Locking Antlers and Butting Heads
A DxC moment taking place during Paintball Deer Hunter after they got their antlers stuck together. Being the good DxC supporter that I am, I always wondered how they possibly managed to decide which way camp was, and how they got back there without killing each other…
It begins with a small snip-it of the script you've all seen before, but fast-forward to paragraph… 5 and the new material begins. If you're really, really impatient, that is.
"Very funny. Now let me go!" Courtney shouted. It's just like him to get us stuck together like this, she thought. How could he be so stupid? She grunted and continued trying to separate his antlers from hers. 'Why do smell worse than usual?' though a smart insult, was completely not worth the unfortunate situation she found herself trapped in.
"Uh, Princess, this isn't my idea of fun either," Duncan retorted. The trademark smirk that had pasted itself to his face, however, indicated otherwise, a face that Courtney didn't fail to notice.
Positioning herself in a huge lunge and yanking her head away from his, she responded with one of her hardest glares. Sadly, yanking her head put her no closer to freedom, but it did cause her neck to hurt. She winced. "Great, Duncan. Now what?" She tried to turn and glare at him, but the antlers wouldn't allow it. She settled for glaring at the camera sitting in front of her face, "disguised" as part of a tree. It was really just thrown haphazardly into some rotted out hole and covered with a few leaves, and the lens was still completely visible.
"...You wanna make out?" There was a laugh in Duncan's voice as he taunted her. He knew that she would never agree, but it was almost more fun to try to make the girl angry. He went to turn and make an I'm-so-adorably-hopeful face towards her, but the antlers held his head cockeyed. He settled for looking at her out of the corner of his eye with a devilish grin.
"No!" Courtney's eyes went wide as she grappled for a response to the nauseating question. She thought for a moment before adding on, as a simple jab at the boy across from her, "I might get rabies," complete with a very un-Courtney-like sneer. Of course, being a former CIT, she knew that humans only contracted rabies when bitten by wild animals with the same condition, but the implication fit well enough. And then, because Courtney had the nasty habit of trying to keep dead conversations alive, she asked, "What kind of person would I be if I let my face get that close to yours?"
"Well, I don't know if you've noticed," Duncan began, "but our faces are pretty close together already." It was true, of course. The antlers weren't that long to begin with and, caught together as they were, Duncan and Courtney were left with nothing more than the space of a hand between their faces. Duncan pressed his cheek up to hers to illustrate his point, despite the pain that shot up the side of his neck. Her lips pursed and she rolled her eyes, but didn't move away. Duncan's mind dully registered that she was probably just trying to avoid neck pain herself, but he considered the move a success nonetheless. And then, upon noticing a camera that looked like it had been chucked into a tree from across the creek (or five), he decided it was time to end their anti-moment.
"So, to answer your question, I'd say you're still the bossy, uptight, goody-two-shoes girl you were ten seconds ago," he announced, blowing a huge gust of air into the girl's face.
Courtney blinked in shock as his breath hit her eyes, narrowing them a second later. She inhaled deeply, as if preparing to sigh, but before she could stop herself, she broke into a massive coughing fit.
Duncan stared at her there beside him, hacking up a lung like there was no tomorrow, and he made a mental note to steal some of Harold's gum later that evening; did his breath really smell that bad? It wasn't perfume, he knew, but honestly! Was it enough to choke a girl to death? Duncan, his head violently jerking around with each of Courtney's coughs, waited impatiently for them to subside. Tapping his foot, he mulled over the situation in his brain until he came up with his next jibe towards the female—probably something about her having a low tolerance for his tempting scent. He never got the chance to voice it, however, because she just kept coughing, though they eventually became louder. And theatrical. And noticeably fake.
"Oh, wow, Princess," he said, piling on the sarcasm. "You're really funny." He gave her a 'friendly' pound on the back to finish her 'coughing', aggravated that she'd kept him believing her game for a minute at least. Pathetic. He made a mental note to keep on his toes for the rest of their trek back to camp.
