The Cigarette Holder is a glamorous theater of massive proportions decorated in an exaggerated artsy style. Black and White portraits of famous actors and actresses such as Clark Gable, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Audrey Hepburn are put up for miles and miles along the walls, golden stars in between. It's divided into 6 screening rooms: Action, Romance, Comedy, Thriller, Drama, and Horror, which indulge in showing their relevant SOTF-TV scenes. The lobby in the middle holds a popcorn maker, a soda fountain, and lobby games such as air hockey, hoop shooting, pinball, and an arcade racer built for two.
"That's a nice - and surprisingly noble - goal, Anastasia. However - I'd just like to remind the two of you that the people waiting out there have more to gain by killing you than grouping with you. If you're truly planning to survive, I'd start by finding your teammates."
So Shawn disappeared to help Ana and left Sebastien and Jackson just kind of standing around. Sebastien wasn't sure if he should try to strike up a conversation or just leave things as they were; Jackson didn't seem to be much for small talk, and he was terrible at it anyway.
He wondered the rest of his friends were doing, if they were even here. He wondered if his parents were watching, if they or someone else had called Erik yet. Sebastien picked at the sleeve of his hoodie. Truth be told, he was glad Erik hadn't been home. He was certain that his older brother wouldn't have let him go without a fight, and he didn't know what the good old men in black did to people who started fights. Couldn't be anything good.
He sighed and leaned back against the wall. "I want to go home..."
Jackson had lifted the hat back onto his head by this point. Somehow it made him feel comfortable. Truthfully, the whole costume was a comfort. Maybe it separated him from everything.
In any case, Sebastien's sentiment carried substantial weight. He could be home, tuning up, playing, looking up new songs to learn. Bettering himself. Instead of being forced to have to tear other people down.
"I just want my guitar." He said. And that was the truth of it.
Anastasia leaned back into him and he smiled at the contact. The weight of her body leaning against his was comforting, letting him know that she was right here with him in a way that seemed more real and tangible than just seeing and hearing.
She asked to stay like this for a while and Shawn found that not one ounce of him disagreed with the idea.
Anastasia began to lay out her plan while he listened and it was pretty much like Shawn had thought. They were to gather as many people together as possible, hopefully as quickly as they could, while also trying to get the audience on their side.
That was the part which worried him; well, one of the parts. Shawn was used to playing to a crowd; it was just usually a lot smaller than this one. A lot smaller. Divide by a million and you might be close.
Hinging this whole plan on the fickle tastes of an unseen audience that numbered in the millions was starting to sound like a nerve wracking idea. For the first time in a long time Shawn was starting to feel stage fright.
Before his nerves could be fully wracked however Anastasia took both of his hands in hers. It helped to relax him.
The next step was to take control of the game; ok, to be honest, if they pulled off step one well enough that wouldn’t be so hard. If their group made up the majority of the people in the game stopping the killing wouldn’t be that hard; that said, stopping the killing might mean taking out all the people who were not part of their group.
This plan might mean a lot of people going home but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t still be bloody.
She pulled away from him then and turned around to face him and there was something in her expression which made him think that she was about to say something important.
"And there's so much that can go wrong. But as long as we have each other, everything will be okay. That's just how I feel. I know it's not kind of me to say, but I can't trust the others the same way I trust you. You're giving me your life; and you are the only person I can give mine. In everything, I'm yours."
She was holding his hands again now and looking into his eyes. He felt like he needed to say something back to her, to make the same sort of promise, but he couldn’t find the words for such a big idea.
He had given his life to her by committing to this plan. He was trusting his life to Anastasia and whether or not her idea worked, and she in turn was entrusting her life to him and his ability to help make that idea succeed. But how did you put something like that into words?
And then she was kissing him. Not a deep kiss, not a madly passionate one, just a regular kiss like they’d done many times before. But it felt like it meant more, when it could be one of their last.
