Inspired by Community S4E10: "Intro to Knots."
Percy POV
"Alright Percy Jackson, you are going to be an awesome host, eat some awesome cookies, and you're not going to itch too much in this sweater."
"What was that?" Percy's roommate Frank yells from the kitchen. Shoot. He wasn't supposed to hear the mirror affirmations.
"Uh, nothing! Just finishing up the decorations!" He throws a wad of tinsel into the snake plant Frank rescued from the Mars Coed Fraternity house. Perfect. The halls have been properly decked.
"What do you think?" Frank says. He is such a holly jolly Christmas celebrant in his form-fitting reindeer sweater. He's holding a tray of those instant Pillsbury sugar cookies in a pair of extra large oven mitts.
Percy reaches for the tray and snatches a cookie with an image of reindeer on it, receiving a disdainful look from his roommate. He stuffs it into his mouth, only to be greeted with the burning sensation of a cookie fresh out of the oven instead of the wonderful nostalgic taste he expected. He chews anyway and gives Frank a thumbs-up because he is not about to admit the karma he just got.
Frank frowns even further if that's possible and then spills the cookies onto a tray shaped like a Christmas tree.
Percy applies some peppermint-scented hand sanitizer and arranges the reindeer cookies amongst the Christmas tree ones and snowman ones, all instant Pillsbury brand of course. They can't afford anything better, not in terms of money, but in terms of time. After spending the last week taking finals and working on projects, he and Frank just didn't have the energy to make anything homemade, which is a shame because Percy thinks he might be close to earning the rights to his mother's chocolate chip cookie recipe.
"Why, Frank!" Percy says in a perfect I'm-hosting-a-Christmas-special voice. "I do believe I hear a knock at the door!"
Frank cocks an eyebrow and simply shakes his head in reply, taking off his oven mitts to answer the door. When he sees his girlfriend on the other side, the redness in his face deepens and he leans in for a sweet kiss. "Happy Christmas, Hazel," he says.
She giggles. "Happy Christmas, Frankie."
Nico pushes his way into the apartment and makes eye contact with Percy. His face says, ugh, straight people.
Hazel drags a wagon in behind her and then shuts the door. "I know we said no presents, but I couldn't help myself."
"I also brought a little something for everyone," Nico says.
"That's okay!" Frank says. "Here, you can put them under our... tree... Percy, can I ask you a question?"
"Yes?" Percy asks, taking Hazel's perfectly wrapped gifts and placing them under the snake plant.
Frank shakes his head. "Never mind."
"Hey, hey, hey," Piper says, barging into the apartment with Jason and Leo in tow.
"Hey!" Percy says.
Jason sets his giant shopping bags from Macy's down on the floor and greets his bro with a bro hug.
"Okay," Leo says. "I know we said no presents, but we all had some ideas and then one thing led to another, and the Black Friday sale at Target was decent..."
Frank facepalms. "Put 'em under the snake plant."
"The Christmas tree," Percy corrects. "Can I take your coats?"
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!"
Percy can't help but agree with the protests. "I mean, didn't he blackmail Annabeth at the mall last year? C'mon, guys, we deserve better."
Nico starts to stand up. "Can I go now?"
Annabeth gasps and yanks Nico back onto the couch between her and Hazel. "Oh my god, that's genius. We'll just kiss his ass and finagle a better grade."
Percy doesn't like the idea of kissing anyone's ass, let alone a professor at his community college, but he'll do what he has to if this grade is as bad as Hazel says. His GPA sort of depends on this class.
There's a knock at the door.
"Hazel!" Piper hisses. "You invited him without asking us?"
"Do you have a better idea?" she asks as she gets off the couch, only needing a little help getting up. Frank and Percy have a particularly cushy sofa.
She opens the door and Mr. Brunner sits outside in his electric wheelchair, holding a basket of muffins and store-bought cookies. Did everyone get gifts except for Percy and Frank? He's starting to feel bad about that.
"I'm afraid I can't stay long," Mr. Brunner says, making his way into the room and parking his chair next to the couch. "I have other engagements with my, erm, brethren."
"That is A-okay!" Percy says. The sooner this is over, the better.
"I need a drink," Nico says.
"I better help you," Annabeth says. "I'm a bit of an expert in boxed wine."
"Boxed wine?" Nico asks. "Gross."
"Do you want to get mildly drunk in front of a faculty member or not?"
He just groans and follows Annabeth to the kitchen.
Percy follows as well because the apartment came with white countertops and he and Frank will be completely screwed if Annabeth and Nico spill wine on it, even if it is shitty boxed wine.
More importantly, he is not going to make it through this party if he doesn't fess up to someone, and soon. Hopefully, Annabeth will understand.
"Listen, Annabeth," he says. "I think it's my fault we failed the group paper."
"What?"
"I tanked my part of the paper."
