A/N: Welcome back to another chapter of… whatever I'm going to call this fic. Once again, this has been edited before chapter 1 has been posted, and despite being 31 chapters into this, I STILL don't have a name picked out for this story. Ha! Hopefully future me chose something good.
Not much to say here, but there will be more at the bottom, so stay tuned.
Lucia couldn't put her finger on why it felt so weird to be at school during the summertime. The place was exactly the same as it always had been. Same old scuffed up tile floor, same trophy cabinet filled with plastic painted to look gold, same rows and rows of lockers. The entire design of the place made it look monotonous and sterile in all the wrong ways.
Maybe it was the summer heat, making the classrooms sweaty and uncomfortable compared to how much cooler they'd be in the fall semester, or leading up to Summer. Or maybe it was the lack of students wandering the halls, since a majority of the student body didn't need the extra classes and so weren't there, making the place eerily quiet.
Maybe it was just the fact that everyone in her class was a new face. Mostly. She could recognize most of them at a glance as being from her school, but couldn't put any names to their faces. Just kids she'd passed in the hallways and cafeteria during the normal school semester, who all minded their own business and faded into the background.
Lucia tried not to linger on any of that too long as she stumbled into her classroom, trying to find a decent seat. The classroom itself was it's usual out-of-touch self, educational/motivational posters on the walls that looked like they came straight from the 90's, a whiteboard that had seen better days and need a good cleaning after the marker ink had dried for too long on it, and as if to be a living stereotype, the teacher had a globe on her desk, despite the fact that Lucia was sure this wasn't normally a geography classroom.
As she made her way through the room, she passed by the small sea of lowlifes who hadn't taken their classes seriously and were now here because they couldn't afford to drop out of high school. Then there were the delinquents, which she supposed she fit in with that category, and more than a single nerd, who were really just here to get the extra credits.
Finally, she stumbled upon an empty seat in the second row, near the window. At first she considered herself lucky, getting such a great spot, at least until she sat down and realized the sun would be beating down on her for the entire class period. Temporarily blinded by the light, she tried to fumble for the string that controlled the blinds, pulling them one way and then the other in a feeble attempt to get them closed, only to hear the sound of the chair beside her scrap against the floor, and the presence of someone new reach over her to do it for her.
With the blinds closed, and her vision restored, Lucia turned to thank the person who had come to her rescue, but due to her being seated and her savior standing on their feet and leaning over her, she instead found her view inches away from the chest of a pink dress.
An embarrassed blush on her cheeks, Lucia craned her head upward to see the smirking face of a young woman looking down on her. "Eh, thanks for the help. And sorry about that."
The woman barked out a laugh, and took a step back, "It's no problem, you looked like you were having a tough time."
Lucia took the newcomer's appearance in. She didn't strike Lucia as even vaguely familiar like all the other nameless people in the classroom. She was tall, a good few inches above Lucia's 5'7. Two things stuck out to Lucia about her immediately, one being the color of her hair, a mix of brown and green. Oddly enough, the roots themselves seemed to be green, while just above them seemed to be dyed brown, followed by even more green fro the rest of the hair, but Lucia chalked that up to just being a poor dye job.
The second was her piercing, otherworldly eyes. Lucia didn't mean that in a flowery, love stricken way like her sister might, gushing over every pretty fictional girl she laid eyes on. That She-Ra reboot had been one very long week of peak bisexual energy from Luz. This was just a fact. This girl must wear colored contacts, because Lucia was absolutely sure eyes didn't come in brilliant gold.
Realizing she was staring, Lucia shook herself out of her stupor, and offered a friendly hand to the newcomer, "I'm Lucia Noceda, nice to meet you."
The other girl's smirk grew, but she took the hand without question and gave it a hearty shake, "Amelia Bane. I'm sure we'll get along fine."
Maybe Summer school wouldn't be so bad.
Amelia Bane was a practical and conniving girl. Case in point, her teacher needed someone to help pass out papers, and she'd been the first to volunteer. A quick smile, a pleasant word about how Mrs. Whatsherface's hair looked great today, and she knew she had that teacher in her pocket for the rest of the summer.
Having as many people as possible happy to overlook anything she might do because she was the "good girl" was incredibly handy. School staff, employees in retail, the local police.
