Ty ty ty for all the support! You guys are amazing. Also like, keep in mind that idk much about the fame industry, and I'm just going off tiny snippets of research and stuff. So yeah, this isn't going to be the most realistic thing in the world.

Disclaimer: what else do I have to say really? I don't own guys, I truly don't.

~headline: maybe don't say that~

…

"So we've booked the Los Angeles convention center for the day, and tickets are sold out which is good," Nico is saying to Percy into the phone, "Calypso has everything situated, Atlas is ordering a limo for her, and you'll both enter through the back door and then go up to the convention stage. There'll be singles and groups going in, so you may be with one person, or a group of friends or family."

Percy picks at a hangnail on his pointer finger. He isn't super interested in the meet and greet, but knows that it'll help with publicity in the long run. "Are you even listening Percy?" Nico snaps, sounding irritated. Percy pushes the phone closer to his ear hurriedly.

"Yeah." He says, trying to play it off, something that Nico utterly denies.

The boy pauses. "Then what was I just saying?"

"Uh, convention center?" Percy tries, and when Nico doesn't respond, he attempts again. "Friends and family?" He adds feebly.

Nico groans in frustration. "I know you have a lot on your mind right now, but seriously, focus, I have better things to do than talk to you over the phone. Plus, something happened between you and Leo, so now he won't do it, which leaves me in the middle, and if you know me, and I know you do, I fucking hate being in the middle of things. So please," he sighs, "please Percy, focus for once in your life."

That certainly gets his attention. He pushes the phone closer to his head, and sighs. "It's late."

He's still irritated, and irritated Nico is never something you want to be around. Percy's grateful that this conversation is over the phone, because in real life, flames are probably coming out of the Italian boy's ears. "It's eight o'clock. You're used to way worse than that." Nico snaps.

"Can we do this tomorrow?" Percy kind of feels like he's whining, which is a tiny bit embarrassing, but it's Nico, so he should be used to it by now.

"I don't know, can we?" Nico finally relents, "what's your schedule? It feels like these days, you're just writing. That's it, and that's good, obviously, but we have this thing to plan and publicity, and everything else, so just work with me here."

Percy holds the phone against his ear with his shoulder, and then walks to the small kitchen in his apartment, "I promise you Nico, seriously, I'll talk to you tomorrow." He grabs an apple, because he really hasn't had any fruit or healthy food lately, so it'll probably be good for him to eat something actually nutritious for once.

"Fine." And thank god for that. In all seriousness, Percy knows he needs to deal with it, and he also knows that if he doesn't deal with it, he'll have to deal with the wrath of Nico. Nico's everlasting hatred isn't something Percy would wish upon anyone— even his enemies. The boy, despite his short and small stature is terrifying whenever he's displaying any negative emotions. Which, to be honest, is most of the time.

Percy hangs up the phone, and then sets it on his counter, before examining the apple in his hand and taking a bite out of it. Ever since he moved to LA, he's found that freedom means a lack of responsibility, in his case at least, so he's been surviving off of pizza and ramen for the past couple of years. He works out pretty frequently and has a fast metabolism which is probably why he has abs, but he eats like crap, so. He's also not sure why he has abs. It's strange, when he was younger, people said he was just skin in bones. Then he started swimming— Percy still sometimes goes to pools, though they're usually fancy ones surrounded by other celebrities— which allowed him to work out, and that skin and bones eventually turned into abs. In the past and even now, Percy's felt insecure about his body, even though he's in very good shape for someone his age.

He takes another bite of his apple, and then finishes it. His teeth still have bits and pieces of remnants, which is kind of disgusting to have floating around your mouth, so he gets a cup of water and washes it out. And then, he picks up his phone, and goes to his email, switching accounts just out of instinct, and discovers that Acropolis has messaged him.

"Hey, I got tickets to PJ's meet and greet thing. I just wanted to ask if you wanted to meet up before it or something. I'd really like to see you in person P." It reads, and Percy feels his mouth drop open. He has absolutely no clue what he's supposed to say back. He reads over the message again, and his thoughts are confirmed. There is no way he can respond to this message truthfully at least that wouldn't reveal who he was. Percy really doesn't want to lie either, he does his best to avoid it, even though sometimes it's impossible. And yes— he wants to meet Acropolis, if only without the consequences and complications, but that's impossible.

Percy tries to type back a feasible response. "I don't know about that," he writes, and then deletes. That sounds incredibly dickish, and Percy doesn't want to come off as a dick. He's already felt that way plenty of times these past couple of days, especially with the Leo situation. He's not really sure how to respond to Leo either. He knows he should apologize, but then again, if he said "sorry," would those be empty words? And if he responds to this message wrong too, it could ruin everything. The thing is, there doesn't seem to be a right way to reply to this. He either lies, reveals who he is to her, or scares her off. There really aren't any in the middle. Of course, there's the option of ghosting her, ignoring it, but that gets shot down quickly, because honestly what the fuck? That's an asshole thing to think, and an even more asshole thing to do.

"I don't know A. I'm not who you think I am." He types. It's not perfect, but it'll never be. There's no proper way to respond to this, even if he bluntly admits that he's Percy Jackson. Even the truth isn't a good answer, plus she'd probably laugh it off, and not believe him. Then again, she could already be suspicious about it, and telling her would only confirm it. He knows this is a trap, even if she didn't intentionally set it up for him and he knows that she'll be confused no matter what he answers.

This is all he has for now, so he taps send, and waits for a response. A response that will most definitely be detrimental to their relationship. Percy doesn't know how he'll get himself out of this one— how he'll preserve Pylos, just for a couple weeks longer, but he hopes… he hopes that somehow, Acropolis will understand. And that's an unfair thing to think, he knows, but just… he really doesn't want their relationship to end, because he's almost sad to say that he's in love with her.

…

It comes in just as he finishes watching a Youtube that basically re-orders the entire alphabet because the old one just "doesn't do it." It's random and hilarious and passes by the time, which is what he needs. After the video ends, he goes back to his email and checks it. Sure enough, there's a response.

He taps it open, and then closes his eyes, trying to calm himself down. "Wait, what do you mean by that? I mean, that literally sounds like something a phisher would say."

"I'm not a phisher A," he types back sighing, "I don't even know what you look like."

"And I'd think, at least, that meeting up would allow us to see that. It'd be in a crowded area. Plus, I can vouch for myself that I'm not a serial killer."

"I'm not one either." Percy writes back, "but that's not the point. I just— meeting would complicate things, everything."

"What if I don't care about the complications?" Acropolis writes back, and he has to grin a little bit about that, because she's just— she's Acropolis, and when she says things like that naively, it makes his heart flutter a bit. She's not naive, no way, not at all, and if he wasn't Percy Jackson, as long as it's in a public space, he'd be all for it. But he conveniently is Percy Jackson, which means that he can't meet her. To clear it up, in his head at least— it's not that he doesn't want to meet Acropolis, hell yeah he does. But as said, he can't. Well, he can, but he can't without certain complications. It's just not possible, not feasible. And as much as Percy wishes he could say Acropolis wouldn't care, he can't, because she would. She's a fan. Or, was a fan maybe. Percy doesn't know. If she's going to his meet and greet, then she probably is.

Either way, they're going to meet. But in one case, neither of them are going to understand the connection, and in the other, she'll know. Plus, it's not like he'd be able to leave the set-up of it, before it starts and see her. Especially in a place that's flogged by his own fans.

God, he really wishes he didn't have to do this. But maybe he doesn't have to. Maybe he can… meet her without anyone else knowing they have this connection. It may be false hope, and yeah, her view on him will most definitely change, but as he thinks about it, what's the worst that could happen?

Okay, there are a lot of ways this could go wrong. But it's not like anything absolutely horrible would happen. Either he'll be extremely disappointed, enthralled, happy, or uncomfortable. Plus, all types of security will be around just in case anything dangerous happens. So what does he have to lose, in truth?

A lot of things, but the selfish part of Percy just… wants to have this— this one moment where he can see her, meet her, talk to her. Just thinking about it makes him a little euphoric. There's no way that this can properly work out, but maybe, just maybe he can let himself go for a day. If it's any day where he meets her, why not a meet and greet, which is basically the purpose of it all. And maybe, it won't be that bad after all, maybe she'll understand without even knowing.

It takes him a lot to write the message, each letter feels like a little part of him is coming apart, opening up. "I'll be at the meet and greet," he types, and then looks over to his coat rack. The blue "Pylos" cap is hanging unceremoniously on one of the metal rungs. That cap— it's calling to him a bit. Not like, in real life, that would mean he's really going bonkers (and to be honest, the fact that he's even considered this, much more, gone through with it means he's already halfway there). "I'll be wearing a blue cap that has the word Pylos on it, okay?"

He shuts his eyes, really tight, extremely tight, because this is big. Isn't even just big, it's huge.

And then she replies, "Fitting. I'll be wearing a green Athens Acropolis shirt. But— the convention center is huge right? How will we ever see each other?"

"Trust me," Percy writes, "You will."

It's guaranteed he'll meet her, and also know it's her now.

…

Percy walks into the studio the next day, feeling awkward because Leo's the only one there right now. And they still haven't really resolved anything yet— at all. He wants to apologize, he really does, and he's tried multiple times, but Leo's completely shut him down. And it's kind of out of character for him to do that, because despite Leo's intense personality, full of yo-mama jokes and more, he's not a hot-headed person. He's the one that makes fun of people for getting into fights, not the one who starts them, or incites them. That tells Percy that he must've done something really wrong, extremely wrong.

He takes a seat across from Leo and reaches into his bag to grab his beat up, blue spiral notebook, equipped with doodles and random lyrics. He grabs a pencil, and opens it to an empty page. This is notebook number seven, he can usually fill each one up over the span of a couple of months, and so over the past years of song-writing, he's accumulated quite a big collection. He always carries around the one he's working on, and the most recently completed one, just in case he needs to reference it. The others are stacked in a drawer on his desk, collecting dust, waiting to be taken out just for the nostalgia of it all. Percy sometimes reads through them when he wants to duplicate a riff or reference a lyric, but most of the time, they sit at his desk.

He puts his pen down to the paper, and begins scribblings words onto it. A common misconception about his notebook, is that the only contents of it are song lyrics, but that's quite wrong. He doesn't just "come up" with lyrics just as he begins to write. He starts by getting down whatever he's thinking, whether that's a diary entry, a doodle, just random ponderings or helpful observations. So many of his thoughts and frustrations are within those notebooks, but also plenty of lyrics, too. He's about a fourth of the way full in his current notebook, and most of the recent pages just have lyrics on them because of his sudden burst of motivation.

Right now, he isn't thinking about anything in particular, except for the fact that Leo's obviously ignoring him, still mad. He feels like a bad friend for not saying anything, because Leo was right. He takes for granted his privilege, which is problematic by itself, but then he complains about it too. It makes him feel shitty.

"People are dying,

I don't feel like trying,

The world is denying the truth

It's a big ruckus,

They all want to fuck us,

And I sit here feeling small"

It doesn't perfectly capture the way he's feeling, but it kind of goes off the idea of denial, the fact that he's smaller than people think, that his impact is virtually meaningless. He looks up at Leo, who is still scrolling through his phone, not paying attention, and sighs. Percy knows that he has problems, but he also has a lot on his plate right now— the meet and greet, Acropolis, song writing, Leo, and much more to come— and maybe this is his chance, while the two of them aren't surrounded by everyone else, to resolve this.

"I'm sorry Leo." Percy sighs, shutting his notebook and pushing it to the side. He wants to give the boy his full attention.

Leo looks up from his phone. "Are you really?" He narrows his eyes.

"Yeah," Percy replies, "I— I've been thinking a lot about my own problems lately, and I'm sorry I haven't been considering yours, or anyone else's for that matter. It's selfish, I know, I just— I sometimes forget, as horrible as that sounds."

Leo is quiet, for a long while. So long, Percy gets worried that the rest of the team— Silena, Austin, and Nico— are going to walk in on them during this conversation. Percy would probably shoo them out for a moment, but it'd certainly be awkward. "Man, I know." Leo shakes his head. "Like it's bad you have your own problems, I'm not a jealous guy but like. It's hard to not be a little spiteful of you. I mean, we grew up in the same area, your mom kinda took me in. It's just weird to me that you don't understand anymore. Like you've—"

"Changed." Percy finishes, and it really hurts to have to say and hear that over and over again. "I've changed. I know that. Maybe for the worse, but please, I don't want to lose you as a friend, okay?" It's been said to him so many times, which kind of hurts, but it's true. Everyone can see it. People change, especially those in the music industry. People in general.

Leo bites his lip. "Of course dude, it's gonna take a while to process everything, it's been two years and I still haven't processed everything, but like, I think this is going to take some more of that time."

"I understand." Percy replies, and he does. Not completely, he won't ever really, but he thinks he understands enough. Leo has his own problems, separate from Percy, and that's important to acknowledge. People are different, people respond to things differently. Percy's learned, or at least thinks he's learned, that Leo's used humor to cope. He's a jokester, a prankster, likes to have fun. And it makes sense that everythings comes to a boiling point— you can't be funny all the time, especially if you've been seriously affected by something. "Thanks for being awesome throughout this entire thing." He adds.

"Instead of a thanks, how about a hundred thousand dollars?" Leo jokes, and that's when Percy really knows that they've made up, or at least are on the way to making up.

…

"So let's talk logistics," Nico says, coming into the studio thirty minutes later, looking like he just came back from an extreme make-out session. And by looking at his bright red skin (which is very defined because Nico's extremely pale face), he just had. Percy predicts it's that guy Will that Nico mentioned a while back, though he could be wrong. Nico's a mysterious guy.

Leo laughs and Austin, who arrived ten minutes ago smirks. Silena smiles brightly at Nico, who just shakes his head, and then looks back down at his tablet. "Percy promised to me that we'd talk about more meet and greet stuff, so don't you dare interrupt me."

"So what did you need to tell me?" Percy questions, nodding towards his tablet, "and what's on there?"

"The set up," Nico replies immediately, brushing his hands to his lips, and then pulling them furiously away. He looks so flustered, Percy kind of wants to give him a hug, just to see what he would do. Nico sets the tablet down, which shows an extensive floor plan. Percy squints at it, and it basically splits up into three different sections— layers of security, the actual line, and then one room where actual fans can go to meet. "Percy, Calypso and a couple tech people will be stationed of course, in the actual room, and the line will have a couple of security guards around it keeping the peace. Security is pretty simple, metal detector, sorting through bags, your fans aren't that crazy." He drones on and on about the logistics, and Percy tries really hard to listen. He's gotten at least eighty percent of everything. Maybe seventy. Or sixty. He knows the basics, okay? That's good enough.

Once Nico is finished, Percy excuses himself from the writing room, and walks down the hallway to the actual studio, where he records. He knows how to set everything up himself but it usually takes a while to warm up and then get the write take of a song.

But when he enters the room, he's surprised by a sudden appearance— Calypso— what is she doing here?

"Hello?" Percy says to her, confused.

Calypso turns around quickly, her face red. "Sorry, I just— they let me in, and I wanted to see what this room looked like."

"That's cool." Percy shrugs, and then turns on the mic, grabbing the chord to his electric guitar and plugging it in. The sound is always much more refined that way. He looks back up at Calypso, whose eyes are curious, intrigued. "You can stay if you want," he says, his voice catching at the back of his throat.

Calypso smiles. "Okay." She sits down on one of the spinning chairs a little bit away from Percy.

This feels awkward, he decides, but tries to ignore it. He's played in front of thousands— probably millions of people— but this somehow feels more uncomfortable.

But still, he sings. It takes a while to get each note right, and even longer for the melody to match up with the harmony, but soon enough, the recording part of the song is done. He goes to the small computer next to the mic, and inputs a flashdrive, taking the recording, and several backup takes to it off the computer, so they can transfer it to one of the big studio computers. But then he realizes that Calypso is still there. He turns to her, and sees that she's staring, almost overwhelmed at the area around him, and then their eyes meet.

"What?" Percy startles.

Calypso smiles. "You're very talented."

"Thanks." Percy replies, waiting for the flashdrive to fully process the audio clip.

"No wonder you made it big," Calypso nods, "and by yourself too. Sometimes I feel like the only reason I'm here is because of my father."

Percy takes the flashdrive out. "Maybe it is." He says, shoving it in his pocket. "But that doesn't mean that you're any less talented."

"I had a leg up." Calypso tells him, "a lot of talented people don't have that, so they never get big."

"Maybe it's a little unfair," Percy says, sitting back down onto his recording chair, this time turning it to her. "But don't use it to discredit yourself. Sure, some—" Percy cringes, "— not so talented people get famous because of their connections, but most of them don't stay in the game for long. You've got to have something, at least in acting, right?"

She slowly nods. "Right."

Percy turns his chair away, "I don't think it's a big issue," he tells her, getting up again. He grabs his electric guitar, and puts it away in its case. He keeps the acoustic at home most of the time, but occasionally brings it in just in case. Most of the time for his songs, he uses the electric.

Calypso nods, and then looks around a little bit. "Yeah." She swallows. "Thanks for letting me listen to you."

"It's no problem," Percy says, walking over to the door. Calypso follows him, and he opens the door for her like the gentleman he is. "Uh, do you have anywhere to go?"

She nods. "Yeah, I guess so. My father's probably wondering where I am. I'll text him to pick me up."

"Will you be okay?" Percy asks, because to be honest, Atlas seems overprotective up-front, so he has no clue what might happen when the man isn't around people.

Calypso is quick to defend. "He's not— he's not like that. He's a good father, I just—" she shakes her head. "You wouldn't understand. He's not like, abusive, he's just protective."

"Okay," Percy says. "Look, if you need anything, feel free to reach out." Just because he doesn't like her romantically doesn't mean he doesn't care for her. He understands having shitty parents. Maybe Atlas isn't a shitty dad, but he really doesn't seem like a great person to Percy, for one. Not that his opinion on the man matters out of all the others, but you've got to admit, he's fucking intimidating.

Calypso offers him a smile, and then leans forward, kissing him slightly on the cheek. "That really means a lot." She says, and then turns from him, going down the stairs.

He watches as she leaves the studio and shakes his head, turning away. He— he has a lot to worry about, and even more to do. He needs to focus on what's important, and he will. He really will. So he turns, and goes back to the studio, hopefully to come up with another song, one that'll truly capture what he's feeling right now.

"They tell me to say that I love you,

Even if it's fake

It's never been real

So take a chill pill."

It's not real. He doesn't know how much longer he can keep up the act, especially if he'll be meeting Acropolis soon. He knows he won't be able to control himself, he knows that the day the meet and greet comes, he'll see her, and not be able to focus on anything else. He'll screw everything up, possibly cause another scandal, but it's all worth it, because she'll be there with him. It's sappy, yeah, but… but it'll be worth it, he hopes. It has to be worth it.

…

~fake love is just words and nothing more~

Part— what is it? Six. Of my crappy lyrics. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Some big stuff is going down soon… so yeah. Tysm for reading! Leave a review, I'd love to hear (or see, ig) what you think of the chapter! Stay safe and healthy! Until the next chapter!

TheLil'Lion