CW: This chapter contains a discussion of body image/insecurity, discussion of sex, and also a stream of consciousness about nipple piercings, which doesn't necessarily call for a warning, but I feel like readers are going to want to know this ahead of time.

Inspired by Community S3E7: "Studies in Modern Movement."

Annabeth POV

Swimsuit shopping is a traumatic experience for any girl. When she was thirteen, Annabeth tried on six tankinis and even more one-pieces only to find that no matter what size, no matter what brand she tried, nothing fit. She had a nervous breakdown right there in the dressing room, because what was wrong with her body made nothing fit right, and oh, god, why her?

Her stepmother Helen wasn't any better. Before that traumatic incident, swimsuit shopping was a one-and-done experience. Helen would grab like three one-piece swimsuits off the clearance rack at Justice in youth larges, send Annabeth into the dressing room, and she was done, perhaps feeling a little wounded that she was still wearing children's swimsuits with seahorses and mermaids on them, but relieved to have not pissed off Helen.

So thirteen-year-old Annabeth certainly had a different experience than twelve-year-old Annabeth.

She put her regular street clothes back on, wiped her nose with the sleeve of her tutor Luke's sweatshirt she always wore back then, and stepped out of the dressing room, ready to face her step-monster.

"Well?" Helen had demanded.

"Nothing fits," Annabeth said, trying to keep her voice even.

"You didn't even let me see."

"They're all really tight... up here..." Annabeth gestured to her chest.

Helen sighed. "Great, you have boobs now. Just fantastic."

Then it clicked. Annabeth hadn't had a significant growth spurt vertically; she was tall for her age, but she hadn't grown in a year, possibly because she had gotten her first...

Oh, shit, she'd thought to herself. She hit puberty full-on. Never had she wanted a real mom so desperately. Hell, she would have settled for a dad who gave her a second thought.

And then she learned nothing else was going to fit her except for a bikini from the juniors section at JCPenney—her mall didn't have an Aerie yet—and that she'd have to start shaving 'down there' because Helen didn't want to see that, and good heavens, did she even wear bras because the A cups Helen had bought Annabeth a year ago definitely wouldn't fit those.

The answer was no, Annabeth couldn't swallow her pride and ask Helen to buy her new bras. She'd been wearing this oversize sweatshirt that belonged to a nineteen-year-old college student twenty-four-seven, so nobody could tell if she chose not to wear a bra on any given day-

"You okay in there, Stacy?" a familiar voice calls, bringing twenty-one-year-old Annabeth back to the present.

Yes, she gave the fitting room attendant a fake name. She's sort of shopping on the down low today.

"Yep." She checks herself out one last time in the mirror in the fitting room of the mall's new Aerie. The swimsuit is relatively simple—just olive green triangles over her breasts and those bikini bottoms that everyone's going for these days, the kind that's high-waisted, but shows off some ass.

Annabeth doesn't look half bad. Back when she was a kid, the Kelly Clarkson music and the attendant banging on the door might have sent her into a panic attack, but now she feels nothing. She feels alright. If she were more social, she might even go find the nervous preteen who seemed close to tears at the register and tell her that it gets better, that Annabeth is twenty-one now and only came close to crying once. Yeah, turns out bandeaus are a no-no for her.

She emerges from the dressing room, only to come face to face with Valentina Diaz, whom she doesn't know very well, but clearly, Valentina knows her well enough.

"Your name isn't Stacy!" she chuckles.

Then, Annabeth sees the lanyard and nametag around her neck. "I didn't know you worked here," she says.

"Yeah, I like it! Fashion is super fun, but my dad says it can only be a hobby, so alas... Anyway, what did you get?" she asks, seizing Annabeth's swimsuit. "Oh! Pretty! That green is going to look so nice with a tan!"

"Thanks." She suspects the girls that work at Aerie are told to shower the shoppers with compliments, but it still feels good.

Annabeth's phone buzzes, no doubt with more texts from Piper, Hazel, Jason... the whole group, except for Percy.

Then, her phone starts ringing. Jason's calling. Shit. "Okay, listen, my friends are all moving Piper into Jason and Leo's apartment today, and I sort of bailed. Can you, uh, cover?"

