Inspired by Community S4E2: "Paranormal Parentage."

Percy POV

"Before we head out," Percy says, "I just want to thank Frank for saving the Mars Coed Fraternity over the summer because that's probably the only reason why we're invited to this party."

It's true. Percy almost didn't believe it at first, but Frank learned to chug beer and plan blowout parties over the summer and now the Mars Coed Fraternity acts like they owe their lives to him. They even invited Frank and the entire study group to their annual Halloween party, admission free, so they all decided to meet up in the study room before hopping in Jason's van and riding over to the party together.

Frank blushes. "It was nothing, guys."

"No, it wasn't," Percy insists. "Now we all get to dress up and go to a real Halloween party. Everyone looks awesome, by the way."

It's true. Leo's dressed as The Doctor from Doctor Who, one of his favorite television shows.

Piper dressed up as Harry Styles because that's something girls are doing this year. She keeps tickling Jason with her pink feathered boa, making him sneeze.

Jason wears his pirate costume from the end-of-the-semester barbeque two years ago. Percy didn't think it was a pirate costume until Jason said he was dressed as Mr. Smee from Peter Pan. He still looks like he's just wearing red khaki shorts and a striped t-shirt.

Frank has his bed sheet draped over his street clothes like a toga. Percy supposes either he didn't have time to put effort into a Halloween costume, or he is a fraternity brother after all.

Hazel's wearing a cute witch costume that she made herself, but she swears it isn't the one she wore at the New Rome-sanctioned Halloween party in the library their sophomore year. Then again, Percy wouldn't put it past her to make a completely new one. He doesn't recognize those striped leggings, and she did get a lot better at doing makeup since then. There are even little stars in the corners of her eyes.

"Sorry I'm late," Annabeth says, strutting into the study room.

Piper brushes her boa against Annabeth's face, causing her to scrunch up all cute and-

"Where's your costume?" Hazel asks.

Annabeth looks down at her outfit: a pair of baggy jeans cuffed at the ankles and an oversized New Rome t-shirt tucked into those jeans.

Wait, is that Percy's shirt? He's pretty sure that's his shirt. That's his shirt on Annabeth.

"I'm going to Rocky Horror after this," Annabeth says bluntly.

"Oh, I like that movie!" Percy says. "Can I come?"

She rolls her eyes. "No."

Well, that isn't very nice.

Then, she raises an eyebrow and asks, "Percy, what the actual hell are you wearing?"

"Uh, he's a giant M&M," Jason fills in for her. "Duh."

To be fair, it's pretty obvious that Percy is dressed as a blue M&M candy, but just to be an asshole, he says, "Actually, I'm a peanut M&M."

"Whatever," says Annabeth. "You can't come to Rocky Horror as a giant M&M."

"But I do have fishnet tights," he says, kicking out his leg for show. "Aren't you pretty much required to wear fishnets to go to Rocky Horror? Do you even have a costume?"

"Can you guys stop flirting so we can go to the party?" Piper asks.

"Me? Flirting with... this?" Annabeth asks. She looks offended. How can she be offended? She slept with him! More than once!

And Percy likes to think he's decently attractive!

"With a taste of your lips, I'm on a ride..." Britney Spears sings from Piper's phone.

She rolls her eyes. "Britney's free enough now, guys, it's okay," she says over the protests from her friends.

"Hello?"

"Who is it?" Leo whispers.

Piper's eyes widen and she crinkles her nose in disgust. "And you need us for that? You can't call like, a friend?" She covers the speaker on her phone and mouths to the rest of the group, Dean D.

She presses the phone back against her ear and listens. "Uh-huh. Are you... No, I guess not. I mean, we're going to a party."

Resigned, she sighs and says, "Sure." Then, she hangs up.

"What was that all about?" Percy asks.

Piper scratches her head. "So Dean D is locked in his wine cellar and needs us to go let him out."

"And you just agreed to this for all of us?" Frank asks.

"Relax, big guy, it's on the way to the party," she says. "We'll just pull up and let him out, maybe collect some payment, and we'll be on our way to an awesome time."

"It better be awesome if the dean is standing in our way of getting there," says Jason. He points toward the door. "To the van, everyone!"

✎✎✎

Frank breathes in and out of a brown paper McDonald's bag, which sums up the mood right now.

