Work Text:
Gold Rush
I
Gods, she hated him so much.
The fights had gone on, couldn't he see that? No, of course not, he was an idiot and she was too proud.
If Annabeth had known back then that his fatal flaw was loyalty, she would scoff, because he was being anything but loyal. Possibly, after throwing out that comment, she would think again. He had nothing to be loyal to. He wasn't her boyfriend, he didn't owe her anything, but damn it, she wanted him to be her boyfriend.
II
"Catch the flag?" Clarisse asked. "We're in a war, Chiron."
The centaur nodded. "Precisely. You've done as many missions as possible this week. You deserve to relax with a game, don't you think so?"
Clarisse was silent, which was rare, but she was no exception to the exhaustion that fell on the site. They were trying to rescue as many demigods as possible and bring them to the camp.
Annabeth thought it was a bit cruel. They were looking for these children alone to train them and take them to a war they probably didn't want to be a part of. Then, she realized that it was what she herself had lived through all those years. The idea was a bit rather depressing.
"Since there are no more objections, you can start making the groups. We'll do the game tomorrow." They all left the room, but Annabeth glanced at the seat Percy always sat in. He wasn't there.
III
Maybe she should call him. She knew he wouldn't come to camp for her, but maybe for the game?
They were going to argue again, but it was better than knowing he was with Rachel.
Gods, Rachel. She hated herself for treating her so badly, because she was a pretty girl, kind and, best of all, smart. Annabeth wondered how close friends they could be if only she had put jealousy aside, maybe she would have had feelings for her if only Percy didn't exist.
She shook her head. She would apologize later. She tossed the coin into the water. A rainbow had been created by the reflection of the sun, and she wanted to take advantage of it.
Annabeth felt a stab in her chest. Percy had a blue-stained kitchen apron, as did Sally and... as did Rachel. They were having a domestic, family moment, without her. Tears began to crystallize in her eyes.
"Annabeth!" Sally shouted.
She didn't want to be rude, she really didn't want to be rude to such a nice woman, but she cut off the iris message. She told herself it was for her mental health.
IV
The stream was soothing, and the nymphs weren't bothering her, which was fortunate. But someone sat down beside him. It was Grover, who had been back in camp for a few days.
"What's wrong?" He asked. Annabeth watched him. He was her best friend, he knew her and had taken her to the camp. He knew her and he hadn't abandoned her yet.
She threw herself on him and wept. Grover stood for perhaps an hour listening to Annabeth curse Percy's name about five hundred times a minute, vowing that she would say nothing to him, neither of her feelings, nor that she had insulted him so grotesquely.
He found the situation funny, actually. Competing the empathic connection with Percy, and being a satyr, he could detect things that the rest of them couldn't, and that included knowing how she felt every time he saw Annabeth, who was slowly starting to become a much prettier girl than she had ever been. Percy saw her in slow-motion double vision, blushing pink, and everyone knew it but him. If there was anyone who knew they would end up together, it was him. He just hoped he wouldn't be a third wheel later.
V
What the fuck was he doing there? Why did he go to the camp? He only went when there were special missions, and now, that she didn't want him there, he had to get there.
He was an idiot.
"I guess we'll be teaming up, won't we?" He asked, now her side. She was close enough.
"No. Actually, no. I have enough people on my team, you can go red."
"The one in the Hermes cabin?" He asked. There was an advantage with that cabin: they had a lot of people, but also a disadvantage, and that was that they weren't organized. They were fast and agile, most of them, but without a strategist person at the head, it was tricky. "Come on, Annabeth. I'm begging you." He joked, but she didn't find it funny. He didn't even have to be there.
She watched his eyes. They were sirens calling to her again, telling her to jump into those two pools of water that would sink her. She was so tempted that she almost jumped into them.
"Everyone wants you there, go with them. Like I told you, my team is complete." She turned, ready to leave him and kick off the game. She noticed how the rest of the campers looked at them, quizzical and amused.
"Annabeth! Wait," Percy grabbed her arm. Of course, he had to make physical contact to finish disarming her emotionally. "What's wrong? You called the house yesterday and cut the call short, what did you want to say?"
I like you. I like you and I kissed you for something, seaweed brain. I like you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?
"Nothing."
