TDRE: EP X - W.I.P

TOTAL DRAMA REUNION
HANGING OVER



Courtney exited from Duncan's room hastily on her tip toes, closing the door as gently as possible be-hind her. She leaned against the door when she was done and exhaled her relief of the successful escape. She took a look at the items clenched tightly within her fist and then used her other hand to rub her eyes and she shook her head as she did so. She seemed seriously disappointed at herself that she didn't put them on but she wasn't going to take the time to do it now and sprinted down the stairs as fast as she could. And as soon as she got to the bottom, she looked up and noticed she was but a few feet away from Trent, who had a blank expression on his face and was staring right at her as he walked towards her.

Courtney smiled awkwardly and said a quick, "Good morning."

"Morning." Trent responded loudly and just as awkwardly as he walked by and past her.

They got a few feet away from each other before they were awake enough to think about why on Earth the other would be sneaking back to their room at such an early hour. Both turned back to face each other and gasped deeply, pointing to the other in disbelief.

"Gwen?"

"Duncan?"

They asked each other in a whisper in unison. They both denied their whereabouts of the night un-convincingly and approached each other to ask again, this time not in unison.

"Gwen?" Courtney asked even quieter as she slid her hands behind her back.

"Yea…" Trent asked even quieter, "Duncan?"

Courtney didn't answer.

"I'll make it easy for you," Trent said friendlily, "I don't need to see what you're holding behind your back because I can plainly see that you're not wearing shoes or underthings."

"You're trustworthy right?"

"Always have been, always will be." Trent assured sternly.

"Yea me and Duncan… And we really did things…" Courtney's eyes began to well up slightly. "I've never cheated on anyone before, I feel like such a terrible person."

Trent soothed her with a hug. "No, it's ok. You weren't in your right state of mind, you love your boy-friend and Duncan's… well he's Duncan, he's very persuasive."

"No Trent. I seduced him… I wanted him first…"

Trent was stunned at first but then shifted Courtney out of their hug so that he could look her in the eye. "You were lonely and intoxicated. It was a mistake, you know that. More importantly: it was a onetime thing. Your boyfriend is a psychologist, he will understand."

Courtney clicked her mouth and shook her head in disagreement, "It doesn't work like that. Alcohol suppresses your frontal lobe; it only lowers your inhibitions and ability to judge."

As smart as Trent was… He was too hung-over to understand any of that and didn't even know how Courtney could say those things after drinking so much more than he had.
Courtney noticed this and rephrased. "It doesn't create dumb ideas. It just lets them out."

"So then you kind of are a terrible person." Trent said through a grin.
Courtney couldn't help but giggle. "Thanks for being honest." She said. "What do you think I should do?"

"You know, I hate that this is my area of expertise." He replied simply before taking a deep breath. "You gotta work it out with your man as soon as possible."

She smiled, "Thanks…" She looked around. "Maybe we should get back to our own beds before everyone wakes up and wonders what we're doing." She began to walk away.

"Yeah…" Trent agreed as he watched her. "Hey," he said quickly. And he watched as she whipped her head back to look at him, "If you need anything; I'm here for you. Oh and keep what you know to yourself please."

Courtney smiled graciously and said, "Likewise." Before turning around and continuing into the end room on the opposite side of the lobby.

"Good morning!" Chris' voice boomed suddenly as they were both about in their rooms.
Trent and Courtney halted immediately and put a hand to their chest at the scare of being caught. Courtney even put her free fist in her mouth to keep from screaming. With wide eyes they watched as Chris raised his arms and they noticed… He was facing the opposite way and speaking to one of his cameramen.  They exhaled in relief as he continued on about what happened last time and eased their way into their rooms…

"...because apparently nobody has grasped the concept that every-man-for-himself means every-man-for-himself." Chris said in an irate tone. But of course the mad look on his face was soon replaced by a devious smirk. "So I figure that if they can't get enough of each other when forced apart… Then the opposite must be true… So stay tuned to watch the most dramatic episode yet of Total! Drama! Reunion!"