He tightened his grip on her hands.
She pulled away and he had to resist the urge to follow her into another kiss.
"And that's why I have to say this. Now, I'm not planning to fail here. I still believe and always will believe we will succeed. But if I'm wrong. If I fail... I want us to be together. Whether we run and hide, stand and fight, or just leave this place for whatever lies ahead, I want it to just be you and me. I love you Shawn, and want to be yours and you to be mine forever. So... I guess I'm asking you... will you marry me? For real. Not for the audience, not for the producers, not for anyone else in the world. But for me, for us. Will you take me as your wife?"
… What? Was she serious?
Of course she was. She really wanted them to get married, here and now, or at least for them to say that they were. It wasn’t hard to see why; their relationship was pretty much doomed because the chances of both of them making it out of this alive was somewhere between slim and none. The chances of one of them making it out of alive were bad enough.
He still didn’t know what team she was on. Maybe there was no chance at all.
Anastasia wanted them to stay together – he wanted them to stay together as well – this marriage was just a way to do that; it was a promise not to let anything break them apart.
But did she really have to word it in that way? It made it so much harder to say ‘yes’ when she put the image of wedding dresses and aisles in his mind. Even if they were going to die it was way too soon for that.
“I… yes”
It wasn’t a hard decision to make really.
“Yes, I’ll marry you.”
He was leaning in to another kiss when he was interrupted.
"That's a nice - and surprisingly noble - goal, Anastasia. However - I'd just like to remind the two of you that the people waiting out there have more to gain by killing you than grouping with you. If you're truly planning to survive, I'd start by finding your teammates."
He pulled back sharply and began looking around them. It didn’t take as long this time for Shawn to recognise that this voice belonged to one of their mentors, but there wouldn’t ever be a time when a sudden voice wouldn’t startle him, not in this place.
He said yes. She smiled so wide she was sure her face would get stuck like that. Just as they were going to share another kiss, Anastasia's collar spoke. Despite tying her bandana over it, the voice was loud and clear. A little too loud.
Shawn took the words out of her mouth with his reply to her mentor. Wait a sec. She noticed now Shawn's bandanna. It was the same color as hers. "Babe, you are not going to believe this but it looks like we're on the same team." This was going to make things so much smoother between them. But it was time to get back to the game. "Real moment killer, our mentor by the way. Thanks for the encouragement but really, timing needs work."
She sighed and reached for her bandann before deciding against it. If she tore a few pieces off that then it might not turn out well. She instead just ripped a bit off the end of her sleeves. She ripped the piece in two and fashioned the fabric into two rings, and put one on Shawn's finger and one on hers. "As a reminder, okay?"
"We'd better get back to our royal court. The nobles might grow restless should we tarry here any longer. And besides, we have work to do. I assume you've decided where we're going?"
She smiled and laughed. She was just so happy right now, it felt like nothing would bring her down ever again.
She went up to the door and held it open. "C'mon, let's go back to the others."
At one point, the headset hissed and popped, and Dougie heard footsteps that were more frequent, more urgent than his own, accompanied by smaller, sharper breaths. He tried to stop the relief he felt as he buried his hands deeper in his pockets, feeling like he finally had a handle on the situation. He could hear Jewel now, could imagine her movements, and that made him feel more secure.
The next building he came across was a theatre, and he trudged towards it with his daypack banging lightly against his thigh, shouldering open the doorway to the movie theatre with a puff of visible breath. He stomped his boots on the carpet, rubbing his hands together in an attempt to rid himself of the cold, and suddenly froze.
Two other boys were standing in the lobby.
Looking at him.
Instinctively, he held his hands in the air, palms facing the two shorter boys.
That was one of Sebastien's mom's favorite sayings, and it was something he'd held onto for most of his childhood. He had diabetes; he couldn't exert himself like most kids his age without paying close attention to his health, but being told about his condition had sparked his interest in medicine. He tended to alienate people who had similar interests to him, but that had let him get close to the people that became his friends now.
