(notes at end)

1: September

The day was hot and Dylan's smile was shining.

His teeth were dangerously white. It was like he used a combo of bleach and whitening strips instead of mouthwash every morning to get ready for school. Leo didn't know what the strongest toothpaste was, but he must have been using that. An entire radioactive tube of it, to be exact.

It wasn't the first day of school. They were two weeks in and he already hated it at Wilderness. There were tons of rules, there were video cameras everywhere, and there were assholes like Dylan prowling around looking for victims to blind with their shiny teeth. Leo had run away from a ton of settings before, but this would be tricky. Boarding schools didn't play around. Even if he made it past the cameras and the teachers, a popular kid would blind him before he could even leave the perimeter.

He spent a lot of time inspecting people from afar, since he wasn't the friendliest person and no one had really approached him yet. There was Isabel, the persona of self-dubbed popularity, who had religiously donned her daily amount of makeup and was putting on more lip gloss, right on schedule. Leo couldn't remember his name, but there was that one boy with the crazy smile (one even crazier than his), who had sunk his teeth into a dodgeball on the first day of school. He had no idea what the hell his problem was, but heck, he must have been in Wilderness for something pretty weird if he sunk his chompers into the school's sports equipment. Maybe he did it as a party trick or something.

There weren't a lot of kids at the school, mostly because the Wilderness School didn't do much advertisement and 'cause there weren't enough juvenile delinquents to go around in the area. He landed here on a sort of probation from the foster care agency. He had apparently ran away one too many times. Dylan got here...well, Leo wasn't sure why. The guy must have blinded thousands. And Isabel, she was here for doing drugs or something. Which made a bit of sense. Because that powder on her face really looked like cocaine.

"Valdez!"

Goddamnit. Hedge was at it again.

"YOU'RE LAGGING BEHIND!" Hedge shouted through his megaphone full-force. "Pick up the pace or I'm failing you!"

"What the hell - it's the second week of school!"

"I said RUN, cupcake!"

Great. Leo ran a little faster so that he would would come in second to- instead of dead last.

Coach Hedge was a short little guy (like him) with a very tall personality (also like him). He was a middle-aged man who was always alternating between his megaphone and his baseball bat. His favorite sport was watching anything that involved pain and yelling at the top of his lungs, and he was very good at doing both of the activities.

Hedge watched him trudge on with a scowl. "Come on! You're almost to the finish line!"

It wasn't very motivational. When Leo finally did cross the finish line, he hunched over, gasping for air. The other kids had already finished the race, except for one girl - and she wasn't even trying. Only moments after having finished, she walked across the finish line, looking at the panting teenagers with crossed arms.

"What?" Leo paused between breaths, still panting. He glanced at the coach. "Did you see that? She didn't even run!"

Coach Hedge glanced between both of them as if he now had two problems to deal with. First, he pointed to the girl. "You run faster," he grunted. Then he turned to Leo. "And you stop complaining. I expect both of you to do twice the laps on Thursday, capeesh?"

Leo started to complain. "Twice the laps? But- "

The girl's eyes widened. "Wait- "

Coach Hedge cut them off with the high-pitched squall of his voice on the megaphone. "SHUT IT! NOW DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY!"

They did not give him twenty.

So the girl's name was Piper.

He learned it from a kid, who knew a kid, who knew another kid. She was about his height, tan, and had brown hair that almost looked like someone had cut it in the dark. Upon further inspection, she didn't seem to like Leo, or anyone else for that matter - she sat alone at lunch all the time with the same blue hoodie on. He hadn't really noticed her among the other two hundred kids before, but he guessed it was mostly because of the shade of her jacket - a dark blue that matched the walls. She blended in almost perfectly.

It was lunchtime, and Thursday had rolled around. P.E. was next. Both of them would have to run a double-lap around the track outside, so he figured it wouldn't hurt to annoy her a bit. Leo hadn't really gotten the chance to pester anyone since the school year started (save Coach Hedge), so he guessed he might as well start with her.

