"Yeah, see you tomorrow!" he responds, getting up from his seat and grabbing his bag.

"See ya!"

The movie outing goes all right. Alli arrives ten minutes late only to discover that Peter had lied about the time, which is aggravating both because he lied and because he was right, but it means she doesn't miss any of the movie so she lets it go. What she's less inclined to let go is the fact that he and one of the cheerleaders, Lia, have apparently been seeing each other, and he brought her along to the movie. Complaining to her friends takes up most of her attention the next day.

"That was our movie!" she complains to Helen at lunch.

"It's not like it was a date," Helen points out. "Do you not remember the Great Coffee Debacle? You made me swear an oath to never let you try dating him again."

"I don't want to date him," Alli snorts. "But it's our movie. And he brought someone else!"

"So... you went to the movies with him... and you're annoyed he brought another girl... but it wasn't a date?" Jada asks, grinning.

"Yes," Alli says, exasperated. "And a cheerleader at that!"

"I think you're picking unfairly on cheerleaders," Helen says primly.

Alli eyes her suspiciously. "...who are you and what have you done with Helen?"

"It's not that different than gymnastics!" she says defensively.

Pestering Helen about her newfound tolerance for cheerleaders occupies them for the rest of lunch. After school Jada drags Alli and Jim to the mall, which almost immediately turns into Jada modeling outfits while Alli and Jim complain to each other; apparently the lacrosse team is deeply divided over their uniforms. (When Alli offers the perfect solution, Jim's groan of "black doesn't count" earns him an uncomfortable future prank. After Peter, of course.)

Just because he said that, Alli turns up to the Bronze on Saturday in her favorite full-on goth attire: black, black and more black. Her red lips are the only spot of color in the entire ensemble. She restrains herself to only her fishnet tights and skips the shirt, but she digs out her black corset to make up for it. Jim's expression when he sees her, torn between resignation and awkwardly trying not to stare at her chest- her corset is really awesome- makes it all worth it.

And of course, Theo gets to see her in all her corseted, high heeled glory. Bonus points.

Theo goes home. He listens to music and surfs the internet for a while. It's a Thursday, and he's just started at a new school; he doesn't really have much else to do.

Friday passes pretty uneventfully. Theo speaks to a few new people and sits with a random group of them at lunch, then gets ambushed by the cheerleaders again, is polite but definitely doesn't seem particularly interested in any of them, and then lunch is over, he goes to lessons, pays attention without trying to seem nerdy, and the day is over.

He turns up to the club on Saturday in smart-casual wear, looking very handsome. Turns out he actually has a fashion sense and he's not afraid to use it. He speaks to a few people he's already interacted with, then notices Alli and moves over to her, subtly checking out... her outfit? "Hey!" he says. "You look nice," he compliments her, charmingly.

"Thanks!" Alli says, pleased, checking him out rather less subtly. "You too, Nails, you clean up nice." She reintroduces her group just for politeness' sake; he's only been around for two days, and there's a lot of names. Jada's mom has dragged her to LA again for another audition somewhere, but Helen and Jim and Peter are there. (Peter's brought Lia again, but she's wearing a little black dress and not saying much so Alli's dealing.)

She links her arm through Theo's and leads him inside. "C'mon, let's get drinks."

"Thanks," he responds. He doesn't really react to her checking him out, but he definitely notices it. It's nice that Alli helped him with the names, but he's usually pretty good with that sort of thing.

Following alongside her into the club, Theo looks around at things. What's it like?

The Bronze is in a dingy warehouse and is clearly not so big on fancy decor. The bar and the dance floor are both crowded, there's some surprisingly tolerable live music on the stage, and scattered people on the edges of the room playing darts or pool. Not very fancy, but a little bit of everything.

Alli makes a passing attempt to argue the bartender into giving her alcohol, but they clearly know each other and neither of them is taking it seriously. Once they're done joking around, she ends up with a Diet Coke and she raises her glass to the group. "Cheers!"

Well, it's not too bad. It's kinda... rustic? Better than it could be, at the very least.

Theo watches the interplay at the bar, smiling, and then gets a Coke, too (not diet). "Cheers!"

Nothing in Sunnydale is exactly the height of modernity. It's a good spot for going out with friends, even if it isn't in the best neighborhood, which is all Alli needs.

They start with darts, but it only takes a few rounds for everyone to get tired of Jim beating them handily. He makes apologetic noises about lacrosse and hand-eye coordination, but Peter just laughs and calls him out on actually getting the coordination from Halo. They alternate between pool and dancing for a bit; the band that night is playing a good mix of upbeat songs, and it makes for a good group dance circle.

As the evening starts to slow down, Alli makes a run to the bathroom, but feels her phone slip free from her jeans as she's on her way back. "Damnit, phone," she mutters. She doesn't have anything with her for a locator spell, and she can't just move something to her hand unless she can see it. And lighting? Not the Bronze's strong point. She looks around, sighs, and makes a ball of light in her hand as she kneels on the phone. Heeeere, little phone. Come to Alli.

Theo sticks at the edge of the group or near Alli, but tries to actually take part in the activities, like darts. He's not too bad, but he's definitely not the best of the lot.

After speaking to Jim and Peter for a bit, at least as much as you can do that with the live music in the club, he heads over to the back hallway, going to the restroom, and sees Alli. And the ball of light.