Not even ten seconds passed before the hotel alarm went off, the insistent blaring somehow appeared much louder than usual and seemed to materialize inside the competitors' brains as a constantly pounding hammer and nail. Every pound on the nail reaching further down their throat, delicately threatening the gag reflex until they all managed to inch their way to the main lobby. Their bodies finally flopped against each other or either of the couches for support, Chris finally turned off the alarm, though the extremely chipper look on his face kept the pounding in their brain going.

"And just what," Eva breathed out heavily, "are you so happy about?"
Chris pulled his infamous megaphone to his lips, "THERE'S TONS OF THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT EVA."

Naturally everyone's entire face cringed into one large, distorted bead. Even Eva was apparently set back as she dropped her head down on the frame of the couch.
Chris put his megaphone down. "Haha, I know. Just when you thought another challenge only four hours later was the worst it could get. Especially after the night you guys had." Chris cleared his throat and looked over to see Cody with a raised hand and using Sierra for support. "Now you see that's not so hard to do. That's all I ever want from you guys. You know, besides the juiciest drama ever. Yes Cody?"

"How," Cody asked weakly, "I mean just how are you so normal after drinking as much as we had last night?"

Chris simply smirked. "Maybe I'm just awesome like that."

Noah used all his might to speak up. "Or maybe he has a nutritionist on speed dial and an obscene amount of money to spend on infinite resources. That's a huuuge maybe though."

"GOOD POINT NOAH." Chris hollered happily through his megaphone once more.
Everyone struggled to glare at Noah but then shifted back to continue glowering at Chris.

"Last night was interesting you know. Hahaha, actually most of you just don't even know! You were messed up! Hahaha! Aw… But the point is: I got to see a new side of a lot of you. And I think new is the key to this show. You mix that with the old and all hell breaks loose, I'm serious. I just can't believe it took me this long to figure out."
Most of the competitors began to hold their breath at this point, especially a certain four whose eyes widened in fear.

"Now I'm sure most of you are thinking that this is the part where I show you some select secret tapes but you're wrong. It was my original idea late last night but these old hotel cameras suck. We couldn't get an-ything off of them."

A silent exhale of relief from everyone; especially Courtney, Duncan, Gwen, and Trent.

"So it was all up to me to try and think of something that would drive everyone insane… And then I remembered we're technically a cast member short from the last two seasons. So everyone, please welcome your newest competition!"

The door opened wide directly after he said that. Every single person gasped and then turned to the person next to them to bicker about a new competitor in unison. Meanwhile, Justin took note that Courtney made a large gasp and almost fell backwards when she saw the man who walked through the door.

It didn't make sense to him at first. Just some average, clean-cut dude with short hair and bad com-plexion that he supposed really wasn't all that noticeable next to such an unnecessarily snappy suit that looked so good on him. He had tan-ish skin, average color hair, average color eyes, ok he was pretty tall and he does look like he works out. But overall just average, average, average. What on Earth could be so special about him?? Why is he ignoring every single person bickering beside him and walking straight to Courtney...?

"You look like you're having some trouble there, hun." He said in his slightly deep voice as he helped her stand straight. He looked around at everyone else. "Actually you all look like you're having some trouble." He took note of how flat out mangled everyone looked. He looked back to Courtney. "What exactly happened just now?"

-start confessional-

Courtney: O.O .........

-end confessional-

Chris answered him via megaphone to make sure he was heard, "THEY ONLY JUST WOKE UP. IT'S WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT IS WHAT'S HURTING THEM." Chris put down his megaphone once complete attention was on him once more. "Yeah, I probably should have had them shower and whatnot before you got here but I just got too excited about you being here! Yes, Justin?!" He shouted excitedly.

"And what's so exciting about him?"

"Right..." Chris beamed through a creepy soft voice. "Everyone, this is David. He's 25, a lead psycholo-gist from Ontario, the youngest son from a seriously influential family, and... Courtney's long-time boyfriend."

All eyes on David and all awkward silence.

"What?" David asked confused and defensively.

Chris came up to Courtney and David with that large smile on his face. "They're just weird. So David, let's get you the grand tour before you become just like them." He directed himself to everyone. "Hey, while we're doing that, go get cleaned up. You're gross."

By this point David's confusion had twisted into concentration on what the heck was going on. He knew he had to do what his new host told him to though, so he turned to give Courtney a kiss.

