Return of the Bear

[Deamon]

((Alaska Ferguson continued from Champions 203))

So the quick summary of events was that one of her teammates, her actual game-assigned teammates had killed someone. That was not a bad thing! Not in her opinion. But her best friend had an issue with that and the anger had managed to get transferred from her teammate onto her as well. Which was some shit, but Alaska had to just grin and bear it because she didn't want the group to fall apart.

And based on the way her time on Survival of the Fittest had been going the group she was with were the only people who actually cared about her anyway. Everyone else she'd met had ditched her at some stage while her "mentor", the person who specifically was supposed to care about her wellbeing and who was her ex, hadn't even spoken to her once. Not once.

That meant that even though the group was tense, which was a polite way of putting things, Alaska would stick with it and make it work. She had no other options.

It wasn't all bad though. The group itself had her best friend—Laura, a teammate—Sylvain, and if things really got desperate Sergio had potential uses...and he was chill enough she guessed.

But no Laura's attitude really bothered her. She didn't know what exactly she had done to make her angry. She could understand being angry at Sylvain she guessed. He had killed someone—even if that was exactly what he was supposed to do—but Alaska herself hadn't done anything.

As a result of the attitude the trip had been very uncomfortable and while she had managed to keep a happy exterior it didn't extend past her smile. Luckily she had her sunglasses and they could hide her true feelings and also double to be fucking stylin' yo.

They'd settled down on the gaudiest bright orange boat they could find because they had to stay on brand. The RocketBoat itself was...fine...it was a serviceable vessel and a great makeshift sleepover locale. It had an interior and plenty of seating, which meant plenty of makeshift beds. That had been good enough for her.

Curiosity had finally gotten the better of her and Alaska was lying across an aisle of chairs with part of her costume on. The fluffy panda patterned leotard was extremely ridiculous but it had an incredibly comfy hood that had incredibly cute ears attached—one hundred percent the reason she had it up—also, it being ridiculous wasn't really a downside. It had added a nice bit of levity to her generally uncomfortable day. She was truly the SmokeyBear again. She just needed some weed.

"So like, if you had to have sex with one person at Mangrove who would it have been? Also like, what's the plan now I guess?"

[Courtography]

(Sergio Gallo continued from from Cocaine Quest 2019)

The group wasn't chill now which sucked.

Sylvain had started playing the game which made sense in the circumstances they were in. Plus Sylvain had the same bandana as Akeno. Maybe the producers grouped the more aggressive people together in one team. He hadn't done the math. He didn't know who was on what team, but it was possible.

The problem was that they were around halfway and while Sergio couldn't blame Sylvain for shooting Mari, and the announcements hadn't said he finished the job, but Sergio and Sylvain weren't friends. They weren't going to be friends. So the question was, was Sylvain planning to kill him? Giving a guy a change of clothes didn't protect you forever on this show. Especially since Sylvain looked like a dipshit in them.

Alaska bothered to talk. It didn't matter really, but on the other hand who to fuck? Sergio was always down to talk about that.

"That admin, Miss Gonzalez, huge ass."

He forgot to answer the rest of the question. That ass was nice.

Wait.

He should have said Alaska and Laura.

Fuuuck.

[backslash]

You know the really funny thing? The ultimate punchline?

Sylvain wasn't on the announcements at all. Not as an afterthought. Not as a mistake or a correction. If he hadn't confessed, nobody would know that he had shot Mari at all except the people who caught a glimpse of him fleeing the scene and the audience at home. And him.

He could have laughed, maybe.

He spent most of the day wanting to vomit.

((Sylvain Kessler continued from CocaineQuest 2021))

Nobody had said anything directly about it, even as the next announcement passed. Audio issues or some shit. You'd think that after a decade-plus and the unmitigated disaster of Season 60, the producers would get their shit together regarding the equipment. You'd think they had the budget for that. They didn't even have the budget to pull actual mentors, apparently. Or they just didn't give a shit.

