AN: A late birthday present for magalina. There was to be a jellyfish invasion, the hottest day of the year, and the beach.

So message to magalina: It’s just a shorty. D: Sorry. I hope you like it and happy late birthdaaaay. :3

Sting

David was huddled in front of the TV when I woke up in the morning. There was a blanket draped over his shoulders and a lit cigarette in his hand. I watched him from the doorway for long moments before saying his name. When he turned to me, his eyes were blank and bloodshot and my stomach swirled in circles.

“Do you want any breakfast? I was going to make omelets,” I said. It was easier than asking if he was okay.

He didn’t answer. It was easier than saying he wasn’t.

I left him to the TV and went to the kitchen to make a breakfast I wasn’t hungry for. It’d been months. Months since the accident and he still sat there in front of the TV, up all night watching fucking half hour long infomercials on the latest product for easy hair removal or God knows what else. My hands shook as I jerked the egg carton from the fridge. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand. I understood, or at least tried my hardest to. Yeah, sometimes I got impatient, but how could I be blamed? He wasn’t the only one in the car that night. He was just the one who happened to be driving.

The oven ticked as I waited for it to light, and I jumped as the flames sprang up. Tiny indigo tongues wagged at me and I covered them with a frying pan before rubbing at my eyes. It was hard to sleep sometimes when he wasn’t there sleeping beside me. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d touched more than a soft hand on a shoulder or the brushing of hair from eyes. Those brief moments almost seemed to hurt and burn and sting. My fingertips pressed into my lips as I tried to remember how his felt on mine. Just a ghost of a memory remained.

“Josh?” His voice behind me made me jump and the frying pan slid from the stove and onto the floor, narrowly missing my bare toes.

I glanced over my shoulder at him, switching off the stove and leaving the pan on the floor. He was looking me in the eye, quick fleeting glances, which was more eye contact than I’d gotten in months and I didn’t want to shatter it by bending to pick up the pan.

“Can I…” He stopped to take a deep breath. “Can you drive me somewhere today?”

“Why can’t you drive yourself?” There was hatred dripping from my voice. I knew the answer. I’d seen him crawl into the car and sit behind the wheel with his hands shaking and sweat sprouting across his pale skin. I’d seen him sit with his eyes closed and the heels of his palms pressed hard into his sockets. And I was amazed that I didn’t feel guilty for what I’d just said.

He turned away from me before saying, “Fuck you, Josh,” and retreating back to the living room.

The volume of the television set crescendoed. “A heat wave has rolled in, hitting the area hard today. There are record highs for the date, and it’s the hottest day of the year so far. Make sure to keep yourself hydrated!” the meteorologist bellowed.

I bent and picked up the frying pan and it slammed into the sink. “Turn the TV fucking down!” I yelled over the clattering of the pan and the screaming from the TV.

The meteorologist shrieked louder.

My bare feet carried me to the living room where David sat, the blanket draped over the top of his head now as he hugged his knees and sat inches from the TV that went black, dead, deceased when I grabbed up the remote and stabbed at the power button.

David looked over his shoulder and there was hatred in his eyes. It clouded at the corners and crawled over his irises, turning them dark, dark blue.

It crawled into my chest, wormed into my heart, filled my lungs so they couldn't take in air and I closed my own eyes against it.

"Where do you want to go?" I asked him, trying to suck in a deep breath of air to slow the impossibly fast beating of my heart.

"What?" The blanket slid off his head as he stared at me, suspicion coming in to replace the hate.

"Where do want me to drive you? You said you wanted me to drive you somewhere."

He hesitated and glanced back to the TV, its blank face showing his - shallow and pale. "I want to go to the beach today."

I straightened up and lifted an eyebrow. "The beach? Since when do you like the beach?" We'd never gone to the beach before. We'd never really been the kind of people to go to those kind of places together. No beaches, no zoos, no aquariums, no amusement parks. It wasn't because we didn't want to be in public like that together. It was just that at one time, we had enough fun together - just the two of us without having to pay someone for any other means of entertainment. Now it seemed like we couldn't stand each other and the thought of going to the beach was almost comforting. The thought of getting out of the house and away from him for a little while, down the shore where the sky was wide open, felt like something I wouldn't mind doing.

He shrugged. "I've never disliked it. So will you bring me?"

I sighed and rubbed at my chin. "Yeah. Yeah, sure. I'll go get ready."

I left him to retreat to our bedroom that he hardly stepped foot in lately. Now and then he'd crawl into bed with me but we would never touch and he'd always be gone in the morning, the mattress empty and cold beside me.

With my back to the door, I pulled on my clothes, jumping in surprise when I turned around to find David standing in the doorway. His eyes were on me, his mouth pulled into a tight line.

"I'll go wait in the car," I said, breezing past him after a moment, my body shuddering as our skin brushed on my way out.