Don't get her wrong, she wasn't doing anything too troubling. She chased some thrills every once in a while when she was bored, and some of those things might be looked down upon. If a teacher refused to believe that pure, innocent Bane was seen sneaking into a janitor's closet hand in hand with another girl, or a door guard at the local mall didn't think to check her twice in case she'd shoplifted a cute new skirt, that was really their own fault.
By and far, Amelia's favorite thrill to chase after was the thrill of the hunt. A whole new school meant a whole new study body to date. Or at least, half a student body, since her tastes ran a bit… feminine. Her eyes darted around her new classroom, taking in all of the people who were currently on her radar.
Out of a class of sixteen sophomore students thrown together for the summer, less than half were women. Seven, including her, which only left six, and the odds of any of them being into girls as well as looking pretty slim, but Amelia had worked with less before.
The first one on her list of targets was the blonde in the back of the class. Nice figure, tan skin, probably a cheerleader who was warned if her grades didn't pick up she'd have to be dropped from the team. Definitely Amelia's type. Cheerleaders tended to be really good kissers.
The moment the bell rang, Amelia put her game face on. Half lidded eyes, pouty lips, and a bit of gloss lip balm to really sell it. She was up and out of her seat before anyone else, and made her way to the back of the class to corner her prey before she could even leave her desk. Leaning against the desk, Amelia put on her sultiest voice, "Hey, babe. Nice top."
The other girl barely noticed her, nose deep in her phone. When she did look up, she gave Amelia a small smile, "Oh, hi! And Thanks so much! You're the new girl, right?"
"Sure am," Amelia flipped her hair back, "Would you care to show me around some time?"
The cheerleader brightened up, "Oh, yeah! Sure! I know a few great places to shop, we can take our boyfriends and-"
"That does sound nice," Amelia interrupted, knowing a lost cause when she saw one. She mentally ticked the blonde off her list of potential dates, but didn't throw her entirely aside, "I'm sure you and I will be great friends."
The cheerleader nodded excitedly, "The best! It's such a small town, so like, everyone knows each other, it's so great to get some fresh blood in here. Especially someone so fashionable."
Amelia wasn't one to brush off a free compliment, "Thank you. We'll chat again later, maybe do a double date sometime? I just gotta score me a date." She winked, and made to leave.
"Good luck, if you need any help I know a few guys!"
That wasn't gonna work, but the offer was generous. At least Amelia had someone to show her around town now, if she ever wanted to hang out. The hunt wasn't over yet, she still had five more girls to go through, and five more weeks in this place. One of them was bound to want to date her!
The first week of classes had gone by quickly, to Lucia's relief. It helped that the days ended two hours earlier than normal school days would. Even the lessons were pretty easy, mostly just going over what Lucia had already learned to get her to a point where could pass the classes she was already doing fine in before her suspension.
As such, Lucia spent a lot of her class time goofing off, sending memes and messages to Luz with her phone under her desk.
BestBigSis: *half a dozen images of cats in various states of Can Haz*
BestBigSis: I hope the camp isn't too much of a killjoy. You'd better come back just as weird as I left you!
Luzura: It's not that bad, really. I even managed to make two friends today!
Luzura: They're names are Gus and Willow.
Luzura: I almost got Willow into some trouble, but she still wants to be friends, which is great!
Lucia smiled, sending her sister a variety of emojis to show her support. Maybe she had been wrong, and this whole camp thing had been good for Luz? Maybe she'd been a bit unfair towards her mom, since she hadn't heard a bad word about the camp from Luz so far. Apologies weren't her forte, but she knew she could maybe make it up to her mother by cooking dinner tonight.
The rumble of her phone in her hand brought her attention right back to their messages.
Luzura: How is summer school going?
Lucia bit her lip while she thought of an answer. She glanced at Amelia in the seat beside her. They hadn't had much of an opportunity to really talk for more than a few minutes at a time, but what little conversation they had always made the day a bit more interesting.
Not enough to say she was enjoying her classes, though. She was still forced to waste half her day at school when she could be off playing video games, or skateboarding, or even just wasting away the day browsing the internet on her phone.
Instead she just sent back a shrugging emoticon, and hoped that would quell her sister's curiosity.
She felt her shoe be kicked in warning by Amelia, and quickly buried her phone back in her pocket before the teacher could see her using it.
That night, Lucia made good on her own mental word and started up some dinner for herself and her mother. At this point in her life, it was basically a tradition for Lucia to volunteer herself for a surprise dinner for her mother when she wanted to call a truce in an argument they'd been having. They'd hardly spoken in the week Luz had been away, both too stubborn to admit they might have been wrong, but now that Luz seemed to be actually making some friends, Lucia could see the writing on the wall that she'd backed the wrong horse. Dinner it was.
