My series of portraits of the Riordanverse gals

I’ll always cheer you on

words: 5.9k | percabeth | chapter 2

summary: Annabeth never imagined herself as a cheerleader and neither did anyone else. But throughout her experiences, she not only finds love in the sport and for her teammates, but in her best friend too.

chapter summary: Annabeth finds out whether or not she made the cheerleading team. Summer shenanigans ensue as she, Percy, and Grover come to terms with starting high school in August.

Annabeth was attempting to do a split as she and the other aspiring cheerleaders waited out in the hallway for their number to be called. Tryouts were officially underway as the first person was called into the gym for individual scoring. They were numbered off randomly and Annabeth was dead fucking last of the dozen candidates that were trying out.

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I’ll always cheer you on

words: 3.6k | percabeth | chapter 1

summary: Annabeth never imagined herself as a cheerleader and neither did anyone else. But throughout her experience she finds love not only in the sport and for her teammates, but in her best friend too.

Annabeth found herself standing alone in the middle of her future high school gymnasium, a pamphlet in hand that listed all of the different clubs and sports the school had to offer. It was April, which meant it was time for freshman orientation for all the eighth graders. After a long and boring assembly and quick tour of campus, the small intimidated students were corralled into the gymnasium for an activities fair.

She, Percy, and Grover started out in a group but as they walked around all the different tables they began to split off, different clubs or sports gaining their attention. As Annabeth surveyed the room she saw Grover at the environmental club table and Percy was standing in line at the table for boys basketball. Basketball huh? Annabeth thought. She’s only ever seen the black-haired boy play a few times when they were at summer camp.

Just as she was about to make her way toward them, someone- a girl- called out to her from her left.

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And You’ll Be Mine

If you ask her, Annabeth can tell you the exact moment she began falling for Percy Jackson.

It was any other Saturday afternoon, and Annabeth found herself agreeing to go skating with Percy. Long before basketball, Percy was an avid skater and would be at the skate park nearly every day after school. On rare occasions, Annabeth would join him and today was one of those days. It was very windy and Annabeth had donned her old pair of yellow rollerblades to accompany her friend to the park. As they skated around, hair kept getting in Annabeth’s eyes. Huffing in frustration, the brunette felt along her wrists for a scrunchie only to come up empty-handed. You’ve got to be kidding me, she thought to herself. Annabeth chose to ignore it at first but it was so annoyingly windy and she couldn’t even see where she was skating through her thin braids. She stomped her foot in frustration after about ten minutes and it nearly sent her feet out from under her until she felt someone’s arms loop under her elbows to catch her from behind.

“Whoa there, Annabee,” Percy warned, pushing her upright until she was stable again. “Don’t take it out on the skates bro.” He was still standing on his skateboard as she turned to face him.

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I’ll Be Your Biggest Fan

Percy could not honestly tell you when he had begun to fall for Annabeth Chase. Perhaps he could describe it in some poetic and grandeur way, something along the lines of ‘maybe I always knew, but one day it hit me like a rock skipping across a lake: bit by bit until I eventually sank in deep.’ Yeah, no.

In retrospect, it could have been the first time he saw her in her cheer uniform; black curls up in a high ponytail, a short skirt, and her cheeks dusted rosy pink. Or maybe it was the time she single-handedly knocked out Matt Sloan for bullying Grover. Now that was a fun day. (For Percy, not Matt.) Or perhaps it was the one time they were at his apartment after school and she said “bless you” to him seconds before he even knew he had to sneeze. That one had scared him. When he asked her about it she simply said, “Your nose twitches a couple of times and you get real quiet.” And that was that.

It didn’t matter, the details of when it happened exactly- all that Percy knew was that he was falling, and falling hard. Percy was often caught off guard by just how fast he was falling for his best friend. He was utterly screwed. Take, like, right now, for example.

Percy was messing on his phone as he sat in his stepdad’s blue Prius, waiting for his friend to leave her house so they could get to school.

Movement caught out of his peripheral vision caused the teen to look up and was met with… uh. Annabeth. In a skirt. In her cheerleading uniform. Her legs were completely exposed.

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Doodles and Sketches

There were about four different things Percy was currently focusing on and none of them was the math lesson being taught at the front of the class. With his bottom lip stuck between the clip on the side of his capped pen, the teen sat reclined in his desk chair trying to get the song Tainted Love out of his head. He had half the mind to not bang his head to the two percussive beats that repeat throughout the song.

