Author's Note: I do not own Class of the Titans or any of its characters.
Summary: It's been a few weeks since Atlanta was genuinely happy since her boyfriend dumped her. Archie decides to cheer her up, despite knowing why Atlanta is upset. Question is, can he do it? One-shot. AxA.
Pairing(s): Atlanta x Archie.
Rated K+. There is barely any foul language in the story.
"She looks sad," Odie mutters quietly as he looks across the room. Sure enough, everyone sitting around the table with him looks up from their lunch to look at the girl across the cafeteria. "We should try to cheer her up," he announces as he puts his fork down, his appetite gone.
Herry shrugs, raising a brow. "Why don't you?" Herry asks, chewing slightly on his sandwich.
"We're not that close," Odie says, shrugging. He pushes his tray of food towards Herry, the only one at the table who seems to have an appetite even after seeing their friend in such a mess. Shortly afterwards, everyone else pushed their tray towards him, losing their appetites as well.
Neil puts his mirror into his pocket before turning to Theresa. "Why don't you go have one of those girl talks with her?" he asks.
"She won't tell me anything," Theresa hisses back as she crosses her arms. "It's been a month since Miles dumped her. I want her to move on, but she simply can't."
"And how does that stop you from talking to her?" Neil asks as he swipes a carton of non-fat milk from his tray that was in front of Herry.
"Well," Theresa explains, "when girls talks to other girls, there's a code of honor applied because girls are like sisters to one another."
"So it's like the bro code, right?" Odie asks, trying to comprehend and understand what she was trying to say.
"Kind of," Theresa says, shrugging. "We keep it between us because we're like sisters. And if I ask Atlanta anything, you three will try to get answers out of me. So there's no point to even ask her. Besides, she won't tell me anything anyway."
Before any of them could ask her any more questions, two more boys sat down at their table.
Jay raises his brow when he saw Atlanta sitting alone at her table. "Is she still-"
"Yup," Odie replies automatically, not even bothering to let Jay finish his sentence.
Archie frowns. "I want to kick Miles' ass so much just for her sake," he mutters. Suddenly, he felt his leg tingling. He could use his whip on Miles... but then he shook that thought of of his head. If it could do some damage on Cronus, it would do a lot worse on a mortal.
"Violence doesn't solve anything," Neil mutters as he swipes an apple from the many trays in front of Herry.
Herry scowls as he watched the blond take a bite of his apple. "If that's so, then why are we always fighting Cronus?"
Archie ignores his friends. "We have to help her get over him."
Theresa sighs, rolling her eyes. If they were girls, they would understand that a girl only gets over a guy after watching chick-flicks, a lot of chocolate ice cream, and getting rid of everything she has that reminds her of him. Or help the girl get a new guy in her life. One or the other.
"We thought about it but it's not that easy," Odie says, adjusting his glasses.
Archie stood up. "That's it. I'm going to cheer her up. If you guys aren't going to do it, I will because someone has to do it."
They all watched their purple haired friend storm off with a shocked and puzzled look written on all of their faces.
Theresa lets out a sigh before blowing a strand of hair out of her face. She knew that it was going to be hard for anyone, let alone Archie, to cheer Atlanta up.
She already knew the real reason why Miles broke up with Atlanta and she also knew why Atlanta was grouchy. But because of their friendship, she couldn't tell the guys anything. And that was why she made up excuses to not go and ask Atlanta anything.
-x-
"Hey," Archie says as he slides into a seat next to her.
She looks up at him and narrows her eyes. "What do you want?" she spats, not caring about how cold and venomous her tone was.
"I wanted to see if you're-"
"Look, I don't want to talk to anyone right now. Especially you."
He swallows nervously before running his hand through his hair many times. "I care about you, Atlanta. I-"
"Oh, really?" she says coldly as she stood up, swinging her backpack over her shoulder. "So now you care?"
"What's that suppose to mean?" he shouts, his anger quickly rising.
She shrugs. "Nothing. Now, if you excuse me-"
"I just want to see if you want to hang out or something," he says nervously, swallowing once again.
Her scowl quickly disappears and was replace with a softer, more touched look. "Really?"
"Really," he says sincerely. "It's been a while since you've been outside your room and school."
She raises a brow at him before nodding. "But the second I don't enjoy anything, I'm walking home."
