It has to be common knowledge that if you want to be viewed as an excellent neighbor, a house warming party is absolutely necessary.
Percy Jackson was, of course, fully aware of this. So the minute the boxes were unpacked and the pictures hung up in his cramped little apartment, an invitation was sent out to the neighbors.
In spite of all this, he'd never quite realized how much work went into a party.
"Cookies, pop, chips, carrots…" Percy murmured quietly on the scheduled date, pointing at the snacks that sat unopened on the creaky table he had found outside. It had been sitting by the dumpster when Percy walked by, and being the hoarder he was, Percy took it upon himself to give the table a new life. A coat of bright blue paint made it look as good as new, and paired with a cheap table cloth that Percy had bought specifically for the occasion, it looked downright professional. Percy had even managed to arrange the snacks… well, somewhat artistically.
"Crap," he hissed suddenly. "Forgot the dip. Dip, dip, dip, where's the dip?"
He rushed over to the mini fridge, which, in retrospect, did not have enough space. As he rummaged around for dip, three short, firm knocks sounded on the door.
"Coming!" yelled Percy, jerking his head up and smacking it on the inside of the fridge. He swore again, and rubbing his head grouchily, hastened to the door.
The first of his guests, a girl with long, choppy brown hair, stood on the cheap Welcome mat he had bought at Target a few days before. She was wearing a cute feathered headband and had pulled her hair into a ponytail with little braids peppered throughout.
She grinned at him widely with a cute, slightly crooked smile.
"Hi!" she said, before Percy could react. "I'm Piper! I live, like, two apartments down? I'm early, I know, I'm sorry." She rocked happily on the balls of her feet, a green plastic bag clutched in her hands. "I just like to try and get to parties early to see if I can help. And, y'know," she leaned in, "to give people the dirt on the complex."
Percy grinned easily. Neighborhood gossip? He could deal with that. "Sure, come on in. I can always use help, trust me." He laughed nervously. "I recently found out I'm not that great at planning parties."
Piper entered eagerly, slipping off her turquoise Chuck Taylors and dropping them beside the mat. She whistled as she walked in. "You made this place nice! I literally had no idea it could look like this. The guy who lived here before you was such a slob." She started rummaging in her bag, and Percy tried not to look curious. "Okay, so I've got some, um, cupcakes, and some napkins, and some dip, and…" she pulled a little bottle out of her bag and waved it around, "just a teensy bit of booze."
Percy looked at her in awe. "You literally brought everything that I forgot."
Piper smirked and gave a little snort. "Of course I did. I brought the things that everyone forgets." She set down the bag and cracked her knuckles. "Okay, so the party starts in ten minutes, which means no one else will show up for at least another twenty. I swear, I'm the only punctual person in this entire building." She plopped down at his kitchen table, and he eagerly took a seat across from her. This looked like it could get interesting.
"So here's the deal," she began, crossing her arms on the table. "This floor is me, you, a guy named Travis who we all ignore, and Frank. We're the top floor so there's no one above us, which you may have already noticed. Below us we have Nico and Will, (they're together), Jason (he's mine), Hazel (she and Frank are adorable babies who like each other but have literally no idea how to flirt) and then some random guy that none of us have ever seen. The only person on level three who may come is Rachel, but I'm not sure. She gets distracted a lot and tends to miss this kind of thing, or at least come in so late it's basically over." Piper paused to take a deep breath; Percy was honestly wondering how she had managed not to run out of air already. "Level two is Reyna, Annabeth, Leo, and... oh yes, Thalia. But yeah, those are all the people you are likely to see here. We're mostly all college students because the rent here is cheap."
Percy blinked at her. "Do you expect me to remember all that?"
Piper sighed and got up from the table. "I seriously have no idea why I even bother. Do you have any music?"
True to Piper's word, the rest of the invitees began showing up about ten minutes after the start of the party. By that point, Piper had given Percy a cookie and made him sit down on the couch, and proceeded to fish through his music until she found something that she deemed appropriate.
By the time people started arriving, the food was arranged differently, a catchy song that Percy didn't know he owned was playing, and somehow Piper had adjusted the lights so everything looked slightly brighter.
Yes, he was going to get along with Piper just fine.
The first of the loud knocks sent Percy sprinting to the door. A quick head count found five people shoving their way into the room. A small girl with dark skin and light brown curls caught his eye and grinned.
Another girl with spiky black hair and bright blue eyes shoved her way through the small crowd and smirked at Percy's apartment. "I see Piper's been here already."
