Survival Of The Fittest

((Trinity Ashmore continued from Searching For America's Next Annabelle))

It was lunchtime at John Endecott Memorial Academy, and as far as Trinity was concerned, that was nothing more than the perfect opportunity to continue working on one of her many projects. After all, in her universe, any moment not spent doing something productive was time wasted and frittered away.

Oh, there were exceptions of course, there was an exception and a half to every rule on the planet. She wouldn’t have traded any time spent with her family for the world, nor the opportunities she got to hang out with her friends whenever her schedule allowed. And, though she would if she were able, you couldn’t just work nonstop on any one thing for the entirety of the day. Your brain turned to mush and nothing on the manuscript or cloth or notation paper made a lick of sense anymore. It was important to either switch things up, to spend time on one project before moving to the next, or to have carefully planned out power naps or drinks breaks or walks to get some fresh air.

Well, that was the theory, anyway. In practice, if there was something Trinity wanted completed by the end of any given day, then she was going to get it done, come hell or high water, breaks be damned. She’d planned to finish off her math homework and to get the first half of her review of Tenet squared away the previous evening, and she’d accomplished both tasks, even though the latter could probably have been summed up with ‘Decidedly forgettable in every possible way’.

The issue was, they’d both taken a lot longer than she’d predicted they would, eating up a couple extra hours of her time, and she’d ended up falling asleep at around 3am, if her phone was to be trusted. Not a huge deal by itself, but factoring in that this had been her third early morning slumber in a row, and, well…

Today was proving a struggle, to put things mildly. She’d almost fallen asleep in the shower this morning, and she had been constantly pinching herself during her classes to make sure she kept focused. She had been hoping that this break from classwork would have allowed her to mentally shift gears and get back into the zone, with her attention now on her new needlework project; an embroidery pattern that she had found online, designed to replicate Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.

It hadn’t exactly worked out that way, unfortunately. She’d already pricked herself twice with the needle.

A thermos filled with coffee and a tupperware box filled with pasta salad sat on the wooden table next to her embroidery kit. The thermos was half empty; the salad had only a solitary bite taken from it, Trinity’s fork sticking out of the top at a jaunty 45-degree angle. Her iPod - an ancient Nano that her cousin had handed off to her, and filled with a mix of film soundtracks, TV opening themes, and then a handful of Franz Ferdinand and Against Me! songs - lay in between the two food containers, her earbuds tightly wrapped around it. It was pleasantly quiet today, with only the occasional burst of chatter or clomping of feet from the corridor interrupting this placidity. Sometimes, when it got particularly raucous outside, she would have to plug herself in and block out the rest of the world, just so she could focus, but she hadn’t needed to do that today.

Not yet, anyway.

Trinity stifled a yawn, and blinked some of the sleep away, just in time to realise that she was about to stab the needle into the completely wrong area of the fabric. Her stomach growled at her, reminding her of exactly what time it was, and of the sustenance that was just an arm’s reach away.

She ignored the sensation, her eyes boring holes through the fabric and into the table underneath, and carried on working in silence.

The peace and quiet enveloping Trinity was shattered by the workshop's door flying open with such force that it rebounded off the door stopper and bounced right back onto the person that had opened it.

"I'M HAVING AN EMERGENCY- ah shit!"

Taylor Thorne: Pregame Start

Taylor shoved the door open again, alternating between rubbing their stinging elbow where the door had hit them and the nice new wet spot on the center of their shirt where the door hitting said elbow had caused them to spill a portion of their open can of MONSTER ENERGY MONARCH™® (patent-not-pending because it was already patented bitches!!) onto their front.

"Ow. Damn." They'd thrown the door open that forcefully in the first place because they had expected it to take more effort. The need for effort was because, as previously stated, Tay was having an emergency. That being the sewing project for theater class which they had kind-of-sort-of-totally forgotten was due, um, yesterday. Ms. Bardugo knew they were full of it when they claimed that they'd left it at home two days in a row, so it didn't really matter if what they threw together was the worst piece of cloth to ever assault the eyes. They just had to have something because a C was better than an F in every way, shape, and form including physical.

