A/N - hey guys! I had some time to write a little more so I decided to release this chapter earlier than usual! Hope yall enjoy XD
They walked out of school, turning in the direction of Percy's house as their friends got permission from their parents. Aliyah and Charlie accurately gave Percy of what happened at the trials, Annabeth being entirely too humble for their liking.
"No, don't listen to her, she's lying. She was literally the only reason any team with her on it won. Granted, the skill of the other players helped - which is why she only lost once which was when she was on a bad team." Charlie explained while Aliyah shushed Annabeth.
"It's true, she always seemed to have a strategy to absolutely demolish the other team, always finding their weak link and destroying it," Aliyah chimed in, still holding a hand over Annabeth's mouth to silence her.
"I'm not surprised, whenever we play at camp we have to split up her and her siblings' cabin because otherwise no one would have a chance." Percy replied, smiling proudly while Annabeth blushed.
Annabeth managed to pull Aliyahs hand off her mouth and quickly butted in, "I object - Tyche cabin have beaten us many times."
Percy rolled his eyes, "Yeah well, their to lucky for their own good, that's why we split them up as well,"
"You know, you should bring whoever coaches you guys to join Goods, maybe then we would be able to really start winning." Aliyah suggested, Charlie nodding along, "Especially if they play as well as you."
"We mostly play for fun, but everyone gets competitive and so cabin leaders are the people who teach you, or you just pick it up." Annabeth explained.
"Are you a cabin leader then?" Charlie asked.
"Yep!"
"Then you must be an excellent coach if your whole cabin always beats everyone! And besides, there is no way you're not gonna be on the team - you might even be captain!" Aliyah exclaimed. "I swear Ms Layla's mouth was just permanently on the floor!"
"Well, thanks guys, but I doubt I'll be captain," Aliyah and Charlie just rolled their eyes knowingly.
~~~
The group walked into the house and dumped their bags with their shoes before making their way into the living room. Paul was sitting in the living room with piles of students' work surrounding him and he waved hello as they walked in before going back to his own work.
"Want a snack or anything?" Percy offered, pulling a capri sun out of the fridge and chucking it to all of them. "Before you bully me, these are incredible and I won't take any capri sun slander,"
"I was actually going to say wise choice," Charlie put in, stabbing it with the straw and taking a sip.
"What she said," Aliyah echoed, copying Charlie's actions.
Percy nodded in approval, and started drinking his own, "You choose friends wisely, Annabeth. Right, snacks?"
They grabbed some fruit and the jar that contained the blue cookies before making their way upstairs, grabbing their backpacks in case they wanted to do some homework.
They didn't expect to get anything done, but Percy had been tutoring people and no one expected that.
"Nice room, Percy. Lots of bookshelves though, didn't know you read so much," Charlie announced as they walked in to Percy and Annabeth's room.
Percy ran and jumped onto the bed, "Thanks, and the bookshelves aren't for me though. They're for Annabeth,"
"But doesn't she just keep her books at her house?" Aliyah asked, confused.
"This is my house." Annabeth explained, sitting on the bed next to Percy and motioning for her friends to sit on the chairs.
"You live together?!"
"Yeah, our parents arranged it so we could go to school together, but since my parents didn't want to pay for rent in a crappy apartment and other personal reasons, so it just made sense for us to live together."
"Huh, nice. Sounds fun, my parents would never let me do that though." Charlie said, sitting down.
"Yeah, normally something like this probably wouldn't happen, but our situation was... interesting to say the least. It makes sense if you know the whole story. So, anything you guys want to do?" Annabeth replied, swiftly moving past the topic.
Percy ended up doing some more homework while the girls went onto the balcony to do gods know what. He hadn't managed to complete as much as he'd liked while at the library, mainly because he was tutoring people. Percy still couldn't believe that, him tutoring people. For school. It wasn't like he wasn't clever, he was just never academically gifted or supported enough in a school to be in a place to help other people. Percy was rather proud of himself, he had to admit.
Eventually he got tired of doing homework, after all there is only so long he could go sitting down and doing nothing. Percy walked out to the balcony to see the girls sitting in a circle with a small collection of nail polish in the middle of them.
"Where'd you get the nail polish?" He questioned, sitting down next to Annabeth.
"Found it stuffed in a bag somewhere from Piper or something I assume. I think they're Drew's and she just wanted to piss her off so she gave them to me to hide." Annabeth explained, focusing on painting Aliyah's hand. "Charlie saw them when she went to the bathroom and we just wanted something to do."
"Nice. Who's already been done?" Percy asked, looking over Annabeth's shoulder curiously.
"Mine, Aliyah did them." Charlie announced, showing her finger nails to Percy. They were nothing special, a dark purple with blue dots on them.
"Woah, cool." Percy examined them. "Are they still wet?"
"Yeah, slightly, but they'll be dry by the time I do Annabeths,"
"Interesting. What are you doing on Aliyahs, Annabeth?"
"Pastel orange with a few pink ones." Annabeth replied, turning to look up at him. "Do you want to try doing one?"
"Nah, I'll get it everywhere, thanks though."
"Do you want us to do some on you?" Aliyah asked, examining the hand Annabeth was done with.
Percy perked up in interest. "Would you? What colours?"
