Survival Of The Fittest

((Mônica “Molly” Oliveira continued from Cut Crease.))

Halloween costumes were pretty much cosplay, and cosplay was pretty much fashion, and so all of those things were totally Molly’s wheelhouse. As were parties, because… well, because people? So she was hype as hell to get to having a good time.

She and Stormy had been a little late – fashionably so, maybe? Where was the line of fashionably and regular late – because there’d been a few bits and bobs to strap on – even though she hadn’t had time to get the suit vest to have all the cool little things on it - and an initial struggle with getting Stormy’s overly tall hat to stay on. That was on Molly, but what was she supposed to do? Be accurate, or not make a hat that was more than twice as tall as Stormy’s hea—oh shit there it goes again—

Molly caught the top hat before it fell to the ground and propped it back on Stormy’s head. “Sorry, I didn’t really think the hat through? Maybe I should have made a strap?”

Molly was dressed as Page from Fable 3 – a cosplay she’d done a while back, but happily it still all fit and she was nailing the whole underground rebel leader look – though she’d taken a couple of liberties with accuracy, like just braiding her hair instead of dreadlocking it because there’d be no undoing that easily. Since hers had already been done, she’d been able to focus her whole efforts into getting Stormy to be Reaver from the same game, what with him already being tall, pale and all, and now looking suitably villainous in a flamboyant but industrial kind of way.

Molly put one hand over her eyes as she surveyed the party, looking for Dani. She thought she saw her—or at least, she saw a flash of red and extensive cleavage, which seemed very Dani—but she was gone again before Molly could be sure. Host must be busy. Molly could find her later.

“Food, maybe? Drink? Dance? People?” Molly said, rapid-firing the possibilities outloud as she continued to survey the crowd for familiar faces.

((Stormy Delacroix continued from How do you kill all six people?))

Stormy rarely dressed up extravagantly for Halloween. It wasn't that he didn't want to, but more that he could never settle on exactly what he wanted to be before it was too late, and he inevitably ended up in something store-bought or thrown together at the last minute. Having Molly make his costume was kind of what he imagined it was like to be a peasant child in a fairytale getting their first Cinderella dress from their fairy godmother, or something.

He didn't know anything beforehand about Fable, or the character he was dressing as, but he'd watched some clips on his phone while Molly was getting everything ready, so now he was all geared up to start dropping lines in a bad British accent if the occasion called for it. If the accent was bad enough, that probably outweighed any kind of ethical or philosophical implications about cosplaying as Victorian steampunk Jeff Bezos in a really tall hat.

Speaking of the hat, it was doing its best to revolt on its own every time Stormy walked through a doorway or turned his head too fast. It was a test of his and Molly's reflexes every time he felt the thing starting to slide.

"Maybe bobby pins?" He suggested in response to Molly bemoaning how she should have added a strap. "Not that I, uh. Have any right now. But that'd probably help. It's totally fine though, I can just hold it if I need to. And uhh, all of those sound good! All of the options. Maybe like, in that order? Eating before drinking, you know, because this coat is white and all."

Oh god, oh fuck. Stormy hadn't thought until just now about all of the many, many ways a white overcoat could possibly get ruined at a Halloween party, alcohol or no alcohol. The hat that was constantly trying to abandon him and start its own independent life might end up being the least of his problems.

Aracelis was prowling the party, Jason mask turned to cover the side of her head. She had been at Dani's house for eight minutes going on fifty. She hated it. It was too big. Too ostentatious. Too dripping with the overbearing interior design of people who were rich and wanted you to know it. But Aracelis knew she'd hate it. So to offset that she had brought a bottle of Havana Club and mixer. Plus she had told Lucio he had to come.

Her process upon arriving and letting herself in was to head straight to the kitchen. Once inside she had made a drink, resisted the urge to break a glass, and hid her alcohol. Then she had set out to find people she cared about. Which granted, sounded bad. There was a simple reason for it though. Most people she went to school with annoyed her. To that end, it was better if she just hooked up with people she liked straight away. That and she was still annoyed—not bitter—annoyed about losing the Cheer captaincy so she needed people to hold her back in case Dani decided to chat shit.