She jolted back. "No, I'm so gross right now!"

David laughed, "Right, I know how you hate not being clean. I'll see you in a little bit hun."

Courtney forced a smile and waved goodbye to him. When he was gone, she noticed everyone's eyes were now on her and ran back into her room.

-start confessional-

Justin: "This could either be really good or really bad. We don't know anything about this guy; he could totally mess up my alliance's mojo or end up being a huge benefactor. So I'm really hoping all the other competitors keep it cool; that way Katie, Sadie, and I have a chance to analyze him..." Justin put his hands to his face. "Annnd the headache is back. This is going to be a long day."

-switch-

Duncan: "Ok, I'll admit, even I felt uncomfortable when the dude came in. But whatever. As long as he doesn't suspect anything, I'm sure he'll be cool." ... O.O ... "Because there's nothing to suspect! We only kissed." ... He grabbed the camera.  "That one time! And it wasn't even a kiss!"

-switch-

Sierra: "Oh, Chris is good. Not only is a new person going to make everyone feel awkward and defensive, but he just so happens to be Courtney's boyfriend which of course is going to make her act different and hence it's like there are two new people." Sierra shut her eyes and groaned. "Ughh, I do not have the energy to keep speaking like that. I really hope Chris only has some silly little ice-breaker games planned for the day."

-end confessional-

When everyone was more or less cleaned up and back in front of the hotel, they died a little inside. They looked passed the now glamorous water fountain and saw only obstacle courses and flags followed by even more obstacle courses and flags.

-start confessional-

Sierra: "Oh Karma; what did I ever do to you?!" She cried.

-end confessional-

Chris stepped into their view with that wide smile on his face. "Since you're not used to him, and you're probably still wasted, you more than likely didn't notice that David isn't in this lineup."

Everyone looked around and realized it but simply shrugged in response to it. Except for Courtney of course, who seemed to haven't gotten out of her state of shock since earlier that morning.

Chris waved his arms high to direct the competitors. "Alright teams together, teams together. Nice straight line please. Faster than that, it's real cold out and I can't have my skin getting all dried out like Eva's."

Eva focused in on Chris, another fruitless attempt to set him on fire with her eyes. However, her focus quickly shifted to the fact that Chef had just handcuffed her to Ezekiel, who in turn was handcuffed to Noah and then Izzy and then down the line until all of Swinging Security were handcuffed to each other. She looked around and now saw the two interns finishing up on handcuffing the members of Team Casino together as well as The Resources.

"So!" Chris beamed. "As you may have guessed by now, this is a Capture The Flag challenge! Capture as many flags as you can before time is up and the team with the most flags gets a new teammate! And here's an even more fun fact; you do not have to do the obstacle courses to get a flag. That's right, if your hearts so desire you can just walk right around them. But the obstacle courses are worth a lot of points if you do do them. I'd do them."

Gwen and Trent looked to each other and murmured, "No he wouldn't."

"On your marks... Get set..." Chris paused.

...

...

"GO!"


Everyone stood still... At least, that's what it looked like from a distance. However, close ups of their feet showed they were all moving at a very slow pace.

Alejandro, chained between Duncan and Heather, tried to speak loud enough so that only his team would hear him. "Ok, I know we're suffering but I think it's best if we try and win this thing. New teammate equals new advantage. Besides, if another team gets him, think of how distracted Courtney would get. She's crazy but we gotta make sure she keeps it together."

Heather turned her head to her boyfriend, the look on her face unmistakably that of pissed off. "Oh right, when Courtney's in trouble let's rally the troops. Meanwhile, I spent the night in a bathroom with my head in the toilet!"

Sierra could be heard laughing weakly in the background.

Alejandro tried to defend himself by saying, "Well it was every-man-for-himself."

-start confessional-

DJ: "I thought I remembered Alejandro being a lot more suave than that. You just don't say things like that to woman. Especially to a woman who's your girlfriend. And definitely especially to a woman who's your girlfriend who's Heather." He shook his head. "Should have tapped out when he had the chance."

-end confessional-

No one really felt sorry for Alejandro as they watched him drop to his knees, clutching the most tender part of his body which Heather used all of what little strength she had left to kick.

~~~~~~~~ TO BE CONTINUED