Simon Keyari, formerly known as Simone, stretched his limbs with a series of cracks and pops, the symphony of noises in his head pounding - ka-rump-thump! - with the force of a jumping gorilla. Days like this, where the previous night was composed of a dangerous, magical sex-change imposed upon him by forces he couldn't determine, he usually did have headaches, and he wasn't all that bothered by how he used to be Simone Keyari, a pretty girl, not even six hours ago.
Simon was at home right now, and beside his dusty bed, covered densely with tangled red sheets, a calendar hung on a rusted nail and announced to him that today was the day, and I quote, that he had to "Change his pants and underwear for the first time this month," and "feed his dog" for the first time ever, and, much less significantly, he needed to pack his belongings and pocket his plane ticket. He was going to be on season 25 of Total Drama Island.
Maybe after this, his mother, Alexis, the official bearer of the womb in which he boiled for a total of nine months, would finally take his acting talents with a little more than a sneer and a stifled snort caged behind her lips. He would always let her know, "Mom, I'm gonna be famous," and what had she ever responded with? Usually, it was a dismissive wave of the hand as she pulled up the 'Daily Chronicle' on her Mac laptop and explored the whereabouts of Hot Single Men Near Her on the opposite tab.
Alexis The Mom was a woman of virtues and seriousness, all piled up in to one tightwad of a woman with all knobs and harsh edges compiling into a tight brown ponytail and wire-framed tortoise shell glasses that made her appear like even lonelier a woman. She openly despised the Arts, and she told Simon this without ever taking heed of the retorts he would spout in response. His 'buts', 'ifs', and 'and's were met with a contrived smile and a bout of criticism for his delusions. Really, she was the mom who wanted the best for her child, though, at first, it didn't seem so. Simon was at the risk of being disappointed in life by the impossibility of his endeavors. Determination got some people places, sure, but not as far as the realm of business would. Alexis, a pencil-pusher, born and raised, loved to cut down far-fetched-ness, and today was the final time that she would drag Simon to her place of work.
Simon loped tiredly down the steps and into his kitchen, where The Super-Mom brewed a tub of Frosted Flakes for her child and simultaneously tapped and plucked at keys on her technology that she had strewn over the marble counter. Paperwork and folders were all carefully divided, saying things like 'Fire Jorge' on their surfaces in big, intimidating crimson ink. Alexis popped a thumb behind her made-up lips to taste the sugar on her nail. Her eyes were brown. She flicked them up at the approaching teenager as Simon strode toward her, hands tucked into his pockets as if the meaning of life lay within his Wrangler blue-jeans.
Her voice was testy as she spoke. Always testy. "You're a boy now. Care to explain why?"
Simon didn't really know what to return with. His blonde eyebrows pinched together in a 'v', and he tested a word by scrunching together his pink lips. He other day, he had been a girl, and now he wasn't, and he really didn't seem to be all that bothered by it. "Yeah, I don't know," he told her. His mother spun toward the refrigerator with a gallon of milk clutched in one hand, and the frill of her skirt jerked with the movement in a wild flurry around her hips. Simon couldn't tell where his father was. He had a black piece of luggage packed and set beside him on the kitchen bar stool where he trained his eyes on Alexis, deciding to pick a joke. "Are you off to see the wizard?"
"I'm off to see my boss. I have a thing called a job - a real job, at a bank, doing something that's worth helping me make my living," she spouted. On the word 'real', the icebox slammed shut, and the gallon of milk rocked where it sat vibrating on the cold shelf. Alexis' laptop let out a happy 'ping' loud enough to have been heard from as far as the living room had Simon been glaring at her from all the way in there. Her eyes seemed to brighten at the opportunity to push her point onto her son. "And that's my boss. Oh, look. He's letting me know that he's ready to discuss giving me a raise. Do you know what a raise is? It's a thing that is given to people who apply hard work to the jobs that they are assigned in life."
