Survival Of The Fittest

Ivan's cheek brushed up against her own. There was an unexpected fuzz that rubbed against her skin. The coarse hairs scratched her first as he moved up her face. But as he rubbed himself against her cheek, it became much more gentle. Softer. His breath brushed inbetween her frayed hair, gently tickling her neck.

"Every Day."

Tabi closed her eyes. Her arms dug deeper into Ivan's back, pushing him into her body. The answer was painful, constricting, and yet, it was as if the tension in her body had syphoned out into the cool summer air. A relief that washed over her body like the river she bathed in days ago. Back when Ivan had killed Keith...In fact, he had cried back then, didn't he? It was only days ago, and yet, so much had passed.

They were the same. It was something that they could share. Whether either wanted to or not was uninportant.

Ivan's hand caressed Tabi's back, waking her from her temporary stasis. Her eyes reopened to view the vast ocean that was behind her. Her face had lifted upwards. It felt foreign to her. Back in the day, it was much easier. She could laugh about someone quoting the latest Will Ferrell movie. Some stupid quote but it was funny anyways.

It felt good to smile.

"It's funny...How the world becomes a far less scary place when you're not alone."

She hummed in approval. It felt good to be with someone. Felt good to have...

To have kissed someone...

Her jaw slackened and a hand went back to her lips. Ivan had kissed her. Twice. Tabi had returned it once before, but her mind began to fill up with new thoughts.

The boy who had protected her throughout their journey had kissed her.


She had never had a boyfriend before. Never a serious one. Kissing had never really happened in her life. But when Ivan had done it she felt warm.



But there was doubt in her mind.



"Ivan..."



Pulling away from their embrace, Tabi looked up to the eyes of the boy in front of him. Her lips curled up, and her eyes darted to the ground. A steady heat was beginning to rise within her.

Looking back at her companions face, Tabi took a deep breath.


Leaned forward.




And kissed him.




She did not stay long, a second at most, before returning back to her kneeling position. Her warm face had now grown into a furnace and a smile flickered up and down her face. It was only a moment...but the moment felt...good...


And still there was doubt...



Tabi rubbed her hands, as if they were the only part of her that remained cold. She gently placed them in-between her knees and continued to rub them, hoping for the warmth to transfer to her palms. Her eyes dared not look to Ivan, for fear of what he could say in response.



"Um...yesterday." Tabi wrung her hands.



"Back when you..."



Tabi's mouth flinched upwards...


"D-did you?"

The kiss told him everything, and yet Ivan still knew nothing. His efforts to cheer up Tabi had some weight to them, and she returned them in what was supposed to be a standard display of affection. This was all supposed to be so simple, which made him wonder just why he had been so confused. Suddenly, Tabi had grown so bold. She pulled away, just for a moment, and then she leaned in and had kissed him again. It wasn't a long kiss, but it was enough, a reminder of the kisses they had shared yesterday.

"Um...yesterday... back when you... d-did you?"

Ivan looked up to his weeklong companion as she knelt beside him, and he wondered just what the emotions behind her question were. He sat up to try and get closer to that face... closer to her in general, but she seemed to be turning away from him, trying to hide it as she had before in order to keep all the emotions from pouring out. He was once that kind of person once, too. He always tried to keep everything that he was thinking or feeling away from everybody else, and nobody had ever managed to tear down that wall if he didn't want to let that in. Until now, that was. Both of their defenses were down around the other, and with that thought, Ivan realized exactly what Tabi was asking of him.

"Did I mean... what we did?", he finished for her, trying to push himself up from his crossed legs to a kneeling position to match her height. His legs, weak with shaking, caused him to nearly topple as he forced his bent legs off of his toes and onto his knees. "When we kissed, you mean?" If only he could look at himself, he would see that he was every bit as red-faced as Tabi was. The chilly, breezy beach was now suddenly very warm, but from what, he couldn't tell. His own body felt overheated, but the sun would not be up again for a few more hours.

His arm moved nearly of its own accord to drape itself over Tabi's shoulders. When he did so, he felt the heat that practically seemed to be radiating off of her as well. All of this meant something, something which may have been flying in the face of the rest of this island's meanings. Ivan cared not for the rest of this island and the broken ties on it, if he could have the one that he had forged through fire. Tabi Gweneth meant more to him than he ever thought any one thing could mean outside of his family. He was willing to give so much of himself up for her, to the point where he had nearly given up his life a few times to save her own. Yes... he meant every bit of that.

