Warning: This chapter contains swearing, mentions of food, family, school and smoking.

I feel like I can't explain Drew/Thalia it doesn't need to be explained it just is.

Also Percy and Annabeth as friends I haven't read about that in forever.

(Thalia's the main babe here)

xxxxxx

"Percy! Stop it!"

Her yelling only got him to turn around and give her a grin, pieces of chips stuck to the skin around his mouth. She shoved his shoulder.

"You're gross." She commented before taking a few ham flavoured chips from the bag they were sharing. Though sharing was an overstatement, seeing as Percy was doing his best to eat as much as he could. She couldn't figure out if it was because he was hungry or if he was just in the mood to annoy her.

The weather was a bit cold, she thought as a shiver ran along her spine, but not cold enough to make them move. They had planned to meet up with Thalia and her girlfriend there, at the outdoor table spot, as it was usually deserted on chilly days like this, and she enjoyed the time they had together to try and relax for a bit. Sometimes Thalia's cousin, Nico, would join them, but seeing as he wasn't very social it didn't happen often.

So she and Percy were left to entertain themselves, and they played a few rounds of truth or dare until realizing there wasn't much to find out and neither of them were in the mood for dares and deciding to eat instead.

When she stopped feeling her fingertips she considered texting her friend to ask her about her delay, but she gave up the idea as soon as she smelled the cigarette smoke in the air.

"Sorry." Thalia hissed, sitting right in front of her. "We got held back at pe." Drew sat right beside

her, looking so perfect Annabeth would hve guessed she had gotten pulled from a fashion shoot rather than a public school gym.

They were a weird pair, those two. Thalia with her black leather jacket that didn't quite fit her, her piercings and combat boots and tough attitude, Drew with her high heels and long hair, french perfume and even tougher attitude. Yet, they were as good of a couple as Annabeth had ever seen, at least by teenager standards.

"It's freezing and I'm starving." Drew ran her hands up and down her jacket covered arms. "Whar do you have?"

In response Percy opened his backpack's zipper and pulled out a plastic bag containing tuesday's special at Harley's, the local diner. They weren't supposed to bring outside food to school, of course, so they always made their best efforts not to get caught.

It would be very much easier, she comteplated, to drop that habit of theirs and start eating school lunches in the cafeteria, but over the time they had developed a routine: one or two of them would sneak out to buy lunch and sneak back in without getting caught, while the others would try to find a lunch spot- they'd usually go to where they were at the moment, the outdoor tables, but when the weather was decent they could struggle with finding a seat. All of this wasn't necessary, but Thalia wouldn't be happy to be forced to eat somewhere where she couldn't smoke in.

Even now, as she sipped on her diet soda she balanced a cigarette on her right hand. Annabeth had tried to get her to quit a few times, but all she had gotten were breaths of smoke in her face.

"That's right!" Her friend said suddenly, interrupting Percy's impression of his english teacher and spilling a bit of her drink on her chin. Drew chuckled as she handed her girlfriend a tissue. "I didn't tell you two."

"What?" She questioned, taking a sip from her own soda.

"Jason." Thalia wiped her chin. "My brother."

"What about him?" Percy asked, shrugging.

"He decided- him and his fancy school- that we should be involved in a pen pal project."

"We?" She repeated. "We as in our school?"

The girl shook her head. "We as in our school and his. We should have a pen pal project."

Percy seemed confused. "I thought your brother lived in England."

"He does." Drew confirmed.

"Someone had the brilliant idea to make this an actual thing." She snorted. "We'll share our cultures, he said. He's amazing, I'll tell you that much." Thalia took another sip as she muttered something under her breath.

Annabeth tried to recall what she knew about Jason. He lived in England, she was sure of that, but Thalia had mentioned he had been born in America. She'd seen some picures he put on the internet once in a while, and if she didn't know better she would think the blue eyes were the only thing the Grace sibilings had in common.

"But you forgot the best part." Drew grinned. "If this actually goes through, both the 10th and 11th grade will have about a good 30% of their grades in the bag." She sighed. "And here I was worried about poetry comprehension."

"Shit." Percy raised his eyebrows. "You serious?"

"I hope I am." The girl replied, flipping the hair off her shoulder.

"You're cool with this though, right?" Annabeth asked, tuning towards Thalia.

She simply shrugeed. "I don't care much about it. And every second I spend not studying rhyme schemes is a second well spent."