Survival Of The Fittest

[Johnny Ray McKay continued from Pizza Rats]

Johnny sat on the edge of the bed and peeled off the condom. He tied the end in a knot and tossed it towards the bin. It hit the edge with a sound like somebody stepping in a puddle, then landed on the carpeting.

From downstairs, the sounds of dance music and people shouting could still be heard.

He stood and stretched, then wandered into the bathroom. It was called an "en-suite" when a bathroom was attached to a bedroom, and it meant that a house was extra fancy. Johnny's bathroom was attached to his bedroom too, but it didn't have a special name when it occurred in a trailer. If he'd had to come up with a name for it, Johnny would have called it "get used to listening to people shit while you try to sleep."

There weren't any tissues but there was toilet paper on a dispenser, and he grabbed that and wiped himself off. Above the sink was a medicine cabinet, and he ran the taps to hide the noise while he had a look through it. There was Percocet, which wasn't a bad find. He took it down and placed it on the sink - he'd grab it later, when he had pockets.

His reflection stared back at him for a moment as he closed the cabinet. The eczema around his throat was very pink in the harsh fluorescence of the bathroom, and his teeth were shockingly yellow.

Johnny re-entered the bedroom and tossed the toilet paper onto the bed, next to her. She'd pulled a blanket over her crotch, but her breasts were still bare, and Johnny gave them an admiring look. She caught his eye but didn't cover herself, and he gave her a brief smile before turning away. His pants were on the floor and he squatted next to them, rummaging through the pockets for his cigarettes and a lighter.

He was doing whoever's room this was a favour by smoking in here, really. The room reeked of fuck.

The sheets, Johnny knew, were just revoltingly damp, so he opted to sit back down in a chair instead. His sweat almost seemed to adhere him to the leather. He lit a cigarette, then held the pack out to her.

((Caedyn Miller Continued From Screamer, Screamer, He's a Dreamer))

As long as she didn't look at him, this was pretty okay. Everything was fine. The sex had been fine, pretty average on her scale, and he wasn't being a dick about it, and nobody probably even caught them coming up here, so really it was an ideal hook-up. It was best not to think about it too hard, just let the afterglow soak in for a bit, grab her clothes, and get the fuck out of...whoever's house this was, she wasn't actually sure. It was a plan she was familiar with and had gotten out of worse situations with in the past. This was all gucci.

She made the mistake of looking over into the bathroom anyway. She shuddered at the sight of him, this dirty, dotted thing she'd been sharing a bed with for...some reason. Ja. Why did she fuck that? What was she thinking?

That wasn't a fair question. She knew what she was thinking: that he was bottom of the barrel white trash, and that this whole thing would probably really piss her parents off. What was the endgame there? It's not like she was going to tell them, or she was even going to make any effort to make sure rumors got out about it. What was she hoping would happen if they did? What, that her parents would finally be...disappointed in her? It was more complicated than that, it had to be, but it was fucked, this whole thing was fucked and she couldn't breathe. Okay, that was a dramatic lie, she could breathe, but it felt like she couldn't, at least a little bit.

God, she hoped no one walked in on them.

At least he was gracious enough to chuck her a roll of toilet paper to clean up. It was a shitty gesture but one plenty of guys couldn't even manage. That kind of made it worse, though. It felt normal, kinda casual, like this whole thing was just normal for both of them. They should be used to it, or at least could get that way. That made her shudder again. There was no way she wanted to project a vibe that this was anything but a one time thing.

His gaze pulled her out of her head. He wasn't subtle about leering at her tits while he smoked, but she didn't mind. That never made since to her actually, the whole getting shy and chaste about covering up after sex thing. She'd been with people who did it and it seemed kinda pointless after the fact. A blanket wasn't going to shield her from the gnawing sense of regret she was feeling, so let him look all he wanted. Her hand came up to wave away his offered cigarettes. "No thanks, I don't smoke." With that, she rolled out from under the sheets and wandered around the edge of the bed, half looking for her clothes and half prying into her surroundings for a distraction to keep her mind occupied. "Hey, so, this is probably gonna sound kinda weird, but like...do you know whose place this is?" Yeah. That was a good way to head. She could get this trainwreck off her mind if they were talking about something else.

