Chapter Text
Day 1: Ice skating.
Annabeth should’ve said no when Percy said they should go ice skating, but she was too in love to refuse. This was the fourth year in a row when this had happened and, while she could blame the first time on the fact that she had never ice skated before and that she had thought it wouldn’t be too difficult, this year, only her heart was to blame.
“Come on, stop being a baby and come here,” Percy said.
They were probably quite the picture—a 20-year-old boy that was ice skating like it was nothing, and a 20-year-old girl that was wearing her skates, but refused to get onto the ice.
“I’m not being a baby,” Annabeth stubbornly said, “I’m just enjoying the fact that I can still feel my legs and my feet.”
That made Percy laugh—a kind of laugh that came from deep in his chest and that always made Annabeth smile, even when she was mad at him. She had never considered herself to be an artist (although Percy always said that her blueprints made her one), but making Percy laugh felt like an art, one that she was very proud to say she had perfected. He approached her, making ice skating seem like the easiest thing in the world, and held out his hands.
“Hold onto me,” he said, “I won’t let you fall.”
You’ve made me fall already , Annabeth thought before shaking her head to rid herself of these thoughts. The last thing she needed was to be thinking about her unrequited love while trying not to eat the ice.
“If I fall, you’re gonna be the one explaining this to your mum,” she said as she slowly got into the rink.
“You put up the same fight every single year.”
“And yet I skate every single Year,” she told him. “I just really love being stubborn.”
Her plans of starting slowly were completely destroyed the moment Percy took her hands, quickly pulling her towards him until she crashed onto his chest.
“You asshole,” she hissed, cheeks flushed at the feel of their chests pressed together. “Then you wonder why I fall.”
She looked up, only to find Percy already looking at her. Sometimes, she could pretend that they were actually a couple—in times like this, when they were pressed together and looking in each other’s eyes, or when he drove from Manhattan to Ithaca during the weekends whenever she was having a bad week, or when she stayed over at his place and fell asleep on the couch but woke up in his bed next to him (these times, she pretended it was because he also wanted to be next to her, and not because he had swim practice early in the morning and had to be well rested). Just as the silence was turning uncomfortable, Percy cleared his throat and looked away.
“Do you…” he started, briefly looking at her before turning his gaze again. “Do you wanna try to skate alone, or do you want to hold onto me?”
Annabeth knew there were two options—she could either hold onto his hand, and therefore think about his hand the whole time she was skating and probably end up falling, or skate alone and try not to fall.
“I think I’m gonna try to do it alone.”
Percy nodded and let go of her hand, moving back a little and watching her intently while she took her first steps on the ice. She knew he half-expected her to fall—he knew her, after all—, but she refused to go through the humiliation of falling in front of the boy she was in love with.
However, her legs didn’t seem to have got the memo, and she went crashing down the second she lifted one foot. As she was about to hit the ice, Percy’s arms wrapped around her body and pulled her up, once again into his embrace.
“Okay,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice, “I don’t think I’m gonna let go of you.”
“I told you we should’ve stayed home and watched a movie,” Annabeth grumbled.
Percy moved his arms slowly, wrapping one around her waist and using the other to make sure she stood straight.
“I don’t get to hold you when we watch a movie,’’ he said, stealing her breath. Before she was able to muster a response, he continued, “let’s go, we don’t wanna stand here all day.”
She briefly looked at him, still too surprised to say anything. He was smiling cheekily, but she could tell that his cheeks were tinted red, and it was not because of the cold. He was always making comments like that, and she was always too stunned to say anything back—was he just being funny, or was there actually any truth behind his flirtation? Was Piper right when she said that Annabeth was stupid not to see that Percy was in love with her?
To everybody else, they probably looked ridiculous, considering the fact that Percy was dragging her along while he skated, but she felt as if they were dancers performing the most beautiful choreography—his hand on her waist, with his pinky softly touching the skin between her t-shirt and her jeans, and with a grip strong enough that she wouldn’t fall; his cheeks the most beautiful shade of pink she could think of; and his smile soft, the aftermath of his usual grin. He was the portrait of beauty, and she felt so lucky to be held by him, to be in his presence and know that she was there because he wanted her to. He had been complaining and asking about what to get her for Christmas for weeks, but she always felt that telling him she just wanted him was too stupid. However, it was true—there was nothing else she needed in her life other than him, even if it was just as her best friend.
Thinking about this, she failed to notice the kids that were rapidly approaching them, and so she didn’t react quickly enough when Percy tried to swerve to the left, leading to them both falling to the ground. She couldn’t complain, having fallen on top of Percy, but she could guess that his fall hadn’t been too pleasant. She looked at him, expecting him to be in pain, but she found him holding in his laugh. Her confused face, however, seemed to break his resolve, and he started laughing loudly in the middle of the ice rink.
“You really do not know how to skate,” he managed to say, sitting up and still laughing. “You almost killed two kids, Jesus Christ,” he carried on. She still didn’t say anything, thinking about how he had turned their bodies automatically so he would be the one to fall on the ice and how he hadn’t complained and, okay, maybe it wasn’t that deep, but she was having a revelation. She had been having a revelation for years, but apparently the spirit of Christmas had decided that now was the time to act. He misunderstood her silence, and he quickly stopped laughing and looked at her worriedly, taking her face in his hands and searching it, looking for something that might indicate why she was so serious. “Wait, are you alright? Are you hu-...”
She didn’t know if her actions were impulsive or if they were the result of overthinking for three years, but holding his face in her hands and kissing him felt like coming home—she didn’t care about the cold, or about the fact that they were sitting on wet, cold ice, or about the children running and screaming around, or about anything that didn’t have to do with Percy. He didn’t react at first, making her think that, hey, maybe this wasn’t such a great idea , but then he fully cupped her cheeks and kissed her back. She knew now why they said Christmas was a magical time of the year, because this felt like a wish come true.
“You,” she whispered softly as they separated, their foreheads still pressed together. “You are what I want for Christmas.”
He grinned softly, and she could swear the air felt a little bit warmer.
“Well, then,” he whispered back, moving his lips so they caressed hers with every word he spoke, “you don’t have to get me anything either. You’re all I want in return.”