Alternatively

this is boring.

One day, he was watching the clouds.

They were nice, the fluffy kind you hear about in greeting cards and Hallmark movies. He watched them with his arms crossed behind his head and legs propped up against the tree trunk. They lazily drifted across the bright blue sky, riding the same breeze that ruffled the pine needles above him. He could smell the sap from the bark and the sweet grass warmed in the sun and the lemon shampoo from Annabeth's tousled curls.

He could hear her turning the page of her book and briefly, he glanced over to where she slouched against the tree. Her finger ran along with her eyes across the pages and occasionally, her lips would mouth through a word or two. The wind ruffled her hair again and he settled back to his previous activity of cloud watching.

Another day, his back ached as he stood up straight.

The sun blistered across his skin and sweat seeped through his shirt. Waves of heat rippled across the strawberry fields and he had to squint to see the Big House.

Percy nudged his basket of berries across the ground with his foot and looked out over the plants. A couple other campers were picking strawberries and a son of Demeter talked with some satyrs about the new Miracle Grow substitute. It would be another hour until lunch and he had half a row to finish before then. He groaned, crouching back down and wishing he had worn his hat.

Maybe some time later that week, or even the week after, he was washing dishes with Annabeth.

They were both tired, both sore from teaching and training. He supposed he was lucky that Annabeth was thoughtful enough to help him with chores, as he was a one person cabin assigned to full cabin responsibilities. They had gotten into the habit of doing that sort of thing a whole while back, sometime around tenth grade. Even if it was her turn to manage chores, he would tag along, if not just to talk. It was familiar, a routine.

His finger had a fresh callous in formation from archery and it rubbed against the rubber of the glove he wore. Every time he squeezed the lava gun, it was like peeling more skin off with iffy precision.

"You should have put a band-aid on it."

He shrugged, snagging a plate that had been floating in the magma. "It's no big deal."

She rolled her eyes and pulled her gloves higher up her arms. "You're a baby."

"You're a baby."

Her smile was kind of gorgeous in the lava glow.

They scrubbed the many pots and plates and cutlery, talking in short spurts and only slightly joking about spraying each other with the lava guns. Percy burned himself a few times adjusting the thick apron, drops of literal fire rolling off his gloves and sizzling through his shirt. It was an old shirt, one he reserved for dish duty and clearly showed it, what with the many burn holes.

That weekend, he drove up to dog sit for his mom.

She and Paul were taking a vacation before the baby was due, relaxing some place in the Caribbean. Their Cocker Spaniel, Charlie, needed to be looked after and Percy didn't mind the trip.

He sat in the window seat, listening to the sound of traffic and flipping through an old comic book he had found under his bed. Charlie was sleeping in a patch of sun, a slobbery tennis ball a couple feet from his twitching paws. He kind of reminded him of Mrs. O'Leary; the black dog hair that clung to everything and floppy tongue that flung drool everywhere was no big deal.

The apartment smelled like clean laundry and cinnamon, smelled like home. His mom always kept a candle lit when they were home and had several plug ins to make up for the times nothing was burning. There were fresh vacuum marks in the carpet and he liked the little rainbows that reflected out of the crystal bowl on the coffee table.