“Welcome everyone, to our University of Toronto Fan Convention!” Charlie Morningstar screamed at the top of her lungs into the podium microphone. The ringing in the room from that auditory blast lasted about as long as the ringing in her ear, after which she raised her head up once more and resumed her speech. “We’re uh, so happy to have you!”

“Oh, and we’re just ecstatic to be here!” Angel Dust replied from the front row. He was the only person in any of the rows. “Is what I would say if I could still hear, ow! Never had my ears raped that hard since the time…”

“That’s enough, Angel. Ey Cabron…” Vaggi came out of the wings while Baxter climbed up to look at the sound system, the rehearsal was taking a pause. “Ugh! Nothing’s going right!”

“Hey! This is why we practice, to make perfect! And besides, there’s a lot more going into all this than just a speech.” Charlie fanned her hand to her face to brush off the heat of embarrassment as she stepped away from the podium, away from the stage, and out into the halls of OISE with her girlfriend. “Everyone in there wanted a break anyway, we’re really working them to the bone.”

“Yeah, and that’s definitely why they’re tired. Just, ugh!” Vaggi wanted to punch something but there wasn’t any room for it, not between all the hustle and bustle, the shuttling of tables and chairs and holographic performance displays across hallways. “I don’t know about all of this Charlie, are we really ready for Thursday?”

“Pfft, are we ready? Of course we’re ready!” Cherri came out of the elevator they were taking up and tripped at the sight of them, detonating all of the glitter bombs she was carrying all over herself, the floor, and not the stage where they were to be used as the closest thing to fireworks.

“Aw crap, sorry! Bloody piss drinking sensitive little cunts, I’ll just make another batch, no biggie!” She smiled up at them from where she lay with the one good eye as Vaggi kicked her leg out of the closing elevator so it could do just that.

“Yeah! Ready! Super duper ready and if we aren’t already we better be because we’ve told the whole school about this and staked our entire reputation and so if it doesn’t work out then we can pretty much kiss this club and any hope of a peaceful student life goodbye!”

“Hey.” Vaggi turned back to Charlie soon as she pressed the button to go up. “Relax. Remember what we said about breathing between your words?”

Breathing was all Charlie could do now, tuckering out after her latest speech. “Right.” Breathe in. “Breathing!” Breath out. “Just one more thing that’s gotta be ready by next week!”

“Maybe you should leave the worrying to me, honey…” at least the holes she punched in plaster could be patched up. The same couldn’t be said for the rips Alastor had been leaving along the carpet wherever he touched down his staff, the stabby thing had a tendency to take some tufts with it whenever he lifted it. And he tended to do that.

“If it isn’t our esteemed director and her assistant! What brings you two lovely second years to our floor?” In this instance he lifted it along with his other arm to form a big hug, outside the gender neutral washroom on the way to 8280. Neither took him up on his offer.

“Your floor? Nobody owns any floors during this convention Alastor, Charlie and I were just checking-” She didn’t even get to correct him about the assistant thing.

“Checking what? That we’re turning this shit heap into the hottest thing on campus? Well rest assured that’s exactly what I, we, intend to do.” Vincent came out of the bathroom, knees dirty and face wet, spewing the same bullshit that landed him the head of advertising job. 

“Right, so, the photo booth is rea-” Vincent coughed up a fit before Charlie could finish her sentence, spitting up a short green hair that was very visible on his white face. “It’s ready, right?”

“Soon to be! As are all the other activities we have set for this floor. Worry not Charlie Morningstar, when was the last time I ever failed to throw a party?” She had explained many times that that’s not what this was.

“It’s not exactly a party Alastor, more like a blah blah blah” he never really understood the whole fandom thing.

“Whatever you say! Now if you’re excuse me, my work partner and I have to put on the finishing touches for the video and music room.” Alastor whacked Vincent on the crotch the other boy was busy scratching, and he was shortly thereafter dragged away down the hall of the 8th floor by the radio freak.

“Looks like they’re basically got things under control. You okay Charlie?” It was hard for Vaggi not to look at Alastor grabbing Vincent’s ass, but when she could pull her gaze away from there it was to a despondent Charlie. “Charlie? We should get back to the rehearsal.”

“Mhm! Right, for sure, it’s not like anything else in this building needs our attention at all!” There were other things demanding their attention, banging heard on the way down to the first floor, screaming on the second, and the remains of even more glitter viscera in the lobby. But there was rehearsing to do.

“Oh, finally you’re back!” Angel yelled as soon as the doors slammed open, not waiting to see who or what had slammed it. “Lemme tell ya, soooo boring ovah here! Backshots left to do some projector bullshit with Nifty, apparently every room on the 4th is on the fritz. Cherri saw Pentious, dropped everything again, and this was on all of those expensive vulnerable to glitter cutouts he just brought ovah from SF, and get this; we got celebrities coming! Been checking the Instagram, and oh yeah, some big names saying they’re excited to see how things go, good or other-”

“That’s enough, Angel.” Vaggi didn’t have it in her to explode or bemoan. She knew as well as Charlie did, it was just more they’d have to get to. “Charlie’s gonna try again.”

Angel and Vaggi both looked back to their director with varying amounts of pride, confidence, admiration and love. She looked at the both of them, at the podium her legs were unconsciously bringing her to, and the stage which slowly filled with delirium induced hallucinations. They were all staring too. Not frowning, smiling, or laughing with big sharp pointy teeth; staring with a blank slate. It began once more. “Welcome everyone, to the University of Toronto Fan Convention!”