(((ooc: With all due respect Furry, it's also considered good form to PM someone when you've said you'll try to have a post up "tomorrow", and a week later, you still haven't. )))

To say Dylan was relieved would be an understatement… and an overstatement at the same time. She was truly glad, utterly glad, that there wasn’t any – noticeable, because she did have to admit that the majority of her circle of friends did excel at keeping things beneath the surface – awkwardness over the whole issue on Matt’s part either. And good! Because it was such a silly thing, and a total mistake, regardless of how good it was at the time, it was a total mistake not to be repeated again and best left in the past. This was dealing with it, having had it dealt with… sort of.

The problem was, she was entirely aware that not talking about something wasn’t anything close to solving it – left unaddressed, it was likely to fester and eventually turn into something that doubled the original problem. So, she wasn’t completely washed over with relief either, but it was nice knowing that there wasn’t awkwardness further complicating the problem, and that made the whole prospect of having to have it completely sorted out a little easier. But it seemed she didn’t even have to put herself to such stress because Matt had the good grace to approach it with the sort of subtly that had her wanting to throw her arms around him in gratitude, by simple asking whether they were “okay”, it was a stellar way of getting it over and done with, without getting awkward.
Thank you, Matthew Sidle!

So, it was just her, then. Because he was clearly okay with it and she really did want them to be okay with it, but… she couldn’t help but shake the feeling that that wasn’t all of it. She couldn’t help but remember how bad she’d felt at the time of the incident, and how badly she’d needed a friend and how, for that time, it had been what she’d wanted. For the briefest second as their eyes locked while she explained something or another, she was almost sure she saw a reflection of her own thoughts in Matt’s absorbing chocolate eyes.
This was getting utterly ridiculous. She’d looked into those eyes so many times before with little else but simple amicability mixed with a bit of attraction that almost every girl in school harboured for Matt, but suddenly, she couldn’t look away fast enough.
Dylan. Get over it..
And she did, or rather, made a concerted effort to, and eventually got to the point where her warm light-heartedness took over and she thought of little else than the fact that the was just friendship between them and she just wanted to say it, rather glad that he was making it so easy for her.

"You know, for the record, I did miss you,” she declared as they both started to take their leave of the empty classroom, then following it up with a slight in-joke; “Totally needed an opportunity to practice my Mr Benetti impression."

A small laugh spilled from his lips as he slid his arm around her shoulders, the way he had done countless times before, pulling her a little closer to him and suddenly there it was, the awkwardness, hitting her with a vengeance. Though, even if her frame tightened up slightly, where before she couldn’t help but look away from his engrossing gaze, now she just couldn’t look away, feeling nothing but the heat radiating from his skin, the fusion of the masculine and feminine scents that reigned the air around them, and the tantalising feeling of his fingertips brushing against her back, the sensation piercing through the fabric of her dress to her skin. And when he spoke, she really didn’t hear the words, but rather fixated on the movement of his soft lips, suddenly inundated by the acute memory of what they tasted like…
She really didn’t think about it and she really wasn’t sure who instigated the kiss but the memory soon became a forbidden reality once more, in the light press of her lips against his, parting and her tongue caressing his as –

“You two done?”
Mark.
She pulled away immediately to meet the infuriated gaze of the boyfriend that she’d so badly wanted to hurt, both before and now and suddenly, seeing that look in his eyes, she felt terrible. And he was more than just infuriated. Oh, God, he deserved the truth. She was prepared to take complete responsibility, she just needed to explain it to him.

“Mark,” she started slowly, taking hesitant steps towards the fuming athlete. “There’s something you should –”
He wasn’t paying attention to her, as always, he just wasn’t interested, but now more than ever, she wished he was, because she knew well what was going to happen.

“That’s my girlfriend, you piece of sh*t!”
All that she did she was a blur of movement launching itself at Matt.

(((OOC: Hope that makes sense and works, Atropa :D)))

Melissa finally stopped talking and wait for the girl to respond.

"Emily. I'm Emily." she said, Melissa almost lifted her hand up to a handshake, but stopped herself reminding herself, it wasn’t that expected to be polite here compared to London.

"Maths is upstairs, fifth class on the right." Emily continued, with an air of dismissal. Melissa’s smile wavered for a second, she had expected to launch into a conversation about hair-best colours for dyeing, stylish cuts and such. But she didn’t let this bother her.

“Thanks. Do you have math now?” Melissa asked, half-hoping Emily would see that as invitation to go to math together.

((Oh sorry, FurryPanda I didn't know that Anyways hope this okay.))

It’d been quite a while since Josh Brennan was just another kid at kindergarten, rather awkward before his smoothly amicable demeanor had enabled him to attract friends towards him like a magnet. However, he didn’t let that popularity get to his head, he didn’t consider himself better than anyone, he didn’t treat anyone as lesser than himself or his friends just for belonging to a “different” social circle. Well, he didn’t do it, but he was well aware that the majority of the school managed to interpret his actions quite differently, regardless of what his original intentions were; clique constraints affected everyone, even the ones at the “top” of the so called pyramid.

Therefore, to those that knew him, and knew to an extent, his beliefs, it was no surprise that when the moment arose, he didn’t jump to take sides, he didn’t immediately support Gavin just because he was a fellow player, but rather played it fair, and gave an accurate and honest account of what he’d seen, without bias and without embellishments. And to him, with the accounts put forward by Abby, and later Leigh – discounting Gavin’s profane rant against the two girls – it seemed that Gavin really was to blame and shamelessly so. Worst thing was, Josh was well aware of the fact that Abby was one of the few jocks who wouldn’t take Gavin’s side.

And he couldn’t really tell her just then how much he treasured her for it, and as much as he wanted to, he could just slip an arm around her shoulders and give her a light squeeze of a hug to show how much he appreciated her for being just who she was. Like him, she hadn’t even thought about lying to protect her team mates and a part of him was well aware of the fact that she didn’t sell out Gavin just because he hit her because Josh just knew that about her. And he really was proud of her for it. And it flashed into his mind another thing that he’d noticed, but wasn’t quite in the mind frame to process right then; the pure vitriol that had flashed in her eyes when Gavin hit him and that, especially when compared to Marie-Elisabeth’s complete lack of concern over the fact that he walked off into a fist-fight, really got to his heart.
Abby really did care about him as much as he cared about her. But he kept the realisations and appreciations to himself, only giving the smallest smile when she stuck up for Leigh.

Leigh. Now, Josh had a bit of trouble figuring out why she was so hostile towards everyone. Fair enough, given her alleged history with the jocks – well, everyone in school, but it really wasn’t Josh, or anyone else’s business who or how many people she slept with – but he had been trying to help when she constant bit his head off. And that was fine, until he saw her behaviour change in Laramie’s office where she took a completely apathetic tone to things, all that fiery nature gone in indifference as if she’d given up on trying to give herself a fair chance.
It really was weird and Josh had to ask himself how many times she had been given a fair chance.

And it did seem that she appreciated it, that she wasn’t actually indifferent, because the first thing she did say to them once they stepped had him really believing that she just didn’t get many people believing in her.

"Thanks", she started with discomfort colouring the air of her speech, as if this was as strange a situation to her as it seemed to Josh, though for very different reasons. "For... you know..."

He did know, he did catch on to what she meant, but he didn’t see a reason as to why she had to thank them in the first place – what he and Abby did was the right thing to do and Leigh deserved that much fairness without having to see it as some sort of favour to her.
"Well... Just thanks", she finally finished.
He understood it, but he didn’t know what to say in return without sounding like a jerk or sounding like he was coming on to her.
"Don't mention it," Abby quickly interjected, though seeming as if she too was feeling somewhat awkward about being thanked in the first place, before she started taking her first step towards class. Josh hung back, just waiting.

"Uh, wanna get to class?"

She didn’t do it, she didn’t just walk off and forget civility like most of the crowd he hung with would have and regardless of all the times he’d waited for one of them stop and be civil towards the other person in the situation, usually one of the “commoners” before he stepped up and did what he’d expected them to do, there were few that did do it and Abby was one of those. He really was glad she was his friend and he really was glad she’d made the invite to Leigh, given that Leigh had hardly given much of a positive response the previous times he’d… well, asked her anything.
But, now that Abby had made the invitation, Josh too had to say something, mostly because he had been waiting to walk both girls to class, like the gentleman that he was, but also because if he didn’t say anything, it’d be outright rude to Leigh and Abby for the invitation that he made.
So, he was right back to square one in finding the right thing to say in the silence that followed on.
Say something. Say anything.
“Yeah, how many guys get to walk two beautiful ladies to class late?”
Yeah, you should have kept your mouth shut. Oh, God, that didn’t sound like he was insinuating anything, did it? Abby, he knew was likely to take it as a joke, but Leigh, given her history with jocks and the way Gavin treated her, probably wouldn’t….
Though, before he could say anything to remedy that, he felt the sensations of slender, nimble fingers weaving roughly through his hair the way they had numerous times before, catching an eye roll from Abby as her hand tousled with playful roughness through his hair, suddenly bringing back to his memory the affection in her touch when she’d fixed the paint stripes across his cheek the day before.

