gooseberryhigh | HORROR MOVIE NIGHT

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HORROR MOVIE NIGHT

HORROR MOVIE NIGHT

Micah St. Clair organizes another movie night, this time watching a SCARY movie. Excitingly, he's just received a portable projector from home, so tonight's movie will be projected IN LARGE on a bedsheet that's been hung up in the Atrium. The couches have been rearranged in front of the makeshift screen. The lights have been switched off. Popcorn is served.

As the sophomores tensely watch the plot of Sinister unfold, Casper Kim walks up behind them to ask what they’re doing. The sophomores, caught off guard, scream loudly and several fall off the couches. Ariadne Flint throws a bowl of popcorn at Casper in self-defense.

WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN

Seniors and juniors are not technically banned from movie night, but they don't get a seat on the comfiest couches. Front row admission for Micah's best friends only!!!!

The lodge is sparsely populated by staff this Thursday evening, as the teachers are having a staff meeting.

For those who have not seen the movie, HERE is a trailer, and HERE is the Wikipedia plot summary.

For the record, Sinister is less gory than the plot summary sounds, and tends cut away from the violent parts and leave it up to the viewer's imagination. On the other hand, a horror movie involving a malevolent ghost-demon that steals children away is maybe... not great?

The movie is timed to end just before 9 PM, when the lodge closes down and everyone must walk back to camp. In the dark. Remember, buddy system!

» Before the movie: Meet up with your friends, share snacks, claim the best seats.

» watching the movie: Midway through, Casper terrifies forty innocent children.

» elsewhere in the lodge: Since there are so few teachers around, is there anything else you rascals are up to? Classrooms and club rooms are all still locked, though.

» After the movie: Time to clear out and go home! Are you going to sleep well tonight?

» OOC - Questions, comments, concerns!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There goes the rest of Lucas' handful of popcorn. Up into the air when Bash grabs him. Fly free, little kernels. He gasps louder than is necessary, thinking for a split second that horror movies are terrible and not worth it, then looking at Bash, decides that they should watch more horror movies. He starts making a list of them in his head.

Eyes wide and frightened, Lucas' mouth curls into a grin, his expression split 50/50 between terrorized and pleased. "Eleven and a quarter," he scoots a bit closer. "The sort of song you use as a ringtone for your mom."

Is the list itemized? Are they starting with more or less stupid jump-scares? Or going by an arbitrary scale of amount of irrational rage you feel toward bad decisions made by dudes in jumpers? Bash can totally rearrange some folders for this.

He manages to keep his laughter admirably silent, however, shoulders shaking mutely and chin dipping. Bash plucks a piece of popcorn from his hair, popping it into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully as Ethan Hawke makes yet another truly horrendous life choice. The very corner of his mouth twitches up and he leans into Lucas' shoulder with an equal amount of care. "I wonder what it'd take to find enough children to make this happen."

Even though Lucas would ordinarily rant about the cheap emotional manipulation of the jump scare, at this particular moment, he's pretty much stacking the deck with them. Pile those suckers on, he says. Why contemplate Rosemary's Baby when The Haunting in Connecticut is lousy with excuses to latch onto the person next to you? It just makes sense. Teenage boy sense.

This train of thought is momentarily derailed by what's happening in the movie. "Why is his office the biggest room in the house?" Lucas asks the screen, baffled and disgusted. "That doesn't seem fair." And then, back on topic. "Maybe we could bribe the smallest freshmen? There's a lot of them and they're into being creepy."

Bash is ... ultimately fine with this, regardless of his feelings on jump-scares as cinematic cheating. Though, get him comfortable enough, and he's kind of an octopus no matter how much emotional manipulation you toss into the proverbial pot. Ain't no point in lying about it. He's just, y'know, feeling out how much he's allowed to get away with here. Not everybody wants him holding their hands in the hallways like Gabi does. So we're sticking with tentative leaning.

"That's because he's a dick," Bash murmurs. It's not even like it's a well-decorated office. Ethan Hawke's disorganized as fuck and he looks like he hasn't brushed his hair in a month. It isn't his best look. "And definitely out of the running for Father of the Year." Good dads don't let their kids get eaten by pagan gods. That's probably Fatherhood 101.

