And Nothing Will Go Wrong!

[MK Kilmarnock]

Justin never was much of a fan of chess.

((Justin Greene, continued from A Tout le Monde))

Thinking ahead, planning, strategizing. None of those things were his strong suits. The island and its game forced you to assess what 'suited' you pretty quickly, though, if you didn't want to die. Given that was the first thought that entered Justin's mind from the break of day to whenever he finally managed to sleep huddled in some dark corner with a tree or dusty wall to his back was "I want to live", he supposed he could oblige to some mental self-rearranging.

Justin would never consider himself to be the next 'Sun-Soo' or whatever that guy's name was, but the logic seemed sound: he had a weapon that excelled at long range. Up 'til now, he hadn't been able to take advantage of it. The top of the waterfall seemed like a natural area... it was on the edge of the island which offered very few opportunities for a flank and overlooked much of the surroundings, which meant if anybody wanted to get to him, they'd be putting themselves out in the open and making a grand target.

It was perfect. He just needed to get to the top.

[Latin For Dragula]

((Blaise D’Aramiitz Continued From Comfy In Nautica))

Dante, Dolly, Julien, all across the village.

Alexander in the manor's gardens.

No name recalled, the shores of the bay.

Joanne and Megan, the buildings in the zoo.

Which would come first? Would this view be permanently cut off by threat of death, or would every corner of it they could observe be marked by a body they left behind?

The observation hung at the front of their mind then drifted away untouched. They sat atop the outlook with their rifle and their wig in their lap. Blaise had no particular motive. No spot in the horizon called for exploration.

They waited.

It no longer mattered for what.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Justin was out of breath when he reached the top. It was quite the hike, hauling his ass all the way up here, but it would be worth the effort.

Worth it. That was what he kept telling himself, that everything would be worth it. This applied down from every individual instance of exerting himself or forcing himself out of his comfort zone all the way up to waking up each day and deciding to put a bullet in somebody else's head other than his own just to end it all. Because the suffering was going to be worth it when he won. When he won. Not if. Each day started with the lie that failure was impossible.

Putting himself up here had to have its advantages, as he'd relentlessly reviewed in his head during the climb. All he had to do was get himself situated. Somewhere on either side of the river or its source was liable to be a good spot to set up camp. Weary fingertips with worn-down fingernails from frequent chewing gripped a rock sorely and pulled Justin's exhausted body around it to get a better view of the scenery, including the ground which was every bit as welcoming as he'd imagined it to be, if he only had a tent to hunker down in, the rocks which offered some shelter from view and from weather, and of course the view that was only interrupted by a fine mist and the heavily bandaged figure who was already sitting at the overlook.

Oh.

Fuck. There was somebody already here, Justin was shocked to learn after that little moment it took his brain to fully process what he was seeing. And as the grungy, blood-covered boy looked around at Justin, no doubt alerted by his constant and pestiferous panting, gasping, and wheezing, Justin stared back completely dumbfounded.

"... Hi."

[Latin For Dragula]

He would not receive a verbal reply.

They had heard him coming. Perhaps if he had tried to obscure his ascent better the waterfall would have covered for him. He did not expect company at the top. There was a metaphor to be had there, something self-satisfied in its observation that they did not have the presence of mind to create. So what was his purpose? To hide? It was not such a bad plan, though it had worked for neither of them. Perspective? Much could be seen from this position if he required a more three dimensional view than the map allowed for planning. Suicide? It had been done at least once. They thought. Perhaps more. Or less. They would not pretend to have kept record or that it should be trusted if they had.

Fingers drummed along their rifle.

It did not raise. It should have as soon as they heard him struggling for breath along the incline, but it did not. They had done little more but blink since they heard him coming. Their hands were ready. It could be leveled in a moment. It was not. That should say more to him than any reply, but they could not say for certain. He was not familiar to them. The unwelcome habit of speculation did not bubble up to be dismissed, they did not recognize him. If the confusion was not mutual he did not show his hand. Why would he? The clothes were not theirs. Neither was most of the blood. They had been disfigured. No aspect of their appearance had been maintained. Holding pictures of how they looked the day they left D.C. and now side by side, mm, they could not fault hesitation in recognition. Letting that thought stay in their mind for long would have knitted their brow in confusion, it contradicted...it was not important. The thought did not hold their attention longer than dozens of others that demanded it.

