Greatest Love Story- A Percabeth AU [On Hold]

Chapter 11

Percy's POV:

When Annabeth has left, my mom asks "So that's the Annabeth I've heard so much about?"

I sarcastically reply "No, that's the other Annabeth that's in most of my classes."

"I understand why you like her," she tells me. "She seems like a nice girl."

"She probably doesn't like me, though," I groan. "And even if she does, there can't be 'any romance' between us." I say 'any romance' in a near-perfect imitation of Mrs. Dodds' southern drawl.

The only response I get is a frown and "Sorry, kiddo."

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Over the next few weeks, Annabeth and I go from basically strangers that have to work together, to acquaintances, to... Well, I'm not sure if you could call us friends yet, but we're somewhere close to that. As much as I wish we could be more than friends, we definitely haven't reached that point, and probably never will. For now, though, not quite friends is definitely better than nothing.

So far our system of picking up our brothers and letting them play together before heading to my house to study has worked great. Tyson loves getting to have playdates three days a week, and he keeps Annabeth's brothers occupied, so they don't cause trouble. I'm pretty sure my mom and stepdad like Annabeth more than me (whether that means they like her more than they like Percy, or they like her more than he likes her is up to you to decide😉). Plus, Annabeth seems about 10 times happier when she's at my house than anywhere else.

We haven't even had any more trouble with Annabeth's stepmother, surprisingly. More than once she has given us disapproving looks, but she hasn't said anything about it since that first day.

One day, about 3 weeks after the first day Annabeth started tutoring me, she stops in the middle of quizzing me to ask "Hey, why does everyone think you're a troublemaker? As far as I know you haven't done so much as pull a harmless prank in years."

"I haven't, really," I tell her.

"Then why do so many people think you have?"

"Well, do you remember the Stoll brothers?" I ask her. "I think Travis was a Senior and Connor was a Junior when we were freshmen."

"Yeah, I remember them," she says, clearly trying to figure out where this conversation might be going. "They're the ones that managed to get all of the popular girls to fight over a mango, right?"

I laugh. "Yep, that's them. Anyway, I hung out with them for a while in freshman year. I only helped with one of their pranks. I don't even remember what we did, but whatever it was, we got caught and got in trouble. After that, it didn't matter what I did, the fact that I even dared to associate with them meant that I must be trouble."

I get a soft "oh" and a look of pity in response, but I shrug it off. "It's not too bad, really. Besides, if I wasn't thought of as trouble, Mrs. Dodds wouldn't have failed me two years in a row, and we wouldn't be here right now, would we?"

She blushes and looks away, but I still see her smile.

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It's about then that we decide we really are friends. We still don't hang out at school, or anything, because apparently a boy and a girl can't be friends without everyone thinking they're dating. If Mrs. Dodds hears any rumours about us dating, even false rumours, she will put a stop to the whole situation. This wouldn't be a big deal, really-- I mean, Annabeth and I would still hang out, and not much would really change-- except that Mrs. Dodds told us, or at least I assume she told Annabeth as well sisnce she didn't tell us together, the Thursday of the first week of our setup, that if this didn't work out, she would automatically fail us both. I don't think she's actually allowed to do that, but I wouldn't be surprised if she did anyway. I could live with failing again, honestly. I'm used to it by now. Sure, it means I wouldn't graduate on time, but I could live with that. But I refuse to drag Annabeth down with me. She's going to go to college, make something of herself. She doesn't deserve for that to all be ruined.

Okay, so this one is a little bit shorter again, and not much really happens, but big things are happening in the next chapter. I just needed to get to the point where it would make sense for those things to happen. I'm really excited about what happens in the next chapter, and you all should be too. Also, I can never remember which Stoll brother is older, so I ended up looking it up on the fandom wiki, and ended up getting distracted and spent well over an hour on the wiki, and didn't even remember to look up what I had originally planned to look up, so I had to go back to the wiki to find it, and basically I ended spending at least 2 hours on the fandom wiki, when I only meant to look up one little fact while writing this chapter. So yeah.

Anyway, thanks for reading! Same as the last chapters: let me me know what you think, any constructive criticism and ideas you have are welcome, all that. You know the drill.

Also, what is everyone doing to stay busy during quarantine? And how strict is quarantine where you all are? I'm curious to find out about all of your experiences with this.

Thanks, again, for reading!

Cam💖💖