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“honey i'm on fire, i feel it everywhere (nothing scares me anymore)”
(summertime sadness, lana del rey)
Annabeth is fifteen and she’s tired of the world’s bullshit. Thalia left her to be with her precious hunters, Luke is gone, and Percy may as well be, too, off with Rachel to gods know where, and happy without Annabeth. She hates that everyone is leaving her. She hates that soon she’ll have to leave camp and be in the mortal world, leaving her home like everyone else before her, returning to a different home that never really was. Her father will smile, strained and tired; Helen will scowl angrily and shoo her boys away from Annabeth like she’s a ticking time bomb; Bobby and Matthew will point and whisper about her ( “No, but Mom said she likes girls!” “But isn’t that weird? How? What if people think we like other boys!” ) like the boys that they are (too young, but unlike her, not forced to grow up too early).
Annabeth hugs Chiron goodbye and trudges up the hill and argues with Percy, and she can feel his eyes on him. She misses him already. Camp is the only place she can be herself, with how the gods slept with people of the same gender, were in relationships with people of all genders, and though there were people that didn’t approve, thought it was wrong, they were in the minority. She remembers lying on the beach, whispering, “I think I like girls and boys,” terrified that she was going to lose her best friend, because even though they were in a camp with children of the gods, Percy was still a middle-school boy (who loved everyone, but everyone in her life had left her and rejected her and she was still a kid, no matter what she thought at the time, shaking and waiting for an answer and scared ). Percy’s answer of “I think I like boys and girls, too” comforted her, and she grinned at him, told him they could be queer together, wrapped her pinkie around his and it was like a promise that they would always be there for each other, them against the world.
And then Percy was away with Rachel, going to school with Rachel, going to the movies with Rachel, closer to Rachel than he was with Annabeth, and she doesn’t know how to tell him that she thinks she might like him (who is she kidding, she definitely does), and she may not be Rachel but she’s been by his side for longer, and she always will be there for him (but what if she’s not what he wants, she can’t be a mortal and be the normal girl for him before he goes off to die-).
She returns to the home that never was, room barren and musty and uncleaned, and her dad eyes her warily while Helen pushes the boys away from her; Annabeth runs on autopilot, and wonders why she came back in the first place. (They needed someone to keep an eye on Mount Orthys, and she still remembers Chiron’s voice, tired and defeated – “I think we both know why. You should enjoy a typical experience of kids your age, too, before, well… Besides, we both know you can handle it.” She wonders why he never did anything to stop her.) She goes to school and ignores how she doesn’t feel like a girl (she never did, but suddenly it hurts to have breasts, sharp and piercing all the time, when before it was just only a day or two at a time, every once in a while). She ignores the whispers and the stares (“Maybe she goes to to gay camp in the summer.” “Maybe they teach kids that there.”) – if Percy is going to die at sixteen, she will die with him, and she wants to make the most of her life while she can (even if it means going to mortal school and to a place where she never belonged). Annabeth meets an old friend, a girl named Aisha at school with clear sight and a demigod for a brother (“He turned,” Aisha tells her simply, taking a long drag of the cigarette. “And he paid with his life for it.” Annabeth nods and tries not to think about her own brother, Luke, and how he might as well be dead to her, too) and Aisha isn’t Percy, she isn’t camp or a camper, but she reminds Annabeth of her real home.
They go to Pride together in October, and Percy and Rachel come to visit, go and have fun with them. Annabeth ignores how Rachel laughs with Percy and Aisha, instead buying herself a bisexual flag and hangs it up in her room, directly over her bed. (The pain only gets worse.) She looks at herself in the mirror and doesn’t know what she expects. She looks at her breasts and thinks she expects her chest to be flatter and doesn’t know why (yes, she does); dedicates part of her next meal to Dionysus and another part to Aphroditus (a transgender epithet of Aphrodite) and thinks, I don’t know what’s happening. The next day, a person in pale pink with a they/she/he pin stops her while she’s walking to the park to meet up with friends, smiling at her. “Just wanted to let you know that I love your shirt!” they tell her, and when the person walks away, arm in arm with a tall, slim guy in a leopard print shirt, Annabeth can hear him tell the man, “They looked so nice in that! Do you think I could pull it off as well as them?”
