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Elliot was attentive.
Or well, he had to be.
It was just an asset that was asked and required of being an employee working in a well-known chain restaurant. You had to know when to take the pizzas out of the oven before they could get overcooked and burnt, you had to answer every customer's query as soon as possible to prevent them from being unsatisfied by the service, you had to take note of their orders and somehow manage to not mix them up with anyone else's... It was just part of the job and he had gotten accustomed to it. There had to be a reason as to why he was consistently employee of the month, right?
And so, it was no surprise when the pizza boy had noticed something amiss with his longtime childhood best friend—Chance.
All of them had been stuck in this hellhole for a while now, enough to stop expecting for things to turn for the better. Their roles had been distributed throughout rounds—some getting into the roster of supports, others as sentinels, and the remaining as survivalists who could last long enough to distract the killers.
Just because these teams had been established did not mean the others couldn't interact with each other anymore, but these teams definitely contributed to specific teammates talking to one another a lot more often for strategies and plans. Even Elliot himself talked to Taph, Builderman and Dusekkar plenty of times because they all shared that ability of being able to support the rest of the survivors.
While Elliot wanted to believe this was the reason as to why his childhood friend had been drifting and gravitating towards someone a lot lately, he couldn't shrug off the feeling—the gut feeling—that it could have been something else.
It was hard to tell if he was right or if he was thinking too much about it, though. This was Chance, after all—with his constant smile and their natural charisma, two essential components combined into one perfect poker face, sharpened with practice throughout the years. Nobody could really figure out if they were hiding something else or not, but if you pressured them enough about it, they were sure to break eventually—which was something Elliot preferably wouldn’t want to do unless it was something serious.
He didn't have to wait any longer.
It wasn't like he was expecting for it to become serious later, but it had. Chance had become more of a... liability during the recent rounds, due to their luck going down for the worse. A low reroll of health, infinite stacks of weakness, hardly getting any charges for his flintlock, or having it explode on their face—you name it. The other survivors were evidently frustrated by this, suggesting that maybe it was best that Chance opted out of joining them for now as only eight of them are needed per round anyway. Chance, of course, had been stubborn—insisting he could still come along and Lady Luck would change her mind about him anytime soon. They were all reasonably doubtful about that.
Guest had offered to talk, the nice guy he was, but Chance had surprisingly declined. Somewhat surprisingly, Elliot corrected himself—it made sense why Chance wouldn't just want to infodump issues on the fellow sentinel considering they had always been sensitive about their emotions and whatever upset them.
But still, it was just natural to rely on the ex-military man, and the two of them seemed to be getting closer. Perhaps he just presumed it was that way, or was it too early for talking about personal things? The latter seemed right—they've been here for what? Weeks, a month? No one was sure anymore as they've lost their sense of time.
Well, seeing that Chance had refused an ear that was willing to listen, Elliot knew he had to step up to be the someone Chance would rely on for the moment. Chance's luck never really relied on emotion too much as it was always fluctuating, but Elliot had recognized enough patterns to understand how the factor acted upon the gambler's emotions at times.
Fear, panic, dread—it thrived on such negative emotions, he noticed. One round Chance had faced Mafioso, they had been awkwardly laughing for the man to relax, then raised their fully-charged flintlock—which should have been a guaranteed shot, but only ended up exploding on their face instead. So, due to that mishap, it was enough for Elliot to believe that emotions had some sort of contribution in the luck factor.
The conversation happened when a round had freshly started and conveniently, Elliot and Chance didn't take part in it. After so many repeats of previous rounds and tough luck, Shedletsky—as the self-assigned and proclaimed leader of the survivors now as he's a leading admin—had told Chance to sit down on the cabin couch, their protests having failed on the swordfighter, reaching deaf ears.
Chance had initially been childishly sulking but eventually busied themself by flipping their golden coin, the clink of it heard within the wooden cabin every two seconds.
Elliot had silently invited himself to the living room, settling on the remaining space beside them. Once seated, he took a glimpse at the fireplace—the fire still crackling upon the stack of logs.
The blond glanced away to look at the person sitting by his side, before murmuring a short greeting,
“Hey.”
“Hey you.”
Chance had greeted him back with that typical cheer in their voice, the one that made them sound like they were always amused.
“You okay?” Elliot suddenly asked, though when he realized he had hopped onto his planned topic too abruptly, he added, “Y'know, because you wanted to join the round but didn't get to.”
“Don't remind me.” Chance scoffed, putting on a pout as he continued to toss the coin up in the air and catch the token in his palm. “They're all being a bit too dramatic about it, don't you think?”
“They're just worried, Chance. Your luck hasn't turned around like you said it would. If I were Shed, I'd doubt you too,” Elliot uttered, then clarified, “Actually, I’d definitely doubt you either way. Things aren't going to get any easier from here on if you keep getting horrible luck.”
“Oh, c'mon! You too, Elli? You're the only one I thought would have my side.” The gambler acted betrayed, as though Elliot had just been another one of the fakes he had gone through.
