Summary:
She smiled that fake smile that he suddenly realized he hated. Did she truly dislike Betty for the childish crush he'd had on her eons ago? No… he reasoned. It was the way Betty seemed to speak to Cindy that spoke for her body language. Betty thought she was better. And it was for the first time that Jimmy realized with a strange tug on his heart, he didn't agree. (High School AU)
Disclaimer—I don't own Jimmy Neutron or any of the Nickelodeon characters just my own OC
A/N: High school AU if I had to put an age range, I'd say around 17 years old. This is a Cindy/Jimmy alternating POV. I also realize that it may be a little OOC (especially Jimmy) but in most of my stories I try to imagine a more mature dynamic between JxC. This is also a very detailed piece because I rely a lot on body language, and inner dialogue.
He was staring at her. She could feel it as her own eyes bore into her Advanced Placement Literature textbook. He was always staring at her during this class. It wasn't new but it still unnerved her, just as it had the first time she caught him. Now and after the 6th or so time he did it openly…and it baffled her.
She wasn't sure exactly why he did. Maybe it was because it was the only class he really had no interest in. He hadn't changed much since they were children. He had no patience for the arts. They had practically the same schedule, save for an elective here or there.
In Chemistry she sat two rows behind him. In Trigonometry she sat in the front, he in the corner. In AP History, she was in the middle and he by the door. But here, here he sat right next to her.
It wasn't alphabetical. He could have sat next to her in every class, had he wanted too. And in that respect he didn't have to sit next to her in this one. But he had. She'd been sitting, the first day of the semester already in her own desk now, arranging her books and her notepad, when he'd strolled in and unceremoniously dropped himself in the chair across from hers. She hadn't even time to process it before he continued a clipped argument they'd been starting two periods beforehand. The seating arrangement was forgotten, pattern became a habit, and now he sat next to her.
It was a few days in that she felt his gaze. And she hadn't even been speaking. However to be fair she did talk a lot in this class. It was her favorite. The writing captivated her. She was passionate about the authors, the poems, even the plays they read.
They didn't fight as much as they did in grade school. A snide comment here in Chemistry, a scoff or two in Latin, a glare once in French. But they certainly didn't openly gawk at one another either. Well at least she tried not too. Ms. Payette would notice from time to time. And she'd call on Jimmy to answer even though he wasn't even on the right page. Literally. He'd pull off a passing response and she'd let him be.
Afterwards he'd go back to studying her. She wondered what he could possibly be thinking. Sometimes he seemed lost in thought but others, days like today—he seemed as if he'd stumbled across a particularly interesting new fact, one he was mulling over while side eying her. Ms. Payette spoke now, and Cindy turned her attention to her teacher at the board.
"Don't forget, your peer editing assignment is due next Tuesday, I don't care who you partner up with, but no groups of three please."
The bell rang jolting her from her thoughts and she gathered her belongs and waited for him to get up and leave. When he didn't she finally met his eye.
"I'll never understand how you can correctly name the line and the meter of a Shakespeare sonnet while being open to the Canterbury Tales. "
"Eidetic memory."
"Of course" she said still not moving to stand but rolling her eyes.
"You like that poem?"
He wasn't specific, they'd read at least seven just this period but he didn't need to be. She liked them all.
"I do. I'm guessing you find fault with it, like you do all of what we read."
"Not all," he corrected.
"Excuse me then." She was going to be late.
"We" shit she cursed in her head "should get to Chem."
He nodded and with that he rose but he seemed to be waiting on her to do the same. What is he doing? She wondered, and then it dawned on her…he wants to walk out of class with me?
She fell in step beside him feeling only slightly uncomfortable. Libby who was by her locker stopped to give her a puzzled but encouraging look. Cindy nodded back at her, and stopped to retrieve her books.
"How are you?" She asked having sidled up closer when Cindy had her head in her locker.
"Well Neutron—" she began but was startled to find Jimmy had stopped walking to class as she expected and was leaning against the locker next to hers fiddling with his watch. As if this were a natural occurrence.
The warning bell rang and she grabbed her books and gave Libby a look that she hoped read, "I'm just as confused as you are" and began hurrying to class, with him in tow. They of course arrived at the same time and she was met with even more surprise as he backed up slightly so she could go in first. Not that he wasn't a nice guy. If she thought about it…he did usually let her go first. Or in front of. She was an instigator. She knew it. But he followed her. So it was his fault when they argued.
"Thanks."
He chuckled softly and moved to go to his seat. She felt a wave of disappointment and relief flood over her at once as she made her way to her own table. Class passed without incident. But it was she who found herself silently wearing a hole in the back of his head. He was in his element. And even though she'd never ever even allow herself to think it: she liked him in his element.
When the lunch bell rang, she looked up to find him by the door; he met her with a stare and with a jerk of his head motioned for her to "come on." She found her feet moving across the tile and out the door to again be walking side by side with James Neutron. He didn't speak to her and she was afraid to break the spell of silence. But when they entered the lunchroom, the dull roar of their classmates drowned it out.
