𝙸 𝙲𝚊𝚗'𝚝 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚜

𝚂𝟺𝙴𝟼: 𝙷𝚘𝚠 𝙻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚢 𝚒𝚜 𝚃𝚑𝚢 𝚂𝚗𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝙿𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚝

Hazel stuffs her hat, scarf, and mittens into the sleeve of her puffy winter coat and hands it to Percy.

"Nice dog sweater," he says.

She beams. "Thanks, it's a corgi."

Percy sets his friends' coats in his bedroom, taking care not to lose any cold-weather gear along the way.

By the time he reemerges, Annabeth has shown up and is placing gifts of her own underneath the Christmas snake plant. "I know we said no gifts, but-"

"Yeah, yeah, nobody listened to that guideline. Want a cookie?" Percy asks.

Hazel groans. "You can't eat those!" With that, she opens a Tupperware container and gently places some homemade gingerbread cookies on the plate, putting Frank's Pillsbury sugar cookies to shame.

Annabeth snorts. "Nice sweater, Seaweed Brain."

Percy looks down at his holiday attire. His sweater's main feature is Santa Claus holding a trident while riding a shark. "Thank you very much, Wise Girl. And yours is... very you."

Her sweater says ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS MY RIGHT TO CHOOSE, which is kind of wordy for a Christmas sweater, but not unwelcome in the slightest. The pictures of the uteruses are a little extra, but again, not unwelcome.

Percy squints and then notices that the tiny uteruses are flipping him off. That's awesome.

"Thanks," she says before joining Piper and Hazel on the couch.

"Okay," says Frank, pointing the remote at the television. "Who's ready for DVD Bingo?"

Percy opens the end table drawer and starts passing out cards to his friends.

"I'm sorry, did you just say 'DVD Bingo' in the twenty-first century?" Nico asks.

Leo raises his hand. "Are we playing four corners or postage stamp or any of that?"

"Just regular Bingo is fine," Frank says. "Vertical, horizontal, and diagonal."

Hazel nods in agreement. "Yes, never forget about your diagonals."

Frank hits play and sits with his legs crossed on the floor, but as the first number is called, Hazel interrupts the group.

"I've gotta tell you all something," she says gravely.

"Shoot," Piper says, throwing up a finger gun.

Hazel retracts her hands into her sweater sleeves. "Have you guys seen the grade for our final history paper yet?"

"No," Percy says. Once Hazel hit 'submit' on their group paper for history, it was, well, history.

"Well," she says, "we did bad."

Nico puts his phone down. "I'm not in your study group. I shouldn't be here for this."

"Please stay," Leo says shortly. "It could get messy."

"That's why I want to leave-"

"Will you guys listen to me?" Hazel yells.

She never yells, so everyone shuts the hell up and gives her their attention.

"We did bad, so I invited Brunner over for the party."

"Oh, come on!" Jason says. "There has got to be a better way."

"Yeah," Leo agrees. "I was looking forward to playing DVD Bingo for Frank's shitty cookies."

"Hey!"