She doesn’t know why (maybe she does), but the usage of they/them makes Annabeth nearly explode with joy. She goes to the library and reads up a bit more on LGBTQ+ history – Annabeth isn’t sure of it yet (maybe life is just too unsure for her to think too much on identity, at a time where she’s fighting for her life) but when she reads a bit about gender fluidity, something clicks for her, like a part of her that she’d never known before, and she decides to go by she/they. Annabeth wears a special bracelet, purple and gold (and pale pink, however much she hates it) every time she feels her gender shift to nonbinary, and dedicates the bracelet to Dionysus. Thank you for helping me discover myself a little , they pray, inviting him to share their meal with them (because their parents look down on them honouring the gods blatantly, even though it’s a part of them and always has been).
“Good for you!” Aisha exclaims, but Aisha isn’t Percy and they’re too scared to tell him, because what if Percy’s type didn’t extend to nonbinary people?
When they tell Percy, asking him to come to the camp beach in November, shaking and terrified (reminiscent of the time they told him they liked girls and boys (and everyone in between)), he fist bumps them, nudging their pinkie gently with his. “It’s still us against the world,” he says. “Do you still want me to call you Wise Girl?”
Annabeth hesitates. “Maybe when I’m not…” they gesture vaguely, closing their eyes, because it was a tie to the past that they didn’t want to lose, but the gendered part suddenly made them uncomfortable, as fond as it was.
Percy nods, and his eye seems to catch on their bracelet. “Is the bracelet what you wear every time you go by they/them?” he asks, and Annabeth grins at him, surprised he noticed (but it’s Percy , and in the end they don’t think they’re that surprised).
“It is,” Annabeth says, and Percy reaches out and holds their hand (and the air between the two of them might have been tense since last summer but in this moment, on the beach, Rachel, Aisha, Luke, the war, it all seems so far away). “Maybe when I’m not wearing it, can you try calling me by Wise Girl to test it?”
“Of course,” Percy says, then asks after a moment, “What if I called you Wise Kid? Wise Guy? Wise Person?” and Annabeth is smiling so hard it hurts.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” they respond, and Percy grins (and in this moment, it’s only them and their excitement – they could have been any other few teenagers, giddy and in love and coming out).
“I’ll be sure to do my best,” he says. “Always my best for you.”
Annabeth looks down at their intertwined hands and feels like they’re floating. “Thanks,” they manage to choke out against the sudden lump in their throat. “You know I’d always do the same for you.”
Percy looks at them for a moment, like he’s trying to burn the image of them into his eyeballs, and then suddenly, it all comes rushing back – the war, Rachel, Luke , and the air between the two of them is suddenly thick again (and Annabeth isn’t denying it anymore – there’s definitely a part of them that never wants him to let go). “Of course,” he says, and it feels final and like a promise.
In January, at school, Aisha introduces Annabeth to one of her friends, a guy named Kevin in their grade level. He’s nice enough, puts up with their gay jokes and banters with them, friendly and carefree. Annabeth hasn’t really told anyone other than their closest friends that they go by she/they, and fights down the discomfort and shooting pains in their chest when people call them a girl when they’re not, and tells themself it’s only about less than half the time – surely it can’t be too bad.
“She’s annoying, but a friend,” Kevin says, a little fondly at lunch one day, and Annabeth doesn’t take offence since they have a kind of friendly banter thing going on between the two of them, but despite how the statement isn’t meant to cause unease, the usage of “she” throws them off (and if they spend too much time in the restroom later, blinking back tears when they catch a glimpse of themself in the mirror, trying different angles to make their chest look flatter, that’s nobody’s business but Annabeth’s).
But life goes on. Winter passes, and spring blooms, flower buds and grasses sprouting everywhere. Annabeth’s gender seems to change from they/them to a mix of being okay with she/her but also not averse to they/them (she/they) to they/them again, and then they’re back to she/they, and she’s bitter about how time keeps going, steamrolling over everything she cares about. Percy will die in half a year. She will follow him to his death and would gladly die for him. Luke will have to die in a year. So many of her other friends will die too – that is just how war works, as much as she hates it.