Duncan's quote-unquote "friendly" pound a little to forceful for her to handle, Courtney stumbled forward a few steps, dragging Duncan along with her. With a mild smile (that Duncan couldn't help reading too far into. It seemed to say, "Ha! I win, sucker), she leaned down, resting her hands on her knees, locking her elbows, and ending the show. She didn't miss Duncan's look of irritation as she dragged his head down with hers, either. "I was wondering how long it would take you to catch on," she said matter-of-factly.
Duncan sneered at her, seriously considering throwing off his antlers and wrestling her to the ground then and there.
"Now, if you can find the self-control within yourself to keep your mouth shut," she continued, ignoring his icy stare, "we're going back to camp." She straightened up as much as she could, dragging Duncan's head along with hers, and began side-stepping in the direction of the dining hall.
Duncan, putting his internal frustration towards a more useful cause, dug his heels into the grass firmly, cutting off the prep in front of him like a dog on a leash. "And where are you going?" he asked her, an eyebrow raised.
Courtney stopped struggling, though she didn't turn to look at him. He always needed to pick a fight, she was quickly realizing. She was right, of course, but she stood waiting for some elaboration, some reason why she was once again incorrect.
Duncan was happy to not elaborate.
Realizing that further explanation was not forthcoming, Courtney sighed, turned over her shoulder, and threw her hands on her hips with a huff. Struggling to look the delinquent in the eye (not because it was difficult mentally but because the antlers simply weren't conducive to turning one's head), she lilted, putting unnecessary emphasis on her words, "I'm going to the dining hall, where we always meet after every challenge, and you're coming with me. Or did you already forget since the last challenge three days ago?" She said it slowly and carefully, as if she were talking to some of the small children she worked with during several of her extracurriculars.
Duncan flicked his gaze up to hers and did his best to look intimidating, though the effect was mostly muted by the antlers, tail, and Rudolf-red nose. "Don't you start getting all condescending on me, Darling," he warned, falling back into his comfort zone: the dangerous, I'll-break-your-arm-and-not-care delinquent. His eyes serious and unforgiving, he stared into hers, which immediately narrowed. Neither moved for several moments, not daring to budge, speak, or even blink.
Without verbally announcing it, or even fully realizing it, they'd fallen into a competition much more familiar to ferocious jungle animals—the fight for dominance. They stood there glowering at each other for slightly longer than a minute (which doesn't sound like much in the grand scheme of things but is rather a lot when you're connected at the head to someone you detest). Courtney holding herself in a lunge and Duncan leaning over her with his arms crossed, they simultaneously realized that the other wasn't going back down. They would have been there all day if it wasn't for Duncan taking a moment of thought and then pulling his head back to the sky, which yanked Courtney's back as well. Both of them were forced to break their stares, along with their predatory poses, as leaves and twig assaulted their vision.
"Ha!" Duncan laughed abruptly, swatting at a branch over his head. "Now we both lose." He snickered as Courtney furiously opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off by saying, "Now, shut up so we can go back to camp, which is this way." He immediately turned and started hiking in the opposite direction of where Courtney had been headed.
Taken aback by his brute disregard for her opinion, she obviously tried to resist his pull. Unfortunately for her, Duncan was the larger of the two and dragged her along until she was compelled to start walking on her own. Nice to be the bigger one, he thought briefly.
"Where are you going?!" Courtney screeched, not appreciating being dragged around like some pet. A pet with a leash attached to my head, she amended grimly. "I am absolutely positive that the dining hall is in the other direction." She stomped down on a tree-side mushroom in her fury, grimacing as a family of ants scattered out from under it.
Duncan merely continued tramping across the forest. "I completely agree with you," he announced, continuing to walk away from her said destination. "The dining hall is the other way." He smirked, reveling in the frustration he could practically feel radiating off of her.