As soon as he escaped the lunch line, Leo noisily dropped his tray onto the table right next to Piper and took a seat. Curious, she hesitantly looked up at him before picking at her carrots again, obviously trying to ignore him. Ha. Like that was gonna happen. He leaned in so close to her that she was gonna smell like Leo for a week.

He pushed his tray of slop aside. "Hi."

The girl kept picking at her carrots.

Rude. "You know, the correct response to a greeting is another hello. Not that I'm big on etiquette or anything."

She kept picking at her damn carrots.

Leo looked at her in annoyance before pulling his tray close to him and inspecting its contents. The school was pretty big on veggies, so there was some mixed vegetable action going on down there. The mystery meat looked extra mysterious today. He swore there were a couple of eyeballs swirling around in it, and the whispered plea of "help me" from his dish wasn't really out of the ordinary.

Piper looked at his plate like it had grown an extra eyeball. "That's disgusting."

"Almost as much as doing twice the laps next period," he remarked, pushing his tray away again. He turned to her, and their eyes connected, and - whoa. Her eyes were changing colors. Green, brown, blue.

She looked into his plain, brown eyes with a bit of mirth. "Very true. I'm lucky this school is vegetarian-friendly."

She motioned to her tray of carrots and an overcooked veggie burger.

Leo looked at her in mock shock. "You're a vegetarian?"

Piper shrugged as an answer.

His hand flew to his heart as his jaw unhinged. "How do you survive?"

"The good old fashioned way," she said matter-of-factly as she plucked a bright orange carrot form her plate. Piper turned it in her fingers before popping it into her mouth. When she grinned, her smile was orange. "With good ol' fruits and veggies."

Leo made a face, pretending to be repulsed. "Wow. I think I found something more disgusting than my mystery meat."

She raised her eyebrows. "Wow, you suck. I'm Piper, by the way."

"Leo."

"You have a last name?"

"Did you have a last name?"

"Good point. Nice to meet you Leo. Have a carrot."

He made another face. "Did you learn nothing from this conversation?"

Piper gave him a small smile as she pushed her tray towards him. "Carrots are good for taking laps, you know."

That sparked his interest. He took a carrot from her plate, scrutinizing it in his fingers.

Lies. Carrots did not help with taking laps at all. Vegetables weren't good for anything.

The first lap had been okay. He had managed to scrape through with only a minor case of loss-of-breath and a quick trip to the hospital (kidding). The second one had left the both of them wheezing, panting, and drinking all of the school's Gatorade supply. Piper lay on the ground with her back flat on the track, and Leo sat in the grass in the middle of the huge, oval ring. They shared a quick glance, and Piper cracked a smile, which naturally got him grinning.

"Ha. I ate a ton of carrots. I didn't feel a thing."

The gaping breaths she took clearly said otherwise, but he played along.

"Are you trying to tell me that you beat me using vegetables?"

It was true - she had crossed the starting point almost an entire forty-five seconds before he had. She had stood there, gasping with a huge smile as he dragged himself across the finish line.

"Well you didn't beat me using meat, did you?"

He started to reply, but his breath came out as a huff. Wow, he was really out of breath.

The other kids had already started doing warm-ups, and Coach Hedge was side-eying them without a doubt. As he watched the kids do jumping jacks, his hand twitched towards his megaphone. He was just itching to use that thing.

Knowing that their break time was running out, Leo stood to his feet. He pressed his sweaty palms against his pair of faded basketball shorts and sauntered over to Piper, who was still on the ground, shielding the sun from her eyes with the back of her arm.

Leo leaned down and offered her a hand. "Need some help getting up?"

She looked at his hand for a couple of seconds, squinting. It might of just been the sunlight. Reluctantly, Piper took it, and allowed him to pull her to her feet. As soon as she was standing, Leo let go of her hand before wiping it back on his shorts. Her palm had been almost as sweaty as his.

"I might not have eaten enough carrots," she muttered as they began to walk towards Coach Hedge and the squatting students. "Because trying to get up on my own just now was a huge struggle."

