May 14th

"Thank you, London!" He shouted over the sound of the screaming fans. His voice was hoarse, his throat would be in agony tomorrow but it didn't matter. This was it, their last night of tour.

World Tour. It was over and it still felt surreal.

Percy turned to his band mates. Thalia and Nico were somehow less sweaty that he was but looked equally as exhausted, both grinning widely. Grover was in the wings dressed head to toe in every piece of merch that hadn't sold out. Even Chiron, their manager, was beaming at them from backstage.

"Goodnight!" The three of them called in unison as the lights went out. They darted off stage in the darkness and the audience roared.

Grover clapped them on the back as they passed and Chiron offered Percy a bottle of water which he took greedily. The stage crew were surrounding them, removing their earpieces and mic packs quickly so they can be packed away.

"That's it for another year, folks." Chiron smiled, a proud twinkle in his eye.

The bottle in Percy's hand was snatched by Thalia but he only rolled his eyes. After touring with the two of them for the last three month, he wasn't particularly grossed out by anything anymore. She handed it back and he just shrugged before he took another swig.

"Take a breather." Grover smiled, heading off to help sort through their instruments. "But then shower. You all reek. The plane's in three hours."

~~~

It's 9pm the next day when they land back in Manhattan, though doesn't feel like it from all the travelling through time zones. Percy could've cried when he realised the flight was 16 hours but he was beyond tired and stayed peacefully passed out for most of the journey. It's been 24 hours at least since Percy last checked his social media but he's in not bothered at the moment, not with the knowledge that his mom will be at the airport when they land. (Yes, he's a rockstar but he loves his mom more than anything, screw his 'bad-boy' reputation.)

Sally isn't a particularly short woman but in the last few years Percy has grown to be a head taller than her. Still, Percy feels just as safe in her arms as he did when he was only up to her knees. She holds him and tells him how proud she is of him (and that she's got a freshly baked batch of cookies waiting for him in the car - he's not sure which makes his heart swell more).

The night is pretty uneventful. His mom treats everyone to homemade macaroni at her apartment and offers her guest room to Thalia who recently announced her plan to down every bottle of vodka her dad sent while they were away. Will, Nico's boyfriend, arrives just after midnight and the two of them say their goodbyes. When the buzz of excitement in the air suddenly wears out, Paul ushers Grover and Percy into his Prius and gives them a lift back to their apartment. It's 3am but neither of them have any plans for at least a month so they allow themselves to crawl onto the couch and put some trash on the TV.

Percy's eyelids are just beginning to feel heavy when he slides his phone out of his back pocket and opens twitter. The fans have gone mad again, he thinks with a smile as he scrolls through the #thehalfbloods tweets.

hxlfbloodddarci had the best time at the concert tonight. the halfbloods are a dream, so much energy in one room and i finally got to meet some of my ibfs! lots of love! #thehalfbloods

There's a photo attached of three teenagers outside the O2 arena, each of them with crazy hairstyles, ripped jeans and a HalfBlood world tour shirt.

thaliagseyeliner best night of my life!! can't believe i got to see this with my own eyes!! #thehalfbloods

The video attached is of Percy, drenched in sweat, leaping across the stage with his guitar over his shoulder. He chuckles.

A more recent tweet catches his eye, posted only twenty minutes ago.

fangirlsophxox So.. i was almost in tears from realising we won't get any new hb tour footage but my fav just covered one of their songs so now i can listen to this on repeat and die happy #thehalfbloods #absoluteannabeth

There's a video of a girl that catches Percy's eye. He opens it and hurried to turn his volume down before Grover could complain.

The camera angle is a bit weird, probably taken from the music stand of her keyboard. Percy can only see her chin and some blonde curls falling over her shoulders. But her voice is beautiful.

It's strange to hear their song played so softly when just last night they'd blasted it out to an arena full of people. Her voice is barely a whisper. The video cuts out as the fan stops screen recording. He lets the video play a few times before his phone screen goes dark.

Grover snores beside him and Percy sighs. So much for movie night.

~~~

May 17th

Annabeth wakes with a purpose. Today's to-do list was packed and she didn't like the idea of going to dinner with Piper tonight feeling guilty for neglecting her job.

