Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Percy's mother used to say there was magic in the light of the moon. She said the silver rays could carry any number of impossible things from the stars to the earth; impossible things like strange beings and mysterious items. The intangible concepts of fate and destiny would ride those gossamer bands like a tidal wave to shift the mundane to wondrous.

And then, of course, Percy got older and learned that the moon merely reflected the light of the sun, and was little more than a barren rock doomed to encircle the earth however gravity dictated until the day an asteroid collided a bit too hard and freed it to the lonely emptiness of space. He wasn't necessarily a practical guy who dismissed fairytales and children's stories, but he was a cynic, and his mother's stories lost much of their shine in the wake of losing her.

She used to joke she might choose to become the moon when she died, so she could watch Percy grow and live even after her story was over. But they both assumed they'd have more time before that happened.

These days, the moon was just a rock, the stars just burning balls of gas, and magic was a lie of his childhood.

"Those things kill, you know."

Percy's dark brows raised, his face turning to the blonde girl who criticized his life choices before even having the decency to introduce herself. The roof party behind them was abuzz with life; string lights gave a hazy glow to the young adults lounging on sofas and sipping bottles of some sort of craft beer that tasted like shit but all the hipsters pretended was a divine elixir of craftsmanship.

He was on the outskirts, leaning on the stone wall of the roof, puffing smoke from his cig into the dark and staring at city lights.

And now she was too.

He huffed a laugh through his nose, shaking his head and tugging the cigarette from between his lips, "Pretty sure that's common knowledge at this point."

"And yet here you are, turning your lungs to raisins anyway."

Percy was both annoyed and intrigued, almost impressed at her audacity. He didn't care much for being scolded; he was an adult. He could make whatever bad decisions he wanted.

But this girl was direct. Plenty of people hated cigarettes, but most would wrinkle their nose and move away, or cough dramatically to make a point without words, or mutter to their friends about the disgusting habit. Not the girl beside him. She walked right up and pointed out the obvious, said what most wouldn't dare say to a stranger.

Percy could admire that.

"Well?" The girl asked expectantly, as if Percy was supposed to answer a question that was never actually voiced.

"Well what?" He stubbed out the cigarette, leaning away from the girl to toss what was left into the bin nearby.

"Why do you smoke." She said, as if it were obvious.

Percy shrugged, "I don't know."

But he did know.

His mother never smoked a day in her life. Yet cancer made its home in her lungs anyway. So maybe it was to spite the universe for that, or maybe it was to dare it to take him out the same way. Maybe it was just self flagellation for being here when she wasn't. There was nothing to blame himself for, nothing he could have done to stop her from getting sick, but some sort of guilt gnawed through his chest anyway.

So he dampened that guilt by putting chemicals in his body.

Or maybe he was just an idiot who smoked because he tried it once and got hooked, like every other person who relied on the stuff to get through the day.

"Well you should stop."

Another incredulous laugh rasped from Percy's throat, "Never heard that one before." He finally turned to face the girl properly.

And then something that was neither smoke nor guilt filled his chest.

She was pretty, but Percy had seen pretty before.

This was different. This was...

Intense.

There was something in her expression that felt a thousand years old; she was clearly around his age, but her gaze had seen the rise and fall of empires, revolutions, tragedies, and everything that filled the eons between.

But she was just a girl, and Percy was a bad poet, and he swallowed a sudden bitter taste in his mouth as he found words to combat the way she seemed to see right through him.

"Do you usually berate people you've just met, or am I special?"

She looked thoughtful, "A bit of both."

"Yeah?" Percy wished he wasn't a smoker, just so it would be easier to catch his breath around this girl, "What makes me special, then?"

"You're in my spot." She turned back to the city, those eyes shifting from his face and her profile caught the light in a near halo. The sensation of her focus leaving him had Percy desperate to hold it again.

"So you live here?" He leaned beside her, back to the wall so he could better see the slope of her nose and the curve of her lips.

A nod, "It's my roommate's party."

Now an answering brow raise, "I thought it was a housewarming thing?"

“It is.”

"So wouldn't this technically be your party too?"

Another shrug, but the continued conversation saw that her head turned back to him and Percy felt himself drown in the impossible gravity of her attention once more. "I'm not really a party person."

"Me neither.” At her pointed look that said 'but you're at this one?’ he clarified, "I was dragged along."

This answer was satisfactory, "You're Percy then.”

Hearing his name from the lips of a stranger, particularly this stranger, was startling. "Yeah, how'd you know?"

"Because you're the only person here I don't recognize, and Charles said you were coming.?"

"Right." A beat. "And you're..?"

"Annabeth."

It wasn't a name Percy had ever heard before, but as soon as she said it, it became one he knew he'd never forget.

Annabeth's gaze turned out and up again. A silence settled over them.

