at another place in time, II
(Or, I wrote that one small limited life session 1 ficlet from Tango's pov and went "what if I just write a whole series of vignettes from Tangos pov as the season comes out, one for each session," and now have to do that by law. so. welcome to session 2's chosen tango reminiscing vignette)
[part I]
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He stood on the outskirts and watched everyone gather around, and Tango thought, well this is different; maybe it was the rule changes—their timers all counted down, but 19 hours was still more promising than not. It felt wrong to quantify their lives this way, hard to connect that number to the idea of the amount of time he had left to live; right now, it felt arbitrary. Tango was sure that would change as the numbers got lower. Their actions were still dictated by color, but yellow could now attack green and—
Yeah, that was probably it. The first free-to-fight was beginning to act, and this bloodthirsty crew wanted to watch it happen. That didn’t mean Tango wasn’t a little thrown off by the sight of everyone gathered around, a crude ring marked out on the ground. They all cursed the games when they ended, took time to recover from the violence they witnessed—but they forgot that it was violence they cheered for whilst they were playing; or, maybe they didn’t, and that was the problem; the part they struggled to absolve.
Maybe it was why they all signed up again and again.
He tuned out Bdubs explaining his rules, focused instead on searching who had shown up. He wasn’t looking for anyone in particular, he just thought he should take the opportunity to get a closer look at the teams that had formed while he had the chance.
Tango had somehow ended up directly across the ring from the rest of TIES, Etho finishing up flattening out a somewhat-decent circular border, Impulse standing behind Skizz, acting every bit in his corner, patting him on the back and giving all the encouragement a good coach would.
Scar was whispering to Cleo who had a hand to her forehead as if she were warding off a headache; Martyn and Scott looked properly judgemental and above all that was going on—surely they were too dignified for a fight so unrefined. He couldn’t see Pearl or Bigb, but last he’d heard they’d been taking their role as nosy neighbors far too seriously—if they were here, he was sure they were out of sight, giggling and whispering back and forth.
He wasn’t looking for anyone in particular, but that just left—
“We’re all standing so close?”
He couldn't help the speed at which he turned his head, he really couldn’t. Tango logically knew Jimmy’s landing on this side of the circle was due to the direction of Bad Boy Mansion, but he’d take what he could get. Joel was further away, picking fights where he could and riling up Bdubs from behind and Martyn from the side. Tango hadn’t spotted Grian yet. Speaking of taking chances…
“Well, if anyone gets too close we’ll just punch ‘em.” He held his breath, but it didn’t take longer than a second for Jimmy to turn his head in Tango’s direction. He was already smiling by the time they made eye contact; Jimmy had a lotta smiles—this was the kind that predated his laugh. Tango decided to take that as a challenge.
“Yeah, we’ll punch ‘em back in!” Jimmy said. “Just like in the movies.”
Tango nodded, “that’s right!”
“Keep fighting!” Jimmy added in a false voice he probably thought was gruff.
“Get in there and die!” Tango threw back; cruelty that was funny because it wasn’t real, the joke being that this was unlike their true temperament—settings-and-death-game be damned.
Jimmy got it, he tilted his head back and—what success, because there it was—he laughed. Tango smiled wider and stared maybe just a little; he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the sound.
Such as with all things bright and lovely, there was a moment where that feeling—that light and feathered thing—threatened to break out of the cage in Tango’s chest, and he had to look down to wrestle it back under control. When looked back up, across the circle Etho’s eyes were heavy on his. He calmly slid his gaze to Jimmy and then back to Tango.
Tango cleared his throat. Yup, that did the trick. He shuffled his feet, leaned his weight more to the right, and the distance it put between himself and that laugh was quantifiable in a way Tango felt much more than the numbers in his peripheral.
Grain had shown up anyway, and the bad boys gravitated towards each other with an ease Tango reminded himself he wasn’t jealous of. He tried to tune back into the event, but the excitement had kind of dulled.
“BDUBS! It’s you and me brother,” Skizz said, axe leveled in Bdubs’ direction. In a blink, Tango saw a different Skizz standing before him, weaponless and bare, my brothers left me to die. He didn’t dwell. Like he said, it was in a blink—one second there, the next gone; literally—he had the timer to prove it.
“Yeah right It’s you and me, you want revenge? Here I am, on a silver platter!” Bdubs held his arms out wide, sword in one hand and shield in the other—the cockiest come at me that he could offer. He never knew when to quit, did he? Tango hoped Skizz put him on his ass.
If not yet a harsh reminder of the time that he has left, the timer served the annoying purpose of counting the kind of seconds that ticked by in boredom. Every painstaking block in a build, every step he took on a long journey, every taunt Bdubs and Skizz sent back and forth that couldn’t be called anything but stalling; all of it cataloged and kept track of—it was the worst reminder that time doesn’t fly in the world (yet).