Jason's a good driver; he really is, and it's not his fault that the doors on the minivan randomly decide to take a night off now and then. Percy takes the doors on his Jeep off during the summer; it's fun. However, when you're at a busy intersection bracing yourself for thirty miles an hour in a van with open sliding doors that really shouldn't be open, you're feeling a little less than safe.

It also doesn't help that Piper gave herself AUX privileges and decided to play "Monster Mash" over and over again while screaming the lyrics out the doors, which Percy cannot stress enough, are open.

And because he's just a nice guy, he let Annabeth, Hazel, and Leo cram into the back. Hazel because she's too short to hit the ceiling if she sits on the hump, Leo because situations like this tend to make him pull his hair out, and Annabeth because... Well, just because she offered the spot to Percy and he said no.

When they finally pull up at Dean D's mansion, Percy takes note of a few things. For starters, when he puts his cartoon character gloves back on, his knuckles are white from holding onto that handle on the ceiling. Secondly, Frank's come down with a bad case of nervous tummy—no elaboration needed. Then, he notices that he now knows the words to "Monster Mash" by heart, thanks to Piper. Annabeth, Hazel, and Leo are tangled up in the back of the van, faces pale with fear. To top it all off, Jason must have been so distracted by everyone's screaming that he ran over the curb. The van is parked at a weird angle and Percy is one move away from spilling out the side.

"Everyone out," Jason says breathlessly. Out of instinct, he hits the button on the ceiling that's supposed to open the automatic sliding passenger doors—the open ones—and what do you know? The doors creak closed, sealing the passengers in the van.

"Good god, let me out of this thing!" Frank shouts as he unbuckles his seatbelt.

Jason pushes the button again, and the doors open while producing this unfortunate dinging noise.

Leo groans. "I thought I turned off the safety alarms weeks ago!"

On one hand, Percy's a little concerned that Leo and Jason find no need for safety alarms in this van, but on the other, he's not complaining that he didn't have to listen to the dinging on the way here.

When the doors finally settle open, Frank leaps out of the car and barfs down the sewer grate Jason conveniently parked on top of.

Everyone takes care to either climb out the opposite door or step over the barf residue when they exit the vehicle.

Percy had no idea that Dean D could get so into Halloween. At the very least, he's committed to the aesthetic. Tacky glow-in-the-dark skeletons hang from the rain gutters, and there's a bowl of candy for Trick or Treaters, not that any kids live within a five-mile radius of Dean D's mansion.

Frank shrieks and then pulls his hand out of the candy bowl.

While Piper and Leo laugh, he explains, "There was... There was a hand!"

So there's the punch. Of course, Dean D would have motion-activated decorations to scare the children. He hates children.

"Did you get the candy?" Percy asks.

Frank shakes a fun-sized package of M&M's. "Yep."

Percy gasps with fake shock. "How dare you?"

"Want some?"

"Yes, please." Percy takes a handful of M&M's candies from Frank and follows the rest of the group into the mansion. The door is unlocked, but considering this neighborhood is all but abandoned, Dean D probably doesn't need to worry about that. Then again, he lives in a mansion in the middle of nowhere, so isn't he an ideal target for burglars?

He decides to contemplate the tacky Halloween decor that spills into the interior rather than concern himself with the house's vulnerability.

"Down there!" Leo points to a staircase that looks like it hasn't been used in ages.

"Down there?" Percy asks.

Annabeth rolls her eyes. "Know of a better place for a wine cellar?"

Truth be told, he isn't confident in his ability to get down those stairs while wearing his giant M&M costume and cartoon character gloves. Also, it's really cold in here and his fishnet tights offer no protection from the elements whatsoever.

Leo leads the others down the stairs and immediately locates the wine cellar. The only thing that stands between them and Dean D is the intricate door locked and sealed with a padlock, and the only thing standing between them and the fraternity party is Dean D himself.

"Okay, Dean D, can you hear us?" Frank shouts through the door.

Everyone clutches their ears as an intercom screeches and crackles and the dean bellows, "Yes, you brats! Get me out of here!"

Jason takes a deep breath and then looks up as if speaking to a god. "How did this happen?"

Dean D responds, "I saw the ghost of my old boss... Anyway, there's a red notebook with the code in it."

Everyone looks around. Hazel lifts the throw pillows on the sofa to see if the notebook ended up under there. It did not.

"Hold on," Annabeth says. "You don't remember the passcode to your wine cellar?"

"It's been a long day," Dean D explains.

Percy smacks his palm against his forehead. Fantastic. The dean is both useless and drunk.

