Thank you so much for your continuing support, everybody! We're particularly proud of the chapter you are about to read, and we hope you'll agree that it has been well worth the wait.
If you'll recall, when we left Courtney, she'd broken into the prop room with Duncan and located a wig for Heather, only to find that Duncan had suddenly disappeared. (dun dun dunnnnn)
Rule 26: Never be afraid
Suddenly alone, Courtney found herself staring at the spot her companion had been occupying less than twenty seconds ago.
"Duncan?" she called loudly.
She glanced around. The balcony didn't leave many places to hide, save a pile of sports equipment off to the side that might have been big and close enough to hide him without her noticing...if she were deaf and hadn't heard the ruckus of him diving into such a pile.
"Marco?" she tried. No response. "Duncan, this isn't funny!" she said, louder than before.
Now on high alert, she scanned the rest of the wraparound balcony. In the clutter, it felt like she had entered a real-life game of Where's Waldo?, but with much higher stakes. She was suddenly very freaked out by how alone she was in the huge echoing warehouse and really hoped her green-Mohawked guide hadn't tripped like a moron and fallen over the rail to the ground, three floors down.
Courtney cautiously walked and stood over the hole in the floor that served as an opening for the ladder. She peered down the chute and gulped at the drop. Assuming he hadn't already fallen to his death, there was still no way he could have slid down three flights to the floor so quickly without breaking his legs or spine, no matter how fit or practiced he was.
A hand touched her shoulder from behind and she nearly fell down the chute herself.
"Whoa! Calm down, Princess," Duncan chuckled, gripping her upper arm to steady her. "I was only gone for a minute."
She snatched her arm from his grasp and used it to punch him in the shoulder the moment she regained her balance. "You scared the crap out of me! What kind of trick was that?!"
Despite having been hit in the shoulder rather viciously, Duncan looked extremely excited. "Trick? Oh, forget that!" he said, waving dismissively. "I was going to juggle trophies, but what I found was WAY cooler."
He jogged back over to the trophy case with Courtney trailing warily behind. "Check this out!" Without a second thought, he tipped one of the larger gold trophies forward.
The bookcase clicked and swiveled and, very much in the vein of a James Bond movie, swung itself, a semicircle of the floor, and Duncan into some unknown place.
Courtney gaped at the identical trophy case that had been left in its wake. Looking to the floor, she only had time to notice that she'd nearly been swung around herself before another click brought the bookcase, the floor, and Duncan back to where they had been.
"Ta-dah!" Duncan announced with some jazz hands.
The combination of the hidden door and Duncan's theatrics left her slack-jawed. "All right, I'll concede—that was pretty cool."
"That's not even the best part!" Duncan said giddily, grabbing her by the waist and tucking her up next to him, too eager to acknowledge Courtney's visible displeasure. "Check out what's on the other side!"
He pulled the trophy again, and Courtney's complaint about their proximity (and his sudden enthusiasm) was made moot—his grip was all that kept her from being whipped away by the unexpected centrifugal force. But when the motion stopped and Courtney's eyes adjusted to the new, dimmer place, her jaw dropped.
"Better than juggling, right?" Duncan asked, grinning from ear to ear.
"No way," she breathed, taking stock of her new surroundings. It only took a moment to recognize the room, and she understood Duncan's excitement instantly.
They were standing in Chris's penthouse.
"SOMEONE'S IN MY PENTHOUSE."
Chris McLean shot up forcefully from his sleeping position, leagues away on a silk cot in the craft services tent, deep in the forests of Wawanakwa.
"Not this again..." Chef groaned, rolling over in the extra-extra-long cot to the right.
"I'm serious, Chef!" the host declared, throwing his covers off and finding his slippers in the dark. "I can feel it!"
"Go back to sleep, you big baby," Chef grumbled, hiding his head under the pillow as Chris yanked on the chain to the Tiffany bedside lamp. (The crystal chandelier hanging in the tent would have been much too bright for him in that state.) "You cry wolf about your dang penthouse three times a week. Waking me up when ya know good and well I don't get to sleep anyway..."
Chris motored right over this. "It was different this time," he insisted, pacing frantically and wringing his hands. "I felt it at the core of my being, man! My soul cried out in agony!" He grabbed his designer night robe and straightened up to announce, "I'm going to check the cameras."
"Let me get this straight," Hatchet started, sitting up slowly to glare at his boss. "You're gonna go take a solo walk through the dark woods, full of all manner of critters that'll happily eat your skinny ass alive, a few hours before dawn on the day we're expecting a shipment of props to set up the most finely catered, unnecessarily convoluted, and most gosh dang complicated television finale of your entire career?"
Chris paused at the flap to the tent, one foot already on the grass outside, and let out a shaky laugh. "You know what, Chef?" he said, as if the idea had just come to him. "I'm probably imagining it."
"No kidding," Chef growled, lying back down.
"Nervous jitters, am I right?" he went on, retreating back inside. "All celebrities have them leading up to the biggest milestones in their careers."
"Uh-huh."
"I mean," he continued, regaining his composure as he shut off the lamp and removed his night robe, "for someone to have gotten into my penthouse without setting off the alarm system, they would have had to find my secret trophy in the secret bookcase in the secret prop room, whose entrance is hidden in a secret part of Playa!"
"Yup."
"And really, who has that much dumb luck?" Chris chuckled.
Chef sat back up and barked, "Are you gonna shut your pie hole, or am I feedin' the bears tonight after all?"
"All right, all right, sheesh!" Chris wrapped himself back up in his silk sheets and settled into the cot for the second time that night. "Sue me for living."
"I am going to sue the everloving pants off that man!" Courtney declared, inspecting the undershelf of the spinning bookcase. "This thing has a safety certification, but the camper elevator in the lobby doesn't!?"
"We're in Chris McLean's penthouse, and you're obsessing over the bookshelf?" Duncan jeered from where he was busy wandering through the runway-length, walk-in closet on the far side of the room. "Where's your curiosity? You should see some of the stuff Chris has in here!" He was so deep in the closet that his voice was starting to come back muffled. "And we thought he gave us a crap ton of laundry. I hate to say it, but if this is all his stuff, then he was going easy on us. "
Courtney frowned in the direction of Duncan's voice, then frowned at the room in general. It was lit by a chandelier hanging down from the middle of the high-arched ceiling, numerous art gallery-style overhead lights, and two bronze lamps that sat on bedside tables, which had switched on the second Duncan bolted across the room to the closet. The lamps flanked the only piece of furniture in the room: a king-sized, ornately carved four-poster bed that sat in the room's center, surrounded by lace curtains.
