Percabeth Dirty One Shots and Drabbles

faster than a hairpin trigger

@TheRedSourPatchKid thank you for reminding me this UNFINISHED fic exists 🫨😤

@medeaa on ao3

LEX NOTE: ANOTHER STORY (THAT I WANT TO KIND OF TEST ON YOU GUYS :) )

Percy's nervous.

Really, really nervous.

But he's also really broke and really desperate and really craving real food after an entire week of ramen and canned tuna that tasted a lot like cat food, so he musters whatever courage he can scrounge up and pushes open the glass door to the studio. It's a dingy little music shop inside, with dank carpeting, harsh fluorescent light fixtures, and shelf upon shelf of labeled cassettes, CDs, vinyl records that make him drool a little. It smells like an attic, in a good way, and Percy thinks to himself that this isn't the worst place to spend his Thursday evenings, even if it means having the constant anxiety of accidentally pressing the wrong button hanging over his head. The radio is playing softly on the intercom; Percy can hear a guy telling a story about something straight out of the Frat Boy Bible.

By the back corner, he spots a sort of booth, boxed in with top-half windows, bottom-half white peeling walls. Inside, he can just make out a mess of heavy black cables and wires and blinking lights in the dim lighting that make this feel like more of what it is: a college radio station. The biggest light he can see is a panic-alarm sort of red, under which sits a sign that reads in white letters on a black background: ON AIR. Then he notices that there's someone in there, with a headset and their face to a microphone, the moving mouth matching up with the audio piping over the intercom. Percy vaguely recognizes him as a senior who enters the econ lecture hall after his elective class finishes. He's wearing a bright red beanie that covers his blond hair- it's the brightest thing in the dingy corner.

Percy walks around awkwardly, trying to figure out who he's supposed to talk to about his new job. He's in as much shock as the next person that he actually landed it. He has no idea how he passed the phone interview, and he barely remembers filling out the application. All he knows is that every Thursday night from now on, he has to talk for a while without swearing in between songs and try to be funny, and in exchange he can buy some apples and get Spotify Premium again. And also play We Is Shore Dedicated on the real actual radio.

He awkwardly makes his way over to the booth, where he sees that it's actually much bigger than he originally thought, the extension blocked by a huge shelf filled with jazz classics. Inside, there's a guy with a scraggly goatee, wildly curly brown hair, a rasta cap, and the flannel that Percy thinks he saw the homeless guy outside his old building wear. He looks confused and dazed, but maybe that's just his round glasses. Once he spots Percy, his expression brightens and he scurries to open the door to the booth and closes it quietly behind him. He walks with a limp, Percy notices. Like he has hooves. And then he wonders why he used that simile, it's a little weird.

"Hey," he says, and Percy gets a load of pungent espresso-breath. He reaches out with both hands to shake one of Percy's. "You must be Percy, I'm really glad you applied. I'm Grover, I'm on tech. Luke will be wrapping up his broadcast soon."

"Thanks for having me," he says, remembering that it's probably not good work etiquette to add on I have no idea why you did though.

Grover leads him over to the booth and lets him through. Percy checks his watch: 7:51. They start on the hour, just after prime time rush. He's been briefed on what he's expected to do, that the program mostly consists of caller requests, a few of his and his cohost's own choosing, and a little bit of banter in between. Mostly music, Grover had assured him. It's not scripted but I'm sure you and Annabeth will hit it off.