Phosphorescence, Luminescence, and You

[Cactus]

The letters glowed almost exactly the way that he'd hoped they would. The vibrant glow of the artificially-infused paint was luminescent, and under the haze of the black light, he imagined that his teeth probably had a funny hue to them too as he grinned. They'd done it. They'd successfully created glow-in-the-dark paint, with none of the premium cost associated with buying the real expensive stuff from the Walgreens in town.

Now if only it had a practical application.

((Morgan Dragosavich Prom Start))

Glancing at his pal standing in the corner of the room, barely visible under the black light caused from the lamp that Morgan himself held in his hand, he adjusted his eyes to try and gauge Michael's reaction. He couldn't imagine that his friend was anything but pleased - they'd been tweaking the formula for days, trying to come up with the best combination of chemicals that would turn the pain luminescent, and yet be non-toxic to the two of them in the confined space of Morgan's family garage. After the incident years before, his experimentations had been fewer and further between, but this was just a silly idea that Morgan couldn't help but jump into head-first.

The day that the school had made the announcement that prom was going to be a glow-in-the-dark theme, it had seemed the smart thing to go and invest in some luminescent paint, especially the kind that might not be visible upon first glance. Writing a silly or crude message on the floor of the gym in paint might be the kind of thing that the school might frown upon, but if the paint were invisible...

"We're fuckin' geniuses, man. We did it."

Morgan's smile was broader now - Michael had yet to say much about their feat of chemical engineering, but that wasn't altogether surprising. Of all the many schemes or ideas that the two had collaborated on over the years, it was usually Morgan who did most of the tire-pumping, and who was the first to celebrate whatever silly accomplishment happened to be worth talking about that day.

Of course, the garage being almost pitch-black probably didn't help matters any. Reaching over, he flicked the lights back on, his newly adjusted vision having to take a moment once more. The grin still didn't fade from his face, though.

"Man - if we were so inclined, we could make a whole bunch of this stuff and paint something on the wall, on the floor... and no one would ever know it was us. We'd have to figure out how to smuggle it in, though."

He paused, eyes wide as a new idea came to mind.

"Or - or! We could paint stuff on shirts, and wear the shirts underneath our stuff. Then just leave the shirts around and people would find them. Nobody would know who it was."

The smile returned, a twinkle in his eye as he looked at Michael.

"Prom is going to be awesome, dude."

[Kermit]

((M-Frozzle Prom Start))

"Prom is terrible."

Like, Michael didn't see prom having a real point besides 'awkwardly shuffle with your peers while standing in a gymnasium and then after a few hours, potentially get drunk/have sex' which was like, ok, but Michael'd rather be doing actual fun stuff. The only reasons why he'd go to prom would be if someone forced him at gunpoint or if he could be a meme while doing it.

Anyways, earlier Morgan had used the metaphorical gun called friendship and been all like 'Hey Michael let's make glow-in-the-dark paint for prom!!!!!!!' and then Michael replied like 'Why can't we buy a shitload of lemon juice instead?' because he was pretty sure that showed up under blacklight or something but Morgan was like 'No that's LAME!!!!!!!!!!!!' and Michael was like 'hello darkness my old friend I've come to talk with you again...' and so here they were.

Morgan suggested putting the paint on their shirts and Michael didn't want to do that because Michael liked his shirts. Michael was thinking that pretty much everyone at prom would already luminesce under blacklights (because almost everyone at school was a ho) and he'd have a lot more fun just like bringing a blacklight and using it to shame everyone - SHIT THAT WAS PERFECT but Michael also didn't want to steal Morgan's paint-thunder so he held off on that suggestion.

"I know what we can do," he said. "Let's inject the paint into our bloodstreams so we glow in the dark. If we do that, we'll be the most exciting thing to happen at GHH in years, and also it'll kill me, which would be a great excuse to not go to prom."

[Cactus]

"Oh c'mon man, it's not that bad."

Morgan's face fell. This was classic Michael - sarcastic remarks that invariably ended up in his demise in order to get out of something that he didn't really want to do. They'd had a very similar discussion earlier in the year, when Morgan had talked Michael into going to the caves instead of writing an essay. That had been an easier sell, except for the part when Michael realized that he might actually have to go somewhere instead of pouring words out of his head and into a word processor. By all accounts, prom was probably similar.

As good a friend as he was, sometimes it was tough just to get Michael to do anything.

