Marshall Gregson

If not for the rain, Hal feel he might have been better prepared for--well, for this, with the stumbling over a protruding root and nearly goring himself to death with the knife Niko had given him.

Which is weird enough, really. Having a knife, being the kind of person who has a knife that their guardian-thing demands they practice with, even if it's not even after noon yet and he'd been really intent on just sitting around in his pajamas with a stack of comics. Apparently Niko thought his reading Spiderman meant he had some sort of aspirations to like, be a vigilante, so it was all "put that down" and "try to attack me" and nearly getting his arm pulled off before he was here, falling in the mud.

For a second, he thought Niko had actually like, kicked him out the door or something just shy of horrible, but picking himself up to look around, he doesn't think even Niko could punt him so far away from the hut that he wouldn't be able to see it anymore. Picking himself up is a chore that involves a lot of pulling his limbs one at a time out of the mud then sticking them back down to pull out another one, and by the time he's upright, his arms and legs are covered in it.

The voice, when he catches it, doesn't really inspire him to pick the knife right away, not the way Niko probably thinks it should. It's a lot slower, the voice making him look around again, realize someone is coming through the trees, then he remembers that he dropped the knife somewhere and should probably pick it up, just in case. It's not like he lands in the middle of the jungle every day.

Just once, before this.

"Over, uh, over--over here," he calls, dirty fingers finding the handle--hilt, he remembers sternly, of the knife. It's as dirty as he is; maybe Niko really will punt him out the door when he finds out.

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This felt disturbingly familiar. Except for the mud. The mud was a new addition, which he would've taken some comfort in if it hadn't been, you know, really gross.

But regardless of the creepy deja vu, Marshall felt that coil of apprehension unwind, just a little, because Hal was probably the least threatening person on the planet. Even with the grungy knife.

"Hi," he said again, lifting a hand and dropping it again almost immediately in an abortive wave, then, with a wry kind of cheerfulness, Marshall said, "So, um... This is really weird."

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He definitely doesn't need a knife to fend off Marshall, and it's just one more thing making him wish he'd pulled on some pants, because now that he's got it back in his hand, he doesn't really know what to do with it. Sticking it in the elastic of his boxers really doesn't seem appealing, even if they're already soaked and stained with mud.

This is definitely worse than the last time he found Marshall in the jungle, when he could hardly get out the words to explain what they were doing there. This time, he doesn't have any explanation. This time, he's experience the shift and confusing while completely sober, and he's not sure which he'd prefer.

At least it wasn't raining when he was magicked out of his life. Staring at the knife in his hand, still unsure of what to do with it, Hal settles for just letting the hand and knife rest at his side, loosely held in the curl of his fingers. Flicking the wet hair out of his face with a jerk of his head, he can't help but agree, "Yeah, ah, ahhh-I don't think like, this is normal. Even for this place. I-I-I don't, I don't know where this is, this time. There's no path."

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"Right, yeah, I had kind of noticed that," Marshall agreed, but this whole fucking place was abnormal. He'd barely been here a month, and he'd already just appeared in the middle of nowhere, twice. So, apparently this wasn't the sort of thing he was supposed to expect from this place every few weeks? Great. Wow, what a relief.

Frowning, suddenly, when something even stranger dawned on him, he asked, "Do you, uh... always carry a knife around when you're in your underwear?" Right, way to get the important things out of the way first, Moosh.

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"Sorry," he murmurs, and this is familiar too--feeling, like, extraneous. Like what he says or does is too much, because it's so unnecessary, so unhelpful. And right now, out in the rain with no idea where to go, he should really try to be helpful.

Or he could just be stupid, looking down at himself like he has to verify that, yes, really, he is standing there in his boxers and a wet tee that was blue before the rain stained it almost black, holding a knife. Mostly he has to verify that it does look extremely odd, maybe especially on him, pretty new to the whole knife business and no idea what to do with it. "I really wish like, I wish I could say no. But the people I s-s-st-live with are making me learn. Proba-probably for s-ssthings like this."

He really hopes Marshall doesn't have too many questions; between the rain and the way his stutter is going today, the answers just make him want to find a hole to crawl into until it's over. Maybe he could climb a tree, and he entertains the idea enough to stare imploringly up along the trunk of the one beside him.