-x-
"So, where are we going?" Atlanta asks, trying to hide the small amount of excitement that she had.
"The definition of a secret is that you can't tell anyone about it. That's why it's a secret," he says, grinning. He was focused on the road, trying to make sure that he wasn't going to do any damage to Theresa's car.
"You're so unfair," she says coldly as she crosses her arms.
He couldn't help but chuckle. "We're almost there," he says, glancing at the clock on the car's radio. It had taken them an hour to get to where he wanted to take her to go to.
She glances to her right to see that he was pulling up to and her small smile quickly vanished. A scowl soon appears on her face.
Noticing how tense and stiff she quickly became, he turns to look at her. "Are you alright?"
"Why did you bring me here?" she demands, causing him to inch away from her.
"We always hang out here," Archie says, grinning. His grin quickly disappears when he noticed that she didn't smile at all. "What's wrong, Atlanta? It's just mini-golf."
She glares at him and immediately shouts, "'What's wrong'? 'What's wrong'? I'll tell you 'what's wrong', Archie. Taking me here, that is."
"But... we always have fun here," Archie says, a bit afraid that the girl might rip his head off.
"It was also where you-" she suddenly stops.
"Where I what?"
"Never mind. Come on, let's go." She opens the door to her side and got out quickly, slamming the door behind her, hard.
"Did I do something wrong?" he asks out loud. "It's just mini-golf."
-x-
"You know, you haven't said anything since we've got here," Archie says as he pulls out a golf club.
"What's there to say?" she asks, shrugging at him.
He raises a brow. "How about, 'thank you Archie for getting the guy who owns this place to let us in so late'. Hmm?"
"Thanks," she replies hastily.
"It doesn't sound like you mean it though," he says, trying to get her to giggle. "Okay, are you mad at me?"
"Yes-No. I don't know," she says, hitting the golf ball in front of her very hard. The ball quickly flies over the course and splashes into the pond of another course.
"What did I ever do to hurt you?" Archie asks, very confused.
"What didn't you do?" she replies.
"But-what? Why are you blaming me for your break up with Miles?"
"Because it's your fault that I ever gotten with Miles in the first place and it's your fault that he broke up with me."
"Look, Atlanta. Just because you're mad and upset about your break up doesn't allow you to blame it on other people who cares about you."
"You care about me?" She lets out a shrill "Ha!" before crossing her arms. "As if."
"I do care about you," Archie says, crossing his arms. "I've never stopped caring about you. It's one of the reasons why we're even at this place at night."
"You just see me as a charity case," she replies, shrugging.
"Atlanta, I see you as someone I truly care about from the bottom of my heart," he replies, folding his arms against his chest. "Why are you so mean to me?"
She twirls around, aiming the golf club at his face, causing him to quickly tense up. "Because."
"That's not a legitimate answer," he replies, swallowing nervously. The last thing he wanted was to receive a black eye and explain to his friends that Atlanta gave it to him. It would mean social suicide.
"Because I liked you all along," she replies, throwing the golf club to the ground before storming off. He stares at her, bewildered.
"She liked me all along?" he mutters, very confused. His heart was pounding rapidly, but he ignored it as he ran after her.
-x-
"Can we talk?" he asks as they were driving to the brownstone. It has been half an hour and the two of them hasn't spoken a word since.
"There's nothing to talk about," she replies calmly, keeping her eyes focused on the road. She was making sure that she didn't look at him the entire ride home.
"You think you can lay it all on me about how you like me and that it's my fault that you and Miles broke up weeks ago and then decide to not talk about it?" he snaps, sneaking glances at her as he tried to focus on the road. "You're being selfish, Atlanta."
"And you're being a jerk."
"All I've been trying to be today was try to be your friend," he says as he slams on the break after the lights turned from yellow to red. "That's all."
He turns to notice that she was crying now. He was shocked. The Atlanta he knew would never cry. She was always the tough girl that he knew and cared about. "Atlanta?"
"Miles dumped me and Theresa was the only person who knew why he dumped me," Atlanta admits after wiping her eyes with a tissue that he handed her.
"Uh-huh," he says, nodding. He notices that the red light was once green and he quickly put his foot on the gas pedal. "Why did he break up with you?"
"Because he thought there was someone else in the picture," Atlanta says quietly.
"Who?"
"You."
"Me?" Archie looks at her with a puzzled look on his face. "Why?"
