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“There’s my fella.”
Annabeth took the chance to give her shirtless, boxer-clad boyfriend a very obvious once over from the doorway, then bounded across their small bedroom as he turned from the bed he’d just finished making.
“You’re happy,” Percy observed, wrapping his arms around her as she leaned into him to kiss him thoroughly. “Which means…” he said slowly, searching for signs of confirmation in her face, “that Elaine…?”
“Finally approved my designs, yes!”
“Gods, finally!” Percy hugged her as Annabeth laughed delightedly. “Congratulations!”
Annabeth’s demanding, anal-retentive supervisor had been nit-picking her design proposal for so many weeks it had seemed like it would never be approved.
“We went out for dinner to celebrate, right? And Dana said that Elaine said she is really happy with them – god forbid she ever say anything positive to my face – and then she said I remind her of herself at my age.” Annabeth made a face.
“She wishes,” Percy assured her with a grin, fiddling with the end of her ponytail behind her back as he bent to kiss her again.
Trailing her fingertips down his bare chest and bringing them to rest just below the waistband of his boxers, Annabeth ran her tongue along his teeth. He groaned into her mouth softly as she deepened the kiss.
“I’ve been neglecting you lately,” she said, her voice noticeably huskier than moments before. “Want me to make it up to you?”
Percy made a needy noise in the back of his throat, sinking one hand into the chignon at the nape of her neck while the other unzipped her dress.
“What was that?” she teased in-between kisses.
“If you insist,” Percy managed as Annabeth backed him onto the bed and straddled his lap. Her dress pooled at her waist as he pushed it off her shoulders, tracing her sides with the fainting of touches. She shuddered under his touch, watching him watch her.
His gaze swept up her torso, unashamedly lustful, but when he met her eyes his grin was sweet. She kissed him, almost chastely. “I’m sorry I’ve been busy and stressed out,” she said, dropping kisses on his forehead and the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t be sorry.”
She pressed her forehead to his. “I missed you.”
“I know. Me too.” He kissed her pouting lips, and inched his hands under her skirt. She shivered in anticipation, but he pulled away when his fingers reached her hip. “You’re not wearing underwear.”
She smiled innocently. “I took them off when I got home.” She held his face in her hands and looked into his eyes, feigning seriousness. “I want to get laid tonight, Percy.”
The corner of his mouth twitched but he managed to keep a straight face as he said solemnly, “It’s really great that our goals are in alignment, I think it bodes well for the future of this relationsh–”
“Shut up,” she cut him off, and they were both laughing as their mouths crashed together again. His hands were everywhere, and she was rocking into him in a way that made him growl, low in his throat. He peppered kisses along her throat and sucked at her clavicle as she rummaged in the nightstand drawer for a condom.
Her fingers closed on a small box.
Her stomach dropped. “Percy.”
She placed her free hand on Percy’s chest and pushed him back, and he blinked up at her, confused. “What?” His face fell when he saw what was in her hand.
“Percy, what’s this?” she asked unnecessarily as she flipped the lid open. Nestled in navy velvet, an understated diamond glinted on a thin gold band. It was simple, and elegant. It was exactly Annabeth’s taste.
Percy was staring at a freckle on her neck determinedly. “That’s,” he answered finally, “that’s an engagement ring.”
“Are you... holding this for someone?”
“No.”
“For Jason?” she persisted, knowing it was pointless, “you’re not holding it for Jason? Or Nico?”
Percy sighed. “No. I bought that for you.”
Silently, she closed the box, placed it back in the nightstand, closed the drawer, and lifted herself off his lap. “I’m going to shower, and then go to bed, okay?” She walked out of the bedroom without looking at him.
Half an hour later, she emerged from the bathroom to find Percy cleaning the oven with the precision of an Aphrodite child.
She folded herself over his body, bent over the stovetop, and rested her chin on his shoulder. “I’m going to bed. Are you coming?”
He didn’t look at her. “Am I invited?” he said petulantly.
Irritation flared inside her. She stepped away. “Don’t be a moron. Of course you’re invited. For gods’ sake, Percy.” She stalked to the bedroom and crawled under the covers, her back to the door.
But when he slid into bed next to her, she curled into him and said, “I’m sorry.”
"Yeah. Okay. Me too.”
“Okay?”
He kissed the top of her head. “Okay.”
