((OOC: Is THIS far away from calling my boy Abel  !snicker  Also if you're adverse to crude language do tell me! I tend to spill into a lot, this post is probably at it's worst *scratches back of head* it just... works for character... eep! Sorry it's loooong! O.o' I'll shorten up, I just wanted to introduce him a tad!))<br/><br/><a class="postlink" href="http://img821.imageshack.us/i/jfvjew.png/"></a><a class="postlink" href="http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/5193/jfvjew.png">[ img ]</a><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Nino Lorenza</span><br/><br/>Meanwhile in the gym hall it stank of feet.<br/><br/>Feet and enough cleaning poducts to burn out any hope of sensation past the tip of the nostrils for the last of your natural days. You'd go to your grave glowing florescent yellow for the "lemon fresh" and "pine breeze" they used in the building.<br/>But that was no shock royale. Not when considerring the old man and his bosomous maximus secretary had brushed mother-dearest and her lanky son into the skirting of the sports hall like a scabby, abandoned, old band-aid. Stink, as it so happened, was part of the nitty, gritty school territory.<br/><br/>The boy wore an incredilous expression alongsides his uniform. His eyes were sunken, threating to droop half a length past his cheeks for bordom, jaw jutted, hands nestled in his lap, fingers fidgeting and, like some folk play a spectacular air guitar, this poor example of one was rolling an air cigarette. A manicured hand from the boys left appeared like a shot and batted his chewed, ink spattered fingers back down.<br/><br/>Nino's gaze followed the moisturized hand, to the pinstripe blazer, all the way up to the mask of paint that constituted for his mothers face. She shot him a scowl so venomous it was a wonder his eyes didn't burn out for looking and so heated the icicles, that Nino was half convinced made up her heart, almost dripped.<br/><br/>She jerked her head both sternly and subtlely in the headmasters direction. This was a real feat for her, as far as Nino knew the individual letters for 'subtle' weren't even in his mothers vocabulary, let alone showing the broad stretch of interlect to exercise it. He would have applauded her too if it was considered proper in any society and etiquette to clap at tragedies and, trust him, his family was fucking Socrates-esque-Tragedy. A Freudian Mess. His Home Sweet Home was every psychologists wet dream and didn't he know it...<br/><br/>He knew the moral message behind this particular tragedy, mind. It meant, "Nino, I didn't heave through twenty hours of agony for the fruit of my loins to aspire towards becoming a monumental cock up. Now I know you've never grasped any concept harder than your dick, but it goes a little something like this: If you don't pull your thumb out, I wont fucking skin you. The world will! Prison will!"<br/><br/>He felt the creeping weight of a scowl inching across his face as he pulled his blazer tighter around him.<br/><br/>"How's that from where you're standing, son?" A deep, patronising sing-song hum of a voice derailed the train of the boys thought, reminding him exactly on whose gloried-plank excuse for a bench he was sat upon.<br/>His gaze flit up, sizing up the new figure of authority and not to go and buy him a new suit either.<br/><br/>"<span style="font-style: italic">Well sir, the wall ahead of me's was washed three different shades of white, each one hiding it's shame. Your shame. Schools shame. Covering a hot steamy night where a raging hormonal pillock armed with a pen spoilt her virgin skin with crummy, cummy pre-teen, out-of-the-can-cliche scribbles. 'K 4 M 4 EVA' my skinny, lily white arse. <br/><br/>Or do you mean you?<br/><br/>Cause from where I'm standing you look like a sweatier, beefier version of Back to The Future's professor Emmett. Really funny, really! So much so that if I wasn't so sure your cholesterol levels weren't going to leap up and clog you like a backed up shitter, I wouldn't blink twice if you chased me down the parking space screaming 'Marrtty!'. And how long have you been banging your secretary professor? That's got to be a pair of E's right there. Does your wife know yet or are you saving that for your golden anniversary? Spring her out the cake like a cheap hooker gag?