Scratching the back of his neck, Morgan shrugged at his buddy's reticence. "You know though, you might be onto something." He looked down at the black light that he still held within his hand. "Doesn't make sense to ruin a perfectly good shirt. But what if..."

He flicked the lamp off and set it down on the toolbox that stood to the right of the light-switch. Morgan's eyes had a faraway look, as though his mind were racing through some scheme.

"We could always apply the same properties to some moisturizing cream. Lend it to some unsuspecting bum. Then they walk in, and voila! They're a Christmas tree." Morgan's ever-present smirk had returned. "Wyatt Carter can't eat you if you if everyone can see him coming from a mile away."

Crossing the garage to the bowl of newly-created paint, Morgan started to put away the chemicals, so as not to leave anything askew or risk a spill. All jokes about dying to avoid prom aside, Morgan had no designs on perishing anytime soon, at least before the big day. Glancing at Michael, something piqued his curiousity.

"Hey, you did pick your ticket up, right? They're only on sale for the rest of the week."

[Kermit]

Oh, but Morgan, prom was that bad. What did "prom" even stand for? Promenade? Promotion? Promiscuity???????

Morgan apparently also didn't want to wreck their shirts so that was neat, but then he got that 'Nam flashback look that he got when he was doing something evil and it made Michael internally scream again.

Hmmmmmm......

Morgan's idea was actually kind of ok.... except for the parts where they gave hand cream to Wyatt. Those parts were of questionable quality at best.

"Wait," Michael hunched his back like Igor and began to speak in a voice reminiscent of the Russian guy from Rocky & Bullwinkle. "Hello..... mister Wyatt Carter...... would you like some of this here.................. artisanal hand.... cream..... it is not poisoned......... why would you say that............ I swear I definitely do not have several prostitutes kept prisoner in my basement.......... I swear.................. ha........ haaaaaaa..........."

Morgan mentioned prom tickets, and that made Michael stand up straight again.

"Yes...." he lied, pursing his lips. ".....No."

[Cactus]

Morgan laughed at Michael's Russian villain impression. While not necessarily spot-on, Michael was the kind of guy whose humour he really appreciated - full of pop-culture references and silly takes on serious situations. It was probably a large part of the reason that the two of them got on so well. Morgan was a bit more of a 'fly by the seat of the pants' kind of person, whereas Michael tended to err on the side of caution, so imagining him trying to throw that voice on to poison the biggest and scariest kid in school was nearly hysterical.

Allowing a moment for his laughter to subside, he gestured to the mess on the table in front of him.

"Well, our delivery method might be a little flawed, but I think our idea is positively luminescent."

Composing himself, he leaned back against the workbench, now immediately intrigued at Michael's admission.

"Wait, what? Dude, you've gotta do it this week. Tickets might sell out soon!"

His expression softened a bit and his normally hyperactive cadence slowed.

"You are still planning to go, right?" In hindsight, Morgan realized that he hadn't exactly heard Michael speak about prom in the affirmative; the assumption had always been that his pal would be going - probably solo, but going nonetheless. His shoulders slumped just a little, hoping he was mistaken.

"Right?"

[Kermit]

Morgan was sad and Michael felt bad. Michael wasn't exactly one to enjoy, like, doing stuff, and Morgan probably should've expected that, but the whole deal was still a big oof right in the feelings.

"I...... Uhhhh......" he shrugged his shoulders and stared at the workbench behind Morgan. "I mean... unless I have like something to actually do, I'll probably dip on it. Sorry, I guess..."

He looked Morgan in the eyes and put on a sheepish frown.

He wasn't actually all that sorry. This was like pretty much 0% his fault. Morgan, being Manic Morgan, made an assumption and then put a bunch of emotional weight on said assumption. Like, shit, what exactly did Michael have to be sorry for anyways? Not reading Morgan's mind or whatever? Morgan could be fun sometimes but other times he was just kind of great at making Michael feel like his brain was being scraped along a cheesegrater.

[Cactus]

Morgan frowned, the disappointment spreading from his face and pulsing all through his body. It wasn't that Michael being at prom was going to be a make-or-break for Morgan himself, but he'd always just assumed that he'd be able to wander around the hall at prom, his friends in various corners, laughing at whichever stupid football player was making a spectacle of themselves or gossiping over who was punching out of their limit when it came to their date. Michael wasn't really one for injecting himself in the goings-on of the social strata of George Hunter High, but without his main partner in crime...