Valentina shrugs. "You're talking to a former theater major. My dad didn't like that major either so-"

"Great." Annabeth gives her phone to Valentina.

She picks up. "Hello?"

Jason must be bordering mad because Annabeth can hear his voice even though the phone isn't on speaker. "Where are you?" he demands.

"This is... Annabeth's... therapist?" Valentina says. "Yeah, she can't come because we're, uh, really having a breakthrough moment! Yes, childhood trauma!"

"Oh, uh, I hope she's okay..." Jason trails off, a little less mad.

"Yes, well, we better be going," Valentina says before hanging up. She hands Annabeth's phone back, a proud look on her face.

"Therapist? Really?" Annabeth asks.

"It got your friends off your back."

"I guess."

Valentina scans Annabeth's swimsuit at the register. "How come you're not at the move? Frank and Leo in the Morning is putting out a steady stream of updates, and it kind of looks like fun!"

Annabeth rolls her eyes. "You're only seeing the good stuff. They'll start fighting, Frank's nervous tummy will make an appearance, and then Percy will give this main character speech, and then it'll end with Leo having a crisis or with Jason getting a concussion."

"Oh."

"Yeah, and without Jason, I'm left to babysit by myself."

Valentina applies her employee discount to Annabeth's bill. "You deserve it," she says.

"Thanks, Valentina."

"You got it. Have a good one, loyal Aerie shopper whom I've never met before!" she shouts.

Maybe it's a good thing Valentina isn't a theater major anymore.

Annabeth plays along, just to be nice. "And you as well, random cashier whom I've also never seen in my life!"

✎✎✎

Spending an hour online this morning signing up for rewards cards and putting her birthday in as today is paying off. Annabeth's enjoying the free birthday girl perks even though it's not her birthday.

She hasn't stepped foot into Spencer's since she was in high school and Luke and his college-aged friends all dared her to go to the back of the store. Not knowing what was in the back, fifteen-year-old Annabeth took the dive and was truly shocked to find that a store formerly called Spencer Gifts would sell those kinds of gifts. She didn't even get what half of that stuff did, which is saying something considering the company she kept at the time.

Annabeth may or may not make the journey to the back of the store this time, but right now, she's looking at really awesome lava lamps. Would it be hot or tacky if she hooked up with Percy by the light of a lava lamp with pentagrams on it? Or maybe a blue-tinted lava lamp since that's his favorite color?

Shoot, she's not hooking up with him anymore. She would be better off going with the pentagram one, but the Percy thoughts leave a sour taste in her mouth.

She could use that twenty-percent discount on a couple of things, but nothing jumps out at her. There's a lunchbox with Chucky on it, which is kind of funny but would probably get really old really fast, and it's not like Annabeth has much food to put in it.

There's a shot glass shaped like a sombrero that says "adios, bitchachos," which feels insensitive, so she passes that one up. Annabeth also isn't exactly known for doing shots. That's a sure way to get shit-faced in no time at all.

Glancing at the back of the store is tempting, but does Annabeth trust Spencer's lingerie? It's probably affordable, but the odds of her getting chafing from something so cheap are probably too high.

She did get a nose piercing last summer that finally healed, so maybe the body jewelry isn't a bad place to look.

Her nose ring right now is gold, which is going to look super weird in a couple of weeks when her summer tan fades, so it doesn't hurt to at least take a peek.

Oh, god, is that the Playboy bunny on a nose ring? Imagine showing up to Intro to International Relations and the girl next to you has the Playboy bunny hanging from her nose like a sexy booger. No thanks.

There are like, multipacks with colors. That's not such a bad idea.

The best idea, though, is the nose ring with the gold snake wrapped around it. Fantastic. Now, Annabeth can live out her Reputation fantasies. As she should. As. She. Should.

Well, she should really spend her money on something smarter, something she can wear to anything, so she settles on a silver hoop with gold ends. That's pretty and neutral, right?

Twenty-four-ninety-nine. That's a little expensive for a nose ring, isn't it?

Actually, this looks a little more heavy-duty than the one currently in Annabeth's nose.

Ah, yes, it's dyslexia tricking her. This is not a nose ring. This is a... nipple... ring...