Mrs. Dodds turned her back to the class to write down some long equation, and Percy rolled his head to his left to see his best friend in much the same predicament. One leg was crossed over the other, her gaze set dead ahead and her eyes miles away. She was twirling a strand of her curly hair in one of her hands. It was her signature ‘I have succumbed to daydreaming but I still look like I’m paying attention’ pose. Same bro, Percy thought.

He studied the blonde girl for a moment and noticed the notebook void of notes sitting on her desk. One thought spiraled into another before he was reminded of middle school and doodles and comic strips and suddenly a very entertaining idea sprung up into Percy’s mind. He snapped his head back just as Mrs. Dodds turned back around to face the class again. He swears he’s developed a sixth sense to the awful teacher at this point. Who could blame him anyway, the woman had a personal vendetta against him. When he questioned her about it one day, asking “Why are you so obsessed with me?” in his best Regina George impression, it cost him a week’s worth of detention and half his dignity.

He opened his notebook to a clean page and began drawing an old cartoon character that he and Annabeth had once drawn together. Annabeth was good with dialogue and facial expressions while Percy was good at drawing body language and actions. They were quite the pair in middle school, with their comic strips and short stories. All their friends and nearly half the student body eagerly awaited any new material they could draw up.

“One day, we’ll get published and we can be in the Sunday paper, it’ll be so awesome,” he remembers Annabeth telling him, all gap-toothed and wild curls. He believed her too. But then high school came along and they both got super busy and the hype and thoughts of publishers became all too unrealistic and hopeful. They maintained their friendship, of course, but the comics and drawings were a thing of the past for Percy and Annabeth.

He tugged lightly on one of his braids as he finished up the drawing. It was a cartoonish chicken slouched back in a desk with a text bubble saying ‘Man this class-’ and wrote a side note next to the drawing asking Annabeth to fill in the blank. When Mrs. Dodds wasn’t looking, he tossed it over to the distracted blonde who flinched at the movement, grey eyes coming back into focus. She looked at the folded note and then side-eyed the Black teen who pretended not to notice.

Percy watched out of the corner of his eye as she picked up the note and watched her face brighten as the sky does when the sun appears after a storm. She bit her lip to repress a laugh and a smile. She glanced over at him and he caught her eye, a glimmer of nostalgia in the irises of her eyes. Without being obvious, she grabbed her pencil and hunched over the piece of paper, brainstorming what she would fill in the blank with. Percy couldn’t help but bounce one of his legs up and down in eager anticipation, trying his hardest to keep his eyes on the front of the class.

Movement out of the corner of his eye and the swift little Plick! of the note landing on his desk forced Percy to smother a grin, opening the note while his eyes remained on the withering Mrs. Dodds. With her back turned once again, he looked down at the note. In Annabeth’s loopy handwriting, the chicken now said,

‘Man this class makes me want to go turn myself in at KFC’.

A repressed snicker escaped the boy’s mouth and he already felt Mrs. Dodd’s eyes fixated on him before he even looked up. With a small pause and then a sneer, the math teacher turned around and Percy immediately got to work.

He sketched out a chicken holding out a white flag of surrender with its wings, its head ducked in shame, and in front of it was the KFC logo. Satisfied with his work, the teen swiftly tossed the note onto his friend’s desk, keeping his head slightly turned to the side to see her reaction. Upon opening the note discreetly, Annabeth slapped a hand over her mouth while stifling a laugh. She scribbled something onto the note, her eyes trained up on the board, then tossed over the note.

Annabeth wrote, ‘Ever notice how Mrs. Dodds looks like an old leathery chicken?’

Percy wrote back, ‘WHAT’

‘Like. Think bat and chicken and evil.’

‘LMFAO. Like this?’

Percy drew what he interpreted Annabeth envisioned their horrid math teacher as, which bordered on a Greek mythological monster. When he tossed his finished work back to the blonde she pursed her lips so tightly her skin turned white. Turning her head slowly to him a single tear was streaming down her face as she shook silently with laughter. Percy whipped his head away, coughing into his shoulder to cover up his laugh.

