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“Fuck.” Annabeth sighed and rubbed her temple, closing her eyes to try to erase what she was seeing by simply pretending it wasn’t true.
Percy came into their bedroom with his toothbrush hanging out of the side of his mouth. He raised an eyebrow and asked, “what’s up?”
“I told you Henry’s dumbass would be our downfall.” She turned her phone so her boyfriend could see the video that had been posted of them. It was just an 11 second clip of them in a restaurant in which the camera zoomed in on their intertwined hands under the table, followed by another clip where they threw their heads back laughing at the exact same time. Percy’s college friend, Henry, had posted the video on TikTok with a love song and a caption that read, “My actual parents. 🩷”
Annabeth immediately realized upon opening the comment section that had it not been for his additional caption on the bottom of the video, they would not have received the attention they did. It read, “can you believe they’ve both gone 28 years without a cellphone?”
“Why would he add that?” Percy groaned.“Who even cares? Gods, he’s so stupid.”
“He’s definitely stupid,” Annabeth agreed. “But you have to admit, he knew what he was doing with that caption. He wanted to be an influencer and now his video’s blowing up.”
Percy squinted at the most popular comments.
julesjulesjules: omg get them both a modeling contract
SarahPertay: no phone? are they amish?
He laughed at the comments calling them old and traditional before seeing comments from verified users asking for the restaurant they were at. He glanced at Annabeth and sighed.
When Percy first arrived to Camp Half-Blood and was explained the rule of technology surrounding demigods, it was mostly just a big, fat NO. And in 2005, it really was as simple as that.
Flash forward some years, and newly claimed demigods were sneaking phones into camp and taking them out of camp with them, which attracted so many monsters to the gate of the camp that impromptu Walmart trips became unbearable.
Percy and Annabeth did have a phone. It stayed with them in their New York apartment, and never left it. A few years after graduating college, they decided they kind of needed (more like really wanted) one, so Annabeth asked Leo Valdez to create a sort of magical barrier around their apartment building to protect them from monsters, like the one surrounding camp.
Leo was going through his bad breakup with Calypso and desperately needed a challenging distraction, so he agreed. Without magic by his side, he admitted it was a little difficult, but with the raw power of coding, he somehow figured out a solution.
He did try to explain what he did to make their apartment phone-proof, but it gave Percy a piercing migraine. The couple repaid Leo with a Subway sandwich and a Krispy Kreme donut.
“Do you think we can ever return to that restaurant?” Annabeth asked, distracting Percy from the comments. He shook his head no.
You’d be surprised at how many influencers were actually monsters. And not just, like, the kind who unethically sell you products that they know are pure trash while getting a large percentage of your ill-spent, hard-earned cash, but actual, demigod-hating monsters. Annabeth found this out the hard way when she attended a meet and greet. Let’s just say, never meet your TikTok heroes.
“You know,” Percy said, “at least now we know we did the right thing by never giving Henry our social media.”
Annabeth cracked a smile. “It’s not too bad. It’s no secret we’re in New York, we just can’t go back to those amazing pasta bowls for a few years.”
You’d think Percy and Annabeth reached a new tier of demigod after surviving two world-ending prophecies. You’d think, no monster would want to go up against them.
And for the most part, you’d be correct. But there will always be some annoying, low-level monsters that are looking for bragging rights. Any monster that could touch the untouchables would be legendary, but none have achieved so much as breaking a bone.
“We can just camp out at McDonald’s until the hype passes,” Percy assured. “But I’m definitely asking him to send his half of the bill, now.”