Percy Gets Peer Pressured

AN: see notes at the end to see what I've changed and what I haven't!

Percy is currently, as one might expect, underwater. Really if anyone was to ask around for Percy's location, underwater is probably one of the top five choices at any given time. This is widely known and accepted seeing as Percy is the freshest kid on the block for the university's prestigious swim team. If he was thinking about it, Percy himself would tell you that being underwater is a perfectly natural place to be and that you should probably try it sometime, except that Percy is swimming right now and therefore not really thinking about anything else at all.

Practice, however, is coming to an end so after a few more cooldown laps across the pool Percy grabs the wall and heaves himself out of the water, beaching himself like a human-sized, boy-shaped whale. All around him are the sounds of splashing, the slaps of bare feet on the ground, and droplets of water pattering on the rubber-covered floor of the gym as the other members of the team also pull themselves up out of the water. Percy closes his eyes and focuses on slowing his rapid breathing to get his heart to stop beating so damn fast. He has almost succeeded at this when two heavy footsteps right next to his head make his eyes snap open. Hovering above him is the grizzled face of Coach Hedge glaring at him.

Percy slaps on the most innocent smile he can muster and asks, "What's poppin Coach?"

Hedge blows out a huff of air that on a different person might have been a soft laugh but on Hedge resembles more of a bull blowing out air before it charges. "We need to have a talk in my office." Hedge starts walking away down the side of the pool but before he gets too far away turns and yells over his shoulder, "Now."

Percy jumps up as fast as his sore post-practice body can do so and begins to follow Hedge over to his office, grabbing his towel on the way to begin to dry off his hair. Now, Hedge as a faculty member does technically get a room somewhere on campus that is his official office, but Percy's pretty sure that no one living has been in that room since Hedges first day on the job over twenty years ago. Maybe.

Hedges actual "office" is the biggest desk the coach could get his hands on, which has been placed in the corner of the gym slightly out of the splash zone to save any important papers or electronics but still close enough to yell at someone swimming with bad form. Hedge is already sitting behind this behemoth of academic furnishing in a cushioned armchair when Percy catches up to him and plops down in the much tinier metal folding chair reserved for students to sit in. Percy thinks this dichotomy in furniture is a little unnecessary but Hedge is threatening enough that no one has ever called him out on it.

Hedge ignores Percy for a second, looking at the laptop in front of him, before sighing and leaning back in his chair. He runs his hand through his thinning hair and says, "Jackson, we need to talk."

Percy also casually leans back in his chair, though not far enough to tempt it to collapse. He has no faith in Hedges furniture investments. "Yeah, I think you might have mentioned that on the other side of the gym."

Now, Percy figures this will either goad Hedge into threatening him with punishments that probably aren't legal or will just be ignored totally, so he immediately feels slightly concerned when instead Hedge sighs again and rubs the bridge of his nose. If Percy didn't know any better, he'd say Hedge looked vaguely worried about something, which isn't something Percy thinks Hedge is allowed to feel. After Hedge doesn't reply for a second, Percy asks, "Uh, everything okay Coach?"

Hedge stops rubbing his nose and puts both hands flat out on his desk, as if looking for something solid. "Look kid, you aren't awful at swimming. I know it, the other guys on the team know it, and even the school knows it or else you wouldn't have your scholarship." His face twists into a sort of grimace, like he's eating something sour, and Percy realizes that suddenly he is in fact pretty dang nervous himself.

Hedge glances at his laptop again, then after a moment slams it shut. Looking right at Percy, he reluctantly says, "Look, at the end of the day this place is a school. Someone up the line decided to take a look at the academic records of everyone on the team and I guess they aren't thrilled at what they found." Hedge looks up at the ceiling and begins to scratch the back of his head nervously, but continues, "You're gonna get cut from the team if your grades don't start going up pronto."

Percy's eyes blow open as his heart drops. His brain feels like someone just hard restarted it, overwhelmed yet at the same time can't really feel anything enough to realize it. He can vaguely feel that his mouth has scrunched up like he's trying to smile instinctively but can't quite make it happen. Somehow through his current mental dump he figures he should probably ask for details. He manages to squeeze his brain like a sponge and out comes, "Uh."

Thankfully, Hedge already knows what he's probably going to ask. "They didn't give me a specific deadline or a promise that you will get cut, but if your GPA doesn't start getting up to a 2.5 in the near future I think you're gonna have to start using a community pool to get your laps in."

Percy tries to wrangle his mind into something that can make coherent thoughts and sentences. He feels like he's trying to wrangle an oiled-up cow with a rope made out of silly string. "Uh."

Hedge comes to the rescue once again, sliding him a piece of paper face-down across the desk, which is so large he can barely scoot the paper all the way to the other side without standing up. "I did a little digging and found something that should help. You're welcome. I expect that you'll fix this before it becomes a real issue."

