Survival Of The Fittest

"Hey, Thomas."

Cool, it was someone Gemini liked, even. She settled back into her chair and glanced back at the screen, where things were happening.

Actually, wasn't this sort of early for dog-stomping? In fact, this whole sequence really wasn't all that bad, at least as far as onscreen murders went. This wasn't even as bloody as the first murder in Scream. Gemini had been expecting, well, quite a bit worse. Graphic mutilation, maybe. Eyeballs bisected, like Un Chien Andalou. Throw in some hate speech. Dwell on the whole thing for a while. Make it painful to watch, even for a slasher veteran.

Thomas was asking what she was holding, so she turned, beginning to unzip the case to show him.

"It's just my cam—"

Another jump cut: Fraiser right there, smoothie in hand, heading for the desk.

He must have tailed Thomas in, but Gemini had already turned away by that point so she hadn't realized. Now, caught entirely off guard, she jerked backwards. The motion was abrupt, and it carried her far enough that her butt slid off the seat; her right leg flailed for purchase just enough to entangle itself in the legs of the desk, and an instant later she was falling to the side in a slow-motion collapse, curling her body and cradling the camera case to her chest to protect it, the desk toppling over on top of her with a resounding clatter.

The movie was going towards the Christmas party scene. Patrick Bateman is surrounded by people he hates and is disgusted by. There was also the dinner scene with Paul Allen, to which the menu in that restaurant mentions a "mud soup", though for some random tex-mex joint that it looks like in the movie, it could be anything.

Though, from Mortimer's analysis, Patrick Bateman seemed to want to kill Paul, because he had a tanning bed in his apartment.

Mortimer was currently absorbed with the film, ignoring that Wade was greeting Thomas. Thomas went over to say something to Gemini, but then Mortimer heard what sounded like a desk being knocked over. Mortimer turned around to see that somehow Gemini managed to tumble out of her seat and have the desk over her.

Was Gemini being a klutz or did something fall over onto her?

Mr. Fraiser was already heading over from his desk to help Gemini out, though Mortimer didn't say anything at first at Gemini's situation.

Wade couldn’t help chuckling at Thomas’ assessment of Patrick Bateman. He was a kind man wasn’t he? Kind enough to give a dog free chiropractic treatment, in any case. He didn’t say that one out loud. Even in his current company, Wade found that you could never quite know how far you could push it, so he had to rein it in sometimes.

CRASH!

Wade jumped at the massive clatter that rang out, and he looked over to see Gemini had, some fucking how, managed to flip herself upside down with her desk on top of her. He blinked twice, trying to get his bearings because…

How the FUCK—

Wade got up and went over to help her. “You good, Gemini?”

It happened in the blink of an eye. Literally.

One moment, Gemini was happily telling Thomas what was in her hands, and then Thomas blinked. Once he reopened their eyes, Gemini was on the ground. Thomas Immediately rushed to help, trying to raise up Gemini with a genuine, "You OK?" Thomas looked to see him, Wade and Mr. Fraiser were to the rescue, with Mr. Fraiser asking, "Did you have a gravity problem?"

Eventually, Gemini was standing upright, and Thomas asked the question that was on everyone's mind. "What happened?"

"I'm fine."

Gemini was saying that almost as soon as she'd landed. Before disentangling herself, or dealing with the desk, or anything else she instead fully unzipped the camera case. Then she slid the camera out, powered it on, saw that the lens still deployed as it was supposed to, powered it back off, and zipped it away safe and sound again. Then she finally let herself inhale.

By this point, other people had reached her. Also, now that she was assured that the camera was undamaged, other things were registering again. Her hip and shoulder were a little sore, having taken the impact, but since she'd only fallen about three feet—and slowly at that—she was pretty sure she wasn't seriously injured.

Of course, much less neatly, there was now no chance whatsoever that she could slither behind a cabinet and become invisible. Fraiser was right there, smoothie deposited on his desk en route, his attitude sitting somewhere between concern and amusement. It would be impossible for Gemini to pretend she wasn't here.

"Fine," she repeated, pushing the desk off herself and accepting Thomas' hand as he helped her to her feet. She hoped she sounded fine. "No problems. With gravity, I mean, uh..."

She felt flushed, overheated, and if Fraiser hadn't been a teacher that conversation would've looked very different. But this was a situation that required very careful handling, and she just had to keep it together for a few moments, so that maybe she could be totally screwed over by someone else's decisions instead of her own.

Gemini set about righting the desk too, scooting her backpack back into place, and this offered something to work with at least.

"I tried to get up to show you the camera and, and my backpack was around my leg and, and the chair leg too, and I wiped out," she explained as sheepishly as she could. Her left hand reached up and tugged at her earlobe without her realizing until she felt it. Luckily this was all actually really embarrassing so she didn't have to try to fake it.

Mortimer didn't care that Wade went up from the desk to help Gemini, though in fairness, Thomas was next to her, so he could've helped her up.

Getting a desk over herself looked like a first.

She was lucky that she didn't smash her camera, when she tried to show it off. Cameras don't tend to be cheap. A lot of students like to use high-end ones to get better photos in the photography class. Mortimer never bothered to do that elective, since taking pictures wasn't in his taste, despite how easy it could've been for him.

"Are we all settled? The best scene is coming up!" Mortimer said to the group at Gemini's position, since one of the most ironic scenes is happening on the screen. Who can forget one of the best Batman in cinematic DC killing off the worst Joker? Batman even did it with ad-libbed dancing before going in for the kill.

Mortimer watched Patrick Bateman going at it with the axe, screaming about that Dorsia reservation. Then, Bateman calmed down and had a cigarette. Classic sigma male behavior right there.

To which, it reminded Mortimer of something. (WARNING: LOUD).

Ok, good, Gemini didn’t break her neck or something. All up on her own and setting her desk upright without seeming to need any assistance. That was fine by Wade, since, you know, movie. He gave a quick thumbs up to her general direction before backpedaling toward his desk. For a bit of extra flourish, he did his best (which was poor) to mimic Christian Bales moonwalk before sitting back down.

Wade had his eyes on the screen. It was one of those scenes that bring people on just from word of mouth; a guy axe murdering someone else set to a rock song the viewer might’ve heard before. There was probably some kind of social aspect to that sort of things appeal, but Wade wouldn’t be able to tell you that on account of his mind blanking out in the face of the bloody, bloody violence.

So what he did, while our old buddy Patrick was flipping shit, was grin and let out a quiet, airy chuckle. He was aware of Gemini trying to explain her spill to Fraiser but, honestly, she seemed fine. Maybe she was a bit embarrassed and was hoping to not have people fawning over her.

By that logic, Wade was entirely in the right to just go back to the movie, regardless of whether he felt a bit bad about brushing it off or not. No use lingering on stuff that embarrasses you, probably.