Within an hour, she's showered, dressed, walked Luna, fed herself and Luna and was ready at her desk. She glanced over her plans.

may 17th, annabeth's to do list

1. edit book review - rebel of the sands

2. update weekly vlog

3. insta ad for audible

4. film q and a

5. ideas for collabs

Deciding to make a start with the easiest of the tasks, she transfers the footage she took last night and on her morning walk onto her laptop. She cuts together a shot of Luna by the door with her new harness in her mouth, tail thumping the door repetitively with another one of them playing catch at the park. When she's satisfied with the transitions, she grabs her highlighter and marks off number two. Progress.

Now for something she enjoys — filming.

Her set-up is simple, She sits cross legged at the bottom of her bed, back against the wall of fairy lights and turns on her camera. It takes a few minutes for her to be happy with the lighting and then she diverts her attention to her kitchen to make a cup of tea, but then she's sat in front of her ring light, phone in hand to answer some questions.

Annabeth likes to think she's quite a private person, but she's aware how stupid that sounds. "But Annabeth, you're whole life is online. What do you mean 'private'?" Sure, there's that. But she skims through the hundreds of questions for almost five minutes before she finds one she's willing to share the answer to.

She sets her phone down and films an intro.

"Hey everyone, Annabeth here. It's been a while since I've filmed a Q and A so I figured I'd treat ya'." She winks at the camera and takes a sip of her tea. It's a little awkward to be talking to herself in her very empty apartment, but Annabeth's thankful that Piper's not back yet. It's always harder to focus when her best friend is chuckling at the awkwardness of her unedited videos from the next room. Luna lays obediently on the bed just out of the frame and Annabeth silently thanks herself for training her so well.

"I asked you over on twitter to send me some questions - if you missed it, my handle is @absoluteannabeth and you should totally follow me - and I got so many replies, so let's get straight to it."

The first question she answers is asking her favorite author. She totally waffles the answer because how can she pick? Muttering something about J.K. Rowlings brilliant stories (though she would be a lot less problematic if she stopped trying to fake diversity and just own up to the lack thereof), Annabeth decides to throw in a shameless self-promo to her Alwyn Hamilton book review.

There's a question about Luna to which Annabeth delightfully lifts her sleepy labrador into the frame. She groans and pretends it's hard work to carry her but really Luna is quite small for her breed and Annabeth has no trouble holding her like a baby before setting her in her lap to snooze.

There's several questions about her family, her love life - Annabeth makes a mental note to edit out her snort when she spots that question - and any current crushes but then another question catches her eye.

fangirlsophxox will you be posting any more covers/original songs? your cover of 'lightning skies' was beautiful i want more!!

"Aw, this ones so sweet." She blushes. "I didn't really want to post that to be honest, but Piper got me a bit tipsy so it was an impulse decision. Drink responsibly, kids!" Annabeth chuckles to herself.

"But thank you, I've always loved music - particularly musical theatre if I'm honest - but I had a burst of creativity and I just love that song. I might film a few more, who knows?"

Secretly, Annabeth is thrilled to have posted some of her music out there. It wasn't her own song, but it certainly had her own spin on it. She was playing it at basically half the speed and had made it so rubato that the tempo was hard to tap along to. Maybe if people were enjoying it, she might be able to put herself out there a bit more. What's stopping her?

She goes through a few more, making sure to answer extra just incase she decides to cut out some of the answers when she edits the video and then signs off to the camera. The highlighter strikes through number four.

It makes her feel very accomplished when she can almost immediately put a strike through number three as well. She finds a photo of her a few weeks ago, headphones in and sat by the window and is quick to type a caption. The company wanting the ad had practically sent a script anyway so all she had to do was sprinkle her own personality in there, stick #ad at the start and save it to her drafts. She'd post that later.

Number one and five are more long winded so she decided to cook some lunch while brainstorming ideas for collabs and then she eats said lunch besides her laptop, editing furiously. It's only a book review so it doesn't take as much work as normal, but after the amount of times she listens to herself talk about it, she's sent herself almost insane.

Finally, she puts the final strike through her to-do list and screws it up with satisfaction. She hits 'share' on the instagram post and shares the thumbnail for the review on her story. Everything's lined up for that to post at 5:30 tonight so now she can relax.

Piper's due back from visiting her boyfriend in California i'm a few hours, but until then, Annabeth has the apartment to herself. She perches at the piano and plays a few chords. Might as well kill the time, she supposes.