Percy was frantically searching for something to say, a question, a statement, anything to keep the conversation going, when Annabeth spoke again; "You can't see the stars."

It took a moment for his brain to catch up, "..What?"

"Light pollution." Annabeth nodded to the city, "It hides the stars."

Percy glanced up, the sky dark and empty while something old and primal tugged at his gut and whispered that it shouldn't be. "You can see a fair amount in Montauk."

"I've never been."

"I'll take you some time." It slipped out before Percy could consider the fact that inviting a girl he just met to drive outside the city with him to look at stars was weird, but to his relief she smiled.

"I'd like that." Annabeth fixed him with her gaze once more. And once more it was crushing, and Percy was close enough now to make out the color of her eyes.

Some people might have called them gray, but a word so colorless and boring couldn't come close to what they were. Silver was the closest, Percy decided. Silver and seeing every little hope, fear, desire, and secret Percy had buried deep down, as if he was laid bare without clothes or even a physical form to hide in.

Percy cleared his throat, "At least you can still see the moon."

Annabeth didn't look back to the sky when she said "Not tonight. It's a new moon."

Could have fooled Percy, the silver glow of Annabeth's irises a fine replacement. Even better, as she carried two moons in her eyes, rather than just the one that hung in the sky.

"Ah. Well. Tomorrow then."

"Mmm."

Silence again. God. The silence hurt - not a sharp pain, but a dull ache, like the moment between comfort and burning when one held their breath for too long.

And he'd known the girl for less than ten minutes.

But in that time, he had decided to quit smoking, take her to see the stars in Montauk, and let her occupy every corner of his mind for as long as she deigned to stay for.

The numbness that plagued every waking moment for the past 3 years ebbed.

"Do you-"

"I think-"

They spoke at the same time. Annabeth laughed breathlessly, complimenting Percy's own nervous chuckle.

"You first.” Percy said.

"No, no, you go."

"I insist."

Annabeth scrunched up her nose, making freckles Percy hadn't noticed sharpen. "I think," she started again, "that I'd like to go inside."

Percy's heart sunk, "Oh, uh, yeah, it's kind of cold." Annabeth didn't move, instead staring at him in a way that had him squirming, thinking there was something he should be doing that he wasn't.

"…Are we going in, then?"

Percy jolted at the realization that he was invited. "Y-yeah!" He shoved his hands into his pockets, pushing off the wall.

Annabeth rolled her eyes, tucking a curly lock behind her ear as they walked back to the exit. Percy wondered what it would be like to do that, to reach out and brush errant curls from her face.

They stopped at the door to the stairs, and for the first time since they'd met, Annabeth seemed hesitant.

"I don't... do this often."

Percy furrowed his brow, "Do what?"

"Invite guys I just met to my bedroom."

Oh.

His brain short circuited - inside meant inside, bedroom meant bedroom, she'd said inside, she'd meant bedroom, and he...

Holy shit.

Percy licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry and throat working to form a sound, any sound.

"R-right. Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah, me neither- I mean I have, but I don't usually, it's not like, a common thing, it's not a normal weekend occurrence, I don't go around picking up girls for one night stands and if I did I wouldn't like, uh, leave it as a one night stand, I mean at least not these days-" He bit his tongue to make himself shut up, because dear god that was way too much in response to a simple statement.

He'd made poor choices right after his mom died. Percy had never been one for casual: not casual sex, nor casual dating. He wasn't that guy. He didn't generally feel attraction unless he knew someone first, gotten to know them, fall in love with them.

But after his only family had died, he grew desperate to feel anything. Even self-loathing.

This…. wasn't that.

Maybe it was the fact that this girl, Annabeth, had no qualms about shaming him for a bad habit. Maybe he was just cold. Maybe it was the loneliness of a party he couldn't find the strength to be a part of, to try and put on a smile and make friends and drink shitty beer and pretend everything was fine.

Maybe it was the moonlight in Annabeth's eyes.

Whatever the reason, Percy couldn't help but want this. Not in the self-destructive way of his past that left him feeling cold and empty. It was something different, it was...

He wasn't sure.

Annabeth was smiling though, thankfully amused by his rambling rather than weirded out, and she reached a hand to lace their fingers together. "I'll show you my record collection." Her eyes drifted up and down Percy's body in the least subtle way possible. "You look like a guy who likes music."

Percy's chuckle was strained, but his shoulders relaxed, "I've been known to sometimes enjoy sounds, yeah."

Annabeth's laugh made his skin tingle.

Her hand was warm and soft and fit perfectly against his calloused one.

Her eyes shone like the moon his mother loved so much; they reflected the light in a way that Percy swore defied physics, holding all the things his mother promised moonlight would. Adventure. Magic. Mystery.

A promise of something more.

