Hey Guys!
Firstly, I'd just like to note that I'm glad to hear that Percy's little shoelace experience seems realistic, since this is a human AU and I don't want things to seem like something out of a Disney show.
This chapter's title is from Weirdo by Skylar Grey.
Enjoy!
- M
P.S. I do not own any of the below characters, including those from Oliver Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest. The play also has nothing to do with the story's plot line - it was just one of my favourite units in English class.
By the time Annabeth arrived to her English class, curiosity was spewing out if her ears. If it wasn't for her own pride and fear, she would've cornered that little shit a long time ago. However, that did not stop her surprise when she noticed Drew's worried expression.
"Annie, are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she snapped at the girl. "And I told you not to call me that."
Drew raised an eyebrow at Annabeth's attitude but asked no questions as they sat next to each other in the front row. The teacher, Mr. Blofis, was scribbling notes on the board as people piled into the class. Drew must've realized that Annabeth was in no mood to talk, so she took out her mirror and applied a thick layer of bright pink lip gloss, smacking her lips loudly in satisfaction. Annabeth groaned internally at the sound and proceeded to face the door, waiting for the last of the students to come in. Her gut dropped when she saw that familiar ratty blue hooded boy lumbering into the room, grinning widely at his dorky friend, who was hunched over from laughter. When the boy turned and caught her eyes, his grin dropped before he tore himself away from her view.
That was the first time I've ever seen his face, she realised, frowning. She wondered how she never noticed him before, even though they seem to have so many classes together. She looked back and saw him drop himself onto the seat in the very back corner, his face falling quickly onto the desk. She bit her lip to avoid smiling at his behaviour.
Despite her head telling her to stop staring, she decided that he was a lot more interesting than she thought. It was funny; just yesterday he was nothing more than an amusing story. Now he was her biggest mystery. She wondered just how long she could keep that curious little cat inside of her alive - her pride seemed to be failing her, and she knew very well that nothing good would come out of that.
Mr. Blofis cleared his throat and Annabeth quickly turned to face him. To her left, she could feel Drew's perfectly made up eyes squint at her suspiciously. Annabeth just shrugged in response, facing forward.
"Good afternoon class. Today, we will be starting the first act of The Importance Of Being Earnest. I hope all of you brought your copies of the play?"
The class began to rustle through their bags in search of the book. Annabeth, being the organized person she naturally was, already had her copy in front of her. The boy in the back, however, scrunched up his nose in confusion before his face paled.
"Percy, is there a problem?"
Sixteen pairs of eyes turned to look at an abashed Percy, who found sudden interest in the surface of his desk.
"I, uh, I don't have a copy," he mumbled, turning red.
"And why's that?" Mr. Blofis asked, unimpressed.
"I don't know," the boy stammered. "I had it before, I was sure... And now I don't."
The class laughed whilst Annabeth, now filled with a strange anger towards the snickering idiots, rummaged through her bag to find her own personal copy of the play, holding it up. Originally, she took it in case Drew decided to carry nothing more than her make up bag (which happens more often than it should), but since Drew actually brought her copy, Annabeth didn't see the problem with giving it someone else.
"Mr. Blofis, I have a spare copy. He can use it if he wants to," she offered. She turned around looking at Percy, whose eyes glinted as if he was about to cry. She stood up and walked over to his desk, smiling as she handed the book to him. He mumbled a quick 'thank you', blushing aggressively. Mr. Blofis smiled at her, nodding in approval.
"Thank you, Annabeth. Percy, please make sure you bring your own copy next time."
Percy nodded, biting his lip, as the class snickered at his expense.
"We will begin by reading the act aloud as a class and discussing it at the end. On the board, I've noted which person will read which character. Luke, you will be Algernon."
Next to her, the teen smiled smugly, pushing his large framed glasses up his nose and winking at Annabeth. She suppressed the urge to gag and winked back, as all good girlfriends should.
"Travis, you can act as Ernest," Mr. Blofis continued as the said boy shrugged and started looking over his lines. "And lastly, Percy - you're Lane."
"More like Lame," snickered Ethan, one of Luke's friends. Luke smirked and turned to him.
"It makes sense that Prissy is the servant, doesn't it?" he commented as the rest of the class burst into laughter. Percy sunk into his seat, covering his face with the book. Annabeth waited for him to pull his usual clown moves and embarrass himself further, but Percy seemed out of it. Mr. Blofis cleared his throat and looked at her.
