Survival Of The Fittest

See, even Demetri was not enough of an incompetently unaware loser to fail to notice he had Stepney's... goose cooked? Did people still use that turn of phrase, was the question Demetri did not have an answer to. He'd have to remind himself to look it up, because it could well be decent fic fodder. He needed all the help he could get on that front, day in and day out. Damn the English language, his tall mountain to climb up and die on.

Everyone was looking at everyone else. The one Mexican standoff where nobody was getting deported.

Well, okay, Demetri wasn't entirely sure about Stepney. He was something like... eh, Mexican or whatever, not like Demetri could tell apart the bad pedostaches from one another. Stepney was probably alright though. Much as he was a hack dude was one of the alright ones. Grades were decent, that one time they'd shared World History, minus all the fucking hilarious mix-ups between Charlie Chaplin and Hitler.

Demetri just shrugged at Stepney, all the half seconds they were staring at each other in awkward silence. Demetri figured Stepney was just trying to recall who he was actually looking at.

"Exactly what I meant." And... well, uh. What the fuck else was Demetri supposed to say? He probably hadn't even needed to affirm Stepney at all- waste the emotional exertion on him. Demetri swore people talked too much sometimes, weren't efficient with their delivery. Sure, he was spaghetti max at pretty much all times, but at least his carbonera was fucking useful, had a fucking point. Just Demetri's take on the whole thing, anyways.

Then, Ming. He glanced over, trying his hardest to keep his eyes level with at least the general skin of her face. He was pretty sure he succeeded? Just in time for him to notice. She smiled. She waved. So was that Rapture, then? Shit, he didn't even intend to come off so blasphemous, but it was like... He was such a cuck. All these obvious mixed signals, because most girls who weren't the cool ones just did all these stupid little things probably designed by evolution and feminist society to purposely lead men astray. Is what Garren had told him, or at least, Demetri had researched the whole thing. In that moment he fucking felt it. Heart cold, skin clammy, with just a single moment of a girl's eyes even sort of softening in his direction. His slightly sunken, dead eyes almost sparked to life. He could have smiled, but he felt so self conscious in that moment (REEEEEEE FEMALES REEEEEEEEE) that his frown only puckered a bit deeper.

God he was so damn bad. He needed to evacuate before both his bowels and his noodle-stuffed pockets evacuated when Ming happened to breathe in an arbitrarily pretty way at some future point in time.

"So yeah." How much time had passed? Maybe just a moment, but he swore he'd been standing around like a loser for many times the eternal life of the universe or some shit. Demetri forced a little nod. He couldn't quite come up with anything to say... clever closing joke? Nope he was too far gone. Natch any other sort of socially graceful or at least barely acceptable closing remarks. He couldn't even be assed to find a reason to leave, because fuck if his brain would work with him on just this one occasion. This was probably Ming's fault, but it was still his problem. He was a loser, and he sulked off like one. He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned away with sudden finality, his beat up slightly mud-crusted sneakers shuffling a mosey away.

"I'll see you guys there... gotta go..."

He left it open but never finished the sentence.

((Demetri Futscher, Trapped In The Bathroom))

"...Well, that was... weird..."

Shortly after Ming had waved at Demetri, he spent about ten straight seconds staring at her before awkwardly trudging off in the other direction. It was basically impossible not to notice, and it seemed that Stepney had noticed too, since he didn't say a thing during that entire awkward period of silence.

She almost felt bad, did she do something weird? Did Demetri have an irrational fear of waving? Was there some unknown trauma in his youth that she had inadvertently set off? Only Demetri knew how his mind worked, and she had only caught a glimpse of his inner workings. Maybe she could ask about it, the next time she saw him.

"Anyway..." Ming said, finally turning her full attention back to Stepney. "To go back to what we were saying, yeah, that could be fun! Maybe I could try and help you memorize certain details of their faces, to help you at least piece together who you're looking at, even if you can't just instantly tell."

"Heck, maybe we could make it a regular thing!" Ming chirped, her voice perking up at the thought. "It's been a while since I've had a reason to be out regularly, at least, outside of our school's theater program... but that's school."

“Yeah, that’s… that’s Demetri, all right.”