“That was completely innocent,” he protested in defence before nudging her slightly, the appreciation and affection he had for her showing in the depths of his eyes for a moment. “Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt, Abs.”
Then, having received that, he turned to Leigh, deciding that he’d done enough damage already not to worry about it.
“So, uh, how about it? Seeing as we’re all headed the same way….”

That seemed to a be better, and strengthening Abby’s invitation, leading to Leigh accepting and walking along with them, only to then move off to sit with friends she felt more comfortable with, while Abby and Josh took their seats for the remainder of the lesson. He might as well have stayed wandering the halls, because what Josh did end up concentrating on wasn’t maths, it wasn’t chatting to his friends – even getting things past Benetti’s tyrannical clamp-down on talking involved a lot of whispering and long periods of waiting for him to turn his back so that everyone else can carry on with their conversations – but rather Matt.
Given the previous night’s events, Josh really had been hoping that Matt would show him a little more than the complete oblivion that he usually reserved for him in public, and he really had been wishing that it’d have been a chance to further Matt’s… ease with the situation as it was, but that’s not what happened and so, Josh’s heart sank a little in watching Matt devote his attentions, as usual, to the girl sitting closest to him.
He was hoping it wasn’t a case of one step forwards, several steps back.
But Josh wasn’t going to rush it, he wasn’t going to push Matt any more than he already had, and he most certainly wasn’t going to sit and watch and seethe away while Matt carried on being Matt. So, when the bell rang, he didn’t hang around, he didn’t wait to catch Matt’s gaze, but rather carried on walking out of the room with the rest of the students, emptying out into the rapidly crowding hallway.

(((OOC: I hope that works for you guys. Left the class bit really blank in case anyone wants to fill it in
If there are any problems, let me know and I’ll edit

To Everyone
Hey guys,
I figure, since we’ve been in RPing Maths class for a while and no-one’s actually RPing the class, we might as well move on to lunch? Since TrampledSneakers said we’d be moving to lunch last Friday and things have been dragging on since, I thought we might as well start moving onto lunch now and keep things going?

I propose that we call lunch starting tomorrow, but if anyone else wants more time to RP things before lunch is called, do say )))

(((OOC: There was a loud fight going on when he walked straight into it - it was what caught his attention in the first place, Abby getting punched and both ME and Josh had a view for it. In fact, Dylan, who was still somewhere near the entrance of school, managed to witness it.

My guess is that ME was distracted by her own problems, which, given what they are, makes it somewhat understandable for her, but he doesn't know that

Besides, he's a teenaged boy, of course he's going to emo about not being loved, good reason or not. He's emoed about not being loved by Matt, ME, about Leigh biting his head off, about Gavin being a moron, about Dylan getting Matt's attention. In fact, the only thing he didn't emo about was Abby :P)))

Civilized. That was the only word that Katie could bring herself to use to describe how Jude was acting. Other words would have been a lot more appropriate, like nice, or sweet, but they obviously didn't apply, because he hated her. Maybe this was just some sort of test in his head that he could deal with her, or maybe... no, Natasha wouldn't have lied to her. Or maybe he was setting her up for something awful, or...

She couldn't stand it. "I have to go get something from the lab," she said suddenly, cutting him off mid-sentence. It was true, she had promised Esteban and JD that she would bring the peroxide- even if it wasn't a promise out loud, the implication was there because she hadn't said anything.

So she walked out of class without a backwards glance, figuring that Benetti wouldn't care if Ms-Applied-Mathematics left without a word, and figuring that only two other cheerleaders were in class to possibly tell Marie-Elisabeth that this was the second time in two days that she was cutting out of class early to go to parts unknown. Not that anything horrible was going to happen today- she hoped. Jude didn't like her, he was probably relieved she was gone, and she had no obligation to the people copying her homework.

So she walked down the hall, feeling utterly light and free. She was going to go and get a vial of tryptase and of ornithine, since it would look really weird if she got a liter of peroxide twice in two days, and besides which, the few grams of those that she could get would produce a heck of a lot more peroxide than was in those bottles.

At least, she wanted to head down to Jaym's room, but then she heard a vaguely familiar voice say, "Hey Katie!"

She turned on her heel and saw one of the girl's lacrosse players, Melissa, walking towards her. Katie flinched a little bit. Melissa was a senior, and thus a year older and thus intrinsically socially superioer, and not only had she been a heinous bitch to every freshman her sophomore and junior year, but she had made her dislike of the cheerleading squad abundantly clear.

"H-hi." Katie said hesitantly as Melissa drew up alongside and started walking with her.

"Awww, tennie, it's okay, I'm hardly going to beat up on an upperclassman!" Melissa answered, with the same level of cheer that Katie showed when she was about to doom an entire petri dish to an autoclave. Quite a bit of cheer, but not to the paramecia, or to the high school equivalent. "No, what I'm going to beat up on is the stand in for the little bitch that got paint and silver nitrate all over me yesterday!"

Katie had flinched away towards the lockers, but there didn't seem to be anything forthcoming, and in her reprieve she looked more closely at Melissa. Long sleeves, her hands were black, and she had seen everyone at practice getting the conspicuous nitrate stains yesterday. So for some reason Melissa had used the sink on the cheerleader's side of the locker room, and... she didn't seem to be doing anything.

Except laughing. "Aww, tennie, you're an uppercrust! I'm not gonna do anything to ya. Could you just tell Penny that I'm looking for her?"

Reflex, n. A sudden involuntary action to protect oneself. What Katie did next was involuntary, but it was probably not a reflex. "I'm hardly going to tell her that someone's looking to beat her up Melissa." She said it perfectly calmly, perfectly frankly, with complete sincerity, and without having thought about it at all.

Unfortunately, by the time she had a second to think again, Melissa had hip-checked her with a surprising amount of force, and Katie found herself tumbling towards the panel of lockers. She twisted around to get herself facing out and found the older girl's hands on her shoulders. She was shocked. She had always been perfectly aware of her place, had always avoided conflicts. And now... Melissa was wearing strappy sandals. What kind of idiot attacks someone when they are wearing sandals?

((OOC: Hope that was okay with you robokitty?
And Alissa, none of my characters need to be anywhere at a specific time, so I'm in favor of lunch being called, math is dragging.
Also, slytherin, could you GM loren and nadia as having gotten to class at some point?))

((OOC: I'm happy with moving on, I haven't really done anything yet XD))

After JD runs off and leaves Esteban with Butt-buddy underfoot, he realizes he has a problem. He's already suspended from school, and he knows that fat f*** Laramie's itching to get his a** kicked out of school more permanently. He's been in enough fights to know that even with the school's cameras, often enough, it ain't the person who started the fight who gets the blame. It's the person who wins.

S***.

How long has this fight been going on? It usually didn't take the administration so long to catch up, especially when he'd been tearing hell through the hallways running away from these a**holes. That should've caught someone's attention pretty fast. He gives it another thirty seconds then asks Butt-buddy if he's ready to behave and eases his foot up. When he gets up and brushes himself off, Esteban can still see the fight in his eyes like he's still ready to tear his head off. Good, he can use that.

"Come back anytime you wanna be my b**** instead of your butt-buddy, Mark's." He leers and watches the flames rise in Butt-buddy's eyes. Esteban turns his back on him like this big nothing isn't worth his time. If Butt-buddy's gonna try to sucker punch him, it's either now or never.

And much to his satisfaction, the skin on the back of his neck tingles with the change in air pressure and his ears pick up the subtle rustle of a crisp varsity jacket as a fist winds back to hit him. It's now.

Esteban ducks out of the way, and next thing he knows he's on the floor cause Butt-buddy's tackled him again and raining down punches, most of which land on his forearms as he protects his face. He hears Butt-buddy yell out for some other gutless jock to join in. They've just started double-teaming him when he hears an adult voice boom down the hallway, making the jocks freeze.

"Come on, break it up! Jesus! What the heck do they put in the water with you kids?"

Esteban is the luckiest a**hole alive.

---

The wait in the Dean's office is enough to dull both the adrenaline rush from earlier and the way his skin was tingling sexual desire for the tryst he knows he can't make anymore. Dammit. He flips his cell open and thumbs in a quick message to Sienna.

Can't make it to 1st period, sry. Fight. Maybe some1 u know? Will try u 2nd period instead.

He hits send and thinks of cold showers and Barbara Streisand naked. He hates waiting.

