A/N

This may be short and it may be a filler, but it's also just really light (mostly) and kinda fun. So hopefully you guys like it! I didn't really proofread either, so excuse any mistakes or cringey sentences.

Enjoy!

Percy's POV

I'm going to tell you a secret: even though I'd lived in New York my entire life, I'd never been to the Metropolitan.

When I divulged this to Annabeth, she'd frozen in place and stared at me for a solid minute, unmoving. Then she'd proceeded to grab my arm and drag me around until we could find a taxi to take us there, all while lecturing me on the importance of art history and modern culture. If I was being completely honest, I had no idea what half of the stuff she'd been spouting was. But I didn't interrupt her, because she was clearly passionate about the topic and I figured that she hadn't had a chance to ramble in a while.

So that was how we spent the rest of the morning, me following Annabeth around the Met and her explaining the importance of each exhibition. And even though I never thought I'd actually enjoy going to an art museum, it was pretty fun. I had to give it to her, Annabeth was a great tour guide. I mean, if she could keep me entertained, then surely that'd go for almost anyone.

I tuned in to her explanation of the artwork in front of us and raised a hand, just like I would've done in class. If I actually paid attention in class, that is.

"You're saying this is historic? It's literally a bunch of stick figures and paint splatters," I pointed out, squinting at the picture in front of me. Annabeth elbowed me, stifling a laugh.

"You can't say that! Besides, stick figures back then were all the rage."

"Well, people back then were dumb."

She scoffed. "Please, I bet you can't draw any better."

"Hey, I never said I could. I'm just saying, these people are actually artists. They should be able to draw more than stick figures."

"I think it's supposed to be interpretative," she mused, tilting her head to examine the painting.

I pointed to one of the red paint blobs. "Well, I interpret that to be a blood stain. And that guy over there killed the other guy."

"You really want to talk about murder right now?" That was a fair point. I'd just been released from the police station for being a possible murder suspect, I didn't need to bring the subject up again.

"Oops," I said sheepishly. "I think I've spent too much time in this place. So hows about we go do something else?" Annabeth opened her mouth to reply, probably about how I needed more exposure to artistic culture, but her stomach grumbled loudly before she could say anything. I smirked at her in triumph and she scowled.

"Food?"

"Food."

...

We ended up in a cafe pretty close to the Met, so we didn't have to walk all that far. It was a nice place, and I was pretty excited to order my blue raspberry milkshake, but something in the corner of the room caught my eye. Or rather, someone caught my eye. Then he glanced up, as if sensing my stare, and his eyes widened. I instantly looked away, knowing that if Annabeth saw them, we'd have to join them. And that would be hella awkward. I blinked, then smiled at the woman behind the counter.

"Hi, can I get a blue raspberry milkshake and...what are you getting?" I asked Annabeth, hoping to keep her attention me and not on her friends who were probably glaring at me, wishing that I would drop dead.

"A chicken Caesar salad." My nose crinkled at the word 'salad'.

"I'll just get the drink," I said. I wasn't very hungry, despite not having eaten since...when had I last eaten? Lunch or breakfast yesterday. Annabeth ordered and then we had to choose a table. I pointed to the back on the opposite side of the room from the others. "What about over there-?"

"Hey, Annabeth! Over here!" Shit.

"Piper? Jason? I feel like I haven't seen you guys in ages! Come on, Percy," she exclaimed, grabbing my arm and pulling me over to the table. As soon as Jason and Piper's eyes fell on me, they narrowed into glares. I waved exaggeratedly before sitting down beside Annabeth.

"I heard about your mom, Annabeth, it was in the paper this morning, and I'm so sorry!" Piper gushed, giving her friend a sympathetic smile. "Are you going to live with your dad now?" Annabeth instantly tensed up, and I glanced at her curiously. I didn't recall her ever mentioning her father.

"Um, I don't know. I've only got one year left of high school before I'll be going to college, so I'll probably just find something temporary. After all, I don't want to have to move away for my senior year," she answered, clasping her hands together nervously.