Occupying the entirety of the wall opposite was a carved mantelpiece that housed a large flat screen TV, and the room boasted corresponding surround sound speakers. Just beside the closet from which Duncan's voice was emanating was another door, and even though it was closed, Courtney remembered from her laundry visit that it opened to a bathroom and hot tub. The remaining wallspace was tightly packed with trophy cases (Courtney had a sudden fleeting curiosity as to how many of those cases were also secret doors) and numerous portraits of Chris, with occasional windows, wider and higher than the tallest bookcase.
She was still miffed about the safety certification issue, but Duncan's increasing levels of delight were indeed making her curious as to what remained to be seen.
Courtney ambled over in the direction of the closet Duncan was seemingly buried within. It was quite a bit of ambling, she noted, as Chris's room was huge. She hadn't been able to see from inside the elevator, but with the exception of the warehouse they'd just discovered, she guessed the room took up the entirety of Playa's fourth floor. And Playa was quite expansive.
As she crossed the room, she glanced at the elevator from which they'd viewed the penthouse on laundry day—or where it should have been. She was stumped to find that there was no elevator to be seen. Just another trophy case.
After a moment of consideration, she took a detour to the trophy case in question, hoping to justify her suspicions. She flattened her back to the case and turned to stare out at the room, checking to see if the view corresponded with the image of the room she had in her memory. The two images lined up exactly and yet, no elevator. Courtney started pulling at the trophies in the same way Duncan had, but found that every award she tried to move was bolted down.
She stepped back to glare at the packed trophy case, seriously considering going through each of the dozens of trophies to find the one that would reveal the elevator, but she was soon distracted (and disgusted) by the Degas-styled self portrait of Chris as a dancer that hung above the case. She hadn't been able to see it from inside the elevator the first time (mercifully), though she supposed she should have guessed that such a thing existed, based on the thirty or so other painted versions of Chris McLean that were spaced around the room. They were each in a different famous style. The widespread use of styles, however, rendered some of them indiscernible as portraits. The Mondrian was the one that puzzled her the most, as it was not, in any way, shape, or form, recognizable as Chris McLean.
It was a bunch of squares, for crying out loud.
Courtney recalled the Pollock-looking abstract painting Duncan had been turning in his hands when she'd reached the fourth floor balcony. "So that's what's out there..." she realized. All of Chris's left over junk, everything he couldn't find room for in the overwhelming gaudiness of his apartment—it had overflowed outside and taken up residence in the easily accessible warehouse. The thought of Chris swapping out the paintings and trophies on a regular basis made her cringe.
"All right, Princess," Duncan announced from inside the closet. Courtney crossed the rest of the room just in time to see Duncan emerge in the most haphazard compilation of gaudy, brazen, pimp-esque outfit pieces she had ever seen or imagined she would ever see again. "Woman's opinion: would bang or would not bang?"
"Like that's even a question," Courtney scoffed. "Are you even sure those are Chris's? It looks like you found a Bedazzler for your regular getup," she said, ending up surprised by how aggressively the intended joke came out.
"Lighten up, baby! Forget about the safety inspection!" Duncan urged, taking off his diamond-encrusted sunglasses and sliding them carefully onto Courtney's face. "You do understand that we've hit 'The McLean Cave' jackpot, right? We can finally hit the man where it hurts:" He gestured around to the room at large. "Everywhere!"
Courtney furrowed her brows, taking a moment to put her apprehension into communicable terms. "Let the record show that I am for the financial and emotional ruin of Chris McLean as much as the next person," she began, pushing the sunglasses back so she could better convey herself to Duncan, "but he's going to know it was us, Duncan. We're the only contestants that know this place exists, and he knows it from laundry day."
"Perfect!" Duncan agreed, running down a length of the closet that was purely multi-colored suits, yanking articles of clothing to the ground and cackling as he went.
"No, not perfect," Courtney said, walking briskly after him and hanging suit jackets nearly as fast as he was pulling them down. "We're talking about his personal stuff," she said, trying not to let the powder blue and cloud-patterned blazer that she was hanging distract her from her point. "He's going to get Chef-level angry if—pardon, when—he sees that we wrecked his penthouse. Do you understand what that means for us?"
Courtney wasn't even sure she could fathom the consequences herself. "We'd be slammed with charges for vandalism before you had time to blink! And that would be..." She looked at Duncan suddenly. "That would be disastrous. For you."
She had been planning to finish with something more along the lines of "problematic" or "burdensome", but it occurred to her that things would not be so mild on Duncan's side. He had gone to juvie recently—she knew that much about the trip—which meant he was almost certainly on probation of some sort. And that in turn meant he absolutely could not afford another charge against him, of any nature. Pranking the interns was one thing. They didn't have an army of lawyers at their beck and call like Chris did.
Duncan hadn't been paying attention. Instead, he'd reached the end of the closet where a display of mirrors, all of different sizes and magnifying power, were set up in front of a varnished desk lined with makeup. Duncan threw himself into the throne-like chair in front of the display. "Hmm," he puzzled, happily oblivious to the dark turn Courtney's thoughts had taken. "What if I could tell you with almost absolute certainty that Chris isn't going to be back here before everyone on Playa is off the island?"
"Almost isn't good enough," Courtney snapped, hanging up the last bit of strewn clothing, a green and blue striped suit that she wanted to show Heather for the sole reason that it was sure to give her a fatal heart attack. "Besides, he could slam us with a lawsuit no matter where we—!"
Duncan held his arms out placatingly. "All right. I hear you, so now you hear me."
Courtney crossed her arms and waited.
"The big finale is in two days. That's all of tonight and tomorrow, and then we head back to the island the next day."
She did the math in her head. "Yeah, that sounds right."
"So Chris is sleeping on the island tonight to set up his master plan, right? He's going to need Chef with him at all times to get everything in order, obviously, because he's useless at everything. Because of that, if he's on the island now to set stuff up, you know it's crunch time. He just doesn't have time to come back!"
"He's coming to get us all for the final challenge!" Courtney reminded him, turning to deadpan. "Or don't you remember how Chef threatened us with certain death if we weren't ready at 0600 hours sharp the day after tomorrow?"