He smirked. "So you admit that vegetables don't improve strength?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Um, no. I admit that I didn't eat enough vegetables for it to make a difference."

Leo crossed his arms. "I'm totally gonna prove you wrong."

Piper rolled her eyes. "Oh, I'm sure you will. After all, the fact that I'm right is only scientific."

Her tone was soaked with sarcasm. A loud squeal pierced the air as they approached the group of students. They stopped abruptly. Coach Hedge had finally made it to his megaphone.

"Hurry up, cupcakes! We don't have all day!"

They shared a smile before running over to meet the group.

.....

A funny thing about Leo Valdez: he was more annoying than he let on.

The only reason Piper knew his last name was because it was what the teachers would call him whenever they got mad. In English, Mr. V (whose name was too long and complicated to pronounce, so they just called him that instead) was entirely frustrated when the Latino boy kept folding up his papers and turning them into origami animals. Piper thought it was pretty cool, but the teacher was not amused. When Mr. V told the class to take out their worksheets and Leo produced a paper dragon instead, it incited the teacher to say his last name in a shrill, annoyed tone: "Valdez!"

And, bam, just like that, Piper knew what his last name was.

For the next few days, she saw Leo everywhere. Hanging in the hallway near her next classes. Subtly drinking from the water fountain as she passed him to get something from her locker. Whenever they'd brush past each other or had the same class, their gazes would cross paths and the air would become electric as they raced to get to wherever they were going to first. When it was over, she'd mutter loser under her breath and he'd snicker out the hushed word vegan.

Though she wasn't a vegan, it was pretty fun. She really liked this kid.

The two of them sat together at lunch a lot after that, and she brought her carrots while he brought his skepticism. They didn't have to run more extra laps, but whenever the class lined up at the start of the track, the two of them would get in position - and when Coach screamed "GO!" into his stupid megaphone, it'd be a race all over again. It was like they were the only two out there. No matter what Leo would do, she would always win, and only with the small price of collapsing on the ground and doubling over in relieved laughter as he trudged his way past the 100 meter line.

Yep. She really liked this kid.

It had only been six days since their first encounter. Piper was in Geometry, and it was a stormy day. When the bell rang, she immediately got her books and stood, not wanting to hang around or be singled out, and quickly left the classroom amidst the crowd of rushing teenagers. When she got into the hall, the first thing she saw was Leo leaning against the nearest row of lockers with a smirk.

Piper sighed. Here we go. Leave it to Valdez to have already learned her schedule in under a week.

She walked over to meet him with an eyebrow raised. "Why are you smiling like that?"

It may have been a dumb question. After all, he was always smiling like that, but she had known him for too little to remember.

Leo's grin widened. "Your next class is in the Johanns Building, right?"

There were four different main buildings on the Wilderness School campus - Greenberg, which is where they were now, Johanns, Jay-Caldwell, and Briggs. Greenberg was where most of the core classes were held, and the other electives were in Johanns. Piper's next class was in the music variety, so she had to get over there before the third bell rang, or else she was going to be late.

A little curious, her tone raised along with her question. "Yeah. Why do you wanna know?"

"I'm going to walk you over there."

"Oh, really." Her tone was flat. She did not know Leo to be a gentleman. "And why is that?"

He looked offended. "Does there always have to be a catch?"

"With you, pretty much."

Leo cracked another smile. "You know me well. But no, no catch. You'd better hurry up, though. It's probably going to rain."

Almost as soon as they reached the middle of the path, it began to rain - hard.

Piper nearly screamed. In under a minute, she was completely soaked in water. It was almost as if an entire flood had dropped out of the sky at once - not drop by drop, but sheet by sheet. She was nearly soaked to the bone.

Leo was the one holding her books. If those things got wet, they'd be ruined. As soon as it started raining, she had spun around to make sure that he didn't get them wet, but he was already one step ahead of her. His green army jacket was already covering the books. As for his own textbooks, they must have been soaked. The bag around his shoulders was already dripping wet.

