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“I can’t believe Hazel and Frank couldn’t make it this year,” Percy moaned, as Annabeth felt him press up against her arm, and he eventually just laid his head on her shoulder.
From across Annabeth’s seat, Piper agreed sadly as she chewed on a bar of chocolate.
“Apparently they’ve been running into some issues getting time off since it’s so close to Christmas and all,” Jason explained, pushing the rim of his glasses further up his nose.
“I guess it’s unavoidable, but I wish I could’ve seen Hazel’s reaction to our present from them,” Annabeth mused, setting her head on top of Percy’s. It set her neck at a slightly weird angle, but now that it was getting late at night, she was feeling slightly chilly despite the weather control at camp and the bonfire that she and her friends were sitting around and she wanted to leech off his warmth.
It was hard to get them all in one place considering they had all gone to different schools and had such conflicting schedules, but they had made a plan to at least try to make some time to head up to Camp Half-Blood a few days before Christmas, but so far only Percy, Piper, Jason, Leo, and Annabeth had made it. Grover was, unfortunately, still on the other side of the world while Hazel and Frank were stuck in New Rome.
It was late enough that most of the campers had been sent to bed, and the older ones who had come back to celebrate Christmas were at the beach, enjoying themselves around a bigger bonfire.
“Can we see the present?” Leo asked as he stole a piece of Piper’s chocolate, causing her to let out a whine in protest. Jason simply gave Piper the rest of his chocolate, and she kissed him on the cheek in thanks.
Percy grinned as he quickly moved away from Annabeth, causing her to lose her balance after she had unconsciously been leaning all her weight on him. She swayed in her place, and Leo shot a hand out to grab her arm, steadying her.
“Thanks, Leo,” she breathed, her heart beating hard as she fought to shake off the feeling of falling backwards. She shot a glare at Percy who was now grinning sheepishly at her. “You—”
“Sorry, babe, I’ll be right back!” Percy quickly spoke, clearly trying to placate Annabeth before he jogged over to one of the benches nearby where all of them had stored their presents. “Can someone please help me bring the rest of these over?”
“What, Mr. Immortal can’t do it himself?” Leo teased as Jason stood up to help. Annabeth looked at Leo with slight exasperation, and he just shrugged in response. Percy didn’t respond, but she was sure that he had rolled his eyes at the comment. Despite all the time that had passed since the two of them had met, Leo and Percy had still only reached an awkward level of friendship — to the point where they were friendly enough to hang out and chat around others, but didn’t exactly hang out alone — because of Calypso, who had decided to respectfully back out of tonight’s meeting, saying that it wasn’t her place to intrude. While Annabeth understood, she felt that Calypso didn’t join more because of the fact that she would have to face Percy considering the curse that Annabeth had been hit with in Tartarus last year.
“You know my water can douse your fire, right?” Percy teased back as he and Jason came back holding a few wrapped presents each in their arms. They set them down carefully on the bench next to Annabeth, and then went to take their seats.
Percy was already holding Frank’s gift, so Annabeth reached over to dig through the boxes until she found the one that she had written Hazel’s name on. She carefully opened the wrapping to avoid ripping the tape and wrapping. She opened the box to pull out a red sweater. She shook it out slightly to straighten the cloth out, and she turned it to face their friends, the bonfire shining enough light for them to see it.
It was a bright red Christmas sweater with pixelated reindeers, santas and snowflakes decorating it with “All I want for Christmas is him” written on it in a pixelated font. Percy had taken out Frank’s gift as well, and it was the same design except in green and written on it was “All I want for Christmas is her.”
The two of them had gotten Hazel and Frank separate gifts, but upon seeing the sweaters in the store, they immediately knew that they definitely needed to get the couple the sweaters for them to wear around.
“Oh my god, that’s adorable,” Piper cooed, reaching over to grab the sweater from Percy to look at closely.
“It really is,” Annabeth agreed. She really wanted to see the two of them wear the sweaters, but it was okay — they would see each other soon, and they could give them the present then.
“Okay, whose presentas are we opening first?” Jason asked, looking up at Annabeth with a crooked grin. She smiled in return, recognizing the excitement in his eyes, and she reached over to pick up her presents for the three of them and passed them out.
She watched as her friends tore into the wrapping and cringed. The wrapped could’ve been saved for reusing, but it was too late for that now. Percy must’ve felt her cringe because he just wrapped an arm around her shoulder and laughed quietly in her ears.
“It’s okay, I’ll make sure to save my wrapping,” he whispered, and she just laughed, nodding her head in thanks. She watched as her friends opened up their presents and burst into loud banter, talking about all the stuff they got.
Annabeth had gotten Piper a rose gold plated silver bracelet with crystals on it that represented the Earth, water, and sky elements, and she smiled as she watched Piper immediately put it on and gush about how gorgeous the bracelet was.
Jason had gotten a first-edition signed copy of a book they had been talking about a while back, and she smiled when he looked up at her and grinned. No words were exchanged, but she knew he was grateful.
