Survival Of The Fittest

Ah. They had it. It was obvious when you thought it through. The tension, the worried looks, the attempts at deflection, the overall atmosphere of barely restrained panic just before a terrible collapse...everyone else had picked up on it before them, but it was such an unpleasant topic. Of course they didn't want to confront it directly. It slaughtered the mood for everyone but Zen, who was still attempting to resuscitate the severed head with all of their usual subtlety. An appreciated gesture, but a fruitless one. All these niceties got in the way of solving the real problem. Encountering an ex in the wild was unfortunate. It could be handled gracefully with some outside assistance, though. Unlike the rest, they would face the issue without cowardice.

"Megan, I apologize for their manners. There is, mm, something in the air that these two are unwilling to clear, and it's distressing you." As they spoke they waved their smoking hand through the air, punctuating their sentence by pointing it at her. "I have no manners, and I have no patience, so I will be frank. There are...regrettable events, I'm sure, that both sides have a hand in. You know yours well but haven't been given..." They paused and waved their hand unsteadily with a frustrated noise. "Closure, let's say. That must be resolved. You deserve as much, no?"

Their hand went back to their lips. "So, relax." They stepped away from Dolly to Zen's side. "Whatever happened between you and Dolly, I'm sure you can work it out."

Well. At least Megan knew that she wasn't overreacting to meeting Blaise. At least she knew that she wasn't being unreasonable for wanting out.

As her breath quickened and the color drained from her face, Megan asked herself: what the hell had Blaise been thinking? Yes, there was scarcely anything else that Blaise could've said that would've hurt as much, and they must've known that, but two out of three of those present would know that Blaise was lying and playing with Megan's head.

And, well. That's the thing. It's much easier to let someone's words wash over you when you know they're just saying it to mess with you. And now that Megan knows that she's allowed to be angry, she's angry. That was careless of Blaise; but then, they'd never been the kind to think ahead.

Megan leaned in and kissed Blaise on their lips. Flushed faces, heavy breathing, darting eyes. Megan knew she was a mess, but fuck it.

She said, through clenched teeth, "Fuck you. You know perfectly well why I was...what was the word you used. Distressed. You know."

Hahaha. Oh! This was bad. This was Very bad. Capital bad. Zen was Very Obligated to do something about it before things got worse but they thought things might actually already be at Maximum Bad and maybe they should just leave? Maybe leaving would be better. Or would it be worse? Maybe there was some magic kumbayah they could do that would make everyone calm down. "Everyone" felt like the wrong word, cause Dolly was cool as a cool thing, but Blaise was doing Blaise things and Megan was making it worse and Zen themself was doing something that was kinda like vibrating. They bounced on their heels, and then on their toes, and then on their heels again, and as it turned out that didn't help at all.

"So!" Zen's voice was a little too loud, which it always was, but this was one of those moments that made loud just a little bit louder. "Let's, uh, stop doing the thing that we're doing! And do... anything else instead!" They clapped their hands together and glanced back and forth between Megan and Blaise and yeah there was zero chance of this working. They needed to take more desperate measures.

They danced between the two of them and planted their lips where Megan's had been moments before.

"There! Now we're all even." This didn't make sense, even to Zen, and nonsensical things were kind of their thing. The more important thing was that they'd gotten between them, and into position to slip their fingers between Blaise's. They tugged at their hand, their smile a tiny bit strained.

"Okay, now that that's settled we should leave Dolly alone to do her things that she was doing before we got here which was yoga I think I kind of lost track of that but we should let her do that and go somewhere else and we can let Megan get where she was going and everything will be great!" They gave Blaise their most un-innocent innocent look, with their big wide eyes and fluttering lashes and all. That usually worked.

Please work please work please work this was all already SO BAD.

The difference between herself and Blaise, Dolly supposed, was that Dolly had nothing to prove.

She had known them long enough to begin to understand that Blaise didn't think themself so superior to others so much as that they wanted everyone else to believe that they were -- at least, that was Dolly's interpretation. Regardless of the reason, though, all this deflecting was doing nothing to help the situation brewing here. Dolly's attempts to prevent it from getting off the ground had failed, so she had best try to reign it back in before it exploded in midair and killed them all.

"Actually, Blaise and I were in the middle of something," she said. "I believe they had some fashion tips to give me." You could call it that. You could certainly call it that, and for Blaise to say otherwise would only draw them further into this quagmire of an interaction, since Zen showed no signs of abandoning Megan.

Dolly would have said that Megan was the only innocent party here, but she was really only making things worse. Zen was unhelpful at best, Blaise wasn't even trying, and Dolly... Dolly was doing her best, but she knew when she might be fighting a losing battle.

"Don't let us keep you from wherever you were headed, though. I promise I won't keep Blaise long, then you two can catch up." Dolly clasped her hands loosely in front of her stomach, smiling faintly at Zen.

All of this really wasn't what she had headed down to the riverside for this morning.

((Dolores Upton continued in Prometheus Rising))