In terms of her costume and how she looked though Aracelis was happy with it. She thought she looked cute. You could tell an effort had been made because she had taken the time to straighten her hair. But also she had taken the time with her makeup, gently giving her face a bit of a glow, and had styled the baggy costume some to make it hug her waist a bit more. Just so she wasn't walking around as one solid block of boiler suit color.

As she continued to make her way through the party, avoiding most contact and barging through where she couldn't she spotted the dumbest hat imaginable. Narrowing her eyes Aracelis took a sip of her rum mix and stalked closer to the offending article of clothing. Getting closer her eyes went back the other way, opening up and getting wider and a snort escaped from her lips as she started to laugh at the look. Before clamping her mouth shut when she realized it was actually Stormy in his costume, along with Molly.

"Yooo!" She said, pushing past some random people to approach her friends, drink held high. "Glad you finally arrived!"

“I bet Dani has some bobby pins or something?” Molly curled a finger around one of the braids sticking out from her headband. “She must have something to pin stuff to stuff, so many of her outfits are, like, really open?”

Hmm… white suit. Food. Drink. Right. Perhaps Molly should have gone with the Fable II version of Reaver, all reddy-purple, but that wouldn’t have matched her one? Molly was considering this, still fiddling with her braids, when Aracelis emerged from the crowd.

“Araaaaa!” Molly raised her arms, mimicking Aracelis raising her drink even if she didn’t have one in her hands. “Hey hey! Happy to see you!”

It wasn’t the full truth, but it wasn’t a lie either. Molly had no issues one-on-one with Aracelis. But she could be, like… a lot. Molly wouldn’t call her mean, exactly, but she was… well, blunt in a way that set people off sometimes. It created a lot of drama, and with the cheerleader captainship recently…

Well, maybe it’d be okay, right?

“You here with my bro, or is he meeting you here? I didn’t get a chance to ask, it was a madhouse back home. Had most of their costumes ready for months, but getting them all to stand still while that excited for sugar… and then I had to run over to Storms and strap a bunch of stuff to him… you know?” Molly gestured enthusiastically. “Cool, right? Little impractical, maybe, but hey--” She beamed up at Stormy. “No dramas if you get food on it? It’s Halloween, it’s a party, things’ll get messy.”

Obama Prism. All that needed to be said.

] Salem 'Seattle' Fox, Chronological Ordering Irrelevant [

Well, one other relevant thing about his costume. The cardboard pyramid with eyeholes and a slightly too-small neck hole Salem had needed both Ash and Cali's assistance in welding around his head was a pretty severe detriment to his ability to see. Salem crawled huddled up against the floor and walls like The Grudge. If he was bumping into people at this party he was doing that more literally than intended. Partygoers had to narrowly dodge aggressive and unintended handholding from a femboy, the zoomer version of Victorian Era excess and debauchery.

Must have looked stupid from the outside, the blind groping about in the deceptively low-effort costume (again, needed two other people to get it on, plus the tax on his lungs struggling to get fresh oxygen out of his own used up air). Perfect. He hoped someone got a laugh out of it besides himself. Bonus points if they tagged him on Twitter with the vod. Portrait mode only, as much black space on either side as was humanly possible, maximizing the aesthetic.

He probably knew a lot of people at this party, from his recollection Dani had invited everyone who was anyone and the many nameless others besides that. He couldn't see any of said people specifically, but he could pick some voices out of the crowd...

Like over there, wrong side of the doorframe he clipped with his knuckles in a painful way that he was already used to because it'd happened a dozen times already. Ex-girlfriend talking to one of the other fabled 'men on cheerleading' who had carried the torch after he'd left to focus on grades and resumes as if that sort of thing mattered more in life than aggressively pretending JEM athletics were in a functional state. He'd recognize Molly's voice anywhere- his fault that he'd lost her, regardless of whether he cared or not (he didn't, but he still missed her, in a 'I am too young and neoliberal to feel these sorts of things' way).

