"Fucking school districts, fucking random new school popping up in the middle of everything, fuck everything," Gary Barkovitch muttered under his breath as he walked to school, kicking an old Mountain Dew can ahead of him. There wasn't even a goddam bus – though Barkovitch had never been a fan of the bus, it was better than walking when it was this freaking windy out, and now he had to go to this new school where he didn't know where anything was, and though he hadn't been a fan of school in the first place, it was better when he knew where he was supposed to be going.

And what the hell was the point of him going here if he'd already spent his freshmen year at another school? It had been a hellish freshmen year, yeah, but he was pretty sure it was going to be a hellish sophomore year, too, just like it had been a hellish junior high and a hellish elementary school and a hellish life, basically. Not that it wasn't his fault, with his stupid incapability to keep his goddam mouth shut.

Where was this stupid place, anyway?

Barkovitch glanced around. Yep. He was lost. God damn it. It was always him, wasn't it? Always fucking him. Well, maybe he could just turn around and head home and just skip today…

He turned around and realized he had no idea how to get home. Fuck. Well, he'd just have to wander around until he figured out where the hell he was. Home or that stupid school, whichever came first.

While he was walking, hands in the pockets of his hoodie, bent over against the wind that seemed to be blowing harder, if that was possible, an old car pulled up beside him. Barkovitch wondered if he should run, flip the guy off, or just ignore him.

"Are you lost?" the man in the car asked, and Barkovitch turned to look at a stupid-looking, huge guy who actually only looked a year or so older than him. Barkovitch decided that he didn't particularly want to talk to this shithead, so he kept walking. "Hey! That's not very nice, you kno-"

The man broke into a few curse words as his car sputtered and died. Barkovitch snorted and rolled his eyes, then decided that he should probably keep walking, and speed up a little, if possible. Damn school regulations not letting you carry a knife. Didn't those assholes care about the guys who needed the goddam protection?

After about an hour of wandering around later, Gary Barkovitch stopped in front of a huge, new-looking building. He glanced at his iPod. Oh. He was only about an hour and a half later. Wasn't that great.

He walked into the building a bit nervously, not liking the security cameras mounted on every corner and the fact that the office door was open and right in front of the main doors so he couldn't even sneak to class unnoticed. He had his schedule, after all – it had been sent in the mail about a week before school started. It was right in his pocket – damn it, he'd lost it. This was just great.

"Excuse me?" the woman in the office called, and Barkovitch sighed. If he ran bad things would only happen, and he didn't feel like getting in trouble on the first day. There'd be plenty of that later, he supposed, so he could just head to the office now. "Late on your first day? That's not the best way to start your high school career."

"I'm a sophomore," Barkovitch snapped. Damn growth spurt that hadn't happened yet. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. "I got lost on the way here."

"Well, get to class," the woman said. Barkovitch bit his lip.

"I. Um. Lost my schedule," he said. The woman rolled her eyes.

"Name?"

"Gary Barkovitch."

She printed off a new schedule and pushed it into his hands. "Your locker's on the first floor, number five. Not too far from here. I'll call your teacher and tell him you'll be coming."

Barkovitch nodded and left the office, adjusting his backpack and staring down at the schedule. It was second period, right? English. Fuck. Better than History, he supposed, that subject was just freaking useless, but things in English were never definite, and that always screwed with Barkovitch's head. But he could figure that shit out while he was wandering the halls, trying to figure out where the hell he was supposed to be.

He dropped his backpack and shit off at his locker, grabbing a pen from one of the side pockets and sticking it in his jean pocket.

He then went to figure out where he was supposed to be.

He found the English room after about ten minutes, twenty minutes still left of second period. Jesus Christ, they couldn't make this school any less complicated?

He opened the door as quietly as he could – even though it was a new door, it squeaked, what the hell was up with that – and slid into the room. All discussion stopped and all eyes turned to Barkovitch –

Oh shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

That was Rank. That was Rank, second row, closest to the windows. Barkovitch almost subconsciously reached for his pocketknife, then remembered that it wasn't fucking there because school policy and his parents had even goddam checked him for it this morning. Rank grinned at him and Barkovitch considered bolting.

"Well?" the English teacher asked, raising an eyebrow. Barkovitch swallowed and looked at him.