The party was in full blast within ten minutes. Percy chatted idly with some of the guests, quickly realizing that he had chosen a building of awesome people to move to. Some of the girls, Piper included, were bopping along to the music in the living room, occasionally knocking something over and giggling hysterically before carefully placing it back in its spot. Percy had struck up a conversation with a couple of the guys who he had identified as Leo from the second floor and Piper's Jason, when there was a final knock at the door. Percy excused himself from the conversation for a moment to go and answer it.
He pulled open the door, which was strangely heavy. A girl looked up at him, casually brushing some of the winter snowflakes off the shoulder of her royal blue coat.
"Hi! I'm assuming this is the housewarming party? Sorry I'm so late."
"It's, um, okay," Percy stuttered. For some reason he couldn't take his eyes off the tiny snowflakes that had pooled in her honey-blonde curls. She sent him a quick smile through pale- pink lips, and then she pushed past him into the party, calling out to Piper, who turned with a welcoming grin on her face.
Percy gulped.
Shaking his head, he walked back over to rejoin his conversation with Leo and Jason. Leo grinned impishly at him.
"Saw your face over there, dude. That's Annabeth. She's pretty hot, right? I'd warn you to be careful, though. She doesn't go for a lot of guys."
"What?" Percy spluttered. "I wasn't… I didn't… I never…"
"Dude, relax," Jason said, giving him a reassuring little smile. Then he added with a sneaky grin, "I was the same way when I first met Piper."
Percy groaned.
In his brief conversation with Leo and Jason, Percy had picked up subtle little hints on their personalities. Leo talked loudly and waved his hands a lot. He seemed to get passionate about things very quickly. Jason was a little quieter and more reserved, like he wasn't quite sure anyone really wanted to be listening to him. Almost everything he said sounded fascinating, and Percy found himself having fun.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he turned. The girl with the blonde hair, Annabeth, was holding a cookie wrapped in a napkin. Percy found himself watching her curls again. They bobbed slightly up and down as she talked, and Percy was mesmerized by the tiny drop of melted snow that shimmered off the end of one of the golden tresses.
She was saying something. Percy shook his head and tried to pay attention to the words coming out of the girl's mouth.
"…allergy. Are these cookies nut free?"
"What?" Percy fumbled. "Oh, um, I… yes they do."
Annabeth looked slightly confused, but she nodded in a reassured sort of way and continued on to the couch, where she squeezed herself in between Piper and the tiny, dark skinned girl Percy had figured out was Hazel from the floor below him. He smiled at them. Piper caught his eye and smiled back, giving him a tiny thumbs-up. Percy smiled confusedly.
"…take the lampshade off your head, Thals."
Thalia grinned at Jason and twirled around, letting the plain white lampshade fall down further over her eyes. "Why, baby brother? Am I embarrassing you?"
Jason covered his eyes with his palm, and Percy and Leo roared along with laughter. Thalia spun around until she bumped into the girl who Percy thought was called Reyna, who laughed and pulled the lampshade off her head.
Still chuckling, Percy's eyes drifted over the guests of the party. Hazel and the guy Piper mentioned, Frank, were chatting quietly in a corner. Percy couldn't help but smile at the way Hazel shuffled her feet and looked bashfully at the floor every few seconds.
Piper and Jason had vanished altogether, and Percy decided not to try too hard to look for them. Leo, per usual, was chatting to a couple of girls whose names Percy didn't know in a corner; all he knew was that they were totally out of Leo's league.
The tan blonde member of the pair Percy had identified as Will and Nico was trying to braid the other's hair, while the dark-haired one tried to swat his hand away. Percy found himself grinning again.
Finally, he let his eyes drift back over to Annabeth, who was chewing her cookie slowly and thoughtfully. She sat alone on his worn couch, and Percy decided maybe it would be a good moment to try and go talk to her without tripping over all of his words.
As he got closer, Percy suddenly realized something was wrong. Her rosy cheeks had gone pale, and the expression that Percy had deemed as thoughtful looked slightly scared instead. Percy sat down beside her.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Um." She swallowed and spoke in a quiet voice. "What's in these cookies?"
Percy blinked in surprise and glanced down at the cookie in her hand, which only had two small bites taken out of it. "Oh, my mom made them. They have, uh, flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla, peanut-butter, salt, chocolate… what?"
Annabeth's eyes had suddenly gone wide. She dropped the cookie. "I'm allergic to peanuts!" she hissed in a low voice.
Percy felt his own eyes go wide. "You are? You should have told me that."
"I did. I told you that I had a peanut allergy and asked if the cookies were nut-free and you said yes!"
Percy smacked his forehead. "I thought you asked if they had nuts. I said yes, yes they do have nuts."
