Woodside Academy (Percabeth AU)

Chapter 10 - Art Projects and Pink

Annabeth's POV

August 4

Percy sat down in the wheely chair he'd dragged over to my desk. He stared at the large, blank canvas in front of us. We both stayed quiet, I didn't know what to say to him. Earlier, he basically told me that he didn't think I was capable of making friends. He drummed his fingers on the table nervously while I played with the hem of my skirt.

Suddenly, Mr. Apollo saved us from the awkward silence. "The theme for your painting is...The Perfect Day! You must find a way to combine your idea of a perfect day, in a creative way." He told us, then bowed dramatically.

I stayed silent, so luckily Percy took initiative. He turned to me and then looked at the canvas.

"What would be your idea of a perfect day?" He asked me, and I looked up at him.

"Reading, and listening to music." I replied, then realized I should probably cooperate and ask him the same. "How about you?"

"Going to the beach, swimming in the ocean. Being with my friends, skateboarding, listening to or playing music, eating blue cookies." He shrugged, and I decided not to get hung up on the blue cookie comment.

"Pick one. We can only combine two ideas, three at the most." I told him sternly.

"Well, the ocean then. And we both like music, so we can throw that in there, along with your book stuff." He wrinkled his nose as if reading was the last thing he'd ever want to do. I wouldn't be surprised if that were true.

"Okay...well uh, we could make the book the beach, and one of the pages could be a wave to make it look like the ocean. Then the foam of the wave could be music notes that look like their floating up into the clouds or something." I shrugged, slumping back into my chair. I wasn't good at this, and my idea seemed a little more desperate than creative. But Percy nodded anyway.

"Sounds good to me. How do we make it 3D and texturized and stuff?" I rolled my eyes.

"Well for the clouds, we could tear a cotton ball to make tiny tufts of cloud, or cotton, whatever. For the sand we could put some of that craft sand into the paint. The water, we could use one of those painting knife things to make the waves swoop up off of the canvas." I suggested, not knowing what I was even talking about. Art was not my thing, and I think Percy could tell by the way he was trying not to laugh. I scowled in return.

"Well okay then. Oh! Oh oh oh! He exclaimed, jumping up and opening one of the drawers at my station. He pulled out a tub of clay.

"We could smear this onto the canvas for the water, then paint on top of it or something! The for the foam of the water...hmm. Styrofoam? I don't know. Then we could use those fun little rhinestones for the music notes!"

I smirked at how excited he was getting, he was digging through the drawer and pulling out each material as he suggested them.

"What's so amusing, Chase?" He asked, and I frowned at him using my last name.

"Firstly, don't call me Chase. Secondly, you seem to really like art class. I didn't see you as the artistic type."

"I do like art class, because we get to make a mess and not get in trouble for it. Plus it doesn't take a lot of thought. Also, if I can't call you Chase what do I call you?" He asked, his back facing me as he set up a few things onto the table.

"Annabeth? My name?" I said, my tone like duh, are you dumb?

"Hm. Maybe." He turned around to look at me and he handed me a paintbrush.