It was only after lighting up that Johnny realized he had nothing to use as an ashtray. After their unknown hosts' generosity in leaving this bedroom unlocked and unoccupied it would have been profoundly ungrateful to ash all over their carpets, and so Johnny pulled the drawer on the nightstand open, so that he might ash into that instead.

There was a bible inside, and he took that out and placed it on the bed. Johnny strongly suspected that God didn't give a fuck whether you got cigarette ash on a bible or not, but there was no sense in risking it. Johnny tapped ash onto a copy of The Hobbit instead.

The look on Caedyn's face suggested she was less than impressed. It was an expression Johnny was used to, though in this case he felt a little wounded by it, as he thought his performance to have been fair. Then again, Johnny supposed, if one gave heed to even a fraction of the rumours circulating about her, Caedyn had sat on one put of every two cocks in Cochise. After all that, it probably took something pretty spectacular to impress her.

For his own part, Johnny had thought her to be fair. She was bony, particularly her hips, and then dug into him quite painfully at one point. The dreads he didn't care for either -  he liked his hands in a girl's hair - but other than that, she'd been enthusiastic and willing, and Johnny wasn't one to complain about a good thing.

There was an expression Johnny had heard used applied to himself: "a face only a mother could love". Frankly even his mother didn't seem all that impressed, so Johnny took what he could get, when he could get it.

Caedyn was looking to leave, and Johnny didn't object to that. He wasn't really one for marinating in postcoital juices. Caedyn bent over to pick up some clothes, and Johnny certainly didn't object to that. He felt a smile come to his face as he regarded her. Not too bad at all.

"What, this party ain't yours? Nah, I'm not exactly even invited, I don't think. Just got called on to swing by and drop off some... party favours, like. Weren't even plannin' on stayin' this long."

Johnny stretched out his legs, putting his feet on the bed, and tucked the hand without the cigarette behind his head.

"How's it ya don't know?"

Of course. That was the only way people like Johnny got anywhere, really: with an armful of drugs or booze or tits, whatever the people on the other side of the door needed. She was glad she was above that sort of thing...though what maybe in this case that didn't say anything as flattering as she'd like. At least someone hanging around him to get wasted got something out of it, while she got...ugh, this was a pain in the ass to think about. It could be handled later, when he wasn't sizing her up for round two.

"It's not my place," she snorted as she pulled on her skirt. "Like, I don't throw parties this dead? I was just like, blowing up with Snaps to get down here. I guess they thought I could save this disaster, but it's pretty much unsalvagable." It'd be a good idea to figure out whose place this before she left, though. There could be some great gossip later, or if there wasn't she could make some up. Either way was fine. There was something else to take care of before she left too, now that she thought about it. It had been gnawing at her ever since she'd caught a glance of it while they were tumbling around, and she had no clue how to handle this kind of thing...delicately.

"So, like, it's none of my business," she started slowly, pausing to pull on her shirt before she started up again. "But...is your boyfriend, uh, cool with all this," she finished as she patted her shoulder roughly where she thought his tattoo was. "No judgement or whatever, I just wanna know if I need to look out for somebody or keep this on the DL?" Or how much trouble she could cause spreading it around. He didn't need to know about that part, though.

"Hey, sorry the party ain't workin' out for ya. Your comin' down here certainly made my night if that's like, any consolation?"

The expression on Caedyn's face suggested that it was not.

Well, fuck it. His good time wasn't conditional on hers, and it wasn't like he had a reputation to protect, or like anyone really gave a shit what Caedyn Miller thought about anything. Johnny wouldn't even have replied to her dig about him being a boyfucker, except a tiny, terrified part of his brain wasn't quite sure she was joking.

She hadn't seemed drunk, Johnny was sure of that, but if Caedyn was drunk enough to not know who he was, that was bad. That was as fucking bad as bad could fucking be, and bad could be, as Johnny was well aware, pretty fucking bad. A little drunk was fine, sure. Without girls getting a little drunk Johnny would still be a virgin. Drunk enough to mistake who he was, though? A girl gets as drunk as that, and she wakes up the next day, and maybe she's not feeling so great about who was in her the night before, and she was drunk... shit, she could say anything.