*
The rumor mill at Camp Half Blood was infamously efficient, and Percy was beginning to think that his girlfriend and his best friend were to blame. Annabeth and Rachel shared information faster than you could say, ‘the most intimidating women in North America.’ When he met Rachel at the top of Central Park the next morning, he knew the moment he saw her expression that she knew the entire story.
“You bought a ring?” she demanded as soon as she was within earshot. “Why the hell would you buy a ring?”
“I wasn't actually going to give it to her, okay?” He knew he sounded too defensive.
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Here.” She pressed a falafel wrap into his hand. “So you were planning to keep an engagement ring indefinitely, huh?” She ripped into her food, frustrated, and set off down the path.
“I don't know, okay?” he said, following her. “I bought it on impulse without any immediate plan to actually propose, all right? It's not like I actually asked her to marry me last night. She found it!”
“Yeah I know, she told me what happened,” Rachel said dismissively. “But why would you buy an engagement ring? Marriage has never been on the table for you two, not seriously.”
He chewed moodily and didn’t answer.
Rachel ploughed on. “So how much did you spend on a ring she doesn't want, on impulse? And how did she not notice that your savings had disappeared?”
“Well, we don't really have a joint income, because we're not married,” he snapped. Rachel stopped abruptly and crossed her arms, waiting for an apology.
He let out a frustrated sigh and turned back to her. “Sorry, okay?”
Rachel looked unimpressed.
“It was before we got a joint account.” He continued walking, and Rachel followed.
“It was – really? How long have you had this thing?”
Percy took a deliberate bite of his food and chewed slowly.
“Percy? How long?”
“A couple of months?”
“A couple of months!”
He kicked at a pebble on the ground. “Maybe more than a couple.”
“Like how long?”
His next punt at the pebble was overzealous and it skittered off across the park. “Eighteen?”
Rachel shoved him. “You bought Annabeth a ring over a year ago and you didn't tell me?”
“Because I knew you'd react like this.”
“Because it was a terrible idea!” Her voice had risen in agitation. A nanny on a bench nearby shot an accusatory glance at them and pushed her stroller further down the path.
“I never said it was a good idea,” he hissed. “I said it was impulsive.”
Rachel pulled him over to the bench. “Damn right it was impulsive, gods, Percy,” she said. “You know how she feels about,” she lowered her voice, “Hera. Do you understand what she went through when you went missing?”
“Of course I do, but –”
“She was a mess, Percy. I get that you were too –“ she rushed on, seeing him open his mouth to interrupt, “– but she has an abandonment complex the size of the Empire State Building and she's never forgiven Hera for taking you away. I don't think she ever will. Then you go out and buy her an engagement ring, like you're going to propose to her, when Hera is the patron of marriage. I mean really, Percy?”
Percy felt like Rachel had punched him in the throat. It wasn't like proposing to Annabeth had been on his immediate agenda – the ring had been buried beneath the junk in his drawer for over a year, after all. But it had felt like a fun secret, something that he’d tell Annabeth, if one day they decided maybe they did want to get married – something low-key, with just his mom and Paul as witnesses, and Rachel, obviously, because she’d insist. They’d decide together and Annabeth would say, “well, I suppose you’d better get me a ring, then,” and he’d be able to say, “Oh yeah, I’ve already got one,” and she’d love it, because he was the one with the plan, for once.
But the way Rachel put it, it wasn’t cute, it was obtuse and insensitive.
He stared at a squirrel darting across the path. “You seem to know a lot about it,” and he really didn’t mean to grumble because he knew that Rachel was right, but that’s how it came out.
Rachel looked sympathetic. “She’s my best friend,” she said, and took a bite of her wrap.
“I’m your best friend,” he countered, out of habit.
“You’re both my best friends,” she shot back with a small smile.
He sighed wearily. “Have you talked to her about this much? I mean, before this morning?”
Rachel gazed out at the park. A little girl was throwing herself into a pile of fallen leaves, as her father watched, laughing. “Yeah, I have, Percy,” she said after a long time. “She knows you want to have kids someday. I think she’d like to marry you.”
He tried not to feel the flicker of hope inside him.
“I don’t think she’d take your name,” Rachel said thoughtfully. “Double-barrel at the most.”
“Rachel?”
“I don’t know if you realize how terrified she is, Percy.”
“But the thing with Hera was so long ago. It’s been, like, eight years. Surely Hera wouldn’t –”
“Who knows what Hera would do? And try telling Annabeth not to worry about it.”
Percy stared at the girl playing in the leaves, who was now leaping at her father, who caught her round the middle and swung her round then set her down to do it again.