His head leaned in... before either of them could say anything else, his lips had brushed against the side of her neck, his hand giving her far shoulder a gentle squeeze to get her to look at him. He was right there, ready to show her exactly how much he meant, even if he couldn't answer the question of 'why' yet. He, himself, still didn't know why this has happened, and there was no love for the island itself, but... but just her, that was different. One bright spot in a dark, murky land, one glimmering spot of intense warmth... that, he never wanted to lose.

When Ivan first replied with a question, Tabi looked up to the blonde man that sat before her. He joined her in a kneeling position and stared to her. It had finally come to her attention, that even now, she was taller than him. He had always seemed like a giant of a man, casting down as a silent shadow to protect her from whatever deadly situation that they had found themselves in. Or perhaps it had been the other way around. Countless times she had hidden behind him, sheltered herself from Nick and Clio. Even when she had stood up to Imraan, she had made herself small. Weak. Afraid.

And yet here they were now, and she was slightly taller than the man that she had kissed. Tabi was never small back at home. She knew that, she was loud, boisterous, full of energy. Where had it gone these past 6 days? What had happened to it? She almost laughed at what had happened to the talkative kid in History class, but found the ocean too peaceful a noise to overturn.

"When we kissed, you mean?"

Ivan was blushing before her. Tabi blinked, processing that thought. Ivan had never blushed before, at least as far as she could remember. Had he blushed? Back when he kissed her before? She couldn't remember. Even a day ago, there was nothing she could remember, nothing she could recall.

And yet, her lips parted open. Teeth poured through, beaming out into the night.

Ivan's arm had found itself around her shoulder and he moved in. Tabi had not expected where his head moved. He weaved under her chin and planted his lips upon the bare skin.

Tabi gasped. It was gentle, his lips against her skin, gently they found folds in her neck and rested against her. She looked down to him, his eyes luminent in the darkness. They were so confident, his blue eyes. There was something about them; a bravery that said more than a simple yes could ever tell her. Her body slumped, tension seeping out of her body. She took in air, and gently eased it out of her.

Tabi closed her eyes and merely took in all the feeling inside. The warmth of his lips and hands upon her body. The brushing of his fuzzy cheeks against her skin. The feeling of her body rising and falling with every breath. The smell of Ivan's body. The feeling of her lips only moments ago touching his. Her mind was so focused now on this moment, this realization. She did not wish to let it escape her. Not again.

A low rumble purred out betweene her feline grin. Never again...



When his lips parted ways, Tabi's eyes opened. She made a low wordless cry, but said nothing. Her body sagged back down, hands pressed down upon her legs.

She looked down at the grass, only for a moment. What was there to say? Had they really said all that they could now? It had felt like there was something left down upon the table. Something that she could do, now that all the answers were given.

Her gaze turned back to the blue. It was her turn to move toward him again. She had done too little. Ivan had been the loudest of them all.

Tabi weaved her arms under his own and pushed him into her. Her teeth returned in a wide smile, a smile reminscent of back home.

And she kissed him.

Tabi refused to break away so early now. This time, she knew and this time she would do it right. It was at first a single held kiss. But it soon broke out into smaller, quicker kisses. Ivan's had moved on for a lifetime, these rapid displays of affection was her own repayment.

Soon Ivan responded in kind and the two exchange series of small kisses. Each of them kept each other closer now, as close as they could possibly be. His arms had looped over her shoulders and now they connected at the crest of her back. Tabi's own arms weaved into a hug around his own.

It had become a blur, what either of them did. For Tabi, all that she could feel was this intense swelling from within her. This warmth that now enveloped her entire body. It was not sweltering, instead it merely soothed her into a state of quiet joy. A joy that the two of them were able to share alone, but together.

With sorrow, Tabi finally broke her lips away from him. She felt the force of sleep trying to reach out from within her, but was able to supress it. Her grin remained plastered upon her as she searched for fresh air. Gently, both she and Ivan started to slide back down to the earth, maintaining that warm, but gentle embrace.



Breathing returned to normal...


Sleep started to force Tabi's eyes shut. She had finally found the words to say. Words that needed to be said, before she dozed.

"Good night...Ivan..."

Tabi pushed herself towards him and gave him one final kiss on his forehead.

"I love you..."

Tabi's eyes shut once more. And she started to drift off into the night, carried away by the sound of the ocean waves.

Her sleep, went undesturbed. Her embrace, never weakened. Until the morning came...

