This is a work of fiction. It depicts violence, as well as sexual relations between minors. If you don't like it don't read it. Violence is never acceptable against minors, as `Dan' realizes J

Any comments/suggestions, drop me a line aaronm_06@hotmail.com.

By the way, this installment is quite different to the previous ones. There is no sex, sorry I know people (myself included) primarily come on nifty to read some steamy sex scenes, but I wanted to try and develop the bond forming between Ryan and Adam. I've tried to be a little more descriptive in my writing as these characters become more important to me. Let me know what you think and whether I should switch back to the previous writing-style.

Adam and Ryan 6

Ryan wasn't sure where Adam has gone. One minute he was in the bathroom with Kyle and then he'd just disappeared. The small, beachfront restaurant they were in was starting to fill up with passengers from the ship, they descended in their multitudes but Ryan couldn't see Adam anywhere among them. Maybe he'd gone back to the main beach area where the boats where bringing people from the ship? Ryan asked Kyle if he'd seen where Adam went but his brother was too engrossed in his PSP and answered with a non-committal shake of the head.

Maybe he was down on the beach. Something Ryan had realized about Adam was that he was unpredictable in the extreme, it made him exciting to be around. It made his company addictive, when Ryan wasn't with him it was impossible to have fun. And he'd only known him for a week! Ryan had never felt about any of his friends the way he felt about Adam. He was like a god.

Down on the beach, away from the bustle of the restaurant there was a new noise and activity from the waves restlessly throwing themselves against the beach and the salty wind pushing up over the sand and tugging at Ryan's long dark hair. Adam was nowhere to be seen, a few groups of people could be seen walking here and there, mostly in the distance, but no Adam. There was a dark line of ocean debris along the top of the beach where Ryan supposed high-tide must have retreated from earlier in the day, between the debris and the waterline the sand was smooth and broken only by the various footprints of passengers making their way from the boats to the restaurant. But there was another set of footprints leading into the bush, which was strange because the bush that covered the whole center of the island seemed impenetrable.

Ryan and Kyle walked up the beach toward the footprints and the boy realized that there was a narrow gap in the barrier of vegetation. It was through this gap that the footprints led, and Ryan was sure that this was the direction his friend had gone in, because a pathway leading into the unknown bush would have seemed too tempting a curiosity to Adam. Ryan grinned, pleased at himself for figuring Adam whereabouts out, and pleased that he knew him so well after only a week. But the smile lasted only a moment, for there were strange and disturbing noises coming from within, noises Ryan had never heard before. He felt his skin crawl and his heart begin labor as dangerous adrenalin flooded his system.

"Ryan..." Kyle's voice was small and uncertain, his PSP suddenly less interesting. "Is that Adam?"

From within the bush they could hear the unmistakable sounds of someone choking, crying and trying to scream all at the same time. It was a high-pitched, gasping sort of sound broken every now and then by intermittent scraping, as though a struggle where taking place. It took only a fraction of a second for Ryan to take this all in, but to him it seemed he's stood there at the foot of the pathway for an eternity.

"Stay here," he told his brother, darting forward over the sand, running into the bush and praying he wouldn't find what he thought he would. Kyle, with all the obedience of a nine-year-old immediately followed him.

"Kyle stay there!" Ryan shouted, he tried to make himself sound strong, authoritative. But his voice came out on the wind in a desperate screech, but to Kyle it was every bit as terrifying as Ryan had intended it to be, Kyle knew when not to fuck with his older brother and fell back with a dumb-struck look on his face, watching his older brother run up a pathway that led to something the child could not comprehend and found all the more scary because of it.

