Percy Gets Intimidated
Percy wakes up to his phone's alarm blaring next to his head. Only barely conscious, he manages to swat at it until it silences itself. Releasing a contented sigh, Percy submits to the sweet release of sleep once again, managing to think that ignoring alarms really is the life before he goes under again.
However, he is rudely ripped out of sleep seconds later as another alarm makes his phone go nuts again. Percy groans and actually opens his eyes as he rolls over to silence his phone again with a sinking feeling. He's pretty sure that today is a Saturday and he only ever sets more than one alarm in a row on days where he actually has to get up and go do things, which ideally is never the case on Saturday.
Peeking at his phone, Percy looks to find the cause of the unjust end to his slumbering. Looking back up at him on the screen are the words REGISTER FOR TUTORING. Percy squints tiredly at this for a second, as if he could change them through sheer force of will. When the letters stubbornly refuse to cooperate, he lets out an long, anguished groan, punctuated at the end with a vehement, "Shit."
Percy hears a chuckle from down below him. Peering over the side of his top bunk, Percy can see his other three roommates already all awake and out of bed. Jason is standing on the other side of the room getting dressed in front of a mirror and Leo is doing something with Switch controllers that requires both his hands and his feet. Directly beneath him, Frank is at the desk right next to his own looking up at him with a smile. Percy decides to start glaring at Frank instead of his phone.
Frank remains solidly unintimidated and goes back to the book he has open with a smirk, while Percy considers why no one takes him seriously anymore as he climbs down out of his bed. Maybe he should take acting classes or something. Would that help? Percy feels like it probably wouldn't help.
Shucking himself out of his sleep clothes like a human-sized ear of corn, Percy starts pulling clothes off of the ground from a couple days ago. Waking up to be productive is one thing, but actually putting effort into pretty much anything else is really just a line Percy is not feeling like crossing today.
As he starts pulling on some socks, Jason looks over from his side of the room. Raising an eyebrow, he asks, "Two alarms huh? Got somewhere to be this lazy Saturday morning?"
Percy scoffs as he reaches for his shoes. "Yeah, Coach Hedge has me running his errands now." He waves his hand dismissively as he pulls on a shoe with one hand, saying, "You know how it is." Jason, a fellow school athlete, nods sympathetically. Percy notices Leo is also nodding sagely, despite never having played a sport in his life.
Standing up, Percy notices that Jason is also dressed to go out, and not in a dingy college student on the weekend kind of way either. Raising an eyebrow, he asks, "The real question is where are you off to Mister Dress To Impress?"
Jason's mouth twitches around the small scar on his lip as he hesitates for a second, and as he opens his mouth to presumably defend himself Leo cuts in without looking away from his project as he blurts out, "Jason's got a hot date and he won't tell us who it is."
Frank leans back in his chair with his book and adds, "We think it's that girl he met in the psychology class he took last semester though because of how defensive he gets when we mention her."
Percy looks back at Jason who is definitely a couple shades more red than he was a minute ago. His mouth opens and closes, then opens and closes again as he tries to compose himself. Percy waits for his reply with a growing smirk as he begins to realize that there are fewer differences between Jason and an easily embarrassed goldfish than he originally thought.
Finally, after a full ten seconds of increasingly awkward silence, Jason claps his hands together as if to center himself. He inhales deeply through his nose, then evenly states, "Okay, first of all you guys don't even know if I'm going on a date or not." Frank and Leo both turn to look at Percy with an impressive amount of skepticism.
Jason continues nonplussed, "Plus, even if I was going to hang out with someone I think it would be bad to assume that it's a date because that has certain contexts and assumptions to go with it." While talking, Jason has opened the door behind him and has begun to back out of the room. "Whether or not I want it to be a date has nothing to do with anything because what matters is that everyone has a good and safe time-" The door shuts completely, cutting whatever Jason was saying off. However, the three remaining boys can hear Jason's rapid footsteps as he moves away from their dorm at a speed that is much quicker than a casual walk.