Much later, he walks out of the Dean's office feeling damn accomplished. Despite the fact that, for most of the fight, him and JD had been kicking the jocks' asses, he got out of it all with little more than a slap on the wrist. A two-to-one fight makes almost every hardened administrator--except that fat f*** Laramie--want to go easy on you. There was an unpleasant phone call with Marissa, five minutes straight of her b****ing, but that and a handful of detentions for breaking someone's nose and smearing someone's face into the ground was not bad. Not bad at all.

So he's stalking down the hallway when technically, he's supposed to be off school grounds due to his suspension, but Esteban's itching for another type of action now, and that's enough to keep him around. Plus, he wouldn't mind sticking around to have a less abrupt reunion with Leigh. They had some catching up to do.

A voice from somewhere around the next corner interrupts his thoughts. "No, what I'm going to beat up on is the stand in for the little bitch that got paint and silver nitrate all over me yesterday!"

Heh. He doesn't need to get his ass into yet another fight, but he's curious, so he quietly moves closer without making himself seen.

"Aww, tennie, you're an uppercrust! I'm not gonna do anything to ya. Could you just tell Penny that I'm looking for her?" The voice continues. Esteban doesn't recognize it. Unlike the next voice.

"I'm hardly going to tell her that someone's looking to beat her up Melissa."

The pencil neck. Katie. Acting too snobby for her own good, like yesterday. He'd left her an invitation to meet him at lunch today, and he was hoping she'd make it. One, because if she did it probably meant she wasn't about to rat him out despite trying to royally f*** him over with the hydrogen peroxide stunt yesterday. Two, because... well... because there's something satisfying about making a good girl go bad.

Next, he hears the loud bang of someone being shoved into the lockers, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going down. He hurries around the corner and sees a thick chick with darkened hands pinning Katie's shoulders against the locker.

Esteban grabs Melissa's shoulder and tears it backwards, pivoting her towards him. He can feel the outline of her bra strap under his palm, and if things had turned out like he wanted, he's be unhooking Sienna's bra for a second time with one hand right now. Ugh, s***. As her front turns to face him, her gives her a hard shove backwards.

"Scram." he says with a rock hard expression. Esteban is not in a gang, but there's a rumor or two floating around that he is, so this Melissa chick glares back and makes herself scarce. Then it's just the nerd and the thug, and when Esteban cocks his head over to look at Katie, his expression doesn't soften from the stony stare he'd used to intimidate the other chick.

He looks Katie up and down, evaluating her--the way she responded to being attacked and the change in her demeanor when she's under his scrutiny. After a few seconds of appraisal, he asks "You ok?" the way a drill sergeant would ask a recruit--in a tone that says, if she had any balls, she'd say yes.


((OOC: FurryPanda, yup, that was all ok. hope this works with you too.
Alissa, my characters are all in place to move to lunch

edit: I went back and deleted a couple of my OOC posts to buy some time :p))

(((OOC: Alrightey guys, it seems that the general consensus is that we can now move on, and so
The bell has rung, and now it's lunchtime
:D

I PM'd HP about the 1,000 post situation for until Trampled returns and she advised that if the post count exceeds 1,000, I should start a new thread. Though, of course, Trampled would still be the game host upon her return, but still hoping she returns before then

EDIT - Thanks guys, Atropa and I deleted some of ours too earlier, but the more the better :D)))

Emily had fully intended on cutting math class. It wasn't difficult for her, since Benetti seemed to think that her keeping a few pictures of him and the vice principal safely stowed on her computer was a fair trade for not commenting when she didn't show up. Besides she always did the make-up work.

Even better than that, she actually had something productive to do, rather than being unable to bear the claustrophobia of her crowded math class and hide out in the bathroom for an hour, which she hadn't done recently, but was still a decision every day.

But this girl, Melissa didn't seem to be too interested in letting her get her photography done. “Thanks. Do you have math now?”

"Yes." she said shortly, and started walking towards the locker room. She didn't look back at the other girl, trying to communicate that she did have places to be, but after a pace or two she took pity on her. "I'm not planning on going though, and the lunch bell's almost about to ring anyway."

She was going to go to the locker room, and she was going to get her pictures, and if Melissa wanted to tag along then, well, that was probably to her advantage, since new kids didn't usually have systems set up for cutting every single one of their classes painlessly. And besides, Emily was a nice person, she would cover for newbie, but if she wanted to try her luck at outrunning the bell, Emily figured it would be easier to break into the locker room.

((OOC: I'll delete some of my OOC as well))

"Yes." she said shortly, and started walking towards the locker room. Melissa pursed her lips, annoyed. This isn’t how I planned it at all... she thought, turning around and was about to follow the directions Emily gave.

"I'm not planning on going though, and the lunch bell's almost about to ring anyway." She continued. Melissa did a 360, and faced her back. As if on cue, the bell rang and Melissa almost sighed of relief.

“Speak of the devil and it shall appear,” Melissa chuckled, “Well thanks for the directions. Maybe I will see you around?” Then she walked away, following the majority of the students to the crowed cafeteria. Now where would they be? Melissa thought, placing her hands on her hips.

((FurryPanda I hope you don't mind me stopping their convo? I have a mini-plan for lunch ))

(( robokitty, I am so sorry for keeping you waiting for so dramatically long. ))

"Glad to hear it," Donnie said, in his same matter-of-fact tone. "Let's start with my initial question. What time did you first notice the blackening agent take effect? And how long was this since you left the locker room?"

Natasha shrugged. "I don't know the exact time, I was stretching out in the gymnasium when it started, like five to ten minutes after I'd left the locker room I think."

The bell rang, and because Donnie showed no sign of wanting to stop the interview over this, they walked to Math class together -- Natasha's gaze darting around, anxious to avoid any prep spotting her with a total nerd, and Donnie firing questions at her like a robot. His interrogation continued through Math class, and every time it seemed he had asked her everything he could possibly want to know -- only to come up with yet another inquiry. Natasha's answers grew snappier and her patience began to wear thin, until at last she crossed her arms.

"OK, I'm pretty sure you know everything there is to know by now," she said curtly, "so how about you get me some answers -- how do I de-freakify my face?"

(( short and kind of awkward, but it was so incredibly long overdue, I figured it didn't matter. Hope this works! ))

(((ooc: robokitty - Is there any chance the second jock having a go at Esteban could be another random one, and not Nosebleed? I hate to be a bother, it's just that J.D. was meant to have pretty much pulverized Nosebleed, but with Nosebleed now having a go at Esteban, it means that not only was J.D. wrong about seeing that Nosebleed would be no more trouble, but also he didn't do a very good job at taking Nosebleed out of the equation. :/ J.D. is a failure when it comes to alot, but not fighting. )))


For obvious reasons, J.D. didn't have very many friends. He never did. Ever since his parents had split up and his father had taken off to God knows where, showing up only every once in a while, always at the worst possible time as though he had some kind of radar set to guide him to such situations, J.D.'d had a problem with letting people in. It didn't happen easily, and most of them usually ended up too put off by his aggressive, rebellious and contemptuous nature to stick around long enough for it to ever have a chance of happening. But when it did, you were sure to have a friend that would stick by you. In good times and in bad. Especially in bad, when even though he knew he might get pounded into the ground, or get into trouble with the authorities, he didn't hesitate to jump head first into a fight to help you out.
It was what he had done for Esteban a little while ago, and it was what he took off to do now, only seconds after Esteban had indicated that Leigh too might be in trouble.

"Saw her in a fight by the school store", he'd said. "She could use backup, if it ain't over already."

With Esteban in obvious control of the situation with the two jocks, J.D. had thus set off again, towards the school store, ready wipe the floor with whatever *sshole had decided to start sh*t with Leigh this morning. That is, if she herself hadn't already done so.

Though as it turned out when he got there, the fight was already over, and there was no trace of Leigh anywhere, other than the gossip making it's way in all directions of the school, through the grapevine telegraph. And judging by what he overheard here and there, when passing by clusters of teenagers excitedly telling their friends their eyewitness' accounts, it had been quite the fight, with most of the involved parties all fighting eachother at one point or another. But it wasn't until when he finally spotted an acceptable acquaintance of his and asked him about it, that he got a decent description of what had happened - how some Gavin guy had taken liberties with Leigh, and she had retaliated, after which things had spiralled out of control with fists flying and Leigh getting pinned by that Vigilanti chick, and then the football captain himself showing up and getting involved - and how it had all ended, with coach Benwick showing up, and sending the lot of them off to see the Dean.
Great... Just what Leigh needed; being dragged off to the Dean's after a fight involving at least three jocks. Boy, was she screwed... And sadly, this time, there wasn't a single thing J.D. could do to help her out. At least not at the moment. And it annoyed the cr*p out of him.

