Work Text:
Their cave was a mess.
This wasn’t unusual to Annabeth. Her dad’s house had always been some semblance of a mess before her stepmother moved in and even after, clothes and airplane models and various books on the World Wars scattered alongside her legos and building blocks. Her father would claim there was a system to it, one that had made her stepmother turn up her nose and say ‘no wonder Annabeth thinks she’s getting bitten by spiders!’ No, a mess gave her an odd sense of normality in her new life. There was calm amidst the chaos.
Besides, the mess wasn’t so much a mess as Thalia unpacking their things to sort out who would carry what. Luke was out stealing -- excuse him, ‘acquiring’ -- what supplies he could get his hands on from the store. Annabeth had wanted to go with him, but Thalia insisted they shouldn’t push their luck with how quiet it had been over the last few days.
Monsters hadn’t found them and they were indulging in being able to be still for a while. Annabeth had found if she was sharing a sleeping bag with Thalia or Luke -- or even better, sleeping between them -- the spiders wouldn’t bother her. She didn’t know why, and didn’t want to tell them in case they didn’t believe her, even if they believed her about everything else. All that mattered to her right then was the spiders didn’t bite her anymore.
Thalia shucked off her jacket to tie around her waist. It was then Annabeth’s sharp eyes spotted the dark jagged line near her friend’s elbow.
“You got a tattoo?” she cried, reaching up from where she sat by the mess to grab Thalia’s arm and twist it just so in order to see.
Luke hated it when she did that, but for some reason Thalia always gave her a smile that made her look like she wanted to cry at the same time. Thalia laughed softly at Annabeth craning her neck from where she sat on the ground to get a look. She shook Annabeth’s arm back and forth until Annabeth was giggling out a ‘Lemme see! Lemme see!’.
Thalia plopped down then, pulling Annabeth into her lap. Her smile was so tender Annabeth couldn’t help but to lean against her more. Small fingers traced the outline of a lightning bolt, jagged and sharp.
“It’s not a tattoo,” Thalia explained, “Demigods like us get them sometimes. You probably have a few somewhere.”
“Like the fish on my back?”
Thalia snorted, storm-bright eyes glittering. “A fish? Seriously?”
“Uh-huh! My stepmom got sooooo mad when she saw it and the other ones. She thought my dad got me a tattoo even though I was only three! Dad had to tell her who my mommy was. My stepmom didn’t believe him at first. It wasn’t until…”
Her voice trailed off as she thought about it, fingers tracing the lightning bolt on Thalia’s arm. It was the only time her stepmother had ever apologized for not believing her, believing either of them.
And then she’d agreed to marry her father.
Ever since then, it had only seemed to get worse with her stepmother believing her and her father no longer listening to her…
Thalia hummed for a moment. “Luke’s mom explained it one time after his dad visited.”
“Luke’s dad visited him?”
Thalia sighed, suddenly looking more like a grown up than a bigger kid right then. Annabeth couldn’t pinpoint what it was. For a few long seconds, Thalia had a tiredness in her expression Annabeth hadsometimes seen on grown ups’ faces.
“Not really,” she said softly, fingers tracing the lightning bolt on her arm, “His dad only ever really visited his mom. She isn’t doing too well, but that’s Luke’s story to tell, not mine. Anyway…”
Thalia adjusted Annabeth in her lap so both were more comfortable. Annabeth’s head fell against her shoulder.
“These marks represent people who will be important to you one day. They usually appear when you’re really little, around when the person on the other end is born. This one is someone who was important to me and… well, we have to be apart for a while.”
“Where is he?” Annabeth asked, leaning her head on Thalia’s shoulder. Thalia’s arm went tight around her.
“I’m not sure,” Thalia said quietly. Annabeth had to wonder about her being choked up just so. “He’s still out there, somewhere, I think. The marks don’t fade unless they’re gone.”
“Would they have a lightning bolt, too? ‘Cause your dad is Zeus?”
Thalia snorted and squeezed Annabeth a little tighter. Annabeth whined and shoved Thalia, pushing her back with a frown.
“Would they?”
“I don’t know, maybe? But that’s not the only one I’ve got,” she said. She rolled up her sleeve higher, near her shoulder was a childish doodle of an owl. Annabeth felt her face go hot remembering how many times she’d doodled that very picture in one of her dad’s notebooks. “This one’s you.”