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"That's... well, okay, it's not all that comforting, actually," Marshall admitted, his eyes sweeping around them warily, like something worth stabbing might jump out at any moment.

"Maybe we should look for other people," he suggested finally. The prospect of just standing there, waiting for something else to happen, wasn't really something that filled him with anything resembling calm.

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It's too dark in the storm to tell what direction they should be heading, but on an island, all they really have to do is pick one and not get turned around, and they'll find--well, a beach, and hopefully they won't turn themselves the long way around getting back to everything else.

Assuming this is even the same island, he thinks, and his stomach drops. It's not the kind of thing he wants to believe, but it's not like he has any more faith in a logical universe where you don't wake up on magical islands for no reason anymore. "T-th-that, that's a good--" idea, yeah, except the shriek that breaks out of the sound of rain on leaves and echoes under the canopy cuts him off and has him flinging himself at Marshall without thinking. For once, the way his throat closes up is actually helpful, stopping him from releasing what would surely be a really pathetic noise.

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So, okay, he might've let out a startled yelp of his own, and he might've instinctively grabbed for whatever was closest, which, in that moment, happened to be a wet and shivering stick of a boy who kept turning up everywhere that Marshall happened to be, with no explanation.

"That was probably just a bird, right? I mean, it had to have been," Marshall reasoned, but the fact was, they were clinging to each other, in the middle of the jungle, and in that moment, Marshall really had no intention of letting go.

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Hal's retained enough from Niko's impromptu lessons to keep both of them from getting stabbed, but it's a pretty pathetic consolation when his reaction to danger is to hug someone. And if Marshall is looking for reassurance, yeah, Hal won't shove him off yet, but he's really not the type to go along with something as optimistic as, that was probably just a bird.

In Hal's experience, the girl avoiding you is never just busy, your mom and dad are never just having a simple argument, and it is never just a bird. "I don't, don't think. I, ahhh," frustrated, he vented the sound into Marshall's soaked collar. "It sssounded too big. And, uh, horrible."

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"Okay, yeah. So, maybe it's a huge, mutated, magical island bird," Marshall murmured dryly, his hands dropping away to flutter uselessly at his sides before finally settling one of them against the small of Hal's back.

It wasn't a bird. It was obviously something horrible, but there wasn't any benefit to panicking just yet.

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It's a small touch, but one that drives home the fact that they're standing there hugging while they discuss what might be shrieking nearby in the overcast jungle they weren't actually in five minutes ago. It isn't even comfort keeping Hal still--it's that Marshall isn't moving either, and he feels awkward enough today without breaking some near-death-scare embrace too soon.

"We should, um, pro-pra b-a-b-l-y get, get moving," he forces out, almost twitching with the discomfort of having to spell in front of someone, especially someone this impossibly close to him. Maybe they should just stay, really, and he can let the mutated bird put him out of his misery.

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The rain had been bad enough. Suddenly finding himself in the middle of the jungle was another category of bad entirely. Despite arriving on the Island with a rifle, Pete hadn't picked it up since moving in to his own hut, but given the circumstances he was starting to regret it. It certainly couldn't have hurt in a place like this.

His clothes (dry for having stayed in his hut all day) were quickly soaked, sticking to his skinny frame and essentially making it infinitely clear that the great outdoors were not where he was meant to be. For a moment, he just stood still, wondering if this was the Island trying to tell him something or if it was just some snag in its magical doings.

Practically growling in frustration, he reached up to push his bangs from his face, turning this way and that in some desperate bid for a sentient being that wouldn't tear him from limb to limb. His heart practically leaped from his chest when, much to his relief, he saw a human-shaped form a little way off.

"Hello?" he called, beginning to make his way (fairly ungracefully) through the forest.

"You there?"

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They hadn't been walking far, hadn't been out there for more than twenty minutes, but hearing the sound of another voice, someone human and stuck in the same undeniably fucked up situation they were, was an overwhelming relief.

Turning toward the voice, Marshall squinted through the leaves at the shape coming toward them and answered, "Yeah, hi. Really... lovely morning, isn't it?"

