Fic: Stormswept (David/Selena) M/NC-17 (1/2)
Title: Stormswept (1/2)
Author: chaosdragon
Pairing/Character: David/Selena
Word Count: 12,634 (total)
Rating: M/NC-17 (mild sexual situations, cursing)
Summary: He's pretty sure that things like this only happen when scripted. He never really considered that life is stranger than fiction, or that all fiction has its basis in reality.
Stormswept
When he gets the call about a third Waverly Place movie David simply finds time for it. He doesn't stop to think about the fact that he's moved on to the big screen or that Selena and her band are wrapping up their third tour (and their first international), he doesn't consider the fact that Jake has probably had to finagle time from his own television series (not Disney), or that the other David and Maria have both got careers of their own that have to be juggled for this. Because hey, it's Disney, and if Zac Efron can come back to Disney for the third HSM movie then who the hell does David Henrie think he is to say no to a third Waverly movie?
Except that he doesn't really want to, he's moved on, and he doesn't know if he's going to survive seeing Selena again. But he goes without a fight, because he doesn't really need to tell the world that he can tweet about Selena, to Selena, and from Selena to his heart's content, but seeing her face to face undoes him completely.
This time it's back to the islands; the Bahamas instead of Puerto Rico, which is a nice change from the snow and ice of the last movie (though learning to ski and snowboard was fun). This ought to be the last time, too, he tells himself. The final showdown, the wizard battles that will decide the heir to the Russo magic. David tells himself that it's a relief, that after this he'll never have to look back again. (He forgets quite purposely that he dreams often of Selena, and that he's not really trying to forget Disney or Waverly-just her.)
But once they get on location they slip back into that easy bantering older brother/younger sister routine that has become self-defense over the years.
David lets it happen because it makes Selena smile like she always does even though he absolutely hates it, but what can he do? Tell her? Selena, I'm not really your brother, and I want you to stop treating me like one. In fact, I want you to treat me like your average, horny twenty-two year old male. Yeah, cause that'll go over so well.
So David sits back, and David waits, and David hopes and fucking prays that she'll either see him as a man (which totally isn't going to fucking happen nomatterhowmuchhewantsitto) or he'll just be (not) grateful that this is the last thing he'll have to do for Disney since once it's over and done there's no more plots left for the show. He can stick to Hollywood and spend the next few years (forever) pining for Selena while he tries to make blockbuster romantic comedies.
Cause yeah, that's a great plan.
xXx
Selena has looked forward to this for years. Even if no one else really thought about it, she knew that a third movie would be optioned when the show ended before the wizard battle. She's looked forward to seeing David again for a while, but never quite had the guts to simply visit him when she never has before. She almost regrets the whole Waverly Place thing, except if she hadn't done it, or he hadn't done it, she would never have met David in the first place.
She's in the middle of tour, somewhere in southeast London trying to shop when her agent calls and tells her the news. “Disney's finally (because waiting this long to do it is practically an insult) optioned the third movie-you start shooting after your tour.”
Selena knows better than to argue because it's Disney, and it was her best start, and she'd really like closure from that part of her life before she goes back to making music and touring. And it's not like she can say no anyway, because it's Disney and she's only Selena Gomez, not J.Lo or part of Brangelina. So she smiles the smile that she learned from Disney, the one that hides everything she's really feeling, and says great, she can't wait, and immediately tweets that she hopes the battle is epic.
(And of course anyone that follows her will know what that means even if Disney hasn’t announced it yet, but Selena really doesn't care at this point because her stomach is so tied in knots at the thought of seeing David again. She really wishes that it's just excitement, but she's not stupid and she knows that it's actually a lot more than that.)
When they call back into the old routine she smiles again that Disney smile and bumps David's shoulder with her own and plays a lighthearted prank on him with Jake. Then she hides in her hotel room and spends fifteen minutes crying because Selena really doesn't want to be his little sister, since she's not, but she's not stupid and she knows that flinging herself at him would be a mistake.
Because she's not stupid and she knows. She wishes she didn't.
But she does, so Selena learns to content herself to what she can have, which isn't all that bad when you consider how David spent his free time when they filmed in Puerto Rico. Half naked in swim trunks is definitely a look for him, and she takes a great deal of pleasure in watching him behind her biggest, darkest pair of sunglasses when they're out at the same time. She's pretty sure she's safe, because no one has come to bust her on it, and she's pretty sure Jennifer would.
But she still doesn't think it's all that fair, because they're filming in the Bahamas, it's like a paid vacation on Nassau, and she should be enjoying herself, not pining away for a man that hasn't looked at her like she's a woman since she met him. And she's almost twenty now so really, if anything were going to happen, Selena just knows it would have already happened. (And it's not even like she hasn't tried dating, and twice careful, random hookups just to try and get David out of her system-like he was ever really there.)
So she calls Demi (who knows everything) and Demi rearranges her schedule to let Selena cry on her shoulder through the phone and then tells Selena that just because David's not ogling doesn't mean he's not looking. “And besides,” Demi says with Selena hanging on every word, “you haven't seen him in two years, so dig out your bikini and make the boy sweat. God, Sel, you're gorgeous. Shove it in his face. Not even David can avoid it if you do that.”
So Selena digs out a tasteful bikini (because technically this is still Disney and barely there isn't going to cut it) and takes advantage of the shoot and spends most of her free time lounging by the pool or on the beach or leaning against the bar charming fruity drinks out of the bartender. If anyone has figured out that where Selena is lounging David isn't far away was a plan, no one’s said anything about it. Yet.
But the rest of Selena's free time she spends locked in her hotel room trying not to cry herself sick. (Because Demi was wrong, David can avoid it.)
xXx
He's not sure whether he wants to strangle her or drag her to his room (or hers-whichever’s closer) and ravish her with all of the bottled up need he's been suborning for the last few years. She has to know what she's doing to him-walking around in that excuse for swimwear-it's amazing that there's any blood left in his head (at least the one with the brain) so that he can think this thoughts of kidnapping and debauching her.
But there's one thing that David knows: Selena is Selena and she wears what she likes. Far be it from him to deny her the chance to flaunt herself (even if the remainder of his thoughts are death on all of the other horny twenty-something’s staring at her-she's nineteen for fuck's sake, don't look at her like she’s a piece of meat) and the chance for David to don his sunglasses (to ostensibly work on his tan) and ogle her along with everything else with a dick on the island.
But things are going. Well enough for the filming, not so well for David and his inner thoughts, but still well. They're three weeks into it, there's two left and then no one knows how much work after the fact before it airs, and David gets asked, “Can you drive a jet ski?”
It's a bad day for him, Selena was smiling and making eyes behind her own shades at some stupid cabana boy for a drink and David is really feeling the need to be hostile. (Jealousy does that, you know?)
“It's like a gun, you point and shoot, right?” The look on the director's face isn't priceless, it's just alarmed, and David pastes on a smile and says, “I did it once or twice while we filmed the last movie. Like riding a bike, yeah?”
