(Untitled)

[pitythetrumper]

Why was he helping his hated enemy, a Russian, and the man who had stolen the only woman he'd ever loved? It was a good question and he didn't have a good answer. Not really. Except that something had changed after he'd talked to Florence for that last time. He'd just thought if he could be different, if he could change and change because

Comments

[drama_maureen]

Maureen rounded the corner of a hallway in the Compound with her hands full, one with coffee and the other with pages of musical score. She caught a glimpse of Roger out of the corner of her eye and snorted. "Lose your way to the bathroom again, rock star?" she asked, about to brush past him, but then stopped instead. And blinked. That... wasn't Roger.

[pitythetrumper]

The all-too familiar voice made Freddie stop and stare. Okay, maybe he was lost, but he was lost with...with someone who didn't care about him at all. He sucked in a quick breath and his back straightened into fighting form.

"Of course I'm not lost," he snapped. "I just didn't expect to run into you here. Shouldn't you be trailing after your 'boyfriend'?" The word was sneered. He couldn't help it. He might have made a fragile, temporary truce with Sergievsky, but the same couldn't have been said for Florence. "I just left him."

[drama_maureen]

Maureen bristled a little at his tone. Right, definitely not Roger. Not that he couldn't be a bitch to her on occasion, but this wasn't his particular flavor of bitchiness.

"I don't have a boyfriend," she said shortly. "But if you know your way around so well, then I'll just leave you to it." Even if she doubted it, if he was so new that he was mistaking her for someone else.

[pitythetrumper]

The breath Freddie had taken left him in a quiet sigh. "Florence..." No! No, he wouldn't give into her a second time. Third time. He tried to keep the sound of defeat out of his voice. "Sergievsky's back the way I came." He glanced behind him again at the place that definitely wasn't the room he'd left Sergievsky in and a note of uncertainty entered his voice before he could stop it. "Or he should have been."

He just hoped that she wouldn't end up changing his mind. Seeing Florence might just push Sergievsky into leaving.

[whoneedsadream]

Tea in hand, Anatoly made his way to the rec room. He'd run out of books to read, and he was hoping to cajole a nice cozy armchair mystery from the bookshelf just for something different to read.

He entered the room and stopped dead in his tracks, the cup slipping from his hand and hitting the floor with a loud crash. He'd known it was a distant possibility, it'd happened to other people... but after two years, he thought he was safe, that it couldn't happen to him.

But there he was, Freddie Trumper - the bane of his existence, his most hated rival. His idyllic existence here was shattered; there was no going back now. As long as the two of them were here together, there'd be no peaceful coexistence for either of them. After their history, how could there be?

"You. What are you doing here?"

[pitythetrumper]

He'd made a mistake once. Mistaking the woman for Maureen. He never made the same mistake twice, expect when it came to Florence. Slowly, he turned. The same Russian accent. The same face. The hair. How many Russians could there be who hated him?

"Figures that I show up on a dream place, a tropical island in the middle of nowhere, and here you are." His one chance to be left alone and start over shattered before it had even started. Of course it figured.

"As for what I'm doing, why should I tell you?"

[whoneedsadream]

He'd have to take care of the tea, but there were larger things on his mind now. He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair, trying to calm himself down. This place was supposed to be a chance to start over again. He didn't think there was any way in hell they could do that, but if he didn't try... he knew Freddie would leap at any chance he could get to tear him down. He had to be the nice guy once again, offer the olive branch - and let him hang himself with his antagonism.

He did it once, he could do it again. Right?

"I take it you just got here."

[pitythetrumper]

A small muscle on Freddie's face, not visible unless you knew to look for it, twitched at Segievsky's civility. He decided against mentioning the 'Florence' incident for now. "What was your first clue? The fact that you haven't been irritating me for weeks now? Oh, except that's right. For me, you have."

No. No. He had a question to answer. "The second game. Have you played it, yet?"

He folded his arms across his chest. He had to know whether it had all been in vain or not.

[red_ponytail]

Bill was wearing his bass strap over his shoulder, the guitar slung across his back, portable amp in one hand as he headed toward the rec room. He smiled when he saw Roger, about to call out a greeting, when he got closer and really looked at the guy.

"Either you cut your hair off, in which case I'm going outside right now to see if there are any pigs flying around, or you're not Roger," he said to the guy.

