Survival Of The Fittest

"You don't like Vocaloid? Kay, will stop. Will stop."

Dariush had no hot dog. God, hot. The hot dog of Raina was way too hot. Poor hot dog, burnt, roasted, for way too long. Just like his throat after doing a great solo of Ievan Polkka.

Ignoring Junko's question Dariush did not feel comfortable to reply to, he looked perplexed at the catastrophe. Dariush did not know why, but Raina looked very pissed. It is not as if Dariush was responsible for this, but Dariush was wary now. And Raina actually fucking hurt with her joke. Not that it was hurting him personally, but the joke was pretty bad. Raina was totally bullying him. Not joking, because nothing she said was actually funny. Haha, rofl, lol, topkek. Dariush's family caged him, lolololol. Raina, comedy god. Fuck you.

"Apologeezes Christ."

And Fiyori was worse. Threatening with violence. But even getting his larynx sodomized, it would have not been as terrible as Raina just ignoring him. It was not as painful as getting an important and valuable gem or console stolen, but it was still very degenerating. Ignoring him. Not paying attention and telling a dumb, elementary-school joke to Wayne.

"Your hot dog burnt? I...fuck, how can I tell you this? My condolences."

Dariush coughed. He needed to sing a sad song. He did not shout, but belted out the lyrics with a strong voice.

"ENDLESS RAIN! FALL ON MY HEART!"

His overexaggerating hand moves were amazing. Well, Dariush was amazed by his gesture, how wonderful it looked like. He acted as if he was a very dramatic japanese rock singer, which is fitting considering that this is currently a very sad and dramatic demise of an once-edible hot dog.

"KOKORONO KIZU NI."

Dariush had to. Dariush went to Raina and hugged her. To her ear, quietly, he sobbed the rest of the chorus "Let me forget all the hate, all of the sadness." The voice died down.

"Thanks." Raina accepted the skewer that Fiyori offered to her and snorted at the suggestion of what she should do with the burnt one. It was true that if anyone here deserved to be slapped in the face with a weenie, it was Darius, but she wasn't sure about, ah... "sodomizing his larynx", as Fiyori so elegantly put it. Mostly because that would require Darius to open his mouth again.

She was just about to say as much, and then...

And then. Well. And then everything went tits-up in the span of about five seconds.

It took the first of those five seconds for Raina's brain to process what was happening, and the rest for her to cringe at the alcohol on Darius's breath.

It only took one more for her to get pissed.

"Get off me, you fucking creep!"

It didn't take a lot of effort to wrench herself out of Darius's grasp and she overdid it somewhat and ended stumbling back and losing her balance, landing on her butt in the dirt. As one might imagine, this did nothing for her sudden blind rage at the fucking nerve of this asshole. She was back on her feet as quickly as possible, grabbing the first thing she laid eyes on - her open beer can, in this case - and flinging it right in Darius's face.

"What the hell is wrong with you!?"

Jonathan was happy to be talking to Michael. He felt like things were going to be okay between them and he didn't feel like he was going to get upset. Jonathan had a feeling that he shouldn't have took Michael's rejection back then too hard. Ugh. He felt like a complete idiot. He hadn't really been paying attention to the other people there. Until Darius started to sing. Why was he singing? Jonathan didn't know why and he pull an unimpressed face. He would have laughing because Darius didn't sound that great. But he could see that everyone else did not appreciate Darius' 'singing talent'. He didn't even have a chance to continue his conversation with Michael as he was now distracted by Darius.

"Why is he doing that? He's just embarrassing himself." Jonathan whispered to Michael and he grinned slightly. "What a great way to start a party, huh?"

He was being sarcastic. But it was alright. Darius couldn't hear him anyway. He watched as Darius was making things more uncomfortable for Raina. Jonathan felt sorry for Raina for being the target of Darius' singing. Then Darius was hugging her. Wait a minute. Why was Darius doing that? It didn't matter that much. As Raina was trying to get away from him and she said some things before throwing a can at him.

Jonathan winced as the scene had happened in front of him and he lowered his skewer from the fire. He got up to his feet slowly and he made his way over to where they both were. "Let's all calm down for a second. Darius, I think you should leave Raina alone. Okay?" Jonathan was speaking as calmly as he could and he put his free hand on Darius' shoulder. "I'm sorry for Darius' behaviour, Raina. He shouldn't have done that."