And it's smoothed, the alarm gone and no one can even think that David was serious when he said it. It's shrugged off as another DavidandSelena prank (which makes total sense because it's not like she was lounging by the pool still chatting at the prick who brought her a drink) and David tries not to think of all the reasons why his honest (jealous) sarcasm was there in the first place.
But when they hand him the jet ski he does take the chance to go do some really stupid shit on the water for a bit. Then they frown at him and tell him not to do that stupid shit; he needs to be in one piece for at least the next few weeks. Selena just watches him behind her sunglasses while he waits for them to fill the tank up, her lip caught between her teeth.
Today they're filming on the southeast point of Nassau, and half the day is spent prepping, the other half is spent on the beach filming, and the night is handed over to bunking in the little bungalow Disney rented nearby, and they're up at dawn the next morning for more filming. David's not real happy about it, he's tired and tired of thinking and he's still twisting from the fact that he spent the night in a room that had a single wall between him and Selena.
But David knows Selena doesn't like to be up early either, so he pastes a smile on and does his job and when they turn him loose for a bit until the afternoon he slides onto his jet ski and sits out on the water watching the shoot, and not Selena. Which is hard, since she's floating not far away doing the same thing, but she's been here for a while already since she doesn't have to shoot till the afternoon. And, really, it's not like David's masterminded the schedule, or the current, or any of it, so they're both out here near the boat, mainly alone, and suddenly together.
Which is why it happens.
It's not Selena's fault, and they both know it, it’s an accident. (David doesn't know how little sleep she's had, and she doesn't know how eager he is to spend time with justher and no one else.) So when she lays back on her rented jet ski and starts to doze lightly, catching some sun and waiting until it's her turn to shoot (still hours away) David takes the chance to pull alongside her on purpose and reach out to hold their jet skis together. And even though she's tired, and even though they both are old enough know better, they don't pay any attention at all as they talk, faces up to the sun, just waiting.
It's not until the sun has passed its zenith and started its downhill westward journey that David sits up (because Selena drifted off completely a bit ago and he's loathe to wake her when she looks so comfortable) and realizes that-
There's no boat.
There's no crew.
In fact, there's no island a few hundred yards away.
And the sky behind them is darkening ominously.
xXx
When Selena wakes up it's to David's hand frantically shaking her shoulder, clouds rolling across the sky like a black wave, and the first splashes of what she instinctively knows is going to be a torrent. She's upright and looking about them for the boat or the island before David's words come even close to registering, and then the panic is welling up impossibly fast because there is no boat and there is no island, just water and sky and a dark smudge behind her.
“We drifted, Sel,” he's telling her, and as much as she adores David her sudden pithy mental commentary is cruel and unusual. But then, this whole situation is ludicrous-so maybe it's all right if she hates him for being obvious right then (and, really, how did no one notice them just quietly drifting off into the middle of the ocean?) even if she doesn't really hate him at all.
“Why didn't you wake me up sooner?” she demands, jumping right to it instead of waiting for him to finish. But she's scared and she's frantic because it's really starting to rain now and she has to almost yell to be heard. And Selena doesn't really know that David's let her keep dozing as he watches the current and tries to figure out which way is land.
Of course, she doesn't realize that David doesn't realize that the incoming storm has changed the current between the time he realized they were lost at sea and the time he started trying to figure it out. So when David tells her that he doesn't think they went all that far she believes him and is grateful.
He's taken aback by her harsh question and the trace of accusation in her voice, it's all over his face, but Selena sees him swallow that down to answer her, to deal with the situation, and probably never to bring it up again. “I think I dozed off, too,” he admits loudly, but she can still barely hear him. Then he points and yells louder, “I think that's where we need to go, I think that's Nassau.”
So, quiet and obedient (which is really nothing like her at all) she makes her jet ski roar to life and takes off behind David to that darkened smudge that must be land, thinking that everything is going to be alright, they just had a few minutes of a scare and they're going to be fine. But Selena also doesn't know what a good riptide is capable of and when land is not as big as it's supposed to be, her heart starts pounding harder, more uncontrolled than before, and she realizes that she's passed from fear to terror-because this isn't Nassau.
Of course then everything gets worse, because in the middle of the wind and rain and thunder and lightening David's jet ski suddenly takes a nosedive into the water ten yards ahead of her, and Selena is left watching it land upside down and stay and David hit the water hard.
The panic before is worse now because sure, the jet ski is (amazingly) floating in one place, but David's not, and he's not really moving either. Selena screams.
Her heart is in her throat and she's pretty sure that it's not beating as she twists her hand on the throttle, urging the engine to move her forward towards him, but slowly-not the headlong rush she wants to because it was headlong rush that sent David tumbling and now sinking. She sees the barely submerged reef that David's jet ski is clinging to like a lover and steers around it, now cautious as she heads for him.
He's still sinking, already under, and Selena can barely make out the pale of his shirt to grab him by when she makes it to where he is. He's unconscious (which she knew) and bleeding (which makes her stomach turn) but adrenaline helps her muscle him up far enough that only his legs are dragging water as she inches through the storm to whatever island they've found.
The waves are vicious; once she's past the reef and can see nothing but pale sand in the relatively shallow water, Selena guns the engine and sends the watercraft shooting straight at the beach. Momentum drives it hard up the sand and to a hard, jerking stop that sends her breath out of her. But they're out of the water, at least the water beneath them, and she's never been so grateful for dry (figuratively speaking) land.
It looks vaguely drier in the undergrowth that abuts the beach, so Selena sets to work dragging David there. And it is. Sort of. So she burrows them in under one of the larger bushes, grateful for several large, overlapping leaves that keep the worst of the downpour away from her, and begins to look David over. He's got a pulse, and he's breathing (thank god, because she's terrified that she'd fall apart if he wasn't), and when she looks at his head she can see the gash just past his hairline that's the cause of the steady flow of red down the side of his face.
But he's breathing, after all, so she rushes back out into the rain to salvage what she can from under the seat of her beached jet ski, because his is wrecked and hers isn't and she likes her creature comforts enough to carry things around with her wherever she goes. A spare t-shirt that she pulls on in a desperate attempt to shield her skin from the cold, stinging rain. A bottle of sunblock, three bottles of water, a bag of chips, two sandwiches, a book, and (thank god) a first aid kit.
She spreads them all out when she gets back to David (who's still breathing), shoves the useless sunblock and book as close to the trunk of the plant as she can, and the food and water near it. Then she opens the first aid kit.
There's nothing in it, and the first strangled sob comes wrenching from her mouth as she realizes that she doesn't really have anything important after all. But the noise itself it's strangely loud amid the storm, and David shifts next to her.
“S'lena?” he groans.
Her hand flies to her mouth and she whispers (desperately), “David?” Then she gasps as his eyes roll back in his head. And really, it's the rain on her face, not tears, because David's going to be okay and god, that looks like so much blood.