Taylor just had a tendency to get overwhelmed when trying to start a project under pressure, so they'd decided to find some help, and come on, what better way to seek help than to barge into a room yelling for it? Worked every time. Or at least they would be able to say that it worked every time if this time worked out, because this was the first time they had gone for that particular approach with a class project.

Hey, somebody was in here sewing! Jackpot!!

"Hey!" Taylor echoed their thoughts, winding their way haphazardly through the workshop equipment to get to Trinity's side, threatening to spill more Monster at every turn. "Trinity, hey, can you help me?"

... and that was the end of Derek's peaceful lunchbreak.

((Derek Caldwell: Pregame Start))

To be honest, he didn't have any business in the workshop. Sure, there was a half-finished wood-figurine standing before him, but this was just something another student had forgotten to put away. A decoy, so he could pretend to work on something if a teacher came too close. In reality, Derek was eating his lunchbox here because the cafeteria was too noisy. He liked to hear loud music, but Dozens Of Clamorous Teens would never be among his favorit bands. The workshop, on the other hand, was mostly visited by students wanting to concentrate on their work. At least during lunchbreak. The hours after classes were another matter, but by then Derek would already be on the way to his part-time job.

And therefore, Derek had spent lunchtime so far with gulping down his selfmade sandwich with small but fast bites, taking a sip of water now and then. Not the most glamorous meal, but one that didn't hurt his wallet.

When the door flew open, Derek instinctively looked in the direction of the noise. He identified the perpetrator as Taylor Thorne, a fellow classmate. And that was where their relation ended. Which was totally fine with Derek. He would have managed his life without Taylor upgrading to "classmate who once interrupted my peaceful lunchbreak".

All of this was obviously lost on Taylor as they started their trek to- wait, why were they approaching Derek?

Oh. They just wanted to talk to the girl on the table next to him. Not his problem.

At least as long as they toned it down a bit and finished their business quickly.

Oh, what in the actual fuck was this?

She knew it, she goddamn knew it was too good to be true. This was the quietest the art department had been for weeks and she had thought, the moment she’d sat down, that it was almost suspiciously silent, that surely the peaceful veil draped delicately over the workshop couldn’t last all through lunchtime. But nooo, she’d pulled the chair in anyway, and taken all her sewing supplies out of her bag, and gotten so wrapped up in her work and the fog of sleep that she’d almost totally convinced herself that she’d be able to go through all of lunch uninterrupted.

And now, here she goddamn was, being aurally assaulted by this… caffeine-scented nightmare in neon and black.

Trinity yelped in shock as the door clattered against the wall and Taylor yelled at the top of their lungs - how on earth had the shout of pain when it slammed back into them been the quieter of the two? - and fumbled with the fabric and thread in her hands, jabbing the needle into her thumb.

“Ow, fuck,” she hissed, shaking her hand as the pain lanced through it, before shoving her thumb into her mouth and watching as Taylor weaved their way towards her, the copper taste of her own blood hitting her tongue. Y’know, she really hadn’t had a problem with Taylor up until this moment. Admittedly, that was because their interactions prior to today could be counted on one hand, so she hadn’t experienced their complete lack of an ‘Off’ switch until now, but the point still stood.

Now, though, she was pretty sure she was developing a goddamn migraine from their presence alone, the overwhelming stench of their energy drink filling her nostrils and their voice drilling a hole into her skull. She put her embroidery down, forcefully, and glared up at Taylor, trying to make it very evident that she was not in a good mood right now, an effect somewhat dampened by the dark bags hanging under her eyes.

… Hang on. She blinked a few times, and adjusted her glasses. Had there always been a boy sitting at the table next to her? She couldn’t remember anybody else entering the room aside from Taylor, and she was pretty sure she’d sat as far away from anybody else as possible. She had, right? Oh, christ. Had she really been so befuddled with sleep that she hadn’t noticed him until now? Well, fuck, that was cause for concern. Okay, once she was done with whatever the hell Taylor needed, she would very quickly check her schedule to see whether she had room to slot in a longer-than-usual nap after school.