Percy, Frank, and Leo are all briefly share an eye roll so powerful they all become a little bit closer as friends. Frank recovers from their shared exasperation first, sitting up straighter in his desk and determinedly digging in to his book. Leo also starts to focus in as he leans back in his chair so he can rest his feet on his desk on top of a controller in front of his monitor.
Percy frowns and hesitantly begins to ask, "So do I want to know what's happening over here or-"
Leo cuts him off without stopping his work, saying "I wanted to have a Smash competition but Frank sucks at the game so I started thinking about how I wished I could play myself because I'm the best in the room and that got me thinking about if I could actually play myself so now I'm trying to train my toes to play Smash but that's running into problems because-"
At this point Percy activates his 'tune-out-Leo' filter and turns to Frank with a raised eyebrow. Frank is now pouting as he reads, and he mutters, "I didn't think I was that bad."
Percy huffs out a laugh, then bends to pick up his bag. Slinging it over his shoulder, he walks out of the room, tossing a, "Catch you guys later" over his shoulder as he steps out of the dorm.
It takes Percy about five minutes to remember why he's walking across campus, but once he remembers it takes him zero minutes to start getting angry about it again. Doesn't he already do enough for this school between the normal class schedules, the workouts, and the competitions? Now he's going to school on Saturday too?
This realization makes Percy physically stop in his tracks. He is temporarily struck with such a strong sense of righteous fury that he is being forced into Saturday school that he feels angrier than he has ever been and calmer than he thought he could ever be simultaneously. His next thought is that he has stopped in the middle of the walkway and probably looks like he's about to rupture a blood vessel. He decides he should probably keep going.
It takes Percy another ten minutes to arrive at his destination, during which he spends most of his time trying to chill out and act like an actual person again. This only partially works as his headspace splits into a debate between being just so pissed or trying to just relax and get it over with. By the time Percy walks through the door with the 'Tutoring' sign on it, he has landed somewhere around mildly sullen. Percy feels like this is a fair compromise.
Inside Percy finds a waiting room, complete with depressing chairs, a depressing desk, and a depressingly friendly looking man behind the counter who is currently reading something on their phone. At no point does Percy pause to question his objectivity on the matter.
Walking up to the counter, Percy puts on his best 'time to charm a stranger' smile and asks, "Hi, is this where I come to get tutored?"
The friend-shaped man across the counter blinks and looks up with a smile. He responds in a professional yet enthusiastic tone, "Yep, you've found the place! Do you have an appointment with one of our student tutors?"
Percy feels himself lose a couple years off of his life as his charming smile falls into what could be called a frightened grimace. Of course people were supposed to get tutoring appointments. Great.
Percy coughs awkwardly and scratches the back of his head. "Would it be bad, uh, if I maybe didn't have an appointment with someone?"
The friendly counter man's smile turns into something more authentic. "Yeah, we have people come in all the time looking for some last minute tutoring." He looks over to his computer and starts scrolling down a page as he tells Percy, "I'll just set you up with one of the tutors we have free right now."
He pulls out a pen and a piece of paper and writes down a room number before handing it to Percy. "Alright, just go to this room, the tutor should be there in a minute or two."
Percy take the paper and replies, "Sweet, thanks uh… " He conspicuously looks down at the guy's name tag. "Graham." He smiles extra sweet just in case, but Graham is already looking back down at his phone again. Cool.
Percy makes his way back into the hallway and starts looking for the room he's been assigned. Once he finds it, he peeks his head in through the door to find an empty class with a blackboard on one of the walls, complete with one teacher-sized desks and several student desks to go with it. Percy yawns and walks into the room, looking at the rows of chairs to choose a seat before he pauses. He doesn't want to sit in the front because he objectively isn't a nerd, but would it be weird to sit in the back if he's the only one? Should he pick the neutral middle ground? Could he wait for the tutor to tell him where he should sit?