He's expecting her to say something like What the hell, Percy? We gave you the concluding paragraph and all you had to do was copy Leo's introduction, but that is not what she says.
"You can't have blown off your part of the paper," she says.
"Well, I had this crazy marine biology paper on top of an environmental project that involved me giving a speech about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and you know how the Great Pacific Garbage Patch pisses me off-"
"That was some great angry sex," Annabeth interrupts, taking a sip of her boxed wine.
It was some great angry sex, but that's not the point. "Yeah, anyway, I know it wasn't the right thing to do, but I blew off my part of the paper, and I'm sorry, and I needed someone to know."
"Woah, Hazel is going to kill you," Nico says before pouring himself another glass of wine. Between the two of them, they're going to go through multiple boxes of wine.
"Shit!" Annabeth shouts in surprise. That Nico di Angelo sure can sneak up on a person.
"Sorry," Nico says. "My Hulu subscription ran out and I'm in the market for a good drama. Go on."
Percy thought his college life was supposed to be a sitcom, but that's fine. He can be Nico's soap opera.
"You can't have tanked your part," Annabeth says. "Oh my god, this is horrible."
Percy sighs. "I'm so sorry. I thought that at the worst we'd get like a ninety since everyone else works so hard and my part was just the conclusion-"
"Percy, I blew off my section of the paper," she says.
"Damn," Nico says, munching on a crispy reindeer cookie.
Damn, indeed. Annabeth was responsible for the rationale. You know, the part where they explain why their research is relevant to the historical context on a greater scale. It's the part that explains why all the hard work they put into the project is important.
"Alright, you know what?" Percy says, throwing his hands into the air. "Everyone back into the living room. I'm going to fix this."
He pours a glass of wine and passes it to Annabeth. "Give this to him."
"Seems like I'm fixing this-"
"Don't."
"But you also-"
"Rationale, Annabeth. The goddamn rationale."
"Enemies to lovers, my favorite," Nico says before emptying the box of wine into his glass.
Annabeth fakes a smile and hands the glass of shitty wine to Mr. Brunner.
"Why thank you, Annabeth," he says, taking a sip from the wine.
"Anything else we can get you, sir?" Percy asks through gritted teeth.
"No, except I know what you're doing."
That was fast.
Everyone all at once starts talking over each other.
"I can't believe we thought this was a good idea-"
"I should've bought my plane ticket home for yesterday-"
Annabeth finishes off her wine. "I can't believe I'm missing out on the Christmas drag show for this."
Nico eats another cookie and watches intently.
Brunner holds his hands up and the fighting ceases. "I suppose with the spirit of the holidays and all, I can offer you a better grade. I'll log onto the online grade book as soon as I get home and change your grade from a C minus to-"
"A C minus?" Leo asks. "I thought we were failing!"
"Wait, we didn't fail?" Piper asks. "Guys, we didn't fail!"
Percy folds his arms over his Christmas sweater. "That's pretty good considering Annabeth dropped the ball on the rationale."
"Annabeth?" Hazel asks with a look of betrayal in her eyes.
Annabeth snorts back a laugh. "I wrote the lyrics to 'Hotel California' on the shared document and none of you said anything, so you know..."
"Annabeth!" Hazel shouts. "That was my chance to become valedictorian!"
Frank beams. "I didn't realize you were in the running for valedictorian-"
"I'm probably not anymore!"
"Damn." Nico cracks open a Landshark from the case of beer Jason brought and takes a long sip.
Mr. Brunner clears his throat. That's right. The whole study group just had an all-out argument in front of the very professor they were trying to impress.
"Seeing as you can't work together as a group, you clearly missed a major theme of my class. I'm going to have to change your grade to failing."
"Wait, what?" Hazel asks. "Oh my god, I've never failed at anything in my life!"
Annabeth throws her wine glass onto the floor, and Percy is lucky for two reasons. First, it landed on the carpet, so it doesn't break. Second, the glass is empty, which is good because nothing stains the carpet, but bad because a drunk Annabeth is now yelling at Mr. Brunner.
"Oh, so I can never be good enough for you?" she bellows. "It's always like this. I work my ass off and I'm still a failure. All my life, I've worked my ass off and you just shit on me, Dad!"
"Okay!" Percy shouts. "That is enough from you!" He grabs Annabeth by the arm and leads her back toward his bedroom. "Emergency study group meeting in my room."
Frank turns to Nico. "Hang back, will ya?"
Annabeth sways and then topples over onto her side when Percy sets her on the bed. Great. The brain of the group is hammered. Now they have no brain cells.
"Guys," Percy says, looking each group member in the eyes. "At this point, we're going to need to just go out there and apologize for... whatever just happened, and ask for our C minus back."
Piper and Jason nod in agreement.
"No!" Hazel yells. "What about my chance to be valedictorian?"