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Somehow it's comforting to find someone else stuck out here--makes it easier to believe that they haven't been dumped on a new island or selected to roam the jungle alone for the sake of the universe making him feel as useless and embarrassed as possible. That they've finally found an adult should be even better, but in Hal's experience, and judging at least from the guy's appearance, adults aren't always better at handling shit than anyone else is.

He's really not sure anyone but Cal and Niko, or maybe like, G.I. Joe, could handle this, though. "How long have you, have you like, when did you--did you just get here?"

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Cool and accustomed though she thought she was to this kind of occurrence, suddenly finding herself outside, alone and in the rain (she was at least dry inside her hut), shakes Effy more than she wants to admit, even to herself. She's used to being in control, having spent so much time studying it, acquiring it, and then abusing it. It only further proves that the island — or whatever is behind it all — knows Effy better than anyone else, and as a result is quickly learning how to best shake her up. She is less than appreciative of the effort.

Careful not to make too much noise, Effy moves forward with slow, measured steps in the direction of what she thinks (and secretly hopes) are voices. When she does locate them at last, she hangs back for a few minutes, keeping as quiet as she possibly can so that she might listen in. Only when she's assured that they're just as lost does she step out from behind the trunk of a tree to get her first good look at the other three.

"I thought I was alone out here," she admits. What she's really thinking is that they're all terribly fucked; this won't end well.

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"I just got here," Pete tells Hal, as if to say, 'Didn't you?'

"Look, I'm just as happy as you are about --" He stumbles to a halt when Effy appears, just barely able to resist saying something along the lines of, 'Oh, great.' The old adage 'the more the merrier' isn't really applicable in a situation like this. What is less than reassuring is that he's stuck with three teenagers. This goes some way in explaining the look of mild exasperation that quickly settles on his face as soon as he realizes that this is the whole party.

With what amounts to a supreme amount of effort, he manages a quick, wry smile.

"Well, I guess they're right when they say misery loves company."

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Wow, they were literally crawling out of the trees, but adding to their merry band of misfits wasn't necessarily a good thing. At least, the more people lost out here, the more chance someone would be out looking for them.

Probably.

"I think love might be a bit of a strong word, at this point," Marshall said, his lips twisting wryly, his slacks and dress shirt soggy and his suspenders hanging loose from his waistband. This was not a good day for fashion.

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There's comfort in more people that has nothing to do with safety in numbers, for Hal. The more voices present, the more he can fade, the more he can hang back and not have to answer questions or voice an opinion that will only be warped in the execution, sound even less valid because his voice gives it no foundation to stand on.

It's just, no one seems to be saying anything important yet, like, "Did you guys, like, did anyone else hear things? There," and he swallows, because the negative side of more people is that when he does try to speak, it's almost guaranteed to falter, "There was um, an animal, before," he suggests, glancing at Marshall.

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"It was probably a wild boar." Effy tilts her head to disguise the smallest smirk, her chin buried deep into one shoulder as she crosses her arms over her chest to draw attention away from the first gesture. "They're not that dangerous," she continues, her gaze now focused on the trees from which she just surfaced. "Not unless they charge at you, in which case you'd have no chance anyway. None of us have the slightest chance at outrunning them."

Edited Date: 2010-07-26 05:56 am (UTC)

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So Boy 1 (as Pete has taken to calling Marshall in his head) is sassy, Boy 2 (Hal) is nervous, and the Girl (Effy) is a maniac. Fantastic.

"So, really, they are that dangerous," he says, irritable through and through.

A beat.

"Aren't there dinos around here?"

Not that he's ever seen them, but it's what he's heard.

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To be perfectly honest, he'd heard the dinosaurs stories, but he'd kind of assumed it was just talk. Something to scare the newcomers. If they were actually real, this place was officially crazier than Mom.

"Okay, so, there are dinosaurs, and we're stuck out here, which is why we should be moving. Right now," Marshall said, a little more firmly than before, because the longer they stood around talking about nothing, the more chance there was for something to swoop in and make them dinner.

"Just... somebody pick a direction."