Consequently, the J.D. that showed up for math class a minute or so before the last bell went, was one that even more than usual had his classmates avoiding to make eye contact or get in his way. Most of them had been around Brooklake long enough to know that at times such as this, when one could practically see the storm clouds above J.D.'s head, anything might set him off, for the simple reason that he wanted a reason to rough someone up or at the very least bite their head off, and in doing so, get to let off some steam.
Quite wisely, everyone left him alone. Even Mr Benetti, who even though he wasn't thrilled to see that J.D. did absolutely nothing in class - he didn't even crack open his books to pretend to do some work - did realize that it was probably better to just leave him alone, for the sake of peace. None of the other students would benefit from another loud and disruptive head-to-head between the teacher and the notorious troublemaker.

Now usually, whenever J.D. was in a foul mood, it tended to last for quite a while. He could brood for hours, sometimes even days if a situation was bad enough. But this time, it had been no more than twenty minutes when he suddenly seemed to perk up, and his lips parted in a wide grin. All thanks to the person who had just stepped through the door and into the class room. A slender yet very much feminine form, with gentle curves that he'd had the pleasure of examining up close. A pair of long legs, accentuated not only by some nice, heeled boots, but by fishnets and a delightfully short skirt as well, and then a thick mane of long, dark hair, streaked with a bright red, cascading over the shoulders and back.
Leigh.
Man, she really was a sight for sore eyes, as with a content smirk playing on her lips at his expression, she came sashaying towards him to claim her usual seat right next to his.

She had, most hesitantly, accompanied Abby and Josh to class, mostly because she had found no good way of ditching them. They had both been genuinly polite when leaving the Dean's office, downright nice even, in not making a big deal out of the rather uneasy "thanks" she had offered them for not pointing their fingers at her as the sole reason for the fight with Gavin. They had even asked her nicely to accompany them to Math class - though Josh had earned himself a most suspicious glare at first, when referring to her as a beautiful lady - and with the hallways all deserted due to class having already started some time ago, there were no friends for her to join. And making up some excuse just to get away from Abby and Josh would have been as obvious as it would have been silly. Simply ditching them in order to wander off and try to find Esteban hadn't been an option either, because even though she had gotten out of this mess alright, with only a detention slip, risking getting caught cutting class wasn't the most clever thing to do after that. If she wanted to remain at Brooklake, it was in her best interest to at least come across as though she really was trying.

So, she had pretty much been stuck walking to class with the two jocks, like a good girl. Though she had barely said a word, but left the chatter to the other two, who obviously were already good friends, and even though they seemed to make an effort to try and make her not feel like a third wheel, she had let her wariness of them both be known through her entire body language, with reservation written all over it. Considering who they and their friends were, Leigh still wasn't convinced there was no ulterior motive for what they were doing, that being civil towards her wasn't part of some grander plan. A bit paranoid perhaps, but Leigh knew better than to disregard the possibility. She had seen others be made victims of hurt and embarrassment that way, and she herself had been made to suffer quite a bit of humiliation for letting her guard down around a jock before; Kyle Matherson, the prick that had shared explicit details about what she was like in bed, with the entire school.
It was a mistake she wouldn't be making again.

Therefore, once they did get to class, she didn't bother to even throw another glance in Abby's and Josh's direction, nor drop them a parting "bye", but instead headed straight for the back of the classroom, where, much to her relief and delight, she'd actually spotted J.D.. Knowing him and his tendency to skip first class even on the days that he did end up going to school, she hadn't been sure that he'd be there.

"You seem surprised to see me?" she smirked at him, as she slid into her seat.

"Well yeah", J.D. said with an amused smile and shifted in his seat to face her. "Es said you were back, but... How?"

Leigh shot him a look in mock disappointment.

"J.D.", she reproached. "You didn't honestly think I'd stay in that dump, did you?"

"No, but how did you get them to send you back?"

"Easy. I just made them see things my way."

Knowing all too well what that had to mean - he'd seen Leigh make sure she got her way before - J.D. lit up slightly in an appreciative grin, and gave a small chuckle.

"Where is Esteban anyway?" Leigh then asked, still concerned by the fact that last she'd seen him, he'd had three jocks chasing him through the hallway.

And J.D.'s initial shrug and "dunno" didn't do much to relax her. Luckily, however, he then went on to tell her about the fight, in as much graphic detail as he could because he knew that like him, she was a fighter, with the same appreciation for vivid visuals of a missed fight as him. Then, once he was done, it was her turn to re-tell the fight she had been involved in.

Both of their accounts were so thourough, that before Leigh had finished hers, the bell had rung, they had left the classroom, and were just now coming to a halt at the back of the line in the cafeteria.

"Then he just sent me and Abby and Brennan off", she finished, having told J.D. about what had happened in Dean Laramie's office, just as the two kids infront of her and J.D. slipped to the side to let them cut infront, landing them behind one with a known backbone, who had yet to cower infront of troublemakers, jocks and preps alike; Natalie Cardew. "Gavin had to stay, but knowing Laramie, that f*cker probably just got another slap on the wrist or something. Cuz God forbid he'd suspend him and risk hurting the team."


(((ooc: Approachable to someone who knows who they are.
Ending was really rushed, but I was running out of time. Sorry.)))

Nadia would tell just about anyone who would listen that she was one of the biggest Drama geeks on the face of the planet. She had at least one messanger bag which said that in hand stitched letters, and a t-shirt with the same on it somewhere in the mess she and Aidan called a bedroom.

So she couldn't help but giggle to herself and bounce back up to her feet and clap as Loren started singing part of Sweet Transvestite. "What did I tell you" she said, grinning as she clapped "You'd better hope they can find you some tights that fit, and remember to carry a spare all the time, those things are awful for getting runs".

Nadia glanced up at the clock and her eyes widened. "Holy Hathor's horns" she said, grabbing her book bag off the floor "We have math in....well let's just say we'll be in more trouble that a pair of kids in an old lady's candy house if we don't get going".

Waiting for all of 2 seconds while Loren got his things, she grabbed onto his duct-taped arm and started dashing through the hallways towards math. She muttered apologies in 2 of the three languages she was fluent in.

They managed to get to class just in time, Nadia breathing a sigh of relief and flopping down in a desk. "Sorry if I broke your arm" she said, winking at Loren "But considering you're going to be a doctor, I bet you can fix it".

(((OOC: Bleah that wasn't all that good, and I'm sorry I forgot about these two Hope it's ok)))

Melissa was a psycho, there was no denying it. Katie definitely didn't deserve the kind of treatment from her that she was getting now, and even more so she hadn't deserved it as a freshman. But now, when she had started it, and when she was feeling vaguely uncertain about her former friend Natasha and whatever the heck Jude was, she was perfectly ready, maybe even eager to pay back some of the endless annoyance and bother that the older girl had given her.

Even with that though, she probably would have just wriggled away, trusting that the fact that Melissa was half again as big as she was, and twice as slow. But now? When Melissa was wearing big strappy sandals, that left most of her feet bare, and Katie was wearing big clunky comfortable tennis shoes? She didn't have time to think about it, she just got her foot up and stepped down hard.

And her foot hit the floor, and she stumbled. Melissa's foot wasn't there? "Scram", she heard someone say.

Oh no. Absolutely not. While Esteban was intimidating Melissa, Katie regained her balance- not a difficult thing for her- crossed her arms, and leaned against the locker. His timing was awful. Normally she would be grateful that there wasn't any chance that she would get in trouble. Normally she didn't have doubts about Natasha her former best friend, and normally she didn't have her current best friend to worry about. Normally she didn't have quite so much steam to let off. Now was not a normal time. Poor Esteban.

She wanted to say exactly what she was thinking, which involved an almost unheard of amount of swearing for Katie Byrd- twice within two or three sentences- but she managed to restrain herself. What with how she'd sworn the other day, it wouldn't have any impact. That was the thing about cursing- it lost all meaning if you did it too often. While she was coming to that conclusion, and glaring stonily the whole while, shoulders back and hair something of a mess from when she'd been playing with it in class, the bell rang.

Traffic. Perfect. She wanted to rant and rave and yell at Esteban about what he'd caused to happen to Penny, and she probably wouldn't have done it in an empty hallway. She wouldn't want any Tom, Dick or Harry to hear her yelling at anyone, especially at someone who might be a friend.

And then the third thing, on top of stress, and the oppurtunity the impending traffic offered her. "You ok?" She didn't care about whether he was actually asking, she doubted that he even cared to be perfectly honest, but an opening was an opening.

"Fine." Her voice was soft and controlled. The hall was empty. The two classes nearer by let out and the hall started filling. "You know who's not fine?" Her voice was still controlled, but much louder. About two levels above acceptable conversational, so slightly above audible in the hallway. "Penny, because someone put a bunch of silver nitrate in the soap dispensers." It was obvious if you knew to look for it, and she assumed it was silver nitrate and not some nastier developer's chemicals. There was a dance coming up soon after all. Voice was at the same volume, but about two octaves higher. She was all set to start screaming, which meant she needed a second, both to catch her breath, and to get herself back under control.

