Disclaimer: I don't own PJO.
Chapter Twenty-Six
We all sat in a circle. I was wearing sweatpants and a tee shirt. I had taken off the make-up, and my hair was in a messy ponytail. Percy sat to my left in his boxers and a tee shirt. Grover was on my right in the same outfit as Percy. To Grover's right was Juniper, then Nico, then Thalia. All of our clothes were the same, but not like matching.
"Who's going first?" Grover asked, putting an empty water bottle in the center of our circle.
"I will." Thalia volunteered. She spun the bottle. It landed on Percy.
"Truth or dare?" she asked.
"Why, dare of course," Percy answered. Thalia put her thinking face on.
"Hmm," she said, "I dare you to…wait. Do you have any pickles?"
"No." Percy answered.
"Well, we're going to have to go get some." Thalia got up. "Who's coming with me?"
"What about the dare?" I asked.
"Patience. Now come on." I sighed a followed her out the door. Instead of going to the elevator, she walked to the neighbor's door.
"Thalia?" I asked.
"What? There's no need to go buy some pickles." She knocked on the door. A few seconds later, the door opened. The stench almost knocked me out. I'm guessing that this person hasn't cleaned in a while. It was a bald fat guy. He was wearing a very unflattering tank top and basketball shorts. He was eating out of a bag of potato chips.
"What?" he asked.
"Do you happen to have any pickles we could have?" Thalia asked. He didn't even answer. He just slammed to door in our faces.
"Thalia, this is not going to work."
"Oh, sure it will." She went to the next door, and I followed. She knocked, and a teenager answered. She looked goth.
"Who are you and what do you want?" she asked.
"Do you have any pickles we can have?" Thalia asked.
"No." the girl closed the door. It went on like this for about fifteen minutes. We were at the last door on the hallway. I knocked. A tall, handsome man opened the door. He smiled at us.
"Yes?" he asked.
"Do you have any pickles?" I asked.
"Yes. Would you ladies like to come in?"
"What?" Thalia asked.
"You two could come in, and we could have some pickles."
"No thank you." I said.
"May we just have the jar of pickles please?" Thalia asked. "We need to get back to her apartment," Thalia gestured to me and continued, "We were just playing a game with our boyfriends and our friends." The guy narrowed his eyes.
"What apartment?" the guy asked. I told him the apartment number. He went in his apartment and came back holding the directory.
"You're Percy Jackson?" he asked skeptically.
"No, that's my boyfriend."
"Why aren't you on here?" he obviously didn't believe us.
"I moved in this year." This person was really getting on my nerves.
"Well, my name is Jake. Let me go get the pickles." He left.
"I don't like this guy." Thalia said.
"Me either." He came back with a jar of pickles. We thanked him and went back to my apartment.
"Got the pickles!" Thalia said as we sat back down. Nico noticed that the jar was almost out of pickles.
"Get hungry on the way back?" he asked laughing.
"No," Thalia said, "We didn't buy any pickles."
"We went door to door." I said. Everyone laughed.
"So Percy," Thalia said, "I dare you to drink all of the juice." There was about a centimeter and a half of pickle juice in the jar. Thalia took out the two remaining pickles and gave one to Nico as she ate the other. Percy took the jar.
"Really he asked." Thalia nodded. "Well," said Percy, "here goes nothing." He chugged all of the juice. I wrinkled my nose.
"All done." Percy said.
"That is disgusting." I said. "Don't try to kiss me until you brush your teeth." Everyone laughed, but I was serious.
"Just because you said that…" Percy said right before he kissed me. It was short, but the gross pickle juice taste still got in my mouth.
"Percy!" He laughed. I got up and got a glass of chocolate milk. I took it back to the circle and started drinking it to get the taste out of my mouth. Percy spun the bottle, and it landed on Grover.
"Dare." Grover said, before Percy could even ask the question.
"Okay, you have to lick chocolate syrup off the toilet seat."
"Percy!" I said. "You know that we have to sit on that, after Grover has licked it, right?"
"It's fine. We can clean it."
"You can clean it." I muttered. Grover and Percy went to the kitchen to get the chocolate syrup. We all followed them to the hall bathroom. Percy squirted the chocolate all around the seat.
"This is so gross." Juniper said. Grover shrugged and licked the seat. Soon, all of the syrup was gone. "I can't believe you did that." Juniper said.
"What?" Grover asked, "Can't turn down a dare." We went back to our circle. This time the bottle landed on Nico. He chose truth. Thalia called him a chicken, but I couldn't blame him. Even though I'll probably do dare when it's my turn.
"If you had to ask out either Annabeth or Juniper, who would it be?"
"What?" Nico asked in surprise.
"You heard me." Nico looked from Percy to Grover, from me to Juniper, then at Thalia, who looked honestly curious.
"No hard feelings anyone?" Nico asked. We all shook our heads, eager for an answer. "Okay, probably… I don't know, probably Annabeth?" he said. He glanced nervously at Percy, then at Thalia. We all laughed at his nervousness.
"Dude, it's cool," Percy said, "we said no hard feelings. Plus, you have Thalia." Nico spun the bottle, and it landed on Thalia. She said dare. Nico did the cheesiest thing ever. He dared Thalia to kiss him.
"Awww!" Juniper said. Thalia kissed him. He kissed her back. They were kissing for a while, and it was getting awkward. We all glanced at each other. Grover coughed. Thalia and Nico broke apart, looking embarrassed.
"Uh, sorry." Nico said. We laughed, even Thalia. She spun the bottle, and it landed on me.
"Truth or dare?" Thalia asked.
"Dare." I said.
"I dare you to eat peanut butter off of Percy's hair."
"What?" Percy asked, "I don't want peanut butter in my hair!" I laughed and got the peanut butter.
"Can I use a spoon?" I asked Thalia.
"No! That would ruin the fun!" She put some peanut butter on the top of Percy's head.
"Percy?" I asked.
"Yeah?"
"When's the last time you washed you hair?" everyone laughed.
"This morning! Gosh, I'm not a pig." I smiled. I put my mouth to the peanut butter on his head. It wasn't that bad. The gross part was stopping half way through to get the hair out of my mouth. When I finished, Percy ran his hand through his hair.
"There's still some in there." He said matter-of-factly.
"Well, that's the best I could do." We played for hours. Nico, Grover, Thalia, and Juniper spent the night. The bed in me and Percy's room was shared by Thalia, Juniper, and me. The boys worked something out in the living room. Thalia, Juniper, and I fell asleep to Snow White.