Chapter Text
Grover has been watching Annabeth lose herself for the last few hours.
Had she known, Annabeth would argue that Grover does this every morning. But today doesn’t follow their normal routine. The two canceled their shift at work for the next morning and took an early leave to prepare. Instead of locking her bedroom door and rotting in bed, Annabeth hobbled over to her best friend's house for a night with no sleep and a bag full of candy, ready to binge watch Disney classics till the sun peeks through the windows.
It’s an annual event, one that follows a 10 year tradition; Annabeth and Grover have a sleepover, in which they total approximately two hours of sleep and six hours of movies.
It’s supposed to be fun, and Annabeth does find it fun. But for the last two years, it’s been different. Tainted. Scarred. And Grover knows this, but will never say it out loud.
“Whatcha thinkin’ about?”
He’ll make her say it instead.
She’s not surprised at the question. Really, it was inevitable. Grover knows what joy looks like, and he knows what a lack of it looks like on Annabeth. She could feel his eyes observing her as she stared at Lilo and Stitch without a single tear rolling down her cheek. He can always count on her to sing along with Gaston, but not a peep left her lips.
He knows how emotional the Little Mermaid gets her, but he couldn’t hear a sniffle from her.
She doesn’t bother turning her head to face him. She won’t let him see the silent tear trails on her face. “Hm?”
Does he ever wonder?
Does he ever wonder like I do?
About the memories he’s left behind on a whim, in the hopes for a dream that was miles away. Away from the town he’s been in since he could babble a few incoherent words, towards a city filled with unfamiliar faces. Away from the town he can only remember by your name.
About the memories that haunt her at night, but they swear they’re here to keep her at ease. They should be comforting, but they’re holding her tight enough to be suffocating.
Maybe they’ll let her sleep tonight if she cries a bit. Just a teeny bit.
Before she knows it, her eyes are prickling. Grover feels her shift on the makeshift bed the two made on the ground. “Annabeth?”
Nights spent on the phone talking about forever, an eternity that would only last a little over a year. Had the word stayed true to its meaning, she wouldn’t have hated it. Spending forever with him. She’d sigh and tell him this in hushed whispers as she’d lay in bed with her phone beside her pillow, and he’d giggle a bit. If she wasn’t too caught up with the idea of eternity with him, she would’ve realized that he’d never reply with confirmation. That he thinks about it too, that her idea of forever exists in the realm of possibility.
Did he ever toy with forever like I had?
She doesn’t respond to the silent boy next to her, who waits for some kind of response. There’s a pile of memories clogged in her blue veins, and they choose tonight to flow properly.
And so she does what she knows best.
Lie.
“It’s nothing.”
Her memories unravel themselves quickly. They’re only a few years old, but they’ve learned fast. Really, they’re not evil in nature – sneaking out at one in the morning to see him at a park near her house, writing exclamations of love into his skin during class, holding his hand as he walks her home – but they’re sharp. Short strands, but they have an edge to them. They know where to poke her, where to prod, where to stab. Like shards of glass, meeting her chest with the skill that comes with two-years of practice.
(But it doesn’t seem like an issue. She’d relive them in her head regardless of the pain.)
It doesn’t take Grover long to realize that she won’t say anything more than that. Instead of pushing for an answer, he lazily turns his body to face her. “I miss him too, y’know.”
And that’s what makes Annabeth break.
Because it’s not just her – it’s Grover, her cousin, and more importantly, his best friend. The boy he’d known since pre-school, squalling nonsense that only made sense to them. Brothers who knew each other better than themselves (though, on particularly angry nights, Grover would argue that he never really knew him).
Grover’s hurt too, and it makes her wounds deepen.
She’s sobbing before she knows it, staining her cheeks and pillow in the process. It’s an unmapped cry that escapes her, one that doesn’t sound like her. She tries to pin it on something – regret, distaste, sorrow – yet it doesn’t land quite right. Must be something ugly, something that can only exist in a person who’s come across the heartbreak of losing Percy Jackson.
“It’s been two years,” she manages through the tears. “And I’m still feeling like this.”
“I know.” Grover comforts her. She’ll never know it, but the tears he holds back are only for her.