Recovering only slightly, Percy noticed Mrs. Dodds glaring at him from her peripheral and he immediately sobered up. A few minutes passed and Percy nearly forgot he was in mid-note conversation with Annabeth when he picked up on her lemony scent as she leaned over to toss the note back to him. Not prepared for what he was about to witness, Percy opened the note quietly, like the calm before a storm. If someone were filming Annabeth and Percy right this moment, it would be titled ‘videos taken seconds before disaster.’

Annabeth wrote, ‘No like this LOL’ and beneath her words was probably one of the funniest drawings he’s ever seen. It was a messy sketch of Mrs. Dodds’ head except her eyes were completely black and she had a forked tongue. Her head was attached to a cartoon rotisserie chicken, her feet were the bone ends of the legs, and protruding from her back were bat-like wings. A speech bubble was above her that said, “Now, honey!”

Losing all sense of self-control, Percy dropped the note onto his desk, putting his head in his hands and shaking silently with laughter. Snickers erupted out of him which he tried to mask as him having a coughing fit. Annabeth let out some kind of squeak at the sight of her friend losing it and turned her entire body away from him as she felt tears streaming down her face from laughter. From an outside perspective, it looked like the two of them were having a stroke. From Mrs. Dodd’s perspective, it looked like two students who were about to be put in detention.

Forcing himself to calm down, Percy wiped a tear from his eye and noticed what could only be the angel of death looming over him. Upon opening his eyes to be met with his untimely fate (A.K.A Mrs. Dodds) Annabeth and Percy have never sobered up so quickly in their lives. Before he could hide the note with all of their drawings on it, the older woman snatched it off of his desk and glared daggers at the teen before inspecting what was on the paper. Percy couldn’t even look at her face so he glanced at Annabeth whose face was completely pale. The class was completely silent. The sounds of the clock ticking were amplified and Percy could feel a droplet of sweat drip down his neck. Glancing up at his horrible math teacher in fear she slowly crumpled the paper in her hands before whispering in the deadliest voice ever,

“Get out of my fucking class.”

Only the sounds of two chairs screeching across the linoleum and backpacks being grabbed in a rush could be heard as the two of them scrambled out of there. Percy was almost out the door when he saw Annabeth get her foot caught in the straps of her backpack nearly falling over. Come on, he mouthed to her in a state of panic. She glared at him as she hopped forward dumbly. Her face seemed to be saying, Don’t you think I’m trying?!

Detangling her feet as she caught up to him at the door, he grabbed her wrist and basically sprinted out into the hall. They didn’t stop running until they turned a corner, slamming against some lockers once they were far away. A janitor was at the end of the hall staring at them in confusion and they both waved at him sheepishly. Turning back towards each other, Annabeth had her hands on her knees while Percy leaned back against the wall with one hand on his head as they both caught their breaths. As if on cue, they broke out into a fit of giggles, Percy practically wheezing at the ridiculousness of it all.

“We’re dead. We’re so dead and I don’t even care,” the blonde laughed beside him, sliding down to the floor.

“Not you tripping over your fucking backpack,” Percy cackled.

“Stop oh my god,” she groaned out, swatting at Percy’s legs. The sound of a pager could be heard down the hall on their left and the two of them looked up to see a security guard walking toward them.

“You two, with me, now. We’re going to 330,” the man said sternly. They didn’t waste any time grabbing their stuff and following the man up to the third floor. Mrs. Dodds must have already called the office on them.

Room 330 was the designated classroom for in-school detentions, meaning if you got kicked out of class this was the place you were sent to. After-school detentions had a different location that was a lot stricter than room 330. Here the teacher just messed around on their phone and students were allowed to be on theirs as well. Situating themselves in the back, Annabeth slid her desk right next to Percy’s and got out a paper and pen. He didn’t say anything as she scribbled away for several minutes and he scrolled through his phone, trying to find a mindless game to play. She’d nudge him periodically and he’d nudge her back until he finally put his phone down to peek at what she was concentrating on so seriously.

“Don’t look yet,” she warned him, turning away and covering the paper with her hands.

“Then quit touching me, noob,” he poked at her. All he got in response was a half-hearted “Mm-hmm”.

He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, pulling lightly on her curls to watch them bounce back into place. He knew he was one of the only people to have this special privilege so he took advantage of it whenever he could.

