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Time is endless on the island. For days, 39 of them, once, however many, since, there’s just a hazy stretch of existence that wanders out of night and into morning, again and again. A world that’s demarcated by the movement of storm and cloud and the rotation of the world, by the hunger gnawing in their stomachs and the heaviness that builds around the eyes as dusk settles. It’s languid, liquid time, and Ozzy loves it.
Time is endless on the island.
But it lurks, ready to begin its anxious tick, the moment a step is taken out of the game---can start again right away for those who crave an immediate return to normalcy. But Ozzy. He never wants that. Clings, for as long as he can, to the last vestiges of the limbo existence where nothing matters but the rise of the moon and the fall of the sun.
The moon looks different here
He’d said guilelessly just a few days ago, content with the way of things, with his peace in this adventure.
Tonight. Ozzy can’t see the moon at all.
It’s late, though. He allows himself to know that much about this parallel universe he’s existing in now. Two tribals means even later than usual. And he doesn’t know how long he was talking to the producers for. Can’t actually remember a single thing he said. Can’t fathom the stretch of events that transpired, that must have transpired, but also can’t really exist, between the moment he didn’t play the idol and the final sound of his name like a death knell and whatever the hell came after that.
There’s some distant memory of Jeff in front of him. Of the firelight dying. But it’s not very clear.
It’s a warm night. And yet, he’s shivering. Shudders tremoring through his form. That must mean that something isn’t right. That it’s another one of those terrible dreams, haunting him, begging him.
And he—
It’s late, anyway. That’s the only thing he can allow himself to know. Late by the time they let him go from that room that he doesn’t quite recall, after saying a snarl of sentences filled with syllables he couldn’t repeat.
The exchanged glances around him, poorly concealed, mean they’re aware there’s some kind of universal distortion at play. But the fact he’s allowed to leave and start the too-long, too-short walk to Ponderosa, down the worn grooves of sand the rest of the fallen have left for him, alone…
He guesses they’re not really that aware of how much the world has tilted in his line of sight, of how even the muted colors of things, barely visible in the orange lamp light guiding his way, are streaking in his vision, and his own breaths are loud in his ear. Loud but still drowned by the racing beats of his heart.
That they can’t really tell that it’s hard for him to know for sure that time still exists at all right now, not in the easy way of the game, but in that everything has gone jagged and erratic, cuts sharply from one moment to another that doesn’t totally follow.
That he can’t quite tell if he’s still alive at all.
That everything is wrong.
With every step, the wrongness arcs higher. Wrong sand, wrong path, wrong trees. So similar, but terrifyingly unrecognizable, steeped in the clenching certainty consuming him that not a single thing around him is real.
He misses the beach, the actual beach, somehow snatched from his fingertips (or had he just clumsily let it fall?) so much that the ache is a physical thing. Sharper and more tangible than any of his actual injuries, than the hunger and the grime. Than the sand beneath his feet.
He wants to go back. That’s the refrain.
He wants.
To go back.
His mind can’t make sense of the notion that he can’t, that he won’t ever again. And he can’t even really bring himself to try to tell it that that’s the truth of things. Because, is it? There's a suffocating surreality to what he’s looking at. Whereas the other vision in his mind is so perfectly clear, juxtaposed just over this one.
He’s walking back to camp, Aubrey’s gone, a grin for Cirie, a place in her arms.
There.
In that, there’s clarity.
Technicolor.
In the way he can reach out, in this moment, and touch that apparition of their campfire, the heat of it dancing along his fingertips, the way he sees the crinkle in Cirie’s cheeks, the relief in her smile that he’s safe, that he’s changed, that he played the idol and saved himself, found a brilliant redemption, became the hero, became the god, transcended.
It springs a well of tears in the corners of his eyes.
Because it’s so clear.
And if it’s clear, that clear, it should be real.
But it’s only a ghost, wandering in the darkness. A shade of what could have been.
Just like he is.
That existence rises, stutters, wavers, gives way to what his brain is vainly trying to tell him is actually in front of him, what his cells are truly perceiving and not the madness behind his eyes.
In this latest haze, another great gout of time gone missing from this timeline he rejects, he’s made it to the outskirts of the little enclave of cabins that lives just beyond the game. Everything is quiet at Ponderosa at this hour, more or less, dark. Only one of the houses, somewhere down the walk, has light glimmering through the windows. Maybe some strains of music and flashes of conversation filter through on the breeze, but they distort and garble around him, distant and unclear.
And on the sands, this far out, there’s only a single figure waiting, leaning against a tree, arms crossed, familiar.
Christian’s eyes are on him, searching, but soft, and his smile is a little sad, a little wry, but kind. “Thought you might not want any of the ‘honor and integrity’ folks hanging around.” He hums low into the air between them as Ozzy takes a few more halting steps forward. The weight of inertia carries him along until it gives out, and then he freezes in place to watch the other, soundless, slumped. Somehow, he’s unable to fully comprehend the shape of him; clean-shaven, hair washed, and that kindness—too painful to look directly at when everything hurts.
