Percy POV
I offered to walk Annabeth home. Hesitantly, she accepted. Huh, weird…
The air was a little bit chilly, but not too bad. Not as cold as a Laistrygonian Giant's breath, not as hot as the Sun Chariot. Our connected hands swung between us as we walked the three blocks down the street to Annabeth's apartment complex.
"You know, I think I will go early tomorrow. I want to check out my competition," She said with a smirk. A good boyfriend would tell her that she didn't have competition (which she doesn't, of course). A bad boyfriend would tell her to report back to him, telling him who had the most potential for his next girlfriend (And I was planning on never having a girlfriend who wasn't Annabeth). But me, being the stupid boyfriend, said this:
"Don't bring your knife." She raised an eyebrow.
"What? You don't want any of your fans injured?" Oh crap.
"N-no. I just don't… don't want… don't want you to be… to be… uh, arrested?" Smooth, Percy, very smooth. Lucky for me, Annabeth was the best girlfriend in the world and she laughed.
"Terrible save," she laughed. I grinned and kissed the top of her head.
"You know you don't have any competition." I had to squeeze that into the conversation. Red seeped to her cheeks.
"That… is a very good thing to say, I suggest you use that again." She said with a smirk. I grinned as we arrived at her building.
"Do you want me to walk you upstairs?"
"No!" She said quickly. I raised an eyebrow.
"You don't have another boyfriend hidden up there, do you?" I said it like a joke, but honestly I was a little worried. She didn't answer immediately. Switch worried to freaked out of my pants.
"Of course not, Seaweed Brain." She said. Her tone sounded sincere, but I'd learned a long time ago that she was the queen of hiding her emotions.
"Annabeth, what are you hiding?" She pursed her lips.
"Nothing, and if you can't trust me on this…" She used the word "if" that is never good!
"No! Of course I can! You just seem nervous, that's all." Her facial expressions sealed shut.
"Everything's fine, Perce." She said, and smiled. A forced smile, for sure, "Night," She said and bent in for a quick goodnight kiss, "I'll stop by your apartment in the morning and we'll go to school together." She said, "Bye!"
She was in the building before I had a chance to say "goodnight".
Annabeth POV
That was close, I thought, He almost came up here.
"Good thing he didn't," Grover said. I jumped, "Sorry, emotion reading thing, you know?"
"Right." I mumbled, "Where's Juniper?"
"Here!" She yelled from the kitchen, "You can't cook to save your life, but I can." She said and popped her head out, "I made everyone sandwiches!" She said proudly. I smiled.
"They'll be here any minute. Nico said that they would be shadow traveling, but you never know when the Stoll's are involved. Gods I hope Percy doesn't pass them on the street or something…"
"Calm down, Annabeth, these guys are trained prof… well, they're trained." Grover said, "And not even in stealth either… ok maybe you're right." I frowned and fell down onto the couch yawning.
"Well, I'm exhausted. I've been doing homework all night."
"You sure that's all you were doing?" Juniper called from the kitchen. I glared at her over the half-wall that separated the kitchen from the living room.
"Haha, funny. You sound like my father."
"Good, you need a fatherly figure around while yours is across the country." Juniper said, waving a wooden spoon at me. Why she needed a spoon to make sandwiches…
"My mom is always watching, you know." I pointed out.
"Athena's a goddess, she can't necessarily watch you 24/7 now can she?" She could, but I decided to just give in so that I could go to bed faster.
"Yes, Mom," I said, "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed." Grover lifted his head from his snack of a paper plate.
"Don't you want to wait up for everyone?" I shrugged.
"It's not like they're not going to be there in the morning."
So, they weren't there in the morning.
"We all figured it was best to let a sleeping Annabeth lie." Grover explained. They all knew that I kept my knife under my pillow at night, "They went into school really early to prepare themselves."
"For what, exactly?" I asked. Grover shrugged.
"Beats me," He said, and took a big goat bite of his fork, "You and Percy are going in early too right?" I nodded and calmly picked up a silver kitchen knife from the counter, brushing apple seeds off of it.
