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Hate, they say, is not the opposite of love but rather it's equal in passion and it's match in pain. Annabeth Chase knows this feeling well. Knows what it means to love someone so much she hates them. To hate someone so much she loves them. What else, but this deep canyon of feeling, can produce such anger.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Jackson?”
“Probably the same thing that's wrong with you Chase.” Percy Jackson spits, glaring at her with his ocean eyes.
Before she met him she had never seen a stormy sea. Now she can catalogue it into the shape of his irises without having to look. The darker the green the angrier he is. She knows every colour of his eyes. All the ones produced by anger and sadness and pain anyway. She couldn't tell you what colour they were when he laughed freely or when he saw people he loved or when he was calm. No those emotions did not exist within him when they were together.
“Get your ass back up and try again.” She glares at him. "Gods we've been doing this for three days how are you still not getting it?”
“Maybe if you had bothered to actually teach me instead of pretending to show me and then yelling when I got it wrong we wouldn't be here.”
“It's not that difficult. I did it with Jason all the time.”
“Yea well Jase isn't here so maybe get off your high horse and actually teach me the trick.”
She glares with her grey storms and he glares with his crashing oceans and it's like the war between domains all over again.
“Squat.” She growls. He does so, holding his hands out in the process.
She steps between his legs, doesn't dare to breathe when warm fingers curl around her hips. No matter how many times, how many days, tricks, convincing, she has never been able to stop her body from melting into his warmth. She stiffens up before she can force herself to relax. She hopes he pegs it to her being disdainful of him and not her true reaction. If he ever found out— even thinking about it makes her want to hurl.
“You have to loosen your shoulders. You know it's worse when you're tense.”
“i know Jackson.” She can't help but snap. It's the only kind of tone she's used with him since they were thirteen.
She takes a deep breath, let's her shoulders drop to their natural height. Grabs his wrists on either side of her. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
She launches herself off the floor, he launches her into the air. And then she's flying and flying and flying and if this is what Icarus felt like she understands why he didn't heed his grandfather's warnings. This freedom is worth melting metal for.
She S p I n S
and again, and then her legs are pin straight underneath her and she is heading right for Percy’s hands. Held high, strong, unwavering. He catches her foot as she bends. Let's her whole body collapse. His other hand is grabbing her arm and she is being tossed like a rag doll, cartwheeling in the air. She can see his blurry shape as he runs towards where she should land. She uses the last of her momentum to flip over herself and then she can do nothing but fall.
Arms wrap around her. Chest pressed against her. Hard thigh underneath her.
She is safe.
No bruise to add to the collection.
Not this time.
He sets her down. Gently. And she wants to yell at him for it. He can't treat her kindly in these conditions. Not when she knows it's an effort for him.
The joy he gives so freely to his friends, she has never earned. The gentleness with which he treats his loved ones, she will never deserve.
“Good.” The praise is stiff on her tongue. So much like her mother. “Again.”
“Give me ten.” He sounds exhausted right down to his marrow. A lamb forcing itself to make a home in this slaughterhouse.
“You get five.” She frowns, storms away to the opposite end of the gym.
She flops down next to her bag, steadfastly ignoring the uncomfortable feeling of her curls sticking to her neck, shorts rubbing against her skin, irritating it. She just wants to be out of here. But if she doesn't teach Percy all of Jason’s moves before tonight both him and her are out of the upcoming game. And if there's one thing Annabeth Chase doesn't accept, it's forced complacency. She'd rather be the bottle runner than not participating.
Gods Jason why did you have to go and sprain your wrist? She's cursed her partner at least a hundred times since finding out he wouldn't be by her side for the game. And cursed both him and the universe when she found out who she'd be partnering with instead.
Stifling a sigh she drags herself off the floor, guzzles more water than necessary just to buy herself precious milliseconds, and then walks back over to Percy.
“Come on Jackson. We just have two more moves to nail and then we don't have to see each other's faces again for the rest of the weekend.”
“Yea gimme a sec.” He waves his hand at her.
“I gave you 300 actually.” She snarls at him.
“Then what's a couple more Chase?” He's still looking at his phone, amusement lining his features as he types.
“Now Jackson.” And with that she yanks the phone from his hand.
The guttural sound of pure annoyance that rips through him pierces straight into her core. She is not scared, she knows he won't hurt her. But she knows, somehow, Percy Jackson finally thinks she's irredeemable. The fractured pieces of hope he may have had for her, for their friendship have finally disintegrated completely.
“You know,” He says quietly. It feels so violently loud in her head. “I always knew you hated me. But—” There is pain behind his eyes, deep green like haunted forests. “But I didn't realize how much until this moment.”
“I—” She wants to spill herself onto this disgusting gym floor.
“I get it okay.” So much sadness. ”I wasn't a great kid when we were younger and I am and always have been sorry we got off on such a bad foot. But Annabeth—” Distress now. Swirling green. "I didn't think we'd be dumb enough to keep walking on that foot. I thought we'd restart, retrace, re– begin again.”
“Jackson I–” She can't fathom the words. Nothing she wants to say should be said. Nothing she can say will help.
He waits for her, one heartbeat, two. Sighs and he's back to the normal storm green. “Let's just get these tricks down and go home.”
It's two hours and more bruises than she has salve to cover them, later when they finally nail the routine. When they work together, when there are no messy things like words and feeling and humanness between them, they are unstoppable. She dares to think even better than her and Jason.
But the ache in her chest, twisting with her inhale has too much of a hold on her. She can't remove herself from this train-wreck and work with Percy full time. There's too much pain hidden between their glances for it. No, better to stay with Jason till the end. He tolerates her. Even if his hands don't warm her, or his eyes can't be read. At least with him she will survive.
“See you on Monday Chase.”
“Yea,” She raises a hand but he's already turned away, lithe figure down a dark corridor.
Maybe tomorrow she can race with crocodiles. She achieved the impossible today. She's walking out of a room she shared with Percy Jackson… and they're both still breathing.
Maybe tomorrow she can tell him she loves him. Impossibility achieved again?
Maybe tomorrow he'll tell her he loves her back.