Going Viral

Chapter 6

May 30th

The cafe closes at 6pm so Annabeth and Percy are forced to relocate. They debate walking through the park but when they pass it looks relatively busy so Percy suggests they go to his apartment. She sends a text to Piper, giving her the mandatory update that they use when they meet new people. Piper sends her a thumbs up and tells her that she's watching her location and has her phone on ringer. Annabeth feels perfectly safe with Percy but it's still reassuring to know that someone's got her back.

"Okay, so what's your worst fear?" Annabeth asks as they walk along the bank to his apartment.

Percy pouts while he thinks. "I could be really tragic and say 'losing the people I love' but I get really freaked out in small spaces, so that." When she scoffs, Percy rolls his eyes. "Well what about you?"

"I'm severely arachnophobic." She answers simply.

He looks puzzled for a minute. Annabeth notices the way his eyebrows draw together and smiles to herself. "Spiders? Right?"

"That's the one."

~~~

Percy's apartment is modest. It's bigger than Annabeth's sure, but not by a ton.  They sit on the couch, TV playing in the background while they talk.

20 minutes into the conversation, Annabeth spots several instruments in the corner of the room piled up neatly and buried amongst amps and sound equipment. There's an acoustic guitar, similar to the one Piper has 'for decoration', it's red wood and glossed but looks a little roughed up, presumably from use. An electric is beside it, Annabeth spots a broken string and wonders absently if that's what he toured with. Leaning against the wall is a small keyboard, no good for properly playing as the keys are so tiny, but she imagines its more for notation purposes. There's a basket of various shakers and bells overflowing on the floor, a guitar bag that looks like it might be occupied and a white, glossed ukulele.

Annabeth can't help but gravitate the conversation towards the instruments. She loves music and misses messing about in the practice rooms at school with Hazel and Piper. Despite having a ukulele in her apartment and a better keyboard than Percy's, she looks at all the instruments longingly. If Percy notices, he's not offended.

Eventually, he asks, "You play?" and gets up show her the instruments.

She shrugged. "I can almost play piano - chords and simple melodies - and I have a uke, but my hands are too small for all the finger positions. If a song's in C major, I can just about manage."

His eyes are soft when she meets them and Annabeth feels something twisting in her gut that aches for him to look at her like that forever.

Lifting her palm to prove her difficultly, Annabeth speaks, "See, too small."

Percy flattens his own palm against hers and snorts when his fingers tower above hers. "Why are you hands so cold?" He exclaims while he pokes fun at her little hands. "Are you cold blooded?"

"Actually, humans are warm blooded. But statistically, women are more likely to have cold hands and feet than men because on average, they have less muscle mass." She spouts.

Dazed, Percy nodded and cleared his throat, putting his hand down.

They settle on the couch again and put on Harry Potter. They've both seen it before but it allows them to hold a discussion without missing any plot points. Percy confesses his mild identity crisis over his Hogwarts house. Annabeth informs him she's a Ravenclaw and he admits that's the only one he's certain that he doesn't belong in.

"You said you feared losing the people you love, right? Sounds pretty Hufflepuff to me."

Annabeth has said it before but it still rings true: you can learn a lot about a person from their Harry Potter commentary. Percy's favorite character is whichever Weasley is in the scene - but Molly whenever they're all on screen. She notices that Percy is very vocal whenever any of the adult figures in Harry's life does something stupid and he doesn't stop complaining about Umbridge until they switch to watching the next movie.

"Who does she think she is? Absolute psycho, worse than Voldemort."

They're not watching them in order and instead are watching their favorite ones first, so they begin with Order of the Phoenix and movie on to Goblet of Fire. Sometime through the second movie, Percy's roommate comes to join them and they order pizza.

hyperpiper heyo, hope youre havin a good time bby but its gettin late

Annabeth checks her message and then the time. 11:16pm. Percy was good company and Grover seemed nice enough and time had just slipped past her. Reluctantly, Annabeth says her goodbyes.

"It was nice to finally meet you, we should do this again sometime." Percy smiled, leaning on the doorframe. He'd offered to walk her home but she assured him that she'd be okay. An Uber would be quicker and much warmer.

"Absolutely. I don't know what your schedule looks like, rockstar, but hopefully there's room for little old Annabeth to worm her way in."

She's trying to be casual but there's something stirring in her stomach. He's famous, she reminds herself. So is she, technically, but he's a world famous celebrity. Something about this A-lister wanting to spend his time with her seems laughable. Maybe he's just having some fun before he releases a new album and heads out on tour again, that sounded about right. Annabeth wasn't a destination, not who anyone wanted to spend their time with, she was a perfectly pleasant motel people stopped at on their travels before they got where they wanted to be. That's how things were with her mom, her dad, hell, even her childhood best friends had chewed her up and stuck her somewhere out of sight like a piece of old gum. With the exception of Piper, no one had stayed around for long. Most of her friends were inherited from Piper anyway, even Hazel.

Percy doesn't mention the faraway look in her eyes but offers her a small smile.

"Text me when you're home safe."

"I will. Thank you for today."

"Don't mention it."

Walking away, she feels guilty for taking up his time, but she glances back at him and catches the flush of pink that peers over his collar onto his cheeks and thinks maybe he likes her company. She certainly likes his.