A/N: I don't even know what this is other than a component of goofiness for my 31 Days of Halfblood Holidays. Enjoy, my loves! Also I apologize for how garbled the chapter was earlier - I accidentally started writing two fics into one and published without proofreading well enough (oops.) This chapter has more of a T rating, depending on how you look at the chapter. Whoops!


The door slams and Percy jumps from where he sits on the couch, trying to decide whether Duck Dynasty or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was the better movie choice for the first day of his winter break. Finally, on December 14th, he has time to curl up on the couch he shares with Annabeth and watch television. Or so he thought.

"Hello?" he asks, his hand going automatically to the pocket where Riptide could always be found.

"Perseus Alexander Jackson," Annabeth storms, and before Percy can react properly, he is hit in the face by Annabeth's dressy winter coat. She's hitting him with the middle name. He's screwed. "You are in so much trouble I don't think there's a word in the English, ancient Greek or Latin languages that could describe how mad I am."

"Are you going to yell at me?" he asks, looking up at her.

"What do you think?"

"Can I pee first?" Annabeth gives him a look that makes him forget about everything but how nervous he is. "It can wait," he mutters. "Wanna tell me what I did?"

"Do you remember that thing we have called a car that I drive to work?"

He furrows his eyebrows, not sure where she's going with this. "Did I forget to fill the gas tank again?"

"That's only the beginning," she says, and the way she's gripping the top of one of their kitchen chairs makes Percy gulp. "Someone named Percy left the car windows open. So I had to drive to work with the windows frozen open. The seat of my pants was drenched from the ice and snow that had drifted in from the window. And I shivered for literally forty minutes after I got inside my building." She walks toward him and stares him dead in the face, and Percy has to consciously make an effort not to lean away from her. "Forty. Minutes," she repeats, and Percy's the first one to look away from the stare down.

"I'm sorry," he says, looking back at those vaguely terrifying grey eyes, "I really am, but –"

"But nothing, you idiot, you managed to freeze my ass to the driver's seat when you were still sleeping!" Annabeth exclaims.

"Am I sleeping on the couch tonight?"

There is nothing Percy can say in response as Annabeth laughs derisively and slams the door after she walks into their bedroom.

Other than the car window thing, the worst decision Percy ever made was skimping on the couch.


Annabeth makes it worse when she starts to sigh in the way that Percy knows too well in their bedroom. He's freezing cold on the couch, since the living room in their apartment is always cold and he only has two little fleece blankets on top of him. He's been waiting all semester to have a night with Annabeth where neither of them have assignments to complete, and he managed to completely blow it. And Annabeth knows exactly what to do to mess with his head, and she's doing it.

In a risky move, he calls out, "How's it going, honey?" and Annabeth responds with another, throatier moan.

Percy has definitely screwed himself over for the night.

He lies on the couch as he hear the sighs grow stronger into moans, and then go from being quiet to loud, then back to quiet.

He squirms on the couch, staring at the Christmas tree they had put up a week ago to distract himself from the noises he was hearing from their bedroom, and then realizes: he's too tired to even think about anything but sleeping and Annabeth, and if he can just get back into his bedroom and catch her when she's just drifted off to sleep and thus more amiable, he might be able to get some rest.

Silently, Percy stands up and moves into their doorway, looking at Annabeth who is now fully asleep, hugging a pillow to her chest and moving restlessly.

"Can I come back to bed now?" he asks quietly as he sits at the foot of their bed. Annabeth's grey eyes open slowly and look at him. She sighs dramatically.

"Fine sure bed," she mutters in an only mostly discernible tone, dropping her head back to her pillow. "Bed time." Percy watches Annabeth tap the part of the bed behind her and chuckles low at the soft smile on Annabeth's face.

"I'm allowed to come back?" he asks.

Annabeth nods. "Cold in bed without your stupidity," she says, her words slurred by sleep again, "come back. I miss you. Even though you're a dummy."

Percy sighs and laughs as slides into bed, his arms wrapping around Annabeth's waist as she snuggles into him. He's about to fall asleep, his face buried in her curly, thick hair when she says, "I'm still mad at you."

"Because I left the car door open?"

"Because you are the paramount of idiots who can't shut up when they're cuddling with their girlfriend," she replies, still sleep blurred.

"Noted," says Percy. The night fades slowly as Annabeth falls asleep against him, and Percy's eyes fall shut as the night gets darker. He sleeps more soundly when Annabeth Chase is next to him and he knows, from the way that Annabeth links her fingers with his and turns to press light kisses to his neck n her sleep, that she is the same way.