Survival Of The Fittest

((OOC Note: Private Thread))

((Ethan Kent continued from The Man-slut the Cocktease and the Lover))


Ethan and Feo had taken off walking from the tunnels in the direction of some mountains off in the distance. It was already past sunset and the mountains seemed like they would be a good source of natural shelter at the very least. In any case, Ethan was glad to finally be above ground and away from exploding things and those that would try to explode them.

The two decided to stop for the night in a well protected patch of greenery and trees in the mountains. He looked over briefly at his traveling companion. If you had to trek around a fucking murder island, doing it with a hot chick wasn't such a bad way to do things. Even better, this hot chick was his kind. She had enough brains in her head not to do anything stupid, enough will to keep going and not crumble like the girl freaking out back at the caves, and enough bitchy-ness to make her entertaining to talk to.

He threw down their bags near a tree and started looking around for dry leaves and twigs. Ethan borrowed her oar to dig a hole 5 inches deep and threw the leaves and twigs in it. He gathered up some rocks and put them around the edges of the hole, then picked up a piece of wood and with a rock he carved a groove down the center. Ethan picked up a stick and ran it down the groove until a little pile of wood dust had accumulated. Next, he ran the stick down the groove as fast as he could and his reward was a small smolder from the dust. Gently, he blew on the tinder until it was recognizable as flame and tossed it into his pit. Soon they had a small fire to keep them company.

Ethan wiped his forehead and leaned back against a tree. The little fire crackled away happily. He looked over to Feo.

"Wanna have dinner?"

((Feo Eleri Smith contuined from The Man-slut, the Cockslut, and the Lover))

If they hadn't been trying to stay alive on an island full of killers (as if neither of them would kill if pressed) Feo might actually think this was the damn camping trip. She didn't even mind all the the walking, she did that shit every day. The girl had changed into her yoga pants and tennis shoes, just to be practical for once.

Hell, the place Ethan found was just like a camp ground. She had been camping a few times before with her family, and . . . ugh, this was not the time for that sappy shit. It was never the time for that sappy shit.

She lean back against a tree and watched Ethan make the fire. They hadn't threated to kill each other in a while, to her surprise. Feo figured something would set one of them off soon, so she tried to enjoy this.

"Yeah, sure. If we weren't in mortal danger, I'd think you were asking me out, Ethan."

She winked at him.

Barbs of hunger were stabbing up from his stomach through to his chest. It had been almost two days since he had eaten. Ethan hadn't really brought any food on the trip so all that was left was the disgusting white bread they had been provided with. He hated white bread, but when push comes to shove there isn't room to be a picky eater. He stuck his hand inside his duffle bag, fishing around to find the loaf but his hand felt something soft and unfamiliar; plastic. He pulled out a package of marshmallows. Taped to the bag was a note.

"Can't go camping without marshmallows, little bro. – Whitney"


"Right, camping," he laughed to himself. He grabbed a near by stick and tossed it to Feo. After ripping the bag open and grabbing a handful he tossed the bag to her too.

"So what if I am? I don't want to imply that you are a cheap date, but the menu is a bit limited. It's cool, I definitely won't tip the waiter. This place sucks."

Are we going to die and this rock? Yes. At least she will. So why not try to have some fun before we bite it?

"So what's first date stuff we would talk about? We've already got basic first aid and threats of violence out of the way. So what, like, casual hobbies and bomb making is next, right?"

Feo grinned, because marshmellows. It was a stupid thing to be happy about, but how much good news had she gotten here? A fucking oar?

She was very pleased with getting that oar though.

Her eyes lit up as she grabbed some marshmellows out of the bag and placed the on the stick. Damn, she wished she was the type of chick that ate a lot, because S'MORES. God, this place was turning her into a hypotheticial fatass.

"Aww, Ethan, you have to tip the waiter. How rude! If that fucker ever shows up, that is . . ."

She placed her marshmellows over the fire.

"Well, yeah, that's what we would talk about. And I'd say the typical girl shit like "I just want a salad" and "I don't kiss on the first date", but since we have to speed this up - both of those are bullshit."

No harm in confessing now, right?