"Nothing," repeated he. "you don't do things for nothing, and you don't hang up the call for nothing! I know you well enough to know that."
"No you don't!" She shouts, realizing they were making a scene in front of everyone. He straightened his shoulders, and she didn't know it, but his look was starting to look scary, and his voice had shifted to menacing. "Go to your team, Percy. Now."
He obeyed, but not before looking at her sadly. Annabeth was always abrupt and scary, but not to him, she never tried to scare him.
Where had her best friend gone?
Annabeth didn't know either.
VI
Was that what falling in love was? To feel like you were flying, and then to fall and have your bones crushed by your own weight.
She tried to free herself from these thoughts. Her cap was on her hair-tail, so no one could see her, and she was near the brook where a day ago she had wept, but which Percy was now protecting, for the flag was stuck at the other end. That was clever, she could recognize, and she knew it was his idea. To put the flag in Percy's element, and that, if he saw it taken, he could just raise the waters and catch the people in the current.
She had to be careful about that then, mostly because she knew Percy would be alert, because he knew she was the one who would be looking for the flag. But Annabeth was smarter than that.
She pulled the net she had woven into her bag. It was dipped in light iron and would stick to the ground as soon as it came into contact with it, a courtesy of Beckendorf, who was on her team. If she got close...
Annabeth wandered off to talk to the nymphs in the neighboring pond, far enough away that Percy couldn't see her.
"Hey, hi."
They all circled closer. For some (rather obvious) reason, the nymphs reminded her of Dionysus' followers, so they scared her a little. Just a little!
"Do you think you can help me at all?" She asked. The nymphs nodded as soon as she told them about the plan, moved particularly because she had said that Percy was a pretty boy. Annabeth wasn't lying.
She climbed one of the trees carefully. She was right on top of Percy, she just had to drop the net.
Percy grunted as soon as the metal hit his head and Annabeth jumped off the branch, falling to her knees after a spin. She grabbed the flag and took off her cap.
If Percy hadn't attacked her with his water powers yet, it was because the nymphs were swimming in the stream. He was too good to give them a hard time and send them all flying with a watery whirlwind. Annabeth knew that, too.
"Oh, poor Percy. Losing yet again." She joked. Anger had jumped out of her skin now that she had the flag in her hand.
"A trick that would make Ares and Aphrodite proud." He was annoyed, that much was clear. Maybe not everyone knew it, but Percy had a proud version too, a version that hated with all his soul to lose, even if it was a game.
"I'd say more to Hephaestus; don't you think?" For a few moments, she remembered the tunnel of love she had been in during the first mission. It felt like it had happened a thousand years ago, and now she would give anything to be there with him again. The way he'd protected her from the spiders....
"Get me out of here, will you?"
"No, actually, I don't want to." The net was glued to the ground, so he was almost that completely motionless. "Too
bad."
She started walking back to her spot, ready to put on her cap and run.
"Annabeth!" She stopped at his shout. Gods, why was he so upset? "You want me to tell you it was a good trick or what the hell? Get me the hell out of here. Now!"
She swallowed, feeling her throat was dry. "Swear on the Styx that you won't chase after me to take my flag."
"It's a game!"
"Swear it!"
Were they really arguing again?
Percy sighed, as if he knew he had no choice with her. "I swear on the river Styx." She untied him, holding out a hand for him to stand up. He smiled, a damn cute smile. "Start running now because I might as well attack you and have someone else grab the flag."
Annabeth put on her cap and ran, but not before she saw him licking his lips. Her heart raced as she remembered the time she kissed him. She still wondered if the sensation of him kissing her back was just a dream generated by her needy mind.
VII
Clarisse gave her a friendly punch (friendly, but hard) on the arm. "That's it, brainiac!"
She smiled. The red flag on the ground. Winning made her feel better, at least about the Percy thing. It felt good, until she saw it. Walk past, quick brush. Annabeth cursed herself internally, she didn't like not being able to anticipate when her face would have that red blush, luckily, neither did he, but she didn't notice.
Silena approached her, who had her head down.
"Hey, everything okay?"
"Oh?" Then, he realized why she was asking. "Sure, I crushed your team."
"Maybe we would have won if Percy wasn't protecting the flag."
"Nah, I'm pretty good."
"Oh, I know," she said with a smile. "It's precisely the combination of you being good and Percy not being able to behave normally around you that makes us lose."
