Civilized Civil Lies

[MK Kilmarnock]

Well, that was short lived. Bye, Jonathan, thanks for coming.

So, that just left Jeff, the only one of the two newcomers not to immediately puss out. Because the place felt 'dangerous'? Hell yeah, this place was dangerous, but only to guys like Jonathan. A little part of Wyatt commended Jonathan on making the wise decision, albeit the disappointing one. And so, now there stood four people in the aviary, surrounded by statues and bird shit. And where exactly where they supposed to go from here?

"Alright. You probably know the drill then," Wyatt said, lowering the eyebrow he raised from Jonathan's sudden departure. He stepped around Jeff, giving him a wide berth but getting closer to the exit. Jeff had to be aware of it, of what he was doing, but Wyatt wasn't trying to be sneaky about it. He was shooting more for 'imposing'. Make that move, try to reach the exit before him, and the toughest guy in GHHS would throw all of his weight crashing down like a ton of bricks.

"We'll be nice, don't want a fight, do we, Bret? But you gotta pay the troll toll, and that's gonna be half of your bread, your crackers... like two of those protein bars, those things are fucking nasty. Tastes like... shit, like a bunch of oats pressed into a cake."

[blastinus]

(Apologies for breaking post order. Got to hand Jeff off and get out of the thread)

"So much for that bro hug, huh?"

Jeff probably shouldn't have expected anything, but part of him was hoping, just a wee bit, that reuniting with his team would have been a peaceful, friendly affair. They could have shared a few laughs, reminisced on old times, and wished each other luck in a cordial manner. But nope, it was exactly like he'd assumed. Assholes. Building their own petty little fiefdoms.

He heaved a hefty sigh, widening his stance in case the other Carter tried to bumrush him from behind. Troll toll. What a joke. These folks were just BEGGING for whoever this Quinn Abert person was to pop out of the underbrush and shoot them in their pompous, swollen heads.

That being said, what was the play? Bret and whatsername were over on the other side, which just left Thing #2 here to deal with. He hadn't even drawn his gun yet, the stupid asshole. If Jeff went to town on them, really unleashed all the tools at his disposal, he could leave them bloody and crippled before they took him down, for whatever that was worth. He would have a LOT of laughs about that while he was burning in hell, surely.

No, caution was the play here. Find an opening and wait for a better time to engage them, some other day. But how to do so...His fists clenched. His eyes narrowed. He was only going to get one shot at this. It was do or die.

"Wish it could have been different," he said, reaching into his bag. "Then again, we never were FRIENDS!"

He didn't mean to bark it out like that. It probably sounded stupid as heck. But as the rock he'd picked up yesterday went soaring straight for Wyatt's face, he just felt the adrenaline take over him, surging him forward as he made a dash for the exit. He didn't have time to see if Wyatt had taken the hit or just knocked it away. He just had to go, go as fast as his legs could take him. Wyatt was a demon at full speed. He needed as many seconds as he could get. Forget the rock. There were hundreds more where that came from. Just get out of there, go and don't look back.

This had been a net loss, all told. He'd learned nothing, gained nothing, and just looked like a fool in front of even more people. If he and the Carters ever met again, Jeff wouldn't let himself be so defenseless. He would take them apart, one by one, and not feel a thing for it. They wanted a toll in food? He would have his own in blood.

(Jeff Greene continued elsewhere, under new management)

[Deamon]

For whatever reason Wyatt attempted to make a move to rob Jeff. It was a decision that appeared to be made on a whim and without consulting him. Bret didn't make any move to help his brother. Instead, he just watched the failure manifest, and it was a failure. But that had been bound to happen and it didn't bother Bret at all. It was an unnecessary move. They had plentiful supplies and Tirzah had her own. It made attempting to acquire any more at the current stage an unnecessary risk. Plus, they needed to keep a low profile. There was doubt word of their robberies would have spread. Tirzah knew about them for one, so it wasn't a stretch to imagine that others also knew. That was the downside of their method. It left survivors, and survivors were able to speak. They had let Morgan and Bryan go after all. They would have passed on what had happened to everyone they met. Bret was sure of it.

Based on the little amount of time he had spent with her Bret was starting to gain more of an appreciation for Tirzah. She had, at first, seemed like an opportunist and a very easy to read one at that. He was starting to reconsider that analysis. His brother was being played, that much was obvious from the beginning. But there was something else about Tirzah, something he recognized. He looked over at her for a moment before returning his attention to Wyatt.