At those words, Courtney kicked her up struggle another notch, but Duncan pushed forward, pulling Courtney helplessly behind. "Then WHERE ARE WE GOING?!" she shrieked, pounding on her captor's back for a solid two seconds before he snatched up her hands and flung them back at her.
In the silence required for her to take a deep breath (only so she could continue screaming), she heard the crunch of leaves as a squirrel skittered away from their path of destruction. No wonder. Between the two teenagers, there would be a path of broken sticks and crushed leaves through the forest for weeks.
Duncan, becoming aware of this as well, briefly acknowledged the fact that they, being deer, should have been quietly trying to avoid getting paintballed, but he hadn't heard any unnatural activity in the woods for a while, so he was willing to take his chances. Plus, it would be really funny to see Princess covered in paint, and her reaction? Even funnier.
"We're going to the medical tent, Drama Queen," Duncan explained. "Now chill."
Courtney tried to jerk him to a halt, and though it didn't affect him in the slightest, he decided to humor her and momentarily end the brutal destruction of the Wawanakwan nature. He'd find another squirrel's tail to step on later.
"Duncan!" she yelled up at him and his ever-present smirk. "Why are we going to the medical tent?! Do you not realize that it's all the way across the island from the dining hall?" What was that idiot doing, taking them so far away from their destination? And then Courtney, being the prepared, mistrustful, and just overall suspicious girl that she was, conjured up a circumstance in her mind that made her want to panic…
"As a matter of fact," Duncan mimicked, entirely unaware of her new-found paranoia, "I do realize that the medical tent is 'all the way across the island from the dining hall!'" He wished that he had a camera to capture her expression at that very moment. It was a mix of anger, frustration, exasperation, and... suspicion? Fear? It had him stumped for a moment, but remembering whom he was and what he looked like, not to mention the fact that they were all alone in a secluded part of a secluded island, her reasoning become clear soon enough. "Oh, wow, Princess, paranoid much?" he asked, reading her like the angry, frustrated, exasperated, suspicious book that she was.
Duncan took a moment to appreciate the irony of the moment. Here they were, attached at the head and stuck in the woods, at least half an hour away from the public, if you could even call Camp Wawanakwa that. With anyone else, (not counting the eight remaining chicks on the island, he later amended) it would have been the perfect opportunity to chuck those antlers and start making out! Somehow, though, Duncan didn't quite see that happening—not in that place with that girl. One, Courtney would never allow him to take off his antlers for fear of their team becoming 'toast', as Chris had so eloquently put it. And two, she would probably kick him in a very unpleasant place if he tried anything on her; it wouldn't have been the first time.
"I swear I won't try anything on you, all right?" he assured her smugly, holding up his hands in an I surrender fashion. She visibly relaxed and was about to say something when he added, unable to resist, "Unless, of course, you want me to..." He wiggled his eyebrows at her and bumped her shoulder with his own.
On contact, Courtney tensed up, set her jaw, and stomped on his foot with nearly enough force to remove one of his toes.
"Damn it, Princess, that hurt!" Duncan howled at her. "What are those shoes made out of, lead?" He put his hand on her shoulder to steady himself as he started rubbing at his instep. Courtney moved to shrug it off, but he just gripped her tighter. Sure, he was hamming up the pain a little bit (but not too much. That girl was a freaking dynamo), but under what other circumstances would Courtney allow him to touch her shoulder? Oh, the levels that he'd been forced to stoop to, just for skin contact. Pathetic. Again.
"I'm being merciful, so consider yourself lucky," she said without a glance in his direction. "Say anything like that again, and you'll find my foot in another extremely painful place for you, capiche?" She primly removed his hand from its perch and moved to tread back the way that they had come.
Much to her chagrin, before she could make more than a meter of progress, Duncan grabbed her wrist and resumed creating their path of forest-y destruction towards the Trent Tent. Seriously, Duncan thought, chuckling to himself at the clever name he'd just come up with, that guy had been in there more times than everyone else combined! That wasn't relevant at the moment, though, Duncan knew. There was a much hotter, angrier girl screaming at him, demanding his attention.
