I hate sand. Were Brian's thoughts as he swallowed the dramatic sigh that was begging to be released from it's confinements in his throat. Everyone was sitting around in a circle, couples clinging to one another, Debbie holding onto Vic near Michael and Ben. It had been two hours since they had crashed and an hour and thirty minutes of just sitting around staring at nothing. The only thing missing was blood hungry savages running out in small loinclothes shrieking an indecipherable language.
Justin is still in Brians arms, asleep, while the rest of them are awake and wondering what to say to break the silence. Ted had woken up twenty minutes ago and was wrapped tightly in Emmett's arms. Melanie and Lindsay had just about gotten over their frantic need over talking to Gus. Everyone had already checked their cell phones and no-one's had worked, so it took awhile to get the girls calmed down. Their bags were near their owners seats, thanks to Ben, Michael, Deb, and Vic who helped get them out of the plane.
Looking down at Justin, Brian felt his heart constrict for all his boy has been thru. Too much for his age. Only nineteen and he almost...died.
Gulping the lump that suddenly appeared in his throat, Brian was about to say something when Emmett spoke up.
"Wh-why don't we do something? Huh? A game, maybe, what do you think Teddy?" He punctuated the end of his questioning with the tightening of his hold on his lover.
"Sure, why not. Ben? Michael? Girls? What do you think?"
Shifting Justins's weight further up his arm, Justin let out a faint moan and sniffed, his eyes fluttering against his eyelids. Brian used his right hand that had previously occupied the back of his head, used the knuckles of his hand to lightly trace his cheekbone, his thumb rubbing against it a couple times before going back to it's original position. Right as his hand left, Justin's face turned in the direction the hand left, trying to regain the contact, letting out a slight whimper.
Brian hesitated a second before repeating the action, then trailing downwards towards his jawline. Resting the side of his hand against Justins face, his eyes traveled towards Justins eyelids right as his eyelids opened, revealing glassy blue eyes.
He barely resisted the urge to gasp at what he saw in them.
Love, fear, and pain reflected deeply within the ocean blue orbs he had grown to love. As soon as he was able to understand what he saw, the blonde cast away his emotions and thru up an emotionless façade.
Justin tried to move his head and was greeted with pain digging into the right side of it. Groaning, his left hand shakily went up to meet his head. Brian grabbed Justins wrist softly and rubbed the pad of his thumb over Justin's knuckles.
"Don't touch it." He said softly, but Justin indicated he heard him with forcing the muscles in his mouth upward to try and imitate a smile. Still rubbing his knuckles, Brian let their hands fall softly on Justin's upper chest while maintaining eye contact until Justins eyes flickered shut and he let out a drawn-out breath, turning his head to the left alittle, yet backing the back of his head up against Brians shoulder.
Unbeknownst to them, everyone was watching the interaction between the two.
"...Brian?" Michael asked.
"What?" He wasn't paying attention. Hell, everyone knew he wasn't paying attention.
"I asked what you thought about playing what Emmett wanted to play?"
"And what does the poor fag want to do?"
"Excuse me if I want to try and lighten the mood!" Emmett balked, turning his head up at them and 'umphed', turning his head away from Brian. The rest of them glared at him.
"What the fuck did I do? Fine, what do you want to do Emmett?" Brian asked, stressing his name to get his annoyed disposition across.
"Truth or Dare!" He replied with so much enthusiasm it made Brian want to puke all over him.
"Truth or Dare? What the fuck, are we in third grade?" When they all gave him a glare, he rolled his eyes.
"Fine."
Fine. Just one word. Now, why do I know I'm going to regret this? He thought to himself as Emmett happily bobbed his head from side to side.
"Alright! Let's play. Here...we need something to spin with." Emmett recited.
"Spin?" Lindsay.
"Yes." Emmett replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "The person that spins it gets to Truth or Dare the person it lands on. And the person that lands on it, after he accomplishes his task, spins it and can be the Truth or Darer next. Get it?"
"Umm-hmm." Lindsay nodded, followed by nods everwhere else. God damnit. Clones.
"Alright, so, um, what do we do with Justin?" Ted questioned, looking at Justin while the rest of the clones did the same thing.
Straightening his posture and getting ready to verbally assault Ted, Justin's quiet voice made Brian stop.
"I'll play."
