“Fine…” Breathing hard, he was holding on to a tree with his right hand, swaying. He followed Gabriel a bit further away, watching as he chopped those bamboo sticks. Long, exhausting minutes, with that blunt piece of metal. Both of them heaving by the time they hauled everything back to their campsite.
Gabe had a plan, building a small shelter, just enough for them to sleep in. A mild worry in him that Damian wouldn’t share such a closed space, but he kept quiet, working, doing whatever Gabe told him to do. That tremor, more and more pronounced in Damian’s hands as he was trying to tie some vine around those thick sticks. Building a floor and a V for the roof, and Gabe skipped to the beach to find some palm leaves. Damian stayed to watch and feed the fire, sipping from that stale water, that nausea building again. Cramps too. In his stomach, his muscles.Boy…Laughing a bit, closing his eyes.Fuck…Wondering what Gabriel was thinking, if he had noticed at all.Doesn’t matter… I’ll die soon…Waiting, his eyes in the flames.Maybe I’m dead and this is a dream… I’m stuck in the afterlife with this gay guy…Chuckling at the irony of it.
Watching Gabriel walk back, tugging a large bunch of leaves. “I’ll go back for some more… tear them up in half, like that… then we can tie them.”
“Alright…” He worked on the leaves mindlessly, tying them to the roof as best as he could with one hand.Insane. Swaying, so he had to stop to rest, swallow that bitter bile rising in his throat.
Gabriel brought the rest, and they worked in silence, a bit tired, their heads splitting. Finally, it was ready, that small shelter, the fire burning next to it, and Gabriel just smiled and sat, offering a cup of water to Damian. He had found plastic cups and plates on the beach and had brought them back.
Musing a bit as he held that weathered plastic cup in his hand. “All that junk… but thanks to people throwing this out carelessly, we might just live.”
“What for?”
Gabriel looked at him, shocked a bit. “What do you mean? We are alive… that whole plane, all those people… they are dead…” His voice choked, thinking of Stephanie. Remembering a bit better, the cries. The dark. Putting their life jackets on, and Steph had pulled the cord, on passengers around her too, before she had sat down and buckled her belt on. Gabe had been thrown to the floor, knocked unconscious, before he could buckle up. He swallowed. “We will live because they died. We owe it to them.”
“Whatever…” Shivering, his eyes in the flames. He put the cup down, untouched. A sudden idea in him, watching those flames. “If I die, just eat me.”
“What…?”
“Yeah… just roast me and eat up. It will make you last longer.”
“What the fuck are you saying! You’re mad!” That anger plain, his disbelief.
A mild hate in his eyes, a hate Damian knew too well.Didn’t take long for this one to hate me too…He laughed a bit. “What? You know it’s the only way. I would do the same.”
Gabriel shivered. “Forget it… what the fuck…”
Damian just smiled, trying to quench that nausea, tame that trembling. His teeth chattered too, watching Gabriel get up. “I’ll get some more coconuts before it’s dark. Try to rest, you look like shit.”
“A rare compliment…”
Gabe turned, boiling.How to live with this assface??He rushed to the beach and spent some time gathering nuts, filling a fishing net with them.Tomorrow, snails and other animals…He set back, that soft resentment in him, but there was no other choice but to share this existence with that idiot, hoping that they would be rescued soon.Nothing can go wrong. Rule of three. Shelter. Water. Food.
Arriving back, just to find Damian writhing on the ground, his shirt soaked as tremors rushed down his body. He rushed to him, throwing the coconuts on the ground, and went to his knees, trying to make him turn on his back.
Gabe met his eyes, wild, drenched in pain. “What’s wrong?”
Damian could not speak, his teeth chattering so hard he thought they’d break, and Gabriel just held him, tight, not knowing what to do, hoping he would not die.Eat me…He almost threw up at the thought. Knowing Damian was right…Please… please don’t die. Fuck no. Please. Watching him shiver, close his eyes. Trying to grapple for some thoughts escaping him, of what this could be.Maybe something he ate, drank in that sea…Waiting until he’d fallen asleep, and he went to prepare some coconuts, his worried eyes on that crumpled form, his exhausted, shaky breaths.Fuck.
Damian woke much later into the night, meeting those hazel eyes, the flames dancing in them.
His soft voice. “Feeling better?”
Damian licked his parched lips. “Maybe… yeah…”
“I don’t know what you have… but it looks scary… Try to drink some coconut water, ok? I scraped some of the flesh out too.”
“I’m not hungry…”
That sentence, too familiar, but Gabe just watched him sit, those steel-blue eyes in the flames. That deep voice, almost not even there. “I have… this is not an illness… not exactly…”
Gabriel waited, his breath short.
Damian sighed. “It’s withdrawal symptoms, Gabriel. Alcohol.” He smiled wryly, that confession making him all warm. Even if he had dreaded it, he didn’t want to scare him to death. Braced for his pity, some empty bullshit words, but all he got was a sigh of relief, so he looked at him.
“Well… I mean… it could be worse… I genuinely thought you were dying…”
“I might still be…”