Tango was sure he’d change his mind about that later, but for now, he suppressed a groan and snuck another glance to the left.
Grian was offering weak cheers and ripping a loaf of bread to shreds then tossing the pieces around like confetti—or rice at a wedding. The area surrounding their little group was littered with crumbs and chunks of the stuff, and Tango watched as it attracted a chicken, pecking at the ground near Jimmy's feet. When it ran out of readily available food, it started picking at his shoelaces, and Jimmy tried shooing it away with little success; every step back he took, the chicken followed. Tango laughed under his breath as he watched Jimmy wave his hands at the bird again and then look around frantically hoping no one had noticed.
The crowd suddenly shouted in unison, calls of disappointment and boos radiating all over; the group mentality was also new—Tango knew that wouldn’t last either; once the fight ended, so would their new-found camaraderie. He turned back, but he’d missed whatever it was that had caused the outburst.
In the quick moment of silence that had followed, Scott said, “Skizz, did you eat an apple?”
Skizz was the only yellow name amongst them—the only one licensed to kill—and yet, Scott's question charged the crowd and made them every bit the audience above the colosseum, a thumbs down all that was needed to determine his friend's fate.
Skizz gulped, “maybe…”
The booing began again in earnest, and Tango had never before been so glad for the rules that Grian set.
“That’s nearly a cheat there!” Jimmy called out. He was an easy target, which Tango knew meant he was always fine-tuned to the things that might warrant being teased—cheating was one of them. A chance to put attention on someone else was always welcome.
Skizz spun in the bad boy's direction, “how is that a cheat?” Grian raised an eyebrow at the display, but he said nothing; he only liked to play admin when he chose to, not when others thought he should—especially if it was solely for their own benefit. “There’s no rule about not eating golden apples!”
Tango saw Jimmy’s eyes alight with it at the same time as he felt his own; accidentally or not, they made eye contact. Skizz was technically right, there were no rules about not eating golden apples—at least, not anymore. But he hadn’t been in double life.
Tango remembered when there were. He remembered waking up in the middle of the night to a knock on their door, answering Jimmy’s worried Tango… by telling him to stay where he was. There’d been no one there, but there had been a golden apple sitting on their porch—someone's idea of some kind of joke that neither of them had found funny.
He’d been so mad…it wasn’t until halfway through shoving his feet into his boots that he’d heard Jimmy call his name for what he was later told was the third time.
What are you gonna walk around in the dark ‘til you find who put that there?
He had been willing to if that’s what it took. Somewhere deep down logically he’d known—just like Jimmy did—that he wasn’t going to find whoever had left it, but it wasn’t really about that. He thinks he gets it, now, that it’d been about proving something.
Maybe if he’d done it then Jimmy wouldn’t have flushed and looked away today.
Tango was vaguely aware that the rest of the group had moved on around him, that he and Jimmy were really the only ones who’d hesitated at the mention of the apple at all.
He should’ve gone out anyway, walked around until the sun started coming up—hell, he should’ve started knocking on doors; at least that way, he wouldn’t have had to lay back down and have the conversation he hadn’t stopped thinking about since.
He’d known there was something coming, and he’d waited Jimmy out patiently to hear the slow drawl of;
If it weren’t against the rules, would you…
It is against the rules, Tango had replied. The wrong answer, he thinks now. But he hadn’t known why they’d been having such a conversation; it was against the rules. Tango would tell Jimmy he was sure as many times as he needed, but he wasn’t going to allow for the kind of negative feedback loop that Jimmy used to punish himself.
But if it weren’t—
No. He hadn’t needed to see Jimmy’s eyes to know that he didn’t believe him.
He wished he could tell Jimmy that believe it or not his answer still hasn’t changed.
“Fights over.”
“Hmm?” Tango turned toward Etho—now apparently standing in front of him—but he didn’t quite make it all the way. The scene had changed around them; sometime in his musings, people had started clearing out. The once rowdy crowd had begun to disperse, blood spilled and attention span exhausted.
“Fights over,” Etho repeated.
Tango blinked. “Who won?”
But his friend just let out a small huff and started in the direction of home. Tango looked down and kicked a pebble with the toe of his boot. He spared only a glance to the left where the bad boys were heading back towards their own base, donning leather jackets that must be sweltering in the day's heat. He couldn’t hear them, but he could tell Joel was arguing with Jimmy over something from here, watched as Joel reached around and smacked Jimmy on the back of the head, Grian moseying along beside them not caring to intervene. He sighed.
Tango turned after Etho.
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