Dysfunctional Dinners

"This has got to be weird for you," Nico mumbled next to me, staring at where Percy stood with Annabeth and Will, laughing.

"Hey, I got over Percy being friends with Will, and we both know they did some nasty stuff." Leo snorted from my other side. "Besides, I know how much he misses his best friend. I need to be okay with this."

"Oh, well, ain't you the best boyfriend ever," Leo coed. "You're gonna have the best 'thank you' sex of your life." I couldn't help the grin that spread over my face at the mere thought.

"Disgusting," Nico groaned.

"It's totally not why I'm doing it, but you can't blame me for looking forward to it," I shrugged.

"So, Annie," Thalia called from the other couch, where she had been in a mischievous conversation with Calypso. "How's Daedalus doing?"

"Um, he's good," Annabeth answered, with a slightly annoyed shrug, probably because her conversation was interrupted. "He's in Mexico, studying the Maya pyramids."

"Who's Daedalus?" Leo asked.

"My study leader for my masters," Annabeth answered.

"Just your study leader?" Thalia smirked, to which Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"Would you stop?"

"Oh, I'm sensing a story," Leo sang.

"Would you stop?" both Nico and I groaned, making everyone snicker.

"What?" Leo asked innocently.

"Guys, I think it's time for Leo's gossip intervention," Nico deadpanned.

"Rude," Leo sulked.

"So, where are you doing your masters?" Calypso asked with a sweet smile, which didn't seem too sincere next to Thalia's smirking face.

"Harvard," Annabeth answered as their little group dispersed and joined us, their previous conversation wholly forgotten. Percy wiggled himself in between Leo and me, nearly shoving the Latino to the floor.

"Harvard? Why not Columbia or Cornell?"

"The top three institutes for architecture in the US is MIT, Harvard, and Berkeley," Annabeth answered flatly.

"Why get an apartment in New York, then?"

"I'm required to do an architecture internship alongside my design thesis to obtain my masters. Since my internship is in New York, Monday to Friday, I negotiated to complete my masters mostly remotely. I'll be on campus one full day, weekly, for meetings, and contact hours with the other professors. So I'll have to drive in and out every Saturday."

"That seems like a hectic schedule."

"I got lucky with having Daedalus for a study leader," Annabeth shrugged. "He's flitting all over the world for his research, so he prefers doing things remotely. The administration probably paired me with him because of that very reason."

"He even gave her a laptop so she could study remotely..." Thalia smiled, sipping at her drink. We all fell quiet.

"What?" Percy asked.

"He gave her a laptop loaded with all the software she might need, as well as a webcam for their sessions every other day," Thalia stated quite pointedly. "To keep, may I add. Not on loan."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't have access to the computer labs on campus during the week, so he gave me his old laptop. He was being nice."

"Let's face it, Annie," Thalia threw her hands up in exasperation. "The dude wants to bone."

"He does not."

"Then why don't you tell everyone what your plans are for spring break and get a second opinion." Annabeth sat up slightly straighter.

"Well, Daedalus invited me to Athens to study the Acropolis among other things..." she answered, somewhat sheepishly. We all gave her suspicious looks. "Okay, fine," she huffed. "He has ulterior motives, but that doesn't mean I'm actually going to sleep with him. I'd be a fool to turn down a laptop and a free trip to Athens, though. And he'd be a fool if he tried to fail me when I turn him down. I'd ruin his whole career in a matter of hours."

"Poor bastard," Percy chuckled as he slapped my thigh and stood back up, walking toward the kitchen. "Anyway, who's hungry."

"Wow, what a smooth subject change," Leo mumbled into his beer bottle. I followed Percy to the kitchen.

"Okay, I'm on fish, could you pop in the sweet potato wedges and get the wooden platter in the cupboard?" I asked, pulled the red snapper fillets out of the fridge.

"Sure," Percy mumbled, staring blankly at the baking tray on the counter.

"You okay?" I asked, eyes briefly flashing over to everyone chatting away on the couches.

"Yeah," Percy nodded tightly. No one was paying attention to us, so I stepped closer, laying a hand on his lower back. I slipped a single finger underneath his shirt, knowing the skin on skin contact would calm him. Percy instantly slumped onto my shoulder.

"It's hard," he whispered. "I look at Annabeth, and all I can think about is how she looked at me back then. When she found me with Alabaster." Shit, was this a mistake? He had just stopped having panic attacks.

"But I also remember her trying to bake me cupcakes on my sixteenth birthday. It kind of looked like bricks with blue cement, but hey, it's the thought, right? I remember her teasing me about being shorter than her at camp when we were twelve. I fell out of a tree, and she stayed up all night talking to me to keep me awake because I had a concussion."

"Percy, in the last couple of years, you've proven to me over and over how strong you are. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that you can work through this. And someday, you'll get to the point where you only remember the good."

