Chapter 1

"They've all got the same heartbeat but hers is falling behind
Nothing in this world could ever bring them down
Yeah, they're invincible"

– Cool Kids, Echosmith

"I can't believe this," Thalia mutters.

Percy tries for a smile. "At least we're not going to prison?"

"As if that's going to do anything for the crapstorm the media is going to whirl up tomorrow," Nico tells him matter-of-factly.

"That's not necessarily my fault."

Thalia glares at him half-heartedly. She still looks menacing but there's no effort in it – she's just as tired as he is. Normally this time they'd be asleep. Or doing press. Or whatever. Point is, today they should be asleep, and it'd be the first spot of sleep any of them would have gotten in the last 48 hours. Percy has been running on cheap motel coffee and Twix bars for the past day or so and he's about ready to collapse.

Maybe that's what caused him to shoplift. His ADHD always gets particularly antsy when he's tired.

The police should take that into account. Mitigating circumstances, or whatever.

He digresses.

"Could've fooled me." Thalia sighs and leans her head back against the wall, closing her eyes. "You're so stupid, I can't believe you did this."

"I didn't think I'd get arrested!"

"What about stealing an album and then punching the storeowner in the face when he catches you sounds even slightly legal?"

"It was our album!"

"That's even worse," Nico says. "You literally have the entire album saved on your computer. In Logic Pro form. You could have just emailed it to your mom!"

"I wanted her to have the physical thing!"

"So you decided to steal it?" Thalia demanded.

Look, okay. Percy realises in hindsight that stealing an album was probably not the best way to go about things. But in his defense, it's not as if he had much of a choice. And he didn't think it was illegal. Of course, he knew that stealing was against the law, but it was their album. By default Percy thinks he has complete ownership over it, meaning that if he wants to take it without handing over any money he has the right to do so. Twelve dollars is really not that much money compared to the amount of blood, sweat and tears that went into writing, recording and producing the album.

In fact, Target should be thanking him. It was their album that brought in customers, after all.

Anyway. As it all turns out, he was wrong. And Percy knows this because the three of them are now locked in a holding cell.

"I still don't quite understand why you also had to rope us into this," Thalia mutters.

"To be fair," Nico says, "we did agree."

"Whose side are you on, di'Angelo?"

Nico rolls his eyes. "Look, Thals. Percy messed up and now we all have to pay the price. You've got to get over it."

Thalia sighs. "Mr D is going to have our heads."

"If he didn't want me to steal the CD he should have just given it to me when I asked," Percy mutters sulkily. "In all honesty."

"You should have known that stealing was wrong in the first place," Thalia points out.

"Oh, I did. I'm not daft. I just thought– you know. There'd be some exceptions. Like, maybe there would be, I dunno, some special circumstances that would mean that it's not illegal to steal something that you put in stores."

Thalia's eye twitches. "It's kind of common sense."

Her voice is tight. She sounds stretched-out and peeved, which Percy reasons with, because the rockstar life is no easy feat and they are only nineteen, after all. And he's not going to lie – he knows that this is a much, much bigger deal then what he's making it out to be. When you're famous, getting arrested is no small deal, especially when your whole band manages to get arrested at once (Percy doubts that's ever happened before – what will the headlines be? Threesome In Prison? That kind of rhymes, right?) but he's so jetlagged and tired that at this point everything just seems kind of hysterically funny.

Thalia probably thinks otherwise. She's not very laughable when she's tired. She just kind of snaps at everyone. It's probably why she's so hacked up about this whole thing.

"Leave him alone, T," Nico says. "It's not his fault he's got the brain capacity of a toaster."

Percy lets out an affronted squeaky noise. "Excuse you!"

"With all due respect, of course."

Thalia rolls her eyes. Percy is still very deeply wounded.

"Do you know what time we're getting out?" she asks.

Nico shrugs. "The police person didn't say anything."

Thalia sighs again, and for the first time Percy notices that the black smudges under her eyes aren't just smeared eyeliner. Out of everyone he thinks the celebrity lifestyle has taken its toll heaviest on her, and suddenly he feels awful. "They'll probably keep us here overnight and release us in the morning, then."

Nico stares at her. "What?"

Thalia rolls her eyes. "Are you now beginning to realise how sucky this is?"

Nico's voice becomes squeaky. "Overnight? But– we were meant to be sleeping in a bed tonight!"

"Yes, well, Percy probably should have thought of that before he dragged us to Target and stole our own album and then punched the security guard in the face when he confronted us."

Percy frowns. "It was an accident," he mutters sulkily.

He does feel bad, though. Really. For the past three months they've been on tour, and when you're on tour the only sleep you get is a three-hour power nap in a cramped bunk. The last time they slept in a proper bed was last week. If Percy hadn't gotten them arrested they probably would have had a bed to sleep on.

Especially since they're in Portland. Portland always has really great hotels.

Percy doubts they would have even had to share, and that makes his heart hurt a little. When funds are low and hiring out a couple extra rooms is just too much they often shove all three of them in the same room, which more often than not is a couple's suite with a double bed ("it costs less if they think there's only two of you up there," Hermes had explained. "And you're all skinny, you can fit in one bed.").

