xii. Percy

"Our coach said we don't have swim practice later," Percy says one morning as they drive their way to school. He's currently slouched in Annabeth's passenger seat, mindlessly scrolling through his phone.

Carpooling is a thing they do nowadays. Not only does it save fuel, but it stopped him from getting left by the bus almost every single time. Though he now has to pay half of his share of the fuel, which is kind of ughh but whatever. At least Mrs. Dodds has stopped giving him the stink eye every time he arrives to class.

The blonde doesn't even spare him a glance. "And how does this affects me?"

"Well, I realized I hadn't been holding up my end of the bargain," he begins, then gestures to her. "And you've already done plenty for me so it's time that I do my part."

"Which is?"

"Teaching you swim, duh. Did you get hit around the head lately, Chase?"

Annabeth scowls, and he narrowly misses the arm she swings at him. "I'm driving you to school so you don't get to be a smartass, Jackson."

Yeah, it's hard to piss off Annabeth when she's holding your life between her hands.

"Chill. I was thinking that maybe we can start later? Today's really the best time to do it since we currently don't have a lot of homework hanging over our heads," he says and stops to look at her. "Unless you do."

"I don't."

"So swim?"

Annabeth clears her throat. She keeps her eyes on the road, like she's trying to avoid his gaze or something. "Just to be clear, I'm not afraid of water or anything of the sort," she says in a voice that implies otherwise.

"Okay."

"I'm just—not good at swimming." She says it with a bit of quiver in her voice that doesn't escape Percy's notice. He knows there's probably more to it than she lets on, but he doesn't feel comfortable prying into her life. For sure, Annabeth will not like if he started asking questions, so he keeps his thoughts to himself.

"Alright."

Annabeth nods. "Okay, we can start later."

"Great." Then just to lift the stress off her shoulders, he starts fumbling with her car stereo. "D'you mind if I play this?"

She looks at him with eyebrows raised. "Didn't think you're the type to listen to music."

He shrugs. "I listen to a few, mostly from the radio. Staves off the boredom."

"Right. 'Cause you can't carry a tune to save yourself," she teases with a smirk.

"Like you're any better, Miss Hannah Montana." Annabeth groans shamefully, and Percy smiles to himself. He can't forget that Halloween Party where everybody in the suburb discovered that Annabeth Chase, dressed as Hannah Montana, was painfully awful at singing. He'd been dressed as Aquaman (of course) then, and Annabeth had been this ballsy and shameless girl (a phase he knows she's trying to forget) who went up the stage and performed her rendition of The Climb. She won a 'At Least You Tried' award, and Percy had looked up to her ever since (evidently not because of her singing).

Annabeth sends him her fiercest glare. "Don't you ever bring that up again," she warns, but there's also a hint of a smile dancing on her lips.

Soon enough, after messing with the buttons, a recognizable pop song comes through the speakers. It's a Taylor Swift song, judging by the voice (and lyrics) though the title evades his memory.

"This is a Taylor Swift song, right?" Percy asks as he turns to her. She nods.

"Do you know this song?"

She shrugs and keeps her gaze on the wheel. "Style. From the 1989 Deluxe album."

He listens to the song for a few moments.

"Not a fan, but this one's nice," he comments. "Are you a Swiftie?"

"No," she says while shaking her head.

"Really?" Percy smiles to himself. "But I remember you singing to her songs before."

Annabeth shakes her head again, and he leaves it at that. But after a while, he sees her mouthing the lyrics to the song and bobbing her head a little.

A wide grin spreads on his face. "Oh my God, you're totally Swiftie!"

"What? No!"

"You seriously are," he points out, and a dark red blush spreads on her cheeks. "Your red face says otherwise."

"You're crazy."

"That's why you knew the song album!"

"Everybody knows that."

"Not me."

"That's because you don't listen to music."

"Hey, I actually do. Look, I'm not judging your music choices. Everybody has their own flavor. Her songs are fun, but they're not really my thing."

"Fun, huh?"

"Yeah, I mean, as long as you're not the subject of her lyrics or whatever. 'Cause it would be real sad to be part of a breakup song." He turns to her. "You ever sing a breakup song to your ex-boyfriends?"

She laughs and smacks him on the head. "No, you doofus."

"I bet you play her songs after every break up."

"Whatever."

"You gonna tell us something, Perce?" Jason begins, as he dumps his tray next to him, while Grover sits on the other side. The girls have a different lunchtime every Wednesday, so Percy only shares the table with Jason and Grover (and Leo, if he doesn't get sent to the Principal's office for causing a fire in the Science Lab again).

He continues munching on his nuggets, and takes a large bit of his burger. "Whut?"

"Something about...your girl?" Grover nudges his side playfully, causing him to choke on his food.

"Man, one of these days you're going to choke yourself over food," Jason says as he shakes his head at Percy, sympathetically. "Imagine: Percy Jackson, died of choking over a hamburger."

"That is sad," Grover supplies. "Death by a hamburger. Very heroic."

These are the times when Percy begins to wonder whether these two idiots are really his friends.

Thankfully, the burger slips down his throat. Good job, burger. Once he recovers, Percy throws a fry at Jason. It lands on his shirt. "I'm too strong for hamburgers."

"Hey! This was new!"

"That's what you get for ganging up on your friend!"

"Grover was part of it too!"

"Wait, not at my hair. Grease is hard to wash, y'know."

Just then, Leo-the-fire-boy plops down on their table. A smell of charred linen still clings to him, but since he's joining them today, Percy assumes he got his way out of it. If there's another thing Leo is very good at aside from starting fires at random places, it's his skill of making excuses.

"Looks like Percy the Lucky Boy is joining us today," Leo says as he takes out his lunchbox. The smell of freshly cooked paella mixes with the air. Grover is nearly salivating. "C'mon, give us the deets."