"Well, you can always stay with me," Piper told her reassuringly. "It gets lonely in the mansion, sometimes."

Annabeth nodded, then seemed to realize something. "You two are here together...are you on a date?"

They both blushed, but Jason, who had been quiet since I'd sat down, took this opportunity to speak up. "You and Jackson are here together, are you on a date?"

Annabeth rose her hands in surrender. "Okay, fine. So you're not on a date." I could've sworn her cheeks turned slightly red. But maybe it was my imagination.

"It's really nice to see you Annabeth, but-" Here it comes, the whole why are you with him spiel. "-why are you with, um..." She stumbled over her words, clearly not sure what to call me.

"Percy," I told her. She looked at me in shock and I rolled my eyes. "My name. It's Percy."

"Right," she said. "Why are you with Percy?"

"Are you guys really going to get into that now?" Neither of the two replied. "I told you, we're friends."

"Is it really that hard to believe?" I asked, mainly directing the question at Jason. Piper I had no problem with, but the dude had fractured my arm out of spite. I kind of had a right to not like him.

"Yeah, it kinda is. I don't want Annabeth hanging out with a murderer," Jason returned. I felt my features twist into an expression of anger.

"I didn't kill anyone, and the police can prove it."

"How can they-"

"Because," I said loudly, then dropped my voice so no one else in the cafe could hear. "We just got released from there this morning."

"We?" Piper asked, obviously concerned for her friend. I nodded at Annabeth, waiting for her to continue. She squinted up at me, an unreadable expression on her face, before sighing.

"Yeah, we. There was a...thing last night involving us."

"What kind of thing?" Jason asked suspiciously.

Annabeth frowned for a second, thinking something over. "I'm so sick of people thinking ill of Percy! So what if he's my friend?" She slammed her hands on the table, causing the others to jump and me to wince.

I leaned over and whispered in her ear, making sure to keep my voice quiet. "Hey, don't do that. Your shoulder needs to heal."

Her eyes narrowed. "How do you know about that?"

"The cops aren't very good at hiding their case files," I shrugged, smirking at Jason's expression. "Don't look now, he's gonna tell you to stop hanging around a criminal."

It was at this point that the waitress decided to bring over my drink and Annabeth's salad. I actually laughed.

"Thanks," I told her, sliding the salad over to Annabeth and picking up my drink. She nodded quickly and practically ran away from our table. Maybe the tension was scaring her. I looked up to see the others staring at me. "What?"

"You're weird," Annabeth said, smiling in exasperation.

"What ever makes you say that?" I placed a hand on my chest, pretending to be offended. "I am most certainly not weird."

"Whatever, Seaweed Brain," she replied nonchalantly, trying to hide her smirk.

"Um, excuse me, I don't like being compared with a type of cracker-"

"It was a lapse in judgment-"

"Which you're still using, so clearly you don't think it's as bad as you say, Wise Girl," I finished, sending her a triumphant look. It was then that I remembered the people across the table from us, who were openly gaping. "Oh my gods, they're actually getting along! What ever is the world coming to?"

"Percy..." Annabeth said warningly. I ignored her.

"You know, I wanted to go sit over there and not bother you two, but you just insisted on inviting us over, even though you knew I was here. So don't start talking shit about me when it's your fault I'm here," I said irritably. "Ignore me if you want, but don't interrogate Annabeth. She's had enough going on in her life."

"How would you know-"

"Because I'm her friend!" I practically yelled. "Something which you're kind of sucking at being, right now."

"Guys, drop it," Annabeth said, her voice deadly quiet. But Jason wasn't paying much attention to her anymore.

"At least I've never beat her up for the fun of it."

"At least I trust her to make her own decisions."

"Guys, don't fight," Piper said, her voice pleading. We both ignored her.

"Who said I didn't?"

"Clearly you don't trust her judgment of me."

