Survival Of The Fittest

Good. Tyler knew when to back down and be civil, at least. Rose had to suppress a smile at the thought of civility on the island, but still, these were the early days, the first phase. The bodies hadn't started piling up yet. Insanity hadn't had time to set in. They could still cling to the pretense of being decent and shit.

She crossed her legs and looked from meathead to meathead, then gave Mike a glance for good measure. What was there for her to say? It's not like she was bestest buds with any of these guys. But then a suitable conversation topic came up when Tyler recapped his game thus far.

"Eliza?" she asked, concern breaking into her tone. She almost forgot that Cody's sister went on the fucking trip with the rest of them. Her hands clenched into fists. Eliza had always been awesome with her. They spent more than one night bonding over their mutual declarations of Cody's sizable faults as a person, and Rose loved to hear Eliza's compositions, too. To think she was as good as dead too, and that it could have happened at Tyler's fucking hands? Well, that just didn't fly.

Rose found hersef in sync with Cody, waiting for Tyler to fess up to what exactly happened. She looked at Cody to see if he was thinking the same thing as her. Two against one seemed fair. She could try and hold him while Cody wailed on his solar plexus. Wait, no, Cody had a gun and if he used that he could shoot her by accident. Bad idea.

Maybe she could kick him in the balls while he bled to death. That would be productive and an efficient use of her time and energy.

Okay, so nobody was dead yet, but that felt like it could easily change within the next few seconds. Especially when you had Tyler making things worse every time he opened his damn mouth. Apparently Eliza'd tried to rob him, and the captain wasn't taking that news well at all.

Keep cool, Mike, remember your job on the field. You cover the quarterback. The quarterback who really didn't need more excuses to blow off someone's face. Though would he really be acting much different if it were his hypothetical sister being threatened? Let's not find out. Sure, he'd never liked Eliza for reasons he couldn't always put a finger on, and with or without her Tyler was practically begging for something to blow up in his face, but nobody deserved the shit happening on this island.

Nobody deserved what happened to Davidge and the others, to those girls on the video, to all those kids in years gone by. Nobody deserved having their humanity stripped away, being reduced to a slavering beast that destroys all in its way because that's the only option left to it. They weren't animals to be tossed into a pit and made to rip and tear each other for some sick bastard's amusement. Fuck them, there was only one way to win this stupid thing - don't become like the people who put you here.

Easier said than done, he just had to look at things here to know that. He was suddenly too aware of sweat beads forming and trailing down his arms, born from nerves and summer heat, and every breath taken and word said by the bodies amongst all this green stretched on for days. The world hung on whatever Tyler chose to say and every hair standing on end told him any second could result in an explosion.

Years of training taught him to expect a ring of a bell and a punch to the face with tension like this, the kind that got every muscle in his body tightened up until the practise kicked in and loosened them, readied them to move and react. Funny how that made it easier to deal with. Just breathe, Mike, remember Knowles? Had him built up as a monster, local papers made him sound like the next big thing, an unstoppable shoe-in for the Golden Gloves and a long pro career after, and you stopped him cold halfway into the second.

It wasn't a perfect comparison, you couldn't duck and weave around a bullet or knock it out with a good uppercut, but that was beside the point. He had to find that same steel in him, or he was just sitting around waiting to die, hanging on every second in hopes the next word spoken wouldn't cause a firestorm. The air pressed him into the ground, and the plants circled the tableau, leering and trying to see who, if anyone, would become fertiliser...

But eventually, it became clear Tyler wasn't saying anything, and silence could be as bad as a full confession here. Time to move before anyone got too jumpy. Mike stepped up, conveniently blocking the rifle as he took in the little group.

"Guys, this is stupid; he's not saying anything, and Cody, I think we'd be better off looking for your sister and the others than grilling Tyler." Was he listening? Was Rose? He could be wasting his time, but if they could hear him maybe this could be okay. "How about we just get out of here? He's not worth it, and I don't know about you but I'm not buying into all this bullshit. We're better than this place."

For several seconds, Tyler said nothing.  He stared into space a little, not quite looking at anyone--not at Cody and his gun, not at Rose, not at Mike.

"Dead, huh," he muttered.  "Fuck."

Mike spoke.  As soon as he did, Tyler's eyes refocused, and his lip curled into a sneer.  "Oh, shut the fuck up, Mike," he hissed.  "Better than this place?  That's not how this works."

He straightened up a little, coming to his full height as his hands curled around his bottles.  "Your sister's fine," growled Tyler, eyes flashing.  "Got a gun and everything.  Acting even bitchier than usual, but that's no surprise.  And I'll talk to you however I god damn want.  This isn't a football field, fucker.  I don't take orders from you."

