It was eighth period and Eric had fallen asleep in a puddle of drool on his desk. His face throbbed painfully, but the bump on the back of his head felt like it had disappeared.

"Eric." Mr. Fox called, there was no response. "Eric, wake up."

Eric lifted his tired head to see his algebra teacher standing over him tapping his foot impatiently.

"Would you like to join us in the land of the living?" The teacher scolded

"Sorry sir, I had a late night." Eric said rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Well stop staying up all night playing video games or whatever you kids do now. Your 'late night' probably had nothing to do with the lipstick stains on your collar." The entire class giggled.

Eric didn't bother trying to explain, he knew it would only end badly for him if he tried.

"Yes sir, I'll try to limit my erm- video games to before nine o'clock."

"Now," He said approaching the board. "Would you like to attempt the problems you missed during your nap?"

Eric smiled, he knew he could handle any math problem that Mr. Fox would throw at him.

"Sure." He smirked as he picked up a blue marker from the board. He whisked through the problem with ease and sat back down at his desk.

"Very impressive." Mr. Fox said sarcastically.

Ariel smiled at him from across the room.

"How did you do that?" She mouthed

"I'll teach you." He lipped in reply.

Mr. Fox continued the lecture, lulling Eric back into his slumber on his desk. Eventually when the final bell rang he was still asleep on his desk. The class proceeded to stampede out of the room as Ariel collected her things and walked over to Eric's desk and stroked his hair gently.

"Eric," She whispered "The bell rang its time to go."

Eric groaned softly.

"Come on, Darrel is going to leave without us." She lowered her mouth to his ear.

"Alright." He sighed as he sat up and stretched. "I tutor Aggie on Tuesdays if you want to tag along. I can show you how to do the math."

"That would be nice." Ariel smiled and helped Eric to his feet, he was still a little dizzy from last nights beating. but Ariel proved to be stronger than she looked, she had caught Eric twice today, bearing his whole body weight and helping him to look like they were just being flirtatious.

"We usually do out studying at her place, but if you would be more comfortable we can find somewhere else." Eric looked sympathetic, Ariel had only met Aggie once and Aggie had pulled out a whole new level of weird when they met. Aggie kept asking the weirdest questions and implying that she was some kind of evil temptress. Eric suspected Aggie was just being a bit jealous, Eric was one of her only friends after all.

"I would really rather not be in her house if you don't mind. She's a bit..." Ariel searched for a polite word but she couldn't think of one, so she just gave Eric an odd look.

"Aggie is a bit different." Eric laughed as they walked through the main hallway and down into the parking lot where Darrel was waiting for them. He was bickering with his long time girlfriend Amber, as always; and Aggie was sitting in the back seat reading one of those weird books she liked, her mousy brown hair tucked behind her ears and her brown eye looked bright compared to the dull shade of grey of her other. Eric smiled at Ariel and slid in the middle between where Aggie was sitting and where Ariel sat.

"Hey Aggs, Ariel's gonna join us today."

"Math problems?" Aggie said absent mindedly.

"Yeah, how did you know?" Eric questioned.

"Her kind don't have a concept of numbers, they just have what they need when they need it." She said, not looking up from her book.

Ariel's face was flushed, she gave Eric an uncomfortable look and shook her head as if asking him not to ask any more questions. Eric got the message, but he still wondered what Aggie meant by "her kind". Was she calling Ariel a whore? Because that was really untrue. The lipstick stains on his collar was just a cover and today in the hallway she was just holding him up because of his dizzy spells.

"Thanks again for that whole thing with my dad Ariel." He said, trying to defuse the tension between the three of them.

"Don't worry about it, if he think's your dating me he won't be so hard on you." Ariel smiled

"You know Eric, I would have fake dated you." Aggie snapped

"Yeah, but you didn't just show up at my house and flirt with me in front of my dad."

"You didn't ask me too!"

"I didn't ask her to either." Eric said softly

"Well she obviously knows more than she lets on."

Eric was quite finished with this conversation. He was quite sure Aggie was just being jealous and Ariel shouldn't have had to suffer for it.

"I thought maybe we could study at the beach today." Eric said rubbing his tired eyes.

"Actually," Aggie tried to calm herself "I'd much rather stay away from the water, I'm feeling a bit sick. Maybe we could study at the park instead?"

"I don't see why not," Eric was just happy for the compromise. "And objections Ariel?"

"Nope." Ariel gave him a relieved smile.

Meanwhile in the front seat Amber and Darrel were still bickering back and forth about everything under the sun. Eric's head was spinning again and his head felt light and fuzzy.

"Hey guys could you like, stop yelling. I have a killer head ache." Eric groaned

"Shut up Eric!" Amber snapped "No one cares about your head issues."