The expression on Christian’s face shifts minutely by the second as he leans forward just slightly to take him in, but it’s hard to parse. And Ozzy isn’t even remotely up to trying as the other pushes words forward into the silence between them---gamely continues speaking as though not yet ready to give up on this exchange ending up as a normal conversation.
It won’t be. The thought is rash in Ozzy’s mind, steeped in stubbornness. Bullish, helpless anger. It won’t be. He doesn’t owe anyone normalcy. He doesn’t have to let this go.
“It didn’t seem to me like it would be the right time for any accidental gloating.” Christian continues, measured, reasonable, existing in a different world than Ozzy does, existing as though a matter of days ago, he hadn’t had the same excruciating sadness clinging to every inch of him, exuding from his pores.
Is it that easy to just get over for you? That rash creature that’s howling in his chest wants to demand. Wants to wrap his fingers in Christian’s shirt and shake him. Ozzy had considered them equals. Had felt acute sympathetic pain at Christian’s cold fury and clear agony during his last tribal---even as guilty, heady relief that it wasn’t him had suffused him. That he wasn’t the one who’d watch his whole game turn to smoke and have to announce his shame to the world.
And now—
And now.
Christian is still pressing sentences out of his lips, but he seems to be catching on much quicker than the producers. That Ozzy is in front of him. Technically. But where Ozzy actually is, is anyone’s guess. The cadence of his speech is starting to falter, and the searching quality in the deep blue gaze is mutating in intensity, veering out of polite distance and into concern.
One more breath.
One last effort
“I took a thorough mental accounting and found that I am gloatless. So I assured them they could go on with their evenings and the pair of us would get along fine until the morning, where I doubt even my powers of persuasion and gift of gab will be able to keep Coach at bay any longer.”
The corners of Christian’s smile turn up even higher, hopeful despite the apprehension that furrows his brows. It invites Ozzy to snort and roll his eyes, mutter something insulting about how annoying Coach is going to be, and how he knows about that better than anyone. It’s a generous smile, warm and beckoning.
And some exhausted part of Ozzy suddenly wants so much to give into it, to give it back, to follow the offered bridge, so benevolently built and try to phase himself into the reality—that despite the sensations still swimming in his double vision, the crackle of the fire, the rustle of everyone getting ready for bed, Cirie’s rolling chuckle—he knows is the real one.
But the other greater part rebels at the thought. If he accepts it, then it’s over. Then it’s really over. And it just can’t. Can’t be over.
He blinks, and Christian is suddenly nearer, and another indeterminant amount of time has passed without his realization.
No touch comes, but the warmth of the other’s body pervades into his awareness where he stands, whether he wants to be able to feel it or not. Exists, really, in the nerve endings of his skin. Really. Real.
The embers at camp, waiting for him to bend over them, to coax them back to flame, sand and grit and ash grinding into his knees, they manifest around him so clearly when he reaches out for their afterimages. But they no longer singe his skin.
Christian, he scorches with proximity. With the truth Ozzy doesn’t want.
He’s so close now, when Ozzy looks again, more time spilled, more pieces moved on the board while he wasn’t fully home, that he finds Ozzy’s eyes when he flicks up his own. Their gazes tangle, even though he can’t quite make his vision focus in response, can only blurrily manage to accept the outline of the other as it comes in and out of sharpness. And whatever Christian sees there when he looks back, it dances a frown across his features.
Which makes sense. Because Ozzy can’t imagine his face is anything other than viciously ugly right now, isn’t sure if there’s anything at all to find in his eyes, just two hollows, scarlet-drenched wounds.
But Christian doesn’t look away.
The other is taller than he seems. Only a few inches shorter than Ozzy, maybe. But right now, something about him, or maybe it’s something about Ozzy, makes Ozzy feel two feet tall under his searching stare, like the other could easily crush him under his heel if he wanted to, like he could be destroyed.
He was destroyed. He guesses. This is just the remains.
“Do you want to go to the kitchen? They’ve made you your food… Food could be good?”
The concern is turning more urgent now, more obvious, more insistent, although the syllables of the words themselves never shift into sharpness, stay purposefully gentled. And Ozzy knows it’s because they’ve gone four conversation volleys and he hasn’t responded once. That Christian has offered many reasonable openings. And Ozzy is just standing there, staring with whatever terrible expression has warped his features.
Don't do that smile you do either.
But it doesn’t matter what his face looks like anymore.
The vicious monster inside of him, the one that stubbornly swore he wanted this to be difficult, is fading like the embers of the fire at dawn now, falling quickly into ash. And something different keeps any words from forming on his tongue, something worse, fragile and liquid, rising rapidly inside his chest.
He remembers circling something on a sheet with lists of things, which reshapes itself into a menu when he manages to fish out the moment from the shapeless pile of the last few hours, but doesn’t have a clear memory of what.
