Going Viral

Chapter 38

February 12th

"Is it Luke? Are you with Luke?"

His voice is harsh and biting when she picks up the phone. Annabeth holds a finger out apologetically to where Piper sits on her bed in front of a camera. Her friend frowns but stays quiet, shutting of the recording.

"Answer me, please, Beth. Are you with Luke?"

There's static on the line but Annabeth doesn't know whether to blame the connection or if it's just due to the way Percy spits his words down the phone.

"No, I'm with Piper. We're in the middle of filming. What's wrong?" She can hear the worry in his voice as he talks but she can barely make out what he's saying. "Whoa, Percy, slow down. What happened?"

She thinks he might be crying as he talks, or at the very least, he's upset. Her heart aches to be with him wherever he is at the minute, though there's no way she can leave Manhattan tonight, not with a show tonight and two more tomorrow. "There was this article, Annabeth. Olympus News - I know it's probably bull, I know, but that's why I called you first. I know it's exaggerated or twisted, but the photo's real. Were you with Luke?"

Luke? Why would she be with Luke? When she questions what article he's got the information from, he's quick to send her a link. Evidently the article was already open on his phone.

Annabeth Chase spotted on a date with Waitress co-star Luke Castellan
written by Hera at Olympus News (photo by Paris Hebe-Enyo)

Sure enough, there's a photo of her and what looks to be Luke from the back. Despite the fact that she can practically hear the stress seeping from Percy's end of the phone call, she laughs.

"What? Annabeth, please talk to me. Hermes made it a big deal and I know I can trust you but I'm confused. Why were you with Luke? I thought you hated him?"

Okay, well at least he trusts her. Annabeth has no idea who Hermes is and what he did to bring the article to Percy's attention, but the idea on her being on a date with Luke was hilarious. (Just for the record, Annabeth doesn't hate Luke, he's just far from being her favorite person.)

"Percy, calm down. That's not Luke."

He curses loudly. "Oh, I'm so sorry. That's totally fine then. As long as it's not Luke." Annabeth senses just a little sarcasm in his voice.

"It's Jason. I'm with Jason in that photo."

A pregnant pause.

"Okay, now I feel foolish." He mutters, breaking into a laugh that she shares. "I'm sorry. I don't know why the thought of Olympus News being right about something even crossed my mind. But while I've got you here, is Jason okay? He and Thalia kind of left the theatre last month in a hurry and she won't talk about it."

Annabeth hummed thoughtfully, realising that Jason and Thalia being sibling made Percy his cousin. "It's not really my news to tell. But they're okay. You should hear it from Thalia though."

They spoke for another minute or two before Percy apologised, explaining that perhaps he should go and clear up to rumours that the article had caused.

When she pockets her phone again, she's met with Piper's smug smile and the offer of a cup of coffee.

"Lovers tiff?" Piper questions.

Annabeth only rolls her eyes and searches through her camera roll, plan in mind. The photo she picks out is of her and Jason the morning before they'd walked around the park together. It had been taken before Piper had started her work and she was peering around the door frame to get in on the selfie. Jason was leaning against the counter, glasses steamed up from leaning over the boiling pans and Annabeth was pulling a face at the camera, eyes crossed and tongue sticking out. Checking out the article for confirmation, she noticed that Jason was wearing the same clothes as he had been when they were photographed. Satisfied, Annabeth sends the selfie to him for approval.

absoluteannabeth is it okay for me to post this? i was gonna save it for your birthday but there's this article that's come out that saw us in the park and the press think i'm cheating lmao

For explanation, she shared the link. Jason was quick to reply.

jasongrace1 do they ever lay off?

jasongrace1 yeah, go ahead

She replied with a string of emojis including a facepalm and an eye roll followed by a heart and showed the conversation to Piper, deciding for once to let Piper decide if the embarrassing photo of her gets posted on Instagram.

Once they'd finished their coffees, the two of them headed back into Piper's room to continue filming. Admittedly, Annabeth wasn't quite with it. Furious about the audacity of Olympus News - and she hadn't failed to notice the writer was none other than Hera! - her mind wandered. It was hard to dwell on it with Piper besides her chattering energetically as she painted Annabeth's cheekbones in shimmering gold.

"And that's the finished look guys!" She beamed at the camera. "It's probably a bit too glam for your everyday makeup but I quite like how this turned out."

Annabeth sat still with relatively no complaints when Piper fussed about taking photos of her. As much as she would deny it, Piper did enjoy to experiment with makeup and would frequently beg Annabeth to be a model so she could try out new looks. Though she claimed that beauty videos didn't fit her 'casual thrift store' persona, the looks were never too showy and always stunningly simple. A few clever additions such as a pink lip liner or the perfect amount of highlight could accentuate a certain feature in just the right way, not to mention what Piper's fashion advice could do to enhance her subscribers "beautiful, beautiful bodies" (because no one preaches self-love quite like Piper McLean does).

After they'd scoffed their dinner, cauliflower salad from Piper's new Vegetarian recipe book that never fails to make them wrinkle their nose in disgust before being pleasantly surprised by the taste, Annabeth reluctantly wipes the shimmery powder off of her face in favour of her minimal makeup look for the show tonight.

Her father was watching tonight.

It had taken surprisingly little convincing to get him to travel to New York for one day, though maybe that had something to do with her step-mothers knowledge that Annabeth could get them free tickets which Frederick insisted wasn't necessary in the way that totally made it seem like he was just being polite and didn't want to spend a dollar on her. Even Bobby and Matthew were making the track down to see Annabeth perform.

(Part of her wished the boys weren't coming because the idea of performing an almost-sex scene in front of her six year old brothers made her feel sick. She had to remind herself that they were fourteen now. She couldn't comprehend how they'd grown up so fast, though maybe her perspective of them ageing was somewhat hindered by the fact that she hadn't spent longer than the duration of a meal in their company since she was fourteen herself.)

In any case, the show was approaching fast and her family was going to be there. Nerves bubbled in her stomach and she recalled the last time she'd looked forward to her father watching her on stage. Young Annabeth had told him she was performing but hadn't told him she was one of the principle characters, even as a sophomore. Unbeknown to her, he'd scheduled the night away from work and reserved a seat on the front row. She had barely been able to contain her grin on stage and felt a rush of pride when he shed a tear at her death scene. Of course, certainly in the Chase family, moments like that didn't last. The drive home had been wonderful and Frederick had told her just how talented she was and how lucky he was to have such a wonderful daughter, but then his wife was tired and had struggled to settle the twins and he had been ripped from her grasp yet again to tend to his other family. His better family. The one that she wasn't a part of.

But optimism is key and so Annabeth puts on a smile and heads to the theatre.