Sheen waved at them from her left and she quickly paced to their table, if only to see Libby. Sliding into the seat across from her, she felt her face go slightly pink as he swung one leg over the bench next to hers. He immediately became swept up in a debate between Carl and Sheen that seemed to her like it would take a while. Libby was looking at her now with more curiosity and intrigue than this morning. Cindy wanted desperately to wipe the grin off her best friend's face, but she also had no explanation for Jimmy's albeit pleasant but odd behavior either.
What is with him today? She thought. He'd asked her if she liked something, walked with her to and from class, and was now openly sitting next to her on their lunch bench; quite close in fact.
"Cindy?"
"What?" She asked jerked from her own thoughts. Betty Quinlan was now standing at the front of her lunch table with a clipboard in her hand.
"Do you still want to be a part of the committee for formal next month, Mr. Roberts wanted me to ask everyone who was on it for homecoming in the fall."
Cindy eyed her wearily and a bit angrily. She didn't despise Betty like she did in the 6th grade but she wasn't president of her fan club either. Especially with her looking at Jimmy like that.
Even Cindy had to admit, she couldn't really blame Betty. Puberty had been kind to all three of the guys, but Jimmy in particular. He'd filled out, grown considerably and started putting more effort into his style. His hair had grown out and now into a messy mop. Of course he still had his dazzling blue eyes and arrogant smirk that Cindy couldn't help but admire.
"Yeah, sure" she replied extending her hand out for the board while checking Jimmy out of the corner of her eye. He gave no inclination that he even knew Betty was standing there. While whatever nonsense debate he'd been refereeing with Carl and Sheen came to an end he seemed to be bringing back his attention to…her?
"What's that?" he asked curiously looking at the board on the table as she scribbled her signature.
"Formal committee" she said dismissively waiting for him to look up and admire Ms. Perfect.
"You should join Jimmy." Betty said suddenly and he finally did look up at her. "It would be fun and we could always use your help with lights and effects, you know like the old days" she laughed and batted her long eyelashes.
"Maybe" he offered her. But made no effort to take the pen from Cindy's hand.
What he did next almost made Cindy Vortex fall backwards off the bench.
"Done?" He asked her before gently taking the board from her hand and handing it back to Betty. If the act itself didn't cause her to go into cardiac arrest it was how his fingers brushed against hers in an all so innocent way.
"Oh well thanks" Betty said rather breathlessly before quickly making her awkward exit.
Finally Cindy could take no more.
"What. The. Hell. Was. That?"
"What was what?" He asked his tone dripping with feigned innocence and suppressed amusement.
"This. All this morning, the walking me to class, the sitting next to me—the Betty thing!"
"We have the same class, was it that an absurd of a notion that we might walk to and from it together?"
"Maybe not, but it's not like you asked me or anything." She grumbled looking to Libby for help, who mercifully began a conversation with Sheen loud enough to at least give her the illusion of privacy.
Now he looked downright smug. "My apologies, Ms. Vortex, I wasn't aware you needed me to ask permission to now be in your immediate presence."
"Well—"
"May I then?"
"What?" She stammered.
"May I continue to sit beside you?"
"Uh… yeah" she agreed lamely.
"Good."
"And the Betty thing—" She hedged.
"I have no desire to be on any kind of formal committee."
"No" she bit back impatiently. "I've never seen you not ogle her like she's a beauty contestant and you're the one man judge."
With that he snorted "well then you haven't been paying much attention lately have you?"
"And what's that supposed to mean?" Her voice rising as the familiar tug of anger pulled on her.
"I haven't ogled Betty Quinlan since the 9th grade when she couldn't tell Ms. Batson what the chemical name of salt was. Salt Cindy."
XXXXXXX
It had started in Ms. Payette's AP Literature lecture. Or. It had started years ago. When they were mere children competing over grade school titles and long played out stereotypes.
He'd raced in and sought her out like a moth to flame. Sliding into the seat directly across from her put her in his direct line of sight. Something he realized rather early on hadn't occurred since they were the same children.
As he sat half listening to Ms. Payette croon on, he was surrounded by memories.
Their trip to Egypt.
The intergalactic game show they'd been forced contestants on.
Mars.
Their own private island.
He tried to steal glances at her discreetly. She was often distracted by the lesson anyhow. She was in her element. And in her element she was ever so intriguing.
Ms. Payette had called on him hoping to return his attention back to the material at hand, he'd obliged but not before seeing Cindy's small yet soft smile. She turned her face away and into her palm before composing her features. She was amused by him, but wanted to remain indifferent. Without knowing, or really meaning too, Jimmy began a mental bullet list of observations he obtained from being a spectator instead of a student.
Truthfully, Cindy hadn't changed much.
She still tapped her leg when she knew the answer but was refraining from participating in the group discussion.
She still took diligent notes, even though he was quite sure she knew almost all of this stuff anyhow.
She still tapped the tip of her pen to her lip when she was deeply thinking about something.
And sometimes out of the corner of her eye, she'd look at him.
It was on the third day that he found he was looking forward to AP Literature. Walking to class, he felt a small bubble of anticipation well up in his stomach.