"Oh yes," I said with a smirk. Grover bleated nervously.
"Blaahaahaa," He said, "The Mist can only conceal so much, you know…" I grinned and set it down again.
"Just playing, Grover." I said and picked up an apple slice, "We're going to check out the fan club meeting. Grover made a growling sound.
"Those girls… ugh! They always leave their coffee cups on the ground! Not to mention all of those weight loss granola bar wrappers…"
"You want to tag along with your club?" I offered.
"Tempting…" He said and grinned, "But no thanks. I'm a pacifist, remember?" I picked up my key.
"Whatever you say, Mr. Lord of the Wild." I said, "Say hi to Juniper." I called as I walked out.
"Try to avoid killing any teenagers!"
"Maybe!"
When I got to his place, Percy was nowhere to be found. Sally was awake, as well as Paul.
"He's sleeping," Sally said the second I walked in, "I've been trying to wake him up for an hour. Feel free to try, maybe you'll have more luck than I did." She sounded like someone who's given up all hope.
6 am, it was still dark out. Percy's room was dark, but I could clearly see his sleeping figure under the sheets. With a silent step I walked over to him. He was almost completely buried in the covers, only the top of his head exposed. I bent down, and pulled back the covers so that I could see his face. Lucky for me he wasn't drooling. I leaned my head down so that my lips were right beside his ear, I opened my mouth…
"GORGONS!" I shouted.
"Wha?!" I jumped out of the way as Percy jolted up, Riptide already in his hand, "Wait… what?" Footsteps sounded down the hallway as Sally and Paul ran and stood in the doorway to find Percy in his pajamas holding a pen, looking down at me crying/laughing.
"W-we're fine, go back to breakfast!" I choked out through the bursts of laughter. The two of them started laughing as they walked away.
"That wasn't funny!" Percy said, his face a bright vermillion. My laughing subsided and I got up to sit next to him on the bed.
"That was hilarious, admit it." He was trying so hard not to smile. I shoved his shoulder, "Get dressed, Seaweed Brain." I said as I stood up.
"I don't get a good morning kiss?" He asked a bit dejectedly. I shook my head with a smirk.
"Not until you brush your teeth."
"Arms out, feet spread." Percy commanded.
"Excuse me?" I asked. He and I were walking to school; I'd say a few minutes away.
"I need to check you for weapons, now do it." I sighed, but did as he asked. His hands brushed against my arms and my sides. A slight blush was creeping up to my cheeks when his hand crossed the spot on my hip where my celestial bronze dagger was hidden.
"That's my dagger, and unless you want me to be totally defenseless…" He smirked.
"Ok, you're clean."
"Glad I got your seal of approval." I said dryly. We rounded the corner and got our first view of the school.
Trinity hadn't been kidding. There was a grand total of about thirty girls gathered on the green outside the school with Calypso and Victoria standing in front of them. I pulled Percy towards the front steps where he was out of sight.
"You. Stay." I ordered and took out my invisibility cap. He saluted.
"Yes ma'am." Once I was totally unseen, I planted a quick kiss on Percy's cheek (much to his shock), and walked towards the large group of girls who were likely discussing how cute Percy looked in green.
"… fake blonde. And those eyes? I mean wow, she looks like she wants to kill everyone she sees." Calypso ranted. So they were talking about me, figures.
"There's no way Percy likes her, she must be blackmailing him!"
"Or threatening him!" The girls started arguing amongst themselves. I had never seen a bigger group of completely delusional fan girls together in one place. Well there was that one time at the Justin Bieber concert in SoHo that Silena dragged me to… and the One Direction concert in Jersey that Katie had been dying to go to…
"For Percy's sake we need to break them up!" Someone yelled. I rolled my eyes. Oh please…
"Annabeth," A voice whispered. I turned to see Percy peeking out from the corner, his eyes searching for me even though he knew he wouldn't see me. I strode back to him, walked around, and tapped his shoulder. He whipped around, held out a hand and touched my shoulder. His palm felt it's way up my face to my forehead so he could take off the hat. His stance relaxed a little when I was visible.
