Survival Of The Fittest

Rosemary told her story. He had no doubt that the island was full of countless stories of equal or worse experiences. Joachim looked at him and internally Paris sighed. He was becoming tired of needing to bolster everyone. It was more beneficial to have calm, strong minded companions, but in truth the weight of the island and his own experiences were starting to wear on him.

But he still had it left in him. He looked at Rosemary with his big, green eyes all full of empathy. It felt slightly unusual turning his normal tricks on this girl given he knew that she was aware he had a penchant for pretending to be things he was not for his own ends. Perhaps she'd think that was exclusive to little pranks.

He took up her hand and continued gazing sympathetically at her. "I'm sorry that you had to go through that," he said earnestly while trying to remember what it was exactly she'd said a moment ago while he was more focussed on his own thoughts than listening to her plight. Paris leaned in to hug her and their metal collars clanked against each other. He looked at her collar, his eyes lingering on it when he pulled away.

"I don't want to be the third wheel here and it feels like you two might like a moment alone. I'm going to make sure there aren't any unsavory characters lurking," he said, picking up his gun.

When Paris wrapped his arms around her, Rosemary had the faintest memory of another moment he had done this. She had been scared back then, but she did not know why.

She did not reciprocate the hug, her arms staying at her side. She knew it was a part he had to play in this group. With him and Joachim, Paris had to be the charismatic leader. In her previous group, she had to be the intelligent plan-maker. Rosemary had failed her role, but she could not pretend to make Paris feel better with his. Talking had taken too much.

Her tired blue eyes looked at his emotion-filled green, only closing when their collars clacked together in the odd embrace. Joey, Paulo, and Meera had all died because of neck injuries. She flinched.

Paris said he would see if any enemies were around the area, and she gave a small nod to sign that she had heard. Rosemary still wondered what made her not an enemy to them. Maybe she just looked that pathetic.

Rosemary fussed a little with her shotgun when she moved to face Joachim as Paris left, tucking her hair back behind her ear. Getting caught in the rains had prevented her hair from becoming too oily, but it was filled with tangles and knots. She should probably brush it out, if she had the chance later.

"... Why am I not an unsavory character?" she asked Joachim. "I... I took a weapon you won, and afterwards we never met again. We didn't talk in school... so why are you letting me stay here?"

Paris gave Rosemary a hug, one that she did not return, before leaving her and Joachim alone, offering to watch for any potential enemies lurking.

He used the word 'unsavory characters'. Rosemary asked why she wasn't one.

Joachim's eyes wandered from Paris to Rosemary, his face expressing a genuine kind of surprise. One as if she just asked whether the sun is hot or whether water is wet. First, he wanted to say that Paris was good with people. That'd he would have said something if anything was amiss with Rosemary, given that it worked with Sunny as well.

Then he found an answer that wasn't dependent on Paris.

"You won the gun, as far as I can recall. Besides, you agreed to play a game with me. You could just as well have shot me as I turned my back. But you didn't, you played by the rules. Our rules, not dictated by anyone else."

He smiled again. If not for the dirt and the blood, it might have looked cute.

"See, that is where we are similar. And... I don't know, this is just the hunch I get."

Rosemary blinked. This day was becoming one filled with one epihany after another. Joachim was making sense. At that moment, when he and she agreed to play the riddle game, that was not something the terrorists had ever planned. They had probably been hoping for a bloodbath, a showdown between two players that would end with her dead and out of the way. A punishment for her act of defiance, despite its complete failure. With Joachim, she went against the rules their captors once more.

They had made up their own game, with their own rules.

"You... you didn't give me much of a choice," she pointed out, but it was a weak rebuttal. "And we're not..."

Rosemary could not find the words she had wanted to say. She was seeing Joachim without the threat of death in the immediate future, and it was almost like looking into a mirror of her psyche. They had used what was given to them to survive; Joachim had killed people. That would never change. But she had doomed others the moment she tried to dig her little knife into Becca's collar. Indirectly, and directly, she had caused manslaughter. Her hands were just as filthy as his, and yet they were both still here.