Annabeth's not sure how to feel about this.

That's nasty, right? If she's going to put a hole through her body to look cool, she'd want people to see it.

Then again, the idea of people only being able to see it during sex is kind of thrilling.

Then again, Annabeth's nose almost got infected from her last piercing. She doesn't want to get infected there and then have to see a doctor over something super freaky.

Then again, these barbells have little Jason from Friday the 13th hockey masks on them and that's too hilarious to pass up.

Piper would dig a nipple piercing, says that invasive voice in her head, you know, the one that caused Percy to dump her. Who does he think he is, accusing Annabeth of being into Piper and then leaving her out to dry? They were both very happy being friends with benefits until he brought Piper into the equation, and then Piper slept with Jason, so none of that's worth it anymore and-

"Annabeth Chase!"

Holy shit. "Woah, Mr. Brunner... In Spencer's... What a... Surprise?"

Mr. Brunner chuckles and shows Annabeth his find: a beer funnel that says hello, my name is Drunk in one of those stickers they give out at conferences. "It's my cousin's birthday next weekend and well, Brunner family reunions can get quite wild."

"Uh-huh." Annabeth places her nipple ring back on the rack because this doesn't feel like a purchase she should be making in front of a faculty member, even one whose couch she slept on once.

Mr. Brunner glances at the shelf of piercings behind her. "And what are you in the market for today, Ms. Chase? A new piercing?"

"Oh, uh..." Annabeth trails off. She can't admit to what she was just considering. "I thought maybe... I'd get a, uh, bellybutton piercing?" Oh, great. Yeah, that's so much better than a nipple piercing, she thinks to herself.

Mr. Brunner nods as if she just answered a discussion question in his Greek and Roman Mythology class. "If you don't already have one, you should probably start with skin-sensitive jewelry so you don't get it infected. My sister recently made the mistake of sticking herself with a Nickelodeon naval ring."

"Oh, well, I think I'm more into sticking myself with a Friday the 13th ring," Annabeth jokes, pulling a belly button ring featuring—you guessed it—Jason the serial killer. She can't even imagine pulling up to Sherman's next hot tub party with a new cheeky bikini and Jason's hockey mask dangling from her belly button.

Mr. Brunner chuckles as the cashier rings up his funnel. The zombie that works at Spencer Gifts gives an incredible pitch about how if he donates five or more dollars to breast cancer awareness today, he can sign his name on a comically large pair of inflatable breasts.

Naturally, Annabeth takes the strong smell of off-brand Sharpie as her cue to leave.

"I suppose you're off to your friend Piper's moving day?"

She freezes in her tracks. "How did you know about that?"

Mr. Brunner whips out his phone. "This morning show your friends host... It's quite adorable. Don't you think?" He shows her a video of Leo narrating while Frank, in the background, carts box after box labeled PIPER'S MISCELLANEOUS JUNK through the front entrance of the apartment building.

On the screen, Leo says, "We just pulled outside of the awesome apartment. All we have to do is carry these last few boxes in and then Percy should be back with lunch!"

"Ouch!" Hazel yells from off-screen.

"I didn't know you wore stilettos, Pipes!" Jason shouts.

Mr. Brunner turns off the video and places his phone in the pocket of his blazer. Wow, so teachers just dress the same in and out of the classroom. Annabeth wonders if that's some sort of rule they have to follow. If it is, she could never be a teacher.

"Do they know about this trip to the mall?"

Annabeth jumps. No, they don't, but how is this relevant? "What exactly are you getting at?" she asks.

Mr. Brunner shrugs. "They have a Dairy Queen Grill and Chill in the food court. Perhaps you can tell me what's good and I won't tell your friends where you are?"

He's blackmailing her. Teachers can't do that, yet here he is being all illegal and kind of creepy.

Annabeth doesn't want to get busted for bailing. "Fine, but just grill. No chill."

Mr. Brunner pulls a trucker hat from his Spencer's bag and puts it on. The impact font reads #1 DAD.

So at least this isn't a weird date kind of thing. Mr. Brunner is just trying to compensate for the daughter he regrets never having by spending a day at the mall with Annabeth. Plus, Dairy Queen is cheap, and she's kind of hungry too.