None of the group had said anything either, at least not to him, and Sylvain felt like a spring wound tight just waiting for it. But it never came.

He sat slouched in his seat, staring out over the water as the sun set again, holding the gun in his lap. "Pass," he said flatly when Alaska made another attempt at cutting the tense and awkward silence that sat between the four of them now.

Plan, though. He'd had a thought about a plan. He needed to talk to her about it, probably, before pitching it to the rest, but like, did it matter? Laura had made it pretty damn clear where she stood, even if it defied the point of the game and the logic of the bitch in the maid swimsuit being the one to decide she had a moral hangup all of a sudden.

He missed his cat ears. Looking fucking stupid like Alaska did right now might have at least made the cosmic joke of today somewhat bearable.

Heh. Bear-able.

[Pippi]

((Laura Hakštok continued from CocaineQuest 2021))

This was totally fucked up.

Like, straight up, she wasn’t even gonna append a fucking ‘yo’ to that sentence, that was how much of a serious goddamn dogshit situation it was. Sylvain had gone and straight up admitted to murdering someone, someone who… like, fuck dude, if it had been literally anybody else on the goddamn planet then Laura wouldn’t have given a single flying fuck about it! But it just had to be somebody who hadn’t wanted to participate in this, that Laura knew had been plotting nothing more nefarious than getting the fuck out of dodge. Someone who would only be a target if you were looking for an easy peasy bitch of a kill.

She really hadn’t thought that shit would rankle her, it sure as hell hadn’t on all her repeat viewings of the show in the past, but hey, here she fucking was, rankled up to her tits.

Anyfuckingway, Sylvain had gone and confessed, and ‘Laska and Sergio had been… totally fucking okay with that? Like, fucking bruh? ‘Oh, lets just all wander off together merry as can be and see what happens!’ yeah Laura could fucking tell you what would happen then, Sylvain would see two dipshits with two colossal targets on their back. Sergio, she didn’t have a clue what that virgin chad was thinking, but she had to assume Alaska was prioritising the fact she was on the same team as Sylv, as if her best bitch hadn’t spent several weekends on the sofa with her, passing a blunt between them as they watched Seasons 65 and 66 play out in real time. Teams were a nice little concept in theory that hadn’t worked out in practice a single goddamn time, ex-FUCKING-emplified by the fact that on the very announcement they had just heard, some dipshit had gone and shanked their own teammate just for shits and giggles.

But maybe, just maybe, this whole thing had been Sylvain trying to rustle her jimmies, get her into some particularly dumb bitchfight, like with that whole DM back and forth about dicks a few months or whatever back. Because speaking of the announcements… guess who hadn’t been on it? Not for a single microsecond? Maybe the shot hadn’t been fatal, in which case, dude was still an attempted murderer of Marion, which still made him a cunt. Or maybe he was just talking out of his ass, trying to rile people up, which was also pretty fucked up, but significantly less so.

Bottom line was, Laura didn’t actually have a clue. She also still didn’t have a clue about where her goddamn coke was. And now, here she was, sitting in something some headcase had called the ‘RocketBoat’ - God this thing was uggo, for the record - chatting about hot-or-not type bullshit like they were sitting in the middle of a living room floor at some house party back in Miami.

Good Christ, she needed a hit, badly.

“You can, like, fuck off if you’re not having fun, dude.”

She glanced at Sylvain as she said this, making a derisive noise with her mouth, before she leaned back, tipping her head back to look up at the sky, arms resting on the side of the boat. She sat next to Alaska, her bestie now wearing what was either her assigned fanservice costume, or something she had been planning for her next titty stream. This had been what Laura had expected when she’d finally found Alaska again, y’know? The two of them wearing their dumb as shit fanservice outfits, laughing at how dumb they looked and how many horny nerds were dealing with raging boners, talking about who to fuck and the best places on this arena to fuck in, getting naked and bombing into the cruise ship pool, hot girl shit like that.