About a minute later Annabeth was finally done. She slid the paper over to him with a proud smirk, her face practically beaming and Percy tried not to blush at the sight. Leaning forward to see what was on the paper, Percy looked at a complete recreation of their doodles and sketches from class. He could feel a lopsided grin slowly grow on his face as he stared in shock and endearment at her memory. She even wrote the conversation we had, he observed. The attention to detail made his stomach swoop.

Not trusting whatever word vomit would come out of his mouth, Percy grabbed Annabeth’s pen and decided to add on to the series they created. He showed Annabeth his work and she let out a snicker, grabbing the pen and paper from him and adding on more.

They spent the rest of the class going back and forth, trying to make the other laugh until they got in trouble again. (They were sent to the principal’s office about ten minutes later). Miraculously, but unsurprisingly, Annabeth managed to talk their way out of it. Somehow they only wound up with one after school detention which they served later that day with no issues.

By the time Percy got home that afternoon, he found the doodles they drew together folded up in his backpack. He looked over them again, tracing Annabeth’s loopy handwriting alongside his scribbled handwriting. A smile overtook his face, one that he only made when his friend crossed his mind, and he walked over to his desk. He put the paper in his designated “Annabeth drawer” which began as a collection of their old drawings but soon became a mess of objects associated with her.

Movie stubs, a half used lip balm container, a blue scrunchie, and a yellow hacky sack ball were just some of the few things arranged neatly in the drawer. He delicately placed the paper on top of the older sketches as if it was a valuable artifact. Which in a way it kind of was. Anything belonging to Annabeth Chase was almost as priceless as Annabeth herself.

Turning away from the desk, Percy realized he really needed to get started on his homework or risk falling behind. A certain blonde haired girl popped into his mind as he dialed a number, waiting for them to pick up.

“Wanna help me do my homework?” was the first thing he asked as soon as Annabeth picked up.

“Yeah yeah, I’m already on my way, loser,” he could hear her huff on the other end in a lighthearted tone.

“You’re the best, see you soon,” he smiled into the phone and hung up. He simply ignored the fluttering feeling in his chest as waited for his best friend to arrive.

Doodles and Sketches

There were about four different things Percy was currently focusing on and none of them was the math lesson being taught at the front of the class. With his bottom lip stuck between the clip on the side of his capped pen, the teen sat reclined in his desk chair trying to get the song Tainted Love out of his head. He had half the mind to not bang his head to the two percussive beats that repeat throughout the song.

Mrs. Dodds turned her back to the class to write down some long equation, and Percy rolled his head to his left to see his best friend in much the same predicament. One leg was crossed over the other, her gaze set dead ahead and her eyes miles away. She was twirling a strand of her curly hair in one of her hands. It was her signature ‘I have succumbed to daydreaming but I still look like I’m paying attention’ pose. Same bro, Percy thought.

He studied the blonde girl for a moment and noticed the notebook void of notes sitting on her desk. One thought spiraled into another before he was reminded of middle school and doodles and comic strips and suddenly a very entertaining idea sprung up into Percy’s mind. He snapped his head back just as Mrs. Dodds turned back around to face the class again. He swears he’s developed a sixth sense to the awful teacher at this point. Who could blame him anyway, the woman had a personal vendetta against him. When he questioned her about it one day, asking “Why are you so obsessed with me?” in his best Regina George impression, it cost him a week’s worth of detention and half his dignity.

He opened his notebook to a clean page and began drawing an old cartoon character that he and Annabeth had once drawn together. Annabeth was good with dialogue and facial expressions while Percy was good at drawing body language and actions. They were quite the pair in middle school, with their comic strips and short stories. All their friends and nearly half the student body eagerly awaited any new material they could draw up.

“One day, we’ll get published and we can be in the Sunday paper, it’ll be so awesome,” he remembers Annabeth telling him, all gap-toothed and wild curls. He believed her too. But then high school came along and they both got super busy and the hype and thoughts of publishers became all too unrealistic and hopeful. They maintained their friendship, of course, but the comics and drawings were a thing of the past for Percy and Annabeth.

He tugged lightly on one of his braids as he finished up the drawing. It was a cartoonish chicken slouched back in a desk with a text bubble saying ‘Man this class-’ and wrote a side note next to the drawing asking Annabeth to fill in the blank. When Mrs. Dodds wasn’t looking, he tossed it over to the distracted blonde who flinched at the movement, grey eyes coming back into focus. She looked at the folded note and then side-eyed the Black teen who pretended not to notice.

