Chapter 4: Comfort and Consultation
Annabeth woke up to a weight on her side. "Mmmmffff," Annabeth grumbled.
"No," the weight responded. "Your lazy ass needs to wake up, make me breakfast, and dish about this date."
Annabeth let one eye open enough to see who it was and read that the display on her alarm clock read a time before 9 am, then she promptly closed it. "Pipessss, I just want to sleeeeep," Annabeth whined.
Piper readjusted herself, causing Annabeth to yelp. "No can do, sister. You see, I came all the way over here without eating, so I'm going to need nourishment or my gorgeous model body is going to shrivel up and die. Then, my agent is going to come after you for killing the most beautiful model in the world and you're going to be in trouble."
"Ugh fine," Annabeth groaned. She started getting up out of bed, then, when she got to the proper angle, she pushed Piper onto the floor. Piper yelped in protest, but was then quiet. Annabeth put her head back on her pillow and, sighing, tried to catch some more sleep.
Suddenly, Annabeth felt a hand on her ankle and a rush of air before feeling her entire right side meet the wooden floor. She shrieked. "Piper!"
Piper, who took this time to sit on Annabeth, preventing her from getting up, looked down at her smugly. "Don't try to fight me, Chase. You can't win," Piper said, mockingly. "So, breakfast?" she added excitedly.
"Fine, but only because I'm too awake now" Annabeth groaned. Piper stood up and helped Annabeth up. With one last scathing glance at Piper, Annabeth walked over to the kitchen. "What do you want, Piper?"
"Anything works, dude," Piper shrugged.
Annabeth reached for the pancake mix in the cupboard and started butting all of the ingredients together. After the basics were put together in the bowl, she went to the fridge and pulled out the blueberries. Piper, who was busy playing with a yo-yo Annabeth had in her bowl of knick-knacks, looked up. "I prefer chocolate, Annabeth."
"Oh, sorry," Annabeth blushed, going to return the blueberries to the fridge and pull the chocolate chips from the cupboard.
"Wait a minute…" Piper trailed off. "You like plain pancakes, and I like chocolate chip pancakes. And none of our friends were here this week because I snapchat them all frequently. So who likes blueberry?" Piper asked. At this point, the deductive expression on Piper's face was swiftly growing into a shit-eating grin. "Does Percy like blueberries?" Piper asked, winking.
"Yes…" Annabeth said, rolling her eyes and feeling her face heat up.
"Oh my god! You made him breakfast? He slept over?" Piper practically shrieked.
Annabeth flung the chocolate chips she was holding at Piper's face making an inhuman groan. "Piper! That is disgusting!" Piper still kept smiling. "Ok fine—" Annabeth sighed. "Percy came over in the morning and threw off my routine and made me make him breakfast all while he made this obnoxious pervy remarks."
Piper looked at her in disbelief. "That's not what I was hoping or expecting to hear at all, but since you are the epitome of a pure ray of sunshine, I believe you. Now…" Piper trailed off. "About your date last night…" She had the audacity to smirk.
"Um… sorry dude. If you want to eat pancakes, you can't ask me now. Ask me over breakfast."
Piper pouted. "You're no fun."
Finally, Annabeth finished the pancakes and slid the last one onto a plate. Ignoring the fact that Piper had already eaten at least three large pancakes before she had finished making them, Annabeth placed the pancakes on the kitchen table and set the table. Piper handed Annabeth a coffee she made her and the two friends dug in.
"So," Piper broke the tranquility of the chewing-filled room, speaking with her mouth practically overflowing with pancake, "Tell me about the date."
Annabeth couldn't help but think about how she would love to be somewhere other than this kitchen as she cursed Piper's ability to force information out of her. She knew that she would never achieve piece until she gave Piper answers.
Annabeth chewed and chewed until there was nothing left to chew in her mouth before stealing herself to speak. "It was nice," she said plainly.
"It was—nice?" Piper blubbered. "You went on a date with the sex god, Percy fucking Jackson and it was 'nice'? I'm leaving. Ladies and gentlemen, my best friend is an idiot." Piper got up to leave, taking Annabeth's plate still stacked high with pancakes.
Annabeth was not that concerned about Piper's threats to leave but was very concerned by the prospect of losing her pancakes. "Piper," she called. "Sit down and let me finish."
Piper grinned. "Well if you insist," she said happily, sitting back down and placing the pancakes back within Annabeth's reach.
Annabeth recounted the entire night, from Percy's consideration for the fact that she had plans the next week (Piper rolled her eyes. "Honey, if I had a date with Percy Jackson, I'd miss your birthday!"), to the location of and food at the restaurant, to the easy conversation between the two of them. By the end of the car ride, Piper had given them the title 'Percabeth' and was making irritating aw sounds after every one of Percy's actions.