After an embarrassingly long amount of time he decides to sit in the front row, figuring if he's going to extra tutoring he might as well commit. Once he sits, Percy starts thinking about the fact that someone he doesn't know is about to come in and educate him personally. Shifting in his seat, he realizes that he's actually kinda nervous about this whole situation. He's never been good at traditional school in general, and now there isn't going to be anything to distract from how bad he specifically is.
Percy decides he's just not going to worry about it to try to prevent himself from completely freaking his bean. His tutor is probably gonna be some weird nerd anyways. Who even signs up to spend their free time playing teacher? Percy doesn't, and he smiles to himself for totally owning whoever is about to walk through those doors.
Except no one walks through the doors immediately, or even in the next minute Percy spends staring at the door in anticipation. Huffing in irritation, Percy drops his head onto his arms, remembering the soft embrace of his bed. Boy does he wish he was still in bed. Sighing deeply, he thinks to himself that some people are just chosen to suffer. His last thought is that he thinks he might be the wisest person he knows.
The first sign Percy has that he has fallen asleep is when a loud slam immediately cures him of being asleep. Jerking up in his seat, Percy's hands come up to defend himself as he looks frantically around the room. This is when he is clued in to the fact that he is no longer alone in the room.
The professor-sized desk in front of him suddenly has a large pile of textbooks on it which hadn't been there when Percy arrived. However, most of his attention is focused on the person leaning against the front of the desk and staring directly at him.
Percy has three thoughts rapid fire as he looks at this freshly arrived person. The first one to hit his brain is Princess Hair as he takes in the curly, blonde hair falling down her shoulders in waves. Thought number two: her face is strong, stern, and already solidly unimpressed as he sees her eye him with a raised eyebrow and a slight downturn of the mouth. Great. Finally, Percy realizes that just looking at her evokes what he is pretty sure is a deep kind of fear, which he really can't explain considering all she's done is look at him like an extremely unimpressed professor might.
Before Percy can actually pull himself together to react or say anything, this new girl points at his desk and says, "You know, you drool when you sleep."
Percy feels his cheeks heat up as he quickly glances down at his desk which does in fact have a tiny drool puddle on it. He looks back up at her, who is staring at his face like it has something on it. Percy subtly wipes his desk with one hand while trying to clean off his mouth with the other and pass it off as casually scratching his jaw like a normal person might do. Judging by how the girl's brow arches a fraction higher tells him that he absolutely was not successful.
Percy shifts in his seat and scratches his head. He should probably change the subject before whoever this is thinks he is a college-student-sized toddler who snuck into her classroom. Glancing at the pile of books, he vaguely waves towards them and says, "So I'm assuming you're the tutor they paired up with me, right?"
Percy looks back up at her just in time to catch her face shift from skeptical to something more professional as she glances at the books he motioned at. This makes Percy frown for a second, but he clears his expression as she looks back up and responds mechanically, "Yep, I'm Annabeth Chase and I'll be your tutor for today." Her eyes flick down to where the Percy Puddle was a minute ago, and as she looks back up she asks, "You're Percy Jackson, right?"
Absolutely determined not to blush anymore than he has already, Percy smiles dazzlingly and responds, "Guilty as charged. This is basically gonna be like School For Dummies, right?" He is definitely hoping for a laugh to ease the tension, but is disappointed when this fails to even get Annabeth to smile. He is also determined to ignore that hearing her speak undeniably increased the weird fear he has of this girl, which doesn't even make sense. If he starts pouting over these developments, no one can make him admit it.
Annabeth pulls out her phone and starts reading something as she replies, "I mean, you're not completely wrong. This is ideally supposed to be a place where we help you work through whatever subjects you're having issues with, while also working on why you have issues in the first place so you can learn studying habits that work for you and create positive and permanent change in your academic life." Percy is trying so hard to not fall asleep again as he listens but god damn if that wasn't straight out of a school pamphlet. Even if he is wildly intimidated right now for some reason, sometimes boredom-induced sleep finds a way.
