SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

Everyone watching him: Cecil, Emmett, Mom, Dad, Hannah, the entire shitposting population of /sotf/ shopping the <3 DC shirt and keeping the D. 'I <3 DiCk'. 'I <3 Death Grips'. So on.

The look on Emmett's face, in some way, was way too familiar. It had been pointed at Demetri before. Life wasn't simple anymore though. Not like back then. Back then Demetri didn't know how deep heavy rain soaked, how it cut to the bones and made shirts no less part of his skin than his barely growing chest hairs. Back then Demetri didn't know how heavy guns were, how they slowly tugged on his bicep until it dislocated a fraction's length too far off his shoulder.

He considered, for a moment, what it would mean. Two friends reunited. A third hunted. Band of Brothers type shit, the sort of shit Demetri had thought was cool, once upon a time.

Given the option, he could only stare at it blankly, his lips inert, his mind polluted. Images of the cool-guy monologues and the badass parkour to follow.

Emmett received the gun. Demetri swiped at the spear, slotting it into a grip so loose he might have immediately lost it again.

"Alright," Demetri concluded. He began to move. Brain independent of body independent of the words spilling like sewage from broken plumbing. His bag had found shelter somewhere a few steps away, and he found his way to it, taking the long awkward way around the two humans in his path. "I don't think I want to be involved."

He tried to lighten up his confession. Distract from the weakness of it, from the girlishness of his pubescent voice.

"Besides, I want to leave you two be. You know. I'm a homophobe, and all that." He couldn't smile. Couldn't sell the joke, because once again things no longer seemed that funny. "Too much sausage, or something."

That was all he had. Not much of a punchline to leave behind, when he vanished into the trees.

((Demetri Futscher continued in Sleep Is The Cousin Of Death))

Emmett could feel the gun in his hand and it felt so strange for him to be holding it. He had never held one before in his whole life and it was something that he never wanted to grasp. But he was on an murder island where his classmates and his friends were killing each other and now he had to get more serious about things that were happening around him. He couldn't act like a victim that does nothing anymore and he had to accept that not everyone was going to be who they were before.

Demetri was trying to make a stupid joke before he left and Emmett was trying to pretend that he wasn't sad to see him go. He was a bit fucking bummed out that he was actually going. "Bye, Demetri. Be careful..." He called out to the other boy as he disappeared into the trees and now he and Cecil were the only ones left there. It kind of hurt to be quiet around Cecil as Emil had been the lively one around the three of them and now they were not going to hear Emil's cheerful, positive voice anymore. "Fuck, everything is just falling apart more and I'm not sure how much more that I take of it, Cecil."

What the hell are we supposed to do now? I can't just magically find Lorenzo without the tracker. I guess I could just explore around the island more and just hope that I can find that green fucker at some point. But....

His attention was now on Cecil and he made sure that the gun was pointing at the ground, thinking that he had to make sure that he was completely safe with it. He didn't want to fuck up by not knowing how to use it. Although, he didn't know how to work a gun anyway. He had to figure it out at some point.

"We should get going too. Y-Yeah...?" His voice was still a bit shaky and he hated feeling emotional all the time, wishing that he could block all the hurt out of himself. "Sorry, I just need a minute to sort myself out, Cecil. I.... S-Sorry...."

Demetri's departure had always been a happy occasion before. Now however, Cecil found that there was nothing to be happy about as he turned his gaze away from the figure walking away from the clearing and into the trees, except for probably the gun. Even then, it was given to Emmett and not him, and he'd like to think he knew better than to argue with someone who clearly just lost someone close to them.

Cecil could sympathize with Emmett about that, at least.

There was a dull ache in his chest when Emmett shared his uncertainty about taking more of what their situation could give him. It wasn't like he was the only one who felt like that, and Cecil dearly wanted to express a similar sentiment, but for some reason he was done crying for today. Oh, he was definitely still in complete anguish inside. Sniffling and sobbing and curled up in a corner of his heart, but his physical body was already too tired to take that out for now, despite the short nap he managed to get. Instead, a detachment had started to form, like that weak, pathetic and no-good part of him weeping in a corner had to be locked in a room, and locked in another, and another, and another...

...and yet his cries are still heard. Muffled, but still heard. No matter how much more rooms he could put him in into silence.