Annabeth flopped back onto the couch with a groan. "Ugh, I hate this," she wheezed. "I'm going to go into anaphylaxis now."
"What? No!" gasped Percy, crawling closer to her. "Are you sure? What can I do? Can I help?" He was beginning to get a little frantic. "Annabeth. Annabeth, talk to me."
Annabeth swallowed and closed her eyes speaking carefully. "I'm sure. It feels like someone poured gravel down my throat." She winced. "You may have to give me the Epi-Pen. Also I might, um, throw up." She chewed her bottom lip like she was scratching it with her teeth.
Percy sucked in a gasp of air. "Should we…should we go outside?" he stuttered, not sure who was doing better in the current crisis. Probably Annabeth.
She swallowed again and nodded. Her voice was faint. "Yeah."
No one noticed as Percy helped Annabeth struggled to her feet, and the two of them quietly slipped across the room and out through the door. In the silence of the cool hallway, Annabeth leaned against the wall, and tried to wheeze her breath in and out. Then, without warning, she leaned over and puked all over the carpet of the hallway. Percy winced, but couldn't think of anything to do other than pull back her hair and sit down beside her as she slid down the wall. A couple of tears dripped out of the corners of her eyes, and she hastily wiped them away.
"Epi-pen," she wheezed, one of her hands gently running up and down her neck. "Breathe."
"Where?" asked Percy desperately.
"Purse." Her voice sounded strangled.
Percy reached into her purse, which was still dangling from her shoulder. He rummaged through it, tossing stuff onto the floor, until he found the funny little tube shaped thing that he knew was an Epi-pen.
His fingers were shaking slightly as he dumped in out of the container and quickly inspected the pictures on the side. Pull out the blue cap on the end… and jabit into the person's thigh. With a shudder – he had a secret phobia of needles – Percy stabbed it into Annabeth thigh through her navy jeans. He waited an extra ten seconds than what the package said – just for good measure – then pulled it carefully out.
Annabeth's breathing slowed after a moment, and her eyes, which had been fluttering shut, blinked back open. "Thanks," she murmured, her voice scratchy.
Percy sighed in relief. "So what do we do now? Are you all better?"
Annabeth opened an eye to squint at him. "No, you idiot. You have to take me to the ER now. This is not a good way to spend a housewarming party." Her irritated expression morphed into a weary one, and she sighed. "I'm – I'm really sorry about all this."
Percy found himself smothering a chuckle. "It's not your fault."
Annabeth giggled weakly. "I suppose it's not."
He stood up and paused at the door to the apartment, glancing to where Annabeth sat against the wall. "I'll be back soon."
Annabeth simply nodded and closed her eyes again.
Percy pushed through the door to his apartment and was relieved to see that nothing had changed in the last few minutes. Piper and Jason had reappeared, their hair slightly mussed and sheepish smiles on their faces.
"Piper!" called Percy. She turned to him. "Can you take care of the party?"
"I—"
"Something came up. Can I trust you?"
Piper nodded bewilderedly.
"Awesome. Make the people leave by 1:00 if I'm not back." He grabbed his keys and disappeared through the door, leaving Jason and Piper looking somewhat flabbergasted.
When he got back into the hall, Annabeth was struggling to her feet. The colour was returning to her cheeks, and she flushed when she saw Percy.
"You have a car?" she confirmed quietly.
Percy nodded. "It was my mom's, but she got a new one, so she gave the old one to me. Come on, let's get you to the hospital." Without really thinking about it, Percy grabbed Annabeth's hand and led her towards the elevator.
Percy challenged the speed limit all the way to the hospital. Annabeth sat quietly beside him. She looked awful, and Percy wanted to brush the stay hairs out of her eyes and kiss her better.
Though he had eaten several of the cookies himself, so kissing her probably wouldn't help the situation much.
The ER room was crowded with people coughing and sleeping in plastic chairs. Little kids with runny noses and red eyes chased each other around, sucked on lollipops and watched the small TV that was impossible to hear over the din.
Percy refused to let go of Annabeth's hand.
When they finally got to the front desk, Percy let Annabeth do the talking. She obviously understood the situation better than he did. Being at more risk of death then most of the others in the waiting room, Annabeth was whisked away, and Percy sat down dejectedly in one of the hard plastic chairs.
His house-warming party had not gone according to plan. Poisoning the prettiest girl at the party had not been on the to do list.
Percy wiggled his fingers absently. Her hand was unfairly soft.
