Cold as you [Pacey]

[ARIANNA DEVIN SETLEY]

Arianna was not a team player by any means. Her lack of cooperation was what kept her away from any kind of team sport and what made teachers continually have conferences with her parents. Growing up she was the kid that refused to work with anyone; she always thought that you couldn’t trust anyone else when it came to getting things done right. Her teachers thought it was an attitude that could be fixed but no matter how many people she was put with, she never managed to let any of them help with anything. Her father understood; she was just like him after all. He actually encouraged the behavior to some extent which frustrated her mother to no end. But no matter how hard her mother worked there were always check marks next in the ‘needs improvement’ box next to the ‘works well with others’ line on her report card.

So when their teacher came into class last week telling everyone that they would be pairing up for a group assignment Arianna had visibly flinched. Everyone knew it wasn’t going to be one of the projects where you get to pick your partner, although who she worked with wouldn’t be the issue. Even if she had been stuck with one of her closest friends she still would have been upset. The blonde needed control of every detail and group projects meant letting some of that control go. She honestly didn’t think it could get worse until the teacher started calling out names of who would be partnered together. Of course her luck would get her stuck with Pacey, the earth elemental in her class.

She didn’t like Pacey, however there were only a few reasons why. She didn’t know him that well but anyone who was dating Carson had to be obnoxious. He also was an earth elemental and therefore his personality just didn’t match up with that of her own. But probably the main reason why she didn’t like him was because she didn’t really like people in general.

After finding out the topic, some event after World War I that had a significant impact on the world, the teacher let them speak briefly to their partners about what they wanted to do. Arianna simply had told (actually it was more like demanded) Pacey to meet her at the library at a specific time and then walked out of the classroom unwilling to stick around any longer. She wasn’t keen on spending any time that was more than necessary with the kid.

Today was the day and they (really she) couldn’t put it off any longer. She arrived at the library a little earlier than she had informed him, wanting to get a head start on pulling resources. Maybe if she figured out most of what they had to do before he arrived they wouldn’t have to speak as much. After gathering together a few books she dropped them on the table and powered on her laptop, taking the time to glance at her watch. If he was on time he would be there at any moment, which made her a little uneasy. She just wanted this whole stupid project to disappear and leave her alone because the fact of trusting her grade in Pacey really freaked her out.

[PACEY LUCAS BAEK]

It wasn't like Pacey minded group projects -- not at all, actually! Being the typical Earth, he was kind of friendly to everyone, within reason, and he tended to err on the side of being overly kind rather than anything else. However, as it happened, he had the absolute worst luck when it came to partners apparently, as far as recent projects went, and he had to refrain from making a face when he heard that he would be working with Arianna. He was sure she was lovely, really -- she was very pretty and, had she smiled once or twice when he'd glanced in her direction over the years they'd been going to the Academy, he would probably be much more okay with her. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case. Truth be told, he thought she was a little bit frightening, but this wasn't the kind of thing Pacey was totally okay with admitting.

He took a deep breath as she came over, preparing to spend the remainder of the class with her and hopefully mull over some of the things they'd need to do for the assignment. However, as it transpired, she said barely a few words to him before stalking away, leaving Pacey sitting there at his desk still, blinking after her. "Well, uh, okay! See you then," he said finally after a second, but she was long gone, and he blinked a few times before sinking back into his chair, finishing off scribbling some notes before putting his things away and leaving the class with his friends. This wasn't going to be fun at all, he thought, absently keeping a reminder note for himself to make his way to the library at the time she'd specified; it probably wouldn't do to make her angry, considering how thrilled she already seemed to be working with him. Hopefully this wouldn't go over too badly.

It was a few days later, on the day Arianna had told him to meet her, that Pacey wandered into the library. He was on time, actually, but only just -- he'd planned to be a few minutes early, and the of course one his cousin had called, and this had held him up for a few minutes just outside in the hallway, before he was able to hang up the phone. He liked his cousin, but he also worried about what Arianna would say. Hopefully she wouldn't be angry -- he really was on time, honest. "Hey! How are you?" he greeted, offering a nervous smile. He probably shouldn't have been this nervous about just meeting her for a group project, but really, Pacey did not want any confrontation, and the girl was a little bit intimidating (or a lot -- probably a lot). "So uh, I have a lot of textbook notes, so hopefully that'll help for whatever we want to do, and um... Yeah." Like a good student, he'd done his homework, and hopefully she would be... er, not displeased with this. "Do you have any ideas?"

[ARIANNA DEVIN SETLEY]

In the few minutes waiting she had come to a conclusion. There was no way she was letting Pacey anywhere near the final project. She was not about to blow her grade because he accidently messed up. She would rather fail because it was her own fault; that she could control. Arianna just had to think of a way to get him to take no part in the project and just show up and say a few lines. Maybe if she attempted to be nice then he would just let her?

She looked up as she heard approaching footsteps and sighed knowing that it was none other than Pacey. She attempted to smile but it ended up as more of a grimace and she looked back down at her notes that she had taken. She had picked out several topics that she was interested in and would be pretty easy to find an abundant of information on. Arianna was actually a history nerd deep down, so finding the information wasn’t even a problem. She loved watching history documentaries and reading books about why things happened. The blonde was glad that this was a history project and not some other subject because at least she could be assertive in what she thought.

“Hello Pacey.” She answered, choosing to ignore his question about how she was. She didn’t want to socialize with him. It was enough to do a project with him but they were just completely different people on different sides of the spectrum. And Arianna had a feeling she would never be able to get over that, she was just too stubborn. “I’m glad you’re on time.” She said stiffly, attempting to be civil. But that was the extent of her attempt at small talk. She felt a little awkward trying to say anything else because she knew it came off as fake.

