James - Encke

Chris – Keeler

I don't know who came up with the name James for Encke, but I hope it's okay that I borrow it! ^_^

James had been dreading this day. New school. Not just a new school, a new school he'd won a goddamn scholarship to – against his will – and had been forced – again, against his will – to attend. Not that he had a choice. So now he was stuck on earth with only an adopted aunt appointed by the government as family and some fancy rich kids in some fancy rich kids school with not a fucking clue what he was doing there and just wanting to grow the fuck up already so he could join the alliance and blown the colterons up so he could go back home without living in fear.

Not that earth was so terrible. The sunlight actually being warm was a novelty he'd never get tired of, and the aunt he'd been appointed was pretty nice. A bit weird, but nice enough. Sat through all of James's nightmares the month leading up to starting at the school. But actually being there – actually standing at the gates and saying goodbye to the only earth person he knew had James in a panic, biting back tears and wishing he was 5 again instead of 16 so he could cry without getting weird looks.

"Go on James, off you go. You'll be okay, just be yourself. I'll see you at Christmas!" The aunt gave him a hug, then pushed him forwards into the grounds, smiling and waving at him encouragingly when James turned around to look back, another face in the crowd of parents saying goodbye, the only difference being that all the other parents were there for their kids, while James's were off a million miles away. He hugged his arms to himself, turning to face the entrance doors which stood taller than he could ever hope to grow, and older than he ever planned to be and stepped inside.

After a day, James was desperate to get out.

After a week, his thoughts were dominated by ways to burn the place down.

The classes sucked, the kids were rich snobs and they all hated him, all looked down their noses at him like he was some dirt on their shoes that needed to be rubbed off. The only thing that kept him going was two more years, just two more years and he could go home and never return. In the meantime, he'd try to keep his head down and get himself an education like he was supposed to, assuming education meant teachers so old and droning that falling into any form of unconciousness in their presence was a gift, and kids so mean they made the colteron's look like a bunch of fluffy bunnies.

One group of them in particular had it out for him, and James would've kept an eye out for them except everyone here was blonde and they all looked the same, so when they cornered him again at first he wasn't sure who they were.

"What's up, faggot?"

Their leader was a particularly violent and nasty one, who really seemed to hate James for existing.

"So, you never answered my question. Just how many dicks did you have to suck to get your fancy scholarship, eh?"

He leered at James, right up in his face, his gang egging him on, getting on the jeering bandwagon and calling James unintelligible names - they never said shit about this in the fucking brochures.

And he would've punched them back, except that would only get him wound up in detention so what was the point?

"Ah, well – heh – maybe it wasn't you. Bet your mum has a pretty mouth like you."

Fuck that. James was about to swing his fist when out of nowhere a hand caught it, and attached to that hand was an arm attached to a body attached to a face and a swinging blonde braid. A strange boy appeared out of nowhere, glanced sideways at James to give him a wink then turned to speak to the nasties in front of him.

"Now now, boys, we all know that I do all the cock sucking around here," at that he threw another wink at James, "and I've gotta say, Melville, your dad really needs to wash his more often. Got a bad smell going on down there."

James spluttered just as badly as Melville (stupid name) at that, disbelieving that this braid swinging blonde could be so brave when he was so tiny, an easy target for a beating. Or maybe stupid was a better word for it.

Then he turned to James and kissed him, full on the mouth, before breaking apart and flipping up his middle finger at the others, "catch you later sweeties!" and pulling James along, running straight through the other boys who stood there dumbfounded, too slow to react.

They kept running until they made it outside, and the strange boy pulled him around a corner, chest heaving for breath while intermittently laughing and trying to stifle the sound. James found himself making weird noises, and at first he thought he was choking on something but then came to the understand he was choking on his own laughter.

The other boy turned to him, eyes twinkling and held out his hand, struggling not to swallow air, half choking, half laughing out the word.

"Chris"

James stared at the hand as his own enveloped it, small and fragile like a sparrow, shaking it gently so as to not break it accidentally.

"James."

Chris grinned at him, pushing loose hair out of his face, so pale it caught the sunlight's gold light. His smile was easy, and James found himself wanting to smile back. So he did. Felt weird after a solid month of frowning.

"Welcome to hell, James. You might wanna work on that smile."