"And what exactly was that supposed to achieve?"

[Ruggahissy]

So everyone had decided to leave. Tirzah stood and twirled out from behind the Medusa statue where she had hidden. The hem of the robe lifted off the ground a bit and twirled with her, continuing after she came to a stop.

"Weenies," she said, rolling her eyes.

Jonathan had said the place felt dangerous. Good work, Sherlock, a place on the island of murder was dangerous. With those kind of penetrating insights, Tirzah expected that he'd be dead soon. They would never see each other again, not that they saw much of each other just now. The second visitor had turned and run. It looked like the brothers were just about as unamused by the spectacle as she was. Tirzah was mostly annoyed at him for wasting their time with his nonsense, but maybe Wyatt and Bret were more upset since he was a teammate.

"How embarrassing, is the whole rest of the football team like that?" she asked, twirling around again, ending this time near Wyatt.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Wyatt would like to say he didn't see that coming, but nah. Nah, he totally did. He didn't know exactly what Jeff was going to do because he wasn't a mind reader (thank fucking god, knowing Bret), but there was a sudden yet inevitable betrayal coming.

And there it was. The best Jeff could muster was a rock. Admittedly, that thing clocking him in the head was going to SUCK, hard, but scrapping with other children, the football team, and his twin had burnt the flinch response out of Wyatt's system almost completely. He didn't shut his eyes, nor did he turn his head away, but he did have his spare hand up by his face ready to intercept it. Jeff was an athlete through and through, however, and he reminded everybody of that by devoting every muscle in his legs to getting out of slugging range the moment that rock left his hand, so that by the time Wyatt had reflexively batted it away and let it roll on the ground harmlessly past Bret's feet, Jeff was halfway out of harm's way.

Wyatt took a couple steps after his teammate, frowning and pulling his gun out of his belt, held it at his side... and it stayed there. The only thing he could really do from here, in the brief period of time before Jeff was completely out of sight, was shoot him.

What exactly was that supposed to achieve? Bret asked the question and it did stick with Wyatt, though probably not in the way Bret intended for it to do so. For some reason, the thought scared him, so he decided not to touch on it for the moment. Instead, he looked over his shoulder and responded the only way he could.

"Was gonna rob him, numbnuts, but couldn't do it without shooting him. And that fucks up your precious master plan so maybe you should be THANKING me." Wyatt spat on the ground, then regarded Tirzah. "Nah, some of'm are cool. Connor, Ace..." Yeah. Ace was cool alright. Better be as competent as he gave him credit for.

[Deamon]

"Yes, thank you for attempting an unnecessary robbery," Bret said, lazily kicking the rock away. It bounced and rolled a small distance before connecting with the base of one of the statues with a small clatter. "We're fine for supplies, there's no reason to try and get any more right now." He was going to get pushback on his stance, he knew it. Wyatt had been eager to get as violent as possible early on when they robbed Morgan and that urge hadn't dissipated with time. His brother had never had much of an understanding of subtlety and normally that wasn't as much of an issue. Bret would look out for him and reign him in whenever it looked like he was going to go too far. But in their current situation, there was more stake, they couldn't just throw their weight around with no plan and expect things to go their way. They also couldn't just randomly go after people. Bret thought he had been clear when he'd laid out his plan to his twin but clearly Wyatt didn't comprehend or care about the nuances at play. Both of those options were less than ideal.

Tirzah had moved past him with a twirl, white robe following with her. She spoke and as she did so another twirl took her next to Wyatt. The question wasn't one Bret cared much about. He withdrew a bottle of water from his pack and took a small sip as Wyatt responded to her question. It wasn't something he had thought about much, mainly because he had been busy. He was sure Connor and Ace would have been doing fine, most likely. They were both popular and friendly enough that people wouldn't have the same reactions to them as they did to Bret and his brother.

"Beau's not though, he's like that. Maybe worse."

[Ruggahissy]

"Was he even on the trip?" she said to Bret.

Tirzah fished through her bag, but sneezed part of the way through unzipping. Her sneeze was dainty and squeaky.

"Yeah, I know Ace," she said, hand knocking against her gun.

She finished and pulled out a map. Tirzah pulled up the zipper of the bag and looked at the island. "He's a good guy. Very sweet." So obviously he was screwed. Someone would take advantage of that, she was certain.

The mention of Connor reminded Tirzah of Ivy, who had been his girlfriend and was currently the girlfriend of Bret. Or at least she was the last Tirzah knew. They'd known each other a long time, but she and Ivy weren't really each other's confidants, if Ivy had such a thing, which she doubted. Not that Tirzah had them either aside from drunkenly blurting out her secrets to bewildered acquaintances and then laughing.

