Chapter 51 - Suit Up

After an alarming amount of time, by 427's current standards at least, of high-intensity buzzing competition, there is still no clear winner. Nearing his breaking point, 427 finally interrupts.

[It's great that you are all bonding so well, but we REALLY don't have time for this.]

Lucas had been mid-buzz when 427 spoke up and the sudden mechanical voice startles him into fumbling. Willy does not hesitate to consider this a failing on his part, barking at him twice, then turning to look at Jonathan for his turn.

'Hey! You could have at least waited until it wasn't my turn, jerk.'

[…]

'Okay, okay, you're right. Busy day and all that. Meh.'

As Jonathan successfully finishes another round of buzzing, Willy gives his accepting bark and then quickly runs in a small circle in front of him, apparently declaring the victor.

By what rule set they were just playing with, who could say? Yet, somehow, all parties involved seemed to agree with the outcome.

As Jonathan celebrates his victory by pumping a fist in the air, Lucas really can't resist laughing at him.

"All right, enough of that. We... Er, I need to get ready to go out so we can get some of our chores over with." While saying this, Lucas has gotten up from where he had sunken into the patched-up sofa. Before he has taken more than three steps towards his bedroom, Willy has immediately taken his place on the sofa, curling up into a doggie donut.

Seeing that Willy has lost any lingering interest in the soggy chewed-up bagel on the floor, Jonathan can no longer resist getting up to pick it up and throw it out, washing his hands afterward.

[Hah! There is definitely no way he would have tolerated you throwing garbage around the room. Now I'm curious if he would have used his speed to try and catch it mid-air and mitigate the spread of crumbs.]

'...I'm not used to you encouraging me like that.'

[I was absolutely not! Don't you dare do it on purpose, and don't you dare try to pin any of the blame on me!]

'Heheh, that almost makes me want to do it even more. Maybe next time.'

[You know what? You deserve whatever he does to you.]

Lucas involuntarily snerks, grinning to himself as he heads off into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

After rummaging around through his dressers for a little while, now judging his clothes by a higher standard than before, he has an epiphany and charges back out of the room. There's a loud bang as the door flings open and whacks against the wall without any resistance from the ex-doorstop, a few flakes of paint and drywall falling as the door bounces back off of said wall. The poor wall now has greatly sprawled spiderweb patterns of cracks on it and is probably not long for this world.

"JON!" Lucas yells as soon as he rips the door open, the sound of his shout is almost simultaneous with the collision of the hot hot door on wall action.

The sudden loud noises drowning out the weather forecast on the TV make Jonathan and Willy both jump up from their previously relaxed positions on the sofa, gasping or barking accordingly.

Jonathan turns a bit paler than normal, somehow. It seems he's still a bit too skittish to handle a sudden spook like that.

"Ah!? Wha-what!?" Jonathan's frightened confusion doesn't cause Lucas to lose any momentum at all.

"Jooooon! Let's wear the suits!" As Lucas voices the inspiration that triggered his sudden chaos, Jonathan's confusion quickly clears and he gains his own enthusiasm.

"Oh! Yeah! We gotta be cool when we make the organization!" With Jonathan fully on board, Lucas starts to head towards the bathroom, ready to inspect the so-called wrinkle resistance of the suits he left in a dryer overnight instead of having taken them to a dry cleaner.

Before he's even made it to the bathroom door, Jonathan has already returned from the coat closet near the front door, carrying the two neatly hung-up suits draped across his arms so as to not drag them on the floor at all.

'You know what? I'm not even surprised.'

[If anything, you should have expected it at this point.]

'Seriously. Oh, still need shirts from the dryer though.'

The currently normal-person-speed Jonathan leisurely brings the suits over, hanging them off of the hook mounted on the inside of the bathroom door.

Lucas has begun rummaging through his neglected clothing, apart from hanging his suit it seems Jonathan only folded his own clothing.

After only a small amount of searching, he pulls out a white button-up collared dress shirt for himself. As he stands back up with it haphazardly draped over his left shoulder, he grabs Jon's matching shirt from his neatly stacked pile and tosses it at him over his right shoulder.

"Here, let's match too." As Lucas casually says this, Jon needs to activate his enhanced speed to catch the shirt before it falls anywhere unacceptable.

"Um, yeah, sure!" Even with their only limited time knowing each other so far, Jonathan doesn't seem at all fazed by Lucas's behavior.

Without even checking if Jonathan actually caught the shirt, Lucas goes over to claim his hanging suit and then heads to his bedroom, leaving the bathroom for Jonathan to change in.

The bathroom door quickly swings shut behind Lucas as soon as his body fully made it past the doorway, slowing down at the last moment so as to close gently.

Once they've both finished suiting up, Lucas heads back to dig around in the bathroom until he eventually finds a mostly full container of hair gel. Once they've both slicked their hair back, he sets about knotting up their matching red silk ties.

He starts with Jonathan's, making sure he can still actually work out how to do it for someone else with mirrored motions.

Thankfully, all it does is slow him down a bit, but he still manages a flawless Eldredge knot for Jonathan. Afterward, he proceeds to do the same for himself, taking half of the time to tie it compared to how long it had taken for Jonathan's.

Now that they are both dressed to the nines, Lucas pokes about on the top of his dresser to find the social networking all-stars card to tuck into an inner pocket of his suit jacket.

Now equipped with the priceless cardboard rectangle, Lucas heads back out to the living room, idly wishing he had bought some handkerchiefs as well.

Jonathan had procured their sunglasses and moved the two boxes of dress shoes that they brought home over towards the sofa so they could sit down to lace them up.

Once they're primed and ready to go, Willy runs a few circles around each of them as they head over to start unlocking the door.

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Lucas kills this chapter: 0

Lucas total kills: 6

Lucas deaths this chapter: 0

Lucas total deaths: 10

Lucas current GDV: 8.78 (+.01 net change)

Lucas's fame level: 2* (Mostly just local)

Lucas's hero suspicion level: 1* (Only highly paranoid people)

Jonathan kills this chapter: 0

Jonathan total kills: 5

Jonathan deaths this chapter: 0

Jonathan total deaths: 2

Jonathan current GDV: 1.78

Jonathan's fame level: 1.5* (Just local)

Jonathan's hero suspicion level: 1* (Only highly paranoid people)

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Little character theater:

Jonathan, currently the fanciest he's been his entire life: Hehe, we're so badass right now.

Lucas can't help adjusting the collar of his suit jacket a few times: You know, these really are pretty slick.

Willy is feeling a bit underdressed for the occasion. What with being naked and all.

427, genuinely hoping they don't run into any minor GDV tasks on the way to their objectives today in order to save time: Seriously, you can stop preening already and go.

Author, sighing: 427, please don't set flags like that.

Mr. Quacks, now wearing a small red bow tie he got from who-knows-where: Quack!