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Simon and his roommates had recently discovered a new way to ensure that when they bought their lunches, they'd actually get to eat it too: spend as little time in the actual cafeteria as possible, and be sure to buy something portable. Not that their chimichangas and so-called "snack wraps" were a hot item on the menu, but the three had agreed that anything, anything at all was better than having to continue enduring gym class on an empty stomach. With that in mind, they had quickly snatched up their food, quietly paid for it, and slipped out of the mess hall like rattlesnakes out of a rock, managing to avoid the vulture gazes of the rugby team for once in their lives.

From there the three had gone their respective ways (and by that, their respective hiding places), leaving Simon alone, meandering down the hallway, lost in thought until realizing he'd wandered down to the school's main entrance. He took another couple of steps, considering the notion of eating outside...

...and was met with a loud curse blasted directly into his ear.

Simon reacted the very way one would expect to such a thing - with a startled scream that matched the volume of Marlo's rage.

"S-s-s-sorry..." the taller boy replied meekly, slowly falling back to his normal slouch as the spike of adrenalin tapered off. "I-I-I didn't think anyone else w-would be out here..."

He stood there, awkwardly, about to turn around and leave the other student in peace, the only thing keeping him from leaving right away being his natural desire to help somehow. He'd been asked to be quiet and leave, but he still felt like there should have been something he could do. The hand not busy carrying food shot up to nervously wring his wrist.

A more careful look at the suffering-wallower made him notice that he looked a lot like Elzo, though their demeanors were drastically different. He thought he'd heard some things about a pair of twins recently joining the school... could this be the other of the set?

Something told him now wasn't the best time to ask, though - and besides, what with the kneeling and trying to avoid looking at his food, he figured he could piece together what was wrong. Taking a timid step forward, he asked, "You got your lunch stolen, huh?"

Simon took another couple of steps towards Marlo, looking surprised and concerned. "A whole day, seriously?" He had to deal with getting food wrestled out of his hands jocks and bullies on a constant basis, sure, but he still managed to get at least one meal out of each day. Usually. An outright ban from meals was a completely different story, though, and by the looks of how Marlo was describing it this was only the first out of more than one day for him without food.

"I'm Simon... umm..." Slowly bending down to sit in front of the other boy, he loosely extended his arm, offering his lunch. "If you want, you can have mine?"

"No, it's no problem. Really," Simon assured. He was the type to always owe favors, but never have a want or need to collect on any for himself. While Marlo outright devoured his share of the snack wrap, the other boy was only glancing tentatively at his own. He was, as per the usual with him, clearly hesitant to partake of any self-indulgence when there was the slightest chance that someone around him was still suffering, even if only mildly.

Still holding his share of the food in the same position as when Marlo had slapped it back into his hand, he asked, "A-are you sure you don't want the rest? I mean, you've gone without eating longer than I have..."

Being assured that Marlo had no problem with him eating his lunch that he paid for and completely deserved to have a least some of, Simon finally started taking a bite out of his half of the snack wrap. A tiny one. Just in case the other boy decided to change his mind before it was gone enough to be worth asking for.

"No, you really don't have to..." and he trailed off, seeing that Marlo was already digging through his pockets. He had just acted on the one surefire way to undo his refusal to take any favors owed, and that was to insist, persist or otherwise make it known that he was going to be rewarded for his kindness whether he wanted it or not. So, in the spirit of good conversation, Simon instead replied, "I'm a junior. We're sorta roomed over with the underclassmen, though, so it's not like it's easy to tell."

"Well, I..." Simon started in response to Marlo, but like seemingly half of the statements he began, trailed off. Were it not for the trailing off he would have said something along the lines of well, I'm still on the same rung of the social ladder I was at when I was a freshman. But that was depressing conversation, and he didn't want to do or say anything to add to Marlo's already rough couple of days. So instead, he gave a shrug, and even managed to protest only minimally when he felt a hand diving into his pants pocket.

His cheerleading captain tended to invade his personal space in more stressful ways than that, and on a regular basis. It could be thought that he'd become partially desensitized to this sort of thing.

After a more reasonably-sized bite of his damn wrap, he said, "People get held back a lot around here, it seems like. One of my dorm mates was in his second year when I started going here, but now he's in the same class as I am."

So Elzo was his brother... normally Simon would have said something to acknowledge this, or even that he'd met the other Xanis before, but that tone of voice was hint enough for him that it was probably not the best subject for conversation at this point in time.

"Ah, uh--" he started, after a few seconds' delay in realizing that Marlo had just asked him a question. Man, that look he was giving was intense! It took him a tiny moment longer to recompose himself before answering, "N-no... no, I don't," before going momentarily and awkwardly quiet once again, not having much to add to the conversation due to the lack of siblings he could have named and described otherwise.