He takes a moment to contemplate the Freshman class before quietly pointing out, "They're also terrifying. Both individually and as a group."

Lucas is...definitely the one in need of an excuse. Even draping his arm over someone's shouler is a Herculean effort. Which is why it takes him so long to do it, just now.

While Ethan Hawke continues to lie to his perfectly nice wife and children despite the rapidly escalating need for some transparency in this family, Lucas stretches out his long legs. He shifts his shoulders and, holding his breath, slides one arm behind Bash. "What is with the boogeyman's face?" He whispers, trying to act casual and not like he's feeling light-headed. Which he is. "I didn't know they had Halloween Cities in hell."

And then he nods. "See? They're perfect. I'm sure there's a few sopranos in there that'll be able to hit those screechy high notes."

There is one question that rings through his head in the moments after Lucas pulls the movie theater yawn reach: Is Wyatt going to torture him for this later? The answer is a pretty firm 'fuck yes' - but that doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent, if the way he tucks himself into the allotted space is anything to go by. If anything, he's sort of grinning to himself like an idiot.

Classics. Clearly, they have become classic for a reason. Good note. Will remember.

"I feel like he watched 'Saw' one too many times and is trying to bank on residual fear. Which is both clever and sad," he replies, wriggling just a bit. Getting comfortable, not at all trapping his hands between his knees so they don't jitter. He nods, attempting to sound both motivating and quiet, "Be yourself, dude. Don't let nobody tell you who you got to be."

Then he raises an eyebrow, tipping his chin up to meet Lucas' eyes, "You gonna ask them if they want to lay down some horror tracks?"

Lucas' head is full of fireworks. The movie takes a momentary back seat to an explosion of excitement and disbelief - that totally worked. How did that work? Who cares? It did. He hopes these thoughts aren't obvious in his face. They're probably obvious in his face. The way his brows go up. How tight his mouth suddenly becomes as he tries not to smile too stupidly.

"He's," croak. Words aren't going so great at the moment. Lucas clears his throat and tries again. "He's got a good start, at least. The Haunted Super 8, America's Least Funny Home Videos thing has some promise? But everything else is very derivative. You can do better, boogeyman."

An airy, nervous laugh escapes him, both because of the question and the fact that it slips away when Bash looks at him. "Um," there's a too long pause while Lucas, smiling, tries to remember what he was just asked. "Gosh, I thought you'd do it. We may have to recruit someone else for this."

There are plenty of things to complain about when it comes to the tragic realization that you probably aren't going to break the 6-foot tall mark without being stretched daily on a rack - but being able to successfully cram yourself into people's personal bubbles isn't one of these things. It probably works a bit better with the seasonal excuse of sharing body-heat, but that's for people with shame.

(And, okay, maybe the back of his neck is on actual fire and there's a decent amount of effort going into ensuring that his right leg isn't vibrating. But that isn't shame. That's - Well, that's a bit of crippling self-doubt mixed with some terrifyingly impressed self-astonishment. Which is categorically not the same thing as shame. Maybe like second cousins or something? But not the same.)

"Maybe he doesn't know that he can do better? I mean, he's got terrible hair and probably terminally low self-esteem." This movie is probably at least mildly scary. Or it should be mildly scary, considering the events of the last few weeks. This would probably be more effective as a scare tactic if Bash was paying attention to it for anything other than occasional glances to make fun of people's sweaters and judge their parenting techniques. It's actually disgraceful movie-watching and he's really glad he didn't pay money for this.

"Can we ask my niece's kindergarten class instead?" he inquires, tipping his head in a manner that totally doesn't allow him to lean his cheek on Lucas' shoulder at all. "Cause I got maybe five bucks and a box of Spree. We ain't gonna bribe anyone to talk to the Freshmen with that."

"Relatable." Lucas mumbles, trying very hard to ignore the butterflies in his stomach and the party they are having. He swallows. "Certainly more compelling than Dad of the Year." Not that Lucas' eyes have been on the screen for a while, now, either way.

