Drinking

'This is just Playa Des Losers.' was Cody's first thought entering the island. The trip had taken all night so he was fresh out of bed.

He wasn't exactly looking forward to seeing Courtney here, in fact, he was hoping to avoid her. The last time he saw her he quite literally left her on a mountain, unable to move and to rot alone. Not Cody's best move to be completely honest, and he had a feeling Courtney was going to make him pay for it.

Cody had better things to worry about it. Yeah maybe he left Courtney to die alone in a ditch but he wasn't a bad person, right? Courtney was the bad person. He had just abandoned his opportunity at a victory for Noah, which made him a good person.

It would've made him an even better person if there was prize money this season. Sadly there wasn't. All contestants were being paid a salary and nothing else. The winner got a little bonus, a bonus that it looked like Noah really needed, but that was it. It was all for the fame, the money was secondary.

Cody didn't usually think about a lot of things, and this wasn't a special occasion either. He'd rather not worry that much about what was going to happen now. As he saw it, he had made the right choice letting Noah in the competition, and now he was going to get to chill out in a resort for as long as he could avoid Courtney.

He didn't waste much time outside by the pool. He mostly wanted to get to his room where his luggage was and play a bit on his gamepad. He went inside the resort and as he did, he heard voices coming from the diner.

Intrigued by who it could be, he peeked inside, and there he saw Courtney talking to a blonde boy. The boy was adorable, he had a really young face and pretty short, brown big eyes, dressed in a bartender uniform. He and Courtney seemed to be laughing at something, and for Cody's bad luck, they seemed to have noticed him.

"Cody! Is that you?" Said Courtney, she sounded friendly, way more friendly than Cody would've expected her to sound after what happened last time.

"Ah! The Codemaster! What an interesting second elimination." Exclaimed the boy.

"Yeah, I would've sworn Zeke was going home."

"Uh… Hi'' Cody walked into the room, he approached the bar slowly. He was confused about Courtney's apparent niceness… Maybe she was just being decent because this other dude was present? That sounded like it could be it. "I honestly think Zeke is staying for a long while."

"Oh really?" Courtney seemed surprised. "Did he find allies?"

"Tyler and Gwen yeah."

"Ah, good for them, being three people might give them the upper hand."

"Well, one never knows in games like these." The bartender pointed out.

"Sorry but…" Cody started. "Can I ask for your name?"

"Mathew! Nice to meet you sir."

"Is he a fan of the show?"

"Oh, nothing like that." Courtney knew Cody had awful experiences with fans. "He just knows us cause he was paid to be here, just like us!"

"Huh, I see…"

"So, sir…" Mathew opened up the conversation. "What made you come to the competition? Why return to Total Drama now?"

"Oh, I… It's kind of dumb."

"Come on, it can't be that bad! I came here to talk to Gwen, there's nothing dumber than that."

"Oh well I guess so… I came here to talk to Noah."

"Wow, you two are creeps."

"Don't be mean Mathew" Courtney said playfully.

"You wanted to corner these people in a place where they couldn't ignore your calls!"

"Well yeah that's true but also I deserve some kind of closure you know?" Cody pondered, mostly to himself.

"Yeah! And I just wanted a second chance, is that really that bad?"

"Second? You mean third." Cody wasn't the best at keeping count but he at least remembered this.

"Oh shut up, she fucked up the first time, not me."

"I mean does Gwen ever fuck up?"

"Uh… yeah, obviously." Courtney laughed.

Mathew stood up and served two beers. "I'm going to leave you two to it, just ring the bell if you need me, ok?"

"See ya, Matt!" Courtney waved at him very cheerfully. Cody gulped, they were going to be alone. This was the moment of truth.

"So… Courtney… Have you been?"

"Oh well, it's been hard… Not because of being eliminated just… Other reasons." This piqued Cody's interest, he really liked intruding into other people's lives.

"Oh, what reasons?"

"Oh it's not important, just life stuff, you know?"

"Hm, yeah that's ok." He really wanted to know, but if Noah had taught him anything it was that sometimes you have to take no for an answer. "Hey… About the competition, I'm really sorry about leaving you the-"

"Oh no please, it's ok I…" Courtney looked at her glass to avoid making eye contact with Cody. "I understand you don't have the best impression of me, I'm sure it was very easy to just leave me there."

Courtney was expecting Cody to insist on apologizing anyways, but he didn't. "Oh yeah it really was LMAO, I guess you're just this kind of dangerous beast you want to be careful around."

That hurt. "You fear me?"

"I mean yeah, kinda."

"And you still left me stranded alone? I wouldn't do that to someone I feared."

"I'd call it a moment of bravery, you know? The battle against the beast or something like that."

"I see… You must be really brave then."

"Yeah!" Cody wasn't the best at admitting his part of the blame. At some point, Courtney just accepted it and moved on. This was her way of making amends, sometimes the effort will go unrecognized and that's ok.

"Well yeah, but it's alright, I'm not mad at you or anything, that wouldn't be fair I think."

"Well, I'm sure glad you aren't!" Cody went to take a drink of the beer. He was a "social drinker", which meant he didn't really like beer but he was easy to pressure into drinking. In an attempt to impress Courtney, the same way he wanted to impress everyone he met, he took a big sip and chugged it down. Immediately after, an expression of disgust filled his face, Courtney couldn't help but laugh.

