Work Text:
When Zoey reaches the cabins, reality hits.
Seeing Mike in that catapult, talking to him one last time before he was thrown off the island (literally), it all hadn’t registered in her head that she’d lost an ally—more than that, a friend, and the possibility of something more perhaps?—in such an unfair manner.
Until the door shuts behind her and she faces the empty beds of the girls' cabin.
She has no one.
No, no that’s not true. She has Cam.
Cam’s a nice guy, a wonderful friend; it was her, Cam, and Mike through it all until tonight. And he’s super smart and helpful. She knows he’ll stick by her side and vice versa. But—and she feels terrible thinking this about her closest friend here—is Cam really going to be a match against people like Lightning and Scott? The same Cam who’d accidentally outed Mike’s disorder to Scott? The Cam who, compared to everyone else, can fall a bit behind?
(No offense to him, she’s just trying to think practically. Brains are better than brawns, and she stands by that; but in her current situation, she’s maybe starting to consider that brawns might be just as useful, if not more.)
She loves Cam, really. But that doesn't mean she doesn’t have doubts that the guy will be any good against the rest of the more hardcore competitors.
And she wants to make Scott pay. She wants to see him look in horror as he’s the one sent to the Hurl-Of-Shame, so close to the million bucks but so, so far, and she’d love it more if she is the one behind it. It’s the least she can do for Mike.
In order to do that, she needs to make sure to stay out of Scott’s range. She can’t get him eliminated if she gets taken out of the running first.
She can only think of two options as to how to best stay in the game and be a worthy opponent; the first is to be like Scott and take out the others before they could do the same to her. But she’s not that kind of person—mean and callous like Scott, willing to betray her friends to get ahead of the competition. She wants to win, she wants to beat Scott, but she wants to do it on her terms, not the same way Scott does it.
She’ll feel absolutely terrible about it afterward if she was the reason her friends took the Hurl-Of-Shame. She can’t understand how Scott does it, how he can stay standing after hurting that many people knowingly.
So option one is definitely out of the list. Which leaves just the second one: make an alliance.
She’d thought she and Mike had been on the same page enough to be in an unspoken alliance for weeks, but after the mess that is today, she’s learned her lesson about assuming stuff about anyone. Even her closest friends, even her enemies, even just her competitors. Everyone’s always got a secret to hide.
Except for her, Zoey likes to think. She’s practically an open book! She puts herself out there and lets everyone decide whether she’s worth being their friend or not. (Often, it’s the latter, she grew up a bit of a loner, and in her small town, it’s not like she gets the novelty of seeing new faces, but that hasn’t deterred her yet.)
Bottom line, she’s got nothing to hide. But her next mission is to decide which lesser evil out of her competition is worth approaching for an alliance.
Would anyone even want to be in one? Things have gotten tense. There’s a huge chance no one would be willing to lock teams with not just her specifically but anyone. She’s surrounded by ultra-independent people at this point, it isn’t unreasonable to not rule that out.
But just in case, she ponders her options.
Definitely Cam. Despite her previous judgments, he’s first and foremost one of her best friends—not just on this show, but in general, and she sure as heck will fight to not tarnish their friendship. They’d make great allies and she’s pretty sure—about eighty percent? Maybe less (the whole misunderstanding with Mike has left her confidence crumbling)—that they already are. Maybe she’ll ask him tomorrow just to be positive.
But to get farther, she needs the brawn too.
Lucky for her, the rest of the competition seems to rely heavily on just that.
Scott’s definitely out, no explanation is needed. Unless she wants to go the backstabbing route where she ‘pretends she’s allied to get him vulnerable’ but, as mentioned, she’s not so heartless.
Lightning’s out too, purely because he represents everything the small-town-indie-girl in her hates: jocks. Nothing against Lightning, he seems like a nice enough guy if not a tad too competitive (but that’s to be expected), it’s just that she doesn’t really have the best experience with jocks in the past. Chances are if they team up—and that’s a huge if— she won’t be able to keep her presumptions at bay (which is something she’s trying to work on but old habits die hard). That’d be shitty on both of them.