And as Annabeth blushed and ducked her head when Percy held the door open for her

as she led him down the concrete stairwell to a new apartment and room with lights so warm and comforting, they put those on the roof to shame

as they sat on the floor and looked at records and picked out their favorite songs

as Moon River played on the turntable and Percy met those eyes that held not just the moon, but the stars and sun and planets and entire galaxies

as he reached for her, tucking those blonde curls behind her ear like he'd been itching to, watching her lashes flutter and her breath catch and her cheeks flush with color and her eyes drop to his lips and back up

as they both leaned in

Percy thought that maybe, just maybe

his mom was right about the moon.

Chapter Text

It’s never easy to lose someone you love.

But worse still is losing someone who hurt you beyond repair, who broke your heart and crushed your soul, who you loved despite all of that— and then they had the audacity to go and die before you could even come to terms with what they had done to you.

Annabeth hated her dead ex-boyfriend. And she hated herself for hating her dead ex-boyfriend. And she hated herself for not hating her dead ex-boyfriend enough.

He deserved far worse than her hate. But he didn’t deserve to be crushed under the weight of some drunk asshole’s Ford F-150.

And now she was the one struggling to pick up the pieces and figure out where to go from here.

He was in everything; the glow-in-the-dark star stickers he helped press to her ceiling and walls. The little notes he left in her notebooks. The ridiculously expensive telescope he gifted for her 21st birthday, her most precious possession despite who had given it.

That’s the thing about shitty relationships; when it’s good, it’s perfect. It makes you question your own feelings and experiences when it inevitably goes bad again.

Annabeth could remember the supernova of emotion that always preceded the blackhole that sucked the life from her— how one day he made her feel like the most important person in the world, and the next she was desperate for his attention, his approval.

And he ruined stars for her.

Stars were always hers. In the few years she could remember her parents being together, they would often drive to an empty field in the middle of the night and look up at the sky, her father pointing out constellations and her mother explaining how they were used for navigation. There were no dumb questions, and Annabeth was fascinated by the science of it; how were stars born? How did they die?

In her little head, they were living, breathing life forms. Even now, Annabeth included hidden stars in nearly every building she designed.

But when she met him, sandy blonde hair, tall, much older with a dazzling smile, she shared the stars with him. And when they started dating on her 17th birthday (the dead-ex-boyfriend already 24), stars became their thing.

And now, try as she might, Annabeth couldn’t disentangle stars from his memory to go back to being just hers.

She nearly put that beautiful telescope through her window not even a week ago; trying to peer through it had brought memories of finding planets and galaxies with her dead-ex-boyfriend back to the surface— so violently that she had to sprint to the bathroom, sick to her stomach.

She missed the stars.

So when Annabeth saw the guy on the roof with a black hoodie and black hair and dark jeans, smoking and watching the city rather than socializing, she couldn’t help but drift closer to him.

He was so physically the opposite of the person who took stars from her; that man had burned bright, drawing others to his heat and practically a star himself.

But this boy was a black hole, dangerous, mysterious, and inescapably pulling her to him with a field of gravity that slowed time as Annabeth approached.

Or perhaps she was just a giant loser who was searching for meaning in anything she could.

But god, she needed to feel something that wasn’t the ache in her bones and the pain in her chest.

And from the moment he— Percy— met her gaze, Annabeth did feel something different.

And impulsively, stupidly, she let that split second of “different” invite Percy to her bedroom. 

It was an act born of desperation, a self-destruct button she’d been hovering a palm over for so long that it was a relief to finally slam it down. Because this boy was trouble. Everything about him spelled danger, from the cigarettes to the black clothes to the even darker look she’d found in his eyes.

It was familiar, that darkness, because she saw the same in herself every time she looked in the mirror, the stars that once lived there faded to their own black holes long ago.

And yet, he’d been so… soft.

His touch had been gentle, his movements slow and hesitant, and his voice as he asked over and over “This okay?” made her melt.

Every time he looked at her the way he did, something she couldn’t read burning in those green eyes, her heart fluttered. When he smiled, when his raspy laugh reached her ears and his low voice said her name, it was like nothing else existed. She was falling, she was floating, she was pulling, then being pulled— it was just the two of them in the vastness of space.

And it was terrifying. And it was wonderful.

Rather than an act of self-harm, that night in her bedroom suddenly felt like a salve on wounds she had never actually let close.

She expected him to leave after, to go back up to the party or go home, but he’d simply wrapped his arms around her while she drifted off to sleep, bodies pressed together in her twin bed that barely fit them both.

And that was where she woke; except she was alone. 

What she said the night before was a lie; it wasn’t that she didn’t often invite boys she just met to her bedroom, it was that she never invited boys she just met to her bedroom.

Or any boys at all, for that matter.

Except for one. But he was dead, and the thought of him in this new sanctuary that he had never tainted with his presence was so viscerally upsetting that Annabeth shoved the thought from her mind as she rubbed sleep from her eyes and tried to process the loneliness that sunk into her bones.

