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It’s an easy, sweltering July.
Without a quest, without the world in some kind of peril, Percy has little to do but lounge around the beach, soaking in the surf. It’s… nice. He doesn’t quite know what to think about living so easily, having done nothing but fight since twelve years old, and the instinct he’s built into his marrow makes his bones itch to movefightgo.
But the ocean whispers Be still, and so he is.
At least until Annabeth finds him. She makes a place next to him in the sand, close enough that he feels her there, far enough away that they don’t touch. It’s become a game, seeing how long it takes to breach the empty air between one another—a game, after those desperate days in the Underworld, that is now nothing more than a blessing. She’s here, now. She’s close enough to touch whenever he’d like, whenever he needs to.
"Tournament’s tomorrow," she says, as if they haven’t been training for the past two weeks. "You ready?"
"Born ready."
"Really."
Percy opens his eyes, turns his head just a fraction to look at her. Backlit by the sun, hair tangled and loose around her bare shoulders, a peppering of freckles across her nose—he’d be happy just to lie here forever with her.
"How about we not pretend," Annabeth says, adjusting her bikini strap. She pushes salt-stiff hair from his forehead. Her eyes reveal a brief gentleness before she takes her hand back and smirks. "We both know who’s going to come out on top."
"Really," he says this time, and she must’ve known her words would pull action from him, because when he moves to tackle her to the sand, she goes down laughing.
"There can only be one winner, Percy."
"Yeah. Me."
She narrows her eyes even as she smiles, and he leans down to kiss the salt from her contrary lips, to rest his body against hers. Be still, the ocean whispers against their skin, and Percy holds Annabeth close, warm underneath him, for as long as she allows him the time.
*
The dueling tournament starts early in the morning and is organized by brackets. He wakes up early, drags himself to breakfast, and joins the crowd to watch all of the fights. There is a large betting pool, which Percy, broke, is all too ready to avoid (and which Leo, broke, is all too eager to participate in). Campers are matched together according to age and skill, and as they defeat one another, they begin to fight against older campers. Predictably, the final handful of brackets come down to Percy and his friends. They’re senior campers now—blessed and lucky with their old age at eighteen—and their experience gives them the upper hand against most of the younger kids.
Their experience—as friends, as siblings, as brothers- and sisters-in-arms—their knowledge of how the other thinks and plans and moves—makes it that much harder to duel one another.
*
At Round Nine, Leo sits next to Percy and hands over a cold soda. Grateful, Percy presses it against his forehead. The sun has been hanging above the arena all day, and with the continually, annoyingly beautiful weather, there are no clouds for relief.
"So," Leo says, nodding to the center of the ring, where the two girls circle one another. "Care to wager?"
Percy snorts. Too easy, even with his empty pockets. “Sure. Ten bucks on Annabeth.”
Leo looks—confused? Parts confused and incredulous and a little mischevious, maybe, brow furrowed at he stares at Annabeth in the ring. Tall, sun-browned, knees slightly bent. Focused. She has two knives, having abandoned her shield for something lighter. Clarisse, across from her, carries her spear and a weighty shield. She will be slow. She’s also angry, and rash, and impatient, and Percy’s sure Annabeth’s already come up with a dozen different strategies to take her down.
"Against Clarisse?" Leo says.
Percy takes a sip of his soda and shrugs. Leo should know better by now. “Never bet against Annabeth.”
*
It’s a long fight. Annabeth wins. There were only a few moments he doubted his absolute assurance—Annabeth, tired from fighting all day, allows Clarisse’s brute strength to get the best of her—but she overcomes. The crowd expects the daughter of Ares to erupt, and once upon a time she may have, may have demanded a second round, may have punched Annabeth in the face, may have stomped away, but she only holds out a hand to pull Annabeth into a one-armed hug. Over Clarisse’s shoulder, Annabeth wears an exhausted smile.
Between bouts there is a ten minute break. Campers file out to go to the bathroom, refresh their snacks, settle their bets, grab their friends.
Round Ten: the final bracket. Percy and Annabeth.
He’s not surprised it’s come to them. He’s surprised at the excitement in his veins, the warmth in his chest as he takes Riptide into his hand and walks the circle of the arena. Campers wish him luck, heckle him, ask him if he’s going to go easy on his girlfriend. He watches her walk in, her shoulders back, chin high, and wonders in which case she’d be more angry—if he goes easy on her, or if he actually hurts her.
She bends to stretch, reaches down and walks her hands between her feet. Her shirt falls down her back, exposing the sensitive stretch of skin at the base of her spine, the small area he likes to brush his fingers across to hear her soft gasp. As if she knows what he’s thinking (as if she ever doesn’t know), she straightens, catches his stare.
Percy swallows.
