Hello, everybody. How has everyone's October been? I've been braindead recently, so excuse whatever happens in the next thousand words or so.

I'm not even gonna lie, I had no plans for this chapter. It just kind of formed itself. (But next chapter I do have plans for, and I think you'll all just absolutely love them.)

So yeah, have fun with that.

"Please be my English partner, Jackson!"
*****

Jason would have thoroughly enjoyed just sleeping through the entire day. Sure, he'd miss six classes of work, but he'd get over it. Of course, while Jason had no problem with this, his female friend did.

"Get out of bed, loser, we have to go in fifteen minutes!" Piper shouted, banging on the door.

The blonde groaned loudly in response, rolling out of his bed and onto the floor. He lazily (but quickly!) made his way through his morning routine, meeting Piper downstairs approximately twelve minutes later with a poptart. The verbal exchange in the car was nonexistent until Jason finished his food, at which time Piper immediately struck up a conversation.

She scrolled through what appeared to be her Instagram as she spoke, "So, Leo tells me you were hiding stuff about your whereabouts yesterday."

Jason heavily sighed. "Yeah, of course he did."

"What were you doing?" She asked, her lips subconsciously curling into a smile. Piper knew full well Jason was more likely to tell her a secret than Leo. It wasn't that Jason liked Piper more or didn't trust Leo, it was just that Leo tended to blow things out of proportion. Jason preferred to let situations die down completely until telling Leo things to make sure he didn't accidentally make anything worse.

"Just talking to Percy," Jason explained, "and if you tell Leo, he'll be pissed at me. So please don't do that, thanks."

"Yeah, whatever," she waved him off. She'd probably tell Leo.

"What were you guys talking about that you couldn't tell Leo?" Piper continued the conversation.

Jason sighed. "His eye."

"What's wrong with his eye? I think his eyes are pretty cool, don't come for me," she said.

"No–okay, fine, they are–but I'm talking about the bruise," Jason explained.

Piper shook her head. "Jase, I have no clue what the hell you're talking about."

"Right, sorry," he said, "it was Reyna that helped fix it. He had it covered and I messed it up, so she helped."

Piper nodded, confirming that she had heard the statement. She then dropped the conversation and started surfing through radio channels, trying to find something she liked. They arrived at school less than five minutes later.

Standing outside of Piper's locker were Percy and Leo. The latter was telling Percy something, probably a story based off of his stupid grin and exaggerated hand movements. Percy had the smallest hint of an amused smile as he intently watched him. How Leo almost always had so much energy in the morning still baffled Jason.

Both Percy's and Leo's gazes traveled to Piper and Jason when they arrived. Leo immediately jumped back into story mode and began talking to Piper, so Jason invited Percy to go to his locker with him to avoid the chaos that is the duo of Piper McLean and Leo Valdez.

During their trek down the excessively long hallway, Jason decided to follow up on his encounter with Percy the previous day.

"Hey," he started, "how's your eye?" Percy shrugged, shaking his head just a bit.

"Is it worse?" Another shake of the head. "Hey, there's a plus at least."

Percy glanced over at Jason with a look that very clearly said 'are you kidding me?' before he looked back at the ground and the small smile reappeared for reasons Jason was unaware of.

The blonde assumed they couldn't be too major if he didn't know about it. There was a chance he could be wrong, but Jason thought it was safe to say that he was one of Percy's closest friends. What very little information Percy did share was usually shared with Jason before anyone else, if he even told anyone else. Really, Jason didn't know why, since he had only almost gotten in trouble a few times for Percy, but he probably would've done that for most people.

At least he was pretty sure he would.

Jason decided to point it out. "You seem...happier today."

Percy just looked up at him again and shrugged. Truthfully, Gabe would be gone for two or three days doing gods know what. Percy didn't care where he was or how irritable he'd probably be when he returned, he was just glad to finally have a day or two of peace. That is, if the environment at school treated him well. He believed, although feeling very guilty about it, that he wouldn't have a problem since Chris's suspension. Until things blew over, Percy knew neither Chris nor Ethan would try anything. Or he hoped so.

While he was talking to Jason, his mind reminded him to ask for a ride, since Gabe was unfortunately his usual way home. The two arrived at Jason's locker, and Percy typed the question into his phone, showing the blonde when he had gotten all his books.

Jason glanced over, quickly reading over the words before nodding. "Do you want to just come back to my place? You can do homework or whatever Piper decides to waste time with. I have to warn you, though, Leo will probably make an appearance since he acts like he lives there. You can spend the night, too, since it's Friday and all."

Percy gave the most nonchalant nod he could manage, just slightly ecstatic that he could actually do things with people who actually considered him a friend because his mother would gladly let him stay at Jason's. She'd definitely want him home the next night so they could do something together without Gabe interfering, but Percy knew she would have no problem with him being gone one night.

The bell then rang, signaling that students only had five more minutes to get to their homerooms. Jason turned to Percy with a smile. "See you later?"

The black haired boy nodded, waving goodbye as he walked away to start the school day.

*****

In the car after school, Jason was prepared to throw down with Piper and Leo, who were in the back seat. They gave Percy the front mostly because they were short, but also because one of their many pastimes was getting Jason as close to crashing his car as they could.

"I'm dropping both of you off at the nearest gas station if you don't calm down!" Jason threatened them.

Piper rolled her eyes. "Okay, mom."

Jason bit with lip with a sigh, finishing their drive home moments later. The four piled into the house, Leo immediately flopping down the couch and Piper going to get food from the kitchen.

"My friends are hooligans," Jason muttered under his breath, at which Percy smiled before following the blonde to where Leo had gone.

The night continued as it typically did, with them watching the lowest rated movies they could find, consuming a large amount of food, Piper providing any drama updates from the people at school, and so on before finally falling asleep at about three A.M.

Four hours later, Thalia walked through the front door and almost instantly noticed the four teenagers passed out in the living room. She was a bit surprised to see Percy there, but she definitely wasn't going to say anything to Jason about it, especially since they had just fought about Jason's friendship with the boy recently, and she was sure Jason remembered that.

She sighed, turning around after deciding she'd just go get doughnuts for everyone. Before she closed the door, though, she looked over at them again and thought back to when she had stormed out. As much as she hated to admit it, she had begun to see her brother's perspective on the matter.

Maybe Jason was right.

Okay.

I really didn't know how to end this chapter, what is wrong with me?

So if you didn't already know, I live in STL. And this weekend, we changed weather-wise from early September to late November in literally two days I'm triggered.

Like we're just going to completely forget nice fall weather exists.

And that's how my week has been going.

But hey, first quarter ended and I'm rocking 95's or higher in everything.

Let's see how long that lasts.

Bye, children!