Pushing the awkwardness aside she slid her notebook over to Pacey so he could look at what she had done so far. “I picked out a few topics I thought would be the easiest. I came up with the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of USSR and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. You can choose which one you like the best.” She began as he read a few of the short notes she had taken about each. “I can do the rest after that and then email you the project once it’s finished. It won’t take me that long and that way we won’t argue about what goes in. Plus I tend to do things right the first time when I work alone.” Did that even sound nice? Oh well. She was kind of over the nice thing already. Besides who could turn down an offer like that? He would basically be getting an A without having to do any of the work.

[PACEY LUCAS BAEK]

Her response wasn't particularly friendly, and Pacey just cleared his throat and nodded in response, noting that she didn't answer his question. He wouldn't have minded in particular, really, because that happened when people wanted to say other things besides "I'm fine, how are you?" in conversation. Somehow, however, he got the suspicion that this wasn't Arianna's reason for ignoring him, and he just nodded again when she mentioned his punctuality. "I... try my best," he said, keeping his tone light and almost joking. He was normally a fairly punctual person, but he didn't make too much of an effort most of the time. This time he had, because he worried that Arianna might actually just be looking for some excuse to bite his head off, and he'd be damned if that excuse was something stupid like showing up two minutes late.

He took a seat and looked at the notebook, keeping his eyes focused on the paper to avoid having to make eye contact. She was a pretty girl -- really she was! -- but very intimidating. "Oh." It wasn't that he was particularly disappointed by this -- it was always easier when someone in the group knew precisely what they wanted to do for an assignment, but he kind of got the suspicion that, although she was giving him the ultimate decision it seemed, she didn't really care what he thought at all. He wasn't shy by nature but was, at this point, far too meek to say anything to point it out. "Um, well, the Cuban Missile Crisis could be kind of interesting. I mean, the fall of the USSR is a pretty big topic for this, and Pearl Harbor is... y'know... kind of overdone," he said, looking back over at her. "Um, not that -- not that it makes it a bad topic or anything, but I mean... you know..." He trailed off, hoping he hadn't offended her. Maybe the bombing of Pearl Harbor had been one of her favourite favourite topics to study in History or something. He had no clue. He wasn't even sure why he was in a History class, to be honest, though he actually somewhat enjoyed the class most of the time. Other times, like now, it wasn't so good.

The rest of her words caught his attention at last and he paused, words on the tip of his tongue as he debated over whether or not he should actually say anything. "But..." He stopped himself, not wanting to annoy her in any way, but then decided that yes, it would probably be a good idea to speak up anyway. Hopefully she wouldn't try to kill him. "I mean, it's a group project, right? So wouldn't it make sense to kind of... divide it? Somehow? Kind of? Maybe. Or at least come up with the thesis together or something..." It was just a suggestion. He cleared his throat again. He got the feeling that she just thought he was incompetent or somehow otherwise incapable of doing assignments like this, and that was highly grating, but he wasn't about to confront her about it. "I can do something, you know. I mean, I'll just feel bad if I don't." He doubted that chances of an argument were likely, nor did he think that he would personally mess up anything if she even allowed him to lay a hand on this project. Pacey actually did pretty well in school, for the most part.

[ARIANNA DEVIN SETLEY]

Arianna felt like rolling her eyes at his joking tone but refrained herself. He was making an effort to be nice, and not be so annoying, so she could at least try to do so herself. The grade on the project wouldn’t make that big a deal to her overall grade but she still wanted it to be perfect. And for it to be perfect Pacey had to do what she said. Sure she knew, somewhat, that Pacey wasn’t an idiot. But Arianna wanted scholarships for college because her parents made such little money. In order to get scholarships she would have to be the best, and she didn’t have time to stress out over this dumb assignment.

Once he was down reading she pulled the notebook back to her and shrugged a little. She really wanted to laugh at his response. He just seemed so… scared? Like she was going to blow up at him or something, which was really quite amusing. But once again she kept herself from showing any emotion. She didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. She still disliked him immensely and his cheerfulness bothered her. So she shrugged a little pretending to ponder over his words. Maybe he would think she was getting angry at him, which would certainly be funny. She loved messing with people and Pacey seemed easy enough. But she didn’t really feel up to carrying on some charade of her anger. “That’s fine. The Cuban Missile Crisis is easy enough, plus I already know a lot about it. I watched a history documentary about it the other day.” She had actually been leaning towards that topic as well, and was a little relieved that he had wanted to do that one. Pearl Harbor was a little boring, she had done a paper on it once already, and the fall of the USSR could only be covered vaguely.

But at the rest of his words she actually did roll her eyes. Of course he couldn’t just accept the fact that she wanted to do the project on her own. She cursed the teacher for not pairing her up with someone who actually needed a good grade but didn’t want to do any of the work. She secretly suspected that she had been paired with Pacey on purpose, that way she would have to fight to do without help. She scowled a little trying to think of what to do. She could always pretend to let him have a say, and then change what she didn’t like, but that would be a lot of work too. “Look I know you know that I don’t work well with others. So no it would not make sense to divide it.” She began, unable to stick with the even somewhat nice approach she had been trying. “It’s not that you can do things, hell I wouldn’t even trust my closest friends. I’m not good with trusting at all really. This is really for the best. You can run along now and do whatever it is you do.” She said shooting him a fake smile.