"I don't think-" Brian started, who was quickly cut off by more rounds of the negative for Justin.
"Jesus, it's not like I'm going to fuck anyone, no strenuous activity on my part. Just spin and ask." Justin was already starting to get up and winced, his hands clenching on the sand. Brian's right arm immediately went around Justin's waist, his left trailing from between his shoulderblades to the back of his head.
"I'm fine." Justin harshly replied, struggling to sit up all the way and yelped, his right hand darting towards his head. He would have falling down if it hadn't been for Brian holding him up.
"Damn your pride, Justin, your not alright. Now stop being a fucking twat and let me help you up," Brian said, lifting Justin carefully out of his lap and placing him gently on the ground on his left, where he was between himself and Emmett, who still had a grasp on Ted.
Lindsay tried not to, but a giggle bubbled up and escaped her throat, which eventually turned into a full blown laugh, with everyone but Brian and Justin laughing. Or amused.
"God damn clones." Brian mumbled.
"Huh?" Justin asked, squinting against something Brian couldn't see or feel.
"Nothing."
Justin just nodded.
Emmett shook his head and pulled a bottle of water out of his backpack. "Here, we'll use this to spin. I, will go first."
Emmett sashayed over to the center of everyone, giving Ted a view of his ass. Smoothing over a nearly flat area of sand, Emmett placed the bottle onto it carefully.
"Ok. Here I go..." Emmett touched the bottle cap and spun it around clockwise.
Everyone watched the bottle spin around twice before landing on Justin. Eyes upon Justin, who was currently trying hard not to lean against Brians shoulder looked up from the sand near his feet to find everyone staring at him. He tried raising an eyebrow but found out it hurt too much and hissed at the pain, left hand instinctively trying to reach his forehead. Before it could touch it's target, Brians hand slapped it away.
"Don't." He replied firmly.
"Asshole."
Brian cocked a brow but said nothing.
"Well...from what I can see, Emmett landed on me. So I guess I'll have to pick, eh?"
"Yep. Truth or Dare?" Emmett gleefuly asked.
Justin pondered the question. "Truth."
Emmett cocked his head to the left, eyes tilted upwards and he made a sound that was supposed to be 'hmmm', but sounded more like 'mmmm'.
As if something brilliant struck his mind, his eyes popped upon and perked up even more. Oh god.
"Why didn't you fuck the pilot?"
That obviously wasn't what Justin was expecting because for a milli-second surprise was in his eyes, which was quickly replaced by a neutral gaze. Brian could have sworn he'd seen it, but it was gone so fast...
Justin blinked. "He was our pilot." He stated as if that would explain everything. It didn't.
"Yeah...and a total stud muffin!" Emmett exclaimed.
"Hey," Ted said, his eyebrows drawing in towards his eyes.
"But you're still my stud muffin." Emmett replied, leaning in to give Ted a kiss. When their lips were about to make contact, Brian felt, more than saw, Justin shudder, and the next thing he knows, he's got Justin's face shoved on his shoulder, his left cheek smushed against his shoulder.
"Baby?" Emmett asked after he'd given Ted his kiss. He looked concerned over at Justin.
"Gross." Justin said, loud enough to be heard by everyone. Debbie laughed and Emmett mocked behind wounded.
"Why, I am so hurt!" He replied dramatically, his fingers clenching at his shirt where his heart is.
Justin shook his head and when Brian had a downward side-view of the blonde's mouth, he could see the corner of his mouth, on the right side of his lips, curve up into what had to be a geniune smile, which was quickly turned into his poker-face when he turned towards everyone else. But Brian saw it.
"Anway," Melanie started, stressing the word, "back to the question. So...? Why didn't you?"
Justin grunted. "I didn't want to."
Emmett was about to reply when he thought better of it and closed his mouth and forced it into a smile.
"Well, okay honey, but I still say you need to get laaaiiid," Before Justin could say anything, Emmett continued, "now it's your turn to spin the bottle."
Justin blinked and began to move forward when his temple throbbed and he barely swallowed the groan of pain just in time. He didn't want Brian to become over-protective. Again. But it seemed like nothing was going his way, because Brian seemed to sense it and reached out his hand to touch him.
When Justin felt the hand being touched to the small of his back, he instinctively flinched and jerked away from it, gulping, trying to get away from the wandering hand.