"Hazel," Percy says. "You can probably still be valedictorian with one C minus. It's just your history credit."
"No, I can't! Dean D told me the competition is tight! He won't tell me who the other competitors are, but I know it's tight!"
"Hazel," Frank says. "We need to just do the right thing here. Maybe we can get some extra credit."
"Not with... with what she did!" Hazel says, pointing to Annabeth.
Percy can't disagree that Annabeth's outburst was a bit of a tipping point, but he has to come to her defense. "Hey, we'll leave her here. You're only allowed to talk to Brunner if you're sober."
"I should have gotten drunk," Piper mumbles.
Frank opens the door to Percy's room and ushers the group, sans Annabeth, back out into the living room.
"Mr. Brunner," Jason says, assuming his role as the group's lawyer. "I think we can all agree that- What the hell?"
"Ta-da!" Nico says, swaying like a buoy when he steps away from Mr. Brunner, who is now tied to his chair.
"Oh my god," Frank says under his breath.
"Mr. Brunner, I'm so sorry," Hazel says. "I think my half-brother had too much to drink... Oh, please don't expel us..."
"Wait," Percy says, stopping Hazel from untying the ropes.
"What?" Jason asks.
Perhaps someone's drunkenness was a good thing tonight. "Nobody unties him."
Percy has never done anything like this before, but Mr. Brunner has to some extent, so he figures it's fair game. "You're not going anywhere until you change our grade back to a C minus."
"An A!" Hazel shouts. "An A plus for that matter!"
"That's the spirit, Hazel," Leo says.
Mr. Brunner fumes. "I should call the police on you!"
Percy says, "Yeah, good luck reaching your phone." Then he looks at Nico. "He can't reach his phone, right?"
Nico nods.
"Cool," says Percy. "So let's all have an awesome Christmas party while we wait for Mr. Brunner to agree to change our grade."
"To an A plus," Hazel says for emphasis.
"Ms. Levesque, you do know that New Rome Community College doesn't give any grade greater than an A, correct?"
"Darn."
Mr. Brunner continues his lecture. "And since this group lacks the unity that the Greeks had during the Trojan War, I'm assuming that one of you will betray the group if I offer an A to whoever unties me."
Hazel twitches.
"Nobody unties him," Piper says.
"Looking at you, Hazel," Leo says.
She throws her hands up in defense. "I wouldn't give you all failing grades... unless they're offering another history class next semester. In that case-"
"Nope!" says Jason. "We are united!"
"Hey, hey!" Percy shouts over the fighting. "We don't need to convince ourselves that we are united because we already are united. We're just going to have a good time playing DVD Bingo until Mr. Brunner agrees to give us an A on the paper. Frank, hit play."
"Let me just find the switch." Frank picks up some couch cushions, desperately searching for the remote. That's what he gets for not downloading the app like Percy told him to.
Mr. Brunner maintains his smug impression. "If you had learned anything from my class, you'd realize that one of your own will inevitably betray you."
Everyone needs to stop looking at Hazel before her feelings get hurt and she actually does betray them. They need to stay united.
Hazel folds her arms over her sweater. "We are united. I won't betray my friends because I know they would never betray me. I want to be valedictorian, but not if my friends can't pass this class and graduate with me."
Brunner just laughs. "Yes, but you seem to have forgotten about another member of the study group."
"What do you mean?" Piper asks.
"Well, someone else in your group is in the running for valedictorian as well."
They're all ADHD kids with dyslexia, except for Frank of course. Who the hell other than Hazel could possibly be making straight As?
It's at that moment that Annabeth, still drunk on boxed wine, stumbles out of the bedroom, slurring something about Christmas snake plants, DVD Bingo, and John Cougar.
Mr. Brunner raises an eyebrow and gestures to her with his head.
"No," Hazel says. "There's no way."
"I mean, she is pretty smart..." says Frank.
To prove his point, Annabeth opens a kitchen cabinet and retrieves a jar of peanut butter, opening it up and then eating it with her bare hands like a wild raccoon or something.
"Seriously?" Hazel asks. "Did we just forget about that semester when she just didn't go to classes on Mondays and Fridays? Anybody?"
"Oh, yeah!" Piper says. "Long Weekend Annabeth. What a time."
Percy supposes you don't have to be a good student to achieve good grades, but Annabeth is more than just not a good student. She's a bad student, and despite not completing the most important part of their group paper, they still earned a passing grade.
"And wait until you hear which of you blew off the paper," Mr. Brunner says.
"Guys," he says, desperately trying to keep the group united. "It was me. I shat the bed on the conclusion. If you're going to be mad at someone, be mad at me."
THUD!
"Now, if you'll excuse me," he says, "I'm going to make sure Annabeth is okay."
✎✎✎
Annabeth is sort of okay. Throwing up in the sink will do that to a person though.