Which leaves Jo.
And Zoey has no idea why her heart is suddenly beating faster than it was five seconds ago. Because Jo’s literally the girl-version of Lightning: a jock through and through. In fact, she could out-jock Lightning (not that Zoey would ever say that to his face). By all means, following the same policy, Jo should be out of the list as well. But for some reason, Zoey also recalls the handful of times when Jo’s actually been helpful toward her; when her eyes had darted immediately to Zoey when Scott chose Mike for elimination. The genuine concern in them, even if it had been just for a millisecond when they’d made eye-contact.
Jo is a jock, but something about her holds Zoey back from ruling her out so quickly.
What is it? What’s so different about her? Zoey perches on the edge of her bed, tugging at the ends of her pigtails. This isn’t where she expected her thoughts to go, but if by analyzing her competition she’ll get to the bottom of how she feels about each of them, she’s game.
It’s just scoping out the greatest threats. That’s all.
It takes her one long moment to come to another puzzling thought: why is she telling herself this so vehemently when she already knows why? It’s like she’s convincing herself when she’s already been convinced from the start.
Right, enough of that. Scoping out the competition, figuring out potential allies…
What about Jo makes her hesitate?
Definitely got loads of brawn; she’s brash and bold, and Zoey appreciates someone willing to stand up to the crowd; she may be a jock but she doesn't make it her defining personality like Lightning does; she’s tough as nails, strong in multiple ways, and…the memory of genuine concern in vivid purple eyes flash to mind again.
She has a heart. It’s buried deep down, but it’s there.
More than anything, Zoey values someone who has a heart. Although compared to the rest of the aspects of the other girl, she’s not quite sure it’s worth the risk…maybe she should just stick with Cameron…
The door flies open and the very girl on Zoey’s mind comes storming in, hair wet—with sweat or water, Zoey can’t tell—and gives the bewildered Zoey a glare. “What’re you staring? Never seen the results of someone going head-to-head with the biggest loser-jock on this damn island?”
“You look like you went for a swim rather than a wrestling match,” says Zoey bluntly.
“Who said it was a wrestling match? Keep that judgementalism under wraps, Pigtails, I got the sucker real good. He's still licking his wounds somewhere, probably complaining to the other guys.” She scowls. “If that asswipe tells you he won, don’t believe him. He’ll do anything to get on top.”
That’s the perfect opening for Zoey to go ‘Oh yeah he would. Speaking of, I think we should team up. Sounds swell, doesn’t it?’
Even in her head, it sounds stupid.
Jo pulls out a towel from her bag and scrubs at her short hair. Occasionally, whenever the towel would shift enough for Zoey to see her eyes, she finds them staring directly at her, unflinching and bold. And oh god, her heart is beating fast again, what’s going on, seriously?! Is it because Jo’s making her uncomfortable? Intimidated? That makes the most sense, Jo cuts an intimidating figure.
“—kicked off.”
Abruptly, Zoey comes back to reality to see Jo’s questioning face, towel around her shoulders. “Sorry, um, what?”
Jo rolls her eyes. “I said, kinda surprised to see you here. Thought you’d be wallowing because your boyfriend got kicked off.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” replies Zoey, then takes a pause because, wow, that answer had come almost automatically to her.
Judging from Jo’s expression, she’s just as surprised. And confused.
“I mean, he’s my friend,” Zoey adds quickly. “We’re really close, at least I think we still are, and yeah, his elimination is a big blow, but…but I don’t know. I need to think it through.”
“Weren’t you two making out or something at the Hurl-Of-Shame?”
The bluntness in Jo’s question makes her blush, and fall over her words in her haste to rectify what had actually happened.
“No, no! We just said goodbye. He held my hand, said to…win for us. Him and I. But that’s all. No kissing.” She chuckles awkwardly and instantly wants to melt into a puddle on the cabin floor. Why had she said all that? And why is so vehement that Jo understands that she and Mike aren’t dating? Why does it even matter? She likes Mike…doesn’t she?
