Chapter Text
Ah, New York, what a town….is what you would say if you were in New York, this may be “York” but it ain't new, it's actually a small town in indiana thats been there for quite a while now.
And in this small town in Indiana is Jedediah Smith…no, not that one, another one, apparently long down the line he was related to the actual explorer but for now, he's just a random teenaged boy, who is currently brooding due to being woken up by his brothers
“Stop yellin'! A guys alarm can't go off before you go hollerin' his head off?!” Jedediah laments, to which one of his brothers open the door and peer in, unimpressed “your alarm did go off, not that you heard it” Jedediah looked over, about to protest, but his alarm read ‘7:16 AM’
“Shit!”
He almost fell off the bed, scrambling to get dressed and get everything together, completely sidelining his sister's question of breakfast in order to run to, and slightly chase after the bus, he took his seat, slightly embarrassed by his display, his friends found it quite humorous however, he looked at Larry and Ahkmenrah, who sit behind him and pointed at the two “not funny, shut”
Larry reached over and ruffled Jedediah’s already messed up hair “or what, cowboy?” Jedediah tried to come up with a retort but came up short, looking away, Larry snickered and went back to whatever it was he was doing, it seemed to be some time of engineering thing, Jedediah wasn't interested so he settled for looking at his phone.
When they arrived, the day went by pretty slow, around breakfast, while talking to his friends, a guy named Lance walked up and and slapped something on Ahk’s back, he grabbed it and looked at what he wrote, ‘kick me’
He looked over to where Lance was snickering to himself, and his friends, KK and Octavius, KK laughed as well but Octavius seemed occupied, not that it mattered, as he certainly would've made fun of the matter if he wasn't, Ahkmenrah crumpled the paper “he acts like he's a 90’s movie jock, it would be funny if he wasn't so annoying”
Jedediah grimaced “yeah, and being best friends with your brother and Mr. Trust fund over there surely doesn't help” Ahkmenrah shrugged “as long as he's not at my house, which hasn't happened in a while, Octavius isn't so bad though, he's the only one of their little trio I can stand”
“He's just..kinda creepy, doesn't talk at all, looks like he wants to kill everyone that talks to him” Larry pointed out “he's just plain weird” Jedediah states, to which the other two look at him, Larry chuckles “like you can throw stones in that glass house” Jedediah rolled his eyes “okay sure I'm weird but I'm not weird ya feel?”
Larry nodded, to which Ahkmenrah just shrugged, once the bell rang he had two more classes before he truly lost his will to live, his least favorite class, world history, it isn't even the subject! He thinks history is actually really cool, maybe a bit out of character for him but he was one of the kid excited to go to a museum on field trips, sure it was mostly because of the cowboys and dinosaurs but can you blame him? It's just that this particular class is taught by Mr. Fredricks which is high up on the list of teachers he'd happily hit with a chair, always the AP teachers too.
He also had this class with none other than Octavius, which sucked, he felt so on edge around him, he was…unsettling, Mr. Fredricks gave his usual long-winded monologue of whatever they are doing that day, honestly Jedediah was halfway falling asleep, he garnered the gist of it, eras project, picked partners, yadda yadda, but when he started to announce the partners, his head snapped up when he heard his name and…Octavius?! Oh God no! He raised his hand but not before Octavius raised his
“Can I work alone?” Oh my god dude you ask that every. Single. Time, it isn't that bad! Mr. Fredricks responded “I usually would, Mr. Gaius but you have to have at least one actual group project during the year, unless you want to fail this class, you have to participate” Octavius sighed, Mr. Fredricks did too when he saw Jedediah's raised hand “yes, Mr. Smith?”
“Can I change partners?” He didn't even give a long response, a quick and simple “no” was all he said, Jedediah growled in frustration but didn't say anything, just grabbed his phone and started to text his friends, phone shielded under the desk
–losers–
Cowboy: some1 plan my funeral
Coffee maker: what happened?
Cowboy: got stuck w/ trust fund for hist project
Pharaoh: there's a history project???
Cowboy: I'm in AP
Pharaoh: oh right, forgot you were a nerd
Cowboy: okay, rude
Mr. President: don't act like that, you might make a new friend!
Cowboy: over my ded body
Louisiana: *dead
Louisiana: also shush, I'm gonna get my phone taken up with you guys blowing it up
Pharaoh: put it on silent
Louisiana: oh yeah, I forgot about that one
Coffee maker: so we're ignoring Jed?
Louisiana: yep
Pharaoh: pretty much
Mr. President: he can deal with it, I'm sure
Cowboy: y’all are so rude 2 me
Jedediah looked over when Octavius sat down, expecting him to snitch but he didn't, Jedediah leaned back, crossing his arms as Mr. Fredricks walked over to set the rubric and some other papers down on the desk “there's a participation and a peer review section, do not write anything on it until after your presentation or I will count off your score, choose any era you would like from any place” Jedediah honestly considered just circling a one on every space just to spite the both of them, he looked over to where Octavius was writing in a notebook, grabbing the paper to look over it, Jedediah raised an eye “what? Too good to even speak to me?”
Octavius looked over and blinked before handing the paper over “sorry…I'm so used to working on my own” Jedediah rolled his eyes and grabbed it “yeah, I got that” Octavius looked back at his notebook and wrote some more down ‘this is gonna be a long few weeks’ Jedediah thought bitterly
“There's two sections, which one would you like to do?” Jedediah blinked, looking at Octavius, a shocked confusion on his face “yer….lettin’ me choose?” Octavius mirrored his confusion “why wouldn't I?” Jedediah just shrugged “I'll do the research, it can't be that hard, right?” Octavius hummed grabbing the sheet again and looking over it “I mean…no, but it is quite a lot, if you need, I can research my own era” for some reason, to Jedediah, having him do basically 3 quarters of the whole thing didn't seem very fair, even if he didn't like him, he shook his head “just tell me the era, there's a checklist, right? I'll just use that”
Octavius blinked, almost shocked himself until he nodded and wrote on the top of the checklist for the eras ‘Roman empire; Augustian ‘Ceaserian’ era' Jedediah looked at it, having to look for a while to determine what he wrote with his fancy-ass writing but nodded, and took the pen to write below it ‘American West; Manifest destiny’ Octavius hummed, thinking over it “that's…actually pretty smart, the whole thing of conquest for both the start of America and the Roman Empire, even if the Roman Empire had just become, well an Empire” Jedediah almost smiled, he never had someone say his love for the Wild West ever be smart, quite the opposite “uh..yeah! I dunno, my friend Wea and I talk ‘bout it a lot, considering your family were on opposite sides of how the Manifest destiny happened”
“Huh, that's quite interesting” and for the first time ever, Jedediah was almost upset that the bell for AP history had rung, Octavius handed him the rubric “I'll let you hang onto it because it has the checklist….see you tomorrow?”
Jedediah blinked again, dumbfounded as Octavius grabbed his backpack “...yeah, see you tomorrow” Jedediah watched as Octavius walked out, confused
“Smith! Out of my classroom or you're taking it again next year!”