Scenic Route •A Bear Grylls Fanfiction•

Chapter Seven: Survival

I woke up three days later with a splitting migraine and a leg I was frightened to look at. I could hardly lift my head off of the blanket balled up under my neck. Our other blanket was ripped into strips and the shreds had been tied around my shin, which I could barely feel. The last thing I could remember were the teeth. The glistening teeth, and the claws. The bloodstained claws that tore away pieces of flesh from my leg, and Bear. His effort to carry me away. The most prominent memory I have of the incident, however, was the noise. It was so loud. I could remember the ground shaking as the roar of the beast ripped through the trees and down through the silent, peaceful valley.

Bear walked over and sat on the soft leaves above my head. I closed my eyes as he pet my soft brown hair. He bent over and kissed my forehead ever so gently, and whispered against my skin, "How are you feeling?" I lifted up my head and painfully set it in his lap. He ran a thumb over my cold cheeks and gave me another kiss, but on the nose. I crinkled my lips as he touched his to mine, chapped and all.

It was like the perfect Spider-Man kiss. Except it wasn't raining, and he wasn't a superhero, and he wasn't hanging upside down off of a building, and we weren't in love like Peter and Mary Jane. Well, as far as I knew we weren't. So basically the only similarity between our kiss and Spider-Man was the fact that our heads were facing opposite directions because I was laying upside down. It was soft, sweet.

I gently put his lips between my (sadly unbrushed) teeth, and nibbled on his skin ever so carefully. I felt him smile as he kissed me harder, still stroking my cheeks. Our kiss deepened as I reached up above me, and grasped the collar of his jacket inbetween my weak fingers. I pulled him down closer to me, inhaling the smell of the fresh, clean mountain air on his skin, tan from the summer sun. Bear tugged at the ends of my kitten-soft hair and moaned ever so quietly. I pulled away and peeked out from under my eyelashes as Bear smirked. "Tease.."

I smiled when suddenly a shooting pain coursed through my leg. I squeezed my eyes shut and cried out in pain, trying to sit up and grab at my aching leg. Bear instantly shot up and leapt to my calf, and held it as tightly as he could in his hands. I balled my hands into fists and bit down on my tongue hard enough to draw blood. I gripped at the damp, mulchy dirt beneath me, screaming out at the intense pain beneath my skin. Bear massaged my calf as gently as possible. The pain eventually faded away as tears streamed down my face. I smeared them away with the back of my hand before sitting up to take a look at the damage I had endured from the bear we ran into several days before.

Bear untied the strips of blanket he had ripped up to bandage my leg. I gasped as the frigid air spread an icy chill across the exposed muscle. It was a gory nightmare. The tender skin was red, and chunks of my flesh were missing. It looked like someone had taken a meat grinder to my leg at one point or another. I was surprised there wasn't any visible bone. Three distinct, jagged lines split down the back of my leg from where the bear had gotten to me. How would this ever heal enough for me to be able to walk and help us get out of here?

I suddenly felt lightheaded as Bear reapproached me, whispering, "shh, shh, it'll be okay, I promise." But how could he know that? We didn't have the supplies with us to be able to provide stitches or antibiotics or anything. I probably had infection in me already through the wound. We retied the pieces of thin fabric around my leg like a tourniquet to protect it as Bear decided it would be best for us to head off and gain some ground before finding food, which sounded heavenly considering it had been several days since I had eaten anything.

I piggybacked on Bear, carrying both of our backpacks on my shoulders while trying not to hit my leg on any passing trees or bushes as we trekked through the woods. I felt bad for not being able to walk. It must have been hard for him, carrying me over boulders and branches, and there was nothing I could do about it.

After hours of stumbling through the forest, completely lost with no sense of direction, I took Bear's hands in mine. His palms warmed mine up as beads of water from the mist around us coated my braided hair. Suddenly, Bear started to hum to himself, a song that was all too familiar to me. "Ooga chaka ooga chaka ooga ooga ooga chaka." I leaned over his shoulder, giving him a sly look, and started to call out the lyrics too.

"I can't stop this feelin', deep inside of me." He finished my sentence. "Girl you just don't realize, what you do to me." I laughed before looking up to the sky, closing my eyes, not even caring how loud I was. "When you hold me, in your arms so tight, you let me know, everything's alright. I-I-I'm hooked on a feeling, I'm high on believing, that you're in love with meeeee!"

Bear hollered the lyrics out along with me, our terrible singing voices ringing through the tall trees around us. Bear suddenly stopped walking, and somehow swung me around to his frontside so I was straddling his abdomen instead of his back, his arms wrapped around the backside of my bum as he pulled me closer, rubbing our noses together. He laughed along with me, tucking a stray hair behind my ear. I tightened my grip around the back of his neck, avoiding hurting my wounded leg more.

Suddenly, I felt like I couldn't control myself. His face. His sweet, adorable personality. His willingness to save me from trouble, time and time again. I couldn't help it. I leaned into him, kissing him harder than before. I ran my hands through his dampening hair, tugging. Bear pushed my back up against a tree gently so I was pinned between his body and the rough bark of a tall redwood.

He pushed his tongue into my mouth as I explored his. My hands ran down his chest. I pulled off his jacket, tossing it onto a current bush. I yanked his shirt over his head, dropping it on the ground beneath me, feeling his warm, soft skin against my body. I was careful to avoid hitting my leg. He left delicate kisses down my neck and back up, stopping next to my temple. His hot breath tickled my ear as he sucked on the soft skin behind it. "What's gotten into you? You're getting rowdier by the minute." He growled in my ear.

I hooked my fingers onto the waistband of his pants, inside of his boxers, carefully sliding them lower and lower. He gave me a smirk before grabbing my wrists, and putting them on his smooth chest. "Let's slow down. This isn't like you." I awkwardly took a deep breath. "You're right, you're right. Maybe I'm just starting my period or something, hormones and all.." He kissed my cheek, mumbling something against my skin I couldn't decipher. "Shall we head off?" He gave me a smile before placing me on his back so I could hold his shoulders again.

Later that day we stopped to eat, roasting some of the leftover deer meat we still had, which kind of grossed me out after what had happened to my leg. I felt like I was eating pieces of my own skin. It also turns out I indeed was starting my period, and had conveniently decided not to bring any tampons with me. Good god this could literally not get any worse. I had to figure something out, because if I bled through my only pair of underwear/pants, I would honestly die. After scavenging for dry moss like a heathen, I felt a lot more comfortable, well as comfortable as a girl can get with only half a pair of functioning legs, hardly any food, clothes that were not warm enough for cold, rainy weather like this, being lost in the wilderness, and no sanitary pads on hand.

That night as I tucked myself up against Bear, who was sound asleep, I thought about what had happened earlier today. Did I really want to go that far with him? Were we even considered a couple? What if we do get out of here alive and he just wants to be friends, and more importantly, how would I feel about it? Am I in love?

I said a silent prayer that once we got home, Bear would have the same feelings for me that I had for him.