There was a tug at her heart when she realized she'd have to mess with the recipe to make enough for two people, instead of the usual three, but soon the kitchen was swimming in the scent of Sancocho, a Dominican stew made from a recipe that had been in their family for generations, and her troubles melted away.
She was just removing it from the heat of the stove when she heard her mother's car pull up into the driveway, and a moment later the woman entered through the front door.
"Ah, mija, it smells so amazing in here," Camila's voice echoed from the entrance, followed by a clattering Lucia recognized as her mother stepping out of her shoes and finally the woman herself entering the kitchen, a smile on her face. In her hands was the day's mail, taken from the mailbox by the street on her way inside.
Lucia filled up two bowls to the very brim, and brought them to the dinner table while her mother browsed through the various junk they'd received. One did catch Camila's eye, and she was quick to tear the envelope open and read through it, a soft smile grazing her lips.
Lucia ate her food in silence, watching her mother closely. Camila seemed to feel her eyes on her, and apologized, "I'm sorry, I'm not ignoring you or your dinner, Lucia. It's just that your sister sent a letter from camp, and I got caught up reading it."
Camila offered the letter to Lucia, who reached across the table to take it. Luz hadn't mentioned anything about writing letters in all her text messages or calls. Looking it's contents over, it seemed to be pretty standard. Nothing like her sister's usual writing, of which Lucia was intimately familiar with after proofreading way to much Azura fanfiction(and wow, did she not realize how much her sister had her wrapped around her little finger until just now), but seeing as it was sent from the camp, it might have just been mandatory for, who knows, maybe a handwriting project? That sounded right at home with all the filing taxes and public radio stuff, and would explain the utter lack of soul behind the stuff the letter talked about.
"I'm so glad she seems to be fitting in," Camila said, taking a bite of her dinner, her smile growing at the taste.
"Yeah," Lucia responded, but was unable to shake a feeling in the back of her mind that something was off. Before she could inspect the letter any closer, maybe for a secret SOS her sister was trying to relay to her, her phone chimed. Lucia took a glance to see it was Luz, who had taken a selfie of herself, and a girl who could only be Willow. The two stood together smiling, and along with the image was a little blurb of text.
Luzura: This is Willow! She wants to be a gardener when she grows up, and is my new best friend! I hope I can introduce you guys some day!
Lucia thought about letting Luz know they had got her letter, but decided against it. If this was just some camp mandated letter, who really cared? From the tone of the letter, Luz hadn't wanted to write it anyway, so she'd focus on other, more important things. For instance…
BestBigSis: What kind of plants was she growing that made her get sent to unfun camp?
Amelia forced herself to smile. Sure, she was only on week two, and four out of the six girls had rejected her in one way or another. With only two more options left, she decided to flip a mental coin. She could go after that Lucia girl, who seemed pretty nice and sat next to her, which always ran the risk of going really awkward if Lucia was straight, or worse, a bigot.
Or she could go with the gloomy chick with the glasses who sat in the second to last row. With a glance over to Lucia, who sent her a cheery smile that made her inexplicably nervous, she rigged her mental coin toss to go with the other girl.
With a few minutes left to kill before class started, she strode out of her seat and towards the other girl. Gloomy was a good way to describe her, as in the time they'd shared a class Amelia had never seen her smile. A pair of thick round glasses framed her face, and her hair was cut short and messy, like she'd only rolled out of bed if not for the clear shimmer of hair gel that had been run through it to show this was a purposeful style.
She was short, a bit squat, and dressed in baggy clothes that seemed to be intentionally too big for her. Not exactly the type of girl Amelia dated, but she was sorta cute. Her nose was currently buried in some magazine about gardening and botany, so at least she was the kind of girl who'd enjoy flowers as a gift.
She'd barely made it to the girls desk before being shot down.
"Not interested." The girl said softly, not even sparing a glance away from her magazine.
Amelia, flabbergasted, struggled to come up with a counter to that. "You don't even know what I'm going to say, though?"
Finally, the girl peeked up over her pages, if just for a brief moment, "You're Amelia Bane. You've got a half-assed flirty line for me. We may not have talked to each other yet, but I do have ears, and you aren't exactly quiet."