“Anyway of course you’re a goddamn ass dude, Serge, I can tell who prefers tits or ass from a goddamn mile off, right Alasska?”

Didn’t feel right, though. She couldn’t quite look all the way at Alaska, even as she spoke to her. There had been something so stiff and frigid about her before now, but as soon as everything around her became icy and weird and fucked up, she was shifting back into her actual true and sexy Alaska form?

Whatever. Fuckin’ whatever. Maybe she was just trying to but the tension however she best could. She wanted everything to be back to normal, and stupid, and without either of them giving a shit? Sure. Laura could do that.

“Me though, you know this kid in our year, Ainslie, moved here from Ingerlund a few years back? Was at a few parties and shit, I don’t think they picked him up for this, apparently he’s got a tiny dick? Anyway I just wanna bang him cause I think it’d be fucking hilarious to hear him say shit like ‘oi fancy a cum luv?’ and be totally unironic about it.”

She had the routine down goddamn pat. She didn’t need to be feeling it to recite it.

[Namira]

Quietly, a voice emerges from Alaska's collar.

"Hey, Alaska..."

[Deamon]

Her icebreaker had worked, somewhat. Sergio had chipped in with an actual answer that...okay look, it wasn't that Alaska had been expecting herself to come up or anything like that, but what she had wanted was for a y'know answer that was at least somewhat interesting. Preferably another member of their grade, that was what she was digging for. Something funny to break up the tension. Sylvain however did not join in and drew an icy response from Laura. Her best friend made it very clear he wasn't welcome in the group, the only way she could have been more clear is if she had made a neon sign. But while Alaska grimaced at first Laura proved her best friend credentials by making her snort and laugh at her two other responses. The first because she appreciated her bestie having her back and always enjoyed the sheer dumbassery of Alasska as a pun and the second was just a hilarious mental image to her.

But just when everything was coming back together and going well someone had to butt in and ruin everything.

And not just any random someone.

Her mentor.

Emmy.

A flash of heat rushed through her body and settled in her gut. The rant played through her head again. She was at once filled with anger and a sick nervous feeling.

Her mentor had given her an open invitation to reply and she could do whatever she wanted with that power.

And her brain could come up with was raw unfiltered darkness.

Even with a rant prepared and the thoughts that had been swirling through her head Alaska still had to fight back the urge to just scream at her.

She sat up and without really thinking about it her hand found one of Lauras. It felt good to have her close by for support. Alaska's heartbeat had picked up the pace.

"What do you want?" She said, venom dripping off every word.

[Namira]

"I just...

"I wanted to apologise. For not saying anything sooner. And for letting you down. And... and... tell you that I'm here now. I won't be quiet any more."

[Courtography]

Barely any response. Just Laura saying she could tell he was an ass man. Was he? Sergio liked to think he appreciated the whole package, but Laura thought she knew everything from one sentence.

Then Alaska was distracted with what seemed to be mentor bullshit. Ugh. Unless it was entertaining like Jewel responding to their cocaine search he didn't want any part in it. Why did they have mentors on the show now anyway? They didn't add to what people came to see: Bloody Murder.

Speaking of...

"Yo Eeyore, let's be useful and search the place for supplies."

Sergio wasn't even lying really. If there were supplies, Sergio would happily take them. Plus if Sylvain was on guard or Sergio couldn't get the drop on him he would search for supplies and come back.

It was all coming together.

If he could go through with it that is.

[backslash]

There once was a girl named Laura. Sylvain didn't have a snappy comeback for her-a. That didn't rhyme.

He wanted to go back in time. Just like, two days. Two days so he could do things right this time. Shoot Lucille when he had the chance, maybe, because Sofia going and shanking her made no goddamn sense. Make sure that Mari was actually, you know, dead when he bailed. Go back and remember what it was like for things to make sense and for Sylvain himself to actually have, you know, a sense of humor about things? He'd gone and ruined the ride for himself, somehow, and it was pissing him off.