Closing her phone, Annabeth looks back at Percy as he sees the return of the raised eyebrow. "However, looking through your file it seems like you need help in pretty much every subject so I thought I'd leave it up to you where we start."
Percy's returning sleepiness evaporates slowly as he realizes he has definitely been insulted, though in an exceptionally professional way. His eyes narrow as his determination to remain positive begins to drain out into the floor. Percy replies in a sarcastic tone, "I don't know, you seem like you've got it all figured out so why don't you start us off with something?" He raises his own eyebrow in challenge to Annabeth's. Two people can play at angry eyebrows.
Annabeth's eyes narrow and she seems to have something on the tip of her tongue. Percy is probably more excited than he should be to see her break her professor persona, but instead is let down again as she blinks and without breaking eye contact reaches out and grabs a biology textbook. "You're a marine bio student with a swim scholarship right?" Her voice has suddenly become frosty, taking on the tone of an interrogator. Percy's fear of this girl rises even higher as he just nods at the book which Annabeth is now pointing at him like a weapon.
She tosses the book at him and he definitely does not squeak as he frantically catches it before it beans him in the dome. She reaches over and pulls an identical textbook out of the stack. Flipping through it, she says, "Let's start with something you should be interested in then." She tells him which page to open up to, and once he gets there he sees pictures of dolphin fin bone structures and a caption head about the evolutionary patterns of marine life.
Percy swallows as he takes in the large swathes of text in front of him the same way another person might look at a guillotine. Percy considers texting his mother a final goodbye before Annabeth starts reading out loud, forcing him to dive in.
As expected, the text immediately starts swimming around in his vision, making reading even small paragraphs a challenge. However, as he struggles to read the pages in front of him Annabeth doesn't start threatening to attack him with a yardstick like he expects. In fact, there are often times when she has to have his help to read a word, causing Percy to realize that he might not be the only one in the room with dyslexia.
Once he realizes this, he finds it easier to stop imagining Annabeth hovering over him with a gun to his head and to see that she actually could be helpful instead of just intimidating. As time passes the two of them form into a tag team for reading, with both offering suggestions for more complicated words and each providing the answers to the other when they fumble. Percy points out how cute every animal pictured in the book is, and Annabeth makes comments on how the different skeletal structures are related when Percy is having difficulty seeing it. She also helps refocus Percy after he gets stuck on the idea of otters using their tiny little fingers to hold hands or grab seaweed and turn it into fun little wigs, which apparently never happens no matter how much Percy loves the idea.
It never even occurs to Percy to be embarrassed about his dyslexia or the fact that he's reading a school book out loud like he used to back in middle school. He's too busy pointing out how cute every animal is and a In fact, Percy realizes this is the most comfortable he's been doing schoolwork in a very long time, verging on ever.
Before Percy even knows it, they've made their way through the entire chapter. Annabeth has just asked Percy one of the questions at the back of the chapter to see how his comprehension was, but before he can answer it, an alarm on Annabeth's phone goes off. She quickly lunges across the desk to silence it, then flips back through the book to see how many pages they covered. Her eyebrows raise as she makes an impressed sound, before she says, "Wow, we made more progress than I thought we would. Not bad, Jackson."
Percy tilts his head to try to figure out if the complement outweighs the insult in that sentence. He's pretty sure it does. Leaning back in his chair, he feels a grin that could be described as insufferable begin to grow on its own as he responds, "Yeah that wasn't horrible, but you're way smarter than me, clearly. I'm really gonna have to Chase after you, huh?" He wiggles his eyebrows to add to the effect.
Percy really isn't expecting a reaction by this point, so when Annabeth scoffs and rolls her eyes, he nearly falls out of his seat. She looks at him with an annoyed glance and replies, "Well obviously I'm smarter or else I wouldn't be your tutor, would I?"
