[Adrian Bayles]

Crazy mad obsessions, repopulating the earth, onion rings… Surrey did like to talk, that was for sure. Adrian took a deep breath and leant back in his chair, the small of his back pressing uncomfortably against the wood of the seat, and attempted to process all that he had been told in the last minute or two of his life. A wry smile hung weightlessly from the edges of his mouth.

“Okay, onion rings?” He gave a small nod towards where the piece of pizza had once stood and narrowed his eyes, tightening his brow to give a small frown. Small, sharp, but utterly unconvincing; when Stitch was angry, he was something of a menacing young man, and even when he was just joking around there was a certain bitterness to his actions, but it was obvious at that moment in time that he was holding no real grudge. Acting wasn’t one of his best qualities. Lying, however… “Is heart disease one of your life goals or something? Oh, and trust me, I wouldn’t. The Earth’s got a much better chance if you let the human population die out and hope that something better comes along and keeps it going than expecting those morons to help the situation.”

He sounded like a complete prick. Of course he did. The Earth would have a better chance if the entire human race died out than have his fellow schoolmates help to repopulate? As cynical, unsociable and just plain darn rude as he could be, that wasn’t true. He wasn’t quite that bad. But still, he had no problem letting the rest of the world believe that he was; not even Surrey Monroe. He curled his toes into a tight little foot fist and then released, a subtle smile still adorning his lips.

“And if you had any sort of obsession with me,” He paused for a moment and allowed himself a chuckle. A very light one, yes, but a chuckle none the less. The thought of Surrey stalking him was just too much to try and take with a straight face. “then I guess I’d have to congratulate you for having the best taste this side of the equator. I am pretty damn sexy.”

A flick of the head sent his golden locks flying over his shoulder, skimming the fabric of his shirt as they travelled, and his smile broadened slightly with the action. He cocked an eyebrow and slowly reached up to pop the colour of his unintentionally faded black polo shirt, emphasising just how sexy he thought himself, and he tilted his head to one side. His efforts to appear both suave and icy-cool were laughable.

[Surrey Monroe]

Stitch's query into Surrey's desired food and his mock anger that followed it, for yes, Surrey could indeed tell after all this time, when the blond was joking and when he wasn't. It wasn't as clear cut humor as her own, but she could delineate between when he was seriously angry and when he wasn't. However, when he didn't get up and go order her the food, Surrey was very tempted to call him out on it. In front of all of his classmates, something which she seriously doubted he would enjoy. In fact, he'd probably kill her. Or at least threaten to. But, then again. who knew? Perhaps Adrian Bayles actually was as cruel as he liked to believe that he was. Looking across the table at him, Surrey seriously doubted this idea, though. Stitch really wasn't a cruel person, no matter what he thought; Surrey was many things and one of them included a good judge of character, at least regarding her friends, and her radar had known form the start that Stitch was a half-decent human being, if not even more so.

Or at least, the brunette thought as she rolled her eyes at his next comment, he was most of the time. "A few onion rings will not give me automatic heart disease," the girl responded dryly. After all, if that happened to be the case than the entire youth of America was probably going to end up with heart problems. On second thought, however, that was most probably true. But Stitch's putting down humanity entirely? Well, that simply did not sit well with Surrey. If she hadn't already spat at him and fulfilled her disgusting-ness quote for the day, Surrey very well may have done it then and there; really, there was just way too much cynicism in the guy for her liking, it just wasn't natural. Or maybe she wasn't natural... There was a lot of depression in the modern world so maybe Surrey was on oddity; what a depressing thought!

But Surrey wasn't just going to sit there while Stitch completely put down humanity, even if she couldn't spit on him. Her anger flaring up, Surrey crossed her arms and glared at the senior. "Adrian Bayles, could you be a little bit more pessimistic? Please, I beg you!" she paused for a dramatic effect before continuing. "What the bloody hell is wrong with you? she demanded, pointing a finger at him. "You live in a town which, despite the fact that it's small and boring, isn't a complete hell hole or anything. You're not struggling in poverty. You have friends. Or at least me and I count as many, but that's only because you scare everyone off. Maybe if you weren't such an ass sometimes, you wouldn't make humanity act like a monster towards you." Yes... PErhaps not the smartest thing for a girl in Surrey's position to say one of her closest friends, but really! Stitch's whole 'oh, look! Humanity sucks and ought to die' outlook pissed the British girl off just a bit...

