Chapter Text
“Good morning Grant High!” The voice of Grant’s principal, Mr. Hayes, rang out from the loudspeaker. Although he usually paid attention to the announcements (unlike most of his peers), Cyrus could barely even keep his eyes open. He was really tired out from the talent show, and he almost overslept. He listened to the announcements as best he could, but his “best” ended up being falling half-asleep for everything but the very first and very last announcements. He zoned back in just as Mr. Hayes finished with “And please go vote for all of our very talented students who performed last night! Videos and the ballot can be found on the school’s website!”
“Does he not understand that you literally can not vote for ‘all’ of the performers?” sniggered Buffy, who sat next to Cyrus in first period Spanish.
“Oh, you know Mr. Hayes,” said Cyrus as he yawned. He really needed to get more sleep. “Besides, it’s a nice gesture, right?”
“You’re too nice, Cyrus.”
“Well someone has to stick up for the guy. All everyone ever does it makes fun of him.”
“Principal’s pet,” teased Buffy.
“Whatever. Let’s get down to business before Senora Gonzalez yells at us.”
Cyrus drifted through school as a zombie. He was probably going to have to relearn everything he was taught that day, but he was too exhausted to care. His math teacher even noticed that he was more tired than she’d ever seen him! After almost running into several people in the hallway (including one who Cyrus swore didn’t even go to Grant), Cyrus somehow got himself to history on time. Granted, he was literally the last person to arrive when he was usually one of the first, but Cyrus was willing to count it as a win. Unfortunately for him, someone had decided to appropriate his typical seat (which was the best one in the entire room, if you asked Cyrus), leaving the only open seat at the end of the last row, next to TJ Kippen. Cyrus groaned, but he couldn’t help but be somewhat satisfied with the temporary change. As much as he hated the back row, Cyrus was dying to have another conversation with TJ, and, more importantly, find out what the heck ‘Underdog’ meant.
However, before Cyrus could even open his mouth to ask TJ, Mr. Forbes started class. ‘That’s right,’ thought Cyrus. ‘I’m not as early as I usually am, so I don’t have time to chit-chat like I usually do.’
“Good morning class! I hope you all got the chance to go see the talent show last night! Let me tell you, Grant has some very talented students! In fact, we even have a very skilled dancer in this class! Our own Cyrus Goodman killed it last night!”
“Thanks,” Cyrus mumbled while the entire class turned to look at him. He really did not need the entire class to be very aware of his dancing abilities. Sure, he did decide to go and dance in front of hundreds of his peers, but he didn’t expect any of them to talk to him about it. Now, Mr. Forbes was practically inviting them to! Although, Cyrus supposed, he already had someone talk to him about it. TJ. In the bathroom of the Spoon.
Speaking of TJ, when Cyrus glanced over at him, he found a very soft and a very not-intimidating TJ staring back, before he shuddered and looked away. Cyrus was really going to have to interrogate him later.
“Anyway, we are going to begin our decades projects today! Now, they won’t be due until about a month after the AP test (which let me remind you is in three weeks!), but I wanted to give you guys ample time to come up with great ideas! This will be a partner project, so I’ll give you guys some time to pick partners after I’ve explained the entire project.”
Anxiety spiked through Cyrus. None of his friends were in this class! He looked over each of his classmates. Steph would pair up with Katie, Andrew would go with Victoria, Alex and Oscar would probably work together, Kira was too bossy and too much of a perfectionist, and Reed was too much of a dumbass (Cyrus wasn’t even sure how he got into AP US). Maybe he could work with Leo? His locker was right next to Cyrus’s, and he always seemed nice.
“So, without any further ado, I release you to the Battle Royale that is the picking of project partners!” announced Mr. Forbes (ever the dramatist), and the chaos began.
Cyrus stood up and started to make a beeline for Leo, but then TJ knocked over the tall pile of papers and folders that was sitting on Cyrus’s desk. By the time he finished cleaning everything up, Lester had already claimed Leo, and everyone one else had partnered up. Except for TJ.
“Guess we’re stuck together, huh?” said TJ, although he didn’t seem to be too disappointed about it.
“I guess so,” said Cyrus as he sat back down. Since he was already sitting next to TJ, there was no need to move to another spot.
“Kippen and Goodman? There’s a pair I never thought I’d see,” said Mr. Forbes while he wrote their names down next to a decade. “You two will have the 80s. Don’t mess it up! I am entrusting you with the decade of my youth!”
“Forbes is such a dork,” TJ said after their teacher walked away to assign decades to the other groups.
“I know, but it’s sweet. What other teacher is willing to be that goofy with their students?”
“Yeah, you’re right.” TJ paused a moment before a grin broke out on his face. “Did you watch those videos of him that Reed found?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Are you in the groupchat?” After Cyrus shook his head no, TJ continued “Oh, give me your number and I’ll add you. Anyway, there are these videos of him on YouTube where he’s telling stories. One of them is about him selling all of his belongings and going backpacking across Europe.”
“There is no way he actually did that.”
“I dunno, he does have that glimmer in his eyes…” TJ’s sentence drifted off and they both started at their teacher for a moment before Cyrus brought them back to the task at hand.
“Well, I guess we should get started.”
