Survival Of The Fittest

Andrew's lip trembled, and he looked deep into Zed's eyes. He brought his hands up to the boys shoulders slowly, finally resting them there.

"Eww, gross! Get off," he said, pushing Zed away.

Zachary found himself trembling - and hurting - as Andrew's hands slid up to his shoulders, passing the wound in his arm, with which he gasped ever so lightly and blushed. This was turning out to be another awkward-good moment...and at least he could trust Andrew more than some blonde broad he barely met. His hands started to make their way down to Andrew's hips...slowly traversing the fabric...approaching that lovely...rounded...

((What's disturbing is that a Barry White MP3 came on while I was writing this. Really.))

Zed also cringed and pushed Andrew away when he did, sliding off to the side and ending up leaning on the entryway wall - and thankfully not the side of his wounded arm. It was the most disturbing-yet-good-in-a-sense feeling he'd actually had, though like the previous one it was ruined, though thankfully not with much pain. He still half-acted like he hated it though...

"Eugh...I can't believe I did that..." he groaned...and at least that groan was justified by the fire in his pants.

"Fuckin' nasty," Andrew agreed(?). "Oh, shit." He glanced at Zed's arm and remembered how much his friend had been cradling the wounded limb earlier. "Sorry, dude."

Nich ignored his two cohorts and their brief homo-erotic scene, glancing around the room and thinking furiously. He didn't want to forsake their shelter and fortress, but at the same time he was concerned about that gunshot; it was quite the dilemma. He glanced at his wounded--nearly crippled--comerade, then at his unarmed other.

"Ok ok," Nich finally piped up. "We'll see where this goes."

"Where the hell else is it gonna go..." Andrew murmered.

"Bottom line is, we might have to leave."

"Hotdog."

Zed was unfortunately forced to agree with that statement. For some reason though, he didn't feel as if he needed sleep though...as if time had already jumped while it was. He moved forward away from the door and towards his buddies. Through all the pain wracking his nerves he managed to make the effort to make up a team plan.

"We'll have to move quick. There might be...a hiding place...in a darker building nearby..."

He turned to Andrew. It took him a while before he could figure out what to do with him...because for some reason he was also recovering from the emotional and mental stigma of what just happened along with the physical stigma of events passed.

"We'll have to keep Andrew...in our sights and safe...until we can get him a good weapon. At least we'll have a fighting chance then."

Nich was impressed with Zed's quick thinking on the matter. He nodded in approval, a gesture that to him meant more than just "good plan." It meant Zed was in. He was more than a casual skatepark aquaintance; he was a friend. Nich had made the right decision to bring him along.

"I don't hear anything," Andrew piped up. It was true; both the screaming and the commotion had stopped, and no responding gunshots ensued. That could only mean one thing. "She's dead?"

"I think so," Nich replied. It made sense. The question was, now, would the killer seek them out? Maybe he'd been deterred by the missing keys at the front...no, there was a large chance he'd arrived here before they had. "Ok, listen up. No matter what happens, if I give you the signal, we run."

"What's the signal?"

"Run."

"Oh, right." Andrew had no objection to getting out of there. He was a fast runner anyway. "You better keep up then, cause if it goes down like that, I'm...fuckin'...woosh, outta here."

"What's important is that we all meet somewhere." Rendezvous.

"Ok, where?"

"Uh..." Nich withdrew his map hurriedly, turning it right-side up and studying it quick. "Umm, the old church."

"No, no, that's a dangerzone."

"Oh, right." Nich snorted. "Then...the, uh...the marina. I bet no one's there."

"Sounds good to me. Zed?"

Zed hobbled over to where Nich and Andrew were reading the map. He listened in on their plan and nodded regularly just to make sure they knew he was paying attention (and he was, he didn't want to miss out on the next part of the storyline!) It wasn't the plan he found odd though, especially since he actually had the least chance of escaping due to his injuries and DESPITE the fact that he had a weapon, it was more that there weren't any briefing messages that appeared as his buddies "decided" on the objective point.