“What do you need?” Trinity asked, eyeing the peach-coloured can in Taylor’s hand warily.

Taylor brightened at Trinity's response; she looked disgruntled, probably at the interruption, but it was fine, it would be fine. She was already sewing, so it wasn't even really an interruption at all, if you looked at things a certain way. "Here, uh- ah, hang on-" Taylor shifted their shoulder bag so that they could dig around in it with the hand that wasn't occupied with a Monster can. The contents of the can sloshed dangerously throughout the balancing act, but they managed to fish out a bundle of cloth and some crumpled instructions without too much incident.

"You're good at sewing, right, and I need help with... this thing." Tay dropped everything they had retrieved onto the table in front of Trinity.

"I think it's like... fruit? Fake fruit? For like... stylistic purposes, you know? There's going to be a bowl of fruit on a table in some scenes, and I guess plastic fake fruit didn't have the right vibe. I gotta make a bunch of fake little apples and shit out of these things, and I don't really know where to start." They gestured at the squares of fabric they'd deposited, once again making the Monster in the can swish around threateningly.

Taylor paused to take a long sip of their drink. "Also it was due yesterday, so like, I really need to get some of it done at least before Ms. Bardugo kills me."

The girl next to Derek threw a confused look at him, as if she had just noticed his presence. To be fair, she had seemed pretty engrossed in her work and Derek had said nothing when sitting down.

Meanwhile, Taylor had reached their table and started a barely coherent explanation about a task they wanted the girl to do. A few rags were brought forward and strewn across the table. Derek moved the wooden figuren away a bit, not wanting it to be damaged in any way.

Apart from that, he saw no reason to interfere. It wasn't his business.

While raising his sandwich once more, he hoped that the two would finish their business fast and without further commotion.

Oh, Christ, it was even worse than she’d first thought.

Trinity’s eyes were locked on the can of Monster as Taylor rummaged through their bag, the liquid inside noisily churning about, sounding for all the world like a goddamn tsunami inside its little metal prison; she was absolutely certain she saw a few drops of the lurid orange '''drink''' spill out of the lip of the can and catch on the rim. She couldn’t read the entire text printed on the side, but what she did catch was absolutely meaningless garbage, a whole batch of inane buzzwords to show that their heart attack inducing elixir was better than their competitors.

She quickly grabbed her lunch and iPod, and shifted them to one side with a disgruntled huff as Taylor dumped their own sewing supplies onto the table, with all the grace of a high-diving hippopotamus. There were several batches of cloth in bright greens and earthy reds, nestled alongside Trinity’s spools of thread, and a crumpled piece of paper that looked like it hadn’t left Taylor’s bag for a whole year.

And then, as they gave their explanation for what exactly this ‘emergency’ was, Trinity could only stare up at them, mouth hanging open in disbelief. She blinked once. Her left eye twitched, and she couldn’t tell whether it was due to the sleep deprivation, or the growing desire to throttle Taylor where they stood.

“Okay. Okay, let me make sure I’ve got this right,” Trinity said, speaking slowly, pressing the fingers of her right hand into her temple. “You’ve dumped an overdue assignment in front of me, an assignment you haven’t even started yet, and you… want me to do the whole thing for you? Is that it?”

Her voice had, mysteriously, shockingly, gone up an octave as she uttered that final sentence. She shot another glance towards the boy sitting at the other table, blissfully eating his lunch without a care in the world. Her lips mouthed the words ‘What the fuck’, her eyes screamed ‘Jesus fucking Christ help me out here’.

“Also, could you please, please keep a better hold on your…… drink?”

"Wh- wait no, nonono," Taylor said quickly, as Trinity's recounting of their request made them realize just how it had sounded. "I don't want you to do it for me, I- sorry, that sounded bad, didn't it? That's not what I meant." They stumbled over their words, apology and explanation getting scrambled together.

They scratched at their head with their free hand, rifling their fingers through their hair and making it stand up a bit on one side. Just as quickly, they smoothed it back down. "I just don't really... know where to start? Like, I've tried, and I just kind of get all the stuff out and stare at it, and my brain goes aaaaaaaaaa. You've had that happen, right?"