"Don't fuck with me, or I'll make you know what pain is, this aint a game no more, little guy," Ryan could hear a deep voice saying now as approached a clearing up ahead, it was a husky voice, the kind of voice that Ryan had heard in a porn movie before, but this was real, this had no tacky music in the background and there was no half-naked woman putting up a feeble pretend fight. This was his friend, and he was fighting with all the desperation of an animal. Ryan stopped dead in his tracks at the edge of the opening and stared. A huge man with his jeans round his knees was kneeling in the sand and on either side of him Ryan could see Adam's lean legs flailing, hitting the ground with dull thuds as he tried desperately to get away.

The man made a sudden jerking movement and Ryan heard a deeper thud as his fist pummeled into his friends face. Adam didn't cry out, if he'd cried out it would have been better than the weak whimper that Ryan heard instead.

Oh god, he was going to be sick.

"Fuck, but you're a feisty little brat aren't you? Spread those cheeks for me, come on."

"Fuck you!" Adam managed to shout, his voice hoarse.

Ryan ran toward the man as fast as he could, with no clear idea of what he was going to do when he got to him. He thought about jumping on his back and trying to strangle him, like he'd seen someone do in a movie recently, but the man was three times his size. At the last minute he thought of football, it came into his head out of nowhere, Adam had tried to teach him how to kick a football the other day. Without thinking or even looking Ryan sent his converse-clad foot, with all his momentum as hard as he could into the man's groin. He slammed into him with what seemed like the force of a small explosion and somersaulted over the man's head, landing in a sprawl against a nearby tree.

But the kick had done its job, with a deep howl unbecoming of a man his size, the would-be rapist doubled over, his hands no longer on Adam but between his legs instead, clutching his groin. Adam, his eyes glazed and his beautiful face tear-streaked, looked at Ryan as though seeing him for the first time in his life, and yet there was a look in those eyes so tender, so intense that Ryan wanted to do nothing but kiss him, he wanted them to be back on the pool deck again, swimming in the pool, talking shit and perving on each other with unabashed abandon. Instead this stranger had dared to do this to his friend, his Adam. He'd dared to treat him this way, this boy that people could only imagine touching in those ways.

Ryan was so angry that it took him a moment to realize he was crying, because when you're thirteen and you encounter raw, unbridled anger for the first time all you can do is cry. Adam wasn't crying, of course he wasn't, this blond god at the center of Ryan's world. He wouldn't let himself cry in front of Ryan, that would be weakness, and Adam wouldn't admit to weakness even though he lay sprawled naked in the sand, his blue eyes swollen and his face tear-streaked. Ryan knew that this was the weakest any would ever see Adam.

They'd stared at each other for only a second, or maybe two. But it was enough time for the man to recover enough to grab one of Adam's slender feet and lunge for him again, his face a purple montage of fury. With the reflexes of a cat Adam drew his other foot back and slammed it into that ugly, unhinged face. The man's jaw snapped shut with a sharp pop and now his hands were on his face.

"Fuck you asshole!" Adam shouted, jumping up and kicking the man repeatedly until he toppled over, too overcome with pain to continue his assault. "Fuck you!"

Ryan picked up Adam strewn clothes and pushed them into his hands, pushing him away from the man, afraid he might kill him. He'd never seen Adam so angry.

"Adam we have to get out of here!"

"Ryan!" Adam suddenly threw his arms around him, pulling him against his naked body and Ryan was sure that there must be something really wrong with his mind because all he wanted to do was kiss Adam and put his hands against him and make everything how it was before all this happened. "Ryan, you were amazing! You kicked him right in the nuts! You came and got me."

Adam's eyes were so bright, and so wide, looking at him with an admiration that made Ryan feel like he was on LSD. He'd never taken it, but shit this must be what it feels like surely? When someone like Adam looks at you in that way it's like a drug.

"Adam, for fucks sake, get dressed," he said, grinning stupidly, so happy that Adam was safe and that he was the one who saved him.

Adam hurriedly pulled his board shorts on and threw his boxers at the man who was trying to get back up into a kneeling position, "Something to remember me by, shithead," the boy said triumphantly and then they were off, running toward the beach and the cruise ship that would take them back out to sea.