"My bomb-making skills suck, but I play a mean sax. I had a job offer at a jazz club, my first day was supposed to be after the trip. But since we got red-shirted (yep, daddy was a Trekkie), guess I get to stay unemployed.

So, what do you do when you're not fighting for your life?"

Ethan slid two marshmallows onto his stick and held it out to the fire.

"Doesn't matter. I don't have to tip shit as long as we don't plan on coming back."

The sugar began to burn and turn the puffy balls slightly brown.

"You know, if you count me tending to your wounds and spooning in a dirty mine shaft, this might actually be our third date. Then again, if we do count that, that means Duncan and I are on our way to a fancy meal too. Wherever he is…"

He sat with his left hand supporting his head while his right lazily turned the stick.

"No one wants just a salad besides dirty hippies. In the interest of speeding things up I'll skip the parts where I tell you that your eyes are my favorite part about you and that I liked The Notebook and you have a beautiful soul or whatever bullshit girls like to hear so guys can get in their pants."

Ethan turned his head and looked at Feo as she warmed up her marshmallow. The golds and reds lit up her up in a sort of glow. Past her the firelight melted into the shadows.

"Saxaphone?" he said, genuinely impressed. "That's…..actually really cool. But-"

He stopped himself. He was about to say "but I don't think you'll be playing again anytime soon." Ethan had just enough tact to know not to remind the sax player that she was SOL on that job without the correct number of fingers.

"….but well, when I'm not running around avoiding getting blown up and carved up I fix stuff. I fix cars, I fix computers, I build stuff. I got accepted to the University of Michigan. For the electrical engineering program. So, my bomb skills are actually….well…bomb."

It was a horrible pun, but he couldn't help himself. He smirked at his own joke and pulled his marshmallows out of the fire.

Careful. Don't like her. You can nail her but don't like her. You're screwed if you do. She's gotta die. They all do. No other way out. If this bitch tries to play you, you've gotta know you can gut her like that kid on the video. No mercy.

"All we need now is for that fucker to come over the P.A. with some violin. He's probably busy whacking off to road kill right now or something, so we're just gonna have to provide our own ambiance."

He blew on the end of the sweet and took a bite.

"Bomb? That's so damn cheesy, it's sad. But if we were on our first date, I'd laugh. Not to make you feel better, but because that was really bad."

She took a bite. It was slighly burned, just how she liked it. Just like he- man that was fucked up. She needed to change out the bandages, but she really wasn't all that worried about it. Even though that shit still hurt.

This was a first date after all.

"Nah, Danya isn't classy enough for violin. He'd be playing some pop tart crap. But engineering? That's awesome, you've gotta be smart for that. Color me impressed."

And back home, you could color her annoyed and imtimidated too. Intelligent people were so damn condse- whatever, they looked down on you. They looked at you, young and pretty and not all that smart, and thought they were so much better than you. But it didn't matter anymore.

Feo got up and moved closer to Ethan. She leaned against against him, he was warm and it was nice. Which was so wrong, considering she'd kill him, he'd kill her, and they both knew this.

"So, what's your type, Mr. University?"

"Danya is a classy guy. Klassy with a 'k.'."

Ethan started eating his marshmallows more quickly now that they were cooling.

"Thanks. I am pretty smart," he said, beaming. It was his greatest point of pride after all. He wasn't super athletic nor was he artistic or especially charismatic, but he was smart. Enough that those things he didn't have didn't matter as much.

He smirked to himself when she moved to lean against him, but all the same a little shiver ran through out him where she made contact. It settled down into comforting warmth between the two of them. It was strangely affectionate for the situation, which made his smirk soften slightly into a plain smile.


"Girls I like…" he said, trying to think. He slid the remaining pieces of his marshmallow off of the stick and popped them into his mouth. "I like fun girls. I'm not a super serious guy, so if a girl can have fun then she's cool by me. Also, they can't be annoying, asking questions every five seconds, or screaming all the time or trying to drag me to chick flicks. Sometimes I'll put up with that shit if the girl is super hot, but she's gotta be a real piece to go through that, and even then, I wouldn't stick around long if they grate on me too much. That being said, I like cute girls, obviously. I like driven girls. I like….girls that can play the sax…" he said, smiling again.