Piper clears her throat and points to a trail of Diet Coke cans leading from the refrigerator to the wine cellar door.

On second thought, it makes a little more sense for Dean D to be hopped up on Diet Coke, even if he is surrounded by alcohol. Percy will certainly take that over drunkenness.

Jason claps his hands together, assuming the leadership position everyone knows belongs to Annabeth. "Alrighty, gang, let's look for this notebook, shall we? Since there's no such thing as ghosts, I'm sure nobody has a problem with splitting up and looking for clues. I'll go with-"

"I'll go with Percy," says Annabeth.

That totally goes against her Percy sucks and I hate him vibe, so he's a little confused to hear her stake a claim.

He makes eye contact with Piper, who just shrugs in reply.

"Cool," Jason says without skipping a beat. "Why don't you guys take Frank and-"

"I'll stick with just Percy," says Annabeth. "We're going to go check the upstairs. Hazel, Piper, and Jason will check the kitchen. Leo and Frank..."

"Yes?" Frank asks.

Annabeth points to Frank with false confidence. "Do whatever it is you guys do."

Leo pulls out his phone. "Welcome back to Frank and Leo in the Morning..."

Piper throws her boa back over her shoulder and leads the rest of the study group back up the stairs. "We'll be back, Dean D!" she calls.

✎✎✎

Searching Dean D's bedroom for a mysterious red notebook with his ex-friend-with-benefits unsupervised is not how Percy expected to spend his Halloween, but here he is.

"Hang on, Wise Girl... Let me... catch my breath..." He hunches over and tries to regain normalcy in his breathing. Stairs take it out of you when you're wearing an M&M suit.

Annabeth puts her hands on her hips and rolls her eyes.

"What?" Percy asks. He's just catching his breath, for crying out loud! She'd be even more pissed at him if he passed out.

She purses her lips and looks around the room, and for a moment, Percy is nervous because there are cameras all over this house, and if Annabeth has any intentions of making out in the dean's bedroom, he's going to have to say no.

"Are you even looking for it?" she asks.

Shit. Percy scrambles back to his feet and starts looking around the room.

Annabeth quietly takes the shelf on one side of the room and pretends that Percy isn't also looking for the stupid notebook.

He looks at the nightstand and finds a photo of the dean shaking hands with a regal-looking guy wearing a purple suit. His white beard kind of makes him look like an evil Santa.

"Sorry if this is uncalled for," he says to Annabeth, "but this is ridiculous."

"I know," she mutters back.

"No, I mean that Dean D would let some asshole have so much power over him that he would lock himself in his wine cellar."

"Woah, the dean collects MythoMagic figurines."

"And I mean, how dare this guy try to take advantage of the dean in the first place?" Percy doesn't know the whole story, but he knows something isn't right. He can't stand this kind of stuff. "I mean, I'm not a big philosophy guy or anything, but what is it with strong people trying to take advantage of the weak? Shouldn't the strong do what they can to help out?"

Woah. That was deep. Percy has to take a seat for a minute.

Sitting in Dean D's bed isn't ideal, but it's a waterbed, so it's at least comfortable.

"Sorry about that, Annabeth," he says. That wasn't cool of him to rant to her without any sort of warning. As supportive of a friend he likes to be, he hates it when Jason rants to him about Ultimate Frisbee tournaments. Speaking of, he should probably ask him how that team captain tension turned out...

Percy tries to get up. If Annabeth's mad, he should probably try to make it up to her by helping.

He cannot get up.

"Stupid costume," he mutters, rolling around on his back like a turtle. No matter how he turns, the bed just conforms to his shape and he can't get any sort of leverage. "Wise Girl?" he calls. "Help me out, will ya?"

No answer. Wow, Percy knew she could give a mean cold shoulder, but he never thought her to be completely heartless.

"Annabeth, I'm serious."

No answer. Come to think of it, he can't even hear her moving things around on the shelf anymore. Did she leave him? This better not be a prank because Percy's about to solve his problem in a less than flattering way.

He rolls off the bed and lands face-down on the hardwood floor. "Oof."

Finally, he manages to get up onto his feet, which is not an easy task with cartoon character gloves.

Annabeth is gone, which is a little freaky.

What's even freakier is that the shelf she was rifling through is turned at a ninety-degree angle and where Percy thought a wall would be is actually some kind of secret passageway.

Like an idiot, he looks down the passageway and calls out, "Annabeth? You in there?"

No reply, but there's no way she isn't down there somewhere.