Maybe not, since Trinity seemed more put-together on a bad day than Tay was on their best days, but come on, everyone had moments where their brain just yelled at them and refused to cooperate sometimes, right?

And okay, if they had been actually close with Trinity, they might have just asked to copy her homework or something if this was a worksheet and not a practical project. But that's not the same as having someone actually do it for you, so there!

"But, uh, you sew a lot, right, and you're here now! So I was wondering if you'd be able to help me figure out how to just get started." Taylor grinned sheepishly at Trinity as they finished their haphazard clarification, leaning forward in earnest before they finally processed the last part of what she had said and clutched at their drink with a bit more force than necessary, making the can crinkle.

They glanced over their shoulder at the guy Trinity kept also looking towards, but he didn't seem to be doing anything. Had he been bothering her before Taylor got here? They had been in such a rush to get into the workshop and announce their emergency to whoever was around that they hadn't taken stock of what was already going on inside. It was kind of rude if he'd been annoying Trinity while she was just minding her own business. Maybe it was a good thing that Tay had interrupted.

Just as Derek had resumed his lunch, he felt stares drilling into him. A look to the side told him that Taylor was giving him the stink-eye for some reason, as if him being here was unacceptable.

Okay, that's it. Looked like they wouldn't leave him in peace. And he was too stubborn to admit defeat by standing up and going away. So it was time get involved.

Gulping down a big piece of sandwich, Derek made a 90-degree-turn on his chair so he faced the two.

"Got a problem?"

The sound of Taylor’s can crumpling within their unnecessarily vice-like grip was enough to make Trinity flinch backwards, instinctively shoving her sewing either further to the other side of the table, visions of it becoming soaked and sodden in vile-tasting energy drink filling her mind. It was just another stab of irritation straight to the skull that this conversation had handed her, all of them building up to give her a burgeoning migraine where she sat.

At least Taylor’s intentions weren’t as bad as she’d first thought, now that they’d actually, properly explained themselves. She had no qualms with assisting others with their schoolwork, far from it in fact, particularly when it was in a subject that she truly excelled at. Sewing just so happened to be one of those subjects. So, yes, it made perfect sense that Taylor would have asked her specifically for help.

But, and this was still the most key and the most vital point in this whole charade; she had very clearly been working on something when Taylor had barged in. The goddamn needle had been in her hand, for Christ’s sake! Sure, she had been working on her own personal project rather than one for school, but what if that hadn’t been the case? What if she had been working on an incredible vital assignment that was due that very same day? It just seemed incredibly rude to Trinity, to have someone burst in uninvited and effectively demand that she help out with something. Honestly, it was quite lucky that she hadn’t been working on anything more urgent, all things considered; Taylor might have found themselves with a thermos of boiling hot coffee being launched their way if they’d disturbed her then.

At least this boy - Derek, if she was remembering correctly - had picked up on her silent cries for help now. Trinity shifted in her seat so that she could look past Taylor’s body at him, keeping them both in her frame of view, ready to leap into action if a Monster tidal wave was threatening to loom on the horizon.

“It’s just that…”

She sucked air in through her teeth, speaking very slowly and deliberately, trying to make sure that her words remained as civil and diplomatic as possible.

“... I am really, really busy right now. Like, I only have so much time to spend on my own stuff. Lunch is pretty much half over at this point.”

It wasn’t exactly a falsehood, either. Maybe it was skimming the edges of being a little white lie, but she had only given herself this lunch period to get started on her embroidery, and she’d also made a personal goal to get a quarter of it done, a goal that she certainly hadn’t achieved just yet.

“Plus I still need to actually eat before class.”

That was definitely true. Her stomach gave a low growl to reinforce this fact. She elected to leave off that the pasta salad had been right at the very bottom of her list of priorities until this very moment.

Oh, so creeper dude had apparently taken Taylor's look over in his direction as an invitation. Or a challenge? Either way, he'd butted in like he was ready to square up, which was so not what Tay had wanted him to do.