Jonathan give Raina an apologetic smile. He hoped that he hadn't made things worse. And he turned his head slightly to look at Michael to help with this situation.

One moment. One moment can mean a whole lot of shit. On one hand, you could be having the worst day of your life, only to realize you've won the lottery, on the other, you could've won the lottery, and while you were celebrating some  fat bitch in a Prius runs you over and gives you brain damage.  There's a lot of ways one moment can change everything, and right now, well it probably wasn't one of those moments. Michael continued his conversation with Jonathan, and everything seemed to be going great. Until  the one man special needs choir decided to sing something...

Speaking of spectator sports... Turns out, Darius was shitfaced before everyone else was even a tenth buzzed, Dee was taking it  like a champ! Michael could only blurt out a quick "The fuck?" and a few small laughs before he turned around and watched the heroic gladiator by the name of 'Tardicus sing out it's mating call.  Michael started to laugh harder. Then, the walking potato decided to finish his courtship dance with a hug and a whisper. This sent Mike into hysterics. He turned to Jonathan. "Can't get this type of entertainment anywhere, how-lee shit!"

Michael was laughing until Raina fell flat on her ass and tossed a beer can at Darius. At this point, there were three things he could do. One, was ignore it. Two was go in and break it up before shit got real and everything fucked up. Then there was number three, pull out his cellphone, start recording and yell Worldstar at the top of his lungs. Number three was pretty tempting, but Jonathan made his choice for him when he started walking up there. Michael didn't want Jonathan to get involved or get himself hurt, so he picked number two and joined Jonathan on a two man cavalry, here to rescue the party like Roosevelt rescued America.

Jonathan was already comforting Raina, so that left Michael with damage control. Both of them couldn't just crowd around Raina and tell her everything's okay, that'd just piss off Darius even more, you needed one person on each side to make sure shit would cool off. Michael knew this from 'personal' experiences. Too much attention on one side and the fight breaks out even faster.

He walked up to Darius and put his right hand on his shoulder. "Don't man, ain't worth it." Michael gave the closest thing he could to a consoling smile, and wiped some of the alcohol off of Darius with his sleeve. Shit, that might've been a mistake. It's bad enough to walk home smelling like booze, coz that'll be a fun one to explain to mom and pop, but then there was actually washing his jacket. It takes a LOT of damn work to get rid of  cheap beer scent in leather clothing. Fuck it though that's later, right now we just gotta focus on Dee not going into an alcohol induced rampage.

Darius wasn't the type to get pissed easily, but being drunk and having beer cans thrown at you just proves to be a horrible combination in anyone.

"Or! You can give me it. I don't mind eating charred food. I'll eat anything", Junko said, punctuating the last sentence with a small cackle as she sat down.

Actually somewhat true. Some food tasted better charred. Like marshmallows. Set them on fire, then blow them out when they're nice and black. It'll have a crispy outside, but a soft and gooey inside. Delicious. Hot dogs, she was sure they were like that too.

Darius offered his condolences and offered to sing an eulogy for the fallen wiener in the form of oh god no Darius Jesus Christ Darius why.

White people shouldn't sing rock ballads in Japanese, especially if they're not super familiar with the language.

Drunk people shouldn't sing rock ballads at all.

So, the last thing any drunk white person should be doing is attempting to sing a rock ballad in Japanese.

Junko cringed. And as if the Japanese language couldn't be any more fucked up by Caucasians. Sure, some of the lyrics were in English, but that helped only slightly.

Somewhere she heard Michael roar with laughter. Some part of her wanted to troll Darius, by acting like he accidentally insulted everyone here instead of singing X Japan songs.

But oh man. It took a turn for the creepy when he decided to hug Raina while singing the damn thing.  Someone who was quickly getting more and more annoyed with his bullcrap would definitely not appreciate being hugged by him while he eviscerated Japanese rock songs. The result was obvious. And that result was Raina squeezing out of his grasp and throwing a beer can at him-

Oh Christ. The catfight scenario was actually happening, wasn't it?

Junko jumped to her feet, skewer still in hand and a scowl on her face. Luckily, Jonathan and Michael decided to forge a two-pronged attack on the shitstorm that was likely about to happen. As the hostess, Junko had better add her thoughts.

