Percy Tries Out Group Studying

"This makes no sense."

"Yes it does, just think it through."

"I am thinking it through and what I'm getting is this makes no sense at all."

Annabeth sighs and leans back in her chair. "I don't know what to tell you Percy, that's just how it works."

Percy continues to glare down at the chemistry book that has been making its way up his list of 'Books to Burn' over the past hour. The only other book on this list Beowulf, mainly because Percy lost his copy from high school before he could get to burn it.

The chemistry book, however, is still very much present and is innocently displaying a chart of two molecules sharing electrons. Percy hates this stupid little graph. "I still don't get how they can share electrons if they both need them all the time."

Annabeth sits up again points at the graph to explain it for probably the fourth time, but Percy's beginning to lose track. "Look, the electron is so fast that it can basically be in two places at once so both molecules get to use it. If they weren't so fast then it wouldn't work."

Percy moves his glare up from the book to Annabeth. "So what you're telling me is that the molecules are cheating."

Annabeth's brow furrows and her head cocks to the side as one side of her mouth curls up amusedly. After a second she replies, "Yeah, I guess that's a good way of thinking about it."

Percy leans back from the desk and throws his hands up in the air exasperatedly. "That's not even fair! You're telling me that the world gets to cheat at existing? I don't even get to cheat in this stupid class!" Finishing his mini-tirade with a huff, Percy decides a solid pouting to be in order because this is definitely some bullshit.

Annabeth's half smile grows into a fully fledged smirk as she closes the textbook. She pulls out her bag and starts to stow the book in it, saying, "Well lucky for you that our session is over. Any longer and I think you might have popped a blood vessel."

Percy grunts and mutters, "Thanks, I like to keep those unpopped when I can," before he goes to pick up his own bag.

As he begins to stand, he sees Annabeth stiffen before quickly blurting out, "Wait, before you go I have to ask you something."

Percy freezes, then slowly lowers back down into his chair as his brow rises. "Yeah, what's up?"

Annabeth looks away for a second and sighs. As he waits for an answer, Percy notices that a single lock of hair has escaped from the ponytail Annabeth is currently rocking and is now dangling in front of her nose. This is much more distracting than Percy thinks it has any right to be.

Percy's so fixated on this that he almost misses it when Annabeth shifts in her chair and begins talking again. "The debate team I'm on is gearing up for our next big competition and we're all really digging in to study up on the subject."

She shifts again, and Percy notices that she suddenly looks vaguely uncomfortable. "This time the debate is over if tech suits should be allowed in swim meets and I thought that I would maybe ask if you could let me come to some of your practices?"

Her brow has furrowed and the strand of hair is still dangling in front of her nose as she looks up to lock eyes with Percy. His brain fizzles out and heat threatens to flood his cheeks as he struggles to maintain eye contact. He knows that logically he should probably answer the question, but currently he can barely remember his own name. He feels the now-familiar spike of emotion and resists the urge to rub his chest. He's pretty sure that you can't be hospitalized from having an embarrassing crush, but he also might have to look it up later just to be sure.

He must have spent too long internally imploding because Annabeth is suddenly waving her hand directly in front of his face. "Hello, earth to Percy?" Her expression is still a little hesitant, but she has also sprouted a small, confused grin.

Percy squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head to try to shake all of the emotion out before it overwhelms him. Unfortunately, this doesn't help at all. Sighing, Percy opens his eyes again and tries to will down the blush he has for sure developed at this point before responding, "Oh, sorry, uh. What was the question again?"

Annabeth is definitely smirking at this point as she rolls her eyes, which actively counteracting Percy's attempts to remain calm. "Can I come to one of your practices to do some research? You know, the thing most non-athlete students do occasionally?"

Percy raises a brow points and responds by holding up a rebuking finger. "I'll have you know my mom told me herself that I was very smart for an athlete. Also, how does coming to practice help you do research on tech suits?"

Breaking eye contact, Annabeth leans back and shrugs. "I mean if it helps at all it'll be worth going, right?" As she talks, she brushes the lock of hair behind one ear. Percy feels weirdly disappointed about this development but decides not to dwell on it for the sake of his mental health. "I'm just trying to get the maximum advantage I can get before the debate."

Percy snorts, rolling his eyes. "You make debate club sound tactical." Deciding to take this opportunity to escape before he embarrasses himself again, he stands as he continues, "Yeah alright I'll send you the practice schedule so you can come and do all sorts of on-site research."

Annabeth stands up as well, slinging her own bag over her shoulder. "Thanks Percy, this really does help me out a lot." She looks up at him, now beaming a fully fledged smile. Percy immediately loses the war with his blush as he feels his face catch on fire and his knees weaken. Hopefully he can convince Annabeth that he is deathly ill when he inevitably collapses from exposure to her blinding smile. That really shouldn't be legal.

Though his brain has taken a permanent vacation apparently, Percy's pretty sure he mumbles out a, "Yeah no problem sure." He continues to just sort of stand there as Annabeth moves past him and towards the door. As he hears the door open, he has an objectively awful idea. Unfortunately for him, however, his mouth opens before he can stop it, blurting out as he turns, "Oh also can you give me your number?"

Annabeth freezes halfway out the door. Percy is struck with an overwhelming urge to cease existing. After a second, she slowly turns to face him, a suspicious expression now firmly in place. Belatedly, he realizes that it must be impossible to die from mortification because if it was he would have hit the floor already. Deciding that he should probably not look like this is the worst decision he has ever made, Percy flexes every muscle in his face to try to maintain a neutral expression. The result instead makes him look like he just willingly ate poison but he figures that at this point that's the best he's going to get.

Staring him down, Annabeth slowly asks, "Why do you need my phone number?"

Percy bites his lip as he fights to keep eye contact. He's pretty sure that if he looks away right now Annabeth would take it as a sign to murder him. Desperately trying to find a way to avoid this, he decides to go with the logical approach. "Because we're friends?"

At this point, Percy's blush goes nuclear across his whole face as he bites his tongue to silence himself. Honestly, if he survives the next two minutes he'll probably be better off never saying anything ever again.

Annabeth maintains her skeptical glare, save for the single brow that raises. "Is that what we are now?"

Percy's eyes widen as he gulps nervously. If how hot his face is getting is any indicator he is seconds from passing out as every drop of blood he's got rushes to his cheeks. He opens his mouth to respond but is betrayed as nothing comes out except for a soft wheeze. The very last functional part of his mind rolls its eyes at his heroic last words.

A wicked smirk grows on Annabeth's face as she waits for an answer that doesn't arrive. Turning back towards the exit, she looks over her shoulder at him as she leaves, flipping her hair in the process as she calls out, "Tell me when you figure it out."

The door shuts with a click behind her, allowing Percy to stumble back into his seat in private. Right now, he's pretty sure he couldn't even stand if he wanted to. Apparently, all of the strength in his body has left the building with Annabeth.

Left staring with a dazed expression at the door, Percy slowly reaches up with both hands to feel that his face is so hot he could probably grill something with it. Slowly and dramatically, he leans back onto the desk with his hands still over his face and lets out a barely audible, pained groan. He really should be given an award for Most Buffoonery Achieved In One Conversation.

A couple minutes later, he drags himself up and slowly shuffles out of the room. He figures it's only polite to tell his roommates that they're going to have to start writing his eulogy.

Percy unplugs his headphones from his phone once the gym comes into view. He huffs out a cloud into the cold winter air as he walks down the sidewalk and checks the time on his phone, confirming that he's a solid ten minutes early to practice. Early bird gets to swim and all that.

As he draws near to the building, he sees a figure in heavy winter clothes standing outside the door and looking down at their phone. Only as Percy makes it almost all the way to the door does he see that it is in fact Annabeth underneath at least two coats and a large knit scarf. Her nose is just peeking out the top and has taken on a red tint due to the cold. Percy feels himself start to smile as his chest fills with a warm, gooey sort of feeling.

Annabeth looks up as Percy arrives and offers a small wave with the hand not using her phone, which allows Percy to see that she is in fact wearing mittens. Percy nearly gives up the ghost on the spot.

Before he can try to say anything, Annabeth sees him eye her mittens and cuts him off. "Okay, I got these from my roommate as a gift and I feel bad if I don't use them every once in a while." She has to pull down her scarf as she talks so she isn't completely muffled, revealing cheeks also made rosy by the weather.

Percy snorts and replies, "Yeah I know what you mean. My mom gave me a sweater with my name on it and it's definitely the least comfortable thing I wear regularly."

Chuckling, Annabeth pockets her phone and turns towards the door. "So, this is the place, right?"

Percy moves around her and opens the door, propping it open for her to see. "Welcome to your new research center. Comes with free bleachers and risk of soaking school materials."

Annabeth pales a little at the thought, as if she hadn't considered that particular danger before. However, after only a second she moves into the building looking as determined as ever, leaving Percy to follow her in before letting the door swing shut behind them.

Inside, everything is pretty much the same as Percy is used to. Some people are already in the pool warming up, some are in the locker room just hanging out until practice starts, and Coach Hedge is at his desk warming up his voice to yell at students. Just another day at the pool.

Annabeth immediately takes off towards the bleachers on one side of the pool, leaving Percy to make his way into the locker room. Once inside, he goes through is regular routine of changing into his suit and joking around with whoever is next to him, but this time something feels slightly off. He's got a tension in his shoulders and a small hum of nervous energy that he can't quite shake, and by the time he walks back out into the gym with his swimming cap and goggles in hand he is solidly unsettled. Wishing he at least could tell where these nerves were coming from, he tries to shrug it off. Maybe he ate something nasty earlier and it's just now making itself known. Percy nods to himself, figuring that to be a reasonable idea.

Percy makes it to the edge of the pool and runs through a couple stretches real quick before pulling on his cap and sliding his goggles on. Just before he jumps on in, he looks up and sees Annabeth surrounded by books and an open laptop, already furiously taking notes and constantly switching between looking around the room and staring at her screen.

As he watches, Percy feels the nervous hum in his stomach jolt, then settle at an uncomfortable hum. Percy just stares blankly for a second, before letting out an exasperated sigh and pinching the bridge of his nose. Of course that was the reason. Great.

Suddenly, an "Alright, cupcakes!" erupts from across the water and Percy jumps, which inevitably causes a foot to slip and catapults him into the pool. He feels the painful slap of the water as he lands square on his stomach and lets out a pained groan, distorted by the water. That's probably going to leave a mark.

Sheepishly, he slowly pokes his head out from under the water to check if Annabeth noticed his flop. He sees that she isn't looking at him, but even from her position up in the bleachers he's pretty sure he sees a smirk. He sinks back under the water, hoping to cool off his suddenly warm face, and pushes off to start doing his own warm up laps.

Once he comes up on the other side, Percy is suddenly caught up in the rigor of practice as Coach Hedge starts yelling at anything that moves and they all start doing drills to try to placate him. Any thoughts of previous mortifications slowly bleed out of Percy as he gets into the flow, feeling himself become more and more comfortable in the water until it's hard to tell where he stops and the pool begins.

The minutes turn into hours as Percy forgets everything except the movement of the water and the burn of his muscles, until suddenly Hedge has stopped yelling and everyone is clambering out of the pool and the sounds of post-practice chattering replace the splashes of the pool.

Percy takes an extra lap on his own, just to really enjoy the sensation, before climbing out and following after his teammates. In the locker room, everything is just as comfortable as it has always been, so much so that Percy doesn't even remember why he was nervous in the first place. Packing up his gear and switching into his normal-day clothes, he picks up his bag and makes his way out of the locker room.

Before he can escape completely from the gym, Percy's attention is grabbed by the telltale sound of an irritating voice and the accompanying snickers. Groaning, he turns over his shoulder expecting to see The Dick Squad approaching with something stupid planned.

Instead, he sees them at the foot of the bleachers, blocking off the bottom of the ramp. Facing them, Annabeth is clutching her bag like she might start beating the three of them with it as they prevent her from leaving.

Percy's heart rate doubles on the spot as he immediately changes course, almost tripping over himself in his haste. As he approaches at potentially the fastest walk he has ever pulled off, he yells out, "Is there a problem here fellas?"

The three spin to face him and all cross their arms at the same time. Behind them, Percy can see Annabeth with a cold expression that softens slightly in confusion as he stops in front of them. Guy In The Front, who unsurprisingly is in the middle of the group, raises his hands and adopts an innocent expression. "Woah, calm down there dude, we're just trying to talk to this pretty lady."

Percy raises a brow and crosses his own arms. "What if she doesn't want to talk to you guys, huh?"

Guy In The Front shrugs and puts his hands in his pockets. "We just thought it would be fair to ask her why she would come to watch us practice for a couple hours. Isn't that right?"

Behind him, Lefty, who now is standing on the right, pipes up with a nasally, "Yeah!"

Guy In The Front starts to grow a leering smile. "But if I didn't know any better, it kinda sounded like you have a problem with us Jackson." He drops the smile and moves a step closer. "Are we gonna have an issue?"

Righty cracks his knuckles menacingly on cue as Percy weighs his odds. He's trying to do an analysis of how many times he could punch each of them before he gets his nose broken when behind him he hears someone say, "Woah, let's all calm down everybody."

Turning, Percy sees Luke, the team captain, walking up behind him. Despite the fact that swim practice had just ended, his hair looks like it was styled for a surfer magazine as he walks up with a charming smile.

Guy In The Front takes a step back as Righty and Lefty both are suddenly unable to maintain eye contact with anyone. Luke casually slings his arm over Percy's shoulder as he continues, "How about we all just relax and get all that post-practice adrenaline out of our systems somewhere else. Preferably in a nonviolent manner. Sound good to everyone?"

The three boys all nod sheepishly as Percy fights a growing smirk. Luke continues to stare the three down until they all awkwardly shuffle off. Turning to Annabeth, Luke flashes another perfect smile. "Sorry about them, they're pretty harmless most of the time."

Percy turns from watching The Dick Squad escape to look at Annabeth, expecting her cold glare to still be in place. However, Percy sees instead that her face is as flushed as it was outside and her eyes are blown wide open. He frowns and tilts his head, trying to understand what he missed.

Annabeth coughs and clears her throat before replying. "Yeah, that definitely came across." She sounds much less sure of herself than usual and is suddenly having a hard time looking either of them in the face.

A sneaking suspicion starts to build in the back of Percy's head, and he looks rapidly between Luke and Annabeth several times. There is no way what he thinks might be happening is actually happening.

Oblivious to his sleuthing, Luke chuckles and offers a hand to Annabeth. "By the way, my name's Luke."

Annabeth hesitantly reaches out to shake it, and replies, "Annabeth."

Luke cocks his head and repeats the name, as if rolling it around in his mouth. Percy's eyes widen as Annabeth turns even pinker than before. A sickly feeling starts to grow in his stomach and Percy wonders if maybe he really did eat something gross earlier.

Luke is suddenly holding a pen in his hand, which he must have produced while Percy was busy running through everything he ate earlier that day. Uncapping it, Luke sticks out his hand again and asks, "May I?"

Annabeth's brow furrows, but she takes his hand again. Luke casually rotates her hand so the back of it is facing up before he writes out a series of numbers on it. Percy's jaw hits the floor as Annabeth's face turns the color of a stop sign. Luke starts to take his hand back, but before he can Annabeth lunges forwards, grabbing his wrist like she's about to judo flip him before she produces a pen and writes her own number on his wrist. Percy's stomach suddenly feels like it's full of acid as he watches this exchange. He decides that he should probably visit a doctor when he gets home.

Luke caps his pen and sticks it into his back pocket before slapping Percy on the back. "We should all hang out like this again, this was fun!" He winks at Annabeth before strolling out through the doors exiting the gym. Percy waits before the door closes before gagging loudly, causing Annabeth to slap him on the shoulder.

They both stare at the door for a couple seconds longer, before turning to look at each other. Annabeth defensively crosses her arms and sniffs derisively. "I didn't need your help back there."

Percy shrugs. "I didn't say you did. Honestly you could probably demolish those guys if they ever tried anything." He scratches the back of his head before continuing, "They are dicks though so I thought I'd help out if you decided to erase them."

A brief exasperated smile flits across Annabeth's face before she takes the last step onto ground level and makes for the doors. Percy allows himself a small victory grin before following Annabeth to the exit.

Outside, they stand in silence for a couple seconds as Percy responds to a text from Grover. As he does, he mutters, "So you're just throwing your phone number at strangers now huh?"

Annabeth makes a disgusted sound and throws her hands up in the air. "Okay I was going to thank you for letting me into the practice but that's so cancelled now."

Percy lets out a laugh before shoving his hands into his pockets. Looking over, he can see that Annabeth is grinning too, and suddenly the sickly feeling in his stomach is draining out into the ground.

After standing in silence for another couple seconds Annabeth pulls out her phone and checks the time, before cursing to herself and shoving it back into her pocket. "Okay I'm gonna go study now in the library, I'll see you later."

She gives Percy another little wave with her mittens before turning and starting to walk off. Percy stares after her for a second, finding himself wishing that he could follow, before deciding he's already embarrassed himself as much as he can today. He takes off after her, quickly catching up before slowing down to match her pace.

She looks over at him with a skeptical glance from underneath her scarf, before asking, "Did you forget something?"

Percy shakes his head and calmly replies, "Nope, I just thought that I could get some studying done before I turn in for the night."

Annabeth continues to stare at him with a raised brow. Percy, however, just looks forwards and keeps on walking. After a second he adds, "Also, I heard that studying in a group can be very effective."

Rolling her eyes, Annabeth replies, "I told you that, you can't just pretend you heard that somewhere." She gives up on staring at Percy and faces forwards with a frown buried under her scarf.

Silence fills the space between them for a bit before Annabeth turns to him again. "What if I didn't want to study with a partner?"

Percy feels his stomach sink into his ankles as he struggles to maintain a straight face. "I guess I'd be studying on my own then."

Annabeth goes quiet again, looking forwards as they walk together. After a minute of Percy feeling the tension grow like a weed, he opens his mouth, intending to apologize and go home. Before he can, Annabeth cuts him off with, "So you really want to help me with my studying?"

Percy tries to smother the huge grin threatening to break out onto the scene as his stomach remembers where it's supposed to live. "I mean, it only seems fair at this point after all the tutoring, right?"

Annabeth huffs out a laugh. "Well, I suppose I'm open to some compensation."

Percy manages to suppress the urge to fist pump, but it's a close thing.

The library is a large, imposing building made of concrete slabs and right angles. Percy always thought it was kinda weird that they could make a library look threatening, but here it was all the same.

He and Annabeth arrive in the main lobby to find the place mostly empty, with only a few late-night stragglers left. With basically the entire library to choose from, Annabeth walks over to a random desk with Percy in tow before dropping her piles of books onto it. Percy sits in one of the seats and is suddenly very conscious of the fact that he only has swimming gear on him instead of stuff to study with. Maybe Annabeth won't notice.

Annabeth sits down across from him and leans forwards, folding her hands together. She looks across the desk at Percy with an expectant expression? "So, we're going to study something?" She glances pointedly at his side of the desk, which is currently empty.

Frantically, Percy flails forwards and grabs the first of Annabeth's books that he can reach. "Yeah, I thought we'd start with, uh." He pauses to look at the cover of the textbook he's filched. "Broke history?"

Annabeth rolls her eyes and mutters, "Hopeless." She takes the book from him and starts flipping through it. "It says baroque history, genius. This is an architectural history book."

This piques Percy's interest. He hasn't heard Annabeth mention anything about what she studies, mostly because they usually only meet to go over what he needs to be studying. Tilting his head curiously, he asks, "Isn't baroque an art thing?"

Annabeth's brows raise like she's surprised. "I mean yeah, it is, but it really applies to the whole time period. There was baroque music too, but nobody likes that anymore." She shifts and moves her chair forwards as she spins the book around so Percy can see what it says. "Baroque architecture specifically began in the late sixteenth century."

She goes on to start taking Percy through the development of architectural styles and technologies of the Baroque period. At first, Percy really has no idea what she's talking about most of the time, but the buildings look cool so that helps. Annabeth, however, really starts to capture his attention the longer she talks. She starts opening other textbooks and rapidly switching between them as references for each other and her hands start to move as she talks, making large movements to try to demonstrate the whichever construction technique she is explaining. Her hair is falling out of her ponytail again and her eyes are lit up with an energy Percy has never seen from her. With a start, he realizes that Annabeth looks like she is actually having fun.

This sudden change, along with the fact that Annabeth really is a good teacher, result in Percy hanging on her every word, suddenly extremely invested in how some dead dudes decided to try to build churches five hundred years ago. In the back of his mind, Percy decides that anything that can make Annabeth legitimately excited is something worth learning about. At some point, one of them, Percy forgets who exactly, makes a joke, leading to them firing back and forth at each other about the various quirks and habits of old, crusty architects. Percy has a grin that he doesn't remember growing and Annabeth has one to match as she tries not to laugh at Percy's face when he finds out that buttress is a real word.

Suddenly, a loud crackling sound fills the air as the PA system turns on, followed by a voice declaring, "The library will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please start making your way to the nearest exit."

Annabeth sighs and lowers the picture of blueprints she is holding. Her grin falls into a displeased grimace as she sighs, leaning back in her chair. Percy feels his own grin falter as the small happy bubble around their table pops.

As he looks around to see people streaming towards the exits, Annabeth groans. "It's so dumb that libraries have a closing time." She leans back forwards and props up her head in one hand, motioning with the other as she says, "I could get so much more work done if I could stay here all night."

One side of Percy's mouth quirks in distaste. "Yeah it's kinda bogus that we have to leave before midnight. Like, does anybody even go to sleep this early?" Annabeth lets her head fall off of her hand and onto the desk with a dull thunk as she unhappily grunts in agreement.

Slouching back in his seat, Percy sighs. "I mean we could always stick it to the man and hide out here in the bathroom or something until everyone leaves. Free library all night after that."

Annabeth stiffens for a second before she whips her head up to stare at him with wide eyes. Percy frowns and awkwardly looks behind him before looking back at her. "What?"

Slowly, a devious grin spreads across Annabeth's face, causing a tremor of trepidation and a spike of energy in his chest. She suddenly lunges for her books, stuffing them all into her backpack as quickly as she can. Before Percy can ask what she's doing, she shoves the last book into her bag before slamming her hands down onto the desk, looking Percy straight in the eye. "We're going to the bathroom right now.

Percy's frown deepens and he tilts his head in confusion. He blinks, then recoils in shock. "Annabeth that was a joke."

Annabeth just smiles and runs around the desk, tugging at his arm until he stands up. "This is a terrible idea." Still ignoring him, she takes off running towards the nearest bathroom, leaving Percy to roll his eyes before jogging after her. He has never met someone so willing to stick it to the library staff.

Ten minutes later, Percy is standing in a bathroom stall with his back to one of the walls. He has one foot on the ground and one foot propped up against the opposite wall with his bag resting on a hook on the door. Across from him, Annabeth is in the same position with her backpack sitting on the lowered toilet seat, leaving them to face each other as they wait in a dingy stall.

"Annabeth this is nasty."

"I know."

"People poop in here."

"I know, Percy."

"Someone could have peed on the walls and we wouldn't even know."

Annabeth frowns and shifts so she can kick his elbow, saying, "Gross, stop." Percy smirks and checks his phone, which tells him the library closes in five minutes. Sighing, he pockets it again and starts looking at the tiled pattern on the floor. Which, to be honest, looks like it has definitely been peed on. Percy wrinkles his nose. Public bathrooms really are the worst.

The next couple minutes pass in relative silence, save for the occasional creak of the stall walls as Percy or Annabeth shift their position. Eventually, Percy huffs tiredly. "You know, the fun really got sucked out of this after the twelfth minute I think."

Annabeth rolls her eyes. "Oh sorry, next time we'll wait until eleven minutes before the library closes."

Percy snorts. "I'm just saying, this really is a stupid idea."

Glaring at him, Annabeth shifts like she's considering kicking him again. "Well maybe you should come up with the ideas for once."

Percy glares back and crosses his arms. "Yeah, maybe I-"

The sound of wood knocking against the door to the bathroom cuts him off. He looks at wide-eyed to Annabeth, who frantically gestures at him to pick up his foot on the ground. Pushing against the opposite wall with one foot, Percy quickly picks up the other and braces it against the far wall as well, wedging himself between the two sides of the stall. Looking to his right, he sees Annabeth has copied his position. Nervous energy starts coursing through his body as his heart rate picks up noticeably.

A few seconds later, he hears the telltale creaking sound of the door opening, followed by the clatter of a cart rolling into the room. The cart stops on the other side of the bathroom as steps begin moving slowly across the room, punctuated by on occasional squeaking sound.

Percy's eyes widen as the steps begin to move closer as he looks to Annabeth, who slowly moves one hand up to her lips to extend one finger in a silent 'shh' motion. Percy looks to the door, which they left just slightly open to try to avoid being conspicuous.

The steps and the squeaks draw closer at maddeningly slow pace. Even though it hasn't even been a minute yet, Percy is starting to really feel the burn in his legs. Looking over at Annabeth, he can see her legs are starting to shake slightly and her face is slowly turning red. At this point Percy is starting to hope that there is a murderer or something in the room instead of just the world's slowest janitor.

Another footstep lands directly outside the stall, causing Percy to look up to the slight crack left available at the stall door. By now his heart feels like a jackhammer, causing a rush he can hear in his ears. Through it, he can see what he thinks could be somebody's back, along with a flash of motion and the squeak he heard a few times already. As he watches, the shape shifts, bringing a bottle of windex into view before the figure shuffles out of sight again.

After another minute of the most stressful wall sits Percy has ever done in his life, the footsteps retreat towards the doorway. On the way, the rolling sound from the cart starts again before he hears the door open and close, leaving the room in silence.

Percy moves to lower himself to the ground when he sees Annabeth frantically gesture at him to freeze. He manages to do so but lets out an involuntary wheeze as he re-wedges himself between the walls. Looking up at Annabeth, he sees her hold up four fingers, before slowly counting down. When she reaches zero, she nods to Percy and lowers herself to the ground quietly. Percy attempts to replicate this, but instead falls to the ground with a quiet "Oof."

Annabeth rolls her eyes before opening the door slightly to peak out. After a second, she backs up from the door before turning to help Percy up as she whispers, "Okay I think we're good but we should probably hang out here for a couple more minutes."

Percy stands back up and presses himself to the wall, rubbing his thighs as he does to try to ease the soreness he knows will be present tomorrow. He makes eye contact with Annabeth and slowly grows a mischievous smile. "This was a great idea."

Annabeth rolls her eyes again but snorts, causing Percy to start snickering quietly. She slaps his arm, which causes him to laugh harder, leading to her to start chuckling. They both lean back on their respective nasty stall walls, still giggling as they wait.

Once Annabeth's phone reads 12:20, she opens the door and creeps out of the bathroom with Percy close behind, eager to get out. Thirty-five minutes in a public bathroom for any reason is way to long in his book.

Annabeth peaks her head around the corner before turning back to Percy. "Everything looks all clear, but I guess we can't really know if everyone is gone."

Percy looks in either direction before cupping his hands at his mouth and shouting, "Anybody home?"

Annabeth flinches violently and frantically starts looking in every direction for an escape. When nobody responds after a couples seconds, she calms down slightly and turns to Percy with a murderous glare.

Percy shrugs innocently. "Guess they're gone." Annabeth makes a disgusted sound and stalks away towards the closest desk. A smirk breaks through Percy's innocent facade as he follows her.

Sitting at the desk, Annabeth rubs her temples as Percy sits on the other side. After a second, she starts pulling her books back out before cracking one open and asking, "Okay, where were we?"

Percy tilts his head and squints in thought for a moment, before snapping and replying, "You were telling me about buttresses."

Annabeth sighs with an exasperated grin curling at one side of her mouth. "Right."

They decide to pack up around 2 AM. By this point Annabeth has guided Percy all the way through the Baroque period and its various architectural motifs, though he's pretty sure she skipped most of the in depth stuff. He appreciates this though because his brain feels like a soggy sponge ready to drip trivia about buildings out his nose at any second.

They successfully sneak out the doors without anyone walking by outside to see them, successfully completing their library heist. Outside, Annabeth pauses and looks up at the night sky, and Percy finds himself gazing at her instead. She still has a small smile lingering on her face, so faint Percy thinks she might not even notice that it's there. As she looks up at the stars her curls, freed from their elastic prison as they went into the second hour of studying, tumble freely down her shoulders. Percy feels himself heat up again just looking at her, but compared to the embarrassed flood of heat before this feels more like he's standing next to a space heater, comfortably warming him all over.

As Percy stares at her, she breathes out a puff of warm air before her eyes flit over to look at him. Percy feels a sudden stab of panic as he averts his eyes as fast as possible, hoping that she doesn't think he was staring at her. Which he definitely was. Shit.

Desperately searching for something else to look at, he pulls out his phone to see he has another text from Grover. He sighs in relief as he unlocks his phone to answer it.

As he types away on his screen, he hears Annabeth sigh and say, "Alright, give me your phone."

Percy's brow raises as he looks up to find Annabeth facing him with her hand outstretched expectantly. He stares at her hand for a second before looking back up at her. "Uh, what?"

Annabeth stares him down and raises a brow, raising her hand a little to emphasize it. Percy stares at it again for a couple seconds before shrugging and handing the device to her. He's pretty sure that he doesn't have anything embarrassing immediately available on there. Probably.

Annabeth takes his phone and swipes at it a couple times before tapping and starting to type something. Percy tries to move closer to see what she's up to, but she backs away and shoots him a warning glare before he can see the screen. Raising his hands in surrender, he backs up a step and tries to quell the nervous energy starting to grow in his chest.

A few seconds later, Annabeth finishes whatever she's doing and hands the phone back to Percy. Looking down at the screen, he sees a contact screen titled 'Annabeth' with a phone number underneath. The nervous energy drains out of him, along with any other emotion, leaving him with only dumb shock to work with.

He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Swallowing, he clears his throat and tries again. "Whose number is this?"

Annabeth scoffs and crosses her arms. "It's mine, obviously." Percy just stares at her dumbfounded until her cheeks redden just a little and she shrugs. "Okay, I'm trying to say that this wasn't completely awful and I could be willing to do it again."

She turns away from Percy slightly and breaks eye contact. "Plus, friends should have each other's phone numbers, right?"

Percy stares blankly before he feels his cheeks spread into an ear splitting grin. The chill of the night air is completely forgotten as he feels like he could start glowing at any second. Annabeth's eyes flicker over to his, before she looks away again and buries her face in her scarf. Percy looks down at his phone again and says, "You just admitted I was right about something."

Looking up, he sees Annabeth frown incredulously before rolling her eyes so hard he thinks it might have hurt. She makes a disgusted sound and starts to walk towards him with her hand out. "I made a mistake, give that back."

Percy dances out of her reach and holds his phone up in the air, yelling, "Nope! No take-backs sorry we're friends now!"

Annabeth is smiling now as she quickly gives up on trying to steal Percy's phone. She shoves her hands into her pockets and just shakes her head resignedly, then starts to walk off. After a couple steps she turns over her shoulder and says "Don't forget to text me the swim schedule then doofus."

Percy just waves excitedly, accidentally almost throwing his phone in the process. By the time he secures his phone and is sure it isn't about to shatter, Annabeth has walked around a corner and disappeared. Filled with excitement to the point he's nearly giddy, he quickly pulls up Annabeth's contact info before typing out a message.

you still didnt deny that i was right

God damn it Percy

Percy's smile lasts all the way back to his dorm.

AN: Hey gang, sorry that this chapter is a week late. I've been busy studying for and taking finals, but I'm finally in spring break so I shouldn't have to worry about that for a while. Hopefully that will even let me put up the next chapter faster than normal to try to compensate but we'll see how it goes. Also hopefully no one reading this likes baroque music but I feel like as a music major I'm allowed to shit on that genre because like. God it's the worst. Anyways I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and thank you to anyone who has left a comment so far! They really help with the whole motivation thing.