Would people believe anything Caedyn said? Johnny envisioned himself in front of a cop, or a judge, or a jury, and knew that every one of them would. He could feel his heart begin to rush in his chest, and each breath came harder than the last. He felt like the room was enclosing in on him, the walls creeping imperceptibly closer. He had the sudden, insane urge just to go - to run out of here, clothes be damned, and be somewhere, anywhere else.

Johnny took a long, shaky drag on his cigarette. He was suddenly aware of how tall Caedyn was: six inches taller than him at least, and that couldn't fail to be a good thing. Nobody would look at the two of them and think he could overpower her.

Had anyone seen the two of them come up here together? Johnny didn't think so, but how could he be sure. He'd used a condom, thank God, and that would certainly be coming with him when he left, no way was he leaving that shit for the cops to find.

But she didn't seem drunk. There'd been mint on her breath, Johnny remembered, not alcohol. A hopeful voice in the back of his head grew ever louder, reassuring him that she was joking, that everything would be okay.

He took another drag on his cigarette and tried to arrange his face into an expression that didn't show how much he wanted to vomit.

"You, uhh, you know I'm not that Johnny, right? The other Johnny's the gay one. I'm straight Johnny. Johnny Ray, not Johnny gay, yeah?"

Even to his own ears his voice sounded weak and pitiful, and he was struck by sudden and uncharacteristic self consciousness. Johnny folded his legs at the knee.

Caedyn froze up for a moment, just staring at him. If that little comment didn't drive the point in nice and deep, nothing would. The half-assed "gay for Jason" tattoo on his shoulder wasn't a tip off at all, she was just too dumb to remember whose dick she was riding on. So that's what he thought of her. Oh, her conscience was going to have a field day with this.

"Yeah. Sure. I get it." Her left eye twitched a little as she smiled. "Silly me, right? I can't be expected to keep track of who you are." She wasn't sure when she started walking towards him, just that she was up and towering over him now, getting closer and closer with that grin pasted on her face. "I'm just some stupid whore, no idea who I'm hopping in bed with! Thanks for putting it in a cutesy sing-song rhyme so I could keep it straight!"

If he tried to answer, she didn't even pay attention. All of her own confusion and disappointment was able to roll into one big, angry ball, and it was aimed right at him. She leaned forward into his face with her arms crossed over her chest. "I know exactly who the you are, Johnny Ray," she hissed through clenched teeth. "You are a bottom of the barrel, trailer trash pity lay. Made your night? If you're gonna try to to flatter, at least be accurate. I made your year, maybe your whole fucking life." With that, she rolled her eyes and gave him a dismissive wave while she turned away. "So congratulations. I guess you've made sure I'll remember tonight too."

She didn't even look at him as she went back to looking for her shoes.

Understanding washed over Johnny in a wave. The mixture of relief, of confusion and of amazement at the bizarreness of her behaviour was so potent it was all he could do not to burst out laughing. Caedyn wasn't drunk at all. Caedyn was just fucking crazy.

"Hey, I'm not the one bein' an asshole here, Caedyn. Y'know, I didn't choose to be me, yeah? You chose tofuck me, so which one of us is the fuckup? And made my year?"

Johnny spat onto the carpet.

"I hate to be the one to break it to ya sweetheart, but ya ain't exactly the ride of a century. I mean who the fuck do ya think you are? Like your fuckin, wigger', beanpole, overused ass is so fuckin' great. Like you're such a fuckin' superstar and I should be lucky just to kiss your goddamn boots or somethin', is that it?"

The cigarette sat forgotten between his fingers, ash climbing along its length. Johnny's other hand rubbed the back of his neck.

"I mean, take a look in the fucking. mirror. Like seriously, take a fuckin' look. I mean I'm a trailer trash piece of shit, yeah, and even I think you're pretty tough goin'."

He'd heard stories about Caedyn, of course. That she was psycho, that she was bitch. The hair was a clue that something was up, of course, but there wasn't a girl in school, he didn't think, who he hadn't heard someone call psycho at least once. In reality though... shit, she was something else. Psycho didn't cover the half of it, not even close.

"And how the fuck am I meant to take it, when you're callin' me a fag? I mean excuse me for thinkin' you were actually confused and not just like, being a fuckin' bitch for no reason. Jesus Christ Caedyn, I mean fuckin' really?"

