She grins at him unrepentantly. "It's your name now. Just go with it." She shrugs. "It's really all gibberish. But Latin's actually useful sometimes? I've never been like 'oh shit I wish I spoke French right now'. So Latin gibberish it is."

He laughs at that. "Yeah, no, I can't say I've ever had that for either of them, and I've been doing French for way longer, so... French not-so-gibberish for me. Do you often find a sudden need to know Latin?"

"Hey, it's great for the SATs," Alli says innocently. (It is, and the less she has to study vocabulary the better, but hey, she can poker face too.)

"Yeah, there is that, I guess...?" he says, looking a bit confused. "But French is probably more useful in the real world than Latin; how many people do you meet who speak Latin? Or do you just read a lot of Latin books?" he laughs. "I mean, not that I read any French books, but still."

Alli sneakily side eyes him. There's poker face, and there's actually oblivious. The second theory is gaining traction. Which is disappointing, because she wants a magic buddy, and weird, because he's not human, and also not a big deal, because he's eye candy and friendly and it's not like she's going to stop.

She grins at him. "What, like there's a lot of French speakers in Sunnydale? And the more Latin words I recognize, the fewer SAT vocab words I have to learn. I swear, it's like they take that shit straight from the Iliad." She stops in front of a door. "This one's you, Nails. Have fun with your gibberish."

He grins back. Did somebody say eye candy?

"Nah, there aren't really," he laughs. "Unless they're forming an evil underground network of French people. See you later!"

He walks into class.

Alli suffers through Latin class and takes notes almost exclusively on words that seem like they could be useful for spell-casting. She and Theo are in the same History class when she gets to her next period, but Latin ran long and she's late enough that she can't get a seat next to him. She settles for waving at Theo and sits next to her ex-boyfriend instead, nudging him with a smirk every time the name Paul gets mentioned. This earns her a bored glare, but that's not exactly going to stop her.

At lunch she sees the cheerleaders trying to descend upon Theo without appearing like they're doing so, so she doesn't even bother trying to talk to him. She's been at school with those girls for years, and not even eye candy is going to get her near them. She doesn't feel too bad; she's hardly leaving Theo without people to talk to. She sits with Helen and Jada instead, getting the rest of the story on Helen's summer fling. Their friends Jim and Peter join them halfway in and insist on referring to the guy as CBF for Camp Boyfriend, which makes Alli laugh but annoys Helen enough that she doesn't bother adopting it herself. The boys roll their eyes while the girls gossip about Theo; Jim asks if Theo plays lacrosse, and Alli snorts and says "Like I'd ask," and after that they let the girls talk in peace. Helen informs Alli she'll be living through Alli vicariously and that she'd better not let her down. Jada is horrified when she asks Alli if Theo's coming with them to the Bronze that weekend and Alli has to admit she didn't ask him.

She doesn't see Theo in science class, which doesn't really surprise her. She went for chem instead of bio, since it's enough like potion brewing that she actually enjoys it, but it was long odds. That means it's English class before she runs into him again, and this time she manages to snag a nearby desk. "Hey stranger, long time no see."

"Hey! I know, right? How've you been in the... four hours since we last spoke? Found any people to speak Latin with?"

"Probably about as many as you found to talk French with. Pretty good! The Chem teacher promised to blow-" she remembers the teacher's presence at the front of the room at the last second and trades out the swear word, "-stuff up later in the year if we behave. Which might actually make me behave, we'll see. What about you?"

He notices the slight pause on 'stuff' and laughs a bit. "French was just vocabulary, but that was okay, and we just laid out what we're gonna do for the semester in Bio. Nothing major, really. Explosions sound fun, though."

"Explosions are going to be awesome," Alli agrees enthusiastically. "Oh hey, at lunch me and my friends were talking about going to the Bronze this weekend. Have you been yet? Want to join?"

She's not going to ask him out on his first day, but it's a group outing. Which is totally different and therefore fine.

"Uh, that's the nightclub, right? Nah, I haven't been yet, so yeah, I'll tag along."

"Yup, nightclub. I'd say it's where the cool kids go, but I am so very deeply not a cool kid. It's where everyone goes." She sighs. "There's not exactly a lot of options in Sunnydale."

He laughs. "Yeah, but if everyone goes there, then it is where the cool kids go. It's all about perspective."

"Don't ruin the Bronze for me! It's all I have!"

He laughs, then jokingly gaps and says, "Oh no, I'm so sorry! Not your beautiful nightclub!"

"Number one club in Sunnydale!"

"Because there's no competition like the lack thereof."

"Better the Bronze than nothing at all, though." She scribbles the address on a page in her notebook, then tears it out and hands it to him. "We'll be there around nine."

"Cool. I'm guessing it's either tomorrow or on Saturday?"

"...Saturday. Definitely Saturday. Good call. Man, that could have been bad."

"Hah, oh well," Theo says, smiling.

The teacher actually starts the lesson, finally, so Theo starts paying attention to it instead of Alli. Unless she has some funny doodles, like in math, of course.

Their first book of the year is apparently Macbeth, which means Alli is writing angrily sarcastic notes to herself/Shakespeare about making witches look bad and how the stereotype is totally unfair. She does not share.

Oh well. Theo supposes Alli just doesn't have any clever cartoon puns, and doesn't dwell on it.

Macbeth is weird.

No argument from Alli.

After class she tells Theo, "I have to run, I've got plans after school, but I'll see you tomorrow?"

She and Peter have had plans to see Sin City 2 pretty much since the first one came out, but she'd rather not go into the whole "we are totally just friends, trust me, been there had that conversation" thing, so she'll just gloss over that part.