promise that you'll always keep me in mind.
It must be nearing five am now, he doesn't really know -- checking the clock hasn't been his top priority. It's just, he can't sleep, he can't think, and Alaska has stopped responding. It means something to him, that. It means something to him because if she isn't responding, then she could be...
A shiver runs over his skin that has nothing to do with the fact that he's just slipped out into the night air, and he's convinced himself that this is somehow all Brett's fault. On the outside, anyway. Skinny dipping with his fucking sister when she's clearly all screwed up, and then taunting him with it -- throwing it in his face like she's a game to be played? What an asshole. Of course, beneath all of that outward nonsense, beneath his hatred towards the curly-haired boy that's so obviously just a shield to anyone but him, the blame runs a little deeper than just that. He should have known. He should have been paying attention. They're a part of each other in every sense of the word, so how the fuck could he not of realised that there was something wrong long before tonight?
Bristol tries not to let that get to him right now, because he has more important things to worry about than how guilty he's going to feel over this later. For now, he's stepping onto the beach, already having checked pool side for her. The sun is just barely beginning to rise, bathing the scene in the sort of pale, predawn half-light that's just enough to make it look dreary; just enough for him to be able to spot a lithe form, motionless, curled up a touch past where the waves are lapping up the shoreline. He thinks his heart stops completely.
It doesn't take him long to close the distance between them, and then he's sinking down, lifting her up in his arms, and making sure that she's okay -- that she's still breathing. Right now, it seems so insignificant that they might of caught this on camera, that she's going to be in front of millions of people, naked with Brett, or passed out in the sand. Nothing really matters except for the way he picks her up, seeing her eyelids flutter open for a second or two, and begins to carry her back in towards the house.
"I've got you." He says, though he isn't at all sure she hears it. Maybe she's not the one who needs to hear it.