Part I: Trick-no-treat

Annabeth sat at the desk of Percy's dorm room, concentrating on the assigned reading for her Architecture class as she scribbled down notes. As Annabeth was no stranger to spending the afternoons studying with Percy in his dorm, an empty chair sat next to her, waiting for his arrival. The quiz wasn't for a couple of weeks, but she liked to get a head start on textbook work, seeing as her dyslexia and ADHD always made the arduous task of studying both tedious and taxing. Occasionally, she'd pluck a small piece of candy out of the plastic bag sitting on the desk and pop it in her mouth. She smiled, hearing the sound of Percy's pounding footsteps echoing in the hall outside. Percy burst through the door with Riptide drawn, threw his backpack down, and collapsed on his bed out of breath, sword in hand.

"Hey to you too," Annabeth said, glancing back at Percy before turning back to the textbook.

"Ran.. straight.. here…. Harpy… chased me… from… the classroom…" He capped the sword as he struggled to catch his breath.

"Why was a harpy taking Mythology?" Annabeth frowned, now doodling a miniature sketch of the Parthenon in the margins of her notebook.

Percy threw his arms up, letting them flop above his head. "Who knows?"

He sat up, shook off the monster dust, and strolled over to his desk drawer, expecting to find the stash of sweets he'd spent all of the previous night collecting. People had given him lots of weird looks, and he'd attracted lots of attention— a seventeen year old boy in a makeshift aquaman costume trick-or-treating amidst throngs of little children tended to do that— but they'd given him the candy anyway.

He mentally prepared himself for the gentle aroma of chocolate to hit him as soon as he opened the drawer, but instead, he found the drawer almost completely empty, with the exception of the two Kit-Kat wrappers sitting at the bottom.

"No. No no no no no." Percy started frantically rummaging through drawers and looking under pillows and mattresses. Annabeth watched Percy with a mischievous gleam in her eye.

Annabeth grabbed the bag from the desk and popped another piece of candy into her mouth as she swivelled around in her chair. Finally giving up on his search, Percy looked toward Annabeth, and seeing the bag, gradually assumed a look of hurt and betrayal.

"How could you?" Percy pouted, sulking as he mourned the loss of his beloved confections.

Annabeth sighed, turning back around in her chair. "I donated most of it to a candy drive, then burnt some of it for Athena."

Percy frowned. "Why'd you give your mom my candy?"

"Because, Seaweed Brain, your Marine Bio midterms are tomorrow. You're gonna need all the help you can get."

Percy sat down in the chair next to her with resignation, pulling out his textbooks with dread. Annabeth looked up, and felt a twinge of guilt upon seeing the kicked-puppy look on Percy's face. She pushed her small bag of candy towards him.

"I left you the blue ones."

He perked up instantly. "You're the best, Wise Girl."

Back when his mom still worked at the candy shop, every once in awhile, she'd bring him back a giant bag of blue assorted candies. He'd pick out the blue jellybeans, then the blue starbursts, but he'd always save the blue M&Ms for last. A Percy that had chocolate was a very happy Percy.

The childish light in Percy's eyes returned as he happily grabbed a handful of blue and tossed them in his mouth. However, his expression quickly turned to confusion, then slight irritation as he turned to face the person responsible for his deprivation of chocolate.

"Annabeth Chase." Percy said, his tone dead serious.

She looked up. "Mmh?"

"These. Are. SKITTLES."

Annabeth blank expression quickly broke as she burst into laughter. Percy looked mad for a few seconds before feeling sheepish and rubbing his neck, embarrassed by his outburst.

"Percy, I'll buy you all the blue M&Ms you want tomorrow, after the test, but you promised you would study today."

"And Kit-Kats?"

"All the candy you can eat."

Percy weighed the decision for about five seconds before he scrambled back to his textbook to find the right chapter, but not before giving her a quick peck on the cheek, just because.

Annabeth rolled her eyes with a smile before taking the textbook, plopping it in her lap, and flipping through a few pages. "Okay, what is a symbiotic relationship?"

Percy stuttered, trying to remember the answer… "It's a… relationship that's symbolic? Of..."

Annabeth laughed. "Symbiotic, Seaweed Brain, not symbolic." She shook her head in disapproval, but her endearing smile gave her away.

By the end of the study session, all the skittles were mysteriously gone, and Percy's tongue had somehow turned a bright shade of blue. Of course, he didn't say anything about it to Annabeth, because he still wanted his chocolate, and Annabeth, although ever observant, didn't say anything about it to Percy, because a happy Percy always meant a happy Annabeth.


Hi peeps! Thanks for taking the time to read my little ficlet, even though it's way past Halloween…

Anyway, please review if you liked it and if you'd like me to write more! I'm hoping to write a couple more shorts for other upcoming holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.) so PLEASE feel free to leave any ideas you have! They can be of the characters at any age and time, and I'm open to non-canon ideas. Other ships are great too :D

OH ALSO! When I was trying to think of a cute clever title for this chapter, I came up with a list of about four kinda punny names. Most of them were pretty cringey… but this chapter is alternatively titled:

-Study-or-No-Treat (so bad…)

-Study-for-Treat (even worse… these aren't even catchy)

-Hallo-Wee Need to Study (get it? 'cuz it's Halloween… which I thought was kinda clever but still very cringe)

-Trick-no-Treat (which I went with in the end, because it was the simplest, even though it doesn't really make sense… YEAH!)

If you guys have any other suggestions for punny chapter titles, feel free to leave them in your reviews, and I might change it!

Bye!

~Lucy