Percy takes the paper but continues to stare blankly at Hedge like he forgot what it means to be a person. Hedge stands up out of his chair, which really only makes him a couple inches taller. "Jackson, you aren't stupid. You're an idiot for sure but not like legitimately dumb. You'll figure it out." He picks up his laptop and begins to walk towards the exit of the gym, leaving Percy behind in the stupid little metal chair that Percy is really beginning to dislike.

Percy waits a minute to make sure his brain is really still in there before flipping over the paper to see what magic "get smart quick" solution Hedge managed to dig up. A picture of two photogenic students sitting around a desk with an open book greets him, both students laughing as if reading was the funniest possible thing. Percy bitterly hopes they got payed well to make people feel bad about themselves for hating school. On the top of the flier, the words "Academic Tutoring" look back up at him, with smaller script underneath explaining that yes you can have other, smarter students teach you pretty much anything you didn't manage to pick up on the first try. Percy hates this stupid paper already.

He crumples up the paper in his hand and stands up, stalking back across the gym to the locker room. By the time he gets to his locker and begins to retrieve his things, everyone else is mostly dresses and ready to leave. Percy drops his stupid tutoring advertisement on the ground so he can pull out his clothes and start getting dressed.

Soon he is mostly dressed, but as he pulls his shirt over his head he hears movement beside him and some light snickering. Percy rolls his eyes as he finishes putting on his shirt, sure that nothing good is about to happen.

In front of him are three of the other guys on the team. Percy squints at them trying to remember their names. It's not that Percy doesn't know who is on his team, but he's bad with names and he doesn't like these guys anyways so not knowing their names is really just a plus. He is sure that they're year three students, so they've all got a couple years on him.

The guy in the front is holding a wrinkled piece of paper that Percy quickly identifies to be the tutoring ad that he had thrown on the ground a minute ago. Looking at the expressions on the guys' faces, Percy knows that nothing good will come from this development.

Guy In The Front, as Percy now thinks of him, begins to read the ad in an overly theatrical voice. "Academic Tutoring: Get As Much Help As You Need!" The two dudes behind him, now dubbed Lefty and Righty, begin to snicker evilly. Percy frowns. Didn't people stop snickering evilly in middle school? Come on now.

However, not one to be outdone Percy replies, "Wow, that was pretty good! Maybe you could have chosen a theater major if people knew you actually had talent at something."

Lefty and Righty immediately stop snickering and dive straight into glowering so quickly and in sync that it's kind of impressive. Guy In The Front drops the paper on the ground and takes a step forward, placing himself only a foot away from Percy. Glaring straight at Percy, he asks in a suddenly much more serious voice, "You trying to start something Jackson?" Somehow, he manages to smell like sweaty boy even though they had just been submerged in water for hours.

Percy turns and finishes fishing his things out of his locker and putting them into a backpack. "Nah dude, I'm not trying to get in a fight in the locker room. Don't wanna have any negative associations with this place, you know? It could mess up my headspace for the rest of the year if something nasty happens in here."

Now, his voice is dripping with sarcasm at this point, but the three of them don't seem to quite pick up on it enough to take offense. Guy In The Front backs up a step and says, "Well, that's what I thought. Have fun with your extra homework, dumbass." He turns on the spot and walks away as the other two congratulate him on ad libbing such a spectacular roast on the spot. Percy decides that he'll be referring to the three of them as The Dick Squad from now on. He wishes he had someone to high five for that one. Nuts.

He shoulders his backpack, slams his locker shut, takes two steps, then stops. Looking over his shoulder, the tutoring ad is still on the ground. Frustration fills Percy like a flash flood as he looks up to the ceiling and clenches his jaw. He absolutely does not want to do this, he shouldn't have to do this, this is bullshit, why should he have to do this at all? He stands this way, fists balled, staring into the ceiling like he can burn a hole in it with sheer force of will. After a full minute of this, Percy mutters, "God damn it," to himself as he walks back, stoops over, and grabs the flier. If he is a little rougher than necessary while shoving it into his bag, nobody needs to know, right?

An hour later, Percy is sitting at a table in Pan Cakes, a vegan bakery not far from campus. Sitting across from him is the co-owner of the shop and his best friend, Grover Underwood, who is just tearing into a plate of brownies. Percy himself is morosely trying to make his way through some cookies he ordered, but eating really isn't on the list of things that are fun to do right now.

When Percy takes maybe the smallest bite any human being has taken out of cookie then just drops it onto his plate, Grover pauses mid-frenzy to look up at him. Apparently what he sees worries him, because Grover stops eating too and hesitantly asks, "Everything alright with you, Perce?"

Percy puts on a convincing grin and replies, "Yeah why? Something up with you?"