"Marina...sounds good." he said. His little good time had given him more confidence, at least. "We'd better rendezvous outside the marina though, just in case. This way we can enter together and have a better chance in case somebody's already there..."

If the AI's as good as this game plays...then at least they'd better be getting this...

"Yeah, good call." Nich put the map away again, being sure to add, "That's southwest. Remember."

"Got it," Andrew nodded, his uneasiness remaining even long after the sound had died away. 'Why us,' he kept thinking. 'What were the odds? 1 out of 1000? 1 out of 10000?' Andrew was no wizard with numbers, but he figured that they were very low. His thoughts turned to his older brother, for the first time since he'd arrived on the island. 'Garry? Are you here too...?'

"Ok." Nich took another glance out of the peephole and waited there.

"Is there--"

"Shh!"

"Sorry--"

"Shhhhut up!"

Zed took his backpack and moved to the door with his "friends." They were already suited up (per se) and geared up for the mission. This mission of course, being a classic escort-the-VIP. He did not want to think about what would happen if he completed it...it would probably give him some extra stuff or at least some more time to see what happened with the story line. He did, unfortunately, give a good amount of thought as to what would happen if he didn't.

If he "died" he would very likely be unable to get his vengeance on that whore that had so thoroughly defiled him. And maybe her death would be saved for the real hero...which could as well be either "Andrew" or "Nich." A death that he probably wouldn't be able to witness from reality. Hell, maybe she's supposed to be the main villain and I'm just NPC fodder for storyline purposes... He was sweating and hurting from the subsequent bloodrush at the thought...but there was no turning back. He had entered the mission start beacon, and there was no "restart" or "quit and reload" option. Maybe he was even playing it in real life...but that thought was furthest from his mind at the moment.

Through this he tried to keep a check on the volume of his breathing...and it was working to some degree of success...

((Maybe we should combine the action with Walter's...just to keep things on the up-and-up-to-down.))

Nich was getting restless. A week without sex would usually do that to him. Hell, a couple days would. Admittedly, Finlayson had been in the middle of a dry spell when the students had been kidnapped. He'd even thought about trying to hook up with one of Hobbs' lesser ladies in the john on the plane; always wanted to join the mile-high club. Those plans were dashed soon after.

He knew he had to make a quick decision instead of standing there, hesitating, face pressed against the door. He gripped his handaxe firmly and took another glance at his friends, biting his lip and thinking hard.

"...ok. Here's the new plan," he said finally. "I'm gonna go check out what's going on myself." He hefted his designated weapon confidently. "I think I can handle it, especially if he's uh...occupied..." It had dawned on Nich that maybe the shot had come from the woman. Or maybe the shot had merely wounded her, and the attacker was taking advantage of the situation. Either way, he was too full of energy to wait any longer, and he drew his friends in close, grabbing the two by their respective shoulders.

Oops, other shoulder...(sorry, Zed)...

"If I anything goes wrong, you'll know it. In that case, bolt." He handed his daypack to Swainson, seeing as he had none. This didn't take any explaining, of course. If he didn't come back, he'd have no need for it.

"Nich--" Andrew started.

"Don't worry about it. I'm just covering all the bases." He unlocked the door and grasped the handle. "I can handle it." With that he threw open the door and dissappeared into the hallway, shutting it behind him firmly.

((Nich continued in Kill Me Softly))

Before Zed knew it, Nich was gone, leaving a half-injured man with a weapon and an otherwise physically fine one without a weapon alone in a hotel room. Zed had pulled the door closed with his free arm as soon as Nich left, in case the shotgun man had decided to come along. It was still unlocked, of course, so Nich could come back in if he liked. If he didn't come back, well, the lock was only an arm's reach away. In the meantime, he tried not to dwell on the fact that he was alone, in a hotel room, with a person of the same gender that had positively aroused him earlier.