Blaise looked at his much larger gun, then his face. They raised an eyebrow.

[MK Kilmarnock]

The mystery person had been polite enough to not shoot Justin on sight. That was nice... the island was running out of people who would give that gift to him, Justin imagined.

He thought Aliya might be the final friendly face, and that's why he'd tried to run from her. He realized that now, healed from his blindness spawned from the panic. If he wasn't kill-on-sight from Ace before that point, he certainly was now. Maybe the day would do him a favor and remove Ace from the equation just so whoever it was that tried to kill him next wasn't doing so with malice. And while the fickle finger of fate was at it, maybe it could do him a solid and take care of Camilla too. No doubt she'd been running her mouth... not that she had to, when the announcements did a lot of the work for her, but every little bit helped to fuck him over.

That gun should have been up, but it wasn't. Justin realized he should have have gone for the rifle currently slung over his back- no, the trusty handgun stuffed down the back of his pants, resting now against a thick nest of bandages that padded his ass but, bonus points, also acted to prevent chafing. That would have been a smart move, he probably could have drawn and gotten a shot off first. But he realized it after several seconds of standing there like an idiot, mouthbreathing and sucking down air like Mr. Danya sold it on premium. Standing there was the only thing he could think to do for that period of time, and he felt like an idiot for doing so.

No point in drawing the gun now, though. If whoever this was wanted to shoot him, they would have done it by now. They had to recognize him by now; Justin had killed too many to avoid notice by even the most oblivious students... and if somebody was really that oblivious, face facts, they were dead now. It tickled his brain in an unwanted way to realize that for being such a generally unassuming kid back in school, now everybody knew at least his name. Maybe some wouldn't be able to attach a face to the name, but with so few kids remaining... doubtful. So this bloodied-up guy knew. Justin, unfortunately, couldn't return the favor. He didn't dare step forward, but managed to lean in just slightly, better focusing on the face, which did seem a little bit familiar. His gaze shifted down and caught view of the wig in the guy's lap and ohfuckthat'sBlaise.

Justin's face changed instantly on the realization. And still, silently screaming at himself all the way for his stupidity, he didn't reach for his gun.

[Latin For Dragula]

Ah. There it was. Out of the reactions at his disposal he had chosen fear, which meant he was smarter than anyone they had encountered in the last several days. They could not recall the last time someone recognized them and showed hesitation. Real reticence of the threat to their life. Lectures were the most common response, if they concentrated hard on their memories in that manner which made their skull throb. Violet, Tyrell, Faith, Camila, Katelynne, Marcus, Dolly, Joanne, Demetri, Parker, Amber, Megan, Princess, Daria, Julien. Most everyone who had said anything to them at all had opinions on what they should do, what they were, what they should feel, so many other questions they never asked. There was something captivating in someone reacting to them like the monster the loudest voices they faced were certain they were, not with demands or righteous indignation but horror. Selfish horror born only out of concern for your own life. It was...

Validation was a frequent topic in queer discourse. The validation of self. The validation of rights. Most commonly though others spoke of the validation of recognition, the rush of having an outsider look you over and confirm what you know you are without prompting. These gestures were often insignificant to the outsider. Endless accounts could be spun of one small moment reflected on for a lifetime because it affirmed a fundamental aspect of identity when needed most. One of those experiences, they were told, that if you had not had it you could not understand it. Blaise found the concept infantile. A reckless amount of power to give to someone who could not understand it, could not consent to it, and would likely abuse it if they could. The integrity of their identity came from within themself, no? Ridiculous in retrospect. In aiming to defy every expectation put upon them they gave them as much power as if they had conformed in the first place.

So when they watched the alarm spread across his face paired with the self preservation to not reach for his gun, they wondered if this was what unfiltered validation felt like.

Blaise smiled. Their hands did not move out of position but their gun stayed lowered. They understood in a distant way that that was fear as well. The ignorance backed certainty that let them glide through standoffs playing chicken with all lives involved was long gone. He was better armed, and he was beginning to look familiar. One of the guitar players, not the fun one, he was dead. The other one. A frequent enough feature on the announcements that he should have stuck out more easily, but it was only after they were certain they did not need the trouble of attacking him that Blaise allowed themself to think Justin's name.

When they spoke, their voice was dry. "Did you need something?"

[MK Kilmarnock]

"... Bri- uh, Blaise, right?"

Stupid question. Or maybe it wasn't, this could be any half-mummified bloodied up person with a shaved head and a gun and the kind of look that said 'I've killed a lot of people, care to join them?'. Large selection to pick from, really. And yet there was no stopping that asinine question from leaving his mouth because it just seemed like the proper action to make sure he was talking to Blaise, 100%, and nobody else before continuing, lest the small chance of mistaking this person for somebody else become a reality.

Once that matter was settled by Blaise's lack of a response besides a knowing stare, Justin quietly continued.

"I thought I could... up- a, get a good view up, uhhh... here."

[Latin For Dragula]

"Sure. It's a nice view."

The sound that followed their words started like a sort of sigh. A cough, then, with the way it rattled their throat. Something like a wheeze. Charitably it could be called a laugh.

"Would you like a closer look?"

One.

Two.

Three.

Index.

Middle.

Ring.

Nearly slow and soft enough they made no sound, tapping along the stock as they stared.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Justin remembered the impressive view of the waterfall from ground level... or lower ground level anyway, and a fall from that height would almost certainly be fatal. That was factoring in medical attention and somebody being willing to help him at the bottom, neither thing he could reliably count on. What could be potentially survivable back in Chattanooga was a death sentence here, and depending in where and how he landed, a fall from the full height of the waterfall didn't look like the most survivable prospect back in Tennessee, either.

He wouldn't even be the first to go out that way, if his memory served him right and he correctly recalled an announcement where somebody had taken the plunge without even a stereotypical barrel to protect them.

"No thanks," he mumbled after at least three full counts of Blaise's rhythmic finger tapping. Good beat to it, a slow mournful waltz. The perfect backing to a meeting like this. "Looks y-, it looks l-like you hah-huh-had the same idea, though."

[Latin For Dragula]

Had they? Blaise recalled waxing about spots on the horizon and...mm. There had been a point. Gone now. No answer to his observation. Mm. Perhaps he already knew that.

The drumming paused.

Perhaps he was playing them.

It resumed. Index. Middle. Ring.

Blaise had prided themself in their ability to predict what other people were thinking. No small part of that ability was confounding their audience then feeding them the clues Blaise wanted them to see. Whether they had been as successful as they wanted to believe was a matter of debate, but solid fact was that they had not been putting in the effort for days now. The thing Justin saw was dangerous. Monstrous, to employ the term they'd grown closest to, certainly unhinged. He could be confident in that though, couldn't he? The threat he saw on the surface was all that would be necessary for his next decisions. What he chose to present back though, that was more complex. His recognition had been obvious. Obvious or exaggerated. Draw their attention from one reaction to the next, yes, his fear followed by the pointed refusal to go to his weapon. How many of his victims had seen a similar show? As methods went they must admit it was not so mad. Few would willingly trust a known killer preaching redemption, circumstance, what have you, his words were compromised. Actions painting him a fool earned a different sort of trust. Superiority. Misplaced confidence. An oveplay. Then he would take them. Strings spun out of their control now, they could not be entirely sure where they threaded from but the bumbling, the stuttering, it was all so familiar, they had experienced this scheme before hadn't they?

"No offense big guy. Just...figure we all seen some sh-shit, seems we're feelin' a might jumpy."

A twitch of their left eyebrow. Nostrils flaring slightly wider than normal for one breath. That was the extent of their recognition.

Foolish. They might well has screamed in his face.

Redirection. They answered his question with the first impulse that came to mind. "They sent me here." Steady gaze. "Not today. The second morning. After Dante." Their breath aligned first. "I wanted to remember what it was like." Then their breath. The rhythm of their fingers absorbed both. Their head tilted slightly to the left. "You won too, didn't you?"

[MK Kilmarnock]

"Huh- oh, y-yeah."

It took a little bit for Justin to figure out what Blaise was talking about before his mind called him back to the rice paddies. Yeah, he 'won'. For the catastrophe at the boat house that was nothing but mistakes, where Nia and Johnny died when neither of them had to, Mr. Danya congratulated him with a little 'victory party'. It didn't feel like winning. Felt like winning even less knowing that apparently it wasn't even good enough to be the only winner -- he shared the prize with Tirzah.

Tirzah wasn't around anymore though, and Justin wondered if maybe things would have gone a little differently if she'd decided to keep the gun for herself. Maybe the gun itself wouldn't have made any difference, but more like, if she'd been the type of person who just used it on him, kept it, and then ate all the chili and cornbread. She never had to share or give any of it up. Justin had given her opportunity to attack him. There was no way to ask her now, so he'd probably never understand what was going through her mind to help her make the decisions he did.

He could have killed her too, but he didn't. Neither killed, and neither had the good of their hearts to blame.

Blaise, here, actually made sense in a way. This was entirely for pragmatic reasons, the fear that if he drew on Blaise he'd be dead before his finger solidly found the trigger. Maybe Blaise- no, no maybe, Blaise DEFINITELY didn't think it'd be worth the trouble to kill him or they'd have tried already. Could be ten reasons why, no sense in asking for any of them.

"Ye-uh. Yeah, I... won. Too." Justin said, remaining wholly unconvinced he'd truly won anything. He wouldn't be a winner until he was the only one left. It was nice, at least, to have some sort of recognition in a way that didn't involve him being shot out. "I forgot you... mm, you did too. Won. You won." Justin nodded and dropped his eyes and raised them as quickly as he'd dropped them, like a trucker driving late at night who had to constantly slap himself awake. He opened his mouth, wanting to reiterate his reasons for coming here while trying to play out the next few lines of conversation in his head, but the beginning of sentences were gone just as soon as he'd gotten to the ends. Visualizing them wasn't going to help either, obviously. But... Blaise was really just here to reminisce?

"Why?" He asked.

"M- I mean, why rem... remember? Why do you remember- want to remember, what it was like?"

[Latin For Dragula]

One.

Two.

Three.

Index.

Middle.

Ring.

One.

Two.

Three.

Index.

Middle.

Ring.

One.

Two.

Three.

Index.

Middle.

Ring.

At the front of their mind they could not answer Justin's question any more readily than they could have told him why they chose that beat. They had not consciously made the choice. Memory came as an excuse in much the same way that the pattern emerged from their fingertips and the repeated it, conformed to it, because it felt natural. But that was not to say either was thoughtless. As they considered them side by side it occurred to them that their impulses informed each other.

One.

Two.

Three.

Index.

Middle.

Ring.

Because where there could have been a four, there was no finger. The nub of flesh Ace had left them with twitched ever so minutely. Pain shot back to their wrist when it rubbed against their bandages and perhaps that's what had urged them to restart the pattern over and over, as if eventually their malformed digit would learn there was no place for it in the rhythm. But it did not hear the drumming.

"Why?"

It knew only the memory of being whole.

That is what they wanted to remember.

"The pork was fucking incredible."

Their smile was rigid.

[MK Kilmarnock]

"Uh... the chili was alright."

Justin really had no response for that. Planned or predicted responses were for sane circumstances, and sane circumstances were for anywhere but here. Blaise in particular probably lost their sanity a long time ago, if they ever really had it. Hard to tell, really; people like Blaise were wholly incomprehensible to him. Right or wrong, he just couldn't understand.

Maybe it was his imagination or growing confidence. Maybe it wasn't his imagination and Blaise really wasn't at all in a position to be firing that weapon as they smiled, reminisced, focused on anything else, perhaps forgetting the gun as anything more than a drum. Incidentally that finger wound looked nasty...

No. Still too risky. Blaise had killed a lot of people, quite possibly just as much as him if not more. There was still time. If this was going to happen, he'd properly keep the element of surprise for next time. But his ideas of camping up here and taking everybody out from a nice, safe, impersonal distance were completely... pun intended, shot. Nothing stopping Blaise from popping him in the head while he focused through a scope. Justin entertained the thought of asking Blaise to be a spotter, they could work together as two killers who nobody else would trust.

But Justin also knew there was a good reason why nobody could trust him anymore, and Blaise was about as trustworthy as a gator in a nursery, no thank you.

"Guess bi-uh, guess I'd, better go."

[Latin For Dragula]

They considered it then. Like tossing a coin. One could speculate about probabilities, complications, bluffs and counter bluffs, all the intricacies of a wager until opportunity lay withered at your feet having never known your touch. Blaise enjoyed that game from time to time, but in the most essential moments all chance boiled down to 50/50: something happened, or it did not.

Dante would recover, or he would not.

They would find Lorenzo, or they would not.

Parker would help them, or he would not.

Megan would leave, or she would not.

Julien would break, or he would not.

Temptation came in the drumming fingers so close to the trigger. They could wager that he was off-balance. Out of bounds from the plan he'd laid climbing to the waterfall. In this state if they drew they would draw first with a lighter gun, a surer purpose, it was not so difficult to imagine... "Yes," they nodded, "You should." The temptation would stay as long as they shared space. They could not trust each other. They had committed to outcomes too binary for nuance.

They would shoot him, or they would not.

They would die here, or they would not.

Blaise did not want to die.

They were uncertain they had told themself as much before now.

The drumming stopped. Justin would receive their full attention with his exit, willingly or no. "I hope you find what you were looking for elsewhere."

[MK Kilmarnock]

A nice sentiment on the surface, delivered in other, more innocent circumstances and spoken by somebody other than Blaise. 'Good luck', said one part of it. 'Get lost,' said another, with potential emphasis on that bit.

Justin wouldn't... couldn't, more like, take anything at face value anymore. He read and double read and admitted to himself he was likely over-analyzing something that shouldn't have had more than five seconds of his thoughts, ten tops. In the pool of his doubts bubbled the question of whether or not he would have dwelt on something like this back home. Was he always a bit of an anti-social waffle? Possibly, and a depressing thought to be sure, but not much more than the realization that after a pittance of time - what, a week, leave or borrow a day, Justin had already started to forget what kind of person he was back when things were good. When things were normal. Whatever normal and good meant anymore when placed up against each other.

Blaise had said it and nothing more. This is where their little meetup ended, which Justin would be lying if he said it'd never come up in the back of his mind or in his dreams somewhere, ever since Michael had tricked him out in the woods. How long ago was that now? The days were weeks, it hardly mattered anymore. Nothing mattered more than their eyes and their guns in this moment. Blaise didn't attack and so Justin didn't attack... he only started to leave. Turning his back would have been the cool way to do it. Also probably the suicidal one; offering his back was inviting death and he wouldn't have blamed Blaise for killing him at that point, just because it would be such a stupid thing to do. 'Flagrant', Justin thought the word might be. In leaving, his mission would be left incomplete, but the engine that moved Justin's feet was fueled by the warmth of a strange sense of pride.

He didn't let his mind mull over the concept until he'd backed around the corner exactly the way he'd come, heading back down the trail in a hopping sidestep until it would be safe to traverse normally with his chin over his shoulder at where Blaise's general position should have been provided they didn't move. Blaise could have attacked but didn't, and that stay of violence didn't come out of the goodness of their heart.

Maybe Justin wasn't the only person scared. And that... for some reason?

Made him feel good.

((Justin Greene, continued in It's Just A Day)