"If you like him so much, Piper, why don't you date him?" Annabeth asked, finally fed up.
"Annabeth, as much as I would looooveeee to," Piper drew out, "You really do need to get back into the dating game and I think Percy is perfect for that. He can shake things up for you and he's different from any other guy you've ever dated. Sure he's a bad boy like Luke, but he's so funny.
"Piper," Annabeth groaned. "How many times do I have to tell you that it's fake? It's just for publicity."
"It doesn't have to be," Piper replied, mouth stuffed with food as usual. "I think this could be good for both of you."
Piper may be the expert on all things love, but Annabeth knew what she felt better than Piper did, and she felt nothing towards Percy and also that she would just get her heart broken if she tried to have a real relationship with him.
"No," Annabeth said firmly. "I would never date him. He's so immature. We decided we'd be friends, and even that may not happen."
"Ugh fine," Piper replied. "Destroy my Percabeth dreams. Kill the two children I've already named for you guys inside my head. See if I care." Annabeth felt her eyes roll into the back of her head. "But you at least had sex with him last night, right?" Piper asked hopefully.
"What do you think?" Annabeth replied, disgusted. "Of course not."
"You disappoint me."
Percy walked into the garage of his house to discover his bandmates already set up for practice, talking loudly and eating junk food even more loudly. As soon as the door closed behind him, the room fell silent as his friends turned to look at him, until Leo stumbled over to him and gripped him in the deathly grip that was the signature Valdez hug. "Congrats man!" Leo shouted into his ear. "Why didn't you tell us sooner?"
Percy extricated himself from Leo's grasp before his confused expression finally set in and he asked, looking around at all of his band mates, "About what?"
"Dude! You're dating Annabeth Chase! THE Annabeth Chase. The one you had a crush on back in high school? How could you not tell us sooner?!" Leo was practically jumping up to the ceiling.
"OK, first of all—" Percy retorted, "I did not have a crush on her. I had a collage of all the cute girls in Hollywood—"
"Which she was on ten times more than the rest," Nico muttered under his breath.
"And SECOND of all," Percy continued, barely paying any attention to Nico, "I am not dating her; I merely went on one date with her."
"Did you… you know…?" Leo wiggled his eyebrows at Percy.
"What do you think?" Percy smirked. He tried to exude the confidence he usually had with girls, but he thought about Annabeth's wrath. She would so kill him if she knew what he was implying. Ok, Percy, leave it at that, he thought to himself. They'll believe you and if you don't specifically say anything, Annabeth might not rip your head off. "Of course I did. I'm Percy Jackson," he blurted out. He knew Annabeth would kill him. She would know he said something just by looking at him, and she would destroy him. He avoided the four pairs of eyes in the room.
"He's lying," Frank replied from the corner where he was sitting. "Percy, you're usually so much more boastful, it's obvious you didn't have sex with Annabeth. Tell us what's going on."
Percy mentally cursed Frank for being so damn observant. Frank and Nico shared a look and Percy knew that Nico had seen it too. He gave up. "Ugh fine, you guys got me. We didn't do anything—we just went to dinner."
Percy heard Jason snort. As Percy looked over, Jason looked up from the magazine he was skimming. "That's a first, dude. It always leads into something else with you."
"That's all it is," Percy assured Jason, annoyed that his friends didn't seem to believe he was capable of interaction with girls without ulterior motives.
"Is this about what Chiron said a few months ago?" Jason asked, narrowing his eyes.
Damn, Percy thought, Jason is good. "Which thing?" Percy asked innocently.
"Cut the crap, Percy. When Chiron said you needed to stop sleeping around and get a serious girlfriend in order to save this band, you got seriously concerned. We haven't seen you with any other girls, which is fine but out of character."
"Calm down, Jason. I decided to actually try dating someone. See what I'm missing, ya know? The opportunity came along and Annabeth is hot, so I thought 'Why not?'"
"Percy, tell us if you're doing anything like that. You don't need to, really. We are a band, but we're friends foremost. We can get through anything together, so don't change who you are."
"Jason, I am not doing this to save our band," Percy lied through his teeth, this time with ease. "Now let's practice."
A/N: Some filler, but I honestly love friend dynamics so much (maybe even more than the Percabeth dynamic). I also liked trying to write the band because they're all different in the books but they're friends and I wanted to get that, especially because it's a challenge for me since I don't have many friends that are boys. There isn't really any comfort in the chapter, but I try to be clever and the title is a Joni Mitchell lyric. Thanks for the reviews and favorites, and remember to give this story love if you like it!