The thought that Percy has to give up sleeping in his own bed because of his stupidity really makes sad.

"I'm sorry," he says.

Thalia sighs again, but this time it's more defeat than irritation now, and she pushes herself off her bench and plops down on the ground next to him. Nico wriggles in on his other side and puts his head on his shoulder. It's all bones and too-long limbs and they're sitting on the floor of a prison cell, for goodness sake, but the sentiment is nice and Percy kind of loves them.

"It's okay," Thalia says. "Just– next time you want to go outside check it's legal, all right?"

"I'm not three years old."

Nico snorts. "I'd beg to differ."

"Shut up, your face is stupid."

"You're stupid."

"You're stupider."

"You're the stupidest."

"Will you both please shut the hell up?"

Okay, so. Background is probably necessary.

Percy hadn't ever imagined getting big. He hadn't even ever imagined he'd form a band, least of all with his cousins. Up until he was around fourteen, he had only talked to both of them a handful of times. That was, however, until something like fate or destiny or the god of physics had sent all three push pins all their dads had thrown at a map of the US to Virginia, where they were going to send all their kids because they were lousy excuses for dads who had gallons of money and secretaries who could research good boarding schools.

(The family situation is a bit funny. Percy's not going to go into it, because it's, well, a little complex, but long story short everyone hated each other because of some long tragic backstory involving Thalia's mom, a long-lost brother, a couple of step-siblings they had no idea existed and maybe thirty grandparents who were in some way related to them through a horribly messy bloodline, but that's another story.)

Anyway.

Percy had been playing guitar since he was nine. When they met at boarding school, Thalia had taken an interest in music so Percy had tried to teach her how to play, but they were two hyperactive teenagers with ADHD and so obviously it nosedived almost immediately. Percy had then shown her the bass guitar, because she liked death metal and heavy punk-rock music and destroying dreams. She took to it like duck to water and somehow applied everything Percy had taught her about the acoustic to the bass.

Nico... well. No one's really sure how he started on the drums. Percy reckons it's because he had always liked tapping on things ("I used to bang on the coffins at Dad's company," Nico tells them confidently, as if the fact that Hades let him tap out Mary Had A Little Lamb on the boxes containing dead people was a fantastic thing) but one day Percy had walked into the music room to find him doing the American Idiot drum solo on the school drum set and from there they had found out they were cousins and became pretty solid mates.

It's a little odd. Whenever an interviewer asks them how they started they all just say that they met because they were cousins. They don't say anything about how they were all accidentally sent to the same place and had a Parent Trap-esque revelation that they were all related because that's just– confusing. For everyone.

Eventually, they ended up posting covers on YouTube. Percy absolutely hates watching them back because they're absolutely terrible (oh god what even was his hair who told him that he could do the emo fringe) and they make him want to throw himself off a building, but they must have been enough because one day someone somehow took a look at their measly little channel and thought, huh, I could make something out of these kids.

And here they are. Four years later. A band. All currently locked in a holding cell. Whatever.

(He doesn't like to dwell on the negatives.)

It's been a pretty sick ride, as far as fame and nosy paparazzi go. They've put out a few albums, won a couple of awards, and they haven't even turned twenty yet. Which is both a positive and a negative, because that means every time they do something stupid they can blame it on the "crazy teenage mindset" but also a bit of a bummer because they can't legally drink yet. Not that he was ever considering it or anything, but after this certain escapade he thinks he's going to respect the law a bit more now.

It does make post-award show celebrations a little funny, though. Most people drink champagne or hit the clubs and get drunk off their arses. Not them. They sit in whatever hotel room they've hired out for that night and eat yoghurt.

It's nice to know that after all this time they're still them, though. Eating yoghurt as a celebration had been something they had introduced while they were still at boarding school. They weren't allowed food in the dorms (which Percy realises should have not stopped them as much as it did, because another no-no was boys and girls in each other's dorms and, well) and because everything else was too bulky to sneak upstairs they would cram yoghurt pots from the cafeteria down their jumpers ("I don't have pockets in my shirt like you guys, of course I'm gonna shove them in my bra, stop looking so scandalized") and eat them at midnight whenever one of them had gotten a good mark in a test or had managed to hit one of the teachers in the head with a baseball and pass it off as an accident.

It was only fair they continued the tradition as rockstars.

Anyway.

They're a band now. A pretty successful band, too, because awards have been won and rumours have been spread ("Did you know I'm pregnant with your child, Nico? Isn't that fascinating?") and through it all they've stuck together like glue and managed to survive the crapstorm you call the media.

And it's a good life. Percy wouldn't swap it for the world. Last year he bought his mom a house. A house. With two bathrooms. They've made their money and they're doing their thing and he absolutely loves it, loves doing what he's doing, loves playing to a different crowd every night and making his fingers bleed on his guitar strings.

Just– sometimes it can be a wee bit stressful.

