Survival Of The Fittest

And then everybody decided to get all up in Jeremy's face to make him uncomfortable. Cadeyn leaned up way too close to his face, and when she was doing that, it became that much harder for Jeremy to ignore her like he had been doing for the past three years. Fiyori fucking lept at him from the side as a result of his accusation. Maybe his random accusation could have actually been correct? Who knew? Who cared? He knew he didn't. Only reason he was still here in the first place was because Darius was fixated about him being the killer and if Jeremy didn't prove his innocence Darius would cover him in peanut butter in the middle of the night. God, the horror. He'd have to wash himself before he went to school instead of during the night. Darius also decided to get close, and stroked his hand through Jeremy's hair. Not that it'd really do anything, Jeremy never styled his hair and it always stayed in the brown curly blob it was, but it did a bit more to make Jeremy creeped out.

He was pretty sure he heard counterpoints to his arguments as well, but at this point they were wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too close for comfort and he decided that he was going to get some breathing room before he continued his case. Adjourning the court, in a way. So he grabbed the part of the table to the right of him, and slid over to Jerry and Bradley, who right now seemed to be the only sane people on the table.

"Hi guys please protect me," he whispered to the both of them. At least with Jerry in front of him Cadeyn couldn't get up close to his face again.

Jerry's question was a good question. Not like the dumb questions he had about wrestling. Mainly there were about whether the wrestlers faked fighting game-style special moves at all. See? Really dumb question. He wasn't sure what constraints of reality they abode by. And also, it'd be quite amusing to see Jerry shocked by such a dumb question.

Now that he thought about it, he'd quite like to see Hulk Hogan doing a hadouken.

See. Hulk Hogan was the first wrestler that came to mind. That guy with the stupid moustache and repugnant personality. Bradley was outdated as fuck over here, like Mr Burns asking for the Prussian Consulate in Siam.

"To be honest," Bradley replied, in the short window of time before Jeremy's interruption, "I used it to catch up on homework. Yep. That's how boring a party it was."

Well, that wasn't strictly true.

"Okay. I lied. I used it to catch up on the creation of innovative excuses for why I hadn't done my homework."

He also had gone around the rooms patting all the girls on the head and cooing at them, like they were adorable babies, just to wind it up. But it didn't sound anywhere near as funny as it was in person. He'd have to show Jerry that particular comedy act in person later.

And then Jeremy came over.

"Jesus. Jerry. Jeremy. This is a recipe for comedic misnaming mishaps."

Jeremy was asking for protection.

Moron.

"What do you expect me to do, Jeremy? Draw on my large pool of social goodwill to get you out of this? Or do you want me to fight for you? Because quite frankly, even though we could probably take these guys, you're not worth the punishment."

When Jeremy decided to run away, Caedyn didn't say anything. Instead of chasing after him, she let out a little giggle and snuck her phone out of her vest pocket. As he huddled down on the table, she leaned over and started snapping pictures. "Evidence!"

She didn't bother taking time to explain. There was so much to do! Her phone was going to be put through its paces as she started darting through app after app, her fingers tapping feverishly at her phone the whole time. To those outside the know, she probably looked insane, but she didn't care. This was art, passion, existence, or like...something else important and eclectic or whatever, words, she was busy, okay? Jeremy might not have done whatever, but he was acting like he had, which meant that this just went from a fun distraction to a legit, juuuuuicy rumor, and her people would want answers from their girl on the scene, Ja?

Caedyn Miller @jaecae4real              
#StickyFingers! somebody had a lil trubs keepin hands to himself l. nite...deets later! #scandal #nohedidnt #yeshedid
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She attached the guiltiest looking picture in her bunch to the tweet and sent it out. That was salvo one. She still had to take this to Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat...

Oooh, she knew she was forgetting something! With a quick tab over she caught sight of Jeremy again and caught a half-assed picture to play with and Snap out. Maybe she'd give him one of those stupid, huge, handlebar mustaches, just to sell her point?

Ugh, Jerry and Jeremy WERE similar names. If Jerry didn't hate his full birth name so damned much, he might have contributed that 'Jeremy' and 'Jeremiah' were even MORE similar names. Oh well, sometimes it really was better to keep his goddurned mouth shit. These were... rare occasions.

"Uh, yeah bro," Jerry held up his hands as Jeremy got all weird and flighty. "I'm on your side but I'm not about to beat somebody up on school grounds. My dad would fucking blister my ass." He shot a smirk up at the treeline. "Besides, my hands and feet are trained, deadly weapons. There's like a fighter's code n' some shit."

Yeah, they'd probably buy that.

She couldn't say that was unexpected. Some people were naturally wary of her. Some were not, and started to bolt once she offered her face for a close-up inspection. Darius' comment was not helpful, though. Yeah, true, there were the folks who threw her suspicious glares, and it wasn't a mystery why. Just, it was no fun to be the weird one just 'cause she got smooth black skin. Was more fun if people noticed her crazy eyes.

'kay, she had to step up the crazy eyes game. But the ambition was there!

Fiyori looked over the collected folks. Jerry and Bradley in their bubble. Jeremy suffering permanent trauma. Darius being a motherfucking dumbass. Caedyn doing her Caedyn thing where she was like, super social or something.

It was fun, but it was enough.

Fiyori chuckled softly, hand reaching in her bag. She rummaged just a bit, and soon she grabbed the holy grail of this sinful round. Without turning her face, she held the 3DS in the direction of Darius.

