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Frank stared at his cup, considering if it was worth a shot. Caffeine never helped his nerves, and this was an exciting occasion, he had to be at his best.
“If you stare at it enough, it will drink itself’ Hazel mocked, staring at him, already finishing her second cup.
“I’m too nervous,” he said again, holding down the urges to bite his fingernails.
“It’s not a big deal, okay? It’s just Octavian. He isn’t that scary”
“Well, it was not your death that someone predicted” he scoffed, taking a sip of the coffee, and immediately twisting his face in a disgusted expression.
“Octavian predicts deaths three times a week. And you know how many of those die? None. Don’t worry”
It had been over an hour since they left Octavian’s place, after a horrible Ouija session, where he predicted tragic things happening to, an over scared Frank. Hazel, on the other hand, had known Octavian lonnger and wasn’t bothered by it.
“Come on; let’s take a walk outside in the sun. It might help you out” she suggested, taking his hand.
If there was one thing that Frank couldn’t complain about Hazel is that she excelled at dealing with complicated situations. Complicated situations, meaning him panicking constantly.
Hazel was short and skinny, and looked like someone could dismantle her if they weren’t careful enough around her; it looked even worse when she was near Frank. Pale, big and looking like he could break a tree with his bare hands. However, anyone that knew them for thirty seconds or more could see that: a. Frank was sweet and b. Hazel was the tough one.
And maybe they liked that they were so different from what they appeared to be. It kept things more fun.
“Okay, maybe he was just messing with my head” Frank finally said, when they were walking by the beach
“There you go” Hazel smiled at him, “He does it on purpose, really.”
“But can he predict anything at all?” Frank asked, curious.
“He got some things right, it’s true. But he did very general predictions, so…” she shrugged, not wanting to worry Frank any more. In fact, Octavian had an 88% rate of making right predictions. But she couldn’t say that to her boyfriend, or else he might just have a heart attack (and make that 88%, 89%)
“I’ll go buy an ice-cream,” she announced, letting go of her hand and moving towards the shop on the corner.
Before he could even complain that she was too obsessed with ice cream, she was gone, and he was left alone. It also took him .1 seconds to see a known face in the crowd. Frank had eyes that could make an eagle jealous
However, it didn’t made sense.
“I might be going crazy,” he said, staring into the distance, not even blinking.
“What is now?” she asked, looking in the same direction, but clearly not seeing the same thing.
“Jason Grace” he simply said.
“What about him?”
“Jason Grace. Holding hands. On a beach”
“Okay, that might be you going crazy” she agreed, nodding, squinting to see in the distance.
In a silent agreement, they decided to move closer to further investigate. Turns out that was, indeed, Jason holding hands on a beach, and whispering, like the most ridiculously in love people do.
“Our Jason Grace, on a beach, on a romantic date” she said, faking an emotional voice “Oh, how times flies by” she giggled “We should go talk to them”
“I don’t think we should interrupt-“
“Hey, Grace!” Hazel shouted, not even letting Frank finish his sentence, over heads, making Jason‘s head snap in her direction. “Still remember us?” she smiled and pointed at Frank standing by her side. She waited until he moved closer, because she couldn’t simply keep screaming in the middle of the beach. “We used to sit together to get coffee every day, but now you seem too busy with…” she gestured at Percy.
“It’s the summer” he smiled and pulled Hazel into a hug, the girl almost completely disappeared into his arms “Give me a break from you guys” he hugged Frank too, and now it was his turn to disappear.
“You could never get rid of us” she smiled, tangling her fingers in Frank’s.
“Percy, these are Hazel and Frank. We did- do Drama Club together,” he explained and Percy smiled embarrassed. He wasn’t very good at introductions. “Hazel, Frank, this is my... uh... friend, Percy” now Jason had a big smile. It also took .01 seconds to Frank to see the friend blush, just a little.
Hazel squinted, doubting, but didn’t said anything. She remembered quite clearly Jason passionately promising to not fall in love and not to date until he was 28, PHD, and probably in NASA. Or maybe it was just the alcohol talking; they had a killer end of year party
“Now that’s surprising,” Hazel teased. “We didn’t heard of you at all,” she told Percy, “Apparently Jason wants to keep you all for himself” she smiled and suppressed the So this time he might be serious about a guy!
“It’s the middle of the summer, give me a break” Jason smiled.
“Well, we text literally all the time, and you never thought of talking about your boyfriend” Hazel shook her head.
