Shut Up And Dance With Me, Seaweed Brain

A songfic inspired by "Shut Up And Dance" (Walk The Moon). One-shot, Percabeth fluff.


A/N:

Sera: FIRST FANFIC! Anyway, this fic was pretty much all MJ's idea. She's a much more avid PJO fan than I am (I don't even think I finished all the books).
MJ: Yeah. Anyways, this is just some Percabeth fluff and mostly humour.
Sera: Yep. It's a one-shot.
MJ: And without further ado, we present
Sera: "Shut Up And Dance With Me, Seaweed Brain"!


Disclaimer:

MJ: All characters belong to Rick Riordan.


"Oh don't you dare look back

Just keep your eyes on me."

I said, "You're holding back,"

She said, "Shut up and dance with me!"

This woman is my destiny

She said, "Oh, oh, oh,

Shut up and dance with me."


Amazing how Annabeth could get him to do whatever she wanted, even without the cunning ability of charmspeak Piper possessed. A flick of her hair and a flash of imploring big grey eyes was all that was needed to get Percy to join the rest of the campers at Camp Half-Blood for a party down at the dining pavilion, this time with their new Roman allies, something he never would've done before - the reason being that he'd never danced and he wasn't planning to, ever. Sure, parties were something that Percy didn't despise (which cannot be said for monsters or anything of the like), especially not with the great food, but as soon as the dance music started to blare and people started to heat it up on the dance floor, Percy was absolutely sure to get himself as far away as possible, lest he were suddenly swept by a tidal wave of over-enthusiastic party goers. He smiled wryly to himself for the pun as he backed farther and farther from the dance floor towards the food table.

Most fortunately for Percy, the slow dance hadn't started yet. Several years ago, Annabeth had asked him to dance with her at an old knights' castle/school. The dance had ended up in a disaster, with Percy trying extremely hard not to step on Annabeth's toes, and then nearly getting kidnapped, and then watching Annabeth fall off the side of a cliff - she had obviously been fine, but not after both she and Percy had to hold up the sky for each other. As Percy hung around the edges of the party with his friends and Annabeth, he felt almost absolutely sure that his girlfriend would ask him to dance with her again, to make up for that time (and he didn't really find that fair, considering they had danced together on Mt. Olympus after they had finished their quest).

The last strains of an upbeat pop song floated away, replaced by a slow melodic piece. Percy didn't have to be a genius to know that this music could only be the work of the Apollo campers. Jason, his best friend, whom he had complained to about his lack of ability to dance grinned at Percy's pale face. "Well my friend, you should have seen this coming. A party's not complete without one slow dance."

"I'm going to die, Grace, and I'm not even going to go down fighting," Percy groaned miserably as he saw Annabeth returning from where she was buying drinks with Piper and Hazel with a resolute expression, and expression that clearly said, You're going to dance with me whether you like it or not, Seaweed Brain.

"Calm down, Percy, it's not like Annabeth will kill you if you trip and fall flat into a cake." Frank Zhang, his other friend, soothed. The trio were leaning against the wall, clutching sodas and surveying the people.

"The embarrassment might," Percy mumbled as Annabeth finally reached him. She was clad in a beautiful form-fitting grey dress, which he couldn't help but notice was the same shade as her eyes, which Annabeth had accented with eyeshadow and mascara. Her hair, usually tied up in a ponytail was now let loose in golden waves. Oh gods, she's beautiful tonight.

"Seaweed Brain, you owe me a dance." She stated firmly in her no-nonsense tone.

"Ah. Umm… I don't… " He stuttered nervously.

"Are you trying to refuse me, Seaweed Brain?"

"Ah! No… I…need… umm… to use the washroom," Percy said desperately.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "That was a terrible excuse. Just shut up and dance with me, Seaweed Brain."

"Well… I…" Percy looked over at Frank and Jason in desperation.

"Boys, don't help him, this idiot hasn't danced with me in ages." Annabeth said, poking Percy with one well manicured nail (one part of Percy's ADHD mind wondered when she had got it done so well, she never really cared about nails, or at least didn't seem to), and while she looked mad, Percy could tell by the light tone of her voice she really didn't mean it.

