Chapter 1: A is for Absolutely

Style: AU (Alternate Universe) and AH (All-Human)

POV: Percy, 1st Person

Summary: All he wanted to do was ask her out? Was that so hard? Actually, it was harder than it seemed.

So, this is my very stupid, idiotic attempt to ask out the girl of my dreams.

"Hey Annabeth!" I called from across the hallway. She turned around. Her blonde curls bobbed and her gray eyes were piercing. She was standing with her locker opened up so that I could see her perfectly organized books and papers.

My eye wandered to my own locker. The papers were falling out to my feet and I was missing two textbooks. There was something green on the door and an odd substance was dripping from the top of it.

I shut it quickly and turned back to look at her. She looked like a princess. She said something to our friend Thalia and crossed the hall to me. "Hey, Percy. What's up?"

"Well," I started. Nice job, Perce, I told myself. I was actually able to make a sound. Her hair smelled like lemon. I probably smelled like the gym locker room. Before I was too scared, I said, "Will you-"

The bell rang twice. Time for third period. I silently cursed everything and everyone (excluding Annabeth, of course).

Annabeth shrugged like 'What are you going to do about it?' I sighed. She said, "I'll talk to you after class." And she was off, walking down the hallway with Thalia by her side again. I tried not to stare at her, but Thalia turned around and stuck out her tongue at me. She obviously knew exactly what I was trying to do. Well, of course she did. She'd been teasing us for our entire lives.

I rolled my eyes. She was usually like that.

My friend Grover came up and clapped me on the shoulder. "Love sucks," he laughed, but in a nice way. His legs were wobbling back and forth.

Grover and I had a long history. We'd been friends for years. I'd known him longer than I'd known Annabeth and all of my other friends. If I ever needed anything, I usually went to him. We gave each other advice that 99 percent of the time did not work.

Some of the popular girls walked past me. I was hit with a waft of perfume and whipped by someone's brown hair. Who knew hair actually hurt? My cheek stung like hell after that. Someone had their iPhone out, and it was blasting some annoying pop song.

The sick part was that no teacher would ever catch them, where as I would be stuck in detention for the rest of my life. The only nice girl in their group, Silena Beauregard, who dated our friend Charles Beckendorf, waved at us as she turned down the hallway. They even had the exact same classes! It was insane.

"Come on, Perce," said Grover, tugging on my shoulder. I followed him down the hallway and up the stairs. The late bell rang. Of course.

Grover and I were in eighth grade. We were top of the pack. It was kind of fun to scare the little sixth graders. A few of them were still lost in the hallways, and the year was already halfway over. When they saw us, they scurried away in their pink Sketchers and sparkly tops.

I laughed a little bit at that. When we got to math, the door was already opened. Our teacher, Mrs. Dodds, who hates my guts, had the door open for us. Everyone stared as Grover and I took our seats in the back of the room.

Dodds didn't seem to even care today. She did, however, say, "If you have another tardy, you both have a week to detention. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am," we answered from our seats. Grover took out his textbook, and since I was missing mine, I just took out a piece of paper and kept glancing over at his.

Mrs. Dodds taught algebra and regular math. Annabeth was in the algebra class. I was in regular.

"Okay, so we are going to start doing slope today, class. The easiest way to find slope is with slope-intercept form, which is…"

My mind kind of went blank after that. Her words just kept going on and on. I rested my head in my hands and kept my eyes focused on the board like I was listening, and sometimes nodding my head up and down.

I was actually thinking about Annabeth and what I would say to her. I tried different things in my mind, but they all seemed so stupid. How was I supposed to ask her out? Maybe I would wait until tomorrow. That suddenly seemed like a good idea.

"Mr. Jackson." The stern voice brought me back to reality. I looked into the teachers eyes. She seemed annoyed.

"Yes ma'am?"

"Would you care to come up to the board and explain problem number six?" It wasn't a question. She hissed it like a monster. Well, she already was a monster, so...

Everyone is staring at me again. My eyes snapped to the clock. Half of the period was already over, and I didn't know a single thing that she was talking about. I gulped and stood, snatching Grover's book. He didn't even protest.

Her eyes were piercing the back of my head as I looked at the question and began to write is down on the board. It was: y=1/2x+8. What the heck were y and x supposed to stand for? And what was I even supposed to do with the equation? Graph it? Solve it? Both?

I turned around. Everyone was still looking at me. My face got hot. I tried to read the directions at the top of the page, but they looked like alphabet soup. I hated having dyslexia so much that it wasn't even funny. And my ADHD was acting up.

