Lol anyone else know that's song?

Nvm

Onto the story!!

Disclaimer: As always, I don't own PJATO.

- Heartbreaker: Rachel's POV -

If Rachel had said that she wasn't surprised when Percy had called her up, she'd have been lying right through her teeth.

After the little 'adventure' they'd had a few weeks earlier, Rachel was pretty sure that her days tromping around with demigods were over. No matter how little she'd wanted admit it, the kinds of things they'd seen and dealt with had scared her. The giant—Percy's brother, she thought with a shudder—the boy rising from the coffin, Daedalus... everything. Rachel wondered how they were able to do that every day, how it was part of their life.Then again, they had no choice, did they?

But, here she was only a few weeks later, waiting for Percy to arrive at her house. He'd called up asking if they could hang out for a while. No weird things, he'd promised. She wondered why he wouldn't want to hang out with one of his demigod friends. Why would he want to talk to Rachel?She hadn't even been at his birthday party, which he said he was trying to keep 'family only.' She wondered how much of that was true.

"Rachel!" she heard her father call up the stairs. "Your friend is here!"

"Okay!" Rachel yelled back, smoothing her hair and shirt compulsively as she heard footsteps coming up. They were light enough that she knew it had to be him—considering the fact that he was kind of a small person, and she figured he had to be able to walk quietly if he was hunting monsters all day.

Sure enough, her door creaked open, and his head peered around it. His hair looked messy as always, and he was wearing a light t-shirt and basketball shorts. He looked around her room, and the surprise was evident all over his face. Her room really wasn't that big, was it? It was just the entire top floor of her... oh.

"Hey?" Rachel questioned.

He blinked. "Um, hey." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry. I kind of... grew up poor."

She nodded, motioning him in. "Well, don't be a stranger."

He closed the door behind him, walking over to where Rachel was sitting on a futon, sketchbook in hand. She'd been drawing the landscape that she'd seen when they'd borrowed Daedalus' wings. The birds-eye view was beautiful, and she was having fun trying to recreate it. There were parts of that trip that had fairly cool, but the rest of it... not so much.

He sat down in a chair a little ways away from her, glancing at her sketchbook quickly, as if he was curious but trying to be polite. She angled it towards him so he could see, and smiled lightly.

"I was just thinking about how beautiful it looked when we'd been using the wings..." she murmured, trailing off.

He smiled, one of the corners of his lips quirking up higher than the other. "Honestly, I was more focused on the flying part. If I'd have looked down, I probably would've lost my lunch."

Rachel laughed. "I've never really had a problem with heights, so..."

"Obviously," he said, gesturing the view outside of her window. She was high enough up that she could see over a couple of buildings.

They lapsed into a brief, awkward silence, before Rachel finally asked, "So, did you need something?"

He furrowed his eyebrows. "No. I just wanted to hang out with you, since we're friends." He pressed his lips into a thin line. "At least, I hope we're friends."

"Of course," Rachel said, glancing up from her sketchbook. "It's hard not to be friends with someone who's saved your life. But... why me?"

"Why not?" he asked, almost defiantly. "What's wrong with me hanging out with you?"

Rachel shrugged. "Well, I'm a mortal," she said. "I'm sure you have all kinds of cool demigod friends. And Annabeth..." His face suddenly sagged a little, and he stared at his shoes. Rachel frowned. "Did something happen?"

He shrugged a little, which was a universal sign for yes. Rachel cocked an eyebrow up, and he mumbled, "We might've had a fight..."

She sighed and set down her pencil. "About what? Is that why you came here?"
"What do you mean 'is that why I came here?'"

"I mean," she murmured, twirling a strand of hair, "you fight with one friend, so you hang out with the other..."

His eyes widened a little. "No! That isn't... I didn't—"

"It's okay," she cut him off. "I know. But what did you guys fight about?"

"Just..." he trailed off a moment, "she thinks I'm being overdramatic."

"About what?"

"...about everything." He slid down in the chair. "She thinks I'm overreacting about all of this 'prophecy' stuff."

Rachel had heard of the 'prophecy stuff.' Apparently, there was some enormous prophecy that was supposed to involve Percy and a choice that he knew absolutely nothing about. It would've driven Rachel nuts to know that people—friends, actually—were withholding information like that, so she figured it had to be getting to him eventually.

"So I just wanted to hang out with someone normal for a change," he continued. "You don't yell at me because I have anxiety, at least." He did seem to be stressed. Rachel could see the dark circles under his eyes, and the worry line forming on his forehead.

"Well, I try," Rachel said, smiling.

He smiled back, and shifted in the chair so he was laying sideways, his legs hanging over one arm of the chair and his head resting on the other. "So," he asked nonchalantly, as if they hadn't just been discussing his underlying worries and more tense subjects, "what do you usually do all day?"

Rachel held up her sketchbook and gestured to the stack of blank canvases across the room. "Gee, I don't know."

He stuck his tongue out. "I'm just trying to make friendly conversation."

Rachel rolled her eyes. "So, what do younormally do, Jackson?"

"Basketball," he said. "My soon-to-be stepdad is pretty good at it. We play one-on-one a lot."

"I would've thought you'd be more of a swimmer."

"Oh, haha," he said sarcastically. "Besides, it'd feel like I'm cheating anyways. You act like the other kids could control the water." He yawned, tipping his head back on the armrest and closing his eyes.

"My mom knew this one guy who had a son who cheated in high school swimming," she mentioned. "Who would want to cheat in high school sports events? I mean, talk about a waste of your time." She scribbled the outline of a bush, waiting for his reply, but he didn't say anything. All she heard was soft thump.

"Percy?" She looked up and found that he was sleeping—the thump having been when his hand slid off his stomach and his knuckles had hit the floor. Sunlight poured from her windows, and she could now see that the dark circles were worse than she originally thought they were. He could probably use the rest.

Staring at his sleeping form, pencil in hand, Rachel had the sudden desire to practice human anatomy with him as her model. Just the way he had draped himself across the chair, his hand trailing across the hard-word tiling, the way his eyelashes cast small shadows in his cheeks...

No, Rachel thought firmly. You will not develop a crush on him, much less draw him. She'd seen the way Annabeth had looked at him, and she had noticed that there was reason behind her hostility towards Rachel, even if Percy himself didn't see it. She didn't know how long Annabeth had been trying to get through to Percy, but she wasn't going to get in the middle of that. She'd seen the way Percy had looked at Annabeth.

Besides, why would he ever want a mortal?

Percy made a soft noise in his sleep, and Rachel felt her resolve crumbling. He just looked too adorable, with his hair spilling in his eyes and over the armrest, and the small strip of stomach that was exposed where his shirt had hiked up a little. One of his shoes was even untied, the laces dangling in mid-air.

Rachel sighed. She knew liking him wouldn't end well for her, but she couldn't help it. Besides, she didn't have to show him the picture. Almost grudgingly, she began to draw the outline of the chair and his body.

"Percy Jackson," she muttered to herself, "you're a heartbreaker and you don't even know it."