Episode II Cold Open, Part 2

Aw, nuts. This isn’t Vicky’s wheelhouse at all. Music’s loud. Kids are loud. Bunch of shit she probably shouldn’t drink- hell, looking at it felt illegal. And where, like, are they? Can’t they do this in someone’s house? Where are they getting electricity from?? She pops open the soda her baba gave her, which is now room temperature, that she has inexplicably taken in the car and sat holding the entire time, and drinks half of it in one go.

Josie squints at her. Derek Jr. is standing behind, practically on the heels of the two of them. He seems suddenly struck by a pang of regret. “Oh, I don’t think they’re gonna… like us,” he mutters, peeking out from behind Vicky.

“No way. Eeeeveryone’s gonna love us,” Vicky says, optimistically confident regardless.

Josie eyes her.

“Everyone,” Vicky repeats.

Well, they’re here, so- better not immediately walk out. At least, uh, June drove them, which is… hehe. She was only meant to get Tony, but Josie convinced her to grab the rest of them too. Was it out of convenience, or a classic Josie scheme? Regardless, it avoided what surely would’ve been the most bonkers awkward car conversation with her baba ever conceived.

Tony’s standing next to them, hands shoved in her front hoodie pocket and looking like a professional wallflower. In contrast to Vicky, she radiates a distinct lack of confidence.

June Park, who has led them here, is either purposefully ignoring discomfort or genuinely not noticing. The kids think it’s the latter, but Tony is convinced it’s the first.

In reality, June is simply preoccupied.

She’s looking out for, uh, the one single person that absolutely none of the people looking to her for guidance want to speak to. In her defense… well, she’s a little oblivious, and she didn’t think they would be relying on her that much.

As soon as she spots her, June waves over Jenny with a huge grin on her face- and everyone behind her suddenly freezes as the aforementioned one-person-they-were-avoiding walks over to them.

At first, she doesn’t even look at them- offering exactly zero of her attention. Instead, she steps up to June. She puts her hands on her shoulders, goes “heyyy, Junebug,” and stands on her toes to kiss her on the cheek. You know. In a friend way. June seems to bristle, but doesn’t do anything about it. Tony takes notice.

Jenny looks over June’s entourage. “Great. You brought- uh, her.” Tony is only given a quick glance, and yet it’s enough to nearly make her entire stomach drop. “And… aaaall of these freshmen.” Which, based on the look she gives them, seems to garner much more of Jenny’s concern.

Vicky sticks her hand out at her to shake, grinning broadly. Jennifer looks at it for a moment, then proceeds to do nothing about it. “Cool. Well. Have fun.”

The hand is awkwardly retracted when Jenny walks away.

“Dude,” says Josie, “you just got super mega-ignored.”

“Nahhh,” Vicky says, “naw. She didn’t notice.”

Derek Jr. sighs wistfully, gazing off after her. Both of them immediately turn to stare at him. Junior fumbles, scoffs, and shoots an equally appalled look right back. “Uh, what?”

“Nothing.” Josie responds.

June seems to notice something that the other four don’t. June stares too, squinting, before she turns to address them. “Alright! So, uh. You can get up to pretty much whatever. I will,” she glances off, turning her head, before looking back to them. “Uh, be back.” She gives them a thumbs-up.

“Mhm,” Tony mumbles.

That seems to be the response June was waiting on. She walks away, accidentally shouldering more than one person aside as she does.

Hmm. Hmmm. Vicky shifts on her feet. Something seems… up. Vicky, being Vicky, would like to help, but she can’t do that if she walks away. “‘M gonna follow her.”

“Yeah, of course you are,” Josie snickers.

“I am!”

“Okaaay,” responds Josie, who can’t help a giggle. “Uh-huh. Just don’t be weird,” she teases.

“Wuh- huh-” Vicky sputters, “you are- you’re the one being weird. Okay? I’m not weird. I’m just gonna-”

Josie steps behind her, and lightly shoves her forward. Vicky gets the memo and trudges off, mumbling something about how obviously normal she is.

June follows Jenny, rounding a corner after her to the outside near the back of the building. Okay, so, kind of shady. It’s one of few places where no lights are shining, and where no people have gathered. Vicky scoots up against a wall and pokes her head out- barely- to look. She goes unnoticed mostly on the combined coincidence of low light and thumping noise. And, well, Vicky didn’t come here to snoop, but this seems- uh. Like a two-people-only kind of thing when she hadn’t expected it to be, so she hangs back behind the wall instead. She plans on just leaving, but then Josie would probably say something like "haha you didn’t even talk to her" and Vicky wouldn’t be able to think of an excuse, so. She stands there. And listens, because there’s nothing else to do.

Jennifer’s turned the other way, and June speaks first. “Are you annoyed? Did I annoy you?”