"What," he said flatly. The English teacher rolled his eyes. He wasn't too old – mid to late twenties, looked like he hated life and spent most of his time out of school drinking and wondering why the hell he'd become a teacher.

"Why are you late?"

"Got lost," Barkovitch muttered.

"Just in this school? It's not very large."

"Trying to get her in the first place," Barkovitch said, reddening a little. The English teacher nodded slowly and gestured toward the only empty seat in the room – right in front of Rank, great, this day just kept getting better and better – and Barkovitch walked quickly, stepping over some wiseass's foot that had been stuck out to trip him for no apparent reason, slumping down into the chair and jumping as a copy of Fahrenheit 451 was dropped onto his desk.

"I believe in starting the curriculum immediately. How things work in my class is we read a book and discuss it thoroughly, maybe watch the movie if there is one, and then we have two weeks of grammar. And repeat."

Barkovitch swallowed and nodded, wondering how long he could ignore Rank pushing on the back of his chair.

…

To be honest, Abraham had just taken this 'Advanced Physical Education' bullshit because he had nothing better to do. He was a senior, he only had a few credits that he needed to get before he could graduate, but, hell, his entire day was filled up with classes. He worked weekends. He was going to go out for both basketball and track. This school wouldn't be like the last, where he was the 'funny' guy.

Nope. He was going to be taken seriously here.

But first he'd have to find his shorts.

This school didn't pass out gym uniforms, something that was good and bad – good because he preferred his clothes to other people's, bad because he'd somehow lost his shorts. His shirt was there, but his shorts… were probably at home on the table. Oops. Great start, there, Abe.

"You gonna stand there all day?"

Abraham turned around to face a blond kid without a shirt. He wasn't quite as tall as Abraham was, but he made up for it in muscle. Seriously, this guy was built. "Forget a shirt?" he asked.

"Forget pants?"

"Yeah," Abraham said. The blond snorted and threw a pair of shorts at him. "Thanks?"

"I grabbed two pairs of shorts instead of a shirt," the blond said. He stuck out his hand. "Collie Parker."

"Abraham," Abraham said, taking the hand. Collie Parker just looked at him.

"Got a first name? Or is that your first name?"

"Nah, I've got a first name, but I'm so used to going by Abe or Abraham that I wouldn't respond if you called me it anyway, so it doesn't really matter," Abraham replied. Parker nodded.

"Makes sense. Well, wanna head out?" Parker asked, heading for the door of the locker room, still shirtless. Abraham hurriedly put his shorts on and grabbed his shoes, following Parker and passing the very few people left.

Once they were in the gym, Abraham put on and tied his shoes while he listened to Parker argue with the Gym teacher – uh, 'Advanced Physical Education' teacher. It was pretty hilarious, especially when a girl walked over and asked why she couldn't take off her shirt, too.

Eventually everyone stood shirtless, the girls in their sports bras, of course.

Abraham was liking this class already.

"Christ, you need to fucking eat," Parker said, poking Abraham in the ribs. Abraham jerked away, grinning.

"I do eat. Fast metabolism," he said. Parker rolled his eyes. "Seriously, it's a thing. Look it up."

"Who has the goddam time," Parker sighed. "I fucking failed so many classes when I was a freshman I have to make 'm all up now."

"I passed them all. Barely," Abraham said. His highest grade had been an eighty-five. "But I've still got a full day. And zero period, too…"

Parker looked at him, extremely confused. "Why?" he asked.

"I want to be taken seriously," Abraham said, shrugging and grinning a little. "I've got a job too. And I'm going out for track. And basketball-"

"You're going to fucking kill yourself!"

"If you two are done…?" the gym teacher asked, and Abraham and Parker noticed that everyone else had gone quiet and was staring at them. Oops. "Now, I was just saying that we'd kick off the year with a PACER test, just to see what your cardiovascular health is at. Everyone should get at least fifty – healthy standard for girls in thirty-one, guys is forty-one, but I have high hopes for this class."

"I fuckin' hate him already," Parker muttered to Abraham. Abraham grinned again, mentally hitting himself with a brick for taking this class. It would help him get fit for basketball and track, yeah, but he really hated that stupid PACER test.

Seven billion beeps and sixty 'laps' later, Abraham left the group of boys and girls running the test and collapsed on a mat.

"Keep moving, Abraham! You'll stiffen up!" the teacher yelled.