"Hey," Brian said softly, and reached for him again, and this time was just met with tense muscle instead of him pulling away. "be careful. Don't want to take you to the tribal doctors. Who knows how they treat their patients here." He tried to joke. He felt warm inside when he saw a small, geniune small for a moment, before being instinguished.
"I'm fine." Fine seemed to be the theme for today.
Justin slowly crawled forward and laid his hand ontop of the water bottle. He felt sweat bead on his forehead and tried not to pass out as he shoved the bottle as hard as he could and wasn't surprised when it didn't go far and landed on Brian.
"Jesus, can't I get anything right?" Justin mumbled to himself before crawling backwards towards his earlier seat.
Brian had to physically restrain himself from getting up and picking Justin up, and throwing him inside the abandoned plane until he got better. But he knew Justin wouldn't appreciate it if Brian kept up the protective bullshit, even if he couldn't help it most of the time.
"I don't know what to ask. Why don't you guys just skip me while I try to go to sleep." Justin winched and leaned against Brian and couldn't stop the sigh that parted his lips as he felt the pain in his temple lessen.
Brian didn't say anything out loud, but he was glad Justin was talking about going to sleep. He wanted his boy to rest.
Brian leaned forward, and grabbed a pillow and blanket from the horde in the middle of their little circle.
He wrapped the blanket around the lithe form of his ex-lover and bunched it together, making sure to trap as much heat as possible to the motionless blonde.
"There," Brian responded, at a loss as to what to do now with the pillow. He didn't know where Justin would want to sleep.
Justin took the decision from him, and held onto the pillow, slowly crawling about a foot away from Brian, the closest to him, and he flopped down ungraciously, cuddling up in a fetal position, his head facing away from them, all to aware of the gash on the right side of his head.
Brian kept his gaze on the blonde and when he looked back towards the group, they were all staring at him.
"What the hell are you all staring at? Aren't we supposed to be playing a game?" He looked at Emmett, and Emmett nodded and continued his questioning.
After about ten minutes, everyone was tired from jet lag, but more importantly, from being abandoned on an island with none of their cell phones working.
They all more or less huddled together,a blanket and pillow apiece all of them reassuring themselves in their minds that help would soon be on the way, so they wouldn't need to get more civilized means of sleeping arrangments, so they might as well sleep outside; plus, it would make more sense. If someone came by here in a helicopter, and they only saw the wrecked plane, they might not tell anyone about it until awhile later, and by then they might get eaten by crazed animals, or go hungry.
Shaking their heads, all of them sharing similar thoughts, they fell asleep rather quickly, glad for the reprieve of thinking of starving to death, all alone (with each other) and skinny.
Brian lay awake, and his gaze landed on the huddled form of Justin. Maybe I'll just...well, he was just in an accident...yeah, I should. No-one would blame me; in fact they might if I don't... Mind made up, Brian quietly gathered his sleeping items and slowly walked to Justin.
Blue eyes looked into startled hazel. Brian hadn't mean to wake Justin, and he started to head back to his segregated area with a sorry, when Justin pulled back the blanket covering him, his eyes never breaking their stare.
Brian rolled his lips into his mouth and layed down, half of Justin's cover, covering him, and he used his blanket to ensue that they both have some extra heat. He placed the pillow beneath his head, and tried to ignore that his body was touching the blonde's.
"'Night," Was barely heard thru the lips of his blonde ex-lover, as he turned around, his back to Brian, with the intent to sleep--although he knew he wouldn't, with the auburn hair man laying next to him.
"'Night," Brian whispered, and turned towards the younger man's back. His hand on it's own accord, slithered towards Justin's waist. He felt the blonde tense and immediately pulled his hand away.
What the fuck am I doing?! Brian asked himself. He couldn't believe he'd just done that. Suddenly, he felt a warm back being pressed against his chest.
Justin snuggled against the warm figure and sighed, his eyes sliding closed as he drifted off to sleep, none of the fear that had plagued him every second of every day of the last six months since Brian and him had parted ways, was there. He finally felt safe.
Brian rubbed his nose against the blonde's neck in the familiar position they had shared and let his nose rest there, the slight smell of the blonde causing him to relax, and the fact that it was a non-tense body beside him, lulled him to sleep.
He would think in the morning.