Sanitized

Chapter 30; Fallen

There was all black around me.
Then I came into common sense and realized that I was alive.
"Elliot!" I screamed, and grabbed his body. He was bleeding on his head, leg, back, arms, and had scrapes everywhere. I realized that I did too, and began to compress the bleeding.
I cut the sleeves off of my hero suit, and wrapped them as bandages around him.
My head hurt immensely, and I felt drowsy and sick.
"Elliot, please..." I whispered into his ear, hugging him.
We were at the bottom of a large crevice, that was only 3 feet wide, but felt like 100s of feet deep.
I didn't want this to end like this either. I didn't want Elliot to die, and I didn't want to die either. He seems to care about me, for some reason. He was confident, and, and I didn't mind that (half of the time). Even if he was annoying as heck, I still cared about him.
"Elliot, wake up." I whispered.
I wanted to stare into his big amber eyes, and get this all done and over with.
I began to cry.
"Elliot." I said, crying into his limp shoulder.
I sat up, and hugged him.
"Wake up, please."
Then slowly and quietly said words that mattered, "I don't want to be alone."
"Thanks, Princess." Elliot said drowsily.
"Elliot!" I said, backing away from the hug to look at him.
He opened his eyes completely, and I smiled at him.
He wrapped his arms around me.
I cried tears of joy.
"Princess" he said sweetly, "don't cry..."
"I'm sorry. I thought you were dead..." I said.
"Aww." he said, brushing my tentacle behind my back.
"How should we get out of here?" I asked.
"I don't think we should focus on that now. I'm so tired, and I haven't slept in a week."
"Elliot, you're going to hurt yourself." I said.
"I think we should rest, then figure out how to escape." Elliot said.
"Okay." I said.
"Wow, we are a bit torn up." he said, looking at his and my wounds.
I nodded sleepily.
"Don't want to talk?" Elliot asked.
I nodded.
"Too tired?" he said.
I nodded.
He opened up his arms, and I fell into them. He pulled me close, and we rested there.
I looked up at him, and hugged him.
I thought about all of the other agents. What were we going to do? This kept getting more and more dangerous, and I was scared. I wondered how Isaac was doing.
I had lost my phone on the way down from the fall, and I knew Elliot had too. I sat there, and attempted to fall asleep.
...