((Tabi Gweneth continued in White Sparrows))

Every inch of skin that the collar wrapped around Tabi's neck prevented Ivan's lips from reaching caused him to damn the device that much more. It served as a symbol of her servitude as an unwilling plaything for an organization that cared nothing about their survival; to them, they were nothing but slaves. The same symbol was strapped around his own throat as well, and it times, it could make him feel like a dog answering only to others. How strange it was, then, that kissing Tabi's neck and placing himself so close to the dark symbol liberated his soul more than ever before.

With just his lips gently brushing up against her skin, then pressing in and kissing with care, Ivan felt as though he could feel every part of Tabi's essence through such minimal contact. Her warmth was far more prevalent through his lips, which were also more sensitive to feeling the rushing pulse driving through her. Every wiggle and stiffening of her muscles became amplified to him, as though she had become his entire world as he displayed his care to her, not caring if the world saw. The collar was no longer there to him, because to him, Tabi was nobody's slave nor toy. She was his companion, which he would do anything for.

He felt the low rumble of joy bubble from Tabi just before he pulled back, but knowing that he had pleased her was worth more than many past experiences. Upon the separation, though, the pleasured purring was quickly replaced with a slight whimper. It held some disappointment which she conveyed without hesitation, but Ivan could not deny that it somehow tickled his ear. She had gone from cute to adorable with that one simple cry, and he suddenly had to hold himself back from going beyond what might have been comfortable.

Where had his boundaries gone, Ivan no longer so much as wondered, for they seemed to have rolled out with the last tide. All he wanted to focus on now knelt beside him, and they each held a part of the key which could unlock their shackles, allowing them to throw away the chains that bound them and marked them as slaves. In a world with just them in it, nobody could own them, and that's the emotions Ivan wanted to share with Tabi. Her body seemed to tell him the same thing, but he couldn't be so sure that they were both ready to break free. That was, of course, until she kissed Ivan with no inhibitions, no manacles. She acted with all the freedom that he so craved, and in doing so, received his own freedom from her.

Their breathing felt so rushed, and time was doing all it could just to keep up with them. Time could go straight to hell if it meant this kiss lasting forever. One turned into many, many turned back into one, and every touch, kiss and caress only brought them closer together. Only one more wall, thin as it could be but made of lead, stood to be broken before they were to share everything, attatched only to each other and lead along by the nose by nobody. If that wall could ever be broken, however, was not up for just one of them to decide, and they could never just actively decide to break it. It had to happen on its own, dictated by what they felt.

A natural flow came back to the consciousness when the kisses began to slow. Ivan found himself desperately clinging to the moment, wishing that each time their lips met would last the rest of the night, only to lose that string of hope when the kiss broke off, and to regain it for the next one. When the moment finally came where Tabi pulled her kind, expressive and overt face away, it was Ivan's turn to utter the faintest of protests, though his mouth brought itself into a smile regardless. To live that moment was bliss, but there were to be more moments. They would survive to experience that again, he was sure of it. While they now seemed so far apart compared to their locking of lips, Tabi held him close and he coveted her in return as they laid back down onto the patch of grass.

"Good night, Ivan."

Ivan found his head tucking forward as Tabi moved in to kiss his forehead, accomodating her wish with no complaint. The moon was more than willing to betray his slight blush at the passionate moment, but he faced Tabi head-on, kneading her back once more with his hands as they held each other. There were only three words he could say in response to such a thing, and he was more than happy to...

"I love you..."

He did not move, though it felt as though his body had jumped up. His heart would have stopped, but it was too busy pounding through his chest. To hear the words from her, from Tabi herself, was to hear the calling of an unearthly being. Ivan said them over and over in his head until they no longer made sense, but they could never lose their meaning. Not from whom they had been given.

"I love you too... Tabi..."

He struggled to keep his eyes open as he gave to her a piece of his heart equal to what shhe had bestowed unto him, even if there was no defeating the incredible red rush overpowering his flesh. Even when sleep called, he felt so invigorated and whole. They had both finally said it to one another, and the walls had come crumbling down. Now they could both sleep, each having the other to keep them safe. For once, the first time ever since he had woken up on this rock, he felt whole, and could sleep without being plagued by his own nightmares. Sleep would be such a wonderful thing...

I love you so much. More than you might know. More than I can express. In the morning... in the morning we'll...

((Ivan Kuznetsov, continued in White Sparrows))