She doesn't know what to do: she doesn't watch all that much TV and, really, how much of that is going to work here? She doesn't have any of that here. Fuck, she doesn't even have a band-aid. But there's not much choice in what she can do; David is bleeding and it needs to be stopped, so she tugs off the shirt she's pulled on and presses it to where the blood seeps, and she prays.
xXx
David wakes with Selena’s head on his chest and possibly the worst headache he’s ever had (except for the hangover headache from his twenty-first birthday) in the history of his life. It certainly doesn’t help that his mouth is parched and he feels crusty with sand and salt-which brings back the reality of their situation. He bites back the groan he wants to make and carefully shifts from under Selena’s head. She’s tired; she must be because she drooled on him.
So David decides to reconnoiter on his own for a few minutes. It turns into more than a few when he finds her jet ski a little more than halfway up the beach and, ignoring the way his head throbs and aches (he hasn’t touched it yet because he doesn’t realize that it’s an actual wound and not just an ache), David pushes and pulls and shoves until he’s manhandled it back to the now calm water.
He’s not sure how far they’ve drifted or where exactly they are, but he does know that the engine of Selena’s jet ski was off the majority of the time and he hopes there’s enough gas left to try and have a look around. There is, just enough that when David sets out on a short trip (that manages to circle what is indeed a small island) he still has enough left over to take a quick jaunt out to where he sees his own jet ski.
He goes carefully and when he sees the way the fiberglass has been caved and the jut of coral holding it against the steady pull of the ocean. It takes David a moment, but he cuts the engine and drifts at the last moment, a hand going to his head and carefully threading through his dark hair to feel the now scabbed laceration that (he thinks) he got from the protruding reef. He feels ill again, and a cold shiver slips down his spine.
Then David pushes it aside because hey, he’s alive isn’t he? And he came out for a reason. Under the seat are a first aid kit, a flashlight, his sunglasses, a towel, and two bottles of Corona (because David’s plenty old enough to drink) that David stashed there. Just in case, because he’s twenty-two and there’s some truth to the whole twenty-something males and beer. One of the bottles is broken and the warm smell of hops and yeast tells David that the towel is going to need to be washed somehow before use, and that everything is going to be alcohol sticky.
But the other one is fine, and David fully intends on drinking it.
(Unless Selena wants some, because they’re lost on an island in the middle of the Bahamas and who’s going to arrest him for sharing a beer with his pretty nineteen-year-old costar. Whom he happens to be more than a little crazy about. Because David’s a fairly trustworthy guy and he wouldn’t take advantage of her. Even if he wants to.)
On his way back he goes slowly; paranoia has made him look down and he realizes that, like most of the Caribbean, this island is ringed by coral and reef and it really is just a damned miracle that he didn’t kill himself when he circumvented it. He veers to the right of where he left the beach, gunning the engine (just as Selena did, though he doesn’t know it) so that he rocks to a stop above the water line.
He expects to find Selena still asleep, or at the very least fiddling with something, looking, searching for a way home. Instead he finds her huddled on the beach near where the jet ski was when he took it, face buried against her arms, knees to her chest, crying. And when he says her name she looks up at him, relief, joy, a hint of anger, and launches herself into his arms.
“I was so scared, I didn’t know where you’d gone,” she tells him, her face pressed into his neck, tears hotter on his skin than the air. “I was so afraid you left me.”
He doesn’t think about it and is pretty sure that Selena doesn’t notice it as he presses a kiss to her hair and another to the side of her neck as he pulls her tighter against him. “I would never leave you, Sel.”
It’s only later (after she’s heaped some abuse on him for frightening her to death and used the band-aids from the second first aid kit to try and fix his head) once they have a slightly (not much) better grip on the situation that David realizes that he means it. He'll never leave her. Even if he thought he could, there's a very good chance he'd just wither away and die without her.
And he's beginning to think she might feel the same. At least a little.
xXx
They manage to work out some kind of survival as one day turns into two and three (and then Selena decides that she doesn't want to count because she doesn't want to think that she's going to spend however long-the rest of her life-on this tiny island and god, this kind of stuff is supposed to happen in stories, not real life, and how fucked up is it that it happens to her?) and Selena thinks that things might be okay. Or at least livable, in the vaguest terms.
They’ve both watched Castaway, and even if Selena turned away when Tom Hanks used the ice skate to knock his tooth out, she watched the rest of it. And David teases her when she admits she read the entire Little House series when she was a little girl. But then she teases David back because apparently he has a cousin who’s a Cub Scout and he’s been camping before so he should (theoretically) know what he’s doing.
They both conveniently forget (like accidentally on purpose, you know?) that there were tents and sleeping and, well, everything you take camping in modern times.
The first day (the one after David disappeared and she cried herself sick) the both spend hours finding and dragging branches, deadfall, anything they can find, to the beach to spell out the message. HELP. If she could find a way to make it bolder against the sand, she would. But she can’t, not really, and contents herself with adding sticks and twigs and leaves to make the letters thicker and taller above the sugar white sand.
They eat the last sandwich for lunch (since it would have spoiled if they don’t and since they’re about to be starving neither she nor David see why they shouldn’t enjoy a last meal) and split the second bottle of water and then Selena teaches David how to braid. They manage to make a (sort of) lean-to just inside the tree line out of leaves that they braid together with thin pieces of vine and tie the lengths to an oddly shaped stick frame.
It looks weird and wobbly when she inspects it, but Selena agrees that beggars can’t be choosers. And it does keep out the sun that makes it through the trees and she believes it can stop the worst of the rain and it’s something, which makes it better than nothing.
The second day they explore and find fresh water (thank god) in the form of a large pool that’s rimmed by trees and rocks and a teeny (the tiniest) waterfall she’s ever seen. They both jump in fully clothed, grateful to be able to wash the sand and sweat and salt off of themselves and their clothes. The third day after their arrival, they realize that boredom might be the most dangerous thing about this.
So they try and concentrate on being productive. Which has some very interesting results.
The first time David brings her a fish (which is one of those results) it’s already scaled and gutted (sort of, because they don’t actually have a knife and David’s making do with a piece of busted acrylic glass from the jet ski) but the remaining things that he didn’t quite get out and the beady little eyes staring at her send Selena stumbling for the tree line to lose what little is in her stomach where he can’t hear her. She expects some teasing when she gets back, or maybe even a superior male smirk, but all she gets are his worried eyes and a slow, gentle smile that she returns weakly.
“I wasn’t much better when I was cleaning it,” he tells her, and Selena smiles a little more at his pseudo-admission that gutting the fish made him sick. She sobers when he says, “It’ll get easier.”
She doesn’t want it to get easier. She wants to be found, to go home. She doesn’t want to be trapped here forever. But at least she’s stuck here with David. Out of everyone she knows it’s only Demi and David that Selena enjoys spending so much time around, but Selena is also more honest about it. She loves Demi, to pieces even, she’s Selena’s best friend. But David is David, and that’s just fact.