He set the stick aside and looked down at her to see what her reaction would be. Ethan wanted to push his glasses up, they were sliding down his nose a bit, but he didn't want to move and disturb her position.

He likes girls that play sax.

Now Ethan, why the hell did you have to go and do that?

Feo could understand him using her. This was a game, that was the kind of shit that happened. It was mutal, it was fine. Hell, Feo had been using guys all her life, for her amusement, for cash, to feel better after she failed some damn test. And they never got what they wanted, and she always got want she wanted, because that's just how Feo rolled, damnit.

Feo had actually liked a guy once. He was on this island too, somewhere. But he wasn't here, and Ethan was, and if she was being honest with herself . . .

She liked guys that liked her. She hoped he was setting her up for a fight because what the fuck was she going to do if she li- she liked Ethan, one them had to die.

What now?

"Ethan, you just turned us into a fucking Shakespeare play, you know that? This is Sur- fuck it, you know the deal as well I do."

She popped some marshmellows in her mouth and chewed hard. He was so damn dumb, carrying her shit and watching her back so he could stab her in the front. That's how it was supposed to work, not this stupid feeling shit.

Feo sighed, then straddled Ethan. She pushed his glasses up, then looked him dead (how funny) in his eyes. She spoke softly, but there was a definite edge to her voice.

"You want to kill me? Look, here's your chance. If you don't take it, I'm going to have to assume you're not lying. That you like me. So what's it gonna be, Mr. University?"

Quicker than he realized, Feo was now pretty much in his lap, both thighs on either side of him. She gently pushed his glasses back up his face and laid it down on the line.

"I don't want to kill you, but it might happen when we get down to the wire. Neither of us is stupid and we both know this isn't gonna end with the two of us looking back at this rock while we float away on the winner's boat and hold hands, but I wasn't lying. I do like you," he said, surprising himself with the truth.

Ethan closed the gap to her and turned his head slightly to the right, fitting their lips together like puzzle pieces. For a second during the contact, all he could hear was the happy crackling of the small fire pit next to them. He pulled back slightly, separating them.

"Truce?" he asked sternly.

Feo felt butterflies in her stomach. Ethan liked her, she liked him. And was willing to kill her but hey, shit happened right? Right.

This is how she had planned to spend her camping trip anyway.

"Yeah, truce. We're on our first date, after all."

She grinned, and put a finger to his lips. After all, they only had so much time to be together. They could talk later.

She closed the gap between them again. And she kissed him like he was her boyfriend, like it was prom night, like it was their damn graduation day.

She whispered, lips pressed against his ear. For once, Feo was a little nervous. Not enough for it to matter, but still.

"Would you like to come back to my house for coffee?"

How many times has a guy asked me that one? Guess this place changes everything.

She'd agreed to a truce. How long it would last, Ethan couldn't say. They hadn't exactly ironed out the details, but now didn't seem like a good time for negotiations. This time she initiated the kiss and he pushed back against her wholeheartedly. He drank her in hungrily and took hold of her shoulders, trying his best not to squeeze where he felt the texture of gauze. Holding her brought a rush of heat to his face and all of the sudden she was gone again. Now she was whispering, he swallowed. Ethan could feel her breath against his ear.

"I don't like coffee," he said in a hurried tone. "But for you I'd empty out a Starbucks and then lick the machines after."

His mind was moving a mile a minute, thoughts zooming around like still photographs being thrown at him. Gradually though, they seemed to be fading away, replaced with just the girl in front of him. He slid his hands down from her shoulders to her torso, sliding until his fingers curled under the bottom of her shirt.

Okay. So today hasn't been all bad.

Feo grinned. Oh, he knew just what to say, and she was going to reward him for it. Her eyes were lit up like it was Christmas Day. She just looked into his eyes for a bit, doing the whole "savoring the moment" thing.

After a bit of that though, she'd had enough. She nipped at his neck, while trying to pull his shirt off. Her movements were jerky, frantic. She needed this more than she knew.

She remenbered the cameras, and giggled. Guess this is my first and last time in porn. She waved, and said something in Portuguese.

"Wren, mom, dad, turn the damn channel."

Ethan yanked off her shirt, reached around for the clasp of her bra and was about to finish his fumbling with the waist of her skirt.