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It's too overcast to really tell where the sun is or which way it is back to all the people, but Hal thinks moving is the best idea too. If not because of dinosaurs, then because even on the island, between the rain and the lack of real clothes, he's kind of freezing.

Not that anyone would ever be able to tell the shiver in his voice from how he sounds anyway, he thinks, trying to blow the water away from his face. "I don't, I don't. That is, it's not, like, it doesn't matter, I don't think. Which way we go, there's just, just beaches. Or one beach, maybe."

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It feels strange to be counted among them, to be part of the "we," even though she knows it doesn't mean very much. Curiosity mixed with disorientation were what led her to them, but she never planned on staying; that hasn't changed.

"It makes no difference to me," Effy offers, allowing the other three to sort it out for themselves. She's never worked well with others, and in no way does she consider herself part of their little group. She's only a visitor, listening in and offering the occasional unnerving response.

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"That way," Pete says, pointing an arm in a direction that he has absolutely no conviction will lead anywhere good. But -- the important part is that he seems fairly confident in his choice, a lesson that he learned from the best at Sterling Cooper.

He begins trudging off without looking back. In the pit of his stomach, he is really fucking scared that they won't follow. For a long time, he's wanted to lead, just not under circumstances like this.

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That way was, for now, good enough for Marshall, and after making sure that Hal was sticking close, Marshall trudged after the older man with as much dignity as he could muster.

"I'm Marshall, by the way. Marshall Gregson. I don't think we've met." Names might be important. In the event they had to all run, screaming, in opposite directions and had to find each other again, they'd need something more specific than hey, you there to yell out.

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Hal glances up to catch Marshall's gaze when he looks back, a little surprised by it, but he stands by what he said and any direction works for him. If it hadn't been raining for a month there might have been moss or something to tell north by, but it's a humid tropical jungle in a monsoon, he's pretty sure they're all allowed to flounder around and be completely lost. "Hal," he supplies to the other two, not sure if his last name even matters.

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She is, on most occasions, careful with her name, careful with any information about herself. The details are rarely given away freely; they're either earned (this is rare) or they're dispensed with at her leisure, when she decides it serves her interests. But there are always exceptions, and even her own rules were made to be broken.

Following closely behind the one who introduced himself as Hal (she'll distance herself in due time) Effy allows the silence to drag on uncomfortably, fear and tension mixing in with the moisture in the air. When she finally does speak, there isn't any need to raise her voice; the uneasy calm does all the work, carrying the word along to the front of the group.

"Effy."

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It's only after he realizes that the rest of the group has introduced themselves that he does, too, glancing back a little awkwardly and waving a hand in part of his continued facade as a responsible adult. His name used to mean something, to people back in Manhattan. Here, the Dyckman Campbell name means little to nothing. He doesn't know if it's something he likes or hates.

"Pete Campbell. A pleasure to meet all of you, I'm sure."

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Okay, so... apparently knowing the names of the people he was likely going to die with didn't make him feel a whole lot better.

"Right... Likewise," Marshall said a little belatedly, wincing at the awkwardness of it -- a polite, formal introduction in the middle of the jungle with mud squishing in his shoes.

Speaking of shoes, the bottoms of his loafers were slick, and he was forced to take small, shuffling steps, walking stiffly to keep his balance on slick mud and uneven rocks. All in all, it was pretty miserable. It was kind of sad that he'd actually had worse.

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Hal hasn't slept this poorly since the night of the Haslett tournament, staring at the ceiling trying, not to memorize the opening of his arguments, but to prove to himself that he could actually say the words over and over if he wanted to.

Okay, in reality he hasn't slept this poorly ever, because he's never had to sleep in a tree, during a rainstorm, hoping the herd of chicken-sized dinosaurs that chased them up here didn't run off to find a taller relative to get them down. Waking up proves several uncomfortable things to him: that he's apparently been using Marshall's dangling leg as a damp pillow, having chosen a branch only a few feet below the other boy's; that he's no drier than he was when he finally nodded off; that his ass is really, really sore from straddling part of a tree all night; and, somehow, the pruny skin on his feet that got torn up on the climb didn't magically heal during the few hours he was asleep.