Duncan made a wrong buzzer noise, spinning to sit sideways across the throne, a position made all the more ridiculous by the fact that he was still dressed like a discoball gangster. "Wrong! Chef's coming to pick us up. You think Chris is going to stomach the trip to Playa and back on the duct-taped boat from hell? No way!"
Courtney cast his obnoxious outfit a sideways glance. "Okay, fine, that's all well and good, and I congratulate you on successfully thinking all the way through one aspect of this break-in,"she said, pulling Duncan's feathered hat off his head and going to stow it back in the closet because she simply could not stand to look at it any longer. "But you have yet to address the most pressing problem!"
"Which is...?" Duncan asked.
"Legal action!" Courtney shouted. "It doesn't matter when Chris finds this mess as long as he does! He has to come back to clear out his things after the finale. Even if we're off the island, he'll sue us for vandalism, and assuming you're on probation (which you have to be), that'll send you laughing straight back into juvenile detention!"
"I don't care about that," Duncan told her, shedding the remaining articles of clothing and wandering out of the closet and back into the room in his regular attire.
"Unbelievable," Courtney mumbled, picking up the mess of glitzy clothes and moving to hang them all back up. Louder, she called after him, "Well just because you don't give a damn doesn't mean that I don't! I have a future to worry about, and a criminal record does not bode well for—"
Duncan whooped. "Nice! Found the liquor!"
Courtney's face paled. She dropped her armful of clothes and rushed out of the closet as she imagined a thousand different drunken Duncan scenarios, each more destructive than the last. In reality, Duncan was sitting cross legged in front of a wine cooler, which was expertly hidden underneath a trophy case of Gemmie awards engraved with Best Reality TV Show Host. An assortment of bottles (and strangely, a single can of tomato juice) had already been pulled out onto the floor.
"Did you hear anything I just said?!" she whisper shouted at him, coming up behind him. "Chris is—"
"Going to be back for his stuff?" Duncan finished for her. "Please. That man has never done an ounce of manual labor in his life."
He pulled out a bottle of champagne from the back of the fridge and frowned at it. "I can't believe he doesn't have a drop of hard liquor. No, actually I can believe it. I didn't want to, but here's the proof. Ah well." He turned to Courtney with the bottle in his hand. "Champagne?"
Courtney hadn't been paying attention, as she was busy picking up the other bottles Duncan had scattered across the floor. "Am I a broken record to you or something? How many times do I have to—oh," she said suddenly, inspecting the bottle of red wine she'd just retrieved from where it had rolled under the king-sized poster bed. She turned the bottle over and her jaw dropped. "Oh my god. This is a three hundred dollar bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon! From the sixties! Oh my god!"
"Really?" Duncan asked, crawling across the floor to where she sat on her heels inspecting (perhaps revering) it. "Maybe we should start with that."
He tried to grab it from her, but she stood up, holding it out of his reach, and repeated in a deadly hiss, "We can't get away with this."
Duncan smirked knowingly. "Doesn't mean we can't do it."
Courtney glared at him, gingerly walking the three hundred dollar wine back to the cooler.
"Come on, Princess!" Duncan insisted, sounding like a four year old as he got to his feet. "This is our only chance to pull the most epic revenge prank in the history of reality TV. We have been blessed by the gods of both revenge and prankdom, and you're going to pass this up?"
"Look, Duncan," she said calmly, putting the last bottle of liquor back in the cooler, excepting the champagne Duncan had yet to release, "there's no clean getaway from trashing Chris's room. If it's not Chris or Chef, someone else is going to be sent to clean this up."
"Like the chick interns?"
Courtney sighed in relief. He was finally starting to understand. "Yes, Altitudinous and Obstreperosity will surely be in here at some point, and when they are—"
"Wait a minute...the chick interns!" Duncan repeated suddenly, a wicked grin fixing itself on his face. "Perfect!"
Courtney stared at him warily. "What, exactly, isperfect?" she asked.
"I just had the best idea," he answered, digging speedily through one of his pockets. "The answer to all our problems! We'll—wait," he stopped suddenly. "What the hell did you just call them?"
She rolled her eyes, "Duncan..."
"Seriously, was that even English?"
"Duncan," she said more pointedly. "What kind of idea? What does it have to do with the interns?"
Without another word, Duncan lodged the bottle of champagne between his knees to better dig in his pockets and finally pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. He handed it to Courtney with a smirk.
"Just what am I looking at?" she demanded, plucking it from his hands.
"The answer to all our problems, like I said." Duncan grinned at her. "I found it on the door of the bathroom while you were obsessing over the trophy case."
She sent him a sour look that steadfastly claimed that she was not 'obsessing' before she she set about deciphering the scrawl. It read:
Yo, Lady Interns:
Can't figure out how to use the hot tub. It was fine the other day and suddenly it's not. What? Fix and/or leave better instructions. Also, there's a crack in my chandelier. Very obvious, you'll see it. It's been bugging me—call a glass smith. Eh, it's an Italian chandelier, maybe call an Italian. And speaking of bugs, I found a roach (that's right, ROACH) in one of my trophies last week. I think it might still be alive. Find it and kill it—this is a necessity. And if this place isn't spotless by the time I get back, you're both getting blacklisted from every network in the biz. Oh, and fired. Sorry kiddos, tough love.
-CM
P.S. Something's up with my mattress. Can't sleep, please investigate. It feels like a potato, but it's not a potato. Help.
Courtney slowly lowered the note and looked up to find Duncan watching her intently. For a second, they just stared at each other.
She snorted.
"This is ridiculous!" she said, trying to contain her laughter in a futile attempt to calm down before she gave herself the hiccups again.
"And convenient!" Duncan added with a wink. "Don't you see how perfect this is? I was going to swipe the note to keep as a souvenir. But this place has got to be spotless when Chris gets back, or else the blame lands on those interns. They lose everything, no questions asked, no excuses accepted!" He grabbed her shoulders. "It's literally foolproof."
She looked up at him, lips pursed, trying to see the situation from every angle. "What about the interns?" she asked, shrugging him off. "They don't deserve that."
Duncan rolled his eyes. "Like it's worse than anything else they do on a daily basis! I dunno, bake them a cakeor something. Hell, give them a bottle of Chris's wine! He won't miss it."
Courtney eyed the wine cooler. The temptation was itching at her skin now. "It is really good wine..."
Duncan's eyes lit up at this would-be emission. "Exactly! So relax, Princess," he drawled jokingly, sauntering away with the champagne bottle still in hand. "Take off your shoes, ditch the Louie Veto purse, and come have a drink with me."