"Shut up," Abraham muttered into the mat. He turned his face so that he could watch Parker run – he didn't even look like he was breathing hard yet. He was sweating, yeah, but it didn't look like he was really struggling.

Parker was running long after the rest of them had dropped out – a hundred and eleven laps. Once Parker stopped running, the gym teacher gave him a 'hundred percent fruit ice cream bar thing' that actually looked pretty good. Pomegranate.

Once they got back to the locker room to shower – Parker showered cold, Abraham next to him in near-hellish temperatures – and get dressed for their fourth period class, and Parker opened up the fruit bar.

Abraham reached over his shoulder and grabbed it, taking a bite out of the top and ignoring the brain freeze.

"Hey!" Parker protested, turning around and wrestling it from him. Abe grinned, not letting go, as Parker pushed and pulled and eventually jerked the thing free. By then, the fruit bar was beginning to melt and a bit of it dripped to the floor. "Bastard."

"You know you love me," Abraham said, grinning. Parker shoved him and he managed to catch himself with the wall, laughing. "What do you have next?"

"Fuckin' British Literature," Parker said. "English was the one of the only classes I didn't screw up."

"Hey, me too!"

And thus a wonderful bromance was born.

…

Priscilla wasn't sure about this.

She'd been on the very edge of the school district – she could've kept going to her old school, or she could come here. To this new, smaller, cleaner school. She'd thought it would be a good idea – after all, new was always better, right?

The first half of her day had been wonderful, and now she was standing in line for lunch – the school had only about a hundred students, nine through twelve, and lunch actually looked decent. She'd come a bit early for her zero period German III class, and she'd seen the workers in the kitchen actually making food instead of shoving frozen things into the oven. Then in Advanced Physical Education, some kid had come in without a shirt and she'd taken off hers too as protest.

Suddenly the dress code for gym class had been stretched quite a bit. Nobody had worn a shirt, and it had been pretty fun. The guy who had come in without a shirt in the first place was pretty hot. So were a few other guys, and a few of the guys, too, like a girl with long, dark blond hair.

She'd ended up behind this girl in the line, and she decided to talk to her. "Hey," she said. The girl turned around and Priscilla was met with a surprisingly innocent, intelligent face. She hadn't looked like that while sprinting up and down the gym.

"Hello," she said, smiling. "I'm Jan."

"Priscilla," Priscilla replied. The outright friendliness in the girl's face unnerved her a bit.

"How are you liking it here so far? I like it; the teachers seem to know what they're doing and nobody seems to be too angry, apart from that boy in gym class –"

Right after Jan said this, a short, dark boy fell flat on his face, jumped up, and starting shouting obscenities at the boy from gym class, who was already eating with his ginger friend. Jan laughed.

"Okay," she said. "I take it back."

"Every school has its assholes," Priscilla said, shrugging, and this was apparently funny to Jan, because she began to laugh harder. Soon Priscilla was laughing, too, and the two only stopped when someone ran into Priscilla, causing her to stumble forward. Jan caught her and righted her.

Not paying attention to the bespectacled boy trying to apologize, Priscilla looked at Jan. Jan back at her. "We should probably keep moving with the line," Priscilla said at last, and Jan nodded.

…

Before the end of the day, Gary Barkovitch made sure to look up how to get home on Google Maps so that it wouldn't take him two hours again. This time in the library gave him time to let everyone else get out first, so that he wouldn't be noticed and possibly brutally murdered.

"Do you not know how to get home?"

Oh great, who's this asshole?

Barkovitch turned around to see a blond kid in a positively bizarre ensemble. Seriously, was he colorblind? He also held several thick books under one arm – Barkovitch saw titles such as 'The Stand', 'Creature', and, weirdly enough, 'Alice in Wonderland.'

Alright.

What the fuck was up with this weird kid who liked mainstream horror and classic children's books.

"Well?"

"No," Barkovitch muttered, grabbing the directions from the printer and shouldering his way past the freak. It seemed that in avoiding the idiots, he'd found the freak.

this just looked fun

so

i decided to start a highschool au because

why not and there will be janilla

there will be parkeraham

there will be barkovitch/Stebbins friendship

there will be bakeraham

there will be parkovitch

there will be gavries even though neither of them showed up in this chapter

it'll just be

fun