The image of her hurling his clothes out the window swam into his head, and Johnny put one foot on his jeans, just in case. God, nothing could just be fun, could it? Everyone always had to obsess about what things meant, where things were going, how this would affect their GPA and what their psychic would have to say about that.

Christ, what a fucking nightmare this evening had turned into.
 

Uuuuugh. His rambling was distracting her, as evidenced by the fact that she was technically fully clothed...yet there her bra was lying on the floor. Fuck. Her panties were probably around here somewhere too, as were her leggings. Maybe she'd find them, maybe she wouldn't, it didn't matter. At this point, she mostly just wanted to get out. Go home, post some angry memes, maybe gossip with a friend or two about the shitty night. If he even deserved that much, maybe she shouldn't even acknowledge him. That might bother his clingy, desperate ass even more.

There wasn't much in his whole tirade that stood out to her, it was the usual stuff people tried to hold over her head. Nothing her head wasn't already shouting, and it's not like his opinion actually mattered that much. He'd gotten under her skin once. Once. She wasn't giving him another opportunity. From now on, everything was white noise. Or, more fittingly, white trash noise.

Oooh, she liked that. That was going in a tweet later.

One thing did jump out to her though. Was he really that dense that he thought she just randomly assumed he was gay? How drunk or high or whatever was he that he forgot about his own tattoo? God, this mistake had so many layers to it. She gifted him with one more look, arching her eyebrow up as she reached back to pat over her shoulder once more. "Your tattoo, dumbass." She let the words hang in the air for a moment. "If you don't want people to know you're a 'fag,' " she spat with a disapproving glare over the slur, "Maybe don't advertise it? I know you can't read, but most of us can."

Johnny was briefly speechless.

What was wrong with his tattoo? He supposed it was infected, and it was swollen, and it was borderline unreadable - all in all quite a lot was wrong, actually - but it certainly wasn't gay. He hadn't really intended to get ink done, when he'd headed down to the park a few days ago to watch people play with the tattoo gun. As soon as he'd mentioned the possibility to Caleb, though, the idea had been impossible to get rid of, like a splinter under his skin.

He didn't want a cross or a Jesus fish though, no way was he gonna get that cliche crap on him forever, but getting something to do with God still really appealed. So it came to be that "yay for jesus" was scrawled across the back of his left shoulder. His hand went to it now, and he winced as his fingers brushed across the tender, raised skin.

What the fuck was gay about liking Jesus?

He didn't say anything, though. If Caedyn wanted to go to hell that was her business, and anything he might say on the matter would certainly not be listened to her in this state. Instead he finished his cigarette, stubbed it out on the dresser and mumbled to himself.

"...I can read..."

He noticed Caedyn's bra lying by the foot of the chair and tossed it to her, left-handed.

Few things are as unwise in nature as agitating an emotional Cassowary, especially when prey has already escaped it once. The task of evading the cassowary's wrath is already a considerable challenge, and any living creature could consider itself lucky to get away with its life after such an encounter. A wise creature, with its will to survive, thrive, and procreate another day in mind, would flee in the opposite direction as fast and far as its appendages can carry it.

The rare Pink-Spotted White Trash was not such a creature. It had left itself vulnerable; its flesh was still exposed from the brief attempt at mating, its guard lowered by evidence of its sullen chortle upon retreat. While the Cassowary rarely tolerated weakness, such a meager display could be forgiven with higher priorities in sight. The search for higher ground and the company of its flock held its attention. In most instances, the Pink-Spotted White Trash would have been free.

Its mistake came with defiantly chucking the Cassowary's discarded plumage into its face. That was an offense that could not be forgiven.

---

The bra caught Caedyn in the forehead. She wasn't paying enough attention to catch it. For a couple moments, she just stood there blinking in shock. Then her faced turned into a scowl. She caught his sight line and clenched her hands together into tight fists. "God, you're a fucking child!" How dare he? How dare he? Where did he get the balls to pout and sulk like he was the victim here? Typical. Just...typical. Everybody acting like a bunch of whiny little brats and blaming her for their stupid hurt feelings. She should have been used to it, but this? This was a new low, on so many levels.

God this was fucked up. So fucked up. How did she let herself get here? Nobody had ever suffered more than her in this moment. The only positive side of this is that it'd make a great story for her followers later. Fucking men, right? She was done with this bullshit for awhile. Like, at least a week.