"That's because there is a reason-"

I met his glare unflinchingly. "Which has obviously changed." He dropped his gaze and looked down at his food. But I didn't feel very victorious. I glanced to the side and saw that Annabeth had finished her salad. "C'mon, Chase, let's go."

"Why would she go with you?" Jason questioned, but it was quiet. We all still heard, though. But I didn't want to keep arguing with him, so I stayed silent.

"You have to accept that he's my friend, now," Annabeth said softly. "And Percy's right, you saw him, you didn't have to call us over. I'll see you both on Monday." With that she stood up and trudged out of the cafe, me following suit. I didn't dare look over my shoulder.

Annabeth's POV

"Sorry for that. Today's supposed to be about, well, not that stuff," Percy said quietly as we walked down the sidewalk. I shrugged.

"It wasn't your fault."

"I don't want you to be mad at them because of me, either-"

"Percy!" He cut himself off abruptly. "It's fine. Let's just...do something else, okay?"

"Yeah, okay." I kept my eyes on the ground. "Wanna go see a movie?"

"What's on?"

"I don't really care," he replied, grinning. I stared up at him, shaking my head.

"You weren't kidding when you said you had no idea, were you?"

"Since when do I kid?" He returned. Maybe a movie would be good. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd been to see something at an actual theater. Was it two years ago? Three?

"Since right now. Where's the nearest theater?"

"Like, on the other side of the city."

"I...you know what? Why not?" I agreed finally.

"That's the spirit," he said cheerfully, holding out his arm. I stared at it. "What, did I grow another elbow or something?" He questioned, inspecting his arm curiously.

"We don't live in the 1900's. Nobody does that any more," I pointed out.

He raised his eyebrows at me. "I guess that makes me nobody, then."

"Whatever. Let's go, you dork," I said, looping my arm through his.

"So," he began conversationally. "What's your favorite color?"

"Are you seriously asking me that?"

"Yeah. I mean, I don't really know any of the basic stuff about you. I just know about all of the shitty stuff." Now that I thought about it, he was right. What did I know about Percy, except for the fact that he was in the Half Bloods and had a criminal record? It wasn't all that much.

"Grey," I answered automatically. It reminded me of my mom. "What about you?"

"Don't steal my questions!" He said accusingly. "Boring, by the way. Mine's blue. My mom used to make sure all of our food was blue."

"Really? Why was that?" I asked. It must have been a lot of effort for Sally to color every item of food they owned.

"I didn't wanna bring this up, but...my old step father, he was a bit of a dick, and him and my mom had this argument about food not being able to be blue. So she made a point of only making blue food after that."

We turned left to take a shortcut through a nearby park. I observed how green, how beautiful and colorful everything was. "That's...really cool of her to do that. My mom would never have bothered," I told him truthfully. "I mean, she was a good mom and all, and without her I wouldn't be half as smart as I am today, but she was...pretty hands off, I guess."

"That reminds me, where are you gonna be staying now? I heard Piper mention your dad before..." He trailed off, kicking a stray pebble that was in his path. I watched as it bounced ahead of us.

"He left mom when I was six. Last I heard he remarried, but we haven't spoken in ten years," I said, trying to make the words sound as casual as possible. "Jeez, how'd we get from colors to family issues?"

Percy cracked a grin. "Hey, I haven't talked to my real dad in ten years, either."

"Sally mentioned something about him being lost at sea? Oh, sorry, I shouldn't have brought that up..." I added apologetically.

"Oh yeah, you talked to her at the hospital. Gods, that's weird. And don't worry 'bout it. I'm not enough of an idiot to believe that he's only missing. I know he's dead."

"At least you always have hope that he might not be," I offered, not sure what else to say.

"Maybe," he said noncommittally. "It's too nice of a day to be talking about this kind of stuff."

I looked up at the sky, which was a brilliant shade of light blue. "It's nice, though. I mean, if you talk about it when it's storming, it just seems more...real. It's so easy to pretend it isn't when the weather's good, as superficial as it sounds."

"You make a good point."

"That's what you get for being on the debate team in sixth grade," I returned.