Like now, for instance. He can safely say Mr D is going to strangle him with his own intestines, and there are going to be all sorts of tabloid headlines going around about why and how the three of them ended up in prison at the same time. (He hopes one of them will be about them being a cult of serial killers. It's happened before and it's always fascinating to read the theories. Sometimes he even believes it.)

Oh well. He closes his eyes and leans his head against Nico's. They've been given three beds but for some reason they're all still huddled on the floor. Nico and Thalia have both dropped off. He's about to, too.

He can deal with the aftermath tomorrow.

The aftermath is actually not– terrible?

Apparently no one yet has caught wind that they've been arrested (which is a little odd, considering they got dragged off by security in a busy shop), because if they had there would have been news already, so all they have to do is leave subtly. Which is easier said than done.

"This is ridiculous," Thalia mutters. "This is so, so stupid. We're going to get caught and people are going to know we got arrested and it's going to be the end of our career."

"Relax," Percy soothes. "No one knows yet."

"Someone here could have tipped the press off!"

Now she's the one being ridiculous. Percy gives her a look. "No one here is stupid enough to do that."

"You don't know that," Nico says. "After all, you were stupid enough to steal our album."

"Why don't you just shut your face."

"Just saying."

"You're not listening to me!" Thalia insists. "This is a massive deal. Why aren't you taking this seriously?"

"You're taking it too seriously," Percy tells her. "Honestly, it's fine. No one told anyone. We're going to walk away with our records unscratched."

Thalia still looks worried. Her black hair is all clumped around her head in tufts, although that may be from sleeping on his shoulder the entire night, and Percy sees that she's chewed her nails right down to the quick. Even her ever-present eyeliner has been smeared around her eyes like bruises, and that's incredibly impressive considering Thalia because she has managed to play shows and walk away with her makeup untouched.

Wildly, she looks around, and her eyes fall on a security guard. She marches over to him.

"Have you told anyone?" she demands.

The security guard is twice her size and has biceps like buses but he takes one look at her ripped jeans and death stare and cowers like she's eight feet tall.

"No, ma'am," he stammers. "We were given orders to remain silent."

Percy gives Thalia a pointed look. "See!"

"That doesn't mean anything, the press always have ways to find out things. Remember that time we lost Nico in New York and the only reason we found him again was because TMZ got there first?"

"I remember that," Nico says. "That was weird. Even I didn't know where I was."

Thalia ignores him. "Point is," she says, "they're going to find out one way or another, and we've got the TCAs in like, two weeks! Do you know how bad that would be?"

"Then we'll just tell them the truth," Percy says. "It's not as if we killed someone. We can spin it into a funny thing. 'Oh, the superhot Percy Jackson was hilarious yet again in a stunt he pulled in a Portland Target where he thought he was allowed to steal his own album. What a joker! Next up we'll be talking about his abs. Toodles!' It's literally that easy."

Nico snorts. "What abs?"

Thalia gnaws her thumbnail. "We're going to be in so much crap."

"That's a problem for another time," Percy says. "Focus on the good things. Like, um." He looks around and catches sight of the security guard again. "You! What's your name?"

The security guard looks a little taken off guard. The other guard, almost identical to the first except dark-skinned, snorts. "Um," he says. "Steve."

"Steve." Percy nods. "Good name."

"Uh. Thanks."

Percy turns back to Thalia. "See! Be positive."

Thalia pulls a hideous face at him.

"Yeah, Thalia," Nico says. "Be positive. Try compliment Steve."

"I like your tattoos, Steve."

The other guard actually laughs out loud this time. Steve looks bashful but also a little pleased. "Thank you."

Percy looks back at Thalia. "That wasn't so hard, now, was it?"

"I still don't feel better."

"You should." Percy sobers a little and shuffles closer to her, slinging his arm around her shoulders. "It's honestly gonna be okay, T. I promise. If we get caught, who cares? Yeah, we'll have to make a public statement and Mr D might eat us alive, but we really aren't going to get into any trouble. We stole an album."

"You stole an album," Nico corrects.

"I stole an album. I stole our album." Thalia doesn't look any more reassured, so Percy says, "Look. I got us into this mess. I'll get us out, I promise you."

Finally, she doesn't look like she wants his head on a plate. "Okay."

"Okay. Do you feel a bit better?"

"Kind of."

"Cool. Now let's get out of here, I'm absolutely starving."

A/N hey guys!

i hope you liked that and also welcome to my new story hello how are you

yes anyway this is my new story! as you can tell from the summary this a famous!au that consists of youtuber!annabeth and band!percy (is that a thing i don't know) and i really hope you guys enjoy it because ive been toying with this idea for a few months now and im having a jolly good time writing it haha

Update-wise I'll try and do what i did with iSpy and update every Saturday except I've now entered the monstrosity that is year 10 and my English teacher said and i quote "do what you enjoy now because by the end of the year youll be doing at least three hours of revision a night" so a) pray for me and b) if this story isn't wrapped up by next year i may be a little odd with updates woo

anyway! i hope you liked it and please tell me what you thought, and i shall see you beans next Saturday xxx