"What the hell Amber? You can't just talk to my friends like they're trash!" Darrel glared as he turned the car and drove into the park parking lot.

"He IS trash Darrel! He's probably checking you out right now!"

"Oh please, Eric has been my friend since grade school you can't just expect me to shun him because he's out of the closet!"

"Okay well if you need us, we'll be at the picnic table by the swings." Aggie said as she exited the car. Eric followed and Ariel close behind him. When they made it to the table Ariel sat next to Eric who was already pulling out his notebook and the turning to the correct page in the text book.

"So the basic this with Algebra is what you do to one side, you must also do to the other, simplify the problem, you know?" He said directing most of his attention to Ariel who needed the most help.

"Sounds logical." Ariel smiled

"Yeah because you do best at logic." Aggie snorted

Eric and Ariel pretended not to hear her, though Ariel's face was an uncomfortable shade of red.

"Aggie, why don't you get your history out." Eric noticed that Amber and Darrel had gotten out of the car and Amber had began smacking Darrel around the park. "I'll be right back." Eric stood up and jogged over to where his friend was being brutalized.

Eric could be heard in the distance trying to get Amber off Darrel. Yelling "come on you guys!"

It was silent for a few moments before Aggie looked up.

"I know what you are you know."

Ariel tried her best to look confused.

"Oh don't pull that innocent face with me, I know your kind. I've been watching for one of you monsters to show up since I was three." She pointed to her grey eye. "I can see right through your glamour. You are too perfect, you fae don't understand human flaws."

"I d-don't know what you mean." Ariel tried to steady her voice.

"You know very well what I mean." Aggie breathed

Ariel looked up in worry and her face was flushed of all color.

"Look, I'm only here to learn." She said in a panic.

"Learn about what? If teenagers taste any better than sailors?"

"I find that extremely offensive, I'm a vegetarian." Ariel didn't add that it was much more likely for mermaids to use a human as a servant or even a lover.

"Ha!" Aggie laughed "Is that before or after you use your evil mermaid powers to make Eric fall in love with you and follow you in to the sea for lunch?"

"I didn't mean to make Eric have feelings for me! It just happens." Ariel snapped

"Whatever." Aggie grumbled, trying to deny Ariel's obvious honesty. "But I swear, if you hurt Eric, or Darrel or even my twit sister I will make sure I nail nine iron spikes right into your heart before the day I die!"

"I'm honestly just here to learn, if i had wanted to eat Eric, why haven't I done it yet?" Ariel asked quietly.

"Learn about what?"

"Everything. The human world is so much less..." Ariel stopped again to search for a word

"Evil? Maniacal? Inhumane? Monstrous?"

Ariel blushed. "Yes, all of that."

"Well I can't blame you. What court did you belong to?"

"Bright court."

Aggie looked amazed.

"You escaped the Bright court?" Aggie knew that prior to popular belief that the seely court was just as bad if not worse than Night court. While the Night court ran children off cliffs and kidnapped children for revenge, the Bright court kept the humans as servants and used them to build their army.

"I'm not the same as they are, I would have been destroyed eventually." Ariel looked depressed.

"I understand." Aggie said quietly "Wear this," Aggie said as she pulled a hemp bracelet from her bag. "I was going to slip it on you and enchant it to your wrist, but now that I know you aren't going anywhere quickly."

Ariel looked it over before asking what it was for.

"Its so you can't use your crazy mermaid fae power to make people fall in love with you." Aggie said tying it to her wrist. "You aren't doing one of those little 'I'm a faerie, and I can't lie to you but I can twist the truth' things are you?"

Ariel was quite impressed with Aggie's knowledge of her kind.

"No, I am in no way twisting the truth." Ariel pledged

"Do you have feelings for Eric?" Aggie stared her in the eyes

"I didn't leave those stains on his collar for no reason."

"That isn't a straight answer." Aggie snapped as Eric rejoined them

"Be nice Aggie, she scares easy." He laughed

"Did you get them settled down?" Aggie asked

"Yeah, Darrel is taking a walk and Amber is on the phone with her mom."

Ariel smiled, but she managed to send a desperate look to Aggie.

Please don't tell Eric She begged internally. Aggie seemed to get the message and sighed.

"I like the bracelet Ariel, super cute." Eric smiled as he did his best to explain the math to her.


Another chapter down.

Again I really appreciate the reviews, I try to update when I see a new review.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, even though it was mostly Ariel and Aggie bickering. The next one will have more action, promise.

Actually I'm all inspired so I'm going to go write it now.

So I'll have that posted when I see fit.

Thank you all so much!

Much Love,

Marni.