They were talking about strapping or something? Sus convo topic, enticing all the same.

"Sorry for the mess in advance, I assure you I didn't mean it." Man his voice sounded submissiv&breedable when it was echoing off cardboard and back into his face. He didn't even know if he was talking in the right direction, which suited him fine. He adopted as relaxed a posture as was possible when he needed one arm to assure himself the wall was still nearby. "How are you two? I'd invite one of you to dance if you didn't mind me being even deader weight than usual."

Despite Molly's reassurances, Stormy was pretty sure he started hearing boss music at Aracelis's approach with her drink held dangerously high. Or maybe that was just the party playlist switching over to something more intense. Either way, he had a few moments of fight-or-flight before relaxing again when Aracelis didn't trip.

"Yeah, where's Lúcio at? Did his dancing get to be too much for you already- oh Jesus heck." Stormy's greeting to Aracelis cut off with a sputter when he caught sight of... that slithering its way along the wall towards the three of them. The face of some guy that he vaguely recognized as some politician, maybe, but stretched out into a pyramid for reasons that Stormy honestly could not fathom, precariously wobbling on top of a body that looked far too scrawny to support it. Yeah, that was definitely going to be the scariest thing he saw all night.

The Creature stopped short of running into any of them, but it had Stormy bracing for disaster even more than Aracelis's drink. "Um," was all he had to say in response to the muffled greeting for a minute. The next thing that came to mind was, "There's three of us, but like, I guess you can't see in- that. Salem?" It sounded roughly like Salem, but honestly it was hard to tell through the layer of threateningly decorated cardboard. "Dude, are you okay? Can you like, breathe in that?" It didn't look like there were any airholes in that thing.

"He should be getting here at some stage," Aracelis said in response to Molly. She had been pestering Lúcio to go to the party with her, not just because they were going out and that was what couples did but also because it would have been fun. He had asked why they were going if she disliked Dani and Aracelis had said that wasn't the point. Because it wasn't, the point was to show up, have fun and drink with friends. That it was taking place at Dani's house and Dani was present was secondary. "Yeah, it's cool!" Aracelis said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "I have no idea what it is though."

Before Aracelis could ask anything further Stormy drew her attention to something. She had no idea what the fuck it was. It was a person, obviously, but the costume was fucking weird. Oh. It was Salem. Costume made sense then. Weird costume for a weirdo. Not that she expected anything. His twenty-year-old sister was also in their year and a weirdo too. A picture of some random politician was stretched across a pyramid that engulfed the skinny boy. Aracelis didn't recognize it at all so if it was a reference it was a weird niche one.

"Yeah," She said, tapping the top of the pyramid with her knuckles, not caring to be gentle. "That can't be comfortable."

“Uhhh, game character, y’know? Think I mentioned it in the chat. Evil guy who wants to bulldoze orphanages to build brothels and doesn’t pay his workers, that kinda thing. But hey, British accent, Stephen Fry and stu—what the heck is that?” Molly cut off mid-babble when she saw the thing heading towards them.

…

Oh, it was Salem. In some… weird triangle with a random politician on it? Molly didn’t really get it?

Salem was okay, though. Like… they’d dated, and it’d been fun? Molly had broken it off, probably, but she couldn’t really remember why? Odds were either that he’d gotten, like, too serious or too past first base, or… well, y’know, sometimes she just wanted to do other things? Whatever, it hadn’t been a bad break-up, clearly, or he wouldn’t have approached her, right? They were fine.

“Nevermind, your costume is totally practical,” Molly said brightly to Stormy, before she raised her voice to get through both the noise of the party and the cardboard around Salem’s head. “Hi, Salem! Can you eat in there? I could poke a straw through the neckhole or something?”