"What- no, there's no problem. We're just talking." Tay swiveled around to face the guy, not fully turning their back on Trinity, but somewhat situating themselves between him and her. They couldn't fully stop their disgruntle...tude? Disgruntlement? Now that didn't sound like a real word. Disgruntled-ness. Whatever. Taylor was disgruntled at the interruption, because Trinity was kind of telling them something important!

"Right, yeah, no, that... that makes sense," they said sidelong to Trinity as she patiently explained herself, trailing off into a mumble as they remembered that oh yeah, people usually ate during lunch. The open container of pasta salad could have been a clue.

In Taylor's defense, Trinity hadn't been eating it when they came in and hadn't touched it this whole time, but maybe she tended to forget she had food when she was doing something else. Happened to them all the time!

Trinity's stomach piped up at this point, and Taylor laughed before they could stop themselves. "Sorry, sorry-" They covered their mouth with one hand, as though to force the laugh back down, until they recovered their composure. "Yeah, you should eat. I can... do this in my free period or something, it's fine." Now that the initial rush of panic-adrenaline had started to fade, Tay actually wasn't feeling, like, too fussed about the project? Sure, it was late, but they had turned in late work before. They didn't think anyone was really going to pay close enough attention to a bunch of fabric apples on a table in a play to know they'd been kind of half-assed.

They rubbed the back of their neck sheepishly. "Sorry to bug you, I was kind of freaking out, I guess, and I didn't really- yeah. Lunch is gonna be over pretty soon. Is it cool if I leave this stuff here? I mean, I'll get it out of your way, obviously, I just don't really know if there's rules and stuff about that. But if it's here, I'll remember to come back for it." Probably. They would probably remember.

Without waiting for confirmation, Taylor leaned in again and started to sweep their haphazard pile of supplies over to the opposite side of the table from where Trinity was sitting. "Are you cool with him, by the way?" They asked, dropping their voice so hopefully only she could hear. "He's got kind of a vibe."

So it appeared that his contribution to the conversation had failed miserably. No problem, he had barely any stakes in this.

Thankfully, the still nameless girl (maybe Taylor had said her name at the start, but Derek had tried to tune them out back then) turned out to have a much longer fuse than him and calmy explained her reasons for denying the request, which actually made Taylor back off a bit.

And then the girl's stomach growled. If it was on purpose, it was excellent acting. If it was on accident, it was perfect comedic timing. Either way, it punctuated the girl's argument of still having to eat. Something Derek had done for quite a while now. His first sandwich was finished, so he took out his second.

Taylor now pedalled back by downplaying her "emergency", completely contradicting the big fuss they had made before. If it was nothing serious, why did they storm into the room like the world was ending? Or maybe that had just been an act to get the girl to agree to something in a hurry. Derek didn't knew Taylor good enough to judge their intentions.

But he also didn't care much right now. Seeing no further reason to interfere in the scene that appeared to reach the finishing line, he raised his new sandwich in the direction of his mouth while beginning to retake his earlier seating position.

However, he did catch Taylor mumbling something to the girl in secret.

Oh, thank the Lord, it seemed as though things were finally, finally promising to settle down.

Trinity had been half-convinced - actually, to be more accurate, she was three-quarters-convinced - that Taylor would be the sort of persistently insistent person that just wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, and would keep on badgering her to help until either her resistance or her patience snapped. She had been gritting her teeth, preparing for this lunch break to go from irritating to absolutely infuriating, but miracle of miracles, Taylor had backed off and apologised for ‘bugging’ her - which was a little like describing a hurricane as a strong gust of wind, but whatever. The apology existing was the most important thing.

Not that it meant that everything was suddenly fine and dandy, of course. She had thought earlier that Taylor was being particularly rude, barging in the way that they had, and them laughing at the sound rumbling from Trinity’s stomach had only reinforced that impression, their attempt at an apology and at stifling their mirth be damned. And moving their stuff over to the other side of the table like that, spread out like they owned the place? Once again, they were fortunate only by circumstance; Trinity was almost certain that there wasn’t a post-lunch class being held in this room. If there had been, then it was highly likely that their project, if you could call something that hadn’t even been started a ‘project’, would have been filed away in storage bins, or worse, discarded entirely.