By the end of the first week, though, the plans they have are in motion and they’re pretty sure they’ll be okay for a little while. David’s head is healing; the scab is flaking off when he tries to wash himself and on inspection Selena finds healthy pink skin peeking through it and his hair. She smiles and takes a great deal of pleasure in David’s own enthusiasm as he shows her his fish pit. (He must have spent hours digging it up the beach and the trench leading to it, but she can’t deny it’s worked when he shows her five scaly things trapped there next to the guts from another fish.)
Things are alright, things are okay. They have fire (Selena never thought she would be grateful to beer, but the glass bottle is an invaluable fire starter) and they have fresh water and there’s fish and fruit that isn’t killing them. They have shelter, and they have the message. They’re going to be alright.
xXx
“Do you think they’re looking for us right now?” David asks her one night as they sit on the beach staring at the ocean in the dark. They’ve been here for eight days and he’s starting to think that eight days is just the beginning of a lot longer.
She shrugs and leans over to bump her shoulder against his. “Even if they’re not looking right this moment,” she says, “They’re still looking for us. After all, it’d make Disney look bad to lose two of the stars of their latest movie.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long while, because David heard the fear lacing her casual words. He thinks that he should be the one reassuring her; he hates that she’s the one reassuring him. But he can’t help it, so he tries to simply not think about it. It’s easy to think of something else, since she’s sitting right next to him, and for the last five mornings when he’s woken up she’s been pressed up against him still asleep.
He shies away from those thoughts, safer not to think about them. After all, he’s still just twenty-two and that does give him some rather predictable reactions to thinking about her like that. So he thinks about other things, like how she looks thinner, and how she’s sleeping more. And he worries, because he doesn’t think that a diet of fruit and fish is the greatest. That, and he’s getting tired of the same citrus tang, the same flaking fishy.
So he decides to indulge in a little torture session since they do have enough to eat and they are (at least he is) pleasantly full at the moment from their last efforts at cooking.
“When we get home I’m going to have a steak.” He’s pretty sure that he’s putting Pavlov’s dogs to shame with the way the mere thought of red meat has him salivating.
Selena giggles a little next to him. “What is it with guys and steak?” She hmm’s and sighs and says, “I want chicken. Steak’s good and all, but I think something Italian would the best right now.”
They continue on in that vein for some time and David tries not to notice how every time one of them turns to look at the other, they somehow manage to shift closer to each other. It’s not freezing-it’s the Caribbean, how could it be? But the night air does carry a hint of chill that always makes him grateful that they share the towel at night, and with her sitting so close, a length of warmth on his left side, David can’t help but want to be even closer.
“I wish we had some chocolate,” she says after they talk for a while about chicken and steak and cheese and salads and all of the food they wish they had. “I really miss chocolate right now.”
He misses ice cream, and is about to say so when she adds, “And I miss soap, too. And hot water. And I miss Demi and I miss my mom-”
She stops and David doesn’t need the flashlight or fire to see the way her shoulders are shaking or to know that she’s crying. Truth is, half the time when he thinks of the things (people) he misses, he feels like crying himself. But this is Selena crying next to him, so he shoves the tears that might be welling up back inside and he wraps an arm around her.
She turns into him, her arms slim as they wrap around him, her face pressed to his chest and her tears wetting his shirt. He thinks about telling her that he’s all over with sand and that she doesn’t want it on her, too, but he doesn’t because he knows he’s just being stupid. She’s all over sand already, and she needs someone right now to hold her.
He wants to tell her it’s okay, but he can’t, because he’s not really sure that it is.
xXx
Selena has never really cared for morning breath or an icky tasting mouth, so she’s always brushed her teeth religiously. She’s even been known to carry a travel brush and toothpaste with her. (She has a lot of travel-sized things because she likes to take care of herself.) But her purse wasn’t in the jet ski so there’s no travel sized toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush, lotion-any of the stuff she has. So while she’s stuck with keeping her hair pulled back in an imperfect braid, she wracks her brain trying to come up with a way to kill the morning breath.
She hits on it after a couple of hours of mindless leaf braiding (she wants to expand their shelter a but, and maybe layer the leaves several times, because it rained last night and the lean-to isn’t as waterproof as she’d hoped) Selena finds that solution.
She gets a fresh stick broken from one of the fruit bearing trees, peels back the thin layer of bark until the pale inner flesh is revealed, and scrubs at her teeth with it. It’s not perfect and doesn’t taste at all refreshing, and Selena still has to duck her mouth into the freshwater pool to scrub the buildup of ick from her tongue with the stick, but it works.
So she shows Justin and, even though he joins her in the mouth cleaning frenzy, he laughs and teases her and asks how she thought it up.
“I saw it in Shakespeare in Love,” Selena says defensively. “Besides, it’s better than having days old morning breath.”
And when he does it he asks her why she didn’t think of it before. Selena just shrugs and doesn’t answer because she doesn’t want to tell him that she’s not feeling so hot. But at least her mouth is a little fresher. She spends the rest of the day focusing on that and the little things she’s trying to do, and adding more leaves and sticks to the HELP sign. She doesn’t think about the headache that’s been building behind her eyes or how marched she feels, the fact that she’s filled and emptied her water bottle at least a dozen times.
And Selena definitely doesn’t think about the fact that she didn’t eat dinner because she isn’t sure it will stay in her stomach.
When she wakes up on the tenth morning with a fever it’s all Selena can do not to cry. (Actually, she thinks as her mind is fuzzed with illness, she probably would cry except she’s so dehydrated she can’t make tears.) She whimpers and David stirs next to her, and it’s frightening how quickly he realizes that she’s sick.
“Aw, fuck, Sel,” he murmurs. His hand is like ice on her forehead and Selena is wracked with agony as the sudden pitiful giggle at David’s cursing makes her head thud with headache. “You’ve got a fever.”
“I noticed,” she rasps. She turns her face into his hand seeking the pitiful relief his touch gives her. the day is a lost cause for both of them after that as David tries to make sure she at least drinks enough water to keep her from getting sicker, nursing her as it makes her sick to her stomach, and making sure that she has a constant supply of water to wet his shirt that he’s laid across her forehead.
Selena thinks that it’s sweet and wonderful when she can spare the effort to think of anything but how awful she feels. The fact that he even holds her hair when she throws up, instead of just making disgusted faces and trying to avoid her like most boys would, comforts her nearly as much as the cool shirt on her head.
She doesn’t sleep much that night, and neither does he, and the second day is worse than the first. She just hopes that it’s over soon, because she’s not sure how much of this she can take. And very quietly in the back of her mind, so quietly that Selena isn’t really aware that it’s a conscious thought, she hopes that she starts getting better soon, because she knows that she might not without medicine. And the thought of dying here, in the middle of nowhere, with just David, is fucking awful. Especially since she would be leaving him here alone.