"Annabeth, could you be the narrator?"
The blonde nodded and looked at her lines.
"Well then, let's begin. Annabeth, please start us off."
Another nod, then an intake of breath.
"Lane is arranging afternoon tea on the table, and after the music has ceased, Algernon enters."
She turns to Luke waiting for him to start off the act with his line as Algernon. He lifted his head up high, and in an obnoxiously fake British accent, he started "Did you hear what I was playing, Lame?"
The class giggled as they turned their heads towards Percy. The raven haired boy looked hard at his lines, but didn't say anything, until Mr. Blofis called out his name.
"Percy? Are you having a hard time reading the lines?"
"Uh, uhm, no, sorry," he mumbled quickly. "I was just... far away."
"Well, Percy, if you could please get back down to Earth and say your line, I would be very pleased."
The boy nodded and looked back down at the play. Once again, his brows furrowed in concentration and he stared at the line.
"I-I didn't... uh, uhm, think... it, it, ugh - it'd - shoot," he mumbled, almost drowning in his chair, face redder and redder with each word. "May I be excused?"
"Is there a problem Percy?" Mr. Blofis asked, looking worriedly at the boy.
"He was born a problem, Mr. B," Luke muttered, causing those around him to laugh harshly. Percy looked round before dropping the book and running out of the classroom. Just as he left, the class roared in laughter, some people laughing so hard that they had to double over. Annabeth wanted to scream at them for laughing so much, wanted so fucking badly to wipe those smiles and smirks off of their faces, but was stopped by Mr. Blofis' clap of hands which signaled the class to quiet down. The teacher then proceeded to cast Percy's dorky friend - Grover, if she remembered correctly - as Lane. The class continued as if nothing happened, and the whole time Annabeth was sitting on her hangs to keep herself from ripping off that stupid smirk off of her boyfriend's face.
She instead focused on the dark, wooden door, waiting for it to swing open and for that ratty blue hoodie to appear in front of her once again, or for Mr. Blofis -that fucking teacher, honestly - to at least go and look for his own damned student, but nothing happened.
The second the bell rang, mouths started flapping at about a hundred miles an hour. Within five minutes, word of today's English class had spread like the plague - everybody wanted dirt on the oh-so-famous badly nicknamed Percy Jackson. Annabeth of course wasn't having it and shrugged off anyone who wanted to talk about it. Luke grabbed her arm and spun her around look at him, only to be greeted with eyes colder than ice and darker than the abyss itself.
"What?" she spat, venom dripping off of her voice. Luke raised an eyebrow.
"What's your problem?" he asked. "You don't actually care about the guy, do you?"
"No, but doesn't mean that you should be such a dick towards him!" she shouted, causing everybody around them to stop gossiping and look at the couple. Drew tried to pull Annabeth away from her boyfriend but from the look in his eyes, Luke was ready to argue.
"Listen, Princess," he hissed. "I'm just preparing him for his own future. He'll never add up to anything, and I'm just making sure that he finds that out early rather than late."
Annabeth's hands curled into fists and she wanted to scream that no, he was incredibly good at chemistry, but she shut her mouth and walked past him instead. She wasn't interested in ruining her rep for sticking up for someone like him. And despite this one good mark, she knew nothing else about him. It could've been a fluke, she tried to convince herself, but didn't believe it. Still, today was the first time she'd ever properly noticed him after being in high school together for two years and two months.
She kept walking, avoiding people's whispers, and as she turned the corner and headed back towards Mr. Blofis' classroom, she heard Luke shout
"You're a fucking weirdo, you know that Annabeth?!"
Angry tears welled up in her eyes as she stormed into the now empty class room and towards Percy's vacant desk. She picked up his bag and her copy of the play, stuffing it into the front pocket of the backpack. She saw his test mark once again, more clearly this time, and stared for a while before zipping the bag closed and sitting herself on the table.
Weirdo? Ha, she thought humourlessly. So I say what I actually think for once, and I'm the weirdo?
It was then that she decided that being fake was something that people actually accepted, and that people didn't like knowing what was actually on your mind.
It was also the first time she'd ever considered dropping her act, but by the time her rational side took over and told her to keep herself together, the classroom door opened.
So much for normality.
Just so y'all know, Luke is a hipster. I figured he wasn't really a jock in my head, so instead he's just cool, level-headed, fashionable and pretty much uninterested in everyone except his frisky girlfriend.
Keep me posted on anything you gotta say on this little thing over here ;)
- M