[pitythetrumper]

"If someone told me there were pigs flying," Freddie answered wryly, "I might actually believe them at this point." The not-Florence who was still at beautiful. And then Segievsky. Of all people. "But no. I'm not a Roger anything. I'm Freddie. Freddie Trumper."

An hour ago, he would have expected anyone in the area to know that name. To think of him as the image he'd given the press. The bad boy turned good reporter. The one with the rivalry against the Russian. Now, well. He probably didn't, did he?

He flashed the guy a grin and offered the had appropriate to shake the one not holding the amp. "And I probably look like...what drinking metaphor is appropriate for having your whole existence turned on end?"

[red_ponytail]

"Bill Weasley," he replied, shaking the offered hand, and chuckled. "Yeah, I think most of us look like that after first getting here. It doesn't really get any less odd, but you do get used to it after a while."

[pitythetrumper]

"I'm not sure I'd want to get used to people who look like me walking around," Freddie pointed out. "I'm used to being the only person with my face." At least Maureen was right. There were other people who mistook him at first for Roger. That just meant that he'd have to meet this Roger.

[hismajestysbox]

I was looking for something to do again, something I apparently did often these days, when I came across the man sitting by himself, looking more than a little lost. Not that he was showing it, but after a time on the island - and in the Compound, no less - I was getting rather used to it. A newcomer. I was always glad to say hello.

I dropped into a chair and gave him one of my best grins, which are good, in case anyone might have forgotten. My smiles are always very, very good.

[pitythetrumper]

Freddie flipped the newspapers when the man sat down near him. No one needed to see the headlines that called him the 'Shame of chess' in half a dozen different languages. At least he'd found them after Sergievsky had left the room. That was further humiliation that he didn't need.

He flashed the man a grin of his own and held out his hand. "Freddie Trumper."

Clearly it was time to start a reputation on this island.

[hismajestysbox]

"Lucifer Box," I said, and I grinned back. I liked that smile, I had to admit. It had an edge of Cheshire in it, clearly a man that was used to being noticed. I was quite fond of those - as long as they didn't get more notice than me, of course. "It's a pleasure to meet you. New here?"

[pitythetrumper]

After he'd ran into Sergievsky, he'd gone for a walk to cool off and it was nice to be back without the Russian and with, instead, a very handsome man who was, regrettably, probably not flirting with him. After all, he could only be so lucky once today, right?

"Do I have a sign announcing that?"

[capable_of]

After a morning of fencing with Helen and teaching the basics to Robin, Lex was exhausted, but had an exhilarated bounce to his step as he entered the kitchen to get something cold the drink before heading the showers. The t-shirt and sweats he wore clung slightly to him from sweat, leaving nothing to the imagination.

Without even looking at anyone in the kitchen, Lex got out a glass and drained a whole glass of water right away, before getting out some juice to sip more slowly. It was then he thought to look and see if he was alone or not.

...And while it wasn't blatant, Lex blinked at the man he found sitting at the table. He knew that face and not from the island, no, from a strange few days in Bangkok with Anatoly. All the differences from Roger were there: the older, healthier features; the shorter, receding hair and most importantly, the lack of an air of death around him. If Lex was correct, he knew exactly who the man was, but he didn't say anything quite yet, using his juice as an excuse to observe for the moment.

[pitythetrumper]

Freddie was distracted. He didn't understand how he'd gotten here. He didn't understand why Maureen looked like someone he knew. He didn't understand why there was apparently another man running around the island with his face. He didn't understand why the jukebox kept playing the same song again and again. There were no words, but he found himself humming the music to himself.

After a while, the music started getting under his skin and he threw a book from the table at it.

"Oh, would you shut the hell up?"

[capable_of]

Still sipping from the glass in his hand, Lex walked forward to lean in the doorway between the rec room and the kitchen. He used the glass to hide a pained expression, since the jukebox had played that song for him before...and he was having sudden vague memories from the time he was drugged. Was it a song from the musical or was his brain substituting something to make the memories make sense?

"Irritating thing isn't it?" He said casually with a small smirk, back to his normal Luthor demeanor. Time to find out of if he was right. If Freddie Trumper had seen fit to grace the island with his presence.

[pitythetrumper]

Freddie's head jerked at the sound of the new voice and he let out a frustrated sigh. "Does it always do that?" He almost didn't want to ask the question because he was afraid the answer was yes, but if he didn't ask, he was never going to know when or even if it would stop and that would be even more torment. "And if the answer is 'no', you might want to step back so that I can cheerily beat it up."