Wait there had been a third person?

Sounded like... Ara? One of the cheerleaders he wasn't as familiar with. In theory anyone who dated a cool guy (a weeb) like Lúcio was cool, 'course, but Salem got the sense from limited knowledge (as his knowledge always was in any circumstance) that, yo, little bit of lifestyle salt over the way cheerleading elections had gone down.

She was knocking on the door, but no one was home.

"It's quite uncomfortable," he offered unhelpfully. "Haven't crashed into anyone yet, we bing chilling." Salem's preferred tone of voice was the 'don't worry about it unless you think it's funny to' trademark. Had a... circa 90s, Clinton-era movies flavor to it. Careless and clueless, which was pretty accurate for the lib in sheep's clothing. "If you're going to feed me make it liquid though, I can barely move my jaw. Really did not think this one through." Yeah there was a bit of a sonic 'talking through his teeth' quality to it as well. All around questionable, which was why Salem did rather love it.

Molly feeding him though... oof. Was he cucking Ash all of a sudden? Well, kind of a typical thing for both of them to be doing in their free time. 'S why they liked each other.

"What were we talking about before I showed up? Probably the more interesting topic."

"We actually all just got here, so you're just in time," Stormy offered helpfully. He was aiming for casual, but he couldn't stop wincing at the state of Salem's costume. It looked uncomfortable, and apparently it was uncomfortable, and possibly hazardous to Salem's health.

"Not to like, ruin the vibe you're going for here or anything, but if you need someone to break you out of there hit me up, okay?" He glanced back to Molly and Aracelis, silently asking for support though he wasn't really sure what for aw crap there went his hat again. Stormy scrambled to catch it before it could fall to the floor.

Once he'd diverted that disaster, he continued, "If we can jam a straw up in there though... drinks? Or dancing, you said dancing. I'm down with whatever. Probably shouldn't have the straw up there while dancing, though."

"Uh-huh," Was all Aracelis said in response to Salem, her eyebrows rising in disbelief.

As Salem and Stormy continued to talk she instead focused on extracting her phone from the shorts she wore under her costume. Sliding right to bring up the camera she focused the lens on Salem, took a step back and snapped a photo. Then opened up the cheerleading group chat to quickly send a message.

That done and the phone returned to the safety of her pocket, she spoke again.

"What are you supposed to be anyway?"

It wasn't that she actually cared what the boy had come dressed as. But the curiosity of whatever the fuck it was she was supposed to be looking at winning out.

“We were just talking about costumes and stuff? Heeeey, you can’t see us from in there. Or any costumes.” Molly leaned forward, a half-mock pout on her face. “Isn’t that kind of a waste? I mean, no fun being Halloween in Salem—place-Salem, I mean—without being able to see it?”

Molly’s phone lightly blipped in her pouch. She got distracted from Salem’s weird pyramid head to reach for the little leather pouch that she had her phone in currently—it could be someone here trying to send a heads up—and saw Aracelis return her own phone to her pocket in time with the movement.

Oh, girl. That took like no time at all… Molly had a feeling that Aracelis hadn’t texted ‘guys, look how nice this looks’ about anything here. Molly’s hand instead just hovered over the pouch briefly before she lowered it again and pretended she hadn’t heard it go off.

Oop, there went Stormy’s hat again. Really hadn’t been her best choice… but better than being trapped in a pyramid head? Stormy was totally going to die if he was stuck in that with no liquids… what even was liquid food? Coke or something would have to do.

Molly’s gaze wandered away before she took a couple of steps towards a near-ish table with some drinks. There had to be a straw somewhere, right?

Salem blindly felt at the phone in his pocket (all the costume was the prism head, he was otherwise cosplaying a cis white guy), the one that wasn't slowly painting the shape of his fingerprints into the try-hard rustic wall paneling. The first few notes of his notification sound blared out. He actually usually had his phone set to silent but this wasn't school and regard for noise pollution was at a definitive trough during parties so, why not.

