"Honey, Honey, how he thrills me, a-huh, Honey, Honey."

-Honey, Honey from Mamma Mia

Picture this: it's 1987, she's at a concert, watching some loud band jam out on a poorly set up mess of a stage, everyone around her is drunk or high (or both), she's alone, she's tired, her feet hurt, her ears hurt, and, shockingly enough, she really doesn't want to be here.

Okay, maybe it's a little inaccurate. It's not a concert, so much as a bar turned dance floor with sweaty guys in their late teen years, banging drums and shredding guitar strings, and a little screaming nonsense song lyrics mixed in. But, concert or not, Annabeth really doesn't like it.

The band is called LoudAlive. The lead is a tall, handsome dude with long blonde hair and blue eyes. Annabeth figures he's mildly attractive, but upon seeing him eyeing a brunette in the corner, she loses interest almost immediately.

Speaking of almost immediately, that's just how fast Annabeth lost her friends. One second they're all heading to the bar, and the next, the band is on fire and Annabeth is alone. She doesn't really mind after a couple of minutes, cause it hits her that she could technically just leave. Neither Piper nor Thalia expected her to stay, plus the trio did walk there, so in an attempt to save her precious eardrums, she leaves the pounding room where the music plays so loudly in sync with her quickened heart rate and the intensity of everyone in the room is so energetic and bright she could practically taste it. Or perhaps it was the shot of whatever the bartender gave her.

The white, radiant lights coming from the street lamps is relieving compared to the phosphorescent strobe lights in the bar. Annabeth takes a deep breath and hopes the cool night air will evaporate the sweat that collected on the back of her neck. She ties her hair up anyway.

Feeling immensely allayed from the beating base and intoxicating atmosphere, Annabeth walks down the sidewalk lackadaisically. She thinks about what to have for dinner that night, considering a slightly old but hopefully uncontaminated microwave mac and cheese, when a person stumbles out of the bar she had just left.

She hears him before she sees him, so when she does turn around to see a minorly average looking guy in ripped black jeans and an A Flock of Seagulls shirt, she is kind of shocked, because most people in the bar wore tight leather jeans, leg warmers, plenty of fishnet fingerless gloves, and Annabeth's all-time favorite: track suits. It scares her, who would actually wear a tracksuit to a vociferous place like that bar. What with all the dancing and singing (and sweating) she'd think he'd be miserable.

But that's not what her attention is on.

It's on the blatantly trenchant fact that the guy has surprisingly prepossessing features. And, well, really, he is freaking hot.

With messy black hair that looks as soft as pillow feathers, incredibly out of hand from stumbling out of the bar, and the slight breeze; it falls in front of his eyes. His sharp, yet friendly features, strong jawline, sweet smile, perfectly arched eyebrows. His careless physique, his tall, lean body with broad shoulders. His eyes.

God, his eyes.

"Hi," he says breathlessly. Annabeth needs a moment to process that he had made his way over to her and is now standing right before her.

"Uh, hi," she responds, biting down a cringe from the fact that he smells like strong liquor and cigarettes.

He looks behind him at the bar then points to it with his thumb. "You come from in there?"

She nods. "I wanted any reason to leave, though."

He smiles, his eyes (god, his beautiful eyes) lighting up. "What's your reason?"

It feels odd, Annabeth realises, talking to a stranger as if they're friends. She's absolutely sure she's never seen him (believe her, she would remember someone like him), but he seems normal enough, so she throws caution to the steadily easy wind ruffling his god-almighty beautiful hair, and answers instead of dismissing herself.

"I have some possibly expired mac and cheese waiting for me in my freezer at home."

He chuckles. "That's a good excuse."

"What's your reason?" she asks, feeling bold. Flirting with guys like him is not her forte and flirting in general is not something she normally partakes in.

He smiles, eyes (god, his eyes) twinkling in the fluorescent street lamps above them. "I needed to sober up," he says, "Care to join me?"

She smiles. "I'm not drunk, though." She knows it's a lie. She took a few shots earlier and she was sipping a beer throughout the night, despite how disgusting it was, she did that.