“Yeah, I guess.” A beat passed. “So,” TJ continued, “Do you have any idea what we should get started on?”
“Not really? Brainstorming is probably the place to start, and I don’t know about you, but personally, I think my brain is feeling pretty calm right now.” Cyrus was expecting a response, and he got one, but not in the form he thought he would get. Instead of using his words, like, y’know, any decent person, TJ started laughing.
‘Great,’ though Cyrus. ‘He’s finally come to his senses and realized what a joke this is and now he’ll try to weasel out of being my partner, which is perfectly fine by me because I probably would’ve ended doing it all anyw-’
“That’s a good one, Underdog,” TJ said, (quite rudely) interrupting Cyrus’s inner monologue. “Mind if I use it?”
“Wait, you mean you weren’t just laughing at me?”
“What? I was laughing at what you said, not at you.”
“Oh,” Cyrus swallowed. “Well, how stormy is your brain feeling right now?”
“I’d said pretty stormy.” TJ grinned, but Cyrus could just barely hear TJ add an “as always” onto the end of his statement. As much as Cyrus would have loved to dive into what TJ meant, he decided against it. If TJ did in fact not hate him (which seemed to be the case), Cyrus was not about to go and ruin it.
“I guess we can get started with that then?” he said instead.
“Sound like a plan.”
Twenty minutes and more than a couple of pieces of paper later, TJ and Cyrus had come up with approximately one hundred million ideas, none of them very good.
“What even happened in the 80s?” groaned TJ as he crumpled up another piece of paper and expertly shot it into the trash can.
“Three minutes twenty-three seconds to three minutes thirty-four seconds,” said Cyrus.
“Huh?”
“‘We Didn’t Start the Fire.’ You know, where it goes ‘Wheel of fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide/foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz/hypodermics on the shore, China’s under martial law/Rock and Roller coaster wars’? It happens between three minutes and twenty-three seconds and three minutes and thirty seconds.”
“One, how the fuck do you know that? Two, HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW THAT?!”
“I thought it would be valuable information when I was like 12.”
“Seriously? You have got to be the most interesting person I know, Underdog.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say I’m that interesting. And what’s with that nickname? That’s like the third time you’ve called me ‘Underdog.’”
Before TJ could answer, the bell rung. “I’ll keep trying to come up with ideas!” he called as he went out the door. “I’ll let you know if I think of any good ones!”
“You guys are NOT going to believe this!” Cyrus said, sitting down with at his lunch table.
“What is it, Cy? Did they overstock chocolate chocolate muffins and are giving the extras away for free?” responded Buffy.
“Haha, very funny.”
“What? 9 times out of 10, when you are yelling in the cafeteria, it’s about those damn muffins!”
“Is not!”
“Is too!”
“While I am sure that that would be a very entertaining argument to listen to for twenty minutes, I want to know what Cyrus was going to tell us,” interrupted Andi.
“Oh! So you know how I had that conversation with TJ Kippen yesterday?” said Cyrus.
“Yeah, did you ever figure out what that was all about? And the whole ‘Underdog’ thing?” said Jonah.
“I’ll get to that. So today Mr. Forbes has us pick partners for the decades project. And somehow I ended up being partners with TJ! And for some reason he seems happy about this! And then he called me Underdog again, like twice!”
“I’m starting to wonder what exactly his motives are,” said Buffy.
“Me too! But don’t you think he would’ve just shoved me or something if he wanted to mess with me? It’s so much easier than being forced to spend time with me.”
“Maybe he just wants to get a good grade on the assignment?” suggested Andi.
“Maybe,” said Cyrus.
“Speak of the devil,” muttered Buffy, and, before he could ask what she meant, Cyrus felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to face a grinning Kippen.
“Hey! I just has an absolutely amazing idea for our project!” TJ said excitedly.
“Well? What is it!” responded Cyrus.
“So you know how you were talking about that one section of ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ that’s about the 80s? What if we rewrote it be entirely about that decade!”
“Hmm, an iconic song filled with events of an iconic decade? I think that’s a great idea! We’d probably have to write a more detailed explanation and analysis about the events, but it would definitely work!”
“Awesome! I guess we can figure out when to get together and work on it tomorrow?”
“Sounds like a plan! See you in history!”
“See ya in history!”
When Cyrus turned back around to continue his lunch and conversation with his friends, he was met with a couple of shit-eating grins.
“What?” he asked.
“You seemed a little enthusiastic about that exchange,” teased Andi.
“Yeah, I could literally hear the exclamation points at the ends of your sentences,” added Buffy.
“What are you guys talking about?” asked Cyrus.
“They’re talking about how you obviously like TJ,” said Jonah without looking up from his phone.
After a beat of shocked silence from the others at the table, Jonah looked up. “What? I’m not as oblivious as you all think I am,” he said, and laughter erupted from the table.
“But seriously,” said Buffy as she tried to suppress giggles, “you so totally like him!”
“I so totally do not!”
“Okay…” said Buffy, and they all went back to eating their lunches.
“Oh, hi TJ!” said Andi.
“TJ?” Cyrus whipped around, but TJ was nowhere to be seen. Andi and Buffy, however, were giggling uncontrollably behind him.
“Yep, you don’t like him at all,” said Andi.
“Oh, shut up.”