He was stuck in SOTF. There had to be a payoff somewhere.
A few minutes after Ana and Shawn disappeared into the theater, a door on the other end of the lobby pushed open and a boy Sebastien had never seen before stepped in. At least he seemed to be as surprised to see Sebastien and Jackson as they were to see him.
"...Hi."
The door the new guy had entered through swung closed, and the theater door reopened. Shawn and Ana again. Good grief, how does she think she's going to run around in the snow in that dress?
Sebastien shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. He needed to find something to keep his hands busy. His eyes were drawn to the headset the unfamiliar boy was wearing. "You, uh... talking to someone?"
...And then there was a big black kid with a headset. Thankfully, he was givin the universal gesture of peace. Or at least Jackson thought it was universal. Made sense right now anyway.
Jackson was curious about who he was talking too as well, but Sebastian already asked the obvious question.
He opted to instead tip his comically large hat to the newcomer.
I’m married to a girl who uses words like ‘tarry’.
Shawn looked down at his finger and the ring of fabric that now encircled it. He felt like a little kid playing make-believe, saying they were married making their own rings. It was ridiculous yet he couldn’t help but smile.
In the time he had been dating her he had learned that if he didn’t question Ana’s choices things tended to be a lot more fun.
“Hey, does this make me King now?”
And they were on the same team. That was a huge relief. It meant that, however little, their chances of getting out of this together had gone up.
“I assume you've decided where we're going?"
He looked up with a confused expression. “Urm.” Was he supposed to be doing that? He hadn’t realised. “Onwards and upwards. I’ll find more specific directions when I get a chance to check a map.”
Anastasia held the door for him and he walked through it. Their moment was over he guessed, for now, and it was time to rejoin with the rest of their group – sorry, court – and get to work.
“I think we should stay where we are for now. At least until we figure some stuff out. Besides, we’ll need a big place if we’re going to gather everyone and place don’t get much bigger than, oh.”
Shawn stopped short as he caught sight of the situation back in the lobby.
It was a Mexican standoff of sorts, with no guns but with an actual mariachi so that had to count for something.
Something should be said.
“Welcome to Awesomtownia. The fastest growing town in… here.”
"Oh. Well this is interesting." Ana waved at the newcomer. "The sovreign nation of Awesometownia declares this to be a place of peace and safe passage. You need not fear us. We're friendlies, in summation."
She gently leaned back against the theater door. She had left her weapon behind, and if she needed it... Better to be close. "What brings you to this place? From where do you hail? Answer as you will but know the more you share the more likely an offer of alliance will be made."
Trust implicitly until proven wrong. But be not foolish. The sword be kept sheathed but present. That was the creed for her nation that she had just formed. And it was her modus operandi until she and her new husband were safely home.
Dougie blinked as the room was suddenly much more full - Sebastian and Jackson being joined by a couple who had apparently just appeared from the bathroom. The girl was wearing some concotion on her form that had him raising both eyebrows, shifting his gaze back towards Sebastian.
So many questions in a short amount of time lead him to shove his hands back in his pockets, to prevent fidgeting. His right foot took a step backwards, pivoting slightly as the realization dawned that there were four of them and one of him, and they clearly all knew each other - at least somewhat.
"Uh," came his response to Ana's ramblings, followed closely by a slow shake of his head. Pointedly, he looked at Sebastian, who was the only person thus far that wasn't either dressed in a stupid costume, talking about a stupid made-up nation or town, or a weird blend of the two.
So Jackson was unhelpful, Ana was unhelpful, Shawn had gone native - Come on, man, you were my one island of sanity here - and New Guy hadn't answered his question. Sebastien sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Yeah, we're for real." He glanced at Ana and Shawn. "Have you guys considered that people might be more open to the pitch if we don't act like nutjobs?"