Annabeth turned her neck with impressive speed. Maybe, if she wasn't a demigoddess who trained every day, she would have broken a bone. "What?"
Silena let out a laugh. Not a laugh like "oh, that's funny", but like "I'm doing an amazing prank, I’m so funny". Before Annabeth could ask anything, Silena left.
VIII
Beach. Beach, beach.
Annabeth had begun to loathe her body a little. She loved having missions, because she didn't have time to think about how her breasts didn't match the size of her torso, and how her hips made her waist look a little bigger.
She didn't wear her bathing suit when they all went to the lake. It was fun, like they were normal teenagers at a normal teenage camp, but Annabeth thought about her body again when she looked at all the girls her age in bathing suits.
She covered her mules with both hands as he spoke to the small group that had formed. She fists clenched when she saw Percy enter. Was he not going to leave her, as always?
Travis integrated it. Him in front of her. His hair fell in just the right place like dominoes, oh, how should it have been growing up so beautiful? She'd never felt like this during her teenage years, but he...he was cute, everyone knew that.
The group was moving, and that, for some reason, included him. Now he was by her side. Now he was beside her. Her heart began to beat fast. She really wanted him to go.
"So?" He asked.
"Oh?"
"How have you been? We haven't, you know, talked much about anything other than missions."
She wanted to vomit. Her heart was in her stomach, she felt it go down and pounding throughout her body. "It's not like you're here when there are no missions."
Her jaw tightened. "Annabeth..."
"Oh, no. It's all right. I'm fine. We're fine." She didn't know if he meant the camp, or them. They were definitely both lies.
Percy turned sharply to face her. "Can you stop being like that for two minutes!"
As if she were a child again, she felt scolded. But he wasn't going to scold her, who did he think he was?
Finally, after maybe thirty seconds of silence, he spoke again. "I just want to know how you're doing, because you're still my best friend." Best friend. The word echoed in her mind. Sure, she was his best friend, she was the one Paul called when Percy had panic attacks at his school, and she was the one who had saved him so many times, but if she was his best friend, why did she see herself with her Yankees cap hanging on his door, calling him to attention for his contrarian shit, in the coastal city they wandered through. "Things are tense, I know, the war is-"
"It's complicated." She finished. Clearly, her motive wasn't war. She knew the other part of the prophecy, and she knew what it meant. Percy would die. He would die without knowing she loved him, and he would die without reciprocating her feelings, and he would leave her alone, as they all had. "I'm sorry. You're right."
He raised both eyebrows. Seeing Annabeth agree with someone (especially him) was something new, and gratifying.
"Thank you, but now, how are you?"
She smiled. "Good, and you?"
IX
The day before had been so wonderful, why did the weekend have to end that way?
Annabeth and Percy had spent the rest of the evening together, just talking about everything and nothing, and at one point, Annabeth's adolescent heart was doing twists and turns as he rested his head on her lap. They had done this many times before: on missions, nightly meetings for teach him constellations, and other occasions. But now, that she was aware of her own feelings, it felt good, she felt loved.
Only this was Annabeth's life, things went wrong, and going wrong was all about the girl with the sharply defined curls and red hair. She greeted Annabeth when she went with Sally to pick up Percy, and the bucket of cold water fell back on her. Percy and Rachel go to school together, they're in the same town all the time, they're close. Gods, she spent her evenings at his apartment!
How had she ever believed that the two of them weren't dating? How had she ever believed that she had a chance?
She didn't like that everyone was dying to feel his touch, that everyone was wondering what it would be like to love him. Annabeth knew that there were a lot of girls in the camp who, if they hadn't approached Percy yet, it was because of her, and she was still doubting whether it was a matter of loyalty or fear. Either way, she didn't like that, but she liked even less that she liked Percy. Why was it all so complex and idiotic at the same time?
The next week was no better, because straight up, he didn't show up, and she had a headache that Will had to cure with a strange herbal tea that made the kitchen area smell like witchcraft.
She swirled the gray water, similar to the color of her eyes. She had dared to dream of Percy, and she could no longer do so. She would never cross him at dinner parties, and they would never walk the shore of Long Island.
Everyone wants him, but she doesn’t like a gold rush, and those dreams of him were now fading into the gray of her tea.