“He doesn't even think about us. And I know he did it for himself, for his career, for his family, but it’s just… I don't know–”
“You feel greedy,” Grover tries to grasp. “for wanting him to stay–”
“No, that’s not it!” she barely recognizes the noise that’s coming out her throat. Is this what her memories have done? Turned her into a foreigner of her own voice? “That's not even what I wanted! I just – I just wanted him to tell me… and to tell you…”
…that he was leaving. Not that he didn’t – he did, just on the day of.
That’s one memory that she can’t unravel. She doesn’t remember how her day started, or how the conversation came about. All she recalls is the moment he said, “I have to leave.”
The rest is a blur. She remembers looking at him incredulously, as if he was joking. She remembers arguing with him, angry at him for choosing to tell her now, when his ride was just an hour away. She remembers watching him leave, his shoulders slouched as he walked away.
She wonders what remains of her now. In his mind, perhaps he only remembers a lousy town with a girl with perpetual mascara running down her cheeks. Maybe he’s forgotten her face. Maybe she’s a distant memory that he can’t bother to recall, not when he’s reaching the peak of his career.
Years pass, and so do her emotions. Her hatred has dissipated, but she’s sure she can build it back up if she wants to. The memories are simply bittersweet, she tells herself. Sure, she wishes he executed things better. But she gets it – Percy was a boy with dreams. And she, better than most people, should know what it means to reach for them.
It means to sacrifice the things you love the most – and maybe, it was proof that he did love her, at least back then. If that were the case, she wishes that she wasn’t on the top of his list.
Maybe nothing of her remains, and that’s what scares her the most. Especially when his everything is engraved in her.
It’s been exactly two years since the day he left, yet the realization only settles in her bones now – she’s afraid that she’s worth nothing more than dust to the boy who once loved her from the sun and back.
—
The truth is, Percy wonders too much.
His ‘friends,’ if that’s what he could call them, told him the night was still young. To be clear, it was an hour past midnight, and Percy just wanted to crash at his hotel room.
To be even clearer, he didn’t know these guys well. He's seen a few of them in that new movie with vampires, and the others were fellow singers whose songs he’s heard far too many times. They smile on the red carpet, baring their fancy looks for the cameras, and wipe the smiles off their faces as soon as they take a step off it. He thinks it’s fair – he’s done the same today – but it doesn’t excuse them from being absolute assholes to everyone who isn’t an A-list celebrity.
Of course, Percy doesn’t fit in the category of nobodies for them. He’s topping the charts with every new release and bagging every award he’s been nominated for. To the famous clique, he’s on his way to becoming one of them. Why not welcome him with open arms and a few shots of tequila?
The second he sat down at his table, he made a future note to talk to his manager about assigned seating: please never seat me near these people . The only exception was Jason, his first friend in the industry and the man sitting to his left. He'd really been hoping that they could leave without anyone noticing. Like the incredible actor he was, Jason called Percy’s manager and convinced her that the two of them were actually feeling sick.
“Never going to a gala again,” Jason groans as they enter the hotel lobby. “That was terrible.”
“Yeah,” Percy mumbles. “I just wanna crash right now.”
Percy has never been a man of many words, Jason’s noticed. He’s the shy boy he’s always been, even when he has to smile at the paparazzi that follows him everywhere. But even by Percy standards, he hasn’t been talking much.
Despite the obvious lack of words from his friend, Jason says nothing. Even as they head up the elevator, the two have their mouths zipped. It’s odd, different from their usual comfortable silence. Percy’s eyes are closed, not in concentration, but in an exhaustion that Jason can’t seem to pinpoint.
Jason doesn’t know anything about the town Percy left behind. He doesn’t know that today marks two years in New York, nor would he understand the weight that it holds if Percy were to tell him.
He’s been wanting to ask if something is wrong for the past few hours, and so he finally does. He's not expecting much, but Percy looks at him as if he’s finally hit his tipping point.
And that’s how Jason finds himself in Percy’s hotel room, having been dragged into the room by his older friend. He’s concerned, surprised by the sudden emotional act Percy’s put on.