Percy, however, is distracted by the upward curl of Annabeth's lips that she can't quite completely suppress. He finds himself with a matching grin and no idea how it got therer, but after a second frowns in confusion. "Wait, I thought you were just my tutor for today because I didn't make an appointment."
Annabeth looks up and bites her lip while tilting her head as if deep in thought. She stays this way for a solid five seconds, and right as Percy decides he is gonna try to poke her to see if she'd notice she suddenly snaps out of it and grabs a piece of paper. Percy quickly lowers his hand from his aborted attempt and is glad she's too preoccupied writing something to notice. He has a sudden epiphany as he realizes that he's actually stealthy as hell and that he should try this out more often. It definitely will work out for sure.
Once she finishes writing on the paper, she hands it to Percy and starts collecting her books. Opening the paper, he sees an email address written inside. Looking up, Annabeth has already packed and has made her way to the door.
Percy quickly stands up and asks, "Wait, what am I supposed to do with this?"
She sighs exasperatedly and replies, "What do you think, seaweed brain? Email me your schedule so we can set up a tutoring schedule?"
Percy frowns in confusion at the nickname before remembering adorable pictures of otters in tiny seaweed bonnets. Ah, innocence. This mental image is swept away by Percy suddenly registering that Annabeth is offering to meet with him again to keep tutoring him. He simultaneously feels way more excited than he thinks he should be and like his stomach just fell three stories. He manages to squeak out a strangled, "Oh. Right."
Annabeth pauses halfway out the door and turns to look at Percy. As he meets her gaze, their eyes lock in a way different than anything during the entire tutoring session. Percy realizes he's never quite seen the color gray like he's seeing looking back at him right now. Annabeth seems to have frozen too as the two regard each other in this split second, nothing happening except two pairs of eyes meeting
Gray and green.
They both blink, and whatever just happened is over as quickly as it began. Percy opens his mouth to say something dumb probably, but Annabeth cuts him off, saying, "See you around, Percy." She has that slight smile again as she moves out of the room and Percy feels like he can't move.
The door shuts behind her, and Percy is left alone with the swooping sense of fear that has built up throughout the session. Percy frowns as he suddenly realizes that fear generally doesn't feel like swooping. Why is it swooping?
Suddenly, the image of Annabeth trying to force down a smile as she rolls her eyes jumps unbidden into his mind. Percy feels something shift in his chest and click in his brain and his eyes widen. This feeling definitely isn't fear.
"Oh shit."
Percy stumbles out of the room with his bag like he just ran a marathon, barely able to find the door as all he can see is Annabeth's stupid pretty smile and her dumb curly hair and suddenly Percy is running into someone in the hallway.
Stumbling back a step, the image of Annabeth pops in his head as he sees Grover in front of him with a slightly crumpled box of donuts and a worried expression. Looking Percy over, Grover frowns and asks, "Why do you look like you got mugged but you're happy about it?"
Percy groans and opens the box, grabbing the first donut he sees. With his other hand, he grabs Grover's shoulder and looks him straight in the eyes and says, "Grover I need you to kill me."
Percy sees Grover's mind racing for two solid seconds before something gleams in his eyes and a malicious grin appears on his friend's face. He puts his arm around Percy's shoulder and starts leading him out of the building, saying, "Perce I respect your privacy and all but you are absolutely going to tell me who you just met in that class."
Percy groans and stuffs the donut into his mouth.
A/N: Hey guys, this one is slightly later than I wanted but I just spent the last two days looking at houses to rent. Love being a poor college student. Anyways as you can probably guess Percy's really getting in it immediately in this one. I'm personally excited to really make this boy do some pining. Also writing this was fun because I definitely know almost nothing about any of the science or math majors now so I'm really just kinda winging it. I also have officially set up my Ao3 account now so if you want to read this story there, now you can! Here's the link to my profile on there: /users/MunchPalace/works Anyways, as always hope you guys enjoy this chapter and I'll see you all next week with chapter three!