But as quickly as his anger came, it vanished.  He stared over Mike at Cody with something a little soft, a little worried.  "Look," he grunted.  "Don't...don't point that thing if you're not gonna use it.  It's not a..."  He searched for a second.  "It's not like this.  Like fists, or..."  He hesitated.  "You wanna fight, I get that.  You wanna hurt, I get that.  You wanna kill, I get that too.  Just don't...don't treat it like a god damn toy."  He thought a moment.  "You do that, you won't be better than this place."

He gave a rolling shrug and turned to go.

"Yeah, you don't know shit," Cody spat. "If you thought I ever regarded this gun as a toy for even a second, then..." The followup insult was lost. Cody was rapidly losing energy to deal with Tyler, to deal with the day, to deal with this hell he was plopped in, and to honestly deal with being awake with the headache that was starting to develop. A further fight wasn't worth it, especially when he already proved to himself he didn't have the energy or conscience... or was it the lack thereof, to shoot Tyler and call it a day.

"The point is, anything I do, I don't do idly. Like, for a second, I thought maybe I'd actually shoot Edgar in his goddamn wibbly face. Decided against it. I'm deciding who I am, still trying to figure shit out. So I don't need you talking shit right to my face, calling me a 'fucker' with your best big-boy voice, and then giving me life advice all in the same sentence. Kay, thanks, bye."

Cody slung his pack over his shoulder, tightened his grip on the rifle in his arm and turned to face the door, as well as Tyler. "Now get the hell out of my way. I'm out of here. Mike, Rose, if you feel like coming, you're free to. I know this isn't a toy." Cody said that last bit in a somewhat mocking voice. "And I honestly don't think I'm up to the task of shooting anybody, so there shouldn't be anything to worry about."

He pushed by to the door and breached the exit of the greenhouse without looking back. If there was one thing he could take from this with at least a little bit of happiness, it's that Eliza wasn't dead. Yet. As far as he knew.

Better than nothing.

((Cody Patton continued in Catus Carnival)

(I'm not waiting two weeks for Brad to decide he feels like posting, especially since this thread's been held up enough already and nobody seems to've come forwards to watch Mike. This and one Max post are the last posts I will make until the situation mentioned in my Away post has settled down. Sorry it's so brief, Ricky can minorly GM Mike until I come back if he needs to.)

So the captain had put Tyler in his place, and instead of being a good trooper he was trying the tough guy act again. How couldn't he see that not only was nobody impressed, but this was the worst possible time for posturing? That was for locker room scraps, not situations where someone had already come within seconds of the great abyss. Pride and bullheadedness led to stupidity, which led to death.

He had no idea when it would drag Tyler down that road, but he wasn't going to take everyone else down with him. Team bonds weren't worth that much. He seemed to be backing off though, and to the fullback his captain's words had a ring of truth to them, that he wouldn't be taking the terrifying power that rifle gave him for granted. At least there was that. Cody was out of here and there wasn't much left to say, not to Tyler the drooling gorilla or to Rose, who was by all accounts pretty cool.

Since there wasn't much left to say, and no use stirring up trouble again, Mike Eastmund did what he usually did on the field back home. He followed his captain.

(Michael Eastmund continued elsewhere)

Okay. Crisis over. Eliza was safe for now, at least according to the guy who saw her. Said guy was still being a bag of dicks, but at least he was trying to urge the situation away from violence in his own, in his own meatheaded way. Everything was getting better. Still stressful and uncomfortable and hopeless, but better.

Looking for more company sounded like a good idea to Rose. If they could put their heads together then maybe they could find a way to help each other out of this mess. She made a skeptical face at her own idea, since escape got less possible with each passing season of the show. What holes were left in this arrangement that they could all slip out of?

No, they were probably only putting off the inevitable by searching for peace, but staying away from company would do the same thing, and right now Rose felt like moving and taking action. If it was action that would get her killed, would that really be so bad? All of the waiting, caution, and tension inherent in being a silent ghost, hiding from sight, maybe even killing when she got the opportunity? She didn't think she could do it.

Still, as long as she kept on Cody's good side (and he was doing a surprisingly good job of making it look like he had a good side at  the moment), her chances looked good. And hey, he wasn't rejecting her presence, either! "Alright, sure, let's keep moving," she said, getting up and walking next to Mike. Mike would probably be the rock of the team, trying to keep Rose and Cody from tearing each other apart. So knowing their luck, he'd also be the first to die. She didn't want to think about that, in case it turned out to be a jinx of some kind.

"Always gotta keep moving," she mumbled to herself.

((Rose Matheson continued elsewhere))

Tyler left quite turned back to look at Cody, but he did stop for a second and cock his head as though he were listening.  And when Cody said that he'd been considering shooting Edgar, Tyler said, "Good."  Almost conversationally, not so Cody could necessarily hear, but he said it.

By the time Cody, Mike, and Rose left, Tyler was already out of the being.  They headed in opposite directions.

(Tyler Lucas continued in Everything here is a Small Cap Investment)