Stormswept (2/2)
Author: chaosdragon
Pairing/Character: David/Selena
Word Count: 12,634 (total)
Rating: M/NC-17 (mild sexual situations, cursing)
Summary: He's pretty sure that things like this only happen when scripted. He never really considered that life is stranger than fiction, or that all fiction has its basis in reality.
Stormswept
When he gets the call about a third Waverly Place movie David simply finds time for it. He doesn't stop to think about the fact that he's moved on to the big screen or that Selena and her band are wrapping up their third tour (and their first international), he doesn't consider the fact that Jake has probably had to finagle time from his own television series (not Disney), or that the other David and Maria have both got careers of their own that have to be juggled for this. Because hey, it's Disney, and if Zac Efron can come back to Disney for the third HSM movie then who the hell does David Henrie think he is to say no to a third Waverly movie?
Except that he doesn't really want to, he's moved on, and he doesn't know if he's going to survive seeing Selena again. But he goes without a fight, because he doesn't really need to tell the world that he can tweet about Selena, to Selena, and from Selena to his heart's content, but seeing her face to face undoes him completely.
This time it's back to the islands; the Bahamas instead of Puerto Rico, which is a nice change from the snow and ice of the last movie (though learning to ski and snowboard was fun). This ought to be the last time, too, he tells himself. The final showdown, the wizard battles that will decide the heir to the Russo magic. David tells himself that it's a relief, that after this he'll never have to look back again. (He forgets quite purposely that he dreams often of Selena, and that he's not really trying to forget Disney or Waverly-just her.)
But once they get on location they slip back into that easy bantering older brother/younger sister routine that has become self-defense over the years.
David lets it happen because it makes Selena smile like she always does even though he absolutely hates it, but what can he do? Tell her? Selena, I'm not really your brother, and I want you to stop treating me like one. In fact, I want you to treat me like your average, horny twenty-two year old male. Yeah, cause that'll go over so well.
So David sits back, and David waits, and David hopes and fucking prays that she'll either see him as a man (which totally isn't going to fucking happen nomatterhowmuchhewantsitto) or he'll just be (not) grateful that this is the last thing he'll have to do for Disney since once it's over and done there's no more plots left for the show. He can stick to Hollywood and spend the next few years (forever) pining for Selena while he tries to make blockbuster romantic comedies.
Cause yeah, that's a great plan.
xXx
Selena has looked forward to this for years. Even if no one else really thought about it, she knew that a third movie would be optioned when the show ended before the wizard battle. She's looked forward to seeing David again for a while, but never quite had the guts to simply visit him when she never has before. She almost regrets the whole Waverly Place thing, except if she hadn't done it, or he hadn't done it, she would never have met David in the first place.
She's in the middle of tour, somewhere in southeast London trying to shop when her agent calls and tells her the news. “Disney's finally (because waiting this long to do it is practically an insult) optioned the third movie-you start shooting after your tour.”
Selena knows better than to argue because it's Disney, and it was her best start, and she'd really like closure from that part of her life before she goes back to making music and touring. And it's not like she can say no anyway, because it's Disney and she's only Selena Gomez, not J.Lo or part of Brangelina. So she smiles the smile that she learned from Disney, the one that hides everything she's really feeling, and says great, she can't wait, and immediately tweets that she hopes the battle is epic.
(And of course anyone that follows her will know what that means even if Disney hasn’t announced it yet, but Selena really doesn't care at this point because her stomach is so tied in knots at the thought of seeing David again. She really wishes that it's just excitement, but she's not stupid and she knows that it's actually a lot more than that.)
When they call back into the old routine she smiles again that Disney smile and bumps David's shoulder with her own and plays a lighthearted prank on him with Jake. Then she hides in her hotel room and spends fifteen minutes crying because Selena really doesn't want to be his little sister, since she's not, but she's not stupid and she knows that flinging herself at him would be a mistake.
Because she's not stupid and she knows. She wishes she didn't.
But she does, so Selena learns to content herself to what she can have, which isn't all that bad when you consider how David spent his free time when they filmed in Puerto Rico. Half naked in swim trunks is definitely a look for him, and she takes a great deal of pleasure in watching him behind her biggest, darkest pair of sunglasses when they're out at the same time. She's pretty sure she's safe, because no one has come to bust her on it, and she's pretty sure Jennifer would.
But she still doesn't think it's all that fair, because they're filming in the Bahamas, it's like a paid vacation on Nassau, and she should be enjoying herself, not pining away for a man that hasn't looked at her like she's a woman since she met him. And she's almost twenty now so really, if anything were going to happen, Selena just knows it would have already happened. (And it's not even like she hasn't tried dating, and twice careful, random hookups just to try and get David out of her system-like he was ever really there.)
So she calls Demi (who knows everything) and Demi rearranges her schedule to let Selena cry on her shoulder through the phone and then tells Selena that just because David's not ogling doesn't mean he's not looking. “And besides,” Demi says with Selena hanging on every word, “you haven't seen him in two years, so dig out your bikini and make the boy sweat. God, Sel, you're gorgeous. Shove it in his face. Not even David can avoid it if you do that.”
So Selena digs out a tasteful bikini (because technically this is still Disney and barely there isn't going to cut it) and takes advantage of the shoot and spends most of her free time lounging by the pool or on the beach or leaning against the bar charming fruity drinks out of the bartender. If anyone has figured out that where Selena is lounging David isn't far away was a plan, no one’s said anything about it. Yet.
But the rest of Selena's free time she spends locked in her hotel room trying not to cry herself sick. (Because Demi was wrong, David can avoid it.)
xXx
He's not sure whether he wants to strangle her or drag her to his room (or hers-whichever’s closer) and ravish her with all of the bottled up need he's been suborning for the last few years. She has to know what she's doing to him-walking around in that excuse for swimwear-it's amazing that there's any blood left in his head (at least the one with the brain) so that he can think this thoughts of kidnapping and debauching her.
But there's one thing that David knows: Selena is Selena and she wears what she likes. Far be it from him to deny her the chance to flaunt herself (even if the remainder of his thoughts are death on all of the other horny twenty-something’s staring at her-she's nineteen for fuck's sake, don't look at her like she’s a piece of meat) and the chance for David to don his sunglasses (to ostensibly work on his tan) and ogle her along with everything else with a dick on the island.
But things are going. Well enough for the filming, not so well for David and his inner thoughts, but still well. They're three weeks into it, there's two left and then no one knows how much work after the fact before it airs, and David gets asked, “Can you drive a jet ski?”
It's a bad day for him, Selena was smiling and making eyes behind her own shades at some stupid cabana boy for a drink and David is really feeling the need to be hostile. (Jealousy does that, you know?)
“It's like a gun, you point and shoot, right?” The look on the director's face isn't priceless, it's just alarmed, and David pastes on a smile and says, “I did it once or twice while we filmed the last movie. Like riding a bike, yeah?”
