KRYO // An Empires SMP Highschool AU

~2~

Scott POV-

The first thing he saw when he walked into homeroom was Lizzie stood to the side with a boy with messy dark blonde hair and brown eyes. She was quietly pointing at different things and people- for example, pointing some of the seats, and then gesturing to FWhip and Gem- and whispering to him.

"D'you think that's her brother?" Joel asked, appearing out of nowhere.

"JESUS- Joel!" Scott elbowed him playfully. "You scared the life out of me."

"That was the intention." The brunette said with a grin.

"To answer your question, probably, yes. You want to go introduce ourselves?" He asked, glancing at Joel.

"I mean, yeah. Make a good first impression, you know? Come on-" Joel pushed past him, tripping over his own feet and getting hit in the stomach by one of the desks. He sunk to the ground with an 'oof', wincing slightly. "When did that get there?"

"That desk's been there since we started the school." Scott said, adding wryly, "I'm honestly impressed that you didn't hit your head, Joel."

"Haha, so funny." Joel snapped crossly, getting to his feet.

"It was pretty funny." Scott said, grinning. "Now come on, let's go meet Lizzie's brother."

"Ohhhh right, he's here now." Joel muttered. Raising his voice, he shouted, "Hey, Lizzie! Over here!"

Lizzie looked towards him with a smile, saying something to her brother and leading him over.

"Hey guys!" The pink haired girl said brightly, glancing between the two. "Oh- this is my brother! Jimmy!"

Jimmy waved with a wary smile. "That would be me, yes. Hello, nice to meet you both!"

"Nice to meet you too." Joel glanced at Scott. "I'm Joel."

"Oh, you're Joel?" Jimmy said curiously. "I see..."

"What? Has Lizzie been talking about me?" Joel asked, ever so slightly too eager. "What did she say?"

"She said that you're-" Jimmy's sentence was cut off as Lizzie clapped a hand over her brother's mouth.

"-a friend of mine!" The girl finished hastily, her gaze shooting daggers at her brother. She slowly removed her hand from Jimmy's mouth with a warning look.

"Well, I'm Scott. Nice to meet you, I guess." Scott said with a shrug.

"Nice to meet you too, Scott!" Jimmy said, slightly more wary than before.

"Who's this then?" A voice sneered. "I haven't seen you before."

Scott swore internally, turning around to face a boy with eternally messy bright red hair.

"Xornoth." He said through gritted teeth. "Nice to see you."

Completely ignoring his brother, Xornoth watched with one eyebrow raised as Lizzie tried to edge in front of Jimmy. "I asked a question, Liqua-Drai." Scott's brother was the only person he knew who could make someone's last name sound like a bad word.

"...my brother." She said quietly, narrowing her eyes as Jimmy peeked over her shoulder. Scott noticed that Jimmy was rather short, shorter than his sister and almost the shortest in the room.

He wasn't quite the shortest in the room- Joel was still and always would be the shortest.

"Since when did you have a brother?" Xornoth asked, rolling his eyes.

"Since she was born?" Joel said wryly. "So, now that you know what you wanted to know, would you mind leaving us alone?"

"I'd watch the way you're speaking to me." Xornoth said quietly, narrowing his eyes as he looked Jimmy up and down. "Another Liqua-Drai. The last thing we needed. We already had your sister dragging the good name of this school into the dirt, and now you as well?"

"Hey, hey, hang on, Lizzie's one of the top students here- what are you on about, mate?" Joel demanded, glaring.

"Also, if you wouldn't mind, LD is a common abbreviation of our surname- use that instead of embarrassing yourself trying to pronounce it." Jimmy added with a falsely sympathetic smile, the bubbling curiosity that had been painted on his face vanishing the moment his sister had been insulted.

"Excuse me?" Xornoth snapped.

"You heard me, genius." Jimmy muttered. Raising his voice, right as the bell rang he asked, "Now, where did you say my first class was Lizzie?"

"Oh- follow me. You're following my timetable till you get your own, so..." Lizzie lead Jimmy out of the classroom, turning down the corridor that led to the Geography, Spanish and History classrooms.

Scott and Joel waited for them to leave, and then watched as Xornoth left, Scott's brunette companion taking the opportunity to shoot a glare at the redhead's back and mutter rebelliously under his breath.

"Calm down, Joel. Being that upfront doesn't work with Xornoth. You need to be sneaky about it." Scott explained.

"How so?" His friend queried, looking slightly more interested.

"Oh, you know, the odd sly insult here and there, 'accidentally' bumping into him in the hallway, and just slowly escalating everything over time." Scott shrugged. "He's left everyone I've taught that alone. Except me, obviously." The blonde shrugged.

"Got it. If he's mean to Lizzie again though... lets just say, I hope you're not too fond of how your brother looks without a broken nose." Scott smiled slightly.

"If I wouldn't get suspended- or potentially expelled- for it, I'd break his nose myself." He said with a shrug. "Now come on- we'll be late to Biology."

"Oh, crap-" Joel hastily grabbed his bag, which he had put down at some point, and turned to leave. In his rush to get out of homeroom, he walked directly into the same desk as before with a dull thud, slamming his knee into it by accident. He let out a rather impressive string of curses, one Scott was sure he would've gotten a detention for if there was a teacher around. "This blumming table, I swear to god-"

The brunette kicked the desk, letting out a high pitched yelp as he did so- the impact had clearly hurt more than Joel had anticipated.

"I'm sure you've taught the desk a lesson." Scott said with an affectionate roll of his eyes. "Now come on- let's get to Biology before the desk goes for you again."