Jason stuttered hesitating, “I keep forgetting to tell you…” and that was the best answer he could find. Hazel was disappointed. They had been working on his lying and that was just plain awfulness. Still, he hadn't denied the boyfriend part, which she considered success.
“Right” Frank nodded, sarcastically.
“If you forget your boyfriend… then you must forget other stuff too.” Hazel said, before he could protest. “Which means we have a lot of catching up to do”
“We should go on a double date, then” Percy finally said, and all eyes turned to him, as if he had just said something horrible.
“I can do better: Annabeth is holding a movie night. We could go” Hazel proposed.
“I’m not sure…” Jason hesitated.
“It’s a good idea,” Percy agreed.
“It’s a great idea” Frank smiled.
“It’s not a great idea”
Ever since they met, they had been hanging out together almost every day, but he didn’t meet any of Jason’s friends. Even though he knew all of them by name, and many things about them (Jason had let him read the texts on his phone, which Percy considered major trusting) but there were no faces to the names.
“Is this supposed to make me freak out or something?” Percy chuckled “I mean, I’ve met your mother.”
“My mom is awesome.” Jason started “But my friends…” he didn’t completed the sentence.
Which made Percy nervous. Really nervous. What if they all hate me? Was the first thing he thought, and then it was haunting at the back of his head through all of afternoon.
They spent the previous night together, and Percy insisted on learning all he could on all of Jason’s friend. From Dakota’s weird Instagram (plus a nice little chat with him, just past 1AM (I swear he is much nicer when he is sober and during the day)) to Annabeth’s feminist rants on her blog.
“So Annabeth is holding the party?” He tried to remember all of the things he knew about her, as they walked towards her house. “She is the one that you go to school with, right?”
“Exactly” Jason smiled proudly and walked by Percy’s side. “And she has been obsessed with these movies by creepy directors and unknown actors”
“So it should be fun, right?” Percy mocked and Jason laughed.
“You’ll see” he punched Percy lightly “my friends are really nice. All of them”
“Even Octavian?” Percy asked, raising an eyebrow, because he had heard some terrible things about that guy.
“Even Octavian”
“I though you hated him.”
“I don’t hate Octavian” Jason explained “But everyone else seem to. I really don’t know what they have against him. Sure, he is annoying and sometimes a pain in the ass, but he is just trying too hard, poor guy” he shook his head. “Besides, whenever he is not being pressured, he is a really nice guy”
Percy had to adapt his mental image of Octavian to that new information. “Nobody else?” he asked, trying to remember any other names.
“…Reyna” Jason said, almost whispering.
Percy understood why he left that for the end. Reyna was Jason’s ex-girlfriend, and according to everyone on his gang, she was awesome.
“Is what they said about her true?” Percy asked, hesitantly.
“About her being awesome? Yes.” he smiled. “She is one of my favorite people ever. But it’s not like that between us, you know.” He added, when he saw Percy’s frown “She’s my friend and that’s it. You do not actually believe what Dakota told you, right? He was messing with you!” Jason laughed and threw his arm around Percy. “Don’t worry”
“Annabeth, this is Percy” Jason introduced as soon as she opened the door. “Percy, this is-“
Annabeth interrupted him. “Oh yes, Percy” she offered a hand “We’ve heard so much about you” she said, smiling, and Percy felt her eyes measuring him. Suddenly he was very aware of his body and couldn’t find any comfortable position, so he just kept shifting on the spot.
“He’s nervous,” Jason explained, closing the door behind them “Because I’ve talked so much about all of you, and Dakota was terrorizing him about Reyna”
“Well, Dakota is an idiot” Annabeth smiles “But he is my friend so I have to put up with his shit” she got out of the way “Please, go in, and make yourselves comfortable”
“What are we watching?” Jason asked, holding Percy’s shoulder, guiding him.
“My sextape” Dakota jumped out of the couch.
“No we’re not” some girl yelled, and Percy supposed it was Gwen.
“So this is the wonder boyfriend” Dakota asked, offering a hand to Percy “Don’t worry, we’re friendly here. If wonder boy likes you, we’ll do pretty well” he smiled and Percy was more nervous than ever.
“Stop” Jason pushed Dakota out of the way “Stop terrorizing him”
“I was being nice”
“No, you was being awful.” He hugged Percy with one arm. “Okay, see, not so bad” he guided him to the living room, where there was loud screaming over a board game.
“THERE IS NO WAY YOU CAN DO THAT, THE DICE SAID FIVE NOT SIX, DON’T EVEN TRY, HAZEL!” the boy screamed, pointing fingers at the smaller girl.