"So, did you hear all that?" I asked with amusement. He blushed.
"Sort of…" He looked guilty.
"What a bunch of idiots." I said.
"Well, you do threaten me on multiple occasions." He pointed out with a smirk. I rolled my eyes and wrapped my arms around his neck.
"Didn't I tell you I wasn't going to make things easy once before?" I said before stepping up and planting a kiss on his lips.
"You might have mentioned it." He muttered against my mouth. I chuckled.
"Come on, lets go make them all feel stupid," I said with excitement. He squeezed my hand and followed as we walked up to the mob of girls.
An appreciative silence fell onto the crowd when they realized Percy had arrived. Lipstick was brought out, mirrors were shared, shirts were adjusted to show a lot more cleavage than they should. Calypso and Victoria stepped forward.
"We were just talking about you," She sneered. Percy moved arm so that he was hugging my shoulders instead of just holding my hand.
"We heard." I said coldly. They ignored me.
"Percy, you can tell us the truth you know." Victoria cooed, "We only want to help." Yeah, and I was Zeus.
"Yeah, Percy," I said, he looked at me in shock, "Tell them all about my devious plot." I said sarcastically, "How I gave you a manual on how to be my boyfriend, all the death threats, locking you in my basement when I'm away, kidnapping your mother as ransom…" He started laughing at that one.
"I seriously love you, Annabeth," He said and leaned down to press his lips to my cheek. Many of the girls looked angry, some looked downright sad.
"Love you too, Seaweed Brain." I said and turned my head to kiss his lips.
"Yuck!" A familiar voice called. Something whizzed through the air and all of a sudden Percy wasn't next to me… he was hanging by his sleeve on the side of the school by a silver arrow, "You two really need to take advantage of the phrase 'get a room'!"
"Thalia!" I said and turned to see the lieutenant Hunter holding her bow, still aimed at Percy. She wore her usual clothing: dark t-shirt, dark jeans, and her silver circlet that marker her as Lieutenant. Aegis was in bracelet form on her wrist.
"Look who's awake!" She said with a smirk, "You snore, you know that?"
"I've been telling her that for years!" Percy called from where he was hanging. I rolled my eyes and hugged me friend.
"It's so good to see you again!" I said as she squeezed me back.
"I don't want to interrupt the tender moment here, but Thalia, get me down!" He yelled. Before any of the shocked fan girls could move Thalia was at Percy, pulling out the arrow. His feet hit the ground with a thud, "Nice to see you too," He muttered before hugging her too.
"Thalia!" Another voice whined, "You said you would wait for me!"
"Well, I lied." The shadows of the building seemed to bend until out popped Nico di Angelo, in the flesh.
"Nico!" Percy said and gave him one of those awkward side hugs, "What are you guys doing here?" Before they could answer, a police car with all the lights on and the sirens going pulled up to the school. We all watched in awe as Connor and Travis Stoll got out of the back, grinning like madmen, followed by Katie Gardner.
"Yo Perce!" They yelled and waved.
"Oh no," I said, "Did you guys steal a cop car?!" They shook their heads.
"Nah, we got a lift from the station. Apparently it's illegal to loot a candy store on your way to school." Travis said with a wink.
"They needed someone to bail them out," Katie explained as they walked over, "Now hug me," She commanded. I did.
"What are you all doing here?" Percy asked in shock.
"What, Annabeth didn't tell you yet?" Nico asked. I shook my head.
"Not yet,"
"Tell me what?" He asked, still confused.
"That I wasn't the only one who transferred," I explained, "We all did." The smile that crept across his face was bigger and brighter than Olympus itself.
"Blahaahaa, you found them!" Grover bleated as he and Juniper walked up.
"Yeah! Camp reunion!" Connor yelled.
"Hey wait!" Calypso yelled, "Who are all these people?" We ignored her and walked up the steps into the building.
"Where are the rest of them?" I whispered to Thalia as we walked in.
"They'll be here."