"Aww, dude. I didn't realize that you weren't that in to it."

He scratched the back of his neck, and suddenly felt like the mess on the workbench was more of a priority than anything else. He looked away from Michael, and started more intensely tidying the space, trying to hide his disappointment but doing a subpar job of it.

"I guess it makes sense - it's just going to be a bunch of people in a crowded room trying to make themselves look like they're the coolest kid in school," he mumbled his words a little, trying to compose himself.

He took a moment, and then decided - fuck it, instead of being disappointed, he'd do the next best thing.

Talk him into it.

Looking up at Michael with false outrage, he threw his hands up in the air.

"I mean, I guess I'll just have to go around making clever comments about everyone to myself!" He didn't do a very good job of trying to be fake mad, so he shrugged as his arms fell to his sides once more.

"Are you really sure," he leaned forward a bit, "that you want to miss the boob-window event of the year? Like really sure? Probably the one day of the year that everyone at this stupid school is going to look like they're actually on the same level."

Morgan grinned.

"Also, boobs. I can't stress that part enough."

He knew that his friend wasn't necessarily as much of a horn-dog as he could be, but ... he assumed Michael would see that Morgan was trying, in his own kind of way, to change his friend's mind without getting too sentimental.

[Kermit]

"Woah, slow down there Mr. Weinstein. If you want to see boobs that badly, you could just, I dunno, open up Google Images."

Michael never really saw the appeal in boobs. They were bags of meat that hung from people's chests. Like... okay? Whatever floats your boat.

Actually, Morgan was being kinda sorta actually Harvey Weinstein-ey. Michael generally avoided the whole sex stuff, and talking about boobs made him uncomfortable. He still wasn't sure if Morgan was trying to guilt-trip him as a joke or like as actual guilt-tripping.

He crossed his arms. "Like... you could live-tweet it. Like, uh... you could take a photo of the goth kids and be like 'wow this prom is depressing!' and then I could pop in - from home, on twitter, I mean - and be like '2006 called. It wants its fashion back'. Everyone will hate us, but I'd relate with their sentiment so it'd all be okay."

[Cactus]

Morgan held up his hands in mock outrage, punctuating the gesture with an exaggerated gasp.

"Hey now, hey now. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a little boobalicious prom action." He hesitated for a beat. "It's not like I'm leveraging movie roles with sexual favours or anything. Besides," he shrugged and relaxed a bit, "it's not like anyone would want to be in any movies I was making."

Smirking, he looked at his friend and took a more serious approach. So Michael was pretty hell-bent on not going to prom. That was a huge bummer, and while not altogether unexpected, he'd just always assumed that Mike would just come around and begrudgingly show up - dry comments and sarcastic humour at the ready.

Morgan had been counting on that. He had other friends, sure - but Michael had the pitch-perfect timing for many a crack or a one-liner. In truth, he sometimes thought his friend was funnier than he was, so to leave him at home, tweeting along or not? That wouldn't do.

So it was time to take Michael on a particular kind of trip.

"I guess I could always live tweet the event. Except every single tweet would be about how we just couldn't quite meet the requisite Michael quota for the event. We were just one short!" Morgan held up a finger to help punctuate his point.

His voice returned to a more normal bent.

"But seriously, man. You're really not going to go?" He frowned. "I'm kinda disappointed, to be honest. It would be really cool to rock prom with you there."

[Kermit]

...Aw jeez.

...Aw jeez.

"Okay okay, fuck it, I'll go."

Michael could feel a sore lump start to appear in his throat - the kind you get when you're feeling vaguely upset.

He frowned a bit. "Just... just tell me what you need me to do..." he trailed off.

[Cactus]

Michael crumbled under the peer pressure, and immediately, Morgan felt kind of bad. While yeah, he'd fully intended to guilt trip his friend into going, he sometimes forgot that Mike was a bit of a people-pleaser. He'd used that empathy against him, and gotten at least a surface acceptance of what he wanted.

What was the expression; had he done the wrong thing for the right reason?

Morgan felt a little slimy, but brushed the feelings under his proverbial rug and broke out into a huge grin. "Sweet, man! Trust me, I know you're not feeling it, but trust me when I say that you'll thank me later!"