Yes. Yes, she does. She should seriously stop thinking about this before she gives herself a migraine.
(But then again, if she really likes Mike, she wouldn’t be convincing herself so in such a way that she’s getting migraines.)
Unbeknownst to her internal dilemma, Jo only responds with a vague “huh” before tossing the towel on the dresser and plopping down on the bed which emits a sharp creak! In one fluid motion, she pulls off her hoodie, leaving her in a workout tank top and her sweats.
A strange feeling curdles in Zoey’s stomach. Her face is burning and she feels all hot suddenly. Stupid cabins, not even having enough funding for proper air-conditioning.
“Tell you what,” Jo’s saying and Zoey forces herself to look back at the other girl, telling herself mentally that everything’s normal and she needs this alliance. “I think you and I need to have a heart-to-heart of sorts.”
“A what?” asks Zoey faintly.
“Okay, heart-to-heart sounds too frilly. A man-to-man discussion. You look like you’re about to collapse with the weight of whatever the fuck it is you’re thinking, and I need to lay some stuff off my chest or I won’t be able to get a decent night's sleep. So, you rant about whoever or whatever it is that’s got you messed up, only if you let me do the same about that so-called bigshot Lightning. Deal?”
A deal in Total Drama is a fifty-fifty chance of betrayal and a trip to the Hurl-Of-Shame. Plus this is Jo—shrewd, competitive as heck, ambitious, jock-type Jo. Lowering her barriers enough to rant to her is the equivalent of giving her Zoey’s diary and telling her to go nuts with it.
But that same expression comes to mind, on a replay ever since she saw it: genuine concern and odd, flickering purple irises that leave her curious and heart racing.
Stop it, she presses a hand to her chest. Mike isn’t here, this is Jo, stop with the heart palpitations!
Zoey’s not stupid. She knows one of the main underlying reasonings behind a racing heart and a flushed face, but she’s straight. She knows this for a face; she remembers kissing a guy before—her first and only kiss back in middle school, they only dated for a weekend, but that’s because she realized what a douche he was—and thinking to herself this is how it’s supposed to be. She can’t imagine feeling the same way about a girl.
Jo’s still staring at her, waiting, surprisingly patient though Zoey notices the rapidly bobbing leg. This is for the alliance, she tells herself firmly. It’s to eliminate Scott. For Mike and for you.
Purple eyes flash behind her eyelids once more, but this time, Zoey shoves it back to the farthest corner of her mind.
She takes a deep breath, feels it shake on its peak, and starts to talk as she exhales—letting the words mingle with her breaths, focusing on the situation at hand and not at prospective ‘what ifs’ that make no sense. She talks about Scott, his slippery ways, how she deduces he must be the reason behind most of his team’s eliminations, and how he’d used Mike and blackmailed him right until the elimination ceremony. She talks, too, about Mike, their complex feelings that looked so simple on the outside, their major ‘what if’, how she was so confident before but now feels so fucking confused; the tiny ticks Mike had done that she’d noticed before but didn’t know she had until the words spill out of her, falling on the floor between her and Jo—ticks and quick glances toward other certain people on the island that make her think that maybe Mike had his own complicated feelings going on too.
Her biggest insecurity: the guy she thinks she likes might not like her back like that. And she’s voicing it aloud, indirectly, to one of her biggest competitors.
But Jo doesn’t bring it up. She listens, surprisingly intent, but she doesn't make fun of or discuss further the whole thing between Zoey and Mike (which Zoey’s infinitely thankful for, she already has enough mulling it over in her head). Then, like an accompanying sound to her own troubles, Jo starts talking too; ranting vigorously about Lightning and his “stupid face” and “stupid mindset” and “stupid inability to get a gender right!”; the desire to get to the top and prove that she’s worthy because while she knows that she is, everyone else doesn’t think so and she wants to show them all that they’re wrong; her grudging respect for Lightning's competitiveness and how she’d considered him a good rival, until he started getting all up in her face about it and annoying her, in general.