If Percy had access to his actual hands or his phone, he'd use a flashlight to navigate the dark spooky secret passageway easier, but that would be silly. He has no pockets to put his gloves in.

It's dusty and crammed back in the passage, kind of like a crawl space, but without the crawling part. If he twists to the side, he can fit through the space.

Percy jumps when he hears the rattling of a doorknob and reminds himself for about the millionth time that there is no such thing as ghosts. He knows this because Jason said it earlier.

So that must mean that someone is locked behind the door, and that person would be eternally grateful if Percy opened the door and let them out.

Oh! Maybe it's a bird that'll fly out and gracefully land on Percy's arm. He's always wondered what it's like to be a Disney princess.

But just to be safe, he pulls off one of his big cartoon character gloves and raises it above his head so he can hit whatever it is that comes out of that closet.

Carefully, he grips the knob and then twists, and tugs it open to find...

"Die! Die! Holy shit, die!" Annabeth screams while whacking the wall with her purple shirt.

Percy wants to think of something stranger than Annabeth Chase, his frenemy, in a sheer top and lingerie beating the shit out of absolutely nothing with the shirt she stole from him.

He has a lot of questions he'd like to ask her, but first and foremost he should probably figure out what's going on.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

Annabeth freezes, her gray eyes wild. "Knock much?" she quips, trying to maintain her badass persona.

Percy rolls his eyes. "You're really going to act all pissy with me right now? When you're the one beating the wall? That's my shirt by the way."

She tosses the shirt at him and walks out of the closet. "Better?"

"What are you wearing?"

"Not your shirt anymore."

"Yeah, but..."

She raises an eyebrow. "But?"

"You're uh..." Percy desperately tries to maintain eye contact. Annabeth can wear whatever she wants. She looks great in a sheer top, but why? Like, Percy knows why she looks good, but why is she-

Annabeth clears her throat. "Rocky Horror?"

Oh. "So you did dress up."

"For Rocky Horror."

Percy decides not to go down that rabbit hole. "So are you alright?"

Annabeth shrugs. "Spiders. Let's get out of here."

"Period."

And together, they find their way to the end of the hallway. Percy takes one for the team and pries open the door so Annabeth doesn't have to deal with any more spiders.

He raises an eyebrow when they enter the next room. "Is this the bar from The Love Boat?" he asks.

Annabeth shrugs, not caring that the dean of their community college has a whole-ass bar in his house yet still can't fund a decent basketball team. She fills a cup with ice.

"What are you doing?" Percy asks.

"I'm drinking the dean's booze."

"I mean, yeah, but why?"

Annabeth pours some whiskey and downs the glass. Gasping for air, she says, "Because I deserve it. Any more stupid questions, Seaweed Brain?"

"Nope," he says. Shoot, he lost one of his gloves back in the secret passageway.

That's gone now.

There are more portraits from old work conferences with that same creepy boss who may or may not be haunting the mansion. There are also paintings of dogs with human hands playing poker, which kind of freaks Percy out. On the other hand, he can appreciate the vintage velvet Elvis portraits. Those are awesome.

"Do you want one?"

"What?"

"Do you want a drink?" Annabeth asks.

"No." Percy rolls his eyes and opens a drawer on an end table. They're looking for the notebook after all.

He hears the clinking of more ice hitting the glass as Annabeth is likely pouring herself another drink. Fantastic.

"Oh my god," Annabeth says between chuckles. "Piper just sent me a meme."

"You know," Percy says, "I can understand the stress caused by getting pulled into another one of Dean D's..." he trails off, searching for the right word. "Shenanigans? Anyway, we're supposed to be finding that notebook."

She belches and then says, "Already found it."

What the hell?

Percy turns around and finds that Annabeth is waving the notebook around in the air for emphasis.

"Oh, cool, so can you put the whiskey down so we can leave?" he asks.

She raises an eyebrow. "This is scotch."

Annabeth is great. She's... Well, she's not nice. She's not exactly humble either. Or respectable. There are good things about her. Percy wouldn't like her so much if there wasn't anything to like. Okay, shoot, there's her... body? She's great in bed, but there has to be something else. Percy isn't an asshole. Annabeth Chase is... smart. Yeah, Percy likes smart girls. In conclusion, Percy likes Annabeth when it comes down to it. Point made.

Now, he always thought he was a nice enough guy even after their little falling out the other year over the friends-with-benefits situation. He thought he explained his point when he broke off the arrangement: he's not cut out for a no strings attached relationship, and he was starting to feel like Annabeth wasn't all "there" the last couple of times they were—ahem—together. He was direct, honest, and nice.