“How do you know?!” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Thalia admitted, “When I saw you I thought of it. It’s that simple, sometimes. The problem is not everyone has them or has a matching one, I think. If the person on the other side isn’t a demigod they won’t have one, but usually you’ll be able to tell. Luke and me figured out if two people’s matched, it was about another person entirely who’d be important to them both.”
“Luke’s got one of me, too?” she asked excitedly. Thalia nodded and pointed to her ribs, just below her armpit.
“He’ll never admit it’s there, though, if you ask him. He really doesn’t like talking about them. But I’ve also got this one,” Thalia says, pulling aside the collar of her shirt to show what looked like a rough sketch of what Annabeth knew to be an azalea because --
“That’s the same as I got!”
“You’ve got more than a little blue fish?” Thalia teased.
Annabeth laughed, stood from Thalia’s lap, and turned around, pulling her messy braids over her shoulder. Thalia was terrible with her hair -- (“that’s why I keep it short, ‘Beth!”) -- but Luke was really good at braiding it. Maybe she’d ask him to fix it when he got back!
She let Thalia pull back her shirt just slightly to look at the marks along her shoulder blades, the marks Annabeth had never seen for herself except when she’d tried twisting around in the mirror until her back and neck ached something fierce.
Thalia made a noise Annabeth’s stepmom would have called unladylike upon seeing the marks.
“Am I the pine tree?”
Annabeth span to face her so fast she accidentally yanked on Thalia’s fingers because she couldn’t pull back in time.
“Yes!” she cried, something clicking into place like one of her legos on the many towers she’d built at her dad’s house. This was what Thalia meant by ‘you can just tell’!
“I like pine trees. They’re my favorite. Do you know who the ivy along your shoulders is yet?”
“Not yet!” she giggled, bouncing on her toes, “But if you and Luke are the pine tree and the flower, then they’ve gotta be someone special! Like the fish!”
There was a sharp noise just outside their cave.
Thalia held up a hand.
Annabeth put on her cap.
Thalia grabbed the knife from among their mess of supplies.
Thalia carefully approached the opening.
Thalia let out a fierce growl and charged forward, followed by a high pitched yelp.
“Easy!” came Luke’s voice, “Easy! It’s just me.”
“Luke! We need to put a bell -- “ Thalia was cut off by Annabeth shoving past her, flinging her cap to the ground.
Annabeth got her arms around Luke’s waist, forcing him to take two steps back to get his balance. His hands hovered over her shoulders before finally resting on them and squeezing gently.
“Luke! Luke!” Annabeth cried, “You’re my soulmate!”
Dark eyes went wide and his mouth opened and closed. A funny noise escaped him before he looked to Thalia then down at Annabeth again.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Thalia said we have marks on us and we just know who it is and me an’ Thalia both have azaleas, which are for you, an’ she said you both have those owls I used to draw all the time which are for me!”
Thalia had a hand over her mouth as she tried to force down another strange noise.
Gentle hands eased Annabeth back from him, but Annabeth kept one hand on the front of his shirt. He adjusted the strap of the now-heavy backpack on his shoulder.
“Does that mean you think we’re going to get married one day?” he asked, not looking at either of them.
Annabeth made a face and turned up her nose. Thalia cackled so loud they should probably have started worrying about attracting not just monsters to their little hideaway, but the police.
“I’m not gonna get married ever!” Annabeth declared, “My mom didn’t ever get married so neither am I!”
Luke gave her a warm smile as she crossed her arms furiously. For a second, he looked so much closer to Thalia’s age than a grown up. Annabeth loved it when he looked like the big kid he was supposed to be.
“I’m sure once you find the right person you’ll think differently,” he said, “Maybe it’ll be someone with one of your marks.”
Annabeth wasn’t sure she actually cared about getting married. Her stepmom had a pretty dress, sure, and her dad had seemed happy and to have fun at the big party they had for it. Annabeth mostly remembered being bored alongside her cousin under her aunt’s watchful eye. Why would anyone want something so boring, she didn’t know.
Instead she pointed a finger up at Luke, tugging at the front of his shirt.
“Thalia said you have a cartoon owl, too! And that it’s me! Do you have a pine tree? Oh! Oh! Do you have any others?”
Luke tried to push her off, but there was little he could do in the face of a determined Annabeth. Luckily for him, Thalia got Annabeth around the waist and span her around, making her laugh loudly.
“Don’t tug on people’s clothes like that, ‘beth! Especially when you know Luke doesn’t like you using him as your personal jungle gym!” Annabeth’s toes were still skimming the ground as Thalia gave Luke a look.