Simultaneously, it feels like time has slowed down and sped up. Or maybe that's Zoey not paying attention to the late-evening sky getting darker. Their words tumble together until Zoey’s amazed the cabin floor doesn’t stain with the hidden truth they’re sprouting. Somewhere in her head, a voice whispers that she was right. There is more to Jo than what meets the eye. Astonishingly, that only makes the wriggling can of worms in her stomach grow.
(She wants to dismiss it, but it’s getting harder with each passing second to ignore the perplexing feelings.)
(No, not perplexing. It’s actually quite simple. In retrospect, that is. But to her, it’s one of the hardest things to make heads and tails of.)
Finally, when they hit a break between rants, Jo leans against the wall of her bunkbed, having pushed herself farther on her bed during their conversation, and says, “damn, shit’s really on the table for the two of us.”
Zoey nods. The words stick to her throat: want to be in an alliance?
Her thoughts are worse; fluctuating between ‘but I’m straight, I like Mike!’ to ‘Jo’s eyes are pretty, she’s unafraid and strong, listens to me, and wants to prove herself. She’s already worthy of so much’ and that second thought scares her to the moon and back—even worse when it’s accompanied by the dreaded thought: ‘Do you really like Mike like that though?’
Jo peers at her from her spot sprawled on the bed. “You good, Red? You look…queasy.”
“Want to be in an alliance?” Zoey blurts out. She claps a hand to her mouth, eyes wide.
Whatever Jo was expecting, it isn’t that. Her mouth falls open and her eyes blow wide open, emphasizing the blue-purple in them (oh, Zoey never knew there is blues in those purples. Indigo’s such a stunning color). It’s the most surprised Zoey’s ever seen her and a part of her wants to giggle at how speechless she looks.
“Where’s this coming from, Red?” Jo asks at last.
(Zoey’s heart flutters again, more insistently, at the nickname. It’s getting kind of difficult to say she’s straight and doesn’t like girls when a girl is calling her by an innocent nickname and her heart is going all over the place. Seriously! She cannot be having a sexuality crisis in the middle of all this. She just can’t. )
“Um well,” she flounders for a couple of seconds. Jo’s eyes spear into her, inquisitive yet mostly suspicious. “I just—we’re the only girls on the island now.”
“So?” Along with a halfhearted grumble: “you don’t have to rub in that I’m a girl.”
“So, I mean, the two of us seem to have some vendettas and I don’t know about you but I’ve got a feeling some of the guys here might paint a target on our backs for the next challenge and I’d really prefer not being the next one sent home. You say Lightning considers you his rival—you think he’ll let you stick around? Today was just luck that Chris chose Scott as the winner and not him.”
Jo’s face darkens. Zoey pushes on, hoping she’s egging her enough to consider an alliance and not to get into a fistfight.
“As for me, I want Scott out. I think we all saw that coming, especially after Mike, so I’m not going to beat around the bush. He’s sly, sneaky, and if we don’t focus, he’ll trip us up too. By working together, we can get our competitors out. Plus…is it so bad to hope for a girl-girl finale?”
Jo still looks suspicious but it also looks like she’s considering Zoey’s words, which is a win!
“What about Four-Eyes?” she asks. “You guys are pretty tight. What’s to say you won’t ditch the alliance to go to the finale with him?”
Zoey won’t admit she hasn’t considered that option. Cam’s someone she holds in higher esteem than anyone; he’s her friend and she loves her friends.
(Maybe that’s what she means when she says she loves Mike? In the same way she loves her friends? Not that she’s had plenty of those so she’s not that experienced on that level either.)
Nonetheless, if she wants this alliance to move forward, if she wants to avenge Mike’s elimination and get some peace of mind by eliminating Scott, she needs to choose her next words carefully.
She loves Cam and she wants to go to the finale with him. As for Jo…well, she doesn’t quite know who she is to her, but, to her surprise, despite Jo’s mentality and hobbies being the opposite of her own, the idea of them going to the finale doesn’t put her off as much as she expects.
