damian come up for air, disappear again. Water sloshing. Climbing into another pool. The sun pouring down on them as he filled his bags with those pungent weeds. Scraping a bunch of snails off the rocks, too.
He went back to Damian a while later, the sun setting slowly.
“We better go.”
Damian climbed out, his eyes bloodshot. He rubbed at them. “Ah… diving with eyes wide open… a dream…” He grinned, the bags moving on his back. “I know what I have in there. Lobsters. Speechless, huh?”
Gabe’s lips parted. “Wow…”
Damian laughed. “Yep. Here in the middle of fucking nowhere. Got your weed?”
“I have a bunch. They will dry… I guess… we shouldn’t run out.”
He followed Damian, his voice filled with optimism. “We will be grand. Once we have rested, we can go and explore this place. Maybe there’s a harbor on the other side.” He laughed and turned back to Gabe. “Or a village filled with savages.”
Gabe just gave him a smile, walking next to him. “Maybe… It’s handy that you can dive.”
“Just a bit. And I can’t hold long, I always just snorkeled with the kids… when I was not too drunk…”, pulling a slight face at the memory, his mood switching, as if that word had darkened the light.Fuck.“Yeah…”
“You feel better, though?”
“A bit.” Keeping to himself those wild nightmares from which he woke with his heart threatening to burst out of his chest, the tremors, still, his hands living a life of their own sometimes. His head clearing, a shift which terrified him, the comfort of that warm daze going, thoughts pouring in, smells and scents, textures, colors he hadn’t noticed before. The warmth of the sun, a gentle salty breeze, the whisper of trees, the sand between his toes. A maddening void in that life where his mind was struggling to shift, focused on running his business, on drinking himself to oblivion. That arrogant mask, always in place, that brash grin, a confidence which seemed unshakable, bathing in a whiskey induced fog.
Back to camp, they cooked the lobsters, three big ones, and ate some fresh seaweed with them, almost moaning, it felt so good, that scorching salty flesh. Gabe stoked the fire up then, watching the crackling flames lick the night. A sudden chill in him, thinking of where this was going, even if things seemed better now with their bellies a bit more filled. His eyes roaming their camp site, how they had built a human presence out of junk and bamboos and vines. The floor of their hut taking shape. A life, maybe, here. Until they both died. Their eyes meeting over the flames.
Chapter 6
Nextday,anotherdayof pouring sun. They finished the flooring and built thick bamboo stairs, working on the walls, but this was much faster, both standing on the platform, tying the bamboos together. An unknown drive in both of them, working in silence in that thick heat, drinking sparsely. Their eyes darting to the sun sometimes. The roof’s structure up.
Gabe exhaled hard. “Let’s gather palm leaves. We will need a good amount. I can climb and throw them down to you.”
“Not today. We’re exhausted and need to gather food.”
Gabe reluctantly gave in, not even arguing. He was right. But the urge was there to finish, that hut somehow comforting, the idea of having a proper place to sleep and live in.
Damian had guessed his thoughts a bit. “Come. This won’t run away.”
“Yes. Let’s go.”
Walking to the beach, they knew their tasks. Checking the empty fishing net, going to the tide pools then, to the seaweed and moss. Foraging until the sun started drowning, that scorching disk the only way to tell the time, the color of the sky, the air shifting on their skin.
Damian swung the bags over his shoulder. “Lobster again.” Panting a bit, trying to ignore that his mind was screaming at him.What the fuck are you doing? Crawling at the bottom of those pools, fishing with your bare hands?He’d cut it, his right hand on a rock, but the wound had already stopped bleeding, blanched white by the salty water.
Gabe caught his hand. “You got hurt?”
“It’s nothing.”
Their eyes meeting, and Gabe’s heart raced, holding his chilled hand, those steel-blue eyes burning softly in his tanned face. Damian forgot his hand in Gabe’s warm hand, for a fleeting moment not even wanting to move as time slowed around them, those hazel eyes almost golden in that drowning sunlight. Almost seeing him for the first time, those beautiful lips parted a bit, the look in his eyes sending a wave of chill down his heart.
An icy feeling in his guts when he’d recognized the feeling, so he pulled his hand out, his voice weak. “We should go.”