Percy watched out of the corner of his eye as she picked up the note and watched her face brighten as the sky does when the sun appears after a storm. She bit her lip to repress a laugh and a smile. She glanced over at him and he caught her eye, a glimmer of nostalgia in the irises of her eyes. Without being obvious, she grabbed her pencil and hunched over the piece of paper, brainstorming what she would fill in the blank with. Percy couldn’t help but bounce one of his legs up and down in eager anticipation, trying his hardest to keep his eyes on the front of the class.

Movement out of the corner of his eye and the swift little Plick! of the note landing on his desk forced Percy to smother a grin, opening the note while his eyes remained on the withering Mrs. Dodds. With her back turned once again, he looked down at the note. In Annabeth’s loopy handwriting, the chicken now said,

‘Man this class makes me want to go turn myself in at KFC’.

A repressed snicker escaped the boy’s mouth and he already felt Mrs. Dodd’s eyes fixated on him before he even looked up. With a small pause and then a sneer, the math teacher turned around and Percy immediately got to work.

He sketched out a chicken holding out a white flag of surrender with its wings, its head ducked in shame, and in front of it was the KFC logo. Satisfied with his work, the teen swiftly tossed the note onto his friend’s desk, keeping his head slightly turned to the side to see her reaction. Upon opening the note discreetly, Annabeth slapped a hand over her mouth while stifling a laugh. She scribbled something onto the note, her eyes trained up on the board, then tossed over the note.

Annabeth wrote, ‘Ever notice how Mrs. Dodds looks like an old leathery chicken?’

Percy wrote back, ‘WHAT’

‘Like. Think bat and chicken and evil.’

‘LMFAO. Like this?’

Percy drew what he interpreted Annabeth envisioned their horrid math teacher as, which bordered on a Greek mythological monster. When he tossed his finished work back to the blonde she pursed her lips so tightly her skin turned white. Turning her head slowly to him a single tear was streaming down her face as she shook silently with laughter. Percy whipped his head away, coughing into his shoulder to cover up his laugh.

Recovering only slightly, Percy noticed Mrs. Dodds glaring at him from her peripheral and he immediately sobered up. A few minutes passed and Percy nearly forgot he was in mid-note conversation with Annabeth when he picked up on her lemony scent as she leaned over to toss the note back to him. Not prepared for what he was about to witness, Percy opened the note quietly, like the calm before a storm. If someone were filming Annabeth and Percy right this moment, it would be titled ‘videos taken seconds before disaster.’

Annabeth wrote, ‘No like this LOL’ and beneath her words was probably one of the funniest drawings he’s ever seen. It was a messy sketch of Mrs. Dodds’ head except her eyes were completely black and she had a forked tongue. Her head was attached to a cartoon rotisserie chicken, her feet were the bone ends of the legs, and protruding from her back were bat-like wings. A speech bubble was above her that said, “Now, honey!”

Losing all sense of self-control, Percy dropped the note onto his desk, putting his head in his hands and shaking silently with laughter. Snickers erupted out of him which he tried to mask as him having a coughing fit. Annabeth let out some kind of squeak at the sight of her friend losing it and turned her entire body away from him as she felt tears streaming down her face from laughter. From an outside perspective, it looked like the two of them were having a stroke. From Mrs. Dodd’s perspective, it looked like two students who were about to be put in detention.

Forcing himself to calm down, Percy wiped a tear from his eye and noticed what could only be the angel of death looming over him. Upon opening his eyes to be met with his untimely fate (A.K.A Mrs. Dodds) Annabeth and Percy have never sobered up so quickly in their lives. Before he could hide the note with all of their drawings on it, the older woman snatched it off of his desk and glared daggers at the teen before inspecting what was on the paper. Percy couldn’t even look at her face so he glanced at Annabeth whose face was completely pale. The class was completely silent. The sounds of the clock ticking were amplified and Percy could feel a droplet of sweat drip down his neck. Glancing up at his horrible math teacher in fear she slowly crumpled the paper in her hands before whispering in the deadliest voice ever,

“Get out of my fucking class.”

