Beg, Barter, Steal.

[Yugikun]

Man, it had been such a long time since he'd actually done anything.

((trends that get far too much of a bad rap, continued from a place where it doesn't feel tacked on as a necessity of a post))

Backstage. 5 PM. Midnight. Not actually either of those times because the first was the time he'd arrived and the second was an exaggeration for when he'd be able to get out of here but he could probably take those times as fact, for now. Devil's proof, or something; he couldn't prove that those weren't actually the times he needed to know right now so he'd take them as real. Jeremy was laying back in a chair, the bridge of his violin in his hands. It had a name, actually - Veronica - but he always forgot it until it was too late for him to call it that. Sort of a shame. There were jokes that he could make out of that. He could call it Veronica and the other dude would not know what the fuck he was talking about and then he could pretend to act pretentious and pretend that he called it by something else other than "his violin." Yeah, a shame. Sucked that he could never think up of good jokes until it was too late for him to say them.

But yeah. He was here. The grand return after two-to-three days of total absence. Well, what were those days absent spent doing, Jeremy? Were they spent doing the work you needed to do? Nope. That was already all done. Were they days spent doing anything productive? Nope. Going outside probably wasn't a great idea since he felt like he was going to fucking freeze if it wasn't a hundred degrees, and it wasn't like there was anything he could do in the house. Were they spent doing anything of worth? Nope. Not unless you counted playing video games and binge watching episodes of a TV show that exited the public consciousness 14 years ago as doing anything of worth. Wow, you really are a disappointment, Jeremy. Yeah. He knew.

But at least he was doing something now? Depends. He was kinda doing fuck all right now, to be honest. The performance night started in an hour, if the time he assumed above was to be taken seriously, but still, an hour. Not entirely spent practicing. Not entirely spent tuning. Not entirely spent worrying about whether he was going to sound good or not because there was no way he could get over any of those feelings. Just kinda spent sitting on a couch waiting for time to pass. Not exactly the best use of it, but hey. He could take it. The chair was kinda comfy, and it was cool seeing people again.

It'd be even cooler to talk to someone again, though.

That'd be nice.

They were kinda getting ready for their performances, though. Probably wouldn't be very nice to interrupt them.

Hmm…

This was a bit of a conflict.

He wasn't sure how he was going to solve this one.

[Ohm]

((Serena Waters: Memories start))

Typical performance day for the club, everyone getting ready and finding their seats, practicing or pretending to at least, there was an hour to it so not everyone was gonna sit down and wait the hour out. Serena herself had her cello ready. She practiced a bit with the strings, it sounded good. It always felt good to play music, whatever instrument she used, it felt like she was in her own soundscape, with the sounds of the cello filling the air, she could close her eyes and picture it for herself.

She stopped when she looked over and saw him laying back in his chair with the violin in his hands. Jeremy was a weird guy, saying and doing things that were funny to him, but maybe not translate that well to others. Even so Serena found he could be charming and nice in his own strange way, it's why they were friends after all.

They had an hour till the performance and they didn't have to spend the entire time practicing. A chat wouldn't be out of line. She stood up and walked over to him and waved with her left hand.

"Hey Jeremy, what's up?

[Yugikun]

A familiar shape, short and scrawny, waved as it through the crowd of people.

Conflict resolved.

"Hey, Serena," he said, as she drew closer to him. The syllable on the first word had been extended. It was a way of saying it familiar to him. Particularly so in this situation. Reason why?

Because Serena was a friend, y'see. They went back. They didn't actually go that far back but it was a friendship that had lasted for a fairly good while. Well, couple years, at the very least. He couldn't remember when exactly that morning was when he was playing third violin and got bored enough to start chatting with the girl playing cello next to him, but he was happy that morning happened. Serena was a certified cool person. A good friend of Jeremy's. Sure, she tended to hang with her own group and was more someone Jeremy tended to talk to in his nomadic travels around the school, but hey, they had their matching interests and she had her incredible talkativeness so all was good in that neighborhood.

And hey, she was the one who indoctrinated him into watching Survivor so he needed someone to blame for liking it. Also someone to talk it with. It'd probably be a lonely experience being the only one who watched it in the school. He couldn't blame her, really.

He also couldn't ignore her question. That was right. She was a friend of his and he'd be a rude dude if he ignored her.

"Not much," he said. "I‘ve sorta been living the dream the past few days."

Slight pause. For dramatic effect.

"Fever dream, that is. I've been a little bit out of it. Only reason I even came tonight was because I figured I'd get Grove'd if I didn't."

And there was the punchline. He hoped she liked it. She had a nice laugh. She sorta had a nice smile, as well. Hopefully she deemed him good enough to get one as a response. That would be nice.

"But yeah. I haven't been here past couple days. Anything happen in class while I was gone?"

[Ohm]

He drew out the hey when he saw her, he always did that with people he knew. He had these quirks with friends, They had known each other for years at this point, so it was hard not to notice. funny enough was one of the music classes that got them talking in the first place. And here they were, chatting before a performance. Just the way she liked it.

He made a joke regarding his absence, she laughed at that. It wasn't that particularly funny, but it was better than leaving him hanging. He then asked if anything happend while he was gone.

"Nothing much really...it's why it's good to see you back, things are less boring when you're around." She punctuated that with a smile, things tended to be more interesting when Jeremy was around, sure somtimes he'd say or do something that made it feel like they were in The Office or something like that, but he hit more than he missed, for her at least. She looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to them, didn't seem so.

"By the way, catched up on the last season?"

[Yugikun]

"Well, I guess it's a good thing to know that I'm the only source of entertainment in your dull, dull life."