... The ball of light is in her hand. It doesn't look like she's got her phone there, or a flashlight, because her phone is on the floor. And there's a ball of light in her hand.

"Um," he says, sounding a bit confused by the turn of events.

Alli's brain starts swearing to the tune of the current song. Shit, shit shit, shit SHIT...

"Well, fuck," she sighs. "Hi, Nails. Do you see my- gotcha!" She swipes her phone up from under a pile of spare stools and stands, brushing off her knees. "Sooo."

"Um."

He looks at where the phone was. Then at her hand. Then blinks his eyes, looks at his fingers and clicks them, pokes himself in the arm, looks around a bit, and then back at her hand. He seems to be awake. Her hand is still a hand. There is now a phone in her hand. The phone could plausibly be generating light. The phone was not there previously. He blinks again.

He makes a face and repeats, "Um?"

Oh, right. The light goes out. "Do you-" she starts, then winces as the band hits a particularly loud chord. "If I have to explain can we at least go outside," she says louder.

"Uh. Y-yeah?"

He doesn't seem to be moving. He's just looking at her hand, where the light was. And now isn't. And just mysteriously was. That's a regular hand. He doesn't see a mysteriously small flashlight, or LED, or some other potentially light-emitting electronic device that was in her hand before she picked up her phone. She might need to prompt him to actually follow her.

She waves a hand in front of his face, sighs, and starts hauling him towards the door. She leans around Peter and Lia, who are presently attached at the face, and taps Helen. "Theo's not feeling well, going to grab some air," she yells.

"Suuuuure," Helen laughs. "Have fun, be safe!"

Since she can't very well refute the implication without sounding defensive (or if she told the truth, crazy), Alli just looks innocent and keeps going. Theo gets dragged out past the bouncer and into a side street by the club. There's a couple at the far end of the alley, but they're clearly too into each other to notice the company and too far to hear.

Alli lets go of Theo and leans against a wall. "So, hi. I'm a witch. Apparently you need the magical birds and bees talk. Which, weird for a non human, but whatever, I'll roll with it. Where do you want me to start?"

Theo mostly doesn't pay attention on his way out. He's just looking around, making sure nothing huge has changed that he failed to notice, and keeps looking back at Alli and her hands... to make sure of something?

"You're... a witch. Witches? Non-human? ... Uh?"

Apparently he's having trouble being coherent.

Alli doesn't really understand reactions to magic that aren't 'this is hella cool and I must learn this immediately' but incoherence is still strictly better than, say, homicidal rage. She'll take it. And speak slowly and clearly. "Yes, I'm a witch. Yes, there are witches, plural. Anyone can learn magic if they study enough. I've already got, like, homework and a social life, so I only know some small stuff." She draws a smiley face made of glitter in the air to demonstrate, which promptly fades away. "You gouged a hole in a desk with your fingernails. I thought you were playing dumb, Nails, did you actually not know?"

"Magic," he says, sounding about half-way between 'disbelieving' and 'oh, of course it is, what else could it have been'.

"I caught my nails on a desk. I don't... It's not following." He makes a face. "... Non-human because nails?"

"Magic," Alli repeats. "No more sparkles until we're out of sight of people. I don't want to go through this explanation again. But yes. Magic. Me, witch. You- actually, probably about half human, but still not normal human."

She starts to say something a few times, then closes her mouth and thinks, and tries again. "Okay, so imagine you are actually half Asian. And you have never heard of Asia or met an Asian person or whatever. So, duh, obviously you do not think you are Asian, because you have no idea that's a thing. And then hi, there's me, knowing metaphorical-Asia exists, having read books about metaphorically-Asian people, yada yada bullshit. And it is really obvious to me that you are at least partially Asian, but it's also really hard for me to explain because you're still confused by Asia existing?"

"Asia being... what, exactly?"

He's looking at her like he thinks she might be a bit mad. Sure, unexplainable light from her hand, but thinking that he's not human? ... What?

"My book didn't have a name or anything," Alli says glibly, which is Alli-speak for it calls all nonhumans demons or monsters and let's really not get into that right now. "Just descriptions of what meant 'friendly to humans' and what meant 'scream and pull a gun'. Congrats, Nails, you do not requiring screaming and firearms." She holds out a hand. Her fingernails are on the longer side, and painted black because who do you even think this is, but they are otherwise pretty standard fingernails. "Want to test? Bet you you can do some serious damage to the wall." She nods at the side of the building, which is plated with metal sheets.

"Your book didn't have a name for... the species that I half belong to? And you realise these are nails right?" He holds out his hand. "They'll break and it'll hurt if I try scratching anything too solid – it's not like they defy physics."

"Oh my god, you wimp," Alli laughs. "Just do it carefully. And did you really just complain about physics to a witch?"

"Well, yeah, but you're a witch! My nails aren't much stronger than yours, anyway!"

Despite the complaining, he actually does go and scratch the metal sheets. And, even though he does it quite casually, he actually digs in quite a lot. Those are some pretty obvious claw marks.

Stare. Blink. ... Blink again. More staring.

Some people are above gloating. Alli is not one of those people. "Told you," she says with a smirk. Then she softens a bit. "Okay so I was expecting this conversation to be way more cackling and potions and less of the personal revelation shit. You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he says absently.

Blink. Stare. Blink again.