She had totally forgotten about the bag of hair that was still around her shoulder. If she'd been easing into the idea of trashing Chris's room, the reminder of her deal with Heather put her right back on edge.
"It's Louis Vuitton! And where are you going?" she shouted after him. Suddenly feeling a little sick, she hung the bag and its implications on the coatrack by the door. She didn't want to forget it, but otherwise it would be a distraction from keeping track of Duncan and—dare she think it?—participating in the slow destruction of Chris's penthouse.
Upon entering the bathroom, she found Duncan surveying the hot tub. He kicked the 'On' button with one heel, and the thing shuddered to life. "Huh. Doesn't look broken to me," he observed.
"Maybe Altitudinous and Obstreperosity already got to it," Courtney offered, busying herself by pulling out drawer after drawer of sink cabinet in order to get an idea of just how much hair gel McLean actually possessed. "In which case, your whole plan just blew up in our faces, Jesse James."
"Nah," Duncan replied. "Thetall one and the loud onehave been too busy cleaning up my last masterminded plan," he said, putting emphasis on the non-use of Courtney's vocabulary words.
"How'd you figure?"
"Deej and I saw them this morning going down to breakfast. They said as much, and...Oh."
"'Oh' what?" Courtney asked absentmindedly. She didn't want to lose count. Forty six bottles of hair gel. Forty seven, forty eight...
"Um, at some point in that conversation, they might have mentioned something about all the film footage of Playa being stored in a steel-plated vault in an undisclosed location."
Courtney's head snapped up. She narrowed her eyes. "What?"
Duncan rubbed the side of his head sheepishly with the hand that wasn't holding the champagne. "Yeah... so, I guess your footage was never in the prop room."
Courtney nearly threw the bottle of gel she was holding at his head, but pure shock held her back. "You couldn't have remembered this when we were in the hallway on our way to spend hours in the prop room?" she shouted, realizing only a second later that she was picking a fight over her own lie.
"Would you have come with me if I had?"
"Wha—? Of coursenot," she insisted, a little too forcefully. "There would be no reason to." That would have been spending time with him by choice. And she would have avoided that, obviously.
Duncan shrugged and leisurely pulled off his shirt. "Whatever."
"What did I tell you about getting shirtless around me?" she snapped, pivoting to face the view of the ocean through the floor-to-ceiling window (which boasted a perfect view of the moon as well).It was better than ogling Duncan as he stripped down to his underwear. Or looking at the Birth of Venus-esque painting over the sink, featuring Chris McLean as Venus.
"You said it's strictly forbidden in your room," Duncan answered, popping the champagne bottle top after a bit of a struggle. "But in all other situations, it hugely turns you on."
"That's not even selective hearing. That's outright slander," Courtney corrected. "Also..." She peered into the hot tub, "I think I see what Chris was talking about."
"Huh?" Duncan looked down into the hot tub as well, which, despite having been running for several minutes already, hadn't filled more than a couple centimeters. He bent over to inspect the inside of the tub more closely, and, after a second, chuckled. "Can you go get me a scarf or something?"
Courtney shot him a look that hopefully said Get it yourself! "So you can fix the hot tub in style?"
Duncan was already halfway out of the bathroom, and soon returned clutching a sequined purple ascot.
Courtney blinked at him. "Of all the accessories in Chris's wardrobe, you choose that?"
Without a word, Duncan balled up the fabric and shoved it down the open drain, and the pair watched as the hot tub began filling immediately. "Problem solved."
When the choice was either to laugh or suffer an intense migraine at the idea of Chris McLean's extreme stupidity, taking it in stride seemed like the option that would cost Courtney less in therapy bills down the line.
"Unbelievable," she said, shaking her head. "Absolutely unbelievable. I cannot wait to get the heck off this island and as far away from that man as possible."
"I'll drink to that!" Duncan toasted, perched on the edge of the now-warming tub. He took an initial swig of the champagne. "Wow, that is fizzy."
"Duncan, we shouldn't be drinking that," Courtney pointed out, sullenly recognizing herself as a buzzkill as she leaned against the sink counter.
"You say 'we' like you're a participant. You haven't drunk anything yet." He took another drink, swallowing the bubbles. Then, without testing the temperature, he slipped himself straight into the hot tub, bottle still in his fist. Courtney rolled her eyes as he sucked in a pained breath and adjusted to the steaming water. He eventually eased into a sitting position, the water to his collarbone, and went on drinking. "I, on the other hand, plan on drinking this whole thing, unless someone would like to join me in here and share the bottle," he offered, wagging his eyebrows. "For my liver?"
"The odds of me getting in that tub with you are in the negatives," she replied dryly. She held up the fancy pink cube of bubble bath soap that she'd just located on the counter to Duncan. He shook his head. She tossed it in anyway. "Seriously, you can't wait three more years and just drink legally?"
Duncan grinned around the mouth of the champagne bottle. "Two years."
"Nineteen's the legal drinking age," she reminded him.
"I know. I'm seventeen."
"Right. Even Ezekiel could spot that lie," Courtney answered, rolling her eyes. "You had to be 16 to participate in Total Drama Island, no exceptions. Take it from the only human being who read the ridiculous abomination that was the TDI 'Safety' contract."
Duncan was laughing.
"What?"
"Better take another read through, darling," he chuckled, taking another pull. "It said you had to be 16 at the start of the competition to participate in Total Drama Island."
Courtney stared at him. "But that would mean..."
He shrugged, his grin staying in place.
Courtney set down the second cube of pink soap (the pink foamy bubbles weren't nearly at a satisfying level of humiliation for Duncan) and walked to the middle of the bathroom as questions came to her in rapid fire. "Your birthday was during the show? When? Why didn't you say anything?"
Duncan almost choked on the champagne. "Are you kidding? Can you imagine what kind of 'birthday surprise' I would have gotten from Chris and Chef if they'd known? I'm just glad they never thought to check my records. Or anyone's for that matter."
There was that sick feeling in Courtney's stomach again.
Before it got too unmanageable, however, Duncan went on, "I mean, I'm sure I wasn't the only one to level up in the full eight weeks. We all dodged a bullet there."
"When was it?" she asked again, curiosity driving past her discomfort.
Duncan didn't answer right away. He took a smaller sip of champagne and, without looking at her, said in a lower voice, "It, uh, it was the day before Basic Straining."
