Another Bishop?! (Zach)

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“Uh…well not much, but uh…I guess some of the students are student employees or on workstudy….” It would be different if it was a club, yes, but…..well, Zach didn’t know, is that how other colleges did it? Because running a newspaper was expensive….maybe this was the reason why people weren’t supposed to discuss payroll with other employees….or volunteers, as the case may be.

“Yeahh…” he agreed. “She works hard.” A lot harder than Zach it seemed. And Zach was a little obsessive with his schoolwork sometimes. He frowned slightly. That whole thing with Ollie…and then her encounter with Kai(Zach barely remembered what happened there, actually) really did a number on her, now the he thought about it.

Back to Kailin. Direct approach. Couldn’t go wrong with that right? Or so he thought. Zach raised an eyebrow when Julien admitted to already asking her to the movies. Damn, and here he thought he could be cool and preemptive. “Yeah. Probably,” he said, keeping his gaze on him. Zach sighed. “Well…if you already did, then I can’t really do anything about it. Just…uhh…” Damn, he was bad at this. “You know…be nice to her…don’t hurt her…because if you do, I’ll…” He’ll what? Do what? What will he do? What could he do? “I’ll…..” Zach turned his head back up to Julien. “I’ll send…spiders into your bed…at night….all of them.” Yeah, that threat only worked with the twins and even they knew he couldn’t really do that. But Julien didn’t.

[Julien Duval]

"Oh okay..." Julien mumbled. Zach didn't seem to know much about that either.

"Seems like it. Seems like this newspaper is quite lucky to have him." It must work like a well-oiled machine with her leading it. It seemed like the dark haired guy was thinking too hard about something for a long moment and Julien stood there, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans awkwardly.

"Yeah...I've never been very good with timing," he admitted. "I..uh, planned on being nice. I mean, that's how I usually am to people. It's hard to make friends if you aren't." This was such a typical speech, although he was sure he could picture him giving himself a similar speech to a guy trying to date his sister. "I have a sister at home in France. I get it." He wanted him to know that, that he was heard. The next thing Zach said made him cringe, but only at the mention of spiders, which he didn't like too much. Not at all. "Well that's...disgusting." He made a face. "But how would you be able to do that?"

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It was good that Julien got it, why Zach was maybe a little wary of him, anyone, trying to date his little sister. Especially after that disaster of her first “boyfriend”. Zach wasn’t too happy with that boy and would make the same spider threat to him if he met him in the middle of the street.

But the look on his face…somehow, obviously, Kailin hadn’t gotten around to telling Julien that they were an entire family of metas. Zachary Bishop wasn’t usually this…maliciously antagonistic? Even mischievous. And amused at doing it. But it was rare that he found someone so responsive to his “doom and gloom” spider act, he was definitely going to take it. And it was for a good cause. For Kailin. At least that’s how he justified it. “Kailin didn’t tell you?” he surmised, raising an eyebrow. The corner of his lips twitched into a smile. “Well,” Zach started, looking up at Julien. “Our family…the Bishops…we’re quite famous around these parts…mostly because every single one of us…is a meta. Like, our older brother can duplicate himself. My mother is as strong as a bull. One of my sisters can summon an army of bees.” Zach stood up, in all his 5’9” glory. “And I’m spiderman,” he said with a smile. “I’ll, uh…let you use your imagination of what I can do.”

[Julien Duval]

Zach hadn't said anything more about Julien wanting to take Kailin to the movies. Instead, he moved onto a different topic. "Tell me what?" he asked. Kailin had told him that the Bishops were a very big family and because of that in itself they were well known by everyone in Pilot Ridge. Then again, she'd also tried to draw attention away from herself and her family by saying that the Knight family was bigger. She'd apparently left out a big detail though. "What?" He'd had no idea. They were all metas! Kailin was a meta! He stared at Zach, listening as he detailed the powers of his famly in fascination. "Wow," was all he could manage.

"I get it. Although I'm not such a big fan of spiders," he said, with a wrinkling of his nose. "But that's still cool." Why hadn't Kailin told him? Did she think he'd judge her for it? It was quite the opposite! "I wonder why she didn't mention it! That's amazing. What can she do?"

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Zach understood why Kailin would try to draw the conversation away from the Bishop family. It was something that he did himself. With a family as large as theirs, complete with metas, and with one being unable to live in Pilot Ridge without having met at least one of them during their time there, it was kind of easy to dominate conversations. The less interested a person was or the less questions they asked about the family, the more appreciative Zach was of them. And the more he tended to like them.

This kid…Zach could only assume he wasn’t a meta himself. And…his utter surprise was…not the response that Zach was going for. Not just surprise, but astonishment. Complete awe.

Meta-fanboy. Undeniably

….amazing. Zach had never met one before. He didn’t know how to react. “Uh…we don’t usually talk about it…because everyone pretty much knows…and Kailin…” Kailin…she was supposed to date this guy? Zach didn’t like it. “I think maybe you should just ask her yourself….”

[Julien Duval]

"Not me," Julien blurted. "I didn't know." And he hadn't. The whole Bishop family...they were all metas. "Yeah, I guess that would be better. I don't want her to think I'm prying into her life by asking her brother things about her." That much was true. He'd let his excitement and surprise get the better of him and he suddenly felt extremely inadequate. "I, uhhh, I'm sorry. I mean, I didn't mean to..." He sighed, running a hand through his curls. He was pretty sure he'd left a horrible impression on Zach. Great.

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Well, that much was obvious by this point. If this guy was surprised by one Bishop, and then by another, he probably wasn’t from around here. He didn’t even need to have the accent to tell that.

“Yeah…that’s probably…best.” Zach had lost his momentum and just gave up the whole “trying to be intimidating” act. It never really suited him anyway. He still wasn’t too keen on Kailin dating though. Zach shrugged. “It’s…it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I’m, uh….I’m used to it, actually.” There was always something to say about the Bishops, no matter who you were and no matter how much you already knew them. So…oh, well. Zach just let it go. “So…what movie were you…with Kailin?” he asked, attempting to change the subject somewhat.

[Julien Duval]

Julien made a mental note to ask Kailin, although he was sure he wouldn't forget. "I know that it's probably normal to you, having a whole family of metas. But it's a big deal to me! That's so exciting, so different..." He could imagine their lives were a lot more interesting than his own.

"I'm not sure," he told Zach, honestly. His initial plan had been to ask her to see Sharknado with him, the movie she referenced as one of those movies that had such a bad concept that it had to be entertaining, only then he'd discovered it wasn't even in theaters. "I'm not a huge movie buff," he admitted. Of course, he watched movies...quite a bit, but not to be entertained.

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Zach managed a half smile at this kid’s enthusiasm. “That’s….a good point. Well…it wasn’t like it was “normal” for us all the time.” Aaand now they were talking about his family…as he expected. Sigh. “I mean…It wasn’t like we were born with our abilities….it was actually pretty chaotic the first few years.” And Zach was particularly resentful about them not being “normal”.

“Oh…well…yeah, I’m not either…not really.” At least, not for the kinds of movies that Kailin watched. “I don’t go to the movies a lot…unless it’s one of those ‘books turned to movies’ movies.” Then he went to go see it just to see how it compared with the book and then write a review about it and post it on one of his blogs.