Disclaimer: Nope

A/N: HOLY CRACK BATMAN.

Hope you enjoy, and please note that there are a bunch of referenced places in here that you won't know about unless you live in California or watch lots of Man vs Food.

BY THE WAY. I MADE A TUMBLR. NSFW, BUY GO FOLLOW ME, I'M LINKED ON MY PROFILE PAGE AND I'M REBLOGGING HALF TO HELL AND TRYING TO POST NOTHING BUT SLASH. HNNNNG.

pairings: US/f!Eng, Ger/Russ. f!England doesn't look like Igiko, cuz Igiko looks like a moron. f!China is Yue Wang.

chapter 1

So there's either something wrong with Jones or there's something wrong with Ivan's eyes, but whatever the case is, Jones stands frozen by the entrance to the cafeteria with a Look on his face. And Ivan, having known Jones for as long as he has, knows that the Looks are kept for three and only three occasions:

One, he fell in love. (Only happened once, with Ivan's cousin, and it was the most awkward thing ever when Nat dumped him for that Japanese kid.)

Two, he got a surprise boner. (Like, in-the-middle-of-math-class surprise. But Ivan has to admit that Miss Wang is one hot bitch.)

Three, he ate a turkey burger. (Not even Hole in the Wall burgers are good enough to prevent Looks when this happens.)

Ivan makes a mental checklist, and the obvious lack of the latter two options (no tent in Jones' pants and the school's got something against healthy food, really, because even the salads come with 300-calorie dressing, so no turkey burgers) mean that it's the first scenario.

He follows Jones' gaze to - oh, hello, who's that?

Now, Ivan's totally flaming, right, but he's got an eye for beauty and he can't deny that beauty is one thing that the new girl's stocked up on. She is one hot piece of ass, with slim curves and pouty pink lips and light blond hair held back off her face with a few crossed Bobby pins. Her eyebrows, uncharacteristically dark on her face, stand out as much as her acid-green eyes, and she wears a lovely cream sweaterdress and a bored expression even though she's got most of the school watching her grab some of the more-edible-looking food from the lunch line.

Ivan whistles low and punches Jones in the arm. "She's hot, man," he agrees, and Jones trembles.

"Who is she?" he asks, awestruck and perfectly pliant as Ivan shoves him toward the line. "I've never seen her before. And I've never slept with her. But she's too hot to have been in this school and avoided the Jonezilla. Or the Frenchman. But the Frenchman would've told me if he -"

"You're babbling. Shut up," replies a cheery Ivan, pushing a tray into Jones' hands.

"You shut up, queer-o. And hold my spot, bro, I gotta talk to - hey, hands off!" Jones cuts off with a whine, and glares at Ivan. "What the hell?"

"Gg," Ivan remarks with a shake of his head as Liz Hedervary stands and strides over the the blonde girl, a wide smile on her face. "G-fuckin-g."

"Goddammit," groans Jones, looking like he has half a mind to go talk to the new girl anyway, but The Rules simply cannot be disobeyed.

The Rules are basically Saint Justine's codes of conduct, which are so important that the "the" gets capitalized and the entire thing underlined even in speech. A copy of it sits in the library, between the trig textbooks and the AP Physics Princeton guides. You can't got to Saint Justine's and not know The Rules, just like you can't not get fries with your In-n-Out burger; if you're one of the few who don't know them then you might as well turn in your dignity and popularity then and there. But sometimes you can get away with it, because Rule 1 outweighs all others when it says to never mention The Rules.

Either way, Rule 8 is also extremely weighty. It dictates, "Members of a particular clique or status shall refrain from association with anyone outside their rank unless your union is sanctioned by The Rules. See subsection A for ranks and primary aspects of each rank and subsection B for a full list of sanctioned fraternizations. See subsection C for information on which ranks to assume in the case of a student being applicable to more than one." Subsection B's list is relatively long, and reads that Jocks can bone Cheerleaders, Cinderellas (the hot nerds, because people who dress like librarians are all sex addicts), and Gamers; that Gamers can hook up with Stoners, Techies, Jocks, and Merfolk; that Nerds can accept anything, but can't offer; and so on.

Jones and Ivan are Jocks - which, as subsection A clearly states, means that they're on football, wrestling, or hockey teams. Water sports are grouped under the rank "Merfolk", and field sports - soccer, lacrosse, etc - are "Runners".