Courtney took a few seconds to process that, and mumbled, "Oh."
She slowly walked the rest of the way to the hot tub and sat on the rim, only just out of Duncan's reach. For a moment, she struggled to find something to follow up with. Then she asked, "Well, did you get any gifts? From your parents or your friends?"
"I got you," he said without an ounce of humor in his voice.
Courtney's grip on the edge of the tub tightened into a vice. She hadn't been prepared for that, had no idea how to take it, and didn't want to believe that she'd heard him right. Duncan took another drink of champagne.
"Duncan—" she started, softly but firmly.
His eyes shot to hers. "If I had told you that the camera wasn't in the prop room, would we have turned around and never found this awesome place?"
"I don't know," she said, perhaps more honestly than she'd intended. "Maybe."
Duncan raised a brow at her, and she realized that by eschewing a fierce denial she'd practically made a confession. "I mean, I had a few other things to look for in the prop room, besides the camera."
"Like?"
"Like your subtlety," she feinted, knowing full well she couldn't share her real objective.
But Duncan didn't take offense, and merely placed the champagne bottle on the hot tub steps behind his head so he could relax further into the water. Courtney was slightly concerned to find the bottle already more empty than full. "Is it really that hard for you to admit that you actually enjoy spending time with me?"
Courtney bit the inside of her lip. She glanced around the gaudy bathroom, out to the bedroom and the warehouse she couldn't see behind it. She was half-checking for hidden cameras, making sure that if she was going to make any sort of statement, it wasn't going to be on tape. Finally, she smiled a little. "This has been kind of fun..."
She jumped out of her skin as Duncan shouted out the door of the bathroom, "YOU HEAR THAT, UNIVERSE? PRINCESS HAD FUN! GET THAT IN WRITING! F! U—!"
Courtney grabbed him by his Mohawk in a panic and forced his head under the water. "Shut up! You're going to get us—!"
Duncan blindly grabbed at her arms and pulled her down with him into the near-boiling water. She surfaced, spluttering, drenched, and hissing, "Hot hot hot!"
She scrambled to get out, but Duncan had already swiped his limp Mohawk back from his eyes and grabbed her by the ankle. Tugging her back in, he said, "Admit that you enjoy my company and I'll let you go!"
Accidentally (or maybe on purpose), Courtney's other foot connected with Duncan's face, which bought her enough time to get out of his grip and the steaming tub. Duncan rubbed his jaw and waited for the inevitable backlash.
He was pleasantly surprised when Courtney started laughing breathily instead.
"Your c-company is a horrible influence," she said, standing and shivering, drenched and trying not to smile.
"It's a skill," he said with a cheeky grin as Courtney hugged herself tightly, still shaking and hissing, "Cold cold c-cold..." through her teeth. She considered her soaking blouse for a moment and solemnly wished it a happy afterlife, as there was no way it was surviving both Wawanakwa and a hot tub. She then eased herself back into water (at the extreme end from where Duncan sat) to fight the chilly air, sighing as her body adjusted to the heat.
Duncan wordlessly grabbed the champagne bottle from the step of the hot tub behind him and held it out to her. She reached for it, but he pulled it back before she could grasp it.
"Admit that you enjoy spending time with me," he insisted again.
"Admit that you're not as much of a bad boy as you pretend to be," she countered.
"Fine. Admit that you like me."
Courtney looked taken aback, and Duncan's breath caught. It was the moment of truth.
She started to retract her extended hand from the bottle. "I wasn't going to drink that anyway..."
"Courtney—"
"Admit that there's something in you worth liking!"
Duncan rolled his eyes. "So all our time on the island and the last three days of me proving exactly that went right over your head?"
Courtney frowned. He was right. Of course he was right.
She waited a minute, staring at the light pink bubbles in the tub. "Why is it so important for me to say it?" she asked before she could talk herself out of it. "I'm sure that whatever my feelings are, they've been painfully obvious to you, Mr. Intuitive."
"I like you," he said. And for some reason, admitting it out loud wasn't nearly as scary as he'd thought it would be. He felt strangely proud that of all the things he'd messed up, this wasn't one of them. "It would be nice to know that all my effort hasn't been for nothing."
Courtney couldn't make eye contact. "You're not my type," she said, but there was no conviction in her voice.
Duncan watched as the gears in her head spun and hoped that he'd greased them to the right conclusion.
In her mind, Courtney heard Bridgette's words breathe in the space between them. He's crazy about you!
Courtney made a sound like groan, closed her eyes, and slipped into the hot tub so that all Duncan could see was her nose up. She came back up after a second, crossed her arms and legs, took a breath, and sighed deeply.
"I've enjoyed spending this time with you Duncan," she admitted slowly.
"Because you like me?"
She glared stubbornly at him. "I'd like you more with a few chugs of champagne."
Duncan didn't budge. He placed the bottle back on the tile behind his head and cleared his throat. "Ahem. Repeat after me: I, Courtney..."
"Want to punch your spleen out."
"Because you like me."
"...Because I like you."
Duncan grinned so wide it hurt, and that was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to how he was feeling at the moment. "There. That wasn't so hard, was it?"
Courtney just glared, a little miffed that she'd been conned into such a confession by a Duncan that may or may not have been tipsy at the time. She stood up, turned, and exited the hot tub without a word.
And for one single, asphyxiating moment, Duncan feared he'd broken the camel's back—that he had royally messed this up and screwed himself for everything he was worth, and that Courtney was going to walk out of that bathroom and never speak to him again.
But some invisible force stopped her at the door. Then she said, "I'm opening the Cabernet. And I'm not sharing."
She left, and Duncan let out the breath he would never admit to have been holding. For the first time, he dared to hope that maybe things really were going to turn out in his favor.
"SOMEONE'S OPENING MY 1964 CABERNET."
"I SWEAR TO GOD, MCLEAN. If you wake me up one more time, I'm gonna maul you myself!"
"But—"
"GO THE FLAMING HELL BACK TO SLEEP!"
"I pay your salary, you big bully!"
"AND I CLEAN UP YOUR MESSES AND BURY YOUR BODIES AND COOK YOUR FOOD, MR. I'M-TOO-GOOD-FOR-MCDONALDS! GO TO SLEEP!"
Chris blew Chef a raspberry.