"The deets to what?" Percy asks half-confused, and half-intrigued by Leo's lunch.

"Y'know. How you got lucky." Leo slings an arm to his back and pats his chest twice. It is very awkward. "I never really thought I'll say this, with your bad luck and all, but damn. You are my man, Perce."

Grover and Jason grins at him knowingly. He just looks at them, confused. "I...really don't know what you mean."

"Aw. Quit bluffing. Tell us. I will now be living vicariously through you while I'm still finding my girl."

"I honestly don't have any idea on what you're talking about."

"You and Annabeth. In the janitor's closet, duh," Leo finally says, and for a moment Percy is confused, until he finally remembers.

Deciding that going to class is the better thing to do, he pushes against the doors and Annabeth's body. His eyes find the shocked look of a girl from their mythology class. Juniper, if he'd remember correctly.

Annabeth starts waving her hands frantically. "I swear, it's not what you think—"

Juniper, bless her, starts blushing and nods her head. "Of-of course. I really didn't see you two coming out of the janitor's closet. I'm just a regular student passing by a regular closet without any activity happening inside it at all." She gulps at the mortified look on Annabeth's face. It's so funny Percy wants to laugh, but he really doesn't want to invoke the blonde's anger upon him.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone what I saw at all," Juniper mumbles before dashing out of the corridor.

Looking at it now, it seems that Juniper is not as trustworthy as she seems. And looking at the eager faces of his friends, they must have gotten the wrong impression about the closet incident too.

Now, as much as Percy would like to take this opportunity to convince them further, he knows Annabeth will not like it if he started feeding into the stories that are quite far-fetched from reality. And if there's one thing he's sure of, he really doesn't want to lie again to his friends, even if it is as simple as 'getting lucky' (which, looking back, is not really simple at all given his lack of experience with girls).

"You guys have the wrong idea," Percy says.

Grover looked confused. "But Juniper said—"

He swallows down his burger and takes a long sip of his soda, prepping himself up to explain the whole misconception to his friends. "Nothing happened in the closet. We just talked I swear. Juniper just happened to see us just as we were getting out. After talking," Percy emphasizes, when he sees the disbelieving looks on his friends' faces.

"That's all of it, I promise. Now, would you even believe that I can do that? I mean, she's Annabeth. And I'm just, well...Percy."

Leo nods thoughtfully, like he hadn't considered that. "Well, you do have a point."

"But shouldn't you two be comfortable with each other now?" Jason asks. "You're dating, and no matter how out of your league she may seem, no matter how awful and unworthy you think about yourself, she still chose you. Doesn't that mean something at least?"

Percy, Leo and Grover all look at Jason, dumbfounded.

"Wow," Percy says and claps the blonde at the back. "You are something."

"Yeah, that was deep," Grover agrees. Jason blushes to the tips of his hair. "I was just stating a fact."

"It was a very nice fact," Leo says. "Where'd you get that?"

"Nothing. Just, from uh, movies?"

"Movies?" Leo repeats. Then he takes Jason's hands in his. "You have to tell us what you watch."

Okay, while he is not expecting a two-piece, he definitely does not expect Annabeth to come out of the dressing room wearing a t-shirt and spandex.

"Um, we're going to be swimming," Percy comments once the blonde nears him. He's lounging in pool, doing random swimming exercises as waited for her to come out.

"I know."

"And you're wearing a t-shirt."

She rolls her eyes at him. "If you're expecting that this practice is an excuse to see me in a two-piece, you couldn't have been more wrong."

"I wasn't thinking about that."

"Yeah, what could possibly a hormonal teenage guy like you think?"

"Dolphins. Blue Pepsi. Video games," he rattles off. "Not all of us think about girls you know."

"And I'm supposed to believe that you haven't thought about Rachel at all?"

Heat rises to his cheeks. "That's different."

"Really?" Annabeth smirks at him. "And you haven't thought about me at all?"

"Only in ways to piss you off."

In a swift movement, she throws him an inflatable duck. He manages to dodge it just in time.

"Hey, no littering in the pool."

"You're literally the only trash in the pool."

He shakes his head at her, then promptly notices the duck. A bewildered look fills his face. "You really brought an inflatable duck?"

In probably the first time in forever, Annabeth Chase blushes. It is so random that he almost loses his footing, and fortunately he's standing on the pool tiles so he doesn't splash around like an idiot. An idiot who just saw Annabeth blush.

What a weird day.

"I don't want to drown," is all she manages to say, in a timid voice, contrary to the confident and pretentious tone he usually hears.

And just then Percy realizes the power he has over her. He's practically a child of the water, while Annabeth barely knows anything about swimming. He can get back at her for all he wants, knowing that this area is his expertise. But no; his mother taught him to be better than that, taught him better than to play with other people's fears.

So he just smiles and extends his hands to her. "Don't worry, I won't let you drown."

She takes his hand. "Okay."

"Okay."

Then he splashes some water to her because who said he can't tease her a little?

"You're really a jackass," she says after he's done with his attack, but there's also a hint of smile on her face. She retaliates by throwing him another inflatable. This, successfully lands on his face.

"Ow."

"Serves you right."

A/N: An update? Not even a month has passed and there's already an update? Yeah, well I've been writing on a roll now since I just got a big break from everything. This is still a filler chapter, I know, but I want to establish the Percabeth banter first before throwing them new revelations (and partly because I'm still fixing the plot).

Anyway, a very important examination result is going to be announced later (tonight) and I really really hope and pray that I will pass the exams. Passing the exams means happiness and more frequent chapter updates! Please pray for me!

As always, this chapter is unedited so sorry for the mistakes you find. And reviews are always appreciated! I will try my best to reply to you all, except for anons, which I will try to address in Author's Notes. Thank you!