taxonomites | [Location: Taxon High Gymnasium] Time for the big game!

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[Location: Taxon High Gymnasium] Time for the big game!

Tonight is the night of the big basketball game between Taxon High and their rival Cricetidae High! It is the biggest game of the season for the basketball team, the band /and/ the cheerleaders. All of them have performances that they need to hit out of the park. For some there are scholarships on the line and for others it is a huge peer pressure moment.

Of course, for others, it is just another thing to do, another place to be seen and another chance to get out of the house.

What might happen this evening? Will there be triumphs or tragedies? Will there be hookups or hangouts?

Only time will tell!

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"Lots."

He passes over his bag. He's got a ziploc each of chocolate chip and oatmeal, a bottle of diet caffeine free cola, a lunch cup of mandarin oranges and an orange that is starting to dry out, because he carries this food back and forth, going around everywhere with it, and never actually eats it.

Jason grunts a monosyllabic noise that is probably 'thanks' and starts rummaging. Apparently one crayon ring = as much food as is worth eating, in his particular economy. He pulls two more of the chocolate chip cookies out and studies the quasi-withered orange. The skin's getting a bit leathery.

"You've got a mummy orange."

It's a fair trade. Making a crayon ring is easily as involved as making a batch of cookies, right?

"Ooogh...yeah. I keep meaning to throw that out. I wouldn't eat it, if I were you. It's probably gone bad inside."

This prompts Jason to cup both hands around the orange and lift it up to his face, like a... a really poor man's crystal ball. He stares at the orange at Super Close Range, eyes gone unfocused, lips moving a little in inaudible mutters.

"No. No, this is perfect," he informs Metody earnestly after several seconds of this, and cradles the orange to his chest in case Metody's thinking of taking it back.

"...."

"....please don't eat that. You will probably get sick."

"I'm not going to eat it," Jason says with some frustration, loud enough that a few students several bleachers down turn to glance up at the odd couple.

"It's a symbol," he says, lowering his voice to a hiss. "Sympathetic magic?!"

Look, guys, he's not with - okay, he's with him, but this isn't his fa- not with-with him, not like that, but he's also not with h- no, wait, he's really with him, in a social sense, but he's not with-with him. Okay?

He's in physical and social proximity, without any implication of a closer relationship, but he's just as confused by Jason as any one else.

"You mean...like the color? It's energy and enthusiasm, isn't it? And oranges are a symbol of long marriages, I know that, that's why brides carry orange blossoms."

He eyes Jason, utterly lost. With or without him.

Have that blank, wordless stare again. Jason treats Metody to ten seconds of flat regard (why is he talking about brides, what even), and then swivels emphatically about to face the basketball court again, hands clutching the orange in his lap.

"No."

He's really trying, okay?

"Oh. I'm really confused. What do you mean? I don't understand."

Jason's jaw clenches several times. Whether this is frustration or just a nervous tic (and he does have quite a few of those) is up for dispute.

"Look," he mutters, pointing one pasty-pale finger down at the court, where the big orange ball is being bounced around in practiced dribbles.

"And it's the sun. And this is solstice," Jason tacks on, because it has just occurred to him that Metody might not actually know it's solstice.

He tries really hard to keep up their quasi-friendship, forgiving Metody such laziness.

"...but...that would make Stretch Johnson the chariot of the sun. Except he's already been fouled for carrying twice this season, and I heard that if he did it a third time, he'll be benched, and so he's not going to be carrying anything if he knows what's good for him."

Jason, being Jason, has no idea that Stretch Johnson is the team's forward, or what a team forward is, or what a foul for carrying is, or anything else Metody just said.

A stare of mutual incomprehension happens again.

Jason does what he's fairly good at doing with things that don't obligingly fit into a worldview colored by too many fantasy novels, too many hours on Internet forums, and some possible delusions: he ignores what Metody just said.

"It's dead but it has the seeds of rebirth," he says Seriously. He's talking about the orange, not Stretch Johnson. Probably. "You were meant to give me this today. It's the weapon against the dark."

They're getting really good at those stares.

"But...it's a navel orange. It doesn't have any seeds, just another teeny orange inside. And probably also mold."