Caedyn reached down and picked up her bra, stuffing it angrily in her bag without taking her eyes off of him. "I bet you're cheating on this Jason guy, and I hope he catches you. Just..." She let out an exasperated huff. "If you're so guilty you can't even admit to it despite having a fucking disgusting tattoo with his name on it, don't cheat. Duh. Sort your shit out." Her gaze stayed on him for a few more seconds, before her body relaxed into a resigned slouch. "Fucking baldheads," she muttered as she slung her bag over her shoulder, and turned to leave.

((Raina Rose continued from Morning Dew))

Oh gooood what was she doing here, this was supposed to be a no-alcohol function, who was the genius that had brought drinks, her parents were going to be pissed.

Raina was a little bit drunk and wasn't supposed to be, was the point here.

It was cool, though. It was all cool. She was just gonna head upstairs and sleep it off and y'know, anybody who got mad at her for just napping in their house without asking permission could have it out with whoever had brought the ber. Ber. Beer.

Whose house was she at, again?

Didn't matter. This looked like a bedroom door, naptime here we come-

And then Raina opened the door and came face to face with horrors beyond her imagination.

She didn't scream, or didn't think she did, at least. Said unfathomable horrors in the bedroom had paralyzed her.

But, like, what the fuck okay, Caedyn was just standing there with a bra half-hanging out of her bag and- were those her panties on the floor? Why were they still on the floor if she was otherwise dressed? Was she going to just let Johnny keep them? Gross, gross, gross, Raina didn't even know who to call out in disgust first over that or the fact, that y'know, Johnny was still naked and had hastily covered himself with a Bible when she opened the door and the room stank of cigarettes, and the knowledge that she'd personally encountered someone who had just fucked either Caedyn or Johnny was bad enough but both of them? Together?

Fear for your lives, for the White Trashpocalypse is upon us all.

You know what, she actually needed more alcohol right now. Lots more.

So Raina just backpedaled out of the room without saying anything (though she did make a noise that would have been amusing in another situation, rather like all the air escaping from a tire) and slammed the door behind her.

((Raina Rose continued in Dismantle, Repair))

Fucking.

Baldheads.

Caedyn was so done with this. Someone had seen them. Ja, now she had to jump on the situation even faster to spin things her way. It'd be a whole thing. She'd have to get in touch with just, so many people, get so many balls rolling, fucking...

This was a disaster. This was worse than Bradley.

She didn't even look at him as she stormed out of the room. If any of her stuff was still in there she'd just replace it later. None of it mattered.

She had work to do.

((Caedyn Miller Continued Elsewhere))

Johnny let the bible fall from his hands, and it hit the carpet with barely a sound. He felt his heart fall with it.

Shame was something of a foreign emotion to Johnny, and it was not one that he was enjoying. It was rare for him to regret anything, but now he couldn't feel anything other than disgust for the encounter he'd just had.

It was Raina's face, he thought. Seeing how he looked through her eyes, seeing how much that had revolted her, it had just been too much. Why'd it had to've been Raina, of all people? Anyone else he could've dealt with. His friends disapproved: who gave a shit? His mom caught him: yeah, shit yeah, bring it on! Raina, though, seeing the repulsion in those eyes that he'd seen real, actual caring in once... it had hurt. It still hurt.

If there'd been anything there, even the chance of there being anything there, Johnny'd torpedoed it, and for what? Some cheap ride with a wigger psycho? Raina'd looked at him like he was special, once. Now she'd looked at him just like everyone else.

With limbs that felt like lead, he stood and dressed himself. His T shirt was on back-to-front, he realized after putting it on, but he left it, and just pulled the zipper on his hoodie all the way up to his collar, instead. Good enough.

There was still a distinct aroma of smoke and of fuck in the room, and Johnny pushed both of the windows as wide as they could go. Caedyn's underwear, he noticed, was still lying in the middle of the floor, and using his foot Johnny flicked it out of the window. After a moment's thought he took the toilet paper and the condom and tossed them out too. If he was disposing of evidence, there was no sense in going halfway about it.

Johnny went into the bathroom and splashed water on his face. He looked like shit, but what was new?

He pocketed the Percocet as he left.

[Johnny Ray McKay continued elsewhere]