And it's smoothed, the alarm gone and no one can even think that David was serious when he said it. It's shrugged off as another DavidandSelena prank (which makes total sense because it's not like she was lounging by the pool still chatting at the prick who brought her a drink) and David tries not to think of all the reasons why his honest (jealous) sarcasm was there in the first place.
But when they hand him the jet ski he does take the chance to go do some really stupid shit on the water for a bit. Then they frown at him and tell him not to do that stupid shit; he needs to be in one piece for at least the next few weeks. Selena just watches him behind her sunglasses while he waits for them to fill the tank up, her lip caught between her teeth.
Today they're filming on the southeast point of Nassau, and half the day is spent prepping, the other half is spent on the beach filming, and the night is handed over to bunking in the little bungalow Disney rented nearby, and they're up at dawn the next morning for more filming. David's not real happy about it, he's tired and tired of thinking and he's still twisting from the fact that he spent the night in a room that had a single wall between him and Selena.
But David knows Selena doesn't like to be up early either, so he pastes a smile on and does his job and when they turn him loose for a bit until the afternoon he slides onto his jet ski and sits out on the water watching the shoot, and not Selena. Which is hard, since she's floating not far away doing the same thing, but she's been here for a while already since she doesn't have to shoot till the afternoon. And, really, it's not like David's masterminded the schedule, or the current, or any of it, so they're both out here near the boat, mainly alone, and suddenly together.
Which is why it happens.
It's not Selena's fault, and they both know it, it’s an accident. (David doesn't know how little sleep she's had, and she doesn't know how eager he is to spend time with justher and no one else.) So when she lays back on her rented jet ski and starts to doze lightly, catching some sun and waiting until it's her turn to shoot (still hours away) David takes the chance to pull alongside her on purpose and reach out to hold their jet skis together. And even though she's tired, and even though they both are old enough know better, they don't pay any attention at all as they talk, faces up to the sun, just waiting.
It's not until the sun has passed its zenith and started its downhill westward journey that David sits up (because Selena drifted off completely a bit ago and he's loathe to wake her when she looks so comfortable) and realizes that-
There's no boat.
There's no crew.
In fact, there's no island a few hundred yards away.
And the sky behind them is darkening ominously.
xXx
When Selena wakes up it's to David's hand frantically shaking her shoulder, clouds rolling across the sky like a black wave, and the first splashes of what she instinctively knows is going to be a torrent. She's upright and looking about them for the boat or the island before David's words come even close to registering, and then the panic is welling up impossibly fast because there is no boat and there is no island, just water and sky and a dark smudge behind her.
“We drifted, Sel,” he's telling her, and as much as she adores David her sudden pithy mental commentary is cruel and unusual. But then, this whole situation is ludicrous-so maybe it's all right if she hates him for being obvious right then (and, really, how did no one notice them just quietly drifting off into the middle of the ocean?) even if she doesn't really hate him at all.
“Why didn't you wake me up sooner?” she demands, jumping right to it instead of waiting for him to finish. But she's scared and she's frantic because it's really starting to rain now and she has to almost yell to be heard. And Selena doesn't really know that David's let her keep dozing as he watches the current and tries to figure out which way is land.
Of course, she doesn't realize that David doesn't realize that the incoming storm has changed the current between the time he realized they were lost at sea and the time he started trying to figure it out. So when David tells her that he doesn't think they went all that far she believes him and is grateful.
He's taken aback by her harsh question and the trace of accusation in her voice, it's all over his face, but Selena sees him swallow that down to answer her, to deal with the situation, and probably never to bring it up again. “I think I dozed off, too,” he admits loudly, but she can still barely hear him. Then he points and yells louder, “I think that's where we need to go, I think that's Nassau.”
So, quiet and obedient (which is really nothing like her at all) she makes her jet ski roar to life and takes off behind David to that darkened smudge that must be land, thinking that everything is going to be alright, they just had a few minutes of a scare and they're going to be fine. But Selena also doesn't know what a good riptide is capable of and when land is not as big as it's supposed to be, her heart starts pounding harder, more uncontrolled than before, and she realizes that she's passed from fear to terror-because this isn't Nassau.
Of course then everything gets worse, because in the middle of the wind and rain and thunder and lightening David's jet ski suddenly takes a nosedive into the water ten yards ahead of her, and Selena is left watching it land upside down and stay and David hit the water hard.
The panic before is worse now because sure, the jet ski is (amazingly) floating in one place, but David's not, and he's not really moving either. Selena screams.
Her heart is in her throat and she's pretty sure that it's not beating as she twists her hand on the throttle, urging the engine to move her forward towards him, but slowly-not the headlong rush she wants to because it was headlong rush that sent David tumbling and now sinking. She sees the barely submerged reef that David's jet ski is clinging to like a lover and steers around it, now cautious as she heads for him.
He's still sinking, already under, and Selena can barely make out the pale of his shirt to grab him by when she makes it to where he is. He's unconscious (which she knew) and bleeding (which makes her stomach turn) but adrenaline helps her muscle him up far enough that only his legs are dragging water as she inches through the storm to whatever island they've found.
The waves are vicious; once she's past the reef and can see nothing but pale sand in the relatively shallow water, Selena guns the engine and sends the watercraft shooting straight at the beach. Momentum drives it hard up the sand and to a hard, jerking stop that sends her breath out of her. But they're out of the water, at least the water beneath them, and she's never been so grateful for dry (figuratively speaking) land.
It looks vaguely drier in the undergrowth that abuts the beach, so Selena sets to work dragging David there. And it is. Sort of. So she burrows them in under one of the larger bushes, grateful for several large, overlapping leaves that keep the worst of the downpour away from her, and begins to look David over. He's got a pulse, and he's breathing (thank god, because she's terrified that she'd fall apart if he wasn't), and when she looks at his head she can see the gash just past his hairline that's the cause of the steady flow of red down the side of his face.
But he's breathing, after all, so she rushes back out into the rain to salvage what she can from under the seat of her beached jet ski, because his is wrecked and hers isn't and she likes her creature comforts enough to carry things around with her wherever she goes. A spare t-shirt that she pulls on in a desperate attempt to shield her skin from the cold, stinging rain. A bottle of sunblock, three bottles of water, a bag of chips, two sandwiches, a book, and (thank god) a first aid kit.
She spreads them all out when she gets back to David (who's still breathing), shoves the useless sunblock and book as close to the trunk of the plant as she can, and the food and water near it. Then she opens the first aid kit.
There's nothing in it, and the first strangled sob comes wrenching from her mouth as she realizes that she doesn't really have anything important after all. But the noise itself it's strangely loud amid the storm, and David shifts next to her.
“S'lena?” he groans.
Her hand flies to her mouth and she whispers (desperately), “David?” Then she gasps as his eyes roll back in his head. And really, it's the rain on her face, not tears, because David's going to be okay and god, that looks like so much blood.
