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I smirked as I flicked my sword upwards causing her knife to clatter to the dusty ground beneath us. Her knife was significantly more deadly, but Riptide carried the advantage that it could cover more distance, no need to get close to her, where she could strike with force.
Annabeth glared at me; my sword was pointing at her neck. I grinned.
So what if I was a little cocky. It wasn’t often I managed to win a fight against Annabeth.
Her grey eyes continued to stab into mine as she attempted to figure out how to extract herself from this situation; a mixture of pride and stubbornness would never allow her to surrender until she was literally pinned to the ground.
Even then she would probably find a way to keep fighting.
Suddenly the look in her eyes shifted, from a slightly concerning murderous glare to something significantly more cunning. A good sign to see when you’re fighting a rogue monster, but something that makes you think something along the lines of oh shit when you’re on the receiving end.
Oh shit.
Essentially, I was screwed.
Abruptly, she darted forward and ducked under the point of my sword, successfully managing to break past the parry I attempted to counter with, and ducked low to snatch her dagger off the arena floor.
However she did miscalculate the force required to execute this (and I’m not afraid to say this because well, it’s Annabeth) frankly impressive move, sending us both crashing towards the arena floor. Riptide slipped from my grip and slid a couple of metres across the arena floor.
I attempted to reach out to snatch it up again, the minutes it would take to reappear in my pocket would be too many; Annabeth would have easily beaten me by then.
Something stopped me however, a weight on my stomach, preventing me from twisting around to grab my sword.
The weight was Annabeth. Luckily, her dagger had also slid away in the scuffle, and we were both disarmed, evening the playing field.
Unfortunately she realised this seconds before I did and immediately her hands came down either side of my head, successfully pinning my hands to the ground.
Her hair had slipped from the tidy ponytail it had begun in, and now her curls hung forward creating a shield that blocked our faces from any prying eyes.
There were definitely prying eyes. This was Camp after all.
And so despite my better judgment, and all of my self preservation instincts, I blurted out the first thing that my mind managed to conjure up into a sentence.
“This is kinda hot babe.”
Yep. That’s right. I said those words to my very scary girlfriend, in the middle of the arena of the camp we had attended since we were children.
Those same words were said to my girlfriend who had me in a very vulnerable position, was very capable of murdering me and was very pissed off.
However something unexpected happened. And I pride myself on knowing Annabeth pretty damn well.
Immediately the grip on my wrists loosened and I heard her intake a shaky breath. My instincts kicked in and I used the slight lapse in control to push upwards and roll the pair of us over so that she was now on the bottom.
Whatever she had lost for a second at my words was now back in full force, and she glared up at my smirking face.
The glare was also kinda hot. She’s cute when she’s mad.
As my hips pinned her, still struggling, body to the ground I reached into my pocket and pulled out the now reappeared Riptide. Grinning with my victory, I held the sword to her neck again.
This time she had no choice to concede.
As scattered applause rang out across the arena from a handful of bystanders I stood up and dusted my hands on my trousers, offering a clean hand towards my still glaring girlfriend. She took it reluctantly and allowed me to haul her upwards to a standing position.
“Such a gentleman,” she muttered sarcastically under her breath as I attempted to brush the arena dust from her hair.
“Hey! It’s not my fault you’re so susceptible to my charm.” I grinned wildly, knowing that this was certain to rile her up.
She rolled her eyes and began to stalk off towards the cabins, presumably to grab the stuff required for a shower. The arena had left us with dust sticking to our sweat and I was looking forward to a shower of my own.
I tried to grab her hand but she crossed her arms across her chest, leaving me stranded in her wake.
Being a whole head taller, my strides allowed me to quickly catch up to her as she made her way across the camp.
“Annabeth let’s talk about this, it was stupid I know. You just looked so pretty.”
I saw the corner of her mouth tick up, but she remained silent and continued walking.
Frustrated, not at her but at myself, I persisted in my attempts to get her to talk to me.
“ I’m sorry, it just slipped out, you know me, sometimes I just can’t stop myself from blurting out what I’m thinking.”
Again, the corner of her mouth ticked up in amusement.
Her silence, on the other hand, rang loud and clear. Evidently I needed to switch tactics. Annabeth Chase was never going to make my life easy.
So I did my second stupid thing of the day. I willed a couple gallons of water out of the lake and proceeded to dump them all, with absolutely no grace, on her head.
She halted in her tracks.
“PERCY MOTHERFUCKING JACKSON!”
“What?” I smiled innocently, “Just helping you cool off since, you know, you definitely needed it in the arena.”
She turned to face me and took a step forward.
And then she did her second unexpected thing of the day. She whacked me on the chest, that I saw coming, before leaning up to kiss me.
As my head bent down to return this gesture and as her hands slid under my orange shirt I broke away to murmur something against her lips.
“I should win more often. This is a great prize.”
“Shut up Seaweed Brain.”
I shut up and kissed her again.