PJO oneshots/ headcannons

28-- Scared

"I'm scared."

"Of what?"

"I'm scared of what's out there."

"There nothing there to be scared of."

"There is. Everything is out there. And I'm scared."

* * *

"Why do you like reading so much?"

The question came from nowhere.

Emmie turned away from her laptop. He was sitting across from her with his back to the bookshelf. His head was turned slightly towards her, but his eyes were trained on the old carpet.

"What?"

He looked up then, with just his eyes. "Why do you like reading so much?"

She suddenly felt self conscious. Her glasses felt too big and heavy on her nose. Her hair was floating aimlessly around her face and she resisted the urge to fix it a little. The simple question turned her bones to ice, but maybe it was the way he was looking at her. 

She wasn't used to him looking at her like that, with that inquisitive wonder in his eyes. Matt wasn't the kind of guy who usually asked deep, philosophical questions. He was more the sort of person who damned everything else and skateboarded his way through life. 

But then he smiled.  "Come on, it was an easy question."

"I don't know," she said. "You can't just ask someone why they like reading."

"There's gotta be a reason." Matt stretched out his legs in front of him and made himself comfortable on the pile of cushions he was sitting on.

"Okay, fine then." Emmie said. "Why do you like playing video games."

He shrugged. "The thrill of it. It's fun."

"Exactly."

He looked at her weirdly. "How can reading be thrilling? You just sit there, for hours, looking at words."

"Interesting words. Exceptional words."

"No, but really? Why do you like reading?"

She stared at him.

"Why," He clarified, sitting up now. "Why do you like fictional characters so much? Why do you like Percy Jackson?"

Emmie laughed. "You had to bring up Percy Jackson."

"The book series you've been into for," He counted on his fingers. "Five years, now. You even made me help you make him a blue cupcake on August the eighteenth." He reminded her pointedly.

"Yes, well I wasn't going to ignore his birthday."

"Exactly!" Matt cried out. An older girl standing nearby shot them a dirty look. Matt winced and lowered his voice. "You didn't have to make him a cupcake. He's a fictional character. Why do you like this fictional character so much that you had to make him a blue cupcake."