It was weird to stroke the hair of somebody so big. Note to self, don't do that again.

And the big boy then wanted to hide behind his cousin and the guy who was randomly here.

Caedyn took pictures...or looked at pics? But that did not matter to Darius, when he saw his baby.

His green 3DS. Fiyori handed it to him. It was there. It was his 3DS. It was his Nintendo. It was his.

Darius quickly grabbed the 3DS, making sure it doesn't fall on the ground (not that it mattered as it happened twice or thrice, but it was still intact!). It was alive. It wasn't sold. It was in his hands.

The detective, with his hostage in his hands. The hostage that was killed and then revived. The hostage that was presumably made a slave and sold to somebody else. The hostage that was recovered without a scratch. The detective who had lost nothing in the process of recovering it, except maybe a bit of sanity.

Sanity. Darius considered to kiss his 3DS, symbolically. As if it was a book or film. But that'd be way to weird and not so good for the mouth. It also-

Fuck it, he'd still do it.

Smooching his 3DS for a millisecond, he hugged it, embracing it close to his chest. Close enough for nobody to ever touch it again. His adventures he shared with this piece of metal, metal, chips and more metal should remain his.

"Whoa, I had a shock. So relieved. Jesus fucking Christ."

He exhaled. Now the drama was over. Smoke later, probably. Continue playing at home. Never bring things that are worth more than money on the world to parties when drunk ever again. Darius had his 3DS returned.

And nobody moved in front of his face this time. Thank god. He was a bit worried there that all three of them would just move next to him again and then he'd have nowhere to go. He was surprised that didn't happen, to be honest. The people around him were juvenile enough for that to be a possibility. He was happy it didn't, though, then he probably would have had to duck under the table and even then that was likely to not accomplish anything. Jerry and Bradley even offered to protect him. Sweet, he had his own mercenary army now. Well no, not really, but- ooh actually that was a useable concept. A kid in a school who had a mercenary army of other students might work in a story. Not Mark Masters, though, so he'd have to push it aside for a bit. Keep it in the mind for later.

He turned back over to the other group, knowing that Darius was likely going to accuse him again, when he saw Fiyori reaching into her bag and grabbing something out of it…

"Wait, my random accusation was correct?"

And it was, it seemed. Darius took his 3DS and started cradling it in his hands, clearly happy that he had it back. He then proceeded to bring it up to his lips and - nope, seriously not making this up here - kissed it on the lips, before hugging it. Jeremy's eyebrow raised, and he just kinda blankly stared at Darius for a second.

"Um…"

"Well this was a bigger waste of time than elections in Russia."

The saga of Darius's console for girls now being solved, Bradley turned and left the scene.

The internet wouldn't troll itself.

((Bradley Floyd continued in Roots of Jade. Sadly.))

There was some stuff happening in a vaguely forwardish area, but like, she didn't really give a fuck? It probably wasn't important. Caedyn was wrapped up in spinning this whole thing as far as she could. The main problem was that she still had no idea what Jeremy was supposed to have stolen, but that'd be okay, she could keep things vague. Y'know, just in case he didn't take the thing Darius was hung up about, she could pretend she was talking about some other thing and keep the whole rumor mill going. It was always a good idea to keep this kind of operation nice and loose, so that nobody got too much information.

Caedyn turned away wordlessly, tapping furiously at her phone. By the end of the day, everybody would have heard about Jeremy's extracurricular interest in their shit.

((Caedyn Miller Continued In Screamer, Screamer, He's A Dreamer))

"Bradley's got a pretty fuggin' weird way of saying it, but..."

Jerry got up off his ass and pushed off the table, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"I agree with'm." Man, why doesn't anything INTERESTING happen around here?

((Jerry "Cowpuncher" Fury continued elsewhere))

Basically, there was that certain idea of how guys fucked. They get hyped super fast, work themselves into climax with amazing speed, but once they reach climax, they deflate like a broken basket ball.

Fiyori felt this was an allegory. A suitable one. She looked at Darius, who shared an heartwarming moment with his handheld. There was enough porn on the internet to guess where things were heading next, so she averted her eyes.

Jeremy was confused. Understandable.

All the other cool kids plus whatever Bradley tried to be left as well. Seemed like her prank was over. It was time for a bet now. But the betting pool was small 'cause there was no-one interesting around.

Welp.

Fiyori blew a kiss towards Jeremy, and took off.

[[Fiyori Senay, continued in Complex Heaven]]

"What."

Jeremy looked oddly at him. Darius softened his hug of the 3DS and then decided to just hold it in his hand.

"Geez, can't you respect my personal privacy, Jeremy?"

Dang it, he wanted to call him Jerebear, but he was too slow to realise. Not that it mattered, as people were leaving. They realised that the case was solved and that everything that had to be done was done. Darius also realised this revelation and decided to leave this place like the others did.

"See ya later, Jeremy."

Like lemmings to the cliff that was called school. Well, Darius was a lemming with wings, because he actually had good grades, unlike other students from his dumb grade.

((Darius Van Dyke continued in They Really Are))

And then everybody just decided to leave at once, leaving Jeremy alone on the bench. Did he smell, or something? He checked his armpits. Nope, still smellless as normal. Everyone here just seemed to be an asshole.

Welp, there was that story over. That was a total waste. At least now he could talk to some actual cool people. He'd have to find out a little bit more about Fiyori later, to see what that kiss meant, but otherwise he could forget this ever happened.

((Jeremy Frasier, continued in Mass Destruction))