And, then, almost as if she were bipolar, Surrey's mood completely changed and she just laughed at Stitch's comment about her 'obsession' with him. And the fact that he had called himself sexy. Looking him up and down, Surrey simply shrugged her shoulders and leaned back into the hardness of her chair. "Really, if you want, you probably could go model," she said in a pleasant tone, trying to make amends for her outburst moments before.

But as she was Surrey Aphrodite Monroe, the brunette couldn't resist adding a little joke to lighten the tense mood which she had happened to create. "Actually, speaking of... I heard Ripley's Believe It Or Not's ugliest person on Earth died last week. You should send them a picture." She simply could not resist.

[Adrian Bayles]

Well. Surrey’s sudden outburst, complete with a folded arms, pointing fingers and a face painted with strokes of thunder, had been rather unexpected. Sure, Stitch had been acting like a fastidious idiot with his pessimistic outlook on humanity and his bitter, obviously misplaced tone, but he certainly hadn’t been expecting her to blow up like that. He joked and he jested, he was sarcastic and he was rude, and she always gave just as good as she got, but everything (well, almost everything) that passed between the two teens was said with oddly good intentions. Neither of them ever meant any harm towards the other, and as far as Stitch had been aware, he hadn’t actually been causing her too much strife. It was just banter, after all. His pissing her off honestly hadn’t been premeditated.

He gave a shallow sigh, his eyebrow returning to its original position and his gentle smirk dissolving quickly and abruptly, as he watched her for a moment in silence. He was half expecting her to pull herself up out of the seat beneath her, give him a scowl or a glare and then storm out, leaving him and his previously proposed onion rings to slowly rot into the ground, but he was relieved when she didn’t; of course, angering those around him was something of a pastime to Adrian, a certain passion of his, but when it came to the people who actually mattered he wasn’t particularly fond of causing them any kind of great distress. Plus, if Surrey ended up leaving the premises, he’d be left sitting alone, surrounded by the very people who made him speak like such a pessimist to begin with. Ironic, really.

His mouth gaped open slightly as he began to form the first word of a sentence that went something along the lines of “humanity chooses to act like a bitch towards me all on its own, thank you very much”, before Surrey softened slightly and offered a reply to his popped collar and “obvious” sex appeal. There were so many things that ran through his mind, all of them abrasive, sarcastic, patronizing and blunt, desperately trying to force themselves from his lips, but he held back. She was back from the dark side, all fierce and angry, and he felt that he should probably try his best to keep things like that. He wasn’t entirely sure whether it was some sort of strange, PMS-y thing that was going on with her, whether she had suddenly been struck with a case of serious bipolar or she was just having an odd, Surrey Monroe turn, but he was in no hurry to anger her any further. He didn’t need another pissed off teenage girl with a personal vendetta against him.

Plus, having a friend all angry and up on you, however much you proclaim to need to no kind of social contact to keep you going, is no fun at all.

“Oh, yeah. I’m sure a picture of the best looking male on the planet’ll make them feel much better about the star of the show dying. Great idea, Monroe.”

He clapped his hands together in a slow, I’m-talking-to-a-brain-stunted-idiot-who-barely-understands-me fashion and flashed her a quick grin, bearing his teeth for no more than a second or two (it made him feel horribly uncomfortable, for some reason), and then gave another tiny titter. He knew full well that laughing at a joke made by oneself was a very unattractive trait, especially in somebody who so often masqueraded as a perfect gentleman (French, sophisticated and well trained in the art of etiquette, if a little arrogant at times), but it was an attempt to further lighten the mood that had hung in the air and also a sign that… well, a sign that he thought himself a little funnier than he actually was. And it wasn’t like he was surrounded by people whom he felt a desperate need to try and impress, was it?