There’s nothing he can imagine wanting to eat, though. He knows that much. Even if he’s probably starving. Rejects the thought of accepting anything good about this place, about this existence, of enjoying it when misery blooms fresh bruises across his being with every breath.
He could get drunk.
The thought hovers with a little more clarity than some of the others; that’s an option for him now.
He could send his rejection of this reality into hyperdrive, shove acceptance even further down the line. It probably wouldn’t be that hard. Hell, he most likely wouldn’t even remember the time it took, especially when the alcohol hit this cocktail of disassociation or self-immolating or whatever the hell his brain cells are doing and combusted. It would just be helping the process along.
But the thought of remaining conscious, of sitting at a table and raising a glass to his lips, of putting his body through the fire that follows. All of it seems like too much effort just now. Too much to bother with. And dimly, somewhere beneath the miasma of the evening, a disapproving voice that’s mixed with a brush of something loving, tender in a way that must manifest from outside of himself because it’s certainly not coming from within, that must be the current of the island connecting him with Cirie across the space that now separates them, tells him, with no room left for argument, that that’s a rail glinting a little too brightly.
The tears are back again, then.
All at once with no warning.
That overwhelming sense of despair surging to life.
He wants to scream, the urge pounds through him, to roar into the jungle night until everything else exists in a hushed, awed, frightened silence around him. He wants to swing out and kick a wall, punch a tree, like he foolishly let himself do over much smaller losses, some other lifetimes ago, on a different island somewhere in the South Pacific.
He wants to tear himself apart with his hands.
But he only stands there.
Because this Ozzy wants to do all of those things, but doesn’t. Maybe doesn’t even want to, not really, the overwhelming rawness of everything just reanimating old reflex arcs that lead only to dead ends inside his body, the circuits long fizzled out.
This Ozzy. That had tried so hard to open up, to trust, to stay calm, to do everything right, to be better. To be different. And still in the end, achieved nothing. He doesn’t do any of those things.
He only stands there---unsuccessfully blinking back the sudden torrent of heat pooling in the corners of his eyes, that wells and wells, rises like the tides, crests and turns into the kind of rain that falls on a grey jungle morning, slow drop, after slow drop. On and on and on.
He only stands there and lets the tears fall along his cheeks, an ocean of salty regret.
“Okay.” Christian’s voice is in his ear now, soothing, and arms have wrapped themselves around him, pulling him down, pulling him in. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
The familiar, rational cadence of it in the face of his own breakdown… Somewhere, it infuriates him. He doesn’t need to be coddled. He’s always managed just fine on his own. It’s not like anyone has ever been sad to see him walk into Ponderosa. It’s not like anyone has ever really cared that much.
But the rest of him is in a state of disintegration, the higher functioning of his cells shutting down connection after connection. And it clings to the anchor of stability, to the sudden warmth that’s pressed all around him, to the idea of being held.
He knows that if he could manage to voice the thought, Christian would tell him very seriously and patiently that it’s impossible to die of making a bad decision that isn’t actually lethal. That the unbearable need he’s experiencing for time to reverse isn’t a medical malady.
He thinks he should try to explain it to him anyway, though, should try to illuminate that that’s exactly what’s happening, even if in Christian’s precise world of sense, the rules of the universe don’t allow it. But the ability to shape any kind of words had fled somewhere along the line. And the air in his lungs is capable only of pushing out something that sounds suspiciously like a whimper.
Christian’s arms tighten around him. Hold fast with more fierceness, with more of that unexpected strength, as though, despite the 0 actual communication happening, he can tell he’s more or less the only thing keeping all the Ozzy parts together at just this moment.
And it’s not even his responsibility.
They hadn’t even been on the same side at the end.
Christian had tried to bring him here sooner.
And he had ruined him instead.
Forget it. I’ll figure it out.
But his imagined insistences are just too-rapid, too-shallow breaths that he can’t seem to catch, as his body shudders and his arms hang limp by his sides. Not even hugging back, just leaning dead weight into the curve of the offered embrace. And there’s a wet spot forming on the fabric of Christian’s shirt where Ozzy’s buried his head into his neck, the still-falling tears absorbing into the nice peach sweater that’s quickly turning damp with water and dirty with dust. That Ozzy is wrecking as he lets his whole weight press into the hug, hoping without much hope that it’ll hold, that his body isn’t going to just collapse to the ground and splinter into a thousand pieces.
Christian must sense that vision approaching too, seems to know that the likelihood of it was already pretty high and is increasing with every half-choked exhale that comes rhythmless and too thin. Ozzy can tell by the way the worried set of sounds he makes starts to gather under his breath. Even as his fingers trace soothing designs along Ozzy’s back, as though trying to mark out the right pattern to put him together again. It’s a considering array of Hrms that comes out when Christian’s trying to work out the right solution to a problem, but he doesn’t yet have a satisfying answer to give.
Ozzy’s heard them before. Over the reading glasses to start a fire. Directed at the tree mail note before a challenge. When Ozzy’s asked some question and the answer is something he won’t ever comprehend.