"... Maybe you're right." she accepted the image of herself that she saw in the boy. What good would it do to reject what Joachim said now? She had told her parents to stop watching. She would not worry what they would think anymore if they did not accept her own wishes. "We're both in this game, but we created our own, and followed it's rules... and we're still alive because of that."

Were those rules going to help now, though? They would not work on every occassion. Alda's screaming, and Meera's name on the announcements proved this. Rosemary and Joachim had their own game, but that did not mean everyone else played by its rules. Sooner or later, she would meet someone who would not care about her rules, and she would be face with a choice. Either die with those rules in tact, or to break her own.

She looked at Joachim's smiling face, and for once took notice of how he... honestly, wasn't that bad looking. Rosemary had tried to never notice boys during school. She had still carried emotional scars from bullying, and though they never said anything, her parents would have been unhappy if she was out late at night with a boy. Whenever she read a passage in a story that had dealt with romance, she could not help the bit of wistfulness that passed through her. She had always said to herself someday, someday I'll have that. But not right now, I'll have plenty of time for that later.

Now it hit her how unlikely that someday would come. And for the first time in a week, the awareness that Joachim was a boy ran over her with the weight of a speeding train.

Oh, shit. Her face was red, her dirty palms were being cleaned by growing sweat, and her heart rate kicked up. But there was no way to escape the flow of embarrasment and shame and longing crying out I don't want to be alone anymore.

"U-uh, Joachim?" Rosemary asked, her voice raspy from her previous speech, and biting her reddening lips furiously. "This... this will sound completely out of context, and- weird, b-but... have you ever had sex?"

To see that Rosemary could agree with him was nice to see. A gentle, warm glow filled his lower chest, the stiffness in his fingers decreased a bit and suddenly that question came.

Technically, it was very easy to answer. Yet he had to collect himself before giving an answer. He never had sex, and quite frankly never planned to have any. Not that he had much choice given his current situation, but nonetheless. Even if he due to some miracle entered society again, he'd not look out for sexual encounters. Not that he had any problems with sexual pleasure itself, but neither women nor men really appealed to him. In fact, the constant, sexualized images floating around him everywhere ranged from annoying over pitiful to grotesque.

"N... no. Why do you ask?"

He then noticed that Rosemary's face reddened, which caused him some concern. Perhaps she was suddenly very sick, even though Joachim had no idea how this would happen.

Joachim had never had sex. That made things even more awkward.

Rosemary tried to breath through her nose and calm her heart rate. "I-I haven't either."

She did not want to tell Joachim that the furthest contact she had had with a boy was probably the times Paris invaded her personal space. That would just make her feel even more stupid for what she was going to say next.

"This... this just came into my head. B-but... would you be against the idea of me and you... u-uh, doing... that thing?"

She wanted the earth to swallow her up again, but only this time out of embarrassment. Who the hell ever asked a person to have sex like she had just done? Especially when there were dead bodies of fellow classmates nearby, and the whole world could be watching... but she had just done it. Rosemary could not take back what she had said now.

"I-it would be like... another game. In t-this one we would promise n-not to shoot or stab each other after it happens. And in return... if, w-we do die, we at least experienced t-that thing, right?"

Rosemary's face was bright red as she covered it with her hands. "Oh, god. If this is freaking you out, just tell me to leave."

Oh, okay. This was even more unexpected. Fine, maybe not completely, but still.... huh.

Rosemary called it like being another game again. The conditions were simple, that they would not harm each other during and after doing it, with the gain for them both being that they at least didn't die as virgins.

This was a very, very, though decision, because there were surprisingly many factors weighting in. First, he wasn't really interested in doing 'it' with Rosemary, even though he respected her as a person. On the other hand, it might be this respect that should make him see this whole thing as some kind of... favor. After all, she brought him much fun back when they won the BKA, so maybe he should consider bringing her enjoyment this way?

Joachim pondered a few more factors in his head, filling the room with silence. Eventually, he thought he came to a decision.

"I... Fine, I'll do... it, because it's you."

Then he stiffened again. For some, to him not to be determined, reason his face reddened. He tilted his head down.

"Not that I have any idea how this works, so..."

