Disclaimers: Just another mortal meet demigod story, nothing new. The recognizable characters, plot, etc. are not my own, just my OC Austin Blofis.

"These Shallow Waters" come from Alan Walker's song Faded.

I don't own Hamilton: An American Musical either, the genius, Lin-Manuel Miranda does.

Overview: Percy has a new brother, well not really, he has a new mortal step-brother. If that doesn't spell trouble then what does? Percabeth duh.

An overabundance of the word "Like."

Undecided at the moment if I am going to continue this story.

My step-brother and his family/friends were officially the weirdest group of people I have ever met- and I have met some strange ones, I did attend public school after all.

I couldn't put my finger on it exactly that made them stand apart from everyone else I knew, but they were all the same. I mean whatever it was that was different about them, wasn't just a hit or miss in the crowd, but rather, they all had the same oddity about them. Leaving me to the conclusion that it must have run in Percy's father's family. Thank God it did not run in my genes.

I had just spent the evening watching them, not really getting involved in their conversation because I didn't want any of their weirdness rubbing off on me, in case, you know, it was contagious or something, but I still was no closer at figuring them out. That frustrated me to no end. Like, I was going to be going to school with them (but hopefully not all of them) I needed to know what I was up against, and that meant I needed to be able to read them. But they were pretty much unreadable. Like I couldn't get a read on any of them.

One thing I had picked up on was that Percy seemed to be the leader of the band of misfits, and a girl who had blonde princess curls seemed to be the co-leader.

Just because, and I am ashamed to admit it, it was just so obvious that Percy was the captain of this group.

Can you believe it? Like he might be a wimp, but the rest of the misfits looked up to him and treated him like a leader… a war hero. I can't describe it, you'd have to be there to fully understand, but it was obvious that they looked up to him and actually stopped to listen to him talk.

And that they loved to say the word "Gods" instead of "God" and they enjoyed talking about ancient Greek as if it wasn't all that ancient.

Whatever. They were probably all part of some Greek club or something assuming Goode had such a thing. Back at my old school we never had such a club the closest thing we had was a geek club (not that that was the actual name of the club or anything) but the only one that seemed to have half enough brains to be considered a nerd was a blonde chick. However, when I asked Percy if they were apart of some Geek, I mean Greek club, he looked at me like I was stupid, I'm not stupid. I was just trying to strike up a conversation and when I do make an attempt they look at me like I'm stupid and the girl looked annoyed at me. They all did. Like I was the inferior being here. I beg to differ.

Just because I didn't understand Greek, much less speak it or appear to be a know-it-all in Greek Mythology, which they all seemed to, it did not mean I was stupid or inferior.

Percy's 'girlfriend' seemed smart, not that brains were exactly high up on my list of priorities in a girlfriend, it wasn't that I had anything against a smart girl, but they just didn't seem to appreciate the whole "ball is life" thing. They were too involved in books and trying to out-nerd the other nerds. Percy didn't seem to be the type to care too much about the books either so how he ended up with such a brainiac, much less a hot one, was a surprise to me but anyone could tell he was totally whipped.

To prove my point, Annie, or whatever her name was, had just spent the last five minutes lecturing about prepositional phrases and Percy actually sat there and listened to her along with dad. Course, dad would, though, being an English teacher and all. He practically lived and breathed this kind of stuff. So while dad was nodding along like he was actually following along, Sally just had a grin on her face winking at some of Percy's friends when Percy wasn't looking, because he was staring at Anna.

I tuned them out. This wasn't an English class, so why was she subjecting us to this torture? Who cared about prepositional phrases anyway, well besides dad (which should be a given) and my step-brother who probably didn't even know what a prepositional phrase was even if it was in writing in front of him. He didn't seem to have enough brains about him to even know what a prepositional phrase was, much less what it modified, or whatever they did. As I said, I wasn't paying her any attention to the lecture and scrolling around on my phone.

"Percy, you aren't even listening to me are you?" I jumped, hopefully, that went unnoticed- when the girl suddenly stopped talking about English and began scolding Percy. I almost felt bad for him. Simply because I could relate seeing as how I had dated Trish, or Tasha or whatever her name was (I'm like really bad at names if you couldn't tell) and she had won a prize of some sort in poetry or something and was constantly talking about English and poetry and the latest novel she'd been working on. Not to offend any of the English geeks out there, but seriously, who cares?

"Um, yeah?" Dork said.

"Then what was I saying?" The blonde challenged pulling away from Percy to look at him. Some of the other teenagers in the room snickered at Percy's unfortunate position. I, I will unashamedly admit, probably laughed the hardest.

"That you love me." My step-brother said confidently without missing a beat before leaning in and giving the girl a kiss. Like not a kiss on the cheek, but like on the lips and everything and it was right in front of his mom and my dad.