This, it seems, was the wrong choice to make, as Grover frowns and pushes his plate away from him before whipping out his phone. Percy dumbly stares as Grover types something with impressive speed before dropping his phone back onto the table. Percy opens his mouth to ask what was up with that when Grover cuts him off by holding up a finger and indicating for him to wait.

They both stare at each other for about thirty seconds before Juniper, Grover's girlfriend and the other half of Pan Cakes, walks up and deposits two open Dr Pepper's onto the table. Percy and Grover thank her and Grover stands up quickly to kiss Juniper on the cheek before settling back down. He takes a swig o' the juice before placing it back down on the table and saying, "All right, spill the beans."

Percy cringes and tries to disguise it as a smile, thinking maybe it'll work this time. "I uh, don't know what you're talking about?" He quickly takes a drink of his own soda, trying to sooth his suddenly dry throat.

Grover just stares him down with an unimpressed look, taking an excruciatingly slow sip of soda while doing so. Percy tries to hold his resolve, he really does, but a man can only do so much when faced with a thirty-second-long slurp of skepticism.

Percy rolls his eyes and sighs, figuring he should have known Grover would see through him. "All right fine. I'm not good at school so even though I'm good at swimming they're gonna cut me from the team unless I can improve my GPA. Fun times for me!" Percy does little jazz hands at the end to really sell how miserable he is.

Grover's face pales immediately, but beyond that impressively manages to not look too worried, which is good because Percy doesn't think he can handle any more worried than he is currently saddled with. "Jeez Percy, that's kinda rough." Percy snorts. Yeah, maybe a little. "I mean, you can sign up for tutoring and stuff right? Schools still do that I think?"

Percy sighs and drinks some more comfort Dr Pepper. "Yeah, coach Hedge gave me some flier to sign up for tutoring." He digs around in his bag to find the flier and manages to extricate it without crumpling it more than it already is before handing it to Grover. "It just sucks though, because I'm already doing school and swim stuff, and now they want me to go back and do even more school because I was bad at the first one!"

He realizes that he's half shouting now and is starting to rise up out of his seat, so he quickly sits back down. Glancing over his shoulder, he sees Juniper at the counter sending them concerned glances. Percy sends back a thumbs up and a cheery smile that might be a little to manic to be comforting but hopefully gets the job done.

Turning back around, he sees Grover reading through the flier intensely, brows furrowed and chewing on his bottom lip. After a second he raises his eyebrows and tilts his head for a second, like he has something to say but he's trying to roll the idea around through his head before it can come out of his mouth.

Eventually it does arrive as Grover says, "I mean as far as I can tell its either you do this or you give up on swimming, and you've never given up on a thing in your entire life. Like real life frogger, remember that? You absolutely should have given up on that but you didn't." Percy smiles as he remembers trying to make it across a busy street during rush hour and the hospital trip that came immediately afterwards. Good times.

Grover continues, saying "I know you don't like school and you don't want more work but I know you can do this if you want to, and I think you do too. Just get in there and make it happen and soon it'll be normal and you'll be used to being the smartest jock in the pool."

Percy frowns across the table at Grover. He hates it when Grover makes sense sometimes. Looking down at the flier, he sees the stupidly happy expressions the models have. He doubts he'll ever feel like that about going to a tutoring session, but Grover's encouragement has reminded him of all the work he's done to even get to this spot right now. Deep down, Percy knows as an absolute fact that if he is forced out of swimming just because he didn't work hard enough at something, even if that something isn't swimming but is being a nerd, that he'll never forgive himself.

Groaning, he takes the paper back and shoves it into his bag again. "Fine, I'll go to tutoring, but I will be unhappy about it the whole time and it will be your fault."

Grover smirks and rolls his eyes, replying, "Sure dude, I'll bring you consolation pastries or something for having to educate yourself."

Percy pouts and lays on the table facedown, petulantly muttering, "You better."

AN: Wow look at that there's a whole intro chapter and everything! No more diving straight into the plot with absolutely no pacing to speak of. Anyways, I think I'm gonna try to have every chapter be about this length, but seeing as I haven't written fiction like this in a stupid long time I don't super know how it's gonna turn out. Also, I'm planning on deleting the old version as soon as I upload this one because I don't want to look at it anymore and I also don't really want other people looking at it anymore, unless people say they still want it around for something. Like compare and contrast I guess, who , for as far as what I'm changing and what I'm not: It's a college au now bc I'm in college and I feel like this story will work better with college aged kids anyways, so that shouldn't be too super different. Also, I'm thinking about doing this all from Percy's perspective to maybe leave room to do a sister fic from Annabeth's POV later, but I haven't decided yet. Everything else should be pretty similar though, as far as the plot goes.

Anyways, thanks for reading this at all after such a big pause! Annabeth will be showing up next chapter and I bet you can guess how they're gonna meet. See you guys soon with the next chapter.