"No, no no!" she screams at the top of her lungs when Percy tries to bring her back into the living room. "You can't make me go back in there!"
Frank and Jason rush into the kitchen, probably because they think Annabeth might beat Percy up, which isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility.
"Hey," Frank says in a gentle voice. "Do you want to go back to the bedroom and lie down?"
"No!" she yells, followed by a string of expletives that Percy would rather not recall.
The others come to see the commotion, and now it's a whole party in the kitchen.
Nico sucks on the tip of a candy cane. "Now this is quality entertainment."
"Hey, Percy, do you want me to check the batteries on your smoke alarm?"
"No, Leo," Percy says.
"You sure?" Leo asks. "Looks pretty questionable to me."
"Come on, Annabeth," Jason coaxes. "You can play crosswords on my phone. You love crosswords!"
"I'm dyslexic you dumbass!" she slurs from the floor.
Piper pours a can of Ginger Ale into a plastic cup from the local Denny's that was left in the cabinet when Frank and Percy moved in. She gives the soda to Annabeth. "So this is fun and all, but is anybody watching Mr. Brunner?"
"Shit!" Jason swears. "Everyone back into the living room!"
And of course, Mr. Brunner has moved over to the Christmas snake plant. He munches on one of Frank's Pillsbury sugar cookies and rearranges the ornaments Percy tried to loop around the snake plant leaves.
"Who let him out?" Piper asks. "Come on, guys, someone fess up."
"Nico, it's okay if it was you," says Hazel. "I know you miss your Hulu subscription."
"It wasn't me!"
Jason goes into full lawyer mode. "Okay, so it couldn't have been Annabeth because she is currently..."
Annabeth hiccups from the couch.
"Yeah," Jason says, "and it probably wasn't Percy because he went to take care of her, and Frank and I went to check on them, and-"
"Oh, blame the girls and the gays?" Piper says. "That is so not cool."
"Misogyny and homophobia..." Hazel says, shaking her head.
"Hazel," Jason says. "No offense or anything, but you're the one who won't stop talking about how much she wants to be valedictorian."
This was supposed to be a fun happy Christmas party put on by a bunch of broke college students. There are Pillsbury sugar cookies that everyone was going to pretend are amazing and DVD Bingo that everyone was going to pretend was fun and boxed wine everyone was going to pretend was kind of good.
"Alright, that's enough," Percy says. "We are a team. I forgive whoever untied Mr. Brunner because we are all flawed individuals, and I think that's something we actually did learn in our history class."
Everyone looks at Percy expectantly.
"So what?" Annabeth slurs from the couch.
He clears his throat. "Uh, someone please tie him back up?"
Nico grabs the rope and ties Brunner back into his chair.
"Are you sure you don't want me to do it?" Jason asks. "I was a boy scout."
"Of course, you were," Nico mutters. "I can tie a damn knot, Jason."
"That explains a lot," says Piper.
Percy claps his hands together. "Now you are all going to sit down and we are going to have so much fun at this party."
"Oh!" says Hazel. "Let's open presents!"
Ah, yes, the presents they all agreed not to get each other.
Hazel goes over to the Christmas snake plant first, and Mr. Brunner moves his wheelchair out of the way when she can't reach the presents.
"Wait," says Frank. "Something's off here."
Leo facepalms. "You tied the man in the wheelchair to his wheelchair. He hasn't been at any disadvantage this entire night."
"Shit." Nico's face turns sheet white.
Percy sits down in his favorite recliner and turns to Mr. Brunner. "You could have left this entire time, and I know you had to leave because of your family commitment or whatever, but you didn't."
And before he can ask himself, Annabeth shouts, "Why the hell did ya do that?"
"Like your friend Mr. di Angelo, I was just sticking around for the entertainment," Mr. Brunner explains. "Unfortunately, my brethren at the country club haven't got anything special planned for the holidays."
"That's... that's weird," Piper says.
Jason nods. "Can we get an A as like, compensation or something?" Frank asks.
Annabeth sits up on the couch and places her Ginger Ale on a coaster. "You can hang out, Brunner," she says. "I mean, we're just playing DVD Bingo, but it's better than being alone during the holidays."
She pulls the remote out from in between the couch cushions and turns the television back on.
At first, Percy finds it weird that everyone is just taking orders from a drunk woman, but then again, she is in the running for valedictorian. Plus, she has a point. Nobody deserves to be alone for the holidays, even if the alternative is a crummy college get-together with a snake plant instead of a real Christmas tree.
"Well?" says Annabeth. "What are you waiting for? It just called I-twenty-nine."
Everyone gets what they want for that Christmas. The study group earns an A on their history project, Hazel is still in the running for valedictorian of their obscure community college, Mr. Brunner successfully crashed their party, Nico found some entertainment, and Piper learned why Jason is so good at tying knots.
And Percy? Well, he's only one more square away from getting Bingo.