Disclaimer- I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or the Heroes of Olympus Series. (One can dream though) All rights go to the proper parties.

Note***- Will be boy x boy. (I promise, it is coming) Don't like? You don't have to read.

ΩΩΩ

February 14th

Percy POV

I woke up to the smell of pancakes floating through the house. I went down the hall to the kitchen just in time to see Apollo putting the food on the table. For some reason he was fussing with all the dishes, moving them a couple inches to the right only to move them back a moment latter. I watched him move things around for another minute or so before he seemed to be satisfied with it.

He nodded at the table with a smile before he turned towards the hallway. When he realized I was standing in the doorway he jumped nearly a foot, "Holy Hades Percy! Give me a heart attack, why don't you?" I had to laugh at his expression. He rolled his eyes but he couldn't hold back a smile either. "Anyway I was just about to come get you, breakfast is ready."

My intended question about his weird behaviour fled my mind when I actually saw what was on the table. Not only was there blue pancakes, but he had bought whip cream and blueberries to put on top. He had also made sure to put a square of ambrosia out for me. I smiled at the thoughtful gesture as I took my seat and piled the food on my plate. He laughed at my enthusiasm before doing the same.

I took a big bite of the blue blueberry goodness. It was even better than it looked. I felt a huge smile spit my face. "Thanks Apollo, this is delicious."

He winked, "I'm glad it passes your inspection Perce."

My first pancake was gone within a few bites. I was stretching out my fork to snag a second one when I noticed the box next to my plate with my name on it. I picked it up for a better look. "What's this?"

He shrugged. "I figured if we're spending Valentine's Day together, I should get you something. It's just something little, but gifts are customary. I decided that shouldn't change just because we're friends."

I frowned. "They are?"

He raised one eyebrow, "Typically, yes. Didn't you ever buy a girlfriend a Valentine's Day gift?"

I shook my head, "No. Annabeth is the only girl I've ever dated and I was kinda... unconscious during last February."

"Oh."

With a lack of anything else to add to the conversation, I decided it would be a good time to open the gift. I pulled the note off the top of the box and unfolded it.

Roses are red,

But you prefer blue,

Valentine's Day could have been lame,

But not if I'm with you.

I laughed at the cheesy rewritten poem. I raised one eyebrow and smirked, "Writing me poetry already hey?"

The god of the sun chuckled, "What can I say? I'm romantic like that. Besides, I thought that getting you a teddy bear and a Valentine's Day card would be weird so..." He gave me a wink, "Happy 'Bromance Day' Percy."

I laughed at the newly named holiday. I put the note to the side and picked up the little box. I could feel something shifting inside, but I had no clue as to what it could have been. I pulled off the lid and I felt my eyebrows jump up in surprise.

The box held a bronze pendant about two inches long. It was shaped like a miniature trident. I picked up the charm and I realized that there was writing on it. It took a few moments to make out the words. On one side of the necklace was the name Poseidon, and on the other side was the name Neptune. I immediately loved it. I felt a blossom of warmth go through me and I looked up at the god of the sun with a smile.

"Apollo, this is awesome." I looked back at the pendant once again, noticing even more of its details.

He sounded please by my reaction. "I'm glad you like it."

I shook my head, "Now I feel bad for not getting anything for you though."

He waved off my comment with a laugh. "Don't worry about it Perce. Now come on, we have places to be."

I looked away from my new charm and furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. "We do?"

The god of the sun flashed me a blinding smile. "Of course we do. You didn't think we were just going to go to a bromatic dinner together did you?"

"Umm... kind of?"

He rolled his eyes. "Then you clearly don't know me. I never do anything half-way. We have a whole day of epic adventures planned."

I raised one eyebrow, "Do I get to know what we're doing?"

He scoffed and shook his head, "If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise. So go grab your coat and let's head out."

ΩΩΩ

Considering I hadn't showered or even changed from my pajamas yet, it did take a little longer than that to get going. While I was changing I made sure to take the time to put my new pendant on my camp half-blood necklace, right between my bead from the labyrinth quest and the bead symbolizing the second Titan war.

I met Apollo by the door. He was carrying two backpacks, but ignored me when I asked what was in them. He seemed surprised that I was wearing the gift he had given me, but he looked happy too.

Once we headed out I let him take the lead, considering I had no idea where we were going. We had only gone a few blocks before I could no longer stand the secrecy.

"Seriously Fred, do I get to know where we're going yet?"

He hummed in response. "I don't know; I was planning on keeping it secret."

I puffed out my bottom lip and gave him my best puppy eyes. "Please?"

He looked over at me and laughed, "Really Percy?" He shook his head in amusement. "Fine, I'll give you a choice. Do you want to know where we are going, or do you want to know what's in the bag?"

I gave him a hopeful look, "Both?"

The god of poetry scoffed and shook his head again. "I don't think so. You have to pick one or the other."

I contemplated it for a moment before deciding. Though I wanted to know what was in the bag, I wanted to know where we were going more. Besides, if I knew where we were going, it would probably be easy to guess what was in the backpacks. "Okay, fine. Where are we going?"

"To the park by the river."

"Why?"

He smirked, "If you wanted to know that, you should have asked what was in the bags."

I winced, already regretting my choice. There were too many things that one could do in a park. I shook my head. "Any chance I am going to get to know what's in the bag?"

Apollo shrugged, "Ya eventually."

ΩΩΩ

Once we got to the park, the sun god took one bag and passed me the other.

"Okay Percy. Now take this backpack and go left. I'm going to go right. Count to 100 and then you can open it."

I was confused by his instructions, but I decided to play along. Apollo knew me well. If he thought that I would enjoy whatever we were doing, he was probably right. I walked left along the river until I had finished counting. I opened the backpack and couldn't hold in my startled laugh.

"Well, I didn't expect that."

Nestled inside the bag were an Xploderz water pellet gun and three containers full of pre-made ammo. I had heard about them from Leo. The toys guns were kind of like paint ball guns but instead of paint, they shot water pellets about the size of a pea. Best part was, unlike Nerf guns, there was no clean up necessary. The water pellets actually helped to water the grass.

On top of the supplies was a note. I opened it and read the message from Apollo.

I figured long romantic walks aren't really our style.

So instead I decided that a water pellet fight would be fun.

The rules are simple.

One- the game is limited to within the park.

Two- Whoever gets the most hits in is the winner. The prize is bragging rights.

Now, find me if you can.

Fred.

I felt my smile widen even further. "Oh, this is going to be fun."

ΩΩΩ

Apollo POV

My last minute planning seemed to have been worth it. I hadn't seen Percy have this much fun since the last of the snow melted. We both lost count of who was winning within the first half an hour. I was glad that I had bought so much ammo. Considering how much fun we were having, I was guessing that we wouldn't have too much left over afterwards.

Since we were both naturally competitive, the game quickly escalated from the tag like battle it was at the beginning. It wasn't enough to simply chase each other around the park. After the first few hours, we began taking turns hiding so that when the other passed we could jump out and shoot them. It was like a mixture of hide and go seek and paintball. I had to admit, for someone so bad at archery, he was surprisingly good at the game.

Several hours and a few thousand water pellets later, and the sun was beginning to set. The days were getting steadily longer, but anytime I spent with Percy just seemed to fly by. We stopped back at the apartment just long enough to ditch the backpacks with the left over ammo before we had to head to the restaurant.

I had gotten lucky in getting a reservation. Since I had left it to the last minute, I didn't have as many options as I would have if I had known that Percy wanted to spend the day together earlier. Fortunately, there are several bonuses to being an incredibly hot god.

I had specifically chosen the restaurant I had because it looked out over the Little Tiber. I already knew that it was Percy's favorite place in New Rome. Besides, what was more romantic than watching the sunset over the water? I had to flirt with several of the waitresses yesterday, but I managed to get a table reserved right next to the wall of windows.

ΩΩΩ

When we got to the restaurant, we went to talk to the hostess. I couldn't help but notice that she was absolutely beautiful. She had reddish brown hair that went to her waist and the brightest blue eyes I had seen in years. If it wasn't for the stunning young god beside me, I would have already been in the process of getting her number. As it was though, she was just a pretty face. A candle next to Percy's brilliance...

I winced and tried to direct my thoughts away from the poetic direction they were trying to go.

I cleared my throat. "I have a reservation for a table for two, under 'Fred'."

The girl nodded without looking up, "Certainly, one moment." She opened her book and ran down the list until she found my name. She finally looked up. She gave me a brief glance before her eyes slid over to Percy. Judging by the once over that she gave him, I was guessing that she liked what she saw. "Unfortunately your table isn't quite ready yet, but it should be in a minute or two."

Percy saw her looking but had obviously missed the appreciative glance. Instead he responded to her polite words by giving her one of his custom blinding smiles. "That's alright, we can wait."

The waitress clearly misinterpreted his smile for interest. She instantly returned it and held out her hand. "I'm Monica."

He took her hand, "Percy."

She tilted her head slightly and looked up at him through her eyelashes. "Have you been in New Rome long? I don't think we've met before."

"No, I only moved her in November." I barely held in a sigh as the son of the sea god completely missed her not at all subtle interest.

At least it let me know he was oblivious to everyone's flirting. I almost felt bad for her, but then I remembered that she was flirting with Percy. I may have been okay with him dating Annabeth, but that didn't mean that I wanted him with someone else now that they weren't together.

The poor girl didn't even seem to realize that he missed it. She seemed to be taking his answer as him flirting in return. "Oh, well if you're new to town, I could show you around sometime."

He smiled politely at her offer, "Thanks but I think I've seen most of the city."

"Well then we could just get a cup of coffee."

He seemed confused. He clearly didn't understand how a tour had turned into coffee. "Wait, what?"

"I'm off at 10."

The son of Poseidon suddenly seemed to realize what was going on and clearly didn't know how to get out of the conversation. He was doing an amazing impression of a fish out of water. I decided to take pity on him and end the conversation before it got any more awkward for everyone.

I stepped closer to Percy and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "I'm sorry, how much longer did you say our table was going to be?"

Fortunately Percy seemed to realize that, unless he wanted to offend her, now would be a good time to play along. He wrapped both of his arms around my waist and leaned his head on my shoulder. Monica looked back and forth between us for a moment in confusion before she seemed to realize.

When she did, she blushed. "OH!" The waitress sighed in disappointment. "I guess it's true. All the hot ones are taken or gay. Or in your case, both."

Now that everyone was feeling awkward, Monica seemed anxious to get rid of us. She looked into the restaurant to see if our table was ready and signalled us to follow her. She led us to a table in the corner, overlooking the river, and told us that our server would be with us shortly. I had to admit, I was glad that she wouldn't be helping us. Judging by Percy's expressions, he was thinking the same thing.

After she walked away, an awkward silence continued. I decided to break it by laughing. "Only you Percy could walk into a restaurant and immediately have the hottest girl present start to hit on you."

He shrugged, "What can I say? It's my curse."

I shook my head. I almost felt a little bad for the girl. I knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of one of Percy's blinding smiles. It tended to destroy a few brain cells. "Or maybe it's due to you flirting with them."

The son of Poseidon scoffed and gave me a playful smirk. "In the words of a hilarious internet saying... 'I was just talking. It's not my fault that everything I say is smoother than the cream cheese you spread on your bagel'."

I laughed so loudly that I attracted the attention of several tables but I couldn't find it in myself to care. I shook my head in fond amusement. This boy...

Before I could say anything potentially embarrassing though, we were interrupted by our server appearing to take our drink orders. It wasn't until after he left the table that Percy really had a chance to look around the restaurant.

He took in the tasteful decorations. Rather than the homemade streamers that were in many of the restaurants, this one had strings of fairly lights strung across the ceiling and around the pillars. There were bouquets of red roses on every other table. Our table was one of the ones without. Instead, our dark red tablecloth had a simple candle holder in the center with etchings of doves all around it. Finally, he took in the view from the window. His eyes widened in astonished pleasure, just as I'd hoped they would. "Wow. This place is really..."

I waited for him to finish the sentence, but he seemed speechless. I decided to save him from answering and at the same time, work in a little more hidden romance. I reached across the table and took his hand. I gave him a playful smile. "I know what you're going to say. It's bromantic, isn't it Perce?"

I was rewarded with a laugh. He gave me a wink and squeezed my hand without letting go, "So bromantic."

ΩΩΩ

Half of me was cheering Venus for her brilliant idea, and the other half was cursing her.

Her plan of turning a non-date into a date was a good idea and it was working. Percy seemed to be having a blast. The downside was he still had no idea that it was, in fact, a date. It was killing me a little bit not to lean over and simply pull him into a kiss, but I managed to resist.

We held hands until the server came back with our drinks and took our orders. I had to fight back a smile when Percy ordered pizza. I knew he would and I found his love of the cheesy dish almost as endearing as his obsession with blue food, which I enjoyed encouraging at every opportunity.

Dinner passed with many flirty comments that I allowed Percy to wave away as jokes. After all, it made sense that he would think that since everything we were doing was stuff we had done before. I wasn't trying to push our relationship any further than I already had.

Our topics of conversation were all over the place. Even though our topics changed, it didn't change the fact that I only ever laughed that much when I was with the son of Poseidon. Even if he didn't know it was a date, it was still the most fun I could ever remember having on a date.

It wasn't until dinner was over and we ordered our dessert that we passed the invisible boundary between something that could be very close friends and something that friends just don't do.

It all came down to the triple chocolate brownie. Since it was Valentine's Day, I wasn't able to request the blue cake like I had been able to for Percy's date with Annabeth. The kitchen was simply too busy. Instead Percy decided he really wanted the chocolate chip cookie, but once he saw my brownie, I think he regretted not ordering one.

I looked up to see him watching my plate with a hungry look. I laughed at his expression. I was just about to suggest he order one too, when he spoke. "Can I have a bite of that?"

I felt my eyebrows jump. I supposed that it wasn't actually that strange of request but to me, sharing food had always been a couples thing. The young god was the one to bring it up though, and I wasn't about to refuse. "Okay."

He reached for my plate, but I pulled it out of his reach. He pouted, "I thought you said I could have some."

I smiled, but I could feel my heart racing. "I did. But I'm not letting you take the piece, you'll eat it all. Here..." I cut off a corner of the treat with the edge of my fork and held it out for him.

He raised one eyebrow at me. I thought he was going to call me out on my thinly veiled flirtation, but he just shrugged and leaned in to take the bite off of my fork.

He hummed his approval and licked his lips. "Holy Poseidon that is good."

I was stunned that he had actually done it but instead of letting that surprise show, I just shrugged and took my own bite of brownie. "I know. Do you want another piece?"

He immediately nodded but before I could offer him my fork again, he picked up his own. Rather than try to argue, I slide the plate further to the center and we split the rest of my dessert. It was only after the plate was cleared of the last of the chocolate sauce that our waiter returned. He picked up the dirty dishes and turned to Percy.

"By the way, this is for you sir." He pulled a single blue rose from off of the tray and handed to the son of Poseidon before walking away.

The youngest God looked amazed. "I didn't know that there was such a thing as blue roses."

I shrugged, "Roses come in all colors, though the blue ones are technically dyed blue."

He looked incredibly pleased by the information. "Either way, this is awesome." He frowned a little and tilted his head in confusion. "Why would they give me a flower though?"

Rather than admitting that I was the one who had ordered the rose, I decided to state unrelated facts in the hope he would drop it. "It's Valentine's Day. A lot of places give away stuff like that."

I was glad when he seemed to accept my non-answer.

Before he could ask anything else, I stood up. "Come on Perce, it's getting late. Let's head home."

ΩΩΩ

Percy POV

The walk back was really quiet. Today had certainly not been what I had expected when I asked Apollo to hang out with me. I always had fun with the sun god but still, today was even better than normal. Though, I wasn't really sure what had changed to make it so.

I would admit, it was strange having so many people think we were a couple. I had nothing against same-sex relationships. I had just never thought of myself being in one. So when people thought I was, I didn't really know how to react.

Normally we would watch a movie before we went to bed, but Apollo looked really tired. As soon as we got through the door, he told me he was going to bed early.

I nodded and waved. "Good night Apollo."

He gave me a smile, "Night." I turned around to head towards my room, but I hadn't even taken one step before he called me back. "Hey Percy?"

I turned back around and was surprised to see that Apollo was standing far closer to me than I had expected. He was so close, I could actually feel the heat radiating off of him. Instead of him stepping back like I would have expected, he held my gaze and he seemed to lean even closer to me. I could feel my heart beating faster for some reason.

For one second I had the weirdest feeling, like Apollo wanted to kiss me. Instead, he smirked and gave me a playful punch on the shoulder. "Happy bromance day Perce."

Before I had the chance to restart my brain, he was down the hallway and shutting his bedroom door behind him. For reasons I couldn't explain, I almost felt disappointed. Rather than dwelling on the illogical thoughts, I just shook my head. I was clearly exhausted.

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Authors Note

I hope you all liked this chapter as much as I did. I had so much fun with this one, you have no idea. I LOVED writing it. The best part is, although there was no kissing or anything else all of us hoped for, Percy is going to be on the lookout for more 'strange' reactions so stay tuned. WE ARE ALMOST THERE!

Next update will be December 6th

Next Chapter:

I found myself zoning out. It wasn't until Jason called my name that I realized that I had been unconsciously watching Apollo...