It wasn’t that she expected the Black Hole from the night before to be there when she awoke. She wasn’t naive. She knew how this worked. But it still ached.

A stretch, a yawn, and Annabeth rolled out of bed to tug on a t-shirt, but when she reached for her underwear, she paused— because next to it was a black hoodie sucking the morning light into it. Her eyes widened in understanding.

Her panties were tugged on with a stumble, her feet slapping on the hardwood floors as she fell into the hall. Quiet voices, the smell of coffee, her roommate’s laugh…

She sucked in a breath when she turned into the kitchen and saw Sel smiling over her coffee mug at a man who’s back was to Annabeth, a man with dark jeans and a black shirt and black hair and—

“Annabeth!” Sel brightened when she saw her in the doorway, before a sly smile played across her lips, “Morning Sunshine. Sleep well?”

Annabeth gave a noncommittal mumble, her eyes glued on Percy twisting in his seat, his curls rumpled and the sleeves of his t-shirt tight on his arms and the hint of a bruise on his neck and a growing blush on his cheeks when their eyes met.

He cleared his throat and pointedly looked away.

Annabeth’s heart sank.

“Want to join us for coffee?” Sel asked, “After you put on pants, of course— unless Percy doesn’t mind?”

Pants.

Pants .

Shit.

Red bloomed on Annabeth’s face this time, suddenly understanding why Percy had looked away, why he’d seemed so uncomfortable—

“Y-yeah.” She managed, ducking back to her room.

When she re-emerged several minutes later— the task should have only taken seconds, but she had to wallow in her mortification first— Sel was gone. And it was just her and Percy, alone in the kitchen and far less bold in the light of day.

Annabeth heaved a sigh, beginning to assemble her coffee while Percy scrolled his phone, avoiding her eyes.

“Um… is Sel…?”

“She said she had to go to work.”

Sel did not work on Saturdays, and Annabeth made a mental note to strangle her later for leaving her to flounder in the awkward morning-after alone.

“Gotcha.”

Annabeth kicked the lid of their trash bin open to toss the used coffee filter, then paused. Two cigarette cartons stared up at her, one nearly full and the other unopened.

Strange.

She slid into the now-vacant chair across from Percy, and at last he put down his phone, though still avoided her gaze. “So.”

“So.” She repeated, sipping at her coffee even though it burned her tongue. The pain distracted from how jittery she felt.

But then Percy did meet her eyes, his own crinkling to accompany a sheepish smile. Annabeth’s heart skipped a beat. “I uh… I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to stay or— I-I figured leaving was the norm, I mean, it is the norm, but it didn’t feel… good.” He ran a hand through his messy hair, looking away again, and oh how Annabeth wished he wouldn’t, “Your roommate ran into me in the hall trying to figure it out.”

The mental image actually made her lips quirk up— Sel was probably delighted to find a guy leaving Annabeth’s room. God knows her best friend had been trying to get her to date again for the past 6 months, or at the very least “let loose.”

This was likely a bit more “loose” than Sel had in mind.

“Well,” Annabeth said slowly, tracing the rim of her mug with delicate fingers, “I’m glad she caught you.”

Percy’s eyebrows rose as he turned his face back to her, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Things had felt so wrong for so long. But as stupid and impulsive as last night was, as much as it had been born out of a desire to live dangerously, an attempt to choose the void rather than despair over losing starlight in her life— because at least then the choice would be hers— despite all of that, Annabeth felt light.

Percy made her feel light.

The ensuing quiet was far more comfortable than before.

“So when are we going to Montauk?” Annabeth asked casually after a minute or two.

Percy blinked in surprise, then laughed, “Oh, uh, you remembered that?”

“Of course.” She smiled at him— god, when was the last time she had a real smile?! “You said you’d take me to see stars.”

“Well uh… hm.” Percy scratched his jaw in thought, “What are you doing next weekend?”

Annabeth felt her smile warm, felt the familiar supernova in her chest but without the threat of collapse, “Absolutely nothing.”

Numbers were exchanged, plans for coffee the next day discussed, and when Percy left with the promise to text, Annabeth found she already missed the gravity that was his body beside her own.

It was mitigated by the ding of her phone and the “ hey :) ” that flitted across her screen.

No one truly knows what the very depths of a black hole looks like. They theorize. But they can’t know . 

Black holes devour light, and Annabeth had simply assumed that meant death. They were the corpses of dead stars, after all, a ghost that willed for the same violent end to anything around it— maybe so it wouldn’t have to suffer nothingness alone.

But maybe they weren’t what she thought. Maybe that starlight went somewhere. Maybe she’d found that place beyond the rim of darkness, a place where color and life flourished, a place that no one could imagine existed without seeing it with their own eyes.

Because she’d leapt into a void, 

the void was named Percy

and in his smile

she found starlight.