Learn to Howl {Alex Vreeke | Jumanji}

2; sunshine yellow & vignettes

"You're a player, right?" He asks it less than a week after she's joined his camp. The wolves have been hunting for them and they share a rather delicious meal that had been cooked over the fire, along with some pretty great margaritas Alex has made. She's wearing the pelt of a lion like a scarf. With a carefully neutral expression she looks him over. He takes a long sip of his drink, trying to not appear as nervous as her gaze made him feel. Something about him seemed to satisfy her as she turned to the forest where he knew her pack lay in wait. Her eyes flashed that unsettling emerald green he had seen when she had first emerged, and just like that, the low hum of canines laying in wait seemed to dull. It was... surprisingly intimate.

"What do you mean?" That wasn't what he had expected her to say. His mouth was dry, inside he was still just a seventeen year old boy, no matter how twenty-something his avatar looked. "I'm Tetra." She replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. His heart sank, it was probably a glitch in the game, the marks on her arm that was, she was probably just an NPC.

"I mean..." Alex asks, giving himself a moment to order his thoughts. "You're not from Jumanji, this game, right? My name's Alex, but my nametag," he pulled his jacket up so he could draw attention to the name on his lapel, "says Seaplane, like character, and I-" he scrubbed a hand over his face and felt the stubble growing there - still a new sensation for him, "I don't look... like this." He finished, if not a little lamely. Tetra's eyebrows rose.

"Yes, I'm a player." She finally admits, face scrunched up as if it's difficult to remember. "Can I have a drink?" She asks, and Alex grins, nods emphatically. Tetra doesn't smile, but she wants to. She wants to like Alex. She still doesn't fully trust that he's real.

-

"So what's your real name?" They're waiting out of sight of the transport shed, it's been a week and the guards haven't moved. Tetra is sharpening something, Alex isn't sure what. There's a wolf pup in his lap, licking his hand, he's called it Stevie, after Steve Harris.

"What?" The thing she's sharpening puts Alex on edge. "Why do you care? Tetra's cooler." He doesn't hear her speak in a blase way often. She's a woman of few words, preferring action. At times she seems like a strange juxtaposition of personality trait; what she says makes her seem young, while the way she holds herself, the way she commands her pack, it makes her seem wise, older than her years. He might ask her about it later, maybe not.

The pup yips happily when he starts scratching behind it's ears, contemplating her words. He watches her eyes, brown by default, scanning the ground until she leaned back, splaying out at a strange angle to get her hands on a long, straight piece of wood. She's not wearing a lot, the lion's pelt is the most clothing she has, while her ripped crop-top and shorts leave little to the imagination, in true video-game fashion. Alex tries not to stare, but she doesn't seem to notice either way. Tetra takes a moment to carefully place the sharpened stone - it was a stone she had been sharpening - atop the piece of wood she had snatched up, fastening it with rope before she sets it aside and begins sanding down a thin but strong looking branch.

"You're making a bow and arrow?" Alex asked. A nod. A confirmation. "Why?" Without missing a beat, Tetra pulls out her hunting knife, stands to her full height, and launches it at one of the guards guarding the transport shed. It connects, the blade embedded in his chest as he falls over with surprise.

"Fuck, I still needed that." The girl snaps, ducking down as the second guard looks for the source of the weapon. The two of them listening intently as the guard called for backup, but didn't seem inclined to leave his position. "Ranged weaponry is one of my strengths."

"Oh." Making a soft 'humph', Alex goes back to petting the pup. "Margeritas is one of mine."

"I know. You're very good at them." Looking up suddenly, Alex catches Tetra smiling, a sight he actually hasn't seen before. It changes her whole face, makes her look young, approachable, kind. He knows he's staring but he can't help it, can't help but watch the smile fade as she looks at him curiously. "What?"

"Nothing."