“Come on, dude. Let’s see what you’ve got and get it divided up. We’ve probably got another couple days before we need to move on and Annabeth needs her hair fixed.”
Luke spoke up about it later on, after they sorted out his spoils. Annabeth had been settled in front of Luke while he carefully undid what was left of her braids and untangled her riot of curls with far more patience than anyone else in Annabeth’s life had ever had. Nimble hands that had pulled canned goods and candy from the shelves of the corner store just over the highway carefully divided the sections without tugging too hard.
“I do have a third one,” he said as gentle hands even more gently wove her hair into a pair of dutch braids once more. “Near my heart. I don’t know who it’s for though, but I promise I’ll let you know once I meet them.”
Annabeth smiled brightly at that. Luke had yet to ever break a promise to her and she didn’t think he ever would.
A little later, a frightened boy with goat horns stumbled into their cave. Annabeth knew on sight he was the vine across her shoulders.
His name, she found out even later, was Grover, and he would become her very best friend.
It was the last happy memory Annabeth had of all of them together.
Annabeth sat down next to the new kid, her feet hanging over the edge of the dock. She was pretty sure his name was Peter. Mr. D kept calling him that, but Grover had corrected him and said it was Percy. Annabeth had to make an effort not to slip up.
When she’d taken her turn watching him while unconscious, she’d seen the edge of a vine up his left arm. One she knew would match the one on her shoulders.
He was tracing the mark now, his sleeve pulled up so she could see other bits entwined with it. A sprig of hazel, a bit of frankincense and --
-- a cartoon owl she’d only ever seen on two other arms.
Her heart did a funny flip and she did not want to go to Apollo Cabin about it.
“They’re important people in your life,” she said. Peter -- Percy jumped, looking over at her. Luke or someone would probably explain it to him eventually, but in the face of one of the marks on his arm she felt the need to tell him herself.
“What?”
“Demigods are tied to the Fates, so we’ve got marks on us to help point us to who will be important to us.”
Pete -- Percy wrinkled his nose.
“Like soulmates?” he asked. Laughter and the smell of a damp cave rippled through her mind. She had to keep herself from outwardly cringing at the memory.
“Sort of! Maybe? If you think of it that way. The Apollo and Aphrodite kids all seem to think so, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to get married to them or something.”
Something in Percy’s eyes dimmed for a moment, before he leaned towards her. Annabeth was already rolling her eyes.
“Can I see yours?”
Annabeth, predictably, shoved him.
“I’m not taking off my shirt for you!”
Pet -- Percy’s face went an interesting shade of red. He almost fell off the dock backing away from her.
“Why would you take off your shirt?!”
“Mine are on my back!” she snapped. Ugh. This was not how she wanted this conversation to go. Did he have seaweed sloshing around his skull or something?
Deep breath, like Chiron told her to take when her emotions boiled over and it got hard to think. She approached Percy for a reason. She needed to tell him.
“I… have the same kind of vine… for Grover.”
Percy looked down at the mark, to her again, then to the mark, delicately tracing the length of the vine -- ivy. Annabeth knew it was ivy now.
“I wasn’t being weird about him?”
Annabeth shook her head and tried to will her face to remain cool when Percy tenderly stroked along it, his fingers lingering on the doodle of an owl. It made something soft and small in her warm and she shifted uncomfortably.
“Is this you?”
She realized how closely she’d been looking at his fingers and stared ahead at the lake.
“I don’t know.”
“Does Grover have one?”
“No. And some of the others could be mortal or not even human at all. You won’t know they’re important until you see them. Maybe not even until you have a real conversation with them.”
“Who do you think these are?” Percy asked, touching the bundles of hazel and frankincense leaves. Annabeth thought back to the cave, the camp, Thalia explaining it to her and Luke braiding her hair like he used to.
“I’m not sure. I’ve got a blue fish on my back. Around here,” she said, reaching over to poke at the small of Percy’s back. He yelped and sat up straighter, eyes focused far too intently on the shore.
“Who could possibly be a fish?” he said in a small voice.
“I don’t know,” Annabeth said, contemplating just shoving him in the lake, “How well can you swim?”
Percy’s face lit up with the softest smile she had ever seen. Annabeth could already feel her worn heart breaking.
“So you are the owl!”
Annabeth resisted the urge to smack him upside the head and stood up.
“I’m an architect,” she said and kept walking.