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Annabeth watched from her spot at the window in Percy’s bedroom as snow fluttered down from the gray skies. There wasn’t a single hint of the sunshine that was prevalent just a few hours ago, and instead, the skies resembled the color of her eyes as New York City was slowly dusted with pristine white snowflakes. A few stuck to the glass of the window, and she lightly traced them with her fingertip, her finger breaking through the condensation that built up on the window.
She had mixed feelings about the snowy weather. She loved how peaceful everything could be during the snowfall and for a bit afterwards — everything looked beautiful and untouched, but she absolutely hated the cold.
Despite living in Long Island for most of her life, she never got used to the biting cold thanks to the weather controlled climate of Camp Half-Blood.
Lightly drawing out a snowflake, she smiled softly at how the pattern was slowly freezing onto the window, and then she decided to draw a Christmas tree onto the window as well. It was the season, after all.
The multicolor fairy lights that she forced Percy to string up around the window frame reflected off of the glass, causing her drawings to shine in blue, red, and green colors, and Annabeth tilted her head to look at what she drew with the backdrop of New York City.
Percy and Annabeth were heading up to Camp Half-Blood for the rest of winter break, the only exception being Christmas, and Annabeth was looking forward to escaping the cold, but she had to admit, there was something serene about watching the busiest city in America calming down and hunkering down to stay inside as snow blanketed the roads and buildings.
While Annabeth was busy adding more doodles on the window — a ribbon, an ornament, a gift box, — she watched the snow start falling heavier, and she unconsciously shivered at the cold seeping through the window onto her fingers. She decided that she had doodled enough on Percy’s window, and so Annabeth wrapped her arms around herself, immediately feeling much warmer. She was happy that she had made the choice to steal one of Percy’s hoodies as soon as she had stepped into his warm apartment and mindlessly toyed with the ends of the drawstrings with one hand.
“Annabeth?” She turned around at the sound of her name, smiling to find Percy walking into his room, setting down two steaming cups onto his dresser. He looked past her shoulder at the window and raised an eyebrow. “Couldn’t take a break from drawing, huh?” he asked. She could faintly hear Estelle babbling away with her parents before the door closed behind him.
“You know me,” she replied with a smile on her face. His sea-green eyes were gleaming as he looked over her, and she grinned when she realized he was staring at her because she was wearing his hoodie. “You know, one would think that you were used to me stealing all your hoodies,” she teased with a sly smirk on her face as she shoved her hands into the front pocket. He was wearing a Goode hoodie with sweatpants, and she wondered if she could ask him to switch hoodies because the one he was wearing looked way more comfortable than the one she was wearing.
He walked over to her and pulled at the drawstrings that she was toying with just minutes earlier.
“Considering that I’ve had to buy three more hoodies because you keep taking mine, I don’t think so,” he teased back, pulling at the drawstrings enough that she stepped forward, leaving mere inches between the two.
Annabeth huffed out a laugh, and she swatted his hands away. “Well, buy another one because I’m keeping this one too.”
“Where do you even keep all of the ones you steal from me if you just wear mine every time you come over?” he laughed, moving over to his bed to push back the layers of blankets and sit down. He reached over to his bedside table and opened up his laptop, quickly tapping away on it.
Annabeth shrugged in response before verbally letting out a hum. “Well, you see, why would I bring over your own hoodies when I can just wear one out of your closet?”
She would never actually tell him that the reason why she just kept wearing the ones in his closest was because they smelled like him, like seasalt and the ocean breeze, and that wasn’t something that remained in his hoodies after she washed them.
Maybe she should bring the ones in her closet in her dorm room back to him, and then replace them with a bunch of different ones. Not like he would care.
Probably.
“You’re so weird,” he mused, shaking his head at her. “What do you want to watch?”
“Hmm,” Annabeth mused. “Let me think.”
Because they were basically going to get snowed in for the rest of the night (not that Annabeth minded), she proposed that they watch a family with the rest of Percy’s family, but he had a different idea. Percy added to that saying that it was the perfect night for hot chocolate and snuggling, so here they were. Sally and Paul were watching a movie with Estelle in the living room, so Percy and Annabeth took refuge in his room.
The steaming cups of hot chocolate that her boyfriend made were still sitting on the dresser, so she contemplated which movie they should watch as she moved to pick up the two cups. Taking a peek into the cups, she found them almost completely full of the dark chocolate liquid and floating on top were a bunch of small marshmallows.
Percy had already stretched out on the side of the bed farthest from her, his back pressed up the pillows against the headboard and his laptop resting on his straightened legs. She passed him one of the cups, and he smiled at her gratefully. His entire face lit up; his eyes shined, the edges crinkling up as he smiled. Even after over two years of dating, the butterflies that she got when he smiled like that at her never ceased. After everything that happened the last few years, Percy had taken to always being on edge, but in that moment, he looked so unguarded, so open. The idea that she was one of the few people that he would be free and unapologetically himself made her secretly excited.
“Thank you,” he responded, bringing the cup up to his lips and taking a long sip before letting out a content sigh. “Man, I make a mean hot chocolate.”
Annabeth snorted as she took a sip of her own. He did make a mean hot chocolate, but she wasn’t about to stroke his ego.
“It’s good,” she instead opted to say, letting herself get comfortable against the stack of pillows that Percy had placed against the headboard, and she crossed her legs underneath her.
“If that’s going to be the extent of the complement I’m going to get, I’ll take that,” Percy laughed. Rolling her eyes, she just shuffled closer to him, and Annabeth laid her head on his shoulder, watching him navigate the internet to get to a streaming service. “Did you decide on a movie?” he asked, looking down at her.
She took a sip of the hot chocolate before answering, letting the liquid warm her up on the inside. “I’m thinking Home Alone .” She looked back up at him with a questioning glance, asking with her eyes if that was okay with him.
Percy simply moved to find the movie and get it set up. “I’m thinking that it’s a good choice.”
He set the laptop down a bit far away from them on the bed so he could pull the covers up over their legs, and then he moved the laptop a bit closer to them. He turned up the volume, and Annabeth reached over to his bedside table to turn the lamp off, letting the fairy lights and the laptop screen illuminate the room.
Percy wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she snuggled in closer to him, molding herself to fit into the side of his body.
They sat in silence, laughing at the movie every so often, but they never felt compelled to talk through the movie, simply enjoying each others’ presence.
At some point after they had long finished their hot chocolates and were wrapped up in each other’s arms, Annabeth’s eyes drifted away from the screen and towards the window. The curtains were still open, so she could see the snow falling. The roads were almost completely covered, along with the rooftops of nearby buildings, and for a brief moment, she was in awe of the view of the untouched snow.
Her eyes then traveled to Percy’s face as he focused on the movie. It was as though a smile had been permanently etched on his face as he watched the movie, and her own lips quirked up at the sight.
“You could take a picture, you know. It would last longer,” he spoke, jolting Annabeth out of her thoughts. She barked out a laugh before snuggling even closer to him, resting her head on his chest, and he simply tightened his arms around her in response.
“I could, but I’d prefer not to move,” she responded.
Percy didn’t move for a second, and she didn’t think much of it until he moved to drop a kiss on her head. He let his chin drop down to rest on her head, and as she snuggled up with Percy, she felt as though she were wrapped away from the rest of the world in her own little cocoon of warmth.
It was then that Annabeth figured that if she could spend the cold and dreary days like this, she wouldn’t mind not going to camp.