"Duncan! Why are we going to the medical tent?!" she shouted, furiously shaking his grip off from around her wrist.
Sighing, he felt it was his duty to put the girl out of her misery. "Because Chris told us to," he said evenly, using just a bit of willpower in not adding a girly 'duh!' onto the end of his sentence.
Courtney felt Duncan's eyes on her, but she stared straight ahead, considering his statement. Producing no memory of the event, however, she eventually met his gaze blankly, waiting for him to provide details.
This time, he actually provided. "Before he sent us into the woods?" Duncan reminded, gesturing with his hands. "Sir Hair Gel told us to meet by the medical tents when we finish so that we don't go dripping paint into Chef's precious kitchen." And then, adding on the obligatory jab at her intelligence, he continued with, "How did you possibly miss that? He said it through the megaphone!" The boy chuckled at how flustered this new information had made Courtney. "Not used to missing out on big information, huh, Sweetheart?"
"No, not really!" she snapped. His laughter was infuriating, being called "Sweetheart" even more so. Managing to collect herself enough to eye him distastefully, she retorted, "Bridgette must have been talking to me or something." His explanation for heading back to the medical tent was plausible, she supposed—Chef would kill anyone who damaged his kitchen—and she had to admit that she'd caught herself zoning out while Chris was explaining the many rules to the challenge. Courtney, though it hurt her pride deep down, took a leap of faith, backed up by a long and logical thought process, and took Duncan for his word.
"Oh sure, Princess, blame it all on Bridgette," he joked, obviously not buying her excuse. He smiled, a real, scowl-free smile, amused by her desire to defend her position, even when it wasn't necessary.
Courtney glared back at him, but it softened as soon as she saw his genuine smile. Not a smirk, nor a scowl, but a real smile. Seeing a kind expression of the pierced face of her partner surprised her, to say the least, and, to say a little more, made her wonder if she was still on the same planet.
Momentarily forgetting about the antlers, Duncan tried to square off with her only to be reminded of the cramp that had long ago developed in his neck. "Agh," he cursed quietly as he rubbed the top of his spine. "Look," he spoke up. "I know you used to be a CIT and you're married to the rules and everything, but my neck is killing me and I'm taking these antlers off, NOW." As he sauntered beside her, he became highly aware of how difficult it was to look threatening while his head was tilted at such an awkward angle.
"NO!" Courtney stopped and took a deep breath. "Do you not see those cameras, Duncan?" she asked, gesturing around. He followed her gaze and saw two poorly hidden lenses staring back at him right off the bat, as well as one very suspicious looking bird's nest. He looked back at her as she said, punctuating every syllable very carefully, "Those inadequately hidden cameras are recording everything we do." Then, returning to her regular speech, "Chris will have our heads if he sees us if we take the antlers off, and then the Bass will have our heads! I am not going to let you—" she jabbed her finger at his chest, "be responsible for losing this challenge for our team!"
She sniffed authoritatively and began walking again, signaling the end of their discussion.
Duncan thanked the Lord that she was done ranting, briefly considered silence, and then mentally kicked himself for even entertaining the idea of quiet in the first place. Then, he said the one crude, inappropriate, completely out-of-the-blue thing that was sure to irritate her: "That's all true, but you can't kiss me while we're wearing these things, and I know that's killing you inside!" He wrapped his arm around her waist, but she instantly shoved him away.
Courtney roughly turned to face him, but Duncan just ended up rotating around next to her. Had a person been there to see it, he or she would of been reminded of a dog chasing its tail. "NO!" she shouted again. "It's not 'killing me inside'. As a matter of fact, Duncan, I do not have even the slightest desire to get anywhere near you! I don't want to kiss you! At all! You are such a… an attention whore!" A bird flew out of the nearest tree in fright, which would have been amusing had Courtney not been arguing with the most immature 16-year-old on the planet.