He flexes his fingers and brushes his knuckles lightly against Bash's arm. It makes his heart leap into his throat. "For sure. Wise choice. Less danger." His smile quirks into a smirk. "Although, I haven't had Sprees in forever. That's candy with some value in Azurcrest." The land of candy currency. In halting movements, Lucas lowers his head to rest against Bash's.

The part of Bash's brain that hasn't short-circuited thinks that Lucas' hair is very nice and soft and Bash can come up with exactly zero reasons why this story would be in any way relatable to him whatsoever. He uses the scant seconds of reboot time to compose several text messages in his head, all variants on the same theme: holy SHIT, ariel. i am having a crisis. a good crisis. what do you call a good crisis? scratch that; what do you do when boys smell really nice? Of course, he neither has his cellphone nor a reliable wireless signal - but he likes to imagine that twin-ESP would tell him to grow some balls and calm the fuck down.

Predictably, Bash does neither of these things.

"Excellent," he says instead, knotting his fingers back into Lucas' shirt. "I'm way better with five-year-olds." This admission is neither masculine nor impressive in any way. Nicely done. "You can have the Sprees too. Since we won't need them to solicit people to talk to the even-more-underclassmen."

Flying by the seat of your pants is generally not Lucas' style, but hey, here we are. He has no clue what he's doing and his whole head is buzzing and he think he might go into cardiac arrest and...it's great. "Harder to wrangle them into a choir?" Lucas says, smile audible in his voice. "But I believe in you."

There's some sudden violence playing out on screen. Lucas ducks his face into Bash's hair until the scene ends, and it's only mostly because he's actually afraid. "Why did we all agree to watch this?" A pause. "Um, not that...I regret it."

"Not if you're willing to humiliate yourself for their enjoyment," he counters, with all the weary knowledge of someone who has publically humiliated themselves for the entertainment of glorified toddlers on at least one occasion. Possibly more than that. (Okay, definitely more than that.)

Bash actually pays attention to the movie for approximately .5 seconds before slotting his shoulder into the gap under Lucas' arm a bit more firmly. "Masochism?" he suggests, sounding far too happy for the topic. Then he clears his throat, sound choking slightly on the edges of a laugh. "Me neither. Definitely - I mean, um. Filmmaking at its best?"

"Seems like that's how they develop a taste for blood, though," Lucas says into Bash's hair. That particular scary moment is over, or, at least, Lucas stopped paying attention to the movie, again, but he is still reluctant to move. "You could be the one responsible for training the next generation of terrible freshmen. Do you really want that on your conscience?" Lucas nudges him in teasing.

"Would they be loyal to me?" he asks, chewing his lower lip thoughtfully. The curl of his fingers has loosened itself, leaving them free to absentmindedly tap out a repeating pattern. "I mean, my conscience could probably be persuaded."

Because, let's be real, an army of loyal future-Freshmen is what really matters in this hypothetical scenario.

"First, you have to ask yourself: how loyal can a freshman be, really?" Lucas quirks his head to the side. Is the evil of freshmen inherent? Were they like that last year? He can't quite remember. "If they're loyal enough, it's totally worth it." He repositions his arm to draw Bash in a bit closer. Fingertips drawing a figure eight on his upper arm, Lucas muses, "That's a lot of power."

"With great power, comes great responsibility." It's muttered quickly, as though he physically cannot stop himself from saying it, words mumbled into Lucas' sleeve. Damn it, Uncle Ben. You dead, catchy advice giving jerk. He tacks on an incredulous (at himself, let it be noted): "Fucking hell." Just for good measure.

From there, Bash drags himself back to the topic with bruising force. "They're still young and impressionable and can be taught loyalty." The results are middling in their success.

Lucas dips his head in quiet laughter. "Thanks for your sacrifice." One of them was going to say it. He's glad it wasn't him.

"So what would you train them to do, aside from the unfailing loyalty? Weird arbitrary rankings? Murder, pretend or actual?" He weighs each option with a tilt of his free hand. "Bank robberies?"