There was a smile directed at him. He gave one right back. At least, he hoped he did. No real way of telling from his end. While he would have liked to smile back at Serena it was entirely possible that what he was doing was too subtle and that she wasn't seeing it from her end. Obvious answer was "have a bigger smile" but that wasn't really something he could do. When he smiled big it didn't look right, less him looking friendly and more him looking a combination of goofy/creepy/psychotic, which wasn't exactly the ideal facial expression to have when you were with a friend, especially a friend who was a person like Serena.

Although sometimes she could deserve it. Case in point: her bringing up memories of a sad time. Memories of him at his TV trying to hide his despair over his favourite being voted out. The emotions that followed, the…

Okay. Quick question. You guys have felt bitter about things before, right?

Like, something happens you don't like, and you get this annoyed feeling festering in you. The answer to that question was probably yes.

But have you ever felt that bitterness for unfair reasons? Like, yeah probably, but did you ever feel that bitterness when you yourself knew those feelings weren't exactly right to have?

And for the reason that you're feeling bitter in the first place - the root cause of the problem - isn't exactly right as well. Liking a thing for biased reasons, for example.

Whatever, this was stupid. Point Jeremy was getting at was when his favourite - Jeremy Collins - got voted out last night, Jeremy Frasier didn't exactly feel too happy. Like, he knew that theoretically it should have been a great ending. The top dog getting blindsided seemingly randomly. Yeah. That would have been something Jeremy loved.

Just sucked that his favourite happened to be the victim of it.

It was sort of hard to sum up all of these things to Serena, though.

Maybe he could do it in six words.

"Oh god, I'm still bitter as f- I'm still bitter over last episode's ending."

Maybe more.

Oopsies.

[Ohm]

A sly smile found it's way on her face as Jeremy mentioned last episode's ending. Jeremy had found one of the pitfalls of reality tv, one of your favorites getting targeted and taken out. Survivor in particular could be brutal about that, specially in the later seasons.

"Ah yes, the worst part about being a Survivor fan" A favorite of yours getting kicked always sucked, especially if you hoped they would get to the end. "Been through that myself when Malcom got voted out back in philippines, it sucks."

She could see that the questioned bothered him so she thought of the best way to hopefully lighten things up after that, and hell you never know. It could happen.

"He might come back for a later season?" They always brought back those from the seasons people rave about, even some of the unknowns got new shots that made them more known to people.   "They always do good in those."

[Yugikun]

He got another smile back. That was a bit of a conundrum for him. He knew that it was a smile from Serena directed directly at him and that it'd be extremely rude of him for him to not smile back. A smile was a nice thing, and he didn't tend get a lot of those in his life. Sometimes from Emma, and sometimes from Irene, but really those two and Serena were the only ones to give them to him. Well, that he noticed. Maybe there was a girl out there who really liked him or something and gave smiles whenever she saw him except he somehow didn't notice them at all but really, what were the chances of that happening? Point was, smiles were important, but if he gave one back would that cause an endless loop of smiles? He smiled so she smiled back so he smiled back at her and then she would have to smile back and it would be an endless feedback that neither of the two could stop.

There was only one solution to this.

He had to make her pout at him.

"Yeah. Poor Malcolm. He got taken out right before the end and now he has to deal with thousands of heartbroken teenage girls crying about how he got robbed."

He gave her a quick grin. Toothy. Not one he normally gave but one that just sorta came out. He imagined he got her.

"But yeah. He might come back. Really up to the producers to question whether he'd be entertaining enough but hopefully he will."

He leaned back on the couch.

Wait.

Huh.

She was still standing.

Maybe he'd do something about that?

"By the way, you can sit down if you like," he said, scooching himself over to the closest edge. "It's not really reserved for anybody."

[Ohm]

Sometimes it felt like Jeremy was deliberately trying to make her pout or frown at him, even with the goofy smile on his face as he started talking about Malcolm. So She did, Sure she was one of those sad at the time when he went out, but she was definitely was not one of those fans who cried when it happened. No siree.

"He definitely will. You've seen the way Probst looks at the guy. He loves those types of players." He really did, it was hard not to notice since he never shut up about them. Although Serena would grudgingly admit, many of them were good at the physical challenges. Malcolm was one of the rare ones good at the strategy part.

"Eh, that season wasn't that good anyway. It had Philip and that creepy Hantz guy after all." At least, that's how she thought of it. for a season named fans vs favorites, not a lot of favorites people would admit to liking in the slightest, least of all Philip.

She noticed that he'd scooted over for her to sit, which was nice. "Thanks" She said as she sat down and looked at him, serious in the face. "Seriously though, why Jeremy? Guy kind of spent the whole season acting like he was the only smart one there and was kinda whiny, you know?" He was one of those super fans of the show, which could make them a bit insufferable regarding certain aspects of it. She certainly felt that when watched that season. A coy smile came to her face as the follow up question came to her mind, a bit teasing. "It's not because you both have the same name, is it?"

[Yugikun]

"It…"

Drat.

She got him.

"It might be because of that, yeah."

And hey, it was hard for him to think up of a comeback. It was hard to come up with something witty when she had those eyes of her drilling straight into him. When she had that smile on her face that was speaking directly at him ‘I know I'm right, I know you've lost.' And hey, she was his friend. His buddy. His partner in the string ensemble. He had to lay off the sarcasm at some point. Act as if he was fallible.  That probably made him a better friend, or something. That probably made Serena like him a little more.

"To be honest Keith's better but hey, I gotta give support to my kin, y'know?"

And he laid back in his couch, pretty sure that he'd said all he'd wanted to.

Wait.

No.

One more thing.

"And yeah, Probst is… really into his alpha males. I saw that video you gave me - the one with Boston Rob in it. To be honest I'm a little surprised that Probst wasn't the one Rob married at the end of that season."