But wait - did she just call him an idiot? Before he could protest against being thought of to be that stupid, Annabeth grabbed Percy's hand and started to drag him to where all the other couples were dancing. He glanced back and saw Frank giving him a thumbs up, and heard Jason call out, "If you die, can I have your sword?" to which he responded, "No way in Tartarus, Grace!" And turned away, resuming being dragged along by his girlfriend, but not before seeing Jason snicker at his obvious demise.

Traitor, Percy thought, hoping that Jason would somehow get the message. ESP, or something. And before he knew it, couples had surrounded them. There was no way out. Percy felt like he was fighting monsters again - except this time, it was worse, because he had to dance. Even worse, slow dance, which he knew was one of his weaker points, if that was even possible. Thank the gods Annabeth was in control of this situation, moving his arm around her waist and clasping her free hand in his, and they began to slowly waltz in time to the music. Percy was concentrating so hard on not stepping on Annabeth's toes and invoking the wrath of a furious girlfriend, that he was not paying attention to what Annabeth was saying. A terrible boyfriend, he knew, but he thought that Annabeth would rather not have her toes crushed than have him listen to her rambling - he knew he couldn't do both.

"What's wrong Percy?" Annabeth teased as she whirled him around the dining pavilion.

"You know what's wrong, Wise Girl," Percy mumbled. Not because he was mad or anything - but because if he took away his attention for just a second, his two left feet would fly out from under him and trod all over Annabeth's glittery heels.

Annabeth rolled her eyes, "Just keep your eyes on me, Percy, you'll do fine."

"I fail to see how nearly stepping on your toes is doing fine," Percy replied as he narrowly missed ruining Annabeth's heels or her toes. Forced into an awkward position, he saw Annabeth's face centimeters from his.

Annabeth kissed him lightly before he could blink, and helping right himself, she said with a smirk, "I knew you were bad at dancing, but I didn't think it was this bad, you know?"

She steered them away from two other dancers that they were about to collide into.

"Relax, Percy, you're as stiff as cardboard." Annabeth grinned.

"Am not," Percy retorted, although he relaxed and looked into Annabeth's eyes, trying not to think so much about his feet.

"There you go," She murmured contentedly as somehow, by some magic, Percy managed to dance without so many attempts on the lives of her feet. So caught up were they in each other and the music that they didn't notice as they got nearer and nearer to a large cake, waiting to be served until...

Crash!

Percy tripped and fell face-first into a fluffy cake that was made ten times its original size because of the Hermes and Iris cabins' enthusiastic icing job. A resulting explosion sent massive clumps of icing flying onto the campers in the vicinity (which, therefore, means all of them). Percy felt himself being pulled up, and knew his face was definitely red under the icing that now decorated it. Annabeth stood next to him, doubled over in laughter while shaking her head, and Frank and Jason were standing by the snacks, the former looking amused and shocked at how his prediction had come true, while Jason's face showed sympathy for what Percy must be feeling. Campers quickly turned in the direction all the icing had came from, suddenly bemused when they saw their saviour of Olympus, covered head to toe in icing. Poseidon's underpants, please don't let them kill me, Percy thought desperately when he saw Clarisse hoisting a spear and Nico looking decidedly not too amused by him.

The Stolls, however, took one look at him, and then grinned like when they had one of their brilliant - but most definitely evil or prank related - ideas. Connor suddenly shouted, "FOOD FIGHT!" while Travis yelled, "EVERY DEMIGOD FOR THEMSELVES!" before starting to launch well aimed missiles of cake icing in every direction.

Clarisse was suddenly hit in the face at full force with a glob of icing, causing her to retaliate and forget about Percy in the process, while Nico, deciding he could easily kill Percy some other time, disappeared into the shadows, but not before Will Solace hit him in the chest with a glob of rainbow coloured icing. Everywhere was chaos , except for where their Roman allies stood a bit apart and looked miffed by the informality of the situation.

Annabeth turned on him now, and grinned.