"Final round," one of the Apollo kids shouts, and there are so many more bodies in the arena, all here to watch this final show. Percy sees them move around out of his peripheral, packing into the seats, sees the blur of motion that is Leo and Piper right in the front, but he can’t look away from Annabeth’s dark, challenging gaze, the serious line of her lips, the deliberate way she sinks to the ground to stretch her legs.
And it hits him, the way her stare is hitting him low in the gut: she’s doing this on purpose.
The knowledge doesn’t help the sudden dryness in his mouth.
So he watches, because if she wants him to notice the taught pull of her muscles, the strain of her breasts against her chestplate as she pulls her arms back behind her, the long, long lines of her legs—if she wants to play this dirty, then who is he to insist on different rules?
So when the whistle blows and their preparation time is over, Percy sinks Riptide into the ground, makes sure Annabeth is paying attention, and takes his shin and arm guards off, his chestplate, tosses it all to the side.
"Um, Percy," Malcolm calls from the official referee box, "what are you doing?"
Percy drops his helmet and takes the bottom of his shirt in hand. He sees Annabeth’s jaw clench, can already hear her lecture (this, instead of him hurting her or giving her advantage, will make her the angriest, perhaps), but she doesn’t look away. “New rules,” Percy announces, loudly, and yanks his shirt off.
*
Thirty minutes in, he realizes that he’s not sure who is going to take this. Without his invulnerability, without any kind of armor, they’re on the same level. Percy has longer reach, a heavier swing, a free hand to grapple with; Annabeth is smaller, more graceful, and too damn quick with those knives. It is much easier to fight with her than against her. It’s easier to use his knowledge of her to predict her movements on the field, to feel her at his back, to know when to go to her and when she’s able to fight on her own—it is much harder to have to face her and swing at her, to see blood rise on her skin underneath his sword.
They’ve done this before, in training, practice bouts, Capture the Flag, but it doesn’t change the fact that he hates facing her as an opponent.
"Ready to give up?" she goads, backing up, adjusting her grip on her knives. She’s taken her padding and her shirt off as well, stands in front of him in a tight black sports bra and her shorts. The vulnerable, tan stretch of her stomach glistens. "We won’t think any less of you."
Percy chuckles. Playing up the crowd, he guesses, who’ve started to bore of them dancing around one another. He swipes the sweat from his eyes. Annabeth’s been favoring her ankle since her fight with Clarisse; he doesn’t look down as he presses forward, into her reach, grabbing for her dominant arm with his free hand and twisting it across her body, turning her back against his chest. She senses what’s coming and drops her knives to hang on, almost growling as he sweeps her legs and pulls her to the ground.
Easier, now. He’s stronger than her. But when he pins her arms above her head, squeezes her legs together with his knees—she’s exhales hard. Angry. And that’s always more dangerous.
"There can only be one," he reminds her, knowing that his smirk will only enrage her further.
She strains against his hold. Tests the places he holds her. Breathes. Her chest moves against his, skin sweat-slick and sticky, and he chances a glance down, because—well.
He supposes he should remember that they have an actual audience.
Clarisse, from the stands, “Cut the shit, Annabeth! End it!”
"Sorry, Percy," Annabeth says, right before, in one motion, she headbutts him and slips her knee past his, wraps it around his waist. Pain bursts behind his eyes. The world is a blur of sky and dirt and Annabeth’s warm limbs twisting him around. He’s going to lose.
He can’t lose.
The idea of it loosens a chuckle from his chest. Annabeth’s scrambling for her knife when he rolls to his feet. Somewhere behind Percy, Leo’s triumphant roar is followed by a wave of laughter from the crowd. Annabeth smiles. They raise their weapons.
*
He’s sore everywhere. Every place he has a muscle aches, right down to his joints, his bones. It’s near hard to breathe.
But Annabeth wades in the sea up to her waist, lifts a hand for him to join her. She still has creases from her sheets pressed into her arms, but as he comes closer, takes her hand, pulls her farther into the ocean that curls around them, he watches the beautiful morning in her face.
"Sucks that you lost," Annabeth says, resting her arms on his shoulders.
He tilts his head. He doesn’t miss the shiver that dances down her body as he presses his fingers around her hips. “Were we even in the same ring? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure I took you down.”
"Debatable."
"Hmm."
Fighting is what they’re good at, he thinks, thankful for the slow crawl of time as Annabeth grins, as she cups his face in her hands, as she pulls him down for a kiss. It feels like all of their other kisses, feels like their first one all over again—feels curious and shy and familiar all at once. Her nose alongside his, her teeth brushing light against his bottom lip, her deft fingers against his heartbeat in his throat.
Fighting is what they’re good at, even if they’re not good at fighting each other, and this—this easy, slow press of skin in the gentle morning sun—this slow-built love that snuck up on him—this is worth learning, every day, with her.