Honestly, Jenny seems surprised that she’s followed her. June sounds beyond genuine. Jennifer sighs. “You didn’t annoy me, June,” she says, close to mumbling.

“Because- I didn’t mean to,” despite Jenny’s claim, June carries on. Her voice seems to pitch upwards a bit before she swallows. “I didn’t. I’m sorry, can I-“

Jenny huffs- if she wasn’t irritated before, she seems to be growing irritated now. “I said you didn’t, okay? How about you just-“

“But you are!” June interjects, and her tone of voice honestly- it puts Vicky off. June sounds happy just to be breathing most of the time, and jumping to the stark contrast of something between desperation and distress over- something very simple, Vicky thought, is unusual and uncomfortable. “You are annoyed.”

“I am now!” She snaps, finally turning to jab her finger at her chest. “Shut up, June, Christ! Get it through your head!”

June absolutely recoils, and the severity of the reaction makes Vicky flatten herself against the wall- almost as if in solidarity. June is wide-eyed, like an animal.

Jenny steps back, and seems- well, thrown off, but not specifically surprised. She mutters an apologetic, frustrated string of curses, and knocks her fist against her head.

“Shit. Sorry,” she sighs, and- it sounds like she means it, but Vicky can’t quite tell. Jennifer puts a hand on her shoulder, and June tips forward a bit into it. “You didn’t do anything wrong, June. Alright? That’s the end of that. Just… go back to your- your friends. Okay?” She drops her hand. “I’ll see you later.”

June gulps, then nods.

Wow. Vicky has genuinely no idea what the hell any of that was supposed to be. As asked, June turns to go.

For a moment, Jenny looks frustrated with herself- then follows with “...hey, uh. Wait.”

June stops. Vicky, who thought she could now flee, also stops.

“Can I, like-” She hesitates, then shrugs, poking her nail into the side of her neck. “Well, yeah. You know.”

June looks at her, head tilting. Apparently, June seems to understand. Which is great, because Vicky has no idea what’s going on. June points a thumb back in the direction of everybody else. “There’s a bunch of people, though.”

Jennifer rolls her eyes. “Nobody’s back here. It’s fine.”

Vicky freezes, but continues to look on in morbid curiosity. She tries to breathe just about as quietly as possible.

June shrugs, nods, then leans over. It is then Jennifer proceeds to grab her by the shoulders- okay jesus christ are they about to kiss or something and if they do Vicky will be Really Normal not disappointed about it-

Jennifer instead dips her head near the side of her neck, and- just straight up bites it. Like, fangs-Vicky-didn’t-notice sink her teeth in and puncture bites it. June barely reacts, despite it looking painful.

Vicky’s entire expression proceeds to drop into something mortified, dumbfounded, and shocked. Okay so, new revelation- yay, she might be right about ghosts being real! On the other: SWEET JESUS.

Does she, like, intervene!? What would that even do? June had clearly been like yeah sure! Take my blood! I don’t care! so it’s not like she was getting- mugged, or something. For her blood. Maybe they’d think Vicky was being the insane nosy one instead of- you know. THE VAMPIRE. But she’s literally seen her in the sun!? Are the movie rules the same as the real life rules? Vicky didn’t think “real life rules” would ever become relevant for this! Instead, Vicky slides back behind the wall, turns around, and cycles through several options. Okay, so, step one: run away before she’s noticed and gets eaten, or something. Running would make people wonder why she’s running, though, so Vicky speedwalks away as fast as humanly possible without seeming like she was either bonkers or actively fleeing from something. She does not wait for the conclusion of that interaction before moving back to her friends.

Off to the side, they seem to be talking about- whatever, it doesn’t matter! There’s bigger problems than if Junior’s train models have a part model from 1945 when the train wasn’t made until 1946!

“H-” Josie starts. Vicky shoves a finger up to her mouth in an aggressive "shh" gesture.

So, Vicky hadn’t been completely wrong on why this whole thing was happening. Jenny was absolutely scoping people out, and it was for all the wrong reasons! Vicky makes no attempt to fathom this otherwise- she’d always thought there might be weird stuff roaming around- maybe ghosts, werewolves! Sure, she’d never seen any of them before, but she was absolutely certain. She could not have possibly seen anything else!

Vicky has a look of absolute urgency on her face, and every single person there looks at her quizzically as she attempts to fumble words together.

…It is not working very well. The most Vicky sputters in a coherent string is “wuh- she’s literally-” before a hand gets clamped on her shoulder. Slowly, Vicky’s head turns.

“Hey,” says Jennifer, followed by June, who rubs her neck as if she’s just got a muscle ache. “Why’re you so jittery?”

Oh my god. This is going to be one hell of a year.