But this time, it’s Ozzy that’s the problem. And probably, there’s no solution. There never has been before.
“We could maybe go see The Doc? I think, I mean. It’s totally normal to be in shock. Nothing about our bodies is meant to have experienced any part of this, let alone all of it together.” Christian’s fingers stop their fluttering across his skin, pause in one place, and then the arms resettle him, hold him tighter. “And you know, I’m a doc, but probably not the one you need right now.” He pauses, considering for a breath, and then exhales in a tired, half-laugh. “Although it would certainly be nice to fix all our Survivor woes with a couple deletes and a few key strokes.”
Christian had said Ozzy to Cirie. And the notion had sat sour in Ozzy’s stomach, curdled in the island sun, a directed attack after they’d worked so hard to rebuild the bonds between them. And that bitterness, the acute, profoundly wounded sensation of it that had rended his chest, sprung anger from his lips. It was a microcosm of the anguish that’s settled now, because it hadn’t actually happened, because Christian hadn’t actually managed it, but they’ve both come from the same well. The same muddy waters of betrayal.
He’d called Christian a robot then, from that bruised place. A robot in human skin. He hadn’t actually meant it. Or maybe he had. But he doesn’t now, with Christian’s arms around him, flesh, and blood, and safety, no metal detected. But all at once, he wishes he were the robot, instead. That Christian could fix him with a line of code, or whatever. Disappear the specific set of agonies that bleed out of heart and brain when trust snaps. Or at least just press the Shut Down button for a clean cut to black, and not this drowning, endless… shock, Christian had said.
Is he in shock? Probably. Or maybe, he’s finally just snapped for good, one blow too many on an already poorly constructed existence.
But the thought of medical… Some lizard part of Ozzy’s brain, in equal parts, fears and rages at the idea. Hisses instinctively at the thought of harsh lights and invasive gazes.
Of judgment.
Of anyone else seeing this.
Of anyone who could never understand seeing it.
For a brief, nearly-lucid inhale that actually manages to fill his lungs, which interjects into the madness with shuddering ice, Ozzy is so fucking glad Christian did not let the upstanding citizen brigade anywhere close to him just now.
But then the panic is slamming in again, the agitation of the imagined examination. The claustrophobia of the white space, the sterile scent. Too many walls. Too many faces.
And he can’t go to medical. Medical means they make him leave. Medical means he can’t stay anymore. They’d see, they’d know. It’d be over. And no, that’s not right, it is over, and medical wouldn’t change that. But if it isn’t? And he does?
He can’t.
He’s shaking his head against the other’s neck, rapid, abrupt, jerky motions.
No.
No.
Christian’s sigh is a barely audible thing, just a slight brush of air, quiet and sad, along his ear. One hand comes up and presses against the back of his neck, squeezing slight, then brushes slow down the length of his spine.
“Okay, I’m letting go.” The warning comes gentle, and even has a lingering pause that follows. But Ozzy’s brain isn’t exactly parsing in real-time, still stuck on the twisting, confused paths of this latest storm.
So when the heat and pressure around his body shifts and vanishes, cold emptiness swirling into place in its wake, nothing holding the shape of him anymore, the waiting grasp of panic blooms high. Sparks of electricity shake through his limbs as he fights to keep himself upright, the sides of his vision threatening darkness. He’s only barely able to discern the press of fingers into his skin when it becomes this side of painful.
He follows the forceful jolt down to see fingers wrapped around his wrist, lets the connection ground him again, breathing hard.
“Come on,” There’s an air of a decision made, something settled, in the cadence of Christian’s voice, twined up around a careful gentleness. And Ozzy inhales into it, allows it shudder through him, welcomes the solidity of sentiment in it gratefully. There’s a specific, sudden relief that he hadn’t even understood he was seeking, to knowing he won’t have to make any choices right now, won’t have to decide how to survive this night. That Christian has made a plan and is going to execute it, and Ozzy just has to let himself be tugged along.
It’s what he’s best at after all.
What he should have done tonight. But he’d gotten in his head and messed it all up. His game. Their game.
Fuck.
Fingernails press intent into his wrist again, and his exhale comes sharp in response, air sucking in between his teeth, spine tensing. But it pushes the spiral away. He lets the air shudder into him, back out, in, back out, with costly effort. Tries.
Christian’s thumb runs over the now-fading throb, apologetic. And the hold shifts into a tug that seems to indicate a hoped-for direction.
But as he forces his mind away from the tempting muddle and back to this misery, Ozzy refuses to move his feet yet. Not until he knows where they’re going. Not medical. Plants them into the sand and doesn’t shift with the pull of the touch.
Christian is watching him, still watching him, has watched him veer away and come back, watched him come in and out of focus, watches him in this moment, considering. The other is clearer in his vision now, than he has been so far. And Ozzy can see him taking shape, can finally find him enough to look back with something, however small, as Christian offers in a low, patient tone, with the air of an olive branch extended.