"C'mon," Annabeth says.

Mr. Brunner follows her in his Jazzy Electric Wheelchair, almost popping a wheelie whilst trying to avoid the Halloween display. "Let's not leave those chicken tenders waiting!"

And the next thing she knows, Annabeth's dipping her already-soggy fries in a Heath Blizzard, even though she explicitly said that there would only be grilling, not chilling. She reminded him that she needed to go back to her shopping after finishing that weird slice of bread Dairy Queen just throws in with their meals, but Mr. Brunner pulled up a video update from Frank and Leo in the Morning and reminded her that he could tell.

She wants to say, "Do it! You won't!" just to get this whole thing done and over with, but it's not worth the risk that he'll tell.

Anyways, Mr. Brunner paid for the food and insisted that she get a medium Blizzard. Annabeth's never treated herself to a medium before. That much ice cream could send Frank into a coma.

She throws her trash away, and at this point, she's ready to hang the towel on her special day at the mall. It's a shame she didn't get to go to Hot Topic. At least there's an entire afternoon to spend in bed napping and finally catching up on Bridgerton, her guilty pleasure show. Nobody can know about Bridgerton.

"Well, thanks for lunch, Mr. Brunner. See you on Monday," Annabeth says.

But Mr. Brunner isn't done yet. No, Mr. Brunner has to keep throwing salt on this wound in her pride. As if hanging out with a teacher from her random-ass community college isn't embarrassing enough after the first hour.

Mr. Brunner piles his shopping bags in the basket on the front of his Jazzy. "Ah, yes, I suppose Piper and the others would be ready to bunk Jason and Leo's beds about now."

Shit. Annabeth groans louder than the seven-year-old shopping for new uniform-compliant school sneakers. "What more do you even want from me?"

Mr. Brunner adjusts his dad's hat and leads her down the length of the mall. Kids cry outside the Build-A-Bear Workshop, some old ladies paint mugs at the Color-Me-Mine, and a posse of middle school girls giggle at the Victoria's Secret lingerie mannequins.

They pass the Bath & Body Works, and Annabeth is tempted to just go in and use her voucher for a 'free gift with purchase of fifteen dollars or more,' but Mr. Brunner's likely to pummel at least three displays with his new Jazzy scooter. Probably four. She makes a note to go back another time because she likes their body wash.

"Just let me know if you want to stop anywhere!" Mr. Brunner shouts over the cries of a toddler getting her ears pierced at Claire's.

That's borderline child abuse, Annabeth thinks, making kids get their ears pierced there.

"Hi, there! Can I ask you a question?"

This is common sense. You don't even tell the mall kiosk operators that no, they can't ask you questions. You just walk away and pretend you're taking a phone call or something.

Mr. Brunner must be the only person in the world who didn't get this memo, because he tells the kiosk operator, "Sure!"

"Do you ever feel negative feelings?"

"Well, sometimes..."

No shit, Annabeth thinks.

Life is suddenly zapped back into the kiosk operator. "Well, you'll be happy to learn that there is a cure! Aromatherapy, or Essential Oils, is a way to use natural solutions as an approach to tackling the problems of everyday life!"

Mr. Brunner scratches his beard. "Fascinating..."

Oh god, Mr. Brunner is going to make Annabeth stand here and listen to this entire sales pitch.

"It sure is!" the salesman continues. "For a limited time, you can buy this Natural Joy starter kit for just seventy-nine-ninety-nine!"

He's about to fall for this. "Eighty dollars sounds like a lot, Mr. Brunner..." Annabeth warns.

"A small price to pay to experience health naturally! No stimulants included!"

"No stimulants, you say?" Mr. Brunner asks.

Annabeth wishes she were an old lady so she could fake a stroke or a heart attack.

"C'mon, Mr. Brunner..." Would it be wrong to grab onto the back of the Jazzy and just push him to Hot Topic? Under normal circumstances, she would think so, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Shoot, she's a grown-ass adult! She doesn't need to be dragged around the mall by someone old enough to be her father!

Then it clicks. The overbearingness, the weird coincidence in Spencer's, the free lunch, the #1 DAD trucker hat... Ugh, Mr. Brunner's looking for a day out with the daughter he never had, and he chose Annabeth to fill that void.