He snorted and started clapping for her sarcastically, in time with each of his steps. "Congratulations on your use of teenage slang, Princess! I hate to inform you though, you used the word wrong."
Incorrectly, she mentally corrected. Then, due to Duncan daring to correct her, the valedictorian of her class, her expression dropped into a scowl, and she stuck a hand on her hip.
"The word 'whore' only applies to girls," he continued. "It's like 'slut', or 'ho'."
"Oh, good, then the term's still relevant to you!" she shot back. Courtney was aware that this was fairly weak as far as comebacks went, but it was a simple enough insult, one that she'd seen annoy guys time and time again. Being called a girl just didn't rest well with any of them.
Duncan picked up his walk slightly, but he showed no other signs of being bothered by the remark. "Ooh, that really hurts. Really it does." He slapped a hand sarcastically against his heart. "Where'd you learn your insults, a textbook?"
"No comment," Courtney deadpanned, knowing that Duncan would twist around any response she gave to that question, and then they'd show it on television out of context, and then Chris would get a kick out of making her look bad. Unacceptable.
"You realize that means I win, right?" Duncan joked, surprised that she'd let it go so quickly. That wasn't like the Courtney he'd come to know at all. Of course, she probably had some reason for surrendering and a suitable insult to accompany it...
"Oh, yeah," she started, a rant on the horizon. "I'm really crushed that I'm not totally up on my knowledge of vulgar, degrading, sexist slang!" The Princess didn't disappoint. "You can have this one. Be my guest." She'd intended to spit that last sentence out with heavy venom, but it came out sounding more like a peace offering.
Duncan, sensing progress, decided to let conversation drop. The pair walked on in silence for a while, the trees beginning to thin out and the sounds of civilization growing in volume.
"Duncan?" Courtney asked, breaking through the quiet.
"The Princess deems me suitable to speak to?" he asked in mock surprise. His eyes widened and his mouth made an O, another expression that Courtney never thought she'd see on his face. The surprised look didn't really work for him, she decided; no wonder he always looked bored instead.
She snorted and pushed at his head with her hand. "No, not in the slightest, but you're the only one here." Duncan? He was definitely not suitable for speaking to, yet there they were, speaking. Adopting a tone of formal disinterest, Courtney asked, "But, purely so I can better cuss you out in the safety of my own head, I want to know, what do you suggest I call males if the sexist names don't work?"
"If I answer you, do you plan on calling me any of the names?"
"If I answer you, will you still give me legitimate answers?"
"No, probably not." The smirk was back, and, unable to restrain herself, Courtney elbowed him in his side, provoking him to smack the back of her head. She stomped on his foot again. "Princess, that really needs to stop. BUT, if you swear to remember this day, where I knew more than you do—" Courtney rolled his eyes at this, neither confirming nor denying the statement. "—you can call guys man-whores, jack-asses, jerks, assholes, jag-offs... your hero, love, knight-in-shining-armor, stud-muffin, ouch!" She nailed him in the foot again, so he elbowed her in the ribs.
"Look, I think we've established that my foot is never going to be the same after today, okay?" he told her good-naturedly. Courtney laughed, so he proceeded to smack the back of her head for a third time. "You should really be talking to Leshawna about this, anyway. I'll bet she's got a huge stock of vulgar, degrading, sexist names for guys stored up in that head."
"No, you probably covered all of the good ones," Courtney contradicted, stressing the word 'good' in a way that implied she didn't think the names were very good at all. "You're a man-whore for hitting on me all of the time, though," she said, her face a strange mix between kidding and being entirely serious.
"Wrong again, Princess," he said, careful to match her straight face.
"God, what now?"
Duncan pushed a branch out of the way, which momentarily cleared the view of the rest of campers. It looked like everyone else was there, and several of the Gophers were covered in paint.