So this should all add up to them being friends, perhaps even making jokes about that one time Percy made that really weird noise and then fell off the bed, but it doesn't. At first, she was really mad when he broke things off, which he chalked down to sexual frustration. Then, they were sort of friends again—friends that make fun of each other, fight, and then refuse to talk to each other for a couple of hours. Okay, so maybe 'friends' is stretching it, but they're not exactly enemies. Sometimes, they have moments like these where Annabeth is relatively friendly. She's weird, but she isn't necessarily mean. Most of the time, she's quite mean to him, usually when other people are around.

Percy is more confused about his feelings for Annabeth than he is in his music theory class. What's a diminished chord and what does it have to do with marine biology?

Now might be a nice opportunity to talk it out, but something tells him that Annabeth may find it difficult to take a guy in an M&M suit and fishnet tights seriously.

The sound of shattering glass against the floor brings Percy back to reality. He's got no more time to ponder his relationship with Annabeth because a wacky inflatable tube guy just jumped out of the cabinet and is chasing her around the bar. It would be comical if this were a commercial haunted house, except this is not a commercial haunted house. This is Dean D's mansion, and now a wacky inflatable tube guy is chasing Annabeth around the kitchen.

Percy grabs her by the wrist and tugs her out of the room, back down the hall, and then they lose each other for a minute, and then there's this weird Scooby-Doo-esque sequence involving all of their friends running in and out of a series of doors. At one point, Percy's pretty sure he and Piper are chasing the villainous advertisement tool.

And that all comes to an end when Percy slams face-first into Frank. Because his friend has the build of a hockey player, Percy ricochets off his chest and lands on his candy-coated ass.

"Sorry," Frank says, fixing the tie on his bedsheet toga.

"S'okay, man," Percy says, taking Frank's outstretched hand.

Hazel picks up the red notebook that Percy dropped on the floor. "Is this it?" she asks, flipping through the pages.

Piper snorts between laughs. "Hey, Annabeth, can I ask you a potentially invasive question?"

Annabeth, who is sporting her Rocky Horror Picture Show outfit and jeans says, "I'd rather you didn't."

She didn't put Percy's shirt back on, but he can't really blame her because they were a little distracted by a wacky inflatable tube guy. In fact, she doesn't even have his shirt anymore. Wait a second.

"You lost my shirt!" Percy shouts. "I kinda wanted that back!"

Annabeth rolls her eyes. She looks weirdly threatening dressed like an ensemble member of Percy's second favorite musical. "No, you don't. It had pit stains."

Shit. She's right. It did have pit stains. That's why he never asked for it back in the first place.

"This conversation is lovely and all," says Jason, "but has anybody seen Leo?"

✎✎✎

The agreement, against Percy's better judgment, is to unleash the dean and then go looking for Leo, the reasoning being that Dean D knows his way around his house, and would help them find Leo faster.

Percy thinks they should be looking for Leo right now. Screw the dean. He's the one that put them in this situation; he can wait a little longer for rescue.

But when faced with a choice between his idea and Annabeth's, the group will choose Annabeth's. Every. Single. Time.

Jason squints at the padlock as he twists the dials to the right numbers at Hazel's instruction.

"I think it's the top one that goes first," she says when Jason messes up a third time.

"There's no way..." he mutters. He tries it Hazel's way anyway.

The lock clicks and comes undone.

Hazel clears her throat.

Jason just sighs, so Percy steps in and says, "Nice going, Hazel."

The door opens slowly and the group peeks inside. Racks upon racks of bottles are stacked from the floor to the ceiling, filled with various vintage wines, modern wines, and homemade wines. Some boxed wines are stacked in a corner, although Percy isn't sure why Dean D would care enough to store those alongside his bougie wine.

"Wow," says Annabeth. She uncorks a bottle of wine and sniffs it. "Get a load of this, Pipes."

Piper takes the bottle and wafts it towards her nose. "Damn, that's gotta be worth at least a thousand dollars."

"How do you guys know this stuff?" Frank asks.

"We learned about this stuff in Dean D's wine tasting class," says Piper. "Remember?"

"Oh yeah!" says Jason. He screws the top of another bottle and tastes a little. His smile drops. "This one is just sparkling cider."

Hazel takes the bottle from him and sips long and slow. "Oh, this is nice!"

