Author's note: Hey there. I played with this idea for a while before I finally started jotting it down. It just seems natural that Tyson being Tyson would blurt out things to Annabeth that Percy didn't want her to know.

p.s. sorry for any grammatical or mechanical errors. I wrote this pretty fast.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything associated with the Percy Jackson series.

Sorry guys! I forgot to mention that this takes place after BOTL and before TLO, just in case anyone was confused :)

"Do you think Annabeth is pretty?"

Percy had just been about to doze off when Tyson asked him this. The question caught him off guard, and he found himself sitting up in his bunk bed, fully awake now, and staring down at his half-brother who was lounging on his own bed, tinkering with some odds and ends he'd brought home from the forges. He was completely oblivious to Percy's startled reaction.

"What?" Percy asked, not sure if he had heard Tyson correctly.

"Well, I see you staring at her a lot, and I thought-"

"Who?" Percy felt his cheeks burning.

"Annabeth." Tyson set down the wind-up pegasus he had just made on the floor next to his bunk and rolled over in his sheets, his feet dangling off the edge.

"I thought that maybe since you look at her a lot, you thought she was pretty," Tyson continued, and Percy made a mental note to himself that Tyson was a lot more observant than most people - including him - gave him credit for.

"Do you, brother?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you think Annabeth is pretty?" The question is innocent, like it is just genuine curiousity without any other hidden motives, such as fishing for gossip, which would be a reason why a child of Aphrodite would want to know. Of course, Percy knew Tyson wasn't the type of guy who liked to spread rumors or gossip, but Percy didn't give away the classified information that he thought Annabeth was attractive to just anyone.

He waited a little bit before answering, "Yeah... Yeah, I guess I do think Annabeth is pretty."

Annabeth's image immediately popped into his head after he admitted this, with her tan skin, silky curls and intimidating yet captivating gray eyes that he never seemed to get tired of looking into. He saw her smile, and the feeling of pleasant warmth it gave him sent tingles down to his toes.

"Tyson?" Percy said before he heard the rumbling of his half-brother's snores. Percy smiled.

"Night, big guy."

Annabeth's image stayed with him until he fell asleep.

The next day, Percy, Tyson, and Annabeth went down to the canoe lake. Percy had been trying to teach Tyson how to skip rocks, something Tyson had wanted to learn ever since he saw Percy do it when Percy had first brought him to camp, but Percy decided to resign from the task when Tyson kept throwing rocks the size of basketballs into the lake, saying that it was more fun this way because he got to hear the rock go ker-plunk! when it hit the water. Annabeth had laughed, and Percy had told Tyson that they'd try again another time.

Now they were all sitting at the edge of the lake, soaking up the afternoon sun and listening to the birds chirping overhead. It felt good to relax for a little while.

Annabeth was sitting next to Percy. Their shoulders kept brushing, and Percy couldn't ignore the way his skin tingled where it touched hers. Her hair was down today, the curls flowing over her shoulders, and she was wearing a white v-neck t-shirt instead of her camp t-shirt, and Percy couldn't help but notice the way it made her skin look like it was glowing. The gray streak of hair that mirrored his exactly was tucked behind her ear.

He didn't even realize he was staring until Annabeth looked at him and said, "What?", a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Percy immediately looked away, his cheeks coloring a little, but he smiled too and said, "Nothing."

He unscrewed the cap on his water bottle and was in the middle of taking a drink when Tyson said, "Percy thinks Annabeth is pretty."

Percy choked, spewing water everywhere.

"Tyson!" he managed between coughs.

"He told me last night. He said that's why he's always staring at you; because he thinks you're pretty."

Percy felt like crawling under a rock he was so embarrassed. He thought that Tyson had been asleep when he admitted that he thought Annabeth was pretty. That little...

"I... I didn't... you said..." Percy scrambled for something to say once he got his coughing under control. He looked at Annabeth helplessly. She looked taken aback, her eyebrow quirked, but she was fighting a smile. Percy felt a little relieved, even though he was pretty sure his cheeks were more red than they'd ever been in his entire life. At least she didn't look disgusted.

"Did you really say that?" Annabeth asked. The look in her eyes made it difficult to know exactly what she was thinking.

"I... I don't know. Maybe," Percy mumbled, looking down at his feet. Something like that.

He could tell she was grinning.

"Percy, it's okay," she said, chuckling a little. "Don't sweat it."

Percy looked up at her, suddenly hopeful. "You mean you're not mad?"

Annabeth knit her eyebrows together. "Why would I be mad?"

Okay, he wasn't expecting that question.

He took a deep breath. "I don't know. I guess it's because we're best friends and I just thought... I don't know." Once again, he couldn't think of the right thing to say. Maybe it was because he felt like their friendship was in such a fragile state right now, had been ever since the Labyrinth. He still couldn't figure out why though. He just didn't want to do anything that might risk him losing her. Of course, he didn't tell her that.

Annabeth bumped his shoulder with hers. "You can be stupid sometimes, you know that, Seaweed Brain?"

Percy smiled. "Yeah, I know."

They sat there until dinner, and Percy was happy that the silence was still comfortable.

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