((Current MP3 as of writing - Rick James - "Mary Jane"))

"So...uh...what now?" he asked...similar to walking up to an NPC and pressing the Interaction button...

Andrew shook his head and rubbed his eyes with the thumb and index finger of one hand, barely hanging onto the daypack in the other. His gut-rot feeling had worsened tenfold. He knew that Nich was just trying to defend their home-base, but still, he couldn't help but feel a little abandoned.

"I don't know," he muttered in a resignated tone. He slumped against the wall, sliding down until his knees nearly touched his chin. He looked up at Zed.

"...you know what? I don't care about this place. This room." He looked over to the far wall, to the chair where his best friend had been sitting. Keeping watch so they could sleep. He had no idea what would have happened if he'd remained down in the sewer, but he would be lying if he told himself it would've been alright. "This fucking room." Andrew kicked the daypack away from him with his foot. His face contorted in anger, and he threw an arm out to point at the door. "That's my best friend out there, god-fucking-dammit..." His voice became softer, and his expression became one of sadness. "...bringing an axe to a gunfight...and all I can do is sit here..."

Andrew stared straight ahead at the wall opposite from him. The next words out of his mouth were dripping with loathing and disgust. "...cause I'm a coward." He sniffed, but his nose didn't clear up. Physically and mentally, he felt like a million bucks worth of shit.

Zed continued to stand by the door as Nich and Andrew went their separate ways, per se.

He bolted the latch-chain over the door and slowly made his way over to the wreck of a (virtual) friend. Given what had transpired over the course of his time logged on, he was not about to entrust his friend with the weapon out of pity, but maybe consoling him would have some effect on their stats over the course of the storyline. He made his way over to his friend, making sure to switch glances between Andrew and the door, just in case the Shotgun Man decided to play "Here's Johnny!" on them. Then Zed slumped down to sit by his friend...to share what even Nich would probably call a really emo moment...

Then Zed did something he didn't foresee himself doing...he wrapped his free arm over Andrew's shoulder, and held him close. "There...there...we're all in this together...it's gonna be all right..." he said, though his hints of a New Yorker accent also gave it a mafioso-reassurance sort of tone...

Zed's embrace comforted him, and he didn't try to pull away, instead sitting silently for a while.

"Yeah, we are..." he finally said, wiping his nose with his sleeve. It had taken some deliberation, but he finally knew what he had to do. "I gotta go help," he whispered, letting out a sniff and then coughing. "He's my best friend, Zed." Andrew rose to his feet and tried not to seem too shakey to his comrade.

"We're all in this together," he smiled faintly, reaching a hand down to help his hurt friend up. "Right?"

"Yeah. Let's go. Ride together, die together." Spoken like a gangster from his favorite video game series, if Zed thought so himself. He reached out with his claw hand, though the broad edge of the claws would simply rest on Andrew's sleeve as he took the latter's hand. He propped himself up, and it was easier than normal now that his nuclear reactor had cooled. Before long he was on two feet and standing tall.

Zed gestured toward their backpacks. "We'd better head out soon...just in case they declare this place a hot-spot for tomorrow," he said, before making his way over to his. The number 28 on it stood out almost like it would on a sports jersey, and Zed smiled gently at it.

28's gonna be my lucky number tonight.

Andrew smiled at his friend. He was still terrified, but at least he wasn't alone. They would go find Nich and the three of them would overcome the invaders. Gun or no fucking gun. They were united.

Zed raised a valid point; he'd lost track of time, actually. Was it morning yet? Would the announcements be up soon? His hands were shaking, but he decided that he might as well put them to good use. Grabbing his daypack from off of the floor with one hand, he gripped the handle of the hotel room door and turned it swiftly. He glanced back at Zed.

"I...let's go," he mumbled, gathering up every ounce of courage he had and setting foot into the hallway.

((Continued in Stopping for the Night))