Duncan lingered in the bathtub for a few minutes, feeling surprisingly calm given what had just happened. This was very likely due to the champagne bottle he'd just finished. Yet as he dropped the empty bottle into the bubbling tub, the unsettling possibility that Courtney had taken advantage of his attempt at giving her space and outright abandoned him in the penthouse suddenly dawned on him and strongly influenced his speed in clamoring out of the hot tub. He stumbled into the room on shaky legs.
His paranoia was proved unnecessary when he found Courtney lying on the bed, wrapped in a very fluffy looking white robe that was embroidered with an ornate "C. M." The large, wall-mounted, flat screen television was on and playing some soap opera he'd only ever heard of in passing.
Expensive-looking, studded red cowboy boots were on her feet, the red wine (which she had confirmed to be expensive) was a third of the way empty where it sat on the bedside table next to her, and the closet she had presumably gotten the robe from was in significantly greater disarray than when he'd left it. Courtney was taking small sips from a gold, chalice-like trophy that read Television Humanitarian of the Year.
"You're dripping on the floor," she commented. The diamond encrusted sunglasses she'd been wearing as a headband were on her face, despite the dimness of the room.
Duncan glanced at himself. "So?" His boxers and floppy Mohawk were the only things left to drip.
Courtney jerked her head in the direction of the closet. "Go pick out a nice suit to dry yourself off on—there are plenty on the floor. Then grab the second robe. I think it's in the pile somewhere."
Duncan cast her an impressed look as he crossed to the closet. "Who are you and what did you do to the CIT? And whatever it was, can she stay that way?"
"Shut up and come drink with me." She took another sip. "This is the most glorious liquid you will ever taste in your life."
After rolling around on a beige Armani suit and recovering the second robe Courtney had indicated, Duncan returned with a sequined silver dress in tow.
He held it out to the brunette. "You sure you don't want to slip into something more comfortable?" he teased.
Courtney glanced at Duncan over the rim of the sunglasses, then at the outfit, and then cracked a wicked grin. "How much do you want to bet that belongs to Chef?"
Duncan looked at it again and scrunched his face up in disgust, tossing it blindly back toward the closet, though it only made it about halfway across the room. "Thanks for ruining my fantasy."
"You're welcome." Courtney threw a second chalice-like trophy at Duncan, this one boasting Mr. Canada, Fourth Place.
Duncan caught the solid bronze weight against his chest and held it up, placing his free hand on his heart. "Thank you, thank you. I don't know what to say. But I guess I would like to thank the Academy," he mocked, in the same terrible skater accent he'd used in the prop room. "Only three other people in Canada are as supremely douchebaggy as me, and I appreciate each and every one of the voters for recognizing that."
Courtney grabbed him by the sleeve of his robe, giggling. "Sit down, McLean Jr. I think the surroundings are getting to your head." She did a full roll to make room for him. When she was sitting upright again, the sunglasses were nowhere to be found.
"And I think the wine is getting to your head, Princess. How strong is that drink?" Duncan plopped down on the bed, fitting into the indentation Courtney had left behind.
"It's really good wine," Courtney repeated, reaching over and pouring him a full trophy of Cabernet Sauvignon while he grabbed the remote from the bedside table and changed the channel. She placed the bottle back on the bedside table on a makeshift coaster of Chris's autobiography.
The first thing he passed was a hockey game, teams he wasn't the least bit interested in, but he thought to ask Courtney, "Any of your people?"
"Honestly, I only watch when Gustavsson's playing," she said over the rim of her chalice. "Besides, this game's a rerun. The exhibition season doesn't start again until September."
"You never cease to amaze me, babe," he said as he flipped past. Courtney could have fought through the red wine bliss to analyze that, but she was distracted as a commercial aired for none other than the exciting new upcoming reality series hosted by renowned television host, Chris McLean: Total Drama Island!
Courtney made Duncan spill the majority of his red wine on himself and the bed in her desperate attempt to grab the remote from him.
"NO," she stated loudly, changing the channel to an awards show. "It's bad enough the lobby only plays reruns of the episode proofs. I do NOT need to see the cut for TV version!"
"Sheesh, I was about to do that," Duncan muttered, trying to dab up the red wine off his chest with the Egyptian cotton sheets.
Courtney kept searching. They passed a Motocross exhibition, which she had to veto despite Duncan's enthusiasm for the program. One channel boasted a series about teenagers at a mall, another a series about teenagers at the beach. She was happy when she finally located a standard newscast, but Duncan evoked his own veto and grabbed the remote back from her.
"How about we see what Chris has on his DVR before we delete all of it?" he suggested, holding out his trophy for a refill. Courtney carefully obliged.
As Duncan clicked through, they saw that the cue contained a variety of programs: interviews, movies, a random spattering of television episodes with no real pattern to them. (A solid chunk of the movies seemed to be about talking cats and one was about talking dinosaurs, but that was hardly an explanation.) She was happy to note, however, that Duncan seemed just as confused. At least there wasn't an obvious big picture that had escaped her.
Finally, Duncan clicked for info on one of the films, its title involving badminton, and found that it starred none other than Chris McLean. The pair shared a glance, and Duncan pressed play without hesitation. He didn't bother to ask Courtney if she thought Chris appeared in all the programs on his DVR. After catching a glimpse of one show titled "Keep it Plain with Chris McClean", the answer was only too obvious.
After the initial credits, which featured Chris as actor, writer, and producer, his narration started over a very terrible child actor running (and occasionally tripping) through a field of long grass.
"As youngsters, we all dream of greatness. The moon. The wheel. Food. Math..."
"Since when is math synonymous with greatness?" Courtney hissed. Duncan shushed her just in time for the punchline.
"But I was a special kid with special dreams. Me? I dreamed of birdies."
A badminton birdie soared across the screen, coming out of nowhere to sail over the child's head. The kid put on such a forced face of joy and wonderment that Duncan and Courtney exchanged another glance.
"Drink every time Chris is the best actor in a scene?" Duncan offered.
Courtney sighed and filled up her chalice. "It's probably going to kill us."
Duncan turned the volume up and, on a hunch, Courtney clapped twice. The lights switched off. "Here's to going out with a bang," she said, clinking trophies with Duncan.
"I wasn't kidding," Duncan told her with a grin. "Wherever you put the real Courtney, leave her there."
Courtney didn't respond. This was the real her too, wasn't it? She took an unrefined gulp of her wine.
She was finding it difficult to focus on the movie or her thoughts. They kept swinging to the wig bag she could see out of the corner of her eye, hanging over on the far side of the room. The situation was ameliorated when it occurred to her that she might start her own, private drinking game, something along the lines of drink every time you think something you wish you hadn't.
