Learn to Howl {Alex Vreeke | Jumanji}

6; burnt umber & returns

"So who's your friend?" Bethany asked, voice high and nervous watching as Spencer, at Alex's behest, carries the wolf to camp, and lays her down by the fire pit. Stevie follows behind, flopping himself onto his side, curling up close to her stomach.

"This, uh, this is Tetra." Alex answers, and she whines feebly in confirmation.

"I'll tell you what that is, it's a, it's a big-ass wolf is what it is." Fridge snorted, pouring himself another drink.

"Who's Tetra?" Martha asked, voice quiet, confused, though it was like a light bulb had gone off above Spencer's head.

"Tetra, she's the the Huntress, right?" He turned to the others. "She was the unlockable character on the menu;" tipping his head to the side, he looked at her, "a wolf? You can play as a wolf?"

"Ah- she's not always a wolf," Alex floundered, bringing over a cup of water to her. Once she had taken a long drink, the wolf's eyes closed, and her breathing leveled out. "Actually, usually she's not a wolf."

"Tetra... she was in the flashback, wasn't she?" Martha said, eyes shining as she turned to Spencer, her hand on his arm gaze so intent that it gave cause for him to hesitate. "She was up there, Nigel said, alongside that Van Pelt guy. Sounded like she was pretty into him," her voice lowered, as if trying not to be heard by the wolf herself, who was firmly passed out, "I don't know if we can trust her if she loved-"

"He pushed her off a cliff, you know? Did Nigel show you that far? How Van Pelt killed her, took her first life?" Alex said, his voice a little sharper than was probably necessary.

"I think I fell in love with him." In Alex's memory, the fire's warmth is dull in comparison to Tetra, sitting close enough to him that it feels like they're connected from shoulder to hip, her legs pulled up to rest her chin on her knees while his legs were straight out in front of them. "Van Pelt." She still sounded unsure. "I'm sorry, I should have told you." Alex's gut reaction is betrayal, which was weird because they weren't even together. Sure he had hopes and feelings but it's not like they were together.

"Why would you be sorry, it's not like- I mean, you're a pretty private person." He amended, and she looked up at him, eyes shining with surprise. "It took you what felt like a year to tell me your name," he turned to look back at her, and God she was so close... "Connie." He added, his eyes flicking to where she ran her tongue over her bottom lip.

"He killed me," her voice was barely a whisper, but even if he couldn't hear her he would be able to read every syllable the way he was watching her lips, "he ruined a lot of things but," at her pause, he finally looked back to her eyes, "I don't want the past to ruin the present." She kisses him, and he's barely surprised, more delighted than anything, trying to memorise everything about this moment, the way she moved to press herself closer, as if that were even possible, all with the same tenuous joyfulness she only allowed to be around him.

"So, uh, how long ago was that? How long have you two been in the game for?" Bethany asked, giving a nervous look to the wolf that she was clearly unconvinced in it's ability to turn into a person.

"It's hard to say, time move differently around here, but, a few months at least? Maybe a year or two?" He said, sitting down at the edge of the open hut. He doesn't like to think about it, think about the idea of time passing because it makes him wonder if time is passing outside of the game too.

"A few years?!" Martha spluttered, just as Spencer barked a noise of confusion.

"Yeah, and well, Tet's been here longer than that." They all picked up on the use of the nickname, though they had the grace not to mention it. Alex was clearly very protective of the wolf. "I just can't seem to get past the Transportation Shed." Alex admitted.

"Transportation Shed? What's that?" Martha asked, and Alex's expression darkened, though it was barely perceptible.

"It's the next level." Alex explained. "The first time, my hot air balloon wouldn't even take off. Tetra laughed at me, but she tried to keep the guards off as long as she could while I tried to figure things out. The wolves, they had to get their alpha to safety though, and so she was swept away and I..." Swallowing hard, he moved on. "After that, well, there was the whole plane thing I mentioned. I, uh," he swallowed hard, "I managed to get her killed, not just myself." He showed them all the single black line on his arm. "And once we were both down to our last lives, well... I figured I was screwed. Mosquitoes everywhere, Van Pelt hunting me down... And Tetra, she tried to find another way. She stayed for a bit, but then... took off, she just-" It's an old habit, to complain about her abandoning him when no-one else was around, but these newcomers barely knew her, hardly trusted her, he couldn't paint her to be a bad guy when he knew her intentions were good. "She didn't want to come back empty handed, so she didn't come back at all." He sighed heavily, before looking back at the others. "I was never going to get out of here by myself, half the stuff that came after me, I had no way of dealing with; you can't defeat a black mamba with a margarita," he exclaimed, voice still somehow weary at the same time.

"No you can't." Fridge agreed from where he was leaning against a tree at the side of camp. "You need a zoologist for that."

"Alex, we can help each other," like a stroke of inspiration had hit him, Spencer leans forward, "You've been here a long time, you know the game, and between us we've got a lot of strengths." He said, gesturing around to the party.

"Yeah," Martha agreed quietly, "we're actually pretty good together."

"We got a bigass wolf!" Fridge added, which made Martha chuckle. At least she was coming around to Tetra it seemed.

"I dunno, bro," Alex hesitates, "if either of us messes up one more time, we're toast; and she's looking pretty bad as it is." A pause. "And I don't wanna go without her, but it freaks me out even thinking about going back to the Transportation Shed when she's at full health, but now...? I don't wanna die in Jumanji." He admitted, swallowing thickly.

"We just gotta stick together!" Spencer was trying his hardest to convince the pilot, which was actually working, though it might just be his commanding aura. "If we do that, we can win, I know we can." It takes a moment, but his words don't really seem to be sinking in; Alex is looking down at Tetra, whose breathing is stable, but shallow.

"Oh my God! You're our missing piece! You're the thing we needed to find!" Bethany exclaimed, grabbing his attention.

"So what? The clue was to go to the bazaar to find the missing piece... it wasn't the elephant?" Martha asked, before her eyes turned to Alex. "And then, through the jungle, to this tiny unmarked location, comes the only other player character, on the same day at the same time? It's not just a coincidence. There's something here we all needed to find."

"It was me?" Alex asked, unsure, but he could feel himself being swayed. Tetra was back and would be back to fighting condition in only a few hours, Spencer had the gem, and maybe, just maybe, he had the confidence to get through the Transportation Shed.

"Uh, yeah." Bethany half laughed, and a smile lit up Alex's face as he found himself with a confidence he hadn't felt in years.

"Dudes, let's do this."