Amelia frowned, a little hurt over that, but didn't get a chance to speak before the girl sighed, and set the magazine down. "Sorry, that was… short of me. I'm Wionna Esplanade." She held out a hand for Amelia to shake, which she did with some hesitation.
"Any particular reason you shot me down so fast? Do you think my pickup lines are just that bad? Or do you already have someone you're dating?" Amelia asked, trying to inject some humor into their conversation.
Wionna shook her head, "No. I'm not interested is all. In anyone." She flipped through a few more pages of her magazine.
"Also, I'm kinda offended you saved me for last."
Amelia rolled her eyes, "I didn't save you for last. I haven't hit on Noceda yet."
Wionna spared a look over at Lucia, who was busy sending messages on her phone. Probably to her baby sister, who everyone in school knew about simply for how many fights she'd gotten in to protect her. "Why not? Not your type?"
Amelia turned back, giving Lucia a glance over. Long, dark brown hair. Bronze skin. Eyes like chocolate. Sleeves rolled up to show off a bit of her muscular arms, further enhanced by her mildly gruff appearance and attitude.
"No, she's my type alright."
"Then go talk to her." Amelia turned back to continue her conversation, but Wionna had lifted her magazine back up, covering her face, signaling the end of their talk. With a playful huff, Amelia made her way back to her seat.
"What was that about?" Lucia whispered to her huskily upon her return.
"Oh, nothing to worry your pretty little head about, Noceda." Amelia assured her with a smile. She opened her mouth again to say something, a compliment, anything, but found her nerves acting up again. Instead, she was saved from her attempts by the bell ringing, and the teacher calling the class to order.
She'd have to find a way to flirt sometime later.
It was towards the end of the second week before Lucia really got a chance to speak with Amelia again beyond a few words before and after class.
The Bane girl was surprisingly popular. Friendly, confident, willing to work with anyone in class. Despite sitting next to Lucia, she never seemed to have the time to actually talk for more than five minutes. That all changed today, when Lucia made her way to the cafeteria for lunch only to see Amelia sitting alone at a table, munching on what the school passed off as food and scrolling through her phone.
Slyly sliding into the seat across from her classmate, Lucia started with an ice breaker, "So, Bane, I don't think I've ever seen you before these summer classes. You're pretty recognizable, I think I'd remember you."
Amelia looked up from her phone, her ever present smirk on her lips as she wiggled her eyebrows and spoke without missing a beat "is that your way of saying I've got a pretty face, Noceda? If so, your flirting needs some work."
Lucia flushed, but mentally brushed it off. Amelia was just being a brat. The green and brown haired girl continued, "To answer your unspoken question, I'm new to this school. I wanted to get a chance to get used to the place, and make sure I didn't get behind on anything after I moved here."
She paused after her answer, "Well, moved back here. My family and I used to live here a long time ago, but we moved when I was like, five? My Dad got a job in Arizona, so we took off for a decade, but we have so many relatives here that we decided good old Connecticut was the place to be."
"And thank God for that," Lucia uttered sarcastically, leaning in conspiratorially. "Everyone knows Gravesfield, Connecticut is where the party is at. Wouldn't want you to miss out."
The two girls chuckled together, and continued making small talk. Throughout the conversation, Lucia could feel Amelia's shoes brushing playfully against hers under the table, filling her with feelings of confusion and distracting her from their conversation at times, but she just filed it away as Amelia being Amelia.
Near the end of their lunch period, Lucia told Amelia everything she could possibly fit into their time together about her sister, Luz, and how Lucia herself had ended up facing her suspension and the resulting summer school that landed the two of them in the same class.
"Well, who knew we had a bad girl on our hands," Amelia purred after Lucia had caught her up, "And here I thought you were kind of a dork this whole time."
Lucia laughed, "And does that disappoint you, Bane?"
"Not at all, I'm very fond of bad girls." The other replied, brushing a strand of hair away from her face, and tucking it behind her ears.
Lucia was about to ask for clarification on Amelia's statement, but blinked as she noticed something odd about the girl opposite her. After pushing her hair back and exposing her ears for the first time since they'd met, Lucia could now see that the tips of her new friend's ears were pointed at the ends.
Amelia stopped moving when she noticed Lucia's gaze, and made to brush the hair back over her ears, a little flustered. Realizing this was something Amelia might be sensitive about, Lucia tried to play it off, "You know, Luz would probably flip out if she could meet you. Between the green hair, and the ears, she'd probably think you're just as big a fan of Azura as she is."
