Work Text:
Title: Blues of the Night
Fandom: Total Drama All-Stars
Summary: Alejandro thanks Scott for his cowardice. Things take a turn from there.
Alejandro approaches Scott, not on feet but on hands. "Hey, Scott."
"Whaddaya want, Alejandro?" the redhead responds brusquely without a glance, likely wanting to turn in for the night, if the way he's speedwalking down the dark hall to the boy's bedrooms is any indicator.
Fine by him. He'll get straight to the point. "I wish to express my gratitude to you."
"What for?"
"For being a coward."
He gains Scott's undivided attention. The sudden halt, coupled with that expression of confusion and anger, tells him that much.
"Allow me to elaborate," he placates before Scott can react. "Your refusal to jump off the cliff had resulted in my sudden freedom from that robot suit. If it weren't for you, I would have remained a prisoner for God knows how long…"
And who knows how things would have turned out.
Almost instantly, Alejandro banishes that single intrusive thought from his mind, refusing to allow such a thing to torment him.
Scott pauses, taking a moment to process his words. "You're… welcome? I mean, not like it was intentional. No offense."
"Fair enough, but I do feel obligated to thank you for what happened nonetheless. Burromuertos are never without gratitude, and as a Burromuerto, I am no exception."
"I'm sorry, did you just call yourself a dead donkey?"
Alejandro cringes. "An unfortunate surname when you put it like that, though where I am from, it is meant to be a respectable surname."
A devious smirk emerges on Scott's face. "You serious? Deadass serious?"
He rolls his eyes. "Your sense of humor is truly worthy of applause, mi amigo," he says, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Says a lot about your character."
Scott cackles at that last remark. "Snarky is half of who I am. The other half is sad," the redhead stops momentarily to think about what he had just said. His eyes widen as he tries to backpedal, "I-I mean bad. Bad! Heh heh, yep, that's me–the big, bad Scottmeister."
This time, Alejandro is the one smirking. "Indeed. So bad you fumble over your words."
"Watch it, pretty boy, or you might just end up lookin' a little less pretty," Scott brandishes his fist, though the glint of amusement in his midnight blue eyes suggests that he's only joking.
Alejandro emits a chuckle at that. "What a nice thing to say to someone still recovering from not being able to move his body for a year."
Like a light switch being flipped, he sees Scott go from being all smiles to unnervingly solemn in a matter of seconds. That's when things become as silent as a cemetery during the night.
"Sucks, doesn't it?"
That response, quiet and terse, uttered after what felt like a minute, throws him for a loop. "I beg your pardon?"
"Not being able to use any of your arms or legs. Not being able to do anything about it. It's a sort of limbo–not dead, but not exactly living either. All ya can do in that state is… waste away…" the dirt farmer says, absentminded in tone and disposition. As though he were in another place right at this very moment.
And some part of Alejandro went along with him to that place.
"I… see…" he responds lamely, unsure of what else to say.
Scott kneels down to stare him in the eye. "It bites. It bites much worse than a bloodthirsty shark and its teeth."
Despite his growing discomfort, Alejandro maintains composure and flashes Scott a weak smile. "I hate to presume, but I can't help sensing a painful story in your words."
There's a pause stretching on longer than it should after that, so thick with tension it's a miracle he can still breathe. In no time, he finds himself beginning to regret what he said. Before he can do anything about it, however, Scott speaks up first. "Haven't you seen Revenge of the Island?" asks the ginger in a low voice.
He blinks, not expecting that inquiry. "Can't say I have, I'm afraid. You could say I'm a tad behind from the rest of the world."
Understatement of the year. Getting doused in lava before being crammed inside a robot suit for so long can do that.
Then, to his alarm, Scott suddenly bursts into laughter, the kind bordering on insanity. The smile on that face looks just as wrong. "Well, well, lookie what we have here–someone who didn't see what was left of me in that season."
What was left of him…? Madre de Dios…
Something must be on his face right now because Scott goes on to say, "And looking perturbed, no less! What a novelty. Never thought I'd ever get that kind of reaction," he laughs sardonically, "Nobody else does that. Instead, they laugh. Grinning ear to ear like they see the biggest joke in the world, and that's probably it. No, that's not a victim in a trauma chair; that's just Scott, look at him! The dirt farmer who constantly deals with rat infestations back home, mute and injured and paralyzed like… like a rat caught in a snare!"