Is it weird? Yep. Messed up? Absolutely.

Is Annabeth going to go along with it? She'd feel incredibly guilty if she didn't.

"C'mon, Mr. Brunner," she says. "You said you'd take me to Hot Topic."

There. A compromise, and maybe a choker or something on Mr. Brunner.

The kiosk operator becomes invisible once again as Mr. Brunner's eyes light up. He hits the forward button on his Jazzy and follows Annabeth away from the Essential Oils vendor.

But because the mall is littered with them, they shake the Essential Oils kiosk and fall right into the trap of one of those crystal healing vendors. Annabeth has crystal potential, but she's not about to pay thirty dollars for a rock.

They're not going to get sucked into a conversation this time, so Annabeth takes the lead. "Not interested, sorry," she says before cranking up the speed on Mr. Brunner's Jazzy.

✎✎✎

By the time they make it to Dave & Buster's, Annabeth's gotten three new flannels to replace her old ones, a new pair of sneakers, a shiny new naval piercing, and a Nirvana crop top to go with it, all courtesy of Mr. Brunner. Damn, retail therapy feels good. The person who pierced her belly button even sterilized the needle! Sure, it was weird getting a piercing in front of her former Greek and Roman mythology professor, but it was free, totally worth it, and will make for a great story someday. Piper's going to-

Shit. She can't tell Piper. Piper's moving into a new apartment with the help of all her closest friends except for Annabeth.

The thing isn't that she's lazy, or that her friends are annoying like she told Valentina hours ago at the Aerie. God, her shift is probably long over.

The thing is Piper. Sure, Annabeth's having some feelings there that she's not even ready to admit to herself. Piper's awesome. She's funny, confident, hot, caring—everything Annabeth finds annoying in Percy, actually. All during the summer, she thought, yeah, now is a good time to sort out those feelings, and decide once and for all what kind of label she wants to use for her sexuality if any.

But ever since Piper admitted to fooling around with Jason—whatever that entails—it's felt wrong to think about her like that. It is so not fair that everyone else has had these kinds of feelings figured out since like middle school, and here Annabeth is at age twenty-one amid a three-year-long gay panic. She wishes everyone could just wait for her to catch up before pairing off, but that's impossible, so the next thing she knows, even Leo will have a girlfriend, and Annabeth will be single and confused with nobody to help her through that.

Pew-pew-pew!

"Yes!" Mr. Brunner shouts. He puts the plastic rifle back onto the arcade machine and watches as it dispenses a long string of tickets.

Annabeth breaks the tickets off of the shooting game and puts them in the Jazzy basket, which at this point kind of looks like an Easter basket with Dave & Buster's tickets for grass and shopping bags for eggs.

"Your pick, Annabeth!" Mr. Brunner shouts over the music and arcade sound effects.

She chooses a classic skeeball game and gets started, rolling ball after ball into the smallest of the targets, scoring fifty points on every shot, because that's just what bad bitches do in the middle of an identity crisis.

When the tickets spit out of the game, Mr. Brunner exclaims, "I think we have enough to cover the giant Pikachu plush!"

"Wait, actually? I thought those were just the prizes they put out to scam people into spending money and-"

"Yes, Annabeth! We did it!"

So the next thing loaded into the basket of Mr. Brunner's Jazzy is a massive yellow Pikachu firmly stuffed with beans or something.

"Can you even see over that thing?" she asks between laughs.

"Nope, be my eyes," Mr. Brunner says.

"Watch out for the-"

Mr. Brunner bashes his Jazzy into the Pac-Man machine.

"Watch where you're going!" the man playing barks. Something about him feels familiar. Maybe it's the tiger-print shirt, or maybe it's the tequila shot messing with Annabeth's head.

Instead of engaging in any sort of confrontation, Annabeth and Mr. Brunner just giggle and find their way out of the arcade.

"Oh!" Mr. Brunner shouts, driving his Jazzy into another outlet. "I've always wanted to do this!"
Panicked, Annabeth follows him into the Karaoke and Videoke joint, but she's too late. He's already paid the attendant for a duet complete with tacky video transitions.