Finally, Annabeth got Leo a ring with the Hephestus symbol engraved on the top, and just like Piper, he put it on right then and moved to hug Annabeth quickly, much to Percy’s fake annoyance. Despite everything, Percy had a small smile on his face, and once they had moved on from her presents, he stood up to grab three boxes and passed them out before moving to grab two smaller boxes from the corner of the pile. He stood in front of Annabeth and held out a hand for her, looking down at her with a sweet smile on his face. His face looked utterly gorgeous as his face was bathed in the light from the fire, and she was in a trance as she took his hand and let him pull him up.
“We’ll be back in a bit. You guys can exchange your presents.” Their friends let out agreements, and Percy guided her off towards the beach.
“Are we joining the party?” Annabeth curiously asked.
“Nope,” he responded, popping the ‘p.’
They veered away from the party as they reached the beach, instead walking farther out towards the edges. The two of them walked in silence, simply enjoying each other’s presence with their hands entwined between them and the moonlight shining on top of them. Once Percy had deemed them far enough from everyone else, he stopped, moving so he faced her.
Annabeth smiled at him, waiting for him to speak, but instead all he did was pass her one of the boxes he had been holding. Looking down at it, he found it to be his present for her.
“I thought we were exchanging at your house on Christmas morning?”
“I wanted to, uh, do this alone,” he shyly replied, a hand reaching up behind his head to rub his neck.
Annabeth grinned, leaning up slightly to quickly press her lips against his. She moved away ever so slightly to let out a small ‘okay,’ and she moved back to look down at the box. It was small enough that she assumed that it was probably a jewelry box. It was wrapped in blue wrapping paper with white snowflakes printing all over it, and she slowly dragged her nail underneath the folds to pull the tape off and unfold the paper.
Pulling away the paper, she found that it was, indeed, a jewelry box. Her heart was thundering in her chest at the thought of what she might find in there. She knew that it wouldn’t be a ring, — Percy was well aware of the fact that she would murder him for even thinking about proposing before they had graduated college and were financially stable — but she was still excited to think about what he could’ve gotten her.
She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but she did know that upon opening the box, her breath was stolen from her lungs.
It was a beautiful silver plated necklace with a small silver heart hanging from the center at an angle with three small rhinestones embedded into the edge, but it was what was in the center of the heart that caused Annabeth’s heart to stutter in her chest. Sitting on the flat part of the heart was a simple outline of an owl in gold with black rhinestones for eyes. It was so simple, but it was so absolutely perfect that she couldn’t help but wonder if it was all a dream.
She looked up at Percy incredulously, and he was fidgeting, the nerves written all over his face, but there was a slight beginning of a smile to form on his face.
“Perce...it’s...beautiful. Thank you,” she breathed, looking into his eyes. She carefully took it out of the box and held it up from her index finger, watching it dangle. The silver and gold of the heart and owl shone under the moonlight, and her eyes were fixated on the owl. She didn’t know where he had found it, but she couldn’t care less as she threw herself at him, knowing that he would just as easily catch her. He wrapped his arms around her, and she buried her nose in the crook of his neck, unable to explain the surge of love for him in her heart.
She couldn’t imagine a better present.
Percy moved slightly to kiss her forehead, and then pushed himself away from her slightly so he could see her face.
“Happy?” he asked.
“Is that even a question?”
Percy just grinned in response, his eyes crinkling up, and she just pulled away from him farther to put the necklace on.
“Now, since you already have my present, you might as well open it,” she grinned.
Percy, true to his earlier spoken words, slowly opened the wrapping (identical to the one he had used). He opened the box within and a slow grin took over his face as he pulled out a necklace.
It was kind of funny that they had both gone with necklaces as their presents, but somehow, it fit for them.
Annabeth had spent days agonizing over what to get him, but while she was in the jewelry store picking up Piper’s present, her eyes caught onto a ring that was advertised to have waves engraved into it. It was a thin silver band with waves engraved into it with a slight light blue hue to it, just enough that it stood out. Looking at it, she immediately knew that it would make the perfect present for Percy, but he knew her feelings about gifting rings, so she knew that she should follow the same ideals, so along with the ring, she bought a plain necklace chain and put the ring on it.
“You know, you could’ve just told me that you wanted to propose instead of yelling at me about timing,” he laughed. Annabeth rolled her eyes, but there was no way to hide the smile that was pulling at her lips.
“It’s amazing, Annabeth,” he spoke, awe filling his voice. Annabeth simply reached out and rubbed his cheek with her thumb affectionately. She watched as he took a hold of the ring and played with it between his fingers before smirking up at her.
“Put it on me?” he asked, a joking tone to his voice.
She choked on a laugh, but she reached out and put the necklace on him. The ring dangled a few inches below his collarbone, and she reached out to play with it slightly.
“It’s a yes, by the way.”
“To what?” she asked, looking up into his eyes, and immediately regretting it because by now, it was obvious when Percy was getting ready to say something dumb.
“To your proposal, of course,” he replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
She simply shut him up with a smack to the shoulder and then a kiss.