"Darius... if you're that bored already, I could just, like, give you something to do? Like, I dunno, some kind of job? Or maybe something else?"

Somehow, it had slipped her mind that she had Jiffypop and she hadn't made it yet until just now. Well, that's one duty she could assign Darius to. Popping the Jiffies was a little tricky on a campfire grill, but it was possible. Though, Darius was obviously pretty drunk, so should he doing things like that? Aside from injuries, it could get burned. Eh, she'd eat it. But it's meant for everyone else too. He suggested a drinking game, so maybe she could convince him to set something up. Maybe it wouldn't be a good idea for him not to actually participate, though, since he was, again, drunk already.

Gah, this whole "arrived drunk" thing made it a little more tricky. But hopefully the Jonathan-Michael power duo would calm things down, and she'd find something to keep Darius distracted enough to stop bugging the shit out of Raina. Heck, she didn't have to give him an actual job, but she could like, talk to him about shit that didn't involve mangling the Japanese language. Junko didn't mind talking to drunk people, really, even if in Raina's position she'd.. well, act similarly.

Wayne had been getting mixed signals - were they ignoring Darius or shoving hot dogs into his various orifices?

But it was soon clear enough that the answer was neither, and that the situation had gotten far more out of hand than he'd expected.

He didn't have to do anything about that. He really didn't. He wasn't involved. He'd just happened to be sitting there. It wasn't like he'd ever done anything worthwhile for anyone, least of all himself, so he damn sure didn't have to do anything now.

Let someone else handle it. Someone like Jonathan or Michael, both crowding around Darius, holding his shoulders, restraining, comforting, trying to calm him down. Someone like Junko, who was the host, whose responsibility it was to get the party under control. She was already doing so.

It didn't feel right, though. Perhaps it was that or just instinct that pulled Wayne to his feet, regret already urging him back down again as soon as he stood. He wasn't needed. Darius was taken care of. Raina was doing fine by herself, for a certain definition of fine that included throwing shit in people's faces for admittedly justified reasons - not to mention that she could have seriously hurt herself on the skewer that Fiyori had just handed her, falling like that. Darius couldn't have known, probably hadn't thought about or predicted her reaction considering he was as drunk as he was. But he had put Astrid's eye out in fourth grade doing something without thinking. That hadn't been malicious, either. This could have turned out the same way. It was a train of thought best forgotten.

Wayne took a step towards Raina, hand reaching out towards her upper arm - as if she would want to be touched again immediately after that. No. If he was going to insist on fucking up the situation and making it worse, better that it be unintentional. He retracted his hand before he made contact. Just stood next to her.

"You okay?" he asked, keeping his voice calm, steady. It was something that he was used to doing, and even now it was less for her benefit but instead to soothe his own nerves. "Come on. I can get you another beer - or we can take a walk somewhere else for a while, I guess." He scratched the back of his head. "I'm sort of put off alcohol now, anyways."

An object thrown hit the target. Dariush was thrown at with a can and now had more alcohol on his surface. But he had more alcohol inside.

OH, he was the creep now. Sure, Raina's not creepy at all. With her eyes of a witch or her fucking dyed hair. Who colours the hair in blue? Cyan. Whatever. It looked anime. Darius had at least a cool colour. And not his whole hair to imitate some vocaloid. Raina was being the creepy one with throwing liquid at Dar-

But luckily, before he could open his mouth to reply, Michael and Jonathan interferred and-

really, that did not stop him at all.

"Your face ain't worth it."

He let himself go from Michael's hand, stumbling but ultimately landing on two feet in the end. Hah. That comeback. Hopefully some witnesses of this event will remember that comeback forever. Or that rejoinder.

"Wayne, of course you're put off alcohol with that face."

Good. Now, after having been offensive, he had to defend himself. Gonna grind up all the defensive points, heh.

"Groves would spank y'all for your lack of musical knowledge, you philistines."

He tried to recall lyrics. Lyrics fitting and witty for this situation he's in. Other than Pirate songs his head was emp-

oh. Of course, the most obvious choice.