-

"Where do you go?" It's been at least a year since Alex joined, both of them now on their last life. Tetra isn't exactly visible right now, she likes to take off for weeks at a time and return covered in cuts and bruises, but he can hear the soft footsteps of her wolves, and hyenas were coming out from the darkness to curl themselves up by the fire.

"Hunting." Is her answer, finally, and there she is, tan and slender with her black hair hanging loose about her shoulders, golden eyes flashing jade as the hyenas scurried away. Stevie followed her from the darkness, now no longer a pup, tall and proud he walks with measured steps towards Alex before flopping onto his side and laying his head on the boy's lap.

"Hunting?" Scratching behind Stevie's ears he looks up to where Tetra's leaning over the medical supplies they had cobbled together, taking a bandage and some cream that was really a trial and error antiseptic paste of mashed-up plants. Curling up by the fire, she throws her lion's pelt to the side. It's worse than last time, Alex realises, seeing the way she winces at every movement, and after extracting himself from beneath Stevie, he makes his way over to her. "Let me help." His voice is soft, surprising her when she looks up. Voice caught in her throat, she flinches away from his outstretched hand, but grunts in pain at the movement and finally hands over the cream and bandages.

"I killed Van Pelt." Tetra's voice is surprisingly raw, her arm balanced on her knee so she didn't have to hold it up while Alex bandaged it up. Everything freezes, Alex doesn't want to look up, doesn't want to see the haunted look in her eyes that she always gets when she talks about him, so he doesn't, just makes a hum of acknowledgement. "He respawned." She lamented. Hand reflexively clenching into a fist, she takes the moment where Alex has stopped working, to breathe deeply.

"What happened?" When Alex asks, Tetra refuses to answer. "You know, you don't have to be mysterious all the time, Tet. We're the only real people around." He went back to fixing her up, hands moving to her bicep to a particularly deep gash. Tetra flinches, but smiles down at Alex, if not a little bit abashedly. It's strange, she thinks, to have someone care about her again, after all her time stuck here, strange but nice.

"Pushed the fucker off a cliff." She finally conceded, voice soft. "Serves him right."

-

"You're in th' flashback, you know?" The world seems blurry, Tetra's sleepy and a little bit very drunk, as is Alex, who's voice is warm and contemplative as he spoke, punctuated with a yawn. Tetra raises an eyebrow at him; the world swims in and out of focus.

"The what?" She asked, looking into the dying embers of the fire and resting her head on his shoulder. They're side-by-side, not an unusual occurrence, it has been a few years by now.

"At the start of the game; Nigel-" He tried to explain, but at the mention of the NPC, Tetra sat bolt upright, turning almost too fast to face Alex, steadying herself with her hands on his thigh.

"Nigel! Oh, I miss Nigel!" She cried, and leaned forward, pressing her forehead to Alex's shoulder, laughing softly and mumbling about how Nigel was a good person. "Not a real person, of course, no-one here is really real. 'specially not that Van Fuckin' Pelt." But she didn't seem haunted like she usually did, she sounded almost... exasperated.

"He pushed you off the Jaguar, didn't he?" Alex asked. Tetra was quiet, fingers tapping against his thigh. After a moment, he put a hand on hers. "Is that how you lost your first life?" Turning her hand over, both of their single lives shine like thick, black tattoos on their wrists.

"Yeah." It was barely a whisper. "You're real, right Alex?" It was slightly muffled against his sleeve, but after a moment of silence, she looked up at him eyes shining gold in the firelight. "Promise me you're real." With his free hand, Alex moved to hold the back of her head, pressing their foreheads together. Her cheeks are flushed, only partly from the alcohol.

"I'm real, Tetra, I promise." He murmurs, and the girl swallows audibly. "We're gonna get home, and I'm gonna prove how real I am, okay?" It doesn't occur to him that he doesn't even know where she lived.

"Connie." It comes out as a rasp, her eyes closed, trying to keep her mind from spinning out too far. "My name's Connie."