<br/>You know what, it's goddamn chilly in here! Make yourself REALLY useful and go knock up the heating!"</span><br/><br/>What he actually said, was, "'s fine,"<br/><br/>A playdough smile arrived at Mr Wilkens cheeks. He shot E cup a sidewards smile, before beaming down his button nose at the unimpressed teenager, forcing a strange kind of eye-contact that you save for rewarding small, disobediant animals and stubborn todlers, "We're talking business Master Nilo,"<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Nino</span>. Four letters, cheap, snappy and easy to remember drunk.<br/><br/>"Let's start on a clean slate,"<br/><br/>Nino stared the man in the eye, trying to gouge the level of humour or at least meaning in that over-used cat-dribble. The miserable old git looked like he wanted to be there as much as Nino did.<br/><br/>"How's that son?" a hairy paw of a hand shot out. Somewhere in that dark-headed cranium he figured the old man meant for him to take it, a typical gesture, a peace offering, a sign of good will, new beginnings and other such managerial buzz words.<br/><br/>His mother had to elbow him onto his feet.<br/><br/>"'s good," he murmured reluctantly letting this old fool finger his digits. This man holding him back a year and probably feeling sorry for Nino to add insult to injury. The mood he was in skin contact was a fetid and sickening thing, but it wasn't like he had a choice. All other flesh was uncomfortably warm, his grip squirmingly tight. Nino didn't like him.<br/><br/>Nino didn't like anyone.<br/><br/>In fact, Nino didn't like anything much at all.<br/><br/>So as he shook the strange man's hand a feeling of sinking dread fell to the pit of his belly like a rock in a pond.<br/><br/>"Can I get back to me room na?" He muttered jamming his hands into his pockets, wrapping them up in the cotton like he had The Cooties to wipe off.<br/><br/>"Of course you can," the old man tried for enthusiasm, but there was no heart in it. He'd already suffered a busy schedule with about fifty too many kids to take charge of already. One more of them was yet another year was a plain earache. Especially one with a history of trouble and a short spell in the nut house. He wondered for a moment what he'd done to end up carted off in a wheel barrel, but then the kids spell in loony land was none of his business... he just had to mine him for SOME kind of grades. Any kind! A pass at an E was high hopes for some of these snots!<br/><br/>The boys mother shot him a warning glare for the umpteenth time that evening. She knew him best. Nilo, as it said on the sheet, never planned on coming back to lesson if he was to be perfectly honest... but that was no shock. He looked like he'd just crawled out of the estate anyway, rough as dogs bollocks some of these Northerners...<br/><br/>He watched Nino as he pulled himself to his feet, new, cheap shoes scuffing the hall floor with thick black lines as he dragged his sorry carcass out the door.<br/><br/>'There goes another hopeless life,' he found himself thinking as he watched the new student lope into a run as soon as he crossed the glass door threshhold. He almost felt sorry for him...<br/><br/><br/>****        ******        *****<br/><br/>Cheerleaders winked at him from photo's on the walls and badly painted kitties sent an all out retinal assault on good taste as Nino ambled down one of the many white-washed corridors. Doors flew by like bad dreams, classrooms, kids, lockers, everything. Everything you could want and hope for all in one glue and paste covered, multi-coloured tin can!<br/><br/>Christ.<br/><br/>A grim, crooked smile lilted one corner of his lips. He was stuck here yet another year... it was hardly his fault... Oh well, at least there was a new baby room mate to look forwards to. Goody-goody-gumdrops...<br/><br/>He slipped down a turn in the corridor and into the room quietly, wondering what his Ma and that old man were discussing on his 'behalf' now... He paused a figure sat on the other bed catching his eye. He froze for half a moment taking in the 'new kid'.<br/><br/>"They got you too, eh?" he purred, sauntering casually in, kicking the door shut behind him, "Welcome to a few years o' hell, kit,"<br/><br/>He was disgustingly cute for a lad, thick bangs of mahogany hair on a slinky, androgynous frame, decorated in punk get up like a ghetto Christmas tree. Nino raised an eyebrow.