((OOC: Gah, I really had no idea where I was supposed to stop, so 'twas kind of short. and I hope you don't mind that I brought in hallway traffic? Katie was refusing to get upset without it. I can make her go on longer if you need it, or if he wants to cut her off at any point in it, feel free, and I'll edit))
Annalyn, I don't mind at all))[/i]

(((OOC: Sorry for the long hold, Emo you might have to go ahead without Adrienne...unless someone was to temporarily use her for awhile. My schedule is far too busy and I rarely have time for the computer...I'm rarely even at home! :hmm: )))

These days, the times that Matt had a true, unorchestrated moment with a girl, one that he hadn't purposefully created himself and was milking for all it was worth, were few. Moments when tension struck him like lightning, and he found himself getting carried away into a fleeting kiss, one that seemed mutually instigated, where neither party could say who had started it. One that happened naturally, without thought and reason, without logic.
With Matthew Sidle, who usually maneuvered his many flings with the same cunning precision as he would the pieces on a chess board, those moments were truly rare. Yet two of them had happened not too long ago, and the first hadn't actually been with a girl. It had been with Josh, where everything except the notion of a much needed emotional connection, had gone out the window, taking with it every last ounce of common sense that Matt possessed, and wiped his mind of all thoughts.

The second time had been a month or so later, a couple of weeks ago now, at a party at the house of a mutual friend of Matt and Dylan, where both of them had ended up drunk and, despite Dylan having been an item with Mark Nielsen for a long time, and despite Matt having been officially going out with Madison Fenway at the time, gotten a little too friendly with one another. It hadn't been planned or orchestrated in any way. At least not at first. Once things had started happening and the temperature had been skyrocketing, then yes, Matt's intentions had, on some level, weasled themselves back in and fuelled his actions. But the fact still remained, that it was one of those true, honest-to-God moments with a girl, that had set things into motion in the first place.

As was it now. He and Dylan both had made a real effort during class, to act as though everything was normal, as though nothing had happened that maybe should have caused some awkwardness between them, had they not been so determined to not let it mess things up between them. Yet, all of a sudden, here they were, with their lips pressing gently against eachother, and the tips of their tounges meeting in a kiss that, had the scenery been different, would have seemed almost a perfect replay of that very first, tentative one they had shared a few weeks ago, in the bedroom of their friend's older brother.
Just like it had then, the flowery scent of Dylan's perfume wove it's way into Matt's nostrils as the same hand that he had just dropped from her shoulder ventured back up her spine, to cup the back of her head, with her luscious golden hair spilling between his fingers. And just like they had then, her lips tasted sweetly of ripe strawberries, intoxicating and delectable, beckoning his libidinous nature to keep exploring them with his own.

It was only too ironic, that such a genuine moment, one of the few that Matt ever had these days, would result in such a perfect example of why exactly they were so rare in the first place, an example of why he preferred to be the one conducting the scenario; fate's pesky sense of humor, and timing, when left enough room to come into play.

"You two done?"

A dark tone of voice cut through their little stolen moment of intimacy, and tore them violently from one another as they instantly sprang apart at the sound of it's barely restrained aggression, two startled sets of eyes locking on the young man hovering - for now - in the doorway.
The boyfriend.
Crap!

"Mark", Dylan said slowly, while the now rather nervous Matt started to carefully back away, much like people tend to do when they don't wish to further provoke an already visibly aggravated animal, and run the risk that it attacks, as though he was hoping that if he just put enough distance between himself and Dylan, the image of the two of them together would somehow magically slip Mark's mind.

Or possibly that with Mark's focus on Dylan, if Matt could somehow just move himself out of Mark's field of vision, the jock would forget he was even there. Out of sight, out of mind, as the saying goes.

Though unfortunately, Matt soon realized that it wasn't at all Dylan that Mark was focusing on. It was Matt himself. Mark didn't seem to even hear his girlfriend, as she went on to try and explain. He didn't even seem to hear Matt. Or he simply didn't care;

"Look... Mark...", Matt started, still backing away slowly, while racking his brain for something to say that would wave the kind of white flag that even an infuriated jock would recognize.

But, too late. The fuse had been lit the moment Mark had seen his girlfriend kissing another guy, and like that of most jocks, his wasn't a very long one.

"That's my girlfriend, you piece of sh*t!", he growled, only moments before he lunged himself at Matt, arms outstretched to grab the first thing on the other boy that he could get a hold of, regardless of whether it was the collar of his shirt, or his very neck.

Never before had Matt been so thankful for being a sprinter, with the split second reaction rate needed for an instant takeoff at the starting shot. For even though he wasn't about to go racing through the school with Mark in hot pursuit, it did allow him to quickly slip out of Mark's path and around one of the desks, placing himself and the seemingly homicidal jock on opposite sides of it.

"Jesus man, calm d-...!", he blurted, but the rest of the last word stuck in his throat when Mark, instead of going around the desk like Matt had done, quite simply tore it aside, sending it crashing into the desk infront of it.

Unprepared for such a truly violent action, Matt didn't stand a chance to escape. He stumbled backwards in surprise and in a hurried attempt to get away, straight into yet another desk, and the acute loss of momentum it caused was enough for Mark to catch him. Seething with rage, the boy's knuckles whitened around Matt's shirt collar, and with the brute force that came with being vice captain of the football team, he slammed the slightly smaller boy into the wall.

"You're f*ucking dead, Sidle!!" he roared.

[[ Sorry guys, very much in holiday-mode and my muse hasn't been anywhere in sight. I know it will return, it's just a matter of when. I will manage something along the lines of a Sienna post later this evening just so people (ie slytherin) can continue with their day. So sorry for the delay and if my next round of posts are absolutly worthless due to being forced ;[ ]]

The sound of an ancient phone-radio-alarm clock filled the small lounge room of Cougar Rivers' trailer; that blaring, constant scratchy, out-of-tone wail pulling a deeply hibernating Bodene from his slumber. Initially, he couldn't figure out what the noise was since it had been a while since he had actually heard it, but, after a myopic look in the direction of the sound, Bodene managed to put two and two together and, instead of getting up or making history of the pain-inducing mechanism, he opted to smother himself with his pillow.

After another minute and a half of the ear-bleeding noise, Bodene finally decided to take some initiative and dropped a hand down to the floor - since that's where the alarm clock rested - and took a few blind hits at the machine in hopes of shutting it off. When that failed to work, he then let his fingers move along the various buttons and switches, pushing this and flicking that until, finally, he quieted the beast.

Oh the serenity*.

And there he laid, arm still dangled off the bed, head half under his pillow, doona twisted around his frame. He simply savoured the peace and quiet for the next ten minutes until he finally decided it was time to rise and shine.

Maybe it was because it didn't seem as cold this morning. Maybe it was because he hadn't had Cougar's gruff voice nagging at him to get his scrawny a** out of bed. Or, maybe, it was because he had polished off what had been left of Cougar's beer the night before. No matter, Bodene felt strangely well-rested and as bright and bushy-tailed as he could humanly be - which wasn't really saying much. Probably the night cap..

Being that he was up and out of bed and school hadn't even started - well, not to his knowledge since he honestly couldn't tell you what time the first bell rang - he decided to make use of this extra time he found himself with. He yanked the doona off the fold out bed and wrapped it around himself, bare feet then carrying him over to the kitchen. He switched on the hot water jug and waited for what little water that was within to heat up, feet having moved to find themselves on top of the end of his doona to avoid the icy assault of the tacky linoleum beneath. And then came the 'pop' sound.

Bodene grabbed what he believed to be a clean mug and then went hunting through the few cabinets his uncle's kitchen held until he found some tea. With sachet now in mug, he added the water before turning away to scrounge up some smokes... but the pack of cigarettes wasn't on the kitchen table where he had left it. With feet still wrapped up in the doona, he then shuffle-slid through the kitchen, eyes wandering the kitchen bench. He couldn't, for the life of him, remember where he had left them. He then began to search the cabinets and cupboards, moving from one end to the other before he, unintentionally, opened the fridge. Within lied a note where the six packs of beer - and later a twenty dollar bill from Bodene's pocket -had rested.

Snatching it up, Bodene gave it a quick read:

'my place is not a seven-eleven. The $20 was a nice touch, though.'

Judging by the note and the fact that the pack of cigarettes was gone... Bodene came to the conclusion that his uncle had decided - yet again - that quitting wasn't for him. No matter. He could make his own.

Stealing a gulp from his mug and wincing as the hot contents burnt his mouth, Bodene then went back to the far end of the kitchen and tugged open a drawer and procured a bag of loose tobacco and some rolling paper. With supplies in-hand, he then turned back to the kitchen table and made fast work of the task. Satisfied with the finished product, he then took up his mug and made his way to the back door, hand switching the durrie to his mouth so that it was made free to tug the door open. He hesitated as he was greeted by the chill but the hand-rolled cigarette hanging from his lips could not be wasted. And so he stepped out, plonking himself down on the first step, arms moving to rearrange the doona so that he remained nice and cozy.