Alejandro's imagination runs wild upon hearing those words, and it's nearly enough to make him regurgitate the five-star meal he had eaten earlier today.
Now growing apprehensive at the way this conversation seems to be escalating, he moves back from Scott, though the other man begins stepping towards him.
That grin widens, just as those eyes light up. To him, it's almost like seeing a deranged fusion of Izzy and a hyena. "A horrendous sight, he is! But, hey, it's supposed to be funny! Heh heh heh… ha ha ha…!"
Alejandro can only stare up at Scott tentatively, struggling to decide between sympathy and fear. Sympathy for what appears to be the victim of a harrowing experience. Fear for what said victim might say or do next.
Scott proceeds to laugh harder. Tears hang at the corners of his eyes like dew. "C'mon, ain't you gonna laugh?"
It takes him no more than a second for him to settle on disgust at such a notion. "What? No!"
"Why not?! Everybody else does! Back in Season 4, back at school, back home!" Scott cackles, his voice cracking. "What's one more to the list?!"
But Alejandro shakes his head. "I won't be so cruel as to ridicule you for the trauma you've gone through. Take it from me, you have already suffered enough."
For a moment, he catches a brief glimpse of disbelief in Scott's eyes, though it vanishes shortly after, replaced with something else. Pain. "Who do you think you're kidding? I know you want to laugh. So go ahead, laugh! Laugh at the shark bait 'cause he's worthless trash who deserves it. Who gives a rat's ass about how he feels?!"
"I do," Alejandro tells the other man, his soft voice evincing sincerity.
Those two, simple words are enough to render Scott speechless.
At least until the dirt farmer resumes laughing. His maniacal voice gradually rises in volume, like water from a dam overflowing. Strong but unstable. And as it prolongs, the cracks start to reveal themselves. Whispers of sorrow seep out of the facade that once suppressed it, leaking through shed tears and hysterics.
Only when the laughter lapses into sobs does Scott finally break. The redhead falls to his knees, and the grief he has been bottling up for so long bursts forth. What Alejandro bears witness to is nothing short of poignant, a surge of melancholy that crashes down upon him like a terrible flood engulfing the land it sought to devastate. Scott hides his face behind his hands; out of shame or out of a futile endeavor to keep everything in again, that remains to be seen, but what Alejandro can perceive is a gesture he can't stand to look at.
And yet he doesn't turn away. Instead, he tends to Scott and comfortingly pats his back with one hand, while using the other to hold himself up. Easier said than done, though he manages.
Neither he nor the dirt farmer exchange any words, and all that's there for ambience are choked sobs, dominating darkness, and pale moonlight filtering through the windows to drench them in blue. Just as Scott weeps, so too does the moon. Alejandro silently drowns in their tears all the while.
Eventually, the loud sobs subside, and Scott rubs his eyes. The redhead then throws a glance in his direction, bloodshot eyes clouded by sorrow, cheeks blemished with thin streaks of his tears.
"I've been in a dark place," Scott whispers in a raspy voice, as if speaking louder would attract a horrible beast.
The words I've been there too echo in his mind, though Alejandro decides to leave them unsaid. Instead, he softly says, "I don't doubt that."
"Sometimes I feel teeth sinking into my body, trying to rip me apart piece by piece. Other times, I feel the burning pain of broken bones, subjecting me to pure agony with each breath or twitch of my fingers. And often I hear laughter all around me, loud and persistent enough to drive anyone insane. But there was always a constant–my inability to escape it all."
Alejandro shudders at what Scott's insinuating. That last statement hits too close to home for his liking. All those days, weeks, months where he had to put up with arms and legs being squished together. All the times he pondered if he'd ever be free from his misery. And that's something he has learned the hard way. That there is such a thing as having far too much time to contemplate things, and in those moments…
No. Never. He'll dwell on that no more than he already has. That robot suit has been completely destroyed. It won't imprison him ever again. He is free to savor the fresh air. He is free to take in the enticing aroma of life.
He is free.
"You know what that's like," Scott observes, snapping him out of his pensive state. "You've been in that place, too."
Alejandro frowns. "What I went through was something I wish not on anyone, not even my worst enemy. If I was given the chance to undo it, I'd take it without a second thought. Alas, life simply doesn't work that way."
Scott's eyebrows squeeze together in such a way that they resemble the hands of a clock set at ten minutes past ten. "If only it did."
"Really, I'm left with only one option. That, of course, is to move on. To live as though I'm striving to see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel."
"Yeah? And how's that going so far?"