In fact, she’s kind of looking forward to it.
God, this is going to be tough.
Zoey bites her lip as she ponders over what to say. She wants this alliance, mainly to get rid of Scott—and, by extension for Jo, Lightning too. Hopefully, they’ll manage both before the finale and they can cut off the alliance when it’s the penultimate.
That’s not so bad. Less betrayal, less drama, less hurting each other's feelings. The idea of being on Jo’s bad side, of not being at the center of that intense look even if it’s just for a passing glance, makes her insides squirm. Not the usual ‘I hurt someone, I’m a terrible person’ way, but something deeper and in uncharted territory that she’s currently venturing out cautiously, trying to name.
Confusing thoughts aside, she tells Jo of her plan and the other girl nods slowly.
“Not bad. Didn’t expect this from you, no offense.”
You and me both, Zoey thinks.
She smiles. “Guess we got to do crazy things to make it far in this show. Besides,” she continues on before she could psych herself out, “you don’t seem like much of a mean person.”
Jo barks out a laugh. “Much of?”
“I mean—“
“Relax, shortstack, I know what you mean. I’m just teasing.” Indeed, her eyes have lightened and Zoey thinks back to when she’s seen Jo’s eyes look so exasperated but soft at once, and comes up with a blank. This is new, but she lifts her chin, faces it with her fists clenching the bedspread and eyes meeting shades of indigo that leave her weightless.
(She thinks, too, that it was never like this when she looked at Mike.)
Sticking out her hand, she says, “so we have an alliance?”
Jo’s gaze switches from her to her outstretched hand then back to her. She holds the stare for another minute before shrugging.
“Yeah sure, what the heck. 'Long as you don't ask me to make friendship bracelets with you or anything.”
She reaches and shakes Zoey’s hand firmly. Zoey takes note of how calloused and strong the grip is; even in a handshake, Jo exudes confidence and determination.
Zoey can feel the redness on her face. Those are, like, the two main things she values in a person, and she considers it so unfair that both are present in buckets in Jo. As if things aren’t already confusing enough.
Somehow, she gets her hand to move, shaking on it, confirming the alliance.
Nothing earth-shaking occurs. Her face is still red; she notices too late that her hands are clammy and quickly pulls back from the handshake, wiping them surreptitiously on her leggings; her thoughts still race as she watches Jo stand and stretch, lean muscles expanding and contracting.
Quickly, Zoey looks away.
(No, it was definitely not like this when she liked Mike. When she thought she liked Mike because clearly there’s been some sort of miscommunication from her heart to her brain.)
She’s about to roll over and hopefully sleep her problems away. Maybe tomorrow will be a better, less confusing day. She has her alliance and she feels like she’s bonded well with Jo—both of which are pleasant surprises. Everything else that happened can just…go away.
Then, before she leaves the cabin with her toothbrush, Jo simultaneously makes everything clearer and more frustratingly puzzling.
“You’ve got spunk, Red,” she says, flashing a quirked grin, close to a smirk. “Color me surprised.”
She claps Zoey’s shoulder, squeezing it for a millisecond, and turns away. The cabin door clicks shut behind her but the sound comes as though from a great distance. Zoey sits frozen, the spot where Jo touched up sizzling like Jo’s fingers were sparks and she was the conductor of a fire. An explosion. Fireworks like the ones her small hometown would set off during Independence Day.
Oh.
Oh.
Now she has a word for all the feelings accumulating in her tonight. And that terrifies her more than not knowing.
Her sudden complicated feelings for Mike, her even more complicated thoughts about Jo, her internal monologue for most of tonight, everything made alarming sense because it was all right in front of her.
She’s equally glad but wishes it doesn’t. Because now, on top of everything else, in the middle of an alliance of a lifetime, at the center of cutthroat competition, when she has a friend's elimination to avenge, now comes the time to get a sexuality awakening—and crisis.
For not just a girl, but a girl jock.
She buries her face in her hands.
All this for (and because of) one alliance.