Cheap Party Tricks and Superficial Clicks
An obsession over social status was the blame; this display was an affront to the idea of Halloween. A home done up in cheap décor from the cardboard black cats to the 'special' bat biscuits. It was nothing more than a gathering of young individuals that wanted to get wasted, tripped out of their minds, or sate their baser desires all wrapped up in a theme.
Jonathan hated every second of this. He always disliked Halloween at Gotham University, it was the same every year and every year he choose a new place to pour his research into the punch.
It was happenstance that he was here. He'd yet to choose an open-invitation event. His dorm mate, Kevin Dover, that hardly came to the room caught his attention. Ranting one evening to Jonathan out of the blue made it incredibly difficult to concentrate on his studies. Most of the one-sided conversation he tuned out, when he finally failed to spell 'oxidation' correctly having forgotten the A he stared at the mistake and promptly turned to tell the man to shut his mouth.
"… fucking kicker this dumb bitch Hollywood is just a freshman."
He had next to zero context. Yet, Hollywood? Is that not what James Russo had taunted Kingsley with as a nickname?
He listened to the inebriated man for a few minutes. Kevin told him of his idiotic convoluted plan to drop one woman Beth, to get back together with Stacey, but he hoped to be with both at the same time. Jonathan felt like he may have lost higher brain functions for several seconds listening to the drivel. However, his roommate's poor plan was not his concern. It was the fact that he was now invited by Kevin to join him in the said plan a couple of days before Halloween itself at the sorority. Jonathan would join him – but not for Kevin's plans.
It had been a challenge just getting in through the front door with the number of people. Now he weaved between bodies in the home of Holly Kingsley and her roommates. Snatching up a mask that was left on a table he fixed it onto his face. Though he doubted anyone would recognize him in this crowd; better safe than caught spiking the punch. Sputtering fog machines had been placed all over the ground floor, bulbs in the light fixtures were colored to fit the theme, and a large stereo system had been awkwardly linked via a wire stapled to the wall between the rooms that played whoever's music got to the mixtape ejector first. The entire building was a fire hazard. These young adults were dancing with arson especially as he watched one individual flick a cigarette at someone's chest which then fell onto the rug and was thankfully stamped out by a sneaker shuffling by.
Actually. He looked a bit closer. That individual was Kingsley. Her hand on her hip, the other one held up in the face of a man flipping him off with a nasty sneer on her face. She had shorts on that otherwise kept her modest however her torso was done up in some bunny suit and out-of-place black bunny ears on a cheap band were fixed on her fluffier-than-normal head. She was wearing well-done makeup he would expect a call girl to wear. It was a side of her he'd never seen, and it was such a drastic difference in how she acted and looked when in his presence he took note.
Another young woman in a kitten getup grabbed Holly by the waist, joining her in flipping off this man before they walked away. She passed right next to Jonathan without noticing him.
Then he heard what he'd been waiting for. Kevin's, quote 'Brilliant' plan. The commotion it caused gave him the lack of eyes necessary to pour a small vial into the bowl of orange punch and give it a stir.
He took a comfortable position one couch cushion away from Holly in the corner of their living room. She gave him a scowled side eye but seemed content to let him – a masked stranger who was not even speaking to them - be. She and the other young woman with her spent the rest of the night telling anyone else who got close to dig themselves a grave. While he had a prime space to watch the effects of his research on a diverse group of sexually charged young adults as they kept coming to harass the two.
He would save Halloween night for fear, this was just his subject selection process, and they were all applying for the position.
