prettymadness (prettymadness) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-07-06 14:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | #october 2017, victoria |
Who: Victoria and Jason
Where: Halloween Fest on Main Street
When: Night, Tuesday, October 31st
Status: Complete
Victoria was quickly discovering the downside of her costume when faced with the elements, as well as a long period of time on her feet. Even with an extra set of tights, she was unable to make her Harley Quinn costume warm and she’d hit a point where she was hopping from one heat lamp to another, attempting to take the chill off. Cassy and Heather trailed along beside her, at least until Cassy decided she wanted to bob for apples. Victoria gave that a hard pass, her makeup would completely melt off and she’d likely freeze to death, and told them that if they must, then she’d catch up with them in a bit.
Honestly, it was nice to just take a seat for a while. Victoria managed to find a seat on a bench close to a heater and decided she’d be fine there until the girls finished making fools of themselves. They’d take pictures and post on Snapchat and she’d get a chance to rest her feet and get warm. With her baseball bat in her lap, she took a moment to survey the crowd. People watching could be fun. You learned so many things just by watching and listening.
Jason was in a good mood that evening. He had finished doing some last minute revisions to his early decision college applications and submitted them after dinner. They were out of his hands now, for better or worse, which brought with it a sense of relief. It was Halloween, a holiday he typically gave very little thought to, regardless of--or because of--how much Point Pleasant as a whole tended to embrace it. Still, if all went according to plan, it would be the last one he had to spend there, so why not go out for once?
He made his way to Main Street. The festival setup there was about as corny as he expected it to be. There were definitely people he recognized from school milling about, most of them in costume while he was not, but no one he particularly wanted to talk to, since he didn’t spot Sabrina or Jade, and he was pretty sure Ruby had said she was staying in. His decision to go was pretty last minute anyway. Plus, he quickly grew kind of bored with what was to offer; painting wasn’t his thing and bobbing for apples seemed like a terrible choice given the weather and germs, so after buying a popcorn ball he want to look for some place to sit to people watch.
Approaching a bench, he paused when he saw it was occupied, then by whom it was occupied. Lest Victoria think he was going to retreat because of her, he stubbornly continued walking over. She was one of Jules’ more grating friends, but it was cold and there was a heater nearby. “Evening, Chapman,” he said, dropping onto the unoccupied end of the bench.
Victoria looked over at Jason and raised a brow. Did he think she was one of the guys or something? She was less than impressed, but she always had been with Jules’ stepbrother. “Evening,” she said back, unable to ignore him at this point. “Couldn’t bother with a costume this year? You know that’s, like, half the fun of the holiday.” She tried to think if she’d seen him at her party, but with everyone dressed up she wasn’t even sure she knew half the people that had attended. If he’d been among them, it’d been lost on her.
Most of Jules’ friends rubbed Jason the wrong way for one reason or another and Victoria wasn’t an exception, though in truth he didn’t really know a lot about her. He gave her costume a once over and shrugged. “Can’t say I’ve ever felt the need to dress up as a slutty Joker or whatever,” he said, turning toward the heater. The warmth was admittedly nice and he leaned forward a bit. “Is the other half of the fun freezing in the cold?”
“Apparently you don’t see the need to keep up with pop culture either,” Victoria said. She didn’t know how he didn’t know how Harley Quinn was, since Suicide Squad was practically everywhere, but Jason had always seemed determined to make himself an outcast like it was a badge of honor. Like it would hurt him to know what people were talking about. Victoria didn’t talk to him often, but she’d always felt like she was talking to someone from another planet, where all they had in common was the city they lived in and the school they went to. Somehow he missed everything else that mattered. “No, that’s just poor costume choice on my part. You can still participate without freezing your balls off. But, I mean, that would take effort and I know that’s not your thing.”
Jason cared aggressively about what people like Victoria thought of him. He had seen her costume before just in general from ever going online or out of the house or any other way that kind of imagery saturation happened, but it was the sort of thing that he didn't bother to keep in his head since most comics didn't hold much appeal to him, much less their dumbed down movie equivalents. What was the point in knowing something he didn't have to just because everyone else did? "Not really, no. It's not the kind of thing that seemed worthwhile knowing just to know it," he said, unable to keep the derision from his tone. It was likely for the best they didn't run into each other often. Still, he couldn't help retorting, "I put effort into things that matter. Playing dress up doesn't quite qualify."
“I’d say your definition of what matters and everyone else’s is drastically different,” Victoria said, not really making the effort to play nice with Jason. He was a snob of a different sort and she wondered how he had any friends at all if he considered so much beneath him. It wouldn’t surprise her if he lived and breathed school and that was it. Victoria stretched, baseball bat above her head, her midriff exposed, and just as she began to relax the urge to laugh took her. Down the street, someone screamed and she glanced in their direction. “Sounds like someone’s out to have a little fun,” she said, then flashed Jason a wicked grin, a wild light in her eyes. “I say we join ‘em. You in?”
Sometimes Jason could be argumentative for the sake of being argumentative. This tended to happen more with people like Victoria, less with the handful of people he considered friends. There was a retort on the tip of his tongue, but then Victoria pivoted mid-conversation and that, along with the sudden scream, threw him off. He didn’t know her well by any means, so he wasn’t really sure what she was playing at and there was something unsettling about her grin. “You want to join the screaming people?” he asked skeptically. Somehow that seemed like something that would be beneath Victoria. “Yeah, sure, why not.” The last was said sarcastically, since he figured she would laugh at him again for some joke he wasn’t getting and just leave off it after that.
“Nooooo, silly,” Victoria laughed, rising to her feet, her bat swinging around to lightly poke him in the chest. It rose slowly, it it was just under his chin, threatening to push harder and cut off his air. “I want to help make ‘em scream.” She moved then, swift and easy, taking a few steps back and swinging her bat smack into the middle of a shop window. It shattered, sending glass flying, and she laughed like a child opening up a pinata. The people around her immediately moved away, as she spun around, swinging the bat wildly. “Who’s next?”
Alarm rose when Victoria poked Jason with her bat, too startled to try to push it away as it pressed against his windpipe. Was she really playing into the trick part of Halloween that hard? He started to glare at her, then she broke a shop window and he instinctively jumped back. It didn’t help that the were other people screaming further off, anyway. The hair on the back of his neck stood and he didn’t approach her, but he was confused enough that he didn’t run in the opposite direction just yet. “What the fuck, Victoria?” he couldn’t help asking, at the same time not getting nearer to her. “Is this your idea of a joke?”
Victoria laughed, reaching into the broken shop window to pick something up and stick it in her jacket pocket. “Whatta you think?” she grinned back at him. “Don’t be so serious. Come have some fun!” she said, then started on the next window, squealing with delight when this one set off an alarm. “Look at all the pretty lights!” she laughed, then turned to take a few steps back towards Jason. “Come on, have some fun. We’re bad guys, it’s what we do!”
Probably Jason should try to stop Victoria from destroying property and blatantly robbing, but Jason was unnerved by the abrupt shift in her actions and an almost manic look to her grin. He could call the cops, but there were probably alarms or something? Also, more people were running about in a way that he didn't get. “I wouldn’t call breaking and entering ‘fun’,” he muttered instead, backing away from her as she took steps toward him. “Knock it off, stop acting all crazy.”
“Why?” Victoria laughed. “This is way more fun!” And since he didn’t seem interested in joining her, Victoria took off on her own, skipping down the sidewalk and smashing windows, occasionally grabbing things that caught her eye. She chased a few little kids that ran away screaming, then actively threatened the parent that stepped in to scold her. That seemed to put an end to that, so she continued on her way, enjoying the chaos in her current state of mind.