"Anone Hayaku, Pasokon ni...miku miku, dadadada"

This song sucks and was Raina's theme song and that's the reason why Darius couldn't continue singing and forgot the lyrics. Yup. But it showed that Dariush was able to sing. But he stopped. Because. He drank. Result: He had to pee. Junko wanted him to 'do something'. Watzlawick whispered into Dariush' ear that she meant that he should go away from the party. OK. Well, Pauly said that Darius should leave the society of drunk people temporarily, to let things calm down, maybe conspire against him; who knows. Because Junko was the only cool one who didn't instantly side with Miku, Dariush respected her wish. He also had to piss anyway. So Dariush left the place to urinate, distancing himself from the group. Singing to himself:

"Wherever you are, dadadadada. Wherever you are, dadadadadada. Whatever you say, dadadadadada."

And thus he went to search a tree or a bush or something.

And then all eyes were on her, everybody else was crowding around her and Darius, and Raina was beginning to seriously wonder if maybe she shouldn't have just gone to the stupid dance and played third wheel to Penny and Sam. At least if she'd done that, she wouldn't be standing here angry and humiliated and half a second away from kicking Darius in the balls so hard he'd never walk again, much less have any hope of ever having kids. She'd be doing the rest of the world a favor with that, at least.

Michael managed to make himself actually useful for once and then Junko stepped in, though, and instead of going for the fight, Darius just fired off a lame comeback and wandered off to go do whatever it was he felt he needed to do out of everyone's sight. Good. Stay gone, asshole. If Cris was here...

Well. But he wasn't, was he?

Raina let out an irritated sigh and turned to Wayne. "A walk would be good, I think. I'm not really in the mood to drink for a bit, either. I feel like I smell like the stuff now." She dusted herself off properly, trying to determine if Darius really had gotten his booze stink all over her. It was probably her imagination and lingering knee-jerk reaction at the unwanted hug, but just in case, she didn't want to try and explain that to her parents when she got home.

Once she was as cleaned up as she was going to get, she looked back at Wayne. "Lead the way, I guess?"

Well Darius, I guess I should just step out of the way and let Raina go Kill Bill on your ass... Michael wasn't sure if it was because Darius was used to shooting the messenger, or if he was too drunk to know where he was at. Could'a been a little bit of column A, column B. Michael could have turned Darius' joke around. 'My face ain't worth what? Your body pillow? I'd hope so...' But Darius was drunk as all hell, so it seemed kind of unfair. Didn't stop Michael before, he's not above ripping on drunk people. Darius was his friend however, so he was above ripping on him specifically. Michael wasn't gonna make things worse over what amounts to jack shit in terms of importance. Best course of action was to keep his mouth shut. Even if Michael just had to keep the same half-assed smile and nod, while letting Darius walk off.

Y'know, in all honesty, Drunk Darius, he's kinda ehhh... reminiscent of Lennie Smalls. He'd hope that it didn't make him George, he really didn't want to spend the party babysitting Mr. Potato head. But y'know, if Darius continues on like this well... It'd be kind of necessary, at least it would be, if Darius wanted to walk home without his testicles getting kicked up into him and out his mouth like a demented Looney Toon's sketch. Well, what can you do? He did his job for the moment. One man walking EOD disposal unit. Bomb defused baby!

Michael turned around and walked back to the group.

"So eeehhhh...." Michael honestly had no idea what to say. Fuck uhhhh, what should he say? "You uh, you okay?" Gee captain obvious good fucking question. In all honesty though, he didn't really care. Raina's just overreacting over nothing. Didn't help Raina acts like a 'see you next tuesday' around him either. Well, in all honesty she did fall on her ass, while holding a hot dog skewer, I mean, it could've been bad. It wasn't though, so he didn't really get the crying over spilled milk shit. Darius got it worse, getting a can to the head and getting doused in beer. Some of which stuck to Michael's jacket.
Gross...

As he was walking back to his friends and...Raina, he heard Darius singing yet again. Michael found himself slipping back into a giggle. "Ohhh shit..." Michael seen enough drunk people to know where this was headed. He really couldn't be mad at this event, it's hysterical. Give it a good five or ten minutes, it's going to be the running gag of the night, and the party group's in joke for the next week or two. "How much you wanna bet..." Michael had trouble not laughing on delivery of the sentence. "How much you wanna bet he's gonna-he's gonna start singin' he's a lil' teapot while pissing in plain view?" Michael shook his head. "I gotta feelin' Lil' Dee's gonna flash his lil 'dee." He bent over in laughter. He couldn't help it.