Well obviously he couldn't read any of the messages he was apparently getting, so.

"Inevitably it's a super obscure meme." Salem was well aware that overexplaining the joke made it stupider and less funny, especially when it was someone like Ara being mansplained at, so of course he was going to do this one long form. "In 2005 there was a special election held in the state of Illinois resulting in the current junior senator of the great Prairie State being superimposed onto my face because of some weirdos on Reddit making a bunch of postmodern art that involved this specific dude seventy five percent of his own constituents couldn't name." Man that was a good use of the limited oxygen he had in this thing. Sugar we're going down memeing, etc.

Yeah he actually needed to rest for a bit to let the pyramid refill after that one.

He'd kind of ignored a chance to jab back at Molly because conversational timing and all that. Sucked, he was vibing with her presence. Sometimes people could just put a smile on your face (that no one could see) by the fact of their existence. Nostalgia and the old hormones were on a war path through him: the latter much as they'd never been a couple like that, he'd always hoped y'know? Sophomore fantasies and all that.

"Don't worry about me staying hydrated. You guys know that trick when you go to the movies. Like well, you did before we all forgot as a society that movie theaters existed for a good chunk of 2020. But yeah, don't drink and you won't have to pee and miss the best part. It's like that in this case but my concern is the logistics of figuring out where the toilet actually is."

"Yeah but like, don't drink and you also die," Stormy pointed out. "It's cool though, just say something if you get thirsty or you need to escape 'cause you're about to pass out, okay?"

He didn't understand the meme, but that kind of went without saying. Anything beyond slapping a funny caption on a funny picture was a little too high-brow for Stormy to grasp. It was kind of impressive that people got any meaning at all from an image that had been put through 17 photoshop filters and had some nonsense words tacked onto it, but Stormy got it about as well as he'd get the course material if he accidentally wandered into Latin class instead of Literature. Which was to say none, and that he might have ended up understanding the rest of the world around him a little less too as a side-effect.

His phone buzzed in the pocket sewn into the inside of his coat, and he couldn't help noticing that everyone else seemed to have gotten a text at the same time. Cheer chat, then. See, he got that. Signals and stuff. Figuring that it might be Dani letting them in on where the most prime drinks were located, or someone else announcing their arrival and wanting to group up, he fished his phone out of his pocket.

He paused and glanced back up, eyes flicking between Aracelis, Molly, and Salem, and hastily typed a response before sliding his phone back into his coat and pretending nothing had happened, like everyone else apparently was doing. "So anyway... dancing? We can chaperon you so nobody takes you out when you can't see them." He offered his arm to Salem, unsure if that would be seen either, but like, at least he was being polite before just grabbing Salem and dragging him along.

Whatever interest Aracelis had in Salem's explanation vanished fast. It was a stupid internet meme was the gist. Some unknown politician who like many others had captured dumb internet attention.

Bzzt

Bzzt

Bzzt

Her phone went off three times in quick succession. She knew one of the messages had been sent by Stormy. He had taken a glance over at her before sending it. Then he offered to help Salem make his way to the dance floor. Aracelis had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. If Salem wanted to wear a dumb costume that made it difficult to move around she thought that was his problem. He would have to suffer and perish trying to find the toilet. But she successfully managed to hold back her instinctual response. Plastering a smile over her face instead, Aracelis nodded at Stormy's suggestion.

"Dancing sounds fun!" She said taking a couple of steps to follow Molly, "I'd love to dance. What about you girl?" She punctuated her question by bumping Molly with her hips.

As she waited for a response from her fellow cheer team member, she fished her phone out and checked the replies. Her eyes flashed quickly and then narrowed as her smile twitched. She took a big gulp of her rum and coke and then held the cup between her teeth as she quickly typed out another message.

Once the phone was returned to her pocket she took another sip of her drink and scanned the crowd of the party.