After what felt like days—but was probably more along the lines of three hours—of uncomfortable chairs, switching positions, and reading the subtitles of the sitcom that was playing, Annabeth finally emerged. Some more of the natural rosiness had returned to her cheeks, and she was smiling slightly. She walked straight towards him, a surprised expression flitting across her face.
"You waited for me."
"Did you think I'd leave without you?"
Annabeth shifted, biting her lip. "I'm not sure. I mean, I thought you might want to go back to take care of your party."
Percy grinned, relief hitting him like a brick. "Well, I was the one who almost killed you. Seemed appropriate that I should wait for you."
Annabeth smiled and bumped his shoulder affectionately. "I'm going to stick around and annoy you for a little longer."
"I should hope so."
Together they walked back outside into the chilly November air. Snowflakes drifted lazily from the inky sky, and Percy couldn't help but watch mesmerized again as they caught and pooled in Annabeth's golden curls. And somehow, her hand ended up back in his, and she leaned sleepily against him as he led them back to the car.
The drive home was quieter and sleepier than the drive there. Annabeth told him how she had waited a lot, been tossed around doctors, and eventually given a small prescription of pills to stop the anaphylaxis from flaring up again. After a few minutes she fell silent, and leaned back against the seat, her eyes closed. Percy couldn't help but look over at her every few minutes, wondering if she was awake or asleep. He wanted to touch her cheek, and see if it was as soft as it looked.
Eventually they were pulling back into the garage of the parkade, and Annabeth was blinking her eyes open again. She yawned, slowly unbuckling her seatbelt. She looked like a sleepy toddler, and Percy took her hand on instinct to prevent her from falling down. When she smiled at him sleepily, he couldn't resist giving her hand just a little squeeze.
"You missed your floor," Percy pointed out as the elevator rumbled skyward.
"Mmmm, I know," said Annabeth. "I wanted to say goodbye to you at your apartment."
Percy couldn't help the little butterflies that flitted around in his stomach.
They stepped out of the elevator when it dinged at Percy's floor. The hall was dark and quiet. It was far past two in the morning, and everyone had gone home, leaving the hallway silent. They got a strong whiff of cleaner as they walked, which made Annabeth giggle for some reason. Within a few minutes, they reached the door to Percy's apartment.
"Well," said Percy awkwardly. "This is my apartment."
Annabeth nodded, trying to conceal the smirk that crept onto her lips. "I noticed."
Percy didn't answer, but instead found himself staring into her eyes. They were a thunderstorm sort of grey, swimming with specks of blue. They watched him carefully, wondering what he would do next. He finally brought his hand up to her cheek, happy to find that it was just as soft as he imagined. He felt reassured when she didn't pull away, and then suddenly they were leaning in and…
Annabeth jerked away, leaving Percy's palm cold and a sinking feeling in his stomach.
"Oh, quit looking like a hurt puppy-dog." Annabeth rolled her eyes. "I'll still kiss you, doofus, just, like, brush your teeth or something first. You ate those cookies, too. And I've had more than enough trips to the ER for one night."
Percy grinned sheepishly. "Right, sorry. You, um, want to come in?"
Annabeth followed him into the apartment, and Percy rushed to the bathroom, where he brushed his teeth harder and longer than he had ever brushed them before. A few minutes brought him back into the living room, where Annabeth was sitting on the couch trying not to doze off.
She opened her eyes as he came in. "You took your time."
He sat down on the couch and took her hands, his smile teasing. "Well, I had to be thorough. Not taking you back to the ER tonight."
"Glad to hear it," said Annabeth, and she leaned in.
Their first kiss was short, sweet and gentle. They broke apart quickly and stared at each other for a moment of complete silence.
Percy took one of her curls and rolled it in his fingers, pulling it and watching it bounce back. A smile stretched across her face and she gently touched his cheek.
"You are such a nutcase."
Percy grinned impishly. "Wouldn't that make you allergic to me?"
Annabeth sent him a mischievous smirk. "I think I'll risk it."
She leaned back in.
AN: Hello my friends! I do hope that you've enjoyed this silly little AU that I wrote. I myself have a nut allergy, and through I have yet to actually go into anaphylaxis (which is basically where your throat closes up, if you weren't sure), I know the horrors of nut allergies. Or any allergies. If any of you out there are allergy buddies with me, here is a virtual hug. We are strange mutants. My thanks to the lovely WritingManiac for her terrific beta-ing skills. Anyways, I hope you got a laugh out of my small story. Leave me a review and tell me what you thought, because I happen to be very fond of reviews. They never fail to make me smile.
Have a lovely day, friends. If you feel like checking out any more of my stuff, I'd reccomend my full length story, Childhood. I update that somewhat infrequently. I try.
-GGW