Percy climbed up the stairs of the building after putting his phone away and moving from his car to the lobby. His relatively new girlfriend Artemis had just responded to his text saying he had arrived. Just getting changed. Come up n let urself in. Ill be out soon.

She had invited him into her apartment.

Percy had never been into Artemis' apartment before. He'd entered the building a couple times and walked to her apartment but he'd never stepped foot inside. He remembered which room was hers from the last time he'd been there and as such had no trouble finding the place.

He knocked on the door, then slapped himself as he remembered not only had she told him to come in, but she couldn't fucking hear the knocking. Dating a deaf person was annoying sometimes because he kept forgetting she was deaf.

He opened the door and stepped inside. Honestly the room looked like the set of a Friends episode. Wide open space with both a kitchen and a living room together. A small table for two off to one side, a couch and a chair in front of the tv, a big window covered most of one wall that looked out into the New York skyline.

Hands in his pockets, he slowly stepped around while scoping the place. Yeah, no. It just looked like a modern version of the Friends apartment.

There were three doors at the end. One was wide open so he could see that the bathroom was in the middle of that wall. The other two were shut until the one on the right opened and a copper-skinned girl with sweatpants and a blue shirt came out. When she saw him she gasped and choked on her food. While Percy was taken aback she grabbed the doorway and tried to recover. "What the f- Where did you come from?!" She yelled.

The sound of a hair dryer could be heard from the other as Percy's eyes flicked over there. He pulled out his hand and pointed at it. "Artemis told me to let myself in. I'm Percy, by the way." He introduced himself, not knowing if a handshake was the proper approach to this encounter.

The girl nodded, crossing her arms. "Figured. She's just getting ready." She nodded to the right, indicating towards Artemis' room. Percy didn't wanna go in there in case 'getting ready' meant she was still in the process of putting pants on.

He settled for walking slowly around the apartment admiring all their decorations. A lot of it seemed to be either replicas of famous works like the Last Supper or homemade art and he had no idea who'd done it. As he walked past one wall he saw the Death of Pentheus, a naked ancient Greek guy getting ripped to shreds by a bunch of women. Lovely. He was alone inside an apartment with two girls, with no one knowing he was there. Normally that'd be a guy's dream, but not when they have a painting of women mutilating a guy on their wall.

Percy turned around and decided to strike up a friendly conversation with the girl. "So you must be Artemis' roommate? The one who needed coffee the night we met?" He asked, obviously having already inferred that the answer was yes.

The girl nodded as she opened the fridge and pulled out some Pepsi. "Mhm, and you're the serial killer." She smirked, turning around leaning on the kitchen counter.

Percy rolled his eyes. "Okay, that- that's simply untrue." He couldn't think of a good comeback.

Sweatpants lady laughed. "Well you did stalk her in the woods the first time you met her." She countered. Percy stuttered as he tried to respond.

"Uh, is that what she said? Well, just saying. When you're deaf things get taken out of context." He joked.

The girl's face fell immediately. "What the Hell's that supposed to mean?" She asked, and likewise Percy's smile vanished.

"Um, nothing. Just she couldn't hear me ask if I could walk with her so it scared her when she saw me right next to her." He gulped as the girl looked furious.

"Is that supposed to be funny?! Artemis has a serious disability you know. She's been totally impaired from birth. She's never heard a single thing in her life, jackass." She yelled, and Percy was worried Artemis would hear and- oh wait, nevermind.

Percy held his hands up defensively. "I swear I didn't mean anything by it. Just... y'know, I'm still learning what is and isn't okay to say about it. I'm not even really sure if deaf is like a slur or something. Is it?" He told her, quietly asking a question at the end.

The girl sighed, cooling down a bit. "I get what you mean. I've been friends with Artemis since freshman year of high school. I was one of the only ones who bothered trying to get close to her. Generally you don't need to learn whole languages to make friends but I took sign language courses online and got the hang of it after a couple years. Artemis liked that. I'm Zoe, by the way." She nodded.

Percy smiled. "Again, Percy. Yeah, I've been thinking about trying sign language too. So far she's just been writing on napkins, which is kinda inconvenient." He laughed.

Zoe smiled, and they stood in silence for a while. Then she turned serious again. "I don't wanna have to be the one to give the talk since she has three brothers but if you hurt her I recreate that painting with you." She pointed to the Death of Pentheus.

Percy gulped again. "Gotcha." He answered quietly.

Just then the door and Artemis walked out pulling on her other sock. She began signing something to Zoe before seeing Percy out of the corner of her eye and turning. She waved, and Percy smiled and waved back. He stood up slightly. "Ready?" He asked.

Artemis nodded and walked to the shoes. She grabbed a pair of casual boots and slipped them on. Where they were going wasn't a formal place at all, some African-themed restaurant.

As both her and Percy walked to the door she turned around and signed to Zoe. Don't wait up for me.

Zoe laughed and waved them off, signing back for her to have fun. Artemis nodded before shutting the apartment door and leaving Zoe alone for the night.

So much for bros before hoes.

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