Liz Hedervary and her crew are Dancers - which, as subsection A also clearly states, means that they're on one of the school's three dance teams or that they take dance classes or run dance clubs. See, Dancers are like Cheerleaders (a self-explanatory rank), kinda-sorta, but they're more boyish. They bridge Gamers and Hipsters, and Band Geeks and Preps, and all sorts of other unrelated ranks, but nowhere in The Rules does it say that Dancers can associate with either Cheerleaders or Jocks.

Well, unless you're the Frenchman, because the Frenchman can fuck anyone and get away with it. Because he's French, you know, and has a rank of his own: Sex Shark. It's written in The Rules, albeit in messy pink pen, and The Rules cannot be defied.

But long story short, If Liz Hedervary nabs the new girl quickly enough, Jones can throw any hope he had of getting into her pants out the window because he is a Jock and not the Frenchman.

And - shit, Liz Hedervary nabbed the new girl quickly enough. Ivan winces and pats his friend on the back as New Girl and Liz Hedervary walk off together toward the Dancers' table.

"Goddammit," Jones repeats, grabbing a basket of fries and a burger and the last pudding cup off some hapless freshman's tray. "Goddammit! Do you think Liz's gonna give the new girl a rundown? And, like, a copy of The Rules?"

"Yes," replies Ivan immediately, but he can't figure out why Liz Hedervary would ever nab a new kid so quickly. The last time she did so was when Roderich Edelstein transferred in from some Austrian high school with less-than-adequate English skills but an air of elegance around him that turned out to be the result of years of piano and dance lessons; Liz Hedervary, as dance team captain and leader of the Dancers, naturally yanked him over to her corner of the quad one day and refused to let him go.

And yes, Liz Hedervary is pure evil - so evil, in fact, that even Ivan's mind can't refrain from saying her full name every time he things of her. "Liz" sounds so gentle until you attach the demonic surname and remember that said girl is not only your typical selfish, back-stabbing, slut faced ho-bag, but also an abomination against Man and God. Or something like that, Ivan can't remember exactly what fellow Jock Gilbert Beilschmidt said because Kaltherzig. Yum.

"Hey," pouts Jones as the two of them take their regular spots at the Jock table. Ivan glances up as Jones prods him in the forehead with a banana, and are-you-kidding-mes him. "If I'm not allowed to fantasize about the new girl anymore, you're not allowed to fantasize about Kaltherzig."

(By the way, Ludwig Kaltherzig is a Stoner. But - but - guh, it's so unfair, because there's just something amazing about how Kaltherzig can smoke five joints a day and still have all A's and stay on the football team. There's just something amazing about his perfect hair and his cold blue eyes and his large hands and his eight-pack and his almost-as-tall-as-Ivan stature and the way BRAGINSKI rolls off his tongue during practice. By the way, Stoner status supercedes Jock status, which is why Ivan's schoolboy crush is illegal.)

Jones continues, "Besides - if one of us gets caught, you'll be in deeper shit. Cuz it's a guy."

"Cool story, bro."

"Should I tell it again?"

"...no."

Kaltherzig sits down across the cafeteria, sliding into place next to Jones' cousin. Ivan sighs.

As it turns out, Ivan has New Girl in his third-period class. Unfortunately, that is also the only class he doesn't have with Jones. After lunch, he enters the room and sees her standing up by Miss Wang, voice soft but British accent distinguishable amongst the hustle-bustle of other students. Must suck to move from another country halfway through the school year.

Everyone sits down, except for New Girl, who remains on her feet.

"I'm sure several of you know already that we at Saint Justine's have just recently begun an exchange program," says Miss Wang, smiling amiably - except that her expression is, once you look carefully enough, really just thinly-conceiled malice. "Miss Kirkland here is the first of many. Please introduce yourself."

New Girl attempts a smile - at least, Ivan thinks she does - but it turns out crooked, with only one side of her thin pink lips twisting up. "Hullo. I'm Eleanor Kirkland. It's nice to meet you all, and I hope we'll get along." The few boys other than Ivan who weren't imagining her naked probably do right then, because she has an accent and accents are sexy. "But yes. As Miss Wang said, I've just transferred in - from a school in London, as if you can't all tell from my accent."

By fourth period, the entire school knows her name.

"Eleanor Kirkland," sighs a smitten Jones. (His Georgian lilt makes even such a dull name sound sexy, and if not for that one psychological thingy about how you usually don't fall in love with people you spent your childhood with, Ivan would be all over Jones' ass just because of the accent.) "Eleanor Kirkland. Beautiful."

"Yeah, and you call me a fag," shudders Ivan.