I looked upwards and saw Elliot looking at me, sitting criss cross, with my head in his lap. I blushed immensely, and sat up.
Elliot saw my discomfort, "Oh, sorry." I looked at him.
"It's fine." I said, fiddling with my bangs, "Did you get any sleep?"
"No, I couldn't. Sleep would have done more harm than good for me." Elliot said.
I rolled my eyes, "You are going to kill yourself. You know that right?"
He smiled.
"How long was I asleep?" I asked.
"I'd say about 5 hours. You have a bad habit of falling asleep everywhere." Elliot teased.
"Well at least I get sleep."
We both smiled and I looked at him, "I guess I don't entirely hate you." I said, looking into his bright amber yellow eyes.
"Well, I guess life or death situations can change your view of a person." Elliot said.
"Yeah."
Octolings are very very very very very, blunt. Sometimes I appreciate that, but sometimes it's about things that are a bit more awkward. This time, it wasn't awkward for him to say that. I liked that he, Phoenix,Opal, and Marina were that open.
"Yeah, like before this, I didn't know how sweet you are." Elliot said sincerely.
"Sweet is definitely not a word I would use to describe myself" I said confused, "What do you mean by that?"
"You helped me through all of this, more or less. I could tell when you tried to stop yourself from smiling or laughing, and there's obviously a reason why you're as harsh as you put yourself out there to be. I know that you don't feel too important, Tres. I wasn't kidding when I said that. And you still keep going, even though you must have had some troubles. Do you want to explain?" Elliot said with sincere amber eyes.
For some reason, I did. I felt like I finally wanted to get everything off my chest, and just share. Elliot seemed like the only person who understood me.
I nodded, feeling the blood rush in my head from all the wounds I had.
So I told him everything, every little story, and every bit I felt bad for. It felt nice to finally be able to tell all that to someone without me having to tell them why. For some reason, Elliot understood.
"Thanks for that." I told him after I had completed the story.
He smiled at me and said, "Hey, it's no problem. I guess I finally understand."
I began to cry a little, "And I still don't get to apologize..."
I began crying, and Elliot opened up his arms and I fell into them, hugging him tightly.
"I haven't been myself in forever..." I said, looking into his eyes with sincerity.
He stared into my eyes, and said, "Well, one sob story deserves another..."
He told me the story of the random inkling that invaded, and the story of the death of his mom.
He had gone through all that, when he was very little no less, and was still nice to everyone else. Not including the way he annoyed me, but I guess he didn't do that too often anymore...
And Elliot looked away, and I did too.
"Do you think we'll die down here?" he asked, trying to change the subject.
"We might..." I said, looking back at him.
Elliot looked at me, "Well then, got anything to say?"
"What?" I was confused.
"You know. Tell all of your deepest darkest secrets. I saw it in a movie." Elliot said nonchalantly.
"Oh, umm, okay." I said, "You go first."
"No u."
"Uno reverse card."
"It's still your turn."
I rolled my eyes and smiled at him.
"Fine. I admitted to myself that I like that people care about me. And that I haven't been feeling like myself. I know that I'm really scared that I'm going to get hurt. I'm scared that the world is going to end. I'm just-just scared. I have been thinking about whether I just like Isaac as a friend, even though he kissed me. And, I can't think of anything else." I said, saying my last secret while looking away from him.
"Well, there are a couple things that I can help with.
I'm glad that you finally realized that people care about you.
You don't have to be scared." Elliot said, hugging me.
"Is there anything else you can help with?" I asked, hugging him tighter.
"I can assure you that you are safe. You don't have to worry, I'm here. Except for that we're going to die down here."
We sat there in silence while I reflected.
"Do I love Isaac, or do I just like him as a friend?" I asked.
"That's for you to decide." he said.
"I know. That was a rhetorical question."
"Good, because I'm not a guidance counselor for boy problems." Elliot said teasingly.
I laughed at this, "I don't think that I love him."
I thought deeper into this, and realized that I did love Isaac, as a friend. I knew that he didn't love me either, even though it might have felt that way. Turned out that it was just a phase.
Elliot smiled at me, "Glad that I could help."
"You didn't really." I said, we both laughed.
We then stared at each other for a moment, in spite of the awkward conversation.
"I have two." Elliot said.
"Two confessions?" I said.
"Yeah. I know that I should get sleep, and I have been starving and hurting myself. By not eating, sleeping, or nurturing myself." he said.
"Elliot..."
"Yeah."
"What's the next confession?" I asked.
"Well, like you just heard, I remember everything from underground. And I'm the heir to the octoling throne."
"Well that's pretty big. Does that make you a prince or something?" I asked teasingly.
"Yup, I'm not exactly happy being the son of the dumbest man in the world. Or the fact that I believed him when he said we needed to kill off the inkling race."Elliot said.
We both laughed, and I said, "Well, I guess that's why you don't go to practice"
"Hey, I'm definitely not as dumb as him, we're on the same side here, Princess." he said laughing.
"Well, I don't know, you seem more on the side of not working, rather than on my side." I said laughing.
"Hey! You know I could have left you back at the base in the mountains." Elliot said, almost teasingly threatening me.
"Well, unless you can go back in time, I don't think you can." I said.
"Well, I guess it is a thing of the past then. Because technically you never thanked me." Elliot said, crossing his arms.
I was getting very sleepy, drowsy, and I felt sick to my stomach. I felt the color drain from my face.
"Tres, are you okay?" Elliot asked me, concerned.
"Yeah, I'm-" I fell over, and couldn't get up.
I was bleeding everywhere, and wasn't feeling too good.
"Why did it suddenly get so cold in here?" I asked teasingly, my voice now whispy.
"Oh, Princess. Don't die now..." Elliot said, pulling my limp body into his arms.
I struggled to wrap my arms around him, but rested my hands on his shoulders.
"Do I really have to die next to you?" I asked him teasingly, my voice struggling to keep.
"I sure hope you don't do it right now." Elliot said, quietly.
I backed away a little and looked at him. He looked almost as deathly pale as I thought I did. He was very obviously struggling to stay awake too.
"I think I'm just going to take a little nap..." I said, almost closing my eyes.
"NO, Princess, don't..." he commanded quietly, shaking me and looking at me deathly seriously.
"Well I just want to-"
He quickly placed his lips on mine and kissed me.
His soft lips, gently placed on mine. He cupped his hands around my face carefully, and hugged me.
I held my eyes open in shock, but then returned the gesture.
We both leaned back, and I said, "Well, that certainly surprised me."
He smiled guiltily, and said, "Well, I-"
I leaned in and kissed him, and wrapped my hands around him.
We both leaned back again, our faces only an inch apart and I said, "So, um-"
We both leaned in, and kissed.
He had his hands cupped at my cheeks, and I had my arms wrapped around him.
We backed away from each other and he looked into my eyes, and I looked into his.
"Princess, I love you." Elliot said.
I blushed madly, and stared at him confusedly. I stared at him for a moment, then thought about it.
I was extremely confused.
I stared into his adorable amber eyes, and kissed him again.
"I love you too..." I said, hugging him. 
I hadn't felt more at peace with myself, other than at that moment. He cradled me in his arms, as I realized the pressure of this situation.
I knew that I did love him.
"Let's get out of here." Elliot said, standing up. He held out his hand, and I took it.
I was then reminded by our wounds that this will be even harder. I winced in pain, at the hurt where the bullet hit my arm. his leg seemed to be fine, but we were still bleeding, and scraped.
"Are you ready to climb?" Elliot asked me, pretty much ignoring what had just gone down.
"Ready as I'll ever be." I said, grabbing his hand. He smiled at me.
He then lifted me off the ground and put me on his back. He began to climb, carefully. I looked downward, and looked at the ground in fear. I gripped him tighter. He looked at me, and smiled.
"Scared?" He said teasingly.
"I already told you earlier that I was." I said jokingly.
He laughed and said, "Well, dang it. Now I can't tease you as much."
He climbed to the top of the crevice, with me almost blacking out in fear, or from the blood loosage, or in confusion of what just happened.
"Let's go back to the car. Do you have the other piece to the ink connector?" he asked.
"Yep." I said, patting my pockets.
"Can't believe that it didn't fall out or break." Elliot said.
I nodded in agreement.
I didn't think that I'd ever been that happy.
When he stopped running and was at the bottom of the mountain I said, "Elliot, I love you."
"I love you too, Princess." He said, before kissing me.