She doesn't know what to do: she doesn't watch all that much TV and, really, how much of that is going to work here? She doesn't have any of that here. Fuck, she doesn't even have a band-aid. But there's not much choice in what she can do; David is bleeding and it needs to be stopped, so she tugs off the shirt she's pulled on and presses it to where the blood seeps, and she prays.
xXx
David wakes with Selena’s head on his chest and possibly the worst headache he’s ever had (except for the hangover headache from his twenty-first birthday) in the history of his life. It certainly doesn’t help that his mouth is parched and he feels crusty with sand and salt-which brings back the reality of their situation. He bites back the groan he wants to make and carefully shifts from under Selena’s head. She’s tired; she must be because she drooled on him.
So David decides to reconnoiter on his own for a few minutes. It turns into more than a few when he finds her jet ski a little more than halfway up the beach and, ignoring the way his head throbs and aches (he hasn’t touched it yet because he doesn’t realize that it’s an actual wound and not just an ache), David pushes and pulls and shoves until he’s manhandled it back to the now calm water.
He’s not sure how far they’ve drifted or where exactly they are, but he does know that the engine of Selena’s jet ski was off the majority of the time and he hopes there’s enough gas left to try and have a look around. There is, just enough that when David sets out on a short trip (that manages to circle what is indeed a small island) he still has enough left over to take a quick jaunt out to where he sees his own jet ski.
He goes carefully and when he sees the way the fiberglass has been caved and the jut of coral holding it against the steady pull of the ocean. It takes David a moment, but he cuts the engine and drifts at the last moment, a hand going to his head and carefully threading through his dark hair to feel the now scabbed laceration that (he thinks) he got from the protruding reef. He feels ill again, and a cold shiver slips down his spine.
Then David pushes it aside because hey, he’s alive isn’t he? And he came out for a reason. Under the seat are a first aid kit, a flashlight, his sunglasses, a towel, and two bottles of Corona (because David’s plenty old enough to drink) that David stashed there. Just in case, because he’s twenty-two and there’s some truth to the whole twenty-something males and beer. One of the bottles is broken and the warm smell of hops and yeast tells David that the towel is going to need to be washed somehow before use, and that everything is going to be alcohol sticky.
But the other one is fine, and David fully intends on drinking it.
(Unless Selena wants some, because they’re lost on an island in the middle of the Bahamas and who’s going to arrest him for sharing a beer with his pretty nineteen-year-old costar. Whom he happens to be more than a little crazy about. Because David’s a fairly trustworthy guy and he wouldn’t take advantage of her. Even if he wants to.)
On his way back he goes slowly; paranoia has made him look down and he realizes that, like most of the Caribbean, this island is ringed by coral and reef and it really is just a damned miracle that he didn’t kill himself when he circumvented it. He veers to the right of where he left the beach, gunning the engine (just as Selena did, though he doesn’t know it) so that he rocks to a stop above the water line.
He expects to find Selena still asleep, or at the very least fiddling with something, looking, searching for a way home. Instead he finds her huddled on the beach near where the jet ski was when he took it, face buried against her arms, knees to her chest, crying. And when he says her name she looks up at him, relief, joy, a hint of anger, and launches herself into his arms.
“I was so scared, I didn’t know where you’d gone,” she tells him, her face pressed into his neck, tears hotter on his skin than the air. “I was so afraid you left me.”
He doesn’t think about it and is pretty sure that Selena doesn’t notice it as he presses a kiss to her hair and another to the side of her neck as he pulls her tighter against him. “I would never leave you, Sel.”
It’s only later (after she’s heaped some abuse on him for frightening her to death and used the band-aids from the second first aid kit to try and fix his head) once they have a slightly (not much) better grip on the situation that David realizes that he means it. He'll never leave her. Even if he thought he could, there's a very good chance he'd just wither away and die without her.
And he's beginning to think she might feel the same. At least a little.
xXx
They manage to work out some kind of survival as one day turns into two and three (and then Selena decides that she doesn't want to count because she doesn't want to think that she's going to spend however long-the rest of her life-on this tiny island and god, this kind of stuff is supposed to happen in stories, not real life, and how fucked up is it that it happens to her?) and Selena thinks that things might be okay. Or at least livable, in the vaguest terms.
They’ve both watched Castaway, and even if Selena turned away when Tom Hanks used the ice skate to knock his tooth out, she watched the rest of it. And David teases her when she admits she read the entire Little House series when she was a little girl. But then she teases David back because apparently he has a cousin who’s a Cub Scout and he’s been camping before so he should (theoretically) know what he’s doing.
They both conveniently forget (like accidentally on purpose, you know?) that there were tents and sleeping and, well, everything you take camping in modern times.
The first day (the one after David disappeared and she cried herself sick) the both spend hours finding and dragging branches, deadfall, anything they can find, to the beach to spell out the message. HELP. If she could find a way to make it bolder against the sand, she would. But she can’t, not really, and contents herself with adding sticks and twigs and leaves to make the letters thicker and taller above the sugar white sand.
They eat the last sandwich for lunch (since it would have spoiled if they don’t and since they’re about to be starving neither she nor David see why they shouldn’t enjoy a last meal) and split the second bottle of water and then Selena teaches David how to braid. They manage to make a (sort of) lean-to just inside the tree line out of leaves that they braid together with thin pieces of vine and tie the lengths to an oddly shaped stick frame.
It looks weird and wobbly when she inspects it, but Selena agrees that beggars can’t be choosers. And it does keep out the sun that makes it through the trees and she believes it can stop the worst of the rain and it’s something, which makes it better than nothing.
The second day they explore and find fresh water (thank god) in the form of a large pool that’s rimmed by trees and rocks and a teeny (the tiniest) waterfall she’s ever seen. They both jump in fully clothed, grateful to be able to wash the sand and sweat and salt off of themselves and their clothes. The third day after their arrival, they realize that boredom might be the most dangerous thing about this.
So they try and concentrate on being productive. Which has some very interesting results.
The first time David brings her a fish (which is one of those results) it’s already scaled and gutted (sort of, because they don’t actually have a knife and David’s making do with a piece of busted acrylic glass from the jet ski) but the remaining things that he didn’t quite get out and the beady little eyes staring at her send Selena stumbling for the tree line to lose what little is in her stomach where he can’t hear her. She expects some teasing when she gets back, or maybe even a superior male smirk, but all she gets are his worried eyes and a slow, gentle smile that she returns weakly.
“I wasn’t much better when I was cleaning it,” he tells her, and Selena smiles a little more at his pseudo-admission that gutting the fish made him sick. She sobers when he says, “It’ll get easier.”
She doesn’t want it to get easier. She wants to be found, to go home. She doesn’t want to be trapped here forever. But at least she’s stuck here with David. Out of everyone she knows it’s only Demi and David that Selena enjoys spending so much time around, but Selena is also more honest about it. She loves Demi, to pieces even, she’s Selena’s best friend. But David is David, and that’s just fact.