It was nice, really; refreshing. Sitting there, enjoying a smoke and a cup of tea. Bodene couldn't think of a better way to start his day.

Once his 'me' time was through, Bodene gathered himself up and headed back inside, mug being deposited in the sink before he deposited himself in the shower. Not five minutes later, he was out and getting dressed, tossing on the same jeans as yesterday since it required the least effort. He tugged on a clean white tee and a thick red flannel jumper before disappearing in the lounge to track down his shoes.

Fully dressed with jacket in tow, Bodene then made his leave, not bothering to try to start the Bronco and, instead, decided to walk to school.

However, if he had bothered to actually look at a clock, he would've realized that making use of some wheels would have been a wise move. Once he finally made it onto the campus, it became clear to him that he was - inevitably - late. He quickened his pace and practically jogged into math class, flashing the teacher a cheeky grin before finding himself a seat towards the back.

[[ Approachable

Yeah, this is pretty much dribble.
* from the ever-quotable film The Castle ]]

(((OOC:

To everyone

Hey again, guys,

Just to let you all know that given Trampled might be unable to host this RP for possibly the forseeable future, I'll be taking over and acting as stand-in host until her return.
Hope no-one has severe objections :D)))

In class, particularly in maths classes, Natalie never did have to concentrate much; she was better than the vast majority without putting much effort into it and that alone had ensured her straight As back when she’d been in Chicago and found herself preoccupied by things far more engrossing – then, anyway – than maths. Why focus on sums on paper when there were people to mess up? In a way, however, things hadn’t changed that much, because she currently was putting in minimal effort into her work – and still speeding through it – because she was busy relishing the morning’s repartee with Matt Sidle, every now and again letting her eyes flick to his form, slightly disappointed at the fact that he’d recuperated enough to get cosy with the resident Barbie. Hmm. Maybe he was overcompensating? Because Sweetie-pie McNice Girl over there did have a boyfriend, who probably did have the brainpower of a Ken doll, but probably possessed the brute force of a tractor.
Not that Natalie didn’t have any other avenues of distraction, because she was currently seated next to the village idiot… actually, no, Caroline was sitting with the other sycophants, and so Natalie supposed she was sitting next to the deputy village idiot.
Was there nothing that would make this hour go faster than it’s current, sedated, knuckle dragging speed?
However, it did give Natalie opportunities to notice certain things, such as the fact that J.D. was in school and had hopefully taken Lila’s advice and contemplated her offer, because Natalie really did want his work in the paper, and the idea that Josh Brennan was possibly a nymphomaniac, because not only was he definitely rolling in the hay with the Village Bike as well as Princess Peroxide, but here he was, strolling in with Abby Vigilanti and Leigh Grayson, looking somewhat dishevelled.
Oh, Natalie, get your mind out of the gutter.
In other news, Leigh Grayson was back? Well… that was interesting, in views of both cause and consequence….

And the bell finally had the good grace to ring, resulting in freedom from the long drawn-out hour as Natalie took her leave from class, somehow losing her view of J.D…. She’d catch him later, then, and also, unlike last lunchtime, she’d quite like to get something to eat this time. And so, with the work put away, she made her towards the lunch hall, hoping they had something palatable this time because as appealing as slushy weirdness of food was, she’d rather have something less… questionable to eat. However, fortune had a habit of favouring Natalie and soon enough, she found herself overhearing – it’s a journalist’s prerogative – snippets of a conversation between none other than Leigh and J.D. Now, it didn’t take much for Natalie to know that they didn’t magically materialise behind her in the queue, but frankly, if the others lacked the backbone to stick up for themselves, she wasn’t bothered.

"Gavin had to stay, but knowing Laramie, that f*cker probably just got another slap on the wrist or something. Cuz God forbid he'd suspend him and risk hurting the team."
Ooh… that seemed like an interesting angle to take on something Natalie had been wanting to investigate for a while – such as why the grade system seemed to work entirely different for the athletes and why they almost got away with murder in regards to their aggressive attitudes… hmm….
Welcome back, Leigh. I’m your new best friend.

“Hey guys,” she smoothly interrupted in amicability, smile on her face as she turned around to face J.D. and Leigh. “Sorry if I’m interrupting.” Then, her gaze moved onto Leigh momentarily, just laying down the initial cordiality before moving on to get what she wanted – besides, contacts were important and all – with; “Welcome back, by the way. I don’t think we’ve met, I’m Natalie.”
Then, not making it forced, she turned to J.D., moving onto the topic that she had in store for him.
“Sorry about yesterday, but at least we’ll both be getting food this time around,” she started, light-heartedly, also noting the lack of Lila in presence of Leigh. “Have you given any thought to my proposition?”

(((OOC: I hope this works for you, Atropa
I swear, she's turned into Lena.)))

It's not like he was trying to cop a feel off that thick lacrosse chick, but feeling the outline of her bra underneath her shirt reminded him of what he had missed out on this morning with Sienna. And when you like it quick, dirty, and every twenty-four hours like Esteban, you f***ing hate waiting. All that pent up energy doesn't just sublimate into thin air. It's channeled into the blood and puts the whole body on edge, buzzing with anticipation for something to set it off.

"Fine," comes Katie's tempered and markedly ungrateful reply. "You know who's not fine?"

Ay, putamadre. Was this spineless brat really gonna start b***ing at him? The idea of Katie standing up to anyone let alone a guy like him was so pathetic it was almost endearing. She's like a kitten throwing a tantrum, some thoroughly unthreatening little thing insisting that it's big and bad and scary.

"Penny, because someone put a bunch of silver nitrate in the soap dispensers." Her voice cracks high, and her nostrils flare like she's getting ready to swing into full kitty tantrum. Normally, Esteban would laugh this off, but when the the bell rings and witnesses start filtering into the hallway, Katie's mousey squeaks are suddenly less amusing. His mood slides precipitously till he's as testy as a horny goat with a fraction of the patience.

This chick isn't nearly as afraid of him as she should be.

A dark flare of anger crosses his face, and with startling celerity, his open palm slams forcefully into the locker next to her head, filling the hallway with a piercing, resonant clang. His body slides up to hers, and he has to tilt his head down to stare her in the eyes with his full, intimidating intensity. And for a while, that's all he does, searching her eyes and sizing up how much gumption this kitten has managed to scrounge up.

"Never pick a fight with someone who's got less to lose than you, mensa." He warns in a low growl. His breath comes harder, and they're so close that it puffs hotly against her face.

It's about half a second later when Esteban realizes that every eye in the hallway is on them and perhaps hitting the locker so dramatically was not the best idea in the world. S***. His eyes dart distractly to the nearest closet where they could find some privacy, but really he's hyper-aware of every little movement Katie tries making, especially below the waist since chicks always seem to think guys never expect a kick to the groin.

Now Esteban doesn't hit girls, but he has no qualms getting a little rough with them, especially if they're misbehaving. He grabs her wrist and yanks her over to the closet with a gruff "come on." He doesn't have time to think about it now, but she's stronger and better balanced than he would've expected from the way she pushes against his grip. He opens the closet door and shoves her in the with the alacrity of someone who's shoved chicks in closets before.

The closet has barely enough space to hold the both of them once Esteban slips inside. He positions himself in front of the door, blocking her escape if she decides she'd try to make a run for it. Except for the light coming in under the door, it's completely dark in there. Esteban's hand gropes for the light switch, and as he flips it on, the harsh yellow light of an incandescent bulb reveals some small, multi-tiered shelves on one end of the cramped space behind Katie. They're stocked with various janitorial supplies, but more importantly, they look like a good, sturdy place to prop a girl against.

And instead of being in this space of forced intimacy with his bimbo, who he knows is up for something quick and dirty, he's here with Katie. Of all people. This sheltered, little innocent nerd--something about it just felt wrong. Like fingering a kitten in the middle of a Church. But all that sexual frustration has to go somewhere.

"Now, how the f*** is this Pene chick my problem?" Esteban demands irritably. He glares across the cramped space between them, breaking his gaze from her eyes once to glance down at her body, which he notices now looks nice and tight. Then his eyes pass over that spot behind her that looks perfect for something nasty and return to her eyes. The whole process takes less than a second. He crosses his arms over his chest, and his left eye twitches slightly as he wills his mind to wipe itself clean.






((OOC: FurryPanda, sorry again about the wait. Hope this works and it's okay the Esteban is such a jerk... let me know if you'd like me to make any changes.))

((OOC: Robokitty, nope 'twas perfect))

Katie usually didn't think much before she talked, her thought process went more between whether or not she could risk talking, rather than if she should. So at cheerleading practice, where a flippant statement could get her kicked off the team, she didn't talk. With Jude he had been so... something, that she had just spoken freely, and when she had to talk to people like the English project the other day, she just stayed quiet as much as she could.