“Let’s get you to bed.” The construction doesn’t come out as a question exactly; still, a decision made, that Christian has made for him, thank god, with a period at the end. But there’s room there, placed purposefully around the margins, a space to negotiate, just in case something needs to adjust. “Everything else can wait.”
For a long moment, they find each other in the dimness, in the breathing silence of waves. And finally,
“Okay?” Christian asks in the end, after the pause has extended beyond a pause and lapsed into a lingering stretch. Addresses him directly. Puts an expectation of response into the word for the first time all night.
Ozzy presses his lips together, twists them around, then, halting, voice hoarse, as though emerging from a great depth, breathes out, more air than sound.
“Your bed.”
Christian’s eyes tangle into his own, running some ever-present complex calculation that Ozzy can’t fully comprehend.
But he nods, slow and projected, unmistakable agreement.
Ozzy nods back, gives his own.
Lets himself be led.
————
It’s good that this is Christian’s room. Because it means Ozzy doesn’t have a room, not yet.
And this temporary room, which is not Ozzy’s room, because if Ozzy had a room, then it would be permanent, and that would mean—
But the point is that this is not permanent for Ozzy. Because it’s Christian’s. So he can allow himself to take it in without deep wells of ache stinging through him. Can let a shuddering breath out of his lungs and take in the image that fills his eyes.
He doesn’t fully know what would have happened to him if he’d had to stand alone in the darkness of a cabin that was waiting there just for him. Ready and silent like a burial plot because he failed to play his idol. Because he had somehow made such an unthinkably foolish decision. And no one would be dumb enough to do that? Would they?
And so no, that scenario can’t exist. And he can’t exist in it.
This one, begrudgingly, he makes himself accept.
Beneath his feet, there’s a soft white carpet, and the sensation of its plushness is foreign beneath his toes. In the corner, a massive bed takes up much of the space, covers pulled perfectly straight. And even though that’s orderly, it’s about the only thing. An amused thrum of affection, one that floods through him with more normalcy than any other emotion has tonight, briefly makes itself known as he takes in the clutter of pens, papers, and books haphazardly tossed onto every other available flat surface. Can one person really read all of those books in just a couple weeks?
Christian hovers by his side, watches him take the space in, and huffs just a little bit as he follows his gaze around, nudging him in side with an elbow, but careful. Handling with kid gloves. “Well, I wasn’t expecting company.”
For a few beats too many, Ozzy can’t respond with anything except the slightest upturn of lip in reply. But he breathes, and he breathes, and he breathes, and finally manages to pull his lungs, his throat, and his tongue into a concerted motion.
“Not with Devens still in the game.” The mutter comes toneless, almost slurred. It lacks all knowing tease and playful banter that the sentiment calls for, that it might have had on some different day, some better time, the pair of them sitting by the ocean at low tide as the waves lapped at their ankles and the sunset painted the sky---the object of Ozzy’s sly implications waiting with more chaos back at camp.
But it’s something, and Ozzy did it. Pushed through the numbness to try and exist.
There’s something wistful, though, in the small laugh that bubbles from Christian’s throat in answer, some far-off longing. And a kiss of sadness brushes small hollows into his gaze.
“I plead the fifth.” He murmurs, suddenly somewhere else too, probably on the same island that’s been haunting Ozzy all night, but a little different, the one where his puzzle came together, and his torch wasn’t snuffed, and he spent the night in the lulling swing of a hammock, tucked next to someone he could trust.
A twisting guilt, clammy and miserable, rushes through Ozzy as he watches the other’s yearning take over, watches it take him away in the same way Ozzy has been taken tonight, over and over again. And he wants to say that he’s sorry, that he knows he’s not the only one with wounds. But it’s beyond him. So he just watches Christian and hopes some hint of the sentiment seeps out of the stare.
But the other is already blinking away the remnants of the other place, smiling more truly once more, withdrawn himself from the temptation of illusion in a way Ozzy can’t, isn’t sure if he’ll ever be capable of.
Christian turns to Ozzy, fully back in this moment and nowhere else, and puts a hand on his arm, comforting. “Bedtime?” It comes with a brighter smile, that same invitation from earlier lurking again, to cross the bridge, to try and accept.
And Ozzy. He guesses, he’s willing to try. What other choice does he have?
If he were Christian, he’d probably insist that he take a bath before getting under the covers of his bed, change his clothes, find his toothbrush. All those things that… that he can do now… because.
But Christian doesn’t. And Ozzy certainly isn’t going to fight him on that. Doesn’t think he could do any of those things, even if Christian did. Can’t fully envision standing under the spray of a shower, running shampoo through his hair. Doesn’t think the muscle memory for that is accessible. Doesn’t know that he’d have the strength to dig it out.
So Christian lets him get in the bed, even though the dust of the island still clings to him, even though the sweat, tears, blood, sand, salt, of it all remains embedded in the space between his cells. And soon, he’ll wash it off with some too-strong scented soap, and it will drip from his body in cloudy droplets, swirl down the drain, and vanish.