She wasn't sure if Leo could hear her over the beating of the rain. "Run!"

They bolted towards the building ahead of them. The clouds were dark and brooding overhead. Piper really regretted not grabbing her umbrella before she left her room, and...whoa. Wait just a second. Wasn't this school in the middle of the desert? Why the hell was it even raining?

She sloshed through piles of mud and nearly tripped. What the hell? Wasn't it supposed to be extra dry in Nevada?

Leo ran behind her, darting for the other side of the courtyard like a madman.

The two of them didn't stop running. The sky flashed overhead, and thunder followed soon after. Other kids hollered as they dashed across the green, but they were already doused, too. Piper cursed under her breath. Since when was the distance so far?

The rain began to pour down harder, and Piper got a strange feeling in her gut. She glanced around. Her eyes darted to the right near a cluster of buildings, and she saw a figure - a dark silhouette of a person in a big coat. Lightning suddenly flashed, and for a second, the shape was illuminated in bright, white light.

It was revealed to be a man standing perfectly still, rain spilling off of his hat and his coat, which was buttoned all the way up to his neck. Piper had never seen this guy before. He couldn't have been a student, he was way too tall, but that wasn't the weird part. Sitting smack-dab in the center of his head was a single, huge eye.

Thunder rolled. Her eyes went wide as saucers.

"What the - "

Piper hadn't noticed the pretty rock jutting out of the ground right in front of her.

She collided with the ground at full-force, and as soon as she did, Leo started laughing. She spit gross, brown mud out of her mouth. Then, while he was busy running and guffawing at her predicament, she stuck out her leg and he came crashing down.

A minute later, Piper trudged into the classroom with a no longer laughing Leo trailing behind.

As soon as the teacher saw them, her words faltered. The entire class turned to see what she was looking at, and their mouths fell open. Annoyed, Piper moved a muddy lock of brown hair out of her face, and Mrs. Hale looked at the two of them as if they were the ones who had one eye.

Mrs. Hale's jaw unhinged as rain continued to pelt the window to her left. "What happened?"

Piper nodded towards the storm, holding a stack of muddy textbooks in her hands. "That happened. Just mark me late, Mrs. Hale. I don't really have a pass."

The teacher looked them up and down in disgust. "Could you two please clean up first?"

Leo gave her a lopsided smile. "Sure thing."

Piper sloshed over to the teacher's desk and rested down her books. Then she and Leo headed out of the classroom and began their journey down the hall, at least a dozen eyes glued to them as they both headed towards the school bathrooms.

As they sauntered down the hall, the sight of the one-eyed man still loomed in Piper's thoughts. Who was that? What was that? She stared at the white, tiled floor of the hall in frustration. Piper remembered looking up Greek myths with her dad over the summer, and thought about one that they had read. What were those things called again? Cyclopes? She remembered laughing with her dad about how silly they had sounded in the old, dusty Greek books.

They didn't seem so funny anymore.

Leo must have noticed how quiet she was being, because he glanced over at her. His black, curly hair clung to his forehead, heavy with water and mud. His eyes didn't lack any of the usual levity that came with those dark brown orbs.

Despite his current state, he cracked a smile.

"You look lovely."

Piper glanced at her reflection in a trophy display case lined up against the wall. The front of her body was entirely plastered with mud, and she was still soaking wet.

"Thanks."

She looked over at Leo. He looked nearly as bad as she did, with his clothes totally ruined and his shoes making a squish, squash, squish, squash kind of sound whenever he took a step.

"You look pretty great, too."

"Really?"

"Definitely."

Piper pushed the thought of the cyclops (or whatever it was) out of her mind. She wasn't going to let it bring her down. Neither of them could stop grinning as they headed towards the bathrooms, and two pairs of wet, muddy footsteps followed them all the way to their destinations.

.....

So, by the fourth week of school, Leo had discovered something. Piper was actually smoking hot.