She tried to watch Chris's terrible acting and ignore the ringing of her own words in her head. She had admitted to liking Duncan not just to herself, but to him. (Drink.) There wasn't anyone else there to confirm it had occurred, but even if she thoroughly denied it had ever happened like she still denied the fish cabin had ever happened (drink), admitting it once to herself made it impossible to choke it back down, at least without some severe difficulty.
Fortunately, this hadn't been filmed. There would never be any reruns sneaking up on her on cable TV. Other than the wreckage of the room, come tomorrow, there'd be no proof that anything had happened at all, and that was a comforting thought. It was his word against hers, and she could make it all disappear tomorrow if she wanted to.
Courtney wasn't sure she wanted to. (Drink.)
His eyes not leaving the television, Duncan laid the remote in between them and reached over to grab the hand she had laid across her stomach. He twined his fingers in hers and drank from the chalice in his other hand.
She found it surprisingly easy not to take a crack at his total lack of subtlety. In fact, if he wasn't going to mention it, she wouldn't either. She couldn't tell if the alcohol was taking care of her inhibitions or if they were simply gone for good.
She drank. And then she squeezed his hand.
"You must do this, Little Jimmy," Chris was saying on the television. "You must do this for The Flipper. For you're all I have, Little Jimmy. You're all The Flipper has."
The scene then cut to show Chris crying, no doubt prompted by some artificial means, as the child stared at him blankly. Another birdie flew across the sky in super slow motion as the credits began to roll.
"Ugh, drink," Courtney said, tipping back the second empty bottle of red wine. "Duncan? I said drink. I think it might actually be over this time." They'd been faked out more than once over the course of the film; there had been a few too many "climaxes".
Courtney set the empty bottle down on the bedside, and clapped the overhead lights back to life. She then took a few breaths to evaluate her state of mind. She'd gone from tipsy to outright drunk near the workout montage of the film—a process that had been fast-tracked by both her shared and private drinking game. That made her very glad there were no cameras around, though she was near positive her peers could've heard her, uproariously drunk as she was, throughout all three floors of Playa.
A second bottle of wine had become necessary at that time, but that had been a few terrible monologues ago. She'd been taking it easy since then, faking a few of her drinks, and estimated that she was back to being just tipsy.
As was evidenced by the now-empty chalice in his loose grip, Duncan had picked up the slack and consequently drunk himself into a coma.
"Duncan!" she called, shaking him. When that didn't work, she kneed him in the side.
He came to slowly. "Urgh...What? What did I miss?"
"I finished a third bottle of wine by myself and did a strip tease while you were passed out."
Duncan cursed himself and rolled over onto his back. "Is that god-awful thing over?" he moaned.
"Yes. One of us survived. One of us did not."
"You have remarkable tolerance," he mumbled, stretching where he lay and cracking his back.
"Oooh, a four syllable word," she teased. "You really are drunk."
His eyes screwed shut to the flickering TV credits. "Not drunk, just tired," he insisted groggily.
Courtney smirked. "Don't tell me you're a sleepy drunk. You of all people! I thought you'd be belligerent for sure. I was willing to bet you'd pick a fight with the bedside lamp."
He yawned without shame. "Sorry to disappoint. The only fights I pick are the ones I'm sober enough to win."
"Is that what got you sent to juvie?"
She'd blurted out the question more naturally than she'd thought possible. It could have been because she needed a new distraction from the bag in the corner, or perhaps because she was just incredibly curious and not thinking quite as much as usual. Maybe a little of both. She wasn't quite sober enough to want to analyze it.
"What?" he asked, throwing an arm lazily over his eyes.
"What did you go to juvie for?" she rephrased. "You can tell me. There's no one else here to know, and I won't tell. Heck," she lied, picking up Duncan's trophy and putting it on the bedside table, "I probably won't even remember it in the morning."
She was trying very hard to be convincing, but when she looked back at him, he was just staring at her. Her stomach dropped. He knows, her mind whispered in a panic. He knows what you did.
But when Duncan spoke, drunk and relaxed and at ease, the only time she could reasonably expect an honest response out of him if ever, his answer was none of the things Courtney had prepared herself for.
"I don't want you to think of me like that," he said, quietly but clearly. "I don't want you to...to think the worst of me."
Her curiosity wrestled to beat down the guilt that was welling up in her chest. She scooted closer to him, closer than they were already. "But I won't tell anyone. I promise."
Duncan looked at her sadly, like she was a child and he had to tell her that her dog had died. "This isn't about secrecy. I can tell Heather and Gwen and Owen and Harold, even Chris if I have to, but—"
He paused. Then he turned over so he didn't have to face her.
"I don't want you to know. Because it's you."
After a moment, she said, "Okay," but she what she really wished she could have said was "I'm sorry" instead. Sorry because she was definitely going to get the information from Heather now. Sorry because she was going to find out anyway, because the curiosity was eating her alive, and if she was going to continue on this path of interaction with Duncan, then (she was sorry) she absolutely had to know what had landed him in juvie.
Duncan continued his roll onto his stomach, then to his back, to his stomach again, and on and on until he had travelled the length of the bed and dropped like a sack of stones to the floor. "Ow."
"I'm going to go see if my clothes are dry," Courtney said, changing the subject and getting up with far more grace. She walked to the closet as Duncan brushed himself off and wandered into the bathroom.
Her resolution was still settling uncomfortably in her mind as she searched through the pile of clothes that she'd left on the floor, both Chris's and her own, when a cry of surprise from the bathroom interrupted her.
She abandoned the closet and rushed to the bathroom door. "Duncan? Are you oka—?"
The door jerked open, and Courtney shrieked as she was doused in a powerful spray of ice water.
Duncan stood holding the removable shower head in one hand, grinning. "All good and sober?" he asked cheerfully.
"What happened to you being a sleepy drunk?!" she shrieked, rooted to the spot as the water ran down her appendages and to the floor.
"It comes and goes," Duncan cackled, holding the nozzle like a gun and preparing for another round.
For the second time that day, Courtney tackled him to the ground before he could get his kicks. Wrestling the shower head out of his grip, she put a knee to his gut and sprayed him until she felt she had achieved a sufficient revenge.
"All good and sober?" she repeated back with a sweet smile. Duncan sputtered in response as she disconnected the shower head and tossed it away before stalking back to the closet, fully awake, drenched again, and surprisingly more okay with it than she thought she'd be.