Ugh. Whatever. Whatever! Taylor’s stupid project wasn’t her problem anymore, and soon they would be out of her hair entirely. Derek had clearly also read the room, and realised that everything was getting settled without him, and had gone back to the much more important matter of his sandwich. So Trinity muttered out a “Don’t worry about it”, and gently moved her own fabric to the side, replacing it with her pasta salad; this interruption was as good a time as any for a food break, she supposed. No need to escalate this whole thing any further.

This, of course, of course, was not a point that Taylor evidently agreed with.

Trinity frowned as Taylor leaned in, muttering their doubts about Derek under their breath. He had a ’vibe’? What ‘vibe’? The guy was eating a sandwich, for Pete’s sake, what sort of vibe did that suggest? The vibe of someone who was hungry? How absolutely fucking horrifying!

“What? No,” she replied, trying to keep her voice as low as Taylor’s, but unable to prevent the edge of frustration creeping in at the edge of her words, raising the volume unwillingly. “I mean, yes, I… He’s fine, okay? He’s literally just sitting there.”

Huh, Trinity seemed kind of on edge all of a sudden. It made the mile-a-minute pace of Taylor's brain slow down for just long enough to consider that things were not necessarily actually fine, and yeah okay, that was probably the case? That usually seemed to be the case when people insisted so forcefully that things were fine. Sometimes being asked if stuff was okay made them more irritated, too, and that might be the case with Trinity.

The problem was, uh. Tay wasn't entirely sure which part of the whole situation was keeping Trinity in Not Fine status. Sandwich guy was indeed just sitting there now, so if Trinity wanted to let him be, it didn't seem like a good idea to keep pushing the issue. Maybe the hangry had just hit her all at once.

"Alright, yeah, okay, just checking," Tay mumbled to her as they finished scooting all of their stuff away from her work space. "Glad it's cool." Except that it seemed like it kind of wasn't cool, but pushing the envelope also didn't seem like a good idea. "I guess I'm gonna get going now, uh, have a good lunch and stuff? I'll figure everything out later. Thanks for helping me sort that out!" Taylor made a vague, exaggerated shrug-like gesture to signify that things were all hunky-dory in Taylor Land and-

Okay. Okay. Record scratch, freeze frame, rewind.

Where were Taylor's hands?

Thrown up near their shoulders, okay, cool.

Where was the can that was just in one of their hands?

Time sure did slow down during a disaster, huh.

Tay turned over their shoulder just enough to confirm that yes, they had loosened their grip just enough to fling the can behind themselves when throwing their arms up, and yes, it looked like they had slung the remaining Monster sloshing around inside it onto the back of sandwich guy's shirt in doing so.

"I gotta go," Taylor blurted out, and then they spun around and all but sprinted out of the workshop. The door didn't even hit them on the way out this time.

((Taylor Thorne continued elsewhere))

The attack hit Derek completely unexpected. He had no chance to dodge.

S001 Derek Caldwell's Shirt - Deceased (soaked)

What saved Derek's day was the fact that he had pile of spare clothing in his locker. Since the place he called home was not always the secure environment that a home should be, he was prepared in case he and Abel needed to crash somewhere else for a night or two.

What almost ruined his day was the sandwich piece that he was eating. The sudden cold enveloping his back caused him to twitch hard enough for said piece to be launched down his throat.

And right into the trachea.

Derek had barely time to register what had transpired before he started chocking hard. He punched himself in the abdomen and tried to get a breath in, but the piece possessed the perfect form to hold still.

Another, stronger hit followed. And failed as well to do anything.

Tears were starting to form in his eyes as precious seconds passed. He tried to barf, but it was useless.

He needed to find someone. His vision blurry, Derek attempted to raise from his chair.

Raising from chairs is hard to do when you are running low on oxygen, and therefore he lost balance and face-planted on the ground, still chocking.