Percy stopped, turning to face me. "You were on the debate team? You know what, that doesn't even surprise me." I kept walking, waiting for him to catch up. When he did, I nudged him.

"Don't make fun. You had to choose an extracurricular that year, right? What'd you do?"

A wistful smile graced his features. "Swim team. I was good at it, too. I won a trophy for it."

"So why'd you stop?" I asked him.

"Sixth grade was when...ah, shit. Actually, that sums it up pretty well. Shit," he said again, as if I'd missed it the first time. I grinned hesitantly, not wanting to pry. "Let's just say I didn't want everyone else to see the scars." I didn't want to force him into saying anything else, so I used to silence to come up with something to say.

"Do you still like swimming?"

"Yeah. Something about the water...my dad loved the ocean, you know? Then he didn't come back from his boat trip and I've just had an affinity with it ever since. I haven't swum since...jeez, I can't even remember. It's been a while since I've been to the beach, too," he replied, running a hand through his hair. I watched him closely as he talked, and noticed that his eyes had glazed over slightly.

"You know, I've never actually been to the beach."

My confession was met with dead silence. Even the noises of traffic seemed to quiet. When Percy spoke, his words were so hushed I had to strain to hear them.

"What do you mean, you've never been?" I opened my mouth to reply, but he beat me to it. "Here you are chewing me out for never going to an art museum, but you've never been to a beach? Oh my gods, Annabeth!"

"Sorry?" I offered, shrugging. He shook his head at me, muttering under his breath.

"I can't believe you've never been to a-hey, we're here!" I'd completely forgotten that we were going to see a movie and I almost laughed when I noticed the theater in front of us.

"Do we know what we're seeing?" I asked as I walked through the doors. Percy followed after me, squinting up at the list of possible contenders.

"Nope. I say we just ask for two tickets to whatever. Let it be a surprise."

"That's a horrible idea. So sure, why not?"

Percy tapped his head and grinned. "You're learning, Chase."

"I actually think my IQ is significantly decreasing, spending so much time with you."

"Rude!" I felt a smile creep onto my face as I waited for him to get the tickets. We'd agreed that I'd pay for lunch and he'd pay for the movie, because I definitely wasn't going to let him pay for all of it.

I'd actually had a really fun day today, despite the bad start. Normally I liked art museums, sure, but having Percy there making wisecracks at all the exhibits just made it that more interesting. And sure, I'd had an argument with some of my friends, but what teenager didn't? It just happened that the things I argued about were slightly different.

I blinked as a hand appeared in front of my face. "Earth to Chase?"

"Gods, you have to stop doing that," I told him as we headed into the movie.

"Whatever, Annabeth," he replied nasally, tossing his head. I shook my head in amusement and followed him down the aisle towards our seats.

"So, what are we seeing?"

"...I didn't actually ask. For all I know it could be a porno."

I hit his arm. "You better be joking."

"Hey, relax. The girl said it was some romance thing. Actually, she was kind of rambling about it. I wasn't listening, though."

"Aren't you a great person," I deadpanned. "Hey, it's starting!"

"Great observation," he muttered. I decided to ignore him.

The girl he'd talked to had been right, it was a romantic tragedy and while my attention was entirely focused on the screen, Percy had fallen asleep about halfway through. I only noticed this he let out a quiet snore, tearing my eyes from the movie.

"Percy," I whispered, poking his hand, which was rested on the arm of the chair between us. "Wake up. Percy." I had just poked him again when his fingers reached out and grabbed my own hand, nearly giving me a heart attack from shock. Once I had calmed down, I peered at him curiously, though he still seemed to be asleep.

"Five more minutes," he mumbled, and I felt a smile cross my features. He looked so peaceful that I didn't want to wake him up, so I didn't try and move his hand. Instead, I turned my own hand over so our palms were pressed together.

Besides, it actually felt kind of nice. But don't you dare tell him I said that.

...

