Warnings: mentions of drug usage and swearing
Suddenly, Jason feels Piper's and half of the classes burning stare on him. Reyna shoots him a small, one-sided smile. "Ummm… yeah, we used to be in the same class in like middle school. That's it. No need to worry, babe." Jason says coolly, giving Piper a small peck on the cheek. Out of the corner of his eyes he sees Reyna's smile fall and her eyes peel themselves away from his.
For the rest of homeroom, Jason sits in silence as Piper texts her best friend, Drew Tanaka. Jason fails to fully understand the friendship Piper has with Drew. The first time Jason met Piper, she had just had chocolate milk dumped on her by Drew. Piper had told Jason how much she hated Drew and wanted to take her down. However, when Piper became a cheerleader, she and Drew formed the most unlikely friendship. Piper, the friendly tomboy, and Drew, the coldhearted bitch. Now, together, Piper and Drew are unstoppable. The two possess a sort of convincing charm and there is absolutely nothing they can't do, given the opportunity.
Jason feels a wave of relief flood him when the bell rings — he is, thank God, spared of having to face his ex-best friend's obvious look of disappointment.
Fuck, Nico thinks as he walks into his math class. There are several things wrong with this class; First of all, the teacher is named Mrs. Dodds, an old-aged woman eager to mail handwritten letters to parents each time a student does not complete their homework or fails to get higher than 80% on a test or quiz. She doesn't care if the assignment failed is a pop quiz or a pre-test, even — any score not over 80% receives a letter sent to the student's parents.
Nico imagines that Percy Jackson's parents had begun to not open the letters sent by Mrs. Dodds due to the fact that it would take two eternities to read every single one. Not that Nico really cared about Percy Jackson or his parents or his anything, really.
Leo sits himself besides Nico, who manages a faint smile to his new friend. Nico looks at the rest of his math class. There's Percy Jackson, Clarisse La Rue, Clovis, Annabeth Chase, and the new kid from the other homeroom, Frank Zhang. By now, Mrs. Dodds has already begun a boring lecture on integrals. Nico looks around the class and see's Annabeth taking notes. Why does she bother? Nico thinks.
Annabeth Chase isn't like most of the popular girls. Although she is blonde, tan, and absolutely stunning, she is different, no matter how clichéd that sounds. Not different like Piper, though. Annabeth is smart, Annabeth is ambitious, and mostly, Annabeth actually has potential to do something other than just look pretty at the arm of some rich man. Nico's favorite part about Annabeth is that she doesn't consider herself popular, is fair towards everyone, and tries to keep an open mind throughout all the rumors she has heard of others. Nico has respect towards Annabeth for being able to stand all of Percy Jackson's idiocies.
Although Nico is one of the few eleventh graders in the course, alongside Clarisse and Frank and some unrecognizable faces, he wouldn't mind ranking himself behind Annabeth in terms of grades. Math comes easy to him; numbers aren't difficult, and the toughest of equations of simple enough if you're willing to pull them apart. People are a whole different story.
The bell ringing snaps Nico out of his thoughts. He runs out of the math class as quickly as he can, Leo already on his trail. He looks as though he learned absolutely nothing from that period, and Nico begins to think that he'll end up as Percy #2.
The moment Piper Mclean lets out a furious scream, Leo Valdez knows that he is a dead man. He looks up from the floor to see a coffee drenched Piper glowering at him.
"How dare you?" She shrieks.
"Sorry... It was an accident." Leo winces, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Oh MY GOSH! SERIOUSLY! DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT I HAVE CHEERLEADING PRACTICE TODAY! YOU ARE SUCH AN INSENSITIVE LITTLE BRAT!" Piper screams.
Calm down, chica, Leo is tempted to say as he feels his temper boil. He takes a long, deep breath as to avoid doing anything that he would later regret. As in, anything that could get him kicked out of school... again. He put on a sickly sweet smile.
"You're right Piper, I was a complete jerk for buying coffee. I'll be on my way now so that you don't have to endure my face any longer." Leo says as he goes to join Nico in the corner of the cafeteria.
"Wow… that was awesome." Nico says in awe. Leo offers him a small smile, holding back a small blush.
"Thanks."
"Seriously, I thought you were going to like yell at her but then dude, you totally burned her." Nico continues. Leo winces at the word choice. Burn. If only he knew… but then Nico would stop talking to him. Who would want to talk to the kid who burned down a school because of a temper tantrum?
"Like Oh. My. God! Can you believe it, he's such a jerk I hate him soooo much!" Piper whines to Jason as he assures her that she looks great, and smells great despite the coffee that had been dumped onto her.
"Hey guys!" Annabeth says as she and the new girl from homeroom sit themselves down. "This is Reyna, she's also a junior."
Piper narrows her eyes and analyzes Reyna. This girl couldn't pose a challenge. "Hi," She says with an awfully fake smile, "I'm Piper."
Reyna just nods. Man was this girl awkward. Annabeth and Reyna continue to chat about something, to the point that Piper begins to feel a little bit jealous. Annabeth had never really attempted to become good friends with Piper and now she's chatting with the new girl like they had known each other for years? Piper finally decides to make them feel as unwelcome as they're making her feel.
She whispers something into Jason's ear and starts giggling loudly. She then proceeds to make out with him, noting how Reyna cringes in disgust. Oh this girl is so into Jason.
"Jason," Piper whispers into her lovely boyfriend's ear. "You know I really don't like this girl either, I need her to be completely socially destructed. You'll do that for me right, babe?"
"Anything for you." Jason says, although his voice is strained.
"Tell me something about Reyna. You used to be friends right? Tell me something no one else knows." Piper demands, still whispering. "Like why she only came to Jupiter High this year?"
"Piper, I think it's all kind of personal." Jason sighed.
"Jason, do you love me? Or not?" Piper threatened, punctuating every word very, very clearly.
"Fine, fine, okay," Jason whispers. Piper notices that he doesn't answer her question, but she's still satisfied. His voice drops to a tiny whisper. "For the last two years, as far as I know, she's been in juvie. She was a shoplifter. She shoplifted some jewelry to buy some weed — she always had this habit of getting high whenever she felt like she couldn't deal with things." Jason admits, immediately feeling immense guilt over having told Piper about this.
"Thanks babe, now you're going to make a warning poster about this. I believe the student body should know about this. Just remember Jason, she's not your friend; she's a klepto and a pothead." Piper says, before giving Jason a peck on the cheek and bouncing off to class.
Percy groans. Seriously? PE right after lunch? What was wrong with his schedule? The worst part was that Percy had been in lunch detention, therefore not having any time to eat. As usual, Coach Hedge is a brutal teacher. He immediately commands the whole class to run 10 laps around the field, twice the size of a regular track course. At around the fifth lap, Nico di Angelo falls down abruptly, and lets out a groan when he touches and observes his most likely sprained ankle.
"Jackson, accompany di Angelo to the nurse, you are now excused from class."
Percy helps Nico up and allows Nico to use him to support his self.
"You do know I can do this myself, Jackson." Nico grumbles, making sure to look away from him.
"I'm fully aware of that, but I insist on you allowing me to miss the rest of this period." Percy replies with a smirk as he slides his arm under the younger boy's shoulders and helps him back inside.
"Ms. Kayla?" Percy calls out.
"Percy Jackson! It's only the first day of school, what on earth could you have done this time? What is it, a broken rib or a dislocated shoulder?" Ms. Kayla, the all too familiar nurse, asks.
"Actually, my friend here twisted his ankle." Percy responds sheepishly.
"Here, I'll bandage it." Ms Kayla said, before promptly following word. "Now here's some ice, why don't you go sit down over on that bench. I have other students to attend to."
Percy sits on the bench with Nico in silence, watching as Nico ices his ankle.
"Soo…" Percy begins, attempting to break the ice. "Are you seeing anyone?"
Nico splutters. "What? Why are you asking me this?"
"I don't know man, it helps breaks the ice with girls so I figured why not try it with guys?" Percy wonders.
"I mean, how did you know that I'm not fully into girls?" Nico says.
"Wait! What?" Percy yells, springing up then quickly sitting back down. Clearly his anyone had intended to mean a girl. Thankfully Ms. Kayla was long gone and not around to hear.
"Oh damn… you really are an idiot." Nico sighs and puts his head into his palms.
"Thanks." Percy pouts, a little bit hurt. "But you know, I don't mind you not liking girls all the time. I mean, I do think you're kind of hot so it's only fair." Percy continues.
Nico looks up in shock, and then slowly lifts himself so that he sits up straight. A second passes in silence as he attempts to formulate words — "I-I... y-you... you...me?" Percy nods, face alight with a furious blush, suddenly aware that he might have said the wrong thing. He tries to look away but his eyes are focused on Nico's lips, still failing to form a perfect sentence. Suddenly, Percy is hyperaware of said warm lips on his own, the surprise kiss flooding every single one of his senses. It feels nice, but deep down he is also overwhelmed with intense guilt.
The two boys pull apart at the sound of a shriek. A shriek that informs the both of them that Ms. Kayla had returned.
"Umm…sorry. We should go," Percy said as he tugs Nico out of the nurse's office, still limping due to his ankle.
As Percy opens his mouth to say something to Nico, the younger kid bolts. Percy sighs and heads towards the school's exit, suddenly not wanting to finish the first day. He had already missed half of study hall, anyway, so who cared?
"These are so perfect, babe," Piper giggles as Jason hangs up the posters, warning the student body about Reyna's "klepto" nature. Jason knows he shouldn't have said anything but he couldn't help it, he had already been protecting Reyna the best he could by not telling Piper the full story. Still, Jason feels awfully selfish that he had given away a piece of information that was told to no one but him by a girl he had known for eleven years. To top things off, he had given this piece of information away for a girl he had been dating for less than nine months. Caught up in his thoughts, Jason makes his obvious distaste for the plot far too obvious, because Piper notices him sighing and says, "Jason, I don't know about you, but I think this girl is danger. This isn't about me, or you. It's about her and the fact that she could be a threat to the entire student body. We can't have them thinking that she's the innocent, perfect person she pretends to be."
"She's changed." Jason hisses.
"You can't know that. Not for sure, anyway." Piper counters, shaking her head.
"I guess not." Jason admits as he staples the last poster to a notice board, before kissing Piper on the cheek and bidding her farewell, off to catch a late school bus. Piper gives a sweet smile to his retreating form and then proceeds to open up her phone and sent a text to Annabeth.
[3:30 PM, 10/13/13] Piper Annabeth
I just heard reyna telling nancy bobofit about what an awful person u r and how she's so into percy.