"I'm not sure how to find the answer, ma'am," I told her sheepishly. She glared at me and motioned for me to return to my seat. I tossed Grover his book and ended up hitting him in the head. Oops.

"Would anyone else like to try the problem?" No one volunteered. "Very well, then." She proceeded to make a function table and multiply all of the numbers so that there were an input and output. When she was done, I'd had no idea what had even happened.

Thankfully, the bell rang for fourth period. Everyone jumped to their feet, but Mrs. Dodds screeched, "Sit back down or I will keep you all here for the rest of the day!" I think I was the first person back in my seat.

"Your homework is page 85, one through sixty all. I expect everyone to come to school tomorrow with it finished and ready as a test grade." All of the students moaned, but the teacher was looking at me as she said it. This was only a punishment for me, and I didn't even have a textbook. I almost yelled out, Go ahead and fail me! But the teacher waved her hands, and we all ran out of the classroom.

Grover started stuttering. "D-d-dude, t-that was really s-stupid. N-now we all have to do that w-work." He looked like he was going to strangle himself. I put a hand on his shoulder, and he nodded. He relaxed and tried to calm down.

"Don't worry, you're smart enough," I told him. "It's me who should be worried. I swear I'm going to fail the grade."

Grover didn't even correct me. "Thanks, G-Man," I said sarcastically. He protested, trying to say something, but I left him and headed toward Latin. It was the one class that I had with Annabeth, and I was definitely going to ask her if it was the last thing I did.

I darted through the different hallways until I saw her.

Annabeth was talking casually next to the water fountain with her friend, Juniper. Grover had a huge crush on Juniper. Everyone usually made fun of her. She was kind of like the hippie chick. She wore flare jeans and tie-die shirt and was always going on about World Peace and Save the Pandas and Hug a Tree and things like that. Parts of her hair were streaked green. She was, actually, very pretty.

Juniper noticed me first. "Hey Percy." Annabeth turned around and smiled. My heart did a tap dance.

"Hey Juniper. And hey to you again Annabeth."

"It looks like we meet again, Percy," laughed Annabeth, flashing her perfect white teeth. She was being nicer to me than she usually was. I wonder why? Most of the time, she was making fun of me, or correcting and scolding me, but we always had fun together.

"So, what were you trying to say before?" she asked me.

"Um, well, I wanted to ask you something…" She nodded and waited. I looked at Juniper. "Um, alone…"

Someone behind me whistled. I whipped around Thalia was walking by, chuckling softly. She whistled again. "You two are so cute when you flirt." I wasn't sure who was blushing the hardest.

I almost said some choice words to Thalia, but she was gone. Juniper backed away. "Well, I'll just leave you guys here… alone… in the hallway…" She swiftly left us, and I almost said some choice words to her too.

"Ha ha, very funny. Now what was it you wanted to ask me? We're alone now." Actually we weren't some of the seventh graders were lingering by the bathrooms, clearly eavesdropping on our conversation. I fixed my green eyes on the group of girls and guys. They looked at me, and then held their hands over their mouths and walked away.

Was it the funny? "Um, well, we've been friends for a while now…" Oh, very smooth, Percy.

"Um, yeah," she answered, nodding. She looked really confused, which was a really weird look on her, as she never got confused. It looked a lot better on me, since I always was.

"I was wondering, would you-" The freaking bell rang, again.

"Come on, Percy. We'll be late to class." She tugged on my arm, and for a second I was still so shocked that I let her, but then I pulled her back.

"Will you go out with me?" I blurted, then mentally slapped myself. Yeah, smooth Percy.

She looked seriously shocked. "Never mind," I told her, shaking my hands back and forth. "You don't have to answer that. I'll just-"

"Absolutely," she told me with the biggest, most beautiful smile ever. She kissed me on the cheek quickly and then pulled me through the hallway. "But first, we will actually get to class so that we can go out. How about tonight?"

I couldn't even answer. I let her pull me along. It looks like my terrible attempt actually paid off. My cheek was still tingling from the kiss. And she'd said t hat we should go out tonight. She didn't turn me down!

I was going to do my homework and not get detention, I swore to myself. I'd do anything if it meant more time with Annabeth.

Hey! So, let me explain this. The story will be a series of one-shots, surrounding the life of Percy and Annabeth. Each chapter will have it's own style, (Either AU, AH, or Book-Based), It's POV (Percy or Annabeth) and it's own summary, so you don't get confused. These are for when I'm bored, and they will be fluffy. I hope you enjoy this story!

-BBH