a/n: the best friendship tbh

Tabula Rasa

"Uh, so my dad's birthday is in two days and he's throwing a party back home for it. Um. So, like, do you guys want to, I dunno, come or something?"

"Or something. Totally. I'm in."

"Cool. How about you, Leo?"

"Is there free stuff?"

"No."

"Whatever."

"You can bunk in the guest rooms. We can hang at my room until the party. Or the beach."

"Because what else can you do in Miami, right?"

She joked about surfing once or twice before, but the fact that Piper was good came as a surprise.

"I thought you said you sucked," accused Jason, who had his surfboard run him over two times before he gave up completely and cursed Poseidon.

She shrugged accordingly. "I do. I've taken lessons for a while, so I know the basics."

"We should've dragged Percy along," Leo said, rubbing his chest to remove sand grains. "I bet he would have been slaying those waves by now."

"I prefer my water un-slain," said Piper. She picked up her surfboard and tugged at her wet-shirt. "Wanna go another round?"

Leo and Jason shared a look and shrugged simultaneously. "We're good."

"Don't get it on me, idiot!" Piper screeched.

"Toughen up, McLean," Leo said, bringing up the Sharpie to her face. "Grace, help me hold her down!"

From his position on her bed, Jason looked up from one of Piper's old diaries to watch her squirm under Leo's straddle. "I'm good. I don't feel like getting my butt kicked anytime soon."

"When I get you off me, I'll murder both of you!" she threatened. "You'll be sleeping with the fishes!"

"I could go for sushi," said Jason.

"Me, too," said Leo. "Get one of the housekeepers and ask."

"Why do I have to?"

"I'll rip out your cerebral cortexes and choke you 'til your eyeballs pop!"

"You're not the one on top of the demon."

"Will be."

"Gross."

"Get off me so I can kill you until you're dead! Leo! Jason!"

"Write 'I snore when I sleep' on her forehead."

"Sure. But I already wrote 'loser' in capital letters."

"Make room."

"I'll write it on her chin."

"Go for it."

"I hate you two so much."

"Do you think I look okay?"

Piper came out from the bathroom inside her room in a mid-thigh length purple dress. Her hair was up in a bun and she wore two piercings on her left ear.

"Purple?" Leo gasped mockingly. "You bleeding traitor!"

"Wow, Pipes," said Jason, stopping tying his tie in order to get a good look at her. "You clean up real well."

She rolled her eyes and started helping him with his tie. "You're looking pretty spiffing yourself, Grace."

"How 'bout me?" Leo asked, unwrapping a pack of gum from his blazer pocket and popping it into his mouth. "Don't look like I'm from the Texas ghettos, do I?"

"Cute, but the bowtie's lame," Piper said.

"Seconded," Jason agreed.

"Tough crowd," murmured Leo as he pulled off the offending article. "Can we go, now? I'm itching for appetizers. Did you say there's gonna be sushi?"

Jason snorted. "Am I a seer or what?"

"Or what," Piper said. "But I'm ready. Let's go."

"Five bucks something's gonna go down," Leo whispered to Jason as they headed to the hallway.

"Please," Jason said. "I'm not going to bet on something I already know is going to happen."

"Look, sometimes I forget you guys are together, and I'm pretty sure you forget, too, but the least you two can do is dance together," Leo said exasperatedly.

"We did," Piper said, "Like, last year."

Jason sighed, sipping a glass of cider. "I don't dance."

"He doesn't dance, Leo," echoed Piper. "He sucks."

For a second, Jason glanced at her. "I don't suck."

"Fine," said Leo. "Then let me steal your date."

"Aw," cooed Piper. Leo grabbed her hand and walked towards the throng of adults tossing and turning to the music.

"Bring her home by 9!" Jason called after them.

"Bye, daddy," said Piper winking, leaving Leo to gag and Jason to spit out his drink.

"So, do the paparazzi always flicker into two feet tall dwarf-looking things that smell like churros? I mean, not that I'd know."

"...Seriously?"

Unceremoniously, Piper laid on the floor of her living room which was post-tornado ruined. "That was a blast."

"Literally," Leo said, sitting crisscross on the rug beside her. He picked up a shard of what used to be Piper's chandelier and threw it in a pile of what looked like shredded throw pillows. "Jason, man, did you really need to summon your awesome wind powers indoors?"

"No one was hurt," the son of the sky god amended.

"Yeah, 'cause they all ran away after the kitchen exploded," Piper addressed Leo.

"Not my fault!" Leo said. "The churro dwarves almost staked me with the kebabs―blowing it up was the only way."

"They weren't churro dwarves," Piper said. "Well, I don't really know what they were, but Annabeth would know."

"This was a nice vacation," Jason said as he slid between split parts of a coffee table. "Peaceful."

"Yeah, peaceful," said Piper. "At least my dad had a nice party."

"Until paparazzi monsters attacked," Leo added.

"Honestly," Jason said. "That was fun."

The three all looked at each other before bursting into rambunctious laughter that drowned under the ringing of sirens outside and the fire singeing the west wing of the house.