Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. They belong to their rightful owners.
Warning: The following chapter contains: violence, minor coarse language, and minor suggestive adult themes, YOU have been WARNED.
Chapter 1
Suburban Toronto.
Wawanakwa High School.
The whistle blows. All the students rush to the centre of the gymnasium from two sides. In the middle is a line of red rubber balls. They each clamour for a projectile then let it loose on the opposing side. Except for Noah, a senior of Indian decent with medium straight dark brown hair. He wears the identical gym uniform everyone has on, blue shirts, black shorts. He just stands perfectly still with his arms crossed. He waits patiently for a ball to be flung in his direction. He turns his body and allows the ball to bounce off his side. "Thank you," he mutters under his breath before walking towards the wooden bleachers on the side of the gym.
"Come on Noah!" Cody called out. The pale skinned boy kept on the tips of his toes waiting for a ball the come his way. "Put a little effort into it." He said giving a glance over as Noah took a seat on the bleachers. A rubber ball smashed into the side of Cody's face almost making him fall. "Well, I tried." He shrugged brushing his hand through his medium light brown hair. He walked over and took a seat next to Noah.
Looking over Tyler saw his two friends sitting on the bleachers. His medium brown hair was supported by a white headband. "We don't suck this badly do we?" Two balls shot right into Tyler. One hitting his left shoulder, the other square into his gut. The force was enough to send him to the ground. Slowly he picked himself up off the ground. "I guess that answers that." He said in defeat.
"Take that nerds!" Geoff, the blond jock yelled out from the other side of the gym.
Noah had already opened up a book by the time Tyler sat down on the bleachers along with Cody. "What are you reading?" Tyler asked.
"One of the Game of Thrones books." Noah answered. "I want to always be ahead of the show in terms of story so I can properly dissect each season on the internets. Since you guys seem to not appreciate my scathing criticism of television."
"Well maybe if you shut up even once about how Shane died early in the comic book for the entirety of the first two Walking Dead seasons, maybe I'd express some sympathy. But seriously, cry me a river." Cody countered back looking out at the rest of their class still playing dodge ball. Multiple other classmates had now made their way to the bleachers after also getting eliminated from the game. "Man, Gwen looks good in just about anything."
Both Noah and Tyler threw their hands up in the air, Noah dropped his book onto the ground. "Jesus!" Noah hollered. "Tyler can you clock this one in?"
Tyler looked down at his wrist watch. "Three minutes and thirty six seconds. I think that may be a new record for shortest time in a gym class before Cody mentioned Gwen. I might need to check the log book, but that's back in my gym locker."
"Come on guys, you make it sound like I'm some creepy stalker. Can you just stop?" Cody said in defence.
"I'll stop when you stop obsessing about Gwen like a," Noah puts his hand to his ear. "Yes, I'm just getting confirmation now from the people of Oxford, Stalker." Noah lowered his hand. "Face it dude, she's never going to date you. Why choose hunchbacked neurotic, deathly shy, loser like you with the depth of a Wayans Brothers film, or Trent, Ponyboy Curtis, Rebel Without A Cause, hunk of pure man meat. The guy Gwen is currently ogling at."
The three of them looked over at Trent. He had jet black hair gelled back. He also had Gwen staring directly at him from behind. Tyler turned back to the others. "I think your being a little harsh Noah." He admitted.
"Cody needs harsh, so he'll shut up about Gwen. Seriously dude. Name one film where the nerd character actually gets with the cool alternative chick?" Noah asked.
"Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Cody was quick to answer.
Noah nodded his head in agreement. "That's true. But she does hook up with the cool guy first and then has a pregnancy scare with him. So unless you build a time machine and go back to the 1980s or unprotected sex comes back in a big way. I think you're in trouble."
"Really Noah, your talking like your so much better than I am. But what you said about me, what was it, hunchbacked, being shy, applying a depth comparison to an easier target than Hiroshima. All of those things can all be thrown right back at you. Add in self obsessed, and the charisma of Chris Klein." Cody countered.
"And I would never deny it. Seriously though, Chris Klein? Ouch. But you know whats the difference between you and I. Just be quiet and listen." The three of them stopped talking and listened to nothing but the ambient noises of their classmates still playing dodge ball. "Did you hear it? That's the sound of me not bringing up some chick with six inches of white powder makeup on her face repeatedly. In fact there wasn't even a whisper of me mentioning some girl with braces, a blond with a ponytail, or a girl with fiery red hair. It's almost like I just shutted the fuck up." Noah went on.
There was a voice from the middle of the court. "Hey losers!" They all looked over at Alejandro who was holding one of the rubber balls. "I caught a ball, who ever was first can re-enter the game."