Alejandro sits next to Scott before glancing down at his own legs. There's a certain numbness to them, akin to what someone who has stirred from a deep slumber might feel. He still cannot use them, though he is regaining some sensation in them. Slowly but surely. That's something which he makes sure to keep in mind.
"I'm off to a decent start," he muses.
Scott pauses momentarily. Then, hesitant in his words, he asks, "How long do you think it'll take to forget the pain?"
A grimace settles on his face. He knows that there is only one right answer to that question, and he can't say he likes it. Regardless, the truth leaves his lips. "Victims like us can never erase the scars of trauma inflicted upon our minds."
Just like that, Scott curls up into a ball. "Then nothing can be done. I ain't gonna be free from my perpetual nightmare."
He places a comforting hand on Scott's shoulder. "Nightmares can't be perpetual. Eventually, it'll cease to be."
"It'll come back and drag me back in," Scott's voice starts to waver. "It always does."
"Only if you allow it to bring you down," Alejandro soothes.
"It brings me down regardless of whether or not I let it. What I want doesn't matter! It just comes, and I–I–" Scott stammers as he pulls at his hair, choking on words and sorrow.
"Focus on the here and now. Don't let the past define you."
"I just–I can't–I can't–"
"Take control, push through, and–"
"I CAN'T STOP IT!" Scott cries, cutting him off. "Don't you think I've tried? I bury it, I busy myself with whittling stuff, I laugh it off!" he spits out like poison in his mouth. "Yet no matter what I do, I end up reliving that torture with Fang! Even now, when that shark ain't around, it still finds a way to haunt me like what it did wasn't enough. I hate it. The mauling, the trauma chair, the mockery. All of it! I… I…"
The dirt farmer hangs his head, and his voice finally drops to a weak murmur.
"…I want it to end."
Alejandro understands, which is precisely why he slings an arm over Scott's shoulder and says, "It will end. Things will get better. Could take weeks or months, years even, but some day, you'll fully heal, so long as you're willing to persevere in this trial called life. Just remember one thing."
Scott turns to him wordlessly, meeting his gaze with faint curiosity.
With a smile, Alejandro continues, "You're not in limbo anymore. You're here."
Scott turns away from him and stares down at himself, taking a good long look. A moment later, he abruptly pulls himself off the floor. "I'm… gonna get some shut eye now. The night won't stay young forever, and I plan to get up early."
Alejandro nods in acknowledgement. "I understand. Rest well, Scott. Tomorrow awaits us, as do the abysmal challenges Chris has in store."
"You're tellin' me," Scott scoffs, "The things that lunatic cooks up are worse than Pappy's racoon pie. Sometimes he forgets his show's supposed to be Total Drama, not Total Trauma."
"Truer words have never been spoken," he agrees wholeheartedly.
"Well, I ain't got any reason to lie about it. He's awful. His show, too. Makes me wanna get as far away from him as possible and never look back. But then I find myself thinking about how things are back home, and…" Scott clenches his fists. "Who can ignore the opportunity to win a million dollars?"
Alejandro merely hums in response, knowing all too well just what that's like. After all, the call of fortune mesmerizes all who hear it, and it's quite a beautiful song.
Scott begins to walk down the hall again, leaving the phantasmal moonlight and venturing deep into the ominous darkness permeating the area. But then he comes to a sudden halt, seemingly struck by a thought of some kind. Several seconds pass before Scott decides to spare a glance his way, much to his surprise.
Staring right back at him is a pair of blue eyes bright enough to glow in the black of night.
"Listen… I dunno if I'll ever find a way out, or if I'll just wind up sinking deeper into the depths of hell, but…" Scott lets out a wistful sigh. "Thanks, Alejandro. For all this. You've given me much to consider."
And with that, the dirt farmer disappears into the shadows, bringing along the echoes of footfalls and comforting words with him.
A decent fellow, that Scott. He genuinely hopes things get better for the guy. Only time will tell.
Alejandro lingers for a while longer, observing his legs. He can feel the numbness that settled in his legs so long ago having faded away to a significant degree, an irrefutable fact that rings loud in his thoughts. Enough to make him wonder…
He tries moving his right leg, aiming to regain control.
His foot obeys with the slightest twitch.
The pleased smirk forming on Alejandro's visage matches the crescent shape of the moon. He's almost there. Soon, he'll be back on his feet, better than ever, and running the game.
Not that anyone else needs to know this. Not just yet.