entrancelogs | + Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright!

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+ Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright! | OPEN +

Who: EVERYONE (if they want to live)
Where: EVERYWHERE (inside the mansion, knocking on doors)
When: 6/24 - 6/27
Rating: PG-13?
Summary: The Summerween Trickster has made his decree - Trick or treat...or die! This is a mingle log for Trick-or-Treating!
The Story:

On the morning of the 24th, everyone will find that the mansion was inexplicably decorated for Halloween...sort of. The idea behind the decorations is mostly the same, except that every jack-o-lantern is made out of a watermelon instead of a pumpkin. No, this is SUMMERWEEN.

For the first day it will be harmless enough, just a change in décor and a little spooky summer fun. However, by the second day there will be sightings of the Summerween Trickster, a creepy fellow made entirely out of unpopular loser candy, and he is not happy. In the entrance hall, there will be a giant jack-o-melon container with a counter and a count-down clock ticking away to the end of the event.

Your job, Wonderland, is to trick-or-treat for your lives. You have until the end of the event to deliver one million pieces of candy to the jack-o-melon before the end of the event, to appease the Summerween Trickster.

What was that? You'll just sit this out and wait for the event to end? I wouldn't do that if I were you. You see, the Summerween Trickster could be lurking around any corner. If he catches someone not fully embracing the spirit of Summerween (refusing to trick or treat, not wearing a costume, etc), they will not survive the experience. The Trickster will kill them and swallow them whole, making them part of his horrible loser candy body.

More details about trick or treating can be found here. This is a mingle post for trick-or-treating, if you'd rather use this than make a post! [Brackets] or prose are both welcome.

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There's no red spot or anything on Chloe's forehead, and given what her best friend just said, Max backs down. She stands properly, settling fully onto her feet again, but still eyeing Chloe warily.

That's not really the reaction she was expecting. And that smirk almost seems like a private joke. Max doesn't quite know what to make of it- her wary gaze at Chloe shifts into a back-and-forth glance between the two, trying to understand their expressions.

She really wishes they could meet under different circumstances.

"Uhh. Chloe, remember my friend Alex?" She gestures at the skeleton. "And Alex, this is Chloe. Blue hair and all..." Her voice trails off. Despite her best efforts, that didn't sound like a cheerful introduction at all. She's tempted to fire the proton gun just so the dumb sound effects can fill the pause in her words. "Fancy bumping into you here."

Yeah, see? Chloe's chill. She's even smiling at him, and god he would like to wipe that smug look off her face. Thinks she's secure and safe in the knowledge that he won't blab. Yeah, well. He's met scarier things than her. Those things populate his nightmares on a regular basis.

"Oh no, I know Chloe," he says cheerfully. "We've met."

No one is here to kill you, she says.

"Sorry." He maintains that slightly too-bright, faux-pleasant tone. "Didn't mean to trigger anything there."

Chloe narrows her eyes at Alex. She doesn't say anyhing but she can see what's about to happen, what he's trying to do. She specifically told him not to tell Max about their encounter before. But not for her. Not to save her own skin. She said that to protect Max. To prevent her from worrying. And if he insists on hurting Max again, all hell is gonna break loose.

She can't stop looking back and forth between the two- one moment at Chloe and her grin, then at Alex and his obviously fake tone, and then back at Chloe and the narrowed eyes she knows so well.

The room feels kind of icy.

Oh God she's gonna end up blasting her proton gun sound effects before the conversation is over at this rate. She starts to turn away but stumbles as she realizes something.

Why would the room be icy?

She looks between the two of them again. "...You've met?" That's news to her.

"Sure we have!" If he were feeling braver and less silly in his obnoxious costume, he might've sauntered over and thrown a companionable arm over Chloe's shoulder. But he's not that bold. Just yet, anyway. "Hair like that, you don't forget when you see her, amiright?"

And then he raises both hands in apology, backing away.

"Sorry, didn't mean to be forward. Just a little gun-shy, I guess."

Chloe is fighting the impulse to just punch Alex in the face. Instead, she settles to clenching her hands into fists. Did Alex think that she was embarrassed to let Max know what she did? Fuck no. And she's not gonna let Alex play her like that. Fuck him. If Max is gonna find out what happened, better to hear it from her than from some asshole.

So before he can even say anything else, Chloe answers Max in a casual tone. "Yeah we've met. I tried to shoot his brains out before trick or treating. But I decided I didn't want to mess up my ghost costume with his blood."

She looks at Alex and smiles back, a sweet, sickly smile that is practically dripping with disgust. I really should have just shot you.

What.

The fuck.

Max steps back in dumbfounded shock. "Y-you...?"

Chloe's joking. That explains the little... sarcastic, dangerous smile. Or Max misunderstood. "Shoot" and "blood" are really easy to misunderstand.

