Chapter Text
The lights in the interview room were aggressive.
That was the only word for it.
Aggressive, hot, and distinctly designed to make sure that if you had a single pore out of place, the entire internet would know about it in 4K resolution within the hour.
I shifted in my chair, the plastic digging into my shoulder blades. My hands were doing that thing again— thumb rubbing against the side of my index finger, tap-tap-tap, a nervous rhythm I couldn't quite shake.
"So," the interviewer said, leaning forward with a smile that was a little too wide. "Season Three. The Titan’s Curse. This is a huge one for Percy and Annabeth. The fans are calling it the 'angst era.' How are you guys navigating the shift from the quest partners to… well, something a bit more complicated?"
Beside me, Leah stiffened.
It was subtle. To anyone else, she probably looked like the picture of grace— chin up, braids perfect, that signature vibrant smile plastered on. But I heard the way her breath hitched, just a fraction.
"It’s— it’s definitely intense," Leah started, but she was talking fast. Too fast. The 'Detroit' in her came out a little stronger when she was panicked. "I mean, Annabeth is going through so much, and she’s separated from the group for a huge chunk of it, so building that longing was really important, and we— we just really wanted to make sure the emotional stakes felt earned, you know? Because they’re growing up. We’re growing up."
She was rambling. She was doing the thing where her brain moved faster than her mouth, and she was terrified she was going to spoil something or say the wrong thing. Her leg, hidden beneath the table, was bouncing like a piston.
The air in the room felt tight. I knew that feeling. The suffocation of the red light on the camera.
Without breaking eye contact with the interviewer, I shifted my leg. I knocked my knee gently against hers. Once. Twice. Just a solid pressure. You’re good.
Leah froze for a micro-second. The bouncing stopped. She took a breath, her shoulders dropping half an inch. She glanced at me— just a flicker of brown eyes meeting blue— and I threw her a lopsided grin, the one I used when I was trying to convince my mom I didn’t break a lamp.
"Yeah," I cut in, smoothing the transition. "What she said. It’s definitely earned. And honestly? It’s kind of scary. We’ve spent two years just roasting each other and fighting monsters, and now we have to be… serious. Like, looking-into-each-other’s-soul serious."
The interviewer laughed, eating it up. "Does that change the dynamic on set? You guys are famously close."
"Oh, we hate each other," I deadpanned immediately. "Leah actually has a clause in her contract that I can't look her in the eye unless the cameras are rolling."
Leah snorted, the tension fully breaking. She shoved my shoulder, hard. "Shut up. You’re literally obsessed with me."
"Yeah, keep telling yourself that,”
The room laughed. Crisis averted. I went to do what I always did— what came naturally after three years of spending every waking hour with these people. I started to lift my arm to sling it over the back of her chair, a protective, casual sprawled bracket around her.
But then I thought about Twitter.
I thought about the compilation videos. Walker Scobell jealous moments. Percabeth vs Walkerbeth analysis part 45. The way they slowed down footage of me just checking to see if she was thirsty and put a Taylor Swift song over it.
My arm hovered in the air for a split second, feeling heavy and awkward, before I diverted course and scratched the back of my neck instead. I felt heat crawl up my collar. It was stupid. She was my best friend. Why did I have to think about where the hell I put my hands?
—
A few hours later, I was back in the hotel room, slumped on the duvet in my socks.
We had a two-hour break before the premiere dinner. Aryan and Charlie were probably in the gym, and Dior and Tamara were likely getting ready, but I was doom-scrolling. It was a bad habit. My mom told me to stop. My publicist told me to stop. But when you’re seventeen and millions of people have an opinion on the way you breathe, it’s hard not to look.
I opened TikTok.
The algorithm knew me too well. It was mostly sports highlights, stupid memes, and us.
The third video on my FYP stopped me.
It was an edit from the interview we had just done. It had been posted twenty minutes ago and already had 100k likes. The caption read: THE KNEE TAP??? HELLO??? MOM & DAD ARE FIGHTING BUT THEY LOVE EACH OTHER.
Jesus Christ.
I frowned, tapping the screen to unmute. A slowed-down, reverb-heavy version of a Conan Gray song started playing.
The video was zoomed in. Way in.
It showed Leah rambling, looking panicked. Then, it cut to a low-quality angle— probably zoomed in from a livestream— showing the table cloth shifting where my knee hit hers.
Then it cut to my face.
I held the phone closer.
In the video, I wasn't just looking at her. I was staring. The saturation was cranked up, making my eyes look ridiculously blue, but the expression… that was real. I looked… soft. I looked focused entirely on her, like the rest of the room was just white noise. As she spoke, the video showed me mouthing the end of her sentence along with her, completely unconsciously.
‘Because they’re growing up. We’re growing up.’
I watched myself smile in the video. It wasn’t my media-trained smile. It was a small, private thing, barely there, appearing just because she had managed to get her footing back.
Do I look at her like that?
I sat up, the blood rushing in my ears. I felt exposed. I thought I was being subtle. I thought I was just being a good co-star, a good friend. But the guy in that video didn’t look like he was just looking at a friend. He looked like he was terrified she was going to disappear if he blinked.
I watched it again. And again.
"Dude," I whispered to the empty hotel room. "I’m so cooked."
A notification banner dropped down from the top of the screen.
iMessage - Leah🦉
Did you see the edit where you almost put your arm around me and then bailed? You look like you got stung by a bee lmao
My stomach did a gymnastics routine. I typed back, fingers flying fast to cover the sudden spike in my heart rate.
iMessage - Me
shut up. i was stretching. my delts are just too massive for these tiny chairs.
iMessage - Leah🦉
Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Aryan is ordering food to his room, come through
iMessage - Me
omw
I locked my phone and tossed it onto the other bed. I stared at the ceiling for a second, rubbing my sweaty palms on my jeans.
We were filming The Titan's Curse. The book where Percy realizes he might actually lose her. The book where he holds the literal weight of the sky just to give her a break.
I stood up and checked my hair in the mirror. It looked fine, but I fixed it anyway.
It was just an edit.
Fans saw what they wanted to see. It was PR. It was acting. It was just me and Leah, the same way it had been since we were thirteen.
Except, when I closed my eyes, all I could see was that stupid slow-motion video of me staring at her like she hung the moon.