Pulling out his smartphone, Morgan tapped a few key phrases into a Google search, and furrowed his brow as he held the phone up so that it was in his field of view next to Michael. Shaking his head, he tapped a few more words, and repeated the gesture. The third time he did it, his eyes widened and he grinned. He flipped the phone around, to reveal different colours of suits and tuxedos on a search. The particular search that he'd reacted to was that of a light blue nature.

"Man - this would be PERFECT for you. I mean... you could always go off the board and wear some sort of green or something." He furrowed his brow. "We could make luminescent suits. Or at least shoes. What d'you think?"

He smiled again, this time though, the smile was kind and as genuine as he could muster. He still felt a little bad about preying on his pal's good nature.

"Don't worry, man. I'm not gonna steer you wrong. I just wanna make sure we can look back on it someday and say we didn't miss out, y'know?"

[Kermit]

There was a brief moment in time as Morgan turned the phone where Michael held deep in his soul the fear that Morgan was showing him a Google Image search of boobs. Instead it was shitty tuxedos. That was better than boobs, probably.

Morgan suggested a green tuxedo. Was there something Michael was missing about him and the colour green? Like, he was pretty sure Beryl'd said something about Michael being green or something at some point in the past year, but like then again y'know, Beryl.

"That's... a travesty. It makes my eyes bleed. It's like denim but... not denim. Shit, actually, denim can glow, right? Let's just grab some of those off Amazon and cut it out with this David Hahn shit."

Oof, that joke was probably too obscure. Considering the fact that Morgan was here making glowing meth or whatever in his garage, chances were the David Hahn joke flew right over his head.

"...the guy who made a nuclear reactor in his garage - okay so yeah, denim. How about denim?"

[Cactus]

Morgan's head tilted somewhat quizzically as Michael made a reference that he didn't understand. The truth was though, Michael was right - the tuxedo idea was probably a little too expensive for their doing, and odds were they'd just end up getting horrible chemical burns and dying painfully. Which, for prom? Morgan had every intention of making it to prom.

Putting his phone down, he gave Michael a bit of a blank stare, until he clarified his reference, and his eyes lit up. Okay - that made sense. His stare turned into a grin, and he laughed as he slipped the phone into his pocket.

"Ohhh, shit. Yeah, no, I think I'll pass on the radioactive boy scout. Hard to pick up any chicks when you don't have any hair. Or teeth." He paused for a moment, giving it an actual thought. "Or when your skin is falling off. Or your eyes are bleeding. Huh."

Shaking himself out of it, he shrugged.

"Nah, you're right. I'm just bored, man. You know how my head goes when I get bored." Glancing at the wall clock, he didn't give Michael a chance to respond before making another suggestion.

"All seriousness though, wanna hit the mall? We can investigate the denim factor - and worst case, if that doesn't pan out, we can probably sort through the discount racks and find some sick PS3 games to kill some time to."

Morgan shot his friend a grin. Michael sometimes was a tough sell on a lot of things - going to prom being one of them, but if there was one thing that he knew his buddy could rarely resist, it was the allure of video games - old ones, new ones, his pal was a gamer. A gamer who routinely wiped the floor with Morgan whenever they'd play just about anything, but a gamer nonetheless.

"C'mon! I bet we can probably catch the bus if we hurry!"

Gathering that he'd be followed, Morgan grabbed his keys off the table, and walked over towards the door. He basically had everything he needed already and was already wearing shoes, so this seemed like a better and better idea as the seconds ticked by. Gesturing to Michael to follow, he flung the garage door open, and strode out, his mind already flipping to the next grand adventure.

Hopefully it would be as grand as making luminescent dye.

((Morgan Dragosavich continued in Something Good))

[Kermit]

At the mention of skin falling off, Michael couldn't help but have flashbacks to the time he saw photos of that Japanese guy who'd had all of his DNA fried by radiation and then spent half a year disintegrating until he finally died. He pushed that memory back down.

"I dunno man, the one thing I look for in women is the ability to cry blood."

Morgan made the executive decision that they were gonna go to the mall! Sometimes, Morgan really made Michael want to bludgeon him to death with a baseball bat.

Michael frowned. "Wait, I -"

And out went Morgan through the door. Michael really wanted some different friends.

Michael stepped outside. Morgan was probably halfway to Nashville by now. He grimaced and placed his hands up to his mouth.

"Slow the fuck down, you manic gremlin!"

((Michael continued in somewhere i guess???????))