Simon's mind soared to a thought that coaxed a chuckle past his tightly pinched-together lips: the image of a smaller version of his mother with sparkling brown eyes and a halo floating just above the crown of her head, giving every inch of her body a warm glow. "When I grow up, I want to be a... banker!" Cue the dramatic noise of a record idly scratching as the whole dream falls flat. That was how it happened! His mom, everyone.
Simon felt his core grow heated, just like the color of his face, turning pinker with every spindle of a doubt that his mom forced into him about his entire profession. Simon clenched his pale fingers into his knees. Someone's echoing footsteps had begun to pound their way towards the kitchen. "Yeah, well," Simon tried, "Mom, what I want to be is not — it's not that, alright? I want to be a —"
Joey Keyari dug his thick fingertips into his son's shaking shoulder, laying his weight onto that side of Simon's body. "He wants to be an ACTOR!" Joey sang the word, black hair flipping wildly into his face. Simon didn't know how in the world he turned out blonde. "It's a miracle, Alexis! Simone is a born Fassbender; a destined Scarlett Johannason two-point-oh!" Joey shook and prodded at Simon's shoulder, but all at once, his motion seemed to stop. Joey sent his eyes down onto the boy, whose blonde tendrils of hair had finally been given a chance to recollect back where they belonged. "Oh. You're a boy, now." Joey's eyebrows peaked like mountains for a moment, and he shrugged with great finality.
"Changes happen, Alexis!" Joey shouted jubilantly, floating from the bar end of the kitchen to the other, where he wrapped his arm over his wife's thin shoulders and pressed her body into his, smacking a wet-sounding kiss against her temple, and thus ruining her hair. She glowered; he returned frivolously with: "Expect change!"
Later that day...
Simon just hadn't been told what exactly he needed to pack for this Total Drama Island expedition. He had taken with him three notebooks, eight gel pens (to accompany said notebooks), and a silver medallion of a guy named St. Genesius that he mostly had collected for show. The orders by the show's recruiting committee had been to bring with them the bare essential items that they felt like taking. No deodorant - they had that. No clothing, either. Clothing would be provided. The sign-up process was weird. Though these rules had been set for them, it was insisted that the clothing provided would reflect the contestants' individuality.
Therefore, Simon complied with their standards. His meager possessions were compacted into a bag that was shoved overhead in the loading station on the TDI jet by a boy with sandy brown hair hat cascaded over his blue eyes like a curtain when he offered to help Simon out. The guy had a black shirt that said 'BS' in bold, ivory letters over the front, and he wore an official Total Drama Island Backstage Squad identification card around his neck. He wore a hat and a jacket that said he didn't quite belong, like he was different than the contestants that rode in this section of the plane. His card said 'Williams' on the front in a tropical green font.
On the outside of the plane, the tundra rumbled and snowflakes cast themselves wildly in a tornado of blue and grey energy, slapping at Simon's window and etching into him a nervousness that he hadn't known existed before the plane started growing closer to Russia. The other contestants all seemed to have fallen fast asleep on their plane seats, jostling and rocking quietly back and forth with the plane's swift movement. Simon felt odd, looking out at all of them so closely. He liked to come up with snarks that he could use in the far future. Maybe a crude pick-up-line for the girl named Tatiana who had beautiful features but poor breath.
There were many possibilities with the whole thing. Simon cringed at the last idea, though, his shoulders shivering as he cast his gaze toward the window and counted the flakes of pure white that flurried by. It was mean of him to even consider such an insult. Nevermind if it were true.
And now, someone even more intriguing picked over the plane's carpet which was thick with a layer of grey dust that pooled and scuttled around the platinum blonde's beaten-up sneakers. The guy lugged behind him a grey bag that hung open at its main zipper. A folded piece of paper and a t-shirt with an old, forgotten cartoon creature zoomed onto the ground in his wake. His whole body leaned to the side on which his backpack was being carried. He didn't seem able to hold all of the weight with his frame, his pale clover-colored eyes squeezing blatantly with his obvious struggle. Simon twitched in his seat and rose to his feet before the teenager kindly ordered him to sit back down.