I looked at Sally thinking that she'd be fussing at the PDA between her son and this girl but she was cooing. You'd think she would be worried about becoming a grandmother by the time she turned forty, but apparently, she wasn't.

I then looked at dad thinking that since Sally wasn't going to say anything, he would, but my dad had a sappy grin on his face. Like he thought they were the cutest couple imaginable. I wonder what he would do if he saw them kissing in the hallways of Goode High. Would he say anything or just grin that happy little smile of his.

Someone, I think was Percy's cousin Tia or Tayah or something like that was thinking along the same lines as I was and started to gag but she was quickly hushed by another nameless teen.

I noticed that some of the teens looked away, not out of discomfort or embarrassment, but as a way to give the two utterly besotted love birds some privacy, while others grinned secretively at each other.

Eventually, they broke apart but they continued to look deeply into each other's eyes. Now it was my turn to start gagging. God, this was sicking…

"So, you're Percy's step-brother." A blonde superhero looking dude who had been sizing me up asked, well not really asked, more like stating a fact, but I found myself nodding my head anyway. I mean it was a fact. I was Percy's, step-brother. Just his step-brother.

I guess I was just desperate to have someone to talk to. Kind of lonely to be in a room full of people yet have no one to talk to.

"Uh yeah."

"Figures you'd be his step-brother and not his half-brother. Not even Prissy's such a wimp."
Before I could argue with the piggy looking girl (I say that but it was really an insult to pigs everywhere) that I was 1) not a wimp and 2) that I was pretty sure Percy was more of a wimp than I, Percy spoke up.
"Thanks, I guess Clarisse… Anyway, yeah, he's Paul's son and uh, yeah. He's been living with his mom in Florida, until today…"
"So he's not… a you-know?"
"No, at least I'm pretty sure. Why?"
"Well, considering how well Paul took it, I wondered if he'd had some…"
The other teenagers' eyes flashed over to my dad, who was taking everything in stride despite the carefully worded sentences that seemed to make sense to everyone but me.

"Nope. Percy was my first. Never imagined such a thing was possible." Dad said with a shake of his head, glancing at Percy and then Sally with something akin to admiration and disbelief. "Though I have to say-"
"Thanks, Paul. I guess he had no choice but to... you know... I mean, Rachel had to explain the dents in the car somehow.." Percy cut dad off with a shrug. I was completely lost in the direction in which the conversation had taken.

I mean how was me being Prissy's, I mean, Percy's step-brother, have anything remotely to do with the dents in dad's car? I mean I didn't put them in the car and we didn't even know each other existed at the time Percy, or his horse, probably put the dents in the car so it wasn't like he could blame me for it.

I was seriously confused with the direction this conversation had taken and had eventually given up trying to follow it. "Who's Rachel?" I asked, glumly, because great, there were even more of them.

Just how popular was Percy anyway? He certainly didn't seem to have any shortage of friends, whereas I had no one. I was the transplant. The one who had had to leave everything behind and start over. I bet Percy had never known what it felt like to be the oddball out. It just wasn't fair. Nothing about this was fair. I should be down at the field mucking about, practicing so that I could go to college on a full athletic scholarship.

"A friend." Percy's girlfriend said simply. There was something about Annabeth's refusal to say more about Rachel made me curious. I wondered if there was bad blood between the two. Maybe Rachel had been Percy's girlfriend at the time. Or, or Percy had been cheating on Anne and she had found out, or perhaps it had been the other way around.

I mean Annabeth might be the biggest nerd, she was smokin'. I actually wondered what she saw in the dimwit called Percy. It probably wasn't nice of me to call my step-brother a dimwit, but sometimes the truth hurts and he didn't look to be the brightest crayon in the box. He was about as dense as they come. He probably would be the cheating type. (I really shouldn't talk as I myself could be considered a "playa" but even I knew the importance of keeping a good looking girl around.)

"Don't even think about it." The blonde said calmly at me. "Percy would never cheat on me for Rachel or anyone else. Right, seaweed brain?"

"Uh, what? Oh, no, I'm totally Annabeth's. Rachel's not allowed to date. And besides, she would probably beat me up for Annabeth if I attempted to ask her out."
Cue more snickers from the rest of the crowd.

"And I would help her, and don't you forget it Kelp Head," his cousin said.

Geez, the blood between them must be as thick as water.

"Thanks, Thalia," Annabell said while wrapping her arm around Percy. While Sally and dad grinned on from where they sat on the love seat.

Percy shook his head and dramatically said. "I sometimes wonder if mom and Paul love you more than they love me."

"Oh Perce," Sally said while winking at the group of kids scattered around the room, causing a few of them to laugh, "Annabeth is like family, she's around so often."