For Katie, the only people who didn't get the drawn out thought process of speech or no speech were her closest friends. So Penny, and a while ago, Natasha.

Then again, there's an exception to every rule, and this one was no different. On the very few occasions when Katie was super stressed out, or profoundly upset, or incredibly confused, she would talk freely, well, whenever.

So Katie knew, in hindsight that she shouldn't have spoken at all when she did, and she definitely shouldn't have flipped out. She didn't know if it was her own finely tuned instincts for when she talked too much or too freely, or if it was the look of concentrated anger on Esteban's face. Those two happened at the same time. By the time she had decided that she shouldn't have talked, a third cue had come up- he had slammed his hand, with painful loudness given that her head hadn't come up off the lockers.

She was in trouble, but it was her own fault, and she really didn't think that Esteban would actually do anything. If she wanted to, Katie could find out a great deal of stuff, and her midnight forays had given her enough to think she could stand on. At least until he actually got up into her personal space and was glaring at her. This was an instance that deserved swearing, or doing something else stupid. Something like waiting for further information before acting, and not clawing his arm and running when he was startled. Especially since she was never completely certain of her sources for this kind of thing, and even if a guy's never badly hurt a girl, there's a first time for everything, and she was practically asking for it.

Wait... no. He was asking for it. Yeah, the cheerleaders certainly deserved the few bits of crap that rained onto their perfect world, and it certainly was nice that he had not done her locker- regardless of the fact she never used it- it was still an epic d*ck move to let Penny take the blame.

She didn't know what flickered through her eyes in that timeless moment when he was just looking at her- and being way up in her space, but it didn't take long, for her to go from partial panic, to ready to run, to righteously indignant.

"Never pick a fight with someone who's got less to lose than you, mensa." Was that supposed to be a threat? Sure, he did have less to lose than her- she figured that there was some sort of socioeconomic disparity between them, and... and... she didn't know if there was anything much else of value in his life. In hers she had the dance studio, which she certainly wasn't getting kicked out of, cheerleading, which she could get over if she lost, her smarts, which... if she lost that she wouldn't be worried about it anymore. What the heck kind of threat was it? Yeah she had more to lose, but it would be rather difficult for him to make that happen.

She didn't know what else it could be, and she thought that a threat was pretty worthless if there was no way he could carry it out. Unless he was talking about Penny? She was already gone, and would be back, and was a girl. Confusion like that, with his words completely cancelling out his demeanor confused her so much that she didn't even try to decide whether or not to talk, she just didn't.

Then again, that weird little threat, that would have worked so much better if it could be implemented fell right to the mental wayside when he grabbed her arm and yanked. She was too startled to do much other than keep herself balanced and swipe ineffectively with her nails, and then she found herself in a closet. A small closet. A closet that had the door closing. A closet that had a door closing that was only just large enough to turn around in. A closet that had a door closing that was only just large enough to turn around in, and a guy. Oh crap.

The thought hadn't even occured to her that that was the kind of thing he was talking about, though if it was, then that greatly improved the threatening quality of his earlier statement. She didn't know if she looked terrified, but she felt it. And to think that she had been going to get ornithine for the guy! THe stuff was expensive and could be used for so much other than making hydrogen peroxide. Katie recognized that she was mentally babbling. With an effort she got herself under control.

She did the only thing she really could do, given the cramped space, she put an extra couple of inches between them and put her hand on the shelf behind her to mess with a cap a little. If it was a nasty solvent, great, if not it would be a distraction if she needed it. What she didn't do was scream. The thought had occured to her, but for some strange reason in the deep and socially scarred regions of her mind, she was still- somewhat- willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. For a smart girl, Katie had some pretty stupid moments sometimes. The light flickered on, which was slightly reassuring. If he wanted to do anything bad, then he wouldn't have turned on the lights, right? Would he have? Enjoy the terror of his victim? Ummm... Mind babbling. Again.

"Now, how the f*** is this Pene chick my problem?" Oh, right, Penny. The whole thing seemed like a lot less of a big deal now, but as long as he was asking, and as long as she was screwed, metaphorically and probably literally... she'd answer.

In the time it took her to come to that decision he broke the somewhat uncomfortable eye contact he had maintained the whole time, and she couldn't help tensing up. She didn't know anything about what to do in this situation, and gads it was awful. She thought she might even be in shock. He crossed his arms and she couldn't help it, she started backwards and knocked into the shelf behind her with an unpleasant rattling sound that wasn't great for her nerves, especially since the bottle of question mark hopefully cleaning solvent that she had opened while he was getting in was on the edge of the shelf.

She breathed in deeply twice, probably wasting time, but the longer they stood there, the less and less likely it seemed that the obvious was going to happen. "Penny is your problem," she said, very softly, even if her boxing clown equilibrium was working as well as usual, she hadn't been at equilibrium in the first place and she was in way over her head. She was talking like an essay, but normal speech seemed well beyond her, and silence didn't seem like the best idea for some reason.

"Because she's getting blamed for what you did," D*mmit, probably not the best angle to go with. "And a friend of Penny's and Laramie or someone could put two and two together." Her voice didn't raise, and she barely even knew what she was saying until after she was done. What the heck kind of idiot threatened a guy when she was stuck in a closet with him and he was blocking the door?

She tensed up and tried to scoot farther back, thinking that now she was really in for it, but the shelf behind her was already pressed so far in it was carving lines in her back. She had never been so terrified in her life, and she was probably sweating like a hog, but... she barely cared. She couldn't bring herself to relax, to stare calmly and distantly into the face of impending who-knows-what, but she was able to make eye contact and glare, just a little. The sort of look that said, "Yes, I'm scared now, but I am going to go out with some witty repartee and a fuzzy sensation in my mind".

((OOC: I feel like that sucked, and I hope that's okay with you that she's so very very paranoid? It's not like she's not justified, and I quite liked your post, gave me an excellent lead to play around in the neurotic garden that is Katie's head))

((Hey Everybody,

Sorry for my prolonged absence; I know I've been gone for a while, and I'm having some family/personal issues that I really need to deal with. I can't say when they'll be taken care of, so until then, I've decided to give the management and control of the RP over to Alissa.

Alissa certainly has shown her dedication, skill, and general kindness and ability to welcome others. She would do an amazing job, so she has my blessing to create a new thread for you all to RP in under her discretion.

I'll try checking in every now and then until I've got things squared away in real life, and even if I can't run the RP, I do hope to return as soon as feasibly possible to take part in RPing--I just didn't want to leave you all stranded in my absence, or simply thinking I didn't care enough!

I'm so incredibly sorry to leave like this (mainly, in a selfish way--I love this place and these characters so much, it pains me to leave for any amount of time) but I truly must take care of the things going on in my life right now.

Thank you for your constant support and wonderful RP'ing, you all are wonderful and fantastic writers and people! I hope to be back soon, so until there, have fun!

-TS))

Glancing around, Lea nervously began to hunt for a friendly face. From experience, she knew that lunch on your own could be either humiliating or very, very dull. Maths had been a doss, just like always. She sat, she doodled, she pondered. Not an awful lot of work had gone on. Lea always found it easier to think when there were other things going on. She didn't like the attention focused on her.
Deciding that there must be some form of lunch hall somewhere, where she could spend the small amount of money she'd been given, she set off, determined to look purposeful and not like the loner she was always afraid of being. She checked the map she'd been given, and while she focused so entirely on that, she didn't notice anything around her, and inevitably, crashed into someone. Glancing up, she started to talk quickly, "Oh, my god, I'm so sorry, I'm new here and I was lost and.. and.." she gabbled, then came to a halt. "Sorry." She said again, smiling.
((OOC: Sorry, It's not the best. Feel free to become the person I bumped into, or just approach or whatever. If I've done something wrong (created a non-existant lunch-hall, for example), do tell and I'll fix it ))

If it was a well known fact that J.D. didn't have very many friends, it was another that Leigh didn't have very many female ones. Nearly none, save for the girls in the band she was in, whom she for obvious reasons got along with just fine. In her world, and among the people she tended to hang out with, one had to prove oneself, before acceptance was granted, and girls that fully measured up were indeed a true rarity. Most of them couldn't fight to save their life, as their capabilities rarely seemed to extend past clawing, scratching, screeching, pulling the opponent's hair and, if it happened to be a guy, kicking him in the groin. They couldn't throw a decent punch, either in fear of breaking one of their precious nails, or of having said nails dig into the flawless skin of their palms, or simply of being somehow manhandled in return. God forbid they should bruise!

Now Leigh on the other hand, was rarely completely bruise free. She got into fights, she put herself through various toils and labors in the name of general mischief and sometimes even petty crimes, and she got rough with her friends, in the spirit of simple friendly wrestling and fighting, as well as more... prurient endeavors. She wasn't afraid to get physical and possibly injured, and despite her fairly petite frame, she was both tenacious and strong. Add to that her quick wit and her sharp tongue, and as a girl, you'd have your work cut out for you, if you wanted to earn her approval.
And things weren't exactly made easier by the fact that she was also highly territorial. She didn't take well to other girls intruding on what she percieved to be her sphere.