If he'd entertained any idea of this being a really bad dream, well, he's abandoning it now. Shaking his head in an attempt to clear it and get his hair out of his face, he leans out to look at the ground below, then up at the sky, still too cloudy to tell them which way they've been going. "Is everybody, um, is everybody still here," he asks, voice creaking with weakness but, at the very least, not getting stuck in his throat.

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There was a warm weight against his leg, and under any other circumstances, that might've been nice. But these weren't other circumstances. This was the morning after what had quite possibly been the worst night of his life. Marshall Gregson had never been much of a tree climber, his grace and balance left much to be desired, and he'd spent most of the night terrified that, in his sleep, he'd tumble to the ground and break his neck.

Sitting all night in a tree with his spine stiff against a tree trunk, practically clinging for dear life, wasn't all that comfortable, apparently.

He'd dozed off and on, but sleep had been pretty much out of the question. Blinking groggily, he climbed unsteadily down onto Hal's branch, managing a weak smile and a hoarse, "Hi."

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The only answer that Pete volunteered (from a few branches along) was a grunt, which was about all that he really could muster. It didn't seem too shabby given the state the rest of his companions were in. Like Marshall, he'd only been able to manage to sleep in moments, waking up again every now and then in terror of some new creature poking its ugly head out of the darkness.

Despite still being in one piece, it seemed that consciousness under sleep-deprived circumstances wasn't something that agreed with Pete terribly well, as, in his attempt to get out of the tree in which he had spent one of the worst nights of his life, he simply fell like a bird struck by a stone.

Given his lack of any real response before getting to his feet, it seemed that the fall hadn't done him that much damage.

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Contrary to popular belief, Effy Stonem does not have a death wish. Not one strong enough to compel her to wander off alone in the dark through dinosaur-infested lands, anyway. After an entire day on her feet — walking, running, and occasionally wondering if one can go mad from being forced to spend night and day with these three — she falls asleep quickly; it's remaining so that becomes the problem. The slightest of sounds cause her to wake, every muscle that hasn't gone numb stiffening at the smallest things — a sharp breath from below or a gust of wind that rustles the leaves in the tree just so. For the most part, she's awake when the others begin to stir, calling out for reassurance that they haven't been abandoned in the night, and simultaneously disappointed that it wasn't all a terrible dream. Effy doesn't have to question it; sleep is required to dream, and there's an evident shortage going around.

Strands of damp, loose hair stick to her face when she leans over, rubbing away at the angry pink marks the bark left on her cheek; she scans the ground for the source of the sound they just heard and doesn't bother muffling her laughter when she sees Pete lying on his back down there.

Edited Date: 2010-08-02 07:36 am (UTC)

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Given hardly a moment to work up a smile for Marshall, Hal nearly jumps out of his skin when Pete goes crashing through the leaves and lands on the ground. Unnerved into a deeper silence, he holds tight to the branch with both hands before leaning over to look down, expecting like, a body, or a swarm of those little dinosaurs returning. When he only finds the top of Pete's head, already pulling himself up off the ground, and it feels like everyone else is waiting as much as he is, he calls, "Arrre you, uh, are you, are you okay?"

In the back of his head he can hear Niko, who doesn't sound so unlike the voice he already thinks with, the one that can speak so clearly and evenly; Niko is a new voice though, a new guide, because he doesn't think the old him would stare down at Pete and think that they just made a lot of noise. "You should uh, yeahhh...you should probably, probably get back up here. Like now."

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Alongside Hal's stricken, wide-eyed face appeared Marshall's, peering over the side of the same branch, hovering somewhere between Effy's outright laughter and Hal's worry. He wasn't the type to laugh at others' misfortunes, but the calm, collected way that Pete gathered himself to his feet was more than a little amusing.

"There's a good chance the whole island knows where we are, now. Maybe we should move."

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"Which will it be?" Pete asked, shielding his eyes with one hand as he looked back up into the try, using his other hand to try to wipe some of the foliage that had gotten stuck to his figure. The general mirth at his fall was something that either passed over his head completely (improbable) or something that he was generally too tired to want to acknowledge.

"Should I be climbing back up or staying down here?"

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