The finality of that vision, of that vision and the vision of every moment to come, the dozens of endings he’ll have to undergo, here in this transition, makes the stunning ache that sits between his collarbones flare to life, and all he can do is make himself keep moving against it.
Thankfully, gravity takes over as soon as he’s sat down on the mattress, on its far end, the side next to the window, where the dark jungle trees are rustling, shifting, but he can’t hear the breeze as it winds through their leaves. The murmur of the crickets muted by walls and glass.
The silence is loud in his ears as exhaustion colludes with the physical forces of the world to tug his body down and down and down. He ends up on his side, arms askew in front of him, flung directionless, knees curled into his chest. And it’s a relief not to be upright anymore, not to have to support his body own weight, and to let some other object carry it instead.
Even though it’s wrong, all of it.
The way the wilderness, the island, is kept out. And the too-soft cushion of the bed below him that he sinks way too far into, a foreign entity that confuses his brain as he searches for the grooves of the shelter. The air, too, brushes stale in his awareness, oddly scented, too-cold, piped into the room at an unnatural temperature.
And the bed itself, it carries some comfortable scent left behind by the person who sleeps in it every night, something deep and warm, that Ozzy doesn’t even dislike. That he, maybe, even likes.
But it’s not real.
All of it so unbearably artificial.
All of it wrong.
It makes him want to weep, which he knows is a dramatic thought. But then he remembers he’s already weeping, so what the hell, really, he lets the tears slide down his cheeks again.
Agony roars to life inside of him anew.
He’d been so close.
He wants.
To go back.
His eyes scrunch closed as the stabbing pain in his gut rises to take over everything else for a beat as the different truths assail him, but the throb subsides again slowly as the ache climaxes and then fades back into the sea of many others. Doesn’t stay as permanently in place as it had before.
The other man in the room stands hesitating at the corner of the bed. But when their eyes lock, Ozzy’s listless, overly big, staring up from the mattress, but almost unseeing, meeting Christian’s concerned and sympathetic ones, Christian nods to himself, decided again.
Silently, he manuevers around the room, Ozzy’s gaze following him dully from the bed. He hovers by the wall for a moment, and with a short ping of a digital sound, the flood of too-cold air stops filtering in. Then he shifts forward, moves himself between Ozzy’s side of the mattress and the wall, and pushes the window open so the night air pervades into the space, instead. Drifts in to them in all its humid, noisy glory.
Some part of Ozzy is embarrassed to be so easily read, to exist as just some needy, open book of rawness that someone like Christian can always flip a page in and know exactly what he’s feeling. But mostly, he’s so fucking relieved to hear the night birds squabbling in the trees and the hush of the forest, that it manifests into a strangled sound, loosed on reflex from his chest into the pillow. He tries again, mutters a muffled, “Thank you,” into the fabric, cheeks flushing red.
“You’re very welcome.” Christian gives back in that reasonable tone of his, as though they’re having a totally sensical conversation, and not just both doing their best to avoid Ozzy’s total and complete shattering.
Then he’s kicked off his shoes, flicked off the light, and the mattress bends slightly with his weight as the total darkness of Fiji, inside a room or outside of it, descends along them, interrupted only by a dim light on the bedside table, casting a muted glow.
Ozzy doesn’t move. Stays sprawled where he is, too heavy to do anything but breathe, barely able to do that. Waits.
Around him, the mattress shifts as Christian settles into place. He’s far, and then he’s close, and then he’s closer, and then there’s barely any distance separating them at all.
It’s nothing new, really. In the game, they’d spent a lot of time together this go around, nights before they had a real shelter, before they had a tarp, when everyone just became a pile of limbs that melded together because even one gasp of space meant the cold could creep in.
It’s nothing new, really. Except that they’re alone. And they’re in a bed. And everything is somehow fragile, spun glass that could shatter into a thousand pieces with sharp edges.
He lets Christian hold him.
Shifts back into the arm that comes to settle around his chest, allows it to move him, to tug him closer, to curve around his ribs. Closes his eyes as the press of Christian’s chest against his back covers him like a blanket, like a balm. A small faint flicker of something sweet glimmers to life in his veins, some unclear hope.
it’s better than the hug, because Christian doesn’t have to hold him up, only has to hold him.
He lets Christian hold him.
He says nothing. Neither of them say anything. But Christian’s lungs shift along his skin as they breathe slow, deep breaths, move with exaggerated, directed intention. Invite him to come with him back into some kind of rhythm, back into a stable pattern of air.
And usually, Christian would reach for his words. Would try to explain in complex explications, complete with fluttering gestures and five dollar sentences, why exactly it’s important that Ozzy try to stop panicking and do his best to find some acceptance. And Ozzy might nod as though he follows, or he might roll his eyes, or he might get annoyed, but he probably wouldn’t listen.