"Speaking of friends and acquaintances, what about your girlfriend, Strawberry Shortcake? Haven't heard you mention wanting to find her," she said to Bret.

[MK Kilmarnock]

What the hell, they were talking about Ace and suddenly they're talking about Ivy?

Wyatt bristled when the mention of 'Bret's girlfriend' came up. It didn't help matters none that this was all coming up in the middle of Bret doing everything in his power to piss him off, apparently. When conversation took a turn for the irritating... or when life did that in general, as it often did, Wyatt admitted he had a hard time hiding his feelings. Often, he didn't even try. That kind of shit came off as sneaky; the people who practiced it were weasels. Meanwhile, that shit happened to be second-nature for Bret. Sometimes the two had a strange understanding with each other, but sometimes even he couldn't figure out what was going on in Brawny Man's head over there.

Now wasn't the time for getting riled up over something like this, especially when Bret didn't exactly leave himself open to a line of verbal attacking. Did they have enough supplies? That was a matter up to debate, because their food stores didn't account for the calorie intake of each of them lasting more than a few days, so it seemed to make sense to try and procure even more. But Bret could have just as well been sitting on something he wasn't letting either of them know about... maybe a plan to get rid of Tirzah.

Or a plan to get rid of him, but Wyatt laughed that off immediately. It was a laugh shared between two ideas, because he'd figured out how to turn the talk of Ivy into a way to piss Bret off.

"Nah, they're not dating anymore," Wyatt slid in before Bret could stew and make whatever flat response he was going to. "She upgraded to a bigger ride." Ah. Maybe he overdid it a little bit there, so he decided to temper it just a tiny bit. "Eh, I mean it's this whole thing. We fucked, she got drunk and blabbed about it, they broke up, Bret kicked me in the fucking junk. Now Ives is probably jumping somebody else's bones if it'll give her comfort." He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not gonna blame her, I mean... it's Death Island, get yer rocks off, right?"

[Deamon]

Bret shook his head.

"Don't think he was." Bret didn't actually know why Beau hadn't gone on the trip. It was never something that he'd investigated. He hadn't really considered it important. It still wasn't but he was curious to a degree. Just so that he could know. Of course, the conversation inevitably turned towards Ivy. Tirzah either hadn't heard about what had happened, which seemed unlikely or more likely, she was trying to get a rise out of him as she had with Wyatt. She appeared to be testing their patience, maybe in an attempt to see how much she could get away with. How far she could push them.

Bret shot Wyatt a look when he spoke up. He felt a flash of anger and urge to take a swing at his twin but he held it down. It wouldn't help anything and they needed to stick together. He held his gaze on Wyatt before eventually returning it to Tirzah.

"That's pretty much it," He said. "I don't care about what happens to her." He started to move towards the exit of the aviary, eyes taking in the burnt supports that were no longer suitable for their purpose.

((Bret Carter continued elsewhere...))

[Ruggahissy]

She looked at Bret until he turned away. Tirzah collected up her things, sensing that they had decided to keep moving.

"Didn't know it was such a thing. I guess that's that." she said, though she felt it was strange that out of the present company she was only one not to have frosted Strawberry Shortcake, but she seemed to be the only one to spare her a passing thought.

She supposed that no matter what kind of relationship you had with someone on the island, maybe this is all it boiled down to in the end. To this, she considered herself kinder than her shields because at least she'd cared about someone here.

(( Tirzah continued elsewhere ))

[MK Kilmarnock]

Wyatt realized he was right to dial it back. He knew the look, the look Bret gave him. He knew it well because it was a look he'd received a lot over the years, and it was probably a look he'd given back once or twice. He thought only probably because when angered, Wyatt knew he'd fly off and hit straight away. Everything was about sprinting straight to the violent option and shutting it down. Bret usually had a longer delay between wanting to hit and actually hitting. And that look was the look he gave between those two steps.

Wyatt didn't flinch. Flinching only made the likelihood of it happening increase. Plus, he wasn't no bitch. He could take a hit from his brother. He was probably one of like... three? Three people within a 100... 1000... 2000 maybe, mile radius who could.

"Yeah. That's that," Wyatt mumbled as an echo, bringing up the rear of their little conga line, keeping Tirzah between the two of them. Not for her sake.

"That's that."

((Wyatt continued in Swerve))