Amelia didn't meet her eyes, instead playing with a strand of hair. Sighing, Lucia stood up from her seat opposite Amelia, and moved to the other side of the table to sit beside her, "You know, I'm not going to say you shouldn't be insecure about them, or anything. People can be jerks. But if you want to show them off, that's fine with me, and I'll give anyone who calls you names a knuckle sandwich."
She wasn't normally in the business of extending her protection to anyone outside of Luz, and it would probably get her in a lot of trouble if she did pick any more fights than she already had, but her words had the right effect. Amelia's trademark smirk had returned, "did you really just say 'knuckle sandwich?' Are you from a Popeye cartoon, or something?"
Lucia huffed half heartedly, "well, see if I offer to protect your honor now that you're being a jerk about it."
As much as she played it off, she probably would throw a punch if someone did mock her new friend for her looks. People couldn't help how they were born. Lucia had known a perfectly nice kid in fourth grade that had an extra toe on one foot, and one less than usual on the other. Luz had thought he was so cool when they had met.
Lucia blinked, then fished her phone out of her pocket, "Hey, I just remembered something!" She said, scrolling through the messages she and Luz had sent back and forth, settling on the picture Luz had taken of herself and that Willow girl.
Taking a second glance, Lucia realized she had recalled correctly, "Yeah, see, Luz's friend from camp has pointy ears too!" She practically shoved the phone under Amelia's nose. She hadn't really been paying much attention at the time, more happy that her sister was making friends in the first place than what they looked like. Now that she'd noticed, she really hoped that wasn't what made Luz want to be Willow's friend in the first place, but she shook that thought off. Luz wasn't so shallow as to pick a friend based entirely off them having ears like an elf.
Amelia examined the photo with a smile on her lips, "I can see the family resemblance. Your sister's gonna grow up to be just as pretty as you someday."
Lucia felt the heat return to her face once again. Seriously, what was with this Amelia girl? "As much as I like bragging about my little sister, you were supposed to be looking at her friend!"
Lucia took her phone back, but then got another idea. "Hey, would it be alright to send something to my sister?"
"Luz! Your phone is making that infernal beeping sound again! Is it going to explode?" King, otherwise known as the King of demons, shouted as his binge of cat videos was once again interrupted by a jaunty jingle that alerted everyone in a thirty foot radius that a message had just arrived.
Luz poked her head into the room, "King, I've told you, that's just the sound it makes when my sister is sending me stuff! What did she say?"
King switched over to the message app, "It's got a picture, do you want me to describe it, or do you want to see?"
Luz stopped what she was doing, which was making a stack of her newly found light glyphs, to take the phone back out of King's claws and look at what Lucia had sent her. She had expected another gif, or some kind of meme that would make her giggle, but instead it was a picture of Lucia, arm wrapped another girl's shoulders, both of them flashing a peace sign with their tongues sticking out.
The picture was quickly followed by another message, this time text.
BestBigSis: Guess who's got a friend to join the pointy eared squad?
Brow furrowing in confusion, Luz took another look at the picture and realized that her sister's friend did have pointy ears, flushed a bit darker crimson than the girl's cheeks were at the close proximity of her sister.
Luz grinned, knowing there was no way this girl was a real witch like her friend's were, but glad her sister was making friends of her own. Then she laughed to herself, "'Friend,' who is she kidding? I didn't think anyone could be that dense!"
A/N: Okay, so, I have a confession to make. I'm old. Like, really old. Like, late 20's, old. Okay, so that isn't really old, but it makes me feel old. Because of my age though, I have no clue how schools operate these days. I never did summer classes, either. Never got suspended, or even called to the principal's office(at least for getting into trouble).
I've also always been That Guy, you know, the one who talks in proper sentences when He texts? Yeah, so texting like a teenager is so incomprehensible to me, to the point where I can't even fake it. I can't understand half of what my little sister or my niece send me, I swear it's an entire other language.
So, what do you think of Amelia? I really like the idea of her being a popular chick who's always on the hunt for a new girlfriend. It's less the slap-slap-kiss relationship a lot of people write, where she and Lucia hate and argue with each other a lot, but I still like the dynamic I've written for them here, and in future chapters.
Once again, I love comments. They're a driving force for me as I work, and brighten my day, even if it's just a short sentence. Thank you all for reading so far!