Instead, in the twine of his even, measured breaths, not insisted on, or suggested, even, just present, pressed along the cells of Ozzy’s body, Christian tries to speak his langauge, wraps his intentions in touch, and body, and the primal way of things. Delivers his advice in a hushed exhale of air that dances along Ozzy’s neck and the protective press of palm over his heart.
And even though some treacherous part of Ozzy would rather stay in this fit of panic and pain than try to adjust, would rather burn himself in all his sins than accept he made them and try to quell their fire and keep going in the wake of the pyre, the lure of ease is finally too strong. And he lets himself fall into the rhythms of Christian’s body around him, gives in finally to Christian’s invitation, tries to cross the bridge.
He didn’t play his idol.
Inhale.
He got voted out.
Exhale.
He wants to go back.
Inhale.
And he can’t.
Exhale.
And he’s here.
They breathe together for some indiscernible amount of time, which, against all odds, makes him feel again like time doesn’t exist. Not in the way that everything had gone jagged and erratic, but in the easy way of the game. In that kind of precious endlessness.
“I know it hurts right now.” Christian offers, some time of steady breathing later, hesitant into the dark. As though he’s afraid to break the spell, to send Ozzy reeling again. But pushes on anyway. “But it won’t hurt forever. Humans are just not programmed to hold onto that much pain.”
In the dark, Ozzy traces the dim outlines of the palm trees swaying against the window. Breathes again a few more times, and finds that sound, at least, has returned to him some of the way.
“The rest of them still hurt.” He murmurs back, and this close, he can sense the surprise, but relief, that ebbs from Christian when he speaks. The pleasant shock to have received a response.
Progress, he can almost taste the other silently cheering.
And maybe it is.
But maybe Christian is wrong. Because they do all still hurt. One vote off, one idol off, one challenge off, a grocery list of scars that haven’t ever fully sewn themselves up. And now this.
Now this.
“Well,” Christian’s voice hums, considering, in his ear, but not dismissive. Empathetic. Maybe a little sympathetic. But not condescending, so Ozzy allows it. “We’ll have to think about what we can do with that. But not tonight.”
Ozzy pulls his shoulders into his ear in a semblance of a shrug, the best one he can make with Christian wrapped around him, and his arms still flung onto the bed in front of him, left where they landed and not yet moved.
“It hurt you, too---the puzzle.” The cold anger that had surfaced on Christian’s lips at tribal was an emotion he’d never seen from the other. The muted kind of rage barely held back, lashed out in dark curves of speech, drenched in gallows humor that had not a trace of a laugh. A level of intense seriousness so concentrated, Ozzy doesn’t think he’s ever experienced something like that before. “I know it did.”
“Yes, it did.” Christian agrees, corrects himself, gives over honestly. “It does. It does hurt.” And the sound of the syllables eases some tight knot in Ozzy’s chest, some tenseness he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He isn’t sure exactly why he needed to hear that, but he did. It relieves him, he guesses, to know he’s not alone. Not the only one that’s carrying the heaviness of these wounds, at least for now. That they’re both here together.
“The puzzle and the idol.” The chuckle from Christian is low, but there are sincere notes of amusement in it. “We make for quite a pair.
They lapse into another silence. Christian’s fingers have started dancing again now that the somber first flush of easing into it has subsided, and Ozzy has at least found himself back to verbal. They trace idle patterns across his ribs as though they can’t stop themselves from breaking out into motion. As though Christian is still mulling over a thought.
But Ozzy figures it will come when it comes, so he lets his mind focus on the grounding brushes of touch and shifts back into breathing, pulling in one inhale, pushing it out, then the next, in and then out, fixating on the rhythm and forcing everything else away. He can remember a little bit now, his mind slowly coming back online in small sections, everything he’s worked so hard on to protect from this level of catastrophic meltdown. All the meditating and the breath work, all the efforts he’s put in to change. Just now, it seems like holding up a stick to fight a hurricane, but even if he’s---Even if he’s lost. He’s no quitter.
Christian’s voice ebbs back into his awareness just as the air is rushing out of his lungs, the other’s hand stilling again once more, splaying across his chest, skin just brushing skin where his shirt dips. “But Ozzy---” And there’s something serious in the constructions of sounds on his tongue. Not serious like tribal serious. But intent. Earnestly honest. “I’m going to get over it. I’m already getting over it.” He sucks in a breath, holds it, and says what he’s thinking, the way Christian always does. Gives over the pragmatic vision of the truth as he sees it, a clear-cut world that Ozzy has never inhabited, but likes touching through him, now and again, although maybe not now. “And I hope. I hope you do too.” But despite the resolute rationality, there’s something strangely emotional hidden in the curves of the words, this time, a lilt of bittersweetness, a curve of unadulterated fondness that’s all feeling. “It’s just a game, I hear.”
“You know it’s not just a game.” The words come curving out of him immediately, a rush of defensive intensity coloring them now, a flare of his usual impatient irritation---more life in them than there’s been in anything he’s said all evening, then he’s said for hours.
The silent For me. Lingers in the air between them.