Rosemary let out a breath of air, feeling relief and a warmth in her chest  at his answer. "T-thank you, Joachim."

But she was also scared. He said yes, but they were both virgins, with zero live experience on what to do in their... situation.

"U-um..." Rosemary looked down as well, trying to wrack her brain of any sex education she had gotten over the years and when she was brave enough to look on the internet. "W-well, I think we both have to g-get aroused first, otherwise it will probably hurt..."

She swallowed, balling her fists up to stop her hands from shaking. Her hands were not the most sanitary right now, and a soft surface would be better to do something like this, but there was no going back now. Rosemary decided to take the first steps into the unknown territory by scooting over to sit beside Joachim. She raised her hand, and her fingertips touched shirt material on Joachim's arm.

"M-maybe start with... kissing, I guess? And go from there?"

Joachim let out a small sound in agreement. The fact that his lips were tightly pressed together may or may not  have said something else. Jeez, killing people turned out to be a much more easier matter than having sex with them. This is where competent sex education would have been really convenient.

He watched down on her hand touching his shirt. Then he looked into Rosemary's face. He chuckled. Not exactly nervously, but there was a hint of uncertainity. Well, he has done much other, better things even if nobody showed him, so this whole deal may be just a matter of... warming-up?

At first, he closed in on her lips, but then decided to give Rosemary's nose brige a little kiss. It tasted weird. It felt weird, as his chin touched was gently poked by her nose. Hm... did he smell?

Oh, god. Oh, god, I'm about to have my first kiss. Rosemary chanted in her head. She tried to push back that this kiss would be with a murderer, on an island where all her classmates had died or were even dying at this moment. She would, for now, view the aviary as a protective bubble around her and Joachim. Where nothing could break it until this moment passed.

As Joachim's face descended towards hers, Rosemary let her eyes close in wait for their lips to connect. Only, in her anticipation, Joachim's lips had went off course, in between her eyes. It caused Rosemary to squint as her nose bumped against Joachim's chin, and she made a small squeak.

When Joachim pulled away, Rosemary's face seemed to be more red, the freckles along her nose more obvious. It looked like she would have to do this herself.

"U-um, I'll try now!" Rosemary announced to the boy in front of her, lifting her head and reaching to press her lips on Joachim's, only to miss her mark, and graze them against his chin.

"D-dammit..."

((Joachim Lovelace has been adopted at handler request.))

In movies, these awkward, fumbling moments were always portrayed as endearing, even enchanting. The first, wobbly steps of young love. Shaking bodies slowly entwining with a few clever, romantic words, and then...passion.

In reality, there was nothing magical about it. Not for Joachim, at least. This was less romantic and more...dutiful. Stabilizing. Rosemary needed this, it seemed. Demanded it, in a way. So he pushed through his discomfort, slowly moved his lips down, and silenced her soft curse by pressing against her mouth.

His eyes shut as the kiss pressed tighter. Visions of the next steps danced through his mind, not exactly passionately, but without too much beckoning. He saw them together, wound tight and gasping. His hands brushing through her hair, twirling, spinning, easing down along her shoulders. Tracing softly along the curves of her neck. Wrapping around them, curling together until they began to squeeze down. Her gasps turning more ragged, pleading as she struggled below him. Hands clawing for futile release as her eyes bulged up at his idly thoughtful expression.

A shudder ran through his spine as he pulled away from the kiss. "I...I can't do this," he stammered out, gazing at the floor. He'd killed her. Only in his mind, but that was inconsequential. The mere thought process had reminded him of where they were. Who he was. He'd sought to bring Rosemary joy and fulfill the debt he owed her, but there was only one service he could provide. People came to Joachim for one thing. With Paris, with Cho, with Jaq, Carmina, Adonis...he either killed for them, or he killed them.

Rosemary wasn't going to ask him to kill for her. So that left only one option. An option that he wasn't ready for.

Yet.

Rosemary was reminded how in all the books she had read, a first kiss was always soft and gentle. She knew to expect otherwise, but she was still surprised how it felt to kiss Joachim. Both of their lips were chapped, and his cold lips made her jump. Hers were burning hot, and an odd mesh came in with the joining hot and cold. Her body tensed up, and she did not know if it was out of fear... or anticipation of what came next.