He takes her hand anyway and winks. "We're all a little high on life, aren't we?"

Annabeth laughs, throwing her head back. The joke, of course, wasn't very funny, but it really was when it came from him. "I can't just go with a stranger, my friends might worry," she says as she allows him to drag her down the street. She ignores how much she enjoys the feeling of his hand in hers.

He turns to face her and walks backwards, now shaking her hand. "Percy Jackson, pleasure to meet you."

"Annabeth."

"I don't get a last name?"

"You'll have to earn it."

"Fair enough."

His carefree attitude makes her feel light and free, it makes her feel intoxicated.

He starts humming Total Eclipse of the Heart, as if that's totally normal.

"Bonnie Clyde," she says. "Really? I didn't picture you as a fan."

He smiles. "It was on the radio earlier."

Percy, she likes his name, starts walking next to her, her hand still in his. Annabeth feels like a schoolgirl, which grosses her out a considerable amount. If anyone sees them, they'll look like a couple on a midnight stroll.

For a couple of minutes, they walk down the pavement slowly, Percy humming variations of different Top Ten listed songs and swinging their arms back and forth between them, before Annabeth asks, "Where are we going?"

He stops walking. "I don't know, I thought you were leading us."

She takes a step back. "You were the one who grabbed my hand and started pulling me this way."

He looks above her head to the sign on the storefront behind her. "Let's just go here."

It's a cafe. The only people inside is a group of moms still sporting the oldest fashion from the seventies, sipping tea, and talking softly, and a worker behind the counter who looks like he's going to pass out from exhaustion.

They go up to the boy at the register and Percy waves. The kid, Nico (as said on his nametag), looks up in bewilderment and amazement. Annabeth understands completely. Percy's freaking hot.

"Hello," Percy smiles. "Can we have two coffees and two waters?"

Nico swallows and nods. "Uh, two thirty-nine."

Percy hands him a crumpled five and winks. "Keep the change."

Nico's eyes widen a considerable amount. "It's gonna take, like, two minutes."

"Cool," Percy responds, taking Annabeth's arm and leading them to a table.

Annabeth looks at him as he starts creating a tower out of creamer cups. "You're a heartbreaker."

He smiles, but doesn't look up from his slowly building tower. "So, Annabeth, what do you do for a living?"

She leans back in a chair and raises an eyebrow. "I work the morning shift at this cafe."

He looks up and grins. "Small world, huh?"

"Definitely."

Nico comes and hands them their drinks. "I'll be in the back if you need anything."

Percy smiles at him. "I'll keep that in mind."

After Nico disappears in the back room, Annabeth says, "That was a dick move."

Percy pours half of his creamer tower into his coffee as he responds, "How so?"

Annabeth leans forward to watch him. "I mean, don't get me wrong, but you don't seem like the type to be into guys, and you're totally leading that kid on. He's getting his hopes up."

Percy shrugs as he sips his water and looks around the restaurant. "Who says I don't want to follow up on his offer and ravish him in the back room?"

Annabeth says, "I won't blame you if you do. In fact, I might just go…"

He grabs her wrist, though she made no move to leave in the first place, she was only teasing. "Don't," he says, "I have plans."

What that meant, she has no idea.

Not in the mood for coffee, Annabeth sips her water. They sit in silence for a few minutes until Annabeth says, "What about you, what do you do?"

"Girls, mostly. But that worker was mighty cute, wasn't he?"

God, she feels like slapping him. She only hopes he's not a douche when he's sober.

"For a living. What's your job?"

He leans back in his chair. "I work at that bar we just so expertly escaped from. My friend's the manager so I bar-tend on weekends."

She raises an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be there now, then?"

He shrugs. "I've decided that I quit."

"When?"

"When did we meet again?"

She chuckles.

Percy stands and looks around. He walks to the counter and peeks to make sure nobody is there, then he goes back to Annabeth who is watching him amusedly. "Come with me, I want to show you something."