Courtney decided to ignore the fact that Duncan had been right about the meeting place's whereabouts and didn't mention it. One victory for him was plenty enough for the day, she figured.
"I may be a jack-ass, jerk, asshole, and a jag-off," Duncan began matter-of-factly, his expression containing no hints of shame. Courtney nodded her head at each of the titles, thrown a bit off balance by how easily he admitted such things about himself. "But I am not a man-whore. If I were, I'd be hitting on every girl at camp. I've only got my eye on one." The pair emerged from the woods at this point, coming at Chris and the rest of the crew from behind. Duncan flashed the girl next to him a crooked grin before saying, "Yeah... Heather's really hot."
Scoffing, Courtney pushed herself away from him, nearly pulling off both sets of antlers in the process. "You. Are. A. Jackass!" she accused irately, already fiddling with the antlers in an attempt to free herself. How dare he deny his man-whore-ishness? He had basically admitted that he'd hit on Heather and herself, as well as who knows who else!
The little voice in the back of Courtney's head tried to make her listen to reason, to tell her that she shouldn't be alerting the entire camp of the pair's dysfunctional relationship, but she ignored it, deciding that it would be easier to stay fuming. She would save deciphering Duncan's confession for another day.
"And you're in denial, Darling," Duncan shot back, oblivious to her internal struggle. "You can't resist me!" He waggled his eyebrow at her once more before they entered the circle containing their fellow campers. The light in his eyes quickly faded, his annoyed smirk falling back over his features, too quickly for anyone to catch his previous expression.
"Oh, this is just too much," Gwen said as the pair grunted to a halt. Everyone was gawking at them, most laughing, a few close friends looking concerned for both of their sanities.
"Duncan, you sly dog, you!" Owen chortled. Courtney glared at the maple-leaf adorning boy.
Duncan remembered Courtney's earlier threat regarding the safety of his nuts, but he figured that whatever punishment he got would be worth it for announcing, "The girl can't keep her antlers off me!" After all, it wasn't like she'd kick him in front of everyo—
"Can't... even... bend... over!" Duncan's voice reached an embarrassingly high squeak as Bridgette and Geoff finally unhooked their antlers. How did they get them apart so easily? he wondered, falling to his knees.
"Easy, Courtney!" Chris admonished in his skater drawl. "Our medical tent's really only equipped for one at a time, and Cody's pretty messed up." He gestured at an unrecognizable person sitting in a wheel-chair, who Courtney assumed to be Cody, though you couldn't tell through all the binding.
Whatever, she thought, looking at Duncan, crumpled on the ground. The pig deserved it. Her anger dissipated quickly, though, as Chris announced that the Killer Bass had won the Paintball Deer Hunt; Courtney joined in the team's whooping and shouting. The Gophers stood to the side, dejectedly dripping paint, and Courtney noticed that Heather looked prepared to murder someone. She gave a mental shrug and glanced down at Duncan and his attempt to cheer from the ground, a smile making its way onto her face.
His smirk was back (what would it take to get rid of it? She had kicked him in the balls, for God's sake!), and he struggled to stand up, winking at her before turning away. Rolling her eyes, Courtney quickly glanced around to assure that no one was watching before she stuck her tongue out at his back (childish, she knew, but it felt good to be passive-aggressive) and turned on her heel.
"You just stuck your tongue out at me, didn't you Princess?" he called over his shoulder.
Courtney didn't slow her pace, but turned around enough to shout, "Absolutely not!"
The two spun back around to return to their friends, Duncan with Geoff and DJ, Courtney talking with Bridgette. As they walked off in opposite directions, neither was aware that the other was smiling.
Big thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far! After about a year of letting this chapter sit here—it was my first fanfiction of all time and therefore pretty darn awful—I revisited and revamped it, so hopefully it's better than when first released. I like to think it is, anyway…
Thanks for reading! Please review. (:
