ᵇᵃᶜᵏ ᵒᶰ ᵐʸ ᵇᵘˡˡˢʰᶤᵗ

“Just…tired. Not in the mood to deal with anyone’s bullshit, I guess…sorry I snapped, but uh…yeah, anytime I’m in detention I stay away. I sat behind him once and he was allowed his laptop for an essay. Hentai on one tab, MLP fanfiction on the other one. I wouldn’t touch anything of his unless you like sweat and jizz.”

Tristan just gives her a look then, eyeing her curiously. He wonders how true that it is. Lord knows he doesn’t mean it totally when he says it himself. In fact, Tristan does care, he cares too much about what people think of him hence all of the effort he puts in to be noticed – remembered. It reminds him he actually knows very little about Jackie despite how similar they seem to be. “You have siblings?” He’s surprised. Genuinely. He thought Jackie was a lone wolf in life and family this whole time. “I didn’t know that. I wonder what the fuck else I don’t know about you. You speak Russian on the down-low or somethin’?”

Jackie wasn’t surprised that wasn’t a wide known fact. She’d been close to Jules for awhile, and she suspected she didn’t even know about Jackie’s younger brothers and sisters. “Only half siblings. My mom spawned them out when she got with my stepdad.” Her tone made it sound unfortunate, and she usually kept that attitude, even around them. Even if she didn’t mind the brats from time to time. “I’m gonna guess there’s a lot. -- Why do you ask? Do you need a favor in Russian or something?” She deadpanned as she joked. “Would you believe me if I told you I once got rich off of crypto currency before the market for it crashed?” 

“yo!” the skater walked up behind the other and playfully yet lightly hit them on the legs with his basically empty backpack. “how about pizza? i’m starving and i don’t feel like going on my own. last time i think they wanted to kick me out then again i don’t judge them- i was sitting there drunk and singing to celine dion.”

“Feelings aren’t the worst. People are the worst. He’s a real life superhero. My dad got hella lucky, but now I have unrealistic expectations for men. I’m nice to kids, but only because adults were so mean to me when I was that age and I don’t want to be that person. He really does. They throw shade at everyone and he gets so into all the gossip.” 

“That’s the fucking tea right there. It could be worse, you could have drastically lowered expectations. That’d be terrible. As Ms. Lauryn Hill says respect is the just the minimum. Did they do that crap where they condescendingly belittled you? I hate when adults used to do that. Or well, still do that. God. I wish that were me. I love when older ladies get shady.” 

“Gotta set yourself apart from the herd somehow, Hanen. You know how it is.” Not that he does anything he does to be set apart so obviously, it’s just the way he is. But he doesn’t mind at all though if that makes him seem more impressive to other people. He’s trying to make a place for himself in the hierarchy after all. “It was stupid,” is all Jackie really needs to know about it. “The whole thing at the end is you don’t get eaten if you’re already sick. They made injecting yourself with a virus seem like the most groundbreaking thing. It was dumb.” Tristan rolls his eyes. Movies these days. “I actually haven’t seen that one. Did you watch it?”

“I’m not so sure I do, Hacker. I really don’t give a shit what anyone thinks of me.” Okay, maybe that was a lie, she just didn’t want anyone to know she cared about it. “What the fuck. No wonder the fans of the book came for Brad Pitt after that.” Jackie didn’t blame them with an anticlimactic ending like that. “Watch your tone. Back then I had to take my younger brothers and sisters to the movies, and I was damned if I was gonna sit through The Peanuts Movie. Besides, everything else was sold out.” She defended, not mentioning the part where she fell asleep during the movie. 

“I’m not really a movie buff, I just like having opinions,” he proudly shares. That, paired with the fact that he doesn’t like being out of the loop, means he’s watched a respectable amount of popular or recently-released movies and formed some kind of thought on them. It’s important to him to seem cultured and capable of holding a conversation, especially if it can intimidate another person. “You know, you make a good point, when was the last big Brad Pitt movie?” He asks, curious now, his brows are pulled together in thought. “All I can think about is that zombie movie. Was it that zombie movie? The World War Z one? Is that the last one? I literally can’t remember.”

“Of course you do.” Jackie said nearly under her breath, as badly as she wanted to roll her eyes, she refrained. “Is that your way of seeming more seasoned than just a vanilla jock?” Which arguably, not that she wanted to admit it but he did stand apart from the usual jocks from her perspective. But then again, she judged people on a different standard. “I think you’re right. He hasn’t had a blockbuster since. To be honest, I can’t even remember much of that movie? Then he and Angelina had that cringe-y By The Sea movie they starred in right before they announced spilitsville. That was probably a pretty big misstep.”