In the car I sat watching cars slowly coast down the streets, kids on their bikes, dripping sweat. The inside of the car was an oven. The meteorologist was right. It was fucking hot and I was tempted to go back inside and tell David to forget it. It was just too hot to move. But walking back inside right then would’ve meant I would see him. I would see him standing on our welcome mat just inside our house, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, his head bowed low as he told himself it's okay. It's okay it's okay it's okay to get into the car and nothing bad was going to happen. I'd see the tears gathered in the corners of his eyes as he tried his hardest to force himself to open the door and take the steps to the car. I’d seen it before. I didn’t want to see it again.

He emerged from the house a long moment later, his head held high and his hands trembling when he opened the car door and buckled himself up in the passenger seat.

“Are you ready?” I asked him and he nodded, one hand staying on his seat belt, the other cranking down his window so he could stick his head out into the searing hot air and breathe in deeply. “Do you need to have the window open? I have the air conditioning on. You’re just letting it all out.”

“I’m cold.”

"How can you be cold? It's like five hundred fucking degrees," I grumbled.

He turned his head to glare at him. "I said I'm cold, Josh."

I shook my head but had nothing more to say. I covered our silence with the sound of oldies rock on the radio and steered us slowly down the streets. David's hand tightened on his seatbelt and the other held tight to his pant leg, the denim bunching between his fingers.

"You're going kind of fast," he said at one point and I dutifully slowed the car to what felt like a crawl and gave him a look to let him know I wasn't pleased at having to slow down. He didn't seem to care. I didn't expect him to.

We sat in silence the rest of the way to the beach. I hummed along to the radio and he ground his teeth, his breath coming out fast whenever we'd get too close to another car. It was ridiculous. It was all getting ridiculous. Since the accident, he'd seen a doctor once just to have him tell us that David was indeed fucked up. He prescribed Xanax. Xanax for David who used to have a problem with smoking and a problem with drinking and would've had a problem with the Vicodin when he'd gotten his wisdom teeth out if I hadn't flushed the pills down the toilet. He would've had a problem with the Xanax if I hadn't torn up the prescription and thrown it away. He didn't see another doctor after that. I wanted him to get better because I didn't want to deal with it anymore but there was no way I was going to have him see another person that relied on medication. I knew it would hurt David more than it would help him.

I was still thinking about the doctor when we pulled into the parking lot of the beach. Despite being such a hot day, the lot was nearly empty, just a few cars parked haphazardly near the public changing rooms. I let go of the steering wheel, aware of how tight I was holding it when it hurt to uncurl my fingers.

Without a word, David got out of the car and I sighed, following him. We didn’t feel like lovers anymore. I felt like a parent. A baby-sitter. Someone to follow him around and make sure he was okay, make sure he wasn’t getting into trouble, make sure he wasn’t getting hurt.

His skinny frame slid over the top of the hill and I climbed up the sand after him, stopping at the top, my breath held. On the beach below me the waves crashed against the sand, shoving up seashells and rocks rubbed smooth. But the sand. Littered along the sand, jellyfish were sprawled, their murky bodies dotting the beach as far as I could see either way.

My feet slowly brought me down to David who knelt before one of the creatures, his face expressionless.“What the hell happened?” I asked, crouching down on the other side of the jellyfish.

“They were on the news this morning,” David explained. “There have been a lot of them out here lately, but the wind last night drew a bunch of them up onto the sand.”

I pressed a hand to my mouth, staring down at the little blob between us. “Are people going to do anything to get them back out to the water? Like with whales?” I’d watched a rescue mission for a beached whale on TV before. David and I had seen it together. It was the first few days after the accident when we stilled talked but even then never touched.

David shook his head. “No. They’ve been a nuisance for fishermen and swimmers. I think they said they’d be cleaned up so people could go on the beach again, but they’re not going to be saved. They’ll just sit out here in the sun and bake.”

“So people are just going to let them die?”

He looked up to me, meeting my eyes. They didn’t flicker and flutter around but stayed focused on mine. “Yeah. They’re just going to die.”

I quickly looked away, my heart thudding hard in my chest once more. “It doesn’t seem very fair.” My words were nearly covered by the waves rushing up onto the beach but David heard, and after a moment he nodded in agreement.

“It happens. Things die when people let them.”

“Even… Even when they don’t want them to die though, they still can,” I said. And I knew I was no longer talking about the jellyfish.

A long moment passed with just the waves roaring behind us and the wind, cooler here, whipping past our ears. I jumped when David took my hand. They looked strange together, his skin on mine, after so many months with no touching.

“Look. If you touch it here, it won’t sting,” he said and guided my index finger to the jellyfish. I tensed for a moment, but remembered how it used to feel when I trusted him. When I believed he wouldn’t let anything hurt me. I let him touch my finger to the jellyfish and held my breath. It didn’t sting.

Our eyes met again and I smiled at him, the first genuine smile in so, so long. He put a hand at the crook of my neck and leaned forward, his lips touching mine. When he pulled away, I pressed my forehead into his and looked up at him, seeing the ocean of his eyes close up. He kissed me again, soft and slow and sweet.

It didn’t sting.

End.

I would've liked to go more into their relationship and their accident and what not, but...I just wanted to finish this before I had to go to work at 3 and didn't know how else to write it without totally dragging it out. .-.