Emmy deciding to finally make her grand return wasn't helping. He'd felt bad for her, in the beginning, but she'd had a few days now to get her shit together, right? She couldn't even spare Alaska a word before now, going by the response that Alaska spit out, and she sure as hell hadn't bothered to give Sylvain the time of day.

God, everyone here was fucking lame. Sylvain couldn't even think of who he'd rather have for company right now. Maybe Alaksa just by herself, so he could actually talk to her without Laura hanging over them like a cloud of weed stench. Granted, that was what Laura did anyway, but now she was being a judgmental cloud of weed stench. What the fuck, Laura. You'd think she of all people would know how to not ruin the vibe.

So when Sergio finally bothered to address Sylvain directly, he was almost glad. "Yeah, sure, whatever," he said, standing up with a groan as his back popped and muscles resting for too long in the same position protested. He brought the gun with him, tucking it into the waistband of his (still blindingly pink, by the way) sweatpants.

"What've you got in mind?"

[Courtography]

Sylvain had tucked the gun into his pants. That was better than holding it.

Shit he hadn't thought through exactly what he was looking for. Sergio was doing pretty well on the food front from the extra bag.

"Uh, like a good bludgeon, um..."

What did most boats have somewhere, like for emergencies.

"Extra first aid kits maybe, that kind of shit."

He gave a slight laugh.

"Come on dude, I'm not going to turn down good shit just because it's not on the shopping list."

[Deamon]

Sylvain and Sergio went off exploring but Alaska didn't really notice. Her focus was entirely on what Emmy was saying to her. An apology for the silence and an assurance that she was there for her. And Alaska thought back to the times she had seen Emmy since the breakup, the breakup she herself had chosen. Emmy had wanted to see if they could make things work but Alaska just...hadn't been able to do it. She'd been the one avoiding her, running away.

She felt sick.

And despite all of the things she had imagined saying when given the chance she came up with nothing. Her mouth opened and hung there like a door left opened and forgotten about.

She was definitely going to vomit.

Her hand tightened around Laura's as she squeezed her eyes shut. Memories of all the days she had spent with Emmy flashed through her mind, each one a snapshot of a time where she had been happy. The colors vibrant as they showed images of the places they had visited, the restaurants they had been to together, and simpler moments of them squeezed onto a single bed together because she hadn't owned a double at the time.

When she spoke her voice was a whisper.

"I'm sorry too."

[backslash]

"Cool, cool." It wasn't that cool, and actually it sounded kind of boring as hell, but Sylvain would take what he could get. Laura's aura was draining his will to live, and the relationship drama that had decided to pop up now of all times wasn't helping.

He gestured at Sergio. "You lead the way, then."

Sylvain might have been dumb, but he wasn't stupid. Or at least, that might have been how it looked. Sergio actually wasn't that threatening as long as Sylvain had the gun, and as long as he wanted to stay on Alaska's good side and/or get in her pants, he was going to have to stay chill, which meant enduring Sylvain's presence. Really, Sylvain was just trying to irritate him.

[Namira]

"It's okay."

[Courtography]

"You got it bro."

Sergio took the short walk to the outside of the vessel. He could feel sweat on the back of his neck. His fingers twitched at his sides occasionally. Why was he so nervous? This was part of the game. He had known what he would eventually have to do for days.

He kneeled down next to some of the outdoor seating. Maybe something was underneath. Probably not, but he had to at least do it for a bit so Sylvain would too.

He glanced behind him, just to see what was going on. He had to time it right.

[backslash]

Sylvain trailed along behind Sergio. The RocketBoat wasn't big enough to put as much distance between them and the other shitshow as much as he would have liked, but the search was something to focus on even if it was futile. Like, maybe someone had stowed their bag way under one of the benches or something, or there was a stray first-aid kit lying around but like, probably not?

Eh, Sylvain didn't know that much about boats. He'd already been over this. Maybe they were just lousy with first-aid kits under normal circumstances.

He walked right up to Sergio, enough that he was definitely in his personal space, but he pretended he didn't realize. "Find something?"