She doesn't even bother to look at Alex. Just stares at her blue haired friend. "...Chloe...?"

Then she just goes ahead and says it herself, which just saves him a mess of trouble. See, now she can't say he didn't tell Max, because he didn't. She did!

Gotta love loopholes.

"Still chafed about the whole 'trying to kill you' thing," he says with a shrug, electing not to look at Chloe at all if he can help it. "But, good news on that front - I've got a guy who's gonna take care of it if I go off the rails again. Which is nice. So, uh." He shoots Chloe a pointed look. "No need to take out another piece when I'm in the general area, okay?"

Chloe looks at Max with a small smile and shrugs. Well, Max is officially freaked out right now. Better start explaining, Price.

"Yeah, I went after him with a gun. I found out he was the one who stabbed you during the event. And well." She looks past Max again and sees Alex, her smile and light tone fading.

"I just lost it."

Chloe doesn't take her eyes off of Alex. Her voice turns cold. "All depends on what you're doing in the general area. I told you I'd come after you if ever hurt Max again. That hasn't changed."

It never will.

Fuck. That's... Max doesn't even know where to start. She feels like curling up into a ball and just hiding her face until the two of them go away. That way they won't see the fiery frustration or shame in her expression.

Here's Alex, making his own plans for... what, self-sacrifice? If he ever tries to hurt anyone, to hurt Max again... And here's Chloe, ready to pull out a gun and kill him if it comes to that. To keep Max safe.

What do you say to something like that?

"Uh... I..."

Max can't tell if these are the shitiest friends in the world, or the best friends she could have ever wished for. Is it possible to be both?

Her face feels like its burning red- out of anger or embarrassment, she can't tell. And that just piles on even more frustration.

"Just... stop it," she mumbles. If they keep this up she's going to be sniveling soon. She tries to strengthen her voice. "That's- not how I... not how it's supposed to be. Nobody's going to... take care of anyone." She shoots a scathing look at Alex. "Or shoot anyone," she adds, with a harsh look at Chloe.

Didn't take long for it all to go to shit, did it. Alex folds his arms, expression hardening as he looks between the two of them. Chloe's unstable as fuck - explains why Max deals with Alex's bullshit on the regular, yeah? And Max has no idea how to deal with either of them. That much's obvious.

"Not saying I'm amenable to it," he says, making at least a partial effort to soften his tone. "But worst comes to worst, better me than you. And, uh, I'm pretty sure Chloe here agrees."

He jerks a thumb at her.

"So, uh, good thing I'm taking precautions and making sure it never happens again. Right?"

His voice sounds too strained, his exterior too riven through with cracks and an uncharacteristic hope. He's not hopeful. He doesn't wanna die again - it really freaking hurts, and he's not fond of it. But he wants Max to die even less. Even if it means taking a bullet to the gut. And as much as dying sucks, he knows what he's done, what he's been made to do, and he's the one that deserves that kind of pain. Him, and no one else.

This is not exactly what Chloe had in mind when she was preparing to go trick or treating with Max. There were no awkward moments or blackmailing in her plans.

She hates Alex, for trying to kill Max. That much is true. But he says it was the event, it was the event messing with his head, with everyone's. Chloe knows that that's possible. But she has a hard time admitting this. She finds it difficult to excuse Alex from what he did.

But he cares for her. That's pretty clear. Chloe can see how much Alex cares for her, how far he is willing to go to protect Max. Probably as far as she's willing to go too. And right now, that's the one thing that they have in common.

"I don't care who dies, as long as it's not Max." Hasn't she proven that? Hasn't she proven, in the face of that crazy tornado, that she's willing to give up everything just to keep Max alive?

She looks at Alex, her expression no longer as cold and hostile as before. "So yeah I guess I do agree with you." Chloe looks back at her best friend. "Whatever it takes."

It's kind of ridiculously ironic how much they want to keep Max from dying- between the three of them, she's the only one who never has! Both of her friends have died more than once. Hundreds died in Arcadia Bay, or... would have, or maybe they really did- who gives a shit anymore? Does it matter what actually happened? Whether in this timeline or in another, Max has blood on her hands- so much of it, and it'll haunt her to the end of her days. There's no fixing that. No amount of not dying will make that okay.

Stupid. They... don't get it. Max doesn't either. Sometimes she feels like she's loitering through the days, like she's walking in a dream. Maybe she dreamed up the whole of Wonderland. That would be just like her, wouldn't it? Fuck with her brain so much that it fills up with Chloe, makes these fantasy worlds where the two of them can be together- just like that painful nightmare right before Max's final rewind, reliving all their most meaningful moments. That's not being alive!

Alex and Chloe are... are ganging up on her. No one's listening- they ignored what she said! And she knew her eyes would start watering. She wipes at them discreetly.

