A/N: Disclaimer: I do NOT, in any way, own PJO. Any and all similarities to real life people besides the character "Epiphany" are coincidental and not a reference to anyone, and since I AM Epiphany I guess it's all good. Here's the conversation that happened before I could use the song:
Beren: "Hey Epiphany, is it okay if I reference you?"
Eppiphany: "I'm you, aren't I?"
Beren: "Oh, no kidding! I guess that's a yes then?"
Epiphany: "Yeah, Sure."
Yes, I'm a little bit insane.
Kaos: More than a little insane, boy.
Oh shut up, you're not even a fanfic character, you're from my book, what are you even doing here.
Kaos: I-
I DON'T WANNA HEAR IT IF YOU JUDGE ME YOU'RE A HATER LALALALA
(Chapter edited as of March 29th, 2021)
Chapter 1: Sing
Intro
The single was charting everywhere, fueled by the rumors, and then confirmed facts, that the famous 19-year-old Rap artist/singer Percy Jackson had officially broken up with 20-year-old Reyna Ramírez-Avellano — another artist with a massive fan base — giving hope once again to all 13-year-old girls all over the world. Jackson and Ramírez-Avellano had been America's, Europe's, and even Asia's power couple over the last year, but had only started to date four months before the breakup. All prognostics had announced that it was a sure thing that the couple would one day be married, while also conveniently forgetting Reyna's pattern of cheating (something which they now loudly trumpeted to the world as if they had always seen this coming).
Nobody was willing to believe it, until Percy Jackson made an announcement through a Facebook Live that the rumors about the breakup were true but confirming nothing as to the reasons why. Reyna's almost infinite fan base refused to accept the side rumors as to why the breakup had happened until certain photos were leaked, making the unofficial theories the official ones. The greatest power couple to ever exist were officially over each other. Reyna released a track called "Behind Me" in which she listed the reasons why she left a certain "anonymous", and all Hell broke loose. A week later, Percy Jackson released "Deadly Betrayal". All this being said, due to the rumors being confirmed, Percy Jackson's heartbreaking single "Deadly Betrayal" had been at the top of the charts for the past two months, and it was still going strong.
Percy
Percy had just woken up, exhausted from a long night of conversation and discussion with a group of fellow artists who had helped him write his single and deal with the heartbreak the breakup had caused. Plans were already being made to make a new album, but Percy was frustrated. It felt as if his music was all… bitter. Dry. The spark, whatever it had been once, was no longer there. He had grown up poor and wanted to be rich. Great, he was rich now. He grew up with an abusive stepfather and wanted justice. The man was now in prison, and his mother had married a fantastic guy. He had grown up with friends who were forced into drug dealing because they couldn't get work anywhere. Most of his friends were now a part of the music industry, and those who weren't had jobs elsewhere. What was there to fight for anymore? Revenge against Reyna? He didn't want that! Not anymore, at least. He just wanted to move on, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw that night again — Reyna in bed with another man, whose face Percy hadn't seen well, and a pillow being thrown at him. He saw Reyna stalk out of his apartment, shooting a "this is your fault, you know" at him, and leaving his life (in the positive sense). He saw her at the gala on the arm of a man who looked an awful lot like the vague idea he had of the man in the bed, less than a month after the whole fiasco.
A tired groan left him as he forced himself to sit up and grab his computer. Percy had always loved to surf YouTube to forget about the world when he was under stress, so a couple minutes after waking up he was deep down the rabbit hole, checking out all the wacko content. A random "Up Next" video popped up, with the title "Girl sings to Percy Jackson's 'Deadly Betrayal'". Intrigued, and knowing that a fan covers could often be excellent, Percy clicked on the box. The video, obviously taken from a shaky cell-phone camera, nevertheless floored Percy. The girl, a blond clearly in her early twenties or extremely late teens, had her back to the camera, and was clearly unaware of the fact that she was being filmed. Her voice, beautiful but intentionally hoarse, communicated with a passion the raw pain of Percy's song. Her voice shaking with pain and fury, the song burst out of her:
(A/N: This song, actually, was written by yours truly, although the song has not been posted. Regardless, you can find the rest of my music literally everywhere now. YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, etc…)
"Boy I told you…
I wouldn't leave you until we reached death
But I hold you…
Accountable for why I find my heart dead
Everything was great
Everything was fine
Why you gotta mess it up, huh?
Anyone would give
Every bit of their time
To have a relationship half as fly, yeah
Half as strong, yeah
Half as long yeah
Why you gotta tear it down, huh?
I was on a four-week trip to Spain
A little like our four-month relationship
Dump me in the middle of the trip?
Now I know there are at least four types of pain…
Hurting because you accused me of failing as your girlfriend
Ashamed because I felt for a second that I could have done better
Anger because I realized I did everything for you but have sex
You see I refused to bed 'im
And betrayed, because you told me you've been seeing someone else the past two months!
I gave everything for you, everything that you could want!
You just decided it was fun and decided to screw me totally
Back to front!
And then I come back and smile at me sardonically behind your new girl's back and mock me
You then come crying to me when he cheats on you and come me to dissect the pain?
I tell you one thing!
I'ma cut you, but I promise the tool and the way I cut are gon' be blunt!
And you know I-"
The person recording giggled a little, and immediately turned the phone down as the singer began to turn and Percy could hear the shouting. "I told you no recording! You said you wouldn't record me!"
The camera started shaking and the view began moving. Clearly, the camera-bearer was running for their life.
"Hey! Come back here! DON'T YOU DARE POST THAT, THALIA G-" The video ended.
