Why would this man want him?
He was gorgeous, strong, and adventurous. Poe was just…a doctor.
He was a nerd, not someone a Marine would normally check out.
When he walked right past Poe, grabbed his clothes, and pulled them back on, he was well aware that the man checked him out, again.
And that was why he still had an erection.
POE.
“Don’t go in there without me. You can’t swim,” he warned, putting his socks back on.
“Okay,” he said. “What do I do with this very much alive fish?” he asked. “It seems mean to let it suffocate to death,” he added.
That was true.
Gamble crossed to him, grabbed the fish by the tail and whacked it off the wall.
HARD.
Poe jumped.
That was…violent.
It was until he heard him talking to the fish.
“Thank you, Mr. Fishy. You’re lunch, and I appreciate your sacrifice,” he admitted, pulling out his knife, and heading far away from the clean drinking water to gut it.
When he was done, he rinsed it off in the grotto water before cooking it.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Poe said. “How are we surviving? They should have found us.”
Gamble knew it was likely divine intervention, and a whole lot of skill that was going to keep them safe at this point.
Not far away, he fileted the fish, and found some sticks nearby to put the fish on them like filet kabobs.
Just minus the veggies.
“Well, you are out here with a Marine,” he said. “I can survive anywhere. I once survived thirty days in the Amazon. We had a mission there, and I had to get to a doctor who had been kidnapped by a tribe of Amazonians, who were actually hiding out guerillas. I went in on foot.”
Poe sat and listened as the man cooked the fish over the fire.
“The Amazon is huge.”
He was aware.
“That’s why it took so long. It was two weeks in, and two weeks out. Thank God I had shots for malaria,” he stated. “I was mosquito bait.”
Poe was curious.
“And that didn’t scare you?” he asked.
Gamble sat down, and watched the fish so any parasites in it died, and it didn’t burn.
“I mean, I wasn’t having fun. When I was given the assignment, I wasn’t excited to see the Amazon, but it was my job,” he admitted. “It wasn’t a vacation, but I lived. Childhood was more difficult than the Amazon,” he admitted. “Like I said earlier, I had shit parents and four weeks was an easy stint in Hell. Eighteen years wasn’t.”
Poe listened.