By the end of the first week, though, the plans they have are in motion and they’re pretty sure they’ll be okay for a little while. David’s head is healing; the scab is flaking off when he tries to wash himself and on inspection Selena finds healthy pink skin peeking through it and his hair. She smiles and takes a great deal of pleasure in David’s own enthusiasm as he shows her his fish pit. (He must have spent hours digging it up the beach and the trench leading to it, but she can’t deny it’s worked when he shows her five scaly things trapped there next to the guts from another fish.)
Things are alright, things are okay. They have fire (Selena never thought she would be grateful to beer, but the glass bottle is an invaluable fire starter) and they have fresh water and there’s fish and fruit that isn’t killing them. They have shelter, and they have the message. They’re going to be alright.
xXx
“Do you think they’re looking for us right now?” David asks her one night as they sit on the beach staring at the ocean in the dark. They’ve been here for eight days and he’s starting to think that eight days is just the beginning of a lot longer.
She shrugs and leans over to bump her shoulder against his. “Even if they’re not looking right this moment,” she says, “They’re still looking for us. After all, it’d make Disney look bad to lose two of the stars of their latest movie.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long while, because David heard the fear lacing her casual words. He thinks that he should be the one reassuring her; he hates that she’s the one reassuring him. But he can’t help it, so he tries to simply not think about it. It’s easy to think of something else, since she’s sitting right next to him, and for the last five mornings when he’s woken up she’s been pressed up against him still asleep.
He shies away from those thoughts, safer not to think about them. After all, he’s still just twenty-two and that does give him some rather predictable reactions to thinking about her like that. So he thinks about other things, like how she looks thinner, and how she’s sleeping more. And he worries, because he doesn’t think that a diet of fruit and fish is the greatest. That, and he’s getting tired of the same citrus tang, the same flaking fishy.
So he decides to indulge in a little torture session since they do have enough to eat and they are (at least he is) pleasantly full at the moment from their last efforts at cooking.
“When we get home I’m going to have a steak.” He’s pretty sure that he’s putting Pavlov’s dogs to shame with the way the mere thought of red meat has him salivating.
Selena giggles a little next to him. “What is it with guys and steak?” She hmm’s and sighs and says, “I want chicken. Steak’s good and all, but I think something Italian would the best right now.”
They continue on in that vein for some time and David tries not to notice how every time one of them turns to look at the other, they somehow manage to shift closer to each other. It’s not freezing-it’s the Caribbean, how could it be? But the night air does carry a hint of chill that always makes him grateful that they share the towel at night, and with her sitting so close, a length of warmth on his left side, David can’t help but want to be even closer.
“I wish we had some chocolate,” she says after they talk for a while about chicken and steak and cheese and salads and all of the food they wish they had. “I really miss chocolate right now.”
He misses ice cream, and is about to say so when she adds, “And I miss soap, too. And hot water. And I miss Demi and I miss my mom-”
She stops and David doesn’t need the flashlight or fire to see the way her shoulders are shaking or to know that she’s crying. Truth is, half the time when he thinks of the things (people) he misses, he feels like crying himself. But this is Selena crying next to him, so he shoves the tears that might be welling up back inside and he wraps an arm around her.
She turns into him, her arms slim as they wrap around him, her face pressed to his chest and her tears wetting his shirt. He thinks about telling her that he’s all over with sand and that she doesn’t want it on her, too, but he doesn’t because he knows he’s just being stupid. She’s all over sand already, and she needs someone right now to hold her.
He wants to tell her it’s okay, but he can’t, because he’s not really sure that it is.
xXx
Selena has never really cared for morning breath or an icky tasting mouth, so she’s always brushed her teeth religiously. She’s even been known to carry a travel brush and toothpaste with her. (She has a lot of travel-sized things because she likes to take care of herself.) But her purse wasn’t in the jet ski so there’s no travel sized toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush, lotion-any of the stuff she has. So while she’s stuck with keeping her hair pulled back in an imperfect braid, she wracks her brain trying to come up with a way to kill the morning breath.
She hits on it after a couple of hours of mindless leaf braiding (she wants to expand their shelter a but, and maybe layer the leaves several times, because it rained last night and the lean-to isn’t as waterproof as she’d hoped) Selena finds that solution.
She gets a fresh stick broken from one of the fruit bearing trees, peels back the thin layer of bark until the pale inner flesh is revealed, and scrubs at her teeth with it. It’s not perfect and doesn’t taste at all refreshing, and Selena still has to duck her mouth into the freshwater pool to scrub the buildup of ick from her tongue with the stick, but it works.
So she shows Justin and, even though he joins her in the mouth cleaning frenzy, he laughs and teases her and asks how she thought it up.
“I saw it in Shakespeare in Love,” Selena says defensively. “Besides, it’s better than having days old morning breath.”
And when he does it he asks her why she didn’t think of it before. Selena just shrugs and doesn’t answer because she doesn’t want to tell him that she’s not feeling so hot. But at least her mouth is a little fresher. She spends the rest of the day focusing on that and the little things she’s trying to do, and adding more leaves and sticks to the HELP sign. She doesn’t think about the headache that’s been building behind her eyes or how marched she feels, the fact that she’s filled and emptied her water bottle at least a dozen times.
And Selena definitely doesn’t think about the fact that she didn’t eat dinner because she isn’t sure it will stay in her stomach.
When she wakes up on the tenth morning with a fever it’s all Selena can do not to cry. (Actually, she thinks as her mind is fuzzed with illness, she probably would cry except she’s so dehydrated she can’t make tears.) She whimpers and David stirs next to her, and it’s frightening how quickly he realizes that she’s sick.
“Aw, fuck, Sel,” he murmurs. His hand is like ice on her forehead and Selena is wracked with agony as the sudden pitiful giggle at David’s cursing makes her head thud with headache. “You’ve got a fever.”
“I noticed,” she rasps. She turns her face into his hand seeking the pitiful relief his touch gives her. the day is a lost cause for both of them after that as David tries to make sure she at least drinks enough water to keep her from getting sicker, nursing her as it makes her sick to her stomach, and making sure that she has a constant supply of water to wet his shirt that he’s laid across her forehead.
Selena thinks that it’s sweet and wonderful when she can spare the effort to think of anything but how awful she feels. The fact that he even holds her hair when she throws up, instead of just making disgusted faces and trying to avoid her like most boys would, comforts her nearly as much as the cool shirt on her head.
She doesn’t sleep much that night, and neither does he, and the second day is worse than the first. She just hopes that it’s over soon, because she’s not sure how much of this she can take. And very quietly in the back of her mind, so quietly that Selena isn’t really aware that it’s a conscious thought, she hopes that she starts getting better soon, because she knows that she might not without medicine. And the thought of dying here, in the middle of nowhere, with just David, is fucking awful. Especially since she would be leaving him here alone.
Stormswept (2/2)