Percy laughed, and tried to move on to another video, but put it down within the first ten seconds. He lay down once more, thinking of this girl. Her haunting voice kept creating havoc in his head. She had taken his song and changed nothing but the gender of the offender, but she had made the song her own. Over the next two days, Percy tried to forget about that YouTube video, but the girl's voice kept popping up. On the third day, at two in the morning, Percy grabbed his computer, opened, and typed in "Thalia…" He hesitated, thinking of all the last names that ended in "G" and how hopeless this was. He began to type anyway. He was a fool, yes, but one on a mission.
Annabeth
Annabeth was fuming. Thalia Grace. Rock artist extraordinaire. A**hole friend. Though Annabeth was a nobody, Annabeth's friend was a rising star, quickly gaining popularity as her and her band, 'Hunters of Artemis' had gradually begun releasing some music. Thalia, the lead singer, was good, no doubt. But even she failed (at least in Annabeth's humble opinion, thank you very much,) to do Percy Jackson's song justice, and who was Annabeth to even try to come even remotely close? But Thalia had filmed her. Singing. She was mortified. No, wait, she was furious. No wait, she was both. Why choose when she could have the two at the same time? Thalia had put that video on YouTube. Gods-cursed YouTube. A few hours after the catastrophe, Thalia had emailed her the link. Annabeth had watched — she actually had, come on, give her some credit — albeit being between parted fingers and through horrified eyes. Yes, that was indeed her, howling out Percy Jackson's massive hit 'Deadly Betrayal', not some other random blonde girl with a baseball cap and an orange t-shirt with 'Camp Half-blood' and a Pegasus stamped across it.
In her defense, it had been the first thing she'd found to wear and threw it on after waking up on the couch with ice cream cartons and half-finished cookies everywhere. She herself had also suffered a breakup recently. Her boyfriend of 2 years, Luke Castellan, had abandoned her for only the gods knew who, and left her heart shattered into a million pieces of [Insert some easily breakable material here that is not glass or porcelain because that's way too cliché for even me]. When Percy had dropped the song, she had instantly fallen in love with it and often had it looped on her iPod as she went about her day.
It had been months, but even then she listened to it. Even that day Thalia had decided to expose Annabeth to the world. The memory was still fresh in her mind. Annabeth had showered before heading into her bedroom, and promptly frozen up as soon as she'd seen a picture of Luke on her bedside table. How had she- how had Thalia missed that one- she stomped down on her feelings as hard as possible, wrestled them into submission. Locked them in a box and placed the box on the shelf, promising herself to never to even look at the box again. She'd stared at Luke's photo a little while longer, one earbud in her ear while her iPod dangled uselessly from the other. The picture of Luke seemed to laugh at her, taunt her-
And so she recurred to the ages old custom of singing at things that piss you off (Well, maybe it wasn't ages old but Annabeth would MAKE it a custom!).
"Boy I told you.…
I wouldn't leave you until we reached death
But I hold you…
Accountable for why I find my heart dead…"
Annabeth mournfully looked at his picture. Luke only grinned at her, blue eyes sparkling. She started singing in earnest then
"Everything was great
Everything was fine
Why you gotta mess it up, huh?" She demanded his picture. She could feel tears stinging the corners of her eyes, knew her voice was hoarse from sobbing her heart out in Thalia's arms yesterday night.
"Anyone would give
Every bit of their time
To have a relationship half as fly, yeah
Half as strong, yeah
Half as long, yeah
Why you gotta tear it down, huh?"
Luke just jeers at her from his frame, and Annabeth found her voice rising on the next verse.
"Hurting because you accused me of failing as your girlfriend
Ashamed because I felt for a second that I could have done better
Anger because I realized I did everything for you but have sex
You see I refused to bed him
And betrayed, because you told me you've been seeing someone else the past two months!"
She wailed out the next verse and embarrassed herself further by shrieking out the rap. That had been when Thalia had giggled. Slowly, Annabeth Chase had turned around, and roared. "I told you no recording!" 'What if Percy Jackson was to see this?' Popped up undesired in her head. Dear gods, now that was a terrifying thought... that just might have to go in the Box. " You said you wouldn't record me!" Thalia had started running, and Annabeth gave chase. "Hey! Come back here: DON'T YOU DARE POST THAT, THALIA G-"
The video ended.
Annabeth dropped her head into her hands. "Oh, my gods," she mourned. "I'm screwed. So, so, screwed."
Percy
Three hours of nonstop searching all for nothing. And yet Percy kept trying, like the complete idiot that he was. Thalia... Grahm. Thalia... Grant. What were last names that started with G...? Garret? Grape? Graham? Graham cracker? Percy shook his head. Curses, now he was hungry. He headed out into the kitchen, and promptly tripped over his cat, Hobbes. "Sorry," he said to the indignantly mewling feline. "I suppose I'm not very gracefu-" and then it hit him. He was back at his computer faster than you could say "satyr" and typed in THALIA GRACE.
IMPORTANT! READ THE OUTRO BELOW!
Outro A/N: I don't love this story, but it's so bad that I felt it was my obligation to go through and make sure it was slightly better. I'm too lazy to rewrite so I'm just making some basic edits. In fact, if you read this you may not notice the differences. Maybe you will. But whatever happens, I know the fic is slightly better (and will definitely be better than the old one as it continues onward), and I hope you can enjoy the soon-to-be not terrible and only kinda mediocre storyline. Thank you for your time. A lot of people followed this story and I really appreciate it. Could I get anyone who receives this alert and checks the story out to follow any of my other fics in progress? It's nice to know someone cares. Thank you.