“Frank gets pretty intense during competitions,” Jason explained. “Everyone, this is Percy.” He pointed at the boy next to him. “And Percy, Annabeth” he pointed at the blonde girl by the door, “Dakota” he pointed to the boy behind them, “Gwen, there on the couch” the girl waved, “Frank and Hazel you already know…” they nodded to Percy “And that one is Reyna” he pointed to the girl on the floor.
There was mess of greetings and many questions, most of them he did not understood. He saw that everyone was trying hard to not treat him like a wild creature, but considering he was the only new person that, obviously the eyes would turn back to him.
“Okay, introductions made,” Annabeth clapped, “Let’s get down to business. Jason, popcorn.” She pointed to the kitchen, “And Percy, couch”
“What?” Percy was shaking.
“She’s joking” Jason assured him. “You’re joking,” he ordered to Annabeth “I won’t leave him alone with you all.”
“But you’re the best at making popcorn” Dakota pouted, “Seriously, everyone else’s is awful. You have to go and make it”
“But Percy-” he started.
“No, it’s okay” Percy said, taking Jason’s arm out of his shoulder. “Go on, I’ll be fine”
Jason gave him an alarmed look, but didn’t argued. However, he dragged Dakota and Annabeth to the kitchen with him.
Gwen patted the seat next to her, indicating that he had to sit there.
“Come on, I won’t bite” she joked, trying to make him more comfortable. He sat, occupying as least as he could, barely even breathing at all.
“Were you scared of us?” Frank asked, before throwing the dices on the board “Did Jason said too much bad things about us?”
“No, no, not at all” Percy said, slowly. “Only good things actually. He gave like the top five best things about each one of you”
“Now I’m interested” Gwen leaned forward “What did he said about me?” The game at the table forgotten, as everyone turned to Percy, which only made him more nervous.
Percy tried to remember. “He said you’re pretty, and really nice, and every time you smile a puppy is born,” he said. He worked hard on remembering everyone, because he didn’t want to look like a fool in front of them
“Ah, that’s sweet” she smiled and Percy saw that Jason was right. “I feel so much better about myself now”
“I’m kind of scared about asking about me,” Hazel said, turning to Percy “But I’m curious.”
“He said you were the cutest person he knew” he started with that, and it seemed fitting, because as soon as he said Hazel giggled “And you probably could kick anyone’s ass and, uh… I forgot”
“Me?” Frank asked, ignoring Hazel’s laughter and constantly repeating that she was flattered.
“A cuddly panda bear” he smiled “And you like bow and arrows and have a thousand dogs, approximately” he said, and Frank laughed too, which made Percy feel good.
“What about Reyna?” Gwen asked
“No, no no” Reyna complained, sitting on the other side of the coffee table “I don’t even want to hear it, because it will probably make me want to commit murder.”
“So light hearted” Hazel mocked, putting a hand over her heart “Such a caring soul. I’m touched” Reyna punched her arm and both of them laughed.
“So, is it serious?” Reyna asked, looking straight at him. “You and Jason” she clarified, when she saw his surprised face “As his current best friend I feel like I have the obligation of asking the big questions” she smiled a little.
“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “I think so?” he tried, but it was as inconclusive as before. Jason was a hard person to read, and he never actually was sure if he was misunderstanding the boy “He’s complicated”
“I know” Reyna agreed “Pro-tip: make the first move. Or else you’ll be waiting for forever.” She said, actually smiling now “You seem nice. It’s glad to see him with someone nice” and then Percy felt accepted by Jason’s little gang.
“Okay, popcorn is ready.” Jason announced, leaving the kitchen carrying two bowls of popcorn “bring on the crappy movies”
“Are you going to feed all of us with two bowls of popcorn?” Annabeth looked at him, mortified. “Have you no soul?”
“Please Jason, get some sense into you. Back to the kitchen, please” Reyna shook her head.
“But I can’t- I mean, fuck, Percy” he tried to argue
“Fine, fine, take the boy toy with you. We’re done with the questioning.” She shrugged.
Percy promptly jumped up and ran to the kitchen with Percy, and felt glad, because he could just hear Annabeth going on a trivia spree about the movie and its director.
“They seem nice” Percy shrugged, standing by the counter, while Jason grabbed the corn.
“I said so”
“I think they like me” Percy tried.
“Does it matter?”
“What?”
“It matters if they like you? Me is not good enough?”
“Of course it is, but-“
“Then it’s settled” Jason interrupted, grinning, “You don’t care about what they say, because I like you.”