"MOLD IS LIFE TOO," Jason snaps, jaw working again. Students crane back to look at them once more. He scowls, and lets go of the orange long enough to flip off a blonde girl.

Deeeeep breath.

"Look, it's a symbol. You can't pick stuff like that apart too closely, okay?"

This is why Metody isn't popular. His friends.

He gives Jason a rather wide-eyed look that shades into horror when he flips off the girl. Oh. Oh, golly.

"Okay. So it's a symbol of the sun?"

"Yes," Jason mutters petulantly, and doesn't cross his arms, but only because his hands are holding the sun-orange.

He jerks his hood back up from where it had been half sliding off, and ~~sulks~~ stares down at the basketball court. The game's starting soon.

Well. This is nice. He keeps quiet, because talking means inviting more yelling.

But the game! Metody perks up when the pre-game festivities and announcements show up. Eeeeeeeeesports!

Jason barely listens to the principal welcoming the out of town team, or the rest of the pre-game ... whatever... that they talk about. Okay, he doesn't listen to it at all. He resumes biting of nails of one hand, and clutches his orange with the other.

Metody isn't arguing with him about the sun, so he can stay.

The whistle blows, they start doing basketball. Playing it. Whatever. Jason scootches forward to the edge of the bleacher, worrying his thumbnail jaggedly as his eyes dart back and forth over the court.

The lines are important. On a solstice, the lines are really important, and the idiots on the court are enacting the sun's rising and sinking, rising and sinking, over and over again with their part of the sympathetic magic, and if they do it too many times it's going to be really bad. Jason is sure of this. He researched it for, like, a week.

He's half-forgotten Metody is there, and is watching the game with uncharacteristic fervor.

Metody has a not-very-secret: he loves sports. Basketball, football, baseball...he'd watch them all day, if it wouldn't mean his mother lecturing him on how repulsive these pseudo-religious consumerist events were.

So he radiates excitement, groaning whenever they're scored against, cheering when their score rises, and lunging his feet along with everyone else at a particularly tricky play.

"WOOOO!"

Basket after basket is scored. Jason watches the scoreboard with increasing nervousness. It's getting towards, you know, really significant numbers. Important numbers. Bad numbers. And the clock is going down and down.

The student body is holding their breath as one of Taxon's star players gets ready to take his free throw that'll tie the game. Jason standing up isn't weird-- everyone else is on their feet, after all, including Metody.

Of course, nobody else is throwing an orange at the guy taking his free throw.

"Haaaaaaaaah!"

It's almost a pity the baseball coach isn't here to see his perfect aim.

The whole stadium roars as one, Us with growing triumph, Them with the rage of the defeated - and then - and then -

It takes him a moment to connect the barely noticed movement to his left and the disaster

"Wh- why - we were winning-"

Anguish!

He barely hears Metody's words, and surely doesn't process them. Jason stands with his pale face flushed with triumph.

"I did it!" he informs the top of Metody's albinoesque head. "It's okay, it'll be alright now, I disrupted the ritual so now the demon can't manifest, it can only...

"...uh...

"...try and make... people.... mad..."

Said as Jr. Goth Mint here recognizes the looks people are starting to turn on him.

"We were winning - " Jason clearly doesn't appreciate how important that is. Metody is practically reeling. What kind of penalty is there if a crazy fan attacks their own team? Does it count against the attackee, or the other school? And -

- someone shouting something ugly distracts him from his thoughts. Metody blinks, a little shocked, then turns back to Jason.

"Jason. You should - you should go home now. Really fast, Jason."

Jason totally doesn't appreciate how important that is. He does, however, appreciate the glares he's receiving, and the students getting to their feet. A few wadded up paper flyers are already being chucked his way in the bleachers.

He looks down at Metody with a wide-eyed stare.

"....I think you're right," he manages, then turns and bolts for the edge of the bleachers, where it's possible to climb over the half-railing, slither down, and hang by your fingertips to drop.

The game resumes, although half the players on the court seem to want to chase Jason as well, and the whistles of the refs are blowing constant and shrill.

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[Location: Taxon High Gymnasium] Time for the big game!

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