Title: Survivor
Rating: PG
Pairing: JD/Elliot friendship
The moment he awakes, he wishes he was blissfully asleep again. His mouth is dry and he tries not to gag on his own tongue when he swallows - except there is nothing to swallow, because he is so dehydrated that his salivary glands have stopped producing the only thing it can produce.
He grimaces, and he wrinkles his nose in distaste when he does, because his lips are chapped and when he licks them, he tastes blood. And in the moment that dry air hits his face, he immediately regrets ever having licked his lips, because now they feel drier than before. He shifts uncomfortably, the expanse of sand underneath and all around him scraping against his sunburned skin.
. . . yep, JD definitely wishes he was still asleep.
JD and Elliot's plane had crashed on its way to Guam, and by some stroke of luck - or maybe it was misfortune, but it was difficult to tell at this point - they'd survived it. He and Elliot had teamed up together on a case study in the hopes of winning first prize - the opportunity to attend a doctor's conference in Guam, as well as the opportunity to take advantage of the tourist town's five-star amenities - but that notion had crashed and burned, no pun intended.
JD has no idea where he is, and if it's Guam, he suspects that they might as well be on the outskirts of the outskirts, because he has yet to see any sign of human life. Aside from Elliot, whom he'd found several hours - or so it seemed; he has no sense of time in this place - after finding himself lying prone on the sandbar, his clothes reeking of jet fuel. He'd waded into the clear, sparkling waters to wash the stink off and belatedly realized that the tide was bringing in the stuff when he'd cupped his hands into the clear liquid and saw the residual oil floating along the surface.
The dark haired man shudders, feeling gritty and fatigued. His blonde colleague sighs softly beside him, running her sandy hands up and down her bare legs as she looks out to sea. JD frowns and turns to look at her.
"What are you doing?" he asks, his voice raspy from disuse.
"Exfoliating," Elliot sniffles, averting her gaze.
JD snorts, playing with the sand. He grabs a fistful of it and blearily watches as it funnels out of his hand, escaping from his clenched fingers. "You know that random question that everybody asks at some point?" he pipes up.
"What would that be?" Elliot asks, her brows pinched into a frown.
"'If you were stuck on an island and could only bring one thing, what would it be?'" he mutters wryly.
She scoffs, drawing her knees up to her chest. "I've already thought about that."
He gazes at her expectantly.
She gives him an odd smile. "A grooming kit."
He looks at her incredulously. "You mean those kits with a nail cutter and tweezers?"
She nods and laughs. "I came to this conclusion over an episode of 'Survivor'. I mean, they're stuck on an island and they still manage to look slightly attractive!" Her voice reaches a higher octave as the indignation sets in. "No one has hairy legs or stubbly armpits or unibrows."
"So you mean to say that under a life threatening situation, you'd still pick something that superficial?" JD asks, raising his eyebrows at her.
She shrugs. "I just based it on an episode of 'Survivor'." She smiles bitterly. "Never in my life did I ever think I'd need to consider that question so seriously."
"Yeah, I mean, it's not like people survive plane crashes and get stranded on random islands on a day-to-day basis," JD chuckles softly. "And I'm laughing about it," he grumbles under his breath. "I don't think it's really sunken in yet."
"Now that I think about it, I wonder why I never thought about this kind of scenario," Elliot giggles. "I mean, I'm neurotic enough to think about so many inane things . . . My dorm room had such crappy wiring that my roommate and I couldn't use more than two electronics at a time or else a fuse would blow in the entire wing." She shakes her head in disbelief. "I swear I thought of so many ways to avoid a fuse blowing. Like, there was this one time where I wanted to use the hairdryer and she wanted to straighten her hair, and I was like, 'Hey, why don't we just turn off the light? That uses electricity, doesn't it?'" She smiles smugly. "It totally worked." Her face fell. "Except we couldn't see a thing 'cause the placement of our room gives us a lovely view of a brick wall, and brick walls don't let sunlight in very well. And I had to light a few candles and I knocked them down with my hairdryer cord. And instead of getting in trouble for blowing a fuse, we got penalized for violating the dormitory policy of 'no open flames in the dorm rooms' instead."
JD starts to laugh, but it's immediately drowned out by a loud whirring noise overhead. He and Elliot glance up to see a helicopter hovering past, and they shoot up from their spot on the ground to run out onto the sandbar and flail their arms wildly.
"Are you two hurt?" the paramedic asks as the helicopter finally lowers to the ground, its rotor blades blowing sand particles into the stagnant air.
JD wraps an arm around Elliot and shields his eyes. The paramedic pulls them into the cabin and wastes no time in checking their vitals once they are seated.
"No," JD breathes, "we're fine."
Elliot smiles, her eyes glassy as she nudges JD with her elbow. "If you were stuck on an island and could only bring one thing, what would it be?" she laughs through her tears. She snorts as JD tilts his head in thought, and she knows she's lost him to a daydream.
"I'd be able to drink my own urine," he blurts out, his face the epitome of awe.
A/N: In case you didn't catch on: JD was thinking of a reverse osmosis water purifier used on army bases. :P