“Never say never, Hendo, it could always be worse,” Alexander mused philosophically, flipping the hockey stick skilfully in the palm of his hand as he did so. He never did take responsibility for Eric’s shoulder, he’d blamed it on the teenager’s long limbs. Eric had a good few inches on Alex, much like Damian did and though he never admitted to it out loud, he didn’t like it much. Instead of expressing that, however, he blamed weak joints for Eric’s injuries and made his height out to be somewhat of a curse.
“Nah,” he dismissed the claim casually, “I don’t believe in shitty days, just shitty people fucking with good ones,” he corrected, it was a little more positively angled than his previous statement and the male was flip-flopping between optimistic and cynical as quickly as he was firing hockey balls into the net. “What about you? Your roommate try to suck your dick yet?” he spoke off the cuff without truly putting any thought into what he was saying, simply speaking in vulgarities for the sake of doing so, “Wait- who are you rooming with again? I don’t think I even saw- it’s a fuckin’ full-time job trying to build an immunity against fa-” he stopped himself, reminded that he was trying his darn best not to use the f-word anymore, “Loser disease,” he opted for instead, using his hockey stick to childishly stab at a divot in the ground. “-He’s a total narc but I think I’ve made my stance pretty clear and if even thinks about tattling on me, I’ll pull him inside out,” he had made his decision on his dorky roommate and that was that.
Despite what pristine vision some underprivileged kids had of them, Eric, like Alex, and any other teen with a dowry to their name knew just how much worse things could actually be. It might not have been normal fall-backs like an F on a Spanish exam, or not enough money in the account to pay for those concert tickets you wanted, but for Eric, there was always a much worse option. Especially when he was wrapped up in the likes of Spencer and his chaotic antics. Never a dull moment, the saying went. Yeah, well, whoever invented that phrase had no idea.
Eric gave a side-nod, teeth grit and eyes glancing away as if to say; fair enough. Alex was made up of glossy duck feathers, Eric swore because everything that seemed to come at him only rolled off him like he was untouchable. Must have been nice, Eric found himself wondering a hundred times a day. “Has yours?” He snorted, folding thick arms in amusement at the question before shaking his head. “I’m paired with Fredrick, your mini hustler.” A BBC brawler, in other words, so not a terrible arrangement Eric had found. At least it was one less thing Eric had to keep a secret about.
Listening to the threat, Eric remained stoic but accepted the fate of whoever was under Alex’s tyranny this week. “Your dorm mate?” He questioned, “I think you’ll be fine. The staff seem pretty involved in getting the new kids settled in, there’s no need to keep their eyes on you. Besides, the blackout’s old news and the new season starts up in like, a week.”