Be a gentleman. She's missing fingers, lend a hand.

He tried his best to accommodate her and rip off his shirt, but the process knocked his glasses off so that they dangled from one ear. He took a moment to replace them back to their normal position so that he could see.

Does it feel like the room is spinning? Wait…there is no room, we're outside. I'm not good at….thinking right now.

She stopped and said something he didn't understand. It didn't matter what she said, but it did sound hot.

Survival of the fittest. Sure. That fucker wants to take away everything from us. Everything you ever knew. But he can't take this from me. How much fun this is, how she tastes, she's so pretty. It's mine. So fuck that guy. Actually, I'll fuck her instead. Feo…..it's a weird name, but I like it. I like her. I really like her.

What little light there was painted her in an array of warm colors. The worry and tension he felt during the day were replaced with the touch of her skin and his pain mingled with longing. Underneath him the bruises from the explosion at the sawmill ached against his back, but he didn't care. The sharpness of every feeling, good and bad, was a reminder that he had made it this far. A single shadow flickered and writhed against the trees until the fire burned through its fuel.

Shehadneverfeltlikethisbefore.

There weren't even really words for how good the sex was, and she didn't know why. Was it her skill, or his? How much of it was due to the fact that it was probably the last time for both of them? Hell, maybe she just really liked being watched.

Now, sometime later (could have been hours, felt like days) she cleaned her wounds. Got dirt and grass out of the gauze. Still, if you had to die from an infection, fucking someone really hard on a mountain was how you wanted to get it. Yes, Feo's priorities were still intact. But the question lingered in her head, what now? What to do now, what she and Ethan were now (fuckbuddies? murderpartners? two utterly screwed teenagers?). She didn't even know what would happen when she got off this damn mountain.

So she decided to forget about the future that didn't really exist, and focus on the present that did. God, his mouth felt so good on her. Seriously, the sex was fucking profound.

Now you've got me using fancy-ass words, too. Good job, Ethan.

As she finished up cleaning her wounds, she looked at Ethan. Differently than she had before, it was a gaze, really. The guy really was something else . . . Damnit, she was going soft on him. Throwing her bra and panties back on, and grabbing a blanket out of her bag, she broke the peaceful slience.

"So, you think we're in the mile-high club now?"

Guess it really is better when you like the guy. Who knew?

"There is a house in New Orleans they call The Rising Sun. It's been the ruin of many a poor boy and God I know I'm one.." Ethan sang idly to himself while looking just past Feo as she cleaned her wounds.

He felt…good. Strangely enough he was relaxed in this place. He reclined against a tree with just his jeans and seemed to be in a sort of comfortable state where he didn't want to move. Ethan only wanted to watch her.

Flawlessly designed

"I don't think we're quite a mile up. I'm sure there's some sort of award for fucking during Survival of the Fittest, though. It's funny, in the traditional sense this is what survival of the fittest is. It is staying alive long enough to procreate and pass on the genes you proved were worthy by making it that far. Well, if I know my tropes, someone should be leaping out of the bushes sometime soon to stab us both to death. It teaches the kids at home what happens when you sin it up on a mountain during a blood sport on television," he said with a contented sigh.


He opened his eyes and saw her looking at him. She had a gentle quality in her eyes that he just noticed.

She's beautiful, isn't she? She- wait, what the fuck am I doing? Fuck! I'm a fucking idiot! I fell for it! What do you think, lover boy? You think she really cares about you? You think you and her are gonna take down the big bad Danya and live in little house and some scientist is gonna build her robot fingers and she'll overcome her disabilities to play the sax again? DO YOU?

Ethan shook his head. He grabbed his shirt and his sharpened stick and walked to her. He was close enough that he could end her swiftly.

You have to do it. This has gone far enough. Do it. Think about how stone cold badass you'd have to be to nail a chick, then kill her with a stick.

His brain communicated the message "lift the stick" but his arm was dead like it was made of lead. Not even a twitch of movement.

I…..I can't. Oh God damn it. God damn it to hell.

"I….think you did a terrific job with those bandages." He gave her a kiss.

You can't do it. My God, you are screwed. You two can't outrun death forever. After all, you've got asthma.