Christian laughs again, a touch brighter now, a little less heavy, all emotion, all affection, and he’s shifting around a beat later, detaching his arm and sitting up straighter. He wraps his touch around Ozzy’s shoulder, and presses until he’s shifted onto his back. The hand settles there on his tanned skin, easing. Christian bends over him, deep blue eyes so sincere. It’s disarming, almost, hard to keep the connection, hard to feel laid bare by the look, so fucking flayed open as he is already. So wearily vulnerable.
“I know.”
There are fingers running through his hair now, tangling through the messy curls with focused, specific gentleness, like he’s worth the careful attention, like he didn’t totally implode and make a giant fool of himself, like he’s special, like he’s worthy. The hero, the god. Transcendence.
“It’s a game, and it’s not a game.” Christian is nodding, thinking, talking. “And we lost in it, but we’re okay. We’re here.” He gestures between them with his free hand. “And I’m not a hapless David anymore, convinced I’m incapable of leaving the lab, and you’re twenty times the man you were twenty years ago. Kinder, more patient,” A brush of slyness touches blue eyes, a hint of a smirk, a soft tug of hair. “Canoodling with a nerd.”
Despite himself, a thrum of laughter, genuine and small, huffs out of his throat, and Christian grins at it.
“See, you can still laugh at the inherent strangeness of our situation, despite your great time of sorrow, a winning quality.”
Ozzy pulls a face, but the smile lingers on lips, doesn’t fully fade away. And the touch of levity bubbles through his chest, addictingly effervescent. Christian’s fingers scrape pleasant against his skull.
“And, just scientifically speaking, you’ll always be stronger and hotter than me. So you have that going for you.”
He doesn’t try to pretend like the sentiment doesn’t please him, like he doesn’t enjoy to hear that kind of thing said to him. It’s too dark, probably, for Christian to see the exact way the surface of his cheeks flushes warm. But like he said, open book. Still. “That doesn’t matter.”
Cochran had won, in the end, despite the way he couldn’t compete in a challenge, or kill a chicken, or Ozzy’s cruel mockery, had won and built a complete life for himself.
And what had Ozzy done?
Crashed into wall, after wall, is crashing again.
Christian’s fingers pull him from the spiral, force him back to the room, and into now, away from the dangerous cliffsides of his brain.
“Well, not as much as the whole great big change things, certainly. But it’d be embarrassing for me if I started to name every single one of those, like I’ve been keeping an Excel spreadsheet or something, which I would never do. But cell 102, column C is your desire to do good in the world.”
The eye roll is put upon, but the rife redness on his skin ratchets higher, all natural.
Christian laughs, leans over him, fixes him with that expression again, the haunting, laser-focused one, his palm back on his shoulder. Their skin sears where it touches, where it connects.
“Tell me that you’re going to get over it.”
There’s command in the voice, demand, suddenly, challenge.
“I’m---” Ozzy starts. Then hesitates. His tongue stumbles on the words as he tries to reach for them, going leaden and uncertain. Uncertain if he can voice them, uncertain if he wants to. But he refuses. He refuses to not be able to say them. To back down from this challenge Christian has placed in front of him. His achilles’ heel, he’s sure the other knows. Maybe second only to a command… from the right person.
“I’m going to get over it.”
It certainly tastes like a lie on his lips, hovers like one in the air between them, hoarse and hollow, a little shaky. Not a drop of sincerity in it. But, well, he said it, and he couldn’t do it again right now. So, that will have to be enough.
Christian squeezes his shoulder.
“Fine, I’ll accept it for now. Given the circumstances, it wasn’t half-bad.” He chuckles at Ozzy’s huff and then leans over again to lie down on his back next to him.
“Tomorrow, you’re going to shower. And eat. Then you can try to teach me how to catch a fish, if you want. I’m sure that will be humorous enough to distract from the horrors for at least a little bit.”
They shift, resettle, the line of their arms pressed together. Christian’s fingers find his own, tangle their hands together, and Ozzy lets him, even squeezes back for a breath. His eyes are starting to get heavy, falling into slits.
“Okay.” He murmurs, low and drowsy, the upheaval of everything catching up in slow inches. “You should know how to catch a fish. Even though no one respects the fish anymore.”
Christian’s smile is indulgent. “These young people today! They don’t understand the old ways.”
“Shouldn’t have caught all those fish for Rizo.” The grouse comes a little slurred, almost petulant, as he shifts onto his side again, back to face the window, so the warm air can brush over his face, so the thrumming life of the jungle can fill his ears.
“Rizo will not be invited to our clubhouse,” Christian promises, and he’s close again, followed Ozzy’s shifts to wrap an arm around his side once more, to twine their bodies together and hold on tight.
Ozzy is not going to sleep through every night; he knows. There are sleepless nights ahead, long spirals of regret not yet lived.
But tonight, the sand and salt of the island still clinging to his skin, Christian’s arm tucked over his ribs, flush along the erratic rhythms of his heart, exhaustion creeping in from every corner.
He sleeps.