They looked over at Noah who instantly shook his head. "I'll go then." Cody declared. He got up from the bleachers and walked back onto the gym floor. He re-entered the game zone. Three rubber balls whizzed through the air and hit Cody from every angle. Cody tried his hardest to cover his head and private parts yelling out, "Come on!" Cody turned around and took his seat back on the bleachers.
"You're little back and forth is entirely why you two don't have girlfriends and I do." Tyler pointed out.
Both Noah and Cody looked at each other before turning to Tyler. "Are you sure?" Asked Noah, "I mean sure she is your girlfriend. But when she believed Peter Sellers was a kind of Canadian department store."
"Or that Veterans day was about honouring animal doctors." Cody added in.
"I don't think that makes you necessarily better than us, in the romantic sense. I mean it's nice that you were about to woo someone. But when that someone is best described as a pile of bricks. I can't help but feel that's not much of an accomplishment." Noah said.
Tyler shook his head. "Man you guys can be mean. Like come on Noah, you've admitted to liking hanging out with her."
"Definitely, each time we hang out I learn what new depths human intelligence can reach, it's fascinating. At times I am surprised she is even able to remember your name. Though I have to warn you, in a pressure situation, I'm afraid she might forget. So just be mindful of that if she's ever calls out someone else's name. You know, if you ever want to risk trusting her with keeping up with birth control." Noah suggested. Tyler looked perplexed at Noah, trying to come up with a reply.
"Damn dude!" Cody felt the need to jump in. "I felt that burn all the way over here! That was getting dunked into a vat of molten steel in the end of Terminator 2 level burning."
Tyler just keep staring at Noah for about ten more seconds before moving his head slightly to be looking at Cody. "I'm trying to think of someway to hurt Noah. I'm having problems, any suggestions? I mean you already used Chris Klein."
"I know, I didn't expect he'd go deeper and not stop. He went like Mark Ruffalo in Eternal Sunshine." Cody conceded.
"Okay that reference didn't even make any sense." Noah felt the need to point out.
"True, but I applaud him for trying to not use Inception, which is basically the Marilyn Monroe of references right now, dumb and superficial." Tyler said in Cody's defence.
Noah just shook his head. "Weren't you just trying to come up with a way to scold me for talking smack about your dumb girlfriend?"
"Right," Tyler remembered. "Hygiene is less than stellar but," He paused to smell his own armpit. "Not much room for non self reflexive criticism. No romantic outlook, no natural skill, keeps any dorky hobby to himself."
"Oh my god. If Harold tries to tell me the story of how his level 11 wizard slayed a dragon in his last DnD game. I swear to God it will be just like a Sophia Coppola film." Cody muttered.
A smile grew on Noah's face. "I'm like Eminem in the end of 8 Mile. Or Bruce Willis in Unbreakable. I live my life on that perfect path of pathetic slacker loser so I have no major accomplishments or distinguishable feats or skills. While at the same time I have social aptitude and like I said before, the ability to shut the fuck up. I keep to social acceptable forms of geekdom like video games and movies as opposed to like roleplaying and furries and shit. And thus, I can destroy someone's faults while being verbally untouchable because my life is so plain there is basically nothing to really dissect."
"And," Cody said with a pause. "You're proud of this?"
Noah took a second to think about it. "You know, was not as flattering when I said it out loud than it was in my head."
"I figured it out!" Tyler called out with glee. He then punched Noah in the arm hard enough that Noah nearly fell out of his seat. "Now don't say you didn't deserve that."
Caressing his now sure to be bruised arm, Noah nodded. "You guys want to go grab some water from a water fountain or something?" The others shrugged. The three stood up from the bleachers. They moved down onto the floor and began to head for the door exiting the gym. Noah felt the need to call out "Go Team!" To the others still playing the game.
"Eat a Dick!" Duncan, the punk with a green mohawk yelled back as Noah and the others exited the gym.
The three began roaming the hallways heading towards the farthest water fountain in the school. Which also happened to be the only one that actually worked. "Simplistic and homophobic, with the wit of a middle schooler. Duncan is really improving his retorts, I wonder if he's even getting private tutoring." Noah rambled on.
Afterword:
This chapter was a lot of fun to write. It was nice to write funny dialogue, and mean dialogue too. I'm still working out the plot to this story. This chapter was really just an introduction to these characters. I sort of took Noah and built on his wit adding a mean side to it, similar to Jack Black's character in High Fidelity or Dr. Cox in Scrubs. Cody just seems to be trying to keep up with Noah. I think Tyler is the most unique, I'll hopefully expand on him in later chapters as this post-jock guy who's come to accept the geek side of him, sort of like Troy from Community.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Please leave a review telling me what you thought. Also if you want to read something completely different, filled with action, death, and heartbreak, than check out my other completed story Fake Empire.