But dull name or not, Eleanor's hot, so naturally the Frenchman hones in on her. Ivan and Jones watch from their shared locker on the other side of the hall, and Jones' face reddens steadily.

And, of course, they can't hear what the Frenchman's saying to Eleanor, but they've overheard enough conversations to guesstimate that it goes something like this:

Frenchman: Bonjour, ma chérie. Surely we have never met before - I would have remembered such a beautiful face.

Girl: /giggle giggle

Frenchman: Might I walk you to your next class?

Girl: Sure! /giggle giggle

Frenchman: -insert pickup line here that only makes the girl overeager to fuck him-

Except right now, Eleanor doesn't look like she's giggling. Actually, her face is flushing a rather unflattering strawberry color, and before anyone knows what's happening she's whacking the Frenchman with her very heavy red-binded calculus textbook.

"YOU - FUCKING - PRICK!" she screams, loud enough that everyone stops to watch. "WHY THE HELL ARE YOU HERE?"

"Ellie, s'il vous plait, not the face - just - euh!"

"DON'T CALL ME ELLIE. YOU LOST THE RIGHT TO THAT THREE YEARS AGO."

She is totally shouting, and it's the funniest thing ever because nobody shouts at the Frenchman.

Just then, the bell rings, and everyone reluctantly rushes to fourth-period, their last class before the weekend. Well, everyone except Eleanor, who apparently has an open last, because she throws a water bottle at the Frenchman's head before raging out.

"I think," starts Jones that night as he and Ivan lay sprawled on the carpet, Xbox controllers in hand as they rage through levels of Kino, "that I have a shot with Eleanor."

"You're shitting me, man," sighs Braginski. "We already had this discussion. Two times, actually."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean anything! I mean, you saw her just break Rule 24 in full view of everyone!"

Rule 24 states that the Sex Shark shall never be shamed on school grounds. Eleanor slapping the Frenchman in the face - with a textbook, no doubt - broke that rule pretty cleanly, and Ivan knows how blasphemous that is.

"And?"

"And," Jones presses, "that means that maybe she doesn't give a fuck about The Rules!"

"Liz Hedervary will."

"Who cares about her?"

"Uh, everyone that doesn't care about you?"

"Everyone who doesn't care about me or Nat, you mean."

"Don't bring my cousin into this."

"She's cheerleading captain, man! I've boned her like six -"

"LA LALALA LALALA LALALA -"

"Are you seriously singing the Tetris tune to block me out?"

"Yes. Shut up, I'm Russian. I can do this shit."

"...okay, why not. Uh, anyway, like I was saying, Nat's got a fourth of the school behind her, I've got a fourth of the school behind me, and Kiku's got a fourth of the school behind him, which means that there's only...uh, 25% of Saint Justine's that'll care if I bone Eleanor. She's too new to really be part of the Dancers anyway. All I gotta do is talk to her, and get her to like me, and we're set! It's talking to her that's the hard part, cuz Liz prolly installed laser defenses around Eleanor's house and -"

Jones is a moron, but he's Ivan's best friend and Bromantic buddy and blahblahblah. And he's too stupid to do this on his own - well, not really, but his strong points are science and history, not logic and tactics.

So Ivan groans and interrupts. "Jones, I swear to God that if this madness gets me out or outed, I will smite you." Then he stops shooting zombies and starts shooting Dempsey (because, in true Nazi Zombies style, Jones plays as Dempsey while Ivan plays as Belinski) just for good measure, but Jones is too excited to care.

"Thanks, man!" he grins even as Ivan leaves him to die at the hand of Nazi swarms.

Then the next week, they learn that yes, Eleanor is really part of the Dancers. She walks around the corridors next to Liz Hedervary, both of them donning the neon yellow DANCING QUEEN t-shirts and blinding everyone out of their way, and she performs perfectly in second-spot at the pep rally that afternoon. Second-spot is signified by her routine matching perfectly with Liz's, but for the last two years Mei Chiang's been in second-spot because she's the second-best dancer at the school, and Eleanor suddenly dancing in second-spot means that she's better than Mei Chiang even though nobody other than Liz Hedervary's better than Mei. Mei's still been bumped down to third-spot and she's paired with third-spot-who-is-now-fourth-spot, and aims a distinctly furious smile at Eleanor's back the whole time.

Jones' lip trembles as the routine ends and the pep squad come back onto the floor. "Aw, fuck," he whimpers.

Aw, fuck, indeed.

A/N: lol it's short but w/e. tell me how you liked it pl0x