Finally, that bullshit was done and dusted, though the gross, sweaty stench of Futscher still lingered over the two of them as Stepney’s gaze was fixed on the entrance to the building. There were some people at school who Stepney was honestly surprised managed to tie their shoelaces in the morning without throwing up all over the carpet, and Demetri was right at the top of that pile. Maybe he wore Velcro shoes. Wouldn’t surprise him.

“You ever tried spending time with him in Magic club? Wouldn’t recommend it. I’d rather be locked in a box with a pissed off Wyatt for an hour.”

Stepney grunted, half a laugh, half a noise of dismissal, before focusing his own attention back on Ming; although really, he could have been looking right up at the ceiling. It wasn’t as though he was gonna be able to read her facial expressions, was it? Still, it’d be nice for her to know he was actually paying attention to her, especially when she was talking about helping him out.

“Anyways, yeah, that sounds cool! I mean, it’s not like, uh, Winston Churchill’s gonna suddenly grow a moustache or get a facelift any time soon, right?”

He really didn’t know whether Ming would be able to do anything to help with his prosopagnosia. He’d been lumped with it for every single day of his life, and he could barely, just about, if he’d had a full night of sleep and was concentrating properly, recognise his mom at a glance. Maybe. Still, it was a nice thought. He appreciated the effort.

“And, yeah, that’s school alright. I haven’t really been able to go rock climbing for a while now cause of how much studying I’ve had to do. But I can definitely set aside some time each week for us to study together; I guess smoking Demetri’s ass at Magic doesn’t have to be a weekly thing, after all.”

Stepney chuckled, gently scratching his chin.

“And like you said, it’d be cool to just hang out regularly.”

"Mhm!" Ming affirmed. "What days do you think would be good for you? It'd probably be for the best if we knew each other's schedules, after all."

As Ming finished, she instinctively tightened her grip on the object in her hands, only to remember that she had originally come into this store in order to actually buy music, not chat with her friends. Not that she thought that the chatting was bad, just that she should probably go ahead and take care of what she came for.

Glancing once again at the CD case that she had in her hand, she recalled how much trouble she had just finding this one album, the store clerks hadn't been much help earlier, so perhaps it'd be better for her to cut her losses as-is and purchase what she had already acquired.

"Actually, let's head over to the register. I want to go ahead and ring this," Ming brought the CD case up towards Stepney and pointed at it, "up and pay for it."

Before Stepney could properly respond to her request, she took hold of his hand, mentally noting how much larger his hands were compared to her own, and gently lead him towards the register.

“Oh, yeah, sure thing, let’s-“

Stepney didn’t get a chance to respond to either of Ming’s statements, before she took him by the hand and started leading him towards the counter. She wasn’t the strongest girl in the world, and she didn’t exactly have him in a vicegrip – and, man, her hands were way smaller and softer than his – but the action took him by surprise, and for a moment, he didn’t react, his feet moving for him. Then he laughed, and let Ming guide him along, keeping pace behind her. He was about done here, anyway.

Well, about was key here. He still hadn’t grabbed any CDs himself, but fortunately, they were rounding what he was pretty sure was the jazz aisle, so he just stuck his hand out and grabbed the first case that came to hand. He had his preferences when it came to jazz, sure, but in the end, jazz was jazz, and jazz was good.

After a brief walk, they were at the register, and Stepney gently, and a little reluctantly, let his hand slip out of Ming’s.

“Well, I was gonna say ‘let’s head over to the register’, but, uh, that seems a little redundant now, huh?” Stepney laughed again, brushing his hand through his hair. “Luckily, I grabbed some jazz on the way over, so I’m not gonna be-

…

… Oh.”

Stepney looked down with bemusement at the cover of the Sunn O))) album he was holding.

“That’s not jazz at all.”

He looked at it for a moment longer, then shook his head, looking back up at Ming.

“Ah well. Might as well keep it. Broaden my horizons and all that.”

He laughed again, imagining what his parents’ reaction would be to the soothing sound of drone metal at their next poker game.

“Anyway, I’m free on basically every Monday and Friday. Probably every other Tuesday, but those two are your safest bets!”