Leah Ross/OC/Sunnydale AU

[innermuses]

Y'know what sucks worse than having to uproot to California before the ink on the adoption papers is even dry, because of the old man's coughcough "business interests?" Having to enrol in Freshman year despite bing old enough to be a... what do the Merkins call second year? Sophomore

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[nothinglikea]

She was here. He can smell it. Maybe she's still here. Maybe.

The boy is skinny and shifty-looking; it's hard to tell with teenagers, but he's hard up against "scruffy" and edging into "homeless."
(Leah might be better suited than many to recognize it.) He has a backpack, though, which means he must belong in here, right?

He grins at her, brightly, his eyes lost behind sunglasses that are far too big for his face and totally unnecessary at the moment. "Hey, have you seen Alice?"

(They wouldn't take her name away right oh God what if they took her name?!) The grin widens.

[notricksyet]

"Alice?"

She's already saying it to herself as she turns around, glancing at him for the briefest of seconds before her gaze flicks to his backpack and back to him. She does that a lot, hardly aware that they won't keep still.

But there's a wicked wicked grin because she knows she's not going to be able to prevent herself saying it, even if she wanted to. So she might as well ride it out.

"Who the fuck is Alice?"

[nothinglikea]

The accent throws him; it's Alice's accent.

And she's blonde.

He would know what Alice looks like, wouldn't he? It's been a long time.

Oh God.

His own grins spreads, manicker and manicker, and he lounges against the wall, impossibly boneless and gracelessly graceful. "She's a student here." Maybe. "Blonde? Foster kid? You don't know her?"

[notricksyet]

"I'm new, man," Leah says. Her grin doesn't spread to her eyes - in fact, it hardly makes it to her upper lip, making the expression itself a sarcastic one. She hitches the edge of her Liverpool shirt over her wrist in order to dig her hand casually into the pocket of her combat trousers - her keyring is a heavy metal ball and she's getting into the habit of turning it over in her fingers when she feels the need for a security blanket.

"I don't know anyone from anyone. Honest."

[nothinglikea]

"Oh."

He bounces off from the wall, shoving himself inartfully with his elbows. (The jacket he wears is dark green and baggy, but the sleeves are too short, and the elbows are already fraying from that particular trick.) He stretches impressively; it highlights how skinny he is, his shirt riding up over a hollow stomach and the planes of his hips, and that his backbone is apparently made of rubber.

"Well, um, if you... meet her, can you tell her, Bruno is looking for her?" There's a very brief hesitation before he gives his name.

[notricksyet]

"Yeah," Leah says, although there's a hesitation before she says it that might be a hint of reluctance. Her smirk disappears as she nips her lower lip, eyes flicking over him for the umpteenth time.

"What d'you want her for?"

[nothinglikea]

He pauses, looking back, and bites at one of his nails, absently; there's a smiley mushroom tattooed on the knuckle of his finger there, one of the little Mario ones. "She's my sister," he says, without hesitation anywhere, like an arrow fired out of a bow. "She--forgot something. So I'm looking for her, that's all."

He's dimly aware that he may not be doing the best job with his cover.

[notricksyet]

He's not. And, sadly, he picked the wrong person to fake such a cover with.

One of Leah's eyes - the left, as if it matters - narrows, like a twitch that forgets to right itself. Maybe she believes the sister story, maybe she doesn't. The problem is, it makes no difference.

"What?" She asks dryly. "What did she forget?"

[nothinglikea]

His shoulders hunch as he fumbles in his coat for cigarettes, then remembers where he is. The grin, that greasy huckster grin, doesn't go anywhere, and his eyes are still shielded behind the dark lenses; if he's looking for an exit, it's not visible.

"Herself," he says, with a sort of sorry barking laugh. Rapid fire:

"Memory is a funny thing I think you know people will say I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached but I've never done that I'm very careful about it, generally, but of course back home you can't just leave them laying around with her around, taking them off everyone, and anyway, the more time passes the more he takes and I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, I've told him I'm sorry that we tried to cheat him, but he doesn't care, you know, because he's time and he's--"

"What's the word? Starts with an M?"

[notricksyet]

Leah tilts her head, curiosity staying her flight reflex. She's rocked back slightly on one foot, but the action stills.

She followed his hands as he fumbled. She now glances back up to his face, puzzled.

"Dunno," she says.

"Where's home t'you?"

[nothinglikea]

"Imperial," he says, frowning. "No. That's not it." His attention flicks back to her, the frowning deepening now.

"I used to live with the Duchess. And then Oxford. I don't really--"

"I come and go," he says, breezily, the grin re-establishing itself for a moment, but it lapses.

[notricksyet]

Alright, conclusion reached. Perhaps jumped to, but she doesn't stop to think about that.

She never stops to think about anything.

"What's Alice's last name?"

Leah's tone isn't soft, but any defensiveness that was there is gone.

[nothinglikea]

"I don't know," he says, and the grin does come back, bright and almost painful for him, with another one those lost little laughs.

"If I knew I could find her, I think, but they change it. They move her around like a, like a knight on a chessboard and I'm always one step behind. She's not, you know." Earnest.

"She's nothing like a knight at all."

[notricksyet]

Leah can't see his eyes behind those shades, but she looks up and meets her own all-too-old gaze in the glass.

"Where're you staying?"

She wants to turn away and get back to her day. She wants to get the fuck away from that grin that reaches right around and tugs on the hairs on the back of her neck. She want an excuse, any excuse, to tell herself that he's Not Her Problem and get on with being a Normal School Girl.

She fucking can't, and it irritates her. Now it's her first day and she's signing up for Babysitting The Crazy.

[nothinglikea]

He glances down at his ratty shoes. Muttered: "Not much good at this, am I?"

But when he looks back up the grin hasn't gone anywhere. "Dunno. There's a place downtown but it didn't look real friendly. Bars on the windows and a big crucifix on the door, you know? Probably have to sing for your supper."

"I'll figure something out. "

He hasn't been here long enough to know that Sunnydale is a bad town to spend the night on the streets in.

[notricksyet]

"Nope."

Leah rolls her eyes, irritation rising to the surface as she relaxes.

"Fuck, man. I've got things to do. Listen, the crazy religious places usually give good scratch once you're in. You just need to convince them you're clean. Can you do that?"