Once they were both dressed and (sort of) dry and Courtney had (resolutely) collected her bag, it occurred to her that the front door might be rigged with some sort of alarm. She decided she'd try to take them back the roundabout way they'd come, but while she was busy trying to remember which trophy Duncan had pulled to get them there, Duncan had (giddily) grabbed a handful of Chris's trophies and a few of his manageably sized paintings and dumped them all in the hot tub.
It was while Duncan was grabbing a Juno Award to toss, engraved "Best New Artist, Fametown", however, that he found yet another secret entrance. The moveable bookcase slid aside to reveal what looked like the mouth of a slide that could have lead to anywhere.
"Ladies first," Duncan offered.
"Chivalry isn't dead; it's just an alcoholic," Courtney muttered as she peered down the length of the slide to an end she couldn't see. It did look faster and less time-consuming than roaming through the dark, camera-filled hallways. But then again, jumping out the fourth floor window was also a faster way to get to the ground floor. That didn't make it a good idea.
"Ten bucks says you land in a pool."
"Why would Chris have a slide into a pool when he has a huge hot tub in his bathroom?"
Duncan considered this drowsily. "Good point. I retract my bet."
Courtney rolled her eyes as she sat on the edge of the slide, pushing off before Duncan got any bright ideas about pushing her himself, and before she could put a value judgement on the reckless act.
The trip down was long and just the slightest bit terrifying, and it didn't drop her in the pool, or any body of water in fact; it landed in a secluded bit of property on an inflatable mattress that cushioned the landing nicely. When Courtney straightened up and got out of the way of Duncan's touchdown, which was surely close behind, she realized they were mere meters away from the regular Poolside area.
Huh. So that was how Chris appeared and disappeared at the Poolsides so quickly.
The sky was starting to lighten and was dusting the clouds in pastels. "Sun's rising," Courtney informed Duncan when he tumbled noisily down the chute. "We've missed the whole night."
"You missed the whole night," Duncan corrected as he clambered to his feet. "I fit in a nice power nap between the first big match and the finale."
"Yeah, yeah. Way to rub it in," she said, coming around to nudge him in the direction of the doors.
"Missed a strip tease for it too," he mumbled.
There were still cameras to dodge on the Poolside deck, but nowhere near as many as the prop room hallway. Despite being in some brand of stupor (Courtney still couldn't get a clear read on his level of inebriation), Duncan was able to dodge around the pattern, leaving Courtney to mimic him from behind.
They made it to Courtney's room through the employee staircase without incident. Having arrived at the end of their night, they stood outside her door for a few moments.
Duncan teetered, unbalanced. "Well this was fun. Let's do it again sometime soon."
"Yeah, let's not," Courtney sighed. Then, remembering something, she held out her hand firmly.
Duncan stared at it with as much clarity as the child actor in the movie they'd just watched. "What?" he asked.
"My room key," she said. "Hand it over."
He was apparently still sober enough to grin and pull it out. "This key?"
She tried to grab it, but he held it over his head. "Uh-uh. What's the magic word?'
Courtney rolled her eyes and chuckled. He was still Duncan. No amount of champagne or midnight confessions could change that.
And he was crazy about her. And he didn't want to tell her why he went to juvie because he didn't want her to know he was really a bad boy because he didn't want to be.
"Duncan..."
She'd only ever noticed his stubble once before. She'd forgotten about it entirely up until she put her hands on his jawline.
He grinned at her sleepily.
"You're such an idiot," she murmured.
Then she kissed him.
He tasted like 1964 Cabernet Sauvignon, which had suddenly become the second best thing she'd ever tasted.
Duncan kissed her back readily, like he'd been expecting it, or at the very least eagerly hoping for it. He held her tightly by the shoulders. He held her like that for a long while.
Finally, she parted their lips and, seizing what was possibly her only chance, slipped the key out from where it hung off one of his fingers. She turned, opened her door, and disappeared inside her room.
It took her a moment to find anything to say, but an adequate follow-up came to her eventually. "Your creeping privileges have been officially revoked," she stated breathily from inside.
"That's okay," he replied smoothly, sounding a little out of breath himself. "I plan on getting myself invited."
"Go to sleep, you Neanderthal."
"As you wish, Princess." She heard the smile in his voice that accompanied the lighter thud of his Converse down the hallway.
Courtney shut her blinds, threw off her damp clothes, and tossed the bag of hair under her bed, determined to banish it from her thoughts, at least until morning. Routine dictated that she then go brush her teeth, but on this night full of firsts (seconds?) she decided to forget hygiene just this one night and got immediately in bed.
Besides, she decided she liked the taste of the red wine on her tongue: it was oaky, medium-bodied with a smooth and easy finish. It had aromas of bell pepper and flavors of vanilla and fresh berry, and, if you had a very refined palate (which she did), you could taste just a hint of delinquent underneath.
Yes, friends. That really happened.
Also, let it be said that we do not in any way condone or endorse underage drinking. However, we cannot deny the unfortunate fact that it does happen in some cases.
From strayphoenix: If you haven't figured out why this is my favorite chapter to date, you should really re-read those last few paragraphs ;). I was SO EXCITED for this chapter actually, that I wrote an entire 7000 word first draft in one 7 hour sitting. Panera had to kick me out. They thought I was homeless. No joke.
Speaking of jokes! This is a conversation Rina and I actually had over text the other day:
stray: arrrgh. vacation makes writing progress so slooooooowwwww
Rina: but, vacation!
stray: NO EXCUSES
If you're wondering why I'm not addressing anything in the chapter, it's because I already know what each and every review is going to comment on. But! Just in case you made it this far down into the author's note, story's nowhere near over yet, folks!
One kiss does not a Happily Ever After make, especially not on Playa when the TDI finale is only a day away and Courtney still needs to carry out her half of the bargain with Heather if she ever wants to know Duncan's true backstory. Stay tuned for the rest of this ride! It's a DOOZY.
From Contemperina: Are you guys freaking out? Because we were freaking out writing this, editing this, and now we are freaking out as we post. Hopefully you've enjoyed this ride as much as we have and thought this was a worthy treatment of thei pair's second kiss (whaaaaaat?).
HOWEVER, as stray said, this story is certainly not over. There is much to read for still, so stay tuned for the next post, coming up soon!
Thanks for reading! Please review (: