beauty and the beast ⋮ percabeth au

17.

Percy

No matter what Jason, Leo, and Frank say, Annabeth Chase does not like me.

Even though I wasn't friends with her until the show, I always thought she was cute. I'd seen around school a lot. She was always immensely shy and quite adorable in my opinion, so when I found out Annabeth was my leading lady I was extremely pleased.

Of course, now I'm completely head over heels for her and Annabeth will never like me back.

I mean, why would she? I'm just this slightly awkward teenage guy who is also an intense musical theatre geek at the same time. Why would she like me?

Annabeth is something else entirely.

She was incredibly intelligent, but not in an 'in your face' type of way. I knew she wanted to be an architect when she was older, and there was no doubt she would be. Her startling grey eyes were one of my favorite features about her. However, they sometimes diminished by a pair of black glasses that looked awful on me but adorable on her (Believe me, I tried them on once). She also had these blonde princess curls that cascaded like a waterfall down her back and I just wanted to entangle my hands in them and—

Percy, no. Get out of teenage boyland. Don't become a horndog.

At the moment I was trying to focus in my final period of the day — Pre-Calculus — but I couldn't seem to focus. My mind kept drifting to the stress of my 'Les Miserables' audition coming up in the next couple of weeks, the fact opening night was this Friday and how on that very same night (two nights away!!) I finally get to fulfill my dream and kiss Annabeth freaking Chase.

No, I don't actually dream about her. Shut up.

I tapped my pencil on my desk, waiting for the bell to ring in less than three minutes. Next to me Jason was going over the script, noting a few lines where he needed to pay extra attention to. Jeez, why can't I be more prepared like Jason. I just show up to rehearsal and wing it.

Okay, maybe that's not the best way to go about rehearsals.

A shrill bell rang throughout the class and I shoved my math notebook into my backpack, trying to get to the dressing room as soon as possible. "Woah Percy," Jason laughed. "Wait for me!"

"You know it takes me a long time to get into my Beast outfit," I claimed while beginning to walk down the hallway beside him.

"Percy, just admit the only reason you want to get rehearsal is so you can see Annabeth," Jason responded with a smirk on his face.

"Maybe..." I admitted while blushing.

"Okay, when are you going to admit your feelings to her?" Jason asked. He pulled open the door to the males dressing room and pulled his costume of the rack.

"I don't know," I replied. "I'm not even sure Annabeth likes me."

Jason raised an eyebrow. "Saying Annabeth doesn't like you is like saying Frank isn't head over heels for Hazel."

"Okay, Annabeth doesn't like me that much," I defended.

"You can't be so sure about that," Jason murmured. He straightened up while grinning. "Now go get you wig cap on. We've got a show to put on."

•••

I was sitting backstage and watching my fellow cast members perform 'Be Our Guest'. Currently, Leo and Piper were performing their infamous tango on stage and Jason did not look pleased about it. I knew that even though Leo was taken and Piper had a crush on Jason — not that he needed to know that — he was still incredibly jealous.