High School For Percy

Boston

Hey there everyone.

Seeing as I have received an overwhelming consensus to complete this work, I will be doing so. Just for you, my beloved heathens. 

Annabeth POV

On the way back from Boston, I ran into three complications. I was tired. Annoyed. Still reeling over the discovery that even my most normal cousin was tangled in the painful world of the gods. 

Percy's apartment door was unlocked when I arrived. The knob fell open easily under my hands. Somehow, I didn't note the clambering sounds of company on the other side of the door. 

"Percy, you have got to start locking that door," I reprimanded him while I hoisted my duffle bag into the living room. I didn't get far. 

"Annabeth!" Thalia ran from across the room to greet me, wearing a pair of men's jeans and a worn out t-shirt that had zero references to maiming popular feminine icons. 

"Thals," I greeted her in return as she flung her arms around my shoulders. "What are you wearing?"

"We were playing truth or dare, I had to switch clothes with that guy." She gestured vaguely towards one of Percy's school friends that I'd met before I went to Boston. He was wearing Thalia's signature set of Hunter gear and looking very unhappy about it. 

He pressed his lips together in a thin line to acknowledge my presence. I nodded at him to return the pleasantry before stepping back completely from Thalia's inspection. 

"Percy, can I speak to you in the kitchen for a moment please?" I gave him a pleading look and dropped my bag in the corner by the shoes. 

"Yeah, course," he blurted out in his jumbling sort of way. He smiled at me as he stood up from his chair, and I had to look away, so I wouldn't feel the guilt of what I was about to ask him just yet. 

The guy wearing Thalia's shirt oohed like a middle schooler watching his classmate get brought out to the hallway. I shot him a glare with just enough heat behind it to shut him up and walked under the archway that led into the kitchen. 

Because of New York's increasing appreciation of open floor plan layouts that allowed for an, admittedly, efficient use of space, getting out of the line of sight, and hopefully earshot, was only possible if we pressed up against the left side counters and talked like we were making a shady business deal. But, Annabeth, you berate me, there are so many rooms in the apartment, surely you, of all people, could come up with a better  solution. 

The thing is, I had a favor to ask, and I learned a long time ago that favors went over better when people were in a good mood, so...

"Cookie?" I held one out to him from the plate on top of the microwave. 

He took it, but there was something else in the fold of his fingers, something different than distracted.

"You know you don't have to bribe me for things, right?" He broke the cookie in half.

A tired sigh escaped my lungs, and I dropped my eyes to my shoelaces. Then, when the dirt caking the cotton wasn't enough to calm me down, I pulled my hands over my eyes and pressed my fingers into my hair where it had started to fall out from my ponytail. 

Then he put his hand on my shoulder, and I just had to look at him, the stupid idiot.

"Hey," he whispered so softly my heart almost quieted. "What's wrong? Is everything okay with your cousin?"

That might be a good place to start; I thought to myself.

"Yeah, I mean he's alive, or...no, he isn't." Percy's eyes started flicking back and forth over my face in that way they always did when he was waiting for me to explain. "He's the son of a Norse god, and last week he fell from a bridge to his heroic death, which, apparently, is enough to get him into Valhalla, so now he's a ghost with a quest."