He was getting a little snappy now, but come on - big guy comes in, maybe friendly maybe not, maybe communicating with who knows what, and everyone's first reaction is welcoming him to Crazytown?
"So, again - are you talking to someone? If you are, who? And where are you from, because I have never seen you before in my life." Not that Sebastien's social circle could be considered especially large, but he was still pretty sure this guy wasn't from Davison. Even Jackson had seemed passingly familiar before introductions were made.
He crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath to steady himself. "Also, what she said. We're friendly. We are armed though, so keep that in mind." Sebastien made sure to focus right on the newcomer as he said the last part, hoping the intent was clear.
Everyone else may not seem like they mean business, pal, but I damn sure do.
It was almost fun to see Sebastian lose his patience. In another time, shit, a couple days ago, Jackson would be in the same position. But decided it was over before it began was driving Jackson above all else. If he was going to die, he was going to do it having a little fun.
"You guys are armed, anyway." Jackson corrected Sebastien. "I got a joy buzzer. I'd gladly accept a loaner or something."
Jackson tightened his lip after he delivered that. He realized too late he might have gone ahead and blown just a little of the credibility Sebastien had been trying to build.
Eh, he'd get over it.
Jackson leaned back against the wall and cross his arms, waiting for Douglas to answer the questions, from the "Where do you hail" to the "Who are you talking to?". Those were the real conversation starters, anyway.
Dougie was being peppered by questions, and he raised his hands again in Seb's direction, aiming to slow them. The boy seemed a little on edge, weary, and judging by who he surrounded himself with, Dougie wasn't inclined to blame him.
He opened his mouth to explain, to answer, to placate-
Dougie's fingers curled into tight fists, his eyes hardening as he glared at Seb, unseeing. He'd left her alone, and it sounded like-
Son of a bitch.
"Son of a bitch," he snarled out.
Without further explanation, he whirled and sprinted back from when he came, the foursome and their odd behaviour forgotten for the moment beneath the pounding, looming thought.
He wasn’t wrong though; he had to admit that his introduction left something to be desired. Anybody would be put off if they were confronted by three doses of babble and one dose of third degree. Maybe they should refine their approach for when the next person came along; because it sure looked like this was one person they weren’t going to convert to their cause.
The guy raised his hands and held them in front of him, looking like he was trying to calm Sebastien down and get a little breathing room for himself. Shawn considered saying something during the silence but decided that enough had been said for now; better to give this guy a chance to answer some of these questions.
But then he stopped, mouth halfway open like he was going to say something. He looked like he was listening to something and Shawn finally spotted the headset; that was an interesting weapon to get in a team based game. It also suggested that this guy had already met some of his teammates, or was working with someone outside his team.
Either way he had allies and that made it even more important that they get him on their side. It didn’t look like it was going to happen though; whatever he had heard over that headset it wasn’t good. He looked angry, he sounded angry and without saying another word he was sprinting out the door, obviously with more urgent matters than them and their weird behaviour on his mind.
Waiting long enough for the glass doors to swing closed again Shawn turned to Sebastien and raised his hands in a placating manner.
“Ok, fair point about the weird behaviour. Sorry, the guy kind of caught me off guard; I’ll tone down the quirky for the next time. Ana’s better at it than I am anyway.”
Shawn walked over to where he had left his backpack against the wall and picked it up. Unzipping it, he fished around inside for a few moments before pulling out a bottle of water. As he opened it and took a drink he eyed the front doors of the theatre, thinking.
“I’m more worried about what that guy is going to do next, than I am about how we greeted him. He was talking to someone; he might have already met up with his team. I’m worried they might all come back here together.”
He dropped his bag but hung onto the water for now. He turned to face the rest of the group, gesturing with the bottle while he spoke. “I was thinking we should stay here, see who shows up, but now I’m not so sure now that someone knows we’re here. Not if we don’t know anything about them or what their plans are. I think we should leave.”