“I never have your side almost all of the time!” the pizza boy said the words as though it should have been obvious by now. Which, well, it should! Chance was too reckless for their own good, Elliot always had to drag them back from doing anything too stupid. He was their only living braincell, not their partner in disaster!
Chance sighed, crossing his arms. “Right, right... Forgot you were the type to nag at me. You're just like my old man and ma.”
Elliot slightly winced at the mention of Chance's parents. It wasn't that he was trying to be, considering he knew Chance has never had a good history with their family.
“Hey, that look on your face! I'm just kiddin'!” Chance snickered, slinging an arm over the pizza boy's shoulder. “It's not fair to classify you with them.”
Elliot only sighed in relief as he leaned into them, frowning. “You really have to stop joking around like that. I never know if I hit a sore spot or not.”
“Eh, I'd let you know.”
They didn't let him know too often, then—Elliot thought. He understood that the jokes were usually of good nature and humor, though.
Nothing but the crickets chirping outdoors filled the silence.
“Has anything new happened to you recently?” Elliot finally decided to approach the topic slowly.
“Nah. These rounds just go on and on,” Chance mumbled with a shrug, “Doesn't help that Lady Luck isn't being nice to me. Sorry I haven't been giving your heals any justice, El.”
“It's fine, no heal is ever a waste to me. You were trying your best,” Elliot reassured with a slight smile that vanished right away, “I'm more worried about you.”
“What about me?” Chance raised a brow, seen over their shades.
“Are you okay?” the pizzeria employee questioned.
“It's just luck messing around. 'Sides that, there's nothing else, I'm fine,” the gambler casually responded.
“Well, I just noticed you are talking to Guest a lot lately.” Elliot chuckled, hoping it didn't sound awkward now that he brought it up to shift the subject. “Anything up with that?”
“Just strategies and stuff,” Chance muttered, voice suddenly somewhat quiet.
“Do you usually laugh while strategizing?” Elliot bluntly asked.
Chance blinked, though it shouldn't be visible to Elliot as they're wearing their shades.
“...Yeah.”
“You don't sound so sure about that,” the blond pointed out.
“Alright, who asked you to stalk me?” they countered back.
Elliot was taken aback by the implication that he had been watching their interactions. He didn't do it all the time—he just happened to have stumbled upon a moment where the gambler had been laughing with the soldier, where it had only been the two of them speaking to each other. That didn't look like strategizing, and while it seemed friendly, it didn't look like it based on the unusually wide grin on their face. The way it had stayed long after Guest said he'd check on the others and left.
“I wasn't— Look, I just noticed, okay?”
“Then don't try snooping in someone's business now.” Chance scoffed, pulling away to fold their arms over their chest again.
“As long as Guest doesn't have anything to do with your sudden rapid change in luck, then sure, I won't,” Elliot swore.
“What does he have to do with my luck? What are you trying to say?” the pizzeria employee could almost imagine Chance's eyes were squinted right now behind those dark sunglasses.
“I don't know, but I've just been getting a gut feeling of some sort. Something about you. The same thing I felt back when you told me you thought you were starting to like...—”
Elliot didn't dare finish it, intentionally trailing off. The silence completed the sentence for him itself. He didn't like that it suddenly felt thick with tension.
“Not that I think Guest will do... that to you or anything. Just... another kind of gut feeling.”
Elliot gathered the courage to face Chance again. “So tell me—are you sure there's nothing new?”
The fire was still crackling, the crickets were still chirping.
“...I don't want to fall again, Elliot.” The admission settled heavily.
“Are you saying you...?”
“I'm not. I don't. Well, shit, I don't know.” Chance laughed, though it sounded like it has lost its earlier cheer. “Why am I like this?”
“Hey, it's alright. He's definitely one of the better ones, that's for sure,” Elliot reassured, an attempt to keep the mood light.
“It's not that. He's married, Elliot.”
Oh.
Oh.
“Then why did you... Why him?” Elliot hesitantly asked.
“Why anyone else when he exists?” Chance weakly scoffed. “I don't want to, I tried not to because he's likely grieving his wife and his daughter and shit—but I did anyway.”
“I don't know if it's bad luck or something, but I’ve come to realize that I fall far too easily. What makes it worse is it's not because of only one nice thing he's done for me. It's because he keeps doing it again and again. I keep expecting for nothing else more, but then he keeps surprising me and I just—”
Chance heavily sighed. “He's not fucking real. He can't be. No one's that friendly without wanting anything in return. He's gotta have some ulterior motive there somewhere.”
“...Or maybe he's just really nice,” Elliot murmured.
And you can't bring yourself to accept that because you've already been screwed over by too many people in the past before, Elliot couldn't convince himself to add.
“Maybe. Sure.” Even Chance sounded doubtful of themself. He buried his face in his hands, mindful of his shades. “It sucks not having a chance at this love bullshit. I don't even wanna try anymore.”
“...I'm sorry, Chance.”
“Don't be. It's not your fault. This is all me.”
This time around, Elliot let the silence stay as he was the one to sling an arm around Chance's shoulder. And they leaned.