Thus, you can probably imagine how far from impressed she was, when in the middle of the conversation she was having with J.D. in the line for food in the cafeteria, the preppy-looking brunette infront of them suddenly turned around with sweetness sticking to her lips in the form of a friendly smile, to make the two troublemakers the main targets of her silver-tinged gaze.

"Hey guys", she said, as though it was somehow perfectly natural to address the two kids whose mere presence had just sent a couple of other ones scurring out of their way, with the same ease as though she had been talking to just any random person, or a friend even. "Sorry if I'm interrupting."

Her gaze then temporarily landed fully on Leigh, who at this point was just overcoming the initial surprise of being approached, and quirking a brow in mild skepticism.

"Welcome back, by the way", the brunette added. "I don't think we've met, I'm Natalie."

An ever so slight narrowing of the eyes was to be Leigh's only response to that. Yeah, she knew who the girl was. Natalie Car-something-or-other, the new editor of the school magazine. The girl who, despite her appearance, didn't seem to associate with the other preps much, the one who didn't dance to their tune, yet still had gone out with that prick Matt Sidle, and been brutally dumped and humiliated by him during the dance late last semester.
What the h*ll did she want?

The answer, delivered only a few moments later, was to come as a bit of yet another surprise to Leigh, as Natalie turned to J.D., the one of the two troublemakers known for being the least approachable of them all.

"Sorry about yesterday, "but at least we'll both be getting food this time around", she said, before continuing with something that immediately had Leigh's gaze flick over to J.D. in puzzlement. "Have you given any thought to my proposition?"

Her proposition? What proposition? What was she on about? Leigh had only been gone for one single school day, and in that short time, J.D. had managed to become acquainted with yet another goody two-shoes? First Lila, whose friendship with J.D. from the very start hadn't sat very well with Leigh - it still didn't, but even though she was still wondering just what the heck he was doing with someone like Lila, Lila had at least shown respect, and that she had no intention whatsoever of challenging Leigh; that she really didn't want to ruffle any feathers - and now this?

However, even more surprising was the fact that J.D. actually looked as though he wasn't about to bite Natalie's head off, but was rather giving her question some actual thought.
And frankly, he was.

He hadn't thought a whole lot about it since walking off yesterday, away from Natalie and Lila as they had been about to head off to class. It had popped into his head a couple of times during the evening, and even for a while this morning as he had been working on the sketch with the dragon, the woman and the two bodies. But all those times, he had soon dismissed the idea, just like he had when it had first been presented to him, and it wasn't until now, when Natalie brought it up with him once more, that for some reason, he found himself suddenly contemplating it. Perhaps mostly because by approaching him about it again, and going as far as to doing it when he was in the middle of a conversation with a troublemaker friend, Natalie showed that she was probably being fairly serious about it, and not just trying to flatter him. Because butting in when he was talking to one of his peers was considered quite the dangerous thing to do, and so it was clear she wasn't looking to just kiss up to him.

"Proposition?" he heard Leigh repeat, when obviously he failed to offer her the explanation she wanted on his own accord.

He turned his head to look at her, and gave what had became his standard response to most anything; a shrug.

"She wants me to draw for the school paper", he said however, sounding not quite as aggressively perplexed as he had the day before, but still as though he was on the verge of questioning Natalie's sanity.

Then he turned back to look at the brunette, but before he had a chance to claim that no, he hadn't given the proposition any more thought, Leigh offered a slow, thoughtful;

"You know, that's not a bad idea..."

Because as confused as she was over how someone like Natalie had gotten whiff of J.D.'s drawing skills, what stood out to her more was how cool it would be to have some of his stuff appear in the school paper, and how it might actually do him some good, partly because he was worth the recognition that he really didn't let many people show him, and partly because it would look good to the school authorities and his probation officer and every other adult with a tendency to get on his case, to have him take an actual interest in something school-related. And it didn't even require him to make an effort he wasn't already willing to make; he drew and sketched on a daily basis. It would be a piece of cake to him, and he would actually enjoy it in the process.
Though J.D. himself seemed to have yet to realize it.

"What?", he said, giving the raven-haired girl a look as if he really hadn't expected her to agree with Natalie and, unknowingly, Lila. "Don't you start too."

"Oh, come on", Leigh instantly shot down his dismissal with a tone of voice clearly indicating she thought he was being silly. "Think about it. What better way is there to flip everyone else off, and to make a point?"

"Who says I wanna make a point?"

"What, you don't want to make a point?"

"Shut up."

A somewhat exasperated sigh escaped Leigh then, at his usual way of ending an argument he knew he wasn't going to win, before it got too far. Though that didn't necessarily mean he succeeded, and the sigh Leigh gave didn't necessarily mean she was giving up. She wasn't. Not that she was dead set on changing his mind, because she wasn't - it would be shame if J.D. made himself miss out on this, but it wasn't like she was completely passionate about persuading him - but she did still have a little more food for thought to offer him, as since she was his friend, she had a pretty good idea of what the main problem was.

"I'm sure you wouldn't have to sign your work or have your name show up somehow if you didn't want to", she said, and turned her gaze to Natalie; "Right?"

If Esteban's willpower wasn't strong enough to cool down his libido, then that terrified look on Katie's face did the trick. Sure, chicks were cute when they were scared, but not when they were completely abject. And while her expression of sheer panic managed to soften the intensity of his (irritability), he didn't drop the harsh scowl from his face for a second.

He doesn't want to get kicked out of Brooklake. Doesn't want to get his ass sent back to the correctional school, and with two fights in two days, a recent return from a suspension, and this nerd ratting him out on a prank like the one he just pulled, that's looking like more of a possibility. Usually, Esteban spaced this kind of stuff out more evenly. What the f*** was his problem now?

Most people don't give him enough credit, don't know how creative or intelligent he could be. A small handful of teachers, who eventually realized that he didn't just copy off of other students' work, they knew. Other students? Not so much. And when he put his mind to a certain task, like making someone else's life a living hell, saran wrap, paint grenades, and a little silver nitrate barely grazed the surface of what he could cook up. And if he ever got kicked out of school with nothing to lose, whoever was responsible better find religion or another city--quickly.

With Katie, though, she's shaky as a cornered chinchilla with a heartbeat like a hummingbird on speed, and Esteban has a feeling that a little intimidation and threat of physical violence will be enough to convince her against ratting him out. She backs up against the shelves, and the clamor they make startles her. When she looks at him, her eyes are wide and white like saucers, and somehow this makes Esteban feel better. Less horny, yes, and better.

Mensa. It's a good nickname for her. In one language, smart. In another, stupid as hell.

After she takes a couple of breaths to calm her nerves, she starts explaining meekly with fear creeping into the attempts to control her voice.

"Penny is your problem because she's getting blamed for what you did. And a friend of Penny's and Laramie or someone could put two and two together."

As far as Esteban's concerned, the evidence he's let slip to Katie so far is all still within the realm of circumstantial. Her locker wasn't rigged, and neither was the Queen B****'s. He didn't have the hydrogen peroxide he asked for, and the prank didn't involve it at all. It was a suspicious coincidence, sure, but Esteban's mind travels through all the different permutations and possibilities of what could've happened with the lightning speed of a nerve network. To him, there were myriad scenarios in which he wasn't responsible. A freshman could've asked him for the information. He could be in prank competition, and this one wasn't his. He could've asked her simply to throw her off his trail for the real target. Or f*** it, maybe he wanted to fill the lockers with dead animals or love letters, chocolates, and flowers. You could do a lot just knowing what someone's locker number was.

And when Esteban has to lie about something he's being accused of, he thinks of it like someone's just asked him "Do you still like beating up old ladies?" He taps into that churning reserve of anger he's got buried deep inside and channels it into the indignation of the righteously innocent. The guilty are quiet and calm. The innocent get angry, upset, and never, never "confess"--unless they're being waterboarded.

Esteban's head cocks back like he can't believe what he's hearing, and the offended look of the unfairly persecuted flashes over his face, dropping his jaw open slightly and curling his lips with protest:

"What? Who put you up to this?" His eyes dart quickly and brows furrowing like he's trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle in a conspiracy to pin the blame on the brown kid. He leans forward, imposing himself even more into her space. He keeps his arms crossed over his chest, wringing his fists. For a second, his arms pull out an inch like he's going to raise them against her, then they cross back together tightly. With rising anger in his voice, he demands again, "Who's behind this?! Is it that asshole, Mark?!"


((OOC:
FurryPanda- Katie's post was great! I <3 her paranoia. And yeah, it's fine if she thinks he's a potential... uh.... sex offender. :agree:

trampledsneakers: Thank you for everything you've done for this RP so far! Hope we'll see you back soon ))