This entire situation was comedy gold. In all honesty, it wouldn't have surprised him if Darius was only pretending to be drunk, just to fuck with everyone. He continued laughing.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He regained some of his composure. "It's just, it's just funny, y'know?" He held a straight face for only a second. Everything that had happened in the past sixty seconds was beautiful, almost choreographed. "It's jus-" Michael bent over laughing again. Wasn't like he was gonna make the situation worse. You'd have to have no sense of humor to NOT think it was funny.

Wow. Darius really turned into a weeb when he was drunk, didn't he? To be fair, it was kind of funny, seeing him mangle Vocaloid songs while drunk. In a way. Junko still had to cringe internally at the poor... everything. The way he utterly destroyed the Japanese language. The way he pushed away Michael's attempt at calming him down, like it was some terrible dish he'd served. The way that he kept doing the exact same thing that got a beer can thrown at him. Was it possible to feel secondhand embarrassment for someone? Probably. Junko looked around her to see if someone had ended up recording this on their phones or something. How would she feel about that? Well, mixed feelings, to be honest. On one hand, they'd go viral. On the other, she didn't want Officer Brand to come knocking at her door because of a wild teen party on Yout-

... She just realized Darius had tried to troll her earlier. How... could she miss that?

But Raina and Wayne were going to step away for a bit. Darius, too, though it looked like he was doing something different. At first Junko thought he was going to bug them more, but then Michael spoke up. Oh, pissing, right. That unholy mixture of booze and caffeine needed to come out someday.

"Eh. I'm glad that the whole... 'Mr. Groves would be mad at you philistines' thing didn't move on to No More Heroes songs, if anything", Junko said. "Though, 'I'm a Little Teapot'? At this rate..."

Junko smiled, but she looked towards the direction the singing continued. If it turned out they were giving him ideas, well, this night would just keep on getting better. She guessed it was pretty good entertainment for the evening, at least for Michael.

And Darius was far away from the group, so there was no reason to continue singing.

But it was relieving to release the water from his body.

While pissing, Darius thought about what to do, when he returned.

((Maria Cuccinotta, Sadie Hawkins Start))

HOW HAD NOONE TOLD HER? Seriously! For some reason there was a party going on, an actual party, not the stuck up dance shit, and no-one had mentioned it to her, the fuck? She sighed as she walked into the clearing, a slight buzz already on from the Bud she'd had earlier. There were a fair few people here, Wayne and... Was that Raina? Seriously? Those two were a thing? Huh. There was a fairly big campfire spitting light over the entire clearing, hotdogs, drinks... Were those S'mores?Really? Eh, she couldn't complain, s'mores tasted fucking amazing when... She patted her jacket. The pills were there, thankfully. Couldn't have a big outdoor party without at least a some drugs, right?

Of course, seeing as how it was Junko that had supposedly set this all up, she doubted a little ecstasy was the only thing illegal here.

She looked around for Junko, spotting her looking at the trainwreck of a show that Darius was putting on. Shaking her head at the singing, she walked over to the girl, briefly stopping to swipe a can of beer before hustling to the host. She walked up behind Junko, half tempted to slap her for not telling her, the other half saying that it'd ruin the party before she even got started. Figuring that a tap on the shoulder was fine, she waited for her to turn before asking "How come you never told be? It would have been obvious that I'd have come here!"

Even as he parked, more than 20 yards away, Johnny could see the party wasn't as big as he'd've liked it to be.

Parties suited Johnny, and big parties moreso. He wasn't to most people's taste, Johnny knew that, but just like any unpleasant flavour he was considerably more palatable when diluted. Or when drunk, of course, which was the main reason he liked parties. Bug eyes and broken-fencepost teeth were a lot less offputting for his classmates once they had a few shots in them.

This, though?

He could make out faces as he got closer, orange and monstrous in the firelight.