Percy raised his head and gave me a soft little smile. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "Besides, if we had a daughter, I'd want her to have strong female role models. So far, we have Piper, who's going to be a kickass lawyer, also probably gonna buy our kids their first beer. We have Calypso, thriving in a mostly male-dominated field, who will give them a makeover before school dances. And then we have Thalia, who will beat the crap out of any guy who dares touch my baby girl. We desperately need someone to take our daughter to museums, though."

Percy was looking at me somewhat funny until he bit his lip, huffing a cute laugh. "Our daughter?" I froze, just then realising what I said.

"Uh..." was my intelligent response.

"You think about us having kids?"

"Now and then?" I shrugged, rubbing the back of my neck. "Is that okay?"

"Fuck, yes, it is!" he beamed. "I'm so freaking happy right now. A part of me is kind of bummed that I have to wait for these fuckers to leave to show you just how happy."

"Oi, I'm not smelling any food!" Thalia whined from the couch.

"If you weren't gonna teach my daughter endless ways to crush a bastard's balls, I would let you starve," Percy snapped over his shoulder, making everyone gape at him.

"Platter," I hissed, effectively snapping Percy into motion. He grabbed the wooden platter from the cupboard and bent over to pop the wedges into the oven.

"Damn!" Nico called, a clear reference to Percy's earlier confession about Annabeth, making both Leo and Will choke down laughter. I had to hide my own snort behind my fist.

Percy straightened out with a deep inhale and spun around with a smile. "Thank you, sir. I needed that."

"Percy Jackson, ladies, and gentlemen," Will raised his glass. "The ass that's been turning shy, little Italian boys gay since twenty-ten."

"Will," Nico hissed, wide-eyed and nostrils flaring.

"What?" Percy asked, face scrunched up in confusion.

"Ignore him-" Nico tried, but Will cut him off.

"Let's just say; I found out why he calls you Superstar," Will snickered. "Even if you only starred in one dream, one was enough."

Percy's jaw nearly hit the floor as Nico tried to hide in Will's shadow. "When did you have a sex dream about me?" Everyone was gawking at the Italian, urging him to answer.

"Okay, so apparently your fathers rented a house by the lake as a kinda reunion," Will answered on his behalf. "And everyone went, like your brothers and even Bianca was visiting from Italy."

"Oh, I remember," Percy nodded. "Triton and I entered this little beach volleyball tournament."

"And that would be the source of the dream." Percy frowned again.

"I was thirteen, though. Totally not, you know, dream-worthy. I mean, I could understand Triton. He was seventeen and buff as fuck."

"Hold on," Annabeth said. "Wasn't I on that trip too? It was the summer before high school, right?"

"Right," Percy nodded. "My dad made me sleep in his room to keep an eye on me at night."

"You were just starting to catch up height wise back then, and you drooled in your sleep. Your father had nothing to worry about, Seaweed Brain."

"Sure," Percy rolled his eyes. "Because you didn't kiss me at the bonfire." I, along with most of the room tensed.

"You were playing in that volleyball thing, and I just wished you luck before the finals," Annabeth shrugged. "Besides, your father had bigger concerns with how Triton was drooling over Bianca. That was the first time we saw scary Nico."

"Scary Nico?" Will asked.

"Yeah, like how he still stares down Frank?" Percy clarified. "Imagine a scrawny little thirteen-year-old Nico telling my seventeen-year-old brother all the horrifying ways he could kill him without leaving any evidence."

"It was amusing, really," Annabeth chuckled.

"Speaking of your fish brained brother," Nico snapped up. "Guess who he ran into in Milan during fashion week."

"I take it Bianca was one of the models?" Percy chuckled.

"I swear to all the gods, Percy. If he hurts her, I will kill him, pry open the gates of hell myself, just to drag him back amongst the living and kill him again."

"Question," Piper raised a finger. "Your brother was at the Milan fashion week?"

"Yeah, his mother, Amphitrite, is a designer," Percy answered.

"Gotcha," she nodded. "And your sister's a model?" Piper asked Nico who sighed deeply.

"Unfortunately," he huffed.

"Pipes, have you ever looked at the new Emporio Armani ads and thought that the girl's cheekbones look familiar?" Percy smirked.

"Oh, gods. Your sister is an underwear model?" Piper squealed, and Nico fixed Percy with a deathly stare void of emotion.

"Why?" he asked. "Just why?"

"Wait, that's Bianca?" Annabeth asked, wide-eyed and ashen-faced. "Oh, gods. I didn't recognise her."

"Hold up, you have an underwear model for a sister and never thought to introduce me?" Leo screamed. Someone cleared their throat, silencing the room.

"Need I remind you, Leo?" Calypso asked, unamused, holding up her left hand to showcase her engagement ring.

"I love you," he smiled, making her roll her eyes.