"You don't like beer?"

"No, not really…" His throat was still sour.

"Then why drink it?" Courtney found this hilarious.

"I dunno, you were drinking, right?"

"That doesn't mean you have to! You could've just given it to me."

"I'll make sure to… Next time." Cody was really trying to play it smooth but Courtney wasn't buying it.

"You really do the most stupid things sometimes." This embarrassed Cody to an extent.

"Well, I was born to be embarrassed after all…"

"Were you though?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know, maybe it's not my place to say but I feel you really settled into the loser geek role you know?"

"Well duh that's what I'm famous for."

"But is there anything more liberating than leaving those things behind?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to be who I'm supposed to be… Not anymore."

"And you think I shouldn't either?"

"I mean I don't know, do whatever you want really it's just an idea…"

"Hm... " Cody had never thought of it like that before. He gave the beer glass to Courtney. "Here you go."

"Thanks!"

"I hope you didn't do this only to get more beer."

"Well maybe I did, you'll never know." Courtney was playful, and Cody laughed a little.

"Maybe you're not as scary as you seem to be."

"That's the thing, I don't want to be scary, I'm tired of that."

"And you're just going to not be? Can you really do that?".

"Well, I hope I can. If not, at least I'll try you know."

"Nice!"

They talked for a little more, Courtney drinking and Cody just watching her drink. It was a nice time, in the end, they each went to their rooms to get some time alone. Cody just stayed in his room staring at the ceiling for a while, thinking of nothing. He was content with what he'd done. He wouldn't change it for anything.

His room was painted beige with red stripes, he thought it was weird that it kinda looked like his shirt. There was an arcade machine inside for some old game Cody didn't know, but probably would play anyways. But most importantly, there was a keyboard he could use.

When he was about to fall asleep, he heard a knock on his door. "Yeah?"

"Sorry, can I come in for a second, sir?"

"Mathew?" Mathew entered the room.

"Hey, just wanted to apologize for giving you that beer without asking. Courtney told me she had to drink it all herself."

"Oh don't worry about it man, I don't mind."

"Yeah, that's not why I came here though."

"Oh, it was a trap I see, what happened?"

"Courtney is really… Drunk."

"Yeah, I've noticed."

"No yeah but when she was with you she was happy drunk…"

"She's sad drunk?"

"Look I don't know how to help her. I was thinking you could give her a hand."

"Oh jee. I'm not great at consoling people, Matt."

"Me neither sir! But you've known her for a couple of years, right? I'm sure you can do it better than me."

"I'll try my best then…"

Cody stood up and walked past Mathew who just vowed in gratitude and went back to his hotel duties. Cody knocked on Courtney's door.

"Court? Are you there?"

"Go away…" She was sobbing, this really wasn't good.

"I just want to talk! Don't you want to talk?" There was no answer. "I'm coming in, ok?" Cody went into the room. Courtney was laying in bed, devastated. This was really overwhelming for Cody but he was going to try his best. "Hey, girl…"

"I'm sorry, you don't need to see me like this."

"Well, it's too late to worry about that now."

She complained. "Ugh… I don't want this, I'm sorry."

Cody needed her to stop apologizing but how? He remembered reading in some posts online that you're supposed to say 'no need to apologize' instead of 'don't apologize' for the other person to feel safer, so he did that. "Hey no need to say sorry, I'm here to… Help, right?"

"... Thanks."

"What's wrong?" Cody sat at the side of the bed next to Courtney.

"It's just… They'll never like me."

"Who?"

"You! Gwen! Bridgette! I've done so much for this competition and it hasn't paid off even a little."

"But didn't you say you wanted to change?"

"And what if I do? That doesn't mean they'll like me again it'll just mean-"

"But you'll be better, isn't that what matters?"

"I just want to talk to her again…"

"Well, you can talk to me."

"It's not the same."

"No, but you do your best with what you have." Cody put his hand on her shoulder. "Look you don't know if Gwen or whatever will forgive you but I wouldn't worry about it until it happens you know?"

"What do you mean?"

"I came here cause I was afraid Noah didn't like me anymore and it turned out he just won't talk to me because of some therapy thing. So what if I had worried about him not liking me for months before seeing him? It would've been such a waste of energy!"

"Well, it's not easy to just not worry about it…"

"Please, it's so easy not to think."

"Not for me, I think all the time."

"I don't, it just comes naturally you know." Even in a situation like this Cody couldn't help but show off.

"Well, how do I not think then."

"Well if you don't believe it's important you'll naturally not think about it!"

"But I do believe it's important…"

"Well it isn't, you won't know until you meet Gwen, anything else doesn't matter."

"... Cody?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you stay the night? I don't want to be alone."

"I can bring a mattress…"

"Yeah." She assured him, and gave him a drunk hug. "Thanks."

A/N: Cody and Courtney never really had the best relationship. They always remained distant and slightly hostile. Courtney only treated him like that because that's how she treated everyone she didn't care for, but Cody developed a sort of fear for her.

This is a first time for Cody seeing Courtney as a person, he doesn't trust her nice persona that much, naturally, but he can trust her more when she's saddened, Maybe she can be better too, maybe we all can.

Next chapter, our alliances and Noah will be put to the test. Zeke, Gwen and Tyler have an advantage. Will they be able to keep it? Or will a master move save Eva and Katie?