Chapter 3

Annabeth had worn a hole on the kitchen carpet. Thalia seemed to have gotten mobbed and beat to death in one of the many shady streets she liked to hang out and her stupid phone was dead. She had briefly considered asking her only two neighbors for help but since one of them was on a trip to Italy and the other constituted of an old wanker who smelled of moth balls and had a habit of leering down her top, she decided to face the situation by herself.

The opening of the front door jarred her from her thoughts. She watched dumbfounded as Thalia Grace entered, her face drowning in her thick woolen scarf, two bags of over spilling groceries in her arms.

Thalia never bought groceries. Or bright red bottles of cokes (she claimed they were for sissies), which now peeked out through the top of one of the brown bags along with a pack of…what was that?...Oreo?

Annabeth Chase was definitely dreaming.

"Thalia…what…"Annabeth struggled to form words as the dark haired girl deposited the bags on the kitchen counter and proceeded to pluck an apple from the fruit bowl and take a large bite.

"Close your mouth Annie! You'll catch flies." Thalia teased but her cheerful expression quickly dissolved when she took in the haggard state of her best friend. "Annabeth? What's wrong?"

Jerked back to reality Annabeth remembered exactly why she had been so desperate for her room- mate to be back. She snatched Thalia's phone and struggled to type in her password ('Greenday1201xx'…. boring).

"Thalia, quick! We have to call the cops…my phones dead and you were god alone knows where..and …"Annabeth's nervous rambling was cut short when a hand snatched the mobile away from her restless fingers.

"Annabeth, calm down. Will you please tell me what-"

But Annabeth had already snagged the phone back and had begun to dial 911 when Thalia managed to knock the phone out of her hand where it fell to the floor with an audible crack. What followed was a very awkward silence where Thalia stared at her while she tried her best to not run to the nearest pay phone and hand over that thieving bastard to the cops.

"um, you're phones seemed to be broken…"

Thalia stared at her like if she wasn't sure if Annabeth was the one who had hit her head and broke something in there.

"Annabeth. I need you to answer me honestly. Can you do that?"

"uhh..yeah,sure."

"Are you or are you not…"Thalia's electrifying gaze bore into Annabeth's terrified grey ones. She felt fear prickle her heart at the utter seriousness in Thalia's eyes. She wasn't sure she could handle whatever was coming next "...on drugs?"

Wait, what?

Thalia just laughed at Annabeth's stricken expression as she started to unload the grocery bags. Annabeth spotted at least five packs of Oreo and two rolls of blue food coloring.

"Anyway, jokes aside, where's Percy? Did you meet him?" Thalia's words slapped Annabeth in the face.

"P-Percy?"

"Yeah, my cousin. You know him, right? He's the one obsessed with the beach."Thalia rolled her eyes at that. "Anyway he left to get coffee before I went out. Isn't he back yet?"

Shit.

"Uhh, Thalia. About your cousin….there's something you may want to see."

**Ten seconds later**

"This is…. interesting." Thalia finally drew out.

Annabeth nervously twisted the edge of her floral apron. Damn. Hadn't she gotten rid of this thing already? Thalia's expression hadn't changed in the last thirty seconds. Her lips were in a tight line and her eyes glued to her blond roommate's bed.

Percy was there, an old red and green stripped Christmas sock stuffed in his mouth. His hands and legs were bound clumsily but firmly in a layer of grey sheets. His sea green eyes stared back at the two girls with barely suppressed anger.

Suddenly Thalia burst out laughing. Annabeth gaped at her in horror then back at Seaweed brain-sorry Percy- whose eyes had narrowed into slits as he watched his cousin cough up a lung from her all her laughing-at his expense.

"I'm so sorry" Annabeth rambled. After one murderous glare at Thalia, who was digging up her phone from her jeans, Annabeth moved to the side of her supposed thief cum kidnapper and pulled out her sock from his mouth-well Luke's sock, so there wasn't really much loss. "I swear I had no idea who you were."

But Percy wasn't paying her much attention. After giving her a small, strained smile and a polite nod he turned towards Thalia, who seemed to have been taking photos on her mobile the whole time.

"What the hell, Thalia! This wasn't funny" Percy growled. His sea green eyes were dark and smoldering. Annabeth felt something stir in her abdomen.

"Wait, hold on. You don't think I did this, do you?" Thalia exclaimed in mock indigence. "Would I really tie up my poor, little, turtle obsessed cousin to a bedpost?

"After bashing my skull in with a fucking alarm clock? Yeah." Percy held up the slightly dented material as proof as he touched a spot on his forehead and winced at the swelling.

"Oh my gods. You hit him?" Thalia turned to her in pure awe. Annabeth wanted to crawl under a rock and die.

"You hit me?" Percy asked in disbelief. He looked so hurt it was kind of funny, especially when his lower lip stuck out a bit. Don't you dare laugh Annabeth she thought the guy just got molested and tied to a bed. He has every reason to be upset.

"Yes, I did." she confessed "I had no idea you were Thalia's cousin. I figured you were a robber or something."

"A robber who doesn't steal anything but sleeps on the owner's bed? Yeah, I don't think you know what a robber is." Percy muttered as he limped to the kitchen. He seemed to have sprained his ankle. Annabeth vaguely remembered slamming his leg against the wall while tying him up in his unconscious state and struggled to not look guilty.

"But seriously cuz, I can't believe you'd think I'd be the one to play such a harmless joke." Thalia said as Annabeth muttered how it wasn't a joke "My pranks are a little bit more original."

"Whatever, Pinecone face."Percy muttered as he carefully placed an ice bag on his forehead. "As I recall the last time I saw you, you were tied to chair and suspended a hundred feet down your father's office block."

"What-how?" Annabeth gasped, half sorry for her friends state and half amused.

"Jason took a bit of convincing." Percy admitted. "But at the end we just slipped her a few sleeping pills and tied her to the chair. The suspending part was a bit tricky but we had help from the construction crew, who weren't Green Day fans and didn't like the weekly sing alongs someone did behind their equipments." He looked pointedly at Thalia who snorted and muttered 'losers' under her breath.

"We taped the whole thing and put in on YouTube." Percy told her smugly. Annabeth made a mental note to check the video out.

"Whatever. I'm starving."Thalia announced, a poor way to change the topic, Annabeth thought but Percy sat up at the mention of food.

Rolling her eyes, Annabeth started to leaf through the various takeout leaflets "We have Mexican, Chinese… how about sea-food?"

"Great, now you've unleashed the beast." Thalia muttered as Percy rounded on her with a murderous look in his eyes.

"Annabeth." He said ,his voice deceptively calm. "Let me tell you something about sea-food."

What followed was an hour of fish slogans and stuff like how all fish were our brothers, the sacred duty of humanity to protect the ocean and marine life and how people who ate sea-food were sinners and had to be bought back to the right path.

They ended up ordering pizza that night.