"Oi, watch your mouth, freak," he says, shoving Sadde a little, causing him to stagger.

"Hey, what the hell?" he says, getting between the two of them. He gives Sadde a look, very obviously conveying his disapproval of the provocation, even if it is just retaliation for earlier.

Brad glares at Sadde but raises his hands in a placating gesture.

Sadde, on the other hand, leers at Brad, licking his lips and eyeing him up and down.

"You're disgusting, Woods," Brad says, and stalks off.

"Okay, seriously?" Theo asks Sadde. "I know he called you a freak, but do you really have to try justifying it?"

"It's a defense mechanism, years of bullying will do that to a person. At this point the worst he can do is call me names and sometimes try to punch me, and then I do stuff like that and he and his friends back off. Can't catch the cooties, you see."

Well, that stopped Theo's annoyance dead in its tracks.

He starts to walk away. While he has Bio next too, and so he's probably got it with Sadde, he's not really jumping at the idea of continuing this conversation; he can just get directions from someone else.

That's alright. But Sadde has bad news for Theo when it turns out he's the only one without a partner. Guess who Theo will have to sit with?

Well, maybe the lesson won't require too much speaking between lab partners.

It mightn't, but Sadde's not the type of person that doesn't speak. "Sorry about the thing earlier," he says eventually.

"I get why you did it," Theo says back, not very helpfully.

He shrugs a bit uncomfortably. "Not the very best way to leave a good first impression to the cute new guy who doesn't actually have prejudices against me like the rest of the school."

Theo doesn't really disagree there. He smiles a bit at the 'cute' comment, but doesn't actually respond other than to shrug.

Okaaaay he won't press.

Bio bio.

Bio.

It's better than English, at least. At the end of it, Theo pulls out his timetable. "I've got math next," he says to Sadde.

"Geography. See ya," he says, and saunters off, looking uncomfortable.

"Bye," responds Theo. Then he looks around for where the math classrooms are, asking directions of people who look potentially helpful.

Then: Math, math, math.

And then: lunch.

Sadde is sitting on his own at a remote corner. No one's bothering him, but they're pretty much ignoring him completely.

Theo walks into the cafeteria, gets some pasta, then looks around for a place to sit.

... He didn't really make any acquaintances in math, and it doesn't look like anyone's exactly beckoning him over. He's doesn't want to just intrude on some group, either. So...

He walks over to the table Sadde's at and sits down. "Hey again."

Sadde looks up from where he's playing with his food with a fork and blinks. "Hi?"

"How was Geography?" he asks, then eats a forkful of pasta. Nom.

"Boring. I slept through it. How was math?"

He'd thought Theo was avoiding him or something after the crappy start, but he's rolling with it.

Another disapproving look.

"It was okay. Luckily I've already covered the topic before, so I don't have to catch up."

More pasta. Nom.

"Yeah, why'd you join so late?"