"No," Annabeth says. "I draw the line here. No freakin' way, man."

"Yes, freakin' way," Mr. Brunner says, "or it's organizing Piper's closet for you."

Words cannot describe how desperately Annabeth does not want to sing right now. Annabeth never wants to sing. There is no possible song, no possible artist, that could possibly-

"Baby, when I met you there was peace unknown... I set out to get you with a fine tooth comb..." Mr. Brunner sings Kenny Rogers's part to "Islands in the Stream" while Annabeth nervously fidgets with the buttons on her microphone. This only means he intends for her to sing Dolly Parton's part. How did he know? How. Did. He. Know?

Annabeth joins in because damn, this song really gets her. "You do something to me that I can't explain... Hold me closer and I feel no pain..."

She forgets about everything at that moment because how lucky is she to have this parental kind of guy who knows how much she loves Dolly Parton? Sure, Mr. Brunner's approach is kind of weird—blackmailing a student always is—but his intentions are kind.

"Islands in the stream... That is what we are... No one in between... How can we be wrong? Sail away with me... to another world..."

Annabeth has zero intentions of ever watching the video on the flash drive that Mr. Brunner just bought; she's sure he spent way too much on some cheesy transitions with the green screen, but it makes him happy, so she just smiles and thanks him for her copy.

"You know," Annabeth says as she loads the giant Pikachu into Mr. Brunner's car, "I actually had a nice time today. Thanks for everything."

"The pleasure is mine," Mr. Brunner says. "And to think, if I hadn't seen the emails you sent to your landlord, none of this would have happened."

Oh, no he didn't. "Hold on," Annabeth says. "You... you read my emails?"

"Well, I can read anything sent on a New Rome email account."

"Yeah, but why would you?"

"So I can have days like this."

Annabeth's pretty pissed off now. "You know what?" She grabs her Auntie Anne's takeout from the passenger seat of Mr. Brunner's car. "I'll just take the bus to Piper's."

"But Annabeth-"

"Nope. It's weird. We no longer get along."

✎✎✎

So tail tucked between her legs, Annabeth gets off the bus and climbs the stairs to Jason, Leo, and now Piper's new apartment. She rings the buzzer.

"Hello?" Piper asks through the intercom.

"It's Annabeth."

"Hey! I'll come down and get you!"

When Piper makes it to the front door, her cheeks are red, probably from all those dang stairs. Her lavender t-shirt is tied off at the waist with a hair tie. Annabeth finally deciphers the flowy cursive: PIPER'S MOVE.

"Are you staring at me?" Piper asks.

Shoot. It probably does look like she's staring. "I, uh... Why would you pick such a difficult font?" Annabeth asks.

Piper laughs as she holds the door to the stairwell open. "My mom paid for them when she found out I had friends to help me move, hence why they're all so tight."

"They're... what?"

"I think she assumed I joined a sorority or something because the biggest t-shirt is a women's large. Frank's still wearing it though."

It's Annabeth's turn to laugh now. "What a good sport."

"C'mon, let's get you a t-shirt." Piper swings her new apartment key by its Hello Kitty keychain and unlocks the door, letting Annabeth and herself in.

The smell of wet cardboard lingers in the air and a couple of Piper's boxes are still unpacked next to the bookshelf, but other than that, the apartment is as homey as ever. Leo shows Percy the video game he's designing for one of his classes, Hazel swears in the kitchen over a plate of burnt brownies, and Frank admires Jason's collection of MythoMagic figurines.

"Oh, take your shoes off," Piper says.

Annabeth complies even though she didn't have to do that the last time she was at the apartment.

"It's one of Piper's new rules," Jason says from the other side of the room. "We're still working out the kinks in our roommate agreement, but I think it's going to be a great year."

"It might even be a great two years!" Leo says. "Three if we all stay in Berkley after graduation!"

Annabeth takes a seat on a footstool since the couch is occupied. "Listen, guys, I have to tell you something."

Piper leans forward. "Go ahead."

"Today, when you all thought I was seeing a therapist... Well, that wasn't true." She takes one of the brownies from Hazel's How the Grinch Stole Christmas plate. "I was at the mall, but I swear, it wasn't all that great."

