Thirty Nine Minutes (COMPLETE)

Chapter Twenty: For You

"Can I ask you a question?" Neil was zipping up the back of Helen's wetsuit.

"Shoot."

"Tell me to shut up if it's none of my business but, you and Craig, are you…?" The zip interrupted his moment and Helen turned to him. His cheeks were pink.

"Are we what?"

"You know what I'm trying to ask. How -"

"How do we have sex given that Craig doesn't have legs?" She smirked as Neil, obviously taken aback, rubbed the back of his head.

"Fine, if you want to be blunt. I mean, does he even have a…?"

"Why is everyone so obsessed with male genitals? Dicks, dicks, dicks. It's like that's all people are interested in when it comes to relationships." She shrugged and checked the BCD to ensure it was strapped to the air tank. "I'm not interested in that kind of physical affection. I never have been."

A second passed, and Neil shrugged. "Fair enough. Here, your fins."

Helen tucked them under her arm. They had been cleaned by someone not completely familiar with maintenance of scuba gear, and there were still grains of sand in places. "So, this stupid maguffin plant or whatever."

"The magi plant."

She looked at him pointedly. "I can't take that name seriously. You really think it'll cure your mom's disease?"

"I dunno, Helen. She seems pretty determined about the whole thing."

There was something that didn't quite add up entirely. Helen sucked the inside of her cheek. What made Craig so significant and special to retrieving this plant? If Helen could go and get it with regular warm water scuba gear, why did they need him? Too many things were sticking out at her like warning flags. The map she'd been given looked simple enough, but she'd never done any cave diving before.

And it was all for him.

"I'm going to go see Craig. Has he spoken since I last saw him?"
    Neil shook his head. "I don't think so."

*****

There was no ethereal glow from this tank unlike the one back in the US. Only a flashlight angled in a way that cast his lank form squashed against the side of the tank in stark, greyish light; long shadows painted through the water and landed on the adjacent wall in an inky black. Only his hands gripping the edge of the tank anchored him, else he'd likely be floating free in the small space. His head was downcast, looking at nothing with dilated, glassy eyes.

"Craig?" Helen pressed her hand to the glass, trying to catch his eye but it was like trying to look for sentience in a moon rock. "I'll be back, Craig. Once I've found this plant, I'll come back for you."

With nothing more than a smile, Helen turned and followed Neil down the hallway. His eyes flickered and watched her go, almost impossible to notice, but for the first time in a while they focused.

*****

"The drop's there, down past that reef," said Fleur. "The cave entrance looks pretty shallow, but it's pretty sheer once you're through the mouth."

Helen could only nod, she was almost afraid to ask Fleur anything else. As small as she was, she held a great presence on the deck: even the tall Neil seemed to shrink in her aura. Helen bit her lip as her own words just seem to dry up in her throat. She merely folded her arms and watched silently.

"You'll be on your own in there expect your flashlight and a map; your tank is 200-bar, but at its deepest the cavern is around twenty meters."

"That's around sixty five feet to you and me." Neil finally added himself to the conversation. Helen rolled her eyes and nodded in acknowledgement, pulling on her fins. The water below her as she looked over the side of the boat was deep, swirling. An abyss of black and blue she turned her back to, ready to descend into its midst. She secured her breathing apparatus and tipped backwards.

*****

There was no sense of time in that tank. His tail was wet but his arms were dry. The buzzed hair atop his head was dry. His throat was dry but he wasn't thirsty. His mind however, was spooling. 

The door squeaked, and Neil emerged. A hot spike lanced through Craig, but he bore no physical reaction to the man's presence. All he could do was sink his head further into his folded forearms, still in his familiar position leaning over the side of the tank.

Neil, perhaps similarly, didn't react, but his gait looked terse and the fingers that retrieved a coffee cup, stiff. "Do you want one?" 

Craig blinked as he realized Neil was addressing him, an olive branch of a steaming cup of instant coffee outstretched in one hand. "You look like you need one."

Craig took it but didn't say anything, and Neil sat on a chair close by, wincing as he took a swig of the hot brown water. "Damn, I miss actual coffee. This instant stuff in sachets blows."

The two sat together. Silent but not entirely comfortable in each other's presence, only an occasional blow of taking the heat off the next sip of coffee broke the moment up into little pregnant pauses.

"Where's Helen?" Craig said eventually, his voice barely a murmur.

"She just left, looking for that plant. I never knew David was after it too though. I don't even know if it will do what my mom thinks it will." He shrugged and took a sip. "I guess she's out of options."

"You mean she actually went?"

"Yeah, of course. She didn't want you to go, given your phobia."

A hot flush flooded his neck, but not a pleasant, shivering one he had when he kissed Helen on the beach. It was a cold dread, freezing fire in his veins and the coffee that had lined his stomach with heat was now ice in his hands. "Because of me?"

The coffee cup dropped, and shattered on the floor in shards of cheap, chipped pottery and tiny streams of watery coffee.