I tossed an old shirt over my shoulder to where I was almost certain the throw away pile was. I was sorting through all of my things, because I didn't want it to become this major thing which I knew it would if I procrastinated it. I had to move out soon anyway, because soon enough it would become apparent that no one was paying the bills any more. I was kind of surprised I hadn't already been kicked out, but then again, it was New York. There were probably far more urgent issues to deal with than people not paying taxes.

I had already sorted all of the pants that I was keeping into a suitcase, along with socks and shoes. Now I was up to shirts, and I was trying to get rid of a few. I didn't want to be hording a massive wardrobe, especially if I had to move to San Francisco with my dad.

I wasn't expecting anyone to show up, so when the doorbell rang at seven that evening you can understand my confusion. It gave me such a fright that I fell forward into my wardrobe, letting out a loud oof when I hit the ground.

Hastily brushing off my clothes, I ran to get the door. I was expecting police, maybe, Social Services, hell, even someone from the hospital. I wasn't, however, expecting the smirking, raven haired teenage boy who stood in front of me.

"Did I just hear you fall over?" He asked, obviously trying to suppress snickers.

I gazed at him sourly. "Did you just come to my house to stalk me?"

"Oh honey, if I wanted to stalk you I wouldn't have rung the bell." I didn't waver. "Okay, fine. Chase, you have won a once in a lifetime offer! A full day and a half with me!"

"Oh wow, what a prize!" I said sarcastically. "Truly life changing!"

"Seriously, my mom and Paul are up at this cabin they own at Montauk and mom always tells me I can bring a friend but I never do because I don't have friends...oh no don't look at me like that, it's not because I can't find any it's because I don't want any...but I'm glad you're my friend! Yeah!" He blushed when he realized that he was rambling, then scratched the back of his neck. I watched him stutter with curious fascination. Normally he was so composed. "But, um, anyway, you said you'd never been to the beach so I asked her if I could bring you and she said yeah, so...do you wanna come? You don't have to!" He added quickly.

"Are your mom and Paul taking you up there?"

"They're already there, I'm driving, so there'd be no awkward conversations or anything," he explained, rubbing his neck. "They're coming back tomorrow morning but we can stay later, if you wanted. If you're coming, that is."

I had wanted to go to the beach for ages. I also was in desperate need of a break, of a distraction. Besides, he was so adorable and floundering and just plain awkward that I couldn't say no.

Did I actually just think he was adorable? Since when have I ever called anyone adorable?

"Yes, I'll come with you," I told him.

He nodded, ducking his head as he backed away from the door. "Don't worry 'bout it, I didn't really expect you to say yes anyway-" He cut himself off, his head jerking upwards again. "Wait, what?"

I rolled my eyes, but was unable to stop the grin from spreading across my face. "I said yes, Seaweed Brain."

"Oh thank gods," he muttered. "Paul would've teased me so much if you said no."

"Why's that?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Because he always jokes about me having no social life."

"You do have a social life, you just don't have friends."

"That's what I say," he answered, sighing in exasperation. "The dude thinks I'm a hermit. Do I seem like a hermit to you?" I laughed at that.

"I'm just gonna go grab some things, okay?" I said as I began heading back into my apartment. "Anyway, you probably don't want him knowing what you get up to, am I right?"

"You always are."

"Damn straight," I called over my shoulder, and I heard him chuckle before I entered my bedroom. The remainder of my weekend was suddenly looking a lot more interesting than cleaning and pondering accommodation. That being said, my entire life had become a lot more interesting since the teenage boy at my doorstep had entered it.

"Hey, Chase, how long d'you think you'll be? 'Cause I'm kinda, uh, illegally parked."

Definitely more interesting.

So that's that, and I actually know what next chapter will be about, for once! Go me!

Reviewer Replies:

Cinder Luna - You don't know how happy it makes me to read that, I always read other stories where the characters are so well written and I try to emulate that as best I can

1quintisfan - I'm all about suspense. Thanks for the cookie, I hope you like this chapter which doesn't end on any major plot twists. You might still call it a cliffy though

I hope you liked it! Until next time,

HV