Christ, it was a fucking gay pride parade. He could recognize Fiyori instantly, of course he could, she was ten feet tall, and there was no way a girl that size wasn't a dyke. With the flapping poncho and the fire reflecting of her glasses she looked like some sort of a demon bat, and fuck him if that wasn't half accurate. Junko was a queer too he was pretty sure, or at least half of one, and then there was Michael and good old gay Johnny, and Christ, hadn't that shared name been the source of no end of shit for Johnny McKay. He held nothing against the guy - they lived in a free country and all, and gay Johnny could put anything up his ass that he so desired - but he could at least have the decency to be called something faggier.

Hey Johnny, where's your boyfriend? Have another smoke Johnny, there's still a little jizz on your breath. Yeah, the kids in the park were real comedians. Newsflash, geniuses: there's a million queers out there with all your names too, they just aren't at your school, in your grade.

What can you do though, right?

It wasn't like the kid had chosen his name or whatever. Johnny certainly hadn't chosen his. He told people he was named for Johnny Cash, but his pa'd told him once it was Jonathan Fisher: some painter that Johnny was pretty sure nobody'd ever heard of. He'd given him a google once, and even with rock-bottom expectations he'd been disappointed. All the guy did were these dreary, flat paintings of Irish hills. If ever there was a worse advertisement for that country, Johnny'd never encountered it: Fisher'd made the place look like an absolute shithole, and this was coming from a trailer park kid, too.

He spat, then raised a hand in greeting as he walked into the firelight.

So he was already a little drunk, and more than a little surly. And why shouldn't he be? Sadie Hawkins was a cruel joke on every teenage boy with a car-wreck face in these states of America. They said some people had faces only their mothers could love, but even Johnny's ma didn't seem all that impressed, so what hope did he have?

Well, cheap kegs and boxed wine, that was Johnny's hope, and in many of his prayers he'd thanked Christ his Lord for them.

Raina was here, he saw. He'd chance a greeting, but it looked like she was heading off for a disappointing fuck with Wayne Cox, and Johnny certainly wouldn't wanna get in the way of that.

Instead he gave a greeting in the general direction of nobody in particular.

"How're y'all doing?", with a little smile and a nod.

Johnny took the cigarette from behind his ear and stuck it between his lips, then took a stick from the periphery of the fire, shook it until its end was just an ember and then lit up with it.

There were cans of beer scattered around, and because nobody told him not to, Johnny took one. He sat down on a bench.

When Dariush returned, new arrivals came into his sight. And he could see that they falsely assumed that Junko was the host.

"Welcome to my party, madame!", he told Maria. Maria was a new arrival as well as...whats-his-face. What-a-face. That face. Darius looked good, way better than Jay-something, but he bet Raina would still flirt with him. Jay-something. Johnny? Yeah, Johnny, Jonny, or Jony. Whatever, J.

"I welcome you as well, boy! Feel free to take the alco! All that booze sponsored by the Van Dyke company. It's free for you, but don't steal anything, Johnny, haha."

Johnny was a criminal and therefore that fucker can't be trusted, especially at parties. Like, if Fiyori had not stolen his DS, Johnny would have.

"Can I also have one, please?"

Darius pointed at the cigarette. He had not bought any for this party. Hopefully Johnny will give him one. Maybe he's not a bad dude. After all, Darius' free booze against one cigarette? Fair deal!

Joy of joys, here came the new arrivals. Maria was her usual party hard-y self, and would probably be lucky to remember anything that transpired in the next few hours by the time she got up in the morning. If only Raina could say the same.

She could have spared some friendly greeting for Johnny, maybe, but honestly Raina wasn't in a Johnny-wrangling mood right now. Truth be told, she kind of wanted to just go home. Bailing now would be admitting defeat though, and if she came home too early her parents were sure to catch on to the fact that something had gone wrong and then they'd want to know all about the party and Raina would have to come up with some excuse for Darius's behavior that didn't involve alcohol and whatever else he'd bothered to shove into his garbage disposal of a body for the night. Raina would sooner dance naked in front of the rest of the partygoers than cover Darius's ass, so that was out of the question.

Instead, she just shook her head and kept walking until she felt a comfortable distance away from the crowd, where she and Wayne could maybe have something resembling a civilized conversation. Or not. She was feeling wound up and annoyed and just reckless enough to do something somebody would regret just now, so who knew.

She glanced back at Wayne and jerked her head towards a park bench, unspoken question hanging between them.