Acquired Tastes

Chapter Two

When Neil returned to the room, Roman was gone. Feeling slightly more human, now, Neil determined not to let what had happened cause him any more problems moving forward, even if that meant becoming allies with someone that stood like an absolute asshole. He tossed his sweaty clothes into his laundry hamper and sat down on his bed to pull on his shoes, then made his way out of his room and over to the nearby building, Knapp, already filling up with students; he'd been in here the previous day for orientation. He pushed through the crowd towards one of the walls, where the large screens showed the scores, always changing. He scanned them for his and Roman's numbers, 12 and 21, his eyes drifting over the endless sea of numbers, till his eyes landed on them, above only one other pair of numbers. He stared at them for a second, that same fury shooting through his veins, before forcing himself to turn and make his way toward the bleachers around the outside of the large room. He dropped onto a seat, leaning forward against his knees, wondering angrily if Roman had even bothered to show up to this thing.

A man that Neil recognized from orientation as Grant made his way up on stage to a microphone and held up his hands to quiet the crowd. "Good morning," he said. "Before we start today, I just wanted to highlight a few important things for you to remember moving forwards. More than anything, I want you to recognize that things have started. Everything you do will count towards your point total. This isn't a practice run. This is it. And it's only six days, now, till the end of the week, when the ten lowest scoring pairs will be let go. So let's go. You with me?"

A little cheer went up from the crowd, and Grant nodded. "Okay, great. We're going to start out today with some simple strength competitions, beginning with a basic tug of war type thing. You'll notice there are quite a few squares down here; I'll call out the teams for each one and you get down here and begin on the whistle."

He called out the pairs for each area, and Neil made his way down the steps, scanning the crowd as he went, wondering if there was any chance he could at least lose with some dignity on his own. As he neared his square, though, his eyes fell on Roman, standing on their square and stretching his arms, sweatshirt and joggers. He glanced up as Neil approached and gave him a crooked little grin. "Hey."

Neil nodded back, stretching his own arms, eyes meeting the pair they were up against. Both of their opponents were taller than both Neil and Roman, and his confidence died a little. He picked up one end of the rope and looped it around his hands, taking a deep breath, and watched Roman do the same in front of him. They stood, waiting, all nerves and anticipation, until the whistle blew sharply, and Neil leaned all his body weight back against his arms. For a second, there was no movement, but Neil strained backward and felt himself gain a bit of ground. He jerked again, rope wrapped painfully tightly around his hands, and made another inch or two of progress. They and their opponents were evenly matched, and any progress came in excruciatingly small increments. They lost a few inches, and Neil's adrenaline kicked in, his entire body straining backwards, gaining, gaining, until one of their opponents stumbled and they fell, Roman landing half on top of Neil. Neil's heart raced as he untangled his limbs from the rope and Roman and sat up, fingers burning. Roman held out his hand for a fist bump, and Neil gave him one, getting wordlessly to his feet and surveying the others around them, only a few of whom were still going. When each match had finished, everyone lined up again.

Neil and Roman won the second match more easily than the first, but narrowly lost the third. Afterwards, each individual went against both of their opponents. Neil went first, every muscle in his arms exhausted. The whistle sounded, and he strained backwards, immediately pulling his first opponent across the line with so much unexpected ease that he landed hard on his butt. In spite of the pain and the realization that that probably meant his next opponent would destroy him, he couldn't keep a small smile from creeping across his lips as he got up, glancing over at Roman, who grinned up at him from where he was sitting outside the square. Neil stretched his arms, taking a deep breath, and picked up the rope again, meeting the eyes of his second opponent, who gave him a cocky little smirk that looked almost like a snarl. Neil wrapped the rope around his hands again, braced his legs, and waited for the whistle. When it went off, he pulled with everything he had, feet struggling to maintain traction. Slowly, he slid his opponent forwards, taking as large of a step backwards as he could. Hands burning, muscles aching, he strained, pulling, pulling, as his opponent slid inch by inch towards the line, desperately wrapping the rope around their hands. And then they slid across the line, sinking down to the ground, and Neil felt a rush of satisfaction as he hurriedly unwrapped his burning hands and threw the rope down, rubbing his aching hands together. Roman gave him an easy smile as he walked over. "Nice job, man."