She wants to vomit at the absurdity of it all. How screwed up are the three of them! Chloe with all her issues and obsessions, Alex so obviously descending into some kind of insanity, and Max with her brain irreparably damaged from messing around with time. So much so she can't even put any of this, not a single thought, into the proper words.

What a trio they are! A punk ghost, a crazy skeleton, and a goddamn ghost buster!

"...Come on." She grasps Chloe's arm and glances at the two of them in turn. "If... that thing shows up and we're not trick-or-treating, it'll eat us."

Now that they're not comparing dick measurements, Alex heaves a little sigh, adjusting the sack containing his paltry earners for the night slung over his shoulder. It's little more than a repurposed pillowcase, but like hell he'll be dragging around some kind of toy pumpkin - oh no, jack-o-melon, got to get the terminology right - like a kid. He's not a kid. He's just...a mess.

Yeah, sounds about right.

"Not sure I get to stick around," he says, as drolly as he can. "I'm a better sport solo, anyway."

And Max looks...distressed, to say the least. His presence probably isn't helping any.

Chloe knows she and Alex put Max in a tight spot. The last time she saw her best friend this stressed over friends was when Kate was calling her and she had to choose between taking the call and following Chloe. At that time, Chloe was pissed that Max took the call. But after finding out what happened to Kate, and what she was going through, that annoyance turned to boiling, hot guilt. She should never have asked Max to choose. Max is a nice person, plain and simple. She wants to help everyone, not just her best friend, not just Chloe, but everyone. Jesus, she'd save the whole Arcadia Bay if she could.

Chloe looks at her best friend's distressed expression, then to Alex's sort of retreating figure. It's obvious that Max cares for him, just as she cared for Kate. Would Chloe really make the same mistake again? Or would she make the effort to get along with this guy, just because he's Max's friend and that she knows it'll make Max happy?

After a minute of silence, Chloe finally opens her mouth to speak. She doesn't know who to address really, so she just kinda talks to the air between them.

"Well. It's up to Max. Whatever she wants to do. I'm just her sidekick."

She shrugs and keeps her tone hard and a bit forced, still not ready to show either of them that she is actually capable of softening up.

Max still can't stand the attention, even though her two friends are hardly even addressing her anymore. She hides her face by bending to pick up her bag of candy, taking the chance to wipe her eyes again.

...Just Max Caulfield being silly.

This isn't her choosing between friends. She really, really hopes it doesn't come out that way. "I'll call you after the event, okay, Alex?" Right now they have to actually be trick-or-treating. That feels a lot like being saved by the bell. She holds onto Chloe's forearm again, pulling her ever so slightly down the hallway. "I promise."

These last few moments actually feel like... things are okay with the three of them. Sure they're all kind of nuts and there's this weird pact going on with killing each other, but... but there's much less tension than there was before. And Max doesn't feel so much in the dark anymore.

She tries to read Alex's expression, to see if he's really feeling okay about all of this deep down. He plays it off casually, but... nobody can be that detached from their own life, can they?

Rather than engage in what would probably be the most awkward trick-or-treating experience of his life (and this is saying something, considering that he grew up in Alabama, the state in which every holiday must involve copious fireworks and firearms), he'd prefer to not tail the chick who nearly put a bullet in his skull, and is probably still secretly hoping he'll drop dead any day now. Well, that makes two of them.

"Yeah, okay." He fiddles with some of the fraying threads of his pillowcase to give his hands something to do. "Think the mansion hates me anyway. Got three raw eggs to the face this night alone."

Play it off. It's fine. It's cool. Not the first time he's been threatened, though the gunpoint thing made a nice change of pace. And Max...well, he can't really say how it'd feel to have someone from his world he gives a damn about, not unless Amy ever showed up. But if Amy were here - yeah, he'd probably do some pretty intense shit for her too. So. Fair enough.

Chloe shrugs. So they both pass off on the opportunity to stick together. That's cool. She doesn't know what she was expecting, to be honest. I guess it would have been hella awkward if they ended up trick or treating together.

I mean really. What do you say to the guy who stabbed your best friend and you threatened to kill just a few hours ago?

...

"Hey, want some of my candy corn?"

...

Awkward as fuck.

Guess splitting up is the best thing to do for now. Max will probably deal with him once we separate.

Chloe lets Max pull her through the hallway, but not before she glances at Alex and says with a hint of her usual snarky but playful tone, "See you around, asswipe."

That comment earns a sharp elbow to the ribs for Chloe- and no, it's not playful. She starts leading her down the hallway, but turns to glance at Alex with a worried expression. She mouths Sorry at him, for... well, for a lot of reasons.

This first meeting is not how she imagined it for her best friends. Though, come to think of it, this would be the second meeting. She heaves a heavy sigh as they head down the hall.

They're probably not getting much candy after this.

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+ Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright! | OPEN +

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