Seth shook his head. Once again, the credibility of Dean's narrative was questionable. Though he wished it were true. At times he liked to think of Dean as an anti-hero, the way Dean portrayed himself in this particular story. A guy that was a bit crazy but still presented a figure Seth liked to look up to. Person he was able to despise and admire at the same time. To Seth, Dean was definitely one of those people that he'd shed a tear for while burying his body deep in the ground so that nobody'd find him, and Seth's crime would never be known. Well, one day it may come down to that.
"Talking about stories," Seth suddenly remembered something that almost successfully escaped his mind for good. "Yesterday's competition doesn't have a winner yet." Although the storytelling time was almost 24 hours in the past, it could not be forgotten. Competition had to be resolved.
"That. . . . Hmm. I guess we could call it a tie and I could keep the prize," Dean suggested.
"One, no way! Two, what's the prize?" His face cheered up. He had no idea what it was, although he imagined it was probably something stupid, but he wanted it.
"A hooker?" Dean said in a tone suggesting a question, maybe intending to find out what Seth's opinion on that kind of reward would be.
"No. . . .," Seth refused to believe, his eyes squinted. "What's the prize?" he asked again.
"Well. . . ." For a reason mysterious to Seth, Dean was avoiding answering the question.
"OMG! It's the hooker, isn't it?" Seth shouted, strangely excited.
"Not really. Maybe next time, now that I know you'd welcome that kind of prize."
Seth did not hurry to protest. "I wouldn't. . . ." he said quietly. "But seriously, what is it? And who gets it?" As Seth mentioned earlier, they haven't chosen the winner yet. And even if they got equal vote, since Roman was not present, those two could hardly agree on which story was the best. However, even under these circumstances, Seth was able to find a solution. "To be fair," he started, "you never told the story. So the only two people eligible to participate and win are Ro and I. And since Roman does not care enough to even show up, I'd say it's clear. I should win."
Dean smiled. He did not protest – maybe surprisingly – but Seth doubted he would be declared the winner that easily. How astonished he was when Dean said, "All right. You want it? You got it."
"Seriously?"
"Sure."
Now that enthusiasm on Dean's part was suspicious. "Wait a minute. What's the prize?" The change of tone in Seth's voice reflected the change of image that Seth had of the prize. Initially he thought it was something stupid but funny and enjoyable. Now he realized it was probably more of a punishment that an award. God, how he wished it were a trophy. Something simple that wouldn't bring anyone to tears because of misfortune that befell him. "I don't want it," Seth came to realize.
"You sure?"
"No. . . . What is it? Damn it! And damn you, Ambrose."
Dean put his hands in front of his body in defending gesture. "Okay. I'm not forcing you take it."
Seth was looking at him suspiciously. What kind of game was Dean playing? "Then I want it."
"Look, I'll just save you from this misery saying that, in fact, the prize is for all of us."
"Why?" Neither now did Seth appear satisfied.
"Because I thought that it would be a nice end of this trip and that we'd all deserve it. I knew beforehand that in 24 hours you two would come to hate me so I wanted to make it up to you and I booked us a hotel for this night."
Seth chuckled. "That's actually . . . nice."
"It would be," Dean admitted, "but there's one problem."
"Which is?"
"We don't know where Roman is."
"Well, I never liked him anyway," Seth said as a way to get out of there. He's been there less than a day, yet he hated the place and wanted to leave so bad.
Dean smiled but said seriously, "As you already said, we can't leave him here."
Seth looked at the ground. Why does it have to be so difficult? Why can't he just show up? At that moment Seth looked outside hoping to spot Roman but he had no luck. Roman was probably somewhere deep inside the forest.
Seth sighed. "I'll never forgive him if because of him I have to spend another night here."
Dean didn't see the situation that hopelessly. "Look, it's not that late. I'm sure he'll come here soon. I mean, it's not like he has anywhere else to go."
"If we ever want to meet again, do you seriously think it's better to wait here than trying to find him?" Seth asked, and hearing from his voice, he disagreed with Dean on this point.
"Trying," Dean picked one word from Seth's sentence that was to serve as an evidence for Dean's idea being superior to Seth's. "Trying to find him. . . . You see, there's no assurance we would find him. But if we stay here, he'll come. Maybe not tonight. . . . But he certainly will."
"What if doesn't come even in the morning? What will we do then?" Seth asked, his voice raising.
"Don't panic. He's not a ten year old child that we need to find because he'll die without his inhaler."
Seth looked at him spitefully. "I hope you have booked separate rooms."
"To be honest, no. Also, you should probably know that there are only two beds in the room so somebody'll have to share. . . ."
Yeah, it did sound too good to be true. But it still was so much better than the tent the three of them occupied together and that enabled them only minor movement if they did not want to share an intimate moment with somebody.
To avoid arguments, Dean suggested "Hey, how about doing something in the meantime to take our mind off things? I have a great –"
Seth did not let him finish. "Our clothes is still in the middle of the forest. If we are to do something, we should clean that mess."
"That doesn't like fun at all."
"We have to do it at some point," Seth told him.
Dean frowned. But it was probably the cleverest thing to do. They wouldn't want to leave any evidence of their games with overly sexual undertone.
Dean left the tent to go to the car. He got a piece of paper and a pen to write a message for Roman, in case he shows up. Once in the car, he grabbed a beer can and opened it. The flow of liquid down his throat was calming, but it also reminded him he had to pee.
"Hey Seth," he shouted, "would you put this on the tent, or inside of it, somewhere Roman sees it? I need to. . . ."
"Where do you think you're going?" Seth asked. "We can't just all disperse. It's enough that we don't know where Roman is."
Seth's vehemency made Dean surrender. "Fine. I can pee here," he said.
But as soon as Dean started unzipping his pants, Seth started to object again. "What are you doing?"
Dean looked at Seth are-you-fucking-kidding-me kind of way. Finally, Seth let go off provoking him and chose to turn around. Seth put the note on what he thought a visible place, then went over to Dean so that they could get the tidying up going.
They stood still. Seth looked at Dean. "You know which way to go?"
"Since it was you suggesting to go back there, I thought you would know."
"Well, I don't, okay?"
"All right. You can follow my lead if you want to, but I'm not promising I'll get us there."
Seth sighed. "No!" he cried in an annoyed, tiredly sounding voice. "Why? Why me?" he started pitying himself. "It'll take us forever to get there . . . and another forever to get back here."
"I wouldn't see so tragically. We got here once. . . ."
"Yeah, we got here once. What are the odds we'll have that much luck again?" Seth countered.
"Hey," Dean said, "you wanna bet if Roman's gonna get here sooner than us?"
This was a disaster. Seth breathed in heavily and let out a moaning sound. Then he looked at Dean. "Sure."