Simon felt his own frame shudder as the pale boy trembled beneath the weight. "You sure you don't need any - any help?" He asked, positioning his hand on the armrest of his chair, his other arm waving, beckoning the boy towards him. He didn't know where the boy had come from - all he could really be sure of was that he looked strange. Simon's eyes traveled over his lithe form - he kind of wondered who had allowed the other boy to come here.
The boy's lips quivered with high-pitched, difficult words as he rocked that side of the plane in his conquest to plop down beside Simon as hurriedly as possible. His chest rose and fell with rocky breaths. Simon felt strange for noticing that he had quite a plump mouth, and his lips cracked out into a grin as he geared to snark about something before Alexei blurted a sentence in full Russian-accented tones, commenting on things like the poor lighting in the plane or his heritage in Russia. The one comment that Simon could entirely pick up was the strangest sentiment as Alexei sat down."Where is my - oh, boy, I had four shirts an hour ago."
"Your clothes look really good on the ground over there, though," Simon told him, holding out a hand for effect as his heart settled about this new boy's arrival. "- they compliment the dust bunnies fan-tastically." Alexei didn't have to tell Simon his name. It was printed on the bottom of his grey and beaten bag, scribbled in thick Sharpie-marker. Alexei moved to position his luggage in the holding section overhead, but Simon insisted to pry it from the boy's tired hands and do it for him, if not to observe the warm and complimentary smile he got from the Russian in return. Alexei had eyebrows that scrunched above his grin in a cynical way, like he was happy with the person, but he still suspected that they had tried to poison his breakfast.
Alexei laid his head back and extended his arms over his head, ruffling the platinum hair on his crown and crossing his wrists comfortably behind his neck as relaxation settled into his features like an all-new Russian pilgrimage atop his ivory skin. The lines in his face seemed to thin out a little more. Simon would have thought him a girl, perhaps, as even his voice was overly feminine as he asked Simon for his name.
Simon brought his eyebrows together and touched his chin thoughtfully, looking for a creative way to say this. "Hmph. You ever heard of Simon Says, there, Russia?"
Alexei seemed to cringe at the sound of the country's name on Simon's lips. He crooked open an eye, grey, sprinkled with flecks of faded green as he brought it comfortably over the other boy's body. Simon stood at a height even shorter than his own, seemingly still weighted with a remnant of fat from his young age, though angular in the face; skinny around the edges as he tried so hard not to gaze at Alexei's frame. "I have. Can you believe it? You must have thought me so sheltered before I told you this." Alexei brought a hand from behind his head; scratched at a spot on his left temple in a show of mild consideration. "Just, um..." he started. There was a smile blooming across his own face - a smile he couldn't stop as he felt a familiar blush drift into his skin and turn his expression a darker color. He covered his mouth with a fleeting movement of his hand. "Just call me Lexi."
ROUND 2 - OFFICIAL BS SQUAD MEMBERS
(Please give a warm welcome to masters of BS - the official Backstage Squad of this season's Total Drama Island. There are more medics than anything, because that is just logical. Three medics, one 'fluffer', one counselor, and one handler for the camera - but only if Camera Guy feels like sharing! Thank you so much for the submissions and the compliments, by the way! These are some of the best characters I've seen personally come out of any similar story - to me, anyways - and this includes every OC submission involved in The Cold. I obviously cannot do this without you guys, and I am just as excited as you are to see where this thing gets taken. Next episode, we get our official introduction to the wondrous BS Squad, as well as at least a small handful of the contestants.)
[Medics] - Nathan Williams; Aubrey "Aub" Baxter; Linda Rodriguez
[Fluffers] - Samantha Babette Terrafino; Ibrahima Hostler
[Counselor] - Ginger "Ginge" Levin
[Camera Handler] - Joey Logan; Camera Man