But those feelings were gone as soon as Joachim pulled away. Rosemary wanted to ask why, but he was not looking at her. His face was looking at the ground. In disgust? In guilt?

The bubble she had tried to craft in her mind burst. Everything else came flowing back in. Rosemary remembered Joey's face as he clawed at his collar, the beeps drowning out screams. Her fault.

She remembered her argument with Paulo, when he wanted to first go looking for Maximilian. She imagined his corpse, neck bent at a crude angle at the bottom of the overpass. Her fault.

She heard Meera's yell to run echo in her head, playing against the back drop of the previous horrific images, until it molded into Meera's body, breathless and lifeless. Her fault.

It should have been her who had died those three times. It should have been her.

Rosemary caressed her lips with her fingers, then trailed them down to touch her collar. It was cold. Cold like the bodies of her friends and Joachim's lips.

Rosemary did not notice the hot tears that had begun to drip down her cheeks as she gathered her belongings in silence. She did not say goodbye. Everything had already been said in their actions. This was what rejection felt like.

(Rosemary Michaels continued to Hortensius.)

Without a word more, she was gone.

Some small, curious part of him hoped that he would never see her again. They could avoid the almost inevitable conflict rising between them. This was the second time he'd let her walk away not only unharmed, but with gifts. First, he'd given her a weapon. Now, a kiss.

It would reflect well on her gratitude if she had the courtesy to die elsewhere.

So he didn't call out for her, or watch where she went. He listened, waiting for her footsteps to echo back towards him, either for an explanation, an attack, or another bizarre attempt at comfort. They did not come, though. He was alone.

Satisfied, he turned away from their resting place and wandered of in search of his other companion. They enjoyed a simpler relationship. One where certain...necessities, were understood.

"Paris," he called out softly, "anything to report? Rosemary...left. It's just us now."

Just us. As it should be.

Paris was outside the dome, legs crossed, sitting on a bench with his eyes closed. He'd looked around for maybe two minutes before deciding on meditating. He appeared to be utterly unconcerned with the possibility someone might walk up and kill him. He was fairly confident that no one would. It wasn't part of the plan. He  had to be the survivor. It was the only thing that made sense.

For awhile, wandering alone after Sven had been killed he tried to understand why this had befallen them. Why would God do this to someone as good hearted, pious and faithful as he? It was similar to when he questioned why his father had died. That one had been much easier though. His father was a selfish, irresponsible, manipulative woman-using, bad person with many vices. He got what he had deserved.

It had taken some time for him to work it out, but eventually it was clear he was meant to be the survivor BECAUSE he was the most faithful. There were other good people in the class, there was no doubt. It was a shame they had to fall to prove the point, but when he emerged victorious, it would be an inspiration to people. They would see that living a good, Christian life would earn the protection of the Lord. That's how he knew no one would walk up and shoot him. That is how he knew he would win. Every time he'd been in a bind, he'd been provided for. It wasn't easy, hardship is a part the test, but he never felt like he'd been truly in danger.

And Sven's death was painful, but necessary. He did not begrudge God for it.

Paris heard his name called. Calmly he unfolded his legs and walked back to the dome with his things. He was unsurprised to find Joachim alone. Likely Rosemary had tried to convince him to run off with her and he chose to stay. Paris smiled.


"No, I didn't find anyone. Did you have a good talk?"  

Joachim wondered what qualified as good. It had been an effective conversation. An enlightening one. An illuminating discussion. But it hadn't been pleasant, positive, or any of the other numerous descriptors one could use to quantify "good."

It would give him something to reflect upon, at least, and to be fair it was merely a simple, offhand question. So he nodded. "Yes. I think we understand each other a little better, now."

He held a firm, formal posture with his hands clasped in front of his waist as he considered their situation. The entire encounter, coupled with the discovery of Jaq, left him feeling distracted, perhaps even a bit disgruntled. It was improper, if fitting. Here, inside the dome, the consequences of being distracted by Rosemary were on clear display.

"How should we proceed, Paris?"