Conversations and decisions

The journey back is both a relief and extremely uneasy. You hope you made the right decision with Ryan. Deep down, you know he'll probably be dead within a week or two, but you don't feel any remorse for your decision. You were as merciful as you possibly could be. He put himself in that position, not you. Still, Ryan is a clever guy. If he does survive, he could still be a threat in the long run.

You and Will walk mostly in silence, but as the adrenaline from the endeavor starts to wear off, you hear a strangled cry escape your friend. You look beside you to see tears in Will's eyes.

"Holy fuck man, I almost died back there. I-I thought I was a goner. I'd already accepted it."

"I know, man. But you didn't. You're still here."

"If you hadn't unloaded his gun...Jesus."

"I almost didn't. I kept thinking, 'what if some animal attacks us and he dies because I sent him out unprepared', but my gut kept telling me not to load it."

"Well I'm glad you trusted your gut."

"Me too."

"I fucking love you so much, Ben."

Will collapses in your arms, sobbing. For the first few minutes, you just hold him, but after a while, you begin to feel tears of your own flowing down your cheeks. It's been nearly two and a half days since the Odyssey crashed, killing your cousin and countless others, and up until now all of you, yourself included, have been too busy to cry. Now that the tears have started, they flow for a long time, and the two of you simply stand there, embracing each other, supporting each other until the wellspring of tears finally dries. This is pure, brotherly love - the kind built from two decades of friendship.

At last, the storm subsides. Will breaks your embrace, and sniffling, says, "Thanks, man, for saving my life. I owe you one."

With a wry smile, you look him in the eye. "Actually, by my count that's two you owe me, bud."

He broad grin spreads across his face. "Fuck, at this rate I'm gonna have to be your permanent bitch just to even things up."

"You're already my permanent bitch, you just don't know it. I've got you trained. You even offered to hold my cock for me earlier, if I recall."

Will laughs, "Nah, man, that wasn't training, I just knew if I didn't touch it nobody would."

Your emotional catharsis ended, the two of you feel much better, and continue joking and laughing as you walk. The sun is just beginning to set as you finally approach the camp. You're just out of earshot, and everyone else is eating dinner. They couldn't have spotted you just yet in the fading light. Before you come any closer, you stop and fix Will with a serious gaze.

"Before we go in there, we need to plan how we're going to play this."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that people are going to have questions. I know what we told Ryan, but I'm not sure everyone else will necessarily accept our story at face value. You and I know what happened, but others might not believe it."

"But, I mean, Ryan isn't here to tell them otherwise, so don't they kinda have to take our word for it?"

"I mean, yeah, but that doesn't mean they'll trust us afterward. They may very well say they believe us, then shoot us in our sleep out of paranoia. Survival is a tough thing. This is an extremely delicate situation."

"What do you think we should do?"

"I honestly don't know, man. I was hoping you'd have some ideas."

"I don't know, so far you've been the ones with all the good ideas. I'd be dead twice without you."

"One of those was dumb luck, and the other one could have never happened if you hadn't suggested to Alyssa to put me in charge of the guns. Without that, Ryan probably loads his own gun and kills one or both of us today."

Will looks surprised at your analysis of the day's events, and you sense a small amount of pride and self-confidence return to him.

"Alright, fair point. The way I see it, we have three options: Options A - we tell everybody that there was an animal attack and Ryan got killed. The thing dragged his body away, and all that was left behind was his gun. Option B - we tell everybody the truth and hope they believe us. Option C - we tell the group as a whole the story from Option A, but let a couple people we can trust know the truth, so that if the truth gets out, we have people on our side. The trouble is, I don't know for sure who to even tell. I don't know anyone else here apart from you and Ryan. Any ideas?"

"I think Alyssa is pretty trustworthy, and she and I kinda ended up putting ourselves on the same side this morning. I think she'll see it as a vote of confidence in her leadership if we tell her first. I'm just worried that if the truth gets out and we didn't tell Alex, he'll use it to get all three of us thrown out."

"Shit. And we definitely can't tell both, because that will be seen as us playing both sides, which neither one will like. Is there anyone else you can trust?"

"Vanessa. I'm pretty certain she'll believe me."

"I don't know, she's tough to read and she doesn't owe us anything. I don't think she really has a reason to trust us."

"She will."

"How can you be so sure?"

"We, uhh, well we sort of, you know, ummm, fucked?"

"Wait holy shit are you serious?"

"Yeah."

"When?! Last night?!"

"Yep."

"Dude, she's super hot! Why didn't you tell me?!"

"I just hadn't had the time, and I didn't want everyone else to hear about it in case she got pissed."

"Was she any good? What exactly did y'all do? Did she suck your dick too?"

"I'll fill you in on the details later, but right now we have more important things to take care of."

"Shit, you're right. Alright, I'm amending Option C. I think we tell Alyssa first, then if she seems suspicious or if she says we should tell others, then we tell Vanessa. So I'll let you pick: A, B, or C?"