"Oh yeah," Percy says sarcastically. "I'm sure getting a hot new bellybutton piercing sucked ass. Is that one going to get infected too? Because I'm not draining pus out of you again."

"No, the piercing went fine, but I ran into Mr. Brunner-"

"Oh, we know about that part," Percy says.

"Percy!" Hazel shouts. "You guys said we wouldn't tease her about that!"

Leo drops his controller and pulls out his phone. "We changed our minds."

Annabeth knits her eyebrows. "What do you mean you know?"

"Mr. Brunner posted this on his Twitter." Leo turns up the volume on his phone.

Frank runs over to the couch to watch. "Jason, they're playing it again!"

Jason struts to the group, a Landshark beer in one hand and the other making a finger gun. "Baby when I met you there was peace unknown!" he sings.

Oh, god. No. No way. This isn't happening.

Annabeth swipes the phone away from Leo, and sure enough, it's the video from Karaoke Videoke of her and Mr. Brunner singing "Islands in the Stream" in front of a green screen backdrop, which keeps rotating between an underwater aquarium, a desert, and a jungle, among other landscapes thrown in there.

"No more will you cry! Baby, I will hurt you never..." Annabeth sings in the video. Wow, she got really into it. Like, embarrassingly into it. She would never want another person to see that video, but here it is on the internet, for all of Mr. Brunner's followers to see, shaking her ass to a song older than she is.

"Look, guys, I'm sorry for skipping out, but you can please turn it off?"

"Sorry?" Jason asks. "There's no need to be sorry! You produced the single most hilarious video on the internet!"

It's not very funny to Annabeth, but she supposes her friends should laugh at this to her face and not behind her back.

"I don't think I'll ever hear this song the same way again," Percy laughs.

"Can we give it a rest? Now please?" Annabeth asks.

The song comes to an end, but mercy is nowhere near because Leo shouts, "I'm playing it again!" God, even Hazel laughs along.

Annabeth sighs and heads out onto the fire escape. "Call me when you're done making fun."
She takes a seat on the metal steps and looks out onto the neighborhood below. Jason's minivan is parked next to Piper's pickup truck, which has seen better days. Annabeth supposes Leo's antique Cadillac is somewhere safer than the apartment complex parking lot.

It's still hot enough that there are some people her age grilling hot dogs and burgers by the swimming pool.

Across the street, little kids run under a lawn sprinkler while their mother chats on the phone.

"I thought you looked super cute by the way."

"Jesus, Piper, way to sneak up on me!" Annabeth shouts.

Piper smirks and takes a seat on the step below her. "Sorry."

"It's okay."

"My statement still stands though, and I'm bi, so you have to trust me."

This conversation is not happening. "Uh, thanks?" Annabeth says.

"Sorry, that was super blunt." Piper snorts and breaks out into laughter. "I think it was sweet of you to sing that duet with Mr. Brunner."

"We went to Dave & Buster's too," Annabeth admits. "And he fell for every single mall kiosk."

"No way."

"I didn't even get to the best part yet."

Piper raises an eyebrow. "Better than him buying you a naval piercing? Do tell."

Annabeth laughs. This whole situation is a lot funnier now that she's removed from the stress of it all. "I ran into him at Spencer's. He was buying a beer funnel."

"No. I do not believe that."

"It happened. He said his family reunions get—and I quote—wild."

Piper laughs so hard, that she clutches her stomach with one hand and latches onto Annabeth with the other to keep from toppling off the fire escape.

The touch feels nice, natural even.

And then Piper takes her hand away, and nothing feels nice or natural.

She looks up at Annabeth, a devilish glint in her eyes. "You wanna hear something I probably shouldn't tell you?"

Annabeth raises an eyebrow. "Okay?"

In her fantasy, there's glitter in the wind, and Piper's hair blows, but in a totally unnatural way, like, it doesn't get stuck to her lip gloss or anything, and she says, "Jason was a terrible kisser. I think you can do better," or something completely tacky, and god, her lips taste like that watermelon chapstick she lent Annabeth that one time.

But this is the real world, not Annabeth's fantasyland.

And instead of a love confession, Piper is proud to tell Annabeth that Percy asked about her many times while she was absent.