"Because we were always hanging out and stuff. Everyone always thought that we were going to become a couple. Apparently, he also thought so too." She looks at him before blowing her nose into the tissue. "I had thought so too..."
"What do you mean?"
"I thought you were going to ask me out the last time we were at the mini-golf place," she says, jerking her thumb behind her to indicate the place they had just left.
"Really?"
She nods sheepishly before saying, "But then you told me that you heard that Miles had a crush on me and told me to go out with him. That's when I knew."
"Knew what?"
"That you only saw me as a friend."
"I don't only think of you as a friend, Atlanta."
"But you know it's true," Atlanta says quietly.
"Atlanta, I always liked you. But you were so, so oblivious to my feelings that I tried to move on."
"I guess I was late, huh?" she says, hiccuping now. "Miles broke up with me when I couldn't stop talking about all the memories I had with you. He told me that we weren't meant to be together because I was meant for someone else."
He looks at her. "I'm sorry."
She shakes her head. "Can we just not talk about it anymore?"
He nods, despite not wanting to stop talking about it. For the rest of the car ride, it was silent.
-x-
"I'm sorry about everything," Archie says as he opens the door to the brownstone. He felt terrible after realizing that it was his fault for everything that happened. He technically was the one who did tell her to go out with Miles, when he should have told her that he had feelings for her.
"It's alright," Atlanta says quietly as she walks in. She threw herself onto the long couch that was facing the TV n the living room and closed her eyes. She was too lazy to walk to her room.
"No, it's not alright," Archie says as he closes the door quietly behind him. He didn't want to wake Athena up. The last time someone had woken Athena up, she had forced them to do all of the chores that she would have normally done for them. "I should have told you that I liked you instead of giving up and giving you mixed signals and what not."
"Well, it's too late for that," she says quietly. "Just give it a rest, Archie. I'm not mad at you anymore. I thought I was mad at you, but I'm more mad at myself. I let myself believe that you rejected me and didn't think of me as anything but a friend."
He sits down next to her, looking at her face as she slowly drifts off to sleep. "But I don't just think of you as a friend. In fact, I never stopped thinking of you as more than friends... I-" He stops himself. His palms started to feel sweaty and clammy, his heart started to pound quicker, and he started to attack his hair, raking his hand through it. "I-I-I-"
"Archie."
"Hmm?"
"Just stop."
He raises a brow and looked at her nervously. He started to stutter, "B-B-But I really l-l-like-"
She quickly pulled his face down towards hers and kissed him right then, cutting his stuttering off. He quickly kissed her back after his shock worn off.
She pulls away quickly and says, "Well, that cheered me up. It's been something I always wanted to do whenever I was with you. Now what were you trying to tell me?" She raises a brow at him, grinning for once.
He lets out a nervous chuckle. "Well, you see... I like you, Atlanta. Whenever I'm with you, I'm pretty sure I'll just go even more and more gaga over you." His face was a few centimeters away from hers, their noses touching.
"Well, I'm pretty sure that you've been crazy about me all along," Atlanta says coyly, smirking.
"Really?"
"Really."
"I guess you're right, Atlanta," he says before craning his neck just a bit to kiss her again.
They never noticed a certain redhead that was standing in the hallway, eavesdropping on their conversation.
-x-
"What's with the smug look on your face?" Neil asks, after walking out of his room to notice Theresa walking towards him with a grin on her face. He was thirsty and wanted to get a glass of water before heading back to bed.
"He finally opened his eyes," Theresa says, grinning still. She was happy that Atlanta and Archie were finally together and she was extremely happy that Archie finally realizes that Atlanta had always liked him all along.
"What?"
"It's a girl thing," Theresa says before shrugging. She gives him another grin when she noticed the confused look on his face. "Oh, you'll never understand." She gives him a wink before walking off.
Neil stood there, confused. He shakes his head and slowly walks towards the living room to head to the kitchen.
A few seconds later, someone shouted, waking up the entire neighborhood.
"GET A ROOM!"
A/N: And as always, Neil gets to steal the last line of this story. But that's because he's Neil. He deserves it because he's GOLDEN BOY!
Hehe, sorry for the long chapter. I didn't want to post this in more than one chapter. As I was trying to make it as short as possible, I had to add more because I got into my writing funk... O.O Anyway...
Comment/Review? It'll be much appreciated.