His brain hadn't made the connection before. It was like he had looked at her for a second, glanced away, and then turned back around and – BAM! – his friend had instantly turned into a goddess. Leo didn't even realize that other guys used to glance her way, staring and sending wistful smiles in their direction at lunch.

At first, her attractiveness wasn't really a problem for him. He wasn't that fazed by her looks. But some unwanted pests started taking notice of Piper, too - namely Isabel and her painted sidekicks - and it started to annoy him. They didn't actually do anything, but the threat hung in the air. The tension swelled like an overinflated balloon, almost ready to pop.

He decided to confront Piper about it at lunch.

It was a sweltering hot day, and Leo stole a grape from her plate before dropping the question. "You know Isabel hates you, right?"

"Yep," said Piper between a mouthful of oranges.

He chewed on the grape thoughtfully before deciding that he didn't like grapes. "And you know she's gonna do something about it, right?"

"I guess," said Piper plainly. She gave a little shrug before washing down the oranges with some grape soda.

Leo looked at her like she was crazy. "And what? You're not gonna do anything about it?"

Piper gave him an honest look, her eyes turning a bright shade of blue. "Well, I don't know. She asked me if I wanted to be part of her little group, but I turned her down. There isn't much else to do."

Wait. "She asked you if you wanted to be part of the Bitchettes?"

"Yeah."

His brain was processing this information very, very slowly. "So...why did you turn her...?" Leo trailed off. "No, wait. That's a stupid question. Why - " He stopped again. He thought about it a little more before he came up blank, then held up his hands. "Okay, I'm confused. I don't get it."

Piper tapped her nails against the tabletop. She bit her cheek before looking up at him.

"I don't like the spotlight," she said quietly. At hearing this, Leo opened his mouth to say something else, but she leaned back against the table, indicating that she planned to speak again. Her brown hair was swept over one shoulder in a braid, and her bangs were choppy and all over the place and falling into her eyes. Leo noticed that a lot of guys were glancing in their direction, undoubtedly at her, and he almost didn't believe what Piper had said.

Leo gave her a skeptical look, but Piper just shrugged at him.

"I'm not really into the whole 'popular' thing. It's not really fun. Besides," she paused to glance over at Isabel and her lackies across the room, where they all wore matching pink shirts and too much makeup. "I don't think she invited me to be nice."

They both looked at her for a little while before Leo turned back to Piper. A array of words suddenly fell out of his mouth.

"You're prettier than her."

Piper immediately turned back to him. Their eyes met for a grand total of two awkward seconds before Leo realized how that must have sounded.

"No - erm - I mean, you're obviously the Alpha chick here, right?" He motioned to Isabel again, and Piper raised an eyebrow. "Aren't pretty girls threatened whenever someone prettier comes along? She probably just invited you to make it look like she doesn't care," he said, and wow, was he smart or what? "You know, to throw people off of her scent."

Piper's eyebrows furrowed. She seemed to be considering this. "I...guess?" she said hesitantly, but Leo knew that she was flattered, and…wait. Was she blushing?

"I mean…" said Piper, her cheeks still pink. "To be fair, there are a lot of things prettier than Isabel."

"Hell yeah," said Leo with a smirk. He began to list off items. "Monkeys, various insects, my ass…"

Piper snorted before giving him a genuine smile. "You know, for what it's worth, I may or may not have turned Isabel down to hang out with you."

Now he was flattered. Leo's eyes sparkled as he gave his friend his signature smirk.

"I may or may not be glad that you did."

.....

a/n: this is gifted to one of my #1 baes (aka notyourleo) as a super late bday present :D i have a lot of stuff to work on for liper december, and this was one of them, but i figured that i might as well post this now and work on my other fics.

i wrote this the day after i finished boo because i was kind of upset at the ending (WHY) and i really needed some liper friendship. at this point idk if this is even my "big fic" for this month, but it's the only thing i have done so far out of the 4+ things i have drafted. reviewing would be cool btw just sayin

this will probably be continued. expect part 2/3 in a month or so c:

hope you enjoyed! :)