“It’s just…” he heaves as he sits down on his bed. “It's been a long day.”
An understatement at its finest. He knew what awaited him – beyond the gala, there was his family. Sure, they’ve been on good terms, great even, but the weight of his ticket back home seems to hang on his shoulders. There’s his friends from back home, whose texts pile up on his phone (which Percy ignores).
And then there’s Annabeth. Clouding his thoughts before he woke up, haunting his dreams before he could take his first breath of the day.
It’s a given, he thinks, knowing that he’s made peace with everything else back in town. His parents were always supportive, his friends came to understand. But there’s a distance of time and heart between Annabeth and him. He can barely remember what she sounds like, and the fact has him begging God to shrink him into nothing.
So his day was rough. He can’t recall a moment where he didn’t feel an ache in his chest.
“Wanna talk about it?”
Percy fiddles with the bottom of his tie, rolling the material between his fingers. “Well…”
He does, but the last thing he wants to do is say her name out loud.
“It's been two years since I left my hometown,” he mumbles. It’s easier to say than I broke up with my girlfriend two years ago and haven’t gotten over it since .
“I see.” Jason says, though he doesn’t really get it. He grew up in the city, and even though the two boys are insanely similar, there’s a gap in experience. Where Percy grew up was vastly different from this place, so Jason tries to understand. “You miss it?”
“Mhm. I miss my parents, and…”
Annabeth .
“There's something bugging you,” Jason notes with a frown. “You can tell me, y’know. I won't judge.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you… it’s just complicated, I guess.”
“Well,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I'm all ears.”
Percy doesn’t know what to say. But since his friend’s standing there, leaning against his dresser and waiting for him to speak, he supposes he has to spit it out at some point.
“Just… thinking about someone.”
“A girl?”
He goes silent for a second too long and Jason panics. “Oh, is it a guy–”
“No, no. It’s my girlfr– well, ex-girlfriend.”
He nods in sympathy. “Things were rough, I’m guessing?”
Nothing was rough, actually. Things were as perfect as they could possibly be.
The two were enemies as kids. He remembers bits and pieces – young Annabeth kicking sand in his face, swearing that she’d never go close enough to catch cooties from him. 7-year-old Percy flicking water in her face (read: soaking her with a water bottle) and running away before she could scream at him. Swore that she’d kiss a frog before ever considering him to be her friend.
She didn’t kiss a frog, yet the latter still happened; she ended up dating him through highschool, and he ended up leaving her at the end of it.
“I guess you could say that. We broke up the day I left town.”
Percy doesn’t tell him that it was because of him, or that it happened right before he was leaving for the train station. He doesn’t mention how he was feeling blue for his first year here, and that even though it’s past one year, he feels sick at the memory of her. He doesn’t even say her name, because the weight of his guilt lays heavy on the vowels and it’s too much to bear.
Instead, Percy falls into Jason's hands – unpacks how he feels. Contrary to popular belief, it's everything but therapeutic. But none of his other options seem to cure the ache, and he’ll take the risk of baring his soul over seemingly perpetual pain.
Annabeth always seems to do this to him. A single memory of her has him feeling like he’s eighteen again. Every memory of that time leads to a dead end, and though a small part of him wishes he could forget her, his mind tends to run back to that time of sweet adolescence.
It's incredibly stupid of him to miss her when he was the one who left. He knows this, but can’t help but indulge in the longing he feels.
And by the time he’s done talking, there’s a box of tissues in his lap and Jason beside him, patting his back as if it could erase every emotion he’s feeling.
Jason should’ve connected the dots when he caught Percy reading old text messages a few days ago. He should’ve gotten the hint when he saw Percy standing next to another girl as stiff as a tree. He should’ve caught on to how his friend never liked to talk about relationships, excusing it as something he wasn’t interested in, despite his unrivaled passion for romcoms.
But he doesn’t have supervision to see Annabeth is inscribed in his heart, his veins adorned with engravings of her. The vessels are shrinking under the load, pressing his chest and squeezing his throat. And with every mention to Jason, her name escaping his lips makes the weight increase.
It's been exactly two years since the day he left, yet his heart feels heavier than before.