"Thanks for the dance Seaweed Brain, I think it was the best one yet," she kissed him.

"Shall we join them?" Percy asked after Annabeth pulled away. He gestured towards the campers, who were fighting with all they had. Frank and the Apollo cabin were having the most luck so far, with their good aim, but Piper was also putting up a good fight. She would pop up behind campers and shoot magical pies out of her cornucopia and have them covered in icing in two seconds. Hazel was defending herself by raising gems from the earth, while lobbing icing at anyone who ever got too close. The food fight had turned into outright war, with the Romans looking none too happy with the "barbaric Greeks".

"You bet," Annabeth said, before grabbing some icing off Percy's shirt and running into the fray.

"Hey! That's my icing!" Percy laughed before chasing her into the fight as well.


"Look how dirty they're getting the pavilion." Dionysus grumbled as he sipped Diet Coke and glared at the food-fighting campers. Several of them were playing really dirty, and no, that wasn't a pun, because this god wasn't into that sort of thing.

"The cleaning harpies would gladly mop it up tomorrow," Chiron winced as he saw a girl from the Hypnos cabin get icing whipped at her diaphragm. He didn't know if it hurt or not, he just assumed that getting anything thrown really hard at your diaphragm couldn't be good. "They appear to be having fun," he smiled fondly as he watched another camper pick her up and they began laughing over something.

"If you support it so much, why don't you go join them?" Dionysus crumpled up his Diet Coke and immediately created a cup of wine, which, at a rumble of thunder, turned into water.

"Accursed Zeus," he murmured, and was met by another rumble of thunder, this time accompanied by flashes of lightning. He waved his hand and the water turned back to soda, which he was about to drink before Chiron snatched it out of his hands.

"Hey! That's not even wine, centaur!" Dionysus yelled angrily.

"Indeed it isn't, but too much coke isn't good for you." Chiron gestured a huge pile of Diet Coke cans, numbering about 50.

"Go and fight with the kiddos," Dionysus muttered, "Just get away from me and let me drink my coke in peace."

"Afraid I can't - my fur will get dirty."

"Exactly, centaur. Except, it's the dining pavilion getting dirty, and not your precious coat. I ought to put an end to this."

Chiron stamped his hooves. "Come now, Dionysus, let children be children." He smiled. Dionysus muttered something under his breath about how if they did that, all the demigods would've died a long time ago. Suddenly he whipped around and stared at Chiron.

"Did… did you just drink some of my Diet Coke?!" He asked incredulously.

Chiron choked and quickly swallowed whatever liquid was in his mouth.

"Wha - NO, of course not! I would never drink this piteous branded mortal drink!" His face was beet red as he slammed the can down on the table and huffed as he trotted away. Dionysus grinned as he took his drink and smiled at the campers huddled together, food fight apparently forgotten, around a blazing bonfire, singing songs together in the company of their new Roman allies, laughing, smiling and teasing Percy for face-planting in the cake. Yes, he thought, let children be children, for they'll never get a second chance.


A/N:

Sera: So in THIS fanfiction, it was all MJ writing, me editing and "modernizing" (to MJ's chagrin) her writing, her being totally confused with dancing and cosmetics, me totally getting the PJO facts and personalities wrong (because seriously, pretty much all I know is from the wikia), and her not-so-nicely telling me to shut up and go write the Tangled fanfic.
MJ: My writing is timeless Sera, now go shut up and write your Tangled fanfic.
Sera: SEE? Point made.
MJ: Another quick note - in my canon universe Chiron hates mortal pop, so thus his and Dionysus's reaction.
Sera: This turned out not like we anticipated. Not very songfic-y.
MJ: Yeah, sorry for the lack of fluff, if that was what you were expecting, I'm better at doing friendshippy fluff than romantic fluff. And Sera, I'm not sure what you expect of a songfic, but this is how I do it.
Sera: Well, we kinda did say it would be fluffy. I was hoping more Percabeth-themed. And also excuse our Canadian writing. Eh - write like the British, speak like the American, and throw in some French occasionally. And all reviews or favourites will be appreciated! Merci!
MJ: Adios mes amigos!