She shoots him a skeptical look but lets him take her hand anyway. By this time, the moms had already left so it was just the two of them.

Annabeth follows close behind as Percy goes to the back of the cafe.

The bathrooms were situated next to each other, boys on the left, girls on the right, but in the middle was one door labeled: Employees only.

The door to the roof.

Percy opens the door, and before Annabeth can react to it being unlocked, she grabs his arm. "We shouldn't do that."

"Why not?"

She gives him a look. "Because we're not supposed to."

"Sometimes," he says, coming close to her, destroying any remains of her personal bubble, "breaking the law is the only way to have fun." Then he tugs her up the stairs.

She's too baffled and amused to react so she allows him to drag her up and out into the cool night air.

He closes the door behind them.

Annabeth looks up above her. The stelliferous sky twinkles like bright lights above her head. The moon, so bright and full, might've seemed like a street lamp if she was ignorant enough.

"Wicked cool, isn't it?" Percy's deep voice asks from behind her.

"Yeah," she says. "Wicked cool."

Thirteen minutes later, they're laying beside each other on the roof of the cafe, and she points out a constellation, recalling it from one of her textbooks. "See that one," she nudges him. "That's Cassiopeia. Kinda small compared to the others, but I think it's my favourite."

"Why?"

"I really don't know," she responds. "Cassiopeia was an awful person. She chained her daughter to a rock for sacrifice. Even in the stars, she's on a throne."

He goes quiet, then, out of nowhere, he uncharacteristically says, "For you, I'd steal the stars … but I can also get them through more legitimate means, if that'd impress you more."

She swallows the stupid butterflies and says, "Sometimes, breaking the law is the only way to have fun."

"How so?" he asks.

She smiles. "Stealing stars seems like a highly enjoyable activity, and I'm only nineteen."

He laughs loudly, throwing his head back. Trying to ignore the butterflies in her stomach, she refuses to look at him and his perfect smile, his bright eyes (god, his eyes), as he laughs a wonderfully sounding laugh. "I'm twenty."

She laughs. "Twenty and working as a bartender? I wasn't sure that was legal."

He smiles at her. "Legally, I could've been working as a bartender since I was eighteen."

"Yikes," she says, moving her head back to examine the stars for more constellations.

"Yeah, I hate it. Actually, I've been thinking of quitting for a while."

"How come?"

"Drunk people don't necessarily appease to me, as much as you'd think."

She snorts. "I was drunk."

He smirks. "You're a good drunk. People who yell and throw things are the reason I quit."

"I'm glad you did."

"How so?"

"Cause if not, I'd be eating freezer burnt mac and cheese right now."

He laughs again and stands up, holding his hand out to help her up. She accepts reluctantly; as late as it is, she really doesn't want the night to end.

He doesn't let her hand go, though. Instead he uses it to pull her close. Close enough so that they're pressed together, not an inch of each other not touching. He presses his forehead on hers and she meets his eyes.

God, his eyes.

His green and blue and swirling eyes that hold mischief and wonder and so much in them. His eyes that look like the sea. His eyes that look into hers.

He kisses her.

Her mind blanks for a minute. Then she comes back to reality and kisses back, wrapping her arms around his neck.

He pulls away and presses his forehead on hers again. He chuckles breathlessly and Annabeth doesn't admit it, but she melts. "God, I've wanted to do that since I saw you outside the bar."

She chuckles and kisses him again because she can.

More because she wants to than anything.

"Chase," she says. "My last name is Chase."

He laughs.

how many months has it been since i've uploaded anything? too many.

i apologize for that, but i do have a very long chaptered story in the works, but my mind is sorta blanking in that department right now. i pink swear, when school gets out, i'll have plenty of time to write. in fact i only have nine days left, so expect something from me within the next month or two.

anyway

i hoped you enjoyed this. yes yes everyone was out of character, but i really wanted to write percy like this because i've read so many fics with him in this attitude and i wanted to give it a shot. hopefully i didn't mess up entirely.

review if you want.

- leigh