Annabeth smiled, amused by Percy's interest. "We've got a few shades of blue, you can choose from those if you want."
"Yeah! That sounds fun!" He grabbed the shades of blue to look at them, holding a few to his nails and seeing how they looked. "How about this one?" He held out a dark blue and all the girls looked over in interest.
"Yeah, that would look nice, Perce."
"Thanks! I'll wait till you're done doing Aliyahs, then can you do mine?"
"Sure! Really want your nails painted, huh" Annabeth asked with a smile as she went back to Aliyah's hand.
"It looks fun and I've never had it done before. I've seen Jason wear it sometimes, when Piper's siblings kidnap him, along with a few other guys at camp. I also saw it when I was little, but Smelly Gabe saw and made some interesting remarks, so that idea was out the window." Percy replied, shrugging.
"Well this color is gonna look super cool on you," Charlie complimented as she waved her hands around in the air to get them to dry faster.
"Why thank you, Charlie," He said in a funny accent, making everyone chuckle.
They sat in a comfortable silence for a few more minutes as Annabeth finished with Aliyah's nails before she turned to Percy who was lying down and staring at the sky, lost in thought. She nudged him with her elbow and he sat up instantly, looking around slightly alarmed. She gave him a small smile which he returned after he took in his surroundings and saw he was safe.
"Nail polish?"
Percy looked around him for the nail polish which he had placed beside him, "Umm, yeah it's right..."
"Here, you put it back in the pile after you knocked it over a few times." Charlie observed from her seat against the balcony railings.
"Thanks," He picked it and gave it to Annabeth, "Here, Wise Girl."
"Thank you, Perce." She opened it and held it out. "Alright, give me your hand and keep it still. I'll tell you when I'm done then you can give me the other hand."
"Okay," He replied, giving her his hand. She started applying it and he twitched in surprise, "It's cold, and it feels funny. Like a nice-but-weird funny."
The girls smiled at him in amusement at his reaction, "It's kind of soothing though, isn't it." Aliyah piped up, taking a break from blowing on her nails.
"Yeah, it is. Interesting."Annabeth let go of his hand and motioned for his other hand. Percy gave it to her and inspected the painted nails. "Ooh, they look cool!" He touched one of them with his thumb, "Oops! I smudged it."
Annabeth rolled her eyes, "Here let me fix it and next time don't touch it until it's done!"
"Alright, sorry!" Percy chuckled.
Eventually, Annabeth finished painting his nails and Charlie started painting hers instead. Percy was examining his nails and kept touching them lightly to see if they were dry yet. When he found out they weren't he would wave them around in the air for ten seconds and try again. He only just dried as Charlie finished painting Annabeths, and he grabbed her hand to examine the design.
"Woah, I love them - we match on one finger!" He exclaimed. Annabeth had done hers grey but had the ring finger on either hand painted the same blue as Percy's.
"Thanks, Perce, I like them to!" She brought them to her face and blew on them. "When these dry we can go down and eat some dinner so you guys don't go home hungry."
"Sounds great, thanks!" Aliyah voiced, Charlie nodding in agreement.
They talked for a while about school and Charlie's unlucky predicament at having a really bad english teacher. Even Paul would come home complaining about his colleague so they could only imagine what it was like to be a student of the horrible teacher. Annabeths took slightly longer to dry than the others, but soon they walked downstairs with an empty jar of cookies to eat dinner with Sally and Paul.
After dinner Aliyah and Charlie left, opting to walk home while it was still light out, politely declining Paul's offer to drive them home. The left saying they would meet them in the morning by the school gates as usual before walking in the direction of their homes.
Annabeth and Percy helped his parents clean up, using his powers to give everything a quick rinse before putting it into the dishwasher. Hey, if life gives you cheats, you might as well use them! It was getting late and neither of them could be bothered to do anymore homework, so they opted to just cuddle on their bed instead.
Annabeth was reading a book that she read on and off because it was in english and she got frustrated when it took so long to read, so she would read other greek books at the same time. She thought it was time to give it another go, and while Annabeth was reading it slower than she would have liked, she still was getting the gist of the story.
Percy had been way too academic that day, he decided, and so he was playing minecraft on his phone. His head was in Annabeth's lap and he was holding the phone above his head. If you asked him if he dropped the phone on his face when a zombie came up behind him or if a creeper blew up, he would say no, but Annabeth could tell you otherwise.
They went to bed slightly earlier than usual, shouting goodnights to Percy's parents and getting ready for bed. They turned off the light and snuggled into each other, legs tangling together and arms wrapping around each other's torsos.
"I'm proud of you, Perce." Annabeth whispered into Percy's hair, half-asleep after half an hour of lying there.
"Why?" He muttered back, equally as out of it.
"The tutoring thing. It's so cool. I know you'll be really good at it, you're not the swordsman teacher just because you're the best in 300 years."
"Aww thanks, Wise Girl." He pressed a kiss to the closest spot to her he could reach, which happened to be a shoulder. "Love you"
"Mmh, love you too. That's the last compliment you'll get for a while. Treasure it." He chuckled lightly, "I will, just like I treasure every other complement."
She muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Simp", but smiled and kissed him lightly before they fell asleep.
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