Bash spares a second to let out a noise that sounds something like a dying walrus being dragged over gravel - at a situationally appropriate volume. It's astoundingly attractive.

He visibly perks up with a speculative, "Bank robberies?" Hm. Options. "Maybe art theft? Wi-Fi installation?"

Lucas clamps a hand over his mouth, because he's not keeping his laughter at a polite, movie-going appropriate volume, otherwise. That was an amazing noise, whatever it was.

"Oh, without a doubt, Wi-Fi first," he says once he's recovered. "Maybe art forgery?"

That was a noise of tragedy. Deep and soul-crushing tragedy. But, y'know, he's okay with it. If that's the end result.

"Do you think there's magical art forgery?" Ethan Hawke may or may not still be alive at this point. Bash absolutely does not care at all. "I mean, there's got to be some crazy spellwork to pull that off."

But it was cute. In a tragic, dying walrus way.

Lucas doesn't say that, though.

He does shift a little, physically leaning into the conversation with enthusiasm. "A living portrait forgery would be so weird. Do you think the portrait would just rat you out? Or, what if you didn't get the personality right because you didn't know the subject? And your art forgery den was just full of portraits of the same person that are just slightly wrong?" These are the important questions. Who cares about Ethan Hawle's conspiracy board and murder home movies.

This is great. This is normally the point in most conversations when people look at him like they know that he's about to jump off of the conversational cliff and they're a bit wary about his ability to not die tragically at the bottom. But, nope. Lucas has gone and shoved the whole topic right the hell off this time.

And Bash - Well, Bash kinda wants to kiss him on the face? But he settles for leaning in and grinning like an absolutely unholy thing.

"Exactly." He nods, chewing on the pad of his thumb. "I mean, do you just research well enough that the portrait doesn't even know that it's lying and thinks it's the real deal? Or would forged portraits be inherently dishonest in the first place? Like - they're in on the con?" His nose wrinkles. "And what do you do with a whole bunch of slightly wrong portraits? They're sentient - what's the ethics on decommissioning a sentient portrait?"

Something big and bright bubbles up in Lucas' chest when Bash wrinkles his nose. Laughter? No. He's not sure what it is, but he bites down hard on his lower lip to hold it back. The hand he's draped against Bash's arm gives him a light squeeze.

"It's gotta be a rough line of work." Lucas says, breathless. After a sharp inhale, he dives back into the topic, eyes wide. "Probably takes its toll on you, having to dispose of so many not quite right portraits. Maybe you could organize them into a choir, instead? Take the show on the road." He mulls over this detour in the narrative. "Although I guess now you're out of the art forgery business."

"That's okay. I mean," his hand raises, gestures toward himself vaguely, before returning to its former position of tapping out an increasingly excited pattern against Lucas' ribs. "Not really much for subterfuge." Understatement like whoa. "But if all my portraits are of the same person, you think we're gonna have enough range to cover all the parts? Do they even want to sing?"

This is exactly why Bash is never going to finish a coherent Senior project. And he looks completely delighted by it. There's clear and visible effort going into keeping himself quiet.

"And you kinda got to wonder. In general. How long before portraits start making decisions for themselves? How much growth do you put in paint? Like - would a portrait be the same if it was hanging in the Pope's living room versus hanging in, like, Ted Bundy's living room?"

"I figure at least one of them has a quirk like, 'accidentally a baritone,' or 'trained soloist,' so..." Lucas lets the thought trail off, gaze dropping to Bash's hand. Carefully, hesitating, he twines the fingers of his free hand into Bash's own. To stop the tapping. Totally.

He feels a bit like he might pop if he stops talking, so Lucas goes on hurriedly. "Nature-nurture for sentient portraits," now that's an ethically questionable experiment. He tilts his chin up to stare thoughtfully at the dark ceiling. And also because he needs to take a deep breath. "Maybe one of them will learn to be a criminal mastermind? Then you could hand the criminal organization off to one of the portraits to run in your stead? Now you're starting to build an empire."

HORROR MOVIE NIGHT

Lucas & Bash

Lucas & Bash

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