lost_boy | (no subject)

Lunch was my favourite time of the school day.

It was probably stupid, I liked most of my classes, so it wasn't as if I was bored, but I liked lunch because it meant I got to see my friends. We weren't all in the same grade, never mind the same classes, so it was the one time during the day I could see all of them. And maybe I didn't see every single one of them every single day, but there was always a familiar face or several.

And the lunch room was loud. It was as close as I had ever seen to the Lost Boys and although I was still trying to distance myself from the Island and Peter and everything I had been there, it was still something I liked. Something that made me feel a little more at home.

I thought most other students liked it, too, if only because it meant they weren't in class. It was a break and I was always starving by the time I made it to the lunch room. Today was no different and I walked into the room briskly with my lunch bag by my side, then scanned the crowd. There, over on one side, were the people I knew, and I made my way toward them with a smile.

There were groups everywhere, though. I smiled at some of them, avoided others, and thought to myself, as I finally sat down, that maybe I was getting the hang of being a normal teenager after all.

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Achilles saw no point in his lessons. He'd already learned from Chiron, the famed centaur who taught so many famous Greeks in his rose quartz cave. His new lessons on history felt strange, looking to his own future as the past, and English was a miserable jest. He saw some point in the mathematics training, but by far the class he most bothered attending was gym.

Selfishly so, perhaps. He could best dozens of grown men, other boys had no chance at all, but he found he quite enjoyed basketball. It was an easy challenge, but the fact that it presented challenge at all more than made up for it. He was freshly showered now, not out of breath despite handily dodging no fewer than three angry teachers, and ready to enjoy a meal that was not from the Children's Home.

Achilles sat and fastidiously began to apply the yellow and red sauces to his six assembled hot dogs.

"I thought you didn't like hot dogs," I said when I dropped into the seat beside Achilles and began to unpack my lunch. I still wasn't sure I fully understood how hot dogs were made and I thought I probably didn't want to really know, but I remembered Achilles saying the fish he caught would be better.

I guessed that wasn't really the same as not liking them, after all, but it was still funny to see him with six. It made my sandwich look rather pathetic in comparison, but I took a big bite of it anyway, then leaned my elbows on the table.

"Are you going to go to class this afternoon?" I asked. Sometimes he didn't. Sometimes I didn't want to either, but I didn't want to get into trouble and I knew it would be worse because of the fights I had gotten into.

"They are better with these brined vegetables," answered Achilles, touching his little paper cup full of pickles. And they were better than the cafeterias attempts at pizza. Achilles had only had it once, on the shore with the holy man, but where that had been transformative, here pizza was only sad, gray rectangles.

"What's this afternoon?" he asked around a huge bite, mustard squirting out at the corners of his mouth. It wasn't princely, but no one seemed to mind here. Achilles pulled a sudden face. "Is it biology?"

I reached over and took one of his pickles, popping it into my mouth along with another bite of my sandwich, then smiled at Achilles. He was the closest I had here to a friendship like the one with the boys on the Island, but it carried none of the heaviness I'd felt there. It was better, easier to be around Achilles than the boys on the Island and although I'd loved them and felt guilty for thinking it, it was so much better to have a friendship with someone who didn't need me to mother him at every turn.

That didn't mean I still wouldn't try here and there.

"Yes, it's biology," I answered. "But you ought to come. I need a partner for the frog." I had no issue with the idea of cutting a frog open to look at its inside, but I did need a partner for it. The teacher said so.

Achilles frowned. He and that particular teacher were at even greater odds than he and the others, ever since she had refused to acknowledge centaurs as a real species. Apparently it did not matter that the son of a god could vouch for one.

"What must we do with a frog?" he asked, baffled.

"Cut it open and learn about its insides," I answered. I was looking forward to it, though not because I found the idea of it fun. I just knew it was something I would likely excel at, which didn't happen often in most of my classes. I wasn't terrible in them, but I wasn't very good either, not even when I enjoyed the subject.

But I could field dress an animal. Even one as small as a frog.

"I think we have to take out its organs," I continued. "I'll be very good at it, we'll get top marks."

Achilles pulled a face. Surely they were meant to learn something, but he didn't know what he was meant to do with his knowledge of frog organs. It would thrill Patrocles, however, which was enough to sway him.

"I need those," he said. "The marks. For...whatever reason I'm meant to have them."

His own were abysmal.

"I think they're meant to get us a certificate," I said. The marking system did seem odd to me, the ways in which we were meant to demonstrate our understanding felt unfair, because there was so much pressure put on us to do well. I imagined there were people who didn't respond well to that, even if they knew the material.

"It's stupid," I admitted. "At least, I think it is most of the time. Last week I was told I would have marks taken away because I was late."

But that hadn't been my fault. The bus had taken too long.

Achilles' bronze hair and handsome face are easy to spot. Octavia grins a little as she sits down across from him and surveys his food. "Six hot dogs, huh? Quite an appetite you've got there," she remarks, her eyebrows raising slightly. "Especially considering they're school cafeteria hot dogs and can't be all that good."

As much as she loves the learning aspect of high school, she's gotten accustomed enough to the significantly higher quality food in Darrow versus back home that school food leaves more than a little something to be desired.

"I have learned the trick," said Achilles, for these hot dogs were far better than the ones served at the Home. What's more, the school provided them with so much to eat with them, red and yellow sauces, white, brined vegetables, even peppers too hot for Achilles' mild tongue.

"Grey is to be avoided, while pink is good. Green should be burned," he added with a shudder. "Somewhere too far away for the smoke to ever find you."

Octavia laughs, soft and amused. "Stay away from the green," she says with a nod. "I'll make sure to remember that. And the next hot dog I have, I'm definitely trying it your way."

She glances at the tables around them, filled with students, many of whom she doesn't know or only vaguely recognizes. There are familiar faces too, though. "I think you guys have a larger cafeteria than we do," Octavia comments. "But I guess that makes sense, since I think there are more students here."

"Do you not attend lessons here?" asked Achilles. It was true that he hadn't seen her about before today, but Achilles' own attendance was so sporadic that he rarely even saw Jamie.

If it weren't for the food, he'd not come to lessons at all. "They did not ask me my preferences at all, only said that I must go here."

"Nope," Octavia says with a shake of her head. "I go to Petros High, across town. Everyone got let out early today because of some kind of accident in one of the chemistry labs, toxic fumes from a fire. So I decided to come visit my friends here."

It doesn't seem too surprising that Achilles hasn't noticed she doesn't attend this school; she wouldn't have expected him to be looking out for her specifically. "You don't sound too excited about the whole thing," she observes neutrally. "Don't like school?"