olympus street
Annabeth grips the book in her hand a little tighter, frowning at her watch. She knocks on the door again, a single short rap, and then glares at the gold lettering. 18A. Nothing. She's considering leaving the Webster's Dictionary with a note, because honestly she has much better uses of her time, when the door is suddenly yanked open with a whoosh. The man on the other side is black-haired, green eyes, but she kind of regrets knocking so loudly once she sees his sleep-disheveled hair, and the drool on his face.
(It's two o' clock. In the afternoon.)
Annabeth is startled out of her reverie by the neighbor speaking. 'What do you want?' he says, his voice still husky because of sleep. She jumps a little.
She covers it up with what she hopes is a bright smile. 'Hi! I'm Annabeth Chase, from 18B, from across the hall, which would make me your neighbor.' She pauses there still smiling, waiting for him to greet her properly. He just stares at her.
He raises an eyebrow. 'Is that it?'
Annabeth frowns. 'No.' she says, a little stiffly. 'I wanted to give you this dictionary, you know as a 'welcome to the building' present.' She thrusts the book into his hands, with another bright, albeit fake grin. She stops, and waits for her greeting. When he doesn't say anything, she opens her mouth but the neighbor beats her to it.
'Thanks…? Bye.' He abruptly slams the door in her face. She closes her mouth and stares at his door for a while. She swears she can hear Thalia sniggering in her ear. She turns on her heel glaring and stalks to her apartment, and slams the door. Her anger wears off after a while. (Not. Every time she forgets about him she sees the spot on the shelf where her dictionary was supposed to go, and she gets mad all over again. Idiot.)
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Percy's first thought when he sees the blonde knocking furiously at his door, is that maybe he should stay away, because she looks kind of insane pounding on his door like that. Wait no…that's his second thought. His first is that someone should tell her to stop, because he's so goddamn sleepy right now, it's not even funny. His third thought, is that maybe he should open the door- after all, she is kind of pretty (and she has also been standing there for ten minutes…)
So he yanks the door open in a haze. He realizes as soon as he opens his mouth, that maybe it would have been a better idea to just turn everything off and pretend he wasn't home or something. (God, he's so sleepy right now.)
He decides to forget it when she stalks off. (And if he watches her walk back to her apartment through the peephole in the door, it's only because he's confused.)
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She goes to Thalia's place as soon as her best friend gets back from…whatever seedy motel she was probably in. As soon as they are properly seated on the couch, and supplied with their drinks, Annabeth announces, 'The new neighbor is an asshole.'
Thalia blinks. 'Oh.'
'Yeah.'
'What?'
'The guy in 18A is a moron!'
Thalia blinks again. 'I'm sorry?…What happened?'
Annabeth scowls. 'I gave him a dictionary, and he slammed the door in my face. I was knocking on his goddamn door for ten minutes, and he wouldn't open it! And he was sleeping at like two in the afternoon.' She fumes.
'And he was hot right?' Thalia asks, smugly
'What? No!' She cries indignantly. (She's lying.)
Thalia can tell, of course. (She's always been way too good at this. Maybe she is psychic?) 'He was, wasn't he? I can tell, sweetie. You've got your pissed-off face on.'
'So?'
'You get that face whenever someone is so hot, it makes you mad.'
'I do not!'
'You had it on after you met Luke.'
'I was pissed off because he had spilled soy latte all over me! He was not cute!'
'Uh-huh.'
Annabeth rolls her eyes. 'The neighbor was not in any way, shape, or form hot.' Annabeth declares. (But he was a little bit cute, Annabeth thinks as she scowls into her wine.)
'Okay. Sure.' Thalia says. She sips her orange soda, raising her eyebrow.
Annabeth sighs. 'He may or may not have been hotter than the guy in 12C.'
'No!' Thalia gasps
'I said may or may not.'
'Which means yes, right?' Thalia asks smugly.
Annabeth gives her an eye roll, and a glare veiled by a sardonic look.
Thalia takes the hint 'Anyway. What was his name?'
Annabeth blinks. She thinks back to the interaction. 'I don't know. He slammed the door before I could ask.'
'You're serious? Jeez, Annabeth.' Thalia throws her arms into the air like she's asking God why Annabeth is so incompetent with guys. Annabeth imagines punching her several times, as Thalia gives her shit about being too distracted by a supposedly hot, sleepy guy to get his name for the rest of their NCIS marathon.