He wasn't quite sure what he was feeling anymore as he looked at Emmett, but he knew one thing: if he was going to stick with him, then any sort of second-guessing from both of them wouldn't do.

"Emmett, how about we focus on other matters, yeah?" he got himself to smile before starting to point out the obvious. "We have to do what we can with what we have. Demetri had given us the gun, and Emil—" A small pause, a brief moment of mourning, but not a consideration of the other's feelings. "—left us more supplies. We will have to split them between us, by the way."

Cecil walked towards the deceased boy's bags, picking them up as he impatiently stared at Emmett.

Inwardly, he wondered what he looked like, not just to Emmett, but to everyone else watching him. Everyone watching all of them. His appearance is definitely a mess, but what about his smiling expression? Hopeful? Forced. Positive? Hollow. Calming? Shaking. Winning? It'd better be.

Nonetheless, even if he wished that Emmett could hurry up and help him with the bags and move on, that part of him that was wailing through the layers of locked doors and closed walls had still managed to reach out somehow before he could push him back all in again, and that was what allowed him to let himself reach out to Emmett in sincere understanding.

"We should find someplace else to rest," he said gently with his hand awkwardly hovering for a bit, unsure where to put it until finally resting it on Emmett's shoulder. Just lost someone, like me, he reminded himself. "Then maybe you could try sleeping off all the stress and the grief." Like I did. Cecil thought of Emil, and how he said he planned on helping other people in an island where everybody was supposed to kill each other. "Try finding our friends afterwards." He thought of Emil again, and how he was dead and he hadn't even seen his body. And then Camila— "Or their killers." He glanced down at the gun between them, his wan smile never leaving.

"Let's go?" He very lightly pulled him along, gently insisting for him to start moving.

Demetri emerged from the trees, wearing a mask-like look that deflected all of none of the scornful critique he heatedly felt he deserved in that moment. Not like he was going to say it aloud.

"Forgot the... ammo."

A healthy handful of boxed cartridges, tubes of gunpowder, tumbled on top of Emmett's bag while Demetri pivoted and careened to avoid both of the people he'd up-and-down and left-and-right (wing) sworn he'd never see again because they'd go off hunting his best friend and he'd go off some other way.

He was still doing that, anyways. Somehow. Mr. I Love DC was gone, probably not to be seen again.

Emmett felt his face heat up a little in embarrassment as Demetri had come back to deliver the ammo that they had both forgotten about and Emmett was relieved that he had done so. Emmett still needed to get a handle on how to use the gun and he knew that he couldn't screw things up anymore. Sapphire. Emil. He had to do something right for them for once. Now was his chance to not be a complete fuck-up on murder island.

"Thanks, Demetri."

He got everything ready so that he could leave with Cecil and he knew that there was no way he could back out of what he wanted to do now. Helping other people for Emil's sake. Taking out Lorenzo before he could so anything else. Helping Cecil with finding Declyn before everything was going to get much, much worse. Find Adonis and admit that he was a idiot for what he did to him.

Okay. Now he had more plans to keep on living.

"I'm ready, Cecil."

((Emmett Bunnell continued in RICKETY_CARNIVAL))

Cecil quickly snapped his head in alert when he heard the sound of Demetri rustling back. He couldn’t help the snort that escaped him when Demetri quietly told them of what he returned for, apparently having forgotten to hand them the ammo for the gun he just willingly gave away to them before he made a more than awkward exit.

Emmett seemed to have found his bearings shortly after that, much to his relief. Cecil should probably do the same.

Taking a deep breath himself, he tried to still find a grasp onto a part of himself despite all the things that happened today. Tragedies happened. Fine. Fine. Fine Fine Fine Fine Fine.

He imagined a huge door with a huge lock finalizing all the efforts to keep the potentially messy version of him locked up and unseen. His mental list of priorities remain unchanged, although it was only a matter of time before he might have to just cross out Find my friends there—no, don’t. Don’t. He also still refused to arrange them in order of what’s more important than the other.

I’m cool. I’m fine.

He felt his hands start to shake.

With clenched fists, Cecil strode away with Emmett.

((Cecil Salazar-Loveless continued in RICKETY_CARNIVAL))