Since when do I have the time or want for poetry? He thought exasperatedly. He was about to walk through the doorway when a familiar blonde ponytail swung into his field of vision and with it returned the glow of excitement.
"Vortex." He quickly swept over her appearance before making eye contact and giving her a small nod. She was wearing jeans, her favorites he suspected, as she seemed to cater to this pair more than her others not that he noticed. She donned a simple army green hoodie, and her bag slung over her shoulder. Her hair that now fell to her back was up today, and with it, it brought the sweet swell of nostalgia.
She nodded back, but gave no further acknowledgement. Her eyes, he suddenly noticed were red and a bit glossy, as if she'd been crying. Vortex doesn't cry. He reasoned quickly. But there was something about her very nature that day that made him pause. Turning to the side and gesturing to the frame he indicated that she should pass him.
He followed her to their seats. As he plopped into his own, he watched her distractedly do the same. She was there, but her mind was somewhere else, and he glanced at her with growing fascination. More students began to fill the seats beside and around them. A girl who sat three rows away from them, Kasey or Cassie (Jimmy couldn't be bothered to remember) sidled up quickly to her. Wordlessly she dropped a note onto Cindy's desk.
Jimmy didn't write notes. He didn't receive notes either. But he was familiar with the concept, and it was a fairly practiced hobby between the opposite sex. In fact, he'd witnessed Cindy get her own fair share of them over their identical schedules. This one, he reasoned must be different.
She didn't tear it open right away. In all actuality it looked more like the scrap of paper might bite her, than she was to read it.
Curiosity, and perhaps downright insanity caused him to question her.
"Looks like you've got mail."
She looked at him darkly.
He held up his hands in a surrender pose. "Bad news?"
"Maybe" She finally acknowledged as she began to turn the piece of notebook between two fingers.
"Who is it from?" He asked as he began to feign interest in flipping his textbook open to where they'd left off in class yesterday.
"I think it's from Julianne."
He frowned briefly. She was a tall, red headed girl a year above them and she seemed to hold some sort of high rank in Cindy's social circle. He had seen her and Cindy walk to yearbook club or whatever committee it was that Cindy seemed to find extra time to do.
"Don't you like her?"
She huffed at him impatiently.
"I don't like anyone from dance committee."
"Dance committee?" He asked her incredulously. There were times, more and more recently that Jimmy had noted similarities in Cindy and his interests.
But why on earth she'd waste her time on organizing a school function as mundane as a dance he didn't know. Now the science fair… he mused.
"Is that why you haven't opened it?"
She opened her mouth to retort or perhaps answer but was interrupted by the bell. Ms. Payette began to scribble quotes on the board and the class frantically began to copy. She flipped her own notebook open and turned her attention from him towards the lesson.
He felt a small twinge of something, as he watched her out of the corner of his eye. What is that? Jealously? Because she's more intrigued in this charade of an educational standard than me? Nonsense. He thought. She loves this class.
She loves this class. He thought more. Not fully acknowledging that he even showed enough interest in her daily to know her likes and dislikes. But he did. And he realized with stubborn angst, I enjoy being near her during it. In their other subjects, he was primarily concerned with the material at hand, and of course being the very best. But here, where he simply couldn't care less and resolutely knew he'd never surpass her creativity, he studied her. And she had certainly become a rather fascinating subject.
The period went by quickly. The class copied notes, read a loud from the text and tried to analyze what Jimmy assumed was a difficult passage. Jimmy watched as a few minutes to the bell, she carefully unfolded the note and began to scan it.
Her posture changed. She bowed her head and folded the paper over before shoving it into her bag on the floor. Sitting back up, she accidentally caught his eye. Breaking contact off quickly she stared straight ahead at the board and the clock. But Jimmy could see it all. She's upset. Whatever this Julianne girl had wrote, bothered her. And in turn that bothered him.
At the bell's shrill signal she was out of her seat and into the hallway before he could question her further. As he began to walk to Chemistry he stopped. At Cindy's locker were Cindy, Julianne and Betty Quinlan.
He'd read and memorized his entire Chemistry book; therefore he didn't need to stop at his locker. But he theorized, he was following through on an "experiment." As casually as he could he strolled to his own locker a few feet down from her. By the time he'd managed to get it open this Julianne girl had already walked off. Spying her he watched as Betty turned her full attention on Cindy.
A few years back, Jimmy would have dropped dead to see Cindy and Betty having any kind of typical female interaction. But now—he realized it had become rare but commonplace. They were by no means friends. He knew that. But they ran in the same school social circle. He couldn't make out their conversation, but he found watching them to be even more intriguing. Cindy stood up straightener in front of her; there was an air of forced confidence that Jimmy could see right through.
She smiled that fake smile that he suddenly realized he hated. Did she truly dislike Betty for the childish crush he'd had on her eons ago? No… he reasoned. It was the way Betty seemed to speak to Cindy that spoke for her body language. Betty thought she was better. And it was for the first time that Jimmy realized with a strange tug on his heart, he didn't agree.