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Annabeth finds out his name the next day. She goes down to check her mail, and finds her mailbox is half full of her neighbor's mail. It's addressed to a Mr. P. Jackson. (She definitely didn't scowl at the prospect of seeing him again. That would not be nice.)
She knocks on the door. This time he opens up immediately. 'Hi!' he greets her with a bright grin. He blinks at her owlishly. 'Annabeth right? Sorry about yesterday. Moving and all that crap.' He says animatedly, cupping the back of his neck. She scowls in her head.
Annabeth smiles despite her anger. 'It's okay. I get it.' ('If he doesn't catch the sarcasm' she thinks, 'he's an idiot.')
(He doesn't catch it.) He rewards her with another grin (and yup, she's so done right now.) 'So…' he says, looking around. 'Do you want to come in or…?' he asks
'Oh. No, your mail was just in my box.' She hands it to him hurriedly watching detachedly as a few envelopes fall on to the ground, not even bothering to pick them up. (She so eager to leave she doesn't even care.)
He stoops to pick them up. 'Thanks.' he says when he gets back up. Wait for a minute? Thanks.' He almost trips several times as he walks two feet to duck back into his apartment (is that even possible?) and comes out a minute later with a bundle of letters. 'I guess these are yours then.'
She takes them and turns around. 'Thanks, again.' He calls.
'No problem, Mr. P. Jackson.' She calls over her shoulder.
'Percy.' He says.
She turns around. 'Percy?'
'The P is for Percy.' He gives her a wave, and a small smile before closing his door.
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'The neighbors name is Percy.' She says, after she's swallowed her bite of doughnut.
'And you like him.' Thalia adds on smugly.
'Where did you get that from?' she snorts taking a sip of her coffee. 'He's a complete idiot.'
'Well, you are hiding your face.'
Annabeth laughs now. 'Oh please. He's so mentally deficient, it's not funny. He can't even pick up on frickin' sarcasm.' She rolls her eyes.
Something much like amusement, and smugness flickers across Thalia's face. She swears on her dead mother that if Thalia actually knows Percy, and is playing matchmaker again, she will kill somebody.
'Do you know him?'
'He's my cousin.' She responds smirking
'Well then you of all people should know the depth of his idiocity.'
Thalia gives her a smug look. 'Maybe. But. Just you wait Annie. One day you'll look at him and think 'why…isn't that just the finest specimen of the opposite gender,' just like every other girl since he turned fourteen. And then Nico or Grover or I am going to find you two making out in the hallways.'
She takes another sip of her coffee. 'Sure' she says over Thalia's obnoxious smooching noises. She tries to quiet her with a glare. (Not working.)
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Eventually, Thalia stops of her own volition (a week later, but that's not the point.) She also suggests Annabeth invite him to a welcoming party. Annabeth chokes on her granola bar. 'What?'
'Well you are his neighbor.' Thalia says.
Annabeth narrows her eyes suspiciously at her from across the table. 'I loathe him. You on the other hand are the cousin he's known since you two were five. It would make much more sense to invite him yourself.' She gets her keys off the table.
'But he knows you too. And I don't want him to know I'm here in the building.'
'No.' She grabs her keys. 'Goodbye.' she says shortly.
'Remember those pictures?' She sing-song.
She turns around, stopping suddenly. 'I hate you.'
Thalia smirks at her. 'I'm giving you two weeks. Or I'm kicking down his door and doing it myself and the pictures go up.'
Annabeth levels a glare at her. 'Fine. Two weeks.' (She is so dead.)
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Annabeth finds that their mail has magically switched mailboxes every day for the next week. It's infuriating how many times she's had to talk to him. She immediately suspects Thalia, when Thalia tries to hide a laugh as she's telling her about it. (But, in hindsight, she manages to switch out Thalia's mail with 12C. She's mortified when the guy in 12C catches her in the middle of a marathon of Once Upon A Time.)
(It's been going for 16 hours already.)
On the other hand, it gives her several opportunities to ask Percy to the party to get all this over with. She squanders all of them, instead opting to get out of there as quickly as possible. She can't be in a space with that moron for more than five minutes without wanting to punch something, because honestly Percy Jackson is the single happiest person in the world.
(And if Annabeth glares at his back as she watches him walk back to his apartment, it's only because she's trying to be a considerate neighbor.)
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notes- I am doing a major edit overhaul thing on this one because to be honest, the writing and the characterization suck...so bear with me? Thanks.