Something's off.

It's weird that Dean D hasn't jumped out of a corner and screamed at them all for opening his vintage wine and non-alcoholic sparkling cider.

"Hey," says Percy. "Does anybody think it's weird we haven't seen Dean D yet? Like, how big can his wine cellar be?"

The laughter ceases and the friends look around. Annabeth shivers, probably because she's wearing a sheer top in the middle of October. Something tells Percy she wouldn't be open to wearing his M&M costume as a jacket.

And then Percy just about jumps out of his candy shell when the sound of an engine revving up echoes throughout the cellar.

"I swear to God that better be Leo," Frank mutters.

"Ahahahaha!" Dean D cackles from atop his lawn mower steed.

Now, Percy can respect catching a ride on a lawn mower, but this sort of thing should be done outside, and with both hands on the wheel. Dean D is holding a chainsaw above his head for some reason.

He won't hurt them. He's not a threat. Plus, it's a little hard to be threatened by a drag version of Jason from Friday the 13th, the same way it's hard to be threatened by a guy wearing a blue M&M costume and fishnet tights.

The defenseless study group screams because that's what you do in the face of danger. Frank breaks a wine bottle and holds the shattered remains by the neck like a weapon. Jason cowers behind him. Hazel and Piper run for cover behind a wine rack.

Then, the Dean cuts the engine and climbs off his ride. "I got you brats good! You should've seen your faces!"

Annabeth clears her throat. "Forgetting something, Dean?"

"Huh? Oh." He turns off the chainsaw.

"Where's Leo?" Percy asks.

Dean D pulls his hockey mask on top of his head, revealing his sweaty face. "Relax, I didn't kidnap Leonard. He's around here somewhere. Probably got distracted by the security footage."

"Security footage?" Piper asks. "So you've just been watching us run around your house like the Scooby-Doo gang all night?"

He chuckles. "You made a great Daphne, Pinky," he says, completely butchering Piper's name. Then, he turns the chainsaw back on and slices a hole in the wall, which is completely uncalled for, but Percy supposes that rich people can afford to do eccentric things like tearing apart drywall and pranking innocent college students.

Behind the wall is Leo, who as Dean D suspected, is completely immersed in security footage. "Dean D," he says, "do you realize you are being stalked by a wacky inflatable tube man?"

"Wait, I thought Dean D was the wacky inflatable tube man," says Hazel.

Dean D drops his chainsaw. "You kids are going to a party after this?"

"Yeah," says Percy.

"Let's get the hell out of here then."

✎✎✎

"Alrighty," says Jason. "Have a fun time at the party, kids!"

Dean D, Frank, and Hazel get out of the van while the doors continue to ding in the background.

"Woo!" Dean D shouts as he runs around back towards the Mars Coed Fraternity's swimming pool. It's already been closed for the winter, but Percy won't be the one to stop him from trying to jump in anyway.

"You're not coming?" Frank asks.

Piper waves him off. "Nah, Jason and Leo and I are going to pass out candy to the trick-or-treaters and watch some Doctor Who."

"I don't have a party in me tonight," says Leo. "Eat plenty of Sherman's nachos for me though."

Hazel promises to eat lots of snacks in Leo's name and then Frank takes her by the hand and starts pointing out parts of the fraternity house, giving his girlfriend the grand tour.

"You're not going either, Percy?" Annabeth asks.

"Well, no," he says. Then, he jokes, "How am I supposed to win the costume contest without my cartoon character gloves?"

She chuckles. "You know, I don't think you need those to win the contest at Rocky Horror."

"There's actually a contest?"

"Well, yeah. The prize is a bundle including a gift card to the movies and a certificate to that coffee shop we like. Why do you think I'm dressed like this?" she asks.

That makes a lot of sense. "I'll come if you let me share the prize with you," Percy says.

Annabeth scoffs. "I mean, there's no way we'll beat the drag queens, but you're on."

"So are we dropping you off at the movies?" Jason asks.

"If you're okay with me leaving my pants in your minivan," Annabeth says.

Piper cuts in. "Next stop: AMC!" Then, she reaches for the button that closes the automatic doors.

As usual, the automatic doors do not close. Instead, they begin to alarm again when Jason puts the van into gear.

Annabeth struggles to take off her jeans in the backseat while Percy grins stupidly to himself because he's going to go see Rocky Horror with a really cool girl who has the confidence to wear fishnet thigh-highs and a sheer top in below fifty-degree weather.