Hablo Español

[Nico Martell]

As per normal, Nico was keeping to himself. He sat in the student lounge looking over some of his summer reading, knowing that he should at least try to do a little more studying to be prepared for the upcoming semester. School wasn't officially starting for a few weeks yet, but he'd missed some while he'd been in jail and was still more or less figuring things out that way.

Some noises kept distracting him, mostly because he actually understood them. Someone nearby was regularly speaking Spanish, and doing it badly. Having grown up in a Spanish speaking household, Nico could speak it better than he could English. So now he could only sigh and run his hand through his hair as he heard someone utterly butchering it.

Finally, he couldn't help but turn. He repeated the exact phrase the person had just butchered, only he managed to say it perfectly, with just the right inflection. He then stared blankly at them, seeming to say with his expression that they had just figured it out, so now they could kindly shut the hell up.

[Thomas Hallowell]

    Thomas was purposefully butchering Spanish, because frankly he didn’t give a shit and he was required to take a foreign language. They were also required to record themselves on the sounds program Audactiy for homework. When the snotty little Latino spoke up and talked down to him like he knew better, Thomas glared. “I don’t fucking give a damn. So long as the assignment’s finished, there’s really nothing else I’m concerned with.”


    Thomas wasn’t exactly a model student, but he was determined to at least graduate high school and perhaps get into college on time. Maybe. He hadn’t honestly thought out that far ahead yet. Unfortunately both of his parents were pressuring him to do well, which made him actively want to fail his classes. The only reason he was still trying was because he wanted to get a well-paying job as soon as possible and move out of his parents’ house.


    And none of his plans involved speaking Spanish, particularly not if he going to stay up north, or even in Kalispell, because what the hell was the point? Aside from brats like the one who’d corrected him, there weren’t exactly a shit ton of immigrants in the area. Even if they were, it was on them to learn English. Why the hell should he attempt to accommodate people who didn’t even try to belong here? Of course, he may still have been more than bit raw about the Latina Taylor bitch who'd turned him down and beat him in a fight, but he had deliberately shut that memory out of his mind.

[Nico Martell]

What a surprise: the preppy little entitled white boy didn't give a crap that he was butchering someone else's language. Nico gave him a sort of tired look. After all, he was hardly the first one of his kind that Nico had encountered. on some level, he couldn't really blame him that much either. The guy's statement pretty well matched Nico's own position on most homework.

"So talk quieter," Nico offered, unable to quite stop himself from throwing out those few words. He didn't want to fight, really didn't want to have to get into a conversation with this guy period, considering that he struck Nico as the sort who had trouble getting his head out of his own ass to even realize that his inner circle all looked a little pale. Still, sometimes Nico couldn't quite help it, particularly when someone was being this douchey.

[Thomas Hallowell]

    Having grown up in Spokane Washington, where the vast majority of the population was as pale as Thomas, he'd never had much of a chance to be exposed to anything other than white suburban life. All of the common prejudice that ran through his community held a strong presence in his beliefs and his outlook on life. His aversion to giving a damn about changing probably had something to with his family history, but he would never focus on that if he had a choice in the matter.

    "No one's preventing you from leaving," he replied calmly, amused by the fact that the kid seemed so irritated. Thomas was far enough away that he could only get the barest sense of what the boy's emotions were, and he preferred it that way. He hated constantly having to deal with other people's feelings, but it wasn't exactly something he had much choice in, so he dealt with it... Sometimes by picking fights, sometimes with sex, and other times by manipulating people. It kind of depended on the day really. 

[Nico Martell]

See, were Nico back home, he'd have already expected someone to go for Thomas. Likely it would've ended up being him egged on by someone. But he'd already moved on from that sort of behavior, given up the whole violent thing to attempt to walk the straight and narrow, do everything not to cause a ruckus. He didn't even have his knife on him, what with needing to do the summer reading and all. Really he should know better.

But the guy just seemed to want to be irritating. Nico just shrugged. "Why would I?" he asked. He wasn't about to be disturbed by some white asshole who thought that his own farts didn't stink or something along those lines. It did occur to Nico that he could probably throw a few insults in Spanish his way, really irritate him. But it seemed like the better move, at least for the time being, would be to just pick the book up again and get right back to reading as if he'd never been interrupted in the first place.

[Thomas Hallowell]

    Thomas laughed at the kid's response. "I don't know. I'm not the one with the stick up my ass regarding a stupid language, nor was I the one to start this. Although if you're so hung up on it, I don't see why you haven't just gone back to where you came from? It's not like you're wanted here," he added coldly. Even Thomas was aware that he was being an ass right now, but he didn't care. The way he saw it, the kid was asking for it by being so goddamn stuck up in the first place.

    Thomas hadn't really been looking for a fight when he'd entered the student lounge, but he wasn't going to turn one down either. He'd been mildly venting about his homework by fucking up the language, but now, he was more than ready to let out his deeper frustration. Was it all really over something as simple as homework? No. But Thomas wasn't one to examine his own motives.

[Nico Martell]

Nico had to pause and just look at the guy as he kept going. The stick up his ass thing was just something Nico was used to at this point: he could count on one hand the number of people he'd met at this school who hadn't said that to him in some form or fashion. But the racism, really?

"I was born in Pennsylvania," Nico said in his steady, controlled monotone. He'd been in prison though, had the whole rough background, could speak fluent Spanish, had a damn Hispanic name. He felt that pride running all the way through him, and while he knew in many ways he was almost a stereotype, he liked to think he'd become more complex as a person. Plus, he'd been in Canada for a while, which had to balance out some of it to some degree. In fact:

"I transferred from Canada," he continued, also raising his brows. Did he even have to call this guy a racist douchebag, or was it just self-explantory at this point?

[Thomas Hallowell]

    Thomas hadn't the slightest bit of shame in him. In his opinion, he was just saying what everyone else actually wanted to. He just laughed and shook his head at Nico's response, "Doesn't change the fact that you're not wanted here. Shit, go ask any of the locals, I bet they'll tell you the same," Thomas assured him, his attitude cocksure. "And I have a feeling the people in Pennsylvania aren't real fond of you either," he added with a shrug. 

    As sheltered as his upbringing had been, Thomas was still mildly aware of just how bad things were in Philadelphia at the very least. Thomas wasn't quite as bad as some of his peers, but he certainly didn't take any time to examine why the beliefs he held were what they were. He reserved slurs for the ones who really annoyed him and he generally didn't pick fights for no reason other than nationality or whatever. This kid had been the ass first. "Not my problem your whore of a mother snuck over the border." He wanted to get a rise out of this kid and he didn't care how far he had to go to get it.  

    Besides, he could still feel a bruise from where the bitch had hit him earlier, and he wasn't quite over that.

[Nico Martell]

Nico kept giving the guy a blank stare as he just kept going. Seriously? Was he stealing from some politician's book now? Nico really supposed he should be mad, and part of him was actually getting more than a little miffed at the way this was all going. The people of Pennsylvania weren't happy with him? Really. This guy was practically begging to get punched.

And the guy just kept going, insulting Nico's mother now. That got an eyebrow raise from Nico. "So," he said, nodding a few times, "you really think it's a good idea to insult someone's mother?" he looked at the guy, then rose up. Nico was lanky, sure, but he was also fairly tall. He'd also been in his share of fights, including at least one that had actually occurred within a prison. He really almost wished he had his knife.

For now, he stared the guy down. Nothing else. No moves of violence. No gripped fists. Just a long, cold stare while the question he'd laid hung in the air between them, waiting to be properly answered.