Only the sounds of two chairs screeching across the linoleum and backpacks being grabbed in a rush could be heard as the two of them scrambled out of there. Percy was almost out the door when he saw Annabeth get her foot caught in the straps of her backpack nearly falling over. Come on, he mouthed to her in a state of panic. She glared at him as she hopped forward dumbly. Her face seemed to be saying, Don’t you think I’m trying?!

Detangling her feet as she caught up to him at the door, he grabbed her wrist and basically sprinted out into the hall. They didn’t stop running until they turned a corner, slamming against some lockers once they were far away. A janitor was at the end of the hall staring at them in confusion and they both waved at him sheepishly. Turning back towards each other, Annabeth had her hands on her knees while Percy leaned back against the wall with one hand on his head as they both caught their breaths. As if on cue, they broke out into a fit of giggles, Percy practically wheezing at the ridiculousness of it all.

“We’re dead. We’re so dead and I don’t even care,” the blonde laughed beside him, sliding down to the floor.

“Not you tripping over your fucking backpack,” Percy cackled.

“Stop oh my god,” she groaned out, swatting at Percy’s legs. The sound of a pager could be heard down the hall on their left and the two of them looked up to see a security guard walking toward them.

“You two, with me, now. We’re going to 330,” the man said sternly. They didn’t waste any time grabbing their stuff and following the man up to the third floor. Mrs. Dodds must have already called the office on them.

Room 330 was the designated classroom for in-school detentions, meaning if you got kicked out of class this was the place you were sent to. After-school detentions had a different location that was a lot stricter than room 330. Here the teacher just messed around on their phone and students were allowed to be on theirs as well. Situating themselves in the back, Annabeth slid her desk right next to Percy’s and got out a paper and pen. He didn’t say anything as she scribbled away for several minutes and he scrolled through his phone, trying to find a mindless game to play. She’d nudge him periodically and he’d nudge her back until he finally put his phone down to peek at what she was concentrating on so seriously.

“Don’t look yet,” she warned him, turning away and covering the paper with her hands.

“Then quit touching me, noob,” he poked at her. All he got in response was a half-hearted “Mm-hmm”.

He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, pulling lightly on her curls to watch them bounce back into place. He knew he was one of the only people to have this special privilege so he took advantage of it whenever he could.

About a minute later Annabeth was finally done. She slid the paper over to him with a proud smirk, her face practically beaming and Percy tried not to blush at the sight. Leaning forward to see what was on the paper, Percy looked at a complete recreation of their doodles and sketches from class. He could feel a lopsided grin slowly grow on his face as he stared in shock and endearment at her memory. She even wrote the conversation we had, he observed. The attention to detail made his stomach swoop.

Not trusting whatever word vomit would come out of his mouth, Percy grabbed Annabeth’s pen and decided to add on to the series they created. He showed Annabeth his work and she let out a snicker, grabbing the pen and paper from him and adding on more.

They spent the rest of the class going back and forth, trying to make the other laugh until they got in trouble again. (They were sent to the principal’s office about ten minutes later). Miraculously, but unsurprisingly, Annabeth managed to talk their way out of it. Somehow they only wound up with one after school detention which they served later that day with no issues.

By the time Percy got home that afternoon, he found the doodles they drew together folded up in his backpack. He looked over them again, tracing Annabeth’s loopy handwriting alongside his scribbled handwriting. A smile overtook his face, one that he only made when his friend crossed his mind, and he walked over to his desk. He put the paper in his designated “Annabeth drawer” which began as a collection of their old drawings but soon became a mess of objects associated with her.

Movie stubs, a half used lip balm container, a blue scrunchie, and a yellow hacky sack ball were just some of the few things arranged neatly in the drawer. He delicately placed the paper on top of the older sketches as if it was a valuable artifact. Which in a way it kind of was. Anything belonging to Annabeth Chase was almost as priceless as Annabeth herself.

Turning away from the desk, Percy realized he really needed to get started on his homework or risk falling behind. A certain blonde haired girl popped into his mind as he dialed a number, waiting for them to pick up.

“Wanna help me do my homework?” was the first thing he asked as soon as Annabeth picked up.

“Yeah yeah, I’m already on my way, loser,” he could hear her huff on the other end in a lighthearted tone.

“You’re the best, see you soon,” he smiled into the phone and hung up. He simply ignored the fluttering feeling in his chest as waited for his best friend to arrive.