(If she’s going to die in a year, she wants to die having lived her life happy, and she may not be happy right now without Percy but Annabeth wants to enjoy school while she can.)
April comes and goes. Her school guitar group goes to Nashville to perform in front of the Grand Ole Opry, and Annabeth prays to Apollo for a nice, peaceful trip before the summer (it almost is, until a hellhound shows up at the end of the trip, nearly mauling Aisha before Aisha stabs it with a celestial bronze pocket knife, eyes hard. Annabeth pushes down the guilt but it’s still there – I’m the demigod, I should be the one to kill it, it’s all my fault that it showed up in the first place- ).
She buys a guitar-shaped flyswatter for Percy as a souvenir, and a tin of mints for Kevin (who was supposed to be there but his parents didn’t let him go). (Maybe, secretly, she’s hoping that Kevin hates mints so she can have them. Who knows.)
“if loving her’s a sin, i’d go to hell for it… i don’t need to be forgiven for being me”
(go to hell., luhx)
Things come to a head in May, after Annabeth’s gender switches again to they/them. Fed up with Kevin calling them a girl when they’re not, Annabeth finally tells him that they go by she/they. It shouldn’t be that hard for him to call them by the correct pronouns, Annabeth reasons. (Except apparently, it is.)
“I think gender is dumb,” Kevin tells them, and really, it is, but not in the way he’s implying (that they’re dumb if they go by something other than their assigned gender at birth, but Annabeth doesn’t want to lose one of their only friends in the mortal world). And really, “gender is dumb” isn’t an outright rejection of the LGBTQ+ community – maybe Kevin just didn’t understand (oh, he definitely did), and that’s why he isn’t calling them by what Annabeth wants to be called. So Annabeth tries again, pointedly texts him because they want to avoid an outright argument with screaming and everything in real life, if possible, and texts it in a group chat with Aisha so that hopefully, Kevin won’t act like a dick in front of other people (and, Annabeth admits to themself later, so that Aisha can act as mediator, because as much as they would like to claim otherwise, they do have a hot temper, especially when their pride is injured).
annabeth: @kevin i am going to crack your bones and eat your bone marrow like a pixie stick
annabeth: “they’re so bad at guitar. ew imagine not practising”
annabeth: some of us do other things other than guitar
aisha: They’re just mad because they’re shorter than you @kevin
annabeth: whether or not that’s true, you’ll never know
kevin: they? whos they @aisha
annabeth: ….
kevin: in your statement
aisha: It’s Annabeth??
annabeth: i go by they/them right now, kevin, you absolute toad raisin
kevin: thats a little defensive
kevin: i can already feel whats gonna happen in my soul
annabeth: i feel like i’ve told you this already
kevin: bruh
kevin: i literally dont care
kevin: i can also sense the oncoming outburst
annabeth: you gods damned fucking lizard.
annabeth: you are literally misgendering me and using “i don’t care” as an excuse
kevin: knew it
aisha: Ya’ll please can we not have this argument today.
aisha: But for the record, I am firmly on Annabeth’s side. Kevin, educate yourself.
kevin: @annabeth arent you a female or are you multiple people
annabeth: gender and sex are two different things
kevin: oh my gosh
kevin: what is them
kevin: what is that supposed to mean
kevin: this is so dumb
aisha: They’ll explain.
annabeth: you know when you don’t know someone’s gender
annabeth: you kinda default to they/them
annabeth: same concept kinda
kevin: but i know yours
annabeth: do you though
annabeth: all you know is specifically what i’ve filtered and told you
kevin: i do not care
kevin: but if i call you by she then i guess you know what i mean
Annabeth groans, a mixture of fury and frustration bubbling through their veins. Is it really that hard for him to call them by what they want to be called? In the end, after the conversation goes nowhere except for them learning some interesting fun facts and after Kevin makes an incredible amount of excuses for thinking LGBTQ+ people are “not okay” (but apparently, according to him, it’s fine, because hey, at least he isn’t going to try and “change them” or “hurt them,” like that’s any better, or like Annabeth’s going to believe him (and even if he really believes that, someone is going to have to teach him rhetoric like that is still harmful, and that someone is not going to be Annabeth)), they make the executive decision to write a long essay. It’s long and rambly (they’re just too tired at this point and it’s two am and not their best work, but a homophobic, transphobic piece of shit probably deserves less anyway), but it gets their point across well enough.
