Chapter Text
It was the first day of junior year, and Max was stood outside the school, leaning on a support column, waiting for the rest of the obnoxious student body to arrive. He hadn't slept in some bushes by the football field at all. Totally not. While putting himself near the school was less than ideal, he needed wifi to get his schedule and the library was pretty strict on their 30 day ban for "causing a scene." He just told a little kid who had seen Heathers that he wasn't black Jason Dean, and when the kid wouldn't shut up, he told them to fuck off. Cue the parents making a scene, not him, but whatever. The school had a library.
He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, glaring blankly at the freshman being dropped off early. The doors weren't even open yet, but parents were so insistent on see their demon children off to school that they would drop them off almost an hour early. Good for Max, because it meant he wasn't standing there looking intimidating for nothing. He took a drag from his cigarette, blowing smoke at a kid walking past him. They coughed and rushed past, not looking back. This was his way of establishing who he was to the newbies.
A couple of white "gangsta" looking kids had begun to gather, trying to size him up in the coolness department. Really, they were just trying too hard. One of them pointed at him and grinned, right when a car rushed into the parking lot.
"Slow the fuck down!"
"I'm gonna push you out on the curb!"
"Nikki just park like a normal person!"
"Hey, Max!"
Max smiled as the red convertible rushed past, towards the student lot with no intent of slowing below 20 mph. He heard Neil start to cuss Nikki out as they began to walk back over. Nikki beamed when she saw Max smiling, causing him to scowl. She grinned even bigger, tuning out Neil. "Catch!" She threw a football at Max's face. His hand shot up and intercepted it, hitting it down as he took another puff from his cancer stick. He looked away from the two to avoid sending smoke into their faces, before nodding in acknowledgement.
"Max, tell Nikki that 20 is too fast to go in a parking lot!" Neil sauntered up behind Nikki. The brainiac had come out as genderfluid to the two of them before 10th grade, and made sure to tell them when his gender shifted. Today, Neil texted them to say she was a girl, and was smoothing out her skirt as she came to a stop by her friends.
"Stop being such a sheep, Neil. It's fiiiiiine." Nikki countered, throwing her arm over her shoulders. "I have a license, so I know what I'm doing."
Max shrugged, before shooting a small smile at his nervous friend. "Looking good, Neil. Still impresses me how much you fucking rock skirts."
Neil giggled nervously. "Heh, thanks, Max. I'm glad you two support me through this. It's hard enough to explain to people but you guys never told me I was confused or anything..." Neil was always like this on firsts. First day of camp, first day of school, you name it, and she became a nervous nerd.
Unfortunately, then they heard some pubescent laughter. It sounded like choking hyenas, or freshmen. It was a distinctive sound that they all loathed. "Hey, freak show! Boys can't wear skirts, bitch!"
Max could feel Neil's discomfort, it was radiating with his and Nikki's anger. Nikki looked at Max, and loudly asked, "Hey, Max! Did they ever find the kid who stabbed that guy?"
"I don't think so, Ikk. It's not like that's a good description for the police to go off of." He got the message immediately. Intimidate before you attack.
"I know, right? Glowing green cat eyes and a dark trench coat, not likely to see that again, right?" She smirked slightly, and he did the same, looking at the freshman from the corner of his eye.
"Plus the cigarette burns on his skin. That's about as likely as anyone challenging you to a bench-pressing competition in weights this year. What was it last year, 3 before they gave up?"
"4 actually. Freshmen boys get so freaked out when a girl can throw them over her head like no problem." She grinned, looking at them. "I'm sure none of them had any doubt after I picked up that car."
At this point the freshmen were starting to back away, but Nikki grabbed the apparent ring leader by the collar and held him up while Max grabbed the other two.
"Word of advice, kids, we don't tolerate hate speech around here. Even God can't help you if we hear you pulled anything, so I'd watch your back, or the football team is gonna take you to practice, and you'll be the ball." She let go of the kid, signaling for Max to do the same as they ran off.
"I wish we didn't have to do shit like that." She sighed, putting her hand on Neil's shoulder as Max squinted at his cigarette. "I wish people would just accept each other. But no, now we gotta be the mean gays. I always feel bad for treating them the same way they treat us, but it's not like they don't deserve it."
"Yeah, being the bad guy sucks, but I'm not stopping till every bigoted, racist, homophobic, antisemitic, etc, idiot on this godforsaken planet cries themselves to sleep like the rest of us." Max grumbled going back to smoking now that he was done tormenting freshmen.
"I almost wish Nurf hadn't graduated..." Neil said, quietly. "He was such a good advocate for the destruction of gender norms and for idiots to shut the hell up about minorities they didn't know anything about."
"That's why we continue his work. Because someone fucking has too. Come on, guys. I want to go see if Nerris is here yet. She's been vaguing being pan all summer and my lesbian ass is going to scream if she'll go on a date with me." Nikki marched off, Max and Neil trailing behind her.
This was already shaping up to be an interesting year, and the school hadn't even opened the doors yet.