*
Annabeth’s tactic for dealing with the situation was to pretend it had never happened. As she lay curled up beside him the next night, he thought that maybe he was asking too much, to want any more than what he had right here. Because what he had already was damn near perfect.
*
Annabeth drifted into consciousness with the comfortable weight of Percy’s arm draped across her. She blinked awake slowly, a stream of sunlight burning her eyelids.
Her muscles popped deliciously as she stretched out on her stomach. The nightstand drawer was ajar and under the foil packets spilling out of the box of Trojans, she saw a small, navy box.
She glanced over her shoulder to check that Percy was still sleeping, then retrieved the box.
It really was a beautiful ring. She slipped it onto her ring finger and held it out in front of her, turning it to the light to see the diamond shine.
“It fits.”
She jumped at the sound of Percy's voice at her shoulder, her left arm shooting back to the mattress almost of its own accord. She pulled at the ring. It wouldn’t budge. She looked away awkwardly. “Not quite.”
Percy raised his head and cocked his eyebrow in a question.
“It won’t come off,” she explained.
He pulled her left hand to him, and the expression on his face as he gazed at the ring made her want to cry. He slipped her finger into then out of his mouth, slid the ring off, and handed it to her.
“Here.”
She examined it in the soft morning light. “It’s beautiful, you know. You chose well.”
She could feel him watching her.
“Would you like to marry me?” Percy asked.
She didn’t miss the inflection. His eyes were bright with anticipation. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “Yeah, I would like to.”
He rolled onto his back and she was glad, because one more second of him looking at her like that and she’d have put the ring back on her finger and been calling herself his fiancé.
“Rachel says you’re scared,” he said. “Of what would happen if we got married or had a family, like in case Hera wouldn’t like it.”
“Rachel is smart," she said wearily.
He didn't answer, and she got the impression it was because he didn't want to snap at her.
“You don’t get it," she said. You’ve always done stuff your own way and got away with it. Let’s be honest, no-one has any idea how you’re even still alive.”
He laughed. “Thanks for the confidence in my combat skills, that means a lot.”
“Oh shut up,” she said, but she was smiling. “You turned down immortality when you were sixteen. You’ve offended just about every god on Olympus. And you've always come out of it okay.”
She hadn't forgotten the months after Tartarus, when he could barely sleep through the night, his temper always simmering just beneath the surface. The sex had gotten more violent than sexy, both of them searching for some kind of control over their traumatized bodies and finding it in hurting each other. They had had to break up for six months, the most miserable six months of both of their lives, because being together was tearing them both apart.
But all that had been years ago, now. There were still days when their PTSD reared its head, and he or she would wake up screaming, sure they were still wandering through hell in an endless odyssey. It would be a long time before the reaching for Percy, blind and abandoned, would retreat from her nightmares. But on the whole, they had healed.
“Are you saying it’s time for my luck to run out?” Percy said.
She didn't respond for a long time. She was watching the ceiling, her hands resting on her stomach fiddling with the ring. Finally, she said, “Do you remember what I told you during the Battle of Manhattan, Percy?”
“Which part?”
“My whole life, all I’ve wanted is for something to be permanent. Everybody was always leaving. And we’ve finally done it, Percy. I finally feel safe. I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. Do you understand?”
She could tell he wanted to argue. She knew exactly what he'd say – it was so long ago, don't you think we deserve it? She knew he was probably right. Hera had lain off her since they'd bought the camps together, but Annabeth didn't trust her luck, especially not where the queen of heaven was concerned.
“You know what?” he said, taking the ring from her and leant over her to place it on the nightstand. Her fingers twitched involuntarily when he took it off her. “We really don't have to get married. Forget I even bought it. I didn't even think about how getting it would upset you, I'm sorry. I'll take it to a pawn shop and take you to check out some amazing building somewhere with the money I get, deal?”
She looked at him and she could tell that he meant it.
He grinned and kissed her. “I mean it, forget it.”
“I don't know if I want you to pawn it,” she said slowly.
He cocked his head. “Really?” he said, like he thought she was humoring him.
“Really.” She slid the ring onto her left ring finger. “Maybe we could do like a... trial engagement? Let's not call it an engagement ring, but wearing it might be... Nice. It might make me warm up to the idea, you know? But we're not engaged.”
Percy's face split into a grin, the kind that she couldn't see without mirroring it.
“You know, I never even asked you yet,” he teased.
“Lucky I haven't said yes, then,” she shot back, the diamond glinting on her finger.
*