“i didn't have it in myself to go with grace (and so the battleships will sink beneath the waves)”
(my tears ricochet, taylor swift)
“You probably hate people like me, but just let me explain,” Kevin tells Annabeth at school the next day, and they laugh, bitter and sharp, but still, they nod their head regardless (because he’s one of their only friends in the mortal world, and was one of the first in the mortal world to accept them for being gay (or so they’d thought), and even through everything else, there’s always a certain camaraderie amongst guitar students. Also, Annabeth’s not willing to risk Aisha and Kevin’s friendship over this, when they might be overreacting a bit).
“I would never try to change you or hurt you,” Kevin says, repeating something he’s already told them. “I just think it isn’t right,” he says, and Annabeth is so done with all the world’s bullshit.
(When Kevin’s done “explaining,” Annabeth is ready to fucking hurl their phone at his face. It doesn’t matter his excuses or whatever he wants to say to justify how he just doesn’t think being LGBTQ+ is fine – Annabeth is human, just like him, and everyone deserves a life full of as little suffering as possible, and there is nothing he can say to justify how he thinks misgendering them isn’t causing them pain and discomfort and suffering.)
In half a year, Annabeth is going to die along with Percy. In a year, they’re going to die in a war that they had no say in, while Kevin is here spouting meaningless arguments about how being LGBTQ+ just isn’t okay. (They don’t block Kevin, but come pretty damn close to doing it. In the end, Annabeth doesn’t talk to him, pointedly ignores him in conversations, responds sharply to his attempts at friendly arguing like they used to do, and Annabeth tries not to feel like they’re ruining Aisha and Kevin’s friendship, resisting the urge to stab him over and over with their knife.)
Awards night comes and goes, and before they know it, it's almost the end of June. Annabeth leaves sophomore year with all A’s and a speech about accepting others, very passive aggressively directed towards Kevin (maybe he knows that, maybe he doesn’t). Leaving is harder than Annabeth thought it would be – they say goodbye to Aisha, who has put up with Annabeth’s frequent disappearances to camp during the year, and Annabeth isn’t popular but they’re well known in certain social circles. (So many people go to say goodbye to them. The official story is that they’re moving to New York, and some of their mortal friends try to give them a phone number to text, to call. Annabeth smiles and nods and tears apart the little slips of paper, later, when the friends aren’t looking. They wouldn’t dream of telling their friends that they won’t live long enough to text them about the next new school year.)
“Survive, and get the guy for me,” Aisha tells them, and her eyes are melancholy and expression brittle and there’s a world-weariness to her that wasn’t there before. “At least talk it out with him before, well…”
She trails off, and both of them know why. But Aisha continues, words coming out fast and rushed like she has to get them out before something terrible happens. “You’ll regret it if you don’t. You’ll regret it forever if one of you survives and the other doesn’t, and maybe it isn’t right to leave the other sad and angry about it for the rest of their life, but at least you’ll have been happy together while you could’ve.”
“Just try to live in the present for once,” Aisha says, and Annabeth nods, wondering when she became the smart one. “And remember, not all who wander are lost forever.”
“I will,” Annabeth responds, eyes fierce and piercingly stubborn and determined. There’s an idea forming in the back of their head, and there’s a hug and maybe some crying and too soon, Argus pulls up outside the cafe they told him to meet them at.
Annabeth won’t deny that there’s a part of them that’s desperate to get to camp, a part that’s been clamoring for it since the end of last summer, but now that leaving is much more real, there’s a part of them that never wants to leave, wanting to never deal with the war and just stay in the uncomplicated, untangled mess of the mortal world. But then again, they’re the child of Athena, a child of wisdom, and camp will always be their home.
Annabeth is almost sixteen, and they wonder when they changed so much. They’re still tired, still so done with everyone’s bullshit, but maybe, they have a chance at saving both Luke and Percy (maybe).
“weepin' in a sunlit room, and if i'm on fire, you'll be made of ashes too ”
(my tears ricochet, taylor swift)